#feeling a sadness and ache so ancient within my soul

[just-spacetrash]

who up aching so inexplicably

[yandereunsolved]

In Death & Life

Pairing: James Patrick March x Fallen angel gn reader Summary: You preform a necromancy ritual on your fiancé to bring him back from death. The both of you reminisce and connect with each other on the mortal plane. trigger warning(s): none word count: 674 a/n: Just a short little thing. I lost determination to write it all the way so I gave it a satisfying end.

Ceremonial crimson candles cast an ominous shadow amongst the room that hides the secrets of a killer. The wicks slowly burn towards their inevitable end, the ritual already underway. Room sixty-four lies bare of any of its previous furnishings. A salt ring lies in the middle. Nothing lies within the ring; not even the light from the candles dare touch it. For it is crowded with the souls of the damned. The demonic entities praising the one that helps their master rise from his grave.

A bowl of rose water lies right outside the ring. A figure clad in cloth blacker than the hearts of men. A veil covers their face as they mutter ancient incantations only known by a chosen few. They mutter them fervently, almost obsessively. Again and again in a seemingly never ending loop.

Their knees ache from kneeling for so many hours. Their heart aches more—your heart aches more. Your heart beats for the man you are resurrecting: James Patrick March. Your James Patrick March. Your beloved fiancé. The one you saved from that wretched woman. The Countess may have felt nothing for the darkness, but you feel everything. You slit her neck and her tower of power crumbled beneath your feet. You filled the hole in his soon beating chest.

You coat your numb hands in the rosewater. One of the final steps in his resurrection. Having an affinity for death and necromancy since childhood finally came to fruition. Without his original body, you had to haggle a few souls in the Cortez for a demon to create a new one for him. In that moment, it was all worth it.

You stand as your hand reaches into the salt circle. The shadows receded as the flames of the candles cast them away. The dance between the devils and the darkness intertwined into both of your souls. He calls out to you like a spellbinding siren's song. From the depths of the shadows comes your true love.

His body was exactly that while in his ghost form. His ravenette strands still ever slicked back. The trimmed mustache of his sitting proudly above this top lip. His toned body was proudly suited to those three pieces. His neck slit is now healed, but the scar is apparent.That charming smile, goddesses, it looks even better now. 

"You are reborn as a warlock, my love. Immortal. Alive." Your words are hoarse and barely escape your cracked lips.

Your shaking hands are struggling to listen to the commands that your mind is giving them. Your left thumb barely touches his cheek before he has dragged you across the circle, separating the salt circle and making it incomplete. You couldn't even begin to care, as the ritual is complete. You are held in his deathly, loving grip once again.

"Indeed, darling. I am now the most famous serial killer both alive and dead." He whispers fervently as he places feather light kisses on each of your knuckles. "We shall wed in a few days time. Our consummation will finally be with the both of us living."

Your frayed wings and broken halo appear for a single moment. After all, you cannot risk using your abilities too often. Lest the angels hunt you, or the devils wish to make deals for your power. Once a mighty angelic being is now only the shell of one. Your wings are nothing more than bone, and your halo floats above your head in pieces. More fragments of your once-heavenly halo chip off and fall every day. Further tethering you to the mortal realm. 

You wrap the bones around his body as tears fall from your otherworldly eyes. His oddly tender hands wipe the tears away. He brings each finger up to his mouth as he tastes your sadness. A pleased smirk appears on his features as he places a teasing kiss on your delicate temple.

"You taste absolutely divine." He purrs gently as he tugs your waist closer towards him. "I cannot wait to taste you even more after our dinner tonight."

-ˋˏ✄┈┈┈┈

.ೃ࿐ -ˋˏ ༻❁༺ ˎˊ- .ೃ࿐

⟿ taglist: @coentinim @bluerthanvelvet444 @cxndiedvi0lets @lacucarachapisser @etheral-moon @fear-is-truth @slutforgarlogan @newwavesylviaplath @violet1737 @marchsfreakshow

.ೃ࿐ -ˋˏ ༻❁༺ ˎˊ- .ೃ࿐

[i-dont-talk-for-days-on-end]

Sherlock Holmes, Goethe and “Faust” (and love, maybe)

So, I made this post which was basically a (sad) parody about the end of “The Sign of Four” when Watson says “I’m getting married” and Holmes says “That’s a pity, where’s the cocaine?”

What got me thinking was that Holmes also quotes Goethe at this point, saying: “Schade, dass die Natur nur einen Menschen aus dir schuf, Denn zum würdgen Mann war und zum Schelmen der Stoff“, meaning something in the line of „ It's a pity that nature made only ONE person out of you because there's potential in you to be a dignified man or a rascal”. [And that's not a great translation, but I'm struggeling with "Schelm". Anyway.]

So, this is far-fetched, I admit it. But I, as a native German speaker, immediately associated that with another quote by Goethe that is (at least nowadays and at least in Germany) much more well-known and has become some kind of a winged word:

“Zwei Seelen, wohnen, ach! in meiner Brust!” – “Two souls, alas! reside within my breast!”

[translation via the Gutenberg-Projekt]

So, basically, in this scene, the protagonist – Dr. Faust, who is some kind of a mad scientist and philosopher and just in general very enthusiastic about gaining knowledge and experience and the like, but currently despairing because he realized he can never really know anything at all – is going for a walk with an acquaintance of his, Wagner. Wagner thinks he’s super nerdy and edgy and stuff and says things like he doesn’t care about the beauty of nature and worldly things in general because he prefers reading ancient books.

So, that’s when Faust disagrees and says that that Wagner only knows that one impulse (and honestly, he actually doesn’t even know the one because Wagner is not such a big fan of critical thinking but rather likes doing things that make him feel important), the intellectual, spiritually minded impulse. But there’s a second one that Faust longs to experience rather violently: The worldly one, the beauties and joys (and all the other feelings) of being alive, being worldly and corporeal and experiencing what it means to be human. (Note: A few lines later they will meet Mephistopheles, the devil, and there will be a pact made in which Faust will trade his life for an all-inclusive experience of the worldly delights.) These two wishes (and ways of living) fight for dominance within him.

And that brings me back to Sherlock Holmes. Holmes quotes Goethe after Watson is like “Seriously, how can one person be so hyperactive and so lazy at once??”, so on the obvious level the quote refers to opposing character traits within one person. But if one makes the associative leap to the much more well-known quote from Goethe’s “Faust”, one might also argue that Holmes is really talking about how he both wants to live a rational, professional life and an emotional, private life – and that he doesn’t see a way to unite them. Don’t forget how only a few lines previous he said: “love is an emotional thing, and whatever is emotional is opposed to that true cold reason which I place above all things”. Please don’t forget about “the science of deduction” that forces Holmes, or so he says, to remain detached from everything, just as Faust tries to unravel the mysteries and meanings of the world and life itself by theory – and despairs of it. (Following the worldly way of gaining knowledge is what satisfies Faust in the end, but it also brings him into sin, guilt and damnation. His soul is saved, however in part II, through the love of his girlfriend whom he treated really badly. Anyway.)

Watson is leaving Holmes, so he tries to tell himself that this is better anyway because "love is an emotional thing" etc. pp. we get it. Poor Sherlock Holmes thinks that he can either pursue perfection or happiness. You can choose either exact science or love, reason or emotion. He says so directly. Someone should give him a hug.

PS: I’m not a literature student and it’s been a while since I thought about “Faust” in depth, so if there are any specialists here, please correct me if I missed something crucial (but please be kind).

[pastelsandpining]

Whumptober Day 1

all trussed up and still nowhere to go

“you have to let go” | barbed wire | bound

kingdom come - corrupt!zelda au | part 2 

warnings: survivor’s guilt, trauma, gory imagery/body horror (descriptions of Ganon), injury mention, burn mention, blood mention, nausea, head injury, loss of consciousness, acceptance of death, binds, manipulation

____________________

Looking out at the rolling plains, the baby blue sky, the lively green grass, and the flourishing wildlife nearly everywhere he could see, it was hard to believe that Hyrule was decimated a century ago. Where life bloomed now, death had once spread, and it was anything but beautiful when the fields were burning—when guardians and monsters alike chased down any and all living things. It was hard to take down powerful beasts and even more so when they didn’t stay down.

But just like those vile creatures who only wanted to cause chaos, Hyrule never really died either. It was the quick and clever thinking of Princess Zelda that saved them all by containing the beast of Calamity inside of the very place she once called home. She was a thing of myth some hundred years later when people recalled her beauty or her bravery. If it were not for the moons scorched with blood, or the chilling cry of a colossal demon, or the guardians still roving over the land, one could find themselves thinking that the story of Hyrule was nothing more than a cautionary fairytale. What moral could come from such devastating times? Do not run from fate, or you will end up as caged as the Hyrulean Princess? Do not put heart above duty, or you will fall just as the legendary hero? Or perhaps, do not put trust in things you cannot always control?

Really, there was no lesson to be learned. Destruction would come as it did, and there was nothing they could’ve done to stop it. At least, that’s what Link told himself on the many nights he was found unable to sleep, too haunted by the ghosts of his past and terrorized by the stalling sensation of guilt. How solemn that sounded, how pitiful. He did not want pity. What good did that do him, when he’d already lost everything? He’d fallen once, and that cost him his friends, his life, the place he called home–pity would not bring that back. Hymns of brave soldiers and lost princesses would not bring that back. Stories that turned a traumatizing cause of devastation into a life lesson would not bring that back.

The only thing he wanted, months after waking in a shrine to a beautiful voice and with a fractured soul, was peace. He wanted to toss the sword of legend aside and never look at it again. He wanted to curl up in the bed of his Hateno home and sleep for another hundred years, or at least, until the pictures of a burning kingdom and the unholy screeching of Calamity Ganon disappeared just long enough for his mind to go quiet. He wanted to try to be normal, for even just a moment. No hero, no revenge, nothing of the sort.

It was a shame that the image of what he wanted was incomplete without the princess he’d once devoted his heart and soul to. He could not remember her in the way he would’ve liked. Link was granted a glimpse of her face here, a whisper of her voice there, a ghost of her touch when the loneliness became too much. On the few occasions he remembered more, when he could see her so very clearly in a moment framed in time, it felt almost like a dream. A dream that he didn’t want to wake up from. And just like a pleasurable dream that left one feeling warm and special, Zelda slipped through his fingers like liquid, faster than he could process and unable to be stopped. In its wake was a blank space of aching emptiness, right where he knew she should be. She was all he had left, the one thing that could connect him to the world he lived in, because without her, he had no purpose. He had no guidance. He was nothing.

So Link scoured the whole of the continent, from icy tundras to scorching deserts, climbing active volcanos and harnessing what the wild gave him, to grow stronger. He tamed the Divine Beasts and freed the shackled spirits of his long lost friends. He offered his company to the princess on the nights of the blood moon, where she would warn him and assure him that he was doing well, and that she was alright. He sought out the legendary Sword that Seals the Darkness and underwent trials upon backbreaking, painstaking trials to prove himself worthy of the full power the Master Sword was capable of. 

And then, he hesitated. He hesitated because he could not recall what Calamity Ganon looked like, or was capable of. Freeing the Divine Beasts became something horribly tedious, something that stoked a new sort of trauma in him, because the Scourges were certainly not for the faint of heart. The first time the malice surged past him and combined to form a twisted amalgamation of a beast, Link thought he was going to die again, with no hope for recovery this time. Every blight was grotesque, dripping with the glowing incarnation of hatred, and over twice his size. Their sickly skin stung to touch, leaving angry red burns everywhere it could. Their weapons were brutal and chaotically, skillfully wielded, and it was by miracle alone that he’d survived this long. There was nothing quite as agonizing as being shred alive by an ancient demon, only for his fire-filled nerves and ragged skin to stubbornly patch itself back together before his very eyes. Mipha’s Grace should not have been used so kindly on him.

For as much trouble and agony the Scourges were, they were only extensions of Calamity Ganon, small pieces of the monstrosity awaiting him deep within Hyrule Castle. Just thinking about it rendered him on the brink of a panic attack. Princess Zelda had faced it utterly alone for decades, so what if he failed to do the same? What if he could not defeat the beast, and would therefore be responsible for yet another destructive wave? All of the friends he had made, all of the new life that’d bloomed, it would be devastated by his hands if he could not slay the Calamity. What of Princess Zelda, then? Surely it would kill her, too. Picturing her expressive green eyes dulled by the kiss of death made Link feel so nauseated that he could not eat for hours. 

Shamefully and pathetically, he put it off. He searched for that hundredth Korok Seed, he filled the Hyrule Compendium, he ran every single errand and helped every single person that he could, all the while wishing that the darkness of night or comfort of walls could hide him from Zelda’s ever watchful gaze. It did nothing to quiet the screaming in his skull, the longing in his chest. It was only when his guilt had him by the neck that he swallowed his nerves and stormed Hyrule Castle before the courage could leave him.

Every room was empty. Sad, decrepit, and empty. Of course, the Calamity would want the biggest stage it could find and so, to the top floor of the castle he climbed. The guardians were pesky and the monsters relentless, but nothing could have prepared him for the sight of the beast, free of its prison, towering over him like it was starving and ready to feast.

He thought he saw a glimpse of golden hair, precious and fleeting, just outside of his peripheral vision, but the Calamity lunged for his neck and Link was forced to throw himself to the side, searching for any opportunity to counter the attack. For a monstrosity of a size that rivaled the Divine Beasts, it was quick. 

A jump at the wrong time, a split second too late, caused the Calamity’s ancient axe to slice through his skin. It was nothing more than a nick, but it stung enough to make him stumble and gasp, clutching at his arm through his rapidly soaking shirt. In the pause it took for him to steady himself, Ganon had crawled up onto the second floor like some ginormous spider. It looked ready to pounce on him and, Hylia above, there was nowhere he could hide. It would crush him easily. 

But it did not crush him. He wished it had, because it aimed the rapid red dot of a guardian’s laser on his chest, sending a spiral of panic through his spine and into his stomach, where it curled and lurched and made him want to vomit. He raised his shield, but the blast sent him spiraling through the air until his back hit a solid beam, knocking the wind right out of him. The Master Sword was sprawled uselessly out of his grip and he reached blindly for it, but his supporting arm slipped out from underneath him and his head hit the ground with a sickening crack. His vision was blurred. He wondered why he could see something walking towards him, something far smaller than the Calamity. It was Hylia, perhaps, coming to resolve his hideous fate at last. He tried to summon Mipha’s Grace, tried to will the strength back into his body, to will the excruciating pain away, but then Hylia was crouched before him, and her fingers felt so lovely and comforting in his hair that he wanted to fall headlong into her touch. He wanted to let her take him away.

“That’s it,” she cooed softly, brushing the bangs from his forehead. The motion was so jarringly familiar, the voice was haunting—this was not Hylia. “My dear Hero, look what they’ve done to you.”

Link choked on his attempt to speak, trying with everything in him to move, to take her hand, to see her clearly, but her hands pushed him gently back to the Sanctum floor and he groaned, his voice strained with pain. 

“It’s alright, Link,” the figure assured him, threading her fingers through his hair again like she was trying to subdue him. “The pain will fade soon, I promise. Can you do something for me?”

Death must’ve been approaching. He tried to nod, to tell her he would do anything for her, but the heavy ache in his head made it hard to do much of anything. She must’ve gotten his answer somehow, though, because her hands were cupping his face.

“You have to let go,” she whispered, her thumbs brushing against his cheeks. “Let go, Link, and I will catch you.”

She sounded so sweet, so incredibly lovely, and she felt so warm. Link felt his body relax, going completely still beneath her hands, and he wondered, vaguely, if they had all been wrong. If she was not sealed, but dead, ever waiting for her knight to join her so that she may be the one to welcome him into the afterlife. Princess Zelda’s green eyes came into clarity for no longer than a second, but comfort washed over him and he was quite happy that, for a second time, she was the last thing he was going to see.

There was a high pitched ringing in his ears and his head was swimming. Link tried to fight the grogginess that kept his eyes from opening, but he had very little success when the light was painful and his head was pounding. He raised a hand to rub his eyes, but the rough and tattered surface of what must’ve been a rope rubbed against his wrists, leaving them stinging with a brush burn he already knew would scar. That was his first indication that this was not his only time fighting his way back to consciousness. The pain brought him a little more clarity, even with the panic welling up in his chest.

He could see the Sanctum floor below his head, but trying to turn it to get a better look at his surroundings made him wince and squeeze his eyes shut again. He took a shaky, shuddering breath and, in one quick motion, tried to force himself to sit up. All he’d managed to do was make himself dizzy. His vision swam again, leaving him vulnerable and impaired, and he could do nothing but lie there as still as possible, waiting for the feeling to leave. When it did, it took the ringing in his ears with it.

He heard soft humming instead, backed by the horrid squelching of malice and a rumbling that chilled him to his core. Link tried slowly to tilt his head and immediately wished he hadn’t, because Calamity Ganon was among the last of things he needed to see right now. The beast was sitting, if one could even call it that, on the floor just below a balcony, right across the room from him. It seemed content to just sit there, watching him through orange, evil eyes. He tugged on the restraints again, sending another spike of pain down his spine, but he was stuck. Should it pounce, he would be done for.

But it didn’t. It sat there, staring him down. He thought he could make out a smile, cruel and unsettling and awful. It unhinged its jaw then and made a noise, a screech of unimaginable volume, and Link curled in on himself with a quiet whimper.

“I was just beginning to wonder when our guest would come out of his slumber.”

His eyes opened, wide and wild, and he tilted his head up towards where he thought the voice had come. There, sitting on a throne in the deck above the Calamity, sat Princess Zelda. It was the first time he’d seen her clearly in over a century. He could not breathe then, choked by his swell of emotions and the scratchiness of his throat. 

“Then again,” she continued, tilting her head with a cruelly beautiful smile, “our little hero is prone to sleeping in. Do be gentle with him, Ganon, and try to keep your patience.”

Those words meant nothing to him, but the Calamity turned its ugly head back towards Link and growled. Zelda clicked her tongue, beckoning the beast into silence, and it struck a horror into Link so deep that he felt the ache in every joint of his body.

Calamity Ganon was obeying her.

____________________

masterlist | whumptober by day | whumptober by collection | original post

[mendesbadrepuation]

The Way You Comfort Me // Peter Parker🕷

Peter Parker x female reader

Description: Recently your best friends have grown apart from you and you have been really upset over the situation. Lucky for you Peter is there to comfort you.

Warnings: it’s a little sad in the beginning but the ending is overly fluffy and handsomely cute! Not even slightly proofread lolol 

••••••••

“Hey! How come you look all down in the dumps today?” Peter breaks you from your thoughts as his hand waves in front of your face. You snap your eyes in his direction and you knew you could see the way he was concerned for you. You also knew he could see the way your eyes glossed over with tears.

“It’s not really important. We should get back to studying.” You reply quickly and avert your eyes back to the book on the table. You absentmindedly tapped the pen in your hand against the notebook you were using to take notes.

“No. It’s important to me. I don’t like to see you upset like this.” Peter reaches his hand out to gently stop the tapping of your pen. When you look up into his eyes they were soft and gentle. Just like everything about him. He was the purest soul to you and you got lucky he stumbled across your path. Even luckier he became your best friend and lover.

You and Peter were friends before. In high school you two were study partners a lot. You two really worked well together. One night you and Ned barged into his room on a rant about an assignment and you saw him in his Spider-Man suit. It was completely an accident and ever since then you knew about his secret. And ever since that day you have kept that special secret. You earned his trust very fast. Which led you to a relationship you never saw come but every day you are thankful for.

“Rachel and Addy didn’t invite me to go with them on the annual beach trip. They haven’t invited me to anything in the last couple of months. I think our friendship is ancient history.” You explain to him with a frown very evident on your face.

Rachel and Addy have been your best friends since middle school. You’ve known Addy since kindergarten even. You went through many stages of life with those girls and it was something that a lot of friendships went through. You grow up, you meet new people, you simply fade away. In your mind though, you thought it wouldn’t happen with those two. You cared for them dearly and that friendship. After several attempts of asking to hang out with them and they both decline every time you gave up.

At first you just let it go and thought it would fizzle out. You’d be back to normal within the next week. A week turned into a month. You were so busy with school that it never hit you until here recently. You were making your last stitch effort. Once you realized they were going on the beach trip without you, that’s how you knew it was over.

Peter looks at you sadly. “I know how much they mean to you. Maybe this was a sign and you never know. You all could pick right back up like nothing ever happened.” He tries to help with the situation.

“I don’t know Pete. I think we may be growing apart.” The words get choked up in your throat. It was hard to think and now even harder to say out loud.

He frowns at your response. “I think we’ve had enough studying for today. Let’s go back to my place and cuddle.” His hand lands on your thigh under the table in a comforting way. You look up into his eyes slowly nodding in agreement.

“I don’t want to worry May though.” You say.

He shakes his head. “Not to worry. Her and Happy are on an overnight trip. It will be just us.”

You lightly scoff. “Happy and May are getting closer.”

“Yeah! Yeah! Don’t remind me!” Peter shuts his eyes shaking his head in denial. “I don’t like to think about it.”

You two pack up your things and walk out of the university library holding hands. As you walked through campus you tried not to think about the issue playing repeat in your head. Every time you thought about losing your best friends you felt that ache in your heart. Losing friends is hard and it’s a different kind of loss you are never prepared for.

“The leaves are starting to change. It’s so pretty.” You say and your eyes wonder around the trees on campus. You wanted to think about other things.

“Pretty like you.” Peter cheekily replies. You instantly blush and playfully roll your eyes.

“Thank you.” You reply. Peter was smirking at you from your reaction. He loved seeing you blush from something he does or says to you. Just let’s him know he has that affect on you.

The walk to the subway was mostly just you two talking about anything but your situation. He knew that you would fully talk about it when you were ready. The rest of the way to his apartment Peter done his best to cheer you up. He would tell you corny jokes or do playful little things to keep a smile on your face. He was simply your person. Only he knew how to make you feel better in times like this.

Shortly after arriving to his place you got into his clothes. A pair of his sweats and his hoodie. Immediately you were feeling more comforted being wrapped up in his scent. He saw the way your expressions become more calm. His heart swelled seeing how much peace it brought you. He was your safe haven as you were his.

He picks you up and places you in his lap so he can cuddle you. You had the hood up over your head and he lets you nuzzle your head between his neck. He was extra warm from those added super powers running through his bloodstream. It truly came in handy on days like these. When you contently sigh into his neck it felt like his heart was smiling.

“As much as this sucks. I’m glad I have you.” You mumble in a soft tone.

“You always have me.” He whispers back. His hand that was wrapped around your back softly rubbed your worries away. You place a delicate kiss on his neck and he simply thought he was going to melt. He hated you being sad but boy was he grateful he got to be the one to comfort you, to hold you.

The rest of the night was spent with you in his arms. He would switch with rubbing your back to playing with your hair and even little kisses all over your face. Anything he could do to make you feel better, he did it. Eventually you talked through it with a little advice from him. It was hard coming to the realization of what was happening. He knew how strong you were and that you would get through this little milestone with ease.

You fell asleep with your head resting on his chest so you could hear his heartbeat. One of the many things you like to do when you’re with him. Peter had an idea to make you feel even better in the morning. He hoped it would help you start your day with a smile. When the weather was changing and the mornings were colder there was something about the sunrises. They were different. There was always brighter pinks and oranges on display. Peter remembers how you love to watch them.

He woke up right on time to carry you out on his fire escape. You were really tired from the crying and overall stress the situation caused. Him moving around didn’t really phase you until you felt the cold morning air hit your face.

“Mmm Peter what are you doing?” You faintly mumble and there was sleep evident in the sound of your voice.

“I want to show you something. Just keep your eyes closed for me.” He requests and you do as told. He places your arms around his neck and your feet around his waist. Your head nestles its way in the crook of his neck and you start to fall back to sleep. There was a gush of wind on your back in a split second. You knew he was swinging on his webs high in the sky. It was better you didn’t open your eyes for sure now.

You tighten your grip around his neck from the feeling of flying freely through the city. Most of the time you got sick from him swinging you with him on special dates on skyscrapers. Some times were better than others and you were trying to get comfortable with it.

Once the breeze stopped you knew he had landed. Still half asleep you just cuddle more in to him. He sits down with you in his lap again. Your one leg comes around from his waist so you can sit sideways. He was basically cradling you now and you could not complain.

“Open your eyes.” He whispers. You do as told and you have to blink a couple times to adjust. When you looked out into the skyline your breath was stolen away. There was so many vibrant pinks and oranges casting off the clouds. The sun was almost this red and dark orangish tint.

Peter didn’t look away from you. He wanted to see your reaction of the display in front of you two. His eyes glistened from the way you lit up. He watched your eyes sparkle at the view and he swore he has never seen anything as beautiful as you. As cheesy as it was, you were his sunrise in this moment. He gently kisses your cheek and adjusts your body so you could get closer to him.

“It’s beautiful Pete. Thank you for bringing me to see it.” You look away from the skyline and he was already looking at you. Your cheeks were red from both the morning air and from where he just kissed you.

“I just wanted you to feel better and start your day with this in mind.” He gestures to the sunrise and you didn’t care about that anymore. You were too in love with this boy to even think straight. He does everything in his power to make sure you are happy and safe and most of all, loved.

“I don’t need sunsets or sunrises when I have you. You are the sweetest person I know Peter Parker. Thank you for all you do for me. I hope one day I can return the favor.” You gently cup his face with your hands to fully look him in the eyes. He had the softest look on his face.

“You return the favor everyday by being with me and loving me. That’s all I can ever ask for. And baby your love is like a drug.” His soft expression turns into a little grin. He knew the comment was cheesy but you of course admired it.

A light giggle leaves your mouth and a wide smile spreads from ear to ear practically. For a moment you look into his eyes and see that special little tint in his brown shade. With the sunrise casting a little light it made a golden ring around his iris pop. You watch him avert his eyes down to your lips giving you the hint. Both of you lean closer together until your lips clash together in a soft kiss. Your hands go around to the nape of his neck where his little baby hairs were. In an effort to deepen the kiss you comb your fingers up through his full hair. You slightly tug at the base and he inhaled deeply making the kiss harder. His hands wrap around to your back and he pushes you against his chest. The action makes your lips slightly part and give him the access he wanted to slide his tongue inside your mouth. You both start to see stars from such a passionate kiss. Every time it would feel like this to the both of you. But each time it got better it seemed.

That’s how you knew he was your person until the end of time. In every timeline you would choose him. Over and over again. Your souls were intertwined and would always find a way back to each other.

[stellartales]

Xiao — Call My Name 04

Chapter 04  — He Stands Alone

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The way to Liyue Harbor was a lot faster on the cargo carriage a regular merchant of Wangshu Inn offered Paimon and her to ride on. 

The herbs Verr Goldett worked wonders; her leg could walk so much better now with barely any pain. Thanks to the lady boss’ care, her last evening in the Inn were spent making his favorite food in Smiley Yanxiao’s kitchen

As Verr Goldet had mentioned — one would only find the Guardian Adeptus if he wants to be found. 

Indeed, on the balcony, that night was the last she had seen of Xiao. Day or night, he was nowhere in sight. Even his usual place, the balcony, stayed empty with no sign of the adeptus. 

However, the missing box of the almond tofu she made that was gone along with her little handwritten note, ‘Eat well! :) Do you happen to know an adeptus named Starsnatcher?’ the following morning told her something else. 

 Liyue Harbor has always been a bustling port city for as long as he could remember. He was , afterall, the one who made sure it flourished. 

The faint aromatic whiff of Jueyun Chilli Chicken coming from Wanmin Restaurant just down the street was instantly recognizable to anyone who had stayed in Liyue Harbor long enough. Laughing children and energetic chatter about anything and everything was accompanied by the distant hollers of the shipcrews down on the port.

Wise golden eyes idled on the scenes around him.

Particularly, on the loaded carts rolling along the streets and the enthusiastic merchants they went past. 

This ever-going vitality was the very blood that kept this city port bright and running, and the Qixing its brain. One he knew Liyue Harbor could depend on when he decided to put his duties as the Geo Archon to a permanent rest and experience the world in the form of a mortal, just like now.

A satisfied sigh quietly slipped past his lips as Zhongli cast his gaze onto the view of the sky beyond the shimmering horizon the location of the tavern he was sheltered under offered, the edges of his lips curling mildly in contentment.

The curt flutters of an opening paper fan turned the thoughtful gaze back to the storyteller, “ We last left off, with ancient Liyue, beset by an ocean demon and a mountain dragon.”  

Elegant, long fingers curled around the steaming teacup on the table before him. 

“ Rex Lapis mustered his adepti,” The wispy steam from the teacup was blown away as it drew near to his lips, ” to restore peace into the land.”

A sip of the hot tea disappeared down his throat with a gulp and as he was lowering the cup to the table, golden eyes swiveled to the left.

The cup was placed back onto the table and he was on his feet, leaving the storyteller to tell his tale.

The crowd on the street of Chihu Rock parted like a flowing river as she maneuvered through the boulevard with eyes glued to the intricate words on the book — Yakshas: The Guardian Adepti . 

Perched on her right shoulder, another pair of eyes were equally engrossed in the content.

The pages in her hands fluttered lightly to the ocean breeze as they broke away from the busy street and onto the wharf overlooking the vast sea beyond the harbor. 

“It’s so tragic…” Paimon’s hands were held to her chubby face.

Brooding sadness brimmed in their eyes as they settled down on the neatly piled wooden planks. The shadow of the huge dockyard in front of them was the perfect shade blocking them from the afternoon sun.

Lumine nodded with a deep sigh, “Oh how they had suffered…” She shook her head.

“—Indeed, and terribly so.” A deep voice interjected.

Both jolted upright with a surprised gasp, lifting their heads sharply to find themselves being gazed upon by a familiar pair of wise eyes.

“Zhongli-sensei??” 

Lumine winced at the volume Paimon released from her shoulder. 

“Do you mind?” A smile played on his lips as Zhongli gestured at the spot beside her.

She shook her head.

His long brown coat fluttered behind him as he moved to sit down.  

“Interesting choice of literature you have there,” The wood beneath them shifted to his weight as he took his spot beside them. 

“Is it true? Is it true?” Paimon flapped her arms eagerly, “Is it true that this tragedy happened a long time ago? The lady at the bookhouse told us this was just a theory spun by historians.”

Zhongli chuckled, lifting a hand to return a greeting from a passing dockyard laborer along with a curt nod.

A serious look swept over his handsome face.

“Time is a powerful force. Stories passed along the passage of time are like the stone spears which I had left behind as the Guyun Stone Forest. I made sure what happened then still lives.“ 

The pensive stare on Zhongli’s face lingered even as he turned back to her, but with a slight frown. 

“Just like those spears which were roughed out by wind erosions, what is left to be seen today is what you get. Fabrication by the imagination of those who weren’t there to know what happened is inevitable, but the truth remains.”

Zhongli raised his gaze to the sky with a quiet look, a hand reaching up to cup his chin as how she would always see him doing when reminiscing something from the past.

“The yakshas, this book told of, after fighting the wrath of the gods for thousands of years, became bound by karma.” 

His deep voice dipped with a sad tinge, “Poisoned by the hateful thoughts of the gods, the yakshas would often descend into indescribable fits of terror, rage or agony…”

His long fingers left his face and curled into a tight fist. “They were a big sacrifice for the greater good. All for the peace you see now.” 

A dark look almost like wistful and remorse settled on Zhongli’s face.

“Then the yakshas…” Lumine mulled over his words for a moment. “The book says that their battles broke their souls and made them turn against each other.”

Sadness fell over her eyes like a grey cloud. “...most are no longer here, are they?”

“Some succumbed to darkness.” Zhongli stared forlornly at the book in her hand. “Even I don’t know where those went. But as of today, one still remains.”

He sighed.

“The age of gods and monsters is over. And so is my first contract with Liyue. This is no longer my Liyue to protect but the common folks.” 

Zhongli shook his head. “The moment I ended my contract with Liyue, so did his, but he still battles till this day.” 

“Hold on a second!” Paimon jumped in, waving her hands frantically, “What do you mean one remains? Aren’t there still two yakshas left?”

“Two?” Zhongli blinked calmly at her. “There has always been one   —  Xiao. I’m sure you know him. He was there in your battle against Osial, wasn’t he?” 

It was his turn to look puzzled.

Lumine frowned. “But what about the Starsnatcher—” Her face fell as realization dawned upon her. She ran a hand down her face with an exasperated sigh. “Oh nevermind, it’s clear now. ”

“Huh?” Paimon scratched her head, “Paimon doesn’t understand! What’s clear now?”

“There’s never been an adeptus with the name Starsnatcher.” Lumine narrowed her eyes at the book in her hand. “He’s a fraud!”

Paimon elicited a gasp. “Xiao needs to know that someone is impersonating the adepti!”

A knowing look from Zhongli was all before the Archon let out a chuckle. “And I trust that you three are capable enough to deal with this...imposter.” 

Long legs uncrossed, Lumine’s eyes were drawn to Zhongli as the man rose to his feet. 

There was an elegance even in the way Zhongli turned around to face them. One that she couldn’t help noticing whenever he was around. 

“You bet we will!” Paimon nodded her head enthusiastically. “Leave it to us, Mr. Zhongli!” Her hands curled into chubby fists as a determined glare scrunched up her cheeks.

Amusement danced in his wise golden eyes as Zhongli responded to Paimon with a light chuckle. “You’ve proven yourselves countless times, my friends, I’m sure this obstacle would pass like a smooth breeze.” 

Zhongli turned as if to go, before glancing over his shoulder. 

“Oh yes, before I go, please do me this favor and give these painkillers to Xiao.” He held out a small green pouch. 

“Painkillers?” Lumine said nearly in a gasp as he placed the pouch in her hand. She looked up at him with a worried frown. “Is Xiao in pain...?”

Then it hit her.

Xiao...with all he had gone through, why wouldn’t he? 

Lumine felt her heart clench with an ache at that thought, remembering Zhongli’s words and what the book had mentioned. 

A bitter feeling sank her heart, at the same time, a strange sense of greediness and yearning tugged her heart — to understand the yaksha behind his piercing eyes, to learn about the pain he hid underneath it all.

“I’m afraid so. Constantly and especially so after his battles.” Zhongli’s face held nothing, but there was gloom in his eyes. “That boy…”

Zhongli sighed heavily. “This may be too much to ask. Xiao will not like this, but please look after him.”

PREVIOUS  |   NEXT (coming soon)

— published on 16.03.2021

[whitherliliesbloom]

your voice will save me

[ ffxivwrite2021 ] ★ [ masterlist ] ★ [ prompt #23 - soul ]

[ alphinaud/wol ] ★ [ 2,416 words ]  ★ [ post-5.3 ]

a sequel to a fill i did from last year’s ffxivwrite. i had the idea for this fic for a whole year but never got to write it. aka, it took one year for me to finally give alphinaud closure.

soul- the spiritual part of a person that some people believe continues to exist in some form after their body has died

it’s a long time coming, but alphinaud thinks he should finally tell the warrior of light the words his soul has been yearning to say for thousands of years

Revenant’s Toll feels particularly cold with the nightly breeze, and it sends chills down Alphinaud’s spine as he casts his glance outwards to look upon Silvertear falls, watching as the sky, now free from miasma, is glimmering with a sea of swaying stars that casts distant reflections of light upon the lake where the wings of a great wyrm once stood vigil.

He shivers, grasping at his gloved hand to steady himself, counting his own breaths as he looks upon the tower of crystals with a pang of hurt that leaves his throat dry. The sight of the tower alone reminds him of skyscrapers and the sound of distant rain, and memories that were not his own flash, albeit briefly, through his head like a bolt that strikes at his very heart. 

The boy barely manages to compose himself, steel himself with the resolve and cool that a distant, untarnished version of himself had once possessed. Even in the midst of falling stars, a rain of fire and rivers of blood that ran the streets, that man..... himself from an ancient time, Alphinaud acknowledges bitterly with bit lips, he would not allow his emotions to sway him so.

And yet when he hears a familiar voice call out to him from behind, call out to his very soul that has been aching since the beginning of time, he knew that the him of the present was incapable of being as cold and unfeeling as he had once been.

“Alphinaud?” his flower whispers a name into the night, his name. The name of his current form, one that he can barely hang on to as yet another brief flash of a blazing meteor shower tears through his focus. “You called for me?”

“Yes.” He holds his breath, turns around and gazes down at her with a muddied, dishonest smile upon his face. “I....I wanted to talk to you.” there’s hesitation as he speaks, pain laced in his tone, but Illya makes no remark on it as she moves to stand next to the man, crystal violet eyes cast skywards at the dead of the night. “I’m not bothering you am I?”

“You never bother me.” Illya responds swiftly, her fingers resting upon the stone railing and shivering a tad as she finds the surface cool to the touch.

He swallows the lump in his throat, eyes averting her own and body fidgety, restless as he attempts to find the words in him to even begin speaking - because heaven knows there are so many he wants to say to her.

Previous countless mental rehearsals are now forgotten, replaced with only the raw emotions of a flickering, barely visible light within him. 

“I.... I just wanted... To call you out here to... Well... clarify some things... and... and to apologize for others...”

His voice is sheepish, timid, completely unlike the assured confidence of her beloved scholar who had been so eager and ready, eyes blazing with confidence during his fight against the specters of light, his magicks woven from his passion like bursts of fire and gusts of summer wind.

But her smile is still patient and kind as she watches him carelessly stumble upon his words, a hand raising up to tuck a long fluttering strand of hair behind her ear as it blew effortlessly in the lake breeze.

“I never did apologize... Well, there are a lot of things I have to apologize for but-” Alphinaud frowns, “I-I.. I could not well carry on without first trying to apologize to you for all of my transgressions.” Inhaling sharply, the elezen clenches his fist and casts his gaze down upon the stone under his feet. “I’m sorry for worrying you so much all the time, especially when my soul had been pulled to the first. I’m sorry for not being there for you when you struggled with yourself... I’m sorry for putting you through such heinous betrayal because of my incompetence as a commander of the Crystal Braves. I’m sorry for all the times I used you, doubted you, hurt you...”

His voice shakes with the sorrow worth many years of regret, of the guilt he’s pent up and swore to himself he’d make amends for. His heart is aching, the agony of his own past sins coming back to haunt a more mature, wiser, older form of himself now. But he knows it is nothing compared to what he has put her through.

“When we first arrived in Ishgard, I promised you that I would do better - be better for the sake of the others and you who I have wronged. I don’t know if I’ve gotten far enough yet to say I’ve fulfilled that promise... And for that too, I am truly sorry.”

lllya parts her lips to speak, but her voice is hushed, watching as what little shred of dignity has drained from Alphinaud’s navy blue eyes with a sea of cyan sadness washing through her own. And when she takes a step towards him, he holds his hand up and she swallows back her protests reluctantly, intent to listen to his heart until the end even if it killed her to do so.

“And... and also... I’m sorry for pushing you away.” 

That statement applies to himself from six summers ago, but the distant glaze in his eyes as he attempts to recall memories of a long forgotten city tells the girl that he was referring to otherwise, and she casts him a confused tilt of her head before he finally speaks again.

“In a time long past... in a city of creation and innovation... That man, Apollo...” Alphinaud shakes his head. Saying another name that was not his own would be deflecting the blame, “the unsundered form of myself sought to reach distant heights that I believed not even the convocation could dream to match. And in my vain, egotistical pursuit for ideals that I wasn’t worthy of I...” He chokes back a sob, the thought of his sins against her too much for even himself to even recount. “I hurt you. I told you such blatant, awful lies. I let my jealousy and my own incompetence sweep me away. I-”

“Alphinaud.”

Her voice calls out his name. His name. The name of his current form - his present form. It is the only name Illya knows and will ever acknowledge. 

And though her expression is stern, eyebrows furrowed and peach pink lips pressed into a tight line, she still says his name like melted caramel, unbearably sweet and warm in its tone. 

“I can accept your apology for everything else. I forgive you. But you’re beginning to apologize for mistakes that aren’t your own.”

“But I am- I mean... it... is me.” 

In a way, he acknowledges... Not fully, of course... but the revelations of what had been his past life is proof enough that he, even if a fourteenth fraction of what had once been the man named Apollo, he still must bear part of the responsibility. 

He’s lucky enough as he is to have been granted a second chance, just as Apollo had begged and prayed to the heavens for. He cannot even fathom a world where he had not met Illya anymore.

His beloved smiles, hand raised up to press against her beating heart, as if to feel the essence of her twice rejoined soul. She searches for whispers of herself - of the perfection version of the woman she once was, feeling the bright amethyst constellation stone that bore the insignia of the blistering sun warm in her pocket. She hears no words, only a wave of emotions that cascade through her and almost sweeps her away - she has after all ever been the most sensitive with the voices of unseen beings. 

But even with the two shards of a whole soul shone brightly within her, and she can almost envision the visage of a dusty, quiet library in her mind, there is not a trace of anger or hurt in her heart. 

“I am Illya Skawi. And you are Alphinaud Leveilleur.” Her gentle tone belies the weak little tremble in her voice as her eyes swirl with an ocean of unfiltered emotions. “I am nowhere near as perfect as Chloris, I know I can never be.” Her hands clasp together tightly, held close to her chest as if to guard her heart. “I may inherit her will... but I will never be her.”

Where Chloris had bright, flawless sanguine pink eyes that morphed in hue to reflect her thoughts, Illya inherited a pair of more timid orbs of lavender twilight. Where Chloris had unmarred skin of a porcelain doll, Illya’s skin was covered with a map of the galaxy - the speckle of stars from bullet holes upon her thighs, the milky way that cut across her collar bone and the auroras taking the form of teeth marks all over her abdomen. 

And where Chloris had an unparalleled talent for optimism, charisma and hope, what remained in Illya was only the painful, unreciprocated love she had for the world that would be the very bane of her mental stability for as long as she can remember. 

Even with her soul reunited with Ardbert’s, she knows she is but a husk of what had once been the fourteenth member of the convocation - of azem... Emet-Selch at least wasn’t mistaken in spelling that fact out. 

“And the woman that Apollo loved is not me - not this ugly, fragmented, weak little shard as I am.”

That’s absolute nonsense, Alphinaud wants to retort. Illya is anything but. It may not who Chloris had once been - but it is who the woman he loves is. Whole, beautiful and divine, her hair is woven from moonlight and her eyes are pressed from a bouquet blossomed flowers. Her voice a melody of a songbird, her skin a distant and unexplored, yet welcoming cosmos. She is a ray of hope, not just for him, but practically everyone else he knows... and he could think of no better personification of perfection than her. 

The world may disagree, the ancients may cry in protest and the whole, unbroken version of him may think to question his judgement. 

But Alphinaud knows, even if he is wrong about everything else and will continue to be as imperfect and sinfully tainted as he is, that he isn’t wrong about her.

“You’re not- You are not....ugly...” the words die at his throat, he’s lacking in the strength to debate as fervently as he is usually capable of doing. “Or weak for that matter. You’re...” 

“I’m not Chloris. And you’re not Apollo, either. Perhaps we were once upon a time, but not now, not here.”

The breeze picks up and howls in his ears, carrying the chill of his doubts and guilt away into the night. And as the bearer of hopes and miracles flashes him a radiant smile, he feels his chest clenching with a warmth that he can barely contain.

Illya turns to look back over Silvertear falls, the light from the moon and the fields of crystals casting a halo over her hair as it fluttered like a veil in the wind. Her skin glows with color, warm against the backdrop of grey stone and dark blue sky. 

“I did ponder over the circumstances of our meeting... If it was pure coincidence or a mechanism of fate bringing their souls... our souls together again.” Illya hums, fiddling with her fingers as she contemplates out loud. “And I wonder... if the other shards of Chloris and Apollo are so tightly wound together that they’d meet again in other worlds too...” 

“They will.” He answers on impulse, as if his entire being already knew the answer. “I believe they will.” 

It’s a naive and an impossibly idealistic wish... one with a hint of selfishness and ego too, perhaps... but those are the core of who he is- who his soul is. And if Apollo loved Chloris even half as much as he loved Illya, then he knows, is certain with all his heart that the thread that keeps their fourteen souls tied together for eternity will not be so easily severed. 

There’s a quiet that looms over them, with only the sounds of the wind and the chirping of the crickets ringing in the air. Illya doesn’t turn to look back at him for a minute, lost in her own thought and drowning in a pool of her own emotions - thousands of years worth of them.

“That’s good. I’m glad...”

When the girl turns around, her violet eyes are wet with crystal clear tears, they catch the rays of moonlight and reflect off her face as they roll down her cheeks past upturned lips. 

“Because Chloris loved Apollo, you know? She loved him very very much.”

Alphinaud hadn’t noticed when he’d started crying either, quiet sobs breaking out of him as he lets out a choked laugh, raising a gloved hand to feebly wipe away his tears.

“He did too. He loved her so much that it killed him.” 

His heart is so full to the brim, spilling with unbearable adoration and devotion. When Illya spreads her arms out wordlessly, sniffling back her own trickling, glistening tears, he picks her up and wraps his arms tightly around her, feeling the beating of his heart match in tandem with her own. 

In their warm, tender embrace, he hears the echoes of a distant past - yet another vision of a splitting star flashes in his mind. But he doesn’t flinch this time as he holds his entire world in his arms, afraid and determined to never let go. 

“I love you. I love you.” Her declaration is all he hears, along with quiet whispers of his name. His real name. 

Alphinaud. Alphinaud. Alphinaud. Alphinaud.

This love was hers to bear, and no one else’s - not Chloris, not Ardbert, not the twelve other flickering star blossoms that are out there, undoubtedly fighting with their entire being to reunite with their own other half. And no cry of ancient beings, no fracturing of worlds or falling of the moon or stars will stop her from loving him. Even until the sun sets, even until the end of times. 

And though their souls may have been set adrift, he knew that his soul would always be destined to love hers in return.

“I love you too, Illya.” 

[ddullahan]

hadestown au 2

I HAVEN’T FORGOTTEN ABOUT THEM  it’s a constant brainrot tbh and i’m gonna throw the next chapter out because i’m experimenting with things so if you’re new here, welcome, and here’s the first chapter if you haven’t read it:  hadestown au 1 ------------ it’s a love song Music is everywhere in this world. From the hot, mosquito infested plantations to the coldest points of the north, it hums in the earth above and for what? It's off-key and discordant, but it follows the wind off the train tracks as if it has nowhere else to go. Yang remembers growing up on the tracks. She remembers singing with the winds, and hearing laughter in her ears. The Fates were always at the back of your mind, pulling you from choice to choice like there's fishing wire wrapped around your soul. Invisible, they beckon you away from home. They beckon you to the fires down below. She remembers thinking their voices sound unkind. It still sends shivers through her body. The idea that her destiny might not be good, or bright. But it’s not anything she’s dwelling on. She remembers her first melody. How it came from her tiny house hidden in the willows. Willows, with their long branches that wave in the breeze like the sleeves of a robe. Waving at the train, waving at her as she draws chalk flowers on her front porch. They're friendlier than the blues give them credit for, and when she was younger, she wanted the world to know. So she opened her mouth to sing, and the willows suddenly weren't weeping anymore. She loves those willows as much as she loves her guardian, and the little train station she finds herself crying in - but that's something for later. Yang's not crying as her hands dunk beneath soapy waves. She's humming, as she always is. Slow and soft, sponge scraping in time with the swinging door. Voices trip over themselves in the amphitheatre beyond. Everyone's excited for spring to come. The train is on its way. They just need to wait for the Queen to start their summer fun. Yang loves this time of year. There's dancing, and singing. Joy wraps around the rafters and the walls get painted in hope. It’s a rolling tide of an echoing chorus, too happy to be contained. She stacks the last clean plate into a bucket and dries her hands. She knows the festivities can't go on until the Queen’s grace touches the land - but there's something she has to do first, with these plates they've never used. She has to break them all. She has to meet her muse. It's a story that's already been written into the floors, Yang just needs to follow Fate’s wires threaded in her hole-y shoes. So without thinking too much, she swings around; picks up her bucket of dishes. She makes her way out from the kitchen. Except nothing can prepare her for the moment everything begins. Her feet slip into grooves she’s never noticed before. She’s thrown by the recognition worn into her soul - like this stranger across from her has touched it before. Like she’s already gone and marked Yang’s soul like a worry stone. Like she’s already pressed a divot in the shape of her thumb. Ink black hair set in short, fluffy waves. A sharp jaw and rich brown skin. There’s buttery yellow light in the walls that spill onto her face. It turns her lips into a plush, dark valley that Yang needs to sink her teeth in. She’s pulled away by the eyes, though. They're precious gold glinting with hints of amber. They're set under nightdark banners, black eyelashes that flutter like raven wings. They almost seem to glow with hunger. The sight is enough to knock the wind out of Yang's sails. To empty her lungs. There's something familiar in this awe. Aching and ancient, it moves her like there's fire at her feet. Suddenly there's a song building palaces in her chest, and she knows that melody like she knows her willows. She hears in the rafters. She knows its very nature. Yang's entire body yearns with the desire to sing. The world stops. And then resumes. As Yang's pale lilacs start to search gold eyes for that same, ancient ache - she has only seconds to understand something fundamental, and profound. That this is meant to be. That she’s known this woman's soul as long as she’s been alive to breathe. Longer, even. There’s something familiar in the mahogany of her cheeks. Something echoed by the trees. Maybe it’s because the song they sing is the same. Because willows are friendlier than the blues make them out to be, and Yang gets the feeling that this woman is not all she appears to be. Oh, Yang needs to know her again. The woman has a mouth that begs to be fed. She has a body that drowns in that tattered old coat. But it still makes Yang remember that she has an empty bed, in her house under the willows. She wants to offer shelter to those hollow cheeks. Though she swallows the urge like it's a handful of nails in her throat. There's enough pain in it to make her drop the forgotten bucket in her hands. The dishes shatter through the fuzziness in her ears. And it's only by a miracle that she gathers her wits. The miracle being Summer Rose in the form of guidance. She touches Yang's arm, asks her to get a broom. She has a knowing glint in her eye, but it's a little sad, too. Like she knows the world shifted two inches to the left. Like she’s known the story before it ever began. Yang snaps free of the binds in her feet. She jumps to attention, and makes a hasty retreat. Her hands are in her bangs within seconds of the door swinging shut. She stammers gibberish to Summer, who only smiles with love. "You want to talk to her?" She asks in a coo. "More than anything," Yang breathes. She's sure there's stars being born in her eyes. "Well, go on." Summer says. "But don't come on too strong, dear. She's still very new around here." "I won't!" Yang replies, already planning her wedding. "I'll - I'll take her to see the night sky, and I'll give her a melody! I'll sing songs about her eyes and show her the willows when they don't weep. I'll write her poems and maybe she'll agree to marry me-" "That's all well and good, dear," Summer laughs. She reaches up to pat Yang's cheek fondly. "But maybe you should start with your name. There's no rush." "No, but I feel like I've done this before." Yang presses an anxious fist to her chest. "I feel like she'll say yes." "Baby girl, you have such starlight in your eyes," Summer says softly, "And I support you regardless. But maybe, just for once... You should take your time with this." Yang frowns. Her heart doesn't want to wait. But Summer's face holds a deep, deep pain. Her silver eyes are gunmetal gray. She smiles, but still gives off an aura of resignation. It's the same look she wears when something is wrong, or will be soon. It has something to do with Yang, and the girl in the other room. Yang knows that age doesn't dare show it's face on Summer Rose. She looks young, for a goddess of course, but Yang doesn't know what she's seen. She doesn't know what it's like to live for eternity, though she tastes it a little when she sings. She doesn't know what it's like to be Hermes, but from the expression Missus Rose gives… it must be bad. All Yang really knows is that she took her in, when her muse of a mother abandoned her on the road. She knows that, and she knows how much she loves Summer Rose. So it's with her guardian on her mind, instead of the song bursting in her chest, that she says softly, "Okay, Missus Rose. I'll try my best." Summer double-takes. Her face is filled with surprise. The silver seems to slip back into her eyes with hope and wonder. "...Thank you, sweetheart." She says, stilted and unsure. "I'm just looking out for you." "I know." Yang smiles, blinding and bright. "You always are." Yang doesn't remember when she grew taller. She just knows that Summer, in her fast steps and suited splendor, has never really admitted that she was Yang's mother. Though that never stopped her from loving Yang just as hard. So Yang bends down, and gives the goddess' forehead a kiss. She admits to her shyly, "You're a good mom. One of the best, I think." Summer's eyes fill with tears, but none of them fall. She murmurs thickly, "When did you get so tall?" "Don’t know," Yang laughs, "Time really flies when you blink." "Mm." Summer gives a sweet grin. "Don't you have a girl you need to meet?" Yang's face flushes in red. Summer hums thoughtfully; skips away too fast to see. She's back with a soda, and hands it to Yang with a wink. "Try this for an icebreaker," She says, "You'd do well to take off the cap for her." "Th-thank you!" Yang squawks in surprise. Her usual honeyed voice cracks way too high. She blushes harder, but Summer is already ushering her out the door. It swings shut, and she is alone on the floor. The girl - woman, rather - is huddled at a table with her head bowed down. She's hovering over a ratty backpack that's probably seen a thousand towns, a thousand homes, and a thousand trains. She looks weathered, and cold. Yang desperately wants to wrap her up and make her warm. She needs to know her name. So she takes her first step, and then the next. Crawling over to her awkwardly, the bottle held to her chest. It's mechanical, the way she pops off the bottle cap. The way she watches it slip from her shaking fingers. Lets it clatter over to fingerless gloves. She sees a flash of gold hidden beneath those black lashes. She's struck stupid by the way they almost glow in their sockets. And they meet, lilacs to amber. And her heart screams, marry her, marry her. She feels a hole rip open in her chest. It gapes with awe and wonder. It consigns her to no other lover except the woman she swears she's already met.   The song in the rafters starts over, and Yang just stands. There's so much hunger set in the woman's face. It's a landscape of starvation, with valleys built from sharp cheekbones and soft black waves. Despite the insistence of the muscle in her chest, Yang takes a breath, and her wedding plans go out the window. Her every ounce of confidence seems to dwindle until the last of it drips from her fingers. Those gold eyes are suddenly too much. There's a strange, visceral fear in Yang's bones. It pulses in veins of gold. It's foreign, and old. It bleeds with desperation. She knows for a fact she's been down this road. That this lovely creature has held her hand before, and turned away. Promises stick to her throat and rot. Fruit of the vine filled with blight, and not a cure to be seen. A cycle that repeats. A tragedy that has always been. Visions of a future long past. A die that’s already been cast. It's all too much. Her heart seizes, and Yang - for once in her life - runs. She turns and wobbles her way back to the kitchen. She feels those haunting eyes burning into her shoulders. Palatial notes and flowering verses twist in her chest longingly. The song she feels inside her like a heartbeat starts to wail at the absence of her muse's name. The emptiness sits black in the cavern of her ribs, silent as a grave. She wants to turn back... but her feet won't obey.

[thinkingisadangerouspastime]

avatar state/cycle

Written for Day 3 of @aangweek! Read here on AO3.

~*~

3. avatar state/cycle - someone has drained the color from my wings / broken my fairy circle ring

Toph couldn’t explain the feeling.

The sand in the desert alone had made it thrice as hard for her to discern anything about her surroundings, so if Toph was honest, she had next to no idea of what happened when Aang learned who’d stolen Appa. Wind and sand had bitten at her face, she recalled, and dug into the corners of her eyes. Sokka had grabbed her arm, pulling her backwards and yelling for everyone to run. Other than that, it had all been… imperceptible.

There had been power in the air, though. Power that had crackled over her skin like lightning, burning a hole through her chest. So Toph may not have known the details of what was happening around her, but when Aang spoke with the voice of a thousand ancient, aching souls… Her blood had run cold.

And yet, not even two minutes later, the roaring wind had died.

Toph didn’t understand. Maybe - Maybe part of her was afraid to. To learn the source of such raw strength, raw energy. But she needed to know. She owed Aang that, at least, didn’t she? Because it was her fault. Hers and hers alone that the sandbenders had stolen Appa.

But Toph didn’t dare ask Aang himself. The guilt gnawing at her insides only worsened whenever she was within a few feet of her friend. She’d nearly asked Sokka, but a thought had occurred to her moments before she’d readied herself to approach him.

Toph… didn’t remember Sokka grabbing his little sister while they were in the desert. This recollection - or lack thereof - led her to conclude that maybe, just maybe… Katara had been with Aang. If that was true, then she’d know better than anyone what had happened after Appa was stolen.

Asking Katara was harder than asking Sokka, though, for reasons Toph couldn’t quite place. Reasons she didn’t want to place.

But Toph willed herself to ask. She was an earthbender, after all - she had to face her problems head-on, because they weren’t going to disappear on their own. They would only grow heavier and heavier and heavier on her back until she squared her shoulders and threw the weight off of her own accord.

Toph waited until a night where Sokka and Aang were asleep already. Katara was usually the last to fall asleep, anyways - something about her connection to the moon - but Aang tended to stay up with her. Not tonight, though. He’d passed out seconds after collapsing next to Sokka. Such timing had worked out in Toph’s favor.

She crept across their camp with light footsteps so as not to wake their friends. Katara wasn’t far away - only ten or so feet from their weakly flickering fire, her back against a large rock that crested out the ground. If the purring Toph heard was any indication, the waterbender was petting Momo, too.

Toph lowered herself next to Katara, unsure of how to initiate a conversation. Thankfully, her friend had it covered.

“Couldn’t sleep?” Katara’s voice was quiet. Gentle.

Toph shrugged. “Could’ve. Chose not to.”

Katara chuckled. “Alright. Care to share why you’ve chosen to stay awake, then?”

Toph’s mouth went dry. All thoughts of preparation and readiness went out the window as she was struck with a paralyzing notion - what if Katara blamed her for Appa being stolen, too?

There was a pause. “You don’t have to explain if you don’t want to,” Katara hastily reassured her. “I just…” She exhaled. “I’m here to listen if you need it, okay?”

Toph licked her lips. It was now or never. “I - I have a question, actually,” she managed to say without her voice cracking. She flexed her palms, tension already rising in her body. “What… What happened in the desert? With the sandbenders?” She took a deep breath. “With Aang?”

There was another pause, this one longer than before. Toph might have feared Katara had walked away if she hadn’t been able to feel her friend through the large stone they both still rested against.

Katara sighed. “You must be talking about the Avatar state.”

Toph frowned. “The what?”

“The Avatar state. Did your parents not tell you about it when you were little?”

Toph snorted. “The history of the Avatar wasn’t exactly covered in my personal schooling. My parents were more worried about my ability to walk in a straight line without slouching.” Not to mention no one in her household had expected the Avatar to resurface. As far as her parents had been concerned, the Avatar had never existed. They were nothing more than a legend of the less fortunate.

“Oh.” Katara grimaced. Toph could hear the expression in her friend’s voice. “Right.” She shifted, causing Momo to release a low mrp. “Well, the Avatar state is like… the Avatar at their most powerful,” she explained. “They have access to the knowledge of all the previous Avatars, so they can perform incredible feats of bending with all four elements, even if they haven’t mastered certain elements themselves yet.”

Toph nodded. “So… Aang went into the Avatar state when we met the sandbenders?”

“Yes, exactly.”

That explained the sheer power weighing in the air, fizzing over her skin like static and threatening to paralyze her. And the voices. Those must have been the voices of past Avatars, channeling their power and their rage through Aang.

Toph’s brows furrowed. “Okay. I… I think I understand.” She bent earth beneath her right palm, just to give her body another task to focus on besides the anxiety clinging to the back of her throat. “But what actually happened then? When he went into the Avatar state?”

“What do you mean?” Katara asked, puzzled.

“I” - spirits, why was this so hard for her to articulate? - “I couldn’t see out there. There was wind and sand and energy and -” Toph cut herself off with a helpless shrug. “And fear.”

So much fear. Maybe hers, maybe Aang’s, maybe both.

Toph’s fingers curled into the ground. “I guess… why Aang went into the Avatar, what that means, is what I don’t get.”

“Oh.” There was a note of recognition in Katara’s voice. A sort of… acknowledgement, maybe, that hadn’t been present before. Whatever it was, Toph was grateful for it.

“I think I understand what you’re asking now.” Katara chuckled. “Although I’m struggling to figure out how to explain the Avatar state without using too many visual details.” She bumped Toph’s shoulder with her own. “Telling you his eyes and arrows started glowing blue doesn’t mean much, does it?”

Toph snorted. “No, not really.”

“I figured.” Katara hummed, contemplative. “Okay. Think about it this way.” There was another mrp as Momo was presumably disturbed from his slumber once more. “The Avatar state is… an instinct. Sokka would probably call it a defense mechanism.”

Toph frowned. “Wait. If it’s an instinct, how does Aang control it?” When she’d first learned earthbending from the badgermoles, her instinct had stopped boulders from crushing her, but she’d also sent them flying every which way. Did Aang -

“He doesn’t,” Katara said. “Not really. The Avatar state activates in moments of… need, I guess?” She sighed. “It’s hard to explain. Whenever Aang is under some kind of intensity, like - like emotional or physical stress, the Avatar state might be activated.”

“So it’s kind of… to protect him?” Toph thought back to the descriptor of a defense mechanism. It sounded like the Avatar state was almost a shield. A reaction to some form of pain. Which meant in the desert, he’d…

“Yeah, protection is a good way to describe it!” Katara laughed. “Though it’s the most offensive defense I’ve ever seen.”

Katara’s words entered Toph’s mind through a haze. In the desert, none of them had been injured. Tired, yes, dehydrated, sure, but not injured. Which meant for Aang to have entered the Avatar state…

It must have been because of emotional pain.

“Anyways,” Katara continued after a pause. “I’m only guessing at this point, but I think learning what happened to Appa just… overwhelmed Aang. So his body reacted in response. Tried to protect him from his own emotions.”

Momo started purring again. Toph guessed Katara had resumed her gentle petting of the lemur.

“When Aang found Monk Gyatso’s skeleton at the Southern Air Temple,” Katara whispered, her voice laced with a quiet grief, “he… he had the same reaction.”

Toph swallowed the lump in her throat. She would not cry. “So it was sadness, then,” she said when she was certain her voice wouldn’t waver. Devastation. “Anger.” Rage. “Fear.” Terror.

Toph clenched the front fabric of her tunic. “Just… hurt.”

There was a pause. “Yeah,” Katara confirmed. Her tone was almost… mournful. “He’s already lost everything, and now -” She cut herself off with a sharp inhale. Toph didn’t need Katara to finish to know what would be said.

Now Appa’s gone, too.

Toph couldn’t stop a tear from slipping out. She rubbed it away, praying Katara would interpret her action as one of exhaustion instead of guilt.

But maybe Katara was crying, too. The silence meant Toph had no way of knowing.

“Come on,” Katara finally said. “We should get to bed. We’ll be travelling on foot for now, so that means we need as much rest as we can get.”

Toph flinched. “Right.” But before Katara could stand up, Toph grabbed her arm. “Thank you,” she whispered. “For taking the time to… talk with me.”

Katara smiled at her. Toph didn’t need to see to know that. “Anytime.”

The next morning, Toph awoke at the crack of dawn. After a more restful night than she’d had in days, perhaps waking earlier was to be expected. Even better, Twinkle Toes was already up. Based on the heat in the air, he’d started cooking breakfast for them over a new fire, too.

Toph marched over to Aang’s side and pulled him into a bone-crushing hug. She ignored his startled yelp, instead squeezing him tighter. “We will get Appa back,” she whispered. “I promise.”

A beat passed. Aang wrapped his arms around her in response. “Thank you,” he murmured. His own embrace tightened. “I know we will.”

Toph was never going to let him feel such a hurt again.

~*~

it was not intentional but i think there's some major katophaang vibes from this ficlet, lmao (i have no regrets). i hope to see you tomorrow for day 4 - dance. thank you for reading!

[cherrywoes]

inferno.

𝘼𝘾𝙏 𝙊𝙉𝙀:

𝗖𝗛𝗔𝗣𝗧𝗘𝗥 𝗢𝗡𝗘. 𝘈𝘚𝘊𝘐𝘈𝘕.

— a person who has no shadow.

HELL IS THE personification of human sin. Despite the various myths and unknown facts that humans exchange between each other, each faction with different or slightly changed beliefs, the truth was this: hell has no ruler, nor was it ever meant to be something to rule over. A creation of God, it was meant to punish those who followed Lucifer in his rebellion and keep the Morningstar himself imprisoned before the return of Jesus upon the Earth. Until then, the souls of mortals would linger in limbo, never in peace, but waiting for a judgement that was uncertain.

The Nameless One had no issue with leaving Lucifer to his punishment—it was his punishment, after all, one he had no part in. At least, not by any stone cold allegiance to an angel who was no less interesting than any other who had fallen into the layers of Hell for the side they had chosen. He had spent long enough in the freezing bowels of Cocytus, reliving memory after memory, pushing past feelings of envy, guilt, sadness, all of it manufactured to torture him until the next coming of Christ, where he would be released and smote down as quickly as he had been freed from his prison. He refused to sit and wallow in wrath and insufferable pride, like the once great Lucifer, and he grew weary of this repetitive cycle—the same punishments, the same hellish overseers who chained him to slabs of frigid marble and allowed frozen creatures of ice and snow to peck at his inhuman flesh until there was nothing left of him. He would renew himself, and he would be on to the next, a permanent, never ending cycle that he was determined to be rid of even if it cost him his life.

Whispers from demons who made contracts with humans reached his ears, like it did with every other ancient being locked in Cocytus. They paid them no mind, but the Nameless One listened, and listened closely, reaching for any scrap of information that might let him escape and earn his freedom once more. The demons, posing as their overseers in phases, would make deals with humans for anything—wealth, extended life, healing, wisdom—in exchange for their immortal souls. It was easy enough for them to sign them over willingly, for no demon had the power to rend souls from mortal coils as the long vanished Archangel, Azrael, did. The humans got what they wanted for a century or so and when it was time for them to pay, the demons would scoop up their souls as payment before they ever reached Edom, the Realm Between.

Over thousands of years, humanity changed. The Nameless One was not surprised when they quickly surpassed the need for making contracts with his admittedly disgusting overseers; many of them worshipped his Creator in one century and disregarded Him the next, fluctuating in rapid and interesting cycles of belief and disbelief and even going as far as to kill in His name—a sin that would earn them quite the nice place in Cocytus, if it was awful enough. The most recent event discovered a splitting, a chasm between belief and disbelief or outright hereticism.

By then, the Nameless One had grown tired of listening, tired of the aches and pains in his bones and flesh, tired of the endless amount of scars that formed on his body from divine weapons used against him. He did not recognize the immortal body given to him by God any longer. It was wrought with damage, with darkness that seeped into him over thousands of centuries of torture and anguish and pain, creating a place right alongside his angelic soul that threatened to snuff out the light of his divinity any time he wavered. The entirety of Cocytus was dyed gold from the blood of the angels who had fallen, creating a mimicry of a golden city draped with chains and occupied by demons far older than he was.

“An angel made his way out of the gate,” one of the demons overseeing his punishment told another, brandishing a cat o’ nine tails against the hard ice wall to test its strength. The knots and metal shards ripped away chunks and left ragged scratches in its wake, each individual tumbling past the Nameless One’s eyesight. “Left his angelic soul behind and climbed right out into the human world. Once he was gone, the Hounds couldn’t find him over the stench of humanity.”

“The man on high isn’t doing anything?”

The demon swung the cat o’ nine tails down across the angel’s shoulders and shoulder blades harshly. It cracked against skin and cartilage, ripping away flesh and muscle and sending blood scattering across the already gold stained walls. The Nameless One was numb to it, far too used to the pain to manage a scream, and felt another lash against the back of his legs, severing the ligament in his knee keeping him upright. He sunk to the ground and earned another lash to his head, chunks of hair and flesh leaving with every scrape of the knots and metal.

“No, ever since his incarnation died and returned he’s been absent from human life.” The demon shrugged. “No one knows why. Orders haven’t changed, though, so we’re going to be here until the second coming.”

Demons talked like humans, oddly enough, after spending enough time in the mortal world. It had started after the rise in worshippers of Lucifer—which the Nameless One found the tiniest bit funny—and they had picked up slang and little fragments of human made language since then, to the point where the Nameless One had picked it up as well and understood when they spoke with contractions and odd metaphors like ‘a cat has nine lives’. A cat did not have nine lives, but he figured the sentiment was more widely used by mortals rather than demons.

But he had his way out now—all that was left to do was separate his angelic soul from… whatever the darkness was that clung to it like a lifeline. He wasn’t sure what it was—it did not feel like anything he had ever felt before in his thousands of years being alive. Not even Lucifer felt as he did, as if there was a second entity slumbering away inside him waiting to reach up and strangle his immortal soul down into the abyss it had come from. He had no name for it, no clue as to when it had begun to fester, to rise like an insidious boil that refused to go away; but it remained, and grew every day, faster, until it was the size of his soul and growing, turning the color of oil against water.

Pain became an annoyance as the angel worked tirelessly to undo every miniscule stitch that kept his angelic soul tied to the darkness within him. The punishments, once agonizing and overpowering each time he went through them, were nothing more than nuisances. Even Lucifer, whispering to him when they changed punishments, was an irritant he couldn’t get rid of, lingering in his head even when he was gone and distracting him from his freedom.

Stories reached him of others escaping in the same way he wished to: their souls lingering behind as their physical body rose to the mortal world and climbed through the portal, never to be seen again. The silvery silhouettes of their angelic souls were immune to torture, to time, to pain; there was nothing the demons could do to them unless they had their physical bodies to bind them.

Lucifer spoke to him, before he’d tore his angelic soul from his body, while the demons were busy chasing down another angel before he could escape to the portal. “You are perhaps the only one of the original legion who still remains with me. I thank you for that, Nameless One.”

“Don’t thank me just yet.” The angel lifted his limp wing from the ground, tattered and ruined past flight; stray feathers drifted to the ground, each one darker than the last, until the final one was as black as pitch. “You might despise me one day.”

“I don’t see how that will be possible.” Lucifer sounded amused; tired, but amused. Hell got to him slowly but surely, and in pieces—where the Nameless One remained indifferent to his punishments, Lucifer allowed them to get to him, made him doubt, made him wonder. He was no longer as brilliant or commanding as he used to be; he was weak, cowed, sufficiently imprisoned in Hell. He would never escape, not as long as he thought he deserved the punishment for what he had done. “You may be my only friend left here.”

The demons returned before the Nameless One could admit to what he was about to do. It was for the best, perhaps; because when he finally tore his soul from his body, he felt the darkness stir. The demons were ready for him, as if they had known what he was about to do.

“Don’t let him escape!” One shouted, a shadowy figure dwarfed by the others who were bigger, physical, and dangerous. They were blurs as he shoved past them and clambered over them one by one, desperate to reach the golden glowing light of the portal just behind them. “If he escapes, we’re all doomed!”

The Nameless One didn’t know about that. He fought his way through the crowd, until all that was left was a slowly healing group of demons, keening in high pitched voices as their heads slowly found their way back to their severed necks. Demon blood, black and viscous, like tar, dripped off of his body and smelled harshly of brimstone, but he couldn't bring himself to care as he once would.

In a moment of weakness, or concern, that was as brief as a brush of wind, he turned to look back at the depths of Cocytus once more. There, standing chained to a frozen throne he would never own, stood Lucifer, anger and fury burning in his eyes where there once held friendliness, affection. His entire person radiated betrayal, his wings high and bristled, but the Nameless One didn’t care like he thought he would have when he imagined betraying the great Morningstar.

No, no—he felt a sense of relief, instead.

Casting a quick glance to the demons at his feet, the angel turned and walked into the portal without a second thought, fresh, clean air entering his lungs the same time a dark, evil voice spoke within his mind, a thousand voices merged into one, stopping him dead in his tracks in a field of blush red poppies, baby’s breath, and calla lilies.

Freedom… At last.

prologue | masterlist | two

feedback survey.

taglist: open. lmk if you want to be added.

[pedros-mustache-main]

when your love reaches me (iii)

summary: 1978 is decidedly not 2020. nor is your life ever the same when you meet a guitarist, curly haired, soft spoken, and true.

word count: 7.5k

warnings: angst, language, yearning for a man in his 70s (c’est la vie, i guess), over-describing a moment i’m very passionate about (sorry, not sorry! ten points to the person who can tell me what moment it is LOL)

a/n: wow—this gif? yeah, match made in heaven. thank you all so much for indulging me in this mini-series. i really am very proud of this silly little thing & i’m sad that it’s over because i enjoyed writing it so much. thank you to @im-an-adult-ish​ & @deacyblues​ for helping me work out the rough spots in this one. would love to hear everyone’s thoughts because i’m very ~emotional~ about this mini-series!! xoxo.

part i, part ii

in this final chapter: you must adjust because it’s not in your cards to be with him, is it?

you run your hands down your face, feel the ring on your finger catch along the end of your nose, and sigh. two months—two months without him. two months to adjust to world you once knew but happily left behind. two months to gather the pieces of the life which cruelly slipped through your fingers like water. 

each day is the same. you rise early and take your coffee on the postage stamp terrace outside your flat. you watch the sun climb higher in the sky with each passing moment and let the warmth of your drink soothe the ache in your soul. you wash your breakfast dishes, mumble a good morning to rachel when she exits her bedroom to make her way to the shower, and dress for the day. you walk to campus if you have a class or take the underground to the museum if you have a shift. you come home, eat dinner, go to bed. repeat.

if rachel notices a change in you, she doesn’t say anything. in her mind, no time has passed between the morning where she asked you to come to the pub and the same evening you tumbled into the flat, drenched and sobbing. 

but you—you’ve lost a year of your life. there’s no getting it back, and the only thing that proves it really truly happened is the ring on your middle finger, the necklace hanging by your heart, and the undeveloped rolls of film in your bedside table.

there are few words to describe the unbearable pain in your chest. anything and everything reminds you of brian: the whisper of the breeze in the autumn-heavy trees; the feeling of your warmest cardigan around your shoulders; the sound of someone laughing in the museum.

but there’s more:

the scent of cigarette smoke reminds you of roger. the sight of two friends ribbing one another in a grocery store reminds you of crystal. a colorful jacket makes you think of freddie, a whispered snide remark takes you back to john, and two girls giggling reminds you of giddy moments with anna.

around every corner you turn there’s a memory you cannot avoid, and it hurts—desperately, keenly, deeply.

so you push it all away and soldier on, quiet and downtrodden. it’s easier that way. maybe, if you forget, you can move on and make it through life without him.

six months after you’ve left brian behind, you’re approached by your boss at the museum with an opportunity you’d only ever dreamed of: the chance to create and prepare your own exhibit. 

monica is firm when she offers you the south wing to reshape as your own. “blow this out of the water, [y/n], and there will be a job as assistant curator waiting for you after graduation. i want something fresh and exciting. think you can manage?”

you agree without hesitation.

for the first time in a long time, you can’t help but smile to yourself. this is your chance to put everything you’ve learned to good use, to put something tangible in your portfolio, to make a name for yourself. 

you’re buzzing with excitement and have to practically hold rachel hostage as you spout your myriad of thoughts and ideas. she’s your sounding board, even if she doesn’t want to be, but she’s honest where it counts most, and you’re grateful for that.

she glances over the kitchen table, laden with open magazines, cutout photos, and history books. her brow puckers. “this is... really boring, [y/n],” she says with a cringe, looking up with her blue eyes and freckled face.

your shoulder droop. “that’s it? that’s all you have to say?”

she shrugs and reaches for a photo, inspecting it with a critical gaze. “i mean, ancient textiles might be interesting to you and maybe five other people, but it isn’t exactly blowing me out of the water.”

dropping to the seat across the table, you huff. “well, we’re a photography museum, rachel. it’s not like i can whip up a few outfits and put them on mannequins.”

“excuse me, but fashion design is just as artistic as curating a museum—if not more so.” she sighs and puts the photo of a thirteenth century chinese table linen on the table. “there must be something else you’re interested in? something that other people will like just as much?”

you don’t mean to, but you let your eyes trail to the camera sitting on on the tv stand. you’d left it there after your return, uncertain where to put it. sometimes you catch a glimpse of it out of the corner of your eye and then you remember the tubes of film in your bedroom, undeveloped and unseen. 

rachel follows your gaze. “you know, you never told me where you got that.”

“it was a gift.”

“oh really? from who?”

you’re slow to answer. the truth sits on the tip of your tongue—the man i love, the man i was going to marry—but you bite it back. “my great-aunt. she left it to me... in her will.”

you aren’t sure what compels you to retrieve the six rolls of film from your bedroom, but you do. the tubes feel heavy in your palm and clang against the table as you put them down. rachel looks at them then back at you, waiting.

“she gave me these, too.”

“i didn’t know you had a great-aunt.”

“we weren’t close.”

“obviously you were close enough to get these things.” rachel lifts one of the tubes, turning it over in her palm. “wonder what the pictures are.”

“i’m not sure,” you lie. “maybe they could make an exhibit.”

“i think you’d have to develop them first then make that decision.” she rises from the table and shrugs on her coat. “i’ve got a date, so don’t wait up. and try not to let this consume you too much? you’ve been down and out lately. i think the work will do you good, but don’t let it take over, yeah?”

you nod and wish her well on her date. she leaves the flat in a flourish, leaves you to the tubes of film and the growing curiosity in your stomach.

you really should get them developed. if not for an exhibit, then for yourself. an entire year of your life is in those tubes, and you deserve to see the photos you’d taken to preserve that time.

it’s been six months. you’ve purposefully distanced yourself from anything and everything related to queen, be it a simple news story, a song on the radio, or any of roger or brian’s social media posts. it hurts to see them, to know that they’re so close yet so far away, that they have no idea what became of you all those years ago in japan.

still, it’s been six months. developing the film might be your first step toward a sense of closure. you don’t want to stay in your rut forever. though you’re comfortable with the idea that brian might be your great love and you’ll never find another, you know you can’t stay as you are, sullen and despondent. it’s like a break-up, really. you’re sad, heartbroken over the loss, but you know it’s time to step out of the hurt and into something different.

before you can stop yourself, you grab the rolls of film, your purse, and your jacket, and you head for the nearest photo shop.

a few hours later, you return with a heavy packet of freshly-printed photographs and a usb drive full of digital scans. there’s over two hundred photos to sort through, and you’ve yet to see one. 

flipping on the light to your living room, you sit down beside the coffee table, a glass of wine at your side, the table cleared of any lingering books or empty teacups. before you open the packet of photos, you open your laptop and type your search into the search bar. if you’re going to quell your curiosity tonight, you might as well quell all of it, and you’re dying to know what happened after you left. 

a simple internet search confirms what you already know: your presence within the group on the jazz tour did not alter any significant events. freddie still passed away, john still retired. a further search yields at least one previously nonexistent queen song written by brian may: “into thin air.” it was released in the album following jazz. you can’t bring yourself to listen to it, not yet. a deeper search unearths an interview brian gave a year or so after you left. the interview was published in a magazine editorial covering of each of queen’s band members and their lives when not on tour or recording. after freddie’s bit, there’s a photograph of brian at the top of a new page. he’s smiling, but he looks weary and he mentions you only once: “i was engaged for awhile, but that ended in an unfortunate circumstance, so to answer your question: no, i’m not looking for love. not right now, anyway.”

you close the laptop and lean back against the sofa. the ring on your finger feels heavy. your eyes fill with unshed tears, and you decide the photos can wait to be seen until tomorrow.

the packet of photos ends up sitting on the coffee table for two weeks before you invite your co-worker, shamik, over for wine and cheese and museum gossip. shamik is kind, a first-generation immigrant from india with personality to spare and an exuberance for all things american. he claims it’s his greatest curse that his parents brought him to britain as a baby instead of america, and it’s something he can never forgive them for. you’ve only interacted with shamik at work, but when you mention your exhibit project, he’s eager to offer his help. with no new ideas outside ancient textiles, you’re willing to take whatever advice or ideas he has.

sitting beside him on the couch, you spread your collection of papers and pictures on the table to explain your vision. he listens dutifully, nodding along, his eyes scanning the 3-d projection you’ve made of what the exhibit might look like once completed. when you’ve finished your spiel, he sets his wine glass down and nods to the packet of unopened photographs on the edge of the table.

“what’s that?”

you frown, shaking your head at the sudden turn in conversation. “sorry?”

he reaches for the manilla envelope. “oh, it’s hefty! what’s in here?”

you sigh and take the packet from his hands. it feels solid in your lap, like a brick. “photos from my great-aunt.”

he points to the sealed flap. “it’s unopened.”

“i haven’t gotten the chance to look through it yet.” setting the packet to the side, you raise your eyebrows. “well, what do you think? about the exhibit?”

“honestly? it’s dull. monica won’t be impressed.”

you throw yourself back against the couch with a groan. “what the hell,” you whisper. “i’ve got no ideas then.”

you know ancient textile photography would not be the most enticing exhibit, but it’s been an interest of yours for some time and would be easy enough to complete. shamik and rachel’s reactions do not bode well, you have to admit. having a job as an assistant curator right out of the gate would be beyond marvelous, and you desperately don’t want to screw it up with a boring first exhibit.

“let’s have a look at these pictures from your aunt!” before you can stop him, shamik reaches across your lap for the photo packet and rips open the top. “maybe that will spark some ideas?”

you lean forward, blush already rising to your cheeks as he pulls out the first picture. “oh no, shamik, i don’t know if—”

“holy shit!”

you shut your eyes, wincing.

“that’s fucking freddie mercury!” shamik grabs your shoulder, his fingers digging into your flesh. “did you know about this, [y/n]? that’s your aunt with freddie mercury!”

forcing your eyes open, you look at the photo trembling between his fingers. it’s a picture of you sitting beside freddie on the tour bus. (you think john took the photo in an effort to get you to stop taking photos of him when he was asleep while roger and crystal placed as many items on his head as they could before he fully awoke.) your head is against freddie’s shoulder, your eyes droopy with sleep. a lump rises in your throat, and all you can do is shake your head in feigned disbelief as shamik continues to shuffle through the photos.

“oh my god, your aunt was a groupie,” he cries, passing you another photo.

“i guess—” you clear your throat. “i guess she was.”

“you know”—shamik sets the pile of photos down and spreads them across the table, obscuring your vision of an ancient textiles display—“this would make a great exhibit.”

“shamik—” your voice is a warning, a sudden surge of anger rising in your chest, but he continues.

“no, really, [y/n]! there are so many photos here that tell such a cutesy little story. i mean, come on? freddie and this cat?” he lifts the photo in question. “it’s stuff people have never seen before from a totally different side of queen. it’s a fucking goldmine!” 

“absolutely not,” you say. “i will not put my aunt’s personal affairs on display.”

“think of monica, [y/n]! think of the job!”

“no, shamik!” you stand from the table and drop your plates in the kitchen sink with a resolute clatter. “i barely knew my aunt, but i know enough to gather that her time with queen was private. she didn’t say anything about it until she died. that’s got to mean something, and i don’t want to air it all out for everyone to see and speculate and gossip about just for my own personal gain.”

you’re shouting, fists clenched at your sides, by the time you finish. shamik just stares at you, his face blank and unreadable. he glances down at a photo. 

“she looks a lot like you,” he says, his voice even.

you huff and take the wine glasses from the table. “we’ve got strong family genes. now, please, i’d appreciate it if you just drop the whole queen thing. we can find some other idea.”

you gather the photos, shove them back in the folder, and toss the envelope in the nearest drawer you can find. the drawer slams shut, and you leave the photos there to gather dust.

you mull over shamik’s idea of an exhibit based on your photos for a month before you finally relent. monica’s riding your ass daily with questions about your progress. you need to get something down on paper for her to give to the contractors, so you begrudgingly type out a response to her most recent email:

monica,

i’ve landed on an exhibit topic at last. took me long enough, right? 

i’ve recently come into possession of a series of photographs taken by my late great-aunt. turns out she was a groupie with the band queen in the ‘70s. my exhibit will be centered around those photos. i’m thinking the exhibit will be titled “queen: unfiltered.” do with that what you will. :)

monica, much to your dismay, loves the idea and sends you right to work on gathering and laying out your vision while she begins the necessary promotion.

it hurts at first—looking at all the photos you took, remembering the way you felt so unearthly happy during that year. you cry each time you sit down to sort out the best of the pictures. the ones which capture a moment of levity amongst the band or are particularly well-shot go in a pile on the left. the ones which didn’t develop well or are too intimate for you to ever consider putting on display go in a pile on the right. your bedroom floor is a mess of drafted captions written on slips of printer paper, photographs with notes scrawled along the back, and used tissues. more than anything, you wish you could step into the world behind those photographs. you want to be back there—with him, with them—until you grow old and gray. knowing you can’t, that you won’t ever see him again, tears you apart inside.

but it helps. the exhibit forces you to acknowledge the time you spent with brian, with queen. instead of leaving the photos in a drawer, they confront you everyday as you sit down to work, and everyday it gets a little bit easier to face your past. as the tears subside, you find yourself laughing whenever you find a new photo of roger’s antics. your heart doesn’t clench as much when you run across another photo of you and brian. you can smile now when you look at his face. he really was so handsome...

you go so far as to frame your favorite photograph of your time together and place it on your dresser. he’s got his arms wrapped around you from behind, his chin settled on the top of your head. you’re laughing, your hands folded on his arms, legs crossed as you tilt to the side. he’s making a face, his tongue stuck out at the camera, and every time you pass by the picture, you can’t help but chuckle.

you love him still. you’ll love him always.

with three weeks before the opening of the exhibit, the stress is starting to get the better of you. you’ve bitten your nails down to the quick, there’s heavy bags under your eyes from lack of sleep, and you can’t remember the last time you consumed something other than coffee. despite the stress, you feel lighter. working through the photos, laying them out in order, writing the captions, pouring over the faces of the ones you love so dearly—it’s all helped ease the burden in your heart. for the first time in a long time, you slip out of bed in the mornings with a newfound sense of energy and purpose.

life will go on. just as you did when you fell into the past, you will find a new future.

arms laden with exhibit proposals and mock-ups, you brush into your local coffee shop—pretty bird—intent on getting some real work done on choosing the final photographs before you send them off to be printed. you order your usual and take a seat by the front. the air which wafts through the open window at your side is warm with spring and rebirth, and you breathe deep, cracking open the lid of your laptop. you manage to pick a total of twelve of the seventy-six needed photographs before you’re interrupted.

“whatcha workin’ on?” matthew, barista extraordinaire and casual acquaintance, sits down on the bench across from you. he has his own cup of cold brew poised between his lips, and the piercing in his eyebrow wiggles as he moves his brow up and down.

“an exhibit for the museum,” you say, pausing to roll your tight shoulders. “it’s my first.”

“do tell!”

you explain, briefly, how to came to acquire your dead aunt’s photographs and the general theme of the showcase. he nods in approval then snaps as if he’s remembered something.

“hold on. stay right there. i’ll be right back.” he puts his coffee down, scoots off of the bench, and darts to the back of the coffee shop. you wait and listen to the sound of the birds twittering outside before he returns with a framed picture in hand. “i just learned about this,” he says, taking his seat again. “this building used to be a disco back in the 70s.” he hands you the frame and points to a collection of people in the middle of a disco bar. “that’s queen. they came here once and somebody had the smarts to take a picture.”

your hands shake around the photograph, eyes darting from one corner of the picture to another. 

matthew keeps talking. “the place was called climax. can you believe that? the 70s were fuckin’ wild, mate.”

you nod, lips parted, and skim your fingers over the incredibly tall and recognizable form of brian in the center of the photo. you can see your shoulder, jammed between freddie and crystal, but the rest of your body is obscured. you lift your eyes from the frame and glance around the coffee shop, at the exposed metal beams and vaulted ceilings, at the disco ball still hanging in the center of the room.

makes sense now. why the building had felt so eerily familiar back then.

handing matthew the picture frame, you sit back in your chair. “wonder if my aunt ever came,” you say.

“maybe? sounds like she was in pretty tight. you know who you could ask?” you shake your head, uncertain of matthew’s question. “chris taylor. he was a roadie back then. he’s a regular here. comes in at least twice at week.”

you can’t stop the hand that flies to your mouth in surprise. you try to smother your gasp with a cough, but matthew still stares at you like you’ve sprouted another head. 

“you okay?” he asks warily.

nodding, you take a sip of your drink. “yeah, yeah, sorry! wrong pipe.”

“so, do you want to meet him and ask about your aunt?”

everything in you screams to say no. it’s too dangerous. you will surely break the moment you see him. crystal became your lifeline apart from brian during that year. he was your brother, your partner in crime, the one who kept you grounded when things got too wild. just knowing that he’s frequented the same coffee shop as you for the last six months brings tears to your eyes. you could have run into him. hell, you might’ve already. still, you aren’t sure if you’d be able to make it through a proper meeting without spilling your guts and apologizing for the way you left.

“[y/n]?” matthew pulls you from your thoughts. “what do you think?”

you hesitate before shrugging. you speak before you can stop yourself, before the rational and reasonable part of you can take over. god, you need this. if it’s your only opportunity for true closure, you’ll take it. “if he’s up to it then... sure.”

matthew grins. “come in tomorrow. i’ll introduce you!”

that night you toss and turn. you’re plagued with anxiety. will crystal recognize you? if he does, what will he say? will he be angry? what if he tells brian and then—

your bedside alarm goes off just as you fall asleep. it’s a struggle to drag yourself out of bed, but you must. there’s closure somewhere around the corner, and if you just move your ass, you’ll find it. you have one class this morning then your meeting with crystal. you’re jittery by the time you leave class, but you chalk that up to drinking two cups of coffee before leaving your flat and one in class. 

it’s drizzling as you make your way to the coffee shop. you hasten your steps, head bent against the rain and fingers curled around the strap of your bag. when you enter the shop, it’s nearly empty aside from a few lonesome students studying in far off corners. you can hear the faint thrill of music over the loudspeakers, but the blood that’s rushing to your ears blocks out most of the melody.

crystal’s already here, leaning against the counter, in conversation with matthew.

you stop in your tracks. he’s bald now, slightly pudgier with age, but he looks every bit as devilish as you remember.

you swallow past the fear in your throat and the anxiety in your veins and step forward. you voice wobbles when you speak. “matthew?” you direct your entrance to your friend because if you come right out and say crystal’s name, you will surely fall over in a puddle of emotion.

“there you are!” matthew jumps over the counter in one easy leap and lands to the floor beside you. he drapes his arm around your shoulders and motions to crystal. “[y/n], i’d like you to meet chris taylor. chris, this is [y/n], the girl i was telling you about.”

crystal’s staring at you through his blue-tinted glasses like he’s seen a ghost. his jaw has gone slack, his mouth opening and closing as he tries to formulate a sentence. 

you shove your hand into the space between you. “nice to meet you, mr. taylor.”

looking between matthew and yourself, he gathers himself, clearing his throat, and shakes your hand. “you too.”

“should we sit?” you motion to the same table you occupied the day before. “i can buy you a coffee for your troubles.”

he shakes his head and lifts his cup. “already got mine.”

“all right, well...” you glance at matthew.

“do you want your regular?” he asks.

“yes, please.”

“comin’ right up.”

crystal follows you to the table and sits down, his movements slow. for a moment, you sit in silence and allow his eyes to roam your face. you can’t tell if he knows it’s you or if he thinks it’s just a coincidence. you want to reach out and take the hand he rubs across the bridge of his nose, but you fold your fingers in your lap.

“thank you for agreeing to talk with me,” you finally say.

“you aunt,” he starts.

“yes, my aunt.” you pull a photograph out of your bag. it’s one of the few you took with crystal all those years ago. he’s got you in a headlock, his opposite fist grinding into the top of your skull. you slide the picture across the table. “you knew her?”

crystal lifts the photo, inspects it, before putting it down. he sighs, shaking his head. “i loved that woman. broke my heart when she left.” his gaze lifts from the table. “you look like her, have her name too.”

you look away, out the window at the side. there’s bird fluttering in a puddle on the sidewalk, and you watch it for a moment before turning back to him. “i think my mother loved her a great deal. i didn’t get the chance to know her, though. we only just found these pictures recently.”

his eyes narrow. “i mean, you really look like her.”

you force a smile. “thank you. that’s kind of you.” shifting, you tap your finger on the table. “i know her leaving wasn’t exactly...” you struggle to find the proper word, but he jumps to assist.

“natural?”

“well, i was going to say easy, but—”

“she fuckin’ disappeared! excuse my language.” huffing, he drops back against his chair. “one minute she was there, the next minute she was gone. i swear, i’ve never seen anyone skip town that fast.”

“she didn’t say anything about leaving?”

“why would she? she was engaged! she had no reason to leave that i know of.”

“was she happy?”

“hell yes. her and brian—i’ve never seen two people more fit for one another. brian just about lost his mind trying to find her, but it was like she never existed. strangest thing.” he pauses to take a sip of his coffee, looking askance, before his eyes whiz back to yours. “oh my fucking god.” 

you look up, fear sparking in your belly. “what?”

“[y/n]?”

you blink. your head feels dizzy with the way he’s looking at you, like he’s about to jump across the table and throttle you or hug you so tight your insides might squeeze out of your body.

“fuck,” he breathes. “it is you.”

“i don’t know know what you’re—”

“don’t play dumb with me!” he leans across the table and lowers his voice. “i was the one who got you that phony passport, remember? i always wondered why i couldn’t find your credentials. had to lie my way through it until i got the damn thing. you’re lucky everything was so lax in the 70s.” he shakes his head. “how’d you do it?”

there’s part of you that wants to deny, deny, deny.

but it’s crystal. you can’t lie to him any more than you already have.

“i had no choice in the matter,” you say plainly. “one minute i was here, the next minute i was there, and the next minute i was here again.”

his jaw works back and forth as he processes the information. “does brian know?”

“no—and i’d like to keep it that way.”

“i thought we might lose him after you left.”

you twist the ring on your finger. “if i’d had the choice, i would have stayed. i hope you know that.”

crystal nods. “yeah, i do.” he holds your gaze then motions to your bag. “so, this exhibit matthew told me about. you’re publishing all those photos you took?”

“yes. there are some pictures i’ve saved for myself, but my boss, monica, she got permission from the record label to go ahead with the others. it opens in three weeks.”

“i’ll be there if i can. i’d like to see those pictures.”

you smile, your first earnest smile of the day. “you feature many times.”

he ducks his head like an embarrassed schoolboy. “we were thick as thieves, weren’t we?”

“you and roger were thicker, but i’d like to think i had a part to play some of the time.”

he lifts his head and heaves a heavy sigh. “you know, when i said i loved you, i meant it. not in the way brian did. you were like a kid sister to me. i cared for you a great deal.”

before you can stop yourself, you slip your hand across the table to grasp his worn fingers. his shoulders shake on another sigh, and he lifts his opposite hand to wipe at his eyes beneath his glasses. 

“oh, crystal. i’m so sorry,” you whisper. it hurts to see him cry, to know that you’re the cause behind his pain. 

he waves your apology away, sniffing hard. “i’m just glad to know you’re okay. we thought you might’ve gotten picked up or—” he shakes his head and pats your hand over his, meeting your eyes. “you’re okay, though. that’s what matters.”

“will you really come to my exhibit?”

“anything for you, kid.” he thumbs the underside of your chin with a lopsided grin. “even after all this time, i’m putty in your hands.”

you grin and hand him a business card, which he tucks in the folds of his wallet. rising from his seat, he opens his arms and you practically trip into his hug. he holds you tight for the briefest of moments before pulling back. he pats your cheek.

“i’ll see you in three weeks, yeah? if i stay any longer i’ll end up a sobbin’ mess on the floor.”

you nod. “yeah. and, crystal?” he turns at the door. “don’t tell brian. please.”

he leaves without another word.

the day of the exhibit opening you are equal parts thrilled and a nervous wreck. everyone’s here—your family, rachel, shamik, even matthew. you haven’t seen crystal amidst the crowd mingling in the lobby, but you trust him to show. he’s always been reliable, and you doubt he’ll fail you now.

monica squeezes your shoulder as she passes you by in the staff hallway. “it looks wonderful, [y/n]. consider yourself hired,” she says and hands you a keycard. “i’m going to give you a piece of advice i got when i completed my first exhibit: go have a moment by yourself. look at your work, be proud of it. you deserve it.”

with trembling fingers and a racing heart, you make your way down the corridor to the south exhibit hall. due to a celebratory lunch with rachel the day before, you hadn’t gotten the chance to see the room in its final state. in retrospect, you’re thankful for the chance to see it for the first time alone. at least this way, if you cry, no one will have to know.

the door beeps as it unlocks, and you slip inside the room. you descend the handful of stairs which lead into the showroom floor and suck in a deep breath. 

before entering the exhibit, there’s a wall to the side with a simple explanation written in a white font:

queen: unfiltered — this exhibit preserves and presents never-before-seen images of the popular band, queen, through the eyes of an unnamed woman who spent a year traveling the world on queen’s jazz album tour. her images are intimate yet distinctive and offer a personal glimpse into the lives of one of britain’s most well-known bands. 

at the far end of the room hang four banners spanning floor to ceiling. the banners wave gently in the air blowing throughout the room, illuminated from lights on the ceiling and floor. each banner hosts an oversized photo of one of the band’s members in an image that best captures their personality. it took you hours to find the right photo for each man, but you stand by your choice for each one.

there’s john on the far left, head bent as he strums the bass across his knee. his lips are pursed in thought, a line of concentration on his brow.

there’s freddie next to him. he stands in a spanish alley way, cradling a stray cat in his arms. he looks serenely on at the camera, a rare moment of simplicity.

there’s brian sat in an overstuffed armchair, his gangly legs crossed, a book open on his lap. he has the corner of his thumb in his mouth, and if you squint you can see the edge of his tongue.

there’s roger on the far right. he’s smiling at the camera, his eyes bright with mischief and joy. there’s a party hat snug on the crown of his head, pulling the skin of his forehead taut.

on opposite sides of the room, two parallel rows of twelve photos hang in neat order. you decided to have every photograph in the exhibit printed in black-and-white and, in all, you painstakingly picked the forty-eight photos featured in their simple white frames. you walk along the wall, hands clasped at your waist, eyes running over the memories you hold so dear.

the afternoon crystal taught you ride a bike in barcelona: you’re sat on the handlebars after a hard fall, mouth open in a squeal of delight as crystal whips toward the camera.

roger and john tossing an apple back and forth in an ottawa grocery store: john’s smile is broad, the apple caught on film midair.

brian sitting on the floor of your hotel suite: there’s a tray of sushi at his feet, and he’s smiling at you, his hair wet from a shower.

freddie playing the piano in the airport in yugoslavia: he’d been so excited to see one, his shoes had slipped on the slick floor as he ran to it. he’d played dramatically, conducting those around him in a horrible rendition of “god save the queen.”

your eyes sting with tears as you glance about the room. you’re proud of your work. it looks good, professional and elegant, but more than that, you’re proud of yourself for the work you’ve done in mending your broken heart. though you will never live the life you’d once dreamed of, you will always have the memories—and that’s got to count for something.

when the double-doors open and monica ushers the first of the patrons in, you slip into the closest bathroom to wipe at the makeup smudged under your eyes. you’re happy, truly so, and you want to celebrate—celebrate both of your lives as they finally come together.

the room is crowded when you reenter, conversation and gentle laughter mingling in the air. you accept a tight hug from rachel when you see her and the congratulations of your parents. you can’t stop smiling, and you’re sure your face will hurt come morning, but it doesn’t really matter, does it?

your parents float away, hand in hand, and you find yourself alone in the center of the room, watching in awe as people you’ve never met look at your photos, at your memories, and nod in appreciation. your chest swells with an emotion you can’t place.

“i think this calls for a congratulations. you’ve outdone yourself, dove.”

you whirl on your heel, lip caught between your teeth in a poorly-concealed smile. “you came.”

crystal grins. the tie of his suit is rumbled and askew, and you reach out to straighten it. old habits die hard. “i said i would.”

“what do you think?”

“i think it’s fantastic. the lads would be proud.”

“maybe.” you shrug. “guess we’ll never know.”

“are you really so intent on staying hidden forever?”

you nod. “yes. it took everything in me to even talk to you. i don’t want to ruin their lives again by popping back up, especially because i’m not exactly old, am i?”

crystal laughs, shaking his head. “you must think you’re hot stuff if a simple hello could ruin a life.” his laughter fades into a simple smile. “now, i know you’re going to hate me and i’m willing to take that, but i did tell a certain someone about the exhibit.”

you can feel the blood drain from your face. “crystal, you didn’t.”

he winces. “i might’ve.”

you slap his arm and curl your fingers into his bicep. “you bastard!”

he holds up his hands in defense, decent enough to plaster a look of contrition on his face. “look, i didn’t tell him the context or what tipped me off. i just told him there was a new exhibit about queen and he was eager to come see. that’s all!”

you swallow hard, uncertain how to respond. “i—” your head twists back and forth in utter confusion. “i don’t know what to do.”

crystal’s face softens, and he nudges your shoulder. “go talk to him. he deserves that much, doesn’t he?”

you can’t argue with that.

giving crystal’s arm a grateful squeeze, your legs shake beneath you as you turn and see him—brian—across the room.

you don’t know how you didn’t see him before. even now, forty years later, he’s still unmistakeable: still tall, still gangly, but his hair has gone white and his strides are slower. the overwhelming urge to tear across the room and curl yourself around his back nearly overpowers you, but you shove it down and manage to cross the floor in slow, even steps. you keep your eyes glued to his back, your hands twitching at your sides. when you reach him and catch a faint whiff of his cologne, the same he wore all those years ago, you have to push back the tears that rise unbidden to your eyes.

you tap his shoulder. “dr. may?”

he circles around, as does his wife anita, her arm snug in his elbow.

brian blinks hard, his brow furrowed in confusion. for a moment, you let him stare at you as you stare right back. his eyes are the same. you’d thought they’d be different, but they aren’t. the realization stuns you silent.

anita glances between you both before smiling sweetly. “good evening, sweetheart,” she says, and her voice is so kind you can’t even summon the slightest bit of jealousy. “i’m afraid i didn’t catch your name.”

“oh, i’m sorry!” you laugh and find that smiling at anita isn’t hard. “my name’s [y/n] [y/l/n]. i created the exhibit. i thought i might come and introduce myself.”

“oh, how lovely!” anita claps her hands together. “what you’ve done is so beautiful, [y/n]. it’s nearly brought a tear to my eye.”

“that’s very kind of you, ma’am.”

“brian likes it too. don’t you, brian?”

he still can’t seem to formulate any sort of response. he’s frozen in place, and your heart lurches for him. to see the woman he’d once asked to marry him, the one so cruelly ripped away, while standing next to his wife... precisely why you never wanted to meddle in his current affairs.

finally, he seems to collect himself. he sucks in a deep breath and nods in agreement. “yes, i do. very much.”

“that means a lot,” you say, easing your smile back into place. “thank you.”

“i’ll leave you two to talk to for a moment. i see crystal hovering in the corner over there, and i’m sure you both have many questions for one another.” anita presses her hand on your arm as she passes. “lovely job, dear.”

she leaves, and you’re left alone with the greatest love of your life.

you wait for him to speak.

“you’re... alive?” it’s a question, not a statement.

“yes.”

“you’re the same age?”

“yes.”

“how did—” he shakes his head. “i don’t understand.”

“neither do i.”

his chin quivers slightly, and he looks away. “i thought you’d been taken or decided to—”

you dare to touch his arm. a spark jolts through your fingers at the slightest touch, but you hold firm. “nothing happened,” you explain. “other than nature righting her mistake.”

“i think—i think i need to sit down.”

“yes, of course. my office is down the hall. it’s quiet there.”

he nods and leans against your arm as you lead him down the hall. in the silence of your dimly lit office, he collapses to the loveseat beneath the window and drops his face to his hands. you hesitate in the doorway until he looks up. tears shimmer in his eyes, and you swallow hard, your smile wavering around the edges.

he stands then, crosses the floor, and cradles your face in his hands. “my god,” he breathes. “it really is you.”

with a laugh, you hold his wrists. “in the flesh.”

“how long’s it been?” his thumb works over your cheekbone and, though you know he should stop, you can’t bring yourself to step away from his touch.

“about seven months.”

he snorts. “try forty years.”

“you seem like you did well for yourself, though.”

he shrugs. “i suppose.”

“you’re happy?”

there’s a heavy pause before he says, “yes.”

“that’s all i want to hear.”

slipping out of his grasp, you put a modicum of space between you both. the air is thick with emotion, and your heart beats wildly against your chest. the love you thought you’d put to bed flares at the mere sight of him, even after all this time.

you drift your finger through the sand of your tabletop zen garden. “i told crystal not to tell you about me,” you admit.

“he didn’t—not in so many words.”

“i know. i’m glad he said something, though.” you pause, meet his gaze. “it’s so good to see you, bri.”

quiet falls over the room as he stares at you. you don’t squirm. you’re comfortable under his gaze, always have been.

“i hope you know i never stop looking,” he says. “even after anita, i kept trying to find you. just to know.”

“and i hope you know that i would do it all again in a heartbeat if it meant i got to be with you even for a time.”

your phone vibrates on the desk, skidding across your oversized calendar. you reach for the phone and flip it over before slipping it in the purse hung over your desk chair.

“i’ve got to go,” you admit, crossing to his side. “i’ve actually got a date.”

to your surprise, his eyes crinkle with amusement. “i’m happy to hear it.” he lifts a hand and smooths back the hair from the side of your face. he looks at you with all the love he did forty years ago, and you wish you could take a picture to remember forever. 

but then you remember: you have dozens of photos at home, and it doesn’t seem too hard to let him go now. not after the work you’ve put into mending your heart. you can face this, face saying goodbye for good. you have to, for his sake and your own.

rising to your tiptoes, you place a hand on his shoulder and kiss the corner of his mouth—one last touch, for you both. you wind your arm around his neck and whisper in his ear, “i love you, brian may. i always will.”

he squeezes you hard against his body, sucking in a ragged breath. “i love you too, [y/n].”

dropping back to your heels, you huff a breath and smile wide. “well, i’d better go.”

“yes, you’d better. don’t keep the lad waiting.”

you bite the inside of your cheek, your hand lingering on his. “okay, well... goodbye, brian.”

he smiles, and it’s the loveliest sight you’ve ever seen. he brushes you cheek with the back of his hand, whispering, “see you later, love.”

dipping out the back of the museum, you walk down the street, purse slung over your shoulders. you think you’ll be able to sleep well for the first time in a long time tonight. 

you hope he can, too.

~*~*~*

taglist: @bhmay​ @grigorlee​ @teenagepeterpan​ @just-my-sickly-pride​ @perriwiinkle​ @ubernoxa​ @anunknownnebula​ @coincidence-ithinknots-blog​ @captvinswaan​ @ineloqueent​

[chipper9906]

Bound To You - Chapter 13: Reunions

< - - - Previous Chapter

WARNING: SPOILERS FOR SEASON 15

NOTE: Pairings and Ratings Will Change As Story Is Updated

Pairings: Castiel/Dean Winchester, Eileen Leahy/Sam Winchester

Rating: General Audiences

Chapter Word Count: 11,456

Overall Word Count: 105,524

Status: Multi Chapter Fic - In Progress (13/15)

Chapter Preview:

To his right is a building. It’s an old building, but not in that desolate, crumbling way an abandoned building would be. It’s well-loved, with many pairs of feet having walked through its front doors. Its aged wooden exterior has stood the test of time, the weathered appearance only adding to its charm. However, the strange thing about this building is… that it shouldn’t exist. It had burned down, years ago now, taking a beloved friend of the Winchesters with it. And yet, the switched-off neon sign situated above the bar’s awning proudly displayed ‘Harvelle’s Roadhouse’ as if that horrid event had never happened.

Castiel doesn’t have too much time to ponder on that, however, as the third thing he takes in is… himself. Sat upon a less than stable looking wooden chair under the Roadhouse’s awning is the spitting image of himself, although this version of him has forgone his usual trench coat attire, instead opting for a simple pair of well-worn jeans and a button-up shirt. The man waves him over and, without really knowing why, Castiel finds himself walking over.

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Character Key For Telepathic Conversations

'Italic Text' - Castiel

'Bold Text' - Dean

 * * *

Castiel opens his eyes.

Which, in itself, is unexpected. His last experience in the Empty was one of… nothingness. He had only awoken once he had heard Dean calling to him, but before that… he was lost in a deep, deep sleep. He had assumed that meant the Empty had decided it was better to just throw him as far into the Empty as possible to sleep through his worst nightmares, allowing the Empty to finally go back to sleep itself.

Perhaps this time was different. Perhaps he had escaped the Empty’s clutches one time too many, woken it up from its slumber for the last time, and will now be subjected to the worst torture imaginable by this very ancient, and very pissed off being.

Either way, the sight that greets him when his eyes open is not of the Empty’s infinite stretches of darkness. He is also not greeted to the sight of the bunker’s ceiling, with the worried faces of the Winchester brothers and Eileen leaning over his freshly made body.

The first sight he sees is the sky; Rich blue in color that he’s sure no type of man-made paint would ever be able to match in even the most magnificent of paintings, dotted with beautifully crafted pillow-like clouds which floated lazily over his head. The gentle warmth of the sun above kissed his skin; not that searing heat that has your skin feeling raw and tight, but that perfectly comfortable temperature that can only be made better by – oh, and there it was: a gentle warm breeze that was cool enough to take off the edge of the sun’s rays, but also warm enough that it doesn’t leave him shivering under his trench-coat.

All of this information comes together in one big conclusion: wherever he had ended up…

He was no longer an Angel.

The surface under his back is hard enough that his shoulder blades have begun to ache, a consistent and uncomfortable pressure that forces him up to his feet. Once his body listens to his commands and has him taking in his surroundings, he’s able to take in the sight of the smooth, tarred road he had been laid out on, stretching out in front of him before bending around a corner and out of sight. Most of the road was surrounded by dense forest on either side, the few rays of light breaking through the tangled branches of the treetops shining down on the sun-bleached grass.

To his right is a building. It’s an old building, but not in that desolate, crumbling way an abandoned building would be. It’s well-loved, with many pairs of feet having walked through its front doors. Its aged wooden exterior has stood the test of time, the weathered appearance only adding to its charm. However, the strange thing about this building is… that it shouldn’t exist. It had burned down, years ago now, taking a beloved friend of the Winchesters with it. And yet, the switched-off neon sign situated above the bar’s awning proudly displayed ‘Harvelle’s Roadhouse’ as if that horrid event had never happened.

Castiel doesn’t have too much time to ponder on that, however, as the third thing he takes in is… himself. Sat upon a less than stable looking wooden chair under the Roadhouse’s awning is the spitting image of himself, although this version of him has forgone his usual trench coat attire, instead opting for a simple pair of well-worn jeans and a button-up shirt. The man waves him over and, without really knowing why, Castiel finds himself walking over.

“Hello, Castiel,” The man greets him with a welcoming smile as he stands from the chair. His voice is similar to his own, though not of the same grumbly, rough pitch.

“Is this supposed to be some sort of trick?” Castiel asks the thing wearing his skin, unsure whether to keep his eyes focused on his double, or the strange world he had woken up in.

The man’s smile turns almost sad in nature, seeing the expression on his own face rather… jarring to see. “Ah… you think I’m the Empty, don’t you?”

“I’m dead, am I not?” Castiel answers his question with another question. “Where else would I go?”

“Well, I doubt I could convince you you’re not in that place,” The man places a hand on his own chest as he speaks. “But there is someone waiting to talk you in there that might. A few, actually. We’ve been keeping a close eye on you guys; it’s been both stressful and amusing to watch everything unfold, I can tell you that.”

Castiel’s eyes briefly flicker to the closed door of the Roadhouse at the man’s jab of a thumb behind himself, his new ears picking up the sound of soft music, chatter, and laughter emitting from within. “This… this isn’t the Empty?”

“Nope.”

“And… you’re not the Empty?”

“Also no.”

“Then… who are you?”

The man laughs kindly at that – not a mocking laugh, almost more… that he had been expecting for that question. “I was chosen to be the guy that welcomes you up here. Thought it would be nice for you to see a familiar face when you woke up - even if it’s only familiar because you’re borrowing it from me.”

It took an embarrassingly long time for Castiel to connect the dots. To be fair, he had just died, so everything was a little disorienting right now. “…James?”

James’s face twisted in discomfort at the name. “I prefer Jimmy, to be honest with you. ‘James’ feels weird…”

Castiel could only gawp at his vessel; both because of how friendly he was being towards him (especially considering they hadn’t left each other on the best of terms), and because, if he was talking to Jimmy right now, in front of the Roadhouse, basking in the most perfect weather he’s ever experienced, then…

“This… is Heaven?” Castiel finally gets out. “I’m in Heaven?”

“You are,” Jimmy confirms.

“I don’t understand…” Castiel mumbles, placing a hand on his chest as if he would be able to feel the one thing he shouldn’t have. “I… I don’t have a soul?”

“You didn’t have a soul. You do now.” Jimmy corrects him. “One of the few perks to being human.”

Before Castiel could say anything in response to this revelation, Jimmy was patting him on the back with a sympathetic smile. “Look, I know this is all… a lot. First time I woke up here was weird, too. One second I’m watching you throw a Molotov at Lucifer himself, the next I’m being ripped into atoms, and… here I am.”

“Ah…yes…” Castiel ducks his head in shame. “I'm sorry for-,”

“Sorry?” Jimmy cuts him off with a laugh. “Castiel… I had accepted to being chained to you for eternity, remember? Trust me, coming up here was the best thing that could have happened to me.”

“But…” Castiel begins with a frown. “What about Claire? I took you away from her. I made you miss watching her grow up, I-,”

“You did what you had to do to save the world. Which you and those guys down there did. Many times. Because of you, my girl gets to keep on living. I'm proud to have been the one that helped you to do that, Castiel. Even if it’s only by lending you my body.”

“That doesn’t excuse me of depriving her of a father.”

Jimmy sighs deeply at Castiel's insistence on kicking himself while he’s down. “She still had a father, Castiel. Sure, it took you a while, but you got there eventually. Buying her embarrassing birthday presents that she secretly loves? That's what a dad does. But most of all? You protected her, Castiel. You made sure to look out for her. Now, she has a home. And I know that Sheriff will be as protective over my girl as Amelia was, along with all those other girls shacked up in that house. She's safe. She has a chance to live her life. And one day… I'll get to see her again. I can’t ask for much more, Cas.”

Castiel smiled gratefully at his former vessel, diverting his gaze to the ground. “And… how are you, Jimmy? You and Amelia?”

“Never better,” Jimmy assured him, placing a hand on his back and diverting him towards the Roadhouse’s entrance. “Felt like a blink an eye before Amelia was up here with me. Things are even better with the change-,”

“The what?” Castiel planted his feet firmly, coming to a stop in front of the door. “What change?”

“Heaven, Castiel. Recently, there’s been some uh… well, let’s just say it’s not the Heaven you remember. Trust me - you’ll see what I mean when you get inside.”

Castiel’s gaze was drawn towards Jimmy’s hand gesturing towards the door in front of them, watching Castiel expectantly with a raised eyebrow. Castiel cast Jimmy one last look, praying quietly to himself that this wasn’t some sort of trick as he pushed open the door to the Roadhouse.

The interior of the Roadhouse is bathed with warm light, and filled with people milling about the bar, chatting happily to one another with drinks in hands. Who exactly these people are, Castiel does not know, for he only has a few seconds to take everything in before-

“There he is!” The excited yell comes from somewhere to his left, and he’s only just about able to turn his head towards the person yelling before his vision is overtaken by a small red-headed woman wrapping herself around him, nearly sending him stumbling back out of the Roadhouse.

“Charlie?” Castiel is just about able to get out, having all the air squeezed out of his new lungs by the arms locked around his ribs.

Charlie is beaming up at him just as brightly as the first time they had met, giving Cas an enthusiastic punch to the shoulder that was, honestly, borderline painful. “It’s good to see you, dude! Well, not good in the way that you’re dead, but, uh… you know, it’s just good to see you!”

“It’s good to see you too,” Castiel said, able to hear Jimmy’s amused chuckles at their reunion as he squeezes past the two.

“Told Charlie I had a feeling I’d be seeing one of you guys here, soon,” Another familiar voice appears at Cas’s side, glancing over to see the amused smile of Kevin Tran. “Perhaps not a few minutes after I got up here, but… should I ever be surprised?”

“Kevin…” Castiel breaths out in disbelief. “You… you made it into Heaven?”

Kevin shoots him a strained smile. “Third time’s the charm, right?”

“But… you were sent to Hell…” Castiel recalls, wincing at the reminder of what Chuck had cruelly done. “Damned souls aren’t permitted into Heaven.”

“Yeah… but that was Chuck’s rules,” Kevin said. “New boss in town has made some changes to the rules. No more worrying about going back to Hell, or potentially going crazy wandering around Earth in ghost form… Feels like it’s the first time I’ve been able to relax in… forever.”

“It’s… it’s been some time,” Castiel says awkwardly.

“Yeah, for you,” Charlie jumps in. “Time is funky up here, feels like it’s been… a few hours? For me, at first, I was just at my old home, back when I was a kid. Just me, my mom, and my dad, like the good old times. But something felt… weird.”

“Weird how?”

“I don’t know, it was like… it was like I wasn’t myself, not completely. Heaven felt like… like someone telling me what my Heaven should be. I don’t know if that really makes sense, but it wasn’t exactly bad, you know? But it also didn’t feel real. Like I was in some sort of play. And then, it felt like the walls came down. We were free to go where we want, see who we want. It feels like we’re back on Earth, but… if Earth was paradise, you know? No monsters, no worry about money. You have everything you want, the people you love, it’s just… it’s everything we were missing, and we didn’t even know we were missing it.”

Castiel huffs out a breathy laugh of realization. “Paradise on Earth… I thought I had been shown Earth, but it’s not…”

“We’ve been playing catch up, finding out what you guys have been up to down there,” Charlie tells him, giving him a sly grin. “I can’t believe Dean finally told you! It had been killing me to see you guys in person, pretty much a couple already but never crossing over the line. I mean it was bad enough reading about the eye-fucking in the Carver Edland books, but to see it in person-,”

“Chuck’s books?” Castiel interrupted her in horror. “God wrote about me and Dean… like that?”

“I mean… he was just writing what he saw,” Charlie’s knowing look made Castiel want to run away and hide. “Dean might just be the biggest disaster of a closeted Bi I had ever met…”

“Good to know I wasn’t the only one being subjected to that,” Kevin interjects with a shake of his head.

Castiel continues to look on in horror. “You knew that…?”

“One of Dean and mine’s first interactions was of Dean guiding me through step by step on how to flirt with a guy,” Charlie told him with a snort of laughter. “Kinda had an inkling that something was up after that. And then when I saw you guys together during that pizza night… I’ve never found something so adorable and yet so infuriating at the same time.”

“I’m… sorry?” Castiel offered.

Charlie grinned at his unsure-sounding apology, shaking her head at him. “You got nothing to be sorry for, Cas; Wouldn’t exactly expect an angel to be the most skilled in the art of seduction – and Dean was as blind as a bat to miss all the obvious signal you were sending his way. But seems like he got there eventually, right?”

“Yes, he did. Not that I ever expected it, but…” Castiel’s sentence hangs in the air, his warm smile at the memories of the past few weeks fading. “I… I left him again. I’m… I’m dead, and Dean-,”

“Hey,” Charlie stops him from going too far into such thoughts. “You can’t get caught up on that kind of stuff, okay? Trust me, it does you no good. Just… go around, say ‘Hi’ to everyone, catch up with all these guys and… try to enjoy your ticket into Heaven, huh?”

Castiel tried to smile at Charlie’s attempt at comforting him, but it comes out a bit more strained than he intended. “I never even thought I’d be returning to Heaven, but…”

Charlie’s able to read the expression on his face, almost able to feel the pain radiating off of Castiel herself. “It’s not Heaven without Dean.”

“No,” Castiel agreed quietly. “Dean was so desperate not to lose me again… he didn’t want to… to live without me, and I – it’s… that’s not a love I’ve ever known.”

“You’ll see him again one day,” Kevin assured him. “He’ll be up here. All of them will be.”

Charlie’s eyes drifted off to somewhere behind him. The frown that twists across her features helps to distract Castiel momentarily, his head tilting to the side as he asks, “What is it?”

“Surprised you couldn’t feel the eyes burning into your back,” Charlie answers, gesturing with a flick of her chin behind him. “Think he might be sizing you up…”

Castiel turns around, eyes scanning across the room in the direction Charlie had gestured to. There, sat upon a table, was where Castiel’s eyes met the searching stare of John Winchester. He didn’t exactly look upset to see Castiel – but he didn’t look particularly happy, either. This was quite the contrast to the smiling figure of Mary Winchester sat opposite him, whose smile held the same warmth she would direct towards her sons.

Castiel barely feels Charlie’s encouraging pat on his back as he strides over to the Winchester’s table, his gaze fixed on John as he stood from his chair, placing the brown-bottled beer in his hands atop the table, holding his head high as Castiel gets closer.

“So, you must be the guy who-,” Is as far as John gets before Castiel’s fist connects with John’s jaw, sending the older man sprawling back onto the ground. Mary seemed to have been expecting this at least somewhat, jumping up from her chair and racing around to her husband’s side, ready to get involved in case things get too out of hand.

“That was on behalf of Dean – seeing as he could never bring himself to do it,” Castiel spits coldly, glowering down at John.

John spends a few moments on the ground with a hand held against his split and already bruising lip (though that would heal away in mere minutes), looking up at Castiel in genuine shock before the rage kicks in. The fury seems to burn through the hazel ring of his eyes, circles of fire shining around the pitch black of his pupils as he glares up at him from the ground. Despite the fact that John had a good few inches of height over him, he still seemed to show some wariness alongside his obvious desire to jump up and sock Castiel in return. After all, Castiel was a solider of God that has millennia’s worth of battles under his belt; it's not too unlikely that Castiel would lay out this human flat in a fight.

“Who the hell do you-,” John is interrupted once more as, to his surprise, Castiel’s hand appears in his field of vision, held out in offering. It perplexes him enough that his anger subsides momentarily, gaze flicking between the hand in front of him, and the unreadable expression of blankness on Castiel’s face.

“The only reason I have a smidgen of respect for you is because of your son's love for you, and for your sacrifice for him,” Castiel hisses down at him.  John nearly has enough pride to shove away the hand in front of his face and stand up on his own two feet, but the warning look his wife is sending his way is enough for him to reluctantly grab hold of the former angel's hand.

Castiel drags him up to his feet, keeping a firm grip on John’s hand as he speaks. “But for the years of abuse to your sons? Of the neglect, of the nights leaving your son to raise his brother whilst you lost yourself to drink? Of sending your children off to hunt monsters when they should have been studying for their SATs, and trying to mold your son into the man you think he should be, forcing your ideals onto him until he became the good soldier you could order around…”

Castiel shakes his head in disgust at John, who looks torn between keeping up his mask of rage or cowering away from the centuries-old being so fervently defending his own son. “For all of that? You deserve much worse than a single punch, John Winchester.”

“Castiel, it’s okay,” Mary assures him, placing a calming hand on his arm - that of which was still wound up tight with his fist clenched. “We had a long talk when I got back up here. Trust me.”

Castiel’s eyes dart between John and Mary, taking a single step back from John – only if to soothe Mary’s nerves somewhat.

“I know what I did to my sons was a crappy thing,” John’s confession takes Castiel by surprise. “I didn’t see it back then. Refused to see it the way it was. In my mind, I thought… I thought I was doing the right thing. That I had to raise my boys as tough as I could because that was the only way they could handle the real, shitty world out there. I was raising them with survival in mind, but I… I never once stopped to consider if they were actually living.”

“It was… a messy situation,” Mary adds in. “It’s not like all is suddenly forgiven. When our boys get up here, it’ll…” Mary paused, casting John a look that had him averting his gaze – probably the one person in his life that could get him to do that. “Some wounds will take time to heal. And some of those scars will always remain.”

“But I’m gonna try,” John insisted. “I’m gonna try and be the father they never had.”

Castiel narrowed his eyes at John, wishing there was still enough grace left inside him to track John’s pulse and see if he was lying or not. “Good…” Castiel finally breaks the silence the three were in. “Because I intend to be by Dean’s side every second he’s here to make sure you do, indeed, try.”

“I fully expect you to,” John replied. “As I was saying - you must be the guy who’s been looking after my boys?”

“We look after each other,” Castiel corrected him. “That’s what family does.”

John cleared his throat awkwardly, looking desperate to return to his seat and continue drinking to get away from the situation he was in. “Uh, yeah… and, from what I hear, you and Dean are… uh… good friends?”

Castiel’s narrow-eyed glare returns in full force, straightening his spine as he leveled his gaze on John’s apprehensive one. “Yes. Dean and I are ‘friends’-,”

“Alright, look, it’s just… it’s weird for me. Back then-,”

“We’re not ‘back then’ anymore,” Castiel cuts him off. “And such discrimination was wrong ‘back then’ too, but you all followed poisoned words and ideals to force people into hiding, and into living unhappy lives where they were unable to be their true selves.”

“I’m just telling you how it was, okay?” John tried defending himself. “We were taught that there were cures for such things and-,”

“-And I’m telling you you’re wrong,” Castiel stepped forward once more, somehow appearing more intimidating when John was the one who stood taller than him. “There is no cure because there’s nothing to cure.”

“John, drop it,” Mary snapped at her husband. “Our son is happy with Castiel. You know that, you saw that. I don’t even want to think about what Dean must be going through right now, and you should know full well what that’s like seeing as you had to go through it with me.”

The fight seemed to drain out of John at that. He looked to Castiel like he was truly seeing him for the first time; seeing in him a different light, Mary’s comparison helping to see something in the former angel that he wouldn’t let himself see.

“You love my son?”

Castiel shouldn’t have to grace such a stupid question with an answer, but he does. “More than you could ever know. And I’ll never stop loving him. Dean Winchester is my soul.”

John’s gaze searched over him one more time before he finally nodded his head in what Castiel could only assume was the best form of acceptance that he would ever get from John – not that he cares for it either way. “Can’t say you’re what I envisioned my son ending up with, but… he found someone who makes him happy, so…”

Castiel chose to ignore the ‘what’ part of John’s sentence, accepting Mary’s apologetic frown with an understanding smile as John plops back down onto his seat. It’s only as Castiel turns away from the table that he hears them enter a heated, whispered argument that Castiel only feels slightly guilty about – and that’s only on Mary’s behalf.

There are six people huddled around the wooden bar that Castiel heads for - two of them with drinks in their hands and engaged in light conversation with the other three behind the bar. Castiel’s tense posture relaxes as he’s met with the motherly smile of the Roadhouse’s owners, taking a seat on the stool she gestures him for him to sit on

“Good to see you, son,” Is how Bobby Singer greets him for the first time in five years, along with a single solid pat to the back that has Castiel jolting forward in his seat. “At least you got to walk into heaven this time instead of sliding in on your back.”

Castiel ducked his head with quiet laughter, glancing back up when a bottle of cold beer is plonked down on the bar in front of him.

“Oh, that’s okay-,”

“Don’t make me force it down you, Castiel,” Ellen warned him, “You’re in Heaven – you can have one drink at least.”

Castiel listened to the warning tone Ellen was sending his way, picking up the bottle of beer from the bartop and taking a swig of the bitter liquid, savoring the way the carbonated bubbles tickled his mouth.

“What happened to the guy who could down five shots of whiskey like it was nothing?” Jo slid up to her mother’s side behind the bar, tempted to go and grab a bottle behind her to see if Castiel could still pull such a feat.

“Really?” Comes a sultry voice from beside Bobby. “Shame I never got to saw that – then again, I didn’t get to see much of anything after I got a glimpse of you.”

Castiel practically shrinks into his seat at Pamela’s words, wincing at the memories that flooded back. “Ah, yes, that… um…”

Pamela’s pearls of laughter broke through Castiel’s embarrassed stammers. “Relax, angel. You gave me fair warning, but I kept poking.” Pamela leaned past Bobby, sticking out a hand for Castiel to shake. “Nice to finally get a good look at ‘ya without seeing nothing but burning white light. Gotta say… I get why Dean wants to tap that.”

“Oh, um… thank you?”

“Technically, that compliment is for me!” Jimmy calls over from his own table, getting a disappointed smack to the arm from his wife next to him.

“Still can’t believe Dean finally made a move,” Jo brings Cas’s attention back to the patrons at the bar. “You guys were the big gossip circulating around the angel radio that Ash hooked us up to,” Jo jabs a thumb towards the mullet-wearing man sat at the end of the bar, tapping away at the keyboard on his laptop with one hand whilst giving Castiel a wave in greeting with the other.

“Sup, man,” Ash looks up from his laptop long enough to take in the sight of Castiel for the first time.

“You… managed to access Heaven’s radio?” Castiel asked.

“Yep,” Ash answered proudly. “Didn’t take me long to tap into Heaven’s systems. At first, it was only radio and then… I had eyes on footage of you guys. Picture ain't great, but… better than just a bunch of angels blabbering away. And, uh… let's just say there aren’t too many angels that can talk nowadays, you get me?”

“But… how did you get any information from angel radio? My siblings would only transfer in Enochian to one another.”

“Balit qaa ol om Enochian,” Ash replies simply with a knowing smile before his attention is diverted back to the computer in front of him. “Oh, and the stuff you were saying to Dean in that beach dream? Raunchy stuff, dude.”

His embarrassment at being heard aside, that was something that Castiel didn’t understand; how exactly was it that they had managed to get access to Dean’s dreams? Multiple people had now told him they had seen his and Dean’s… change in relationship, but he wasn’t exactly sure how.

“How did you see that?” Castiel doesn’t just direct the question at Ash, eyes flickering between those at the bar. “-All of you, in fact.”

“We saw everything go down through your eyes, dude,” Ash answered for them. “Your grace sort of acts like a, uh… an Enochian broadcast. I just had to find the right channel to tune into and bam; angel vision up on display.”

“We weren’t watching all the time if that makes your privacy feel any less violated,” Jo adds.

“It was mostly to check up and see what ya idjits were getting up to,” Bobby said, accepting the fresh beer that Ellen passed over to him. “Make sure you weren’t getting involved in another apocalypse.”

“Nice surprise to see the only big news was you and Dean deciding to pull your heads out of your assess,” Jo tells him with a grin, receiving a smack to the back of her head from the towel in her mother’s hand.

“Joanna Beth!” Ellen pulled out the full name. “There was a million different ways you could have said that.”

“I know – I went the direct route,” Jo replied, rubbing at the sore spot on the back of her head.

“What my daughter means to say…” Ellen says with a side glance at the woman in question. “Is that the last time we met, you were…”

“A dick?” Castiel offers. “I’ve been called that in the past.”

“I wasn’t going to say that,” Ellen said. “You were… starting to come into yourself a little more. Dean was starting to bring you out of whatever shell angel life had forced you into, and we were only just starting to get to know you. Then… well, the Hell Hounds happened, and then ten years later I can barely recognize the angel I once met.”

“I’m not sure if you mean that a compliment, or an insult,” Castiel admits.

“Oh, it’s a compliment,” Ellen assures him. “You’ve changed for the better, Castiel. It’s not that we’re surprised Dean fell for you - we’re surprised how long it took.”

Ellen’s eyes glance over to someone behind him, and Castiel glances over his shoulder to see Jimmy approaching the bar from his table. Although, instead of sitting down on an empty stool, he stands next to Castiel, placing a hand on his shoulder. “Sorry to interrupt the reunion, but… it’s time.”

“Damn, time really does fly by in Heaven,” Bobby curses, sliding the half-drunken beer out of Castiel’s hand and giving him another encouraging pat on the back. “It was good seeing you again, Castiel.”

Castiel was… still rather unsure what exactly was going on. Everyone else at the bar seemed to know, which was frustrating in of itself, and Castiel could only switch his confused frown from the hand on his shoulder to the arm’s owner. “It’s time for what?”

“You’ll see,” Jimmy answers unhelpfully, gesturing with a flick of his head for Castiel to stand and follow.

Seeing as there’s not much else for him to do but follow the instructions given to him, Castiel finds himself standing up from the bar, casting one last look to past friends. They all give him reassuring smiles as he follows Jimmy – even getting an encouraging nod from John, much to Cas’s bewilderment. Jimmy leads him towards the kitchen of the Roadhouse, leading him through past the well-loved ovens, stoves, and cooking utensils before arriving at the back door to the Roadhouse, leading to an outside Castiel has never seen.

“I’m sure we’ll be seeing each other again,” Are Jimmy’s final parting words, gesturing with an open hand towards the door before he’s heading back towards the warm-sounding conversation within the bar. Castiel glances over his back to watch him go, a part of him drawn back to the bar, back to the people he knows.

But there’s something else on the other side of that door. Something else that’s calling to him, its pull much stronger than the Roadhouse. Without much of a second thought, Castiel pushes down on the bar across the heavy metal door, swinging it open and stepping out into the comfortably cool afternoon’s air.

* * *

 It felt like a bomb had gone off.

It might as well have. The explosion of Cas’s grace – or… Cas himself, Sam supposed – had left them in this state of… numbness. For the first ten minutes or so, ten agonizing minutes, Sam could only stand shocked still where he was, watching as his brother cradles Cas in his laps, calling for him to come back.

After the bargaining came the screams.

That’s the only word he had for them, really. These gut-wrenching, pain-filled cries as the reality of the situation begun to sink in for his older brother. Sam had tried to step around the table in front of him, walk over to his brother, and…

And do what? What could he possibly do to make this situation any better? Cas was gone, and nothing he could say or do would help to ease his brother’s grief. He had only made it around the table when he caught sight of Castiel’s face resting on Dean’s lap, and that was as far as he could go. He slid down onto the floor, resting his head against the table leg behind him, and just… stared. Even when Eileen came around to his side; when she had dropped down next to him, rest her head on his shoulder, and held his hand tightly in her own… he couldn’t tear his eyes away from his brother and his once best friend.

Sam didn’t think there would be anything worst than the screams. The non-stop sobs that had his older brother gasping for air. But, as it turns out, the silence was the worst. When the tears stopped flowing and ran dry, his brother's back no longer shaking with his ragged breaths, there was nothing but silence and stillness. Dean still had Cas in his lap – and Sam didn’t dare try to move Cas from him.

He knew they would have to, eventually. Dean couldn’t stay like this forever… neither of them could. Eventually, Sam would have to pry Dean off of Cas. He would have to drag him, kicking and screaming away from Cas’s body whilst Eileen wrapped him up – because if he was being honest with himself, he didn’t think he could do this all over again.

Wrap up Cas, again. Build a pyre for him, again. Say their goodbyes as they watch his body go up in flames, again.

He was tired of losing friends. He thought it would be over by now, that this time would be different.

Wherever the hell Chuck ended up, Sam knows he’s laughing at them right now.

Somehow, from beyond the grave…

The bastard still won.

* * *

The sight that greets Castiel as he steps out from the Roadhouse is confusing, to say the least. The back of the Roadhouse should have been nothing more than an empty field and a wall of trees. Instead, Castiel takes in the beauty of the Washington mountains, sat pretty in the distance and reflected in the calm surface of the lake stretched out in front of him. Just off the shore of the lake is a cabin that Castiel is very familiar with, having once rented it not too many years ago.

It’s only then that Castiel realizes how strangely quiet it had become; gone was the quiet laughter and muted conversations of the Roadhouse, replaced by the water’s edge gently lapping at the shore and the birds singing as they flew overhead. When Castiel turns around, he’s met with empty space where the Roadhouse had once been.

“It was a beautiful spot, wasn’t it?”

Castiel freezes in place at the voice he hears behind him.

“Tainted by death, but still… beautiful.”

He’s not too sure how he manages to spin around on such shaky legs, but he does. And when he does, he’s met with the calming, grateful smiles of Kelly, sat on a wooden bench that seemed to have been created out of thin air.

“Hello, Castiel,” Kelly greets him, the tears shining in her eyes as she looks up to her son’s father-figure the same as the ones in Castiel’s. There’s nothing he can even say before Kelly has her arms wrapped around him, holding him tight. “You did it, Cas… You really did it. Jack, he’s-,”

“I know,” Castiel tells her – and he really does know. Pride didn’t even fit the description of what Cas felt for how far Jack had come.

Kelly untangles her arms from around his neck, quickly wiping the tears off her face as she does. “You’ve given so much for him, I… I don’t even know what to say.”

“There’s nothing to say,” Castiel assured her.

“That’s not true,” Kelly said with a shake of her head. “You stuck by him through everything. Even in the times you thought you would lose your friends, your family…”

“Because I knew it would all work out in the end. No matter what Chuck threw our way… I believed in the vision Jack showed me.”

The puff of wings behind him is a sound he hasn’t heard in quite some time. And, judging by the loving smile that instantly graced Kelly's face, he knew exactly who it was that was stood behind him.

Castiel gave himself a few seconds to take in the beaming smile that always seemed to be plastered on Jacks face before he's wrapping the boy up tight in his arms, letting out a breath of relief as Jacks's arms squeeze him just as tight; part of him having wondered if the acquisition of God’s powers may have altered him somewhat.

It seemed he had nothing to worry about.

Kelly smiled sweetly at the two’s reunion, looking over to Jack as she asks, “It’s time, huh?”

“Time for what?” Castiel asked the two of them, the question eerily similar to Jimmy’s cryptic wording back in the Roadhouse.

“I wanted to talk to you for a bit, if you don’t mind. Just me and you,” Jack answered. Kelly stepped forward, giving Castiel’s hand one big squeeze of goodbye before she was heading back towards the cabin, disappearing through its door and out of sight.

Jack began walking towards the shoreline of the lake, keeping his pace slow as he waits for Cas to begin following him. The two walk side by side along the edge of the lake, moving under the cover of the dense forest that surrounded the cabin. It really was a beautiful place – more beautiful than the other places he’s died in, anyway.

“Does your mother live here now? In Heaven?” Castiel asks Jack as they walk, enjoying the leisurely pace they were set in.

“She does,” Jack confirms. “I come and visit her here when I can, which… isn’t often.”

“…Why isn’t it often?”

The smile Jack gives him in return looks much too old for the boy wearing it. “Being God has its responsibilities. I’ve been trying, but… it's been hard work.”

“I can imagine,” Castiel glances around the world they were in – not really a world, yet also more real than Heaven ever was. “Jack, what you've done here…”

“Do you like it?” Jack asked brightly, still searching for the approval of those he looks up to despite now being God. “I always thought the old Heaven seemed… lonely. When I was in my heaven, I had you, and Sam, and Dean, but… I could always tell something was off. It wasn’t the real you.”

“So you decided to break down Heaven's walls?”

“It was a bit more complicated than that, but…” Jack seems almost frustrated for a moment – not at Castiel, no, but at Chuck's design of Heaven. “Heaven is filled with people; it didn’t seem right that people were left only with their soul mates - if they're lucky enough to have them – and only illusions of the people they loved just as much when they were alive.”

“I… I suppose I didn’t consider it in that way,” Castiel confessed. “The souls in Heaven seemed happy. Content.”

“I think they were. But… that doesn’t mean Heaven couldn’t be made better.”

“So this is what you’ve been working on this whole time?” Castiel asks, gesturing to the beautiful scenery they were walking in. “Opening up Heaven?”

“Partly, yes,” Jack leads Castiel over to a small clearing in the forest where the lake is practically lapping at the trees that sit by the shore’s edge, giving them a beautiful view of the mountains in the distance. “I’ve been doing other work too, though.”

Castiel reaches Jack's side, staring out at the view in front of him. “On Earth?”

“Not our Earth,” Jack answers. “I will, eventually. But, for now, this Earth is at least intact. Sustainable. But… there’s all those other Earth’s out there. The other universes that Chuck destroyed.”

“You’re… rebuilding them?”

“It’s… kind of draining,” Jack admits, although the captivating smile on his face does not give away the tiredness he must be feeling. “Amara’s been helping me.”

That was news to Castiel. “She has?”

“She was quiet at first. Despite everything Chuck had done, I think she still loved him. Still does love him. She started opening up once I got to work on the other Universes, giving what recommendations she can, what she thinks Chuck would have done; I’m trying to recreate them as best as I could in his image.”

“What for?”

“So that the people of those Earth’s come back to the world they remember,” Jack turns away from the mountain view, facing Cas. “Don’t they deserve the same as the people on this Earth? Shouldn’t they be able to return to the homes they know, the families they know?”

Jack’s brow furrows when, for a while after the end of his sentence, Cas is just looking down at him with this small, subtle smile that only begins to display the warmth his eyes are holding towards the boy – this God – he still considers to be his own.

“What?” Jack asks, voice rising in pitch in what was a mix of both amusement and wonder.

“Nothing, just…” Castiel trails off, placing a heavy hand on Jack’s shoulder. “I’m so proud of you… All of us are. I hope you know that.”

“I know,” Jack said. His face shifted then, the gentle smile on his face sliding away, his eyes dripping down to his feet as he takes in a deep breath of fresh mountain air. “Cas, there’s… there’s a reason I needed to talk to you.”

Castiel tries to catch Jack’s gaze, but the Nephilim’s eyes were firmly fixed on the ground, his sneakers kicking up small twigs as he gouges a small hole into the dirt. “Jack?”

“I need you to know that I wasn’t ignoring you,” Jack says, bending down to pick up one of the tiny pieces of wood he had kicked up. “Any of you. I knew what was happening. With you, and with Dean. His accident and then… what’s been happening to you.”

Castiel didn’t know what to say to that. It was something he already knew – well, maybe not knew, but… assumed, he supposed.

“I wanted to step in,” Jack continues, twirling around the twig that he had pinched between his thumb and forefinger. “Every day, I wanted to leave my work and just… fix everything. I wanted to pull you out when you were in the Empty. I wanted to heal the hole in Dean’s back when he saw dying on that pole. I wanted to heal his severed spine after, re-create your vessel and place you back inside.”

Even though he wasn’t sure if he even wanted to hear the answer, Castiel had to ask. “Why didn’t you?”

Jack releases the twig from between his fingers, finally lifting his gaze back up to meet Castiel’s. “The Empty is… not happy. I tried to get you back, Cas. When Chuck brought back my father, the Empty… It… It made threats.”

“What kind of threats?”

“The world-ending kind of ones,” Jack answers somberly. “It told Chuck that, if he tried to take a creature from the Empty… it would storm across Earth and destroy all those in its wake so that it could finally sleep. No one left to wake it up. Chuck, he… he just laughed. Told the Empty to ‘go ahead’, grabbed my father, and was just… gone.”

“That seems risky for Chuck… I would have thought he’d worry about the Empty interfering with his script?”

“I think it was too late for him to care at that point,” Jack replied. “All that was left was to kill you, me, Sam, and Dean. You were… you were already gone at that point, and after Chuck killed the rest of us…”

“Chuck would have wiped out Earth anyway…”

Jack nodded. “Chuck had already killed everyone on Earth. He just… didn’t care anymore. When the Empty made the same threat to me, I just…”

Jack looked away then, tears of frustration brimming in his eyes. “It tore me apart, Cas. I wanted you back, I just… I wanted to be selfish. But I couldn’t doom the world like that… doom Dean and Sam like that, and… I had to leave you… I left you…”

“It’s okay…” Cas stepped forward, placing both hands on Jack’s shoulders and giving them a comforting squeeze. “You did exactly what you were supposed to. If that would have been the price of bringing me back, then it wouldn’t have been worth it,”

Jack shook his head fervently. “It would have been worth it. You would have been worth it, Cas. But it wouldn’t have been right… I wouldn’t be a very good God if I wiped out Earth my first day.”

“No, I suppose you wouldn’t,” Cas agreed with a breathy chuckle.

“It wasn’t until I saw what happened to Dean, saw you rip yourself out of the Empty that I realized… I didn’t need to do anything. I didn’t intervene because… I needed you to see.”

“See… what?”

“What you’ve always refused to accept,” Jack answered. “Dean and Sam – they tried so hard to bring you back, didn’t they?”

Castiel could only frown at that, trying to figure out what Jack was trying to get across. “Yes, they did.”

“And when they found out your grace was diminishing, that you would eventually lose your powers and become human; when they found out that you could no longer heal, no longer provide your powers to then… they still tried everything they could to bring you back. Everything they did … was for you, Cas. Not for what you can do for them, but because they love you. That’s what I needed you to see, Cas. We don’t love you for your powers. Me, Sam, Dean, Eileen, and everyone that knows you loves you because you’re you.”

It was only once the breeze blew through the trees and into their little clearing that Cas could feel the wetness on his face, a few stray tears having escaped his eyes and slipped down his cheeks without him even noticing.

“I tried to help where I could,” Jack continued, his admission sounding almost guilty, like a kid caught with his hand in the cookie jar.  “I… I wasn’t sure whether to bring back Eileen, at first. She had already been dead before, and I… I wasn’t sure whether she would have wanted to rest in Heaven or be returned, but then… then I saw how sad Sam was and… I couldn’t take them away from each other.”

“I think you made the right choice,” Cas tells him, still wiping away the tears that were clung to his face. “And my trench-coat? Was that you as well?”

“And the spell,” Jack said with a slight smile. “I was getting worried you guys weren’t going to find it by yourselves so I, um… I kind of ‘placed’ it where Eileen would take notice.”

Cas let out another breathy laugh at that. Staring out to the mountains, he stepped forward towards the lake, crouching down by the shore and running his fingers through the shore’s sand. It was clumpy, sticking to his hand in a mixture of lake-bed soil and grains wettened by the murky water. It was nothing like the soft sands of Dean’s…

The pain’s too much. He can’t think about him. Can’t think about the suffering he knows Dean is going through.

“So… what now?” Castiel asks Jack, glancing over his shoulder to where Jack was stood, watching him.

“That’s up to you.”

Castiel blinked up at Jack in surprise, slowly standing back up from his crouch as he takes in Jack’s pleased smile. “What do you mean?”

“I wanted to give you the option to choose,” Jack continues. “I know that, for most of your life… all you’ve ever done is follow orders, Cas. Then, once you broke free and chose to live a life of free will… the choices you made still weren’t entirely your own. Every single choice you’ve made… none of them were ever truly for yourself, were they? They were always for the greater good. For someone’s else behalf. Making a deal to save my life… sacrificing yourself to keep Dean safe…”

“They were still choices I wanted to make, Jack.”

“Choices that cost you too much,” Jack argues back. “Now, for once… I want you to choose for you, Cas. Not because you think it’s best for me, or for Dean, or for anyone else. For you.”

Castiel could hear his own blood rushing through his ears, his heart up in his throat as it pounded relentlessly. These weren’t nerves. They were… anticipation. Hope.

“If you want to… you can finally rest. You can stay here, in Heaven. Live in peace, with no pain and no worries, surrounded by those you love. And… if you wanted to, you could help me.”

“Help you? With… rebuilding Heaven?”

“And everything else,” Jack confirmed. “You would have your grace back, of course. It would be nice to have you with me as I rebuild all that Chuck has destroyed.”

Castiel nodded slowly, letting Jack’s offer mill about in his mind. If there was one thing life on Earth had taught him… it was that he liked to help in any way he could. If there was a way for him to make life better for the less unfortunate, to correct the damage his father had inflicted upon billions upon billions of innocents…

It felt like what he was made for.

“And… what’s the other option?”

Jack answered Cas’s question by raising a hand up and tapping his fingers to Cas’s forehead. Castiel felt that familiar rush of the Universe rushing past him as the two moved at immeasurable speeds in the blink of an eye.

The sight that greets him upon landing is one he never wants to see.

“…Dean?” Castiel knows Dean won’t be able to hear him, but he can’t stop himself from uttering his name at the sight of Dean collapsed on the floor of the bunker, cradling him in his lap as his body shakes with silent sobs that had long since dried out. Though they no longer exist, Cas can feel his back muscles twitch as if his wings were still there, instinctively trying to wrap themselves around the grieving body of the man he loves.

“He’ll be okay,” Jack’s words almost escape Cas’s notice, so focused on the heart-broken figure of Dean Winchester. “He won’t be at first, and it won’t be easy, but he’ll heal. Your death will always leave a part of him empty, but… he will carry on, Cas. Dean will live out the rest of his life, and he will one day pass and reunite with you in Heaven.”

Cas barely registers as Jack steps up to his side, barely feels the steady weight of Jack’s palm pressed soothingly into his back. “I’ll be okay too, Cas. Okay? Don’t choose to come up to Heaven and help me if you feel like it’s what’s right, or that you’re worried I’ll need you. I can do this, okay? I can. All of us will be okay. You choose for you, Cas.”

Castiel dragged his tear-filled eyes away from Dean’s form, meeting Jack’s understanding ones. There was no judgment behind Jack’s eyes, no secret hope that he would choose to return to Heaven and continue his work for Heaven.

The truth was that, the second he laid eyes on Dean, he knew what his choice was going to be.

Jack knew, too.

“Dean,” Castiel answered in a hoarse whisper, and the knowing look on Jack’s face grew all the more stronger. “What I want… it’s always been Dean.”

It was a relief to see the beaming smile that spread across Jack's face at his answer. There was no hint of disappointment on his face, only genuine happiness that Castiel has chosen his own happiness. For once, Castiel had gone for what he wants.

“Live a long, happy life Cas,” Jack said what he intended to be his parting words, raising his hand once more to tap his fingers against Castiel's head.

Before he could so, Cas caught Jack’s hand midair and pulled him into what he hoped wouldn’t be one last hug between father and son, holding him tight as he buried his head into Jack’s shoulder. “Will… Will I see you again?”

Jack pulled away from Castiel's embrace, keeping a hand on his shoulder. “I'll be around, Cas.”

Castiel shifted his gaze over to Dean, still collapsed on the floor staring numbly at his body, when an idea struck him. “Wait… what about Dean?”

“What about him?”

“His spine…” Castiel answered, turning on the begging eyes that Dean once told him he's sure he learned from Sam. “You've already done so much for us, but… do you think you could heal him?”

Jack only smiled at that, an odd reaction to Castiel's request, and then his last words were left to echo around Cas's head as his fingers once again brushed against his forehead and plunged the world into darkness.

“There's nothing for me to heal, Cas. You’ve already taken care of that.”

* * *

Dean wasn’t sure how long he'd been sat on the floor now. Did it even matter how long? And why should he care?

Cas was gone.

That's all his mind could produce. The only thoughts his treacherous brain graced him with. Cas is dead. Cas is dead. Cas is dead. Cas is dead.

Over and over again, on a loop. He doesn’t even feel the deep aching pain of his loss anymore. There’s nothing. His body has just… shut off. No more emotions. No more caring about anything.

Cas was dead. That's all there was.

“Dean?” Sam’s voice is hesitant, unsure. Dean can barely hear it. Sam had, eventually, managed to get his feet under him. He had walked over to Dean, but wasn’t stood by his side. There was a few awkward meters of space between them, an invisible line that Sam couldn’t bring himself to cross.

Dean knew what Sam's next words were going to be before Sam said them. “Dean, we need to…”

It was as far as Sam could get. If he didn’t know any better, he would have thought Dean was dead, too. His face was just… blank. Unmoving as be stared down at Cas's still form. Sam braves one look at Castiel's face cradled on Dean's lap, sees the pale color of skin without a supply of blood, sees the closed eyes of his best friend he'll never get to see again and-

“Sam?” Eileen's voice is like an anchor, bringing him back to reality.

Sam clears his throat, looking away and up to the ceiling to try and blink away the tears that were burning in the corner of his eyes. “I can't, I-,”

“Yes, we can.”

Sam looks down at Dean in surprise. He was still just as frozen in place, face still just as empty, and for a moment Sam wondered if he had actually heard Dean speak at all.

“We'll do it for him,” Dean croaked out, raising a hand that wouldn’t stop trembling and placing it down on Cas's chest. “We can’t give him much, but… the least we can do is give him a proper fucking goodbye this time.”

Sam miraculously managed to crouch down next to his brother without his legs giving away, placing his hand atop his brother’s back. “Yeah… yeah, we can uh… I'll go and see what we have to wrap him up in. Maybe… maybe the sheets from his bed? Or we could-"

Dean was listening to Sam anymore. Because there, underneath his hand, he could feel Cas's heart beating steadily in his chest. It had started out of nowhere, one big ‘thump’ that he put down to his grief-riddled mind. The second one he thought that perhaps the injury to his spine had worsened when he fell from his chair, and was starting to get false sensations in his hands.

But then the third pump of Cas's heart came. Then the fourth, the fifth, the sixth, and the back of Dean's head nearly collided with Sam’s face hovering over his shoulder as his head reared back.

“Sam, there's a pulse.”

“He…what?!” Sam exclaimed. He desperately wanted to believe his brother, but… “Are you sure?”

“Am I-,” Dean huffed in irritation, reaching around to grab his brothers’ hand and place it against Cas's neck.

Sam’s furrowed brow straightened out to an expression of slack-jawed dumbfounded as he felt the rapid flutter of Cas's pulse against his fingertips. “Oh my God… Oh my God, he's alive!”

Eileen dropped down on her knees next to them, picking up on their sudden fanatic movements but unable to hear or read the brother's panicked words. “What?! What is it?!”

“Cas is alive,” Sam told her breathlessly as Dean bent over to place an ear against Cas's chest, able to hear the rapid thuds of his heartbeat. Except… Cas's chest didn’t move under his head.

“Sam, he’s not breathing,” Dean got out in a panic, framing the sides of Cas's face with his hands. “Cas? Cas, can you hear me? C'mon man, I need you to say something.”

Dean whipped his head back around to face Sam and Eileen. “What the hell do we do? Do we give him CPR?”

“I-I- I don’t know,” Sam blurted out. “His heart is beating fine, right? Is there something blocking his airway or-,”

Then it happened. Cas's chest inflated with one big inhale of air, catching all three of their attention just in time to see his eyes snap open, greeted by crystal blue eyes that never seemed quite so human in their dazed and panicked blown-out appearance.

As it turns out, having your lungs inflate for the first time as you take your first breath is quite uncomfortable. Cas's lungs were racked with harsh-sounding coughs as they tried to adjust to the sudden change. Dean jumped into action and helped pull him up into a sitting position, Dean's hand tight around his arm like he might drop back to the floor in a lifeless heap if he let go.

“Cas?” Dean leans his head down as Cas folds over himself, trying to catch his breath after his coughing fit. “You okay?”

Castiel pulled himself back up, placing a hand on his chest as he took another deep breath in, this one – thankfully – not sending him into another round of coughs. “I… I think so.”

Castiel’s eyes swiveled around to meet Dean’s, then over to Sam and Eileen’s bewildered faces, then settled back on Dean again. Dean's eyes were about as wide as they can go, watching Cas warily both in fear that Cas might drop down dead again and second, and that this could all be one cruel trick… Another lazy laugh from Chuck perhaps, some asshole demon jumping into the free body like Belphagor did with Jack, hiding its true identity until the moment it-

“Hello, Dean.”

Nope, never mind. That was his angel, alright.

“Hello-?” Dean cuts himself off with a huff of laughter that sounded more like a sob of relief than anything, pulling Cas into him and grabbing hold of the trench-coat wrapped around him so tightly that it seemed moments away from ripping.

“You're alive… Oh, you’re alive, you're okay… You're here…”

“I’m okay,” Castiel speaks softly into the crook of Dean’s neck.

“You've gotta stop dying on me, Cas,” Dean tried to joke, but the tears brimming his eyes gave away the illusion of a care-free attitude. “I don’t know how much more of you dying I can handle.”

“I'll promise if you promise,” Cas replies, and that at the very least gets a laugh out of Dean.

“Hey-,” Is all Sam says before he’s moving towards Cas, wrapping him up in one of his signature bear-hugs at a very awkward angle, considering Castiel was still mostly seated on Dean’s lap. “You have no idea how good it is to see you, man.”

“I can assure you, the feeling is mutual,” Castiel replies, releasing his grip on Sam only to have his arms filled seconds later by Eileen, who squeezed up beside Sam to get her own hug in.

“Please don’t do that again,” Eileen said, pushing away from the hug to give Castiel a stern look. “I don’t know how you guys handle this…”

“We don’t,” Dean answers. “We make stupid deals that get us or the world into trouble.”

“Speaking of…” Sam mumbled, the change on his face from relief to an analyzing and calculating look aimed at Castiel making Dean’s stomach drop. “Cas… how is it that you’re here? You were dead. For a while. Then… you were alive again. Did you… did you make another deal with the Empty?”

“I didn’t even go to the Empty,” Castiel answered, one of those rare gummy smiles breaking out across his face. “It was Jack.”

“Jack?” Dean said. “Jack saved you?”

“He gave me a choice,” Cas replied. “I didn’t go to the Empty, because… Jack had permitted me entry into Heaven, instead. When my grace was destroyed during the spell, there was a short time that I was human. And in that time… Jack had gifted me a soul.”

“Huh… well I’ll be damned,” Dean mumbled under his breath. “All this time, huh? He was helping us the whole time?”

“Where he could, yes,” Castiel said. “Dean, Sam… I wish you could have seen him. He’s… he’s everything Chuck should have been. He’s still him, he’s still the boy we knew, and… he cares so much. All he wants is to make the world a better place. The world, the other worlds, Heaven… he’s already done so much work.”

“Way to go, kid,” Dean spoke up towards the ceiling, voice beaming with pride. He turned his proud smile back down to Cas, glancing down from the tender smile Cas was giving him in return to Cas’s current choice of wardrobe – or, more accurately, the lack thereof. “C’mon, Cas. Let’s, uh… let’s go get you some clothes.”

“Oh,” Cas said in surprise, looking down at himself as if he hadn’t realized he had been sat here stark naked for the past few minutes. “Yes, that would probably be for the best…”

“I think I got some spare sweats you could borrow,” Dean mumbles as he pushes himself up to his feet, bending down to offer a hand to Cas.

Cas doesn’t take his hand. He remains seated on the floor, eyes wide as they can go and mouth dropped open nearly to the floor. Dean frowns at the astonished look Cas was giving him, glancing over to Sam and Eileen only to find they two were staring bug-eyed at him.

“What?” Dean asked. “Why are you all-,”

He was standing.

Holy Fuck, he was standing!

How the hell had it taken him this long to realize? How the hell had he not realized that he was able to feel the warm weight of Castiel on his lap? He had gotten back up to his feet without a second thought, so focused on helping Cas up that it just… hadn’t occurred to him that it was something he shouldn’t be able to do anymore.

“Dean, you’re arm-,” Sam manages to get out through his mask of shock, pointing to Dean’s arm. “It’s… it’s glowing.”

Dean looks down to his left shoulder where Sam was pointing, already able to see the faint blue glow under the sleeve of his shirt. Dean makes quick work of pushing the sleeve up, seeing the last few glowing pulses of Cas’s handprint on his arm before it reverted back to its usual faint red color.

“You’ve already taken care of it…” Castiel mumbles to himself, the realization hitting him like a bag of bricks. “My grace…”

Castiel’s eyes snap to the mark on Dean’s arm, jumping up to his wobbly feet and very nearly falling straight back down again. Dean shoots out an arm to catch Cas before he can fall, wrapping his hands around Cas’s biceps to steady him in place.

“Cas… how am I standing?” Dean asks.

“My grace,” Castiel repeats himself. “I asked Jack if he could heal you, Dean. But he told me there was nothing for him to heal, and that… that I had already healed you. I just… I hadn’t even realized I had done it.”

“But… how?” Sam asks. “I thought you used the last of your grace in the transfer over to your body?”

“I did,” Castiel confirms. “You have to remember that Grace is nothing but pure energy. Volatile energy. When the spell failed, the last of my grace, myself, I… there was a release of power. An explosion of my grace. I think that when this occurred…”

Castiel trailed off, tearing his gaze away from the expectant faces around him back to the scar of his handprint on Dean’s shoulder. “The sudden surge of my grace caused a reaction within the ebb of grace inside the mark. It would have momentarily powered up the last of my grace, and…”

“And it healed me…” Dean finished what Cas was leading to. He looked from the mark on his shoulder over to Cas, a sharp burst of delirious laughter escaping him as he pulled Cas into what felt like the hundredth hug of that evening -not that he was complaining. “Remind me to tell you how amazing you are, Cas. Every day if you have to. I don’t say it enough, you magnificent bastard.”

Cas’s light chuckles next to his ear only made Dean’s smile grow wider. Cas pulled away from their embrace, and then right there, his soft eyes looking to Dean like everything had fallen into place was when it sunk in for Dean.

Cas was alive. Right here in front of him, alive and warm under his hands. His future was back, looking right at him, and for once in his damned life it felt like everything was going to be okay.

He didn’t care that Eileen and Sammy were right there next to them, didn’t care if they knew or not. He was done with the hiding, the pretending, the worry over what others would think of him. All that mattered was he had Cas back, the had another chance to do this right.

So, right in front of his brother, he kisses Cas for all he's worth. He kisses him like it might be the last time he’d ever get the privilege, like one of them were going to die at any second – which, with them, is a very real possibility.

“That was real…” Dean whispers against Castiel’s lips. “Not a dream… not in my head… you’re real.”

“I’m real,” Castiel mimicked Dean’s words. “And you kissed me.”

“And I kissed you,” Dean agrees, his breathy laughter brushing across Castiel’s face. “Uh… I think we might have an audience.”

Dean peeled himself away from Cas, glancing anxiously over to his brother.  Not that he had anything to worry about, of course. Sam didn’t even blink at the two of them, too wrapped up in the euphoria and relief of getting his best friend back that he could only stand back with Eileen, watching their well-earned reunion with a smile of pure relief.

Eileen nudges Sam’s arm, gesturing to the two in front of them. “How about a new bet?”

Sam grins down at her, making sure Dean and Cas were otherwise distracted; not that it took long -the two always seemed to have their attention drawn to one another – before signing, “Is that even a question? What you got?”

“I’d give it six months before we’re stood at their wedding.”

Sam takes the bet.

He gives it three months.

Next Chapter - - - >

[michaelbogild]

The best of Michael Bogild

There are nights when only sorrow offers an embrace

I will escape with the sunset

As long as we can dream the world shall not destroy us.

Her heart shapes her poetry and her poetry shapes her heart.

We met a thousand dreams ago. I remember you.

She’s created of moonlight and mystery

I am drowning in the depths of her name.

I stood in the richness of her angelic affections.

I belong to another world. I will dream it into existence.

You are always welcome in my dreams

Only the dreamers are truly awake

She undressed before the stars, laid bare her beauty in the moonlight

…and her heart unraveled itself like a beautiful poem

I wander through the timeless dream of her, the pilgrim of a thousand passions.

I leaned on your love, secure in the truth of your affections

A poem is an invitation into another world

A single glance and I slipped into a dream

A hopeless dreamer, in love with strange worlds

She is born of the softest strains of heaven.

…and the stars looked like hope

I ache in the dark syllables of her name.

She leaves stars in the trail of her glances

The electric witchcraft of the serpentine thunder-stroke

She is fearlessly transparent, a pyramid of glass

He excites her heart with the force of a thousand dreams

Love is the bridge between our souls

There is nothing within me but midnight

Great eternal sea, swallow my sorrows

Her eyes of emerald enchantment

Lost in the daze of her beauty's vast eloquence

She has a soul for every season

He summons with a look all the shades of her love.

I ascend from the chaos, feral and reborn.

Your love was the true herald of spring.

I am elsewhere. I am scattered.

My hope of love, the thinnest of ghosts

He kissed heaven into her soul.

The adventurous sailing of her wildflower heart

The flaming crosses of her eyes, her nocturnal endlessness.

This strange state of my heart, this terrible moon-madness

Have mercy, dark melancholy; tear not apart this star-crossed heart

My soul of ruins and night

I am a thousand dreams deep in this love.

She dreams in all the hues of his heart.

Is your moon also in tears?

They married the vastness of each other's love

We fled on mystic wings to lands unknown.

Lost in the golden astrology of her lovesome eyes.

She colours her sorrows.

Of course I love her, I am eternally fond of flowers.

I tried to recover my spirit from the past

The soft-sailing moon of her dreamy affections.

Our love is winged with the eternity of stars.

Meet me in the depths of night

The dream-born diamond of her unutterable beauty.

You brought into my heart every shade of bliss.

She puts her wreath of wildflowers upon the brow of nature

I buried my heart in your shadows

You were ever celestial to my affectionate eyes

I will love you in this life as I did in the thousands before.

My heart wept memories

I have wandered far from my soul

Our first kiss, the beginning of the world

Kiss me on foreign moons. Dance with me and the night.

He broke the hearts of all her seas.

I don’t write poems about her; those are prayers

I wandered through the dusk of God.

Sad midnight, have you come to claim my heart?

Give me, Life, a draught of oblivion.

She gathers poems like a child gathers flowers

I melted into the music of everything she is.

She hid her heart in her poems…where no one would ever find it

You and I, starry-eyed dreamers

We’re one of God’s unfinished poems

The skies are drunk with the blue of her eyes.

I burn at the edge of night

The night and its starry dome of dreams

Wedded to the darkness, she wears a ring of sorrow

The silken spells of her spring-born graces

She weeps in the language of an ancient longing.

She hides in her haunts of sweet poetic solitude

We met a thousand dreams ago. I remember you.

She entered his heart with the tenderness of a daffodil’s dream.

Old tender heart, I heard you weep in the wilderness

The circling ravens of his dark memories

We float in the infinite space of a dream. The moon recites poetry to our hearts, the stars look brighter than ever.

Her heart is a flowerless vase

The oblivious rose of her sightless love

Awake in a dream that wears her beauty

He woos with poems the summer of her soul

Their love was a chorus of unfathomable richness.

You will find her nowhere. She only deals in shadows.

I want to unbridle all the worlds inside you.

Inside her love, centuries of light.

This heart of roses, roses of pain.

They are divinely married to the melodies of each others hearts.

Your love was the true herald of spring.

…a love that could outlast the reign of stars.

She wept into the abyss of his indifference

I can taste my dreams on her lips

She is a tender flower in a storm of broken love.

Let’s hang our sorrows on the crescent moon

Elusive rose of my deepest love, where are you?

Mapping the anatomy of a dream, trying to make sense of the obscure.

Winter, you are as pale as my longing.

Love, old beloved star, pour your light into my heart, and let me dream.

You are always the moon in my dreams

She reads sonnets in his looks

They ascended like moons into each others souls.

My days of only night

You’re the unanswered question of my heart

Her fathomless eyes, wistful muses of autumnal grace

Because the ocean speaks my sadness, because she knows my heart as her own

The darkness sank its claws into her soul

He unchained the songs of her bashful soul

He keeps her memory in a shrine of shadows.

I linger in the heart-shaped notes of her beauty.

There are stars in her sorrow

Her love wears the spirit of an infinite rose

Awake, but dreaming

We circled each others souls in a dance of dreamy love.

The whole universe opened like a flower the first time I saw her

He lit with a hundred kisses the torch of her heart.

She is made entirely of night-songs

We hid in each others souls

I feel that cosmic wanderlust

The charming butterflies of her feminine glances

I need to be more patient than the darkness.

These poems are the fruits of my madness. They were forged from sorrows that seemed eternal.

The spirit of dusk plays within the beauty of her eyes.

They struck with their love the secret chord of infinity.

Our golden hours, our spring with no end.

I love all the moons inside her.

She could dream forever in the warmth of his arms

The ravishing rose of her soul's imperial beauty.

I am locked into the greyness of your eternal absence

His beauty could pierce the heart of a thousand angels.

He covered her scars with a love unending.

I scattered our memories into a hundred silent poems

Her tender eyes wear the starlight of his affections.

Love is my melody, broken and dark.

The bewitching rose of her spring-born beauty

Eyes of moon-madness, eyes of collapsing stars

Our emotions floated so ethereally into each other.

What angel spun this dream of you?

The night wants me more than the dawn.

She drinks the wine of his celestial lyrics

The spring moon took us into his dreams.

Our hearts like howling wolves, our hearts like burning churches

She felt every note of his affections

Wandering moon-drunk through the skies

I fall into dreams, I ascend into delirium.

Marry me on the moon of this golden moment.

Her name is its own world. In there I wander restlessly.

He followed the butterflies of her charms

She answers his soul with all the colors of her affections

I am anchored in the depths of her sacred name.

The spirit of spring moves within her, dances, poetizes, loves.

She’s dressed in the beauty of a thousand possibilities

Her soul, a dark shrine of sadness.

My heart finds in you nothing but its tomb.

The stars are too beautiful, we don’t see their sadness

Her night-soft heart-wanderings.

All the stars are in her soul

Our love still breathes in my poems and dreams

You’re a different universe completely

Love: a shrine of tears

The ghostly waves of her forsaken ocean

Her beauty is a song wherein poets ache.

She lit a candle in the darkest room of my heart.

The one who dreams swallowed the sun in the heart of the forest.

You touch the silence in me.

You were blue skies and roses to my heart

Take me, angels of imagination, to her loveliness

To be in love with you is to be in love with life

[jedimasterbailey]

Below is another sneak preview of my “The Padawans” fic. Next chapter up should be by tomorrow! With the help of Quinlan Vos confronts her inner darkness and learns to let go of her past in order become the Jedi she was always meant to be 💙 Link to the fic below! Thank you @devondeal for helping out this story together 😊

Side note: How epic would it be to see Barriss confront a Sith version of herself?

You want me to do what now?” Barriss nervously asks.

The two Jedi were sitting cross legged across from each other inside the cave Quinlan has taken residence in. They had just returned from a morning Jar’kai training session as Barriss admitted to needing some refinement in wielding two lightsabers. Quinlan’s lessons were as tough as his looks as Barriss’s body ached in a way she hadn’t felt since her early lightsaber training days. She had hoped they would take a break and talk more about the mission at hand, but the Jedi Master had other plans.

Quinlan raises a brow, “Meditate. You haven’t been doing that have you?”

Barriss shakes her head,“Not since the trail. I tried once in my cell and it felt...so dark....cold...I couldn’t go through with it. It’s almost as if the dark side is a disease I injected myself with, it has yet to go away.”

Quinlan sighs,“I understand what you mean. I only just got rid of it just before you arrived.”

“Really? Even with my Master’s help?” Barriss asks, surprised. If there was anyone that could soothe anyone’s aching spirit, it was Luminara. It’s what Barriss adored the most about her Master. The older Mirilan’s calming voice and demeanor is what kept Barriss grounded through her apprenticeship.

Quinlan takes a long drink from his flask before answering. He then looked Barriss straight in the eye, his expression unreadable.

“Yeah...you see kid, the darkness came to us when we decided to not take control of something we had no business in. We made the easy choice, the one that felt right in the moment, but we failed to consider the consequences. There’s a reason why the ancient Sith died young or were sickly looking. It’s because the dark side of the Force is corrosive. To be fueled with rage and fear non-stop takes a toll on the body and soul.”

“Even when I returned to the Order, I still felt the darkness in me. I couldn’t meditate without being reminded of my sins and I was quick to anger on the battlefield. When I felt Aayla die...I completely lost it. I killed every single Clone within my reach, forgetting that these were men I considered to be my friends. I never considered the possibility that there was something bigger at play because the dark side doesn’t allow you to think clearly. I was completely blind to everything and had I had my head screwed on tight, maybe I could have saved Luminara.”

“When I finally came to, the guilt and grief was overwhelming, so overwhelming that I completely cut myself off from the Force and from my mind. I mean could you really blame me? I lost my Padawan and every one I loved just like that! And for what?! What was the point of any of it?! All the sacrifices we made all those years were all for nothing. I became a monster for nothing. We were all just pawns in Palpatine’s game.”

“I lived off the land for a while until I found a Wookie settlement not too far from here, that’s where I’ve been getting my supplies and food. I was content with just going through the motions. I’d be lying if I said that it didn’t feel nice to just be free from everything, to pretend I was never a Jedi or Sith or a war general. But the void was always there. It wasn't until I had a vision of Luminara being tortured in an Imperial cell that I realized that I needed to set things right for her. “

“So I confronted my past and refused to give up until I made peace with it. It was the most painful and difficult challenge I’ve ever taken on, but it’s worth it. I can’t undo what I’ve done, but I can decide how to live going forward. What got me through it was the promise I made to myself. I’m going to live the life that was taken away from my Aayla. Be a good man and help where I can. It’s the best way to celebrate her memory.”

“And then you came along and now I know how to repay Luminara back for all she’s done for me. Pass on what I’ve learned to her student so that she can be the Jedi the galaxy needs right now. You are Luminara’s only hope.” Quinlan finishes with a smile.

“You don’t believe you could save her?” Barriss says despite knowing the answer.

“You and I both know that only you could set your Master free.” Quinlan replies sincerely.

The validation weighed heavy on Barriss. As determined as she was to rescue her Master, the Padawan was still anxious on the obstacles she may face. Barriss owed it to Luminara to be successful. She needed her Master to know how much her apprentice loved her.

Quinlan breaks the silence,“I’m not sure what kind of evil you’re gonna face, but I know one things for sure. You’re gonna have to master the hardest lesson a Jedi ever has to learn, to let go. If you can’t let go of your guilt, your shame, your anger; you will not be successful. The Empire is counting on you to lose yourself to your emotions again. Make peace with your demons and you’ll become more powerful than their best fighter. That is how one grows from a Padawan to a Knight.”

“A Knight?” Barriss squeaked.

Quinlan nods, “Yes, Barriss. If I can return as a Jedi Master, there’s no reason why you can’t be a Knight. It’s time to complete your training Padawan, welcome to the beginning of your trails.”

“The Trail of Spirit.” Barriss concludes now that Quinlan’s meditation request made more sense.

“Exactly. You won’t be able to conquer the other ones until you’ve passed this one.”

With a deep breath Barriss accepts the challenge. Besides wanting to be reunited with her loved ones, Barriss’s greatest desire has been to rid herself of her past deeds despite feeling unworthy of redemption. Only now after hearing Quinlan’s story did Barriss feel ready to try.

“Tell me what I have to do.”

“Give yourself into the darkness and face your fears. Luminara is counting on your success, remember that. I’ll be right beside you the whole time.” Quinlan instructs, squeezing one of Barriss���s hands.

“And if I fail?” Barriss asks, chewing her lip.

“You’ll only fail if you allow for it and I know Luminara did not raise a quitter.” Quinlan reassures with a wink.

“May the Force be with me.” Barriss says, gripping tightly onto her knees.

“It always is.” Quinlan gently reminds.

Not even thirty seconds after Barriss closed her eyes and took her first deep breath, she was brutally reminded why she had avoided meditation all this time. The faces of all the Jedi killed in the bombing came to view as the voice of Anakin rang in her mind.

“Ahsoka trusted you!”

“Traitor!”

Her blood then ran cold as the all too familiar dark side energy began to fill her being. It was as if someone was squeezing her very heart with both hands making it hard to breathe as the pain was staggering. Barriss then snaps her eyes open and shakes her head, breathing hard as if someone were just choking her.

“I can’t do this!” Barriss pants, the darkness still brewing inside.

“Yes, you can.” Quinlan says sympathetically, gripping Barriss’s shoulders. “I know it’s hard, but you have to accept the pain. Whether you like it or not, it’s there. If you keep running from it, it will only fester. You just have to breathe through it and then you’ll be able to fight it. Now try again, I’ll breathe with you….trust me.”

With a weak nod, Barriss pulls herself back into position and begins to breathe deeply again, hissing through the ache blossoming from her chest. She could barely hear Quinlan’s own breathing over Ahsoka’s voice repeating the very line that has been a thorn in her heart since she first heard it back in the Jedi Temple. It was these words that replayed when she dueled the Togruta in the underbelly of Coruscant and what caused the thousands of tears she shed in her prison cell.

“...this woman is going to pay for what she did!”

Ahsoka had said this after Barriss tried to open up to her after the memorial service honoring the Jedi she accidentally killed. With Luminara gone and her sanity slipping more with each day, Barriss had hoped she could release to someone she thought wouldn’t judge her too harshly. A large part of Barriss believed that her one friend, the woman she grew to love, would have held that space for her, but she was wrong. Anakin’s hypocritical advice blinded Ahsoka to her silent plea for help. Although Barriss did not blame Ahsoka for feeling the way she did at the time, the words still stung nonetheless. Had Ahsoka been more receptive, Barriss was positive she would have confessed to her crimes right then and there.

But what’s done was done and now Barriss was left to relive that moment and hear those words over and over. The pressure in her chest has yet to let up as hot tears began to stream down olive cheeks as Barriss continued to breathe through it. Right before Barriss was about to give up, she remembered what Quinlan had said before her second attempt.

“...you have to accept the pain.”

Barriss then reached an epiphany. She allowed her muscles to relax and stopped crying, blocking out the sadness her memories ensued. As if she were falling backwards into a bed, Barriss allows herself to face the darkness she’s been shoving down for so long. In her mind’s eye, an image of Ahsoka looking at her after Anakin announces her guilt to the court appears, looking just as vulnerable and hurt as she remembered.

“Barriss? Is that true?” Ahsoka’s voice asks.

Barriss then said the answer she wanted to say at that time, but couldn’t.

“Yes, Ahsoka. It was me. I made a selfish decision and because of it I ended up hurting the very people I was trying to protect.”

Barriss then no longer felt the pressure or the cold and Ahsoka’s face disappeared. A new vision began to unfold into what looked to be a throne room. Though Barriss had never been anywhere like it, the space felt familiar. The grandious hall was dark with only moonlight peeking through the circular window that was behind a large black chair that was turned backward. Beneath her feet was a long blood red rug that ran up the steps to the seat, matching the large tapestries that hung from massive pillars.

“Welcome home.” a cool voice hissed from behind the throne.

“Home?” Barriss questions, her hand resting on top of her lightsaber hilt.

The chair then turns to reveal what appeared to be a clone of herself causing Barriss’s breath to hitch at the sight. Unlike Barriss, her duplicate peered at her with bright yellow eyes that shone brighter the moons in the sky complete with sunken cheeks and a paler green skin tone with purplish veins that pulsated just underneath the skin. Instead of Barriss’s usual blue hood, the darker version of herself wore a red one, with a more revealing, flowy black dress underneath. Her heart shaped belt was replaced with a solid black one with two lightsabers hanging from it. Barriss became nauseated, recognizing the lightsaber hilts to be Ahsoka’s white sabers.

The Dark Barriss then rose from her throne with a wide grin, “Why yes, don’t you recognize it? We grew up here!”

Barriss’s jaw and heart dropped now realizing that she was back in the Jedi Temple on Coruscant, a renovated one.

“What are you?” Barriss asks shakily as her twin walks toward her, her long dark hair floating in the air like her skirt and cloak.

The clone laughs, “I’m what you know you could become. You’ve done a superb job ignoring me, but you see… you need me more than you think.”

Scrunching her face in disgust, Barriss scoffs, “If you think I’m going to give into the dark side again and become a Sith, you are sadly mistaken. I am here to end this!”

Sith Barriss cackles, “You are a fool if you really think you can still be a Jedi! Have you forgotten that the Order failed you? That Ahsoka abandoned you? That you're responsible for the death of innocents? But you shouldn’t be so hard on yourself, they all deserved it.”

Before Barriss could retort, the Sith continued to speak, “It was the Order who made us into a soldier and kept our Master away from us. It was the Council who didn’t trust us or respect us. They only cared about their precious “Chosen One” and his friends. You were suffering and no one cared! Not even Ahsoka! We gave everything to the Order and for what? Nothing!”

“You’re wrong! Ahsoka cared and so did Luminara!” Barriss argues, swallowing a massive lump in her throat.

“Need I remind you that Ahsoka only rescued because she was ordered to?” her counterpart sneers.

Barriss deflates, “She could have rejected the request.”

“And lose her only protection against the Empire?” Sith Barriss snickers. “No. To Ahsoka, we are nothing more than a heartbreaking reminder of her past. We’re the reason why she lost everything. She could never love us the way we love her!”

Barriss couldn’t argue against her clone’s words as Ahsoka confirmed them when they argued during their journey to Dantooine. She just wasn’t sure if she could really go through the rest of life without Ahsoka being a part of it or worse, if Ahsoka did fall in love with another and cut Barriss completely from her life.

A cold hand caresses her face, forcing Barriss to look at her darker self once more, “It hurts doesn’t it? To know that after everything you’ve done for her, she could still leave us behind. It’s unfair… that’s why we need to do what must be done to make it all better.”

“I will not kill Ahsoka.” Barriss affirms, slapping the hand away from her face.

“Oh, but you will.” Dark Barriss replies, circling Barriss as she spoke. “She deserves it after what she’s said to us! If our love isn’t good enough for her, then she’s of no use to us! You can keep lying to yourself that you can go on without Ahsoka’s affections, but there is one thing you cannot deny. If you fail your mission, if Luminara dies… you will never forgive yourself.”

Barriss bows her head, “No… I will save her...I will not fail…”

“You will, it has already been foreseen.”

Barriss’s head shoots back up, “What do you mean?”

“The galaxy is under the control of two Sith lords; the Emperor and his apprentice. They are the ones holding Luminara hostage. They torture her just to get your attention and once you fall into their trap, they will kill her. You don’t have the power to eliminate them both...not yet at least.”

“The dark side of the Force is a pathway that may be unnatural, but it has its rewards. If you let me in, you can overthrow them both and ensure Luminara’s safety. It is the only way. You wouldn’t want to fail your Master again, do you?” probed Dark Barriss.

Now, Barriss was at a loss for words. She was not ready to face the possibility of Luminara dying. They needed to reconcile, Barriss had to prove to her Master’s that her decisions were her own and not her mentor’s. Turning to the dark side again would completely ruin her chances of earning forgiveness.

“You’re implying that my Master would want that for me.No! I will not let you in!” Barriss shouts with resolve, igniting her blue lightsaber. “I will rescue her without you and if I die trying then so be it!”

Gold eyes narrowed as Dark Barriss then snapped her fingers, causing two Stormtroopers to walk in with a shackled Ahsoka.

“Ahsoka!” Barriss cries out, her heart breaking at the amount of physical injuries the Togruta had.

Ahsoka then repeated the same lines Barriss once told her when she was possessed by a Geonosian parasite.

“Kill me… please….”

“I won’t!” Barriss says glaring back at her double.

“If Luminara isn’t enough for you to agree, then perhaps this will!” Dark Barriss threatens before raising a hand to Ahsoka. A red glow radiates from the hand causing Ahsoka’s life force to wither away.

“NO!” Barriss screams, clashing against the twin red blades her dark self wielded.

Her opponent then began to laugh again. With every strike and blow to their surrounding environment, Dark Barriss’s amusement grew. After what seemed to be an eternity of dueling, the dark side wielded raised Barriss into a choke hold.

Gasping for air, Barriss quickly came to her senses and realized what she was doing. She was making the same mistake she made the day Letta died. She was allowing her emotions to dictate her thoughts instead of making peace with them.

“It’s over Barriss. You have relinquished control over to me, you failed. You can kiss your dreams of redemption goodbye.”

Knowing exactly how to outsmart her enemy, Barriss lets her body go limp and closes her eyes to give the impression of defeat. She is then released, falling to the ground. Assuming that Barriss was no longer in control, the dark entity drops down to beginning fusing itself with Barriss’s body. A green lightsaber blade hidden from Dark Barriss’s view then spears her midsection causing the world around them to begin fading away.

“WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?!” Dark Barriss screams before disappearing.

With a smile Barriss confesses, “I’ve let go. I cannot change what I’ve done and I still have a lot to learn, but none of that is worth turning to the dark side. I will free my Master and I will cherish Ahsoka’s presence in my life regardless of how she feels about me. I’m a Jedi and I won’t anyone or anything take that from me again, including myself.”

Barriss then wakes up to a worried Quinlan hovering over her. A significant amount of time had passed as Barriss could see stars outside the cave entrance. Despite her clothes being drenched in sweat from the day’s events and her body feeling stiff from laying on stone for several hours, Barriss never felt lighter. The weight that she had felt for nearly two years was finally gone.

“You alright kid?” Quinlan asks, offering a hand to Barriss.

Looking more serene than the Jedi Master has ever seen her, Barriss answers, “Never better.”

[dragonswithjetpacks]

Fic Back Friday

I’ve been tagged by @noire-pandora! Thank you! It’s a bit late but I’m still doing the thing!

Take an older fic (or art for our artist friends) from about a year ago or older even and talk about it, show it off and hype it up. 

So uh. I have way more fics written from a few years ago than I do within just the last year. I’ve really become more productive and public with my writing just within the last oh I dunno six months? Most of what I have on Ao3 is a collection of what was left of the last eight years? I think. It was hard to pick what to post. But I decided to go with the first thing I ever put up here on Tumblr. Which ... for some reason, it isn’t pulling up the actual link. It’s just pulling a reblog I had. Guess.... I’ll just... post the whole thing? 

Just A Dream

-dragonswithjetpacks

Notes: So this is some of the first writing I ever did for Aeva. It’s about a dream she had after Trespasser.

A Walk Through the Forrest

The land is green. The trees are not wanting. They reach to the sky. Their branches show blossoms. Their trunks are wide. She wanders among them. Her hands are stretched across. She has never witnessed such greenery. Flower petals touch her fingertips. Stems graze her palms. The sunlight skims her wrists. The songs of birds and the chatter of fennecs echo through the trees.

Everything Falls Silent

But then all falls still. Her footsteps cease. The air grows thin. The temperature falls. There is a sudden breeze. It brings grey clouds and a stench she is familiar with. The word leaves her and she cannot remember precisely the thought she seeks. Trying to grasp it, she ventures forward, hoping the smell will trigger a memory. It does. And the image becomes clearer. An image of tooth and claw. An image of blood. An image of thick fur and a haunting voice.

The Wolves are Stray

The Wolves. She will not fall back. Not now. They know she is present and they will turn on her. Their fur is not black like the ones back home. They are white. They are white and stained with blood. One lifts his giant head and his yellow eyes pierce straight through hers. The wolf licks his lips before lowering his head. She cannot look any longer. The pool of blood rippling beneath them made her stomach churn. The sound of their teeth gnashing against the innards made her head ache. A sudden crunch sounded as a wolf shook his head and a leg detached from the body. A gasp escaped her lips. And the wolves all lifted their gaze.

Feeding on the Innocent

She saw beneath them was once a creature of light grey fur. It would have been unrecognizable if it were not for the horns. The wolves were feeding on a halla. Terror took over as her body turned cold. The hair on her skin rose, but her wits became about her. And she remembered where she was. The wolves would not venture into the forest for a halla. They remain in the plain where the larger heards are known to graze. For a pack of this number to take down a large, stronger member of a heard would mean the wolves would have to be cunning. They would have to be...

Their Leader Rises

Their leader steps forward. But their leader is no animal. The alpha rises on two legs. And his face is familiar. Breathing becomes more difficult as she watched his shoulders flex. Her fists clench tightly, digging into the palms of her hands. He is dressed in white clothing, embroidered in gold. His brow is stern, just as before. But his eyes are cold. And his lips...

A Mouth Full of Blood

His lips are covered in blood. The pack proceeds to ignore her, resuming their meal without the lack of crunching as they enjoyed their fast. But he... he gazes at her. He watches for her reaction. Though there was none, she still felt him pry. He lifts his hand to his jaw and guides down the line until he reaches his mouth. He uses his hand to wipe blood. But he only smears it.

A Smile Filled with Pride

And then he smiles. He smiles so wickedly, so perversely, she let's out a horrifying. Not of fear, but of anger. Only the beginnings of it make it out of her mouth. She feels she can hear it. But the only thing she truly feels is the darkness surrounding her as she falls through the earth. And the only she sees is hid red smile with an echo of a howl in the distance.

She is Bathed in Regret

Falling back into a tangent place, she finds herself in a bath. Without truly knowing what has awakened her from her dream state, she grasps the edge to pull herself free. But she cannot. The water she was soaked in felt thick. It felt warm. It felt wrong. An awareness enlightens her senses, and as he vision clears, she can see that blood surrounds her. Recalling the scene from before, she swallows the start of a scream.

Surrounded by Emptiness

Then they appeared. Men and women of the Inquisition come drifting from the shadows to her side. They are all dressed in uniform, or else she would not even know who they were. Some she knows by name... but these followers... have no face. She cries out, but like before, only the first bit escapes. They reach to their sides and bring up a wooden buckets with a jingle inside. The buckets are emptied into her tub. And golden coins fall onto her body.  

The Weight of Gold

The blood rocks back and forth, spilling onto the floor. She can taste it in her mouth. Feel it burning her eyes. The weight is crushing. She can feel her spine pressing into the bottom of the porcelain tub. She scratches at the side, but to no avail. The treasury will drown her. And her comrades will watch. Thrashing about, she hopes to shake loose. But the relief of pressure does not come from above. It comes below.

A Sound of Resolution

The tub cracks, pulling her through to wherever she must go next. The gold disappears and for a moment, her body is weightless. And then it is cold. So terribly cold. The darkness brightens, but the light is so bright. Her eyes sting from the sudden burst and her body falls almost numb. She gathers her courage to rise from the broken tub. There is no blood but once again, there is the color of white. The color of snow.

An Answer on the Horizon

As her eyes adjust, she can make out something in the distance. It is grey, only slightly darker than the landscape. She moves towards it, the only thing she has to fixate her eyes upon. The only destination. As she draws closer, she knows the shape. The shape of a wolf. But this is a sight she has already seen. Tears fill her eyes. Should she be frightened? Because this is not what she felt. Only sadness. Only anger. Only the realization. Fen'Harel was watching.

The Shrine of Fen'Harel

Ruins suddenly began to appear around her. She does not recognize them. Or this feeling they gave. Emotions suddenly faded as she held her breath. They were replaced a desire. A need. She did not worry that the Betrayer would take her. No... she begged. She prayed silently because she could not speak. She prayed as she reached out with her bare hand. She prayed as she felt her fingertips graze across the wolf's mouth.

The Dread Wolf Howls

Hearing her lament, his eyes burst open. Not only the two, but several more across his twisted face, all burning with red flame. They all turned down to her, witnessing the elf for what she truly was. They judged her. Knew her crimes. Knew her to the very core. She fell to her knees, her body tensing with guilt and rage. This was her fault.

She Feels His Hands of Mercy

There is a sudden warmth across her chest. Two hands creep up to the tops of her shoulders. They pull her hard, into something solid. Something warm. It took away the fear. The cold. The hatred. It brought the comfort. Forgiveness. And she could smell something that she knew very well. It was sweet, but strange. Like an incense in a shop she had browsed in long ago. It was ancient. But it was new, like a parchment unrolled for the first time. It was Solas.

Of Love and Comfort

The statue disappeared, leaving a black abyss surrounding them. She pushed back, shoving him away. He did not belong. He was no help to her. She wanted to tell him, to shout. But there was nothing that would come from her lips. The look on his face told her that he was aware of how she felt. But it wasn't enough. She screamed. And though she couldn't hear it, she could feel the depths of her soul flaming in her belly as she let out a silent roar.

Ma Vhenan ...

But his words were clear. They were so sharp in her ear that she swore she heard them on the edge of the bed. She shot up, the sensation of his breath on her earlobe bringing her heart to an alarming rate. There was no one there. There was only the light of the stars and the moon. The sound of the breeze nestling up to the slightly cracked window in the far end of the room. But there was taste of blood in her mouth from where she bit her lip in her sleep. She wondered who exactly had visited her that night...

[demonprosecutor]

OVER THE RIVER AND THROUGH THE WOODS... YOU KNOW THE SONG.

part 1 | part 2 | part 3 | part 4 | part 5 | part 6 | part 7 | part 8 | part 9 | part 10 | part 11

innocence, like all things, succumbs to the touch of death and time - both in conjunction and never not coexisting with each other. it was a difficult pill to swallow at times, but the naivety of childhood could never weather the storm that the real world presented. a sad notion, but a necessary one. your thighs had ached and chafed with the hours of riding upon amydros - you had never ridden this far nor this long without rest. “alright, let’s rest.” you say aloud, pulling on the reins until the horse trots to a stop, towards a bend in the path where you slid down its back, and tied the leather strips around a sturdy branch.

even if winter had always made you nervous on principle (you’ve heard stories of bodies contorted in the throes of winter as lord thanatos had claimed their souls, or of crops failing and leaving a town starving for the next spring), you find relief of the cold on your aching muscles, a brief respite really. By then, your anger had cooled and subdued into a faint irritation. You were never someone who could hold their anger for a sustained amount of time without being weary.

with the edge of the cloak, you brush off gently-fallen snow off of the surface of the flattest rock you could find there, and carefully made sure that the cloak was at your bottom before sitting down. you had always taken your oaths seriously, always taken the truth seriously, but now? amid the snowy emptiness, placing yourself at the forefront of your secret fears of having to traverse the outside world without a safety tether was frightening.

maybe zagreus thought that your inherent fears would force you to remain in the town? that hypothesis makes you flush with indignation, crumpling the cloak between your hands. how dare he?! you weren’t... some... some civilian in distress that needed saving, you were an independent person capable of holding their own in any scenario.

“maybe lord hermes could glean more answers?” despite the distance between the two towns, you found that they held a camaraderie with each other that resulted in frequent trade during the warmer months and therefore, you had managed to catch the information that there was a rather robust temple dedicated to lord hermes. it makes sense, traveller towns tended to venerate that god above all else, well, the aspect of travelling at least. amydros nickers quietly, ears flicking. 

“at least you listen.” you stand up before the chill could seep through clothing and onto skin, walking over to stroke the strong flank of your horse. “zagreus never bothered to listen. always talking, always stumbling through conversation like a newborn fawn...” your hands curl into fists, pressed against the warm fur. “--- but he was always so kind.” zagreus’ warm smile came to the forefront of your mind, mismatched eyes twinkling like stars. “always made me feel like i was... like i was an equal.” 

by then, a flush rises to your cheeks. “and he is, erm, handsome... and sweet and endearing. like a puppy!” a look up and you see amydros leveling a rather judgemental look. as if to say: really? you were angry at him and now... you’re gushing about him

you slap your cheeks hard enough for it to sting, shaking your head. That was... a moment of weakness! you were still incredibly angry with him and you were going to give him a piece of your mind. Once you saw him. Then you’d hug him tightly because you were worried. zagreus did not know how terrible mortals could be, and you’d feel a lot better with him around.

you are alone.... 

amydros, to the horse’s credit, does not rear back in alarm at the voice that echoed around the clearing. too much like anura, you hold your steed’s reins close, heart thundering to the beat of amydros’ panicked breathing. even then, the most prominent thought that manages to sluice through the anxiety was: again?!

a nearby tree creaks, a mighty oak standing tall and bereft of its leaves, yet it shifts - the whorls on its trunk shifting into the closest approximation of a face. a dryad, an ancient, prideful one, if you had to guess. but most of all, something within your chest eases gently, unfurling like the drying wings of a butterfly. as though you were a child that had roused from a nightmare and found solace in their parent’s arms. they were good. above all, this dryad was a kind one, you could tell.

the stiffness of your shoulders lowers slightly, the smile upon your lips warm and assured. “gentle dryad, it is... wonderful to see you in spite of this bitter winter.” you never forget your manners and rifle through your bag, extracting a slice of bread that was given by menelaia before you left, and held it out - an offering to a near-god.

the dryad shifted its eyes to peer at the bread before the trunk cracks open with a thunderous sound, a gnarled wooden arm unfolding from the depths of the tree like an insect leg that carefully plucks the offering from your hand and returns. the air warms briefly, a signifier of its delight, its ineffable gratitude at recognition. nowadays, people forgot to thank the everyday spirits that resided in this world, ones that aided the gods and kept the earth and oceans as verdant and thriving as it was. “thank you, sapling.” it speaks in an ancient tongue, one that you should not understand, but with the magic of the divine, you were able to. a language so ancient, and so lost, it made your bones shudder at its strangeness. “you seek someone.”

you nod, eyes downcast. “yes.”

“a precious someone.” they say gently, a rumble of thunder in the distance, and you cannot help the aching smile on your face. “someone you care and adore.” they unfurl your heartstrings and read between the lines like the ancient rings of its home. wise because of its years and kinder because of it.

“yes. how did you know?” sometimes things weren’t meant to be asked, but you couldn’t help questioning this matter of mind-reading. “is it that obvious?”

a branch creaks downwards, a lone green leaf brushing over your hair, “love is the easiest to see, always so bright and vibrant. yet...” it brushes away a tear at the corner of your eye. “you are filled with such a terrible sadness, sapling.”

and you chuckle at that, tilting your head, “since when is that a new thing? are not all living things with terrible sadnesses?” you grab your arms, crossing them and rubbing them as a way to comfort. “he left me behind. to protect me from whatever evil this journey will birth. but i was ready to be there next to him! i was ready to protect him in my own way.” you weren’t exactly sure what that looked like, but you were prepared to sacrifice - after all, it’s not like you had much at stake.

the dryad stares at you, eyeless sockets like the void, but infinitely more comforting. before it sighs, “i will help you--”

“why?” you interrupt, cautious as ever.

“i do not have long on this realm and you were the first being that had shown me kindness, is it not fitting for one birthed from love to return love?” the ground breaks, a root curling upwards, breaking through the winterfrost that made it forest floor unmoveable. upon closer, you see a circle of gold hanging from the curve of the root. “forged from deep within the earths, when i used to boast more beauty than now. it is meant to guide you to your heart’s desire.”

you look at the ring, the metal warm and lovely - as though you held your hands against a flickering hearth. “how does it work?”

it laughs softly, a whisper of a breeze, bringing the smell of spring before demeter’s winter dominates once more. “bring it close to your chest and allow your heart to guide you, the ring will show you the way.” you pull back and offer your gratitude with a smile, a nod, watching as the dryad heaves one more mighty sigh before the trunk seals shut and the face fades into obscurity, once more like the trunk it was before.

you stand there, the ring clutched to your chest, just above your heart. it was strange to speak to a dryad that wasn’t speio, shaking your head to dismiss the cobwebs of memory that persisted. there was no point in sinking into nostalgia, it was better to do so when everything calmed down.

as the dryad had instructed, you closed your eyes and allowed thoughts to fall away from your mind - leaving you with the blissful emptiness that allowed your heart to speak freely, without obstruction. the ring warms, hot enough that you grow alarmed, eyes snapping open and peering down at the metal. it shone like a miniature sun, whispering sweetly before a beam of light shoots forward, between the trees and to the great beyond. “what the---” your brows furrow, as you wave a hand through the beam of light, disturbing it like ripples of water, yet remains steadfast in the direction it pointed.

was this what the dryad meant by the ring showing you the path to your heart’s desire?

suddenly buoyed by the thought of your journey made easier, you grin and untangle amydros’ reins from the branch and leapt onto his back, kicking your heels into his flanks. “follow the light!” amydros tosses his head, kicking up dirt and snow underneath his hooves.

the woods thicken, branches so numerous that it blocked the sn, the darkness illuminated by the magical glow of the ring, casting away the shadows that lingered at the edges of your vision. it was wise to allow the both of you to rest, but wolves prowled about in these woods - that and untold dangers. and you weren’t willing to boast your admittedly-pathetic fighting skills.

you had been following the path of the light, unwavering, wind stirring your hair and breath frosting in the air - but then it veers sharply to the right, into a darker path. “shit!---” you yank on amydros’ reins to halt his run, backing him up until you were in full-view of the deviation of the path. “why here?” the ring is brought to your face, pulsating with warm life, pointing into the darker woods, the branches curling about like an archway. unnatural, yet not. 

was this your heart’s desire?

with the reins clutched tightly in your hands, you turn your steed towards the dark void of the path, branches and rotted wood curling about. amydros flicks his ear uneasily, and you stroke his neck carefully. “easy. there must be something there.” with a deep breath and no small amount of courage, you both turn onto the path.

the trail was craggy. interrupted by fallen branches, stones and grooves. this told you that it was a path not regularly traveled by horse or by man, a thought that does not comfort you. after all, danger does not only lie with the mortal realm.

the thought to turn around arose the deeper you went down the path, but considering how tight the squeeze was, it wasn’t an option. trees shuddered, darkness encroaching and stifling enough that you couldn’t breathe. visions of red and crimson flashed before your gaze, screams shrilling in your ears, body shaking and fists curled tightly enough that it bit into your palms.

red and gold, red and gold. only the union of gods and mortal so bold ---- can end this all.

blood flooded your mouth, spilling down your chin, and when you think you cannot handle anymore... you stumble into an open meadow. the air was still, the grass and flowers frosted, yet alive - suspended between life and death. purple butterflies floated about, lingering at your side before floated off. the ring warms, the light pointed towards the figure standing in the middle, draped in reaper’s cloth and scythe held like a harbinger above the hood of lord thanatos.

he looked surprised by your appearance, just as you were by his. “what are you doing here? and... where is zagreus?” lord thanatos looks past you, expecting to see the prince stumble after you, but after realizing that he wasn’t there, golden eyes snap to you.

you slide down with shaky legs, wiping the blood away with the edge of the cloak, approaching lord thanatos and dropping to a knee. the cold immediately sunk into your knee, head bowed. “lord thanatos, i did not expect to see you here.” nor did you expect to have the ring show thanatos to be your heart’s desire, but you kept that fact wisely to yourself, face reddening. “---the prince isn’t here. he left me behind at a town, intent on pursuing his---” you pause, lifting your head before pushing yourself to your feet. was it wise to reveal why zagreus left? or were you going to set things in motion that should not occur.

“well?” he asks impatiently, his features deadpan, yet betraying enough that you knew it was better to speak. besides, zagreus had always spoke about the steadfastness of thanatos, about how he was to be trusted. you quickly pray that he was right.

“prince zagreus went to pursue his missing mother. in a place heavily shielded by magic. lord hermes had given him a map and i intended to follow, but he left me behind. i was given this,” you show the glowing ring, the beam of light disappearing into the darkness of his garb, “and it led me to you. it was meant to show my... heart’s desire.” it was said fast, yet your face warms. “the times are growing stranger, my lord...”

lord thanatos takes everything in, eyes falling shut in thought. “mmm. interesting, this is quite troubling news.” he hovers above the flowers, brows furrowed in a tight knot. death incarnate does not speak for some time, long enough that you shift in place uneasily. "things are changing. things are not dying and ancient evils are speaking within the wells of tartarus. zagreus' mother disappearing is the first step. the olympians will not intervene unless they need to," lord thanatos says this with a curl to his lip, derision evident. "instead they will use zagreus and whatever foolish individual that follows as tools."

(you suspect that he's speaking about you...)

"nonetheless, we cannot leave the fool to die. or meet a fate unknown." his scythe swishes in the air, purple eye blinking at you magnanimously. "i will aid you in your quest, groundskeep." lord thanatos was an imposing figure and to have him as an ally was.... well, it was comforting. there was no figure, no deity feared more, than this god before you. even the olympians feared what he could do; for through his touch, they could find their deaths as well.

"wait--- you're helping me?" your mouth drops open in shock, and this! coming from someone who had threatened you weeks ago....

lord thanatos arched a brow, "was i unclear in my declaration? i'm going to help you find zagreus and subsequently, his mother. it is a pain to have things... not die." there's something in his eyes that told you that there was something more to this, but you don't pry. the machinations of gods were not your concern. "i will speak with lord hermes and see if he could replicate the map he gave zagreus, let your magic ring guide you to him. meanwhile, here." lord thanatos reaches into his chiton, producing a small, little tattered mouse. patchworked with fabric and soft to the touch. it nestled comfortably in the circle of your arms. 

"... what is this?" you look up at death incarnate, cocking your head. why... was he giving you a child's toy?

much to your surprise, his cheeks took on a gentle, gold hue. as though he was embarrassed by your question. “his name is mort, use him if you are in trouble, and i shall come to your aid. but! only when you need it, i cannot always come. find zagreus, do not fail me. and, groundskeep? this is between us.” lord thanatos says this threateningly before disappearing in a flash of green light, temporarily causing spots to appear in your vision.

you are left alone, the earth heaving a sigh at the departure of death. the air stirred once more, the darkness lifting slightly and the strange, purple butterflies that danced in the meadows were gone. you looked at the little mouse, large enough to carry comfortably, and soft too! a quick look around told you that you were alone, save for amydros grazing nearby and took a slight sniff of the toy. 

it smelled of... lavender. of ash. the two smells of your dead town that dominated your nose. but instead of filling you with grief, you were filled with a strange sense of peace. you place mort at the bottom of your bag, where it wouldn’t fall out by accident and leapt once more onto amydros’ back.

the path that you had entered was brighter now, less stifling. the ring flickered to life and pointed northward - towards the town that menelaia had spoken about. you kick your heels and amydros thundered towards where he needed to be.

yet even with the ache of your thighs, the burn of your lungs, your thoughts went back to the god. what did he mean by things not dying anymore? what evil speaks in tartarus? perhaps these questions would be better answered with an oracle or a seer - if the town had any. “let’s hope we find zagreus by then,” you say aloud, amydros’ ear flicked back at you in acknowledgement.

but you weren’t that worried, zagreus had a way of avoiding trouble.