#death exchanged for life. something something maybe the curtains were just blue | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

chojuuro · 3 years ago

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the moon thus led by its angel

HAPPY VALENTINE'S!!! this is for another holiday exchange in the malewife and girlboss groupchat server, this time for the wonderful @hkzv 💖 i went konan x reader for this time around! i hope you enjoy 💖 ship/s: Konan/Gender Neutral!Reader, mentions of Yahiko/Konan rating: SFW 💖 content: character death, very loose interpretation of romance, devotion, hurt/comfort, mostly canon compliant with canon divergence toward the end words: 7,360 AO3 link here!

It’s late when they find you, just as young and twice as emaciated. You’re cold, wet, scared; a shivering little kitten among a world of lions scrounging around for a snack. The midst of the war is hot on your heels, running from a country with no regard for your own innocent life; how you find your way to the outskirts of Amegakure is one thing, but how you find yourself face-to-face with those you’ve heard rumored to be the head trio of the mercenary group Akatsuki is another question you think you rather not find the answer to.

It’s dark, it’s cold, and if this is how you go, then so be it.

“We can’t leave ‘em,” you hear one of the boys say, the taller one; a mess of fiery orange hair crowns him, but you can’t make out much more than that. The woman, shorter, with a kinder face and gentler eyes, kneels beside you and wipes some of the falling rain with her sleeve but your vision is still blurred.

“They’ll die if we do,” she agrees, and her voice is soft, calm, soothing. She strokes your hair a moment, flashes you a tiny smile, one that puts you to rest a little easier as she stands, faces her boys again. You feel your eyes slip shut. “We’ll have to take them back. We can decide what to do with them then.”

You frown, brows knotting in the center as, quickly, she begins fading away and you find yourself wrapped in something, something warm – paper? – and the haze gets to you and drags you under as you’re swallowed up by a cocoon of paper pieces, shielding you from the elements, insulating any natural heat that your body gives off.

---

When you awaken again, you’re warm and it’s dark and, somehow, you don’t feel any alarm.

The room is dark around you, little bits of rain-darkened light easing their way past the edges of the makeshift curtains hanging over the window. You’re not sure what time it is and even less what day, but you can faintly hear the murmuring of voices in the next room, hushed tones that indicate knowledge of your presence and care for your rest. You try listening in, frowning as you attempt to focus on their words, but they’re just barely too muffled, slightly too quiet for you to make anything out.

Slowly, you sit up, a hand to your head to try to steady yourself as you make an attempt to recall what happened while you were out, or at the very least, what happened just before. An attack, some rogue nin from what you think was Iwa asking – no, demanding your valuables. And then you laughed, because how could anyone expect you – hardly an adult, still technically a kid – to have any valuables? You didn’t look particularly well-kept, hair shaggy and too grown out, dirt caked on your face and under your fingernails and rips in your clothes.

So you laughed, and you thought it was a joke.

Maybe you should have known that Iwa nin don’t joke.

It’d all happened so fast that you’re still not entirely sure how it went down; all you know is that somewhere, somehow, you found yourself on the ground, bleeding out, looking to the mercy of three strangers who could easily have put you out of your misery, done you a kindness in their eyes by giving you the easy way out.

But they didn’t.

A soft knock against the door and it opens to reveal the same blue haired woman from before, holding a little plate of onigiri, some water, and a new change of bandages.

You can see her clearer now, no longer hazy from loss of blood and with the added benefit of seeing her without her robes. There’s no malice behind her eyes – some wariness, perhaps, but you can’t fault her for this and you know it. As far as she’s concerned, you could be anyone; a spy, a con artist, a killer. And you wonder if you hit your head because you can’t recall if you’re any of those things, either.

“You’re awake,” she says, surprise thinly veiled behind a little smile. The door eases shut behind her as she enters completely, kneels beside your futon and sets the tray down on the little side table.

You open your mouth to speak but no words come out and your throat is scratchy, resulting only in a cough and a surge of pain from your belly. Your arms wrap around yourself, bracing against your abdomen to ease the throb that comes from it. The woman offers you the cup of water and you take it after a moment, graciously; a small sip to wet your palate turns into a longer one, and before you realize it the cup is empty.

Your caretaker laughs, but there’s no humor behind her golden eyes. “Thirsty, too,” she comments, taking the cup from your hands and setting it aside. She folds her hands in her lap, a graceful motion. “I guess I’d be surprised if you weren’t. It’s been a few days.”

Your brows furrow, mouth falling open once again. Days? A few, no less. At least you know they’re not here to harm you, you suppose. They wouldn’t have kept you here, in their home, and taken care of you if they meant you harm.

You clear your mouth, wince at the feeling of the wound in your belly making itself known to you once again, and you try again.

“How long?”

It’s little more than a croak, but the words still make it out, which is progress in your eyes.

“Today is the third day,” she says, and she reaches for the new, clean bandages, glances at you before turning to you completely, once again. “We were starting to worry that you wouldn’t wake up by the time we relocate. You’ve got good timing.”

You frown and make to ask what she means, exactly; but before you can she lays the bandages out, preps them, and turns to you fully, gesturing to your abdomen.

“May I?”

Admittedly, you take a moment to understand what she means, but when it clicks, a tiny oh escapes you and you nod. Carefully, she lifts the bottom hem of your shirt, and you realize, belatedly, that this isn’t the shirt you’d originally been wearing.

Her motions are quick and deliberate, firm but with a gentleness to them that you’re almost surprised to experience for yourself. She’s no med-nin, that’s for sure; if she was, you imagine your wound would be healed, fully, properly. That means that neither of the men she was with are, either, and the realization makes you frown.

“Do you always treat wounds like this?” you ask, voice barely a whisper, but she’s close enough that she’s well within earshot.

She hums as she removes the old bandages from your abdomen, allowing you to see the damage for yourself for the first time. It’s a gnarly opening, rough-looking for sure. You don’t remember what the weapon looked like but judging by what you remember it feeling like and how it left you, it must not have been very sharp. Sharp weapons don’t leave wounds like this. She presses a warm, wet cloth to it, gently, careful not to exacerbate any further bleeding or cause any excess pain before she wipes you dry, spreads some herby-scented salve on you that stings as it seeps in.

“Yes,” she replies finally, tying off the new bandages and sitting back on her heels. She looks at you with a kind little smile, but one that doesn’t quite reach her eyes. “Does it hurt?”

“Not bad,” you lie. It’s not bad as long as you’re still, really, but the salve leaves a dull ache that doesn’t feel comfortable. You’ve felt worse.

And then your stomach growls.

The woman buries a laugh behind a fist and offers you the plate of onigiri that she’d brought in, and you take a big bite graciously, savoring the salty flavor that clears your palate. They’re not filled, but you can’t complain; it’s been days, after all, since you’d last eaten, and even longer since you’d had a proper meal.

“Thank you,” you tell her after swallowing. “Um–”

“Konan!”

You’re interrupted by the door swinging open, slamming against the wall and nearly slamming shut again with the force. You nearly jump out of your skin, arms folding over your stomach again as you double over, the sudden movement not doing anything for your still very open wound. The newcomer, the orange haired boy you believe to be the same one the woman – Konan was with when you were found, ducks his head, gives a sheepish little smile.

“Shit, sorry.”

“Quiet,” Konan scolds, but you catch the tiny smile on her face, the gentle flush of her cheeks before she turns to him, and the action makes you supremely curious. You shift, grab another onigiri from the plate and take a little nibble.

“It’s fine, nobody’s asleep,” he says, gesturing to you with a lopsided little grin on his face as he does. “So. No harm, no foul.”

You can’t help but smile at their exchange as Konan lifts herself to her feet, steps towards the door and punches the boy lightly in the chest – not near hard enough to hurt, you can tell. A show of affection.

“Get some rest,” she tells you, turning to you once more before excusing herself and shutting the door in the boy’s face as she ferries him out, too.

How odd, you think, finishing your rice ball and reclining once more. How odd it must be to feel safe, comfortable enough to show someone such a level of both vulnerability, but also camaraderie. You don’t know them well yet, that’s for sure, but you can see something there, something that says, “I see you. I know you. I trust you.”

And it’s nice to see.

Refreshing, like a warm shower or a hot cup of tea after you’ve been out in the rain.

It’s something that you’re not sure when you saw it last, and that very well may be a result of your injury, but really, it’s a result of growing up in war-torn society, running from country to country, village to village with the hopes that you’ll find someplace to call home again. The hope that, maybe, you’ll find somewhere safe again, somewhere you can rest your head and get a full night’s deep sleep, not concerned with having to wake in the middle of the night to look over your shoulder, to flee to a safer location.

You think, idly, as you feel yourself drift back to sleep, that maybe this could be it.

---

You decide to stay with the group when they offer you a place among them.

They’re a rowdy bunch, a group who doesn’t stop till they’ve had their fill of drinking or fucking or killing. They are, ultimately, here for a good time, a roofed hideout, and a meal, and frankly, you can’t find it in your heart to think that’s anything other than valid. To the average onlooker, they’re not your typical group who might take in a stray, who would trust someone with such deep emotion as to take them in, but you’re living proof that they’re exactly that. Outcasts, those fighting for a greater good, seeking peace in a time when there is none to be seen.

You’ve been with them only a short time but they’ve made sure that you feel at home.

Quiet as he is, Nagato had welcomed you with open arms, happy to have another mouth to feed and another pair of hands to gather supplies. Yahiko was louder about your acceptance, slinging an arm around your shoulder as he presented you with your own robe.

“We all gotta match,” he’d said, grinning from ear to ear.

And Konan had looked on with fondness, quite happy to see everybody getting along, enjoying the moments of quiet, of peace among the group.

The others, admittedly, you hadn’t gotten as close with, but every one of them made sure that you were well looked after, cared for, that your healing went as smoothly as it could have. Just like Konan had mentioned, nobody is a particularly skilled healer, only skating by on the bare minimum, but even so, having such a group of branded misfits – of fellow children who had to grow up too fast – to look after you makes you feel right at home. Children who, after the Second Great Shinobi War, found themselves scrambling for some semblance of normalcy, of familiarity. Children who dream of a peaceful future and who cherish these moments of closeness, of brotherhood. A taste of what could be.

Because in times of war, these moments of peace do not last long and are far and few in between.

---

You’re not there to see it happen.

Still in bed for most of your day, still very much in recovery – you have just enough energy to help the group move to a new hideout but your recovery takes a nosedive soon after. Konan believes it to be in response to the excess physical exertion; Nagato, a product of your past pushing too hard without letting yourself have a moment to rest coming back to bite you. Yahiko hardly notices anything out of the ordinary, but when he does, it’s more of an assumption of spending too long in the rain. As if that isn’t something that comes with the territory of operating out of Ame.

Back on the mend, you feel well enough to see the group off, but you know you wouldn’t be able to make the trek with them without making too many stops, slowing them down greatly. Your body is still weak and healing from your earlier wounds, achingly exhausted from days straight of helping the group move every one of their belongings to your new hideout, a little closer to the village but far enough out that it would be tough to simply stumble upon it.

Your days are spent largely cleaning, decluttering, and resting, and there’s a small part of you that cherishes this moment of downtime, this ability to keep to yourself, to be quiet, be self-indulgent with your wants and needs. You’re supposed to be on bedrest, sure; but home rest is good enough, you think, sitting on the step outside the front door of the little shack that you now call home, warm cup of tea in hand and a fresh bandage around your belly.

The rain’s soft pitter patter against the little covered doorstep is like music to your ears these days. Used to the brash, rowdy presence of your companions, it feels like a hollow silence, one that should be gentle, calm, soothing – but instead you feel like something’s lacking, and you find yourself wanting back the kinship, the brotherhood you find with your beloved group of misfits. The rain acts as a gentle reminder for you, one telling you that they will be back – have some patience, the rain tells you, for they will return home soon.

But Konan is the only one to return.

She carries Nagato and Yahiko back in a swathe of paper sheets, sheltered from the rain with little pieces of her soul, supporting them and carrying them back home, where they belong.

With Nagato finally settled into his bed and Yahiko’s body covered carefully until you know how to tend to him, Konan tells you about what happened and the battle that ensued, and you can see her trying her hardest to hold herself together. She describes how Hanzo had taken her, how Hanzo had told Nagato his demands, told him, “If you oppose me, the girl dies.” How Nagato had barely lifted the kunai from the ground before Yahiko threw himself onto the blade, and how years of rage came to a boiling point in that moment, destroying Hanzo’s men in a flurry.

Nagato’s legs are badly injured, and with little to no medical experience from anyone in the group, it’s unlikely that he’ll ever walk again, and if he does, it will likely be extremely painful. His body is emaciated from the chakra it took to pull off his attack, face gaunt and lifeless, and you hope, you pray that he retains his childhood demeanor, even in the face of this trauma.

Yahiko is another story.

“It… was so fast,” she tells you, brows furrowed and eyes fixed on the table in front of you. You place a fresh cup of tea in front of her, but she doesn’t move to take it. “...Nagato will be okay, I think.”

She’s in shock and it’s plain as day.

“I hope so,” you tell her, reach a hand across the table to grab hers. As you give it a little squeeze, she looks at you again, forces a little smile to grace her lips, and takes a shaky little breath.

“I’m just glad you didn’t have to see any of it.”

And your heart sinks when you realize that Konan had to do this on her own.

You couldn’t be there to help drag Konan back to her feet, to help bring Yahiko’s limp, cooling body back to the hideout for a proper funeral. You weren’t there to help Nagato understand that this isn’t his fault, that there’s nothing he could have done differently; that this is Hanzo’s doing, not your companions. You weren’t there for your allies and your friends, your loved ones, the very ones who helped to carry your own limp body back from the brink of death without so much as accepting a thanks in return.

And the thought haunts you.

---

You never see her shed any tears, but the amount of times you catch her sobbing while she believes that she’s on her own is innumerable, and your heart breaks for her.

---

It’s a long time before anybody is able to function normally again.

A long time before you see Konan smile, a long time before Nagato joins you both for meals; a long time before you’re able to crack a joke here or there without feeling like you’re being disrespectful. There is still pain in everybody’s being, but you feel it getting a little easier, a little lighter with each passing day.

You can’t help but think that Nagato taking his revenge out on Hanzo, taking Ame back from him and starting its turnaround into something no longer touched by the horrors of civil war has something to do with it.

Many weeks, months full of recruitment, mercenary work, and more relocation. Months watching Nagato collect new bodies – vessels for him to explore the village from the confines of his hideout, far removed from the tower that Konan and his Paths reside.

Your little group of misfits is a proper organization now, one determined to bring peace to the world by any means necessary.

When you hear the flapping of her many little paper wings, you return to your lookout, greeting her with a small smile as she forms once more, graceful in the sunset behind her.

“Welcome home,” you tell her, an arm out to take her cloak. It’s barely damp, but she hands it to you anyway and you fold it over your arm, set it aside next to your own before you take your rightful spot at her side. “How is he?”

“The same.” You figure as much. Konan sits carefully on a chair positioned facing the window, large and open and staring over the village. It’s a Sunday and that means rain. “Is Yahiko…?”

You study her for a long moment, frowning gently as she does. Her general demeanor is typically very much this; quiet, somber, serious.

“Asleep, yes.” Though you’re not even sure that that’s the most accurate description. You’ve only seen the room once; at the top of the tallest of Ame’s towers lies what you can only refer to as the holding cell for Nagato’s paths, with one pod for each path. It’s a room that you don’t wish to enter more frequently than you have to, and thankfully, the unspoken rule of that room being reserved for the Six Paths of Pein with no visitors, save for the occasional time that Konan needs to perform any maintenance, remains well intact.

You see her shoulders relax and see her ever so slightly slump back in the chair that she rests in. One, two beats and she looks at you, tired eyes sparkling with something that you can’t fully make out.

“Come here,” she instructs. She doesn’t lift a finger to usher you over and she doesn’t need to; you’ll be at her side if she so much as thinks about calling you over.

You stand before her, hands at your sides as you lower your gaze to meet hers. She doesn’t move, face turned towards you with an expression so soft, so serene that you forget – for a moment – just how deadly she is. And you’re both thrilled and terrified when you remember, so you don’t move. You allow her this, this quiet moment of exploration, allow yourself to indulge in her attention, her affection, her watchful eyes that seem to swallow you up in their golden hue.

You don’t move, because you don’t want to break the illusion that this could very well be a dream.

This mental tug of war goes on too long, you think, though it’s barely been a few seconds before she reaches a hand out, rests it against your chest, and you’re reminded, thankfully, that this is real. Her eyes follow her fingers as they trail up, slowly, find their way to your throat. They trace along your trachea, the soft lines of your neck, along your jaw before she’s cupping your flushed cheek, brushing her thumb against your skin. She sits up a little, removes her hand from your face and rests both of her hands on your waist; her grip is firm but not harmful, commanding but gentle, affectionate and tender and warm though you expect the opposite.

“Touch me,” she breathes, and you do.

Heart threatening to leap out of your chest, you reach out to her, take her chin in your fingers with the gentle touch one would use to hold something so fragile, something threatening to break at any moment. She allows this, allows you to move her, shape her as you need, watching with curious eyes, awaiting your every move.

You can barely hear her as she commands you, so soft and gentle with words as powerful and commanding as any leader should be.

“Kiss me.”

And your lips find hers, finally; a brief touch, so swift and so soft that you would miss it if you weren’t tangled up in it yourself.

It’s only a brief moment in time, a mere speck in the greater scheme of things, but a half second of time is better than no time at all. You’d wait years for her, bent at the knee; one word is all it takes for you to bend to her will, a shapeless putty in her hands and one that you would not, could not complain about being if you tried.

And in that moment, you swear yourself to Konan, and by extension, you swear yourself to the new God of Amegakure.

---

It hurts.

It looks like him, sounds like him; but Konan knows that it is not him, and it will never be. He’s dead, and she knows this; she saw it happen, saw him run into Nagato’s kunai with no hesitation. Held him as he took his last breaths once Hanzo’s hold on her had been released. She knows this. She was there. She saw it happen, was a witness to the very thing she never would have expected �� exactly what she wouldn’t dream of in a thousand years.

He did it to save her. One life exchanged for another.

But it still hurts.

Nagato allows her and his Deva path their moments of solitude, brief periods of peace where she can look at him, imagine the life that they could have had. And these moments are nice, it’s true; but they don’t last. His hands are cold upon hers, stark contrast against the warmth that she radiates; the warmth that Yahiko once radiated, too. Her fingers, slender and graceful, trace the lines of his face, the planes of ice-cold, rain-dampened skin, the chakra rods that pierce his flesh a reminder of that day nearly twenty years ago.

He was so, so young.

They all were.

And, really, so were you. But this isn’t about you, and a part of you feels selfish for even thinking that.

This is about Konan, about Nagato, about Yahiko. This is about their love, their journey, their loss; their undying devotion for one another and their shared goal of peace, and how that goal could have been crushed so easily had it been any other trio. It started as Nagato’s dream – Konan’s unwavering support held the dream up, Yahiko’s tenacity kept it going. But with him gone, his life taken, his body nothing more than a shell of what once was, it’s up to Konan and Nagato to keep the fuel going, to keep the fire lit despite their wet, rainy surroundings.

But in this moment, she pushes it to the back of her mind, allows herself the chance to be ignorant, to forget his fate, his gruesome end. And she indulges as you stand guard, not allowing the outside to interfere with her fairytale.

She deserves this.

And you avert your gaze, allow them the privacy that they deserve, because while it hurts you to see her with someone else, it hurts you more to see her suffer.

---

Konan’s relationship with the other paths isn’t the same as her relationship with the Deva Path – with Yahiko. The others are strangers, vessels for Nagato to move about the village as he pleases, to serve as Amegakure’s sworn protector, its leader, its only fighting chance. Cogs in the machine of Nagato’s plan for greatness, for bringing peace to the village, and eventually, the world.

They were people once, sure, but now they only perform the tasks that Nagato tells them to, fights the battles that Nagato requires them to. And that’s just fine. After all, you’re slowly turning over a similar leaf, sword in hand for Konan herself. You’re not skilled by any means, and your only experience with a blade is what you’ve had to learn fending for yourself, but that’s fine. Anything you can do to prove to her your undying loyalty.

So when Yahiko’s body must retire, chakra exhausted, you are the first person that Konan turns to. The closest person that she has, one who has seen her at her lowest and her highest – her loyal attendant, her guard dog, bent at the knee for her and everything that she holds dear.

“A goddess,” you whisper, hands resting gently on the small of her waist, the gentle sloping of her hips. Your hands are cool against her warmth, your lips at the hollow of her throat – her expression is somber as she turns her face toward the sky. She doesn’t reply to this, but she lets you do as you please, and she returns the favor graciously.

---

She doesn’t call you any pet names for a long time, but she rarely calls anybody by anything but their name. She’s not one for clear shows of affection, never one for affection for the eyes of others. The things that she calls hers are for her eyes only, and it becomes quickly evident to you that you have become one of these things, kept away in the tower that she calls her home.

“It’s to keep you safe,” she explains over your dinner that night. “You’re not a shinobi, are you?”

You shake your head and you see the corners of her lips turn up, but just barely. To be fair, you can’t remember whether you are or not; but you don’t feel the pulsing in your veins of chakra the way that Konan explains it, don’t feel any sort of special power or any of the tingling in your fingertips that you hear Ame jounin talk about on the street.

You’re just you.

Nothing special.

“Precisely,” she continues, sliding her empty bowl towards you. You take it, bring it to the sink with yours and rinse them out. You hear her stand as you wait for the water to warm up to wash them, but her hands at your waist and her presence behind you is still a surprise. “I can’t have anything breaking my toy but me.”

Your breath catches in your throat as you shut the water to the sink off, and you feel Konan’s lips at the back of your neck, pressing chaste little kisses along the top of your spine. You swallow but don’t move otherwise, bracing your hands against the edge of the counter.

Her toy.

You stand here for a long moment, basking in her attention and her intimacy before turning to her, arms snaking around her shoulders. You hold her close and she doesn’t pull away, hands still resting against your hips.

“Let me protect you, my lady.”

And though your voice is soft, a faint whisper, it’s almost a demand, surprising yourself and her both. Taken aback as she is, her smile widens by a hair, and she leans in to lock your lips with hers. You melt against her, hold on her tightening like she’s going to dissipate at any moment.

“Fine,” she whispers against your lips, playful as she nips at your lower one. “But promise me that you won’t let yourself get too badly hurt when you realize swords aren’t playthings.”

It doesn’t sink in immediately, but when it does, you rest your forehead against hers, close your eyes, allow yourself to relax against her hold. She’s warm, a contrast to the chilly, damp, dreary outside of the village you now call your home.

“No promises,” you say, and she knows that you mean, thank you.

---

Your teacher is a man you’ve only met briefly, large and imposing and one with a love for the thrill of battle. His background is one that he doesn’t waste breath on explaining to you; Konan informs you later that he is, without a doubt, one of the best swordsmen in the land, and he proves this within moments.

It’s a while before you get the hang of the blade, but you’re a force to be reckoned with when you do.

---

“You’re wrong,” she whispers in the dead of night, rain falling outside the open window as you tangle in each other’s limbs, basking in moonlight.

You frown, turning your face to meet hers as she looks away, and you press a gentle kiss to the edge of her jaw.

“About?”

She doesn’t look at you as you study her face, half-lidded eyes trained on the ceiling and mouth falling open as she relaxes her head back. Her face is bare both of makeup and expression, stoic as you kiss her along the inside of her wrist, unmoving as your lips graze a spot that used to, a long time ago, garner giggles, laughter, mirth. Some reaction, any reaction; one that you long for.

“I’m no goddess,” she tells you. She closes her eyes, lets her head fall back against the too-thin pillow as her legs curl around yours.

“Maybe not,” you reply, and finally she meets your gaze, lifts her hand to your cheek, lets her lips turn up gently as you press a tender little kiss to the inside of her palm. Your eyes never waver, locked with her golden stare that makes your core twist and turn in all the best ways. “More of an angel.”

She laughs, a gentle sound from her chest that you feel before you hear.

“An angel,” she repeats, questioning tone hidden behind her quiet voice. “You’ve been spending too long on the ground, love.”

You crack a smile, lick the inside of her palm before she pulls her hand away.

“They don’t know the half of it,” you reply, and you brush a piece of hair from her face, bury your nose in the crook of her neck. Your tone is soft as you continue; words meant for Konan’s ear only. “Benevolent, peace-seeking. Messengers of God.” Slowly, your hand traces the planes of her back, toned from years of survival. “Winged emissaries sent by the Gods to act on their behalf, protectors and guides.”

Konan sighs gently through her nose, tilts her face to the sky; she stays silent, lets her eyes slip shut, lets your fingers explore the gentle curve of her hip, the soft musculature of her back.

“An intermediary, the go-between for both people and the Gods.” You nibble at her ear, gently, letting your breath wash over her bare neck. “Said to bring good fortune to all who meet one face to face.”

Finally, she pulls away, looks you in the eye again with something akin to mirth painted on her features.

“Enough.”

She places a finger against your lips, traces the bottom one slowly, carefully before her hand moves back, cups the side of your neck, and pulls you in. She kisses you, holds your face in her hands, and doesn’t let you go.

It’s a kiss as divine as she is.

---

You’re instructed to stay with Nagato during the assault on Konoha, keep a watch on him and help fend off any potential attackers who may have found their way to his hideout. Though it’s doubtful that anybody would find their way here, still, you follow your orders to a T, remain vigilant in Nagato’s company, and keep a watchful eye on the surrounding area.

Konan finally returns to the cave in a flurry of origami butterflies, worry in her eyes as she reconstructs herself and stands strong before her God.

“Nagato, you can’t.” She’s barely fully formed as she speaks, a few small strips of paper still lingering in the air. You look on with curious eyes and a furrowed brow, but neither pay any attention to you.

“It’s been done, Konan,” Nagato tells her, and his usually soft voice is strong, powerful; you open your mouth to interject but Konan beats you to the punch.

“You leveled the whole village.”

Her usually controlled mask is broken, replaced by true colors in a state of panic. You know she doesn’t worry for the Leaf; they’ve done nothing but harm to her and to her loved ones, and you know that they would continue down the same path if left to their own devices.

Her worry is solely and wholeheartedly for Nagato.

His health is shaky at best from the incident years ago that cost him his ability to walk on his own, the ability to exist without the need of assistance from his walker. He has been ultimately locked away for twenty years, seeing the world through the eyes of six others, hearing only tales from Konan or from yourself. It takes a lot of chakra to control his Paths, a lot of chakra that Nagato’s lucky to have through his heritage but sometimes, you know, it’s not quite enough. And where he’s in the heat of battle, controlling all six of his Paths at once, throwing jutsu after jutsu at the enemy?

You stand by silently as she chastises Nagato for his careless use of his jutsu, for his headstrong ways of gaining the high ground. You watch on as her normally very mellow exterior is chipped away in large chunks, tossed aside in favor of care and devotion for her friend, going too hard too quickly for something that he wants so badly.

You see her heart break over and over again and it kills you inside that she has to go about it like this. But there’s nothing that you can do but observe, a silent mediator.

Carefully, quietly, you step over and you take Konan’s hand, giving it a little squeeze to try and keep her distracted; she glances at you, squeezes your hand back. You know you can’t do much good to help mediate the situation; you know Nagato well, but not the way that Konan does. You can only act as support here, remind Konan of exactly what she needs to hear.

It’s going to be okay, you tell her silently, a message in a soft smile for her eyes only.

---

In the end, Konoha wins, but you know Nagato doesn’t see this as a loss for his side.

Nagato’s dream has always been of peace. A shared dream with the two he holds the most dear, the two friends that he’s cherished since his parents were killed during the war.

When Yahiko died, Nagato took it upon himself to shoulder his dream, make that dream a reality. Nagato took Yahiko’s visage, turned it into the face of what he was, and still is, fighting for; for peace, for freedom, for his friends and family gone too soon.

You listen, silently, to Naruto’s tales of their shared master’s teachings, to his words filled with heart and soul and passion. You listen to his story of Uzumaki Naruto, the novel character; his heroic endeavors and his valiant efforts, his vow to break the cycle of war and conflict so prevalent in your world. You listen to Nagato level with him, put his faith in him, and understand him.

Believe him.

Naruto’s promises to bring peace to the shinobi world, and because Nagato believes him, you have to, too.

And in the end, you listen to Nagato give his life in exchange for that of this village that has only done him harm, and you’re not sure if you want to cry or scream or both, but you hold it in.

You need to be strong.

---

They're laid to rest among a bed of origami roses, carefully handcrafted with love and grief.

Silence deafens as Yahiko and Nagato’s bodies are laid to rest, positioned ever-so among their floral shrine. You watch on, eyes trained on Konan’s still form as she whispers her final goodbyes, reminiscing about what once was. You’re well aware how close they all were, orphans banded together by tragedy, constant war and a longing for peace. These children grew together, laughed together, cried together. Survived together.

And they have been ripped from her, one by one.

You approach her, slowly; “Lady Angel,” you say, hesitating before placing a hand gently on her shoulder. She doesn’t move, doesn’t acknowledge you, but you feel her muscles relax, just slightly. You frown, fingers holding her shoulder firmly, and try again. “Konan.”

Finally, her eyes find you, filled with grief and want and sorrow.

And it hurts.

To see someone you’ve pledged yourself to, to watch each stage of grief so plainly in her face, hurts. And maybe, maybe you’re far too hopeful, maybe you can’t make it better. But you can try. You can offer her a shoulder, a loving embrace; another person to shoulder her sorrow. You were close with these boys – these men, but you know that Konan’s history with them goes far deeper, and the agony of losing them is ripping her apart from the inside.

“My love.”

And she throws her arms around you and collapses against your form, crying silent tears as she washes herself of the grief that’s torn at her since the beginning.

---

They started as three, a powerful trio who could take on the world.

Quickly, one was taken from them; a death too soon, his friend’s hand forced by their shared enemy. A life taken of his own will, keeping Nagato’s conscience clean. A sacrifice for Konan’s life, for Nagato’s wellbeing, for the good of Amegakure. And Nagato, with deep care for his friend and one of his greatest allies, took Yahiko’s face and made him the very image of their shared dream. And he continued keeping Yahiko’s memory alive, down to his final moments.

And the other life taken for the greater good, one life exchanged for that of an entire village. The promise of change, of reformation on the horizon keeping his head clear as he cast his Rinne Tensei. One kind, thoughtful life, given for a village that would not give a damn about the life given so that it could flourish once again.

Two sweet, selfless boys, lost to the plains of the Pure Lands, in exchange for something greater.

There’s only one left now in this physical realm, but you promise Konan that you will keep their spirits alive.

They will not have sacrificed their lives for nothing.

---

Uzumaki Naruto had vowed, all those years ago, to help bring Amegakure back to its feet, but it becomes clear very quickly that his words were hollow, an empty promise made to help ease the strain on Konoha. Whether actively his fault or not, Nagato’s dying wish was for Naruto to help restore the village that was once great, and Naruto failed.

So you take it upon yourself.

Amegakure has lost its God, but the people don’t need to know that. They still have their Lady Angel, and they have her guard dog, her love sworn protector, and between the two of you, anybody that stands in the way of returning the village to glory will face your blade. You swear this on Yahiko and Nagato’s shrine, on their lives, cut short far too soon; you swear this on every life given in the battle with Konoha, in the wars, in the needless suffering of everybody who had to see the horrors of Ame’s history.

You swear this on your life, and you swear it on your vow to Konan to keep her boys’ dreams alive.

The years of heartbreak, of anguish, of solitude following the deaths of those she held dearest would be enough to break anybody. She is strong, level-headed with a kind face and even kinder soul – one left untainted despite being brought up in a war-torn country with nothing but a couple of children her own age, a stranger from a foreign country teaching them to the best of his ability, and a straggler knocking on death’s door, desperate to feel useful once again. She is ruthless and beautiful, wicked on the battlefield and gentle in her day-to-day, an admirable sort who would go out of her way for those others might deem below her, not worth her time.

She is, first and foremost, here to help the people of Amegakure get back on their feet, rise up to the glory that Ame has never gotten to feel.

But after that?

After that, you can’t help but wonder where she will go, what she’ll do. You imagine, assume that she will remain in Amegakure, keeping a watchful eye over her people, countless lives that must be protected at all costs. People who do not deserve to see the anguish that war brings, nor the sorrow that comes with needless loss. These are good people, and do not deserve to suffer the way that you both have.

With you by her side, her guard dog, her silent protector as named by the people of Ame, you know that she is unstoppable, completely capable of anything and everything. Her sharp wit and serious demeanor are off putting to most, magnetic and charming to you, who knows her softer side, who sees who she is behind closed doors. Her caring, gentle side, the one that she saves for the children and the elders, and those who require a softer hand rather than the harsher sentence of God. The one that she allows you to see, too, because she knows the importance you hold in each other’s lives.

She is your queen, your goddess, your lady angel. And what are you?

Nothing.

But you are hers.

#WOOOO BOY #anyway enjoy i had a lot of fun writing this <3 #yahikonan #konan #konan x reader #konan x you #gender neutral reader #desfic

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scarlettscribbles · 4 years ago

Text

she used to be mine

- Anthony Bridgerton & TwinSister!Reader

Tags: 4k words - 3rd person POV, sibling fluff, family fluff, Anthony/Siena (not the main focus), Anthony is a soft boi when it comes to you (the softest, in fact), mourning

Warning/s: a bit spicy at the beginning, mild injury, mention of blood, major character death

Summary: A question from Siena about love sends Anthony into the past; making him recall his memories of a sister long loved, but never forgotten. A story told in moments.

a/n: don’t mind me, just manifesting my angst and bridgerton needs >> titles from waitress the musical

i. it’s not simple to say

“What do you think about love?”

“Love? What’s this all of a sudden?” Anthony laughed. He captured between his hands Siena’s own and kissed it playfully, making her giggle. “What do I think about it, well. I love kissing you, touching you-” he planted a soft kiss on her collarbone as his hands trailed down her abdomen. “I love--”

“Okay, no stop. That is not what I meant at all!” Siena stilled his wandering hands, laughing. She snuggled closer until they were chest to chest. “Love with your friends, family,...women.” she waggled her brows at the last word.

“Women, hah.” Anthony cast his eyes upward. “The only women I’ve ever loved are my mother and five sisters.”

“You mean four.”

“What?”

“You have four sisters: Daphne, Eloise, Francesca, and Hyacinth if memory serves correctly. Unless your mother’s pregnant, which I believe is unlikely. My lord, did you perhaps miscount?” Siena teased.

“No, no.” he waved his hand, chuckling. “She…”

ii. i still remember that girl

She was born 9 minutes before him; the eldest Bridgerton. This was a fact she liked lording over him teasingly. She won many arguments by simply stating “I am the eldest Bridgerton and therefore…”

Sometimes he could still hear her say it in his head.

“Remind me why I’m accompanying you again?”

“Because I am your older sister and--”

“I should always agree to what you’re saying, blah blah. Oh this is so crowded! Why could you not just send a maid to fetch the book?”

“Well what’s the fun in that? Come on Tony, you’re being too slow! It will be nighttime when we arrive there and the book I wanted will be gone!” she moaned miserably, turning around and tugging on his hand to encourage him to make haste.

“You and your dramatics. Why is this book so important anyway?”

“It simply is. I need it for when I become the Viscountess.” she smiled at him, chin jutting out proudly. “I can’t wait to get Papa’s watch. I will get it right, as Viscountess? He will pass it onto me along with the title.”

“Uh no he won’t. I am the heir in case you have forgotten, sister.”

“But I am the oldest. We might be both 10 but I am 9 minutes older than you.” she argued, waving her pointer finger at him.

“Yes, yes you’ve said that like a million times now! But you’re a girl, so you can’t. You shall marry some guy, not that there are any worth marrying. Why just the today I saw the son of that family I cannot remember for the life of me, doing something horrendous! I think it would be better for you to stay away from any and all men.” Anthony paused, realizing that he was - or is soon going to be - one of those men. “Except for me and Papa, of course.”

She merely looked at him in amusement. “Pish posh.” his twin huffed, eyes glinting in the sunlight. “I’m not going to exchange my ambitions for some mere man. You shall see Tony, I will have that watch. Now come on!” she dropped his hand and gathered her skirts, ducking and maneuvering between the throng of people. Anthony felt a tinge of panic, seeing his sister slowly becoming engulfed by the crowd.

“Sister wait!” he started to chase after her. He saw the blue tail-end of her skirt when someone bumped into him. He whirled around to complain to whoever it was; however, he seemed to have miscalculated the strength of his spin and tripped, landing on his bottom. “Ow, hey watch it!” he shouted at the people who accidentally kicked him, not noticing his figure on the ground.

Anthony hissed as he dusted his pants. He examined the palm of his hand and noticed scratches from when he landed too roughly on the floor. There were spots of red slowly making its way down his hand, along with drops of water.

Oh. He was crying.

“Where are you?” his voice warbled. “Sister…”

Has she left him, truly? Surely not. His twin is many things but never cruel. She was tenacious, smart, and…

“Tony! I let you out of my sight for a second and - goodness!” She ran over and knelt in front of him, glaring at the people who would come too close. They parted for her, giving them a wide berth. “Here, take my handkerchief. We should get home and wash your hands. We don’t want it to be infected. And your clothes are a mess, Mama is going to have a fit. Come now,”

“But your book?” he sniffed.

“Eh, I can get it some other time.” she smiled and patted his cheeks. “Don’t cry now, sister’s got you.”

...kind. She was kind.

iii. reckless just enough

Anthony was sulking. Not that he’d let anyone know. Papa had gotten angry with him. It wasn’t even a big thing. He simply...borrowed his watch to look at it. Anthony thought maybe he could figure out what made his twin so interested in it. It was a plain thing, nothing special maybe besides the monogram. He didn’t mean to drop it from the stairs. He really didn’t. He heard his name being called for lunch and he jolted.

He got a dressing down from Papa with his siblings present; Benedict and Colin in particular snickering at his plight. It was embarrassing. As soon as Papa dismissed him, he ran for his room, ignoring the calls of his twin.

Right now he was hidden beneath the curtains and behind his bookshelf. Did Papa really have to scold him at the lunch table? Anthony buried his face between his hands.

“You didn’t eat.”

Anthony banged his head on the wall when he looked up too fast.

“Are you okay?” his twin asked him, smiling amusedly. She carried with her a plate with bread, cheese, ham and a slice of blueberry pie.

“Don’t laugh at me.”

“I’m not.”

“You’re smiling.”

“Laughing and smiling are worlds apart, Tony.” she shook her head and sat beside him, nudging him insistently until they were shoulder to shoulder. She slid the plate from her lap to his. “Eat.”

Anthony looked at her blankly. “Are you so distraught that you cannot eat? Do you want me to hand feed you like a child?” She made a motion as if she was going to grab the plate but Anthony shooed her hands away.

“I’m perfectly capable, thank you.” he stuffed a piece of bread in his mouth. “How’d you find me anyway?”

“Please swallow before you talk.” she said. “And, this is your room Tony. I’m simply using common sense.”

“Oh.”

“Yes.”

Anthony picked up the ham and cheese and continued eating. For a moment, they just sat there in comfortable silence.

“It’s unfair.” Anthony said, breaking the silence.

“What is?”

“Papa.”

“How come?”

“He was way too angry. I didn’t mean to drop his watch! And it wasn’t even broken. If it was, he could’ve repaired it easily.” he pouted.

“You could’ve also just asked him to look at it. You know, in his room. Where you can’t drop it from a height and possibly damage it.” she replied with a bit of sarcasm.

“Fine, yes, I could have.” he conceded. “I just don’t know why he was so angry.”

“It’s important to him.”

“It’s just a watch.” Anthony rebutted, pouting. His twin gave him a look that he knew meant “you look adorable but also stupid.”

“Nah.”

“No?”

“Nope.” she answered. “For one, it’s an heirloom. Heirloom is defined as -”

“I know what it means.” Anthony waved his hand. “Do go on.”

She gave him a faintly annoyed look which merely made him smirk. “I shall, and not because you told me to.” she cleared her throat. “The watch being an heirloom is just its value as a thing. There’s also the sentimental value. The memories and emotions attached to the watch. For Papa, he treasures it because it - probably - reminds him of grandfather and grandmother. Grandfather especially. Because he was the one to give the Papa the rights and responsibility for our family.”

“Is that why?”

“Why what?”

“I wanted to know what makes it so special for you.” Anthony shrugged. “You always talk about it, about getting the watch when we become older. I didn’t see the big deal. Is that why it’s so important to you too?”

“Yes, quite.” she answered. “I want to take care of our family, Tony. I know I can, I just do. I don’t want me to just be a wife. I’m meant for greater things. Also,” she grinned at him. “I want it so I could count down the seconds until I see you again.”

Anthony fake gagged, pretending to chuck the bread and cheese onto his twins’ lap. His twin scrambled away far from him and yelped. “You are disgusting! Mama! Anthony ruined the new dress that we just got!”

“I did not!”

“You were about to!”

iv. i was never attention’s sweet center

It was just a stupid, off-hand comment from Benedict. Anthony knew his brother meant no harm but still, the comment hurt.

“Maybe she truly should have your title, brother.”

Anthony was no stranger to her loud and obvious wanting to inherit the head of the house. In fact, he supported his twin. If Papa permitted it, he would gladly concede to you. However, it was unspoken between the twins the knowledge that Papa would never agree to such a thing; no matter how much he loved his eldest daughter.

Anthony was no stranger to her excellence either. While the both of them worked hard to set an example for their younger siblings. He always thought she was great at everything a girl should be and more. Though the ‘more’ part would never reach the ears of their mother or anybody else. Nobody should know that Anthony taught her how to sucker punch anybody that vexed her except maybe Benedict and Colin...also Eloise. That girl was far too curious and also far too attached to Benedict. Anthony thinks in the privacy of his mind that if she were a boy, there would be no quarrel that she’d get the title.

Other people also thought the same. Though they expressed it in a much less pleasant way, in words Anthony does not care for. They speak condescendingly. They speak of her gender with pity in their voices, their admiration twisted. They mention that her excellence should be toned down, that she should focus instead on things better suited to her. They speak of how inadequate Anthony is, how poor that a boy be overshadowed by a girl. They theorize how Anthony must hate her for taking all the spotlight. He hears all this, and she does too, seeing as they’re almost always attached at the hip. If it bothers her, she does not speak of it.

They speak of lies. Anthony thinks that her abilities suit her as they are and that no matter how bright she shines, it would never be something to be upset over. He basked in her light. They are wrong for thinking that she’s taking a piece of his life away when in truth, she completes it. Best friends, twins, soulmates; he loves her and she loves him. Still, their words leave a mark.

So when Benedict said that albeit in a teasing manner, Anthony just ran away. As he got older, he found it the preferable way to escape his problems. If he could not run to her then he must run away.

Anthony hugged himself as a strong breeze blew and made the unoccupied swing beside him rock.

“Tony.” And there she was. His twin was holding a book. She sat at the swing beside him.

There was silence. The only thing he could hear were the wind, the scuffling of his feet, and the soft sound of her flipping the pages.

“Sister,” she did not look up from the book but she hummed, signifying that he was heard. “Why did you come out here? It’s better to read inside, surely.”

“You’re upset. Of course I would come.” she said matter-of-factly.

“Did Ben tattle?”

“Ben? Tattle? His mouth is tighter than a woman’s corset when it comes to secrets.” she laughed lightly. “Surely you know better than that.”

“Yeah, I do.” he smiled. Since they were little, even if they were distances apart, both of them would always know - or at least had an inkling of - what the other was feeling. During their early years they chalked it up to magic but now they both just conceded it as a twin thing. “Actually, I don’t. Know better, I mean. Everybody seems to think so. Am I inadequate, sister? Dumb perhaps? I feel like I cannot do anything right sometimes! Compared to you I - “

His twin laid a hand on his shoulder. “Tony.” her brows were drawn and her lips pursed. “First of all, there is no comparison brother. I am me and you are your wonderful self. We are both excellent, please do not doubt yourself of that no matter what anyone says. And I know they say a lot. I’m just so used to tuning them out that I never considered that you might not do the same. I’m sorry.”

She stood up and drew him into a hug. Anthony’s arms stayed limp at his side. “People will flap their mouths because that’s what they do; say their opinions even though it’s unwelcome. If we tried to stop every single one of them, why I believe it’ll take all our lifetime and more!” she chuckled. “We cannot change them so we must change how much we’ll let their words affect us. Their words don’t matter at all! If I could, then I would shove those words back up their mouth and let them swallow it. Which I don’t know how to do. D’you suppose punching them would work just as well?” Anthony laughed wetly at her quip. It would work but it would also involve somebody calling Mama and Papa for her ‘inappropriate behavior’.

“What I know is this.” she grasped his shoulders and held them so she could stare at him in the eyes. Anthony met her determined gaze head-on. “You’re good enough Tony. Hell, you’re excellent.”

Anthony sobbed and quickly drew her into a fierce hug, his tears surely wetting her dress but he knew she didn't mind. “That is as sure as the sun that rises in the east. As sure as our family’s love, and ours for each other.”

v. bring back the fire in her eyes

It started with a cold. She had stayed up too long outside and now she’s bed-ridden. Anthony crossed his arms at the corner of the room as his younger siblings ran around. In his opinion there was too much ruckus for her to properly rest. However, Mama brought it up earlier and his twin just waved her concern away, stating that some liveliness will do her good. And who was Anthony to go against the wishes of his dear sister? It doesn’t mean that he has to like it though.

“No you’re the troll!” Eloise insisted.

“I was the troll last round!” Colin argued back.

“Now, now,” Benedict placated them both, then he glanced at Anthony in a way that promised mischief. “Why don’t we let Anthony be the troll then? He certainly looks the part with how grouchy he is.”

Daphne giggled. “And how he’s guarding his corner.”

“And how horrendous his face looks!” added Eloise.

Now he’s had enough. “You all look far too happy for someone who’s going to be troll food soon.”

“Troll wuh - AAH!” Eloise screamed as Anthony lunged at her. She took off with a sprint and soon the other Bridgertons followed as well, laughing boisterously. “Noo, Ben save me!”

“This is survival of the fittest -”

“Survival of the fittest your face!”

“Ehem.” Suddenly all motion stopped. Colin face-planted on the floor, caught by his momentum. All eyes went to the door where Violet Bridgerton stood along with a maid. She had a smile on her face coupled with a vaguely exasperated expression. “I’m glad you’re having fun but please take you playing outside. I need to tend to your sick sister.”

Various moans and complaints filled the room but only with a raise of their Mama’s brow, they filed outside the room, murmuring farewells and well wishes to the sole occupant of the bed. All except one. Anthony remained rooted at the side of his sister’s bed.

“Anthony, please.” Violet gently said. A complaint was on the tip of his tongue when a hand laid on his bicep. He looked at his sister, looking frail among the covers but she merely smiled and shook her head.

“I’ll be fine Tony.” she said. “Go and check that our siblings haven’t set the house ablaze or anything.”

For a moment, both of them just stared at each other. A silent conversation passing between them both. Anthony sighed. “Get well.” he bent over to press a kiss to her forehead. “I’m not sure I alone will be enough to stop them from doing that.”

She laughed. “You will be.”

vi. sometimes life just slips

It was only supposed to be a cold. A cold.

Someone almost barreled through Anthony as he, Benedict, Colin came through the door. “Whoa!” he exclaimed as the maid said a rushed apology. Everyone in the house seemed to be in a mad dash. He exchanged looks with his brothers, who were as clueless as he.

“Anthony!” came the panicked voice of Eloise. He held her shoulders and looked over her for any harm of some sort that caused her to panic.

“What’s wrong?” he asked. Anthony was surprised to see her looking up at him with teary eyes. Eloise is looking at him like how she used to when she was much littler, pleading to Anthony. Believing with all her might that her older brother will make everything okay. He looked behind her to Daphne who was pursing her lips.

“Oh God, is someone dead?” Colin quipped, then promptly made a punched-out noise as Benedict elbowed him.

“Sister, she - “

“She’s dead?!” Colin cried.

“No!” Daphne growled, irritated. “She’s just...in pain. Mama and Papa sent for doctors.”

“Goodness, how serious is this cold? - Anthony, wait!”

Anthony didn’t hear Benedict’s call. How could he over the thumping of his racing heartbeat? He ran upstairs like the devil was on his tail, and even then he felt like he was too slow. He paused at her door, psyching himself to open it. If he went in, what would he see? He raised his trembling hands, the complaints of his siblings nothing but a faint echo.

The doors burst open and out came two elderly men and one woman. The siblings crowded around them. Anthony could only hear snippets as he zeroed in on you. Mama was kneeling beside his twin’s bed, holding her daughter’s hand tight to her chest.

“The young miss will be fine -”

“We expect her fever to break -”

“Dear.” Anthony jumped, startled. The woman accompanying the doctors addressed him. “Are you okay?”

“My - my twin sister, will she be alright?”

“Twin, huh. That’s why you’re so distraught. Well all of you are but you in particular,” she shook her head and smiled. “Your sister is strong. She will be fine. You can go in. I’m sure she’ll be glad for your company.”

She need not say it twice. Anthony ran into the room.

“Sister.”

“Tony.”

He felt like he could breathe again.

vii. rewrite an ending or two

“Are you sure you don’t want to get up here? We shared a bed when we were little. And when we grew, sometimes.” she paused, thinking about her statement. “Often.” his twin amended.

Anthony hummed when she stopped running her hands through his hair. “No.”

“The ground is cold, Tony. You might get sick.”

“How could I? You already took all the sick with you.” Anthony grumbled. “I’m fine, sister.”

“If you say so.”

“How about you?” Anthony asked.

“Hmm?” she smiled. Facing down and in the darkness, Anthony couldn’t have seen it but he felt it. “I believe I will be.”

viii. she is gone, but she used to be mine

It was a miserable day in spring when the eldest Bridgerton was buried.

ix. most days i don’t recognize me

“She…” Anthony clenched his jaw.

“Are you ever going to finish that sentence?” Siena asked, smiling until she noticed how tense he was. She reached out to touch his arm, inquiring, “My lord, are you alright?”

Anthony sniffed and quickly stood up, hastily picking up his clothes. “Yes, fine.” he answered, hopping on one foot to put his shoes on. “I’m fine. I’m fine.”

“Where are you off to in such a hurry?” Siena asked. Anthony barely spared a glance at her, pausing shortly halfway out the door. He checked his watch, eyes glazing over for a moment.

“I need - I’m needed. At home.” With that, he briskly walked outside and into his carriage. It was today. He must’ve forgotten. How could he have forgotten? But he also ‘forgot’ the other years. The grief consumed him on this particular day. It was always a sore reminder that he was missing his other half. So instead of going to her grave, he went drinking. Instead of spending the day with her in his mind, he spent it with his cock inside somebody. Anthony spent so much time forgetting but now it’s as if her ghost had come to haunt him. Every memory had come rushing back, especially the day she died.

He remembered the night before. The doctors had told them she would be better. She told him she would be better. But he needed to stay close to her. Anthony fell asleep with her hand in his hair. Then he woke up to her eyes open but her breath was gone. He had never screamed so loud in his life.

Anthony remembered their parents barging into the room, Mama taking a step back looking as if she was seconds away from fainting. Then she saw her son on the floor and immediately enveloped him in her arms. He woke up in a bed sometime during the night. He woke up convinced it was all a dream but that promptly shattered when all his siblings (all except one) filed into the room in their sleepwear. Their eyes were swollen and wet. And it stayed that way until her funeral, and even some more after that.

The carriage stopped. Anthony got out and stopped at the gate. He knew Mama held some kind of family gathering during this day. What they did in the gathering, he had no idea. He never stayed long enough to attend. But today was different, somehow.

He padded softly into the drawing room. A quick glance noted him of all his siblings’ presence. Francesca was playing a familiar tune. Colin was singing in a low tone. Benedict, Eloise, and Daphne were all sitting on one couch, leaning against each other. The youngest ones sat on the floor, trying to follow the lyrics Colin sang. Mama was sewing. The melancholy vibe was replaced with a startled one. Francesca stopped playing and Colin stopped singing. Mama dropped what she was holding and walked towards him, arms open.

Anthony crumbled. “Mama -”

x. for the girl that i knew

“Mama what do you think about love?” It was indeed a bleak day in spring. Everybody had left after the service but Anthony chose to stay, lingering.

“Anthony I -” Violet began.

“Why does it hurt so much?” he whirled around, uncaring as tears and snot fell messily down his tired face. “I feel as if someone carved an unfillable hole inside me. Like every breath I take is not right. Half of me is buried six feet underground, mama. How can I bear it?”

Anthony curled into himself as Mama enveloped him into her arms. “One day at a time, dearest. You have us still.” she whispered. “One day at a time.”

[fin.]

#anthony bridgerton #bridgerton tv #bridgerton netflix #fanfiction #bridgerton fic #sister!reader #reader-insert #anthony bridgerton & sister!reader #twinsister!reader #oneshot #sibling fluff #fluff #bridgerton x reader #anthony bridgerton x reader #scarlettscribbles

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fridayfirefly · 4 years ago

Text

Two Birds [Part One]

Read Two Birds on AO3

Masterlist [All Works]

Masterlist [Two Birds Series]

Written for Maribat March Day 14 - Dead

Nine-year-old Marinette Dupain-Cheng peeked around the legs of her Grandma Gina to look up at the circus tent. Framed by the setting sun, it looked grand and magnificent, but Marinette still would rather have stayed at home. "We'll be staying here?"

"Not inside the circus tent, silly. There are trailers around back that the performers sleep in. That's where we'll be staying."

Marinette scuffed her shoes against the ground, watching the dust kick up. "Why couldn't we just stay at home?"

"We have to experience new things, Marinette - that's what makes life worth living when you're old like me."

"I don't want to try new things and I don't want to stay with strangers. I just want to stay at home."

"It's only three days, sweetheart. Just trust me. You'll have fun."

Marinette pouted but nodded anyway. "Fine." Marinette loved her Grandma Gina, who brought her gifts from all around the world and told her stories of her travels. However, Marinette didn't like when her parents made Gina babysit. Gina refused to babysit Marinette at home and instead took Marinette on her travels with her. Marinette didn't like traveling, especially when it meant she had to stay with strangers. She much preferred her own bed to the bed of a stranger.

"Gina Dupain!" exclaimed a smiling man, walking out of the circus tent.

"Walter Haly! How are things in the circus business?"

"Worse without you, my lovely Gina. Please tell me you'll perform while you're staying with us."

Gina smiled but shook her head. "I'm too old for the trapeze, Walter. But maybe I can convince this little one to try it out." Gina pushed Marinette out in front of her.

"Oh! Who is this?"

"My granddaughter, Marinette."

Haly knelt down to get to Marinette's height. "How old are you, Marinette?"

Marinette stared down at her shoes, scuffed up brown with dust. "I'm nine years old."

"Do you want to try out the trapeze?"

Marinette vigorously shook her head. "I'm scared of heights."

"Well, we'll see about that. A lot can change in three days." Haly got up and led Marinette and Grandma Gina around behind the tent to the trailers.

Marinette knew that if her mother was there, she would be scolded for being rude, but she couldn't help it. She didn't want to stay at the circus. She wanted to stay in her room, play Ultra Mecha Strike with Kim, and sneak cookies from the bakery when Gina wasn't looking.

Haly pointed to a baby-blue colored trailer. "Gina, you'll be staying on Clarise's couch - you remember Clarise, right."

Grandma Gina nodded. "Clarise was the redhead, right? The sword-swallower?"

"That's the one. Now, her couch only has room for one, so Marinette will be staying with the Graysons. They have a son - Richard - who's her age." Haly pointed out a trailer painted with green and yellow stripes.

Marinette grabbed onto Gina's hand. "I want to stay with you, Grandma Gina."

Gina shook her head. "You have to stay with the Graysons. But don't worry sweetheart, you'll have a lot of fun."

Marinette sighed and dragged her feet as she walked to the trailer. Of all the weekend that her parents left town to go to a pastry exhibition, it had to be the weekend that the circus that Grandma Gina once performed at was in town. Marinette knocked twice on the door and waited for it to open. A pretty woman with dark hair and kind eyes opened up the door and started speaking in perfect French. "Oh, hello! You must be little Marinette."

"Yes ma'am," Marinette mumbled.

"Come inside sweetheart." The woman led Marinette into the trailer. It was cramped and messy, but obviously well-loved. The walls were painted periwinkle and the curtains covering the window were orange with blue butterflies. "You don't have to call me ma'am, it makes me feel old. I'm Mary, and this is my husband John."

John was sitting on the couch, mending a tear in a crimson red leotard. "Hello, Marinette. Welcome to Haly's Circus."

"Hi."

Mary started leading Marinette to a door. "This is our son Dick's room, where you'll be sleeping. We set up an air mattress on the floor. You can drop your backpack off in there. Dick will be showing you tomorrow, keeping you out of trouble."

"Okay."

Dick was sitting on the bed when Marinette walked into the room, reading a comic book. Marinette waved shyly, "Hello, I'm Marinette."

"I'm Dick, Dick Grayson."

"Which comic book is that?" asked Marinette, leaning forward to get a good look at the title.

"It's an American comic book about this superhero named Ant-Man. He can shrink super small or grow super huge. He's really cool."

"Could I read it?" asked Marinette.

"Sure. I even have the first one on my bookshelf. I have comic books for nearly all of the Marvel superheroes." As Marinette read, Dick explained the backstories of all of his favorite superheroes and why he owned so many of the comics. "I want to be a superhero someday. If I were a superhero, I would want to be able to fly for real, not just on the trapeze.

Just then, Marinette noticed a poster up on the wall. Visit Haly's Circus to watch the amazing Flying Grayson trapeze family. On the poster were three silhouettes of trapeze artists. "That's you on the poster, isn't it?"

"Yep. I've been doing trapeze since I was seven, and I'm ten now, so that's three whole years. I only got to start performing last month, though." Dick hopped off of his bed and sat down on the air mattress, facing Marinette. "While you're here, are you gonna learn how to do trapeze?"

Marinette shook her head. "I can't. It's too scary."

"But trapeze isn't even scary," protested Dick.

"Maybe not for you, but you do it all the time. I've never done it before and I'm scared of heights."

"Hmm. How about, if you try out the trapeze, I'll do something that scares me, too."

"What would you do?"

Dick stopped to think it over, his face scrunched up in a way that Marinette found both cute and worrisome, given that he was thinking over ways to get her to face her greatest fear of all time. "I know! If you learn trapeze, I'll learn to swim."

"No way! Swimming is way easier than trapeze."

"Not for me!" said Dick indignantly. "I've never been able to swim. But I'll learn how if you learn how to do trapeze."

"I don't know..." Dick was so enthusiastic about the plan that Marinette wanted to say yes, yet there was a lingering fear that held her back.

"Trust me, Marinette. In three days you'll be flying like a bird, and I'll be swimming like a fish."

"Oh, alright. I'll try it."

"Great! Now, I still have a question for you: if you could have any power, what would it be."

"Invisibility," decided Marinette, "That way when I'm late to school, I can slip into the classroom without my teacher noticing."

"Good choice. Now it's your turn to ask a question."

Dick and Marinette stayed up late that night, reading comics and asking each other questions. By morning, Marinette knew that Dick's favorite color was blue, his favorite cookie was chocolate with chocolate chips, his favorite comic book hero was Hawkeye (because he doesn't have any powers, but still manages to be a superhero), and his favorite circus animal performer was Zitka the Elephant. Dick was nine months older than Marinette, his birthday being October 2nd as opposed to her July 28th birthday.

"It's time to teach you how to do trapeze!" announced Dick as soon as breakfast was over.

"We offered to watch over you today while Gina catches up with her friends," explained Mary. "Now, I know that you're afraid of heights, and I'm not going to force you to do anything that you don't want, but I think it would be a good experience to try trapeze. I promise you, it's completely safe."

"I'll try it."

Dick grinned. "We made a deal last night. If Marinette learns how to do trapeze then I have to learn how to swim."

John raised one eyebrow. "I thought that you swore off swimming for as long as you live."

"I changed my mind. Marinette has to learn how to do trapeze."

Mary and John were both smiling as they exchanged a look. Mary cleared her throat, then said, "Alright. Marinette, I'll get you a leotard, and then you can get dressed."

Given that they were approximately the same size, Dick would be partnered up with Marinette to guide her through the trapeze while she was in the air. Dick and John went ahead to get Dick in position before Marinette started. However, by the time Mary and Marinette got to the circus tent, Marinette was having second thoughts. While her new white leotard was cute, the thought of plummeting to her death while attempting to do trapeze was much less cute. "I'm not so sure about this."

"Marinette, I promise that there is no way you can get hurt. We'll have you strapped into a harness the whole time."

Marinette looked up at Mary, "You promise?"

As she looked up at Mary, the one thing that Marinette's anxious brain noticed was that the older woman had very trustworthy eyes. "Yes, I promise."

Marinette took a deep breath. "Then I want to learn how to do trapeze."

Mary smiled. "Good. Now, the first thing we need to do is get you into your harness. It will be connected to lunge lines to keep you safe in case you fall off the ladder. Then you'll climb the ladder to the top, and we'll attach you to more safety lines. At any point, no matter what happens, you'll be safe if you fall."

Mary helped Marinette into the harness, re-explaining everything as she went along. "Once you get to the top of the ladder, John will guide you through. Dick will be on the other side, mirroring everything you do, and showing you what to do next if you need help. Got it?"

"Yep. Got it." Now, all Marinette had to do was climb the ladder - the extremely tall, extremely scary ladder.

Mary put her hand on Marinette's shoulder. "You can do this, sweetheart. There will be things in life that you're scared of, and sometimes the only way to move forward is to face those fears."

Marinette smiled up at Mary. "Thank you." She got up onto the first rung of the ladder, then the second, then the third, making sure to look up at her destination instead of down at the ground.

"Good job," said John, as Marinette climbed up onto the platform next to him. "Now I'm just going to clip you into the safety lines and unclip you from the lunge lines. There's a specific set of commands that will tell you when to go. Dick is catching you, so he'll say 'Listo' when he's built up enough height in his swing. You then will say 'Listo' when you grab hold of the fly bar. Dick will tell you 'Ready' when you need to prepare to jump, and 'Hep' is the command to jump. When you get to the peak of your swing, Dick will yell "Hep" again. That's your signal to let go of the bar. Dick will grab your hands with his, and swing you back over to the other platform, where Mary will be there to help you back onto the platform. Are you ready?"

Marinette nodded, gazing at the trapeze setup with determination. "I'm ready."

Marinette watched Dick as he took off, holding his fly bar. As he swung, he transitioned from being upright, holding the bar with his hands, to being upside down, holding the bar under his knees, his hands free to catch her. "Listo!" Dick called out.

Marinette grabbed onto the fly bar. "Listo!"

"Ready!"

Marinette bent her knees and took a deep breath.

"Hep!"

Marinette jumped off the platform, swinging on the fly bar as the wind whipped in her face. It was exhilarating. Her fear of heights was the last thing on her mind as she watched the colors of the circus tent fly by. Marinette suddenly understood what Dick meant, when he told her that he wished to be able to fly. She felt incredible, and she never wanted the feeling to end.

"Hep!" Dick called again as he swung closer and closer to her.

Marinette let go. At the same instant, Dick's hands clasped around hers, and she was swinging with him.

"How does it feel?" asked Dick.

"Amazing!" Marinette cheered as they swung back to Dick's platform.

Mary was there to grab Marinette out of Dick's grasp, pulling her firmly onto the platform. Dick flipped himself upright and did a backflip up onto the platform. "Ta-da! How did I do as my first time as a catcher?"

"The both of you did very well. You were an excellent catcher, Dick, and you were a natural flyer, Marinette. I can see the two of you being able to pull off some exceptional stunts someday, if you were to continue trapeze, Marinette."

"I want to. I really do."

Marinette was eager to get back onto the trapeze as soon as possible, but Mary insisted that they stop for lunch first. As they walked out of the circus tent, Marinette pulled Dick aside and whisper-shouted, "That was your first time as a catcher and you didn't think to tell me?"

Dick shrugged, a mischievous smile spreading on his face. "I thought it would make you more nervous."

Marinette spluttered, "You- you-"

"Dick?" suggested Dick with a straight face.

The pair burst into instantaneous laughter, so hard they were gasping for breath as they made their way back to the Grayson's trailer.

------

The next three days passed in a blur. Every morning, Dick and Marinette would start their day on the trapeze. Dick guided Marinette through more and more advanced maneuvers, working as a team to accomplish amazing feats. Every minute they spent together up on the trapeze, Marinette could feel the connection between them growing. After a few hours up on the trapeze, Marinette and Dick would get down, get lunch, and explore the campsite. Marinette got to meet Zitka the Elephant and her calf, Nadia, both of whom were rescued from a roadside petting zoo in Texas and given to Haly after they were deemed too domesticated to be released back into the wild.

Marinette and Dick would get back on the trapeze in the afternoon until Mary and John called them for supper. Then, the circus would perform. Marinette would watch The Flying Graysons perform, amazed by how effortless they made it look. After the performance, Marinette would shower Dick with praise as they walked back to the trailer. Dick pretended that he wasn't flattered, but Marinette could see how much it meant to him, to hear it from her. Though they hadn't known each other for very long at all, there was instant platonic chemistry between the two of them.

Grandma Gina made herself scarce over the weekend, spending most of her time with her old friends from her circus days. However, she always made sure to stop in to watch Marinette on the trapeze, taking pictures to show Tom and Sabine when the couple returned to Paris.

The weekend felt like it lasted both three years and three minutes at the same time; nevertheless, Sunday night still came, and Marinette had to say goodbye.

"I'll just run away with the circus," said Marinette, sitting on the air mattress, staring at her fully packed backpack. "Mary and John would take me in."

Dick shook his head. "They would never allow it, no matter how good you are at trapeze."

Marinette sighed. "I'm really going to miss you."

Dick sighed as well, leaning his head against Marinette's. "This really sucks." After a moment of silently commiserating their terrible fortune, Dick suddenly jumped up. "I know! We can send letters to each other to keep in touch. And I can send you comic books when you need new ones to read."

"But the circus moves around constantly. Where will I send the letters to?"

"I have the schedule of everywhere that we'll be for the next six months. You'll just have to send the letters so that they reach the right destination at the right time."

"That means I can still talk to you!"

And suddenly, goodbye was a lot easier to bear.

------

Haly's Circus performed in Paris twice a year - once in January and once in July - meaning that Marinette and Dick had very little time to spend together in person. However, they did write to each other. Dick would send postcards from all the places he visited and Marinette invested in good stationery to write her letters on. Dick would mail over American comic books, carefully folded and stuffed into envelopes. Marinette would send back handmade patches for Dick to sew onto his leotard. They would write about all the details of their lives that they never mentioned to anyone else. Dick told Marinette that sometimes he wished that he could have had a normal childhood all in one place, but then he would think about all the people and places he would have never met and regret ever wanting anything else. Marinette told Dick that sometimes she worried that no matter how hard she worked to be interesting and funny and worthwhile, she would never be enough for the people around her.

Worried that she would forget how to do trapeze during the six months before Haly's circus returned, Marinette convinced her parents to let her attend the one gymnastics studio in Paris that offered trapeze. They were reluctant at first, worried that Marinette could get hurt, but after a thorough overview of the safety precautions, they finally relented. It was a thirty-minute metro ride, but it was worth it when she got up on the trapeze. Marinette quickly became friends with the other students her age at the studio. Alan, Allegra, and Claude were all two years older than her and lived on the other side of Paris, but they still made time to hang out with Marinette both inside and outside of the studio.

As Marinette grew more and more skilled at trapeze, she decided to try some similar sports. She split her free time between the studio, where she worked on developing her skills at trapeze, gymnastics, and aerial silks, and home, where she worked on designing and creating clothes. It was ambitious for a ten-year-old, but Marinette was determined. She loved trapeze and loved making her own clothes, and she loved those two things equally. She could never give one up, and could barely bring herself to prioritize one over the other when her free time grew scarce.

Marinette had her purpose in life: chasing the feeling of flying as far as it could go and creating things out of nothing but her own imagination. She had all the friends she could ever need, but most important to her was Dick, who, despite their distance, seemed closer to her than anyone else.

------

It was a Thursday, the day that Marinette's world ended. It was sunny and unusually warm for October. For Marinette, the day started off entirely normally. She went to school, ate lunch with Kim and Alix, went to the trapeze studio after school to work on a new trapeze routine, got hot cocoa with Alan, Allegra, and Claude afterward, then went home.

It was the 31st of October, the day that Marinette learned of the deaths of Mary and John Grayson. Mary, with her kind eyes, and John, with his crooked smile, were gone forever. Dick was an orphan.

Marinette was only eleven years old, the day that she learned the details of their deaths. They were on the trapeze, performing the closing act of the Gotham show. Dick was up on the platform, too young for the stunt they were performing. The ropes were cut halfway through. John reached out to catch Mary, going through the motions of a trick they had performed so often it would have felt as natural as breathing for them. John caught Mary. John's ropes snapped. They both plummeted, clipped the edge of the safety nets, going too fast, hitting the ground too hard, dead before the ambulances got there. Marinette couldn't help but picture the bodies of mangled birds that died when they hit the window too hard. Marinette pictured broken bones and broken hearts and in her grief, the only person she wanted was Dick. As much as she was hurting, she knew his grief overwhelmed her. Marinette needed to comfort him. Marinette knew her friend needed her.

Yet, no matter how hard Marinette tried (and she tried so hard, because it was the only thing that gave her any relief from the burning pain in her chest) she couldn't get in touch with Dick. Haly told her that Dick was taken in by Gotham's CPS, and they refused to provide any information about him to the circus. Although the circus was his second home, Gotham refused to return Dick. Haly's Circus was deemed an unfit home. Dick would never be returned.

Every day for months Marinette called Gotham's CPS and begged for any information about her lost friend. She pleaded with them that all she wanted to do was be able to send him a letter. But each time, she was refused.

Three months passed, and by the end of those three months, Marinette felt like her heart had been drained out of her. She had lost Mary and John Grayson, who had taught her not only trapeze but how to overcome fear and be brave. She lost Dick too, but in a different way. There was no way to get in contact with Dick again, and Marinette knew that couldn't spend her whole life mourning the friendship she had lost. She knew that she had to accept it and move on. Still, Marinette never stopped missing him.

Marinette could never quite forget Dick. She remembered him every time she got up on the trapeze, every time she made a new patch that she couldn't send to him, every time she sampled a new pastry for the bakery that she knew he would have loved, every time something big happened and her first instinct was to send a letter about it to him.

Five years without him and Dick still lingered on the edge of her mind. Five years without him and Marinette knew that she would never be at peace until she saw him again.

#maribat #dickinette #dick grayson #marinette dupain-cheng #MaribatMarch2021 #maridick #my work #miraculous ladybug fic

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giorno-plays-piano · 4 years ago

Text

Crimson Gods

Pairing: vampire!Steve Rogers x Reader

Warnings: non-con, yandere, kidnapping, mentions of death and suicidal thoughts, allusion to breeding.

Words: 2362.

Summary: Living in the world where most lands are governed by the Noble, ancient vampires who shed human blood simply for their own amusement, you try leading a quiet and secluded life along with your mother. Sadly, you aren’t prepared when a vampire comes to your town.

P.S. When I was younger, I really, really loved Vampire Hunter D. I watched the movie again yesterday, and here’s the result ahahah.

______________

It was way past midnight, but you couldn't force yourself to sleep, tossing and turning in your comfy bed while thinking of your travel tomorrow. You were supposed to leave the town for the first time in years to visit your grandmother who lived in the Northern Frontier Sector, and now you dreamt of how you were going to embrace her, kiss her cheeks despite her scolding you for not behaving properly in public. You hadn't seen her in 7 years. After the incident, you had never even once left the town, and your grandmother could hardly travel so far due to her age. Of course, you kept exchanging letters, but how could a cold letter, though written with great respect, replace a live communication?

While you kept wondering how your encounter would go, all of a sudden it felt cold under your cozy cotton blanket, and you reluctantly got up to take a huge comforter out of your heavy wooden chest. Why was it freezing tonight even with the windows closed? You were just in the middle of September. To be honest, you hardly remembered the last time the weather was so bad as you wrapped a comforter around your trembling shoulders, thinking whether you have to take your winter nightgown instead of light muslin one you were wearing now.

Throwing a glance at your window, you saw the frosted panes and furrowed your brows, refusing to believe it. Dear Lord, you lived in the Western Frontier Sector, not far to the North! Was it really going to snow out of nowhere tonight? As you moved closer to look at an empty street, you realized that a huge cross on top of a building on the other side started crumpling with a disgusting sound as if it were made of paper, not pure silver to protect citizens from the creatures of the night. Several crosses on the buildings down the street had been destroyed, too. Quickly, you looked down only to find the flower beds withering within seconds despite your beautiful roses blooming just a couple of hours ago. Now they all turned black.

You stilled on the spot, unable to believe your eyes and covering your ears from that horrifying noise. You had only seen something like that once, and it was the time when most villagers had already been dead, turned into beasts without a soul who craved for blood as much as their masters did. That night you had lost your beloved father as you fled your house in a rush, just a little child back then, and, once you arrived in the town, had never even once left your new home.

The crumpled crosses, dead flowers and a sudden temperature drop could mean only one thing: a vampire had come to the town. It wasn't some upyr, oh no, it was one of the Nobles, maybe even an Elder if you were unlucky.

Dear Lord, what a Noble wanted in a peaceful town like this? There were neither treasures nor mechanisms of the ancient, nothing that could potentially interest a Noble. Except that they might be simply eager to shed human blood for their own amusement...

Before you screamed at the top of your voice to wake up everyone around, you heard the sound of a large mirror in your room breaking, and then felt somebody's strong grip on your throat despite no one being in front of you. The world turned black before you uttered a single word.

_______________

Moving a heavy crimson curtain a bit so you could look out the window, you gasped, watching the corn fields far beneath looking like neat pieces of cloth. The view was incredible! You had never seen anything like this before, though you certainly didn't remember travelling in such fine carriage ever before either. It was truly stunning, made of black steel, shining in the sunlight as if it only been made yesterday. Steven laughed when you said it out loud, explaining that this carriage had been more than a century old. Apparently, the Nobility's carriages were miraculous since you couldn't find even a single scratch on the surface.

"Be careful, sweetheart." The man behind your back said, gently bringing you closer to him and further from the window, curtain falling back and hiding the two of you from the outside world. "Night does not fall yet."

"Forgive me my curiosity. I have never seen anything as magnificent." You smiled sheepishly at the handsome blonde-haired, blue-eyed man in a long black cape with red lining.

He let out a low chuckle, taking your hand and kissing it briefly while you forgot how to breathe for a second, deeply embarrassing by such outpouring display of affection. You lead a rather quiet secluded life in the town, pretty much never being around men of your age: your mother was going to choose a respectable husband for you herself, so you never worried about it before. Now, however, you felt ashamed for being so close to a man despite loving him dearly. Oh, what would your mother say if she saw you now? Wouldn't she be worried? Would she approve of your marriage to a No-

You blinked as you stared at the handsome man's pale face, feeling all your worries fading away. As long as you stayed with the love of your life, nothing else mattered, right?

"If that is what you wish, we will travel by air a lot more right after I present you at Western Frontier Court, sweetheart." His deep, silky voice made you let out a nervous chuckle as you felt your cheeks growing hot. "My, aren't you adorable?"

"Please, Steven, stop it!" You furrowed your brows as he grinned at you, baring his sharp fangs you paid no attention to. "I cannot believe I am getting married to you so soon. It feels... strange. A little unsettling."

"And why is that?" There was some wariness to his voice.

"It's just... I have never imagined myself being married to anyone. Surely, I thought of having a family at some point, but it was so distant. I have never even pictured myself close to a man, let alone a High Lord like you." You admitted honestly, biting your lower lip and averting his gaze. "You have never been married before, too, have you? Aren't you frightened even the slightest bit?"

"A little." He answered too soon, yet you disregarded it as well. "But I have no doubts we will make a good couple, sweetheart. I will cherish you like no other man ever would."

Embarrassed to the point your face was on fire, you decided to drop it, not knowing how a nobleman like Steven Grant Rogers could have an audacity to say such things. He was completely shameless! You hoped he was going to be more reserved while presenting you at court; you pictured your grandmother fainting if she heard him speaking like now.

What was Western Frontier Court like? You had never been there, not than any human ever could: as far as you knew, not even all vampires could serve the Nobility living in the high castle surrounded by mountains. You heard its peaks were covered with snow all year round.

"Have the king ever visited your castle?" You suddenly asked, back to your curious self.

Steven's face became even paler. "He did on several occasions, but it was a long time ago way before I was even born. I have only seen him once, and I do not think I will ever forget this encounter."

"Oh, is he as frightening as the legends say?"

"You cannot describe it with words, sweetheart. But do not be worried, he had been asleep for more than a thousand years now, and he surely won't wake up just to attend some Noble's marriage." A faint smile twisted Steven's lips as he drop a soft kiss to your forehead. "Actually, please do not refer to him as a king. The Nobles call him the Great One."

"Oh, I see. Thank you." Nodding, you turned your face back to the window covered by a crimson curtain, biting your lip again. "Can I watch the sunset a little? I won't be long, I promise."

"As you wish, sweetheart. Please come back to me once you are done, it is going to be a long night."

Gesturing to the large black coffin laying in the middle of your carriage, the man brushed his cold soft lips against your cheek and got up from his seat, smiling at you watching him. You remembered being very unhappy once you learnt there was only one coffin: you had never thought you would lay close to your betrothed with your head on his chest before your marriage. How terribly bold it was of Steven to make you sleep so close to him! However, you were content he had never even once tried touching you inappropriately, always treating you with respect: he said he admired your purity and innocence while not many Noble women were bothered by them.

Once he got inside the coffin, you lifted the curtain again, squinted as rays of bright light pierced the darkness of the carriage. Oh, how incredibly beautiful was the sunset in front of you. You had seldom seen such lovely sight as this. Would you miss the sun once you reach the high castle? You surely would, you thought. Hopefully, your betrothed would keep his promise to travel with you, and when he fell asleep during the day, you would walk in daylight all by yourself.

As you kept staring at the bright sky coloured in orange and pink, all of a sudden you thought why did you have to live in the high castle with Steven while your home was far away from the white mountains, in a little human town where you spent the last several years. Oh, right, you were engaged to the Overseer of the Western Frontier Sector, the highest Noble guarding the lands where you were born and raised. He was a peerless warrior and a fierce leader, a vampire respected by other Nobles.

A vampire? Steven was a vampire? Why would you be engaged to a vampire, let alone the Noble? The Overseer of the lands you were born and raised, the one who had taken advantage of those poor humans living in the Western Frontier Sector and let other Nobles ravage your cities and villages, destroying everything on their way.

You were engaged to the vampire overlord, a ruthless, cold-blooded being who could wipe out every human in these lands if he desired so. No, he was not your betrothed, the man you promised to marry willingly. He was the one who kidnapped you from your own bed at night, casting some spell over you to make you forget who you were.

You clamped a hand around your mouth to stop the pathetic sounds you were making as you cried, hot tears streaming down your cheeks. Dear Lord, why was the Overseeker doing it to you? What could he gain from this cruel game? Seemingly nothing, except for having some fun with a silly human girl. But that what the Nobles were doing once they got bored, wasn't it? No, you wouldn't give him the satisfaction, you thought, happy you were given a chance to escape - even if it cost you your own life, it was still for the better.

"The Overseeker of the Southern Frontier Sector did, not that I expect you to know. Now, please, come back here. You had enough time watching the sunset."

You couldn't believe your eyes, watching him say it with such confidence. Was he willing to keep playing his twisted game even when his sweet facade fell?

"Why do you pretend as if my death matters to you? You will kill me soon anyway. Does it bring you so much pleasure to murder one more pathetic human?"

"I won't kill you, sweetheart. It has never been my intention."

There was something to his voice, some emotion you struggled to describe that made you feel bitter and regretful. Was it all truly going to end like this? You were so young, supposed to have your whole life ahead of you, now faced with a choice to either let a vampire consume you or jump out the carriage and fell to your death.

"Than what was it? I assume you have been living for more than thousands of years. Aren't you a little too old for playing these games still?" You chocked on a sob, barely containing your tears as you trembled in front of the Overseeker.

"I am not playing a game." He admitted tiredly, suddenly taking the black glove off his hand. "All I wish for is a loving wife who can bear my children and bring peace to my lands. I have been wandering human cities for a great while before I found you, strong enough to carry a dampiel after a few genetic enhancements. Please, do not struggle. I have not come to make you suffer eternal torment."

For a couple of seconds you stared at him with your mouth slightly open, unable to utter a single word. You had expected the vampire to say anything but this. Was it still a game? Now you hoped it was because even being drained till the last drop of blood was better than carrying a dampiel, a child of both vampire and human, feared and loathed greatly by both races. When you recovered, however, you quickly turned the door handle and pushed the door, willing to wait no longer.

But the door did not give to your pressure. To your horror, it stayed still as if it were a solid piece of steel.

Feeling the iron grip of the Overseeker's fingers on you shoulder, you yelped as he dragged you back to his coffin with force, closing the lid before you had a chance to escape. The next second his fingers were on your neck, suffocating you before you lost consciousness just like the night when Steven Grant Rogers kidnapped his human beloved.

______________________

Tags: @finleyjayne @alexakeyloveloki @helenaeisenhower @villanellevi @hurricanerin @abyssaint @heeeyitskay @chris-evans-indian-fanfic @navegandoaciegas @rosalynshields @brattycherubwrites @sllooney @angrythingstarlight @lookiamtrying @buckysbunny @soleil-dor @stargazingfangirl18 @dillybuggg @literate-lamb @cosicas-cuquis @sarge-barnes-sir @lovelydarkdaydream @ninefuckingoneone @jaysayey @megzdoodle

#captain america #mcu #mcu fanfiction #yandere #steve rogers x reader #steve rogers #dark steve rogers x reader #dark steve rogers

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ilomilodailystuff · 3 years ago

Text

If You Love Me || Sylki Fanfic

...really love me

Loki x Sylvie fanfiction

[LOKI FINALE SPOILERS]

dt @entertainmentforgods

(every mean comments about this ship will be deleted. If you don't like this ship, please just ignore.)

They did it, it was over. The impossible had come true.

Their heart beating wildly, the anguish of their uncertainty gradually fades as they understand the finality of it all.

Loki and Sylvie had joined forces to destroy the true mastermind of the TVA. The overpowered individual who pulled the strings behind the curtain.

The Goddess of Mischief dropped her bloodstained sword on the dark ground, making a loud metallic sound. He Who Remains had just gave his last breath.

Sylvie took a deep breath while staring at the inert body of the one who called himself The Conqueror. As Loki stood behind her, he watched her worriedly. She had just accomplished what she had fought for all her life. So many years feeding a justified anger towards one man, for it turned out that the Time Keepers were nothing but a sham. So many years of hiding, of surviving in the midst of so many apocalypses instead of just living fearlessly. Instead of living happily, instead of laughing, smiling, dancing, singing, enjoying the present moment, observing the universe and its many wonders without them being destroyed around her, loving and being loved in return... All of that was taken away from her, because The Ruler had decided to do so. Because only one man had made the decision to sacrifice her timeline and her family and those she loved. She had lost everything as a child, because a human had condemned her existence.

And now, the latter had just died. He had lived millions of lives, and the last had just ended, killed by the vengeful hand of an innocent orphan.

Slowly, Loki moved closer to her as he kept his eyes on her. Then when he was right behind her, he gently took her hand to try to get her out of her torpor. Her face turned to him as her gaze was drawn to the ground. She was still trying to regulate her breathing and realize the previous events.

"Come with me…" He half-murmurs, his blue eyes tinted with green watching his partner's reaction carefully, anxious to see her breaking down despite her strength to contain her emotions.

It was then that she nodded softly, still too absorbed by this decisive moment in her life. Sylvie turns to him with the intention of following him, no matter where he wanted to take her.

A few seconds later, both found themselves outside the entrance to the Citadel.

Loki went down the few steps, before sitting quietly on one of them. His teammate was not far away and she watched him get comfortable, while thousands of thoughts jostled in her mind. Curious, Loki brought his attention to her. When their eyes met, she began her steps to him to sit beside him on the step.

A deep sigh escaped her lips as she sat down comfortably, her eyes fixed in front of her, finally noticing the awe-inspiring beauty of the sacred timeline they both would have admired sooner if it were in a less disastrous context. But now as they ran after time, it was as if it has just stopped.

The variants observed this painting before them, this masterpiece born from space and the end of the universe. For a moment, a pleasant silence rocked them in a surreal dream. Their eyes shine brightly, illuminated by the cosmos and time materialised in a perfectly fluid and sparkling line. But also, their intense feelings took over and tears had formed.

Hesitant but at the same time strangely confident, Loki turned to Sylvie, only able to imagine how she felt now.

"You're okay ?" He dares to ask softly.

Suffering of an internal conflict, Sylvie keeps her eyes wide open and try to look indifferent.

"I accomplished my mission, how do you think I feel ?" She replies naturally, almost on the defensive.

"Relieved ?"

"Yeah, among other things." She confirms with obviousness.

Amused by her slightly aggressive responses which, according to him, are what make her what she is, the god of mischief ends up stretching a tender smirk, realizing that this tone will never leave her no matter the situations in which they find themselves, as dramatic and catastrophic as they may be.

Innocently, Sylvie ends up looking at her partner.

"Why do you smile ?" She asks.

He smiles a little more.

"The real question is... why don’t you ?" Loki retorts, eyebrows raised.

The Enchantress raised her eyebrows in turn, that desperate, lonely look that makes her charm appearing on her face. What to answer to that? She had learned that Loki was insightful about her, but she wasn't used to being the center of attention that much.

"Why seek answers to trivial questions." She asks rhetorically as she looks away from him.

After a while, Loki also turned away, dissatisfied with her answer but still preferring to let go.

"So this is it..." He starts. "It's done."

"It's done." Sylvie asserts, nodding her head a little.

His eyes going here and there, Odin's son was asking himself lots of questions. Including one in particular.

"What do we do now ?" He wonders, seeming lost.

Sylvie took a deep breath again, ignoring like him the future of events.

"Should we go back to the TVA ?" Loki continues, bringing his gaze back to the one person he trusted.

"Why ?" She asks softly. "They don't need us anymore."

"But we don't have to hide." He responds with a comforting smile. "We are their allies."

"Is that what you want, to go back to the TVA ? But to do what ?" She asks again, looking into his eyes.

He thought for a moment, trying to unravel this enigmatic knot, stepping into the unknown.

"The Sacred Timeline is free" He said, emphasizing the first words in an exaggerated and caricatural way. "Maybe once we get there, we can look for another timeline where we can... fit in ?"

A silence took hold of them, leaving for only words the looks they exchanged.

Sylvie then ends up lowering her gaze in the direction of her own hands, revealing between her fingers the object that the Conqueror kept around his hand. The tempad.

"How about we take a break, until one of us finds a place to go ?" She offers softly, lost in thought as she doesn't take her eyes off the object.

"What, here ?" Loki asks, uncertain and surprised by her answer.

"Why not..?" She replies, her eyebrows raised, her mind being elsewhere. "When you've seen thousands of apocalypses, The Void isn't as bad as it seems."

Loki takes the time to consider this idea, thinking about everything else. The members of the TVA, the sacred timeline that has become completely independent, the very few people to which he is attached. They had just accomplished something huge, should they just ignore the multitudes of consequences their act caused ?

"It's over, Loki." Sylvie said, looking up at him.

Again, his gaze plunged deeply into her eyes

"We did what we had to do." She continues, looking serene.

"What if they still need us ?" He asks, referring to the TVA, specifically Mobius and hunter B-15, the only two people who believed in them and offered their precious help.

Sylvie watched the sacred timeline as it gradually divided, and she sighed.

"I am tired." She admits, ignoring Loki's question. "And you ?"

Loki admired the many timelines that continued to split, before taking a deep breath.

"Yes, me too..." He answers softly, releasing his breath, releasing the pressure he had been holding since his arrival at the TVA and which he hadn't known he had kept in him all this time until now.

However, he couldn't shake off his negative thoughts and all his apprehensions about the completion of their mission and the impact it will have on the trillions of people the universe can create. The god of mischief had, against all odds, developed a conscience and a moral code. Yes, they had delivered the world by giving it back its free will. But for some reason that he didn't quite understand, he began to doubt.

And buried into his torment, Sylvie brought a comforting hand to his.

Loki laid his eyes on this delicate hand, yet belonging to that of a warrior, his heart missing a beat at the gentle contact of the one he had become crazy about. In this moment of complexity, in this major turning point for the multiverse, he almost forgot his feelings. He almost forgot the way they looked at each other in the Citadel as they walked into the darkness. He almost forgot the moment she had gripped his hand in the Void, in front of Alioth, hoping to help him unleash his enchantment powers.

Suddenly caught up in his emotions, he looked up uncertainly in the direction of his partner. Then, she gave him a brief smile, but oh so genuine. The same smile she had given him on Lamentis, while everything around them was death and destruction. Apparently everything was written. But he decided to ignore this detail that the conqueror had shared with too much pride.

Still confused by these unusual feelings, Loki returned that affectionate and heartwarming smile. Only, looking into her expressive eyes - but in the greatest secret, a loving gaze- he realized that the very thing he wanted above all now was to never leave her again. To stay by her side, as long as possible, even forever, better than that : beyond death. His desires made him all the more nervous. He never thought he would be so consumed by his moods, let alone by a loving emotion that possesses him more and more after each day he spends in her company. Nevertheless he wanted to seize this desire and make it come true.

This time, it is the TVA that he forgets, it is the universe that he neglect, it is the time that he ignores.

It is his glorious purpose that he gave up, because he found a new one...

"Sylvie..." He said, drunk with love for her. "I..."

"No, Loki, wait." Sylvie interrupts him, being totally lost and frightened at the same time. "I have to tell you something..."

"Yes ?" He asks, innocent, patient, in love.

She looked at him intensely, trying to express herself. Something seemed to upset her. Loki was trying to read into her eyes, to read her face, when no word could break the barrier of her lips. Disturbed by this confession, it turned out that it was getting stuck between the walls of her throat.

So the Prince of Asgard frowned, intrigued by the torture she was inflicting on herself through this mysterious revelation.

"I..." She starts before her lips instantly seal.

She took a deep breath, bracing herself for another attempt, as Loki's piercing, loving gaze dug into her pupils until it consumed her whole being.

When finally, in complete disarray, she ends up throwing herself at his neck.

Her lips crashed against his, tenderly, passionately but mostly timidly. Surprised but more than grateful for this proof of unexpected love, Loki was not long in returning her kiss with just as much fervor.

Sylvie had never been attached to anyone. She never wanted to be weak because of her feelings. She would never have dedicated herself to someone body and soul, for trusting and breaking down the imposing and solid walls she had built around her was inconceivable. And yet, faced with the many selfless acts of the one who had irrupted into her plan, she had found herself giving him importance. She hated knowing that she was only considering trusting him. She hated the fact that he could climb these walls she had locked herself between.

Worse yet, she was terrified to find herself reaching out to help him climb.

Eyes closed, they kissed each other with fragility, embarrassed to feel such intense emotions but oh how much they surrendered to them.

Sitting side by side, they relished this moment of sincerity and calm after all they had endured. The highlight of their journey. The completion of a battle for freedom, the same cause that the rightful king of Asgard fought against to make it inaccessible to the people of the earth. This cause that he finally chose to defend ; for him at the beginning, but for her on the way, and for the others at the end of their fight.

Slowly, they parted. Loki then dared to rest his forehead tenderly against hers. They kept their eyes closed, as if to immortalized this moment in their memories, for who knows what might happen to them tomorrow.

That's why he whispered these few words :

"You're right, I... I'm a little tired..." He admitted again hesitantly, unsettled by this moment of pure sincerity.

Keeping her forehead against his, Sylvie nodded gently, not daring to open her eyes to face the truth she still had trouble swallowing.

"Let's stay here..." Loki continues.

"Only for a little while." She continues nervously, muttering her desires like him, probably too afraid that someone will hear them or too embarrassed to admit she is weak in front of him, while he is weak in front of her.

"Yes, after all... If something goes wrong, they know where to find us, right ?" He responds with a raised eyebrow as he still kept his eyes closed, trying to reassure himself by making excuses to stay.

"Yeah, of course, nothing prevents Mobius from coming back here." She confirmed casually.

"Well, unless... Unless he had to prune himself." He said worriedly. "But it’s not as if we have no way to reach them !" He adds anyway, optimistic and trying not to feel guilty.

“Yes ! We have the--” She mimics his optimism, as she pulls away from his forehead to observe the object in her free hand.

"T-the tempad..." He confirms by muttering and nodding his head, bringing in turn his attention to the latter.

The taste of her lips was still too present on Loki's for him to think properly. However, he was trying.

Shyly, he finally looked at her again, a quiet smile displayed on his face.

Of course, Sylvie had noticed it. How to ignore him ? So, embarrassed, she gave him an uncertain look, having no idea how they should react now. After all, despite their thousand years of life, the variants had never really been devoted to feelings or romance that seemed more than superfluous and unnecessary at the time. Although they were aware of their emotions, repressed or not, knowing how to react to them was still an area to be explored.

The landscape around them gradually brought her back to reality. Then, looking worried, she turned her gaze to the entrance to the Citadel. She remembered the corpse of the He Who Remains, the one who had wiped out her timeline and certainly thousands more.

Loki frowned, noticing the change in expression on his partner's face.

"Are you sure you’re okay ?" He asks once more with patience.

Lost in thought, Sylvie continued to look at the place where everything had changed with a blank stare.

"No..." she sighs slowly.

The god of mischief was envious to possess the complicated mind of his variant for the sole purpose of finding the source of her ill-being. It would be enough for him to touch her to enchant her, now that he knows the secrets of enchantment. However, would he dare ? He hesitated for a fraction of a second, before totally rejecting the idea away from him. He was incapable of defying her trust, for he knew full well that he would risk a lot if he tried. Especially since he was still cruelly lacking in experience concerning enchantments.

"But when I wake up tomorrow knowing that the one responsible for all this horror is only a memory, then I could savor every second of my life." She asserts returning her attention to Loki as if nothing had happened, speaking with confidence and lightness.

Perplexed but somewhat reassured, he just nodded briefly, straining to accept her answer. However, something in him told him that she wasn't being entirely truthful.

"...Glorious purpose." He said, trying to lighten the mood.

"Mh..." She only answers, a quiet smirk nestling in the corner of her lips.

Calm eventually took over. Neither of them spoke, only watching the story of trillions of lives forming before their eyes in those many fluorescent lines.

"We're not leaving." He speaks up, his statement sounding more like a question mark.

"We're not leaving." She repeats with a little more conviction than him.

Slowly, he finally took a light breath, before sighing in contentment.

After an extremely difficult journey that could have cost them their lives, even though the Ruler had decided that they would be spared so that they could both achieve their goal, they were going to be able to rest, they were going to be able to breathe. Because even if the gods have more ability than humans to resist fatigue and pain, they could do nothing before the effervescence of their emotions. And as tough as they could be, they were tired, mentally and physically.

Thereupon, on this mutual agreement, the two variants had decided that it was time for them to rest for a while. They didn’t know what they were going to do. But they had decided to figure this out…

Together.

#sylki #pro sylki #sylki fanfiction #sylkie #love is a dagger #loki x sylvie #loki spoilers #loki series #tom hiddleston #sophia di martino #loki #loki fanfic #sylvie #sylki au

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otonymous · 4 years ago

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A Bolt From The Blue (MLQC Shaw - NSFW) - Part III: Near & Far

Description: Promising beginnings and a premature end throw you into a tailspin Warnings: NSFW/18+: Explicit/graphic language & mature themes — reader discretion is advised. Potential trigger warnings: depictions of mild PTSD symptoms, mentions of death of a close family member, disappearances, “breakups,” angst, profanity Word Count: 1882 words (~9 mins of falling in love and wallowing in angst 😱😂) Author’s Notes: If you’re still following this story, please accept a giant (virtual) hug from me to you! Thank you very much from the bottom of my heart for supporting me and this piece of work! 💖 Without further ado, I present to you part 3 of my slow-burn Shaw fic, written for the lovely @op-peccatori as part of my follower milestone celebration.

As always, dear reader, please note the potential trigger warnings listed above, and happy reading! 😊

Jump to Chapter(s): One | Two | Four

⚡️⚡️⚡️⚡️⚡️⚡️⚡️⚡️⚡️⚡️⚡️⚡️⚡️⚡️⚡️⚡️⚡️⚡️⚡️⚡️⚡️⚡️⚡️⚡️⚡️⚡️⚡️

“You can relax, you know. I won’t try anything funny while you sleep, not my style. Besides, isn’t this much better than camping out on the floor?”

Nodding your head before you realize that Shaw probably couldn’t see you in the dark, your “Yes” comes out in a mewl so pathetic you wished you could immediately take it back.

His snicker shakes the bed, reverberating across squeaky springs to where you lay beside him, right at the edge of the twin mattress as you tried not to let your hands touch.

No matter how much you wished for them to.

Beyond the window, a neon signboard paints electric shadows on your walls in splashes of pink, flashing in time to a rhythm Shaw tapped out with one foot beneath the covers.

“Is it cool if…if we didn’t draw the blinds tonight? I can’t sleep in complete darkness.” He had asked you earlier that evening, towelling off his hair as he emerged from your bathroom wearing a shirt your ex had left behind along with your broken heart a year and a half ago.

Snoopy looked much better riding his skateboard across Shaw’s broad chest anyways.

And there, in the midst of an awkward arrangement where sleep would surely prove fleeting, the sounds of the night: the low hum of the refrigerator, the pawn shop’s sign buzzing just on the other side of the windowpane…the tick-tock of the clock on the wall, steady like Shaw’s breath beside you as it counts down precious time—

“I’ll be out of your hair first thing tomorrow morning.”

Ba-bump.

“No, there’s…there’s no rush. Honestly.”

“Can you really afford to miss more work because of me?”

Silence. You couldn’t refute the truth.

“Tell you what, in exchange for putting up with me, you can ask me anything you want. I’ve seen the way you look at me sometimes; surely you must be curious about some things. Might as well find out before I go.”

Your stomach knotted, clenching tight. He was right. For all you know, it was now or never. “Why did you join? The triad, that is.”

He is silent for a moment, as if trying to find the right words to piece together.

“I’m looking for my brother.”

Out of all possible answers, this wasn’t one you were expecting. Turning onto your side, you study the handsome profile of his face — watching as pink mixed with lavender in the most ethereal way until you were overcome with the sense that in this vast ocean of life, you and him stood on very different shores. Eyes still fixed on your ceiling, Shaw continues.

“He was an undercover cop, working to infiltrate the ranks of the group I’m currently a part of. I only found out by accident, and he made me swear up and down not to breathe a word of it to mom. Then one day…he was gone. Just...disappeared off the face of the earth. Mom and I went down to the station every day for months, knew the names and faces of everyone who worked in that building, but it was like Gavin never even existed.

“It was too much for her. I came home late from school one day — found her on the floor, barely breathing. It was dark in the apartment…so dark. She had probably just drawn the curtains. By the time the paramedics arrived, she was already gone. Heart attack, they said.

“I lie awake at night sometimes, wonder how I’m going to tell him that mom’s no longer here — go through the motions in my head, rehearsing every line. ‘Cus I know that sooner or later, that day will come. There’s no way he’s dead. I know my brother.”

A glimmer at the corner of his eye catches yours. Beneath the covers, your fingers inch towards his, finding courage in the darkness to brush against his pinky as if the sliver of warmth could express what words simply couldn’t convey.

“With mom gone, there was nothing to lose. I joined the group, worked hard…did what they needed me to do to gain their trust, all while collecting scraps of info here and there — whatever I could get my hands on in the hopes that it’ll lead me to Gav.”

Pitter-patter, pitter-patter.

Tiny drops of rain speckle your windowpane. And when Shaw’s finger hooks around yours as if in a solemn pinky swear, the tears burning your eyes finally fall. You don’t ask him how many years it’s been, the dirty deeds he’s had to sully his hands with. You don’t question him about the father he doesn’t mention. All you can do is watch as a solitary drop rolls down the side of his face before soaking into lavender strands fanned out on the pillow, the way his Adam’s apple bobs as he swallows back bitterness only he knew.

In spite of it all, he is the one who chuckles when he turns towards you, eyes red rimmed even as his brows rise in feigned exasperation when he says, “Why are you crying?! I’m the one with the tragic past here!”

And when you start to cry even harder, his soft hushes of “Shh, shh…I’m sorry, that last part was a joke. It’s all right, everything will be okay, I promise,” burrows deep into your heart and you believe him.

Because when he reaches towards you — the thumb wiping the tears from your eyes calloused yet gentle — you are struck by a sense of overwhelming tenderness:

In the carefulness of his touch.

In the way he regards you with the sincerity of some unspoken emotion.

In the entirety of this man whom the rest of the world has already written off.

And that is when you know…

“I didn’t mean to make you cry by telling you all this, I’m sorry.”

…that you are in love with him.

“I’ll make it up to you. Ask me another question. Maybe something less depressing this time.”

A smile spreads across his face. You wished there was a way for you to keep the warmth of his hand on your cheek forever. Sniffling, you try again.

“Wh-why did you keep coming in to my store everyday? There’s a lot of other convenience stores in the area—”

A flash of panic in those amber eyes, and Shaw is turning over with lightning speed until all you can see is the smooth expanse of his back.

“Changed my mind. A guy’s gotta keep some secrets! Goodnight!”

“You’re a good girl, aren’t you?”

Wrap your arms around the pillow.

“Good girls shouldn’t concern themselves with bad boys.”

Bury your face into its cushiony fill.

“Or have you forgotten that I’m wanted by the police?”

And inhale deeply.

Shaw’s scent on your sheets is faint now, so much so that you can’t be entirely sure you’re not imagining it, having gone through this ritual countless times since the day Shaw left your apartment…

…and stepped out of your life.

* * *

“Is there…any way I could stay in touch with you? I-I just…just want to make sure you’re okay…”

Voice trailing off, you watch as Shaw gingerly shrugs one arm then another through the sleeves of his leather jacket, still wearing the Snoopy t-shirt he had slept in the night before after you told him he could keep it. His own was torn beyond repair, stubbornly dyed in blood regardless of how much you scrubbed at it. And when he hesitated still, you said he would just be doing you the favour of taking out the trash.

Smoothing down the front of his jacket, Shaw glances at the phone in your hands — eyes tracing along your eager fingers, poised to type. The expression on his face is unreadable, as if the man you had spent the night sharing secrets with was nothing more than a figment of your imagination.

“It’s better if we don’t. I’ll be fine, just laying low for the next while — boss’s orders. And I don’t want the cops coming around to your place again. Detective Whatshisname looks like he could be really good at hounding pretty girls like you.”

That smirk again, so familiar to you by now. And in the compliment that would’ve made you blush bright red before, nothing but a smokescreen.

“Shaw, I don’t mind—”

“You’re a good girl, aren’t you?" The force in his voice cuts, and you barely breathe to feel his finger curl beneath your chin, tilting up your face until you have no choice but to meet his gaze. Those eyes are dull, like molten gold frozen beneath a layer of impenetrable ice. “Good girls shouldn’t concern themselves with bad boys. Or have you forgotten that I’m wanted by the police?”

The shiver that runs electric down your spine makes the hairs on your skin stand on end. It was like looking at a stranger. Heart racing, your palms grow clammy with sweat, unsure of exactly when your phone had dropped from your hands, slipping away like…

“I don’t care about the cops! I’ll deal with them—”

“DEAL WITH WHAT?! You think that just because you managed to turn them away at the door that it makes you a hardened criminal?! WE are not the same, okay? My life is worthless. I’ve already signed it away a long time ago, I’m ready to give it up without a second thought. But you…you’re different. Y-you’re kind, innocent. You’ve got your whole life ahead of you. One day, you’ll make someone the luckiest person in the world, be a beautiful mother to beautiful children. Don’t sell yourself short…not for someone like me.”

The silence that descends is thick, suffocating. You don’t speak, afraid to open your mouth because it takes all your concentration just to keep the tears from spilling from your eyes.

Finally letting go of your chin, Shaw reaches behind his neck to undo the clasp on the thin gold chain he wore, the jade disc pendant that hung from it still warm from the heat of his skin when he places it in the palm of your hand.

“It’s not much, but it was a gift from my mom and the most valuable thing I own. You saved my life, so it’s yours now. Maybe…maybe one day, you can give it to your own child.”

Lump in your throat, you can barely breathe, let alone tell him there was no way you could accept something that precious, something that priceless. That you didn’t drag him home that night, broken and bleeding, in the hopes of gain; not for money, not for love.

He curls your fingers around the heirloom, gentle thumb pressing on index, middle, ring then pinky in turn before your fist finds itself held tightly within the press of his much larger hand for one…two…three seconds…

…before those purple Chuck Taylors take him to your door…

Slam.

…and just like that, the man with the lavender hair is gone.

⚡️⚡️⚡️⚡️⚡️⚡️⚡️⚡️⚡️⚡️⚡️⚡️⚡️⚡️⚡️⚡️⚡️⚡️⚡️⚡️⚡️⚡️⚡️⚡️⚡️⚡️⚡️

Forgive me for trolling, but there really was only one bed LOL! Hope you all enjoyed the latest chapter, and please stay tuned for what may be the final instalment in this Shaw saga! - XOXO

Jump to Chapter(s): One | Two | Four

Thanks so much for reading! 💕 Check out more of my work here! 📚(Please do not repost/copy/alter my work. Reblogs, on the other hand, are a-ok and much appreciated! 👍🏼💖)

#mlqc #mr love queen's choice #love and producer #mr love dream date #evol x love #mlqc shaw #mlqc ling xiao #mlqc shaw smut #mlqc shaw fic #mlqc fic #my writing #fanfiction #elex

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mimik-u · 4 years ago

Text

Flower Child, Ch. 18 (”Abyss”)

LINK

The door that led into Room 11812 was already partially cracked when Blue Diamond arrived in front of it the next morning. Lost, hesitant, adrift, perpetually undone, she simply stared at it for a long while, sized it up, reified it into yet another monolith she would have to confront.

For she was surrounded by monoliths.

All the time.

They towered over her.

Mocked her.

Grief and ghosts and all those other inlaid, ingrained fears, carved deep into the marrow of her bones, muscle memory now. She was scared of everything, really: the continuance of life, the permanence of death, the human capacity for endurance, the inhuman throes of her nightmares. And how these nightmares were sometimes, maybe even oftentimes, waking dreams nowadays, stalking her far beyond the confines of a bed that was much too big for her. She was afraid of forgetting Pink Diamond and replacing her, caring for Steven Universe and losing him. Telling Yellow Diamond that she loved her. Showing it. Proving that she did. Never doing it in the end precisely because she was so afraid. (Of what? She scarcely could articulate in the labyrinthine abyss of her mind, where everything was guttural and murky and raw.) Consigning their marriage to the same grave where their daughter laid, the memory of their once great love dressed in funeral shrouds…. She was afraid of empty halls and empty penthouse suites and empty rooms where dust laid thickly on furniture that would never be touched again. Ratty hoodies, diamond quilts, pink sticky notes reminding dead twenty-one year olds to study for upcoming tests. She was afraid of living and afraid of dying, afraid of happiness and afraid of pain. She feared mornings, and she feared nights. Doorbells, sleeping pills, good days, bad days, her very shadow, her own wasted reflection. (Because fundamentally, Blue Diamond was afraid of herself most of all.)

She wasn’t particularly afraid of doors—because most of the time, a door was just a door after all—but she was afraid of this particular door on the sixth floor of a hospital. More simply, she was afraid of what was behind it. Simpler still, she was afraid of who laid in that hospital bed. Afraid of all the unspoken things that had simmered quietly in the space between them for years upon distant, aching years...

So, she simply stood there.

Lost.

Hesitant.

Adrift.

Perpetually undone.

She made a monolith out of a door.

Voices seeped from behind the narrow gap, rising and falling together in a conversation that didn’t quite make sense, try though she did to piece the snippets into a context that she could understand. Blue braced both of her hands upon the head of her cane as she leaned forward to listen, a long strand of her silvery hair falling listlessly between her eyes, curling just over her nose.

How terribly her heart beat.

How loud.

Her fingers shivered; they simply ached.

“... ouch, dammit! Don’t poke me so hard,” Yellow Diamond snapped, her abrasive voice loud, clear, unmistakable, ringing.

(She was always so pleasant to be around in the morning.)

“Then you should quit squirming around so much, Mrs. Diamond,” a voice that she recognized as belonging to Dr. Reed replied, as amused as her patient was irate. “It’s just a needle.”

“Yes, well—it’s too early in the morning for me to be especially happy about being prodded like a cow.”

“Mm,” the doctor made a noncommittal noise at the back of her throat as she continued to work, noisily shifting invisible materials around.

“So, when will I get these results back?” Yellow asked, affecting a tone that was passably casual to anyone who didn’t know her, who was unaware that she clipped her consonants more shortly than usual when she was tense, scared, strained.

“A couple of hours if I had to wager. The lab’ll want to be thorough.”

“Naturally.”

“And once we get those results back—if they say what I think they will, of course—then we’ll have to run through the whole gamut of other procedures: urological assessments, medical histories, blood pressure tests, cancer screenings, chest x-rays, EKGs... it’ll be a long process.”

“Sounds like it,” Yellow returned in that same punctuated voice, and then the two women lapsed into silence as the ground revolted beneath Blue’s feet, simply eroded.

And she was suddenly falling at the same time that she was perfectly upright, a swaying pillar tethered only to the facticity of her cane. She clung to it all the more tightly, fingers whitening from the beds of her nails downwards; it was the only bulwark she had against total collapse.

Annihilation.

Ruin.

All these tests?

What were they for?

She furrowed her silvery brow and desperately thought back to her conversation with Dr. Reed just yesterday; nothing about it had suggested that something was seriously wrong with Yellow, except a few fractures and lacerations that would clear up with time and rest... so what reasonable line of logic led from a minor car accident to cancer screenings and chest x-rays? What had happened in the unaccounted for hours when Blue had been away?

She closed her eyes as nausea suddenly rushed up the cylinder of her throat, sickness invading all her delicate senses.

The answer seemed to loom darkly ahead—only a door push away.

“Alright, Mrs. Diamond,” the doctor sighed, “I’m going to get these to the lab. I’ll draw up your discharge papers soon, too...”

Yellow must have made some sort of nonverbal reply because Blue didn’t have time to recover her face as the cracked door suddenly flung open, breaking the final divide between everything she thought she understood and all the awful things that she apparently didn’t.

“Mrs. Diamond, oh, hello! Good mornin’!”

Her wiry eyebrows hoisted high above her thin glasses, Dr. Reed looked equally surprised to see Blue Diamond standing just outside the door. The medical tray she bore in her arms jumped a little as she did, shaking a few test tubes that were filled with dark crimson.

But Blue was impatient, eager, scared most of all. (She was always scared.) Her hooded eyes involuntarily slid from the harried doctor to the test tubes to the impressively cut figure just beyond Dr. Reed’s shoulder.

For Yellow Diamond, wearing her favorite pair of silken pajamas like royal regalia, sat upon the edge of her hospital bed, simply staring at Blue from widened eyes, her cracked lips parted slightly, every line etched across her face a livid, pulsing scar.

It was an expression of contradictions, of paradoxes, of dichotomies: tender at the same time that it was strained, vulnerable and equally forbidding.

Yellow averted her gaze first, a dull flush suffusing her sharply hewn cheeks. When she turned away, the sunlight pouring in from the window eclipsed her features behind the curtain of its flaxen reach.

“Good morning, Dr. Reed,” Blue murmured, painfully wrenching her attention back to the more immediate woman. “I see you have been… busy.”

She glanced questioningly at the tray of test tubes again, but just as the doctor opened her mouth to respond, Yellow got there first, cutting across her with cold precision.

“She was just leaving,” she said pointedly, still not looking their way. She brought her left arm up—the one enmeshed in a brace—to absentmindedly skim the right where her sleeve was meticulously rolled up at the elbow, where a long piece of gauze had been nearly wrapped around the joint. “Right, Doctor?”

It was a clear dismissal, blunt and unsubtle, a maneuver of clear avoidance, of keeping those strange, private words in the dark. Blue imagined it was a tactic that would have worked exceptionally well on Poppy or Livia or one of their various other employees besides whom Yellow had already intimidated into submission, but Dr. Reed didn’t seem to be especially frazzled by Yellow Diamond at all—unbothered by her elevated status, impervious to the harsh way with which spoke, as though every word was a finely calibrated weapon. She only resigned herself with a meaningful sigh that Blue couldn’t quite miss, her wire-rimmed glasses slipping incrementally upon the bridge of her nose.

“I suppose I was,” she smiled grimly, adjusting her tray more securely in her arms. Blue counted the scarlet tubes. There were four in all. “Be sure to eat that. cookie, Mrs. Diamond”—she called over her shoulder, as calculatingly sweet as Yellow was acerbic—“and it was nice to see you again, Mrs. Diamond.”

Blue stepped to the aside to allow the doctor passage. They exchanged a final nod, charged with unspoken significance, and then, just like that, Dr. Reed was gone.

And finally, they were alone.

Blue and Yellow Diamond.

Once upon a time, this had been one of their most treasured sensations in the world.

To be alone.

With one another.

In the confines of a room.

Oh, how Blue’s slender hands had once known Yellow as intimately as they had known her own body. The curvature of her sharp jawbone. The tender column of her pulsing neckline. The feeling of their hands together, gently intertwined. Spiny knuckles. Soft palms. Brushing thumbs.

And now, eight feet stood between them.

Seven once Blue timidly dared to step into the doorway.

Merely six once she made an awkward movement to close the door behind her.

And neither of them especially knew how to breach the space between them.

The distance.

The gulf.

Yellow seemed to have finally noticed that she was massaging the place where the doctor had drawn her blood because she suddenly stopped, self-conscious, wrenching her left hand away from the spot. But the gauze was still there, wrapped around her bony elbow tightly, advertising its unspoken secret like a flag at half-mast.

“You’re having tests done,” Blue stated.

It was as bold as it was quiet.

The loudest accusation in an otherwise silent room.

“They’re nothing,” Yellow replied immediately, trying for a nonchalance that didn’t quite land. “It’s nothing. Just routine stuff.”

The lie landed between them, too, with an odd, dull plunk, and Blue felt the beginnings of something other than fear coil in the pit of her stomach for the first time all morning. A burning sensation—stinging, raw.

She squeezed her cane again tightly and absently thought that it wouldn’t surprise her if her fingers came away with indents from where she gripped the metal.

“You were drunk… you were in an accident, Yellow,” she whispered, her words acquiring an icy edge. They lashed. They lunged. They hurt. They were intended to hurt. “Are you sure there’s something you’re not telling me?”

On the ropes, cornered—she hated being cornered—Yellow’s features suddenly hardened, her nose upturning, mouth calcifying into its trademark sneer. If Blue Diamond’s cane was her defense, then Yellow Diamond’s snarl was her weapon, sharp as any saber or sword.

“You’re being paranoid, Blue—even more so than usual,” she scoffed, fingertips digging into the sheets beneath her hands. “It wasn’t as though I caused the accident. I wasn’t even driving!”

“Then why has Dr. Reed ordered such an extensive battery of tests for you? Can you answer me that at least?” She insisted, now shrill, now angry, now hoarse, now unknotted, soon to be undone—her throat wrenched with its own rage. Tears burned the corners of her eyes, gathering like rushing rivers down the skeletal curves of her cheeks. “I’m your wife, Yellow Diamond, and you—”

“And I should what exactly?” Yellow interrupted, laughing so mirthlessly that the sound was feral, almost inhuman. “Give you yet another reason to fall apart for four years? You barely survived the last time. I barely survived watching you, Blue. I—“

But she stopped short.

She realized that she had said too much.

And six feet became six hundred feet as the two women stared at each other across the empty tiles, as the words that Yellow had growled registered to them both.

Neither of them had barely survived Blue’s total dissolution.

Both of them.

Together.

Alone.

They were both so utterly alone.

“I’m sorry,” Yellow exhaled, the fight in her voice punctured. Leaking. Drained. “I… I’m—“

But what exactly she was, even she didn’t seem to know. Prodigious marshal of words that she was, she was clearly at a loss for words, her mouth quavering with its own forced silence. Yellow abruptly looked away again, and the sunlight threw the stitches across her cheek in sharp relief, the redness of them, the rawness.

Painful to even look at.

How much more painful were they then to bear?

How many other wounds besides had her wife collected in all these awful, unspooling years? Not even simply the visible ones, but all the other sundry hurts, too. The lines beneath her hawklike eyes. Her perpetual coldness, wrapped like impenetrable armor around her skin. The very way that she spoke these days, as though each word was a marionette jerked by some strict taskmaster’s violent strings.

In the night, when she was alone in that master bed that had never been intended for just one, Blue didn’t have to look at these things, didn’t have to acknowledge that there was a reason that the door to the study was perpetually cracked open, didn’t have to wonder about how her utter contempt for life reflected on others because fundamentally, there was no one other than herself; it was her and her alone.

During the day, she didn’t have to care.

Time stretched ad infinitum all around her, slipping, always slipping away.

And she remained in the mire of her own head.

Stuck.

Broken.

Sinking.

Sunken.

Gone.

“So, please, Blue Diamond… please don’t look away, Steven Universe had whispered, indicting her, condemning her entire modus operandi with seven simple words as he laid in that hospital bed, dying for everyone to see.

She had looked away from Pink Diamond, and now Pink Diamond was dead.

She had almost looked away from Steven Universe.

Even still, even after all that they had ever been through together—and they had been through quite a lot—Blue Diamond was looking away from her wife even now.

Fool, masochist, coward.

She was, she was, she was—all of these things and very likely more.

Drowning.

Save me.

Spiraling.

Always.

Sinking, sunken, gone.

But the corrective, Steven Universe implied with every word and kind deed, wasn’t in the recognition of her problem; it wasn’t even in the actual acknowledgment that there needed to be a change.

It was in action and reaction.

It was in change itself.

A sickly boy could extend a flower to her in the cemetery, but she had to be the one to accept its grace.

She had to be the one to not look away.

Six feet, not six hundred feet.

Please, Blue Diamond… please don’t look away.

Swallowing thickly, Blue forced herself to gain perspective in that tiny hospital room, narrowing the world to just the two of them and the few strips of tile which stood between them.

Six feet.

So close and yet so far.

(Their daughter was six feet under the ground.)

“We apologize to each other all the time,” Blue murmured, her voice lilting softly in her accent, “and yet… not at all. How many times have we hurt each other, Yellow? How many times have we had to repent before doing it all over again?”

“So many times,” Yellow returned automatically, and her voice was quiet, laced only with the fading dregs of bitterness. Her knuckles were white where she continued to clench the sheets balled in her fists. “Because I am sorry—every damn time, Blue. I don’t mean to hurt you. I don’t want to hurt you. Hell, but I—”

As her voice rose, it was just as quickly stifled.

Choked.

A single tear glanced down the consummate businesswoman’s sharply angled face, and perhaps it was the most visible sign of her defeat that she didn’t immediately make a move to scrub it away, to pretend as though it had never existed.

And perhaps it was this gesture, or lack of a gesture, that finally did it for Blue Diamond above all.

That taught her what she needed to do.

She moved forward, one halting footstep over another, the hem of her long dress sweeping across the clinically white ground.

Clank.

Five feet.

Clank.

Four feet.

Clank.

Alerted by the telltale clangor of the cane, Yellow Diamond abruptly jerked her chin upwards, her lined eyes wide with horror and disbelief, with fear, with apprehension, with confusion, and something else, too—something almost indefinable because it had been a long time since Blue had recognized the expression in her wife’s chiseled face.

Had seen it.

Had noticed it.

Named it and reciprocated it.

Yearning, that irresistible rush of longing.

It shone painfully in her eyes, a drowning man’s golden flare shot into the dark.

Clank.

Three feet.

Clank.

Two.

“Blue, what are you—”

Clank.

One.

Scarcely twelve inches stood between them now, the air quiet, unnervingly, unnaturally still.

For everything was on a tightrope, the line just ready to snap.

Between them, individually, over twenty years of history were stored in the shared memories of their bodies, and for a moment, if only for a fleeting second, Blue felt as though if she could only reach out and touch Yellow in just the right place, that the world would just as suddenly right itself on its tilted axis, and everything would make sense once again and forevermore. They would be reconciled, reunited, restored, all of their damages undone, and they would know each other intimately, just by touch alone. They would be able to pick up where they last stopped, somewhere in the darkness, on a road that went by the wayside so long ago. Maybe, at long last, they would even join hands.

But, no.

That was simply naïveté.

Childlike belief.

A dream.

Touching Yellow Diamond would not change the fact that their daughter was dead and that four years of grief had nearly destroyed the both of them; touching Yellow Diamond was not an apology; it wouldn’t even be an adequate excuse. The touch, if such a thing were to exist, would only be a gesture, a microscopic movement towards what had heretofore been the impossible.

The beginnings of a bridge.

And one goddamn awful gulf.

But it was a start.

And that was what mattered, right?

Yes, Blue Diamond thought to herself.

Please.

Closing her eyes against the sudden vertigo—the fear, the terror, the rush—she slowly leaned over into the darkness and gently pressed her lips against Yellow Diamond’s forehead, exhaling softly as the stalwart general tensed beneath the touch, deathly still.

“I’m sorry, Blue.”

Her voice shook, a pillar cut off at its foundation, sunken to its knees.

Blue gingerly brought her hands up so that they were encircling her wife’s head, her tousled hair, the tips of her ears, her temples…

“I’m so sorry,” Yellow repeated simply; her voice cleaved itself in two; she was insisting on an apology, as though it was absolutely necessary for them to proceed.

And it was.

But so, too, was this.

“I know,” Blue whispered as Yellow’s shoulders began to silently shake. In response, in return, because she wanted to, because she desperately needed to, she began to absently skim her thumb through the woman’s hair.

“I’m sorry, too.”

Three words still hung—unspoken—in the sterile air.

Suspended.

On the tips of fearful tongues.

ii.

Priyanka brought them all back to the slaughterhouse again because there was nowhere else left to go. There were five of them in total, so they couldn’t very well have their daily harrowing conversation out in the hallway. They were adults, and Steven was a child, Steven was fourteen, so they couldn’t baldly discuss his mortality in his hospital room, where he laid in a bed, hooked up to so many whirring machines. Her office was cramped, and the chapel was somber. The cafeteria was too noisy, the hospital’s atrium just the same.

And so, that left only one option.

The conference room on the fourth floor.

The slaughterhouse.

They all took seats at that long, long table and did their best not to look at each other, at the griefs laid bare in all of their tired faces.

“I’m sorry,” Priyanka said abruptly, “for yesterday. I got your hopes up. I got my own up, and I... I should have been more circumspect.”

She stared at her lined hands, at how they were templed neatly upon the smooth surface of the table. Even sidled up next to each other, brushing, her palms felt bitingly cold.

“I knew better, and that—irrefutably—is on me.”

“Aw, come off it, Doc,” Amethyst shrugged dully from the other side of Greg. “You couldn’t have known.”

“You told us best yourself, Priyanka,” Pearl agreed, her voice an almost passable imitation of prim. She was sitting in the chair opposite to Amethyst, delicately massaging her temples with the tips of her long fingers. “That damage wouldn’t have shown up on the scans... we don’t fault you for that.”

“We won’t,” Garnet added pointedly, never moving her bicolored gaze away from the empty air just above Greg’s shoulder.

“We would never,” Greg finished kindly, and when Priyanka dared to look up at him—he was sitting to her immediate left—she was appalled to see a weak smile quivering on his bearded mouth. Of all the things she didn’t deserve, a smile was high on that list which seemed to grow longer with every passing day that Steven Universe was in her care.

“You’re all being far too nice to me,” she insisted in that same blunt tone, though she knew it was a losing battle, four against one, the weapons of their affection all drawn. “I made that child—I made all of you—a promise. And doctors don’t make promises.”

Take care of my baby for me... please.

You have my word.

“Not unless they’re arrogant,” she concluded coldly, glancing away. “Foolish.”

And she was a fool—assuredly. A jester in a white lab coat. All she needed was the hat. In the slaughterhouse, she half-demanded that the people around her admitted to it, that the victims of her fault had their chance to cleave her apart on the altar, too.

But because they were kind and good and everything that was compassionate in the world, not a single one of them did.

Garnet even reached over and briefly placed a warm hand on Priyanka’s arm.

“It’s a good thing you’re neither then.”

And of course, here was yet another thing she didn’t deserve—a consolatory touch—but the doctor did not have the heart to shake it off, not now—not when there were dark circles beneath Garnet’s eyes that spoke to yet another sleepless night in a long row of likely many.

“Yes, well, at any rate”—she hurried away from the subject, desperate to escape their kindness, goodness, their sympathetic gazes—“I’ve called you here to give a progress report… we potentially have another donor candidate… a live donor this time.”

Priyanka enunciated each word as though she was announcing the presence of a ticking time bomb, and it registered as much in the faces of her captive audience. Garnet withdrew her hand quickly, as though stung, and they all stared at the nephrologist, each and every one of them, with a naked disbelief that was a far cry from the unadulterated joy of yesterday’s declaration. They had been briefly happy, and then they’d been so quickly, so mercilessly burnt; it was no wonder then that they were skeptical.

It was painfully obvious that they were still licking their damn wounds.

“A patient at this very hospital,” she continued haltingly, precise in every word. She had to be careful here not to let something slip up, not to betray a word that would drive the blades sticking into these people’s chests in just one inch more. She wanted to be fastidious this time; she intended to be sure. “Their blood type is likely a match for Steven’s, but we’re checking again just to make sure… and even if that’s a certainty, there are so many other tests besides that we’ll have to do just to make sure their body is healthy enough to undergo a transplant… it could take weeks…”

She spoke into thick silence, excruciating to the last as each word was wrenched free from her teeth in some poor facsimile of her usual brusque fashion.

Pearl and Garnet exchanged a pregnant look across the table, but it was Amethyst who spoke the meaning aloud; she was always the one who seemed to be the best at translating what everyone was secretly thinking into words, what they were all too fearful to say.

“So we shouldn’t get our hopes up yet, huh?” She asked candidly. “That’s what you’re saying… isn’t it?”

“Something to that effect, yes,” Priyanka returned with a slow nod of her head. “I just don’t want to… I would rather not…”

But she struggled to find the right words, to strangle all her emotions into sentences that didn’t complicate the professionalism to which she was called.

Because she couldn’t break down.

She couldn’t flinch.

She was the doctor in the room for goodness’s sake, and that meant something.

But again, Amethyst stepped in so she didn’t have to—blunt, plain, merciful.

“… hurt him again,” she mumbled, her lavender hair forming a curtain around her lowered head. The young woman swiped her arm roughly across her face in a gesture that was lost on precisely no one. “Yeah, I guess that’s for the best…”

The ensuing silence was somehow worse than the last.

It seemed to chafe at them all, rubbing their skins raw.

Greg Universe shifted in his chair.

He looked less man than mountain, carved ruggedly against a bleak, gray sky—hunched in on himself, avalanched, collapsing all over.

(When she’d first met the man some fifteen years ago, he’d still had all of his hair.)

(A kid having a kid.)

“He hasn’t said more than a few words today, Dr. M,” the mountain whispered, his voice eroding in all the right places, crumbling. “He barely even looks at us.”

Priyanka didn’t know what to say.

She wasn’t naturally warm like Maisie Reed.

Wasn’t soft.

Wasn’t encouraging.

Being a doctor didn’t require any of those epithets, even though she knew cerebrally, intimately, that being a human did.

“It’s hard being sick,” she finally said.

It was the easiest way to utter an even harder truth.

(Sometimes, her patients found it unbearable.)

iii.

“And Archimicarus preened his feathers haughtily, all the while keeping one amber eye on Captain Bonham, whose apparent warmth wasn’t enough to stop the falcon from being wary of the witch’s eccentricities: the dual pistols she wore in the holsters on either side of her waist, the long knife handle jutting just above the ribs of her corset, and most ominously of all, the necklace she wore around her neck—a leather cord threaded through the skull of a baby bird,” Connie read aloud, adopting her most suspenseful voice for one of the most tense chapters in the book—Lisa and Archimicarus meeting Valentine Bonham, famed pirate witch of the jewel-bright seas, and her serpentine familiar Scyllane.

Of course, Valentine would prove to be one of Lisa’s most beloved companions by the end of the book, a swashbuckling mentor with a semi-tragic backstory, a kind of mother figure who had a penchant for committing petty theft and tax fraud against the despotic king.

But Steven didn’t know that yet.

“Skyllane,” Connie continued, “her silvery scales glimmering beneath the midday sun, hissed her amusement at Archimicarus’s obvious discomfort as she coiled herself sinuously around Valentine’s neck. Show off, the falcon thought savagely…”

Her mouth twitched into a reflexive smile at this part, nostalgic at Archimicarus’s occasional petty asides, and she looked up automatically, hoping to see the same amusement reflected in the face of her one-person audience… but Steven… Steven obviously wasn’t feeling it.

He didn’t seem like he was feeling much of anything, really.

When she’d come in with her mother that morning, he had tried to hide it, insisting that she open The Unfamiliar Familiar again, that they could pick up where they had last left off like everything was fine and good and normal and dandy.

But it wasn’t.

And perhaps pretending was only adding insult to injury, salt to an already agonizing wound.

Her mother’s famously steady hands had been shaking all day. They shook around around the leather of her steering wheel; they shook around the circumference of her coffee tumbler; they shook as she fumbled with her keys to lock the sedan’s door. She dropped them. Connie picked them up and didn’t comment on the incident, just as her mother didn’t comment on the event except to proffer a perfunctory thank you. And still, her mother’s hands continued to shake as she ushered Connie through the double doors that led into the Truman Ward, where only the nephrologist’s most dire patients were hospitalized.

On the ride to the hospital that morning, she had laid out the bare bones as best and well as she could to her daughter—Steven had been going to get kidneys, and then he just as suddenly wasn’t.

Steven’s life had miraculously stretched before him, and then the ribbon was abruptly, cruelly cut.

And his heart is tired, Connie, her mom had whispered—very quietly, with evident strain. As though she was scarcely able to comprehend it herself. So tired. And his lungs are doing their best to keep up…

Connie did not think it was necessary to ask what happened to tired hearts.

Staring at Steven, who wasn’t staring at her but rather at a fixed point upon the ceiling, she instinctively understood that there was only one thing tired hearts could do.

And that was shatter.

Break.

“Hey… Steven?” She asked tentatively, replacing the straw wrapper bookmark in the place where she had last left off. (She didn’t quite close the book—not yet. There was a finality in that action, mundane though it was, that suddenly scared her.) “Are you… okay?”

Seconds dripped before anything happened. Surrounded by a nest of tangled wires and tubes, Steven was deathly still in their embrace, less subject than object, less object than tangible ghost. From her vantage point—the chair next to his bed—she couldn’t see his face, the expression in it, perhaps even the lack of one. But she observed the way that his right hand laid feebly on top of his stomach, fingers lightly curled into a ball. And she saw the feeble rise and fall of his chest, how it stuttered every so often with each arrhythmic movement that found its companion in a staccato beat on his heart monitor.

And here was yet another thing that scared the twelve-year old.

She surmised that all these signs and symbols had something to do with finality, too.

Endings.

She hated those.

Sometimes, when she was reading a really good book, she would stop just before the last chapter to steel herself for what was to come.

“Yes,” came a mechanical reply. “Just tired…”

“I can imagine,” Connie said. (She couldn’t imagine it all. She could barely reconcile that this was the same boy she had laughed and laughed with only so many days ago on the first floor of this very hospital. He had smiled at her so kindly, eyes shining with their own paradoxical aliveness. And she’d thought to herself, even then, how miraculous he surely was, how extraordinary.) “We can stop right here for now if you want to take a nap or something…?”

“I don’t like naps,” Steven immediately said in that same colorless tone, and yet, there was a slight edge to his voice that wasn’t exactly anger, but rather defiance, argumentative, defensive, self-directed—as though it was aimed towards himself. His chubby fingers tensed on his stomach, crumpling the paisley-studded fabric there.

Connie did not think it was necessary to ask why he didn’t like naps.

Or, maybe, it was entirely necessary.

Maybe it was one of those very human statements that required an equally human reply: comfort, consolation, concern.

But she lapsed into silence rather than pursue it, the weight of her book pressing heavily upon her knees, the weight of the moment overwhelming her in all of her twelve-year-oldish-ness. She glanced emptily at the page where the spine was cracked open and realized that they hadn’t even reached the halfway point yet.

There were still so many pages to go.

Hundreds.

“… how does it end?”

But now, very suddenly, with all the air of a startled cat, she glanced up, and saw that Steven had painstakingly tilted his head in her direction. And he was simply watching her, the expression in his dark eyes impenetrable and distant, even though he was so close, quite close enough to reach out and actually touch.

Her literary mind worked ahead of her.

There was a metaphor in there somewhere.

“The chapter?” Connie asked, wondering if he was implicitly asking her to keep reading.

“No.” The line of Steven’s pale mouth barely moved. “The book.”

It registered with her immediately—he was asking for an entirely different thing besides.

Cold collapsed down her spine, settling somewhere in her stomach.

Icy.

Hard.

“Don’t be silly,” she returned numbly, as though it was just a game they were still playing. It was not in fact a game. It wasn’t even close to one. “You’ll have to wait for me to read the rest of the book to find out. We haven’t even reached Chapter Eight yet.”

There were twenty-one chapters total.

Epilogue included.

Steven was silent for a long time, but never entirely; the various machines invading him did all of the talking in his place: whirring, beeping, stuttering on.

“I guess we better keep going then.”

“Yeah…”

Connie removed her straw wrapper bookmark again and began to read.

She read very quickly now, as though something depended upon it.

iv.

A little before noon, Dr. Maheswaran briefly came in to disconnect Steven from the portable dialysis machine and send Connie downstairs to be picked up by her father for tennis practice. Garnet watched him as he seemingly watched nothing. He looked away when the nephrologist gently disconnected the machine’s tubing from the central line grafted into his neck. He closed his dark eyes when she replaced the oxygen mask over his mouth for one of those quick albuterol treatments. (Ever since his episode last night, his breathing had been a little too stilted for the doctor’s liking, a little too short.) He barely opened them again when Connie said her tentative goodbye, placing a hand on Steven’s arm as Dr. Maheswaran placed a consoling arm around her daughter’s shoulder.

Through his mask, he couldn’t say anything, so he only blinked slowly, the shadows turning beneath his eyes starkly pronounced. He coughed once. The feeble sound rattled across his chest.

It shivered his whole body.

It shivered the entire room.

When Connie withdrew her hand, fear flashed across her face.

(For she was shivering, too.)

The Maheswarans left, and Garnet and Steven were left alone in that tiny hospital room that was filled with golden sunlight. It leaned through the window with a light, mocking smile, teasing a warmth that the gym trainer couldn’t feel as she continued to watch Steven.

Vigilantly.

With no little obsession.

Afraid to miss something.

(Maybe even more afraid to stay.)

Hunched over in the uncomfortable chair next to his bed, she curled the fingers of her right hand over her clenched left fist, gingerly rubbing her knuckles, and she stared plainly at the punctuated rise and fall of his chest as albuterol vapor leaked beneath his mask, spiraling into the air like fading smoke. The machine hissed pneumatically, nearly overwhelming the sound of Steven’s beating heart, which was measured out in shrill noise, clangorous noise.

Beep…

Beep...

Beep…

Garnet hated this sound and she was simultaneously desperate to keep hearing it.

A nurse came in some ten minutes later to remove the mask and readjust the oxygenated cannulas in their former place, gently threading the tubes around Steven’s ears, maneuvering the tiny nubs into his nose. He kept his eyes closed, but Garnet was almost positive that he wasn’t sleeping.

It was subtle, but she knew the signs, having studied them night after night for almost nine months now—all those times she had curled up beside him in bed, resting her chin on top of his curly, black hair, keeping a vigilant eye out for all the demons she couldn’t exactly see.

The shadows that lurked around and about them never quite materialized into foes she could punch, kick, or destroy, so she memorized all the telltale signs of his aliveness instead, committing each trait to memory as though her own sanity depended on it.

The slight furrow in his dark brow.

The twitch in his nose.

The grim press of his lips.

(When he was truly asleep, he had the tendency to snore, mouth lazily lolled open in unguarded torpor.)

But the nurse didn’t know him, so they only said poor kiddo before leaving too, and the room suddenly felt so much more vacant without the hiss of the albuterol to fill all the empty crevices—the silence, the all-consuming nothingness, the barefaced, omnipresent pain.

Beep…

Steven slowly opened his eyes as the nurse’s footsteps died away from the room.

And Garnet watched him as he seemingly watched nothing, as he stared, very quietly, at the ceiling, without so much as moving a limb. She drank every micro-gesture in, as though every micro-gesture meant something in the wide cosmos of the universe. Every breath became consequential in this barebones theology, a butterfly’s wings rippling through space and time to matter in ways both big and small.

It mattered—fundamentally—that Steven continued to breathe.

Beep…

“Garnet?” He asked quietly. His voice was small, weak—the mewling rasp of an injured animal. She thought fleetingly of Cat Steven, of how they had found that tiny, defenseless kitten shivering in the pouring rain. If only Garnet could scoop his namesake into her strong arms just the same and keep him safe, holding him very quietly, very gently, against her chest.

“… yes, Steven?”

“Was my mom… was she ever scared, too?”

The question was simple enough, and it simply unmoored her.

Skewered her through.

Because they didn’t really talk about Rose.

Not really.

They referenced her obliquely, in passing mention, if they absolutely had to; her portrait loomed above the door leading into the beach house; every year, on her birthday, they laid flowers upon her grave and tried not to think about young she would have been had she never died.

And yet, here Steven was, trespassing that unspoken rule and doubling down upon it.

As little as they ever discussed Rose Quartz, they touched upon her illness even less.

So many memories.

Too painful.

Too raw.

Never healed, buried deep within their skins, buried six feet under the ground.

“…I think she might have been,” Garnet answered slowly, “but I can’t say for sure. She was good at pushing down her feelings for us… for our sakes.”

Which in turn made her an excellent leader.

(And an inscrutable friend.)

Steven seemed to silently grapple with this for a few moments, his expression complex, as though there were cloud shadows roaming across his eyes and mouth, threatening rain but never delivering.

“I dreamt of her last night,” Steven said, an explanatory note in his voice. Justificatory. He wasn’t bringing up his mother for just any random reason. “My mom.”

Garnet’s heart shriveled somewhere inside her throat.

“Mm.” She attempted to be calm anyway. “Tell me about it.”

“We… we were in a pink room full of swirling clouds,” the child whispered. “We played football together. And video games. And she told me that she was proud of me… that she loved me…”

What Steven knew of Rose came from stories and anecdotes, from picture albums and yellowed newspaper clippings, from the few videotapes she had left behind—from the one video she had explicitly recorded for Steven scarcely a month before she had delivered him.

It wasn’t a lot, but still, maybe it was just enough.

Because that sounded like Rose.

Her kindness.

Her warmth.

Her fun.

For she had loved, more than anything, to play.

“And then what happened?” She asked, her voice almost even.

“… I woke up.”

And Garnet watched, helpless, as a single tear wriggled itself loose from the corner of Steven’s eye, slipping gracelessly down his cheek and away.

He was silent after that.

She was almost positive, though, that he wasn’t asleep.

“C’mon, Ste-man,” Amethyst wheedled, wafting the milkshake temptingly just below his nose. She’d walked nearly a block away from the hospital just to get the damn thing—a specialty of Stacey’s, the little retro milkshake bar on the corner of Pin Avenue and 32nd. The staff dressed up like they were from The Jetsons and everything. When Steven hadn’t been… when things hadn’t been so bad… they’d sometimes shlepped over there after his dialysis treatments to slam burgers and milkshakes as the jukebox played the Heaven Beetles’ greatest hits. One time, all five of them went together and sung shitty karaoke ’til Pearl was laughing so hard that strawberry milkshake shot out of her nose. “It’s got Reece’s Pieces in it—your faaaavorite…”

“I’m not thirsty, Amethyst,” he returned dully, turning his face away from her. “Sorry.”

His pale neck exposed to her in the gesture, Amethyst could now clearly see the livid bruises that crept vine-like out of the collar of his hospital gown, blooming blue and purple near the place where his central line was inserted just next to his collarbone.

If she could have, if it would have made sense, Amethyst would have crushed that stupid styrofoam cup between her fingers right then and there and enjoyed the feeling of milkshake pouring all over her shaking fingers.

She would have reveled in the destruction of the act.

The cathartic release.

Very probably, she would have begun to cry.

But Steven didn’t need that.

He didn’t need to see her lose her shit.

So, she only collapsed backwards on her feet and into the chair pulled up next to Steven’s bed. She was ginger, notably careful, as she placed the milkshake on the nearby tray, where it’d melt into itself between the hours and the blazing sun.

For the sun burned today, like golden fire, through the square window.

It scorched.

“You… you haven’t eaten in, like, days, my dude,” Amethyst stated plainly, as if he didn’t know that better than anyone else who cared to know. “Dr. M’s worried ‘bout you. If ya don’t get enough nutrients…”

But Steven cut across her bluntly then, still not looking at her. “… then they’ll have to put a feeding tube in me… I know. I heard Dr. Maheswaran and Pearl talking about it the other day.”

She supposed it should have surprised her that he already knew; maybe if she’d been Pearl, she would have jumped to try to sugarcoat the blow with something soft, something comforting, something consolatory.

But the truth of the matter was that there was nothing soft nor comforting nor consolatory about the ugly reality that reared its head above them, ten feet tall and ready to fucking strike.

He was fourteen, not ten.

He’d long stopped believing in magic.

“Doesn’t that scare you?” She asked him, frustration edging the rims of her scratchy voice, and she knew, even as she spoke, that she was being hella unfair. The poor kid couldn’t help the fact that he was puking his guts up left and right, but he was just laying there, lifeless, like he’d already accepted the inevitability of the stars that had spelled out his fate.

And it maddened Amethyst.

Sickened her.

She really want to pummel that goddamn milkshake cup into smithereens; she clenched her fists tightly on top of her knees to try and stop them from shaking.

She reminded herself—painfully—that it was only yesterday that happiness had been given to the kid before it was so brutally ripped away.

She told herself that even grown ass adults had trouble with that.

The volatility, the utter unpredictability of life.

“Of course it scares me, Amethyst,” Steven replied, his broken voice barely a whisper as he finally turned to look at her, his brown eyes drowning in the black bags which encased them. Grooved them. Hollowed them. “I don’t wanna have another surgery… but what do I… how can I do anything? I… I don’t know if I… I can’t stop this. I can’t.”

He seemed to struggle for the words, each one wrenched from him with a punishing drag of air.

And it struck Amethyst then and precisely there, with all the sharpness of a knife, that she took it for granted.

How easy it was for her to simply breathe.

“Catch your breath,” she implored him wildly, leaning forward in her chair. “Shh, shh, it’s okay, Steven.”

“B-but it’s not okay,” he insisted fiercely, sniffing. A single tear slanted out of the corners of one of his eyes and down the hollow of his face, slipping beneath the oxygenated cannulas, following the gentle curve of his beaten, world-weary face. “Don’t say that it’s okay. Please. I can’t take that anymore.”

“Okay, fine!” The awful words exploded out from her, tumbled and rushed and spilled from her mouth headlong on their hands and knees. Amethyst would say anything to make him calm down, and because she had no filter, because she’d never known how to mince the truth, she would mean every damn syllable. “Everything isn’t okay. Everything isn’t fine. Is that better? Are you happy now?”

But to her utter horror, to her staggering discontent, the answer was apparently—

“Yeah,” Steven sighed, closing his eyes in visible relief. “Yes.”

He laid there quietly for a handful of seconds to take in deep gulps of air.

It looked painful.

Excruciating.

“… I just wanna be on the same page,” he eventually finished, his voice a barely distinguishable mumble, distant and muffled.

Amethyst’s entire chest seized with fear unlike that she’d ever felt in a lifetime full of fear; it gripped her, and it wrestled with her.

Put its hands ‘round her throat and squeezed.

“And what page would that be, buddy?” She tried to keep her voice even anyway, though. Steven had yet to reopen his eyes. “Enlighten me.”

But there was no forthcoming reply.

His outburst had exhausted him, and sleep was merciless.

It stole him away.

vi.

They worked together in tentative silence, Greg and Pearl, taking damp washcloths and running them along the parts of Steven’s body that they could reach beneath all the medical apparatus: the column of his neck, his pale face, his arms, his leaden legs. He was too weak to take a shower in the bathroom attached to his hospital room, and they wouldn’t have been able to get a few of his lines wet anyway for the fear of clogging them up.

So a nurse provided them with a basin of soapy water, and they each picked up a rag, gliding the rough fabric as gently as possible across his skin as he laid beneath them like a doll, limp and lifeless.

Staring up at them from dark, button eyes.

Greg pulled his own cloth around Steven’s left ear, now rubbing the tip of it, now gently scraping behind, and tried not to think about how he’d done the very same when the kid was just a baby, so tiny in his arms, so helpless. He’d been afraid then, desperately so, to make just one wrong move. What if he accidentally hurt the little tyke? Rubbed his head a little too hard? Accidentally got soap in his eyes? What if he fucked up? (He was so good at fucking up.)

He’d miss Rose the most then, in those far too common moments, when he was at his lowest.

He’d miss the way she used to wrap her warm arms around his shoulders and show him, without so much as saying a word, what he looked like in her eyes.

Like he was someone worth loving in spite of everything.

In the face of it all.

Fourteen-years later, Steven was tiny beneath his arms.

Helpless.

And Greg missed Rose.

(He would always miss Rose.)

Pearl’s hands trembled as she gingerly lifted Steven’s left arm, weaving her cloth through the gaps between each of his fingers, swiping its breadth across his sweat-stickied palm. Greg followed his hooded gaze to where it settled somewhere on Pearl’s face, where there were faint circles cradling the spaces beneath her eyes, where there was a recent gauntness in the pointed architecture of her cheeks.

She must have noticed, too, because she blinked quickly, self-consciously, pausing her ministrations.

“Are you okay, Steven? I-I’m not hurting you, am I?”

Because that was the most important thing after all—neither of them wanted to hurt him anymore than he was already irrevocably damaged.

Couldn’t bear to even leave so much as a bruise.

“No,” came his simple reply.

It was the monosyllabism that was somehow the most dreadful above all.

Pearl also caught onto this, swiftly folding her slender fingers over Steven’s knuckles, her rag dangling like a white-sheeted ghost from her fingertips.

“Are you sure? You… you haven’t been yourself all day.”

He was silent at this, and Greg was pretty sure it was because the answer was obvious, painfully so.

(He hadn’t been himself in eight months now.)

The man swallowed thickly and turned away, dipping his rag in the basin on the nearby tray; the lukewarm water slushed around his wrists. He made a meal out of squeezing the cloth out, hoping that when he faced Steven and Pearl again, the moment would have passed, the unspoken things remaining unspoken.

But it was the very absence of a reply that seemed to gall Pearl, spiral her, and Greg could see, when he turned back to them, that she was utterly ruined.

She couldn’t hide it; it shone in the over-bright lights of her eyes.

“A-a kidney is bound to turn up,” she said, speaking in that rapid way she always did when she was upset (and trying not to let people see). “Dr. Maheswaran is looking for one even now, and… and… she thinks she might be able to secure a live donor kidney this time because, y-you know, the numbers and everything. Your numbers. Not that they’re abysmal. I mean, they’re bad, but—”

Greg tried to step in, tried to rescue her, before she got in too deep.

“I know it’s hard, Shtu-ball… but chin up,” he said gently as he maneuvered his washcloth beneath the kid’s neck. He skated around the bruises when he could. (There were so many new bruises, erupting like angry supernovas all across his tender skin.)

“Pearl’s right”—she shot him a grateful glance—“Dr. M’s not gonna give up, and neither are we.”

The silence stretched again.

It absolutely groaned.

And Steven finally moved his gaze away from Pearl and back to the bare ceiling.

Apparently, he’d been staring at the ceiling a lot today, divining something in it that no one else could see.

“Were you guys this scared… when Mom… when she was…”

But before he had ever gotten the words out, before he could finish another word let alone the whole sentence, Pearl abruptly extricated herself from Steven, gently setting his hand back on the bed, gently throwing her white cloth of a flag down.

“Excuse me,” she muttered feverishly. “I’ve got to… I can’t—restroom.”

But rather than flee into the door that led to the ensuite bathroom, she swung through the adjacent door, the one that led out into the hall, and Steven watched the place where her lithe form disappeared with cavernous eyes.

Sunken eyes.

Dull.

His mouth still partially open where he was still forming the words.

“I… I was so scared, buddy,” Greg said quietly, his throat constricting with all the surging memories. Her big, brown eyes. The tubes running through her skin. How he held her hand at the end, when Dr. Howard unplugged the machines, so she didn’t have to be alone.

Pearl, of course, held the other.

And there they were, the three of them.

And then, just the two of them.

Alone.

Steven’s eyes, so much like his mother’s own, turned to capture him now, penetrating his father somewhere deep in the muck and mire of his soul.

“… are you scared now?”

He choked back a sob.

“Yeah, buddy. I am.”

vii.

They sat together on Yellow’s hospital bed for a long time, not exactly talking, but communicating in other ways—in the brush of their nearly touching shoulders, in the painful glances they would occasionally shift each other from the corners of their eyes, in the way that Yellow’s pinky finger rested on top of Blue’s wrist where their hands were placed on top of the sheets in the microscopic space between them.

Now once more armored in a button-down shirt and a pair of slacks, Yellow Diamond almost looked herself—brilliant and impressive, striking to the last.

And then she would look to the side again, revealing the raw cuts now laced into her sculpted cheeks.

And Blue would fantasize about gently touching one, running her fingers across one of those tentatively scabbed lines, capturing the measure of her wife’s face, relearning it all over again.

But in the end, she didn’t dare.

Because for right now, this was simply enough.

To be sitting next to Yellow Diamond.

To simply be.

Together.

For once, not entirely alone, even though so many unvoiced things still remained.

Three words.

Mountains of griefs.

And something else now, too.

I don’t want to commit to claiming anything about these tests, Yellow had explained earlier, her usually gruff voice working itself into something gentle, a little more kind. Not until I know something for sure…

You don’t believe I can take it? Blue’s tone was as gentle as it was accusatory in that devastatingly contradictory way of hers.

Frankly, her wife returned quietly, no.

And somehow, it was the truthfulness in the other’s expression which made Blue stop short of pressing for more, for she could see, in the lines beneath Yellow Diamond’s golden eyes, just what these past four years had done to her.

You barely survived the last time. I barely survived watching you, Blue.

It was a miracle that they were even sitting here.

Barely touching, barely talking, but still… it was a start.

It was something simply to be breathing the same air.

Around three, Dr. Reed finally dropped by with Yellow’s discharge papers and another doctor whose name Blue didn’t quite catch; she was a tired-looking lady, though, with a fiercely drawn face. Salt-and-pepper hair. Hands shoved in the pockets of her lab coat. They asked if Yellow would come with them. It’d maybe take an hour or so.

The businesswoman made to get up, but Blue stopped her with a withered hand on her arm.

“Wait,” she murmured. “Your collar is crooked.”

She reached upwards to adjust the crumpled white band, straightening the crease between her delicate fingers.

And Yellow stared at her silently—with open tenderness and rawness and aching disbelief.

And when she swallowed, Blue could see every cord convulse in the smooth column of her throat.

“Would you wait for me, Blue?”

But she must have realized how vulnerable that sounded because she quickly tried to amend herself, always aware of her audience, that there were people watching. She stood up abruptly and a little awkwardly; it was clear that one of her legs was killing her.

“In the town car, I mean?”

“Yes,” Blue returned softly. “Of course.”

Yes.

A complicated expression quivered across Yellow Diamond’s plump lips then; it was hesitant and rich, stiff and almost unbearably visceral in its reluctant vulnerability.

It wasn’t necessarily a smile, but it was something.

It was a start.

viii.

Pearl would have done something, anything, to escape her own body, but it clung to her stubbornly as she half-ran through the hospital’s halls—down Truman Ward and down the glass-encased skywalk, down the elevator, down some forsaken hallway and then another, the turns she took arbitrary and varied.

Anywhere but Room 11037.

Horror clawed its way up her throat—shame and awfulness and terrible, maddening grief—until she could hardly breathe for its presence in her mouth. The nausea was overwhelming. The memories she usually kept carefully tucked away surged forth, frothing like foam on the waves that skimmed the shore near their home.

Just the mention of Rose.

That alone was enough to undo her on any regular day.

But context mattered, too.

Steven had brought up his mother so readily, as though they and their situations were one in the same.

Like they were both—

But she couldn’t complete the thought, even to herself, because fundamentally, Pearl couldn’t accept the inevitable—not when Rose Quartz had once taught her what it was to touch the stars.

Blindly, haphazardly, unintentionally, she found herself in one of the larger hallways in the hospital, and she immediately knew, from experience, that she had made her way down to the first floor. This particular corridor emptied out into the larger atrium and housed many of the administrative offices and various waiting rooms.

It was fairly empty. A few people in olive colored scrubs walked by and paid the woman no attention, her total disintegration invisible to them.

Unseen.

And somehow, the fact of this was soothing to Pearl.

Comforting.

So she swiped a delicate hand across her face and moved forward until a sight towards the end of the hall stopped her short, like a blow to the stomach without being half as neat—so uncomplicated and yet so devastatingly simple.

A silver-haired woman wearing a dark blue dress.

Hands poised on a metallic cane.

Staring inscrutably at a pair of nondescript double doors.

Her heavy braid fell thickly across her shoulder.

ix.

Blue Diamond had been on her way out to the car when she noticed a half-open door in a dyad of two on the first floor of the hospital. Golden light spilled from the room upon the bare, white tiles, submerging them in a brightness, a warmth.

The brass label on the adjacent wall gleamed at her invitingly.

The chapel.

Because naturally, hospitals possessed chapels—sanctified spaces where people could pray to their gods and hope they would intercede on the behalves of their loved ones. There was something psychologically comforting in the gesture, she supposed—to do something in a situation where it felt like nothing else could be done, to speak to the Divine and take comfort in the fact that they were not alone because the Divine was omnipresent, and the Divine was all-encompassing, and the Divine loved them powerfully.

She stood in front of those doors for what seemed like an eternity and remembered painfully when she had once loved God.

She’d grown up with a Rosary woven between her fingers, singing Alleluia every Wednesday, Friday, and Sunday at Mass until her daughter was murdered, and every theological comfort she had ever held dear scattered to the floor like beads.

She supposed it was only nostalgia then, which drove her to lightly press on that already half-opened door.

But as to what made her go in, the former headmistress could hardly articulate.

Her fingers wrapped themselves tightly around the head of her cane.

Clank, she proceeded forward.

Clank.

Above all, Pearl didn’t know what made her do it—it was almost as though a sense of daring reckless gripped her and propelled her forward, step over unthinking step. She approached the spot where Blue Diamond had only recently disappeared, her pale eyes flicking upwards to the label which named the room for what it was, and then back to the double doors again, which hadn’t been completely shuttered to a close since the entrance of its last visitor.

It was a small chapel from what Pearl could tell at a cursory glance, only offering the essential trifecta of artifacts—a couple of pews, a tiny altar, and what appeared to be the portrait of a dove, spreading its elegant wings across the back wall.

And there, sitting in the middle of the front row, was Blue Diamond, her head defiantly lifted.

As though determinedly not in prayer.

Her concentrated gaze seemed to be trained upwards, directed at the beautifully painted mural, upon which the gentle lighting threw its warm, amber glow, casting the bird in molten gold.

That same feeling of daring propitiated her again, and it was with her arms tucked neatly over her chest that Pearl impulsively drew closer, stepping across the boundary of the threshold with tender steps, ballerina movements. Her footfalls were light by nature, and in the thin carpet, they were hushed to the point that the older woman didn’t seem to be aware that she had company at all.

Her cane stood, temporarily abandoned, on the side of the row.

Though her head was high, her shoulders were hunched in on themselves.

Caved.

When Pearl reached the pew directly behind her, she skimmed her knuckles against the grains of the wooden armrest, producing a low, plaintive note as a means of attracting her attention without entirely startling her.

And it was with painful slowness, a certain gracefulness, too, that Blue Diamond finally turned her head to look Pearl’s way, her shadowed eyes wide with surprise and melancholy, with curiosity and well-practiced temperance.

Pearl’s thin brow furrowed.

She bit her lower lip.

xi.

“May I sit?” The Crystal Gem asked, and there was a brusqueness in her otherwise smooth voice that reminded Blue Diamond of yet another encounter with one of Steven’s motley guardians—the one who had stood in front of the door, the muscled woman with bicolored eyes.

She had warned her against hurting Steven.

She, too, had looked at Blue with quiet disdain.

Perhaps loathing was the more fitting word.

“Be my guest…?” Blue returned, allowing a pause by which the woman could introduce herself.

“Pearl,” she curtly supplied as she lowered herself to the end of the pew and sat rather primly, with one ankle crossed daintily over the other.

“Pearl,” Blue echoed gently, trying the name on her tongue. It was a lyrical number, assonant and delicate, much like the person to which it belonged.

For she was slight—as willowy as the other Crystal Gem had been powerfully built. Simply put, she looked as though one puff of wind would blow her over, bending her back like the breeze did stalks of long reeds, rending her, bifurcating her, snapping her in two. And just as Yellow and Blue’s physiognomies told the stories of their griefs, so, too, did the lines beneath Pearl’s eyes announce her own.

There was a boy in the hospital bed.

There was a wasting disease.

“May I assume,” she continued tentatively, “by the expression in your face, that you already know who I am?”

“Yes,” Pearl replied certainly, but then just as immediately said, “No. I don’t know.”

She closed her pale eyes against some inner turmoil as the ambient lighting gently kissed her beaten face, caressing her cheeks in honeyed gold.

“I know your name, and I know what your family’s company has done,” she continued, “but I suppose that isn’t the same thing as knowing you, is it? Understanding why my… why he… why Steven loves you.”

There was it again—that same oblique indictment that the other Crystal Gem had leveled at Diamond Electric, silently condemning her for all sorts of untold flaws, and Blue Diamond frowned, sucking a little on her lip as the charge did what it was intended to do—level a finger directly at her chest, pressing neatly upon her sternum.

Perhaps these activists were not as inconsequential as she had wanted them to be after all.

Perhaps they had something important to say.

Perhaps here was yet another instant in which Blue had looked away, painstakingly ignoring all of the uncouth things in order to more capably realize the vision of her perfect, invulnerable, tableau of an ugly, imperfect, sheltered life.

She accused Yellow of shoving Pink Diamond in a drawer, but perhaps Blue had always made sure to be in another room when all the shoving was being done.

“Because he loves you,” Pearl finished quietly, “and I’m trying to… I can’t quite figure it out.”

She turned to Blue directly then, appealing to her simply with her over-bright eyes and her slightly parted mouth, with the shadows all over her face.

So many premature lines.

And Blue Diamond returned the gaze as steadily as she could.

Perhaps she even mirrored it.

Lines and shadows and lines.

xii.

“I don’t think… I don’t imagine that I’ve been good at love in a very long time,” Blue began, each word slow and precise, maneuvered carefully on her lilting tongue like a hand-rolled cigarette wheeled between expert fingertips. “Giving, receiving it… showing it… even with my daughter… even before she—”

But the woman could not complete the sentence.

And Pearl found that she didn’t want her to.

The unspoken conclusion sat in the space between them—a little girl Pearl imagined her to be, arranged in a pretty pink dress, dangling her Mary-Jane enclosed feet from the crimson pew.

“But Steven Universe,” she continued, and even at his very name, the mere mention of him, the older woman’s expression seemed to subtly transform, the heaviness in it unfurling.

Incrementally lightening.

Surely.

“He extended a flower and smile to me that day in the cemetery. He noticed that I was sad. And that taught me a lesson I had never thought to learn in all of these many staggering years…”

Pearl couldn’t help herself then; a breathless question fell impatiently from her lips.

“And what would that be?”

Blue Diamond arched a dark brow at her that would have been haughty were it not for the tears glistening in her eyes, threatening to exceed their sunken edges.

“That there is such kindness, such… such love, in your troubles being seen, identified, and acted upon. He saw my sadness, and he named it. He gave me that tiny hibiscus and showed me, wordlessly, that I was not alone.”

She glided a skeletal hand across the side of her face, her palm capturing the beginnings of those now falling tears.

“I was being seen, Pearl, for the first time in I cannot tell you when… and it made me realize that this is what I wanted most of all, that perhaps, this is what all humans really want in the end.”

“To be seen,” Pearl repeated, her voice constricted, so many emotions thick.

“Yes,” Blue Diamond whispered with a gracious nod of her head, disturbing the heaviness of her silvery braid, “and to be loved by another.”

“Is that what he wants?” She pressed insistently, but deep down, the answer was already known to her, spelled out to her in the rush of so many memories. How many times alone in the past couple of days had he told them as much, both with words and without them? How many times had he asked them all not to look away? Amethyst opened a window for him so he could hear the words they’d all been too cowardly to utter in his presence. In a hospital room, in the dead of night, he told her to rip the bandaid off, to confirm that which everyone already knew and tiptoed around instead of saying.

You’re very sick, sweetheart.

I know.

And even still, even after all these horrible and unsubtle signs, she’d already done the damn thing and run away from him again anyway.

He asked if she’d been scared when Rose had been in the same place, laying in a hospital bed.

Sick.

Dying.

And yes, the answer so clearly, so blatantly was.

“Yes,” Blue Diamond murmured, her quiet voice tender.

And almost, if not entirely, kind.

“I think that is what he has desired all along.”

Pearl had no other recourse then, no semblance of a facade left by which to cling to, to desperately hold onto in a chapel where two entirely different women sat side by side, utterly undone by the same boy.

She brought both of her hands up to her mouth then and began to weep.

xiii.

Blue allowed the woman her moment of private grief, turning her head away from the sight, even though the sounds weren’t as easily escapable.

The sobs.

The keening.

The primality of it all.

Tears gathered in her own eyes, but she refused to let them fall, she swept them all away—because she understood intimately, viscerally, somehow without really knowing it—that this wasn’t her moment, her child, her bone deep, unbearable, unlivable grief.

Though it had once had been.

And it still was.

But not for this child.

Not for Steven Universe.

She’d lost a child; she wasn’t currently losing one.

And there was a fundamental difference in the fact.

There was primacy.

Five minutes passed, maybe ten, and Pearl gathered herself, collected all her tiny, fragmented pieces into a frame that wasn’t entirely shaking with its own reckoning anymore. And Blue finally looked over to see that the woman was leaned forward on the edge of her pew, the heels of her hands pressed against her eyes.

“He’s not doing well,” she said faintly.

If Blue hadn’t been staring at the movement of her thin mouth, she wouldn’t have known where the words had come from.

Perhaps she wouldn’t have even believed them.

They struck cleanly, like a slap to the face.

“Yesterday’s… disappointment”—disappointment was not the correct word—“hurt him badly, and he’s shutting down. Closing off.”

Each word was painful, razor sharp in clarity, dragged from Pearl’s teeth against her will. She dragged her fingers in lines down her wet face, now reaching the point of her chin, now cupping them into fists on either side of her jaw.

“We can’t get through to him,” she finished quietly. “We’ve all tried.”

And tried and tried and tried—Blue could see every failed attempt scrawled in the lines all over the woman’s tired face. The devastation bruised her black and blue.

“I’m sorry,” she offered simply. “I’m so… sorry.”

But Pearl, with all suddenness, with an aspect of barely repressible contempt, leveled her an incredulous look as though to say, What good will sorry do?

She had an excellent point.

“You should talk to him sometime,” she went on to say, turning away from Blue now. A series of conflicted emotions seemed to be playing out in real time across her pale, sky-colored eyes—disdain warring with grief warring with loathing warring with grudging respect.

It wasn’t quite endearment, though.

And Blue Diamond had a sneaking suspicion that it never would be.

“Maybe not today… he’s tired… hurt… but some day… you should visit him. He would like that.”

It was Blue’s turn to stare at the other woman incredulously now, her mouth slightly open as she awaited a punchline that never quite came. Pearl obstinately refused to meet her gaze, fingertips templed just next to her trembling lips.

“I… I have nothing to offer him,” she whispered, a trembling note in her voice as she tried to convey exactly just how serious she was being. “I’m hardly… I mean, he was the one who saved me. I don’t know what I could ever give him in equal return.”

But somehow, without really knowing why, how, or all the sundry explanatory variables in-between, she knew that this was perfectly untrue.

And Pearl seemed to know it, too, for the corner of her lip slightly lifted in the sliver of a sardonic smile.

“Start with a flower and a smile, perhaps.”

#bellow diamond #blue diamond #yellow diamond #steven universe #pearl #garnet #amethyst #priyanka maheswaran #greg universe #connie maheswaran #rose quartz #pink diamond #flower child #mimiku #oh my god #this chapter is a monster

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heyyyharry · 4 years ago

Text

Chapter 2: Dead Or Alive

(from ‘The Winter and The Crown’)

…in which Y/N faces her first real defeat.

Word count: 6.1k

AU: queen!y/n, commander!harry

Description: Y/N and Harry set off on a new adventure to find ‘the cure’ for an ancient curse, meanwhile, the enemies are plotting to take her kingdom.

Wattpad link (Reyna as Y/N)

“Stay alive,” she’d said to him before they’d set off.

Of all the things she’d wanted to say, she’d chosen those two words. And he’d smiled at her, adjusted her shoulder pads and said, “You, too.”

She wished they could have kissed or at least hugged, but since they weren’t alone, they could only tell each other to stay alive. Stay alive because I’d rather it be me than you. Because you’re all I’ve got left. Because I don’t want to be alone.

Stay alive, Harry, she thought as she watched him mount his horse and then told herself, You too, Y/N. Stay alive.

She and Lance, followed by Harry, led a group of fifty veterans and horses and ten carriages carrying supplies to the northern border. This would be the first time she’d travelled there, which possibly explained the sinking feeling in her stomach. Either that or something bad was going to happen, and she didn’t want to presume it was the latter. Once in a while, Y/N would keep glancing over her shoulder to check on Harry, despite the fact that he couldn’t just vanish into thin air.

“To be honest, I’m quite offended,” Lance said as they rode knee to knee. “I did my hair nicely today and you wouldn’t even notice.”

“Your hair looks the same.”

“See? You wouldn’t even notice,” he said with a smirk, and she pretended to try to shove him off his white horse.

“What’s her name?” she asked.

“Midnight.”

“You named your white horse Midnight?”

“You’re just jealous that my horse’s name is more intimidating than your horse’s,” he scoffed, eyeing her stallion. “Thunder? Really?”

Thunder huffed in disgust and walked faster to get ahead of Lance. Y/N couldn’t help but burst out laughing at the look on the King’s face, and suddenly, she was glad Lance had come with them; someone must distract her from this unwilling anxiety.

By the time the sun was directly overhead, they’d reached the northern forest. It was all so quiet until someone at the back shouted, “Look!” Harry lifted a hand, and everyone stalled. In front of them was a giant pillar of smoke rising from the tops of the trees, blackening the white sky.

“Fire,” Y/N and Lance said at the same time then exchanged the same worrying look. She knew he could feel it, too. Trouble.

“Your Majesty—” Harry began, but she didn’t let him finish.

“We must save them.”

“Y/N!” Harry snapped; he didn’t care if that was disrespectful to his Queen, but Y/N didn’t care, either. Her people were dying and she was here. She could not turn a blind eye to it and flee.

She looked to her left. “Lance?”

The King pinched the bridge of his nose and muttered, ‘fuck’ under his breath. He didn’t try to talk her out of it, so she took it as a yes and kicked her horse into a gallop, heading for the smoke pillar. High-pitched screams of men, women and children from the distance urged her to ride as fast as she could, ducking all the branches and holding tightly onto Thunder.

When she turned to her left, there was Lance, riding on Midnight. On her right was Harry; he’d caught up with them, his face pinched with a scowl, and she wasn’t sure if he was angry at the situation or at her. As their eyes met, she cast him a look that was meant to be an apology and could only hope that he understood.

They continued chasing the screams. The quieter it got, the louder Y/N’s heart was pounding. Soon they broke out of the forest into an open field. Y/N was the first to get there, but it was already too late.

The village was afire in a dozen places. The houses had burned almost to the ground. Black corpses were scattered all over the blood-stained snow. If there had been animals, there weren’t any now. Nothing but silence and emptiness.

Y/N felt tears sting her eyes but she didn’t let herself cry in front of her men. Most of them expected her to be the scared little girl who would run home as soon as she saw dead people.

Sadly, they were right. Y/N felt sick in her stomach. She wanted to leave. This wasn’t a good idea. And yet, she sat frozen on Thunder’s back and took in the devastating scene before her eyes, and for one second, she could have sworn she saw Egon crawling out of the ashes. But it was just a man, or a woman, burned from head toes, wiggling desperately before going limp.

“Find those who are still alive,” she heard Harry say. “Rescue as many as you can.” She turned to him, looking through the tears, and when he mouthed at her, “I got you,” she felt partly relieved. She had to remind herself that she wasn’t alone in this. He was here. And they would fight together if they had to.

“Scared?” Lance asked. She wondered if the look on his face was supposed to be mocking or sympathetic, but she didn't reply and redirected her horse, following Harry.

They rode silently side by side, passing the houses that were still ablaze and looking for signs of life in the burning ruins. Smoke made her eyes water some more and she covered her mouth with the fur of her coat.

“You’re good?” Harry asked. She liked the businesslike sound of the question. It reminded her that this was serious, and she still needed to keep her guards up even when there were just the two of them.

Still, she had to ask, “Are you mad at me?”

Harry pulled Lightning to a halt and turned to her. A line appeared between his brows. “I’m mad at myself.”

“Why?”

“I should have been more creative at convincing you to stay home,” he said, a corner of his mouth arched.

“There was nothing you could have done to make me stay home,” she told him.

“I could have threatened to hang myself or something, maybe jump out of the window.”

“Don’t say that!”

He smiled that beautiful smile, and a scream tore through the silence, sharp and thin. Thunder huffed unhappily and turned around as if he could sense where it’d come from. He galloped ahead and Lightning quickly followed.

The horses stopped near a burning house and Thunder’s ears swivelled; at the same time, Y/N spotted a slender dark shape. She slid down Thunder’s back, caught the woman by the arms and dragged her back from the flames. Her hands came away sticky with blood. The woman made a fainter sound of pain, unable to speak. The light of the burning house illuminated her. She’d had her throat cut, but not well enough to kill her at once.

She’d also been pregnant. Y/N laid a hand on her belly, but it didn’t stir, and there was a great, dripping wound there. The woman was gasping, her lips blue and cracked. Her dim eyes sought Y/N’s face as Y/N took her bloody hand in hers.

“My child,” the woman whispered. “Where is she? I can’t hear her cry.”

Y/N could feel Harry watching her from his horse. She could feel the weight of his powerless look on her shoulders. They both knew this woman was going to die in Y/N’s arms. Like Jo had. Y/N had managed to bring Jo back, but she didn't have magic to save this poor woman.

“Did they—“ the woman gasped. “Did they hurt my baby?”

“No,” Y/N uttered, smiling despite her tears. “Your child is safe. Don’t you worry. Be at peace.”

She knew she’d be damned for eternity for lying to a dying person, but this woman was facing a painful death and the last thing she needed was to hear that her child had never made it into this world.

Y/N was soaked with the woman’s blood and burning with shame, that she’d been hiding behind the curtain walls for months while these innocent folks paid for the anger she’d caused. She held the dead body of a stranger to her chest, then began to weep.

“Someone is here,” Harry said. Y/N snapped her head up to find her lover’s face taut with listening. “Someone—”

The bitter wind rose to a shriek, but not loud enough to mask the howl and thump of an arrow. One of her soldiers cried out. Y/N’s stomach twisted when she saw strong men on stocky horses riding down on them from every side, blades flashing in the high winter sun.

“AMBUSH!” she shouted and vaulted to her horse just as Harry roared, “ATTACK!”

The horses reared, startled by the first rush, and more arrows fell. The men drew together at once, surrounding their Queen. No one panicked. All the men were veterans who had ridden with her father in his wars.

The attackers galloped straight toward Y/N's men. The two groups met body to body, and then the swords rang out—swords? Y/N stiffened. How did folks carry such expensive weapons?

When Y/N caught Harry’s eyes, she believed he shared the same thought, but this wasn’t time for theories. In a second, everything turned to madness. Y/N blocked a spear-thrust, split the shaft with a downstroke, and cut down viciously, felling the first man who tried her. Thunder reared and lashed out with his forefeet, and three more attackers, riding smaller horses, drew back in fear. Right at that moment, a vision flashed before Y/N’s eyes. The same one with a blade thrusting through Harry’s chest. “Harry!” she snapped. “Get out! Don’t—”

But he was fighting on his own, unbothered by her warning. Lightning was helping her rider as much as she could, her kicks sending the enemies flying; her hooves caved in their skulls. Y/N took a sword-stroke to the forearm, yelped out in pain, and beheaded the man who gave it to her.

How many of them could there be? They couldn’t outnumber her group, could they?

She saw Lance’s white horse kick out, breaking a man’s leg and sending his horse crashing to the snow. Lance gutted another and booted him out of the saddle. A few of her own men fell, and then the battle grew desperate.

“Harry!” snapped Y/N. “Get out of there!”

But he couldn’t. He’d been cornered to a burning house, and Y/N’s heart stopped as she watched him being thrown off Lightning’s back.

“No!” she roared and kicked Thunder into a gallop towards Harry, but before she could reach him, she heard a whistle of an arrow and Thunder neighed loudly before he collapsed. A bone cracked. She was stuck under her horse. “Get up, boy! Get up!” she screamed desperately while trying to seek Harry in the chaos. A man charged toward him, and he retrieved his sword fast enough to stop the first blow.

Y/N mustered all her strength to free herself from Thunder. The horse was alive but badly wounded. Y/N was in tears when she decided to leave the poor animal lying there and limped toward Harry. She swung her sword and killed two men who came at her.

“Y/N!” Harry shouted.

She turned quickly and the man who was holding a sword above his head fell to her feet. Lance was behind him, his blade dripping with red blood. Their eyes met and he gave her a shove. “Go! I’ll help Harry!”

A horse charged out of nowhere and kicked Lance hard. His body hit a trunk of a tree but he managed to get up fast enough to fence another strike. Y/N gutted another man, still fighting her way toward Harry in case Lance could not. But then she recognised the scene.

Harry fell to his knees, his weapon sliding out of his grip, and he brought his hands up to his stomach, his eyes sought hers as blood came pouring out of the fresh wound.

A scream tore through her. She didn’t even know if she’d just called out his name. She’d seen this in her dream last night and many nights before. She tried to run with a broken ankle but she couldn't be faster than the arrow flying straight into her back. She felt nothing when she crashed for the second time. The sounds around her were muffled. The world blurred around the edges. Before her vision turned black, she saw Lance fall into a puddle of his own blood and the man standing beside Harry lift his blade.

Y/N awoke screaming.

She was in her bed. Had it all been a dream? “Harry! Harry!”

“Y/N, it’s me. It’s Jo!” Jo caught Y/N right before she could throw herself out of the bed and tugged her into her arms. As Y/N tried to break away, the sharp pain at her back numbed her all over.

So it hadn’t been a dream. She was really hurt. This was real. The battle had been real. Where was Harry? Where was Lance? Were they dead? Was she?

All those questions and she could not utter a single sound as she began to cry and could not stop. Why was she here? What had happened after she’d been shot?

“Shhh, you’re safe,” Jo whispered in her ear. “You’re home. You’re safe. You’ve been sleeping for three days now. Lance will be so happy to know you’re awake.”

“I want to see Harry.”

“Y/N–”

“Tell him to come in here!” She pulled back and clutched Jo’s arms. Her maid looked frightened, but not of her. “If he’s hurt so bad he cannot walk, I’ll come to him. Just let me–”

She pushed away from Jo and rose from the bed only for her legs to give in and she fell to the carpeted floor. That was when she realized that her ankle was broken. Jo got on her knees beside Y/N and held her by the shoulders as she called for Lance. It didn’t take long for him to burst into the room and staggered toward them. As he kneeled down, she noticed that his hand was bandaged, and he’d lost a finger. Shivers raced through her.

What had happened to Harry?

When Lance cupped her face, it was the first time he’d given her the look that made her feel like a deer before the hunter shot it down. Lance’s words shot her down just like that. “I’m sorry. I’m really sorry.”

“No…” she sobbed, shaking her head despite him holding it. “No, no, no, no. It was my fault. I couldn’t save him. I couldn’t save him…”

“Y/N, stop, you’re bleeding!” she heard Jo said but she continued to swing her arms and the back of her hand collided with Jo’s face, sending the maid down to her back. Jo was crying, too.

“Leave us,” Lance told the maid, his voice cool and calm, but it was just an act because his remaining fingers were shaking against Y/N’s cheek. He was stronger than Jo, so he managed to gather her into his arms despite her resistance. She fought for another moment and eventually surrendered. He held her until her voice was lost and her eyes were dry.

For the next couple of days, Y/N didn’t eat. She stayed in the tower and stared out of the window from dusk till dawn. And at night, she lay awake until exhaustion lulled her to sleep. Jo slept in Y/N’s bed now; she didn’t trust Y/N to be alone, and Lance returned once in a while to check on her.

On the third day, she finally asked Jo about what had happened. Jo had told her that they could have been all dead if Harry hadn’t ordered another group of veterans to go after them. Though they’d shown up a bit too late, they’d been able to rescue Lance and Y/N and all the survivors. Thunder, Lightning and Midnight, though wounded, were also brought back alive.

Y/N had said nothing about it. She hadn’t even asked to see Harry’s body. She’d not said a word about him, and neither Jo nor Lance mentioned him to her because neither knew how to comfort her.

Meanwhile, the whole court was in turmoil without their Queen. People said that she was dead and that Lance was hiding her body in the tower while plotting on taking the throne. Jo had advised her to make an appearance to pacify the court. Y/N had said she’d think about it. But Jo knew it was just a way of saying she didn’t care, and that she’d rather the rumour be true. Lance had tried to calm the people by lying that the Queen had not yet recovered. Jo didn’t know if it was just a part of his plan in taking power into his own hands; she did not trust him at all.

It was the first day of the second week. Y/N’s health had shown some improvement though not significant, and she was eating again. On her way to bring food to the Queen, Jo heard from one of the other maids that the King was interrogating one of the attackers in the dungeon.

The investigation team had been searching around the battlefield for bodies of Isolde soldiers, and they’d caught that man in a pile of dead bodies. He’d been half-dead, half-alive when they’d brought him back to the castle and had recently regained consciousness. Lance had been interrogating him the entire morning, and when Jo broke the news to Y/N, she saw a flash of hope or the first sign of life in Y/N’s eyes. The Queen shot herself out of bed and limped barefoot down the castle corridor. Jo picked up her skirt and chased after Y/N. Y/N was still wearing her nightgown, her hair uncombed and she was not in her right mind to care about her virtue.

When she arrived, Lance was there with two guards and they were all in shock. Jo wasn’t sure if the guards were shocked because their Queen was still alive, or because of how she looked – no better than a walking corpse. But she knew Lance was shocked because Y/N had finally left her chamber.

She walked up to him and looked in the face of the enemy behind bars. The man was half-naked and his upper body was covered with seeping wounds. He’d lost an eye but that didn’t stop him from grinning maniacally as he saw the Queen standing there in her nightgown. Jo could tell that Y/N wanted to smash his teeth in for giving her that look.

“Would you like to question him?” Lance spoke softly as if there were only him and Y/N.

Y/N clenched her fists at her sides. “Has he said anything yet?”

“No. Not a single word.”

“Have you tried beating him?”

Y/N didn’t cast a single look at Lance, so she couldn’t see the horrified look he was giving her. Jo pressed her lips together, gripping her skirt. She didn’t like this side of Y/N at all.

Calmly, Lance said, “Yes.”

“Maybe cut off his fingers and he’ll talk.”

“Your Majesty–” Jo interjected, and Lance shushed her at once.

“You dirty little whore,” the prisoner finally said, his voice full of contempt. The two guards standing on either side of the cell immediately stepped forward, but Y/N put up one hand for them to stay where they were.

Jo wondered what was on her best friend’s mind. At this point, she was too afraid to find out.

The man spat and bared his blood-stained teeth. “You can cut me to pieces,” he hissed, “and I still won’t say a word. You don’t deserve the throne you’re sitting on, little girl. Look at yourself, do you see a queen? I see a whore who thinks she’s the Queen just because she puts on pretty dresses and wears a crown.”

All eyes were fixed on Y/N, waiting for her reaction. It was so quiet that Jo could hear the beating of her own heart. Lance, who managed to look the calmest, was breathing heavily as he watched Y/N’s face with a look of concern.

“Open the cell.”

“Y/N–” Lance started.

“Do it,” Y/N snapped at the guard on her right, and he frantically pulled out his keys and unlocked the prisoner’s cell.

Lance snatched Y/N’s wrist, but she yanked her hand away. Meanwhile, Jo gathered her courage and took a step closer. She saw Y/N glaring down at the prisoner whose hands and feet were chained.

The Queen tightened her fists. Then, she kicked him in the stomach. Jo gasped, a hand flew to her mouth as Y/N’s foot collided with the man’s jaw, sending saliva and blood splashing onto her white dress. Jo was stiff with terror and the next thing she knew was the guards dragging the Queen out of the cell by Lance’s order.

Y/N was punching and kicking and screaming. She said that she’d skin the man alive for what he’d done. Jo didn’t think she cared if this man wasn’t the one who’d killed Harry. She just wanted revenge. She just wanted someone to pay for the death of the man she loved.

The guards were twice bigger than Y/N so they didn’t budge as she fought them. They twisted her arms behind her back and yanked her away from the cell like a ragdoll. Jo threw herself at them and tried to pry Y/N out of their grips.

“Let her go!” She whipped her head to Lance. “Tell them to let the Queen go!”

“Take her to her chamber and tie her to the bed,” Lance said with a dismissive wave. “No one’s to attend her for the rest of the day.”

“No!” Jo screamed as a guard shoved her out of the way and carried a screaming Y/N on his shoulder out of the dungeon. Jo turned back to Lance. She was filled with anger as tears started running down her cheeks. “What do you think you’re doing?! You’re not our King! You’re disrespecting the Queen!”

Lance gave her a stern look, his face contorted slightly before returning to his usual unbothered expression. He didn’t say a word as he sidestepped her and followed the guards.

“Is he awake?”

Where am I?

“Barely.”

“Someone please clean him up. He smells like shit.”

Peach…

“How long will it take?”

“At least six months, Your Grace.”

Where am I? Who are these people? I can’t see.

“Six months? You’re telling me I have to keep him alive for six months?”

“At least.”

Peach, are you alive? Where are you?

“Very well. But if this doesn’t work, I’ll behead you myself.”

“This will work, Your Grace. I assure you. But you must send a physician. I can’t do it if he’s bleeding like this.”

“Guards, send a physician to treat his wounds! And you better do your job.”

“Yes, Your Majesty.”

Peach…

“Stay alive, Harry. We’ll release you but you must stay alive.”

Dead or alive, I’ll come back to you, Peach. I’ll never leave you alone…

“I’m sorry, Harry. I really am…”

“Get out, you piece of shit!” Y/N screamed at Lance the moment he stepped through the threshold. He didn’t say a word, his expression unreadable as he padded to the bed and peered down at her. She was sitting with her back against the headboard and her wrists tied to a bedpost. She was ashamed and furious. She never should have trusted him. For all she knew, he could have planned the attack himself. Or he’d been waiting for her to break and somehow got lucky.

“Get out,” she hissed as he sat on the edge of her bed.

Still not talking, he reached for the rope that bound her wrists.

“Your Majesty,” a guard said, making Lance stop. “The Queen’s not herself. She might be dangerous.”

Lance looked over his shoulder. “I don’t need you to warn me about my wife. Now leave us and shut the door.”

Y/N was startled and confused at the same time. She guessed the guard was, too, but he left without asking more questions, leaving her alone with the King.

Lance heaved a sigh as his eyes finally found hers. “Will you promise not to hurt me if I untie you?”

She looked away, clenching her jaw.

“Y/N,” he warned.

She pursed her lips and took a breath. “Yes.”

“Yes, what?”

“Yes, I promise not to hurt you.”

He nodded and untied her. As soon as she got free, she wasted no time to throw herself at him, shoving him against the wall with a loud thump. He seized her wrists, but not hard enough and she could still pound her fists at his chest. He didn’t even push her back. She was much lighter than him. Why was he just standing there?

“Fight back! What are you doing?! Fight back! Hurt me.”

She didn’t know why she started crying. But she couldn’t stop. And then she surrendered and slipped down onto the floor. If he wanted to kill her now, he could do it with his eyes closed. And yet, Lance sat down in front of her, crossing his legs, still holding her wrists but his fingers had loosened.

“Are you done?” he asked quietly.

Sobbing, she gave a nod.

“Good. Now listen.”

He placed his fingers underneath her chin and tilted her head up. His grey eyes looked darker here and his brows slightly furrowed. They were sitting so close she could see the cut on his cheek. It looked fresh; he’d probably got it from the battle. She knew it would heal at one point and probably wouldn’t leave any scar, but it was strange to see an imperfection on his face.

“Did you see how easy it was for me to command your guards to tie you up?” he began, looking serious. For a second, she thought he looked and sounded just like her father. “That’s how loyal they are to you, Y/N. They don’t take you seriously because you don’t take yourself seriously.” Lance brought his hand to her cheek. This time, she didn’t flinch. “I know it’s been hard for you,” he said. “But Jo and I are the only two people in this castle who know about your loss. The court thinks you’re weak and afraid and a joke. Would your father be happy if he knew his heir is like this? Would Harry? How about your mother? Would she be happy to see how you chose to act as a queen?”

Y/N didn’t speak, her eyes glued to the floor.

Lance continued, “You can grieve. You can be angry. You can cry. You can even hit me; I’ll let you if it makes you feel better. But outside this room, I want you to be the Queen people expect you to be. I want you to show them that you are not weak. You are not a target. You are not the prey. Show them they can count on you to lead them and keep them safe. Think about the innocent people who died in the attack. We’re the lucky ones who live, Y/N. We have to live for them.”

He waited for her to say something, and when she remained silent, his thumb brushed her cheek. “Can you do that, Y/N? I know that fearless queen is still in you. Can you bring her back to me?”

She looked at his left hand and saw the missing pinky and her heart pained a little. She licked her lip and finally nodded.

“Good girl.”

She averted her eyes, not wanting to look at him as shame washed over her like a tidal wave. She expected him to stand up and leave. But he continued holding her face like that. Like she was the most fragile thing he’d ever touched.

“Look,” he began again. “You and I might be the loneliest people in the world, but at least we’re in this together.”

“I know,” she heard herself say. Lance let out a breathy chuckle.

Then his voice turned grim again. “I’m sorry I couldn’t save him. But I won’t let anything bad happen to you.” She glanced up to his face and saw him smiling wistfully. “I can’t keep you safe if it’s you who endanger yourself.”

She pursed her lips. “How’s your leg?”

Lance lifted his shoulders. “The physician said that I’d have to walk with a limp for the rest of my life, but I can still ride a horse, not sure if I can shoot arrows with four fingers, though…”

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I should not have led everyone to that village. It was all my fault.”

“No, you did the right thing. It was just bad luck.”

Y/N didn’t think luck had anything to do with this, but she did not argue.

“You asked me if I really thought I could marry for love,” Lance said.

“That was a joke,” Y/N mumbled. “An evil one. I’m sorry for that, too.”

Lance smiled a little. “The answer is yes. I did.” Then he released her face and dropped his hand. “I met her at a market,” he said, staring at his hands on his lap. “Her name was Daliah, and she was the most beautiful girl I’d ever seen. My father killed her. She was seventeen.”

Y/N thinned her lips. Her stomach dropped. She knew Lance had secrets; who didn’t? But that wasn’t anything she’d expected.

“Well, he tried to kill me,” Lance said. “I wasn’t the son he wanted, and when I turned sixteen, I bought myself a ship and became captain and left the life in court to travel the world. My father got angry.

“On my seventeenth birthday, my crew, Daliah and I were drinking in a tavern when a group of men with swords and daggers burst in. We tried to fight back but most of us were drunk. Nearly half of my crew was slaughtered that night. Dalilah and I managed to escape through the back, but they caught up with us and they killed her. I survived. It wasn’t until a year later that I found out my father had sent those men to kill me.”

“I’m so sorry,” Y/N said. “Was that why you said you’d protect Harry for me?”

He nodded. “Don’t tell anyone, all right? I’d like people to continue to fear me.”

Seeing the humour on his face again made Y/N feel quite relieved. “Your secret’s safe with me,” she snorted. “And...I’m sorry for doubting you...and for hitting you...”

“I’m sorry for tying you up,” he said. “Well, for ordering the guards to tie you up.”

She smirked and rolled her eyes. “Never do the dirty work yourself?”

Lance gave a shrug. “What’s the point of having servants if you have to do things yourself?”

They laughed at that, then fell back to silence.

“I want to see Harry’s body,” Y/N said after what seemed like a minute, and from Lance’s expression, she could tell he was taken aback. “To say goodbye,” she added. “I promise I won’t go mad again.”

Lance only stared at her. She regarded him tentatively until he said, “There’s no body.”

She blinked. “What?”

“We’ve been looking everywhere and couldn’t find his body.”

For the first time in two weeks, Y/N finally found a spark of hope. She straightened and pinched herself to make sure she wasn’t dreaming. “He could still be alive,” she blurted.

“Y/N,” Lance warned when she rose to her feet. He grabbed the edge of the table beside them and pulled himself up as he started pacing back and forth.

“I don’t believe Harry’s dead until I see his body,” she said. “His body can’t just disappear.”

“Wild animals can take it during the night…”

Those words froze her to the spot. She caught the look of guilt upon his face and realized he regretted having said that. She wasn’t angry at him, though. He was just talking like a normal person with common sense, and he could be right. Still, she hoped he was wrong, and she wasn’t discouraged. If anything, she was more determined to look for Harry now that she knew they’d never found his body.

“Have you sent news to his family—”

“No,” Lance said. “Not yet. But don’t you dare consider looking for him, Y/N. I don’t want you to get your hopes up and—”

“Just think about it! Something feels wrong, Lance!”

“What do you mean?”

“The attack,” she said, closing the distance between them until she was as close to him as she’d been before. “Those men were carrying swords.”

“Yes, I got my finger cut off so—”

“How could every single one of them carry a sword, Lance? Folks cannot afford those expensive weapons.”

Lance’s eyes went wide as realization dawned on his face. “You’re saying that it was a set up?”

“I don’t know.” Y/N threw her hands in the air. “Maybe.”

“Calanthe?”

“That’d be my first guess, but she’s closed the border, and the North has always hated the South. I know my people don’t want me as their Queen, but they would rather have me than Calanthe.”

Lance’s face twisted as it seemed like he was sinking into deep thoughts.

“I’m telling you,” Y/N said, “something is wrong. So maybe Harry’s alive and someone’s holding him captive for a reason. But it might not be Calanthe. For all I know, a lot of people want me dead.”

“But why Harry?” Lance asked.

Y/N didn’t know, either. On second thought, none of those theories made sense to her. Perhaps she was making things up just so she could believe that Harry wasn’t really gone.

“Dead or alive, he must be here with me,” she told Lance. “So until his body’s found, I cannot accept that he’s dead. Just give me a few months. Don’t send news to his family yet. If we still can’t find him after a few months then we’ll tell them and...and I’ll let him go. But I don’t want to give up without a fight, Lance.”

Y/N didn’t fully believe in her own words. She knew she would never truly move on if she kept clinging onto the hope of finding him. And she could see the same doubt in Lance’s dark grey eyes as he considered her like she was mad and speaking nonsense.

“All right,” he said, to her surprise. “But will you promise that you’ll get back to running the court?”

She nodded fast. “Of course.”

Lance nodded once. “Then I’ll have people look for him. Now get some rest. I’ll call for Jo.”

“Actually,” she stopped him before he walked out of the door. Y/N felt pain in her chest as she saw him standing in the glow from the corridor and remembered her last night with Harry. She shook it off and worked up a smile. “Let Jo rest tonight. She’s been here every night. I’ve troubled her enough.”

Lance seemed hesitant. “Would you...want me to stay?” She stared at him. And he seemed amused. “Don’t be so horrified, baby dove. I’ll sleep on the floor.”

“You? On the floor? Oh, please I’d love to see that.”

“Maybe not on the floor.” Lance looked around the room. “That chair by the fire looks comfortable enough. But if you feel bad about it, we can share the bed.”

Y/N crossed her arms and sneered at him. “You can stay up all night if that’s what you want, but we’re not sleeping in the same bed.”

Lance shook his head as his mouth curled to its favoured side. “Fine. Your loss.”

“What’s your name?”

“Harry Styles.”

“How old are you?”

“Twenty.”

“Who are your family? Do you remember them?”

“Um...My father’s dead. So, my ma, my sister...oh, and there’s also Kenny…”

“Who’s Kenny?”

“We grew up together.”

“Do you know who Y/N Y/L/N is?”

“Sorry?”

“Y/N Y/L/N. Does that name sound familiar to you?”

“It’s familiar, but–”

“Do you know who that is?”

“Can you repeat the name?”

“Y/N...Y/L/N...Well? Do you?”

“No. No, I don’t.”

(end of chapter 2)

#harry styles fanfic #harry styles fanfiction #harry styles imagine #harry styles writing #harry styles series #harry styles

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kayr0ss · 4 years ago

Text

A Tactical Approach

[Diakko Week 2020, Day 2: Hand Holding / Cuddles, Fluff] AO3

Happy to participate in Diakko week 2020! @dianakko-week

---

Akko had never considered herself a strategic person but sometimes life led a girl into situations that felt like war.

And this was a battle she was determined to win.

She assessed the setting—it was important to know your surroundings and use them to your advantage after all. What could she possibly do to make the most out of this situation? What was the ideal picture of a victory in her mind?

Victory was sweet. Like plums.

It would also be warm and absolute, full of conviction and with no space for hesitation.

And hopefully victory wasn’t sweaty. Oh by Jennifer—please—she hoped victory wasn’t sweaty!

Why were her hands sweaty now of all times? She sighed, wiping her palms along the fabric of her skirt in an attempt to alleviate the problem. Satisfied, she returned to assessing the terrain of her battle. She was in Diana’s dormitory, sitting on Hannah’s stolen study chair so that she and Diana shared a desk, huddling themselves shoulder-to-shoulder. It was eight fifty-seven in the evening and she had been waging this war for all of seventeen minutes by now.

Yes, she was counting since eight forty.

The opposing party of this skirmish just so happened to be the object of her affections. What were her motivations? What would her next move be? Akko squinted at her foe, watching as she flipped another page of the Ancient Runes textbook she was examining. She brushed back blonde and green tresses behind her ear, the candlelight of the lamp on her desk flickered playfully across her features and oh my god she has it bad, doesn’t she?

Akko exhaled, releasing a breath she didn’t know she was holding. Diana looked up, blue eyes softer than usual, and tilted her head in inquiry.

“Is everything alright, Akko?”

Ah. She really had it bad.

“Yeah.” Akko said in a quiet voice. It was so unlike her that Diana’s brow quirked upward. The movement was subtle, but they were near enough to each other for Akko to notice.

“Book.” The blonde chided, pointing downwards to the (very much ignored) Divination textbook lying in front of Akko. “You’re getting distracted again.”

Akko simply huffed. “Like it’s my fault!”

That won a small chuckle out of Diana, who turned a little pink if Akko wasn’t seeing things. This meant the implication didn’t go over her head—and that was all and well. Akko didn’t want it to go over her head. She knew that Diana knew that she… felt things.

Many, difficult to describe things that she frankly didn’t have the vocabulary for, so she’d much rather express it in actions. Diana leaned in a little, bumping their shoulders playfully. Akko giggled, looking back towards the pages of her book with no intention of reading. She felt her face heat up but she still smiled, appreciative of what was such a small yet meaningful gesture of affection from the normally aloof Diana.

She bumped her shoulder back. They were both smiling into their books now.

These little interactions had brought her back to the essence of her battle—of the mission she was on, and the victory she aimed to secure.

Now wasn’t the time to get distracted! The setting was perfect: quiet, candle-lit, with the rest of the room glowing softly in yellow and without Hannah and Barbara in sight. The curtains were pulled open and, despite it being a little cloudy, the view was just as wonderful as a clear night sky.

Akko examined her artillery options. She already used the 'shoulder bump'. Was it a good time to…

To maybe… lean her head on her shoulder?

She huffed while shaking her head and pretended it was because of the book. That wouldn’t work. She’d have a hard time reading and would probably fall asleep. She didn’t want to put Diana in a situation where she’d have to support her weight too much.

Displaying affection was such a difficult war to wage.

Her most distal appendages might work though—she had a whole two hands with fingers and thumbs! Right. She should use those. Maybe. But they were sweaty! Gods, did this have to be so hard!

But she was Akko Kagari and so far just doing it had worked wonderfully for her! And so she threw caution to the wind, and… placed her hand on the desk.

It was a strategic move. If Diana picked up on her cue, she should place her hand within pinky-reaching distance, right? Right? Akko swallowed, trying her best to look disinterested in where Diana’s hand would fall next.

The blonde had finished the words on her page, and motioned to flip to the next. Akko watched in her peripheral vision, almost in slow motion, as Diana’s hand fell back lower, lower and finally—yes!

She put it on the desk. Beside Akko’s hand.

Akko picked up an extra quill and flipped open her notebook, keeping her left hand obviously still and available, hoping that Diana hadn’t started learning Japanese because she decided to write her notes in her native language to ‘aid with recall.’

Never mind the fact that she was nervously scribbling ‘please hold my hand, please hold my hand, please hold my han—” over and over again.

Ah, but Diana seemed engrossed, and Akko took it up on herself to take initiative. Again.

It was time to deploy stealth tactics.

Slowly, and with no small amount of nervousness, she inched her pinky finger a whole centimeter to the left. That was progress! Diana hadn’t noticed. Perfect. Emboldened by her success, she went and moved in closer.

Shit. Diana pulled her hand to scratch an itch along her chin and—that was illegal, it was so cute! To Akko’s relief, her hand returned to its original position except this time it was… closer?

Was Diana picking up on her stealth tactics?

Suddenly losing her nerve, Akko ceased her slow advance. But then why would she? Reciprocation was a good thing, right?

She took a chance, looking towards her notebook to scribble a little more nonsense, and then brushed their pinky fingers together.

Surely such a small action should not have such a profound effect on her—felt from the tips of her ears, down to the pit of her stomach. There was fluttering, fluttering everywhere and this slow exchange felt like it was going to drive her insane!

Wasn’t Diana supposed to be the overthink-y one?!

Then she noticed that Diana had gone remarkably pink. Her eyes were still on the book, but there were details that Akko finally picked up once she let herself stare for just a minute.

Diana’s eyes weren’t moving. They were intense and boring a hole into what must have been the same passage on that very same page[3] for the past two minutes. Her eyes fluttered prettily, and Akko swooned a little.

She hooked their pinky fingers together—Diana had obliged willingly.

It was fascinating to watch the way she tried to steel her expression, but the way the column of her throat moved as she gulped was something Akko didn’t miss.

Oh, this was going to be the death of her. She pulled her own red eyes back towards her textbook.

Was Diana nervous too? Looked like it, at least a bit. The thought of it made the fluttering grow stronger than it ever did before, and Akko figured she was probably a raging shade of red by now.

But she loved every minute of it.

Diana—god damn it—pulled on the cuff of Akko’s sleeve to bring her hand closer, and pried her palm open, facing upwards.

And then she began to gently brush her fingertips along the inside of her palm, still feigning interest for her textbook, and Akko wanted to set herself on fire.

Akko never wanted this to end. Her heartbeat was going into overdrive, and she was pretty sure her palms were starting to sweat again but it was too late to care about that now, wasn’t it? Diana’s breathing seemed shallower, and that was a sentiment she could relate with. Somehow, it was comforting to see that she wasn’t the only one so nervous about this whole ordeal.

Praying to each and every one of her Asian ancestors, Akko steeled her nerves.

She’s going to do it.

She’s going to move in for the winning blow.

She splayed out her hands, gently, doing her best to caress every inch of skin Diana had in contact with her, before catching the spaces in between Diana’s fingers to fit her own hand snugly into a hold.

Diana was done pretending to care about the book. She had gasped, softly, and looked downwards towards their hands. She was blushing wonderfully, eyes wide, and the small smile that grew on her lips was an image Akko wanted to remember forever.

“Shall we take a break?” Diana finally broke their silence. She looked up towards Akko and—by the nine the look she was receiving was so tender it felt almost unreal.

“That’d be nice.” Akko giggled, dropping any pretense of disinterest as well.

Diana looked a little shy and hesitant, and Akko was about to ask why but then Diana leaned forward, snuggling close as she settled her forehead on Akko’s shoulder. She was trying to hide a grin. How sly!

“I can see the smile on your face, you know.” Akko’s giggles didn’t end, and she rarely spoke so softly.

“Can you blame me?” Diana’s speech was muffled against her shoulder, smile evident in the sound of her voice.

“Gotta admit, I can’t.” Akko’s grin was just as wide.

“I could get used to this.” Diana admitted, running her thumb against the back of Akko’s.

Now that they’d finally gotten to holding hands, they might have some trouble learning how to let go. Diana definitely showed no intention of doing so anytime soon.

Akko’s chest bloomed with warmth, affection, and something more.

Victory was sweet.

It was also a little sweaty and involved a lot of nerves and—

(Akko watched as Diana pulled herself upright again, bringing Akko’s hand closer towards her)

—it felt like a kiss to the back of her hand.

---

fin

---

A/N: Thank you to Tototops, who did a wonderful job beta reading and correcting all the little errors I made in this chapter! I appreciate you so much, you did so good!

Also yes hand holding is a BIG DEAL guys

#Diakko #Dianakko #Diakko Week 2020 #Dianakko Week 2020 #Diakko Week #Day 2: Hand Holding #Haha #Fluff #LWA #Diana Cavendish #Akko kagari #i love them sorry #our babies

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troop-scoop · 4 years ago

Text

Mistakes & Regrets XX

Summary: When a trip to your Dad’s hometown of Hawkins goes wrong, you end up in the year 1983, and have to learn how to cope with being stuck in the past.

Pairing: Steve Harrington / Future!Reader (like, a really slow burn)

Warnings: Swearing probably,

• • •

The sounds of crickets and the distant sound of an owl somewhere in the woods was pretty much the only things you could hear from your position by the control box. Other than the occasional very soft sound of someone’s clothing moving as they moved or shifted their weight.

Lucas was next to you, leaning against the box. Everyone had remained silent after Jonathan and Nancy got into the car and drove up to the lab.

“Is Will your dad?” He asked in a hushed voice.

Looking down at Lucas, his arms were crossed, and he was looking up at you with a mixed look of frustration and sadness.

“What makes you think that?” Your voice was equally as quiet.

“You fell through a hole, ended up in the Upside Down and then crawled out in a different time period, that is, if you’re telling the truth. And you just said that you and Jonathan are family. “

Looking down at the pavement you sighed a bit, lifting up your backpack that was mostly empty. But, Steve forgot to empty out the smallest pocket in the bag, where you usually kept your school ID, and some extra cash in a wallet. It was the same one you’d had from home.

Taking the pale faux yellow wallet out, you zipped it open, hesitating for a second, looking at the middle compartment you always refused to open.

But, by all rights except blood, Lucas was your uncle. He’d sneak you cash at theme parks whenever all of you got together for the summer. You still remembered your fathers telling him he didn’t need to, and yet, he persisted.

Opening the center compartment of the wallet you pulled out a small photo taken from an instax camera, of you and your dad. Often you forgot you had it.

You didn’t look at it, but you just handed it to him. You’d been in sixth grade at some place for a field trip that he volunteered to chaperone.

Lucas took it from you and looked at the photo. Your hair had been cut short, and you were clearly younger in the photo. And your dad had a smile on his face, an arm around your shoulders in a protective manner, his hair loosely styled, so a strand was in his face.

And ever since this young version of your uncle Lucas met you, he thought you actually looked truly happy. Unbothered, like a normal kid with normal dreams and oblivious to the future or past she’d have to endure.

“This is Will?” It was obvious, but he still asked anyway, feeling the need to make sure he wasn’t hallucinating.

“Yeah. That’s my dad.”

“Who’s your mom?”

Shaking your head a bit you closed your wallet, not taking the photo back. “Her name’s Anne.”

“Don’t you want this?” He asked, holding the photo out to you. Looking at it for a split second you could almost hear the clanging of a baking sheet while your dad placed it on the stove to make those halloween cookies every year. And you could see the burnt edges creeping towards the pumpkin in the center. It was no secret that Will was a good cook, but terrible at baking and trying to put premade things in the oven.

“Not really.”

“But he’s your dad-”

“And I don’t know him anymore.” It was dramatic, but it was true. It had been over a year since you last saw him as you wanted to remember him. If you’d known that being in that restaurant would be the last time you’d see him, you wouldn’t have yelled at Pa, you would’ve taken it all in, you would have said your goodbyes, and tried to remember how your fathers and little brother looked in the moment.

You went over to Steve who was leaning against the yellow post at the other side of the box, hitting the butt of the flashlight on his palm. “Hey,” You breathed out.

Looking up at you, he smiled a bit. “Hi,”

“Guys?”

Max was staring at the drive that lead up to the lab, and you could hear the sound of tires against the pavement. Looking over you saw Jonathan’s car and Hopper’s truck speeding towards them.

Reaching over you grabbed Max as Steve grabbed Lucas and Dustin, pulling them out of the way. Jonathan sped past you, but Hopper stopped, looking at you five through the open passenger window.

“Let’s go!”

Steve opened the door, rushing you and the middle schoolers into the back, with the three of them behind you, and you, leaning between the two front seats, as Steve got into the passenger side.

“What the fuck’s going on?”

“The gate, it’s wide open, and letting things through.”

“Jesus.”

• • •

Sitting on the edge of the bathtub you had your head in your hands, only seeing your knees, the tile, and a few strands of hair that fell around your face in a type of curtain.

You were convinced that from the day you were born, you’d admired and looked up to your dad. He was one of many male figures in your life. He gave you good morals, and taught you to be strong, how to be you, and not to let anyone control you.

His biggest fear when you were growing up was that a man would try and control you, or that anyone who had a power dynamic with you, would try and manipulate you. But he was always paranoid.

You had another thing to admire him for- bringing two kids into a world that he knew was fucked. Being confident enough in himself and Pa that they could protect you and Daniel. That you wouldn’t get hurt.

Closing your eyes you concentrated, lowering yourself onto the floor, hugging yourself and grasping onto Steve’s jacket. You wanted to know how he’d done it. Gotten through such a fucked up time in his life at such a young age. How any of them did. Mike, Dustin, Lucas, Max. You were older, and all you wanted to do was close your eyes and disappear.

Opening your eyes, everything around you was black, with about an inch of water around your feet. But ahead of you, you could see a familiar looking table, with familiar looking cookies, and a few pieces of cloth on the table.

You saw your uncle Dustin sitting at the table, while your uncle Lucas sat across from him.

“Should we tell them?” Lucas asked, looking down at something beside him. Slowly walking over, you could see a stroller next to him, an older baby in the seat, dressed in yellow and pink, with a blue sippy cup gripped tightly in their hands. They were maybe a year old.

“You’re insane.” Dustin responded.

Finally you placed it. It was one of the tables at the coffee shop you’d always gone to on Fridays with your dad. And the cloth on the table was a set of dirty baby clothes that had been neatly folded.

“What?”

“We can’t. You know that. Will’s already terrified enough as it is, you don’t want him turning their condo into a baby friendly prison, do you?”

Lucas’ face changed a bit as he looked down at the baby again. You could hear a muffled voice call out an order, and watched as Dustin got up, leaving Lucas sitting with an infant who was half asleep.

He leaned over to the baby, unbuckling them from the seat and pulling them into his arms. “Hey, princess.” He greeted her with a sad smile. He stayed quiet, letting the baby lean against his shoulder, the sippy cup still in a death grip, almost empty, and you assumed that the infant was just a little too happy about having been given what looked like apple juice

But when you looked at her arm, you saw the birthmark you once had, the one that, after you burnt your arm, disappeared.

It was you.

You were a chubby baby.

Who wouldn’t let go of her juice even though Lucas tried to put it on the table.

“Okay, I won’t take it.” He relented, pushing her messy hair back, watching as she began to drink from the bottle. “You’re gonna be strong one day, you know that?” He was quiet about it. “One of the strongest women I ever met. And brave.”

The baby looked up at him, done drinking.

“You remain kind, somehow. You’re going to be so loving and compassionate that sometimes, it’s annoying. You’re gonna save a lot of people, so don’t hold onto the guilt, don’t let it hurt you, or hold you back. You’re gonna go-”

“Y/n?” Opening your eyes, Steve was kneeling down in front of you. “Do you know what the hell a Mind Flayer is?”

Furrowing your eyebrows, you nodded. You played DnD so often before that you knew plenty of the creatures, and the bosses you could fight, not to mention your dad talked about them all the time when helping you plan DnD games with the four friends you would hang out with. “Yeah, it takes over people’s brains. Wants to conquer shit like It's a British empire, why does that matter?”

Looking over to the doorway you saw almost everyone peaking into the bathroom, staring at the two of you.

“Steve? What’s going on?”

Looking back at Steve, you saw that he was looking at them too, a hand holding your arm before he focused on you. “Did you have episodes? Like Will’s?”

You nodded, slowly. Sitting up a bit more, your hand grabbing the one on your arm. How did he know about those? Did somebody tell him?

“When did they stop?”

“A day or two, after Halloween.”

“Did you have one on Halloween?” Mike asked, suddenly pushing past Dustin and into the room, next to Steve.

The memory of sitting in your shower, sobbing before it ended and you found Steve in your living room.

“Yeah. . . Why?”

“This Mind Flayer. . . you said it felt like it wanted to kill you?” Hopper asked.

“Wait, are we calling that weird cloud thingy Will and I saw a Mind Flayer?” You inquired.

Everyone looked at each other, exchanging looks. But then you realized what Hopper said about Will. And the day he started acting weird. The same day you had your last episode.

“It’s in Will, isn’t it? So. . . if it spies on us, through Will. . . is he gonna try and kill me?”

“That’s the leading theory.”

Within a few minutes, you were tucked away in a corner of the kitchen, looking out the window as the shed was basically torn apart, with everything pulled out, so they could take Will in there.

You didn’t know why the Mind Flayer wanted to hurt you, if it even did. But you were scared, and as usual, you wanted your dad.

Watching as Steve and Nancy helped Hopper take everything out, you climbed onto the kitchen counter, basically sitting in the empty sink and taking in the backyard that would be a pain to clean up.

What was El up to? Last you saw her, you told her to ‘call’ you if Hopper agreed to trick or treating. And by call, you meant manipulating your radio in the Volkswagen. But that never happened and so you didn’t get to take her trick or treating like she wanted to.

“Steve compared the Mind Flayer to Germans.” Jonathan spoke up, walking over to you , handing you a glass of water.

“You mean. . . Arian Nazies?” You furrowed your brows, looking up at your uncle who shook his head.

“No, I mean Germans. He said Germans. Dustin called him on it.” Smiling a bit you nodded, looking down at the ice water. Steve could have stupid moments. Especially when he hadn’t gotten sleep since the night before, when you’d gone to Dustin’s cellar.

A comfortable silence took over, except for the rustling outside where they were setting the shed up to hold Will in. But you knew something was on Jonathan’s mind. You were family after all.

“What’s wrong?” You asked, looking over to him.

He shrugged, shaking his head a bit. He fought with himself for a split second before finally talking. “You’ve been here for over a year, and it’s kinda obvious to everyone.”

“What’s obvious?” You asked, an amused smile on your face while you tilted your head.

He gave a look, reaching out to your arm and tugging a bit at the sleeve of the jacket. “It’s like 50 degrees outside, and he still let you keep the jacket, even though the radiator’s on.”

You shrugged, “Steve’s forgetful, and when he’s tired he doesn’t seem to remember what kind of weather it is outside.” excusing it you looked at the window, not quite knowing what Jonathan was trying to get at.

“You know that about him. According to Nancy he knows you usually get from the gas station, and that your favorite movie is Red Dawn after he took you to see it-”

“Nancy wouldn’t have gone, it’s a war movie-”

“Y/n,” he started in a firm, yet affectionate tone as he took the glass from you, setting it on the counter. “You’ve been friends since last year, and he cares about you. A lot.” You were going to say that it was because you were friends, but you knew he would have stopped you.

“You’re both oblivious.” he scoffed in an amused tone, handing you the water again, before walking out into the backyard.

Hopping out of the sink, you followed after him, leaving the glass.

Zipping up the jacket you caught up with Jonathan, grabbing onto his arm and following him to the clothes line where Joyce was taking clothes down so they could use the rope.

“Jonathan, what are you talking about?”

You were confused, and frankly? A bit worried. Everything that was going on, and Jonathan was being cryptic and ominous about your friendship with Steve. Talking about the way you guys treated each other and knew things and trusted each other in ways that plenty of other people didn’t.

Like how you knew that when he cried, it sounded like his entire heart was shattering, and that he wouldn’t be able to put it back together. And how you trusted him to get you home when you were drunk off your ass on New Years eve. How he trusted you enough to share things he usually didn’t, so much to the point where he’d cry in front of you and go to you for comfort, just like you would with him, if everything ever made you cry didn’t revolve around your biggest mistake.

Oh.

Oh no.

Stopping dead in your tracks, you were sure you looked like a deer caught in headlights, clinging onto the hem of the jacket, and staring at the wet grass.

Was it obvious to everyone else? That you’d trust Steve with your life more than your grandma? More than Hopper? Was it obvious because you didn’t hesitate to punch him when he was being homophobic with Jonathan after committing a hate crime? A hate crime that you tried to make him go fix, that he eventually did after running from the cops.

Was it obvious because you forgave him so quickly right afterwards?

You didn’t know where it started or where it ended.

Was Jonathan implying that you had feelings for your best friend who, time wise, was almost forty years older than you, but biologically only two?

Or were you making that up in your head? Drawing assumptions of what other people thought without reason?

But if that was what Jonathan thought, then did you have feelings for Steve?

No, no of course not, he was just a friend. Right?

• • •

@disneyprincessbuffyannesummers @nxncywheeler @yllwtaxi @songofcosplay @potatopooper05 @cheesecakeisapie @robinsdolan @yall-wildin-like-siriusly @bisexualpears @ilovebucketbarnes @random-thoughts-003 @mochminnie @abbyg217 @stevexscoops @cashmereandtears @iris-suoh @supred12

#steve harrington #steve x reader #steve harrington x reader #steve harrington x you #Steve Harrington slow burn

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cherryblossomflowers · 4 years ago

Text

An Old Life Meets A New (Pt8)

Pairing: Jensen x Daughter, Danneel x Stepdaughter

Warnings: Slight Cussing, Angst, Fluff, Death Mentioned, Car Accident Mentioned, Anxiety/Depression, Arguing, Panic Attacks, Yelling, Fighting

Summary: After the recent death of her mother, Harper must adjust to her new life in the Ackles home, this includes a new stepmother, half-siblings, and reconnecting with her father.

A/N: Time for the Harper VS Danneel chapter! No hate on Danneel or Jensen please. Feedback is greatly appreciated!

*ASK OPEN*

**COMMENT IF YOU'D LIKE TO BE IN MY TAGLIST**

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6 Part 7

Chapter 8

Jensen, Harper, and Danneel were wrapping up their purchases from JCPenney. This included a new bedding set, 7 paintings, strings of star lights, 4 music posters, curtains, giant blue letters of her initials, 4 regular pillows, a body pillow, and 3 decorative pillows. Needless to say, Harper got a bit out of her comfort zone as the shopping progressed.

Jensen grabbed most of the bags, Harper grabbing a couple to help him, and they walked out of the store. Jensen and Harper were laughing and walking along while Danneel stood behind them annoyed.

They got to the entrance, and Jensen turned around, "Why don't you two go into a store while I take these to the truck?"

Harper froze and turned to Danneel, who looked just as shocked as she did.

She cleared her throat and turned back to Jensen, "Uh, it's okay, Dad. I can help with these."

Jensen shook his head, "No, no. Go on, find a store you like and looked around. I'll be back soon."

Danneel walked up to Jensen, "Why don't I take everything to the truck and you both find a store?"

Jensen took the bags from Harper, "It's okay, Dee. I got this. Just text me which store you end up in," he said as he walked out the entrance.

Danneel turned to Harper, who had her head down and twisting her foot on the ground. Harper wasn't happy about this and neither was Danneel. The two clearly had nothing in common, and Jensen forcing them to hang out wasn't helping.

Danneel sighed and walked up to Harper, "So, um. Any place you want to go?"

Refusing to speak, Harper shook her head.

Danneel rolled her eyes, "Do you need shoes? Clothes? Earrings?"

Harper looked up, "Earrings? I don't even have my ears pierced."

"Why not?" asked Danneel, confused.

Harper's eyes filled with tears, "My mom was going to take me before school starts back up."

Danneel's face fell. Sympathy hitting her right in the chest. She thought back to when she got her ears pierced with her mother when she was a teenager. It was a mother/daughter tradition in her eyes.

A light bulb went off in her head.

She placed a hand on Harper's shoulder, forcing her to look up, "I know I'm not her, but I can take you."

Harper shrugged, "I don't know."

Danneel grabbed her hand, "Come on, it'll be fun. Then you can pick out some earrings you like." She pulled Harper along as they walked around to find Icing.

Once they walked in the store, Harper's anxiety hit. She had been scared for years to get her ears pierced. She didn't know what the pain would be like, what was used, nothing.

Danneel walked up to the woman at the cash register, "Hello. My daugh-" Danneel stopped herself and cleared her throat, "Sorry. My stepdaughter would like to get her ears pierced."

The woman clapped and jumped, "Oh yay! Okay let me get everything set up," and she walked away.

Harper pulled away from Danneel's hand, "Danneel I don't know about this. Maybe we should wait."

Danneel side hugged her, "Don't worry, it's not that bad. I did this with my mother years ago. It's really easy and quick."

A few minutes later, the woman returned with a mask and black gloves on, "Come to the back of the counter and we can get started."

Harper was shaking at this point, "Danneel, let's just go and look at shoes or something. Please."

Danneel shook her head, "We'll do this, then go look at shoes okay? Now come on."

She grabbed Harper's wrist and pulled her to the back counter. Harper pulled at her wrist to get away, but Danneel's grip was too tight.

At the back counter, there were two women standing there now. Both with a black mask and black gloves on. Harper got up in the stool and sat back. She looked down to her right at the piercing guns. She felt all the blood in her face drain as her chest tightened.

She tried one last time, "Danneel, I'm begging you. Please, can we go do something else?"

Danneel was looking at all the different earrings, "Oh, look, sweetheart. They have little palm tree ones!"

Harper dug her nails into her arms, trying to calm down, but nothing could stop the panic she was feeling. Both women were wiping her ears to clean them. One of them used a marker and put an X on her right earlobe. Then she passed the marker to the other woman, who marked her left earlobe with an X.

Danneel looked up at Harper and smiled. She pulled out her phone and hit record on the camera, "Harper's first piercing!" she exclaimed.

The women picked up the two guns and placed them on Harper's ears. Tears instantly filled Harper's eyes. At the same time, both women pulled back the plunger knob of the gun.

One placed a hand on her shoulder, "Ready?"

Harper couldn't move or speak. She was frozen in terror.

Then both women counted down, "3...2...1..." and pulled the trigger. _____________

Jensen walked back into the mall wiping his hands together, "Alright, now where are my girls at?" He pulled out his phone and saw no message from Danneel, "Strange. I thought they would've found a store by now."

He put his phone back in his pocket and looked around, "Well, they couldn't have gone far. I guess I'll just-"

Jensen was interrupted by a bloody curdling scream that blasted through the entire mall. He jumped at the sound and his heart was pounding. Heads turned throughout the mall towards a jewelry store down the way.

For some reason, he just knew that scream. "Harper?!" he yelled. He ran towards the sound of the scream, looking for either Danneel or Harper.

He ran past Icing but backtracked when he saw Danneel at the cash register with a small bag in her hands. He walked inside towards her.

Jensen was panting, "Danneel, what's going on? Where's Harper?"

Danneel turned around and smiled, "Hi, honey," she reached in the bag, "Look at these cute earrings. They're little palm-"

"Danneel," he said interrupting her, "Where is Harper?"

"She back there," said Danneel, pointing at the back of the counter. She leaned in to kiss her husband, but he backed away.

Jensen walked past Danneel to the back of the counter. What he saw broke his heart.

Harper was sitting in a chair, her knees up to her chest, her hands coverings her ears, and her elbows on her knees. She was sobbing, breathing rapidly, and shaking.

Jensen bent down and put a hand on her knee, "Harper, baby. Look at me."

Harper aggressively shook her head. Her breathing was tight, her sobbing getting louder, and tears pouring down her face.

Jensen stood up as Danneel walked up, "What happened?"

Danneel shrugged, "She wanted her ears pierced. So I brought her to get them done."

Harper jumped out of the chair and pointed a finger in Danneel's face, "I never said I wanted to get my ears pierced! I said my mom was going to take me before school, and then you suddenly volunteered to be my mom. Well news flash, you are not my mom! You are not my stepmother! You are nothing to me!"

There was a tense silence between the three. Danneel stood in shock, Jensen as well, but Harper did not move from her stance.

Suddenly realizing what she said, her face fell. Her hand dropped to her side and her head hung down, looking at the floor.

She turned over her left shoulder and mumbled, "Can we go home?"

Jensen took a breath and cleared his throat, "You sure you're done-"

"I said...I want to go home," Harper said just above a whisper.

She kept her head down and walked out of the store. Jensen and Danneel exchanged a scared look before Jensen's turned into anger. He walked out of the store and after his daughter.

Danneel stood there for a moment, tears in her own eyes, "What have I done?"

She left the store and walked after Jensen and Harper. Danneel saw them up ahead almost at the entrance, Jensen's hand on her shoulder.

Danneel kept walking, her head looking down. She felt so guilty in that moment. A deep, empty pit in her chest and tears in her eyes. This little girl lost her mother a little over a week ago, and she just ruined any chance of having a relationship with her.

Danneel got outside and saw Jensen helping Harper into the passenger seat, which meant Danneel was to be sitting in the backseat. She walked up to the truck as Jensen shut the passenger door.

He walked past her to the driver's side and climbed inside.

Danneel walked up to the backseat door, opened it, and climbed inside. She shut the door behind her and made eyes contact with Jensen in the rear view mirror.

Harper was crying in the front seat, her hands covering her ears once again. Jensen looked over at Harper with tears in his own eyes. He laid a hand on her knee, but Harper jerked away, clearly not wanting to be touched.

Danneel sat back in her seat and wiped the tears from her face. This was not her intent at all. She just wanted to try and be a mother to Harper. But she messed it all up. And who knows if it can be fixed now.

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

Masterlist

My Cherry Blossoms

@mlovesstories @chessurkait @adorable-minibot @desiredposion @idksupernatural @thevelvetseries @spnfamily-j2 @let-me-luve-you @obsessedwithfandomsx

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lisinfleur · 4 years ago

Text

Lullaby

Author’s Notes | It’s an honor to be a part of this sweet moment! Thank you, @hecohansen31 for inviting me to write for our sweet @maggiescarborough and participate in such a sweet gift! And you, babe, may the gods be with you in this day and all the days that follow this first in the new cycle life is offering us with your lovely presence! Thank you for being this sweet and supportive person that makes us writers around you feel fueled to continue our work just for one more smile of yours! I hope you like this humble gift and may your life be full of the sweet and kind energy you spread wherever you go! Happy b-day!

Universe | Vikings, Saxon Team

Pairing | Alfred x Reader

Info | Viking Age AU, a gift to sweet @maggiescarborough.

Words | 2044

⁑ Warnings: Historical inaccuracy¹.

"Y / N!"

Your bedroom door broke open and you lifted your eyes from the music sheets to look at the worried servant looking at you.

"The king..."

You placed your papers aside and got up. Whenever they were worried like that you knew it was again his disease.

Whenever his disease was hurting his body, then... You would be his relief.

"Is he in his bed?" you asked.

Foolishly.

You knew where he would be - your steps passed his bedroom.

"No. King Alfred refuses to leave the music room's divan," she answered, ignoring your knowledge of his habits.

You were the one who asked the servants to install that divan there. It would be too visual to have a bed in the castle's music room or a piano inside the king's bedroom, but that way, Alfred could be comfortable whenever his personal calvary would decide to torture him again enough for his compromises being lesser than his need for your healing fingers.

You nodded. You knew what he needed.

His eyes looked straight at you from that divan when the servant opened the door and your steps entered the room trying to make the lower sounds possible.

"My king," you bent yourself respectfully.

But Alfred sighed.

"I told you already... Forget these formalities, wife."

Wife.

In your whole life, you never thought you would become the Queen of England by his side. In fact, you never ever thought you could be a princess by his side when he was not the next in the line of the throne. But there were the two of you: the crown in his head, a ring in your hand.

Some people in his court would say he married you out of options after Elsewith died in childbirth. Poor Alfred... God wasn't merciful to him and some cruel people would say it was because he ceded lands to the pagans and invited heathens to dinner in his table, but you knew very well what was behind the curtains. They declared that child a stillborn, but you knew Alfred accepted delivering the baby into Ubbe's hands after Elsewith's last words confessed her treason and the fact that the son King Alfred had waited for so long wasn't his, but Björn's, such as many children around the kingdom were blond and blue-eyed like Ragnar's firstborn - May God have his soul, despite his heathen faith.

After his brother's mysterious death, his mother - blessed queen Judith! - who followed her son into the grave. And now his wife and the dreams of an heir she never brought to him. Poor Alfred.

Poor of your beloved and sweet King.

As his cousin from foreign lands, you thought you would end up married to an Earl of his trust. For a moment you even though he could negotiate your hand with one of the Norsemen new leaders that came, once his friend Ubbe was already married to his older brother's ex-wife - something you begged the heavens wouldn't happen in a thousand years.

But it was the crown of a queen beside his throne that landed over your head. An unexpected - but surely desired - place.

You loved your cousin since the first time the two of you could see each other. He was a sweet boy, grew up in a peaceful and wise man. The only decision of his you've ever reproved was to cut his hair so short trying to get Elsewith's attention from the bald Norseman towards himself. A failed intention, but something you were already getting used to - after all, it made him more manly, with less of the boyish sweetness you loved so much in your prince.

Yet, you loved him purely. Enough to have the best wishes when his bride finally came, to mourn in God the treason that brought so much sadness into your King's eyes; to vigil, on your knees in prayer, fasting for days begging for his health whenever that evil disease would take his joviality and throw him on his bed.

The council thought you were chaste enough for the place by his side.

You knew that ring didn't come to your finger for love. But Alfred never ever treated you with less tenderness or sweetness just because you weren't the love of his life...

Yet.

Words of his, not yours.

"I'll grow to love you, my sweet wife. I've learned it with the time that love that comes from the first sigh is flame. And flames are easily extinguished by everyday rain... Or the waves of the sea... This is not love. Love is something else I long to learn with my years by your side. A life... A whole life seems to be enough to discover what love is. May God bless me with life enough to find it in your eyes."

His marriage vows you never forget. Promises of a beautiful future you had dreamed through your whole life. But that, in times like that, would seem impossible for someone who was so close to God, so blessed by him, that seemed to make the angels eager for his presence in his rightful place in Heaven.

You came closer to his divan, sitting by his side in a small bench for servants, ignoring the fact that you were a queen and exchanging the warm cloth in his forehead, wetting it in the bowl of fresh herbal water to replace the cloth and try to lower his fever. Alfred's face frowned for a second with the difference between his body temperature and the cloth you placed on his skin, but soon it relaxed in relief as the refreshing sensation of the herbs was starting to be effective.

"You should be in your bed, my king."

You never stopped being sweet that way to him. Even thou he would always complain about the titles, you knew he liked the way you were gentle and respectful - and the court and council liked it as well so, fewer headaches for him, who had already so many to solve in his head.

"You know what I need," he mumbled, so weak, so pale that you could almost see his veins marking on his skin. "It makes me sleep peacefully. It brings me peace. Please, my sweet wife. Play for me."

The usual ask.

You caressed his face gently and got up to sit at the piano he ordered for you as a marriage gift - your favorite gift in your whole life. Your fingers touched the ivory keys, gently caressing what was your favorite thing in life after Alfred's smile. And slowly, you started one of your compositions - a calming one. One you knew he liked.

Some between the healers of the court once spoke to the small mouth that you were a witch, spreading rumors that your music was a spell that could make the king fall asleep. But Alfred ordered the church's pianist to cede his place for you on a Sunday and under his orders, you played the most beautiful songs in honor of your Lord, causing the priest to say your hands were blessed by God and your music was healing the King's soul.

From that day on, nobody questioned the way Alfred would always ask for your healing songs when he was sick. And you were free to compose more of them for him, sliding your fingers through the keys as if they were dance with grace and love.

So much love...

Alfred's body relaxed a little more. A servant came to replace the cloth some minutes later and the worry in her eyes became a tender smile.

"He fell asleep. The King is asleep, oh, thank God for the Queen's blessed hands, hallelujah!" she exclaimed in a low tone, tracing the sign of the cross on her chest.

You smiled. Yet, your fingers kept playing with a lower tone.

From time to time the servants were alternating to check on his temperature and rest, always blessing his visible relaxation or the fact that his temperature was lowering slowly.

Maybe it was the real rest he was able to reach with your notes. Maybe it was the love in your songs reaching his heart, making him stronger. Maybe the servants and peasants were right and God had blessed your hands with the gift of healing songs to your beloved King. You were never able to explain how you were able to play for hours just for his rest. Or how he was always recovered when he would wake up still hearing one of your beautiful compositions.

But when his eyes were open once again, still under your fingers' dance at the keys, there was more color in his skin, his face was less touched by the disease, and his expression more serene.

You kept playing for a while for his enjoyment before finally conducting the composition to its end, lowering the coverage of the piano keys and resting your tired hands over your skirt. Your fingers were hurting you. Your hands were in pain. But it was worth the price.

"Are you feeling better, my king?" you asked, looking at him with the same sweetness you always had in your eyes when looking into his.

Alfred smiled.

One of those beautiful smiles that got your heart for him years ago.

"Yes... The pain isn't here anymore. But I know it is yours now," his voice mumbled.

Of course, he had noticed how you would dive your hands into warm water at night, washing it in cold herbal water and alternating the temperatures several times before sleeping after that much of time playing the piano for his rest. But you would do it silently, sometimes with a smile on your face when your eyes would catch his serenity, pretending he was sleeping by your side when the truth was that he was awake, thanking God for bringing you into his life.

"Come closer, wife," he asked, and you got up, sitting beside him once again.

But this time he caught your hands into his, warming them in between his now warmed palms.

"Is this it?"

Alfred's question got you confused before he could continue, bringing all the blood of your body to blush your cheeks into crimson red.

"Is this love, my dear queen?" his eyes dove into yours and your voice failed.

But his words were so sure, so intense, straight into your heart.

"Is this love that you offer me when you cause your own pain just to relieve mine? Is this love what you put on your songs that heals my body and brings relief to my tormented soul?"

You didn't know how to answer that question. You didn't know if it was love what you felt for him - too little was taught about love to women like you. But you knew it was the purest desire of your heart to see his smiles. The beautiful smiles you couldn't live without.

"I don't know," you mumbled, "But it is yours," you confessed, smiling at him as your fingers gently caressed his hand.

GIF

His lips curled once again.

"Then blessed be God for my disease is his hand over me, putting me down so I can feel His love through your hands, your notes, your songs. Blessed be God for what the people call suffering, I call His grace, showing me how rich I am of his blessings in my life. Because everything I ever suffered conducted me towards you. And I couldn't be more grateful to have you by my side, sweet Y/N."

Your heart filled with his words, warming your chest and opening your smile when Alfred leaned himself to gently kiss your forehead, caressing your face with that tenderness you would always find in his eyes for you.

None of you could really say what was this love he wanted so badly to know. But you didn't need to name that feeling. You were grateful in your heart for the blessed home you were gifted with and the pain in your fingers was nothing - if that was the price you would pay for Alfred's smiles, then it was a cheap price to pay for what was priceless into your heart.

¹ The piano was an artistic mention to our sweet @maggiescarborough's art. Sad for him, Alfred the Great didn't have the chance to enjoy such a magnificent way to produce music since he lived in the 800 (849 to 899 a.C.) and the piano was invented around 1698 to 1699 by Bartolomeo Cristofori and introduced to the public in 1709. Nevertheless, I discovered the information after the production of this piece and I decided then to bend the time and allow our beloved king to know this art through our sweet reader's hands and to take the chance to share this piece of the pianoforte's history for you guys to learn with me!

Do you like my work? Support me!

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#history vikings #imagine vikings #alfred #king alfred #alfred the great #alfred x reader #alfred imagine #sister wives #shot

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alfredo-kesmann · 3 years ago

Note

WIP ask game!

My Italian ass is asking for "Ci sarà", but my angst heart beats for "Solitaire". I don't want to be greedy, so let's pick Solitaire.

Unless...?

Thank you so so much for asking, and I'm sorry for reponding so late! The reason for this is mostly that I actually finally got inspiration for Solitaire again after you send me this ask, so thank you for that! I'll give you little snippets of both WIP's, because greed sometimes is good (namely when it motivates me to finally work on WIP’s).

So, first things first: Solitaire.

You're absolutely, completely right about the angst. The entire plot is Martín angst, I'm not even kidding. The general outline is that it forms a series with Fear and loathing/ Now I see, I see it for the first time, which is about Andrés in the Mint realising he should never have left Martín but accepting that it is too late now anyways. Solitaire is to be Martín's experiences of the Mint heist and the time afterwards. The title is taken from MARINA's song by the same name, and although it only is vaguely is inspired by the song, I want to match the vibe I get from it: a supposedly beautiful life that actually is just... loneliness and tears. A ‘we could have had it all’ and ending up with empty hands.

I only have a few paragraphs jotted down yet, though, because I find it one of my hardest WIP's to work on: I want to show a canon compliant Martín, and I want to accurately portray the way he feels like a victim, even if he isn't truly one. I want to correctly talk about his mental ilnesses (I am guessing at least depression and narcissistic personality disorder, though I’m not planning to label them in the story), but I am no psychologist. I started this WIP around March or April and I suppose I am now more sure about what I'm doing, and now the words are (finally) slowly flowing.

That being said, enjoy these little snippets:

“Andrés was like a poisonous drug, flowing through my veins and cutting off any necessary blood supply, but it felt so exquisite, like a breeze in the warmest summer day."

[....]

Martín sat in the middle of broken glass, a reflection of him in more than one way, and cried until breathing was getting hard and his eyes were red and dry.

[...]

The two of them had become so intertwined that sometimes it was difficult to see which one of them was dead and which one of them was still living.

[...]

The television only showed static now, ever since he had thrown an empty bottle of vodka towards it. ‘Don’t shoot the messenger’, went the saying, but Martín hadn't been able to think straight after he had heard the news. In a way the image was fitting, because Martín’s life had become static too, ever since that horrible day.

[...]

But now he understood Andrés’ romanticizing of the death, for his best friend had lived his whole life knowing he would take his own one day. And he had wanted to make his final show grand, he had wanted a last standing ovation, one that deafened his eyes, before the red curtains closed forever. Martín also knew that Andrés would dissaprove of the method he was contemplating, in his sad little flat, a simple shot instead of blazing guns. So he put the velvet box back and instead took a bottle of vodka in hands, waiting until a better idea came to mind, waited until he had a plan, ignoring how those were harder to come by now Andrés wasn’t with him anymore.

Now, Ci sarà is practically the polar opposite of Solitaire: it's pure and unadulterated fluff. The only thing they have in common is that they both are named after a song and both get too little of my attention ehehe oops. I have no idea where I want to go with this story, whether to make it a one shot, or something more. I think the latter, though.

Basically, I had been studying (very) late and it was around 3AM. I was listening to a music playlist when Ci sarà came on. It is one of my favourite Italian songs (though honestly I love anything by Romina Power and Al Bano) and yes I know, I know, my music taste is just as basic as Andrés de Fonollosa's. I, myself realised that exact fact then as well. So, I thought: what if this would be the song for Berlermo's first dance at their wedding? The song just makes me so happy in an undescribable way, and since feelings are always much stronger deep in the night, I felt so incredibly happy and in love listening to it, in the middle of the night, at a volume that was a little too loud. This resulted in me putting the song on repeat, and trying to describe that feeling I had felt. So in a way, ci sarà is a writing exercise.

The plot thus far basically is Andrés being overwhelmed by happiness during his wedding dance with Martín (and everyone is alive and happy). Because as much as I love making him suffer in stories, I also like writing his strangely soft side around Martín. I might write the entire wedding and also the proposal, because I have ideas, especially for the latter (Andrés had been planning to propose for months, then Martín is the first to ask him. Andrés is divided between tremendous frustration and great happiness, but obviously says ‘yes’; that’s also why I imagine that they both take the surname ‘Berotte-de Fonollosa’).

So, here some snippets (I couldn’t choose so it’s slightly more than ‘some’):

They were spinning, whilst the music was swelling, and it was dizzying Andrés. One step back, to the side, close, one forward, to the side, close, an endless repetition. Martín spinning him around and pulling him in his arms again. Their friends all singing Ci sarà, all wearing white clothing and pearly smiles, the adoration clearly visible in Martín’s eyes, how beautiful Martín was looking in the suit. No, not just Martín, his Martín Berotte-de Fonollosa. They were turning again, his husband’s -he couldn’t believe it, his husband’s- warm hand burning on his waist, then on his right cheek, only shortly and suddenly the refrain started and Martín was singing too, albeit softly, yet it’s still too loud in Andrés’ ears. Everything is so loud, so bright, so vibrant. It’s all so pure, and he’s drowning in love, with the sun shining brightly as if it was God’s blessing of their union, the perfectly green grass as nature’s wedding gift to the new spouses.

[...]

Andrés manages to spot his hermanito in the choir made of bank robbers, he’s holding hands with his wife and Paula and he looks so happy and carefree. He has finally accepted Andrés’ relationship, he had even been the one to walk Andrés to the altar, and the things Sergio had told him then were still going through his head.

The butterflies in Andrés’ stomach were taking him over more and more, he is growing dizzy and dizzier. All this love, he has no place for it, it is seeping through his veins, bursting out of his fingertips like rays of sunshine, out of the fingertips that are currently in Martín’s hand and on his shoulder. Andrés knows that he hasn’t had much to drink yet, but he has never been more intoxicated, intoxicated on this eternity captured in less than four minutes. Martín is turning them again, leading him gently, keeping him steady. Martín is there for him like he has always been. And now it’s finally right, it’s finally the way it should be, the other ring on Martín’s hand. Finally, he has married his last spouse, it’s finally the one who he was meant to be with. Finally, finally, finally.

[...]

Andrés feels like he is flying, like his feet aren’t touching the floor anymore. The two of them form a leaf in a strong summer wind by the blue sea, slowly going upwards in an intricate dance, but they’re also so much more. They are the wind and the sea, the entire universe is drowning in their love and they are drowning in the universe. It’s all so much, so so much, yet so small. There is no Berlín, no Palermo, no monastery, no friends forming a choir, no wedding cake, it’s just Andrés and Martín Berotte-de Fonollosa, and their love for eachother.

[...]

Andrés is oh so dizzy with happiness and love, and then he feels it, wet on his cheeks, rolling over his lips, Martín’s hand gently sweeping the oceans welling in his husband’s eyes away. He wants to open his eyes, but he can’t and he doesn’t need it anyway, he already knows what Martín’s soft smile would look like. When Martín kisses him again, softly cupping his cheek, Andrés realises his husband had been crying as well, their tears mixing together like everything between the two of them always has, the way they’ve always been. Like so many of their clothes, their ideas, their furniture, their past and future, their personalities, their love. They have always been intertwined, it just took Andrés a while to see.

[...]

“I can’t believe you cried,” Martín said as he giggled, truly giggled, and Andrés thought it was somewhat comparable bubbles coming to the surface in a fishing pond, and then decided it was a stupid thought because nothing can compare to his husband. Andrés can’t help smiling. “You were crying too, mi marido,” he says softly, the quip in there lost, replaced by pure adoration. He takes Martín’s face into his hands. “Today was my last wedding, I know it for sure. No one else has ever made me feel like this.” And normally, Martín would have joked that he must had said that to all of his wives too, but he didn’t. Instead, his hands mirrored Andrés’, softly stroking Andrés’ cheekbones, which were still wet with tears. Their lips met without any of their usual aggression and hunger, and maybe this kiss was even more important than the one after the exchanging of vows, for Andrés just had made a promise that was much more meaningful.

Thank you again for asking, I hope you liked these snippets! I might or might not have just started another WIP based on the season 5 trailer, so I have no clue when these two will finally be published.

#Berlermo #berlin x palermo #andrés de fonollosa #martín berotte #berlín #palermo #berlin #my fics #asks #wip folder meme

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stainandscribble · 4 years ago

Text

Revenant (Part 6)

Pairing: Baekhyun X OC (Original Female Character)

Genre: Baekhyun Witch AU; fluff; fantasy; angst

Summary: To witches, names hold power, and Eleonora happens to have a very dangerous gift, one that can be deadly when misused- she has the ability to read names, true names that the witches and warlocks share only with people of utmost trust. It is a secret she hopes to take to her grave. Baekhyun had left his coven, and joined one with Suho’s. They too, possess unspeakable gifts. When Junmyeon warns him of his marriage, Baekhyun begins preparing, but so does Eleonora. With the veil thinning, and the darker half approaching, will their secrets stay safe? Or will the world burn?

A/N: this chapter ended up quite long, so I enjoy the extra content lol. Tagging @lovebuginlove @bbyunz . Yayun is transcribed from characters elegant (ya 雅 ) cloud (yun 云).

PART 1 PART 2 PART 3 PART 4 PART 5 PART 6 PART 7

Word Count: 5173

Lu Han sat at the breakfast table with his brothers. Charms of protection twinkled with magic beside windows and doors, the smell of sage was fragrant as it hung in the air. He could tell his brothers were speaking, he watched with kind eyes as their lips moved, but Lu Han could not hear them.

“She is the sacred thirteen.”

The words rang through his head, the voice was unfamiliar, conjured by his mind during sleep to fill the ringing silence of his dream. He sat with his brothers at the table, but Lu Han might as well have been a million miles away. The dream that was not a dream replayed in his head, and he recognised it. He had spent his education honing the craft of clairvoyance, and if his families coven taught him anything, it was how to recognise a prophecy.

In his dream, he had seen hi brothers; bared witness to the coming together of the twelve. In the chaos of his dream, he found Yixing, or maybe Yixing had found him. His eyes, dark and distrusting burned into Lu Han, and the man could do nothing but send a small smile his way, watching the distrust morph into an expression of pain, bubbling just under the surface, but never daring to leave his eyes. Lu Han saw tears that refused to spill, and he knew that what had transpired at that moment between them was heartbreak. Nestled into the tender warmth of his chest, kept in the bone confinement of his ribs by his pericardium was heartbreak, making a home of him.

Two brothers stood opposite each other, both in pain, both restless.

Unable to speak, Lu Han watched, feeling love fighting for survival among the broken pieces of his heart in an attempt to stick them back together. Unable to scream, he felt his heart snap back into place, right before Yixing disappeared, and with him went the rest of his brothers. In the darkness, he was left alone, but only for a moment.

In their place, the only human figure in the darkness, stood a woman.

Lu Han did not know her. She was not death, not life nor one of the three fates. She was mortal, just like him.

She knew his name.

Rather, she would learn to know his name. He watched her lips move around the syllables, no sound passing through them. The silence was ringing in his ears, the echo of the power of his name had made him heavy, but to his surprise, it had not made him uneasy. Lu Han felt no discomfort at the thought that she knew his true name. She was not the adversary.

The darkness dissolved into light, and the prophecy that had come to him in his dream settled over him like a weighted blanket, heavy but not uncomfortable.

And as he sat at breakfast, it weighed on him still.

“Yixing called.” Yifan’s voice brought him back to the present. The deep rumble of his voice was comforting, familiar.

“He is coming.” Yifan told them, and Tao had let go of his coffee, letting the cup spill brown liquid over the wooden table. He could see the shock in the younger’s eyes, his dark circles deepening with the revelation. It was as if rest had left him. Yifan too, looked aged, if even for a second. He worried, brows furrowed and lips pulled in a tight line as is fingers combed through his black hair.

Lu Han recognised the darkness swirling behind their irises, he was familiar with the glassy sheen of tears in their eyes. Lu Han knew heartbreak when he saw it. It was the same broken look Yixing had given him in his dream.

“Good.” Lu Han answered, his voice soft and reassuring. His almond-shaped brown eyes became smaller when he smiled, his full lips turned upwards into a small smile, the same one he had given Yixing in his dream.

He was the only one of his brothers who didn’t look heartbroken. He had already put his heart back together, or at least he knew he would eventually do so. That knowledge allowed him to smile, and Tao smiled back. It was a broken rueful smile, but a smile nonetheless.

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

Hours later, Yixing had finally landed, comforted by the steady unyielding ground beneath his feet. He had travelled across the country, to his brothers. Back to his brothers, and yet away from them. It was a strange feeling, he thought, to be two halves of a Circle, never whole.

At the airport, it had been Lu Han who came to greet him. The lean man looked as if he had not aged a day. He had grown out his hair longer, the curtains of his fringe parting in the middle, a serene expression painted over his features. No worry creased his brows, not tension pursed his lips together. Just like in his dream, Yixing watched him a little breathless, the memory of the prophecy fresh in his mind mixing with the heartbreak in Junmyeon’s eyes. His brothers were reluctant to let him go. they loved him enough to let him anyway, and now he was standing in front of his brother as if in a dream.

“I saw you.” Lu Han told him, eyes wide with happiness as he stood in front of Yixing, taking in the tired silhouette of his brother, his eyes falling onto the golden band on his ring finger. He smiled then, happy for his brother’s happiness as they finally stood together.

“I saw you too.” Yixing told him, his voice barely a whisper when he spoke, scared of the consequences of their dreams. It was those dangerous dreams, however, that brought him here, to his family, it was those dangerous dreams stitching his family back together, and despite the heartbreak swimming in their eyes, both Yixing and Lu Han saw the buds of love, ready to weave their broken hearts back together.

“Did you see the woman?” Lu Han asked suddenly, and it was then that Yixing was forced to remember that he was a clairvoyant, that he was always a step ahead.

“The woman?” Yixing asked, mind empty for answers. He had not seen a woman in his dreams, nor did Chanyeol or Minseok. Neither did Junmyeon.

“She had blue eyes, vivid and sparkling like sapphires and caramel brown hair.” Lu Han clarified, remembering the way her pink lips spoke his same without making a sound, and the way she made him feel like he would know her, not now, but in the future.

“Do you know her?” Yixing asked and he shook his head, hoping that his brother would have answers. He could see the brief shadow of recognition pass through Yixing’s eyes. He was hopeful he knew.

“I felt like she knew me, or like she would know me one day.” Lu Han continued, a small smile playing on his lips.

“A premonition?” Yixing asked, thinking back to Eleonora’s familiar face, the electric blue eyes, piercing into Junmyeon when they first met, the way she had scrutinised Baekhyun, and how she was starting to fall in love. If she was the one Lu Han had seen, he had no doubt the two would meet. He worried it might be soon.

“I think so.” The slender man nodded, walking Yixing towards his car to take him home.

The drive wasn’t particularly long, it had lasted an hour as they moved to the outskirts of the city, living on the border of another coven. They lived together in a large house with tall windows and a white façade. The garden out front was well-groomed, with no stray flowers or long grass. They had no porch either.

“We are here.” Lu Han had parked his car in the driveway, letting Yixing get out first, before walking him to the door.

“Welcome home.” He spoke when they stepped inside, the warm air kissing their cheeks as they took off their shoes and hung up their coats. Looking out from the living room, Yifan had made his way to his guest, crossing the wide corridor to greet his brother.

“Yixing.” He spoke, and although there was little emotion in his voice, and the hand that reached out to him was done out of politeness, Yixing didn’t mind.

“Yifan.” He greeted the tall man, completely ignorant of the deep stare he was getting. Yifan’s dark eyes looked even darker when they looked over his brother.

“Zitao.” Yixing had called out, watching as the youngest made his way down the central stairs, his eyes light with optimism and his lips curved upwards in a smile. Without missing a beat, and without regard for his elders, Zitao had flung himself at Yixing, embracing the man. Without thinking, Yixing hugged him back, feeling the grief and the heartbreak slip away from Zitao’s tall frame.

Lu Han watched, standing now beside Yifan as he looked over the exchange, eyes softening at the sight. His brothers were embracing, and he watched as the heartbreak in Zitao’s eyes turned into something softer, a tender fire burning behind his eyes. Yifan’s gaze fell onto Yixing’s hands, a golden band glimmering in the artificial light of the lamps. He wondered what he had missed, and he wondered what they have missed too. For a short, tender moment their hearts pulled themselves back together, hope planted a seed inside the tender caverns of their chests.

Eventually, Zitao let go, opting for steering his brothers into the warm kitchen.

“What do you need to tell us?” Yifan had asked as they passed the threshold, and Yixing looked around at the three of them, before looking over at the table shoved into the corner by the window.

“Let’s sit.”

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

Minseok and his wife, Demi, decided to host dinner the day after Yixing left, trying their hardest to distract themselves from feeling the tug of increasing distance between them and their brother. Their table was long enough to host their coven, including Yixing’s wife, Yayun, who was staying with them while her husband was away. It was well known that during the Thinning one should not be in the house alone, and so as there were only two other married warlocks, she decided to stay with one of them. Minseok happened to be closest since he was right next door. Their living room was pristine, monochromatic in white and black with not a single speck of dust or stray object lying around. Their house, unlike the rest, was very minimalist and modern. However, even they could not go without the charms hanging by their windows and front door. Yellow paper with red writing and red tassels hung by them, and on the windowsill, a small bouquet of dry sage stood in a clear glass, ready for burning. Baekhyun had decided to skip this one out in favour of finally taking his wife to be on a proper date, and Demi and Yayun had supported his decision. They had gone as far as to tell him which flowers to get her, and they had settled on a bouquet of blue dahlias to symbolise a new beginning.

“Have you heard from Yixing yet?” Junmyeon asked when everyone was seated, his hand draped casually over the back of Winnie’s chair. The rest of the coven grew tense, knowing that resentment took time to mellow out, and forgiveness was hard to give. Their deep brown eyes looked at Yayun, who was looking at them through a curtain of short black hair, her eyes equally as dark as their own.

“He called to say he arrived. Lu Han was happy to see him.” Yayun spoke, sipping on her tea as she sat in between Demi and Winnie. Her melodic voice rang through the still air, but her words had put everyone at ease. Their brother was safe and Lu Han had come to greet him, and that was more than they expected. Minseok and Jongdae relaxed in their chair’s returning to their meal if soup and rice.

“We should ask Alethea’s coven about the prophecy.” Yayun turned to look at Junmyeon, a knowing look in her eyes as she regarded the leader with a serious expression. Her pink lips were pressed together in a straight line as she waited for him to say something.

“Why?” Junmyeon asked, leaning over the table to look directly at the small woman.

“Lu Han saw her too.” She spoke, and her voice cut through their peace like a knife. A shiver run down Junmyeon’s spine at the mention of Alethea. His dream was pulled fresh into the front of his mind, the memory of his name was threatening, and the image of water turning to blood was terrifying.

“What did he say?” Junmyeon whispered, half apprehensive of the answer, and half curious as to what the clairvoyant had to say about his dream.

“Thirteen. The sacred number is thirteen.” Yayun spoke, and this time even Jongdae and Minseok put their spoons back down.

“Not twelve?” Jongdae asked.

“Why her?” Jongin had asked, and the rest of his coven had turned to look at him, their eyes falling at the younger member with equal confusion. Why her, was a good question indeed, but they also knew things happen for a reason, and the reasons are not always obvious at first.

“Call her here.” Junmyeon commanded, and even Winnie could not help the look of shock at his decision. If he had seen her as the adversary, but both Baekhyun and Lu Han had seen her in a positive way there had to be more to this than he thought. It was clear now; when three of six had already seen Alethea, that she was significant.

Chanyeol had pulled out his phone, and after calling Baekhyun, he announced that they would be here soon. The coven waited, the severity of their situation weighing down on them, enveloping them in a blanket of silence as they ate the remainder of their dinner.

Baekhyun’s and Alethea’s entrance was announced by the chiming of the bell by the door, and the faint smell of burning sage as they cleansed themselves after walking in.

“You wanted to see me.” Alethea had announced as she walked into the room, her head held high as she looked over to the table.

“Do you know anything about receiving prophecies?” Minseok had asked, his voice was high and soft and as nonintimidating as he could manage. His large eyes gazed up at her in curiosity, waiting for an answer.

“My crone received one in her youth. I don’t know much else.” Her answer was unsatisfactory but expected. There was no reason for her to know much about receiving prophecies. Witches were told about prophecies fulfilling themselves, about prophets who had already been given their prophecies and interpreted them. Prophecies were rare, and prophets even rarer. Sometimes, a single prophet or oracle would receive multiple prophecies in their life. That was their purpose. Those with no clairvoyance were not chosen often.

“We think we are receiving a prophecy.” Jongdae had supplied, and beside Alethea, Baekhyun froze, his eyes turning frantically between Junmyeon and Minseok. The two remained serious and stoic as they watched Alethea’s reaction.

“All of you?” Alethea asked, looking at them with wide electric eyes. After surveying each face, she turned to look over at Baekhyun. He was standing still, his warm palm pressed against the small of her back. He was wearing a dress shirt and black slacks since they had come straight here from their date at the Thai restaurant. Baekhyun met her eyes, his plump lips pressed between his teeth as he bit down on his lower lip and nodded. His eyes darkened, remembering the dream of her being ripped away, and the distress he felt once he woke up, followed by Junmyeon opening the doors to his bedroom with Chanyeol at his feet, both as distressed as him.

“Bit by bit.” Chanyeol spoke, his deep baritone piercing through the still air.

“Why are you telling me this?” Alethea could taste their distress, a sour thing mixed with the metallic aftertaste of fear and adrenalin on her tongue. They were distressed for different reasons, she could taste the subtle differences in Baekhyun and Junmyeon. She didn’t need to taste feelings to know that Junmyeon was worried, his brows creased and wrinkles lined his forehead. She had never seen his eyes so dark, not even during their meeting with her coven. The severity of the situation clung onto her taste buds thick like treacle.

“It involves you.” Junmyeon told her, his voice ringing in the silence, and she didn’t know what to say back.

She could tell it wasn’t good, knowing names had never caused her much trouble, but she had a feeling it would become a problem now. Her power, her best-kept secret, was a weapon of mass destruction if misused, and she hoped she would never break to unleash it.

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

Yifan’s kitchen was warm, curtsey to them moving to the warmer part of the country. The sun beamed through the windows in golden rays, and Yixing could not help but think about Baekhyun, and whether his coven was doing alright. His eyes fell onto the three men looking at him now. Their expressions were stoic, lips pressed together and their faces void of any other emotion. Yifan’s eyes told Yixing he apprehensive. His brows were furrowed as he looked on, and his jaw clenched.

“We think it is a prophecy. It comes in threes. Lu Han already received a part of the prophecy.” Yixing wasted no time in telling his brothers what had been happening. There was no reason for sugar-coating and no reason for delay either. None of them knew who the next prophet would be, and no one knew what would happen once they were able to piece the puzzle together.

“It came in a dream last night.” Lu Han confessed when Yifan and Zitao turned to look at him, their wide eyes filled with worry. Yifan’s jaw had gone slack at the revelation, his lips parting, and he looked as if he was about to say something, but no words came out. Instead, the silence filled the air and tension settled over their shoulders.

“Why didn’t you say anything?” Zitao asked.

“Nothing makes sense. Besides,” Lu Han looked away from the youngest to the newcomer, sitting silently in his chair and observing their exchange with deathly scrutiny. “I saw Yixing, and I just knew. I knew I had to wait.” He tried explaining eyes wide with a knowledge the others did not possess.

“What does Junmyeon know that we don’t?” Yifan asked, hands balling as they rested on the table.

“We have other parts. At least some of them.” The gravity in Yixing’s voice was final, settling over them the same way it had settled over Junmyeon and the others when he first revealed that the strange nightmares were a prophecy.

“How many so far?”

“Five.” Yixing answered, not paying any attention to who was asking, all that he focused on was the memory of his dream and the weight of what he had seen.

“I’m the sixth.” Lu Han told them, looking over to Yixing. The clairvoyant watched as his dream passed behind his eyes, an echo of hope that came in a nightmare.

“When will we know the next parts?” Zitao asked, worry creasing his brows. For all he knew, he could be next. Plagued by a nightmare with the possibility of coming true.

“In two nights.” Yixing whispered, looked down at the table, eyes following the grains of the wood as if it was scripture. But just as in holy texts, there was no answer here.

“The woman I saw,” Lu Han began, a feeling of familiarity washing over him when her face passed through his memory, but he never got to finish his question.

“Is Baekhyun’s wife to be.” Yixing cut him off, with the answer.

“She can taste feelings.” Yixing added, thinking that the empathetic ability would make Lu Han excited.

“Cool.” Zitao exclaimed instead, but Yixing could see the appreciation swimming in Lu Han’s dark irises, tender and warm.

“We will go to you.” Yifan’s deep voice brought their attention to the tall man. His dark eyes gleamed in the light of the setting sun.

“It's better to be a whole coven, rather than a bit of it.” He reasoned, and his brothers agreed, waiting for Yixing’s approval. The calm man smiled, and Lu Han mirrored the action, their dreams passing in unison behind their eyes.

“Let’s go home.”

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

Eleonora woke up in the middle of the night, the fire alarm blaring and the smell of smoke thick in the air as she breathed in. In the darkness, she made her way to the door, checking if the fire was outside her room by touching the door.

Once her hand met the cool wood, she decided to open it, wondering what could be burning.

When she opened the door, the faint light of the moon illuminated the smoke coming from underneath Baekhyun’s door. She couldn’t hear any movement, and before she knew it, she was reaching for the fire extinguisher at the end of the hallway, quickly making her way into the room.

Behind Baekhyun’s bed, fire blazed, lighting the carpet, the dresser and the curtain of the window beside it.

“Baek?” She tried calling, but when he did not respond, she made her way over to his bed, ripping the covers off of his body and checking for his breathing. Just as she was pulling him out of bed, trying to get them both out of the room, Yeol and Suho burst into the room, both with fire extinguishers.

“Baek?” Loey practically screamed when he saw his brother slumped in Eleonora’s arms.

Suho spared no time as he passed them using the fire extinguisher to quench the fire.

“Take him out.” He had called over his shoulder, and Eleonora watched helplessly as the tall man carried Baekhyun in his arms almost effortlessly.

Once they were outside the building, they watched as the rest of the coven gathered out in front of Baekhyun’s house, Winnie watched as the fire inside receded, wrapped tightly in a shawl as she waited for her husband. Yayun was the first to come over to Eleonora. She watched as the younger girl looked on with wide blow eyes, her hands trembling at her sides as Yeol and Xiumin tried to resuscitate her husband to be. She gave her a shawl to cover herself with and gave her hand a reassuring squeeze. Once Baekhyun had opened his eyes, Xiumin opened a potion vial and slid the liquid down his throat. He coughed, allowing the smoke to escape his lungs in the form of black phlegm.

“What was that?” Chen asked, looking over at Baekhyun, face covered in soot as he knelt on the grass coughing up black phlegm and wiping his watery eyes.

“I think Baekhyun had a nightmare.” Loey told them, crouching beside his friend, patting his back to help the phlegm loose.

“Why would a nightmare set his room on fire?” Eleonora had been distraught, watching as the room burned, and Baekhyun remained unconscious despite the loud squeals of the fire alarm. She had felt scared, terrified at the prospect of losing him, and terrified of the flames eating at the room, orange and hot and deadly. Now, after all of that Loey was telling her he had a nightmare. Witches did not conjure fire in their sleep, there had never been such an accident, and there was no possibility of it happening. Conjuring that could be potentially destructive had to be done through concentration and strict ritual. Neither could be accomplished whilst asleep.

“It doesn’t matter.” Winnie quickly butted in, stopping the answer of Loey’s tongue before it happened.

“It doesn’t matter? He set fire to his house in his sleep!” Eleonora pointed at the smoke still coming out the stained glass window in Baekhyun’s bedroom.

“Don’t concern yourself.” Suho spoke up, his voice carried by the wind as he walked over to the group, empty fire extinguisher at hand. He descended the steps of the front porch, face covered in soot and sweat falling down the sides of his face in clear streams.

“It might have escaped your notice Suho, but we are getting married.” Eleonora spat, watching as Baekhyun caught his breath and sat in the grass, allowing the autumn night to cool down his body.

“Whether you like me or not, doesn’t matter. He is going to be my husband, his affairs concern me.” She told him helping Baekhyun to his feet when he outstretched his hand in her direction. She held him up by the waist, allowing the slim man to lean against her.

“You’re not his wife yet.” Suho told her, not sparing her a glance as he handed the extinguisher over to Soo.

The chill in his voice sent a shiver down Eleonora’s spine. She could taste his hostility and his irritation on her tongue, putrid tastes that accompanied poisonous feelings.

He had made it clear to her then; she was not part of his coven, and she doubted she would ever be one in his mind.

“Come in for some tea.” Demi and Yayun suggested, pulling Eleonora away from Baekhyun, who was passed over to Loey.

Once they sat down in Yayun’s kitchen, the girls began to make tea, handing Eleonora the first mug of steaming amber liquid and sliding an open packet of biscuits across the table. In the living room, Winnie sat beside her husband, wiping black suit off his face. The others sat around the room, eyes darting to check on Baekhyun every once in a while.

“What did you dream?” Minseok asked first, cutting straight to the chase as he looked over at his brother, the panic of the night still swimming in his glassy eyes.

“It faded the moment I woke up, but I know how it made me feel.” Baekhyun shivered, eyes darting to the doorway, looking over at where the light of the kitchen fell onto the floorboards in the corridor, searching for Alethea.

“I cannot shake the feeling there is darkness lurking, just beyond my reach, and my light can’t reach it.” He whispered, his voice small and broken, and Junmyeon thought he had the same broken look Chanyeol had the night of the prophecy. He was afraid, but no one could even begin to guess what was so frightening.

“You can’t tell her about your powers.” Junmyeon chose to warn him, eyeing him sternly as he pouted.

“You told Winnie when she moved in.” The younger accused.

“Listen to your leader.” Junmyeon told him, and the rest of the coven watched the tension build between them, confusion swirling in their eyes. They didn’t see a reason why Alethea should not be told about their powers.

“Why can’t I tell her?” Baekhyun asked, challenging his leader's authority. He stood up, legs still shaky from the lack of oxygen, but his eyes were dark when they looked down at Junmyeon.

“I saw her in my dream too.” He confessed, looking deep into Baekhyun’s eyes, fear and anger swimming in his own.

“In mine, she was the adversary.”

The coven stilled, the revelation stunning them into silence. He had kept it a secret since the beginning, hoping he was wrong, but still wary of the stranger. He had watched as his coven let her in, and he had been conflicted. It was good she had fit in with them, but he wondered if push came to shove, and the time was right, what would be left of his family. He had no idea.

“Junmyeon,” Baekhyun began, his voice weak, but he was cut off.

“Get back to your house. Sleep downstairs if you have to.” Junmyeon told him, standing up and putting a firm reassuring hand on his shoulder, before he left, leaving his brother to their musings and speculations.

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

Yixing had returned the day after he arrived. Yifan and the others wanted to waste no time in getting to the bottom of this. It was better to be wary. the Veil was Thinning and Samhain was almost around the corner. They had only two weeks before the 31st, and the Veil was paper thin now, and all kinds of creatures could pass through now. That is why they were now standing in front of Junmyeon’s house, which was currently also serving as the coven house.

“This is where we live now.” Yixing gestured vaguely to the neighbourhood, now coloured in browns and oranges and yellows as the trees lost their leaves and the cold settled in.

“You brought your own homes?” Zitao asked, looking around at the other houses. He could tell which house was Baekhyun’s just by looking. The stained glass windows gave it away.

“Junmyeon and Minseok got married. So did I.” Yixing explained, gesturing to two other houses, side by side with each other.

“Yifan is getting married.” Zitao told him, gesturing to the man who was currently glaring at the house in front of them.

“When?”

“When I figure out what is going on.” Yifan butted in, agitated at the idea that he would have to stay with Junmyeon as they figure out the prophecy.

As if by some great providence, Junmyeon had walked out of his front door, Winnie and Minseok following closely behind him.

“Junmyeon.” Yifan greeted, shaking the other man’s hand, and despite the anger he felt mere seconds ago, he could not bring himself to loath him.

“Yifan. Welcome home.” Junmyeon spoke, letting the lot into his home.

“Is it home?” Yifan asked, and Junmyeon tried to find anger and resentment. When he found none of that, and instead was greeted by his genuine question, he smiled. It was weak and small, but it was real. As if by magic, he felt the pieces of his heart pull together, for a brief moment e remembered what it was like to be whole, and when the feeling faded, he tried chasing it, wanting to feel the same love and content, even if for just a few more seconds.

“We are one coven and one Circle. Your home is my home.” Junmyeon told them, leading them into the living room, where the rest of his coven waited, patiently anticipating their brother’s return. Even if it was just temporary.

“It’s good to be home.” Lu Han was the first to speak, his eyes falling on Sehun and Minseok, side by side as they looked on with hope at their arrival.

“I’m glad you’re here.” Sehun spoke, voice thick when he spoke, and the two didn’t wait any longer before they fell into each other’s arms. Their coven was whole, and although their hearts needed time, Lu Han could tell they would mend. It was their destiny.

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