#do not be scared of muddy colors note to self

[squibo]

☆≡｡ﾟ･:* ೫̥♡*

[alch3mic]

in between. (drabble series)

chapter three (words.)

prince!sans x gender neutral reader. 3k+ word count.

please be advised for themes of anxiety, panic attacks, self-doubt, some light cursing and sadness.

* the third chapter of the series, this time focusing on our dear underswap sans, prince! he has no official fic as of yet but has his own tag here on my tumblr that you can check out if you wish to learn more about him! thank you all very much and i hope you enjoy!

Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words shall never hurt me.

....

Bullshit.

...Whoever came up with that stupid rhyme must've never heard a cruel word spoken to them in their life!

...

...Or maybe they were trying to sell themselves the world's biggest lie...

....Because... words.. hurt.

They snapped.

They stung.

They burned.

They engraved themselves upon his bones as permanent reminder of his worth.

"Coward."

"Freak!"

"Idiot."

"Weirdo."

They sloshed and swirled inside his skull, drowning him in the waves of their meaning,  pulling him down further and further with their weight like an anchor tied to his legs. They sang like a horrid symphony that refused to let him rest, violins screeching their painful notes while the drums bellowed out their laughter at him.

It was so loud.

So loud.

So.. damn.. loud...!

He..!

Couldn't think.

He couldn't breathe, he was...!

....

...Shaking.

He could hear his bones rattling as an accompaniment to the symphony of word in his head, his eyelights refusing to focus and the world practically became a blur around him. Every single thing was fading from his sight. The colors, the shapes, all of it falling away as the sounds sang louder and louder, drowning everything else out. The air felt putrid with every breath he tried to take in, making him want to gag on the horrid taste of it all.

"...ns.."

..Why..

Why did he think he could do this..!

After... what they said to him..!

After everything they.. they..!

..No...

No..!

He was..!

"......ans..!"

His teeth were chattering.

Clicking.

Tapping.

Adding to the unending concert of syllables as they picked up their pace and momentum. They were hitting their high point, the music of words becoming louder.. and faster and..!

His soul was pounding so painfully too, he feared it might just burst from his ribcage.

"sans!"

Panic.

He was panicking and.. and..!

He needed to..!

...

..Papyrus..

...

He could barely make out his brother's features anymore, his name becoming lost to the noises eating him alive.

What was he saying...?

'breathe.'

No.. he.. he couldn't..

He was choking.

Coughing.

Sputtering.

The air was refusing to enter his body anymore no matter how hard he tried.

The air was just too..!

He.. he couldn't..!

His magic was buzzing as it couldn't ventilate properly, straining and pulling against him, making his head spin further out of control.

He..

He couldn't do this.

He.. wasn't.. strong enough..

"You're.. not the person I once knew."

The words they were..

They were going to.. swallow him whole.

"Look at what you've become!"

"What's happened to you, Sans?"

He doesn't know.

He doesn't know!

He doesn't-!

"You're nothing but a shadow of yourself now."

No-! He's-!

He's still here!

He's still himself!

He's just-!

Just...!

"W-w-why di-did you... b-become l-like...this..?"

How the hell was he suppose to know!!

"...How.. disappointing.."

The words were..

Breaking him.

It hurt.

It hurt.

It hurt!

It hurt! It hurt! It hurt! It hurt! It hurt! It hurt! It hurt! It hurt! It hurt! It hurt! It hurt! It hurt! It hurt! It hurt! It hurt! It hurt! It hurt! It hurt! It hurt! It hurt! It hurt! It hurt! It hurt! It hurt! It hurt! It hurt! It hurt! It hurt! It hurt! It hurt! It hurt! It hurt! It hurt! It hurt! It hurt! It hurt! It hurt! It hurt! It hurt! It hurt!

"sans!"

No.. please..

..Not him too.

Please.. he..

Couldn't take it anymore.

It was too loud it..!

It hurt too much.. he... he had to get away!

He had to get away..!

From this!

From them!

From those people he thought were...!

Just... get away...!

GET AWAY FROM HIM!

GET AWAY!

GET AWAY!

GET AWAY!

.....

And so he ran.

....

Or... he tried, until his brother caught his arm.

"sans! wait, please-!"

But he snatched his arms back, not wanting to hear anything anymore.

He just couldn't...

..Take anymore words...

.....

So he fled...

Out of the room.

Down the hall.

And away from those people...

....

His shoes were stomping against the floor as the tears filled his eyesockets, making the once blurry world a complete mess of runny colors and odd shapes.

How stupid was he... to believe he was strong enough to face them.

After everything they went through.

After everything they said-!

..He was..

....

He was still a coward.

....

And so he fled, like cowards do, every bone in his body screaming at him to just keep going far, far away from the source of those painful word.

From the people who.. he thought he trusted, a long time ago.

Who he thought would understand, but in the end they...

....

..Mocked him..

"The sky?"

He still remembers the disbelief on their features.

"Wait.. seriously? That's why you've been hiding inside? You're scared of the sky?"

...Yes...

"Sans it can't hurt you. Everything fine."

...He.. knows that...

"Then why?"

He.. doesn't know....

"I can't believe this!"

He.. can't either..

..What was...

...What was wrong with him?

"You're nothing like the skeleton I knew before."

..No.. he' still..

...Here..

"What happened to him?"

He doesn't know..!

Stop.. talking to him like he's someone else..!

He's right here!

He's still right here!

Why are they...?

"What happened to the 'Wonderful' and 'Magnificent' Sans?"

HE DOESN'T KNOW!

.....

...He just... doesn't... know anymore.

....

..Just like now, he didn't know where he was running to.

He didn't have much of a destination in mind, just that he had to go.

He just wanted to get.. away..

"ˢᵃⁿˢ!"

Just get away...

Away from this.

From the pain.

From the looks on their damned faces as they spoke those hurtful words that tore his mind and soul apart piece by piece.

They treated him like he wasn't aware of what he's become!

As if he didn't wish with every damn fiber of magic in his body that he wasn't like this!

A coward!

A disappointment!

An idiot who's so afraid of the open world around him that he couldn't even step outside anymore!

He-!

He wanted to go back.

He wanted to go back...! He wanted to go back!

He wanted to go back to who he was, before all of this but..!

....

The person he once was... was gone...

..He vanished into thin air the moment he took one look up at that sky on that fateful day..

...And the terror he felt had almost swallowed him whole....

..Or maybe it did.. and all that was left was a husk of a skeleton who use to have more confidence than he knew what to do with.

Now the simplest of words could.. break him.

And that.. was the hardest thing of all to accept.

....That somewhere along the way he had..

...

...changed.

And so.. like a coward he ran, wanting to hide somewhere no one would find him so he could lay there for all of eternity without a single thought in his head until he dusted. He was tired of this. He was tired of feeling this way! He was tired of them and these walls and that damned sky that struck fear into his bones every time he looked at it.

Why..?

Why..!?

Why couldn't he be.. him?!

Where did he go?

When did he lose himself..?

Who...

..Who was he...?

The quiet hallways threatened to split his head open as his thoughts poured all over the place, causing his soul to spasm and spiral out of control while he desperately tried to breathe in, but the air still refused to enter his lungs.

He needed something..!

Something to replace the noise..!

All of his hiding spots were inside and if he stewed in his thoughts much longer he really was going to come undone!

He just needed.. something...

Anything..!

Make it stop.

Make it stop!

MAKE IT STOP!

Woosh.

....

He drew in a heavy breath, all at once the scent of rain hitting his nasal bone and the sounds of water hitting the roof, disrupting the symphony.

Softly.

Gently.

Then harder, tapping and thundering against the roof as it...

Washed away the words inside is head.

....

...But they were still singing.

Even the sounds weren't enough.. he...

Glanced further down the hall, to a set of doors that led...

..Outside...

...

...

He swallowed, desperately chasing the harmony that made all the words fade away and taking a few careful steps towards it...

"ˢᵃⁿˢ!"

.....

Before running off.

....

..Right through the doors, throwing them open with what strength he had left and letting them close behind him as he bolted out into the rain.

It splattered and splashed against the tile, filling his head with nothing but their sounds as the droplets tapped against his empty skull. That tight burst of energy was fading from his chest, gradually falling further and further away as the fatigue set into his bones and he slowed down.

He finally come to a stop in the middle of the garden.

Gasping and heaving, he finally managed to take in some  fresh air that filled his body with its cold embrace and overwhelmed his humming soul with relief. The rattling of his bones ceased... and soon he gained control over his breaths, willing his legs to take just a few more tiny strides further out to where no one could find him.

Out, past the normal confines of the garden and into some rose bushes...

...

He was.. exhausted..

Glancing around, the normally pink flowers scattered along the bushes were diluted by the cloudy skies above and harsh rain that thundered all around them. His shirt now stuck to his bones, sending a chill down his spine and making him feel heavy but.. he didn't care.

The symphony had silenced.. leaving him..

..Empty...

...and alone.

....

..Eventually it was all to much as his legs gave out, sitting down to the muddy ground and placing his skull on his knees as the world continued to rain down on him.

And it poured.

And it poured.

And it poured.

All alone in the garden, without a single thought in his head, Sans suffered.

The pain of it all marched on in his bones, gripping and grinding, threatening to break him apart bit by bit.

It hurt so badly and yet..

Yet there were no sticks, and no stones.

Just words.. and the marks they had left on his soul.

And it hurt.

And it hurt.

And it hurt.

And he was sure he would finally just break...

And his soul would finally give in..

And he'd come undone at the seams.

And...

It.. stopped.....?

He could still hear the sounds of the rain all around him, crashing and thundering upon the bushes and muddy grass, but it stopped tapping against his skull and instead began hitting something... else.

An umbrella..?

Sans picked his head slowly, still having so little energy after his fit of panic and looked up.

You smiled at him sweetly as you stood beside him, holding up an umbrella above as the world continuing its downpour.

..Ah...

...You..

....sat down.. right beside him in the mud, sheltering the both of you under the clear plastic umbrella as you glancing up at the clouded sky with a small look of peace on your features.

..Not a single word uttered from your lips.

..Instead you sat by him..

And even in the dull and grey world around you both..

He swore he could see your eyes shine.

He.. didn't know what to say.

The words just didn't come.

Normally his whole head would be buzzing of things to blurt when you were around, but they were all washed away with the rain.

...

..But maybe he didn't need to say.. anything.

At least not right now..

So slowly he let go of the tension in his chest, relaxing his shoulders and taking a few deep breaths as his eyelights also hesitantly traveled to the sky above. That once endless blue abyss was now covered under a patchwork of gray clouds making that ceaseless void just.. disappear.

In a way he almost felt like he was back underneath the mountain again and.. a strange form of peace also found its way to his soul.

...As did the tears.

Quietly they gathered, because even when the words weren't present in his mind.. his body still ached from the pain that they had caused. Somehow it even felt worse than any sticks, stones or even broken bones. Nobody could believe how much he was hurting because there were no physical wounds, just the throb left in his soul from their brutality. They ached in a way that couldn't be healed by magic... in a way that couldn't be explained or cured..

It's clear that they had.. no idea what they were doing to him anymore.

How badly their words had hurt him, because he tried to hide it all under fake smiles.

He wasn't.. unbreakable anymore.

Somewhere along the way.. he had become so fragile...

And yet they still stacked all of their expectations on top of him.

...Then they mocked him when he just couldn't keep up...

....

He..

...blinked once, catching something on his peripheral vision and glancing towards you again.

Carefully you held out a handkerchief to him.

....That was..

The same one he gave you... those few months ago, when those delicate tears had been falling from your eyes.

....

"...I..." he began softly, tearing away his gaze for a moment as a wave of embarrassment washed over him at his current state.

He was a complete mess with his shirt coming undone, soaked to the bone and his eyesockets brimming with tears.

"..THANK YOU.."

All this time he had built himself up to you as a perfect prince.

He was so desperate for you to.. see him as that....

Kind, strong, charming.. and most of all brave.

..And.. now he's tarnished all that hard work by running and crying in the rose bushes like a coward. Still, he tried to gather what remained of that broken image and took the handkerchief from your hands, wiping away his eyesockets.

Heh...

He really was pathetic wasn't he..?

And.. a liar.

....And you..

Must surely hate him now.

"...FORGIVE ME, MY DEAR.. I JUST.."

The words left again as the rain stole them all away with their pitter and pattering...

"It's okay," you said softly gifting him that gentle smile of yours again. "There's no need to apologize or explain yourself to me."

..Why..?

Everyone else practically demanded an explanation out of him.

Why was he like this?

Why did he lock himself up inside?

...Surely you wanted to know too right?

So, why were you..?

You didn't say anything else..

And neither did he.

So the two of you sat quietly in the middle of the rose bushes as the world poured out it's tears all around you for what felt like a small eternity.

Until he stood up suddenly and pocketed that handkerchief.

"..Sans..?"

He smiled at you rather sadly, but offered his hand. You clearly look up at him a little confused and a bit worried, but didn't hesitate to take it as he helped you stand up as well. The both of you were coated in mud now and the refreshing rain began tapping on his skull once again.

"..Did you want to go back..?"

"...NO," he said softly, taking a moment to admire then gentleness in your expression. "BUT STRANGELY I DON'T FEEL MUCH LIKE SITTING IN THE MUD AND CRYING ANYMORE EITHER.. SO.."

The words threatened to leave again, but he shook his head and steeled his resolve.

"WOULD YOU DANCE WITH ME?"

..He couldn't help but love that surprised look on your face...

..But he loved it even more when you smiled at him, and without a single moment hesitation you threw the umbrella to the ground and let the rain begin to douse you too. He lightly took your hand in his, placing the other on the wonderful curve of your hip as you put your free hand on his shoulder. The two of you fell into an easy and comfortable rhythm, the same one the two of you always fell into when you danced, with nothing but the downpour to accompany you as you swayed.

Just like with the rain, you always brought such an easiness to his soul.

You were always so refreshing and calm, and with you it always seemed like his troubles were so far away. A part of him really believed he could just be himself around you..

..Perhaps that's why he's always so desperate to hide it all behind charming smiles and lavish words..

He didn't want to.. scare you away.

He didn't want you to look at him in that way everyone else did.

He wanted to keep you right here, with the rain dousing you both as your clothes stuck to your form, with wet hair and a sweet and gentle smile that was reserved just for him.

....

..He..

He wanted this to be the fairytale he always read about as a babybones...

With a truly happy ending...

And he really thought he had it now that he had you with him here...

No longer a friend just visiting, but... you now called his place your home.

And you gave him your love.

....

..But.. life keeps going.

And the past.. comes back to haunt you in the shapes of people who you once thought of as friends.

.....

....Would you..

...Become the same way.. one day..?

.....Was this happily ever after.. only temporary..?

He.. didn't want to let go..

He wanted to stay here, under the rain and lost in this fantasy...

..but he did, staring at the wonderful expression on your face as you took the hand from his shoulder and lightly placed it on his cheek. It was a touch so gentle and full of love, he couldn't help but lean in to it and let out a small breath.

"CAN YOU PROMISE ME SOMETHING, MY DEAR..?"

"..What is it..?"

He hesitated for a moment, watching as the droplets of rain gently glided down your face, dousing your hair and your clothes.

"...WOULD YOU..?"

..Again the words fell away.

He took in a struggling breath, trying to push them out but his fears kept them wound tightly inside his chest. He never wanted to be without you again. He never wanted to think of a day where he would wake up and you wouldn't be by his side. He couldn't stand the thought of you becoming... like them..

You were.. so good.. and.. he was...

"Sans."

...

..He never wanted a day again where you wouldn't say his name so tenderly...

....

You took your other hand from his and also placed it on his face.

"I promise, I'm not going anywhere."

....

"I'll always be right here for you."

.....

"Because there's no one else in the world I love quite as much as the skeleton here before me right now."

....

You loved.. him..

Not the person he was before.

...But him.. as he was now..

....

..And that's exactly why he could never let you go...

So instead he pulled you close, burying himself in the comfort of the crook of your neck and letting those quiet words of love soak into his bones..

Softly.

Gently.

Then harder, tapping and thundering against his soul as it...

Washed away the words inside is head.

...

..Only leaving him with thoughts of you.

...

And...

How he will do anything to desperately hold on to this.. 

...happily ever after...

[profoundchaoscomputer]

As time goes on

Summary:

“I will say this: I’m happy to be here with Jack. With you. And I love you. I love you both.”

This is a short fic Kate(@rathxritter) and me, Trev(@profoundchaoscomputer) wrote for the Destiel Partner Project (@destiel-partner-project). Thank you so much for this opportunity!

Kate, you were an awesome partner, all of our ideas complimented each other so well that that adding stuff and editing from you or me was always a delight, thank you so much!--Trev

Fic under the cut, alternatively you can also read it here https://archiveofourown.org/works/30576530

As time goes on

Late November. Knotty and naked branches tower themselves against the sky, dark outlines in the afternoon sun. The ground is covered in leaves and the grass is barely visible like winks of a long gone summer, spotted amidst the sea of warmer colors - yellow, orange, red and rich browns seem to make the universe that time of the year. It's a breathtaking and ordinary scenery, autumn always is. Everyday beauty is often taken for granted, but for Cas it will always be a new miracle. The sidewalk, on the other hand, is mostly clear, yet there are some areas of it where the leaves remain untouched, rotting away as they are being walked on, cracking under people's shoes as their heels click on the pavement.

Sometimes Cas thinks he is like those yellow checkered rooting away leaves.

...Once had he basked on the glory of a foolish leaf, proud stagnant, evergreen, timeless, aimless, clutching blindly to the tree, rain, wind, snow, only knowing of heaven above, but never about the dirt of the ground...to be still is to be alive?

Only after he fell, he understood, to fall is to become alive, it hurts, unthetered, weightful death sentence, to decide to root away.

And it took too much time to realize, but isn't all life beautiful because it's so ephemeral? so the past is treasured, today is a miracle, and tomorrow is a gift: to become a golden leaf and covered in spots, proof of every breath, copper, orange, red. The leaves fall and Cas falls, wrinkles and lines, aching muscles and tender joints, alone at times, but now trying something, with Dean, Jack, a family found along the way. Dancing along the wind, against tempest and arid times, getting muddy and dirtied, alive, along warm gusts and gentle times, and becoming crumpled leafs, laughing and crying at the mercy of time.

So times moves and flows away and now is a worthy day to note, It's a sunny day, as warm as the later autumn afternoon allows, and the, otherwise clear blue sky, is studded with some solitary clouds - dirty white that verges on grey, they look as if someone painted them on a canvas using the finest watercolours and the most exquisite brushwork. 

It's a sunny day and the air smells of rotten apples, oozing resin, and frost. It's the smell of death and destruction, of glimmering hope. A welcoming smell, the smell of life, so lulling and comforting, that fills people's nostrils as they go on with their day. The smell of home, an active reminder that life is to be treasured.

"How does the story end?" asks Jack as he hands Cas a paper bag, the bookshop's logo printed on it with bright red letters.  

"How do you want it to end?" Cas asks, smiling.

He knows the stories that Dean tells Jack, the ones he half reads and ends up making as he goes, stuffing in his own share for who knows what reasons. The thing is they both laugh and the red hooded girl surely doesn't have a shapeshifter, last time he checked. Overheard some of them while passing through the small living room in order to get outside and speak on the phone with Sam. 

It's their thing and he tries not to cross lines and wriggle in - Dean tells stories and does all the voices, Jack laughs, Dean laughs: a complete picture that doesn't quite need him there, an intimate bubble of two as he has his own with Dean and another one with Jack too and its Dean's "job" to put Jack to sleep. So he doesn't ask, Dean doesn't speak about it. It's healthy for Jack to grow different relationships with them on their own.

 Still, he does know about them and listens more often than he would care to admit, from behind the door, feeling like a stranger in his own house.

 About the ordinary tales of overcoming evil and suddenly there are Vampires and Djins and it's always about not giving up no matter how scared and angry one may feel. It's about children being allowed to be children even in a world of danger and Dean's voice oozing vulnerability as well as hurt. 

There were times he had considered taking his hand only to step away before he could be seen, Dean has allowed himself to be this vulnerable in front of Jack as his own kin. He couldn't mess up this trust and growth with selfishness.

Jack looks down distractedly and kicks some leaves, causing them to rustle, crack and scatter. Soon enough found a clump of leaves and decided it was good enough to swim on them. It's the contrast that makes Cas think and stop a bit, Jack so joyful on a blanket of cracked corpses, life playing with death, handfuls of leaves on Jack's hands, a handful of ashes, ashes to ashes, a pool of dead yet life stills blooms so beautifully and hopeful, death and creation, hand by hand, as time goes by. 

"I don't know," says Jack as he picks up an acorn from the mess he just made and studies it attentively before stuffing it into the pocket of his Jacket. Lately, they've been the hiding place of all sorts of hidden treasures - acorns, buttons, funny looking rocks, and empty shells - later taken out and displayed on the shelves in his bedroom, right next to his Paddington books and carved animal statuettes.

He laughs, "Dean always puts a lot of death in them."

"Does he?" asks Cas.

"Sometimes they are all alone. I don't mind, they make me want to live!" he says, his chirpy laughter echoing through the air, soon followed by thunderous stomping: Wellington boots, yellow with a bee pattern printed on them, splashing water from a puddle on the grass.

Castiel sighs and carefully sits down on the battered bench in the small park. Its wood is ruined and the paint is peeling off and soft moss is thriving in those places where the material never quite manages to completely dry off. A wet bench, but still appreciates it with a crack of back bones.

"Well," he says, holding back a grimace of pain. "I think you and Dean may both be right when you say that it's about feeling alive."

Jack nods solemnly in agreement. "And what about the children? They climb trees and drink lemonade, but what happens after that."

"They do everything their own way and they are good at that."

"Dean can do it better." Jack puffs loudly.

"Then you should ask him as soon as he comes back." Cas smiles.

"I think I will. Can I give you something?" asks Jack.

"Yes, of course."

"I'll get it soon," he says and walks away, running around through the leaves, freely, squealing in delight.

A knot forms at the back of Cas's throat as he watches his son play in the autumn scenery. Life and death keeping each other company, effortlessly interconnected in an endless cycle. So loud the sound of his youth, Jack waranders off, bubbling with raw energy, entropic in a contagious way that Cas can't help but melt a bit on this warm brightness and he laughs too. Bittersweet, yeah, that's life for you. Something hopeful, the sound of a child's laughter and his fatherly love, brightening everything  - precious and blossoming, always, amidst death and horror preventing the future from turning into ashes and mingling as equal with the past.

"This is for you," says Jack, out of breath, proud, stretching out his arm and handing Castiel a yellow leaf with green edges. "You can press it and frame it like they showed me in school."

"Thank you, Jack. This is... lovely. This is lovely, I like it." He smiles softly, fondness washing over him.

He looks at the gift, studying it as he turns it around, and wonders how much Jack knows about his own state. Does he know he chose to be a rooting away leaf too?

Cas fell, a long time ago, changing so completely, that his former self is nothing but a distant memory. Now Cas can look at the situation with more clarity of judgement, as he clearly lacked for more time than he could care to admit: in falling, he became alive and while it hurt and had at some point felt like a death sentence, life was, is, and will be beautiful with its alternating ups and downs.

 But again, being alive is always too much, so stuffed with messy feelings, whirling fiery tempest, it becomes crowded, on edge, flammable as well as vulnerable, scalding in a slow simmering way, such that he would call worse than falling.

 Meeting for the first time fear in a not immediate war or easily numbing adrenaline to survive, and thus being laid bare to see himself in the mirror and being bombarded with all the truths he didn't want to hear, scared of being alone, despite having Jack, Dean, and everyone else too; afraid of this too good looking second chance usually so monomaniacally forbidden and his guilt biting so hard he feels like choking on every breath, whispering his worst thoughts, over and over like broken record, all his faults, all his "greater good" soaking his hands in blood, what is to deserve when one has betrayed, what is a right when one has killed and done the unspeakable, what is to have freedom when each breath tastes of regret, what is peace when silence draws despair. On top of it now powerless, his own human body with the aching joints and cold bones… being at the mercy of time rather than being above it.

Because time now moves and flies away, slipping through his finger. Ticked away by clocks. Irrevocable hours leaden circles travelling through the air and ultimately dissolving. 

Blinding shrieks of fear and self consciousness slowly started to become a hum and then days turn into weeks and weeks into months, one season following the other and the world changing, subtly at first, adjusting to the rising and dropping temperature and the inclement weather. Too hot and then too cold, and the months of adjustment in between for a couple of weeks with perfect temperatures and no sudden changes. Soon, it will be winter once more: the first frost has already started to beautify the windows, leaving white and translucent intricate patterns on glass, and the weather is changing - rain and strong winds as announced by the weather forecast daily after the six o’clock news.

Some of it, he'll never get back. Those sorry months and years he'd relive by reentering the moment and changing it radically from within by doing everything right are long out of question and he wouldn't risk fate and destiny to make a miracle again to break from Chuck's narrative. This time, he'd do everything right by being less prideful and avoid arguments to grow bigger and bigger until the smallest of things, enlarged in disproportion, left nothing but annoyance and anger in their wake - arguments breaking like thunder, rumbling, filling the air and making it unbearable to stand there and wonder, even for just a moment, whether love may not remain buried one day, out of reach.

The first year had been the most difficult: they had discovered at their own expense that love declarations and dreams of a speckless wonderful future were hardly enough and never actually helped in making things easier. Nothing would ever be enough. One simple truth then, which they had learned the hard way: happy endings did not exist, only endings, and even those were neutral and subject to change. No happy ever afters that tied up all ends at the last page, no sweetly dull every day epilogue. Life simply kept going, as ugly as it was before, as beautiful as it was before. They kept being the same people they were before, with all their faults and virtues, all their nightmares and dreams. Defeating the "biggest bad of the book" did not erase all of their inner troubles, maybe one or two, yes, but how many more were inside of each of them?

Dean's fear of abandonment and Cas' own desperate need to be useful had proven to be the most explosive and dangerous mix. And thing is, they couldn't forgive each other, not a particular one big reason, just too many piled up and carried over the years and while they could forget and move on, deep in their heart they couldt forgive, not really, and the topics they so desperately tried to ignore stood in their way, holding them back.

So twelve months of Castiel repeatedly leaving, he needed to hunt, to be useful, got himself head first into the line of fire so to see that his hands, while bloody, still saved lifes; sound of gunshot to shush his mind out of the accusing mirror, a warrior will always be a warrior and he had been a commander of garrisons, and so he went out and jumped from hunt to hunt with all kinds of hunter strangers until exhaustion could give him a good night sleep, weeks upon weeks  and Dean's accusations following him out of the door, you'll always abandon me.

So twelve months of Dean drinking, as Cas's remarks no doubt rung in his ears, you're slowly becoming like your father. Dean didn't know what to do with his life, depression weighing him down so hard there were only some days he could get himself out of bed, tearing at the seams without a fight to pull himself together and so he drank, Cas's words ringing into his head like poison along the bitter aftertaste of a finished bottle.

 Neither of them should have said those things although he couldn't find the strength to do anything but hold his refusal to stand on Jack's side against Dean. Dean should have asked him to stay, he should have made it clear that there was no need to be useful in order to stick around. A vicious cycle, separating them more and more, and not quite a trial - had it been one, there wouldn't have been one person who wasn’t guilty.

The second year had no room for openings, just anger as they moved like in a quagmire, the snappiness of the first year replaced with inertia. Dean threw himself into work, dirt on his jeans. Cas went to the bunker with Jack and a duffle bag stuffed with their belongings. The bunker had become some sort of hunter's sanctuary and he enjoyed the work. They did talk, but simply not enough, and refused to show themselves vulnerable - no mutual consolation, no touching, and the frail assumption that they were still on each other’s side crumbling in front of them and leaving them dismayed.

After two and a half years, on a ghastly hot summer evening, Dean leapt for the first time, really, showing nothing but fearfulness and saying, as he looked at Castiel stripping in front of him, were you going to tell me that you almost died or… It had been an accusation, the tone used made it clear, the half healing wound still patched on Cas's side inbeetwen them and their heavy silence, but there had been something else too - genuine worry and affection. They had shared a bullet of a look. Then they had kissed, desperately, hungrily, and had sex - consuming their relationship: They understood it and enjoyed it, but were still out of their depths when it came to the rest: awkwardness settling as soon as they were back in their clothes. He and Jack had left the following morning and the rest of the year had been spent abroad working on helping the international community of hunters to create a network bound to help supernatural creatures rather than killing them.

It had been the year of endless night and unsparing insomnia, wondering how to rebuild a relationship when you were also mourning one? Different versions of themselves are forever lost in time, the angel and the soldier boy, the runaway and the righteous man, the falling and the protagonist. He had spent so much time looking for something, a warning sign that they had somehow ended that loop of misery, to face the present and stop grieving the past, sorrow and unhappiness that he hadn’t actively recognized the beginning of it all, only widening the gap further. Polished surfaces and volcanoes inside - a mess of feelings, a mess of thoughts, and no way to escape them and make sense of it all. They had been prisoners of their own fears and their history had stood between them. They had spent the end of the year, retreating: each question met either by silence or elusive answers that ultimately meant nothing. It had been fake and lacked depth, the peace they tried to build when both lacked courage: they had built up a facade and spent their time together pretending that they could start from scratch. They couldn’t. He was still angry at Dean, Dean waa still angry for a multitude of reasons Cas didn't even want to know, and still for what happened with Jack, Cas didn’t dare breathe a word. And every word that wasn't about the truth, it was another shovel to bury the thing that was between them.

At the end of the third year, they had come back and they had stayed at the bunker for two whole weeks rather than a couple of days.

He had spent some ten months trying to find the right words to tell Dean that he was considering hunting less and less - wounds healed too slowly and he wasn't getting any younger. He had tentatively enquired about Dean only to find out that Dean was doing better - therapy and AA meetings and the Impala had been sold to some teenage girls. They had met, Castiel had asked about Dean’s new lodgings, Dean told him. Dinner. Breakfast. Lunch. Dinner. On and on like starting from scratch. Things settled, slowly, by falling into place and one night Dean asked him to sleep in his room rather than on the sofa and they talked, opened their hearts, raw and exposed, the darkness making it less awkward and easier: like talking to the idea of a person, depersonalization at its best, a space that had welcomed them and liked them as much as they liked it. Hours passed and in the morning things were different - calmer, easier. They had no more tears left to cry and no more apologies to make.

It seems almost impossible now, four years on, to remember life as it was in all its tiniest details - the bigger picture there, but lacking the intrigue and the excitement there might have been on different occasions. It’s no longer bloody and vengeful, an endless and vicious cycle where violence only led to more violence, spiralling out of control and slipping away, out of fingers, no way out. The feeling of it is familiar yet new, something that he had a long time ago, perhaps briefly, a fading memory that never existed, to begin with, secluded to the realm of dreams and conditionals. Something missing, always and unconsciously so, the feeling of longing always blooming in his chest: for something. Pointing his finger and putting a name to it is easier now as things slowly begin to come into shape.

Castiel closes his eyes, tilting his head back, chin held up high. The sun is warm on his skin, shining in through the naked branches, but his cheeks are reddened by the cold. Wrapped in his winter coat already, all buttoned up and one hand stuffed in his pockets. The sunbeams look golden and create dancing shadows on the ground, and he just stays there, still and motionless, and at peace, as he listens to Jack play in front of him.

Somewhere, through open windows, a song plays faintly though he may just be imagining it, lyrics echoing in his mind for days on end. Come and take my whole life, you are everything I want. You are everything… Mulling over them and wondering, impossible to stop, rolling and rapid. It’s peacefulness as if he spent an entire afternoon crying while sitting on a chair, though he can’t really claim to be an expert on the subject. It’s contentment and residual happiness that sometimes mixes with annoyance and anger, arguments breaking out like thunder, rumbling. Yet, still, love and happiness at simply existing, being alive, being human. The fullest and most satisfying existence, feeling things, and waking up in the morning with the sun shining in through the window, filtering through the curtains and painting the room gold as dust dances in the air in a mesmerizing pattern. Next to Dean too, a couple of moments in amicable silence before the day begins - lying there, mouth filled with the metallic taste of sleep, lazily and whispering, good morning. Time for healing.

When he opens his eyes again, the air is luminous, like St. James’ Street on a summer morning right after a decent drizzle. The light reflects on every surface and makes the air appear bright and filled with light, the edges of reality seem softened and the appearance is almost dreamlike. From down the street, Dean walking towards them holding the bags with the shopping.

“Look at who’s coming,” he says, catching Jack’s attention.

“Dean!” squeals Jack, delighted, as he runs towards him.

“Cas. No need to get up, just make us some space, will you?” Dean replies as he puts the shopping bags down, leaning them against the bench's legs. Then, before taking Jack into his arms, holding him close, he kisses Castiel’s cheek and adds, “Jack, buddy, I’ve missed you too. I’ve got something for the two of you.”

“What’s that?”

“Wait,” He stretches his arm out. “Here you go. First tangerine of the year, not too expensive. Hell, thought we deserve some after everything we went through.”

“I want a segment!” Yells Jack. Jack grabs for the piece of fruit in Dean’s hand, looking at it with fascination and entertainment at the uneven sphere of the citrus, before handing it over to Cas.

“Thank you.”

As soon as Cas starts peeling the citrus fruit, the smell fills the air. He always liked the smell of it - upbeat and cheerful, penetrating and warm. Reminiscing of cedarwood and lavender, clove too. Christmas-y. One of the happiest and most irrelevant things, easily going unnoticed, every gesture is done dismissively, instinctively and without paying too much attention. Fingertips digging into the exocarp, passing through the albedo, and removing the peel altogether - one piece at a time. Dean’s eyes are on him, he feels it, sees it with a sideways glance, studying his every move, as Jack wriggles and gurgles, impatiently waiting for his segment.

“What?” asks Cas without turning around.

“Nothing,” Dean replies as he accepts a segment just as Jack stuffs his into his mouth. “Jack, you’re making a mess of yourself. - a pause, again to Cas - I mean, this… all of it. - Dean looks at the autumn scenery, gestures widely, to the leaves and the threes, Jack, the clear sky, Cas, dazed but in a good way - I don’t know. I like it. Hell, I love it.”

“Selcouth.”

“What?”

“The word you’re looking for, I think. Rare and extraordinary.”

He’d add ‘unexpected’ to the list too, but that one to himself. It’s one thing to say that one wouldn’t be happy anywhere else with anyone else, another thing to make it work. Admittedly it took some time, irrelevant weeks after twelve years of tentatively tip-toeing around the other - this far and no further, deferring and agreeing, evading and never thinking about it, not really, not after the first couple of years. They seem to have the grasp on the ongoing juggling of the time at their disposal and days are uneventful, repetitive: he works, Dean goes to therapy and cares about the house, they play with Jack.

Twice a week Dean attends AA meetings and evenings are spent trying to make Jack sleep without having to read ten different bedtime stories and doing all the voices. And time passes, seasons change. A whole year, he sometimes reminds himself. Unbelievable. Selcouth.

And Cas examines amused these little white threads of tangerine he tears from his own segment, frail as the heart, wonder and fear, with care, like life, weaving silly braids for the sake of it, fingers clumsy, vines lacing fingers, each feels like a promise, for you, for me, feeble yet together so strong, sometimes they break, frustrated, yet not giving up, sometimes we manage a fine work, proud of a miracle yet so natural, a string of hope, a string to life, life is a tangerine and we are leaves along the wind.

Maybe he should marry Dean - Cas distractedly thinks, to which he can't help but feel the corner of his lips pulling.

“What?”

“You’re in a good mood,” says Dean. 

“Could say the same thing about you.”

“Oh, look at you,” says Dean looking away, retrieving a clean handkerchief from the pocket of his Jacket and wiping Jack’s face clean.

“I need you to be honest with me, Cas.”

“I am honest with you, Dean.”

“I don’t wanna lose you. I don’t want you to die out there.”

“I’m not going to die out there, not violently.” Castiel nods and smiles fondly, affection and tenderness washing over him in waves. It's a warm silence, a promise, the sun is out and about today. Dean looks at him like the only thing in this world and leans in for a kiss, making him feel as if he swallowed a box of fireworks instead, and this time the kiss has a citric aftertaste. Shooting stars on a summer night, dropping like a thousand suns, speckled fireworks, sunny galaxy to cup in his hands, warm and ticklish, rumble laughter and stubble, soft and rough, sweet and bitter, bliss and life, so alive, for a moment Cas is again grateful of falling: so beautiful, so much like Dean.

“I will say this: I’m happy to be here with Jack. With you. And I love you. I love you both.”

[minidigidestined]

Coiled Hope Part 1

This is mostly just worldbuilding and first-meeting explanation kinda-sorta-diary-style-ish thing for my very self indulgent fair folk/magical creature story featuring my darling and I’s nagasonas. I was thinking of rewriting it since it’s kinda blocky, but I like this diary first person pov for my planning and plain ol blurb stage. I’m excited to do more with this and other ideas, vore and otherwise–but first I’m excited to figure out the magic system and history of this world.

Anywho, a sand boa is brought to a remote mountain forest after keeping fair folk in captivity or servitude has been outlawed, whisking her away from a contented life with her human master. The small, pampered naga reminisces on life as she tries to figure out what to do next, and is shocked when she comes face to face with a wild fair folk–a massive rainbow boa many times her size.

I huddled, cold and silent, within the gnarled roots of an old willow. The ground was still damp with yesterday’s rain and the croaking of toads rung out like some sort of haunting choir–the realization that I had never been so alone seemed to smash into me face first. Like a sack of bricks.

Just yesterday, life was perfect. My Master had been stern, but she was kind. She adopted me from a lab study when I was still a juvenile–when the laws restricting the lab testing of fair folk became illegal–and had nurtured me in her home ever since.

I had become accustomed to human food, neverending warmth, and plenty of nice plants, sand and shredded bark to burrow through and had not wanted for anything since my youth in the labs. I had an entire room to myself in her home, and though I was never allowed out, I knew to be grateful to have come into the possession of such a wealthy and caring woman. I never asked many questions, but there wasn’t much I wanted to know anyways. I was just happy to be safe and content.

…Perhaps I was isolated too, but I certainly didn’t mind–nagas, after all, are solitary in nature, and so long as I had good food, a few books and a constant hot spot? Bliss.

Now that was all over though. Keeping the fair folk as pets or slaves was outlawed mere days ago, and my kind were granted citizenship in the human world–both captive and wild roaming “renegade” folk alike.

Thinking of my days back at the lab made me glad to have my “humanity” realized for sure, but… I’d be lying if I said I didn’t enjoy being with my Master. Even if other humans may have deemed me a mere pet, she always treated me like something more, something precious and worth protecting. She gave me humanity after a childhood of being nothing more than a beast, desperate to survive test after grueling test.

A wash of cold dread came over me in a wave, a lump forming in my throat. I clenched my jaw and desperately willed the old memories away, scratching at the skin of my arms anxiously with my stubby claws. Not here, not now… I couldn’t afford a meltdown, especially since I wasn’t sure if the tranquilizer the FFC–Fair Folk Control–officers had used on my last fit in the van would still affect me if my blood pressure rose or if adrenaline started to flow. I imagined the drug turning my blood syrupy and blanketing my brain, hissing through my teeth and forcibly controlling my breaths. Think of Master. She was always so sad when you got like this.

I’d be lying if I said I didn’t miss her silent appraisal and warm smile with all my broken heart, for sure. It was certainly better than this miserable mountain forest those FFC officers dumped me in after seizing me from my master, whisking me far away from human civilization. It was starting to sound a lot more like segregation than freedom the more I thought about it… I don’t think they even realized this was nowhere near my “natural environment”. Citizenship my tail.

For a small-sized sand boa like me, the damp air seemed to chill with a vengeance. I anxiously drew my chubby fingers over the nubby end if my tail, a nervous habit I formed in the labs. I distantly remembered both my master and scientists discussing portals to the Other–my birthright as fair folk, but a world I had never seen since being bred on Earth. Was that an option for me now?

My stomach began to knot painfully during my pondering, and I nearly keened with distress from imagining my master serving me my favorite dumpling soup in my flower bowl with the chipped paint.

No more dumplings. No more bowls. No more Master.

My senses seemed to heighten with my sharpening hunger, my tongue flicking out to scent the air. As much as the idea distressed me, I could smell the breathing creatures around me and knew that my wild kin would already be hunting… But I had only ever fed on pellets or human food, and though the idea of a full belly sounded nice, a belly full of cold, wriggling toads did not.

Miserable, I forced myself to slither from the roots. Maybe there would be another fair folk in these woods–if Master had thought so highly of my kind, then surely they would be willing to band together? Perhaps we could even talk about how much we loved our Masters together! Maybe we could find our way back. Maybe I could even learn more about the Other! For the first time since being taken away, I let myself begin to hope.

I winced at the mud caking on the pearly white underbelly of my tail and made a note to take a bath–or at least find a lake. I slithered along, clutching the hem of my baby pink dress tightly, my nerves utterly shot. I had always loved my adventure books, but going on an adventure myself? Not as exciting as I had dreamed.

I lost myself in the twisting anxiety and hope of my thoughts, barely registering twigs snapping loudly beneath the bulk of my tail or sharp stones scraping against my scales. I twisted the fabric of my dress thoughtfully over my knuckles, contemplating the fact that this was the last piece of my Master I would ever have, hand sewn and worn thin with love.I stopped, forcing myself to breathe evenly again.

I looked down into a muddy puddle, smiling sadly at my full-moon face. Even in my despair my eyes twinkled a soft pink, my round cheeks flushed and tangled brown curls tied to the side of my head, spilling over and hiding one of my pointed ears. I flex my tail and lift upwards a little to inspect my dress, pulling off stray leaves and admiring the roundness of my fat frame, all soft without an edge in sight.

My hips slipped seamlessly into a serpentine tail, in particular, the sausage-like shape of a sand boa. My scales are patterned pale brown and white with speckles of soft pink, the trio of colors almost like delicately flicked paint splatters. Master always told me I had the look of sweetness, if not a bit ditzy–but she always said it with a smile.

I tighten the band holding my curls together, ensuring the volume of the small poof at the crown of my head. I’m so utterly focused on my simple task that I almost blacked out in pure fear when another face appeared next to mine in the muddy pool.

I scramble forward with a cry and twist around, thrusting my hands out in a questionable showcase of self defense. I slap against something soft but firm–the slight yield of the intruder’s belly?–and jerk my hands back with a squeak as I look up to face the forest-dweller.

And up, and up, and up…

The creature before me is looming and massive, but sleek at the same time. I realize with a start that he’s a naga like me, but that seemed to be where the similarities end. Whereas my humanoid half is smaller than the average human, he was much, much bigger. His tail, though thin like the rest of him, is coiled with lean muscle and a deep red color like an apple, a few ebony markings ringing his spine.

“Hey, sorry! I didn’t mean to scare you.” His smile was easy and genuine, but fear still made my heart race. “Are you okay?”

He was thin, a deep red cape draped across his shoulders and trailing the ground, its edges dirty and worn. Red scales speckled up his hips, torso and chest like freckles, blending in with the fuzz on his belly. His fingers were tipped by deadly sharp claws, his earthy brown hair long and messy. He looked equal parts ridiculous and regal, wild and in control.

I gaped like a fish out of water, pressing a hand to my chest when the clouds shifted and light came pouring over us… The massive naga seemed to suddenly swim with colors, his tail glittering and iridescent. I locked eyes with him and felt myself growing lost in the golden pools. “What are you?” My voice was a breath. Even in the labs, I had never seen another fair folk who…who shined. Not like this.

He smiled gently, opening his mouth to speak when a low grumble, slipping into a sharp growl, interrupted him. “Sorry, I’m starving,” He explained sheepishly, his long fangs glinting.

A chill ran down my back when I remembered the huge pythons back at the lab at feeding time, how they’d swallow human or fair folk prisoners whole since they couldn’t subsist off of engineered pellets alone. This guy definitely looked like a snake that would choose a whole person over a bowl of soup for a meal–but I wasn’t about to stick around and find out, pretty as his tail was.

It was as if my flight response finally kicked in as I whipped around to flee, but I was quickly halted by a glittering wall of scale and muscle. White noise filled my brain, my vision, my entire being.

Master… I thought. Please help me. Please save me again. I pressed the heel of my hands into my eyes, both trying to stop the tears and deluding myself into thinking I could hide.

“Yo, wait! You don’t wanna run that way. There’s some big gators there, they’d have you for a snack. You aren’t from here, are you?”

I still didn’t turn to look at him, but the naga’s voice held both concern and a trickle of amusement. He… he didn’t seem like a predator…

I tried to steady the stream of tears, turning to face him once more. “No, I’m not.”

His eyes widened at the glimmer of tears on my cheeks. “Hey, what’s wrong? You’re okay here, I promise. It’s okay.”

And before I knew it, it all came pouring out–both the unrelenting tears and my story. The huge naga listened intently, his lips pursed into a line of concern and his golden eyes focused right on me. I felt embarrassed by his rapt attention, but at the same time…seen. Really, truly Seen.

“I’m really sorry.” The larger naga reached down, his huge hand hovering inches above my plump little arm. “Is it okay if I touch you?”

I stared up at him with bleary eyes. “I’m so sorry. That all just burst out and I couldn’t stop and I just… You don’t have to comfort me.” I paused, heart twisting with a cocktail of shame and sweetness. “But uh…you can. Thank you. For being here. You don’t even know me and you’re…”

His hand was cool and firm, the skin rough. He gently stroked my arm with the pad of his thumb, his eyes looking far away. “You don’t need to apologize. Humans do bad things. They make bad choices, and then good people are left to pick up the pieces.”

His attention snapped back, his lazy smile returning as if he had never frowned in his life. “That’s why the forest is better, especially up on a mountain like this. I’m glad your…caretaker was good, but I promise a friend is even better.” The world ‘caretaker’s rolled off his tongue like a poison. Odd.

I couldn’t stop the rush of heat to my cheeks. “Thank you… Who are you, actually? I’ve dished out my whole life story and I don’t even know your name!” Now that my meltdown and blubbering had faded, I felt as if I could curl up into a ball and roll right away into nothing.

“Spectrum Maximus.” He grinned at my cocked eyebrow, flicking his lengthy tail to show off its iridescence. “I chose it myself! Now, who’re you?”

“You can do that?” I asked shyly, giggling at the name. “Well, in the study labs I was 42… My Master liked to call me Clover.”

Spectrum’s eyes fluttered with mischief. “I guess it’s appropriate, since it’s good luck that I found you here, but it sucks you never got a say. Who do you want to be?”

I couldn’t halt the flustered blush spreading across my face, though I couldn’t understand why. Who…did I want to be?

I looked downward, fiddling with the hem of my dress. I thought of every book, play and poem I had ever read, every bird and bug at the window, every season and holiday. Names and words flashed through my head, but still I came up blank. What in the world is a name? I never cared that Master called me Clover, but it didn’t feel like…

Home.

Maybe that’s what a name was–home. I thought of soft evenings in my room, Master smiling as she set down a bowl of homemade soup or curry or pasta on my desk and flipping open my favorite book. I thought of curling up next to her legs to eat, her slender fingers playing through my curls as she read to me. I thought of her teaching me how to read, how to write, how to sing along to a melody… I thought of one of our favorite treats to share together beneath my heat lamps, hot cocoa with peppermint chips and a sprinkle of cinnamon.

Cinnamon. Warm, cozy and inviting.

“I’m Cinnamon.��� I felt a warmth spread through my chest. Maybe those days were gone, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t carry them with me. That didn’t mean I couldn’t define who I was today. Who I wanted to be today.

“Cinnamon,” He repeated, speaking my new name as if it were something holy and special. “I think it suits you.” I felt a different kind of warmth surge through my cold blood at the way the corners of his mouth dimpled.

“Please, you barely even know me! You’ve just seen me a blubbering mess.”

“Well if that’s your worst, you must be pretty great,” He grinned, eyes twinkling with mirth. “I really hope you never see me cry. It’s about as gross and snotty as a snake can get.” His stomach snarled pitifully once more and he slapped it, brow quirking. “Shut up, you! You’re scaring our new friend!”

I winced. “Oh… You noticed?” At the rate my blush was growing, I might’ve well have been a rosy boa!

“You gasping in fear and trying to run away right into a bog? Yeah. It’s fine though, I usually have that affect on ladies.”

I rolled my eyes, unable to stop the smile bowing my own lips now. “So… You don’t y'know…eat people?”

“I’m not going to eat you if that’s what you’re asking. I am hungry though–I can take you back to my cave if you’d like. I cook a mean stew.”

“I could actually cook for you if you’d like. My Master taught me a few things for fun. It’s the least I can do.”

Spectrum smiled, his eyes the color of honey dripping from the comb and just as warm. “If it’ll get you to stop thanking me over and over when I’ve literally done nothing but sit here? Sure. Plus the mean is literal. I’m a really bad cook, so maybe it’s better if the homebody cooks something instead of the weird forest hermit.”

I couldn’t help but smile back even wider–the man’s mirth was positively infectious. “Well, you did keep me from being eaten by a gator.”

“Don’t thank me yet,” He slithered around me, coils whispering across the ground. How was such a massive creature so silent–if not in voice, then in movement? “Sometimes they like to visit my cave.”

I scrunched up my nose and flicked my tongue out instinctively as he passed. He smelled wild–dirt, sweat and trees. So different from my old homes, but welcome all the same. Maybe this wouldn’t be the end of the world after all.

And so, I followed him.

[hunllefauwriting-blog]

The Key to Dealing with Hauntings

Hauntings.

It’s something I see on here a lot, and whenever I read about other people’s experiences, I internally cringe. Hearing a noise and immediately investigating it? Following the creepy looking thing that’s floating two inches above the ground? Conducting experiments to try to communicate with these things? Nope. No. Nada. In my humble opinion, those are some of the worst things you can do. The entity is already mad enough to start bothering you, and poking and prodding it is just going to make it worse. My best suggestion? Ignore it. Don’t follow that voice. Don’t record yourself sleeping. Don’t give it any indication that its tricks are affecting you in any way. Just simply ignore it.

Now, I’m no expert demonologist or whatever it is. I couldn’t tell you the difference between a poltergeist and a haunting or if they’re the same thing. My credentials are my experience. I don’t know all the facts and statistics on the supernatural, but I know what happened to my family and I.  

My wife, two sons, and I moved into a home out in the woods about three months ago. It’s a beautiful little cottage painted a light grey with white trimming, sitting amongst an old-growth forest that filtered the light in way that reminded me of fairy tales. Contrary to what most people pay for a haunted house, this property was not cheap by any means. There was a lot of land covered in forest and the cottage itself was well-built. But it was perfect. The realtor agent was a nice, young woman who seemed trustworthy, and the town that it was near was quaint and welcoming. There was literally nothing that indicated anything was wrong with the cottage. We were overjoyed with how well the boys acclimated to the new environment and new school, and it was heartwarming to see a small community so warmly welcome two women married to each other. My editing business was taking off, and my wife was having the time of her life decorating our new home. Within a month, we fell into a steady routine, and life was absolutely perfect.

And yes, of course it gets fucked up.

After a month, my younger son, Christopher, began coming into our room every single night, complaining about hearing a voice coming from under his bed. His older brother, Michael, swore up and down he had nothing to do with it, but I know what it’s like to have a younger sibling. It’s fun to play pranks on them, especially when they couldn’t prove that it was you. Despite me sternly talking to Michael several times, it continued happening. Knowing nothing I could do would stop it, I told Christopher to just to ignore it, and it would go away.

Next came the banging in the attic.

Loud, obnoxious knocks that came in threes scared the hell out of my wife, who wanted nothing more than to investigate it. I told her no, there was no reason to go up there. All we put up there were holiday decorations, suit cases, and camping gear, and I made sure there was nothing already there when we moved in. I suggested she just ignore it, and it would stop eventually. She didn’t like my advice, but she listened and after a while, she only slightly jumped when it happened.

Now, this next one did freak me out a bit, but there was no reason to show any distress. I wear an activity tracker that counts my steps and monitors my sleep. One morning, about two months into living at the cottage, I woke up unusually exhausted. My tracker only had me awake for a minute, and the rest was mostly deep sleep. But my step count was already at 15,000 steps; I don’t even walk that much during the span of a day. I didn’t fully believe it, but I forced myself to believe that it must’ve malfunctioned. I ignored it. I continued to do this when I woke up with muddy feet and a rust-colored substance under my nails. Of course, my wife asked questions, but I shrugged her off and she knew not to push it.

After that is when the old woman showed up.

My first encounter with her took a lot of self-control to not react. I was taking a shower, rinsing shampoo out of my hair. And because shampoo is awful to get into your eyes, I closed mine while letting the water hit me, feeling the suds slide down my face. It’s a wonderful feeling, honestly. Rubbing the water off my face, I opened my eyes to the milky white eyes of a dried, wrinkly face. I’m not proud to admit it, but I froze. Unexpectedly staring into the white eternal depths of an entity taking the shape of a hunch-backed, slack-jawed old woman will do that to you. It took me a couple of seconds, but I regained my composure and continued my shower. The woman stayed there the entire time, but it was easy to maneuver around her. My arm brushed against her once, but I was careful not to jerk away from the feeling of dry leaves dragging across my skin. After that, I saw her on a regular basis. In the kitchen, behind my sons getting their afternoon snacks. Clutching the ceiling, staring down at us as my wife and I had “our time.” Right next to the dryer as I was switching over the laundry. I seemed to be the only one who could see her, no one else reacted to her. I know I told them to ignore weird things, but I knew there was no way they’d ignore a sight like her.

What really pushed my limits was waking up and finding my family dismembered in the living room.

It was a Sunday, and my wife wasn’t still in bed next to me when I woke up, which I thought was weird but shrugged it off. She had been talking about attending a church service or two the past couple of days. It was also completely silent within the house, which does not happen with two boys, so I figured she took them with her. She knew better than to ask me to go, explaining why she didn’t wake me up. Anyways, I got up, showered, and stumbled my way to the coffee maker. To get to the kitchen (where my lord and savior, the coffee maker, lives), I had to pass through the living room.

Now, imagine your family. You love them more than life, and it’d kill you to see anything happen to them. Now imagine them torn to pieces and tossed into a pile. Yeah, that’s what I walked in on.

I really didn’t know what I as looking at, at first. There was this oblong object poking out with stubby, wide sticks capped with red attached. While staring at it, it slowly registered that I was looking at my wife’s dismembered foot jutting out from the bottom of a pile of flesh and viscera. After that, my mind seemed to register every hanging ribbon of skin peeled from the muscle, every blood droplet dripping from tattered arteries, every splinter of white peeking through the deep red. I drank in the sight of it, so close to screaming and raking my nails against my eyes to claw it out. Their heads sat intact and wound with entrails, as if to keep them standing to greet me. Eyes wide with terror, filmed over with a milky white; jaws broken and slack, hanging down past the heads’ pedestals of intestines. Blood drenched everything, the puddle still creeping outwards from the pile, slowly devouring the white of the carpet.

That terrible, fucking curse of a sight is what I walked into, while thinking my family was at church and I would enjoy some alone time. And you know what I did? After gawking at it for a few seconds, I swallowed my initial reaction and walked past it. I ignored it. Entities are capable of conjuring all sorts of hallucinations, aren’t they? I originally thought that they went to church, and the entities saw their chance to try and fuck with me. They wanted a react and I was not about to give it to them.

After the sun started setting, I figured my wife just got tired of everything going on and decided to stay at her mom’s house with the boys’. That’s all. I thought she’d at least leave a note or call once she got there, but she tends to shut me out when she’s pissed. Lord knows I’ve pissed her off with ignoring everything that’s been happening around the house. So she’s just taking a break. That’s all.

The stench of the living room is beginning to make me gag every time I go into the kitchen, but I’m still holding strong. It’s been a few weeks since my wife left with the boys, but I’m confident she’ll call at some point. I’ve been considering moving again so they don’t have to deal with this; they’re much worse at ignoring everything than I am. Until then, I’ll hold strong. Ignoring the pile of bodies is getting easier even if the smell is getting worse.

Ignoring is the key.

[killingkueen]

Home

For @crossinginstyle​, who wanted an Outlander AU

You were great, and I had so much fun. I’m so, so sorry that this is a concept I’m more comfortable reading than writing. I hope you still enjoy :D

There is some slight dub-con. Also vague but obvious mentions of sexual assault. 

Rating: M

Here on AO3

It was probably the rain that woke her up. It was odd; she didn’t remember falling asleep (does anyone really remember such a thing?) but there she was, on her side, staring blurrily at the weeds around her. She felt the curious sensation of water rolling sideways across her face, and she had the wild thought that she was lucky it was only drizzling or she might have drowned where she lay.

She tried to sit up, grimacing as pain throbbed behind her eyes. Giving up, she merely rolled over, afraid she’d vomit as the world went a little sideways. Belle took a deep breath through her mouth, trying to push down the panic that was bubbling right below her skin.

Even if she hadn’t just awoken, even if all she felt was the uncomfortable, clinging sensation of wet clothes against her skin, the pain is what sealed it: this was not a dream.

Belle French, head librarian of Storybrooke, hadn’t thought it strange that the book wasn’t on her order sheet, nor had she bat an eye when there was no author or publisher or even a copyright page to speak of. Belle had just assumed that it had been a self-published freebee, a thank you from the company for ordering from them as consistently as she did. It wasn’t unheard of for her to be sent samples, after all.

It was a handsome book, and maybe that’s what should have raised her suspicions in the first place: dark leather and pages that were thick and smooth, but not glossy. The title, Once Upon a Time, was written in an elegant gold script. She had set it down on her desk so she could look through it properly later, and didn’t think about it for the rest of day.

Belle had felt so strange as she entered the new books into the system, as she shelved and checked out and greeted. Something was nagging her as if she had forgotten about an appointment, or if she were wearing two different shoes.

The feeling quieted when she closed the door to her office. It vanished when she picked up the book she had left by her desktop. She opened the pages at random.

Her world went white.

For all it was raining wherever she was now, it hadn’t been in Storybrooke. None of that dark and stormy night nonsense, no lightning strikes, no giant green portals opening in the ground below her feet. That’s what annoyed her the most—it had otherwise been such anormal day. All she had done was open a book (on her afternoon break, no less), and then she had been pulled into—what looked like a forest.

Which was…fine. It was mostly fine.

Only, she was wearing her heels (the red pumps with the peep toe that matched her belt) and she could feel them start to sink into the soft undergrowth of the forest. Her lacy blue dress hardly protected her from the soft rain that was falling, not to mention there wasn’t a path that she could see, and the sun wasn’t out, and she had no god damned clue how any of this had happened.

But if anyone could put on a brave face, it was Belle.

Until the knight found her.

Now she was more lost than ever, stumbling blindly, desperately looking for a path, her shoes long gone and her pantyhose wrapped around a nasty cut to her palm. The throbbing pain her head had abated, at least, but the rain hadn’t stopped.

There was little else she could do but keep walking.

Belle let out a sharp hiss and she stepped on a sharp rock. Luckily, they were few and far between as the constant, if small, rainfall had softened the ground. She leaned against the rough bark of a tree as she ran her fingers over her muddy foot.

“Miss, are you alright?”

With a high-pitched squeal, Belle spun around, only to overbalance on her one leg. She fell to her knees, arms flying out to soften her fall. Quick as she could, she scrambled back to her feet, clawing for the trunk and ignoring how the sudden movement left her feeling entirely too light-headed.

“No, no no no, I’m sorry,” the voice said. “I didn’t mean to scare you.”

Finally, her eyes landed on the speaker. She blinked, rubbing her hands over her face, wondering if she was seeing him correctly.

In front of her, about ten feet away, was a boy. An old boy. A teenager. He had on a thick cloak over a worn shirt and trousers, his clothes various shades of brown. His hair was dark and messy, the parts that stuck out of his hood stringy and wet with rain. He couldn’t have been more than a hair shorter than she was.

“Are you alright?” he asked again. His hands were raised, his palms to her. He didn’t come any closer.

“M’fine,” Belle said, her voice too breathy for her liking.

He frowned, not believing her. “You were headed that way?” he asked, chin pointed in the direction Belle had been going. He didn’t wait for a reply: “You’ll get to the main road if you keep going that way. It’ll lead towards the inn,” he said.

Belle bit her lip. An inn. Surely that was a good idea?

“That’s around where the knights are stationed,” he said.

Belle choked on her breath, pressing further into the trunk.

The boy nodded as if expecting that reaction.

“I know what it means,” he said softly, risking a step closer to her. “When a woman is alone in the woods with ripped clothes, hiding. You could home with me. My papa won’t hurt you like that.”

Belle swallowed. She studied the boy, his eyes earnest, his face pulled into such grave sincerity that she wasn’t sure if he really was as young as she had first thought.

“Your papa,” she said finally, voice flat.

He nodded eagerly. “He walks with a staff—if you got scared and wanted to run, he couldn’t catch you.”

She couldn’t help the laugh that bubbled in her chest. If his father was even half as earnest and kind as this boy was, she’s pretty certain she’d be in good hands.

“My home is away from the village—away from the inn. It’s that way.” He gestured in a different direction from before. “It’d at least be somewhere dry.”

“I like the sound of somewhere dry,” she admitted. “Okay; I’ll go with you.”

His serious face melted into a sweet, boyish smile, the toothy grin somehow putting Belle more at ease than anything he had said before. Taking her acquiescence as permission to approach her, he started pulling at the clasp to his cloak. Despite her half-hearted protests, he draped the warm fabric over her shoulders.

Belle hadn’t realized just how chilled she had become. All at once her feet felt as heavy as cinderblocks, her head was still aching, and she pulled the cloak tighter around her. It was good that this boy had found her when he did.

“What’s your name?”

“Baelfire, miss,” he said with a smile. Up close, she could see a splatter of freckles across his nose, his eyes a deep, deep brown. “Son of Rumplestiltskin, the Spinner.”

“Rumplestiltskin?”

“Uh-huh.” His smile dimmed somewhat. “Have you heard of him?”

“It’s an odd name, I guess,” she said, biting her lip.

It was familiar too, though something told her that no, as much as she knew the story of the magical imp who could turn straw into gold, this was not that man. This was not that story. For one, she was pretty sure the imp had never had a son.

She thought of the knight, his breath hot in her face, his voice soft in her ear: are you a witch, or just a whore?

The words hadn’t really registered in her haste to get away, but Belle wondered now at the truth of them. She thought back to the heavy book in her hands, the leather the last thing she felt before she ended up in the forest.  What if it wasn’t another land that she had come from? What if she’d been sucked into the book?

“Miss?” Baelfire asked, drawing her back to the present. “We should get out of the rain, miss.”

She cleared her throat, hopelessness and panic clawing in her stomach. “Belle. My name is Belle.

The sun was just setting as they made their way through a large field, the forest at their backs. Baelfire’s home was cozy, a rundown hut that looked held together with string and hope. He opened the door for her, beckoning her through.

The first thing Belle noticed was the sudden warmth that she wanted to burrow in. The furs at her feet were a blessing all on their own, and she couldn’t help but clench her toes, trying to put down roots.

The second was the two voices that abruptly stopped when they caught sight of her. She stood as still as she could as two sets of eyes turned to her.

One was crystal clear and blue, his hair blond. He had wide shoulders and a broad chest, and she supposed he was handsome in a traditional sense. When smiled after a moment, and it put her at ease just as much as Bae’s had. This was not a man who would willingly hurt others.

The man next to him was slighter, so much so that he could be called gaunt, and his eyes were just as dark and deep as Baelfire’s. His hair was a lighter color and just grazed his shoulders. He must be Rumplestiltskin, Belle decided, taking careful note of his sharp jaw, sharp nose, and sharp eyes. Rumplestiltskin did not smile, and instead stared at her with his jaw slack, his eyebrows pinching together in confusion.

“David!” Baelfire said behind her, causing her to start. “I didn’t know you’d be here,” he said just a little too loudly.

“I was just getting ready to come looking for you,” David, the blond, said. “It’s dangerous at night, though something tells me you already knew that.”

Belle could feel their own scrutinizing gazes as if they were something wet, something sharp. The only thing she could think to do was stand there with her split lip, her matted, tangled hair. The cloak hid the bruises on her arms were the knight had held her down, but it didn’t quite cover the scrapes on her feet.

David rose. “I know I still have some planeby root,” he said, drawing on his own cloak from where it hung on the back of his seat. “I’ll go and grab it, and I’ll check about any solves or wrappings. I’m sure I can scrounge something up.”

Belle wasn’t sure who he was talking to, her or Rumplestiltskin, who had yet to tear his gaze from her face, his expression unreadable.

“Thank you, David,” Baelfire said. He tugged on her arm, drawing her closer to the fire, where his father sat. “Come sit down. You’ll feel a lot better once you’re off your feet.”

David slipped past them and out as Belle allowed herself to be led and pushed into David’s vacated chair.

“He’s our neighbor,” Bae explained. “Helps me watch the flock when Papa has to spin. He’s nice. Papa, this is Belle.”

Rumplestiltskin shifted as she settled, his gaze flickering away from her and to his son. He seemed to press himself back and away from her, but if it was to give her space or simply because he found her disagreeable, she couldn’t say. He opened his mouth, then closed it again. He tapped his thigh nervously, unable to meet her eyes.

“What’s planeby root?” Belle asked when he continued to fidget.

Brown eyes snapped to her face, his eyebrows rising. “Hm?”

Belle raised her eyebrows right back, knowing he had heard her.

“It’s...it’s for tea,” he said finally, his eyes drifting over to his son, who was dragging down blankets from what looked like a loft at the far end of the hovel. “It will keep any seed from—from growing,” he said.

“Oh,” Belle said. “Oh, he uhm, didn’t get that far.”

Rumplestiltskin released a breath she hadn’t even known he was holding, his shoulders sagging. “Good,” he said quietly. After a pause, “It’s still a rather steadying drink. Will help to warm you up if nothing else.”

“Here,” Bae interrupted. “We can hang the cloak up to dry, and these are warmer anyway,��� he said, holding out the blankets he had been wrestling with.

Belle smiled, so deeply touched by this sweet boy. “Thank you, Baelfire,” she said, happy to make the trade.

Rumpelstiltskin watched as she peeled off the cloak, his eyes on her bruises, on her ruined dress.

“Miss Belle,” he said as she wrapped herself up in the blankets. “You’re safe here, for as long as you need to be.”

Belle met his gaze. She nodded.

Planeby root made a bitter tea, but Belle only took sugar in her coffee, so she drank it anyway.

The next morning dawned cold and wet. The drizzle had turned into a steady downpour overnight, but the hovel remained warm and dry. Belle burrowed firmly into the blankets she had been given last night, pulling them firmly around her as she tried to sink back into sleep. Her body ached.

She could hear a quiet whirring sound that was familiar, but she couldn’t place. It was the only sound other than the constant tap tap tapping of the rain on the roof.

So Belle dozed, lulled to a light sleep by the rain and the spinning of a wheel.

She jolted awake when the door was flung open.

“Baelfire,” Rumpelstiltskin scolded.

“Sorry, Papa, I forgot.”

Belle sat up, rubbing her eyes. She didn’t mind the wake-up call; she was going to have to face her reality sometime.

Which Bae seemed to agree with wholeheartedly. As soon as he saw she was awake and sitting up, he said, “Sir Gaston has set up a watch for you.”

“ Baelfire ,” his papa said.

“You can try to leave. But he’s really angry. So I don’t think you should.”

“Where was this watch yesterday?” Belle asked.

Bae shrugged. “He seemed to think you’d have just wandered into the village on your own.” He pulled at the clasp to his cloak, finally taking it off as well as he could so he didn’t get water everywhere. “He thinks women are...uh…”

His father interrupted that particular train of thought, not that Belle needed to be told what the knight thought of the fairer sex.

“You were supposed to be helping David, not going into town to hear the gossip.”

“Someone had to. David agreed, anyway,” he said. To Belle he said, “You didn’t mention that you got a shot in.”

Belle blushed at the look of pride on his face. “I just scratched him,” she said.

“You did what?”  Rumpelstiltskin turned to her, eyes wide, his gaze downright awe-struck. Her blushed only deepened and she had to look away.

Bae mimed gouging his face. “He has four scrapes. Nasty looking things,” he said with glee.

Rumpelstiltskin licked his lips, the anxiety warring with the admiration on his face. Belle had a feeling she knew what he was thinking about.

“Perhaps you’d be safer at David’s.”

Bae’s smile disappeared. “David’s is closer to town, and he’s much closer to the main road. She’s safe here.”

“I think he’s just worried about you,” Belle murmured. If the knight was angry with her, he certainly wouldn’t hesitate to punish those who helped her hide from him. She drew her legs up, resting her chin on her knees. The thought of anything bad happening to Bae left her feeling cold.

Rumpelstiltskin pushed away from his stool, finally giving up the pretense that he was trying to spin. “Bae’s right, though. David sees a lot of travelers. If the goal is to keep you hidden, here is—is best.”

“Is your village large?” Belle asked, curious despite herself.

“It’s smaller than most,” Rumpelstiltskin said as Bae plopped himself down next to her. “But there has been an increase in people on the road ever since the end of the ogre war.”

Belle snorted a laugh, trying too late to disguise it as a cough. It wasn’t funny—ogres and knights and a spinner named Rumpelstiltskin. Suddenly her chest felt very tight, her skin clammy. Her head hurt, and she pressed it into her hands, unable to look at the looks of bewilderment in her hosts’ faces.

“Belle?” Bae asked when her shoulders started to shake.

“Be a good lad and make some tea, eh?”

The blankets shifted again as Bae reluctantly stood back up. The sound of the cupboards opening, of things being rifled through was loud in the quiet space. Belle focused on taking deep breaths.

“What is this place?” she asked when she had calmed. “Where am I?”

If he was concerned by the turn in the conversation, he didn’t show it. “You’re in the Frontlands, the land of the White King.”

“Like Snow White?”

“That’s the princess’ name, I believe, yes.” There was a pause. Then: “You must come from somewhere far away.”

“Well I’m certainly not from around here.”

Rumple huffed a laugh. “I meant what I said last night, Miss. I won’t ask you leave.”

Belle wiped her face on the sleeve of the dress they gave her last night. “I don’t want to make you or Bae a target.”

Rumple shrugged, his eyes crinkling in a smile he clearly didn’t feel. “No one comes here. We’ll just wait for this to blow over.”

He was not a tall man, not sturdy or broad, and he had a limp caused by a twisted ankle. But he was kind, and Belle felt safe. For now, that was enough.

The days passed slowly.

Rumpelstiltskin spun by the fire, made tea. The rain exacerbated his ankle, so he rarely left to check on the sheep, Bae being more than happy to go in his place. Belle, despite their protests, kept herself busy. She took over the cooking, the cleaning. She even darned the socks, Rumple’s lips twitching as he thanked her for her crooked, uneven lines.

At night they sat by the fire and listened as they told each other stories. Sometimes David would join them, talking of friends in the neighboring kingdom of Arendelle. They didn’t talk about Gaston, then.

It was routine, these quiet moments spent in a fairytale. Belle hadn’t had family, hadn’t had close friends back in her world. When they were together at night it was easy to forget that going outside was dangerous, that Rumple got jittery and nervous whenever she went past the laundry lines.

It isn’t forever, Belle would remind herself. She just had to hold out until Gaston got bored or gave up. She could content herself on watching Rumple as he spun, Bae asleep beside her. It was a secret delight of hers to watch the way the shadows and firelight danced across the the angles of his face, his hands steady and sure as they worked.

Watching him warmed her up better than a fire ever could.

Once, when the embers burned low and they were all supposed to be asleep, Bae asked her, “How are you going to get home?”

Belle turned over in her blankets. She could hear Rumple’s snoring from across the room.

“I don’t know,” she admitted.

“You could stay,” Bae said, his voice swallowed by the dark. “You could stay here with me and Papa.”

“Yeah,” Belle said. “I could.”

Minutes passed, and soon Bae’s steady breathing joined Rumple’s snores.

Belle didn’t sleep much that night.

When Belle thought of home, she thought of her library, of all the books that she had yet to catalogue and shelve. Books were few and far between here, which was her only lament.

She kept darning socks, kept washing the dishes. She sat with Rumple and Bae by the fire.

Everything was sweet and calm, and Belle was content.

Until the knight found her.

 It was a sunny afternoon, the second day in a row it hadn’t rained, and Belle was pulling the laundry down. She was humming to herself, thinking of nothing in particular when suddenly David was beside her, pulling her into the house.

“What—”

“Rumpelstiltskin,” he said, closing the door behind him. “Bae’s been arrested.”

Rumple looked up from the wheel. He frowned, as if he had just heard a tasteless joke. “Arrested? But why? For what?”

“For ‘obstructing a knight’s business.’”

Rumple’s eyes snapped to Belle’s. She felt as if a hand were wrapped around her throat (hands gripping her arms, pressing her down).

Clutching the wheel like a lifeline, Rumple shook his head, his eyes widened in horror.

“Is he expecting a trade?” Belle asked, her voice sounding hollow to her ears.

“Not exactly,” David said. “Just listen, okay? We don’t have much time. Bae came up with an excuse as to why a strange woman is living with you—he’s been insisting that Belle is his new stepmother.”

“Stepmother?” Rumple said.

“He’s thought it through: she’s a friend of my friends from Arendelle and came here to marry as soon as the war ended.”

“David, that’s prepos—”

“The problem is that Gaston knows there haven’t been any marriages in the weeks that Belle’s been here,” David continued. “He’s gone to the magistrate and is on his way here so he can see you wed at once.”

“What about Bae?” Rumple said, his voice a few notches higher.

“He’s being held in the jailhouse. Gaston says he’ll be released when this matter is resolved.”

Belle frowned. “I don’t understand.”

“He’s expecting you to run, I think,” David said. “Or at least refuse, in which case—”

“Of course I’m not running,” Belle snapped. A coil, bound tight and hot had snapped inside her. She advanced on David, who held up his hands in a pacifying gesture that she ignored. “I, for one, am tired of letting myself be cowed and intimidated by some over-sized prick who thinks he can bully people into getting what he wants. How dare he use Baelfire like this, and how dare he think I will let him get away with this.”

She whirled around to face Rumple. “We’re getting married today,” she said, her tone daring Rumple to disagree with her.

She need not have worried; the look on Rumple’s face was one of such wonderment that the answer couldn’t have been anything other than yes.

“Aye,” he said, breathless. “We’re getting married.”

David looked between them. “Well, that makes the next part a little easier then.”

“Next part?” Belle asked, unable to tear herself away from the look on Rum’s face.

“He’s demanding proof of maidenship.”

“ Excuse me?” With her eyes still on Rumple, she saw his wince, the guilt that clouded the awe.

David kept his hands up, his eyes shooting to the window as the sound of horses could be heard.

“Gaston claims he took your maidenhead that night in the woods, and that he is entitled to your hand in marriage because of it. If you don’t marry Rumple, he’ll marry you himself.”

“He didn’t,” Belle said. “I got away. How in gods name do we prove—”

“He’ll want to look at the marriage bed. At the sheets, I mean. See the proof there,” Rumple said softly. His eyes darted to his spinning wheel, to the pad that he slept on.

Belle bit the inside of her cheek. What an archaic practice. She wasn’t a maiden, hadn’t been since she was a teenager, and even then she hadn’t bled her first time. Women weren’t supposed to bleed, she wanted to yell, but this was hardly the time for a sex-ed lesson, especially now that footsteps could be heard up the path to the door.

He didn’t bother knocking. “Open up, Spindleshanks. I know you’re in there,” said a voice Belle had hoped never to hear again.

Before either Rumple or David could move, Belle walked to the door and swung it wide. There stood Gaston, tall and broad-chested, sneer firmly in place. Behind him was the magistrate, an old man with frazzled, graying hair that stuck out in all directions, round glasses perched on the end of his nose.

“Good afternoon, madame,” said the magistrate. “I believe congratulations are in order.”

“Yes, thank you. Today is my wedding day,” Belle said tightly, glaring at Gaston.

Gaston’s sneer deepened as he looked through the threshold and saw David. “I see someone has already explained. No matter,” he said turning back to Belle. “The choice is obvious, girl.”

“You’re right,” she said. “It is. Sir,” she said, addressing the magistrate, “would you please marry  Rumpelstiltskin and me?”

“Of course, my dear,” the man said.

“Now wait just a minute,” Gaston said. “You would rather shackle yourself to this sorry excuse for a man then me? I’m offering you an out, you stupid girl.”

“You are offering me nothing,” Belle said.

“Fine,” Gaston sneered. “Marry old Hobble Foot here. Be the laughingstock of the village. I’ll keep that boy of yours, show him what happens to those who disobey me.”

Rumple made a sound of distress in the back of his throat. Belle drew herself up to her full height, head thrown back.

“You will do no such thing, Gaston,” the magistrate said. “The boy will be released once proof of consummation is given. You are aware that your virtue has been called into question, dear?” he asked Belle.

“Yes,” she hissed.

“Given that Baelfire is still young, I’ll put him up in the inn for the evening. Consider it a wedding present,” he said. “We will return in the morning, you can show that you are as virtuous as you say, and we can all get on with our lives.”

There wasn’t any sort of amusement in his face, just mild annoyance. Belle got the sense he was being generous out of spite for Gaston.

“Now then, madame, what is your name?”

“Belle.”

“Belle, do you take Rumpelstiltskin as your husband from this day forward, to become blood of his blood, together till death do you part?”

“Yes, I do.”

“Rumpelstiltskin, same question.”

“Y-yes. I do.”

“Well, then. I do declare you are married. I will see you tomorrow. Ta-taa.”

“That’s it?” Gaston snapped. “But—”

“Gaston,” the magistrate said, a hard, impatient note in his voice. “Let this go.” Without another word, he walked back to the horses, Gaston following in his wake. With one final sneer in her direction, they mounted and were gone.

Belle closed the door. Squaring her shoulders, she marched over to the pallet that Rumple slept on, pulling it closer to the hearth. The sheets on it were mostly clean, replaced during the first round of laundry the day before, which was just as well for their purposes. If they were going to do this, they weren’t going to do it in some musty corner.

When she straightened, she was met with twin, slack jawed looks.

“David,” she said patiently.

That seemed to kick him out of his stupor. “Yes, right, I’ll be on my way. I’m glad to see everything’s worked out fine.”

“Will Bae be okay at the inn?” Belle asked.

“If he’s at the inn he’s perfectly safe, but I’ll stop by, let him know that you’re officially his mother now. He’ll like that, I think.”

“Thank you, David,” Rumple said, letting him show himself out, not taking his eyes off Belle.

With that, they were alone.

“Well,” Belle said, at a loss. She wasn’t sure how to go about this. “Come sit down.” She plopped down on the pallet herself, holding her hand out for him.

He still had that adorable, dreamy look on his face, his hand blindly reaching for hers. Belle kept hold of him when he was down next to her.

“Rumple, if you don’t want to...consummate the marriage, we don’t have to.”

He squeezed her hand. “Isn’t that supposed to be my line?”

“I just want us to be on the same page.”

“Right. Well.” He came to a halt when she bit her lip, his eyes drawn to her mouth.

“Are you okay with this?” Belle asked. She hadn’t really gotten his actual opinion on anything that had happened in the last hour or so. It had all unfolded so fast. “Being married I mean, not just the sex part.”

Rumple gave her a rueful smile, even as he blushed. “I of all people know that the bonds of matrimony are only as strong as one chooses to make them.”

Belle squeezed his hand again. She leaned towards him, close enough to feel the warmth from him shoulder. “What do you mean?”

“You never asked where your dresses came from,” he said still not looking at her.

“I assumed they came from...a wife?” she said slowly. “Bae’s mother.”

“Aye.”

“I...I thought she may have died.” Bae had never mentioned a mother, nor had Rumple ever mentioned a woman, period. Belle could tell that the clothes had been in the trunk for a long time, so it seemed fair to assume that whomever they belonged to was long gone.

“She left.”

“Just...left?”

“Ran off with a man worthy of her,” he said not making eye contact.

“Do you think I’ll leave?” Belle asked after a pause.

“Your home is somewhere far away, you’ve said so yourself.”

“Can’t this be my home now?” She tugged on his hand until he met her eyes. “Or you and Bae could come with me, when it’s time.”

“Go with you?”

“I think...I think I want you with me, Rumpelstiltskin. Always.”

“I want that too,” he said. Lord, but his eyes were deep and dark, growing darker the more Belle gazed into them.

“Rumple?” she said.

“Aye?”

“We’ve been married a whole twenty minutes and you haven’t kissed me yet.”

“That sounds like a problem.”

“It’s a travesty.”

“Maybe I should—”

Belle pressed her lips to his, drinking the words he was about to say. When he gasped, Belle slipped her tongue into his mouth, her hands gliding up to his hair. She was delighted to find it was every bit as soft as it looked.

 It was a relief that Belle hadn’t moved the pallet for nothing. Not that she was thinking about it with her head thrown back, one hand on her breast as the other clenched in Rumple’s soft, soft hair, his tongue working between her legs.

She wasn’t thinking much of anything, only what it felt like as he ran his tongue along her labia, sucking it gently before running his tongue around her clit. His finger teased at her entrance, and he ran it up and down her slit until she was ready to scream. She broke, at long last, when he finally entered her and crooked his finger just so, to the side, his tongue still at her clit.

When Belle finally got him underneath her, when she finally straddled his hips and guided his cock into her body, she saw stars, her cunt clenching as she took as much of him as she could.

“Oh, Belle,” he gasped, sprawled beneath her, his eyes moving from her breasts as they bounced with each downwards thrust of her hips to where she rode him, where they were both wet and sticky.

When she clenched around him, reaching the very edge of her pleasure, it was enough to send him over also, and she revealed in the feel of him emptying in her.

She ran her hands up his chest, up his throat to his jaw. She cupped his face, the precious, beautiful thing that it was. He opened his eyes, and Belle basked in the tender look she saw there.

She kissed him, gently.

 They lay there in the late afternoon sun, enjoying that it wasn’t raining or that they hadn’t had to start a fire yet. They explored and re-explored each others bodies lazily with hands and mouths. It was soft, and sweet, and perfect.

The sun had set and Belle was dozing when Rumple pulled himself up and away from her. She grumbled in protest, rubbing at her eyes.

“Just a moment, my love,” he said.

Belle hummed, sitting up to watch him return to their marriage bed with the spindle of his spinning wheel. She frowned.

He shrugged. “I’d rather protect your reputation,” he said right before pricking his finger hard enough to draw blood.

Belle made a disagreeable sound in the back of her throat. “Do we really have to show them the sheets?” Her bravado from earlier had waned somewhat.

Rumple pressed his thumb to his finger, then hovered over the largest wet spot. Belle watched at red bloomed against the white.

“We likely will, yes.” He raised the spindle, twiddled it in the air. “It’d only cause more problems if we refused at this point.”

She rolled her eyes, falling back down and muttered something barbaric practices as Rumple put the spindle away.

“What’ll we do after?” she asked, wrapping around him like a cat when he lay back down next to her, her head pillowed on his shoulder.

“Tomorrow, you mean? When Bae’s back?”

“Yeah.”

He was quiet for some time, running his hands up and down her arm. “There’s a city, about a day and a half journey from here. It’s nearly three times as large as our village.”

“Okay,” Belle said, lips twitching when he said our.

“Well, there’s a bookseller there, and we did well enough at the last market—”

“There’s a bookseller?” Belle gasped, sitting up, eyes wide. “Why didn’t you mention this before?”

“My dear, you would have doomed us all,” he said, eyes crinkling as he smiled, tilting his chin up for a kiss.

[writerly-owl-blog]

Undead: Chapter One

Summary: It’s been a year since the unexplained rising of the dead and mass infection of the millions, but Lance is managing to survive. He even thinks he’s doing pretty damn well, as fighting for your life goes, until he meets Keith - the boy with the sword and quiet words and constant plan. Mix in Hunk and Pidge, and they’ve got a solid team of four and a solid method of survival, but when they stumble into a hostage, an experimental, mad genius, and the odd truth, keeping some semblance of a nice, unconfrontational life may not be as easy as they had originally thought.

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

On AO3

CHAPTER ONE

Lance had gotten so used to the groans and moans of the undead that an actual, real life scream startles him more than anything.

He jumps in place a bit, broken glass crunching beneath his worn-out boots, and gingerly steps to the side to avoid getting properly speared via the wide gap in his shoe that spans from his callused toes to the middle of his foot. He isn’t having a repeat of the car window incident the other day, that’s for sure. He refuses.

“Oh, god,” Lance mutters with his mouth full, his eyes rolling of their own accord. His hand clenches into a fist at his side, the muffin wrapper noisily crumpling between his fingers.

Of course, a cry for help had to come around when he had a blueberry muffin half-stuffed into his mouth for the first time in what seems like years. His eyes close, his throat humming an old tune that he can’t quite remember the origin of,  his tongue swirling around the bits of gloriously sugary yet admittedly stale muffin. Lance isn’t complaining about it, though. Not at all. Honestly, he’s had much worse, like the raw fish he’d somehow managed to catch a few weeks ago, his feet plunged into the muddy water, his hands attempting to grasp it by the tail or the middle. The fish was like a bar of soap in the way it struggled to escape from his damp fingers - a bar of soap that bites, leaving him a nice scab for his troubles.

So, given the risk of eating raw local wildlife in a land filled with the diseased undead, he’d been thrilled to see a prize for his troubles few days later while walking down the interstate with the sun beating on his back - a perfectly wrapped, dainty granola bar, sitting there in its tantalizing way on a piping-hot leather seat in the back of a car. Nice and shiny, its silver wrapping fiercely reflecting the sun. Undisturbed. Perfect.

Yes, the glass of the car window had stuck into Lance’s elbow - he couldn’t find anything else better to ram the window with. Yes, he’d spent a good thirty minutes afterwards picking it out by the car after he’d claimed his meal, hissing curses underneath his breath. And yes, once he’d stepped forward, patting himself on the back for a job well done, he’d stepped on a particularly nasty shard that found itself lodged in his foot.

No, he was not happy about it. So really, all fish and granola bars considered, the muffin was a steal.

“Hold on, m’comin,” he mutters to himself after he stuffs the rest of the pastry into his mouth, his hand reaching for the old-fashioned pistol that he’d swiped from a raid on what seemed to be an old woman’s house, judging from the doilies and the dolls. She’d had plenty of ammo, too, which made Lance question her hobbies, but whatever hobbies they were, he hopes she’s having a grand old time doing them in the afterlife. Or wherever she is.

Whatever. He doesn’t care. But he does care about the yell that rings out again, right from beside the gas station in a separate building that houses an old run-down car wash.

“I’m coming! Jeez, stop yelling!” he says again, louder this time. Lance quickly checks the ammo  - five more rounds, wonderful - and he has to ram his shoulder into the rusted-out door in desperate need of WD-40 to burst it open, curving a hard left toward the Soap n’ Suds.

He vaguely remembers Soap n’ Suds from when he was very small, just a tot in a car seat, and and absolutely, mortifyingly terrified of car washes. Nothing struck fear into the heart of young Lance like the smiling red cartoon car looming outside of his window, telling of the horrors of strange tornado-like wipers that were looming just around the corner.

Nothing strikes fear into Lance’s heart like the rotting stench of walking corpses, either, which blasts into him like an unwelcome sauna of smell the moment he enters the car wash through the back end instead of the front. Call him a rebel. Bad to the bone.

Also call him a scared soul that screeches as a teen his age just about backs into him, his muscles straining as he hefts up an old-fashioned, rusting sword and swipes it toward one of the many zombies that stutter toward him on uncertain feet. One of them is nothing but half of a formerly full person, both of its eyes completely missing, but thankfully nowhere around, dragging itself forward by its surprisingly muscular arms, scrabbling at the boy’s ankles. The boy grunts, delivering a swift kick to the zombie’s head, but another zombie has just about caught up to him, its hand scattered with bloody hangnails, open flaps of flesh that ooze out purple and yellow and all the colors Lance would rather a wound not be, frankly.

“Get it!” Lance screeches, taking deep breaths to calm himself into the Sharpshooting Zone - a certain state of mind that he indulges himself in, whenever the situation calls for it.

Step back. Take a breath. Aim for the head. Shoot.

His finger slams against the trigger without a second thought.

His bullet smashes into the crawling zombie’s brain while the other teen sticks his sword clean through the neck of the other, grimacing as it crashes to its knees, gore and gut spilling from the cut. He plants a foot on its chest for leverage and yanks the blade out, looking toward Lance with wide eyes, and in that moment, Lance can only think one thing, zombies be damned.

“Is that a mullet?” he asks in bewilderment, pointing toward the other’s hair that curls ever so slightly at the nape of his neck. The other frowns, his self-consciously hand raising to his hair, but his eyes widen as Lance abruptly swings the front of his pistol toward his head, eyes narrowing, breath bated.

“Don’t move,” Lance mutters, gritting his teeth. The other freezes. Lifts his hands in surrender.

The pistol goes off, steadied by Lance’s hand, and something whizzes past the other’s ear, sharp as a whistle. A groan scooped from the pits of something’s belly wheezes into the air. Slick, hot blood pools against the back of his legs, spreads on the ground like a messy art project, minus the glitter. Glitter would be nice. Maybe a bit morbid, given the circumstances, but nice.

The other boy quickly takes a few steps forward, twisting around to glance at the fallen zombie for a moment or two, before locking eyes with Lance.

And oh. Lance has never seen eyes like that.

Or a mullet like that.

“Seriously, man, a mullet?” Lance says again, clicking the safety on his pistol, pressing a hand to his belly as he begins to laugh, and laugh, and laugh.

“Hey!” the other groans at him, chin tilted up. “I love my mullet.”

“Good. At least someone does.” Lance cracks up at his own joke, flashing a smile at the pinched look on the other’s face. “You deserve to be teased after ruining my  muffin moment.”

“Your…” The other trails off, eyebrows knitted together.

“My muffin moment. Yes. It’s hard to find food, y’know,” Lance says defensively, shoving the pistol into his oversized pocket attached to his oversized pants that barely hang on to his hips, their saving grace an old brown belt. “If you’re looking for some, it’s in that gas station over there.”

“Oh. Thanks.” The other pauses for a moment, pursing his lips, before his eyes flick back up toward Lance’s. “What’s your name?”

“Lance. Otherwise known as the man who just saved your life. You?”

“I’m sure I would’ve been just fine. And it’s Keith.”

“Nice.”

And the two stand in silence.

“Sooooo. Where’re you headed?” Lance awkwardly asks, shuffling a foot into the concrete.

“I…have no idea.”

“Cool. Same.”

More silence. Then -

“Safety in numbers.” It’s Keith, his eyes locked on Lance’s again. Purple? Blue? Lance doesn’t know, but he tries to search out every individual fleck of color, out of sheer curiosity, of course. Not because they’re pretty. Of course not. That would be ridiculous.

“Yeah. You wanna come with?” He pointed his thumb proudly to his chest, flashing a cheesy smile. “I’m the best sharpshooter on this side of the country!”

“Yeah, I saw,” Keith says, whirling his sword in his hands. “And I stab.”

“A sharpshooter and a stabber. What else does one need?” Lance jokes, beginning to stroll out of the small stall of rubber tornadoes and endless smiling car doodles. He doesn’t ask about the sword. He’s seen weirder weapons in this new world.

“That’s a good question,” Keith dryly notes, beginning to follow, and there’s no trace of a smile on his face. In fact, Keith hasn’t laughed at any of Lance’s jokes. Not a one.

Challenge accepted.

_______

One of the first thing Lance notes about Keith is that he isn’t a talker. Notably so.

This first occurs to him in the first few hours that they’re walking on the road, the dry, hot sun sending sweat pouring down their necks, pooling in the collars of their shirts, but besides the obvious, imminent heat stroke approaching, Keith still can’t seem to take that damn red jacket off.

“Aren’t you hot?” Lance pipes up a few miles down the road, his hand carefully rested on his pistol. Keith’s eyes flicker to his as if alarmed, or waking from a particularly intense dream. Or both.

“Uh. No.”

“Oh…well.” Lance chokes on his words, pulling down on the sleeves of his old green jacket that’s tied around his waist, marked with bold yellow rectangles on the side. He remembers when it wasn’t so tattered and faded, particularly in the house - draped over the wooden dinner table, hung up in him and his brother’s walk-in closet, in the corner of his eye during the occasional scuffles they’d get into over who was to wear it that day, or that week. It was rarely washed, always crusted over with the  remains of beans they’d had for dinner, or a spot of sticky Coca-Cola, but when it was washed once in a blue moon it was as soft as a piece of prized felt, smelling of the old familiar detergent his family used. It was always the same brand, for as long as he can remember - it smelled of lilac and lavender, like clean, space-themed sheets and the hoodies he’d used to wear all the time.

He doubted he’d ever smell that ever again, given what’s happened. If they ever  were blessed by the miracle of stumbling by a grocery store, he’d probably scan the cleaning aisles, searching for it. Just for a whiff of home.

Home. Safety. The opposite feeling that flashes through Keith’s eyes as they  zero in on his arm, carefully scan over his trigger-happy fingers.

“Not for you, buddy. I thought I’d proved that earlier,” he says, pursing his lips.

“Yeah. It’s just. You can never be-”

“Too careful, yeah.” His sister had always said that. Her and her smart mouth, and her tough attitude that knew just when to be soft on him. Her and her sisterly advice to her clumsy, rambunctious younger brother.

Lance sniffs.

Keith whips his head toward him, an odd look plastered on his face, as if he were about to perform open-heart surgery on someone without even knowing how to  do chest compressions.

The old Lance would joke. Flash him a set of finger guns, say some joke to throw the whole situation on its head, blowing the other person’s mind - obviously. When did he not blow anybody’s mind? Never, that’s when.

So the old Lance is still there. Obviously. Just dormant. Hiding, ever since his mother was the first to go. Afraid to let go, drown into itself, lose all the seriousness needed to survive.

But damn, if it didn’t burst out sometimes. Just…not now.

_____

During dinner, or during the meal in which what meager food they’ve both stacked up and traded is choked down as soon as humanly possible, Lance actually decides to try.

He had to admit that he was liking the current fire they had going - the land had a habit of turning from a summer-in-California kind of temperature to one of an indoor penguin exhibit the moment the sun dipped below the horizon, the kind that caused Lance to shrug his green jacket back on and lean towards the pocket of warmth, the leaping licks of orange and yellow. The two are closely surrounded by leafy greens in the untamed bits of vegetation on the side of the two-lane highway, just off the road sign that warns of deer and car crashes and things nobody has to worry about anymore.

“So you know how to make a fire, woodsy guy,” Lance says as they plop down on the ground, tearing into his beef jerky like a wild beast. He grimaces as soon as the unfortunate taste hits his tongue. Pepper jerky. He’d never been a fan of it, sure, but he’d be a fan of Spam itself if it meant he didn’t have to starve. “What were you, a boy scout?”

Keith doesn’t answer for a moment, and Lance thinks he’s not going to respond at all, before he does. “Nah. I used to live in the woods,” Keith muses, slipping those poor excuses for gloves off of his fingers, letting the flames flicker closer to his fingers than probably advised by Smoky the Bear. “I made a lot of them. It always came naturally.”

“You lived in the woods? Like, in a tent?” Lance hates camping. Poison ivy. Mosquitos. Which is a lot like the position he’s in, right this second.

Probably not a good time to mention that. Or think too hard about it.

“No, I lived in a cabin.”

“With your family?”

“Nope. Just me.” He says it so simply, without much emotion, and Lance can’t quite pick up on how he feels about that. Just a vagabond teen, living in the woods. No big deal.

Lance can’t imagine life without his family.

Well. Actually, he can, now.

“Oh. Did you like it?” Lance hesitantly asks, sipping loudly on one of the multiple water bottles that he has stuffed in his industrial-grade, probably atomic-bomb-proof backpack that he’s had since the 8th grade. He imagines himself like a Lance-shaped camel, hoarding his goods in the bag hump for a later day. Or a camel-shaped Lance? Either way, Keith speaks before he can delve into that particular topic.

“Sometimes.”

And that’s all Keith has to say about that.

The silence means that Lance can hear the fire peacefully crackling, a low, comforting noise that reminds him of home almost as much as lavender and lilac, taking him back to the fire pit they’d built in the back yard when he was six and had a hankering for some s’mores, a trait that never really left him. But it also means that he can hear the eerie whistling of the wind rusting through the trees as if disturbing them on purpose, cruelly tearing its leaves off and slamming them into the ground. One of them, an enormous, broad oak leaf, slaps Lance square in the forehead, pasting itself firmly to his face thanks to the wind, and Lance lets out an almost feral growl as he scrabbles at its edges, flinging it into the fire.

“Stupid leaf,” he mutters, scrubbing his hands all over his face to rid it of its itching, and Keith’s head is bowed, his bangs flopping over his forehead in an oily mess.

It takes Lance far too long to recognize the solitary shake of his shoulders, the crest of a grin glinting on his face for a blessed moment, before it disappears.

“Are you laughing at me?” Lance squawks, winding his arms together in a tight knot. “I’ll have you know, that leaf was brutal! I could have died!”

Of all the things that made Keith laugh, it had to be a leaf attacking Lance’s face. If that momentary scoff could be counted as a laugh, that is.

When Keith looks up, however, his expression is much more sober, his eyes glinting with something drained of all amusement and filled with wary, careful flickers of…something. Fear? Apprehension? Confusion?

“I wonder where they are,” he quietly says, his voice carrying along with the wind, but Lance manages to hear it.

“Who?”

“I mean, we haven’t seen many today. I wonder if they’re hiding.”

Oh. Them.

“Or maybe there aren’t many in this area. We’re kind of in the middle of nowhere, here,” Lance counters.

“It’s still not…right.” Keith’s face is pinched, even more than the regular, run of the mill Keith-pinch that Lance has begun to recognize in such a short time. His hands fiddle in his lap, turning something over, and over, and over, and Lance would ask, pry into it, if he wasn’t hit with a sudden wave of exhaustion. His little-sleep high had just crashed. Shit.

“Hey, I’m gonna get some sleep. Wake me up when it’s time for me to be sentry,” Lance murmurs, wincing as he shoves his backpack off his back and huddles onto it like a pillow. Only the pillow is filled with the uncomfortable edges and bumps of plastic water bottles.

Water bed. It’s a water bed. Sure.

And despite the screeching of the wind grating against his eardrums, and Keith’s constant poking at the fire, leaving the logs of wood rolling over each other, he somehow finds solitude, pulled down into an uneasy yet dreamless sleep.