#gray isn’t letting me breathe on discord | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

membermentmania · 4 months ago

Text

August 11th, 5:03-6:14am

Brimmy looked at him before letting out the most frustrated sigh Clyde thought he ever heard from anyone as he dropped his head, catching the bridge of his nose between two fingers. “What?”

“You have got to be shitting me,” he muttered.

“What?!”

“I’m really putting the fate of the world in the hands of a bunch of bisexual disasters who are all obsessed with each other.”

“WHAT?!” He stood up and started to pace. “Dude, seriously, what are you on about?!” Clyde’s stomach dropped when a familiar white square bubbled out of the form before him. “DUDE!”

Brimmy snapped his head towards Clyde. “Yes?”

“Can you please give me some fucking context?! Also why the fuck are you leaking discord right now?!”

Brimmy took a deep breath. “I didn’t account for emotions being a thing when I picked Craig. That was such a fuck up. But losing you or Kenny because of that will actually kill us all. I’ll explain everything when we meet up with them. I cannot have this entire conversation twice.”

“What do you mean, picked Craig? And what do you mean-”

“Clyde, it’s gonna take me a while to run through everything. I really would prefer to do it all in one go.”

Clyde took a shaky deep breath before standing up. “Okay. Let’s go.”

Brimmy disappeared out of sight as Clyde walked to base alone. Clyde let out a scream when he seemingly appeared out of nowhere from the shadows. “Fuck, man! How do you do that?!” He put a hand over his chest as he tried to calm his racing heart.

“It’s how we move around undetected.”

“Don’t do that,” Clyde scolded.

“I don’t think your city would take a gray person running around too kindly.”

“We run around in our uniforms all the time! People just think we’re batshit cosplayers!”

Brimmy blinked hard at the admittance. “Are you actually fucking serious?” He put a hand over his mouth. Clyde was thrown beyond all reason when a quiet laugh bubbled out of the boy in front of him. Then it really clicked in his head. Brimmy was a boy. Seemingly just like them, in a lot of ways. It didn’t sit right with him.

Brimmy just shook his head and Clyde silently led him inside. Somehow, Marjorine was there. Everyone was there save for Bebe and Tammy. Everyone looked at them, actually shocked to see that Clyde had brought a moderator into their space. “Where’s Tammy?” he asked before anyone could get a word out. He assumed she was off distracting Bebe, but he just wanted to make sure.

“No one can get in touch with her right now.”

“You guys can fill in Tammy later. One of you will have to fill in Bebe as well.”

Marjorine cocked her head slightly, fire in her eyes. “Why the fuck couldn’t she be here now then?” she asked. Clyde was taken aback by her attitude. It made sense because of everything that’s been going on. But he’d never heard something like that from her.

“There is a piece of information that is absolutely vital. But Bebe is not in the condition to hear about it.”

Marjorine took a frustrated deep breath. “Talk.”

Clyde slowly walked towards the table and Brimmy took a seat to his left. The only person that wasn’t looking at Brimmy like they were trying to set him on fire with their mind were Red and Kyle. Red was just looking at him with some weird melancholic curiosity that Clyde didn’t understand. Kyle just had his head in his hands. “Okay, can you guys please stop with the death glares?” Clyde huffed. “That is getting us nowhere right now.”

“He’s a fucking mod!” Kyle yelled, snapping his head up. His eyes went wide as he actually looked at Brimmy.

“A mod that saved you yesterday,” Brimmy responded.

Kyle blinked hard. “You saved me?”

“I’m sorry I couldn’t save him too,” he said quietly.

“Fuck you,” Kyle spat. “Tell us what you need to tell us.” He put his head back down and Clyde’s heart panged. Kyle couldn’t look at him. Clyde understood why.

“Okay. To start. [this isn’t written yet.]

The storm, as it’s called, is an angel.”

“We gathered that much,” Marjorine responded.

“Does anyone here actually know what an angel is?” The room was silent. “Right. So, once you enter the magical girl pool, you are thrown into a cycle. Upon corruption, magical girls become moderators. When moderators corrupt, we become angels.” He paused, letting it sync in. Clyde felt tears sting at the corners of his eyes.

Kenny and Wendy exchanged a look. “So,” Kenny said shakily. “That’s what was happening to Tweek and Craig? If I didn’t-”

“If you didn’t what?” Clyde asked.

“You didn’t see them,” Wendy whispered.

Brimmy put a hand up. “You guys are gonna fall into ruins over this so I’m just gonna throw it on the table. You were right to do what you did, Kenny.” A pit formed in Clyde’s stomach as he started to put the pieces together.

“But if they were just gonna become like you-”

“They weren’t.”

Kenny and Wendy both looked equally terrified and confused. “What do you mean?”

“I’ve seen it happen before. Sometimes humans fully skip through to angels. With what they promised each other, they would’ve rivaled the storm completely.

“I don’t- So then, they would’ve beat it?”

“They would’ve killed it before destroying the planet. If they didn’t destroy the planet first.”

“But that’s Craig and Tweek!” Clyde interjected. “They wouldn’t do that!”

“When you corrupt, you lose your humanity. Every trace of you is gone. That’s how you get me. I am not the person I was. I can barely remember who I was conceptually. But I was kind. I had fun. I was in love. I had real, actual emotions. I’m not granted those luxuries anymore. I’m a shadow of Brimmy Fallon that only exists because of the laws put in place by Her.” He let out a quiet exhale as the group continued to stare at him in a stunned silence. “Angels are… How do I explain this? Corruption in humans and mods are very different. In humans, it comes from losing everything, but when you’re a mod, you corrupt when you start to gain everything back. Angels are like manifestations of grief for the person you once were. Every ugly emotion you can think of in a physical form that threatens to grow until it doesn’t need a realm anymore. All an angel wants is to destroy. Tweek and Craig were supposed to save each other, and with my hope, stop the storm completely. But they loved each other more than they loved being alive. I didn’t account for that. They corrupted because of that.” What Brimmy said before made sense now.

“Okay,” Wendy said quietly. “Continue.”

“No. Pause. You’re telling me the power of friendship killed Tweek and Craig?! Because that is so ass backwards!”

“No. Leslie killed Tweek and Craig. She pushed Tweek as far as she could. Craig went with him instead of pulling him out.”

Marjorine swallowed hard, giving him a slow nod of comprehension.

“So how does Tweek even fit into all this, exactly?” Red asked. A chill ran down Clyde’s spine. There was not an emotion to be spared on her face as she asked her question.

“I don’t know why. I can’t even begin to speculate. But Tweek was chosen by Leslie as a sort of failsafe. Basically, he had three functions. She only thought of two, when she first made contact though. He would work as her dopple when she finally awoke, or he would be her proxy had something happened to her. The way she kept him, it would’ve worked.”

“He was a person, not an animal!” Wendy yelled.

Brimmy put his hands up slightly. “Sorry. I don’t really have a better way to describe what she did to him without being cruel.” He took a small deep breath. “Tweek had a third function, though. If neutralized, he would be able to bring her down.”

“How would someone even-”

“Leslie chose Tweek. I chose Craig. He should’ve been the perfect fit. I’d watched Tweek for so long, waiting. And then you boys logged in. Craig was the best possible match for him.”

“I have so many questions, it’s not even funny,” Kyle muttered.

“Ask,” Brimmy responded simply.

Kyle peered back up over his arms before dropping his head back down. “Why were we allowed in in the first place? We’re boys.”

“Tweek was the first biological male ever chosen. He was a test, in a lot of ways, aside from being Leslie’s proxy. In more recent years, things have laxed up a bit. If your soul resides in the territory of female, you’re thrown in the lottery.”

“But there are male moderators. You exist.”

“The male moderators you know, like myself, were just dumbass boys who forced our way into the system and got corrupted at some point after earning our way in.”

“But how does that even work if the moderators know who's in the system?”

“As you also know by this point, each moderator has their own way of doing things. When you’re allowed access to the site, whether by invitation or forced entry, you’re immediately assigned a moderator. If you force your way in, it’s up to the moderator to decide your fate. Because I don’t align with the vast majority and saw potential in not only Craig, but you all as well, I let you in. I can’t speak for the mod that let me in, as she never gave me a reason, and I don’t exactly have proper communication with any of the existing mods, male or not.”

“Okay. So what happens if you don't let the people who force their way in into the fold?”

“They’re dispatched.”

“Right,” Kenny breathed out, dropping his head in his hands. Kyle’s line of questioning was starting to make Clyde’s head spin.

“So, what you’re saying is, Tweek and Craig are dead and we’re fucked,” Red deadpanned.

“No. There is a backup plan. One that will work. But we need to physically run out the clock and get there.”

Kyle finally looked up from his arms. “What is it?”

Brimmy looked directly at Kenny and Clyde’s stomach twisted. “You.”

Kenny blinked hard. “She’s immortal, then?”

“Something close to it,” he muttered.

“What the fuck are you guys talking about?” Wendy interrupted.

“Did you know about my curse when you gave me my powers?” Kenny responded, ignoring her.

“I was made aware after. The only person who’s power I interfered with was Craig’s. I didn’t think to touch any of yours. I’m sorry for that.”

“What fucking curse?!”

“He’s immortal,” Brimmy answered before anyone else could get a word out. The room plunged into silence. Everyone seemed to just be looking back and forth between Kenny and Brimmy for an answer. “He was cursed when his mom was pregnant with him. He dies, but he just kinda spawns back up here on Earth.”

“That’s fucking insane,” Wendy muttered.

“And we have literal magic and fight monsters on a regular basis to keep us from dying,” Clyde quickly shot back. “If that was his power you wouldn’t blink twice.”

Wendy took a deep breath. “You’re right. Okay.”

“So what do I do?” Kenny asked him.

“Make it to her main body. Activate your ability when you get there. If you can detonate a large enough explosion, it’ll take her out. You just have to not corrupt. Ever.”

“You have explosion magic?” Marjorine questioned.

“Basically my entire body functions as a bomb,” Kenny said tiredly.

“That’s fucking mean,” Red muttered.

“It is what it is.” Kenny frowned. “What would happen to me if I corrupted?”

“We would have an immortal mod. Later down the line, an immortal angel. You would destroy this world, likely with no chance of it being saved or someone else being in your position when that happened.”

“Shit.”

“I wasn’t aware of your curse when I let you in. I know that’s a lot. I apologize.”

“Is that all?” Wendy asked.

“As of this moment, yes.”

“I have a question for you then.” Brimmy nodded. “Can you see people that you’re not moderating?”

“The only thing I can see outside of my own contracts are the physical contracts themselves.”

Wendy made a face. “Would it tell you… The status of their contract?”

“Yes.”

She swallowed hard. “Can you check on the status of Tammy Warner?” He took a deep breath and let his eyes fall shut. They sat there in silence for a few moments. Clyde could practically feel the tension radiating off of Wendy. He knew why she was asking. His heart felt like it was in his throat. Losing Tammy felt unthinkable. Brimmy opened his eyes. “Well?” she asked shakily.

“I’m so sorry,” he said quietly. “Tammy Warner’s contract has been terminated.”

Clyde choked out a sob that cut through the quiet in the worst way possible. Wendy silently put her head in her hands as the rest of the room succumbed to the next wave of grief. This was too much.

Clyde wasn’t sure how long they sat there like that before Wendy spoke up. “Someone please tell me they have a purifier. Now.” Kyle was in front of her before Clyde could even process what she said. That was all it took for her to collapse into sobs. Clyde could fully understand why Brimmy was afraid of their emotions. If they weren’t careful, they’d kill the rest of their group well before the storm would occur.

0 notes

hederasgarden · 2 years ago

Text

Tender Loving Care

Summary: You help Six relax after a hard mission. Paring: Sierra Six x F!Reader Word Count: 900 Rating: Explicit sexual content, 18+ only. Oral sex (m receiving)...that's it. There is no plot (but maybe some soft feels). A/N: @hijustcallmeadisappointment is to blame for this smutty drabble. She shared the photo below in the Baby Goose Renaissance Discord and it made me feral. Thank you @truesblue for beta’ing and @hoe-on-the-range for the title and beta work!

You’re dozing on the couch, the tv playing reruns of an old sitcom when a sharp knock on the front door cuts through the laugh track. You jolt awake, nearly spilling the cold mug of tea in your hands. You blink rapidly to clear the sleep in your eyes, half convinced you imagined the sound. A second later it comes again and you approach the front door, relaxing at the sight of Six’s familiar face through the peephole. When you open the door you realize the sad state he’s in, exhausted and bloody.

This isn’t the first time he’s shown up like this, but it never gets any easier seeing him hurt.

“Oh, Six,” you sigh, reaching out to touch the side of his face.

“You should see the other guy,” he quips. “Actually it was a woman. Little embarrassing,” he admits with a grimace.

He lets you pull him inside your apartment and fuss over him. By now you know the drill, grabbing the first aid kit from under the bathroom sink and starting a hot shower for him. Six leans against the wall, eyes half closed as steam gathers in the small room, the air growing humid. You leave to gather a clean set of clothes and some towels for him. When you return he’s in the shower and you find his dirty clothes folded in a neat pile on the floor. They’re not even remotely salvageable and you throw them straight into the trash.

Six never loiters in the shower, the need to be quick and efficient too ingrained in him. You wish he would let the warm water ease the tension in his muscles, and clear his mind, but he never does. He's back in your living room within minutes, looking a little better without all the blood and dirt. He's left his shirt behind, wearing only gray sweatpants slung low on his hips that show off his impressive figure littered with scars.

"Come here," you whisper, reaching out to take his hand and lead him to the couch. He sits when you direct him to, his brows rising as you kneel between his thick legs. You stare lovingly up at him, running your hands over the top of his thighs. “I’m going to help you relax,” you explain, pulling down his pants far enough to free him.

His skin is still damp from the shower and his cock is velvety soft in your hands. It only takes a few strokes before he’s growing hard, and at the first touch of your warm mouth to his tip, he groans. The low, needy sound going straight to your core. You take him further inside, watching through your lashes as his eyes close and his head drops back. You run your tongue along the underside of his cock and tease the thick vein there.

“Fuck,” Six breathes, shifting his hips forward just a tiny bit to get you to take the rest of him.

One hand cups the back of your head but he doesn’t apply any pressure. He only wants to touch you. You hollow your cheeks and bob your head, swirling your tongue around the salty, familiar taste of him. You build up to a rhythm that has him panting and his chest flushing pink. The ache in your core grows the longer you work him over.

“Yeah,” he encourages, both hands moving to cup your face as he stares down at you. His eyes are dark with desire and he’s breathless with need. “Like that.”

He’s close and even though the thickly corded muscles in his arms tense, his hands remain gentle on your face. His hips lift off the couch, causing you to gag a little. You don’t stop him from thrusting into your mouth, you want him to come. You redouble your efforts, taking him down to the root and holding him there until his whole body goes rigid. The muscles of his stomach tense and his cock swells. Six comes with a soft, almost pained groan, filling your belly with hot, thick spurts of cum. You take everything he gives you, a few tears leaking from your eyes before leaning back on your heels, gasping wetly to pull oxygen back into your burning lungs.

Six’s hands drop from your face and he leans back, boneless and sated. His eyes are closed and all the tension from his body is gone. You love seeing him like this, relaxed and vulnerable. There’s a sense of pride in knowing you’ve done this to him. When you rub his thighs and sigh, his gaze returns to you. He sweeps his thumb over your lower lip to catch a few stray drops of cum left there and you lick his finger clean, sucking hard enough to make his cock twitch with interest again.

Before you can comment, he pulls you into his arms for a long, deep kiss. Strong arms wrap around your back, holding you tightly against his body. You moan softly in response, savoring the feel of his lips on yours. When Six leans back his bright blue eyes regard you seriously.

“I don’t deserve you,” he whispers, stroking your cheek.

You lean in and rub your nose against his, smiling. “Yes you do, Six and I'm going to keep reminding you until you believe that,” you promise.

♡

I no longer have a tag list, please follow @hg-library and turn on notifications.

#sierra six x reader #court gentry x reader #sierra six imagine #sierra six x you #sierra six #court gentry x you #court gentry imagine #courtland gentry #court gentry #the gray man

371 notes · View notes

cuttoothed · 4 years ago

Text

A little fic for @jonsimsandcats and also inspired by some adorable art on discord! Featuring notes on kitten rearing, and of course some Jmart because it’s me.

Jon works at the Institute here, but a non-spooky version of it!

Martin is doing a final check on the fish tanks when he hears the bell above the front door jingle. He sighs; he knew he should have locked up first. Just his luck.

“This is your fault,” he tells the angelfish balefully. They don’t seem contrite, too busy nosing in the fine gravel for any food they’ve missed. Martin walks out to the front of the shop, preparing his best customer service smile to tell whoever’s come in at—he glances at his watch��three minutes past eight that they’re closed, and no, they can’t just wander around for a few minutes to look at the animals. Honestly, some people seem to think there’s no difference between a pet shop and an art gallery.

There’s a man standing at the front counter, looking around anxiously, a bundled up jumper clutched against his chest.

“Sorry, we’re—” Martin begins, and that’s as far as he gets before the man unleashes a frantic tirade.

“Please!” the man says, “I need your help, I-I’m not sure they’re breathing and they were out there for hours on their own, I know you’re not supposed to move them in case their mother comes back but I couldn’t just—just leave knowing they were still there, and all the vet offices nearby are closed, this was the only place I could think of!”

The man is wild eyed, almost panicked, and Martin lifts both hands in an appeasing gesture.

“Woah,” he says, “Uh, maybe start from the beginning again? Slowly?”

“Right, ah, sorry. Sorry. I spotted them this morning, under a bush just outside my work.” The man sets the bundle of jumper down on the counter, and unfolds it to reveal two tiny scraps of fur: one gray, one black. Kittens, Martin realizes, so small they can only be a week or so old; certainly not old enough to be without their mother.

“I left them alone, because I’ve heard that the mother usually comes back after a little while. A-and I meant to go and check on them again during the day, make sure.” The man sounds anguished now, his face miserable. “But I—I got caught up in work, forgot about it. It was only when I was leaving that I remembered. And they were still there, on their own. Barely moving. Please—is there anything we can do?”

Martin looks down at the tiny creatures in their nest of wool; he can just about see the shallow in-out of their breathing. All day outside alone, at their age, the odds aren’t great. But he’s met enough kittens to know that they’re shockingly resilient little sods, and he’s never given up on a so-called hopeless case before. He’s not about to start now.

“You did the right thing moving them,” he assures the man, moving to flip the sign on the door to CLOSED. “We need to get them warmed up and get some food into them. Body heat is the best thing for them right now—can you start warming them with your hands?”

“Oh—ah, yes,” says the man, turning to his bundle of jumper with a worried frown. Martin leaves him there while he rushes around the shop, grabbing kitten milk replacer and nursing bottles, and then into the back to heat two mugs of water in the microwave while he makes up the bottles. He pops them into the mugs to warm, and brings the whole lot out to the front. The man now has a kitten in each hand, and is holding them pressed carefully to his chest for additional warmth; his expression is still worried, but also desperately tender, and Martin feels a pang of something behind his ribs at the sight.

“One of them is moving,” the man says eagerly as Martin sets the bottles down. Martin can see the gray kitten wriggling weakly in the man’s grip, responding to the heat. Its sibling is still motionless, and Martin’s heart sinks a little.

“That’s great,” he says. “Hold onto her for another minute, and let me see if I can get her sister moving too.”

He holds out a hand, and the man almost reluctantly passes him the black kitten. Martin doesn’t try to notice that the man has lovely hands, with long, slim fingers, narrow wrist jutting out of his shirt sleeve, but, well, he notices a bit. He turns his attention to the kitten; he can’t make out the motion of its breathing anymore. He takes it in both hands and starts to massage it gently. It lies limp in his palms, head lolling, and Martin starts to feel despair crawling cold up his spine.

“Come on, sweetheart,” he murmurs, “You can do it.” The man is watching him anxiously, the gray kitten cradled against his chest, and Martin knows he can’t give up. He keeps rubbing the kitten’s small body, trying to will warmth and life back into the tiny, fragile form. At last, after what seems like an eternity, the kitten squirms in his hands and a faint, plaintive mew escapes it. An answering mew comes from the gray kitten, and Martin laughs, relief washing over him.

“Right, let’s see if we can get them to eat.”

After checking that they’re not too chilled to feed, Martin tests each of the kittens with a drop of formula on their tongue; thankfully they both seem able to swallow without difficulty. He shows the man how to feed the gray kitten, holding its body in a neutral position with the bottle tilted for a gentle flow. It doesn’t take long for the kittens to figure out the process, and Martin can feel the tug on the bottle as his kitten begins to suckle.

“Oh,” he hears softly from beside him, and turns to see the man gazing in delight at the gray kitten, whose tiny, unfurled ears are twitching as it sucks.

“She’s doing great,” Martin comments. “Good job.” The man gives him a tentative, pleased smile, and Martin still isn’t trying to notice but it’s a very nice smile. “I’m Martin, by the way.”

“Jonathan Sims—Jon,” says the man, and then gives a small, tense laugh. “God, I haven’t even apologized for storming in here while you were clearly trying to close up for the night.”

“That’s all right, I didn’t have any exciting plans tonight anyway. I’d much rather be spending time with these little beauties.”

Jon smiles again, more sure this time, and all right, maybe Martin deliberately notices the dimple in his right cheek. Just a bit.

Once the kittens are fed, Martin shows Jon how to stimulate them; both of them only pee a little—poor things are dehydrated—but it’s a good sign. They clean them up and tuck them back into the nest of Jon’s jumper, where they curl up into a small puddle of black and gray. Jon gives a sigh that’s somewhere between relieved and exhausted.

“Thank you,” he says. “I, ah, I think I forgot to say that as well. You know a lot about this.”

“I volunteer at a shelter, there are a lot of kittens. If you like, I can take them for tonight and bring them in tomorrow?”

“Ah,” says Jon. “Do you think that’s—I mean...I-I’m not sure I’d feel right, handing them off to someone else. Not that I think you’re not capable!” he rushes to add, and Martin finds himself smiling.

“No, I get it. You found them, you want to take care of them. I’ll warn you, though, it’s a big commitment. For the first couple of weeks you have to feed them every two hours, even during the night, and then it’s every three or four hours until they start weaning. It’s like having a newborn baby.”

“I don’t get much sleep generally,” says Jon. “At least this way I’ll have something to do while I’m up all night. And my work is—well, I’ll explain the situation.”

He looks set on it, brow furrowed with determination. Martin considers arguing more: that a shelter will be better equipped to care for the kittens, that there’s no guarantee they’ll survive in any case, that Jon doesn’t know what he’s signing up for. But the shelters are always crowded, and kittens this young have simple needs, and really, a dedicated foster parent—armed with the right knowledge—is probably the best thing for them.

“Right,” he says, “Let’s make sure these two are well wrapped up before you take them home.”

He scrounges a cardboard box from the back and they settle the kittens into it, still wrapped in Jon’s jumper along with a soft fleece blanket printed with cartoon fish. Martin gathers a couple of cartons of liquid formula and extra bottles to get them started, and shows Jon how to pierce the nipple so the flow isn’t too strong.

“It should be warmed to body temperature,” he explains, “But not directly in the microwave—put the bottles in heated water, like I did earlier. Do you have a hot water bottle?”

“Yes, I do,” says Jon, frowning intently as he listens. Martin nods.

“It’s better than a heating pad at this age, they’re less likely to get overheated. Don’t make it too hot—body temperature, again—and wrap it in a blanket so they’re not touching it directly.”

“Got it,” says Jon firmly, and Martin believes him. He bags up the formula and bottles and an extra pet blanket, and presses them into the hands of a startled Jon; the till is shut off for the night, but Martin can explain and pay for the items tomorrow.

“What’s your phone number?” he asks, and Jon looks even more startled.

“S-sorry?”

“Or your email. I’m going to send you some links—videos, a couple of good blogs that should be helpful.”

“Oh, ah, right. Of course.” Jon recites his number and Martin saves it under “Jon (Kittens).” He peeks into the box one last time before Jon scoops it up, and sees the kittens snuggled in the folds of the jumper, paws waving in little kitten dreams.

“Thank you again, Martin,” says Jon. “I honestly don’t know what I would have done without you tonight.” His tone is shy but genuine, and it sends warmth through Martin’s chest and up into his cheeks.

“Any time,” Martin says. “And feel free to text me if you need anything—if you have a question or...anything. Or call me if you like.” He’s aware he’s rambling a bit, but it’s not every day an attractive man says that he doesn’t know what he would have done without you, so he can hardly be blamed.

“I will,” says Jon solemnly.

He doesn’t text Martin any questions that night, but when Martin sends him the links to a youtube channel and three blog posts on kitten care, he replies:

Thank you :)

Martin spends most of the rest of the night wondering what that smiley face means.

He doesn’t necessarily expect to see Jon again, and certainly doesn’t expect to see him the very next day. But just before one o’clock in the afternoon the bell above the door jingles and there’s Jon, looking tired and more than a bit sheepish.

“I got all the way into work this morning before I realized I’d never paid for any of the things you gave me,” he says, reaching for his wallet.

“Those were gifts,” Martin tells him firmly. “Sort of a “welcome to foster parenthood” care basket?”

“No, I couldn’t let you—” Jon starts to protest, but Martin shakes his head emphatically.

“It’s no big deal, honestly. I get an employee discount anyway.”

“I...well, then I suppose I need to thank you yet again,” says Jon.

“It’s becoming a bit of a habit,” Martin jokes, grinning, and Jon smiles in return. He hesitates a moment before continuing:

“Maybe I could buy you lunch instead, then? To pay you back.”

“There’s no need, honestly,” says Martin, even as his brain berates him: What are you doing, idiot, he’s asking you to have lunch with him? Say yes!

“Please, I’d like to,” Jon says, and then gives a thoughtful frown. “Only if you want to, of course, don’t feel obligated—”

“I’m on lunch in five minutes,” Martin blurts out before he can overthink it.

“Great!” says Jon, sounding pleased. “If you have time, we could go by my office as well and visit the kittens. I just fed them before I came to see you.”

Before I came to see you, not before I came to pay you back, and Martin feels that warmth crawling up towards his cheeks again. Even if Jon’s intentions are purely friendly rather than...anything else, well, Martin could always use more friends.

“How were they last night?” he asks, and the smile that spreads across Jon’s face this time is pure delight.

“Oh I barely got an hour’s sleep,” he says, waving a hand. “And today they’re sitting under my desk reminding me every couple of hours that they need attention and that they are far more important than whatever I’m working on. They’re perfect.”

“Sounds like cat parenthood suits you,” Martin teases gently, and Jon laughs.

“I think it rather does.”

Lunch is...nice, and only slightly awkward in the “getting to know a new person” sort of way. Jon is serious, but also funny in an understated, acerbic way, and there’s a gentleness to him that wouldn’t be immediately apparent, if Martin hadn’t seen him cradling two tiny, fragile lives to his chest last night. He’s the kind of person Martin would like to know better, he thinks.

Afterwards they go to Jon’s workplace, which is extremely academic with a brass nameplate by the door and everything, and down to the basement office where Jon works; Martin doesn’t really know what archiving entails, but it looks like mostly a bloody great pile of paperwork. Jon’s two colleagues give Martin friendly and extremely curious glances as they pass; Jon pointedly ignores them in favor of directing Martin to his desk and the cardboard box sitting beneath it.

When Martin glances inside, the two kittens are curled up in the folds of the fish-print blanket, lying against the shape of what he assumes is the hot water bottle. Their bellies already look rounder than they were last night, thanks to regular feeding, and their limbs twitch as they sleep.

“I’ll take them to the vet for a check up after work,” Jon murmurs quietly, gazing down at them with a soft expression. Martin recognizes that look of adoration, and he knows this pair won’t be going to a shelter or anywhere else; they’ve found their home with Jon.

“They’re lucky you found them,” he says, and Jon smiles self-consciously.

“I think I’m the one who was lucky,” he says.

They spend a bit more time with the kittens, and then Martin realizes that it’s about time he got back to work if he doesn’t want to get in trouble. He excuses himself, waving goodbye to Jon’s still curious colleagues, and Jon walks him out to the grand front entrance of the building.

“Thanks again for lunch,” he says. “And—you have my number, right? The offer is open, if you need anything, just text me.”

“I will,” says Jon. “And, ah, let me know if you’d like to come and see the kittens again. Any day. Well, most days,” he corrects himself. “We could, ah, maybe have lunch again?”

“That sounds...really nice,” says Martin. Jon smiles, pleased, and Martin isn’t trying to notice the faint flush that spreads across his face, but it’s very cute anyway.

As he walks back to work, Martin’s phone vibrates with a text. It’s a picture of the kittens, curled up on top of each other, with the message:

Come back and see us soon!

Martin grins; the kittens, he thinks, weren’t the only ones lucky to be found last night.

#the magnus archives #jonsimsandcats2021 #my fic #jonmartin

544 notes · View notes

asweetprologue · 4 years ago

Text

this is for @pencilscratchins who has been plaguing my dash with TFA era dinluke concepts. I did not think my first star wars fic would be about rey and luke but here we are! based on this post and more specifically a scene in rebecca’s google doc lmao

a·wak·en to rouse (a feeling)

Rey finds him at the edge of the city, where the rough geometry of the buildings crack and fragment apart as they give way to dust. It’s one of the areas she’s avoided most intensely; the dense fog of loss lingers here, clawing for her attention. The more she opens herself up to the Force lately, the more she feels the echoes of the life it touched before. The land remembers, and the bones beneath them speak to her in sharp little bursts of time lost.

Beyond, the desert stretches out in its infinite, unforgiving ambivalence. Where the city is a roiling mass of lives long since passed, the ocean of sand before them is a void. No suffering, no pain, no agonized voices crying out. No joy, no love clinging to the rocky surface. There is Force there too, she knows, permeating the stone and air and even the smallest insects scuttling below the surface. No more or less pure than that found in the city, but quieter. She takes a moment to breathe it in, tasting it on the backs of her teeth.

He isn’t meditating. She can feel his disconnect from the Force like a wound, jaring and discordant. But here at the edge of what has become her home, the home he scraped together with the Mand’alor for a dying people, it doesn’t feel so abrasive. Rey hovers for a moment, unsure, before taking a seat beside him. When Luke says nothing, she tries to drop into meditation herself, but as always her mind fights her. She wonders what happened to cause such a great disruption in Luke’s psyche. Such resistance to opening himself to the Force. She thinks about trying to cut herself off from it, now that she has felt its presence in and around herself, and balks. It would be easier to cut off her own hand, she thinks.

She shifts slightly, looking for a more comfortable position, and Luke huffs. It’s an amused sound, and Rey’s eyes blink open to regard him curiously. Luke is looking at her, something bittersweet on his face. “What?” she demands.

“If you’re trying to meditate,” he replies, “you’re not doing a very good job of it. I can feel your mind going a parsec a minute.”

“Well I’ve not exactly had the best instruction,” she grumbles, relaxing from her more formal meditative stance.

Luke’s beard twitches, and though he’s smiling, she can sense his wariness in the air around them. No one hides in the Force. “What makes you think you’re ready?” he asks.

It’s a question that she’s been expecting, that she’s spent hours building arguments around. I’m strong, she had planned to say, or I can already do so much, or I have nothing. I have no one. Make me into something of use. But now looking into Luke Skywalker’s sad eyes, she only has one real answer. There is only one real thing that makes her feel like she must do this, one thing that makes her desperate for guidance. The truth that brought her here.

“There’s no one else,” she says, and for a moment the vast loneliness of the statement washes over her, smothering. It’s probably the most honest thing she’s said since her feet sunk into the sand of New Mandalore. “If it’s not me, there’s no one. So I’m ready. I have to be.”

Luke takes a breath, a glacial motion that seems to carry all the weight that she feels within it. He looks up at the sky above them, shoulders slumping. The moonlight reflects on the desert sand, turning it into a silver sea stretching out infinitely beyond them. The lights of the city are far behind them; the only creatures that keep them company here are the stars, and the ghosts.

“I can’t be a good teacher to you,” Luke says. His voice is clear and crisp; it offers no opportunity for rebuttal. “I failed before. I can’t be a father, or a mentor. I’m not even a Jedi anymore, not really. Maybe I never was.” He laughs, a harsh, cracked sound. “I barely knew my old masters. Most of the teachings of the Order are lost. I tried to rebuild it, and I just forced history to repeat itself.” He drops his chin down, meeting her gaze again. His eyes are very blue, she realizes, maybe for the first time. They’re younger than the rest of his face. The Force suddenly brushes against her consciousness, offering her a fizzling image of a young man with windswept blonde hair, in a desert so similar and yet so different from this one. The man is bright and shining, desperate for adventure, ready to be someone. So deeply, terrifically afraid of the burden the galaxy had placed on his shoulders. The image fades, Luke’s face aging before her, but his eyes are the same. Still bright, still scared.

Rey understands.

“You don’t need to be anything to me,” she says. This does not ring with the truth that she offered moments ago. “I haven’t had anyone, ever. I’ve been alone all my life. I can be what they need without you.” She pauses, takes a deep breath. Steadies herself, forces her rapid heart rate to settle, lets her emotions leak out into the Force until it washes back into her with all the calm of the wide open desert. “I don’t need you, Luke Skywalker. But your help would sure make my life kriffing easier.”

Luke laughs again, and this time it doesn’t seem so bitter. He shakes his head, gray hair flopping across his forehead. “Well, Din will be pleased,” he says lightly, and Rey feels a sense of relief wash through her that’s so powerful for a moment she can’t breathe with it. He’s going to do it. She’s got a teacher. She laughs too, feeling bright and shining and afraid.

They sit together at the edge of the world together, and in the face of the endless desert she finally feels something like hope

#rebecca pencilscratchins i hope ur happy #look at what you made me do #THIS close to writing a fucking 60k TFA au smh #i have a life you know #i promise i'll have some dinluke stuff soon that's like... actual dinluke lmafo #dinluke #VAGUELY but they're married here #rey #luke skywalker #star wars #sw #my work #fanfic #fic #>5k #@pencilscratchins

368 notes · View notes

lunarblazes · 3 years ago

Text

SIGHS. in case you were wondering, here is the context for the piece i rbed from @mikartisa earlier today! luna posting writing on main not clickbait? wild.

written for the mother spore au, an au made by me and a few awesome discord friends across a few servers!

tw: mild body horror, slight disassociation (not meant to be but can be read as such), self-neglecting behavior

Grian gets home late. He said he’d sleep, he promised he’d sleep. With the amount of promises he’s broken recently, he feels like he has to at least try for this one. Mumbo was so worried, and even if he didn’t know what was going on, he should at least try.

And besides, Scar and Mumbo would be over to look at his wings tomorrow, and he didn’t want them to realize that the phantoms were only kept off his scent by Bdubs’ diligent server sleep.

Which is a problem, because he knows for a fact that his wings are ruined. He doesn’t know how it got that bad, he doesn’t know how he didn’t see it, and worst of all, he doesn’t know why he can’t seem to care. But they’re coming over tomorrow, so. He’ll have to explain what little he knows about the fatigue and the pressure in his head to his friends. He isn’t looking forward to it. At all.

He lays down, properly this time, because Mumbo doesn’t count it as real sleep if it’s in a shulker box (and if he was to be completely honest with himself, he didn’t want to think about what the rot rooted bone-deep in his wings could do to him trapped in a box for hours). Grian closes his eyes and counts to ten, a tip he picked up from Scar after one too many a late-night building session. He opens them again and freezes, confused.

[You may not rest now, there are monsters nearby.]

He sits up, electric apprehension shocking him more awake than he’s felt in weeks (or maybe, ever). What?

Grian lays down again.

[You may not rest now, there are monsters nearby.]

What?

His wings are too heavy for his bones, now, he’s sure of it, either that or his skin has tightened, or the spike that’s been driving itself through his forehead like a demented unicorn’s horn finally reached the core of his brain, or— or it’s the.

He blinks, one moment certain that he’s lit up all of his base and all of the caves below, and there should be no reason to get that message on his comm.

The next blink flares out into spirals of black and white film, blossoming in his vision and casting the dark spruce around him in a rotting gray color. He swears he can even see the vignette at the edges, the fraying of the illusion, even the noise on the reels, but this isn’t a movie. He’s lying in bed, too heavy to move, glitching out. Trapped, his mind supplies, and the thought of the word makes his breath hitch in his throat.

He cannot be trapped, not ever, not by anyone— the hermits know better than to try it, after he nearly mauled Iskall for pranking him with an obsidian AFK box in season 6. It was a lot more lighthearted than the trapped he’s feeling right now, but it still sent a message.

On instinct, he starts running his talons through his wings, trying to pick out the rot. It clumps around his fingers, but there’s always more, and suddenly he realizes he can’t get it off his fingertips. It’s stuck like tar, strands like spider silk webbing off of his claws and greasily shining in the dusty noir moonlight. Gray scales fleck off into the air. His breath hitches again, but for a different reason.

This is… this is bad. This is so bad. He can’t move.

Suddenly, he is floating in the noir vision. His body goes pins-and-needles numb, and if he thought he couldn’t move before, well. He’s being crushed now. He can’t find out why he needs to care.

Of course it is, Grian wants to argue, snap at whatever part of his brain is debating this, I am light, I am the flames, I am the sparks, the lightning in the very sky, quicksilver and mercury and mercy embodied.

His friends call him sunny, like a solar flare, like the sunlight hitting the waves of the shopping district, so bright it’s blinding. What would they do without his light?

Something hazy, like syrup flowing from a tree tap, answers quietly but firmly, no, you are dark and dirt and isolation and run and hide and secrecy. you will be, after this.

He wishes he had the air in his throat to protest, but it’s taking knives to his throat, pressing the air out of his lungs at swordtip and the smell of gunpowder is overpowering, even though he knows that none is around.

He can’t blink. The filter remains steady, vignettes and noise. The pressure behind his eyes builds into tears, and he still can’t blink.

He lays there for god knows how long, with the watery moonlight as his only companion, and when it’s finally over, he can’t feel any part of himself. There is a feeling of his wings dragging behind him, of the warm, sticky jungle breeze blowing through the entrance of his trading hall, the jungle he knows Scar and Mumbo are in. There is the feeling of stumbling around, of learning how to walk again (it’s all so new, and he couldn’t describe it if he wanted to).

Grian drags himself to the outside of the hall, his wings like a leaden blanket wrapping his back in a static coating. He feels more like he’s been thrown into the x-ray machine and met the radiation head and heart first.

He looks out over the jungle.

Scar and Mumbo are going to see his wings tomorrow.

He can’t let them see his wings tomorrow.

(They’ll follow me, he realizes, deep inside his chest. I can’t let them know what’s happened. They’ll follow me.

The rot around his throat and lungs constricts, making him hack and cough. run, run, flightless one, run)

His body moves before he does. But in the end, it’s the same result.

[You may not rest now, there are monsters nearby.]

#mother spore au #grian #hermitcraft #fanfic #just so someone can filter it out if they want #this au lives in my head rent free #if anyone wants to know more please say so! love this lil thing

65 notes · View notes

whimsicallyenchantedrose · 3 years ago

Text

Dead Man’s Cell Phone--Chapter 2

Summary: When Emma Swan starts getting phone calls and texts from an unfamiliar number, she decides to check it out–only to discover the number belongs to a Killian Jones, who was killed in a robbery gone wrong six months ago. With some help from a medium, Merlin Emrys, Emma hopes to find out why a dead guy is contacting her–and why she feels such a strong pull to someone she has never met before.

Rating: K+

Tagging a few people who may be interested (Let me know if you want to be added or taken off the list): @sailormew4 @annaamell @flslp87 @emmateo26 @bethacaciakay @ultraluckycatnd @effulgent-mind @ilovemesomekillianjones@kat2609 @brooke-to-broch @missgymgirl @galadriel26 @the-lady-of-misthaven @charmingturkeysandwich @jennjenn615 @laschatzi @kimmy46 @snowbellewells @iamanneenigma @daxx04 @nickillian @a-rose-for-a-savior@in-spirational @gillie @britishguyslover @ginnyjinxedandhanshotritafirst@kmomof4 @linda8084 @golfgirld @captain-swan-coffee @searchingwardrobes @hollyethecurious @laughswaytoomuch@allyourdarlingswans @winterbaby89 @facesiousbutton82 @cssns @therooksshiningknight, @lfh1226-linda @tiganasummertree @eastwesthomeisbest @dreamingdreamsalways @xsajx @justren21 @laughterandbooks @cocohook38 @therealstartraveller776

Welcome to my entry for the Captain Swan Supernatural Summer! A big thank you to @cssns, the ladies on the Discord! Thank you also to @eastwesthomeisbest, my artist and my beta @veryverynotgood!

Other Chapters: Prologue 1 3 4 Epilogue

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

"So after the phone calls, the text messages started coming," Emma said, settling into her best friend's plush sofa.

"Texts?" Mary Margaret asked curiously before taking a sip of her tea. "What kind of texts?"

It felt like Emma had known Mary Margaret forever. Both girls were placed in the system at young ages-Emma, because her parents abandoned her on the side of a road as an infant, and Mary Margaret, because her parents both died of illness. They ended up in the same group home, and quickly became the best of friends. They were closer than sisters until the day Mary Margaret was adopted by Cora Mills, and then eventually, Emma was fostered by Ruth Nolan.

Even after being placed with other families, Emma and Mary Margaret kept in touch-letters, phone calls, even the occasional visit. On one such visit, Emma's foster brother, David, was home from college, and as soon as he and Mary Margaret met, it was love at first sight.

They were so in love it was honestly a bit nauseating.

When they got married fresh out of college, Emma couldn't be happier. She'd always considered Mary Margaret her sister in all the ways that counted, and now they truly were.

There was no doubt about it - Mary Margaret Nolan was the person Emma was closest to in the entire world, and so it was only natural that when the weird stuff with the cell phone started happening, Emma decided to discuss it with her.

"Weird ones," Emma answered, taking a sip of her own hot cocoa with cinnamon. "Stuff like Help! or You're the only one who can save me!. And then some of them were even stranger. Just...random letters and symbols, almost like someone was randomly pressing buttons on a keyboard."

"So what did you do?" Mary Margaret asked, sitting on the other side of the sofa and turning toward Emma.

Emma shrugged. "I tried answering at first. You know, you hear about people who are abducted and, like, stuck in a basement for years and stuff like that. I kept thinking, what if someone really needed help and I just...ignored them?"

"And what happened when you answered?" Mary Margaret asked.

"Nothing," Emma answered before taking another sip. "No answer, just another cryptic text several hours later. Finally, I decided I'd had enough. Either someone needed help, or someone was messing with me. I decided I'd call the number, decide whether I needed to help them or tell them to go f-" She stopped, glancing over at Mary Margaret's toddler playing with blocks nearby. "Well, go do something not at all child-friendly to themselves."

"Let me guess, your call didn't get through."

"Nope," Emma confirmed, "but it was even weirder than that. I dialed the number just after receiving a text, but it went directly to voicemail."

"But that's not possible!" Mary Margaret exclaimed.

"Right?" Emma said. "So I tried to ignore the whole thing. Maybe the phone was just...I don't know..glitching or something, although I don't know how a technological glitch could make phone calls and text someone. Anyway, for some reason, I just can't let go. Even though I don't know him, somehow I feel a...connection...to this Killian Jones. I just-I don't know what to do about it."

Mary Margaret was silent for a moment, taking several sips of her steaming beverage, before turning back to Emma with a cautious look in her eyes. "There is...there is another possibility, if you have an open mind."

"Just how open are we talking?"

"Pretty open," Mary Margaret said. "What if-and just hear me out, I know this is crazy-what if Killian Jones is contacting you from beyond the grave."

"What, like a ghost?"

Mary Margaret shrugged. "I mean, I know it sounds crazy, but why not? One of the other teachers I work with was talking about this medium. His name is Merlin Emrys. Supposedly he can contact the dead and see ghosts and stuff like that."

"A medium? Seriously?" Emma asked, crossing her arms and raising an eyebrow. "Mary Margaret, you know those people are frauds. It's all about researching their marks ahead of time and then cold reading them. They're only in it to bleed as much cash out of vulnerable people as possible."

"I know it sounds crazy," Mary Margaret conceded, "but what if it's not? I've thought about going to him myself. If I could just talk to my parents one more time-make sure they're okay, make sure they've moved on, or whatever happens after someone dies. Well, it would provide a lot of comfort."

Emma's heart turned over, and she took her friend's hand. She knew how much Mary Margaret missed her parents. It was different for Emma. She'd never known her parents, only knew they'd tossed her out like garbage. She wasn't sure she even wanted to find them.

"I know you miss them," Emma said.

"I do," Mary Margaret said, "but that's not the point. The point is...what do you have to lose? Maybe this Merlin is just a quack like you said, but maybe not. Maybe he could be the key to unravelling the whole mystery."

Emma was silent for a moment. It was crazy; she knew it was. A medium wasn't going to give her the answers she needed if all her bail bonds tricks had failed her, but what the hell?

"Fine. I'll go see Merlin," Emma caved.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Emma's eyebrows rose as she took in the small, ranch-style house Mary Margaret had directed her to. She was skeptical before seeing the place, but now-now red flags were going up everywhere.

There was a huge, gaudy sign out front that read "Merlin, the great and powerful. Wizard of the unknown and medium of the great beyond." The sign-indeed the entire front of the house-was decorated with all kinds of astrological signs and symbols.

Was this guy even for real?

Emma seriously considered turning around and getting back in her car, but she'd promised Mary Margaret she'd at least check this Merlin out and give him a chance, and Emma was a woman of her word. She took a deep breath and knocked on the door.

A moment later, an older man with longish, thinning gray hair and a rather unkempt gray beard opened the door. He was wearing long robes. Really playing the part, apparently.

"Merlin Emrys, I presume?" Emma asked as the man welcomed her inside with a sweep of his hand.

The man chuckled. "I'm afraid not. I'm merely his apprentice. Who might I tell Merlin is calling?"

Emma cocked an eyebrow. "You mean your all powerful boss didn't see me coming with his second sight or whatever?"

Emma stepped inside and the apprentice shut the door after her. "My master isn't clairvoyant. He merely has the ability to speak with the dead."

"Right," Emma said, not even trying to tamp down the skepticism in her voice. "I'm Emma Swan, and I'm here to-"

He stopped her with a raised hand. "Don't say too much. Merlin does not wish to be influenced by his clients. He wishes to sense the energy around you for himself."

Emma shrugged. "Sorry."

"It's quite alright," the apprentice said, moving toward large drapes at the far end of the room. "I'll be just a moment. Please, make yourself comfortable."

Emma looked around the room while she waited, and it took everything in her to keep from rolling her eyes. This guy was really playing up the whole "psychic" thing. It felt like she was in some sort of fortune teller carnival tent. All the signs and symbols. This guy even had a crystal ball. An actual crystal ball.

This trip was a massive waste of her time, but maybe it would at least prove to be entertaining.

"Emma Swan, welcome!"

Emma looked up at the handsome black man who made his way through the curtains. He was dressed in much the same way as his apprentice, only he wore a sorcerer's pointy hat on his head.

"Uh, thanks," Emma said, stepping forward and offering her hand. "Full disclosure. I'm more than a little bit of a skeptic, so if this is one of those 'it can only work if you truly believe' deals, we might have a problem."

"My gift can withstand the doubts of the skeptic," he chuckled before reaching out and taking her hand.

No sooner had his hand touched hers than he gasped, taking a step back, eyes going wide. "Would you-would you care to follow me back to my private sitting room, Miss Swan? It's far more comfortable back there."

Emma cocked a brow again, wondering what this odd man was on about. Still, she didn't sense any overt deception in him, and he didn't seem to be any threat to her, so she shrugged before following him through the curtains.

This backroom was far more ordinary than the room they'd just inhabited. Emma took a plush armchair, and Merlin sat on a sofa across from her.

Merlin pulled off his hat and sat it beside him. "I apologize for all the theatrics, Miss Swan," he said, reaching for a pot of tea and then raising an eyebrow in question. Emma declined the beverage with a small shake of her head, and Merlin proceeded to pour himself a cup. "I attempt to play up to what most clients expect from a psychic. Unfortunately, most poor souls who come to see me are out of luck. The loved one they wish to contact has passed on. For most, all I can do amounts to smoke and mirrors. I could tell the moment I shook your hand that you were different."

Emma inwardly scoffed. She knew enough about cons not to be fooled by a clever con man. Made sense he'd use a different tactic with a skeptic than he would with some poor, grief-stricken sap who was a true believer.

"No offense, but I still think you're full of crap," she said.

Merlin smiled. "It seems those with the most energy surrounding them always do."

"So, what?" Emma asked. "Are there ghosts all around me or something?"

"There are a few spirits here with us today," Merlin confirmed. "There's one who's quite insistent. It's a man; looks as though he died rather young. I don't sense he's family, but you were close. Maybe coworkers? Perhaps friends?"

Emma took a deep breath, a face coming to mind. Surely he couldn't mean-

"I'm getting a G in the name," Merlin said slowly. "Greg or Gray….no. Graham."

Emma's heart turned over. Graham. Sweet, slightly dorky Graham Humbert. They'd worked together on more than a few cases, and they'd become good friends.

In fact, they'd been teetering on the precipice of possibly becoming more than friends when he died suddenly.

"How did you know to mention Graham? How did you know that name would get the biggest rise out of me?" Emma demanded, voice hard.

"I don't choose the spirits who come to me," Merlin explained calmly, "I merely give them a voice. Graham is pleased to see you again. He's glad you're doing well."

The anger came then, spurred on by the pain the memory of Graham's death brought back. "Why are you doing this to me?"

"He died quite suddenly, didn't he?" Merlin asked, ignoring her question. "I'm feeling a tightness in my chest. Something with his heart?"

"Heart attack," Emma confirmed tightly. "He had a heart attack right in front of me and died in my arms."

"He's sorry, so very sorry you had to go through that," Merlin said, putting a comforting hand on her arm. "He never wanted to be a source of pain for you."

Emma felt the tears at the back of her eyes and had to take a deep breath to keep them from falling. "Yeah, well, he didn't exactly have a say in the matter. Look, I don't know how you knew to bring up Graham, but I'm still not buying it."

"He apologizes he couldn't bring you a bear claw today," Merlin continued with a smile. "Oh, and he asks if you remember the day he thought he saw a wolf. He wants you to know he wasn't drunk. It really was there-in spirit at least."

Emma gasped, remembering the night she and Graham had gone to the Rabbit Hole for a drink after a long shift and Graham swore he spotted a big, gray wolf right there on the main street of town. Emma had made fun of him for that, telling him he'd clearly imbibed a bit too much that night. There's no way Merlin could have known about that incident. He couldn't have found it in any newspaper or online article about Graham's death.

Was it...was it possible this guy was the real deal?

"Okay, I admit, it's weird you'd bring that up," Emma said. "Let's say I believe you, can you ask Graham if he's okay? If he, like, moved on or whatever?"

"You just asked him," Merlin said. "He's here with us and can hear you. He wants to tell you that he is okay. He's more than okay; he's happy. He's moved on, and he's at peace, more than he could have ever thought possible."

Emma smiled, feeling comfort at the thought.

"There's someone else here with us as well," Merlin said. "Another male presence, but I don't believe you know this one. This one seems angry, desperate."

"Um...should we be scared?" Emma asked.

Merlin shook his head. "He doesn't mean us harm, only wants his story told. He's too indistinguishable to speak now, but I sense he'll be accompanying us on our journey today as well."

Wonderful. An angry, desperate ghost guide. Just fantastic.

"So, Emma," Merlin said, after a moment, "what brings you to me tonight?"

Emma pulled out her phone and laid out the entire story for Merlin. She told him about the calls, the texts, everything. Merlin took her phone in hand and gasped as soon as it touched his hand.

"There is a huge amount of energy here," he said. "There's no doubt a spirit has attached itself to you-or at least your phone."

Emma felt a chill. "My phone is haunted?"

"Not precisely," Merlin murmured, turning the device over in his hand. "Someone wishes to get your attention; wishes for you to help him, but there's something odd here, something I can't quite place."

"What do you mean?"

"The spirit is...indistinct," Merlin said, "hazy and just beyond my reach. I've never experienced anything like this."

Emma waited, her curiosity more than piqued at Merlin's odd reaction to her cell phone.

After a moment, Merlin's eyes widened. "Your friend Graham cleared up the mystery for me."

"What?" Emma asked. "What does Graham say is going on?"

"The reason I can't get a clear read on the spirit attached to your phone-this Killian Jones-is, well, because he's not dead."

Notes:

-So there you have it. For those of you who have wondered how this story could possibly have a happy ending since Killian is dead-this is how. He's not actually dead!

-Up next: With Merlin's help, Emma finds out how this is all possible-and she finds the not-dead Killian Jones.

Next Chapter-->

#cssns21 #captain swan supernatural summer #my franfiction #cs ghost story au #dead man's cell phone

56 notes · View notes

bloodpenned · 3 years ago

Note

plz plz plz can you write m!whitney skullfucking pc

wordcount: 2.5k (can’t believe this is the first time i write an actual fic on here.) cw: noncon, detailed ero guro / gore porn, eye trauma, drugging, knives, vomit mention, needle mention, degradation, victim blaming.

or: whitney fucks your eye socket and prepares you for the act. don’t read this to upset or trigger yourself, please.

Since all of your holes have been used by others, Whitney makes one for himself.

“Look at you- You can barely keep your fucking head up, slut.”

The voice drifts to you from far away, a figure leaning over the ice you’re trapped under. Where am I?, you ask, but all your vocal cords produce is a gurgle. Your limbs are made of cement and frozen in place. Letting yourself be dragged back into the depths of unconsciousness is much easier than staying afloat. Through trembling eyelids, you barely make out the shape of the person in front of you. Their legs, to be precise. Pain shoots through your scalp and you jolt, finally present enough for the ties around your wrists and ankles to register in your mind, the cold wall you’re leaning against. That it’s Whitney, because who fucking else would it be, yanking you up by your hair. Your tongue still refuses to move.

“Follow.” His voice feigns disinterest. Yet he keeps shuffling, leaning his weight more on one leg, then the other again. He holds his hand in front of your face, moving it from side to side. Your head is so fuzzy you see no reason to disobey. By the time you’ve caught up with him to the right, he’s already back the other way. Your eyelids droop. He laughs. “God, you’re out of it. Poor you, did I gave you a little too much? You can’t say I’ve ever underestimated you.”

As soon as his grip loosens, your head drops and black dots litter your vision. Drool spills from your mouth. Something bad is about to happen, there’s no other explanation for this. His hands will end up all over your body again. But there’s no chatter of his friends, no flashes of cameras, so different from the usual that you don’t know what to expect. The world fades out, before flickering back in the middle of a sentence.

“...pay me back. Got that? Good.” The hand is back in your hair, keeping you steady. He’s digging around in his pocket. “If you weren’t such a whore, I wouldn’t have to do this. Did you think I wouldn’t see those pictures? Wouldn’t know when my slut’s gagging around someone else? I promised I would beat some sense into you if you didn’t listen, so here we are.”

Whitney’s found what he had been looking for. There’s something in his hand, moving toward your face too quickly to make out. Everything’s so blurry that even while squinting, you can’t immediately tell what it is. You nearly go crosseyed trying to figure it out. A handle clenched in his fist, gray, reflecting surface, ending in a sharp point-

A knife.

“You’re a fucking cumbrain already, but I’ll give you one too.”

You watch the situation unfold from the back of your skull. This is happening to someone else, anyone except you. It’s a movie, and a bad one at that. You can’t pinch your arm to wake yourself up. Whitney had hurt you before, sure, with his bare hands. Never like this. He’s always made fun of Kylar for having to resort to knives, why would he use one now? Is it just a threat? It has to be. Then again, you’re so disoriented you don’t stand a sliver of a chance against him. Your heart hammers against your ribcage, so loud it makes your head throb. The furthest your abilities go is to shake your head and force a whimper from your throat, rubbing your wrists raw on the zip tie. Whitney presses cold steel against your cheek. You try to spit at him, but you can’t put any force behind it. It dribbles down your chin in a slow stream.

Whitney barks out a laugh. “What the fuck are you, a dog?” The knife digs into your skin, a gentle push away from slicing you open. “Don’t get to get too excited yet, we haven’t even started, slut.” He slides the blade up to your bottom eyelid, leaving a shallow cut. (Your brain is fuzzy. Your cheeks are warm, burning- Are you blushing? Is the wetness rolling down your face a tear?) Your fingers twitch, your teeth grind together, every muscle pulled tight like a bowstring.

His breathing is laboured, eyes boring into yours, expression blank for a mere moment. Whitney, as you know him from school, is all but empty. He’s of scoffing and snarling, of laughter and grins- This is nothing you recognize. Your gut twists. Every instinct in your body is screeching at the top of its lungs for you to run. At the same time, another part tells you to stay as still as possible, as if you will simply fade out of existence if you don’t move. (But it’s okay, because none of this is real, and you’re at the orphanage in bed curled up under the covers, and you’ll wake up late and rush to get your uniform to not miss the bus and you’ll be fine, you’ll be fine, you’ll be fine-) Whitney’s tongue darts out to trace his upper lip, his fingers turning white around the handle.

The next, there is a blow of air against your eye before pure, indescribable agony accompanied by a wet squelch. You’re dying, you’re dying, you’re dying, it’s over- Half of your face has been blown off, your brain is exposed for all to see and poke and prod, your lungs collapse with every breath, your throat spasms around vomit. What’s left of your right side of vision is a red and black pulsating blur. The screams, the sole outburst you’re capable of, are mere groans in the back of your throat. Your mouth opens and closes like a fish on land. Blood, sweat, tears, pus, slime- You wouldn’t know. Something oozes down your face, thick mucus, making a mess on your lap. You’re warm, you’re cold, sweat thick underneath your clothes. Everything is wet. Everything is hot.

A hand is on your head, stroking. The sensation dissapears into and becomes one with the pain, the thing that melts everything else away. “There you go, you’re being so good! But I’m not done yet.” He speaks to you in the tone reserved purely for dogs. From the corner of your good eye, you can see him reaching his fist back and pounds it against the handle, your entire world dissolving into nothing as it hits.

When you wake up, you do so to a palpitating heart that’s skipping beats left and right, to a convulsing body, to spit frothing at your mouth and a needle in your leg. The gag in your mouth rubs against your tongue and tastes of sweat. Whitney has discorded the knife, left it at your feet. Your eyeball looks like scrambled egg white on one end, a sloppy mess, and you gag. At one point or another, you will have to come to term with the fact that you’re never going to see from it again.

“Can’t have you leaving before the party’s started.” Your head whips around, the sensation of something sloshing inside your eye socket immediately making you regret it. Wind blows straight into the wound and causes you to ear up. He’s on your right. Somewhere. What you assume to be the syringe falls to the ground with a clatter. There’s no way he isn’t standing there, in the void he created, on purpose. You would’ve preferred to be really fucking dead right now. Let him rape your corpse, at least you wouldn’t have to be there to notice it. Whatever he injected you with, it’s all so much sharper now. The lights are brighter, every little step he takes ringing in your ears, your right eye (or the slurry that’s left of it) aflame. You rock back and forth to shuffle further away from him, but you’re already backed against a wall and the movement makes the blood in your skull slosh alongside it.

“Gotta check if you’re wet enough for me. Thank me later, slut.” Whitney pulls on your eyelashes, the tip of his finger teasing the hole. Once in a while, it dips into the wound, your nerves tingling in anticipation at the near touch. Breath hitching every time, your brain can’t comprehend what’s exactly happening to you. Your heart pounds in your ears, your limbs keep twitching against your will. Now that you can, you want to struggle, but you’re so scared of that pain, terrified that he could choose to take the other one as well.

All you want is for this to be over. You just want to be home. As flawed of a home it is, it’s still the one place you can think to return to. (Robin will be there, waiting for you. They always have. Could you still keep up with them during games, now that you’re like this? Bailey’s presence, suffocating as it is, at least keeps you safe from intruders. How pissed off are they going to be, now that you're a damaged ware?)

“Can’t you sit still for one fucking second? You wanna know what it feels like when I slip so badly?” Your head jerks to the side against your will, foot hitting his ankle. “I guess you do, huh? But, fuck- You keep writhing around, maybe I should give the needy whore what they want. You’re soaked, that’s for sure.”

Whitney pulls away, his fingers coated a pale red. Using your hair as a rag, he smears the fluids in it, tugging on it once for good measure. He takes a step back, descends back outside your field of vision. There’s the rustling of fabric, unbuckling of a belt, a zipper being undone. You begin to plead through your gag, repeating muffled, incomprehensible words, because please, anything but this, not right now, not ever, hasn’t he done enough, isn’t he satisfied, he’s already ruined you enough, please, just please-

“It’s cute you think you have a choice.”

There’d been a nagging suspicion in the back of your head that it would come down to this. Every meeting with Whitney would end up leading down the same path, but this time... You choke on your breaths, chest heaving with sobs. With every shock of your shoulders, more heat leaks out of your eyes, your entire face turning into one throbbing mess. You squeeze your eyes shut. (There’s no way you can move the right eyelid, the knife has torn straight through it. All it is now is limp meat, hanging on by a thread.) His dick presses against your cheek. Fucking hell, why does he have to be so big too? There’s ringing in your ears as he leaves a trail of precum, mingling with the mess already there. His scent overpowered by the metallic smell of blood. Why can’t you just pass out again? But you’re still twitching, thoughts racing faster than you can keep track of.

“You’ve been asking for this, don’t try to deny it. I’m not stupid. Well, you’ve got my attention now. You better be grateful.” He misses the first time, the head of his dick rubbing against your eyebrow. Whitney curses underneath his breath. Trembling fingers tug your eyelids as far apart as possible and you hate it, you hate this so fucking much, you want someone to come by here to save you, you want to sink through the floor, you want to die.

He sucks in a breath through grit teeth, and hits his mark. You’re not sure how much he crammed inside your skull, but all of it was too much, too cruel. The screaming is clear through your bounds, raking your throat raw. Whichever way you move, his cock stays lodged in between the bone. The muscles snap and tear, the bones crack, the flesh, like the tight fit that it is, clings around his dick, and he groans as he pushes himself further inside. An impossible amount of more fat and mucus and slime comes free, clogging your nose. The back of your head slams against the wall with every movement, but it doesn’t hurt, doesn’t compare.

There’s nothing else. There can be nothing else. Your mind is full and empty at the same time. He’s all you can think about, he’s fucking the memory of him into your brain, leaving his permanent mark. Is this what he wanted? You’re being dissected, pulled apart, the creases of your brain violated. He’s saying things, (tight, mess, slut, enjoying, loud.), but he’s pulling out and the scrape of the warm flesh makes the scenery blur. Your throat feels like it was pulled across sandpaper.

The pressure dissipates and you cry in pure relief. But, a moment later, he’s back in and down a slightly different path at a slightly different angle and there’s more snapping, more gushes of fluid. The only thing that will ever fit there again will be him. The perfect little cocksleeve. He’s pushing up against something and you don’t know what, but every time he twitches and brushes against it, your entire vision blacks out. Where the pain reached a crescendo before, it’s turned around to be almost numbing now. Are your nerves torn up? Are you dying?

“Open your mouth. Wait, fuck-” He’s breathless, stuttering over his words. His dick twitches and scrapes against bone. Trembling fingers remove the gag from your mouth. If this were literally any other situation, you might have been almost proud to have turned him into such a wreck. “Stick your tongue out and it’ll be over. Done.”

You latch onto those words like a lifeline. No matter how it ends, you just want it to be over. Without much more than a second of delay you do as he asks, your good eye rolling up to try and look at him. Considering how full your head is, you hardly notice the strings of cum being added to the pool, until some of it leaks through your nose and onto your tongue. He puts one hand on your head, shaking it until more follows. (Though his cum isn’t the only thing there.)

Strings of blood and slime stick to his dick like drool as he pulls out. You hate him. You hate yourself. You hate this fucking town, and you hate every piece of shit in it. Your brain is a cacophony of screaming, of visions of growing fangs and claws and tearing him to shreds, of burning this whole town down. All you do is stare up without really looking, eyes glazed over. You’re tired, so unbelievably tired. All you want to do is rest, even if it’s while bleeding out in some shitty alleyway. His voice drifts to you from far away, smile clear in his tone.

“That wasn’t so bad, was it?”

An eye for an eye has never sounded so appealing before.

#degrees of lewdity #whitney the bully #i knoooow he wouldnt do this but whatever i like writing it and also i can do whatever i want #it was just a top tier request i cant help myself #seriously dont read to freak yourself out !#k.gore #k.degradation #k.drugs #k.knife

33 notes · View notes

lovelylogans · 4 years ago

Text

i wish i knew how (your eyes are like starlight now)

warnings: vampires (blood drinking mentioned), alcohol consumption, food mentions, cuddling, kissing, death mentions, if i’ve missed any please let me know!

pairing: logan/patton

word count: 6,003

notes: for @fangirltothefullest for our discord server’s secret santa! prompted with “Preferably logan-centric and fluffy! Logicality would be great! Logince would also be good. Maybe some cute cuddles by a fireplace?” title is from “baby it’s cold outside!” the idea of vampires being able to eat red food comes from a book i remember reading as a kid, but i cannot place the title, so if anyone knows it please let me know!

Hot chocolate with peppermint schnapps and Bailey’s, it turns out, is a particularly adept calmative.

It’s made the world go hazy and lovely and beautiful, and that’s even before Logan acknowledges the way his eyes are half-lidded and he’s leaning his head a bit more against the side of his wingback armchair than he would if he were entirely sober.

Logan narrows his eyes down at his mug, the one Roman had wheel-thrown and painted him with the chemical illustration of the molecular construction of caffeine on it, which is half-drained, the whipped cream and marshmallows melted, the peppermint stick meant to stir already losing its red stripes. Logan plucks it from the mug and sticks it into his mouth, crunching it, wriggling in the armchair to get more comfortably seated, and to get a better view.

Roman, Janus, Virgil, and Patton have long since been occupied with a board game; Remus left to do whatever it is that Remus does at night, probably screaming profanities at random passerby, so it’s just the five of them left. The Christmas party’s been winding down slowly for the past hour or so, the fireplace still crackling but burning lower and lower, their hot chocolate supply depleted, and Roman and Virgil’s fits of competitiveness losing fervor as the moon creeps higher and higher in the sky. The white of the waxing moon peeks out against the clouds that distribute the fat, fluffy flakes falling from the sky.

The snow catches the light of the Christmas lights hung outside the house (goodness, hadn’t that been a trying day) so the snow gleams in technicolor reflection, the rest of the world lit by the hazy orange glow of the street lamps. It is very beautiful, and Logan, in an unusually sentimental fit that he would tell himself in the morning was brought on by the alcohol, is incredibly grateful to be alive, at this precise moment, that allows him the company of such wonderful friends in such a beautiful world.

What a statistically improbable event they all are. What an outright scientifically impossible group they all make—a vampire, a set of twins that turned out to be a banshee and a siren, a selkie, and two humans. Three years ago Logan would have scoffed at the idea of any sort of supernatural, mythical humanoid, much less even suspected he’d meet them. And now he is in love with one, and is best friends with the others, and his life is so strange, so odd, so wonderful.

Logan comes back into himself when Roman cries out in protest, making Logan’s ears ring unpleasantly, as Janus crows in victory, holding the longest road card aloft, the dark gray seal-skin on his face gleaming pearlescent in the firelight.

“Cheater!” Roman accuses, his voice still maintaining that double-pitch—a high keen layered over Roman’s typically pleasant baritone—that always makes something in Logan’s head throb.

“Just because you didn’t strategize your road properly,” Janus gloats, pointing—and yes, the yellow road winding around the edge of Catan is decidedly longer than the red road circling over itself in the middle.

All the while, Virgil is muttering darkly about how useless the Largest Army card has been, tossing it aside, and Patton looks up at Logan, dark eyes glinting brightly in amusement, freckles speckled across his face like constellations, trying his best to hide his smile around the specially-ordered red-dominant candy canes he’s been eating all season, his fangs gleaming white, freed from the fake teeth Patton usually wears to pass as human, his lips tinged artificially red.

Logan feels even warmer all over at the sight of him.

Patton’s eyes get even brighter, and he flashes a sweet smile at Logan before he turns back to the board game and breaks up the squabbling with patient declarations of “Everyone did a really great job!” and “The fun’s what matters, right?” and being so stubborn and relentless in his optimism and platitudes that Janus and Roman relent and grumble grudging “good game”s at each other.

Patton’s far more patient than the pair of them—which makes sense, as he’s been practicing at it since the seventeenth century, according to all their estimations surrounding the first edition of Human Understanding he’d acquired the month after he’d been turned, in a fit of uncharacteristically dark humor—so he always wins out when it comes to digging in his heels and cheerfully going about something with the consistency of the little bird and the diamond mountain.

Roman ducks out to sulk for a moment, under the excuse of adjusting Patton’s painstakingly maintained gramophone he’d bought in the 1920s—he still has the early prototype phonograph he bought in the 1870s, but that one is even more painstakingly preserved in the rooms full of obsolete technologies, clothes, and knick-knacks that Patton’s accrued and hoarded throughout the years like a magpie—and the sound of Bing Crosby crackles to life in the next room, crooning “White Christmas,” the snapping of the fire providing unintentionally harmonious percussion. Logan wouldn’t be surprised if this is one of the original vinyls, too—Patton’s got loads of vintage music from artists Logan had never even heard of before.

Janus bows out, next, content to allow the high of his victory usher him out the door. He even allows Patton to fuss over ensuring his coat is warm enough to protect him from the snow, considering he’s wearing his sealskin coat and not a proper winter coat, and then even lets him fret over Janus staying moisturized, despite the fact that both Janus and Logan have attempted to explain that Janus’ version of moisturized and the human version of moisturized are quite different in execution, one being smearing lotion all over oneself and the other consisting of sealing himself into his skin and taking a dip in the nearest ocean.

Logan mentally backtracks over the previous sentence and immediately blames Patton for the pun, and simultaneously promises himself to never utter it in Patton’s presence. Patton still brings up the time Logan had accidentally mentioned Patton sinking his teeth into something, and can hardly finish recounting it before bursting into giggles. He is fortunate he is so adorable, otherwise it would irk Logan to no end. As it is, when it happens, Logan can’t summon up anything stronger than resigned affection.

He’s in love with a vampire who is currently fretting over a selkie with the exact air of a concerned father. It’s a fate he’s all too eagerly accepted.

Janus usually gets snappy about being mother-henned, so Logan suspects that either the Bailey’s has done a number on him, or the Christmas sentimentality is getting to him.

And, considering that Janus had one mug of mulled wine with dinner, Logan has a fairly good guess as to which is the root cause—especially taking into consideration Janus allows Patton to hug him goodbye. Janus wishes him a happy Christmas in a tone that is not quite as drawlingly dramatic as usual.

By then, the gramophone is playing a new song, a soprano prettily warbling “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas,” and Roman seems to be over his discontent over losing because he joins in, singing pleasantly rather than shrieking—he usually leaves the wailing to the banshee in the family, it’s just that the whole “drawing men to their deaths” aspect of his voice emerges when his temper flares—and Logan swallows down the sudden lump in his throat at the sound of it.

Of course, Roman’s voice is supernaturally exquisite, but there’s something different about it now; Roman had tried enchanting Logan, exactly once, after Logan had pestered him for weeks out of scientific curiosity, so he can say with certainty that this isn’t like the captivating sound that put him in a stupor with the speed and subtlety of being hit by a train, but it’s like someone has captured the flame in the fireplace and tempered it to a temperature that a human could stand, the cozy sensation of being beside a fire rather than the fire itself, and set it directly inside his heart.

You’re happy, a sober corner of his brain says dryly. You know this, you’re happy.

He is.

He is stupidly, incandescently, absolutely happy.

He will blame the dryness of the room from the fire for the sudden wetness in his eyes when Virgil joins in, usually quite shy about singing, but it is almost equally as pleasant as Roman’s, even though Virgil’s vocal chords (and the rest of Virgil) were entirely, completely, mortally human.

They are excellent, the pair of them. Not just their voices, but them, as people—they are excellent. Logan is exceptionally glad to have made their companionship.

Logan takes a deep breath, downs the last half of his hot chocolate, and launches himself from his armchair, perhaps a bit wobblier than he was at the start of the night, and Roman laughs without halting his song, wrapping an arm around Logan’s shoulder to steady him.

He can only join in for the last part of the song, which is probably for the best; Logan supposes his voice is tolerable enough, but it surely cannot compare to a siren, or to Virgil’s voice, rumbling like thunder. Also, he does not want to make a fool of himself, and surely singing more Christmas carols than necessary while not entirely sober would be a surefire way to do that.

Out of the corner of his eyes, he sees Patton watching the three of them, a fond expression on his face, even if there is a flash of sudden gloom that passes over his face as the three of them sing “ Through the years we all will be together, if the fates allow,” and Logan frowns to himself, noting it.

Intellectually, he is aware of the various burdens an immortal life forces upon its receiver; Patton has hundreds if not thousands of sketchings and, when the technology became available, photographs of people he had known through the hundreds of years of his life, painstakingly filed away.

Intellectually, he is aware that Patton was the source of unexpected windfalls that had been bestowed on Virgil’s family throughout the years, the reason Virgil and his siblings could afford to go to college; it is only after he and Virgil knew who Patton truly was that they found the reason behind the luck that struck his family once a generation. Patton had once been Virgil’s great-great-great-grandmother Violetta’s dearest friend, and she his; he’s been anonymously helping the descendants of all his friends in a similar manner for centuries.

Intellectually. He is aware that Patton fears the day that he will lose them all, and he will be left alone, unchanged, eternally in his late twenties, as he has been for centuries.

It is different to be intellectually aware of something, and to remember seeing Patton show Virgil the portrait he had personally painted of Violetta and choke back his tears because he’d missed her so much, and meeting and befriending Virgil had been a bit like having a piece of her back in his life again, and getting to know you has been such a gift, such a blessing. She would have adored you, as I do, and then Virgil had hugged him, and Patton had gotten so overcome he had not been able to say much else.

It is this memory plucking at his heartstrings that sends him stumbling in Patton’s direction.

Patton moves so quickly that Logan’s eyes can’t track it; one moment he was watching the three of them, the next he’s caught Logan around the waist, smiling down at him.

“Hi,” Patton says, and Logan takes a half-step closer to wrap his arms around Patton’s neck.

“Hello,” Logan says. He is about to attempt to say something that is emotionally adept, he really is, except Patton’s skin is smooth and cold under his fingers, and his lips are still tinged red, and Patton’s eyes dart down to Logan’s lips and then looks him in the eye and then he smiles, and any particularly subtle ideas about how to probe Patton’s emotions or perhaps to get him to stop thinking about the curse of bearing witness to the passage of time entirely flee his mind.

He barely has enough time to hope that Patton’s mind is similarly empty before Patton meets him halfway, pressing his lips against Logan’s; even though they’ve been together for years, Logan still isn’t quite used to the chill of Patton’s lips meeting his own. It makes him shiver every time.

Patton is always so sweet, so soft—Logan thinks only part of that is that he is a vampire afraid of hurting his comparatively delicate human lover, and the majority of it is because Patton strives to be sweet and soft as a default state of being, because he is a person who understands that kindness is not a state of being but constantly, consciously making mindful choices to be kind—and his kisses reflect that about him.

He almost always tastes of mint, because Logan had established early that he was perfectly fine with Patton drinking blood, he would not be facing secondary exposure to someone else’s blood, absolutely not, he holds a less than zero amount of desire to become an amateur hematologist through taste, and so Patton was incredibly scrupulous about brushing his teeth after consuming the blood he’d procured through a source of his in blood donation.

Patton tastes of peppermint now, and Logan sighs into the kiss, lips parting, and he feels the slightest, teasing pinprick of fangs against that sends a thrill zipping down his spine, and—

“And that’s our cue to leave!” Roman bellows with good humor; Logan turns to scowl at him over his shoulder anyways.

“Oh, you don’t have to—” Patton begins, brow creasing ever so slightly.

“Yeah, we do,” Virgil says, an edge of a laugh in his voice. “Besides, us humans have to sleep.”

Patton usually forgets about this; he doesn’t necessarily need to sleep, but he can. Logan knows of at least three decade-long naps that Patton’s taken; he has next to no memories of the foundation of the United States, because he was snoozing for the vast majority of the buildup to the Revolutionary War and the establishment of the government afterwards.

He is, though, content to lie in a bed he’d bought for Logan’s use as Logan dozes throughout the night; sometimes Logan wakes up to Patton propped up on an elbow, looking at him with an expression in his eyes that is a bizarre mixture of fondness and jealousy.

Patton nods and says wisely, “Or else Santa won’t come to your house.”

Virgil snorts, “Yeah, that’s why.”

“I’ll have you know that Nikolass’ a close personal friend of mine,” Patton sniffs, “and it is a very long way from Gemile.”

“North Pole,” Virgil corrects. “Santa lives at the North Pole.”

“Mm,” Patton says neutrally.

“Patton, did you really know St. Nick?” Roman demands.

“No, no, you’re right,” Patton sighs, a glimmer of mischief in his eyes. “Far too late for you mortals. Off to bed, then, and don’t forget to leave him some börek!”

“ Milk and cookies,” Virgil says, he and Roman now wearing twin expressions of desperate curiosity. Logan, who knows when St. Nick supposedly lived, keeps silent.

“He prefers börek,” Patton says, his nose twitching, a telltale sign he’s holding in laughter. “It’s traditional, where he’s from. Leave him a note that old Patton remembers him, it’ll earn you börek points!”

“Brownie points,” Virgil corrects again, “Patton, did you actually know Santa Claus—”

Patton bursts into giggles, unable to hold up the ruse for very long.

“The figure we know today as St. Nicholas of Myra lived in the 300s,” Logan explains. “He predates Patton by thirteen hundred years, approximately.”

“I can’t believe you fell for that!” Patton cackles, eyes bright, making him look as young as his face presents him to be.

“Yeah, okay,” Virgil says, as Patton pulls Roman into a hug, “you say that like it’s entirely unbelievable when you’ve shown us paintings of you and other completely unreal people like Maid Marian—”

“Aw, I miss her,” Patton says.

“— sorry if Santa Claus is too far out of the realm of belief from the vampire, ” Virgil continues to grumble, even as Patton folds him into a hug, too.

“He has also known Marie Curie,” Logan says, still unable to quite believe it even though he’s practically memorized the missives she had sent Patton. “Also, I may have elevated my threshold of belief to include vampires, selkies, sirens, and banshees, but I absolutely will not be budged to start believing in childhood myths.”

He pins Patton with a look. “And I am still unconvinced that you knew Robin Hood.”

“Well, he wasn’t actually called that then — ” Patton begins.

“Nope!” Roman practically yells. “Nope, Logan, you are not going to take the fact that I am one degree separated from the Merry Men, I refuse to listen to you debate this again, Sheriff of Not-letting-Roman-have-this-one-thing-ingham—”

“All of my research suggests the people you knew were imitators—” Logan begins again.

“As a Christmas gift to me, shut up,” Roman says.

“Roman,” Patton scolds.

“ Please shut up,” Roman amends politely—only his tone is polite, as the words themselves and the eyeroll that accompanies them are not particularly courteous.

Virgil distracts him quite handily by physically turning Roman around and nudging him toward the door.

Patton follows after them, Logan a few steps behind.

“All right, well, be safe going home,” Patton says, beginning on his spiel as Roman and Virgil pull on gloves and scarves. “Are you calling for a ride?”

“Walking,” Virgil says.

Patton makes a discomfited noise. “In this cold?”

“We barely live three blocks away, Ed-worry Cullen,” Roman says, and flaps his arms to show off his new peacoat, a gift from Janus. “We’re all bundled up.”

“All right, well,” Patton says, clearly still fretting, “Text message me when you get home?”

“Just text works,” Logan murmurs, but he can empathize with Patton’s difficulty with memorizing certain terms; it’s just that Patton’s are mostly technological in nature, and Logan’s are slang. Back when they first met, Patton still had the occasional slip-up and called texts telegrams.

“Text me,” Patton corrects himself, smiling at Logan and squeezing his hand in silent thanks before turning his attention back to Roman and Virgil.

“We will,” Virgil says, and amends, “or at least, I will,” because Roman was notorious for promising he’d text when he got home only to wake up to fifteen missed calls from Patton because he’d forgotten to do so.

“Good,” Patton says with a sigh of relief, then, “All right, bring it in!”

Logan releases Patton’s hand so Patton can step forward and hug Roman and Virgil simultaneously; Roman pulls a face at him over Patton’s shoulder, likely still stung by Logan’s accurate theory about the validity of the so-called Merry Men Patton had been acquainted with.

Though Logan is the correct one, Patton may believe that those people were the original Robin Hood and his band of thieves, but he was most likely deceived considering the earliest myths of Robin Hood originated two hundred years prior to Patton’s birth, even if Patton protests that the dates of the origin of many myths during his human life are incorrectly cited—

Logan presses his lips together in an expression that is not reciprocating the face that Roman pulled at him. Logan is correct; he can rest easily knowing this. And perhaps Christmas is not the proper time to bring up this oft-rehashed debate.

Even though Logan is right. It should not be oft-rehashed because he is right.

“Merry Christmas, Brainy Swan,” Roman says, stepping forward to give Logan a hug that Logan would describe as brotherly, except he knows Roman’s brother and this is far too tame, even if there is more back-slapping and hair ruffling than Logan would prefer.

“I am not anything like Isabella Swan,” he begins—this is an oft-rehashed debate, too, but this one is far more teasing in nature; Logan, at least, has the retort of pulling up any image of a particularly hideous mermaid mock-up or ugly fish and showing it to him with the (Virgil-taught) response “This you?”—and Roman rolls his eyes.

“Stop denying the Twilight renaissance, Lucy Weste- nerd -a,” Roman says, and reaches out to pluck at the patched elbow of Logan’s tweed jacket, even as he’s hugging Patton goodbye. “You’re dressed Victorian enough—”

“Patton isn’t anything like Dracula,” Logan disputes this time, because obviously Patton would never drink Logan’s blood or turn him without his consent. He straightens his waistcoat, and is about to reach into his pocket, grab his phone, and show Roman the image of a blobfish he has saved for a special occasion to tell him that this is clearly his long-lost twin, not Remus.

He may or may not have rehearsed this with Virgil to ensure a devastating effect.

“Can we please go before you two spend all of Christmas Eve talking about vampire franchises,” Virgil groans.

“Yeah, as fun as that is, most nights, this is kind of a special night!” Patton says brightly. If it were anyone else, Logan would wonder if he should attempt to scan his tone for sarcasm, but Patton probably does think it’s fun.

Virgil steps forward to hug Logan next; a one-armed hug around the shoulders, quick. It’s what they’re both best with, really; abrupt, swift affection that can be moved on from in a tidy manner.

“Merry Christmas, L,” Virgil says, then he steps forward to allow Patton to give him a more substantial hug; Patton wraps his arms around Virgil’s shoulders, squeezing him tight, his eyes shuttering for a brief moment, his face becoming gaunt.

“Merry Christmas, Pat,” Virgil says in a very quiet voice.

“Merry Christmas, V,” Patton says, his voice equally quiet and a touch strained.

Something deep in Logan aches at the sight of them before the look on Patton’s is wiped clean, so abruptly it’s almost as if Logan’s imagined it, and Patton inhales deeply and lets go of Virgil.

“Text me,” Patton reminds them, as Roman and Virgil step off the front stoop.

“I will,” Virgil promises.

Roman’s face splits into a grin, and he calls back, “Merry Christmas, Elena Gil-boring!”

Logan’s head whips around, and he opens his mouth to respond—he isn’t sure with what— and the world surrounding him spins, and he’s weightless, airborne, and as suddenly as it started, it’s stopped. He sees Patton smile at him before Logan closes his eyes, the world still spinning in a way that is distinctly unpleasant.

“Okay?” Patton asks, gently touching Logan’s shoulder.

“Mm. Dizzy.” Logan takes in a deep breath through his nose—the smoke off the fire, the lingering scents of their dinner and desserts, peppermint—and releases it, shaky, through his mouth, before he chances opening his eyes again.

“Sorry,” Patton says, guilt in his tone.

“It’s all right,” Logan says, and he smirks a little. “I’m sure Roman would have said something to interrupt the Yuletide peace if you hadn’t.”

“Yes, Roman would have,” Patton teases, amused, before he blurs for a moment and comes into focus just as quickly, Logan’s empty mug in his hands, one of his many fluffy blankets over his arm—Patton is almost always eager to use his preternatural speed when they are alone in his home. “Would you like another?”

Logan evaluates it; he does not drink very often, but it is a holiday, and he has eaten a sufficient amount and kept well-hydrated today. Though, he does not usually get too vertiginous when Patton moves him quickly, unless they are moving a great distance, he does have reason to suspect that the alcohol is the reason for it today. He’ll have to mention it to Patton; so long as he avoids that, and keeps it to this last mug, he should not face any unfortunate aftereffects in the morning.

“Yes, please,” he decides.

Patton kisses his temple and casts the blanket in front of the fireplace with great fanfare, fluffing it up so that it is at optimum comfort levels, before he unfolds another with an equal amount of fanfare, wrapping it around Logan’s shoulders. Logan smiles at him in thanks, as he knows the blanket is likely for his benefit—Patton frets about Logan getting too cold when they cuddle due to their disparate temperatures—and there’s a rush of artificial wind as Patton zooms to the kitchen.

Logan wraps the blanket around himself a little more securely as he settles in front of the fire, taking a moment to adjust the wood with the poker, listening to the popping crackle that allows him to lean back in time to watch the spray of sparks leap up the chimney. There’s the sound of a needle being lifted off a vinyl, the vinyl being replaced, and the needle lowered back down; Patton has switched them to an album of orchestral performances of Christmas songs.

Another rush of wind, then, a soft tap of fingers at the top of his head. Logan tilts his head back to look up at him.

Patton’s smiling down at him, eyes reflecting the last remaining sparks, his dark eyes catching the light like stars. He cradles the mug in his hand, and, despite the great speed at which he had moved, he has not spilled a drop.

“Here you are, love.”

“Thank you, dear,” Logan says, placing the poker back where it’s meant to be before he accepts the mug. Patton takes the time to settle in beside him, setting a tray on the hearth, before he wraps his shoulders in the fluffy blanket, too.

Logan smiles a little at the sight of the tray. One half would pass as a traditional, human charcuterie board, if perhaps a bit heavier on jellies than most. The other half is crowded with sectioned blood oranges, a small bowl of pomegranate seeds, raspberries, cherries, and strawberries, all foods as red as Patton’s punny Christmas sweater. It says Merry Chrismath! on it, with math formulas sketched out to form the shape of a Christmas tree, which Patton had purchased specifically because the corners of Logan’s lips had turned up at the sight of it in the store.

Patton takes a sip from his own mug—from the smell of it, mulled wine—and sighs in satisfaction.

“This feels very human, doesn’t it?” Patton asks Logan, as if he is asking for Logan’s approval, and in all honesty he probably is; Patton has been undead for so long that the memories of his human life are dim and distant. “Sitting in front of the fire, eating snacks. About to cuddle.”

It does feel rather human—all he has to do is pretend that his boyfriend is a red food enthusiast, rather than, for whatever reason, red foods being passable enough to a vampire that they are the only human foods he can stomach.

He doesn’t waste time pretending, though. Why should he, when his reality is stranger than fiction?

Logan presses his cheek to Patton’s shoulder, for a moment.

“I’m perfectly satisfied with this being a shared vampire-human experience,” Logan says, deliberately misunderstanding why Patton is asking. He likes that Patton is a vampire; it is part of him, it is why they have been able to meet. He does not understand why Patton sometimes seems to act like Logan would prefer a human boyfriend, because he wouldn’t. He prefers Patton.

“Well,” Patton says, his voice almost unbearably soft. “I suppose I’m all right with that too.”

Logan reaches for his own mug and takes a sip, before, once again, pressing his cheek against Patton’s shoulder in a way that presses his hair against Patton’s face.

Patton huffs softly in amusement. “Are you trying to get me to smell you?”

“I find it interesting,” Logan says, and he does; the amount of data Patton can deduce by one smell is absolutely astounding. He has plans for a more specific experiment, which he will ask Patton to conduct on a day he is bored and amenable to such suggestions.

Patton hesitates, just for a little bit, before Logan scoots closer, about to tilt so that some of his more major arteries will be closer to his nose.

“All right, then, for Christmas.”

Patton presses his nose against Logan’s hair, kissing the crown of his head, before he inhales, slowly, curiously, like someone trying to place what’s cooking in a kitchen without being able to see what is being prepared.

“And?” Logan asks.

“Mm,” Patton hums, getting his thoughts in order, before he inhales again, this time as if he is a sommelier inhaling the scent of a fine vintage. “Well, you, my favorite smell in the whole world.”

Logan feels very warm in a way that has nothing to do with the blanket, Patton’s arm around his shoulders, or the fire before them.

“You washed your hair this morning—oh, this is a new shampoo!”

“You didn’t like the other one, you thought it was too chemical-y,” Logan says. “I finished it yesterday.”

“Ooh, thank you,” Patton says. “Not that you didn’t smell lovely without the overtone of whatever phoenix is supposed to smell like, but I like this one much better—ooh, lemongrass? You’re spoiling me.”

Logan grins into Patton’s collarbone; really, only Patton would think that a new shampoo scent was spoiling.

“And the usual soap smell,” Patton says. “Sweat, skin, deodorant, your aftershave. You walked by someone smoking today; tobacco and herbal cigarettes, that’s unusual, those were way more common back in the forties—damiana, blackberry leaf, rose, and,” another inhale, “hibiscus and mullein. Gosh, the thought of those takes me back.”

Logan is about to ask—perhaps a past acquaintance or friend smoked something similar in those days—but Patton moves on without ruminating on it further, which makes Logan feel an odd prick of pride; nostalgia has been one of Patton’s greatest strengths, true, but also one of his greatest downfalls.

“Did you have tacos for lunch yesterday? I can smell the spicy salsa still.”

“You cannot,” Logan says, still stunned, even after years, at the amount of things Patton can detect. He’s probably smelling the capsaicin in his salsa, for one, but Patton can also smell certain chemicals the body produces: illness, for example, but also things like cortisol and oxytocin.

“Mhm, makes my nose itch a little. And I can smell the stuff we had at the party, and for dinner last night and breakfast this morning, so it wouldn’t be as fun for you if I listed that off...” Another inhale. “Oh, and I can tell you’re a little tipsy.”

“I think that’s probably why I got dizzy when you ran with me earlier.”

Patton kisses his forehead as a form of apology. “And. You’re happy.”

Logan pulls back just enough, just so he can look Patton in the eyes.

There are a great many supposed vampire stories that claim to know the color of a vampire’s eyes; blood red, commonly, but yellow or gold were popular ideas, as well. Silver, sometimes. Almost always, the presumed color was a color not found in nature.

Patton’s eyes are so dark a brown they are practically black, the iris near indistinguishable from his pupil unless someone was shining a direct light at them. They were the same color when he was human, Patton thinks; he has an illustration of his mother hidden away upstairs, and they are identical in shape and shade. They are beautiful, and captivating, and full of the warmth and love that are so perfectly, wonderfully Patton.

“I hope you don’t have to smell me to know that,” Logan says, and then, fumblingly, “I mean—I am aware you can smell my oxytocin, but I hope you know that I am without relying on that sense. That I am happy, I mean. Because I am. I do not tell you how you make me feel enough and I feel the need to do so now and articulate it clearly. You make me incandescently, impeccably happy. I am deeply in love with you. I could not have imagined the way my life is now, but I do not want it any other way, because you have made my life so much better.”

Patton’s expression has softened, his head tilting to the side, his lips tilted up into a smile, his eyes so full of affection that Logan almost has the urge to look away, overwhelmed. But Logan, bolstered by something —the Bailey’s and peppermint schnapps, the Christmas spirit, his own love for Patton, he isn’t sure which or if it’s a combination of all of them—keeps looking at him, savoring the expression, before his hand drifts up to cup Patton’s jaw.

They lean in simultaneously, and Logan’s eyes drift shut as he presses his lips to Patton’s once again; this time, without anyone to watch or heckle, Patton’s soft lips part easily for him, Patton’s fingers tangling in his hair, and Logan shivers a little with pleasure as Patton’s tongue brushes against Logan’s bottom lip. Patton is always, always so intolerably tender with him, so careful and deliberate, as if Logan is something to be savored, something exquisite and vitreous that needs to be handled delicately, something precious.

Logan tries his best to treat him in kind. He touches Patton’s face, Patton’s mouth and lips and tongue, eternally cool to the touch, with the kind of mindfulness he gives to pipettes and microscopes and test tubes, as if touching Patton in a way that is any less than the amount of devotion and love Patton deserves will irrevocably contaminate the results of his hypothesis.

But then Patton’s tongue brushes against his own, and Logan gasps, and he moves to kiss Patton with the devotion and love and passion that ignites in Logan’s stomach, burning hotter than a Yule log, his heartbeat thudding rapidly in his ears, and Logan presses himself even closer to Patton, so wonderfully chilled to the touch, the only thing that could temper the heat flaring to life in Logan’s stomach to something bearable, the only thing that brings balance, something as undeniably well-paired as the heat source and the heat sink—they bring each other thermodynamic equilibrium, romantic equilibrium, equilibrium in all things—

Patton pulls away, just in time, just as Logan needs to break away to gulp in a breath that Patton does not need to take, and Logan looks at Patton, whose eyes are flaring with their own kind of heat.

“I love you too,” Patton says, and he presses his forehead to Logan’s, inhaling deeply; Logan wonders if his body has started producing dopamine and norepinephrine and serotonin and vasopressin, if Patton can smell it.

“I love you so much,” Patton says again, his voice trembling with the weight of it.

Patton wraps his arms around Logan’s waist, pulling him into his lap, and Logan wraps his arms around him. Patton cuddles closer, rubbing his cheeks against Logan’s hair almost like a cat.

“I love you too,” Logan says, “I love you.”

Patton bundles the blanket around them, the fire crackling and the ebb and flow of string music in the background, and Logan presses a kiss to Patton’s cheek.

“I love you,” Patton repeats.

I love you, I love you, I love you, they whisper at each other, wrapped up in a blanket until the fire sputters down to embers, Patton’s cold skin keeping Logan from overheating, the pair of them exchanging kisses that only slightly tip into overly passionate, always returning to holding each other, cuddling in front of the fire, even as Logan’s eyelids slip lower and lower as the moon rises higher and higher in the sky, so comfortable and so adored and so absolutely, completely sated that he cannot help but drift off in the comfort of it, one thing ringing in his ears that carries him off to a deep, dreamless sleep.

I love you, I love you, I love you.

#my post #text #my fic #my fanfiction #sanders sides fanfiction #logicality

134 notes · View notes

vindicatedvirgil · 4 years ago

Text

art is (not) dead / analogical

inspired by an idea brainstormed in a discord server i’m in.

art critic logan!!!!! give him art rights! immediately!!!!

[masterlist]

---

Logan adjusted his glasses, eyes focused on the abstract painting in front of him. When it came to artwork in that style, he either appreciated it or it confused him, and this piece fell into the latter category. It was a white canvas with cloud-like shapes in various shades of purple, gray, and black. Logan wanted to understand what the artist was trying to convey, but he only felt perplexed. As he stepped up to read the information about the piece, a man stood to his left.

“Priced a bit high,” Logan muttered, gripping his pen a little tighter. He scribbled down the title, price, and artist of the piece, then straightened back up. He spun on his heel, and the man who was standing there was looking at him, frowning. Logan observed the badge on his black coat, denoting him as an artist. The name… “Oh, this is your piece,” Logan said, recalling the name he had just written down.

“Is there something wrong with my art…” the man, named Virgil Storm, narrowed his eyes onto Logan’s badge, explaining that he was the critic at the show, “...Mr. Crofters?” Logan sighed, glancing back to the large art piece.

“I do not understand why you have titled it ‘anxiety’,” Logan explained, “and the colors don’t… bring any certain emotion.” Virgil rolled his eyes, inhaling sharply. He was used to this by now, critics claiming they knew what art needed to be, but he was sick of it. The art represented how he felt, no matter how abstract it was.

“Look, you don’t need to understand art for it to be worth something,” Virgil explained, gesturing to all of the art surrounding them. “It means something to the artist. But you wouldn’t understand that, you just like critiquing and judging the things that people put countless hours into, hmm?” Logan frowned at this, and felt a pang of unease. “Yes, Mr. Crofters. I’ve heard of you and your… critiquing. You caused Roman Prince, one of the greatest artists in the area, to have a mental breakdown because you didn’t ‘understand’ the piece that he dedicated to his brother.”

“Look, Storm. This is what I studied. I know art-”

“You know what you like, and I don’t care if you think my art is overpriced. You couldn’t create something with half as much heart or emotion, I’m sure,” Virgil started to step away, but Logan stepped in front of him, eyes dark.

“I can paint,” Logan informed him. He thought he was no good, though, which is why he became a critic. He hadn’t painted in years.

“Oh? Prove it, then,” Virgil fished a business card out of his pocket. “The address for my studio is there. Come by tomorrow and prove to me that you can do art.”

Logan stared at the brick building, the wide windows startling him. He considered turning back, going home, because why did he need to prove himself to a cocky artist like Virgil Storm? Except he didn’t turn back, he gripped the paints that he had dug out of his closet a little tighter in his hand and stepped to the door, knocking only once. If Virgil didn’t hear him, then he could say it wasn’t his fault-

Of course, Logan was not that lucky. The door swung open, revealing Virgil with a stained button-up lavender shirt, paint-splattered black pants, his long hair pulled into a bun. “Ah, the critic,” Virgil smirked, stepping aside to let Logan inside. “Didn’t think you’d have the guts to show after my painting sold for higher than the listed price.”

Logan glanced around at the bottom floor of the lofted building; it was covered with full, half-full, and blank canvases and plants, and he could see that on the second level there was a full bedroom. There were two easels set up, one with what Logan assumed was Virgil’s current work in progress, the other with a blank canvas. He glanced down at his own clothes; his polo shirt and tie and slacks, and wondered if he should have worn something that he didn’t mind getting paint on.

“Need an apron?” Virgil asked, strolling over to the easels. He pulled an apron from behind one of them, paint splatters and charcoal stains coating most of the fabric. “You can use this one,” he tossed it at Logan, who nearly dropped his paints in the process. Virgil lifted a paintbrush from his easel, and Logan noted the bright colors he was using with the current piece; yellows, pinks, and teals in a pattern that almost resembled a sunset.

“Thanks,” Logan set his paints down on the bottom of the easel and slipped the apron over his head, then got out his brush. He glanced over at Virgil, who seemed to be deep in thought, lips pursed as he splattered some orange onto the canvas. Logan began with black paint, outlining a figure, and the two painted in silence for a while, until Virgil set his paintbrush down and stretched his arms up, his shirt riding up to reveal a pierced belly button. Logan blinked, then returned his focus to the silhouette he was painting.

“Want anything to drink? I’ve got about twenty types of tea, but there’s also wine…” He ran a hand through his hair to fix it back up into a bun, not realizing that there was yellow paint on his fingers, and Logan bit back a grin when the paint streaked Virgil’s dark hair.

“Um, tea’s fine. Whatever kind you’re having,” Logan responded. He had loosened his tie earlier and his glasses were situated on the top of his head, and he felt more relaxed than he had in years; painting was something he enjoyed so much, but with his work schedule and the discouragement he faced from those around him… he had stepped away from the thing that he was so passionate about.

Logan refocused on his painting; it was a silhouette of a man standing outside, and he had decided that he would paint the night sky around the frame of the man’s likeness. After a few minutes, he felt Virgil standing next to him, and noted that the artist had placed a mug of tea on the table between the easels.

“Wow,” Virgil breathed out, his eyes focused on the painting. “Your silhouette work is incredible,” he murmured, and Logan glanced at him, wondering if he was being mocked, but the expression on Virgil’s face only showed admiration.

“Oh. Um. Thank you,” Logan grabbed the mug of tea, holding it up to his lips to distract from the blush that had coated his cheeks. The aroma of roses and jasmine wafted into his nose, and he felt a bit calmer. No one had ever complimented his art; he didn’t know how to react to Virgil’s kind words.

Luckily, he didn’t need to say anything more, as Virgil stepped away and back to his easel.

By the time they had both finished their paintings, the sun had gone down and Virgil had flipped on the lights of the loft, revealing several sets of fairy lights in the windows. It was almost… magical, Logan thought, and as he pulled the apron back over his head, hanging it off of the easel, he wondered if he’d be allowed to come back and paint another time.

Virgil stood beside him, hand on his chin, looking at Logan’s painting closely. Perhaps unconsciously, Logan had given the silhouetted man a bun and a paintbrush, and he wondered if Virgil would notice.

“Well, it looks like I owe you an apology, Mr. Art Critic,” Virgil finally said, turning to glance at Logan. “You can paint, and you’re good. You should enter in the next show.”

“It’s really not… that good,” Logan muttered, closing the case with his paints. “It’s been a long time since I painted. I don’t think I’ve touched a paintbrush since college.”

“Why is that?” Virgil asked, eyes focused on the way that Logan’s face was turning a pale pink.

“I was… discouraged often. My parents didn’t think that painting was a worthwhile endeavor, but I didn’t want to step away from the world of art,” Logan’s eyes followed Virgil, who sat down on a plastic-covered couch, then beckoned the critic over. He sat down next to him, and Virgil pulled his legs under him, his elbow on the edge of the couch and his chin in the palm of his hand.

“You realize that’s what you’ve become, don’t you?” Virgil asked incredulously. Logan raised his eyebrows, frowning. “Roman hasn’t painted in weeks. If I wasn’t familiar with my own self-doubt, your words could have stopped me, too. Art isn’t meant to be judged, it’s meant to be appreciated and encouraged, and you should be aware of that, if that’s what you went through.”

“I… I’m sorry.” Logan didn’t say anything else, he wanted to run and never come back, but he felt like he could trust being around Virgil. “Do you… have Roman’s phone number? I would like to apologize to him.” Virgil nodded, but made no other movements, except to flutter his eyes shut. “I should go.”

“Do you want to take your painting with you?” Virgil asked, glancing over at the easels. Logan glanced, too, and shook his head.

“No. You can keep it,” he wanted to ask Virgil if he could come back the following day to paint some more, but he didn’t want to impose. Or be annoying. Logan often found that people didn’t want to spend time with him, so he began to favor being alone. “It was nice to paint again, if only for a bit.”

“You’re not going to get back into it?” Virgil’s hand was on his forearm, and Logan sucked in a deep breath, then shook his head.

“I have no reason to,” he explained, wanting to pull his arm away. Virgil grimaced at this.

“Yes you do. You love it. You’re good at it. Don’t give up on it again,” Virgil’s voice was nearly pleading, and Logan looked away from the man, because the emotions were too strong, and he couldn’t bear to feel them. He didn’t want to feel anything. “Logan.”

“I can’t. I don’t have an easel or canvases or…” Logan trailed off, and Virgil squeezed his arm gently. “I can’t get back into it. It’s not… serious enough. I want to be taken seriously. I need to be.”

“Why?” Virgil’s voice was calling him back, his long fingers warm against Logan’s skin, and the critic resisted the urge to run again. “Why do you need to be taken seriously? Because of your parents? Logan, your skills speak for themselves. You can be taken seriously as an artist.”

“Does your family take you seriously?” Logan asked, and Virgil’s eyes opened. He chewed on his lower lip, then sighed before responding.

“I haven’t spoken to my family since I was seventeen. There was a lot more than just my art that they didn’t accept me for,” Virgil’s voice was low, and Logan just nodded, understanding. “You can come back to paint whenever you want, Logan.”

And so he did. The following morning, he showed up at Virgil’s loft, bagels and coffee in hand. Instead of his normal professional attire, he was wearing an old pair of jeans and a NASA t-shirt that had bleach stains. The door was open when he approached it, so he peeked in to see Virgil already at his easel, a new painting in the works, dressed in the same outfit as the day before.

“Um, good morning, Virgil,” Logan said, announcing his presence. “I brought some bagels and coffee,” he said, stepping over to set the food and drinks on the kitchen counters.

“Thank goodness, I’m going to need caffeine. I didn’t finish the painting from yesterday until three in the morning,” Virgil groaned, stepping away from the easel temporarily to grab the coffee Logan had brought for him. “You’re my hero.” Logan turned bright red at this, looking down at his feet. “Oh. I talked to Roman. He actually started painting again. Let me get my phone to show you the picture,” Virgil stepped away, and Logan had to hold back again. Standing close to the other man was intoxicating, but he craved it. Even though he had only known the painter for two days, he was entranced, and had never felt the need to gravitate around another person in that way.

When Virgil stepped back over to him, phone showing a picture of a painting of a throne. Logan smiled faintly at it, remembering Roman’s penchant for theatricality and royalty. And then Logan realized just how close he was standing to Virgil. The artist seemed to notice, as well, because he stepped away, clearing his throat. Without saying anything, the two went to their easels, and painted in silence for some time.

Virgil had given his canvas a thorough once-over with black paint, and allowed it to dry before starting to add colors on top of it; dark blues and purples were swirled on. Logan found himself pause what he was doing to watch the way that Virgil arched his wrist in a precise way to allow for different points of pressure from the brush. He wondered if Virgil had studied art, and glanced around the room to see if he could locate any degrees. None were visible, though, and he didn’t want to ask and break the comfortable silence they had entered.

They painted in that space of tranquility for a few hours, until Logan heard his stomach grumble. Virgil chuckled a bit at this, setting his brush down and stepping back from his own easel. “I’ll order us some lunch, is Chinese takeout alright?”

“Sounds delicious. Kung Pao Chicken, please,” Logan responded, setting his brush down to look at his painting as a whole. It was a silhouette again, but this time there were two figures, and it looked like they were dancing. He hadn’t done the background yet, but he wanted to do something similar to the galaxy he had painted the day before. He heard Virgil finish making the order for takeout, and then felt his presence next to him.

“Are they dancing?” Virgil asked, letting his hair out of its bun. Logan ignored the way that his dark hair framed his pale face, and instead just nodded. “You must be familiar with dancing, I can almost see the movement in them.”

“I’m not much of a dancer, but my cousin Patton is,” he explained, remembering the times when, as teenagers, he and Patton would learn different styles of dance, even ballroom dancing. A smile crossed his features, and he barely noticed that music started playing from a speaker. Then he felt arms on his, pulling him into Virgil’s arms so they could move to the music. “Virgil, I-”

“Shh, just dance with me,” Virgil’s voice was calm, and Logan leaned into the touch, his head resting on the other man’s shoulder, Virgil’s hands settling on his waist. They moved around the empty space of the room until the doorbell rang, and Logan felt as if he had been pulled out of a dream. The two ate their takeout in silence, though the quiet was not as pleasant as it had been prior; there was now this tension spread out in front of them, and neither of them knew what to do with that.

By the time they had both finished eating and returned to their easels, Logan knew that he was visibly rigid, but his hands shook with every movement. He could barely press his paintbrush against the canvas without needing to pull away for fear of making one wrong move. Of course, it was the fact that he was afraid of all of his past wrong moves and the fear that if he made a false choice now, the progress he had made and the confidence he had built up with his painting again would fade away.

Virgil could practically feel the unease dripping from Logan’s body, so he left his painting to dry (at this point, all he wanted to do was add some white borders to the swirls), and stepped over to Logan, taking the brush from his hand. “You want to talk about it?” Logan wouldn’t meet his eyes, but nodded, and the two moved to sit on the couch, Virgil leaning close into the cushions, watching Logan with those dark eyes of his.

“I want to learn how to be okay with the things that I tried to push back,” he finally said, and Virgil knew it wasn’t just the painting he was talking about. “But… I don’t know where to start.”

“You already have started, Logan. You’re painting again, and you need to keep painting, no matter how hard it is or how conflicted you feel,” Virgil’s voice was soft as he scooted a little closer to the critic, and his fingers pulled Logan’s face to look at him. “As for the other things… take your time. Be open. It’s… hard. But… I think that everyone deserves a second chance, and I’m happy to help you on your journey.”

Logan stepped into the building and walked up to the table with badges, scanning the rows until he found the one he was looking for: Logan Crofters, Artist, Dancing Under the Stars. A faint smile crossed his face as he pinned it to his jacket, and then he wandered to where he knew the canvas was hung.

On his way there, he passed Roman, whose throne painting was hung proudly as the center of the show, and they shook hands, exchanged friendly greetings, and made promises to see each other at the after party. Then Logan went to stand by his painting, the lights from up above illuminating the silhouettes in a way that no natural light could.

Logan felt a presence to his left, and glanced over to see Virgil beaming brightly. His sunset painting was on display a few exhibits over. Their hands linked together, Virgil’s thumb brushing comfortably over the back of Logan’s hand, and Logan leaned up to press a kiss to Virgil’s cheek.

“I put in my notices,” he informed Virgil, who nodded, still smiling. “No more critiquing. No more boring apartment.” He hadn’t been spending much time in his apartment over the past several months, anyways. Each morning he’d find himself waking up in Virgil’s warm embrace, the fairy lights of the loft illuminating their way, and each afternoon they’d paint side by side like they had at the start, except now when they needed a break, they’d fall into each other’s arms, cascading across the room, lips brushing together like paintbrushes on a canvas.

#amanda writes sanders sides fic #sanders sides fanfiction #analogical #ts analogical #romantic analogical #ts virgil #virgil sanders #ts logan #logan sanders #ts sanders sides #sanders sides #art critic logan #painter virgil

251 notes · View notes

ericsonclan · 3 years ago

Text

A Romantic Holiday

Summary: Clementine and the others get ready to celebrate Valentine's Day with their significant others.

Word Count: 1000+

Read on AO3:

Start from the beginning:

“All I’m saying is that a movie and cuddling is a totally valid way to spend Valentine’s Day,” Brody looked back at her friends who all nodded in agreement.

“Yeah, it totally is,” Clementine walked up beside her auburn friend and gave a smile.

“Nothing wrong with that,” Louis jogged forward, immediately intertwining his fingers with Clementine’s. With a gentle sway their joined hands began to move back and forth. Louis’ bright smile faltered when he saw the look on Brody’s face. “Unless you don’t want that to be your Valentine’s Day evening.”

Brody’s eyes grew large for a second before she looked down at her shoes. “It’s stupid. It’s not like Mitch or I have the money to blow on a fancy Valentine’s Day,” Brody gave a sigh. “But I would be lying if I said I didn’t want something more romantic.”

“Then tell him,” Violet’s eyes met Brody’s when she glanced up. “Mitch is a dumbass but he also really likes you so he’d want to make you happy,”

“Violet is right,” Prisha smiled over at Brody. “If you communicate with Mitch then perhaps you can find a romantic date idea that isn’t pricey,”

“Yeah, you guys are right,” Brody gave a shaky sigh then proceeded to take a few deep breaths. “So what are your guys’ plans for Valentine’s Day?”

“A carriage ride through a park. With the snow and each other it will be magical!” Louis pressed a kiss to Clementine’s cheek then spun her around once as a surprise before the two rejoined the group who stopped to wait for them.

“Violet and I are recreating our first ever date and going stargazing with tons of blankets of course,” Prisha wrapped her arms around Violet then looked down at her with a loving smile.

“That all sounds amazing. I just wish I had an idea of what I wan-”

“Well if it isn’t Prisha!” a voice boomed from a short distance in front of them. Brody looked as well as the others, curious who had cut the conversation short. A fairly tall man with a thick, gray, full beard walked forward with a happy smile. Based on his uniform and hat it was clear that he was the sheriff. His jaw was set in such a way that it gave him an aura of sternness but based on the crinkle of joy in his eyes it was clear that he was a good man. “I haven’t seen you in forever.”

“Sheriff Kenny! What a pleasure to see you. What are you doing on campus?” Prisha smiled over at Kenny before a realization struck here. Violet was still within her arms, a sight she wasn’t sure how Kenny would take considering that the only ones who knew of her orientation were the group of friends she had now. Kenny studied Prisha and Violet for a moment. Violet’s grip on Prisha’s arms remained as constant as always as she shot over a pointed look at the sheriff who remained quiet for a few seconds. Violet continued to look at the sheriff with a protectiveness in her eyes until he spoke up.

“I didn’t know you had a girlfriend. Good for you,” Kenny tipped up his hat and gave a casual smile.

“Thank you,” Prisha held Violet closer. Violet noticed that Prisha’s tension had lessened quite a bit before it flared up again. “My relationship with Violet, my father...” Prisha’s voice trailed for a second.

“Don’t worry, I won’t go shooting off my mouth about anything. I’m just glad to see you happy. Damn, you sure have grown. I remember the days you would run around the station and pretend to find clues with a copy of some Sherlock Holmes book tucked under your arm,” Kenny’s recounting made Prisha grow embarrassed as she listened to the sheriff share story after story. Louis, Clementine and Brody seemed to be enjoying hearing all these stories that Prisha was sure would be brought up again and she noticed that Violet was also having fun hearing stories about Prisha from before they met.

“Anyways, I’m talking your ears off and I haven’t even asked for any of your damn names.” Kenny sighed apologetically before his eyes focused on Louis for a second as if he had recognized him somehow. “My name’s Kenneth Callaway but you can just call me Sheriff Kenny.”

“Nice to meet you, sir. My name’s Louis and this lovely gal beside me is my girlfriend, Clementine!” Louis smiled over to Clementine who returned it.

“Guess I’m next, I’m Brody,” Brody had a nervous expression on her face, likely due to a mixture of it being a first meeting and that the person she was introducing herself to was the sheriff.

“Nice to meet you all. I picked up on your name already,” Kenny looked over at Violet who gave a short nod.

“Well then, I shouldn’t be taking up any more of your time,” Kenny tipped his hat then turned to leave until a voice called out to him.

“Dad! I didn’t know you’d be on campus!” A young man with short brown hair strolled forward, his pinky intertwined with a person with hazel eyes.

“Hey there, Duck! I was just here to take a look around campus since so much has been going on here lately. Then I ran into Prisha and-”

“Prisha is here!” Duck’s eyes immediately lit up and slipping his pinky free he ran forward. In an instant Prisha was wrapped into a tight hug. “I was hoping I’d see you around campus ever since I started this semester.”

“Duck, you’re hugging me a bit too tight,” Prisha wheezed out before giving an appreciative smile once Duck had let go.

“So, still being a great detective as always? Are you working towards that degree to become a superhero?” Duck smiled brightly at Prisha.

“Well, I’m just becoming a lawyer, not a hero.” Prisha looked away, slightly worried that her eyes or her friends’ would show some sort of sign that they were in fact superheroes.

“Eh, it's basically the same thing!” Duck placed his hands on his hips before a flicker of realization appeared. “Oh, that’s right! I’ve never introduced you to Oakley before!”

Duck ran back and stood beside the person that had been walking with him. They seemed to be completely lost in the simple joy of letting snowflakes fall on their tongue. A small smile was on their lips as a snowflake right on the tip of it.

“This is Oakley, my paramour!” Duck grinned brightly as his pinky wrapped around Oakley’s once more. Prisha’s eyes grew large at that word while Kenny gave a tired groan.

“Son, you could use another word,” Kenny looked over at Duck who shrugged.

“It works for us,”

“But you’re referring to Oakley as your illicit partner. Do you see the issue with that?” Prisha looked at her friend who brushed it off.

“It would be an issue if someone else used it like that but this is different. Anyways, wanna say hi, Knox?”

Oakley stopped in their task for a second then moved their eyes to look at the group. “Hi,” Without another word they soon returned their attention to the sky. Duck didn’t seem to mind though and instead began to get everyone’s names. Soon it was his turn to share old tales involving Prisha: how they would pretend to be heroes around the station and such until one day she had left for Chicago and the two hadn’t really kept in contact until now.

After a while Kenny cleared his throat. “Well, we should be getting out of your hair,” Kenny patted Duck’s back to make sure he got the message too.

“Alright. See you later, Prisha!” Duck gave one final wave then walked off, happily talking with Oakley who listened as they intertwined their fingers. The group watched them for a minute longer before continuing down the path and picking up the conversation that they were having prior to the Sheriff showing up.

Prisha glanced at her phone for a moment. She had some time to kill before she had to start on assignments. Her thumb instantly wandered over towards the Discord app logo and with a quick tap she opened it. As luck would have it the channel she had last been on had begun to pick up with a brand new conversation after Brody and Ruby had finished up their tea talk.

Sing-us-a-song: Wee woo wee woo

BREAKING NEWS

Violet just told me that im her beast friend

Best

Best friend

OrangeuGlad: Congrats!

Bro: wait

Aasim: You are already best friends

Bro: Aren’t you already best friends?

Yeah

Sing-us-a-song: Its official now

Best friends :3

Knife2meetU: Louis

Stop sharing stuff from our private convos in DMs

Sing-us-a-song: Oop

Sorry bestie <3

Knife2meetU: No heart

Sing-us-a-song: Sorry bestie!

Knife2meetU: And no bestie

You’re this close to losing your best friend rights

Sing-us-a-song: Are you sure? Smirk face

There’s no take backs

Knife2meetU: Wanna bet?

Sing-us-a-song: Vi waig

Wait

We’re Bffs!

Thats forever

Prisha watched the conversation continue with amusement when all of a sudden her attention was drawn away from the chat and towards the door. Therissa walked in with a tired groan. Her feet dragged on the floor before she fell onto the couch.

“If I committed murder, would you represent me and get me off scot-free?” Therissa looked over at her roommate with a tired smile. A few strands of her dark brown curly hair fell over her face, covering her eyes.

“Oh? What got you so heated? You’re usually fairly level-headed,” Prisha placed down her phone and walked towards the kitchen area to start some tea.

“I am, but this professor is a total ass. First he praises my writing in his Creative Writing 103 class saying that it’s great but then when the second semester starts and I take Creative Writing 205 then he basically starts telling me it's shit now. It makes no sense and he keeps acting snarky and pissy with me. So now on Valentine’s Day I have a day full of classes, work and a writing tutor because I need to pass this class,” Therissa groaned and sat up when Prisha walked over with two cups of tea.

“Would you want my help on any homework?” Prisha smiled at her friend who accepted the tea gratefully.

Therissa took a long sip before answering. “No, you’re super busy as is. You’re always studying and when you’re not in class you’re rushing around everywhere. I’m surprised you haven’t been passing out recently.”

“Thanks for the compliment,” Prisha’s expression was hidden behind the cup as she took a sip of tea.

“Wasn’t a compliment. I’m trying to point out that you push yourself too much. It’s a good thing Valentine’s Day is the day after tomorrow. Maybe you can finally relax for a day with your girlfriend. Speaking of which, you better have a nice outfit that you're wearing for the date.”

“I am!” Prisha smiled brightly. “In fact, after this tea I can show you it!”

Therissa returned the smile. “Good, then after Valentine’s Day we can return to plotting murder.”

“Sounds good to me.” Prisha took another sip and soon she got caught up in a conversation with Therissa.

“Shit, fuck, shit on the- fuck!” Violet ran over to the heart-shaped bowl that was over a simmering pot of water. The bowl was starting to slip due to the condensation from the heat and the fact that it had been placed poorly over the pot. Luckily Violet had caught it before most of the contents fell into the water. Violet gave a frustrated groan that turned into a hiss when her fingers brushed against the hot metal of the pot. Jerking her hand back, Violet ended up spilling the rest of the chocolate into the water. “Fuck, no!”

“Violet! Are you alright?” Prisha walked forward, the concern clear in her eyes when she saw Violet clutching her hand.

“I’m fine,” Violet could see that Prisha didn’t believe her. Silently Prisha guided Violet over towards the sink and started to run cold water over her fingers. Violet stared at the water for a moment then up at her girlfriend. “This was a fucking stupid injury,”

“It wasn’t. You were just trying to save the chocolate. It’s a shame that you got hurt in the process though,” Prisha noticed Violet’s face fall. “Don’t worry, I’ll help patch up your fingers and you can give the process of making chocolate one more go.”

“I don’t know. I fucking suck at it,” Violet mumbled, her eyes sad until she felt a kiss being pressed to her cheek.

“I beg to differ.” Prisha smiled lovingly at Violet who returned to look until Clementine’s voice drew both of their attention away from each other.

“Why does it look like there’s a pile of shit in the pot?”

“Oh horsefeathers! Did we lose another batch?” Ruby bustled over and huffed with annoyance as she began to clean up the mess.

“Sorry,” Violet’s quiet voice made Ruby glance over, her eyes softening.

“Aww, Sug, don’t worry about it. Luckily Brody had been as worried as ever and overbought on supplies,” Ruby nodded over to Brody who was working on preparing another batch.

“Seems like my anxiousness paid off this time,” Brody smiled at her friends then looked down at the ingredients that would soon make milk chocolate. “Do you think Mitch and the others will like this?” “Are you kidding? Of course they will! Louis is a sucker for sweets and so is Mitch,” Clementine placed a hand on Brody’s shoulder and gave a smile.

“Aasim loves all things romance and besides two of the people that are getting chocolates are with us and both of them have been all worried about making the perfect chocolate,” Ruby sent a teasing look over to Prisha and Violet.

“Well, ‘perfect’ is a strong word. I just want to make good chocolates for Violet,” Prisha messed with her braid for a moment.

“Yeah, what's wrong with not wanting to fuck up?” Violet crossed her arms and looked over at Ruby.

“I don’t think Ruby said it was bad, just sweet,” Brody gave another smile then took a deep breath. “Now let's kick this chocolates’ ass and surprise the guys!”

Clementine and Ruby cheered at that and soon all the girls were working on chocolate once more. It took a few more tries but soon the chocolate was being poured into the molds. After being placed in the fridge for twenty to thirty minutes the chocolates were done and the girls moved to the next step. Each of them worked to put the chocolates into little homemade heart boxes that Brody and Ruby had spent the night before making.

Violet swore under her breath while she worked on her box; Brody seemed to be in no better a boat. Meanwhile Ruby and Prisha had mastered putting together boxes of chocolates. Both of them were tying picture perfect bows on the boxes to seal them. Prisha hummed a happy tune to herself as she finished the final touches. But as soon as the others noticed that she was singing she quieted down. Lastly Clementine gave it her best effort and got a middle of the road result; she didn’t seem to care though. She knew that Louis would love it. Just as that thought had finished a knock came on her front door. Brushing her hands on her pants, Clementine walked forward. Her eyes grew large when she spotted Louis, Mitch and Aasim at the door. “Louis! What are you doing here?”

Clementine’s exclamation made the other girls poke their heads out of the kitchen to see the boys standing in the doorway. Each of them had a clip-on bow tie and a rose in their hands.

“Hello, my darling,” Louis leaned forward and planted a kiss on Clementine’s cheek. “We are here for our early Valentine’s Day surprise!” Louis grinned back at Mitch and Aasim. Mitch felt like his nerves were all over the place as he pulled on his shirt collar. Meanwhile Aasim seemed to be practicing something in his mind, his eyes focused elsewhere. Louis quickly snapped his friends out of their mindset and led the way inside. “We are here to serenade our lovely girlfriends with a barbershop quartet!”

“But isn’t a quartet made of four singers?” Brody walked forward, leading the way for the girls who all filed out to see what song the boys were about to sing.

“Right you are, Bro! Prisha, mind switching sides and completing our quartet?” Louis smiled over to his music confidant.

“I’d love nothing more,” Prisha smiled confidently as she walked forward and accepted a clip-on bowtie and rose.

Louis quickly gathered the three others and played a note for them all to be the same key. Soon the four of them began to sing Just in Time by Frank Sinatra. It was an older song that Violet was sure Prisha had pushed to be the choice for today.

“Just in time, I found you just in time

Before you came, my time was runnin' low

I was lost, the losing dice were tossed

My bridges all were crossed, nowhere to go,”

The four of them sang, each of them using their natural singing octave. Prisha and Louis were by far the best singers while Aasim wasn’t bad by any stretch of the imagination. That left Mitch in last place who clearly couldn’t sing as well as the others but that didn’t stop him from powering through and singing loudly.

“Now you're here and now I know just where I'm goin'

No more doubt or fear, I found my way

For love came just in time

You found me just in time

And changed my lonely life that lovely day,”

The four walked forward towards Violet, Ruby, Brody and Clementine. Each of them looked at their girlfriends with loving smiles. Even though the song wasn’t sung the strongest, the girls could tell that Prisha and the boys were pouring their hearts into the performance despite it being obvious for some this whole thing was overwhelming.

“Now you are here and now I know just where I'm goin'

No more doubt or fear, 'cause I've found my way

For love came just in time

You found me just in time

And changed my lonely life that lovely

Lonely life that lovely

Lonely life that lovely day,”

As the four hit the final note they held out their roses to their respective girlfriends. Louis gave a playful wink Clementine’s way as she accepted the rose before all of his confidence melted away into dorky happiness when Clementine stole a quick kiss. Ruby accepted the rose, her rosy cheeks growing rosier as she got on her tiptoes and showered Aasim with quick, soft kisses. Meanwhile both Brody and Mitch were blushing messes as Brody took the rose and gave Mitch a compliment that made him even more flustered. Both of them tried to find the right words as they held each other’s hands. Soon they each decided it was better to just let their actions speak louder than their words and shared a strong kiss. Lastly, Violet took the rose and knew that her face was as red as the flower.

“I’m glad you enjoyed the quartet,” Prisha smiled at Violet who gave a short nod. The two were silent for a moment before Violet snuck a kiss. The romantic action made Prisha freeze in place for a moment.

“Oh!” Ruby’s voice made everyone look over at her. “We should give the chocolates!”

“Chocolates?” Louis’ eyes danced with excitement at those words and it only grew as Clementine disappeared and reappeared with a box of chocolates.

Soon all of the chocolates had been exchanged to which all of its recipients were extremely happy. Mitch wrapped his arms around Brody from behind and pressed a kiss to her cheek before he grew almost as overwhelmed as Brody by the action. Aasim was happily talking about how much he appreciated Ruby and all the thought she had put in this early Valentine’s Day surprise. Ruby blushed and quickly told him that he had been just as thoughtful if not more. Violet watched nervously as Prisha took a bite of the chocolate and was relieved when Prisha’s eyes sparkled with happiness. Clementine watched her friends for a moment then looked back over at Louis who was gushing about how lucky he was to have a girlfriend like Clementine, especially on Valentine’s Day. Clementine smiled softly and held onto Louis’ hands.

These Valentine celebrations were already going great and it wasn’t even the holiday yet. All of them had knocked it out of the park so far and after hearing the plans for the others Valentine Day dates Clementine was sure tomorrow would be a fantastic day for all of them.

Clementine’s eyes wandered over the map of Ericson University one last time. She had to be sure that there were no rifts opening up. If one appeared while she was busy getting lost in the joy of a date… It couldn’t happen. Luckily when she checked it for the sixteenth time it was the same as it always was. Blank and void of any shimmering blue or red dots. Clementine gave a shaky sigh of relief and tucked it away in her winter coat. Lee and Carley had already headed out, both of them looking giddy at the thought of starting their Valentine’s Day date. Soon after they had left, a babysitter showed up for AJ who was waiting to work on his second Valentine’s card that he wanted to give to Telulah as soon as he could. His foot tapped impatiently as he waited for Louis so that he could say hi before him and Clementine headed out. A few minutes passed of awkward silence and of the babysitter wanting to get AJ to focus on games instead of staring at the door when a knock appeared. Jogging forward, Clementine opened the door and found her boyfriend smiling brightly at her, in his hands a dozen roses.

“Happy Valentine's Day, my darling!” Louis leaned forward and captured Clementine’s lips in a soft kiss.

“Happy Valentine’s Day,” Clementine reached out and took one of Louis’ hands in hers.

“Are you ready for a magical carriage ride?” Louis smiled at Clementine who gave a short nod.

“Yep,” Clementine glanced back at AJ. “Okay, we’re going to be heading out now,”

“Wait!” AJ scampered forward and skidded to a halt in front of the pair. “You better keep her safe!”

“Will do, little dude!” Louis gave a huge thumbs up at AJ who beamed.

“Oh! And get her back by curf- curvs-”

“Curfew,” Clementine helped her little brother who nodded firmly.

“Yeah! Curfew!”

“Of course! I will make sure Clem is back and safe by curfew. You have a gentleman’s promise,” Louis noticed the happy smile on AJ’s lips at his words.

“Good!” AJ placed his hands on his hips for a second then rushed forward and tackled Clementine with a hug before running back to get started on the fun.

Clementine and Louis shared a smile and quietly laughed as they walked out the door. Clementine looked over at Louis. He was wearing a long brown coat as well as a green scarf that seemed to only add to his adorable winter vibes.“You’re looking cute today,”

Clementine’s compliment made Louis look over with a dorky smile. “Why, thank you! I picked it out myself. Well, that's not entirely true. Marlon helped me pick out this scarf,”

“Well then both of you did a good job picking out your outfit,” Clementine smiled when she saw how happy those words made Louis.

“Awww thanks, but I don’t look half as cute as you,” Louis swung their joined hands then nodded over towards Clementine's outfit. It was a dark blue sweater covered by a black winter jacket that all complemented her fuzzy blue winter hat.

Clementine blushed lightly at the compliment. “Thanks,” She quickly leaned over and pressed a kiss to Louis’ cheek. The two walked happily towards the location of the horse-drawn carriage, sharing as many kiss as they could surprise the other with until they reached the spot.

“M’lady,” Louis held out his hand with a warm smile. Clementine returned the smile and took his hand as he guided her up the steps of the carriage. Soon he was right beside her, immediately handing over the dozen roses. “Are you ready for a romantic carriage ride?” “I was born ready,” Clementine gave a playful smile that made Louis’ nose crinkle with amusement. Sharing one more kiss, Louis gave the signal and the carriage driver flicked the reins, causing the horses to snort before moving forward in a slow trot. Clementine scooted closer and wrapped her arm around Louis’ waist. Louis’ face grew warm and he gently kissed Clementine’s forehead then pulled her closer. Nuzzling his face against the top of her head, he slowly leaned his head against hers and the two took in the beauty of the snow-covered world around them. Both of them commented here and there about how lovely the park was as the carriage moved forward. After a few moments Louis began to hum a tune that Clementine couldn’t place for a moment. It took her a few seconds to pick up what he was singing.

“Are you humming Jingle Bells? After Christmas?” Clementine looked up at her boyfriend with a smile.

“Yes, I am, and there is nothing wrong with that,” Louis grinned down at Clementine and stole a kiss before continuing to hum. Soon his warm tune was joined by a softer voice. Louis glanced down to see that Clementine was joining him in humming. The two began to hum some more then quickly proceeded to sing the song out loud along with any other song that their hearts desired. Both of them looked at each other with joyful, soft smiles. This really was a magical carriage ride.

Ruby stood in front of the mirror and turned this way and that, causing her red dress to sway. Her brows furrowed for a moment before she looked back at Brody who was busy pacing.

“Brody, do you think my dress looks alright?”

Ruby’s voice snapped Brody out of her thoughts and she glanced up. “What? Are you kidding? Aasim is going to lose his mind when he sees you!” Brody stopped her pacing and gave a warm smile to her best friend.

“Yeah, you’re right. I think I’m getting into my own head.” Ruby looked back at the mirror. “Just like you are about your date with Mitch,”

Those words made Brody’s eyes grow large before falling. “It’s stupid. I was so busy the last few days that I didn’t even talk to Mitch about changing our Valentine’s Day plans. It's too late to change them now and besides, he sang for me yesterday which was a really nice surprise.”

“Brody, I don’t think you need to worry your head about this. I’m sure you’ll have a grand time with Mitch,” Ruby looked back at Brody through the mirror, a playful knowingness in her eyes. The sight of that confused Brody and she wanted to ask about it when suddenly a knock on the dorm room door appeared.

“Oh, that must be him!” Ruby bustled over and opened the door, revealing Aasim who was decked out in a suit with a red tie. Tucked in his left hand there looked to be a piece of love poetry based on the seal and the red bow around it.

“Hello, my dove,” Aasim leaned down and gently kissed Ruby. Ruby instantly cupped his face and deepened the kiss before giving two more quick ones.

“Happy Valentine’s Day, Pookie,” Ruby took Aasim’s hand and gave it a gentle squeeze.

“Are you ready to go to the tea shop?”

“I sure am! I heard the tea there is divine!” Ruby smiled up at her boyfriend then glanced back at Brody. “I’m heading out. I’ll see you later.”

“Okay,” Brody gave a quick wave and after Aasim helped Ruby get on her coat the two disappeared down the hall.

The pair walked in serene silence for a bit, enjoying the winter wonderland that their campus had turned into. They shared small kisses here and there as they walked, placing them on each other’s wrists and hands. Ruby’s rosy red cheeks turned even brighter in the cold of winter which made Aasim’s heart pitter patter happily.

Soon the two had arrived at Sarita’s Tea Shop where the owner welcomed them with a friendly smile. A large man stood beside the owner who they learned went by the name Tripp. He gave a quick kiss to Sarita before guiding Aasim and Ruby to their table. After placing their orders, Aasim and Ruby immediately held each other’s hands.

Aasim looked at Ruby with such tender love as he placed kiss after kiss on her hands. “I can’t tell you how happy I am that I found you. In fact, I tried my best to put into words my feelings for you,” Aasim slipped one of his hands free and held out the love poetry.

“Why, Aasim,” Ruby gently took the gift and slowly began to read it. Her eyes wandered from left to right, reading the words her boyfriend had so lovingly put on paper. With each sentence her heart grew warmer and warmer until she had finished reading. Silently she placed down the paper and leaned forward across the table, kissing Aasim softly. Aasim’s eyes widened for a moment then closed as he deepened the kiss. After a moment the two pulled apart and shared a soft look.

“I’m happy I found you too,”

The two smiled at each other, holding each other’s hands until the tea was brought forward along with the pastries. Tripp silently poured the hot water over a rose blossom in a clear teapot. Slowly the rose bursted open, blossoming and flavoring the tea. Ruby and Aasim stared in awe then shared another smile. This was turning into a truly unforgettable Valentine’s Day.

Brody sat on her bed and stared at the ceiling. Ruby had left a while ago and based on the haphazard text she got from Mitch he was nearly here. It wouldn’t be bad cuddling and watching a movie together. Feeling Mitch’s arms around her, stolen kisses.. Brody covered her face with a pillow as she felt herself grow overwhelmed. Just as she was about to go on another spiral of thoughts, a knock showed up on the door.

Peeking out from behind the pillow Brody got up, quickly readjusting her t-shirt before walking over to answer the door. When she opened the door her eyes grew wide with surprise. There, standing in the doorway, was Mitch in an honest to goodness tux. The dark blue tie was sloppily placed and the suit was a bit too big on him.

Mitch pulled at the collar for a second before he noticed Brody. “Brodes! Happy Valentine’s Day!” Mitch’s voice boomed a bit too loudly as he thrusted out his arm which held a metal trident. Brody blinked in awe of the trident then took it. Slowly her eyes began to examine it. “I thought that a stronger weapon is never a bad thing so I made you one,” Mitch’s eyes were focused on the floor. “It’ll protect you way better than that prop one you had,”

“I love it,” Brody smiled up at Mitch who looked at her with shock then proceeded to pump his fist.

“Yes! Fuckin’ A! I actually didn’t fuck up on Valentine’s Day! Because look!” Mitch leaned over and picked up a soft yellow dress then held it out for Brody. “Ruby helped me pick it out because I’m shit at this sorta thing but you gotta dress up for our plans.”

“Plans?” Brody accepted the dress and held it close to her chest with a soft smile.

“Yeah, it took me fucking forever but I saved up enough money to take you to one of those fancy restaurants, one of those places where you have to dress fancy and shit,”

Mitch’s words made Brody’s mouth open slightly in surprise. She definitely wasn’t expecting this. Silently she placed down the items then got on her tiptoes and pulled Mitch into a kiss. Mitch instantly wrapped his arms around her waist and deepened the kiss. Once they pulled apart the two stared into each other’s eyes.

“I’m gonna go get changed,”

“Okay, I’ll wait out in the hall,” Mitch whispered. Both of their faces were super red as they squeezed each other’s hands and let them slip free. Mitch waited out in the hall, kicking his foot impatiently as he leaned against the wall. After a few minutes Brody emerged from the room in the short, soft yellow dress. Mitch’s mouth hung open for a second.

“Well, do I look okay?” Brody did a small spin.

“You look fucking amazing!” Mitch walked forward and stole another kiss from Brody. Brody hummed at the touch of the kiss then pulled back, her face a bright red.

“Thanks, you look pretty amazing yourself,” Brody’s hands wandered forward and held onto Mitch’s tux for a second.

Mitch had a confident smile on his face. “I borrowed this tux from my dad and he helped me pick out this tie,” Mitch’s confidence radiated off of him as he displayed his outfit before it faltered when he noticed his tie’s placement looked like shit. Silently Brody helped fix his tie then intertwined her fingers with his. The two shared a quick smile then after locking the door headed out towards the restaurant.

Both of them felt extremely out of place at this fancy restaurant. It was way out of their normal price range.

“Why the fuck do they have two forks?” Mitch looked at the table placement with confusion as he and Brody waited for their steak dinners.

“I don’t know. Maybe it's in case you drop one?” Brody shrugged, unsure of her own answer. Mitch stared at the forks for a moment longer before a mischievous grin appeared on his face. “Mitch, what are you thinking?”

Mitch was silent as he looked up at Brody before his elbow knocked off a fork. After a moment a waiter came forward and replaced his fork. Brody sighed which only made Mitch’s smile grow.

“Come on, Brodes, y’know you love me,” Mitch’s smug smile faded in an instant when he realized what he had just said. The two shared a look, both extremely red once more before looking away.

Brody was silent for a minute then answered. “Yeah, I do.”

Her answer made Mitch drop his glass of water directly on his crotch. “Fuck!”

“Mitch! Are you okay?” Brody pushed back her chair to check on her boyfriend.

“Yeah, yeah, I’m fine. It just looks like I pissed my pants,” Mitch was silent for a moment, wondering if he should go for it. “I love you too,”

His answer shocked Brody who in her surprise knocked over a plate which slammed onto Mitch’s toe. This date was absolute chaos but both of them seemed focused on the positives of the moment, chaos and all.

Violet hopped up onto the back of her old, beat up, blue pickup truck, parked in the same spot that Violet had taken Prisha all those months ago on their first date together. Her hands worked to place the last few pillows in place before double checking that all the fake candles were on. After frantically checking once more Violet got off the truck and walked towards the door. Opening it, she saw that Prisha still had her eyes closed.

“Okay, it's ready. Here, take my hand,” Violet instructed and Prisha immediately held out her hand which Violet grasped. Silently she led the way towards the back of the pickup truck. After getting Prisha in the right spot, Violet took a few steps back beside the truck.”Okay, open your eyes.”

Prisha’s eyes slowly fluttered open before growing large in awe. The back of the pickup truck was covered in blankets and pillows. Along the edges of the truck were fake candles as well as two vases filled with violets, baby’s breath and forget me nots.

“I did my best to make it like our first date but, y’know, better,” Violet awkwardly scratched the back of her neck then hid her hands away in her front hoodie pocket.

“It's absolutely beautiful! Violet,” Prisha’s voice hitched in her throat and she ran forward, cupping Violet’s face and capturing her lips in a passionate kiss. Violet’s eyes grew large at the romantic gesture for a moment then she deepened the kiss. Prisha pulled back and looked lovingly into Violet’s eyes. “I love it.” “I’m glad,” Violet smiled at her girlfriend then intertwined her fingers with Prisha’s. “So, ready to stargaze?”

“Of course!” Prisha returned the smile, kissing Violet’s nose quickly before getting up on the back of the pickup truck with her. The two worked together to get under the blankets and snuggled close. Both of them soon became lost in the beauty of the sky when all of a sudden Prisha reached out and held onto Violet’s hand once more. Violet gave a soft laugh at that which confused Prisha as she looked over at her girlfriend. “What?”

“Nothing. It's just on our first date neither of us was even sure if it was one and we both kept accidentally dodging each other’s hands,” Violet’s eyes traveled over to Prisha’s. “I’m really glad that you held my hand that night,”

“I am too. I can't even express how much you’ve grown to mean to me, Violet. How deeply I care about you, how much I love you,” Prisha turned her body so that she was closer to Violet. Her eyes soon became lost in Violet’s.

“Me neither. To think I’d find someone like you,” Violet whispered and moved closer. “I’m really fucking lucky. So, thanks for choosing me,”

Prisha’s smile grew and she gave Violet a soft kiss. “I wouldn’t choose anyone else. I love you,”

“I love you too,” Violet snuggled up closer to Prisha and soon the two repositioned themselves. Violet’s head gently rested on Prisha’s shoulder as Prisha’s arms wrapped around Violet. The couple’s gaze slowly returned up to the starry sky. Violet snuck a quick glance at Prisha then looked up at the sky once more. Being here with her and the stars that shone brightly in the sky, in that moment Violet needed nothing more.

#twdg #twdg clementine #twdg louis #twdg violet #twdg prisha #twdg ruby #twdg aasim #twdg brody #twdg mitch #twdg kenny #twdg duck #twdg oakley #clouis #rusim #twdg privet #twdg moody #fanfic #I am thou thou art I au

11 notes · View notes

rainbowbutterfrosting · 3 years ago

Text

The Revived - Chapter 8: Miscommunications

This is chapter 8 of the Dream SMP multichapter fic @rainbowbutterfrosting and I wrote together! I hope you’ll enjoy! Discord link here.

AO3

Read in order (on Tumblr)

Characters in this chapter: Wilbur, Ghostbur, Niki

Word count: 3,534

Content Warnings: kidnapping, being tied up, being blindfolded, threats of starvation, violence (punching), yelling, threatening in general, pain, panic attacks, chasing, mentions of begging

Fic summary: Wilbur was alive, and it was such a magnificent feeling, that made his mind spark with anticipation. It didn’t take long, however, for Wilbur to realize that this new breath of life, was not just his own. An echo-y voice hides in the back of his mind, and before he knows it, the transparent version of him he saw at the endless train station, is a lot more ingrained than he’d expected him to be.

And Wilbur really shouldn’t care. Because he’d be damned, if he spent the life he’d awaited for so long, babysitting a lost cause of a ghost, stuck in the very same limbo Wilbur spent so long in. It was an even exchange, and one Wilbur wasn’t going to mess with. Why exactly he ends up setting out to get the ghost out of his mind, in order to save the both of them, however, is beyond him. And perhaps Wilbur’s past isn’t as easy to leave behind, as he’d hoped it would be.

Despite Wilbur’s looming fear from the last trip to the nether, it went a lot more smoothly

this time around. Maybe it was the armor that made him look threatening or the fact that it was more familiar to him. Ghostbur worried about his safety, but Wilbur made sure to give him frequent updates. The ghost relaxed slightly but seemed to still not like the fiery place very much. Wilbur agreed and promised to make his future trips a little quicker.

He came out to the other side just fine. His bandages felt noticeably uncomfortable from the previous heat when Ghostbur’s voice chimed in, “When can we get these things off? I don’t like them that much.”

“Not yet, probably in a few days though.” Wilbur wasn’t sure how strong the potion Technoblade gave him was.

“In your world or my world?”

“A few days in my world,” Wilbur’s voice lowered to a whisper once he realized that someone might see him talking to himself. Yet the second he said the words, he realized the exact weight of them. He remembered screaming, crying, and Ghostbur begging for Wilbur to make it stop. It was strange to speak of it now, as if it was something as simple as a different timezone, and not the cause of so much suffering.

How long had Ghostbur really been crying with pain?

“Ah, alright,” Ghostbur said, sounding mildly disappointed, which stood in contrast to the grim thoughts suddenly plaguing Wilbur’s mind.

Wilbur didn’t focus on the trail ahead as he looked at the sky. A sky Ghostbur couldn’t see. “This will probably sound stupid, but do you want me to describe stuff? Like how I did when I was eating steak.”

Ghostbur immediately seemed more cheerful, “Yeah, that would be really helpful!”

Wilbur smiled, “It’s pretty dark out.” He took a deep breath in, trying to fully notice the details for Ghostbur. “The torches light up the area a bit, but I can still see some skeletons in the distance. The moon looks nice tonight. I mean, it’s… I should’ve paid more attention in high school. It’s the phase of the moon where it sorta looks like a C. I’m not sure if it’s first crescent or third crescent. I’ve heard of both of them though.” Wilbur felt a passive sadness when he couldn’t depict it, but Ghostbur didn’t seem to mind.

“Don’t worry, I don’t know what it’s called either! But I still know what you’re talking about… are there any stars out?”

Wilbur hummed in agreement, “I wouldn’t say there’s lots, but there are quite a few.” Wilbur sighed, “The sky’s got this gradient. It’s not too noticeable unless you look for a while. It’s black to a slightly lighter black. Not exactly a gray, but just a slightly lighter bla-” Wilbur sharply cut himself off when he heard a bird chirp. He turned his head towards the sound and walked closer to it.

“Is everythin’ okay?” Ghostbur’s worried tone reminded Wilbur that he was supposed to describe things to him.

“Yeah yeah, it’s all good. I just thought I heard a bird.”

“Ooh!” Ghostbur exclaimed excitedly, “I love birds! They have such cute little beaks.”

Wilbur laughed lightly, though the sound had still made him a little wary, and he walked a little more cautiously. “We’re in a forest. We shouldn’t be too far from L’Manberg, I think…” Wilbur said, hoping he could count on Ghostbur’s sense of direction in the nether, or on his own vague memories. His head was still a muffled mess. “It’s mostly oak trees.” he heard another chirp, and looked around for the source, but before he found it, he heard another sound that hit him with a great deal more force.

“Meowth! Get back here!” someone yelled, followed by the sound of frantic running. Wilbur froze on the spot.

“Ooh, who is that? I could barely hear it but someone was speaking. It kind of sounded like-” Ghostbur was cut off, by a relieved sigh from the same voice as before.

“There you are. You can’t keep flying off like this.”

“Niki! It’s Niki! I remember her from your memories. She is so nice and sweet and-”

Wilbur spotted her too, as Ghostbur kept talking, standing behind the trees. Niki, who was holding a red parrot, and who looked so alone and unbothered, completely unaware of Wilbur’s presence. A million thoughts burst through Wilbur’s head. All the memories of L’Manberg, what had led to it, and what it had led to. And as Wilbur listened to her talk, it was at once familiar, and different. As if the voice was tinted with something shakier. Something exhausted. Though Wilbur was tired too, so perhaps his mind was playing tricks on him.

Had Niki been told that Wilbur was back? Perhaps it wouldn’t matter much to her. While Wilbur mostly held fond memories of her, he was uncertain what Niki would make of him now. What Wilbur’s actions had led her to think of him, and whether she even considered him a companion in the first place.

Wilbur stood there, frozen in silence, as he debated whether to hide his presence more or to let it be known. Before he had the chance to make a decision, Niki turned her head, and the silence turned a great deal more deafening and suffocating.

Niki was looking at Wilbur, her face going pale in less than a second, and her mouth gaping. Wilbur noticed that there were bags under her eyes. Her hands loosened from the bird, the bird promptly flapping its wings to land on her shoulder. She didn’t move an inch to show that such a thing had happened.

“What’s happening?” Ghostbur asked confusedly, “Why aren’t you saying hi? You must’ve missed each other so much!”

Perhaps Wilbur would’ve spoken, but the way Niki was looking at him, made the words twist into knots in his throat.

Then, came Niki’s words, quiet and broken, “I thought it stopped.” she said, and she rubbed her eyes, her breathing becoming faster. “It was destroyed. The memories were supposed to be gone, I wasn’t- I’m not supposed to-” she didn’t finish her sentence, instead blinking and shaking her head vigorously.

Wilbur was finally able to speak, “Hey.” The words were quiet, but they were loud enough to fill the silence between them.

Niki turned away muttering a mantra as she walked further into the forest, “You’re real, he isn’t, you’re real, he isn’t.” Her whole body shook as she left.

As she was walking away, Wilbur realized that he needed to go to her. At least clarify that he was back and not Ghostbur instead. He made long steps as he gently called out, “Niki, how have you been?” Though instead of a response, she simply walked quicker, almost quick enough to be a jog.

Wilbur frowned and called out, slightly louder this time, “Niki, wait up.” He jogged up to where he was only a few steps behind her. She looked back, a startling fear clear in her eyes as she burst into a sprint away from Wilbur.

“Niki!” Wilbur shouted as he ran after her. They both ran between trees, hopping over tree stumps and large sticks. The wind flew by as Wilbur quickly gained ground. The two ran for a few minutes, their lungs and legs burning, but not stopping. Wilbur tried shouting her name again, but he figured it was just a waste of time.

Niki ran to the left, which Wilbur spotted was an entrance that was decorated with stone bricks and spruce logs. As Niki ran down she missed one of the stairs and tumbled down the rest. Wilbur saw this as a chance to finally catch up and ran down. Niki heard his steps as she tried getting up, her legs shaking to the point where she could barely stand.

Both of them gasped for air as Niki refused to look in Wilbur’s direction, instead viewing the stone wall in front of her.

“Niki…” Wilbur breathed out, leaning onto the wall behind him for a moment before he held his hand out to Niki. It took him a few moments to realize Niki wouldn’t even see it unless she looked over.

“Niki… you need some help getting up?” The only response he received was Niki’s gasps for air. Wilbur knelt down next to her. “Hey I uh…” Wilbur’s mind was blank once again as he searched desperately in his mind for anything he could say. “You come around here often?” That probably wasn’t Wilbur’s best, but he needed something to get them started.

Niki laughed- or sobbed? Wilbur couldn’t tell, but he hoped it was the former. He placed a hand on Niki’s back, but when she flinched he immediately pulled back. Wilbur put his hands in his lap, unsure of what to exactly do with them. He waited moments with Niki, watching her shaking frame as she tried to get her breath back. It must’ve been from fear rather than exercise.

Was Niki afraid of him? He didn’t think he was that bad of a ruler of L’Manberg, but he supposed so if she thought of him as a monster to run away from. Maybe he was a monster- no, he couldn’t go down that path now. Niki needed him. But what for? The only time she looked at him was out of fear and she couldn’t even look at him now.

Instead, he focused on her bird. Well- at least he assumed it was hers. “I always thought birds were nice. Their wings are soft.” Wilbur forced a chuckle at the end, trying to bring in a light joyful atmosphere that didn’t exist anywhere around them. Sure, the torches brought a warm glow to the stairway, but it didn’t remove the tense air around them.

Niki covered her ears, bending further over in a way that looked like she was hiding from Wilbur, despite him being only a few inches away. Wilbur clearly heard that Niki was sobbing. He looked sympathetically at her but knew she wouldn’t be able to see it. He supposed he would have to wait this out with her.

“Niki sounds sorta like you did earlier, is she okay?” He was apparently waiting this out with Ghostbur as well.

“Are you oka-” Wilbur cut himself off when he realized that Niki probably didn’t even want to hear him. He sighed as he sat back against the wall, the smooth stone supporting him.

Was Wilbur making things worse for Niki? He wasn’t an idiot, he knew she was scared of him. Yet, he hoped that she was like Tommy, who behind his spite and anger still talked to Wilbur for at least a few hours. But she was her own person. A person so different than the one peacefully baking a pie for when Wilbur and everyone else returned back home. Or when it was someone’s birthday and she would make them a small cake of their favorite flavor. She seemed full of this fear that made Wilbur feel something that resembled pity.

Wilbur sighed quietly to himself. Not out of annoyance, but the willingness of patience. Despite being recently revived, he hadn’t spent many moments in the quiet. He told himself it would only remind him of limbo, but it was really quite the opposite. It just depended on his surroundings. He tensed when he remembered the stone walls around him were similar to the ones in limbo, but he focused on Niki. He didn’t want her to be hunched over, sobbing and shaking, after running away from Wilbur, but he appreciated her presence nonetheless.

He pulled his legs to his chest and rested his head onto them. He closed his eyes, but all that filled his mind was Niki’s sobbing next to him. He was never the friend that made everyone happy or wiped away all their tears. But he knew he would be there for Niki when she was ready.

Wilbur opened his eyes, yet the darkness that he saw seconds ago still remained. It took him moments before he figured out that there was some kind of cloth over his eyes. He tried to move his hand, but he found an odd kind of resistance when he did so. The odd feeling of rope around his hands made him realize it was around his ankles as well. They were spread apart about half a foot, each of them tied to something Wilbur couldn’t identify. He shifted against whatever he was sitting on, but his abdomen also felt the familiar pressure around his hands and ankles.

“Oh, are you awake now?” The echoing voice of Ghostbur was slightly quieter than normal, but Wilbur chose not to focus on it.

“What? I didn’t even fall asleep.” Wilbur tried to squint into the darkness, but it was of no use.

“Oh, I thought you did. You stopped responding for… a week? Probably not in your time though, just my ghost time.”

“I-” Wilbur’s voice wavered, he didn’t remember falling asleep, he supposed that he was so exhausted that he didn’t feel the passage of time through a dream. “Sorry for leaving you hanging.”

“It’s alright! Someone else was with me for a little bit. That was nice.”

Wilbur sat up slightly, the implications of someone else in Wilbur’s- well Ghostbur’s now as well- limbo were much more frightening than Ghostbur realized. “Who did you see?” Wilbur cleared his throat.

“Didn’t see them. It was sorta muffled? I could’ve sworn that they were in another room but they were talking about you!”

“What were they saying?” Wilbur’s voice returned to being skeptical.

“I-”

Ghostbur was interrupted by Niki’s voice. “You’re awake.” Her voice was sharp with edges that seemed to cut into Wilbur.

He slightly frowned before forcing a smile, “Niki! Glad to see you again.” Wilbur awkwardly laughed, “Well, I guess see isn’t the right word. It’s good to hear you though.” Wilbur didn’t know if warmness naturally welcomed itself into Wilbur’s voice or if he forced it to maintain some kind of control over his circumstances.

However, control was desperately out of his hands as he felt the collision of something hitting his face. He could barely process it before the pain stung his cheek. “What the fuck!?” The words came out before Wilbur processed them, but he frankly didn’t mind.

“What’s wrong, what’s wrong, what’s wrong,” Ghostbur’s worried voice spoke quickly to the point where Wilbur wouldn’t be able to catch what he was saying if it was something different.

“Who are you,” Niki growled at Wilbur. The words made Wilbur’s breath catch in his throat.

“Wilbur, my name is Wilbur- what’s going on?” Panic flew into his voice by mistake. Did Niki not remember who he was? He supposed that would make sense as to why she was so scared earlier, but he wasn’t gone that long. After thirteen and a half years, he still remembered her clear as day.

“Don’t start fucking with me,” another punch came from the other direction. Wilbur hissed in pain along with Ghostbur. “Who the hell are you?” Niki’s normally high voice lowered in a way that made Wilbur subconsciously shiver.

“I- I’m Wilbur Soot. Ex-leader of L’Manberg, uh- son of Phil. Father of Fundy. I-” Wilbur was cut off by another collision to his bottom jaw. Wilbur winced from the pain as it hit a burn that was somehow uncovered. Ghostbur’s mantra of apologizing slipped into Wilbur’s speech, “I’m sorry.”

Niki laughed, “Oh, so now you have the audacity to feel sorry? You come all the way out here, dressed in something he would wear, claim to be him, and you expect me to be nice to you? Oh, perhaps I’ll bake you a pastry and wish you a farewell. Hm, that sounds nice right?”

Before Wilbur could speak, Niki punched his jaw. “Look, look, please stop, I'm sorry. I just wanted to talk.” While he feared for his own safety, he also worried about the pain Ghostbur was in as well.

“Talk about what?” Niki hissed out.

Wilbur flinched as he expected to be hit again, but found after a few moments that nothing came. “I just saw you and figured we could- I honestly didn’t think it through. I- I saw your bird. Uh… he was red! He was chirping and I followed him into the forest because getting revived still didn’t revive the brain cells I’ve lost over the years. And, and…” Wilbur tried to think about what details were relevant. He didn’t want to get too off-track and upset Niki, but at the same time, if he was too vague he might receive the same consequence. “I saw you, you talked to him… I can’t remember what, but you saw me! And I saw you, and we ran through the forest. I honestly think I chased you.” Wilbur awkwardly laughed, waiting a moment for Niki to respond.

Although it wasn’t with a punch, the way she grabbed the front of his shirt frightened him all the same. “Why are you dressed like him? Sounding exactly like him. Acting like him, even.” The shirt slightly coming off of his chest made him realize he didn’t have his armor on. He hoped Niki didn’t destroy it.

“A-acting like who?” He prepared himself for the impact, but he wasn’t ready for it to happen, hoping she would not hit him again, as he still winced from the impact.

“You fucking know who!” Niki yelled.

Ghostbur’s apologizing interrupted any clear-thinking he would have had. “Please, just shut up and this will stop happening,” he whispered before realizing Niki could still hear him.

“Don’t you dare tell me to shut up, I have control over everything that happens here. I have control over if you’ll eat today or in two weeks. I have several favors from Technoblade that I’ll gladly redeem. I can make your life here a living hell. Don’t fucking test me.”

She let go of Wilbur’s shirt, and the chair slightly toppled as she was apparently pulling him up the whole time. He heard the footsteps echo away slowly as he quietly spoke, “Fuck.”

Ghostbur’s murmur waved into his mind. He heard Niki walk away previously and took that as a sign that he could talk. “I- I’m sorry for cursing and shit- wait- I’m sorry for cursing and stuff.” He hoped the slip-up would have made Ghostbur laugh, but he barely got anything as a response.

The still present sting on his cheek reminded him of why. He was about to apologize, but he didn’t know what for. About going to where Niki was? For scaring her? For getting punched? He should probably say something about the last one, but it wasn’t his fault at all. He was tied down and blindfolded, there wasn’t much he could honestly do. He tried to reason with her, but she apparently thought he was someone else.

Instead, he sighed as he shifted slightly. The ropes were still just as tight as before.

“Why did she do that? She knows I’m me right? I told her, but she just didn’t understand somehow.”

Ghostbur thought for a moment, “Maybe… Maybe she doesn’t believe you? I- I’m sorry, I know it’s stupid.” Ghostbur’s voice trailed off as he felt he was already being dismissed.

“Oh,” realization struck Wilbur harder than Niki punched. “No no no no, when is she coming back?” He knew Ghostbur didn’t know the answer, but he sought relief regardless.

“I… I think she said tomorrow or two weeks? Sorry, it’s sort of hard to remember.”

Fear panged through Wilbur’s chest as he shouted, “Niki? Niki, I need to tell you something.” The silence of air filled his ears. “Niki!” Was Niki really going to leave him down here? After all they’d been through, she was going to toss him aside like garbage? No- garbage wasn’t tied down to a chair. Garbage was at least allowed to be outside.

“Nix! I admit that I’m not Wilbur,” the lie wouldn’t take him far, but if Niki was in denial it was possible it could get him out of here. After seconds of silence, Wilbur was greeted by quiet steps. They slowly walked closer as Wilbur almost grinned from getting Niki’s attention. Niki moved the cloth around Wilbur’s eyes and took it off.

He squinted at the sudden brightness and saw that Niki had tears in her eyes. “Niki, what’s wrong?” He tensed thinking he was going to get hurt or perhaps taunted, but Niki collapsed in front of Wilbur, looping her arms around Wilbur’s abdomen. A sob erupted from her throat as Wilbur felt familiar pity in his chest.

“Um- it’s alright, it’s okay?” Wilbur didn’t know how to comfort her, but he still wanted to do something. Niki only sobbed harder, clinging to Wilbur for dear life. “I’m not really sure what you want me to say. How about deep breaths? Just go in one two three four, good, now hold one two three four.” Wilbur continued counting for Niki and felt her trembling slowly decrease. “Nix, are you okay?”

Niki hesitantly stopped holding Wilbur, only to pull a hand over her mouth as she started crying again. She slowly took her hand off to slowly admit, “Wi- Wilbur… it’s-” Niki cut herself off as she awkwardly hugged Wilbur’s neck. Wilbur sat still in the chair, unable to move due to the bonds around him.

Warm tears dripped onto Wilbur’s neck, “Wilbur you’re alive.”

#dream smp #dream smp fanfic #wilbur #c!wilbur #alivebur #ghostbur #c!niki #dsmp niki #dsmp wilbur #dsmp

9 notes · View notes

dessarious · 4 years ago

Text

Misconceptions, Miscommunication, and Misinformation Pt86

Inspired by @ozmav Maribat AU

AO3 Beginning Previous Next

Ladybug sat motionless on top of the Arc de Triomphe. She thought it was somewhere around one in the morning, but she couldn’t be certain. She just hoped Chloe didn’t wake up while she was gone. The last thing she wanted to do was cause more worry but she’d needed some fresh air. Needed time alone to think.

“Bit past your bedtime isn’t it?” As soon as she heard the voice Ladybug was in motion. She dove off the Arc using her Yoyo to swing around and flank the intruder. They were looking over the side where she’d dropped and she had them wrapped up before registering what exactly she was seeing.

“What the hell?” For a moment she thought it was a cosplayer dressed as Chat Noir, then her brain woke up. Getting on top of the Arc itself was no easy feat but they’d also been able to sneak up on her and that wasn’t something just anyone could do. No, the woman in front of her had to be Catwoman. When had this become her life? “Whatever you’re here to steal I suggest you rethink it.”

“I’m not here to steal anything. I just wanted to see what all the fuss was about. Everyone’s talking about the tiny Parisian that brought the Justice Clowns to their knees. I must say I didn’t expect you to be so cute.” The woman had a smirk on her face and her tone was teasing.

“Thank you?” She didn’t even know how to respond to that. “Wait, what do you mean everyone’s talking about me? Who’s everyone?” She could hear a note of panic in her own voice but was pretty sure anyone else would take it for frustration. At least she hoped so.

“Everyone. Hero’s, Villains, those of us who are in more of a limbo territory. It’s not everyday someone hands the man of steel his ass and walks away completely unscathed. It’s impressive.” She absolutely did not need this. Ladybug just let out a heartfelt groan as she freed Catwoman from her Yoyo. The last thing Paris needed was random villains showing up to gawk at her or test her abilities. She was going to have to talk to the others about this.

“Wonderful. Just when I was thinking things might calm down enough to breathe for once. So what do you want then?” Her tone was flat and it took everything in her not to just walk away from this. Just once she wanted to let someone else handle things. But she was Ladybug right now so no matter how much she wanted to scream in frustration or find a hole to crawl into she had to do the right thing. Whatever that was. Catwoman just looked confused.

“Wait… did Robin not tell you? I thought for sure he would as soon as he found out I was coming.” Ladybug could only blink at the woman as her brain refused to process the words or their implication.

“He knew you were coming?” This didn’t make any sense. Surely Damian would have told her about something like this if he actually knew. Before Catwoman could respond she was tackled by another figure in black. So much for getting back before Chloe woke up. In seconds Discorde had Catwoman pinned to the roof by her neck as a growl emitted from her throat.

“You’ve got one minute to explain why I shouldn’t tie you up and toss you off this roof.” Well that was a bit of an overreaction. Ladybug felt guilt swell as she stepped forward to put a calming hand on her partner's shoulder.

“It’s okay, we were just talking.” She kept her tone calm and soothing but it didn’t seem to help at all. “Discorde, please just let go, I’m too tired to explain or fight about this right now.” That got her attention and she let go of Catwoman as if burned.

“I’m sorry-” Ladybug shook her head and motioned to Catwoman to cut off her girlfriend’s apology. It wasn’t necessary for one, but it really wasn’t a conversation to have in front of one of Gotham’s rogues.

“I thought the Bats were just screwing with me when they said that one of Paris’s heroes was cat themed.” Discorde actually hissed at her but she just grinned back. “Oh I definitely like you.” Ladybug could only share a confused look with Discorde before letting out a sigh.

“Can you please explain what you meant about Robin?” The woman hesitated before shrugging to herself.

“Just that I thought he’d start bitching and moaning as soon as he heard I’d be joining his father in Paris. He’s not exactly my biggest fan and I figured he’d warn you about me as quickly as possible.” She really needed sleep. None of this made sense. Luckily Discorde seemed to be able to put together the clues her brain was too overwhelmed to process.

“You’re Selina?” Oh… Oh! That made sense, well sort of. Catwoman nodded and Discorde began cursing in a number of languages before slipping into planning a very detailed torture for Damian.

“I really like you.” Discorde just frowned at the woman but Ladybug could see a hit of pleasure at the praise. Maybe this wouldn’t be a bad thing.

“Suddenly I understand why Robin has such an issue with you.” She really hadn’t meant to say that out loud and cringed as Catwoman shot a glare at her.

“Because I’m a villain?” She spat the last word with contempt but Ladybug didn’t have the energy to process what that meant.

“No. Because he prefers to see the world around him in terms of black and white but you’re nothing but a gray area. Both in this persona with the way you bounce back and forth between what most people think of as good and bad, and your less than stable relationship with his father. You’re unpredictable, neither one thing nor the other, and he doesn’t like the uncertainty of it all.” Both Catwoman and Discorde were staring at her like she’d grown another head and she really didn’t know why.

AO3 Beginning Previous Next

Ko-Fi

Tag List

@noirdots @valeks-princess @chocolatecatstheron @krispydefendorpolice @bee-wrecker @kanamexzeroyaoifangirl @northernbluetongue @paradoxal-occurance @scrumptiouslyelegantchaosqueen @sonif50 @thequestionablyhuman @persephonebutkore @elspethshadow @geekydragonyt @mmwolf1605 @da-tasuky @mjisntme @bluerosette23 @anjuschiffer @littleredrobinhoodlum @tazanna-blythe @resignedcatservant @schrodingers25 @seraphichana @persephonescat @punstoppablechatnoir @magicalfirebird @crazylittlemunchkin @corabeth11 @cyborgcandy @casual-darkness @shamefullove @miraculous-simmer7 @tamoni112 @cat181818meow @littleblue5mcdork @allthebooksandcrannies @enchanted-nerd @disneyfoxuniverse @fallinginthe-void @mandy984 @goggles-mcgee @fontegagrilledcheese @dorkus-minimus @theatreandcomicfreak @zerotosiki @ayuchan07 @mindfulmagics @urbanpineapplefarmer @winter-gardenflower @mooshoon @my-name-is-michell @melicmusicmagic @7-sage-7 @hypnosharkrebeldreamer @alicesangelofmusic @caffeinetheory @nataladriana9 @multplelifes @wanderingreader1019 @worlds-tiniest-spook-pastry @mvaree @redscarlet95 @storyteller-d @howabouticallyou @ginamarie1512 @kurogaya913 @tbehartoo @maddrag @two-faced-biatch @senyahgirl @unabashedlyswimmingtimemachine @iloontjeboontje @kakashixobito @welcometopradasa @amirahevens @amlesi @miraculousbelladonna @virgil-is-a-cutie @18-fandoms-unite-08 @cupcakeandkisses @angelofmusickaterinapetrova @book-r-the-best @dur55 @moonlightstar64 @fertileleaf @thequeenofpotatoeunicornss @thecaptainthunder @danielslilangel @novicevoice @nyaabinch @interobanginyourmom @welcometopradasa @charlietheepic7 @im-here-for-the-content @maya-custodios-dionach @throneoffirebreathingbitchqueen @starwindmaden @tired-butterfly @rogueptoridactyl @emeraldpuffguide @suzen23smith @yuulxd @animegirlweeb @alovelyocean @kris-pines04 @semaalcocer-blog @cadencehood @jardimazul-blog @shethecat @silent-storms-posts @simplysslytherin @tog84 @thesunanditsangel @dast218 @tall-and-angry @the-alice-of-hearts @captainmac6 @theyellowfeverexperience @chrismarium @alessialeone6997 @heaven428 @tinyterror333 @smolplantmum @lilyellowink @naoryllis @katiegardneriscoolerthanyou @magewriter @doodledeerest @athena452 @peachedpocky @tired-butterfly @risingmoonyue @lunammoon @mylife-demonstrates-murphys-law @bobothyross @silvergold-swirl @loysydark @heaven428 @peachedpocky @hauntedwintersweets @awesome-starfish-and-tacos @silvergold-swirl @rosesgonerogue @castielsofficialtoothbrush @myazael @aestheticnpoetic @creator-josie @sturchling @snowstar1016 @myblacknightworld @kittycatwowmeow @midnightkaito @chylou34 @hufflejournals @indecisive-mess-named-me @uwuteamleader @sassakitty @jessigurl-design @demigodgirl20031 @freshbark @soup-served-chilling @elmokingkong @unknownvsworld @thatonegaybitchfromschool @tis-i-beanbandit @damianette-is-life @peachesbackup @nobodyw8s4evr @the-fusionist @iwantwhirlledpeasandlotsatrees @chocolateherringtacofan

#maribat #marinette dupen chang #Damian Wayne #bffmaridami

158 notes · View notes