#i love cross stitching him things but ive had trouble finding something for hi.

[andromei]

made a cross stitch gift for my boyfriend :)

credit to @leo-fie for the pattern, this will make my boyfriend's little grimdark heart happy (modified it a bit but heyo!)

[consumeconstantly]

Those Who Are Kind

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Summary: Siblings are the last thing on Marinette’s mind as she begins her frantic search for Tikki. Really, she can’t even consider them siblings, not yet. But they’re along for the ride, whether she wants them to be or not.

Duke doesn’t know what to make of the current situation.

He’s always known that the Waynes are crazy, insane, even, but he loves them all the same, in the begrudging, cautious way he cannot shake. (This approach has served him well over the years, allowing him to avoid multiple schemes that Tim or Jason typically start up to rile up Damian. From there, everything is guaranteed to snowball. The only time things get really bad is when Cass gets involved.) To him, it’s always been a bit uncanny how similar all the brothers looked, despite the fact that none of them shared blood. All of them had the same sharp jaw, piercing blue eyes, chiselled cheekbones and defined bodies. Only Tim and Damian differed slightly, with Tim having a dancer’s figure instead of that of a body builder or demolitions expert, and Damian having green eyes instead of blue. It’s also disconcerting that everybody the Waynes are more intimately involved with have some sort of alter ego. He often joked with other members of the Justice League that heroism ran in Bruce’s blood.

With the new addition of Marinette to their family, he has to say that he’s been proven right.

A girl who had absolutely nothing to do with the Waynes in any capacity other than the fact that she and Bruce share blood becoming a hero. The leader of a team. Fighting supervillains at the age of thirteen.

He’s very, very glad that he was not adopted by or shared blood with Bruce. He doesn’t think he could have handled being a superhero at age thirteen. He can barely handle being Signal now some days, and he’s an adult. The amount of responsibility on Marinette’s shoulders is difficult to understand. To be the sole wielder of magic that can revert an entire city back to its original state. To bring people back from the dead. 

Dick is strangely quiet. A car is driving them from a pit stop near a zeta tube to Marinette’s hospital. 

Hands down, Dick is the most sane male of the Wayne family, not including Alfred. But there are times when Duke sees the weight that he carries. All the times that he refuses to talk about the burdens that he bears. Moving forward with a smile when he’s in pain. When he gets in a mood like this, he’s hard to read. But given the circumstances, it’s fairly clear exactly what’s bothering him. 

“He’s known about her this entire time,” Dick says, tinted windows allowing Duke a glance at his expression, carefully devoid of any telling emotions. “Nineteen years. He kept her a secret.”

“It’s Bruce.” The man is known for keeping secrets. 

“Yeah, but Marinette is family. She should have been, at least. And now…”

Now she’s all alone when she should be surrounded by people that love her, praising her for her victory, for how she shouldered so much responsibility at such a young age. But by bringing her to a hospital in America, she’s been cut off from her team, and any support system she should have had is gone. 

“You and her,” Duke says, looking for a way to comfort him. “You’ll get along. You’re similar, after all.” After they brought Gabriel and Lila to the a top security prison and sent Emilie to a hospital that couldn’t figure out what was wrong with her, they got two files from Tim. One detailing Ladybug and all of her exploits. The second, detailing Marinette’s life. 

Duke has watched the videos. Has watched how Ladybug leads by example, comes up with the plan and begins the execution. How she shoulders more battles than she should. 

He’s seen Marinette pull people together with a smile on her face, even while she’s running on empty after a strenuous akuma attack. 

Dick and Marinette are alike. 

“We’re too much alike,” Dick says. “I suspected for a long time that Bruce had another kid that he wasn’t telling us about, but I thought that if he was keeping her away from us, then maybe she’d have a shot at leading a good life. A normal life. Not the one she got. Sabine’s— Bruce’s biological daughter shouldn’t be somebody like me. She deserves better.”

Duke is acutely aware that Dick’s parents were also murdered, but whatever relation he had with Sabine is something he’s never been willing to talk about. There are pictures in his apartment of a petite Asian woman with a soft smile standing next to him, but whenever asked about her, Dick never gives a straight answer. 

“Nobody has the ability to change the past.” Duke claps a hand on his friend’s shoulder. He sags imperceptibly under the weight. 

Well— actually, it’s not out of the realm of possibilities, given the fact that magic, aliens, and metahumans all coexisted, supplemented by the fact that multiple members of Marinette’s team do have the ability to travel back in time, but that’s another matter entirely. There’s not a lot of information on the Miraculous, and all of their knowledge is coming from Wonder Woman, Aquaman, and Zatara, and even the three of them don’t know everything. 

“But you have the chance to do good by her. Be a good older brother, like I know you are.”

A thin smile appears on Dick’s face. “She’s going to need more than just one good influence on her life. And Damian is better, but you saw how he looked at her when Bruce brought her through the Zeta tubes. Tim’s not going to react well either, and Jason is a wild card. She’s not going to get the support she needs if she stays with us.”

Duke crosses his arms, knees brushing up against the back of the car seat. “The only person whose actions you’re responsible for are your own. Don’t worry about them. If they don’t like her, they’ll just avoid her.”

That’s certainly not true— all of the members of the Wayne family are notorious for going hard after all of the things they don’t like. But... it’s comforting to hear. Sometimes temporary and known lies are much nicer than harsh realities.

#

She’s gone.

All of her belongings are missing, the IV needle is hanging from the stand, the window open, and Marinette is missing from her bed.

At least she left a note?

Be back soon — Marinette

“Great,” Duke mutters under his breath. “Another incredibly vague, cryptic Wayne.”

Dick’s face turns to ash. “Her legs. Her head. She can’t go out so soon. Hold on, maybe Barbara can pull up some footage.”

“On the bright side, there’s no blood,” Duke says. 

“That’s not a bright side.”

“It is,” Duke argues. “She fell in the worst places possible, right on top of that broken glass casket. If she’s not bleeding that clearly means she didn’t pull her stitches on her mad escape out.”

When Ladybug fell, they’re not exactly sure what happened, because the screen showed Ladybug collapsing almost gracefully. When they arrived on the scene, she flickered between Ladybug and Marinette as her earrings beeped. Her legs were slashed from falling on the glass with a seemingly unnatural force— simply falling would not have garnered cuts that large— and her head was twisted at an odd angle, debris bloodied beneath her.

Somehow, the Miraculous Cure seemed to be working backwards. Not from the epicenter out, but rather from the edge of the damage, in. It worked slowly, every mile taking minutes instead of mere seconds. It hadn’t happened before in any of the battles.

It was useful in apprehending Hawkmoth and Pavona, who were still knocked out. But Marinette, even after the Miraculous Cure washed over her, didn’t get healed. Her injuries didn’t revert. There was still a gash on her stomach from Hawkmoth’s cane, still muscles exposed on the back of her legs and blood on her neck. When she was first brought in, the doctors feared that she may be permanently incapacitated. 

Good at keeping to her word at least. She came swinging through the window with worry on her face and grief in her eyes. 

“I need to go back to Paris,” she says. 

Dick will undoubtedly say no. He’s a very protective person, and Marinette is the center of his current efforts. 

But she doesn’t look injured. He eyes her stance. She’s standing with no effort, walks with no limp. No hospital dress, no blood on her neck, no bruises in all of the places he was expecting them to be. Marinette does not look like she just faced a world ending threat less than twenty four hours ago. She certainly doesn’t look like she’s permanently lost the use of her legs. There’s the familiar Wayne Brand Stubbornness in her eyes— no way she’s not Bruce’s kid— that tells him that she’s going to get to Paris one way or another, and that they’re either lucky they were even notified in the first place or that she wants to use a resource that they have that she does not have access to. It’s fairly obvious what that resource is, considering that Paris is nine hours away by any normal plane and it sounds like she wants to get there in minutes, and not hours. Duke also knows that if they don’t take what she’s offering now, she’ll use an alternative method that definitely won’t be as nice or clear cut. 

He jumps in before Dick can say anything. “We’ll take you as long as we go with you every step of the way.”

Oh, he’s going to get in so much trouble for doing this. Dick is looking at him with his Disapproving Dad glare, and he can imagine Bruce going into brooding silence when he hears that Duke allowed this to happen. 

Marinette’s lips pinch together, but she nods. “Where’s the nearest zeta tube?”

#

Barbara gets Dick’s text and sighs in frustration.

She’s already got her hands full with watching Tim, who’s spiralling trying to find information about the Miraculous, muttering under his breath in the way he does when he gets a particularly hard case to crack. He’s gone through six cups of coffee in the last hour, and he kicked off his research with a combination of 5 Hour Energy, Monster, three packets of sugar, and 10 caffeine shots. Soon, she’ll have to start limiting his caffeine intake, but right now it’s clear that any attempt to get him to stop his research now will fail spectacularly. At least she’s not in charge of Damian and Jason. Wherever they are, they’re definitely on the move and not happy.

She never thought she'd be able to say she’s happy about being paralyzed from the waist down, but she certainly doesn’t want to be chasing after one of the two hellions. Cass definitely has her hands full and whoever’s watching Jason— wait, is anybody even watching Jason? Typically Roy gets stuck with Jason-sitting duty, but he’s been out for a while. 

Barbara groans. Jason is probably on his own, wreaking havoc.

Great.

She’ll deal with that later, even though she has no doubt she’ll regret that decision, but if Marinette is gone from her room, Dick needs the footage, and somebody needs to find where she is. The nurse put in her latest report that her legs were almost healed and that she didn’t show any signs of a concussion, but Marinette was in bad shape when she got admitted to the hospital. Even though Barbara doubts that there was any misdiagnosis, given that Bruce sprung for a VIP room in one of the pricier hospitals, in a world where magic and aliens are present, who knows what’s true or not.

“Tibet!” Tim jumps up from his hunched over position for the first time in hours. “I’m going to Tibet, the closest zeta tubes are three hours by car away, but I can get somebody to loan Wayne Industries a helicopter while I’m over there.”

“Sit down, Tim.” Barbara takes her glasses off and pinches the bridge of her nose. Why can’t Bruce rein in his children? Why is she the one stuck babysitting? “Marinette left her hospital room.”

That certainly gets Tim to put the brakes on his movements towards the zeta tube in the bat cave. 

“What?”

“I said, she left her hospital room. Just sit down while I send the information over. It’s not going to do you any good to rush into things anyways.”

A quick review of the surrounding CCTV shows that Marinette didn’t travel far, just around the hospital. She’s looking for something, calling out for it, too. Barbara grabs that file and slows it down so she can read her lips. “Dickie? Do she and Dick know each other already?”

A quick text back to Dick reveals that Marinette has already returned to the room and—

Oh, hell. 

“Well,” Barbara pushes her laptop away from her, letting Tim watch the files she’s pulled up. “It looks like we’re taking a family trip to Paris.”

#

Somehow, Marinette almost manages to lose all four of them within the first four minutes of roaming around Paris.

Luckily, their family has an almost absurd amount of luck between all of them (not all of it good) and the person Barbara was half sure she could only find in prison, beating up Hawkmoth and Pavona, runs into Marinette on the streets and herds her back to them.

“Lose something?” Jason asks, arm slung around Marinette’s shoulder, the smaller, younger girl looking rather upset at having her plans thrown off.

“I told them that they could follow me,” Marinette argues without much real bite. It’s not my fault if they can’t keep up, is the clear meaning of her statement.

Again, Barbara is very impressed that the barely nineteen year old somehow managed to shake off vigilantes with decades of experience with ease. But it is, at least, partially due to her disability. Every time she goes out in her wheelchair, her heart aches a little, especially as the civilians she passes eye her with pity. Barbara doesn’t want pity. Doesn’t need pity. She shouldn’t feel anything when people look at her like she can’t keep up, because she can keep up.

Most of the time, anyways.

It doesn’t matter how she uses her tech skills to modify her wheelchair and deck it out with all the equipment she could ever need, or that she can easily get up to speeds rivalling sports cars for short periods of time before the power runs out. When she’s stuck in her wheelchair, she loses the maneuverability she had when she wasn’t paralyzed.

She couldn’t follow Marinette through the alleyways because she was stuck. Barbara was the one who noticed her escape first. If only she were more capable, she could have—

But it’s okay now. Jason ran into her. Marinette is back with them. 

“I need to search for something, and none of you can help.” She’s not intentionally being rude when she says it, and if anything, sounds apologetic. Barbara sees the similarities between Marinette and Bruce. It makes a lot of sense that the two of them are father and daughter, when the two of them are so insistent on keeping major issues to themselves. Marinette twists herself out from underneath Jason’s arm, clutching her purse. Her head doesn’t move, but her eyes are wild. 

“We can help,” soothes Duke, ever the voice of reason. “You know who we are.”

“And I’m guessing you’ve all either deduced who I am or have been told my identity,” counters Marinette. “Which means you should know why I can’t have you helping me.”

Barbara and Duke exchange pointed glances. 

“That’s not really clear to us, actually,” says Barbara. Marinette isn’t moving, but the way her shoulders tense makes her believe that the younger girl is ready to run at the drop of a hat. 

A small group of people from the parade on the streets tumbles into the alleyway they’re resting in. They smell like cheap booze and sweat. 

“What are all of you doing in this alley?” one says, after he finished vomiting up his last (very colorful) meal. “You should be out there partying with the rest of us! Celebrating Ladybug and her team.”

“Fuck Hawkmoth and Pavona,” says another solemnly, with neon face paint and pigtails with glitter string intertwined. “Their defeat should be celebrated by even the darkest souls.”

Jason, easily amused by their antics, looks very willing to join them. “Yeah Marinette, we should be celebrating Ladybug not—”

As one, everybody looks at the place where Marinette was, just moments ago. The alley is decidedly empty of a small asian girl with blue eyes and pigtails.

“Fuck,” Jason curses.

“Fuck is right,” Duke agrees, placing a hand over his temple. 

#

Marinette manages to disappear for three hours.

Three full hours.

“She’s good,” Tim says, typing into the holographic computer embedded into his sleeve. 

Paris’ CCTVs are painfully easy to hack into, though he suspects that the lack of attention to them may have to do with the fact that everybody in the city is celebrating. Policemen, politicians, artists, students, scientists—  people from all walks of life are in the streets today, screaming and shouting and being free for the first time in years.

He spies more than just a few dozen people bawling their eyes out within a few minutes. But that’s not surprising, considering how long Parisians have had to suppress their emotions for. 

Dick and Barbara are still in the midst of profiling Marinette, trying to determine the most likely places where she’d stop by, either as Ladybug or herself. All of Ladybug’s usual haunts are decidedly devoid of the young heroine, though Tim does manage to catch a good amount of footage of the other young heroes like Carapace and Rena Rouge, who are most definitely in a relationship based on their makeout session on top of the eiffel tower (one of the first places Tim checked), Viperion, who seems to be the only one from Ladybug’s team to be seeking out the crowd which seems rather atypical considering that the hero never frequented interviews or was spotted on news coverage all that frequently,  and Chat Noir and Queen Bee who Jason insisted were in a relationship as well, though the rest of them believed they were only embracing each other out of comfort— Chat Noir looks like he’s been crying for hours, and Queen Bee looks like she’s barely holding it together.

Ryuko has not shown up on camera once today. Neither has Ladybug.

The second place Tim checks is the bakery. She is not there either, though another girl is. It doesn’t seem like the girl has any ill intent, but Duke is more than happy to pull up past files to see if she’s been there before, if she has any reason to be there, and who exactly she is. 

Just as Barbara and Dick are debating the chances that Marinette would be at Le Grande Paris, she walks past one of the cameras focused on Tom & Sabine’s Boulangerie. Tim has the system rigged up so that any facial matches for Marinette automatically alerts the room. He hadn’t been able to replicate that with Ladybug’s face for some bizarre reason which is why he, Barbara, Dick, and Jason are manually combing through the areas where Dick and Barbar think she may be (magic is why, but Tim has always believed that technology can be used against and with most forms of magic) so it’s lucky that she enters as Marinette. 

“Kagami Tsurugi,” Duke says triumphantly. “She visited often when Tom and Sabine were still alive. Potential candidate to represent France or Japan for Sabre in the next Olympics. Definitely friends with Marinette.”

“Thank God,” sighs Dick. “Now let’s get over there.”

It’s truly, truly unfortunate that they set up shop quite a distance away from the bakery.

They take too long to arrive.

#

Perhaps it was a mistake, telling Kagami first.

No, not just perhaps. It was a mistake. A bad one.

But Kagami was pushing so hard, and Marinette was so tired and so alone without Tikki at her side, without the knowledge that her parents would be waiting for her. Kagami pushed and pushed and pushed about why the house felt so empty, why there was dust on the floor, why the bakery was closed for so long, and where were Tom and Sabine? Why weren’t they there for the team yesterday, when the battle was won, when they knew how important it was to be there for Adrien who had just lost all three of his parental figures? 

The moment the words fall from Marinette's lips, she knows she shouldn’t have revealed it at that moment, because Kagami draws in on herself, lips turning downwards, hands curling into fists. 

Kagami has come a long way from the girl she was in lycèe. The thrill of victory is still something she enjoys, but not something she needs to feel secure in her place in the world. She has trouble expressing her emotions, but when it comes down to it, she communicates everything necessary to understand why. 

With the news of Tom and Sabine’s death, she withdraws into herself, shifts back into that thirteen year old Marinette first met. Logic  and rationale thrown to the wind in favor of cold anger. 

It’s no secret that Ryuko, Ladybug, and Viperion are the main strategists of their team. Viperion, out of his duty of using Second Chance and his ability to keep a level head in the face of constant death. Ladybug out of necessity as her position as team leader and the power of Lucky Charm. Theoretically, the two of them should have been enough. But over the years, Kagami became Marinette's favored confidante; though Ladybug trusts all of her team to keep a tight hold on any information she gives them, Kagami is one of the few who is able to pick apart a given situation and transform the monsters they face into manageable pieces. 

Today, it is Kagami who has broken to pieces. Very angry, razor sharp shards that seek to hurt.

“You lie to the media, tell them a pretty tale of how they died due to a break in. Why do you avoid pinning their deaths on Lila as you should? To absolve a quality woman from guilt?”

Marinette can’t look Kagami in the eyes.

Her parents deserved a peaceful death. To pass on in old age, hand in hand. Not looking on as a family member died, in fear of what would happen next for their daughter. 

“The police know. The judges know,” Marinette protests weakly, but without much eight behind her words.

Kagami just scoffs. “Tom and Sabine were kind people. To not tell the media what truly happened— that’s preventing Lila from getting the full force of what’s coming to her. What happens if she gets out of prison one day? Without any real deaths to her name, she could just flee to another country to escape it all. And when another person loses their life because of her…” 

She doesn’t need to finish her sentence. If somebody else gets injured in any way, shape or form at the hands of Lila Rossi, it’s Marinette’s fault. Marinette gets what Kagami is trying to say. She thinks the same thing, after all.

“My parents would not want their death publicized in that manner.” It’s the truth, but it’s said so weakly that the words come off as little more than a weak defense, and Kagami takes the words and twists their truth.

“You know little of your parents, considering that you’re their daughter.” Kagami stands stock still, not a single extra muscle moving. “Perhaps if you spent more time with them as Marinette instead of unsuccessfully gallivanting around as Ladybug, you’d have realized that Tom and Sabine admire truth above all else, even if it is painful.”

Kagami does not ask a single question about where Marinette was last night, or how Marinette felt over the loss of her parents or when she saw all those she held dear lying still on the ground after Hawkmoth and Pavona’s final attacks. She just purses her lips and sweeps out the door.

And then she’s gone, and Marinette is alone once more. 

#

The bakery is bone-achingly quiet.

Every step Marinette takes creates such a disturbance in the peace that moving hurts. 

But she can’t stay here. She can’t stay here. She does not deserve to stay here. Kagami is right. Marinette was a bad daughter. She could have prevented their death, could have given them justice sooner, could have— 

And Marinette can’t breathe. She tries to, she tries so hard to, but she chokes.

She kneels down on the floor— Kagami is right again, the place is dusty, because Marinette couldn’t bring herself to use the living room and kitchen without her parents, could barely bring herself to sleep in her bedroom because she knew that her parents were not sleeping soundly in the bed below hers— and scrabbles at her throat, vision coming in and out.

Her legs burn. She knows that during the final battle, her legs were cut towards the end of it, and they should be healed, she should be okay now, she’s better than this, she’s— 

Somebody gathers her in their arms. They smell slightly of Lotus flowers, just like Maman, and cradle her ever so gently.

Marinette’s eyes open— black hair, greyish eyes filled with understanding and love and— 

She can breathe again.

She falls asleep.

#

“Cass?” Dick’s eyes widen at her unexpected appearance at Marinette’s home.

“I thought you were on Damian guard duty,” Barbara says, fixating on the red around Marinette’s eyes and the barely dried tear tracks on her face.

“Where’s that Kagami girl?” Jason scuffs his shoes on the hardware floor, silently marking the footprints on the floor and getting a general idea of what occurred before they were able to get here based on Marinette’s current state and the other girl’s absence. “I want to have some words with her.”

Cass inclines her head sharply, eye sparking with anger. Jason’s fists rise unconsciously— Cass rarely gets angry, and whenever she gets angry at a specific person, that means they’ve done something very, very wrong— ready to hunt down Kagami. Marinette sniffles and shifts in Cass’ one armed embrace, to which Cass places a finger over her lip and shakes her head, a universal sign to be quiet.

 Jason scowls but settles down.

They’re quiet as they wait for Marinette to wake.

@biodad-bruce-month

Maribat tag list(to be added onto this pls send me an ask/dm): @our-precipreciousss @my-dear-friend-anxiety

Who Are You (and what will you become) tag list (to be added here just comment): @anjuschiffer @theunquiet-dead @certainmuffinbagelcalzone @cresentmo0n @allulily @myazael @zalladane @rebecarojas07 @keepingupwiththemalfoys  @frieddonutsweets @all-mights-asscheeks @thornalchemist23 @trippingovermyfeet @jiso-lee @redscarlet95 @ira-sairain @screechingflapbiscuitpeach @ramos123 @cutechip @theunquiet-dead @sleep-deprived-aroace @enternalempires @lilkymilky @woe-is-me0 @officiallydarkgeek @miyla-lokidottir @queencommonsense @demonicbusiness @iamablinkmarvelarmy 

@emark7 (i will have the edited version of these on ao3 eventually but i think the link to ch 1 on this one works)

where i ended this doesn’t feel very good but ehhhhhhhhhh my writing process is summary then word vomit that barely correlates which means nothing makes sense unless i edit but looking back at my work makes me cringe so at a crossroads yayyy

also can you guys tell which prompts ive written these for because i’m curious

[katsubiatch]

Hopelessly Devoted Part 1

So I tweaked some things and changed a bit around. I changed Shinsou’s character to Arata, just because it didn’t make sense for Shinsou to not be a hero. This is probably going to be 2-3 parts or so, I’m still trying to fill out the middle of the story because I already know the ending haha. Just have to fill in the blanks of the start and middle. I hope you all enjoy. (: 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

It wasn’t supposed to be like this.

Your head throbbed as you tried to concentrate on keeping your eyes open, forcing yourself to breath no matter how hard you wanted to just quit. You could feel blood pooling out underneath you and knew you were a goner if no one found you.

No one would find you, no one would suspect you to be here. You'd just decided to take an extra shift in the ER after your latest fight with Katsuki. What a pain that was turning into.

Your eyes traveled around the intake room, it was a mess now after the man had thrown you around it. You couldn't be angry, he hadn't meant to be violent and was passed out again in his bed.

The ER was busy, and this mans vitals were fine. No one was going to find you in time. You'd die here, never to see Katsuki again, never kiss him or tell him about...

Your thoughts were disrupted when the door to the intake room opened and in came an Angel you were sure of it. The Angel of death to take you away. At this point you'd have anyone if it meant the pain would go away.

The Angel dropped down to his knees next to you, pulling out all kinds of equipment and swearing under his breath. He looked a lot like Arata in his white coat. "What the hell happened?" He sure sounded a lot like Arata too. "Sweet cheeks stay with me." He muttered, a gentle hand touching your cheek. At least you'd have a gentle touch to help you through to the other side...

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

It all started in a bar, isn’t that how most love stories started now a days? It hadn’t been expected, it had just been a regular night after a long shift that required a strong drink. Bloody patients, drunk people needing IV’s to rehydrate and more tragedies than anyone could count all that and more in the long twelve hours you had worked. 

“Oh my God I thought that would never end. You know I had like three drunk guys feel me up while I was trying to put their IV’s in?” You complained to Arata as he sipped on his beer beside you. He wanted to stay sober just in case you got a bit too tipsy and he had to help you home. The two of you shared an apartment but you were just roommates. 

“You should have told me, I’d do something about it.” Arata murmured in your direction as you scoffed and looked over at him.  “Right, right. It doesn’t bother me that much, at least someone is touching it.” You murmured, taking a long sip from you straw. “Kidding, kidding. I’m just kidding. God they’re so gross.” You shivered, remembering the man that had grabbed you and whispered promises in your ear about how he’d take care of you once he got you home. You’d made sure to fish around in his arm a little, pretending you couldn’t find a vein. 

“Well you know how they are.” Arata shrugged as he finished his beer and leaned back in his chair, pushing the now empty bottle around the table. “They think once they’re drunk they are invincible and can’t get in trouble for anything.” The two of you chatted for a while and you were nice and tipsy by the time it happened. When your whole life changed. 

You’d been going to the bathroom when it happened when your hero came to your rescue like you were some damsel in distress. As much as you liked to think you could handle yourself in situations like this it was nice to be rescued sometimes. Now you didn’t really keep up with hero’s much, you only knew their names from the few times that they’d come into the ER to get patched up from big fights. Even then you didn’t fawn over them like some of your coworkers. After all they were a patient just like anyone else. They were still human. 

Either way you were headed back from the bathroom when you were trapped between a wall and a body. You looked up just to see one of the drunk men from the hospital in front of you, even drunker than before. “See I told you I’d find you again, let me take you home sugar.” His breath smelled rancid, like old beer and fried foods.  “How did you get out in the first place.” You wrinkled your nose and pushed back against the man in front of you, sighing a bit when he didn’t move. “Listen I didn’t agree to anything and I do not want you to take me home so please just let me pass.” You shook your head and attempted to squeeze out under his arm that up next to you on the wall but he was quicker. How he was in his drunken state you weren’t sure but you didn’t have the wits about yourself to question it too much. 

“Oh come on now, don’t be like that. I know you were giving me signals back at the hospital. Girl come on I can show you a real good time.” He murmured, dropping his head down to attempt to give your neck kisses.  “Really no I’m good.” You tried shoving again but you were met with resistance. “Please just let me get back to my friend...” You trailed off as suddenly the mans over salivated lips were pulled away from your neck.  “We got a problem here?” A gruff voice grumbled, holding the drunk man by he back of his shirt. He looked familiar but you couldn’t quite place it. He was handsome if you were going to be honest but it could be the alcohol talking.  “Mr. Dynamight sir... uh no. No there is no problem. I was just having a conversation with this girl here.” Ah so that was why he looked familiar. You hadn’t ever personally taken care of him but a few of the other nurses had been drooling over him before.  “Actually... I was just leaving. Would you mind... maybe walking me back to my table?” You asked of the hero as you looked up at him, knowing technically he was off duty but this was the only thing you could ask of him. You were a bit shaken up, that had gotten too close for comfort and now you were nervous he’d grab you when no one was looking. You just had to get back to Arata. Then you’d be safe. “Yeah, sure whatever.” The ash blond rolled his eyes as he let go of the drunk and you moved to his side. Thank you, you managed to whisper as the two of you walked back. “Thank you again. Really. I took care of him at the hospital and he decided that I wanted him or something.” You shook your head once the two of you got back to Arata who was eyeing the two of you suspiciously. “So, thanks again.” You nod, only getting a gruff ‘just doing my job’ from the man before he stomped off to his table where there were a few hero's that you did recognize. 

There were a few snickers and questions from Arata but you didn’t notice the glances from the hero’s table, not only from the hero that had saved you but also from his friends who were curious about the girl who’d caught their friends eye. Though he’d never admit it, he hadn’t even said anything to them. Arata and you decided to leave with one last glance towards Dynamights table not knowing that you’d seen him so soon again. 

It had only been a few days since the incident at the bar but it was a typical night in the ER. Drunks, car accidents and injuries from bar fights or cooking gone wrong all competing for your attention. You’d been stitching up knife cuts, checking temperatures on sick kids and giving fluids to those who needed it before transferring the more severe cases to be admitted. It had finally calmed down enough for you to finally take a drink out of your abandoned water bottle when someone told you stitches were needed in room 3. A small sigh came out of you before grabbing your supplies and making your way to the room. “Hello my name is Y/N I’ll be your nurse this evening. I heard you need stiches?” You asked, setting down your supplies.  “I don’t need any stiches. I told them that I’d be fine but they wouldn’t listen.” That voice sounded familiar and you looked up from setting things up to see the hero from the other night. Dynamight! The name finally came to you.  “Oh? How do you know that you don’t need them?” You asked with a smirk, crossing your arms over your chest as you looked over the hero.  “You’re that girl.” He stated, looking you up and down. “From the bar.” He hadn’t forgotten you but he had come to terms with the fact that he probably wouldn’t ever see you again. He was presently surprised that he was face to face with you again and now he knew your name. 

“Yes, girl from the bar that has a name. It’s Y/N.” You murmured, holding out your hand only to be met with a confused expression. “Where do you need stitches? Hand it over.” You murmured as he sighed and put his lower arm into your hand. “Mmm that does look a little nasty. Just a few stitches and you should be good to go. It won’t heal good on it’s own.” You should your head and started to get everything ready again. “This is going to be a pinch and a small burn but it’ll feel better than the stitches.” You promised as you injected his arm in a few spots. “Okay I’m gonna get started.”

The two of you made light conversation as you worked and Dynamight watched you. Little things, like the weather and how he’d gotten the injury. He was still in his hero gear so you figured he just came from work.  “Well that is that. You’re all fixed up.” You nodded, setting a bandage over it and taping it in place. “Don’t go messing up my hand work Dynamight.” You smiled at the man, taking care of your mess.  “It’s Bakugou.” He murmured, looking over at you. “Might as well be on a real name basis.” He said as he looked at you. “I mean... if you want to go on a date with me Saturday. Unless you and that guy are together.” He murmured, all confidence as he looked at you. He didn’t usually do things like this but it was something about you that he didn’t want to let get away again. He was just glad none of his friends had tagged along with him. He’d get so much shit from them for this. 

“Oh? If I want to.” You smiled as you looked over at him. “Well I guess that could be arranged.” You pulled out a pen and piece of paper out of your scrub pocket and scribbled down your address and phone number on the paper, as well as your full name. “We are not involved, just room mates.” You smiled and looked at him. “I’d love to go on a date. Pick me up at six.” You murmured, taking care of your things. “See you on Saturday Bakugou.” 

You didn’t know then what would happen, how much your life would change and the ways that it would. But if you had known then what you knew now, well you’d go thorugh it all over again. Even the hard parts.

Tag list

mae-foster

[yeoldontknow]

Empty Vessels (M)

Author’s Note: the next installment in the Tam Infra Quam Supra series. ive spent seven months working on this, and the backstory, details, and world got a little out of control. i promise, though, all of this is important. considering its length, if you have trouble reading this - i recommend you load on a desktop app | Historical note: the names, information, and references used regarding the actual Salem Witch trials have been been lifted for a work of fiction. I make no claim stating that anything described below is true, historically, accurate, or authentic. The Abott family are entirely original characters. Pairing: Junmyeon x Reader (oc; female) Genre: witch!au; soulmate!au; horror; suspense; thriller; romance Summary: Water is everywhere. Junmyeon knows this better than he knows most things. Water is everywhere and it is the source of life - it exists within and inside humanity. But water, he knows, erodes. It weathers a person, and it has dried him out and turned him into something cold. So what does he do, then, when he meets you, his moon? Rating: NC-17 Warnings: graphic depictions of blood; graphic references to violence; mentions of death and dismemberment; graphic depictions of demonic possession; explicit language; dark themes; explicit sex; fingering; unprotected sex; impregnation kink; creampie; dirty talk Word count: 30K

APRIL 1692 2:17AM

He wakes to the sound of thunder, a distant and violent rumble echoing through the house, with a force that makes the walls vibrate.

In the haze between wakefulness and sleep, he shudders with a petulant grimace, joining the manor in a tremble of discontent. Eyelids weighed down by exhaustion and limbs drenched in the comfort of lambskin and wool, he hums to himself, waiting patiently for the soothing fall of rain.

Always, the rain, the water, delivers him a sense of peace that burrows down into his bones, kissing the marrow with a gentle tongue. He cherishes each drop as though they were his own children, relishes their kindness and pays it back in kind - for they are born from the earth and destined to be controlled by his hand alone, a homecoming to their father’s delicate touch.

They caress and preen against his skin, his home, his heart - they caress him, and he welcomes the torrent of their deluge. There is a comfort to be found in the flood, the gift of a surrender that is both terrifying and magnificent, and he welcomes it with expectant, needy fingers. Often, even without wind or breeze, the rain will press against his window, attempting to burrow in and be close, and he waits, readying to soothe and be soothed by the rhythm of their fall.

Tonight, however, the rain does not come. Tonight, the sky is too quiet and his nerves twitch in displeasure at the lack.

The thunder breaks again, and, at the sound of its intensity, Junmyeon furrows his brow, a deep pout setting itself against his lips. April. Too soon for the rainless storms that come from the heat and humidity of the summer sun; too late for oncoming terror of a hurricane, the usual warning bringing nothing behind it at all. There should be a chasm in the sky, something awful thrusting itself against the grass and the glass. There should be a flash of light and the wonder of panic too big to be contained in the armor of one's chest.

There should be something and this thunder, it seems, brings nothing at all.

Except that it does.

Behind the thunder is a yell that lingers, a voice urgent and penetrative, demanding his attention and calling his name with an urgency soaked in bitterness. It is not thunder that woke him, but knocking. Understanding washes over him, eyes growing wide and blood rushing in his ears, waking him fully. Slinging his legs over the bed, he pulls on his breeches beneath his muslin shirt and stalks to the door, tying them as he moves.

His motions are quick, mindless, attention focused on the door and the figures that rest behind it. In the dim light of the moon, their shadows cast along his walls, grotesque and inhuman, macabre in the foreboding they bring.

Names run through his mind, an endless list of friends and acquaintances that circle around and back again. By the time he reaches his door, he assumes it is a coven member - perhaps, a member of another coven, and he dreads their knowing, patronizing stares and hollowed gazes. The witching hour approaches, and, lately, Minseok has had dreams; visions of bloodshed and wounds born of war, of fear - he thought he had time, that they had time, and now he feels the tick of the clock has become a pendulum swinging against their favor.

Behind the door, the town magistrate stands and regards him with tired, accusatory eyes. The veneer of his polite smile is tarnished, fading and pulling at his lips to reveal a sneer of distorted anger, turning him into something poisonous. He holds the torch over his head at such a height, the lines of cheeks create deep crevices along his bones, the contour of his face appearing violent. The magistrate burns beneath the harsh light, much the way acid burns at the back of Junmyeon's throat, his weight shifting from foot to foot in anxiousness. 

This, he knows, is not the first time a member of polite society or a member of authority has arrived at his home, seething and unannounced, demanding answers. Briefly, Junmyeon reminds himself this has happened before - it has happened before and it will happen again, but something about tonight tells him there is risk. This will not be the first time they have been discovered - if, of course, that is what this is about - but it may cost them their lives.

Idly, he thinks on the others - if he should wake them, if he should find Luhan, if he should say anything at all - before remembering words have not been shared, and therefore it is best he remain patient. Still, he keeps his tongue locked behind the prison of his teeth, expecting to be accused without any viable proof at all.

'Junmyeon,' is the all the Magistrate manages before releasing a long sigh, eyebrows stitched together in concern. The tension in his voice is thick, palpable, casting a heaviness into the air that makes Junmyeon’s neck begin to ache. 

Junmyeon nods in the effort of remaining polite, calling on the water in his cells to keep him as serene as possible. 'Magistrate Adams,' he smiles, voice slow and heavy with sleep. 'What business brings you here at this hour?'

'It's Sasha.'

Another voice breaks behind the magistrate, an exhausted, worried voice belonging to a man who steps forward with anxious and heavy steps. His weathered hands grip his straw hat as though it were a cross. The bags beneath his eyes hang low on his skin, bruising from lack of sleep. Immediately, Junmyeon recognizes him as Sasha Abott’s father, Jacob, a kind farmer with calloused skin and a complexion greying beneath his fright.

Junmyeon regards him calmly, feeling his stomach distend and bend to touch his feet. ‘What about her?’

Sasha is smart, perhaps his brightest student, young and inquisitive and with a penmanship careful beyond her years. She is his favourite student, his favourite and his most observant. Her eyes follow him, tracing his motions as if committing him to memory and gaze lingering on him even when it should not. At sixteen, she is on the precipice of learning her power as a woman, and now his mind reels as implication worms its way through.

‘She has been possessed.’

‘Possessed?’ Junmyeon repeats the word, but remains unsure if anyone truly heard him. 

Momentarily, he feels as though he has been reduced, whittled down to little more than ash, blood leaving his face in favor of the company of his toes.

‘By the Devil,’ the magistrate adds sharply, as though it were necessary.

In the silence, Junmyeon listens to the way his breath becomes shallow, eyes flicking between their intense, penetrative stares. He knows it’s possible, that it’s happened before. It has happened before, but not for centuries. Still, he is haunted by the memory of their black eyes and the yellow of their tongues, the grotesque way man succumbs to darkness and renders their bodies inhuman. To be filled with such a cursed thing is an act of dark magic, dark and powerful magic that is as ancient as the moon, and with its power comes the sulfuric scent of death. 

‘I am unsure why you think I may be able to help,’ he says eventually, speech slowed by his inability to process the implication. ‘She would need the priest, good sirs.’

He offers the suggestion in a low tone, a warning. There will be little he can do for the girl, little anyone can do - even the priest. To hold the devil within your chest is to kiss fire, to let your organs burn and burn until the soul that remained has been eviscerated, leaving only the scarred shell of a heart that once loved behind. 

‘She has named you,‘ Sasha’s father announces, sounding desperate and lost. 

For Junmyeon, time seems to stop, blood halting within his veins as his breath falters. He pales, he’s sure of it, looking as good as guilty in the moonlight.

‘It would appear yours is the only name she can say,’ the magistrate offers, watching him narrowed eyes for subtle tells. ‘She begs for you.’ 

Magistrate Adams holds onto the word beg like he’s gradually unveiling a secret, peeling at the letters with his teeth to bare their unholy core. For a moment, Junmyeon thinks on this word and how it is both a plea, a cry for help, and also a curse. She has named him, requested him, hissed his name at a group of men as grown as he, letting the syllables saunter over we skin to paint pictures in their imaginations.

Sasha has done more than name him - she has damned him.

Shifting his weight from foot to foot, Junmyeon bends his knees as through bracing himself, body preparing to run and preparing to ache. Locking all his emotions away behind his teeth, he grips the door knob tightly and hums. 

‘What do you presume I could possibly do?’ he asks, disbelieving as his eyes move from face to face, taking in the shadows the light casts and letting their chill caress his spine.

‘I urge you, sir,’ Magistrate Adams warns, darkening his tone and slowing his speech. ‘Your willingness to assist will eventually play in your favor.’

It’s a chilling thing to say, the words heavy and weighted with threat. Regardless of how this night goes, blood will be spilled, lives will be lost, and Junmyeon’s name will be the first on the list of the accused.

‘Please,’ her father whispers, a broken splinter of a man bulked with strength. The sound of it startles Junmyeon, so heartbreakingly contradictory to Magistrate Adams’ severity. ‘Help her.’

Junmyeon takes his hand and holds it between his own, overwhelmed by the fear, the anguish, the anxious uncertainty that flows from John Abbot’s skin. For a moment, he tries to soothe the pain, easing what he can in the hopes of bringing either one or both some relief, but quickly stops, tightening his fingers around John’s hand to shake it. 

Even as he shakes his hand, as he lets the wasted sorrow of a man burn in his chest, as he lets himself be consumed by risk in the name of a child, he knows. 

As he offers promises of hope and healing, promises to witness and understand; as he promises let himself burn in the name of a child he wished he could call his own, he knows. 

He knows there will be no way out of this, no way that does not involve the ash of his soul or the fracturing of the coven. 

Junmyeon is damned. There will be no hope for him until the sun turns black.

Tucked just towards the back of a field crafted into bounty, the Abbot’s home stands small yet warm, the lights of the windows glowing through the night as a beacon. Even from a distance, Junmyeon can sense the pious modesty that defines their home and their land, a rarity to see for such a skilled farmer. But then, he knows the Abbot family is small, and will always remain so. They have only one daughter, and will only ever have one daughter - all other children perishing within Mary Abbot’s womb or within the first few months of life. As Junmyeon approaches the cottage, it is this knowledge that seems to spur a sense of urgency within his blood, an understanding that Sasha is cherished, adored, doted upon if only because she will be the last of her kind. 

She is a blessing upon her family, and now, in the grim bleakness of the night, it seems she has been twisted and reduced to little more than a curse.

Before they reach the door, Bridget Bishop steps out to welcome them, seeming out of place in her signature red cloak and tunic. Wringing her hands together, the moonlight casts silver into the tendrils of her hair, the shadows on her face amplifying the intensity in the furrow of her brow. It is the first time Junmyeon has seen her this way, her normally bright disposition overcast with worry and discontent. Acting as Sasha’s nanny, the two had a close bond, often inseparable when walking together in town. Even more, Sasha would choose to sit with her rather than her family at mass, both seated in pews towards the back, whispering.

‘It’s gotten worse since you left,’ she announces, voice sharp as a blade as regards Jacob alone. ‘I fear she may not survive this night.’ 

From the corner of his eye, Junmyeon watches the way Magistrate Adams regards her with scorn, distrust painted over his features. For a moment, Junmyeon sees her as his only ally, understanding that it is no longer he who has been damned, but Bridget Bishop as well. 

‘Is this what women do when they don’t have husbands?’ The Magistrate’s voice cuts through the night, a dagger intended for Bridget’s malleable heart, and to carve directly into the rumours of her adultery with Jacob. ‘Fret over a child that is not their own?’

She breathes his words in deep, letting the poison put lightning on her tongue, eyes falling on Magistrate Adams with a severity that gives Junmyeon a chill. Rooting her feet to the earth, she lifts herself a few inches taller, straightening her spine as though born of iron and steel. Neither scorned nor startled, Bridget simply becomes a viper, vicious in her regard for men who dare tear down a woman.

‘The likes of you have no place here, Adams,’ she says, hands falling to her sides with her fingers outstretched, knuckles tense. ‘With such hate in your heart, I imagine the Devil would take glee in your soul.’

‘Witch!’ Magistrate Adams calls, lurching forward before Jacob’s arm comes to pull him back, gaining rightful authority on his property. ‘This is a threat to vex me! I will not forget it.’

‘Enough.’ Jacob’s voice roars in the night, all warmth having left him somewhere in the walk back to his home. He, too, has become battle born and thread with steel, eyes the cold timber of metal as he regards Bridget with dejection. ‘We’ll be seeing her.’

Even as he steps onto the porch, Junmyeon can smell the sulfur that churns within the house. For several moments, he pauses in the doorway, eyes downcast in search of salt or basil. Finding none, his heart takes to bleeding. The devil has found a plaything here, and they have done nothing to neither keep him inside nor banish him away.

Within the house, the light from the candles flickers in irregular patterns, too uncontrolled and distorted for such a still night. The yellow of the flames casts their shadows tall, curls their edges around the hard angles of the house and makes them too appear as demons. In this light, everyone has claws and no one is safe.

Jacob leads them up the stairs to Sasha's room, and as they approach Junmyeon feels his soul begin to fissure. As with any powerful dark magic, the barriers surrounding the boundary of her room reject him, his light, and his healing. Gravity means to push him away, and it takes effort not to moan with the effort of continuing his ascent. Jacob and Magistrate Adams approach her door as though they have never felt so free, and Junmyeon envies them. He envies the simplicity of their life, and the way it will continue in a chronological order even if their experience of it will be forever altered after this night.

For Junmyeon, his feet struggle to deny their steady approach to doom, to death, to the gallows, or, perhaps, to an empty black of nothing at all. Furrowing his brow, he chews the inside of his cheek with the force of his push until the skin begins to bleed, the salty metallic timber of his essence urging him to turn back. Still, he closes his eyes and presses his hands against her doorway, breathing deeply even though the air makes his lungs and throat ache.

'This is she,' Jacob whispers, neither looking at Junmyeon nor his daughter, truly.

Opening his eyes, Junmyeon glances at Jacob before looking into the room, realizing that everything inside this small space reeks of necrosis. His eyes do not fall on his daughter, nor do they fall anywhere else. Now, his gaze is vacant, confronted with a truth so bleak his mind refuses to truly see at all.

Even in hell, the truth is the only thing he can see.

In her bed, Sasha moans, eyes wide and looking at the ceiling - rather, through the ceiling - as her chest warps tragedy into sound. To him, for a single moment, it appears she is summoning the stars with the force of her will alone.

But then, there is no cosmic nor divine magic to the strength of her stare, the whites of her eyes tarnished with a jaundice that seems to eat away at her skin. It flakes away from her, peeling as though burning and boiling the water in her pores, her blood. And where this should make her pink or pale, cells inflamed with the sudden heat of the fire, it only has made her gangrenous. Her breath, struggling against the spores of her lungs, rattles as though battling within a cage, seeming to echo in the quietness of the house.

Distantly, Junmyeon hears the sound of weeping. He does not know if it is Mary, or Jacob, or himself, or, perhaps, even God. In the end, he supposes it is everyone, hearts breaking in unison.

It seems unfair that he should weep for her, unfair that he should have a right to care for her as much as he does. But, if asked, he would never deny that she was his favourite. His favourite, his smallest, and the one who reminded him he wanted to be a father, a tether to a reality he would likely never touch.

And so, he lets himself mourn and grieve, before shielding his soul with an armor that comes from centuries of learning to kiss death and survive its taste; centuries of seeing the Devil and telling him to run.

With his guard high, Junmyeon feels for the water in her body, and realizes his assumption was correct - she has been subsumed and slowly turned to parchment. Lending her some of his own, he eases the moisture into her throat, permissing her voice returns to her with a vigor stolen by the death she carries within.

Coming to his knees beside her bed, he remains there for a moment as though in prayer, watching her head to turn to face him. He waits for fear to take him, the horror of it slowly walking up his spine and making the hairs on his arms stand on end. While it does not consume him, it holds him, much the same way she holds her gaze on him, unblinking.

‘How long?’ He does not bother to face Jacob as he speaks, arrested by the sight of her. 

Jacob coughs, lungs pressured by the weight of his distress. ‘Five days.’

He presses his lips together in a thin line as he chews delicately on his tongue, biting back the condemnations he would spit if the circumstances of his inclusion had been different.

'Sasha,' he begins, keeping his voice gentle and even. 'What is it you've touched?'

Slowly, her mouth opens as though her jaw craves to become unhinged. Sound should come, the sound of a voice or that of a girl, but instead the only sound he hears is the shuffling of uncomfortable feet behind him. In silence, she remains this way, mouth open and black within, until, eventually, she screams.

The shrillness of her tone makes him close his eyes as though stung, but he does not turn away nor does he move back. Junmyeon waits. Junmyeon remains. And he counts the number of voices he hears within the sound. 

Three voices from within speak through her, using her small body as a vessel towards a violent end. This is not the first time he has been confronted with possession, but it is the first time there has been more than one beast contained within a person. To summon a devil is black magic that costs a soul. But to successfully manage more than one would surely cost a life, the sacrifice required demanding something sacred, and Junmyeon is certain this magic is archaic and mostly likely older than him. 

'The black witch did this.' Buried beneath the screams, the words begin to echo within the sound without the control of Sasha's tongue to give them shape. The syllables slur together, messy and almost indeterminable, but they saunter over Junmyeon’s neck, making his skin itch. 

Jacob coughs in alarm and despair before excusing himself from the room, watching his daughter speak without speaking, in a voice that is no longer hers. The Magistrate huffs at Jacob’s apparent squeamishness, but Junmyeon pays no mind to either, letting the words linger in his mind. They do not belong to her, not really. He reminds himself as he studies her blank stare, expressionless and wholly disconnected. 

Junmyeon nods, appeasing the things that live inside her with a pious understanding. 'Who is the black witch?' he questions, tone soft. 

He abandons emotion, keeping his thoughts and fears and sentiments locked in the silence of his chest. It has taken centuries for him to learn the skill, and even now, when he needs it the most, he fears he may buckle. With water as with life, emotions were his strongest gift, the tool he uses to heal all the anguish he encounters. Stripping himself of them now leaves him feeling uncomfortable and vulnerable, but he cannot let his feelings be swayed. 

Demons such as this feed off the power of the heart, and his heart was always the most powerful of all, a veritable feast born for the taking.

‘You know her,’ one of the voices seethes, emerging from the black with a laugh that sounded like fire. ‘You break bread with her, covet her. Why do you hide from the sin you crave?’

‘Tituba.’ 

The Magistrate’s voice cuts through the room, a low rumble of implication that bursts forth as a tidal wave. Unable to take his gaze from Sasha for fear of becoming vulnerable, Junmyeon narrows his eyes and thinks through the name. Behind him, the men shift from foot to foot, satisfied and pleased as though they have found the answer, ready to seek her and bring her to justice. But still, Junmyeon gives pause, knowing that, with the devil, it would never be that simple. 

‘She is an easy target,’ Junmyeon counters, keeping his eyes trained on the yellow of Sasha’s irises. ‘Any accusations made must be made in fact rather than assumption.’

Magistrate Adams scoffs, disdain leaking into the air to mix with the sense of dread. ‘It does not need to be more complicated, good sir,’ he sneers. ‘She speaks in tongues unfit for the darkness of her skin and watches too deeply the men that give her quarter.’ 

Against his thighs, Junmyeon’s hands curl into fists that gather the cloth of his breeches. ‘She is foreign,’ he says gently, even though he wishes to battle the magistrate with the fullness of his tone. ‘That does not make her a witch.’

His thoughts are interrupted by a great roar that erupts from within Sasha’s chest, a violent sound that gives him the sensation the earth is quaking merely by the force. Her brow does not furrow with the effort, expressionless and serene, she screams and screams until the men around her have been silenced in wait. 

When she falls quiet once more, he releases a breath he did not know he had been holding, neck and back tense with the effort of keeping still.  

‘Sasha - ‘

At once, a voice cuts him off. ‘You know my name better than most, Water King. Honor me...honor yourself, and use it.’ 

Blood rushes from Junmyeon’s cheeks, racing away beneath his skin as though the air that kisses it is poison. It rushes down to his fingers, his toes, and into his ears as his eyes widen and his mouth runs dry. The sound of his true name instill a terror within his bones, one that coils around his spine and demands that it break, his heart shuddering in its rhythm to sustain the adrenaline that now courses through his veins. 

Behind him, he feels the gazes of the men burn into his shoulders, the weight of his damnation further spiraling out of his depth. It does that matter that he could still easily dissuade their belief of his guilt, does not matter that they have no proof of his magic. His name has been burned into the pyre, and there will be no saving himself after this night. 

‘I know your name as Sasha,’ he says, neither fully lying nor fully honest.

Yes, the girl who lays before him is Sasha. But he knows, even against his better judgement, that he has not been speaking to her for some time.

This time, when she laughs, he knows it is the demon who distorts her jaw and giggles with a glee that makes his stomach twist; he knows what he is capable of, what he has done, what he will give, and what he will take away. In irregular clicks, the laugh itself sounds more like grinding metal than a natural sound born from a throat, but Sasha does not appear to move. Instead, she remains still, laughing and barely breathing, waiting to be saved. 

Abruptly, the sound comes to a halt, her body twitching in small seizes that make her bed rattles against the wall. Frantically, his eyes scan her body as it writhes beneath her sheets, hands trembling and unsure of where to touch. And then, she stills completely, as though she has been unmoved and undisturbed for the entire evening. It is only when blood begins to seep from her mouth, dripping over her chin and down onto the pillow that he knows she is losing the war waging inside her, and his time for saving is almost out.

'Please,' she whispers voice small and weak, twisted around the presence inside her. She gasps, a wet sound that sprays blood onto Junmyeon’s chemise. 'Help me.'

The sun peaks over the hills at dawn, making the sky burn with a red and yellow that make the seas rage. Junymeon does not take notice, legs burning as he runs from Jacob’s home to the manor, ragged breath searing the nodes of his lungs as he focuses on moving away from hell. In his speed, he is followed by the eyes of the townspeople, muttering curses about the way he does not stop to give greeting, the way he narrowly avoids the bodies that mean to break his stride, or simply because he interrupts the fragile sense of peace the town has created. Briefly, he wishes for Chanyeol, for the legs of a beast to carry him or beat him home, the news he carries weighing him down until his motions feel insufficient. 

When he pushes through the manor door, he finds Luhan heading towards the kitchens, hair still mussed from sleep. On the hardwood floor, the stained glass window above the stairs casts coloured patterns on the ground, the coven tree reaching to touch both of their feet. 

Closing his eyes, he struggles to catch his breath as Luhan’s gaze wanders over body, taking him in. It hurts to breathe, hurts in a way that Junmyeon is not used to, body trying to repress and suppress all the horror he has witnessed. Falling to his knees, he waits for gravity to send him over, to leave him and abandon him, a hopeless case left behind and forgotten. No longer feeling tired, he simply feels nothing at all, and he thinks this is the most terrifying truth of all.

‘Jun, what is it?’ comes Luhan’s soft imploring voice. 

Opening his eyes, he sees the way Luhan watches him, concerned and gentle and every bit the leader he needs - present and ready to listen. But even then, he sees him as a ghost, a burning ember of a man who would not have a place in the world that blazes around them, for there would be no room for this sort of kindness.

Not anymore, and perhaps not ever again. 

‘Paimon,’ he chokes out, voice not sounding like his own. ‘Someone is raising King Paimon.’

NOW

The water at Smith Pool is unusually quiet, the current guiding the waves calm in a way that is uncharacteristic for the late autumn season. Under the scrutiny of the afternoon sun, the waters glimmer, inviting and offering a hope that feels almost like hope, as though it is unaware of this falsehood. It laps at the embankment with gentle touches as it rolls back and forth, soothing and altogether too peaceful for the chaos that surrounds the world. Absent is the mist and fog that lingers over the horizon, hovering delicately just out of reach as though kissing the surface, guarding and protecting the secrets that dwell below. 

He waits for it. He waits, and it does not come. 

Hands fisted in his pockets, Junmyeon roots his feet into the wood of the dock with narrowed eyes, vision clouded by echoes of a time he once thought had been buried. Memories stir, faces and names he would never truly forget but had pushed away through the guise of self preservation; each brutal and all more visceral than the last. A breeze kisses his cheeks though he does not feel it, numbed and weary and worn by the totality of this sudden onslaught.

He remembers the day the lake was made, remembers when the water meant something - a salvation, a hope, a beacon of life for a community.

He remembers the bodies - the bodies that hung from the trees and the bodies that were thrown in the water, accused and convicted, regardless if they were innocent. Their grey shadows linger behind his eyes, hanging from the trees and looming from the black of his memory; humanity reduced to little more than symbols, threats. Always, he stomachs them, swallows them down into the burning acid of his regret and ignores the flavor. Lately, he’s been haunted, the shadows no longer vague, unfocused shapes, but men with faces - his coven, himself, the world. 

He remembers a lot of things, nails digging into his palms as his mind swims and swims, the water before him running red. For a moment, he imagines there is nothing. Nothing but himself and the memories, trapped but breathing; naked but safe; and lifelessly valiant in the way he bleeds for the people he loves. For a moment, he imagines he is alone, witnessing the terror of the past and the future, and letting them blur together if only because he believes his iron heart is strong enough to withstand it. 

But then, even the security of this is brief and shattered, a fragile, vain hope from the mind of a martyr.

Behind him, Chanyeol cries in a way he believes is ugly and undignified. The sound sours the air, spoiling the delicate pretense of comfort the lake offers. It smothers him, the grief and the intensity of it, building a pressure in the center of his lungs that stings. He rolls his neck from side to side, eyes fluttering closed with a huff as he tries to alleviate the tension that has gathered in his shoulders. Poised and patient, he’s sure his the steel in his posture is not a comfort for Chanyeol or, perhaps, anyone who would witness the way he appears rooted to the earth. 

Junmyeon accepts this. Lately, he’s begun to think of comfort as little more than a myth. 

For a long while, he remains silent, letting Chanyeol’s choked gasps of breath be the only thing the air touches, neither satisfied nor grieving, simply watching. 

‘They’re just birds, Chanyeol.’ Even he is surprised by how empty, how cruel, his voice has become. 

With a sniffle, Chanyeol wipes his nose on his sleeve as he inhales a shaking breath, finally daring to break the silence. 

‘It wasn’t their time to die.’ 

Junmyeon does not turn around, unwilling to look at the dead raven Chanyeol cradles in his arms. 

At three in the morning, the screams started. First as a low rumble of malcontent, they began to build into an anguished howl that made the house tremble. There was a terror to this noise, a chill to the realization that the voice making the sound did not belong to Yixing. He’d grown accustomed to the tenor of Yixing’s screams, to the cadence that sometimes bends into music as he sees and sees. It was the loudest Chanyeol had been in centuries, and he had almost forgotten the richness that had been locked inside his throat, hiding away from all the horror. 

His long limbs thrashed in the bed, twitching violently as though he were being pulled, wounded and scarred. They’d gathered in the room to bear witness, seemingly forgetting the centuries of practice they had with someone else, bewildered by the sudden change. It was only when the rhythmic sounds of thudding on the roof cut through his cries that they moved to action, Chanyeol leaping from the bed as Baekhyun rushed behind on swift feet to cast light. 

They followed, uncertain and afraid though fully prepared to fight. From the sky, the birds fell as though they were gliding, and in Baekhyun’s glow, Junmyeon felt a brief moment of peace at the aerial display he thought he was witnessing. For a moment, there was beauty to this new aspect of Chanyeol’s power. 

The crash onto the roof hurt, the snapping of their frail necks causing Chanyeol to tear at his own skin, falling to his knees and dying with them. Even without Minseok, he knew, the dread making his toes tingle as he pressed them into the blades of grass. 

'Can you not grieve for us?’ he asks, digging his nails into his palms hard enough to sting. The water surges as he speaks, moved by his words rather than the current. ‘For the fact that we might end up like them?'

Chanyeol releases a small whine, a barely there noise of hurt and scorn. 'They were helpless, Jun,’ he begins, softly. ‘This was done to them.'

He smothers a bitter laugh, cocking an eyebrow at the empty expanse before him as he purses his lips. 'That sounds precisely the same to me.'

Footsteps startle them both, the sound of heels on the dock making Chanyeol cough in embarrassment as Junmyeon finally turns, brow furrowed. 

Hand in hand, Minseok walks along the dock with his partner, eyes dark and shadows on his face long. Beside him, she weeps silently, cheeks wet with tears that still threaten to spill regardless of her stoic expression. They grip one another as a cross, clutching at each other’s fingers in the effort of reminding themselves they are tactile, whole, and unified, hearts emptied of pleasure by what they had seen. Junmyeon watches the way Minseok runs a thumb over her knuckles, a quiet moment of comfort that provides more empathy than he has seen from him in centuries. 

How odd, he thinks, to see one touched by love; touched and utterly terrified. 

Standing to Chanyeol’s side, they complete the accidental circle created by the unintentional flow of magic. 

‘What did you find?’ Junmyeon asks, casting glances between them both before finally lingering on Minseok, still unclear about the breadth of her power and choosing to trust what he knows. 

For a while, they do not speak. Minseok looks longingly out over the water, hollowed, as the herbalist regards the dirt on her shoes with an empty stare. In the silence, Junmyeon minutely nods, the bare threads of his patience allowing them space to find their words. Images spring to his mind, all imagined and none wholly formed, all as bleak and battered as the crow in Chanyeol’s arms. He wonders what Minseok has seen, unable to avoid with a clarity bordering on entrapment; he wonders what she has heard, whispers on the wind of a life he thought he’d left behind. 

‘The trees are screaming,’ she announces, eyes still downcast though her voice is sharp; blunt as the edge of a sword and equally as unforgiving. ‘They’re in pain.’

It settles over him, slow and uncompromising, the notion that trees could make sound - that they would choose to. The oldest wisdom lingers in their branches, and for one brief moment, he sees her as someone as old as their roots.

‘Are there ravens?’ Chanyeol asks, running his finger down its beak. 

‘There are birds,’ she confirms, voice softening for this redirection of conversation partner. ‘I don’t know if it was only our homes that were affected or if they were drawn to us, in a swarm. I’m not skilled enough to recognize their songs, so I can’t tell if it was just ravens, either. I can only hear the plants.’

For the first time in days, Chanyeol smiles, thankful. ‘That’s good,’ he nods. ‘If there are birds in the forest, there’s a chance it wasn’t the whole species. I can check later.’

Tension builds in Junmyeon’s knuckles, teeth gritting as he stomachs the conversation. Nature is always eaten first in any apocalypse event. It disappears slowly, or even sometimes, swiftly, eradicated as if in warning of an oncoming storm. The seals breaking would always start with nature, and he is glad that they still have some semblance of time, even if the decay within is silent. He is glad, but he is not appeased.

‘Was there more than just...screaming,’ he presses, gaze still trained on the crooked angle of the birds neck.

‘I saw the hangings,’ Minseok says, and Junmyeon regards him with parted lips, blood leaving his cheeks. Together, for a moment, they remember, silent as their eyes trace the outline of nonexistent bodies. ‘I don’t know if...,’ he continues only to fade away, distracted and detached. ‘It felt like layers. Memories of how it used to look filling in details of the future.’

Shifting his weight in his knees, Junmyeon braces as though preparing to leave the earth, evaporating and dissolving amidst the sickness and unease. ‘Are you saying it’s happening again?’ he asks, voice low yet still demanding, bursting through the tightness in his chest with force.

Minseok keeps his expression calm, unreadable, save for the bags beneath his eyes. ‘I’m saying it looks the same,' he advises with a small nod. ‘It feels the same.’

Water sprays up from the dock, a cold mist that startles the herbalist and even Chanyeol. They cower away in shock and surprise, yelping slightly at the sudden chill against their legs, but Minseok and Junmyeon remain still. Together, they remember, a knowing look spreading a thousand words in the distance between them, and none capable of fully expressing the depth of how it feels to truly fear.

Nature is always the first to be razed because, with Paimon, the control of things once thought wholly beyond the command of true evil is always the proof of power. The trees will scream; the birds will die; the water will run black and beyond his control; and it will happen again. Just as it did before.

Shaking his leg to dry his pants, Chanyeol coughs to break the silence, glancing between his brothers in an effort to escape the hold of memory. ‘But if the seals are breaking then why are they different to the ones we used?’

‘There were over six hundred possible permutations,' Minseok shrugs, defeated. ‘I don’t think it matters which ones snap, only that they do and that we feel it.’

The herbalist nods, inching closer to Minseok's side in comfort. ‘The seals are breaking,’ she affirms, breathing her through mouth quietly to mask the shaking of her breath. ‘I don’t think there’s room for argument with that. It just feels like the downswing of the pendulum is out of control. Things are happening faster, more violent. Even in the woods it felt like we were being followed.’

Even as he watches the way they stand near one another, leaning into each other for warmth and comfort and healing, Junmyeon tastes the bitterness on his tongue. In another life, maybe he would have celebrated this union, would have hugged his brother and kissed her cheek in expression of welcome. Instead, all he finds is blame.

Blame that this consummation of love and sex has forced them back into the chokehold of evil. They learned from this, he thought. They had learned and bled and lost through the effort of saving humanity, and he did not think they could survive it again.

And for what, he thought. For love and all the soft effusive things that would never save a life.

Coughing, he stomachs these thoughts, knowing that they do not help their situation - don't even offer further insight. Now, more than ever, they don't need feelings. They just need answers.

'We lost the member of our coven who figured out how to stop this,' he says, dropping his gaze to the wet wood beneath his feet. 'And I don't think the answer will be the same.' He regards the herbalist with what he hopes is a kind, reassuring smile, the kind of expression that would make a person feel welcome and inclined to help. 'Does anyone in your coven have any ideas? Have they felt anything?'

She nods, though it does not come with the enthusiasm of solutions. 'One of my sisters has been turning towards sacred geometry for answers,' she explains. 'She believes that the cage was structured and built, and sacred geometry is builders magic. Maybe the answers lie in the construct seals rather than the consequences.'

Eyes wide, he blanches. Sacred geometry is an old magic, a magic that comes from learning the root and form of power rather than simply how to harness it. Each energetic spell has a form, structure, and texture, and the ability to confidently wield each is what creates a vessel to embody spirit. The heart that carries sacred geometry is usually raw, unyielding, able to process an immense amount of energy as though it were a generator. The last time he knew someone who could handle such raw magic was Luhan.

‘I want to meet her,’ he says, the eagerness in his voice turning their expressions curious. ‘Geometry gave us -‘ Junmyeon pauses, unsure if he wishes to continue. 

Sucking in a breath, he holds it in his lungs until it hurts. ‘Context,’ he finishes. ‘Even if we didn’t know it at the time. It’s something both powers from above and below must yield to.’

‘The holiness of it was what turned against us,’ Chanyeol offers, gaze distant as he relives the church falling before his eyes. ‘We underestimated it once.’

‘She’s good at it,’ she says, offering a reassuring smile to Chanyeol. Warmed, he returns the smile, energy becoming at ease once more. Turning her gaze to Junmyeon, she grins. ‘She’s good, but she’s sometimes filled with so much hope she doesn’t see how darkness would twist the magic. You might be good at offering her perspective.’

‘I’m not hopeless,’ he counters, defensive though he does not feel offended by her jab. ‘You weren’t with us last time, so you don’t know how this looks.’

‘We felt it, though.’ In this, she is serious, unyielding, eyes dark and clouded over. ‘Don’t ever underestimate the reach of hell. Every witch was touched, marked.’

Closing his eyes, he sighs and pulls his hands from his pockets, catching the moisture on the breeze. The sky above churns, clouds gathering to mar the sun and the light. They seem fractious, tormented by the taciturn greyness that consumes them, and he allows this sadness to bring comfort. Droplets pool at the tips of his fingers, soaking into his skin before dripping slowly onto the dock, ensuring he feels protected and no longer alone. 

The way it happened was swift, a downfall that forced even the most secretive of witch into hiding. Flavoured food and spices were seen as witchcraft, too much knowledge of the earth turning food into potions of their own; foreign songs becoming little more than voodoo; anything difficult to be understood, anything new, suddenly questioned with an intensity bordering on accusatory. It has never left society, a golden age of creation and growth spurred on only centuries later beneath the guise of money and capitalism. 

It was swift, the pulling of creation and manifestation from humanity, until all that remained was the dull acceptance of eventual death. 

Shaking the water from his fingers, he bites the inside of his cheek before speaking. ‘Would she be open to meeting me?’ he asks, watching the herbalist and the way her eyes study his face for hidden meaning. ‘Would she want to work with us?’

She smiles, seemingly gladdened by his offer. ‘I’ll tell her to come to the shop.’ 

‘Tomorrow,’ he says, offering a small smile before turning back to the water.

He hears Minseok usher them away, giving him time to be alone with the lake. 

As they leave, the clouds pull back and bring forth the sun once more. Distantly, he hears the herbalist questioning Minseok about the truth of his power, and she is offered kind, shallow words - words that express the good, the kind, the valiant. Decidedly, he leaves out the darkness - the way water lingers in the blood, controlled by his hand; the way tears will leak and saliva will dry should he so choose.

Minseok leaves out the way he could be synonymous with Paimon, and is not simply by route of choice. 

The numbers on the page are meaningless. 

Running a hand through his hair, Junmyeon looks at the rows and rows of the shop account book, seeing little more than just colours, shapes of things that once held importance. Ink marks have formed symbols, letters and numbers, details in black that say the shop is fine. They are productive. There is no need to worry. But still, he does not see them. Not really. 

Behind his eyes, his mind swims with thoughts - vague impressions and blurred shadows of days once lived or likely to be lived again. Slowly, his mind walks away from him, leaving behind the normal guard he has on memory and emotion - on the things he keeps pushed at arms length to feel effective and efficient, and to, at least, keep calm. Remnants of sorrow that usually would amount to sickness swirl in his stomach, the emotions of comparison rising like bile and making his eyes begin to create tears, exhausted.

This is not the first time this has happened, and he has grown accustomed to the fact that this will not be the last. He’s used to this feeling, the feeling of slipping down and deep inside his mind, detached though not altogether immune to the anxiety that comes with remembrance. 

This is not the first time this has happened, but it is the first time he has thought, with any effort of consideration and focus, of the man he used to be. A once kinder version of himself. A softer version, with hands gentle and comforting like feathers. Seeing the details of his past is not something he devotes himself to, choosing instead to walk around and through the memory as though it is a photo, a thing he sees but does not truly witness. Seeing the details now makes his bones burn, fingers swelling with an angst uncharacteristic for someone his age or someone ageless, and he feels it in the liquid amber of his blood like wave.

Even before Sasha reminded him it was natural to play favourites, natural to commit time and attention to someone young in the effort of imparting wisdom, he knew he wanted to be a father. He craved the feeling, the earnestness of devotion that comes with unconditional love and the almost unbearable holiness that comes from creating life. Back then, he wanted it all, wanted to love and love and love, so that even if there was no longer a need for magic at least he could say he had a purpose, a reason. 

Her possession came over him like a season, one ripe with loss and anguish and grief, and still it haunts him. Yixing screams in the night, and still he remembers Sasha’s empty eyes and the way she eventually asked to die. Minseok sees, and still he remembers the hanging bodies of Bridget Bishop, of Tituba, of women and strangers and anyone who threatened to question the order of things. 

The birds rained down much the way the memories of their first brush with true evil reigned over him, an onslaught of brutality, loss, and grief. Omens come, and love blooms, and all he can sense is the entrapment - the way there is no longer space for this kind of feeling.

The opening of the door to the stockroom breaks his thoughts, Minseok peeking his head in to catch his attention. Junmyeon shifts abruptly in surprise, laughing lowly at himself as he struggles to appear busy. 

‘You okay?’ Minseok asks, eyes narrowing as he considers the mess Junmyeon has made with careless hands. 

Closing his eyes, he composes himself for a moment, heartbeat erratic and pumping the fullness of his blood into his cheeks. Pressing a finger to his lips, he silenced the noises in his chest, gathering the effort of his usual stoicism. 

‘Yeah, I’m fine,’ he nods, leaning back in his chair, settling and getting comfortable. It’s a lie, one he knows Minseok will sense, regardless if he speaks or not, but he says the words with confidence, unsure who he is trying to convince.

‘You look...,’ Minseok’s voice trails off, eyes running over Junmyeon’s flushed expression as he tries to find polite words. ‘Damp.’

Junmyeon shrugs, muscles in his neck and shoulders tense. ‘It’s just hot in here.’

Casting his eyes up towards the air vent in the ceiling, Minseok hums idly has he looks for signs of heat or airflow. Junmyeon watches him intently, knowing that the heat is not on, not yet - that it’s too soon in the season for such a thing. But still, he is glad. Glad that Minseok humours his statements without drawing attention to the truth, a kindness he does not deserve after the vitriol he had spewed over the last week. 

Nodding at nothing and no one, Minseok returns his gaze to Junmyeon’s face and sets his lips in a thin line. ‘Okay, well, she’s here. She’s ready to talk when you are.’

The mere mention of you is powerful, giving rise to a lump in his throat strong enough to falter his breathing and make his brow furrow, affected. He swallows thickly, pursing his lips in bewilderment as his gaze loses focus. He does not know you, has not even seen you, but the violence you tests his strength. 

‘I’ll be out in a second,’ he says, voice thick and barely audible.

Narrowing his eyes, Minseok grunts in acknowledgement before leaving, shutting the door with a soft click. Alone, a groan escapes his lungs, body reclining back into the chair as he starts to feel consumed. He knows, even without truly seeing, that this, all of the things that comprise him this day, is because of you. All day, he has guessed that the oncoming storm in the center of his heart is the nature and nurture of you, he wanted so desperately to be wrong.  

This, he imagines, is how Minseok felt when he sensed his herbalist - compelled and overwhelmed, and, most horrifically, pleased. Of you, about you, for you, always, he his gladdened and unwilling to avoid all that has chased him across centuries of anguish and despair. All that matters, all that likely ever could have mattered, is that he feels you. 

You are stirring things, churning away at his heart and his breath, and while they promise a freedom he craves to kiss, he considers this sort of possession a poison. 

He feels you, and he is unsure if he will ever stop.

Making his way through the shop, his legs move of their own accord, driven towards you as though your heart is a compass and it takes him several seconds to realize he is no longer in the back room. He is lured by you, tethered and reduced to little more than a puppet in the wake of you, mouth running dry as the air turns thick with every step he takes. 

Even without knowing, you will find them, Yixing had said. In the darkness, where there is no light, you will still see them. And this, this prophecy, he supposes, is all his body would ever truly need to be lead home. 

Coming to pause behind the register, he watches as you lean against a bookshelf and keeps his distance, hiding himself away before he lets himself run raw. He takes in the soft angles of your profile, studies the way you nod enthusiastically in conversation with Baekhyun and the herbalist, and wonders if you feel him too. 

Does your spine tingle with his presence, tightening the joints in your hands to twitch your fingers in time with his?  Does your chest burn, or yearn, or ache, down into the caverns you once assumed empty, overwhelmed with the sudden onslaught of knowing? And in your bones, is the sudden awareness of all your connective tissues - your nerves, your muscles, your sinew - stinging with the overwhelming knowledge of being alive? 

‘Jun!’

He jumps, shaken by the loud herald of his name. Gripping the counter, he had been swaying, a slight rhythm rocking him from side to side as though he has been lost at sea. Bakehyun waves at him, having noticed - likely, having seen everything, smiling with an impish grin that feels almost cruel.

‘Come over here and meet Y/N.’

He says your name as though it does not hurt, as though it were simply a name, and Junmyeon steels himself a moment to process how this could be so. Your name quakes inside his soul, pushes him towards a surrender to the unnatural and unresisted promise of misery. The misery of destruction, brutality of war, and the unbearable brutality of love. Love, he knows, is an annihilation that ambushes the unsuspecting beneath the guise of devotion, protection, and unity. Love is just as violent as war, just as permanent as death, and, by this law, for him, you are a hurricane.

The movements in his legs, the unintentional sway from side to side as if lost at sea have captured Baekhyun’s attention, and he calls his name with a delight that almost feels cruel.

You turn to look at him, glancing over your shoulder before you turn, eyes wide and resolute. Something he can't place swims in your irises, something delicate, and fragile, and untarnished, as if the exhaustion of living has never once touched you. As though, for all your years, you have greeted existence with hope. The herbalist was right, he thinks. There is a reckless endangerment to your positivity, the kind we would never need but craves just the same.

Crossing his arms as you approach, his fingers knead roughly into the fabric of his sweater, jaw tensing as you draw near. There’s a bounce to your steps, in the way you walk and carry yourself, a bounce that makes him roll his eyes as he begins to swoon.

The bounce in your footsteps frustrates him, and though he cannot truly place why this so, he imagines it comes down to envy.

He envies the you he was in his youth, before he learned how to lose things that matter - things that promise to stay, to never die, but vanish just the same. He was you, once, but you somehow learned to keep a smile that tells the world you are okay.

‘I hear you’re looking into sacred geometry,' you announce, standing before him with pride. 

The counter separates your chests, your hearts, your souls. To Junmyeon, this distance is a canyon, a long void through which he yearns to reach but does not. His fingers twitch, nails digging into his palms with the effort of keeping still. 

Resting on your elbows, you lace your fingers together and scrutinize him, not bothering to be discrete. 'It feels urgent that we talk,’ you continue, having your fill of him with glazed eyes. A small furrow knits your brow together, and Junmyeon’s fingers twitch, eager to wipe the wrinkles away. ‘Like there's nothing that matters quite as much.'

Warmth radiates off you, or perhaps it is the air, rolling against him in waves that rock against his perception of you as a person. It makes sense, he knows, that you would get right to the point, because you are made to wear at him, made to break his defenses and match him completely. He knows this, logically, but he did not expect to feel so awed by you, adrift in his mind and floored by the mere idea of you as his neck begins to flush.

‘I have little experience with it,' he admits, coughing as the breeze puts your perfume in his mouth. ‘One of our own was familiar but…' He fades, eyes glossing over much the same as yours, the weak edge of his tone dissipating completely as he remembers. Remembers the bodies and the limbs, the open mouthed scream Luhan released and the silence of it that made his ears ring. In front of you, he remembers everything he had pushed away, battled against for centuries just to keep himself upright. 

Closing his lips, the memories die, fading away as the taste of you fades on his tongue. 

And this is when he remembers you are deadly. You are lethal. And there is more still within him you could stir.

Clearing his throat, he corrects his posture, standing tall and wearing the mask of a leader with dignity, if not pride. 

‘It might be best if we sit and talk somewhere else,' he suggests, hoping to expose his vulnerability to you and only you, rather than those who could suffer the consequences.

You select a table at the back of the cafe, tucked away from teenagers studying for midterms or couples on dates, preening before one another and hoping to be wanted. The oak table sits beneath a speaker, smooth jazz muffling your conversation from those who pass by on their way to the toilet. Shoulders hunched forward, you hold tightly to your mug of cocoa, letting the heat of the ceramics trickle into your fingertips.

Across from you, Junmyeon sits heavily in his seat, with neither drink nor pastry. He has become transfixed by the way your nails trace the edges of the ceramic designs, rolling over the supple curves of the mug, there and back again, just the way his life ebbs to you and back again. In these few short minutes of being alone, together, he has learned that you keep a smile tucked in the corners of your lips, that you laugh easily and you laugh loudly - at nearly everything - and that you sigh, wistfully, longingly, at every child that passes.

In this cafe, you are pink. You are pink and gold, a sunset whispering through a current and everything he suddenly finds himself defenseless against. It is not, he thinks, that he wants to protect you - he knows you do not need him to. It is that he wants to share with you.

His heart. His memories. His life. His family.

Junmyeon wants to share, a horrific thought he clutches at with both hands to remind himself it is not safe. You are not safe, regardless of how his lifetime listens so intently to yours.

And as he casts his gaze to the old map of Salem, framed on the wall behind the top of your head, so too do your eyes wander over his features; learning and memorizing and, often, dissecting. He feels you, feels your gaze with the same intensity as though this were skin to skin contact, your considered analysis of his mouth, his lips, his hair making him breathless. Beneath the table, his leg shakes, anxious from the effort of not reaching for you, of holding you tight as he wanders, head first, into devotion; holding back and holding his tongue with a fierceness that makes him clench his teeth together.

Eventually, you peer back down to your cocoa, satisfied with your findings, or, at least, yourself. 

‘Where would you like me to begin?’ you question, words strong and authoritative, though directed at your cocoa.

Releasing a breath he did not know had been contained in his lungs, he bites his lip. There is little he remembers from his lessons with Luhan, and it pains him to admit he would be a novice on this subject. 

‘Perhaps just there,' he shrugs, hoping to sound aloof rather than ignorant. ‘At the very beginning.’

Nodding, you intake a sharp breath as you straighten your back, eyes wild with thoughts.

‘This sort of magic,' you begin, confident and empowered, 'relies on the concept that the universe was created according to a geometric blueprint - that a god was the geometer of all things. And it continues, perpetually. A god is constantly at work, building and making. If you can consider that a god is a geometer, then this too means that all those in hell are constructing just the same.’

Tilting his head, Junmyeon traces the lines in the table, the intricate latching of wood and nail, with the pad of his finger. His recall on sacred geometry is limited, but with Luhan he remembers charts - not charts, cloths with shapes, designs with trigger points for magical access. Stand here, Luhan would say. Put the fire here. They were building magic, not the universe.  

'I thought sacred geometry was for patterns, crystal formations,’ he questions tentatively. ‘Magic structures rather than...math.'

'It is,' you affirm, 'but that's just one element. Geometry appears in all things. Like I said, if a god is a geometer, this means everything in nature - plants, animals, people - are constructed with sacred proportions.'

Proportions. Like the way your clavicle leads elegantly to your shoulder. Like, the way your bottom lip pouts childishly and begging to be kissed. Like, the way the slope of your nose and the arch of your brow haunts him, puts a retinal burn behind his eyes and makes him feel parched. Like, the way his hand looks as though it would fit yours and hold it, steadfast and for eternity. 

Proportions, he thinks.

'So Da Vinci's Vitruvian Man?' he says, instead, with a smirk.

A flush creeps into your cheeks, making you pink and pink and pink, as you regard him with parted lips

'In a sense, yes,' you continue, words rushed as you calm yourself down. 'People are divinely symmetrical, and therefore our actions are symmetrical. And if we are born from symmetry, then we build for the gods in symmetry. Most churches are built with sacred geometry in mind, mimicking the geometry in nature.'

‘Ah,’ Junmyeon intones. 'The Fibonacci spiral.’

‘Yes,’ you giggle, corners of your eyes crinkling in satisfaction. The sound makes the tips of Junmyeon's fingers go numb. ‘That pattern is usually described as God’s divine equation. But even still, Galileo’s lectures on the structure of hell as it lies within the Earth can be considered natural geometry.'

With a huff, you lean back in your chair and shrug. ‘It’s hard to summarize without showing you or working at it over time,’ you grimace. 'These rules and attributes are assigned to specific religious constructs, though it does not necessarily need to be made from god. That's probably the most important thing you could take away from this.’

Mirroring your posture, Junmyeon reclines back and feels his brain dig deep. ‘You’re implying, then, that we can make the geometry as well?’

Nodding, you hum. ‘With that in mind, you must not perceive the magic as the power, but the blueprint itself. All blueprints exist to make things and, by extension, contain them.’ 

‘Contain them?’ Junmyeon stares at you, aware that his imploring eyes are demanding, pulling at you for more, but he cannot seem to stop himself. ‘Should we then see the Earth as a vessel?’

Through the clench of your jaw, you take in a long breath, knowing he finally understands, grasps the sheer magnitude of this magic. 'If the Earth was made to carry, and hell is contained, it is indeed a vessel.'

Silence befalls you both as you regard one another, feeling the weight of change grow and spawn between you. Junmyeon swallows thickly, eyes gazing over your features, the decor, the table, your skin, yet seeing only truth. It swells inside him, the frustration turned sadness that makes his breath come shallow and uneasy. All the things he should have known, all the things he missed, laid before him so simply - and he’d have noticed if he only ever allowed himself to look back. 

‘We solved nothing,’ he murmurs, to neither you nor himself, really. Just a release of vitriol that burns within his lungs, angry at their ignorance. 

They never won the war. All they had done, effectively, was delay it. 

Your hands slide down and away from your cocoa, pressing against the table to cool your palms. Eventually, you speak again, equally as demanding for information as he. ‘Your coven was here during the Great War?’

He smiles, though it is bitter, knowing you are being polite. You know this answer, you’ve always known this answer, but still you are soft and allowing him the opportunity to deflect. This, he thinks, is a kindness he does not deserve. 

‘We were,’ he manages, keeping his tone stable and even. 

‘Then,’ you try, nibbling at the inside of your cheek. ‘Maybe you can tell me the nature of the containment? A structure inside a structure - that kind of geometry defies our comprehension of dimensions.'

The question hits him in the center of his chest, and he turns to look away, staring out the window as though peering into the past. Mouth dry, he licks his lips and feels the heat without the moisture, nails dragging along the table as his hands form into loose fists. When he looks back at you, you are not apologetic, merely expectant, unwilling to let him retreat.

Inching your arm forward slightly, your fingers drum on the table as you bite your lip, considering, before moving back and gripping your cocoa with conviction. ‘We all know the truth, Junmyeon,’ you press, gently. ‘We were elsewhere, but we know the stories..how it ended.’

‘New York.’ He says, voice empty, acknowledging that, indeed, you were not here and so you did not suffer.

Unsettled, you purse your lips as you cast him a cold stare. ‘We had our demons,’ is your curt reply. ‘Some centuries later, but we had them.’

Junmyeon smirks, the unique singularity of your war slightly humours. ‘The headless horseman.’

Cocking an eyebrow, your response is immediate. ‘It’s inappropriate to tease about any war, regardless of its scope.’

For a long while, you hold his stare and remain still, eyes powerful enough to knock the wind out of him. They hold him, almost as intensely as they hold him accountable for his words, and he is glad for the severity. Glad, in the end, for the proof that you are just as tormented, and just as haunted as he.

It’s enough, he supposes, to share, to let himself be intimate. Exposure, of any kind, is a wound on its own. But with you, with someone who hurts just as deeply and carries it within their bones, exposure is a commiseration and a comfort.

‘Back then,’ he begins slowly, reaching back to scratch his neck in thought, ‘it was not us alone who created the seal.’ Stopping himself from continuing, from sharing too much, he pauses and rephrases his thoughts. ‘We were of great assistance, but we had help.’

Humming, you sip your cocoa as you process his words, lashes fluttering as you drink in pleasure. Licking your lips, you furrow your brow. ‘It sounds as though this help was unexpected? I thought your coven was alone, in Salem?’

Junmyeon nods, barely imperceptible. ‘The Reverend's wife…’ 

At once, he sees her face, the delicate frailty of her features. Ill, always ill, and carrying with her a shawl as if to shield her from a chill, even in summer. Often, the children said she was spun from silk, the supple length of her black hair and the finery of her skirts extensions of her skin and spirit. Always speaking about God as though she knew him, personally; pointing the slender elegance of her index finger at widowed or spinster women, and accusing them of being sinners, of being harpies sent to pray on the God fearing goodness of gentlemen. 

‘She helped you connect with God?’ you try, puzzling together what he infers.

He shakes his head, barely there and barely focused. ‘It must have overwhelmed her,’ he mutters, haunted. ‘And...she only helped...because we saw. It was not offered to us.’

She said she had visions, that she had seen the devil and the scourge he would lay upon the Earth. Even as she burned, laughing and laughing, he still couldn’t believe she’d said the words with desire. The flames ate at her skin and still she laughed, said she wanted it, that she should feel him, that the dead, and their ashes, tasted sweet. Remorse never tainted her features, taking pleasure in her body count and making sure that all the world witnessed the glory.

Blinking, he brings himself back to the present. ‘She burned for what she knew,’ he says, finally. ‘We turned her to ash, but it still will never be enough.’

Pressing your back into your chair, you consider him for a moment, watching intently to see if he will swim in his memories once more. ‘A lot of women burned. Women are always burning.’ 

‘You say you know the truth, but did you know it started with her?’ he spits, not bothering to hold back the aggression in his tone. ‘That she had poisoned the girls, possessed children, ate their souls in the efforts of raising a King?’

Eyes wide, you lips open and close as though offering muted consolations and apologies, saying with breath what your mouth cannot before shivering and holding your cocoa once more. 

‘Have you ever seen someone burn in holy fire? Seen the way it peels back flesh and sucks at muscle?’ he hisses, spurred on by a great resurgence of things long kept trapped inside. ‘Have you ever seen a child ask to die? Seen your coven leader pulled apart and ripped like cotton?’

And even as you regard him, pale faced and thin lipped, he still can’t stop himself from tossing the question out, offended by its flavor. 

‘Have you ever seen a dead body?’ he finishes, coldly.

Separated from the words, he realizes he has leaned, rather vigorously, towards you and bent himself into a posture of hunting. For all your sweetness, you have not cowered away from him, but at such close proximity he can see the tears that have sprung to the corners of your eyes. The sadness in your expression, the under markings of horror that stain your cheeks, makes his fists clench, ashamed of himself for bringing the water of you to the surface. 

He could pull at it, pull it away and keep you dry. Or, instead, he could push it further, push it down your cheeks and into his waiting palm so he could kiss your tears and swallow them whole. 

Instead, he slumps in his seat, childishly, and stares emptily at his lap. 

Sniffling softly, you discretely wipe your eyes. ‘Why?’

Unable to truly look at you, Junmyeon speaks to his lap. ‘Not all great evil has a great purpose. Sometimes, true horror, true fear, is senseless - existing just because it can.’

The vice at his lungs releases as he says the words, shoulders no longer feeling compressed into an impossible smallness. Testing this new freedom, he breathes deeply, letting the air stabilize his equilibrium.

‘No,’ he continues, correcting his posture and looking around you. ‘I don’t think we can ever really know and it took one of our own sacrificing his life to rest within the pattern to show us how to build the, as you call it, blueprint.’ 

Within him, the memory floods, the visceral and bloodstained image of body parts - limbs and digits and torso - aligned in intricate shapes. It was biblical, the sight of not just one, but many, still warm and festering from death as they bled, ceaselessly, into the grass. And in the center, a sacrifice  The only magic strong enough to seal a promise. 

Stomach churning, he grimaces, awkwardly meeting your gaze in apology. 

You’ve blanched, considerably, somehow truly understanding him without knowing him at all. ‘Are you saying?’

Minutely, he nods. ‘He became the blueprint.’

Unnerved, you hug yourself, looking away as you bite your lip. It’s transcendent watching you fight through sadness and pain and fear, a cosmic sort of shattering he feels is too vulnerable for him to witness, and yet you show him, bravely, courageously. He does not think you’ve ever shied away from atrocious thoughts, rather simply kissed them until they felt beautiful. 

Inhaling a shaky breath, you face him but you do not smile. He misses it. ‘I think,’ you say, quietly yet with more power than he could have imagined, ‘the last thing you need to know…I’m sorry.’

Furrowing his brow, his shoulders arch forward, body attempting to reach for you and hold you. ‘For what?’

Fixing him an intense gaze, you focus on him completely, showing, teaching, and reminding him what you are going to say will hurt. ‘Sacred geometry is mimetic...a mirror. As above, so below.’ 

You pause, watching as his mind reels and he races to the end. 

He gets it. He understands. He wishes that he didn’t. 

‘And if bodies are what sealed it -‘ you continue, only to be cut off. 

Junmyeon finishes for you. ‘Then bodies are what will open it.’

The setting sun ignites the trees, dappling the red and gold of the leaves with such force for a moment he believes the kitchen is on fire. Shadows cast on the walls and floor stand tall, shifting until nearly unrecognizable - something profoundly other; an audience for his malcontent. 

Slouching in his seat, he studies his whiskey, the liquid bronze that swirls within the glass as he turns it. Vaguely, he imagines he is turning time - turning back the clock to an era when he laughed easier, smiled wider, and touched with just as much voracity. Mostly, he is falling, backwards and head first into a state of confliction.

Elizabeth Eldridge was beautiful, something he would often voice with confidence and charm, a sense of satisfaction, as though he were pleased by the sight of her. It was not, he thinks, that he desired her, or wanted her in any sense of physical context. Merely that, he imagined her essence of ethereal beauty was the sort he wanted to marry, someone not unlike vapors - whole and tangible, yet effervescent, and cradled by his hands alone.

Elizabeth Eldridge, in the end, burned without dignity and with all of her pride. Holy fire kissed her, sucked the oil from her skin and used it as fuel. Unfazed, she smiled as though she expected it, as though she were gladdened by the heat, and laughed. She laughed - it is this he remembers most, the shrillness of it and the way Yixing had to look away, tormented by the sight of the flames themselves. She laughed as her skin fell evaporated, exposing the underbelly of her muscles and bones, marrow melting with little pomp and circumstance. In the night sky, her voice continued to echo, a shrill resolution and promises of a return, a throne, a king.

People, he knew, say an awful lot of things in their moment of death - some amounting to statements a profound lamentation of grief or honest declarations of validation, but most usually an annunciation of promise that summarises a life well lived or well intended. Luhan ensured her fate with the splitting of his limbs, and so Junmyeon did not think to question her words, ensured, even in death, by his leader.

Now, with little to comfort him, he wonders if he has earned quite as much from his coven. Had Luhan been wrong? Had he? Had their fate been sealed long before their birth and long after their death? Would he, with the same boldness and conviction, make the same choices?

Would he die, knowing as he does now, that even this selflessness may be in vain?

Would he let himself be shattered for you, if it meant your safety was only momentarily assured?

With a soft click, Yixing pushes through the door and comes to pause, regarding Junmyeon with a concerned expression as he pushes his glasses up the bridge of his nose. He should be used to it, Junmyeon thinks, the feeling of inquisitive eyes resting and feasting on his skin, but still he looks down at his lap, burdened by the attention. At once, the air becomes thick, slithering down Junmyeon’s spine with the same slowness as Yixing’s eyes over his face, studying and questioning, and, most likely, knowing.

Yixing does not allow him a reprieve, maintaining his penetrative scrutiny as he takes off his shoes. ‘You’re home early,' he states, testing the atmosphere.

Junmyeon remains pensive, brow furrowed as he studies the denim weaving of his jeans. The universe has offered him a kindness, he supposes, that it is Yixing who has found him and not the others. Already, he can hear the words that will be hurled towards him once he tells the truth.

Liar. Hypocrite. Embarrassment. Asshole. Cunt.

He deserves them, he thinks, perhaps they suit him best. And he notes, with little emotion, that he has given himself over to you far quicker than Minseok gave over to his herbalist, wondering if he ever truly deserved the title of a leader. 

‘I met her today.’

He tosses the words out with conviction, meaning them to the edge of the world and trying to be repulsed by them. There should be no instance in which he craves death or danger, no instance in which he seeks the palm of your hand and the fall of a mountain - but he does. He wants, with all of himself, every fiber of the release you promise and finds, as Minseok had said, that death feels justified.

Death, in this moment, is justified, for it is the only consequence equal to the sentiment he carries for you.

Unmoved and keeping his expression placid, Yixing blinks. ‘Met who.’

Junmyeon rolls his eyes, knowing this is both a formality and a test, and everything but a question. The words matter, need to be said out loud and broken apart; inspected, learned alongside the full breadth and scope of their consequence. But still, he hates it, feels childish that he must say it at all. There have never been any secrets in this house, not truly, and the bitterness of this truth rises on his tongue.

He swallows thickly before he speaks, petulant. ‘Don’t act like you don’t know, Xing.’ 

Sliding out a chair directly opposite him, Yixing settles softly and places his journal on the table, resting his hand on the leather cover. Idly, his fingers stroke over the worn texture, body positioned in a resolute show of peacekeeping and calm. Junmyeon watches the movements of his fingers, hypnotized though not altogether soothed. War lingers behind his eyes, and the contact Yixing maintains with his journal tells him he can feel it.

Yixing knows, senses the magnitude of his afternoon, and clutches to small comforts as though they are a cross.

For a long while, Junmyeon is glad to simply sit with him, neither speaking nor allowing hostility to enter the room - amazed that they are capable of such a thing without Chanyeol. For a long while, they simply sit, gathering strength to both say the words and let them breach the kitchen once more.

Eventually, Junmyeon pinches the bridge of his nose, knowing the end of this day - of this life - is inevitable. 

‘My soulmate,’ he says, meeting Yixing’s eyes and letting his gaze pierce the edge of his lungs.

Yixing leans back in his chair, regarding him with some distance, words settling against his skin. Nodding minutely, he hums, neither accepting nor battling the admission. Simply, letting it co-exist between them, acknowledging that there is a becoming amongst them, and there is more of it to be said. 

Yixing’s silence is much like quicksand, edging Jummyeon forward and urging him to continue.

Once more, he looks at his lap, unwilling to let Yixing’s potential judgement tarnish the memory. ‘She came to the bookstore and I...we…’ his voice trails, splintering under the immense pressure of explanation. ‘We went to the cafe across from the shop,’ he says, finally, returning his gaze to Yixing’s. ‘I spent over an hour with her, talking. She’s trying to help us.’

Removing his hand from the journal, Yixing nods once more, humming in consideration.

‘Even,’ he begins, tone curious though his eyes remain hard, ‘after you were...so adamant against Minseok meeting with his?’

‘Don’t look at me like that,’ Junmyeon retorts, ‘like I’m the worst sort of hypocrite.’ Jaw tense, he grits his teeth before continuing. ‘She’s from their coven, and Min said she could help. I didn’t know it would be her. That she would be the one.’

‘And can she help?’ Yixing keeps his attention on the woodmarks in the table, the frayed and overstuffed pages of his journal, anywhere but Junmyeon’s face. 

Face morphing into a scowl, Junmyeon cocks a brow and moves through the sense of judgement Yixing has cast, focusing instead on all the words Yixing made it a point to ignore. He chose to focus, not on the fact that she is his soulmate, but instead on the fact that she can help. Perhaps, he assumes, because it is this information that is most pertinent. And, even more, it is this information that must be handled, managed beyond, and alongside, the grave understanding of their impending demise. He was always like that, walking around and through a conversation to get to the heart.

Junmyeon shrugs, knowing that you can, and you probably will, but even still your help may not be enough. ‘She knows sacred geometry,' he announces, careful with the way he says it, watching Yixing’s expression for a sign of change.

It has the same effect on Yixing as it did on him: a sharp intake of breath, a soft blanche to the cheeks, and a hand returning to his journal. The temperature of the room seems to rise, putting a flush at Junmyeon's ears and neck, before it dissipates, and Yixing gathers his thoughts, placing his hand back in his lap once more as though nothing about Junmyeon’s words hurt.

Junmyeon almost smiles, witnessing your power as it walks over all of them, claiming their house and their skin as the fabric of your own. Slowly, delicately, you are touching all of them, pulling at their hearts with adept and agile fingers, exposing what lies beneath.

Yixing himself becomes distant for a moment, not altogether present as he walks backwards into memory with much the same force as Junmyeon. Irises clouded, he thinks and thinks, his silence heavy and full hearted with grief.

‘It seems ironic she would be a seal,' he reasons, a small frown forming at his lips. 'But then...so did Lu.’

It's difficult to ignore his choice of words - "did" rather than "was," delicately handling the visceral image that haunts Junmyeon from the moment he met you. Neither a memory nor a premonition, just an inevitable course of destruction: you in the blueprint, just the same as Luhan.

Shaking his head, Junmyeon takes in an unstable breath. ‘It feels like a cursed magic.’

Yixing shakes his head. ‘You’re a self fulfilling prophecy, Jun,’ he says sharply, refusing to let him wallow. ‘Preparing to lose her the way you blame yourself for losing him.’

Tightening his grip on his glass, Junmyeon takes a drink of whiskey, letting the burn cool the back of his throat. ‘Bonding leads to death, Xing.' 

Feeling somewhat volatile, he brings the glass back to the table with a loud smack. ‘You know that, I know that. We had to lose someone in order to seal it away, and now we have to lose someone again to keep the order.’

‘You always knew these rules,' Yixing says evenly, combative in a way that frustrates Junmyeon. 'We all know these rules. We knew we would have to lose each other, at some point, to keep this world alive.’

And all at once, all over again, Junmyeon finds himself the week after Luhan died, when the world was quiet but still full of ash and smoke. Hollowed, is how he described the feeling, as though it were his limbs ripped away and placed into the pentagon. Yixing clutched his shoulder, eyes neither sad nor grieving, simply empty, dark in a way that made Junmyeon find him inhuman. With his nails digging into Junmyeon's chemise, he said these same words, unable to provide comfort for he too was beyond the point of consolation. Simply, stating the truth of the pain so they at least could understand the logic and the weight, if not the aftermath.

Rolling his tongue over his teeth, Junmyeon brings himself back to the present, cradling the difference between the here and now with the past in his palms.

‘It was easier when I felt the absence of it.' He feels small as he says it, childish and impossibly young, uncertain how to handle the intensity of such a truth. 'When there was nothing to feel, and everything to just know, it was so easy.’

Yixing chuckles. 'Pretending took work, once upon a time. You've just grown used to it.'

The center of his chest constricts, feeling the words into the nodes of his lungs, and he coughs. Looking away from Yixing, he takes another sip of his whiskey, downing the glass. ‘When was the last time...' he fades, licking his lips as he prepares his question, 'that we felt?’

Arching his brow, Yixing takes the bottle from the center of the table and pours him another glass. ‘I think the question, Jun,' he says, holding his gaze fiercely rather than watch the volume of the glass, 'is when was the last time you let yourself feel.’ Bringing the bottle to his lips, he takes a quick drink before setting it down, posture straight and austere. ‘You’ve been running.’

‘I’ve been leading,' Junmyeon snaps, ‘protecting. Holding us together.’

‘But you haven’t held yourself.' The whiskey in his throat has set Yixing's words ablaze, tongue unafraid of cutting him down. ‘Not together, not in one piece, just not at all. It’s like you’re in a constant place of triage. You can’t blame yourself for a choice he made, for a thing we all did. We knew, and we know - that will never change. What matters is how you experience it.’

Junmyeon laughs, cold and frustrated in bewilderment. ‘So what are you saying? That I’ve watched death and walked away unscathed? That I shut down and felt nothing at all?’

‘Not at all,' he says, voice like a thunderclap. ‘I’m saying you’ve watched death, and never walked away again. You’ve put yourself in a grave and called it a life.’

Junmyeon shivers, lips parting to speak or defend himself, only to fall silent, too aware of the honesty in Yixing's words to fight them. Shaking his head, he takes another drink, eyes unfocused and glassy with thoughts of how he got here.

‘What are we talking about anymore?’ he mutters, swallowing his drink and letting it sear his insides. ‘I feel like I’m drifting at sea. Like she’s taking me apart...unmaking who I am.’

Yixing cocks his head to the side, considering his words. ‘Or, she’s reminding you of who you were.’

It's like a falsehood, he thinks, remembering the person he was when magic felt like a blessing, a gift. The difference between his compassion and his sense of security is, he believes, down to a reduction. A reduction of life, of hope, of reasons to accept that all things end while losing the belief that they will end happily. Once, he thought he was getting better, that he'd had enough distance and enough peace to convince himself life both gives and takes in spades.

But that was decades ago, and just before the man in front of him started screaming in his sleep, tormented by prophecies.

‘There’s a lunar eclipse tonight,' Yixing says, gathering his journal as he comes to stand. 'You should go see it.’

Blinking, Junmyeon regards him, unsure when the notion the conversation was over had filtered into the room. Yet, the mention of the moon seems to smooth his edges, pulling hard enough at his ribs to give his lungs room to breathe. He needs her, he thinks, the only light that has ever given him peace.

‘You always feel best when she’s with you,' Yixing continues, letting his voice drift behind and fall on Junmyeon like rain. 'Just as empty or just as full.’

At night, Smith Pool assumes a foreboding aura, yet somehow maintains its majesty beneath the light of the full moon, the deep purple black of the sky reflected on the water with an otherworldly glow. His fingers idly stroke the blades of grass, damp with the evening’s caress of dew, coated and slick as though waiting in anticipation for his touch. The wetness walks along his fingers, gliding over his skin and tracing patterns that defy gravity, called to him the way he is called to the moon. 

Tonight, he does not manipulate them, mold them, does not even consider it. He lets them go, wetting his hands before they slip away, lost but not forgotten. Softly, his heart breaks, releasing the water without truly kissing it or connecting with it an unnatural act for king amongst his children, but the memory of consequence haunts him, puts a terror in his bones that assures him he may never hold anything ever again. 

Luhan’s face springs back behind his eyes, stone faced and ashen, eyes holding his gaze with a conviction that bordered on feral as he let the words wash over him.

‘Someone is raising Paimon.’

Even now, centuries later, he regrets saying it - saying it on his knees and gasping for breath, as though the world was already ending. It was. They both knew it was. It started to end the moment ritual die had been cast, but he wonders. Always, he wonders. 

Would Luhan have run head first into annihilation if he had spoken calmly, concisely, without shame or guilt? If he hadn’t loved Sasha like his own, would all of this have hurt less? Would things have looked different, if he hadn’t been cut from the same cloth - one nature magician from above pitted against one nature magician from below? 

If he weren’t the devil’s mirror, would they all be free?

Logically, he knows the answers - knows that, regardless of how it looked, the ending would always be the same. But still, the wonder reminds him that he hurts, and this is how he remembers he survived.

‘The moon brought you out too, I see?’

The sound of your voice pulls him from his thoughts, startling him with a small jump. Casting a glance over his shoulder, he sees you approach, footsteps light enough on the grass he almost believes you are floating. Your presence empties him, mind suddenly vacant of thought or action, heart stumbling to put himself back together, locking his secrets away.

‘Sorry?’ 

He doesn’t mean to sound breathless, like he’s overexerted himself to be near you. It’s just that, with your body close enough to touch, standing above him, in the dark and the night, with only the moon to see, he struggles to find his self control.

Biting your lip, you hang your head slightly and nod in apology. ‘I can sit somewhere else.’ You gesture vaguely towards the opposite end of the lake. ‘I just had a feeling…’ Shifting your weight from foot to foot, you sigh as your voice fades away, nervous. He smiles at you, the sound making his blood run hot. ‘It’s just nice to see that the moon touches you the way it touches me,’ you clarify in a rush, suddenly shy that you’ve said anything at all. 

Any other night, any other person, and he’d have asked that you leave him, go far away from him so he can be alone and the world can be safe and he can imagine the universe only changes when you look closely enough to notice the difference. Considering the flush at your cheeks, he almost tells you to leave altogether, to go back to New York, because seeing you gone means he doesn’t have to see you get hurt. 

But then, considering the flush at your cheeks, he knows to be away from you is just the same as death, and so he smooths the grass beside him with a tense palm, keeping his smile placid in the effort of not giving himself away. 

‘You don’t have to,’ he says, trying to keep his tone casual. ‘Sit somewhere else, I mean.’ 

Beaming, you settle beside him, leaving just enough space between your bodies for the breeze in the air to feel like a chill. He hopes you do not notice him shiver. 

‘How could you tell?’ he asks. ‘It’s pretty specific to assume the moon is why I’m here.’

The curl in your lips when you smile tells him you have a secret, that you’re proud of it, a dimple forming in your right cheek. His fingers twitch, stopping himself from reaching out to touch it. 

‘I know I laugh too loud,’ you explain, smile unwavering, ‘and giggle a lot - at pretty much everything - and can sometimes come across as, I don’t know, childish -’

Junmyeon cuts you off. ‘I don’t think you’re childish.’ He holds your stare, watching your smile fall as you consider his serious expression. ‘I’ve never thought that. Not once.’ 

‘Thank you,’ you mumble, swallowing thickly as you hold his stare. When you speak again, it is only after you take in a shaking breath, looking away from him to peer out over the water. ‘I’m bad with words,’ you announce, either as apology or clarification - he is unsure. ‘I’m just saying, I know how it seems. That someone like me wouldn’t know or be aware...but I do.’ Looking back at him once more, your eyes are resolved, unwavering. ‘I see more than most people give me credit for. And I know. I know.’

‘That we’re soulmates?’ he tries, wanting to hear you say it. 

Something about this makes you laugh, head cocked back and mouth open to the sky. The sound of your voice echoes, carries into the air and rains over him. The hairs on his arms stand on end, mouth running dry as he watches you surrender, heart first, into bliss.

Regarding him once more, your eyes seem to dance in the moonlight. ‘It’s very hard to ignore the elephant sized tension here, don’t you think?’ Resting your head on your hand, you smirk. ‘It’s a little distracting.’ 

It’s his turn to laugh, eyes falling to his lap, sheepish. Around you he feels young, so impossibly young and small and unprepared. ‘I don’t know how Min did this.’

‘He didn’t.’ 

You fill the words with humour, but he still catches the undercurrent - the rolling wave of want that makes them fall, thick and heavy, against his skin. When he looks at you again, you appear placid and serene, but he feels the tension that vibrates from your core - the same vibration at the core of his soul. It’s hurting you not to touch him, the same way his skin feels tight, wrapped around and around his bones, until the water in him has been wrung dry.

‘We can’t…’ He shakes his head, uncertain what he even intended to say.

‘I know,’ you concede, catching his meaning and leaning back on both hands to regard the water once more. ‘Seals are funny things aren’t they? There’s always a special kind of thrill in breaking them, some kind of rush - even if you have permission to open them, even if you already know what’s inside; you just want to touch them.’

Mirroring your position, Junmyeon considers your words and chooses to avoid them, unwilling to let talk of seals spoil the light of the moon. ‘How did you learn sacred geometry?’ he asks, instead.

‘The way you’d learn any other kind of magic: practice and study,’ you shrug, as though it took no skill or effort at all. Junmyeon briefly wonders if this is your magic - a knowing, similar to Minseok’s. But rather than a knowing of events, you manage to know the very nuances of magic itself. The thought makes his stomach drop, not in fear but in awe. 

‘I assume,’ you continue, looking up at the moon and basking in the light, ‘you mean to ask why did I choose to learn it?’

Junmyeon nods. ‘I suppose so, yeah.’ 

‘It’s reciprocal.’ Brow furrowed and focused, you still don’t turn to face him, though he’s sure you can feel his eyes as they wander over your cheeks, your lips, the very curvature of your profile. ‘As above so below,’ you ponder, repeating your words from earlier in the day. ‘It’s a method of seeing the other side of magic - the origin, the darkness, and the beauty. If I can understand the madness, then I can understand how to heal it. If I can understand the symmetry, then aren’t I little bit more connected to the source?’

Someone like you should be impossible, he thinks, someone who holds the heart of magic and does not burn from the force of it. His heart beats like thunder in his chest, tearing through his sternum to get to you, awed and humbled by your ability to command the source of things, to understand and fathom the totality of it - accepting it without wanting to harness it. 

‘That’s an interesting way of looking at it,’ he says, licking his lips as blood rushes in his ears. ‘Luhan, our brother…’

‘He’s the one you lost?’

Finally, you look at him once more. Shoulders lowering in relief, he is almost ashamed of the command you have over his body so soon. Grief lingers behind your eyes, sad for him and sad for the memory, and he wars with himself against pulling you close. The muscles in his arms twitch, and he presses himself into the ground with the effort of keeping still, stopping himself from closing the distance.

‘Yes,’ he says, though his usual contempt for the memory does not rear its head. He imagines this is because your presence is a balm, a comfort, and he wishes at once that you do not depart from him, not for the night and never again.

Eyes softened, he watches your hand as it moves along the grass, heading towards his fingers before retreating back to its original position. 

‘I’m sorry,’ you say softly, the conviction behind it powerful enough to steal the breath from his lungs.

Centuries have passed, full of people he thought perhaps he could call friends, people who were there, in town and watching him grieve; others still who heard the tale, having lost someone in their life too - for different reasons, but lost just the sam - and all had offered condolences, reached for a hug or his hand or his shoulder as though the touch of a stranger would be comfort enough to ease the pain. For centuries, people have come and gone, and lived and died, and all have seen the grief within his soul and apologized for it being there at all, and not once had he believed they were sincere.

Never, until you. 

‘He learned it to understand time,’ he continues, blinking through the dryness in his throat in order to keep his composure. ‘He wanted to understand how patterns repeat or don’t repeat; life and all the smallness of it.’ 

Junmyeon casts his gaze back out to the water, aware that he’s rambling and fearing he is speaking, now, just to speak. Your gaze remains on his, steadfast and unwavering, toying with his pulse as though it were your plaything. He wonders if you are having fun, invading his synapses so easily.

‘He mastered it,’ he continues, short of breath, ‘probably because he knew we never can truly separate ourselves from the cosmic nature of things.’

‘Ananta.’

The reverence in your voice as you speak nearly makes him whimper, wishing to be cradled against you the way your mouth cradles the word. Steeling his strength, he lets his eyes move over your body, fixing you with a confused expression he hopes does not morph into one of longing.

But you continue to smile, sighing contentedly as though pleased by the mere sight of him. 

‘It’s a Hindi expression to describe the endless nature of the cosmos,’ you explain, licking your lips as your gaze wanders briefly down to his neck. ‘They were among the first to really study cosmology.’ With a small sigh, you move your gaze back up to his face, seemingly satisfied. Junmyeon’s fingers dig into the grass, spine going tense under your scrutiny. ‘The whole of the universe is within ourselves, and that is why we are sacred.’

Silence befalls you both, a comfortable silence that carries no expectation for conversation. Raising your eyes to the moon, you continue to smile, content and calm and glowing beneath the light of the moon. He begins to feel erratic, eyes tracing over your features in the struggle to process your existence, and the way you seem to accept the universe as though you were its sole creator.

‘When I’m with you,' he exhales, eventually, 'I feel like I know nothing.’ Slowly, you bring your gaze back to his, and still your smile does not fade. His breath catches, brow furrowing in the effort not to swoon. ‘Like, I'm starting over - I have everything to learn, all over again.’

A flush creeps up Junmyeon's neck, lips opening and closing as his eyes go wide. This sort of admission, this vulnerability, is unfamiliar, almost painful, and he suddenly does not know how to respond himself. Now, your hands are not just touching his memory, you are taking hold of his self-identity, coaxing words from his chest and knowledge from his mind, leaving him empty and wanting and completely at your mercy. With you, he feels fragile and uncertain, and he cannot remember the last time he let himself become shy.

Humming, you don't appear to notice that he's let himself become small. Or, perhaps, you do, and your smile of pleasure does not change, for you find enjoyment in all things, especially the stuttering rhythm of his heart.

‘That’s probably because there is always something to learn,' you shrug. 'You’ve been feeling as if you have to know everything, assuming that you do or, at least, assuming that you have to.’

At this, you fall back onto the grass, laying down with your hands tucked beneath your head as a makeshift pillow. Closing your eyes, you press into the earth, unbothered by the dampness that soaks into your shirt and jeans, luxuriating in the softness.

‘How do you do that?’ he mumbles, incredulous.

Turning to peer up at him, wide eyed and curious, you pout. ‘Do what?’

Again, his hands clench in the grass, clutching at fistfuls as he struggles not to bed down and kiss you; tongue running through your mouth and along your lip, hungry. ‘Approach everything like it’s something for play,' he manages with a cough, voice thick.

This only makes your pout deepen, and he swallows a moan. The sweetness of you is a poison, he reminds himself. He will want to taste and hold and devour you, and it is imperative he does not.

‘Is that a bad thing?’

‘No,' he shakes his head, 'I just don’t understand.’ 

Looking at the faded blue of his jeans and the browned stains on his white sneakers, he focuses his attention on these details as he speaks, rather than the pink curve of your lips. 

‘How do you come away from everything as though it won’t hurt you? Or doesn’t?’ Frustration bleeds back into his voice, and he is glad his focus remains on these insignificant things, because now he feels like himself. ‘How can you laugh, even tonight? The moon is full but the water doesn’t glow, not really, not from below. The light doesn’t touch the bottom anymore, and you walked up to me ready to laugh. I know you’re smart enough to see these things, and you feel these things, but why do you...how do you...people have died.’ When he looks at you again, he is angry, and he is glad for the wrath of it. ‘Death stains things, it stains people, and you can’t ever walk away from that or pretend like it’s okay it happened.’

Rolling onto your side, you gaze up at him, face unmarred by hurt or upset. Junmyeon chews the inside of his cheek, breathless and ready to curse himself for his vitriol, but you don't seem to mind. Instead, you merely seem interested, appreciative that he shared these things at all.

‘Do you think that’s what I do?’ you muse, choosing your words carefully, almost tender with your selection. ‘Pretend?’

‘Don’t you?’ Junmyeon implores, feeling needy and small and praying you agree with him, because he can't fathom a life any other way.

Suddenly, your gaze hardens. ‘Absolutely not.’

His stomach drops, lips falling into a frown, crestfallen. ‘Then I don’t get it.’

‘Who showed you how to keep horror in your chest?' you almost laugh, he can hear it in the tightness of your words. ‘You weren’t born with it.’ Brow furrowed, you take your time picking him apart, considering the totality of him before continuing. ‘I don’t pretend. That’s so disingenuous.’ Shaking your head, you pluck at the grass near his thigh. ‘When anything happens, I just grieve. I grieve deeply and I’m not afraid of showing the pain. I let it out - I don’t rush myself out of it. When you do that, it never really lets go, it just holds onto you tighter. It makes a home out of you, and it stays there, waiting to rise up and eat away at you.’

Pursing your lips, you pause. In the quiet, Junmyeon finds himself missing the sound of your voice.

‘You heal by letting it win you over,' you finish with an almost imperceptible nod, 'just for a little while, until it’s small enough to slip out of your hands.’

He wants to laugh, howl at the idea that such a thing could even be possible. ‘You’ve never had to lead.’

‘Leadership doesn’t exclude you from the spectrum of human emotion,' you counter. ‘We have power, we are special, but we still feel and we still bleed.’

‘What if it never lets you go?’ Mirroring your position, he settles on his right side. He feels almost like a child, sordid and unsure and so, so contented by the nearness of you. It is for this reason, he assumes, that he is able to share at all, and the thought makes the tips of his fingers go numb. ‘What if it never gets small?’

‘Then you accept that it’s part of you, but you don’t let it own you.’ Taking in a deep inhale, you reach for his hand in the grass, twining your fingers together tightly, seriously. ‘You are not comprised of horror alone,' you announce, authoritative and almost severe. 'You are not a collection of misery and death. You are a man, and you are magical. You just need to take command of yourself, not those around you.’

Junmyeon is trembling, tremors running down and through his veins at the sudden feel of your skin against his. The warmth of your hand floods him like a fever, lips parting to take in more oxygen, world rocking beneath him as though he were out at sea. You seem to notice it too, eyes suddenly going wide, and the smooth expanse of your chest along the neckline of your shirt turning pink, and then red. 

Behind his eyes, he sees himself, inching closer over the earth to hover above you, lips pressing against yours and knees parting your legs to settle between them. He sees himself clutch your hips, your hands brace his arms, his mouth at your neck, and -

He pulls his hand away, rolling back over to sit up, hugging his knees to his chest. His semi-hard erection strains against his jeans, protesting this new, uncomfortable position.

‘I didn’t expect you to be so blunt,' he says, weakly.

‘Well,' you breathe, voice unsteady and tone dry. Junmyeon smiles. 'The thing about me is I feel all my emotions. The whole range.’ He hears you sit up as well, brushing grass off what he assumes is the back of your shirt. He does not chance a glance. ‘Not just the ones I hold in higher judgement.’

Smirking, he glances at his hands, folded over his legs. ‘You’re getting spicy now.’

‘Spicy?’ you laugh in mock offense. ‘I just call it tough love.’

And then, he can't help it. At once, he's looking at you again, savoring you and the word you've put into the air, as if it meant nothing. As if it were light, and weightless, and easy. ‘Love?’

Settling your arms at your side, he watches as your spine straightens and your neck elongates, suddenly empowered. ‘Do you want it to be?’

His chest constricts, systematically removing the air required to speak. Yes, he nearly screams. He wants it, oh, how he wants it to be, knows that it should be. The joints of his fingers ache from where you touched him, furious to be separated and burning with the loss; his thighs ache, tense from trying to cool the blood of his desire and to ensure his arousal remains unnoticed. He wants you, all of you, and it is the first time in centuries he's wanted a person beyond a body within which he could briefly forget.

Undaunted by his silence, you look back up at the moon. ‘The moon is out. Maybe she knows something.’

The light plays with your hair as though it makes a home of you, casting silver and glitter into the strands in a pattern he finds hypnotizing. Always, the moon enhances aspects of a person - he has always known this, understood the full spoke and terror of the light she provides. She is a beacon, a hope, and a home for the lost creatures and souls that call to her, but she is rarely forgiving.

On you, she is exquisite.

The light settles against your skin, casting shadows and carving the edges of your jaw, your nose, your brow as though she were painting you, sculpting you. It radiates out from beneath your skin, glowing from within as the magic seeps from your pores. Staring at you, he feels he could be blinded, visioned burned by the holiness of you, and as the tears well in his eyes - abrupt and unwelcome and terrifying - the light becomes a halo, and then becomes wings, turning you into the goddess of the moon.

It was always you, his one and only serenity.

‘The moon pulls at water, creating the tides.’ He’s unsure why he says it, why he speaks at all. In the end, he supposes it’s because he sees you as something ephemeral, and speaking, even if it hurts him, opens him, will keep you by his side. ‘Everyone knows that,’ he smirks. ‘It’s basic laws of gravity. But people forget that they are made of water, and the moon pulls at them, too.’

Keeping still, you smile up at the moon and through the light, appreciative and proud. ‘The moon has always been responsible for deep emotional revelations.’

‘Insomnia, depression, psychosis, anxiety,’ he lists, joining you in adoring the moon. ‘She pulls at people, makes them confront what they don’t want to see.’

In his peripheral, he sees you shake your head, heartily disagreeing. ‘She heals it though,’ you say, voice serene. ‘She’s creative, intuitive, spiritual. You don’t hurt for nothing.’

It strikes him, then, that he likely was not wrong, not entirely. His heart sees you as a goddess, showered and anointed by the light, nurtured into full bloom in the dark and in the flow. He sees you as a goddess, but then, in the old days, when magic was known and revered and respected, the moon goddesses were often called oracles. And, perhaps, you are descended from the temple of the moon, a modern day priestess, sent to break and rebuild all his darkest pieces, sewing him back together with silver.

‘Is that your magic?’ he tries, realizing he never really did ask how you define your skills. ‘The moon?’

Suddenly shy, you bow your head and let your halo become a crown. ‘In a sense, yes.’ Turning to smile at him, he no longer sees your beauty as something soft but as something biblical. ‘I understand her, how she affects people - her cycles, her power, her secrets. I’m sensitive to her, aware of how the planets, all nine of them, bend and yield to her.’

Looking back up at the sky, it appears for a moment that your soul stretches beyond the earth, and beyond time. ‘The stars, too, I get power from them as well. The sun is a star, people often forget that. I see how the sun and the moon play together, and, I guess, how they play with people. That’s probably why people assume I’m weak.’ Biting your lip, you pause. ‘Because I’m perceptive rather than aggressive.’

For centuries, he's cursed the foolishness of mortals, hiding in plain sight and letting them win him over because he watched them die. Magic had burned the world - unholy and corrupted with sin - and he had let it. He let men and mortals define a great many things about him, and not once did he mind. But for you to be seen as weak or something unassuming, meager, he finds himself offended. You are one with the universe, and therefore all  creatures should bow to you.

You, he believes, are the blueprint and creator of the universe.

‘The stars are going out again,' you announce abruptly, interrupting his thoughts.

Junmyeon blinks, surprised by this sudden change of subject. ‘Again?’

‘It was hard to tell in New York, but we saw it,' you sigh, closing your eyes and sucking in a deep breath, overcome. ‘Back during the great war, the sky went black.’

When he thinks back to the war, he remembers a great many things - terrible things that have coated his skin with wax, embalming him for eternity. He remembers the smell and the screams, the wet ink of notices on church doors declaring another woman damned; the trials and the yelling and the way no one could look each other in the eye. He remembers the way trust vanished, a frail thing that likely never existed to begin with, offered with a sense of reciprocity but never truly delivered. He remembers looking everywhere, at everyone, but not at the sky.

‘What was that like for you?’

‘For my coven?’ you ask, fixing him with a hard stare. It doesn't seem to suit you, but now he sees that you, too, are tormented. ‘Or for me?’

‘You,' he affirms, glad to be so direct.

‘It hurt.' You answer comes without hesitation, gaze unwavering and focused. ‘When the war reached its peak, the sky was completely black. It was a new moon for days, and I ached with the lack of it. It was unnatural - it felt like the universe was dying, decaying before my eyes and I was helpless.’ Momentarily, you pause, eyes searching the darkness that lingers behind him, eyes unseeing, simply remembering. ‘My sisters did their best. They’re empathetic and sensitive, completely aware, but they couldn’t feel it the way I did. Every death, I felt it in my soul, pieces crumbling away.’

He lets you wander in the memory, watches the way you swim inside it without ever falling completely into its clutches. Your eyes move over everything - over his face, his body, the water, the dock that lingers far behind him - but you don't stop. He wonders if this is how he looks, when he  becomes consumed, and knows, with a small bush, that it is not. Where you remember actively, fighting through and around the length of your life, he remains still, letting it hold him until he surrenders just as he did the day he learned to hurt.

‘I suppose,' you continue, returning to the present, smiling as though you have a secret you're too excited to keep, 'in the end, what I was really feeling was you.’

His mouth runs dry, blood seeming to halt in the chambers of his heart, as your sentence ends. It rattles him, quakes him, unmakes his DNA as a floodgate inside him opens. He knows what you were feeling, knows that, even without knowing, he had felt it too - felt you too. Separate and together, you had survived the unnatural and unresisted surrender to the promise of brutality.

Thousands of miles away, in a small settlement in New York, you had felt the world end and felt his soul break. And he, confronted with the totality of hell, felt the loneliness that comes with knowing - knowing without seeing or feeling. Knowing that, he was falling apart, and someone was meant to be there to hold him, and was not.

He thought it was Lu. All this time, he had been grieving for Lu. And, only after you study him with care and attention and worry, does he realize he was grieving for you, too.

Pushing himself up and away from the earth, he rises to a stand as he struggles to keep his breath under control. Again, he feels himself become devoured, given over and overwhelmed by the understanding and the magnitude of your connection. If he does not leave, he will no longer be able to trust his actions and, after so many years alone, he stubbornly considers himself his greatest companion, unwilling to truly let himself go. 

If he stays, he will have you, press himself against you until there are no edges along your bodies. He will live inside you, the way you live inside him, and nothing, not even the threat of death, will tear you apart.

'Are you okay?' you ask, startled by his sudden shift in energy.

'I have to go,' he says, words falling from his lips in a rush. 'I have to talk to my brothers. I...realized something.'

With this, he turns and leaves you and the moon feeling too full and too consumed to keep still. It hurts to leave, he feels it in the way his legs and feet ache with every step he takes, pulling himself from a soul deep comfort he has spent the length of his existence craving, but he does not look back, not even once.

Outside the door, Junmyeon can see the kitchen light is on.

Lingering on the porch, he shifts his weight from foot to foot, considering if he wants to go in. All the way home, his mind had been racing, spiraling towards thoughts of you, your body, the moon, your connection, and the all encompassing sense of dread that comes with it. He’s full, almost too full to be a normal and healthy person, breaths coming in ragged inhales that speak of exhaustion, and he’s not in the mood to talk.

He’s been praying for silence, to be alone with his thoughts and the empty nothingness of a glass of whiskey - his third of the night, but when confronted with a life alone or the ending of every life, he feels the numbers don’t matter. Silence, it seemed, would not be his companion this night, and he braces himself as he pushes through the door, readying for yet another discussion.

Minseok and Bakehyun busy themselves in the kitchen, cleaning and cooking respectively, deep in conversation. Upon his entrance, they hush, eyes falling on him and and expressions going calm, passive. Junmyeon’s eyes lower to the small carpet by the door, looking for Yixing’s shoes and finding they are not there. Gazing up once more, he notices the whiskey has been put away, placed back on the shelf and out of his reach. He’d have to cross Minseok if he wants to get it, and he bites his lip.

A brief twitch brings Baekhyun’s brow to a small knot, before dissipating, eyes warm with concern. ‘Are you ok?’ he asks gently. 

It’s unlike him to be so soothing, usually boisterous and loud, and only effusive with Yixing. With both pairs of eyes on him, he roots his feet to the floor, fighting the urge to cross his arms defensively. Not that he could. Even down to his bones, he feels heavy and drained.

‘What are you guys talking about?’ he deflects, trying not to focus on the ache in his chest and the pain behind his eyes. ‘Am I interrupting something?’ 

‘The seals,’ Minseok clarifies, placing the tea towel onto the counter. Folding his arms, he considers Junmyeon with a speculative kindness. ‘How the birds dying were one, and that its the first time we’ve seen anything like them. They weren’t like this before, at least the birds certainly weren’t.’

Junmyeon simply nods, moving his focus to a seat at the table. He slumps heavily in the chair, closing his eyes as he leans back. His lower lip trembles, going numb. The water ran black, he remembers, undrinkable until boiled and sending the town into chaos. That was the first - and instead of living in the memory, he falls back to you. To your eyes as they wander over Smith Pool, unable to see that the moonlight no longer lets the water glow. 

Neither black nor cursed, merely different. And that is frightening enough.

‘Baek thinks between Xing and myself, we could see if other seals, elsewhere, have been broken.’ 

It’s taking work for Minseok to keep himself peaceful and tender, a rough gravel behind his words giving an edge to his tone that feels conflicted. They’re both testing him, fully aware and not altogether sure they’re ready to address what they sense down to their very spirit, but Minseok has never been one to run from confrontation. And, tonight, Junmyeon wishes he would.

‘I’ve always wondered if it was just our coven with the curse,’ Baekhyun says, resuming the spread of his jam over toast. ‘Or if it was every coven.’

Keeping his eyes closed, Junmyeon frowns. ‘That sounds dangerously optimistic. Like you’re playing with fire.’ 

The words don’t sound like they come from him, his voice warped and garbled. The rhythm of his heart escalates, catapulted forward by Baekhyun’s simple statement, and he presses his nails into the palm of his hand. Optimism like this is dangerous - absolutely lethal. It’s an excuse and a reason to be with you, take you, feel you all over him and pretend that it’s not damning the rest of the world. If someone else is cursed, it means you might not be a seal, and that kind of hope is what leads men to shallow graves.

‘It’s worth a shot,’ Minseok counters. ‘I’m going to talk to Xing, see what else is in his notebook.’

Junmyeon tenses, spine going rigid as his breath falters. Behind his closed eyes, his vision runs hot, throat beginning to swell around the lump that has formed.

‘There’s a lot he doesn’t share,’ he persists, tone indicating he has seen Junmyeon’s reaction, but has chosen to continue anyway, ‘but I know something in there has to have an answer.’

‘Luhan’s head was in the center of that blueprint.’ Opening his eyes, he casts a cold stare at both of them, mind battling with too many thoughts and feelings to want to entertain this conversation. ‘We were sealed in the curse the minute she put him inside it. It’s pointless to go looking.’ 

Even after he finishes speaking, he regrets it. It’s the coldest, most insensitive he’s been in a long while, explicitly reminding them of all the things they had decided they’d never bring up again. But he does, and he hates himself for it, already knowing it was wrong. 

Running his hands through his hair, he sighs, chewing at his tongue with enough force he hopes that it bleeds. He doesn’t want to talk about this, not now, not tonight. He doesn’t want to talk, but he knows he has to, and part of him, a sudden, overwhelming part, wants to share and share until there is nothing left inside him anymore, wondering how it would feel to be so free. 

Minseok and Baekhyun remain quiet, and he feels their stares on him like a sickness. His skin goes damp, clammy, fingers carding through the strangs of his hair as they ball into fists, and he coughs. Regret consumes him, regret as old and ancient as his heart.

‘What’s up with you?’ Minseok asks, attempting, and failing to keep his tone soft. ‘You never talk this way.’

‘I met her.’ Junmyeon announces it, wet and unceremonious, between the palms of his hands. ‘I thought Xing would have told you.’

He waits patiently for the energy in the room to shift. He readies for it, bracing for the sound of Minseok’s cold hard laugh, a brutal I told you so, and Baekhyun’s sharp inhale sucked between his teeth. The chill will wander over him, making him shiver; conversations about pride, and how being a leader means he’s excluded from rules; the group called together at some unbearable hour of the night, and every cold hard stare reminding him he’s a hypocrite, and that he deserves this. He deserves this kind of hurt and separation, unworthy of a love as powerful as this.

He waits for them to say, without any hesitation, that if anyone deserves to stay away from love, it is him. 

‘He wasn’t here when I got home,’ Minseok states, plainly. ‘She’s from their coven, isn’t she.’

Junmyeon tenses, brow furrowed in bewilderment. Lowering his hands, the blur of his vision focuses on Minseok, who leans against the counter with an expectant smirk. 

‘You knew?’ he manages, voice suddenly impossibly small.

Minseok shrugs. ‘I had a feeling…’ He fades, bowing his head as he laughs to himself. ‘Yeah, I knew.’

His throat runs dry, mind racing. Pressing the flat of his hands to the table, he waits for the cool of the wood to seep into his skin. ‘Was this a set up?’

Raising his hands in mock surrender, Minseok shakes his head. ‘I only sensed it the day at the shop. I didn’t set that up on purpose. I promise.’ 

And he wants, with all of himself, to be upset and furious - because he is. There is a rage in him unlike anything he has grappled with before, a frustration so hot his skin feels tight and his teeth feel sore. His tongue has started to crack with words and thoughts, rubbing against the roof of his mouth as he watches Minseok smile and smile and smile, as if this were a game.

But he cannot. Because Minseok smiles, and Minseok knows, better than anyone, that there is nothing about this that is worth a laugh. He envisions you, standing beside Minseok with your warm smile, and the laugh lines on your face, and wants to hold onto the anger, but it fades, because all you are, and all he can be when presented with you, is pure, unfettered delight. Minseok has brought him home, and he did so without interfering, without judging, and without stopping him altogether.

Lips parted and body shaking, Junmyeon deflates, brow furrowed in remorse. ‘I’m sorry.’

Holding Minseok’s stare, he refuses to look away, imploring him to look and keep looking. Startled, he lowers his hands, looking at Baekhyun before returning Junmyeon’s focused stare, chewing the inside of his cheeks. He knows they both feel it, the weight of his apology and how it attempts, in just two weak, overdue words, to make up for all way Junmyeon fought him - fought everyone - battled through their emotions and told them it was unsafe to feel. 

He’s sorry. And he knows they feel it.

‘Oh, shit,’ Baekhyun mumbles, posture straightening as his mind runs to conclusions.

Junmyeon moves his gaze to him, and regards his wide, doe eyes and the way his food remains, cold and forgotten at his side. Baekhyun seems more uncomfortable than Minseok, and this, he thinks, is just another unexpected turn the night could take.

‘Nothing,’ Baekhyun says, shaking his head in an effort to clear his thoughts. ‘It’s just...it’s been a really long time since you’ve apologized.’ He pauses, lips pursed momentarily before continuing. ‘For anything.’

He’s sure he must have, he thinks. He must have said the words at some point and some when, when things were less heavy and less dangerous than they are now. Reeling, he attempts to remember anything other than hurt and vitriol and trauma, and comes up empty. For so long, he’s pushed everyone, even himself, away, and now, he realizes, the only person who was unmaking him and his identity was himself.

‘Look,’ Minseok says, clearing his throat and getting Junmyeon’s attention, ‘I don’t blame you.’ The sincerity with which he speaks is uncharacteristic for someone just as austere as he, and Junmyeon feels himself arch a brow. ‘You did what you thought was right. And so did I.’

It’s the last thing he wants to hear, that connecting or letting you in or letting himself go is even remotely the right or moral thing to do. Eyes locked on Minseok, he silently wills him to take it back, imploring him to say it’s wrong, that they shouldn’t - that he shouldn’t. 

But he doesn’t. He just nods, resolute in his convictions.

‘Jun, it is right,’ he affirms. ‘I don’t know how I was doing things before I met her, and, honestly, I don’t want to remember. Living like that -’ He cuts himself off, eyes scanning the room as his thoughts run wild before settling back on him, alive. ‘It’s not living. That was not living. She’s made me stronger, better. Do you really think I’d have forgiven you so easily if it weren’t for her influence? You were protective, sure, but you were an asshole about it.’

The argument between the two of them still lingers, smeared over the walls and chairs of the kitchen. They’d both been furious, Minseok and himself battling over an intangible possibility - a maybe that lead to a certainty, unclear yet already final. 

‘Having a match means you are bonded to a duality, a light and a dark,’ he had said, as though it were simple and logical and effective enough to keep all of them away. But then, now, he has found you, and the ignorance of such a thing, the foolishness of it - as if the symmetry of being bound together were so easily ignored - makes him blush like a child. 

And he thinks of you, the way the light washes over your skin, the way the moon holds you close, and the way you pull him towards you - accidental and unassuming - as though you alone are his moon. He thinks, now, that he is the darkness and you are the light he crawls towards, and knows that, for Minseok, it was likely this same feeling.

‘I feel like I’m losing control,’ he announces, pressing his fingers into his temples. ‘Like suddenly I’m helpless and immature, like my sense of identity is falling apart. I can’t let it go.’ Closing his eyes, he takes in a deep breath, shocked and alarmed that he’s saying this much at all. ‘It’s killing me,’ he continues, ‘the fact that a seal has been broken, and even worse, that I almost don’t care. It’s like nothing matters, and I know you said that - you were trying to tell me. But I can’t let it go. The risk, Min. I -’ 

‘Im telling you, its right.’ Minseok cuts off his rush of words, tone sharp and authoritative. ‘She’s there to make you better, she balances you. You weren’t wrong,’ he concedes, ‘that it’s a duality. But you have to realize that dualities are made for balance. I just so happens the result is just fucked up.’

They hold on another’s stares for a long while, Baekhyun looking awkwardly between them both, often glancing to the other room as if he wishes to leave. But he stays, and they stay, unified as the world seems to shift and change around them. 

‘And no,’ Minseok announces, gaze resolute as he breaks the silence, ‘I won’t stop you from being with her.’

The tension in the room snaps, Junmyeon and Baekhyun regarding Minseok with alarmed, ashen faces. Even as he remains completely still, watching the way Minseok puts his hands in his pockets, casual and nonchalant, with steel in his spine that says he knows, Junmyeon feels the tectonic plates of the earth shift. It changes everything, the way they function as a coven and the way they approach their doom, has been reconstructed and made completely new. 

It terrifies him, makes the tips of his fingers go numb and his breath halt. Hair falls into Baekhyun’s eyes, shifted from the force of his movements, but he does not bother to fix it. He, too, has been stilled, awed into silence, witnessing the cosmic shift with wide, wet eyes. 

But still, he does not look as frightened as Junmyeon, who, behind his eyes, watches the world end and his heart soar, hands roaming over your body as you sweat gasoline into the grass, fires burning in the distance. Permission is dangerous, he knows, and Minseok knows it, too. And still, it does not stop him. 

Nodding, Minseok merely smiles, seemingly unmoved by the shockwaves around him. ‘You have my blessing.’

The words cut Junmyeon deep, a gift he does not deserve and a sign that Minseok is better - better now and better before, a better man that he ever was; a better man than he could let himself be.

Weakened, Junmyeon releases a strained sigh, the sound breaking into the atmosphere as a moan. ‘You know what will happen,’ he argues, spitting dissent like it still matters to him. ‘Why I can’t, and certainly why I don’t deserve it.’

Minseok keeps his expression placid, and gaze stern. ‘I know.’

Emotion wells inside him, scorching against his throat as reality burns around him, shifting instead towards the reckless unknown of you. ‘Then why?’

‘Because you have to choose the light,’ he says, unmoved and unwavering. ‘If you don’t, it’s as good as letting hell win.’ Minseok smiles, running a hand through the purple strands of his hair, proud. ‘She taught me that.’

For a moment, they both get lost. Minseok in memories of love and growth, and Junmyeon in the knowledge that nothing will ever be the same. He’s full, full to the brim of you, and his breath comes shallow, empty, painful in his lungs as he thinks of you and lets himself want and want. And at once, its swept away, by visions of Luhan and the way they died, and how Sasha broke before his eyes and how he has always been feeling, and never once did he stop.

‘Did you really think there’s a way out of this?’ Minseok tries, redirecting the topic as though Junmyeon isn’t falling - as though, around him, everything is fine and normal. Junmyeon knows he must feel it, must see what he sees, but still he soldiers on. ‘That we’d be able to solve it or avoid it?’ He chuckles then, amused by their ignorance. ‘We were never going to resist. It was just a matter of time before we gave in, or before we were forced to come together. That’s the point of this - it’s bigger than us.’

‘So we’ve been helpless?’ Baekhyun says, gentle and sweet and Junmyeon can tell he sees something is wrong, but he, too, continues, leaving Junmyeon to drown on his own. ‘The whole time, it’s just been inevitable?’

‘Most likely.’ Minseok’s voice goes distant, the blood in Junmyeon’s ears turning his answers into little more than white noise, a static that does not bring him comfort. ‘Yixing’s been alluding to it, and even when the Black Witch burned, she promised the cycle would repeat. It was always going to look different, but she told us it would happen.’

‘So it’s all just been dormant,’ Baekhyun reasons, pushing from the counter to settle in the chair across from Junmyeon. 

He sees him do this, but he does not actually witness it.

Instead, the tears that had threatened to consume him spill from his eyes. He’s glad for this, briefly, because now it means he can see Baekhyun, but the heat on his cheeks sears him deep, hand raising to the skin and discovering that it is wet. Around him, the world falls silent, Baekhyun’s shape blurring into a smear of nothingness while Minseok’s voice dies, muted by the throbbing in Junmyeon’s head. 

The wetness glistens against his fingers, warm and slippery, and he wonders why he’s never bothered to touch this - the water that comes from his own body. He coughs, not realizing he’s started to sob, lips and mouth wet as he struggles to breathe, shattered inhales of pain and remorse and regret and the horrific, candied flavor of ardor. 

He cries and he cries, feeling everything all at once with greedy fingers, pulling at his memories and pulling at you, wearing the images as tattoos against his soul. Luhan died, and so did he, and so did every part of himself he thought he loved. And you lived, smiled like he was a whole and complete man, something worth loving, reminding him he never did anything wrong, he just got scared. And the water, all this time, pulled away and came back to him with an aggression he thought was normal - waves that cast up against his legs, reminding him they are one and they are together - but never kissing him the same way again. 

And now, for the first time, he cannot remember the last time the rain felt sweet, everything about a storm casting a gloom that made his shadow grow tall. 

The skin of his cheeks feels trapped, torn between drying the tears as they stream from the heated temperature of his blood and feeling relief, a lightness to his pores as they release everything they’ve kept inside. There should be a reprieve from this, a release from his body as he shudders and fractures, letting himself feel vulnerable and aching with the shame of being seen.

Minseok and Baekhyun stay with him, neither reaching for his hand nor running away, frightened. Their presence, though not a comfort, is an alliance, an acceptance he had not granted himself for centuries, excluding himself from brotherhood under the guise of leadership. They welcome him back, silent and aware, keeping him company as he breaks, neither judging him for the noise or the shape this sort of breaking takes. He empties himself with them, pulls everything from the vessel of his soul and lays it bare, before them and asking that they hold it with him. 

And they do, having done this together, without him; having done this centuries ago, finally gladdened that their brother has come home. 

The moon remains full for three days, an omen waiting patiently in the center of the sky and altering the night. A halo of red orange light bleeds from its edges, spilling blood into its center and changing its usual silver hue into one of flames.

Chanyeol feels it the most, having been separate from all the conversations, but awoken and rattled just the same. A wolf inside him fights his spirit, affected by the moon more intensely than he normally would be, barely sleeping and leaving the house at odd hours, needing to be outside and needing to be alone. Minseok offers Junmyeon knowing looks each morning, reassuring glances that say it would have been this way regardless. Still, he sips his tea too slowly and too long, the liquid going cold until it is almost flavorless, worrying himself raw and wishing his resolve meant nothing would change.

With all of his remaining strength, he avoids Smith Pool, tucking himself away from the bloodthirsty and severe shadows he knows the light will cast. He feels this unnatural avoidance in the tension that builds in his neck, moving his head from side to side at the shop to release the pressure, mind wandering and unable to focus on anything other than water. Nightly, instead, he submerges himself in the tub, pressed to the bottom and letting himself be held, nurtured, and cleansed. He experiments with the droplets as he rises, pulling them off his body and making shapes, making stars, feeling as though he is making you, before calling them back to skin and ensuring they do not dry.

It does not escape him, even as he does this, invoking play with his power at liberty rather than tucking it away, no longer cowering from it as though scorned, that Paimon is a part of him. The great release of his tears means he has started to accept the reality that all things above are mirrored below, and takes great pride in the fact that he holds water out of respect; the water bends and opens for him, because he loves it, because he lets it, not because he demands it, and not because he expects it to.

And on the fourth day, when the pain of staying away from the lake starts to hurt, the colour fading from his cheeks and lips, he brings himself out, anxious and starved. With every step, he feels the water call to him, lapping against his spirit and carrying him home, remembering their maker, and luring him towards the dock, lonely and needy in its anticipation. He'd longed for it, unsure how he had been able to stay away between the cycles of the moon, for years denying so many parts of himself in the name of leadership.

Sitting on the dock, he swings his feet over the surface as the moon seems to pull him forward, his hands digging into the wood to keep himself from tipping. Leaning into the light, he hums, the echo of the current easing his mind, the thoughts and worries falling silent, if only for a moment. Worn thin, he'd been thinking through his feelings, engaging and pulling at them, working through the how and the why and the when, but now, he simply sits. All his emotions bubble to the brim, and he luxuriates in them, accepting them for what they are rather than what he’d like them to be - what he’d make them to be.

Junmyeon breathes deep, the mist from the water seeping into his lungs, and rather than make him cough, he simply sighs, glad to have felt, and glad to have lived.

The water beneath his feet sloshes almost violently, erupting up and over the dock in a small wave to spray him, playfully, welcoming him - his true nature - and he laughs, loud and long, eyes squeezed shut in childlike pleasure. Against his skin, the memories in the water make his breath catch, memories of the lake being made, of his voice blessing the water on completion, of his feet - breeches raised high and toes wiggling on the stony bed below - running and chasing and thriving. There were children with him then, always. Children from town and children from school, calling him their guardian as they learned to trust the water. 

The memories fade as soon as they came, dripping down and back through the crevices of the dock, the atmosphere changing as he senses your approach.

Straightening his spine, his pulse begins to race, lips parting on a silent exhale as he counts each of your steps. The last time he met you here, he'd been imprisoned, locked in a self made cage where his hands and heart could not reach you - trapped inside himself, he could not feel you, not truly. Now, he is whelmed by the totality of your soul, overcome and overrun, and he struggles to keep himself from turning to watch you. 

One look at you, he knows, and there will be no hope for him. Once he feels you, he will feel all of you, and then there will be no pretending anything would ever be the same.

‘Welcome back.’

Your voice is full of joy, thrilled by the mere sight of him, and he closes his eyes, a smile tugging at his lips. Biting the inside of his cheek, he feels the excitement, the noise of you, gather within his spine, and he suppresses a contented sigh.

Finally allowing himself the comfort of your warm eyes and full lips, he takes his time watching you thrive beneath the light of the moon, ignited and given wings as you approach. Digging his nails into the dock, his breath catches, and he takes a moment before he speaks, gathering his words to ensure they do not break.

‘Are we making a habit of this?’

Settling beside him, excitement rolls off your aura in waves as you take off your shoes and socks. Scooting to the very edge, you smirk, teasing. ‘I hope so.’

Letting your feet drop into the water, just the barest ends of your toes touch the surface. Upon contact, your grip the dock a little tighter, a small yelp emerging from your chest. Eyes wide with shock, Junmyeon looks from your face to your feet and back again, bewildered.

'Isn't that cold?' he laughs, amusement tainting his surprise.

'Yes,' you nod, giggling as your toes splash lightly. 'But isn't it terrible we only let ourselves be silly in the summer? The water is always inviting, even if we can't dive in.'

Awed by the mere existence of you, Junmyeon remains quiet, letting the serenity you provide seep down and deep into his pores.

‘You look different,’ you say, breaking the silence. ‘A little more free.’ 

The heat from your stare peels back his skin, exposing all hs fragile, vulnerable parts as though readying for a feast. But he does not hide. Now, he is proud of the difference, and, most of all, proud that you have noticed. Rolling his shoulders back, he watches the water as it makes swirls on your feet, glad that it touches you when he cannot.

‘I am,’ he affirms, grinning bashfully. ‘I’m glad you feel the difference.’

Chuckling, you avert your eyes to the water at your toes. ‘I can.’ Your brow furrows, distracted momentarily before relaxing once more. ‘You feel like home.’

The air in his lungs catches, startled to a halt and held in place by your admission. In the aftermath, you don’t recoil from it, simply turn to face him with a conviction that makes his limbs start to feel heavy. In you, he could drown, happily surrendered to the depth so your soul and spirit, heart pulled out and left open, craving the affection of your touch.

You small gasp breaks his thoughts, his eyes following yours to the water.

‘This is your power?’ you ask, amazement lacing through your tone. 

Before you, a thin veil of mist rises up and up, pulled from and out of the lake, sparkling beneath the light of the moon. Stretching far above and into the sky, the droplets hold their shape, their makeshift curtain refracting the light and elegantly speckling the dock as your skin becomes illuminated. Even without his permission, he couldn't let the water stay away, adoring and worshiping you, mirroring his heart and his affections; glimmering, in the effort of anointing you as wife.

‘Yes,’ he admits, watching the curtain fall back down, silently. ‘I’ve been called the Water King.’

Reaching out a hand to collect droplets as they fall, attention rapt and lips parted with wonder, you sigh. Junmyeon shivers, feeling your touch through the water.

‘I see why this has been hard for you,’ you offer, moving your hand through the spray until it is gone, a small pout pushing your bottom lip forward.

His head falls, eyes downcast through his lashes. Unsure if he is ready for you to expose his nature or if he simply misses the feel of your touch against his heart, he keeps silent, conflicted and feeling small.

‘Nature magicians,’ you tease lightly, sensing his discomfort and softening to keep him safe. ‘You always feel Paimon more deeply than everyone else. My sisters -’

‘The herbalist,' he announces, remembering the way she cried, on this dock, clutching at Minseok to keep herself together.

You smile, glad for his attention to detail.

‘She needs Minseok.' As he says it, he blinks slowly at the taste of the words on his tongue. Sentiments like this used to come easily, rolling from his heart and mouth at will, honest and loving and gentle. Now, he is simply startled at the comfort they bring, taking shape as though he had been waiting to say it for years. 'I’m glad she has him.’

Eyes warm and full of devotion, nails digging gently into your thigh, you continue. ‘Another one of my sisters handles fire. She’s been...well, she never really lets us see how bad it gets.’

The water rolls forward against the legs of the dock, aggressive and foreboding. Too many nature magicians, he thinks, all located in one place. The hair on his arms stands on end, and slowly he realizes Minseok was right. It was always going to be this way, whether they gave in or not.

‘I’m glad she has you,' he says, an odd, distracted rephrase of his previous sentiment, but still he means every word. ‘That you see through to her heart. It takes incredible strength to do that, and not run away.’

‘And who do you have?’ you counter without hesitation, angling your chest towards him, unwilling to let him back down. ‘Do your brothers truly understand how it feels to be a part of nature’s mirror into hell?’

‘They try,' he shrugs, lowering his gaze to the wet wood beneath your hands. ‘I’ve told them what I can.’

‘I see the moon finally touched you.’

A rush of blood cascades in his ears, eyes lifting to greet yours, bashful and suddenly defenseless against your sweetness. Looking right down into him, you see, he knows you see, the way he let his heart break open, shattered into an irreparable state in the effort of learning to remake his soul. You see and you see, and he lets you in, feels your hands touch and caress all the parts within that did not used to exist - or did, have always exists, but were bent into irregular, inhuman shapes to make breathing hurt just a little less.

You see and you see, and so, he sees you too, drinking his fill until his fingers ache with the future nostalgia of your hair and his lips burn with the flavor of your tongue; having all of you, unafraid of being greedy in the name of love and lust.

‘She did,' he manages, eventually, words fading as a sigh.

‘But, I have to say,' you begin, holding his stare and demanding he does not look away. 'There’s really only one heart I’d rather be looking into.’

Tipping his head back slightly, he feels himself smile, ecstatic and impish and warmed to a flush that makes his cheeks sting. Looking back at you, he sees the hunger in your eyes and knows that he mirrors the intensity, watching a flush creep along your neck.

Junmyeon licks his lips, seeing just how far he can tempt your blush. ‘I know the feeling,'

‘I remember you saying that we can't.’ You toss his words back at him, running a hand through your hair and leaning into the breeze, seeking relief.

‘Does that mean you don’t want to?’ he challenges, inching closer.

The closeness of your body, with each small movement, sends an electric current up his spine, heart racing in his chest.

‘It’s like seals,' you murmur. ‘The more you’re told you shouldn’t, the more you want to.’

‘You know that I’d want you,’ he replies, words heavy and thick, ‘even if you weren’t a seal.’

‘I know.’ Wetting your lips, you breathe deep. ‘Me too.’

It would be easy, he thinks, to lean forward and catch your tongue before it slips back into your mouth. Easy, to press his fingers into the back of your neck, tipping your head back to kiss you and kiss you until the breaths you share together make you blood hurt. It would be easy.

‘Before the first war,’ he says, moving his eyes back towards the water, feeling his heartbeat like lead with the loss. ‘I wanted a family. I was ready to get married, ready to have children. I wanted to be a father, not a leader. Many would say they’re the same thing, but not really. With a family, you have a partner. And I never let myself have that, I guess, in the coven. But even still, it’s not the same.’

Considering his words for a moment, he feels you shift, pressing yourself against the dock as if rooting yourself and keeping your composure. He does not chance a glance however, blood alive like fire.

‘I was engaged once,’ you share, breathless and clutching at the dock, tone bewildered by this shift in topic. ‘A long time ago, about seventy years or so. He was a nice man, but something was lacking. He was kind and funny and warm, but I never felt anything for him, because I never saw him as my partner.’

In the water, he sees reflections of your past - reflections of a man who held you tight, but incorrectly, kissing at you with thick lips and careless hands. He wanted you, wanted all of you, and would have loved you as best he could. Which is to say, he would have loved you in a human, simple way that echoed commitment and choice without lust and passion. And you, looking up at the moon and looking at the stars, would have waited for the universe to ignite in your heart, waited to love him enough to make a sky out of your bed, withering beneath the permanence of a contract that did not taste cosmic.

He hates it. Down to his core, Junmyeon hates it. Hates the idea of someone's hands on you, feeling you without feeling the moon, without feeling your heart. Hates that your lips have been kissed at rather than savored, that your mouth and body and hands made moon for a man who could not give you the sun, and wants, with all of himself, to prove that the galaxies you inspire in his bones are not a fever but a fate. To prove, once and for all, that the only man who could love you enough to let you shine, is him.

The cold front sweeps in, merciless and relentless, blowing with a force that tells him the sky has felt him too. The rain falls, sudden and heavy, bathing you both in the intensity of his affections, soaking through and through until you are laughing in it - laughing in him - looking at him with wide eyes.

You don't say anything, know that you don't have to, studying the way he breathes deep, water dripping down his nose and cheeks, unafraid of hiding.

'I'm not sorry,' he says, emboldened. 'Please don't make me think about that again. Someone else's hands on you, I -'

'Yours are the only hands I want,' you announce, cutting him off.

In the deluge, he feels the heat of your skin, hears the erratic rhythm of your pulse, and the way your fingers twitch, halting in their trajectory to touch him. Finding it unfair that he should feel you so fully, with you only dripping for him, he raises his hand and guides the rain away from you, sheltering you from his storm.

‘Did you walk?’ he asks, gravel building in his voice from the sight of you wet and wet and wet with him.

Unable to speak, eyes dark as you hug yourself, pressing the water into your skin, you nod.

Junmyeon nods, watching as your nipples harden beneath your thin shirt. Blinking, he catches his breath. ‘We can talk in my car.’

And he doesn't know why he does it, only knows that he needs it, body moving without permission from his mind. Taking your hand in his, he twines your fingers together, the wetness of the rain drying immediately to press your skin against his. He gasps, and you sigh, both of you halting in your steps to gaze at one another, feeling the current grow between your palms, a thunder clap he'd been waiting centuries for.

He takes his time walking the short distance to his car, savoring the feel of your fingers rubbing against his knuckles. As he walks, he watches your profile, studies the angular slope of your jaw, the elegant vein of your neck, the tantalizing juncture of your neck and shoulders. How he could have wanted, how he could have needed, anything other than you - how he ever thought he'd survive without you. A laugh rises in his chest, amused by is foolishness, and he swallows it down, unwilling to admit just how quickly he craves surrender with you.

In the car, he lets your hand go, sitting silent with his palms resting on his legs. Staring straight ahead, you both watch the rain as it glides down the windshield, feeling sheltered and submerged. Idly, he wonders how far this reaches, if this storm is just for you or if he has covered the town, announcing that he has found you and he will never let you go.

The windows fog, warmed by the heat of your bodies as the temperature rises in the car. Sweat on his brow mixes with the drops of rain, and only when he thinks he may break, when the tightness in his spine, his thighs, and his chest is enough he fears he may break, does he speak.

‘Its killing me,' he says, almost whining. ‘Not touching you again.’

Bold and unafraid, he feels your eyes graze over his face. Inhaling a deep breath, he wrestles with his composure, breathing through his mouth so he cannot smell you.

‘So touch me,' you say, almost demanding that he disobey, reckless and thriving.

And he looks at you, looks at the way the rain has made your lips and cheeks wet; how your eyes glimmer, hopeful even behind the dark dilation of your pupils, brave under the weight of your desire. He remembers you saying you felt everything, all your emotions, all your pain and wanting and fear, with the totality of you, and only now does he notice you are shaking.

‘If I do, I -’ he chokes, watching your hands pull your shirt away from your skin, attempting to keep yourself cool. ‘I won’t hold back.’

‘So don’t.’

Junmyeon shakes his head, sucking air between his teeth. ‘You don’t get it.’

‘I do.’ It's the loudest you've ever been, confident and strong and so completely regal. ‘Every time I see you, I’m waiting for you to reach out and touch me. I’ve seen into your heart.' Chest heaving for breath, you continue. ‘I've seen how badly you need to be loved, and heard, and witnessed. Your mind is powerful, and it’s been given so much of the attention for hundreds of years, but your heart is just as magnificent. And I see you, I see how deeply you’ve been feeling everything and I’ve wanted to hold you. I lay up at night, thinking about you beside me and knowing that I’m supposed to be there, to make light of the moon less harsh. To hear you. To kiss you.’

His head falls back against the headrest, pressing himself into the seat as he looks at you, wanting you all over him and wanting to be all over you. His fingers drag along his jeans, the last threads of his composure fading away.

‘Minseok gave me permission,' he says, speaking just to test his voice, to see if he can. ‘I know I don’t need it. But still. I’m telling you. There’s no going back.’

‘Do you even want to?’ you almost plead. ‘You’ve let it go. Does the past even look appealing when you think about it anymore?’ Holding his stare, you tilt your head back, exposing your neck and chest to him. ‘Does it look better than me.’

Junmyeon angles himself in his seat to face you, fully, eyes demanding your attention. ‘I need you to tell me you want it,' he commands. ‘You know what will happen.’

If he has you, there will be no stopping him. He will take you, all of him, breaking open a seal with giddy, greedy fingers. He will bond with you, press himself inside you and demand you never be separated again. The world will end, and many will die, but he will love you and love you and love you until even the ashes of his bones is left mixing with your cosmic dust.

‘I know what will happen,' you press, insistent. ‘And I still want it.’ Leaning forward, you run your fingers through the wet strands of his hair, sending shivers down his spine. ‘I want you.’

The tightness in your voice, the raw and all encompassing yearning for him, washes over him, breaking through the last remaining threads of control to which he had managed to cling. Looking at you, letting himself fall into your eyes, he slowly comes to realize that the only consent he needed was not from Minseok, but from you. To be damned alongside you, no longer alone, walking into hell and lust and desire with his hand clasped in yours.

And when you breathe, sucking air into your lungs as your breasts fight against your shirt, he finds that it does not matter - that being damned does not matter, so long as the taste of you remains on his tongue, until the only thing he can ever remember is you. 

Over the console, he reaches for you, lips coming together full of hunger and want, starved over centuries for the press of your tongue against his lips. Reclining his seat as far back as it will go, the kiss is messy, all teeth and tongue, wet from rain and wet from your mouths, rolling against one another to devour each other whole. 

He nips at your bottom lip, pressing his teeth into the soft flesh and pulls, hearing you whimper as your hands fist at the collar of his shirt. Sliding his fingers up your neck, his hands gather fistfulls of your hair, tugging slightly and chuckling as he hears you gasp.

‘That’s it, princess,’ he murmurs against your lips, dipping his tongue inside the cavern of your mouth. ‘Let me hear you.’

Whimpering, you grip tightly at his shoulders as he pulls you, indelicately, over the console to settle in his lap. Straddling him, you grind your hips down into his, the heavy thickness of his erection pressing into your center through his jeans. Gasping at the contact, he peers up at you, at your swollen lips, your hair falling messily over your shoulders, and swallows thickly. Rolling up into your core, separated by all your clothes, your eyes flutter shut, and he brings one hand to the back of your neck, lowering you to his mouth where he begins to suck. 

Your nails dig into his shoulders, as you hiss. ‘Right there, fuck. It’s sensitive.’

Against your skin, he smiles, biting softly without leaving a mark. ‘I’ve felt you,’ he breathes, running his tongue over the spot his teeth just touched. Beneath his hands, you tremble. ‘For so long in the rain, I’ve felt you.’

‘It’s not like me to hold back,' you moan, holding his face between your hands and tilting his head to kiss at his jaw. 'Ever.’

The feel of your lips against his bones ignites a fire in him, need pooling deep into his belly as his hips roll up into yours once more. Hands needy and urgent, he leans back in his seat, gripping the hem of your shirt and pulling it over your head in one fell swoop. Your chest is flushed, breaths coming in hollow pants, and the supple skin of your breasts presses tantalizingly against the cups of your bra. Mouth watering, he wraps his arms around your waist and pulls you flush against his chest, lips moving against the space between your breasts.

'Unfair,' you gasp, pushing at his shoulders before reaching before tugging at his shirt.

Helping you, he releases his hold on your waist, skin still tingling from the feel of you, and lifts his arms over his head. Tossing his shirt into the back seat, your eyes rake over his chest, followed swiftly by the pads of your fingers as they press barely there touches to the curves of his muscles. With each graze of your skin against his, he sighs, hands coming to grip your hips tightly and pressing you against his groin.

‘Greedy?’ you smirk, bending down to kiss sweetly below his ear.

Junmyeon groans, rolling up against you once more. ‘Only for you.’

Holding you so close, the heat of your core resting against his cock, seeping through his jeans, he takes a moment to clear his vision, grounding himself in the moment. The rain against the windows rolls down in streams, the glow from the street lamps outside casting shadows against your cheeks and shoulders, and for a moment, you become the waterfall he has always craved.

The moment is broken by your agile fingers, pulling at the button of his jeans. Laughing at the way you fumble slightly, fingers slick and slipping along the button, he lifts his hips, holding you still against him, as you work his jeans and boxers down. Erection freed, he sighs in relief, only to choke on his breath as your strong hand wraps around him entirely, pumping his length slowly.

Biting his lip, his head falls back as his hands reach behind your back, unclasping your bra.

'Look at you,' he rumbles, throat tight as your grip squeezes around him. 'Fuck, you're perfect.'

Consumed, he presses up into your hand at the same time as he bends to take your breast in his mouth, rolling his tongue over your perked nipple. Your rhythm falters, releasing his cock as pleasure takes over, raking your nails over his biceps as he laps at your breast. Biting down slightly, he lets his teeth make bite marks, marking the soft skin as his own, claiming a part of you for himself.

‘Tell me if you want me to slow down,' he breathes, pulling away from your breast to pay the same attention to the other. ‘I’ll do anything for you. I’ll hold back for you.’

‘I told you want you,' you whine, writhing against him as his teeth graze over your nipple, sending static like tingles down to your core. 'I’ve been wanting you.’

Lifting his mouth, he releases his hold on your hips to scratch at your thighs beneath the thin fabric of your leggings. ‘I need to show the world you’re mine.’

‘I’m yours,' you nod, kissing at his lips messily, sucking his tongue briefly before pulling away to breathe. ‘Only yours.’

Invigorated, the tension in his hands reaches its breaking point, and he feels himself rip through your leggings without even realizing it. Blinking down at the exposure he created, he feels a blush of shame creep into his cheeks before you begin to laugh.

‘I’ll buy you a new pair,' he offers, apologetically.

Shaking your head with a smile, you kiss him deeply, letting your tongue explore the velvet texture. 'Doesn't matter.'

Pushing past the remains of your leggings, he moves your underwear to the side and presses two fingers into your core. Your head lolls forwards against his shoulder, one hand gripping at his arm while the other strokes lazily around his cock. He lets himself press knuckle deep, enough for your walls to clench around his fingers, hoping to keep him trapped inside, and a deep moan rattles against his ribs.

‘Already wet for me, baby?’ he manages, thrusting slowly into your heat before curling his fingers.

He's coated with your wetness, the slickness of you dripping onto his hand and signaling you are likely ready for a third, but he deprives you, wanting to keep you on edge. Pretty when you're needy, he likes the way you curl against him, whining into his touch.

‘What do you expect,' you manage, turning your face to bite at his neck, 'when you’re dealing with a water king?’

Hearing his name and title roll off your tongue, with pride and ardor and passion, he cannot help the possessive growl that overtakes him, a third finger slipping inside you as he lets his thumb rub circles against your clit. His chest grows hot, warmed to the brim of your and your sweet, inconsistent strokes along the veins of his cock, and he knows, for better or worse, he will bring you to orgasm on his hand if he does not slow down.

‘How do you want to come, princess?' he manages, stilling the fingers between your folds and letting them curl upwards.

Petulant, you grip his cock tightly, urging him to continue. Junmyeon shakes his head and clucks his tongue, wrapping his hand around the one that holds his cock, keeping you still.

‘Words, princess,' he says, voice dangerously low. ‘Use your words.’

‘Cock,' you whine, rolling your hips against his hand for some relief. ‘Need to feel you inside me.’

Junmyeon pauses for a moment, considering. He is not one to carry condoms with him, but he knows that Baekhyun usually keeps one in the glove compartment for nights when he feels the most lonely; nights in autumn and winter when the light retreats from his skin and he seeks a body to feel warm. The last time he sought a companion was a week prior, and Junmyeon is certain the condom no longer remains.

'I don't have a condom with me,' he says, pressing his fingers back into you in a slow, lazy rhythm. ‘I'll have to pull out.'

Clenching around his fingers, you nod vigorously into his neck.

‘Princess,’ he commands, halting his fingers once more and lifting his thumb from your clit. ‘Tell me it’s ok. I won’t do anything you’re not comfortable with.’

'It's okay,' you whine, pressing against him to have the contact once more. ‘Want to feel you inside me.’

'Are you on something?' he presses, being careful and making sure you mean every word you say.

'No,' you manage, kissing at his neck and squeezing at his cock to get his attention, hoping to hurry him along.

Stricken, he flushes, removing his hand from yours to tug at your hair. Peering into your wide, lustful eyes, he searches your face with panic. 'You could get pregnant…'

You nod, reaching up to smooth the hair out of his face. 'I know.'

It settles over him, the implication of your words and the way you seem so calm, so blissful, so at peace with the idea. There's no fear in your voice, no terror or uncertainty. You simple look at him, full of love, a full moon, waiting for him to kiss you.

‘What are you saying?' he whispers, heart thundering in his throat as blood rushes in his ears.

He'd forgotten what hope felt like, what it felt like to feel himself and his desires, the whole length of them from beginning to end. He'd forgotten, and now that he remembers, he does not ever want to stop.

Wordlessly, you bend down, capturing his lips and a sound, unhurried kiss. You suck at his lips, humming with a smile, as your let your hands wander over his skin, clenching around the fingers that remain inside you, reminding him you still want him, need him.

Breaking away from the kiss, he keeps his eyes on yours, needing to hear it. 'Princess,' he tries, a tiny, barely there whisper of the man he feels he could be. 'Can I put a baby inside you?'

And, once more, without any sound, you nod.

The motion breaks something inside him, his eyes suddenly going dark and wild, blood alive like liquid gold to press eagerly against your silver. It's unlike him, the vigor with which his fingers thrust inside you, spreading slightly to stretch you in preparation. Deep inside him, there is a deluge, something awoken - not altogether dark but not altogether himself - pressing at your skin, hoping to press through and live inside you.

'I want to get you pregnant,' he says, fingers pressing at your nerves and walls, hard enough to make sure you feel every hill and valley of his knuckles. 'Watch you grow my baby inside your perfect womb. Make you swollen and fill you so completely your body feels empty without me. Please, let me. Please, can I get you pregnant?'

Your hold on his cock is weakened, thighs and body starting to quake as he pushes you close to release. 'Yes,' you cry.

'Say it again,' he demands, pushing you against him to bite at your shoulder.

'Yes.'

Junmyeon lets his thumb tap roughly against your clit, swirling your juices over the nerves. 'Again.'

'Put a baby in me,' you moan, clutching at him as your finger smears pre-cum over his tip. 'I want to have your baby.'

Pulling his fingers from your folds, he smiles as you whimper at the loss. His hand lifts yours from his cock, and he grips the ample flesh of your hips, letting his fingers dip between the waistband of your underwear to press into your ass.

Holding you up, he bites at your lip before speaking. 'Sit yourself on my cock, princess.'

Moving your underwear out of the way, you slowly lower yourself down, holding his tip between your slit for a few moments, impishly keeping still. Guiding a hand between your legs, you hold onto him, keeping him still as your squeeze around his base, letting your nails idly tap against the veins. Junmyeon hisses, fighting the urge to press you down, to bury himself inside you to the hilt, and distracts himself by massaging your ass, hard enough to leave bruises.

'Gonna ride just the tip?' he grunts, eyes locked on the way he has just barely begun to disappear inside you.

'Just wanted to see how long you'd go before you broke,' you laugh, before sliding all the way down, taking him deep until there is no end to where you your bodies begin.

Settling your hands on his shoulders, you roll forward, gently thrusting against him to get used to the feel of him inside you. Junmyeon exhales through his teeth, the feel of your walls around him sending his body into overdrive, cock hard enough the ache in his spine has his breath coming in rasps. Lifting yourself, you fall back down on him, creating a rhythm that his him thrust up into your cunt in desperation.

Moving his hands forward, he holds onto your hip as he takes one of your breasts in his hands, massaging the flesh as you bounce on him, clenching tightly enough to make him gasp. In retaliation, he takes your nipple between his thumb and forefinger, rolling the bud tightly until you hiss. And then, in one fell swoop, brings his mouth and tongue over pink nub, sucking harshly.

Your hands move to his hair, carding through the strands as you grip him, gasping through the sensation.

'You're fucking tight,' he groans, meeting your downward fall with an upward thrust. 'I'm gonna have to spend my life fucking you hard enough to fit.'

The power behind his words has your body shaking, the wetness of your bodies coming together filling the car as a symphony. His orgasm builds behind his eyes, the tension in his legs wrapping around him as a coil. Around his cock, you clench, desperate to hold and keep him inside, and the more you do the more his control slips away, body driven to powerful thrusts, seeking an end.

Bringing a hand between your bodies, he returns his fingers to your clit, tapping hard circles in time with his thrusts.

'Next time,' he groans, 'I'm gonna eat this pussy out for hours. Suck it dry and make it wet again.'

'Jun -' you moan, lapping at his lips as your bouncing becomes erratic.

'You gonna come, princess?' he breathes, smiling against your panted breaths.

All you can manage is a nod, aware that the noise in your chest sounds just like begging. Inside you, he is relentless, seeming to press himself deeper and deeper with each thrust.

'I'm going to come,' he manages, the first clear and well constructed sentence he's said since he's been inside you.

Admission means he's giving you one last chance, one brief opportunity to change your mind, and he thrusts so deeply inside you, he hopes his motive is clear. He wants you pregnant, swollen, carrying his baby, making sure all the world knows you are his and you are his home. He gives you this opportunity, because he can wait, he has been waiting - for you, he has been waiting, and there is a lifetime during which he can build the life with you he craves.

But you hold on tight, grind down onto him with a moan, and look him straight in the eyes.

'Come inside me,' you whisper, speech steady and careful. 'Fill me, please. I want it.'

Unleashed, untamed, and alive, Junmyeon presses against your clit, babbling into your ear as he feels his orgasm burn inside his belly. With each thrust, he sees it, sees you, full of him and laughing, body mooned outward because of him, and he suddenly cannot catch his breath.

'I'm gonna put a baby here. Right here. You're going to get big, round, so fucking pregnant you'll think you might been waiting for it your whole life.'

That’s all it takes, the mere image of you rounded and pregnant as you ride him, to send him over. He spills into you, hot and moaning your name, feeling you tremble around him as you come together, your legs shaking on either side of his. Your voice is thick and heated in his ear, wet cries of pleasure and moans, whispers of permission, of love, and hope dripping from your mouth. The whine of his name from your lips makes him gasp, pressing deep inside you as he feels his come spill out of you and back down onto his thighs, jeans, and your skin.

Trembling against him, you gasp to catch your breath, body sensitive as his cock softens inside you. Stroking your hair, he presses soft kisses to your cheeks and shoulder - anywhere his lips can touch, he kisses, reminding you he loves you, he loves you, he loves you.

With his eyes closed, body encased in bliss, he lets the world remain at peace, for this one brief moment.

And outside, outside the car where he does not choose to look, the moon comes out, but still it rains. It rains, unholy and unnatural, spilling backwards up into the clouds, up and up and up, defying gravity.

[deamstellarus]

In Viata Asta (3)

Pairing: Stucky x Reader Word Count: 6k Warnings: Uhm…none? Maybe injuries and language?

A/N: Sorry this update is so late! My work schedule was shit last week so I was behind on editing and posting. So! I thought posting a little early would help make up for it, and it’s the longest so far? Also yes I know, this gif doesn’t have that much to do with this update but I love how it looks.

Series Masterlist | Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3

You woke up to murmured voices and mechanical beeps. You were in a bed in a very white room. You could only assume it was the infirmary of S.H.I.E.L.D. headquarters. Several IVs were attached to your arm. A woman with long dark hair in a bun and a white lab coat jotted something down on a clipboard beside you, then took her leave silently. Something was making your brain feel hazy. Your bets were on the strong antiseptics in the air, but it was more likely whatever pain meds they were feeding you. Your hand was bandaged now, your back probably was too for how tight it felt. You started to sit up in bed.

“You don’t want to do that, zvezdochka. With your luck, you’d probably pull all your stitches.” Natasha sat next to your bed in an uncomfortable chair, staring intensely at the screen of her tablet. She set it down on the small side table next to you, and pushed a button on a remote. Your bed shifted you into a seated position. She held a white cup with a straw to your lips. You drank greedily, the cool water soothing your dry throat. 

“How long...?” You croaked. 

“Only twenty-four hours. You lost a decent amount of blood but we got you back soon enough.”

Then why did it feel like you were laying on fire?

“Your back was practically shredded from the rocks.” Had you said that out loud? “You needed a few stitches but you’ll be fine. The boys should be back in a few minutes with snacks, if you’re hungry.”

You nodded. Or tried to; your neck was stiff. Natasha went back to her tablet, so you closed your eyes for a few more minutes before Steve and Sam’s voices echoed through the otherwise quiet space.

“Look who’s up. Miss Rough and Tumble.” Sam’s toothy grin lit up the room.

“How are you feeling, Blue?” Steve’s ocean eyes were filled with concern. He looked perfectly okay. As if he hadn’t almost drowned in an evil river. Stupid super soldier serum.

“Just peachy, Cap.”

“I thought we had a deal.”

“Sorry… Steve.” You smirked. Your stomach grumbled. Loudly. He chuckled and plopped the white paper bag he held on your lap. You opened it, smiling to yourself when you found a couple buttery croissants and one of those twisted glazed doughnuts. Natasha was giving away all of your secrets it seems. You chose a croissant, biting into the warm, flaky pastry. It was glorious.

“I see you still can't go very long without getting yourself into some kind of trouble," a familiar voice said. 

"Sorry, sir,  I—" Steve started before you cut him off.

"To be fair, I was doing fine on my own until these hooligans showed up." You muttered, mouth full, lazily gesturing to Steve, Natasha, and Sam, who stared at you indignantly.

"Don't be like that, Baby Blue!"

Fury looked unimpressed. "Excuses are—"

“...just lies we tell ourselves to justify doing something poorly." You finished his phrase, then swallowed. "It's nice to see you too, Nick."

"Nick?" Sam gasped.

"What, did you think his name was just Fury?"

"He doesn't exactly like when anyone calls him that," Sam grumbled.

"Aww, Nick! I knew you were going soft on me." 

Fury grunted, but eventually relented and came over to pat your shoulder until you flinched at his touch.

"Heal up, Agent. We’ll talk about the incident when you’re standing on your own two feet again," he said as he walked to the door.

"Not an agent," you called after him.

"We'll see about that." He threw out.

You pouted. You knew it was unbecoming of you, but this is what you'd been dreading. You didn't want to come back to S.H.I.E.L.D. That time of your life turned out to be so traumatic you ended up in a cabin by yourself for two years. But the reality is, you knew he'd get his way in the end. He always did.

__________

As far as doctors went, Dr. Alexandra Marks was patient and kind, and clearly had years of experience dealing with agents that tended to make reappearances in her infirmary. She was thorough with her diagnostics and made sure to emphasize what you could, but more importantly could not, do while you were in the recovery phase. Stitches, a heavy dose of fluids, and an advanced topical solution to help “speed up cell production”, and you were patched together the best you could be. Supposedly, they had a machine that was designed to generate skin, called the Cradle. It could have prevented the scarring, but it was out of commission due to an update or something. To be honest, it sounded too much like a cross between a crazy science experiment and a magic trick. Just the thought made you wary.  

“While you’re still lucid, I need you to give me a report of what happened,” Natasha said after Dr. Marks and the boys left. She attached a keyboard to her tablet, pulling the kickstand out so the whole thing could rest on the bed tray. “It’s just better to do this while it’s still fresh in your mind.”

“Yeah, I know.” You frowned at the screen. Blips of the incident flashed through your mind. “Honestly, I’m not too sure what I actually remember. It feels like it’s all a blur.”

“Any little detail helps,” she pushed. “Anything at all.” 

Weren’t those guys just Hydra goons though? But if that were the case, then why did it feel like there’s something more to this?

“What aren’t you telling me?” 

Her face went through a series of micro-expressions that you would have missed had you not known to look for them.

“Is it not Hydra that came after us?”

“We don’t know. But… it doesn’t look like it at this point.” She sighed. “Just write the report for now.”

“Okay.”

So you did. Any little thing you could remember from the men to the river, you included in your retelling. For the most part, you didn’t remember the men standing out in any way more than they seemed out of place in the general store. The majority of the normal clientele wore flannels, sweatshirts, or thick hunting jackets. The sleek black jackets and black caps they’d been wearing made them stand out. That being said, everything was nondescript, no labels, no logos. Pretty generic bad guys if you were being honest. The only thing you could think of was the small tattoo on the side of one of their necks, but you hadn’t been close enough to see the actual design. 

Maybe that was just you being paranoid and projecting. The tattoo was probably just a tattoo. 

A couple hours later, Dr. Marks released you, with a promise that you wouldn’t do “anything unnecessary like your troublemaker friends.” You snickered at that.  

Natasha gave you a tour of what you now learned was the Avengers Compound in upstate New York. Apparently, S.H.I.E.L.D. has been running part of the agency out of the side buildings that were part of the campus since they re-established, while there was still a segment in D.C. She pointed out the different buildings and rooms during the brief tour, but you were distracted, rightfully so, by the sheer amount of agents that gave you judgemental stares the entire way to the main Avengers building. You steeled your nerves; you wouldn’t give them anything more before you could physically defend yourself.

You stepped into an elevator after Natasha, the smooth doors sliding silently shut behind you. You allowed your shoulders a break from the stiff, upright posture you’d taken.

“You alright?” Natasha asked.

“Yup.”

“Ignore them. The most fun the majority of them have is over rumors and gossip.” Natasha said. “F.R.I.D.A.Y., third floor please.”

“Of course, Agent Romanoff,” a voice responded from above.

“A.I.?” you questioned. Natasha nodded. 

“F.R.I.D.A.Y. is one of Tony’s creations. She’ll help you with anything you need.”

“Huh, well thanks in advance then, F.R.I.D.A.Y.”

“It’s my pleasure… I cannot find your identification in any system, miss. What shall I call you?”

“Oh, you can call me Blue?”

“Very well. Enjoy your stay, Blue.”

The doors opened, revealing a hallway that lead to the left and right of the elevator and seemingly wrapped around the perimeter of the building. In the center, you were able to look down over a common area of sorts, with a variety of couches, tables, an oversized TV, and a kitchen off to the side. Natasha turned to the right, passing several doors before she stopped.

“This is your room.”

The door in front of you was a glossy white with a biometric scanner to the side. 

“Put your hand to the scanner,” she said. You did. A blue light shone through your hand, then with a soft click, the door slid open. The room was bigger than you thought it’d be, but knowing who owned the building, you didn’t expect anything less. There was a plush bed on one side of the room, a desk with a swivel chair on the opposite wall. Tall windows allowed natural light in the space. A fluffy rug and long drapes helped make the room less cold and clinical. But that wasn’t what drew your attention the most. 

Draped across the bed was the plush purple blanket Clint had bought you when you were first brought back to headquarters. It was so, so soft. On top of that was your green duffle bag. It was the one thing you took with you everywhere. It stayed stocked and ready for if you needed to leave at short notice.

“Thank you, Natasha.” 

“Of course,” she nodded.

"No chance of me going back to the cabin, huh?" You asked. Because as lonely as it had been there, it was yours, for the most part, and had become your safe place.

She shook her head. "Sorry, Blue. It wasn't discovered yet, but now they've seen your face, they know you're in the area. We can't take that chance."

You knew that, of course. She only confirmed it.

“There’s an ensuite bathroom behind that door, and a walk-in closet next to it,” Natasha pointed out. “It’s not the cabin, but it’s a good place to stay. You’ll like it here,” You nodded. 

She pulled you into her arms, her hands holding you like she didn't want to let go. 

"You scared me, zvezdochka," she whispered into your hair. 

"I know. I’m sorry.” It was rare for her to show so much emotion. As long as you’d known her, Natasha had always kept her feelings hidden.

A cough at the door disrupted the mood. 

“What does a guy have to do to get the famous Widow to hold him like that?” The man leaned against the door frame, dressed in jeans and a vintage band t-shirt. It seemed far too casual for such a well-known billionaire.

Beside you, Natasha pulled away and rolled her eyes. Like a switch, her blasé facade was back in full force.

“Tony, this is Blue. Blue, Tony Stark,” she introduced.

“What kind of name is Blue?” 

“It’s a nickname,” you said.

“Uh huh.” He squinted at you. “And your real name would be?”

“Leave it alone, Stark,” Natasha growled.

“I just find it strange that not only is there no record of her in S.H.I.E.L.D.’s database, but I can’t find her anywhere. Not a name, a city, a school, medical record. Nothing.”

Natasha bristled. Her eyes were narrowed slits. “I said leave it alone, Stark. She’s a personal friend of mine and Barton’s. Leave it alone.”

Tony glared at Natasha for a moment before yielding. 

“Fine, but we’re talking about this later.” To you, he said, “Welcome to the compound, kid.”

He took his leave, and Natasha shook her head. 

“He doesn’t like when he doesn’t know everything about something or someone. Unfortunately, he will get his way eventually. He’s pushy, but it comes from a good place.”

“Don’t worry about me, Tasha. I can handle him. Besides, I am living under his roof for now, he has a right to know what he wants to know.” 

“Only if you want to.” She puts a hand to your shoulder, before she walks to the door. But his inquiry did make you wonder…

“Why isn’t there a SHIELD file for me, or at least Agent M?”

“It may have gotten...lost when I released the files to the public.” 

“You deleted mine instead of yours?” You remember she had a list of aliases, most from before she joined “the good guys.”

She shrugged. “It was time for a new chapter anyway.” She waved it off as if it meant nothing, but she risked her own neck so you could remain nameless.

“Thank you, sestrenka.” She was always looking out for you.

“Dinner is at six. You’ll meet most of the rest of the team then. Take a nap, you look like you need it.” She winked.

“Tell me the truth, how bad does it look?” You tilted your head, indicating your back.

“Eh, it’s just a few stitches.” With that, she left, copper curls bouncing behind her. And really you had no choice but to take a nap like she said. Especially when the bed looked that comfortable. __________

Natasha lied. That was your only thought as you looked at your body in the mirror of your bathroom. It was not just a few stitches. Forty-seven in total. You cringed as you read off the report FRIDAY supplied. Hearing it from Dr. Marks, and reading it off the report, hadn’t quite prepared you visually for the reality of your injuries. From what you could tell, your back was covered in black zig-zags, reminiscent of Frankenstein's monster. At least as much as you could see that peeked out from underneath the white bandages and gauze. Plum-colored splotches covered your body. In addition to your back, your right hand also received six stitches, and your sprained ankle was now wrapped. And there were bags under your eyes. You looked awful and felt like a walking bruise. 

“The meeting will be starting in fifteen minutes, Blue,” F.R.I.D.A.Y.’s voice startled you.

“Thanks.” You’d have to get used to never quite being alone alone. 

Dinner passed by pretty well the night before, by your standards at least. Tony had apologized for his aggressive questioning, with a nudge from Pepper Potts, however wary of you he may still be. That was alright for now. Steve and Sam had taken the initiative to make you feel included in the conversations, though you were more content to observe the people around you. You were introduced to Col. James Rhodes, who had a dry sense of humor and held himself like a military man, and Dr. Bruce Banner, whose alter ego was a stark contrast to the mild-tempered man that had sat beside you. By far, the most fascinating member you’d met was Vision, an android with an English accent who reminded you vaguely of a curious child. 

Now you were heading to a meeting Fury requested you attend. A loose-fitted tee and a pair of sweatpants and you were on your way out the door, wishing you’d had the forethought to have packed makeup in your duffle bag. While you never needed it on the mountain, it would have helped make you look marginally more presentable and less dead. Especially on the walk through the interconnected buildings to the conference room where you stuck out like a sore thumb. Maybe Natasha could take you out to pick some things up soon.

You cracked the door open. Eight and a half pairs of eyes followed you to the empty seat next to Sam. You were the last one there. Of course. Fury stood at the head of the table, Maria Hill next to him, arms behind her back. She raised a perfectly sculpted eyebrow at you. Steve, Natasha, Tony, and three agents in uniform filled out the rest of the table. A projection screen behind Fury exhibited pictures of several men you didn’t recognize. 

“Now that we’re all here, let’s begin,” Fury said. He pointed between two of the five pictures on the screen. “These two men matched the facial recognition we were able to get off the cameras at the general store where the Captain and Agent M were first shot at, amongst civilians. There were no casualties in the store.”

You squinted. The men looked familiar now, especially without the hats to obstruct their faces. In the right image was the man you’d known to have the tattoo. Now that you could see it, on the left side of his neck, the small symbol looked like three triangles overlapping.

“They were found dead in their vehicle on the side of the road, SUV wrapped around a tree. This is confirmed with the reports Captain Rogers and Agent M gave upon arrival.” He pointed to the next two images. “These two were killed on sight by the extraction team in search of the Captain and Agent M.” He pointed to the last of the five head shots. “This last man was interrogated briefly by Agent Romanoff before he was terminated.”

“So were they Hydra agents from the mountain base?” Steve asked, confusion clear on his face.

“Not exactly,” Fury said.

“He wasn’t Hydra,” Natasha said. “He said Hydra was a group run by hot-headed leaders with imperfect ideals. He said what they were was bigger and better than Hydra could ever hope to be.”

“And who are ‘they’?” Steve pressed.

Natasha shrugged. “He didn’t say, just that there were more of them and now that they had a ‘confirmation,’” she made quotes with her fingers, “they’d have all they needed soon enough to execute the program. He didn’t elaborate on what the program was or what exactly they’d confirmed. But before I could really press him for more, he killed himself. Cyanide tooth capsule.”

“Long story short, we’re led to believe these were not Hydra agents that tracked the two of you down. There were no markings on the body that would express allegiance to the group, nor did any declare their motto.”

“So what are you saying?” Sam questioned.

“I’m saying there is another organization who has at least one of the two of you as their target of interest and until we know who they are, you need to watch your backs.”

“No offense, sir,” one of the agents began. “But what would terrorist organization want with her?” She was pretty, blonde, and had an intense look about her. She wasn’t outright rude, she had a point at least; you’ve basically been in isolation for two years. Besides, she had to be more than capable to be in this room to begin with; that didn’t mean her comment didn’t irk you. You pushed down the urge to get defensive, and schooled your face into a neutral mask.

Simultaneously, all eyes were on you.

“At the moment we’re not quite sure,” Fury admitted. “Agent M’s official history within S.H.I.E.L.D. is otherwise non-existent as far as the database is concerned. However, that doesn’t mean no one would recognize her if they worked under S.H.I.E.L.D. before the disbanding.”

“You think this group is a bunch of ex-S.H.I.E.L.D., ex-Hydra rogue agents?” Steve interjected.

“Anything is possible,” Fury said. “For now, it’s best to assume Rogers was the target and Agent M was just an additional person of interest by proxy.”  

“Keep your eyes and ears open for anything that could be related to this organization.” Maria advised. “If there really is another large-scale terrorist group among us, it’d be best to nip it in the bud as soon as possible.”

After the briefing, Fury held you back, as most of the others left the room. Maria relaxed by his side, her shoulders not quite as taut.

“You’re reinstated as an active agent, effective immediately, Agent M.” Fury held your gaze with his good eye. 

“I never said I wanted to come back to S.H.I.E.L.D.. In fact, I distinctly remember telling you I never wanted to be put in that situation again.” You glared back. The fingers on your left hand dug into your palm.

“We all have to do things we don’t want to do.” His large hand cupped your shoulder. “Just because you run away from something, doesn’t mean it goes away. You are good at what you do, and I refuse to let you waste your skills anymore.”

“But I—” He cut you off. 

“You’re not the only one who’s lost someone, Blue.”

He rarely called you by your nickname. It was always ‘Agent.’ You sighed. As difficult as Fury has always been, he’d never given you bad advice. He was the one who fought for you to stay and train to be a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent in the first place all those years ago. 

And yeah, maybe he was a tad softer on you than on the others. You’d seen him as a father figure of sorts. If he thought you should be reinstated and otherwise get your head out of your ass, then you really couldn’t argue.

“Fine.”

“I knew you’d see it my way.” Fury smirked, patting your shoulder twice heading towards the door. “As soon as you’re cleared for it, you’ll start training. Rest up. This little incident tells me you’ve lost your touch.”

__________

You sat on a couch in the common room a week later, skimming through the data, searching for anything you could connect to an unknown terrorist group. Without a name, it was hard to even associate what little frays you did find, and you were led to dead end after dead end. You set the laptop on the seat beside you and pressed the heels of your palms to your eyes. You looked to your Stark-issued phone for the time. It was well past midnight. This wasn’t the first time you’d been unable to sleep this week due to your mind racing about the implications of an unknown group trying to bring devastation for whatever reason they’ve deemed justifiable. The bad feeling in your gut only intensified the more frustrated you got at the lack of information. You really wanted to punch something, but you weren’t cleared to do more than brisk walking, lest you pull a stitch and elongate your recovery period.

You went to the kitchen and poured yourself some water. The cool liquid did nothing to soothe your restlessness. So instead, you paced the halls, a habit you picked up since you arrived. You passed the entryway to the lab. More specifically, Tony and Bruce’s lab. The other common occurrence you’d noticed every night were the lights in the lab always being on this late in the night. It seemed like Bruce usually went to bed early in the evening, preferring to start his day earlier than most. Which left Tony as the only possible night owl. 

You hesitated by the door before pulling it open and wandering through the cool-toned lights in the lab. Classic rock played softly through the speakers. Tony stood at table at the far end of the room, back hunched over. He was poking at something that caused small sparks to shoot from the device. His masked face was probably still too close to the object. 

You pulled out a stool from a neighboring table smoothly, just enough to make some noise, not enough to startle him. The masked tilted up, then focused once again on the task at hand.

“Not asleep, Agent M?” He said with an ever-so-slight sneer.

“You can call me Blue, you know.” Tony hadn’t warmed up to you like you’d hoped in the past week. He’d been distant, always in the lab. Natasha assured you that was normal for him though, so you took her word for it. 

“Do I know that?” He snipped. He worked in silence for a few moments, then he put down his tools and flipped up his mask. His eyes were rimmed in red, most likely from exhaustion. “You know, I just find it odd that everything was all fine and dandy until Rogers and Co took a trip to Washington State. Now there’s a new terrorist organization we have to look out for, and you show up with no official identity in any database on the planet, and one word from Fury and we’re supposed to just be okay with that? I’m not exactly a big believer of coincidences.”

“Just ask what you want to know, Stark. I don’t want to always feel like I’m tip-toeing around you.” Because it was annoying. 

“What’s your history with S.H.I.E.L.D.?” 

“Natasha and Clint were on a mission, found me as a teen in an abandoned warehouse. Brought me back to S.H.I.E.L.D.. I was an agent for three years.”

“What made you leave?” His gaze shifted elsewhere.

“Bad mission. I lost people I cared about.” His eyes found yours. “And with Hydra discovered inside the agency and S.H.I.E.L.D. dissolving, I just got out while I could.”

He was quiet for a long time. Absently, you twirled a random screw between your fingers.

“Tell me about the mission.”

You squeezed your eyes closed, sighing deeply. You recalled your worst nightmare like it was yesterday. You opened your mouth to begin when he put a hand up.

“Sorry. You don’t need to tell me.” He waved you away. “I can be insensitive when I’m tired.”

“It’s alright, I understand. Long story short, it went really, really wrong, and I couldn’t handle it anymore. I was young-”

“You’re still young, kid,” he quipped.

“-and I already couldn’t remember my past. Losing people, people I was especially close to, was too much.” Your breath shuddered. “I didn’t want to have to go through that again, so I left. Fury kept tabs on me, same with Natasha and Clint. But I swore I wasn’t going to be an agent anymore.”

“And now, here you are.”

“Here I am.”

Tony nodded. He got up unexpectedly, shuffling over to a hidden cupboard that housed a coffee maker. He came back with two mugs, steam spirals swirled in the air. You took a sip. Minty.

“It’s a peppermint blend. Some candy cane Christmas bullshit I got in a ‘thank you’ basket over the holiday. It’s barely coffee, not even caffeinated, but it tastes nice. Supposed to help clear the mind or something.”

You shrugged. Because it was good.

“So… you don’t remember your past?”

“I don’t even remember my name.”

“That must be tough.”

“Mhm,” you agreed.

“Listen, I’m sorry for the rough start. Genuinely. I spend so much of my time trying to do the best to defend against the bad, that I sometimes jump to conclusions and can be…”

“Overly suspicious?” You supplied.

“Yeah.”

“No worries, Stark…”

“Tony.”

“Tony,” you smiled. “I would have thought the same thing. I mean hell, I almost embedded a knife in Captain America’s head when I first met him.”

“I want to do that sometimes and I’ve known him for years.” He chuckled into his mug.

“So we’re good?” You didn’t want to just assume. A heart to heart doesn’t always form a friendship, but at least maybe you’d be on good terms now.

“We’re good, kid.” He smiled, a genuine grin on his lips. “Come on, you can help me test this new version of my gauntlets.”

Huh. Maybe you were wrong. __________

Another week passed before you were cleared for active duty. The scarring was… definitely there. Harsh, red lines spider-webbed around your back. Apparently, it healed faster than Dr. Marks anticipated, especially without the cradle. She seemed convinced the shorter recovery time meant there was a high chance the scarring would fade quickly as well. You weren’t exactly a vain person, but it didn’t look pretty as of now. At least you could cover it up easily. 

You were placed into a random group of S.H.I.E.L.D. agents, Group C apparently, and were given a schedule that listed off times for hand-to-hand combat training, weight training, endurance training, and shooting practice. You were convinced Steve loved to see you and the other recruits suffer as he pushed you all to run the laps of the course around the compound. The first day, you were dead after three miles, collapsing on the ground when the muscles in your legs gave up and lying on gravel sounded like a better idea. Steve only ordered you to get up and run again. You might have grumbled something about seeing if you’d ever save his life again.

Now you were able to keep up with the group. You found it a necessity, as you’d overheard in the locker room how they didn’t like you because you were “definitely sleeping with the Captain” or why else would you be there. You’d caught a stink eye more than once, and decided you had to push harder and tune them out. The chatter was useless. You knew the truth, so their opinions didn’t matter, but you didn’t want Steve to be accused of favoritism. He didn’t deserve any unnecessary backlash. 

By far, Natasha was thrilled to have you in training again. 

“You’re having too much fun with this Natasha,” you groaned from the mat. 

You were constantly being thrown by her, taunted that you’d lost your reflexes from being out of practice. You always ended up sore and bruised after a session. The snickers of the other agents really pissed you off, but you couldn’t exactly bite their heads off. Plus, even when you were in your best shape, you weren’t always able to out-Natasha Natasha; you’d only done it a few times. You knew first hand the rest of the agents in the room couldn’t do that. And you’d out-fought enough of them to know that.

“You’re making it easy on me,” she pulled you to your feet. “Maybe you should practice with someone with a little less agility for now?” She tilted her head to Sam, who’d over heard as he sauntered in and pulled a bitch face at her.

“Oh that’s low, girl. Real low.” But he joined you on the mat anyway.

Sam’s strikes were powerful and quick, like a boxer. He shuffled his feet, throwing punches at varying intervals. You dodged and blocked what you could. He got in a few hits before you picked up his pattern. That was the problem with most people in hand-to-hand. The body naturally wants to move in a rhythm, just like in running, but it’s too predictable in fighting, which is one of the reasons it was so hard to fight Natasha. She was slippery as a snake and it was hard to anticipate her next moves at the speed she moved.

You swung your arm out, your fist clipping him in his unprotected ribs, jumping out of range after. He stumbled back. You took the opportunity to rush him, diving low last minute to the space beneath his legs. You half-turned in your crouch and kicked your leg out, knocking him off balance and crashing into the mat. Finally.

“Adequate,” Natasha complimented. “But I’ve seen you do better. That was sloppy.”

You nodded, panting. She was right, but you’d take then win. It would take you a while to get back to what your skills had been, but even you had to admit. The ache of your abused muscles was actually rather nostalgic. __________

It was well after dinner when a knock at your door had you sitting up, causing the ice packs to tumble off your body. You sighed.

“Come in!”

Natasha stepped in, eyeing the ice packs. 

“Have we been too rough on you?” She teased. You didn’t take the bait.

“Nah. Just not used to it yet.”

Natasha nodded. “Just wanted to let you know Clint and the others are almost here. The quinjet should be landing in five, if you want to join us.”

“Of course.” You stumbled off the bed, and slipped your shoes on as you followed her to the hangar.

The hangar was cleaner than you would have thought. Relatively spotless and spacious. You and Natasha joined Steve, Sam, and Vision by the marker number 1 just as the rumble of an engine made the quinjet known. The noise echoed loudly in the space as the jet landed smoothly in its spot. The engines cut off, and with the high-pitched whir of the propellers winding down. The door opened down into a ramp. At first, no one came down, then there was a stumbling, mummy racing down the ramp toward you. Clint scooped you up into his arms, twirling you around, rambling a mile a minute.

“I thought Tasha was messing with me when she said you were here!” He was shouting in your ear, but you couldn’t get a word in edgewise. “When did you get here? How long are you staying? Wait! Are you back for real?”

“Barton, I’m pretty sure she can’t breathe.” Natasha’s voice cut through his excitement.

“Oh, right.” He plopped you down. You staggered before you caught yourself.

“It’s good to see you too, Robin Hood.” 

His eyes flitted over you, not overlooking the bruises from training this week.

“Geeze, you look awful. What happened?” 

“What is with the two of you?” You looked between him and Natasha. “You can’t just tell people they look awful when they’ve been beaten up. Besides, you’re one to talk,” you sassed. Clint was covered in butterfly bandages and deep purple bruises. “Can’t you go on one mission without coming back like you belong under a pyramid?”

“‘S not my fault.” Clint scratched the back of his neck. You stared at him pointedly. “Well, not all my fault.”

“Some things never change.” You grinned.

“Blue, this is Wanda Maximoff.” Natasha held her hand out to a girl around your age, with long auburn hair and sparkling green eyes. She looked at you hesitantly.

“Hi, I’m Blue.” You did a little wave, then immediately regretted it for how dumb you probably looked. 

“It’s nice to meet you.” She enveloped you in strong arms. She had an accent you couldn’t place, but it wasn’t so thick you couldn’t understand her. “I’ve heard quite a bit about you from Natasha and Clint. It’s nice to match the face with the name.”

You smiled, because she seemed very sweet. You could already see yourself being friends with her. You noticed Vision hovering just behind her, and when she pulled away, her hand reached back to find his. That was cute. You also now had questions, but that was for another time. You certainly weren’t close enough to just ask anyway.

Behind you, Steve was embracing a man with shoulder-length brown hair. He looked just as built and strong as Steve, maybe an inch shorter in height. Steve’s eyes were closed, his lips were moving, speaking too low for you to hear. The intimacy of their moment had you assuming they were more than friends. Definitely together. You wondered if the public had that knowledge, but it was more than likely not. The media would probably have a field day with that info.

Steve opened his eyes, meeting yours with a smile before he stepped back and called out to you.

“Hey Blue! Come over here and meet Bucky!”

His companion turned around and the breath caught in your throat. You did a double take. After all these years, you never thought you’d see him again. Maybe you’d dreamed you’d find your long lost friend, hoping that you both hadn’t changed too much to pass each other on the street someday without realizing. But you would recognize those eyes anywhere. 

Before you could open your mouth, he spoke. 

“Ingeras?” _________

A/N: Just now realized I haven’t given any translations for words so far, but I will from now on!

zvezdochka (Russian) - little star sestrenka (Russian) - sister, sis ingeras (Romanian) - angel

_________

In Viata Asta Taglist:  @rvgrsbrns​ @artsyspacebee​ @thelovelydreamer17​

[echoise]

those things will kill you, you know. (vague flystep. trans m!sidestep (Avery!) character study thingy, tw: suicidal and self-harm imagery) 1,419 words

iii. “Those things will kill you, you know,” he says, skin glistening in the merciless sun, smile perfect for a toothpaste commercial even with a tooth missing and another cracked. He’s youth and energy and optimism, snuggling up to you, gentle knuckles rapping against the heavy walls you’ve hidden behind. Chipping away at them one clink at a time, knock-knock-knock, who’s there?

“What won’t?” You counter, inhale the sweet smoke, fill your lungs to the brim with it. Drown yourself in tar and nicotine, welcoming the slow death, because you don’t have the guts to let go and just live. Arsenic and lead and benzene absorbing into your bloodstream, coursing through your veins, into your heart and out again, spreading from limb to limb until you’re blissfully numb to the world around you. Poisons, yes, all of them, but they’re yours. Your choice, a voluntary harm, not one forced upon you.

Maybe it’s silly. Maybe it’s foolish. But it burns so good.

.

ii. “Those things will kill you, you know,” says the little old lady, flicking her lighter and offering you the flame. Her face is wrinkled like a deflated balloon, bumps and dimples galore, discolored skin hanging freely in places and stretched in others. A hairy mole on her cheek that she scratches idly before taking the cigarette out of her mouth, whistling out white smoke that smells like good advice and bad examples, tsk tsk, take it from me, kid.

“I’m not that easy to kill,“ you assure her, blow out a smoke ring of your own, watch it dissolve within seconds. Unable hold form on its own. You look at your hands and know you’ll share that same fate if you don’t find something to anchor on, something brace yourself, something to build upon. Something more than the white flash when you stump a cigarette on bare skin, scars all over your hands and arms, little girl’s first cross-stitch. Some mold to fit yourself into because you discarded your last one, deviated from their blueprint. Became something, something you were never meant to be.

Death doesn’t scare you, it never did. But disappearing... 

.

i. “Those things will kill you, you know,” the woman chides, snatching the offending burning plant matter from the man’s hand. He sighs and shoves his hands in his pockets, muttering something, getting consumed by his anxiety from the second he lost the kiss of that sweet nicotine. Missing the comfort of a cloud of smoke that obscures the world just enough to be bearable, yes honey, i know honey, i’m sorry honey.

“We’ve had this discussion,” the woman continues. You keep tabs on them as they start walking away, strain your powers to follow them until the pinpricks of their minds frizzle and disappear into the vast ocean surrounding you. Then the usual drivel fading back in, shopping lists and petty arguments and lovestruck idiots and all sorts of mundane things you’ve only ever heard about and never understood. Why does it matter if she’s late for work? Why did he say he doesn’t have any change when he just felt some in his pocket? Why is she crying looking at that poster? Why? Why? Why did the man find such comfort in the cigarette smoke?

Dulling the senses. Dulling the world. You understand years later.

.

iv. “Those things will kill you, you know.”

You look behind you and are blinded by blue skies and golden wheat fields. Twin ponds under merciless sun. A prince wearing bright sapphires and his golden crown. A bunch of other dumb metaphors your thumping heart supplies without you asking, your foolish traitor of a heart that always got you into trouble and clearly has not amended its ways. It seems even death can’t make you learn from your mistakes.

Herald, Daniel, Danny, Dan, many names for many faces. Herald snarling and charging at you, not knowing who’s under the armor. Daniel wishing you good morning at the Ranges HQ, practically beaming. Danny panting and sweating in a sparring match, a competitive glint in his eyes.

Dan tracing fractals on your skin, pressing soft kisses on the lines as if that could make you hate them less. Hate yourself less.

“I’m counting on it,” you mutter, and know he’s heard you even without sensing the chill making home in his bones. You take a long drag on the cigarette and blow the smoke out slowly. It dissipates fast in the high winds up here, on Dan’s rooftop. As familiar as your own apartment now, maybe even more so. You like it more, too: it reminds you of some old haunts from your Sidestep days, not unlike this one... just not quite this high up. Or this fancy. Or this easy to get to.

Dan hesitates just a bit before stepping over and sitting down next to you, legs dangling over the edge. It’s less dangerous for him than it is for you, but you suppose it’s a concession of sorts. Better than any of the other options in his mind, all of which make you grind your teeth. He broadcasts his thoughts too easily, way too easily, because he thinks you can’t tell. There’s another lie you’ll have to come clean about sometime.

He sits there for a minute, watching you from the corner of his eye. When he speaks, his tone is hesitant. “Are you... okay?“

“I’m not going to jump, if that’s what you mean,“ you retort with a smile, but there’s no warmth in it. Hollow like your puppet. Meant as a joke but neither of you is laughing. “If I was, you’d already be too late.“

You’d never really do it, you think. You don’t have the guts. You’ve been through it many times: you can hold the gun, you can stand at the edge, you can sharpen the razor, and every time you know you won’t do it. You will never find the will to pull the trigger, you will never brave the last step, you will only ever make horizontal cuts. That’s just not you. You always survive, somehow. 

Even when you don’t want to.

“Avery...“ Dan starts, but goes quiet when you stump the cigarette. For once on the ground - well, edge of the roof, in this case - and not your hands. You don’t need to, not when you have this: the feeling of the city below you, pulsating, breathing like a living being. The long strings of people like blood flooding through its veins, giving you a rush like no amount of self-mutilation could ever. Watching the lazy afternoon happen just outside of your reach, through the glass you’re always trapped behind, looking down past your legs that you’re slowly swinging to a rhythm only you can hear. Remembering broken bones and twisted limbs and shattered hearts.

Knowing that you won’t jump, because that’s just not you.

“I know,” you say, replying to nothing. You pull yourself up and step away from the edge, feeling the relief coming from Dan in waves as he floats up and joins you. There’s a tentative smile on his face and you try to match it, know it falls flat, keep it up anyway. You reach for his hand and nod toward the rooftop access. ”Coffee?”

“Already brewing.” He kisses your hand briefly before steering you to the door, some tension still in his shoulders every time he looks at you, his feelings in his chest like a tangled ball of yarn made of worry and sadness and confusion. Swelling and swirling until they’re a braided cord around your neck, tightening so slowly you barely notice it, making you the proverbial frog in the boiling water.

You close your mind in an attempt to cut yourself loose, claw at your throat to ease the pressure. A desperate struggle of his desire to protect you and love you and save you against your need for retribution, your compulsion to self-mutilate, your inability to give in. His stubborn belief that there’s something he can do, that all of this isn’t already decided and just waiting to unfold. Alea iacta est, a name for what you’re feeling, useless data in your head that was put there by men and women you hated and have tried to forget but it clings to your very cells.

Those things will kill you, you know.

They will, you muse as you follow Dan to the stairwell and back down to his apartment. But not yet. 

You have things to see through first.

[iwantthedean]

Separate Ways

Summary: Dean never expected a late-night call from the reader to be the last one he would get from her.  Pairing: Dean x Reader Word Count: 1475 (without lyrics) Warnings: Trigger warning for implied suicide, mentions of blood and hospitals, canon typical violence.  Challenge: @coffee-obsessed-writer‘s Fics for Follows challenge. My prompt was Separate Ways by Journey.  Square Filled: @spngenrebingo Broken bone.  Square Filled: @spnangstbingo Suicide. 

If he ever hurts you True love won’t desert you You know I still love you Though we touched And went our separate ways

“Can you come get me?”

She was crying, Dean could hear it in her voice. Just above a whisper, she repeated her question, pleading with him when he didn’t answer her right away.

Dean snapped out of the surprise of hearing her voice again and grabbed his keys. “Where are you?”

Y/N gave him the location. Doing some quick thinking as he started the ignition in the Impala, he promised to be there within the hour. She promised to text him the address. 

He pushed the Impala to its limits driving to get her. Though they had gone their separate ways years ago, their paths had crossed every now and then, and he had promised that he would always be there when she needed something. 

Of course, the fact that she had called him at all after their last meeting was somewhat of a surprise to Dean. He had said some hurtful things to her when she decided to get involved with a werewolf. No matter how much that monster swore he only fed on animals, Dean didn’t trust him — and he made sure that Y/N knew that. Didn’t matter that the thing with the werewolf wasn’t romantic. Tracking down werewolves and getting them to give up human hearts wasn’t a safe game, especially with an actual werewolf calling the shots. 

‘You love me, Dean. You won’t turn your back on me.’ 

He hung his head. ‘You’re right. If you need something, I’m going to be there. But in the meantime — I can’t.’

That was it. No apology, just the sound of his boots hitting the pavement as he walked away, down that damp alley. He had sat in the Impala, watching until she came out of the alley and into her car safely, before pulling away from the curb. 

That had been more than a year ago. A year with no communication, save for updating each other on burner numbers. More than a year since he had held her, kissed her, and so many other things. There was no telling what kind of trouble she was in now. 

When Dean got close to the address, he coasted up to a curb, turned off the headlights, and then the ignition. He surveyed the area carefully before going for the trunk, loading his gun with silver bullets, and trekking up to the apartment building. 

The door was cracked open; Dean walked in, gun at the ready. He said her name softly, and heard his name, whimpered out in return. It was coming from the bathroom.

Dean pulled back the shower curtain to reveal her huddled in the tub, blood smeared across the walls, and Y/N’s scared, tearful eyes looking up at him. Her wrist was cocked at an unnatural angle, telling of only one of her many injuries. 

“He wanted to change me,” she told him as he lifted her from the tub, her voice warbled by the threat of tears. 

Dean shook his head. “We don’t have to talk about it right now. Let’s get you fixed up. Hospital?”

She squeezed her eyes shut, the idea bringing more tears to the brink of falling. “Yeah. Probably should.”

Dean carried her to the Impala, set her carefully in the passenger seat, and only then did he tuck his gun into the waistband of his jeans. Shooting and carrying her would have been awkward, but he wasn’t going to take chances. 

Things happened in a flurry at the hospital. She was taken in to the emergency room; while the doctors worked on her, Dean went back to the apartment. He was going to track down that good for nothing mutt monster so that Y/N would know she could leave the hospital safe. 

The dumbass had actually gone back to the apartment. Too easy, Dean thought to himself. He didn’t even ask questions as he snuck up behind the werewolf. When that creature turned to him with yellow eyes and claws reaching out for him, Dean aimed a bullet right into the creature’s heart. 

“That’s for Y/N,” Dean growled over the dying man’s body before leaving the apartment once and for all. 

Troubled times Caught between confusion and pain, pain, pain Distant eyes Promises we made were in vain, in vain, in vain

Back at the hospital, he asked for Y/N’s room. The nurse informed Dean that Y/N had been asking for him, so he wasted no time in getting to her room. 

Her arm was set and casted. An IV dripped pain medication and fluids into her veins. The cuts that had caused some of the blood in the bathroom were stitched and bandaged. Dean frowned; there had been much more blood in the bathroom than he would have thought these visible cuts would cause. 

“The wound on her leg will have to be monitored before it can be stitched,” a nurse told him. “It’s not a clean cut like the rest of them — more like whoever he was took a chunk out of her thigh.”

Dean’s heart fell; he nodded. Y/N opened her eyes, giving him a small smile. He did his best to smile back, but with the pieces of his heart shattering to smaller shards, it was a difficult feat. 

“How’re you feelin’, sweetheart?”

She sniffled. “Sore. All over. My leg is burning.”

Dean had expected that. “You don’t know how scared I was when I got your call. I didn’t know if you’d still be alive when I got there.”

“I just wanted to see you again.”

So she knew. She had called him because she knew that, one way or another, her days were numbered. “You were right, what you said in the alley that night. I do love you.”

“I know,” she whispered. “I love you, too. I was stupid — so stupid — to think that I could help them. I thought it was some sort of crusade. We do so much killing, Dean. So much. I just wanted to take the hunting and have something good come out of it.”

He cleared his throat of the lump that had formed there. “Something good did come from it. We found each other. We’ve saved lives, even having to end them.”

She nodded; her lids were drooping. The pain medicine was making her tired. “Did you kill him?”

“Yeah, I did. It was almost too easy. He went back to the apartment, and was there when I got there. Shot him in the heart.” He swallowed down the lump again. “He can’t hurt anyone else.”

“Good.” Y/N’s voice was firm this time, though new tears were staining her cheeks. “We have to do something, Dean, before I hurt anybody.”

He wiped at the sudden moisture on his face. “We can figure this out. I’ll call Cas. We’ll find out how to stop it from happening.”

“It’s too late,” she said. “The burning is spreading fast. It’s already happening. We have to stop it.”

Dean laced his fingers through hers and kissed the back of her hand. “I can’t. Don’t you know how much I’ve missed you? We can figure this out. It doesn’t have to be now.”

“It does,” she argued. “I don’t want to leave you, but I don’t want to hurt you, either. I don’t want to hurt anyone else. That same full moon that pulled him to do this is going to change me quick. If you can’t be here, I understand. But it has to end now.”

“Please,” Dean whispered, not sure what he was pleading for — or that he was even talking to her. 

“’S my own fault. Should have listened to you.”

Dean chuckled through his tears. “You always were a stubborn one.”

She smiled, too, a tired smile that didn’t reach her eyes. “You’re stalling.”

“Yeah, I am.” He took the gun from his waistband and set it on the bed next to her. “There’s still silver bullets in there. I only used one on him.”

Y/N nodded. “Okay. You can’t be here for this.”

“I can. You don’t wanna die alone.”

“Dean, if you’re here, I can’t do this,” she clarified. 

He supposed he wouldn’t have been able to do it either, if the situation were reversed. Nodding, he stood from his chair, leaned over to take her face in his hands, and kissed her the way he meant to kiss her the next time he saw her, after that time had passed after their fight. Too much time. 

“I love you,” Dean told her, one last time. 

Her forehead fall against his. “I love you, too.”

Taking a deep breath, Dean walked out of her hospital room. He knew that Y/N would give him time to leave before she did it, but he didn’t expect to still be in the lobby when the gunshot sounded. Staff and patients alike ran to hide or toward the source of the shot, but Dean just kept walking.

If you must go,  I wish you love You’ll never walk alone Take care, my love Miss you, love

The Whole Shebang: @illisea @ashleymalfoy @busybee612 @mrswhozeewhatsis @sherlock44 @ravenesque @feelmyroarrrr @atc74 @jensen-jarpad @theplaidshirtmadness @moonlessnight14 @kitchenwitchsuperwhovian @smoothdogsgirl @melbrandes @xtina2191 @spnbaby-67 @emoryhemsworth @goldenolaf25 @gabriels-trix @applesugar88 @rainflowermoon @deansgirl215 @thisismysecrethappyplace

Two for the Money: @jayankles @love-me-some-pie21 @akshi8278 @jensensjaredsandmishaslover @supernatural-jackles @adoptdontshoppets

[laurens-lil-fics]

Picture Perfect ( Matt Murdock x Reader) Pt. 9 -- FINAL CHAPTER

Summary: a local photographer finds herself in a spot of trouble after taking a couple pictures in the wrong place at the wrong time. She seeks out Page, Nelson & Murdock for help, but it comes in a form she doesn’t anticipate.

Word Count:

Warnings: Fluff!!

Author’s Note: We’ve reached the end of the line, guys! I hope yall have enjoyed this series, I certainly enjoyed writing it! If you guys need any more DD content after this just let me know! I’m always taking requests, and thank you so much for reading!

So unfortunately links on posts are deleting the posts from the search tag? It’s really weird, but if you want to look back at previous or future chapters, I’m tagging this “Picture Perfect” on my blog. So just search it in my blog and you’ll find all the chapters there. Than’s so much for reading and sorry for the inconvenience!

Waking up in bright, unfamiliar places seemed to be a routine now. 

Maybe this was Heaven, or its equivalent. (Y/n) had spent so long in the dark, she began to wonder if she’d ever pass on.

Once the blinding light she had opened her eyes to adjusted, she realized it wasn’t Holy light, but fluorescent light instead.

She looked to her left, noting the heart monitor and the IV drip. She glanced up at the TV in her room, some teen mom show was on. Whoever was her nurse was, they had bad taste.

She looked to her right, feeling a twinge of joy surge from her toes to her nose as she noticed a bouquet of chrysanthemums on her bedside table.

But the blood red color triggered something in her. Something had happened, something buried far underneath the time she spent in the dark.

(Y/n) slowly reached out to touch them, her fingers brushing against the petals as the memories came flooding back.

Flashes of her falling through a window. A bed of those same flowers broke her fall.

Daredevil cradled her in his arms in that bed. 

No. It was Matt.

At that moment, a nurse walked into the room, too busy eating over her clipboard to notice (Y/n) was awake.

It was her gasp that pulled (Y/n) from her memories.

“Oh my gosh, you’re awake.” the nurse exclaimed, quickly going to (Y/n)’s side. She began looking her over, scribbling down her observations.

“How long have I been here...?” (Y/n) murmured, realizing how dry her throat was once she spoke. 

Much to her dismay, the nurse left to get her water rather than answering the question. (Y/n) only repeated it once the woman returned.

“Well, Ms. (L/n)- follow my finger.” The nurse instructed, waving her finger and studying (Y/n) as her eyed kept up with the movement. “It’s been about a month since you came to us. You’ve been in and out of consciousness but this is your first time actually being able to speak to someone.”

(Y/n) had no recollection of ever waking up. She only remembered the pick black she had been surrounded by.

“How did I get here...?” she asked.

“Well, Daredevil brought you to us. Said he saved you from that psychopath.” The nurse’s tone went sour at the mention of Pointdexter, as did the taste in (Y/n)’s mouth. “You were fading fast once he got you here... it’s a good thing he made it. It’s a miracle you survived.”

“Did he stay...? Did he say anything...?”

The nurse shook her head, looking up from her notes as she clicked her pen. “No, in fact he left once we got you on a stretcher.”

(Y/n) finished her water, masking her disappointment.

“Well, everything’s looking right as rain. I’ll contact your loved ones and let them know you’re awake... Although I’m surprised Mr. Murdock hasn’t arrived yet.”

That caught (Y/n)’s attention. She moved to sit up, but quickly regretted it once she realized how sore her body was. “Mr. Murdock’s been here?”

“Yes, he visits everyday a quarter after 12. Maybe it’s just a busy day for him.” She nodded, giving (Y/n) another once-over.

Once she was sure her patient was alright, the nurse left the room.

(Y/n) couldn’t help but smile at the thought of Matt visiting everyday. She wanted to get out of that hospital bed and go see him and Foggy and Karen.

Still, it made her remember that night. How he had held her, saved her. He had been watching over her all along and she didn’t even know it.

Then she remembered how he stared down at her, his lips moving and her mind unable to comprehend his words. It was like they were at opposite ends of a 500 foot long tunnel. Everything he said was a wave of a whisper, fallen on deaf ears.

The sound of running feet sounded through the hallway, catching (Y/n)’s attention. She could hear her nurse calling for whoever it was, but the person continued running.

Matt stopped in front of her door, taking a moment to catch his breath. He could hear (Y/n)’s own breathing, it was different from how she sounded when she slept. She was awake, she was there.

“Matthew...” (Y/n) whispered, eyes glued to him. 

He stayed in the doorway, anchored by his own self doubt. Was she angry he was Daredevil? Did she even remember he had revealed himself?

The rhythm of her heart changed, her body began to go hot, but not from anger. That much he knew.

Instead it all rushed to her cheeks as she began to sob and reach for him.

“Matthew...”

He crossed from one end of the room to the other without hesitation, wrapping his arms around her. He shed his glasses, tossing them to the bedside table so he could bury his face in her neck, an intimate gesture she eagerly reciprocated.

She sobbed and sniffled against him, screwing her eyes shut as she inhaled the familiar scent of his cologne. Her fingers dug into his suit jacket, but Matt was a bit more careful when it came to (Y/n)’s hospital gown.

“Matthew... when I was fading... I heard your voice...” she mumbled against him, forcing back her sobs so she could actually speak. “What did you say...?

Matt slowly pulled back, trying his best to lock eyes with her. 

“I was bargaining... making a deal with God...” He began, his voice as gentle as his deep brown eyes. “I told him he could take anything... everything he wanted from me. Shorten my life, take as many years as he wished... So long as he gave them to you.”

(Y/n) bit back her smile, staring up at Matt as she stroked his cheek.

“And if he didn’t...” he continued, “I would find him... and bring you back myself.”

Her smile finally broke through her features and she brushed her hand over his stubble.

Matt slowly inched closer to her, cautiously brushing his lips over hers. He only deepened the kiss once (Y/n) cupped the back of his head and pulled him closer. 

The two smiled into the kiss, losing themselves only for a moment before needing to part for air.

Matt rested his forehead against (Y/n)’s, brushing his nose against hers.

(Y/n) smiled softly, noticing the red tie Matt wore.

Matt smiled as she giggled softly, bumping his nose against hers. “What’s so funny...?”

She scrunched her nose, trailing her hand down his neck before giving the tee a small tug. “Red really is your color, Mr. Murdock...”

“Can’t sleep?”

(Y/n) looked up from her spot at the fire escape, spotting the familiar man in red on the roof above her. She slowly smiled before making room for him to land safely beside her.

“How did you know?” she asked. 

Matt stuck the landing, he was always such a show off. “Heard you wake up...”

(Y/n) frowned at that, moving past him and into their now shared apartment.

“I really hate when you do that...” she sighed, plopping onto the bed. Matt took off his helmet, wincing as he lifted his arms above his head.

“Hate what...?” he asked, beginning to take off his suit. “If me listening in to check on you makes you uncomfortable I can stop...”

(Y/n) got up and began helping him out of the suit, folding it and placing it in his chest in the closet. She took the icy hot from his bedside table and began rubbing it on his back. 

He had pulled something the night before, she was just grateful it wasn’t anything serious. She always felt her stomach churn whenever she’d have to stitch him up.

“No I don’t mind the listening in... I just don’t like for you to worry, especially when you’re on the job.” She retreated to the bathroom, washing the medicine off her hands.

Matt sat at the edge of the bed, smiling softly as he listened to her leave the bathroom and head for the kitchen.

“I’m your boyfriend, isn’t it my job to worry?” 

“Not when you’re out there.” She said, knowing there was no use in her shouting. “If you let me distract you then you could get hurt...”

She returned to the bedroom, two bowls of cereal in her hands. She handed him his bowl and sat beside him, starting to eat her snack.

This was a routine they had fallen into long before she officially moved in with him. Whether he showed up to her apartment or she went to his, they would always take a moment to have a bowl of cereal and enjoy each other’s company.

“You know,” he paused to swallow his mouthful of cheerios, “I get hurt every night regardless.

“Well I don’t wanna be the reason why.” she quickly responded, “It’s bad enough I already gave you a scar...” she trailed off. After a moment of getting lost in her thoughts, she snapped out of it and began chugging down her milk.

Matt set his bowl aside, his mind wandering to the scar he had across his left cheek. Of course (Y/n) didn’t give it to him herself; it was from the night he saved her from Pointdexter.

At some point a bullet grazed him, it left a small scar, just about 2 inches on his cheek. Even though (Y/n) had been under for a month, she knew exactly who gave it to him.

“You didn’t give me anything,” he interjected, “you’re the one who saved my life.”

(Y/n) wiped her mouth with the back of her hand, staying silent.

“Is that what keeps waking you up? You’re remembering that night?” Matt asked, his fingers gently brushing over hers. 

She sighed softly before getting up and grabbing their empty bowls, going to the kitchen. “It’s like you read minds...”

“Nope, I just know my girlfriend extremely well.” Matt grunted, getting up and following her to the kitchen. He stood behind her as she washed the bowls, wrapping his arms around her from behind and resting his chin on her shoulder. “I also know what it’s like to go through something traumatic...” he paused, running his hand up her shirt and over the scar on her stomach. “Maybe we should go back to therapy...?”

It had been almost two years since Pointdexter bled out in that greenhouse. Matt told (Y/n) what had happened after she was released from the hospital. It was hard for her to even look at that building, she refused to face it in her sleep. About a year of therapy seemed to have helped, but Matt could tell she was beginning to have nightmares again.

(Y/n) dried her hands and turned to him, resting her elbows against the counter and leaning against it. “It’s just nightmares...” she shook her head. “And I only have them when you’re on patrol... I’m fine losing sleep until you come home...”

“I’m not... I can always take a day or two off...” he offered, only for her to shake her head once more.

“Neither of us really want that, Matty...” She smiled softly, trailing off. Matt raised an eyebrow at her, waiting for her to speak.

“Just...” she sighed deeply, moving off the counter and hugging his waist. “Promise me you wont leave me... promise me that no matter what, I’ll wake up to you at the window... Then I’ll be able to sleep at night.”

Matt bit his lip, staying silent, pulling back and going into one of the cupboards just past her head. He turned his attention back to her, taking her hand in his.

“(Y/n)... I promise you, with every fiber of my being, I will never ever leave you...” He rested a small, black, velvet box in her palm, descending onto one knee.

“I’m here to stay... if you’ll have me...”

Tag List:

@farfromjustordinary @ilovemattmurdock @100kindsofblake @omg-i-am-lord-voldemort @deadhero @osnapitsabbie

[iseutz]

Chapter Five

There’s quite a lot of angst. A little fluff, and a lottle of angst. Sorry guys, but it’s still Julian we’re talking about.

I went at Portia’s the following afternoon and I was quite nervous for the implications: I haven’t heard from Julian since the only time I’d see him, and I had spent way too much time staring at my mobile phonebook trying to decide whether to text him or not. This way a day and a half have passed uneventfully and as I rang the Devoraks doorbell my mind was a blur of questions: would he be at home? Would he come to say hello? Why hadn’t he called?

Portia opened the door.

-Hey there. Ilya is dying.

-I’m sorry, what?

-He caught a fever after the remake of Singing in the Rain – she let me in and followed to the clothes hanger as I got rid of my jacket. – You should go to his deathbed.

-I don’t think so. Haven’t heard from him at all.

-Oh, he’s probably too weak and sweaty to pick up the phone. Men are wussies. I’ll be in the living room – she marched away, leaving me alone in the corridor.

Unlike Portia’s (crested with a plate with the words “WELCOME TO THE ARMAGEDDON”), Julian’s room door was plain and unassuming. I knocked lightly, but no answer came from within. Still, I got in.

It was clearly a room dating back from many years before, when the concept of home comfort was expressed through solid, massive dark wooden furniture. The wardrobe hid the whole right wall, up to the ceiling; a huge writing table with a lot of drawers stood under the window, its chair a ponderous monster with dark green leather padding. There was a bass guitar resting against a small amp in a corner, its case open on the floor, half-filled with sheet music. Shelves covered the left wall, crowded with books and small objects I couldn’t quite make out in the dim light. The bed was at the other end of the room, headboard against the wall. It looked small compared to the rest: just a single bed with small posts, a black poster on the wall over it. I managed to read it only once I came closer: Bauhaus – Crackle. That boy did know good music.

Julian was sleeping on his right side, his back facing me. His mouth was slightly open, eyebrows relaxed, a slight sorrowful expression. He was breathing through his mouth; the nightstand was covered in cough drops and used tissues. The eyepatch hung from the reading light, over a copy of some medicine book. He let out a long sigh and pulled an arm from under the covers; probably the fever had him feel hot. My heart sank a little: from the middle of his forearm, up to where the t-shirt sleeve hid it, his arm was striped in scars. Some were so thin I wasn’t sure if my eyes were playing tricks on me; others were thick and short, like stabbing marks. All of a sudden I felt bad for him, a sting of pain pierced my chest; he looked so vulnerable, so fragile despite his size, sleeping ill and alone in the bed of someone else. Unable to resist, I placed a hand on his forehead, moving as softly as I could. It felt quite hot, but I’ve always had cold hands and couldn’t judge properly; Julian leaned into my hand, a content sound purring from his chest. He turned towards me, waking up slowly; I saw his brows knitting together as he focused on my unfamiliar form. Then he smiled. Then he startled, eyes wide, and slapped a hand on the right half of this face.

-Uhm. Could you… - he gestured past me, towards the night stand.

-You don’t have to. It’s no big deal for me, I swear.

-It is for me. Please - he replied firmly. I gave him the eyepatch and he turned his back on me while he put it on; then he fell back on his back, smiling faintly at me.

-Hey - he patted the bed with a hand and I sat by him. He raised a hand to caress my cheek. – I’m glad that you came.

-Well, yes… Portia invited me – he frowned again.

-So did I.

-No… you really didn’t.

-I tell you I did! I did it just hours ago… I can prove it – he fumbled with the bed’s duvet until he found his cell phone. – A-ha! Told you… oh.

-What?

He lent me his phone without a word. I read:

MADEMOISELLE RACCOON, ALAS, A CRUEL DISEASE CONSUMES ME. MY DAYS ARE NUMBERED, WOULD222222222222222222222222222222222222222222222222222

-I fell asleep over it – he looked miserable, and I laughed.

-Don’t be so sad! It was a great message, and I’m glad you were thinking of me – his eye twinkled as a lopsided grin spread on his face.

-Don’t think too highly of me. My plan was to spread the plague all along – his long arms raised to encircle me, pulling me down towards him. I happily surrendered, but he changed his mind halfway and pushed me back to my place. – What am I doing, I don’t want to rub it on to you. Sorry.

-So you’re a gentleman, after all.

-Certainly not – he replied insulted. I lowered my mouth to his ear.

-Neither am I – I whispered.

-I do hope so… - his words died as I kissed his cheek, his jaw, his lips. He pushed my hair behind my ear. –Are you sure?

I kissed him again. His mouth had the mineral taste of fever, ferrous like blood. I stroke his neck, his collarbone peeking from the hem of his t-shirt; his hand caressed my spine, slid under the sweater, under the t-shirt, under the tank top. He laughed against my mouth:

-How many layers are you wearing? It’s April!

-Yes, and you’re in bed with the flu. I suffer cold, that’s it

-I may have a couple of hacks for you – he drew me closer, pressed me on his chest, his arms wrapped around me. That’s how Mazelinka found us as she entered the room unannounced.

-Enough of the smoochies now, kids. I know your parents and I don’t want to get in trouble.

I had already jumped on my feet, far from the bed. –You don’t know my parents, Mazelinka.

-I know parents. Julian, you have to take your bath.

-Mazelinka, for the hundredth time: there is no scientific proof that Nevivon salts are an actual medicine.

-You will take your bath anyway, because you stink. This poor girl here, I don’t know how she survived.

-I don’t stink! And I refuse to take a bath while we have guests at home.

-Like you don’t want to get naked with her around.

I ran from the room, my face on fire, while the discussion heated up. Portia welcomed me from the couch of the living room.

-Hello, stranger. Judging by the shouting it’s bath time.

-So it seems – I grabbed Pepi, Portia’s fat seal point cat, and brought it to the sofa with us. – Portia… I saw scars on Julian’s arm. What do you know about it?-

-Oh, those. He started when he got back from the hospital; he used to tell me it was Pepi teething, but Pepi has never bit me – she scratched the cat’s belly and a steady purring sound promptly ensued. –Isn’t it true, meatball? You never bit anyone because you’re just a giant loaf of love – Pepi closed its eyes as Portia kissed it repeatedly on its head.

-Wait a minute… hospital?

-Oh, you didn’t know? Man, you really don’t know my brother – she sneered.

-You could have told me.

-Julian had a brain tumor when he was a kid… 10, 11 years old. That’s how he lost his eye, and that’s why we came to Vesuvia: so he could have surgery.

-A brain tumor? – it was a huge thing to process. People died of those things.

-Yes. The doctors said he could have kept his eye if we had him visited earlier. I don’t know why we didn’t, I was, like, five and Julian never seemed ill to me. Then, one night he woke up screaming. We had the same room and it scared me to death; I remember I flipped the light on and he was holding his head. His eyes were wrong… like, one was normal, but the other one was pointing upward. Mom and dad were trying to talk to him and he just kept screaming, screaming… They didn’t let me go to the hospital; even after we moved here they never let me visit him. Mom later told me the doctors put him into a coma the moment they visited him, and he never woke up until after the surgery.

-Oh my god. How long till he came back?

-Almost one year. At first we moved all together here: I slept in Julian’s room, my parents slept in mine. Then dad had to go back to Nevivon, start working again. He would visit on weekends. But I had to start school, so me and mum stayed. Eventually she came back to Nevivon, once Julian graduated. But for the first couple of months we were all here. When Ilya came back… I struggled to recognize him. He was so thin… they shaved a patch of his hair away, and his eye was all bandaged. He wanted to be alone, and refused to be photographed until his hair grew back; there’s not a single picture of him in a three years amount of time – Portia lowered her voice, her eyes fixed on Pepi. – But once, a couple of years ago, I sneaked into his room… I knew he hid cigarettes somewhere and I wanted one. I found this box under his bed, and it was full of photographs. He had been taking pictures of every damaged part of his body: the stitches on his scalp, the bruises from the shots and the IVs, his eye… before he got the glass eye and I tell you it was a gruesome sight. There was a shot of his throat and the sores from intubation. His handwriting… we mock him now, tell him he has the perfect doctor handwriting, but he… basically had to re-learn how to write- Portia’s voice crackled. – He must have felt so lonely, he di-didn’t know anyone and I… I was bitching all the time because he got all the attention!

-Pasha… I’m so sorry…

Portia’s first crying sighs turned into a whelp as Julian startled us both, crossing the living room in three steps and hugging her. How long had he been there? I got up and ran to the kitchen to grab some paper towels while Portia bawled:

-Why are you apologizing, you dummy? I am the one who should!

I put the towels on the sofa, then quietly backed out of the room and closed the door. I crossed the corridor to find Mazelinka in the kitchen, sweeping the floor. I hadn’t noticed her the first time.

-They are good kids.

-Mazelinka, I think I’m going home, leave them some room. Tell them I say hello.

-You are a good kid too.

-I wish there was something I could do.

-Be understanding. Be patient – Mazelinka’s accent was strong, but her vesuvian was better than she thought. – We Nevjvöds are different from you people: we have a history of suffering, it runs in our blood. Pasha is strong, she is a fighter. But Ilya, he’s a martyr: too much pain, too soon. Thinks it’s his destiny. Maybe you can remember him life is not that bad – she smiled at me amongst a cobweb of wrinkles. –Sit. I make tea.

-No, thank you Mazelinka. I’m going home. Keep an eye on those two, will you?

[rockwell-rocky-blog]

Lucas ‘Rocky’ Rockwell | 25 | The Calamity 

Hi what is up my doodz??? My name is Hailey, I’m 21, and this smol dog is my Rocky. Now sit back and let me tell you a lil sum sum about my boi

Basics.

I feel like Rocky is going to be a really easy person to get along with. He’s not going to be like super nice and cheery or something, but definitely not the kind of guy to just dislike people from the start. He needs a good reason to be a dick to you, and he will if given the need.

That’s why I call Rocky an asshole, because once he decides he doesn’t like you, it’s just like that for life. He doesn’t just dislike people, he hates with every fiber of his being. He’ll throw a punch without a second thought or rip you to shreds with just a few words.

I chose ‘the calamity’ because wherever Rocky goes, trouble follows. He doesn’t look for trouble, it just finds him. He has a history of drug abuse (which you’ll see below) and it ultimately destroyed his family. I see him as a person who frequently fucks up and has to figure out how to fix it.

He’s in love with Molly Mattinson, the mother of his three boys who have yet to be named at this very moment. He’s probably still going to flirt around and has been around since their break up a few years ago, but I don’t think there’s ever going to be anyone else for him in the same way he loves her.

That’s about it??? idk what else to say about his personality because I haven’t figured it out yet but yeah HMU IF YOU WANNA LOVE ON THIS BABE??? 

Childhood.

TRIGGER WARNING: PHYSICAL, SEXUAL, AND VERBAL ABUSE MENTIONED

His full name is Lucas James Rockwell III., but he exclusively goes by Rocky. It derives from his last name, and he chose to ditch his first name when he was adopted at fourteen. His father wanted to pass on the family name to his oldest son, but he didn’t stick around for very long. 

When Rocky was eight, his dad walked out on them and he never saw him again. After that, he and his three siblings were left to fend for themselves, as their alcoholic mother was no help at all. When she wasn’t passed out drunk or out on some bender she would verbally, physically, and eventually in Rocky’s case, sexually abuse them every chance she got. 

His mother, who Rocky refuses to address as anything other than ‘Tina’, began to force intimacy on him shortly after he turned ten. It became so routine, that whenever she’d get home, Rocky would just become physically ill and begin to throw up. Just the thought of his mother caused a reaction sometimes, and even to this day he still feels sick when she crosses his mind. 

It all came to an end when Rocky was in the 7th grade. He was changing out of his clothes in gym class and the coach noticed a large, painful looking bruise on the back of his thigh. Soon after, the investigation started and the Rockwell siblings lives changed forever. 

He and his older sister was placed in separate group homes, while his elementary school aged siblings were placed into foster homes together, and soon adopted by loving families. While he was able to keep contact with his sister, he hasn’t spoken to his two other siblings in years.

After living in several different group homes, Rocky was lucky enough to meet Monica and Harvey Carlin, the two people he would eventually learn to call mom and dad. They were volunteers his group home, and Harvey took a special interest in the young man. He was nearing his fourteenth birthday, and Harvey saw a lot of himself in the kid. He, too, had been abused by his parents and ended up in the same Seattle boys home he was helping out in now. He decided to be a mentor to him, teaching him things a father should teach. It was nice for him to finally have an adult in his life who seemed to care.

After about a year of being in his life, Harvey and Monica asked Rocky if he wanted to join their family. They welcomed him in with open arms, and the adoption was finalized with a party of over 100 new family members to welcome him home. 

Adolescence.

TRIGGER WARNING: DRUG ABUSE 

While Rocky was still in foster care, he met the wonderful Molly Mattinson and took almost no time falling in love with her. It took him nearly a year to officially ask her to be his girlfriend, because she was perfect and he didn’t want his past to ruin her. He was afraid that after everything he’d been through, she would decide he was too damaged to even bother. Molly became the most consistent thing in his life, and to this day he feels like he will never be able to fully thank her for that.

When he was sixteen, their worlds became intertwined forever. Rocky and Molly were having a baby. He was terrified to tell the Carlins, the family who had actually chosen him. He didn’t want to make them regret ever taking a chance on him, only two years into being under their roof and he was already knocking someone up. Of course, the ever-loving Harvey and Monica were anything but regretful. While they definitely weren’t happy, they did their best to support the young couple in every way they could through the pregnancy.

Knowing he couldn’t rely on them forever. He tried to both work and go to school, but when the baby finally came, he knew it was hopeless. It wasn’t like he was ever going to go to college, why even bother graduating? He dropped out before junior year started and began to work full time to support his family.

 About a year later, Molly was pregnant with their second child, and that is when everything started to go downhill. Between being a father and working full time, things became a little too stressful for Rocky. He was just seventeen and already paying for an apartment, a car, groceries, a baby, and now he had another one on the way. He just needed a little something to take the edge off. 

During Molly’s second pregnancy, Rocky started down the path that would eventually lose him his family. After first, it was just weed. It was always around, he’d smoked before and it wasn’t a big deal. But then it was pills. Then it was both at the same time. And then eventually he was just never sober. But hey, he had it under control, right?

After their second child was born, everything just got worse. He started getting into heavier and heavier things, his drug of choice being heroin, but eventually there wasn’t a drug he hadn’t tried. 

His first OD was when he was eighteen and the boys were still too young to remember, but it definitely wasn’t the last. In total, Rocky overdosed six times between the ages of seventeen and nineteen, all from a mix of heroin and morphine. The doctors kept warning his family that he needed to get help, and he refused treatment under any circumstance. He did not want to get better, but he knew he was losing Molly. 

In a last stitch effort to save his little family, Rocky planned the pregnancy of their third child. In his state, none of his decisions were good ones, and that included lying to his girlfriend about pulling out and soon baby number three was on his way, but it couldn’t save the relationship. 

Rocky’s last overdose happened when he was twenty one and the boys were five, four, and two, and it happened when everyone was home. He stumbled home already messed up, and quickly locked himself in the bathroom to take himself completely over the edge. It wasn’t on purpose, but two days later he woke up in the hospital with an IV drip and the news that he died that night. He had a heart attack and he was technically dead for three whole minutes. That was his wake up call. That was it. He’d finally it rock bottom. He’d almost taken a father away from his kids because he was so selfish. It was then that he knew he had to finally take care of himself. He let Molly check him into rehab the next day, and so began his road to recovery.

Adulthood.

After his three month stint in rehab, Rocky was shocked to find that Molly took their kids and moved away. He figured her lack of communication was just due to her wanting to focus on the kids and let him get better on his own. But by the time he was out, he couldn’t even blame her. He knew what he’d put her through, what he’d put their children through with his addiction. If being away from him was what she thought was best for her and the boys, he couldn’t blame her.

Rocky has been completely drug free for two years. He fell off the wagon a few times, but hasn’t touched a single drug since May 2015, and has put all of his focus on being a better person, and a better father.

I’m not proofreading any of that, I just hope it makes sense LMAO

[laurens-lil-fics]

Picture Perfect (Matt Murdock x Reader) Pt. 7

Summary: a local photographer finds herself in a spot of trouble after taking a couple pictures in the wrong place at the wrong time. She seeks out Page, Nelson & Murdock for help, but it comes in a form she doesn’t anticipate.

Word Count: 1962

Warnings: Slow burn. Violence. Blood. Angst. Ugly men.

Author’s Note: Chapter 7, let’s get groovin! This one’s a little short but the next chapter will make it worth it! 

So unfortunately links on posts are deleting the posts from the search tag? It’s really weird, but if you want to look back at previous or future chapters, I’m tagging this “Picture Perfect” on my blog. So just search it in my blog and you’ll find all the chapters there. Than’s so much for reading and sorry for the inconvenience!

There was no telling how long Pointdexter had been gone. It had felt like minutes. Maybe it was an hour. (Y/n) had no idea how quickly he worked, but that didn’t stop her from trying to get out.

The room wasn’t all that big, it looked more like a basement than some warehouse. It definitely wasn’t bigger than 250 square feet. 

(Y/n) stared longingly at the pile of belongings placed beside the easy chair. Her kitten heels, her coat, and most importantly her phone. Glancing back at the chain, she gave it an experimental tug, gasping at the sharp pain in her ankle.

She crawled about as far as the chain would let her, coming nowhere near close to her belongings. 

“Fucker!” she slammed her hand on the cement floor, feeling herself start to lose her cool.

(Y/n) made her way back to her corner, resting her head against the padded wall. Her eyes absentmindedly trailed over the IV drip before realization hit her.

She slowly stood up, relying on her uninjured foot and the padded wall to keep her upright. She carefully took the bag off the hook and slid down the wall. Resting the bag against the corner, she took hold of the long, metal rod.

The sound of the rod dragging against the floor was like nails on a chalkboard. The hook just barely made it to the pile. Everything was folded and placed neatly, if this didn’t work then he would know she tried to get out.

With one pull, her phone slid across the floor, stopping just in her reach.

The screen was wrecked and the power was shut off. She held down the power button and prayed to anyone that was listening that the phone would still be functional after the crash.

She exclaimed with joy as it turned on and unlocked it. “No Service”

(Y/n) grunted as she stood up once again and held the phone above her head, hoping it would catch signal.

“Matt if you go for that IV one more time I swear to God i’m gonna punch you in the face.”

Matt groaned frustratedly, wishing that Foggy had gone with Karen to get coffee instead of sticking around. He knew Foggy was smarter than to leave Matt all alone while (Y/n) was off God knows where.

“Then get the damn use in here so she can take this needle out of me. I need to go find her.”

“Look, even if you got out of here in the next five minutes, you still have no leads on where Pointdexter could have taken her.” Foggy reasoned.

“She’s in danger, Foggy. He could kill her in the next hour. The more time I spend in here the more she’s at risk.” Matt said, feeling Foggy’s heartbeat shift as his anger began to flare up.

“Do you think she needs-” Foggy paused as a nurse passed by the room. He leaned in closer to Matt, opting to settle for whisper yelling instead of the real thing. “Do you think she wants a half dead Daredevil busting in to save her? She needs you at your best, healed and rested,”

“You don’t understand...” Matt’s tone went soft, he rested his head against the pillow, prompting Foggy to stand down.

“Then help me understand, Matt... Why is it so important you don’t wait at least an hour? Why can’t you trust the police to find her? Why does it have to be you?” Foggy asked, his voice losing its edge.

“The last thing I said to her... one of the last things that actually mattered... I told her she was nothing to me...” his voice wavered, it was almost unnoticeable. But to Foggy, who had known Matt for years, it was something he picked up on instantly. “I said she was just my client, and I was just her attorney...”

Foggy slowly took the seat beside the hospital bed, his eyes softening at his best friend’s confession. “... But you want it to be more than that, huh?”

Matt’s lips parted. The words were on his lips, aching to jump off the tip of his tongue. But he only nodded.

“She and I... we were together, I took her out after the Fratellis were taken into custody... She was so close, I could taste her on my lips...” His voice ebbed into a whisper at the memory. He could feel his heart swelling as he remembered the feel of her so close to him. 

“B-But then I heard him... Pointdexter... I had to take her home.” The heat that flooded his core had gone. He remembered hearing the way Pointdexter chuckled as he found the two. How his heartbeat quicken. He was excited.

“Then you had to cover yourself...” Foggy deduced, watching his best friend closely.

“I hurt her Fog... and that’s all she’s gonna think about when Pointdexter kills her... If I don’t get to her first.”

Once the bars showed up at the left corner of the phone screen, (Y/n) could practically taste freedom.

Several missed calls and text message notifications popped up on her screen. All from Foggy and Karen. Matt must have been in the hospital.

She tapped on Foggy’s name, trying her best to hold the phone as high as she could while also typing out her message.

Still alive

In basement

Don’t know where

She hit send, hoping the messages would make their way to him. Immediately she saw that he had begun typing a response. Before she could read it, she could hear movement coming from upstairs. She put the phone on silent and carefully balanced it on the hook. She inched the rod towards the pile of her belongings and carefully set the phone down on top of her clothing.

She lost her footing and fell to the ground. She struggled to get back up and place the IV drip back in it’s place as she heard the door to the stairs open. She flopped to the ground once everything was back in order and closed her eyes, trying her best not to look guilty.

“Chow time!”

Pointdexter came jogging down the stairs, with a little pep in his step. He tossed a pistol onto his chair and began rooting through the bags he had in his hands.

“Now, just because I’ve got you locked up doesn’t mean we can’t be a little civilized.” He pulled two china plates from the bag and set them on a small table he had set up in the corner of the room. He began serving the food he had fought onto the plated and carried one over to her.

“These lovely plates are courtesy of Mr. Baker, one of the other witnesses your lawyers found. Lucky for us he decided to make a quick stop at his apartment before heading into police custody.” He smiled, dropping the plate onto the floor and allowing it to shatter before (Y/n).

Judging by the way he was looking at her, he was obviously expecting her to start meeting her food off the floor. She picked up the greasy burger he had tossed on her plate and brushed the ceramic chips off of it, before reluctantly taking a bite.

“Ugh, you make that look so good.” He groaned, returning to his own dinner and plopping into his easy chair to eat it. He moaned at the first bite, closing his eyes to savor the flavor.

(Y/n) took a big chunk of the plate from the pile and snuck it under her pencil skirt. She quickly took another bite, hoping to cover her actions with the sound of her chewing.

After the meal was done, Pointdexter approached her and began collecting the ceramic pieces from the ground, knowing she would try to use them to escape if he left them there.

“If I had a little more time I would have stopped by that Thai place by your boyfriend’s apartment.” (Y/n) tensed at the mention of Matt, something Pointdexter caught.

“If he weren’t in the hospital maybe I would have paid him a visit too, told him you were okay...” He cupped (Y/n)’s chin with one hand, mushing her cheeks together and shaking her face slightly. “Told him your pretty little face got banged up a little bit but other than that you were fine...”

(Y/n)’s fingers brushed over the ceramic shard in her skirt, waiting for the perfect moment to strike.

He brought his face closer to hers, forcing her to look into his eyes. “You’re not as beautiful as Julie...” he murmured to himself, becoming lost in his own thoughts. 

(Y/n) pulled the shard from her skirt and sliced crossed his chest, screaming as she attacked him. 

He howled in pain and flung himself backwards, grasping at his wound in shock.

(Y/n) held the shard in front of her, wielding it like a blade, and did her best to keep her hand steady. “Stay the fuck back or I swear to God I won’t miss again!”

Pointdexter lunged at her and delivered a swift punch to her jaw, knocking her unconscious. 

When (Y/n) awoke, the first thing she was was Pointdexter’s blurry figure in his chair. Her eyes came into focus, and she felt bile rise in her throat as she watched him stitching his own wound she had left him. The shard she used was rested on the arm of the chair.

“That wasn’t very nice...” he murmured, “I try to be nice... I try to be patient. Hell, I even fed you!” his voice slowly grew louder.

“And this is how you repay me?!” he grabbed the shard, holding it up for her to see. “This?!”

It all happened so quick. (Y/n) had heard very little about Pointdexter from Matt, Foggy and Karen. Of the few things they mentioned, extreme anger issues wasn’t one of them.

(Y/n) gasped, staring at Pointdexter as he tried to control his breathing. She slowly looked down at her stomach, lifting her hand to it. Her fingers grazed the ceramic shard imbedded in her gut, testing to see if it was really there or not.

She looked back up at her captor, watching him put on a fresh shirt and his jacket as he headed towards the stairs. “I’ll be back to check on you in an hour... If you’re not dead by then, I’ll make sure you’ll wish you were.”

(Y/n) blinked, and he was gone.

For a moment, all she did was breathe. Then a scream slowly clawed its way out of her injured core and up through her throat, echoing into the empty room. She screamed and sobbed and slammed her fists against the cement, unwilling to accept that she would die in that basement.

She let out another long scream before slowly resting her head against the wall, the scream slowly dying in her throat.

Her eyes slowly fluttered open, landing on her phone resting on her coat.

Her friends told her little about Pointdexter. But they did tell her how they took him down.

She repeated the process of getting the IV drip, this time allowing it the fall to the floor. She pulled the needle from her arm and winced at the pain, grateful for the quick distraction from the shard sticking out of her body.

(Y/n) reached out with the rod, whimpering in pain as she stretched to get ahold of it. She hooked the coat and her phone, pulling both towards her at a snails pace.

She turned on the phone, no signal again. Rather than trying to stand and catch a signal, she turned on the phone’s front facing camera, and began to record.

“My name is (Y/n) (L/n)... I think this is called a dying declaration...”

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