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cowboylament · 19 days ago

Text

He noticed, “I won't let you get hurt. It’s just a little drop.”

“I’m…”

“What?” Lucien said his breath against my ear.

“Heights. I’m a little afraid of them.”

I felt his slight smile settle in the thin air between us, “Bryaxis is fine…but not heights?”

“It’s not really the heights thing, it’s the falling thing. My friend, he used to jump from cliffs into a quarry. And I could never do it. The falling.”

Lucien took a long inhale, “I see.”

I shifted a little in his grip as he focused again on the large house high above, carved into a cliff.

“The drop is just four or so seconds long. As long as it would take for you to gasp or close your eyes. And it won’t be you falling, it’ll be me. I’m not gonna let you hit the ground.”

“I trust you.”

“Do you?”

I nodded.

Lucien is very sturdy and Y/N feels very lost.

Part One, Part Two, Part Four (AO3)

The passing shower that parted the afternoon we returned was one of the first in a series of reliefs that summer. It seemed to rain all the time after. And as such the season never returned with the same force or in quite the same way. The mornings and nights were cold, the afternoons hot but breathable. There was room now, each relief following another relief, life did not feel so inescapable. Overnight secret storms would brew and vanish before anyone woke up, but I saw, I remembered. They left their traces, too, if you were careful, if you watched closely. On the rare occasion I missed one, during those brief sleeps, I’d check. There was no storm that did not pass without my knowing it had. I did not let them fade into obscurity.

That morning, one revealed itself with fat-globbed drops falling from the trees onto the top of my tent. Like fingers tapping a wood table, the world here seemed antsy for my acknowledgment. I didn’t know how to do it, to admit I wasn’t gone, to prove this place was still mine, because it seemed it wasn’t anymore. No more than Velaris was. When I’d left I’d imagined the opposite really, that life would be a constantly evolving legitimacy. That, once made real, I would only become more real, but that isn’t how it works. The friends I’d made here, the animals and birds, were afraid of me again, and so soon. I was no longer a known part of their world. Cyclical deaths, like the autumn behind each rain: more sure, the world colder, less alive with each pass. I belonged wholly to nowhere, to no one. But the drops continued to fall, rippling the tent like water.

Rhysand must’ve had a miserable time of it, keeping watch. Morning had begun to peak over the horizon. Everything was soft around the edges, even if the sun remained still out of sight. The noises were muffled by this approaching daybreak—not yet fully realized. But the sunlight would soon hit and everything would again be real regardless of if this world knew it now or not. Already I understood this noise, this lethargic vision, before I knew even myself—dawn. It was the same, consistent, beautiful. Even in Velaris with its vivid nights it came easy, these days. Announcing itself as floorboards creaking.

I’d learned the afternoon we’d returned early that Lucien’s room was above where I slept. Our apartments L-shaped, interlocking in embrace. Each night since, I stood vigil, watching the secret shower pelt the window and waited for signs of life. The sun would rise and the floor would shift and I would know. Would turn over, press my hand to the wall—the gentle thud, the soft vibrations. He woke early and it always seemed to me I could give up my hope of sleep if he had also. Then I’d close my eyes, but in a different way, and impose myself in the tide of his movements, seamless, part of it and yet wholly removed, like the moon. I had visited just the once, but it was all very clear. Where I’d go in reply and because of each step he made. Never in the way. Around the loveseat or at the desk. Amongst the scuffed furniture, a faded carpet, those fine couches, chairs, ornate just enough not to be obtrusive. Rich not by coin. There in his apartment, proof of something, but I couldn’t say the word.

We’d walked into the entry, he holding the door for me, that familiar position from life before. The way a male will hold his hand above your head, the heavy wood at their palm and an arch is made from a body. The architecture of presence. I passed under it, my face heating, but I kept my head down, taking my shoes off, and if he noticed he gave no indication. He only moved my shoes from the carpet before I could, placing them next to his. I remembered this dance. I forgot the last time it had happened, where going in some place someone followed close behind. There was a memory, yes, an answer but any details were lost. The kinds of things you don’t think you’ll need. What shoes was I wearing? What did they look like? And it was spring wasn't it, but I couldn’t say what kind. Rainy or warm, humid or sticky. There was a memory, yes, something maybe one would call a memory, but it was fabricated. An aglimation of all the times the action had happened that I had ever known. So unreal it was almost painful to consider. To think that I had let those details get away. Grotesque really, what the mind seemed to do, perhaps just my mind, trying to absolve me of the only thing I’d ever been asked and had not been able to do.

“The kitchen is just through here,” He said walking forward, around a corner. “I’ll get some heat. The rain can make it cold and the place is a bit drafty. But it might take a minute.”

I nodded, goosebumps rising, even in summer.

His body sunk with obvious relief the further we got inside. There was an immediacy to it, even just standing outside the door had relieved him of something. Whatever had hung there before I hadn’t noticed it. Out there nothing was obvious to me. But at his apartment, he undid himself in such a way that his beauty was intensified. As if some vague glamour had dropped and revealed an infinitely more beautiful version of him that came from being out of sight, that came from certain greater comforts we don’t usually get unless we were alone. His footsteps fell into another corner of the apartment, one past the kitchen beyond my sight.

“You said you were tired. The couch is there or the bed if you’d prefer.”

My eyes followed toward the living room, a loveseat just before a small hearth, a stack of books on the floor piled high, the top title laid page down to mark its place, “I wouldn’t be a very good guest if I slept.”

His voice, a little muffled, like he was looking in a closet, filtered through, “It's nice just having someone here. The apartment is quiet.”

The particular silence, different from the country and the cottage where you know people are there but for some reason you cannot hear them. Or worse—you can. But they’re far away, farther than you could manage, and you’ll never reach them anyway. Yes, I knew that quiet. I had begun to know it very well.

There was a time before where I’d have given anything to sleep while someone else cooked. Or better, to look over while I was cooking and see someone there dreaming. It was easy to press against that place again, to think of the plush cushions cradling my body and maybe, maybe if I was very still and tried very hard, I would find what I was looking for. The disappointments would pass and I would remain unnoticed. I’d get, at last, the life I always wanted. The one where someone was in the other room. A distance you could close, a world we were together. And then I could sleep, knowing they wouldn’t be gone when I woke up, they wouldn’t be further than when I left. No sense of the helpless inevitability that my life would go somewhere I couldn’t get to if I looked away.

I closed my eyes then, feeling for the tired, the kind that brought dreams with things like this, but it was not there.

“It is not that kind of tired,” I said.

“If it becomes that, please, let me know,” He said his voice soft the way I’d imagined he’d known what I was looking for and was hoping if he spoke quietly he could coax it for me from hiding.

My eyes drifted back and forth over his belongings with closer attention. Not much clutter, trinkets or the likes, but collections yes. Books, blades, some shoes lined nicely when we’d walked in, candles, cards. A dish of fruit, a handful of pens, paper and documents on the dining table, the extent to anything superfluous. Even from where I stood I saw the careful script, looping in dark black ink. Tidy and well-kept, that was what he was. Slowly the margin between what I had thought and what was true began to shrink. This was the male who’d remembered me. He read books and brought me pastries, he carried my bag, waited outside my apartment while I changed when I did not invite him in, did not draw attention to the old dress or bad manners, though I saw the recognition of it from years before, who moved my shoes for me, who made a fire so I could be warm, who was now to cook for me.

I turned to the kitchen. A room itself, carved out, but visible through a hole in the wall from where I stood. An adjoining counter blended one space into the other. I liked where he lived. I liked how he lived. That it reflected both his life of before, the colors all remnants of memory, of an early autumn wood in transition, greens, reds, browns, but also traces of a life that he had now. Chairs everywhere, too many for just the one, placed how you would so if someone came they’d be looking directly at each other. A kitchen made to host, to cook, to talk to those in these other rooms from other places. Kept clean too, how easy he could swipe those pages into a stack to be tucked away. And then of course the books. A thousand hopeful lives in themselves, stories maybe he wanted for himself or just the comfort of connection, even to things imagined.

Not so obscure. Closer to me. Meaning to be made. Better understanding.

Yes, everywhere I looked I found more books. It made more sense. Novels dusting various ledges, stacked in curious ways, with no key or shelf like I’d have expected. Most seemed ready to fall, precarious in their placement, there only because there was a need for them to be in the open. Left out as they were maybe so someone would ask. Something to talk about when the stories of real life, of who was known, ran out. Despite his saying he had not lived here, it seemed very lived in already. Vacant too, but not of himself. It was nice. I couldn’t remember what I thought it would look like, but seeing it then, it could be no other way.

He returned then with thin wood for a fire, the light catching his tanned skin.

“It’s summer,” I said looking toward his equally tanned hands. A sense of being outdoors, he becoming clearer now, transforming into someone I could say I know.

He peered toward the window, the sun having returned, “It’ll suck out the cold and then I’ll let it die out.”

I hummed, the wood already here, his help already in motion.

“I could do it,” I said following his gaze. The courtyard was sheathed in the last light. “You could cook and I could do that.”

“I trust you’re capable but, of the two of us, I believe I have the greater affinity. But thank you.”

That banking flame, the spring afternoon, the snare—I nodded, walking toward the window, letting my knuckles graze the glass. My apartment did not have access to this little secret, the hidden smaller solitary world bricked in within this one. An open courtyard, a scholar tree at its center, I had never been there but in my own way I had. Cobble surrounded it with a few good benches but otherwise, it was unkept. The grass was overgrown like a makeshift field. The birds didn’t care. They flew into the day's final full sunbeam before it sunk too low from this lonely world’s view. A small half night would be made only for this section of the city and it was coming fast. Warmth leeched, the birds would have somewhere else to go then, to bathe in the beauty of this city. What they saw, I wondered, what they knew of. More little places, little touches of wild, where despite all that closed in on them, they felt keenly at home. My hand twitched. Toward what I didn’t know.

A musical familiar clunking drew me back. Wood against wood. He knelt now at a hearth, a small one, and placed the scattered, not quite logs, on the grate. Slow and deliberate, he looked with consideration. The affinity for one's own magic that made him act with greater care, nurturing the home of his flame, the way I leave the curtains open so the light will make it in. And that’s a nice thought isn’t it, that the home can be left and a new home made with our hands for what we have expelled.

Brushing the debris from his palms he pulled away. A flash—then fire. Handy, I thought, if one ever had to survive close by him. How plausible an idea. I didn’t want to say the word promise, but it was the only word that worked. An almost promise.

He watched it a moment, knee propped up, as he unbuttoned a few buttons on his shirt, rolled up his sleeve slightly, and strands of hair fell from behind his ear, caressing his face. Eventually, assured of the flame, he stood. Expression hard, it softened slightly as he caught my watching him before he passed into the kitchen and began to open things. First the wrong cabinet, then the right one, pulling a glass down he filled it with water and wordlessly handed it to me, over the counter, through the wall that wasn’t there, our reach meeting in the middle.

I could see where Lucien’s hand had been. The gray smudge disappeared under my grip. My fingers pressed flat on the other side of the glass, holding to the phantom hand. The layers of memory now made real, that one thing touches another thing, and that this makes something new. A kiss in a way, I thought, holding the cup where he’d held it. That so much exists in the dirtying of a glass. Most things didn’t exist solitarily, that was something that I liked. That one thing could have two or more meanings.

Like with Helion.

That first water I’d been offered. What it had represented, after the long stretch where there’d been little proof that I’d been there at all. The morning I spent staring at the glass on the nightstand, the smear of a lip, that old life restored. You are here, it said. How it seemed the future bloomed from there, another promise. The sentiment only ripened now as I stared at the water, at the thing we’d just shared. Not just the mark of care but proof of being together, and the inconvenience of this fact too.

It took me seven years alone, I think, more or less, to be surprised by what I’d overlooked and then wanted back. Stains not my own to rid and the way on especially cold nights the blankets are always evasive, folding under a body and impossible to retrieve. Sharing every last sip, last bite, of everything, tedious favors with no reward, reluctant words kept because I’d said I would. An ache formed, a half-century of desire— to again have the thankless task of washing up. Rubbing away the stubborn history of two people who’d held one thing. To do each dirty dish, twice more than usual.

I could. Here, I could.

The possibility seemed just there in my hand. Not yet closed off to me, if I remembered, I might pull everything from obscurity, from the life I used to have. The task could mean many things: a lesson in returning, an anchor to a world that got away, a relief, and a thank you, for dinner. The latter would be manners. But even with his exceptional ones I knew he’d never let me. And there were no words I wanted to say to make him understand what I felt, what I really wanted, all that the task stood for. To have an inconvenience, to be something so normal, so here, as an inconvenience. Thus raising the glass to my lips I drank slow, savoring it, so the night could not end too fast. Because it would end. Downstairs, just myself, and all the storms waiting. A few dishes to clean in a place without the same richness I’d found here. Such a thing belonged only to Lucien. The quality I still could not name. Not because I did not know the word, but because it had escaped me in a way I could never have again, not even to hold it in my mouth.

A shower kicked up by a breeze fell on the tent half with agitation the other half rememberance. I sighed, I did not forget you, I thought in answer. The warmth of the blanket kicked off, behind it was a cool morning. I pushed out of the tent. Colder still, the fire barely going and Rhysand looking as miserable as I imagined, his eyes flicking to mine.

“You look rested,” he said with no trace of envy, voice a little hoarse from lack of sleep.

I nodded. Thunder sounded off in the distance as if in answer for me. The forest was soaked to the bone and as if in reflection of this fact it was bathed in the color blue. Everything behaved like it was submerged under the sea. From there if it were night or dawn I don’t think anyone could say. Some between place that neither Rhysand nor I could take true credit for. Or maybe we both could. It was unclear to me.

Finding a seat across from him, I knelt in the mud, stoking at the fire. Tossing a few logs, watching for the flame. Five days and no beast. No idea of where it would go now, or how best to hunt myself. A strange mode of confrontation really, what would close the gap between reaching and releasing? Where would I be weakest? How could such a beast know?

“These mornings are indeed beautiful,” Rhysand said eventually, his throat cleared. “Your bias is well founded.”

I tucked my hair behind my ear, “You’ve visited before.”

“Yes. But this is something else entirely.”

“In what way?”

Rhysand smiled, slow, a little playful, but I knew he was sincere, “I’m seeing it now as a home. Which is new.”

It was true. An entirely different thing, to be in someone's home and to see them engage with it, connect, interact. It changes the view of a place, the preciousness of what is or isn’t there. And it changes how you see them, gives a language for which no words exist about their being, as if you have been tuned like a piano to the singular note that sings inside them. And you get it then, what you get can never be said, but you get it. Yes I understood what he meant, but I asked, “Is it not Thesans home?”

“Political visits aren’t quite so intimate, certainly not homely. And truthfully I care little for your High Lord so it never made any difference to me, nor did I pay much attention.”

A hidden part of me smiled, the outer frowned, “I don’t know if that is true anymore.”

“What?”

“That he is my High Lord,” I said and Rhysand straightened. “If that’s alright. If I can.”

Quietly, soft as the dawn, he said, “That’s alright. I wasn’t sure of your plans for the future.”

I nodded, brushing the dirt from my hands and stood. Heat at my cheeks began to bloom, “I won’t be much use after we get Bryaxis I know. But I could find...I could…”

“I didn’t bring you here for you to be of use to me. I offered you Velaris before you volunteered to get Bryaxis back. It was always going to be available to you,” Rhysand said and I nodded. I had forgotten that. The timeline of events, barely out of view and yet nearly lost. Always looking the wrong way it seemed, never remembering that which needs so desperately to be remembered. I rubbed at my forehead, like the forgetting had dirtied it. A sense that everyone could see at all times what I couldn’t do.

The High Lord studied me, his elbows on his knees, fingers interlocked, the flames in gradual rise, crackled between the dull thud of leftover rain.

“Is it difficult for you,” he asked, “coming here?”

My words fought to free themselves from the void, the ravenous thing that ate away at everything I had and yet grew only more poised to devour, to take and take from me until there was nothing. Which is to say, something less than nothing, because I wasn’t really sure how much I had when I got here to begin with. But wanting so desperately to be understood, to erase what had happened in the parlor the night Lucien came back, the words appeared, hard won, avoiding momentarily our fate.

“Difficult—that is not the word I would use.”

He hummed in acknowledgment.

“I don’t really know what words are right,” I said. I turned toward the denser forest. The hazy fog was rising up into the upper layers of lush dark green canopy. “My world was preserved the night I got to the cottage. Everything for me stopped. I went some other place, to a home no one knew about, to a piece of woods where no one was and nothing changed. Even if time passed, it happened to me only overhead. Everyone got to go forward and I was left behind with the world from before she got here, with the world that I remember.”

The forest was still. They say that is the most alluring tale of all, to hear your own story told back. Even the trees knew I was talking to them, leaning forward so that a drop of water fell off a leaf, hit my cheek. The tear falling down my cheek, down then into the dirt, our of my line of sight, obscured until it was part of a storm that never happened.

I nodded, yes, the right words. “There are two worlds, the one that I stayed in and then another. Everyone gets to be in the other one. I went to Velaris thinking I’d find my way back to everyone. But I turned away from this place and now what I remember no longer exists. Not here, at least. So coming back it seems more obvious all the time. This sense now that I don’t belong anywhere. That I’m some new unreal world inbetween.”

There was, then, something desperate on his face. The frustration of translation, of seeing something that had no earthly words and having to contain your ideas within them. Bryaxis, too, must live in perpetual discomfort. To have to bind itself to something so imprecise. I clenched my fists and his eyes drew that way so I spoke again, did not let him see, did not let him put together what I was becoming. The words were still there, there was still a little time before the void came.

“I don’t really know what I thought would happen when I left, I guess I thought everything here would stay the same, but now the woods, they’re already forgetting me. And the distance I felt, what I thought I was closing, isn’t something earthly, something as easy as the place between the cottage and Velaris. It’s actually very old. Like the space between life and death. And I just…I thought I’d have more time before I lost this place too. I thought that I’d have time to remember.”

“Remember what?”

“How to be here with you all. What she did pushed me far away, but the distance isn’t impossible. And if I went in I think there must be a way out. I know that I can get back to the world where everyone is,” I said which was not a lie but had begun to feel like one. I didn’t know at all if I could do it, but I did believe a few things separate from this. Like that something doesn’t have to be fact for it to be true. I was holding out for that, for the way in which the world was one constant long ancient miracle. That believing was enough. “Sometimes I can feel it, a door opens and you all seem so close. I’ll try to close the distance, but something happens. The door shuts. And I only feel more out of place, more strange and alone. But I just need a door that won’t shut.”

Rhysand’s face held a deeper kindness than before, carefully he offered, “I said it before, but I will repeat it, at any point if you don't want to look for that beast, if its too hard…”

“It’s hard, but so is everything. I don’t want what happened to me to happen to anyone else.”

“Well you do not have to,” Rhysand said with a shrug, lifting his shoulders like it would add some comedic relief to the words that came next. “You’re not obliged to help me with my problem.”

“But aren’t I?” I said, whatever joke he hoped to make falling flat. A breeze overhead gave voice to the trees, knocking old rain and making it briefly new. All around us drops fell as we two stared at each other. “Are we not responsible for one another?”

The High Lord said nothing.

“Whether there are two worlds or just the one, I don’t know if that has ever changed. It's why I went with you. You seem to believe, to know this simple fact. That we share this life and so we care for each other. Suffering is aleviated because of this, because other people are good and will help you if they are capable. I can’t do more than I am able, but I will do all I can.”

The silence permeated a moment or two before it was broken with something equally hopeful and dejected, “You would put to shame several High Lords.”

I shrugged, my cheeks red with a new heat, “If you’re removed from real community long enough I suppose it is easy to forget.”

“And 56 years isn’t long?”

“No,” I said plainly. “Not enough to forget that.”

Rhysand gave a smile, tender, not quite sad which I was grateful for, “Then I believe that this is the court you belong. If you wish to stay we will welcome you, we will be glad for it, even. But the choice is yours, not mine.”

Thunder rounded off again, louder, but still further than before. The pair of us turned in its direction. Dawn court was being shaken, the morning rituals shrouded in rain, but still they would happen. Another fact of life, followed by a third, that the storm would pass and the morning sky would reveal itself again in beauty.

“You can rest for the last hour or two.” I said once he turned back, “I’m not going back to sleep.”

Rhysand did not fight me, rising slow, hair damp, pressed against his temple, and stumbled toward his tent, before pausing. Through the clearing of the trees a streak of pure sun. Dawn had come, the in between day and night, the beauty of both things together. Rhysand’s shoulders lifted, as if it were for the very first time that he’d seen such a sight, and sighed, before he turned back.

I nodded, “I really am trying. I don’t want to be so far away.”

“I know,” He said.

“I know something else,” I said. “Something I didn’t say.”

He bowed his head, encouraging, waiting for the words. The void was coming but there was time. I was too far ahead, it would never reach what had already begun.

“The only thing that can reach through the threshold into death, is memory.”

Yes. I would remember. The answers which were thinning all the time were pulled taut. A thread to follow. A path. The door would stay open. I had to get there. I’m not that far. I’m sometimes very close. Wait up ahead, I would tell them. Please. Don’t go if you loose sight of me. If I close my eyes. I just need to rest. I’ve been running a long time.

Rhysand nodded with an expression I didn’t know then pressed into the tent, and fell into bed. Maybe there would be time to know it. To learn it. The void licked at the back of my throat. No, maybe not. But this wasn’t about facts, it was about truth, this was about believing. The thread of an idea has become not so thin. Miracles, the mother, all there and that morning I chose to believe what was true. Yes, it wouldn’t be for nothing. My life, good, not for nothing.

The fire had revived by then and I sat where the High Lord had been. Every now and again a fat droplet of water would reach my nape, my wrist, my fingers, and I would turn up toward the trees, smiling a little, like the sky had offered up a cool kiss. I’d thought about reaching for my book, the new one Nesta had given me. Mated by Morning. But I did not want to go to that place, not yet. Even now real life could be more enticing. I wanted to go back again. A rain drop fell against my lips. Memory, back, a cool glass of water, wet, heavy tired, warm.

Stay.

“Better?” Lucien had asked.

I’d nodded, “Better.”

“Do you need anything for your shoulder? I might have something.”

I shook my head. There was nothing left to be done but let it scar, which it would. I swallowed roughly. Healing, though a born-with power, had never quite been my expertise. I’d picked up enough to survive, but not without blemish. The spring I broke my finger in a rough fall running from the naga left it perpetually crooked now, jutting slightly to the side. Difficult to scar a faerie, my eyes slipped to Lucien, who’d begun to pull pans and vegetables from their place, our bodies wanting to heal, magic wanting to find a way. Perhaps for all we were worth brutality wasn’t quite our nature. Or maybe that we were brutal was why we tried so hard to survive. Yes, that seems better, more true. That life will hold onto life if it can, that it is in our being to go on with this harsh thing, to love and to live, to see this world through. That was magic, to receive violence and make something gentle or good in its place. Lucien turned, sensing my staring.

He pointed a knife he was about to use toward a chair at the counter, “You can sit if you’re not gonna sleep.”

I slid into it without a sound. The rhythmic chopping of his knife began only once I was settled. Watching it slide in and out of the vegetables made me aware of the hunger that was in me, that I hadn’t noticed until now. And it occurred to me how easy it was to be in a continuous state of not noticing, that I had been that way for some time. I looked down. Yes, for some time I had been not noticing myself.

“You said the blade saved your life,” Lucien said. “Are you willing to share?”

“I was swiped into a ravine. Bryaxis stopped my fall, pinned me with its claws,” I said and Lucien’s eyes flicked up briefly to look at my shoulder. “I lodged the knife in its leg and it kicked me off and Azriel caught me.”

He let out a low whistle.

“Good then,” he said turning toward the glinting blade. “That you had it.”

“Maybe.”

“You don’t think so? Even after?”

“It wasn’t mine.”

He shrugged, “I missed it the way you do your baby teeth. I’d run over the gap at first, but didn’t need it. You, on the other hand, needed it.”

His words relieved me of some of my guilt. Knowing it had been in his family. The immediate aftermath, the grief, of thinking you’d lost something forever. That I had caused that made something in my stomach, still, roil.

”In Dawn, sharpening my blades, it sometimes broke them. So I didn’t want…and then Azriel taught me better, but I still thought I might. So it’s still a little dull. I’m sorry. You’re here now. I didn’t want to ruin it now that you’re here.”

The tail end of the sentence made Lucien’s mouth twitch, but if it were happiness or sadness I didn’t know. He swiped the thickly cut carrots into a bowl before grabbing for a yellow onion.

“I’d prefer a broken blade to most other outcomes.”

We were different in that way. To save even a part of my parents, I’d break anything. I’d walk willingly into Bryaxis claws if it meant what had been taken could be put back. To see even a moment of them. Just one more.

Lucien slid his finger along the flat edge of the knife and carrots, bright fat orange carrots unlike any I’d seen fell into the pot. A nice thing about coming back here too, the vegetables at market some of the best, not just what was available. My stomach growled. An emptiness given sound. Absence as a form of presence. it was strangely oppressive, the empty place where nothing is. How it hung on my shoulders dragging them down with real weight.

“When do you leave next?”

Heat fell against my face, like the sun was under my skin. I rose my fingers to my cheek, but it was only warm, not glowing. Obvious, if Lucien were looking, but he wasn’t.

“I don’t know,” I said. The wound throbbing in answer. The heaviness from inside of me, the absence where light ought to have been, stirred. I suddenly became very aware of my place in this room. Of the delicacy between life and death, of real and unreal. Those ruined caves, what I had done to them in my feeling, what I could do if I was in a place too long. If I wasn’t very careful with myself. I pushed my shoulders toward each other as much as I could before it hurt. My hands tucked under my skirts and my legs crossed. I bowed my head just slightly. Less of me here, less of me in Lucien’s world. I’d have more time. I could stay.

“If you ever need it again, just ask. I can sharpen it for you.”

I shook my head, “Azriel and Rhysand gave me some, some that are less precious. And Bryaxis is a force that a blade will not kill.”

“Just you can do that,” he said, his gaze again flicking up to mine.

I turned from him abruptly. Colorful and pristine and tidy and warm, that was how I’d describe this place. An autumnal forest I’d said. But I could feel the tides turning, the center shifting away from what was, to something that had been. That internal body, growing more unreachable and demolishing where no light, not even magic, was strong enough to pierce it. How it pulled everything into its heaviness like a whirlpool. The weight of dark water, how easy it would be to this place under. Not strong enough yet to ruin this place, but I could feel its waterlogging the place around me. I could feel the way it was becoming more obvious, that even plain eyes would see.

Kill. Just you can do that.

Not in my nature. Not yet. But becoming irrevocable. Like Bryaxis. Like a very deep river and a very heavy body.

Like calls to like it had said and the shadowsinger knew it. So how long would it be before they knew too? I looked back at Lucien, who was watching still. Who was studying. My throat tightened in the grip of that void. I didn’t want to go yet, I wanted to stay. But he would see it. And then it would all be over. Once he knew, once he saw, it would be over. How flimsy, how easy it was to lose a place. As simple as the closing of an eye, as the going to a home and shutting the door behind you. Would it take a month? A year? Or only another day. Another hour, another glass of water.

I just wanted more time.

It is already there, it has always been there.

“Should I set a place for you?” Lucien asked, the silence must’ve dragged on too long, even for him.

“For what?” I asked.

“Dinner.”

I thought about it, but only to be polite. The room got a little heavier. The sun passed under the horizon of the courtyard and it got dark as if proof of something, of what it meant to be around.

“No,” I said, then added, “sorry.”

“You don’t have to be sorry.”

But I did. I had everything to be sorry for. He did not know this yet, but he would. For now there was a little time and maybe I could know about this male that remembered before he wanted to forget. I took the glass and finished it in one long gulp.

Lucien and his cutting continued. A certainty about him always it seemed, to sit close to me, even when that heaviness around me grew and climbed toward my throat. How he managed to be so close to the danger of the undertoe. Had he lived near rivers? Did he know what to look for?

Not quite the question I needed to ask, but very close to it. I watched the potato slices fall away in pieces. It would take a long time, those, to cook. I would be here a long time.

“Can I ask you something?” I said, the right question clearer.

“Yes,” He said as I knew he would. Unfair to him. Unfair to do this, to know that I could because I knew what he’d say.

I go only where I feel at home, where I’m familiar.

“Do you think we get to come back to a place we ruined…or is it a mercy, is kinder, to stay away?”

Lucien had stopped his chopping and set the knife down. The rhythmic hum of his cooking had vanished and in its place was a heavy silence that did not feel like the ones we’d had before, the ones where he was waiting for me to say something and in that waiting the answer came eventually with a kind of ease. From my peripheral I saw him rest the heel of his palm on the counter, leaning on it for support, gaze on me.

“What else happened out there?” Lucien asked, his voice proportionately heavy to the weight of the room. It was a simple question, but the ease of it, the nonchalance, was absent. Something had taken its place but I didn’t know what.

“I flew,” I said not taking my eyes from the sparrows outside that had also taken flight. My nonchalance abundant in absence of his own. It was not what he was asking but it was also not a lie.

“With Azriel?”

“Yes,” I said blinking a few times turning, returning, searching for the moments of before. The moment where Lucien’s help had made me feel just a little better. Where a glass of water, a little wood, and a couple of dishes might restore something I was sure he could not see because it had been demolished. It was probably by design, beyond tragedy, but faulty making. And most things when gone do not get to come back. He took the knife in his hand again and began to chop an onion into small slices.

“Are these your books?” I asked, absently, to see if I were not yet capable of return, hoping to find I could repair the feeling I left in a room to the moments we first arrived where it had been a relief. Lucien to my solace returned to what we’d been with a certain ease. Not yet inevitable, not yet like Bryaxis. I didn’t have to go. Time was on my side. It was easier now, to look at him, to let him look at me. His shoulders slumped into their easiness. He dragged the last remenants of normalcy into place, and what I could not be rid of, he managed. A skill I bet, from having to go places, to always represent something greater than oneself.

He smiled playfully, “Whose else would they be?”

I shrugged, “My apartment came furnished.”

He conceded with a bow, “Yes they’re mine. Though not all of them have been read yet. You can take one if Nesta hasn’t overpowered your reading list.”

“Even if she did I’m fast,” I said running my fingers over a stack within reach.

“From working in the library I assume.”

“Yes,” I said and I could’ve left it at that but a memory bloomed and I could not resist trying. Thinking a minute, sipping my water, before adding “When I became the archivist, if I repaired the texts, I wasn’t allowed to read them. You had to earn access to the library and I hadn’t, plus they needed to return to circulation as soon as possible. So I had to read quickly if I wanted to learn anything. And if I got caught I’d most certainly lose my position. So I’m fast now.”

“You’re very adaptable.”

I hummed in agreement. He leaned toward the stove, lit a burner, and for some reason it was a little funny to me, though I didn’t laugh. That he had all that fire but used the comforts of our age to heat the stove. His face which had relaxed in the routine of everything suddenly twisted from domestic thought into a question.

“You had to earn access?”

I nodded, “Knowledge is a powerful weapon. Aurora was like that, not totally within anyones scope, out of our line of sight in a lot of ways. Except the rector.”

“He’s the one then,” he said. “That she killed.”

I liked him for it, the question. That he did not shy away from what I had shared, did not treat it as an unspoken memory, a bad thought, but something plainly that had happened and he knew about and could in fact know more about if he asked.

“Yes, but it wasn’t his rules that kept people out. Not in the beginning. Tradition locked away everything into its very old and fine box.”

“You don’t approve it sounds.”

I shook my head, feeling the remnants of history like water in my mouth, “The library is gone. The people are gone. Knowledge is not indestructible, it’s as flimsy as the minds that hold it. And so few of us, for no reason at all, besides a historic desire for arbitrary power over others, were allowed to hold anything.” I looked at Lucien, really looked now, contemplating. “What is knowledge with nowhere to live?”

He stared back, but I wasn’t afraid, and offered quietly, “I don’t know.”

Around Lucien vegetables were strewn, strays that hadn’t made it into the pot. His feelings were veiled by his unchanging features, stoic in thought. The rector’s face had once looked the same way. But like Lucien he was multifaceted, even when I didn’t wish to let him be. It’s easier to pretend he was something else, some unanimous force upon my life that made it so hard. But like Lucien he’d given me certain kindness and relief. Less than the autumn male, but certainly real and tangible, there in my memory. Cruel he was but…passionate too, trapped in the very same box. He had died so he could never change, and I was alive. I didn’t have to be like him.

“I’m not trying to be scathing,” I said finally. To blame one person—anger was useless, it would bring nothing back. “Memory, collaboration, those are powerful too. Is what I think.”

“I like how you think,” Lucien said, before he scooped the last of the food into the pot. “And I didn’t think you were scathing. I thought you cared. Which is rarely ever a bad thing to do.”

I let him have it, a small kernel of a smile. I agreed with that. I agreed with him. It seemed for all that had happened in the past, it had been a long time since I agreed with anyone. Life, full of goodness, full of people also doing things you wouldn’t do, you believe they shouldn’t do. And it goes on anyway. It would stop nothing, I thought, but at least it had happened. To have, even briefly, someone looking you in the eye, seeing it, where you’re standing, your view.

“What are you making?”

“A stew.”

“In summer?”

“My mother made it for me whenever I was sick.”

“Are you sick?”

He thought a moment, “No, but it seemed I was in need of it.”

I nodded, quiet taking hold, a sudden new softness, “Is she nice? Your mom?”

“Extremely.”

I smiled, more real, still small, pulled from a memory, “Mine too.”

Lucien paused again but longer, studying his hands, tilting his head, before he resumed, picking up the pot and placing it on the stove for it to boil.

The memory over, I read for the last hours of the Illyrains sleep, tossing breakfast onto the fire once the sun had risen a little further through the trees. Azriel woke first, climbing wordlessly from his tent, giving just a nod in place of greeting. He knelt toward the fire, pulling food onto his plate and sat alone on the other side.

He said thanks after he’d finished, followed it with, “Better than Rhys.”

“He doesn’t have the practice.”

“I don’t,” the High Lord said appearing from his rest, fresher, but still a little groggy. Two hours could not compensate the time passed. He managed, still, a glare at Azriel who now managed a smirk from where he sat. Creatures tumbled in and out of the brush around us, finding the clearing then going back out again. Sometimes they lingered though, their little bodies straight as an arrow, their noses pointed toward us in study. A glimpse of some memory perhaps, or young, too curious for their own good, not having yet learned what must be learned in the wild world.

When we’d all eaten the itch of potential, of having been sat idle too long, set itself along the skin. The fire was falling away and none of us made any move to fix it. Morning was still early, but the day would come fast and our food was officially gone. Five days and nothing. No beast, not even a whisper of that potent despair.

Azirel sighed and it seemed to open the door to conversation.

I began, “I’ve been trying to think.”

Rhysand rubbed at his jaw, in need of a good shave. I wasn’t used to him being so unkempt. Silence permeated and I waited for someone else to have an idea, for someone else to suggest where we go so that when Bryaxis wasn’t there it did not feel, at once, like a complex grief. The grief of being wrong, the relief of finding a different sort of nothing, one that was tangible and earthly.

“The night Bryaxis first attacked, did it feel at all like someone had access to your mind?” Rhysand asked.

“No. I only felt a presence within my magic.”

Rhysand’s elbows resting on his knees let his head turn toward Azriel. More tired than anything, all of us wanting I think to return today. Having to really. At our wits end with the constant rain and never enough sleep. We’d walked the journey between the caves and the library and there hadn’t been anything to suggest anything that didn’t belong had been there.

“Can magic hold history?” Rhysand asked Azriel perhaps because his own ability as a shadowsinger had a physical form, a sentience that could be spoken to.

Azriel shrugged before he turned back to me, “There's nowhere else? We could winnow. Just to see.”

“I’ve lived my life between the cottage and Aurora.”

“You’re 131 years old,” Azriel said plainly. “You can’t have only two places you’ve ever been.” There was no barb in his words, no sharpness, just observations, smart ones at that, looking for a way out. Looking to stop doom and destruction and terror and despair, because he was good like many things I’d come to recall were. So I couldn’t blame him.

“The list is not much longer.”

“You must remember something. Somewhere else of significance.”

Rhysand glared sharply toward his spymaster. I swallowed, looking at my feet, reaching for my water, and unscrewing the top, “I don’t.”

Azriel didn’t look away, no redness rose to his face, there was no need for it. Despite the look from the High Lord he’d done nothing wrong, had not breached some strange place or subject. I took a long sip maybe to hold out a little longer from what I had to say or perhaps the memories had made me thirsty again, if that were possible. Strange the potency of what we can recall, how real it feels. I stood from my seat, wiping from my hands. The discomfort of that boundary, of what had been unspoken and so unknowingly touched upon struck a nerve and if I sat any longer it would soon become some greater terrible ache.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I’m trying.”

“We know. It’s been a long few days,” Rhysand said as Azriel nodded.

“I’m just trying to figure out why. I doubt it ended up in the same cave your mother took you on coincidence. But how is that of any use to it? What did going there do? If we know then maybe that will help us narrow down locations, something to trigger a memory maybe it had seen.”

I looked back, toward the caves, “They’re not even that important to me,” I said quietly, recalling now the Autumn there, the changing tides, recalling the firm grab of a Grindylow. Important just in hindsight. “I’ve really only been twice.”

Azriel sounded increasingly desperate to make sense of what he’d put together last time with what we faced now. To at least find a viable guess as to the pattern of behavior. But I was beginning to feel increasingly uncertain there was one. Not at least beyond survival. This did not disqualify what Azriel said, it’s hunting me. Both things I was aware could be true at once. Maybe even dependent on each other if my light still could be found. And he was right, the caves had given no discernable advantage. In fact, they’d almost certainly been a disadvantage, a hole with which we’d both fallen and emerged from. The scream, the one we’d heard when we’d left, it contained with it something greater than pain, some other thing. Too much information was missing, even if Bryaxis was sitting at the sight of a memory, it was not one I had known.

Rhysand offered, “We’re close to the little city.”

The permanent pit in my stomach pulsed with the idea. Despite the sleep I got my body grew heavier than it should. Like calls to like. I shuddered.

“What about the old library?”

Rhysand shrugged, “We’ve found nothing in all the places where you flew over and felt nothing. I’m comfortable assuming the pattern will continue, that it might have set that trap, but it cannot remove its traces, that heaviness, entirely.”

“Why would it go to the city?” Azriel asked.

“We went to the caves because we thought it would be like the library. Perhaps we’d been right all along, maybe that's what it meant by familiar.”

What would be more profound, more familiar, than a city terrified, frozen with it. Velaris and its liveliness, different from the little city’s life, but sharing in it a root. Deriving from the same source.

Azriel sighed, “It would be hard to kill, to hide, without drawing attention.”

“Maybe that’s what it wants,” I offered.

“It would be another change,” he said before I saw it, the idea form along his face. “Forgive my asking, I’m sure you’d have said so, but is there…is there no one left of the library? No one you know who might be able to check the references. It’s been rebuilt in the little city. I—”

“That’s enough.” The same darkness that had taken hold of Rhysand in the parlor shuttered and swelled around him. Azriel seemed mildly surprised, knowing probably that he didn’t know something. When the shadowsinger turned to look up at me I found the eyes of the High Lord instead.

“Just tell him.”

“Tell me what?”

Of my failure. Rhysand was silent. No surprise, not a hint of shock, like this had come from nowhere. It had been there all along, the star at the center of the room, the twinkling light of revelation, of story and myth, a constellation. The parts known, an archivist from Dawn, living in a cottage alone, attacked by Bryaxis, fled Amarantha, survived. The parts unknown, at least to some of us. And maybe there was something there. Maybe it was not arbitrary, suffering, happening for some reason that is seen better from a distance. If Bryaxis was hunting me, if it had indeed seen me in the caves, perhaps my history could be important. At the very least we could find fresh ideas.

“I’m sure you’ve concluded the same as me. It would help if he knew and I don’t care. As long as you don’t go into my head again.”

I didn’t give either of them another chance. I walked toward the brush in search of my snares. We were going back today, but there might be something for lunch. Life could be like that, offering small comforts, changing nothing, but making it all a little better regardless. My palms brushed the tall grass, the tree trunks, and what could moved leaned closer like a cat for caress. Hello I thought, smiling as I looked toward the brush, like it could see my happiness.

“You remember me too?” I asked

And a wind blew through the world that said no sighing yes.

I knelt for a moment, underneath it all, out of view, pressed my hands into my face. Aurora, what had been Aurora, so close. I didn’t want to go there. I would, but I didn’t want to. The tall grass blew over me and covered me from above, moving back and forth, adjusting to me, holding me, as it had always done, and seemed to say it would always do. Not everything could be lost if we looked away. No. Just most of it. My throat hurt, I swallowed around the words that Rhysand was probably telling now. Remembering and forgetting. Fire and ash. Running. Staying. Waiting.

I wish Lucien was here, I thought, with me right now. I wish I could show him this right here. To see his golden hands touch the wheat colored grass, to lay beside him in it. To show him something else that remembered me. Like calls to like. And they, the field and him, would know one another by this thread of similarity. And I think just that he would like it because I’d learned now that is how he is.

I spent a short few minutes with my eyes closed, the picture clear to me, the imagined life, the possibility of it getting closer to me rather than further seeming realer that morning. Everything I wanted, yes. A life with everything I wanted. And a vague memory smudged my mind of what I was in Velaris for. Why I did what I did. Because it wouldn’t be for nothing. Because I had time. Because there was hope. That this would end. If I did it all right. Yes. Why everything. The answer to everything. And I would forget it again probably, how life obscures, how it all seems to go in another direction and you have to find the answer again in this new place, but I had it now. I would remember having it. Light from the sky pressed into my neck with a kiss.

I stood again, the grass resuming as if I’d never been. But it didn’t hurt. It felt more like a prayer. A promise to keep a secret, to hold in the earth everything I wanted until it was time for it to bloom. I nodded in thanks and then left. Left that life to grow. Left it to itself. Sometimes the only thing you can do.

I walked from empty snare to empty snare. Potential giving way to absence. I wanted to sigh, but I could hear my mothers voice. Just the time of year. I huffed a small laugh. Never was there time for a melancholic thought, just that time of year, her favorite phrase, even when it was a lie. Past me in the clearing, a rabbit found a patch of sunlight and paused.

“Clever.”

It turned toward my voice then was gone. I stood and the wind passed its fingers through the trees with soothing lull. The leaves brushed against each other, and nothing fell. The rain was utter myth. Impossible to know of it unless you’d seen it now. The traces were long gone. Azriel if he’d slept through the night would have no idea. No, he’d learn something else today, a constellation, a story. I closed my eyes.

“Take a book,” Lucien had said from the doorway. Leaning on the frame he crossed his arms over his chest. It was casual, as if we’d been friends forever. “If you’re not going to stay, take something.”

“I have the stew.”

“Something else. Something of entertainment, fun, that way if I’m not entertaining you tonight something from my collection is. I’d hate to be useless to you,” He said with that brief air of charm that came whenever he wasn’t being gentle. Like he couldn’t help it really, being handsome and charming. That when he wasn’t trying to be anything else, he settled there.

I readjusted my arms, holding the warm bowl against my side. He’d told me ten minutes ago not to take it yet, to let it cool while we lingered on the loveseat. My drink empty and his a sip left. The courtyard darkened with the night. The heat seeped through my clothes quickly. I let my eyes reach his own, the faint light of the hall I liked to believe would veil most things, “I’ve no plans to do anything. I’m tired.”

He nodded, and I must’ve looked like a real sight because on other occasions he’d not pushed me to do anything, to give more than I had, but he leaned down a little, maneuvering to see me head on, like the making us eye level would reveal to him what it was I was thinking or feeling. But that was precisely why I had to go, why I couldn’t stay. I wanted more time, and I’d only get more time if he didn’t see what had begun. It was too nice an apartment and I’d already bled a little into it.

“You’re sure?”

I turned away from him. The city winked from the window at the end of the hall like a handful of stars.

“Yes.”

Then it was quiet.

“Alright,” He said. “But you’ll have to come back. I just wanted an excuse for you to come back.”

I shrugged, “If you need me, I’m always in the same place. I’ve nowhere else to go.”

I wasn’t sure where the word ‘need’ came from. He needed me for nothing. And I couldn’t give him anything either. If I had any light left it proved that afternoon unreachable. At most I could step between him and some ghastly thing. At most I could be a near beast that stepped in between another beast.

However carless the word was, it did not settle Lucien’s heart, which I heard from my place if I thought about it. And if I hadn’t thought about it, it would’ve been clear by the way his body seemed to seize up a little, straining under the tension of letting me go.

“And me,” He said an unclear emotion rising in his voice. “If you need me, you know where I’ll be.”

I nodded but did not go. He did not go either. The both of us standing in a desire not to go but not being able to do anything about it. Better this way than the alternative, than one final going.

“Did you ever think about coming back?” I asked. Perhaps because I knew the answer, perhaps because then climbing those stairs would not be so hard. The mythology of Lucien totally demolished so he could be who he really was instead of the one who remembered.

“Coming back?”

“To Dawn,” I said but did not add, to me. He’d said I got away, but that afternoon he hadn’t run fast, hadn’t been trying to catch me.

He did not hesitate, did not let himself ease into the truth, “No. No I didn’t.”

It was hard to say if it broke something or set another thing in place. But I looked at him fully now. Stripped of my imaginings, totally himself. How it ought to be. Even if it didn’t feel that way now, this was better than before. I didn’t want to be cruel. I wanted to be kind. I bowed my head, “Goodnight.”

“Goodnight Y/N.”

The final snare found, his answer hushed along my mind like a wind. No I didn’t. I swallowed then, half an hour gone, more than enough time to tell a story of a cottage, a library, of the forgotten girl.

I snapped things on purpose to make it known I was coming. The fire had gone out and the tents were packed. My things folded nicely. I looked at the two males who were finishing collecting their own things. I sighed, the only wrinkle of dissatisfaction.

Rhysand turned around as if nothing at all had changed, which smoothed the temporary blemish. Azriel’s eyes though over the High Lord’s shoulders were piercing. For his quiet self the intensity of him, at times I'd seen from a distance, I now felt acutely on myself.

“We’re going to fly over the little city. What do you know of it?”

“You’ve probably been more than me,” I admitted as if the conversation we’d been having was ongoing and not interrupted by a terrible story, an impossible secret. I’d been just a couple times, my knowledges remained primarily made from books.

“Thesan’s manor is different from the city.”

Right.

“Friendly, lively. With the manor house so close, I know a lot of the court is in the city. And certainly the more important people of Dawn. The markets are busy, full of things you’ve never seen before, and the streets at this hour will be packed with people probably discussing any number of things, ideas mostly, new makings, whatever it is that has halted their progress.”

Rhysand nodded, “Sounds like a fine place.”

My arms fell limp, and I risked a thread of contentment wrap my heart, my face, “I often wonder if you don’t need to prove some reason you should live there. A test. Everyone has something clever and intelligent to say. Seems impossible that it is so available.”

Rhysand smiled, but said nothing.

“Is there somewhere we should check?” Azriel asked, “when I fly over?”

I swallowed, the answer seemingly obvious, but even still, “The library.”

“Yes,” Azriel said. Of course he knew this answer, he was looking for something else.

“There’s a priestess temple to the east of the city. And, well, I don’t know why it would go—“

“I’ll check. Just to be sure,” he said and I understood. For the people who lived there. For me. He wouldn’t say anything of what he’d learned and I suppose I should’ve guessed that of anyone he’d say nothing. That his presence would be that same comfort it had always been. We had that common register between us, the voices only we used and only we heard. So there was no need to speak even if there had been words to suffice.

“It’s a sort of…dance hall. A place of celebration. Communal. Right at the center of the city.”

It had never been my city, but of course they were my people. We shared, at our very base, the survival of her reign. And maybe we didn't live together anymore, but we had for a time. I knew this place, these people, even if they did not know me. Their market stalls, the sound of their songs in the early morning echoing off the stone, the alters they made, the prayers that rose from their throats like the sun. Intertwined in the natural cycles of the world, reflecting back the hazy dim, the intense pristine and unbroken beauty of a new day. A new day undecided, and their lives the same way.

Azriel nodded and turned back to his things. A good male. The pair of them. I turned to look at my backpack. Ready to go. A new day now. Yes. The morning later, already having begun, but everything still undecided.

We left a short time later. Quiet settling on us like a cloak, a good cloak, warm and old, familiar. After so many days there wasn't much left to say and Azriel seemed to take to his contemplation. The Little City was only two hours away, two hours which broke open the morning to reveal its personality. There were no signs of the beast, we didn't expect any, but it was good still to be sure if we’d gambled with Aurora, if we weren’t going today to check. Ttracks, death, anything that seemed abnormal could be scattered in these woods. So we walked, and though words were few, we'd stop in places, spoke in quiet nods. Only instead of decay we found blooming beauty. It reminded me a little of the time with Helion. Before I’d seen Lucien again. But now Rhysand participated too in acknowledging the wonder of the natural world we found ourselves in. He’s point so Azriel and I would see it too. And I did see it. I saw it all the time.

Just a half mile off from the city, close to the river we ate a few rabbits Rhysand had caught effortlessly. The male, perched on a rock beside me, pointed toward a cluster of red berries in a patch of sun, "What is this one?"

I hummed, the three wilted leaves looking like spinach half cooked. And the berries. The late summer berries a give away.

"Jack in the pulpit."

"Any medicinal purposes we might need it for?"

There was a healer at the library. I thought of her then. She has no desire for glory, not wanting to discover anything new, just hoping to improve that which might be improved, even marginally. Hoping to save a few more lives, to find the best growing techniques, better harvesting, surer storing techniques, everyday ways to ensure we’d have what we needed. Tedious work really, to not have big dreams like the ones found in that place, to want for things long decided finished and fixed, that were so banal they seemed almost miraculous at the same time. A small and delicate life. A good life. Recalling those afternoons she and I had sat in the reading room comparing our notes, filling in gaps, learning from one another warmed me. She'd been married. She'd stayed. But was she here? Her voice, light, airy, but so ancient in its way, unmistakably full of knowledge like a spring wind. I closed my eyes, her words of the past forming in my own mouth.

"Sometimes the root is used for headaches. Or othertimes an antispetic."

Rhysand turned over his shoulder, "You hear that Az."

"Shut up."

The High Lord laughed to himself before he nodded, his casual inquiry perhaps a remedy to the feelings I'd expressed. A reminder. This place doesn't know you, but you know it. Which is good too. Still in the world.

"What about the berries?"

"Toxic. Whole plant is.”

“How do they possibly use it?”

“Dry heat negates the toxins. Then it gets ground up."

Rhysand nodded along, hummed, "Interesting."

We sat another few minutes and I turned my head up to the sun, letting it rest against my eyelids, my brows, where in the field the light had missed me. Another firm kiss for my greed, a familiar warmth, feeling both like home and some other place that I didn't have any name for. Like being at home though still, very very close to it. If home were somewhere else. Yes, that was what it was like.

"Shall we go?"

I nodded, pointing through the trees where a clearing opened.

"The river is just that way. We can walk along it until we reach the city."

"Perfect," Rhysand said pushing to his feet and picking grass from his legs. "While Azriel does his search, did you want to go in?"

I turned toward him, brows raised, "Why?"

"We don’t have to always be working you know,” The High Lord said with a rueful smile. “The copper market is famous. I like Velaris, but I know some things can’t be replicated or replaced.”

I could feel it then, knew it from memories, but there was distinctly a sensation of having the feeling now. That it was not something pulled from very deep, but skating on the surface. It was not the echo of the past, but the inital sound that disrupted the present. Joy. It birghtened my face without the presence of the sun. From where I stood in the shade those courtly powers seemed to rear just enough that I felt it rising to the surface. The way real happiness brightens the skin. Magic in its own right.

"Yes," I said thinking of the second hand clothes, of the handmade robes, of the quilts and the smart trinkets. Of the conversations I would hear, the explanation of the mechanisms, of the pride and excitement of years of work. "I do need some things."

Rhysand looked happier than I'd seen him in a long time. Than maybe even that first afternoon with Helion.

"You'll have to show me around. I've never been before."

"What?"

"Never had time."

I shook my head, "Not even once? You're 500 years old."

"You don’t get to judge me. Not when you can’t even name more than two places you’ve ever been."

I huffed a laugh, "You're not free of my judgement," I said and it sounded so much like a self I had forgotten existed. The one where the past could be called upon with laughter, without so much weight and pain. Still muffled, as if she were behind glass, but I could see her, feel her close by. Joking. When had I last joked?

Rhysand's brows rose and Azriel approached, his face unchanged in any real way but I knew that there was something below. A shift, a lightness, diming his usual severity.

"Lets go. I need to go to Rita's after this week."

The sentence, the sentiment itself, had sounded so normal. The buoyancy of such casual everyday wantings carried me the rest of the way. That life, even when disrupted by the demolishings of a beast, could and would still find its rhythm. That life clings to itself, forces itself onward.

The soft hues of the sky were reflected back from the river so as we walked there were two skies, surrounded by grass and wind and trees. I thought of my parents. How near it felt we were to each other. That the water reflected the sky. This time of year when the afternoons could still be hot, I could feel the pull, stronger than ever, to dip into the water as if to reach them. How unbothered it all looked, a sense that I would be of no consequence, would stir up no silt at the bottom. That my presense wouldn't—couldn't dilute the clarity and the glittering surface made it more inviting than normal.

There came a bend in the river and I knew we were close. That we'd turn about it and see what we were looking for. Something tugged toward that place, a thread of past that had not been cut. Wind swept across the grass and kissed the skin.

A good day.

That was the name.

It had been so long since that had been the word. I swallowed, something lodging itself in my throat. But I wouldn't let it take too strong a hold. Good was the word I used. There would be no other word.

We came around the bend and stopped. If they needed a moment they gave no indication, but I did. Just one to see it again, after so long. Hours away from noon, but the city, wide awake now, blew smoke and from the air there was flight. Like Velaris at dark. A sense of being in the prime, in the middle, seeing something how it was meant and wanted to be seen. Movement all around made it alive, thriving even. So much happening, having had happened, so this was itself no tiny miracle. I stared at it a moment, cherishing the new image, grateful to see it. Things hand changed in the interior and exterior of it I knew. The skyline a little different, new things, big things, but also at its heart a sorrow. The kind that made it all sweeter, that wouldn’t forget, but would still beat onward inspite and because of it. This place had never been mine, but I knew it stood for many things, yes the time that had passed, but also that perserverance.

“Beautiful,” Rhysand whispered turning toward me, like he were seeing it now for the first time.

I nodded, “Beautiful.”

Th walking now, the closing distance, came differently. We rarely ever looked ahead, but to our left side where the city came into view. Listening to the hum beyond its walls, the joy and laughter, the balconies where families ate and played cards. And it seemed even the tinkering could be heard, as if thoughts had real sound, as if the solving of problems tolled tiny invisible bells.

By the cities gate we waited, not hiding, but against the edge of the woods nonetheless. Azriel dropped his bag, hiding it in the trunk of a rotted tree. I knelt, pulling some money from my bag. I’d put it in there the first time. Just in case. In case there was a village, a market, somewhere to buy those homely things.

“What will you buy?” Rhysand asked.

I smiled a little, looking at the bag, at the small sum compared to all that I wished to take with me, “I…I’m not sure.”

“We can come back too,” He said. “If theres more. You’re not sequestered to my city.”

I nodded, “I know. I’m just…used to it. To staying where I am.”

Azriel turned upward toward the sky, his wings pulling in. My father surely would’ve loved to see it, overjoyed to learn I’d been in the skies. Wouldn’ve wanted to know how it had felt to fly. But he’d be disappointed to learn I hadn’t even been looking. That I didn’t even really see or remember it.

“Will they be an issue?” Azriel asked, just as a group of warriors flew overhead.

Rhysand sighed, face grim, “Possibly.”

The two Illyrians kept their eyes to the winged fae, circling overhead, lines formed.

“They were meant to be further west. Could Bryaxis have brought them here?”

Rhysand shook his head, adding a touch mysteriously, “I don’t think so.”

“Could you galmour him?” I asked.

“There are likely wards in place that protect from such illusions.”

“Even ones that come from a High Lord?”

Rhysand kept his eyes on the sky, “Especially those from a certain High Lord.”

What had been done I wasn’t sure. But it was serious. And if he had not liked Thesan to begin then I wondered what had been of those courtly visits. No matter the politics, manners could still be sharpened like a knife. Despite any number of years working together, despite a common cause, not everyone remained or would become so endeared to one another. If anything, the feelings Rhysand expressed were probably mutual.

The faintest gold caught my eye. Faded now, but I’d brought it with me. Never wore it. Almost never. Only for some reasons. It had been my mothers. Why I’d packed it I don’t know. A wanting to keep her close, a feeling maybe even that I would need it. Wanting to need it. Wanting to deserve it.

“I could go in,” I said. “If the leathers, if your presence will draw attention, I could go. They won’t know me, but I am clearly from Dawn. And I have…I have this.”

I pulled the robe out. The few layers that survived. Enough to make it just whole.

“You’ll be cold,” Rhysand said as if it mattered.

“I’ve survived colder.”

Rhysand turned over his shoulder toward Azriel, thoughts brewing when chatter had begun to bounce off everything as readily as that of birdsong. Twittering joyful sounds, the mood discernible before the words were, tone traveling faster than sound. Instinctively we ducked into the brush. I grabbed my bag, pulling it with us into the shadows.

It took just a minute for them to round the corner in the road. A large group. My heart suddenly thudded against my ribcage with a mixture of longing and unfathomable fear. Even as their approach came like the dawn, mixing in dark and soft hues, fluttering with its gentleness. They were dressed in colors of Rich wine, burnt oranges, olive, navy. Hands reaching for other hands and arms thrown around shoulders. Then the soft faintness of color, light gold or near cream, lilac, a dusty pink. All the robes, traditional in their composition, but denoting something. My mouth drying. I didn’t know what, it wasn’t like that before. Their heads thrown back with their joy. How their hair, no, something else, caught the light.

Circlets.

Circlets and long hair.

My mouth opened slightly, but closed. My eyes found those same hands, their knuckles, nothing. No rings.

They walked in knowledge and in power. Holding in their hands bound journals. Bags slung over shoulders. No different than the young females that had been, but so different it was impossible to reconcile in my head. My heart taking on a different rhythm, one that was neither afraid nor calm. But steady in realization, in wherever it had landed.

“Are they…” Azriel began quietly.

“Scholars,” I said. Young female scholars. The defense passed, circlets donned. Unmarried and happy and in their fine robes, on their way to the new library in the Little City. Laughing as they did, arm in arm. So the old world was truly gone. Nothing left. For the better. Good. That’s what today would be. Which meant many things. Liking that there were many meanings, I remembered thinking that.

I don’t know what I felt, what I felt had no definable word. And it wouldn’t do anything anyway, to define, wouldn’t give me what I’d wanted so badly would it? It wouldn’t make me a scholar. I’d never be the scholar I could’ve been. Not exceptional. Not even memorable, but known for a time, by the people who mattered. That life if it had ever existed at all remained out of reach as it always had been. A constant state of promise a distance as closable as a door. Only now it was cut loose and drifting further from grasp. An ever present horizon it would one day slip over, falling off the edge of this earth. Then there would be no door to open or close, only a wall where the promise had been. Until it became another life, another room, that I could never know.

Suddenly the city seemed a thousand miles away. The possibility of entering it as distant as leaving this world for a dream. The only remedy seemed to be getting further from it, to put at once in place a constant distance.

“We can still go,” Rhysand said, knowing somehow my thoughts. Seeing in my face that something was closing on me forever. “I don’t care about Thesan.”

“That’s alright,” I said as the females passed over the river into the market. The stupor broken. I looked at my hands, the money and the robe. That those females existed, that they deserved to wear what I had in my hand, and I was going to dilute its meaning. It would be better to leave, to keep the integrity. I knew that now. I didn’t want to ruin anything else with what I hadn’t done. I shoved both things into my bag. “I was rash. It wouldn’t be good if any of us were seen, if I saw someone I knew.”

Rhysand looked toward Azriel who said, “I’ll stick to the clouds. Send the shadows.”

We waited what couldn’t have been long in silence. The shadow singer returned and gave a shake of his head. No, not a trace of that beast was here. Rhysand was right, it could not wholly remove its heaviness. And now we could go. Leave the city in tact, leave it beating and laughing, but leave it yes all the same. Overhead the lines remained, in constant flight. They could take care of themselves. I was no one’s savior.

Wordlessly the two moved toward one another, and waited for me.

I made to look once more at the red slanted roofs, the rain that had passed, I could almost hear it against the clay tile. I forgot that detail. Or, forgetting wasn’t right, it was there and available now that I’d seen the place, but it had been a long time since I’d thought of it. And the market bustled, and chimes tinkered, and already the Samhain decorations were up which made me too want to laugh. The whole city moving like cogs on a clock. Time passing, time always passing, and the places getting older and different. Looking the same, but not the same. Cross the bridge, I thought, but no. No maybe some other time, maybe never again. So I bowed my head.

Farewell.

And turned to the High Lord who, without any scruples, brought us back to his home.

***

The moment I was back in my apartment I walked to the stack of books I’d collected. Some needing to be returned others from the cottage. Finding the bottom of the stack and pulling it out. Placing my hands on the spine, slipping through the pages to the one. There. It was a very beautiful margin. At least it had been to me. Broken up by fine black ink. Five words and a long line. Easy to remedy. And not done. My rebellion. My treasure.

I ran my fingers over the dried ink. Had done so many times, the fact that it had not faded surprised me. And still also the flatness was unfathomable Those five words, containing in them everything, a whole person, but I could not feel it. That it didn’t stipple or divot the page with his humor, his laugh, his recipe for harvest pies, the way his tired eyes would warm when he saw us. No it was just words and yet, a world inside them that only I knew, that remained still untranslatable.

Made me think of you.

I pressed my forehead to the cool wall. My throat strained, bobbed, and I swallowed the stone that had formed inside it. Down to the void, I thought, be gone. You know, it skips a generation. Luck. Yes. Oh, yes.

Time became muddled and indiscernible. The shadows in the apartment grew long before they disappeared all together. I stared at the words over and over again as the lapped at my mind. A key to a door, to a memory. Those little revolts, a ripped page and a note. Flimsy markings, easy to remove with a little thread of light. Drawing my attention. Studying, just for the self, for no show, wanting only to learn. He knowing that. Not being able to do anything about it, but doing something anyway. But it wasn’t like that anymore. What had been endured by us would no longer be endured. Sad was not the word. But something was there that made me close my eyes and at the very least, a thank you to the world. That it changed. That this was always true. That was something I liked. Even when it was hard to like it, to not wish it had changed for me. Then I rose to bathe.

Sinking into the warm waters, I scrubed away grime and dirt. Fresh, cleared of all things I redressed in similarly fresh clothes, grabbed the dish and cutlery from their place in the kitchen, and climbed the stairs. My knuckles rapt the wood with sturdy sureness, though when returning to the bowl gripped it in hand with unease. Inside movement could be felt, even through my shoes. The cool hall shook my shoulders with a few shivers, but it was otherwise nice in Velaris. My hair wet against my back, still a little warm.

The door opened.

“Y/N,” Lucien said. “You’re back.”

I nodded.

“Any sign of Bryaxis?”

I shook my head. Silence had returned to my life. Anchorage from life before, the need for something familiar, even for a moment.

Lucien hummed in acknowledgement. His eyes drew to my shoulder, the slip revealing the long, tender brutality of my scar. The skin was raised, where it had tried to mend, coiling from my collarbone to my back. I’d thought it would heal more, but Madja shook her head when she’d come to follow up. No, such beasts didn’t allow for that kind of thing.

“The crude healing also didn’t help,” she’d said eyeing me.

I didn’t care, but under Lucien’s stare I wondered if I ought to cover it up. If perhaps he hadn’t wished to see. I slowly moved my palm to cover it.

“Sorry,” I whispered.

“No I am,” he said clearing his throat. “That was unspeakably rude of me.”

Silence fell between us for a while. His hand on the knob, fidgeting with the brass, thumb tapping at the cool metal that I was sure, like skin, warmed under his touch.

Incapable, or just not wanting to drop the whisper I said finally, “You couldn’t be rude if you tried.”

He smiled but something about it was muted. Like it took a lot of effort. “When do you leave next?”

I shrugged, it would be a little while. I had no answers. I didn’t know what the beast was doing and I didn’t know why I could and couldn’t do what I needed to when I needed to. Mostly though I didn’t know the world I’d once studied so closely. Not just the natural part, but the living in it. I didn’t know what I felt, or why I’d felt it. Why it was so painful, remembering their laughter, knowing that I couldn’t remember the last time I’d ever really done it. Even before her, even before everything changed. I didn’t know why, again, despite my best efforts, despite what I’d been trying to do, the door again had shut. Why I was now alone in that room where I wasn’t allowed to go where they went. Why I didn’t get to. Why they did.

I blinked a few times. The darkness in me shuddering, humming, as if it were called to. But what appeared in my throat was only bile. No, I wasn’t going to be like that. I was not a victim of my life. And my life was not yet over. I could still do something. All that I’d learned, all that I’d run from, I wouldn’t let it be for nothing.

Lucien looked at me with some pained expression, and I understood that in it was something that wanted to be said but couldn’t find its way out. Yes, such a face was so familiar I could feel it on my own like a ghost.

“Would you…like some tea. I was about to make some.”

I shook my head. Tonight I wouldn’t bother him. He had his things to do and I would do mine. Instead I’d listen to the steps around his apartment and mourn. Hold the darkness at bay until it was all alright again. Until I could trust that other people could be near me, that if I looked away a moment, it wouldn’t swallow me hole.

I raised my hand and gave him what I had borrowed that night for the stew, when I’d come back from the woods, when I still believed the goodness of my life would be familiar and known to me. That wasn’t how it worked. It was never how it worked. It was a different kind of knowing that I felt. No matter.

He nodded back nervously. His palms rubbed against his thighs. I wanted to laugh. Didn’t he know? That he didn’t need to do anything. That he had already impressed me. He who used his words so beautifully. But to do so seemed too difficult. I wasn’t good like he was.

Neither of us spoke for a few moments, standing in the silence again. I felt a certain fondness for him then. I wanted to smile, but for the same reason could not, did not, and instead bowed my head as a goodbye.

“Goodnight,” I said.

“Goodnight.”

And quietly without another sound I descended the stairs. His door didn’t close. Not until mine did. And even as I stood in my apartment I waited for the floorboards to shift, for Lucien to go about his night in his own apartment but they didn’t. Not for a long while.

***

The days that passed were solitary, hard to place, continuous and unintelligible from each other. Any number of them might have existed. But I didn’t have a number. When I tried to pick one it seemed real and true but the moment my mind settled onto the reality of it’s definitions and parameters somehow it became entirely unreal and inapplicable. So to say, I stopped trying to guess how long it had been since I’d seen anyway and, instead, sat in bed until it hurt. Left the apartment when there was no food, ate when I was hungry which I could feel was not often enough, and read. Of the books I had a few of Nesta’s which I saved for night when entertainment was little and sleep was most longed for. To read them was like dreaming, more manual, but as close as I’d come. I had not had that old dream since, the one that sometimes appeared. Not since Velaris.

During the day, I read from the other books. Books that required a different part of the mind, brushing away cobwebs, a part that I felt had not been used in a long time. One book on the counter as water boiled for tea recounted numerous unidentified pools of magic settled in the soil in the mid section of Prythian. Reserves they had no explanation of, no trace of how it got there. And the creatures that dwelled there, how they might come from such things, how little there was known of that place.

There was a kind of joy, though if asked I wouldn’t have used that word, wouldn’t have been able to express the distinct difference of my joy from someone elses, in learning again of this world. Somethings remained true: that there would be things we did not and could never know, for example. Or that the pain of loss denotes the presence of love. It was true, for as hard as it had been, I loved that life. I missed it all the time.

I turned over my shoulder to the open book by my bed. Made me think of you.

Soon, I thought, they might say the same of you. I might do what I was meant to do all along. If it didn’t kill me first. If I could figure this world out again.

I turned back to the page and got a couple paragraphs in before the kettle whistled. I shut the heat off and had just finished pouring when a knock came from the door. The sound itself seemed, at the time, like an actualization of my solitude into loneliness. A sudden heaviness overcame me but I used it, letting it fall at my feet as I walked down the hall to let it be known I was on my way, wanting above all to avoid the sound again, to discover what else it might reveal.

I hadn’t expected anyone in particular, but with as few people who could’ve been there Nesta surprised me the most but I couldn’t explain why.

“I need your help with something,” Nesta said by way of greeting.

“Oh.”

I waited for an explanation but her stare remained unyielding. There was a serene silence, like a napping hour in summer or the start of the week. It was not the summer anymore, so I supposed I had my answer of what day it was. Her eyes drifted behind me into the hall. I thought of the books, thought of the relief that she could not see the apartment for all its worth behind me.

“At the library.”

I took a small quick inhale, repeating, “Oh.”

“Would you mind?”

The immediate answer was no. No I wouldn’t mind, but also no, please do not make me. I don’t know if I can do anymore than I currently am, if I can handle the confrontation of the world outside this building. Not until I find the thread of reason, the lens with which I can look at all that has become of what I’d left those years ago, and find some familiarity, a door that remained open to me.

“Wait here,” I said instead.

Outside I stopped once I saw Cassian. Nesta did too.

“Azriel said you’d flown with him.”

“I did.”

She shifted the books in her hands. The ones that I’d finished since I got back that were now to be returned, that were likely long overdue to be returned. Briefly I wondered if they could be mad at me, for being a hypocrite, from keeping them from a fate I craved myself, but realized it was simply my own tired that had prompted the thought. No, the books weren’t mad sr me, I said to myself and was glad that I had not drank that tea. Sleep desperate, needing rest, needing my mind to stop it’s false notions

“We can get Azriel to do it instead,” she offered, confusing my reluctance as being for her mate.

“It’s not that,” I said because I didn’t know the words yet to tell her that I couldn’t. Not when my dad would’ve loved it. When after I couldn’t turn to Cassian or Azriel and share in that moment a mutual understanding and grief of this fact. That we were partaking in something he would never do. The privacy of my suffering too painful and complex then to admit, to live in such a small room that no one knew what it looked like or lived there. What words were there? I searched but what came was worse than saying nothing, “Do you really need me?”

I regretted it right away. Knowing what I’d said before about helping, about wanting to badly. That I offered rather carelessly to go into the woods but wouldn’t step into a library for her. I balled my fists and let a small agony ripple on my face, with every word that I couldn’t say.

She simply nodded. Her face rested evenly with everything she understood.

“I just…I don’t want to fly again.”

“It’s safe.”

“I know,” I said recalling the security of Azriel, of how little danger there had been to me then. Whatever she’d read in my face, she had missed the real reason, the room remained inaccessible. Her eyes cast down my body.

“I do not think you are fit enough for the stairs.”

She began to walk toward Cassian and I followed after her, not sure what else to do. She walked very surely, the kind of someone who was often in charge of things, who could be counted on to find a solution. Whatever it was she set out to do, whatever she wanted, I was pretty sure that she would get. I was pretty sure that in a few minutes I would be at the library, even if I did not know how.

“What’s the issue?” Cassian asked.

“Flying.”

“We could ask Azriel,” He said a bit sheepishly. He too attributing the same reluctance to his presence. A gnawing came from within, that dark space, that endless nothing. That they believed me like that, so unforgiving. It stung at my eyes, the realization, that even being here, even being physically close, did not count for anything. That real people could still misunderstand me. That if they looked back on this moment their memory would reconstruct me into a person I did not recognize and I would never know.

This was the hard part I’d found, that forgetting happened all kinds of ways. Truth and fact were not always united and created a place of falseness where real people ceased to be. Remaining there was like being in the cottage. Only now it meant everything that happened had been for nothing.

I made to correct them, to explain, but there was no time to come up with all the words, with the story that was long, longer than what Azriel had only just heard, so instead Cassian spoke first.

“Lucien!’

Behind us, walking toward the steps of the building, he was poised in his elegance. A face of indifference settled over him, but not for lack of manners. We’d caught him in a moment of contemplation and he stared back eyebrows raised. His eyes, almost immediately, found mine and slid over. They flicked, briefly, with a sweeping motion up and down before pausing again on my face. There was a long moment after we were stuck there. Whatever he thought, whatever it was that gave him pause, his face revealed little of it. Then he turned back to Cassian.

“Yes?”

“Would you mind giving us a hand?”

“Depends.”

“How agreeable you are in the morning,” Cassian said with a teasing apathy, his mouth pulling into a flat line. “Y/N doesn’t wish to fly to the library.”

“Why are you going to the library?” He asked looking at me.

“I don’t know. They said asked for my help.”

“A text has been damaged and our archivist doesn’t know how to repair it. I thought maybe she’d know something.”

I straightened, turning to Nesta, wanting to clarify before we got too far into things, “I’m not sure I’ll be of any use. I’m not specially trained. I’m just an average archivist.”

“Trying is enough,” Nesta said cooly. “Plus you’re apparently agreeable to favors and you’ve avoided my every invitation to go up there.”

The autumn male shot her a cold look before he gave a more cursory glance my way. It abated as soon as he found me looking back. Strange again, to find him visibly nervous, to get the overwhelming sense such feelings had everything to do with me. I made, however, to shake my head to Nesta, to deny her claims of avoidance, worried still I’d disappear, needing to solidify myself for her, but she gave a faint smile and I realized it was a joke. She hadn’t meant it.

Nesta turned to Lucien, “Would you mind taking her?”

“We’ll be right up.”

Before I could say anything, dispute further plans, Cassian bowed his head. The cause was lost. And I had known the end from the beginning. The Illyrian took Nesta under arm and was off. I watched them move out of sight until they looked more like dust than a living thing. When I turned back I realized the problem hadn’t been solved at all. Lucien couldn’t fly, not that I knew. Out of curiosity my eyes fell to the space behind Lucien’s back, the absence between his shoulder blades

“You don’t need wings to get there,” Lucien said watching me. “You can winnow.”

“Oh,” I said. I tried to recall this fact, a time when it had been said, but there was nothing there, no further explanation, no story that suggested any other way. “No one said.”

“Mm.”

I considered the distance, the space between here and the house, nothing more than a single fold of paper. I felt for my own power, tired as I was, but if I rested maybe, it seemed plausible, that I could do such distance again.

“Maybe you could teach me. How to winnow up there.”

“I didn’t know you could winnow.”

“My father was High Fae.”

“Was?”

“He gave up his title to marry my mother.”

Lucien gave a slow nod of his head, eyes narrowing. I didn’t interrupt his thoughts which seemed deeply contemplative, which seemed too important to interrupt and to let go to waste. The silence wasn’t so bad, did not strike me the way the broken silence upstairs had.

He cleared his throat eventually, “I’ll have to carry you.”

“Oh,” I said straightening.

“There’s the drop,” He’d said plainly following with a sense of urgency he had to get the words out, to explain. “You can’t winnow onto the balcony, you have to drop into it. If you don’t know it then it’s easy to get injured.”

“Okay,” I said. When Lucien didn’t move I shifted awkwardly, adding, “How should I…”

“Oh. Right yes.”

And with a certain stiffness he bent close to me, leaning down, his breath catching my shoulder as he did. Bridal, that was what he meant to do. I uncrossed my arms and wrapped them lightly around his neck. At my inner elbow the vibrations of his throat sighing rattled between my bones. When he lifted me I clutched a little tighter to him, finding unsurprisingly, a warmth emitting from his closeness. He steadied himself and I felt our faces near, our cheeks. His arm hooked under my knees and the other around my back. He held me. Helion had held me too, but it had been brief. Too brief, the darkness closing around my eyes before I could understand. Before I could file the feeling away, of arms and of thighs, of the abdomen against my hip, the tight breathing, each finger, I am here I am here I am here it said. Before I might even note the extreme care of such a gesture. To bear my weight. To put it down gently where it is meant to go.

“Thank you,” I said.

His mouth shut tightly and he bowed his head. I turned to look ahead and Lucien raised his chin toward the House of Wind. My heart began to beat a little faster, rolling into some furious speed.

He noticed, “I won't let you get hurt. It’s just a little drop.”

“I’m…”

“What?” Lucien said his breath against my ear.

“Heights. I’m a little afraid of them.”

I felt his slight smile settle in the thin air between us, “Bryaxis is fine…but not heights?”

“It’s not really the heights thing, it’s the falling thing. My friend, he used to jump from cliffs into a quarry. And I could never do it. The falling.”

Lucien took a long inhale, “I see.”

I shifted a little in his grip as he focused again on the large house high above, carved into a cliff.

“The drop is just four or so seconds long. As long as it would take for you to gasp or close your eyes. And it won’t be you falling, it’ll be me. I’m not gonna let you hit the ground.”

“I trust you.”

“Do you?”

I nodded.

“Alright,” He said. “Good. Do you want to close your eyes?”

Tentatively I shook my head before a more assured gesture was born, “No. I…I don’t want to miss it.”

“Ever the brave,” He said. “But if you do get scared, and you miss it, you can watch the next time when you know what to expect.”

“Next time?”

He nodded, “Anytime. If ever…if you wanted, or ever needed to go. Before I mean you learn—” He began his words tangling in his mouth but I understood.

“I’ll ask you.”

His throat bobbed, brushing against my arm, “Good.”

“Thank you.”

He turned to look at me and our noses were so close a breeze would have trouble making it through.

“Do you want me to count to three?”

“No.”

“Alright.”

He lingered there enough that I thought he’d had something else to ask. I opened my mouth, expecting to answer before the question was asked, knowing I’d probably have it the way with him those things were often available. But when nothing came to him he turned abruptly. I braced myself, holding steady to his shoulders, eyes forward. The steady of his breathing, the tightening of his grip before relaxing again. A slight breeze. The anticipation. I hadn’t known he’d wait. I wanted to ask him to count. Maybe I should’ve. I opened my mouth, felt the cool morning pass through my teeth, smothering words. The apartment building there and in a blink gone, nothing but air. It was just about as long as a gasp. The much colder air now filling my lungs. We were falling and I turned my head into Lucien’s neck. My stomach low, around my ankles. I should’ve counted, should’ve counted the seconds, knowing then when it would be over. But we landed with a thud just as I’d gotten my eyes closed. The lids warmed against his skin.

It took three breaths for me to notice it, the enormity, how laborious each pull of air was. My ears popped with the third inhale, the conscious effort I made to diminish it, and I realized that the muted world up here was unreal. That actually, the sounds of the city fluttered this high up. The muffledness of earlier had been due to the new height, to the curling inward. I was still pressed against the column of Lucien's throat when I opened my eyes and he, in answer, held me tighter in my fear. I took one more breath, then tentative, like a flower following light, I unfurled myself. His face coming into view, a little unreadable now.

"See," He said and I nodded.

I let go of him a little reluctantly. The wind was stronger up here and he'd been warm. This high up, what came was only a premonition of what was a few weeks, maybe a few days away. I shivered with it. Noting. Even with my feet on the ground, however, he held to me with steadying, sturdy, hands. I bowed in thanks. Then turned to where Nesta and Cassian had been waiting, arms crossed. Lucien followed my gaze and withdrew. When I made to look at him I thought, more than maybe but less than certain, that a blush rolled across his cheeks. I couldn’t linger however to be sure, not wanting to be rude, and when I turned back to the couple they were watching each other from the corner of their eyes. The scene unfolded in a way totally inexplicable to me, in a context I had not been part of. Every gesture seemed to mean something else, like words shared in dual languages. Only I knew just one and not the other and only part of the time.

"While we wait for them to finish, I have some wine," Cassian said.

"You're going to wait?" I asked Lucien.

He shrugged, "How else would you make it down again?" Then he looked at the Illyrian. "I doubt your taste."

“I relish in any opportunity I get to prove you wrong.”

Cassian turned to Nesta and they gave a goodbye as subtle as a blink before the two males were setting off. I watched them go, the casual sway, of knowing your way around, being where you belonged.

“Ready?”

I turned back to Nesta, my eyes, however, focusing still on the large building behind her with reluctance.

“Just tell me when you want to go and we’ll go.”

I shook my head, small tight movements, but she smiled kindly, and it was enough to dispel something in me. To feel her intention, to feel her looking right at me and also seeing the distress. I wondered if she too was like Lucien, shedding something when arriving at home.

We fell in line with each other and moved off the balcony inside. Though called the house of wind, the bitterness didn’t reach us from the threshold of the doors. My mouth opened slightly as we walked under, as I caught sight of the warm glow, the carpeted floors, the elegant arches. The grandeur of it surpassed Aurora, but it was smaller too. Less floors, fewer people, I noticed when I looked over the edge into the levels below. I stopped gazing down at the moving parts. At the workers in their robes, their quiet movements, the turning of pages, the scratching of nibs. I understood now why it had been protected, why such a beast needed to be there. The beauty of things, of what they meant. The collective efforts to understand the world and to let others understand it too, to express in words, to leave even a couple hundred pages behind in the hopes of solving something you would never see. It opened and closed something in me. Opened a pinhole of light. Closed a fraction of my throat, painfully. Nesta waited.

“Is this what Aurora looked like?” She asked eventually.

“A little. It wasn’t so…pleasing to look at. But it was beautiful in its own way.”

“How?”

I tried for the words, the weight of them so desperately important now, needing them to work, needing them to be right. “It was like…you knew. Could feel it. The passion of those who worked there. Who didn’t want glory, but wanted maybe to make something. To understand a little better what we were doing there, why things went as they did.”

Satisfaction hummed. Precisely. Finally. My throat constrained against the concept I’d brought forward and I looked down as if ducking my head into prayer.

“Here,” Nesta said after a moment, “It is a sanctuary only for females.”

My brows rose and I turned in question to her but she simply nodded. The same ineffable emotion rose like fog over a morning pond—fleeting but obscuring. I looked down again and it seemed obvious now. What hadn’t been seen. What had been missed.

“I spoke with Clotho. Told her about you. And the rule at Aurora. She’d be happy to make space for you.”

I could see it, the door, the threshold to pass through, but refrained from moving through it, from saying yes, lest it shut again. I didn’t know if I could, at that moment, handle another disappointment, more clarity, of what life had become out here.

Nesta to her credit didn’t argue or push her point, though she seemed inclined to do so. She opened her mouth and said only, “Shall we?”

Clotho stood on the main level. Upon our approach, her power at first was similar to that of Rhysands, the way it wrinkled the immediate world near him. Hers though was a different kind of power not seen, held in how she held her body, spine straight, poised, more grace even than Lucien.

“This is her,” Nesta said gesturing to me by way of greeting.

The tall female turned to me, her movements slow. Her eyes casting neither up nor down, not left or right, stared singularly at my face. I waited for her to say something. Feeling some other strange aspect of her, like she was very old, like she too was from another place.

Movement caught my attention, and I saw a scrawled page move into view.

I’ve heard impressive things.

The words struck like a wound, I swallowed hard before shaking my head. I didn’t want this to take root, the narrative that was forming around me that remained and had always been untrue. What I knew, what I studied, it was what was expected. That Aurora’s quality would be diluted to my basic skill was unjust. I wouldn’t let it be forgotten this way.

I know Aurora and the Beast of the library, to endure either is impressive.

“Is it,” I said more statement than question.

She gave a single nod.

“It is not the word I would use.”

What word is better?

“Normal.”

The fae female inclined her chin and briefly looked to Nesta. It occurred to me that perhaps I’d been unwise, maybe even unkind, to speak to her the way I had. I wanted to clarify, to reveal my intentions, to prevent and misunderstanding, but Nesta spoke first and I was helpless. The words not there, the moment always over before I could figure it out.

“The text?”

Clotho’s arm extended slow, but not for lack of energy. Fluid like water she pointed toward the stairs and on the page I saw

Level 5.

Then she looked down again at her work. Nesta moved away but I did not. When she realized this Clotho looked up again. The two of us stared at each other. Recognition, mutual, some familiarity there, maybe just from the library or life itself.

“I’m sorry,” I said and I meant it. “I only want people to know what I really am.”

Her pen did not move. Nesta called my name and I realized she’d already begun to ascend. I nodded back and left the female to her work. The soft patter of our feet against the stone rolled seamlessly into the idle noise of study.

“Why did you apologize to Clotho?” Nesta asked after we rose one level.

“I don’t like being unkind.”

The female huffed a laugh, “She has forgiven me though I never apologized.”

We rounded a landing, taking the next set of stairs. “You…say things sometimes,” I said. “About who you used to be. I feel…I feel like I don’t understand.”

“What is there to understand?”

I took a long inhale, winded already. Nesta was right, I’d have never survived the stairs. This alone had winded me. I rubbed at my temple, “I don’t know,” I admitted. The confusion, the gap in my knowledge manifesting with real agony.

Nesta, head forward, put it plainly, “I did not adjust well to Velaris. To this life. I was not the nicer for it.”

“Oh,” I said and the female turned to me. I did not want to admit it to her, that it comforted me. That I was not alone in finding it difficult to be somewhere so lovely. That, in this room, in this trial, I was not alone.

“See,” she said hand on the railing as we pushed to the final floor. “Not much to understand. I doubt it is very shocking to learn.”

“It is, actually,” I said once I had joined her on the last level. “I like your company. Find you…nice. Nice to be around.”

Her face softened before she turned over her shoulder and muttered a casual ‘this way.’ How seamless she could be, about coming back to the moments of before, to the normalcy of life where things once unsaid had then been explained with perfect clarity. I envied her.

We found ourselves in a room. Not dark like that of the archives of Aurora, but full of life, of light. I blinked, the brightness even a little intense, rubbed at my eyes, tried to force their adjust. A female stood at a desk and a book was laid open.

“Merrill is gonna kill me,” She said.

“She’d have to leave her office to do that,” Nesta remarked.

I was beginning to fear the scholar they spoke this way of. The tangible fear she evoked in the people who worked here, it seemed I would have to think harder about ever coming back, about facing such a person.

The young archivist looked at me, knowing somehow, and I wondered what stories Nesta had shared, how much and how little they knew, and how much of those things were really accurate or true.

“I’ve tried everything,” She began with no introduction, like I’d always been there, had always been called upon for these things. “There’s mold on the pages and it has corrupted some of the ink, so when I go in with any magic it would take the text with it. There’s a massive crack in the spine, and a tear on one of the pages, some waterlogging.”

I blushed a little at the list of things that were being thrown at me, at my own perceptions and insistence before, because, in fact, I did know how to fix these kinds of things.

“Do you have the missing page?”

The female nodded, handed it over, and spoke matter of factly, “It, of course, won’t mend until the rest of the book is mended.”

I hummed.

“Why?” Nesta asked.

“The books…they…” I began looking toward the other archivist for help but she shrugged. “We work on them for decades sometimes. To have something so…close, and that repeated approach, of coming at it with care and devotion, we end up…imbuing something into its very fabric. Its existence is saturated with the power that made it. And so, when you repair it, there is an order needed for that kind of sentience, like healing a person. It takes better, is stronger, when the major damage is healed first. The little things fall into place.”

Nesta’s brows had steadily risen as I’d been speaking.

“You knew this?” She said turning to the other archivist.

“It’s one of the first things you learn.”

Nesta looked at me and I shrugged. I wanted to say, see. My knowledge is no more expansive than anyone else in my position. But I didn’t. She was smart, I knew she’d understand. I looked at the page and the archivist swayed uneasily. My palms sweating, I peered up at her movements, balled my fists, wiping away the moisture. Only each time I closed my eyes, made to place my hands on the current page darkened with mold, the nervousness of the female triggered my own.

“Could you give us some privacy?” Nesta asked and without another word the archivist left. I sighed with relief, feeling I could collapse there, into a heap, and sleep. I felt the reserve of magic, small and unused, neglected, briefly wondering if I could even do it, even with knowing how.

“Thank you.”

She bowed her head in reply. Gathering myself I took another long breath, focused on the inhale, the exhale, the room itself. The many books, the familiar tools, so like the place I’d use to go, had once been, only…

“It can damage the books,” I said opening my eyes, my neck still craned toward the sun. “All the light.”

“From what I understand this place is cast so thoroughly in spells the world might end and it would receive very little damage.”

The invisible mechanisms all around us did not make themselves known. Knowing they were there, unlike the wards of the cottage, revealed nothing, did not make visible the shield by which they lived by. But they knew somehow they were there. That they worked. The books safe. I thought, fleetingly, of Lucien down below, of that eye. I’d suspected it was from the copper market, or of Dawn itself. The signature tinkerings, the metal whir, its gold coat. Now though it occurred to me the duality of my court, that nothing made in its boundaries worked in singularity. Surely it could see more, do more, than my two combined. What it saw, that had always been the question, but now a gnawing curiosity carved deeper—glamors maybe, far away and tiny things, or simply power itself.

When I turned back to the book the challenge seemed to have vanished with the nerves. I placed both palms on the page as I had done a thousand times and pulled from the well of myself, finding it fuller than I’d originally thought.

Light pooled under my hands. Molten and warm, slipping through the fibers of the page as water would. Slowly I felt with it, creeping across, it would be tedious work, if the ink had been corrupted, but not impossible to keep it here, to preserve its existence.

At the first stain of mold, I was unpracticed, a little rusty, and so it took longer than normal. But I knew that it had begun to dissolve because Nesta inhaled with a slight sharpness. It got easier after, the text itself more malleable to my power, the muscle memory resurfacing. Slowly the darkness dissipated and the ink remained.

I paused momentarily, pulling back and wiping at my eyes. With each revelation of the text below, my body grew heavier, balance more askew.

“Do you want to sit?”

I shook my head.

“So this is what you used to do?”

I nodded, “The magic of Dawn, it lends itself to this sort of thing.”

She hummed in agreement.

“Is she from Dawn?” I asked referring to the archivist who had been here before.

Nesta nodded, “Southern more. Close to the mountain.”

A force overcame the room, of how she’d found her way to this library, of what she’d possibly endured to do so. I swallowed and looked at the clean page, ran my fingers over it.

“Azriel mentioned you went to the Little City. I looked it up, it’s very beautiful.”

I swallowed, a new softness to my voice, easy to mistake for tire, “It is.”

I wanted, for a moment, to explain in words, as I had been that day so aptly, of the city, of Aurora itself. How much sense it made to be in that city, how perfect it was, but the capabilities of speech had gone out with the tide of my magic that had dwindled with use. There was no clarity, no just image to put into place a memory as I had done before. A dull ache taking shape I relinquished myself to it, put both palms on the page.

The light pooled again and I began to work bit by bit. Nesta at some point realized that silence was not a requirement for this kind of thing, that, in fact, I could be present, could hold two things at once, and began to speak.

“Will you go back?”

I kept my eyes closed, “No. Probably not.”

“Why?”

I appreciated her willingness to ask, to not let things go unsaid, this desire to understand me as I had equally wished to be understood. But this answer was difficult to give, one that was harder to bear.

“They let them study now.”

I could tell by the way she spoke that she’d learned of the rule that had made me an archivist. Mentioned maybe in passing, between two friends, but known nonetheless. I doubted Rhysand had said so, it wasn’t his way. But that Azriel would share a thing, knowing of his silences, I suspected a real reason, and for that, I wasn’t angry. Wouldn’t have been angry regardless, that Aurora for all its virtues, was understood even greater too for having revealed its faults.

“I see,” Nesta said. “That is…good.”

“Yes.”

The lack of understanding permeated around us. I didn’t even need to open my eyes to see it, to know what she was wondering. Why then not go? Why avoid a place that has improved, that would accept you? The last bit of mold winked out and I opened my eyes, kept my hands flat, the book in my imagination seeming to loosen in relief.

“I didn’t even get to see it,” I said simply. “The change. I didn’t want the world I left behind to stay that way, but I wanted to come back to it all the same. To be part of what made it better because I knew, even then, what Aurora could be. But I left and the world just healed around my absence. Like a lost tooth or an open wound and I can’t go back in again. And when I think about it, about my life, I feel that it happened the way it was always supposed to. That I was meant to go, to be in the cottage, even to come here, and there is some comfort. But there is also a terrible pain too, because that means, from the very beginning, I never had a place there. That, despite what I believed the library could become, I was never meant to know it.”

Silence fell across the room and I flipped toward the ripped page, took the missing piece in my hand, let the heaviness of my lack of gratitude settle before I found Nesta’s eye.

“Please don’t tell,” I said quietly.

“Why?”

“Those years have been cruel to them, so I don’t want to be.”

“You’re not. You’re angry.”

“I’m not.”

“I would be.”

I pushed the two torn pieces together as best I could, as seamlessly as my shaking hands could manage, their movements slower by the minute, their power and ability dwindling like a flame that had burned through wood.

I closed my eyes and began to thread the fibers together, weaving like a cut, closing like stitches, “Anger, sadness, it’s useless. It won’t bring anything back.”

“It doesn’t have to be of use.”

I paused, before beginning again. A draft skittered across the desk, sliding up my arms, leaving goosebumps in its wake. I opened my eyes and saw the remnants of the injury. A shadow across the page, no bigger than a hair, curving up toward the margin. On the back cover, I bolstered myself for the waterlogging, sent my magic into it, but for as hard as I tried I could not revert the thing back again. I’d always struggled with such blemishes. Nesta still watched me, curiously and it struck me then, the words I’d long been looking for since we got back. My eyes met hers.

“The word is neither anger or sadness, it is simply grief. For the life I could’ve had. And knowing that life is possible, that it was so close, just not for me.”

I sent the final cache of my power into the spine, the magic tightening, constricting, pulling it all back into place until the last of it ran out. I could’ve collapsed, slumped forward on the desk, but instead, I opened my eyes. A perfectly fine book. A little damaged, but useful all the same.

She brought me to her personal library after to return the books I’d given her. The heat of the hearth soothed my skin and I could tell the drafts in the Archivist's office had made a visible difference on my body, because Nesta said, “It will be getting cold down in the city soon.”

I nodded, “I had hoped to get some warm clothes in Dawn. When we were at the city but…”

Perhaps because of what had been said earlier, she wasn’t inclined to argue or lament over it, but regardless she recovered as seamlessly as she always was and turned toward the many shelves. No words were spoken, she simply held out her hand and what had been there a moment before was gone the next.

I blinked a few times, and she turned.

“Would you like to try?”

“Try?”

She nodded with more enthusiasm than I’d ever seen, “Ask for a book, or anything, and it will deliver it to you.”

“You’re sure?”

“It already has heard about you from me, so I doubt it will deny you. Just talk to it. It likes the company.”

Slowly, hesitantly, I made one step forward, presenting myself to the room, to the house. Stopping on the center of the carpet I considered what I wanted. Plenty of things, things that hurt too much to consider or think closely about, so instead I considered something harder to know and closed my eyes.

What do I need? Do you know?

I considered the many weeks I’d been in Velaris, the many desires, and the numerous absences that needed to be filled. Briefly, I thought about the need I had for my family, but Rhysand had told me well enough of what one might recover after it had been lost. Image after image of the weeks flashed before me and I told the house a very long story but in quick succession, hoping it would work it out. And suddenly, at my feet, I felt a thud.

A stack of books appeared.

“Will that keep you busy until next time?”

There was a great deal there. Some like Nesta’s recommendations, but then others as well. A book on anomalies of the natural world, traditions of the seven courts in two volumes, one for the solar courts, the other for the seasonal, Theories of Power, and a slim volume on dream analysis which I believed was meant to be a joke. I scanned over their titles and authors and nodded.

“Yes.”

“Should we find Lucien then?”

I considered her offer but the task of it, the sense of not knowing where to look, of moving at all, built upon itself until it was monumental. So much so to consider it made me yawn. And her earlier offer seemed more enticing.

“I’m going to wait outside. If that’s okay.”

She gave a confirming smile and turned. I was immediately grateful for her surrender of me, my arms screaming as they carried the volumes to the ledge and placed them on the railing. The movement down below of the city was visible even at a distance. How life was like that, making itself known.

My body began to lean more on itself, asked my elbows to hold up the weight of me, the rough stone forming deep divots in my skin. But to stand any other way had become too heavy. So much so that eventually I had to press my cheek into the cool railing and close my eyes. Sleep wasn’t what you could call it, it was something closer to death. And it did not relieve me of anything. I woke an indiscernible amount of time later, scraping my face as I dragged it up, when I heard the faint sound of Nesta calling Lucien’s name.

The male was standing outside, all signs of him pointing in my direction, in approach, but he’d turned back. The two, arms crossed, spoke low at the door. The wind smothered any enunciation they’d possessed, but I’d have let them have it regardless, the privacy. My gaze dulled, and the sharpness of focus, of particular looking, vanished. Even when Lucien appeared at my side, when he began to speak.

“How’d it go?”

“Alright.”

“Did you manage to fix it?”

I nodded, “There’s still water damage but.”

“Mm.”

The announcement of wind down the mountainside gave me pause to continue. I wasn’t sure he’d hear me if I spoke. As it passed, it was harsh enough to make it through the tightly woven fabric of my clothes, to graze the inside of my legs. Distantly I knew I was cold, but it didn’t reach me enough. I didn’t shiver or hold myself close. To do so occurred only once the freeze vanished, once I felt the warm lining of Lucien’s jacket, that I hadn’t noticed he’d shrugged off and placed against my shoulders. I grabbed the material in my hands closing it around me.

I turned toward him his lips faintly stained red. The only hint of his time with Cassian, the detail set into motion a new lucidity.

“Are you alright?” Lucien asked.

“No,” I said. My eyes drifting to the vivid orange, the plane of it striking furiously on the snowy mountaintop. As opposed to here, to Velaris, which remained bathed in blue. I added, “But I can make it back again.”

“Can I do anything?”

“No.”

He swallowed. I could tell this was difficult for him to hear, that he’d hoped the answer was yes, but what I needed could be asked for from no one else. To be the cause of his suffering, and he to be helpless to me, forced me to turn a little further from him, balled my fists a little tighter, to relieve these facts of my body by removing it any degree I could. I opened my mouth to alleviate something of him but he interrupted.

“Don’t be sorry.”

“What?”

“You’ve sometimes been overly eager to apologize for being yourself. You don’t need to be.”

It surprised me a little, that despite Nesta’s misunderstanding me, some things were readily understood, that these weeks here had not totally mischaracterized me.

I inhaled a little sharply, “Can I ask you something?”

“Yes.”

“How long has it been since I got back? From Dawn?”

“Three weeks.”

Preternatural stillness returned. I blinked, even with the answer revealed it seemed unreal and wrong. But Lucien, he wouldn’t lie, and he’d know far better than me. How strange time was, how easily it was lost.

“Do you often lose track of time?” Lucien asked.

I thought a moment, “I don’t know. It’s hard to say. Knowing the day is a newer phenomenon to me.”

“How does something like this happen?”

I swallowed, “I don’t know you just have no reason to know. Or you stop checking. Or time passes and it seems pointless to figure out how much until you need to or can know”

“I see,” Lucien said his gaze remaining fixed on me, despite my move away from him, and at last I gave in again and turned into it the way one might do for a hand on the cheek or a mouth near a mouth. He softened.

“Should we go?”

“Yes.”

Gingerly, more than he had earlier, he grabbed ahold of me and lifted me off my feet. He attempted to reach for the books, but he could not release either hand. This desire in him, at times, to carry everything, I’d recognized it early on. The way he did things, what he offered, and how. It was obvious, this desire in him, to open his hands.

I leaned out of his hold enough to grab the volumes from their place and rested them against my stomach. Perhaps if I had any pride I’d have done things differently, would’ve remained upright, or put into place some proper distance, but I couldn’t think of a reason or find any ability to deny myself the rest. So, once I had everything, instead of sitting with better posture, I leaned into Lucien and let my cheek press into his chest, letting myself close my eyes.

Lucien’s chin grazed against my temple, and when he spoke it brushed against my hair, “Nesta mentioned that you used your power, does it require so much energy?”

“No. But I didn’t have much in me to begin with.”

“You used it recently?”

“Not since I hurt my shoulder.”

“I see,” He said. “Do you have something to eat at home?”

I nodded and from his chest, I felt a hum, a sigh, though no noise escaped him. Briefly, I thought it would be nice to turn inward, to curl up so close and tightly to him that I disappeared, at least from view. That I gave him what he so clearly wanted, which was to take something from me and hold it for a little while. That I let myself be the thing held. That, after all, had been missed so badly those years. Touch. And he was so warm, and I was so tired. But then the noise was different, the city returned, and the distance from living got much closer. He had his life, things he would do, things he had to do, and I had all the space in the world to do this on my own. But he didn’t drop me, just as he said. Instead, he carried me across the street and up the stairs, walked to my front door, and lingered a second, before releasing me gently on the ground.

I blinked, a little groggy, like I’d slept, “You could’ve winnowed here. And you didn’t have to carry me.”

He nodded, “Yes I could’ve.”

Factors unclear to me. Better not to make a fuss, I replied simply, “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome,” He said and turning only as slow as I had to open my door, he lingering in the hall until I slipped inside. With the door shut, his footsteps pattered off, away, upstairs, and I didn’t leave, not even when I heard him make it home again. The two of us stood in the entryway, in different parts of the building, acutely and intrinsically aware of the other now. I looked up, imagined he looking down, placed a hand on the wall, and somehow, perhaps from exhaustion, felt his warmth, the room glowing a little brighter. Down the hall, I turned and saw the cup of tea, now cold, on the counter, the open books, the pile that had vanished replenished now in my hands. The stroke of a finger reached my shoulders, then a sheathing sound, like a bed being made. I turned to follow it, to find death perhaps ready for me, but nothing was there. No, something was, its cloak crumbled on the ground. I placed the books down and picked it up, heat and leaves wafting, not death but life. He’d let me take his jacket. I thought about going upstairs to give it back but didn’t move. Decided to blame my tired on this one thing, to lie just a little, before leaving the books, leaving the day in part behind, and lying down. The jacket pulled up to my shoulders, my nose tucked under the collar, the blankets around me, first closed eyes, then deathly, dreamless, sleep.

AN: this chapter took SO LONG to write because I ended up writing what is essentially TWO chapters and will be posting the other half tomorrow. Excuse the finer details I simply cannot spend another minute rereading and fixing these scenes!

#lucien acotar #lucien fanfic #lucien x reader #acotar fanfiction #lucien vanserra #acotar x reader #acotar

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sofyachy · 9 months ago

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Food Omens Chapter 5: The Hummus Olympics

Dubai, [Date Redacted]

“Angel, what did you do?” Crowley asked as they crouched behind a table that had been turned onto its side. Beyond the table, they could hear voices yelling, punctuated by the sounds of wet things going splat.

“Well,” Aziraphale nervously ran his finger along the edge of the table. “In my defense, I thought it would bring peace to the Middle East.”

Crowley palmed his face.

“You,” he sighed, “thought you could single-handedly end violence to a part of the world that’s been at war for almost all of humanity’s existence.”

“I thought it would be like the Olympics, only with food!” Aziraphale cried. “‘Wouldn’t it be fun,’ I said. ‘Each of your countries – or, rather, cultures – has some form of hummus. Let’s all come together and make it a contest!’” He waved his hands dramatically as he waggled his eyebrows. “‘Let’s see who’s hummus is the best!’”

“Angel,” Crowley groaned.

“It started out peacefully enough, anyway,” Aziraphale continued.

“And then?”

“Well, then the Americans decided to get involved. They kept insisting that their hummus was vegan.”

Crowley furrowed his brows and tried to perform the right set of calculus equations that would make that statement make sense. “But hummus is just chickpeas, olive oil, and tahini, innit? ‘S already vegan.”

“Yes, I know!” Aziraphale threw up his hands in frustration. “But they also added vegan bacon. It didn’t go over well, I’m afraid.”

Crowley leaned over and wiped a glob of hummus off the angel’s cheek with his finger.

“Is that when your Olympics turned into a battle royale?” He popped the finger into his mouth and sucked it clean.

Aziraphale closed his eyes at the sight and tried to think of world peace instead. “More or less,” he admitted. “I honestly don’t know who flipped the table first, but all the hummus has been sent airborne. It’s quite a disaster, I’m afraid.”

He looked Crowley up and down. “How did you manage to get here without getting covered in it, anyway?”

“Must’ve been a miracle,” Crowley smirked.

“I see,” Aziraphale replied, narrowing his eyes in suspicion. “And you just happened to be in the neighborhood, did you?”

At this, Crowley’s smirk broke into a wide, shit-eating grin. “Who do you think talked the Americans into bringing vegan bacon?”

“Oh, Crowley, you utter fiend!” Aziraphale huffed.

Crowley barked a laugh.

Aziraphale saw a big glob of hummus fly past the table they were hiding behind. With a wave of his hand, he redirected it to land on Crowley’s face with a most undignified splat.

“Oi!” Crowley cried, wiping the dip from his eyes.

“That must have been a miracle,” the angel commented airily. “Consider yourself thwarted.”

The demon growled, “I’ll show you a thwarting,” and smeared the hummus into Aziraphale’s hair.

“Ahhh!” Aziraphale screeched in alarm. He picked up more hummus and rubbed it onto Crowley’s shirt.

Crowley retaliated by wiping more hummus down the angel’s neck, sliding a finger under his collar.

Things devolved from there until the two beings were rolling on the floor, covered in hummus. Aziraphale landed on top and pinned Crowley underneath him, slightly out of breath. Without thinking, he lowered himself and licked along the demon’s jawline.

Crowley gasped. “What did you do that for?” he asked, feeling a slight panic seize him.

“It tastes better without vegan bacon,” Aziraphale commented absently before he fully realized what position he and Crowley were in.

“Oh,” he breathed. “Crowley…I...”

“Do it again.”

And in that moment, it was quite impossible to think of world peace.

Find more chapters on AO3

#good omens #ficlet #food omens #aziracrow #humor #crowley #aziraphale #hummus #am I ready to face the consequences of my actions?#I don't know

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arisenreborn · 8 months ago

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Silver Linings

Word Count: 1295 Characters: Reverie (Arisen), Rann (Pawn) AO3: (Link)

After being thoroughly accosted by an ogre for the third time in the span of a few days, Reverie wasn't about to refuse Rann's help getting all of the slobber out of her hair. (Introspective, Dialogue-Heavy, Character/Relationship Building)

Silver linings, silver linings. The words repeated in Reverie’s head like some mantra, perhaps a vestige, a clue even, of her former self. Whoever she’d been before her memories were lost -stolen, rather- and she was forced to work at that excavation site. Further still, before she’d had her body scorched and her heart plucked out by the dragon, marked as Arisen.

Had that person had to find ‘silver linings’ under such circumstances before? The weight of the world on her shoulders, ensnared in political schemes?

Silver lining number one: The boulder she was sitting on was blessedly smooth against her bare arse. Unfortunately, the river water was wretched cold.

She also had to wonder if that woman she was before had to deal with roaming the wilds and getting accosted by ogres on the regular.

“Seriously, why do they always have it out for me?” She huffed, scrubbing at her arms. It felt like she’d never get the sticky stink of saliva off of her.

“Unfortunately, Master, ogres have a tendency to target women,” Rann answered. “I am sorry I was not better able to prevent the beast from carrying you so far from us at the time.” The pang of regret in his voice tugged at her- Ah, well, not her heartstrings she supposed. Something deeper then? Either way, it ached.

“It’s not your fault, ‘twas chaos what with the harpies and the bandits.” She sighed, and refrained from shaking her head in exasperation simply recalling it.

“Still, I shall endeavor to do better going forward.” His hands delicately moved through her hair, pooling water between his palms before rinsing away globs of ogre spittle.

She couldn’t fault him for the sentiment, she supposed. She had to do better, too, after all.

Once the worst of the ogre sludge was cleaned away, he took a bottle of rosewater and started massaging it into her scalp and strands. This she’d anticipated, but less so how good it felt.

With a sigh she slumped where she sat, feeling tendrils of tension unwinding themselves down her neck and shoulders. She had initially told him she could do this herself, but now she was feeling grateful he’d been insistent, and she’d been too weary to argue.

Silver lining number two: Rann. Actually, he ranked higher than the boulder. Considerably higher. As much as she loathed the idea of ‘commanding the Pawns’, let alone dragging them into these vicious battles, she wasn’t sure how she’d have gotten on without him.

“Ahh, that feels nice.” Somehow she managed to avoid making any particularly unseemly sounds.

“It gladdens me to be able to offer you some small respite.”

She doubted not the sincerity of his words, but it was instead the inclination behind them that troubled her. Would he not have done the same for any Arisen beyond the rift? And when that thought occurred to her, so did another; Where did a Pawn learn how to do that?

She supposed it might have simply come natural to him. But on the other hand, it seemed that some of the Arisen in other worlds had… peculiar tendencies. Her brow twitched and furrowed.

“Did you… learn how to do this beyond the rift?” She tried to pitch her voice more towards curiosity than jealousy - which seemed an absurd thing to be feeling, yet there it was. Just a pinch of it, enough to recognize and feel some shame over.

Rann hummed thoughtfully, gently pressing his thumbs in small circles down the back of her neck. Her eyes fluttered shut and for a moment her thoughts stretched into stillness. Blessedly, all she could smell now was rosewater.

“To be honest? I… don’t quite recall. I don’t believe that to be the case, however. At least, I have no recollection of doing such before.”

A measure of foolish relief came with his answer, but more pressing was a new concern alongside her curiosity. Brow furrowing, she turned her head enough to catch his mismatched eyes with hers.

“Have you… lost your memories, too?” Her voice faltered, and there was little hiding her subtle shock at the idea.

They’d been traveling together for nearly a month now, and this was the first he’d so much as hinted at such a thing. He certainly hadn’t given any indications, but then again, that span of time was plenty confusing for her. Still fog-brained from whatever Disa had done to her, clamoring for scraps of a lost identity, and being saddled up with a bevy of other issues to contend with. Mayhaps she simply hadn’t noticed.

“I would not say that,” he said, shaking his head. “But I believe I… spent a very long time in the rift without being called to aid another.”

His voice sounded strange then; a little sad and yet… almost proud? ‘Sad’ she thought she could understand. The Pawns were bent to the service of the Arisen. Void of other purpose, this alone seemed to grant them the ‘joy of fulfillment’ humans possessed. Or at least so it seemed to her, in a manner of speaking.

So to that end ‘pride’ seemed an odd addition, but she didn’t feel like she could ask when it was only a supposition.

“My memories are vague things that jump into clarity the instant they are called upon,” he continued. Placing his hands against the sides of her head he turned her face forward to continue his ministrations as he spoke. “I recall working with mercenaries before, and traveling plenty.” Woefully, she could not see the hint of a smile playing on his features, but she could hear the subtle lilt of it in his voice. “I was looking for you, everywhere I went.”

What a thing to say. It troubled and vexed her to no end, that he could say such things and not understand the weight of them. And she was all the more a fool for letting them affect her so.

“But eventually, for reasons I cannot quite remember, I returned to the rift and abided there for some time. Long enough that both my thoughts and memories grew foggy and dim, and the stretching darkness of the rift laid claim over them.”

His hands paused, resting against her shoulders with a ghost-light touch.

“And then you called to me, and all became clear once more.”

There was that uncomfortable itch in her chest again, deeper than her nails might reach. Would that she had a heart so she could better heed it, or memories so she might make sense of any of it. She felt warm despite the chill of the water, and dumbstruck, as if a cyclops had just clobbered her in the head. Though, thankfully without the accompanying pain.

How silly of her to worry about how he might regard other Arisen.

Not knowing what else to say in response to such a bafflingly sweet sentiment, she could only rely on the truth. Closing her eyes she settled into silence for a moment, recalling when she’d first reached her hand towards the riftstone. Clueless as a newborn kitten, she’d had no idea what to expect, or if she was ‘doing it right’. Yet before she could fall too far into the fear of failure, he had arrived.

Even now she could recall the relief she’d felt to see him. Almost a sense of recognition, perhaps like meeting a very old friend, but not quite. At least, not that she could remember. Nevertheless, his soothing presence endured to this day.

“I’m glad it was you who came to my call.” She said, a warmth swelling in her chest - before a great handful of cold water was dumped over her head. Biting back on a shriek, the sound was strangled into a one not unlike a rat being stepped on, and Rann laughed.

What a dreadfully beautiful sound it was.

#dragon's dogma #dragon's dogma 2 #dd2 #arisen #dd2 pawn #arisen x pawn #(slow burn af)#crow's writing.#aes. reverie & rann #small tidbit: the rosewater was a gift from sven #oc: reverie #oc: rann

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floralseokjin · 2 years ago

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⤑ 9 months to fall in love 19.

It seems like everyone around you is either already in love, or in the process of falling, and while normally you couldn’t give a damn, finding out the co-worker you’ve had a teensy crush on is dating someone else at the office seems to sucker punch you right in the gut. It’s stupid, and you’re irritated at yourself, but you can’t seem to shake out of the funk you’ve fallen face first in.

Feeling lonely and heartsore, and mad for no reason, during drinks with your best friend you spot a man at the bar. Tequila confident, you make your way over to the stranger, and successfully one thing leads to another. The next morning you leave before he’s woken up, feeling satisfied in one way, but still as discontented as ever. Telling yourself it was an inebriated mistake, you quickly try to forget about it.

Only, three weeks later that night comes back to haunt you – in a very unescapable way…

pairing; kim seokjin x f reader au/genre; unplanned pregnancy, strangers to lovers, slow burn, romance (dare I say romcom in places), smut, angst, (melo)drama, dual pov words; 5,786

warnings/includes (!) a name is chosen for Globby! plenty of cute and sweet moments, the fluff cannot be contained!! there’s a dinner party filled with (comical) tension and jabs (guess who), Jungkook has a…girlfriend?! Namjoon’s mystery woman is revealed 😘

⟶ ao3 link

*inspired by the manhwa ‘Positively Yours.’

↪︎ series index

SEASON THREE ⇤ previous | next ⇥

Within the week you’d found a house you both loved. A week.

You didn’t even know that was possible, and at first, it had seemed anything but. Using the realtor Seokjin had a few years ago, she was given the very simple brief ‘cosy family home.’ You and Seokjin weren’t fussy. As long as the house was in a convenient location – and had enough room for his games room, his and her offices, and your Beauty and the Beast library (ha ha) – you truly had no expectations. Or so you thought.

You had lived in the same house all your life, this was all brand new for you, and it turned out you had lots of expectations. The first evening, all three houses you looked around fell flat. Each one felt bigger, colder, lonelier. You didn’t want a showroom, which was fast becoming the theme. None of these homes were cosy, or at least, not to you. Seokjin wasn’t feeling them either, kind-heartedly repeating the property brief to your realtor once again before you said goodbye, hoping to gently prompt her in the right direction.

The second evening was better. The houses weren’t as intimidating, definitely cosier, but neither house you saw felt like ‘the one.’ You didn’t know when that had become your No.1 need, taken by surprise, but you couldn’t just choose a house like it was no big deal. You wanted to feel something. You wanted this to be your forever home. The home your child would grow up and live her life in until it was time to fly the nest like you were doing right now. It didn’t matter that your mom was no longer alive. You were still leaving home.

You discussed your feelings with Seokjin that night and he agreed. You shouldn’t do this half-heartedly. Even if it took longer, even if it took months, even if your daughter was born in the meantime. You’d work it out, you’d stay at your place – you, him and Glob, until you found the perfect home. You didn’t want that to be the case, but logically it made sense. You shouldn’t rush or force things. If there wasn’t a house that was screaming out at you, then you shouldn’t settle for less.

On the third day, Namjoon kindly let you take a half day, so you could spend the afternoon continuing your hunt, but it wasn’t exactly surprising that you felt pretty much the opposite of positive. Maybe you were being too difficult, you told yourself, expecting too much. But when it came to Seokjin and your daughter, when it came to your life, there was no such thing. You wanted that indescribable dream home, even if it didn’t exist. No, that was not the attitude to have. It did exist. It was out there, and you were going to find it.

You found it straight away that afternoon – or rather, Binna your realtor, found it. She was in charge after all, and bless her talent for reading people’s minds. The past five houses she’d shown you around? They were long forgotten, they no longer existed. There was only this one. This perfect, dreamlike home. It was smaller than the others you’d viewed previously, more homely feeling. You hadn’t even seen inside, but it didn’t seem to matter. You just had That Feeling, and That Feeling only amplified when you walked through the front door. It had everything you wanted and more. Two living rooms, a utility room(!), a separate kitchen and dining room, enough rooms for your offices and library, THREE bathrooms, one an ensuite in the main bedroom, and two extra bedrooms for guests and…another future child…maybe…possibly. Okay, maybe this house was deceiving, much bigger than it looked.

You didn’t need to worry about Seokjin not being on board. If he wasn’t sold the moment he heard there was a basement. (“This will make thee most perfect games room!”), the massive garden well and truly did it. He had big plans for that. This is it, he beamed, thrumming with excitement in time with you. This is the one. Let’s make an offer right now! It was in a lovely neighbourhood too. Private, quiet, and the house was detached. You wanted, no, you needed this house, so much so, you didn’t let the price send you into hysteria. Glob needed this house. You immediately started praying to a higher power, crossing every limb, finger and toe. Please, please, please, let us get this house.

During previous discussions, you’d both decided to sell your properties after Glob was born, to make the last couple months of your pregnancy as smooth sailing as possible. It made sense, and gratefully, you were privileged enough to do so. Seokjin had the funds, and by attachment, so did you. As you were cash buyers, you were chain free, which greatly sped up the process. It was an inherited property too, so things were even more straight forward. The owner practically jumped down your throats when they heard they had a cash offer. Seokjin was eager to close the deal and move in as soon as possible, you both were, considering you didn’t have very long left. In an ideal world, you wanted to be in and settled before Glob decided to make her appearance. You were on a rather tight deadline, but at the end of the day it would be reckless to try and cut corners. Thankfully, luck was on your side, and everything processed quickly and without a hitch.

A little over a month on from your decision to live together, suffering from a mild case of mental whiplash, it was moving day.

It wasn’t the most desirable thing to be doing at 8 months pregnant, but you’d had friends and family to help you pack up, removal men to help you move in, and Seokjin to lean on and be your emotional support. Leaving your mom’s house was hard. It wasn’t even truly the end yet, you still owned it for the time being, still had a little longer to let go, but it didn’t stop you from blubbering all morning. Seeing your house look so empty broke your heart a little. The rest of the day didn’t get much easier. It was like you were happy and sad at the same time. So happy and excited to be starting this journey with Seokjin, but feeling sad and empty every time you remembered you would never spend another night in the home you’d lived in all your life.

Back-up arrived after lunch. You had so many belongings between the two of you, it would have taken the removal company an age to empty the vans, but with the extra muscle Yuna, Jimin, Hobi and Jungkook brought, the process got sped up. You tried to help as much as your body could manage, but you obviously couldn’t do any heavy lifting, so you took on the role of supervisor, directing where you wanted each box or each piece of furniture to go. By 8pm you were exhausted, all of you ravenously tucking into take-out on the kitchen floor because the idea of making your way into the dining room was too much of an inconvenience, and it had already taken fifteen minutes hunting around boxes for the cutlery.

It would take days, possibly weeks to unpack everything, but the important things were done. Seokjin’s bed was safely inside the master bedroom, both your sofas in each living room. Your table looking far too tiny in the dining room until you got a new one. Everything else could come later. Tomorrow, the day after that, and the day after that… The house looked like a bomb had gone off, but it didn’t matter. At least, it didn’t matter right now.

With all the distraction, you’d managed to forget about the emotional weight of today, but of course, one parting hug from Yuna seemed to undo all that, and you were off again, crying against her shoulder as she stroked your back. She carefully managed to extract you and place you into Seokjin’s arms, his soothing words and familiar body warmth consoling you. After everyone left, you decided to head to bed. The room might have been different, neither yours nor his, but you realised that it didn’t bother you. You were together, in that humungous bed of his, and as long as you were together, everything was okay.

“You don’t have to let go of your house if it hurts to much” Seokjin murmured after some hesitation. “There’s no need to sell. I bought this house for us. Both of us, and our baby.”

Your new bedroom was partially lighted by your favourite lamp, but it sat on the floor. Somehow every nightstand you and Seokjin separately owned had ended up in another bedroom, which told you no one had been listening to their supervisor. It obscured a lot of his face, apart from his eyes, and you could see how carefully he watched you, as though he was desperate not to upset you.

“I know you did,” you smiled slowly, reaching for his face. “But it’s only right that I let go of my mom’s place.” You knew you needed to. What good was holding onto a house you no longer had any use for? It hurt to say goodbye, but you had to. “Not only because of us, but because someone else deserves to have their own home too,” you continued, voice thickening with emotion once again. “They deserve to own a place they love, decorate it how they want, make memories there like I did.”

Seokjin nodded thoughtfully, his mouth stretching into a devastatingly beautiful smile, his hand reaching for your bump under the covers. “Just like we’ll make all kinds of memories here.”

Exactly.

“I was thinking,” you whispered, moving in closer, but then you stopped. You’d wanted to bring this up with him for a week or so, but didn’t know how. Seokjin waited patiently, stroking your stomach, giving you the confidence to continue. “Maybe when my place sells…we can save the money for Glob when she’s older?”

This time Seokjin’s smile was wide and quick. “That’s a lovely idea.”

“Yuna called her a trust fund baby,” you chuckled, feeling relieved he liked the idea.

“Of course she did,” he laughed back, shaking his head and then letting out a hum, considering something. “Maybe we can write up some kind of clause. She can only use it for certain things, like school, or only get it when she’s married.”

You laughed against his shoulder, then looked up at him, tracing his jawline with the tip of your finger. He had stubble coming through and it felt good. “Our daughter won’t grow up spoilt.”

“No,” he agreed softly. Not that you doubted she would. Not with him as a role model. “But she’ll grow up as pretty as her mother.”

You groaned loudly, rolling away from him and covering your face. “You’re so cheesy, Seokjin!”

“I’m trying to make you smile,” he argued with a laugh, sounding offended.

You looked over at him, suddenly feeling guilty. “I’m happy. I am,” you told him, taking his hand. “Sorry if I’ve ruined today.”

Seokjin shook his head. “I know you’re happy, ____. You can feel two different emotions at the same time.”

Hearing that, you felt lighter with relief immediately. To be understood was a good feeling, but to be understood by Seokjin meant the world.

“Now, come here,” he demanded, scooping you up in his arms. “Let me hold you all night.”

“We won’t wake up like this,” you giggled.

“No,” he said, kissing the top of your head. “I’ll be curled up in a protective ball all the way over there—!” He pointed to the far side of the bed, then grabbed for one of your feet “—away from these!”

Three nights ago, in your sleep, you’d kicked him in the balls. He still hadn’t forgiven you.

“Stop,” you squeal-giggled, feeling ticklish and wriggling away from him as best you could. He heaved you back to him, determination written all over his face, and for the first time today, that empty feeling was gone.

With life so hectic, what with the house, work and baby appointments and classes, you didn’t really have much time to miss your mom’s house, and the empty feeling disappeared altogether. Thankfully. Seokjin and you settled into domestic life quickly, and you came to the realisation that anywhere could be home as long as you were both together. (But you were still glad you’d snagged your perfect home.) It was easy to live together, and you loved every moment of it. Each morning you both drove to work together, and his schedule permitted, you drove home together too. Seokjin spoke about teaching you to drive after Glob was born, quietly encouraging you when you immediately doubted yourself. If he had faith you could do it, you could too. You’d had approximately three lessons when you’d turned of age before you’d given up and decided it wasn’t for you. Maybe it was time to try again.

The house was coming along. All your furniture was now in its correct place, and the important rooms were painted and decorated – thanks to a great company Yuna recommended. Jungkook was in charge of Glob’s room though, currently in the middle of painting the most stunning mural on the feature wall. That man could draw. What wasn’t he good at? You kept him happy and energised with lots of sandwiches – his favourite food, puzzlingly – and you couldn’t wait to start getting her furniture inside – namely the crib your father was nearly finished making.

The rest of the house could wait until after the birth, or until you had more energy at least. It wasn’t as if you were desperate for it, the house was in pristine condition, only emphasised by the white walls found in every room. It wasn’t to your taste, but there was no rush. For now, you just wanted to concentrate on getting all the important things done before you gave birth in a little over six weeks. Eeeek.

“Glob, have you fallen asleep?”

“Don’t poke her,” you chided, staring at Seokjin just as he retreated his finger from your bare stomach. “You’re worse than a kid with a puppy.” You attempted to sit up straighter but gave up, the sofa too tempting to do anything other than slouch. There was also no point pulling your jumper down.

“We’re just catching up on our days,” he complained, looking up at you. He was stomach down, legs stretched out behind him.

“Her day was filled with some intense wriggling, a light crushing of my ribs and an even stronger squashing of my bladder.” Glob had gotten increasingly more active as the weeks had gone by. Each day the movements seemed to get stronger, and as she got bigger (bigger than average, you might add, Kim big baby gene confirmed) things just got more and more uncomfortable. You were no longer glowing. You were grumpy and cumbersome, and you were spending more time sat on the toilet than you were at your desk.

“I think she likes making me sprint for the bathroom,” you added, tapping your bump fondly. This pregnancy might be getting harder and harder, but you still loved your daughter more than humanly possible – and she wasn’t even born yet!

“I don’t think you can sprint anymore, angel.”

“I never could,” you snorted, then instantly groaned, feeling a jab. “No! Not more! Glob, go to sleep.” You said the last part sternly, looking down at your bump, only for it to contort again. Pregnancy was amazing, growing another human being inside you and all that, but by God, was it sort of freaky at times. The further along you got, the more you panicked Glob was going to punch and kick her way out of your womb instead.

Seokjin loved it though. His entire phone was filled with videos of your stomach doing freaky party tricks which he loved to show everyone and anyone that looked his way. He gently pressed his cheek to you, earning him a swift kick to the jaw which made him laugh loudly with pure joy. Strange man.

“I love you,” he sang to your stomach, kisses and all.

You wouldn’t be surprised if she came out saying those words, he told her so often. Then, having some kind of lightbulb moment, your eyes widened with excitement.

“What?” Seokjin asked, looking up as he noticed the expression on your face.

“I’ve just thought of something,” you replied loudly.

“Uh oh.”

You refrained from rolling your eyes. He sounded just like Yuna. Sitting up, he tilted his head, waiting patiently. “How do you feel about Sarang? For a name?” you prompted, when he regarded you blankly.

“Sarang,” he said slowly, feeling it on his tongue, considering.

You nodded eagerly. “You’re always telling her you love her.”

Hopefully that didn’t sound as accusing as it had come out. You were not at all jealous of your daughter. You were just merely stating a fact. He told Glob he loved her daily, and so did you. It was the perfect name. Your daughter was incredibly loved already. By you, him, your family, and your friends.

And oddly enough, you knew Seokjin loved you. You didn’t need to hear those three little words to believe it. He showed you how much with gestures and glances and touches – big and small – every day. But… maybe just maybe, it would be nice to hear it at least once…

You knew you could tell him first, but something was holding you back. A nervousness probably. You weren’t trying to overthink much anymore – especially this close to the end of your pregnancy – but it had been a long time since you’d been in love. In fact, the only time you had been was nowhere even close to this feeling with Seokjin. You understood that now. Your heartbreak from all those years ago with Taehyung felt so insignificant now. How had you let it dictate your life for so long? It seemed so absurd now.

You and Seokjin were building a life together, sharing every moment with each other, making a family. There was no other feeling like that in the world. You were devoted to this relationship, your little family.

“Sarang,” Seokjin repeated, smiling, totally oblivious to you silently going through it.

“Kim Sarang,” you beamed, shaking yourself out of it. You could be sappy another time. Right now you were on the verge of choosing a name for your child. You thought the day would never come. Up until now it felt like she’d be Glob forever.

“Kim Sarang.”

You liked it even better now that he had said it.

“What do you think, Glob?” he asked, leaning down to your bump as he stroked it with his palm. “Do you want to be called Sarang? Do you like it?”

“She likes it,” you laughed as she kicked. You watched Seokjin laugh too, then asked almost uncertainly, “Do you?”

He straightened up to press his mouth to yours. When he pulled away, he was grinning. Hard. “I think it’s perfect.”

So did you.

The next evening you were hosting a dinner party. Don’t ask. It seemed a good idea when it popped into your head – especially seeing as the dining room was one of the rooms completed and you wanted to show it off. Now though, not so much.

It was couples only, which meant Yuna and Jimin, and Hoseok and Kang as guests…and…Jungkook and Haram. It was a new development. A surprise one at that. Scrap that, a puzzling one. When he and Haram had come up to Seokjin and asked for him to lift Jungkook’s office dating ban, your man had been perplexed. Not only because he couldn’t remember the last time Jungkook had had a girlfriend, but because Haram? Really? She had always ignored Jungkook’s blatant flirtations. It didn’t make sense.

Jungkook had whined and whined to be invited tonight, and Seokjin couldn’t exactly say no, even if the idea of one of his employees being inside his home was a weird one. No offence to Haram of course, it just didn’t exactly scream professional. But she was now dating his best friend, so their professional relationship would probably be changing from here on in – until Jungkook inevitably fucked up. Then Seokjin would be left to deal with the mess.

You’d found a company online that delivered a dinner party to your door. No cooking required, only reheating. Which Seokjin insisted on doing. Yuna, unable to sit and do nothing despite being a guest, had to help too of course. It gave you all at the table some lovely peace and quiet, because you all (minus a clueless and awkward Haram) knew that wouldn’t be the case once it was time to eat. The first course had barely made it on the table before Yuna and Jungkook were jumping down one another’s throats. You’d only just managed to announce your daughter’s name.

They had long made up for their anti-climactic introduction at your baby shower. Their help had been graciously accepted while packing up and moving in, but those two together was not great for your inner peace. Which was another reason you were regretting tonight. One thing was clear now. Yuna and Jungkook vehemently annoyed one another – and vehemently annoyed anyone who was around them when they were together.

“You bring this up every time we see each other,” Jungkook sighed. “Give it a rest.”

“Will you both give it a rest,” Seokjin cut in, only to get ignored.

“I’m just saying, buying a baby a $300 coat is insane.” Yuna over enunciated each word directed at Jungkook across the table, but especially the last one. “It’s insane behaviour.”

Kang, sat beside her, looked positively gleeful while watching their interaction. At least someone found it entertaining.

“Do you know you can’t go around calling people insane?” Jungkook snapped.

“I can call you whatever I like.”

“Babe,” Jimin said beside her, sounding weary. He attempted a silent conversation with his eyes, and whatever he told her seemed to get through. She sighed very loudly before going silent. Jimin had made the mistake of insta-bonding with Jungkook, and you thought it was only now sinking in how often he was going to get stuck in the middle. He obviously had a type.

Jungkook smirked. “Yes, be a good little wifey, and listen to Jimin.”

“Babe!” Yuna was outraged, staring wide-eyed at her fiancé. Jimin looked between both of them before promptly giving up and going back to his soup.

“How about we change conversation topic,” Hoseok interrupted breezily, attempting to save the night.

“Fine by me,” Yuna shrugged, then set her attentions on the woman sitting next to Jungkook, smiling warmly – or evilly. “Haram, how did you and Jungkook meet?”

“Oh. Um.” Haram fumbled, her face flushing when everyone looked her way.

“She works at AGS. You obviously know this.”

“How would I obviously know that?” Yuna rolled her eyes. “Anyway, I was asking your girlfriend. Is she allowed to speak for herself?”

“Of course she is.” He huffed like a big kid. “God, why do you make me sound like such an asshole?”

“Maybe because you are,” Haram teased, or at least you thought it was teasing. She looked pretty serious. Jungkook shot her a look, and she coughed, straightening up. She looked reluctant when she angled her body towards him, or maybe you were imagining it. “He wouldn’t give up asking me out every time he visited. Eventually I caved.”

“That’s a lie,” Jungkook scoffed, attempting to make eye contact with her. He wrapped an arm around her shoulders casually. “I asked you out once, and you said no – because Seokjin banned me from dating his employers.”

“Why?” Yuna snorted, but he ignored her.

“That wasn’t the reason I said no,” Haram laughed, then caught the look on his face. “I’m kidding.” She lightly clasped his hand hanging over her shoulder, smiling over at Yuna. “Anyway, he—we,” she corrected quickly, “always used to talk at my desk and I guess…he just kind of grew on me.”

“Jungkook can grow on people?”

Yuna’s bewilderment made Haram and Kang laugh loudly. Jungkook pouted, and you felt a little sorry for him. Seokjin had a slight frown on his face, puzzled, but for different reasons. Yup, you had no clue what was going on here either.

Jungkook shook his head a little and continued. “She asked me to be her date for her cousin’s wedding.” He was almost gloating, keeping his gaze on Haram. “We had a great time together, didn’t we?” Her nod was imperceptible. Jungkook jerked his head towards Seokjin. “And then we had to ask his lordship over there for permission to date.”

“Lordship. I like,” you teased, grabbing Seokjin’s thigh. You caught Haram’s eye accidentally, and she quickly looked away. This was probably weird for her, no wonder she was acting so uncomfortable. She was having dinner at her boss’ house, and she’d just watched his girlfriend very obviously grope him under the table. This night was a disaster.

“What about you two?” Haram asked Yuna and Jimin, recovering.

“We were rivals, weren’t we, babe?” Yuna gazed lovingly at Jimin, making Kang snort.

“No, you thought I was your rival, I just wanted you to smile at me,” Jimin teased, leaning in to kiss her.

“Awww.” Haram didn’t have a chance to ask for more details because Jungkook butted in.

“So, rivals turned lovers,” he pointed at Yuna and Jimin, then at you and Seokjin “accidentally pregnant” – to himself and Haram – “friends to lo—,”

“Enemies,” she corrected with an evil grin, and for the first time tonight, her and Jungkook seemed like a real couple. He rolled his eyes playfully and squeezed her shoulder, smiling wide when he saw her smile too, pleased with himself.

“And what about you guys?” Haram asked Hoseok and Kang for him. “What trope are you?”

While Hoseok thought, Kang replied easily. “How about closeted gay man finds love at the tennis court? Oh, and the man he finds it with has commitment issues.”

“I do not!” Hoseok exclaimed loudly, then immediately turned sheepish. “Anymore…”

“Tonight was weird, right?” you asked Seokjin as he climbed into bed.

It was a few hours later and you were mentally and physically exhausted. Physically because of the pregnancy and mentally because your friends were hard work.

“Extremely.” He reached for you, desperately wanting your body heat. “I’m thinking we should have just invited Hobi and Kang.”

“I realised that as soon as I answered the door and interrupted Yuna and Jungkook’s first argument of the night.”

“I don’t know, I think they’re warming to each other,” Seokjin mused, stroking a hand down your arm. “She complimented his mural.”

“She did,” you agreed on a laugh, kissing his collarbone that was peeking out of his pyjamas. Seokjin squeezed your thigh. “Haram was at our house. My employee was having dinner with us!”

“Speaking of. Her and Jungkook…”

“I’m asking him about it tomorrow.”

“She hates him, doesn’t she?” you laughed, mentally recounting this evening, coming to a valid conclusion. “The sex must be amazing.”

Seokjin groaned. The idea of his best friend having sex obviously paining him.

“Come on!” you exclaimed, your hand absently dipping under his shirt. The muscles of his stomach rippled. Maybe your hands were too cold, but he didn’t push them away. “It must be good dick if you can’t stand the person it’s attached to.”

Seokjin considered this silently, then squeezed your wrist. “Am I good dick?” When you immediately burst out laughing, he whined. “Don’t laugh at me!”

“I’m sorry,” you apologised breathlessly, trying to control your giggles. “I just didn’t expect the words ‘am I good dick?’ to come out of your mouth!”

“Well?” he prompted.

You lifted up, looking down at him. “You know you are.”

“Do I?”

You tapped his chest. “You are the best dick.”

He cocked his head to the side. “That was easy.”

“What was?”

Taking your hand, he directed it to his crotch, squeezing your palm around his erection. Heat flashed in his eyes. Maybe your innocent touches hadn’t felt so innocent to him. That, and he obviously liked hearing his dick being called the best. While it was flattering, the last thing you wanted to do right now was have sex. He saw it on your face, deflating instantly.

“You don’t want to?”

“I’m sorry, I’m just really not in the mood.”

You removed your hand, stroking his chest instead. You weren’t in the mood very often lately. Too uncomfortable, bump too big. Seokjin smiled and pushed some hair behind your ear. “Don’t be sorry.” Then he chuckled, “I do miss the days when you used to jump me, though.”

Ah, such good, pleasurable times. You missed them too.

“I can possibly muster the energy for a hand job?” you offered. Hands stuff was all he was getting lately.

He growled and rolled you both on to your sides. “You know how to make a man crazy with want.” As you laughed, he pecked your nose, subdued when he spoke again. “But no, if you’re not getting any, I won’t get any either. Solidarity, and all that.”

“So caring. And that’s why—” You stopped abruptly, realising just in time what you were about to say. “I’m with you,” you recovered quickly.

If Seokjin noticed anything, he didn’t let on, smiling wide. “I thought you were with me because I got you pregnant?”

“That too,” you laughed. “I just have to find the good in all this bad.”

Seokjin hugged you to him and kissed your shoulder. “What do you think would’ve happened if you’d never been pregnant?”

“Hm?” You were slightly distracted.

“If you hadn’t gotten pregnant that night,” he repeated. “You would’ve had no reason to stalk me at the coffee shop.”

“It wasn’t stalking!” But he was grinning against your shoulder as if the idea made him beyond happy.

“What would have happened with us?”

You shook your head. “I don’t even want to think about it.” You hated the thought of not having Seokjin in your life. Hated the thought of never seeing him again.

“We might have still bumped into one another again,” he speculated.

“Maybe.”

Seokjin pulled back, smiling playfully. “Would you have said yes to dinner if you hadn’t been pregnant? You did run away from me.”

“I ran away because I was panicked,” you argued, “and you can talk!” He chuckled bashfully, but you liked that he no longer let the guilt eat away at him. “I might’ve said yes.” Maybe it was fun to play along with this little what if game. “I don’t know if I already said this, but…before I found out I was pregnant, I did think about that night quite often.”

“You never said, no.” He tried to be casual about it, but the shit eating grin was hard to hide.

“Don’t get a big head. It was the sex.”

“Ah yes, because I’m the best dick.”

“So maybe,” you continued, ignoring him, “if we had met again, and you had asked, I would have said yes to dinner—I would have eaten it, too,” you added as an afterthought.

“And you wouldn’t have fainted,” he added, chuckling softly. “Would you have gone back home with me?”

“Would you have invited me?”

“Maybe.” There was a beat of playful silence and then he cupped your bump. “We needed to make this baby one way or the other.”

“You’re ridiculous!” You batted him away, laughing.

Rolling on to your opposite side, Seokjin reached for you again, spooning you. He kissed your shoulder, all teasing gone. “I can’t imagine not having Sarang now, but I like to think we would’ve found one another again.” Your heart fluttered every time you heard him call your daughter by her name, but now it was fluttering because of his words. “You’re the woman of my dreams after all.”

“Now you’re just trying to charm your way into my vagina.”

He made an indignant noise from the back of his throat, pressing himself against your ass. “No boner in sight! See?!” He rubbed underneath your bump as you giggled, this time kissing the skin behind your ear. “I just can’t believe I get to do this every day. Me, you, Sarang… This house with you. I’m the luckiest man in the world. No, scrap that. Sometimes I feel like I’ve used all my luck up for this.”

“Don’t say that,” you mumbled. “You were born lucky.” He’d created a multi-million-dollar business after all. “Now you’re just even luckier,” you teased, wriggling against him. He’d bagged you, hadn’t he?

Seokjin chuckled softly. “I just…I know it won’t always be this easy. Probably beginning when this one is born.” He patted your belly. “But, I can’t wait to experience life with you.”

You swallowed down a lump in your throat. Why was he saying such lovely things? He knew you were highly emotional right now! You heard him open his mouth behind you, something else on the tip of his tongue, but you stopped him quickly. “Honey?”

“Yes?”

You tapped his hand sweetly. “Go to sleep now. You’re this close to making me cry.”

In the morning, Seokjin had to be at the office early, so it felt like you were riding the elevator to work before you’d fully woken up. It came as no surprise when you saw Namjoon’s coat hanging from the coat rack as you were removed yours. He was always here before everyone else. Smiling to yourself, you decided to surprise him. Hearing him yelp out of fear ought to wake you up, while also giving you a good laugh. Only, when you burst through the door to his office, he wasn’t in there alone.

He was locked in an embrace with Yeeun.

You immediately let out a shriek, the noise making them break apart. The surprised looks on their faces no doubt mirrored yours, and while Namjoon’s mouth opened as if he wanted to say something, nothing came out. You weren’t sure you had words either, so as quick as you’d rushed in, you rushed back out, slamming the door closed.

Braced against it for a moment, heart beating wildly, you tried to wrap your mind around what you’d just witnessed. Namjoon and Yeeun… Namjoon and Yeeun?!

Since when?!

Written 2022. Please refrain from posting my work elsewhere. No translations allowed. © floralseokjin 2022

#seokjin fanfic #bts fanfic #jin fanfic #fic:9mtfil #floralseokjin:writings

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kindlystrawberry · 4 months ago

Note

Comfortable Intimacy Prompt!

Let's go with [ injury ] sender cleans receiver's wound and patches it up. (I'm always so weak for a little wound care)

Can't pick a ship tho, so I'll let you pick who you think fits best with it.

PROMPTS FOR COMFORTABLE INTIMACY (accepting!) THANK YOU for this prompt, I'm also weak for wound care so this was an absolute joy to write. I think I may have written a slightly similar scene in Blue, but oh well, my heart yearns for it. Also, please suspend your disbelief a little at why they didn't just cast 'Return' to get home and drag Frey to the clinic. Let's say they were worried about moving her or something. AO3 link

! Content warning for some mildly gory injury descriptions in this one !

The ice is chilled beneath Frey’s hands, where her fingers curl into the ground to try and stifle the pain shooting up her leg. Still, there’s a layer of softness before it’s just sheets of ice and rock, likely from the fresh snowfall the night before.

Despite the rest of the crummy nature of the afternoon, the soft snow is a nice texture, at least.

She sits with her legs sprawled out in front of her, and the sun shining in her eyes as it rests uselessly over the border between the Sechs and Selphia. In front of her kneels Arthur, who is dutifully tending to the injuries sprawling up the length of Frey’s left leg.

Despite the sun, she’s shivering quite thoroughly, though absently Frey wonders how much of that is the weather and how much of that is the blood loss…

Either way, she’s grateful for where her lover had laid both his heavy cloak and his button-up coat around her shoulders, even if she’s worried about how he’s doing.

“The weather is helping coagulate the blood, at least,” Arthur murmurs, seemingly more to himself as his utmost attention is focused with clinical intensity on her leg. It isn’t a pretty sight, as dark red globs of crimson stain deep into the snow.

Thankfully, the princess isn’t too squeamish. It would be hard to be, after all the adventures and battles that her time in Selphia has taken her through, and all the (albeit, temporary) injuries she’s suffered in the meantime.

Still, this injury is particularly… not great.

It’s far from the worst that she’s gotten, but the great gashes of bite marks ooze blood in severe amounts.

“I need to disinfect it before performing any healing magic,” Arthur explains, voice lacking any of the ease of conversation that it usually carries. He pulls out some cloth from his bag and a bottle of clear liquid. “Otherwise the healing may close the infection inside the wound, which would not be ideal.”

“It’s good you came prepared,” Frey adds with a forced laugh, as her eyes trail from Arthur’s downcast face to his bag full of supplies.

He simply says, “Yes, it is,” before beginning to clean down her leg.

It hurts like absolute hells, of course, and the antiseptic that Arthur is applying adds to the overall pain. Regardless, Frey does her best not to wince or groan too much. She’s handled worse.

And, well… She doesn’t want to draw too much attention to herself right now.

For the last few minutes as the hurried haze of battle wares off, and as Arthur had quickly ran to where she collapsed and started performing first aid, Frey has had the sneaking suspicion that the blonde might be mad at her.

Even through its sheen of focus, Arthur’s face is pinched with displeasure in a way that it rarely ever is. His shoulders are stiff (so much so that they’re not even really shivering despite Arthur being in his undershirt), and his voice is curt whenever he has to ask her to move a certain way, or brace her for the next step he’s about to do.

She could attest all of these things to him simply focusing of course, as well as to being concerned, but even though Frey’s sure those are true, she’s convinced there’s something else too.

His face is less polite than his usual expressions almost always are; she wonders if it’s the cold environment, or maybe the adrenaline of a difficult battle leaving them both dazed, but Arthur almost seems more raw around the edges than normal.

His composure, almost always polished to perfection, now looks frayed, like rope on the verge of snapping.

And Frey thinks it might be her fault.

“Listen, Arthur,” she says carefully, unable to stand the silence any longer. Silences with Arthur are supposed to be comforting, relieving, romantic. Not tense and horribly awkward like they are now. He doesn’t lift his eyes, but she knows he’s listening. “I��m sorry that today didn’t go all that well, but everything’s going to be—“ she has to fight back a hiss of pain as he cleans a particularly deep gash— “f-fine. I’ve had worse, and—”

His curtain of blonde hair is blocking most of his expression from Frey’s sight, but she can hear that lance of something in his voice hot and clear now as he snaps, “Is that supposed to make me feel better?”

“I—” Frey’s eyes widen in shock. “What?”

“Knowing that the person I love has been hurt even worse than this is meant to be a comfort to me?” His voice cracks like a whip, not particularly loud but wound tightly like he can barely keep it under control. His hands don’t pause in what they’re doing, but when Arthur looks up at her his crimson eyes flash with a mix of pain and anger.

Ah. Yup. She knew it.

Somehow, the confirmation doesn’t make Frey feel better. It also doesn’t make Arthur’s anger go away.

Still, she finds that she can’t do much more than gape at the unusual shock of his outburst.

“I would hope,” he continues, voice more controlled now but still tense and simmering, “that at the very least your other injuries weren’t for reasons as careless as this one.”

“‘Careless?’” Now it’s Frey’s turn to sound upset, her voice turning indignant. “I knew what I was doing, it’s not my fault that the wolves ambushed—”

“You were being foolish.”

“I was protecting you!”

For the first time since Frey’s known him, Arthur’s voice raises to a shout. “And you shouldn’t have!”

The sound rings out across the mountainous caverns of ice and rock. Immediately Frey and Arthur freeze, both turning their heads to take stock of their surroundings. Thankfully, the alcove of rock they found seems to still be well-hidden enough from the main road, and there also doesn’t seem to be much activity on the border anymore. That, of course, was why Frey had thought it would be fine to let Arthur tag along while she foraged for materials today, but…

In front of her Arthur sighs, drawing her attention back to him.

His expression is pinched again, though this time more with regret than anything else. “I apologize.” His voice is still a little too stiffly formal, which Frey has always thought is one of the (admittedly few) tells that Arthur isn’t in a good mood. “I should not have raised my voice at you like that. And of course, I know you are not to blame for what happened today with the sudden monsters, but…”

He lifts his head, and once again the raw emotion in his eyes shocks Frey to her core. This time, however, they’re flooded with pained concern. For the first time, she realizes that Arthur is trembling now, but she’s not sure if it’s the cold or something else.

“Arthur…”

He casts his eyes down, focusing on her leg again. Having set the cloth and bottle aside, he spreads his palms wide and a green glow of magic dances beneath them. The relief is immediate, pain slowly starting to fade as magic aids Frey’s leg in stitching itself back together.

“If something were to happen to you—” Arthur cuts himself off as a tremor threatens to rise in his voice. He takes a deep breath, magic glowing stronger, and purses his lips. His voice is calmer when he starts again. “I loathe the idea of anything hurting you, in any capacity. If something awful were to happen, and even more so if it’s due to an effort to protect me then I… I don’t know if I could forgive myself.”

Despite the fact that Arthur’s speaking almost at a whisper now, and despite the icy winds howling in the distance, Frey catches every word.

She raises a hand to cup his cheek, and her heart aches at the way he leans into it. “Arthur… I feel the same way about you. And don’t get me wrong, it’s not like I want to get hurt, but… I just can’t help it. When I see you in danger like that, of course I’m going to throw myself in front of you.” Here her voice drops to the utmost sincerity. “I would do anything to protect you.”

Arthur finally smiles at that, as small and wry a thing as it is. “Of course, your selflessness is one of the things I love most about you, Frey. And yet… I can’t help but wish that sometimes you were a bit more selfish. At least when it comes to taking care of yourself.” A pause. A self-deprecating chuckle. “I do realize this sounds quite a bit hypocritical, coming from me.”

“Yeah, a bit.” A bubble of laughter passes through Frey’s lips, and her heart delights in how Arthur’s smile grows minutely.

With one last bright flash of green, Arthur’s magic goes out, leaving Frey’s leg almost completely healed. There’s still some scarring and scabbing here and there, but nothing that either Jones can’t fix or that she doesn’t already have somewhere else on her body.

“How does that feel?” Arthur asks, sitting back. His face is pale from exertion, and there’s sweat pooling on his brow, but otherwise he looks much calmer than he did a few minutes ago.

Frey shifts her leg, trying to put some weight on her ankle at this angle to test it. “Pretty good! Let me see if I can…” she starts to stand, though Arthur is quicker to jump to his feet and offer his hand in assistance. “Thanks,” she says, with a fond smile and something of a blush, even at the smallness of the gesture.

Arthur’s cloak and coat fall off her shoulders, but she is able to stand and put weight on the leg with only a lingering weight behind it.

“Practically good as new,” she says, turning a bright smile on him as they both bend down to pick up his fallen clothes. “But if you don’t at least put your coat back on, you’re going to die of hypothermia before we make it back to Selphia Plains.”

A wry smile lightly touches Arthur’s lips. “Alright, but I insist you keep the cloak. If you don’t wear something over that dress in this cold then I might just die of worry first.”

They both laugh at that, picking up their bags and things, and as easily as ripples form in a lake their hands drift towards each other, fingers intertwining.

“I apologize again for raising my voice like that,” Arthur says regretfully, as they start to make their way back the way they came. “I shouldn’t have added to your pain, when you are already injured.”

“I forgive you. And I’m sorry for worrying you like that. And…” She takes her bottom lip between her teeth, gnawing a bit at the cold, chapped skin. “I can’t promise it won’t happen again, but… I promise to try and be more careful.” She whirls on him, pointing a finger at his chest. “If you promise to, too!”

Arthur’s smile grows. He grabs the hand that’s pointing at him and raises it to his lips, pressing a cold but tender kiss against her knuckles. “I promise. I love you, Frey.”

“I love you too.”

#mine #my writing #inbox prompt #rf4 #rune factory 4 #asafure #arthur x frey #arthur d lawrence #frey rf4 #arthur rf4 #fanfic #fanfiction #fic #rf4 fanfiction #mild gore

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23raccoons · 2 months ago

Text

let me bleed (you're losing me) Ao3

Fandom: Naruto (Anime & Manga) Rating: Explicit Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con Relationships: Haruno Sakura/Uchiha Sasuke, Haruno Sakura/Nara Shikamaru, Haruno Sakura & Uzumaki Naruto, Haruno Sakura & Yamanaka Ino Characters: Haruno Sakura, Uchiha Sasuke, Nara Shikamaru, Hatake Kakashi, Yamanaka Ino, Sai (Naruto), Karin (Naruto), Uchiha Madara Additional Tags: Dubious Consent, Blood and Violence, Unhealthy Relationships, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, Dark Uchiha Sasuke, Dark Nara Shikamaru, Protective Hatake Kakashi, Rough Sex, Oral Sex, Vaginal Sex, Self-Harm, Akatsuki (Naruto), War, Konoha 11 (Naruto), Everyone is Problematic ok?, Heavy Angst, Domestic Violence, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Fourth Shinobi War (Naruto), Memory Loss, PTSD, Manipulation, Bullying, Suicidal Thoughts, Degradation, Dacryphilia

Chapter 6 (chapter list)

Sasuke’s lying on the bedroll, tucked on his side, as he’s assessing his injuries from the fight. Wondering how long Karin will have to recover before he can bite down on her arm and get his broken ribs healed. Stuck in Madara’s cave of a hideout—nothing like the vast structures of Orochimaru’s lairs. Stuck, waiting to fight again. He’s been drifting in and out of consciousness since.

Tobi had brought him here, along with a Karin who is much less close to death than she had been when he stabbed through her to kill Danzo. She lays next to him. Alive. Saved by Sakura.

‘Kakashi-sensei?’ Like the echo of an echo. Sakura. Sasuke focuses on the genjutsu still running through Sakura, drifting back into what remains of it. Memories of Kakashi float by, whispier than before. Nothing solid enough for him to grip onto, but just enough to drag his fingers through.

His Sakura, who has been taken from him. By Kakashi. By Naruto. But they don’t know. Once he finds her, he will never lose her again.

‘Kakashi-sensei.’ They’re a little more solid now—the consistency of the globs of gelatin served with lunch at the academy. Still not enough to snatch onto. squeezing itself out of his grip.

The ‘Naruto?’ That bounces around is solid. Crystalline. He latches onto it with vigor—vivacity, a liveliness he has not felt in a long time—along with any of the other memories that have been stirred up of Naruto.

He seems to be in Sakura’s long-term memories, nearly at the funnel-like juncture of her short-term memories. The system that keeps her thoughts organized and in motion spider-webbing out from that focal point. Glossimer and glittery. Astronomical, seemingly endless. It goes on as far as his sharingan can see.

Memories twinkle like stars as they dance along the pulsing currents. Some of them are attached to lustrous metallic threads that move them along, some of them suspended in place. Occasionally one will pulse, glowing brighter. As if alerting the system to the memory’s location.

Galactic. Cosmic. Celestial.

Sakura.

Heaven .

A few of the strands run through the space he occupies, and when the twangs one, the sound is light. Crispy and airy, and a memory floats up the tread. Sasuke grabs it. It’s him, walking past her in a market of some nameless outpost. Her upset rises in him. Another twang. Another chime-like sound. Another memory. The night Sasuke threatened to leave her unconscious in the forest if she tried to follow him. She’s so sad. He can feel the ache in his own heart as he holds it. He frowns, taking this one too.

‘Where’s Naruto?’

The other string vibrates with a hum. A memory floating along. Sasuke reaches for it. It’s not Naruto, but Sakura, on her knees, weeping. He can feel this one too—the shattering heartbreak when she screams Naruto’s name, like he is some mythological god Sakura is praying too.

Sasuke’s fingers tighten around the memory before he throws it as hard as he can, putting his whole self into the motion. It shatters into a rain of shimmery space dust and crystal fragments on the boundaries of the genjutsu. Invisible, but solid. Immovable under his fingertips. The shards lose their shimmer as they fall, slipping through the genjutsu into the dark abyss below.

He laughs. Grabbing the next ‘Naruto’ as it bobs around. Shattering it also. He feels like a god.

Sakura’s god.

Sakura’s mind slips into darkness, the lights dimming down, the noise reduced to a low hum. Sasuke backs out of the genjutsu just a moment too soon to catch the ‘Alive’ that rings through her head. ‘Safe’.

Back on his bedroll, Sasuke smiles.

What could be better than being alone together than being always together? It’s the peak prize. The reward for all his actions. All his training and hard work. And after the fall of Konoha. After Naruto dies, once and for all. He will have her in his arms again.

Safe.

His .

It’s sometime before Sakura’s mind lights up again. Chimes and dings and hums as the thoughts pass by at a faster pace than before, when Sasuke sinks into it. Less peaceful than before, Sakura must be anxious, panicking, the way her thoughts have turned. No longer bobbing along loosely one or two at a time, but gathered together. Rushing through her mind like a river. Several of them. He can see them off in the distance, winding across her mind space like intergalactic snakes.

Whatever’s happening to her is glitching her processing systems. It’s harder for him to tell what is happening outside her head. Both the webbing and the memories themselves flicker. A high hum that peaks and falls in time with the outages.

A memory bobs down the line that feeds the Sasuke-memories. Substantial. Hefty, weighty in his hands. It’s Kakashi hurting Sakura. Sasuke can feel her pain radiating out of him. It’s excruciating. How dare he cause her distress? Anguish and grief. Agony.

He breaks off a piece of the memory, Sakura’s anger at Kakashi, placing it back on its line to whoosh it’s way out of his sight. Keeping the rest for himself.

Sasuke will not let Kakashi harm Sakura. There will be no need for Sakura to retaliate. He will deliver her vengeance for her. Punishment. Retribution. He will hunt down and butcher all of those involved. The ones who stood by and watched. The ones who held her down as she screamed and fought against them. Fucking Nara Shikamaru.

They will all die.

(He will grant one singular grace to Yamanaka Ino for being the only one to try to fight for Sakura. She may live. For now. As long as she stays out of his way.)

Hatake Kakashi has personally declared war on Sasuke. And what a magnificent war there will be.

Sasuke will burn the whole fucking world to ash to find Sakura again.

Weeks slip by with little from Sakura, her mind alternating between sleep and meditation. Healing chakra coats everything a majority of the time. The layer spread so thin Sasuke has to have his Sharingan on to see it—the slight opalescent color-shift it gives everything. Things start running better. Smoother. Faster. He gets better at determining what in her mind needs his attention and what does not. Big thoughts, loud ones with a lot of emotion, are catchable, but most of her day-to-day life is cloudy, like smoke. It curls around him when she’s conscious. Illuminating the webbing. Laser beam paths of interstellar travel. Memories that solar-flare off in the distance.

The one thing that makes him the most fucking annoyed, though, is that one strand, one line of the webbing, is far out of Sasuke’s reach, hums near constantly, like someone is always around. Nara Shikamaru.

More concerning than whatever has her attention, however, are the lightning storms that keep popping up in Sakura’s mindscape. Ethereal. Great puffs of dust and debris, small tornadoes that upheave neat stacks of memories, leaving them scattered about. The state of Sakura’s mind spends quite a while in limbo, days and weeks of constant healing chakra cycling through her brain. (Her physical brain, because the electricity flowing through her is real enough to zap at him if it comes too close.) Before she brings herself to a state of slightly positively charged homeostasis.

War preparations begin. Sasuke slaughters every Five Nations soldier he comes across. Anyone who stands in his way. On the hunt. On a mission. The first phase of the war, from their very first battle strategies, the Five Nations fell right into the Akatsuki’s trap. Hook. Line. Sinker.

Assuming the Akatsuki would split its forces when they attacked, the Five Nations prepared a two-prong defense plan. Leaked information misleading the allied forces to believe the higher ranking members of the Akatsuki would come from the area of Ame—the main base—their strongest fighters would be there, backed by a smaller Zetsu army. While the second prong from the other side of the continent dealt with a larger but less talented Zetsu army. Planning out battle strategies accordingly.

What no one in the Five Nations was expecting, however, was for Sasuke to turn up in Konoha. Alongside the long-thought-dead Uchiha Madara. There’s little defense. All their best ninja are off at war. Most of the civilians have joined the evacuated countries for shelter and food and protection. Two men manage to take the greatest ninja village in mere minutes.

Of course, it didn’t help them when they entered the near deserted encampment Nara Shikamaru had been waiting, ready and willing to turn traitor on Konoha. To arrange a nice little deal for himself, to remain guardian over his family’s lands, in exchange for whatever information Shikamaru has to offer, which is…a lot. (He’s been the personal assistant to Kakashi, who’s been playing the part of Shadow Hokage ever since Tsunade came into office.)

“Why bother if you already know the outcome will be a loss?” Shikamaru questions, both hands in the air to show his surrender. “There’s no sense in needless fighting. I’d rather live to see tomorrow.”

Hands in his pockets, Shikamaru leads them to the core of Danzo’s ROOT organization. The deep underground lair had survived Pein’s attack, sealed off by Shikamaru himself on Kakashi’s orders, as a good faith offering to Madara. Shikamaru is a good talker. He knows how to get people to like him. To think he’s witty and humorous. And it works. Shikamaru gets claim to his family’s land, under the rule of Uchiha Madara.

Sasuke lets him. If only because he knows Shikamaru could be the key to finding Sakura. Out in the shadows of the forest, there are plenty of hiding spots. She could be tucked away, right under his nose. It’s the closest he’s been to her since he began his bloody search.

The Five Nations troops are pushed back. Now on the defense, retreating and hiding. Resorting to guerrilla-style warfare. Months and months of hiding and fighting. It matters little. If any of the remaining Uchiha’s hit the battlefield, the opponents scramble. Tuck their tails and take off. Fleeing in hopes they will survive the carnage that is sure to follow.

The New Konoha becomes the Akatsuki’s second main base, after Ame, soldiers and civilians alike flock to the city in droves, working to construct buildings and houses. Shops and marketplaces. Neat rows and rows of tents.

Madara is a god of war. They say Sasuke’s retribution for the kill-on-sight order against him is to kill every ninja that crosses his path. (He does not always succeed. Every battle with Kakashi comes to a draw. The damaged battlefields the size of counties between them.) Tobi is unhittable, untouchable. Akatsuki members that have been reincarnated, back from the dead, legions known for being bloodthirsty and vicious. The ground soaked and soggy. Muddy with the spilt blood of the enemy.

Kabuto comes back to Konoha, working with Tobi and the Zetsu to develop better reincarnations, using the underground ROOT headquarters as his personal project playground. Ones that can think and fight for themselves, who will remain alive much longer than the others.

Sasuke waits, knowing Shikamaru is smart. That he has traps set. Sasuke spends his time pretending he does not know his Sakura is so close he can almost taste her.

He waits and waits and waits. A cobra coiled, ready to strike. Then one day, overcast and snowy, the strange chakra-infused deer that would warn of his approach are distracted, something on the far side of the property dragging their attention away from the main house. Shikamaru’s already in Konoha for a strategy meeting—one Sasuke is supposed to be attending. Giving him the chance to make his way onto the property. Right up to the house and on the veranda. Stopping outside a sliding door, sensing someone inside.

He smiles. Sakura. Just on the other side of the door.

Pushing it open, he steps through the threshold. Wearing his shoes on the tatami mats with little concern for damage. Closer than she’s been in months. Curled up under a pile of blankets.

“Sakura,” he calls to her, slipping enough into her mind to feel the vibration of his string calling for a memory. There are no more memories of him or Naruto for it to spit up, all hanging in the empty space of the genjutsu full of Sasuke’s stolen treasures. Glinting when she tries to retrieve them.

Sakura looks terrified at the sight of him, and it takes a beat or so to realize she doesn’t remember him at all. He pulls a stray ‘Sasuke’ and sends it up the line. And in real life, it falls from her lips like honey.

“Sasuke.”

He steals it back when it bounces by, watching the recognition fade from her eyes. He can sense the confusion in her mind. She’s frightened. Of him. Of every threat that comes along. He does not want Sakura to be scared of him. Sakura loves him. He has no weapons. He’s made no moves against her since he’s entered the room. He shows her she loves him. But as soon as the memory is back in his hands, her apprehension resurfaces.

She tries to rise. And he can really see how fragile her body is. Weak, she can hardly bring herself to stand. Sasuke panics. He was unprepared for her to be ill. Weakened. Sick. To not be in any state to be moved from her location. Sakura’s eyeing him, clearly unsure of what to do. Tightening the heavy quilt around her shoulders, thick enough it seems to weigh her down.

“Are you a Konoha Shinobi?” She questions, not being discreet when she looks over him. He’s a Shinobi. He is residing in Konoha. He nods. Turning to leave. To be gone before Shikamaru returns. Needing to assess the situation better before he makes any decisions.

“Excuse me, Shinobi-san,” she calls out to him, swallowing thickly. Nervously fidgeting with the fraying edge of her blanket. “I-uh, the fire, it's gone out. I can’t get it re-lit.”

He nods. Had Shikamaru left her out here in the cold—alone—with no way to warm herself?

The state of the kitchen mirrors that of her mind—chaotic. Matches, used and unused, scattered around the hearth. Burnt pieces of paper and ash and scorched kindling. All the metal fireplace tools spread around where she must have been sitting trying to light the fire, unable to do something so basic. He eyes the baggy sleeves that cover the chakra cuffs he knows she’s wearing.

Sasuke steps around where she has frozen just inside the doorway, dropping to his knees in front of the hearth. She watches anxiously as he tidies her mess. He pulls out of the genjutsu. The palpable taste of her fear of him—of being alone with a strange man— in there makes him want to gag. Using the ash broom to sweep the matches into a pile, pulling out the still usable ones, tucking them back into the matchbox. Pulling out the logs and kindling. Sweeping ash and the remnants of Sakura’s attempts to light the fire all into the soot bin. Hanging the tools back in their place.

He restacks the fire. Making a neat bundle of kindling. Lighting a match, and in moments the whole set up is ablaze. Warmth and light flickering across the room. Sasuke is smart. Skilled. A shinobi. He does not know how to care for someone who is ill.

“Thank you, Shinobi-san.” She bows to him politely, like he is every bit the stranger she thinks he is. But even if her mind does not know him, her body does. With the way tears flood down her cheeks, landing on the flooring below her. She doesn’t even seem to notice she is crying.

Sasuke flees with haste. Of course he cannot have Sakura yet. He has not completed his self-appointed mission yet. His promise to her.

Kakashi must die.

Dead-last Naruto must die.

Fucking Nara Shikamaru must die.

And then Sakura will be his reward.

(He steals the memory as it comes by his space in her mind. Shattering it against the invisible floor.)

Sakura is not afraid of Sasuke. Sakura loves Sasuke.

Right?

Sometimes...sometimes the memories are confusing. He had thought Sakura’s obsession aligned with his own. Something physical. An ownership per say. But the way she feels—the empathy, the heartache, the sorrow—is overpowering to Sasuke. Things he’s never felt. Things he has no desire to feel. The price he pays every time he picks up a memory to see himself from her point of view.

He’s a monster to her. He really is. Callus and harsh. Mean. Much too rough with her when he was fucking her. Bruises and scratches and bite marks she heals while she cries after he’s left her yet again. And all she does in return is care for him. Worry over him. Love him.

Sasuke would hate himself if he was her.

But Sakura doesn’t remember that Sasuke anymore. And she’ll never have to. He can start over. Start fresh. A second chance where he can always be certain that she loves him and only him.

Chapter 7

#sakura haruno #kakashi hatake #shikamaru nara #sasuke uchiha #dark sasuke #dark shikamaru #sasusaku #sasuke x sakura #shikasaku #shikamaru x sakura #let me bleed (you're losing me)#fanfic #naruto fanfiction

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apoptoses · 2 years ago

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To Bring You My Love Armand/Daniel ~2k PG armand hates the subway/cuddling/gratuitous description of how daniel sounds and smells

@rainbowcarousels put the idea in my head to rewrite the subway ride from Pale Shelter from Armand’s pov, just to see how it would be different. Naturally I had to run and do it. You don’t need to have read the bigger fic to enjoy this but I recommend you do so anyways, for extra context.

Also on AO3.

The 72nd Street Metro Station was a monstrous thing.

Armand had a far off memory from his youth of visiting a bee keeper. He didn’t remember the finer details of it, but the experience of seeing the man reach into the wooden box and pull out a panel of honeycomb was one he could not forget. Great viscous globs of honey dripped from the panel, tantalizing and sweet, but what stuck out in Armand’s mind was the bees. The deafening sound of them as they crawled atop one another. It had been difficult to tell where one insect ended and another began, and yet none of them seemed to mind. They stepped on one another without any grace or care, entirely focused on some task the bee keeper had tried to explain. Armand had been unable to take in any of his words. He was too amazed by the swarming, writhing mass before him to hear him.

As he followed Daniel to the gates, subway token in hand, Armand felt as if he were within the swarm.

He would have held on to Daniel’s arm. He was becoming fond of doing that, even though he was perfectly capable of tracking him through any crowd. But Daniel was angry with him. It was understandable, of course- Armand remembered being so unhappy when his master took his leave of him. It was only that he couldn’t bear to explain the necessary steps of keeping Daniel safe.

Daniel had only recently begun to drop his guard around him. Less and less he was thinking about the thing Armand was. If Armand explained to him the necessity of clearing out younger vampires from the city he was in, of hunting them down one by one and dispatching them from their immortal existence and all that entailed, how could Daniel ever look at him and not see him as nothing but a monster? And then the thirst he’d begun to experience around this boy every time he got his heart rate up-

No, Armand could not think of even acknowledging that.

Instead he examined the subway token, a round gold coin not unlike those he’d used to purchase his first set of fine clothes in Venice. There was a Y shape cut out in the middle. He had the passing thought to ask Daniel why, what that meant, but then Daniel was putting his in the slot already. He copied him, watching in fascination as the coin clinked inside the box and the turnstile unlocked to allow him to pass through.

The people around them buffeted Armand about like a ship tossed around on the sea. He kept one eye on Daniel as he scanned the crowd.

Men in business suits. Ladies in bell bottoms and platform heels. Children tugged along by harried parents. A small group of nuns in full habit, chatting as they swept by. A homeless man, asleep on the cold hard floor. A man walking a dog, yes, a dog in this indoor space.

Armand had been in great crowds before, of course. Venice at midday had been a busy place and he’d had to keep the laces on Riccardo’s doublet wrapped around his hand to keep himself from getting lost. But that had been during the day, with the sun shining down and the sea breeze wafting away the smell of humanity. The artificial light within the subway was eerie in comparison. It made the people look like ghouls as they rushed from place to place.

He’d stopped to watch a jazz band play, crammed into the corner, raucous but largely overlooked. Daniel tugged at his sleeve and through the labyrinth they continued.

Together they clattered down the stairs. Down and down and down until they came to the platform at last; that dimly lit, dank place, stinking of sour water and piss. The platform was unbearably crowded. Armand could hardly imagine how they all expected to get on the train, much less where they could all be going.

“Hieronymous Bosch was wrong,” Armand said as they stood at the edge together and waited for the train to come.

Daniel gave him a curious look. “Wrong about what?”

“He painted hell as a fantastical place, lit by fire and full of strange mythical beings. He was wrong,” Armand said. The tunnel had begun to shake. Even the rats down on the tracks scampered to safety. “This. This is hell.”

The train roared like some great beast as it rushed into the station, so swiftly Armand’s hair blew back from his face with the breeze it brought with it.

Daniel laughed and took him by surprise with the way he put his arm around his shoulders. “I imagine most of New York would agree with you.”

The train doors opened. Before Armand could step aside the crowd spewed forth from within the train car, jostling even his immortal form hard enough he stumbled back against Daniel. The car appeared narrow, and covered in graffiti. Armand wasn’t entirely sure he wanted to get in but then he hardly had a choice. People were pushing from behind and he and Daniel were caught up in the current.

Perhaps this was an experience he would enjoy in the afternoon, when he could take in the sights of people on the seats and the tunnels blurring together outside the windows. But now, during rush hour, Armand was in the belly of the beast. People were packed in so tightly he could imagine it would be difficult for a mortal to breathe. It was hard for him to remember to breathe, as unnecessary as that function was for him.

And the sensation of it-

Hundreds of hearts were pounding around them all at once, the sound intermingling with their owners’ thoughts until it was deafening. There was the smell of a thousand different soaps, laundry detergents, aftershaves, all synthetic and cloying. The alcoholic tang of hairspray. The underlying hint of piss and body odor and something herbal that brought Armand straight back to the days he’d spent in a brothel smoking hemp. Around every person an aura burned, colors blending and blurring as they swam before Armand’s eyes.

Armand had learned to tune out his unnatural senses ages ago, but this was a test even for him. He was completely subsumed by the sensory experience of this narrow, miserable train car.

Somehow Daniel pushed them through the crowd. Got them over by the door, where they could lean against the filthy glass. Wrapped one arm around Armand’s shoulders, the other around his waist so that he was held close, protected from the crush.

“I hardly need protecting,” Armand murmured.

A half truth. Against any predator he would be fine, even in close quarters such as this. But against the heaving smells and sounds of the subway car?

Armand needed all of the protection he could get.

“Yeah, I’m aware of that. It’s the rest of the people in here I’m worried for, trust me,” Daniel joked and patted his back.

The doors shut with a dull thud. The monster they were within lurched to life. Around them the crowd stumbled but Armand’s feet stayed firmly planted on the sticky floor.

He couldn’t recall ever having been so close to Daniel before. Certainly couldn’t recall Daniel ever holding him so willingly, but if there was any time it would be a miracle for him to forget his anger and his hesitance around Armand it was this.

Armand rested his cheek against Daniel’s sternum. Slipped his arms around his waist and closed his eyes. Let himself drown in this boy as the rest of existence faded away into the background of his mind.

Once Armand had found the smell of cigarettes acrid. He’d hated the smoke, the nicotine that stuck to the works of art around him and stained everything hazy yellow. But in coming to know Daniel he’d come to find it a comfort, sharp and familiar as he buried his face in his t-shirt and inhaled the remnants of his evening cigarette. It blended with the smell of the cologne Armand had found for him; the cinnamon and clove and frankincense. A smell that took him straight back to old Venice, that he’d searched so hard in the dark department store to find.

You’re using the aftershave I left for you.

Yeah, well. Waste not want not, that’s what my mom always said.

Armand hardly meant to nuzzle against Daniel like some desperate housecat. It was only that he couldn’t help it, not when Daniel rested his chin atop his head and stroked his shoulder.

He was so warm. The quiet rasp of his breathing joined the rhythm of the blood that rushed through his heart. Daniel had eaten something for dinner and Armand could hear the wet gurgle of digestion within him, an old and unfamiliar sound that was delightful to his ear. Armand curled his fingers in his shirt and pressed his cheek harder against his broad chest.

Above him Daniel was wondering if he’d ever been held or comforted as a child. If maybe that was why he didn’t do such things for Daniel without being begged.

It felt as if a fist had clenched around his heart. Armand had hurt this boy and yet here he was, sheltering him from the torment of the subway. Daniel was truly better than he deserved.

His violet eyes met Armand’s in the smudged glass on the door. Armand, unable to hold his gaze, squeezed his eyes shut. He would do better. He had to do better. Daniel had no idea how much he’d come to mean to him these past months, that Armand was considering breaking every vow he’d ever made to himself just to have him for the handful of years that was a mortal lifespan. For now that he had been held in Daniel’s arms how could he not seek this out every night from this one forward?

The subway train was beginning to slow. Armand could barely hear the squeal of the breaks above the pounding of Daniel’s heart.

He kept his eyes closed as the doors opened and let Daniel guide him to step back from the rush of people exiting the car. A new flood of humanity got on. Around them the sounds and smells shifted with this new jumble of commuters but Armand paid them no mind. He was safely enclosed in his little space between Daniel’s chest and the cold metal door; in the familiar and wonderful experience of him.

“How much further, Daniel?” he mumbled.

Daniel stroked over his arm, up and down, again and again. His heart picked up when Armand turned his face and rested his forehead on his clavicle. When he swallowed Armand could hear the wet click of his throat.

“Seven more stops and then we’ll be there.”

I should have just gotten in the car with him, this is a pretty shitty way to travel even for someone who’s curious about anything and everything.

Armand inhaled deeply and ran his hands up beneath Daniel’s jacket. They came to rest on his shoulder blades, fingers spread out as he tried to gauge the width of them. Daniel was so delicate and yet so strong. For the duration of this subway trip Armand could pretend he was mortal again, just a young man curled up in his lover’s arms.

The subway was a perfectly pleasant way to travel, Armand decided. Seven stops could not pass by slowly enough.

#fun fact: from daniel's pov this scene was 719 words #from armand's pov: 1924 words #he's a verbose little shit #anyways have some extra snuggly feelings before I post chapter 2 and break daniel's heart #armand/daniel #armand #daniel molloy #the devil's minion #the vampire chronicles #vc fic #apoptoses fic

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noffy96 · 1 year ago

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Errink fic: What death takes from us Chapter 2

Well, so far the poll is voting for today...but night has passed for me so it's technically tomorrow? So both sides win? Next time I will think a bit harder on that poll, it was a bit spur of the moment XD

But here it is Chapter 2! And i am quite proud of it. so everyone go enjoy

What death takes from us:

Painfull struggles:

Word count: 9166

Chapter (2/3) (In process)

(previous chapter)

Chapter Summary:

Ink is hiding, how much he is struggling with the current situation. He doesn't want Error to know how much he misses that he could simply touch him. But one phone call might just change all that.

Link here to AO3

Or continue below the read-more line

He dipped the brush in the glob of yellow and continued to paint. He had been at it for hours. This was the third painting of the day, and at this point, his mind had zoned out. His body just continued on autopilot.

The quiet was nice. It won't last. But it was nice. He tried to ignore all the different colors bubbling under the surface trying to come up and take hold of him once more.

He just wanted to enjoy the moment of calm for as long as it lasted, having been way too frenzied even for his own liking. But today was a day off. Error was hanging out with Blue and Lust, finally able to catch up on Undernovela after the crazy months they had just had.

A soft smile came over his face as a bit of pink flooded his system. He was sure he was gonna hear all about it later.

There was a buzzing sound, and he looked down at his phone. He had forgotten it was here. He had been listening to some podcast of sorts, but he didn’t know when that had stopped. He checked the screen. It read ‘Dream calling’. A burst of yellow and blue came to the surface, and with some fumbling, he accepted the call and put him on speaker, so he could continue his work.

“Heya Dream, it’s been a while.”

“Ink…you saw me two days ago,” Dream said with a sigh.

He blinked surprised staring at the screen for a second when a memory came to him. Of himself, Blue, and Dream helping out in Outertale. Something about people being stuck on asteroids.

“Ah, you are right, my bad.”

“So…uh…how have things been with you and Error?” Dream asked awkwardly.

The blue took over the yellow, and everything around him seemed to dim in color.

“No updates…still the same, just like last month…and the month before that…and the month before that…”

He was trying to sound neutral. Which he normally did without a problem. But now…it felt like there was a hint of bitterness in his own tone.

Error’s death had really set things back for them. They didn’t have an incident quite like the one on the first day he returned. But even standing close to his boyfriend made the glitches spring up.

“I am…sorry to hear that…”

He gave an answering hum. It might be the slight static coming through the phone, but he wasn’t sure if Dream fully meant what he said.

Dream and Error never really got on. He knew his Glitchy could care less about Dream.

But Error cared enough for him to not be a total asshole about it. He just grumble a bit, and it wasn’t like he would force Error to change.

They didn’t like each other. It wasn’t a big deal, Both of them could set aside their anger if it really came down to it.

Well, he hoped so anyway.

His own relationship with his former best friend was…Strained to say the least.

Noticing a mistake in his work, he frowned and went to fix it.

“How is the truce with Nightmare going?” he asked the golden twin.

“I am surprised you remembered”

He gave a shrug the other couldn’t see over the phone.

“But things are going…”

There was a pause in which he heard some rustling like Dream was changing positions.

“Good, I suppose.”

He gave another hum.

“Just not as fast as you hoped?”

“I Guess…, I think…I thought I’d be able to talk more about…you know everything that happened but we mostly just…I dunno”

“Talk business?” he offered.

Dream laughed softly.

“Hit the nail on the head with that one. Dunno what I expected…more I suppose.”

He could almost see the positive guardian shrug.

“Don’t worry, you got all the time in the world to sort things out…I mean, if you could forgive me enough to start talking to me again…well I have no doubts You and your brother can manage as well”

He could feel yellow flow through him, trying to put as much care and sympathy in his voice as possible, probably overshooting it by a bit. The long pause that followed made him worry he had said something wrong.

“I guess so…”

And try as he might he wasn't able to tell what Dreams' tone meant. So before another long pause would come he decided to quickly change subjects.

“So how's your break? Gone anywhere fun?“

He asked vaguely remembering Blue having mentioned going somewhere with Dream. As he cleaned his brush and now dipped it in a vibrant red.

“...feeling less like punishment...” Dream stated hesitantly “ I am sure you heard from Blue?”

“That he caught you trying to increase the Au’s positivity, when you were off duty. Yes, I did. I think he mentioned it along with lecturing me for the same thing?” He said with a laugh

“Are…you really that stressed..?”

Blinking at the question. Feeling his eyes' shapes change several times, pulling away from the canvas.

“Guess so?...dunno…?”

He felt blue and purple start to mix but it wasn’t making him sad…more anxious. But for what he wasn’t sure.

“Just don’t push yourself too hard okay, We don’t want what happened to Error to happen to you.”

He took in a quick gasp and quickly shook his head. Trying to get rid of the unwanted image that popped into his head. Quickly grabbing some more paint, some of it dripping of the brush and onto his toes as he brought it back to the canvas.

“Awww! You do still care about me after all.”

His voice sounded wrong, too much-forced cheer. When he wasn’t feeling any of it, in the way the yellow was coming through, over the much stronger purple he tried to swallow down

“I never stopped idiot. ''

Dream snapped back loudly, and he fell silent. Feeling various shades of blue. Dream had sounded hurt. He had just meant it as a fun tease

“Sorry..”

He mumbled automatically and he heard Dream let out a heavy sigh.

“It’s…it’s fine…I know you didn’t…”

There was another long pause.

“I shouldn’t have shouted” Dream finished eventually.

A guilty feeling welled up inside of him. Having an inkling that what he just heard, was something that was in some way concerning even if he couldn't pinpoint why. Feeling slightly frustrated at his memory failing him.

“You…are allowed to be Upset at me..”

He said tentatively. He knows he isn’t the easiest to deal with. And Dream has forgiven a lot from him. Small and big things. They wouldn’t have been together for as long as they had if Dream hadn’t. It had come with its own pitfalls. And he can see the mistakes and unhealthy balance that was their past relationship. He was sure Dream saw them too.

It was painful in a way. Knowing you had unintentionally hurt someone you cared quite deeply for. He would never say that he regretted his past relationship with Dream But now, he can say with much more clarity that he rather just be friends.

That is why he wants to fix it. Try and talk like the immortal adults they are. It was hard on both of them. Dream had a particularly nasty few months behind him. Where he was lashing out more and more. Dream had been forced into a mold. One that he had sometimes helped build, and he was glad to see his former Lover freer. Even with the nasty side effects. Dream was allowed to be angry at him.

Reconnecting with Nightmare was also a good sign. The two of them having these regular phone calls helped too. It might be a long while until they could hang out like old friends again. But they got time, and he was looking forward to that day.

Dream sighed deeply.

“You…are right…..But I didn’t need to lash out..” The other mumbled.

He gave the phone a smile.

“You’re forgiven.“

Dream let out a small laugh, then the sound of another voice sounded distantly over the phone.

“Mnn? With Who?...yeah that is okay, be sure to let me know when you come back”

Dream said to whoever was on the other end. And he felt excitement grow inside of him. There were only a few people that hung around Dreams house.

He picked up the phone and in his rush dropped his small paintbrush to the floor.

“Is that Pallete?! Can you say Hi for me?! “

Dream made a sound like a wince,

Oops he didn’t mean to shout, but then he heard something from the background then Dream going

“Yes it is, he says hi” There was a small pause. “Oh yeah sure…Ink, Pallete wants to talk with you”

More yellow rushed through him making him rock in place.

He was always happy to chat with any of his kids. He knew he wasn’t the best dad. Some might say even one of the worst. But he tries, he honestly does. He knows that with some of them, he might never get a good relationship going.

But Pallete wasn’t one of them, A proper father-son dynamic, he might not get. But Pallete at least didn’t hate him. And he would do his utmost best, to be there for him should he ever need it.

“Dad..?”

The smile on his face grew at hearing the familiar voice.

“Hey, Pal! How are you doing?”

“Good! Um, little question? Think we can move our meeting up a week? I really need to help a friend out.”

The yellow got taken over by blue, and he felt the excitement fade from his voice, no matter how hard he tried to control it. But he swallowed down the sadness and tried to not sound disappointed.

“Oh..of course!, let me just…write down the new date…I don’t wanna forget…So not coming Wednesday….but the one after that, according to OG timeline rules?”

“Mnn Yes, Sorry that I had to change it on such short notice, I just really don’t wanna abandon my friend.”

He smiled Pallete was a good kid. Most likely Dreams influence. As he quickly changed the date on his scarf with his finger.

“Of course not, your old man can wait okay? It will give me more time to set things up”

“Thanks, Dad!, gotta run now. Sorry and bye”

“It is okay, Take care and see you soon”

There was some more rustling, as the phone was handed back hearing Dream say to Pallete

“Have fun at Goths!”

Which made him smile. He had a feeling about who his son was helping out. Maybe Error might know something and could fill him in. Then there was another pause in their conversation.

“Are you okay, Ink?”

He shook his head.

“Yeah…yeah I am fine…was just…looking forward to spending time with him, that’s all”

Dream let out a sympathetic hum.

“Did you write down the new date?”

He could hear the doubt in Dream's voice. And he had to tempt down the small flash of hot anger that wanted to boil up. He wasn’t that much of an idiot.

“Of course, don’t want to forget”

“Please don’t “

His grip on his phone tightened. And he decided to keep his mouth shut.

“Ah sorryIink, I gotta go as well…It was…enjoyable…to talk with you again”

He noticed how the other avoided the word fun. But he would take it.

“I am glad we talked as well Dream. Same time next month?”

“Works for me, hear from you then, if nothing else comes up”

He chuckled at Dream.

“With our job, not gonna happen. But let’s hope the multiverse gives us both a small break”

Dream chuckled as well

“We certainly earned it... Bye Ink”

“Bye Dream”

And then he heard a click and lowered his phone staring pensively at the call-ended screen till it went dark.

He was feeling as conflicted as he always did after his phone call with Dream. A mixture of yellows and purples. Happy he was able to talk with his friend again. Glad it seemed to have gone smoothly.

But also worried. Did he say the wrong thing somewhere? Did he come off as sincere? He sometimes forgot how scared he was of losing his friendship with one of his oldest friends.

He nearly did once, he didn't want it to slip out of his fingers again.

He let out a deep sigh and put his phone aside. Trying to focus on the happy feelings. This was something good, one of the few things that were going well in his life lately. Or it at least felt that way.

He picked up his brush, but he froze when he gazed upon his painting. For the first time, he seemed to actually see what he had been drawing. Having snapped out of his routine. What he had drawn. Was a picture of his own hand holding Error’s.

And his nonexistent soul sank into his stomach. Feelings becoming cloudy.

How many times did that make this? He glanced around the room, seeing other canvases of similar pictures he had been drawing over the last few months.

He had tried to do something different. It felt like he hadn’t even been thinking of Error at all!

But still. There it was in front of him. One of the many things that he and Error still couldn’t do. Error’s death had really fucked him up. It was like his whole body had been reset. But slowly, he was gaining back what he was lost. Able to give fist bumps to Killer. High fives with Blue and Lust. Everyone…except him.

Error tried, but it always seemed to burn. The pain only seemed to increase with every single try. It had gotten so bad. He had to nearly beg Error to stop trying. Not liking the way it kept hurting him. It took a while to convince him. But he did listen…that was a month ago.

It hurt. They had gone years without touching. They still used a lot of techniques they learned from that time. But none of that compared to the real feeling of Error’s fingers between his own. His solid weight as they hugged.

The electrifying way it felt as they kissed.

He missed it…….

He missed it so fucking much. He thought he could live without touching Error again.

But…

Were these paintings, not proof of that NOT being the case?! Everywhere he looked in this room, there seemed to be a picture of them.

Holding hands, cuddling, kissing. Or touching in some kind of way.

What if they never could again? Would….would he get bored?! Would he stop caring for Error? He couldn’t do that. That be horrible. Error meant the world to him. Error let him feel all of this. Let him figure himself out, not force him to be something he is not.

Somehow accepted his soulless state. Didn’t freak out, when he decided to go blank on some days when all the emotions became too much. But yet forcing him to drink if it seems he was depriving himself too much in the other direction.

Error loved him, and it was terrifying.

And how was he repaying that love? By longing for something the other couldn’t give. They were fine. They should be fine. He thought as red anger seemed to consume him.

He loves Error. He didn’t need the other's touch, it was just a few months with no contact. That didn’t compare to the years beforehand. Even for most of their relationship. Touching had just been a recent thing.

It wasn’t fair that it had been taken away from them. The red-hot anger spread, chasing away all other feelings. The picture in front of him came back into focus.

He grabbed Broomie and slashed at the painting, covering it in a dark ink stain.

There.

That is what he deserved. He shouldn’t have these urges. There was nothing in his chest to conquer them. Yet he selflessly made them. What would Error think if he saw them?

He had to destroy them! He didn’t deserve to stare longingly at them!? Error was going through enough without him taking care of his emotionally stunted boyfriend. And he summons more ink to destroy another painting.

The red-hot anger started changing. Darkening into a sludgy black pool of self-hatred, and there was nothing he could do to stop it. Destroying more works in his anger and grief, letting a large pool of ink spill over his studio floor, as he knocked over cans of paint and canvases. All the while sobbing and screaming in angry frustration.

Screaming, at the monster that killed Error, at the multiverse in general, but most of all himself, for not keeping his promises.

Of not being enough for his lover.

Eventually, most canvases had either been painted over with black streaks. Lying face down in the ink puddle beneath his feet. Or he had just broken the canvas clean in two.

All that was left was the biggest of them all. A large frame of both him and Error sitting on a swing near a tree. A work combining their first date, and first time holding hands into a single beautiful scene.

It had been a work he was proud of. He had shown it to Error. He even surprisingly suggested he should hang it somewhere in his house. But he hadn’t found the perfect place for it yet.

He looked up at it, a drop of yellow coming in an ocean of black. He raised Broomie above his head, ready to finish it off. When his momentum was suddenly stopped.

He looked up to see Broomie stuck in a multitude of blue strings. With ice-cold fear, he turned around to see Error standing in the door opening arms outstretched. Strings attached to his fingers and A look of panic on his face.

“Ink!?”

And when he heard that voice, so full of concern. Blue colors suddenly and quickly replaced all the black. The red-hot anger was replaced with regret. The Dark self-hatred still lurking below. But now replaced with deep sorrow.

It made him sink to his knees and start openly wailing as the color overtook everything. He tried to stop the tears pressing his hands against his face, furiously wiping it. But every sob tore another from his body.

“S-soory…i am sorry Error…forgive me…please…please”

He started rambling, trying to get his emotions under control. But instead, he felt his insides turn, and he puked out a large amount of ink.

When he was done, the overwhelming sensation was gone. But the feelings were still there. His throat hurt, but he was letting out soft hiccups instead of sobs at this point. He looked back up. To see Error hovering close by in front of him. Arms outstretched like he had wanted to grab him. Frustrating, clear in his eyes.

“S-sorry..” he started again

“It’s okay, Kiki…it’s okay…just…let it all out okay…”

Error took another step closer and he could feel that pulsing heat. That heat seemed to push them apart, like two wrong magnets pushing each other away. He leaned back so that Error would glitch less. Not looking at Error's face, afraid to hurt him further.

Error let out another frustrated sound. Something heavy fell to the floor, probably Broomie. And he felt Errors strings circle his hands. But the mock handheld just made him feel worse. They were so pathetic, not even able to hold hands.

“Ink?”

He shook his head.

“Ink please…talk to me?”

He shook his head harder.

What was there to say? What could he possibly say that wouldn't sound completely insane? He was gonna lose Error. He was gonna figure out he couldn’t live without the touch and was gonna leave him as he should have ages ago. And he be all alone with his thoughts again. Unsure of whoever even ‘himself was’

More strings wrapped around his hands.

“Come on, Squid”

There was a hint of frustration coming through his voice now.

Error would realize that it was no use to spend time on him. That in the last few months he somehow had made more progress with his ex, Than with him. That all of this was a lost cause that he never should have -

Blue strings wrapped around his torso so tightly that he nearly choked. Looking back up and started into Error’s worried eyes. And after a beat or two a realisation seemed to come over Error.

“Have you been swallowing your paints again Kiki?”

He blinked up at the other.

Had he?

He tried to think back.

He remembered maybe once this morning…but that could have been yesterday as well?. He definitely did when he was painting to stay in that calm state he had been in.

Did he do it afterward? Oh…when Pallete came to the phone, he had to swallow down his excitement as well as his disappointment. He thought he had just pushed it down…But that would explain why he was feeling so crappy.

Shit! He might have done it more than once in his conversation with Dream.

“I…didn’t …notice..”

He said through a few sobs. And Error’s strings gently squeezed him.

“It’s alright…come on… let's get you out of this puddle”

The strings started to fall away from his body, almost like they had been arms that had been wrapped around him. That thought made him sob again, and he scrambled for the strings before they could completely disappear... Holding them shakingly between his fingers as he looked up at Error with a desperation he didn’t know under which color to classify

Error’s look of surprise turned into a sad smile, and he mumbled

“Should have known you liked being tied up in my strings”

He laughed wearily at the innuendo. And the strings came back around his torso softly and lifted him up from the middle of the room. Dropping him right below one of the windows. Error plopping down next to him, some space left between them. All the while he stared at the strings connecting them.

“What happened Inky… “

Error asked softly after some minutes of silence in which his sobs finally calmed down, and his emotions seemed to reach another equilibrium

“I think you guessed already, I swall-

“What triggered your outburst,”

He shut his mouth with a click and brought his knees up to his face. Another few minutes of silence

“I saw what I had painted..”

From the corner of his eye, he saw Error tilt his head

“That usually makes you happy.”

He shrugged, he didn’t want to think too hard about it. He might have puked most of his paints out. But not all. And if he indeed had kept swallowing down his paints, they would still be a murky mess inside of him. And didn’t want to trigger another episode

He heard some angry glitches, but Error’s voice stayed calm.

“Did your phone call with Dream affect how you looked at it?”

He shook his head.

“No, that went pretty well,”

He could feel Error’s eyes on him even without looking up, hugging his knees harder

“Are…Are you upset that it went well?” Confusion was clear in his boyfriend's voice.

He wanted to cry again and felt blue trying to come up, He tried to temp it down.

“Hey, Ink stop, don’t fight your paints…not at this time”

His hands started shaking, and shook his head.

Of course, Error noticed. Error knew him.

Even when he forgot who he was himself.

“It’s not fair…” he mumbled softly.

“What…Ink?” Error said confused along with the sounds of soft buzzes of glitches. As another silence fell between them, only filled by his own occasional sob.

He heard some sounds, not able to place them. So he looked up, seeing that Error had dragged one of the destroyed canvasses closer. There wasn’t much left of it, he had smeared pretty big globs of black ink on them, that was now dripping on Error's clothes.

Error seemed to glitch at them, but paid them no mind, rolling up his sleeve and rubbing the ink away with his arm, Eyes widening as he saw what was underneath.

Error's head snapped his way, eyes wide. And dragged another painting close doing the same thing to it.

“What…the fuck Ink.”

He closed his eyes in shame, burying his head back in his legs. He knew Error would hate them. That’s why he didn’t show them, he knew he had been holed up in here more nights than he could count. When Error was with others, or working. He was in here and painted his desires.

The ones he couldn’t act on. That he promised to let rest. And now Error knew, and he would see how he had gone against his word and…

“If you are angry with me you can just Fucking say so, don’t gotta destroy your passion projects over it”

His head shot up, and he looked at Error. Who was looking at the painting with a frown. But not an angry one. No…he…he almost looked. Sad? Then what Error had said seemed to land in his scattered brain and he quickly scrambled up to his knees. Error looking up as he did.

“I ain't angry at you?! …Why?!?!…No..Never, none of this is your fault.”

Error started at him eyes wide,

“Of….course…of fucking course how could I be so fucking stupid”

“W-what?” he asked, suddenly panicking.

The strings around him tighten again,

“I should have known you would be angry at yourself, somehow you always blame everything that goes wrong in our relationship on yourself”

His own eyes widened. And Error leaned closer. He could feel the heat again, but he couldn’t look away. Error was staring right at him. Different colors tried to rise up, but one never could stay, quickly replaced with another. Purple, pink, yellow, blue, green. All of them but he barely noticed only able to focus on his Love

“I thought I had said this before, but if I haven’t let me now. I don’t fucking blame you. For any of this Ink. It aint your fault I died. It aint your fault we can’t touch. It aint your fault that the recovery of it is going at a fucking snail's pace. Got it! None of that is your fault. I don’t fucking blame you, I ain't angry with you. And I am not upset that you miss being able to hold me. I’d be the biggest fucking hypocrite.”

The strings were getting tight enough that they were probably leaving robe burn marks. But he couldn’t care. Could hardly believe what was going on.

“B-but”

“No fucking but’s Ink. Whatever your brain is telling you. It is aint true. I’d kiss you right now to fucking prove it, but I think we both know how that would end”

The sound he let out was between a sob and a laugh. It be such a disaster. The only time they tried was on the first-day Error returned. And the scream the other had let out, still haunts his nightmares. It kept combining with Error’s death in those dreams.

He closed his hands over the strings that ran over his palms, Squeezing them tight, tugging at them. Feeling Error tuck on them as well.

He still felt like crap. And he wanted to believe Error. He so badly wanted to. But he couldn’t seem to get there. There had to be a tipping point. Maybe he didn’t blame him now. But it would not last forever and-

“Ink. Stop it” Error Seemed to read exactly what was going on in his mind.

“I…I can’t” he mumbled. “I wanna believe you Error. I really do..But…but..”

His hands rose to his chest. The part of himself he disliked so much. Where you could see the proof of his soullessness. That part of him that was at the root source of all his problems.

There was another pause and he started at the space between them. He could see Error's knees and realized this must have been the closest Error had been in a month. The thought made him swallow another sob.

“What would make you believe it.”

“Huh?”

He looked up back into Error’s eyes. They held a determined gleam

“Tell me what you need Ink, What would make you believe my word, so I can say it, or do it. Until I can beat it into your skull, and you never doubt me again”

“I….” He paused.

What would make him believe it? What would make him believe that Error didn’t hate him? That Error would stick with this, with them, Or that He would stick with Error? Was there such a thing?

“I don’t k-” he stopped himself.

That felt wrong to say. Here he was demanding proof. But he couldn’t think of anything himself. How was Error supposed to prove it then?

He looked up back at Error’s face. Still looking determined, ready to spring into action. And he wanted to give an answer.

Why was this so difficult, he just wanted Error to be happy. To be loved as much as he deserves.

But he loves Error. And Error wants his love. And was he just…not giving it? If he trusted that Error could love him despite his soulless state. Then why didn’t he believe Error trusted that his soulless self loved Error?

Now that he was thinking about it, it seemed kinda backwards, and selfish. To trust everything Error gave him. But not trust that Error knew that he was loved.

Soft oranges and yellows finally managed to take hold of his body. Error believed in him. He was conceived it wasn’t his fault. He might not fully believe it himself. But he could believe in Error, that did believe that fact.

Error's face shifted as he saw the realization drawn on his own face.

“Knock some sense into me from time to time, that is what you need to do apparently”

Error laughed “I do that for fun any day”

And he couldn’t help his own laugh. The strings on his hands tugged, lifting them to his face, he got the hint and held one of his own cheek in the way Error would.

“I Love you, I don’t hate you, and I don’t blame you. For any of this, And I am sorry if I made you think I did”

He shook his head.

“It’s okay..I…Thank you…I should have told you sooner. That I was feeling all of this. I could have avoided this mess”

Error glanced around the room.

“Nothing we can’t fix”

He raised a brow bone.

“You, fixing things?”

Error gave a fake glare, and he felt his colors latch on to the familiar feeling of seeing it

“Says the Protector that destroyed this room”

But then Error’s eyes turned serious again. Settling back down next to him, if a bit closer than before.

“We do need to find a way to prevent this from happening, for both our sakes I think..”

He gave a nod,

“Yeah only so much can be blamed on me swallowing my ink”

Error nodded. “Wanna do this now, or wait till the murkiness has passed”

He glanced around the room, seeing the black ink everywhere. And he thought back to how he felt. That darkness swallowing him whole. It had been an extreme reaction to the swallowing and mixing of already mixed paint.

As much as he wanted to let it pass and recenter himself.

It was better to deal with this now. Besides everything had mixed up so bad, that at this point he had to go blank to get rid of it all. And who knows what he would remember of this incident afterward.

So with he sigh, he leaned back against the wall.

“Now…but I am unsure of where to start” he started,

The orange and yellows have faded, right now settling on something of a mixture of purple and green.

Error hummed “Gimme a moment to think then.”

Error closed his eyes. And he just spends the time listening to the sounds of his boyfriend's static. Admiring the other as the light from the window hit him Making the blue streaks on his face almost seem to glow.

Error opened his eyes and turned to face him, and he shook his head to get rid of his dreamy thoughts.

“Based on what you said before, were you afraid that me seeing your paintings…would make me hate you?”

He gave a slow nod And there was a frown on the other's face.

“Why? You’ve drawn me more times than I can fucking count, with and without my permission I might add? So why now? “

He gave an embarrassed chuckle

“It’s not the fact that I drew you…but more what I made you do in them”

Errors eyebrow rose all the way up.

“You have drawn porn of m-”

“Erotica” He cut him off, and Error waved him off

“Same fucking thing. But besides the point, What I wanted to point out is. You have drawn me in way more “scandalous”- “

He quoted his fingers to emphasize his point.

“- positions. Wich, I have told you I didn’t mind as long as you didn’t show them to anyone else”

He flushed, he had been quite embarrassed that Error had found them. But his Glitch had surprised him. He had been embarrassed sure, but also it also seemed to give Error a huge ego boost. Not that he had needed it. Espeasily when he had seen the one he had made in the hot spring.

The error had invited him to draw him more afterward. And he had taken him up on that offer on multiple occasions. The fact that he stayed on the shore, while Error was half-naked in the water was perfect for him.

The thought of taking his shirt off and joining in terrified him. Not wanting such an intimate act to be tainted by a crash, or anything else stupid he might do. No, he quite liked what they got

Error continued on

“So…I don’t get what the big deal is with these?”

He clicked his teeth, trying to find the words to explain himself. He knew why, it felt a lot more stupid than before. But there was a part of him, that was still afraid. He could feel purple and dark blue try to overtake him.

But he took a good look at Error, who seemed genuinely confused. Remembering the almost sad look he had gotten. His boyfriend didn’t like the clutter all his art projects caused. But he seemed perfectly content to be the main subject of his inspiration. So to have seen him destroy paintings of them…

Yeah, he can see now how that could have looked to Error. He tried to call forth some orange, and with a trembling voice he managed to speak about his fears.

“I thought…that if you knew…how much I longed to touch you again, you might be angry with me. I mean…I promised you…that…that when we first began dating. That if this would ever happen..that it wouldn’t matter”

He let out a shuddering breath, staring hard at Error's chest, it was easier than looking into the too-knowing eyes

“That no matter how bad your phobia would get. That it would change nothing…I was afraid…seeing this…you realized I had broken that promise” he muttered softly.

“Because It does matter to me…that we can’t touch…it…it hurts a lot.” It felt scary to admit.

“Not that I would ever leave you over it! “ He quickly stated, looking up, to see Error surprise face at this outburst, and he quickly looked back at the other's chest.

“But just…it’s a lot harder than I thought it would be”

The silence between them felt heavy, then a dry chuckle came from Error and he looked up, and saw Error staring down…looking towards him. But not to his face. Just like had been staring at the other's chest. He wondered what he was focussing on.

“I….forgot about that promise…”

He blinked surprised and he turned to face his lover.

“You did? But…you made it so-”

Error held up his hand, and he fell quiet.

“I am not surprised you remembered. And I ain't surprised I made you promise. Dunno if I just forgot, or if it is a memory my death has taken from me…”

He felt himself react to the mention of Error's death again. And he saw the other eyes narrow knowingly, But Error continued on.

“But either way, I think it made you hold yourself up to an impossible standard.”

Error let out an angry huff at himself, crossing his arms, and frowned deeper.

“I don’t think I would make that promise with the intention that you weren’t allowed to have any feelings about it at all…I just didn’t want it to be a dealbreaker. “

His eyes widened.

“Of course, it will never be!”

And Errors eyes met his, seeming ready to rebuttal him but he continued.

“No matter, how much I long to touch, hold, hug, and kiss you again. That you feel comfortable is way, way more important to me. I never want you to feel forced to touch me. So it ain't a dealbreaker at all! Never was, to begin with. I am not the brightest, But I knew who I started dating. And if I ever made you feel like that- “

“You never did. ”

He felt his face erupt in a light blush

“It’s the same for me…”

Error mumbled. Then he saw a shot of anger on his face.

“ I WANT to touch you as well. Not because I feel forced to or some bullshit. But because I just miss it. I never even thought I could fucking miss it. And it sucks. “

Error's face gained another emotion, and he realised it was the same as his. Self-loathing.

“It fucking sucks so much. I just wish I could just reach out and hold your hand again. To just lay together without worry if we accidentally brush shoulders. Even you puking ink in my face as we kiss or just - “

“-simply give a chaste kiss? Pull you along by the arm on our dates? Just be close again in general?” He interrupted the other softly

Error eyes widened and then gentled in understanding

“yeah…” then another dry chuckle

“Have…have we seriously both been worried about the fact. That we both just miss being as close as we were before all this fucking mess?”

He tugged at the strings wrapped around his hands

“Guess so…”

Error sighed and mumbled disbelievingly.

“How did we manage to avoid talking about this for four months straight?”

“Dunno…like I said…I thought you’d be angry. And with everything else. I just didn’t wanna add that on top of it?”

Error let out another deeper sigh

“And I thought, you must have known my frustration was at the situation, not at you”

“At least we know now?”

But that didn’t really erase the last few months of pain they both felt. That now felt like had been completely unnecessary and avoidable

They both just sat in that newfound knowledge, letting it settle in. Part of him was really upset. Part of him was relieved, it was the bigger part. But it couldn’t drown out all the dark colors sadly

“Speaking of things we avoided talking about,” Error said with a grunt and he knew what was coming.

“It has been four months, and we haven’t talked about the situation, that got us to this in the first place at all….have we?”

He gave a nod. It had not been on purpose. They had talked a bit in those first few days. But focused more on both their anger surrounding the whole situation with Errors return.

Then Error also had to stay a lot in the antivoid. His body clearly recovered much faster there if he was on his own.

The Balance also had kept him away. He didn’t want it tipping too much either way, but there had been a push in his mind to take advantage of it. To increase his territory. He knew that push. He hated it at times. It could help him make the most wonderful of creations. It could make him do the most heinous things.

Always trying to get more and more. Pushing him to listen to one more creator request. Check out one more Au in case it needs protecting. Strengthen the defenses of the new Au’s until they are ready to interact with the multiverse.

He had learned to deal with that urge, learned where his own desires ended and the multiverses began. Most of the time they were the same. He had this role for a reason. He fulfilled it happily. But every job has its downside.

And that first month the ugly side of it showed up. He had tried to keep the scales balanced in his lovers absence, hoping that it would accelerate his return, then kept it so he could recover. His job was protecting all universes. And the multiverse didn’t seem to enjoy that he wasn’t taken advantage of the power vacuum. He had managed to keep that urge at bay, by exhausting himself.

Blue wasn’t very happy when he found out. He made him promise not to tell Error. As far as he knew…Blue hadn’t.

And after that first month. He had been so focused on figuring out what he and Error could and could not do anymore. How to help. How to just have dates where they both enjoyed themself. He had wanted to focus on the now. Error had seemingly wanted that as well.

The strings around his ribs tightened softly and it once again reminded him of a hug.

“Talk to me Ink”

He let his hands settle against the strings around his ribs, fingertips gliding over them softly.

“It’s…hard..”

Not because he didn’t remember. Far from it. It was seemingly burned into his brain, just like holding Error’s hand for the first time, or their first kiss. But this was one he rather forget.

“It sucked..?”

He started, he could hear the sobs trying to form as the blue paints tried to overtake him like before.

Error huffed gently.

“If you made an understatement this century, that would be it”

At the words, a burst of yellow bled through like a dotted pattern

“Do…do you…remember what happened?” He asked softly.

Error shook his head.

“Not really? Bits and pieces, but not the whole thing. But I know what happened”

“Blue?”

Error nodded. And he wondered what Blue had said. About how he reacted, but knowing his friend. He might have just kept it at what happened to Error. Probably thought this was a conversation they should have themselves, and he didn’t blame him.

He felt his bones rattle as much as they could in the strings hold. Following the quivering thread all the way to Errors fingers. Staring at the way he saw the other rub his thumb at the other end.

If they could touch, Error might have been rubbing his back. Or nuzzled against his skull. He gave a silent little tug a started with and sigh.

“...I was too busy helping…I don’t remember who… but I was getting them out of the way, And I turned around and see you get hit with this giant blaster beam. I think I dropped who I was helping, and raced my way over to you. The attack stopped, and instead of attacking back, you just…you just fell right out of the air,”

He remembered the terror. Error had died before, but he had never seen it. At the time all he knew was that he had been hurt, he wasn’t sure if that beam would have been enough to kill Error. But they had been fighting that stupid gaster blaster beast for a while. It had absorbed most of their attacks. They all had lost hp, and he didn’t know how much Error had left

It had felt like slow motion watching Error fall, the blue of his scarf trailing behind him, body so very limb. Not a hint of his angry boyfriend in sight.

“I remember checking you as I got closer. You were so low on hp, And the rest of the bar had been pink with karmic retribution. And it was slowly draining the rest. I teleported beneath you, caught you…and we landed. But by the time I could start my healing, you had hit zero already”

He was hiccuping with sobs again. And the strings squeezed him gently once more.

“I tried to stop it…I ain't the best healer…but I threw all the intended I could behind it - “

“I know Kiki... “ Error interrupted him, and he met the other's eyes.

There was a gentleness in them that he knew was rare. That last time he saw it, it was followed up by a day of cuddling on the couch. His magic ached knowing that can’t happen this time. He wondered if Error thought of the same thing.

“I felt your magic…I couldn’t see or hear. But I knew you were there.”

A rosy sort of color rose in his chest. Somewhere between red and pink. It was warm, nowhere near the feelings of sunsets and warm skies he got while kissing. But something similar.

But icey blue came back as he remembered what had happened next.

“Y-you turned to dust in my arms….”

His voice was barely more than a whisper.

“y-you were there…i was holding you..and then slowly…you just..seemed to crumble away…and then…you were…gone..”

The words barely made it past his teeth.

He had been begging near the end, screaming for it to stop. For Error to hold on, that he could fix it. But in the end, he just sat there on the ground, covered in dust as the battle continued on around him.

He had never felt so empty, never been as scared. Not as far as he can remember at least. He knew he got angry, that he single-handedly killed the creature that had taken Error from him. But he doesn’t remember more than the blind grief-stricken rage.

The next thing he does remember is that Blue and Dream were holding him. Screaming and begging him to stop. His fist was bloody with marrow as he had kept on hitting the ground where he had killed the beast. Head to toe covered in Errors and the giant monster's dust. Bursting out crying in their arms. Until it all became too much, and throwing up the last of his paints.

It took them several days to coax him to drink them again. Now that he thinks back on it, that might be the first time Dream hugged him since their breakup years before. He hadn’t even done his whole, must try and safe everyone speech…

God, of course, Dream wouldn’t have given that speech at the time…even if had been more coherent. What an awful way to think about a friend…

Something warm wrapped around his shoulders, he looked up from where he had buried his head into his knees again. Errors strings were dropping Error's long coat around his shoulders, trying to cocoon him in it.

“Ru…?” he mumbled confused, wiping at the tears on his face.

“You…always buried your nose in this when we hugged…since I can’t hug you.… I thought I could trick your brain into thinking we were…cause...Fuck it Ink… I didn’t…I didn’t know okay… and I…Fuck..”

Error's eyes seemed to be burning like he was holding back tears. Even if had let tears fall, the tracks on his face would hide them. One of his hands came up to one of the lapels, pulling the jacket closer to himself. As Error fiddled with the strings seeming to refuse to look at him.

“I fucking tried to hold on, I should have been paying more attention. It was such a stupid mistake. But I was keeping track of Blue. Making sure he wasn't hit, And then…”

Error’s voice stuttered out and let out several beeps, and he saw some error signs fill his eyes.

He rose to his knees.

“Error..?”

The minor crash passed, and Error shook his head and continued on,

“I should have asked Blue for more details. No wonder you have been so all over the place inky. And…fuck just because I had been stupid? I dunno what I would have done if it had been you?…destroyed half the multiverse before I came to my senses. Yet you…you didn’t. You kept the balance, and have just been trying to make the best of a shitty situation.”

Error clenched his fist, and the strings tightened again. And he could feel the anger through the magic.

“ I remember how happy you were when I came back. I thought that at points you were forcing yourself to feel happy. And you might have…but…you did that…to avoid thinking of this right?”

Error turned to look at him,

All he could do was nod, and to his surprise, some stray tears fell from his boyfriend's eyes. He wished he could come over and kiss them away.

“Fuck Dust and Dream man. I thought they were being assholes that day. But this. If I get my hands on Dust, Fuck that scare I gave him last time wasn’t nearly enough punishment. Oh and Dream? Fucking dreamboat?! He was there! I remember And then He was just gonna fucking yell at you for being excited it returned?! Don’t even get me started!!“

His magic was rushing through his body at record speed. Making him feel a little lightheaded. That Error was angry on his behalf even after all this time That he was feeling for him…what he did back then. But had no way to express at the time. It was doing things to him. It made him happy. But he also knows that he didn’t blame either of those two.

“Enough! Error….Enough…don’t go hurt either of them, please. Dust got what he deserved. And Dream and I have resolved this ourselves, you know what was going on with him at the time. It ain't an excuse for what he did. But he wasn’t in the best place. I have decided to forgive him…I don’t want you hunting him down”

Dreams comment at the time had hurt. It had dug at his own insecurity of his soulless state, as well as his relationship with Error. Luckily blue had stepped in. But Dream had forgiven him for doing much worse. It was hard, but he cared too much about Dream. And even thou their relationship was currently strained. He knew Dream did too.

The amount of time he had spent helping him in the months after Error’s death attested to that.

Error was still glaring angrily, And he shuffled closer, where he could feel the warmth of the pushing sensation. Trying to keep them apart.

“I am not asking you to forgive them…just…please don’t go after them. I won’t even stop you if you decide to grill Dream about it, 'cause I know you will, no matter what I think of it. Just please…”

Error huffed, still clearly upset.

“I ain't forgiving them”

And with that, he knew Error wouldn’t try to harm either of them. And he gave a genuine smile

“Thank you, Ruru”

And for the first time that night, he saw Error's beautiful yellow blush covering his cheeks.

His own chest filled up with a soft yellowish pink.

“Thank you for telling me about all this Ink, I promise to make it up to you” The other muttered softly into his scarf, then a bit clearer

“…How are you feeling now?”

He swayed a bit back and forth.

“Pink…”

He replied softly, and Errors blush rose and became more flustered. Error grabbed a tube he used to store papers in, And then softly bonked him on the head with it,

He couldn’t help the laugh that escaped him as Error mock yelled.

“That aint what I was talking about and you know it you annoying Squid”

He grabbed the tube yanking it out of Error's hands,

“I know~”

And gave a soft bonk against the others head in return, before dropping it and letting it roll away.

“I am feeling…better, bit lightheaded…must be nearly out of paint…But I think…talking helped. Don’t think it got rid of everything…but don’t think I am gonna do…”

He glanced around the room with a sad smile…

“Well…anything like this”

Error gave a nod, with a little frown.

“We gotta talk more about this shit, even if we both think we don’t need to. We clearly fucking do. “

He nodded in agreement

“Easier said than done…”

“Aint that the truth…but I’ll try for you Kiki”

“And I for you Ruru”

They both smiled at each other and then he leaned back with a sigh. Feeling his eyesockets fighting to stay open, the colors in him became more muted as he ran on the last fumes.

“Tired?” Error muttered settling in as close as he dared.

He nodded, “Probably for the best if I stay blank for a day, to make sure I got rid of all the sludge.”

The strings around his torso tightened like a soft squeeze from Error's arms

“I remember what to do, and I’ll call Blue if need be”

He gave another nod and heard the sound of a glitchy portal opening. Error probably getting supplies. But he felt something against his side, opening his eyes again, he recognized the pattern of Error’s crochet blanket.

He didn’t pull it out often, but it was warm and smelled of him, And it was thick. But Error didn’t lay it over him, No he crumbled it up into a makeshift barrier, and with a soft pull of his strings gently coaxed him against it, while Error laid on the other side.

Close but not touching. He could feel the pulsing heat again. Error should feel it too, and it was probably aggravating his glitches. But it was hard to fight off sleep, as Error was closer than he had been in months. Mind focusing on the feeling of strings still gently around his torso. On the smell of the warm coat that was being rewrapped around him, cocooning him against the blanket.

And all he could feel was Error.

“Love you…” He mumbled.

He heard a bit more static as his eyes fell closed. Knowing he was safe, feeling better than he had in a long while. The last of his paints manifested into a small rainbow flush on his face, coaxing him gently into a dreamless sleep.

#noffy's writing #noffys writing #errink #fanfic #undertale #undertale au #error x ink #past dream x ink #error sans #____tale sans

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