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sellyoursoulforagoodfic · 4 years ago

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Fire and Darkness Chapter 7

The Darkling x reader

Word Count: 1181

Summary: Moving into position . . .

He’d done it. The crazy son of a bitch (for real, considering what you remembered about Baghra) had actually managed to convince the King of Ravka to create a secondary army of Grisha, ‘creatively’ named the Second Army. It’d taken time to gather enough money to dress like something other than refugees and maneuver yourselves into the ideal position to be invited into the king’s presence, but the pair of you had managed it. Both of you tried not to linger on the fact that neither one of you seemed to be aging; that was a problem for later, after everything was settled.

Success aside, you did not like being separated from him for as long as you had been recently. He’d left you--albeit unwillingly--in a town near to Os Alta to wait for him to be able to bring you in. Months, it’d been, but you weren’t exactly sure how many. The days all ran together as you toiled them away helping a local baker.

Then the signal came, in the form of said baker offhand mentioning, “Lass, they’ve opened up a position at that new grisha place they’ve been buildin’--oh, what’re they calling it? Right, the Little Palace.”

“A position doing what, exactly?” you asked casually. “And why should I care? Someone’s got to keep you on your toes,” you teased as a way to hide the way your hands were now shaking as your heartrate picked up.

The man chuckled. “Apparently that new general of theirs, Kirigan, I think, needs a housekeeper.”

“And they’re not just bringing in other grisha to do it?” You were careful to keep your tone neutral.

“From what they’re saying, he won’t have it. My best guess is he wants someone without magic cleaning his rooms.”

You bit your tongue to silence the argument that grisha abilities weren’t magic. “And you think I should go for it?”

“Aye,” he nodded. “It’s an in at the palace, and it’ll open up all sorts of doors for you in the future. This could be your chance to get out of this place.”

It was sweet that he cared, but you argued against it anyway to keep up appearances. “They’ll never hire me even if I do go for it,” you murmured, eyes returning to the dough you’d been kneading. “There are a million people with better qualifications.”

“They’re saying he’s turned down a hundred people already for one reason or another. And I already signed you up to try.”

“What--”

“Interview’s tomorrow just after dawn.” He winked. “You can thank me later. Now go rest so you’ll wake up on time.”

You already had the job, and you knew it. Aleksander would never hire anyone but you to reside so close to him, especially in his chambers, but why wouldn’t your heart get with the program? It felt like it would beat out of your chest as you were escorted to a large ballroom of the Little Palace; you were honestly worried that one of the various healers around would start asking questions.

That racing heartbeat only worsened when you laid eyes on him for the first time since this ploy began. He looked as beautiful as ever, but it was enhanced by the intricately embroidered black kefta he was wearing. There was amusement in those grey eyes as they landed on you, seemingly laughing at a joke that only the two of you were in on.

“And who is this?” his voice carried throughout the room, immediately silencing the murmurs of the other grisha around you. In that silence, you could suddenly hear the sounds of children laughing filtering in through some open door in the wings. The children, you realized, the first children that would be trained here in safety instead of hunted.

“The newest applicant for the housekeeper position, General,” said one of the black-clad guards that’d escorted you.

“Interesting,” he replied as he stalked closer. “Maid,” you jumped in surprise at the address, hating it but understanding why he had to project this air of superiority over you, “what are your thoughts on this new army of grisha.”

You raised a brow. Okay, you hadn’t expected that. Best keep it realistic so I don’t slip later. “As long as you keep the wolves off our doorstep, I don’t give a rat’s ass if you can control the way your farts blow.”

You could see the struggle Aleksander went through to keep from laughing. “And your opinions on me, specifically?”

“I don’t care who you are as long as you pay me on time.”

“A dangerous attitude for a housekeeper to have,” he was smirking. “One might think you could be bribed by the highest bidder.”

“Then you’ll just have to make sure that you’re the highest bidder,” you couldn’t help but jab, “but I know better than to accept that kind of temptation. It always seems sweet at first, but I’d like to live long enough to spend my money.”

The General’s eyes flicked over to the healer closest to you. “Is she lying?”

“No, sir.”

“Then you’re hired.” Several mumbles of surprise raced around the room, seemingly shocked that he was finally accepting someone. Aleksander leaned closer so that he was looming over you a bit. “Let’s see if you can keep that pretty head of yours.”

You were escorted to his suite and quickly shown to the tiny little room to the side of the entrance hallway that would be yours. As if you’d actually be sleeping there. Part of you wondered how long it would take for rumors of a more physical relationship between you and the newly-named Darkling to start circling. The rest of you was busy being torn between enjoying the fact that you finally had a place to call your own and hating the shabby-looking appearance of that very place.

Those thoughts were thrown aside when your lover finally came bursting in the room, instantly cupping your face in his hands and leaning down to kiss you soundly. You of course offered no complaints after all this time away from him. No, instead, your hands found themselves pulling at the buttons that fastened that kefta closed and kept his body hidden from you.

It was several minutes of near-violent kissing, nipping, and sucking later when he finally pulled back enough to talk. “We are never staying apart that long again, do you hear me?”

For a moment, you were too entranced by his kiss-swollen lips to formulate a reply, but then your senses returned, albeit barely. “Or you’ll take off my pretty little head?” you teased.

He snorted a little laugh. “No, but I have half a mind . . .” he trailed off for a moment. “No, my mind is made up. You’re coming with me.”

You yelped as you found yourself thrown over his shoulder to be carried elsewhere. “Sasha, what are you doing?!”

“I thought it was obvious?” You could hear the smirk in his voice. “I’m bringing you to our bed and not letting you out for at least the rest of the night.”

#the darkling x reader #the darkling imagine #reader insert #general kirigan x reader #general kirigan imagine #aleksander morozova x reader #aleksander morozova imagine #shadow and bone imagine #inferni au

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mearcatsreturns · 4 years ago

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Okay, so you KNOW I'm now inevitably forced to ask for the actual fic prompt of Ivan trying to give his boss romantic advice, casual-like. (No need to confine yourself to 100 words. I mean what.)

I thought I could just write a thousand words of jokes, but then all these fools came and had the audacity to put feelings up in here. *Ivan voice* Disgusting.

Initially I was going to have this all as one chapter, but it was getting crazy long and I wanted to publish it tonight, so you get chapter 1 of 2, with the rest to follow in the next day or two.

Without further ado, Ivan, Interrupted:

Looking back, he should have seen the signs. The Sun Summoner is trouble and has been from day one.

He called that one, at least.

It’s not his fault. How is he supposed to recognize the stupidity of heterosexuals? He and Fedyor fell in love as young teens and haven’t parted in anger since. They look out for each other and try to spoil each other in all the small ways the other enjoys.

The General and Alina Starkov are a different story.

&&&

Ivan is there when the oprichniki drag Alina into General Kirigan’s tent in Kribirsk. She looks all for the world like the otkazat’sya he’s fought near the border of Shu Han. He can’t hold it against her, though; he knows better than anyone that appearances can deceive.

What he can hold against her is her denial. Even after twice showing that she can indeed summon sunlight, the little fool somehow believes she’s not Grisha. General Kirigan, a human amplifier and probably the most powerful Grisha on the planet, touches her and confirms it, and she still clings to her past. Ivan can’t understand why someone would want to deny something so intrinsic.

More worryingly, he sees his commander’s face as he tries to figure out the Starkov girl. It’s not a look he’s ever seen on Kirigan’s face, and it fills him with dread. The bemusement at her reply to his questioning about what she is turns to something...joyous and darkly yearning, in the General’s understated way.

People consider Ivan stoic and difficult to read, but he learned from the best, and his boss is the best.

Ivan is very discomfited to see Kirigan showing signs of experiencing emotions.

&&&

His unease only grows when Kirigan commands him and Fedyor to escort the Sun Summoner to Os Alta.

“Ivan, I need you and Fedyor to accompany Miss Starkov to the Little Palace. Make haste, and use all your formidable talents to keep harm from coming to her.”

“But the mission to West Ravka—”

“Will have to wait. Everyone in a twenty-mile radius saw her light show, and that may well include some of Ravka’s enemies. She—this—is more important than anybody knows. Keep her safe, and I’ll keep you and Fedyor off the front lines for six months.”

Ivan clears his throat.

“Yes?” Kirigan asks with a lift of his brow.

“Will you be staying, or do you need me to send word ahead that you’ll be arriving as well, sir?”

The General’s face smooths into its usual mask of power and calm. “No, I imagine I may well arrive before you all, as you’ll be taking my carriage.”

“As you say, General.”

Kirigan dismisses him, and he stomps off to find Fedyor so they can leave posthaste.

Ivan’s exasperation only grows when the Starkov tries, of all things, to stay and find some tracker friend of hers, tries to deny who she is. She even questions the General’s judgment, something not even Ivan dares to do.

(Privately, he agrees that this whole endeavor is a mistake. Alina Starkov is trouble, and he has an uncomfortable feeling that all their lives are about to change in ways no one can predict).

He hauls her into the carriage, plopping her on the seat across from the one he shares with Fedyor. Perhaps one of them ought to sit next to her to make sure she doesn’t get into any further foolishness, but Ivan’s crabby enough he wants to sit next to his husband.

Once they get out of Kribirsk and on the Vy, she settles down a bit, but she radiates nervous energy and it puts him on edge.

Fedyor, bless him, does his best to put the Sun Summoner at ease. But she’s resentful and afraid, and it irritates Ivan. He knows he should try to be understanding, but with all the fear and resentment he’s put up with from the otkazat’sya—his own family, even—he struggles to find the patience to explain why she should trust in the General and the Grisha. Nonetheless, he tries to soothe her the only way he knows how: by reminding her of the power she now holds.

Ivan’s thoughts drift to what might await them all in Os Alta, but his ruminations are interrupted by the shouts of the oprichniki warning them of a blockage in the road.

The dread he was feeling dissipates in the face of the familiar. He’s ready to fight against an ambush by Ravka’s enemies. He’s not ready to confront the existential questions Alina Starkov brings.

And fighting side-by-side with Fedyor never grows old. His blood sings, his heart pounds with the fierce excitement of a fight with his beloved at his side.

The fucking Fjerdans. Ivan hates the drüskelle for their hatred of the Grisha, and that fire burns hotter when Fedyor is hit in the leg. Fear twists in his belly as he examines Fedyor’s wound, though he claims it’s fine. Ivan, the most feared heartrender in Ravka, can’t concentrate enough to tell how many their enemies number, so he delegates it to Katya. He remembers the Summoner in the carriage, and issues a command for one of the other Grisha to protect her, but the screams fade into the background of his mind as he does his best to heal Fedyor.

Then he senses the shadows that accompany Kirigan—the reason the people mutter in fear, call him the Darkling—and the Fjerdans melt back into the wood. Shame mixes with his fear for Fedyor, and Ivan swears to himself when, after a few moments he hears the General speak to one of the Etherealki who’ve made it back to the carriage.

“Tend to the wounded. Then tell Ivan to make sure everyone gets back to Little Palace as quickly as possible and report to me. I’ll be waiting.”

“Yes, sir.”

Shit. He had one job, and she’s now riding off in the General’s arms.

Alina Starkov is definitely trouble.

&&&

They finally arrive back at the Little Palace late that night. Once everyone, the Grisha and the horses, are all seen to, Ivan makes his way to General Kirigan’s rooms. The oprichniki guarding the door nod at him and make way for him to knock. The General calls out in that even tone of his for Ivan to enter. He does so, anxiety and defiance mixing in his chest.

Nonetheless, Ivan is deferential. “Sir.”

Those dark eyes sweep over him from head to toe, and where there’s normally amusement or quiet affability, he’s unreadable as he is when meeting with the tsar and tsaritsa. “I see you’ve made it back. Are you well?”

“Yes, sir.” Ivan begins to sweat under the woollen collar of his kefta.

“And Fedyor?”

“Much better. He’s recovering.”

“Good,” the General says, pausing for a long, uncomfortable moment before continuing, “now, perhaps you could explain why you disregarded my clear, express orders to guard Alina.”

Alina, he notes. Not “Miss Starkov” or “the Sun Summoner.”

Ivan’s jaw tenses. “My apologies, moi soverennyi. Fedyor was shot while we were attempting to protect the carriage. I thought we’d be better able to protect her with both our powers.”

The Darkling—for that’s who he is at this moment—turns to face the windows. It’s black as pitch outside, but it wouldn’t surprise Ivan if Kirigan could see through the shadows of the night. “I don’t want excuses, Ivan. Had I not been nearby, Alina would have been lost, and Ravka would have lost its greatest hope in centuries.”

Ivan waits, knowing there’s little he can say.

Kirigan turns back. “See that it doesn’t happen again, or I will see to it that you and Fedyor are put on different assignments for the foreseeable future.”

Anger rises in his throat, but Ivan stomps it down. It will do him no favors to argue. The only thing he can do is go to bed, hold Fedyor close, and hope things settle soon. “Yes, General.”

&&&

The next day, a contingent of the Grisha accompany General Kirigan and Alina to the Big Palace. Ivan is used to walking by the General’s side, but Alina is there instead. With Fedyor still recovering in their rooms under the care of the healers, Ivan is alone, distant from the group. He feels a pang of melancholy so fierce it threatens to overwhelm him.

The Sun Summoner looks much better today than she had when he last saw her, and it seems Kirigan thinks so too. After he greets the King and Queen, he can hardly take his eyes off the girl, that same awed, wondering look in his eyes again.

Through the shadows his boss conjures, Ivan sees the way he looks at her, the way he leans over to whisper in his ear, the gesture nearly a caress. The Summoner lights up the darkness, and Ivan can’t take his eyes off the two of them. Alina Starkov smiles at Kirigan, and instead of the polite, unknowable smile he’d normally return to a courtier or even one of his rare mistresses, Kirigan looks back at her like she’s his every dream come true.

After the display is over, the King tries to bumble his way through negotiating over Alina’s training. And in front of the entire court and a good number of the Grisha,the General claims Alina. She will stay in the Little Palace with him, Kirigan states, his tone brooking no argument, not even from the sovereign ruler of Ravka.

Kirigan takes Alina’s hand and leads her away from the throne, and the two pause to speak in quiet tones. Ivan can’t hear them, but Alina’s eyes glow with admiration and the General is looking back at her with...warmth.

It’s not right, Ivan thinks, even as the General departs and the Grisha welcome Alina. This situation is getting more and more troublesome.

&&&

When Ivan arrives back in their room, he’s relieved to see Fedyor awake, though he’s lying in bed with a book. Fedyor sets the book on the bedside table and smiles at him, and Ivan feels some of the tension in his shoulders melt away.

“Why so grumpy, my love?”

“Not grumpy, Fedya. Worried.” He takes off his boots, middle of the day be damned, and climbs into the bed next to his husband.

Fedyor opens his arms, and Ivan goes to him, snuggling in and leaning his head against his shoulder. “About what, Vanya?”

He shrugs as best as he can while in his favorite person’s embrace. “The Sun Summoner is dangerous.”

“So are all of us Grisha, and even the otkazat’sya with training.”

“Not like that. I mean...I-I think General Kirigan has feelings.”

Fedyor had been running his hand through Ivan’s hair, but he pauses. “In general? Or for Alina?”

“For Alina. Fedyor, it was very strange. He looked warm and like he wanted to kiss her, in front of all those people. And then he held her hand.” The Darkling has had lovers, and Ivan is very aware of this, but he’s never seen him act this way around any of them.

With a huff that might be a laugh, Fedyor says, “He deserves a chance at love, too, especially after he’s been so good to us. He tried to help us when we were younger and more foolish.”

That’s true; Kirigan has been nothing but supportive of them when not everyone else has. He even tried to advise Ivan when he was sorting out his feelings for Fedya more than a decade ago. It hadn’t been good advice, but an attempt had been made, at least.

“He seems...lonely,” Fedyor continues.

Ivan nods. “There is no one like him, no one at his level, so who could stand beside him?”

“Maybe Alina.”

Fedyor seems to like the girl, but Ivan isn’t convinced. Is she strong enough to stand next to their leader who has done so much for not just the Grisha, but for Ivan and his beloved?

&&&

The next day, Ivan joins the rest of the Grisha for dinner. Kirigan is off doing something statecrafty and Ivan has the place of honor at his boss’ right hand, so he is ostensibly in charge of the gathering in the General’s absence.

Except he knows Alina was given the choice to sit in Kirigan’s seat in his absence, or to sit at his side were he here. Instead, the girl chose to sit with the other Etherealki. She’s there laughing with Marie and Nadia, indulging in this opulent meal provided for the Sun Summoner, because apparently their usual hearty peasant fare wasn’t good enough.

Resentment curdles in his stomach as he reads out the casualty list, staring down Alina the entire time. She looks stricken, but her concern seems to be more for the otkazat’sya than her fellow Grisha.

Something in him snaps. “Why are you here eating figs? Hmm? You should be training every waking moment to tear down the Fold.”

But when he sees her face, hurt and downcast, he feels a pang of regret for how he handled this.

Kirigan will not be pleased.

&&&

It turns out that Fedyor isn’t pleased either. He had accompanied the General to the dinner he’d gone to, as Fedyor is far more diplomatic than most of the senior Grisha. It’s because of that diplomacy and open friendliness that it takes him less than three hours to hear about Ivan’s outburst.

Ivan is sitting in his chair in front of the fire, doing his best to wind down after the day. Fedyor enters the room, closing the door behind him.

“How was dinner and politics?”

Fedyor scowls at him, and his heart sinks. “Don’t try to be cute and solicitous. I heard about what you did to that poor girl. Badly done, Vanya, badly done.”

“Can we go back to the part about me being cute, please?” Ivan rubs his hands over his face. He and Fedyor rarely disagree, so when they do…

“No. Alina Starkov just found out days ago she’s Grisha, and she’s been pulled away from the only life she’s known, from her friends and comrades. She’s fended off the volcra, almost been murdered by the drüskelle, and has had to get used to a new training regimen for skills she barely knew she had, to say nothing of the high stakes of her every move now.”

“She’s an orphan of Keramzin. How is this not better than anything she’s ever known?”

Fedyor stops pacing for a moment. “Ivan, that’s why we should be kind. She’s never known the love of a family beyond that of the First Army. And you know what they whisper about the Grisha. We were children when we got here, and our families sent us here out of love. It was easier for us to adjust. She’s grown up her whole life hearing the lies most of the otkazat’sya believe about us. She needs time and understanding.”

“But we don’t have that much time. Zlatan is agitating in West Ravka, Fjerda is worse than ever, and Shu Han is causing as many problems as ever. Why can’t she see that unless she is at her best and soon, Ravka is in danger? The Grisha are in danger?” Ivan is furious, but more than that, he’s exhausted.

At that, Fedyor softens. “Ah, my love. You carry a heavy burden. But she’ll have to bear an even heavier one soon,” he says, coming over and placing a warm hand on Ivan’s shoulder.

Ivan reaches up, placing his hand over Fedyor’s. “I just want her to be ready.”

“She will be.”

With a sigh, Ivan pulls Fedyor into his lap, nuzzling his neck. He’s ready to make up.

“Ivan?”

“Hmm?”

“You do realize that people also have to eat in order to be able to train, don’t you?”

&&&

He knows he should, but Ivan can’t bring himself to apologize to Alina. He does try, however, to be more understanding of the enormity of what she faces, the pressure on her to succeed. He tries to be kinder, less abrupt. But he can’t change who he is.

Fortunately, General Kirigan seems more amused than anything else at Ivan’s dinner outburst. It’s a week or so later, and Kirigan is ready to dismiss Ivan for his next couple of days off. “I would tell you to enjoy your time with Fedyor, but maybe you’ll be training instead, since that’s apparently what we all must be doing every waking moment.”

Ivan shoots him a panicked look, but calms down when he catches the amusement in the General’s eyes.

“Indeed. We will train ceaselessly and closely, moi soverennyi.” Somehow, he manages to keep a straight face.

Kirigan just snorts, and Ivan is extremely disgruntled when he mutters under his breath about needing some of that kind of training of his own.

#sab #sab ff #shadow and bone #heartrender husbands #darklina #darklinadaily #darklinaweek2021 #ivan #fedyor kaminsky #the darkling #aleksander morozova #general kirigan #alina starkov #ivan x fedyor #to be clear I don't think Alina or the Darkling or straight #but I think Ivan thinks they are #my fanfic #missing moments

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tomtenadia · 4 years ago

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A Little Braver - Chapter 4

So, chapter 4 is finally here.

It has a few funny moments but it also has angst.

This fic has so much more angst that i originally planned.

Anyway... enjoy it.

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The drive to the hospital did not take long but once inside they noticed the waiting room was swamped.

“Whitethorn, this is pointless,” she said when he placed her on an empty chair “we’ll be here for hours.”

“I don’t care, we are getting that knee checked.” His tone did not admit any protest from her.

Aelin grunted “I hate you.”

“Is that news? Tell me something I don’t know.” Rowan took a seat on the empty seat beside her then took her injured leg and lifted it on his lap. Aelin winced.

It was three hours later when Rowan started to loose his patience “that woman came after us and she went in already.” He protested a bit too loudly for Aelin’s taste. Why was he caring about her wellbeing all of a sudden?

“Maybe she is worse than a busted knee.” She shrugged but he glared at her.

“She walked into the A&E on her own two feet. You just dealt with that damn inferno with that busted knee.” He protested and the hint of pride in his voice moved something inside her.

“I don’t need the red carpet.”

“Some fucking attention for people who bust their asses to save other people lives would be appreciated.” His tone got a bit louder still. Rowan did not seem the type to cause a scene but he seemed a bit too annoyed and to be honest she did not know much about the guy. She just hoped his military training would kick in and restrain himself.

“Doctor save lives too.”

He grunted and stood and Aelin braced for the worst. She saw him walk with purpose to the reception desk with perfect military stride. She would have laughed if it wasn’t that she was scared of what he would do.

She saw him talk to one of the nurses behind the nurses station. A few times his arm pointed at her and she made herself small and invisible.

Then she went back spying on him and studied his posture and gasped. The man was flirting with the nurse. Stick up in the arse captain was flirting with the nurse to get her in early. She was dumbfounded. She could not believe that he had it in him.

He came back five minutes later with a smug face “Someone will come for you soon.”

Aelin’s mouth fell open “Did you just flirt with the nurse to have me seen earlier?”

“I did not such thing,” and he looked away, scanning the waiting room.

“She is looking over here. I think she is interested in you and is now wondering how it would feel to bag an airforce captain.”

Rowan huffed “not interested.”

“She is pretty.”

“Not my type…”

“Oh come on grampa, she could even play sexy nurse with you.”

Rowan rolled his eyes “you really are a menace.”

She was about to add a snarky remark when a doctor stopped in front of them “Aelin Galathynius?”

Aelin’s head snapped up “I am here.”

“I am doctor Yrene Westfall. Follow me.”

Westfall? Was she Chaol’s wife?

“Did you say Westfall? Is Chaol your husband?”

“Yes. Do you know him?”

Aelin nodded “I am a firefighter, we work a lot with the police. He was at the embankment fire tonight.”

“He told me, apparently it was hell. His own words.”

“It was bad.” Aelin stood and swore as sharp pain shoot from her knee up her leg.

“Why did you do that?” Rowan protested and lifted her again in his arms.

“You are making the nurse jealous.”

“Shut up and let’s follow the nice doctor.”

“Put her down here,” Yrene pointed at an empty bed.

Rowan placed her gently on the bed and stepped at the bottom of it. His hands behind his back.

Yrene lifted the leg of her trousers and had a look at her knee “This look quite bad, why did you wait this long to come to the hospital?”

“I was going to… but then city emergency and all and it slipped my mind.”

Rowan snorted and Aelin glared at him.

“And you walked all day on it?”

“Kinda…”

“You might have made things much worse.”

Aelin leaned back on the pillow and sighed. She knew and with the performance review on its way it had been very stupid of her.

“How did it happen?”

“We were in the middle of a drill this morning. The explosion happened, the shockwave made me loose my balance and I fell down the ladder face first and my left knee took the impact.”

“You might have broken your kneecap. I need to send you for an x-ray and see what is the situation.” She went away and came back five minutes later “Someone will come and get you soon. You captain, can wait here until she is back.”

Rowan nodded and pinched her big toe when he noticed her worried expression “Do you want me to come in and hold your hand?”

“Screw you, Whitethorn.”

He pinched the toe again and his lip quirked up in a tight attempt at a smile.

Aelin wondered if she’ll ever see him smile or even laugh.

The porter came and rolled her bed away. She snatched a last look at Rowan and saw him standing where her bed had been I’ll be here. She saw him mouth to her.

Rowan began pacing back and forth in a very nervous state. His phone pinged and saw a text from Lorcan asking for an update on behalf of her squad. He texted back saying she was getting an x-ray.

He sat down on the chair near where the bed was and took out his phone to scroll through the news of the fire at the warehouses. In one of the articles he saw a great picture of her. She was staring at the inferno in front of her and with her hand she was pointing at something, maybe giving an order. He saved the picture on his phone then went on reading the article flushing with pride at how the journalist had praised her for handling such an emergency with professionalism and doing a great jobs at keeping the victims to a very low level. Turned out they only had lost two workers. Considering what he had seen he was impressed because it could have been far, far worse. He read a few more articles and almost seethed with rage when a journalist had the courage to criticise the TFD for having a young girl in charge of such an emergency.

It was an hour later when Aelin and Yrene came back. Aelin’s face told him that the news was bad.

“Her kneecap is badly fractured. She will need surgery. I have contacted the orthopaedic surgeon to see if he can squeeze her in tomorrow. Then she will have to stay in the hospital for a few days. Once she gets home she can move around with crutches but it might take up to a month before she will be able to do rehab. The whole thing should last around three months if she cooperates.”

Rowan stared at Aelin and he saw her heartbroken expression.

Once Yrene excused herself saying she was going to get her a room, Rowan moved closer to her.

“Don’t. Don’t you even try and say what you are about to say. I do not need your pity.”

He knew that the idea of not being able to participate in the performance review was killing her. Gods he wanted to hug her again like in her office and offer comfort. But that was a skill he had always been bad at.

“Do you need anything?”

“Yes, being less fucking stupid.” She growled through gritted teeth “I knew that explosion was coming. I knew we had fucked up the exercise and let it run longer than meant to. Aedion and I had planned that explosion. I knew it and I still let it knock me off like a blasted newbie.”

She breathed deeply “I am too stupid to be a captain.”

No, he was not having that.

“Now you are talking shite.” He snarled back. He was not having her accusing herself os something like that. He took out his phone and opened the first article he read. The one with the great picture.

“Captain Galathynius has showed nerves of steel while handling a double fire that could have had catastrophic consequences. She masterfully deployed two teams to tackle emergency after emergency without ever backing down from the constant challenge. And when it seemed that the situation was taking a turn for the worst, she pulled a rabbit out of the hat and convinced the stiff necked airforce posh boys to join and help tackle a raging fire, far too big for three fire engines. Captain Galathynius and the two teams deserve more recognition for their incredible job. Far more than a pat on the back.

All the firefighters involved tonight had showed great heroism and excellent skills. Every day these men and women place their lives on the line to keep our city safe. The government should keep it in mind at his next budget review and find in itself to invest in money in services the city deeply deserves like firefighters, the police and the health services instead of flushing it down the drain to fund fancy planes built for destruction.”

“Uh…. He really does not like you guys.”

“I don’t care,” said Rowan quickly “What matters is what she said about you. She doesn’t think you are stupid. And I don’t think it either. This stiff necked posh boy thinks you are amazing.”

“Liar.”

“I am not lying. Why would I? I agree with this woman. You were fucking amazing tonight. All of you. And yes, you deserve far more credit than what you will get.”

His eyes glistened with pride and his words had helped a bit ease her anger.

“So you think I am amazing?”

“I do.” His voice much softer all of a sudden.

Yrene came back in that moment and broke the spell. She had a feeling she and the captain were about to have a moment but the magic had passed.

“I have a room for you.” And she had a wheelchair with her.

Rowan grabbed Aelin again and lifted her into the wheelchair and offered to push her.

“Chaol was my saviour tonight,” she giggled while Rowan rolled the wheelchair along the corridor following the doctor.

“How so?”

“He knows I hate reporters. So as soon as he saw a few coming at me he came and saved me before I could punch them. Plus, he and his men did an outstanding job at crowd control. I know it doesn’t seem like a lot, but when you have people running terrified from a building on fire it can end badly. And they also kept an eye to all the curious monster who come and have a peek and film it to post it social media for a five minutes of glory. Police let us concentrate on the emergency without worrying about what’s happening in the background.”

“Thank you for telling me.” The woman smiled at her.

“Make sure you give him an extra cuddle tonight.”

Both Aelin and Yrene burst out laughing.

“I will reward him accordingly, captain.”

They finally reached the elevator and the three got in. Not long after they were in the room and Rowan lifted her in bed. Yrene left them to get her settled in.

“You need clothes, damn it.” He looked around him as if to find an answer in an hospital room.

“My house keys are at the station.”

“Fine I’ll go and get them and grab some clothes for you from your house. Give me the address.”

“No.”

His face turned confused “why? You can’t stay in your uniform.”

“I am not having you in my house, going through my drawers and my clothes.”

Rowan sighed “tell me where you keep t-shirts and shorts and I will just go straight to that one. I am not a creep I swear.”

“Fine.” She texted him the address “my keys are in the black messenger bag in my locker. There is a small pocket at the front. They are attached to the hook. Actually take the whole bag with you. I have a charger and other stuff in there that I might need.”

“Ok, I’ll be back as soon as possible.”

“Captain?”

“Yes?”

“Thank you.”

He nodded and before leaving he turned once more “you could start calling me Rowan, by the way.”

“Thank you, Rowan.”

He left thinking that his name on her lips was the most beautiful sound ever.

He reached the fire station not long after. He met Ress in the corridor.

“Captain.”

“Ress, isn’t it?”

The man nodded.

“How’s Aelin?

“She will need surgery. She is not happy as you could imagine.”

“Damn.”

A tall man joined them a moment later. His uniform was white.

“This is chief Havilliard.” Said Ress.

So that was the young Havilliard.

“You must be captain Whitethorn.”

Rowan nodded.

“Thank you for your assistance tonight.”

Rowan shook his head “it was Aelin’s idea. The credit goes to her. I just follow orders.”

“How is she by the way?” And Rowan could see concern in the man’s eyes.

“She will need surgery. Her knee is busted pretty badly. They are trying to book her for tomorrow. I am heading to her place to get her some clothes.”

“I will update the squad.” Dorian said “I will also try and beg the board to postpone the review. Aedion will be home tomorrow but he will be off for a week and Aelin looks like she will be out of commission for a while. And I need them to train the team. They are my golden duo.”

Rowan took an immediate liking to the chief.

Once Dorian took his leave, Ress took Rowan to their changing rooms and pointed to Aelin’s locker.

“Tell her that the team is behind her and that she was awesome tonight. Also let us know where she is in the hospital so we can come and visit.”

“Room 252 in the orthopaedic ward.”

“Thank you sir.”

Ress left him. He grabbed Aelin’s bag and his eyes spotted the pictures attached to the door and the walls. He saw some pictures with a man and he had a feeling his face was familiar. The photos portrayed a couple in love and for a very brief instant a very strange emotion he could not decipher set into him and then it quickly went away with the same speed it came.

He ignored it. Slammed the locker shut and left the station.

Fifteen minutes later he reached her house and let himself in. The house was gorgeous and very modern. He stepped into the living room and noticed the wall were painted a light yellow giving the room much more brightness. He smiled at the insane number of bookcases bursting with books. So, she was a book worm. Good, something to talk about if they had a chance to have a conversation that contained less insults and vitriol.

He walked to the door she had indicated and reached her bedroom and froze for a moment. He knew he had her permission but for an instant he felt as if he was invading her privacy.

The room was painted a pastel blue and a huge bed was was in the middle. At one end he noticed the drawer and walked to it and froze when he noticed there were two middle drawers.

Shit, she had said the middle drawer but which one. Damn, he had promised.

He opened the top one and slammed it shut when he saw the content. That was her underwear drawer. He turned and leaned against the piece of furniture. Bras… 38A she had said and now his treacherous brain was picturing the piece of clothing filled by…

“Damn.”

He opened the other one and breathed relieved when he noticed t-shirts and shorts. Good. He grabbed a few of her TFD t-shirts and placed them in the duffel bag at the bottom of her bed.

His phone went off. It was Aelin.

“What?”

“Gee, you sound grumpy.”

“What do you need m’lady?” His voice dripping with fake pleasantness.

“I am giving you permission to open the second drawer from the top and grab me some underwear as well, please.”

“You are kidding me.” Aelin could clearly hear the panic in his voice.

“Ro, I am not. I have an emergency and I will soon need new knickers. So yes, get in that drawer and grab me my underwear.”

His hand ran through his hair in a nervous gesture.

“Also, there is a small convenience store around the corner, could you please buy me tampons?”

Rowan almost choked.

“I am sorry what?”

“You heard me. I assume you had been with other women before. You know we get periods, right?”

“Fine, I will phone you back once I am in the shop. I have no idea what to buy.”

“Just don’t blush too much.”

And he could hear the grin in her voice.

He hung up and breathed deeply and opened the drawer. The selection was… incredible.

He picked a few sports bra thinking that for an hospital stay they would be the better option. Definitely the lacy one were not proper. He rummaged a bit and looked again for something more sober when all of a sudden he found in his hands something that had little or no use as underwear but his treacherous mind painted some very sexy pictures.

Damn, that was torture. He grabbed a nice selection of the sober pieces and closed the drawer from hell in relief. He stuffed everything in the bag and walked out, in desperate need of fresh air.

Next stop he drove to the convenience store and braced himself for the next task. He walked in and sneaked to the correct section feeling like a perv for lingering in a section where he clearly did not belong to. He looked at the boxes and he had no idea that there were so many choices. He phoned her.

“Oh, you are still alive.”

“I am in the shop. Which one do you need?” He almost growled.

“Tampons.” She said matter of factly.

“I am a bloke, Fireheart. I have no idea of what you are talking about.”

He heard her sigh “the ones that looks like bullets.”

“Ok, which type?”

“At the bottom they have guidelines with drops. One with two drops and one with three. Actually make it two each.”

“Does the brand matter?”

“I am not fussed.”

“Okay. I got it.”

“I owe you another one.”

“That’s two now.”

“Fine, fine, Buzzard.”

“What?”

“I’ll tell you later, get your arse back here.”

“So bossy.”

He hang up and had a look at the brands. She had said she was not fussed but he had decided to get her the expensive ones, hoping it meant they were of a better quality as well.

He walked to the counter to pay “For my wife,” he muttered embarrassed, paid and got out quickly.

She owed him big time. Not for the water drop but for this.

When he got back to the hospital he went to her room and dumped the bag on her bed and moved away from her.

“Gee someone is on edge. Did my underwear scare you? The fearless pilot got frightened by lace.”

He scoffed an ignored her.

“Seriously man, never had a girlfriend or a date wearing sexy lingerie for you?”

“Of course.”

“Well, so what’s problem?”

He sat heavily on the chair “I was probably dating the person at the time, which implies other things.” She could still see the embarrassment in his features “you and I are just work partners. It was very weird.”

“Well, at least now you know how big is a 38A.”

The top of his ears turned red. She loved so much to rile him up.

She had look at what he had brought her and was very happy when she noticed he had picked sports bra. He had actually put some thought in it. Then her eyes caught the boxes of tampons “Rowan, these are very expensive.”

“I just thought… you know… better quality, perhaps? More comfortable? I don’t know. Again, I am a bloke.”

She wished she could stand and kiss him. He had been amazing. She never had put Sam through such torture. He would have probably died at the idea of buying her feminine products.

“I am very grateful. For everything.”

He gave her a smile. It never reached his eyes but the effort was there her heart fluttered at the precious little show of emotion.

He stood “I’ll let you change.” He made to walk away but stopped when he noticed her face.

“You need to use the facilities I guess.”

She nodded.

He lifted her in his arms and walked into the bathroom and deposited her on the loo.

“Let me know when you are done.” He left the room and walked to the corridor and sat on a chair. He took his phone and started browsing some old news about firefighters. He was still thinking about the man he saw in the picture in her locker. He had seen that face in the news.

He searched for a while until he found an article about a fireman called Sam Cortland. He opened and began to read. Shit. Sam and Aelin had been an item for five years and according to the article they had been engaged. He had been a captain at west station. He got killed while fighting a fire in a warehouse. Shit. His hands shook. They had in common more than just books. He pocketed the phone and walked back to the room.

“Are you okay?” He called through the door.

“Almost ready.”

He leaned against the wall and tried to calm down. It had been just over a year. Was she okay?

“I am ready.” He shoot off the wall and opened the door of the bathroom and saw her in her TFD t-shirt. He lifted her in his arms and he never would have wanted to let go of her.

“Back to your bed.”

Her arms were around his neck and it felt as if she lingered like that a bit longer on purpose.

Or maybe he had just imagined.

“Do you need painkillers? Something to eat?”

Aelin shook her head “I am officially fasting. My surgery has been scheduled for tomorrow at 9.”

“That’s great.”

“I am a bit nervous.”

He sat down on the bed, just in front of her. Her hands were on her lap. He took her hand by grasping just the tip of the fingers “I can stay with you. I can be here when you wake up, or I can call someone else whose company you enjoy more.”

Aelin squeezed his hand back. She wished she had the strength to tell him that somehow she had enjoyed his company very much in the recent hours. But things were still very weird between them and she was positive he still did not like her.

Then she looked up and saw his eyes staring at her and realised that maybe she was wrong. In those beautiful green eyes of his she had noticed a spark of emotion, albeit for a fleeting moment.

“Keep me company, please.” He nodded and sat back on the chair.

They chatted amicably. She had told her about the station and her friends, then he reported that Lorcan was officially smitten by Elide and the two started making plans to set up the two of them.

At her first yawn, Rowan ordered her to go to bed. He tucked her in and went back to his seat.

When he woke up the next morning it was pretty early. He stood and stretched his back, sore from a night asleep on a chair. Aelin was still asleep so he sneaked out of the room and went in search of the cafeteria for a coffee. Then he had a look at himself in one of the doors and noticed he was still in uniform, now a mess, and a shadow of stubble on his face. His academy CO would have his head for walking around in such horrible state while in uniform. He shrugged, got his coffee and went back to the room. Jotted down a note for Aelin. He needed to go home, take a shower and get fresh clothes. He would be back by the time she returned from surgery.

On his way home he phoned Lorcan to give him an update on his whereabouts. He asked also for a few days off to help Aelin and the man agreed. Rowan snorted. Being in love was doing miracles on the old bastard.

He got home, relaxed, took quite a long shower and eventually he had breakfast and caught up with the news and saw that the big fire was still making the headlines. Then a photo caught his attention. Apparently the community had turned in support of the fire stations. They had flocked in front of the government building protesting in light of the new spending budget. Many of signs called for a cut in military spending and to give due value to corps such as firefighters and police. He realised that he would have probably been there as well if it wasn’t that his presence would guarantee him being kicked out of the force immediately. He had been disgusted when he saw how much the airforce got for the repairs. So much more than asked and then Aelin and the guys had to beg for a second engine. Yes, he was in the airforce but he did not agree with the amount of money that often got thrown at them. He eventually got dressed and headed back to the hospital but once he arrived he spotted a few reporters.

“Bloody leeches.”

He tried to walk unnoticed, but alas, his silver hair was not the most inconspicuous of traits.

One woman blocked his path and flung the microphone at him “Captain, how does it feel to save the day?”

Rowan looked at the woman puzzled. How on earth did they know who he was? He had been on a plane the night of the fire.

“You and your team stopped the fires. Without you, the firefighters would have failed.”

Anger. Fiery anger surged through him in a savage wave.

“I think you have read the news wrong.” He tried to calm down “The real heroes are the firefighters,” he shouted for all the reporters to hear “They are the ones who put their lives in danger. They are the ones who jumped into an inferno saving as many workers as possible.” He looked at all of them “over an hour. They were at it for over an hour, with no break, no one to cover for them or take their place. Captain Galathynius supervised the whole thing while injured and barely being able to stand. And you give all the credit to us?” He roared “We showed up because the captain had the amazing idea of using us. We swooped in at the end of the game, when one of the building was almost off. We just dropped some water and you call us heroes?” His hand were now in tight fists “I flew one of those planes and I do not want glory. I do not deserve glory. East and west station do. The police do.” And he walked away furious. Bastards. He hoped that someone passed the interview live, so his real words would pass on. He did not trust reporters.

He ran upstairs and when he arrived he noticed Aelin in bed and half asleep. He gave her a big smile.

“Hey you, tight-pants.”

He chuckled and sat beside her “how do you feel?”

“My hand moves funny.” She said moving her hand in front of her face and Rowan realised she was still quite drugged up from the surgery.

She was quite funny.

“Your hair is white.”

He brushed his hair with his hand “do you like it?”

She gave him a goofy smile “you are sooooo pretty.”

“Oh thank you. No one has called me pretty in a very long time.” He took her hand in his.

“I have a secret” she said and placed a finger in front of her mouth.

“Can I hear it?”

“Yes. But don’t tell the captain.” Who did she think she was talking to?

“I won’t, I promise.” He played along.

“I think I like him. A lot.”

For a brief instant something flashed in her eyes and Rowan had a feeling she was quite lucid.

He jumped off the bed in terror.

“I like him a lot, but he hates me.”

Sadness. That was definitely sadness in her voice. He took a step back.

She turned her head to the side.

“I really, really do.” And he saw her close her eyes.

He took another step back and walked out of the room. Once outside he ran to the car and leaned against it closing his eyes. Her words kept ringing in his ears. And her voice. It had changed so much when she uttered those words. It was her. She was fully lucid when she said it. He placed a hand on his heart and found it racing. He wanted to go back to her and say that he did not hated her. That he… he had no idea what he felt. He groaned and jumped in the car and decided to go for a drive. He had to clear his head.

Lysandra found Aelin with her head turned to the window and she thought she had heard her friend crying.

“Hey you…” Lysandra sat at her side and caressed her friend’s head “what’s wrong?”

Aelin sniffled loudly “I think I have said something stupid.”

“More than usual?” But when Aelin did not laugh she realised it must have been real and bad.

“I woke up from surgery and I felt funny for a while. I think captain Whitethorn was here. I am not sure. And I think…” she stopped, sobbing a bit more “I think I told him I like him.” She finally turned her face to Lysandra “I remember his terror and then he left.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah, I think the drugs were wearing off and I felt a bit more lucid. I think it was him.”

“Oh darling.”

“He hates me so much that he ran away.” Aelin resumed sobbing heavily “am I such a horrible person?”

Lysandra hugged Aelin tightly and cursed the man. If she got her hands on him he would be a dead man. Or she could unleash Aedion on him. He was just as protective of Aelin.

“He is an idiot. A big tall idiot.” Lys brushed Aelin’s cheek “you need to rest now. You just had surgery.”

“How’s Aedion?”

“At home. Sore and bored already. The doctor gave him a week off but he is not happy. Well, you know him.”

“I heard Dorian mentioning that he might try to get the review postponed. It’s not fair on you guys.”

Aelin sighed “I will still be out.”

“I know, but at least Aedion will be there. One of you at least.” Lysandra reassured her.

Aelin put the tv on and gasped when the tv showed Rowan. It was just outside the hospital.

“What the fuck?”

“Put the volume up,” said Lysandra.

“They were at it for over an hour, with no break, no one to cover for them or take their place. Captain Galathynius supervised the whole thing while injured and barely being able to stand. And you give all the credit to us?” She heard him raise his voice“We showed up because the captain had the amazing idea of using us. We swooped in at the end of the game, when one of the building was almost off. We just dropped some water and you call us heroes?” His hand were not in tight fists “I flew one of those planes and I do not want glory. I do not deserve glory. East and West station do. The police do.” Aelin saw him walk away and she had a feeling that it was when he came back to her. He had normal clothes on. When he took her at the hospital he still had the uniform on.

“That is definitely not the speech of a man who hates you.”

“Lys, not helping.”

Aelin flipped through the channels to see the interview again.

“Don’t think too much about him.”

“Yeah,” Aelin stared at the tv “no worth it, right?”

“Totally.”

Lys kissed her head “Babe I need to go home and tend to Aedion. I don’t want to leave him alone for too long. I know the guys are planning to come as soon as they are off shift, which will be tomorrow morning.”

“Go, I will be fine.” She patted her hand and gave her a tight smile “go and look after Aedion.”

Once Lysandra was out of the room she grabbed her phone and texted Rowan. She waited an hour and tried to phone and realised his phone was off.

“Fine, message received.”

Rowan had driven all the way to the coast to Ilium. It had taken him two hours but it had been worth it. He had spent the afternoon sitting on the beach, his phone switched off. He lay down in the sand and closed the eyes, enjoying the peace of the beach. He almost thought that he’d love to take Aelin there but as soon as his brain said the name he had been ignoring for the past two hours his mood was soured again.

He had fled. Like a coward. She just had surgery and he had left her on her own because he had an issue dealing with his feelings. He was the worst human being ever existed.

Was it so wrong if she was in love with him?

His mind flashed him a name. A name he had tried to bury in the depths of his mind.

He groaned in frustration and stood and started walking on the sand along the beach. The place was beautiful.

He wandered until it was late then decided to go and find a room for the night. He was not in the mood to go back to Orynth. Then he went for dinner and finally dragged himself to a pub. Alcohol. He definitely needed a drink. Something that he hadn’t enjoyed in a very long time. Damn he was so boring. How could anyone be in love with him?

He had a few whiskies in one shot and the liquor burned his throat. He was not used anymore and the booze already started spreading a welcomed numbness through his body and mind. Good, oblivion is what he wanted.

He ordered two more whiskies and chugged them down again in one single motion.

He looked at the tv behind the counter and he discovered the news were passing his interview. He lowered his head and realised straight away it was a stupid idea. His silver hair stood out like a sore thumb.

“I think you look prettier in person.” Said a voice at his side, then he felt a pair of hands on his arm.

He turned his head and there was a woman at his side. Smiling sensually at him.

“Well, you need glasses.” He turned his head again and kept watching the tv ignoring the woman.

“I am Remelle.”

“Good for you.” He ate a couple of the peanuts on the small plate on the counter.

“Why is such a good looking man all alone in a place like this, drinking whisky shots?”

“None of your business.” She moved closer and her hand traced the length of his arm. He had a t-shirt on and his tattoo was on display.

“I love your tattoo.” Her fingers traced the lines of it.

Rowan got off the chair “I am sorry, but I am not interested. Not in the mood and you are being very rude.”

“I can help you make forget about her. You look like pining about some mysterious woman”

Rowan had enough. He stormed out of the pub and ran all the way back to the beach and fell on his knees. He looked up at the dark sky and then closed his eyes.

He had feelings for Aelin. Somehow his treacherous heart had decided to play tricks on him and make him feel again. Something he had forbidden himself from doing for a while. But Aelin had struck him dumb since day one with her big mouth, her defiance. The woman had fire in her and a part of him felt irremediably pulled to her, no matter how much he tried to deny it. He confessed to himself that he had enjoyed fussing over her, looking after her and even try to cheer her up when she had been down. He had told her the truth, he was in awe of her, of what she had done and he hadn’t been in awe of anyone in a very long time.

He had feelings for her, big damn feelings and all he could do was flee instead of facing them. But he was not ready yet. That was his biggest fear. That’s why he had ran out of the room, because her admission had touched a part of him that hadn’t healed yet. Just like her he had loved and lost everything. His feelings were just budding. He had better repress them before it got worse. It was better for both of them. He was positive she deserved someone better than him.

Rowan sighed and sat in the sand in silence, staring at the sky until the fog in his mind started to clear. Eventually he dragged his pitiful arse back to his hotel and crashed in bed fully clothed.

TAGS:

@rowaelinismyotp

@jlinez

@swankii-art-teacher

#rowan whitethorn #rowaelin #rowan x aelin #aelin galythinius #Lysandra #aedion x lysandra #elide x lorcan #fanfic #Throne of Glass series

75 notes · View notes

theoppositequeens · 4 years ago

Photo

with you between my arms

Rating: T

Summary: Nina has a problem: the midsummer fete. Or more like, the traditional Fjerdan dancing at the midsummer fete.

Read it on Ao3 here: https://archiveofourown.org/works/32245564

Written for @helnikweek2021 Day 1: Dancing.

-------

Nina never ever thought they'd get here.

Never thought they would survive to see peace, to see their children grow up to adults near the border between Ravka and Fjerda. Never be part of this lovely community of people from all walks of life.

The little town is called Fredisthmus, and it sits on a small tongue of land by the sea. Most are fishermen, seamen or travelers of some kind – they have a nice port. This is part of the reason Nina and Matthias settled here, to be able to travel to Os Kervo and then Os Alta quickly if Nina is summoned. It happens rarely, now. Her gifts are unique, but not often required. Their eldest daughter is living at the Little Palace, though, just finishing up her Healer training, so that inspires some of their trips.

Fredrik, their youngest, is sailing the seas, putting his Squaller gifts to use. He has always been a free spirit. Maja, their middle child, is still at home, courted by a lad in the village that Matthias intimidated properly in the beginning. Nina has to hand it to the lad, he stuck it out gracefully and she thinks he does deserve their little swallow. She will thrive working with him in the pub that he owns, where she started waitressing years ago.

The tensions are finally easing, it has been a nerve-wracking ten years of seeing if the peace accords will hold. Finally, the former enemies have established trade and settled. There are still differences in how Grisha are seen, and most emigrate into Ravka, but the Fjerdans have had to admit to using Grisha powers for their own gain, revealing their hypocrisy.

The tensions easing are at fault for Nina's current problem: the midsummer fete.

Or more like, the traditional Fjerdan dancing at the midsummer fete.

The town has established many traditions: market days, autumnal harvest party, midwinter mass for believers of different faiths and afterwards a merry evening of good food and warm alcoholic glög, served from stalls on the streets and consumed quickly. They have even had midsummer feasts before, but this one is to celebrate ten years of lasting peace. It will be grand, with a sit-down dinner of potatoes with dill, fresh fish and pickled cucumber, early summer vegetables and warm bread. Long tables are already placed in the square around the flower-bedecked midsummer pole, and after the eating they will be cleared away to create a dancing space.

Nina doesn't quite know how to dance the Fjerdan dances. She has played hostess at most other events since they moved here seven years ago, happily claiming to be too busy to dance, and Matthias has never pressured. Now though, the other ladies in town have quite forbidden Nina from working at the fete, claiming it is her turn to enjoy the festivities. She has desperately tried to learn the dances from her friends, but there is only so much one can practice on their own, and she refuses to admit to Matthias that she cannot dance.

She has always been slow to pick up dance steps, though she loves moving to music. Ravkan dancing is freer, less structured steps and more having fun. There are partnered dances, but Nina has never cared for those. Besides not knowing the steps, she never quite trusts someone to lead her. She doesn't care for the loss of control, the idea that she has to let a man lead her. Nina can manage well on her own, thanks.

But she knows Matthias wants to dance, so she will try her best, even though the thought gives her anxiety. They had not even danced at their wedding, though it was a relatively quick affair when Nina first got pregnant.

Her husband, completely unaware of her distress, serves her more of the rhubarb pie she loves, and continues the conversation with Maja and her admirer over the table.

Their children are all children on war, born when the conflicts were still brutal, though none of them remember much of it, thankfully. Still, Nina and Matthias have always wished they had been able to give the children better childhoods. They tried their best though, while doing important work, and the kids loved all their Grisha aunts and uncles who babysat them. Sometimes, Inej would even dock in Os Kervo and entertain the children on her ships with stories of the sea as Nina met spies to exchange vital information in the port city.

Nina stops reminiscing when the last "skål" is called out and everyone empties their shot glasses of fruit punch, and begin clearing the tables. She sneaks some dirty dishes over to the big wooden tubs where the washing will be done, but her neighbor Olena gives her the stink eye and she backs away laughing, hands in the air. Okay, she will not get away with working.

Instead, she watches as the men clear the tables. Children run afoot, and she gathers them to her on some hay-bales, telling them the story of Sankta Alina of the Fold, highly embellished, until there is no more danger of them tripping the working men.

Then, she has no choice but go to the dance floor when the fiddler strikes up a tune and two men and a woman sing a fast paced polka. It feels horrible to start with this dance, and surely she will make a fool out of herself, but Nina takes Matthias' warm hand and jumps into the fray. Soon enough, she realizes most other Ravkans in the village are as lost as she is, but most of the Fjerdans know the dance and spin the others around to end up in the right places. Keeping up with the steps is an impossible task, but Nina tries.

Next, the crowd partners up for a waltz, and Nina swallows heavily. Matthias is supposed to lead now, and they take the appropriate position. She wedges her leg close between his, which Zoya always said helped when they attended dances and Nina would hesitate. You can feel his movements better, it helps him guide you.

The music starts, and Matthias moves her with careful pressure on her hand and waist. Nina follows stiffly, trying to melt to the music the way she knows she should. It just makes her feel awkward. Matthias frowns slightly down at her, and then whispers,

"Are you nervous, rœd fetla?"

She denies this vehemently, and steps on his toe, completely by accident. He throws his head back and laughs, that deep and soul-warming laughter of his that she has always loved. He looks down at her, eyes sparkling, dimples showing in his cheeks, and suddenly Nina has forgotten how to be stiff.

He continues to tease her about being nervous about a waltz, and without noticing she begins to let him lead, defending her honor and making him laugh all the while.

When the next dance begins, she barely thinks about it, follows Matthias' lead and trusts his hands and body to guide her. They have moved on to mocking each other about some matter unrelated to dancing, but the banter keeps Nina from overthinking her steps and her need to be in control.

She lets Matthias and the music lead her.

#helnik week 2021 #helnik week #helnik #matthias helvar #nina zenik #nina x matthias #six of crows #six of crows duology #the ending I wish they got #short and sweet #dancing #folk dance #traditional dancing #ballroom dancing

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horrorstreet · 5 years ago

Text

Summertime Jealousy

Request: Very sorry if this already went through but I think I might have deleted some of my last request. It was jealous Thomas Hewitt cause his crush (female or GN) os being nice to one of the victims. Maybe some angst into fluff as his crush finds they like Thomas too. Again sorry if it already went through.

Request sent in by: Anon

Summary: Its Summertime in Texas but work doesn't stop for the heat. You and Thomas head to work but after the end of your shifts, you are met with a slight problem that is easily resolved.

Thomas Hewitt x Reader

Warnings: Angst, death, gore, hinted smut...

Quick Note! Halfway through this, I realized I got the timeline mixed up ( I wrote Tommy as working at the factory and being a cannibal at the same time) so I apologize. I don’t think I made the reader as nice as you may have wanted but I tried my best to make everything work! Please enjoy!

You had woken up to the feeling of the warm summer breeze flow through your window. The nice fresh outside air bringing a smile to your face. It was usually so stuffy with the smell of blood and cooked meat so you were thankful the air had allowed your room to freshen up a little. Sticking your head outside the window, you took a look around, your eyes adjusting to the bright light and once they did, the bright blue sky and chirpping birds flying in the sky became clear to you. You let out a long, satisfied sigh, content with how life had been treating you recently, and uncovered yourself, stepping out of bed and standing on your toes while stretching your arms above your head to release all stress and tension in your body. Once you came back down to your feet, you felt loose and ready to move and ready to move you were.

You stepped into the bathroom and turned on the light, your reflection startling you more than it should have. You nearly jumped out of your skin after seeing movement from the corner of your eyes but shook your head and chuckled at your silliness. “Tha' was stupid.” You spoke to yourself, walking over to the tub. You leaned over the side of the bathtub to turn the knob of the shower and waited with your hand under the water for it to warm up before you got in. You stood up and mde your way out of the room to gather your clothes when you noticed a small bird sitting on the windowsill. It turned its head in all different directions, observing all that was going around it and flew off when it caught you lurking behind it. You watched as it spread its small wings and jump out of the window to take flight and smiled, listening to it sing its tune as it flew off.

You turned your attention back to the running water and hurried to run the shower and hop in. You closed the bathroom door and began to strip all of your clothes off, grabbing a washcloth to clean yourself with and hopped in, loving the feeling of the warm water hitting your skin.

_______

You shut the water off and hanging the wet washcloth over the side of the tub to dry before opening the curtain to step out. You began with drying your hair with your purple towel, making sure it wouldn’t let any water drip down your body and shook all of the water out. You dried the rest of your body and wrapped your hair up in the large cloth and got dressed, not caring to put any makeup on since you didn’t feel the need. You brushed your teeth and unwrapped your hair to brush it out and hung your towel back up to dry.

The moment you opened your door, the same warm summer breeze pushed the bathroom door back, making it slam up against the wall and you stood shocked, the large gust of wind taking you by surprise. You cringed, feeling your hair stick to the back of your neck and sides of your face. Picking up the metal headband that Thomas made you, you used it to push your damp hair back out of your face. You smiled at yourself in the mirror and admired how well the headband was made. Your head was filled with random thoughts of your childhood friend and you were suddenly filled with big bursts of energy. You moved to quickly put shoes on and rush downstairs to greet everyone else in the house.

______

You were abandoned as a small child by your previous family, leaving no attachment to be had at the young age of 8. You explored the parts of Texas you knew until you came across a large building in the middle of a field that you felt the need to search. It was a newer barn that reeked of animal blood and filled the air with the smell of the metallic smell of blood. You opened the doors to enter anyway, hoping you had found your next place to stay and that’s when you met him. Thomas had been playing around in the barn, one strap of his overalls hanging off his shoulder and a large stick in his hand. He was wearing a mask that hid his features which was new to you. You stopped dead in your tracks, the scary feeling of being caught swimming in the pit of your stomach. “I'm sorry …” You apologized to the boy two years older than you. He simply stared at you and you stared back, not knowing what to do.

“Tommy! Who's there?” A man yelled, rounding the corner with a hook in his hand. Once you saw the sharp tool, you turned around to scramble out of the door but felt a strong arm wrap itself around you. The stranger laughed at your poor excuse of an escape and took you into the house as you tried to wiggle yourself out of his hold but it was too late. You had been sat down in a wooden chair at their dining table in front of two other men and a woman. They all asked you who you were and why you were here so you explained everything you knew the best an 8-year-old could. They decided you were telling to truth and took you in. You accepted without question and even if you didn’t, you really had no choice.

Good thing you accepted.

You learned the boy you encountered was named Thomas or Tommy. As time went on, your relationship grew and you both became very close, so much that it often seemed like you two were joined at the hip whenever you were around one another.

_______

“Look who finally decided to join us,” Hoyt said, shaking his head. You rolled your eyes and looked over to Thomas, smiling when your eyes met. He turned his face back to the table and you walked around to sit right next to him. “Good morning, Tommy.” You smiled at him. He let his eyes look you over for a moment before quickly looking away, not wanting to get caught. He wouldn't be able to handle the embarrassment.

You all ate breakfast in silence until you decided to speak up. “Tommy, are you going to work today?” You asked him, putting your fork down since you had finished your plate. He nodded and you grinned, raising up out of your chair. “Well, how about I drive ya! We can spend some time together!” You pushed your chair in before walking to the hallway to grab your keys. He nodded once again, his face feeling warm. “Ok. I will be down soon!” You told him before rushing off upstairs to grab your flip phone. Thomas got up out of his seat and pushed his chair in as well, glancing at everyone at the table. With all eyes on him, he didn't no how to react. It felt strange being the center of everyones attention and just hopped you would hurry up.

“Boy, I reckon you snatch her up before I do.” Hoyt slapped the table with a laugh before being slapped by Luda Mae. He grumbled and sat back in his seat while Thomas had curled his hands into fists at his sides. He felt the veins in his hand pop out against his tanned skin, his anger levels rising at an alarming rate before you hopped down the last step of the stairs and made your way over to his side, patting his arm. “Ready to go?” You asked, swinging your keys around your index finger. Tommy just walked out of the house and to your car, wanting to just leave before he did something he would regret. Its not like he would hurt his family anyway but the damage he would do to his house out of frustration would get him in big trouble with the others and no one liked that, especially not you.

You followed Thomas out of the house, jogging to catch up to him and unlocked the car for him to get in the passenger seat. He crouched down to get in and you ran to the other side to unlock your own door. Once you had got in, you put your seatbelt on and placed your hands on the wheel. “What's the matter?” You asked him, looking over his face. Tommy's hands were still curled up and resting in his lap until your laid your hand over the top of his. He looked down and lightly shook his head, not wanting to let you guess correctly in fear you would find out about his big ol’ crush on you.

“Did Hoyt say something?” You asked him, removing your hand to place it on his arm. He wanted to lean into your touch and feel the warmth of your skin but knew you would notice so he just nodded. “Oh, darlin’. You know not to let him get to ya.” You shot him sorry smile. He nodded and waited a moment before grunting and pointing at the keys. “Oh, yeah. We ought to get going or I'm gonna make you late.” You agreed, putting the keys in and turning them to start the car and with that, you were off.

_______

You had dropped Thomas off with a sweet goodbye and he grunted one back, closing the door. “Have a good day!” You yelled out the window causing him to turn around and stare at you before walking away. Your smile remained stuck on your face and you drove off to your own job at the gas station.

The dirt and gravelpopped and crunched under your cars tires as you pulled in to the employee lot behind the building. You turned the car off and gathered your things, deciding to leave your work vest off for the day. With two loud beeps, you car locked itself and you started off towards the doors. You lifted your head up from looking down at your keys when you heard very distant rumbling from down the long road. You hurried to open up and start everything just in time for a large group of people to walk through the door. You smiled at them and they returned the greeting, some even waving at you and walking around.

“Do you have any …. Uhm … rope?” A tall brunette guy asked. You paused to process and think about his question and slowly nodded. “If you don’t mind me askn’, what would a group like you need rope for.” You carefully asked. The man infront of the register shifted his weight from one side to the other and was about to speak before his girlfriend walked up. “Our van is falling apart and we need it to put it back together.” A younger girl explained, wrapping her arms around the man next to her. The guy nodded and you did the same, eyeing him over before walking over to the back and grabbing some rope. When you returned, the rest of the group had driven off, leaving the young couple waiting at the counter. “Here you are.” You smiled at them, wanting them to leave as soon as possible. “18.50 is your total.” You looked up at the man. He nodded and reached into his back pocket to grab his wallet while his girlfriend looked around. He handed you the money and told you to keep the change and walked out the door, not a word spoken after he had paid.

“Somethin' ain’t right.” You spoke to yourself after putting money in the register. The feeling in the pit of your stomach making you sick but you brushed it off as a stomach ache.

_____

You had lounged around, cleaned, listened to the radio, and counted the money before it was time to close up and go home, grabbing Thomas on your way back. You shut the lights off in the station building and took one last glance at the store before walking out and locking it up behind you. You twirled your keys on your index finger once again while walking to the back, failing to notice the van hidden behind a thick gathering of trees right next to the station's “parking lot.” You hopped in your car and turned the radio on, tapping your fingers on the wheel as you peeled out onto the road, a red van lagging back behind you.

“Have a good day, Tommy?” You asked him as he got into the car. He nodded while studying your face and you smiled at him before looking forward to driving away once again. You would have made it out if a familiar red van hadn’t blocked your path. “Oh, sweet Jesus.” You mumbled. Thomas looked over at you with a worried look and back to the van before once again glancing back at you, wondering what was going on. “Tommy, have you caught dinner tonight?” You asked him without looking at him. He shook his head no, still confused.

He took notice of how your knuckles started to turn white as your hands tightly gripped the wheel and felt the need to comfort you. If only he knew how. “Well, you’re about too.” You glared at the van blocking your path and shut the car off, handing Tommy the keys which he put in the glove compartment. You gave Thomas one good look before nodding your head and stepping out of the car with a grin.

“Well, hey there!” A woman's voice called out to you. “Hey yourself. Having trouble finding your way around?” You asked coldly, your eyes now cold and dark. “No. I would say we know exactly where we are.” She smiled at you. That smile sent chills down your spine, knowing that she had nothing but bad intentions. “Oh, really?” “Really.” She responded. She reached behind her and pulled out a gun, walking closer and closer to you. “Doesn't look like your car needs any fixen. Where did that rope go, huh?” You asked her, not moving an inch but following her movements as she circled you. You looked over your shoulder at the car to see Thomas ready to get out but you subtly shook your head once and mouthed a no. He slowly leaned back and sat as low as he could and you looked back at the girl in front of you. “Well, I can tell you it’s not going to waste. In fact, it’s waiting for you in that van of mine. My boyfriend's just waiting to get his hands on you.” She explained to you, poking at your sides with her double-barrel gun. “What? Did he get bored with you?” You insulted in hopes she would get angry. Her face curled into a scowl as she pressed the gun to your temple. “Actually I-” she started but was cut off by you grabbing the gun forcefully out of her hands. This made Thomas’s heart stop and almost made him jump out of the car. Her finger pushed down on the trigger after you pulled the gun away from your head and heard the bullets hit the metal wall of the Tommys work building behind you. Your ears were ringing loud inside your head for a moment, pissing you off even more. You snatched the weapon out of her hand and used the end of the gun to hit her nose hard enough to break it and distract her. You quickly turned the gun around to face her and took aim. You shot her leg, causing her to let out a scream and fall to the floor, now holding her thigh. You heard a door open and watched as her boyfriend hopped out of the car and started to walk over to you with a nervous look on his face. “Stop right there, pretty boy.” You sighed, pointing the gun in his direction. He put his hands up and swallowed the lump in his throat.

“Please, just let me go.” He pleaded, his hands now shaking above his head. “I'm sorry… I can’t. Just … sit down.” He nodded his head and watched as you grabbed the rope from his car and tied him up with it. You continued to point it at him until you dropped down to wrap the girl up before standing back up on your feet again. The man staring up at you didn’t dare say a word that might set you off. It was smart of him to keep his mouth shut in that moment. You were pissed, sweaty, and annoyed. It wouldnt and well for him. So, he watched with a shut mouth as you tightened the last knot around his girlfriends legs. “Tommy! C’mon. I got you one!” You smiled at him and waved him over. The man waiting by the red van watched in terror as Thomas's 6 '4, muscular form got out of the car and stomped over to the girl laying on the floor by your feet, dizzy from pain. The stranger froze in fear and couldn’t even let out a scream.

While Thomas was dealing with the girl, you walked over to her boyfriend. “So, why are you here with her? You don’t look like the type of person to do this type of thing.” You questioned him while leaning your arm on the gun that you propped up on the floor. “Uhm, I... was pulled into this by blackmail.” He stuttered. You nodded and looked at him with sad eyes. “I'm sorry.” You apologized, only receiving silenceas an answer.

Tommy saw your interaction with the man sitting on the floor in front of you and felt something in his chest twist. He didn’t like you talking to that man. He didn’t like how the man talked to you. Tommy just wanted you to himself and he couldn’t stand it when you were with another guy. Thomas wasted no time walking over to the man on the floor and picking him up to throw over his shoulder. He made sure to squeeze the man with his arm as hard as he could before carelessly throwing him into the car where the man hit his head, knocked out from the force. Both of the people had passed out, the car strangely quiet. “I'm sorry, Tommy. I didn’t really think about them and what they would do… they seemed off but I wasn't sure they were actually going to do anything.” You shook your head, looking down at your hands. Thomas picked you to hand up and brought it to his face. Thomas put your palm against his cheek and a very pink blush crossed your face. Your eyes softened and you brought your other hand up to his face and cupped it around his cheek, bringing your head forward to rest it on his own. Thomas’s heart was racing at this point and so was yours, the moment you two were sharing being a first. You kissed his cheek and pulled away and drove around the still running, red van in front of you before pulling out into the empty road home.

“How old are you anyway?” You questioned him again, setting the gun down behind you where he wouldn’t be able to reach it. “I'm 27…God- Why are you asking me so many questions?” He snapped, leaning away from you. You ignored his last questions and smiled. “I'm 27 too. Tommy over there," You glanced over your shoulder with butterflies in your stomach. "He is 29.” You told him, watching as Tommy shoved the girl's body into the car. The man said nothing and you tapped the floor with the gun. “Uhm, what’s your name? I'm (y/n).” “Justin... what the fuck! Why are you asking me these questions! What’s going to fucking happen to me!” Justin shouted again, getting a lot more panicked this time. “Well, it was nice talking to ya, Justin.” You smiled, patting his knee and standing up. “Tommy! Here’s the second one!” You told him, picking up your new gun and walking back to the car.

_______

“Look at you, boy! Caught us dinner, now did ya!” Hoyt yelled, startling the woman out of her sleeping state. Her screams were muffled by the cloth tied around her mouth and Hoyt only laughed, looking at her with a predatory look. She began to cry when she saw her boyfriend being carried through the door on your shoulder, unconscious and bloody. You told Thomas to grab the girl and you would grab the guy since you knew you could handle it and felt bad for making him do all of this work in the first place. He tried to stop you, not wanting you to be near another man but you prevented him from picking Justin up out of the car by telling him to just go inside and that you could handle it. He gave an obedient nod and carried on with picking up the girlfriend and throwing her over his shoulder. You struggled to pull the man out of the car but easily got him over your shoulder. Living with the Hewitts will do that to you, giving you muscle from all the hard work you did around the house.

“Hmmnn?” Justin woke up when he felt he was being carried down the steps to the basement. Tommy had already put the girl downstairs and her hung on a hook. He left to grab some new tools, leaving you to carry the man down the stairs on your own. “Wakey wakey.” You joked, finding it humorous, unlike Justin who was scared out of his mind. “Where am I?” he asked, looking around and trying to wiggle out of your grasp. You gave a growl and dug your nails into his leg which shut him up real quick. “Please, Just let me go.” He begged, his breathing becoming quicker by the second. “Please! Let me go! YOU’RE ALL FUCKING CRAZY!” He shouted, thrashing around in your arms. You groaned when you felt his knee hit your chest, causing you to drop him to the ground. You rubbed your chest and frowned, looking at Justin with a sorry gaze. You shook your head and bent down to his height and looked into his terrified eyes. “LET ME GO, YOU BITCH. I’LL KILL YOU!” He snapped once again, jumping forward to snap his teeth at you. Thomas had just come downstairs to see what was going on and felt rage and jealousy burning in his chest once again. You waved goodbye at the man sitting before you and let Thomas do his thing, sitting on the steps to watch. Justin screamed as loud as he could, feeling his legs being cut off with a dull knife that Thomas thought was fit for the occasion. He wanted this man gone, out of his way and nowhere near whatbwas his ever again. As Thomas thought about it more and more, his anger grew higher and higher. He picked up a hammer and smashed the man's face over and over, the metal leaving nothing behind but mush and skull. You hurried to grab Thomas’s arm to get him to stop. Thomas dropped the hammer, letting it fall to the floor and lookied down at you with glaring eyes that quickly switched up.

He didn’t know what got into him. Before he knew it, he had turned to quickly pick you up, letting your legs wrap around his waist, and shoved you against the wall, his chest heaving. He stared into your eyes with a serious look and brought you in. You wrapped your arms around his neck and squeezed him tight, letting him hold you for as long as he wanted until you felt his arms grow weak. You backed away from his hug, still pushed up against the wall and brought your hands up to cup his face once again. You looked into his eyes as you slowly took his mask off and let it hit the floor behind Thomas, bringing your hands back to cup his face. “I love you, Thomas…” You whispered, your eyes darting from his eyes to his lips and then back to his eyes. Oh, how badly he wanted to tell you the same but he couldn’t, the best he could do was let out a small groan. He smashed his lips onto yours, closing the small space between the two of you. Thomas never thought he would ever be able to feel like this.

He pushed his hips forward, feeling that burning sensation run through his body. His hand slipped under your shirt, gripping onto your sides. His eyes squeezed shut feeling you roll your hips to meet his own. God this felt so good. He wanted nothing more than to continue and absolutely make you his.

You both quickly pulled out of the heated kiss, trying to catch your breath. "Would you two fucken idiots hurry up! I'm hungry!" Someone upstairs called down to the both of you, unaware of what was taking place just a few steps away from them. "Yeah. One minute." You answered. You heard a grumble and the upstairs door slam shut before pushing your hips into his once more, teasing him with your body. You pushed him away, catching yourself and standing infront of him.

You pulled his mask down after giving him a short kiss and fixed his apron, flattening the straps. "We will finish this later. I promise." You grinned, winking at him before walking off to make your way to the kitchen.

Later ...

#Thomas Hewitt #thomas hewitt x reader #Texas Chainsaw Massacre #texas chainsaw #slasher blog #slasher x s/o #slasher x you #slasher x reader #bubba sawyer #bubba x reader #bubba saywer x reader

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cuddlepilefics · 4 years ago

Text

8. The Grinch

Fandom: Stray Kids

Littles: Minho (4), Hyunjin (5), Felix (3)

Caregiver: Jeongin (M.), Seungmin (H.), Chan & Changbin (F.)

Chan’s POV.:

Having a week off to relax after the stress of producing our Christmas album, the three littles in our group decided to have a few days of little time. They tried to play by themselves as much as possible, not wanting to burden their caregivers as they were just as run down as the littles themselves. But as a caregiver myself, I didn‘t mind caring for them even though I was tired. Changbin and I have been Felix main caregivers ever since he came out as a little a few months ago. Although Jeongin was Minho‘s main caregiver and Seungmin took care of a regressed Hyunjin, we‘d all take care of the other littles as well, should they need us to.

The littles had regressed yesterday, immediately distancing themselves from us no matter how much we assured them that they weren‘t being a burden to us and that we‘d love to spend time with them. At the moment, the three had locked themselves in Minho‘s and Hyunjin‘s room and I could hear them talk in slightly higher voices than usual, muffled by the door. I sighed walking back to the living room where I found Changbin on the couch sipping his coffee. “Lixxie still doesn‘t want to see us?“, he guessed as he saw me returning alone. I gave him a sad smile while shaking my head and sat down next to him, running a hand through my hair. “Guys, has anyone seen Minho? We were cuddling last night but now he‘s gone as well as his teddy, that means he‘s little but I can‘t find him. What if he got lost or os in trouble?“, a clearly stressed Jeongin skidded into the living room, almost knocking over Seungmin who just wanted to grab himself some coffee. “Relax, Innie. All three are in Minho‘s and Hyunjin‘s room. Nobody got lost but I can‘t tell you whether they are in trouble or not because they won‘t open the door“, Changbin explained irritably, before getting up to dispose of his empty cup. He might not look like it on first sight but Changbin is a very caring and protective friend with a huge heart and he is especially soft for Felix. Not being able to be with our little was putting him on edge. “Yeah, I couldn‘t get back in when I returned from my shower earlier“, Seungmin stated taking a sip of his coffee, flinching as he burned his tongue. “Why don‘t they want to see us though?“, he frowned as he sat down next to me. “The way Lixxie put it, they feel like being egoistic for regressing. Saying it‘s our time off as well and we shouldn‘t have to spend it by taking care of them“, I rolled my eyes. “But that‘s stupid. There is no other way I‘d prefer to spend my time than by playing and cuddling my Minmin“, the maknae pouted biting into an apple afterwards.

“Good morning lovely family, did y’all miss me?“, Jisung yelled with a huge smile before plopping down at the table and shoving a heating spoonful of cereal into his mouth, making him look even more like a squirrel while he was chewing. “Not really, it was quiet for once“, Seungmin sassed earning a glare. “Chan-hyung, I‘m being bullied“, he whined with his mouth still full. “Sorry, I didn‘t understand a word like that, mind repeating after you swallowed?“, I teased before grabbing myself something to eat as well. I was worried our littles were missing their meal if they wouldn‘t come out of their room so I grabbed three strawberry yoghurts as well as three spoons and prepared a plate with apple slices which I all carried to their door placing it on the ground before knocking. “Lixxie, I brought the three of you some breakfast. It‘s right at the door so please eat something if you don‘t want to eat with the rest of us. There was no answer and I sighed, turning around to leave. When I was halfway down the hallway I could hear a quiet clicking noise. At least they had taken the food and were hopefully eating now. I wasn‘t as obvious as Changbin but being away from Felix, especially when he was little, stressed me out too.

When I returned to the living room I found the rest of my members in a dull mood, Jisung‘s smile having disappeared too, as the caregivers had told him what was going on right now. Jisung wasn‘t a caregiver to any of the littles but he was a very caring older brother who constantly showered them with love, watching them from time to time when one of us caregivers where busy. He didn‘t like them holing up and avoiding us so he immediately started brainstorming how we could lure them out of their room. The option to wait for them to become hungry was gone now that I had supplied them with food so we had to search for a new approach. “Hm, what do littles like…?“, he hummed more to himself than to us. “Oh, oh, I know, pillow forts and movies and cocoa and cookies and plushies“, he listed, getting more and more excited. Jeongin‘s face lit up immediately as he ran off to gather all the pillows and blankets from his and Jisung‘s shared room. I smirked at Changbin as we went to collect our pillows and blankets as well as a few plushies and coloring books Feilx had forgotten when dragging his little stuff to the other room. For the lack of access to his own room, Seungmin went to the kitchen to heat up a pot of milk, stirring in some chocolate and a dash of cinnamon.

Jisung had already started to turn the couch into a pillow fort, snatching the blankets from us right as we walked into the living room. If there was something Jisung was exceptionally good at besides rapping and singing, it was setting up pillow forts. It was a skill all the littles loved him for dearly. I went back to the locked door, knocking gently and listening to the hushed voices inside, debating whether they should answer me or not. “Cuties, I know that you heard me. Just wanted to tell you we‘re all hanging out in one of Jisung‘s pillow forts to watch a Christmas movie. We also have hot cocoa and cookies, so if you wanna join us you‘re very welcome. You know, a movie is always better with cuddles but I guess we could somehow survive without“, I informed them, making sure to sound as sad as I possibly could towards the end. I got no reaction so I went back to the living room, where Seungmin placed a few plates with different cookies onto the coffee table in the center of the pillow fort. The others looked at me expectantly as I returned alone and I smirked at them: “Just wait. They won’t be able to resist for too long.“

True to my words, we soon heard shuffling steps in the hall way but decided to pretend we didn‘t till I felt a shy tap on my shoulder. “Well hello there baby“, I whispered, gently pulling Felix into my lap. He giggled quietly, hiding his face in the crook of my neck. “Aww, I missed my sunshine sooo much“, Changbin smiled, wrapping his arms around Felix and me. When I looked up, I watched Hyunjin dig his toes into the carpet, facing the ground with a guilty expression. “Sorry, daddy for locking you out“, the oldest little mumbled, not daring to meet his caregiver‘s and roommate‘s eyes. Seungmin sighed tucking the messy strands of Hyunjin‘s long hair behind his ears. “I‘m not mad, sweetie. I was just sad and lonely because I missed you and you didn‘t want me there“ – “I-I want you. Was lonely too but daddy should have fun too. Don‘t want daddy be stuck with me“, the sensitive Hyunjin teared up a bit. “Shh, it‘s ok. We‘re both not lonely anymore now, are we? You know I always have fun when I‘m with you so I‘d be the luckiest person if you‘d stick by my side, princess“, he assured the little. Minho was shy about approaching his caregiver too but one look at the maknae‘s wide smile told him that he didn‘t have to be.

Finally being reunited, we got settled in the pillow fort. Jisung went to the kitchen to fill the littles‘ sippycups with hot cocoa before setting up his laptop to turn on Netflix. Changbin grabbed a cookie holding it next to Felix head and finally getting the youngest little to look up from my neck. Blushing a little, he took a bite of the cookie and giggled to himself before eating the rest. Hyunjin was munching on the treats as well while Minho lay with his head in Jeongin‘s lap, letting the maknae hold the sippy to his lips. I took a small plastic bowl, adding a few of each cookies so we wouldn‘t have to get up from our seated position. Felix was quick to take one of the cookies, choosing my favorite kind and holding it up to my mouth while giving me huge puppy-eyes. I thanked him smiling before opening my mouth so he could feed me. Changbin next to me cooed at the adorable action and the little craned his neck to find the source of the sound, giggling happily as he also picked up a cookie for the older rapper. I heard the quiet clicking of a camera and glared at Jisung who just replied: “We need some Christmas-pictures for the family foto-collection.“

The littles were all still in their pajamas but for a lazy-day like today that was a perfectly suitable outfit. After scrolling through Netflix, we settled for watching The Grinch (2000). Felix had moved from my lap to Changbin‘s stretching his legs over mine while happily sucking on the sippy, Changbin held out for him. The first few minutes of the movie were absolute bliss, till the grinch appeared for the first part, causing Felix to squeal and hide his face in Changbin‘s chest. I rubbed his leg comfortingly and looked over at the other littles‘ reactions. Minho was pressed against Jeongin, covering his eyes and Hyunjin was clutching Seungmin‘s arm tightly while pretending not to be scared. We offered to turn off the movie and try to find something else to watch multiple times but the littles were insistent that they are big boys and want to finish the movie, though we could all tell they were scared.

After having lunch, we continued the rest of the day in a similar fashion, afraid the littles would hide away again if we didn‘t. The three of them got tired pretty early in the evening, probably because the fought so hard to finish the movie, clinging as tightly to their caregivers as physically possible. We all said good night as we went to tuck our babies in. When I carried Felix to our room, Changbin had already pushed our beds together so Felix could lay between us. We often did this when Felix regressed. He was an adorable cuddlebug when he was big and even more so when he was little. Not wanting to miss out on cuddles, we too decided to call it a night early and just go to bed at Felix‘ bedtime. The three of us huddled together in bed seemed like utter bliss and despite not being tired, the warmth lulled me to sleep quickly.

The peace wasn’t to last for long though and I startled awake at the sounds of my baby‘s cries. Changbin as awake already, rocking the little in his arms and mouthing nightmare when our eyes met. I ran my hand over Felix‘ back, shushing him: “What‘s wrong, sweetie?“ – “B-bad dweam. L-Lixxie scawed“, he choked, clinging to Changbin‘s shirt. I sighed, knowing it was a bad idea to let them finish The Grinch. “It‘s ok, bub. You‘re save, we‘ll protect you“, I cooed. “Lixxie, sit with Dada for a while, ok? Binnie will make you some warm milk with honey to calm down“, the rapper promised, shifting the little into my arms and getting up after kissing his forehead. While Changbin went to the kitchen to fill Felix‘ bottle, I gently talked him down, making my Australian accent more prominent. When he had calmed down a bit, I picked him up and followed Changbin to the kitchen. There we found Seungmin, fixing Hyunjin a sippycup of vanilla milk while the little sat on the counter watching him. Hyunjin felt to big to use a bottle but wanted the comfort of warm milk so that‘s why they settled for a sippycup. I lifted Felix onto the counter next to him and the dancer quickly wrapped his arm around the younger. “Let me guess, nightmare?“, I asked. Seungmin nodded rubbing his face tiredly. “Don‘t be scared, Lixxie. Nothing can happen when we all stay together“, the dancer assured putting on his brave face in front of the younger. “Thanks Jinnie“, the freckled boy yawned.

When both drinks for the littles were heated up, Changbin carried Felix to the living room while Hyunjin being the big boy he is, walked himself, holding Seungmin‘s hand. Upon entering the living room, our eyes fell onto the couple laying in the pillow fort. Minho was curled up in Jeongin‘s arms, drinking from the bottle the maknae held to his lips, keeping his eyes closed. Jisung was the first to notice us, while he strung up fairylights all across the living room. “Seems like we‘re having a sleepover“, he laughed, plucking in the last fairylight, filling the room with dim, warm light as we all settled back into the pillow fort where we had already spent all day. While we fed the exhausted littles their bottles, stroking their backs soothingly, Jisung quietly hummed his version of Me after you. The first little to nod off was Minho, after mumbling a quiet “I love you, Innie“ into the maknae‘s shirt. Felix followed suit, having finished about two thirds of his bottle. Hyunjing was the last to go to sleep, placing his sippy down, he curled into Seungmin, telling his daddy he loved him and receiving kiss on the cheek in return. We caregivers wished each other and Jisung good night before we closed our eyes as well.

#fanfic #comfort #angst #christmas #little #little space #headspace #agere #skz #stray kids #cute

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plussizeappreciationfics · 5 years ago

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OS: The real one

Pairing: Yahya Abudl Mateen II x Plus sized reader

Warning(s): NSFW 18+only, unprotected sex (wrap it up before you back it up)

Word count:

Picture(s) found on: Pinterest/Google

“I need to stop this…” you whispered while shaking your head, feeling like an idiot for actually having acted like one. Your eyes were focused on Yahya, your boyfriend of four months. He gave you a disappointed look while shaking his head, the thick tension in the air making it clear that he was angry at you.

“This is an issue we need to discuss, [Y/N]” he said in a sad tone despite his angered emotions. He then joined you on the edge of your bed, his hand gently placed on your thick thigh while his eyes focused on your face. You avoided his intense gaze for a few seconds, feeling tears starting to form in your eyes but quickly blinking them away. Crying wasn’t what you wanted to do right now.

“Please tell me why you’re behaving this way so I can help you fix it. I won’t judge you, babe. I just need to know why you’re sabotaging our relationship” It was undeniable that Yahya was hurt, but he was more than ready to listen and learn why you had been doing the things you did because it was starting to take an ugly turn on your relationship and neither of you was happy about it.

You took a deep breath and looked him back in the eyes again, his beautiful dark brown ones making your heart flutter in your chest. You loved this man to pieces, but your ugly past relationships had caught up on you.

“The reason why I have been self-sabotaging our relationship is because I-…You’re perfect and I feel like I don’t deserve this. Every person I’ve been with has ended up breaking my heart…” the truth was finally out and you felt your heart pound against your ribcage as you knew that you needed to dive deeper into your bad experiences.

Yahya frowned sadly and took your hand in his, kissing the back of it before letting out a disappointed sigh. He had suspected that you had gone through some shitty things with your ex-partners, so finally getting the confirmation wasn’t too pleasant for him.

“I’ve dated people I loved so much that I was willing to change for them, take up new habits and make everything go their way. All that succeeded for a little while…but they eventually stopped making an effort in keeping the relationship alive. I had to give my 100% and get nothing in return.

I spent countless of nights crying myself to sleep because I knew that this would happen. With. Every. Single. Partner. It’s like they all disguised themselves as these perfect angles and the second I agreed to a relationship with them, they removed the façade and revealed that they were just vultures: sucking the love and happiness out of me and leaving me with no energy” you took a deep breath and let your shoulders slump in disappointment.

“It got to the point where I started to believe that I didn’t deserve true happiness, Yahya. That every single lover I’d meet would find a way to break my heart all over again. It took me a long time to realize that nothing of that is true. That I deserve all the love and happiness in the world just like everyone else.

But unfortunately, my old habits have come back stronger than ever since I met you. Because I’ve never felt so much love and joy with anyone but you, babe”. Yahya couldn’t help but lean in and sneak a quick kiss from your delicate, soft lips. “I feel the exact same” he confessed while feeling his heart flutter in his chest.

“You’ve never made me feel worthless, never disrespected me in any way whatsoever and never made me act a fool due to any type of stupid shenanigans. I am terrified because I’m so happy. I keep telling myself that something’s bound to happen that will leave me heartbroken so I started to act out on my feelings” you finished with a shameful sigh.

Ever since getting with Yahya, he had never failed to deliver the love, affection and security you needed and deserved. He was the first guy to ever really love and appreciate you and wish to plan your future together, no bullshit and broken promises. Seeing that he actually was dead serious about his plans with you, the frustrations of him not treating you shitty started to get to your head. When your frustrations hit the peak, you suddenly were a clingy and jealous mess, demanding Yahya’s location and accusing him of cheating on you when he wouldn’t respond to your text messages (because he was obviously working).

Today was supposed to be a date night, but Yahya cancelled it when you tried to pick a fight over a dream you had about him. He watched in great pain and confusion how you tried to explain that your dream was a sign that he was bound to do something hurtful to you. When he didn’t react the way, you wanted (or let’s say how your exes did by yelling and gaslighting you), you finally realized that you had taken things too far.

“[Y/N]” Yahya gently whispered and brought your intertwined hand to his soft lips again, kissing the back of yours while closing his eyes in pain. “I am so sorry for everything you went through. No one should ever go through so much pain to the point where they start believing that it’s what they deserve. No one.

I can finally see through you and I’m not mad at what you’ve done. I’ve shown you countless of times that I truly love you. I want to marry you, have kids with you and grow old with you [Y/N]. But you have to believe me, my words and actions…”

You nodded your head in agreement and already believed in your happily ever after with your boyfriend. Now was the time to stop assuming the worst and finally give into the indescribable emotions he made you feel.

“I’m so sorry for doing the things I did” you apologized and wrapped your arms around Yahya’s neck, feeling at peace in his strong arms. He wrapped his strong arms around your thick waist and nuzzled his head in the crook of your neck, inhaling your delicate scent and immediately feeling like floating on cloud nine.

“It’s okay, baby. I forgive you”.

Hearing those words made your heart swell in your chest, the tension quickly vanished from your body while your lover gently picked you up and threw you in the middle of the bed. The air immediately got thicker once you saw him bite his lip while positioning himself in between your spread legs.

A soft moan escaped your lips while you quickly tugged at your shirt before pulling it over your head and tossing it on to the floor. Your lover did the same with his, your arousal gathering in between your legs the second your eyes landed on his toned upper body. The tight muscles flexing while he then quickly moved to his own shorts and yanked them off.

“Gosh do I want you, [Y/N]” Yahya groaned when you slipped out of your sweatpants and underwear and then palmed his hard length through his boxer briefs. Feeling him twitching in your hand made you let out a soft moan, “Then have me”.

That was all the confirmation your boyfriend needed before he leaned down and placed his hand on either side of your head. The warmth his beautiful body was radiating onto you had your stomach in delicate knots. Feeling him so close and heavy on top of you was pure heaven.

“Look at me” Yahya groaned while removing his boxer briefs with one hand before placing his throbbing thickness at your already drenched entrance. “Please” you begged and grinded your hips upwards, dying to feel him buried deep inside you.

The actor chuckled deeply and then teased your swollen and sensitive clit with the head of his length, the intense feeling leaving you a shuddering mess while you wrapped your arms around his broad shoulders and dug your nails into his skin.

“Yahya…” you whimpered while staring deeply into his eyes, not knowing for how long you’d be able to handle the delicate teasing.

“[Y/N]” he growled as he looked down and saw that his whole length was covering in your arousal, that being a magnificent look.

Without a further word, he surprised you by slowly sinking into you with one, deep thrust. “Oh!” you cried out and clenched your eyes shut, your inner walls being stretched deliciously. “Oh, baby” Yahya murmured before placing his head in the crook of your neck, a shiver running down his spine as you felt heavenly wrapped around him.

He gave you a good minute to get used to his impressive and throbbing thickness, the tender kisses he left up and down your neck being a beautiful distraction before you felt ready for some friction.

“Move” you gently spoke, making him lift his head and smile down at you. His bright smile made you copy his action while his hips slowly started to move against you, his strokes deep and steady.

The room was quickly filled with your loud love sounds, the delicate sensations of having your boyfriend buried deep inside you leaving you breathless and shaking. The two of only stopped staring at each other to share some passionate, French kisses or when the pleasure become too much, you had to clench your eyes shut and let it wash over you.

“Baby!” you moaned out loud and arched your back, your eyes shut and your legs shaking. Yahya’s throbbing length had just hit your weak spot and that immediately triggered the delicious knot to form in the pit of your stomach.

He felt your inner walls tense up around his length and he had to clench his hands into fists, trying his best not to cum right now in that moment. “I-I’m close” he growled before staring down at your beautiful face that was covered in a light layer of sweat.

He leaned down and captured your soft lips in a kiss so intense that it made your toes curl while the knot in your stomach only got tighter. You had no energy left to make a sound, just kiss the love of your life with the last strength in your body before feeling your orgasm wash over you.

“Ah…” you whimpered in a high note, the earth shattering waves of ecstasy washing over your body, your inner walls clenching themselves around Yahya’s now twitching length. A weak moan left his lips before he also was thrown over the blissful edge, his whole body shaking while he released himself deep inside you.

Yahya fell on top of you, his heavy weight being welcomed by you. Loud panting filled the room while you slowly felt your bodies recover from the breathtaking highs. He still was buried inside you, but you didn’t mind that at all. The moment still felt intimate and beautiful.

“I love you so much, [Y/N]. You’re my person” your boyfriend whispered in the crook of your neck; his arms now wrapped around your thick waist. “I love you too, my person” you whispered back happily, feeling his heartbeat slowly sync with yours while you slowly fell asleep in each other’s arms.

Tag list: @jamesbarnesappreciationclub l @pleasantdreamqueen l @disneymarina l @koizorahana l l @harleycativy l @itik-angsa l @sparklemichele l @melaninmarvel l @amethyst09 l @the-force-of-imagines l @bossyboyd03 l @enigmaticaphrodite l @pebblesz892 l @stars8melanin l @brittyevans l @toc1985 l @janeyboo l @badassbaker l @earthtocynthia l @lafayettes-baguettes-1 l @winters-beauty l @cannonindeez l @ilovefanfic86 l @foureyedsiopao l @adorablespecialsnowflakes l @brittanyovens l @kanupps06 l @jazmynejack l @oliviajmarvel l @thebookwormslytherin l @theunsweetenedtruth l @talannalew l @littlexmissxfandomxlover l @amethyst-dreams-and-candy-canes l @dedebebe13 l @challaxkillmonger l @crimsonash330 l @booklover2929 l @aranelgrey l @panda-duuu l @thisismysecrethappyplace l @killmonsgyal l @lokislilcaribbeanprincess l @titty-teetee l @honey-anon l @queenxchallaxkillamonger l @princess-evans-addict l @hp-hogwartsexpress l @malindacath l @supernaturaltrashy l @letsdisneythings l @scorpionchild81 l @shado-raven l @alisoncdariel l @plutoneu

-Emmanuelle 💋❤️

#Yahya Abdul Mateen II #Yahya X Reader #yahya x plus size reader #plus size reader

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mauserfrau · 4 years ago

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Eyeshine, Part 1 - Bordertober

HEY KIDS WHO WANTS TO SEE THE TWINS ON THEIR SHIP HEADED TO PANDORA.

IT’S REALLY TINY.

AND THEY’RE HAVING ENGINE TROUBLE.

...or are they?

Lots of Tyreen eating and some other general nastiness from her. Appreciably Claustrophobic.

The jump brought them to a space so empty it didn’t even seem black. No— darkness rested between other stars, far off and distant. Here was a clear nothingness, out of reach of the rest of the universe.

Tyreen drifted at his shoulder. He could feel her fuming.

Neither of them had made much sound since they’d stopped. The lights were low, the gravity still off and wherever they were now, it seemed like there hadn’t been a sound there since the galaxy formed. A word from either of them would disturb this.

Besides, this wasn’t Pandora. This wasn’t even the Pandoran system. Or any system. This was nothing.

“Stars move, you know,” Troy said, fumbling the silence apart.

“It’s only been like twenty years,” insisted Tyreen. “They can’t move that fast. We should at least be able to see it!”

He gestured a spiral with his hand. Did she even care that the star cluster where Nekrotafeyo had grown spun opposite this one, that they were blue-shifting verses each other and that had choked the navigation system? He decided to summarize. “I think the computer’s a little off and umm...”

“Umm what?”

“I might have overcompensated for stellar drift since I ended up doing it manually.”

“Troy!” She made his name sound like she’d broken something. He half-expected a slap.

“Look.” He forced calm into his voice and turned to face her as he spoke.

She was livid, her whole body tense and her hair standing on end.

“We can’t run out of power. We jumped just fine. We have water. We have food. We have a working toilet.”

“And where are we!”

“I’m gonna run an extrapolation and figure that out while the jump drive resets.”

“Can’t you math it in your head?”

“Um.” Sighing, Troy turned back to the view screen, focusing first on the blank reach where their ship rested, then letting his vision float to the stars. The blackness lived between them, but in some strands there was no between, only points of light thick enough to make mist out of each other. “I kinda don’t think so.”

Tyreen groaned and swam off towards the bed.

Tyreen moved better in zero g than he did. Troy was always twisting around to his left to push, pull, founder. Still, he hated to turn the gravity back on. There was something about watching her float above the bed with the covers billowing around her. She seemed so right like that, singular and and easy and in this case put out.

Her Coeus reader was flickering lately. She ended up groaning and setting it loose to float through the cabin where Troy caught it.

She also said— “Hey, turn the heavy back on. I gotta piss.”

“Alright. On three. Three.” Troy threw the switch. His back crunched as weight returned to his spine through the seat at the command console. His sister landed with a thump. Their foodstores yelped and howled and shed feather-forms along the floor. Tyreen caught herself with a huff and pulled herself into the water closet, giving the cage of spindly hexlings a sour look before she shut the door. One of them shrieked after her. Troy shushed it and went back to the console.

The keys pressed easier with weight back in his body. He pulled up the extrapolation program. Another likely set of coordinates failed a final round of testing and ticked away. The system was working to match the spectrographic information of visible stars to known clusters as far as he could tell. Color seemed such a tenuous way to determine place, but that might have been the emptiness intruding on his thoughts more than anything rational. Besides, he kept thinking he had somehow spied the white supergiant that held Pandora out among all the other points of light.

Troy was tempted to ask his sister to try. She was the siren. She might be able to do it if she listened across all the dark matter between them and that place.

She was still in the water closet.

Troy let the extrapolator run in the background and idly tabbed into the superstructure of the ship’s hard drive. It had been made to be piloted by someone with little skill, all of the command icons in welcoming jelly style art with three to four clicks needed to access any functions more complicated than the gravity or the sublight engine speed. He’d picked the interface up fast enough, but modifying the OS to accept a jump drive had been more hours of frustrated keystrokes than any actual handiwork.

Every system responded in good order. He’d done the same check once they’d cleared Nekrotafeyo’s gravity well and before the jump. The only difference was thousands of light years to nowhere and the bottom falling out of his stomach halfway there, not more than a heartbeat.

He even dug into the audio system. If Tyreen asked, he wanted to be able to tell her literally everything was fine.

A handful of loose example recordings bothered the top folder. Troy thought about moving them, but the system considered their poor placement de rigeur and complained when he tried.

Tempted to try, he clicked down the list, which was when he realized: one of them had a different date than the others.

He leaned over a speaker and hit play, curious what had been loaded on this particular sound test file. Since that was probably it.

Instead, he heard Dad say, “Well, if it isn’t my favorite little minx. Yeah, that’s a good girl. Let me see those eyes shine. I love it when you...”

He slammed stop.

There was somebody else on the file too. They were laughing that bubbly way he knew happened, but he barely remembered as something he’d experienced in his own life.

Troy stared at the file. He breathed again.

A thump sounded behind him and Tyreen came tripping out of the water closet, pants around her ankles and her underwear yanked up in her fist. “What the hell was that?”

“Ah, system check. Since we’re here, you know.”

She growled and she sat down right where she was and in the puddle of her pants. “Warn me next time.”

“Your intuition didn’t tip you off?”

Those words didn’t even merit an answer. She closed her eyes and turned her back to him.

The ship was so small he only would have had to lean out of the chair and he could have had his hand on her. She wasn’t in the mood though, not about that, not about anything to do with Dad and definitely not about playing siren anytime before they made planetfall.

And well, then she wouldn’t be playing anymore, would she?

Maybe that fact had settled funny someplace in her stomach. Troy just knew that after a while she stole her Coeus back and stood in the corner, smacking the screen. The extrapolation program ticked off another hundred coordinates that didn’t suit, approaching 50% complete at a crawl.

Tyreen peered over his shoulder, but said nothing about the progress bar.

It looked like half of their chances for finding themselves had been spent. Troy thought it was more of a best match situation.

He wondered what he would do if he was wrong.

The jump drive ticked down to usable quiescence. Tyreen swore and started to get back into bed. Instead she kicked her pants off and stretched out belly-down on the floor which was chalky with the bookmarks of the night they’d left.

It had only been two days. He thought. The active time on the sublight engine monitor was somewhat misleading. Startup had taken so long, but he’d been fumbling all over himself, movements thick with the shock of what he was about to do.

What Tyreen said they were doing.

Like, she just… dragged him. Now?

Now there his sister lay, looking like she’d melted into the ground.

“What’re you staring at?” she muttered without looking up from the well of her arms.

“Mm. Nothing,” Troy murmured. “I was thinking about when we were kids. That game we’d play about not getting off the bed back when we only had the one and...” Well, he thought about that a lot, even though it hadn’t been bothering his mind in that moment.

Tyreen sat up, still hunched over. Her Coeus rattled in her grasp. Eventually, she tipped it into one of the charging slots. “I’m eating now. You want in?”

“Sure.”

Food was something to do anyway. Troy hauled himself out of the chair and got himself into the cupboard after some of the stale rye bread they’d taken from the stores back at the homestead. He checked it for mold and then also took a plum.

Tyreen picked over the cages with a tongs. Did she want manta eggs? A hexling or two? A flush of air coral and sprat? One one of the lonesome baby Djira mewing in their own slime?

She took two eggs.

The two of them hunched together on a sheet of tanned air algae. Troy’s plum was sour, but he sucked the pit clean while Tyreen stared at him. As he reached for the bread, Tyreen shoved one of the eggs at him. “Open it for me.”

Troy sighed. Speaking of games from when they were children— Tyreen could have eaten the egg regardless, but he’d gotten awfully good at spinning the tops off with his knife and one hand. He smiled and he did this for her now, placing the egg on a spare sack so that his sister’s leavings would spread through the ship, get into the Instruments.

The egg squished as she pressed her fingers inside. It turned to dust and glass. “Hmm. That was fresher than I thought.”

“Good. Want me to do the other one too?”

“Sure.”

So, he sliced again. He was going to have to wash his hand before he finished his own super as much as the second egg leaked.

This time, his sister stared at her dirty knees. “Are you sure you didn’t fuck everything up?”

“If I did,” Troy said softly. “Then we’ll deal wi-...”

Tyreen sucked the other egg down, sloppy now, sand leaking between her toes. She grabbed the piece of rye and stuck it in Troy’s mouth before burrowing into the bed and covering her head with the pillow.

Troy chewed thoughtfully and then moved to clean up. The baby Djira chortled in their cages as though night had fallen. Well, it was that time by the engine clock.

#bordertober #border-tober #borderlands 3 #fanfic #fanfiction #Tyreen Calypso #Tyreen being Tyreen #Troy Calypso #Troy Calypso PoV #enclosed spaces #claustrophobia #tags will change #appreciably some shade of horror #i couldn't get a straight answer on how ships are supposed to do ship things so have this #it's a hack sci-fi author blue plate special #oh and they had plums on Nekro in Grimeverse #mostly because I was hungry for plums one day

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exhaustedfander · 5 years ago

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When is Enough Enough? [Chapter One]

Since I’ve begun to write a fun little sequel to this fic, I’ve decided to post all of the chapter up on Tumblr, but you can also find the fic, as well as all of my other works, on my ao3.

The first chapter of the sequel First Comes Love is up now as well. I’d love to hear what you think!

Teaser to Story:

“When is enough going to be enough?”

“Remus, please, if you could just attempt to understand where I’m coming from–.”

“Oh, excuseee me. I’m so sorry I’m not “understanding where you’re coming from”. He’s my fucking brother! You won’t even let me tell my brother that we’re together!”

For a moment, Logan felt the urge to take a step backwards, as though he was a frightened animal being backed into a corner. Of course, that was ridiculous. Logan and Remus were merely having a…conversation. In all fairness, most conversations didn’t include this much yelling, but surely things would be fine.

“I – I just need more time. I apologize. I’m not ready.” Anger flashed in Remus’s emerald eyes as he took a step closer to Logan, throwing his hands in the air.

“I can’t fucking do this anymore, Logan!"

1 / 2 / 3 / 4 / 5 / 6 / 7 / 8 / Epilog

Chapter One

“When is enough going to be enough?”

“Remus, please, if you could just attempt to understand where I’m coming from–.”

“Oh, excuseee me. I’m so sorry I’m not “understanding where you’re coming from”. He’s my fucking brother! You won’t even let me tell my brother that we’re together!”

For a moment, Logan felt the urge to take a step backwards, as though he was a frightened animal being backed into a corner. Of course, the notion was ridiculous. Logan and Remus were merely having a...conversation. In all fairness, most conversations don't include this much yelling, but surely things would be fine.

“I – I just need more time. I apologize. I’m not ready.” Anger flashed in Remus's emerald eyes as he took a step closer to Logan, throwing his hands in the air.

“I can’t fucking do this anymore, Logan! I said that I’d give you a couple months before you were ready to talk about us being together…but it’s been six now!”

“Seven…”

“What?” Logan swallowed the lump that was beginning to form in his throat.

“It’s, uh, actually been seven months now. Seven months today.” Remus barked out a laugh, the sound bitter and thick with frustration.

“Seven months. Jesus Christ.”

“I…I know it’s not a specifically celebrated time-frame, but I was going to surprise you. I wanted to take you out for a meal tonight.”

“What? Like you actually want to be seen in public with me?” Logan blinked in confusion.

“What are you talking about?” Remus shook his head, running a hand through his already frazzled hair and laughed bitterly.

“Well, it’s obvious that you don’t give a shit about me. I’m an idiot for not realizing it sooner…maybe Roman was right when he said I was the stupid twin.”

“Sweetheart, no – what? Of course I care about you, what are you going on about?” Confusion swirled in Logan’s head. Today had started out so ordinary, how could things worsen so rapidly? It was as though every word he uttered continued to damage the situation, so much so that if felt like Remus was near a breaking point. But what did that mean for him?

“Oh don’t sweetheart me, Logan!” He pointed an accusing finger at his boyfriend, pressing it into his chest,“You know exactly what I’m talking about!”

“I – I don’t –.”

“You don’t want to tell your friends about us? Fucking fine! I can handle that. But Roman? My brother? I know he and I don’t exactly get along most of the time, but have you ever considered my feelings in all this? Had you considered that maybe, I was happy to be your boyfriend? Maybe I wanted to tell my brother that I was in a loving, good relationship with someone who didn’t treat me like shit for once?” Logan felt as though the air has been sucked from his lungs.

“Was?” Remus set his arms at his side, sighing loudly and taking a step away from Logan.

“Yeah, was. I don’t know if I can do this anymore. I mean, seven fucking months. Do you recognize all of the things I’ve held back? All of the hesitations I’ve demonstrated just to protect your feelings? Feelings that so much of the time you pretend you don’t even have.”

“Rem–.”

“And you should know me well enough by now to know that I do not enjoy hesitating. I speak my fucking mind, and now I’m speaking it!”

“Remus,” Logan struggled to dislodge the name from his throat, his voice coming out far weaker than he intended, “Please, I apologize. Let’s just try and be rational about all this.”

“Oh you threw logic out the window a long time ago, baby. You’ve kept this hidden for too long and it’s driving me insane. But that’s probably what you think, right? I’m insane. I’m too much to handle.”

“Now, I never said anything like that!”

“Ah, but you didn’t have to! You think I don’t know what I’m like? I’m loud, I’m obnoxious, I always say what’s on my mind. I’m crude. I’m nothinglike you, and maybe I’m an idiot for thinking this could work.”

Logan's mind was consumed by panic. He felt himself floundering, desperately trying not to drown in the despair that had fallen over both of them. He'd had no idea that Remus had been thinking this way about himself, about their relationship. he hadn't seen the insecurity deserving beneath crude humor and silly smiles. The movements where Remus had hesitated for just a fraction of a moment before kissing him, the look of unease that had set itself into his features over the last few months. How couldn't he have known? How could he be so dull?

“Remus, I…I don’t think about you in any of the ways you’ve described. The aspects of your personality are things that I love about you. Sincerely and truly. I’m sorry I’m – I’m just so…concerned about your relationship with Roman. You two are already on such bad terms, I feel as though revealing our relationship could worsen things. I would never want to be the cause of such a thing.”

Remus let out a sigh that sounded so heartbroken Logan's hand instinctively recoiled from his boyfriend's shoulder, falling limp at his side.

“You’re just scared.” Logan swallowed, feeling as though his heart was being twisted in his chest, deliberate and slow.

“I…”

“You’re scared that if Roman knows about this, then it’ll be that much more real. If he knows, you can’t hide anymore. There’s no coming back from that, it’s a commitment when you get the family involved.”

“But I am committed to you. Sweetheart –.”

“I said don’t call be sweetheart!” The words eruputting from Remus were raw, having cut their way up his throat like shards of glass. Logan could no longer ignore the tears that were brewing in his lover's eyes, nor did he know how to get ride of them. In a swift motion Remus wiped his eyes on his sleeve and spun around, already heading for the door.

“I’m taking a walk.” Logan barely made it a few feet closer to him before Remus stoped dead in his tracks, still refusing to face him. "Don't you dare follow me. I can't stand the sight of you right now."

The slam of the door sent Logan reeling. He was unsure of how long he stood there, staring absently at where his boyfriend had stood.

He'd had such grand plans for how the day would be spent. he'd intended on showing Remus how much he appreciated him, how much, despite his insistence of being mostly emotionless, love he felt for him. But standing in an empty apartment with his heart beating out of his chest, the love that has infiltrated his heart is replaced with numbness.

Defeated, Logan trudged to the sofa, collapsing and throwing his head in his hands.

How can I be so cruel?

It isn't necessarily the first time that the thought had crossed his mind. He knows that despite his best intentions, he could be thoughtless. It was a strange thing to consider, the idea of such a logic-driven man being os irrational when it comes to his emotions. But that's just the issue; the complexity of his emotions.

It had never been Logan's intention to fall in love with Remus. In fact, it all happened quite accidentally. Knowing of his and Roman's complicated relationship, when Logan first became aquatinted with Remus he'd lived up to most expectations. He was crass, tumultuous and unpredictable as Roman had described...but it seemed there were some things he'd managed to leave out.

Remus was also endlessly fascinated with the science of the human body, the mysteries of the depths of the oceans and the endless ether of Outer Space as well as so many other things that captured the attention of Logan. Logan enjoyed the enthusiasm that Remus presented when talking about topics he liked, and although he tended to jump from topic to topic at random, Logan liked that too. Remus kept him on his toes, and he had grown to adore their strange, special bond.

It was supposed to stay platonic, or at least that's what he'd told himself. But despite everything, the feelings crept in. He dwelled on fractions of accidental contact for hours, scrutinizing the brush of their hands, the feeling of Remus's eyes settled over him for a second too long. He found himself getting lost in all that Remus described, the sound of his voice becoming one of Logan's very favorite things. Eventually, much of the space of his mind was taken up with catalogs of all of the things that Remus enjoyed, his wide, at times intimidating smile, his bold laugh. Logan found himself consumed in all things Remus and when he found himself in a situation where his friends lips were inches away from his own, he surged forward, claiming all he desired despite how illogical it seemed.

He'd intended to tell Roman right away, or at least that's what he kept making himself believe. At first, their relationship had seemed more dominated by lust than romantic feelings and he was able to convince himself that this was merely a fling. But with time, the feelings gained in strength, impossible to disregard any longer.

Remus was absolutely nothing he'd envisioned in a potential partner. He was boisterous. energetic, contentedly talking about any of the ides that pop into his head, no matter how odd or random. He had a bold, headache-inducing sense of fashion - as if that neon green and pink checkered shirt could even be considered fashion of any kind. For God's sake, he had a mustache and a shock of silver running through his hair! Remus looked like a super-villain in a video game, meanwhile Logan stuck to button-downs and neckties.

By all logic, they should have been incompadible. But it seemed their relationship defied all logic Logan can fall back on, because he'd fallen hard and fast for Remus. Why then, couldn't he muster up the courage to tell Roman that he's deeply in love with his twin? Logan had told himself that it was because of the fragile state of the brother's relationship, but after the argument that just transpired, Logan was beginning to doubt the validity of that.

He wasn't ashamed of his relationship with Remus, he was sure of that. He loved him, deeply, despite all of the differences in their personality and the struggles they face. Why couldn't he bring himself to admit that Remus was the one who had captured his heart?

The thought was interrupted when Logan's phone began to chime. When he picked it up he noted that it was an unfamiliar number, as well as the fact that several hours had passed since Remus stormed out. Not being aware of the passage of time baffled Logan as he pressed 'talk' and brought the phone to his ear.

“Hello?”

“Hello, is this Logan Sanders?”

“Yes, speaking. What is this call in regard to?”

“I’m calling from Bright Orchard Hospital. Do you know a Remus Knight?” Logan felt his heartbeat begin to escalate in a matter of seconds. He clutched the phone tighter, panic swelling.

“Yes. W-what’s going on?”

“I’m afraid there’s been an accident.”

=+=

#intrulogical #romantic intrulogical #sanders sides #human au #Logan sanders #remus sanders #angst #argument #sammy writes #exhaustedfander writes #exhaustedfander #When is Enough Enough?

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ununniliad · 5 years ago

Text

Burst Beetle Tweseveny #9: “2007: The Umpire's Call and the Last Rung's Fall!“

The figure lands lightly on her feet, wearing insectoid armor in shining black and white! She snaps her fingers, pointing at Tweseveny, then whips her head around and points the finger at M-Plot!

"And I think it needs a referee! Someone like... Burst Beetle XOX!" The camera zooms around XOX and she poses, showing off her cool armor!

Her chest plate has a diagonal checkerboard pattern with white Xes on the black squares and black Os on the white squares. Hanging from her neck is an enormous crimson whistle. Her arms and legs are vertically striped in black and white, and she wears black gloves and boots with white trim. At her crimson belt is a buckle with two chess clocks on them, one with Tweseveny's armored face on it, the other with M-Plot. Her face is a criss-cross tic-tac-toe board, and her eyes are black, circular lenses, one with a raised white letter X in it, the other with a raised white letter O. At her neck is a black bowtie with a ruby at the center, and on her forehead is a ruby chess clock, with white numbers and a black hand!

Tweseveny shakes her head. "Burst Beetle... Zocks?"

"Right, but you spell it capital ecks capital oh capital ecks."

"What is this!?" M-Plot stalks forward. "Who sent you? What are you!?"

XOX holds out a hand and presses it to M-Plot's chest plate. "Babe, I'm not a player in this game. I'm just here to make sure it's fair."

M-Plot pulls back angrily. "This isn't a game."

"Yeah, and if it was, we'd be winning!" Mother Time holds up the Hourglass of wReamThermodynamics and blasts a seething stream of temporal rays at XOX!

Who holds up a single hand and lets the stream splash uselessly against it! "Attacking the ref, that's a penalty!" She reaches down and grabs the whistle, holding it up in the air. She presses a button on it, and as a shrill noise rings out, the Hourglass vanishes - and appears in Time-Waster Lad's hands!

"Hey, what--" He juggles the item of power-- manages to grab it, but drops the Rung of Revamp!

"GOT IT--" Mother Time leaps forward--

And the Time Crapper is there, between her and XOX, M-Plot just to the side.

"STOP."

he speaks in a voice that vibrates thru the bones of all present.

And they do.

He looks up at XOX. "What are the rules of your game?"

XOX nods cheerfully, putting one hand on her hip and pointing the other at him. "You, you get it." She looks back and forth. "It'll seem pretty familiar. Two teams, three of you versus two of you--" She points at Tweseveny. "Transform, please."

Tweseveny lets out a breath - given what happened to the Hourglass, she wasn't sure what would happen if she'd tried. "With pleasure." She presses the pink gem on her buckle, and sheets of printer paper wrap around her, bursting into her armor.

"There we go," says XOX. "And if you can get the Rung and the Hourglass both on one side, you win."

"So," says M-Plot, evenly, fists clenched. "What's the catch?"

"We're moving to a bit of a different playing field. Goes something like..." She looks at Tweseveny and pushes down the button on her Tweseveny clock, holding it down. "You play!" She looks at M-Plot and pushes her M-Plot button, holding it down. "We play!" She looks up in the air. "Let's play!"

She releases both buttons at once, and the corridors of LNHQ shake wildly, knocking everyone off their feet! The roof seems to open up, and suddenly, Tweseveny is being carried up on some kind of white, blocky platform, rising high into a sunny blue sky!

Below, she can see the corridors growing and twisting, forming a maze! At the center of the maze is the Plot Device Room, and she can see Time-Waster Lad running out of it, carrying the Hourglass - and Mother Time giving chase!

All around her, platforms like something out of a video game are rising up - and spelling out words! In fact, they're spelling out "Infinite Leadership Cry.sig"!

This is really weird!! But Tweseveny feels alive! She sees a staircase running down from the 'g', into the LNHQ, a way to help-- and she sees M-Plot standing in front of it, brandishing a blade forged from a clock hand!

"Well," says M-Plot, widening her stance. "Two powerful net.villains against one of the weakest members of the LNH. Perhaps she was on my side after all." She swings the blade around in her hand. "Tweseveny... time to meet the boss of this level!"

She charges forward, and the two clash!

Far below, the Time Crapper picks up the Rung. "Tamela, we've got what we wanted..." He watches her run down the corridor, and sighs, walking after.

Mother Time fires temporal blasts from her scythe, ranting and screaming. "You didn't mean anything you said, did you?! It was all just a trick to get me to lower my guard!"

Time-Waster Lad ducks and dodges. "I really did, tho!" He looks over his shoulder for a moment, then eeps and darts to the side, out of the way of a burst of energy that turns a original painted cel of Manga Girl into crayon art on construction paper. "I like helping! It's good!!"

"Fuck that!!" She slices thru a decorative armoire in her rage. "I don't need anything except what's mine, and that's everything! That's me and my boy! We're strong enough to stand together against the whole universe!!"

Tweseveny dances in tight combat with M-Plot! She can hold her own, but she can't push forward - can't get past to help Time-Waster Lad!

"Hear that, Tweseveny?" says M-Plot, a smirk in her voice as she thrusts, narrowly missing Tweseveny's midsection. "You couldn't make them better! They're just as bad as before! You've failed, utterly!"

Tweseveny grits her teeth. It's true, and it stabs at her, but her head is clear, for the moment, of despair, and she's thinking...

M-Plot is nothing if not smart, and... yes, she's right. The Time Crapper and Mother Time - they're beyond Tweseveny's ability to fix, and, from what he'd said, beyond any hero's. They just need to break up...

...no, not just break up. They'd already tried to push off from each other, time after time. But they're too caught in each other's orbit, helplessly spinning back together. They need to be broken up - forcefully pushed out of each other's lives, too fast and hard to come back together. And maybe they'd end up being toxic in somebody else's direction - but at least there would be a chance!

And then, a second realization - yes, she can hear that! Somehow, she can hear what's going on far down below with perfect clarity. Which means...

Tweseveny throws herself into an aggressive attack, one which M-Plot will have to focus all her skills on dodging! And she raises her voice so all can hear! "Time-Waster Lad!"

Time-Waster Lad skids around a corner, panting as he runs as fast as he can. "Y-yeah?"

"Remember!" Tweseveny shouts. "Flame Wars II!" And then she has to dodge M-Plot's counterattack with all her might!

"Flame Wars II, what--" His eyes go wide, and he glances down at the Hourglass in his hands. "They can't win if..." He smiles the smile of someone with a plan!

He takes a turn, and a turn, and another turn-- and he's back in the lobby of the LNHQ. He runs behind the desk, where he can see the whole room.

Mother Time runs in, stops short. She glares at him, scythe burning with energies, eyes flicking around, trying to figure out why he stopped.

The Time Crapper walks in behind her, one hand seething with entropy, the other holding the Rung. "Give it up, boy. We've already won."

"Yeah!" Mother Time points the scythe at him. "You're just wasting time!"

Time-Waster Lad grins wide. "Yep!" He holds the Hourglass up in the air, and focuses. Once, he was able to waste millions, billions of years. Twenty-four hours should be a piece of cake!

"What..." The Time Crapper turns, looks out the window-- sees the angle of the light shifting, shadows moving, sun lowering towards the horizon-- "No!"

"GRAH!" Mother Time tries to blast him, but the energy skitters off the surface of the Hourglass! The sun sets, the moon rises--

The Time Crapper runs forward, heedless, hoping he's in time--

Time-Waster Lad looks up in the air and waves. "Bye, Tweseveny! Thanks!"

Somewhere far away, a clock strikes midnight, and Time-Waster Lad vanishes, Hourglass of wReamThermodynamics and all.

"No..." says the Time Crapper, inches from where he'd been. He turns, and sees Tamela-- "NO!"

"I don't..." Tamela looks confused, looking off into space, seeing something else, some other existence. Around her, figures appear for a brief moment, figures of herself, a cloud of selves singing, laughing, yelling, dying, living. She looks up at the Time Crapper, eyes wide, guileless. "I don't... remember you..."

The Time Crapper grabs her hand, pulling her away from herselves, but her hand comes apart in his, dissolving into a cloud, as brief a moment as all those others; and as her existence comes apart, she, and her selves, disappear from LNHQ, and from this moment altogether.

The Time Crapper falls to his knees, hand still extended, hidden gaze staring off at where she had been.

High above, the platforms rumble and come apart, separating Tweseveny and M-Plot, as LNHQ draws back together, seeming like a building again, instead of a dizzying labyrinth.

M-Plot's platform settles down next to the Time Crapper. He stares off, in a terrible freefall as the bottom drops out of his life. Then he looks up at M-Plot, voice helpless, beseeching. "What do I do now?"

M-Plot puts her hand on his shoulder, and speaks, not unkindly. "The only thing left for you to do. The thing you've needed to do for a long time. Move on."

The Time Crapper looks down, down into the depths of the universe, and nods, once. "To the past..." He sighs. "Always to the past." He holds out the Rung of Revamp, and M-Plot takes it.

Tweseveny's platform settles across from him. "Time Crapper, wait a second..."

He looks up at her. The bitterness is gone from his vacant gaze, but so too is the hope. "Yes, Burst Beetle Tweseveny?"

"I..." She still feels the shame, but... it'd be worse if she didn't say it. "I meant what I said. You should figure out what you really want, now that... now that this is all over."

The Time Crapper nods. "Thank you. Truly. But..." He looks off into the distance. "I am afraid I have but two choices. One, to separate entirely from humanity - to become fully cosmic, and take part in that great dance. It sounds beautiful... but I'm afraid I'm too weak to choose something so noble." He shakes his head, great sadness hanging off of him. "Thus, I will take the other choice - to stay a net.villain, and seek even greater power. I..."

He hesitates. "Somewhere out there, now, she has resumed her life, with nothing left of me in it..." He shakes his head. I will not seek to bring her back to me. Thank you for teaching me that. But..."

The Time Crapper draws himself up. The shadows within his robe seem to become deeper, and Tweseveny has a strange sensation of vertigo, like she's looking into the depths of space, beyond galaxies and clusters. "In her memory, I will find the greatest powers of this cosmos, and I will take them for my own. And I will force this Looniverse to become what I need it to be." His robe blows in an unseen wind, and the lights of the lobby dim. "And the LNH will battle me, and perhaps one of them will finally, finally, tell me what I need to be. That, Tweseveny, is what I desire."

Gazing into that awful deep darkness, Tweseveny sees one more awful truth. This man isn't the Time Crapper yet. Not the one from the Cosmic Plot Device Caper, from Cry.sig, from Retcon Hour. And he was going to go back, and carry out all those awful plans, and--

"Wait, please, let's..." The words die on her lips.

"Talk about it?" The Time Crapper nods, as one by one, the lights of the lobby wink out. "No, thank you. One day, we shall talk, one last time. But for now... goodbye, Tweseveny. I hope the path you walk is better than mine."

And for a brief moment, all is dark; and when light returns, he is gone.

For a moment, Tweseveny is silent. She turns to M-Plot, and says but one word: "Why?"

M-Plot folds her arms. "Because he's going to save the world." Unlike before, she is not happy, she is not gleeful, she is simply... carrying out a duty.

"Save the world!?" Tweseveny gestures wildly. "He's going to cause so much destruction! We could have stopped it!"

M-Plot shakes her head. "He will provide a valuable counterbalance. If not for his greed, if not for his desire, the Crossover Queen would have taken this world when it was weak."

"But--" Tweseveny clenches her fist. "There could have, must have been--"

"Better women than you have TRIED." M-Plot slams her fist into the wall! "WE ARE NOT THE ONES WHO WILL SAVE HIM."

"Enough." Burst Beetle XOX is suddenly there, next to them, her arms crossed, lenses focused on M-Plot. "I know who you are. I know who empowered you. And I know what your mission is."

"..." M-Plot turns away. "Which one?"

"Both of them."

"Er..." Tweseveny raises her hand. "Could I know?"

XOX turns to Tweseveny, and there was a smile in her voice. "Not yet." She looks back at M-Plot. "She'll tell you."

"The hell I will!" M-Plot snarls, still turned away.

"Yes, yes." XOX waves her hand casually, voice lightening. "But why worry about that, when there's still just one more thing for you to take care of?"

"Ah..." M-Plot looks at her hand, still holding the Rung of Revamp. "So there is."

She holds the Rung high in the air. Tweseveny wonders-- is M-Plot going to use it to power up, give herself some new form or weapon to use in their battles?

But no. The Rung begins to glow, but its light does not spread to M-Plot's body; the Rung itself grows brighter, and brighter, and Tweseveny suddenly understands - M-Plot is using the Rung of Revamp on the Rung of Revamp!

"No longer will the Rung of Revamp simply empower!" speaks M-Plot, voice ringing with an echoing thunder. "Once, its purpose was to create a character anew, to rewrite identities! Now, it returns to that purpose! I cast thee back in time - I cast thee to - Jungle Cheesecake!"

From far away, there is a deep BONG, echoing as if reflected between great cilffs, valleys and mountains; and with each echo, the Rung's light, and the Rung itself, fades, until it is gone.

M-Plot dusts off her hands. "It will have to be found again, ere net.hero or net.villain can use it."

"So..." says Tweseveny, raising an eyebrow. "You're not just here to mess with me."

"Yes," says M-Plot, strained calm in her voice. "I have my own duties to the Looniverses." She looks at Tweseveny, and in her lenses, a resentful glow burns. "And they include ending your playtime, Tweseveny. You are a reckless, irresponsible factor in these histories."

"But--"

XOX steps between them, and looks M-Plot in the face. "Go."

"Fine." The deep BONG sounds again, and M-Plot begins to fade. "You will see me again soon, Tweseveny! Beware! Bewaaaaaare..."

XOX shakes her head. "What a drama queen."

Suddenly, the lobby doors open and net.heroes pour in, fleshy humans and mechanical duplicates alike. They crowd around the Burst Beetles, full of confusion - it seemed that they had returned from their missions during the time that had been wasted, and found themselves outside at just past midnight.

Tweseveny feels light-headed, overwhelmed, and sways on her feet - into XOX's arms. The latter hero holds her close and addresses the crowd: "I promise an explanation, but first - time out!" She presses the ruby on her head, and everything seems to freeze around the two of them.

"Oh," says Tweseveny, trying to stand up. "Very good..." She stumbles again.

"Hey," says XOX, holding her up. "You started net.heroing in the evening after a tiring day of work, and between Carolyn and Time-Waster Lad, you've spent a whole 'nother day doing things. I'm not going to say you need some sleep... but yes I am. You need some sleep."

"...oh." Tweseveny yaaaaaaaawns, wide and deep, and her armor poofs away, leaving her in that same beige skirt and sensible blouse. "Sleep... it's a weird thing for a net.hero to do..."

XOX shakes her head. "We all do it, I promise. Just, usually off-panel." She guides Tweseveny down the corridors. "I don't think Time-Waster Lad will mind you using his room."

"Heh... no, I guess not..." She stumbles along, and it doesn't seem to take them much time at all to reach the door, for XOX to open it, and help her to the bed. She kicks off her shoes, and looks up to see XOX turning to go. "Hey, wait..."

XOX turns back. "Yes?"

"Is..." She rubs at her eye. "Is this... really happening? Am I really Burst Beetle Tweseveny, or is Glenda Gwynnych just pretending to be something more?"

XOX kneels down, takes her by the shoulders, and looks into her eyes, mask to face. "You are... yourself. I can't tell you what that is, but I know this. If you want to be Tweseveny, you don't have to be On all the time. You can have human needs, human flaws, and yet be far more than what they think a human is. That's what this place, this world, is about."

Tweseveny smiles. "Yes... thank you." She reaches up to stroke the mask. "And when will you be Off?"

The smile in XOX's voice is clear thru her mask. "At the end of the game." She stands up, turns away, opening the door to leave; but lingers in the doorway, helmet turning just so, a glance back at Tweseveny; one that makes Tweseveny oddly warm inside, oddly soft, oddly safe.

"Or perhaps... at halftime."

<<<*>>>

Author's Note: Whew! Finally! @-@v Two years in the making.

So what happens with Tweseveny next? Well, my plan is for a 27-issue series, plus a big "movie" special. I have no idea how long that'll take, of course. X3 And I might change my plans along the way. But I'm not gonna worry too much - I'm just gonna have fun, as much as I can. :>

One more continuity note: I noticed that in Infinite Leadership Crisis-era stories, the Rung of Revamp increased several characters' powers without altering them. I think there might be an interesting story in how that came about, but I figured I'd leave that one open, and just draw a line under the whole deal.

Also, after I talked to confidate Emma McGill about Time-Waster Lad, she came up with a list of potential habits for him:

Hair is always a different color

Has a bunch of tattoos that he did himself (pen & ink)

Chronic Doodler

Nails are often painted with whatever is lying around

Master whittler

Definitely picks at everything

Incredible at video games

Known to just start walking in a random direction with no destination in mind

Pretty good at trick shots, lacks the discipline to go pro.

Chronic thread unraveler

Is annoyed that Criticker only has a 0-100 rating system

Has a serious TV Tropes problem

Middling bass player, mostly just likes to 'jam' in his free time

Hair is either buzzed, or a very uneven shag (he cuts it himself)

People think he's very "zen"; he isnt

Chronic list starter

Owns the most elaborate fidget spinner the world has ever seen.

Never leaves home without a ballpoint pen, Sharpie, gum, some kind of fidget toy, & eyeliner

Can turn nearly any thin, flat surface into an airplane

Can play arbitrary numbers of songs' drum lines on arbitrary surfaces

#Original Fiction #Superheroes #Adventure #Drama #Silliness #Legion of Net.Heroes #Classic LNH #Burst Beetle Tweseveny

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headcans-oneshots-and-stuff · 6 years ago

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Cursed (McCall!Pack x reader)(Drabble/Os)

Warning: Angst, attempted suicide, cursing Word counts: ~1068 Summary: Being cursed to kill you decide that there’s only one way out…

You heard the buzzing of your phone in your jeans pocket, but knowing who it was and why they called, you ignored it and continued on your way. Never looking back. Never getting slower. Finding out that your family was cursed was shitty, but finding out that you were the next victim of the said curse was ball-sucking-hellish-kinda-shitty. Especially if the curse meant you’d turn into a deadly, soul-wrenching Monster and kill all your friends…or rather everyone in Beacon Hills. The Generations before you had a way to avoid the curse, but your mother had died shortly after your birth, all other relatives from her side were untraceable or dead and your father moved away from your hometown. In fact, you would have never known about the curse if it hasn’t been for Deaton discovering it soon enough and having at least some information about what kind of curse it could be. Only that he’d found out rather late, leaving you with no time to even say goodbye to your Dad or your friends. You thought that it was maybe better that way. You wouldn’t have to look them in the eyes, tell them that the only way out of your misery was quite frankly the ‘way-out-of-the-misery’. They wouldn’t try to convince you that you’d be able to find another way out. To find a solution. To find a way where nobody had to die. At least you hoped that they wouldn’t, but it seemed like someone Deaton had told them about your situation and they wanted to help you. Only that they couldn’t. Nobody could. You were the only one who could help anyone in this situation. You could help everyone else with not killing them. Your phone finally stopped buzzing and you sighed in relive, thinking they finally accepted that they couldn’t do anything about your situation and would let you go in peace. You should have known better.

The cold night air was blowing through your hair and over your skin, which was littered with goosebumps. It was like in a movie. Just that this wouldn’t have a happy end. When you were younger you loved to hike on the mountains near Beacon Hills (we just imagine there are some of them) and stand on top of them, watching the incredible view from the cliff. You couldn’t imagine a better ending. You would die with an incredible view. At least something. You took a deep breath and stepped a small step forward, leaving only millimetres between the tips of your toes in your ballerinas (a really bad choice in shoes for the last hiking, but you wouldn’t have to bear the pain later so who cares) and the edge of the cliff. “You can do that Y/N. For all your friends. For your Dad. For Beacon Hills,” you whispered to yourself, completely aware that you were wasting your time, trying to make the last moment as long as possible. At least until you heard steps behind you. At least six if not more. You didn’t bother to turn around, keeping your gaze fixed on the city lights in front of you. “Tell them to go away Scott. We both know there’s no other way out of this,” you shouted, specifically to Scott since you knew as the Alpha everyone would listen to him. The voice that answered you wasn’t Scott’s but Stiles. “Don’t say that. There always is another way. Even in situations like this.” A dry, humourless chuckle escaped your throat and you finally glanced over your shoulder, seeing your whole pack standing there. “Maybe, but to find them we’d need time. I’d need time. But we don’t have that. The curse sets in when the host gets 17 and guess what. My Birthday is in,” you looked down at your watch, “exactly twenty minutes.” You saw how all of them flinched. They knew this. Deep inside they knew they had no other way, but they wouldn’t just accept it. Of course, if you’d be the one watching one of your closest friends seconds away from death you wouldn’t just accept it either. This time Liam stepped for. “I know, I haven’t been in this Supernatural stuff for long, but…this just isn’t fair. You’re the most generous and nicest person I’ve ever known. You became somewhat of my anchor. When I’m about to lose it I think of what you would tell me to do and it calms me down. Why do you need to go through this? You’ll die and you don’t deserve that.” You felt tears well up in your eyes but decided to stand your ground. “Do you deserve it?” you asked rather aggressively. “Does all of Beacon hills deserve it?” You turned around again to look at the city before you. “You’re right, but still…It’s me for you. Like you said, If I go through with this, I die. If I don’t go through with this, all off you die,” you looked at your hands, already seeing them drenched in blood. “And I can’t bear the thought of that.” You haven’t even noticed that you were crying, but a few seconds later you felt a pair off arms around you. “It’s okay,” Scott mumbled, keeping you in his arms and stroking your hair softly. “No it’s not…” you responded quietly. For a few seconds, you just stood there, but you knew you had to go through with this. You tried to release yourself from Scott’s arms, but he kept you tight. “Scott?” you asked, already guessing what he was doing. He didn’t budge, so you started to kick and punch, fighting your way out of his grip to no avail. “Please,” you mumbled weakly, knowing that this was your last chance. Scott tightened his grip and your pack looked away in shame as you slowly fell unconscious in his arms. He held you bridal-style and carried you over to the Jeep, no one saying anything. “This was the right thing to do,” Scott said loudly, more trying to convince himself, than he tried to convince the others. They all made agreeing-noises but stayed silent on the whole way back to the animal clinic. Not a single word was said while Deaton fastened you to the metal table with chains, not sure how strong you’d be when you’d wake up. None of them left while you were laying there. None of them could. You meant so much to them. They had no idea what they could get themselves into.

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tekkai · 5 years ago

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2 and 5 for Lucci :0c

these asks have nourished my soul, thank you

2) How long did it take your FO to trust you enough to let their guard down around you? Was it an instant thing, or did they have to work towards it? And if they had to work, do you remember the moment that things changed? Describe that moment.

Neither of us trusts easily. I’d been burned too many times before and aren’t in the habit of baring my soul to everyone that walks into my life. In a world of deceit and espionage I can’t blame him for being skeptical of me either.

It was a very slow gradual process but for me, I remember there was one night in particular. I was running behind that day, there was a breach in the recovery bay and some of the injured specimens had nearly gotten loose in the surrounding base. Not only would this have inhibited the healing process but these particular birds possed a low, but potential, hazard to the humans stationed here. We’re able to recover the animals but I’d been run ragged trying to catch up on my more urgent tasks and had left him waiting for longer than I’m proud to admit.

I’m not sure if it had been the tropical storm or my animals had tampered with the power but as I’d begun our routine appointment a blackout had washed across the facility. Trapped in my small office with him, left with little more than the backup brights and no escape, I really should have been more concerned.

I’d heard some os the stories from my colleagues of his reputation after his first couple appearances. I knew how easy it would be for him to kill me, and if his bloodthirsty reputation held any weight it wouldn’t be out of the question as retribution for continuing to inconvenience him.

Logically I should have been at least a little worried, but I wasn’t. That was the first time I realized how calm I was. I felt safe because I realized that I did in fact trust him.

Power resumed moments later and I doubt he remembers such an insignificant moment, but that’s when things began to change for me.

I can’t be certain when exactly he started to truly trust me but I suspect it wasn’t long after. A few weeks after the power outage marks the first time I’d returned to the office to find a wounded government cat waiting for me.

I’m not a doctor, I work exclusively with animals, and felt no apprehension as I scolded and reminded him of that fact. I did the best I could to treat all the injuries I could find and threatened to put him in a cone if he removed the bandages before his wounds had completely healed before sending him on his way.

After the third surprise visit, I finally broke down and asked why he didn’t just go to sickbay. His answer was so matter of the fact and deadpan it took me a while to process.

“I don’t trust them.”

5) Whether or not your relationship as accepted in the beginning, you are together now and people just have to deal with that. What do you think your friends think about your partnership, and how would that contrast with what your enemies would think?

I lot of people took issue with our relationship for a lot of different reasons and I don’t fault them. It was hurtful to hear some of the things my friends would say about us but I knew they only wanted better for me.

My friends and family were all very apprehensive about the relationship for a long time. It took some people longer than others to accept that while I wasn’t blind to his faults I was happy for the first time in a long time and he didn’t seem to have any malicious intent towards me.

I try not to step on too many toes but after rumors spread about us began to spread, my enemies only seemed to increase ten-fold. Generally speaking, I don’t love a lot of attention and would rather keep out of the spotlight as much as possible. Everywhere I went I knew I was being both judged and scrutinized but not a lot of these people were brave enough to confront me about it.

#Furry Husband #virus-selfship

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ladyseaheart1668 · 6 years ago

Text

Endless Summer Book 4 : Daughter of Vaanu (Chapter 40)

Description: Rourke’s shadow continues to loom over the Catalysts and the Northbridge Supers. But there is joy mixed in with their dread.

Tagging: @mysteli @whatmcsaid @xo-endlessmayhem-xo @endlesshero1122 @feartheendlesssummer @tigerbryn11

Chapter 40 : The Beauty of Winter

Diego

I admit to being nervous that something would go wrong in the process of obtaining our marriage license, but it seems Zahra did it again when she created Varyyn's legal identity, because nothing is questioned. We have our marriage license within an hour, with plenty of time to make it to the ceremony at the appointed time.

It's not a fancy ceremony, but I don't need it to be, and I'm pretty sure Varyyn feels the same. As far as I'm concerned, we've been married for six years, and this is really just a renewal of vows. Even the vows are of the traditional “to have and to hold” variety. Still, it's not nothing to exchange rings with the man I love and have us declared legally wed in front of witnesses. Obviously, there's no need for a reception, either. But I do manage to reserve the garden gazebo long enough for a few slow dances. I chose one song in particular, a Spanish-language love song that I heard a few years ago when it was performed by the choir at the college I was lecturing at for the semester. I bought their CD just for this song. As I sway gently in Varyyn's arms, my head resting on his shoulder, I let the lyrics wash over me.

Yo no naci sino para quereros;

Mi alma os ha cortado a su dedida;

Por hábito del alma misma os quiero.

Escrito está en mi alma vuestro gesto;

Yo lo leo tan solo que aun de vos

Me guardo enesto.

Quanto tengo confiesso yo deveros;

Por vos naci, por vos tengo la vida,

Y por vos é de morir y por vos muero.

“This was a wonderful surprise, my darling,” Varyyn murmurs. I sigh happily, nuzzling his neck.

“I'm glad you think so. I'm glad I was able to pull it off, too. Allie and Jake helped, of course. And Zahra.”

“Do you regret at all that the rest of the Catalysts weren't present?”

“Nah. They were all at our real wedding. Besides, it's only a couple months until Sean and Michelle's wedding, and I wouldn't want to steal their thunder.”

“A fair point. Should we not tell them about this?”

“There's no need to keep it a secret. Zahra knows. We'll just let it come out naturally.” I pull back slightly so I can look him in the eye, letting my arms drape around his neck. I smile as I gaze into his eyes. “...Amor de mi alma...”

“ 'Love of my soul'?”

“That's the name of this song.” I peck his mouth with mine. “And it's what you are to me.”

“...I love you, my Diego. I don't know how I could have been so lucky to have found you...”

“You brought an army to the resort where I was staying and lassoed me right up.” I meant it as a joke, but he winces visibly. I take his face in my hands. A blue halo hovers around my fingers, barely detectable as they displace the light creating the hologram disguise. “Baby, you know I don't hold that against you, right?”

“...I know. You and I have had a long time to get past that. I am still so sorry for it. I won't ever forget the lessons I was taught over those six months. ...And I do not only mean English.”

“Well...that's a good thing. Lessons should be remembered. As long as you don't let guilt drown you.”

“I promise, if ever I am tempted to let guilt drown me, I think of my darling.”

There is nothing that needs to be said to that. I lean back into my husband's embrace, resting my head on his chest. I steal a glance over at Allie and Jake, gazing into each other's eyes as they sway. Her arms are around his neck and his fingers lace together at the small of her back, but they can't press in very close thanks to Allie's ever-expanding baby bump. The sight makes me smile.

I know trouble is coming. I don't think we're safe from Rourke. Not yet. But at least for now, everything is right with the world.

Alodia

So I get to spend my Saturday in Vegas. I get to watch my best friend be legally married to the love of his life, and I get to fall asleep that night beside mine. No one dies in my dreams that night. But I wake in the gray hours of the morning with vague memories of a journey home. It should have been simple and straightforward, just a straight shot driving down a long road, but somewhere along the way, the road twisted and turned dusty. I lie in bed with River swimming languidly in my womb, listening to Jake's soft breathing and the hum of the air conditioning as I carefully collect the scattered images of my dreams, laying them out in my brain like puzzle pieces.

They don't add up to much, and they're more than a little ridiculous now that I am awake. When the smooth stretch of paved highway that I drove down turned to a dusty dirt road, the sudden appearance of train tracks lead to a locomotive that seemed to actively pursue me like a smoke-belching dragon. At some point I escaped, but ended up driving on a track of rollercoaster instead. Somehow I must have exited the car, because the next thing I knew, I was at Hartfeld. My friends were all there, busy with classes and activities. I think Rourke was there, too. He was playing with beakers, rambling about something to do with the island, with the Endless, with Project Janus. But I was striding purposefully through the main halls, laser-focused still on getting home, convinced that all I had to do was keep going straight. I must have gotten home at some point, because the next I knew, I was in bed with Jake. But not here and now, in a Vegas hotel. It couldn't have been, because I wasn't pregnant. Instead, there was a form between us. Small and fair-skinned, like me and like Jake. Blue-eyed, of course, but with chestnut hair; a blend of my blonde and his sandy brown. A perfect blend of the two of us. I roll carefully to face Jake's peacefully sleeping form, scooting closer to drape my arm over him.

I've never actually been religious, not even in this timeline. And it's a little hard now to think of God in the traditional sense with what the Endless put the Vaanti through on her quest to protect us. But sometimes I can't help praying to whoever or whatever power might be listening.

Please... I send a thought out into the universe as I hold the image of the chestnut-haired child in my mind. Please let this be what I'm heading toward...

Jake

We do actually end up spending most of Sunday at Santa Monica Pier, which I don't regret. Exciting as Vegas is, it's nice to have a quieter day to close out the weekend. We play air hockey and pinball at the arcade, visit the aquarium, ride the ferris wheel, eat fries and sandwiches for lunch, and end the afternoon with ice cream and a walk along the docks.

The newlyweds are predictably eating more ice cream off each other's faces than their own cones. They may have been married and living together for the last five years, but I guess there's no escaping the giddy afterglow of a wedding. I'm kinda feeling it myself. When Varyyn and Diego finally manage to finish their cones, there's nothing left between them and passionately kissing and groping. In a blink, Varyyn has Diego's back pressed against a lamppost. I chuckle, bending to press a kiss to the curve of Alodia's neck.

“Those two seem to have forgotten us,” I murmur. “Wanna go get some sand between our toes?”

“Absolutely.”

We toss our cups into the trashcan and make our way down to the beach, taking off our shoes and socks to carry in hand as we walk.

“That was a real nice little wedding,” I remark. “Not sure it tops the first one, though.”

“Well, the first one had everyone there,” Alodia points out. “Though admittedly, you and I didn't get much chance to witness it, being a bit distracted.” She playfully kisses my cheek. I lace the fingers of my free hand through hers, and bend to kiss the top of her head.

“You ever think you might wanna do that someday? Get a license for the two of us and legally get hitched.”

She hesitates for a moment. “...Do you?”

I shrug. “Maybe. I ain't thinking it's a necessity, though there are practical advantages. I wasn't thinking it would be any time soon, either. Think we got enough on our plates as is with the baby due.”

She nods. The relief in the smile she gives me doesn't escape me. “Yeah. As fast as everything has been happening since I got back...I'm not sure I could handle a second wedding right now. Besides...as much as I know it's been more than five years for you...it hasn't been nearly as long for me.”

“No, I guess it hasn't. ...Guess it's like when we went through the portal and wound up six months ahead. We came out still looking like hell after the battle, and we found Diego with a beard and long hair.”

“Yeah. Exactly.” She sighs. “I think I'd like to live as husband and wife the way we were supposed to before we make it official out here.”

“...I seem to recall us making plans to have a little cottage on the island way back when. ...A mansion in Laguna Beach is a bit of a leap.”

“Well, not too much when you really think about it. If everything had stayed the way it was, we probably would have lived at the Celestial until our cottage got built. We'd have our friends around us...all of us together on our own private island...” She trails off, and I get the sense we're venturing into painful territory. I put my arm over her shoulders and pull her close to my side, kissing the top of her head.

“I guess it's a little too early for me to be thinking about how I'm gonna top this come Valentine's Day.”

She lays her head on my shoulder. “Come Valentine's Day, we'll be in Northbridge. All the Catalysts together again.”

“You just saw everyone two weeks ago. Miss them that much already?”

“Is that weird?”

I smile. “Nah. I miss 'em, too. It'll be good to see 'em again. Help with the last-minute prep for the wedding.”

She snorts. “And what kind of prep are you going to be doing? From what I hear, while I'm getting fitted for my bridesmaid dress, you and the men are going to be having wild times at the bachelor party Craig's planning.”

“Mmm, yeah. And knowing him, it will be a properly debauched affair.”

“Knowing the groom, it won't be too debauched, or else Craig will never hear the end of it.”

“You're right. Sean's a decent, modest sort of man.” I smile at her and she smiles back. She sighs, and the sound is content. I put an arm over her shoulders and she nestles into me. “...I'm not, though. I'm a lowlife lecher.”

She snorts. “Yeah, right. After five years, it's a miracle I don't have jealous ex-lovers assaulting me every day for stealing you away.”

“Of course not. They all hate me so much, they're just secretly shaking their heads, thinking you're just my latest poor victim.”

“And none of them have come forward to warn me? That's not very...” She trails off and doesn't say anything long enough that I frown.

“Very what?” I prompt.

She lifts her head, turning to look at my face. “...Jake...I think...I've had a thought about how Rourke...how he disappeared.”

I reflexively glance around, making sure we're not in earshot of anyone who might give us funny looks. I take her shoulders gently and kiss her forehead. “Not here. Tell us all together in the car.”

* * *

The atmosphere is anxious as we buckle ourselves in and I start the car. She told Diego and Varyyn the same thing she told me. That she's had a thought about how Rourke faked his death.

“What's your thought, Alodia?” Varyyn asks.

“Do you remember that...demonstration Rourke gave us when we got to MASADA? When Sean and Zahra and Craig and I were disguised as Arachnid? You know, the thing he did with the beakers and the liquified crystal?”

“...Yeah...” Diego confirms. “...Kinda.”

“I have an image in my mind of him plucking a full beaker out of thin air. He talked about the Endless being able to do that herself. And...I know he was right. What if he found away to do that himself?”

“But...how? How would he do that?”

“The same way he did it with the beakers. ...And possibly the same way the Endless did it. With the crystals.”

Varyyn shakes his head. “No...no, the time crystals were not strong enough. Only the Island's Heart had enough power.”

“He has the Prism Crystal now. That's made from my life energy. And I'm the missing piece of the Island's Heart. Not to mention the Endless. ...I think the Prism Crystal has enough power.”

“To do what exactly?” I ask. “Pluck himself out of the air like a beaker?”

“Well, that's a phrase I never thought I'd hear,” she quips. “But...yeah. Basically. ...I think the Prism Crystal could have enough power to allow Rourke to pluck another version of himself out of time and space. And kill that one. Or...apparently, make that one kill himself.”

“...And Daddy Weirdbucks is fucking twisted enough that I bet he could convince an alternate version of himself to commit suicide if it would put him toward his purpose,” I growl. “One problem with that theory, Princess, is that he doesn't have the Prism Crystal. I'm pretty sure Tahira would have told you if he'd gotten ahold of it.”

“What about Liquid Prism?”

“...I guess...if he managed to get his grimy paws on that stuff, he could find a way to use it...”

“And it's definitely possible he found a way to get some,” Diego murmurs, a tremor in his voice. “I've never stopped believing he had other lackeys running around doing his bidding.”

Alodia nods. “I'll call Tahira first thing when we get home.”

“It's gonna be three hours later for her than for us.”

“I know she won't mind. Not for something this important.”

* * *

I think Tahira was in bed when we called, but Alodia's right. She doesn't mind being bothered. We sit in the kitchen with her on speaker and tell her about our theory.

“I don't know anything about how Rourke could have gotten his hands on Liquid Prism. But it is possible it wasn't all off the streets before he disappeared.” She's quiet for a moment. “It's kind of a coincidence that you called tonight. The thing is...there have been some developments here. Caleb warned us of two pretty formidable criminals who have their eyes on the Prism Crystal. The Crystal is safe at the moment. But...just a few hours ago, Grayson told me that an entire crate of Liquid Prism has gone missing from the lab.”

Zahra

“Well, fuck me sideways...” I sit back in the chair in Santiago Lupo's office, reviewing his security tapes. “There's...nothing. Nothing at all. It's like they're ghosts. And the security systems weren't tripped at all?”

“That's why Mr. Prescott insisted we make contact with you,” Santiago says. “He thinks the systems might have been hacked, and apparently, you're a genius with security systems and...figuring out if they have been hacked...”

“Well, he's not wrong. ...I have to wonder if this footage has been doctored at all. I can't see any sign of it right away.”

“Maybe they're using stealth suits,” Grayson suggests. “Dax was working on something like that.”

“Yeah,” I murmur. “I've encountered technology like that before myself.”

Of course, we both know he's referring to the same stealth suit that Eva claims to have 'borrowed indefinitely.' But I'm thinking of someone else. Someone who once put a katana to my back and demanded the Island's Heart. Still, I don't think stealth suits alone would be enough to pull off a heist like this. I'm looking at security footage that shows the liquid prism being locked away in a safe for the night, and then goes to the next morning when the lab tech returns to set everything up, only to discover the stuff missing. The door to the safe never even opens on the footage I'm looking at.

“There's gotta be something we're missing here,” I muse aloud. “Leave this footage with me. I'll go over it with a fine-toothed comb. I'll figure out what we're looking at.”

Caleb

It feels weird to be meeting Tahira in the underground Prescott facility where we were both prisoners, but as she pointed out, it's safe. It's not currently in use, and it's unlikely anyone who isn't in on our secrets is going to find us here.

I light up and take a drag, exhaling smoke as I lean against the smooth metal-enforced wall. Tahira looks at the cigarette between my fingers with faint distaste, but she doesn't say anything.

“...So, it was just the liquid that went missing?” I ask. “The crystal's safe?”

“It's safe. We've got it protected.” She pauses. “You don't suppose there's any chance your...associates are behind this, do you?”

“They came in and got out without leaving a trace. If Gigi or Stonewall has that ability, I don't know about it. Don't think it's their style, either. In their own separate ways, they both like to leave impressions. They want to be noticed.”

“I can see why they thought you'd fit in, then,” she quips. I make a face.

“Low blow, hero. Accurate, but low.” I take another drag. “In any case, I'll keep my eyes and ears open. If that liquid prism hits the streets, it won't be long before news starts filtering through the underground.”

“Honestly, having it on the streets isn't what worries me.”

“No?”

“That stealth tech they may have been using? ...Minuet has Dax's only working stealth suit at the moment. ...But...” She trails off into a loaded silence.

“...But...what?” When she still doesn't answer after awhile, I press further. “You think it might be an inside job? Someone who has access to his research?”

“...I guess that is a possibility...”

“But it's not the one you were thinking of?”

She sighs. “Talos and Minuet would say I shouldn't share this with you...but...Dax isn't the only one who was working on stealth tech. There was a branch of the military that had access to a stealth suit at least five years before Dax's version was perfected.”

“And...you know this how?”

“I have my sources. But that's all you're getting for now.” She frowns, her left hand drifting to cover the wristband secured just above the joint on her right forearm. “...Hang on a sec. Someone's calling.”

“Right. Secret hero stuff. Should I plug my ears?”

“I'll just take it in the next cell,” she replies with a smirk. She steps out of sight, and I hear her murmuring to whoever has contacted her. When she comes back, her expression has turned dark.

“Big trouble, I'm assuming?”

“Not sure. Minuet's found something that concerns her.”

“Something to do with the liquid prism?”

“Worse,” she says grimly. “Seems a young woman approached her outside the hospital and left some strong hints that she had been the victim of something organized and ugly, and that she wasn't the only one. Minuet's worried she's talking about human trafficking.”

“...That's not outside the realm of possibility,” I concede. “Plenty of fucks who'll take advantage of the desperate and vulnerable. Saw enough of that in my time.”

“And did nothing to stop it, I assume.”

“Hey! I never claimed to be a hero, but I've never been a bully, either. I've never gone after anyone who couldn't fight back.”

“But those people still end up getting hurt,” she retorts. “Remember the little girl who almost burned to death when you attacked the DMV?”

I scowl. Her assessment of me smarts in spite of everything. “Okay, fine. I'm scum. Guess I should leave you to go be a hero.”

“I certainly don't have any time to waste. I'll see you around, Caleb.”

“Right.”

She leaves. For awhile, I debate following her. I flip-flop long enough that my window of opportunity undoubtably closes. It's getting late by the time I leave. Late enough that I should start figuring out where to sleep. The January night air is bitterly cold, and I hunker down in my coat, pulling the collar up over my face. Definitely a night for the homeless shelter. Sleeping in my van will likely result either in me freezing to death or setting the damn thing on fire to keep warm.

There aren't many people out on the streets. At least, not in the neighborhoods I'm walking in. Not much nightlife around here. I do recognize one person that I pass on the sidewalk. Kenji Katsaros, son of the DA. What he's doing in this neighborhood, I don't know. It's pretty late for photo ops, and philanthropy isn't really his style, either. That's more Grayson Prescott's thing. Ahh, but what do I care. He's not bothering me, just blabbing on his phone. ...Whatever he's talking about, it's clearly troubling him. He steps aside for me as we pass, but barely looks at me.

“Yeah...I'll make sure Mom knows. ...Right. …Be careful, Tahira.”

The name stops me in my tracks. I turn back to look at him, but he's walking on, his back to me, totally unaware of my presence. My thoughts start to race too fast for me to follow, like there's a bomb going off in my head, or a power surge or a short circuit that leaves only intuition functioning. I can barely understand what I'm thinking. All I know is I should follow him. I'm good enough to do it without him realizing.

I really don't know why I'm doing it. I don't actually know what language the name Tahira comes from—Turkish, maybe?—but I'm sure she's not the only Tahira in the whole city of Northbridge. But I happen to know that Kenji Katsaros is closely associated with the Tahira I know. They work together at The Grand. Also, he's heading towards the DA's office. Which makes sense, if he's going to let his mother know something. But why doesn't he just call her?

Not far from city hall, Kenji abruptly ducks into an alley. A narrow path between the buildings that could be serving for a shortcut...except that he's supposed to be going to the DA's office. I press myself flush against a wall and ease myself into the alley a safe distance behind him, keeping to the shadows. He almost certainly never realizes I'm there, because in the next moment, his skin turns to bronze, and everything falls into place.

Well, shit. ...Kenji Katsaros is Talos.

I make it to the shelter, but I don't remember getting there. I get myself a bed, but I don't really sleep. I guess that explains why he hates me more than either Tahira or Minuet do. I tried to kill his mom. Fuck. That means winning his trust is going to be a lot harder than I realized.

I think it's going to be to my advantage to lie low for awhile. At least until I figure out what I'm going to do with this information.

Eva

The next couple weeks seem to pass very quickly. Tahira, Kenji, and I have our hands full for awhile with the trafficking ring, but let's face facts, its days were numbered once we got wind of it. By February, it's been shut down, and the three of us meet with Dax and Poppy at The Grand to celebrate. Tahira helps me get home afterward, but once I get there and climb into bed, I can't sleep. Of course, that doesn't entirely surprise me. Dad has a doctor's appointment in the morning. I never sleep well before his doctor's appointments.

He's actually been doing really well. Thanks to Tahira helping me expose Mayhew, we were able to afford experimental treatments. He went into remission not long after we got Tahira back from the crystal dimension, and since then, the doctors tell me that everything has continued to be encouraging. But I can't relax. No matter how encouraging his scans, I can't shake the feeling that my father is living on borrowed time. And for all that I can put people in slow motion...I can't actually slow time down.

We arrive at the hospital's outpatient clinic with plenty of time for Dad to playfully flirt with the receptionists. He charms them as usual, and when we're taken back, we leave the waiting room in a cloud of good humor.

“You have the entire staff of this place wrapped around your finger, Dad,” I remark as I help him into a hospital gown. “I guess it helps that you flirt like it's going out of style.”

“Life is short, mija,” he says with a grin. “I will live every moment with gusto.”

My hands pause on the strings of the gown. “...I wish you wouldn't say things like that at a time like this.”

“...I'm sorry, mija. That was insensitive of me. All this is so much harder on you than on me.”

“Is it really, though? You're the one who's gone through all the pain and sickness.”

“That is difficult, it is true. But I think it is easier for me to endure than for you to watch. ...And the thought that I might die almost certainly frightens you more than it frightens me.”

“How much does it frighten you?”

He shrugs. “I don't want to die. You're still young enough that I had hoped to see many more years with you. But I don't worry about it like I would if you were still a little girl and I were leaving you without parents. You're a strong, capable young woman. And if I die in the near future, I will die with confidence that you will be all right.”

I don't say anything to that. I finish tying his gown and put my arms around his shoulders to kiss his cheek.

Not long after, the medical shenanigans get underway, and conversation becomes functional. At the end of it, the doctors are smiling, and it seems my father is still doing well. As he gets dressed, my father smiles at me with a twinkle in his eye.

“When you were a little girl and I took you to the doctor, you always got ice cream afterwards if you were brave. I think we have both been very brave today. What do you say? Do we deserve ice cream?”

“Ice cream in February?”

“I won't tell if you don't.”

So of course, thirty minutes later, we're in the glass-ceilinged atrium of Northbridge Mall, sitting on a bench in front of the fountain and watching the bubble and flow from the jets while we methodically lick the sweet, creamy heads of our ice cream cones.

“Almost like having a summer moment indoors,” my father remarks.

“If you ignore the Valentine's Day decorations and the snow outside,” I reply, gesturing up at the skylights, where a steady swirl of snowflakes is clearly visible. “I wish it were summer. I'm getting sick of winter.”

“I am grateful for winter,” Dad murmurs. “Because at this moment, it is winter. And I am grateful for this moment.”

I look back down at my cone. I dig a chunk of cookie dough out of the small vanilla hill with the nail of my index finger.

“Is that the secret to happiness then? Just be grateful for the moment?”

“I don't think it's a secret, mija. Or a guarantee of happiness. But it is how I have chosen to live since I got sick. The fact is that everyone's time is limited. Mine might be more limited than I once expected. But right now, I am alive. I am alive, and I find that this moment is worth living. ...I look forward to summer. But right now it is winter. And winter is beautiful in its own way. I won't ignore the beauty that exists now because I am waiting for something that is yet to come.”

I sigh, slipping my arm through his and laying my head on his shoulder. I feel him kiss the top of my head lightly. He has an undeniable point. I can't actually slow down time. I won't try to rush it either. It's winter, my father is alive, and I have a sugar cone topped with cookie dough ice cream. Right now, that's all I need.

Michelle

Friday morning, I wake up an hour before my alarm. I should be irritated. I don't even have to be up with my alarm, considering that I have the day off. I only set the damn thing to keep some semblance of a routine in place. But I'm not actually annoyed at all. It's excitement that has me awake so early. Today, my friends arrive from California. They're here so that my maid of honor and Sean's last couple groomsmen can have their final fittings at the tailors. It needs to be done now so that if there are any adjustments that need to be made, we'll have time to make them. I roll towards Sean, still dead to the world and snoring a little, and drape my arm over him.

In only a little over a month, I am finally going to be his wife.

*****************************************************************************************

BTW, the song Diego and Varyyn dance to is a real song. It is called Amor de mi Alma, and it is beautiful.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R0xtyjJ8eYo

Also, here is a translation.

I was born to love only you; My soul has formed you to its measure; I want you as a garment for my soul. Your very image is written on my soul; Such indescribable intimacy I hide even from you. All that I have, I owe to you; For you I was born, for you I live, For you I must die, and for you I give my last breath.

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