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shig-a-shig-ah · 4 years ago

Text

LAYING CLAIM

» pairing: dabi x fem!reader

» cw: dubcon, revoked consent, noncon (we’re going on a journey, okay?), rimming, anal fingering, anal sex, crying, gratuitously fanon characterization. 18+, minors DNI.

» a/n: Started this months and months ago, and since I’m finally getting around to wrapping some WIPs, I guess you can have it now. Thanks @thebiggergroove for beta-reading!

» wc: 5.3k

» ao3 mirror

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The thing about Dabi is he's not usually a possessive guy. Fucking is fucking, as far as he's concerned—it doesn't really matter who is doing it with whom as long as everyone is getting off on it. But goddamn if there isn't something about you that makes him want to make you his.

And he's gotten that, more or less. It took some sweet talking and cajoling, and a few late nights where he made you come until you couldn't see straight, but you agreed not to go sleeping with anyone else. Sure, you've made him promise the same, but that's fine. Not that he's going to actually stop, of course, but he goes out on recruiting missions alone and he figures what you don't know won't hurt you.

That's all enough to satisfy him, at least for a little while. But then a few weeks pass and there it is again: that stupid jealousy and all those unbidden thoughts about the people you were with before him. People he knows. You never talk in too much detail about your past hookups, but he's not stupid, is all too aware that he's not the first one in this ragged band of miscreants that you've crawled into bed with. You've fucked Jin, and Shigaraki, and probably even Magne, god rest her soul—Dabi hadn't missed the way the two of you had huddled up giggling in the corner of the old bar one night, disappearing together unusually early, making those bedroom eyes at each other. And in theory that's fine. Nothing wrong with two girls having fun together, after all. Hell, bi chicks are hot and Dabi wouldn't mind taking advantage of that someday.

But first he needs to find a way to get the image of you with your legs spread for half the League out of his goddamn head.

If he's being honest, it's Shigaraki who bothers him the most. Magne is dead. Jin is a decent dude and, Dabi has to imagine, tame as a kitten in the sack. But Shigaraki, well...Dabi can tell just by looking at the guy that he's a freak, and the idea of you riding Shigaraki's dry, crusty dick, of letting him do who-knows-what filthy shit to you? It just gets to him.

And then Toga has to suggest that stupid game and go putting ideas in his head.

You're all sitting around the crumbling office space that passes for a hideout, drinking to celebrate the League's first successful double-amputation (because fuck that germophobic, transphobic prick), and blondie is just begging to play a drinking game. Normally Dabi doesn't go for that shit—why anyone needs an excuse to get wasted is beyond him—but he's in a good mood, and you make that adorable pouty face as you tell him that you played in college, that it's really fun, and somehow he finds himself sitting in a circle on the dusty floor with the rest of you losers playing 'I haven't' or whatever the fuck it's called.

It's all bland shit to start. Toga's never driven a car, Shigaraki's never gone to school. But, after you've made your way around the circle once, everyone seems to be loosening up and Spinner takes one for the team by getting to the interesting shit and admitting he's never slept with a girl. It spurs a moment of awkward silence made all the worse by his red face and obvious self-consciousness about being a virgin, but then Compress stage-whispers "Neither have I," before winking salaciously at the blushing lizard and taking a dramatic pull from his beer bottle. It's enough to lighten the mood.

After that, Dabi's forced to admit it's a decent game. There's not much he hasn't done sexually or criminally, and since those are the two topics everyone focuses on, he finds himself getting hammered faster than usual. It's a good thing too—his buzz makes it easier to ignore the look you and Shigaraki exchange when Jin announces that he's never tried watersports, easier to pretend his gut isn't twisting at the knowing smirk on your leader's face as he raises his beer bottle to drink and you follow suit.

That particular moment makes it all the more surprising when, on your next turn, you hide an embarrassed face behind your hand and announce that you've never taken it in the ass.

Dabi can't stop thinking about it the rest of the night. Obsessing over it, and the idea of being your first, your only, even if only in some less than conventional way. The thing is, it's downright tame in comparison to a lot of what you two get up to, so barely even kinky that it's almost impossible to believe you've never tried it. Sure, you've never done it together, but he'd just figured neither of you were all that into it, since it hadn't come up when you were doing lewd shit to each other.

That kind of sex is fine from his perspective, but only fine. He doesn't actively seek it out because in his mind nothing beats the feel of being balls-deep in a warm pussy, but that doesn't mean he hasn't done it. He's hooked up with plenty of girls that were into it and has always been happy to oblige; hell, he's even taken it more than once, on account of the fact that when it comes to the bedroom he's willing to try anything twice.

But doing it with you? Well, that thought sticks. The two of you finally go to bed and Dabi's so turned on by the idea of your virgin ass that he can't help testing the waters, prodding teasingly at that tight hole with one spit-slicked finger until you're squirming away and whining. He doesn't manage to convince you right then, but he makes those puppy dog eyes that are far more effective than they have any right to be, and you agree to give it a go in the future.

"Not here," you specify, the words fuzzy on your drunken tongue. "Someplace nicer, with a real bed." You already have your reservations, and you certainly don't relish the idea of undertaking that particular venture now, on a worn mattress in this falling apart building, with its paper-thin walls and complete lack of hot water. Between your booze-fueled haze and the seeming interminability of the League's poverty, you mostly forget about that casual promise by the following morning.

But Dabi doesn't. He picks up a small bottle of lube the next day and carries it around in his pocket shamelessly, a little reminder that he has something to look forward to besides roasting that prick Endeavor, and he strokes himself off to the idea more than he's proud to admit as he waits for the League to move on to better things. He can be patient, when he needs to be.

That patience takes a toll though, and the minute the League settles into their new digs in Re-Destro's sprawling villa, where there's actually privacy and clean, comfortable beds, Dabi shows up at your door with a cheshire grin and every intention of finally getting something from you that's just for him.

You grimace when you remember that promise, try briefly to talk him out of it even, but he isn't so easily dissuaded. It's made all the harder by the fact that you can't give him a specific reason why you've never tried it, beyond that it seems uncomfortable and you hadn't particularly enjoyed the couple instances when you'd allowed someone to slip a finger or two in there.

"C'mon, baby girl," Dabi coos, his breath hot in your ear as he pins you to the wall, working two unnaturally warm fingers into your cunt. "I'll make sure it's good for you. Be gentle, get you nice and warmed up first, all that sweet shit."

It really is unfair how persuasive he can be when he fixes those pleading turquoise eyes on you. The way the pads of his fingers are curling just right deep inside isn't helping either, and he teases you like that until you give in to his cajoling, though you still insist on waiting a couple nights so that you can do your research and make sure you're entirely prepared. Dabi demonstrates his appreciation by burying his face in your cunt and not surfacing for air until you've come three times and are begging for a break.

When the night finally arrives, Dabi's feeling positively giddy. He slips into your bedroom with a bottle of wine and a couple glasses he's brought, a little something to help you relax because he's a gentleman when he wants to be. It should be good booze too—he lifted it from Re-Destro's private stash, and he's certain baldy doesn't drink anything that costs less than ¥30,000. Of course, Re-Destro doesn't love sharing either, but the uptight prick is too scared of Shigaraki to complain about anything the League does. They all take advantage of that, because they can and because it's fun to watch him bite his tongue when they piss him off.

You don't make it easy for Dabi to focus on pouring the drinks though, not when you're reclining in that armchair by the window, freshly showered and fidgeting nervously. He was half-erect before he got here from just thinking about what he was going to do to you, and the sight of you acting like you're some blushing virgin spurs him all the way to rock-hard. By the time your glasses are close to empty, he's straining uncomfortably in his pants, and can't fight back his impatience any longer.

"What do you think, doll?" he murmurs, setting his glass to the side and standing up, shrugging his jacket off before leaning down to ghost his lips over your neck. "You ready to move this to the bed?"

The way you chew at your lower lip anxiously before nodding makes his dick throb.

You empty your glass with one final, large swallow, your heart racing as you rise. You know it's stupid—you and Dabi have fucked countless times and a lot of it hasn't exactly been vanilla—but it's been a long time since you've actually tried anything new. His obvious excitement doesn't help either, paradoxically; it leaves you fretting about what will happen if you're somehow bad at this, or if you can't take it and have to stop. You've never really worried about disappointing him before, but now the thought weighs acutely on your mind.

It's with halting steps that you approach the bed and then, when you can't realistically drag your feet any longer, you finally tug the nightgown you're wearing off your shoulders, letting it fall to the floor to reveal what's underneath.

"Damn, baby girl," Dabi breathes, looking you up and down. You'd figured that since it was a special occasion you might as well dress up, donning a strappy bra and panties. They're little more than elaborate, crisscrossing pieces of lace, all white since he'd seemed so fixated on this pseudo-innocent, first-time act. His reaction doesn't disappoint, eyes lighting up as he stares at you hungrily.

You let yourself fall back on the bed, nestling against the many pillows. The look on his face has your stomach fluttering, and the wine has helped you to relax a bit despite your nerves, a pleasant warmth spreading throughout your body. It's joined by a different kind of heat when you feel the mattress dip beneath Dabi's weight as he positions himself over you, one knee resting between your thighs, just barely brushing against your center, a hint of what's to come.

"You look so good I could just eat you up," Dabi whispers hotly against your ear before tracing his lips over your jaw. Even though he wants to take his time, let himself savor this, it's taking every ounce of patience he has to keep the promise he made to get you worked up and ready for him, to not to tear those pretty bits of satin and lace off and have his way with you right then.

You whine eagerly when his mouth slants hungrily over yours, savoring the feel of those mismatched lips, the way the rough skin of the bottom one contrasts so deliciously with the top. Hot hands run over your sides as the kiss deepens, your tongues tangling together, and you moan against him.

When you finally break for air, Dabi moves his lips to your throat, his tongue lapping at your pulse before he sinks his teeth into you. He loves to mark you up, loves making sure everyone can see that you're indisputably his, and it's even hotter now that he knows he's going to fuck you in a way no one else has. You're shivering beneath him as he works, your hand tugging insistently at his hair, and Dabi lets out a low, throaty growl.

"Guess I'm not the only one who's eager, huh?"

Your hips tilt in response, pressing needily into his firm thigh, and Dabi can feel the skin on his cheeks straining against his staples as he grins. He traces one hand up over your ribs, cupping at your supple breasts, teasing your hardening nipple through the flimsy fabric of your bra. Those deft fingers work under the seam of your lingerie as he shifts his weight, increasing the pressure against your center while he pinches and tugs at the peaks of your breasts until you're whimpering, spreading slick along his leg even through your thin panties.

Dabi pulls away abruptly, rolling onto his back and tugging at you to change positions, shaking his head when you move to mount his hips.

"Come here, baby girl," he says, his tongue tracing over his bottom lip. "Like I said, I wanna eat you up."

The promise in those words sends a bolt of heat straight through your core as he guides you to straddle his face, hot breath tickling your inner thighs. One calloused thumb brushes your clit lightly through your underwear, blue eyes sparkling when your breath hitches at that soft touch. When he pulls that useless fabric to the side and runs his tongue over your already-damp slit, you shudder.

Dabi lets out a pleased groan at your reaction and gets to work more earnestly, lapping at your sensitive nub, licking and sucking until you're moaning and only then shifting a little so that he can lap at your insides, that same rough thumb replacing the pressure of his tongue on your clit. It strokes firm circles as he buries that hot, wet muscle inside you, the metal barbell there teasing your inner walls as you grind involuntarily against it. You can't help but whine when he withdraws it, but that disappointment is quickly replaced by you startling as that same wet muscle extends further back to tease at your puckered entrance.

"A-ah, Dabi, wait," you protest, your face heating up self-consciously almost at once.

Dabi pauses, shifting just enough to keep his reply from being muffled as one warm hand runs reassuringly up your thigh. "I don't think I can help myself, doll," he says, his slick-coated lips splitting into a wide grin, "you just taste too good."

That heat in your face worsens as he dives back in, not even waiting for you to respond before he's flexing his tongue to poke at that tight ring of muscle. You still try to squirm away, feeling unprepared for this. You hadn't even considered it among the possible activities were volunteering to participate in, but Dabi is holding you firmly in place with the hand not working at your clit, and when another whine of protest escapes you, it's weaker than the first. The foreign sensation of his tongue against your neglected hole has you hyperaware of the press of his thumb at your apex, and you can feel tension building in your core even as you writhe in embarrassment.

It's as though he knows, too, and you suppose maybe he does; after all, he's the one who's done this before. He thrusts his tongue a little deeper, rolling your clit between two hot fingers with enough pressure to cut off any further protests. A long moan is the only sound you can muster as you spill over the edge, your thighs clenching around his head and your hips jerking shakily as you ride out your climax with his tongue still buried obscenely in your rear.

Dabi's face is covered in your juices by the time he slides from between your thighs, and he wipes it away carelessly with one arm as he repositions you again, pinning you on your back and wasting no time peeling away your now-soaked panties. He grins at the sight of your glistening folds and swollen clit before stripping off most of his own clothes, kicking them unceremoniously to the side and relaxing between your legs, kissing at your still-trembling thighs.

He teases at your sensitive cunt with his fingers, coating them in your juices as you whimper. "Ready for a little more?" he asks, and you nod despite the fact that your cheeks are still burning from before and your stomach is knotting with nerves.

"Just...go slow, okay?"

"Of course, baby girl," he promises, "I told you I'd take good care of you." With that, he starts to work you open, dipping one finger into your tight hole just until he reaches the first knuckle, working it in and out slowly. His other hand toys at your clit, stroking and rolling that puffy nub again, making you mewl.

Dabi waits until you're relaxed before trying any more, pulling away from you just long enough to dig the lube from the pocket of his discarded pants, coating his fingers with it. He works that lone finger deeper this time, in and out until it's buried to the last knuckle.

The sensation is strange, but not entirely unpleasant; even if you think you'd rather have that finger curling in your cunt, the slight stretch is still adding to the faint throb already growing inside you, the one that worsens when his thumb returns to your apex.

"Fuck, you're so tight," Dabi growls when one well-placed stroke of his thumb has you clenching lightly around his finger. He ruts his hips against the sheets, trying vainly to find some relief for his aching member, but it's not enough—he needs to feel you, needs the vice-like grip clutching his fingers to be wrapped around his cock, and he needs it soon.

You feel him withdraw to add more lube, and then he's fingering you again, adding another digit to stretch you wider. It comes with a stab of discomfort when he forces his way past the second knuckle, and you reflexively try to pull back. "Dabi, that's too much."

He abandons his soothing attentions to your clit, one warm palm pressing you tight against the mattress to keep you in place, stroking soothingly at your hip. His breath tickles over your inner thigh as he chuckles softly. "If you can't take this, how are you ever gonna take me, hmm?" he says teasingly. "You're doing great, baby, just relax."

You will yourself to unclench, trying to picture Dabi's satisfied face once you're taking him, that adoring look he sometimes gives you, the one that you relish. Your efforts are only marginally effective, but Dabi keeps pushing deeper, fucking you slowly but insistently with those fingers, and when you don't complain again, his thumb returns to caressing your sex.

"That's a good girl." Dabi picks up the pace, cursing under his breath. "You're doing so good."

You're wriggling against his hand now, trying to increase the friction at your center, not quite minding the foreign sensation of his fingers and the uncanny fullness they bring so much now that there's heat thrumming in your core. "Y-yeah, like that," you pant encouragingly, and Dabi grins.

"That doing it for you?" he purrs. "Think you can take more?"

You start to shake your head—the stretch now feels like all you can handle—but Dabi's already adding a third slick finger, shoving it in with less restraint than before. You feel more than discomfort this time when three knuckles breach your asshole, and it quickly dampens the arousal that had been steadily building. "Dabi, slow down," you gasp.

"Aw, are you sure you can't handle it?" His blue eyes meet yours, pupils blown wide with arousal as he looks you over with the hungry gaze. "'Cause if I'm being honest, it feels like you're trying to suck me in. Like this greedy little hole wants to get fucked."

The huskiness of his voice sends a shiver down your spine, even as another whine of discomfort escapes you. For just a second his expression darkens slightly, but then he's slowing his movements, twisting his fingers instead of thrusting them in and out.

"Better?" he asks, and you think you catch an edge of impatience in his voice.

It is better though, a little at least, enough that you can focus on the way your cunt flutters every time his thumb strokes over your clit. So you just nod; it's not like this wasn't bound to be a little unpleasant at points, right?

Dabi's smile stretches wider, his thumb working faster. A mewl slips from between your lips and Dabi takes that as encouragement, his fingers resuming their persistent thrusts. It's still uncomfortable, though not quite as bad as when he started, and your teeth sink into your lower lip to bite back your complaints. You let your eyes fall closed instead, trying to focus on his attentions to your hooded nub, on the heat that's pooling in your lower belly. You're inching towards another release, and you let a hand lift to your breast, tweaking at the pebbled flesh of one nipple to help yourself along.

"D-dabi, I'm close," you stammer, your hips bucking against his hand.

"Yeah?" His movements speed up, his voice breathy and excited. "Do it, baby girl. Come for me and then I'm gonna fuck this tight little ass of yours."

You swallow hard, trying not to dwell on those words for now—you can tell you've loosened up more, tolerating the jab of his fingers, but his cock is substantially larger than those, all too intimidating. Thankfully, it's not hard to remain distracted, to focus only on your approaching peak.

Dabi can feel that orgasm rip through you when it hits, your asshole clenching around his fingers as you keen, and it's then that he reaches the limits of his patience. He needs you now, needs the thrill of burying himself in your tight ass and claiming you for his own, of reaching his own release deep inside and then watching his seed spill out afterwards. What a satisfying sight that will be.

He scrambles up from between your legs to catch your lips with his, fumbling his boxers off as his tongue invades your mouth. When he pulls away, his eyes are bright, needy. "Ready for me?" he asks.

You're not, not really, but you can see the fervor in his eyes, hear the urgency in his voice, and you convince yourself that he won't be able to work you open much more with his fingers no matter what. Your agreement doesn't matter anyway—he's already rolling you onto your side and slotting his chest against your back, his straining erection poking at the cleft between your thighs.

"Like this?" you ask, surprised by the choice of position.

"Just like this," he pants in your ear. His teeth nibble at your lobe as he slicks his cock generously with lube. "Want you spooned against me so I can see those cute faces you make, feel you squirming when you take me."

And fuck, when he slips one hand back down to finger your asshole one last time, it doesn't disappoint—your body ripples against him when that invasion catches you off guard, and he can see the way your lips part obscenely as you gasp at his touch. His fingers abandon your tight hole almost as quickly as they'd entered, and then Dabi is aligning himself with your entrance, using the last of his restraint not to slam his hips forward and bury himself inside with a single thrust.

You can feel the spongy head of his glans, and the slick coolness of the ring that adorns his tip, prodding at your rear. One of his arms worms its way under your side, his hand groping distractedly at your breasts as you tense in anticipation.

"Relax, baby girl," he murmurs, but he doesn't wait for you to even try. He's already slipping in, moving slowly until he encounters resistance an inch or so inside, and then pausing.

He has to struggle to keep his composure. Even like this, with not even the full head of his cock in your ass, his balls are tightening, just the thought of what he's doing nearly enough to send him over the brink. He waits until he's sure that won't happen and then starts moving, pushing insistently to work you open around his length with shallow thrusts.

"A-ah, Dabi, g-go easy," you stutter, already squirming. You can feel your body resisting the intrusion, so much larger than his fingers, and it aches slightly every time he tries to breach that inner ring.

"I am, baby, don't worry. I'll take care of you." His cheek is nuzzling against yours, his lips kissing and sucking wherever he can reach, but his motions don't change at all even as he murmurs so sweetly. He only slings one arm over your hips, toying lazily at your clit. That attention helps you relax, helps distract you a little, but it's not enough to prepare you for when he drives himself in further, finally surging past that taut band of muscle.

The invasion brings a sharp pain, one that has you crying out. Tears prick at the corners of your eyes, your body reflexively contorting to try and escape the cause of that hurt, but his arms tighten around you, holding you in place as he continues to work himself deeper with every thrust.

"Dabi, that hurts." Your words are sharper this time as each stroke sends another unpleasant throb through your overstretched hole, but his only response is to plunge the fingers rubbing at your clit into your dripping cunt.

"Shh, you're doing great." He curls his fingers, stroking against that spongy spot deep inside. It makes you writhe, but that does nothing to address the pain between your legs as he fucks you.

"Dabi, don't, that's not helping, I—"

"It's okay, baby girl, you're taking me so well," Dabi coos. You'll adjust, he knows you will—you're usually up for anything, of course you can take this. And fuck, there's no way he can stop now, not when it's even better than he'd imagined—hotter and softer, your pillowy walls enveloping his length every time he plunges into you, the exquisite tightness of your entrance massaging his shaft with each thrust.

"I'm not— I don't— I don't want to do this anymore." You can hear the desperate edge in your voice now. Your heart is racing and there's a cold sweat forming on your skin as tears of pain and confusion start to leak down your cheeks. "Dabi, stop."

"Shh, shh, you're fine. You—fuck—you feel so amazing. 'S never been this good with anyone else, fuck."

"I don't care, I don't want this." You can't understand what's happening, why he's not listening. You twist your head to look at him, pleading with your eyes, but he's barely even focusing on you. His blue eyes are glazed and half-lidded as his lips wander over your shoulders and your neck, all the while murmuring those useless reassurances against your skin. You're thrashing now, your feet scrambling for purchase on the sheets as you try frantically to pull away, but he keeps his tight grip on you, one of his legs hooking around your own to hold you in place. "Dabi, I said stop!"

He shushes you again, rutting into you harshly, and a choked sob escapes you when he bottoms out inside you, his hips flush against your backside as you struggle against him. You feel sick to your stomach, and it only worsens when he pulls out until nothing but his tip remains, then drives himself back in with one agonizingly rough thrust.

You keep begging, pleading, wracking your brain and trying every past safe word you can recall, but he only continues to pound into you, his breathing erratic as he pants in your ear. "It's okay, baby. You're taking my cock like such a good girl. You're—ngh—making me feel so good."

The ache between your legs is diminishing slightly as you adjust to his girth, your body entirely unconcerned with whether you want that or not. He's still fingering your sopping cunt too, his palm grinding against your oversensitive clit with each plunge of his long digits, the lewd squelching sound of those attentions mingling with the sharp slap of his hips against your ass as he fucks you.

"You like this?" he asks, but you know he's not really asking. "You like knowing I'm the only one? That I'm making you mine, just mine, just like how it should be?"

"Dabi, stop. Please stop." Your appeals are feeble now, far more for yourself than for him as you continue to utter them between quiet sobs. Dabi's somewhere far away, awash in the tight heat of your ass and the satisfaction of finally staking his claim on you, aware of your supplications but not hearing them, not really.

You slump, still sobbing, and let him take what he wants. His attentions to your cunt have a coil tightening in your gut, but when your climax hits it's perfunctory and mechanical, no real pleasure to be found even as your hips jerk and your holes spasm, a joyless whine passing from your lips.

No real pleasure for you, at least. But fuck, the feel of you squeezing around his cock as you come is what Dabi has been waiting for, your insides massaging his length as though desperate for him to decorate your walls with his cum. It's a gift he's glad to grant—he rocks his hips more urgently, keeping his thrusts shallow now so that he's sure to get it all deep inside.

"Fuck," he groans against your neck. "Gonna make me come, baby girl. That what you want? Want me to fill you up?" You shake your head, but his movements are already growing spurtive and erratic, his grunts louder and throatier, and then you can feel his cock jerking inside you, a hot rush of cum flooding your guts.

Dabi doesn't stop then, either, keeps fucking his seed into you until he's softening, not quite able to work himself in and out of your tight, abused hole any longer, and only then does he finally pull out, a dribble of cum leaking obscenely down your thigh.

You're sniffling, drawing shaky breaths, and you try to pull away the moment his arms relax around you. They only tighten again, his lips planting soft kisses along your temple.

"Shh," he murmurs. The sound of his shushing makes you want to scream. One hand lifts to wipe at the tears on your cheeks. "You were so good, baby girl, there's no need to cry. You were fucking incredible." He means it too, doesn't think he's ever come so hard in his life as he did now, making you his.

Dabi can't wait to do it again.

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evarcana · 4 years ago

Note

Courtiers + Christmas

Sorry, dear anon, it took me ages 😓 well at least I did it before xmas, right?

To avoid the whole discourse about why the bunch of demons and one morally corrupted human are celebrating Christmas, I should say that this is based on the MC inviting the courtiers to celebrate together.

Valdemar🎄😈

Not like they usually pay attention to silly human holidays. But if it is you inviting... “how delightful” - of course Valdemar is coming. The problem is that in their millennia of existence being busy with their research they sort of missed out on what Christmas was about. “MC, don’t give me that look, this is all fairly new”, you don’t even want to what is old for them. But it’s Valdemar so they lock themselves in dungeons and put all their inhuman determination into researching Christmas.

Valdemar’s research is ...advanced. After they excitingly start telling you whether you knew that red in decorations symbolises blood, you decide it’s time to intervene, hand Valdemar list of gifts to buy and encourage them to return to their usual work (who would believe you would ever say it).

They turn to the party/dinner dressed as Santa (or whatever equivalent). Are you shocked? Erm yes... But why are other guests loving it ?! Well they did become sort of xmas expert in less than a week so you guess it’s okay. Expects lots of stories on how Christmas celebrations developed over the last centuries.

Charms your grandma or elderly auntie by being the only person capable of listening about their chronical conditions and actually engaging on the topic. Your little niece/neighbour’s kid loves them too - they expertly removed all those bits of turkey leg they don’t like to eat in less than 5 seconds. Everybody loves them. But Valdemar still spends most of the time telling what a fascinating specimen you are.

When it comes to gift exchange part, you are glad that they only added a few medical books, plague masks and antiseptics to the list, could be worse.., but where is yours present? “You, my little silly duckling, are on the naughty list this year” with this Valdemar gently throws you in their sack grabs you and excuses you both from the party. You try to protest but they only say that they played along for long enough and now it’s their turn to play little game with you. Oh well you can leave early one year, it promises to be worth it.

Valerius 🎁🍷

Every year Valerius receives plenty of invitations to winter holidays parties arranged by the nobles but this is the first time he got invitation to something that personal. Tells you that he needs to check his diary and finally reluctantly agrees only because “there was a rather unfortunate cancellation”. But really in his head he is like “Omg does it mean that I am part of the family now? Cancel all plans NOW.”

Then he learns that you plan to have Christmas dinner/party at your place. The consul of Vesuvia to go to that ...shack?? That’s unthinkable: The party will be in his estate, yes he knows that it’s incredibly generous of him to offer and no you cannot refuse.

And this is when things are getting extra. You know that crazy neighbours competitions whose Christmas lights are brighter and decorations are better? That’s Valerius, although he has nobody to compete with really. The massive xmas tree got delivered from who-knows-where and who-knows-how in 2 days, and there is no red, golden or green decoration item left in stock in entire Vesuvia, oh and some the palace’s best cooks suddenly took a sick leave for a week (no it was Valerius promising them triple wages).

You ask Valerius not to get any expensive presents, otherwise you will feel bad, he did indeed agree that it was reasonable suugestion. Everybody gets presents more expensive than life. The guests surpringly find Valerius a very good host, this might have something to do with those gifts which were definitely extra or with the fact that everybody got merry in like 20 min thanks to all the fancy wine. Valerius is gossip central, argues about politics with your annoying uncle and plays board games with children.

Insists that it would be better if you stay overnight and not travel home late. Falls asleep in chair with drink in hand like an old man. Later that chair somehow migrates to the hallway by the guest bedroom, under the strategically placed mistletoe. Wait, where did red silky robes come from? All planned. Let’s hope that the unfortunate relative of yours is not staying in the same guestwing.

Vlastomil 🎅🏻 🪱

It’s lovely of you to invite him but he is a busy worm man and cannot really leave his children alone. Maybe he can just stop by? “No, MC! Don’t get offended!!”

Then he learns that Christmas is usually about family, does it mean that his children can come as well?? Ugh while you are mumbling something about that worms may not be very comfortable at your place, Vlastomil decides that the Christmas party will be held in his garden so the worms everybody can enjoy it.

Prepare to have a ...thematic Christmas. There is white xmas tree decorated with the shimmery worms and candy canes which have worms wrapped around them. Okay, even you are not the biggest fan of worms you have to admit that the ice sculptures of worms are quite impressive. He even has little nativity scene but with the worms.

Everybody receives crystal tree decoration baubles with live worms inside. Everybody is shocked. Vlastomil explains that it’s only stocking fillers and there are more gifts. (Also crystal baublesare only for transportation, the worms need to be free range, how dare you). The actual gifts are... amazing. Somebody got a scarf that they liked but didn’t have enough money to buy on that day, another person got a album of pin up pictures of snake women even if it was supposed to be a secret interest of theirs and you got that sparkly princess teara you cried for your parents to buy at age 5 but they never did (cmon, x years later, you still like it).

Some little child says that Vlastomil is like Santa with how you he magically read people’s wishes (there there, little one, it’s just the power of gossip), but Vlastomil is vibing: wiggler gets elf outfit from somewhere and you get lots of invitations to “come to sit on Santa’s lap”. Yes you can stay there after all the guests leave (and yes you can keep your sparkly teara on).

Volta 🍪🥛

Was secretly dreaming to be invited since at least October. But is still genuinely surprised when you ask her to come. She asks tonnes of questions: who else is coming, are you sure they would like Volta, what are you going to do, will there be food?

Volta wants to help you with all the preparations. Not like she is super useful but she did dig out from the piles of stuff in her estate and bring you lots of old tree decorations and some nice tableware. She basically spends all your time with you in the build up to Christmas: you decorate the house together, make gingerbread houses (well more like you made one house from the 1000s attempt, they all got eaten before they were actually completed) and pack gifts for everybody.

You warned all the guests that there going to be lots of food this year, and no you finally don’t need to worry about what to do with the leftovers and crying “end me, I am sick of having xmas food for 10 days in a row” because they are not going to be any leftovers. But you didn’t expect Volta to turn up with even more food. “Volta does not want anybody to starve on Christmas!”. She surely eats lots but she is also looking after other people lots, passing them plates with food (just imagine her holding it with both of her tiny hands) and topping up their drinks, she wants everybody to enjoy the dinner.

Everybody at the table is talking of how adorable Volta is, and nobody can even hide tears when Volta presents little hand made gifts that she prepared herself. But Volta humming Christmas carols? How does she even know Christmas carols? This is illegal level of cuteness.

Volta wants to stay to help you to clean up when the dinner is over. It’s quite and it’s only two of you. Oh you might still have some sweet things in the cupboard.

Vulgora🔥🌟

At first super excited to be invited but the next second they ask what is Christmas about and what does it involve. You decorate, eat, chat to people and exchange gifts? That sounds awfully boring to Vulgora. Can they at least smash the tree in the end? What do you mean - NO?!?!

Eager to help too. They need to use their energy somewhere. You are not sure whether it’s the type of help you wanted. You asked them to carry the xmas tree from the market? There are 5 trees in front of the house, one of which is like is almost 10’ tall. You asked them to chop some wood for the fire? Well, there is enough to have a bonfire in the towncentre. But on the positive side, your house is lavishly decorated this year, Vulgora likes the red and golden theme.

Lots of battle stories at the dinner, some of which ...lack xmas spirit a bit. All the gifts are...war themed. Then Vulgora gets bored and wants to fight for the right to cut the turkey/ vegan nut roast, whatever you are having. Oh no. But they can smash nuts with their gauntlets - the guests are impressed and suddenly want more battle stories. On the positive side, it’s definitely not boring this year, Vulgora is load and energetic.

But then suddenly Vulgora suggests you all go outside, when you question them, they say it’s a surprise. It’s hard to believe what you see: they prepared fireworks and sparkle fountains !!! You cannot help but smile watching vulgora excitingly running around setting them all off (but hopefully not setting your house on fire).

You watch firework lighting up the sky with Vulgora hugging you from behind and then..they rugby tackle you to the ground?! Well whether there is snow or not, they want to have a fight. Luckily the fireworks are over and the guests can just...leave you two to it.

#not sure whether it was cuter in my head #the arcana courtiers #the arcana courtiers headcanons #the arcana headcanons #valdemar the arcana #Valdemar #consul valerius #Valerius #vlastomil the arcana #praetor vlastomil #volta the arcana #procurator volta #pontifex vulgora #vulgora the arcana #questor valdemar

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zmediaoutlet · 4 years ago

Text

in support of wildfire relief, @jesusonthetortillas donated $10, and requested pre-series pining!Sam, with diary discovery. Thank you for donating!

to get your own personalized fic, please see this post. (no longer taking prompts)

After his little lesson from Sabrina, the hot librarian's assistant, it's not hard at all for Dean to find what he's looking for. He drops Sam off at the library the way he usually does, and flirts with Sabrina on his way out like he usually does, but instead of going to his shift at the construction site like Sam thinks he's going to, he circles back around, through the library stacks on the main floor, and waits like a dingus by YOUNG ADULT – ADVENTURE, watching the back of Sam's nerdy, nerdy head where he's hunched at the computer banks, getting up to no kind of good.

It wouldn't have come to this, Dean thinks, if Sam weren't so—he doesn't even know how to think about it. He doesn't know when to pin it down. They were doing okay. Sam ran away, a few years back, but since then he's—well, he's always bitching at Dad and bitching at Dean half the time too, but he's done good in school, he's done his part with the hunting. It was sometime at that last school. September in Maryland. Dad was gone a lot of the time, because Dad always was, and Dean went with him on about half the hunts but Sam got to stay behind, got to just call in research tips and last-minute lore checks, and Dean thought he was pretty happy, as much as Sam ever seemed happy. Chill, just doing his homework at the rickety desk, not complaining any more than usual about Dean's usual dinners of fast food or Kraft or Top Ramen. Seventeen and getting tall and mellowing out, and finally hanging out with his little brother was just fine. Dean thought.

That was two towns ago, three months ago. Dean picks his nails with his pocket knife, leaning on one elbow by the Hardy Boys. Sam's still working away on the computer. Anymore he always is. After school he's always angling for Dean to bring him to the library and if Dean won't drive him then Sam walks, even when it's raining, like it is half the time in frickin Washington, anyway. Always finding a free computer and settling in and disappearing onto the internet. Not coming home until the library closes, and moody if Dean's there when he walks in, and Dean just—he thought they were past all this crap. He thought that maybe Sam had—settled. Figured out how things were, how things had to be.

Well. Either way. Sabrina, with the glasses and the sexy dreads and the legs that very much went all the way to the floor under those wide-legged pants she was always wearing—she gave Dean a computer lesson, free of charge, and he's got a way in, now. Sam won't talk to him, won't hardly look at him. Dean chews the inside of his cheek, watching Sam type on the battered public machine. Sam's not the only one who knows how to research a case, in this family. Dean's going to figure this out. He's gonna fix it.

A bell rings, at five o'clock, like the end of a school day. Sam jerks like he's been shocked and looks up at the ceiling, clearly annoyed. He's been engrossed for two hours, typing away, reading. Real frickin' boring, on Dean's end, but he stayed put. Like staking out a house for a job—nothing to do but wait. He takes a few steps backwards, makes sure the shelves hide his face, and there's a general rustling as people leave—a mom and her kid, and tears because the kid's favorite book wasn't here��and when Dean looks again the computer banks are empty, and Sabrina's checking out the last few patrons, and Sam's—gone. Walking home in the rain, little goth that he is. Fine with Dean, if it gives him a few minutes.

When he settles into the chair Sam was in it's still warm. He opens up Netscape Navigator, the library's homepage welcoming him in a friendly kinda way—big yellow smiley face, that's fun. He goes to where Sabrina taught him, in the menu at the top: view, and then History, where it turns out the computer saves all the webpages you went to just in case you need to find them again, and there—oh, jackpot. Gotcha, Sam.

All kinds of crap. A weather website, a bunch of Ask Jeeves searches, something called DiffEQandU. Some mythology stuff, too, and Dean goes to one that turns out to be a history of kitsune. That's something, at least—Sam doing his important homework, in there with whatever other crap he's been working on.

The last bunch of results are all pages from some website called Livejournal, which Dean's never heard of. He clicks one at random and is brought to—huh. A splashy red page, with a big picture on top of kids graduating from high school in those dorky blue robes. He scrolls down, skimming, looking for the important details among the mess, but it's hard to tell what it is. A forum, it looks like. Kind of like the ones Dean's been on where people trade car parts, or swap ghost stories. A square box, dated yesterday, that says WHEN IS HARVARD'S APP REVIEW???, and a panicky paragraph where some chick might die if she doesn't get in. Another, the day before, with questions about the SAT, and a link that says 43 comments that, when Dean clicks it, brings him to a bunch of apparently teenagers all giving each other tips from some test they're worried about taking.

College. Dean's stomach curls into a knot. It's all—college stuff, applications and tests and deadlines. The usernames are all weird shit: tmntpizzadelivery, quistis4ever, willyshakes. Dean can't tell—is one of these kids Sam?

Sabrina's nearly done with her line of book nerds. Dean rubs a hand over his mouth and clicks away, tries another of the Livejournal results in the history. Another forum, this one apparently about—soccer? Jesus, Sam. Another forum, this one about Conan the Barbarian, and that one's at least easy to snort at, with people's shitty drawings of Red Sonja and excitement about a possible remake. There are personal pages, though, too—one titled Delaware Sucks, in which some girl complains about her life—one titled trent reznor rules my soul, featuring a goth kid who won't shut up about Nine Inch Nails and his bitch of a mother. Another, with a plain blue-and-grey color scheme, with the title on the road, and a new post from today—from an hour ago—with the text just reading, I don't know what to do anymore, and six comments underneath, waiting.

"Hey—ready to go?" Sabrina says.

Dean jerks in his seat. Sabrina's raising her eyebrows at him, behind her glasses, a little smile curving her mouth that promises something a little better than book dust and computer lessons. "I'm always ready," Dean says, grinning, and gets her to roll her eyes—yeah, he's in there—but his eyes drag back to the webpage, the posts. He scrolls down, quick—post after post, waiting to be read. "Real quick—borrow a pen?"

She has one—she's a sexy librarian, of course she has one—and he uncrumples a receipt from his jacket pocket and writes down the URL, careful to get it right. rearviewmirror.livejournal.com. He wants to click on the comments, but.

"Come on, the movie's starting soon," Sabrina says, and Dean closes Netscape, folds the receipt very carefully into his pocket, stands up. He's got a date to make out with a hot chick in the back of a movie theater, and maybe a little more, and Sam's whole Eeyore routine has to take a number. Dean will figure it out. He's got an easy way to run a stakeout, now.

December 4

Still can't decide. Anyone else going through this?

current mood: agonized current music: motorhead (AGAIN)

Comments:

teenagehamburger: Yes!! I still don't know where I want to go. Mom wants me to stay close to home, but Delaware sucksssss. Where are you looking?

rearviewmirror: Anywhere. TBH I'm still not even sure I should apply.

teenagehamburger: WTF?? Of course you should!! College is the big escape, remember?

December 1

He's driving me INSANE

current mood: annoyed current music: motorhead (again)

Comments:

bloodofreptile: lol you got it bad

rearviewmirror: right now I just want to hit him with a brick, actually

teenagehamburger: LOL!! Sorry :( :(

rearviewmirror: Sigh. I guess it could be worse, right?

teenagehamburger: Definitely!! He could be the cute cheerleader from 4th period who doesn't know I exist….

coppertonebuttgirl: oh, sorry hammie, that sucks <3

November 29

The thing is, I don't even want anything crazy? I just want to be—me. Just me, without anyone breathing down my neck. Trig teacher says I could get in to one of the top ten, but I just want to go *anywhere that's not here*

current mood: restless current music: Pearl Jam (home alone!)

Comments:

bloodofreptile: i hear you lol. why don't they get that the rules and hovering and all that shit just makes us want to run faster?

rearviewmirror: Exactly! My teacher keeps talking about college like it's a place to expand your mind and stuff, and that's fine, but lately I just want to expand my horizons. Kind of ironic?

bloodofreptile: yeah lol haven't you lived like everywhere?

rearviewmirror: Feels like it.

teenagehamburger: Is You Know Who going to college too?

November 18

I feel like it shouldn't be this hard. Normal people have it easy.

current mood: indescribable current music: silence

Comments:

coppertonebuttgirl: feel free to talk to me anytime <3

November 3

Dad's gone again. Didn't say goodbye. We went to the movies and he gave me a beer, and we watched the stars for an hour in the parking lot even though it was freaking freezing. Happier than I've been in a while. Don’t want it to change but it has to change.

current mood: current music:

Comments:

teenagehamburger: OMG, that sounds so romantic?? I can't believe you were drinking!! Aren't you underage?

bloodofreptile: lol relax it's not a big deal

teenagehamburger: I'm just saying!!

coppertonebuttgirl: wish it wasn't hard for you <3

bloodofreptile: dude you've got to say something

rearviewmirror: I literally can't.

bloodofreptile: ok but it's gonna drive you crazy. do you even know if he's gay? start with that maybe

The posts go on, and on. Reading backwards through time, it's a strange piecing-together. rearviewmirror is active in about ten communities and Dean reads through all of them, that week, bringing an illicit cup of coffee in to the library when he doesn't have a construction shift. He reads with his hand over his mouth and by the time he has to get off the computer he's got a headache, every time, his throat dry and aching.

The journal's been active for six months. Dean clicks through the pages to the very start and reads it in the right order, his heart pounding oddly in his ears. I don't know what this place is. A journal, I guess, considering the name. I just need somewhere to talk where no one will listen.

It's not a pouring-out, like some teenage girl doodling hearts around her crush's initials. He holds back. Never says exactly where they're living, never mentions names. To figure out who it was, you'd have to be one of two other people, and Dean knows that Dad can barely turn on a computer, much less go onto the internet and pore over some teenage angst-fest. Dean spends half his time wishing he were the same. Maybe if he hadn't asked Sabrina for help.

At home, Sam's the same as he always is. Comes home after his own stint at the library, eats the dinner Dean gives him. He reads, most of the time. Does his schoolwork. Dean says, careful one night, "Hey, True Lies is on. Wanna watch?" but Sam only gives him a strange, uncertain look and says, "No, I have a paper due," and he shuts himself into their bedroom with the door very firmly closed, and Dean sits there on the couch alone with a beer and Jamie Lee Curtis being sexy as hell on the fuzzy TV, and he—he doesn't know what to do.

He remembers that day, the looking at the stars day. It was November 2. A nasty anniversary, in their family, and yeah, Dad left. Dean got it. He'd thought Sam did, too, by now. It was better to have Dad gone, on a hunt, than trying to drink himself to death at home in the apartment. At least he was working, that way, and not hurting himself. To distract both of them, Dean picked Sam up from the library and they went straight to the movie theater—the Blair Witch sequel, with Dean providing running commentary about how dumb they were about dealing with ghosts, which at least made Sam grin and elbow him to shut up, even if he was laughing too, the liar—and, yeah, afterward they'd picked up Taco Bell, and then after that Dean swung through the liquor store drive-thru and they parked out, and he let Sam have a beer, and they both sat on the trunk and leaned back against the cold glass or the rear window and didn't really talk, much. The stars, big above them. The night, quiet. Sam was pressed against his side, chilled out and not bitching about anything, and Dean tucked his hand behind his head and he was pretty content with the world, right then. His brother, here, and a six-pack waiting, and nothing happening right then that'd hurt them. Sam smiled at him, that night, before he went to bed. It was sweet—like he used to be, when he was little—and Dean had ended up falling asleep on the couch, watching the public access, but his dreams that night were—good, like they never were on the night of November 2, and it had felt… okay.

do you even know if he's gay?

The college prep—that wasn't a surprise. It hurt but it didn't shock. All his worrying, all his whining, wanting to be 'free'—whatever free meant—it was all part and parcel of the last decade. Dean should've known better. Sam wasn't mellowing out. Sam was a stubborn little shit and he'd always wanted to have a life that wasn't—this.

The gay thing. That hit different. One of the communities Sam followed was for lesbian and gay youth, talking about their coming out experiences. Sam didn't post there much but he commented, asked questions. How do you know? What does it feel like? The hamburger girl was from there, a lesbian chick trapped in some Delaware high school. Encouraging, commiserating. They talked about how college would be their big escape, their chance to go to a big city and find their way. Meet people. Only apparently hamburger girl was crushing on the cheerleader from fourth period, and Sam—

Dean makes an excuse the next day. Saturday: no work for Dean, no school for Sam. Alone in the apartment together, all day, after Dean's week of reading—he can't face it. "Where are you going?" Sam asks, eight a.m. with his hair fucked up and coffee clenched between his hands, and Dean looks at him in his pajama pants and his ratty hand-me-down shirt, skinny and tall and hiding things Dean can't handle, and he says, snappish in a way he doesn't mean to be—"Out, Sam, for christ's sake—" and sees Sam's expression shutter before the apartment door slams behind him.

He goes for a drive, out of town. Cold, threatening rain like it always is, but it won't snow. Out—past the airport, past the suburbs, out to Black Lake. They killed the nymph that was drowning people out here, him and Dad, when they first arrived. Sam stayed home. Sullen on the other end of the line when Dean called to say they'd finished the job, and they were getting burgers for dinner, and did Sam want one. Whatever, Sam had said, like even answering was an imposition. That was November, too.

He sits on the hood, heels braced on the bumper, arms locked around his knees. The lake looks cold. He wants to sink into it, wants to feel that freezing shock, like the polar bear dive he did on a dare back in Illinois. The way the brain just goes blank, tv-static filling up everything and washing all the shit away. All the weird crap you don't want to think about, frozen, and the only thing to focus on just—getting out.

He's not going to dive into the lake. It's nine in the morning and he's wearing his only pair of boots. He hasn't gone out with Sabrina all week. He's been piss-poor at the construction site and McMillan nearly brained him with a hammer yesterday, because Dean wasn't paying attention, and the foreman screamed at him in front of the whole crew. None of that feels close, right now. He breathes the wet-clogged air, cold and mossy, turning his ring restlessly on his finger.

Back at that high school they went to in Raton, Mrs. Encinas in 6th period English told Dean he'd be smart, if he didn't just give up all the time. All he needed to do was take the time to read between the lines, to actually interpret what he was reading and not take things on face value. He made some joke. He doesn't remember what it was, now. Like he didn't know what the fuckin Great Gatsby was saying, when he hoped and hoped and never got what he wanted. When happiness always felt like it was about a thousand miles away, on the other side of a lake he couldn't cross, and hope went out like a snuffed light. Dean can read what's not there. He's done it his whole life.

The problem: Sam's little online journal went back six months. They've lived in four towns, in that time. He never uses names, never puts up anything that'd really identify him. They were in Maryland, August-September-first of October, and it was a comment right at the end of August, on the community for gay kids, talking to the hamburger girl: I like someone, too. He doesn't know. He. The same he that carried forward, through all his journal entries, from Maryland to Washington across whole breadth of the country. He likes classic rock. He drives me nuts. He gave me a beer, and I wanted—

Dean curls forward over his knees, sliding his hands into his hair, breathing hard between his knees. He can read between the lines and he wishes that he couldn't. He wishes—god. What? That Sam would just meet a nice girl and fuck her and get it out of his system? Except how he was writing, it wasn't like it was new. It was something he'd been thinking about. When did you know? had read one of the forum posts, and in the responses, among all the dumb teenage crap about formal dances and jerking off to the wrong person in the music video, there was a comment by username rearviewmirror that said, I broke my leg and he carried me to the car and I wanted to kiss him.

Sam broke his leg in July, the summer he turned fifteen. He'd been trying to stay quiet but he'd had this trapped whimper in his throat that he couldn't stop, and Dad had stayed behind to cover their backs and it had been left to Dean, to scoop Sam up, his whole body quivering with the shock—to hug him close between the trees, humid Georgia night making every place their skin touched slick with sweat—to let Sam cling to his neck, shuddering, and to put a hand on his back and whisper, hey, Sammy, it's not even that bad, huh? no bone sticking out, you did good. we're gonna get you a cast and I'm gonna draw you a great picture, okay, Cindy Crawford with her tits out, right there on your shin and Sam had been so shaky that his laugh sounded like he was crying, but he'd nodded against Dean's neck and chattered out sounds cool, Dean, and when Dean got him to the car Sam hadn't wanted to let him go—so they crawled into the backseat together, Sam still half in his lap and with his arms still tight around Dean's neck. Dad got into the front and frowned at Dean in the rearview, and Dean nodded, and when the car leapt forward Sam gasped and gripped at Dean's shirt when his leg got jostled, and Dean put his hand in Sam's hair and said, it's okay, you're okay, and Sam—wanted to kiss him.

He can't square it. It's like there's some twinned version of his brother, in this place Dean never knew existed. All these secrets he's been hoarding, this other person he's been. These wants that make him a stranger.

He goes back home with stuff for lunch around noon. Sam's reading, in the bedroom. "Got pb&j or grilled cheese," Dean calls, down the shotgun kitchen through the thin-carpeted hall, and Sam calls back, "I'm not hungry," which is a goddamn shit of a lie. He grows like an inch a day, he's never not hungry. Dean braces his hands on the counter and counts to five, in his head. He puts the bread away, and puts the cheese in the fridge. He goes into the living room and turns on the TV and it's college football, which is boring as hell, but it fills the apartment with noise. He wishes Dad were home. He wishes he were hunting.

The Huskies lose. Sam hasn't come out of the room, as far as Dean can tell. He's had—four beers? He looks at the table. Five. It's getting toward dark and it's raining, a-fucking-gain, and Dean's still wearing his jacket and his boots and his ears are cold, because the heater in here sucks, and he's shredded the label of the beer everywhere, everywhere. He brushes it off his knees and that just means it's gonna get ground into the shit-brown carpet, but—who cares. He's got other things on his mind.

He gets the last beer out of the fridge. Should've bought more. "Got some spare cash," he says, to the dark hall. There's a halo of light around the half-closed bedroom door. "Thinking pizza for dinner."

Silence.

Dean pushes the beer bottle against his forehead. "C'mon, Sam. It's not going to kill you to prefer pepperoni or sausage. Just say something."

"Doesn't matter," is the response.

Dean squeezes his eyes closed, slams the bottle down to the counter. It's four steps to the bedroom and the door flies open under his palm. "Just fucking say," Dean says, and Sam's looking at him with big eyes, curled up on the twin bed with his back up against the wall, books spread open all around him. Homework, of course. "Just say it, okay? What do you want?"

Sam stares at him. "I don't care! Get—whatever, pepperoni. Jeez, what's up with you?"

"Sure you don't want sausage?" Dean says, kind of nasty, and Sam frowns, shakes his head. Goddamn it. Dean drags a hand over his face, sags against the door frame. He's—a little dizzy. Oh—okay, so maybe he should've eaten, sometime since this morning. "Damn it, Sam," he says, his stomach twinging.

"What?" Give him this—maybe he's sneaking around, maybe he's lying about half his life, but Sam doesn't shrink back from an argument. He's still in his pajamas. He shoves his notebook away, lifts his chin. "What?"

"Been doing some reading," Dean says, and watches Sam's face scrunch disbelievingly. "Rearviewmirror? You don't even like cars."

It's weirdly satisfying to watch Sam blanch. He's been so unaffected the last little while it's almost a relief to get a real reaction. His mouth parts, his eyes go big. He stares at Dean in total silence except the rain drumming on the roof, and then he says, "That's—private."

"Not that private," Dean says. "You're putting shit on the internet for any asshole to read, Sam. It's not a pretty princess diary with a sparkly lock."

Sam's face is white. He licks his lips, his back rigid against the wall. "How did you—you never—"

"I know how to use a friggin computer," Dean says, and watches Sam close his eyes. "So? Got a lot to say to a bunch of strangers. Might as well say it to me. I mean, I'm your brother, right? Family."

It comes out hard but his voice cracks, on the last word. He swallows and some of the anger dissipates. Sam's jaw flexes and he tucks his hands behind his neck and his knees drag in, like defense. Like he needs defense. Against Dean. Like it's Dean who's wrecking things.

Dean's legs go out from under him. He sits down. Right there, in the doorway to the bedroom, the frame hard against his spine. The rain's loud and he doesn't—what is there to say? "You should've told me."

That's really it. Sam looks at him. Disbelief. "How?" he says, and Dean tips his head back against the wall, looks at the popcorn ceiling, says, "I don't know, it's not my damn secret. But you should've."

"Yeah, that would've gone great," Sam says, sarcastic.

Silence. The rain. Dean drags his hand over his face again, clears his throat. "So. You're—queer." For some reason it seems like the simplest thing to start with.

Sam snorts. "I'm not, like, jerking off to JC Chasez," he says, bitter.

"Who?" Dean says, but shakes his head. "God, whatever. Jesus, Sam, I can't—don't talk about you jerking off. You're not—you don't date chicks, either. Ever. So you're—"

"I don't know," Sam says. Kind of firm. Dean closes his eyes to not look at him. "I don't know, okay? But that's not what—" Pause, while he drags in a breath that's audible across the room. Dean curls over, his forehead between his knees. It's too big to hear. Sam blows out air. "You read the whole thing?"

Frail. Cobweb soft, like if Dean breathed too hard it'd break. Dean folds his hands over his head. "I read the whole thing," he says.

"Don't—" Sam says, quick, and cuts himself off. Dean can't stand it—he looks, peeking up, and Sam's made himself small, there at the head of the bed. His mouth is small, his lips between his teeth—his eyes, big and scared. "Dean. I wouldn't—I swear. I wouldn't—"

"Kiss me?" Sam flinches like from a raised fist, when Dean's all the way over here. Dean licks his lips, dropping his hands so they dangle useless between his knees. "Or, what. Leave? Either way it's pretty fucked up, for me, Sam."

"Oh my god," Sam says, very quietly, and—christ. Looks like he's gonna cry.

"Sam," Dean says, and no matter how pissed he is, that's not—Sam fights back. Sam always fights back, he's frickin' annoying that way. He's not supposed to crack like this. Dean rolls up to his knees and Sam's looking away, neck craned unnaturally so that his face is pointed at the broken-blind-covered window so that Dean can't see, but Dean can—Dean can see his teeth so hard in his lip that the skin there's white, and his chest shaky, and his fist clenched in the thin fabric of his pajama bottoms, and, and—"Sammy," Dean says, again, and Sam's eyes close and there is—shit, shit, a tear, running fast out of the corner of his eye, streaking down his cheek so quick that if Dean could blink he might've missed it.

Dean's gut hurts, like he took a punch from a werewolf and he's gonna be bruised for the next three weeks. He doesn't have anything to say to make it better, not when it's this screwed up. This isn't Sam bitching about Dad or whining about crossbow practice or pouting about a move. Sam's been thinking about this for two years and he's managed to talk about it with people, online at least. Dean's coming at it with a week's slow raw realization and he doesn't know how to make it—not how it is.

He gets over to the bed, on his knees. Sam won't look at him, like the view of nothing through the blinds is the most fascinating thing in the world. There's a wet shining trail, down his cheek to his jaw. A damp circle on his t-shirt. Dean says, because he can't think of what else to say, "You really—you want—" and even then, can't articulate it. A kiss. Sex. A kind of close they've never been. He says, slower, "Is that why you want to go?"

Sam drags in air. Sounds like it hurts.

Dean drags his teeth over his lip. There are books all over the bed. He pushes them away, and Sam's notebook. He pushes up—knee on the mattress, and sinking down to his hip, and Sam's close enough to touch, now, and he jerks and looks at Dean like he's an alien. A ghost. Something that can't be real, only they both know that it is. Dean touches Sam's hand, fisted there in his pants, and Sam jerks again, his stiff shoulders back against the wall, and he shoves Dean's hand but no matter the crazy growth spurt Sam's been having Dean's still stronger, still has the reach—he grips Sam's wrist and yanks, gets him off balance, and then he's right inside Sam's grapple and has his hand flat on Sam's chest, pressing him harder against the paint, and Sam stares at him wild-eyed with his breath both fast and deep and Dean leans forward and presses their mouths together. It's a bad kiss—he barely hits on center, and Sam freezes—but there's the touch of warmth, Sam's lips—soft—and the shocked air hitting Dean's face—and Dean drags in breath through his nose and resettles, fits his mouth to Sam's soft open lower lip and makes it better, his head tipping, easy pressure there, just the faintest amount of suction so that when he pulls back a millimeter there's a little smooch sound, and that makes it—real.

He kissed his little brother. No getting around that. No pretending. His nose brushes Sam's cheek and Sam's not really breathing, and Dean—fuck, Dean does it again, pressing in and letting Sam's wrist go so that he can get a hand on Sam's jaw, tipping him so it's good. Sam makes a tiny noise and breathes out hard against his mouth, and when Dean kisses him for a third time Sam meets it, his lips moving finally out of that still shock, his fingertips brushing Dean's arm all careful, his heart pounding under Dean's hand.

Dean pulls back. An inch between them—not enough but all Dean can seem to manage. He swallows. His lips are tingling, and his eyes are closed and he doesn't want to open them, and his fingers—jesus, he's got them tangled in Sam's hair like Sam's some easy hot chick he's picked up at a dive bar, pressing her up against the wall in the bathroom hallway, knowing how the night's going to end.

"We can't," Sam says. Sam. His voice, steady and familiar. "We—Dean. This isn't—"

"No," Dean says, god knows why. He pulls back, though—pulls his hand out of Sam's hair, stands up. His legs wobble for a second. He has to open his eyes and so he drags in a breath and does, and Sam's sitting there with his shoulders high and tight and his hands fisted on his knees and his hair a little fluffed on one side, a little screwy. His mouth parted and his eyes—fixed on Dean's face, looking all over it. Like he's memorizing a trail map, for an unknown stretch of land.

"I'm drunk," Dean says. It's not true. Five beers—he's buzzed but he knows what he's doing. Sam doesn't contradict the lie. "Acting nuts. Sorry, Sam. I—"

"I want pepperoni," Sam says. His face isn't white anymore. He's flushed, dark pink in the hollows of his cheeks. His eyes are dark, wide and fixed on Dean, and there's still that shining trail on his cheek but it's drying. "Order from that place on Melrose. Garlic knots, too."

Dean backs up a step, pins on a smile. "What, you think I'm dumb? Like I wouldn't get knots," he says, and Sam doesn't smile but he nods, brief and fast like Dean's picking up a play in some con they're running, and Dean snaps a finger-gun at Sam—fuck, what is he doing—and turns out of the room, says—"Okay, dinner in thirty minutes or less or your money back!" and walks through the kitchen and out into the living room and out the front door, and closes it behind himself, and leans against it and stares blindly out into the rain, the setting sun still sparking some tiny golden bit of light out to the west, past the horizon.

He licks his lips and tastes salt, not his own. Sam's hand, on his arm—skimming, brushing light through the thickness of his jacket. Like he wasn't sure he'd be allowed to really touch. He drags in the rain-soaked air. He'll drive, to get the pizza. He'll drive, and he'll give Sam time. When he gets back he'll offer Sam half the pie and a beer, and there'll be some movie on TV that Sam probably won't want to watch, but maybe he will. They'll be—brothers. Dean knows how to do that. It feels like it's all he's got left.

It's—not easy but it's not all that hard, either. There's a brutal week where Dean's torn between walking on eggshells and wanting to wrestle Sam to the ground, and Sam goes perfectly silent—not pouty withdrawal or furious silent-treatment, but as still and quiet as though he's not even there. Dean can't bear it. It takes Dad coming home to break it—Dad, and christ, when he calls to say he's coming back Dean completely freezes and his mind fills up with—with—but then Sam looks at him and takes the phone out of his hand and says, his mouth's full—what's up? and after that it's like things… settle. It's not okay but it's livable.

rearviewmirror.livejournal.com goes quiet. Dean checks, occasionally, over the months that pass. When he's looking up some random piece of lore for Dad, when they're hunting alone and Sam's stuck back at whatever shitty hotel they stored him at, and Dean's on research duty because Sam's in high school and can't answer his phone. Dean types in the address and checks, and it's still that last post. Anyone else going through this? He hopes, sincerely, not. It's too fucked up for anyone else to bear. At least the Winchesters have practice.

They run PT. Sam does his homework. Dean watches TV. Hunting focuses things. There's stuff to kill and people to save and things aren't falling apart any more than they ever are, so—Dean deals.

Sam leaves.

It's January. Dean's in a library, alone. Dad's working a job north of Boise and he sent Dean down to Wendover to take care of a haunting, and Dean's done and Dad called and said two more days and there's this raw wounded spot where Dean should be able to turn, to look over his left shoulder and say—but it's empty there, and so he's in a library.

Sam started posting again, when he got to school. Small stuff. That he was sorry for the long break. That he'd ended up at a university after all. The hamburger girl doesn't respond anymore but the Nine Inch Nails boy does: thought you were dead, he says, no-caps like he's so goddamn cool, and Sam says, Just working some stuff out.

Sam likes his professors. He plays pick-up soccer with some of the guys from his dorm. His roommate snores. He doesn't listen to music at all. There's nothing—real. There's none of the sadboy shit, nothing about what he's feeling, no pondering of what it all means. He picks up a few different Livejournal friends, clearly people from his classes, who crack jokes about Ancient Civ and Linear Algebra. He joins a community focused around civil rights litigation. He might as well not be there.

Dean reads it all. If Sam's not calling then Dean's gonna check in whatever way he can. When Sam left Dean made sure he had at least one good knife in his bag and he said don't forget the salt when Sam hiked his backpack onto his shoulder, and Sam snorted and looked at him like a gunshot but he nodded, and Sam's not dumb, he knows how to take care of himself, but. Dean's the big brother, here. He's within his rights, to check and make sure baby bro's not being a dumbass.

January and it's fuckin cold, in Wendover, but the library's too warm. Dean keeps his coat on anyway, scrolling through the comms. He's kinda turning into an expert, navigating the pages, recognizing the shorthand. He hasn't made an account. Doesn't know why he would. He finishes his scan of the comms Sam's part of and doesn't really see any relevant posts, and no comments from rearviewmirror that he can find. He chews his cheek and goes back to the main page, thinking—okay, he can get out of here. Beer and dinner, and finding a motel that doesn't look toxic, and waiting for Dad to call. Not the worst night he could have. He refreshes, one last time, just in case, and there's a new post. He reads:

January 23

Done with class for the week. Feeling restless.

current mood: current music:

Comments:

lawblog69: we should go out!!

bloodofreptile: go get laid

Dean snorts. At least the NIN kid is consistent. He refreshes again and there's a new comment.

bloodofreptile: go get laid

rearviewmirror: Not really in the cards.

He takes a breath, sitting there at the computer bank. It's quiet in here—the good people of Wendover aren't much for the library, apparently—but he feels like someone's right there. Like he could reach out and touch, when it's just words on a glowing screen. Still—the speed of the comment—Sam's… sitting there. Right now, on a computer in Palo Alto, looking at the same thing Dean is.

He refreshes.

bloodofreptile: go get laid

rearviewmirror: Not really in the cards.

bloodofreptile: still holding onto that? very hufflepuff. how long has it been?

rearviewmirror: my whole life

Dean presses his knuckles to his lips, hard enough that he can feel his teeth pressing back. Jesus, Sam. He refreshes—another comment, from coppertonebuttgirl, agreeing about the restlessness but apparently she's off to a date with her boyfriend, and Sam responds and says sounds nice :), and jesus, Sam, Dean thinks. Off to have the big college experience like he wanted so bad, off to have that new shiny life, and after five months away he's still all sadsack, still not actually living.

He clicks the comment box. He types, unaccountably mad. He hits submit, and gets a warning that it'll show as anonymous. He waits, and refreshes, and reads:

Anonymous: Just go hit a bar. Live a little. Thought you were supposed to be smart, college boy.

rearviewmirror: Since when does smart have anything to do with it?

Dean rolls his eyes. He can hear Sam's voice saying it, nettled and trying to sound like he isn't.

Anonymous: You're on here mooning after Cindy Crawford when Claudia Schiffer and Tyra Banks are out there in the real world. Have a beer, get over it.

A pause. Dean has to refresh twice. The librarian walks by with her cart of books and gives him a distracted smile, and Dean's so addled he doesn't actually process and then return it until she's already gone.

rearviewmirror: I don't think it's something you get over. It mattered. It still does, to me.

Dean chews his thumbnail. Sam's face, turned unnaturally, looking out that window at the rain. The wet track, on his cheek.

Anonymous: Matters enough that you're never going to move on?

rearviewmirror: I didn't think you could move on from family. Maybe I was wrong.

The air goes out of Dean's chest. He turns away from the computer, entirely, swiveling the chair so he's looking out at the lonely bookshelves. He flexes his jaw and swivels back around. Hits refresh.

The thread of comments is gone. He blinks, confused. He doesn't think he was hallucinating—been a while, since he was that tired and drunk. But—oh—in its place, a single comment, under the brief conversation with the NIN kid:

rearviewmirror: Tell me if it's you.

Dean licks his lips. He closes out of the browser, picks up his notepad and keys. On the steps outside it's cold, cold, fucking cold, and this town is bleak. He walks down to the Impala, waiting there in the iced-over grey snow, and braces his hands on the hood, and blows out a long purling winter-dragon breath, and then fishes his phone out of his pocket. Another new phone, but he's got Sam's number memorized, and he almost calls before he chickens out. If it's not actually wanted—he imagines that conversation and he's just not constitutionally capable, right now, of facing how goddamn awkward it'd be.

He texts: It's me.

The response, after seconds: Where are you?

The shitty part of Utah. That's saying something. Easier, like this. Like it's not him kicking down a doorway right into Sam's head.

I don't have class tomorrow.

Could be random, if he didn't know who he was talking to. Dean leans his elbows on the hood of the car, looking at the little box of black-and-white text. He chews his lips and thinks. Before he can respond, another message:

I don't want to move on.

Dean tips his head enough that he's pressing the edge of the phone into his forehead. His fingers are cold. He sniffs, his nose dripping in the icy weather, and types, careful to make sure he gets it right: I'm nine hours away.

Less, if he goes over 100 in the boring parts of Nevada, and if he doesn't stop at all for a catnap.

Stop in Reno for a nap. You get weird when you drive all night. Text me when you're close.

Dean works his jaw, standing there in the cold. He's got nothing to do, for two days. He's got most of a tank of gas. He's got—nothing. Nothing. He gets in the car, and he drives.

It's only 9:30 when he gets to Reno. There were parts of Nevada where he drove very, very fast. He pulls into a truck stop, gets more gas and parks out near where the semis are lined up, the drivers early-birding the night away. Still cold here but less so. He twists around so his back's to the passenger door and looks out the driver window at the neon signs of the truck stop, the cars going in and out of the gas islands. He ate a little but his stomach was all twisted up and he couldn't get much down. A beer would go easier but he doesn't want to be drunk. Well. He does. This is insane. This is—completely stupid.

He pulls out his phone, looks at it. Dials and holds it to his ear, and it rings three times—long enough for him to change his mind four times—before there's an answer, and Sam's voice says, "Dean?"

His voice. Dean closes his eyes, tips his head back against the cold glass of the window. "Long time, no speak," Dean says. It feels rusty.

Sam's quiet for a second, on the other end. "Not really, though. Right?"

"I guess so. It's not the same." Dean listens to the little acknowledging sound Sam makes. There's silence again, for seconds that he counts—one and then two and then three. He listens to the cooling tick of the engine, through it, and then says, before he loses his nerve, "I shouldn't come. Right? This is nuts."

There's some noise, staticky. Like something passed over the mic on Sam's phone. After a beat, Sam says, "You should do what you want to do."

"Oh, should I," Dean says, and it comes out sarcastic, but he doesn't really mean it to be mean. Sam doesn't take the bait, staying quiet on the other end, and Dean opens his eyes again, watching a huge truck muscle past the gas island, watching the normal world go by. He rubs his eye. "I've been—it's been weird, Sam."

Understatement, but he doesn't know why he says it. That kind of stuff isn't for Sam to worry about.

"Go to sleep," Sam says, instead of responding. "An hour or something, just enough so you won't drive off the road. Text me when you're close."

Same thing he said before. "It'll be like three in the morning when I'm close," Dean says, and Sam says, "I'll be awake," and then the line disconnects, and Dean's left there alone again on the bench seat, but it—feels different.

He sort of sleeps, sort of doesn't. He's got a talent for going to bed wherever and whenever he has to—on spare tires and on forest floors and in a closet, once, with a propane tank as his pillow—but his brain won't shut up. He drifts in and out, for the hour Sam asked him for, and then he gets out of the car and goes into the 24-hour c-store and buys a big cup of coffee and a Hershey bar, and points the hood west, and follows the yellow dashed line home.

He texts from a gas station outside Sacramento. Sam texts back in less than a minute with an address. Dean glances at his map of California and responds: 45 minutes, and it's more like thirty when he pulls up to the—yeah, the motel, and he makes a sound that's sort of like a laugh except it doesn't feel like one. He turns into the parking lot and the headlights flash the building, and there, sitting on the sidewalk with his back to a pillar.

Dean parks. Sam has his arms folded over his knees, but he unfurls, stands. Dean gets out of the car and Sam's—jesus, ten feet away, his face totally visible under the streetlight. His hair's a little longer. "Did you get taller?" Dean says, and Sam huffs, his head ducking, and—fuck everything else, it's Dean's little brother, and he drags Sam into a hug, folding his arms over Sam's shoulders even if he has to lift on his toes a little to do it. Sam goes stiff for half a second, but he hugs back, and Dean turns his face in, Sam's hair in his nose like it always is, and feels him—warm, and safe. All Dean ever wanted for him, pretty much.

"You have to get the room," Sam says, when they pull apart. At Dean's eyebrows he shrugs, the corner of his mouth curled. "What? My scholarship doesn't include seedy rent by the hour stuff."

"Oversight much?" Dean says, but he goes in, and he gets a room. Two queens, because that's what the tired miserable little desk clerk says they have available. Means Dean doesn't have to think about other possibilities, and it means that when he dangles the keys off his finger and Sam half-smiles at him, when they've walked down the cold sidewalk side by side, when Dean opens the door and finds the different motel room, same as the first—Sam sits on one bed, and Dean sits on the other, and they look at each other, and it's like it's two years ago and they're just two kids, waiting for Dad to come home.

Sam is taller. Taller than Dean, now. His hair long enough to fall in his eyes, which it does constantly. Newish sneakers, and old jeans, and a hooded sweatshirt, and a denim jacket over the top of that. Not warm enough for the Bay in winter, but Dean bites his tongue before he says anything about it.

"How are your classes?" he says, instead.

Sam's cheek sucks in, like he's chewing it. After a second he says, "You don't want to talk about my classes, man." His head tips. "Anyway. You read about it, right."

It was a mistake not to stop for beer. Dean needs something to do with his hands. "Your algebra professor sounds like an asshole," he says.

Makes Sam smile before he ducks his head, looking down at his lap. "I thought—" He swallows, audibly. He shakes his head, his hair falling down and hiding his face. "Only reason I started posting again was that I wondered if you might still—if you'd check."

It's quiet, honest. Dean hasn't talked to Sam in person for half a year and he's off-balance. Expecting Sam to snark, to be dismissive, to roll his eyes. Small hours of the morning, maybe he's too tired not to be honest. Maybe he's growing up. Dean's not prepared for that.

Sam looks up at him when Dean's silent for too long. His teeth dig into the corner of his mouth and he drags his hand through his hair, gets it off his forehead. "I said I didn't want to move on. You know what I meant, right?"

Dean huffs. "Yeah, I'm not an idiot, Sam," he says, and Sam's eyes tighten. Dean leans back on his hands, tips his head back on his shoulders to look at the ceiling. "Thought this was the whole point of getting out. Getting away, making a whole new life. Being someone else."

"I'm still me," Sam says, unseen. "And it wasn't the whole point. I want a life. That part—whatever, that doesn't matter right now. But I never thought the other thing was going to go away."

He stands up, so Dean can see him. Dean looks at him down his nose, and Sam's—god. Tall. That keeps being his first thought. Tall, and maybe not a stranger, even if he's real damn strange. Sam steps closer, in the little space between the two beds, chewing his lip again. He's gonna make a sore there. "Dean," he says, and Dean raises his eyebrows in response. "You came."

"Yeah," Dean says, rueful. "Well. I'm Cindy Crawford."

Sam's face ripples—a frown, surprise—and then a huffed little laugh—and then he steps between Dean's knees and touches his chest, his jaw. Leans down, slow, telegraphing like they're practicing a fight, and Dean stays exactly where he is, leaned back on his hands, and Sam's mouth touches his—softly. Not hesitant. Dean lets his eyes close and feels it. Puff of air against his face as Sam lets out a tense breath and then another kiss, the damp inside Sam's lip catching against Dean's, and Dean kisses back then, reaching up and getting Sam's jaw, his jacket, fisting the denim and pulling Sam closer. There's a stagger—Sam's knee landing on the bed by Dean's hip, and Dean gets an arm around his lower back and kisses him again, tasting him. Salt, and when Dean kisses him again and presses his mouth open, licks inside, there's coffee-taste, Sam's tongue—slick, tentative—he stayed up, to wait for Dean—his kiss clumsier now, like he doesn't have much practice.

Dean pulls back a few inches. Sam's half-draped on him, his weight nearly in Dean's lap. His eyes are dark but big with surprise, like he didn't expect Dean to go with it. "Sammy," Dean says, and Sam—shudders, his hands closing hard around Dean's shoulders. Okay, Dean thinks, filing that away. He drags a thumb over Sam's jaw, where he's got a barely-there prickle of stubble. "What are we doing?"

Sam shakes his head, licks his lips. "This," he says, holding the side of Dean's neck. "This."

They peel Sam's jacket off, and then Dean's. Sam's still in that hoodie, soft black, and Dean gets his fingers just under the hem of it, barely grazing Sam's stomach, kissing him again—tangled up close on the edge of the bed, Sam's thigh slung over his. Sam keeps touching his face, his chest. His amulet, swinging forward between them when he urges Sam down to his back on the mattress, a knee between Sam's and his hand still there on Sam's belly. Sam grips the amulet and breathes out hot against Dean's face and lifts up for another kiss, which Dean gives him easy, and it's—god, it's good. The lights on, the room warm, Sam wanting underneath his hand. His mouth, slick and open, learning how to press back, how to give as good as he's getting. Dean kisses his cheekbone, his jaw, settles his hand flat on Sam's stomach to ground him, says, "Sammy, you've done this before, right?" Sam hitches breath, nods. Dean sorta laughs, lifts up so he can actually see Sam's expression. "More than once?"

"Twice," Sam says, and when Dean raises his eyebrows he frowns, vaguely indignant. "Jenny Morrison, just before graduation." He licks his lips. "And—a guy. After student orientation, here."

"Playing the field, huh?" Dean says. There's no reason it should make his stomach go molten hot. He rubs Sam's stomach, feels the rise of his breath. "You like it?" Sam nods, again. "What'd you do?"

Sam's cheeks are dark, brick-red. He licks his lips again and Dean ducks back in to kiss him, knocking his mouth open, tasting inside. Earns himself a small deep noise and Sam's hand sliding through his hair where it's too short to grab. He nudges Sam's nose and sits up, peeling off his overshirt. "C'mon. What'd you do? Didn't put that up on your journal, how am I supposed to know?"

"It was a rush party," Sam says, looking at him. He pulls his t-shirt off over his head, making sure his amulet stays put, and Sam blinks heavily, his lips parted. Jeez—it's weird. Hot. Sam wants him, Dean thinks, and it sends a rush of blood south. "He's—uh. Pre-med, smart."

"Not looking for his biography, Sammy," Dean says, and spreads his hands on Sam's hips, pushing up. The hoodie moves, the t-shirt underneath rucks up—Sam's pale here but still that faint all-over tan, darker than Dean's skin. He licks his lips. "What'd you do? Jerk each other off?"

Sam nods, again, his mouth open. God, Dean can imagine it. On some dorm-room bed, their heads leaned together, Sam's mouth open just like this—panting, his hand fumbling down—fuck, fuck it's hot, Sam nervous and into it and trying, making sure. "You liked it, huh?" Dean says, stroking his thumbs over Sam's bare belly.

"Yeah," Sam says, thin on not enough air, his knee drawing up. "But I—I thought about—when you kissed me—" and Dean kisses him again, groaning. Jesus, Sam's gonna kill him. Thinking about some shitty nervous freaked-out kiss when another guy's got his tongue in Sam's mouth. Sam grabs his shoulders, sits up, and Dean accommodates him easy, letting Sam touch him back—Sam's hands sliding down his chest, around to his ribs, grasping. "Dean," he says, panting.

"Let's get this off, huh?" Dean says, pulling, and Sam yanks the hoodie off in a second flat, his hair all ruffling up behind it. The shirt comes with it and there's just Sammy's bare smooth skin, that same pale tan all over. Small brownish nipples, slim muscles. His body. Dean dips and kisses his bare shoulder, licking there, biting, and Sam's nails dig into his ribs so he does it again, swinging a leg over so he's straddling Sam's lap, taking his time. He scrapes his teeth over the swell where Sam's collarbone dips into the arch of his trap, and Sam grips his neck, his back arching. He's hard. Shit, he's nineteen, he has to be hard. Dean slides his fingers down Sam's belly to his belt, tucking under the waist of his jeans, but Sam grips his wrist, then, groaning, saying—"Wait—wait—"

Dean drops his head to Sam's shoulder, groaning back. "We waited," he says, but Sam's hand is on his shoulder, pushing him back, making him look. "What?"

Sam's pink. "Have you—with a guy?" Dean rocks back but Sam's holding him close, looking all over his face. "Dean. Have you—"

"Yeah," Dean says, and watches Sam's ears go red. Sam doesn't need to know when, but it was all in the last year. Three dudes, hookups that were way too easy. They were good—turns out that Dean just likes sex, any way someone will give it to him—and he learned what it felt like to have a dick not his own in his hand, how it felt to slip a cock into his mouth and make a man groan. He hadn't thought about Sam while he was doing it, not really, but he's thinking about it now, and Sam's eyes have dropped, his lips between his teeth. Jealous? Dean smiles while Sam can't see and breaks Sam's hold on his wrist, and slides his hand down, and cups the crotch of Sam's jeans where he's swelling them out. Sam jerks, eyes flying open. "Means I know what I'm doing. Yeah?"

"Yeah," Sam breathes, and then it's—undoing his belt, and unzipping, and then—god, he's still got his sneakers on. Dean backs off and kicks off his boots, deliberately, and Sam blinks at him hot-eyed with his chest heaving and his jeans half-open looking like a friggin porno, but then he gets with the program, and the shoes thud to the shitty carpet and then they're practically racing, undressing, and when Dean kicks his boxers off to the side Sam's—naked, half on the bed, staring at him. Dean stares back, circling a hand around Sam's ankle. God, to look at him, in the lamplight. Long legs, hairier on the shins and lightly furred on the thighs, and a decent dark bush around a dick that's—jesus, that dick. Big, bigger than Dean's, bigger than—Dean licks his lips and looks up with an effort and Sam's staring right back at him, focused between his legs, his mouth parted. "Like what you see?" Dean says, and Sam doesn't answer, just reaches for him, and Dean crawls up the bed and settles on his elbow above Sam with their legs brushing bare, Sam's dick hot against his hip, and Sam kisses him with both hands on his face, his thigh dragging up against Dean's, his lips almost trembly.

Dean soothes a hand down Sam's ribs but Sam's—fuck. Shaking. They haven't even done anything. "Sammy," Dean whispers, between Sam's needing brief kisses, and Sam shakes his head and kisses him again and then ducks his head down, his nose brushing under Dean's jaw. Dean pulls Sam closer—tips, so they're on their sides—and pulls Sam's leg over his hip, pushes in, and—ah, shit, shit that feels good, Sam's big dick brushing in against his, dragging heavy and hot. "Oh," says Sam, small, and Dean slips his hand further and grips Sam's ass, the muscle tight and small—pulls in, and pulls again, encouraging, and Sam grips Dean's shoulder underhand tight enough to hurt but follows, pushing in with the rhythm Dean's urging. He's breathing fast, hot against Dean's throat, but he's got it—humping in, meeting Dean, making their dicks slide, his cockhead smearing wet against Dean's belly. Dean hums, kissing Sam's temple where he can just reach it, just enjoying the—insane way it feels. He lets Sam's ass go and Sam keeps going—good, good—and he licks his fingers sloppy, and reaches down between them, and for the first time he gets a grip on Sam's dick, feels the heft of it. Sam makes a sound like he's been shot and Dean says shh, easy, slicking his hand down to the base, squeezing hard as he pulls back up, and Sam makes another gulping strange sound, his thigh clutching hard around Dean's hip, his hand crushing Dean's lower back in closer. "That feel good?" Dean says, and Sam—comes. Fast, humping in, spurting up Dean's belly and his own, the slick getting all over Dean's dick, hot and wet, the sensation enormous. Dean squeezes him through it, knowing, and Sam humps in again and grabs his ass, nails digging in. Dean tips his head back, feeling it. God, it's good. Sam. His brother.

He swallows. His dick's throbbing, wanting more, feeling left behind. Sammy shudders and Dean licks his lips, pushes Sam back so his shoulders hit the bed. He flops—boneless, shocked—and Dean drags his hands over Sam's ribs, frames his hips. His dick is still big, flushed and wet, his balls clutched up high, and Dean licks his lips and says, "Okay," to no one, and leans down, and gets Sam's dick in his mouth.

A shock, Sam's body practically lifting off the bed. "What," he says, somewhere Dean can't see him—"What are you, oh—" and Dean thinks, oh, what if no one has done this? What if Jenny just opened her legs and she and Sam humped awkward and teenage in some backseat—what if pre-med only wiped his handful of Sam's jizz on the mattress and passed out—what if Dean's the first one, here, opening his jaw wide, careful of his teeth, slicking down, getting the whole fat length of it in his mouth. Only—he can't, fuck, Sam's too big. He fists the base, pulls off, spits and slicks the wet down. When he glances up Sam's up on his elbows, staring, and Dean grins at him, jerks it again, swallows. He can taste Sam's jizz, leftover from coming before. "Hang on," Dean says, and goes back down, letting the head bust his lips open, slicking tight down to his fist, dragging his tongue hard against the underside, suckling easy. Sam takes his statement as an order and grips his head, his shoulder, his hips cringing up into Dean's mouth, and Dean heaves in air, feels Sam firming up again, thick and needing and good.

He's only done this a few times but he—shit, he liked it. Likes it better the other way around, of course, but like this—his dick pressing into the bed, throbbing—Sam splitting open his mouth—yeah, it doesn't exactly suck. He bobs up and down, making sure to pay special attention to the soft ridge at the head, and Sam's making insane noises, now, up above him, petting his head and his shoulders and gripping, trying to shove up. Dean leans into his hip so he can't, fists his dick, pulls off gasping and licking his lips. Sam's still staring, down the length of his torso, and Dean jerks him through the goopy mess they're making—his spit, Sam's precome, what Sam's already come. "You like it?" Dean says, and Sam—rolls his eyes, the little shit.

"You're smug," Sam says, and Dean raises his eyebrows and says, "You're damn right I am," and lets Sam's dick go and goes down, down, no fist in the way until Sam's dick hits the back of his throat and he gags—breathes through it—slurps up with tight lips and then goes right back down, getting his throat used to it, learning the feel of this massive, awesome dick. Sam moans, pushes his hips up, and Dean lets him, rides it—lets Sam fuck up, lets him get a rhythm, like fucking—Sam, fucking his face—and Dean reaches down between his own legs and fists his own dick, finally, groaning in relief and making Sam shudder as the vibration rumbles through Dean's open throat. Sam grips his head with both hands, holding him down, and Dean drags in air through his nose and holds there, filled up with Sam and choking, spit flooding out of his open mouth—the world dark and just Sam's taste, his smell—and Sam makes a little sound—and Dean grunts and lifts off, breaks Sam's hold and crawls up his body, straddling his hips and dragging his dick against where Sam's is all sloppy-hot, dripping wet. Sam gasps up at him and grabs his hips, his ass, fucking up into him, and Dean grips both their dicks in two hands, fucking into the tight wet channel he's making for them both, and Sam pulls at his ass, spreading it, rocking his hips to help, moaning and looking helpless up into Dean's face, and Dean leans down and breathes against him and Sam still comes first, creaming them both, his dick flexing and twitching in Dean's grip, and Dean braces one slick hand on the bed and fists himself seriously, jerking fast, and Sam moans and kisses his jaw and pulls at his ass with those big hands, his fingers slipping low, dipping—and Dean jerks and spills, his belly seizing, his thighs clamping around Sam's hips, Sam's lips open and dragging wet against his throat, his fist gripping the bedspread so hard that his fingers cramp.

Sam's stroking his hips, repetitive and soft, when he's done panting. Dean swallows, shifts his weight. He's slumped on top of Sam, his face buried in Sam's shoulder. Wet between them, sliding, and he releases his dick and slips his sticky hand out, bracing on the bed enough to get some air between them. When he lifts up Sam's eyes are half-closed, but he focuses on Dean's face right away, and his hands stop their stroking and just squeeze, warm and tight. "You okay?" Sam says.

"My line," Dean says, and Sam rolls his eyes again, squeezes again. Dean sits up more but Sam doesn't let go. "C'mon, we should clean up."

Sam's eyes tighten, just barely. He sits up, keeping his grip on Dean, and Dean rocks back but doesn't tip over. He gets a hand on Sam's shoulder to keep his balance and Sam says, steady, "Don't freak. Okay?"

"Who's freaking?" Their dicks are still pressed wetly together, though Dean's basically soft, now. Sam's still plump, thick. He swallows. "C'mon, we're gonna get cemented together," he says, and Sam's mouth purses but his grip goes light, and it gives enough room that Dean can lift off, get his feet under him. Jesus, there's enough jizz on him that it's rolling down his belly—he claps a hand to it before it can drop, smearing it over his abs. "You come like a geyser, dude," he says, not really complaining, but Sam's cheeks are red when he looks back up, and he feels—shit. He doesn't know.

He goes to the bathroom. Fluorescent light, pink-painted sink. He wets one of the five-cent washrags and wipes himself up, and he's not turned on anymore so his thought is mainly that it's just gross, and that bed's going to be wrecked, and also, what is he doing. What is he doing.

Sam's hand appears, reaching around him. He jumps. In the mirror behind him, Sam's tall, looking over his shoulder. Looking at Dean, even as he wets the other rag, cleans himself up. Dean chews the inside of his lip and can't really turn away. Sam's got red marks on his shoulder, where Dean was biting him.

"Stay," Sam says. He tosses his wet rag back into the sink and settles his hands on Dean's biceps, squeezing. When he steps forward his dick presses into the small of Dean's back and his chest is warm, damp. "Tomorrow at least. We've got the room. Stay."

"You want your dick sucked again?" Dean says, and that time it is mean and he did kind of mean it to be, and Sam's eyelids dip and his jaw clenches, but he only slips his hands away from Dean's arms to his ribs, holding him. It feels… Dean shakes his head. "Sam," he says, but there's not really anything that can go after it.

A big hand slides up and over, flattening on his breastbone. "It's not just this," Sam says, meeting Dean's eyes in the mirror, and it makes Dean's cheeks go hot.

He covers Sam's hand with his. He shivers, for some reason. He says, "I should take a shower, I've been in the car all day," and Sam says, "Okay," and Dean takes a shower and Sam sits on the closed toilet, watches him through the clear curtain. Gives him a towel when he comes out. Takes his hips, when he's dry, and presses him to the tiled wall, and tips his head up, and kisses him clean.

Five in the morning, or later. There's a clean bed and Dean hasn't slept in a day. He lays down and Sam lays down with him, a few inches away until Dean relents and turns over, and Sam curls up behind him, holding on, his mouth against Dean's shoulder. There's going to be a call from Dad, at some point. Dean's going to have to meet him somewhere, because there's going to be something bad that needs killing. He can't stay. He's wired and tired, all at once.

"Sleep," Sam says, and Dean turns his head against the pillow, knows he will.

"Hey," he says, and Sam makes a quiet noise. "If you put this on your journal, maybe bloodofreptile will finally shut up about you getting laid all the time."

"His name is Dennis," Sam says, and Dean laughs, weirdly glad. Dennis. Yeah, that fits. "And this isn't going on the internet."

"Probably a good idea," Dean says, and Sam says, again, "Dude, go to sleep," and Dean tips back into Sam's warmth, and does, and it's the best sleep he's gotten in a year.

#fffr #wincest #weecest #first time #long fic #my writing #--seriously this one also went too long #but idk it felt right this way

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shadowofthelamp · 4 years ago

Text

Partners

Swap Zim and Dib decide to work together. Technically a direct sequel to this thing that was posted a year and a half ago. Like, comments, and reblogs all super appreciated!

Wordcount: 1800

Warnings: Mentions of Dib experimenting on people, I guess?

Zim woke up strapped to a lab table that smelled so strongly of blood that he almost threw up. (Which was quite an accomplishment, considering it wasn’t like Zim was a stranger to animal test subjects, or even getting himself injured.) It took him a few seconds to remember why he was strapped to a bloody lab table, but hearing the familiar voice frantically muttering next to him helped.

“Come on, I need to kill him, but it’s Zim, I like Zim, I don’t want to kill him, but he’s a threat to the mission, I can’t upset my Tallest or the Professor, but maybe I could just wipe his memory...”

That voice was Dib. Dib, the stalker who had turned out to be a real live alien. Dib, the kid (was he a kid?) who must have strapped him to a table.

_____

It had started out pretty easy- he’d already known where Dib lived from the one time Dib had dragged him there when they’d both gotten caught in an explosion and he’d wanted to help patch Zim up. All Zim had to do was use a taser to short out the electric fence and some hacking to get in the front door once he found the security frequency they were using.

It was child’s play, although it wasn’t like it would be easy for anybody else. Zim was special. He was always special, always better than everyone else. Dib had seen that. As annoying as he got at times, Zim was glad that at least he was annoying because he liked Zim.

However, things had started to go south as soon as he got inside the front door. There was a chubby little pig perched right next to it, and it sniffed at him before its eyes lit up bright red.

“STATE YOUR BUSINESS.”

“You talk?” It looked like a regular pig to him, usually talking animals were a lot clunkier and more robotic-looking.

“IRRELEVANT. STATE YOUR BUSINESS, HUMAN.”

“Seeing Dib.”

“NONE MAY PASS.” The pig jolted up on two legs, and Zim noticed a small zipper on its belly only moments before the pig grasped at it, yanking it down and ripping off its- costume? It didn’t look like any fabric Zim had ever seen- to reveal a silvery robot with burning red eyes. A dozen weapons, mostly guns and knives, popped out from its head, and Zim couldn’t bite back a yelp as he fumbled in his backpack for his own laser gun.

“I know how to use this thing, you know!”

“ANY THREAT TO THE MISSION AND TO MASTER GAZ MUST BE ELIMINATED.”

Zim squeezed the trigger, but the robot- okay, it moved way too fast for a robot that size, Zim’s tended to blow up if they tried any fancy acrobatics, but this one flipped out of the way, his laser blasting a hole in the wallpaper instead.

He took half a second to breathe before squeezing the trigger again and swinging it around, burning a line through the wall and couch before hitting the robot and getting a metallic shriek out of it as it lunged for him, pinning him down by the shoulders and making him drop his laser.

“ELIMINATED. ELIMINATED. ELMINATED.”

“Release Zim!” Zim kicked up and heard a metallic crack before he rolled to the side, thankful for those self-defense classes he’d taken as the robot plunged about fifteen knives into the spot where his head had been half a second ago. The red eyes narrowed at him before activating rockets in its feet, and Zim ducked as it swung with a giant mallet from its head. He dropped to the floor, fumbling for the laser and swinging it around to take another shot at the thing.

The gun managed to blast one of the arms off, but that sure as hell made it mad considering he didn’t have time to dodge the second swing of the mallet. He saw stars for half a second before there was nothing at all.

_____

“Dib,” Zim croaked, head feeling rather like it was full of rats that had thrown a dance party inside his skull and left a mess all over the cerebral cortex.

“But this is a perfect opportunity for some experiments, you wanted that, didn’t you Dib- huh?” Dib looked up from muttering to himself.

Or rather, the alien did. It was still wearing Dib’s trademark goggles that looked heavy enough to weigh his head down with lenses too dark to see anything underneath, but its skin was an even darker shade of green, and it had a pair of twitchy antennae. No nose, no ears, and it had donned a full-on labcoat that was soaked in a whole lot of red and black stains. He’d always kind of figured aliens were real somewhere out there, but seeing it... it was like reality had tilted a little to the left. There were more pressing matters than a crisis about aliens existing anyhow, and Zim was pretty good at repressing things he didn’t like.

It sounded like Dib, though, and the way it fussed with its hands was the same with two fingers and one thumb on each, same as Dib. ‘Machine accident’, his ass.

“You’re awake?”

“Y-yes, I’m awake. Could you let me go?” His voice came out sickly-sweet and polite, like he was talking to the counselor again to convince her that he was fine.

Dib-alien shook his head. “I’m afraid not. I really would like to, but you know too much. Protocol is pretty clear- dispose of or brainwash all witnesses when the planet is marked for conquest. But brainwashing knocks out a lot of the intelligence, and that would be such a waste, wouldn’t it?”

“Yes, yes it would,” Zim agreed. “So let me off with a warning?”

Dib folded his arms. “Nope. But the fact that you actually held your own against a SIR unit for a full minute as a smeet- and one that I modified to be extra aggressive- just tells me that you’re still useful as a specimen.”

“Hey, I’m not a- a- smeeb!”

“Smeet, child, baby, whatever term it is you humans use.” Dib waved a dismissive hand, stalking closer and looming over Zim. His eyes were a deep, electric blue like an unsucked sour candy, and Zim squirmed under the restraints. “That table is where most of my previous experiments died, and I don’t want you to just be number thirty-six, you know?”

“Thirty-six? Thirty-six what?”

“Oh, this and that. Humans are good for experiments, they’re very determined to survive so you don’t have to use as many.”

“Well, so is Zim.” Zim tried to twist away, but something metallic erupted from Dib’s backpack like a dozen sharp insectoid legs, propelling him up onto the lab table before he dropped directly on Zim’s chest, driving the wind out of him.

“I’m well aware. You’re already a survivor, aren’t you?” He ticked off on his fingers, alien butt shifting on top of Zim a bit to get comfortable. “Barely any parental supervision, yet you create machines and work on biological experiments that are beyond the capability of most humans three times your age. You almost get blown up often and yet walk away from it. You’re an anomaly.” Dib leaned closer, and Zim could taste the sugar on his breath. “I like anomalies.”

Zim attempted to buck Dib off to no avail as he continued. “Find the exception and you’ll have found the thing of most interest, the thing that makes or breaks a species. The outlier the proves the rule, and you’re a human that behaves like an irken, showing just how far ahead of the rest of your species you are. According to my research, they’re going to burn when Gaz decides what to do with this place if they don’t destroy each other before she gets around to it, but I just might keep you as a pet.”

“Zim is no pet!” Even with little oxygen left in his lungs, Zim shouted, snarling up at Dib with his lip curled. “Earth may be terrible, but it’s mine, so back off!”

“Oh? So you agree that Earth is terrible?” Dib tilted his head to the side, one of those long antennae twitching, and Zim narrowed his eyes.

“You’re not very good at research, are you? Of course it is! But it’s mine, and I don’t want any buggy alien getting his sticky hands all over it!”

“It’s not exactly up to me,” Dib replied, hearing the wheeze in Zim’s voice and sliding off his chest to the table itself, and Zim sucked in a deep breath, feeling the air reinflate his squashed lungs. “Gaz is the one who’s actually invading, I’m just here to study the planet in case there’s anything useful. You’re a pre-contact planet, or at least that’s what’s logged, so this place is a treasure trove of undiscovered species. I’m trying to convince Gaz to at least set up a preserve so I can study some of them once she’s done with the invasion.”

“Are you even listening to me? I told you to bug off! Leave me and Earth alone!”

“I’m listening, but I told you, it’s not my call. Even if it was... you said it yourself, Earth is terrible. It would be far more useful to the Empire as a sugar-harvesting operation, or a zoo, or something else. Humans don’t really deserve to be in charge, they’re just going to blow themselves up eventually.” Dib shrugged.

“If I was in charge, you wouldn’t say that,” Zim muttered, and Dib’s antenna twitched again.

“What did you say?”

“I said, if I was in charge, you wouldn’t say that. I bet if everybody listened to me, you’d take that back. I’m a human and I know I could fix everything.”

Dib stared at him for a solid ten seconds, and Zim wasn’t sure he hadn’t spontaneously kicked the bucket. Did aliens do that? “You’re a genius. You’re a genius!”

“Of course I am, but why?”

Dib smacked his hands on Zim’s cheeks, squishing his mouth in like a goldfish. “Of course, how didn’t I see it before? Your potential is stifled by the fact that you only have access to tools that you create, but if we worked together, you could help us because you have intimate knowledge of humanity, and I could help you by giving you limited access to my technology! We could be lab partners- I wouldn’t have to kill you, and you can help reshape your species for a better future!”

Zim blinked. “Does this mean you aren’t going to do horrible experiments on me?”

“I can’t promise that, but I’m not going to kill you right now.”

“Good enough for me!” Zim tried to shake Dib’s hand, before realizing that he was still restrained to the table. Dib leaned over, hitting a button just next to Zim’s head, and the restraints popped off. Zim rubbed his wrists for a moment as he sat up, mind still whirling.

This was a chance to fix everything, to make things the way that they should be.

“So, you won’t kill all humans, and you’ll give me access to cool tech.”

“I’ll consider your input on that, and I’ll give you access to cool tech.” Dib nodded, taking Zim’s hand, and a slow grin spread across Zim’s face.

“Then lead the way, Dib-thing.”

#aip swap au #invader zim #screw it main tag for once #iz blogging #iz #aip #shadow writes stuff

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ithinkhesgaybutwesavedmufasa · 5 years ago

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Footprints in the Sand

Part 3: Less

Summary/Author’s note: We’re getting there I promise. I’m trying not to rush it because I know when I read a slow burn it is so much more satisfying but they are so hard to write because goddammit y’all are in love we know it, just bone. I can also post the Lannister family tree if that helps you guys see the reader’s relation, I did the research to figure out where they fit and…whew boy. That tree has a lot of branches. Enjoy.

Pairing: Oberyn x Ellaria x Reader Word Count: 3k Rating/Warnings: R/18+ Language, Mentions of implied/wrongly accused rape.

(Parts) (1)(2) [MASTERLIST]

Sleep had been impossible. You tossed and turned with thoughts of the Prince and his Paramour and the proposal they had laid at your feet. The smart thing to do would be to weigh your options–compare the idea of leaving behind everything you’ve ever known, or jumping head first off a cliff into a new adventure. Instead, what you had done all night was lay in bed and think of Ellaria’s mouth on yours. You shut your eyes tightly and rolled over burying your face in the pillow.

It wasn’t like you had never thought about another woman in the way you had spent the entire night thinking about Ellaria Sand. Since you were a young girl the idea of kissing another girl had made your heart flutter beneath your breast. Women were beautiful in the same way you found men to be–it seemed a pretty straightforward concept. But to the world around you, thoughts like these made you feel ostracized, so you did what you thought was best and shoved them down into a dark part of your subconscious willing them to just disappear. One kiss from Ellaria though, had undone all of your careful repressive work and brought those feelings running to the surface like a siren breaking through the waters of the sea.

You groaned and smacked the pillow before sitting up in bed and shoving the hair from your eyes. Sleep wasn’t coming and the birds were already starting to stir outside the window of your bedchambers. You tied your hair back out of your eyes in a ribbon and pulled an old robe out of your trunk, slipping it around your shoulders. You touched the necklace that dangled between your breasts and took a deep breath before walking out into the hall.

The kitchen was already bustling with a few of the maids as they started to get breakfast ready for the guests of the castle. Fresh baked bread with freshly churned butter and clover honey sat on the table next to a plate of ham. You said good morning to one of the other ladies and sat down going straight for the fragrant bread and spreads.

“Good morning, (y/n).” One of the maids said as she sat a cup down in front of you. “Your uncle has already gone for a meeting with the other Lannisters. He didn’t want to wake you.”

You nodded but didn’t try to talk over your mouth full of food. It wasn’t like his daily agenda meant much to you, if he needed your help at the market he would have taken the time to wake you.

“He did ask if there was something you wanted to tell him?” She put her hands on her wide hips and raised a gray eyebrow.

“What?” You ask, swallowing rather hard.

“I’m guessing it has something to do with your new suitor!” She gestured over towards the window with a large, motherly smile on her face.

You follow her gaze and are glad you no longer had a mouth full of bread because you would have choked. In the window, already starting to turn towards the early morning sunrise, was a large ornate vase. The vase was filled with large orange and yellow tiger lilies, similar in color to the dress Ellaria had worn the day before–or colors that represented house Martell. You put down your breakfast and shoved the chair away from the table, quickly getting up to inspect them.

“Shit,” you breathed without thinking.

“Someone fancies you, dear,” the maid continued to smile as she laid down more dishes and silverware.

You were only half listening as a folded piece of paper caught your eye. In swirling script it simply read:

‘A conventional life is a boring life. – O & E’

You quickly stuffed the note in the pocket of your robe and picked up the vase, turning towards the stairs.

“Surely you’re not finished. You’ve barely touched your food.” The maid called after you as you started the climb back to your room.

“I’m not hungry. If he asks, tell my Uncle I’ll be home late.” You said over your shoulder as you slammed the door behind you. After setting the vase on your nightstand, you pulled the note out of your pocket and read it over again before getting dressed quickly.

–

By the time you were dressed and halfway to the brothel, the city was awake and thriving. Shops were open and people were milling about procuring items that they would need for the upcoming days. A light mist had fallen over most of the city and it was as if the sky could not decide if it wanted to rain or not. You rubbed your arms in your short-sleeved dress, missing the shawl that you were now certain you left in Oberyn’s Chambers in your haste to leave the day before.

The door to the brothel was locked when you tried to turn the handle, you hadn’t thought about it possibly being closed. When did brothels start doing daily business? Unsure of what else to do, you knocked timidly.

A robed woman, you would have bet money was wearing nothing underneath, answered the door, leaning on the archway. “Can I help you, sweet one?” She said, practically purring.

“I’m here to see Prince Oberyn,” you tried. “He’s–he’s expecting me.” It was only a half lie.

She looked down your body slow enough to make you want to turn away but then she nodded her head to gesture inside. “Upstairs.” She moved to the side to allow you to pass.

The door shut behind you and you headed for the stairs. The place was much quieter than it had been the day before, as most of its patrons were probably still in bed or just beginning to take breakfast. The thought made you pause outside the bedchamber you knew belonged to the prince. We’re they even awake? Fuck. You leaned your forehead against the wood of the door contemplating turning around and walking back to the castle. But something inside you said otherwise and before you lost what little courage you had, you knocked on the door.

“Enter,” a familiar, deep voice said and you did.

Oberyn was sitting up against the headboard, a book balanced in one hand, while the other stroked Ellaria’s dark hair as she slept on his bare chest. He peered over the book as you leaned against the door to close it behind you.

“(Y/n),” he said, unable to keep the surprise out of his voice as he put the book down. As he moved to sit up, Ellaria opened her eyes. She sat up with a look of shock equal to that of the prince, the movement causing the sheet to slip, revealing her naked breast.

“I’m sorry,” you started to look away but stopped yourself, remembering their lessons from the day before. “I don’t know why I’m here.”

They stayed quiet, as if worried whatever they said would scare you off. Taking a few steps towards the bed, you continued.

“I don’t know why I’m here or what I want.” You hugged your own arms as if trying to protect yourself from the raw feelings you were voicing. “But I know that you’re right. I can’t stay in King’s Landing. I can’t go back to Casterly Rock. I can’t be a merchant.” You took a deep breath and closed your eyes tightly forcing yourself to be honest. “No one has ever asked me what I want. Not until yesterday. Not until you.” You opened your eyes and looked at Ellaria. “I’m not saying yes to going to Dorne. But–I’m not saying no."

You looked between them both as you focused on the simple act of breathing normally. Here you stood, talking too much and looking like a ridiculous little girl. Surely they would rescind their offer now. Surely they would regret pursuing you like this after such an embarrassing outburst, but all they did was share a knowing smile before looking back to you.

“Say something, please.” You sighed and put a hand to your face, pinching the bridge of your nose.

"Did you get our gift?” Oberyn asked, simply.

You blinked slowly before nodding. “Y-yes. They’re lovely."

“They reminded us of you,” Ellaria said, grinning as she laid her head back on Oberyn’s chest.

“Stop,” you shook your head, feeling the heat rise to your face again, but you couldn’t help the smile that broke through your face.

Oberyn turned his head and pressed his lips to Ellaria’s hairline before sitting up. "I’ll have someone bring us up some breakfast.” As he threw his dark blue shawl around his shoulders from the day before, you were left alone with the woman you had spent the whole night dreaming about.

—

“So, I threw my dagger and pinned his hand to the wall.” Oberyn picked up a strawberry from the platter on the table and popped it into his mouth before, putting his hand against the wall like he was stuck to it.

“You didn’t,” you shook your head, smiling as Oberyn stood in front of you and Ellaria miming the perfect throw of a knife. He had been telling stories for the better part of the morning and you had been enjoying them immensely. He had a knack for it and an energy that made even the simplest of tales interesting.

“I absolutely did.” He insisted. “And it was even more impressive because he was a small man, with very small hands.” He waggled his large hand in the air as if to demonstrate.

“And you know what they say about small hands?” Ellaria said, finishing her wine and slinking off the couch towards the prince.

“What do they say about small hands?” You said, knowing perfectly well what the old adage was but wanting to hear her say it.

“Small hands means a small cock, my dear. So tell me,” she held up Oberyn’s hand and pressed hers to it, so they were palm to palm. His hand absolutely swallowed hers. “What does that say about our dear Prince’s hands?” She grinned and you blushed, looking back into your glass of wine.

“I’m sorry,” you mumbled into your cup not knowing what else to say.

Oberyn started to lean down to capture Ellaria’s lips but she pulled away to keep her eyes on you. “By the gods, what are you sorry for?”

“It was forward of me, to–” you swallowed hard and forced yourself to meet her gaze. “To discuss such things.”

“Discuss what? The Prince’s cock?” she let the hard sound at the end of the word echo slightly in the back of her throat for emphasis. Oberyn smirked and intertwined his fingers with his paramour’s for a moment as he looked at you.

You shook your head and broke their gaze once again. Why was she doing this? Was it her personal goal to make you slide off of the couch into a puddle on the floor? Did you care?

Ellaria let go of Oberyn’s hand and grinned. “You are a sweet one.” She walked back over to the fainting couch the two of you were sharing and pulled her legs under her as she sat. “When you’re with us, you apologize to no one."

“But why?” you asked.

“Life is too short to feel ashamed about one of the greatest pleasures in it.” She tucked your hair behind your ear and continued, “Oberyn’s talked all morning. It’s your turn.”

“Me?”

“Excellent idea,” Oberyn said, kicking his feet up on the table and refilling his cup.

“But you already know so much about me,” you joked, remembering the information that Oberyn paid for.

“I don’t want to know things that are common knowledge,” Oberyn said. “We want the good parts.”

“I’m afraid none of it is very good.” You said, suddenly feeling self-conscious about your less than exciting life thus far.

“We’ll start easy,” Ellaria shared a nod with Oberyn. “Have you ever been with a man before?”

You choked into your goblet, feeling your eyes water as some of the wine went into your nose. Oberyn grinned so wide it was as if he were a child on his name day. He stroked his beard and kept his eyes on you as you cleared your throat and looked at Ellaria.

“That’s an easy question?”

“Of course,” she nodded. “The answer is a simple ‘yes’ or ‘no’. See? Easy.”

You looked at her with wide eyes but still smiled at her seemingly natural charm. “Fine. Yes.” Oberyn pulled his feet down off the table and leaned forward on his chair.

“Yes?” he asked, unable to mask his surprise…or perhaps it was delight.

“Yes,” you repeated. “It was a long time ago.”

“Well, that much is obvious.” Ellaria interrupted.

“You’re making fun of me,” you said and she put a hand to her chest in mock surprise.

“Of course I’m not,” she said, and looked at Oberyn. “Would I do such a thing?”

“Do not make me answer that,” he said smartly and looked back at you. “Continue, (y/n).”

You took a deep breath and set your cup on the table in favor of wringing your hands in your lap and not meeting either of their gaze. “It was a childhood infatuation. A stupid fantasy really.” You started and when neither one of them interrupted you, you continued. “My uncle didn’t think it was a good match–below the Lannister name.”

“But you didn’t think that,” Ellaria said, not as a question but more of a statement.

“No,” you shook her head. “He was kind. He listened to me. That alone was more important than his house.”

"Who was your father?” Oberyn raised an eyebrow and you rubbed your forehead.

“My father and Uncle are Joanna’s brothers.”

“Tywin’s deceased wife?”

“Yes. It gets messy when everyone seems to forget that Tywin is Joanna’s second cousin.” You felt embarrassed laying the family tree on the table, but everyone knew the Lannister obsession with keeping everything within the family.

“So, that make’s Tywin–” Ellaria prompted.

“Another uncle, by marriage?” You shook your head and looked exasperated. “I would need to draw it out.”

“What happened to your love from the Rock?” Oberyn asked, changing the subject.

“Right. I was young, and stupid, and we thought we were much sneakier than we actually were.” You swallowed hard and tried to keep your voice from wavering. “We went out to the woods for a midday–” you waved your hand in the air, fumbling for a word to use.

“Fuck,” Ellaria prompted.

“Yes, thank you–” you continued. “And my Uncle had someone follow us. And, on the advice of the almighty Tywin Lannister, had him arrested for rape.” You blinked rapidly and looked upwards refusing to let something you had worked so hard on repressing, surface in front of them. “The charges were dropped of course because it wasn’t true–but the embarrassment was enough to make him run for the hills.” You picked up your glass and took a rather large drink. “Because everyone knows when you fuck a Lannister, you fuck the whole family apparently–and no one wants to do that.” Your tone was bitter, but you couldn’t help it as you ran the cup in between your palms, feeling the weight of their gaze on you.

“It’s not your fault,” Ellaria said simply, moving to sit closer to you.

“I know that,” you said, still looking down at your glass.

“Do you?” she asked, raising an eyebrow and putting her finger under your chin to make you look at her.

Your eyes were burning with unshed tears but you stubbornly swallowed them along with the lump in your throat. “Then whose fault is it?”

“Tywin Lannister’s,” Oberyn said firmly, his tone containing a sharp bite.

“And your Uncle’s,” Ellaria nodded.

“Well,” you just shrugged lightly in agreement with them, not knowing what else to say. “Not only am I damaged goods–I’m damaged goods with a terrifying family.”

Oberyn got up, pushing his chair back so abruptly it scraped against the wooden floor, making you and Ellaria jump. He moved to the window of the room and leaned against it, looking out at the people below in silent thought. His shoulders moved slowly with a few deep breaths before he finally spoke, turning to look back at you, “The Lannister’s are not terrifying. They are not gods looking down on us from Casterly Rock–they bleed just like all other men.”

“Oberyn,” Ellaria said carefully.

He moved across the room and knelt down in front of you on one knee. “And you, my lioness,” he took your hand gently, giving you an opportunity to pull away if you wanted to. You didn’t. “Are not damaged goods,” he mumbled the words against your knuckles as he pressed his lips to your hand and gave you a small squeeze.

Ellaria balanced her chin in her hand and watched the two of you with a small smile. The gesture was so tender coming from a man you had heard so many stories about–and only just met for yourself the day before. It made your chest tight. It made your heart beat a little faster and see such an imposing figure in a new light.

“Your lioness?” you said, biting your lip and moving the topic to something lighter. You squeezed his hand and rubbed the pad of your thumb over his large fingers.

Oberyn froze, realizing that you heard exactly what he had said and chuckled. “My apologies.”

“Don’t apologize.” “Don’t apologize.”

Both you and Ellaria said the same thing at the same time and looked at each other before falling into a fit of laughter. Oberyn let go of your hand and rolled his eyes, standing up and moving back to his chair. “What have I gotten myself into?” he asked no one in particular as you and Ellaria continued to giggle.

It felt good to laugh. It felt good to talk to people who seemed interested in what you had to say and think. You felt as if a weight had been taken from your shoulders now that someone other than those responsible knew of the injustice of your past. It didn’t make it right. It didn’t make it better. It just made it…less.

[Next Chapter]

Taglist: @zeldadayer @halefirewarrior @earthtokace @tarrevizslas @1-800-fandomtrashqueen @readsalot73 @lackofhonor @shrew1999

#oberyn martell #prince oberyn #oberyn x ellaria #oberyn x reader #pedro pascal #pedro character fic #oberyn x ellaria x reader #game of thrones #got #Ellaria sand #oberyn martell x reader

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axemetaphor · 3 years ago

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im definitely not ripping off my friend by making a list of au ideas i have no siree //gonna slap this under a readmore cause i. well i say a lot. all of the time. i tried so hard to format this Good but tumblr fucked me up i am so sorry

so first-off i know i already have one WIP AU (Auckland) on ao3 so i wont talk about That one cause like. spoilers. i actualyl have it like 80% created so its likely gonna truly get finished for once and i dont wanna ruin shit

the other one ive posted about is something me and ben (catgirlrepublic) have worked on together its not at all close to done or anything but it's. a fun little crossover. Between jdate and my fuckinuhm. Original characters story “Untitled Villains Project”. the sketches of the comic version ive started is actually my pinned post 👉👈 its like the first chunk of the story, i think half of part 1? yea.

Tldr john fucking Somehow is able t oget into contact with a certain curious scientist from another reality who’d just love to study the Soy Sauce, most certainly not for her own nefarious purposes

John and Dave meet up with the scientist, her name is Boss, and her lab assistant, Toxic, and after a bit of a preliminary Vibe Check where john determines her trustworthy (which Dave doesnt agree with,) the two agree to be taken to the world UVP is set in. from there they stay in Boss’s lab (big old fucking abandoned military lab). John and Toxic are fast friends due to mutual love-of-chaos. John n Dave get to fuckin, camp out on an air mattress.

The day after they arrive, the two get split up, not exactly intentionally; big plot points of UVP are liek. Fueled by Boss sending Toxic to go fetch her “research materials,” which are usually important artifacts

Fuckin side note i guess i have to explain my dumb bullshit: Boss’s, uh, field of expertise so to speak is actually fckin, basically the scientific study of magic and superpowers n shit like that. This shit’s all real in that world. Toxic’s got fuckin superpowers, so do 4 other main characters, whatever. It’s got a bit to do with spirituality, iss Boss’s hypothesis. So she has Toxic fetch important artifacts that might have “energies” to them. The thing is actually way more fuckin complictated than that, this is just Boss’s initial hypothesis.

Motherfucking anyways. So Boss gives Toxic a job to do, and John get excited about how Cool that sounds, and ends up going with Toxic, leaving Boss and Dave alone. Neither is thrilled about this. But Dave and Boss get to have a bit of conversation (while Toxic and John are off bonding and having a good time) and come to a… mutual grudging understanding of some kind. They still dont like each other though lmao

Theres gonna be deeper shit going on but we havent sorted it out yet/tbh havent like Written For It in a while but i still like thinking about it a lot lol

Also pretty sure our endgame is john and dave steal toxic and bring them back with em lmao boss is kind of not nice and toxic would most certainly be better off in Undisclosed. Actually theyd fucking love it. Theyd become a local cryptid im sure. Undisclosed’s mothman is a teleporting spike baby.

I have. Another crossover AU that i might. Post something about for halloween? Maybe? If i have it finished?

Crosses over into, you guessed it, another one of my original-character projects. God, am i vain or something?

I promise this is just because i think blue and dave should get to team up to beat up some monsters

Quick briefing on my fuckinuh. Original character story, this one doesnt have a name (yet? Idk lol my work never actually goes anywhere sso who gives a shit). It centers around two grim reapers, Red (26, bi woman) and Blue (22, aroace agender asshole). In this reality or whatever, grim reapers function kind of like low-level office workers. They get told who’s going to die + when by some middle-management types, and upper management only involve themselves when punishment needs to be doled out. These Higher-Ups can be seen as analogous to Korrok; they’re decidedly not human, never were, and fucking terrifyingly powerful. Additionally, grim reapers are sort of .. designed to be “background noise” people. In reality theyre supernatural beings and, uh, look Real Fuckin Weird (the whole deal has a neon aesthetic im terrible at drawing uwu) but most humans just perceive them like extras in a movie. A body’s there but the camera’s not focused on it.

To the narrative: the shit starts when Red n Blue get relocated to Undisclosed. Relocation is something that just happens every now and then to reapers; they usually work in teams, but they get split up into different cities to avoid any strong bonds forming (a counter-union strategy from the Higher-Ups).

Red, Blue, John and Dave end up running into each other for the first time in a McDonalds where John n Dave are getting some 4am “hey, we just survived another horrific monster fight” celebration burgers. John and Dave are the only two people who can see how… strange Red and Blue are. Nobody else notices.

John unintentionally pisses Blue off, leading to Blue whacking him upside the head with a dildo bat. They all four get kicked out of McDonald’s. Dave and Red both are less than thrilled

Blue and John end up resolving their differences, somehow. Red and Dave briefly bond over their dumbass best friends being, well, dumbasses. They all part ways amicably.

somehow-or-other (idk yet) they end up running into each other a few more times, and eventually john invites them over to his place, and the four (plus Amy now!) get to know each other a little better

while there, Blue gets a text about some guy who's gonna die and John offers to drive them to where that's gonna go down. they take him up on the offer and get to have a bit of one-on-one conversation

after that ordeal though Blue has had Enough of people and bails, leaving John to head home alone

theres a sort of mirror-development going on with the five of em. Red, John, and Amy would all like everyone to get along, though theyre a bit tentative about it (John moreso than the other two, actually, jsut cause. well Red n Blue could still be Sauce Monsters). Dave and Blue on the other hand do Not like people enough for this shit, and Dave's not unconvinced theyre Sauce Monsters. he will not trust them until proven he should

the story's kinda nebulous but i got an idea for some Shit going down that involves both Sauce Monsters and also the Higher-Ups to have some fuckin absolute chaos go down.

Oops! All Trans

Everybody is transgender. Everyone

Ive actually workshopped this one both with ben (catgirlrepublic) and ghost (ghost-wannabe) lmao its a fun lil concept ive had from the get-go cause i mean. What’s an internet tran gonna do other than hit all their favourite media with the Everyone’s Trans beam

Dave transitioned post-high school and faked his death for it. People go missing in Undisclosed all the damned time, after all. He moved to the next city over, transitioned fully, then came back as a completely new man. Yes i know this doesnt exactly fit with the “everyone knows David from high school” thing alright, hush.

Anytime anyone brings up John’s old best friend (pre-transition Dave) John throws an entire fit like an overdramatic grieving widow. Full-on sobbing “why would you bring her up?! I miss her so much—” to the point that people just stop bringing up because Jesus Christ That Sure Is Uncomfortable KJHGFDS.

This is a scheme he and Dave came up with prior to Dave leaving, though Dave hadnt exactly anticipated John putting on this much of a performance about it— but it’s stopped Dave from ever having tto hear his deadname again, so hey.

Amy transitioned sometime in middle school/early high school. Her family was super supportive and loved her a ton and most people just know her as Amy. she was super shy her whole life really so. Yeah. people just dont think to bring it up lmao also i Feel Like big jim would absolutely wallop anyone who gave her trouble of any kind

John’s nonbinary (genderfluid specifically) and not exactly Interested in transitioning ? like hes fine with how he is. mostly.

he came out to Dave in high school but hes not out to anyone else exactly. Maybe his bandmates. Probably any other trans person in Undisclosed knows, too, cause theyre safe to tell lmao. Johns mostly a “he/him out of convenience” kinda nb who’s cool with any pronouns but does prefer they/them most. Dave and Amy use they/them when the trio are alone

Also this is a totally self-indulgent caveat that i think would be great, Dave’s actually agender but because he's transmasc and transitioned when he thought there were really only two options, and being Boy at least felt less weird than being Girl, he just kind of assumed he was a dude. It’s only through a lot of (like fucking years and years hes probably in his 30s/40s when he puts 2 and 2 together on this one) talks about gender with John that he realizes he actually feels like No Gender. Masc aesthetic with none gender.

I Just Think It’d Be Neat Is All Okay

Also Amy came out to Dave about being trans early on in them seeing each other and his response was to get very nervous before blurting out “me too” and then just being too embarrassed to talk about it for the rest of the day. Hes got a lot of hangups on talking about it actually it takes years for him to get comfortable in that

by contrast when Amy comes out to John about it his response is to yell “EYYY ME TOO” and give her a big ol hug lmao

I think itd be neatt if Amy ran a like. Transfem help/advice blog on tumblr. Kind of helped-with by John who can give her transfem nb insight for certain asks. I also just think that would be neat.

Cowboy AU - i put this one last cause its got drawings to it actually. Theyll be at the bottom

Basically just. Hey you ever watched a western. I think they look neat

This is another one me n ben have come up with lol

The soy sauce and all that shit still exist, im not sure where korrok fits in yet but ill figure it out

Theres no real like solid narrative yet ? but heres the barebones of everybody’s arcs.

John

Johns an absolute troublemaker, Of Course. Hes wanted in several towns for absolutely stupid shit. Hes a loner who shows up, causes chaos, gets drunk, does some drugs, runs away if people get too mad at him

He definitely had the same kind of deal with the soy sauce as in canon— he was at some kind of party, somebody offered it, he took it cause why the fuck wouldnt he, now he can see monsters and shit

Hes kind of a mooch also. Like. dont let him stay in your barn man he’ll never fucking leave and drink all your booze.

He runs into Dave when they happen to just, cross paths in the same town. the bullshit John stirs up ends up involving Dave in a way that makes it seem like it's his fault too, and they both get run out of town

after that he just tags along after Dave. hes decided this guy's Cool he wants to stick around. Dave is pissed at first, but not enough to shoot him or anything, and eventually, John grows on him

Dave

Dave also is a loner but unlike John hes simply so fucking awkward and bad with people. He doesnt feel like he belongs anywhere so he just travels

He’s the stereotypical Lone Ranger tbh. He wanders from town to town, solving their problems, though hed deny its out of any moral obligation (it kinda is, a little bit, tbh. He does like feeling useful). He shows up, fixes things, leaves. He's kind of a legend but most people think he's hiding something dark. other people jsut know him as that guy who farted real loud in the middle of the saloon and promptly skipped town out of sheer embarrassment. you know how it goes with Dave

He ends up involved with the Soy Sauce when a snake (not Actually a snake,) bites him. The snake’s more like the wig-monsters, really. Anyway, it injects him with the soy sauce, he fucking trips balls in the middle of the desert, he can see monsters now

He runs into John and shit goes tits-up, as said, but they become traveling buddies after that. he'd never say so, but he's glad for the company, actually. it's nice. hes not used to companionship but he feels a strange kind of easiness hanging out with John....

not sure how the Monster Dave concept will like fit in to this reality but like. trust me i want it in here. I'll Figure It Out.

Amy

Amy’s been living in a town John and Dave end up passing through and she is very curious about these two new Handsome Strangers who claim to fight monsters and just kinda. Persistently tags along til they let her join for real

Her family’s all dead, unfortunately, just like in canon, and she’s been living alone for a few years before meeting John n Dave. she had nothing left in that town to stay for, she'd been fantasizing about escaping on wild adventures for a long time and this felt a little like a dream come true. (Dave still gives her a spiel about how Difficult it is, but really, her fantasies were pretty grounded-in-reality already. i jsut think thats how she is, yknow?)

Shes the first person to react to the whole “we see monsters” shit with a kind of “oh, okay. neat” kind of response lmao

John and Dave fix whatever the fuck is up with her town (maybe that’s where the Korrok shit can fit, who knows) and Amy ends up being integral to that. After, she insists they take her with them because “they need her now” and Dave just cant really say no. John too is very much "the more the merrier!" and hes actually glad to have another person along he loves people lmao

At the start she has long hair but after she joins them she chops it short with a knife for convenience

also she still is an amputee. justt. idk. it was a wagon/stagecoach accident rather than a car accident lmao. just to clarify since i hadnt mentioned it, i wouldnt rob her of her ghost hand or yknow. all of the significance to her character that Missing A Hand has. although also now im going to have to research what was used as painkillers way-back-when, but im betting shes still got, like, her pain pills, they probably had those, maybe i wouldnt have to try too hard there. old timey medicine could be WACK though,

Shitload

Yeah hes in tthis shit mostly cause i liked designing his cowboy self lmao

Hes a kid (like 16, 17, technically i think in those days that was more Young Man than Kid but whatever. Hes Young i mean.) who got possessed by the Worms out in the desert and, by his family’s perception, just went missing!

Hes also a wanderer, but he ended up at the same town john and dave met in, at that same time, and starts following them after, already aware of who/what they are.

He keeps his face covered 24/7. actually he covers a Majority of his self for reasons. kinda want him to be a slightly more horrifying Worm Entity rather than human idk,

I kinda dont have much for this boy yet sorry Shitload

images !

with some editing notes for me cause im doing a very specific aesthetic with this lmao. i might change some lil details/colours though ...... idk

im also kinda 🤔 about shitload's colour palette. i want things assoicated w the sauce to be black'n'red predominantly but i think his palette might mirror dave's too closely. also im working on a korrok design i jsut am too busy to draw it now

#jdate #john dies at the end #aus #erh. tthe hell do i tag this as #rambles.txt #long post #well let me know if youd wanna hear more or. or something #send an ask. or whatever #yaknow #:jazz hands:

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synnefo-nefeli · 3 years ago

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Working on a WIP scene for Heard Your Heart Beating, my Klapollo friends to lovers post AA5, slow-burn fic

___

//Come fix your prosecutor// read Athena’s text. Apollo groaned wondering what Klavier could have done in the hour Klavier had spent at the WAA.

He adjusted his tie in the mirror of his locker, checked to make sure that he no longer looked sweaty from his ride over from court, and shoved his cycling outfit into his locker along with his helmet.

He could hear laughing on the other side of the office’s front door so that was a good sign, he hoped, as he swiped his keycard through the lock.

“Herr Forehead has finally arrived from his battle with the courts!” Klavier beamed at him with the smile that Apollo was now coming to call “on-stage-mode”. Klavier was sitting on the sofa next to Athena, coffee cups and tea biscuits between them on the table.

He could hear Mr. Wright bustling in the office kitchenette.

“I am back,” Apollo announced, “...and I survived Blackquill-“

“Oh, is that the reason you biked back? Simon didn’t offer to give you a lift?” Athena laughed, “how mean. He needs to learn to leave it in the courtroom.”

Apollo rolled his eyes, “Probably, but I am sure it has more to do with him needing to go down to the precinct and yell at the poor detective who sent him into court with an outdated autopsy report...also, what would I have done with my bike? I don’t want to ruin the guy’s new car by stashing it in the back seat.”

Mr. Wright arrived from the kitchen, fresh pot of coffee in hand, “Wow. A defense attorney having an updated report instead of the prosecution? Never thought I’d see the day...”

Apollo flopped on the couch opposite Athena and Klavier, “Hey. Miracles do happen...and considering all of our court win-streak, we shouldn’t be too surprised that they exist.”

“Here. Here.” Klavier said amiably into his coffee looking as if he was about to attempt to change the subject. Oh, Klavier wasn’t getting away from whatever occurred before Apollo arrived so easily,

“So... what’s this about me needing to fix ‘my prosecutor’?”

Klavier made an amused expression, “Ah, is that what I am called? Well I am honored to be Herr Justice’s”

Athena rolled her eyes, “Oh stop with the charm-“ she looked at Apollo, “he doesn’t want you to know that he’s never been to the Tragic Kingdom”

Apollo stared at Klavier, “Seriously?” which earned Klavier a playful elbow to the ribs from Athena, “Told you he would react like that”

Klavier sighed, “Is it really that big of a deal? Not going to a children’s amuse-“

“HOLD IT!” Apollo didn’t care that everyone about him flinched (“Indoor voice, Polly, jeeze”, Mr. Wright muttered”), “Disneyland is for everyone,” Apollo breathed, “you seriously haven’t gone? Ever? I mean...it’s only in Anaheim. That’s less than an hour without traffic from here-“

Mr. Wright handed Apollo a cup of coffee, “It’s been a while since ‘Mr. Disney Adult’’s shown his face at the office.”

“You say that as if you don’t have an annual pass too, Mr. Wright.”

Klavier appeared lost in the conversation; it was refreshing to see Mr. Tall, Blonde and Unflappable looking out of his depth, “Is it really a big deal that I haven’t?”

“Mm...not so much,” Mr. Wright said before Apollo could object, “well it wouldn’t be a big deal if you were hanging out with someone else, but I mean considering that you two have been spending a lot of time outside of court together, I think it’s more shocking that Apollo *hasn’t* dragged you down there already.

“You act like I go there all the time-“

“Says the person who has scheduled himself to come in late on days where there are morning annual passholder events,” Athena mused, “or how about the time you, Clay and Trucy, just decided to go to Disneyland after work because you wanted corndogs for dinner”

Across from him Klavier made a face, as if silently saying “Corndogs for dinner? Really? What are you, five?”.

Apollo met ‘his prosecutor’s’ eyes, “Those corndogs are legendary, and the only ones I’ll eat,” he rebutted, not caring that Klavier hadn’t actually said anything.

“He has a point there,” agreed Mr. Wright, “so I guess the big question is- how long before Klavier gets pulled into driving Apollo down to Anaheim?”

Klavier looked around the room at all of the other attorneys as if expecting for someone to tell him suddenly that this was all an act. Apollo meanwhile was mentally running through his calendar to figure out when he would have time to properly take Klavier to the park. There was so much to do at work-not to mention, he would have to prep Klavier for his first park visit.

“Do you like amusement parks?” Apollo asked Klavier.

The blonde man simply shrugged, “I’ve only been to a few in my life. Mein family wasn’t really into things like theme parks; didn’t see the value in them as entertainment. And when I moved here, I just didn’t go-“

“Not even grad-night?” Athena asked, “Junie told me that’s what the student council is setting up for the seniors. It’s tradition. Heck, every high school in Southern California does a school trip there at least once.”

Klavier shrugged, “I graduated early, remember? I guess I could have gone to the ceremony with the class that was graduating that year, but I wanted to get mein badge so I went home as soon as I could to pass the bar in Germany.”

“There’s one in France!”

Klavier sighed, “If I asked to do anything outside of museums and cultural experiences while we were in France, I would have been left in Germany.”

“Anyway,” Athena said, “If you’re going to hang with Polly, you’re going to have to go to the parks eventually-“

Apollo felt his cheeks heat, “I mean if that’s not what you like to do for fun, you don’t have to-“

“Oh please,” Mr. Wright interrupted, “I can confidently bet that you’ve been sitting here this entire time planning a trip for him.”

Apollo crossed his arms and sat back in defeat as Athena continued to regale Klavier with anecdotes of the WAA’s trips to the parks as well as Apollo’s impromptu visits,

“Has he shown you his pin collection yet?” Athena said in a tone that was too close to the tone she liked to use whenever she teased Apollo about his and Klavier relationship not being as platonic as Apollo made them seem.

//As if she doesn’t know the actual truth// Apollo grumbled, “Okay enough. Klavier already knows I am a nerd- he doesn’t need any more evidence about it”

“Ach you’re always cool, Herr Forehead,” Klavier smiled again in “on-stage mode”, which made Apollo decide that he needed to show Klavier what he was missing.

“When’s your birthday?” Apollo blurted.

Athena groaned, “Oh my god, Apollo, haven’t you heard of Wikipedia?”

“I like that Herr Forehead doesn’t feel the need to research me, it makes a rock god like me feel practically human,” Klavier teased and then with an amiable grin, “May 23rd.

However-I told you that on Valentine’s Day, don’t you remember?” He said a little too suggestively for Apollo’s comfort,

“I’m hurt that you don’t remember… and here I thought things that were shared during sleepovers were sacred,” he added a pout for good measure.

Out of the corner of his eye, Apollo saw Athena not-so-subtly pull out of her phone to text something, most certainly to Trucy.

Great, he was not going to know peace from either of them for the foreseeable future.

Although, Apollo appreciated that Athena had the grace to attempt to hide her grin.

Whether or not Klavier was aware of what was happening next to him, Klavier only sipped at his coffee.

“So in three weeks. Great, guess what we’re doing to celebrate your 26th birthday,” Apollo announced.

“It’s on a workday.”

“Take off.”

“Don’t you have to work?” Klavier asked

Apollo turned to Mr. Wright, “Mr. Wright, may I have the 23rd off?”

“Of course. Just put it on the calendar.”

Apollo, having won the debate, smiled smugly at Klavier, “Get ready, we have a lot to do before then.”

Klavier looked genuinely confused, “Like what?!”

He was about to ask what Klavier’s favorite Disney movie was, but then Athena’s phone buzzed, “Simon’s here- he needs help bringing up the food...and Trucy says she wants to also go to Disneyland for Klavier’s birthday, I think that’s a good idea; what do you think, boss?,”

Before Apollo could say anything about Athena or Trucy inviting themselves, Mr. Wright smiled and said,

“You know what- unless something pressing comes up and Trucy doesn’t have any projects or tests at school, I think the agency needs a mental health day. Maybe Miles and Prosecutor Blackquill need one too,” he remarked walking towards his office in order to most likely call his fiancé.

Finally alone- sort of. At least until Athena and Prosecutor Blackquill came upstairs with the food. But still, alone enough to enjoy Klavier silently trying to figure out what the hell just happened...or Apollo would have enjoyed Klavier’s genuinely flummoxed expression, except that he remembered how Klavier, despite his celebrity status, didn’t like to draw attention too himself unless it was in court or on stage- and especially not in public.

It was the reason Klavier hadn’t shown up to Clay’s funeral after all. He looked at Klavier feeling guilty for putting his friend on the spot,

“Sorry, if you don’t want to- we don’t have to-“

“Nein, nein,” Klavier said with his genuine smile, “you all are so passionate about it, now I have to experience it”

“Are you sure? I didn’t even ask if that’s how you wanted to spend your birthday-I just kinda got caught up in it.”

Klavier shrugged, “Honestly, considering that I usually spent the last few dragged to stuffy VIP lounges of clubs I wasn’t interested in, with people who, as it turned out, cared less about me- I think this may be a gut change of pace.”

Well that made him feel better...and a bit sad for Klavier, “I’ll make sure you have a good time and we won’t be overwhelmed. A lot of celebrities go to Disneyland, and they don’t get mobbed- people are pretty respectful of celebrities having their time in the parks.”

“You sound as if you are familiar.”

“Clay...worked there for a summer, celebrities would come all the time as park guests. And aside from maybe helping a celebrity escape a crowd, they don’t give anyone special treatment unless they’ve paid for a guided tour-“

“Oh- are we not doing that, Herr Forehead?”

Apollo snorted,“Hell no, you’re going to stand in line for Space Mountain like the rest of us plebes.” Also I’m not about to suggest we spend $800 an hour for a theme park tour...

Klavier’s laugh was enough to make Apollo feel better and better about commandeering Klavier’s birthday. He was going to look forward to these next few weeks in getting Klavier ready for his first time at the park. The thought of movie nights made Apollo feel a bit warm inside. Warm in a way that he hadn’t felt since Klavier had comforted him during his own birthday.

The office door opened, Athena holding it open so that Simon could come through with the large box that contained their takeout dinners. Apollo braced himself for any barbed words from Athena’s prosecutor; considering how the day’s court proceedings had gone, Apollo expected some amount of sour grapes. Instead Simon ignore Apollo and incredulously regarded his co-worker with,

“You’ve seriously never been to Disneyland, Gavin-dono?”

***

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rosy-cheekx · 4 years ago

Note

“It’s cute that you tried to protect me and all, but you’re like a foot shorter than me, you know?” with jon and anyone??

https://archiveofourown.org/works/28062798

Sooo, here’s the thing. Along the way it became “It’s cute that you tried to attack me and all, but you’re like a foot shorter than me, you know?” The premise is the same but things sorta got out of hand. Either way...Happy Birthday Rye!! This is for you 💕😊

Tim was exhausted. He’d been up late the night before pouring through books on historic architecture, trying to find anything referencing Robert Smirke and his…unique building practices. While he wasn’t usually the one to take work home with him, this statement Jon had recorded, one about Leitner and Gerard Keay and the tunnels underneath the Pall Mall struck a chord with him. It felt just wrong enough to be related to Smirke. So he had been up at all hours, researching Smirke and any associations he may have had with Pall Mall. He had been successful, at the end of it, but had fallen asleep near five and gotten barely four hours of sleep before he was dragged to wretched consciousness again by the sun streaming through his window.

Normally, Tim would grab a coffee on the way to work, but honestly he was nearing a little too close to hand-to-mouth living as it was, especially with their paychecks not being due til next Friday. There was a coffee maker in the Archives breakroom, sputtering as it was. Coffee was coffee and coffee was what Tim needed. It was half eight, a little earlier than most of his crisp, just-late-enough-to-piss-Elias-off-but-not-enough-to-get-called-out-for-it 10:15 arrivals, but it didn’t matter. If he was lucky, no one else would be there.

Jon was in the Archives. When wasn’t Jon in the Archives? They were his Archives after all.

Jon blinked and peeled his cheek from the cool metal of his desk, wincing at the ghostly impression left from the heat and oils of his skin. His neck and spine protested in clicks and pops as he straightened himself up, wincing at the angle he had allowed himself to sleep in for so long. It was just after nine, according to the ever-ticking clock above the door to his office, the only door, the door he left propped open unless he was certain he was the only one there. (No one needed to come knocking for him.) He wasn’t sure when he had fallen asleep but it had definitely been past midnight, after even Elias had left his office and the hum of The Institute faded to a strangely comfortable silence, nothing but Jon and his files and statements. Just one more statement, he had thought to himself, wearily regarding the ever-growing stack of “To-Do” files in the box on his desk. One more and then I can go home and rest. One more now is one less Elias can ask after, the acknowledgement of Jon’s failure in his voice. Jon wasn’t sure if he had turned the tape recorder off or if he had just run out of tape-did they even run out of tape? They never seemed to. On investigation, the faint snuffling sounds he heard when he played the tape back proved he had forgotten to tur-

Wait. What was that?

Jon frowned and rewound the tape a few minutes, listening intently. There was the unmistakable sound of footsteps, faint but definitely there. Was someone in his archives? Jon pursed his lips and glanced again at the clock. Just after nine, even Sasha wouldn’t be here yet, the punctuality of her 9:25 arrival something you could set a clock to.

Jon glanced around, not really sure what it was he was looking for. Something to defend himself, maybe? He wasn’t sure when he’d decided to identify the source of the sound, but something in his gut had shifted. He settled on grabbing a crutch resting in the corner of his office, abandoned from his recovery after the Prentiss attack.

Armed, Jonathan Sims crept to the door of his office. The automatic lights in the hallway flickered on as he slowly peered down both sides of the hallway, curly hair a mess and swinging unhelpfully by his cheeks. No one. The hallway was empty, no shadows to be seen sweeping menacingly around the corner.

God. He was probably being stupid. It was probably the statements getting to him. But still, something urged the back of his mind. He couldn’t shake the notion he wasn’t alone in the cold, lonely basement.

Cautiously, Jon crept down the hall, holding the crutch first by the handle, then clumsily turning it over to hold it by the base towards the ground. He didn’t make a habit of watching American baseball, but he imagined he looked rather like the players at bat, the rest of the crutch resting on his shoulder, elbows cocked uncertainly.

“Sasha? Martin? Tim?” His voice was somewhere between a croak and a shout, halfway between cowardice and curiosity. No answer, not that he really expected one.

Jon listened intently as he reached the bullpen of the archives, where Tim, Sasha, and Martin’s desks were arranged. It took him a moment to register what was bothering him about the room before he realized it with a start: the lights were on. These were also automatic; Jon knew this from the number of times Tim, Sash, and Martin had burst into laughter and cacophonies of “no!” and “guess we’re done!” whenever they sat still too long, engrossed in their work. Jon had privately wondered if it had been set up to keep them from being productive.

But the lights were on. That meant someone had been through here. And recently. Jon was paralyzed for a moment, wondering what he should do. Call 999? Or Elias? If it was supern—strange, police wouldn’t be able to do much anyways. Furthermore, if he was imagining things, he would never here the end of it from Elias. What if he asked him to step down from the position? No, Jon could handle this. Of course he could. Whatever it was, he needed to see what was happening and could make a decision from there.

He heard a shuffle from the break room, a scuff of shoe on the worn lino. A thief who just decided to stop for a cuppa and sandwich? Well, the breakroom was next to the records room…what if it was a thing here to steal a statement? A thing like Jane Prentiss, or-or a vampire, or, god forbid, Michael?

Jon felt woozy with fear and nervous energy as he crept forward blindly, twisting the crutch in his hands as he approached the open doorway to the breakroom, the light to which was off. This bulb wasn’t auto, unfortunately. As Jon stood in the doorway, he let his eyes adjust the darkness of the small room, blinking nervously and sweeping the room with his eyes desperately, looking for a clue.

There.

A darker blackness in the black, making up a vaguely humanoid shape, standing motionless by the cupboards. Jon tried to speak, to address it, but his voice was barely a whisper, caught in his throat.

“W-Who are you?” No answer. Jon could’ve sworn it shifted towards him, the thing that looked like a head bobbing slightly.

It would take maybe six steps to get there. The light switch was by the fridge, at the other end of the room. Was it worth it? Jon could probably run and flip the switch but the creature would definitely know he was there. Maybe it was better to just run.

Jon was suddenly struck with a terrifying thought as the creature seemed to shift again, shuddering to itself. What if it was Jane Prentiss, lying in wait for Martin any one of them to come back?

He had to attack. Jon steeled himself, tightening his grip on the crutch.

Three.

Two.

One.

“Gahhhhhhhh!” Jon ran forward, swinging his makeshift weapon towards the creature. He watched the shape in the darkness shifted and seemed to compress and duck out of the way of his swinging, in slow motion but all at once. His crutch struck the countertop, and Jon vaguely registered a shattering as something hit the ground

“Jon!”

“…T-Tim?”

The shadow in the darkness shrunk and Jon blinked at the sudden brightness as the light came on, finally recognizing the creature as Tim, eyes wide as he surveyed his boss in front of him, hair mussed from sleep and wielding a crutch like a cricket bat.

“Jon, what the hell?” Tim’s voice was somewhere at the intersection of confusion, anger, and dazed humor, hard to pin down. “What are you doing here?”

“Me? What are you—It’s nine in the morning! How did you get in?” Jon felt all the adrenaline leave his body at once, and he dropped the crutch to the Formica counter he seemed to have chipped, shoulders sagging.

“I-coffee!” Tim gestured to the shattered ruins of a Derwent Water mug, an orange kayak in two distinct pieces as a coffee spread across the tiles slowly. Jon’s face must have shown the incredulity he was feeling, because Tim closed his eyes and took a deep breath. “I couldn’t sleep, figured I’d be more use here. Didn’t feel like making a Costa run. That’s second to the real question, though, which would be: Why are you trying to kill me?”

Jon scrubbed his hands over his face; of course it was just Tim. He had been so terrified and it was just Timothy fucking Stoker. “I-I’m sorry, Tim. I heard something on my tape, and I thought there was someone in here…a-and there was. But I mean, someone who wasn’t supposed to be here. I-I did call out, b-but no one answered.” Jon sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. “I thought maybe you were a vampire. Or Michael. Or Jane Prentiss,” he admitted after a moment, voice quieter.

Two beats of silence, three, before Tim’s raucous, barking laughter finally broke the silence.

“Were you going to kill a vampire with a walking crutch?” Tim managed between chuckles, doubling over. “Just-” he makes a sweeping motion with closed fists over each other, “with a bat, like-like a piñata?” He was taken over by giggles again and Jon was left staring blankly, trying valiantly to figure out what was so funny.

“I-I dunno, maybe? I didn’t want to just do nothing.”

“I’m sorry, I-I shouldn’t be laughing, it’s-” Tim straightens and gestures at Jon, composing himself. “It’s cute that you tried to attack me and all, but you’re like a foot shorter than me, you know? You’re not exactly physically menacing.”

Jon stared. “I wasn’t trying to be menacing, I was trying-shit.” He felt warm liquid seeping into his socks-how did he just realize he wasn’t wearing shoes- and stumbled back, grabbing for the paper towels on the table. “I was trying to save my own ass. And I’m not that short.” Another snort from Tim, acknowledging and rejecting his argument. “Sorry about your mug,” Jon continued, dropping to a squat to sweep up the milky coffee and ceramic in a bundle of sopping paper.

“Meh, worth it,” Tim shrugged, dropping next to him and spooling towel into his own hands. “Yep,” popped the p. “The image of you baring your teeth at me like a wild dog is totally worth it. Besides, now I have an excuse to ask Sash to buy me a coffee from the posh place near her flat.”

“Oh, no, please. I should buy you something from the Costa down the street. I-! need to get some anyways.” Jon glanced over his shoulder at the doorway to the now unlit bullpen, trying to pretend he didn’t obviously look like he slept here.

“Yeah, no, you look like shit. No offense,” Tim added absentmindedly, pretending not to acknowledge the fact that Jon did not, in fact, drink coffee. “Did you sleep here again?”

Silence as Jon gathered the coffee-soaked towels in his hands and rose, tossing them in the bin by the door.

“I’ll take that as a yes.”

“I wasn’t trying to. I just nodded off. I was recording statements and lost track of time.”

“Ohh, so you heard me come in?”

“Kind of. Heard it on the tape—”

“Hello?” Martin’s voice called out as the bullpen lights flicked on. “Oh, hey Tim, Jon! You two alright?”

“Heya, Marto. Jon and I were just about to hit up the café. Want something?”

Tim got a caramel latte. Jon got a chai. Martin and Sasha got muffins, a very good story, and a lightly blushing (and smiling, though he would deny it) Archivist.

Tim was grateful to Jon for never asking why he had stood so long, in silence and dark, staring at his cup of coffee as if it wasn’t even there. He never asked why his shoulders had been heaving and why his eyes were as baggy as they had been. Jon did offer more often, though, to get coffee with him, in the odd mornings that they were both there absurdly early and battling their own demons. Tim always said yes.

#tma #tma fanfic #the magnus archives #magpod fanfic #tim stoker #jonathan sims #the archivist #kinda jontim #but also platonic #however youd like #fanfic

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much-obliged-timothy · 4 years ago

Text

So I was reading a fanfic for a different fandom where a character ends up the single father of an oops baby and...

Anyway, here’s a totally self-indulgent “what if Tim accidentally had a child” fic ft. Rhys accidentally befriending the kid and being very panicked about it (and yes I will be more than happy to write more of this weird AU if anyone wants to read it)

Rhys paced his office nervously. “Zer0, did I make a mistake? Oh my god. I can’t believe I agreed to employ a doppelganger of Handsome Jack.”

The vault hunters had contacted him with an absolutely bizarre story. While invading Handsome Jack’s casino, they’d found his sole surviving doppelganger, a man named Timothy Lawrence. Timothy had been all too eager to get out of the casino once they’d claimed it for themselves, but had nowhere to go and, they’d warned, was lacking a bit in his social skills after seven years of being locked in a casino where almost everyone wanted him dead.

Still, the man had apparently proved highly adept at business when they needed help getting issues for the casino sorted. Moxxi thought he’d be an asset to Rhys, appearances aside.

Rhys had them send over a resume and some examples of Timothy’s work, and was surprised to find that Tim was actually highly skilled at business negotiations and research. He had experience helping Hyperion develop new weapons and other various tech, and had worked as a vault hunter for Jack at one point, giving him valuable combat experience.

So Rhys had agreed to take him on, at least on a trial period to see how things went. Today was the day Tim would arrive, and Rhys couldn’t stop fretting that Tim would be too similar to Jack to bear.

“He helped Jack rise to power, they said,” Rhys babbled, his anxiety growing. “What if he’s just like Jack? I don’t think I can take that ego again. This is such a mistake!”

Zer0 watched him pace, but offered no comfort. He didn’t seem to have any concerns over the situation.

There was a knock on the door and Rhys froze, shooting a look at Zer0. Zer0 touched his gun then gestured to the door, a silent assurance that he would handle it if things got out of hand.

Rhys didn’t enjoy the thought of anyone being shot in his office, but he enjoyed the thought of being protected from Handsome Jack 2.0. “Come in.”

The door swung open and in came Handsome Jack. Rhys stared at his face for a long moment before shaking himself. Tim’s hair was longer than Jack’s, the mask on his face cracked. He had a cybernetic hand that was fidgeting with the visitor badge pinned to his jacket. He certainly had Jack’s sense of how to dress for the job; he wore jeans and a hoodie with a jacket over it instead of anything dressy.

Tim noticed Rhys eyeing his clothes and shifted awkwardly. “Uh, sorry. No money to buy anything nicer right now. I’m Timothy Lawrence. I know the mask has to go, too, but I’m arranging to have these stupid clips removed with it.”

Rhys processed his words, but only distantly. When Tim had shifted, he’d revealed that he wasn’t alone.

Tim again noticed where Rhys’s gaze went, and fidgeted more with his pass. “So, the job? Moxxi got me set up with a place to live nearby for now. I just moved in yesterday, so I’m ready to start whenever you need me to.”

Rhys continued staring. He had not been informed that Tim wouldn’t be coming alone.

Tim sighed quietly and nudged the little boy out from behind his legs. The boy stared distrustfully at Rhys, clutching a tattered teddy bear with the Hyperion logo on its stomach to himself.

“This is my son, Phoenix,” Tim explained. “I, uh, don’t exactly have a sitter. Hard to have contacts when you’ve been locked in a casino for seven years.”

Obviously Tim had found a way to pass the time. The boy couldn’t be any older than five or six, with skin a few shades darker than Tim’s, messy, ruddy hair, a splattering of freckles over his cheeks and nose, and hazel eyes. His left eye had a familiar strip of blue amongst the hazel.

“You said I get my own office? Can I see it?” Tim said, shooting Rhys a pleading look.

“Oh, um, right, yes,” Rhys said, fixing his already straight tie.

“Hey, stay here. We’ll be right back,” Tim said.

The boy’s eyes widened in terror, but Tim smiled and ruffled his hair. Phoenix clutched at Tim’s jacket.

“I’ll be right back,” Tim repeated. “That guy there? He was a vault hunter, just like I was. He’ll keep an eye on you for a few minutes.”

Phoenix looked over his shoulder at Zer0. His curiosity seemed to win out over his distrust as he eyed Zer0.

Tim took the opportunity to slip out of the room, Rhys following. They walked in awkward silence until they reached the office Rhys had secured for Tim.

“Okay,” Tim said, shutting the door as soon as they were inside. “Look, I kinda had a, uh, thing with a friend named Ember. We’d been stuck in that casino for a while at that point and everyone was trying to kill me and we just- got careless a few times. Phoenix was born in that damned place. He lived his whole life in there, hidden between me, Ember, and a friend of Ember’s from the vice district. Ember told me to take him with me to Promethea so he could experience life in the real world. Not that this shithole planet is fancy living, but-” He stopped and groaned. “Sorry, injected with Jack’s DNA. Anyways, please, he’s scared to be alone.”

No one had warned Rhys that in addition to getting a traumatized employee, he’d be getting the man’s traumatized son as well. But what was he going to do? Turn him out onto the streets?

Rhys sighed quietly. He hated kids, mostly because he had no idea how to talk to them and they frightened him.

“He can’t go into meetings with you,” he said at last.

Tim looked so relieved that Rhys didn’t even regret the decision. “Thank you. Really, thank you. Oh, finally, a CEO who isn’t an absolute dick. He’s no trouble, really. He’ll stay in my office with me, and he thinks everyone wants to kill him so it’s not like he’ll go bothering anyone.”

At Rhys’s startled look, Tim grimaced. He touched his mask and shrugged.

“Look, I’m not going to lie. My kid is…” He cursed softly. “I didn’t want that for him. But I had no choice. I started teaching him about guns when he was three. We taught him how to hide, and not to trust anyone. It was the only way we could keep him safe. It’s going to take time to break him of all that. B-But I’m a good worker! I won’t make you regret this! Well, I mean, the occasional Jack moments probably will, but other than that, no regrets. I hope.”

This was too much to handle right now. “You need to go get fingerprinted downstairs. Then we’ll get you settled and go over your schedule and duties.”

Business. He could do business. He couldn’t do a traumatized Handsome Jack doppelganger with a paranoid son.

“Right, let me just go let Phoenix know,” Tim said, opening the office door.

“That’s a cool name,” Rhys said as they started along the hallway.

Tim shrugged again. “Ember wanted something with fire. I guess we thought it was fitting, since he was born in the wake of Jack’s death and my, uh, sort of freedom. I mean, I still had a bomb in my face and was trapped in a casino. But no more Jack ordering me about.”

He at least didn’t sound bothered by Jack’s death, so Rhys took some comfort in the fact that Tim appeared not to hold any loyalty to his former boss. Moxxi had claimed Timothy hated Jack, but Rhys was still worried after everything he’d been through with the AI Jack.

They stepped back into Rhys’s office, and Phoenix was immediately back at his father’s side, clutching Tim’s jacket in one hand and his bear in the other. Tim squeezed his shoulder and gently pried his hand off.

“I need to go get fingerprinted, Phoenix,” he said. “I’m just going to be right downstairs.”

The kid looked torn. Rhys felt a flash of pity.

“It should only be fifteen minutes if they’re not busy,” he said. Maybe knowing how long Tim would be gone would calm the kid.

“Fifteen minutes,” Tim said, smiling. “That’s nothin’, pal. I take longer in the shower.”

“You take forever in the shower,” Phoenix said, but grabbed Tim’s jacket again.

Once again, Tim gently pried his hand away. “Fifteen minutes, pal. Then I’ll be back.”

Phoenix watched his father leave the room and began to pace silently, keeping Rhys, Zer0, and the door in view as he did so. He was rubbing the band of a watch strapped to his wrist, far too big for him. Rhys realized it was a digistruct watch, and sat down in the hopes he wouldn’t spook the kid into summoning whatever was stored in there.

Phoenix kept shooting a look to Rhys’s cybernetic arm, looking like he wanted to say something. He kept snapping his eyes back to the door, but his gaze would drift back to the arm.

Rhys finally held it up. “It’s, uh, it’s an Atlas cybernetic. State of the art.”

“Dad has one,” he said, holding up his hand. “He lost his hand in the casino.”

“That’s because Handsome Jack is a controlling asshole,” Rhys said, then snapped his mouth shut. Shit, could he swear in front of kids? Was that legal?

But Phoenix stared at him, slowing his pacing. “You knew him?”

“Sort of,” Rhys said, rubbing the back of his neck. “We...worked together? Sort of? He tried to kill me. Not a good time.”

The distrust on his face evaporated a little. “He locked my mom and dad in the casino. Dad said he’s a freaking asshole. But I’m not s’posed to call anyone else that word.” He pointed to his eye with the sliver of blue in it. “Dad said that was Jack’s last ‘screw you’.”

Rhys stared at Zer0 for help. He hadn’t expected to shit talk Jack with a little kid today, and wasn’t sure what to do now that it had started.

“Much more lively now/He must like you a lot Rhys/You have made a friend,” Zer0 said.

“You talk funny,” Phoenix said.

“He speaks in haikus,” Rhys explained. “Well, mostly.”

Phoenix frowned. “I dunno that language. My mom speaks French.”

Rhys laughed in surprise. “Oh, no, it’s not a language. It’s a type of poetry.”

“Oh,” Phoenix said, then shrugged in a movement that perfectly mimicked Tim’s.

Rhys couldn’t help but stare a little as the boy resumed his pacing. He wondered if any of his features had been inherited from Tim’s original appearance. He wondered if it was hard for Tim to look at his kid and see both himself and Jack in him.

Rhys busied himself with paperwork to keep from staring any longer. However, as fifteen minutes passed, and then another five, and then even more, Phoenix’s pacing grew faster.

He rubbed at the band of his watch more, eyes locked on the door. He looked terrified, checking the time yet again and hugging his bear tighter.

“They were probably just busy,” Rhys said, because as much as he didn’t like kids, he felt bad seeing one break down right in front of him. “He’s okay.”

“What if he’s dead?” His voice cracked a little and he paced even faster, clutching the bear so tightly that his knuckles turned white.

Rhys got up and slowly approached. “Hey. Hey, Phoenix. It’s safe here, okay? No one here will hurt him. I promise.”

“But he looks like that freaking asshole!” Phoenix said, pointing at his eye again.

“I know, but I warned my people he’d be coming today. They all know he isn’t really Jack. No one is going to hurt your dad,” Rhys assured. Phoenix still looked scared and frantic, so Rhys tried a different approach. He held his cybernetic hand out and let an image come up in his palm. “Have you ever seen a skag before?”

Phoenix nodded his head, looking torn between watching the door and looking at the holographic image. “Uh-huh. But just one.”

Rhys let the holograph play out. “Look how they run! I got stuck on Pandora years ago, and these things were scary.”

“Pandora?” He tugged at the ear of his bear. “Dad said it’s a shithole. I’m not s’posed to say that, though. Mom gets mad and says dad has a dirty mouth.”

“It kind of is a shithole,” Rhys agreed. “Promethea is much better. I think you’ll like it here. You and your dad can explore this weekend when he’s not working.”

His eyes shot to the door again. “But he’s not back!”

“He’ll come back,” Rhys said. “I won’t let anyone hurt him while he’s here. I promise.”

His eyes widened and he looked at Rhys. He seemed torn between distrust and hope.

The matter was settled as Tim reappeared in the room, looking out of breath. “Sorry. Some freaking idiot down there couldn’t find her ID and held up the whole line. I- Umph!”

Phoenix launched himself at Tim, wrapping his little arms around Tim’s waist tightly. There were tears silently rolling down his cheeks.

“Hey, hey.” Tim knelt down and hugged him, kissing his head. “I’m okay. I’m right here, pal. I’m okay. I’m sorry I took so long.”

He stood up with Phoenix in his arms, running gentle fingers through his messy hair. Phoenix nuzzled his head against Tim’s neck, wiping at his eyes.

“I’m sorry,” Tim said, kissing him again. “I have shitty time management skills. Oops, don’t tell your mom I swore again.”

Phoenix put an arm around Tim’s neck to hold onto him. “Dad, this guy showed me a skag. On his hand!”

“‘This guy’ is my boss,” Tim said. “A skag, huh? Can’t say I missed Pandora’s brand of cannon fodder creatures.”

“You and me both,” Rhys said, standing up.

“Can you show dad?” Phoenix said, pointing to Rhys’s hand. “They look so stupid.”

Rhys brought up the image again. With his dad safely back with him, Phoenix was much more interested, peering at it with curious eyes.

Tim wiggled the fingers of his cybernetic hand. “Yea, mine doesn’t do that. Cool, though.”

“One of the vault hunters who saved us had a skag,” Phoenix said. “And a...a...something else.”

“Jabber. You saw their jabber,” Tim said. “Shit-flinging, obnoxious beasts.”

Phoenix tightened his hold on Tim. “You’re not s’posed to swear, dad.” He gave Tim the hint of a grin. “Gotta shut me up.”

“Ice cream it is,” Tim said with a long sigh. “After work, though. I’ve got to earn money to afford to bribe you, pal. So, let’s get on with it, Rhys.”

Rhys took Tim and showed him around a bit before bringing him back to his office. As Tim had assured, Phoenix was quiet the whole time, just clinging to Tim. When they reached the office, he sat in a chair in the corner, playing with his tattered bear and not bothering either man as they went over Tim’s schedule and duties.

“Well, I’ll leave you to get settled in and do the basic paperwork,” Rhys said, shaking Tim’s hand. “If you have any questions, you know where my office is. You’ll be primarily reporting to me.”

“Hey,” Phoenix said as Rhys headed for the door. He was clutching his bear tightly again, glancing from his dad to Rhys before blurting out, “Can you tell me about Pandora sometime?”

“Oh,” Rhys said in surprise. “Yea, sure. I mean, a lot of my experience involves me being in fear for my life. But, sure.”

“Hey, been there done that on Elpis, kiddo,” Tim said. “Phoenix, let him get back to work. You can help me get some papers organized, if you want.”

Phoenix hopped off the chair. “M’kay, dad. See ya, boss guy.”

Rhys left the office and stared at the door once he’d closed it. Today had not gone as he’d expected, not at all. And he had a sinking feeling he’d accidentally made the kid like him.

Great. He’d been so worried about dealing with a Handsome Jack doppelganger, and now his bigger problem was a small, curious child. Rhys wondered if life would ever let him catch a break.

Part 2

#borderlands #timothy lawrence #borderlands rhys #rhys strongfork #borderlands au #borderlands fic #My writing

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athenaquinn · 4 years ago

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Bury It || Ally & Athena

TIMING: Current (today) LOCATION: The middle of a forest in White Crest PARTIES: @alejandra-solano and @athenaquinn SUMMARY: Ally and Athena run into a spriggan. Everything is fine. CONTENT: very brief allusions to physical and emotional abuse

Even after everything, there was still a certain peace Athena felt in the woods. Peace and a sense of power. It was somewhere where she could take control and where she could deal with things however she saw fit without having to worry about other people. Usually, at least. Except for some hikers here and there, but Athena also often found her way into more secluded parts of the forest. Today’s venture was somewhere in the middle ground - not so secluded that she was all but guaranteed to be alone, but also not somewhere that she knew many hikers would be going. Especially as the Maine weather began to tease the coming of a proper spring, she knew she’d have to be more mindful of humans when she went out on her hunts. She felt goosebumps run up her arm, then - and so she scanned the clearing, trying to figure out where it was coming from. Eastward, she thought, if she let herself concentrate enough. Another benefit of not many people being around was that it was easier to locate. Rolling her shoulders, Athena began to walk in that direction, fingertips ghosting against her hip where one of her many knives sat, under her jacket.

Ally was going to figure out where that goddamned cabin was whether it was the last thing she did. People can’t just be forming towns in the woods. She trudged through the underbrush, something she had done a lot over the past few weeks. Being alone was something that Ally struggled with. She was vulnerable when she was alone, but the hobbies she took under her belt left her alone so often. She tried to shake the thought away and as she did, she realized she wasn’t alone. She heard someone walking parallel to her and she paused, peeking between the trees. Out of the corner of her eye she noticed what looked like a tree move. Again she shook her head, she had been awake for a long time. “Who is there!” she yelled, grasping the gun at her hip, and looking to the spot in the woods where she last heard walking.

She had the option to leave town now, if she really wanted to. Leave and study somewhere else just like she and her brother hadn’t been permitted to do for college. Except she had reasons to stay here - Ariana, for one - and even if she wasn’t bound to her obligations in the same exact way as before, she still had a duty to protect people, and letting fae run amok all over town wasn’t something that would ever sit well with her. Athena continued to make her way through the forest, careful to not step on any branches, or knock over any piles of rocks. She felt her body tense up again - which had to mean she was headed in the right direction. A figure was moving between some trees. That had to be it, didn’t it? She regarded it (always an it, never anything more, when she was hunting - it was important to separate monsters into their own category), though noticed that it was beginning to approach another woman and for a moment she caught her breath, wavering. The other figure was human - or so she thought - but she felt a bit of doubt swirling in her chest. She could take them both out if need be, she told herself - though she would give it a few moments more, see what happened. Athena let her hand slip under her jacket, fingers wrapping around the hilt of her knife. She could at least guess that the fae was possibly a spriggan, at least based on size. That was one thing to go off of, and to watch out for.

Out of the corner of her eye Ally saw a tree move again. Damn, had she really been awake that long? Still she turned, and what she saw took her breath away. A being creeping through the woods. Was she dreaming? Her mind tried to wrap itself around this impossibility, not a vampire, not a person, not an illegal village in the woods. What was it? Before she could catch her breath it was moving toward her, and she leaped back, tripping over a rock and watching her weapon go flying in the other direction. She always joked about keeping her stake on her, and now she really wished she had. She felt a sharp pain in her ankle when she tried to get back up, watching the beast before her approach. “What do you want from me?” she yelled, pushing herself back. She felt hands wrap around her legs, holding her in place. Its eyes were locked on her badge, attached to her jacket.

The other woman was human. Had to be, at this point. Or at least not fae - and if she happened to be something else, Athena would find a way to deal with it. What was most important was helping someone who was being hurt by a fae. That was always what was most important (at least in her mind, at least now) (her parents might well have had other things to say but she didn’t want them to enter her thoughts and mind again - not now - please, not now) and so that was how she would have to deal with it. Get rid of the fae first, figure everything else out later. She watched the woman fall and winced involuntarily, because that had to hurt (did hurt, she knew, recalling a memory from years ago) more than the mats in her family’s training room. Then the fae was on top of the woman and holding her down. If it was hurting her, then Athena knew she had double the reason to go on the offensive. “Stop that!” She called, suddenly, stepping out from her hiding place. The spriggan (it had to be, all signs pointed to that) took little note of her words, instead continuing to hold her down. “Try to push it off!” She called out, taking a few steps closer. “Knee it, or something. See if that works!”

Ally whipped her head around as a girl appeared from the woods. Brave. Braver than she had been in the same situation. Not the time, Ally. She was wriggling under the hands of the creature and felt herself come up with a sarcastic response. Instead she swallowed and gathered all of her strength. With her good leg she gave a strong kick, flinging it back a little bit. That was when it split into two. “What the fuck is happening?” she yelled at the girl who seemed far too calm for the situation at hand. She felt her attention being pulled elsewhere, toward a moss covered log in the distance. Why did she care about a log? She pushed herself to pull her attention back as the two beings lunged toward her again, hands reaching for the glimmer of her badge. She grasped on to a branch, swinging it to swat one hand away, but the other grabbed her arm. “You knee it!” she yelled.

Maybe asking a civilian, even a police civilian to handle this themselves was a stupid idea. Athena knew full well that at least most of the police were far too human - or not human at all. Either way, even if her parents had made certain she (and their family) were in the police department’s good graces, they also reminded her that there were too many things (countless, even) that she knew how to handle that the police simply could not. That she’d been designed to handle since she was a child. “That thi-that creature-being - is attacking you.” She resisted the urge to huff, because that would only distract her - and for once in recent times she actually felt like she had at least a bit of a handle on things. “Which I know is stating the obvious.” The spriggan continued to attack her, and part of Athena wanted to watch in morbid fascination - wondering what exactly it was that was making this one so keen to attack as much as it did, rather than just steal and leave. “I cannot knee it given that it’s closer to you.” She grabbed her knife, finally removing it from its resting place on her hip. “If you give it a kick, I can,” deal with it, “assist. I can also- ” her sentence cut off, she watched as the spriggan made another lunge at the woman, trying to pull at her hair and grinning, its eyes on the badge. Some spriggans kill after they obtain their desired object. She could see the words on the page in front of her, hear her father’s words. “Just- ” she took another few steps forward, the blade of her knife cutting into the fae’s leg, a small, surface-level wound. That was something of a start, though the spriggan hardly seemed to mind it.

Ally was finally locked in, pushing past the surprise of whatever was on grabbing at her. She could deal with the fact that even though she had spent her whole life researching vampires she had never seen a tiny horned one later. What she needed to focus on now was not getting bit and staying alive. She was annoyed by the girl before her, wondering why she wasn’t doing anything. She watched as she cut into the being with her knife and leaned against a tree, pushing it back towards the girl with her legs. A knife would do nothing if this was a vampire, she knew that, but maybe it would run off if it was inconvenienced enough. “The slicing and dicing isn’t really working.” she yelled, using the branch in hand to swing at the creature again as it leaped toward her. “Fuck this.” she exhaled, deciding that if the girl wanted this thing closer to her, she was going to help. “I hope you’re ready to assist!” she called. As it launched itself at her again she jumped at the creature, trying to pin it down. She was back on the ground and she felt it’s hand close in around her badge. “Now would be a good time.” she said, writhing beneath the creature as she felt claws dig into her skin.

The slicing and dicing isn’t how I’d put it, but it will work, I know that much, was what Athena wanted to say, but held her tongue. Even if an adult was behaving in a ridiculous manner, they still deserved respect. Usually - so long as they weren’t vermin of some sort themselves. That was something that she doubted she’d ever fully shake (even if she knew she’d made at least one notable exception) - but it also wasn’t the worst behavior to have - after all, basic politeness did wonders, she’d found. She raised an eyebrow, impressed at the woman’s willingness to jump into action, though she knew that she had only a little time to work with as it jumped at the woman again. Athena ran over, kneeing the creature before it could grab the woman’s badge, watching with an amused smirk across her face as it crashed against a nearby tree. She didn’t have too much time to focus on the precision of her kick, because this spriggan was either particularly aggressive or particularly determined, or some combination of the two. She ran after it, knocking it to the ground and straddling it, holding her knife to its throat, letting the burn of the iron begin before she sliced it open. Except that the spriggan started to reach out towards her necklace - the one Ariana had given her for Valentine’s Day, and with that she sliced into its shoulder. “You know that thievery is illegal, don’t you?” She spat, watching a bit of blood fall to the ground, though it was still very much alive, struggling under her. She looked over to the woman. “How are you? Did it scratch you at all?”

Ally was sure this was how she was going to die. She always knew that it was going to be related to the supernatural in some way. How would they cover it up? What would they tell her dad? She thought of all the dozens of excuses she had given to bereaved parents in the past. She would soon be one of those. Suddenly the weight was lifted off her body, faster than she had time to register. She watched as the woman sat atop the creature, talking to it, as if she knew what it was. Too calm she remembered. When the girl addressed her, Ally snapped out of her shock. She looked at a small tear in her jacket, a scratch across her skin from it’s claw. “I’ll get a bandaid later. You know how to deal with this? I have a stake...” she fumbled, still stuck on the idea that this was a vampire. The world was too small for there to be anything other than vampires. Right? Ally searched the ground for something, anything to help, frustrated by how defenseless she was. She settled on another loose branch, slowly approaching the struggling pair. She watched as the beast lunged for the necklace at the girl’s throat again. “Watch out!” she called. This thing was injured but damn it was determined.

Her parents had always said that she could use her size to her advantage - that being small was of incredible benefit. It had to have been true, after all - her mother was even smaller than she was and she was one of the most powerful - and, if Athena spent too much time thinking about it - terrifying - people that she could think of, and so it had to be. Use everything about you to throw people off your tracks, throw off any would-be suspicion her parents had said so many times that she had lost count. “I’ve got a bandaid and bandages - we just - there’s a few things to deal with, first.” Adjusting her position to ensure that the spriggan didn’t go anywhere, she blinked rapidly a few times. “A stake? I - no. The offer’s really appreciated and good on you for carrying that around but that won’t work for this.” A laugh escaped from the spriggan’s lips and Athena turned back, hitting it across the face. “I really wouldn’t laugh if I were you.” In her momentary distraction she didn’t notice the spriggan reaching for her necklace again. “The heads up is appreciated!” She called out to the woman, returning her knife to the spriggan’s throat, a smirk crossing her lips. Well, she always appreciated having to work for something. Though still rewarding, when fae put up no fight it made everything just a bit less fun. “Things like this rob and steal and can do much worse, if we let them.” She clicked her tongue against her teeth.

Knives, a band-aid, who was this woman? The medic of the forest? Won’t work for this. What is this? It felt like the world was both expanding and collapsing around Ally. There was more to be afraid of, more to protect people against, and more to learn. The wind left her lungs and she slowly took in the information that the woman was offering up. She hadn’t noticed but the stick she was holding had dropped from her hands. The spriggan must have seen the opportunity because it reached out, grabbing a hold of her bad ankle. She let out a scream and kicked at it, her ankle in searing pain. Grabbing a hold of the stick she stabbed at the hand grasped around her ankle. “Let’s not let them, yes?” she expressed, wriggling. She was frustrated she had been caught in its grasp again.

She had to say, if she had to run into any police officer in the woods, this woman seemed to be one of the best options she had. At least she was willing to jump into action and she’d yet to call Athena a kid, which automatically gave her bonus points, even if she was thinking it. Except that the spriggan had at least partially gotten out from under her and was grabbing the woman’s ankle, knocking her onto the ground. “Seriously? You’ve gotta give up sometime, you know.” Athena muttered to the spriggan, cutting into its arm, forcing it to let go of the woman’s ankle. “You know what happens if you misbehave, don’t you?” It continued to move, hissing and screeching as it attempted to grab at the other woman again.

Ally kept struggling and watched as the woman cut the being. As it’s hands slipped from her ankle, her boot caught on to it’s pocket. As she kicked it away, she watched a few small items fall to the forest floor. She didn’t think much of it, but was surprised to see what looked like roots spreading throughout the ground. “Is that normal?” she asked, feeling the earth developing beneath her. As it shook the being seemed to become more distressed, grasping at the ground, theoretically searching for whatever had fallen. The rage of losing the items seemed to send one more surge of strength through it, as it started flailing around. “Can I help? Do we...?” She didn’t want to say the last part of that sentence, because she didn’t like to think about it as killing. As she attempted to rise off the ground she uttered some curses under her breath. She hadn’t really been paying attention to the pain in her ankle but as she moved to stand it was clear that this wasn’t a simple fix.

“Normal’s subjective.” Athena pressed her tongue against the roof of her mouth. The woman deserved at least that much, she figured. She wasn’t about to get into all the ins and outs of everything, but if she had some vague (even if over-generalized and misguided) idea of what vampires were, saying that much wouldn’t do any harm. “I appreciate the offer, but I don’t want this - well, I don’t want you to come to harm, and I’ve - my mom runs - ran a gym in town so I’ve got lots of training.” The spriggan was flailing just enough and Athena moved to kneel by it, toes of her boots digging into the ground as she slit its throat, watching until it stopped thrashing. She couldn’t take any more time to more fully observe it now, though. “It won’t hurt you any more, don’t worry.” Her voice oddly calm, she grabbed a cloth, wiping off the blade as she glanced over to where something had fallen from the spriggan’s pocket.

His blood seeped into the soil along, crying out as he had. Blood had a memory like no other. It carried with it all his grief and his rage, and his desire for the things he could not have, it carried the cold disdain of the one who had spilled it, and the moral struggle of the police officer nearby. A sacrifice had been made, even if it had not been intended. It was a terrible, wonderful first meal. Tiny roots stretched out from the seeds. For a moment, it was quiet. Then, the ground groaned as the roots expanded and grew deep into the foundations of White Crest. With a loud creak, the seeds rushed upwards, saplings only for a second as thick bark wrapped around the body of the spriggan, lifting it up so that for one horrifying moment it was poised upright like a scarecrow before the wood swallowed up his features, and branches began to form around his arms. Still, the tree grew, up, up. The bark reached for Athena too, as the roots tried to grab at Ally. Inside, they could hear the Spriggan’s body squelch as the branches grew up the length of the tree, tearing its arms from the rest of its body, trapped inside. Leaves spread to fill a gap in the canopy which had not been there before. When it was finished, there was one last creak, as if the tree was sighing in relief, and then all was still.

Ally staggered back as the tree sprung from the ground, swallowing up the creature. She watched with wide eyes as it was violently devoured. It had been hell bent on attacking her only moments before, but still she gulped down a feeling of sadness and guilt. There was darkness as its leaves spread throughout and she waited a second for the tree to do something. “Was that part of it? Is this like a thing it does?” she asked, kicking the base of the tree. “Hello?” She looked over at the other girl, waiting for the guidance she seemed to provide.

Athena jumped - just slightly - as a tree rose from the ground and wrapped around the spriggan. For a brief moment, she watched in morbid fascination - it was something that she’d never seen before, and that made it remarkable (and, she noted, a convenient disposal method for the body). Except then the bark reached out for her and she couldn’t help but let the start of a scream escape her lips as she jumped up and away, the other woman’s words drawing her attention. “Not at all.” She made her way over to the tree, knife still in one hand as she ran her fingertips along the bark for a quick moment before bringing her hand away. “I’ve never seen anything like that. But we might not want to be right next to it - in case it tries to go after us again.” She bit her lip.

Ally nodded and took the other woman’s advice, stepping over the roots that had spread throughout the ground. “What have you seen? You knew a lot about...whatever that was.” Ally said, raising a brow. Her eyes glanced to the knife still in her hand. Had she seen too much? She kept a careful distance between herself and the woman with the knives, especially because she didn’t have her weapon with her. “I’ve seen some things but nothing like that. Or this.” she said, peering up to the top of the trees.

“I’ve lived in this town my whole life so… a lot.” Tongue pressed against the roof of her mouth again, Athena wasn’t sure what to say. There were a lot of ways that any phrasing she provided - even the most basic and simplest - could make someone look at her like she had two heads or didn’t know what she was talking about. Could make them use the same terms she and so many others had used for Blanche back in high school - which now left a sour taste in her mouth in more ways than one. “I will say the whole tree thing,” she gestured towards it, “is new. The thing that attacked you, I’m a bit more familiar with.”

“A whole life of this shit does stuff to you.” Ally muttered under her breath, gazing up at the tree. At least she only had vampires to deal with, not weird tree things. That brought her to her next line of questioning. “Are there more...things? Out there?” she asked, her voice shaking slightly. She didn’t know how she would grapple with a world where every person could be a different kind of monster. She would lose her mind. “Also what exactly was that, and why did it want my badge? I can’t imagine weird little monsters care about impersonating a police officer.” She then realized she had forgotten something important. “Thank you, for helping me. That thing was...scary.” she still didn’t trust the woman, but she had saved her from whatever that was.

“I guess it can!” Athena shrugged, over-enthusiastic again. Not willing to delve too deep into whatever the woman might have been implying. She’d dealt with the spriggan and she didn’t want to think too much about why the tree was growing - if she’d managed to mess something else up - again. “I - there’s a lot out there.” She blinked, because part of her duty was to not let super-average-ordinary humans get more of an idea of everything that was out there. That would lead to too many trying to go after things themselves, when they weren’t properly skilled for it. “Some… things… like to steal for the fun of it, but they can do far worse than just steal.” At the ‘thank you’, Athena shrugged. “Of course. It’s - well, it’s what I do. She opened up her bag, pulling out a bandage. “Do you want me to help out with what happened? I’m pre-med, so I know what I’m doing.” She offered her best reassuring smile.

There’s a lot out there. The breath left her body, a feeling of deep despair pouring through her. Was it all true? Was every book she read full of fantastical creatures just a depiction of the world she couldn’t see. She was lost in her thoughts and pulled out by the other woman’s statement. “What you do? Find them? That’s what you do?” That’s what Ally tried to do, albeit mostly unsuccessfully. Maybe this woman was an ally rather than a foe. She hesitated at the offer for help, but she had a pretty deep cut. “Sure. Although I think I’m going to have to get this ankle looked at by someone with a degree.” she said, frowning at the ankle that hurt whenever she put the lightest amount of pressure on it. “My name is Ally, by the way. You are?” She wanted to look into this mysterious woman.

“Yes.” You could say that. That’s one word for it. “Find them, and make certain that they do not hurt others, because some of them are really keen to do so.” Athena made a small face. She hoped she didn’t sound too crazy, too off-putting. She didn’t want that, especially with humans, and especially a human who also happened to be a police officer, regardless of her thoughts or her parents’ thoughts on the effectiveness of the police in town. “I understand - there’s a reason they don’t just let anybody practice medicine.” She scrunched up her nose as she knelt next to the woman and began to bandage her up. “Athena.” She grinned. “Pleasure to meet you, Ally.”

“Is it like...an organization. Are there others?” Ally asked. Maybe she wasn’t as alone as she thought. Maybe there were other people out there driven to make the world better. She watched as Athena bandaged her and suddenly felt grateful that there was at least one. It made the burden feel just a little bit less, like Athena had lifted the weight of the world off of her, even for just a minute. She noticed the clock on her wrist. They had been out here a while, she had to be back at the station soon. “Fun question, do you know how to get out of here?” she said.

“Yes. Sort of, but not a super formal- ” well, formal but not in the way I will explain, “well, not like when I was in Girl Scouts but yes. There’s people around who help out the town and help keep it safe.” Athena let a soft smile cover her lips. “Getting out of here?” She looked up at the forest around them. “I don’t know right off the bat, but I earned every badge there was to earn, and helped my brother earn some of his for Boy Scouts, too.” She stood up, and offered her hand to Ally. “What do you say?”

There were more people. It wasn’t just her. Today she had been devastated and uplifted. It was too soon today that she wanted to know them, but she slid the knowledge to the back of her mind. She needed to do what she always does. Research. Instead she took Athena’s hand and smiled. “Take me away girl scout.”

#wickedswriting #c ally #chatzy #bury it #:------)#physical abuse mention #emotional abuse mention #// serena was so wonderful to write with and i love ally #also the other writer who did a Thing in this is an absolute delight #:)

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mooncruiser · 4 years ago

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Heyy!! I’ve been meaning to pin my testimony, so here it is :)

So, my life wasn’t really the greatest growing up. I mention C-PTSD in my bio, and that’s what I’ll get into a bit. I’ll try not to be too graphic, but I can’t guarantee it’ll be totally safe.

There were some questionable things in my toddler years, a neglectful daycare center for 3 months, my dad being in and out of my life due to fear of getting attached at first, him flying off the handle once with me (my mom got on him for it, so it never happened again) but I think the trauma started with my cousins leaving me stuck out in a baby swing twice, a near death experience with a dog bite, and a homicidal attempt on me and my mom by my sister, who was 16 at the time (I’m 5 years old).

There was also the dog cage incident I believe at…6 years old? Me and my brother were playing and he forgot me on accident. I pretty much accepted at this point that life was gonna chain me up and try to kill me lol, but it let up for a good while, and I had a pretty decent childhood. At 9 years old, there was the torturously loud school program in the gym I had to sit through for 2 hours, I think.

It was at 10 when things became chronically ongoing. Domestic violence at home from my sister (physical, emotional abuse on me and my family), more physical and emotional abuse at school from my assistant teacher because I was on an IEP for my autism. At 11, I was sexually abused by my female friend who was 12, and her female cousin, who was 13. I was abandoned by my cousins and aunt, and I was being placed in a seclusion room at school during standardized tests (which was sensory deprived solitary confinement) even after I was finished for the day. At 12 years old, I started being emotionally neglected by my mother.

I mean, I was so angry and depressed and secretly suicidal at 10, but by 12 I was severely dissociating (I had been dissociating during trauma at various times prior). I had so much fear and anxiety that by the time I was 13 I’d be feeling like passing out 24/7, so I got on meds, which only helped the more severe physical symptoms, I guess.

At 13, I started being groomed by this high school girl that liked me. She was a Sophomore, and I was in 7th grade. She noticed the neglect and told me she knew me better. She would give me gifts, teach me to ship gay pairings, gave me a gay pedophilic manga. Shamelessly told me she had sexual relations with her male cousin and his friends who were around my age. I blocked it out.

I also had a very abusive friendship with a girl online who had BPD. My assistant teacher, who came with me to middle school, restrained and tortured me with the marching band’s loud music in the hallway, which only intensified my dissociative symptoms (I was actually switching alters at this point regularly and having no idea).

I remember at 13 being confused about my gender and sexuality. My mom was no help and just wanted me to hide it from my family and everyone else, for reputation purposes and she didn’t want me bullied. That was actually how I decided to get in contact with my grooming abuser, which I wonder at this point whether that was my fault. I didn’t expect her to really take over like she did, but I was essentially brainwashed into accepting whatever I was feeling for her benefit. I just wanted advice and a friend.

I was so lonely, I had been desperate for friends for years, and I was desperate for someone to love me in any way, honestly. I was overeating. I’d spend hours daydreaming, in video games or entertainment to escape from school and everything else. During meltdowns, I’d be doing self injurious behaviors.

So by 14, I come out as a lesbian. Had a couple relationships with girls who just saw me as a sexual object (I remember saying yes to sexual things even though I didn’t want to, just so that they wouldn’t abandon me. Dissociating off and finding it disgusting), would cheat on me with multiple people, ignore me for new friends, etc.

The BPD friend I dated, when I broke up with her, immediately attempted suicide so that scarred me more into our trauma bond. She’d show me self harm pics she took from time to time. It scared me into making sure I didn’t trigger her again, but u know I never knew what triggered her in the first place, so, like with everything else, I had no strategy to life. It was either fight, run, dissociate or nod yes to everything. She took up the latter lol.

I came out as trans my Freshman year, and stayed that way into my Sophomore year. I was bitter about dating because of the whole sexual object thing, and full of shame at the same time, thinking no one would want me. I thought I was asexual. I tried out a career high school honestly just to get away from the memories of my old school.

Some feelings about being trans started to fade, but not entirely, so I went by genderfluid/genderqueer from 17-19. I was excited to make new friends at my new school, but my anxiety kept me from it. I opened up very awkwardly about my dating history to one girl (which tbh I shouldn’t have, but I had been brainwashed so lol) and she told all the girls in my lab, and I was excluded and bullied (and cyberbullied) from thereon.

I didn’t know it at first, it was so subtle. But once I knew, I tried standing up for myself and told the principal, which made them leave me alone for the most part. They’d glare at me, use me at graduation, cyberbully me one last time 8 months after graduation, and that was it. I still had to deal with domestic violence until I was 22, but once I graduated everything pretty much hit me.

I knew I’d be too stressed out to go to college or work. School indoctrination tried to teach me to be neurotypical and expect this, but it wasn’t happening. I was too afraid to leave my house for a year, and too afraid to be honest online for fear of being watched and bullied, or stalked. I was seriously considering suicide down the line. I thought I had nothing left to live for. I was useless. Nobody cared. Friends moved on to their new lives and I was dying.

That’s when Jesus stepped in.

I guess I started being curious about God again for the first time since I was 12. I always believed in God, was grateful to Him for being there for me during the domestic violence and never blamed Him for it. I found out about worship music and was thrilled, and a question came up. Was being gay a sin? My grooming abuser taught me that God made me gay, so it was alright. But I wanted to know for sure this time from the Word.

To my surprise, she was wrong. The Bible said it was indeed, a sin (the practice, not so much the identity aspect). I couldn’t piece together why, so I struggled with it for months. On my 20th birthday however, when I got done creating fanart of a gay pairing, I felt strongly convicted by the Holy Spirit that it was wrong. So I went to God.

I said, “If it is wrong, please change me so I can make You happy, because I love You. In the meantime, I won’t do anything in support of it for a while. If it’s not wrong, don’t change me, and I’ll know which way is right because I trust You.” When I look back on it, it was a pretty crazy prayer. Lots of people have said they couldn’t “pray the gay away”, and I do wonder what the difference was with me.

After 3 months, I stopped to check if I still felt anything, and the feelings were gone. My gender dysphoria was gone, too. I was way too afraid to tell anybody yet, but I remember when I did, one of the first people I told was my grooming abuser.

She was livid, tried one last time to intimidate me. Another time we crossed paths (she came out of nowhere saying hi, said she worked at that market, complimented me and walked away smiling) and I was triggered, I messaged her and told her how she hurt me and I couldn’t bear to be around her anymore, but I hoped she’d have a good life. She didn’t respond online, but she complained to my sister that I thought she was a predator, and by the end of the conversation tries to get her to tell me she said hi. When she had kids, she was planning on raising them to be nonbinary. Her husband was abusive to them, so she ended up losing them. She never bugged me again.

I was blown away by how God had changed me. How He opened my eyes to the truth. I prayed for Him to open my eyes to whatever else I had been blind to, and He slowly began lifting off the amnesia surrounding all my traumas, urging me towards recovery with Him. I realized I might have OSDD-1b recently as well, which is strange that I could have possibly had DID prior to losing my amnesia?

I have been on this journey ever since, journaling, blogging, researching, and finally in a wonderful therapy called EMDR where I truly release the traumas from my body, hear God’s new positive beliefs to replace old negative ones from my childhood, and experience loving extraordinary visions while processing that teach me to focus on Jesus, trust Him more, love and pray for my enemies, and have a real satisfying relationship with Him that’s unattainable with anyone on Earth, along with daily Bible study.

The picture on the left was me at 16 in my old life, the one on the right is me in my new creation :) God bless all of you, thank you for reading this far 💕💖

#testimony #long post

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kumeko · 4 years ago

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A/N: For the ‘A Lost Ballroom of Gold’ fe3h rarepair zine! I got partnered with the amazing MadamPringle who made the most BEAUTIFUL PIECE to go with this. It’s a masterpiece. Go look at it.

Summary: Lysithea sighed as she stood in the empty ballroom. Once more, her illness had kept her from actually staying for the full thing. Once more, she’d had to retire early. Luckily, Lorenz knew just how to make her feel better. He had saved the last dance for her, after all.

…

The ballroom was quiet. Lysithea stood stock still in the hallway, listening to the quiet murmurs of the servers, the clatter of dishes, the soft strumming of instruments. All of which she’d expected, but there weren’t any of the other accompanying sounds. No matter how hard she strained her ears, she couldn’t hear the swishing of a hundred ball-gowns, the rhythmic steps of dancers, or the gossiping nobles. Especially the gossiping nobles. Their voices were impossible to ignore, no matter how many doors she’d closed and how deep in her blankets she buried herself.

They’d all been present hours ago, when she’d taken leave for a short rest. Lorenz had kissed her cheek, telling her to go, that it was fine that she had once again had abandoned him to the wolves. It was his territory, after all, and he was as fluent in their meaningless buzzing as she was with her research.

What she had intended to be only a short, ten minutes nap had clearly ended up much longer. The guests had left. It was the only reasonable explanation. Lysithea glanced at the mask dangling off her right hand, its purple ribbons brushing against her silken dress. There was no point in putting it back on if no one was still around.

Sighing, she quietly trotted toward the central staircase. Despite Hilda’s many, many lessons, she still couldn’t move as gracefully as she wanted, and maybe it was a good thing the ball was over. Her dancing was lacking in many places and while Lorenz insisted he found it charming, she knew the rumours that ran amok every time she went out in public.

If it were directed at her, she wouldn’t mind, but at him…

Lysithea snorted. She’d grown soft in the past few years. To think there’d be a day when she actually cared what the nobility thought.

As she descended the staircase, the view before her confirmed what she’d already known. Most of the small tables were gone now, stored away until the next ball. The long table filled with tasty morsels and sugary sweets was empty, the butlers carefully folding its lilac cloth.

Only the musicians were still seated on the stage, their instruments out as they softly played a ballad. No doubt they were waiting for their payment before packing up. Maybe she could handle that, if only to make up for everything else Lorenz had covered in her stead.

Quietly, she crossed the ballroom and headed toward the balcony. A cool breeze hit her bare arms soon as she stepped out and despite herself, she shivered. It was a mild relief after weeks of summer heat, and she rubbed her arms as she moved toward the railing. The Gloucester lands sprawled before her. When she’d first arrived, she’d found the castle lands too expansive.

They still were, but she felt more fond than annoyed when she took in the candle-lit gardens. A little further out, she could just make out the lanterns of carriages as their guests travelled home, like small fireflies flitting in the dark. Leaning against the railing, she rested her chin on her clasped hands she watched the steady stream.

A silken cloth landed on her shoulders, disturbing her musing. Lysithea looked up to find Lorenz smiling tenderly down at her. For once his hair didn’t block her view of his face, all pinned up and back as it were. However, he still wore his mask, though the delicate velvet couldn’t hide the emotions shining through his eyes. “Cold, my love?”

“No,” she mumbled, feeling hot under his stare. No matter how often he used pet names and showed his affection, she wasn’t sure if she could ever get used to it. Her ears burned from something as simple as this; it was a good thing no one else was around. Lysithea drew the coat around her tighter anyways, breathing in the rose-water scent that penetrated all of his clothes. “But thanks.”

“Say nothing of it.” His smile grew wider. It was ridiculously easy to make him happy. “Are you feeling better now?”

“Much,” she reluctantly admitted. When he wrapped an arm around her shoulder, pulling her close, she leaned into him. They were alone, she could allow herself this weakness. “I needed the rest. I’m sorry I had to leave you like that.”

“There is no need for apologies.” Lorenz pressed a chaste kiss on her head and she shivered at the touch, at the memories of other, more heated kisses. “Besides, that was as much for me as it was for you. I am just glad that you have recovered.”

There he went again, shrugging off this as though this was nothing, as though this had only happened tonight and not on a regular basis. For all of his fancy words and lofty ideals, he was surprisingly humble when it came to matters like these. Irritated, Lysithea bit her cheek as she looked up at him. “Lorenz.”

“Yes, love?” He smiled innocently at her.

It was hard, sometimes, to argue with him when he looked at her like that: full of adoration, as though her company was all that he needed. It left her feeling unsettled, as though her heart was too full. She had to look over his shoulder to keep talking. “It’s not just tonight. I’ve left you alone at these functions more often than not. I’m…” Lysithea sighed. Removing her second crest wasn’t exactly what she’d thought it’d be—some days, she felt even frailer than she had before the operation. “I thought I’d be stronger by now.”

“Nonsense.” Despite his stern tone, his expression was still one of warmth. “You are one of the strongest people I know. You have argued with diplomats and nobles without backing down. There is nothing wrong with needing a break. It is healthy.”

Healthy.

She should ignore that part of the sentence, focus on his praise instead. It was a warm, summer night, they’d just had a ball, and there was no need to drag in an inconsequential matter. Yet, all she could hear were the echoes of past arguments, all she could see were the nights he spent burning the midnight oil.

There was a reason Lysithea never worked on the more delicate aspects of diplomacy.

“Healthy? You want to talk to me about healthy?” Turning in his arms, she reached up to tug the ribbons holding his mask up, careful to avoid the pins keeping his hair together. This was a serious discussion and she needed to see him properly.

As the mask fell in her hands, he stared at her blankly. His ears were pink from where her hands brushed them. “Lysithea?” Lorenz asked, bemused.

That was much better. She could see his expressions more clearly now. Pulling out of his grasp, she crossed her arms and frowned. “How long did you spend organizing this ball?”

Lorenz’s smile dropped a notch, his expression forlorn as he awkwardly dropped his hands. “That…I spent as long as was needed.”

“And how many nights did you crawl into bed after midnight?” She scowled as he tried to sidestep the issue. “That is not healthy.”

Lorenz’s brow knit as he finally started treating this seriously. “If that is the case, then I must insist you do not spend your nights in the library. You will strain your eyes if you continue to read by candlelight.”

“What?” Lysithea gaped, her jaw dropping. Perhaps it was a good thing that even the staff were gone by now: she didn’t have to worry about lowering her voice. “You are the one with a secret pair of spectacles.”

“That…” Lorenz flinched, his eyes wide with surprise. “Ignatz.”

“Doesn’t matter who told me.” She rested her hands on her hips. “You spend too much time on your paperwork—don’t think I haven’t noticed the bags under your eyes. You don’t even sleep some days!”

“When you were sick, you still insisted on reading over my policies.” he pointed out, his normally placid voice rising to match hers. “Despite the doctor’s orders—”

Lorenz cut himself off, looking away. She cocked her head, not sure how to respond. “Lorenz?”

After a moment, he chuckled, brushing back a stray hair. His cheeks were a soft red as he quietly admitted, “It’s amazing how much more I can love you, Lysithea.”

Immediately, she flushed, her mouth opening and closing like a goldfish’s. She would never understand how he was able to say those things so easily, the words just rolling off his tongue like a pleasantry. Pressing her cold hands against her cheek in a futile attempt to fight her blush, she squeaked, “What does that have to do with anything?”

God, it was hard to sound dignified when her body refused to cooperate. Her skin burned as she covered her mouth, humiliated.

“Everything.” His eyes crinkled as he laughed, gently prying her hand off her mouth. “Look at us, arguing about each other’s safety. Neither of us listening to our own advice.”

“That’s…” Lysithea stared at his fingers, unable to refute his point. They were both as stubborn as it came, ignoring their own follies for the other’s. “Do as I say, not as I do? When you put it like that…I guess it’s no wonder we keep having this same argument over and over.”

Lorenz nodded, his shoulders still shaking with amusement. “We are a pair of hypocrites.”

“I wouldn’t go that far…but, yes.” She sighed. They’d gone far off track from what she’d wanted to say in the first place. Gently, she interlaced their fingers, ignoring his sharp intake of breath at the action. A shudder ran up his arm and her eyes followed it up till she was looking at his bright red face. “I wasn’t planning to argue tonight. Like I was saying before, thank you.”

Lorenz swallowed, his Adam’s apple bobbing as the blush spread down his neck. She was glad he reacted as badly as she did to physical affection; unlike with his silver tongue, it felt like they had even-footing here.

“Whatever the reason, I keep leaving you alone for these balls. As silly as they are, I don’t mind them that much when you’re there,” Lysithea explained honestly, squeezing his hand. She kept her eyes trained on his. “I know how useful these are politically…one day…I’ll help you with them.”

“Lysithea…” Lorenz’s smile was smaller now, but it felt more real too. “I…”

It was suddenly too much—his expression, her words, everything. God, had she really said all that? Embarrassed, she let go and stepped back. “Well…” She cleared her throat. “We should pay the musicians and let them go.”

As she turned around, Lorenz’s hand wrapped around her wrist, tugging her to a stop. Still too mortified to look at him, she mumbled, “What?”

“There’s one last thing I need them to do before they leave,” Lorenz replied.

“One more?” Confused, she looked up at him. His mask was back on now—when had he taken that back?

“Yes.” He let go of her wrist. Bowing forward slightly, he held out a hand. “I did promise you the last dance, remember?”

“But—everyone’s gone,” she replied incredulously.

“Then it’s a private dance.” He reached up, tenderly tugging one of her locks free, curling it loosely around a finger. She breathed in sharply as he pulled it to his lips, pressing a kiss to her white strands. Lorenz asked once more, “Shall we, my love?”

Heart in her throat, she shyly nodded. When he held up her mask, she turned around, closing her eyes as he pressed the soft fabric to her face and gently tied it in place. Her skirt twirled as she turned around and took his hand. “I’ll try not to step on your foot,” she mumbled as he directed them back into the ballroom.

“I do not mind if you do,” he replied easily, signalling to the musicians to start playing a slow waltz. His right hand slid around her waist, pressing her close as they swayed through the hall. “I love how you dance. It’s charming.”

“It’s not,” she hotly retorted, resisting the urge to hide and bury her face in his chest. It was only the two of them now, the floor cleared of everyone and everything else. Candles lit the hall, bathing them in a warm gold as they stepped in and out of the candelabras’ and chandeliers’ glow.

In his arms, she felt oddly graceful as he guided her through the steps. The entire time, he kept a confident grip on her hand, never letting it go for more than a second as she pivoted around him. As they stepped in and out of shadows, spinning further and further away from the musicians, the moon was their only witness. For once, there were no guests watching. For once, the staff wasn’t in the room. It was just the two of them. She hadn’t felt this relaxed since their school days or when he’d first courted her formally.

It was an excuse, but Lysithea had always needed pretext for embarrassing actions, no matter how much she wanted them. Gathering her courage, she tightened her grip on his hand. Lorenz glanced at her curiously but didn’t say anything. As they stepped into the shadows, she reached up, hooking a delicate hand around his neck and pulling him down. He gasped, lips parting in surprise, and she leaned forward, kissing him softly.

He tasted like sunlight, like an ever-present warmth. Reluctantly, she pulled away as they automatically stepped into the light.

“Lysithea…” Flustered, Lorenz stepped on her toes.

Before he could apologize, Lysithea giggled. “You’re right, that is charming.”

#fe3h #lysithea von ordelia #lorenz hellman gloucester #lyslor #lorenz x lysithea #fire emblem three houses #fanfic

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