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just-some-random-blogger · 1 month ago

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Tormented Spirit | 3

Part 1 2 3 4

"Is it such a sin to stand up for yourself?" you mutter as tears blur your vision. The way he reacted was visceral, instinctive even. "You never have to stand up for yourself ever again," says Daemon, reaching a hand to you, "come."

Daemon Targaryen x Hightower!Reader | 4k+ | cw: fem!reader, reader has brown hair, wife!reader, twin!Gwayne, arranged/forced marriage, canon divergence, alternate universe, slow burn, DD:DNE, noncon/dubcon, implied smut/cunnilingus, panic/anxiety attacks, daddy issues/child abuse/family problems, mentions/depictions of mental/physical/psychosomatic illness, ye old misogyny, angst, typos, etc.

A/N: pls comment and reblog because 🥲 i wanna nuke this again and could use the reassurance | cross posted on ao3

tagging: @arabellasleopardcoat

You are changed after that, you both are. When Caraxes lands in the dragon pit, Daemon helps you down, something he's never done. The prince knits his brows in offence when you break away from his hold. You walk towards the two knights in white cloaks, gazing in wonder, "twins."

You look between them, smile spreading across your face as you tried to make out one for the other. You point to the one on the left, "Ser Arryk?"

The man smiles back and nods, "well met, princess."

You giggle and clap you hands, "tis dumb luck." You turn to the other, "greetings, Ser Erryk. A pleasant afternoon to you."

You feel someone come up behind you.

Erryk returns your smile and bows, "a pleasure to meet your acquaintance, my princess."

You look over your shoulder as Daemon places a hand on your waist. He looks between them, "you need not follow. I will be with my wife until later this evening."

Your brows quirk, "you will?"

Daemon turns to you, lip curving upward, "don't you wish to know the pleasantness of fucking in one's bed?"

In unison, the Cargyll brothers turn away and clear their throats. Meanwhile, your heart leaps into mouth and your jaw hangs low. You cannot even speak as you feel your face burn. Your devilish husband chuckles and rubs your back, "worry not. You'll find yourself making noises soon enough."

With that, the twins step aside and you cower into Daemon's shoulder as he leads you off. He laughs, both in mockery and amusement, enjoying your reaction thoroughly. There was something in the way you retreated into him that made his chest uneasy. The feel of your forehead upon his arm was rather unnatural. He does not like the effect on him, so he pushes you away.

You squeak at the sudden action. Your features spare no reflection of your confusion and hurt.

Daemon grins at it, then pulls you back in, one arm snaking around you.

Your face falls back into a state of rest, that is until his hand begins to travel up your breast. You whimper at his squeeze, "D-Daemon."

He hums, "feels good, doesn't it?"

Your hands tremble as you bring it up to his. You slowly push him away, "later."

His brow quirks. Defiance?. He drags you across him, eliciting another squeak as he traps you between his body and the stone wall. Your heart begins to race when he gathers your skirts. You press your hand on his chest, "Daemon-"

"Is this not my right?" he hangs his head low to press his nose upon your jaw, "if I take you here in this hall, I would only be exacting the will of the gods for a married man and woman."

You squeeze his shoulders, "but there are peo-"

"People should know of my efforts to produce an heir."

Your body burns at the thought. But then, you both turn to the side upon hearing the sound of skidding and footsteps running off.

"Daemon!" you whine, hiding into his chest.

That's enough. He smirks then looks down at you. He releases your skirts in lieu of taking your hand. "Very well, prudish wife. I will claim you in our marriage bed, as you insist."

And Daemon does, right after he claims you against your chamber door and your vanity table. In truth, you do not understand how he had the wits about him to leave bed when it was all over.

The next morning was strange. It felt like a dream, in both parts that you enjoyed yourself coupling with your husband, and that you could not believe the turn of events. You get out of bed when your servants come to rouse you with a, "good morn, milady."

"Good morn," you stand, pushing your long hair behind you. Your servants giggling catches your attention. Your forehead curls inquisitively.

"The prince is a very passionate lover, milady."

You are bewildered by the sudden remark.

"Shall you wear a turtleneck today?" one says.

"Or perhaps a large necklace?" the other adds.

You look into the mirror and only then do you realize why they were offering such things. Red and purple blossomed on your throat, travelling even beyond the collar of your nightgown. Your body burns and you promptly cover yourself.

Your servants giggle and come to your side, "you need not hide from us, your grace."

"My cousin works in a brothel and she has— aw!"

You watch as one of them rubs their arm. The other who had pinched her turns back to you, "many apologies, your grace."

"Apologies," she mutters, rubbing her arm.

You stare at the two of them, feeling something bitter creep up your throat. "Did you..." you take a deep breath, "mean to say your cousin has... lain with my husband?"

She give you an apologetic expression, "forgive me, I-"

You cut her off with your nod, "you need not say more. I would like never to hear about this in future."

The two curtsy and speak no more as they ready you for the day.

By the time you're dressed in a modest turtleneck dress, and your brown hair is braided and adorned with silver pins, there is a knock on your door. You open the door yourself, dismissing your servants on the way.

"Ah," you smile at the sight of Cargyll, "good morrow, ser."

He bows, "good morrow, princess."

You rub your hands together as you examine his face, "... is it Erryk before me?"

He smiles, shaking his head, "tis Arryk with you this morn."

"Ah," you raise a finger, "you misheard me, ser. I clearly said Arryk and not Erryk."

Arryk chuckles softly and nods, "apologies, your grace."

"Perhaps you might teach me how to tell you apart," you mutter, "as a twin myself, I would be most offended if someone mistook me for my brother."

His laugh is more pronounced this time. He links his hands together as he thinks momentarily, "well, I would say he is uglier than I, but then again, he has my face."

You giggle under your breath. You bring a hand to your lips, "I understand you completely."

"As of late," he rubs his chin, "my beard has become longer."

You hum, "good to know." You exit your room, closing the door behind you, "have you broken fast, ser Arryk?"

"Indeed."

"Oh," you pause, "... you... would not happen to know where Prince Daemon is, would you?"

He turns to his feet.

You raise your brows.

"Would you like to know the truth?"

You stiffen at the thought, "...yes, ser. Always."

"Last I heard he was drinking with Gold Cloaks in Fleabottom," he mutters before looking up at you.

"I see," you say softly, "I— thank you for your honesty."

He nods, "of course, my princess."

You needlessly inspect your fingers, "my siblings would be eating with my father," you turn to Arryk, "and I do not wish to face him. I am sure he would say the same about me."

He clenches his jaw. He remembers the argument yesterday, and how Lord Otto moaned and hissed as Arryk escorted him out the maester's ward.

"Do you mind accompanying me as I break my fast?" you mutter, "I do not like eating alone."

He bows his head, "it is my duty to accompany you wherever you may go."

"... Ah," you look to your feet. You meant to offer that he drink a cup of tea with you, but the thought becomes preposterous the longer it lingers. He is not your friend. You have no friends in the Keep, "yes... it is."

Arryk knits his brows then finds himself correcting, "but I do not mind it at all. It is my pleasure to serve."

You offer him a soft smile. He is taken slightly off-guard by the sadness he catches in your eyes, which is why he does not smile back.

As you masticated your first meal of the day, you absentmindedly mashed your food while looking out the window. You longed to seek refuge in your twin, but you knew it would not be long until your father came around to chew you out. It would only be worse if you went to your sister, though, if she was under the refuge of her princess, perhaps not.

You decide it would probably be better for you to look for your husband, for after all, you were no longer a Hightower.

Arryk watches how your hair blows with the wind. He remains five paces behind you at all times. You were a lonesome thing, he thought, fragile and melancholic. You appeared as though you were searching for someone, and yet your gait felt rather aimless. Suddenly, your back straightens when you spot something— someone from across the hall, in turn, so does his.

Before you could speak his name, he calls out yours and smiles at you. Daemon even adds, "there you are. I've been looking everywhere for you."

Your brows quirk as you walk towards each other.

Arryk allows an extra five paces to come between you.

You examine your husband's face, the dimples on his cheeks, the silver hair tickling his curled lips. You simultaneously feel the urge to push his hair away and debate whether or not his fair expression is truly borne form the fact he was searching for you and has now found you.

Your brows furrow as he tucks his hair behind his ear.

Is this what sex does to a man?

"Come," he says, grabbing you, "we mustn't delay."

Your heart races as you look at your arm. He tucks it underneath his own and hastily leads you off somewhere. You do not know where your feet take you, but you do know that the prince looks lovely when he speaks through a grin, just as he does now.

In truth, you catch not a single word from his mouth, which is why you are turned to stone when he begins kissing you. However, whatever rigidness your form holds quickly melts as his lips urge yours to a slow dance. You go putty against the window sill he pushes you against.

There is peace in the warmth he radiates. Your fingers finally find what they had longed to touch and unabashedly crawl up his nape to tangle in the roots of his hair. When he moans and pulls away, you stiffen and come back to reality. Had you hurt him?

"Daem-"

He turns about and says, "ah, Lord Hand."

Your stomach drops. You feel sick as you peak past Daemon's shoulder to see exactly him, glaring at the both of you.

"Or shall I call you father?" the prince grins, as to show the venom on his teeth.

"It would do you good to comport yourself," Otto blurts, face calm, but you knew better to believe he was anything but.

He tilts his head, "what for?"

Your heart squeezes when Daemon takes your hand and brings you to his side. You cannot bare to look at your father as your husband speaks, "you have created such a desirable creature. It would be more tactless of me not to worship her body with my own."

You feel your breath quicken as you hear your father grumble.

Daemon is victorious to see the old man walk away with a dark cloud over his head. He chuckles, "do not be so sullen, my lord. Tis a fine day!"

You feel your palms go sweaty. You lick your lips frantically. You screw your eyes shut, trying to calm yourself.

He chuckles as he turns back to you, "very goo-"

Your brows tighten.

Daemon catches your chin between his fingers. You are forced to open your eyes and you see the glimmer in his violet one as he repeats, firmer this time, "very good."

Your heart does not calm though he rubs your back.

"You did well for me."

Your eyes begin to water, "Daemon, I-"

"Shh," he shakes his head, "there's no need for this."

"I—'ve upset him. "

He feels your body begin to tremble beneath his palm.

"But-"

"You spoke the words yourself, he's tormented you, has he not?"

"D-Daemon-"

"Shh, shh, shh," he leads you back to the window sill and sits you down.

You are gasping for air at this point, but he does not stop hushing you. He even begins to rub your cheeks with his thumbs. He pushes himself into your skirt, making room for himself between your legs. You gawk at him as he mumbles in a language you do not understand. He is impossibly close, as though you were kissing without kissing.

You do not know how many minutes pass, but you do know his timbre is just as serene as the voice of water. You only realize you had been crying when you take his wrists and feel water drip to your fingers.

He speaks that language again and you shake your head, "I do not understand."

"It does not matter," he mutters, pulling away to examine your face, "you are calm, no?"

You cannot reply because the sensation of his rubbing your cheeks is far too arresting.

"There is magic in the High Valyrian," he says, pulling away. It is so abrupt and unwanted that you chase after his hold and involuntarily attempt to stand.

Of course, Daemon is the way and prevents you from doing such a thing. His head inflates ten sizes bigger upon unveiling how deeply affected you were of him. But as he looks at your wet cheeks, he thinks, how could such a pathetic creature not be so affected by one such as he. He further amuses himself by tracing your collarbones.

Your body tingles at his gentle thouch.

"Think of it as revenge."

Your lips part and brows knit, "r-revenge?"

"Yes," he taps your nose, "to your tormentor."

You gulp and clench your jaw. Daemon grins, but you are no longer blinded by it. "I- I do not-"

"Your very existence is torment to him, is it not?" he tilts his head, "must I remind you of your own words, my love?"

You are flabbergasted by the pet name, but before you could even tell yourself he did not mean such words, his airy chuckles tells you himself. You turn to your lap.

Daemon takes your chin again, "look at me."

Your heart races and your breath heavies.

"You want to be a dutiful wife, yes?"

Your release a deep sigh through parted lips, "... yes."

"It pleases me greatly to watch your cunt father suffer," Daemon rubs your chin before releasing it, "that is all I require of you."

Your brows furrow.

"Then you are free to do all that you desire, notably all those that your father has forbade."

"I-" wait, what?

Daemon catches the way your face shifts when his words finally click. His grin only deepens as he nods, "yes, yes. If he did not let you go out and play, oh, I do so beg you to play at your heart's content."

Your lips part further at the thought.

"But be sure to always play with me when I so desire," he says, cupping your cheek, "I do not like to be kept waiting."

Your heart skips a beat when he swipes your lips before walking off. He nods once at ser Arryk, who you had no idea was still here.

The said man then walks over to you, offering you an arm, "princess."

You look at his armored limb and feel sheepish. He must think you uncouth and ill-bred upon witnessing what he did. You take his arm— amongst sickly and feeble. You weakly mutter, "thank you."

"Would you like me to escort you to the maester's office?"

"W-wha- why?" you stand.

His brows tighten, "you were having an attack, were you not?"

You release his hand and step away from him. You smile softly and shake your head. He watches as you clasp your hands together. "They would only supply me milk of the poppy to ease my pain. There is no medicine for my affliction, Arryk."

He nods, "I see. Th-"

"Apologies. May I call you Arryk?"

He nods once more, "you may call me whatever you so desire, princess."

You smile, "very well," you turn to your feet, "I desire to call you by your name. You may do the same with me," you lift your gaze but do not turn to him, "I admit, the title princess does not suit me."

As you walk, Arryk follows closer this time, "it suits you well for you are a princess."

You sigh and smile at him from over your shoulder.

For the rest of the day, you retreat to your chambers and lay in bed. You stare at the ceiling, repeating over and over what had happened to you. As much as your father's searing glare burned in your mind, it was somehow not as hot as Daemon's gaze. You could do nothing but go between dread because your father and- and... affection because of your husband.

You rub your chest as you feel it tighten, thinking of your prince. You begin to fight your own breathing though, and sit up to calm yourself. You screw your eyes shut as you bring to mind things that calm you: swimming, Gwayne, Alicent, you-

Your eyes open when you hear the door swinging. You straighten up as Daemon walks over.

"Mmm," he chuckles, "did you wait because I asked?"

"I-" but your words are cut off by how the bed dips when he crawls over to you.

"I would prefer you with less clothing next time," he says, leaning into you, pressing a hand on your thigh.

Your heart quickens at his kisses. He smells and tastes of wine. He pushes your skirt up and comes down to kiss your knee.

You gasp when he pushes you back. And then you realize your breathing is heavy, but not strangling. You squeal when he kisses up your thigh, "D-Daemon-"

He gives you a warning look and mutters in a foreign tongue.

Suddenly, your smallclothes are being removed and your husband is sinking between your legs. You yelp, "D-Daemon, you're drunk!"

He holds you in place by your thighs. "No," he dismisses, "but I will be once you let me taste your cunt."

Your eyes widen and you immediately try to sit up.

All he has to do is lift your legs and speak your name for you to- "cease your needless wrangling," Daemon grunts, "you will quite enjoy this."

"P-pl-"

"You enjoyed my fingers did you not?"

Your mouth goes dry.

"Then you will more so enjoy my tongue, shaky thing. Quit trembling."

The strangled moan that is pulled out your throat is more confirmation than any word you could have ever told him.

By the time Daemon was satisfied playing with you, you were sticky and sweaty and naked lying next to him on your bed. You tense when he stands and you immediately cover your body with your blanket, "w-where are you going?"

"Mmm," he walks towards the drawer and pours himself a cup of wine, "to my bed."

You turn to your lap, unable to help the pinch you feel at the confession he does not see this as his bed.

You watch him as he grabs his clothing, then quickly stand, "let me-e help you!"

Wrapped in a blanket, you come to Daemon's side and help him get dressed. He lets you, slight amusement falling on his features as you so ardently assist him.

He allows you and stares at your glowing face, glowing because of how good he fucked you. The blanket rests heavy on your shoulders, but your neck is bare to him. He finds himself reaching out after you tie his breeches.

You still when he pushes the blanket off your shoulder. He tilts your head to the side to behold his work. You begin to breathe through your mouth when his thumb rubs over the new and previous purple marks he's put on you. You gasp when he makes the blanket fall to the floor. Instantly, a shiver creeps up your spine.

He rubs your sides and kneads your breasts. He's made such pretty marks all over your chest.

"Come to me tomorrow," he rubs his hands down your bare bum.

You whimper as he squeezes you there.

"I will be with my Gold Cloaks," he tilts his head, " I wish to parade my prize, so wear something pretty," he rubs your shoulders, "something that shows my good work."

Your lips tremble, from both the cold, night air and his words, "I do not think it-"

"It is not a question, wife."

Your skin breaks out in goosebumps.

He leaves after and you scramble to wrap yourself in your blanket.

The next morning, Erryk Cargyll assumes his station and knocks on your door to announce himself. When the door opens, he is pulled inside before he can speak.

"Good morn," you clasp your hands together as you look him up and down, "Erryk?"

He smiles softly and bows, "yes. Good morn, my princess."

You smile back and him and motion to yourself, "I must enquire your opinion as a man and not a knight sworn to serve me."

Erryk straightens up and nods, "very well."

You rub the cowl upon your shoulders and sigh, "what do you think of my attire?"

The man looks over your red dress and black cowl. He takes a moment to think of what might be out of the ordinary with it, but finds nothing, so he says, "it suits you very well, my lady."

You sigh at this and untie the bow of your cowl. You remove it, revealing your décolletage and his eyes widen at the sight of the marks on your skin. He clears his throat and looks away.

Your face falls and you cover your shoulders with your dark curls, "is it very tasteless?"

Erryk opens his mouth but he cannot form more than a stutter.

You shake your head, gripping your cowl tightly, "Daemon wishes to... parade his work."

The man's brows furrow and jaw clenches.

"Perhaps the cowl should stay on," you mutter, feeling your breath begin to shorten. You turn to the said object and feel your hands shake. You try to put it on, but it feels as heavy as a boulder.

He catches your cowl just before you drop it.

You release a deep, shaky breath, looking up at him with watery eyes, "will you help put it on, Erryk?"

A line forms between his brows as he nods. He takes your cowl then circles around you. He gathers your hair and places it upon your shoulders one side at a time. As he circles back to fix the piece, he feels your trembling but says nothing as he does the bow.

"What is a wife supposed to do?" you mutter, tears becoming too heavy to say in your eyes.

Erryk feels a pinch in his chest upon seeing your pink eyes. He feels rather helpless as he retorts, "I confess, I am unsure."

Your throat tightens. You rub your lips and shake your head, "forgive me. It is a cruel question to ask a kingsguard."

"Did you not say you ask this of me as a man?"

You fiddle with the ring on your finger.

"I do not imagine it oft, for I will never have one, but I imagine still, if I had a wife, she would wait on me and help me out of my armor once I return. She'd nurse me to health whenever I'm beaten. She'd trim my beard and braid my hair. She'd give me children as fair as she."

Your brows raise at his solemn words.

"And in return, I would honor her. I would worship her like the gods," he motions, "I would not allow harm, or shame to befall her, not if I could help it."

You chuckle at the way he says this. You shake your head, "you are man of honor. It is both a blessing and a curse that you are kingsguard."

You feel light headed.

Erryk hovers when you lean your face into a hand.

You barely turn to him as he takes your arm. You mutter, "this is what he requires of me."

His brows knit.

"That I be a conduit of his chaos," you gulp, "and in return... I will have my freedom."

"Freedom?" he leans his head forward.

You finally face him fully and shrug, "many a thing my father forbade me to do. I once believed he did it with love... now, I am not so sure."

The line between his brows only deepen.

"I should like to do most of what I could not before I die," you chuckle, as if it was a jest, to soften the mood. It does not work; it was not a jest.. You rub your chest and walk towards the door.

He guides you, but grows wary upon noticing how you lean your weight into the knob, "perhaps you should take a seat?"

You smile and shrug, "it matters little if I sit or not, Erryk."

You open the door and step out. He links your arm into his. You lean into him and sigh, "apologies-"

"There is nothing to-"

"-I have been calling you by your name."

He places his hand atop yours, "you may call me whatever you so desire."

"Mmm. You truly are quite like your twin," you lead down the hall, "you should do the same for me."

"Very well, princess."

"Hopefully not princess, and simply my name."

He shakes his head, "too late. You told me I could call you what I desire, and I desire to call you my princess."

"Except princess."

"Once more, too late."

"Hmp. You are less kinder than your twin."

His jaw drops, "you wound me so deeply, my princess."

"I am glad to hear it, Erryk."

"My princess is quite cruel."

"Relent, I beg."

You realize you unconsciously walked yourself to the training yard by the time you got there. You also realize then how famished you were. On cue, your stomach grumbles, making Erryk look to you in concern.

"Have you not broken fast, my princess?"

"I- no."

"Then why did you walk us here?"

You were about to explain that your body had a knack of going to the areas in which your brother frequented, but before you could speak, the said man was calling your name.

You instantly come alive at the sight of your twin walking over.

"Good morn, sister," Gwyane nods, "Cargyll." He looks at him for a moment, "I wager... Erryk?"

You gasp and chuckle, "how could you tell?'

Your twin turns to you, "mmm, it might have to do with the fact I passed Arryk, who was stationed at the gate today."

"Oh, bother," you swat Gwayne, "I thought you could tell them apart."

"I just did, simpleton," he raises a brow.

"No, you're the simpleton, you nincompoop."

"No, you're the nincompoop, you daft sod."

"No, you're the daft sod, you freakish dunderhead."

"No, you're the freakish dunderhead, you ratty ninnyhammer-'

"You dare speak to the princess this way?"

You all turn and see Daemon's severe expression. He steps between you and Erryk, imposing upon Gwayne.

You tense and take his forearm, "Daemon, tw-"

He silences you by raising a finger. He narrows his eyes at your brother, "I should have your tongue for that."

Your twin chuckles in disbelief, but whatever amusement he might have had instantly melts into irritation, "a jest, prince. You act as though you are not capable of doing the same to your older brother."

"There is a time and a place for jests, yet I doubt there is a time or a place to publicly slander the Princess of Dragonstone."

"Daemo-"

"Believe me, I would be the first to demand satisfaction to whomever dare slander my twin sister," Gwayne grits his teeth.

Your husband laughs loudly, "then perhaps you should go shove a-"

"Daemon, please," you quip, finally raising your voice enough that you could not be ignored.

Both Daemon and Gwayne turn to you. You grab the former's arm and undo the ties of your cowl, "my silly brother is not worth the headache he's about to give you."

Gwayne's jaw tightens as he looks at the face you pull as you look at Daemon.

"He's not, but I can-"

His mouth goes dry when you remove the cowl and hand it to Erryk. Daemon's eyes rove over your cleavage. The marks on your skin were more apparent than he remembered, but then again, he had only seen it in candle light.

"I... dressed so prettily for you," you mutter, pushing your hair back, "perhaps we should go for a stroll instead?"

Daemon's lilac gaze falls upon your pleading eyes. For a moment, he's so distracted he'd forgotten all about your brother, but when he remembers, he turns to him with a chuckle and grins, "yes, you're quite right, wife."

When you look at Gwayne and he immediately turns away from you. Your throat constricts because of it.

"A good stroll would do us good," Daemon turns to you, "then I will shall show you the might of my City Watch. Tis far more entertaining than whatever you could behold here."

With that, the prince leads you off, turning to Erryk as he did, "that is all, Cargyll. I have her now."

You watch as the kingsguard nods at the instruction, stepping back to let you pass. You look over your shoulder, finding Gwayne already looking at you. You give him a sorry expression before looking away.

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rainy-day-gracie · 3 months ago

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wedding night (1)

pairing: general marcus acacius x virgin!wife!reader

content warning(s); dual pov, arranged marriage, implied age gap but nothing specific, period typical misogyny (Ancient Rome), mentions of violence/warfare, mention (1) of sexual violence (not against reader), mentions of pregnancy, attempted bedding ceremony, reader has hair that can be pinned back, steamy kisses, crazy amounts of sexual tension, discussions of consent because consent is sexy mandatory, virgin!reader, SOFTTTTT marcus acacius, romantic and intimate as hell, grievous historical inaccuracy because it's fucking fanfiction, canon divergent because duh

a/n: this has been living in my head for weeks now, along with every new photo we get of general marcus acacius because of course. this can be read as a prequel to bloodlust, or read entirely on its own. the reader insert is written as the same character in each fic.

this will be part 1 of the wedding night, and part 2 will include smut :)

---

You considered bolting as the sun rose on the morning of your wedding day. Stealing one of the nobleman's horses, putting as many miles as you could between yourself and the General's country house.

But, from what you've heard about the General, there would not be a corner of the earth that he would not find you in.

Your palms were clammy with sweat as the handmaidens pinned your hair back into a style of a bride. You wondered how they couldn't possibly hear the quick, panicky beating of your heart as each moment brought you closer to what you considered a life sentence.

General Marcus Acacius is venerated like a god in Rome, and anywhere else. Men boast about his wartime accomplishments as if they were their own, and ladies whisper about his scarred face like they would a demon within the walls.

So many rumors swirling around the Emperor's most esteemed general.

His hands were permanently stained red with blood, he burns the heads of his enemies in sacrifice to the gods, he kills men with icy calculation, takes women with fiery passion.

You could only imagine what kind of monster was waiting for you at the altar.

---

Marcus was in no good spirits on the day of his wedding, the marriage forced on him almost as much as it was forced on his...

Gods above, his bride.

The idea of having a bride was almost as foreign as you yourself were, since never once had Marcus even considered marrying anyone. With all the bloodshed and near-death experiences, he never exactly considered himself a man that was meant to be a husband. Or a father, for that matter.

Marcus tried not to shudder at the end of the aisle as the chorus began singing, sounding all to close to a death march.

At the sound of the choir, you entered into the wedding hall, for all gods and men to see.

His bride.

The world seemed to be brighter, the flowers bloomed more beautiful, and Marcus' vision turned clearer as you stepped into his sight.

For a moment, he forgot all about the blood of men on his hands. The shame that burdened him was cast off. Maybe he wasn't completely condemned to the Underworld.

The very possibility of you being his bringing him more relief than any wine or fine lady. The possibility of you being in his life was... redeeming. Redefining. Remaking.

One look, and he made a vow, but not to you. To himself.

If any harm were to come to you, he would unleash the fury of the gods upon them. He would protect you to the end of his days. Honor you, and serve you, however you may wish.

---

Fear coated your every nerve as you beheld your soon-to-be husband.

Nothing could have prepared you for just how mighty General Acacius was. Tan, broad, and mighty, dressed in fine white robes similar to yours. His bare hands were strong, made for swinging axes, throwing punches, and taking what he wanted. At the altar, he seemed to be near brooding, speaking his vows quietly, his voice like a roll of thunder.

You managed to keep your voice steady while you spoke your vows, but there was nothing you could do to keep your hands from shaking as the priest brought out the rings.

The general reached for your hand, and you were unable to keep from trembling.

His touch was warm on your skin, his calloused fingers surprisingly gentle as he slid the gold wedding band onto your finger. You found the nerve to meet his brown eyes, finding something utterly unreadable as he held your gaze. Could it be... fondness?

Gods, he was beautiful.

His touch steadied you, though you still exchanged rings with a thundering heart.

"In the sight of Gods and men, you are now Husband and Wife. You may kiss your bride, General."

The priest's words echoed in your head.

Husband and Wife.

The general leaned forward, an unspoken question in his warm eyes.

Swallowing, you gave a near imperceptible nod.

For such a harsh man, such a dominating man, his kiss was utterly... soft. Tender. Almost coaxing.

After a moment, he pulled away first, and you could've sworn he lingered, cherishing the air between you... before turned to the cheering wedding party.

In an instant, he changed, switching from the gentle kiss of a lover to a commanding force, a man that drinks in praise like fine wine.

A mighty man, indeed.

---

Marcus tried his best to not feel too wounded that his new wife was completely terrified of him.

He felt the thundering pulse in your hand as he slid that ring on, and he wondered if you saw the wedding band as a chain, a set of shackles. It's all too true for other women in Rome.

You barely spoke to him during the wedding feast, only giving small nods and forced smiles in between sips of wine. He had a good feeling you were resisting the urge to swallow it down in one gulp.

Marcus couldn’t help but study you— at first innocently, taking in the curve of your lips, the shine of your eyes, the polite smile you gave when someone offered congratulations.

Damn his dirty mind. As the night went on, and the celebrations continued beyond what he would’ve liked, he tried, and failed, not to eye your body as a means of distraction from the rowdy feast.

It started with your neck. He traced the slope of it with his eyes, marking every freckle and curve. He prayed to all the gods that you would want him to leave his marks on you.

Downward, he peeked slightly at your breasts whilst cursing himself. Of course, they appeared perfect beneath your wedding stola, and he wondered what manner of sounds you would make when he took them into his hands, into his mouth.

And then… Gods, those hips—

“Time for the bedding ceremony!” Emperor Geta jeered, pulling you from your seat with a firm jerk of your elbow. His eyes were greedy, scheming. “Let us see what is underneath that—“

Your face flushed with either embarrassment or fear or both. And that was all Marcus needed to see.

“There will be no bedding ceremony.”

Marcus lowered his voice to a deep warning, the kind that has sent men running for their lives.

Geta scoffed, still holding to your elbow. “It’s a wedding, Acacius, it’s your wedding. Don’t you want to show off the prize of your latest conquest? Distribute the winnings? Strip down that—“

Marcus stood, towering several inches over Geta’s slimy face. “I said… there will be no bedding ceremony.”

Geta kept his hands on you, and Marcus’s vision tinged with red hot fury.

His voice was a rumble, a threat in itself. “It’s my wedding, is it not? And I say there will be no bedding ceremony.”

People were watching now, the feast gone silent at this standoff.

Marcus knew how to pick his battles, cut his losses. But when staring down Geta, the most powerful man in the empire, he realized that for you, he would pick every single one if it meant he kept you safe.

The moments that passed were crackling, the tension between the two men sucking all the air from the celebratory hall.

Geta saw something in Marcus’s unyielding gaze, something that told him he would not win this fight, and decided the bedding ceremony wasn’t worth the scrutiny.

As the Emperor walked away, Marcus took your hand, and led you to your marriage bed.

—

You couldn’t find the words.

The general nearly trembled in rage on the walk to the bedchambers, but still, he maintained that odd gentleness, holding your hand as if it were the most delicate thing in the world.

Servants opened the grand doors as you entered, showing a large room with a massive four poster bed and elegant tapestries lining the walls—

Then the doors shut. And you were left alone with the legendary, bloodletting general.

And you still couldn’t find the damn words.

You knew what came next. The husband will take what is now his.

In this case, you expected your husband to take you in the same way he took lands for the empire— violently, mercilessly, with the intention of forging new legacy, through a son of Rome.

“Before you ask, my General, I wish to assure you that I am untouched,” you blurted, quoting what your mother taught you to say before you were to be… intimate. “I am pure, though I can only hope to be worthy—“

“Darling wife,” the general said quietly, so different from the commanding force from the feast. He held your hands in his, leaning down and kissing your knuckles in reverence.

You went silent, shocked at the soft fondness in his tone.

He peered at you with curiosity, and almost amusement. “The only thing I wish from you is for you to call me by my name, not title. No general, no lord, but my name. I hear it so little nowadays that I will look forward to hearing it from your lips.”

“As you wish… Marcus,” you breathed, eyes locked on his.

Marcus let out a little sigh, like he was relieved. “It’s much prettier when you say it.”

You drop your head in bashfulness, more confused by the moment. The way he spoke so kindly, so fondly.

“You know what is meant to happen tonight?” Marcus asked, almost hesitantly. You nod, undeniable fear curling in your stomach. “I need you to understand something, my darling, so listen very carefully.”

He pulled you toward the bed, sitting you both down on the silken sheets. His eyes on yours were discerning, and intent, like he was searching for something within your stare.

“I will never, ever, force myself upon you. Not in this life, or the next, or the next. I know what you might’ve heard about me, and much of it is true, but never would I take a woman without her permission. You belong to yourself, and if you never should like me in your bed, I will honor that to the end of my days."

You blinked at him in confusion. "So, you do not... you do not want me?"

Marcus exhaled sharply, looking down at your intwined hands. "That... that does not matter."

"Why not? A husband has the right to take what is his--"

"No man has any right to take a woman's body for himself, husband or not. What... what do you think is to happen tonight?"

Heat rises to your face, embarrassed at the question. By the look on his face, he was embarrassed, too.

"I don't... I don't know how it works, but some of the other wives at court say that the consummation of marriage is one of the more... painful duties of a wife. What you are meant to do to me... it's painful," you murmured, and quickly begin stammering. "B-but is it a great honor to serve you, my--"

"May I kiss you, darling?"

Some candles had been left burning, illuminating him in a warm glow. Marcus's eyes were soft, a rich, chocolate brown in the light of your bedroom, and something about them made your core flutter like one of the candles.

"Yes... yes, please."

Marcus smiled softly, and moved his hands to the sides of your neck. They were scarred, and calloused... and so warm.

His lips met yours almost hesitantly, like he was holding himself back. They were tender, tasting of sweet wine. Fingers curled lightly into your pinned hair, pulling you closer as his chest pressed against yours.

You moved your mouth with his, suddenly feeling the need for... more. You didn't know what, but you just knew you needed it.

His tongue slipped against yours, and the groan that left his throat left your pussy throbbing.

"Marcus--" you gasped, losing your breath as his lips traveled down to your neck. You could've sworn he moaned in response, sucking at your pulse point, leaving it a delicious shade of red--

"Do you want me to keep going?" He gruffed, trailing light kisses along your throat.

Oh, gods, how you wanted him to. "Yes, but..."

Marcus withdrew instantly at your seemed hesitation, pulling his mouth away but keeping his hands in your hair.

"I'm fearful," you admitted, holding his tunic to keep your hands from shaking with both desire and nerves. "Not of you, but... the rest of it."

Marcus nodded, swallowing. "We could continue kissing, if you like."

You laughed lightly, the nerves mellowing for a moment. "I'm not sure I'm prepared to have you in that way, but I know that I want to. I know that I... I want you."

Marcus's soft eyes shone with fondness, but had a wicked edge to them, like he was plotting something.

"I know I want you as well, darling. I promise, I will make sure you are prepared to have me... perhaps even over-prepared."

Your brows furrowed with confusion. "What do you mean?"

The general smiled. "I'll show you what I mean."

#marcus acacius x reader #marcus acacius smut #general marcus acacius #general acacius #gladiator 2 fanfiction #gladiator 2 fic #marcus acacius x female reader #marcus acacius x y/n #marcus acacius fluff #pedro pascal fanfiction

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ginnsbaker · 1 month ago

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All Of Your Pieces Masterlist

Status: Coming soon in November 2024

Pairing: Wanda Maximoff x Female Reader

Tags: Angst, Character Study, Humor, Action/Adventure, Canon Divergent, Avenger!Reader, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Hurt/Comfort, WandaVision!Wanda, AOU!Wanda, Post-WandaVision, Manipulation, Smut, Dubious Consent, (...)

Word count: ---

Also published on: Wattpad, AO3 (soon)

Author's notes

Part 1 : The Missing Town Chapter 1 - Honey! I shrunk the kids! Chapter 2 - Liar, Liar Chapter 3 - The Neighbor - 11/27/2024 Chapter 4 - The Assistant - 11/27/2024 Chapter 5 - What happens in Westview - 12/04/2024 Chapter 6 - Boys don't grow on trees - 12/11/2024 Chapter 7 - Fix the dead - 12/18/2024 Chapter 8 - The other side - 12/25/2025 Chapter 9 - The Sokovian Witch - 01/01/2025 Chapter 10 - Welcome Home - 01/08/2025 Part 2 : TBA Part 3: TBA

Main Masterlist

#wanda maximoff x reader #all of your pieces masterlist #my fic #my writing #wanda maximoff #agatha harkness #monica rambeau

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whirlybirbs · 8 months ago

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— BEYOND THE VOID !

AO3 | SPOTIFY | PINTEREST

a masterpost for the series by yours truly. it's thursday again. second part to the from the void, with love series. canon divergent, set during loki season 2 (2023).

READ ME ! / in-progress

1. the beginning of the end 2. (COMING SOON !)

SCROLL ME !

1. part 1: from the void, with love 2. prologue: the sacred timeline 3. the variant timeline files 4. the tag 5. the god & the scientist 6. fan art

#beyond the void #from the void with love #loki x reader #loki/reader #loki reader insert #loki x doc #loki x y/n #loki imagine #marvel reader insert #marvel fanfic #loki x you #loki season 2

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samsseptember · 4 months ago

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Samtember 2024 Calendar, Rules, and Guidelines!

Hi, Sam Wilson Nation! It’s that time of year again when we all get together to celebrate our beloved Sam Wilson’s birth month. That’s right, it’s ✰Samtember2024✰ !!!

As per usual, the event will be running from Friday, September 1st to Saturday, September 30th and there will be prompts set for each day:

Week 1:

Day 1 - Free Space

Day 2 - Bird Telepathy

Day 3 - Costume

Day 4 - Crossover/Multiverse

Day 5 - Canon Divergence

Day 6 - Hurt/Comfort

Day 7 - Future Fic

Week 2:

Day 8 - On Your Left

Day 9 - Move Your Seat Up

Day 10 - I Never Said Pilot

Day 11 - The Big Three

Day 12 - When Do We Start?

Day 13 - Man, Shut the Hell Up

Day 14 - Moon Stuff

Week 3:

Day 15 - Cap Quartet

Day 16 - Redwing

Day 17 - Mission Fic

Day 18 - Shield

Day 19 - Wakanda

Day 20 - Undercover

Day 21 - Co-Pilots

Week 4 + 2 Days:

Day 22 - Cookout / Boil

Day 23 - Birthday

Day 24 - Fishing

Day 25 - Louisiana

Day 26 - Lovers

Day 27 - The Paul & Darlene

Day 28 - Slice of Life

Day 29 - Wilson Family

Day 30 - Home

We will open a collection on AO3 soon. We will update this when the collection is ready, but when it is you'll also be able to find it by typing samtember2024 in the add to collections option.

You can also tag any works you post with #samtember2024 or tag this blog @samsseptember. Works will be reblogged every day throughout the month.

What works count for this fan event?

Any of the following count:

fanfic

podfic

fanart

gifsets

photosets / moodboards / collages

graphics

Haikus

videos / edits

playlists

fic rec lists

comments

Whichever way you want to celebrate Sam Wilson, it’s up to you!

The rest of the FAQ and rules are under the cut.

FAQ

What is this?

It’s a Sam Wilson fan event.

Is there any pressure?

No pressure at all. Fill one prompt. Fill all the prompts on for the month. Do however many you please.

Can I fill more than one prompt with one piece of art/one fic?

Yes! You can fill one prompt with one piece of art or fic. You can try to fill all 30 prompts at once with one piece of art or fic. If you can fill every single prompt from every single day in one fill, that’d be wild but it’s okay by the rules. You can do any number in between.

Are there any prizes for making anything for this event?

Just the satisfaction that you made something cool.

Should the work I make be Sam Wilson-centric?

Yes. You can make a gen work or a piece with any ship with Sam Wilson in it, but the main focus should be Sam Wilson.

How long will this event run?

It will run from September 1st to September 30th.

I heard there are badges I can use for each fill?

There will be! They will come out daily.

Do I have to post my fic for the prompt on the day of the prompt?

You can if you’d like, but it’s okay if you post a piece on a day other than the day of the prompt.

RULES AND GUIDELINES

What are the guidelines for the event?

For Everyone:

1. Remember to tag @samsseptember in the post as well as #samtember2024.

2. Please also tag the prompt you’re filling (for instance, if the square is “Redwing”, use “#redwing” as one of your tags when posting about it on Tumblr).

3. If you’re uploading to AO3, please:

a ) Say somewhere which prompt you’re filling.

b ) Add it to Samtember 2024 Collection that you can find here.

For Artists:

1. Create at least one piece of new art that can’t have been posted anywhere else before this.

2. All visual art forms are welcome:

a ) Gifsets, at least 3 gifs.

b ) Aesthetic boards or moodboards, at least 4 images each.

c ) Drawing/painting, that is not a sketch.

d) Fan video.

e) Graphics edit.

For Authors:

1. At least 500 words.

2. Posted on Tumblr or AO3.

3. Can be part of a series, but should work as a standalone.

For Podficcers:

1. The podfic should at least be 5 minutes long.

2. It should be posted on either Tumblr or AO3.

3. The podfic can be of a fic made for the event, a fic not made for the event while still adhering to the prompt, or a notfic.

For Fic Rec Lists:

1. You must have at least three fics or podfics on the rec list.

2. Make sure to give brief descriptions of the fics or podfics as well as their rating and wordcount.

For Commenters:

1. Any amount of comment counts, from a heart emoji (“❤️”) to an essay.

2. We would rather this be about what makes you happy and joyful about reading than any scathing critiques.

Things to be mindful of when creating:

For Sam

Avoid framing Sam only as a caretaker or emotional support for Bucky. Be mindful of Sam acting angry or aggressive in an out-of-character way and falling into the angry/sassy Black man trope (check out the MCU source material to help with character traits).

Avoid decentering Sam as a main character and refrain from focusing entirely on Bucky.

In art: avoid whitewashing Sam’s skin and research drawing Black characters.

General disclaimer: Race affects every aspect of his life, including interacting with police/government and the white structures of the world when it comes to performing his duties as Cap and simply being a Black man that lives in the U.S.

For Bucky

Avoid phrasing “flesh/normal/human hand” to refer to the contrast between his prosthetic arm and his right arm. The phrasing is ableist. You can simply refer to his prosthesis when relevant, otherwise use “right/left arm/hand”.

For more information, please check out this document suggested by @ninesdb on how to write Bucky as an amputee. @ninesdb is also open to questions if you have any queries not answered by the google doc.

Specific Tags:

Avoid tags in AO3 like “Sam Wilson is a Gift”, “Sam Wilson is a Saint”, and “Bucky Needs a Hug”.

Have fun and we look forward to all your wonderful works! ✰

#samtember2024 #sam wilson #sam wilson event #fan event #marvel #captain america #tfatws #marvel mcu #marvel comics #the falcon and the winter soldier #anthony mackie #ca:bnw #ca:cw #ca:ws #falcon and the winter soldier

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wood-white-writer · 1 year ago

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“Didn’t mean to make your heart Blue” || [7/…]

— OPLA! Buggy x F!Reader

“It's funny how I still forgot, it would be a hundred times easier if we were young again,”

— Mitski, “Two Slow Dancers”

Pairing: Buggy the Clown (Live Action) x F!Reader

Summary: You were an apprentice of Gol D. Roger’s crew in your youth, long before his eventual demise. Along with the Red-Haired Shanks and Buggy, you were a formidable trio; the embodiment of a new generation of pirates yet to come. But times changed, and so did you and your friends.

In the aftermath of your drunken escapades, you wake up to find yourself faced with new challenges, including a killer headache, a group of fish people, and the very clown responsible for putting you in this position. Needless to say, it does not bode well to take on fights while still inebriated.

Warnings: Canon typical violence, fem!reader, LA!Verse, slight canon divergence, alcoholic indulgence on a catastrophic scale (drink responsibly ppl), morally grey reader, violence, descriptions of blood and wounds,

A/N: The next chapter will be fully dedicated to Buggy and Reader/"Cross Hairs"

"Chug, chug, chug!" Both Buggy and Shanks cheer you on as you all but inhale the contents in your bottle in one go, not stopping until all of it has gone down. You pull back with an audible inhale, and after a couple of quiet seconds, the loudest BUUUURP! ever to cross the oceans erupt from the pits of your stomach.

Your two crewmates watch in awe, then erupt into hard fits of laughter that have them rolling on the ground while clenching their stomach.

After pumping your fists victoriously into the air and discarding the bottle, you join them soon after and settle down around the campfire. You three barely managed to put one together, but with the help of a few thin twigs and a bottle of the captain's purest liquor, you got it going soon enough.

Buggy wipes the tears away from his eyes and pulls another bottle of stolen beverages from his bag. "Not bad, not bad at all. Still, listen to this."

Jumping to his feet, Buggy swings the bottle, takes a glorious gulp, and punches his chest a few times. Out comes a large BUUUURP! that surpasses yours by miles, and continues to echo from around the island.

You immediately raise your hands in applause, laughing in that sweet way that makes his pulse quicken. In truth, your laughter is hardly elegant, more like the sounds a dying boar makes, yet he enjoys it all the same.

With one arm straightened out whereas the other goes to his chest, he makes a dramatic bow in front of you across the fire. "Thank you, thank you, my fair lady. I'll be here all day."

When he straightens up again, he sees the fire shine so clearly in your eyes; the flames dancing in your irises, and he feels warmer than the fire itself. You're looking at him - him - with such adoration that his stomach feels funny. Maybe it's the liquor playing a part in this, yet he doubts it.

"Buggy, that was so gross!" Shanks says with mirth, then gestures for the bottle. "Give it here! I'll show you how it's really done."

"Sure, I'd like to see you try!" Buggy hands him the bottle.

"There's no way you can surpass that, Shanks." You oppose lightly. "No fucking way."

"Yeah, watch me!"

Shanks takes a generous portion, pats his stomach, and out comes yet another BUUURP!

Sure, it's impressive enough, but nowhere near Buggy's, and the redhead acknowledges this with a defeated sigh before anyone even says anything.

"It's alright," Buggy severs his hand to pat him patronizingly on the back. "You tried. Imitation is the highest form of flattery, you know?"

Shanks pushes his hand away with a grin. "Oh, lay of it!"

The night continues like that, with some more drinking, some more burping contests, and sharing their thoughts on the latest endeavors of the Oro Jackson. Whenever the crew docked for a while someplace, the three of you would usually find some way to enjoy your time off away from the crew's supervision like this.

It also involves the three of you singing sea shanties together, arms hooked around each other as you sing at the top of your lungs:

"Gather up all of the crew, It's time to ship out Bink's brew. Pirates we, eternally, Are challenging the seas!"

It is just fun; three teenagers enjoying their teenage years to the fullest until the day they can venture on their own.

After a while, Buggy starts to feel his bladder press, probably from the liquor. He tries to ignore it at first, not wanting to miss anything, but it does not take long before he has to oblige with his body's request.

You're the first to notice him moving. "Where are you going, Buggy?"

He waves his hand dismissively. "Just got to take a piss."

"Don't go too far," Shanks adds with a twinge of mischief in his eyes. "I've heard there are boars on this island, don't want to get chased, do you?"

Buggy feels chills run up his arms, but he refuses to acknowledge it. "S-Shut it! There aren't any shitty boars here, or we'd see them by now!"

"Yeah, but I've also heard that they catch the smell of piss particularly strong,"

"Bullshit!" He trudges off. "Boars, my ass!"

"Be careful, Buggy!" you call after him.

The chills across his body immediately get replaced with a sense of pride, and he disappears to do his business with a smile.

Once he's finished and headed back, he can hear your soft laughter as he approaches the makeshift campsite. His heart nearly drops into his stomach when he sees what's going on.

You and Shanks are sitting closer together now, knees width apart, and you're laughing. Shanks just told a joke, a terrible joke that makes even Buggy cringe, yet you laugh all the same.

That soft laughter, just not for him this time.

It shouldn't make him feel as shitty as it does, yet a nauseous feeling settles in the pits of his stomach. You and Shanks are crew mates and friends, just as he is. He's never caught onto any implications that you like him in that sense, but why does it sting so much then to watch the two of you like this? So close, so at ease, so carefree and soft.

He often thinks about the time you saved him, about the time you brought an entire crew down just for him. You held his hand, you were worried; he’s been thinking that maybe there’s something there that isn’t just in his imagination.

But, wouldn’t you have done the same thing for Shanks, too? Has he maybe mistaken camaraderie for something else? Something that's not there?

Buggy suddenly feels ill, and he can’t blame it on the alcohol this time.

He thinks that it makes sense, in a way that gives his deep-rooted insecurity a boost. Shanks has always been the better of the two; a natural leader, calm in battle, and strategic in the ways that he himself is unable to be.

Meanwhile, Buggy is ... Well, just Buggy.

Buggy with the weird, red, enlarged nose people always make fun of.

Buggy, who can never seem to pull off the same stunts as successfully as Shanks can.

Buggy, who cracks the worst kinds of jokes that oftentimes make people laugh more out of pity than genuine humor.

You always laugh at them, laugh with him, but maybe he’s been mistaken there too?

It's obvious that Shanks is the better choice. Buggy would follow him anywhere, and he'd follow you anywhere, yet the thought of you following Shanks whereas Buggy trails behind the both of you like a stray puppy just feels ...

"Ah, there you are." Your voice snaps him out of his head as you wave him over. "You didn't come across any boars, did you?"

It takes him a moment to respond, and when he does, it's nothing grand. His voice has been reduced to a demure murmur as he steps closer to the fire. "No, there is nothing."

"You sure?" Shanks asks with a grin. "Thought I heard some noises back there!"

For some reason, Buggy snaps "IT'S NOTHING!"

His outburst evidently catches the both of you off-guard.

"Buggy, are you al—?"

"I'm fine." He's not. "But we should head back before the captain instigates a damn search party for us. We've probably been out too long."

He turns his back to you and starts heading in the direction you came from, and he feels his chest tighten so fucking much it makes breathing hard. He tries to tell himself it's not what he thinks, but at the same time, that nagging whisper in the back of his head that always stalks him is incessant.

"It makes sense," it whispers. "After all, it's never you."

———

"What in the hell is the matter with you?"

It takes you several minutes to force your eyes open. You're in the restaurant, you uncover, lounging over a table with a thin napkin serving as the only cushion for your cheek.

By some miracle, you manage to aim your eyes up from behind your arms and see Zeff standing there with his hands on his hips, like an angry grandfather of sorts.

"Zeff," you groan and heave a tired breath. Fuck, your head is killing you, as though a hamster wheel has found residence in your cranium. "It's too early for this."

"It's almost eleven o'clock, the sun is up."

"Still too early,"

"Heard you practically robbed the bar last night; the bill is through the damn roo-"

Before he gets to finish, you dig into the pocket of your pants and pull out a hefty pouch of berries on the table. A few spill out on the wooden surface, clinking. "Just take this as compensation and give me another bottle while you're at it."

Zeff looks at the pouch, does a mental count, and finally takes it after deciding that it's enough. "Huh, thought that scrawny chore boy was broke?"

"They are." You turn to let your chin rest on the table, giving you a little better view than before. "But I did have a pension plan before I retired. Keep it with me when it counts."

Zeff sighs and pockets the berries without complaint, but not before giving you an unimpressed one-over. You're happy you don't carry a mirror with you; probably look like shit, and you feel like shit, too. Your hangover could've been considerably worse, but at this moment in time, you'd prefer it if you went to sleep and didn't wake up for another twenty years or so.

"What the hell is going on with you, lass?" Zeff finally asks, and this time, he retains some of his usual roughness.

"Nothing ..." you murmur.

His bushy eyebrows scrunch. "I've been working at this place for almost a decade, seen people at their worst. People down on their luck, people who've lost, people who've grieved."

"And?"

"And I'll tell you something, lass. No one looks quite as damn destroyed as someone who's had their hearts broken."

The hamster wheel comes to a screeching halt, and you abruptly sit up to glare at him. "I'm not heartbroken. Why does everyone insist on that?"

His lips tug into a halfway smirk like he's just caught a fish on his hook. "You're strong, I'll give you that much, but no one's above the loss of love. So, who was the bloke?"

"No one," you almost spit, narrowing your eyes.

Zeff remains undeterred, even a little proud. "Couldn't have been a 'no one' if they managed to capture the interest of the Beast of the East, can they?"

You bite the inside of your cheek to keep yourself from lunging at the old man for even insinuating that someone - specifically him - has managed to put you in such a sorry state. You won't give the Chief the satisfaction.

With some herculean effort on your part, you take a deep breath and recline in your seat. Quietly, without looking at the chief, you order: "Three beers and today's lunch."

Zeff shrugs. "Fine, but after, you should check on your crew. That swordsman really took a hit,"

Right, Zoro challenged Mihawk to a fucking duel, and the memories come flooding back to you. You glance up at that chief, masking the underlying concern with a face of indifference. "He alive?"

"Yes and no. If you want to know, go see for yourself."

You nod, and he leaves you to stir your hangover. Maybe it was a mistake to get as shitfaced as you did, but that doesn't change the fact that you tried to keep them from making mistakes. You did what you were supposed to, yet still, why does it feel like this is your fault?

You've grown fond of the crew, and it's become more of a headache than you initially bargained for.

The waiter comes with your order on a plate, not Sanji this time, you discover. In fact, he's nowhere to be seen.

Without wasting your breath, you immediately dig into your meal like a woman starved of sustenance. It tastes delicious, but the residue of yesterday's liquor on your tongue dilutes the taste. You don't care, though.

Shortly after finishing half a portion of your lunch, you resume with your bottles. A slower pace this time, to ensure that your current condition doesn't significantly worsen, but still fast enough to keep you from remembering.

Remembering too much.

Half a bottle into your stupor, the entrance doors slam open and a pang of pain burst through the nerves in your brain. All you can think is that it's way too early for someone to be stirring shit up.

A round of gasps echoes through the establishment, and when you peek up from over your shoulder, you see three fish people making their entrance from the top of the staircase.

You've had your share of encounters with fish people in the past, some more ... tolerable than the rest. In hindsight, there's no difference between the way you treat people; if they get on your nerves, you deal with them. If they don't, you leave them be.

Your instincts tell you that these people will fall into the former category.

However, you notice that the one with the sharp nose looks awfully familiar, but your temporary amnesia might have something to do with the alcohol circling in your veins. Still, it's not a face that's easy to forget.

A few people try to get up from their seats, but with a simple, "Sit down!", they comply.

You narrow your eyes at the spectacle but don't move to get away. As long as he doesn't bother you, there's no reason for you to get involved. Baratie's had worse customers before, so this is nothing new. Zeff'll handle it like he always does.

So, you continue with your drinks, already annoyed and in desperate need of the numbing sensation only the bottle can provide. Zeff appears to deal with it, and it doesn't pique your interest until the fish man proclaims:

"Listen up! I'm looking for a pirate in a straw hat! Goes by the name of Luffy."

Now this catches your attention mid-sip.

You look at the particular fish man discreetly over your shoulder, your sobriety making a quick return once you discover that you do know of him. He's Arlong the Saw; a misanthrope who makes a living killing humans.

"Arlong," he said moments ago to Zeff. "I own the East Blue."

You don't know why he's after Luffy, and quite frankly, you don't care. With your fucking luck, he's after the map, too.

He can pretend to own the seas all he wants, but what matters to you is that he won't get to the boy, and it's something that Zeff seems on board with if his negotiation tactics mean anything.

So, in silence, you continue with your drinking, content with laying low until one of Arlong's henchmen - one with black hair tied up on each side of his head - appears at your side.

He leers over your shoulder, the stench of seawater evading your nostrils, and reaches for one of your bottles.

"Hope you don't mind sharing," he chuckles, and for some reason, this gesture pisses you off.

You're not in the fucking mood.

Before his hand can as much as graze the bottle's fine surface, you grip the back of his shirt and all but fling him back from whence he came. The sound of a table breaking behind you interrupts the eerie quietness that's befallen the other patrons, and you get up from your seat to glare at the other fish people.

"Fucking get lost," your voice rings out like an ominous warning across the air of the establishment, rendering everyone mute. Well, everyone except for Arlong, who proceeds to laugh heartedly at the spectacle whereas his other henchman quickly moves to aid his fallen colleague.

"Well, well, who do we have here?" He stands up from the table, two sharp rows of teeth reflecting the light from the restaurant as he grins. "If it ain't the Beast of the East, in the flesh." He tilts his head to the side. "I was expecting someone ... younger."

"I'm retired."

"So I've heard, but someone else seems to think otherwise."

"Well, this 'someone else’ must’ve been mistaken."

"No, no," he wags his 'finger?'. "You see, he was quite adamant that you're back in business. If that is the case, I am owed tribute for the stunts you've pulled."

You quirk an eyebrow, so lowly that it hardly seems to move at all. "Tribute?"

"Half of whatever plunder you acquired during the years you were active," he waves his hand. "And half of what you've acquired as of late."

Capitalism, truly. Seems that not even fishmen can deny its pull.

Your answer is simple.

"No."

Arlong's grin shapes into a snarl quite easily. "You may have the highest bounty, but it is still I who own the East Blue."

"The sea belongs to no one," you counter sharply. "Not me, and certainly not you."

It's clear that he perceives this as a slight in the highest degree if the downward tug of his lips serves as an indication. "Do you even know who I am?"

"I don't care who you are." Your fist clenches into a tight knot that almost draws blood as you stare him down from across the room; two beasts in their own respective ways.

"I'm Arlong the Saw."

"More like Arlong the Nailfile." This earns you a growl you're not nearly sober enough to worry about. "Look, I don't care who you are, and I don't care why you're here. The point is, you're not wanted."

You glance over at Zeff. For once, in the time you've known him, he's cautious but allows you to get your words across.

Arlong does not share the same sentiments. "When I learned that Cross-Hairs was here, I expected a woman with fists of irons and eyes sharp as knives. However, all I seem to be presented with is an old captain who does not know how to hold her liquor. It's pathetic, even by human standards."

This time, you're not vocal about your rather ... brutally honest opinions about him. Without breaking eye contact, you reach for your bottle and take a hefty swing from it. It all goes down without pause, and once it's gone, you put it back with enough force to permanently dent the table. Zeff'll be pissed.

Arlong snorts at the display. "I'm not here for you specifically. The boy, Luffy, where is he?"

"Never heard of him,"

"I don't quite believe that."

"Not my problem."

Arlong tilts his head to the side, almost condescendingly. "My informant knows otherwise."

"Your informant seems to know a lot of things," you say, dangerously low. "If you tell me who they are, and I'll pay them a visit myself to set the record straight,"

He chuckles. "There's no need for a visit. He's already here, and he's famished." He snaps his jaws to a nearby table, scaring the patrons into fleeing. "But I don't need the meals from the menu to quench my hunger."

You glance over at the other patrons, seeing the fear in their eyes reflect the light above. You've seen it before; you used to see it back when you were still Captain of the Cross-Haired Pirates. People used to quake at the sound of your footsteps, and whisper among themselves. in fear of evoking your wrath.

Back in the day, you lived up to your reputation. You didn't necessarily enjoy installing fear into people's hearts, but it was a means to an end. You were angry, and all that anger manifested itself in the way you acted as a captain. All that fighting, all that beating, all that rage.

Now, when you see the patrons acting like a herd of sheep, you can't help but feel like you're back there. But they're not afraid of you, not this time.

You look back at Arlong. "Find your meal someplace else."

He growls and steps closer. "I'm telling you this, Cross-Hairs, one beast to another. You may be strong, but we both know that you're not strong enough to take me on. Fish men are superior to humans in every single way. Stronger, faster, —"

He gets close enough to grab for your hand and lift it, his face a breath's width from your own. You can smell the stench of salt on him, of raw meat. "— Hungrier. Wouldn't you agree?"

In a flash, you grip your other hand around his wrist, fingers digging into his flesh until you can find the corners of his joints. You relish in the pained expression that crosses his face.

"You're not a beast," you say, not raising your voice a pitch. "You're vermin."

Arlong parts his jaws when the doors to the Baratie burst open.

"Which one of you is Arlong?"

You snap your attention to the top of the staircase, and your face drains. Fuck, it's Luffy. Why's he here?

"Who's asking?" Arlong asks, his grip around yours remains tight.

"I'm Monkey D. Luffy. I hear you're looking for me."

Once Luffy descends the stairs, Arlong lets go of you and turns to face the younger opponent. You watch with mild impressiveness as Luffy faces the bigger fish man, and you have to grant him that, he doesn't exhibit an ounce of fear.

"How'd you find me anyway?" Luffy finally asks.

Arlong snickers. "An old friend helped track you down."

Then, you watch as the big-lipped fish man pulls something out from his bag and it's ... and it's ...

"Heya, Straw Hat! Did you miss me?"

It's fucking Buggy!

Your heart skips several beats before it remembers to start pumping again. He's here. You thought Orange Town would be the last time you saw him, but he's really here. Truth be told, he looks worse for wear; his make-up is all smudged, a bruise forming on the right side of his cheek, and he's been dowsed in seawater.

But it's him. It's him.

Buggy's eyes glance over at you, and the smile that was previously there gets momentarily replaced with an expression you can't precisely pinpoint. "Hey, there," he says, surprisingly demure. "how's it going?"

You're not nearly sober nor coherent enough to reply.

"Burpy?" Luffy asks surprised. "What are you doing here?"

"Believe me it wasn't my first choice either, but these fine fishy folk persuaded me to point them in the right direction, which ain't easy when you don't have any hands."

"How'd you even know how to find me?"

"I told you, I got eyes and ears everywhere."

To your horror, you watch as an ear pulls itself out of Luffy's hat and attaches to the clown's head. That ear was there all along, which means ...

"You were listening all along?" Luffy cradles his hat. "You heard everything?"

Everything, you think to yourself as you feel the blood drain from your face. He heard everything, everything you'd said to Luffy, everything about your whereabouts. Every—

"Everything," Buggy answers. "And that got old quick, 'cause you shidiots got no idea what you're doing. Hey, Lips!" He turns his head sideways to face the fish man who's just returned from aiding his colleague. "How about a scratch behind the old ear, huh?"

"Sorry, honey."

You don't know what compels you, but something fierce does. An animalistic instinct settled in the marrow of your bones, rampant with rage and assertiveness. When the fish man grabs a hold of Buggy and puts him in the bag, you feel the need to get him out. Free him.

You were friends with him once, something even more from your side long ago, and you've tried to kill each other on at least one occasion. Still, that piece of you that remains in your youthhood demands that you get to him before anyone else.

The conversation that takes place between Luffy and Arlong doesn't register with your ears, as all you can focus on is him. Before you know it, the sound of gunshots echoes through the restaurant, and a fight erupts between Luffy's crew and Arlong's.

Truth be told, it all flashes in front of you like pictures from a movie you've seen. All you can recall, with the alcohol still flooding through your veins, is the feeling of flesh between your digits, the sound of cries and painful moans from Arlong's henchpeople as you force them to the side, and the pure adrenaline that muddles all your thoughts of ration.

Before Arlong can even hope to make a grasp at Luffy, you're there to deflect his claws with your wrist. The impact pushes his hand several inches away from your skin, and without a moment's notice, you strike him in the middle of his sternum.

He's knocked several feet back and into a nearby pillar, not enough to completely knock him out, but enough to keep him away if only for a few moments.

He laughs, his teeth bleeding from the gums. "The Beast of the East. I was wondering when I'd finally get to meet you."

You don't say a word, with the primitive instincts overwhelming your rational ones. In a second, you lunge for him, your hand aimed towards his head. Someone, most likely yourself, must have miscalculated because as much as you intend to hit him and maim him and strike him, the most prominent sense that strikes you is not the feeling of blood under your knuckles.

It's pain.

You're in pain.

Arlong manages to hit you with his clawed fingers. The sharp feeling of something piercing the side of your abdomen through your clothes causes an eerie feeling of hurt. You gasp and bend to your knees, clutching your side. Blood paints your palm as you withdraw it. You're bleeding. Fuck, you're actually bleeding. It's not a light cut either, it's several ones, an inch deep each, and they're bleeding profusely.

When was the last time you bled like this?

The collision between your head and something hard knocks you back before you can even hope to register your state properly. The floorboards leave stinging burns across your lower back until a pillar cushions your fall.

Fuck, fuck, fuck.

"A pity, truly." Arlong taunts, towering over you. "My informant seemed so confident in your skills. How disappointed he’ll be, seeing you crawl like a maggot on the floor."

You know this is a fight you cannot win, not as you are right now, but you don’t care. Pure spite motivates you to do your worst, even if it’s all for naught.

An act produced from pure adrenaline, you jump back to your feet and prepare to pounce at him. An outstretched hand — Luffy's — beat you to it and preoccupied the fish man in the nick of time. He's pulled away from your reach before you can hope to get him, and a familiar feeling of bloodlust in your veins awakens to life after its hibernation.

Hot, boiling.

You want to kill him.

Maim him.

Crush him until his bones break.

Feel the warmth of his blood coat your fingers as you dig into his body, through veins and arteries and flesh.

You want him dead.

Suddenly, you catch it from your peripheral vision. A bag on the floor that's currently being tossed back and forth amid all the fighting like a ball of yarn between two quarreling cats. A string of curses erupts from the fabric.

He's still here, you remember. Buggy is still here.

You have the option to leave him at the mercy of the fight between the Straw Hats and Arlong, but something in your body won't let it. Call it instinct, call it sentiment, but you move towards it all the same. Before any man can even touch the surface of the bag, you lunge for it like a flash of light.

Grabbing the top of the old fabric, you all but yank it from the floor and maintain him in the steady grip of both your hands.

"Hey, hey!" the voice in the bag calls. "Keep me out of this!"

"Shut up!" You shout back.

The voice immediately quiets down. In the middle of the fight, while you cling to the bag like a sacred object, you can hear him call your name several times, though you don’t answer.

You cradle the bag in the crook of your elbow as someone — doesn’t matter who — kicks your ribs and sends you crashing into a nearby wall. The impact knocks the air out of your lungs and leaves you with stars at the corners of your vision, yet all you can seem to think is ‘keep .... safe, keep .... safe, KEEP .... SAFE’.

You cough several times, static noise filling your eardrums as you crawl back to your feet. The sensation of something warm dribbling down the side of your ribs strikes you, yet your only concern in the midst of the blood loss is to carry that damn bag to safety.

It doesn’t make any sense. Luffy should be your only concern, but you can't find him, and the core of your being wants nothing more than to just get that bag the hell out of there.

Why? you think to yourself in a haze, your breath becoming heavier. What’s in that bag again? Why does it mean so much?

You try to get up, but the weight of your body overwhelms you. You stumble and fall back to your knees, dizziness making everything hazy and disoriented, but pure spite motivates you to keep going. At least, it tries to, but sheer will cannot outweigh the body’s needs alone.

Someone calls your name, and as your cheek meets the floor, an image of blue hair invades your vision. Blue hair, soft promises, and tight embraces.

Then, there are scornful glares, a shove against your body, so firm and cold that it’s reminiscent of ice.

“I hate you,” a blurry voice says, so filled with resentment that it reminds you of a knife. “I wish we’d never even met. Go be with him if that’s what you fucking want. What do I care?”

It hurts. It hurts more than your ribs do. It hurts to listen to those words — that voice — as it reverberates through your skull. It hurts so fucking much that you don’t think you can survive it. You feel small, small and vulnerable; like a child stuck in a crowd of people they don't know.

“He- Hey! Are you there?” The same voice - deeper and darker now - calls desperately as darkness starts to cloud your vision. “Come on, get up!”

You can’t tell if this is a voice from inside your head or outside it, but you don’t fight it when the darkness decides to lay claim over you. The same voice calls your name urgently, time and time again, but you can't answer it.

———

Everything hurts. Your body, your arms, your legs, but most prominently, the right side of your body. It’s burning, stinging, fucking carving at you. Whatever you call it. It just hurts.

“You’re awake!”

You barely have time to open your eyes when a warm body presses itself against yours from above. A sting of pain from the side of your body immediately surges through your nerves and you hiss.

“Oh, sorry, sorry!”

When you finally do look up, you see Luffy sitting beside you, a concerned yet hopeful look in those round eyes of his. You blink at him, then shift your head around to see where you are. You’re in your cabin, a blanket pulled up to your midsection, with something wrapped tightly around your stomach under your shirt.

At first, you’re at a loss for thoughts, but it only takes you a moment for everything to fall back into place. You immediately sit up, only to regret it as the pain explodes once more from your wounds.

“Don’t move too much,” Luffy protests and puts a hand on your shoulder to guide you down, but you resist it.

“What happened?” you demand. “How long was I out for?”

“Only a few hours.” Luffy frowns and gestures to your side. “You were badly hurt and lost a bit of blood. Zeff looked over it and managed to stop the bleeding, but he said you’ll need stitches eventually.”

You stare at him for a few seconds before your gaze trails down to your side. Lifting your shirt far enough so that you can evaluate the damage. Crimson-stained bandages greet your vision, under which you can only guess Arlong left his mark. Several marks to be precise, if your memory holds any value.

It’s not the wound itself that fills you with shame, but it’s the fact that you let your own grievances put you and – to some extent – the crew in such a vulnerable position to begin with.

If only you’d stopped feeling so sorry for yourself, then maybe this wouldn’t have happened.

“Luffy,” you say softly, not removing your focus from the bandages. “I’m … sorry.”

“For what?” he asks, completely confused.

“… I got distracted.” You slowly swing your feet to the edge of the hammock, the movements warranting more bouts of pain, yet you ignore it. “I … Let my guard down, and it put the crew in danger.”

“I don’t think so.” He says it so casually like he doesn’t find you at fault in the slightest. You don’t know whether deem his forgiving demeanor endearing or naïve to a fault. “You were sad.”

“That doesn’t excuse anything!” You jump to your feet while cradling your side. Luffy immediately comes to your side and offers you a shoulder to lean onto. “You could’ve been killed!”

“I’m fine,” he insists. “And so is Zoro! He’s alive!”

“That’s … good.” Relief floods your body.

“But Nami…” Luffy pauses as he helps you out of the room towards the kitchen. “She went with Arlong,”

You raise an eyebrow, not expecting this. “Why?”

“I don’t know, but we’re going to find her.”

“And how are we going to do that?”

“Well …” he trails off sheepishly, and you’re immediately suspicious.

It’s not until you finally reach the kitchen that you hear it.

“Hey! Look who it ... is ...”

It’s Buggy …

His head is on top of the kitchen table.

———

Taglist:

@kurinhimenezu, @carpinchootaku, @ay0nha, @teh-vampire-bunny, @lokiscure, @internationalsuper-spy, @detectivesparrow , @yuriwk , @notyuralycat , @angeli-fucking-cat , @machinema7k , @shuujin, @avatar-lover, @gingernut1314, @autumn-slaves. @marvelouskatie, @floristoflillys, @dizzyenby, @redpool, @deliri-yum22, @aemondsb1tch, @ackroxia, @gayandfairycore, @knightsfavoriteprincess, @asterizee, @aamethyst23, @lizzie1107 (If you want to be tagged for this story, just send me a message or leave a comment :))

#buggy the clown #buggy x reader #one piece live action #buggy one piece #buggy the clown x reader #one piece #one piece x reader #buggy x you #buggy the clown fanfiction #buggy x female reader #one piece buggy #DMTMYHB #Didn’t mean to make your heart Blue

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wangxianficfinder · 9 months ago

Text

In the mood for...

March 12th

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1. hi! for the next itmf could i please get lxc being called out on his bs? i was obsessed with “weep no more, sad fountains” but i still wanted to see him actually having to come to terms with that fact that he put his trust on jgy above his trust on his brother and was complicit on all of it. thanks!!

break by justdoityoufucker (T, 3k, WangXian, Canon Divergence, LXC Critical, JC Critical, Canonical Character Death, Guānyīn Temple Scene, BAMF WN, Protective WN)

Ghosts Shouldn’t by ShanaStoryteller (Not Rated, 15k, WangXian, Grief/Mourning, Canon Divergence, Angst with a Happy Ending) also contains many "FU"s against Lan Xichen but more for how the Lan Clan treated Lan Wangji when he protected Wei Ying & took in Yuan.

~*~

2. Hi! For ITMF, can you please recommend wangxian fics where other people (could be other canon characters, OCs or outsider pov) find out about wangxian’s marriage and are jealous of how lan wangji is the most devoted, doting husband or even just surprised/ awed with their relationship!

Thank you always for your efforts and time 🫶

Life before you was tragic by covalentbonds (Not rated, 4k, wangxian, Fluff and Humor) The part that’s relevant to the ask is in the second chapter

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3. Hi again. ITMF two sets of fics a) where wwx and lwj end up taking care of yuan er after they find him on the door step, a family member leaves him in their care etc b) wwx and lwj having loads of kids adoption or birth wise maybe even a few of the children finding them and just kind of latching on and it's kid fics, the longer the better @thatperson0-0

3A)

The Simplest Way Forward by harriet_vane (E, 70k, WangXian, Modern AU, Accidental Baby Acquisition,Kid Fic, explicit in much much later chapters, green card marriage (but not really), pining for your own husband, endless pining, Slow Burn, Happy Ending, Nothing else bad or traumatic happens to the baby, [Podfic of] The Simplest Way Forward by knight_tracer) maybe? WY & LZ aren't together when Yuan shows up but get together days later.

🔒💖 so take my hand (take my whole life too) by cicer (E, 92k, wangxian, Modern, Accidental Baby Acquisition, oh my god they were roommates, Idiots in Love, Mutual Pining, Implied/Referenced Drug Addiction, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, this fic is not about trauma, it's about the yearning, slowburn, some characters have a pretty strong bias against folks with drug addiction, (this does not reflect the author's opinion of people with addiction disorders!), none of the really grim abuse/drug use affects our main characters, and it takes place offscreen) should be a good fit

3B)

🔒💖 love, in fire and blood by cicer (E, 360k, wangxian, Canon Divergence, YLLZ WWX, Arranged Marriage, political scheming, Gratuitous Domesticity, Mutual Pining, EXTREME SLOWBURN, the inherent eroticism of the forehead ribbon, The Mortifying Ordeal of Being Known, neither wwx nor lwj want to be Perceived, but sorry kids! it's gonna happen!, rated E but the the NSFW stuff doesn't begin until chapter 19!, bottom lwj in chapter 20 and 27)

❤️ Attempting the Impossible by Ariaste for williedustice (T, 36k, WangXian, JC & WWX, Post-Canon, Yunmeng Bros Reconciliation, Adoption, Family Fluff, Kid fic, Family drama, Fluff, 🔒[PODFIC] Attempting the Impossible by Ariaste by lunatique)

🔒and having a marvelous time by varnes (E, 108k, WangXian, Yúnmèng Siblings, Sound of Music AU, (i know!!! i know. stay with me on this.), Slow Burn, Mutual Pining, Family Feels, spies to lovers???, Protective Siblings, Sometimes You Just Want Your Dads To Admit They're Your Dads, Angst with a Happy Ending, podfic of and having a marvellous time by varnes by Spinifex) this story has WWX adopting a bunch of kids (or maybe them adopting him), but LWJ loves then as soon as he meets them do hopefully this will work for the request.

~*~

4. Hiiii thank you for all your hard work!!!!

For the next itmf do you have any

A. Child abuse / neglect wwx where lwj realize something is wrong like in the shadow of moonlit flowers by Reverie(cl410) or works that mention the fact that wwx is not giving his all in exams / is being disruptive on purpose (maybe he corrects lwj on something super complicated) and after he stops his grades gets so much better…

B. Anything where wwx safeword out of a nonsexual situation? Like a meeting with the Jiangs or something triggering??

Anyway thank you so much for everything ✨✨✨✨✨✨ @ihaveasoftspotfora-yuan

4A)

Just Say Yes series by edenwolfie (M, 338k, wangxian, canon divergence, matchmaking, pining, cloud recesses study arc, getting together, fluff, humor, hurt/comfort, everyone lives au) Wei Ying misbehaves because he's not challenged enough

🔒 Warming up (to him) by barisan (T, 9k, LQR & WWX, WangXian, Hypothermia, Cloud Recesses Study Arc, Temporary Character Death, Medical Inaccuracies, YZY Abuses WWX, JFM Bashing, pre-wangxian, Good Uncle LQR, Angst with a Happy Ending, Hurt/Comfort)

Company by WithBroomBefore (T, 29k, wangxian, canon divergence, not YZY friendly, pre-relationship, getting together, fix-it, hurt/comfort, light angst w/ happy ending)

🔒💙 Holding shreds by barisan (T, 5k, WangXian, Cloud Recesses Study Arc, No Sunshot Campaign, Body Swap, Not for sexy shenanigans, Chronic Pain, Hurt WWX, Hurt LWJ, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Abusive YZY, Bad Parent YZY, Bad Parent JFM, Good Uncle LQR, Hurt/Comfort, Medical Inaccuracies, POV WWX, Angst with a Happy Ending, Jiāng Family Bashing, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, Getting Together, Smart WWX)

please don't let me be misunderstood by sysrae (T, 3k, WangXian, Modern AU, College/University, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, getting hit by cars, Past Child Abuse, Friends to Lovers, Abusive YZY, Caring LWJ, Injured wwx)

~*~

5. ur favorite darkji fics? thanksss

A Matter of Time series by mrcformoso (E, 84k, wangxian, time travel fix-it, graphic depictions of violence, underage, LWJ pov, JC pov, dark LWJ, manipulation, grooming, teen body adult mind for LWJ, happy ending for wangxian, problematic consensual underage sex, blood & violence, insane LWJ, manic LWJ)

💖 Ominous by 3neetee (T, 5k, wangxian, pre-relationship, established relationship, character death, fae & fairies, changelings, dark LWJ, dark WWX, BAMF WWX, graphic description, suicide, implied/referenced domestic violence)

Like stones on an unseen board by Vir_Abelasan (Not rated, 11k, wangxian, Canon Divergence, Dark LWJ, Older LWJ, Teacher LWJ, dark twin jades, Age Difference, Manipulation, Protective LWJ, Implied/Referenced Abuse, Corporal Punishment, Relatively canon-typical abusive Jiangs, WWX Get a Happy Ending, WangXian Get a Happy Ending, Not JC Friendly, Not Jiang Clan Friendly)

💖 I just wanted to see you so bad by Blackberreh, ThatOnePlatypus (T, 1k, wangxian, canon divergence, dark LWJ, minor character death, blood)

💖 Somewhere Sits an Empty Throne by Siamesa (E, 19k, WangXian, Crossovers & Fandom Fusions, tgcf fusion, Gods & Goddesses, Ghosts, Romance, vengeance, Dark LWJ, Grief/Mourning, Explicit Sexual Content, Angst with a Happy Ending)

💖 Do you want to hear by allollipoppins, dameauxgentianes (T, 12k, wangxian, time travel fix-it, canon divergence, not everyone dies au, epistolary, Madam Lan lives, minor character death, dark LWJ, Lan WWX, bad parents JFM & YZY, good uncle LQR, no sunshot campaign)

💖 demons run when a good man goes to war by Miranda_Aurelia (T, 20k, wangxian, LWJ & NHS, JYL/JZX, canon divergence, angst w happy ending, NHS & LWJ friendship, not JGY friendly, dark LWJ, revenge, (presumed) major character death, not LXC friendly)

💖 Like the sea loves the shore by Say (E, 15k, wangxian, LQY & WWX, implied/referenced WWX/WC, F/F, rule 63, dark LWJ, protective LWJ, sirens, childhood friends to lovers, fluff, angst w/ happy ending, eventual smut, human WWX, siren LWJ, age difference, non-human genitalia, minor character death)

💖 Buried in the Sky, Hallowed by thy Depths by themunchking (T, 9k, wangxian, supernatural elements, sirens, dark wangxian, canon-typical violence)

💖 The Way You Tremble by themunchking (E, 6k, wangxian, murder husbands, vampires, blood, violence, supernatural elements)

At heart by apathyinreverie (M, 8k, wangxian, WIP, Dark LWJ(Ish), Amnesia, WWX gets to be Not Okay after the BM, Hurt WWX, Recovery, Caring, Protective LWJ, Possessive LWJ, some definite manipulation, but not everything is as it seems, not nearly as dark as the tags make it sound, Canon Divergence, Golden Core Reveal, Golden Core Transfer Fix-It, Domestic WangXian, Fluff, WWX Goes to Gusu, WWX happily atticwifing away, Sunshot Campaign, BAMF WWX, BAMF LWJ)

~*~

6. Hi!!

It's been a while since I asked here, but I can't help but to come back for MXTX stories jahaha

I Was wondering, for the next "I'm in the mood fof", may I ask for fics where WWX is good friends with HC from TGCF? I need their bromanceeeeee

Tysm!! @nia-rarita

🧡 The Red Ribbon by Xiao_Hua (M, 21k, WangXian, HuaLian, Canon Divergence, Ghost City, a bit of beefleaf, Immortality, Cultivation Partners, Juniors, XL and HC find a child who happens to be WWX, Fluffy wangxian, WWX is a Supreme Ghost King, First Time, TGCF)

🔒Can we skip to the Good Part? by pink-lotus-pods (kkomaism) (T, 107k, HuaLian, WangXian, Canon-Typical Violence, Crossover, YLLZ WWX, HuaLian are in Love , Married HuaLian, Slow Build, Canon Temporary Character Death, Ghost WWX, Fix-It of Sorts, Canon Divergence, Blood and Violence, Character Study, Panic Attacks, WWX Has a Mental Breakdown, It Gets Worse Before It Gets Better, unbearable amounts of sexual tension, Suicidal Thoughts, mild but it's still there!, Additional Warnings In Author's Note, Genius WWX)

~*~

7. Hiiii for the next itmf do you know any alpha to omega wwx ??? Like Juste A Taste by anxiousTypist or any omega wwx and alpha lwj being “roommates”

Thank you for your work !!!!! 🤍🩵❤️🖤

Blissful Ignorance and All Its Benefits by DrPanda99 (E, 20k, wangxian, WIP, A/B/O, Non-Traditional A/B/O Dynamics, Oblivious WWX, Alpha WWX, Alpha LWJ, Bitching, Self-bitching?, Masturbation, Size Difference, of the penis variety, Anal Fingering, Anal Sex, Knotting Dildos, Large Cock, Small Penis, Size Kink, Accidental Voyeurism, Size Queen WWX, LWJ & WWX Have a Breeding Kink, PWP, Compulsory Heterosexuality, Humor)

Two Alphas, One Ship by fenaly (E, 6k, wangxian, Graphic Depictions of Violence, Rape/Non-Con, A/B/O, Bitching, Rape/Non-con Elements, Non-consensual sex, Non-Consensual Bitching, Aliens, Non-Human Genitalia, Blood and Gore, Murder Husbands, Feminizing genitalia terms, Among Us AU, Sci-Fi, Explicit Smut, Tentacles, Shapeshifting, Dead Dove: Do Not Eat, Monsterfucking, Violence, Alpha/Alpha becomes Alpha/Omega, Breeding Kink, Wank and Tell)

🔒 Unpreventable Happened by 3neetee (G, 15k, wangxian, Modern, A/B/O, Alpha LWJ, Alpha WWX, but not for long, Bitching, Roommates, baby acquisition, fostering, Pre-Relationship, Mutual Pining, WWX is irresponsible with himself, Domestic Fluff, Kid Fic)

Changing by Dixielis (T, 2k, wangxian, A/B/O, Alpha LWJ, Alpha WWX, Omega WWX, Bitching, Mpreg, POV Outsider, Hurt/Comfort, Good Uncle LQR, Modern)

Mutual Nurture by NinaCarow (E, 9k, wangxian, Mentions of Character Death, mentions of abuse, Mentions of Rape, no rape occures tho, A/B/O, Non-Traditional A/B/O Dynamics, Omega WWX, Alpha LWJ, Past Alpha WWX, Biting, Bonding, Mating Cycles/In Heat, Knotting, WWX Has a New Golden Core, its just sex and cuteness, mostly)

what home feels like by callmeb6104 (E, 7k, wangxian, Canon Divergence, A/B/O, Alpha LWJ, Alpha WWX, Omega WWX, changing of (secondary) gender, Whump, WWX Whump, Cloud Recesses Study Arc, No Sunshot Campaign, Aged-Up Character(s), Domestic Violence, Bad Parent YZY, Anal Play, Anal Fingering, Ass to Mouth, Multiple Orgasms, sex tears, Hand Jobs, First Time Blow Jobs, First Time, Nipple Licking, Nipple Play, Body Worship)

I care for you by Lanwangjisnights (M, 27k, wangxian, WIP, Modern with Magic, Magical Pregnancy, Unplanned Pregnancy, Alpha LWJ, Omega WWX, Alpha WWX, Fox WWX, Knotting, Nesting, Dual Cultivation, Mpreg, Non-Traditional A/B/O Dynamics)

~*~

8. Hey!!

I hope youre doing well <33 i wanted to read something similar to how to fall in love with a catfish - a guide by wwx in terms of humour. Im fine with whatever premise/canon/non canon/au etc etc i just want to read something witty-ish funny like how that was.

Thank you in advance!!!!

Inter-Sect Politics for the Absolute Beginner by Elpie (Horribibble) (M, 3k, wangxian, Canon Divergence, Brothels, BAMF WWX, Chaotic WWX, Humor, JGS Being an Asshole, Justice, JGY & WWX Friendship)

~*~

9. Is there a fic where wwx becomes pregnant through artifical insemination. He doesn't know it's lwj and neither does lwj. They end up getting close and falling in love and later lwj learns he's also the bio dad?

~*~

10. hii :D im in the mood for some magical girl/hero AU fics, preferably wangxian but i dont mind other ships or a lack of thereof. what i mean by "magical girl AU" is a modern setting in which cultivators are more or less vigilantes/heroes who can transform using their powers. hellinglaozu on tumblr has an AU similar to the genre im looking for btw, if you'd want a more concrete idea as to what i'm looking for you could refer to it (it's called seventeen romance). thank you!! ^^ @harapecowee

Wei Wuxian Makes a Wish series by natcat5 (M, 119k, wangxian, major character death, underage, madoka magica au, modern w/ magic, time travel, high school au, body horror, self-harm, angst w/ bittersweet ending, time loop, mental instability, suicidal thoughts) absolutely phenomenal madoka magica wangxian au

~*~

11. Hey! I’m in the mood for fics similar to Impossible Remains on AO3, aka wangxian fics where WWX dies after the golden core transplant or just earlier than canon! thank u so much to all the mods and the lovely work u guys do! 🥰🫶

Blood of the Black Earth by wirevix (M, 48k, WangXian, Canon Divergence, Xuánwǔ of Slaughter Cave, Sunshot Campaign, Sad with a Happy Ending, Ghost WWX, Monster WWX, Canonical Character Death, Although not at the canonical time, Grief/Mourning, Good Sibling JC, Horror)

~*~

12. thanks for ur hard work! any pregnant wwx fic recs?

Accidents Will Happen by vesna (mrsronweasley) (E, 45k WangXian, Post Canon, Mpreg, Fluff, Light angst)

🧡 Brilliant Mistake by brooklinegirl (E, 53k, WangXian, Modern AU, Sex Pollen, Mpreg, dubcon, Modern Cultivators, Dubious Medical Science)

All I Want by Selenay (E, 47k, wangxian, Modern, Mpreg, Post Holiday Romance, Consequences, Reunions, Idiots in Love, wangxian attempt to be sensible adults about it, they are very bad at it, Teacher WWX, Handwavey Biology)

Impermanence, Transience, Permanence by Best Bepsy (BepsyGray) (E, 39k, wangxian, canon divergence, unplanned pregnancy, mpreg, gore, sunshot campaign, assumed miscarriage, medical procedures, childbirth, golden core reveal)

~*~

13. Hello! I need your help in suggestions. Can you suggest me a Wangxian fanfiction where Wei Ying hurts Lan Zhan for jiangs or others and latter reunited with him. I have read various Lwj hurting Wei Ying fanfiction but not Wei Ying hurting Lan Zhan @abz18699-blog

~*~

14. hii, this is for itmf!

fics where they struggle w remembering things, not like memory loss, maybe where they disassociate. forgetting things which r not so nice and then starting to forget small random details?

thank you!!!!

to the river of rivers by haysel (T, 26k, WangXian, Character Study, Post-Canon, Mutual Pining, Dissociation, Getting Together, Misunderstandings, Trauma, Angst with a Happy Ending, tw for dissociation, sort of sickfic, Hurt/Comfort)

~*~

15. I'm assuming that this is where I ask about ITMF recs? If it is, do you have any fics focusing on like, the past characters reacting specifically to Nie Huaisang's 10 year revenge plan, or to how differently Nie Huasang acts after everything? Or at least any fics where the past characters react to the future (whether it be through watching the show, or going to the future, meeting future selves, etc.) that has some amount of focus on Nie Huaisang along with everything else? Thank you!

💖 The Path by Seastar98 (Not rated, 279k, wangxian, JC/WQ, JYL/JZX, fix-it of sorts, CQL verse, golden core reveal, angst w/ happy ending, BAMF NHS)

Nie HuaiSang's Diaries - When Spirits Drift in Time by IlnaHers (T, 37k, wangxian, WIP, Heavy Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Reveal, Time Travel? only the diaries though, Characters Watching the Show, Serious WWX, Hurt WWX, Hurt JC, Hurt LWJ, Protective LWJ, Protective JC, Protective WWX, Hurt NHS, Protective NHS, Character Death Reveal, Progressive Reveal, Melancholy, Twin Prides of Yúnmèng Feels, Twin Prides of Yúnmèng Angst, Twin Jades of Lán Feels, Sad, Shock, Mentioned Junior Quartet)

~*~

16. Hewwo!!!!! For the next ITMF could i pretty pls get recs for Wen remnants/burial mounds era???? Bonus points if there’s the Wens and/or Yilling people loving their patriarch and extra bonus points if there’s the sects realizing they’re wrong and leaving them alone but not necessarily requirements, i just want Wei Wuxian and his found family being happy making a dire place their home!

🔒 the thread may stretch or tangle but it will never break by RoseThorne (E, 91k, WIP, WangXian, Canon Divergence, Soulmates, Self-Esteem Issues, Fix-It, Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Nightmares, PTSD, Handfasting, Panic Attacks, Getting Together, First Time, Aftercare, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Implied/Referenced Torture, Scars, Chronic Pain, Golden Core Reveal, First Time, Switching, sex-related injury, LWJ Stays at the Burial Mounds, LSZ is a Wèi, Good Sibling JC, Dissociation, Burial Mounds Settlement Days)

Until It's Dark by suzvoy (M, 120k, WangXian, Canon Divergence, LWJ Finds Out, Pining, Fluff and Angst, First Kiss, First Time, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, Hair-pulling in chapter 23) also has Lan Wangji in the Burial Mounds but has a great depiction of the Wens and how the sects could have responded better

💖 Return to Sender by Thesaurus_with_no_words (M, 72k, WIP, WangXian, Canon Divergence, BAMF WWX, Golden Core Transfer Fix-It, Temporary Amnesia, Slow burn)

~*~

17. Anyone wanna rec me some light-hearted time travel fics? I like the serious ones fine but it's hard to find ones that are funny.

Thanks in advance! o7

🔒 ripples spread out when a single pebble is dropped into water by RoseThorne (G, 1k, wangxian, JYL/JZX, JYL & WWX, JC & WWX, WWX & WQ, LQR & LWJ, LQR & WWX, Time Travel Fix-It, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Past Character Death, Future Character Death, Timey-Wimey, Truth, Honesty, Guilt, Crack and Angst, POV Third Person, POV WWX, Cloud Recesses Study Arc) kinda

Wrong Turn, Right Place by diamondbruise (E, 71k, WangXian, Time Travel, kind of, it’s more reality travel but there’s modern wwx and cultivator lwj, Mutual Pining, Angst with a Happy Ending, Jealousy, Idiots in Love, Slow Burn, Misunderstandings, Cultural Differences)

rerun from the outside by Eicas (T, 2k, WangXian, Canon Divergence, Time travel, Crack, Cloud Recesses Study Arc, JC POV)

River Stones by littlesystems (M, 18k, WangXian, Time Travel, Post-Canon, Cloud Recesses Study arc, Junior Quartet, Oblivious WWX, Suffering LWJ, Voyeurism)

Wangxian's Time-Travelling Shenanigans Series by pupeez4eva (Varies, 18k, WangXian, Time Travel, Humor, POV Outsider, Love confessions, PDA, Everyone Lives/Nobody dies) most of their wangxian fics explore lighthearted time travel fix it

🔒An Arrow Through Time by syrus_jones (M, 166k, WIP, WangXian, Crack Treated Seriously, Time Travel, Reverse time travel, into the future, Potentially a Fix-it-fic?, Time Travel Fix-It, Mistaken Identity, POV LWJ, Angst, Gay Panic, Falling In Love, Fluff and Humor, Hurt/Comfort, Canon Divergence, Post-Canon, Canon Compliant, Young LWJ, Older WWX, Internally Screaming LWJ) though it is not been updated since long

💖 vinegar jug by dandelion_san (G, 7k, WIP, WangXian, Time Travel, Humor, Awkward Crushes, Jealousy)

Look forward, the future looks back by SerlinaBlack (T, 1k, WangXian, Time Travel, Fluff and Humor, Attempt at Humor, Dialogue Heavy, Crack Treated Seriously, Madam yu's a+ parenting mentioned, Oblivious WWX, jealous LWJ, WWX in WWX's body)

~*~

If you didn’t get an answer to your ask here, don’t forget to make use of @mdzs-kinkmeme and MDZS KINK MEME on Dreamwidth. Authors actually do use them for ideas. You may get what you order!***Your prompt doesn’t have to be kink! Fluff, crack, whatever - it’s all good!***

#wangxian #mdzs #wangxian fic recs #i'm in the mood for a fic #the untamed #wangxian fic search #wangxianficfinder #long post

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illustrationist-of-the-stars · 6 months ago

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• TWST X HSR YUU!CHARACTERS AU •

(Inspired by @enatopiaa 's Robin!Yuu AU)

" THEY will watch your performance on this new foreign and tragic stage with bated breath and awe, dear noble flowers of 'evil' and the fairest's of them all...

Won't you give THEM all a good show and the new end of all endings for this ancient script? "

🖼 Art/Comic 🥀Angst 💫Extra

Last updated: 23/11/2024

✦•┈๑ Yuu!Argenti ๑┈•✦

🖼 Yuu!Argenti {Character Bio}

🖼 Monsieur Chevalier de Beauté (feat. The 'Extras')

[ Coming soon!🌹 ]

꒷꒦꒷꒦꒷ Yuu!Aventurine ꒦꒷꒦꒷꒦

🖼 Yuu!Aventurine {Character Bio}

🖼🥀 The Painful, Sharp Thorns of a Rose

🖼 It's All or Nothing

[ 🃁🃜🃚 Patience is a virtue, y'know?~ 🃁🂭🂺 ]

── ⋆⋅Yuu!Jing Yuan⋅⋆ ──

🖼 Yuu!Jing Yuan {Character Bio}

🖼 Sleep Now, Little Lion Man

🖼 Grimalkin Snuggles

💫 In Regards To The Octavinelle Arc...

🖼🥀 Bad End AU

💫 Jing Yuan's Birds and Prince(ss) energy

[ Why not take a nap once and awhile..? ᶻ 𝗓 𐰁 ]

꧁ᬊᬁYuu!Dan Hengᬊ᭄꧂

🖼 Yuu!Dan Heng (IL) {Character Bio}

🖼 An Equal Value Exchange

💫 The Botherer's of the Imbibtor Lunae form post or pre-reveal

💫A bit of Canon Divergence

[✦The Data Bank will be re-updated again shortly...✦]

⋆⁺₊⋆ Yuu!Silver Wolf ⋆⁺₊⋆

🖼 Yuu!Silver Wolf {Character Bio}

🖼 Non-Amenisiac AU

[ ➤...Let me clear this level first and then i'll get back to you, eventually_ ]

" Oh dear, it seems like other variables and unknown actors have somehow got themselves into the script, how strange... " 𓃠:

🖼💫 Yuu!Sampo Koski AU (Answered ask)

🖼💫 Yuu!Acheron AU • Part 2 (Answered ask(s) )

🖼💫🥀 Yuu!Blade/Yingxing AU (Answered ask) • Disapproval From a Devoted Guard

🖼🥀 Yuu!Boothill AU ( Answered ask(s) ) • Father Figure

🖼💫 The First-Year Group gets transported into HSR instead (not clickbait)

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annievrse · 1 year ago

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midnight confessions

eren x reader —ᡣ𐭩 blurb c/w: canon divergence

"Can't you see that I've fallen for you? That I've been in love with you for the past 6 years?"

You stare at Eren dumbfounded, jaw slack and tears collecting in the corners of your eyes. Loose strands of hair blow in front of his face, but before you can push them away, he does it himself.

His confession came out of nowhere, and frankly, you weren't expecting him to yell it, either. His voice still echoes in the back streets of Marley.

Eren looks at you expectantly, like he believes you're capable of an answer. With red cheeks, he shakes his head gently. "But it's too late, isn't it?"

His voice is a whisper, but you want to tell him everything; that you do love him, that it's not too late to stop whatever keeps him up at night, and not too late to fall in love with the one person you've always wanted.

"Eren."

You reach for him, fingertips grazing his shoulders as he steps back. Eren doesn't meet your eyes, scrunching up his face before he turns around.

You call his name again, but he doesn't listen, walking down the street, away from the restaurant.

Looking up at the moon, you curse. It was either now or you'd lose him forever, and you'd be damned if you let that happen.

"I love you, too, you idiot!"

Your tall best friend freezes. The autumn air howls around you, and besides the melody of the band inside and a few teenagers laughing on the main street, it's silent.

Eren turns his head to the side and mumbles your name before sighing. "I need to go."

As if you got the wind knocked out of you, you gasp, tears pouring down your cheeks as you walk toward him. "No."

He steps to face you, eyes red with agony and green eyes swimming with grief. Eren grasps your forearms as you go to hit his chest with the little energy you have left - you knew this was coming, you all had.

"Why tell me you love me then?" You shout, voice breaking. "Why tell me and then leave?"

Eren looks at the stars. "I couldn't live with myself if I didn't tell you."

You scoff, and try to remove your arms from his hands. "Please don't go," You beg, basking in the feeling of his skin on yours for one last time. "We can fix this! No matter what it is."

Eren shook his head, thumbs rubbing circles on your pulse points. "I have to do this."

Not knowing what he's talking about, you panic. "Please," You cry. "What's going on, Eren?"

"I can't tell you, but just know it's all for you," He nods toward the restaurant. "And them."

"Why?" You ask.

"Because you're important to me, and I'd do everything to protect you," He sniffles, tears collecting on his chin. "I love you more than anything else."

You frown and close your eyes. With a burning throat, you nod and lower your arms, but Eren's grip never wavers.

"Do you promise to come back to me? After you've done what you need to?" You whisper, knowing you'd have to let him go.

Eren whines softly at your question, chest heavy with misery. His eyes flicker with doubt and suffering, and it takes everything in him not to tell you he won't be back. "I promise."

And with that, you shake your head, stand taller and push his hands off you. "Go then. I'll see you 'round."

Eren's jaw drops in disbelief, and he grapples with your hands, but you won't hold him any longer. "Hey-"

You get the strength to push his chest this time, and when you do, he stumbles, though you know he could've stopped if he wanted to.

"Go!"

It's quiet for a few moments, but then Eren wipes at his cheeks and nods. "I'll see you soon."

And when you walk back into the restaurant, eyes heavy and sniffling, everybody knows Eren up and left. Now, it was just a matter of when he would return and preparing for the worst.

part 2

#hehehehehAHAHAHAHAHH #eren jaeger #eren jaeger x reader #attack on titan x reader #eren jeager imagines #eren jeager x reader #eren yaeger imagine #eren yaeger x reader #attack on titan imagine #eren jeager #eren x reader #eren yeager x reader #eren yeager #aot x reader #— ann writes!

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tinytalkingtina · 2 months ago

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Born to Run

Part 1 of Running with the Devil, a Steddie role reversal series

4k words | Rating: E

Tags/CW: Role reversal no upside down AU with some canon divergence, Jock/Track Star!Eddie, Metalhead/drug dealer!Steve, appalachian Eddie, confident bisexual Steve, Eddie has a sexuality crisis but is in denial, Eddie's sleeping mind decides to take matters into its own hands, wet dream (contains spanking and public humiliation), running of both the literal and metaphorical kind, child abuse referenced indirectly (physical beatings that happened in the past)

Read now on Ao3, and be sure to read @little-annie's Part 2 from Steve's POV, "Metal Health will Drive you Mad"

The sex dream within this fic is brought to you by the Week 4 prompt "slap" of the @steddiesmuttyseptember event

Eddie was always a runner. If you asked Wayne, he apparently skipped straight from crawling to toddling around as fast as his chubby legs could carry him. When he got older, it was a release valve, for everything and anything shitty in his life.

He didn’t have to think about his mom pulling a disappearing act, or his dad getting himself arrested (again). The world would narrow until the only sounds he could hear were the rushing in his ears and the smack of his sneakers on pavement.

Running had brought him to where he was now, as he clawed his way up the proverbial high school ranks. Anyone at this party would look at him and only see the triumphant senior captain of the track team, fresh off a successful meet. Every keg stand, every heroic retelling of a close race, every sloppy makeout session with a cheerleader, kept the attention on the Eddie of the present.

No one needed to remember the wide-eyed weirdo with patched baggy clothes, nearly ten when his classmates would only turn nine that year.

All around him, the crowd ebbed and flowed between the alcohol and the bonfire, the flickering flames and shadows making it hard to tell who was who. Someone stumbled into Eddie, breaking him out of his brooding.

“Whoops, sorry Eddie! Guess I’ll have to make it up to you later.” Before he could say anything, the giggling cheerleader pressed a quick kiss to his cheek. (He knew he went on a date with her about a month ago, but her name eluded him. Tina, maybe, or Vicki?)

He forced a grin back. “Of course you didn’t mean it sugar. Gonna hold you to that ‘kay?”

The girl possibly named Tina swooned at the tiny bit of accent he'd carefully slipped in. Just a touch could be charming to the fine folks of the Midwest, even if what he ended up using was way less Appalachian hick and more refined Southern gentleman than his momma's family had ever spoken in their lives.

As soon as her back was turned, he let the smile slide off. His post-meet high wore off too quickly tonight, and it left him well, twitchy.

An arm slung itself over his shoulder. "Ed my man, this party is wild! Your best work yet dude." Tommy grinned at him, already drunk. Neither of them commented on how close Tommy was pressing himself into Eddie. Or how Eddie wasn't quite moving away. But then again, the two of them had perfected the art of leaving things unsaid after what happened sophomore year, how close they had come to—no.

"Heh, yeah. Hey, where's Carol? She's gonna be pissed you abandoned her."

"Please, Carol's fine. She's busy talking with Lisa Carmichael. Speaking of which, she's really into you. Come on, get your dick wet, you deserve it after that 800 meter. We're fucking going to states!" His last sentence was said much louder, and a chorus of cheers and whoops predictably echoed back from celebratory partygoers. The twitchiness grew.

"I dunno man, not really feeling it tonight." Eddie tried to subtly back up a little bit, but Tommy just swayed forward into his space again.

“Trust me, you won’t be feeling like that when you're balls deep in a nice tight—"

"Tommy will you just fucking stop? What's with your obsession with my dick huh?"

A look of fear and hurt flashed across Tommy's face for a second, before it was replaced with a scowl. Fuck that was the wrong thing to say and danced way too close to the thoughts about—nope, they were not gonna talk about that.

Eddie carefully pat Tommy on the shoulder instead of thinking. "Shit sorry, it's fine, you're just looking out for me, right? I appreciate it, just not uh, really in the partying mood for some reason."

Tommy managed to recover his grin. "Oh, duh, why didn't you say so? That fucking freak Harrington finally showed up about thirty minutes ago. Sure he's got something that'll make you unwind a bit. Here, have one on me.”

Eddie wanted to snap that he didn’t need pity money. He got the kegs supplied just fine on his own, hadn’t he? But Tommy was still holding himself tensely several steps away. Tommy, who in sixth grade biked over every other day even after his parents had told him to stay away from the trailer park. Who “accidentally” always had a second pudding cup tucked in with his lunch for sharing. Whose summertime freckles were just starting to fade but Eddie knew still trailed down all the way to his—.

Besides, maybe weed would take the edge off whatever ugly thing kept rearing its insistent head inside him tonight. Help him forget about the looming pressures of the future and the things he wasn’t going to think about, help him feel normal again.

“Thanks Tommy, I’ll try and relax.” Eddie grabbed the money and set off down the path towards Skull Rock, where Harrington always held court. The chill wind rustling through the trees was a welcome respite to his overheated skin.

The walk over to the next clearing was only a few minutes, but by the time Eddie came upon it, the thrum of bass and general teenage debauchery had faded into a low murmur.

Instead, Skull Rock reverberated with the sound of tapping and gentle humming. Eddie’s heart picked up a little.

Steve Harrington made him nervous. It wasn’t necessarily how loud the guy was. Eddie could understand the need to fill a room up. He could vaguely remember a quieter pre-pubescent Harrington before his dramatic transformation, dressed in tiny polos and khakis and halfheartedly kicking around a soccer ball. Now, his entire wardrobe consisted solely of black and red accented with flashy gold rings. The thick combat boots he wore constantly made him tower over everyone else, and the ever-growing collection of tattoos scattered on his body thoroughly scandalized each and every teacher. What they all meant was a perennial topic of discussion amongst the student body.

A voice echoed down from one of the boulders: “Oh hey, look who showed up, it’s Eddie Munson himself! Heard from your sidekick Hagan you’re the reason Hawkins is going to States.”

Steve was stretched out, lounging on the top of the rock, a pair of drumsticks held loosely in one hand.

“Yup, we are. First time in five years actually.” The state championships. There would be college recruiters there, and with them the promise of scholarships that’d get him out of this town. Somewhere far away from the looming threat of the plant bending his back prematurely like it had Wayne’s. Somewhere no one had heard the name of Al Munson.

“Well then.” Steve practically purred as he smoothly jumped down to the ground. He gave his drumsticks a twirl before stashing them in his pocket. “You sure got ‘em, didn’t you Tiger.”

Yeah, there it was. Seemed like sometimes, Harrington could see right through him, like he knew about how his thoughts occasionally strayed to—nope.

Eddie crossed his arms and tried to keep his face neutral. “Uh-huh.”

“Don’t you know it’s polite to thank someone when they compliment you?” Steve’s eyes sparkled with amusement. The fucker was toying with him. Worse, he was enjoying it.

Summoning every ounce of cockiness he possessed, Eddie stood up straight. Sure, this close Harrington had several inches on him, but it didn’t matter. Only one of them could throw the party of the year, and it sure as hell wasn’t going to be the unpopular weirdo in front of him.

“Shouldn’t you be the one thanking me? I let you sell your shit at my party.”

“Got a mouth on you, don’t you.” Steve smirked. “Tell me Munson, what’s stopping me from taking my goodies to, say, the basketball team’s next rager and skipping out on your little get together entirely? Don’t have to dirty my shoes at their parties. They choose to host at a house.”

Eddie gritted his teeth. “Hey fuck you man, not all of us have—”

“Didn’t say I minded,” Steve plowed on, interrupting him. “Maybe I like the fresh air and the…view. Just like to enjoy them peacefully.” He stood there with his arms crossed, one eyebrow raised in expectation.

Eddie could feel his face flushing but he held his ground. “Never stopped you from helping yourself to our beer.”

“Free shitty beer, just what I look forward to.” Steve said, rolling his eyes. “I gotta say, wasn’t really expecting you to come here. Don’t you usually send someone else to get your fix?”

Eddie shrugged. “Needed a change. And we both know you overcharge Tommy.”

“You’re not wrong about that.” Steve barked out a laugh. “But he deserves the asshole tax. Just weed for you tonight? There’s all kinds of ways to unwind if your usual methods are leaving you…unsatisfied there Munson.”

Vividly, Eddie was reminded of the graffiti scribbled on the walls above the urinals near the gym: Score a touchdown, then score with SH. More often than not, Steve could be found spectating the games, quietly dealing underneath the bleachers. On occasion, one girl or another could be seen emerging from underneath and brushing dirt off her skirt. But there was that other rumor, one that no guy would ever admit to having personal experience with. That if you won, Harrington would give anyone weed for free if they got on their knees for him and—woah there. What was wrong with him tonight?

“Th-think the weed is jus’ fine, ain’t lookin’ for much else.” he stammered out. Shit, why did his accent have to slip now of all times? “I mean, weed is all I need. Those fucking pricks from Greencastle got under my skin.” Assholes thought they were so big, mocking his out of style sneakers. Those shoes hadn't stopped him from shaving half a second off the regional record, but he couldn't help but still feel the barbs from their insults lodged under his skin, festering.

Steve cocked his head as he stared at Eddie with an unreadable expression on his face. Finally he broke into a disarming smile. Eddie couldn’t remember ever seeing Steve sincerely express happiness, at least not from this distance. He would have remembered how prett—how his eyes lit up.

“I’m in a band you know. Pierced Scepter. We play down at this shitty dive bar and yeah, usually it’s a crowd of four drunks and the bartender, but it doesn’t matter. Being on any stage is…fuck it’s awesome. But sometimes it’s a little too much to just pack it all up right after. So I come out here to scream my head off, get it all out. Better off terrorizing the birds than picking fights when my parents are around.” Steve unconsciously rubbed his palm as he laughed humorlessly. “Saves on the screaming matches at home and the. Well.”

“Didn’t realize rich folks got their own hands dirty like that.” Carol’s parents had left the task of punishment to her nanny, preferring to swoop in with carrots after the stick had been administered.

Steve raised an eyebrow. “Pretty sure my dad would say something about how ‘real men are responsible for disciplining their kids so they don’t get soft.’ Though what he considers ‘soft’ changes a lot based on his mood. And whether he’s wearing a belt or suspenders that day.”

“G-d, who knew our dads have something in common then?” Eddie snorted. “Never could keep my old man happy, was always doing something wrong. He took the belt to me so often in third grade I barely could sit down the whole year.” His first time in third grade anyway, the one before he was whisked away to the safe haven of Wayne’s trailer.

“And…I have absolutely no idea why I told you that.” He barely talked about his dad to Tommy and Carol for crying out loud. On visitor’s days he always made up some lie about why he and Wayne were driving close to the state penitentiary.

Steve let out a weird little braying bark of a laugh and shuffled his feet. “Right, you didn’t come here to cry over our daddy issues. Gimme a sec to get your stuff.” Steve reached behind to grab the lunchbox he carried his goods around in. As he did, his jacket slid open enough to show the exposed line of his clavicle above the low-cut collar of his tee. Eddie swallowed hard. Against his will, his eyes dipped lower, noticing a design over the top of his pec in black ink. Oh, a new tattoo.

Eddie squinted trying to make out what it was. “It’s been a while since you gave O’Donnell a reason to lecture us on the ‘decaying morality of the modern day.’ Is that a two headed monkey?”

Delight flickered over Steve’s face. “This? Yeah, it’s new. Supposed to be Demogorgon, the ‘Prince of Demons.’” At Eddie’s blank look he chuckled. “He’s a monster from Dungeons and Dragons, you know, the fantasy game we play in Hellfire Club. It was the final battle of a months long campaign and our characters were trying to escape Demogorgon’s lair. Most of the party was close to death, but at a chokepoint, my character took a last stand and gave the others enough time to escape. Everyone else got out, even if the bastard got me in the end. So, I got this as a tribute to my character's sacrifice.”

Eddie spoke without thinking. “Oh, that’s kind of similar to what Gandalf did: facing off against the Balrog to save the rest of the Fellowship.”

Forget fleeting glimpses of real smiles. The look of surprise Steve gave him was almost comically out of place on his face. “You’ve read Lord of the Rings?”

“While ago, yeah. The Hobbit too.” Back when he first moved in with Wayne, the man had found an absolutely beautiful illustrated set at a rummage sale. Eddie smiled to himself, remembering how excited he’d been to get his first real present ever. “Spent a whole summer running around during the day, then staying up way too late reading all night. My uncle had to confiscate my flashlight eventually.”

A snort from Steve jolted Eddie out of his memories as he realized who he was talking to. “Don’t tell anyone that Harrington, or else,” he ordered as he flushed for the second time that evening, “The rest of your dorky club of nerds better not start bothering me in the hallway just because I’ve read Tolkien. Not going to step in to save them if they forget their place.”

Steve’s expression shuttered as he stood upright. “Right, wouldn’t want to ruin your reputation with the rest of your jock buddies.” Eddie was taken aback by the bitterness in Steve’s voice. “They might explode if you admit to having interests beyond banging chicks, sports magazines, and beer. Your secret’s safe with me. After all, who’s going to believe the Freakshow? Here.” He shoved a baggie in Eddie’s face. “That should be enough for about a week. Now get lost before I double the price.”

Eddie opened his mouth to apologize. But the artificial sneer on Steve’s face made him lose his nerve. He just held out his money as he snatched away the weed. “Thanks, uh, have a good night Harrington. Help yourself to something from the kegs.” He almost made it to the edge of the trees before Steve’s voice called out to him: “Hey, Munson!”

He froze and turned. Steve had clambered back onto Skull Rock, moonlight and shadows making him look otherworldly and malevolent, towering over the clearing. “Keep that attitude of yours in check next time, or else I might take my services somewhere else. But, if you need more help…unwinding, well. You know where to find me.” That knowing smirk was firmly fixed back in place on his face.

Eddie couldn’t help it. He finally gave into his impulses and ran.

He didn’t think about those plush lips drawn back into a genuine smile as he quickly navigated back to the party. He didn’t think about those amused eyes seeing right through him as he knocked back a few cups of beer and danced a little with anyone and no one. And he certainly wasn’t thinking about that tattoo surrounded by chest hair as he staggered home to an empty trailer and collapsed into his bed.

“You look so good there, kneeling for me Eddie.” Steve looms over him, those ringed hands on his hips. Eddie realizes he’s naked in the clearing and flushes with embarrassment. When did he take off his clothes?

Any thoughts on how he ended up here are derailed when the wind caresses his body. Oh. Tendrils of air race over his exposed chest and glide over his heavy balls and dripping cock.

“And look how much you’re enjoying it too.” He’s never been this turned on in his life, and it’s all because of Steve. All for Steve. He’s powerless to prevent a moan from falling out of his mouth.

“You act so big at school, like you’re the top of the food chain yeah? A real king of the jungle. But you and me, we know better. You’re not a scary tiger at all are you. No, you’re just a cute little kitten.”

Eddie can’t help but whine as he spreads himself wider in invitation.

“Yeah, thought you’d like that.” Steve crooks a finger and gestures for Eddie to follow him. “Come on kitten.” Eddie begins to get up, his legs tingling with pins and needles.

“Mhm, no. I like you better down there. In fact, I think you should crawl.”

He shudders but obeys the sound of that voice, would do anything for it. He stays on all fours as the path unwinds before them, until they come to a door. Eddie moves as fast as he can to follow Steve through, tumbling into the void within. He flails, plummeting until a familiar wax-polished wood rushes up to meet his palms. Eddie doesn’t dare get up from his hands and knees as he lifts his head but-

The gym is filled to the brim.

Their classmates sit silently, blank looks on their faces as they stare. They’re waiting for something to happen. White hot shame courses through his veins as he desperately tries to cover up.

The voice cuts smoothly through the haze of his embarrassment: “Look at them kitten, they’re all waiting for a show. Let’s give one to them.”

Steve nudges him onto his back. He grabs his wrists and pulls them away from his body, exposing Eddie to the crowd. No! His face is on fire as he tries to fight it, but he can’t seem to break free, his strength sapped away. Steve tightens his hold on his wrists.

“Settle down Eddie, let them see you. You love this.”

He knows Steve is right. He can’t hide how hard his aching cock is, slapping against his belly as he squirms. But he can’t help it, they’ll all know. Faint whispers drift down from the stands as the crowd watches him struggle.

“Please, don’t make me do this,” he begs, but the words get caught in his choked up throat.

“I think you’ve forgotten your place. Maybe you need a reminder that you can’t hide, not from me.”

Steve hauls him up and easily slings him over a shoulder. Eddie lays there limply, frozen and whimpering. He’s unceremoniously dumped on top of a teacher’s desk right at the center line. Hands come up to squeeze at his nipples, hard. Just the way he does when he’s alone. His cock twitches and drools even more from the groping.

Eddie blinks, and suddenly the bleachers are that much closer.

“Be happy kitten, all the attention is on you! Isn’t this what you’ve always wanted?” Oh G-d. Every eye is fixed on him, the buzzing of interest growing louder.

“No, I don’t want this, I don’t want you!” He shouts as loud as he can but the words come out muted and garbled.

Steve barks out a cruel laugh. “God, you’re pathetic. But then you’ve always been so good at lying to yourself haven’t you? You were the one who kissed Tommy, not the other way around. But when he went in for more, you pushed him off and ran away.”

Through the blur of tears, he can just make out Tommy’s face in the crowd, wearing the same accusatory and hurt look he had two years ago.

Steve leans down to nibble at his ear. “And,” he whispers, his voice silky smooth. “Let’s not forget how in the back of your head you imagine me shoving you against a locker and making you take it. Or sometimes, I threaten you with my knife a little out in the woods, yeah?”

Without warning, Eddie is manhandled over Steve’s lap. “Good news, guess today’s your lucky day kitten. I’m going to make you take it until you admit to everyone what you really want.”

SMACK!

The first slap to his ass sounds loudly, echoing around the gym. Eddie nearly swallows his tongue trying to keep quiet. The spectators in the stands let out a gasp for him.

But Steve doesn’t stop there. He keeps going, until Eddie feels like his ass is on fire.

He finds himself pleading for Steve to have mercy, slipping back into the accent he tries so hard to keep a lid on normally.

“Ha, there he is, finally. You can dress yourself up in a varsity jacket all you want, but we all know what you really are. Just a piece of trailer trash. You can’t run from this you dumb hick. Tell me what I want to hear.”

Eddie shakes his head. He can’t. “Fine, then take your punishment.”

Smack after smack rains down on his ass. The pain builds and builds, and the crowd gets louder and louder. But underneath the humiliation, he remains hard and grows even more desperate. Every slap sends him thrusting, his cock trapped between Steve’s muscular thighs. It doesn’t go unnoticed.

“Ha! And you jocks call me the freak. You’re the one humping my leg and yowling like you’re in heat. Pain turn you on kitten?”

That’s all it takes to push him over the edge.

He cums to the sound of cheers.

Eddie woke with a jolt and a gasp, his whole body pulsing in the aftermath of the most intense orgasm he’d ever experienced.

Trembling, he curled up into a ball and let the tears fall. This was nothing, just a passing thought his brain had gotten attached to. All he had to do was survive the year, and then he could be finally free of Hawkins, and the living ghosts that haunted him.

If only that had been the last time he dreamed of Steve Harrington.

Two weeks later, Eddie woke with a fuzzy head and even fuzzier memories of the night before, vaguely remembering a ringed hand stroking his hair. On his nightstand was a glass of water, some Tylenol, and a note from SH telling him to take it easy.

After that his dreams changed. Sometimes he wasn’t humiliated at all, and those tattooed arms kept him safe and cared for. It felt worse almost, to have his subconscious offer up such happiness, only to snatch it away when he woke to an empty bed. He didn’t dare spend the night in the arms of a girl at her house, worried he’d reveal himself for the freak he was.

A full month of torment and countless hours of lost slumber later, Eddie finally had had enough. He grabbed his keys and tore off in the direction of Steve's house, praying that Carol wouldn't see his van in her neighbor's driveway at this time of night.

As he rang the doorbell, he didn’t know what to expect. But it certainly wasn’t the sight of a sleep rumpled Steve answering the door in nothing but a pair of sweatpants. Somehow, seeing his bare hands felt more intimate than the lack of shirt did.

“Munson? Gave me a heart attack, thought my parents were back a day early. What are you—”

“Hey,” Eddie interrupted, wide-eyed and feeling slightly crazed. “Can we talk?”

Ao3 link

It's finally here! This began life as a brain worm that Annie and I have turned into a whole fully expanded universe. We can't wait to write more with these two :D

Tagging a few folks who showed interest in the original Wiggly Wednesday post (but please feel free to ignore): @eyesofshinigami @augustjustice @griefabyss69 @hairstevington

@dreamy-jeans137 @eriquin @hbyrde36 @hotluncheddie

Thank you to steddiecameraroll-graphics for the runner divider!

#steddie #steve harrington #eddie munson #steve x eddie #role reversal au #stranger things #tinawrites #role reversal steddie

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seriiousgiirl · 6 months ago

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⋆˚࿔ 𝓶𝓪𝓼𝓽𝓮𝓻𝓵𝓲𝓼𝓽 𝜗𝜚˚⋆

❛ welcome to my blog ⋅ everything below the cut ⋅ find me also on ao3 ⋅ requests ❜

— ୨୧₊˚ 𝒮𝑒𝓋𝑒𝓇𝓊𝓈 𝒮𝓃𝒶𝓅𝑒

Through the Darkness — part 1 / part 2 . ݁₊ ⊹ . ݁ ݁𝒸𝑜𝓃𝓉𝑒𝓃𝓉 . ⊹ ₊ ݁. husband!severus snape/reader, psychological trauma, temporaly blindness, angst with a fluffy ending.

Sweet Juice — link here . ݁₊ ⊹ . ݁ ݁𝒸𝑜𝓃𝓉𝑒𝓃𝓉 . ⊹ ₊ ݁. severus snape/alumni!reader, incorrect use of potion, fluff, comfort sex, age difference, nsfw

Dead Man Running — link here . ݁₊ ⊹ . ݁ ݁𝒸𝑜𝓃𝓉𝑒𝓃𝓉 . ⊹ ₊ ݁. death eater!severus snape x auror!reader, enemies to lovers, childhood friends, young severus, first wizarding war, nsfw

My Satisfaction — link here . ݁₊ ⊹ . ݁ ݁𝒸𝑜𝓃𝓉𝑒𝓃𝓉 . ⊹ ₊ ݁. severus snape x teacher!reader, fluff and smut, foreplay, sexual frustration, age difference, jealous severus, nsfw

— ୨୧₊˚ 𝒜𝓈𝓉𝒶𝓇𝒾𝑜𝓃 𝒜𝓃𝒸𝓊𝓃𝒾𝓃

Blood in the Wine — part 1 / part 2 / part 3 / part 4 / part 5 . ݁₊ ⊹ . ݁ ݁𝒸𝑜𝓃𝓉𝑒𝓃𝓉 . ⊹ ₊ ݁. regency!au, strangers to lovers, slow burn, tension, mutual pining, angst, smut will happen later, age difference, forced marriage, gothic setting.

On your knees, and pray — link here . ݁₊ ⊹ . ݁ 𝒸𝑜𝓃𝓉𝑒𝓃𝓉 . ⊹ ₊ ݁. priest!Astarion, kind of enemies to lovers, smut with plot, age gap, somnophilia, taboo kink, dominance and submission, bondage, sensual education, forced proximity, tender worship, rough sex, corruption kink, oral sex, fangs and more...

— ୨୧₊˚ 𝐿𝑜𝓀𝒾 𝒪𝒹𝒾𝓃𝓈𝑜𝓃

My Attention — link here . ݁₊ ⊹ . ݁ ݁ 𝒸𝑜𝓃𝓉𝑒𝓃𝓉 . ⊹ ₊ ݁. tva!loki x reader, canon divergent, no mention of Sylvie, pure fluff and smut, tension, mutual pining and office romance. NSFW, clothed sex, semi-public sex.

— ୨୧₊˚ 𝒥𝒶𝓂𝑒𝓈 𝒮𝓊𝓃𝒹𝑒𝓇𝓁𝒶𝓃𝒹

It was love — part 1 / part 2 / part 3 / part 4 / part 5 / part 6 (coming soon) . ݁₊ ⊹ . ݁ ݁ 𝒸𝑜𝓃𝓉𝑒𝓃𝓉 . ⊹ ₊ ݁. alternate universe - canon divergence, post-silent Hill 2, angst and fluff and smut, touch-starved, redemption, grief, mourning, psychological trauma and horror, mutual pining, James adopted Laura, age difference, smut, vaginal sex, rough sex, rough kissing, aftercare, daddy kink, James deserves his happy ending, James is desperate and pathetic, based on the Silent Hill Games and mostly the remake

#masterlist #fanfiction #navigation

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apparitionism · 26 days ago

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Bonus 4

First, a PSA: If you are eligible to vote in next week’s US election, please VOTE FOR HARRIS as well as every other Democratic candidate on the ballot, and do what you can to persuade as many other people as you can to do the same. I assume anyone who bothers to read my writing is smart enough to understand why that’s necessary—and why engaging in any sort of protest-vote or sit-this-one-out charade is counter to the interests of most living breathing people at this point in history.

Anyway. Here I offer the final part of last year’s Christmas story... again and as usual, where were we? I recommend the intro to part 1 for where we are, canon-wise (S4, essentially, but diverging); beyond that, Myka has just returned to the Warehouse after a holiday retrieval in Cleveland (Pete, in town visiting his family, was tangentially involved), where Helena, whom Myka hadn’t seen since the Warehouse didn’t explode, served as her backup—a situation facilitated by Claudia as something of a Christmas bonus. Post-retrieval, Helena and Myka shared a meal at a restaurant; this was a new experience that went quite well until, alas, Helena was instructed (by powers higher than Claudia) to leave. Thus Myka returned home, both buoyed and bereft... and here the tale resumes. I mentioned part 1, but for the full scraping of Myka’s soul, see part 2 and part 3 as well.

Bonus 4

Late on Christmas Day, Myka is heading to the kitchen for a warm and, preferably, spiked beverage, intending to curl up with that and a book—well, maybe a book; a restless scanning of her shelves had left her drained and decisionless, hence the need for a resetting, and settling, beverage—and to convince herself to appreciate the peace of these waning Christmas hours. She peeks into the living room, just to assess the wider situation, and regards a sofa-draped Pete. He returned from Ohio barely an hour ago, which Myka knows because she had heard Claudia exclaim over his arrival. Then things had gone quiet.

Now, he appears to be napping.

Myka tries to slink away.

“Claud mentioned about your backup,” he says as soon as her back is turned, startling her and proving she’s a terrible slinker. Small favors, though: at least she hadn’t already had her beverage in hand and so isn’t wearing it now. “That had to be weird,” he goes on, sitting up.

She’s been wondering whether the topic would come up, whenever they happened to get beyond how-was-your-trip pleasantries... she entertains herself for a moment with the idea of referring to Helena, specifically with Pete, as “the topic.” So she tries it: “‘Weird’ does not begin to describe the topic.” It is entertaining, as a little secret-layers-of-meaning sneak. But there’s yet more entertainment in the offing, with its own secret layers: “Incidentally, speaking of weird—which I’m sure was also mentioned—I met your cousin. Thanks for giving her an artifact. Very Christmas of you.”

He rounds his spine into the sofa like he’s trying to back his way through the upholstery and escape. “Don’t be mad. I didn’t mean to. I didn’t know it was an artifact.”

Myka is tempted to keep him guessing about her feelings, but she doesn’t really have the energy; she gives up on entertainment and tells the truth: “I’m not mad. I’m serious: thank you.”

“I think you’re trying to trick me,” he skeptics. “Soften me up for something. But if that’s for real, then you should thank my mom more than me.”

Pete’s mother. The extent of Jane Lattimer’s role in Myka’s life is... surprising. Then again the extent of her role in Pete’s life has turned out to be surprising too, and that’s probably a bigger deal, all things considered.

Pete goes on, “Because I was gonna blame her, but should I give her props instead? It was her idea to give the little feather guy to Nancy, because of how after I got it I saw that it’d probably PTSD you.”

“I appreciate the seeing, but... wait. After you got it. How’d you get it in the first place?”

“I was in this antique store,” Pete says.

As if that explains everything—when in fact it explains nothing. In further fact, it unexplains. “Why were you in an antique store? According to you, you hated those even before the Warehouse turned them into artifact arcades.”

“Mom was picking something up there, and this guy showed it to me.”

“Your mom, this guy...” Myka is now beyond suspicious. “What did this guy look like?” A pointless question. As if knowing that could help her... as if anything could really help her. This is madness. “Fine. It doesn’t matter what he looked like, because I’m stopping here. I can’t keep doing this. For my sanity, I can’t.”

“Keep doing what?”

“Tracing it back. You win. You all win.”

“Do we? Doesn’t feel like it. And that doesn’t seem like a reason you’d be thanking me.”

“No. That isn’t. But as of now I’m trying to keep myself from focusing on... let’s call it the causal chain.”

“I’d rather focus on the popcorn chain.” He points to the strands that loop the Christmas tree.

They are the tree’s only adornment. Every prior holiday season of Myka’s Warehouse association, Leena has decorated the B&B unto a traditional-Christmas Platonic ideal; this year, in her absence, Myka, Steve, and Claudia, trying to replicate that, had purchased a tree. And transported it home. And situated it near to plumb in the tree stand, which was an exhausting exercise in what they earnestly assured each other was complicated physics but was really just physical incompetence.

They had then settled in to do the actual decorating, starting with popcorn strings... but once they’d finished those, they were indeed finished, pathetically drained of holiday effort. And they’d succeeded in that initial (and sadly final) project only because, as they’d all agreed once they’d strung the popcorn, Pete hadn’t been there to shovel the bulk of their also-pathetic popping efforts into his mouth.

“Take them down, slurp them up like spaghetti if you want,” Myka says now. “Christmas is pretty much over.” The statement—its truth—makes her stew. At Pete? But the situation isn’t ultimately his fault, no matter what part he played. And why is she so set on assigning, or marinating in, this vague blame anyway? She got something she wanted: time with Helena. It didn’t work out as perfectly as she’d wished it would, but she got it.

She tries to resettle: her heart to remembrance, her brain to appreciation.

The doorbell rings, its old-fashioned rounded bing-bong resounding from foyer to living room and beyond, bouncing heavily against every surface. Myka lets the vibrations push her toward the kitchen; she’s had enough of interaction for now. Her beverage and book, whichever one will provide some right refuge, await. As do remembrance and appreciation.

She hears Pete sigh and the sofa creak; he must have shoved himself from it in order to lurch to the foyer. A minute later, he yells, “Guess what! Christmas might not be over!”

Still kitchen-focused, Myka yells back, “If that’s not Santa himself, you’re wrong!”

“Never heard of that being one of her things!” Pete shouts, even louder.

“Quit shouting!” Myka bellows, so loud that she drowns out her own initial registering of what he’s said, which then starts to resonate in her head, a stimulating hum that resolves into meaning... her things? Her things... Myka’s torso initiates a turn; her body knows what’s happening, even if her brain—

“Hey, H.G.,” Pete says, and now every part of Myka knows.

Except her eyes, but once she moves to the foyer to stand behind Pete, they know too: There Helena is. Her body. Embodied. The illumination of her, in the foyer semi-dark... her bright eyes catching Myka’s, warming to the catch... oh, this.

Seeing the sight—greeting, once again, her perfect match—she is struck dumb.

There’s movement behind her, though, and she turns to see Steve and Claudia poking their heads into the space like meerkats—well, no, in South Dakota she should think prairie dogs... but they’re both built more like meerkats than prairie dogs, so she should probably keep thinking meerkats out of... respect? Whatever: they’re animal-alert, heads aswivel, faces alight. It surely signifies something.

Turning back to Helena, trying to get a voice in her mouth, she coughs out, “You’re back? Now? I mean, already? How did you—”

“To quote myself: ‘when I can, I will,’” Helena says, as matter-of-factly as anyone could possibly speak while maintaining intense eye contact with one person, and Myka thanks all gods and firefighters above that she is herself that person. “Now, not forty-eight hours later, I could. Thus I did. I should note that I’m unsure as to why I could, but perhaps it’s a gift horse?” Her focus on Myka does not waver. Pete and the meerkats might as well not exist, and Myka in turn is mesmerized.

“Maybe that’s the horse you rode in on,” Claudia says. Is she trying to break the spell? Myka wishes she wouldn’t... she ideates shushing her, even as Claudia goes on, “But better late than never, Christmas-wise, right?”

“Did you enjoy your additional portion of squash?” Helena asks Myka, ignoring Claudia’s interjection. Her tone is formal, presenting public, but her question is for Myka alone.

“It was very good for my heart,” Myka says. She doesn’t add, though she could, And so was that question.

Helena smiles like she heard both good-fors—like she’s grateful for both—and Myka thinks, for the first time out loud in her head, She feels the same way I do.

It’s... new. Different. Perfect? Not yet, the out-loud-in-her-head voice instructs.

But she can make a move in that direction. “Please put your suitcase in my room,” she says. Out loud, outside her head. Realing it.

“I will,” Helena says. She takes up her case and moves toward the stairs, presumably to real that too.

It renders Myka once again enraptured. She is taking her suitcase to my room. My room. She is.

The first stair-creaks that Helena’s ascent occasions sound, to Myka’s eagerly interpretive ears, approving.

Claudia and Steve don’t even blink. Pete does—well, more the opposite; he widens his eyes in the cartoony way.

But then he turns on his heel, Marine-brusque and not at all cartoony, and exits the space. Myka doesn’t know what to make of that. She’ll most likely have to address the topic—in fact, “the topic”—with him later. Fortunately, later isn’t now.

She does know, however, what to make of Steve and Claudia’s aspect: “I’m sensing some ‘aren’t we clever’ preening,” she accuses.

“We are clever,” Claudia says, dusting off her shoulder. “More Fred. Don’t sweat it.”

Exasperating. “Don’t sweat it? As I understood the situation, Fred was a retrieval and an insanely expensive dinner. Are we doing that again, or is she back for good?”

“She’s back for nice,” Claudia says.

Steve jumps in with, “To answer your question: we’re not a hundred percent sure.”

“See, we made a deal,” Claudia says.

“With whom?” Myka asks.

“Santa?” Claudia says, but without commitment. Myka’s response of an oh-come-on face causes her to huff, “Fine. Pete’s mom and company. And Mrs. F. And even Artie, in absentia.”

“What kind of deal?” Myka asks, because while she can’t dispute the indisputably positive fact that Helena is here, she mistrusts any deal involving Regents. Pete’s mom aside. Or Pete’s mom included: She can’t stop her brain from stirring, stirring once again to life those causal-chain questions: What’s being put in motion this time?

“A kind of deal about which things they’re willing to let us—well, technically Steve—say are nice,” Claudia pronounces, as if that explains everything.

Myka is very tired of proffered explanations that actually unexplain.

Steve says, “Claudia finally found the file on the pen. Seems that Santa’s list, once made, is kind of ridiculously powerful. And it turns out you can put a situation on the list.”

“For example,” Claudia supplies, “H.G. and you. Getting to be in each other’s... proximity.”

Steve adds, “And yours isn’t the only one I put there. That was part of the deal.”

“So you’re letting the pen reward nice situations with... existing,” Myka says. “And are you storing it on some new ‘Don’t Neutralize’ shelf? So nobody accidentally bags the existence out of them?”

Claudia says, “Kinda. At least for a while.”

This all seems deceptively, not to mention dangerously, easy. “But: personal gain, not for,” Myka points out.

“Right,” Steve says. “So here’s a question: what does ‘personal gain’ actually mean? The manual doesn’t have a glossary. So we’re trying to work it out. Let’s say Claud uses an artifact and then makes this utterance: ‘My use of this artifact was not for personal gain.’ And let’s say I assess that utterance as not a lie. The question remains, are the Warehouse and Claud and I agreeing on the definition of ‘personal gain’?”

“The question remains,” Myka echoes, fretting. “And the answer?”

“We’ll see,” Steve says.

It’s destabilizing, but that’s the Warehouse’s fault, not Steve’s. “I just hope the artifact won’t downside you for any disagreement. Because you’re remarkably nonjudgmental, and—”

“With a Liam exception,” Steve notes. “Or several. Ideally, though, the Warehouse and I can work through these things like adults. Unlike me and Liam.”

Myka respects his honesty. And yet: “I’m having a seriously hard time ideating the Warehouse as an adult.”

“We’re working through that too,” Steve concedes.

“You clearly have the patience of a saint.”

Steve chuckles. “Pete’s your partner, right? And in another sense, H.G. might be too?” Myka waves her hands, no-no-too-soon, because suitcases notwithstanding, she has certainly in the past thought she was making a safe all-in bet, only to lose every last copper-coated-zinc penny of her metaphorical money. “No matter what we call anybody,” he continues, “I think you get a lot more patience practice than I do. I’m just dealing with one little Warehouse and its feelings.”

“Aren’t its feelings... unassimilable?” she asks. “Or at least, shouldn’t they be?” It’s a building. Whatever its feelings, they should be talking about it like it’s an alien, not somebody who’s in therapy. Or somebody who should be in therapy.

“Maybe,” Steve says. “Or maybe not. That was part of the deal too, that I would test out how it feels. About personal gain specifically here, eventually maybe more. But if it has a meltdown...”

“Ah. We cancel the test, neutralize the pen, and face the consequences.”

Steve nods. “But ideally, if that happens, we will have leapfrogged whatever the looming Artie-and-Leena crises are. The two of them coming back here safely are the other situations we niced, as part of the deal.”

Claudia adds, “My big fingers-crossed leapfrog is over their stupid administrative ‘keep H.G. away from Myka and everybody else who loves her’ dealy-thingy. We’re hoping they’ll just forget about whatever their dumbass reasons for that were when they see how great it is for her to be back.”

“Dealy-thingy? Have you been talking to Pete?” Myka asks, trying for silly, for light—so as to deflect that “love her” arrow.

“Not about that. But wait, are you saying he loves her too? I mean I figured he was okay with her after the whole Mom-still-alive thing, but his Houdini out of here just now makes me think he’s not quite all the way to—”

“Never mind,” Myka says, as a command.

Claudia squints like she wants to pursue it. Myka crosses her arms against any such idea, in response to which Claudia says, “Fine. Here’s some funsies you’ll like better. Making that list, you’ve gotta have balance. Naughty against the nice.”

“And you think I’ll like that because?”

“I talked to Pete’s cousin, a little pretty-sure-we-don’t-have-to-tesla-you-but-let’s-make-super-sure exit interview. Heard some things about a guy. Bob? Seemed like a good candidate.”

Well. Pete had been right on several levels about Christmas not being over yet. “That’s the best news I’ve had in the past... I don’t know. Five minutes?” Other than the Pete-vs.-“the topic” question, it’s been an absurdly good-news-y several minutes.

Claudia goes on, “Personal gain, what is it? There’s also a warden from that place I don’t like to remember being committed to who’s about to have a Boxing Day that’ll haunt him longer than he’s been haunting me.”

That definitely raises questions—flags, even—about “personal gain” in a definitional sense, but letting all that lie seems the better part of valor, so Myka asks Steve, “Any Liam on there?”

“Too personal to let the Warehouse anywhere near,” he says, but with a smile.

Myka smiles too. “Would that I could say the same about my situation.”

Claudia snickers. “Your situation is Warehouse-dependent. Warehouse-designed. Warehouse-destined.”

“All the more reason said Warehouse shouldn’t object to easing the pressure,” Steve says.

“Are you kidding?” Claudia says. “Its birth certificate reads ‘Ware Stress-Test House.’”

Myka appreciates their positions—Steve’s in particular, even as she internally allows that Claudia’s is probably more accurate—but she would appreciate even more their ceasing to talk about her situation like they’re the ones whose philosophy will determine how, and whether, it succeeds. Or even proceeds.

And she would most appreciate their ceasing to talk about her situation entirely. So that she can go upstairs and be in her situation, because Helena hasn’t come back downstairs, a fact for which Myka’s rapidly overheating libido has provided a similarly overheated reason: she is waiting, up there in the bedroom, for Myka.

Which thought is of course followed by Helena’s preemption of same: she descends the stairs and presents herself in the foyer.

Damn it, Myka’s disappointed libido fumes.

Sacrilege! an overriding executive self chastises, and it isn’t wrong, for again, here Helena is. To fail to appreciate that—ever—is an error of, indeed, biblical, or anti-biblical, proportions.

In any case, now four people are just standing here, awkwardness personified.

Helena flicks her eyes briefly toward Myka—it seems a little offer of “hold on”—then turns to Steve and Claudia. “I didn’t greet either of you directly when I arrived. I apologize. Claudia darling, it warms my heart to see you... and this is of course the famous Steve, whose acquaintance I’m delighted to make at last.”

Striking to witness: Helena has essentially absorbed the awkward into her very body and transmogrified it into formality.

Myka loves her.

“Famous?” Steve echoes, like she’s said “Martian.”

“I’ve heard much of you,” Helena says, with an emphasizing finger-point on “much.”

Steve smiles his I’m-astonished-you’re-not-lying smile, through which he articulates, “Likewise? I mean, likewise, but with more. Obviously.”

Yes, Myka loves her: for her charming self alone, but also for how that charm extends; her sweet attention to Steve has him immediately smitten. Myka’s the one to catch Helena’s gaze now, intending merely to convey gratitude, but to her gratification it stops Helena, causing her to abandon her engagement with Steve.

Maybe she and Myka can stand here and gaze at each other forever. It wouldn’t be everything, but it would be something. Second on second, it is something. It is something.

Claudia interrupts it all, saying to Helena, “Can I hug you?”

Myka doesn’t begrudge the breaking of this spell, particularly not with that; she had been selfish, before, greedy to keep Helena and her eyes all to herself. She also doesn’t begrudge the ease of the hug in which Claudia and Helena engage; getting a hug right is simpler when its purpose is clear. And clearly joyful.

Over Claudia’s shoulder, Myka’s and Helena’s gazes lock yet again, and it’s spectacular.

However: it also seems to introduce a foreign element into the hug, some friction that Claudia must sense, for she disengages and says, “So. I have to go. I just remembered I have an appointment to not be here.”

Steve says, “I feel like I was supposed to remember to meet you there, wasn’t I,” Steve says, and Myka has never been able to predict when he’ll be able to play along instead of blurting “lie” (even if he does often follow such blurts with some version of an apologetic “but I see the social purpose”).

“I don’t think you were,” Claudia says, “because I’m revising the gag; it makes more sense if I just now made an appointment to not be here. So you couldn’t be remembering some nonexistent-before-now appointment.”

“But I still think the appointment ought to be with me, gag-wise and otherwise,” Steve says, doggedly, still playing. “In the first and second place.”

“Is this the first place?” Claudia muses, faux-serious, now rewarding his doggedness. “Is the appointment in the second place?”

They could who’s-in-the-first-place this for days, so Myka intervenes, “In the first place, if this is a gag, it desperately needs workshopping. But in the second place: Scram!”

“You mean to the second place,” Claudia sasses.

Myka scowls, wishing she could growl proficiently.

Claudia’s eyes widen. “Scramming. Best scrammer,” she says, sans sass, proving the actual growl unnecessary. Interesting.

“Except that’s about to be me with the gold-medal scram,” Steve objects and concurs.

Myka pronounces, “I’ll be the judge of who’s what. Once you actually do it.”

“You’ll award the medals later though, right?” asks Claudia. Her words are jokey, yet her tone is weirdly sincere, as if Myka might forget they had scrammed on her behalf, and that such amnesia would be hurtful.

“Participation trophies,” Myka semi-affirms, “in the form of a healthy breakfast.” She adds, internally, Take the damn hint.

After much winking and nudging, the comedians at last absent themselves, and Myka and Helena are alone.

Unfortunately that doesn’t immediately yield the perfected situation Myka seeks, first and foremost because she doesn’t know what comes next. Take your own damn hint, she tells herself, but... how? They need privacy, and the only reasonable place for that is where Helena’s suitcase rests: upstairs. Myka can’t magic them there, so what incremental movement will be recognizable as an appropriate beginning?

She casts a wish for Helena to ease it all, as she had with Claudia and Steve, but Helena is stock-still, offering no increment. For both of them, upstairs seems to have become a different place... the promised land?

Nothing is promised, she reminds herself. Some things are newly possible, but nothing is promised. Certainly not when the Warehouse is involved.

So maybe the point, probably the point, is that it’s incumbent on Myka and Helena to realize the possibility.

Nevertheless, here they stick.

After a time—most likely shorter than Myka feels it to be—Helena announces, “Pete and I have had a chat.” Her articulation of “chat” shapes it into a synonym for “fight.” “Who won?” Myka asks.

“I believe it was a draw. He opened by saying he ‘didn’t get how far along this thing had got.’” Hearing Pete’s diction in Helena’s mouth is disorienting. “He then said he wants to protect you.”

That’s so Pete. “I don’t need protecting.”

Eyebrow. “I noted that I want to protect you too.”

That thrills Myka. At the same time, she wants to object to it nearly as much as to Pete’s assertion... internal contradictions, what are they? She lands weakly on, “I hope that persuaded him.”

“Pete finds deeds more persuasive than words,” Helena says. “Thus I’m ‘on probation where Myka’s concerned,’ until he determines I won’t damage you.”

That’s so Pete too. But. “That is my determination.”

“I expressed a similar sentiment. He responded, ‘And how’d that go last time?’” Helena’s wince after she says this is awful, and Myka dares to assuage it, stepping toward Helena with open arms, drawing her into an embrace.

This time, their hug—simpler because its purpose is clear—works, bodies soft-querying at the start, then firm, intentional. Not quite catching fire, but this is a palpable first cut into whatever membrane of uncertainty is obstructing their movement.

Slow, slow, they move apart. Yet they stay close, the embrace’s softness lingering as Helena says, “Selfishly, I didn’t concede his point, which is in any case indeed down to your determination. But I did note that circumstances have changed since then. And to be fair I must report that he allowed they have.”

“You’re both right,” Myka says. But: “Was this Cleveland mission contrived to... further change the circumstances?”

“I didn’t contrive it,” Helena says, fast. “I would have, if I could, but I didn’t.”

“I’m not saying you did. I’m saying I always wonder, because I can’t help it, how much, or how little, of what happens just happens.”

“And the rest—or if I’m understanding your implication, the bulk—would be...?”

“Some sort of social engineering.”

“On whose part?” Helena asks.

That’s disingenuous. “Your engineers of choice. Regents. Mrs. Frederic. Mr. Kosan. Ententes thereof.”

Helena runs a hand through her hair—frustration at the thought of those entities? Or just showing off? Then she shrugs, as if to dismiss both possibilities. “I favor any engineering that places me in private proximity to you.”

The words are beyond welcome. And yet. “I’m not objecting to it. I’m just...”

“Objecting to it.”

“No. Questioning its provenance.”

“Why?”

That brings Myka up short. “What?”

“If it produces an outcome you desire, what does the provenance matter? In this case, at the very least.”

It’s a reasonable question, and Myka’s most-honest answer would have something to do with the ethical acceptability of poisonous-tree fruits. For now, though, she goes with, “Because I don’t like being manipulated.”

“Don’t you?” That’s flirty, a near-whisper, compelling Myka to lean even closer. Helena knows—she’s always known—the power she has over Myka. And she’s always known how—and when—to wield that power.

“The manipulator matters,” Myka says, responding to the flirt, accepting the push away from ethics.

“Then would that I could in truth say I contrived that relatively banal retrieval. And sabotaged the elevator, so as to draw our attention to... that to which it was drawn.”

“I can’t say I was displeased with the drawing,” Myka allows. “So if you had...”

Helena moves her lips, a sly hint of curve, and says, “Oh, but perhaps I’ve manipulated you into that sentiment.” Again, an ostentatious flirt.

Myka’s knowing that flirt-show for what it is? That’s Helena-specific. In the past Myka has always had to be told when she was being flirted with: “He was interested in you,” an exasperated friend would explain of an interaction Myka found incomprehensible, and she would cringe internally at her inability to recognize such an apparently basic, obvious display. But with Helena she’s never needed a flirt translator. From the first lock of gaze, unto this night’s myriad connections; from that first brush of finger, unto the way Helena has just allowed their hug to linger; from the first just-for-you conspiratorial grin, unto this very moment’s slip of smile—all the advances, heavy and light, have been legible to Myka.

And based on what she is now reading, she has no ground left. “Fine. I like being manipulated if it means.” She clears her throat. “If it means I get closer to you. You win.”

“Do I?” Here’s the disingenuity again, but now Myka understands its intentional irony. Helena follows up with, “This establishment has no elevator,” Helena says, like it’s nothing more than a structural observation that checks a box on a form, a minor note in an overall architectural assessment.

“No,” Myka agrees.

“How fortunate,” Helena says.

Myka waits for the conclusion, the help... but it’s not forthcoming, probably in a that’s-down-to-your-determination-as-well sense. The next cut is clearly Myka’s responsibility too. So: “It has stairs though,” she offers. “That go. Up. Well, both down and up. Of course. As stairs do.” Stop talking, she tells herself, but her nerves don’t heed the advice. “As they have to? I don’t know; do they? Escher?”

“Ess-sherr,” Helena echoes, clearly uncomprehending. That she lets Myka hear her knowledge gap is a gift. For Christmas?

“He’s an artist. I promise I’ll explain later. Eventually. Anyway the stairs. I think you just used them? Without incident?”

Myka expects a comeback. She gets none, which leaves her in some non-place, absent as it is of Helena-attitude... but what form had she expected such attitude to take? Aggression? Naughtiness? Or “naughtiness”... does the lack of all that mean Helena is offering a self more authentic than the one who charms and flirts? But that doesn’t seem quite right, for the charms and the flirts have always seemed clearly intrinsic Helena-talents. Deployed, yes, but not inauthentic. So if this Helena is deploying fewer such talents, maybe it’s that she’s... less?

Ironically—of course ironically, because all of this is so, so layered like that—a reduced Helena is an even greater bonus.

All of this, which Myka had better figure out, fast, how to appreciate and accommodate. “Of course that’s no guarantee that travel will go well,” she begins. “So we should try not to trip on the stairs... wait, no, that would make it our problem, which I don’t think this ever was. Maybe better: we shouldn’t let the stairs trip us.” She considers. “But no again: what I really mean is, we shouldn’t give the stairs a reason to trip us. Right?”

Helena looks at her and blinks, charmingly blank. “I have no idea. Are you through?”

“I have no idea either,” Myka admits, still directionless without Helena’s attitudinal lead. Is this, like the semi-botched hug of two days ago, a seemingly terrible sign?

“Merely delay.” A little head-shake follows. Signifying disappointment? Making light of Myka’s inability to get through? Then Helena says, “And yet I don’t know how much more delay I can withstand.”

Those raw words are mediated by nothing more than molecules—the nitrogen-oxygen-argon-et-cetera invisibilities conveying waves to Myka’s ossicles—and for the second time, Myka ideates, in full awe, She feels the same way I do.

“Me either,” she says, literally heartfelt, sending the words back, a final push through everything, molecules and otherwise, that has stood between them.

Testing, she offers Helena her hand. Helena takes it.

These hands together: not a first. Not even a second. In the present circumstance, that translates to something very like “comfortingly familiar.”

Under the aegis of that comfort, they ascend the stairs, Myka leading the way, marveling that she can. Against her pulling hand, Helena offers what seems a single erg of resistance, a display, an I-am-letting-you affirmation.

They cross the threshold of Myka’s room, and then. Then, after Myka makes one turn and twist, a closed non-elevator door stands, for once and at last, between them and the rest of the world.

Closed, the door is, but not locked. In the door-closing instant, turning the lock—adding its presumptive click—had struck Myka’s hand as overly brazen: that’s a frustrating flinch her hand will have to work out with whatever part of her brain-body complex was certain enough to start this, start it by saying what she did about the suitcase... the same part that keeps telling her that Helena’s feelings match hers.

As Myka turns her back on the now-closed door, she sees her bed. She sees her bed. Disconcerting, in this new now, how large a percentage of the room’s space this one piece of furniture seems to be occupying...

But she’s self-aware enough to know that she’s overlaying the bed’s current brain space, the desires it signifies, on the physical. Whatever’s going to happen—or not—will happen, she tries to force into that space in her brain, pushing it down... for desire, sometimes indistinguishable from expectation, has devastated her before. But she tries too hard: missing the mark, she slips and falls into some past-obsessed cerebral fold, once again lost, quietly but deeply, in that devastation.

“Here we are,” Helena remarks into the silence. “Or, harking back to engineering: Here we are? I continue to be unsure as to why. I can accept unclear provenance, but I’d prefer more explication regarding my allowable movements.”

That’s help. That’s rescue. But oh: movements. The word nearly derails Myka in a different direction, but she gathers herself, resetting to reply, “It’s explicable, but I honestly don’t have the energy to explicate even my minimal knowledge of the mechanism. The most basic base is, Claudia and Steve worked out a deal to use that pen, and there’s a list that you and I are on. As a ‘nice’ situation. Anyway if you want real details, you probably should sit down with Steve.”

A mind’s-eye image comes to her, of Helena and Steve leaning toward each other, bringing complementary concentration to bear on some topic large or small... and then an incipient sound strikes her: the chime of their voices together, both seriously and lightheartedly, ringing notes she hadn’t before this new instant thought to anticipate. “Actually I think you and Steve sitting down would be really pleasant. Even productive. Given that you’ll be sticking around. I mean, if you’re willing, and if, or at least until, some definitional issues get worked out. As I understand it.” As I devoutly hope, she doesn’t quite utter.

“That addresses... some issues, I suppose. Yet a question remains.”

This is a bonus of a day: Helena turning into the queen of understatement? It’s freeing; Myka laughs and says, “Tons of questions remain. Which one’s on your mind?”

Head-tilt. “You said you didn’t have the energy... to explain the mechanism,” Helena says.

More delay, Myka knee-jerks... but she knows the reflex immediately as wrongheaded, for this is conversation, the value of which she should have learned by now not to discount. “Right. Sorry, I’ll try: so the pen, and honestly speaking of questions and provenance, I still have some questions about provenance, which I’m trying to ignore, but anyway, Claudia found the file, and—”

“That is not the issue I had in mind.”

“Sorry. I’m not getting anything right, am I?” Because of course she isn’t getting anything right.

“We’ll see,” Helena says.

“So what did I jump the gun on?”

“You don’t have the energy to explain.”

This muddles Myka; it will probably require another reset. “I did say that, but I can try to—”

“Myka,” Helena says, and her name in that mouth will never cease to be a singular wonder. “What do you have the energy for?”

Here again is the difference between the attitude that Myka, in her more cynical moments, might have thought Helena would maintain, and the reality she is instead offering: the question is suggestive, but guilelessly, graciously so; its import is genuine, not manipulative. “How do you do that?” Myka asks.

“Do what?” This question, too, is guileless, gracious.

“Stop me.” It’s the best definition Myka can produce of what Helena has in fact done, what she seems consistently able to do.

Helena breathes several breaths, like she’s waiting for the right words to arrive... no, more like they’ve already arrived, but she’s preparing herself, gearing up to deliver them. “I don’t want to stop you,” she eventually says, and Myka should have used that windup to prepare herself: for the admission this is, for how this don’t-want utterance nevertheless is want.

They are the most vulnerable words Myka has ever heard.

New, new, new... the fact is that historically, people have tended to twist and shy from revealing weakness to Myka. Fallout from her tendency to judge, no doubt, but it means that this, too, is new: here is Helena, and maybe in some other world someone else might have made such a mattering move but here in this best one it’s Helena, Helena ignoring that character defect, Helena blowing past it for a chance to change everything.

Everything. “It’s Christmas,” Myka says, because it is. And because now it is.

“So give me this gift,” Helena rejoins.

“You too,” Myka says.

For the space of one breath, they both wait—bracing for whatever fate intends to use to stop them this time.

But this time nothing stops them, for in the ensuing instant, they both give that gift, blowing fast past everything that, slow, might stop them, grasping at this chance to change.

The jolt of their contact reminds Myka of—no: the shock of it strikes her as—artifact activation, that calling of vested power into being, that enabling of such longed-for release. Before the Warehouse taught her to recognize this transubstantiating, she would not have understood this moment’s raw unleashing, its summoning and compelling of stored potential to manifest as what it has lain in wait, in desperate wish, to become.

But also: all the blood in her body knows she has never felt such power released nonartifactually before now, before this.

Before this world-encompassing, world-creating first kiss.

“You’re thinking,” Helena murmurs into the space of a pause for breath. “I can taste it.”

“Sorry, sorry, sorry,” Myka scrambles, kicking herself for not staying in the unprecedented moment, for letting thought intrude, as she always does, and it’s always bad, and Helena is now rightfully offended and disenchanted and—

“It’s delicious,” Helena says, punctuating—proving—by meeting Myka’s lips again, again again again, as if determined to never stop.

Myka would be perfectly happy, oh so perfectly happy, with that forever-continuation, but something in her brain has begun gesturing wildly, demanding her attention... something about her hand... brazen... she rips her lips away and yelps, “Wait! I have to lock the door!”

“The thinking continues,” Helena says, stepping back, freeing Myka, and spreading her arms in a ta-da endorsement. “You’re brilliant.”

A memory: “Bunny, you think too much.” No I don’t, she can now answer. Not for her. In time, given time, she’ll tell Helena how much this matters, but now is not that time. Not when Helena is saying, “However, as we’re behind a locked door, I’ll wager I can make you stop thinking... for at least one consequential moment...”

To Myka’s extremely consequential—and utterly, blissfully unthinking—delight, Helena wins that bet.

****

Later. Lazily, later: “I genuinely cannot believe we were stuck in an elevator,” Myka says. A thing to say, said. “As the prelude to all this.” Which is what she really means.

Against Myka’s neck, newly and blessedly intimate, Helena says, “Your limited capacity for belief is noted. Are you equally incapable of believing that we had the apparently obligatory, if not preordained, chat?”

“Obligatory... preordained...” Myka is still so lazy, she’s practically drawling, and the out-of-character surprise of it pricks at the edge of her ability to stay in such a state. Stay, stay, stay... “Honestly... just clichéd.”

“And yet I was able to add a reference to my Myka-index. Entry: Mirrors, your artifact-related discomfort with.”

Myka’s heart seizes: Helena has a Myka-index. That, plus their proximity now, surely requires her to do better than the little falsehood she’d rested on with regard to the mirror-discomfort. Pushing laziness aside, with something too much like relief, she acknowledges, “I misled you. There was an artifact, but that isn’t what bothers me. The real thing is that mirrors make me observe myself too closely. Too much. Which I do all the time anyway.”

“I wish you’d delegate that observational task to me.” Sweet. Helena sounds so sweet. And not just sounds: Myka can tell (hopes she can tell) Helena means it. Which is even sweeter.

And which in turn entails a need for Myka to think seriously about being observed. Being protected. Being willing—but more important, able—to delegate in the correct spirit, even minimally. “I can try.”

“I can accept that,” Helena says, and the approval is better than sweet: it’s buy-all-the-books-you-want indulgent. “But I must ask: do you honestly think any part of the Cleveland interregnum was the elevator’s doing?”

The true answer references Myka’s entire Warehouse experience, from day one: “Yes and no.”

Helena nods, her hair sliding mink-soft on Myka. “I can accept that as well.”

“And whoever’s at fault, our chat was interrupted,” Myka says.

“As it was poised to progress beyond ‘chat’... but in truth I would rather this happened here than in an elevator. Better environs for still further progress. Don’t you agree?” Helena moves her unclad limbs against Myka’s, in transcendent emphasis.

Of course Myka agrees. Which leads her to a painful realization: “So maybe the elevator wasn’t as judgmental as I... judged it to be.”

Helena bestows a kiss to Myka’s shoulder—small, intimate—bringing Myka’s mind back, sharp, to what those bestowing lips have so recently accomplished, which threatens to render her again overcome. She shudders, which reduces her to embarrassment instead, but Helena is kind enough to feign obliviousness as she says, “You did note your own judgmental nature.”

Myka’s soul twinges in genuine regret, collapsing her lip-recall. She regrets that too. “Do you think I need to go back and apologize? I feel all guilty now.”

“The elevator has most likely moved on,” Helena says, quite dry.

“You’re saying it doesn’t have my memory.”

“I’m saying that even if it does—an open question, though the lack of elevator memoirs argues in the negative—it’s unlikely to care as much as you do about what it does remember.”

“Story of my life,” Myka sighs out. Now she’s really saying it, because memory, and caring too much about it, is that story.

“For the best, I suspect. Your life story and an elevator’s shouldn’t be entirely congruent, should they?” Helena questions, and that makes Myka laugh and want to read an entire library shelf’s worth of elevators’ memoirs. Feigning seriousness, Helena continues, “Although we might revisit so as to investigate whether its conveyance of Bob proceeded properly after our visit. That could be revealing.”

“Speaking of Bob, I feel bad for Nancy. Because of course he’ll blame her.”

“For elevator mischief?”

Ah. Helena doesn’t know. “For naughty.”

“Naughty what?”

“The list. He’s back on it, thanks to Steve and Claudia.”

“Is he.” Her satisfaction is evident, and for a moment she and Myka are one in their schadenfreude. That, too, is delicious. “Better they punish him than we do,” Helena then says.

This sends Myka back to guilt. “It feels like cheating. We didn’t use the artifact, but we get the personal gain.”

Myka’s shoulder now receives an indignant exhale. In its wake, Myka is dwelling on how she would have preferred another kiss, but Helena says, “I was speaking of soul-consequences, not this personal-gain fetish you all seem to embrace. Or perhaps it’s an anti-fetish, but in any case was no hard-and-fast dictum in my day.”

“I’ll reiterate that you should sit down with Steve,” Myka tells her, and Helena accedes with a nestle that erases the exhale.

Are words about such things—ambiguously motivated elevators, deserved punishments, fetishes of undetermined valence—a waste of time? No... for again, they are conversation... the value of which, Myka has lately learned, is even greater when the words it comprises land as soft breath on skin.

In fact Myka has learned a great many things in this locked-door recent while. There is, for one, the gratifying fact that she and Helena are physically compatible, at least as evidenced by this first performance, in terms both of wants and of abilities to satisfy them. But nearly as important, particularly in its physical component but not only that, is her new understanding that while her life has offered her several circumstances with which she’s been reasonably satisfied—that she hasn’t minded—this right-now is orders of magnitude above such contentment. She must have in some soul-stratum known this would prove true, or she would not have been panting in its pursuit so seemingly hopelessly, with such dogged desperation.

She says, with gratitude, “This is what I wanted.”

Getting what she wants: that, too, is new. And very. very nice.

“I would hope so,” Helena says. As if she had some genuine doubt about Myka’s motivation? “No, that’s rhetorical; rather, I did hope so. You’ve realized that hope, and... well. I should be clear: this is more than I dared to want.”

Myka, endeavoring to bring everything together, says, “So what you’re saying, want-wise, is that it’s a bonus. A nice one.”

“I’m saying, want-wise, that my wildest hopes have been exceeded. Surpassed. Transcended.”

It’s something, that reply. Also more than a little over the top, rhetorically, which Helena obviously knows. “Pleonast,” Myka accuses.

Helena laughs. “Not inaccurate. I suppose your ‘nice bonus’ translation is technically correct, if a bit... with apologies, pedestrian?”

“It’s less pedestrian than ‘Fred,’” Myka says. A “hm?” from Helena reminds Myka that she hasn’t yet made that translation evident. “I guess ‘Fred’ counts as esoteric instead, so never mind. You’re right, ‘bonus’ is pedestrian. So is ‘nice.’ But maybe it’s a good idea to call our whatever-it-is something pedestrian. I don’t want to scare it away.”

“And what precisely do you think would ‘scare it away’?”

“Bigness,” Myka offers, weakly. It’s what she means, but—

“‘Bigness?’” Helena says, quotes evident. “From the woman who so recently deployed ‘pleonast’? Should I fear that you’ll regularly revert without warning to Pete-reminiscent locutions?”

Myka chuckles. “Spend enough time with him, it’ll probably happen to you too.” The laziness is back. Earned back?

After a time—or perhaps Myka only after a time processes the sound—Helena says, “God forbid.”

A further lag ensues before Myka manages to respond, with a drowsy “I agree.”

Sleep follows. That is certainly earned.

****

Consciousness resumes for Myka with a banging on her door and a shout from Pete: “It’ s really not Christmas anymore, because Artie’s back!”

“Being Artie about it!” Claudia shouts in addition. “He says get to work!”

“I’m awake,” Myka says as she becomes more fully so. This is a Warehouse morning, and Warehouse alarms ring as they do.

Then: I’m not awake; I’m dreaming, because the back of Helena’s head and her naked shoulders greet Myka’s opening eyes. That’s a bracingly new alarm.

Helena’s voice comes next. “He says get to work,” she quotes, playfully, and Myka would be willing to wake to such an alarm with joy for the rest of her life.

But assuredly, if the content of that alarm is the dictate, then no one is dreaming. There’s really nothing for Myka to say except, “Sorry, but one more time: Story of my life.”

“Now? Our life,” Helena corrects.

That is a literally life-story-altering assertion, and a self-deprecating impulse tempts Myka to scoff it away. Behind that impulse, however, lies a clear-eyed recognition that she must meet what Helena has said. How, how, how...

...and then her mind starts fully working. She begins to formulate a plan. One that will, if possible, manifest her gratitude, but also, display her difference from the Myka she used to be, that one from so few hours ago, who had not yet known the dream-surprise of this awakening’s sight.

“I’m going to tell them I can’t get the door unlocked,” she says. Steve isn’t there. She can get away with it. She sits up, ready to head for the door and tell that story.

Helena touches Myka’s shoulder. “Would it lend credibility for me to suggest out loud that I genuinely can’t believe we’re stuck in your bedroom?” More play, but the touch is becoming a don’t-leave-this-bed grasp.

Myka leans to kiss the restraining hand. “I think that would make them think you planned it. And were being nefarious about it. Shocked incredulity isn’t really your strong suit.”

“It’s true that my capacity for belief outstrips yours.” She pulls down on the sheet, exposing both her body and Myka’s.

Talk about overdetermined. Or is it, in this as-yet-unmapped terrain, underdetermined? To be determined later, if at all... Myka somehow marshals sufficient will to rise from the bed, while telling herself that she is not, conceptually at least, actually leaving it. At the door, she fiddles with the lock, expressing frustration to support her claim, after which Pete and Claudia make noises about toolboxes and battering rams, respectively, and then mercifully depart.

“They’re going to try to get us out,” Myka reports as she returns to bed. “Maybe violently?”

“Let them,” Helena murmurs. “That elevator and its manifestation of mischief... comparatively amateur. You’ve bested it handily.”

That jolts Myka out of a back-of-mind consideration of whether she might be able to jam the bedroom door’s lock with something easily to hand, or perhaps whether her dresser might be pushed across the room to block the door entirely. She then considers, front of mind, the possibility that Helena—her physical presence, her physical provocation—is a bad influence... or at the very least a naughty one... for these thoughts are so, so out of character.

“That, on the other hand, is not the story of my life,” Myka says, and the fact of it does make her more than a little nervous.

“A new chapter,” Helena counters, reading Myka’s mind and setting it right—in three words. Such economy.

****

Myka and Helena are engaged in adding to that new chapter (or at the very least, drafting a steamy interlude of same, even if it isn’t essential to the plot) when a banging on the door interrupts them yet again. As does shouting: “We’re back!” yells Pete, unnecessarily.

“Hey, Myka, what’s going on?” That’s Steve. Far more quiet.

“I brought Steve,” Pete says, also unnecessarily.

“I gathered that from his voice,” Myka notes.

“But!” Pete says, in aha-I-got-you mode, “what if it turns out all I brought was his voice?”

“Then I guess he’d still be here in some sense?” she says; she’s thinking on the Helena-hologram, on what a lack of visual might have meant, on how a more ontologically disembodied voice would have made her believe Helena was there, there but standing on the other side of a door. How she would have wanted to take her own battering ram to that door. The hologram’s present non-presence had stranded her, stranded them, in a strange shared space, offering no barrier Myka could use her body to break violently through.

“But!” Claudia exclaims, jokey, fighting with Myka’s ache of reminiscence, “what if it’s just me, doing my Steve impression?”

“That’d be a different thing,” Myka concedes.

“You do a me impression?” Steve asks Claudia.

Who exhales so dramatically, Myka’s surprised the door doesn’t just blow open. “You have stood next to me while I did it.”

“I have?” Puzzled-Steve is honestly Myka’s favorite Steve.

“Are we not a team?” Claudia demands. “Myka does a Pete. Pete does a Myka. Naturally they both suck, but the point is, why don’t you do a me?”

“Because you’d kill me?”

“Guys,” Pete says, “this isn’t getting Myka and H.G. out of the bedroom.”

Claudia says, “But let me just. Myka, H.G., you guys do impressions of each other, right?”

Helena raises her arms, a gesture of observe-this!—or maybe it’s at-last!—and exclaims, “I feel compelled to express disbelief about this circumstance!”

It takes Myka a second to get it, but once she does, she shouts, “I love blooming onions!”

For quite some time, there’s silence from the other side of the door.

Then Steve says, “Am I the only one who’s extremely confused?”

“Usually, yes,” Claudia says. “Except now, no. I’m with you. Pete?”

“Myka loves blooming onions,” Pete says, slow; he’s the one having trouble now with belief. Myka can picture his gobsmacked face. “There’s my endless wonder for the day. Also, I gotta rethink a whole lot of stuff she said about what she was willing to eat.”

Myka presses an apologetic kiss to Helena’s lips (and how nearly unbelievable it is to feel comfortable with such a touch being swift, to not need to hoard, to believe there will be more), then extricates herself yet again from the sheets, the bed. She heads for the door: to make a show of unlocking it, to send them away temporarily so she and Helena can reassemble themselves to rejoin the world—but. Problem. Big problem. “Guys. I really can’t get the door unlocked now.”

“‘Now’?” Pete echoes.

“You mean you actually could before?” Claudia asks.

Moment of truth. So, fine, truth: “I didn’t actually try before.”

“Ha!” Claudia barks. “Are we still on impressions? That might’ve been a decent one, for real, because the attitude? Way H.G.”

“Thank you so much!” Helena chirps.

“H.G.,” says Claudia, with a whiff of pedantry—and that she feels free to express such an attitude toward Helena is most likely because she’s on the safe side of a closed door—“I was complimenting Myka’s impression.”

“But in it, you recognized my attitude.” Helena’s words are a full preen, and as she speaks, she’s rising from the bed, approaching Myka, slipping arms around her, such that Myka loses her ability to track what’s happening on the other side of the door, even as splinters of sound catch in her ears—“hinges inside,” “lock plate solid,” and finally, “break it down”—whereupon she realizes anew that neither she nor Helena is clothed, and that being caught and seen in that state will constitute a disaster that outstrips a great many of the others in her experience.

“We have to get dressed,” she breathes at Helena.

“Wait,” Helena says. “I suspect a realization is about to occur.”

At times, Helena can be eerily prescient. But what is it this time?

As if in answer, Claudia says, “I have a really depressing theory. Myka, can you get the window open?”, whereupon Myka understands Helena’s deduction: this isn’t mechanical; it’s artifactual. More specifically, list-artifactual.

She cannot open the window.

“Yeah,” Claudia says, a defeated I-knew-it. “I’d be all ‘try to smash it!’, but since I can’t see you try it and, like, bounce off the glass, what’s the point? I mean, go for it if H.G. wants the lulz.”

“I don’t know what that means!” Helena informs her. That too is a chirp, and Myka’s pleased to note it’ll probably head off the slapstick.

“Kind of a shame,” Claudia says, but with a drag, like she’s picturing it, and Myka is less pleased to have to devoutly hope that picturing involves everybody fully clothed. “Anyway I hate to say it, but it’s pretty clear this is on us, the list-makers.”

Pete groans. “You were supposed to check it twice! It’s right there in the song!”

“Listen, we seriously argued about the wording,” Steve says.

“And oh guess what!” Claudia says, defeat apparently tabled for the moment. “Everybody in the world is going on about their day as usual due to the unshocking news that I was right.”

“No, I was right. I was the one who said ‘proximity’ was likely to be too vague,” Steve says.

Myka’s inclined to agree with him.

“Bro, I was,” Claudia says, “because I said it was likely to be not vague enough.”

Well. Now Myka’s inclined to agree with Claudia.

She sees the conundrum. “I appreciate it either way,” she says, and that quiets the combatants.

“Regardless, we obviously need different wording,” Steve diplomats.

“I think our first mistake was thinking an artifact would word like we thought it should. You need to get more into its head than you did before.”

“I was in a hurry before,” Steve says, a little less diplomatically. “Because you were yelling at me.”

“I am so so so so glad,” Pete hosannas, “that none of this is on me.”

Myka cannot let that stand. “Who gave his cousin a thing?”

A pause. Then, “Whoops,” Pete says, very sad-clown.

Later, she’ll thank him again, but for now, she doesn’t mind having wielded this little shiv, inflicting this little nick, so he’ll remember that there is, or should be, always a downside.

“How fortunate they’re not asking for our help,” Helena says, bringing her back to the upside.

“Who’s better with words though? You certainly are,” Myka says.

“You hold your own, Ms. ‘Pleonast.’ But ssssh. Don’t remind them.”

“We’ll fix it, we promise!” Claudia says.

“Don’t feel compelled to hurry!” Helena directs, cheerily.

Steve says, “I think she means ‘Don’t yell at Steve this time.’” His hopefulness is clear.

“He isn’t wrong,” Helena notes into Myka’s ear.

Pete announces, “I think she means bow chicka wow wow.”

“He isn’t either,” Myka notes back. “Even less so?”

Helena answers by kissing her with intent.

Claudia snorts. “I think no matter what she means, Artie’s gonna kill us.”

“Alas, the least wrong of all,” Helena grants with a sigh.

The wrecking crew’s voices fade, and they may still be making non-wrong statements, but for Myka and Helena there is at last, again, peace. And once Myka pulls Helena back to bed—a delectable spin she is now bold enough to put on their dynamic—there is at last again not-peace.

Lazily later—and these lazy laters are vying to be Myka’s favorite at-last—she says, “Not to overinterpret the artifact’s thinking, but this feels very nice. As an in-proximity situation.”

“This particular proximity seems more than a bit naughty, however,” Helena says, incongruously matter-of-fact. She isn’t wrong. “Pete obviously made an inference to that effect. Perhaps if Steve and Claudia can use that as a way of writing us out of the current situation.”

“I’m sure that’s for the best,” Myka says, with no small amount of regret, first attached to her embarrassment at Pete, Steve, and Claudia’s involvement in that inference, but even more due to the sad fact that this beginning must come to an end.

“Are you...” Helena’s words are a smile.

“No. I’d much rather stay here forever with you.” Her practical side then takes over, as even Helena’s body twined around hers can’t prevent. “But if they don’t fix it we’ll die—pretty soon, unless they can figure out how to get food in.”

“Would the artifact allow us to starve? That seem the antithesis of a situation that might be termed ‘nice.’”

“‘Termed’? Isn’t problematic terminology why we’re still here?”

“Granted. But of course we’ll die regardless.”

The casual, literal fatalism trips Myka up. She temporizes, “The artifact might have something to say about that,” placeholding, as she finds her way to a real response: “But artifact aside... will you though?” It’s a question about... well, about whether Helena is, for want of a better word, real. Speaking of terminology. “Die,” she adds, not as a word she must expel, for its terrible taste, but one she feels a need to place. As a marker.

Helena takes a moment. Before, Myka would have read that pause as censure; it would have pushed her overboard into I-have-overstepped agony. But the plates have shifted, and her footing feels—strange but nice (oh, nice!)—sure.

The answer, when it comes: “Here with you, I don’t want to be bronzed again. So yes.”

That leaves Myka warm, yet shaking her head. “I honestly don’t know a lot about romance.”

“Don’t you?” Helena asks, all of her limbs beginning to move again against all of Myka’s.

Which, for the moment, Myka resists: “So I’m not sure if it’s weird that I find it incredibly romantic for you to have said yes to dying.”

Now Helena’s smile is a smile; she rears away, back and up, showing Myka her face’s full measure of delight. “Weird or no, whatever you find romantic, I’m inclined to approve. If that’s acceptable to you.” Helena bows her head, as if to formally request Myka’s benediction.

The very idea of such an ask floods her with happy tenderness. “Is it okay for me to find that romantic too?”

“‘Okay’ seems a sadly weak word to convey the extent of my approval,” Helena says. “Further, I find it romantic for you to ask my permission to find any thing romantic. Unnecessary, yet romantic. Is that ‘okay’ as well?”

“It’s a relief,” Myka understates. “Can I call it a romantic relief?”

“I don’t see why not. However, to what extent is it romantic, or non-, that we seem to be finding—or placing—ourselves in recursive loops of romantic-allowable querying?” Helena accompanies this academically focused, seemingly serious question with yet more limb movement.

Myka is actively in bed with someone who’s questioning the romantic quotient of recursive loops of romantic-allowable querying. It is a level of “nice” that she could never ever have ideated on her own. “I genuinely cannot believe any of this,” she says.

“I can assure you that I will be taking some time—if allowed, and thus perhaps only in an ideal world, some great length of time—to determine whether your incredulity will ever cease to be tedious and elevate itself to ‘romantic.’ Some great length of time,” she repeats, playfully.

Myka knows Helena’s appreciation for time’s length is far greater than any ordinary individual’s... so this smacks of a promise. Myka’s gratitude rises, as does her willingness to pursue any and all romantic activity, despite her apparently romance-dampening incredulity... but then the limbs pause. “However,” Helena says.

“What’s this ‘however’?” Myka asks, now selfishly impatient.

Helena has, obviously and of course, heard and felt the impatience. Myka’s neck receives a press of lips, a curve of smile. “However: fortunately, at this juncture, belief isn’t required. Participation, on the other hand, is. So?” This is something Myka has always suspected was a Helena tactic, but here in intimacy she recognizes as true: challenge not for its own sake, but as an attitude in which to wrap something different, deeper, some authenticity Helena isn’t fully willing, or doesn’t quite yet know how, to express.

Myka moves her own limbs, her limbs that are even longer than, and just as flexible as, Helena’s. She moves them against Helena’s. She cannot believe she is doing so; nevertheless, she is. She is participating.

She places a chock under this particular incredulity, for unlike facts, the quality of emotions can escape her if she doesn’t consciously tie them down. She paints the word “bonus” on the emotion-wheel as she secures it, to ensure she elevates that felt quality too. Then she eases herself back to the full experience of the physical, this smooth beauty—and that is the word for every touch-heat-rise their bodies execute—that she and Helena together are creating... are enjoying.

She sighs soft against Helena’s neck; in return, Helena offers again her lips-on-skin smile.

They are participating. In this. Together. Lips on skin.

“So,” Myka agrees.

END

#bering and wells #Warehouse 13 #fanfic #holiday (but not Gift Exchange)#Bonus #part 4 #Pete and the Meerkats is probably a stupid band name #but it works for a Hanna-Barbera animated show #in which they play concerts and solve crimes #anyway yes I did go back to a particular stuck-in-a-location well here #but it certainly beats an elevator #anyway the story didn’t fully adhere (to itself) as I intended #but I hope there were a couple moments #coming next will be another Christmas story #because god forbid I get to anything other than Gift Exchange and Christmas #which I have to hope is better than nothing #PS if you don't vote if you're eligible and physically can #then guess who's fixing to use that pen to write your name on the wrong side of the list #ME #which may not sound sufficiently scary but there you have it

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caffeinatedowlbear · 12 days ago

Text

On Handsome AIs and identities

This was going to be a comment in the discussion under this post, but I cannot be stopped.

After clearing up semantics, OP and I are in agreement that AI Jack was created by means of a ‘brain download’, however BL’s near-magical technology would handle that.

What comes next is determining to which degree AI Jack is or isn’t the same person as Jack 1.0. I’m afraid you’ve triggered an unskippable cutscene.

To clear this up, I propose we answer the following questions:

1. Is AI Jack a SEPARATE being from Jack 1.0?

2. Is AI Jack a DIFFERENT being than Jack 1.0?

Is he separate?

As far as I’m concerned, yes, because:

He is a new being: AI Jack is a digital entity that had not existed before being created by Nakayama: and we know that Nakayama did make the initial primitive AI we meet in TPS; we can imagine the AI Jack in Tales being a much, much, much upgraded version of that.

He is operatIONAL, even if not operatING: based on how easily AI Jack is activated in Tales, we can assume that the 'brain download' wasn’t being passively dumped into a static database, but incorporated into a digital, self-aware system capable of autonomous thought and action, once activated.

“But he wasn’t activated until—”

Irrelevant! As far as I'm concerned, a being in stasis is still a being. It exists, and it’s alive, just not presently active. If I wouldn’t be okay with destroying an active self-aware AI, I also wouldn’t be okay with destroying a fully functional AI that hasn't been activated yet. Killing the latter would NOT feel more okay than the former.

Is he different?

OP has pointed out that from the point where Jack 1.0’s and AI Jack’s experiences start to differ, they become separate beings. Based on my points above, I argue that AI Jack is a separate being from jump. But paraphrasing OP, I would say that 1.0 and AI become different beings the moment their experiences diverge.

And that moment is the very next second after 1.0’s brain download begins. Because the brain being downloaded is a snapshot in time, so as soon as 1.0 makes a new memory, including the memory of uploading said snapshot… continuity has been broken. 1.0 now has a memory that AI doesn’t.

Which kind of means that the only time Jack 1.0 and AI Jack are the same person is the split second between 1.0 starting the brain download and the download commencing?

(As an aside: if we imagine that New-U's are canon, they are meant to instantaneously back up the user's brain at the time of death, and digistruct a new body into which the brain contents are uploaded. Similar for Fast Travel or any other teleportation: you're scanned, destroyed, then recreated at the destination. As long as only one copy of you exists at a time, your continuity is preserved. If a spare copy is left behind, we have a problem.)

(As an extra aside: the show Living With Yourself features a darkly funny, but pretty solid exploration of what happens when a spare copy of you gets left behind.)

Revisiting our questions now…

1. Is AI Jack a SEPARATE being from Jack 1.0? - yes, because AI Jack has existed at the same time as Jack 1.0

2. Is AI Jack a DIFFERENT being than Jack 1.0? - yes, because AI Jack’s memories are never exactly the same as Jack 1.0’s, due to the snapshot nature of the hypothetical brain download

Now, for the trillion-dollar question… Does being a separate and different ENTITY from Jack 1.0 make AI Jack a different PERSON?

This one, I’m afraid, has too many layers, because wouldn’t you know it, being a person is complicated. XD

For the purposes of this discussion, let’s take the Felicity example. If the memory of what Jack 1.0 did to Felicity are part of AI Jack’s memories, does this mean that AI Jack also inherits the blame for those actions?

I don’t know. For real.

It’s easy to say ‘of course he does, because he’s a direct continuation of Jack 1.0’ - except that he’s not, as I’ve described above.

‘But even AI Jack himself, in Tales, views himself as a direct continuation of 1.0’ - but just because he thinks that doesn’t make it true.

I think the only way that makes sense to me is to ask: if Jack 1.0 were still around, whom would you hold responsible for the damage done to Felicity? For the death of Bloodwing? For the destruction of New Haven?

If you had to put someone on trial for that, would you go after the man who actually did it? Or after the man who was made to believe that he had?

So if we wouldn’t have held AI Jack responsible for Jack 1.0’s actions if the latter was still around, I don’t think that 1.0’s death should change things.

AI Jack is a Separate and Different being than Jack 1.0, and should not be held responsible for any of 1.0’s actions.

The defense rests--

Wait, actually…

There is one exception to my closing statement.

AI Jack is a Separate and Different being than Jack 1.0, and should not be held responsible for any of 1.0’s actions UNLESS he chooses to accept that responsibility for whatever reason.

Now, in what situation would AI Jack WANT to be held responsible for Jack 1.0’s actions? When accepting responsibility is inextricably tied with some experience of being Jack 1.0. When he would rather think of himself as Jack 1.0, with everything that entails, rather than be completely separate from him.

When there’s something in his-not-his memories that he wants to think of as his own, even if it means accepting the pain and grief and other baggage that comes with it.

Consider the following segment from my fic, in which AI Jack, by now pretty invested in the idea that he is NOT Jack 1.0, believes he has a fleeting chance to speak to the ghost of Angel (emphasis added).

“Angel.” Just saying her name again makes Jack want to drop to his knees, but he’s not gunning for pity here. “I am… so sorry. I’m— I’m told you understand that I’m not… him, but really, I’m not not him, either, ‘cause I— I remember it all. Better than he ever did, ever could, ‘cause he never could go back and look, really look at it all, and I can. I… have. I’ve seen everything he’s done, I’ve learned what you did, and I got it, I finally got it, too fucking late, of course, but for what it’s worth— Yeah, no, I know it ain’t worth much. Just like your dad, always a day late and a dollar short when it comes to the stuff that matters. Gahd, you really have been dealt a shitty hand as far as parents go, eh, baby girl? Far as too many things go, really. You didn’t deserve what happened to you, what he— what I— Fuck.” He forces a chuckle. “Yeah, yeah, I know. Language.” Seriously, this identity crap is starting to really get in the way. Story of his digital life, huh. Guess he’d better pick a pronoun and stick with it. Is he saying sorry for what the other Jack did, or taking on the man’s actions as his own? Is he offering an apology, or just condolences? Is he a bystander, an accomplice, or the perpetrator? Well, he can’t be either of the last two, ‘cause he, this Jack, never did anything to her! He never even met her! He wasn’t even around at the time, he wasn’t alive, for his given value of living! He’s more than within his rights to absolve himself of the guilt. But if he does that, if he’s a bystander offering condolences, that means he’s talking to a stranger right now. If he absolves himself of the guilt, if he stands aside from the horrors Jack 1.0 is responsible for… then he’s got no claim to any of the good memories, either. He never lost a daughter ‘cause he never had one. He was never married, he never ran Hyperion, he had nothing, he was nothing till he got sparked into consciousness when Rhys jammed a data drive into his cybernetics. He’s not Handsome Jack. He’s not any Jack. He’s just a confused collection of ones and zeroes, a digital ghost mixed up in old memories he doesn’t know what to do with. She’s a stranger to him, and he’s no-one and nothing to her, and he’s got no business talking to her, and none of this has any meaning. Well. Fuck that. “Angel. I’m sorry for what I did to you. I’m so sorry, baby. You deserved so much better than that. So much better than me. So much better than this bullshit apology. I mean, it’s not all bullshit, ‘cause I mean every word, but it’s still bullshit ‘cause it can’t fix a thing. There’s nothing to be fixed. You’re— you’re gone, and it’s my fault. All of it. You did nothing wrong. It was all me. I never saw. I never understood. I left you with no choice. I’m sorry.”

So, in summary… in my many, many thousands of words of writing about AI Jack, I ask the question ‘but IS he Jack?’ many times, but I never answer it. It’s always up to AI Jack himself to decide. His feelings about it change a lot as time goes on, but ultimately, he accepts that his identity is a liminal space between ‘Handsome Jack’ and ‘Not Handsome Jack’.

Is AI Jack the same person as Handsome Jack 1.0, or is he someone different?

Yes.

#ai handsome jack #handsome jack #borderlands #tales from the borderlands

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unicorncornflakes · 2 years ago

Text

Master List

Aemond Targaryen

Series

Wedding Dress (Finished) - Modern AU!

Dark Desire (In progress) - Modern - AU!

Little One (In progress) - Canon Divergence AU!

Political Rivals (In progress) - Modern AU!

Prologue | Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 | Next Chapter (Coming soon)

Summer Isles (In progress) - Modern AU!

Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 | Next Chapter (As soons as possible)

Family Sins (in Progress) - Modern AU!

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Next Part (As soons as possible)

One Shots

Family Sins - One Shot || Modern!Aemond Targaryen x Reader

Sneak Peeks

Spin the Bottle | Modern Au | Aemond Targaryen x Reader | Sneak Peek

Everything Changes | Modern Au | Alpha!Dark! Aemond Targaryen x Omega!Niece!Reader | Sneak Peek

#aemond targaryen x reader #aemond targaryen x y/n #aemond targaryen x you #aemond x y/n #aemond smut #aemond targaryen imagine #aemond targaryen x fem!reader #aemond targaryen smut #aemond targaryen modern au

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so-long-soldier-writes · 9 months ago

Text

Dog Days Are Over

kai parker x reader

summary: the post-wedding heartbreak never ceases. without him, life seems to lose its meaning. but despite your best efforts to depart and chase the void that seems to call to you, somehow you're held back. someone refuses to let you go.

tags: tw: su1c1de attempt & thoughts, blood, blood drinking, vampirism / transition, heretics / siphoning, emotional hurt / comfort, light angst, heartache, anger / mild violence, slow recovery, domesticity, friendships, found family, canon divergence, loosely follows plot of seasons 7 & 8

word count: 8.2k

a/n: I'm obsessed with found family x heretics, if you can't tell. I've had this idea for months and finally was able to execute it! (and by execute, i mean write the whole thing in 10 hours & edit for 2 days)

A subtle weight rests on your body; a heaviness in your chest makes it hard to breathe. You don’t fight it. In a couple of minutes, it won’t matter anyway. The wound in your stomach bleeds, soiling your bright blue shirt with a dark red tint. Your heart rate slows, and your eyes flutter. The world around you is getting darker by the second. The end is near, and you swear you can taste it. To whether it’s heaven or hell you are headed, you don’t mind. Or maybe, it’s nothingness. A void. Either way, anything is better than here.

Your short gasps for breath begin to even out as your heart fails. Pumping no longer seems necessary, so the organ quits. It succumbs to the state that your brain has been in for weeks: numb. Cold. Dead.

A glimpse of life flashes before your wilting eyes. A figure running towards you, putting their hands on your cheek. Your lover, maybe, greeting you for an eternity of peaceful nothingness together. Your lips part in the joy of seeing him. Blood trickles from your mouth; the wound finally shutting down your body. Your eyes close and you welcome the darkness.

<•>

The next time you wake up, it’s still dark, and you automatically assume it’s the void that called you home. The Other Side collapsed over a year ago, but supernatural creatures have died since, and nobody ever knows where they go. Here, presumably. To the dark.

After a moment, your eyes begin to adjust and you move to sit up on your knees. The ground beneath you is hard and cold, like cement. It is not at all welcoming or comforting, but maybe that’s how death is supposed to feel. You shrug, not caring yet. Soon, you won’t feel anymore. Soon, you’ll enter the void, or cross the Styx, or whatever is the last necessary step of dying. Soon, you’ll be free.

You stand, then stumble. One minute, your mind and soul feel empty, but in the next, an insatiable hunger takes over your body. It knocks you back to your knees. A whine escapes your throat. Death should not feel this way. Death is supposed to be empty. Something’s wrong.

“Hello?” You call into the void, not expecting an answer.

Instead, you hear a far-off voice, talking not to you, but someone else. “She’s awake.”

Fear thumbs in your heart. You put a hand over it, only to realize after a couple seconds that it’s not beating. The hunger increases as the sound of footsteps approaches. This isn’t happening. You can’t be alive; shouldn’t be. You chose death. Wanted it. Sought it.

But someone had other plans.

<•>

“Hello?” A girl calls out, maybe to you. She waits, then pulls back a small window, letting a little light in your supposed void. “Where are you?”

“What do you want?” You ask, straining. Your voice comes out weaker than you like it to be.

“I brought you something.”

“Nora, turn on the light,” another girl says.

“Would you like a light?”

No, you think. You’d like to be dead. But… you’d also like to identify your captors. “Okay.”

An overhead light comes on a moment later. You shut your eyes tight as it floods your senses, then open it once you start to adjust.

“Too much?”

“Was there a lamp option?” You sass.

“I could find a lamp,” the second girl suggests.

“We’ll find her one in a moment,” the first turns back to you, “can you see us alright?”

Finally, you can. Two girls peek through a window, one brunette and one blonde. They seem sweet, not like the high school mean girls’ type, but you’re still cautious. “I can see you.”

“Good. We have something for you.”

The smell of blood attacks your senses. Your hunger grows.

You make two big strides to the pair, before realizing something. You weren’t a vampire before, so why should the smell of blood excite you now? You stop, shaking your head. “No.”

“You have to drink,” the blonde urges. You have to complete the transition, she doesn’t say, despite it on her mind.

“No, I wanted to die. I tried to die.” You lock eyes with the brunette. “One of you turned me.”

“Y/N, you can’t die. You-”

“How do you know my name?! Who are you?!”

“That doesn’t matter right now, what matters is that you drink.”

“No!”

“Y/N, please!” She holds the bag further out to you.

Your weak body begs for you to drink, but your mournful heart refuses. “No!” You shout again. “I’m not drinking your blood; I’m not transitioning!”

“You have to!” The blonde agrees with her friend. “You’re getting paler by the second.”

“Good. Then I’ll have lived and died a witch.”

“You’re too young to die, Y/N. You can’t give up. He wouldn’t want you to give up.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Please, drink, and then we can talk.”

“No. You can’t make me.”

“I can,” she argues.

“You won’t come in here with me. With me so close to transitioning. That would be suicide.”

“Well we can’t let you die, either.”

You stand off with the two girls. They seem to communicate telepathically between themselves. It’s quite frightening to not know what they’re thinking. You stare at them, wondering who they are and why they care that you live.

“You’ll thank us later, Y/N, just drink.”

“I don’t want to live. If I wanted to, I wouldn’t have stabbed myself.”

“You won’t feel this heartbreak forever,” the blonde speaks, like a Hallmark card you didn’t ask to receive. You roll your eyes.

“I think we have to,” the first girl says, hand undoing the bag.

“I agree.”

Before you can ask about their apparent plan, they’re opening the door and swarming to you.

“Get out!” You cry. The blonde holds your left arm, while the brunette backs you up to the wall. “I don’t want it.”

“You’ll be grateful one day,” she sticks her promise to you again.

“If it’s not today, there’s no point. I can’t take this anymore.”

“Take it from someone who spent a hundred years in solitary confinement, I know loneliness. It hurts. It’s worse than a knife to the stomach,” she references your attempt. It’s still apparent on your clothes. “But life isn’t all sad. Sometimes it can be beautiful.”

“I’ve seen it beautiful,” you argue, tears forming in your eyes, “I've seen it, yet I’ll never see it again.”

“You have to trust us. Trust yourself. You can be happy again.”

“No.”

“Yes, Y/N, come on. Drink the blood.” The brunette holds the bag to your face, pinning you against the wall.

“No.” In a last ditch effort, you raise your free arm and smack the bag out of her hand. It flies, then hits the stone wall across from you and splatters. Her eyes go wide, and when she looks back at you, a triumphant look shines in your eyes.

“What did you do that for?!” The blonde shouts. “Waste a perfectly good bag!”

“It’s okay, Mary Louise, just means she’ll get a taste of the real stuff.” Before you can ask, the vampire before you is biting her wrist and shoving it between your lips. You fight, kicking and swinging, but the girls are much stronger. “Keep her still,” she nods to her friend, “just a little more.”

Your wrist starts to burn. You glance down for a second and see an orange glow emitting from the point of connection on your skin. “What-”

The brunette takes advantage of your parted lips and shoves her wrist further into your mouth. “Okay, stop,” she says, and the girl siphoning stops.

Your body is weak, but your heart feels strong. It doesn’t beat, but the blood filling your stomach powers it. The siphoning, however, tolls on your body. The girls let go of you, watch you daze, then gently help your body to the floor. You’re out like a light, asleep.

<•>

You’re much stronger the second time awake. Stronger, with a vengeance. First, you need to find out who those girls were, how they were able to siphon you, and why they wanted to keep you alive. Then, you need to find the nearest piece of wood and send your soul to the void like you had planned.

You look around, searching for anything sharp and anything wooden. You realize now that you’re in a cellar with absolutely nothing that could be used as a weapon, and the only thing in there with you is another blood bag. Angrily, you kick it and it splatters. The smell reaches your nose and you curse yourself for wasting it, now hungry. On the bright side, the violent act seems to let your captors know you’re awake. They walk gingerly down the stairs only a moment later, then switch on a lamp before opening the window.

“Y/N?” The brunette starts, tone cautious.

Your reply is bitter. “What?”

“I’m sorry we had to hold you down. We didn’t want it to come to that.”

“But you had to drink. We couldn’t let you die.”

“What do you care? And who are you?” Then, “and why could you siphon me?”

“If we let you out, will you run?”

“We can’t let her out, Mary. I don’t trust she won’t hurt herself.” You scoff. She turns back to you. “I’m Nora, this is Mary Louise.”

“And? How do you know me?”

“Well, we don’t, but we recognized you from pictures.”

“Pictures? What pictures?”

The girls hesitate. A name rests on their tongues, but they don’t utter it. Unbeknownst to you, they fear saying it out loud will drive you mad. Names have power, and in this case, a lot of it.

“Doesn’t matter right now,” the brunette, Nora, says instead. “What matters is that you get better.”

You laugh dryly. “I would’ve been better off dead.”

Mary Louise seems to get agitated at that. “Stop saying that! You have to live! He’d-”

“Mary, don’t say anything.” The girl quiets immediately.

“Why do you care so much if I live? Who’s he? Where am I?”

“Technically, you’re in the Salvatore house. The basement. We’d give you a room if we could trust you, but it’s too great a risk that you’d hurt yourself still.”

“Why the boarding house? Where’s Damon? Stefan? Do they know I’m here?”

The girls share glances but confess nothing. “You’re safe here. We are not going to hurt you.”

“That’s what people often say before hurting said captive.”

“You’re at more risk by your own hand than ours,” Mary retorts. “You stabbed yourself in an alley behind a dumpster. You’re lucky Nora and I sensed the blood.”

“Luck is not the term I’d use. If you couldn’t tell, I did it on purpose.”

They sigh as if they knew it was on purpose, but for some reason they’re not telling you, they still felt the need to save you.

You ask again, “why did you turn me? Why not just let me die?”

Nora hands you a new blood bag. “Drink this.”

Rolling your eyes more, you refuse. “No.”

“Drink, and we’ll give you answers.”

“C’mon, you’ve already transitioned,” Mary argues, “you might as well not dessicate.”

You know she’s right. Angrily, you snatch the bag and drink it down quickly. When you toss the bag back at Nora, she sighs.

“You’re a friend of a friend of ours,” she says vaguely. “He would want you to live. He’d want you to live your life and die naturally, rather than die young and heartbroken.”

“That ‘naturally’ part is no longer happening-”

“-which is not our fault,” Mary snaps, interrupting you.

“Mary,” the other calms, “patience. Yes, when you die, it will no longer be natural, but at least as a vampire, you have a shot at life again. In a sense, maybe, it’s a gift. You can leave if you want to leave. You can go where you want. You’re not bound by human laws or rules. You can be free.”

“I don’t want to be free. I don’t want anything if I can’t-” you stop yourself. “I didn’t ask for this.”

“I know. But someday, you’ll realize life is worth living, and you’ll be glad that you got a second chance. Take it from someone - both of us - who were given one.”

“Easy for you to say, you have each other. I have no one.”

“Maybe we can be someone for you, if you trust us.”

“Yeah, not likely.”

“Give it time, Y/N. We’ll bring you another bag later.”

As she shuts the window, you shout. “You didn’t even answer all my questions!” But they’re gone. The lamp remains on, but you’re left to your thoughts, alone.

<•>

The same cycle repeats for days. Weeks, even. The longer the mystery girls keep you locked up, the angrier you get. They arrive, open the window, practically force you a bag, spew bullshit about how you’ll get better, then leave. Two, sometimes three times a day. No one else ever visits, although one time, they had a third girl - Valerie - join them. She didn’t talk much, but she sure did seem to study you.

That day, after realizing there were more people in the house than just the two of them, you grow restless. Your mind is understimulated and bored. Your heart is broken and sore. You haven’t seen daylight in god knows how long. The next time Nora and Mary Louise come down, you’re ready to pick a fight.

You drink the bag without complaints, then send it flying back through the barred window along with a string of shouts and cuss words. They’ve given you the bare minimum of information, despite promising an explanation, and saving you from death just to lock you in a cellar seems cruel and unfair. They want you to live, yet treat you like a wild animal. They swear they’re protecting you, but you can’t see them as anything but kidnappers.

Nora remains calm throughout your rants, though Mary Louise looks on the verge of tears. It hurts, a little, to see her so upset, but if she could feel the agony you feel day-after-day, maybe she’d understand your pain.

After every last word on your mind is spat out to the girls, Nora gives you a look that you hate. It reads that she sympathizes; she cares, in her own way, but she keeps you confined for your own good. You hate to admit it, but she’s right. If they had even given you a pillow, you’d find a way to hurt yourself. Even if you kill yourself daily just to be unconscious most of the time. Still, you scream at them. How you didn’t ask to live; how you were ready to die; how you can’t live without him, and he’s gone. You think Nora doesn’t understand, but she does. They both do.

She doesn’t tell you she does until you settle. And when you do, she finally tells you all of it.

<•>

“Your silencing spells are weakening with her anger. She’s literally breaking them down, there’s so much pain in her screams,” Valerie tells the girls. “You better get her under control quickly, or Lily will have something to say about it.”

“She’s just facing the worst part of her transition. All the pain is hitting her at once, coupled with the fact that her lover is dead. Give her a break.”

“You shouldn’t have turned her at all, Nora.”

“Well I couldn’t very well let Kai’s girlfriend kill herself out of heartbreak. We owe it to him to save her.”

“Some people don’t want to be saved.”

“She doesn’t want to die,” Nora counters, “she just doesn’t want to live without him.”

“And now she’ll live forever without him.”

“I’m going to help her find happiness in this life. Even if he’s not here, she needs to know life is worth it to hold on and find something that makes you happy again.”

“A heartbroken vampire in love with a murdered sociopath can be a very dangerous thing.”

“So can a previously dessicated heretic still in love with her ex-lover from the eighteen hundreds,” Nora sasses. “She’ll be okay, she just needs time.”

“I bet Mary Louise won’t like you devoting so much time to a girl that’s not her.”

Mary enters the conversation from the kitchen. She leans against the doorframe, a small smirk on her lips. “Mary quite likes the girl, actually. She’s grateful to Kai for feeding us and busting us out of that god-awful prison world, and she knows how much Y/N meant to him. And, she likes seeing her girlfriend put so much effort into healing someone else’s broken heart.”

Valerie rolls her eyes, defeated. “Whatever. Just put up new silencing spells, because the neighbors will start to complain.”

<•>

That afternoon, the girls visit you and prepare themselves for a new string of cuss words. The modern day tongue seems to have many at the ready, and the pair are always surprised to hear the variations you spew at them. Although, when they open the window this time, they’re shocked to find you sitting criss-cross, in the middle of the floor, sobbing heavily. Your hands cover your face, and you seem to neglect to notice their presence. Nora’s heart breaks. In the moment, you remind her of Alice in Wonderland in her sea of tears. She recalls reading that book over a century ago and relating to lost little Alice. Now, she’s transported back in time as she looks at you.

“Y/N?” She asks cautiously. You look up, glance at her, but then dart your eyes back to the ground. “Are you okay?”

“How is life supposed to get better? How do I live after all this tragedy? Where do I go from here?”

“That’s something we’d like to help you find out, if you’d let us.”

“That’s why we turned you,” Mary adds, “so that you could find it, and have friends along the way. We want to help you.”

You raise your head back up to them. “I can’t do it. I’m not strong enough for it.”

“You are perfectly capable of living a life you can be proud of. You just need a little push to get there.”

“And how am I supposed to get there, living in here? In this cellar?”

“This is only temporary. This is for your safety, until you find it in yourself to want to live. ‘Til the desire to hurt yourself is gone, okay?”

“We have another bag for you,” Mary says, tossing it to you.

You drink it unquestioningly, and they prepare for the shouting. This time, however, it never comes. You only nod to the girls, then lie on your back and continue to cry.

<•>

A month after your transition, you finally settle. Most of the anger and tears have subsided, and the boundary and silencing spells hold without wavering. Nora and Mary Louise want nothing more than to tell you their full story, and they think you’re finally ready to hear it.

For the first time ever, you smile at them. “Hi.”

“Hey,” Nora says calmly. “How are you feeling?”

“Like I want to die,” you blurt out, but then sigh. “But okay. A bit numb.”

“You haven’t turned off your humanity, have you?” Mary jokes lightly.

“And be even more bored out of my skull? No.”

“Good. Bag?”

You shrug.

“Can we come in?”

Your eyes narrow at Nora’s request. The question is new to you. Usually, they stay beyond the cellar door. The last time they had come in with you, she force fed you her blood. But despite that memory, you don’t feel threatened by the girls anymore. They give you a strange sense of peace, like you could trust them, for reasons you don’t understand. “Sure,” you reply.

They join you on the ground, the three of you all sitting criss-crossed. Mary hands you the bag, which you accept and drink quietly.

“Y/N…” Nora starts, “we know you have a lot of questions. And while we didn’t want to give you any responses before, we think you’re ready to hear some answers now.”

You pause sipping your bag. “Really?”

“Well the hard part of your transition is over,” Mary says, “we’d really like you to trust us, and we’d like to have trust in you, too, so that we can let you out. But in order for that to happen, we have to know you’ll be safe in the world. No pointy objects, no wood.”

You turn to Nora. “Is that one of the questions you’ll answer? The real reason you want me alive?”

“It is.”

You nod. “I’m listening. And I promise, I’m okay right now. I’m not going to hurt you, or myself, unless I have reason. Truth be told, I don’t really have the mental strength for it.”

Nora nods, too, then, “why?”

“What?”

“Why is it that you don’t have the strength? What’s plaguing you? Why did you attempt to take your own life?”

“I…” your eyes already start to water again, “I can’t live without him. I don’t want to live without him.”

“And who is him?”

“I- I can’t say.”

“Can’t say because you fear our judgment, or can’t say his name out loud?”

“Both, I guess.”

“Might I say it, then?”

“I guess. If you know…”

“Y/N… we know it’s Kai. And we know because his… passing affects us, too.” Hearing his name out loud shatters your heart, but Nora saying she knew him catches your attention. You tilt your head at her. “The reason we were able to siphon you earlier is because we’re like him. We’re heretics.” You straighten. “We were trapped in the 1903 prison world. Kai fed us and let us out. We owe our survival to him.”

“He became a brother to us,” Mary adds, “was a brother to us. We’re all of the same family, with the same rejected gene, although a century apart. Besides each other, we’ve never had anyone understand us, and aside from Lily, no one’s ever cared to listen.”

“But how do you know me? You know,” your voice wavers, his name coming off your tongue weakly, “Kai. How do you know me?”

“Because, silly, he loved you,” Nora rolls her eyes gently, as if it’s the most obvious thing in the world.

Mary nods. “Once he knew we were trustworthy, he talked to us nonstop. Some of it was about the modern world or his own past, but he mostly talked about you. He had the strangest device, a phone, he called it, and would look at pictures of you until it died, and after that, he had one in his wallet.”

“And he’d tell stories. How kind you always were, how he came to trust you, and how you had started a relationship together.”

“The longer he spent there, the more worked up he was getting. He told us about 1994 and what had happened, and that he’d spent eighteen years in another prison world, just to end up in a colder, darker one. I think that’s where the wedding went wrong.”

You agree. “He told me his biggest fear was getting sent to one of those again. Being alone.”

“Not only being alone, but being without you,” Nora says. “We were there, but he still needed you.”

“And although we kept him company, it wasn’t the same.”

“Valerie didn’t help much,” Nora mutters.

“Valerie… the other one? Upstairs?”

“She didn’t approve of his crime to get locked in 1994. She seemed to have forgotten her own childhood, judging his like that. We all grew up similarly. Told we were abominations and cast away.”

You’re about to make a comment on that, but Mary beats you to speaking first,

“You didn’t flinch when I siphoned you.”

“Yeah, um,” you smile, a memory surfacing, “I used to let Kai siphon whenever he wanted.”

“It didn’t hurt?”

“I liked it.” You shrug. “Hurt a little, sometimes. Like a burn, but… I liked the feeling.”

“You say ‘whenever he wanted,’ so like, not only for spells?”

“Sometimes he just wanted to feel magic in his blood. I didn’t use my magic a lot, and knew he had been deprived of it, so regardless if he was performing a spell or not, yes, I’d let him siphon.”

“So…” Nora starts, “you said you didn’t use your magic a lot?”

“Not really.”

“So you won’t be too upset at losing it now that you’re a vampire?”

You give her a playful glare. “I’ll miss it, but I can live without it.” Her face lights up at your choice of words. “What?”

“‘You can live without it’. That’s exactly what I want to hear from you; that you know you can live, despite the tragedy, just like you said you fear.”

“Nora-”

“Sh, sh, sh, let me relish this moment.” Mary giggles at her girlfriend. “You want to fight the war inside your mind. You want to live.”

“I wanted to live with Kai,” you remind. “Alone…”

“You won’t be alone. We know what it’s like to be lonely. We won’t let you feel that way.”

“I just… it’s going to take some time for me to heal. I can’t promise it’ll be easy.”

“We’ve got your back, Y/N. Kai would have wanted you to live. We want that for you, too.”

You nod, still a bit unsure, but now aware that these girls aren’t going to let you out of their sight, so you might as well comply. “Can I stay here, then?”

“In the cellar or upstairs?”

“I don’t know.”

Mary rolls her eyes playfully. “C’mon, we have a room ready for you.”

<•>

Adjusting to your new life is hard. Living without Kai is hard. Living with the heretics, though, is surprisingly easy. They’ve taken you in as one of their own, filling in the void that Kai left, and treating you like family. Valerie is a little weary around you, perhaps wondering how you could love the man that killed his entire family, but Nora and Mary Louise don’t ever let her get far. She, too, deep down, is grateful for the escape that your lover brought them; she doesn’t let her disapproval of his crimes cloud that too much.

Beau is more similar to Valerie than the girls. He’s older than them and Kai, and has never been one to seek revenge, as told to you by Valerie. While Kai had a penchant for violence, and Nora had a heart craving retribution, the other heretics were much more level-headed. They wanted to distance themselves from their family more so than to make them pay. And although Mary Louise was one of these, she strongly supported her girlfriend’s needs, understanding how their coven’s treatment could make them turn cold.

Once awoken in 1903, Nora quickly admires Kai for his actions. Granted, he may have not gone about his revenge in the best way, but he refused to let his father win, and won himself. Nora wasn’t a twin, just a sibling in her particular line, but she had suffered as much isolation as Kai did. For him to break free from his father’s prison world, then complete the merge he was denied and become their leader, it didn’t take much convincing to get her involved in the break-free from 1903 plan. Mary, again, went along with her girlfriend. She was passive but had a similar childhood, and couldn’t help but see Kai as the brother she always wanted. She had one, but wasn’t allowed to speak to him, and so when Kai spoke nonstop to her, she felt adored by him. And it’s true, Kai loved them all like family, because they were.

Despite knowing most of the heretics, you never meet Malcomb, who was killed by Damon while you were still transitioning. Nor have you met Oscar, who is out running vague errands for Lily. Though you remain in the boarding house with the four until tensions start to rise between Lily and her sons.

Lily, rarely at the house, is nonetheless welcoming to you. She offers you a simple condolence when you thank her for giving Kai her blood. She says she wishes things turned out better, and regrets not being able to save his life. In a way, you tell her, she did, but that Damon took him away from both of you. All of you, rather, as Nora strokes your hair as you speak.

The warming party between Mystic Falls’ residents and the heretics is the day your new status as a vampire is revealed. The wistful shock in Damon’s eyes and the concerned delight in Bonnie’s is something you’ll never forget, although by this time, you’re too disheartened by either of them to address it. When Mary Louise whisks you away with a bottle of bourbon, you don’t fight. Enzo sends Bonnie a confused glance that you miss, but neither comment.

<•>

A lot happens in a short time following that night. Jo’s twins are confirmed to be alive with Caroline carrying them, something about which you’re still unsure. Valerie had a rendezvous with Stefan a century ago, and Julian’s confirmed a monster when his atrocious response slips from between her lips. For a moment, Mary Louise is hesitant to trust her, and Nora finds solace with Bonnie, but you, now permanently bonded to the two youngest heretics, pull them back together. Oscar is lost along the way, caught by the Salvatores who had just put down their own mother. Four funerals are held in a mere couple of months: Kai, Malcomb, Oscar, and Lily. One month after that, a fifth is held for Beau.

Caroline’s twins - well, Jo’s, ish - are born, with the help of the heretics. You watch from a distance, concerned way more for Caroline birthing two refusing siphons from her vampire womb, than for the twins themselves. In the end, only Beau is the one to not make it out. A previously estranged vampire hunter released from Alaric’s armory interrupts the introduction of life with a promise of death. Bonnie was the one to let her out, it’s revealed, so it’s only fair that she’s the one to get tangled in the mess and take her down. After that, Enzo and Damon are captured by sirens and made to perform the dirty work of the two ancient beings. Bonnie’s trapped in the middle of it, as is Caroline, and incidentally, as is everyone else in the town. Eventually, what’s left of the old Mystic Falls’ gang manages to rid themselves of the sirens, only to be faced with Cade, the Devil himself.

Though most of these details are blurry to you. Parts of the story are missing, like holes in a blanket. You’ve kept up with the general plot, but lost a lot of the story’s structure along the way.

That’s because seven years ago, right after the twins’ birth and Beau’s funeral, the heretics ran. Valerie escaped to Europe, and you, Nora, and Mary Louise headed south. You didn’t want to get mixed up in the turmoil, especially not with Rayna Cruz, then a vengeful Bonnie, on the loose, so the three of you disappeared with barely a trace. You’re still in contact with Caroline, and Valerie remembers to charge and connect her phone, she still talks to Nora and Mary Louise, but for the most part, you’re set far apart from your old life.

And surprisingly, you’re happy.

Life in the boarding house with the heretics was easy. Living with Nora and Mary Louise is even easier. You’ve taught them to adapt to the modern age, despite their unfamiliarity, but as it turns out, they blend in quite well. You have a thing for take-out; the girls love catching up on all the movies they’ve missed, so many nights are spent as movie nights, eating large amounts of take-out and binging movies all night. Of course, you also rotate cooking. Mary’s the worst. Nora’s the best. You’re in the middle, no talent of your own, for it’s Kai that taught you all you know about it.

Speaking of Kai… over time, you’ve been able to talk more about him. You open up your relationship to the heretics, sharing stories you’ve never told anyone, telling them things that most might consider TMI, but by this point in your friendship, there’s no such thing as secrets. They love it. They love laughing at the funny parts, and crying over sadder ones. They share memories and tragedies from their own pasts, sometimes relating to Kai, but sometimes, also, relating to you.

You share blankets on the couch and straws with drinks. You braid each other’s hair and rotate chores. You dance together in the kitchen, singing along to music both old and modern, with no neighbors to hear how undeniably loud you are. You’re happy.

<•>

It’s been a while since you’ve heard from Caroline, but when you finally do, she sends you a cryptic message that immediately pulls you to your feet.

Caroline: I need a favor. Call me when you get a chance.

Your eyes narrow at the text. Rarely does Caroline text with such seriousness, especially with such a long period of not speaking.

“What is it?” Nora asks, seeing tension on your face.

“Caroline… asking for a favor.”

“You don’t have to go back to Mystic Falls, do you? It’s dangerous there,” Mary worries. Talk of the Devil filled the last phone call you’ve had with the other blonde. Specifically, Kelly Donovan returned for one more dramatic entrance, a bell was rung, and the Devil got out. A second protection spell was put around the house, just in case, after that news.

“I’m not sure. One moment.” You dial her number, and only wait a second before she picks up. “Caroline?”

“Y/N? Hi.”

“Hi. Is everything okay?”

“Yeah. Kind of. I need you to come back to Mystic Falls as soon as possible.”

“Why? What’s wrong?”

“It’s… it’s about the twins.”

You shoot the girls an anxious glance as they overhear the call.

“Is everything okay with them?”

Caroline hesitates. “How soon can you get here?”

“Caroline? Are they okay?”

“Y/N-”

“Overnight. I’ll be there by morning.”

“Okay. Come to the armory.”

You pack a quick bag and hug your friends, then leave immediately.

“Be careful,” they wish you. “Let us know if you need help.”

“I will. I’ll be back shortly.”

<•>

You burst into the armory quite loudly, calling for Caroline. She races to your side a moment later, a finger over her lips.

“What’s wrong? Where’s the twins?”

“The twins are fine. They’re-”

“What?! Caroline, what the fuck?! I drove all night. I-”

“Come with me. Please. And be quiet.”

Still worried, but now a little pissed, you follow her down the narrow, dark hallway to the cells. You’re about to ask more questions, but then you notice a person occupying one of the rooms. “Who-?”

She spins you around by the shoulders, forcing you to look at her. “Take him and go. Wherever you are with the heretics, bring him with you. I can’t let him hurt my girls, but if he’s with you, he’ll stay away from them.”

“Caroline, what-”

“Cade is looking for him, and Stefan and Damon want to send him back in exchange for Elena’s coffin, but I know how much he means to you and if I were in your shoes, I’d intervene, too. Hell, I’ve spent the last three days compelling Stefan’s victims that they’ve been seeing things. We’ve all done questionable things for the people we love, and so I’m telling you to do the same. Get him out of Mystic Falls, now.”

When you turn the corner, Kai Parker is on the other side of the glass. His hand is raised as he siphons the magic from the walls.

“Caroline, will-” he pauses, noticing you. “Y/N?”

Your breath hitches in your throat. “Kai?” You turn to Caroline, searching for answers.

“He escaped when the Maxwell bell rang.”

“That bell rang days ago, you said. He’s been here ever since?”

“Damon told me you were dead,” Kai says. The glass begins to crack under his hand.

“We don’t have time for this,” Caroline interrupts hurriedly, “Y/N, you need to go.” She waves in Kai’s direction. “Break the glass, make it look like you’ve escaped, and get out of here. Just don’t think about coming after my kids, or I’ll make you regret it.”

Kai sets his jaw, then shatters the glass. Caroline blocks the both of you from the shards, and in the next moment, you’re standing face to face with the man you’ve missed for years.

“Hi, princess,” he greets.

You waste no time jumping into his arms, legs around his waist, burying your face in his neck. You cling to him tightly, wrapped in an embrace, until he sets you down gently.

“Caroline,” you start, “thank you.”

She smiles sweetly. “I love you. Now, go!”

“I love you, too. I’ll call you when everything settles.”

“You better.”

You take Kai’s hand and drag him out of the armory. A series of turns leads you to a side exit; an emergency door, but with the sirens already blaring overhead, you’re not worried about it.

“Y/N,” he pauses the moment you get outside.

“My car’s over here, c’mon.”

He doesn’t budge. “But-”

“Kai!”

“You’re a vampire,” he says, clearly confused. “What happened? When’d you turn?”

“What? You don’t think I could look this young seven years later?” You joke, tugging more.

“No! I didn’t mean that-”

“I…” your grip weakens with the look he gives you. “Can we please get in the car? Alaric’s going to notice you’re gone, and-”

“When? When did you turn?”

“After you died,” you confess, face falling to the ground. You can’t look at him; can’t stand to see the sadness on your face.

“How? Did Damon-?”

“No, Damon didn’t do it. I… I couldn’t live without you. It was too hard. I didn’t want to. I tried… someone had other plans.”

“Princess…” his voice trails off as he realizes what you mean. Strong arms reach for yours to pull you into his chest. “You didn’t… oh. Oh my god.” He tilts your head up to face him, but you avoid his eyes. “Who turned you? Dam-”

“Again, not Damon. I, um, can we go? Ric’s gonna come any second, and-”

“Who turned you, Y/N?”

“Nora.”

“Nora? From-”

“1903? Yeah. “

“Is she-? Are the heretics-?” Kai’s interrupted by shouting coming from the armory. You grab his hand once more and drag him to your car. He climbs in the passenger seat without question, and you speed out of Mystic Falls as fast as you can.

Not until you’re fifteen minutes from the armory, do you finally answer the questions swarming his head. You lower your speed to follow the limit, then take a deep breath.

“Nora,” he beats you to it.

“I killed myself,” you confess, “attempted, I guess. She found me, fed me her blood right before I died. She and Mary Louise took me to the boarding house, where they had been staying.”

“Both of them?”

You nod. “I wasn’t an easy project. First I refused to transition, then I refused bags. She had to pin me to the wall to get me to drink; I still fought, and Mary had to siphon me to weaken me enough that Nora could complete the transition. After that, I’d scream and cuss at them for keeping me alive. Nora would give me this cold stare, and Mary would cry, but neither gave up on me. Then, I flipped a complete one-eighty and cried for weeks. Nora said I resembled Alice in Wonderland in her sea of tears.” You chuckle now, but Kai has a feeling you weren’t laughing then. He sure isn’t laughing at all as you retell the story. “But finally, after about a month, I settled. I realized I couldn’t die, and they wouldn’t let me die, and I had to figure out how to live, now, as a vampire. I let them give me bags without a fight, and with time, talked to them.”

“Why did they save you, do you know?”

“That’s something I begged them to tell me for weeks, but they refused to say until I was ready to hear it. They loved you,” you say, stealing a glimpse at him, “like a hero, like a brother. They loved you, and heard so many stories in the prison world about how you loved me, and when Nora found me in the alley, she knew she had to save me because you would’ve wanted me to live. She did it for you. She didn’t want me - your girl - to die ‘young and heartbroken’.” You sniffle, tears forming. “She wanted me to learn to live a life I could be proud of, and she wanted to honor her admiration for you by keeping me here.”

It’s a lot for Kai to take in; he’s quiet for a few minutes. As he thinks, though, his hand creeps towards yours and takes a hold of it. He squeezes gently, then kisses your knuckles.

“The heretics,” he says, “where are they now?”

“Val’s in Europe, traveling. She didn’t want to be near Mystic Falls; turns out she has history with Stefan. Damon and Bonnie killed Malcomb before I could meet him, and Damon and Stefan killed Oscar, also before I met him. Beau was killed by an ancient hunter, whilst protecting the twins after Caroline gave birth to them, and-”

“Mary Louise and Nora?”

“I live with them.”

“What?”

“We have a little house on the border. Just out of Virginia, but barely considered North Carolina. They’re still together; had some bumps in their relationship, but they’re happy now.”

“And you, are you happy?”

“It took me a long time, but I found happiness within myself and from them. So I would consider myself happy, I guess. As weird as it is to say.”

“And me… if I were to join you, would you still be happy, after all these years?”

“What do you mean?”

“You’ve learned to live without me. You’ve found your place in this world, and friends. You’ve built a life for yourself.”

Slowly, you pull over to give him your full attention. Kai watches carefully, curious at what you’ll say. “Not a day has gone by that I haven’t missed you. I think about you every day. I miss the feeling of holding your hand, and hugging you. Kissing you. Hell, I miss the feeling of you siphoning me. No matter how happy I’ve become, there’s always been a piece of me missing. I figured it would always be missing, but as I sit here and look at you, I realize it’s not anymore. I love you, Kai, and I want you in my life, with me. I always have. I’ve learned to live without you, yes, and I’ve found people and things within myself that contribute to my happiness, but I will never be as good as when I’m with you.”

“Y/N…”

“And if your next question is about Nora and Mary, just know that they adore you way more than you might ever know. Nora admires you, and to Mary, you’re the brother she never got to know. They saved my life because they were mourning you, and knew I was, too. We all saved each other, in a way, and we’re all brought together because of you.”

It takes another minute of focused staring to process your words. You follow his line of sight to the steering wheel, but the moment you catch his eye, he stutters a response. “I-I love you. I’ve missed you, too, every day, and the thought of you is what kept me strong when I was in Hell. I need you.”

“You have me.”

“I won’t be easy, either. I can’t promise I won’t have nightmares from all the shit that happened there, but I promise I won’t ever leave you again.”

“I’ll help you through them. It’ll be okay.”

“You sure you want me in your life?”

“I need you just as much as you say you need me. Don’t ever doubt that.”

He nods. “Take me home, then.” He smiles. “Wait, after a kiss first.” Kai moves towards you as you turn twice, once to the wheel, then back to him, and takes your face in his hands. He kisses you with a passion equally sweet and rough, fingers grazing your skin and tangling in your hair. Your own hands find his shoulders, pulling him closer. After a moment, he pulls back, needing to catch his breath after such a long time of not kissing you. “Good? You need any more convincing to keep me around?”

“Shut up,” you joke, lighting hitting his chest. “Convincing? No. But I am gonna need you to make up later for seven years apart.”

“Well that I can certainly do.”

<•>

Four hours later, you pull into the long driveway that is your home. It’s nestled peacefully in the woods, away from most people, yet not so much that anyone will assume it’s abandoned. It’s cute and dainty, with colored tulips in beds in the front, and a red wreath hanging on the door, all compliments of Mary Louise. A bowl of food and water rests on the porch, to which Kai makes a face, and you explain that Nora’s been feeding the stray cats. You, on the other hand, are responsible for the hammock on the wrap-around porch. It provides a perfect spot for reading, or, more often, a place to daydream what life would be like if Kai never left.

Just like this, you’d think, but he’d be beside you, softly kissing your neck.

You don’t knock before entering. However, Kai bumps into the doorway, and you let out a quiet giggle at his confused expression.

“Nora?” You call into the home. “I need you to let somebody in.”

The door is open wide enough that Kai can see into the house, but he can’t see the stairs. Nora trots down the stairs a moment later, asking to whom you could be referring before she sees him for herself.

“Just a friend Caroline wanted me to pick up. Kinda like a stray puppy, actually.”

Mary giggles, half-expecting an actual puppy. But then when Nora comes to the door and her heart begins to race, her girlfriend gets worried. “Nora?” She hurries to stand beside her. “Oh!”

“Kai?” Nora asks gently. It looks like him, but she can never be too sure. She looks to you for confirmation.

You nod. “It’s him.”

“Hi,” he greets, signature smile confirming his own identity.

“Kai,” she says, tone full of relief. She rushes into his arms for a hug he didn’t expect. Nevertheless, he hugs her back just as tightly as she holds him. “Come in,” she invites as soon as letting him go.

Mary gawks as he crosses the threshold. “Can I-?”

He opens his arms again for her to hug him, and the two share their own embrace.

“What happened?” Nora starts, “how’d you-? Where-?”

“As I told Damon, then Caroline told Y/N, I jumped out when the Maxwell bell was rung. Damon tried to keep me hidden from Y/N, but Caroline had other plans. She let Y/N take me as long as I didn’t hurt the twins, to which I’m happy to let those little Gemini gremlins go if it means being with her.”

“And Cade?”

“Caroline called on the way; Cade’s dead. And Kai ate on the way, so he’s feeling better.”

“Earlier I felt like I could still be slipping back into Hell, but Cade’s grip on me weakened, and her blood gave me strength, so I won and got my footing back on Earth. I am officially a live-dead man once again.”

Mary chuckles, but Nora’s attention catches on a word. “Her?” You glance at the ground, a blush rising to your cheeks. Nora smiles. “Not twelve hours, and the lovebirds are sharing blood.”

“Match made in Heaven,” Mary laughs more.

“Completely inseparable,” Nora agrees. “Well, Kai, I hope you’ve made plans to stay, because now that you’re back, we’re never letting you out of our sight again.”

“You want me to stay?”

Nora had turned, but now she whips back around to face him. “What? Of course. Did you and Y/N-”

“We talked in the car! I thought you were okay with staying.”

“But Nora’s the owner of the house, I have to ask her, too!”

“Of course you’re staying, dork!” She’d learned that word the last couple years and always said it fits Kai; now she gets to use it on him. “Now pull up a chair. I know you’re the cook around here, but I made dinner, and it’s pretty good!”

The four of you take to the table where Nora pours bowls of soup. You settle around the chairs like a family separated for too long, but finally joined back together, never to be apart again, and it’s good. Your hands connected with Kai’s underneath the table, and he squeezes. Across from you, the girls’ own hands are held in each other’s. The joy and laughter around the table is something you want to be a part of forever.

#malachai parker x reader #kai parker x reader #tvd fanfiction #tw: sui attempt #light bit of angst #angst with a happy ending #heretic kai parker

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