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thepeakyfckingblinders · 5 years ago

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The Whore || John Shelby x reader

⤠ MASTERLIST⤟

Anon requested: “11&19 with John boy? cause I miss him “ (I miss him too, my poor heart aches)

Summary: n.11 & 19 from prompt list: “Please, please, please” + “I’ll burn this fucking place down” Warnings: swearing, a lot of angst, prostitution, nudity, violence, mentions of abuse, mentions of rape, misogynistic talk, graphic description of signs of physical abuse

Author’s notes:

Behind each one of these works there are sleepless nights and something really close to multiple mental breakdowns, so, please, take a minute to send me a message about it, I need actual feedbacks to understand how to improve my skills and grow ♡

So, this request’s been in my mind for ages, and even though I’m not happy with its final part ‘cause it sucks, I’m literally obsessed with this idea, I love it so much that I’ll probably write a long fic about it, right after Contagio, but it will depend on you babes, because, first and froemost, I need to know what you think about this piece. ⤟ IMPORTANT

Please, if you’re a victim of any kind of abuse, talk to someone who can help you, nobody should go through something like that alone.⤟ IMPORTANT

I edited the gif and added the text, it’s not an actual scene from the show, but I thought it could be a good idea, a small detail that could be added to my works. What do you think about it? Pls, let me hear your opinions babeees ⤟

I’m sorry for being this late, but I’ve been really busy in the past days and writing is never just easy, it demands concentration and effort, plus I don’t want you to be disappointed, so I’m always extra accurate while working. I hope this is worth the wait!

If you want to be added to my tag list, please, directly message me

I’m Italian, English isn’t my first language, so I apologize for every possible mistake I made. Also, please, help me improve my writing by telling me if there’s something wrong

ENJOY!

Birmingham was somehow silent that night, John noticed the unusually empty streets around him, as his feisty pace easily led him towards a well-known destination, his confident steps resounding in between the damp walls of those sordid blocks made of innumerable overcrowded flats. The unmistakable stench of stagnant urine viciously permeated his nostrils, soon causing a disgusted expression to taint his angelic face, while he avidly took the umpteenth drag of smoke from his Cuban cigar and finally stopped his unceasing walk in front of the most renowned brothel in the entire city. For about three years by then, day after day, his life had been perilously circling the drain: things had got totally out of hand, fate had pitilessly thrown him into profound despair, giving life to an apparently endless spiral of darkness and desolation, which was gradually corroding his fragile self, brutally strangling him, rapaciously plundering each of his already strained vital breaths. And, nevertheless, it was beyond hard to blame him for such catastrophic outcomes, after all, he’d scarcely survived the battlefield, only to find himself with a handful of nothing, left alone to deal with a dead wife and four children to raise on his own, while his guts crawled with excruciating grief and ravenous acrimony for the whole world, having him develop a tendency to self-destruction that was just as concerning as it was well concealed. As a matter of fact, in spite of his private hell, he still remained a Shelby, and a Shelby wasn’t meant to be soft, nor weak, none of them could afford to succumb to their affliction, never, not for a moment. They had to be invulnerable.

Or, at least, they had to look invulnerable, for truth was that John was scared, utterly frightened by all those unmerciful changes. Deep inside he felt like a hopeless, undefended child, forsaken by God and discarded to wander that grim world without any destination other than death and misery, thus his blood boiled with virulence and venom, having his heart clench with blind wrath and his devastated young soul desperately long for sort of any distorted kind of unattached affection. That was basically the main reason why his bed was incessantly warm, or more accurately, warmer than it had always been before, because, needless to say, John Shelby had actually been an authentic ladies’ man since his first cry. His stunning beauty constantly teemed on everyone’s lips in Birmingham, there was not a single woman in the whole town who hadn’t dreamt of sleeping with him at least once in her life. Therefore, John was more than happy to please them all, literally, welcoming them with wide open arms, even during his past marriage; and, on those rare times when no girl went to knock on his door, he had now grown accustomed to seek relief into whorehouses, rather than sleep alone and become an easy prey for his ferocious demons.

So he eventually ended up dropping his smouldering cigar on the uneven asphalt of the most rundown place in Small Heath, “Le Belle Donne”, an Italian house of tolerance, quite dilapidated and about to fall to pieces, but which often happened to have his favourite prostitutes. Indeed, ever since the Peaky Blinders had defeated and subjugated Sabini’s clan, they’d occupied a prominent position among the country, to the point that several other Italian gangs on their territory, including the Changrettas who owned that brothel in particular, had finally given in to the Shelbys. As a direct consequence, to put it simply, John and all his brothers had, in a very real sense, earned the full right to abuse of whatever business the wops held.

“Hey, man!” Johnny resonantly barked as he entered the hall, maintaining a pretty intimidating attitude and a menacing look on purpose, in order to strike even greater fear in his newest flunky. “C’mon, show me what you got” That rough order cunningly glided onto his lower lip, immediately followed by his hot tongue, while his famished gaze travelled around the room, examining the face of each harlot standing there with meticulous attention, without however finding something that could come anywhere close to seriously rapture him. Robert Turrini, the whoremaster, was a bizarre bloke, for his physical appearance could be probably described as both disturbing and amusing: his revortingly corpulent stomach wobbled and his short legs dangerously stumbled, when he made haste to stand up and accommodate his toughest client. “Mr. Shelby, what an honour and a pleasure to have you back!” Those sycophant words fled his moist and malodorous mouth, and nonetheless, his stubby fingers inexorably betrayed his true thoughts, since they were either nervously torturing each other or, as only alternative, convulsively running through his greasy, mangy bangs. “Please, sir, follow me, these are for yokels and boozers, nothing to do with gentlemen like yourself” Once again, Turrini’s shrill fawning tone relentlessly grated his ears, making clear reference to the bunch of second-rate whores who could be found at the entrance; thus the lame pimp quickly moved, his hand anxiously beckoning John to tread upon his heels, then headed towards an eerily narrow corridor, so scanty that it was almost impossible to cross, if not walking on the bias. The secret lounge was illuminated only in part by a squalid red light creating a gruesome atmosphere, a dull silence tyrannically reigned into that small space, although you were not alone, but practically glued to another girl; both sitting on a minuscle sofa, your elbows touching, still none of you dared emit a single sound. Everything felt like lead upon your papier-mâché ribcage, that horrible sensation forcing your traumatized brain to involuntarily keep counting the seconds until that heinous burden would’ve potentially staved in your sternum, definitively annihilating your splintered heart. As a result, when the ramshackle door opened and a high-pitched squeak scraped your skin, you really thought to be about to die. Your torturer made his entrance, and right after him, another man came in, yet you couldn’t spot his face, since the peak of his cap designedly casted a mysterious shadow on it. “These two right here, they're real young, real fresh” Robert flaunted his goods along with a nefarious grin, rubbing his soiled paws with evident greed. “Behold the finest offering of flesh and bone on the market” A sadistic snicker repugnantly accompanied his speech, instantly causing John to frown, visibly disgruntled with the way that man deliberately talked about human beings. Luckily, it was a known fact that the middle Shelby was used to treating his women with all due respect: whether he paid them or not, he always made sure they were comfortable with him and never shrank from giving them some good time as well; therefore, a vexed glare was shot in the direction of his gross interlocutor, before his crystalline eyes briefly fluttered around the place, then bumping into your elegant figure almost at once.

Your bloodstream seemed to benumb on the spot as the stranger’s confident stare entangled yours, his rawboned features being now fully displayed, for he had lifted his chin a little in order to properly look at you, and you only, despite Clarissa’s desperate and petulant attempts to get his attention with malicious smiles and ridiculous pet names. Even though your dazed mind had just been ruthlessly brutalized by the sudden, ablaze assault of his glacial irises, a few moments were enough for you to realize how profoundly different he was from all the low-down rats who usually came through that horrible place.

Each sharp, still somehow delicate, trait of his face was brimming with delicious youthfulness, a less keen eye might have even confounded his freshness with actual naivety, but not yours; you were far too clever to make such a coarse mistake. Furthermore, the midnight-blue posh fabric of the classy suit, remarkably folding his majestic body, left gaunt doubt that he was, in all likelihood, a considerably rich man, which was beyond disorientating you, since the price to pay for some tawdry delight in that brothel was outrageously derisory, to say the least. And ultimately, as much as it killed you to conceive it, he was without question one of the most enchanting men you had ever seen, to the point that you found yourself subconsciously wondering the possible reason why a heavenly creature of his kind would’ve needed to buy a miserable hour of dissembled love.

“There she is” That malleable murmur, filled with longing and gratification, furtively sidled past John’s roseate mouth, as its corners seductively bent upwards and his gaze persevered in its praiseworthy commitment to scrupulously linger your finest shape in sheer adoration. Lace and organdy sublimely merged on the light crimson negligee you were wearing, your immaculate form appeared as a beguiling paradox into his dilated pupils, being your long legs lecherously left exposed, while every inch of your porcelain skin, from your lean neck to your groin, was painstakingly disguised by that unholy material, dark and inscrutable, albeit thin enough to allow him to glimpse the inviting turgidity of your nipples. His breath shuddered in awe when he went back to contemplate your aphrodisiac facial features, flushed cheeks and plump lips having him ache with desire, and then your doe eyes flooded by melancholy, strangling his soul with no mercy, entrenching into his brains the treacherous conviction that, at the end of the day, he would’ve gladly dilapidated his fortune, if only to venerate you from afar. “Oi, sweetheart!” His low voice finally rumbled within the walls of that small space, overwhelmingly vibrating into your abdomen, while you forced yourself to swallow the painful lump obstructing your throat and stand up, promptly responding to his command, aware as you had become that rebelling against your pitiable destiny would’ve served no purpose at all. Holding your client’s hand behind your back, but keeping your head down during the whole route, you silently guided him up the spiral staircase to the best room in the house, like you had previously been instructed by your pimp. His jacket and hat were quickly hung on the apposite coat-rack, leaving his muscular top covered with just his white shirt and blue vest, an alluring grin was flashed in your direction and you detected a libidinous sparkle in his irises, as he healed the rift between you at a slow pace. “What should I call you, sweetheart?” He knowingly used the same flattering pet name once more, whispering that barely audible question into your ear, for he was now behind you: his large hands laid around your waist, gently making your back and his vigorous chest fit together, while his skilled mouth brushed forthwith against your nape, drawing an ardent contrail of ephemeral pecks up until your jaw. “Just y/n” You gasped in response, the marked contrast between his warmth and your bitter cold body, along with crippling dread eating you alive, caused your scrambled stomach to squirm and your eyelids to distressingly shut into a frown. “Well, that’s a pretty good one, I’m John, by the way” A lovely, yet hinted giggle fleetingly filled your ears together with that little compliment; there was no record of mockery in his tone, though, it simply sounded like he wanted to be nice to you, without any aspiration of personal gain, and you almost blushed, caught off guard and no longer used to any form of kindness. Nevertheless, it was a matter of instants before another wet, long kiss was pressed on your jawline, making you startle with evident apprehension and, at a later time, definitively back away from him, as soon as you sensed his touch abandoning your hips only to climb your sides, till he reached for your nightgown’s collar and his fingers began to fiddle with its round buttons. “No, I’ll do it!” You curtly gave notice, as you temporarily lost control of both your speech and actions, placing your hands above his in order to shrug them off, then turning to face him with short breath, your open palms shielding you. “I got it” A noticeably softer voice supplanted your preceding rudeness once you gradually metabolised how much damage your incautious reaction could’ve done.

“Aye, aye, darling, as you wish” But John just chuckled, tenderly humouring you, while his forearms jokingly lift in surrender to your commands, although, truth be told, your strange behaviour had left him a bit bewildered, well-nigh confused. Carefully moving backwards, he cockily made himself comfortable on the edge of the double bed, sitting right in front of you with splayed legs, his yearning stare never deflecting from you, and started to unbutton his waistcoat along with his shirt and undershirt, until his statuesque torso was completely nude, in all its glory, as the moon transpired through the curtains and shed its faint rays on his every contour, superbly enhancing all of his muscles.

Without reprieve, he ogled up at you in pure adoration, devastatingly astonished afresh by your dazzling beauty, eager to feel your afire flesh around his, literally hanging on your every word or move, while a provocative smirk steadily rippled his lips. Still, he kept questioning why a seraphic vision like you was slowly withering away in that authentic hell on heart, adamantly squandering your blush of youth amidst that rabble of unrestrained putridity. It made absolutely no sense, and he couldn’t get rid of that pernicious thought haunting his mind ever since he had first seen you: you looked nervous, extremely defensive, almost paralyzed with fear; you seemed so different from all the whores he’d had before, hence his instincts, however obfuscated with cupidity, were screaming that something was wrong. And when he watched you turn your back on him again, so to avoid his penetrating gaze as you reluctantly got undressed, it was enough for him to understand that his execrable hunch was right. Nevertheless, by the time his head managed to eventually reconnect to his mouth, it was already too late, the soft textile of your nightdress ineluctably fell to your feet, leaving you naked under his starving leer.

John choked on his own breath; for the very first time, he felt like a fledgling kid at his earliest experience, no matter if nothing could be further form the truth, in some turbid, cryptic way, you were able to make him vulnerable. His craw went hellishly dry while he continued to gape at you in awe, the sinuous curves of your flawless glutes, the meandering line of your superlatively arched back covered in part by your soft hair, your tensed shoulders and your refined legs, everything about you caused his mind to go entirely black, words stifling in his throat. Yet, as soon as you moved to face him and his sight was blessed with the full view of your voluptuous figure, something altered the light in his cerulean eyes, suddenly making it dark and gloomy. His jaw slightly dropped under the weight of that violent dismay: in conjunction, an obnoxious sense of nausea cruelly shot him in the gut and blind anger virulently assailed him, for your front bust was completely martyrized.

“What the hell...” That unmeant babble died in the gelid air, his shocked orbs demarcating the strokes of your damaged silhouette: your neck and collarbone were horridly plastered with several violet fingerprints, as if someone had mercilessly strangled you over and over, greenish bruises with the shape of full palms circled both your arms, there were conspicuous signs of ligature around your tiny wrists. Worse still, his eyelids had to squeeze a little in order to bring into focus the multiple oxblood dots stigmatizing your soft breasts, until he noticed in horror how those round specks were effectively cigarettes burns; all of the oxygen bluntly withdrew from his lungs, when he dwelled on the multiple blue and black marks barbarically desecrating the protuberances of your ribs. But what irremediably drove him over the edge were the two ghastly scars digging stretched grooves in your lower stomach, in parallel with your bulging pelvic bones and down almost to your livid groin.

Prey of that deleterious humiliation, you observed raw disgust contaminating his features and, with no apparent reason, the dormant hatred you had for yourself began to ferment inside your belly. “I-I’m sorry” you forced yourself to swallow your imminent tears, unexpectedly, the awareness of not being able to please him somehow inflicted more suffering on your mangled soul “If I’m not to your taste, y-you can...” The young man quickly stood up and, before you had the chance to finish your nonsensical sentence, he readily grabbed his shirt, approaching you with dispatch, his cold irises burning with an implausible mixture of fury and concern. “I don’t fucking care right now” His voice was unsteady, rolling down his tongue in fatigued panting, as his hands hastened to wrap his shirt around your shoulders, his trembling fingers struggling to put the buttons through the eyelets “Who did this to you?” In truth, he was talking to himself rather than with you, noticeable impatience worsening his mad tone, yet you persistently steered clear of his inquiring look, more than determined to keep your mouth shut, forasmuch as your dizzy head was already helplessly spinning, along with your heart rabidly hammering against your sore ribcage. You were having a hard time figuring out what was going on, everything around you was so confused, you didn’t even know whether to trust him or not, you only wanted to close your eyes and forget about that lucid nightmare. “I’m not asking you, for fuck’s sake! Tell me who it was!” That searing order tersely brought you back to reality and cleared how easily his rash temper could reemerge; indeed, all of a sudden, no trace was left of that kind, cheerful boy who earlier that night had succeeded in making you genuinely blush, on the contrary, when he cupped your cheeks and vehemently shook you, in a desperate effort to get your attention, his rough, authoritative command unbendingly hit you, and the sweet child within him ended up being thoroughly smothered by the scary, ruthless gangster that he truly was. That unforeseen contact had your feet automatically stagger backwards, your eyes fell to your tiptoes and your teeth started skewering your lower lip, while your exhausted brain resorted to its last ounce of strength, thereby obligating you to spit out a bit of your sorrow. “Three months ago, the man I once called father sold me to settle one of his debts with the Italians” Your thorax seemed to shrink to the point of absurdity once you became aware that it was essentially the first time you allowed yourself to say it all out loud. However, the presence of that compassionate stranger still represented for you a substantial barrier to surmount, leading your unquiet glance to franticly move from the grime on the floor, to the broken window on your left, anywhere, but never daring to meet his. “ I tried to run away, I swear I did, but they always caught me and-”

A large knot callously plugged the bottom of your palate, causing you to hesitate for a minute, gently rubbing your own arms, in attempt to comfort yourself . “Robert has a short fuse, he g-gets pretty brutal when you don’t cooperate” Those disenchanted considerations carried an involuntary grin, it was nothing more than a spasm, but hid the unmistakable sign of an imminent cry, and John’s attentive irises certainly did not let it go unnoticed, yet he chose to stay quiet, because the last thing he would’ve wanted in that crucial moment was to scare you even more. “He beat me to death, each time harder than the time before, and then he let those men-... He-e kept me tied to that bed for days to teach me a lesson” Copious tears were now unremittingly streaming down your flushed face, your heart aching with raw affliction, preventing you from breathing properly, one of your palms instinctively went to cover the space between your breasts, in a vain whirl to ease that excruciating grief. “Oh, God” John simply sighed, he was precariously theetering on the verge of tears as well, thick veins untamedly pumped in the proximity of his temples, till his solid shape ruinously keeled over the longest side of the bed, his elbows piercing his own thighs, as he hid behind his clenched fists and finally permitted himself to indulge a couple of muffled sobs. Innumerable atrocities had clouded his eyes and soul during his brief life, he himself was capable of unspeakable acts of cruelty, still, that was absolutely intolerable, hearing your story was taking a terrible toll on him. Try as he might, he couldn’t conceive how somebody could have been so hopelessly evil, to abuse in such a heinous way a defenseless creature as pure as you were. That thought was irretrievably disturbing him, rancorously eroding his bowels, almost depriving him of his sanity.

“U-until I stopped fighting them” Your last, indescribably anguished whisper struck the fatal blow, it unrelentingly plunged into his chest, sending an unbearable jolt of pain through his poisoned veins. For a brief instant, his expression, together with yours, harshly turned into a mask made of neat despair, as if your synapsis had been ravelled and both of you were enduring the exact same ache, at the exact same moment.

“I’ll fucking kill him!” Then, all at once, something apopletic inside him violently detonated, he berserkly stood up, roughly tripping over the beside table and everything placed on it. “Fucking kill that filthy bastard with my own two hands, bloody hell!” His hoarse yells made your bruised skin cringe and his furious steps covered the whole length of the room in the space of a scant minute; he was literally seething with murderous fits of rage, teeth grinding with irrepressible choler. “No!” your desperate voice erupted afresh and you hurried to reach for him, your hands unconsciously enveloping his cheekbones “Please, please, John, please, stop!” For the first time, his name slipped out of your aching throat in between those pathetic pleads, your wrists forced him to look at you, in attempt to dissuade him from his homicidal purposes; the mere thought of the potential disastrous consequences to his calamitous ire totally asphyxiated you, rampant panic assaulted your frail mind and, soon after, you found yourself hyperventilating and simultaneously rambling a bunch of incoherent words, your fingers gradually tightening their grip on him. “He’s gonna get so angry at me, he’s gonna- he-he’s...” “I’m a fucking Shelby, he does not draw a damn breath unless I say so” He firmly grabbed your chin with just two of his fingers, guiding your depleted pupils to entirely focus on his confident stare, and he growled that undisputable fact a span away from your nose. Petrified by that new awareness, you fell utterly silent, only gawking in his direction, while he put his undershirt back on with ease and rapidly grasped his cap. “Just stay here, do you hear me? Don’t move until I come back” An incandescent kiss was impulsively pressed to your forehead, no other words were spent, before he disappeared behind the door of your private hell. When your persecutor saw his special guest unyieldingly storming towards his desk with a truculent expression exuding fervent disappointment, he jumped on his feet, ready to find a solution to whatever problem had possibly arisen; one thing was sure, he never would’ve guessed what was about to happen. “Mr. Shelby, what’s wron-” John’s fist savagely collided with his jaw, nipping his cloying speech in the bud, without giving Turrini a second to process what was going on, another punch pitilessly smote him, and then another one, and then another, until hot, plenteous blood gushed from his multiple wounds. “You son of a bitch” Animalistic groans left his rabid maws, sheer hate rushing through his brains, as he violently tossed him to the ground, immediately beginning to kick his torso with all of his brute force. “Mercy! I beg of you, sir, have mercy!” His victim’s prayers and harrowing screams barely titillated his ears, everything he could think about was your tragically marred body, hence an unbridled desire to give him a taste of his own medicine completely took over. “Where was your mercy when you were torturing her?” Expertely holding his hat in the most efficient way, in a fury, John went down on his sacrificial lamb, promptly disfiguring just one side of his face, in order to take a quite theatrical pause from his wicked work.

“When she was imploring you to stop?” Robert was now crying out loud, overwhelmed by that merciless agony, reduced to just invoke the glacial scynt of death, since nothing in his entire miserable existence had ever caused him more intense pain, than the coarse perception of a finely sharpened razorblade brutishly lacerating his flesh once more, inch by inch.

“Now bend your ear to this” despite his wrenching laments, John rudely lift him up by seizing the blood stained collar of his jacket “if anyone else but me goes near her fucking room again, I’ll burn this fucking place down!” And with that first, deadly threat the pimp’s head was brutally slammed into the wall, an umpteenth whine of contrition escaping his mouth filled with blood, nevertheless, no time was left for redemption.

“You lay a finger on her again” his skull was doggedly crashed into the bricks once again, a crimson spatter smeared the pale plaster covering them “I will break your neck” John’s knuckles clasped, having his red right hand effectively strenghten its hold on his neck, nearly killing him on the spot. However, fortunately for the whoremaster, Johnny would’ve not put an end to his sufferings, nor he could've simply taken you away, deep inside, he knew he needed to discuss it with his family, first and foremost, with Thomas, for the unstable equilibrium reached by the Peaky Blinder was far too fragile to start a new war against the Italians. Thus, with great difficulty, he forced himself to keep his mind clear and put a lid on his beastly instinct. “From now on, no one of you dirty swines is allowed to even look at her” Throwing him to the floor, the middle Shelby delivered one last kick straight to his fat abdomen, and disrespectfully spit on him, marking with his salt slaver the end of his brutalized prey’s calvary. “By order of the Peaky Blinders” As soon as the crackling door snapped open, your heart seemed to explode, your eyelids bolted with pure fear, whilst you pulled your knees closer to your clavicles, an ancient prayer lingering your lips together with heavy breaths, as you prepared for the worst. But the worst never came. “Y/n, hey, calm down. It’s all right” John’s husky voice echoed in your ears, and, you could’ve sworn it, that was, without the slightest doubt, the most beautiful sound you had ever heard. Your head abruptly tilted in his direction, an oxymoric mixture of fear and hope twinkling into your watery irises, deep pants still rocking your tiny self. “It’s me, it’s just me” Keeping his arms up to indicate his innocuous purpose, he carefully approached you. Almost immediately, you noticed the several scarlet handprints staining his pale top, eloquent sign that he had tried to wipe his palms on that ivory material as best as he could. Yet, you were so profoundly relieved to see his friendly face, that, to be honest, the sight of fresh blood didn’t upset you at all. It was like you had fallen into a fugue state, every single thing around you was so distant, your numb senses were only able to concentrate on John’s lean silhouette kneeling in front of you. “ No one will hurt you anymore, darling” his hands gently went to caress your thighs, while his worried gaze tirelessly sought yours and he spoke those soft, reassuring words “You need to trust me”. And you did want to put all of your faith in that young man. His delicate flair easily awakened you from that ostensible slumber, building a rousing fire inside your belly; without a thought about your unforeseen actions, you threw your arms around his strong neck, your knees producing a dry sound as they collided with the wooden pavement, still you didn’t care and you held him tight, letting out loud cries and drowning into his muscular chest, finally revelling in the feeling of that warm embrace. Soon, he entangled his callous fingers with your velvety locks, subconsciously narrowing his solid shoulders, as to shield your frangible figure from the outside world. “I'll get you out of here soon, I promise”

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purplehairedwonder · 4 years ago

Text

Prodigal Son

Fandom: One Piece Rating: PG-13 Warnings: None Words: 1928 Characters: Donquixote Doflamingo, Trafalgar Law (mentioned), Monet, Baby 5, Trebol, Giolla, Diamante

Summary: It was three years after Rosinante betrayed him and Law disappeared that Doflamingo heard the first rumor of the Ope Ope no Mi.

Read also at A03 / FF.N

It was three years after Rosinante betrayed him and Law disappeared that Doflamingo heard the first rumor of the Ope Ope no Mi. Fresh off his takeover of Dressrosa and in the process of solidifying his position as Shichibukai, Doflamingo kept his ear to the ground for intriguing stories. Joker was a successful underworld broker exactly because he listened to rumors and sifted fact from fiction like panning for gold.

Rumor, Doflamingo had found, was often more valuable than gold.

According to his contact, rumor was circulating among certain circles in the North Blue that someone using the Ope Ope no Mi had defeated an infamous pirate captain, the user of the Dero Dero no Mi. Doflamingo wasn’t particularly interested until—

“Where was this?” he hissed, spine straightening as though he’d used one of his strings.

“I think it was called Pleasure Town,” his contact repeated, voice halting slightly at Doflamingo’s tone. “On some place called, uh, Swallow Island.”

Doflamingo’s hand tightened around the Den Den Mushi, veins in the back of his hand pulsing. Could it be?

Of course, the likeliest scenario was that the boy was long dead on Minion Island. Law would have been weeks, if not days, from death from Amber Lead Disease—not to mention his beating from Vergo. Law hadn’t been on the Marine ship as they’d thought that fateful night, but he must have been nearby when the Birdcage fell; in his state, he couldn’t have gotten far. Even if he had eaten the Ope Ope no Mi as Rosinante said he had, he was unlikely to have mastered the Devil Fruit in time to perform such a delicate operation to save his own life.

No, if this latest rumor was true, this Ope Ope user had most likely eaten the fruit after it regenerated.

Still, Doflamingo considered. He’d gone over the scenarios countless times since that night, looking for any reason to believe the boy was still alive. Law had always been a clever and resourceful kid—there was a reason Doflamingo had offered to train him as his second in command. He did not make such offers lightly; his executives were carefully vetted, and he only kept the very best at his side. And Law…

Law was a survivor.

They had that, among many things, in common; he saw so much of himself in the boy and felt certain he had the potential to turn the world upside down—at Doflamingo’s side, of course.

Eyes flicking to the empty Heart throne, Doflamingo’s frown deepened. It was true the seat hadn’t been filled since Rosinante’s betrayal despite quiet rumblings from the others. That seat, once filled by Vergo and his brother, was meant for Doflamingo’s righthand man. If he was being honest with himself, Doflamingo still expected Law to take the seat as the third Corazon. The boy was his, and Doflamingo didn’t let that which was his go so easily.

Yes, there was a chance—if the smallest of them—that this was Law. Had he survived, Doflamingo mused, he would be sixteen now.

“Monet!” he called after hanging up his call.

“Young Master?” she asked a few minutes later, stepping inside the room and shutting the door behind her as she answered the summons.

“Monet,” Doflamingo greeted, gears already turning as he plotted. “How would you feel about taking a trip to the North Blue for me?”

-----

Doflamingo hadn’t been surprised when Monet had come up empty on Swallow Island. Though her search was thorough, there was no sign of Law. But more interesting to Doflamingo was the reaction of the inhabitants of Pleasure Town once Monet had started asking questions; they had closed ranks tightly, adamantly and without hesitation denying that anyone matching Law’s description had been there at any time. Ever.

He was there. Doflamingo grinned, lips quirking ferally, as Monet reported via Den Den Mushi. He was certain of it. He had been there, and he was the Ope Ope no Mi user who had saved that town. They were protecting him.

Law had survived and he was out there somewhere.

Doflamingo felt that familiar possessive feeling curling behind his breast as he thought about Law being alive. Mine.

-----

Doflamingo could be patient.

Especially when the key to his immortality was out there waiting to be brought home.

-----

Years passed.

The rumors became more frequent: in the North Blue, a pirate using the Ope Ope no Mi was starting to gain a reputation. They called him the Surgeon of Death.

If Doflamingo had any doubts about this being Law (he didn’t), the nickname would have sealed it. It did amuse him, though. The boy always had had a flare for the dramatics.

Doflamingo kept up with the rumors. And he remained patient. Law would come home when it was time to take his rightful place.

They were a Family, after all.

-----

Doflamingo sat at the head of the table by the pool, reading the recently arrived paper, when he heard Baby 5 gasp. He looked up over the newspaper to see the girl—young woman now, he supposed—holding a wanted poster that must have fallen from the paper, her features gone pale.

“Baby 5?” Giolla asked, concerned.

“It’s…” Baby 5 trailed off, blinking surprised tears.

“What is it, girl?” Diamante demanded.

Baby 5 turned the wanted poster around silently.

Doflamingo barely heard the surprised noises as he focused in on face in the poster. The face was older than the last time Doflamingo had seen it—of course it was; against all odds, he’d grown up—but the fiery gold eyes and sharp bone structure were achingly familiar. His fingers itched to touch the skin, to feel the matured features of a boy he’d seen so much promise in, to see what kind of man he had become in his absence.

He was still wearing the hat, Doflamingo realized with a snort.

And that smirk.

Doflamingo’s lips turned up in response. That smirk was as much a part of him as that damn hat.

There were no white patches on his skin. He’d truly cured himself, it seemed. He’d mastered the Ope Ope no Mi.

Trafalgar Law, Surgeon of Death. User of the Ope Ope no Mi, the poster read. It wasn’t a bad bounty for a first timer, though Doflamingo knew Law was worth far more than the beris the World Government had listed. As far as Doflamingo was concerned, Law was priceless.

“He’s alive,” Baby 5 mumbled through quivering lips. She’d always had a soft spot for the boy, no matter how much he glared at her. It had broken her heart to realize Law might never come home after Minion Island.

“Doffy.” Doflamingo blinked and looked over at Diamante, who was frowning at the poster. “It says Law’s Captain of the Heart Pirates.”

Doflamingo threw his head back and roared in laughter.

-----

Later, Trebol frowned over the poster as the executives gathered in the Suit room. “Ne, Doffy. This is treason.” The unsaid, You know how we deal with traitors hung on the air.

Doflamingo waved a dismissive hand. “The boy is finding himself.”

The other executives looked skeptical, but Doflamingo ignored them. Law was still the Family’s—still Doflamingo’s. Even years away wouldn’t change that hold they held on him.

“Should we bring him back?” Diamante asked finally after exchanging looks with Trebol and Pica.

“No need. He’ll come to us.”

“You think so?”

Doflamingo’s gaze lingered on the unoccupied Heart throne. “Everyone comes home eventually.”

-----

When Law’s bounty hit 200,000,000 beris, Doflamingo raised a glass of wine in his honor. He always knew the boy had it in him, especially if any of the rumors were true about why his bounty was rising at the rate it was. It seemed they still had much in common.

They were calling him one of the eleven supernova, super rookies with bounties over 100,000,000 beris. Doflamingo couldn’t think of a better description for Trafalgar Law. Even as a child, he’d burned bright—a cosmic explosion of grief and rage contained in a tiny, sick body.

Doflamingo wanted to see everything he would do now that he was grown. He wanted.

-----

Doflamingo realized in hindsight that he shouldn’t have been surprised Law was present at his auction house in Sabaody on that infamous afternoon. After keeping a low profile for years in the North Blue, Law seemed to have thrown caution to the wind once he’d entered the Grand Line as he acted on his more… theatrical impulses—ones Doflamingo had always appreciated. His presence at one of Doflamingo’s businesses might as well have been a flashing sign that Law would soon be returning home. The auction house was a bust anyway, with Doflamingo’s business interests turning elsewhere. It served its last purpose by giving him an update on the boy he was waiting for.

By all reports, Law had overwhelmed the Marine forces that surrounded the auction house alongside two other flashy rookies. He drank in every version of story he could of that fight, picking apart every detail of how the boy had mastered the Ope Ope no Mi.

It was thrilling.

Yes, Doflamingo knew he’d been right about the boy all along. He couldn’t wait to get his hands on him again.

Mine.

-----

He didn’t hear until after the battle was over that Law had appeared at Marineford and rescued Monkey D. Luffy and Jimbei. The only reason he didn’t turn his fury on Kizaru for targeting a member of his Family was that Law had apparently escaped (of course). It was weeks later, but he and that garish yellow submarine of his had been spotted again and his bounty only continued to rise.

Akainu was furious.

Doflamingo cackled.

-----

Rocky Port…

Well, Doflamingo only wished he could have been there.

He couldn’t wait for Law to come home. It wouldn’t be long; he could feel it.

-----

Doflamingo let out a bark of surprised laughter when he heard that Law was being appointed Shichibukai. His lips curled upward as he listened to the details about Law’s stunt of bringing one hundred beating pirate hearts to the Marines.

The boy had truly learned his lessons well.

At only 26, Law would be the youngest pirate to ever hold the title of Warlord.

And, Doflamingo considered with a growing smile, it meant that two members of the Family now held the position. For pirate captain and his second-in-command to be Shichibukai… Well, the Donquixote Family was already feared across the Blues. The opportunities this could provide would be… inexhaustible. SMILE would be the tip of the iceberg.

And yet… Doflamingo could feel the tendrils of doubt taking root in the back of his mind. For years, Law had kept his head down in the North Blue, somehow avoiding Doflamingo’s reach. Doflamingo could explain that away as the boy, who always had an independent streak a mile wide, making his own way on the seas—a sentiment Doflamingo respected. But since entering the Grand Line over three years earlier, Law hadn’t shied away from notoriety.

He also hadn’t reached out to the Family, though he undoubtedly knew they were aware of his… activities. He knew the type of Family they were and that they would be waiting for him.

That the Heart seat was waiting for him.

Doflamingo didn’t like having doubts about that which was his.

And Law had been his since he was 10 years old.

-----

“Young Master, someone showed up on Punk Hazard today…”

#Caitlin's fic #One Piece #One Piece fanfiction #Donquixote Doflamingo #Trafalgar Law

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sugarless--girl · 4 years ago

Text

Tender Hearted Fools

Tanjirou has been hit by a demon blood art that slowly freezes his heart. Zenitsu melts it.

This was done for a Zentan Secret Santa exchange over at the 'Gentle Scent and Sound' server! It came out way longer than I intended it to be tbh. I was hurrying to finish this but it just. Kept. Building.

Well, I got it done anyhow. Unfortunately, I did not get it beta-read so apologies for any mistakes. I suck at catching my own errors so it's entirely possible I have quite a few in there. Even so, I hope it's a good read!

This was done for Lisfranc over there! I hope you enjoy it, hun!

Read on Ao3

Tanjirou didn’t know how long he had been sitting there. The demon was long gone by now but her word’s rang clearly in his head.

“I’ll make sure you regret this! Even through my death—you took what was most important from me and now—! Now I’m going to make sure you’ll never feel anything again for the rest of your life!”

He had felt sorry for her—the tears in her red eyes had caused him to pause momentarily, causing her to get an attack in. It hadn’t hurt and that was what scared him the most.

What had the demon hit him with?

The thought lingered in his head as he slumped into a sitting position. And then he stayed there.

***

His chest burned. It felt like hours. Why wasn’t he moving?

Tanjirou tried to move his fingers and they cooperated, albeit slower than he would’ve preferred. It was discomfiting. There was a chill creeping through his body that felt colder than the snow surrounding him.

But the environment didn’t help either. The wet snowflakes that fell on his skin stung. It hurt. Why did it hurt?

Tanjirou needed to get back. Nezuko was waiting for him. But would she be upset to see him give up so easily at a bit of cold? Would she hate him? The piercing chill hurt his chest even more.

What would the others think? How would they react?

Shinobu’s scent of anger would turn toward him. Inosuke would yell at him and regard him as weak. Kanao would disregard him coldly and perhaps simply say nothing. Zenitsu would…

Would Zenitsu be disappointed in him if he laid here forever?

“Get up, idiot! Don’t fall asleep in the snow!”

The frigidness eased up. Tanjirou moved forward.

***

Tanjirou would stop every now and then when the frosty chill stopped him. Somehow thinking about disappointing others would make the ice in his heart grow more pronounced. He would touch his chest every now and then found it freezing. Was it all in his mind or was it real?

Thus, he decided not to think of the others.

Instead he thought of Zenitsu. Zenitsu with his bright smile, his obvious delight when complimented, his strong thighs that came from perfecting his Thunder Breath, his lovely yellow eyes, his—his—

And suddenly Tanjirou was running back to the Butterfly manor. A laugh startled from him once he realized that the cold had receded within him.

(Now, why was it that the thought of Zenitsu solved his problem?)

***

“So, you’re saying you can move now? Despite being unable to move before?” The skepticism was clear in Shinobu’s tone. “Were you doing anything in particular before you dealt with the demon blood art?”

Tanjirou scratched his neck. Zenitsu and Inosuke were hovering nearby, both clearly worried on his behalf.

“Not really? I mean, I was thinking of Zenitsu but—”

“What?!” Zenitsu’s voice rang loud in the clinic.

“Gonpachirou, what did that demon lady look like? The Great Inosuke will defeat her for you!”

Aoi smacked the two of them. “God, shut up both of you! Shinobu-sama, do you want me to kick them out? I’ll kick them out.”

Shinobu didn’t appear to pay the three of them any mind. “You—you thought of Zenitsu? Huh.” She leaned back and looked over him with an assessing eye. Her gentle smile was gone and instead an expression of intrigue was in place.

“I—yeah. Is that weird?”

“Wh-what does that even mean?” Zenitsu’s face had a pink tint to it and Tanjirou couldn’t help but admire how it lit up his features. The smell of mortification wafted from him and he only felt a bit sorry that he had embarrassed his friend in such a way.

“It depends. Do you mind telling me about the demon once more? I believe I may have heard of her before.”

Tanjirou nodded. “Okay, well she wore...”

***

Shinobu thoughtfully tapped her chin as Tanjirou finished the description of the woman. Zenitsu watched him with wide, terrified eyes (he hated seeing his friend in distress). Aoi struggled to keep her annoyed expression on but her worried scent gave away her true thoughts. And Inosuke—well the boar head didn’t show much but his scent had vague hints of protectiveness and a whole lot of competitiveness.

It warmed him to see that his friends were still who they were. That they still cared.

(Why wouldn’t they?)

“I’ve heard of this demon before. I believe she terrorized many humans before the Demon Corps got involved. From that point on, she hid so that she wouldn’t encounter any of us.” Shinobu got up and walked to grab some medical supplies. “From what I’ve heard, her demon blood art is a slow-acting one. It slowly kills those that have been hit with it.”

“So Tanjirou’s gonna die?” Zenitsu worried his lips. The pink tongue that darted out distracted Tanjirou momentarily but Shinobu pulled his attention back once more.

“Possibly. It all depends whether or not we kill the demon first. Or—” Shinobu hesitated. “There’s a back-up option based on the rumors I’ve heard. It’s turned into a bit of a legend actually.”

“Legend?” Tanjirou prompted.

Shinobu placed the medical supplies next to him with pursed lips before quickly plastering on her typical smile. “Well, let’s not rely on any myths, okay? I’ll send out Inosuke and Kanao to take care of the demon. The two of them should be able to handle it!”

“What about Monitsu! He’s strong when he’s asleep!”

“There are so many things wrong with what you just said! First of all—”

“I’ll have to keep Zenitsu around for...well, backup. There’s a couple things I need to test.” Shinobu’s smile was mysterious and her scent lost a bit of the anger before intensifying. Tanjirou didn’t know where her anger was directed at. Toward the demon? Or...toward him?

The chill started creeping back in.

“Shinobu-sama, should I help with you on the tests and such?” Aoi said, pulling Tanjirou out of his strange thoughts once more.

“Ah, yes. I’d appreciate that. Aoi. Now, off you go, Inosuke-kun! Kanao should be out in the front!” Shinobu said, smiling at the boy with a board head. She turned back to Tanjirou. “Now then, shall we get some tests done?”

***

Inosuke and Kanao were gone. Tanjirou didn’t know why he knew this but as he laid in bed with a dull ache ringing through his chest, he figured it had to do something with the blood demon art that he was stuck with.

No one was left in the infirmary. Shinobu insisted on keeping him under observation for a few days longer. Truthfully, Tanjirou felt guilty even taking up her time.

Useless.

The coldness of his inner thoughts shocked him. He blinked his eyes open and sat up on his bed. The room was dark and cold. So cold. Was it always this cold?

The warm glow coming from underneath the door seemed even more distant than usual. Tanjirou wanted to get up and go to it but he couldn’t. His body felt too heavy. The chill brought up an impervious tiredness within him. It felt impossible to fight.

He fell back onto his bed and slept fitfully.

***

Tanjirou awoke to a chill seeping through his bones, into his very core being. He shivered but the slight movement wasn’t enough to affect any of the despairing cold he felt then and there.

He heard whispering. Or rather whispered shouting. “—You need to trust Shinobu-sama! And me! She wouldn’t make you do something you absolutely didn’t have to.” That sounded a lot like Aoi and Tanjirou only confirmed moments later with his nose. For some reason, his sense of smell was dulled greatly. It was disconcerting.

“I do!” That was definitely Zenitsu. He could smell the distinct scent of peaches and peach blossoms that belonged to the lightning user. “And don’t like—you’d absolutely make me do something I didn’t have to do, just to have one up on me!”

“Okay, but this isn’t a situation I’m trying to be petty—”

“So, you admit it!”

“Shut up, idiot!” Aoi and Zenitsu both smelled tense. Tanjirou, still groggy from the sleep and chill, tried to piece together the situation. “You need to trust that I’m not trying to get back at you or something equally stupid. This isn’t the time for that.”

“But, I—”

“I know that none of this is…good.” Zenitsu let out a snort but Aoi seemed to forge on ahead. “—but Shinobu-sama believes this will save Tanjirou.”

Save him?

Zenitsu let out a frustrated sigh. “Are you sure that the demon can’t—”

“Inosuke and Kanao are doing their best on the mission. But just in case—don't give me that look! Just in case worse comes to worse, you have to do your part. You want to help Tanjirou, don’t you?”

“...God, you’re sounding more and more like Shinobu-sama everyday.”

“I’ll take that as a compliment.” The tension seemed to diffuse from the room and Tanjirou opened his eyes figuring it to be the right time to enter the conversation.

The two stood near the doorway to the medical center. Early morning light filtered through the windows, casting delicate shadows. Tanjirou was sorry to be bundled up in his blankets as his favorite thing to see was the light weave through Zenitsu’s blonde hair. They looked especially luminescent in the morning hours. But the chill gripped him and he stayed in bed under many layers of blankets.

“Aoi, I don’t know if I can do this.” Zenitsu sounded so defeated. Tanjirou wanted to scoop him up and bundle him in his own blankets. Perhaps cuddle with him near a fire.

“You can and you will.” Aoi sounded confident at least.

“Do what?” Tanjirou asked, breaking into the conversation. It was best to let them know he had been eavesdropping after all. He hadn’t meant to let it continue this long but the grogginess of waking up and the coldness crawling through his veins made him slow to react.

Zenitsu let out a shriek that earned a yelp of surprise from Aoi. The girl smacked Zenitsu on the arm (she could only reach up there when they both were standing upright) in retaliation.

“T-tanjirou! How much did you hear?”

“Tanjirou, how are you feeling?” Aoi said, cutting off Zenitsu as she went to Tanjirou’s side. She laid a hand on his forehead, withdrawing it almost immediately. “Wow, you’re—”

“Cold.” Tanjirou said, punctuating it with a weak laugh. “I think this is the demon blood art—”

“I was there yesterday, too, you know.” Aoi said, making her way to the medical equipment stored in the cabinets. As she prepared for the tests, Zenitsu made his way to Tanjirou’s cot. The brunette didn’t want to leave the relative warmth of his blankets (relative, as it was hardly enough) but he put out a hand for Zenitsu, regardless.

The young blonde man only hesitated for a moment, before taking it. He winced at the icy grip of Tanjirou’s fingers but didn’t pull away. For that, Tanjirou shot him a smile.

Zenitsu looked even more upset.

“Are you okay?” He asked which seemed to upset Zenitsu even more.

“Am I okay?! I should be asking you that! Shinobu-sama said that you’re suffering from some fucked up revenge curse from the demon!”

“I mean, I think it’s just a blood art thing? But it should be taken care of once Inosuke and Kanao capture her.”

Zenitsu’s eyes fell. “You heard us.” He sounded stricken.

“J-just a little. I heard that you have to do something and those two went to take care of the demon in the meantime. I’m really sorry about that. I promise, I’ll try to be more careful next time.” Tanjirou clutched and Zenitsu’s hands more tightly and felt a gentle squeeze back in return.

“Alright...that’s fine I guess. But, Tanjirou—! Aren’t you—! Isn’t it—!” None of his statements followed through but Tanjirou waited patiently all the same.

“I’m fine, Zenitsu.” The blonde shot him a murderous glare. Tanjirou could only laugh as Zenitsu’s glare was really adorable. Like a kitten trying to look scary—the lightning user was only ever intimidating in battle. And even then, that was more cool than anything. “Okay, okay, I’m not totally fine. But Shinobu-sama will figure it out, right? If not her, then Kanao and Inosuke will deal with the demon and that should solve whatever ‘curse’ thing I’m stuck with.”

Zenitsu didn’t look convinced. Instead, his scent seemed to grow more distressed.

Tanjirou frowned. He hated seeing the other stress. (Although, Zenitsu constantly stressed about everything, so really, Tanjirou was asking for a lot here.)

“Alright, sit up.” Aoi said, interrupting whatever Zenitsu was about to say. He looked relieved and disappointed all at once. “Let’s run some tests and then get some food in you. Sound good?”

“Yeah, I’m fine with that. As long as it’s, ah, warm?”

“Way ahead of you. Zenitsu, are you staying?” Aoi shot the other boy with a significant look. Zenitsu dithered before pulling a chair beside Tanjirou’s bedside.

Strange. Aoi hated it when Zenitsu (and Inosuke) hovered over her shoulder as she did her work. But Tanjirou wasn’t going to question it, now. Not when Zenitsu’s company appeared to help him fight the chill. Or maybe the cold had all been in his mind? That certainly was a possibility.

Either way, Zenitsu’s company was...nice. And Tanjirou appreciated it.

He shot Zenitsu a beaming smile, ignoring the icy grip on his heart. Zenitsu returned it, albeit weaker than usual. Strange that Tanjirou’s heart stuttered at that.

***

Tanjirou woke up with a start. He was freezing. He had been sleeping so much. He was just so cold.

The dream lingered in his mind even after he shook the grogginess away. Usually they slipped by fast. But this time it felt as though it was impossible to shake off.

“How about I show you what betrayal I faced? The unrequited feelings I dealt with? I didn’t deserve any of this! And yet—I’m still here!” The demon’s words prior to her attack rang in Tanjirou’s head, loud and clear. The pain was evident in her cold features. But it was her following words that were the most notable to the demon slayer.

“You won’t be able to feel anything after I’m through with you! Nothing will save you from my blood art! Not even a lover’s touch!”

Had she said that? Why couldn’t he remember?

What was happening?

“Tanjirou?” Zenitsu entered the room. “Are you alright? I heard a—”

“I’m fine!”

Zenitsu smiled and cold grew even more pronounced.

“A-are you sure? You know you can tell me anything…”

“I know, I know. I didn’t mean to make you worry.” Tanjirou sighed. “I just woke up from a nightmare. I don’t—I don’t really know what to make of it.”

“What was it about?” Zenitsu said, stepping closer. Tanjirou smiled.

“Um, it’s a bit depressing? Maybe—”

“You don’t have to talk about it! I was just giving you the option!” Zenitsu came to sit beside Tanjirou’s bed. With him so close, Tanjirou could feel the warmth of his proximity. Were lightning-breath users normally this warm? Electricity burned stuff, right?

“Thanks Zenitsu! But really, I’d rather not linger on it you know?” The dream had been disconcerting. “Why don’t you tell me about your day instead?”

“Are you sure?” The worry was evident on Zenitsu’s face. Tanjirou wanted to brush away the stress lines that were already forming. He didn’t want his friend to worry so much. “I mean, if you wanna hear about Aoi bullying me then alright.”

“It’s more interesting than what I’ve been doing.” Tanjirou said with an easy smile. It was odd at how he was able to smile despite the nightmare he had just felt.

“Okay, so Aoi thinks that my hair is fake so she—”

Tanjirou felt lighter than ever listening to Zenitsu’s story. But something still tugged at his heart.

***

Tanjirou woke up.

It was starting to get tiring to wake up to a dead coldness in his bones. He hoped Inosuke and Kanao could make their expedition faster as the chill was getting more and more unbearable.

He couldn’t muster it in him to move until the scent of peaches hit his nose. How did he notice it before?

“Zenitsu?” He called out, voice quiet. It was becoming difficult to get a grasp on the time due to how much he was sleeping. He could differentiate between day and night but it was difficult to tell what time it actually was.

The room was dark and he could barely make out the silhouette of his friend. Zenitsu’s head appeared to be slumped over on the bed covers, his arms serving as pillows. Tanjirou could barely make out the blonde hair but he reached out and touched it.

It felt soft. It shouldn’t have come as a surprise to him—Zenitsu took care of himself pretty well. Perhaps he expected the jagged locks to feel harsh due to the way it was cut but that clearly wasn’t the case. Something tight in him unfurled as Zenitsu let out a puff of air, snuggling into the bed covers.

Tanjirou moved, ready to pull Zenitsu into his bed—surely it wasn’t comfortable sleeping like this—and winced. God, it hurt. It hurt so much.

The inner corners of his eyes pricked with involuntary tears of pain. He gritted his teeth as an icy sharpness kept hammering at his chest.

He didn’t realize how shallow his breathing was until he felt an arm on his back stroking him. “Breath, Tanjirou. Come on, you know how to do it. Breath with me.”

“I—” But Tanjirou couldn’t choke out any more words.

The arm on him drew back and Tanjirou felt even colder.

“Tanjirou, c-can I—” Zenitsu began, waiting for permission that Tanjirou didn’t understand. Somehow he just felt hurt.

Tanjirou clutched at his chest when he felt the bed shift. He felt arms encircle him and Zenitsu pulled Tanjirou’s head to rest against his chest. He could smell the scent of embarrassment wafting off of him but Zenitsu held him tight.

Being in his arms was like being inside a kotetsu. Or taking a warm bath. Or coming back home. It felt like all of those things and more.

The room was quiet. Until Zenitsu coughed. “U-um, does this help?”

Tanjirou blinked. The sharpness in his chest receded. “Yes? I mean, it does. Huh.” He pulled back and immediately winced, the pain coming back immediately.

“Wait, hold on!” Zenitsu moved to settle in the bed next to Tanjirou and pulled him back in his arms once he was positioned comfortably. “Shinobu-sama said that, uh, cuddling helps?”

“Really?”

“T-the legends, say that you know….”

“What do they say?” He wished he had heard of the legends prior to meeting the demon. Maybe he should’ve done more reconnaissance in the area before he decided to fight her.

“Well, um, that being close to people helps?” Zenitsu’s voice sounded unsure. If that didn’t give it away, his scent held a tinge of deception beneath it. Tanjirou wrinkled his nose. It wasn’t an intolerable smell, but it felt….wrong coming from Zenitsu. “Do you feel better?”

“...yeah, actually. Did Shinobu-sama tell you anything else about the legend? Why didn’t she tell me?”

“You were sleeping! It would’ve been bad to disturb you!”

That sounded too much like an excuse and it was apparent that both of them were aware of this as Zenitsu brushed it aside and moved ahead.

“Anyway! You should go back to sleep. Shinobu-sama said that conserving your energy was the most important thing to do while we wait on Inosuke and Kanao. And don’t argue with me!”

“I wasn’t going to.” Tanjirou said with a slight chuckle. It was muffled as he circled his arms around Zenitsu’s waist. God, he was so warm. “I promise, I’m doing my best to rest. It’s just—well, everything just feels so cold, you know?”

“...I’m sorry you’re dealing with this on your own. I should’ve been there to—!”

“Hey, hey, hey, what’s this about? I was sent on a mission and I got caught up in it. It’s not like you could’ve predicted my failure.” Even as he said this, he felt a sharp stabbing sensation in his chest.

“Tanjirou? Are you—?”

“Hold on.” Tanjirou muttered. He slowed his breathing until the pain receded. His breath helped him focus on Zenitsu’s peach blossom scent which centered and anchored him.

They continued to clutch each other—Tanjirou, like a man hanging onto a life raft, and Zenitsu, terrified and shaken.

“Y-your heart. It sounds….muffled. I mean, your sound is always so—it’s always there but this time it’s not and-and it’s just so—”

Zenitsu was truly scared for him. This shouldn’t have warmed Tanjirou so much but it did all the same.

“I’m sorry—”

“Why are you apologizing! Stupid Tanjirou!”

“But, I am! I didn’t mean to worry you!”

“You’re not worrying me, idiot!”

“But, I can smell it on you?”

“Didn’t I tell you to stop smelling me?? Why do you keep doing things like this!”

“Sorry, sorry!” Tanjirou said, punctuating his apology with a laugh.

“Hmph.” Zenitsu pouted but he pulled Tanjirou closer all the same. “I’m not going to forgive you until you learn to take better care of yourself.”

“Alright, I’ll be more careful next time.”

“You’d better be! You can’t leave Nezuko-chan behind with your carelessness! Who’s supposed to take care of her if you die? Me and Inosuke?? We don’t know how to take care of girls! Inosuke would probably teach her all the wrong things! And Shinobu-sama is too busy! Kanao and Aoi maybe but...” Zenitsu began muttering under his breath how well of job Kanao and Aoi would do, coming to the conclusion that no would take care of Nezuko as well as Tanjirou did.

Tanjirou blinked. When had Zenitsu changed his song from ‘marrying Nezuko and taking care of her’ to just ‘taking care of her?’

“You don’t want to marry her, anymore?” He blurted out, unable to keep the surprise from his tone.

Zenitsu stopped and stared at Tanjirou, eyes wide. “You—what? You think I still….like Nezuko-chan?”

“Yes?” The two continued to stare at each other before Zenitsu snorted and flopped back onto the bed, taking Tanjirou with him.

“I shouldn’t be surprised but I am.” Zenitsu sighed. “I don’t like Nezuko like that anymore. I mean, she’s great and all but…”

“But what?”

“...nevermind. Anyway, Tanjirou! It’s time for you to sleep!”

“I wanna hear the rest of what you were about to say!”

“Who says I have more to say??”

“Don’t you?”

“Just go to sleep Tanjirou!” Tanjirou stared. Zenitsu was underneath him and Tanjirou’s chin was on the other boy’s chest. “W-what?”

“Are you gonna stay?” The stinging sensation in his chest sharpened but not so much it was unbearable.

“I-I, yeah. If that’s okay with you?” Zenitsu appeared strangely shy all of sudden. But Tanjirou wasn’t about to make him feel self-conscious all of a sudden.

“Absolutely. Do you wanna talk or—”

“Sleep, Tanjirou!” Zenitsu huffed, a bit of fire returning to him. Tanjirou wished there was more light so he could see the golden sparks in his eyes. “You need to rest!”

“Okay, okay.” Tanjirou conceded, moving to get comfortable. Zenitsu didn’t let go of him once. It should’ve occurred to how odd it was to cuddle with a friend like this but it felt so natural, so right that he didn’t bother to stop and think. Why would he when it all felt like a dream?

They were both on their sides, Tanjirou with his arms around Zenitsu’s waist and the other boy’s arms around his shoulder’s cradling Tanjirou to his chest. It felt warm. It felt right.

“Night, Zenitsu.”

“...Night, Tanjirou.”

***

Tanjirou woke up. It was freezing. He bolted up as a piercing sting shot through his chest.

God, he was so tired of this. How many times over was this going to happen to him? When would Inosuke and Kanao finish the demon off? Was he becoming more callous with time?

“Tanjirou?” Zenitsu mumbled. He rubbed his eyes and squinted, trying to make out Tanjirou’s expression through the cutting darkness.

Tanjirou couldn’t speak. He could barely even breath. Even his breathing techniques weren’t helping him here. Real panic was crawling up his skin and pinpricks of cold sweat dotted his pores.

“Tanjirou?” Zenitsu said, louder now. He got up and took Tanjirou’s icy hands into his. “What’s wrong? Your hands are freezing!”

“I-I—”

“Can you—what’s—” Zenitsu’s anxiety was contagious. Normally, it wasn’t—Tanjirou could easily balance out Zenitsu’s neuroticism—but this time he felt every single emotion the blonde was facing.

“Zen—” He could barely make out another word before Zenitsu took his face and kissed him.

Immediately, the bitter cold subsided.

Tanjirou let out a gasping breath, trying to suck in as much air as possible. He pulled back and stared at Zenitsu incredulously. “Zenitsu, wh—”

“It’s because of the legends!” Zenitsu’s face was now beet red. “The legends are, you know…..”

Tanjirou continued to stare, gobsmacked.

Zenitsu looked up through his lashes. The beginning of light was making its way into the infirmary. It wasn’t coming fast enough as Tanjirou wanted to drink Zenitsu's every expression. His heart was pounding fast, the rhythm seemingly melting whatever demonic curse was cast on him.

The glacial presence in his chest no longer seemed to be chipping away at him. Tanjirou didn’t even pay attention to whatever numbness was left.

“What—” Tanjirou licked his lips, chasing the taste of Zenitsu before continuing. “What legends?”

“Shinobu-sama said that-that the demon, she—” Zenitsu appeared unable to parse through his thoughts but Tanjirou wasn’t about to interrupt him. He wanted to know what that kiss had meant. “T-the legends say that she terrorized people because she lost someone she loved. And because she’s a huge romantic, or whatever, the only thing that could break her curse is a loved one’s kiss, or whatever. Personally, I think a condition is dumb—”

“You love me?”

“I—Tanjirou!”

“Y-you said, true love’s kiss could break the curse and—”

“I said a loved one’s kiss! That’s not the same!”

“But do you—do you love me?” Tanjirou could barely get the words out. He was terrified.

“I—I guess….”

“You guess? You’re not sure?”

“Okay fine! I like you!” Zenitsu glared at him but it was somewhat ineffective due to the sheer embarrassment radiating off of him. “I….sorta even, maybe, love you.”

Tanjirou stared, hardly believing his luck.

This didn’t seem real. He didn’t feel deserving of this. Zenitsu, shouldn’t have—He didn’t realize he’d ever be given something so precious like this. But, all the same...

“Wh—Tanjirou! Why are you crying?” Zenitsu flailed, worry obviously etched onto his face.

“I’m not sad, don’t worry.” Tanjirou said, rubbing away the sudden tears. It had been unexpected and caught him off-guard. But he felt relieved all the same.

The ice frozen around his heart was fully gone. It didn’t register to Tanjirou, at least not consciously. He just felt...fulfilled.

“I thought—” Zenitsu started but Tanjirou cut him off with a quick kiss.

He pulled back, almost immediately. “Sorry, sorry! I couldn’t help it! Was that okay? I should’ve asked.”

Now it was Zenitsu’s turn to look shocked. “I—I just confessed to you! And now you’re asking me if it’s okay to kiss me?”

“Well, it’s important to ask for permission. Right?” Tanjirous asked with a teasing smile. Zenitsu just pursed his lips.

“Okay but are you accepting it or—?”

“I like you too, Zenitsu. I like you a lot, actually. It’s probably love but I’m not too sure.”

“Not too sure??” Zenitsu looked a mix of annoyed and pleased. “What do you mean you’re not too sure??”

“I mean, it just occurred to me that what I felt for you was, well, romantic. I guess, I didn’t connect the dots until you mentioned it.”

Zenitsu just stared. “So, you just figured it out…?”

“Uh, I think so?” Tanjirou let out a self-conscious laugh. “I mean, I thought you liked Nezuko this whole time! So, I guess I just didn’t let myself...feel for you in that way. But it’s okay! It happened anyway!”

“...You are unbelievable.”

“Is that a good thing?”

Zenitsu simply answered him with a kiss.

#zentan #zenitsu agatsuma #kamado tanjirō #demon slayer #kimetsu no yaiba #kny #not too sure what else to tag this tbh #love confessions #god this was hard to write but I'm glad I got it done

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soobadnoonecanstopher · 5 years ago

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The Price of Privilege - Part 13 (A Kyungsoo Series)

Genre: ANGST / Romance / Arranged Marriage / Royalty AU

Characters: Kyungsoo X You

Description: The time has come to marry the man your family has selected to take your hand. As royalty, these important matters are arranged for you, but when you meet your soon to be husband, he is nothing like you expected.

WARNINGS: Kidnapping, Mentions of Suicide, Mentions of Self-Harm, Mentions of Murder -- When i say angst, i really do mean angst

The Price of Privilege [M]: - part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4, part 5, part 6, part 7, part 8 , part 9 , part 10 , part 11, part 12 , part 13 , part 14, part 15

You were burning.

And you were running.

A fire had begun somewhere within your depths and your ragged breaths fanned the flames that licked at the base of your skull by now; burning and singeing and blistering; they had already made they way up your weakened ribcage as they rose up higher — it was panic. It was conviction. It was hideous.

You were alight with it and in its wake —charred, sooty, black ash began to fill your chest cavity.

You were burning.

He was gone.

Each hallway you searched came up empty of his face. The other faces, faces of strangers with their useless surprised expressions and their unfamiliar eyes that were not his.

You mindlessly ran with your search and that fiery dread inside of you devoured the structure of your bones and the faster you ran; the less you saw — the panic was taking you — he was gone, he was gone —

Where could he have gone? Gone with those devastating words on his lips and that determined and desperate look in his eyes that told you with absolute certainty that he was capable...that he was capable…

Something horrible.

What would he do? What could he do?

Another empty hallway. Your panic had taken your rational mind and thrown it away and you groaned out loud when you recognized the same ornate golden bust that stood atop of a marble pillar at the end of this hallway.

You’d gone in circles. You didn’t even know where you stood nor for how long you had been searching.

The fire inside of you was beginning to change from something that burned and ached into something else. Something that was hopeless. Something you could not overcome.

The hands that you ran over your face felt like someone else’s. They were shaking so hard.

You could not feel their pressure against your wet cheeks.

You could not feel any warmth in them at all.

Think.

Just think, please—

Your lungs fought you, but you managed to pull in a deep breath. Something substantial. Something that brought a flash of clarity into your mind that quickly faded into the background of all the chaos inside of you and you lifted a numb and trembling hand up, parallel to your face — just before you lost the nerve.

The flash was a memory. Something that you had lived through before. When the realities of your life overcame and you mistakenly believed that you were allowed to forget. When you could not control yourself and act correctly. When you failed to behave as a member of the royal family and you were reminded again and again of the importance of playing your part well.

Reminded by your tutors. Reminded by your instructors who had been given and taken as many liberties as needed to shape you into the Princess you were always meant to be. Reminded with hot, heavy hands and in places that would be hidden well by designer clothing — reminded of your place; of what was expected of you.

How absolutely silly of you to think that you could get away with this sort of behavior; so unbecoming of the title bestowed upon you by God himself; so uncouth; so graceless and so ill-bred.

Without the swift hands of someone who held some temporarily ordained power over you, you had to do it yourself.

You hit hard; an echoing slap sounded out in the space around your burning body and a pair of eyes — a stranger; not him — turned at the shock of the heavy sound as the pain erupted over the entire right side of your face and you felt it. You felt the sting of the swift slap. You felt the burning in your skin and much deeper into your muscles and your jaw and you ached as the vibration of the impact settled and lingered there.

You felt shocked awake. It felt so familiar; this pain to set you right again.

Your once hazy and stupid brain sharpened and you forced your hands to still themselves of this absurd trembling and you remembered now.

Rushing around this palace in aimless circles would do no good. Only a fool would approach this situation that way. Only a crude individual would act in such an untoward manner.

You had to find him. If not him, then someone who was close to him. An ally. Not your own; you had too few precious friends in this place, but someone who would bend over backward to help Prince Kyungsoo. To save him from himself if needed. Someone who he wouldn’t push away. Someone who could get to him.

Someone who loved him.

With your newfound steady mind, you found a touch of the familiar in your surroundings. There was a haunting painting on the wall. This one showed a beautiful maiden; perhaps someone important from the history books. Her eyes followed you as you walked by. She had so much judgment in them. With each step you crept her eyes brought a fresh wave of guilt for your many sins. You were certain she knew of all of them. She’d have had a front-row seat to it all.

A turn to the left would bring you to a fork and a right after the second set of picture windows overlooking the courtyard would bring you to Kyungsoo’s hallway; to his front door.

The first set of swift knocks you placed upon his door went unanswered. When you pounded a second time, louder and with more urgency, you heard a sound on the other side of his doorway that preceded the beeping of an alarm system being deactivated and the door pulled open.

From what you knew about the man and the very little trust he placed in people, there was only one person other than himself who would be opening this door.

“Ara.” You said her name as soon as her eyes met yours and her head bowed quickly as a look of surprise flashed over her features.

“Your Highness, what brings—”

“Is Prince Kyungsoo inside?”

There was but a moment of pause in her eyes before she glanced over your appearance and her expression changed from idle curiosity to genuine worry. You hadn’t even thought about how you might look. Your tear-stained face and loose sweats hastily thrown on after dinner when Kyungsoo showed up at your place to demand his painful truths. Her head was shaking back and forth quickly and her lips hung open for a moment as she considered.

“He...was, but he left — has something happened? Something…bad?” Her voice was small and unsure and you couldn’t be certain that she wasn’t whispering due to the sensitive nature of the situation or if she was just that quiet all the time.

You could feel your mouth wanting to close. Wanting to clam up and deny any wrong-doing; any culpability in this. You wanted to keep everything deep down inside and turn around and go back, but you straightened your shoulders and lifted your head, leaning in close to the smaller woman who stood halfway through the doorway of his home.

Kyungsoo. For him, you would talk to her. He trusted her completely and there had to be a good reason for that.

“Ara, I need to speak with you urgently. It’s about His Highness.” Your own voice had dropped to a whisper to match her quiet voice and you eked out the subject of the discussion in a nearly inaudible tone.

She physically stiffened and her eyes glanced away from you, somewhere off in the hallway where when you followed her eyes you saw a ceiling-mounted camera.

“I am sorry, Your Highness, but I don't believe I could be of any help to you.”

At last, she spoke up. You knew it was for the cameras that monitored this hallway and you wondered who might be listening in.

“Ara, I think something bad—”

“I beg your pardon, Your Highness, but my loyalty to my lord prohibits me from having this conversation here with you.” Her voice had interrupted your words and you caught the intense way her eyes held on tightly to your own. There was something hidden inside her eyes. It was there in the final words she spoke.

Here with you.

This was not a safe place to talk. Your words here were not private. Ara was quick-witted and cautious. Perhaps this was why he had trusted her so.

“I understand,” you said softly, racking your own mind for some solution, some way that you could speak openly and honestly with her about the delicate situation without every word from your mouth being on some sort of official royal record.

“Perhaps a walk around the west gardens might serve to soothe your worries. It’s nighttime and the moonflowers are ready to bloom. You might find it to be just the recipe to cook up a perfectly satisfying solution to your problems, Your Highness.”

Ara’s tone had changed halfway through her words to you, the first half being quite light and jovial, and of perfectly audible volume, while the second half; something cryptic about a recipe,, was muttered at a lower, more hidden volume.

When you did not immediately agree with her assessment of what you needed to be doing in the west gardens after the sunset — which hadn’t quite happened yet, you had definitely still seen some light peeking through the windows when you walked by the garden’s earlier, you actually caught half an eye roll that punctuated the frustrated sigh that left her lips.

“Do you understand my meaning, Your Highness?”

Frankly, you did not. You just wanted to meet with her to speak somewhere privately. Why was she suggesting the gardens? They were situated in a central courtyard, not even on the west side of the house if you really thought about it. Those gardens that were overlooked on all four sides by floors and floors of window-lined hallways. Literally, everyone who walked by any of the number of windows would see you meeting with her under the light of the moon standing in front of whatever in the world a moonflower plant was supposed to look like.

The moon wasn't even out yet, there had to be 10 more minutes of sunset before the light disappeared enough to see the moon. And what was this about cooking? Recipe? She had practically whispered that part. You were never very good at riddles. What could she mean to mention cooking?

But… there was something that was coming to your mind now. Something related to him. His kitchen — his passion, his cooking, his recipes. The one that was smashed to bits by the Queen’s cronies when he didn’t immediately respond to her demands.

The one that had been closed off for some time now and had been located on the west side of the palace. It would be unmonitored, and perhaps there weren’t even cameras over there since it had been completely destroyed all those weeks ago.

Your expression must have changed as you figured it out because you saw the first hints of a smile appear on her face. You’d never seen any sort of positive emotion there before. At least not directed at you.

“I understand,” you said with a nod of your head and you were certain that she wanted you to meet her in Kyungsoo’s kitchen in about as much time it took for you to get there from here.

There was an urgency in your steps and while you moved toward your destination, the secluded hallways that led toward the west side of the palace, you felt the ever-present sensation of being followed that persisted in nearly every crook and corner of this place slowly fade from your mind.

It wasn't until you found yourself standing alone in that hallway in front of that heavy metal door that you hadn’t seen in such a long time, that you realized just how oppressive the cameras had been making you feel.

There was nothing here. There were no eyes watching and no quiet strangers to give you glances and take notes and likely report on your odd behavior as soon as you left their sight.

Ara was right. This place was perfect. You pushed at the door and found it just slightly ajar and when you slipped inside the stillness of that dark kitchen you could make out a shape that stood inside. She was small and easy to recognize.

“Don’t turn on the light,” she whispered from the shadows and half of her serious face was illuminated by the soft glow of the moonlight that came through the skylight in the ceiling.

“Ara, we have to make this quick. I think the prince may be in danger. I think it might be an emergency.”

With the freedom to speak, the words you had been holding on to so tightly came bursting from your chest and you heard the sound of your own panic on your voice.

She did not immediately speak. Nor did the shadowed outline shape of her move.

“Ara, please, I...I don't know what to do. I thought that maybe...maybe you could get through to him. He—He trusts you, Ara.”

The sounds of your heavy breathing floated around the quiet space and you lifted a hand over your mouth to try and quiet yourself; to calm this down some. Why wasn’t she speaking? Why wasn’t the jumping into action to help? How could she be so calm when something horrible was about to happen to him?

“What makes you believe he is in danger, Your Highness?”

When she finally spoke, her own voice was steady and very controlled. You heard absolute calm inside that voice and it was nearly hypnotizing in cadence. Your panic was much too strong of a force to be compelled.

“He...He said some things, that he was going to do something to stop the wedding and — we were arguing about the tape, and why I did that to him and then about May and — how much do you know about what has been happening?”

The urgency inside of you made your words stumble their way out of your mouth. You sounded nowhere near as composed and clear as you wished you would. Perhaps this explanation of yours did not properly relay the urgency here. Perhaps she just didn't take you seriously and her stubborn inaction was making your heart race harder inside your chest.

Had this been a mistake? Suddenly this side trip that you’d made to enlist her help was causing you to doubt yourself. Had you only wasted precious time in coming to her? Should you have just continued your search for the prince on your own? Perhaps you should have gone to the security house instead. Maybe Jun would be able to find him and stop him.

“I know more than you know, Your Highness.”

She knew. She already knew everything. You sighed in relief. At least you would not have to relay the entire events that led to this situation. This would save time. For once, you were thankful for the ever-present eye of the help in this house. The quiet witnesses to the disasters that the royal family inflicted on themselves and on one another.

“Then you know what he is capable of, Ara, he says he doesn’t care what happens, that he will stop the wedding — he’s disappeared, why are you so calm when something awful might happen?”

Your volume was a high shout. This was maddening. You reached forward for her hand, for some glimpse that this person was alive and real and could actually hear and understand the urgency of the situation the prince was in.

Your fingers grasped at the air in front of her; only brushing along the fabric of the sleeve of her palace uniform.

“May I have your permission to speak bluntly, Your Highness?”

She’d evaded your grasp and what kind of question was this? Someone’s life was in danger, and she was preoccupied with rules and formalities regarding the relationships between the help and the royal families? Did the woman not understand the meaning of the word emergency? Rather than argue, you quickly nodded your head and the quick up and down was just visible in the moonlight you both stood under.

“What makes you think he is the one in danger?”

Her next question did not have your title attached and the sudden sharpening of her voice felt accentuated by its absence. It caught you off guard and your panic hitched somewhere inside of your chest. A temporary stutter in the urgency.

Your mind spun and you looked into her eyes with a small shake of your head, not having imagined any other scenario in which he did not inflict this horror and tragedy upon himself.

You hadn’t ever considered the possibility that someone else may become a casualty of this war.

Impossible, right? You’d been so certain.

“Do you want to know what he picked up when he came home? I’ll tell you now. There’s nothing you could do to stop it anyway.

Insurance.

Actual physical evidence against you. I had warned him not to trust you so easily and He was quite cross when I presented him with it. He always swore he would never use it; never even touch it.

But now I know, My Lord is most grateful for my gift. And now he will use it to oppose the marriage.”

With each word she spoke the oxygen in the room seemed to be sucked out and you were quite thankful for the crisp clean and perfectly restored kitchen countertops that you gripped to keep yourself upright and present in this conversation. Or was it a negotiation now? This conversation had taken a rapid shift and you felt like you just might drop to the floor if you didn't hold on tight.

“What...what are you talking about? I haven’t done a-anything.”

Your own words felt feeble. You couldn’t even believe in them. You’d had so many sins against the man stacked up already. The many possibilities were flying by inside your head all you had to do was reach a hand out to grab one and that would be plenty.

May’s face flew by and images of her smile, her laughter, her hand resting over a swelling belly where an innocent baby grew; oblivious to the horrors of the life it would soon be born into.

“Did you know that it is illegal for a defiled woman to present herself as the bride of a Prince in line for the throne? You might not think it’s much, but if wielded correctly, it’s a powerful enough weapon to stop the wedding.”

Her words hit you hard and you had to take a step back and away from her. You felt the oven door at your back. It was cold and steel and brand new and it pulled your mind sharply at the shock of the temperature difference.

This was a scenario you had never ever imagined. That he would invoke such an outdated law and worse, that he would stoop so low as to use your own love for him against you. Your head shook back and forth. Your disbelief was thick and heavy, taking over for the panic that had been so all-consuming.

“But...that doesn’t make sense. He was the one who...”

You heard the smallest puff of air from her; a single syllable chuckle. A laugh.

“I know, right? Imagine being thrown into prison just for sleeping with the man you were going to marry anyway.”

Your mind was dizzy. The shallow breaths you managed did little to clear it.

You had to look away from that splash of blue moonlight and from those eyes that in no way reflected the horrors you felt inside of you at her revelations.

The stainless steel hood that reflected that light over the stove; the rows of pots and pans that hung from hooks from the ceiling and the rows of sharpened knives that stuck on to the wall, ready to carve and chop and slice and butcher. The pristine and lovely kitchen that surrounded you; cleaned up, repaired and completely untouched by his hands that were now elsewhere, gripping a new weapon.

Would he treat you with the same care as his precious ingredients? Would he do it quickly? Would he chop off your head to put you out of your misery before serving you to his many esteemed guests for dinner?

In a way, you’d done the same with him. Faking the drunkenness to sleep with him, just so you could search his home for that useless tape. You’d used his love against him too.

But the idea that he would turn something once lovely and beautiful; your first time, your first love, the first time you trusted someone with yourself, that he would dare turn that into a public spectacle.

You felt a sickness surge up inside of you with the dread and you caught the shine of the kitchen sink along the far wall behind where Ara stood smirking, taking note of its location in case you needed it quickly.

“So to address your worries, Your Highness, no, I don't believe the prince, himself, is in any danger tonight. Although, you might want to prepare yourself for what is coming.”

Despite the impact of her words, the volume of them was fading. Despite the devastation that was growing inside of your gut, something else was also taking over. Something that accepted this as your fate. Something saw no way out. Something that caved and surrendered.

It must have been relief.

He would be okay.

You would be ruined, but he would be okay.

As she often did, Ara left you standing alone in that dark place without so much as a farewell and only when you were by yourself for a good ten minutes did you unclench your fists and let your hands drop uselessly to your side and you exhaled the deep breath that you had been holding inside of your lungs.

It was as you stood alone in this kitchen that a thought dawned on you and you began to really question the kind of person you had become since you had arrived in this place.

Everyone likes to believe they are the hero of their own story. Some people are so deluded into believing that they are the good one; they could never accept that they might actually be the villain; but you felt a cloudy, foggy, hazy feeling descending.

You’d always considered yourself to be the good one.

You were good, right? Every move you had made in your life had been for the greater good, for your country, for your friend, for your family, for some end that would be righteous and just, but —

But what if, what if all along you had been the bad one? What if this comeuppance that Prince Kyungsoo and his trusted Ara had hatched up was just the universe washing itself clean of all the vile, disgusting transgressions you had committed.

What if you deserved what was coming to you?

You left the kitchen and you took your time with the journey through the palace, looking around carefully at the beauty of the ornately decorated hallways. You’d never quite appreciated anything in this place.

You’d never let yourself quiet down enough to let any of it in, but really, this palace had some impressive works of art, some amazing architectural feats and was quite lovely. You had been surrounded by so much beauty and only now that you had forced down the nerves of the unknown future you held in this world, did you have enough clarity of mind to appreciate it.

It was a shame it had taken you this long.

Even here, right in front of your home, hung the most impressively lovely painting you had ever seen up close. It had flowers strewn across a table in some picturesque cottage in the country; roses and irises dumped out hastily and the details painted in each stem astounded. You’d always just walked by it, but now, you lightly ran your fingertips over the surface of the canvas. You could feel the peaks and planes of the dried oil paint that gave the work so much depth and realism.

You struggled to pull yourself away from it and when you finally pried your hand down to reach for the doorknob to your front door there was a sound from behind you that startled you.

You tried to turn, you tried to spin on your heels but there was something dark and heavy placed over your head; making you gasp and stealing your light completely. You were, all at once, thrust into complete, terrifying darkness as strong arms wrapped around your shoulders, squeezing and holding your arms down at your waist and a fabric bag of some kind was pulled tightly around your neck. The sensation of being suffocated; both by your overwhelming shock, and the literal small amount of air inside of this cover you were in.

Breathing was hard, but you inhaled as much as you could and you let out the loudest scream you could manage. It was muffled by heavy fabric and sounded loud inside your own ears. You tried again but were caught off guard when the floor left your feet and you were lifted and handled by whoever had placed the bag over your head. By whoever it was that had come for you.

If you believed you had reached your limits of panic before, you had absolutely no idea of what real panic felt like. Your entire body shook and trembled with it. It radiated through your chest and cascaded over your limbs and you knew...you knew...

You were done for.

You were dead.

There was no doubt now, this was it.

There had been so little in your life. You’d only just made your first real friend. You’d only just fallen in love and hadn’t really had a chance to embrace the pain of having your heart broken by him.

You had never felt the sand between your toes at the ocean side. You’d never tasted cotton candy at a carnival. You’d never seen a midnight show. The unfairness of it all made you weep. What a shitty excuse for a life you had lived.

You had never held a baby; not in your whole life; not one. It was one stupid little daydream you liked to entertain; the rumored smell they had, the way they squeezed an offered finger and looked up into your eyes. So tiny and full of promise.

You had the sensation of being carried and shoved through an open doorway and you felt the hard wood of a chair below you as you were roughly pushed into a seated position and there was a swish as the strong arms that had held you so tightly abruptly released their hold on you. You swung your arms out, trying to reach someone. Trying to hurt someone. Trying to fight whatever strong oaf had dared to put his hands on you so liberally. You were met with no one and you instead reached up for the black cloth bag that had closed our your light.

To your astonishment, the person who had accosted you did not stop you from lifting the bag and you slowly pulled it up and over your head, peeking carefully through the blinding light that erupted in your field of vision.

At first, you only saw feet. You recognized the view of your own living room and realized that the seat you had been placed in was from your own kitchen.

Feet, connected to legs and he wore black slacks, a white dress shirt and he stood alone in your strangely decorated living room. Around you — balloons, streamers, confetti all over the floor and a huge banner hanging on the wall behind and there, on his face, the enormously victorious smile of Prince Baekhyun who giggled and laughed and pointed his fingers at the apparently humorous look of sheer horror and terror on your face.

“Congratulations on your wedding!” He was shouting, jumping, and laughing loudly and your head was reeling as the shock from the trauma of this ill-timed event began to settle heavy inside your belly.

You felt so dizzy.

You needed out of this chair. You rose on shaking legs.

Your hands were shaking too hard to be able to grip the kitchen table that you now stumbled beside, holding on as best you could, you made your way to the sink with a leap and the dizziness pulled everything from inside your stomach up and out of your mouth. You vomited everything into the stainless steel basin of the sink. Again and again. The small bits of dinner you’d had and red wine.

Only when your retching quieted down did you have enough strength to swat away his hands that pounded on your back in some attempt to comfort your spasms.

Only when you were done vomiting did you realize that you were sobbing. The words to rebuke him got lost in the ragged cries that erupted from your chest and wave after wave of tears flowed down your face.

Baekhyun’s words were rushed. A combination of ‘Jesus-fucking-Christs’ and ‘It was only a joke’ and then many, many soft apologies when your crying refused to settle down with his attempt at an explanation for what he had just done to you in the name of some stupid idea he had for a bachelorette party with just the two of you in attendance.

It took too long to calm yourself and only when he sank down with you on your kitchen floor and wrapped both of his arms and legs around you in a full-body hug did you begin to feel like you hadn’t almost just died and maybe, just maybe, you would be okay again someday.

His head was rested over your shoulder and when he felt the shuddering breathing begin to even out he lifted a cautious face to look into yours with as much worry inside of his eyes as you had ever seen directed at you.

“If you cry this much you’ll be all puffy for the wedding tomorrow,” he whispered against your face and you slowly nodded your head as you willed your emotions to settle down enough to stop the hiccups that had erupted with the crying.

“Here,” he declared after a moment of looking into your eyes, clearly having reached some conclusion on his own, “I’ll run you a bubble bath and you pick out which movie we’re going to watch first.”

He was lifting himself from the floor and his hands pulled you into a standing position, but Baekhyun seemed reluctant to release you from his grip entirely. He merely guided you along through your own home until you reached the large sectional sofa that faced the television.

In your lap, he dumped a pile of movies and you looked at the titles with a disconnected mind, noticing how each one was a romantic comedy with some sort of wedding theme. He brought a lot and you looked at each movie cover with hazy eyes, randomly deciding on one without much reasoning at all. Anyone of them would do. Something to fill up the silence of this home and maybe bring a laugh or two to lighten your down-in-the-pits-of-hell mood. Something to distract you.

You trotted toward the sound of running water in your bathroom and handed him the movie box. Baekhyun had set out a pair of pajamas that you did not recognize and upon closer inspection, you noticed the wedding bells and hearts strewn all over them. ‘Bride to Be’ was embroidered on the seat of the pants and they were as ridiculous as you would imagine Baekhyun would have picked out for you to wear tonight; the night before your wedding that would probably never even happen.

The pajamas took away some of the dignity that the bath had given back to you and when you emerged from the steamy bathroom you actually smiled to see Baekhyun sporting matching pajamas that proudly displayed ‘Maid of Honor’ in bright pink letters across his ass.

He had ordered pizza. There were rows and rows of assorted cookies and sweets spread across your kitchen counter and much to your surprise, not a drop of alcohol to be found. Instead, you saw some juice boxes designed for children’s parties and even a few small containers of chocolate milk in an ice bucket at the end of the counter.

You were aware of the time on the clock and when you grabbed a slice of something salty and fattening, pairing it with something chocolate and something sugary sweet, lamenting the fact that you’d only have a few hours of this before it would have to end and you’d be thrust back into your frightening and uncertain reality again.

Baekhyun was starting the movie by the time you snuggled on the sofa next to the spot where he had set a stack of cookies and a container of chocolate milk. Apparently, he was having a cheat day as well. This was a party after all. It was your party. The tiny number of party guests did not bother you one bit. You had your friend here at least. You’d enjoy it with the knowledge that it might be the last time you would be this happy again in your lifetime.

“It’s a shame that we can't watch two movies. I really wanted to watch The Proposal. Sandy Bullock and Ryan Reynolds…double swoon.”

You watched the opening notes of the song that began the movie. You had selected something called 27 Dresses, although you hadn’t really selected with any method in mind. You should have just let him pick, with as little as you knew about movies.

“We can watch both,” you said with a shrug and a bite of your pizza. It was hot and cheesy and saucy and just about the most delicious thing you had ever put in your mouth. “I do it all the time, just play it on double time and we will have enough time to watch both of them.”

“Wait, is that a thing?” He asked suddenly and had lifted the remote control to press buttons to access the menu on the movie player. Soon enough, he found the spot to control playback speed and he began to giggle as the voices of the characters acting out their roles lifted in tone and took on a chipmunk-like sound.

“You’ll get use to it. Let’s just watch it like this.”

It took a few minutes, and a few silly impressions of serious emotional scenes acted out in high pitched double-time voices for him to become engrossed enough in the film to quiet down.

After a while, snacks were abandoned and Baekhyun shifted on the sofa beside you, patting once on his lap, he produced a hairbrush from the bag at his feet that you’d recognized from the time you’d played dress up as a pair of nurses. You gave in and snuggled between his legs, giving him the back of your head where his fingers combed your hair gently and his brush dealt with the tangles of your wet hair.

He whispered that it was going to be your last girl’s night as a single woman and the gentle touch of his hands through your hair felt too nice for you to correct him. Perhaps you’d break the news after the promised matching pedicures. He said you could pick the color and you were going to pick the raciest red he had in his bag.

It was going well enough until the climax of the film when the romantic interest gave his emotional confession and you heard Baekhyun groaning beside you out of frustration.

“Nope. Nope. I don't like this. See, I was okay until this point, but some things in life you can’t just fast forward through. Some things have to be slow and careful. I’m missing all the good shit like this.” He was complaining right out loud as he reached for the remote and slowed the playback down to normal speed again and he rewound the scene again to the start to pay closer attention to the big emotional moment.

And it played again. Only this time, and boy was he right, this time you could see the unspoken body language acted out. You could see every nuance and every little touch that was so very important to this important love confession and there was a building and nagging thought that was growing and bulging in the back of your mind.

“See. See that right there? That can't be rushed. You have to slow it down and feel it. Listen to all of the sounds around. Listen to the way he’s breathing, God. He’s in love with her and there’s something so delicate about that.”

A feeling outside of the movie was nagging you.

Slow it down.

You can't just fast forward through.

Something related to what he was saying, but outside of Byun Baekhyun and this bachelorette party and the movie you were both sitting in front of and the cookie crumbs that were scattered all over his legs and the carpet below his feet.

Baekhyun had said it himself. Some things cannot be rushed. Sometimes you have to slow it down and listen to the sounds around.

Shit. Shit.

You had just fast-forwarded through it, hadn’t you?

He wasn’t even aware of what a mind-blowingly profound thing he had just said to you, and every cell inside your body prickled and came alive. You felt a fire inside of you and you leaped up out of your seat and rushed to your bathroom, beyond the bathroom into the closet, to the spot where you had left the cell phone he had given you that sat there inside of your walk-in closet. Your hiding spot was invisible unless you knew exactly where to look.

Your heart was pounding noisily in your eardrums.

“Are you going to be sick again?” You heard him shouting from the living room. “Shit, you aren’t pregnant, are you?” He added and his voice grew louder as he followed you through the bathroom to stand behind where you now stood inside of your closet holding on to your phone.

You were swiping furiously over the screen, reaching the log-in screen for your cloud storage. The only place where you had backed up the video from that tiny stolen cassette tape that had lived inside of Kyungsoo’s childhood teddy bear for a decade.

The video was hidden behind several layers of passwords, you logged in to each hidden and well-secured folder to find the file and you hastily pressed play, making sure to turn the volume up to full blast as you scrolled to the moment on the tape that you had in your foolish haste, watched only at double and triple the normal playback speed without even considering what might be happening off-camera. Without even thinking about the sounds the camera might have picked up.

You found the moment when the change happened.

You found the spot in history when sweet little Prince Kyungsoo had gone from a loved, carefree, happy child to a fractured, broken shell of a human and you carefully dragged your finger backward, to the hours right before. When you had been sure you’d seen the camera still and motionless and laying on its side somewhere, with only the view of feet on screen.

“What...what the hell is that?” Baekhyun was watching over your shoulder and you waved a hand in his direction, shushing loudly with your mouth as you listened to the tiny speakers of your phone as close as you could.

The video played and showed two sets of feet. One a man in black leather shoes, one a woman in expensive heels, and when you listened closely enough you could hear a clear and profound conversation. You heard the words there, the subject of their conversation was more significant than anything else in the world.

This was it.

Baekhyun’s hands moved. Something was sparked inside of him when he heard the words they discussed. He gripped at the phone and roughly grabbed it out of your hands and he pressed on a symbol in the corner of the screen as he dragged you by the hand in a rush, from within the depths of your closet back to the living room where the tiny video was now being cast directly onto the enormous tv of your living room as clear as day.

Baekhyun then reached for the volume remote and turned it up with his hand sat over his mouth and his eyes were wide, he watched with you as a conversation was had about the very recent murder of the Queen, Queen Do, Prince Do Kyungsoo’s mother and the wife of King Lee, by the two individuals who had been responsible for her death.

The brakes lines had been cut, just as She had ordered him to do. He’d done well. He would be handsomely rewarded for his role once she was married to the king. One she had taken the throne for her sons.

They were both supposed to die in the accident, but this might be even better, She said. They were both supposed to die, but only the queen died. Only Queen Do was crushed.

The young Prince Kyungsoo, her only son, her only child, would take the blame, and the coverup to save the Prince would prevent a thorough investigation.

They’d never be caught this way. And the Prince would do anything for them; he’d even give up his right to the throne; even finally agree to take a bride from another nation. A union of such that would require him to abdicate. The prince would agree to anything they wanted if he believed he was a murderer.

The entirety of the conversation happened off-camera with only their shoes visible until the camera was moved by the owner of a third set of shoes that came into view. A third person had arrived, and the highly incriminating conversation that had just taken place had ceased upon his arrival. Yet as the camera moved, as the teddy bear was picked up, there was the smallest split-second pan as the camera flashed up, to show as clear as day, the faces of the co-conspirators to the queen’s murder.

Baekhyun gasped out loud and reached for the phone, pausing the playback, he pulled the video progress bar back slowly and right there on the screen of this tv was the face of Queen Hong, and the evidence that she had been the person to order the murder of the Late Queen Do, Kyungsoo’s mother. He was framed. He was a victim.

It had been a murder plot that had been a decade in the making. And you, you were part of it. Your union with him was designed to steal his rightful place as an heir to his throne. They had done this to him. She had killed his mother, made him believe he was to blame and taken his throne from him.

That sweet little boy. This monster had destroyed him, and for what? So her two sons could have some more power? So she could become the queen?

Kyungsoo had been right, this marriage could not happen. Although he had so much to learn about the real reasons why.

Baekhyun again resumed the video, unable to look away from the shock of what he had just learned and you saw at the teddy bear was handed to her. To a younger, less plastic, Lady Hong and you felt sick to hear the wicked laugh that echoed over the sound of her heels pounding on the marble flooring. “I want to be the one to tell him his mother is dead,” she said.

You had to stop it. You couldn’t stomach any more of this. Baekhyun had a similar reaction and looked down at the phone, pressing something to stop the playback of the video on the big screen.

He was silent, clearly processing the bombshell that had just fallen into both of your laps. It was too much for you, and you had already fallen back onto the sofa, too overwhelmed stand anymore, you felt the shift of his weight as he did the same and sat down beside you with his focus far ahead of himself; his eyes wide and staring at nothing, his mouth agape, and his hands lifeless in his lap, your blackened phone still sitting inside of his hand.

“Where did you get this and has anyone else seen it?”

His question was quiet and so uncharacteristically serious in delivery and the old habits of mistrust and caution made your hackles raise as you let doubt coat your tongue and make your mouth close up.

You heard a groan from him and his hands raised up to cover his face and all at once, everything about him changed and he was overcome. You heard a soft sound from behind his hands and he was trembling. He was shaking and you saw drops of wetness falling freely down his cheeks and something deep inside of him broke.

Baekhyun was crying. He was crying hard and very suddenly he sniffled his nose hard, fighting the emotion, he ran a rough hand over his face, drying some of the wetness there. This was grief. It was all-consuming. You felt your own face wet. You felt powerless against such a kind of soul-crushing pain.

“He...He—” He tried to get the words out through the heavy emotion that had taken control. “He changed so much. He was my friend. He was my brother, once and they...they just fucking—

You sat motionless and useless, still too overcome to do anything at all. Still, too shell shocked to move.

Baekhyun stood up and his face was bright red as he inhaled a deep breath; his jaw clenched tight. His eyes changed and darkened. You saw the anger coursing through his body in waves and he was cursing. He was screaming out loud and he was raging within himself, and outside too. He grabbed at random bits of things; pillows, trash from the table, throwing objects with the rage and the anger that had taken ahold of him. Bits of the broken and the scattered remains of items, things, stuff. Everything and anything that could be thrown; that could be broken, but none of the destruction touched that anger. None of it could satiate the madness. Nothing broken could match the pain. It was simply too much for one body to withstand.

“I always thought both of them died that day. And this is why. They killed him when they killed her. They killed his mom. They killed her and made him think...made him think—

They did the same to me. They did it to him just like they did it to me.”

It was too much for him. He was one person alone. You moved and you wrapped your arms around him and he fought against your arms, he pushed against your hold on him, but still, you did not let up. Still, you squeezed around him as tightly as you could squeeze and you held him tight; through the sobbing and through the sounds of pain that escaped his lips, you held on and you absolutely refused to budge until you felt the change. His arms quit their movements. His legs and his torso and his tension and his anger quit and it all gave up.

You held on to your friend until you felt the softening of his strong muscles as he gave up and gave in to you. And when he collapsed onto the floor in your living room you went down with him, holding on tight until there was simply no more of that anger and destruction with which he could fight you. Until he did not want to fight it anymore, and you felt his arms move around your waist. He buried his head in your neck and he accepted the comfort you offered. You accepted his warmth as well.

When he had gone quiet, you finally opened your mouth to speak. And you began at the beginning. You began with May and her concealed love affair with Sehun. You told him of the rumors; the queen had been murdered. And without any thoughts otherwise, May believed, as many others did, that Kyungsoo had been the murderer. May had tried to protect you from him. May tried to get you to leave this place. May was caught by Kyungsoo and the evidence in your mind against him piled up. Your doubts and insecurities piled up.

Of course, Baekhyun knew of his role in deceiving Kyungsoo to save May. Baekhyun knew that Kyungsoo would shoulder the blame for May’s demise. Only now did he realize just how hard Kyungsoo must have taken the news of May’s death. Only now did Baekhyun realize the damage that must have done to his brother by the lie.

You told Baekhyun of your tricks and your lies to search Kyungsoo’s home for this tape. You told him of the unforgivable things you had done. You told him everything.

“We have to show him this tape.” Baekhyun’s convictions matched your own and you nodded in agreement; an unspoken covenant forming between the two of you and he was on his feet again, copying, editing, saving multiple copies of the evidential and important parts of the video. He sent it to himself in what looked like multiple places and you let him. You trusted him. He was in this with you.

There was a moment, after the progress bars and the sending and the saving and it was a moment of heavy silence. It was a tranquility that sat down on this sofa between the both of you and you felt the warmth of his hand as he grabbed yours and held on tightly to you.

“We might have just become the most dangerous people in this entire kingdom,” he said with a sad smile on his face and you responded in kind. You were completely unsure and terrified of the future, and yet knowing you weren’t in this alone gave you an incredible strength that you had never felt inside of you before.

The shared moment was interrupted by a loud sound. A rapid and angry pounding on your front door. A sound designed to call to action. You both leaped up and Baekhyun scrambled to turn off the tv. He scrambled to clear out both phones of any traces of illicit activity and incriminating videos and you rushed to the door, half terrified that you’d find palace security there ready to send you both to the gallows.

The knocking sounded out again. It was urgent-sounding. It sent a chill of fear through you and you turned your doorknob and pulled it open to face the latest test of your fortitude.

Ara.

It was Ara. Not royal guards, or palace police. It was just Ara.

You had no time for relief because something was wrong.

She was trembling and she was crying and she was holding something in her hands. You quickly pulled her by the arm inside of your home and closed the door behind her.

“Y-Your Highness, I...I think you might have been right — something is wrong. Something is wrong with him.”

Inside her hands, she held a small plastic bag that contained a folded up scrap of fabric. On that fabric, you saw old stains. Old bloodstains. You saw a disk laid on top with a hand-written date on it and what appeared to be a timestamp. The date you first slept with Do Kyungsoo and the exact time you would have been exiting his home so early in the morning. It took you two seconds to realize what this was. This was his insurance. This was the evidence to destroy you and he didn't have it with him anymore.

“H-He gave this back to me. He said he couldn't do it. After all you had done to him he still said he couldn’t. He ordered me to return it to you.” Her head was shaking in disbelief.

You felt the cold of the room flooding over your face as your skin blanched.

You understood at once the reason for her fear.

“Ara, where is the prince?” Baekhyun was speaking to her now. His voice was direct and well-controlled and you looked at his profile with a dream-like haze taking over your vision.

She did not respond and Baekhyun reached up to grip the smaller girl’s arms. He shook her; waking her back up. Bringing her back into her body enough to answer his question.

“I-I...don’t know. He—”

Her words came too slow. You felt the same sense of urgency Baekhyun betrayed and you wanted to shout. You wanted to shove her out of the way and run out of your home to find him.

“Where is he, Ara?” Baekhyun shouted louder and the girl’s face screwed together in pain.

“He k-kissed me. He thanked me for loving him all this time, and he—he said he was sorry he could never give me anything back. And then he just left. I don't know where he went. I don't know where he went.”

She was crying openly and Baekhyun turned to face you with his eyes wide and his instructions clear and concise.

“Find him. Search the kitchen and check the rooftop. I’m going to check the gardens and the garage. Text me the instant you find him.”

“Ara,” Baekhyun gripped the girl’s arms tightly and lowered his head down to look into her eyes. “Ara, I need you to come with me and help me find him, can you do that for me?”

She was nodding in earnest when you brushed past them both with your shoes on and your phone in your hand and you ran as fast as you could. You ran until your muscles complained and your lungs burned and you ran with direction and with purpose.

You would find him.

You would never be able to live with yourself if you failed him.

You had to find him.

The Price of Privilege [M]: - part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4, part 5, part 6, part 7, part 8 , part 9 , part 10 , part 11, part 12 , part 13 , part 14, part 15

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deathduty · 4 years ago

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And Then She Burns || Solo (ft. Morgan)

SUMMARY: Deirdre conjures a vision to aid Morgan’s quest to find Coraline Adam’s killer (featuring @mor-beck-more-problems)

Deirdre had dreamed of entering the funeral home several times. It had haunted her interest for a while, but she could never make it work. Whether because of Regan’s descriptions of Deirdre to Erin, or her inability to dissuade her oddities, she didn’t know, and never managed a friendly visit. Even now, her presence was anything but. Her grip on Morgan’s hand tightened and she steeled herself for a reality she couldn’t yet fathom. She wondered if Morgan could feel her twitch to move to the odd corner or hall. If she knew she’d been asked along to keep death away from her, or if her mind was also plagued by what they might find in poking around a corpse.

It was with either great concentration or Morgan’s assistance, that she was able to reach the mangled body of Coraline Adams.

Deirdre didn’t flinch at the sight of her, she had seen far too many dead fae for that. But the corpse enraptured her, and she couldn’t make out what Morgan was asking. She let go of her hand and approached the table, having to respond to her girlfriend by way of terse smiles and hand gestures. No, I’m okay. You should stay with me. I love you.

Her first thought was that wardens killed like this. They never thought of fae as living creatures, not even like animals. They were something lower than subhuman, something sinister. To kill them was no more morally questionable than to banish a demon. What was done with the bodies didn’t matter. After all, these were creatures without souls or lives. Yet, Coraline was not killed by a warden, but a witch. And all the witches Deirdre knew to kill fae did so as game hunters; they harvested parts and pieces. To them, the fae were simply animals: creatures with life, but not a life of any notable value. Coraline’s scales had not been plucked and her organs were unharvested. This was not the act of a warden, or a witch, but of someone who wanted to hurt, and then succeeded.

Deirdre placed her hand tenderly where what was left of Coraline’s lay. The burning had hooked her hand, now a mess of disfigured flesh. Deirdre could scarcely tell a finger apart from her palm; in a place she thought she might have found her thumb, bowed from the burning, she realized she just as well might have been looking at her wrist. Coraline was cold now, and Deirdre thought better of delaying the reason she was here.

Deirdre’s pupils grew until her eyes were consumed by blackness. She searched for Coraline in the threads of death around her. She had a vision of another body instead, then of another being dressed, then of a funeral and then a dozen more. There was wailing and hushed voices, condolences and sympathies. The nix’s screaming played like a drum beat under the slideshow of death and Deirdre turned her ear to it. Coraline came into focus in fits and starts, by the sound of her choked screaming to the vision of her hair to the smell of a lake. Deirdre could see her eyes as they once were, then her hands, held up in front of her face. Coraline clawed burning flesh with them, she pawed at the ground, digging for reprieve in the cool soil. Her hands were a puddle at her side, the bones the only indication that there had been anything there at all.

Coraline materialized into focus. She reached her hand up, trying to grab something that was holding her. Under her touch, rippled into focus was the lines of a delicate tattoo wrapped around a slender arm. She was pushed, and her hands reached again to be saved, under them, the vision of a shirt and jeans blinked to life before they were washed away. The vision shifted again, and Deirdre watched Coraline burn and writhe and beg and burn. Magic always made fate play strange, it made her power work funny. For all she pushed, the vision did not want to reveal itself. It wanted to show her the mundane, the unmagical; the ground, the screaming, the searing flesh but not the cause. Everything else was eaten by white. She was losing her foothold, and with it, her tether to the vision. Deirdre groped blindly behind her for Morgan, waiting until she could feel her hand gripped around hers. She had an anchor now, and with an anchor she had the solid ground to piece this vision together. She asked the vision again to reveal itself in fullness.

It obliged.

It started first with two women: Coraline and one with tattoos---this stood out to Deirdre because they reminded her of the kind she knew spriggans to have, with similar intricate lines and swirls but the symbols were different and the style was foreign to her. She thought she might have seen some of those shapes in Morgan’s old magic books, but wasn’t sure if that was factual, or a point of reference her mind conjured. The woman’s voice was vitriolic, yet for all the hate it spewed, it was never raised. She called Coraline an animal, and then less than an animal, and then that she had no place in the world. Coraline was confused, but not in the way people often were before their death---that it would be so incredulous that life would leave them now---but in that those words were foreign to her, that they didn’t belong coming out of this woman. She asked for clarity, she begged for it. She searched for answers in this woman’s eyes and was met with the same confidence her voice held. This was deserved, she said, this was right. Deirdre couldn’t tell if she believed it, or if she simply wanted to drown Coraline’s questions out. Her hands, that until then had been plastered to her shoulders, ushering her backwards as Coraline clumsily conceded, now moved to her neck. The flesh began to sear, bubbling and blistering under her touch. Coraline raised a hand to the woman’s forearm, too feeble to push her back but urging with whatever energy she had left for some sense to be made. Her last words were another choked question, then the woman’s hands moved to cup her face and she lost all ability for coherence. The woman pressed into her face as if she might try to shatter the skull under her grip. Finally, she pushed Coraline down, and there Deirdre saw a circle she could recognize from Morgan’s books.

“Older,” Deirdre documented, hoping that if her memory failed her when she might try to recount this later, she could at least use the observations she had in the moment. “I can tell by the sound of her voice. It’s deep, it’s like---” A rumble. A roar that didn’t need to be heard. A voice that had no one to impress. “Her forties, maybe. She has tattoos.” Which seemed like a silly observation as she said it, but they would be far more revealing than any description Deirdre could wager about the shape of her nose. “Alchemic. The ones on her arms nearly match the circle she pushes Coraline into.” She didn’t know enough about Alchemy to explain it herself, but she had seen enough of Morgan’s magic to know how to recognize it. “And then she burns.”

Badly. The vision liked to fixate on that. Deirdre’s jaw tensed as she allowed the vision to be played over and over again. The woman poured her magic into the circle, she had always meant to kill. Coraline was dead mere seconds into the act, but the woman persisted until the body was still and the acrid scent of burnt flesh became unbearable. She surveyed the corpse. She drew a knife. The vision repeated itself. “Her flesh was transmuted to iron, I think. Or maybe from the inside out. I recognize the burning but I can’t---” Coraline screamed again. Her skin bubbled and blistered then popped and dissolved. She writhed. She clawed at her own skin, ripping up flesh with her sharp nails. Her scales fused flat to the muscle below and her gills expanded, searching for air that would not help her. Deirdre couldn’t pull the facts from the pain. Had she been in her human form when she met this woman, transformed with the burning? The vision wanted to show her pain, and so it did. Deirdre urged for the beginning of the scene again, but the vision would not move. “She doesn’t like her, but Coraline is very confused. And then she burns.” Deirdre stiffened, she wrenched her hand out of Morgan’s, feeling her body ignite just the same way. “I would say they know each other,” she spoke through gritted teeth, “but the vision won’t show me exactly. But she burns. She burns.” She wanted the conversation before this, a name or a relationship. She had seen enough deaths of this nature to know when a victim and murderer were acquainted, of that she was confident, but she wanted proof to show Morgan. Instead, she began clawing at her flesh the same as Coraline had---her nails were short where Coraline’s were sharp, and so she could not relieve herself by picking her burning skin apart. She tried again, but the burning had consumed her lungs finally, and she could not speak but to choke. She scratched at her neck, at non-existent gills. She could feel hands on her shoulders, pushing her back, a tight grip around her skull and her body falling down.

It was Morgan who quelled the vision away, without an anchor, and with her urging of Deirdre to come back, Coraline faded into blankness and the funeral flooded back into sight. She heaved, stumbling into her girlfriend’s arms until paint set against her skin and she stood upright, feeling her neck and surveying her hands. “I couldn’t get a name,” Deirdre was hoarse. “But I could tell you exactly what she looked like.” Her voice was still stuck in Deirdre’s head, she called her an animal too, and then less than one. But it was drowned out easily by the sound of Morgan’s.

“That’s okay, babe. That’s perfect, thank you. You’re okay now, my love, okay? Hey, you’re safe with me. You’re safe, my love. If you can just pick her out, while it’s still fresh? And then we can go home, we’ll do whatever you want. If you can just pick her out, that would do so much, that would be everything when it comes to finishing this.” Morgan cradled her in one arm and presented a set of pictures on her phone.

She found the woman easily in the set, the sight of her drawing bile up Deirdre’s throat. “That one,” she pointed with a quivering hand. The woman was smiling, unassuming among the rest. Deirdre had seen enough monsters to know they always looked like that: normal.

“...Shit. It’s Jo. Shit...” was all Morgan said. She seemed to recognize the picture too well. Her body tensed with dread. “Okay. Okay, yeah. That’s okay, my love. Thank you. Thank you so much, my love. Hey, babe? Deirdre--?”

Deirdre could see Morgan’s mouth moving, she could make out the “my love”s by the familiarity of how those words moved her lips. But she couldn’t hear her, and eventually, she couldn’t see her.

Deirdre collapsed against Morgan, where she imagined that the writhing of her burning body finally stopped, just like Coraline’s. But only one of them would wake up from it.

#wickedswriting #solo #c: morgan #shouts out to kat for her contributions and also being generally great #i also dont think this needs any triggers but please lmk if im wrong

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winebleeds · 4 years ago

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@stfreds sent ❛ hair for raleigh / hands for liz / build for jamie / feet for maddie ! ❜

⤑ ON THE BODY

putting this under a readmore bc you pick the body parts i think about the most for raleigh, liz, and jamie.

[hair]: length, colour, texture, whether it grows quickly or slowly, how manageable it is, whether it requires lots of styling, do they leave stray hairs everywhere, is it present on their face, is it present on the rest of their body, etc.

if i can sum his hair in one word, it’s curls. his hair has always been curly since his infanthood and it’s one of his distinguishing features that he won’t shave. while sometimes his hair is longer where it rounds his face (or be able to straighten it it’ll be down his shoulders), he usually just keeps it where the curls are visible. it’s a friendly look that makes him look even younger, especially on him, & it helps with trust in term at work. i think the few times he didn’t have curls was attempting that straight hair of the late 2000s before just giving up, & cutting it shorter at the start of med school. so, this would be the longer curls while this is the shorter end. oh, and though others in his family have curly hair (like his uncle sasha or his cousin shay having nearly curled waves when not straightening it), he does have the curliest of ringlets of all of them.

as for everything else about his hair, he’s the only one of his siblings to have dark hair, where it’s hard to tell if it’s brown or black. this is the hair color of his mother’s side, including his mother’s. so it made him stand out with his fair headed or red headed siblings & cousins around ellesmere; even brandon, with the darkest hair, was a much lighter brown compared to raleigh’s & only shay’s became just at dark when she dyed it. though the curls assist with the appearance of hair thickness, his hair is most definitely thicc. and dense, something easily felt whenever fingers brush through.

and! he loves when people touch his hair! he could just stay still for hours if someone brush their fingers into his hair. and it’s a reason why he prefers his hair longer; this motion doesn’t feel the same with shortest hair & fingers closer to the scalp. then, yes, he sheds a lot, like his husky. the amount of curls in the roomba should make someone question how he isn’t bald... considering his hair doesn’t look like it’s receding anytime soon... even with the grey curls wrapping around the dark ones.

[hands]: are they large or small, do they have pianist’s fingers or short stubby ones, do they tend to get sweaty or are they always dry, is the skin rough or delicate, are the nails painted or chewed or sharp, etc.

for 5′2, her fingers are definitely longer than average! like, women taller by a few inches could have shorter fingers than her. they’re also very slender, like a ring size 6, so the piano fingers description fits here to a tee (despite... maddie & raleigh being the ones that played the piano). this style comes from her mother’s side, since her father’s side usually having the thicker, longer fingers built for strength. but her fingers are very useful in term of her job, being able to reach into smaller cervices and reaching further into them. her hand itself is on the thinner side, too, where the metacarpal bones protrude when she moves fingers.

like the rest of her body, her fingers appear even longer by the way they’re postured and maintain. her hands are dry, even with applying lotion, really from work & years holding reins. touches can’t hide the faint callous that sight can hide. yet, perhaps of appearance, they’re overall delicate, maybe because of the neutral colors of her nail polish with the occasional red or navy or how short she keeps her nails looks proper, professional for her work. or they’re delicate because they’re sensitive. they enjoy touch, feeling the smooth surfaces of metal or the softness of clothes or the roughness of old book pages, the cold marble or warm skin. with her preference for textures, and feeling the world literally with her fingers as a child, it helped her become hands on.

[build]: are they skinny and petite or do they resemble a body builder, are they tall or short or average height, are they lean and wiry, are they overweight, are all of their features proportionate, etc.

surprise! jamie’s been both skinny & thicc! he’s been short & tall in times where he wished was taller for sports. if someone that only new jamie at 15 saw him at 25, they won’t recognize him. so i’ll go over high school jamie and then present jamie.

highschool jamie: definitely a skinny little twirp. at first, he was simply lean, where his muscles haven’t recovered from his childhood bouts of illnesses, even with the years of healthy activity. but muscles did begin to become notable on small arms. still, it was noted how he looked like he didn’t have fat (‘he must have worms’ would be a common southern whisper). he was also on the shorter end, being 5′7 at 15. none of this really seemed to bother him, with his quick feet and surprisingly upper arm strength made him a rising football player.

then, the summer between his junior and senior year hit. there were some hints of the growth spurt, with constantly eating, the growth of an inch in may, & his hands always being bulky & tough like his father’s side... and his damn face always looked like his father. but a couple months brought boarder shoulders as his height rose to six foot. his arms showed the evidence of muscles that always helped with him pulling hay all her life. this definitely brought more popularity his senior year, even homecoming king, and more interested for college scouts originally hesitate on his height in the spring. his confident had a growth spurt too, towards the sky. yet, this came at a price...

today, he’s similar to his high school body. strong, muscled, with boarder shoulders while not looking too big. while closer to a body builder built, he skin isn’t as tense on his skin. like, in terms of his faceclaims, his figure is closer to gregg but his the shoulders of ojc (jamie’s between their two heights too). so, i do think this image is closet to a body reference.

[feet]: do they have a habit of going up on their tiptoes, what’s their usual stance, do they tend to shift their weight to a preferred side, etc.

due to heels on her boots, i do see her putting more weight at the soles of her feet. maddie does lean her weight between both sides of her body pretty equality, considering she bounces in place when on stage or getting excited. so that makes her feel lightweight on her feet, like she’s on clouds and quick to move. i think she gets on her tiptoes too bc of that.

#( v. answered )#( m. headcanon )#( r. headcanon )#( e. headcanon )#( j. headcanon )#stfreds #long post for ts /#body image /#veins /#even if i didn't mention it the imagery could be there just in case.

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mo-nighean-rouge · 5 years ago

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Gone- IV

Jamie Fraser prepares to send Claire and Faith through the stones. A last-minute interference puts them all at stake.

A/N: Thanks to my bonnie beta @abbydebeaupreposts for telling me what needed to go, and what could be done better. This chapter happens to correspond to @gotham-ruaidh‘s writing prompt, “Five Years.”

Part I | Part II | Part III | AO3

Previously:

Jamie placed an open hand at Claire’s belly. “Name him Brian?” he whispered. “After my Da.”

Claire nodded as he lifted her right hand and kissed her ring, followed by each finger, then placed it on the tallest stone. “Until we meet again.”

They faded away before his eyes, just as Claire had nearly done on another bleak morning, years ago.

They were gone.

November 1, 1953 | Oxford, England

Jamie rolled his shoulders against the stiff, artificial material of his new coat. He marveled once more as he took in his surroundings. Claire’s stories about her time had been full of rich descriptions, but his meager imaginings didn’t match the sights he observed now.

Events from the past few months were a blur, save Fergus conspiring with the local men to break him out of prison at Fort William. Fergus. Though Jamie’s heart ached to leave him behind, he had no choice in the matter. The lad had not heard the call of the stones. Thinking about that beastly place turned his wame almost the same way as thinking about Fergus. Jenny and Ian. The bairns that called him uncle.

He thought instead about his son. He would be nearing his fifth birthday and while he had missed so much already, Jamie could not wait to finally join his family in a period of safety.

Even still, the air felt trapped in his lungs as he turned down one narrow street after another, closing in on the most recent address listed for the Randall family. Seeing those words printed together so matter-of-factly had sent chills through him. Much as he knew it was right, he had little idea of what would occur once he walked back into their lives. James Fraser, forced by circumstance to be nothing more than an absentee father. The last thing he’d ever wished to be in his lifetime. But such injustice would end today.

Jamie’s fingertips stroked the latch of the wee gate as he closed it gently behind him. Had the brass tarnished from Claire’s delicate hand caressing it in the same place each day as she went out into the world to answer the call of those who needed her?

He took a deep breath to steel himself as he climbed the last step and lifted the worn door knocker. He rapped it three times, clearly and confidently, as if to prove that it was no trifling matter that brought him to this place.

The door swung open, but no face was immediately visible on the other side.

Jamie looked down to meet crystal clear blue eyes set in a fine-boned face. Brown curls spilled over her shoulders, much longer than he’d last seen them.

He could scarcely see her through his tears. “A nighean,” he muttered over the knot in his throat.

Faith’s small brow crinkled. “May I help you?” she asked in a polished English accent.

Jamie’s heart fell to his stomach. “It’s m—” Jamie began. “Christ, but I should’ve expected ye might not remember.” He tugged the hat from his head and nervously fiddled with its brim.

“Is your mam home?” he asked softly.

“Faith?” called a deep voice of a cadence strangely familiar to Jamie. A figure stepped into the shadows just behind his lass.

“Faith Randall, you know better than to answer the door to strangers.” The man emerged fully into the light, and Jamie took a defensive step forward as if to put himself between this man and his child.

The man responded with a tight smile and placed a hand on Faith’s shoulder, even as she tensed under his hold. “Pardon me, but I do not believe you have any business here.”

“Frank?” called a soft voice from farther back in the house. Claire suddenly appeared from the recesses of the gloomy interior, and it was as if the sun finally came out on this dreary day. Beside her trailed a wee lad – smaller than Jamie had expected.

But naught about her was recognizable. The lavender smudges beneath her thin eyelashes made his heart twinge. But what nearly undid him was the empty look in her eyes as they met his.

Claire squinted. “…Jamie?” she asked, as if trying to recall an acquaintance from a different lifetime.

“Aye,” he choked out, leaning forward to see around Frank. “Sassenach—”

“I don’t know what you’re about, but we don’t use that word in this home,” the other man said with an air of haughty reproach and moved to block Jamie’s view.

The bairn tugged on Claire’s hand, trying to get her attention.

She tilted her head toward him disinterestedly.

Jamie’s breath caught as the boy’s cinnamon curls reflected in the light from inside the house. “Will this be Brian?” he asked, hopeful. This was not any thing like the warm, joyful reunion he’d prayed for, but perhaps if he could stay just long enough to meet his son…

Claire cocked her head to the side, an empty smile forming on her lips. “There is no Brian. This our little Jack.”

Colors and sounds swirled around Jamie as he struggled to understand the bizarre scene in front of him. The only thing familiar was Faith, whose eyes hadn’t left him.

“Da?” she asked.

Did she remember him after all?

He stumbled forward to reach her. He’d pry her from Frank’s grasp if he had to, but he needed to touch something that he knew to be real amid this maddening farce. Faith suddenly broke free and ran toward him.

“Da?!” she beseeched.

Jamie woke to the weight of a clammy hand on his cheek. He shakily covered it with his own. Still tiny. Still there. He sat up in the dark and crushed Faith to him, pressing his lips to her forehead. “Taing dhia. What troubles ye, a leannan?”

“A-are ye sad, Da?” her little voice quivered against his chest.

He took a cursory glance to their right and spotted Claire’s tangled cloud of hair on the dusty floor, Fergus tucked under her arm. Just as they had been when he fell asleep earlier that night. “Nay, lass.” Filmy tears ran in his eyes. “No’ so long as ye’re with me.”

Faith snuffled against him.

Jamie stroked her back, realizing he’d likely frightened her with his greeting and thrashing about. “What’s all this, then?”

“ ’M scairt,” she muttered into his shoulder.

“Aye?” he whispered. “Of what?” But he had a terrible feeling that he knew.

“The man,” she whimpered. “He talked nice but he was sae mean, Da.”

Jamie closed his eyes, reminding himself that everything that had transpired in the past day was over. “Ye’ll no’ ever see him again, a chuisle. I swear to ye.”

Faith’s breathing returned to normal as he cradled her against him. She fell asleep with her hand gripping the collar of his shirt.

He wrapped her tighter in Claire’s tartan shawl and laid her next to Fergus, breathing a quick blessing over the both of them. He laid a hand on Claire’s shoulder.

“Mo ghraidh,” he whispered, brushing the back of his hand across her cheek.

Her eyes fluttered open, her face falling as her gaze focused on him. “Is it time?”

“Nay, but I hoped ye’d have a word with me?”

Claire let him pull her up and place a gentle hand on her hip.

Murtagh startled at his post as he registered them passing through the door. His expression lightened only when he saw that Faith was not with them.

Jamie led his bride away from the hill, noting the way her features relaxed the further they traveled from it. He lifted her knuckle to his lips, then held her hand tightly with both of his.

“Sassenach, I must ask your forgiveness…”

Claire began to tug away, features downcast. “Jamie, just because I don’t like it doesn’t mean I don’t understand it. You don’t have to keep defending yourself—” Her hand went limp in his and she spun around to head back to the bairns.

“Claire!” he caught her by the shoulders, forcing her to meet his eye. “I’m asking ye to stay.”

Her eyes widened. “Y-you’re… You’re sure?” Her hands found his tense shoulders.

“Aye. I… I’m no’ sure I can explain it.” He swallowed deeply, placing one hand on her belly. “But I think we can do it. We’ll hide in the priest hole until we can stow away on one of Jared’s ships. Or, Christ, there’s even a cave in the woods at Lallybroch. I’d sleep in a loch if it means I can keep ye…”

Jamie trailed off as he noticed the ravenous look in his wife’s eyes.

Their time together in the wee hours of the morning before had been gentle, savoring what they believed to be their last touches, and saying an impossible goodbye.

But there was something feral in the way that Claire tugged him down and climbed over him now.

She would have her revenge, and he wasn’t of a mind to stand in her way.

________________________________________

They embraced while laying on their sides, hands clasped. Her J entwined with his C, bound once more.

The sun rose over the fairy hill in the distance, casting an eerie glow around it.

The stones could kiss Claire’s English arse for all she cared, now.

She studied the face of her sweet lad, more relaxed now than it had been only moments before. There were still lines of worry caused by the unclear path that lay ahead, to be sure. But his heart still beat steadily beneath her palm, his hot blood warming her to the core.

Claire’s own pulse flickered rapidly as she recalled the events of the last 24 hours. How she’d hated him, and then grieved his loss all at once.

“I was so worried. For you, for Faith.” She knew her voice warbled, but there was hardly anything she could do about it at this point. Her emotions were likely to take free reign now that her deepest fears were relieved.

“I didn’t know how she would react to him…” She paused. “To Frank. The resemblance isn’t always obvious, Jamie. There are times I can almost forget.”

Claire remembered her hands shaking as she had tried to separate the two in her frantic mind that very morning. Was it Jack or Frank that she was cutting down? Or both?

Ultimately, it hadn’t mattered. Not when it was her baby girl in harm’s way.

“I wasn’t sure whether I could have faced him again,” she whispered into Jamie’s neck. “Knowing everything that I do now about the man he so revered.” She shuddered. “He would have touted that inglorious history to our children…”

Jamie had fallen silent, his throat working as he considered his next words. She palmed his cheek and met his eye. Tell me, she implored.

“Claire, I saw it.” The sharp edge returned to his voice, the only way he could speak of what he’d dreamt. “I dinna ken how or why, but I did. Poor Faith shied away from his touch. And…” Jamie ran the pad of his thumb over the bridge of her nose, then tucked a stray curl behind her ear. “Your bonny eyes held no life. All the joy was sucked out of ye.” He swallowed.

She stroked his chest through the opening of his shirt as she listened.

"I’m no’ sure if it was yer grief or the despair of Frank's house but it was as if ye couldna even see the bairns,” his words rumbled, ragged.

Claire tilted her head. “Bairns? Not just Faith?” she questioned.

Jamie’s face flushed. “I saw a bonnie lad, Sassenach. Red curls and blue eyes, with yer delicate cheekbones.” He pinched the feature in question, as if marveling that she was still there with him.

“Brian,” she whispered, and watched peace fall over his face.

She held tighter to his hand. “We won’t let that happen. We’ll give them so much of our attention they’ll be sick of us.”

Jamie smirked, then leaned in closer to meet her lips. “All dozen o’ them.”

Claire chortled. “Keep dreaming, Fraser.”

“I think…” She paused to consider. “I think that if it hadn’t been for today, maybe it would have been okay.” She shuddered. “Going back there again. Frank would have done his best, and he would have been good at it.”

Claire paused to brush a rogue curl from his eye. “But it’s all different now.” She took a deep breath. “Thank you. For fighting for us. But also for being willing to give it all up.”

Jamie nodded, overcome, then squeezed his eyes closed. “Anything for ye.”

They watched the light rise in the sky, content to enjoy the first of many moments together in their reclaimed life.

“Murtagh will wonder what’s keeping us.”

Claire smirked, running her fingers through his locks. “One look at your hair and he’ll figure it out.”

Jamie’s hands lost themselves in her curls, then brandished the thistles he’d discovered. He gave her one of his classic attempts at a wink, making her heart soar.

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

They were both admittedly worse for the wear as they made their way back to the doorway of the ramshackle cabin.

Murtagh raised a bushy eyebrow. “Roll down the hill, did ye?”

Jamie gripped Claire’s hand tightly as they approached him as a united front. “Change of plans, a gostidh.”

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

They’d curled back up with Faith and Fergus for a scant half hour before rising again, just watching their children sleep in peace. Neither quite understood what Jamie had planned to sacrifice for their family, but Claire would make sure to tell them when they were older.

Their party was headed onward to seek refuge with Jamie’s uncle at the abbey. After much deliberation, they deemed it the safest place to bide for the remainder of her pregnancy, or at least until they plotted their next steps.

Jamie was of a mind to sleep during the day and travel under the cover of darkness. Claire glanced toward Fergus in time to watch the boy shake off encroaching slumber. They’d stopped only out of necessity, most often for her to relieve the growing pressure on her bladder or belly.

Murtagh’s horse crept several paces ahead, the Scot scouting the safest path. Lost in her own thoughts, Claire watched his profile disappear into the valley below.

Eager for a bit of lie-in herself, Claire was relieved to see the glow of dawn on the horizon. Jamie would be sure to know of a shady place for them to lay their heads.

She guided Brimstone over the steep decline of the hill, only to nearly slam into Jamie’s abandoned horse.

He stood stricken in horror, staring ahead.

Murtagh was being pulled down from Donas by two Redcoats. As they set his feet on the ground, he met Claire’s eye, his own full of guilt and shame.

She slid down from her own horse and sidled up to Jamie’s back as he tried to make himself impossibly bigger to hide her, lowering Faith to her arms.

Over his shoulder, she studied the English officers in the dim light. There was something oddly familiar about one of them.

To be continued.

#Jamie Fraser #claire beauchamp #faith fraser #murtagh fitzgibbons fraser #fergus fraser #Gone #canon divergence au #Outlander #Outlander fanfic #my fic

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pommedelamer · 4 years ago

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art of the pen

a/n: soo uhh it’s been a while. here’s a couple pages worth of a story idea I had, as well as my character design that inspired it! this is. extremely rough but I figured that I should get something up. hhhh I was considering turning this into a formal book with actual developed characters and plot advancement (oh god saying that gives me anxiety) but I don’t know if the content I have so far is very promising. lmk what y'all think lol

Character Description: This character is a young female writer. When the novel she has poured her life’s work into is denounced by publishers, she withdraws to a foreign country in attempts to kindle the flames of a new life and reignite her passion for writing. Rejection, coupled with extreme loneliness, causes her to sink into depression. She wanders aimlessly through her new remote town in search of a sense of community. She comes across this in the last place she expected when she discovers that the decrepit building in which she temporarily resides is inhabited by a troop of eccentric underground journalists. Alongside her intrepid neighbors, she tears into the controversies and secrets woven into the fabric of her town and writes like she never has before.

The sun peeked through the gaps in the verdant canopy above, but my journal pages were still mostly barren. My pen always seemed to still a few sentences in, flailing like a line unable to lure in a bite. I flipped back to the cover, sluggish in the evening heat. It was adorned with pressed indigo flowers on a cream-colored background. Some of the pigment in the flowers had escaped under the pressure, and each blossom was framed with a deep purple halo. The wind sent the pages tumbling in a delicate fan, and suddenly I was a vandal, a delinquent with the gall to tarnish such beauty with the aftershocks of a passion that had run its course.

A cloud crossed over the sun and the forest floor seemed to close itself off, a flourishing ecosystem in which I was a parasite, leeching off its natural resources to fuel my own unavailing pursuits. I felt the crabgrass clawing at the soles of my feet as I reread the fruits of my two hours. Oh. My breath thickened in my throat and the canopy of branches above shifted in the wind. I suddenly felt compelled to trek back to the little corner market and seek forgiveness for the heinous crimes I’d committed inside the lovely journal with the flowers festooned across the front. And then I’d make a pit stop back at my publisher’s to apologize for my persistence with that novel I’d probably packed with even more of my insufferable delusions. My pen felt leaden and foreign in my hand, and I let it fall to the forest floor in penitence.

I stood up and saw that a thicket of scraggly trees was eyeing me curiously. It could just be a hobby, I told them. They remained steadfast, bony limbs still contorted in thorny skepticism. I didn’t quite know what they sought from me, but I wanted to oblige them. Something to unwind with in the afternoons. The forest was drawing further and further away from me, the thrushes and jays flocking in the leaves of a far-off pine tree, the wind gently guiding the little saplings away on their scrawny legs. A shadow crossed over my bones, and I knew that it was a lie. I wanted to crawl out of the skeleton that had confidently put pen to paper every morning and leave the remnants to disintegrate on the forest floor. I scooped up the marred pages of the little journal and tucked it away. Just something to pass the time. If that.

❋❋❋

The town had fully transformed itself when I crossed onto Washington Street. The daytime freshness had long since evaporated from the air, a numbing sense of finality sliding into its place, a reflective epilogue on the day passed. The possibility that I’d felt on my trek to the market that very morning remained in the air, and, silhouetted against the cloak of night, it was mystifying and beckoned me through the alleyways and over the crosswalks. In spite of my spirits, my eyes were dazzled with it. I watched as my shadow, elongated by the streetlamps, tapered off into drains and crept up the sides of buildings, beguiling the eye with its disappearances and reappearances.

I arrived at my complex and allowed myself a moment to take it in at nighttime for the first time. Unlike some of the buildings that retained their daytime charm in the dark, 42 Washington Street took on an air of its own. The streetlamps threw long, delicate shadows over the siding, and the balconies seemed to withdraw back into the wall for the night.

I fumbled with my keys and let myself in. I was immediately enveloped with cool air that seemed awfully artificial, if the sputtering air conditioner on the far wall was any indication. The lobby had also fully adopted the nighttime guise, the broad armchairs appearing to purposefully hold their poses in the dark, as if they had once been dancing. Even the idyllic watercolor gondola painting mounted on the wall behind the front desk had shifted in the night, now depicting rafts traversing the inky river Styx.

“Your first night at 42 Washington, I assume?”

It took me a moment to locate the speaker, tracing over the corners of the room that the moonlight had claimed. It was only when I stepped back and observed the room again, allowing my gaze to slip beyond the cool puddles of light on the wooden armrests and coffee table, that I found the source.

Completely submerged in shadow, a man was reclining on a velvet armchair. Even entirely cloaked in dark, I could tell that he was incredibly tall, almost larger than life. One of his legs draped over the side of the chair, and his foot still managed to touch the ground. His left hand curved over the other arm of the chair, spanning the entire width. He wore a plain button up, the hem of which fanned out onto the chair. I saw an object on his lap that I recognized from my own fruitless pursuits, as a journal. His was almost bursting at the seams, the binding probably beginning to fray under the stress. I saw movement inside the shadow that overtook half the man’s face, swallowing up his likeness so that his features were still up to my imagination.

“It’s a completely different place in the dark, all transformed and the like. One might say we have two buildings for the price of one. It’s a bit of a joke around here.” He spoke as if he were scribbling on a page, the drawl of his voice trying desperately to align itself with the words in his head – as if I’d walked in on him in the middle of constructing his own universe and it hadn’t quite stopped for me. My eyes fell on the fountain pen dangling between his fingers that I’d dismissed as a cigarette, and I realized that was exactly what he had been doing. “But it’s best to keep it between us. If the landlord catches on, you can expect rent to double in price. All the apartments are the same around here, and the landlords are no different. They’ll take anything they can get.” He laughed faintly, and the shadow shortened as if the man had tipped his head back, lost in thought. There was a brief silence, during which I realized I hadn’t yet uttered a single word. “Are you a writer too, then?”

The question was wholly disarming, catching me right between the ribs. I hoped that the night would obscure the rivers of uncertainty it sent ghosting over my skin and coursing through my veins. My heartbeat rattled against my ribcage as I willed myself to respond.

“I’ve dabbled in it. So one might say I am, but ... no, I suppose I’m not, by definition, anyway.” I was again grateful for the anonymity the night provided, for my voice was telling a story of its own, one that I’d recently established was no longer mine. “What might give you that impression?”

The man shifted forwards, the contours of his face revealing themselves inside the beam of moonlight that fell at his feet. I rushed to dismantle the collage of shadowed features I’d loosely fabricated in my head, although it was not far off from what the moonlight illuminated before my eyes. I observed that, for as much as he liked to talk about it, the man’s face was not like 42 Washington Street. “We have a certain look about us, I s’pose.”

My hands wrung behind my back as he propped his elbows on his knees. I couldn’t help but wonder what else he’d detected during this shadowed analysis. I was sure the distress his question had instilled in me had not gone unnoticed, but he did not question it. He did not question me, and I did not question him.

The man skimmed through the pages of the teeming journal and produced a piece of brown paper that, from the looks of it, had been folded up to four times. “If I’m right in my assessments and you’re interested, there’s a group of us around here. I think we’d all be open to more writers in a town like this.” He placed the paper in my palm, and I nodded.

I unfurled the paper and scanned it quickly as I walked. I was already halfway down the hall when a blank space on the flyer piqued my curiosity. “Excuse me, sir, the address-- it seems to be missing?”

But the enormous man had already eased back in the armchair, hands closing around the journal as the shadows overtook him once more. “It does have the feel of a haunted house around here, doesn’t it?” He mumbled into the dark.

*~to be continued~*

feedback would be appreciated :)

#writers #excerpt from a book i'll never write #writing #amwriting #writeblr #authors #creative writing #this is really bad sorry #writblr #written #words #free write #writers of tumblr #wip #current wip

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cdg174 · 5 years ago

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Call me Jane Doe: Chapter Twenty-Two

Series summary: A young girl with many secrets and special abilities seeks out Sam and Dean on one of their hunts. For what you may ask? Help of all things but even though she needs them, she takes her time telling them what she wants and what she is. Y/N wants them to trust her before she does the same for them, because if she has learned anything, it’s that when you become attached to something it will only rip your heart out later.

Author’s note: This chapter links with the last one for the most part. Just to be on the safe side though, you’ll want to re-read the last few chapters over or the entire series because I haven’t posted in a very long time.

WARNING: Character death and suicide.

Words: 3060

Masterlist

“There was a time you would have done anything for me. I can’t remember the last time you even smiled at me, or hugged me and that you meant all good things. It must have been years ago because it’s at the point where the memory of all that good, all that love, it has all disappeared. So I don’t understand why I even bother visiting you anymore because if you were able to, right now, you would kill me. I’d be dead. So tell me why I keep coming back to you. Why? Just tell me why?”

...................................................................

Three weeks earlier, The Bunker…

Jane’s pov.

“If you were expecting my eyes to change colour again, you must all be very disappointed right now.”

If the air of the war room wasn’t so tense, someone aside from Crowley would have laughed. No such luck though.

Everyone in the room pauses. All of them become rigid as statues at the sight of me. I can’t blame them. I may not have seen my battered and bloody state but they all did.

I take my eyes away from the newcomer in the bunker. I don’t know Flora; she is unreadable in all ways. Even with this uncertainty, I just wanted to prevent any more conflict and blood being spilled. So my previous statement about Flora was merely a verbal way of calling a temporary truce between all those in the here.

I observe everyone else now.

Sam just looks at me with a pained expression. His ever changing eyes seem horrified, as they did when he saw my mangled form earlier this day. I nod an okay to him, Sam needs reassurance most.

Dean on the other hand, he looks ashamed. Not of me but himself. The hunter must be most discouraged with himself when he was unable to save me from torture. I know the truth though; nothing could have stopped Mallory from hurting me. My mother was unstoppable.

The sheriff has slowly and timidly made her way to my side. Jody is but feet away from me now, wanting to be ready to defend me or catch me if need be. She inches no closer; Jody respects my confident stance enough to halt her own.

Crowley just smiles at me. It’s an actual smile, one of joy and pride. This is a rare occurrence from someone who claims to be evil. His hands stay in his pants pockets but if I know Crowley, he’s flipping a mental coin to see who breaks the quiet first.

“Jane…”

I’m pulled out of my perception of the war room by the crumbling voice of Castiel. His tone is raw sounding and hoarse as sand paper.

It is at this time that I see my angel friend for the first time. My breath freezes in my lungs.

Walking is forgotten in my mind and in a millisecond I am kneeling in front of Castiel.

I can feel everyone in the room take a moment to collect themselves. Despite the fact that I touched no one in my motions, the speed in which I teleported must have given everyone whiplash.

No matter, my attention is on the tousled remains of Castiel slumping in the chair before my eyes.

It is at this time that I realize I have not been seeing all the souls in the room. Earlier I was watching Jody’s soul dance with itself in bliss. Later on I had nearly cried at the sight of my chained up mother’s havoc swirling darkness.

Now I see nothing, until I close my eyes facing the wreckage that is Castiel.

The soul casts extreme blinding light but not for me. I see through to its core and I feel awe overtake me.

At the center of Castiel’s being are all-powerful palms of hands shielding what seems to be a globe. Fingers cascade over the world’s every surface, in a hope to hold it together. Constantly healing but never fully recovering or succeeding.

It’s all exquisite, simply alluring.

I find my left arm being pulled toward Castiel’s chest. My hand places itself ever so delicately over his bloody clothed heart. I can feel it beating just barely through his skin. The thought of my friend like this brings water to my eyes.

I don’t want to see Castiel in such pain and so I imagine him well. No cuts upon his face, no broken bones or swelling bruises. I imagine the angel easily laughing and speaking with no rasp in his voice. Just Castiel as I first saw him with no blood or torn clothing. All scars missing and standing tall, perfectly alright.

...................................................................

Present time …

My phone rings from its place on the passenger seat next to me.

I already know it’s one of the boys.

Maybe it’s Crowley, wanting to know if I’d like to go for lunch.

My thoughts continue to wander about the ringing cell phone as I drive along the highway. It’s about 10AM now. The phone goes off many times throughout every day but I just let it ring.

If it’s Sam calling, he will just be asking if I’m alright and updating me on how everyone else is.

If I go back to the bunker for anything, it would be to tell Sam to go to sleep. He only rings me between 2 and 6AM.

When Dean calls, he always starts by trying to convince me to come back home for a game night. When really he’s just trying to track my phone to find where I am.

Since I’ve stopped picking up calls, Dean can no longer track my whereabouts.

Castiel is different though, he’s only tried to get a hold of me a few times in the past weeks. I’m pretty sure he’s out and about looking for me.

How do I know all of this? I listen to all the voicemails they leave.

It can’t be Jody calling because she just texts me now. The sheriff gave up calling after a few days. She’ll start by saying how worried the Winchesters are about me and finish by asking if I need anything. I always respond to Jody the same way.

“I don’t need anything, thanks for asking” and that’s all.

I never answer any phone calls because I have nothing to say to anyone. Not a damn thing.

I’m not heartless though.

Texting is how I let the boys know I’m still alive.

I’ll just send them each the same thing every day.

“I’m still breathing, just not speaking at the moment.”

Just like that, each morning and every night. I may be absent minded towards the boys but I am not cruel.

“Jane you’re going to have to answer that noisy thing sometime. Or at least have the decency to turn the sound off.”

I jump as Flora’s voice comes from the back seat. I peek at her in the rear-view mirror before quickly silencing my phone still ringing away on passenger side.

“Sorry.” I smile shyly back at the angel who now rises from lying down.

“It’s fine. So where are we off to now?” Flora stretches her arms above her head in question.

“We’re going to visit her.” When I speak I look straight ahead at the speeding pavement.

“Alright, how far off are we?” Flora understands what I mean immediately.

“Five hours.”

I smile at the groan I receive in response.

“It’d be a lot faster if you just teleported us there.” I watch Flora cross her arms in the mirror, a pout upon her lips.

“I know, I know but driving helps me relax in the meantime.”

Flora complains no further, she’s aware about how painful where we’re going is for me.

Five more hours.

...................................................................

Three weeks earlier, The Bunker…

“We could just keep her locked up for a while.”

Dean stares at his brother in disbelief.

“Keep her locked up here? Sam you nearly killed her today just at her first words to you.” The eldest Winchester scoffs out. “You of all people nearly killed a human. Mallory is too agitating for even you, one of the most level headed people here. That’s saying something.”

Jody buts in.

“Dean’s right.” The library occupants now focus on the sheriff. “I could take her and hold in one of the jails. I mean just until we figure out what to do with her. None of you will be able to tolerate Mallory long here anyway.”

The sheriff nods this more toward me because she knows I’m the only one Mallory was here for in the first place. If my mom were to escape somehow, she’d go straight for me. No doubt about it.

“Or the more secure possibility would be hell.”

All heads turn toward Crowley who sits comfortably in one of the library chairs. Poise is the king.

“What?” It’s Flora who speaks up.

Everyone has left her be since I stood for her. At the moment she actually leans on the wall next to me.

I look to the new angel in curiosity. Even though I know that she is some centuries old, her vessel looks very young. She seems maybe mid twenties. She’s very pretty which is a word I don’t use often at all. This being because I haven’t had the time to think about descriptions. Flora however…

I find that she emanates beauty.

All of her features complement each other. Flora’s florescent gold eyes seem to reflect off her eyelashes, making her actual eyes look like deer’s pearls. The nose on her face isn’t straight but curved just so that it makes her full tan lips stand out. The roots of Flora’s hair start out black and flow out to brown at her shoulder length tips. Her skin a mere few shades away from being a dark oak.

As I am looking over Flora, I miss the argument that breaks out. Something about Crowley’s suggestion and the Winchesters disagreeing with him.

“Let Jane decide what becomes of Mallory.” Castiel walks into the library wearing a fresh non bloody suit.

After I healed Cas he went to change from his disgustingly crusty apparel. He doesn’t sport his usual trench coat. It must be in the wash still or completely trashed.

“Yes. Good idea brother.” Flora stands up to her full height, which isn’t much, in agreement. “After all it is her mother. Jane of everyone here has more right of choosing Mallory’s fate.”

I think this is Flora’s way of proving her loyalty to us, more so to me. She must realize how enormous our next decisions are. All though Mallory’s actions were monstrous, she is still a human and my mother.

I feel all eyes on me now. The word eye has now lost all meaning to me in their history in my life.

I continue to study Flora and appreciate her interest in the matter at hand as I respond to the question hanging in the air.

“I want to give Mallory a second chance to live the life she wants.” I stare at the listening faces of the room. “I want to erase my mother’s memory of me and all things supernatural.”

...................................................................

Present time…

“I’m sorry Jane. I am so sorry.”

I am embraced by Flora through the open driver’s side door of our vehicle.

If the boys were to see how close the angel and I have gotten over the weeks, they might lose their minds.

Flora has stuck by me in ways the Winchesters, Castiel and Crowley never could. The bond between us is even different from Jody’s relationship with me. Just as strong, but nowhere near motherly like the sheriff.

I am currently in ruins over the visit I am to have with someone who is only a short walk from us.

“We don’t have to do this today. We can stay in town tonight and come back in the morning.” Flora’s hand smooths over my head in hopes to diminish my sorrow.

I don’t wish to break from the angel’s calming embrace so I simply speak into the hug.

“This is the last time I come back here. It has to be today.”

The howls that escape my throat cause Flora to pull me into her more.

“It has to be today.” My whisper is as broken as my heart.

...................................................................

Three weeks earlier, The Bunker…

I peer at my dark sneakers as they move in a trance down the bright bunker halls. The black shoelace ends slither on the shoes fabric in slow motion. My breathing is pummeling against my lung walls, in dread of my path to the dungeon.

I barely hear Flora’s voice next to my ear.

“Slow down Jane, you’re going to trip over your own two feet.”

I feel a hand tug on my elbow, in an attempt to halt my panicked rushing. Enough of a pull to have me turn and look directly into the gems that are Flora’s eyes staring into my own violet ones.

“You’re about to hyperventilate Jane. Wait a second and breathe for a moment.” As soothing as the angel speaks and as welcoming as her eyes are, I have to continue.

I gently leave Flora’s grasp and stare at her still.

“It has to be now.” I force my gaze away from hers and resume forward. “It has to be before I change my mind.”

I force my stiff legs to carry me toward the dungeon where I am to erase Mallory’s memory of being a mother to me. All her memory of all inhuman beings will be nonexistent.

I am unaware of my fingers twisting the dungeon door open or my head rising to see my mother already standing and free from her bonds.

“How did you get out?” It’s Dean acknowledging Mallory’s sudden escape.

I hadn’t known about him following behind Flora and me.

“It doesn’t matter.” Mallory races toward Dean, who squeezed through the door and stands beside me.

I never knew how fast my mother was on her feet because in no time she has snatched a pistol from the eldest Winchester. Dean was pushed down to the floor in her antics and soon she points the barrel of the weapon at me once more.

I raise my hands in an unneeded defence.

“Mom it’s alright. We’re not here to hurt you.”

I pass the words effortlessly out between my lips seeing as this is the last time I will be able to call her that.

She hesitates briefly before lowering the weapon.

“I am here to give you one last chance at life because I love you.” I whisper in truth.

“I believe you.” Then Mallory raises the weapon to her own temple. “But I still know when I’ve lost. Goodbye baby.”

The gun goes off.

My eyes clench as mom’s soul flourishes into death.

Ignoring every aspect of life around my own, I sink to my mother’s non-breathing side. My arms move on their own accord beneath her limp back and pull her body into my own. I feel the pulse leave from beneath her skin and fade into the nothing. If it weren’t for the blood running into her dishevelled hair from the bullet’s path, Mallory could look as though she were just asleep. The paler my mother’s face becomes, the more I shiver.

I don’t realize that I’m trying to shake her awake until my hand carries her lolling head. I feel the red travel to my finger tips as I brush hair off Mallory’s face. I bend my head down to my mother’s forehead and speak.

“I love you mama.”

A weight rests upon my trembling shoulder and I desperately look up into Flora’s gloomy eyes.

I had no clue how wrecked a soul could become until I disappeared from the bunker with my dead mother carried in my grasp.

The only light in that moment was an angel named Flora following close behind me due my quick exit.

...................................................................

Present time…

“Happy birthday mama.”

I perch glumly at the grave stone of the lady once named Mallory.

I stare at the name of a woman who gave birth to a cambion and loved the creature anyway. This woman sacrificed all for a baby she never wanted and became hated when she tried taking her life back.

“I don’t know why I’m bringing you flowers mom. You’re allergic to pretty much every kind.” I glare reluctantly at the lilies in my hold, droplets cascading down my cheeks. “I just thought they were lovely like you once were.”

I sink to the green grass where my mother’s feet would be.

There is a shivering crack in my voice.

I know full well that Mallory has no life to respond and so I drop the bouquet of lilies at her headstone before standing to my numb feet.

I take in the gravelly stone of my mother’s final existence before spinning my toes away from her. I tilt my stare at my mother’s name for the final time.

“Goodbye mom. I love you.”

The pads of my flats teeter their way in the direction of the parking lot.

I remember nothing of the journey back to the pavement where my vehicle is parked still.

“Jane?”

The sockets of my eyes are agitated with salty tears that look to the gold eyed beauty that is Flora. The angel who has been on this three week trip with me is resting on the hood of our vehicle. Flora shows nothing but support in her entire expression.

“I think it’s about time we head home Flora.” A smile dawns on my lips for the first moment in 21 days. “I need to go home.”

..............................................................

Special mentions (tags open) :

@arazialotis @goldenolaf25 @when-innocence-is-gone@fallen-castielx@anothertimeinspace @flare-chan003 @isnt-the-blog-youre-looking-for @imnotalosechester @mary-meee @jsamstar @driadgoch @vvinch3st3r@kayarisa @misguidedconqueress @heeeeeether @breathexxinxxthexxflames@tuckyouinwarmwithin @simirachel @supernatural-fangirl13 @lilypalmer1987@beatlesobsessionlove @ultracleverthing @possesstiel @anamarieswift2194@mlechercat @elyraelyn @caratala @theotherlostgirl @dandycandy75 @the-imaginarium-of-life@trilloku-blog @fandomking221b @stephisapotatoe @5sos-wdw@jadepc @spngeronimo @eemeile @imjustabloger @dixonsunicorn@mcdaring @silvermisthunter @roco-m-pie @mutedwerido @purplesandwichtiger @deanmonwithwings24 @secretkittenhideout@whaticameheretosay @rls905 @msimpala67 @littlesupernaturalwords@spnsoap @hp-hogwartsexpress @d3stiny13-blog @darknzz-incarnate @marshmallow-world @youtube-starkid @bluebear2232 @hstott@cosmoetik

#supernatural #SPN FANDOM #spn fanfiction #SPNFamily #AKF #always keep fighting #Sam Winchester #dean winchester #castiel #CAS #angel of the lord #angel in a trenchcoat #baby in a trenchcoat #death mention #supernatural fanfiction #fanfiction #fanfiction writer

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petersvibes · 7 years ago

Text

promises - peter parker

description: (y/n) and peter don’t have much time, but they always seem to make it for each other.

song: promises - aly & aj

pairing: peter parker x fem!reader (she’s an avenger)

warnings: maybe swears? y’all know the deal i’m 16 and the world is about to explode

author’s note: to anyone reading this after late april - maybe this isn't how everything would go. i don’t know. i can't see the future. just enjoy reading. and for the people reading in the future - including future me - *margot robbie voice* suck my dick

The mirror in the room is easily the biggest Peter’s ever seen in his life, and as he stares at himself in it, he puffs out his chest a few times. This suit is somehow even more comfortable than the last, but the shape is completely different: his small Iron Spider has been replaced with a larger design, its purpose not fully known to him yet, but that’s a conversation with Tony Stark for a different time. Spider-Man brought out a confidence in him he never knew he had - he can still remember the sense of purpose he felt when he put his first one on back in Germany - yet in this suit, with the threat of war looming before him, he feels like the terrified fourteen year old version of himself that never walked out of that science lab freshman year.

The only thing that could help, he decides, is you. While Peter had been analyzing himself at every angle. You had been in the other room for a little over ten minutes now, but Peter is still growing anxious. The two of you don’t have enough time, as Mr. Stark carefully articulated a little while beforehand, so he is desperate to see you. He walks away from the mirror, cracking his knuckles and bouncing up and down as he walks towards the back of a leather couch, taking a seat there and letting his leg shake. I can do this. He thinks, chewing on his bottom lip. We can do this.

With the sound of a doorknob turning, the hairs on the back of Peter’s neck erect and his eyes snap towards an opening door a few dozen feet away. Your head is downturned when you walk towards him, because you’re focused on how your new suit fits around your legs, and it’s only when you hear an audible gasp leave Peter’s lips do you look up, a happy look on your face. “How do you think it looks?” You ask, tugging lightly at your sleeves. You stop in front of him, a bright smile spreading across your face as you watch as his coffee colored eyes wander around the expanses of your figure. You raise your eyebrows, “Peter?”

Peter’s eyes dart back to yours, a blush creeping up his cheeks when he notices the sparkle of childlike excitement behind them. “Just,” He places his hands on your biceps, unable to stop himself from giving you one last once over, “Wow.”

You shake your head playfully, reaching out to rest your hands on his lower back. “What’s got your jaw dropped?” You ask, blushing at the thought that his arose because of you.

Peter clears his throat, leaning back a little in an attempt to appear at least a tiny bit cooler. “You look very pretty.” He says, drawing you in a tiny bit closer.

You shuffle your feet against the floor, glancing down for a moment at Peter’s chest. The new design is cute, you decide, as the large spidery design glistens in the sunlight and seems to hug his figure perfectly. “You look very shiny.” You comment, stroking the tensile material with your thumbs. “I like it.”

He chuckles, and so do you, but in the moments of silence that follow, you know neither of you are thinking of how the other look. Instead, the initial excitement you shared from seeing one another, from seeing your suits, is replaced with the wave of heart straining anxiety with the thought of what these suits are to be used for.

War. You’re going to war. Maybe next week, maybe today, or maybe minutes from now, you and Peter could be dead. For the years the two of you have been, well, whatever you are, you’ve thought about the moment where Tony or any one of the other Avengers would call upon you, and now that it’s here and you’re in the new suits and there’s a giant stationary ring hanging over Manhattan, as much as you hate to admit it, you’re terrified.

Peter looks back up and resumes his slightly solemn smile, determined to see one of your radiant smiles spread across your face. “Did you see the guy-”

You gasp, “The huge blue guy? I thought I was hallucinating for a second!” Your mind flashes back to the moment where a man (an alien man might you had), double your size had brushed passed you a few hours ago in the hallway, followed by a beautiful, but emerald colored woman and her other friends. “And there was a freakin’ green lady? And another girl with like, mantis antennae-”

“-And that other Peter, space lord guy, you do like me more right?” Peter raises his eyebrows, biting back a grin.

You roll your eyes, quickly clasping your hand over your mouth in a weak attempt to stifle your giggle. “Of course I like you more.” You say, the brightness in your voice starting to fade as soon as you look back into his eyes. You watch as Peter’s eyebrows start to furrow: you hate it when he frowns, and he’s already developing little wrinkles because of it. The hand that left his waist wanders between the two of you, and Peter takes it fervently, interlacing your fingers and squeezing as tightly as possible. He clutches your interlaced hands to his chest, close enough that you can feel his heart beating rapidly against the back of your hand.

“We’re really in deep shit aren’t we. We’re really fighting something big?” Your eyes move between the sight of your bound hands and his eyes, which are doing exactly the same thing.

“Yeah.” Peter nods. Then, he moves his free hand up from the side of your arm to the side of your neck, his thumb swiping gently on your cheek and jaw bone. His touch, although characteristically warm and soft, sends what feels like shock of electricity surging through every nerve of your body. He ignites you in a way that he will never be able to understand, and although you would gladly take the safety of his bedroom over the danger of a battlefield, you’ve decided that you will never stop fighting for him.

“We’re going to be okay.” You say, your voice as steady as you can possibly make it. Peter watches as you nod to yourself, emitting something resembling confidence. “We’ll make it out, and Tony will make it out, and Steve and everyone we care about.”

You’re not sure if you’re trying to convince Peter or yourself.

“We’ll be okay.” Peter affirms, but his voice slightly quivers. He moves his fingertips to brush your hair behind your ear, his barely regulated heart calming as he starts to focus on your facial features that he adores the most. He gasps internally with every blink you take, where your long lashes brush ever so delicately against the high points of your cheeks. The fury in his belly is stirred when you bite the plushness of your bottom lip, and when you lean into his touch seeking nothing more than his comfort, he swears he can feel himself falling deeper in love with you.

Like you read his mind, you start to speak. “I’m in love with you Peter.” Your voice cracks slightly when you say his name. “I can’t remember if I’ve told you before.”

Peter chuckles, immediately recalling a conversation you had a few days ago (every time you’ve told him you love him is permanently engraved in his memory) but flushing red with fondness nevertheless. “I’m in love with you too (Y/N).”

Peter takes his time to kiss you after that, to savor the softness of your mouth as it moves against his. You give a light squeeze to your still entwined hands and whimper quietly. “I’m scared.” You mumble, your breath fanning lightly against his lips. “I don’t want to lose you.”

“You won't. I won’t leave you.” He murmurs, bumping his nose against yours and pecking the corner of your lips. You sigh, melting your lips against his once more.

“You promise?”

This time, Peter’s voice doesn’t waver. He nods, pressing his lips to yours for what you pray isn’t the last time.

“I promise.”

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gothicmagpie · 6 years ago

Text

Vampire Hunter D: The Northern Castle, part 2

Author’s notes: This piece of fan fiction is written for @vampires-and-dhampirs‘s VHDweek celebration. One section will be posted each day, and the final work will be posted to AO3, if you prefer not to read it serially. Readers should be aware that this work contains violence and cursing, equivalent to a PG-13 film. This segment includes graphic description of wounds, and a minor surgical procedure as part of an autopsy. This work is primarily based on the version of the VHD ‘verse as seen in Kikuchi’s novels. Part 1 may be found here: X

"Admit it, you just like the weird cases, and that girl caught your eye. Not that anyone could blame you! Ha! Though I suspect it was her resourcefulness, not her figure, that got you into this." A hoarse voice came from the Hunter's left hand.

"I'm not necessarily taking this case."

"Oh no, you are just examining corpses, weeks out of our way, for fun, since we both know we won't be making a reasonable profit on this job."

"Who said anything about 'we'?" The subtle teasing tone in D's voice might have raised eyebrows if anyone was around to hear it.

"Knock that off! I do plenty for you, slavedriver. Imagine where you'd be without me! Dried jerky in a godforsaken Frontier desert, probably."

There was a notable silence in response as the Hunter draw close to the large building Lidia had indicated, and stopped, squinting into the summer sun. It was a typical Frontier structure, pre-fab metal and high-tensile plastic, utterly practical and just as ugly. As they had been told, a large sign directed visitors to either side, one arrow bearing the red, sideways X that was a traditional indication of medical assistance for which the origin had been forgotten, and the other simply marked "funerals." The elegant young man headed towards the second door, a black wisp across the simple but nicely maintained lawn around the building.

He was ushered into a small, spotlessly clean waiting room by a junior nurse who seemed unable to speak in his presence and backed out of the room slowly, waiting until the last second to look away from his pale face. Alone, the Hunter stood like a statue, back to the wall, holding the wide-brimmed Traveller's hat he had removed on entering the funeral home. It seemed he would have held that position all day, but a door opened after a few minutes and Lidia poked her head around the gap. She looked older and more somber in her uniform, with her hair knotted tightly back and covered with a vacuum-sealed cap. "Hello, D. You can come back here. I've let everyone know you are here." She held the door for him, and shook her head to try and refocus herself as she ushered him through a veritable maze of rooms and hallways.

"This place is well-equipped." The Hunter's voice held subtle admiration. "I wouldn't have expected to see this type of technology here." A hand raised to the blue pendant he wore, doing something to ensure it wouldn't disrupt the delicate tech around them, although anyone watching would have seen nothing more than a man fiddling with a piece of jewelry.

"We are very lucky," Lidia pointed him into a narrow stairwell, moving briskly as she spoke. "Most of this was reclaimed from an old Noble facility; we got it for a reasonable price, since folks are superstitious about their equipment and it didn't exactly come with instruction manuals. I wouldn't be surprised if we are only using half the capabilities of this technology. There are few no one has been able to figure out, even when we had a retired technician from the Capital come through a decade or so ago. Perhaps they are only useful for treating Nobles." She shrugged, and knocked on a door.

They entered their destination, a small exam room mostly filled with a large metal and glass device that looked like a cross between a diving machine and a coffin. Lidia moved towards it authoritatively, stood on tip-toe to see the top display at one end, and tapped out a code, pressing buttons with the many-fingered ease of long practice. With a loud hiss, the top retracted, folding into itself and drawing away until a corpse lay on a fancy exam table before them.

Lidia had turned to D as soon as the operation began, which was the only reason she saw the swift flash of recognition and dismay that flickered across his reserved features as the maimed body came into view. "Sorry, I got him cleaned up as best I could with the time I had. Summer means a lot of accidents, particularly among the farmers."

D didn't react to her words, simply stepping forward and raising a hand to press one ragged flap of flesh back over a now-shattered cheekbone. He stood frozen there, and Lidia would have sworn she heard a soft, raspy voice say, "shit." D flicked a hank of long, greying, once-blond hair off the face. He had been handsome, even with age etching lines around his eyes and forehead as gravity pulled jowls down to blunt the jawline and heightened the always-bold cheekbones.

"Mirko Illic." D's voice was low, and Lidia couldn't tell what the emotion she could in the background of it was. Disappointment? He looked up, and met Lidia's confused expression. "I worked with him, for a time. Our approaches were too different, it didn't last. I always knew he was going to end like this. He didn't know when to step back." The bitterness in the last phrases might have been the strongest emotion Lidia had heard from him yet. "Do you have a full record of his injuries? And the other victims? Details on the locations found, too, if you have it." He stooped over the corpse and ran his left hand over the stapled rent in the chest.

He had apparently finished his examination when Lidia returned with a handful of printouts. He scanned them with uncanny speed, then held one out to Lidia. "What was this? A magnetic reading?"

"I suspect it was a computer glitch. We only saw it for a second, not even enough to get a frequency or magnitude. He has quite a lot of augmentation, if it was a true reading it could have been a last flicker of energy stored somewhere in the cyborg implants. I didn't find any batteries, but," she shrugged, "the implants aren't legal anyway. I didn't dig too much. No point in finding anything someone might feel compelled to report."

"Cybernetic enhancements, eh? Does that explain it?" He seemed to be talking to himself, but Lidia saw his left hand twitch oddly. "Do you have a scalpel?"

"Yes, just a minute." Lidia rummaged in one of the cabinets. "Is unsterilized okay?"

D nodded, took the blade and grasped the body's left leg, twisting it until the inner calf faced up. After carefully running his left hand over the muscle, he plunged the blade in and neatly sliced away a section of flesh, pulling it away from the bone. A second stroke severed a metal cable running from the knee before Lidia could caution him that the blade wasn't intended for such hard material. He slid the scalpel in again, flicking it along the bone until it struck something he was seeking. The otherwise silent room echoed with the soft scrape of metal on bone as he pried free a tiny data chip. He held it up, examining the find. "Do you think you have something that can read this?"

"Surely. I can't believe we missed that! I'll go arrange use of the data processing room. There's a sink under the third cabinet, rinse it off if you can." Lidia hurried out, excited by the unexpected find. If nothing else, this would justify her requests for this Hunter.

D rinsed it and put it into a coat pocket before returning to the corpse. "I'm sorry," he said softly, touching the dead man's shoulder before running his fingers over the controls and closing the preservative coffin.

Lidia returned and led him through even more of the medical center's maze. They entered a small room, where they were met by a wiry old man, whose thick glasses and grey beard didn't diminish his sharp gaze and quick smile. "Mr. Tsu is our best cryptographer. He considers this a retirement job after doing government work decoding old Noble files for decades. If anyone can figure out how to get data off that stick, he can." The man in question continued to beam under Lidia's praise, and held out an eager hand for the small piece of technology.

D handed it over. "If we can figure out how to read the files, I'm not concerned about decoding. I have a fair guess what will be needed."

"You do?" The old man tilted his head, examining the beautiful figure with a curiosity he hadn't shown before. "Ahh... I think I know who you are, sir. And if the tales are true, I imagine you probably can access the data, eventually, but I might still be quicker."

The glimmer of a smile traced the Hunter's features. "I'm sure you could hack it more quickly, but I knew the man we took it from, and I believe I know what the password is likely to be. If I am correct, then no guesswork will be needed."

Mr. Tsu nodded. "I see, then we shall try to figure out what device we need." He lifted the chip to his eyes and was peering at it as he opened a door and led them into a truly massive data center.

Ancient Noble computers, carefully restored, whirred along every inch of wallspace, filling them with bulky monitors, busy screens, and housing of bronze, silver, and copper-plated technology from a dying civilization. A flock of jumpsuited techs moved among them, pressing buttons, adjusting paper feeds, tapping touchscreens, and making repairs. Even D looked impressed, staring around at the unknown wonder. His surprise evidently delighted Mr. Tsu, who took his eyes off the data chip to urge D to wander around and have a look.

D had not gone more than a few paces when a triumphant shout came from the old man, who was holding the chip aloft. "So very simple! You hardly needed me at all. This is a standard configuration, the only difference was this disguising shield over the port. Pry it off, and you are in business. I have a computer for this style over here, it is very common." He ushered Lidia and D to a large silver terminal, with a huge viewscreen and a small keyboard beside a data port.

He fit the chip to the port, and the screen flickered briefly before a calm female voice said, "Welcome, thank you for using Jezmine's computer system. As a reminder, this is a public terminal and transmissions may be monitored. Please sign in." Mr. Tsu typed something, the screen darkened, then the voice added, "Accessing data files. Please enter your password."

D stepped forward, and his fingers flickered over the keys so quickly that Mr. Tsu and Lidia couldn't guess what the code was, despite looking at his hand as he typed. Any human-made computer might have stalled, unable to process keystrokes that swift, but this was constructed for the Nobility, and kept up without trouble. The screen flickered, and a video began playing.

For a moment, it only showed a bare, minimally-furnished room, but then the camera shifted and Mirko stared into it. He sat down heavily, sighing a bit and pulling the leather armor vest he wore down into a more comfortable position. "Hello, D. At least I hope that is who is seeing this, although given the fact if anyone is seeing this, I'm dead, I don't suspect it makes much of a difference. Anyway, I heard you were in the area and had made sure to mention a few critical things to a young Miss Graczyk who has been aiding me from the hospital. Hopefully that got you here."

"What?!" Lidia clapped a hand over her mouth and bowed her head in an apology for speaking over the recording.

"I've never done something like this before, but I don't think I'm going to make it through this case." He stared silently at the camera for a couple seconds, face somber and contemplative, as if weighing what to say. "I suppose I just wanted to try and pass the information I got together so far to the next Hunter to try having a go at Vasmer. I've spent several days researching his castle and planning this attempt, but I suspect I've missed something. This case... Vasmer feels different, even to my human senses. I wish I had you and your close friend here; he might have an insight. I've got copies of everything stashed. I'm sure you noticed the cabin near the old water wheel, it's exactly your sort of place." The man smiled. "If you cross the creek that splits off about two miles downstream, you'll see a marker flag I left. Walk from there straight to the woods. There is a lightening-struck tree with a hollow spot about 12 feet up. The info is there. Keep an eye out for wild pixies, they seem to be going through the summer breeding season and are feeling pretty fierce. I know you can find it."

He ran a hand over his tightly braided hair and sighed again, shifting forward to stare earnestly into the camera, grey eyes flashing. "That wasn't the only thing I wanted to share. Damn, I hope you're actually the one watching this." He grinned, "it would be pretty awkward if some doctor doing an autopsy is the one who found this. Anyway, I wanted to say sorry. I've always regretted how we parted. I'm an old man now, even all the augments I've had done are wearing out. I can feel it in my bones, and I know you never thought I'd be in this position. How many times did you tell me to be more careful, that there was no point in being a beautiful corpse? Well, what I leave behind at this point won't be. I'm grey, and wrinkled, and half my bones are metal, and..." his gaze dropped. "And I'm scared, D. I've read the reports, I can't take Vasmer and it won't be a clean death. I considered running but, ah! Don't make that face! I'm not going to do it. I'm not that much a coward, but I think Vasmer already knows I'm here."

"I'm going to die without a chance to apologize, or to try and make things right. My pride has gone with my age. I'm not the cocky Grade A Hunter I was back then. I can understand your reasons now, when I mocked those fears as a youth. It just took several decades! You were correct, all the things you said when you left-" D's hand flashed out and stopped the video. He disconnected the chip and pocketed it, his face a harsh, frightening mask that made Lidia and Mr. Tsu step back. Lidia was suddenly very aware of his Noble background.

"Will you show me out?" His voice was ice, as rigid as his expression. Lidia didn't dare speak, just nodded and hurried them out of the building. She didn't even dare ask him about the info they had just gotten once they were outside. She just watched him stride to the road in a whirl of black coat slicing through the golden summer light, still clutching his hat in one fist.

Part 3 can be read here: X

#vhdweek #vampire hunter d #vhdweek2018 #fan fiction #my writing

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bskarsgardfilth · 7 years ago

Text

Broken Pieces | Bill Skarsgård

description: when unsaid things and old problems finally come to the surface

warnings: angst, fighting, relationship drama

It was when you started to lie awake at night, uneasiness sitting in your chest, that you finally noticed it.

You weren’t pretending, so to speak, you just weren’t ever able to put your finger on it; the source of tension between the two of you. And so you had gone on like usual, the humdrum routine of your every day playing out in front of you like nothing was wrong. But it kept eating at you, keeping you up at night with that feeling - the one where you’re sort of suspended between numbness and sadness. It’s almost cancerous in the way that it quietly starts to spread, taking over more and more of the space in your heart as time goes on, thriving off of being ignored and shoved to the back of your mind.

He had been away for too long and sure, you had kept up with the routine phone calls and check ins that you both had down to a science by now, but things were different. He felt too far away, and to him, you felt too hard to reach. Instead of filling you with warmth and love, talking to each other often just left you feeling emptier than you did before the phone calls even happened.

The night was split up into broken fragments of arguments, tears, and moments of shared silence. Old problems were drummed up and delicate wounds reopened. You could both be harsh and biting when it suited you, caustic words tumbling from your lips and hurled at each other from across the room. Pent up feelings that were brewing just below the surface finally reached the boiling point and it all came out in one marathon explosion of a fight. The triathlon of fights, you’d think to yourself.

There had been a moment where he feared it was all over, watching you pull fistfuls of his clothing from the dresser drawers, throwing them onto the bedroom floor in a blind rage. The sight of it had struck this sickening kind of fear deep within him and he reached for your arms, pulling you away from the dresser and into his chest in an attempt to stop it all. What are you doing?!?

You had both been quietly harboring resentment towards one another. You silently blaming him and his career for the distance between the two of you - him silently blaming you for stubbornly choosing to stay at home over going with him to his filming locations. The problem is that sort of silent resentment starts to take over, creeping into the warm corners of your relationship where love used to bloom, painting it black and leaving a cold shadow in it’s wake. And once it has taken over every corner, filled up every room until there’s no space left, there’s nothing else for it to do but spill over and out into the open - and that’s what had happened tonight.

He had been home on break for a couple of weeks and you had both been tiptoeing around each other for days, tonight being his last night before taking off again in the morning. Your relationship had been pushed to the edge and all it took was one off-hand comment for it to send the whole thing tumbling over. A snide remark that launched the two of you into an hours-long screaming match - dredging up every old issue that was ever pushed to the side and never fully dealt with - until he snapped, throwing a fist out in front of him and into the mirror hanging above the mantle on the fireplace. “FUCK,” he doubled over, clutching his hand to his chest, blood dripping onto the white rug below his feet.

The moments following that were somewhat of a blur - a flurry of expletives leaving his mouth as you tried to get him to let you look at the damage done to his hand, guiding him to the bathroom, both of you avoiding broken shards of glass underfoot, panic welling in your chest.

Now here you were, kneeling beside him on the bathroom floor, holding a towel tightly around his hand to stop the bleeding. Neither of you were looking at each other and the blanket of silence that fell over the room was so deafening, you could have sworn you almost felt it seeping into your bones. That is, until his voice broke it, cutting through the hum of the bathroom fan above your heads, almost causing you to jump.

“I broke your grandmother’s mirror. I know how much it meant to you, I’m so sorry. I-I’m going to replace it, I promise,” he mumbled. “I made a mess - fuck. There’s blood on the rug. I’ll replace that too - um, you still have the receipt from when we bought it? Doesn’t matter, I’ll find the right one-“

“Bill, it’s ok. I’m really more worried about your hand right now, you might need stitches,” you said, cutting off his rant.

“What? N-no, I’m fine. The cut isn’t that deep, it’s fine. I’m going to replace it, really-“ he continued on, unsure of what else to say, how else to start mending this mess that you both got yourselves caught up in tonight.

“Bill, stop. It’s ok. It’s ok,” you assured him, hands reaching up to cup the sides of his face, looking into his eyes to try to get him to calm down.

“No, it’s not. I shouldn’t have done that, shouldn’t have acted like that. I lost control of myself, I’m sorry,” he repeated, eyes trained on the ground, avoiding your gaze. The guilt that washed over him as he played over the events in his head made him feel awful, and he just wished he could rewind back to when his hand wasn’t throbbing and his head was still clear. Or maybe all the way back in time to the beginning, before things were so messed up that neither one of you could barely speak to each other without tossing a backhanded remark into the mix. “When did we turn into this?” he asked, voice barely above a whisper.

The look on his face broke your heart and you couldn’t stop the tears from welling in your eyes as you searched your mind for an answer. “I don’t know,” you told him, hands dropping into your lap as you sat back against the wall. The room went quiet again and your mind was racing with the last things he said before glass was sent shattering to the ground, his words playing on a loop in your mind. You act like this relationship doesn’t mean a fucking thing to you anymore, like I’m not important to you at all. Why won’t you meet me halfway?

This time it was you who spoke up first, breaking the silence. “It’s not true, you know. What you said about us - about you not being important to me.” You lifted your gaze to meet his and you could see his green eyes had glazed over as well. “You don’t really believe that, do you?” You asked, tears spilling over now.

He glanced at you before closing his eyes, shaking his head and trying to get his thoughts straight in his mind before he spoke, “I just don’t understand it. I don’t understand how you can blame m-“ he stopped himself, not wanting to say anything that might cause another argument. He didn’t have any energy left in him to keep fighting. “Every time I ask you to come with me, you choose to stay here. I understand that you want to stay at home, in a familiar place with familiar people… but I wish that just once you’d let me be your home instead.”

“Bill…,” you didn’t know what to say to him. You knew he was right, you couldn’t blame his career for your loneliness when he was always begging you to come with him. It was just an excuse, an easy out. A way to avoid the real problem - you. “I’m sorry,” was all you could think to offer him.

“What are you so afraid of?” He asked, eyes searching yours for an answer.

It was your turn to shake your head, not quite sure of the answer yourself. “That it’s not going to last? That I’m going to let myself get too comfortable here, with you, only for you to get too busy or meet someone more-“

“More what? How could I possibly meet anyone that would be more interesting, beautiful, sexy, smart, independent, more frustratingly stubborn, or more important to me than you?” he asked, cutting you off.

“I’ve just been hurt too many times. They always leave me for someone else in the end. They always find someone better…” you trailed off, sobs threatening to break out again as you recalled the pain you’ve gone through in your past relationships. The pain that, you were starting to realize, you probably always brought upon yourself. “I’m never enough,” you whispered.

His heart sank, looking at the woman he love curled into herself on the bathroom floor, hearing the pain in her voice as she spoke aloud the feelings she kept buried away. All he wanted to do was pick up every broken piece of you and put it back together, hold it in place with his love, assuring you that he wasn’t going anywhere. “You are the only thing I need. You’re everything to me, but I can only show you that if you let me,” he said. He kneeled down on the tile floor in front of you, eyes trained steadily on yours, “Please let me show you how much you mean to me.”

You fell forward into his chest and let him hold you, listening to the steady rhythm of his heartbeat as he stroked your back, and you stayed there until you heard him mumble a soft “I love you” into your hair. You pulled back and looked into his eyes, grabbing a light hold of his face and studying his features for a beat, thumb grazing over the indentation on his cheek. “I love you too,” you told him, and you pressed a soft and meaningful kiss to his lips, trying to translate all the things you felt for him into this one gesture, though you knew it would never be enough.

Eventually you both had to pull yourselves up off the floor, and address the mess that was left in the living room. You bandaged up his hand, and as the two of you picked up the shards of broken glass from the floor together, you couldn’t help but think to yourself that you were picking up the broken pieces of your relationship as well. This sentiment stuck with you as he pulled you backwards on to the mattress with him later that evening. You took quiet comfort in the warmth and familiarity of each others bodies - both of you needing the others embrace to heal your wounds, despite being the ones who caused them - and as you fell asleep that night, you felt as though you could breathe again for the first time in months.

When he woke up the next morning, arm reaching out to grasp the empty sheets beside him, he felt panic shoot through his chest. It wasn’t until he was descending the stairs to the smell of fresh coffee brewing that his breathing settled, relieved to see that you were still there with him, that you hadn’t run away. As he padded over the kitchen floor to greet you with a good morning kiss, something caught his attention by the front door. Your suitcase, stacked neatly atop his, was sitting in the foyer. He looked at you, confusion tinting his features as the panic came back for a moment, trying to work out why you would have packed a bag.

“I’m coming with you this time,” you told him, wrapping your arms around his neck and nodding towards the kitchen table. He looked over and saw a plane ticket with your name on it sitting next to the coffee mugs you had laid out. “You said that you could only show me how much I mean to you if I let you. So, this is me letting you do that. This is me trying to meet you halfway,” you explained.

He pulled you in and kissed you so deeply you felt your head start to spin. He was beaming from ear to ear with the biggest smile you’d seen on his face in a long time, and you knew that this was the right choice. If you wanted to get back to where you were when this relationship started, you needed to open yourself up to him again, you needed to trust him - and you did. You knew that your heart would be safe in his hands. As long as the two of you were together, you could begin to mend the broken pieces.

Tagging: @skrsgards @bebetriste @billieskars @spacemerlady

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#bill skarsgard #bill skarsgard x reader #bill skarsgård imagine #bill skarsgård x reader #bill skarsgard imagine #my writing

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