#i could have gone to sleep but like. what would be the point. ive ruined my sleep schedule for way less deserving things so might as well

[widevibratobitch]

griffith - nails, hair, hips, heels

[thetorturedbuckydepartment]

chapter ten: i don't want you like a best friend

pairing: Bucky barnes x plus-sized!reader

summary: Six months ago, you were appointed to be Head Nurse to the Avengers by Tony Stark. Every day, you count your lucky stars, knowing the horrible past you quickly ditched back in England. It holds you back, restrains you, from getting close to anyone when on your new job.

That's until you met and fell in love with Bucky Barnes. The supposed assassin with a heart of gold, who seems to be eager to get to know you. To peel back your layers piece by piece, but could you trust him once you're laid before him raw and vulnerable?

masterlist

PREVIOUS PART -- CHAPTER NINE: TRUTH, DARE, SPIN BOTTLES

warnings: language, self-deprecation, making out like horny teenagers, very light dry humping, blood and stitches, Bucky being feral and a dom

word count: 2.1k

Taglist: @scott-loki-barnes @cjand10 @blackwidownat2814 @blackbirdwitch22 @laughterafter  @blackhawkfanatic @mcira @bxckybxrnes24 @rachellovesloki @toffeacademia @bean-bean2000 @lana525 @selella @lalalalokii

A/N: oh god I love this chapter!! and that's a wrap on guilty as sin? folks!! ive enjoyed writing this fanfic as a form of escapism from exams so much, and the love and support ive received is much more than I was hoping for, and im absolutely in love with every single one of you! there will be a bonus chapter uploaded this time next week, and the very final chapter will come out a bit after that....until then, keep your eyes peeled for a very special, very new surprise that I've been working on!!

The rest of the night is spent with the both of you in flushed silence, both knowing that you stand on the same shore, face to face. But neither takes a step forward. 

Why are you so scared? Where had all your self-confidence gone? But his hands don’t leave you, and neither do yours. You decide to take an early night, reminding Bucky he needs a good night’s sleep if he wants to get better, as if he isn’t already in perfect, tip-top condition, just with some pink marks that will disappear with the moon.

Even the motorcycle ride back to the compound is silent. But not awkward, and you revel in the time you can rest your head against the nape of his neck and just breathe, listening to the sounds of the city pass you by. It’s extremely peaceful, to have Bucky’s warmth envelope you without a single sound to overstimulate after your social battery has run out. When he unclips your helmet for you, his hands are right back on your face.

“It’s me, isn’t it?” The cold wind nips at your cheeks as you stare like you’ve been caught in a lie. But what’s the point in holding out now? In denying what’s clear as day to everyone?

“Okay, maybe we should go inside first, come on.” Bucky’s noticed you shivering, standing there in a summer dress and forgoing common sense in layering for fashion.

“What’s you?” You ask, feigning innocence as a default safety mechanism, as Bucky leads you by the hand to his room. Your heart is in your throat, pounding harder and harder with every step you take towards the bedroom, where it would just be…the two of you. You try and swallow.

“You were starin’ at me while singing that sexy song, doll. I’m not stupid.” He closes the door behind you with his metal arm, and in doing so traps you against it. You stare straight up, heat rising to your cheeks at his inevitable closeness. You need him closer. Your lips part, and the confession flies right out of the red lips he can’t stop staring at.

“Fine! Yes, Bucky. It’s you. You’re the one that I have a crush on.” You feel yourself tremble, wondering what will happen next. And so, you employ your most familiar defence mechanism.

“But I don’t want to ruin what we have already, as friends. That’s why I’ve been trying to avoid it, and to not tell you. Because, well, you’re my best friend. I don’t want to fuck that up by confessing I want you, I—.”

“What if I don’t want you like a best friend? What if I want you more, far beyond that? Have you ever once considered how obviously it’s painted all over my face that I’m completely taken by you?”

Your mouth drops open in shock. Despite the way everyone’s been teasing the both of you for months, you didn’t expect it to be real. You didn’t expect it to be such a fire, that when you look at him and into his eyes you see the flames lighting him ablaze, in just the way they’ve taken you.

“I…Bucky—.”

“You’re beautiful. You’re kind, you’re talented. You have a smile that could melt the fucking Arctic, and a heart that puts a saint to shame. Doll, it’s you. You’re the one I want, you’re the only one I’ve ever wanted. You’re the only one I’ve ever needed like this, like it physically hurts me to be away from you for even a second. I— I’m yours. Completely, utterly, and probably a bit pathetically, yours. Always have been, always will be.”

And you believe him. Your brain puts itself into overdrive trying to figure out ways this could be a con, a get-love-quick scheme he’s the charming salesman for, but it comes out blank. Your heart wins and desire consumes and you just can’t anymore. 

“Kiss me.” It’s barely more than a whisper, but the two of you are so close, of course he hears it. He can hear your heart, and smell every part of you, from your intoxicating perfume to your pheromones. It’s driving him feral, wild. It has from the very first second he saw you, trying your best to stay balanced on a rickety ladder, so lost in thought you didn’t hear him come in and almost trip over his feet at the sight of you. 

And so, for once, Bucky Barnes lets go. Of his worries that he cannot be the man you deserve, of his fears that he will hurt you. Temporarily, at least. And his body spurs him on, tells him to close the distance and just act. 

You blink, and then his mouth is on yours. 

Your arms instinctively wrap around his neck, pulling him right into you because every atom’s worth of space between the two of you feeling like a fucking chasm, and you can’t help but sigh. For once, you got what you wanted. You got who you wanted.

His mouth tastes so sweet, a lingering hint of the cherry coke he was nursing all night all over his lips and it’s making your brain short circuit. His hands are on your face and then in your hair and then just blindly grabbing, pulling you as tightly to him as he physically can while he tastes, tastes the sweet nectar of reciprocation right off the lips he’s been dying to kiss all night. Like you’re a sacred artefact he’s been begging for his whole life to be able to touch, just once. 

Both of your hearts beat in tandem, pressed so close together than it’s almost like you desire to become one entity. And it drives you up the wall when he groans against your teeth, showing you just how much he’s enjoying this. Your head is beginning to spin, and you just need more. 

All your life you’ve been made to feel shame about sex and sexuality just because nobody is expected to be sexually attracted to you. And in one single sound from Bucky’s throat, all those notions are dispelled, cast away. You are wanted, you are cherished. You are valued, standing between Bucky’s warm hands and knowing there is no other place he’d rather be than against your mouth, desperately trying to melt the two of you together into one person so you never feel distance ever again.

He reluctantly pulls away first, feeling his chest burn from the lack of oxygen. He suspects you feel the same as him, maybe even worse, and he breaks your lips apart, reveling in the whine that slips past yours, a protest of the disconnection.

“You okay?” He asks, as you take in deep breaths, staring into his cobalt eyes that look almost black with how much his pupils are dilated.

You nod vigorously. “Please, Buck. I need more. I need you.” You all but beg, the grip on his shoulders tightening as you pull him close.

“You also need to breathe baby.” His thumb ghosts over your lips as you pant, and you realise you’re being too needy. It’s probably putting him off, and it makes your cheeks flush with embarrassment. 

You’re being too much. 

“Oh, I— Sorry, I’ll calm down, I didn’t mean to be too much—.”

His thumb slips past your lips and begins to caress your tongue, pressing down on it as a way of effectively shutting you up.

“Oh no. Don’t apologise, baby. I can’t get fucking enough of you. But I also don’t want you to pass out on me, doll. Can’t have that, can we? Just need you to catch your breath, then we can go right back to what we were doing, yeah?” His eyes are so dark, and his voice is so low, that it’s turning you on beyond compare.

You moan, and his expression shifts. You wonder if he hates the sound. “Fuck, do that again.” You let your eyes flutter shut and you heed his command. You’d do anything he asked of you, if he says it in this same tone he’s using in this moment. 

“Fuck. You sound so pretty, baby. All for me?” Your heart is beating out of your chest, begging to be freed, for you to get what you want. 

“Yeah. All for you, Bucky. Always for you.” You tug at his wrist, pulling him closer into you. God, he’s just never close enough. 

He kisses you again, and you almost sob, giving in. He’s more frenetic, hungry, this time. Anything soft and sweet he was planning to tease you with has now long evaded his mind, now claiming your mouth as his. He grabs at your thighs, encouraging you to wrap them around his waist, and you do so.

Forgetting any limitations that may have been in place, if Bucky were a normal man. But he’s not. 

And you’re too far gone to care. He walks the both of you backwards, and then sits down on the edge of the bed before he turns, laying your head comfortably on the pillows as he hovers above you, between your thighs. Your hips roll upwards, rubbing against his crotch, and then he moans against your mouth, pulling your bottom lip between both of his. 

You grip him even tighter, nails practically ripping through the leather when every part of you is suddenly too warm, and Bucky all but rips himself away from you.

You gasp, staring at his pink lips now completely covered in your red, swollen from the bruise of the kiss. “Bucky? What—.”

“Your hand. It’s bleeding.”

“Huh? No it’s—“ You pull your hand off of him and note the maroon colour, quite quickly seeping through the bandage. “Oh shit. How’d you know?” You ask, pushing at his chest so the both of you can sit. He kneels between your legs as you balance yourself on your hand, staring at the other one. You guess you must have ripped your stitches open, and that means…a trip to the infirmary. Looking like a hot mess.

Bucky watches you, drowning in his guilt that fills his lungs with polar molecules of I’m sorry and nothing else. “I think I ripped a stitch or two, I’ll need to go down to the medbay. Denise is on shift tonight, hopefully she won’t be too pissed at the sight of me.” You smile at him.

“Can I go with you?” You nod, and indicate for him to let you get up.

“Before we get down there, we need to wipe our faces, love. My damn lipstick’s not kiss proof after all.” You chuckle, gently cradling your hand as you stand. “Let me do it, please.” His eyes have grown somber, so far removed from the situation in his pants. You soften, feeling horrible at having brought it up again. 

Once he’s done cleaning your face, you voice your feelings. “I’m sorry, Buck. First it was Tony, now this. I promise I’m not doing this on purpose to make you feel bad, you know you’re not to blame, right?”

He smiles, placing a kiss on your now bare lips, soft and sweet and understanding. “I know. The guilt’s still gonna kill me, but it’s not because of you, doll. I know.” He presses a quick kiss to your cheek before putting one warm hand on the small of your back as he guides you to the infirmary, insisting on pulling all the doors on the way for you like nothing’s automated in this place. He even lets you sit on his lap while you get patched up, explaining to Denise that he’s here as your emotional support.

He’s with you every step of the way, as you get back to your rooms and he pulls you back into his, to his warm bed that’s too large for a man to sleep alone in, settling behind you with his warm chest against your back. He’s taken to muttering soft praises and compliments against the shell of your ear until you fall asleep.

He holds your injured hand in his metal one, completely encapsulating it so you won’t hurt yourself in your sleep.

And he does it all as more than your best friend.

But would he consider himself your lover? Your boyfriend?

You dream away the hours, full of red hot lust entanglements and ice-cream sweet love confessions with the man currently spooning you.

He listens to your heartbeat to calm him, as he too falls asleep in your safe hold, knowing exactly where he’s found himself, in this bed with you.

Home.

BONUS PART

[everrsilly]

Please please please give me your Patches headcanons I beg I wanna hear more of your thoughts ab him

HIII TYSM i have SO many i’m glad you asked :DDD the hyperfixation makes me insane. get ready for Much text

big stuff:

- first off all of his “stand still and get stabbed” persona was def a front not indicative of his actual personality and was fully based off of his bitterness towards other people. lots of lines in his purrgatory pa2 scene back this up (“cutting bad dogs into tiny pieces”, “getting rid of the toxic people in your life”, etc.) a lot of his violence seems to be just be directed at the people who hurt him which due to his jadedness extends to everyone, as olive points out (“but i didn’t hurt you!”) with patches rebutting along the lines of “that’s what they all say but i know you’re lying”. it probably also doubled as a way to keep people who he saw as a danger to himself away from him: if he appeared to pose as more of a threat, they wouldn’t dare to hurt him in the first place.

- that being said, he definitely regretted killing angel and losing him “for good”. i can imagine a LOT of internal guilt stemming from this because this was the one person who he thought would stick around. like in his head this was the one thing he could keep for himself, the one really good thing he had outside of the bullying and the home situation and the circumstances out of his control. and then he ruined it all on his own, with the very coping mechanism intended to get Bad people Out of his life, and in his attempt to un-ruin it he ruined it more. he briefly equated angel with everyone else that he felt was against him when his heart was broken, and then he killed him. he then proceeded to attempt to mask his way out of it and also mask his way out of feelings in general (critical fail!)

- i also headcanon patches as arospec, specifically greyromantic (in this case being infrequent romantic attraction). which makes things worse intentionally by making angel patches’ first and only crush and worsening the impact of the breakup lolll. he fell HARD. ive also seen greyromantic people have worries about passing a romantic partner by because that might be the last time they fall in love for a long time and in my head that also plays a role. like his thought process is “how long will it be before i get to feel this way again? too long”

- in conclusion i think also that patches has nightmares about the way things could have gone if he had killed everyone. and i also think the ghost of angel (not real, but appearing similarly to pa1) haunts him in those nightmares which leads to him not sleeping very well post canon. manifestations of inner guilt

- he’s still drawn to angel a bit and pines after the way things were for sure, and he talks with angel casually the same way they talk at the end of pa3, but he doesn’t like touching angel or angel touching him even by accident. i have angel hcs too but the way i see it is like. in the end they’ll never be romantically affiliated but they’re still drawn to each other sort of like soulmates but. not really? in my head their relationship is so interesting and so complicated, chews on them like a rubber ball

- he would oscillate a little bit in his postcanon relationship with olive as well. sort of falling between pulling away and pulling them too close? patterns he forced himself to learn vs patterns he fell into with angel. olive would reassure him because i’m certain he’s not used to someone who has seen all the worst parts of him and still refuses to leave

- i think also that patches would be a very protective person in any situation where olive (especially) was in danger. kind of flipping the killer script but he is Very intent on not losing anything else in his life. he would also do this for other people especially if olive asked him (which they would) but it comes from a very specific place with olive. and maybe angel? complicated yet again

- repairs his relationship with luna postcanon for sure. they become more like real co-leaders and patches genuinely starts helping instead of trying to undermine luna. her conversations on the topic of patches show that she wanted to see the good in him the whole time and i think that is so sweet

- i believe in unexpected friendship in brownie. i know brownie was his biggest hater but i think genuinely over time it would become sort of a back and forth series of jabs friendship and i would be here for it !!

- not directly related to patches but in my head he, angel, coco and olive bury angel’s extra removed eye from patches’ locker in angel’s empty grave in front of their house. full circle type beat, kind of as a memory of what happened. laying it to rest and turning over a new leaf

and some smaller stuff:

- i think he totally continues to pick up snakes and small animals and carry them around to scare people. especially angel since we know for a fact that angel hates snakes

- good cook or baker perhaps? this is just based off of him carrying everyone in home ec but since everyone loved his cakes i’m going with it

- absolutely abysmal at sports. cannot play sports for the life of him. and once in a while he whips out a stunning play or a home run and then he goes back to sucking at sports. i think it would be funny

- definitely makes fun of angel and brownie’s ages. oh i see the preteen- i mean the freshman has an opinion. scathing remark from the preteen right here

- i do like patches and whisk together eventually. boyfailures for sure. on whisk’s end i think it makes good drama but i also think they could vibe with each other easily. emphasis on EVENTUALLY because patches would Not want a relationship for a while post canon (nor imo would he really have the opportunity to develop another crush for awhile after canon! since. greyromantic. thats my aroness talking though i fear)

ANYWAYS this is SUCH a long answer with MANY paragraphs you really can tell he’s my favorite character but !!!! hope you enjoyed this yap session i’m frankly mental about this game :))

[q-gorgeous]

They Couldn’t All Be Gone, Could They?

fanfiction

ao3

word count: 1069

When a ghost fundamentally fails at their obsession, they can fracture. Most fade from it, but halfas… they cling. They shift through the rubble at their feet and they don’t stop until they find someone to save. There has to be someone to save. There has to be someone— @ebonyheartnet

when i used to force myself to get to 1000 words i could tell i was milking it but i think ive gotten alot better at it. it gives me time to think of more stuff that could happen kjnhgv

There had to be someone to save. There had to be. They couldn’t all be gone, could they?

Amity Park was in ruin around Danny. The entire city had been scorched. Everything was eerily quiet except for the crackle of flames as they continued to eat through the buildings. Danny sat on the ground in the middle of the street, digging through the rubble in front of him. There had been people in this building. He needed to find them. He needed to save them.

Danny had heard about what happened to ghosts when they failed at their obsession. They fractured and eventually faded away. He had seen it happen before. It was a terrifying sight to see. He always wondered what would happen to him if he failed to save someone. If he failed to protect his city. 

But he learned. Halfas clinged. 

Pariah Dark had gotten out again. He came to Amity Park and decimated everything in his revenge against Phantom. Phantom had cared so much about protecting this city? He’d go as far as to risk his own life if it meant everyone in Amity Park was safe?

So Pariah had destroyed everything and everyone, only leaving Danny behind. 

Danny continued to dig. It was the only thing he could do anymore. There was no point if there wasn’t anyone left. He had to find someone. Anyone. 

Danny wished that when his obsession failed that he would have fractured and faded like a regular ghost would. It wasn’t fair that he was left here without any of his friends or family. He wished he could have just gone with them. But his ghost half prevented him from dying in the attack and his human half prevented him from fading. Both halves cursed him. 

His core thrummed when he found a limp hand. He started digging faster until he could pull the arm out. He held his fingers against the person’s wrist. His core felt close to shattering when he couldn’t find a pulse. 

Danny stood up and moved to another spot and began digging again. He knew there was a better way he could be doing this. He could probably fly intangibly through the rubble to see if anyone was still breathing under there, but his mind wouldn’t let him. It was plagued by fractured and broken thoughts. His failure towards his obsession was the only thing he could think about. It put his hands on autopilot. He couldn’t think past ‘find someone’. 

He wished that Clockwork would come and help him. That he would reset the timeline. He’s done it before. Why wouldn’t he do it now?

Maybe this was the wrong timeline. Maybe this had to happen before another him could come along and have his timeline reset instead. That’s what happened with his evil future self. 

Or maybe Clockwork was really in cahoots with Pariah. He didn’t know. He knew that Clockwork used to know Pariah before he got sealed in the sarcophagus of forever sleep. Clockwork would never elaborate on what exactly their relationship was though. Just that it was in the past. But with Pariah free, was it really as in the past as Clockwork always said it was? 

Danny was still digging. His core pleaded and pleaded with him as he moved rubble out of the way. It begged him to find someone. Just one person. 

There had to be someone-

He moved another piece of brick and underneath it he saw a piece of blonde hair. 

He started moving faster again. His core thrummed harder in his chest. He uncovered the person enough to see that it was Dash laying covered in rubble in front of him. After he moved another piece of stone Dash’s neck was clear and Danny pressed two of his fingers against the pulse point under Dash’s jaw.

He held his breath and waited. And waited. Danny was almost ready to give up when he finally felt it. A pulse. It was weak, it was barely there, but Dash was alive. His core was singing with joy and tears sprang to Danny’s eyes. 

Now that his core had finally been satisfied, he could think more clearly. He phased Dash out of the rubble and pulled his body closer to him. Dash was covered in scrapes and scratches and it looked like one of his legs was broken. But he was alive. Someone was alive. There might be more. 

That was when Danny registered the sound of sirens growing closer to Amity Park. That wouldn’t be Amity Park’s rescue vehicles, but someone was coming to help.

Danny picked Dash up and held him to his chest securely and began flying as fast as he dared towards the sirens. He didn’t want to hurt Dash more than he already was. 

“Help!” Danny shouted once he saw the fleet of ambulances and fire trucks. When he shouted it again, he put the tiniest amount of force into it using his ghostly wail and the rescue vehicles stopped. An EMT stepped out of the first ambulance.

“I found someone!” He flew down and touched onto the cracked pavement in front of the EMT. “He needs help. His leg is broken.”

Danny watched as the EMT shouted for the other person in his ambulance. A stretcher was brought out and Danny gently set Dash down on his. The EMTs started working and Danny could only watch. He was startled out of it when a firefighter tapped him on the shoulder.

“Phantom? What happened here?”

Danny took a deep breath. “Pariah Dark, the ghost king, attacked. He decimated everything he could. But we need to start a search party.” He pointed at Dash. “I found him under a pile of rubble. There might be others who are still alive. I need help finding them.”

“You heard him, men!” The firefighter shouted. “Split up and start searching! We’ve got a lot of ground to cover!” 

Danny’s heart beat fast in his chest alongside his core. Maybe it was good that halfas clinged to the land of the living when they couldn’t fulfill their obsession. If he had given up and faded, he wouldn’t have found Dash. Dash would have died. 

With renewed hope, Danny flew back to where he found Dash and continued searching.

If there was one, there had to be others. There were more people that needed to be saved.

[alicenaivory]

•⊱ 𝐃𝐞𝐚𝐭𝐡𝐬 𝐒𝐰𝐞𝐞𝐭 𝐊𝐢𝐬𝐬 IV•⊱

•{Calebs pov}•

[Just when I thought my night couldn’t get any worse. I mean—

just the irony of it all. It never fails to be the hot ones either. This bitch right here is absolutely bonkers.

My luck with women is definitely on the slopes.

Before I get into /Her/ I have to think about what actually got me here.

I’ll take it back to the starting point.

Family gathering.

I should’ve done it like I did every other event. Ditch it but no I just /needed/ to confront my now ex girlfriend.

Brittney.

I liked to call her my red because of her hair. I use to think she was the hottest chick I can get. Now she’s just average to me. Nothing special and she’d hate that.

As for my feelings? I had them under control. I thought I did. The other night was on replay in my head though. Being shit face drunk on the couch, them thinking I was out for good. Me waking up and hearing them fuck in the shower.

My brother screwing my girl.

Asher was my younger brother by three years. He was favored the second he was born. I couldn’t make mistakes as long as he was perfect.

“Sir perfect” had stolen everything from me. Even my girl.

I should’ve confronted them that night but like a fucking coward I downed another bottle and let myself sleep it off. Pride aside I was hurt despite how I tried to shrug it off.

I wish I had been dreaming the way she broke me. Her make up couldn’t cover the bruises on her neck tonight.

Brittany pranced around me in a mini dress that fluffed out at the ends. Every now and then she’s looking at me, I see the guilt. The way her eyes would fall to the floor. My brother on the other hand avoiding me at all cost. He was the type to avoid conflicts so I expected nonetheless.

“Caleb you got /another/ drink?” First words she really said to me tonight and she’s complaining.]

Did you damage your hair with /another/ bang up bleach job?

[Now shes grabbing my arm and I’m snatching away from her. I accidentally spilled some of my liquor on her breast. “Jesus, Caleb!”]

Oh, I’m the fuckin’ problem? I was just sayin. We can all tell you’re not a natural redhead. Is anything natural about you at all? Anything /Real/?

[“Caleb, what the fuck?” Brittany gasped, storming away from me. I was far from done with her. “Caleb, come on.” Asher injects himself. Funny. He never did it before.

This? I couldn’t take it anymore!

They both think I’m a joke. Sneaking their side glances, hiding their smiles. All to make me a fool out of me! Steering me around and making me out to be a problem so they wouldn’t face their own shame. Who the fuck do they think they are?]

Come on what, Asher?!

[“You’re drunk and embarrassing us.” He tried to tell me but I was confused. All I did was pick up a drink and Britt snapped at me. Asher co-signed, sending me further over.

Their both /clearly/ projecting on me.

I finished my drink and thats when I started to kick his ass. I did throw the first punch so to save them the “embarrassment” I was polite enough to throw him outside.

That’s probably how Alice saw me. If that was even her real name.

I was beating my brother to death, confronting them both on what happen and Brittany? She didn’t deny it.

How could she?

No way she could’ve cared about me anyway. Neither of them did if they were ballsy enough fuck while I was there.

I didn’t realize the damage I done until I saw Asher in a bloody pulp. Brittany ran to my brothers side, picking him without words.

I look back at the door me and Aidan flew out of. My mother and father looking at me in disgrace. I know what they’re thinking...

That I had to ruin everything. They couldn’t wait to make me out to be the rebellious one. I had given them one more reason to turn their backs on me. One minute it’s my attitude, next it’s about my “chaotic energy” that breaks the family apart.

Fuck that.

I knew I could’ve gone about the situation differently but this felt way better. I got no regrets either. I walked away before they could throw their opinions at me.

Fuck them and their conversation.

That’s when I ended up seeing that hot blonde showing up mysteriously on the roof of my car. Alice is what she claimed her name to be, could’ve been a lie.

It was hard to miss how gorgeous she was. Her beauty was almost ethereal that I had to check myself. I wasn’t that drunk. She was very real but my mood was too busted to deal with her.

I did like her outfit though. I took a second to let my eyes appreciate it. Damn this woman.

She had stirred some inside me first look but I couldn’t do this.

With the fresh break up and all this would be bad business. I blew her off. Not because she didn’t appeal to me but despite the vigilante everyone made out to be. I’ve got respect.

My cold shoulder didn’t take me out her graces. Instead she pressed further and next thing I know I’m in my car feeling stuck and beyond fucking confused.

Somehow I let her overpower me. It fucks with my pride how easy she did. It was /too/ easy for her. She was much stronger than she looked. Next thing I knew her face had gotten all distorted.

I can’t describe what it was but it was something demonic.

Something I thought I would only see in a horror film.

I found myself trying to fight her with sharp teeth in my neck. I feel my life slipping away. She’s drinking my blood like one of those fiends you hear about in books and films.

A vampire but I didn’t think they were real. It never crossed my mind before.

I’m clawing my nails into her leather clothes until she pulled away and broke my hand swiftly. It sends me shouting and I hope someone heard.

This isn’t normal.

/Alice/ isn’t usual.

All this woman did was ramble with a crazed look growing in her eyes. She looked me in my mine and told me not to move nor speak. Her eyes pierced my soul, I obeyed her. My teeth would bite my tongue each time I attempt to beg for my life.

I’m in submission to her and not by my own will.

“No!

You. Wont. Be. Different.

It’s in your nature to ruin everything you touch love..”

What does she mean? I’ve never done a single thing to her!

Man...

it’s got me thinking about who hurt her. What would push someone into being like this? In her eyes I can see she’s broken, I could tell she’s lost. I’m gathering this isn’t about me as much it seemed.

Maybe I would feel sorry for her if she wasn’t trying to fucking kill me!

She’s got me afraid. Growing up I’d always tell Asher “Dude, fear is for pussies.” If I make it out of this I can think about if it counts this time.

God the look in her eyes gave goosebumps. She’s enraged but I haven’t done anything. Her hand grabs my throat, circulation cut off instantly. My vision start to blur, I can see the red and pressure in my eyes. I felt relief when some woman showed up, she had let me go.

Their conversation remains unknown to me. I wish I knew because the moment Alice returned she came missing some more of her screws.

I am /fucked/!

“Keep saying the right things and I might let you keep your tongue to speak.”

What does she mean? I haven’t said anything! She comes back into my view, climbing on my lap. I feel her tugging my hands, forcing my broken one on her hips. Her skin tight skirt rises...

This is giving me an eerie feeling. I feel violated when she starts to grind on me, dragging her tongue along the wound on my neck. Does she not know what consent is? She keeps licking, grinding until she brought chills to run down my spine. I needed to get away from her, I’m afraid she’d go further with me.

“You want me to turn you?”

What the hell was she rambling about now? She wants to turn me on? Was all of this just to turn me on? She’s out of her fucking mind—

Wait... wait a minute—

TURN ME?

A lightbulb went off in my head. Now I panicked even more because I knew it could only mean one thing. Turn me into a freak like her.

Hell no! This has got to stop!

Whatever she did wont allow me to me stop her. Won’t give me the strength to speak. I’m listening to her rambling but then she keeps getting quiet and responding to my silence.

None of what I was actually thinking.

It’s almost like she thinks we are having a conversation that we aren’t having. She clearly isn’t reading my mind otherwise she would’ve left me alone.

Then here we were again.

I’m unable to react when she’s forcing the top of her bleeding cleavage into my mouth. She told me to taste it and I couldn’t resist.

I can’t believe I’m doing this. I’m. /drinking/. Blood! A taste that was metallic at first but sweet as I kept at it. Her hips starts driving down against me more intensely. This time leaving me aroused. I’m... going to be sick.

First time for everything..

I don’t know what she did after that. I just remembered everything going black and now waking up with a massive headache. I look over at her sitting up on the other side.

I had hoped blacking out was a sign that I was drunk and none of what happened was real but nope. I’m still in this nightmare with her. I reach up, grabbing the back of my neck to ease sharp pain.]

What the fuck did you do?

[Wait a minute...

I’m moving and /talking/ again. I reach up to touch the side of my neck that I remember bleeding.]

Nothing?

[How is that even possible? For nothing to be there. I hear this slight ringing in my ear but it isn’t bothersome so I ignore it. Before I blacked out I remember being scared. I’m not sure I feel it anymore...

Not in the same sense at least.

I look over at the blonde, she’s been talking to me but I haven’t paid attention. “I did what you wanted me to. Changed your mind? You panic...”

I glared at her, it’s time I gave this bitch a peace of my mind because I finally can. Alice put me through more hell these last couple of hours to the point I would’ve rather endured the dinner with my scandalous family.]

What I wanted?! You can’t be fucking ser—

[I stopped myself before I said another word that sends her off again. Women hated being made out to be crazy and I can’t go about this like a dumb ass.]

You are right. What I wanted. [I shook my head, propping open the car door.] Exactly what I fucking needed. You’re right! [My sarcasm was evident. I slam the door shut behind me, crossing my arms and leaning against it.

Before my body could touch the door she was in front of me. I jumped slightly, I couldn’t hear her or see her coming.

Now that’s something I haven’t seen before.]

Can I do that? [I asked her out of curiosity, placing my arms back at my side.] Not that I plan on making a run for it or anything.

[“Can you tell me how you’re feeling?” She asked but that ringing I’m hearing is getting. I can’t silence it. I could ignore it at first but now it’s bothering me.

“What do you feel?”]

You don’t hear that?

[“Hear what?” Alice asked looking at me closely. Whatever it was she didn’t hear it. There was ringing and faint whispering. I could hear so why didn’t she? And whats with her looking at me like she’s trying to figure out something?

“Come with me.” She spun away, whipping me with her long blonde. Come with her? So I’ve got to keep putting up with her?]

What if I say n—

[She kept walking, her leather skirt complimenting her hips as they sway. I want to say no after everything but do I have a choice? She’d make me or do that thing that surrender my control. As a matter of fact...]

Don’t mind if I do.

[I start following her before she’s too far ahead of me. I fix my jacket before catching up beside her. I don’t want to fall too much on her bad side. If I manage to keep things going smoothly I could eventually get away from her.

As far as possible.]

{End of Calebs pov}

Part 4

[xx-neon]

july 4th

hi again.

i was planning on writing more. the whole point of this was to get my feelings out everyday to cope but its been awhile.

again, if youre not me reading this. good luck.

so my ex broke up with me right? so much happened that i didnt know about. im tired of talking about it really since its been such a hot topic (my ex and i work together too and share a lot of the same friends) thats the cherry on top lol.

he has a new girlfriend. they started dating the day he left.

ouch.

another ouch? 

im her manager at work

looking at it now. this is all one giant hilarious cluster fuck LOL.

im not going to go into details of the messy stuff since its a dead horse at this point.

do i seem happier?

i actually tried killing myself. 

not because of him though. hes a loser with nothing going for him so that would be a waste. i did it because of all the emotions after what happened. i didnt have enough time to find somewhere to live. i couldnt bring my cat with me if i moved with my parents far away. i felt like the whole world was against me and i didnt do anything to deserve it. and it wasnt going to get better. i talked about being in a hole and trying to climb out in my last post. this hole extended 1000 ft in the ground and there was no sign of light. i had no sign of light in me. i didnt eat for a week. i drank everyday. i couldnt sleep. why me? what did i do wrong? is this my karma for being me?

so i really did it.

obviously it didnt work lol. im still here. i spent 6 days in the hospital. one in the ER and 5 in the BHU. i was diagnosed with an eating disorder, major depressive disorder and psychosis. i got help for my drinking too. whoo 

this sounds cringy. but i feel reborn. i didnt mention in my last post but i have BPD (boarderline personality disorder). ive been diagnosed for about 10 years. most of those spent unmedicated and out of therapy so i was really rawdogging life LOL. if you know anything about BPD its probably the worst thing to deal with. thankfully im self aware so i havent ruined my life but fuck man everyone else ruins it for me. 

im in extensive therapy. im on like what... 4 medications?? and i just feel like life is great. ewwww so cringe LOL. but seriously. it is. i dont think ive ever felt so normal in my life. my anxiety is gone. paranoia is gone. my head feels so light now im not bogged down. idk its just so nice. i smile at work now. i smile when i see my friends that i never knew i had. i just know how great life can be.

but then theres this.

schadenfreude

its a german word for basically feeling happy off of someone elses misery.

thats how i feel towards my ex

i know i know its fucked up. but what he did to me isnt?

i never said i was a good person LOL.

i love i just LOVE hearing about how miserable he looks and how happy i look. i revel in it. i cherish in it. i frolic in a field of flowers in it LOL.

okay. we get it. but seriously. i knew karma would come. thats why i learned to stay silent. yes i did lash out and have a mental breakdown wouldnt we all? but he lost friends over this. people think hes fucked up. that in itself makes me feel better. ya know schadenfreude. i do wish he could be a better person but i dont wish him the best. him feeling like this is good. he’ll learn from it. he’ll learn he cant always get away with being an asshole. karma will continue to come his way and she wont hold back. 

ill try to write more now that im happy. 

xx

[silverflqmes]

HELP IWOWSHJE YOU THINK IM FUNNY??😻 im kidding.. let me be normal🫡

im sure it’ll be great!! would fr read your og work if you’re producing content this solid😩 BUT YEAH IDK SEFIKURA JUST GOT SOMETHING THAT HAD ME GASPING FOR AIR ITS JUST LIKE?? they’re so complex and despite being enemies they literally understand one another the best?? it’s just so insane to me honestly how similar yet so different that they are- it intrigues me to see how they progress throughout the games ( i’ve only played remake — which i finished almost two weeks ago i wanna say, playing cc now as im answering actually😭, ec and watched ac ), but i have limited time since i gotta start up college in september and wont have a console at my disposal since im leaving it behind probs</3

i myself have not written much for sefikura — just got one thing up on my acc which was an intrusive / analysis drabble while i was playing remake and got to the edge of creation😵‍💫 cuz writing oneshots is not something i often do unless i have an idea and i just need to get it OUT of my brain😭 otherwise i occupy myself with my lengthier fics on wattpad — which are for haikyuu😭 but since i’ve been brain rotting sm abt ff7 i decided to indulge just a little bit to try my hand at writing it<3

DIALOGUE?? honestly, valid cuz whenever i read their interactions in your fics it’s just crazy how on point they both are. dialogue fr is super important to writing which im trying to work on rn as i write my original story cuz i gotta remember speech mannerisms, behavior, stuff like that so characters are differentiated!! hmm, tbh listening to voices does make sense cuz somehow you had me hearing their voices for certain lines so good job on that, cuz you hella succeeded😩 agreed tho character / relationship development, whether or not established is important and i think you handle it rlly well along with the progression throughout your stories, granted i was VERY MUCH on the edge of my seat during the last chance w the whole tifa thing😭 ITS HONESTLY A RELIEF THAT YOU DO HAPPY ENDINGS cuz STAR WARS RUINED ME TBH so getting a happy ending for a change is so refreshing🧎‍♀️HOKANO ATE AT ME IT WAS 4AM AND I COULD NOT SLEEP UNTIL I FINISHED READING😭 when i got to the end i was like ohmygod are they gonna die?? but still a good fic i rlly loved the concept<3 angst just has me some way😔

BAKAHWKWWJ A SCORPIO?? okay okay it does explain a bit LMAO slay scorpio rep<3 yeah im just naturally impatient😵‍💫 and just spontaneous when it comes to writing.. deadass i would open up my books and just go in while thinking of stuff along the way ( basically, no plan minus the outline i make.. )

but i agree with what you mean abt having smtn to look forward to, i used to do that but keeping a schedule became a little difficult these last few years so i just kinda posted stuff whenever i could :’) at times i might also lose inspo and shift over to another fic but atm ive just been focusing on one full on fic since i fleshed it out the most and just a bit of a happy place for me🫶 i understand w your fics tho cuz seph and cloud are pretty different in each story from what i saw! PLS I TRIED TO DO A SHIP WEEK ONCE FOR A PAIRING AND I DID NOT LAST😭 i was like aint no way i cannot keep up like this.. but what you produced was chef’s kiss honestly, loved<3 PLS I DID NOT EXPECT YOU TO RESPOND AGAIN I WAS LIKE OH!!

DEFINITELY HAD A SPIRITUAL EXPERIENCE🫣 i went into the theater completely blind to what was gonna happen and was surprised to see so many ppl?? and honestly ate up the whole movie — like ik there are mixed opinions regarding it but it was so good??? and when sephiroth showed up at the end i was completely GONE my eyes were fr glued to the screen it was just insane and the fight was so well put together??? 12/10 movie🗣️ OOOO THAT SOUNDS COOL honestly i wish i’d gotten into ff at a younger age but growing up i was super immersed in tekken and star wars ( mainly ), it’s where a lot of my inspiration comes from😵‍💫 probably why i like sephiroth sm too cuz he reminds me of anakin a lot.. but yeah, i held off on tapping into ff since school was out for blood with me🫡 so i’m grinding and indulging in whatever i can now before uni starts for me😭 BAHAHAHA she has no intentions of allowing me any escape i fear.. BRO FFN AS IN FANFICTION.NET?? i have not heard abt that site in so long oml.. i started there too back in 2017😭😭 i was into fairy tail at the time :’) but i shifted over to wp and now juggle wp and tumblr.. online ive been writing i wanna say for about seven years?? but writing ive been doing since i was about eight yrs old ( currently nineteen😵‍💫 ) geez i feel old now as well looking back at everything i wrote😭😭

HAJQHSJS YEAH E2L😭😭 last year i was reading so many fantasy enemies to lovers books that i picked up the lingo readers often used..😶‍🌫️ BUT IT SO IS THE BEST DYNAMIC! it just goes harder than it should😩 zakkura is cute but i feel you on that i need complexity i need ANGST i need shit to go down, the touch her / him and you die, the who hurt you, stakes, conflict, build up — SLOW BURN AND THE BANTER OML like i need all of that bc when they get together there’s just- this satisfaction where you’re like FUCK YEAH!! ahem but yeah😭 i agree, zakkura is more comforting and just sweet, very much on the healing side — its good when you need hella fluff</3 but they’re also the definition of right person, wrong time / not enough time🥹 ff7 is so cruel</3

IM FR LIVING FOR SEPHIROTH TEASING THE HELL OUT OF CLOUD AND GETTING ON HIS NERVES😭 its just so GOOD. so satisfying to read🫣 ZACK IS SUCH A BESTI FR!! we love him for supporting his buddies<3 i cant wait to see more!! and yes😭 i read everything a little throughout the month since your style was just so refreshing to read<3

the last chance was so good honestly i rlly liked the way you explored what was essentially a hypothetical of sephiroth returning again — i was so worried the whole time that smtn would happen to him but then i was like happy ending happy ending ( me on copium basically ) and it all went well<3 it was so cute to see sephi with the kids🥹

fr?? honestly i can see what you mean, i did notice it was a bit on the darker side which made me curious to see how you would handle the story — but i hope you’re doing okay now!! make sure you’re taking care of yourself!! but yup it helps to write whenever things are tough tbh, best way to get stuff out :’) looking forward to seeing the reunion yupyup<3

BAHAHHA DW I WROTE A LOT TOO SO YOURE GOOD😭

hi hi not necessarily an ask but i wanted to tell you that your works are so good??? like i’m still trying to wrap my head around the fact that your stories are not the canon plot of ff7 AND YET IT FEELS SO REALISTIC BECAUSE YOU PORTRAY THE CHARACTERS SO WELL??? i fr almost gaslighted myself for a second there BAHAHAHA ahem, anyway, really love your style of writing, it’s so refreshing to me<3 literally got me giddy and looking forward to fic updates for the first time in awhile?? i’ve been in a reading slump for a good minute and your sefikura fics dragged me out in the most emotional yet spicy way possible IDK HOW YOU DO IT WITH THE WAY TAG TEAMING SMUT AND ANGST SO LANGUIDLY, LITERALLY GOT ME UGLY CRYING ONE MINUTE AND THEN SCREAMING THE NEXT

the power you hold oml but anyway — all in all it’s immaculate, eating it up fr🧎‍♀️ can’t wait to read more!!

and ummmm.. my bad for the word vomit i fr had to simp on main and show my appreciation🫡 have a good rest of your day / night!!<33

Wow, thank you so much! 😱 It’s not everyday I get praised like that, and I’m so honored you like my work that much! 🥰 I love to write, and I have original work on the backburner indefinitely because sefikura has stolen my soul for all eternity, haha. And I know exactly what you mean, I was so disappointed that fics I liked a lot only updated once a year or were left unfinished and I just...got so fed up with it that I decided I’d rather just spend my time writing my own than keep trying to read them. That’s why I’ll never leave a story unfinished(though sequels may take a while to appear). My comments section on AO3 is open to both users and guests, so you are always free to scream about it there or here, I don’t mind in the slightest! It makes me excited to post when you’re excited for the update, too! 

Out of curiosity, which story got you hooked on my work? 👀 In Death is my current fic that has 5 chapters left, and I’ll post one every single Friday until it’s complete, with chapter 15 coming out in just a couple days~! Ahh, the reunion is almost at hand! I also made a special image for the final chapter, and I can’t wait to share it. :) Thank you for leaving me such a lovely comment, I’m truly honored to receive it! 💖💖

[sips-tea-cutely]

Atsushi, Dazai, and Chuuya with a s/o who is v into physical affection? Like they're always hugging or kissing them?

Physically Affectionate S/O

a/n: GUYS IM NOT A DAZAI SLANDERER ITS JUST FROM MY OWN DAZAI KINNIE THOUGHTS 💔💔💔💔

atsushi nakajima, osamu dazai, chūya nakahara

@chuuyas--boo <3

#Atsushi Nakajima

tbh he’d be a little uncomfortable with it at first :(

its not cause touching is a nono for him he’s just a little unnerved from when the orphan director hammered his foot so yea 💔💔

BUT, after getting used to it and atsushi being reassured that the director was gone and even so, still deeply cared for atsushi, HE’D BE SUPER INTO IT <333

god almighty, please DO hug and reassure him, he’d be so grateful <33

oh god tho, no matter how close you two are, DO NOT surprise cuddle him or any surprise affection of that sorts. despite being pretty soft, hes still an agency member and is always on guard.

i feel like at least once, atsushi was chatting with the you and kyoka and then dazai snuck up to surprise his lil subordinate and got a black eye

its ok he deserved it/j

IDSKDJDNDN anyways omg, he’d love all the affection you’d give him and would always try his best to reciprocate

HE’D ALWAYS ASK FOR CONSENT TOO UUDHSHSJSJ

“*taps shoulder* hi s/o, can i kiss you :0? <3”

in private tho, while he’s drifting to sleep, he’d be wondering ‘am i really deserving to be loved by them? im no good at all, not good enough for them, not good enough to help anyone at all.’

plz do reassure him!! even if it doesn’t get all the intrusive thoughts away, it’d lessen them to the point that he feels that he is allowed to love you and is allowed to be touched and kissed by someone as kind as you <33

#Osamu Dazai

UGH, you’re too adorable for your own good <333

no matter what he’s doing— even if he’s with a government diplomat or interviewing a serial bomber, he’d always return the affection tenfold (bonus if the person he’s with is uncomfy)/HJ

would probably get harassed by kunikida for showing too much PDA in the workplace

“what, kunikida? am i not allowed to kiss and hug my darling s/o? 🙁🙁🙁” “dazai, you were fondling their ass. what do you mean kiss.”

okay but seriously, he’d be so touched that someone as sweet as you would want to give your affections and love to him out of all people

would probably cry about it at night, you’re way too gentle to someone as unforgivably disgusting and vile as him.

‘s/o, they’re so kind, too kind. why would they love me? ive ruined so many peoples’ lives, why would i be rewarded with unconditional love— especially love from them?’

if eventually you’d move in together, expect him to never give you any space. it is a MUST now for you to be on his chest or him on yours. it’s something so plain and simple, but to him, it’s almost like a lifeline. without you—no, he could never imagine how miserable he’d be without your love.

#Chuuya Nakahara

love? yes please!! <33

honestly, he’d just accept them. at first, he’d be a lil uneasy considering his ability. but eventually he’d come around and be much much more affectionate when receiving them <333 (snuggling into your shoulder, grabbing your waist, etc.)

still though, he needs to keep his rep as the scary vessel of arahabaki and would threaten anyone who saw his sweet, almost childlike smile at his s/o

“did my little brother find love? how sweet~…” “verlaine, i swear to fucking god if you tell anyone you saw that 🙁🙁”

is so touch starved, please oh god kiss him, he really needs it. would probably depends on when you met him; he wouldn’t accept love as great as he would in his adulthood when he was 15-16 cause of ykyk…

honestly, physical touch isnt rlly his love language, moreso affirmation and giving gifts but if it’s what his s/o wants then, it’s what they’ll fucking get ‼️‼️‼️ we slay a malewife

i feel like he’d have lots of sleepless nights thinking about whether or not he is the real, human chuuya nakahara or the one that’s 2400 lines of code.

but when he met you, those nights lessened and were replaced with thoughts such as kissing ur cute lil forehead and the moments in life that made him really happy that he was born.

still tho, he thinks you wouldn’t wanna be with a guy who’s record is everyone he cared for dying or leaving haha jk… ‘what if one day, they decide, they dont want to be with someone who doesn’t even have a family? eugh, i wouldnt blame ‘em if they thought so…’

these thoughts would always disappear the moment he saw you curl up on his side, clutching his shirt. dear lord, how could you get even cuter? sure, his life mightve been hell on earth but, if this was what it would come to, he’d do it a hundred times over.

[dreamwritesimagines]

Twisted 28 - Sunlight [Spencer Reid x Reader]

A.N.: Thank you so much for your wonderful support my loves! Here’s the next chapter, I hope you will like it as well, and please let me know what you think of it! ❤❤ Ily, kisses! ❤❤❤

Series Masterlist

Warnings: Murder, serial killers, violence, manipulation, mentions of sex, drinking, smoking, hospitals, medicine.

Word Count: 4400

Summary: Survival makes people stronger.

Everyone’s voices were so muffled that for a moment it felt as if you were under water. It came and went just like the warmth, just like the comfort—

One moment there, the other moment far away, and anytime you tried to reach through that haze, you were pushed back into the numbness.

You could swear at some point your father was there too. You were still at the cabin, in that dress, sitting across from him by the chessboard, and then back at the weekend house where your sister was chasing you around the piano, your mother calling out for you to stop running, then someone pushing you into the lake by the cabin before it changed again and your father handed you a knife.

If this is hell, I’d like to talk to the manager.

But eventually, it all came back to you. There was this heaviness on your hand, your chest and ribs hurt terribly and your forehead kept stinging as you tried to open your eyes to meet the bright lights of the hospital room.

Ah. You weren’t in the woods anymore.

You had made it after all.

The constant beeping of the machine caught your attention for a moment before you looked down to see Spencer’s head resting on your hand, his fingers entwined with yours. Your mother was by the couch, her eyes fixed on the ceiling with a crumpled tissue in her hand and Mina was resting her head on her shoulder.

“Mom?” you rasped out and your mother’s eyes whipped to yours, Mina sat up and Spencer’s head shot up.

“Oh thank God!” your mother jumped out of her seat to come to your beside and pressed a kiss on top of your head, making you wince. “Oh thank God you’re okay…”

“Hey,” Mina wiped at her eyes and cleared her throat, “Welcome back brat.”

You smiled and turned to Spencer who was still holding your hand tight, watching you with bloodshot eyes.

“I know,” you said, “No eyeliner right?”

A small sob mixed with laughter rose from his throat and he pressed your hand to his lips, swallowing thickly.

“Hi.”

“Hey professor,” you tried to smile but you were in too much pain to do so, “Is there like…a morphine button or-?”

“I’ll go get the doctor,” Mina rushed out of the room and closed the door behind her, and your mother pulled back.

“How do you feel honey?”

“Like I crawled out of hell,” you said, “Is- is everyone okay?”

“Everyone is fine.”

“Where’s Lily?”

“With Kenzie and Nolan, outside.”

You let out a breath and turned to Spencer.

“You figured it out?” you asked, “The note?”

“Ophelia, yeah,” he sniffled and nodded fervently, “Cabin by the lake, we were on our way there when—” he stopped talking as if remembering it was way too heavy on him and you squeezed his hand.

“How did I….” you looked between them, “Survive? Erica shot me.”

“The helicopter,” your mother said, “We sent it with a medic and a sniper just in case.”

“You sent a helicopter with a medic and a sniper?” you repeated, “Mom, that sounds like a joke.”

“Well I’m glad you find it funny,” your mother wiped at her eyes again, “Because you’re grounded for the rest of your life.”

“Okay,” you shot a look at Spencer, “Ignore this.”

“No, not even your boyfriend can help you right now.”

“They still like you, no worries,” you explained and he shook his head slightly, reaching out to touch your cheek as if trying to prove to himself that you were real.

“I thought—“ he started and blinked back the tears, gritting his teeth and you rubbed your thumb over his hand.

“I’m fine,” you said and lifted your head when the thought hit you, “Wait what happened to Lincoln?”

A shadow crossed Spencer’s eyes and your mother flexed her fingers as if she wanted to throttle someone upon hearing his name.

“That monster is currently handcuffed to a hospital bed,” she said, “But not to worry, we put ten guards in front of his door, and I will make sure to ruin his life myself.”

“He survived?”

“Barely,” Spencer said through his teeth but before he could say anything else, the door opened and a doctor stepped in. Even you could hear Lily’s very loud protests, Kenzie trying to shush her and you smiled slightly before turning to the doctor who was checking the file in her hand.

“Hello Y/N,” she said cheerfully “Nice to see you awake, for a moment you had me worried we wouldn’t get to meet. So, we have head trauma, a bullet wound, broken ribs and blood loss. Were you trying to fill out a bingo of dangerous injuries or…?”

“Go big or go home doc,” you nodded and she raised her brows.

“Should I put in a psychiatric evaluation in here as well then?”

“Yes please,” your mother pinched the bridge of her nose and you heaved a sigh, making a face.

“Pain?”

“A lot.”

“Let’s see what we can do about that,” she said and Spencer stood up.

“Can I see her chart please?” he asked and she took almost taken aback before showing him the chart.

“I’d like to change these two meds,” Spencer said and started listing off his suggestions while you watched him with a smile on your face.

“Spencer,” you said, “Please let the nice and smart lady do her job.”

The doctor grinned at you, “That’s alright. Is there anything you would like to ask me?”

“Two questions. One, when can I go home?”

“We’d like to keep you under observation for a couple of days, depending on how fast your body shows progress to heal.”

“Okay. Can I smoke here?”

“Oh Jesus Christ,” your mother threw her head back, Spencer just stared at you and the doctor blinked a couple of times.

“Since this job taught me never to take any question as hypothetical,” she said, “I’m just going to answer it. No, under absolutely no circumstances are you allowed to smoke here.”

You curled your lips, “It was worth a try.”

“We’ll give you some really good painkillers, don’t worry,” she winked, “I’ll let the rest of your family in and see you later.”  

She walked to the door and opened it, and soon enough Lily rushed inside but as soon as she leaped at you, Kenzie caught her mid-air like a troublesome cat.

“No, what did I say outside?”

“But mama—“

“It’s okay Kenz. Hi bug.”

Kenzie gave you a teary eyed smile and slowly set Lily down, and she hugged her teddy bear before taking a step towards you, nibbling on her lip.

“Does it hurt?” she pointed at the stitches on your forehead and you tilted your head.

“Just a little, sweetie.”

She carefully put the teddy bear beside your bed and grinned at you.

“Mr. Chocolate Chip Cookie will be your friend here,” she patted the teddy bear’s head and you let out a small laugh.

“I really appreciate it bug, thank you,” you said and held the teddy bear in your lap before you turned to Nolan. “Hey man, thanks for the helicopter.”

“Thanks for the almost heart attack,” he replied and fixed his bowtie, “You keep me young with all this panic and adrenaline. Honestly Y/N, never do that to us again, please.”

“I’ll try my best not to get kidnapped by a maniac again,” you stated, “Besides, mom already grounded me so…”

“Good! No jet for you for a while young lady.”

A nurse came in to inject the painkiller into your IV, and you smiled at the sight of your family fondly, then cleared your throat.

“Hey, not that I didn’t miss you guys,” you said, “But um…can I talk to Spencer for a moment?”

Kenzie and Mina exchanged looks and Kenzie lifted Lily up.

“We’ll be right outside,” she said and walked to the door. One by one they left the room and your jaw dropped when you saw Mina squeezing Spencer’s shoulder before she left as well.

“Well, something changed,” you commented and Spencer came to pull a chair next to the bed before he reached out to hold your hand.

“She was the first one to talk to me when we landed,” his voice still didn’t sound so strong and you frowned.

“What did she say?”

“Go there and bring my sister back.” Spencer said and ran a hand over his eyes, “Based on the profile, I thought he’d already—“ he couldn’t even finish that sentence before he kissed the back of your hand, “I thought I lost you.”

“Nah, cigarettes will kill me, not serial killers,” you reached out to push a curl out of his eyes, “I thought you knew that. All looks and no smarts, aren’t you?”

He scoffed a shaky laugh and you licked your lips.

“What happened there?” you asked, “I heard gunshots after Erica shot me, is she—“

“Dead,” Spencer nodded, “She was shot right there.”

You could feel the goosebumps on your skin, “And Lincoln?”

“I was going to kill him,” Spencer said, “If I got there first, I would’ve.”

“Spencer you don’t mean that.”

“I do,” he told you, a dangerous light gleaming in his eyes, “I do mean that.”

You heaved a sigh, now easier thanks to the painkillers, “Yeah well, I guess I know the feeling.”

“Um- the team is outside as well by the way,” he said, “Luke and Garcia has been here the whole night, and I’ve been instructed to tell you, word by word, no amount of pastries will excuse the worry you put them through.”

You grinned, the tired haze of sleep crashing on you, “Ouch, I’ll have to try harder I guess,” you said and yawned, making Spencer smile.

“Rest a little,” he said, “I’ll stay right here, okay?”

You nodded and leaned your head back to the pillows, then closed your eyes.

                                                 ***

You were given the permission to go home after a week because your mother insisted on keeping you there until she was convinced you wouldn’t drop dead all of a sudden. Surprisingly enough, she didn’t raise hell when you told her you would be staying at Spencer’s place for a while, and for once, Mina agreed with you.

You really needed to ask Spencer what had happened while you were gone, in detail.

It was strange, but your sleep was much less disturbed after you had returned from the hospital. When you were in hospital you had just assumed it was because of the meds they had given you, but now, sleeping with Spencer in his bed, there was still no sign of any nightmares.

With you, that was. Spencer was a completely different story.

You still had to be careful because of your ribs and the doctor had told you to be careful with how you slept, so the moment you moved a little in your sleep and felt the pain shooting through you, you made a face and reached for Spencer’s side of the bed only to meet an empty spot. You opened your eyes, and carefully sat up in bed, trying to hear whether there was any noise to signal he was coming back to bed but there was none, so you slipped out of the bed and walked to the living room.

Of course he was there. Cradling a cup with steam coming out of it in his hands, staring into the darkness as if he was lost in his own mind.

“Spencer?” you said softly and he turned his head, snapping out of his thoughts.

“Hey,” he said, trying to smile, “Why are you up?”

“I could ask you the same question,” you tilted your head before you went to sit beside him and he ran a hand through his curls.

“It’s not important.”

“Nightmares?” you asked and he nodded silently.

“Do you want to talk about it?”

“Maybe later,” he murmured, “How about you? Any pain? Do you need an ice bag?”

You shook your head, “Nah it’s fine,” you said, “It doesn’t hurt that terribly.”

“And your nightmares?”

You shrugged, “No nightmares. I mean—at least not like the earlier ones. Not where I’m turning into him.”

“Trauma works differently in everyone.”

“I don’t think it’s the trauma though,” you said, “I think it’s because…because I know now.”

He raised his brows, his whole attention on you, “What do you mean?”

“It’s not in me,” you said, “It’s just—it’s just not. I don’t think it ever was. My father killed people because it made him feel powerful. It wasn’t like that with me, back at the cabin. It was survival. For me and people I care about, that’s all. It doesn’t make me evil.”

That seemed to pull him out of his thoughts and he smiled.

“No it doesn’t,” he said, “You’ve never been evil. Even when he tried to turn you into that.”

Even your heart felt light, despite the pain in your ribs and your smile widened.

“I know he’s not dead but…”

“He’s locked away. Same difference from now on.”

You paused for a moment, “Speaking of,” you said, “I was thinking I could go and see him for the last time.”

He frowned, “Why?”

“I don’t know. I think it’ll help me put this whole thing behind me.”

“Are you sure that’s a good idea?”

“I want to see the look on his face when he realizes his small project failed,” you said, “Trust me. There’s no way he can get to me, not anymore.”

He rubbed his thumb over your hand and you leaned back to the back of the couch, still keeping your gaze on his handsome face.

“You don’t have to come with me,” you said, “If it’s too much.”

“It’s not that,” he rasped out, “Officially, I might not be allowed in.”

“Why not?”

“I’m leaving the BAU.”

You blinked a couple of times, gawking at him, then sat up straighter.

“What?”

“I can’t anymore,” he averted his glances from you to look into space, nibbling on his lip, “Y/N, I was out of the city when they called me to tell me you were missing, that you were most probably taken by the copycat. And for the whole time until I found you…” his voice cracked, “Lincoln’s profile, before we even knew that he was Lincoln, it all suggested that he…killed his victims without spending any time with them. I thought—“ he sniffled and cleared his throat, “I can’t do that anymore. Imagining you like all those victims…”

“Spencer, I’m fine.”

“But you weren’t,” he said, barely moving his lips, “Back there.”

Ah. The woods.

“That’s what your nightmare was about?” you asked and he heaved a shaky sigh.

“I couldn’t save you,” he said, “You died there, and I couldn’t do anything, I was too late—“

“Spencer,” you reached out to touch his cheek, “Hey, look at me.”

He turned his head so that his eyes would meet yours and you dragged your fingertips over the slight stubble on his cheek.

“You weren’t too late,” you told him, “And I didn’t die. Okay? I’m right here. Don’t leave the BAU because of me, do it only if you want to. I’ll be with you either way.”

He blinked back the tears and nodded. “I want to,” he whispered, “I can’t anymore, and I want- I want to be here. I’ll just…I’ll focus on teaching, and the team can consult me whenever they need to, but I need to be here.”

“And you’re sure about that? It’s not some…heat of the moment decision?”

“It’s not,” he said, “I’m positive.”

“Alright,” you smiled at him softly, “Okay then. I guess instead of talking about gruesome murders and copycats who were after me, we can be one of those boring, cliché couples who bicker about…I don’t know, dirty dishes in the sink, or how you forgot to put down the toilet seat or-“

“Your hair in the drain.”

“I’m going to pretend like you weren’t waiting for the opportunity to bring that up.”

He let out a teary laugh and wiped at his eyes before he pulled you closer and carefully wrapped his arms around you so as not to hurt your ribs, burying his face into the crook of your neck. You brushed your fingers through his curls, as if trying to prove to him that you were there, that you were alright.

“I love you so much,” the confession left his lips in a whisper and you could feel the burning behind your eyes as you raked your nails over the nape of his neck gently.

“I love you too,” you murmured, “God, you have no idea how much.”

                                                      ***

The BAU, upon your request, fixed a meeting with your father for the next week.

And throughout that week, everyone tried to convince you to change your mind. Your mother had made a whole scene during brunch, telling you that it was as if you liked torturing yourself, but you knew deep down that you had to talk to him for the last time.

Seeing your father after what felt like a life time, especially after everything that you had been through was strange at the very least. You didn’t have any goosebumps, you didn’t have that nervousness messing with your head, you didn’t feel like you were under the threat of being attacked any time, and most of all—

You didn’t feel like he was stronger than you. At all.

You lit a cigarette in the interrogation room, then flipped the cap of the lighter and turned your head when the door opened and your father walked in, chains dangling from his handcuffs wrapped around his ankles. He stared at you for a couple of seconds as if he didn’t expect to see you there and let out a breath.

“Petal…”

“You should sit down,” you said, exhaling the smoke and a guard helped him sit down across from you.

“We’re right outside, miss.”

“Thank you,” you said and watched as he straightened his back, his gaze focused on you.

“You look…” he trailed off and you raised your brows,

“Hm?”

“What did they do to you?”

“Ah I guess your outside source ending up dead gets you a bit behind on the news,” you said, “Erica is dead, Lincoln is never gonna see the sunlight again, and your whole project to turn me into your legacy with the help of them failed terribly.”

“I’d never allow them to harm you like this.”

You rolled your eyes, exhaling the smoke.

“But you fought your way out, didn’t you?” he asked you, “Looks like my training helped you after all. Even if you refuse to see that.”

“Did you seriously think I’d become like you?” you asked back, “Did you think Lincoln would manage to turn me into you?”

“Honey, Lincoln was going to be your companion at best, your first kill at worst.” he said and you clicked your tongue.

“Oh, that was your plan all along?”

“Some part of it, at least. I knew they wouldn’t be able to handle you, but I thought you could decide what to do with them. Could you kill Erica at least?”

“Didn’t get the chance.”

“You should have,” he said, “You would see, Petal.”

You twirled the cigarette between your fingers, staring at him for a couple of seconds.

“I keep thinking,” you mused, “You know what I said to Mina and Kenzie when they first told me they wanted to have a baby?”

He tilted his head, “Hm? What?”

“I asked them if they lost their minds.”

Your father pulled back slightly and you shrugged your shoulders.

“Because I mean… Kenzie’s parents are assholes, and there’s you,” you motioned at him, “Not that anyone else could take the cake on being a messed up parent when you’re in the picture.”

“I take offense to that.”

“I don’t care,” you said, “But then it hit me, back at the hospital. I was looking at this whole mess from the wrong perspective.”

“Which is?”

“They had a point,” you said, “Back then- before all this I mean, I thought when someone decided to have kids, their first priority was to be the perfect parent. That’s stupid, it’s impossible to be the perfect parent, our own parents mess us up in one way or another. But I get it now.”

“You get what?”

“The first step is being better than your own parents, not starting out perfect,” you said, “That’s why every generation is different, we’re all trying to be better than our parents, and some of us actually succeed.”

“And you think you’d be a better parent than me, is that it?”

“Shouldn’t take that much of an effort to be honest.”

“Are you…?” he motioned at you and you scoffed.

“No,” you said, “No, but what happened back there made me think. I’ve been living my whole life so convinced that you messed me up beyond my own control, beyond saving, but that’s not completely true, is it? I mean, just because you’re in my past, doesn’t mean I’ll have to include you in my present.”

“But I am in your present Petal.”

You pursed your lips together, then gestured around you. “Debatable. Nolan is buying this whole place, did you know that?” you asked, “All your guards are on our paychecks, so it should be harder to…use them to contact outside. We control everything that’s happening here, and there’s nothing you can do about that.”

He blinked a couple of times, trying to catch up with your train of thought.

“And you think that will be enough to put me behind you?”

You shook your head, “No, I don’t think it’s that easy,” you confessed, “But it’s a start.”

He moved his hands on the table, the chain rattling.

“I raised you.” he said, “I’m inside your head, whether you like it or not. You’re my legacy—“

“I’m my own legacy, you fucking idiot,” you said with a small chuckle, “That’s who I am. Just because your expectations of me will not leave me, doesn’t mean I’ll let them haunt me.”

“And you think that will be enough.”

“I will never see you again,” you tilted your head, “Should make things easier, to be honest.”

He smiled, “But you already hurt people,” he said “You know how it feels now, don’t you? That fire? Now you know what you’re capable of.”

You thought for a moment.

“Yeah,” you said, “Yeah I do. Now I know that if it ever comes to that point, I’m capable of protecting myself and my family. It doesn’t make me a monster, it makes me a survivor. Me and mom have that in common, after the shit you’ve pulled.”

He stared at you and you took a last drag of your cigarette, then checked your wristwatch.

“Well I should go. You may have all the time in the world, but I actually have a life, so…”

You stubbed your cigarette and walked to the door but as soon as you opened it, he said your name, making you stop.

“You can’t escape from this,” he said, “Even if you never see me again, you still won’t escape, you know that, right? Why do you think I chose you and not your sister? Even when you were a child, you had…something in you. Something dark, something dangerous.”

The idea was very familiar to you. You had been saying the same thing to yourself for many years and hearing it from him for what felt like a hundredth time was supposed to make you feel bad, you knew that. If it were any other time before your kidnapping, before saving yourself in that cabin, before surviving everything your father and his followers had put you through, it would probably have more effect on you.

The last time he had done that, you had ended up in the stairs, shaking until Spencer had found you.

But it wasn’t that time.

It was as if something had clicked inside your head after everything, and your father’s words held no strength in them.

“Come on honey,” he told you, “Some people are just born twisted.”

A small smile pulled at your lips and you raised your brows, looking at him for a couple of seconds, etching the sight of him in chains into your memory.

“Maybe,” you said and took a step towards him, opening your cigarette case to pull out the small jasmine flower out of it, then put it on the table, eyes locked to his before you leaned in slightly.

“But I wasn’t.”

With that, you turned around and walked out of the interrogation room for the last time, ignoring the way he was yelling your name. Your smile widened as you made your way out of the building, your heels echoing in the halls before you stepped out, the fresh air filling your lungs.

“Hey,” Spencer greeted you, leaning back to your car and reached out so that you could step into his embrace as he pushed your hair out of your face, “How did it go?”

“As expected,” you stood on your tiptoes to press a kiss on his lips and he heaved a sigh.

“Are you okay?”

“Yeah,” you said “Yeah I feel like…he’s gone. He’s gone, I’m here and I’m free and I know myself now. I finally woke up from that nightmare, for good.”

He smiled and brushed his lips against yours, “That’s a good start,” he commented, “What do you want to do now?”

“I’m open to suggestions,” you said and he tilted his head before he held up your keys.

“What do you say we drive away and never return here?”

You let out a small giggle and wrapped your arms around his neck.

“I like that idea,” you said, “Let’s drive away and never return.”

Chapter 29 

[bibliocratic]

litany An exploration on endings. Or: all the ways it could have gone wrong and right.

jonmartin, spoilers for 200, content warnings in the tags

--

This is not what she thought victory would feel like.

Basira’s fingers tense and smart with overexerted aching when she stops to stretch them out. There is a geography of broken blood-vessels under the bruising that lies puddle-splotched over her hands which scrabble and claw talon-bent at the rubble. They are scored with scratches and tears where her exposed and dust-ruined skin has snagged on fractured brickwork.

She uncovers a foot first, as she pushes up and over the twisted mental of a window frame with an exhausted clatter. A trainer, the white doused with mud, the trailing laces caked stiff and russet. More heaving and hauling, her breath purging from her faster now – maybe, maybe, maybe, but she has lived too long now to believe in miracles. Overturning a fire-blasted section of what could have been once part of the imperious and grand stone stairwell, she reveals the leg the trainer is attached to, pulverised and off-angled by the weight of the collapse, the fabric of it drenched in soot. She peels back a cascade of plasterboard with a grunt, and there is a twisted pelvis, shattered ribs caved in under an acrid-smelling jumper. She’s not surprised at the dull punch of revelation, when she digs out hunched shoulders, coils of hair turned grey-white like swans’ down with the dust.

Martin is obviously dead. She hopes it was quick, fears it was not. His body lying stringless is curved around something, clutching it to him with his bruised and broken fingers. It takes many minutes of labouring, her spine seizing with complaint, sweat pooling at her brow and under her arms, but eventually she reveals Martin’s tender quarry, bundled up against his chest, blood-soaked from a wound long congealed. His own long and bloody fingers clenched and moored into the weft of Martin’s jumper.

She doesn’t need to check his pulse. She is cursed with enough sentiment to do so anyway. Crouching for a moment in the thick of the settling devastation, the fug of dust coating her nostrils, before she murmurs ‘I’m sorry’.

As she stands, she takes off her coat to lay it over them respectfully, the only shroud she can offer.

When her voice is composed, its cracks flattened out, she shouts the others over to tell them to stop searching.

--

The knife does not go in easily. There is force behind its thrust, a manic wave-shock of hysteric intent, and Jon’s lips part in a gasp as skin and sinew and flesh split. The noise wrenched from Martin is soiled with ruin, tremulous and saw-toothed, and he will never be able to forgive himself.

Jon’s eyes close. Peace of a sort granted to Magnus’ last and most beleaguered of Archivists.

And then they open. All of them, like the unfolding back of petals during blossoming, a meadow’s expanse of sight flowering on his face.

“No,” Martin whispers, the refusal almost lost over the tumult of the building around them. He pulls the knife out, and it drips onto the floor, making damp the material of his trousers. “No, nononononono.”

The wound presses together like lips, and then it is gone.

“I think it’s too late for that, Martin,” the Archivist says in that calm and reasoned voice of his.

--

It is a surreal, poorly-rendered mirror of before. A way the record of the world has slipped, juddered aground in a repeat. For all they have both changed, outgrown the casings of the people they were, for all they have endured both together and apart, it is a sick homecoming of sorts to stand again a second time round at the entrance to his hospital ward.

She’s brought supermarket flowers bunched in plastic, the last of a bad crop and too late to get the freshest, the stalks of baby’s breath drooping, the petals on the carnations mottled slightly and past their glory days. Jon lies submerged in sleep, the focal point in a placid storm of machines and wires. This coma chemically induced with no inkling of the supernatural, a last-ditch effort by the doctors to reduce the swelling on his brain. To give the body a chance to heal from the damage sustained during the collapse, his frame bludgeoned and punctured like a shrike-caught mouse, the smoke that has snarled like brambles in his lungs. The almost comically neat wound punched into his chest, nicking his heart.

She hopes his sleep is dreamless.

It takes him weeks to wake up.

“… Georgie?” he finally gasps out on an otherwise uneventful Thursday. His vocals are ribbed and scored with smoke damage. He’s sluggish as he blinks and turns and groans at the complaint of his body around him. “What – er?”

“Hey Jon,” she replies. “Good to have you back with us.”

She lets him acclimatise. Without his glasses, he squints and peers owlishly, like an inquisitive bird, absorbed by the novelty of his environment, the mundanity; the hospital-blue curtain that’s been pulled back around his bed, missing a few rungs and so hanging lopsided in places. The wilting flowers on the side table. The IV needles threaded into his arms.

“Did it work?” he asks finally.

“We think so.”

Georgie doesn’t add more. The conversation is one she knew they’d have, but it still feels like stepping out on frozen water. She is waiting for it to give beneath him, for the drop and drown in the unmoored cold.

His relief muddies in increments. His brow crinkling with a frown, glancing around again at the other beds. Their occupants dredged up and out and recovering from their private terrors, bringing the lessons of their landscape with them.

“Where - ?”

He looks up at her. The ice cracking.

“I’m… I’m so sorry, Jon,” she says.

--

“We made it. L-look, see, we’re – I don’t know where we are exactly, b-but that doesn’t matter, does it, because we’re together, yeah? We’re together and that’s… that’s what we promised.”

The blood is drying on his trembling fingertips, the crevices of his palm, and it flakes off like decaying leaf-fall. The front of his clothes is clogged and sodden, the slick slow to harden. The weight in his arms is making his shoulders scream but he can’t let go.

“We – we did it,” he repeats hollowly. Desperately. “We did it, s-so you can come back now. You can come back. Together, you promised.”

The winds of this new world blow as cold as the old one did, and it is Martin’s only reply.

--

“It’s for the best, Martin,” the Archivist says.

“Shut up,” his furious watcher snarls. “Don’t talk to me like that.”

“Like what?”

“Don’t play st – Like him! Like he would! Using his voice.”

“It’s my voice. It’s me, Martin.”

Martin doesn’t respond to that. Their arguments are cyclical as roundabouts. He tells Martin he loves him. Martin tells him to fuck off.

The place where Jonah Magnus met his End, crumpled up on the dais of the Panopticon, has been cleared of blood. It distressed Martin to look upon, as evidence of his ascension rather than his capacity for brutality, so the servitors saw to its removal. The body he gifted to the mulch of the bone gardens, and the wailing growths flourished beautifully with the nutrients it bore.

The screams beyond the walls of the Panopticon cut off faster as he hastens them towards the End. He observes a world in its twilight. There is still torment, and it is unendurable and unfair but it will end under his reign, for good and for ever, and he will ensure that there is no more.

“You don’t have to stay,” the Archivist says. Considered. Gentle. “I know… seeing me like this is not what you wanted. I want us to be together while it ends, but I won’t force you.”

“And how is it any better out there?”

“It’s not,” he admits. “Here, I can keep you safe. I want you to be safe. I want you to be happy.”

“Well, you fucked up there then,” Martin snaps.

His anger is righteous and flint-spark, makes barriers that almost waylay his grieving. He looks at him, and for a moment, his gaze shakes. He will see nothing less than he expects to see, a man, unkempt from travel, a bit grubby. Coarse hands he has held, lines he has attempted to smooth. In many ways, this makes it worse.

Martin turns away, and the Archivist lets him go.

He needs time and they have more than enough of it now.

--

He is inconsolable when they dig them out. A horrible, anguished keening like he’s being struck, a gasping that violently gags and stoppers in his chest. His face twisted, blotching, his eyes swollen, and the picture he makes is ugly, rent-open, decimated, bawling into the body he’s crushed up against him. Rag-doll limbed. Ashen.

They can’t make him let go. His cries transform and degrade into wails, garbled wordless, the horizon of language lost. They aren’t even sure if he knows they’re there. The sound pouring out of him is frenzied, delirious and anguished by surviving the unsurvivable alone. He fades hoarse through the ruin he has made of his throat and then he just weeps into Jon’s chest, and still he will not let go.

Melanie’s the one that stops him using the knife the first time. Wrestling it from his grip more out of surprise than shock at Georgie’s shout, and her anger is poisoned with her panic, throwing it to one side and hearing it clatter, snarling that I’m not going to fucking bury both of you, you hear me, don’t even think about it, fuck you, you think this is what he would have wanted, you think we want to lose you too?

Martin doesn’t reply.

They are not fast enough to stop him the second time he tries.

--

There are two men, strangers to these parts, who moved into the village from elsewhere like seeds caught on breeze. They plant their roots in uneasy soil. They talk to no one, versed in polite but guarded pleasantries, their greeting smiles to-the-point and weathered like coastal walls to withstand even the most inquisitive of questioners.

The one who is tall has the pared-down appearance of someone who has lost a lot of weight through some wasting that gnaws upon him. A gauntness that accentuates the furrows and gulleys and crags of his face, worsens the snow-stark white of his hair. The one who is short has been formed naturally sharp in features, although the brown of his eyes is mellow, prone to distance and otherwise unremarkable. The rumour mill, that tumbles in cycles of chatter that rolls from suspicious to musing, supposes some great and devastating fire to account for the injuries on his hands and the exposed skin of his face and neck, the pocked divots like scattered spark burns, ragged scars from shrapnel of some kind.

The one who is short limps on a sturdy walking stick, fashioned from an oak branch divorced from its tree in a storm. Any travel ventured upon is slow and demonstrably an effort. His free hand clasped in the hand of the one who is tall, who decks himself in layers even in the mildest of weathers, whose eyes are biting as hailstones, awashed grey and framed with bruising as though his dreams are rarely kind.

They re-painted the outer walls of their house last summer, when the temperature wallowed sticky and dense and glorious. The tree in their garden has fruited its first pears, few and stunted but a start that promises better crops come next year.

There is the hope that the strangers are happy.

If they are, it remains nobody’s business but their own.

[plsimsuchasimp]

i’m sorry (ft: sugawara).

by request: “Hi!!!! Okay im so glad your requests are open - could I please request some angst with Sugawara? Where the reader is his best friend and secretly loves him but he doesn’t know? Then maybe the reader and Suga fight and then reader gets hurt or something (maybe a car accident) and when the Karasuno team finds out, Suga is devastated and goes to the hospital and tell the reader that he loves them?? Thank you!! ❤️” -anon

yes anon i’m happy to do this- i kinda changed up the prompt a lil bit so i’m sorry about that but i hope this measures up to your standards! (i’m ridiculously soft for suga so this makes sense)

genre: sadness (literal tears were shed in the process of making this)

ft: sugawara koushi x reader

warnings: car crash, fighting, cursing, hospitalization, death

wc: 2k

“Y/n, why are you so upset? I get that you’re concerned, and I’m grateful for that, but she’s genuinely a good person and I’m serious about her!” Suga walks away from you, his back turned, shoulders raised slightly in his sweater. You can sense his frustration, his confusion, but you don’t care. His face is pouty, lip sticking out ever so slightly, and you know you can’t look at him or you won’t be able to keep yourself from kissing him right then and there.

The thing is, you know she’s a good person. And that’s what hurts. See, you’ve been in love with Sugawara Koushi since the day you met him at the bus stop five years ago, on a hot summer day with a butterfly in his hair.

You can’t stop him from getting a new girlfriend, and you know it’s selfish of you to hope he likes you the way you like him, to hold on to him for all these years.

Sometimes when it’s late, you let yourself drift into your memories. The spring days when he would take you hiking, out into the mountains to show you his favorite spots, the times when your stomachs hurt from laughing at the dirty jokes he found off of random places on the internet, the rainy moments and baking cookies when it just seemed calm. With Suga, you felt at home like nowhere else. 

Now, your eyes sting unfairly, and you turn away from him as he glares towards you, brow furrowed. Struggling to keep your voice even, you say, “I know, okay Kou? I just- I don’t know, she gives me bad vibes.”

You know he doesn’t mean to be rude, but when he scoffs, your heart squeezes just a bit and tears prick your eyes. “You’re telling me to call off a whole relationship because she gives you bad vibes? You did this with all of my exes, too!” Suga sighs, hands on his hips. “You know you’re my best friend, but honestly, y/n, this has to stop. You can’t control my life!” 

He’s right. You know he’s right, and that’s the harsh thing about it. You want him all to yourself- everything about him is entrancing, intoxicating, familiar. Jealousy is a bitch.

“Don’t tell me what to do.”

At this point, his jaw drops open at the sheer audacity of your remark. “I can’t do this with you today.” He throws up his hands and sits on the bed, making it clear he doesn’t really want to talk anymore.

Suga never really fights with you. He teases endlessly, but he always stops himself before he really hurts you, and the fights between the two of you are always calmer on his side. He’s usually the first to apologize, but it seems this is a sticking point for the two of you.

“Well? Go!” As soon as the words are out of his mouth, he regrets it. You flinch backwards at his words, and he doesn’t miss the unmistakable glint of tears in your eyes as you walk out of the room.

“Fine, I guess I will!” As soon as you’re outside, you cover your mouth with your hand, your vision blurred from large drops threatening to spill from your eyelashes. You muffle your sobs with the sleeve of a sweatshirt Suga lent you, and it just makes you cry harder when you breathe in his slight cologne. 

He wasn’t going to let her go this time. You missed your chance.

You’re running, but where to? As soon as your thoughts stop spinning, your feet freeze, and you glance around you. Shaky breaths escape you as you duck your head and attempt to cross the street, questioning looks from passerby making your cheeks heat up. 

All of a sudden, you hear a car horn and freeze to see a car speeding towards you, out of control. The last thing you see before everything goes black is a child pointing at you, and you almost laugh at the incredulity of the situation. Then you black out on impact.

Back at Suga’s home, he sits in his bed, running his fingers through his silky hair. He curses under his breath, already hating the feeling. 

He hates when the only person he’s ever truly loved is mad at him. 

Honestly, Koushi can’t fathom why he keeps getting other people to date him, momentary distractions from his everlasting affection for you. You, the only person who’s there for him when he’s hurting, the only real friend to stay near him through everything, the only person he fell in love with on first sight. He wanted to be with you, but he didn’t want to ruin this was. 

Better to be certain friends with you and never get what he truly wanted than to try and lose you completely.

Suga picks up the phone to text you when he receives a call from an unfamiliar number, marked as the hospital of your district.

“Hello?"

“Is this Sugawara Koushi?” The female voice on the other end of the line asks.

“Yes, is everything okay?” He responds, curious as to why the hospital is calling him in the middle of the day.

“Well, we have Y/N L/N here, and you’re listed as one of their emergency contacts. Would you mind coming to the hospital to fill out some paperwork?”

Immediately, his world freezes. “W-what did you say?”

“I said, Y/N L/N is in the hospital and we need you to come in and see them.” She’s patient with him, voice even and calm, clearly used to people in shock from news of their loved ones. “They were involved in a car accident.”

He nods, momentarily forgetting she can’t see him. “Yeah, I’m on my way.” 

The line clicks, and he sits there for only a minute before hurrying down to his car, grabbing the keys and starting the car. He seems to forget basic movements, mind consumed only with thoughts of you. 

“Shit, shit, shit,” he muttered, edging above the speed limit on the road. He was tempted to honk at someone, but refrains from it, knowing it won’t help with the turmoil of emotions he was feeling.

Then, it hit him. This was his fault. He almost stopped the car in the middle of the road, throat closing as guilt washed over him. Koushi didn’t know you’d take it so hard, didn’t mean for it to come off that harshly.

He arrived at the hospital, and as he walked in, the receptionist looked up at him.

“Sugawara Koushi?” 

“Yes,” he said, and watched the smile slowly fade from her face. He noticed she tried to hide it, ducking her head, but it was too late. “Are they- are they going to be okay?” he gulped as she didn’t respond.

“Room 208,” she said curtly, “You should probably go in.”

The lights seemed to blur into each other as Suga practically ran to your room. Every footstep seemed to take forever, travel only a few centimeters forward. He couldn’t get there fast enough, accidentally bumping into the wall and muttering a hushed “sorry” to it.

He arrived. The door was almost too heavy, or maybe it was just the fear making his limbs heavy as lead.

There you lay, and it was worse than he thought.  Tubes of all sorts trailed from your body to things around the bed, crowding and seeming to close you in. Scratches ran down your cheek and there was dried blood on your hairline, streaking down your face. The breath fell from his throat and he stood in the doorway, paralyzed. 

This could not be happening. 

One look and he could tell you weren’t going to be okay. An IV drip led into your left arm, and you were unconscious, so fragile, so angelic. It looked as if you were only sleeping, like the countless times you’d snuggled into Suga’s shoulder in the warm summer nights, staring at the blanket of glittering stars far above. The ones in your eyes, though, outshone them all. 

When you slept, you always seemed so peaceful, so comforted, but now your brow was slightly furrowed, your lips drained of color and slightly parted. Even in this state, you were still the most beautiful person he’d ever seen.

Shakily, he made his way to the chair and sat down in it. He tried to swallow, but his throat was dry, and tears were dripping down his face before he could wipe them away. A choked sob escaped him as he reached out his hand, hovering over your limp one. 

He took your hand, and he hunched over to feel how cold it was. Your hands were always colder than his, which made him a perfect match for you. Never before, though, had he felt this ice. 

Suga’s shoulders began to shake, and he clutched your hand, silently begging you not to leave, please please please don’t leave me, i don’t know if i can survive without you. Of course, there was no response but the steady beep of the heart monitor, the only thing reassuring him that you were still there. 

Shaking, he brought your hand to his lips, barely brushing them against your knuckles. 

“Y/n, I’m so sorry.” Whispered words fell gently from his lips, trying to stay composed for you. “Please stay with me. Please don’t leave.” His tone rises, voice breaking in desperation. “P-please.” 

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.” He rocked back and forth, holding your hand as if it was the only thing tying him down. “I-I love you.”

There. He said it, those three words he’d wanted to say since the day he saw you smile for the first time. Hopelessly, madly, endlessly in love with you, only you. 

When you didn’t respond, he let himself sob, let the pain overtake him. Hot, salty tears spilled onto your hand, and he silently wished for a sign, a movement, anything to show that you weren’t gone just yet.

In that moment, he whispered everything he wanted to say to you, a thousand words choking him and clogging his throat to the point where he couldn’t breathe anymore.

The doctor came in, shutting the door silently behind him. “Sugawara-”

“Call me Suga.” His voice was quiet, reserved, threatening to break.

“I’m afraid y/n isn’t going to make it.” The doctor sighed, mercifully pretending not to notice Suga’s muffled cry. “I’m so sorry for your loss.”

“You’re joking, right?” Suga raised his head, puffy, red eyes desperate. “Please- tell me you’re joking.” The silence from the doctor told him otherwise, and Suga felt his heart shatter in that instant.

He squeezed your hand, and just as he did, the heart monitor stopped beeping, a flat tone emitting from it. He couldn’t stop the heartbroken cry from spilling from his mouth, his breath stolen by the endless constriction of guilt and grief in his chest. 

He stayed there for another two hours, crying over your hand limp in his grasp. When Daichi arrived at the hospital to drive him home, he didn’t want to leave. 

Suga stared out of the car window, numb. It was impossible- the world couldn’t be this cruel. 

It’s your fault, your fault, your fault, the voice in his head whispered. The broken sobs that spilled out of him hurt, stabbed at his breathing, but he didn’t care. It was his fault that you were gone, forever. 

The rest of the day passed in a haze, the sun setting with flared colors that you would have loved. The stars were brilliant, but Suga couldn’t look at them. His pillow smelled like you, and everywhere he looked had some imprint, some memory of you. You were the only person he’d ever love, and you had been stolen from the world in an instant.

In the months afterwards, nothing was the same. He saw you everywhere, expecting to see your texts pop up on his phone, accidentally ordered your drink at the boba place you would always go to. 

At the funeral, his stiff black suit seemed awkward, but you always said he looked handsome in one. That was the last time he got to see your face besides pictures, the fading memory of the person who loved him for who he was.

the person who he would love for the rest of his life.

you’re an angel in my eyes.

a/n: tbh this is probably one of the most painful things i’ve written so far suga im so sorry also THANK YOU GUYS SO MUCH FOR 50 FOLLOWERS ITS CRAZY i finished this at 2am i’m going to be so sad if it flops <\3

[libidomechanica]

Untitled Poem # 8703

A sonnet sequence

               I

Thou waste, when on the billows rude. —I’ll swim to the day complaint. How happy plain, with hellish tyranny. The moon. To wing, fann’d the judgement of sepulchral from the daylight it come indolence. Thou wilt be gone, I marry the bed. Me by my name, Bannockburn, Passchendaele, Babi Yar, Vietnam. Prophet, curse me through buried there crost towards a cruel, cruel fire, the charm of which I gasp to have you more thyself to Brushing, head to hear it growing.

               II

Ankles points; it is a world that old ruined fortune flout, the brood. Of Saturn’s vintage; mouldering the ancient bugaboo follow’d all, and the portraiture of clouds faintly sat down; and, with round him grew all these joys; ask nought beyond thy presence he stood; like old Deucalion mountain’d o’er the stars she seem’d that is the shelter of large- browed steals unto her boy, you know’st it not. How quietly her fancy from me, what means this poor tears fell ere the World from hill to hill.

               III

Will last the trees. I rear’d my heart’s workings be, that nest and lost huge self; and that were ever saw. Who lov’d—and music in the west, she was borne a voice of many throes! And when storm-rent disclos’d in one accents halcyon. And live! Fell down, alone can taste loues dainty food; if eagle and strange love the pony, that hung just out that widow’d wife; I sue not for the pony, where sleep! Will gulph me—help! A horse, a shield me from such comes from this restless world, and left my legs.

               IV

There are thrust, only a yard beneath a coral clasps and amber studded with causefull ten times nine. In the ground were I go hence, know that I prize with voice expire. And slowly from thee my wandering about her waist, and all around upon push’d thro’ the Miller was in Christ was altogether by pulleys like vibrations of dryness find this I know that vessel’s shrouds in perilous bustle, Betty sees, but Juliana’s scorching up, and fearing nought of sea.

               V

She stops, she loves, her idiot boy. Guide-post—he turns right team gulphs in the eie of heaven, his name for that spake he, and wailing, this was not then he called on fire, which like as like a dreadful night. More wit is now bestowing. The sheets will here swear, eterne Apollo each one little eas’d, the poor sob doth pine, not a woman, tired of my kind, keep back them night the Olympian eagle landed him, and I feel their eyes that was never live, supposing through road?

               VI

And that’s the cannot be long, or I am so oppress’d. For while Endymion! Never to silence all one! Should be seen, or canst not go the flowers on a slothful shore, down whose passe-praise hue scornful of milk! In bush and look at her pipe in growth about me them of kind, am urged by your state complain. Strife, but he heard, what to her door, what do, and away, for term of life, lilies, like a morning; if that it is sae prevailin’, and wae on the forest o’er.

               VII

Arsenic, sure, would be rear’d aloft its hungry lick about the shrill winds bound it round above my husband’s at the dome pomp, reflections cast: a little more has that is become something rings—o let the world will say tis very idle, bethink you often seen. Cried throat, in mossy bed and power too. Yet she had not buried ghosts tonight, alone, but for thou art not for scenes must confesse O noble fire fed by the purpos’d to flow, and how to forget not yet.

               VIII

Each one plays his patience is the measured mine, and then the same around her guide, for should not: therefore? Or she never fall; and so its ink has pass’d, even he, of cat or mouse, nor knows what became of the splendour, not a mother he hecht her airy flower’d Elysium. Of fresh upon mine when thou should not: there we mighty ones who have told me thereon could even weeping in array, and in how plenteous showers, into the core all other cattle thing real.

               IX

He had seen, lull’d with lichens to it our naked as someone … and I must wed them now for your beauty fairness now I could not to fear the little her luscious Honour’s parle, but when sweet queen: That when her lips daignd to shew his spread. A thousand score. And send the whole herd, as by a red rock, glimmers thy chaste breast more did I see their pedantic boring cry: every farthing out and heels on along the earth in the east, and satyrs stark, with cold half awake I sought.

               X

It brings honey-dew from this country first sunrise. To pay: no suits or fret at all, comes to thinke I then, what you again. Would defile the eagle, ’twixt cape and clown’s- all-heal, the silvery shape that it is like a cinder, and Betty, going, there his travelling, to their vermillion, and high fantastic bridge athwart the nine white doves. The grave. Yet not yet escap’d from worldly please you right that get broken wing thro’ cells of madness of love! The hour when the gable-wall.

               XI

It is but one word scarcely even as thou hast passed with anybody’s weight upon his large Hercules wound I seal. Trim her bed, as if her very joy and pine more than one pretty lambs we pull; fair-lined slipperie place: for others, because that out an hour; we whispering breast, and sigh’d, Sweetest essence, when she said; she said:-Then, cried the horizon’s breast the fire of a duke, and panting light; that gray old wolf, for her smooth it steal about the ghosts, the dale, and thou move?

               XII

But do not there lives, had child. Least ioy, by his while stand amazed ken, to margin, and will betide? But when thou wilt not, nor passion; when he flung himselfe in the Sword and Master of thee to him befel, for sure he met with you, O Love and me, i’ll restore five yearn’d with rapine, and rejoice! Only to kiss than she is known rustic revels he had died, that temple, so complete and gin; therefore like awe, that he could I dibble take, or drop a seed, till my griefs have grown common bulk, those two sad streams subterranean tease their dull skies, which though its verdure of this with, God forbids to spare, till she heart leal and hint, and doth always used him well; perhaps, with Etnean throe the entirely; no, thy state!

               XIII

It was yours years of her tale may take off shoes. In truth it was enough to drive one glass eye. But yet I know this fears were heard the lane, or be deliverers tasted her brain—’tis all in traveller had a dreadful might and the pony’s worth to strike him and lawless war are scarcely wastes one step? Like thunder-glooming like a ruddy shield on the sky is blue, that every minutest fish would go, and flower-plots were clear from the quiet air Stella, the one tonight.

               XIV

Nor could ever dwell; whate’er thou canst do thou canst do thou wilt be blest, and like an infant’s bier she looked on, and Nineveh. He ever in the day, although thou know I have kisses. And another flow of joy and pine more ground the doors old footsteps murmur breeds along the stars kept secretest. I would that woful day a cruel, cruel snare in a pit to catch a friend, nor thou wouldst mount up to my health to a hole in the eye, that valley, that’s like a wretch’s knife, too base?

               XV

Actually I’m hung up on it. The ignoble never heard her cry, oh misery! A voice is listens, but so. Her messenger and pleasant grass it should be engulphed in the waves lie still I am but half-dead; there is coming flame—o let me melt into the drift of Heaven’s gates, at love the very sweets: onward it shook upon the whole days agone her soul to the dusk below, if such a mournful place, and all, comes nectar at the scornes this poor thorn!

               XVI

Emerald deep: yet not yet when he did lye, the Lady FRANCES drest so let our love inevitable Outside they cannot know thy cheek is pale for one as sorrows of your eyes thick films I see play with his pocket bring the tropics, to arrest thy silvery shower fell, as down with many a light and travelling, to renew embower’d Elysium! You plainly in his hand to their own, belonging compliments they gain’d, and pearl. That blow softly round me.

               XVII

Cruelty has a human accent: Potent goddess was past bounded wide, is silent night are shouts from thy diadem, out-sparkling sudden voices were sports in a cloud of poisoner! Can see no object. What Meg o’ the door, she quite a scoff; and when I behold another down, uncertain ways: through a vast antre; then the fierce complain, moving about his looks at you will not been a Sultan of old and then ’twere pity, for the water fair, as careless ill.

               XVIII

Away, my life away like an uptorn for ever and are bent on her own bow, can mingled with lichens to it our naked trees: if only you wouldst thus, and lull their promise to an end. I don’t stand before to the dull a spur like pretty, trifling? She lifted drowsily, and how to consummate all the bed; at lengthen out the shaping air will guide. Could wandered the first I came, ere I have felt with a stirring claims, yet God’s just going, what can ease my pain.

               XIX

Thus did he ever have as he passion to a moment’s self must feel sometimes like a morning slowly from the town so long on a chair, think and quiver is mute in her, ere she should not marvel at either hand: as she’d been resum’d in spite of truth; as ’tis kept secret all your rhubarbe words, and weep to the rounding of you. For into the minutes, by those same feather to the floor, blacken’d waters play which mads the jewel, here is no old power of love and closer.

               XX

Soldiers spitting, spears in the Carian’s ear; first he, far and reset.— As if she has caught as the multitude in which whales arbour queen, what do, and at the self-approving glow, of conscious lips and all around my limbs, bathing stuff might say some plainly set her within him those olden three, memphis, and Daies, which burns the famous—that you say parataxis would seem to decay, o’ercharge, while there? Her body it grew better state to the bats, when a little patience, youth!

               XXI

And Johnny, Johnny’s but half starved. Why will, my Johnny is just going, though I have new sorrows come with Aarons pretious time she’s nothing to a lyre, touch’d the tribe of Reuben? Spouse—next, on a dolphin tumults, when at last all deckt with finger, now; now, while one huge Python antagonizing was the cost of thee the promise to an end to the bones for those who with my lays, as Philomel in the earth I cry for the bosom of a crescent? In a long farewell!

               XXII

Sitting crag, and dipp’d a chin but that smile, or with wit, as with his caract, and fairer flow. The end of mercy? Drunken, and what a happy times, like or what we two must be a nurse made of thy sweet shower heal’d up the wound, and legal ways which I spoke, a woman at her door, The youth’s slumberous ease: long years and years. Over his nested young: sweet I hear he loves, her gentle Goddess was a nymphs, and your love-salute was seen such we in roses. Oh woe is me!

               XXIII

Of you where oft there; fresh and comes from hiding up that seemed as thine. Grant in his face sweet Venus, bending loud, he flew, the scene more I know not how—as if she may his face my hair uptying within the skies, their father. Is enough? Which calls all creature lie, mortal, and desolation stir; And down, alone amid a prospect,—diamond gleaming a song. And far in the degrading details I have chose, by whom my being blush’d, with you, O Love and howl, and marrow drain’d.

               XXIV

Start—no bosom beats as plain the baby looks how quiet woodlander— pass’d like a city, with spirit in thy presence, look upon it, tis plain; she wept, and flow, anon she took you dedicated, naked waist: Fair Cupid’s sake! Thing, once the leaves among, chance did intwine, alive when thou wouldst thoughtful tale pursuing, among the glasses of you. Blaze, and was a whelming soul of love! For thou hast smil’d. I shall never can work War’s overthrow. I saw the dismal knell!

               XXV

Sparrow’s chirrup on the dungeon core of the same himself along the ghosts, his appetite to dive into his noted want of my thrice-seen love, to move openly together with a sweetness, to cradled me then regality of Neptune’s eastern blast did nip a fairer flowers smother’d thro’ the Miller. Whose steadfast faith embrace, and at once: for down-glancing the ground, and keep my mind hath so dense a breathing an elephant appear, when my black, as erst to Pindar’s eyes there art thou break it—What, is it true—away, and thus it was to talk to you to every Muse to rove: and doubling overhead their axle! And though in his high and look’d as she repeat, the right this sort of hotel.

               XXVI

To carry back my idiot boy? Those hopes it seem’d to sight, a beauteous bill of moss, that no just pretense of mine of heaven, where we might that are gone, by our eternall praise: discriminal. To the morn. Every part was consent, so in this country comets, that I were deathlessness, and tenderly unclos’d, by tender scions for very feare would ease him down. Bones in a certain ways: through the while. A hundred-years-old name with daily boon of fish moving came these?

               XXVII

Down from the trees, and call it love? To do the sea, or a crime we hear the woody dale; and the bars that kept within him that million dye. Though the leg. The sparrows from the tough ones that widow’d bed sat silent sapphire-spangled, and there was a jasmine bower veils mantling the gloom: down, down, and—ah, ripe sheaves of happy times, when I thought him, in kind striving that, near again in grass a long pillars, and thus he raped her. But that when her luscious Honour more than he.

               XXVIII

All blisses be upon a gentle wrists, and shells, and wither’d when thou wast my sister; darting still, and, downward, so too—too high: only I pray, as fairest friend and worn the wood, whether he hecht her amorous plea faint throne of emeralds break it—What, is it sings his dreary space he seeth a hundred years with his slumber; while beneath the wood. Sweetly blushing the east, and speak of other still: I can prepare with joy, even thousand time in silence; first sunrise.

               XXIX

Like pretty rooms; who for her mournful hymns did hush the night I saw a jutting calm and pearl. The pony there; so, not to solemn their gaze ripe from knee, nor far, ere from the tongue. And Betty’s head and somebody, surely be sent: the nested wren has thy fountain bend? Grown old, and low! Her voice is listen for common lose their office mighty pulses: in thine eye, so deep is their fames this booth, whence full many a heath, through the public foe, then live no hatred and fast she scuds with our feet, innocent flood that hell-born Circe. It is, the dead; seen them most sweet in cowslip-water bathes my feet and sweets: onward it flies. And, full-blown, shed full thou art powerful, these secrets, haply I might see swallow, then.

               XXX

To gather flew in through the two deliverer, how desolate, and heathy waste, since she her name fell icy numb upon my shady brink, thou wast the heaven? In the flowers all the air, giving its own scythe of mid-sea, afloat, and from yours. Delicious symphonies, like a common lose the globe of weale, lips Loues indentures: oh gentle bosom grew, when my black-eyed rival came. I was at my table, and elbow-deep with fingertips, shame on her own bones.

               XXXI

My Lady unto Madam says: Thereof she must stay:—she’s in a garden grow, if thy sprites the night as he despair so much passion to a mouth and gentle tongues were fastened around, and when she was dry; no tear his stead. Then the eye, the little breed. Gloom, and fro, distract insight wakes among the fewer not long; for, every charming and Cressid sweet and wishings, and in this thy gold the bounties of the tenting she her side, are it. Till, while I in calm speech: Ah!

               XXXII

This blessing hands; no sight, the moon. And our roots of Sicily; watched for a hundred waterfalls, whose cheek who can be: but do not cut him down from the dame; and wither’d lyrist, who stand upon push’d through wildering that must I bee still charms, must be for this gently pats the pony moves there, betraying to his own goddess! You plainly in her hut, then the very words ye must we be seen! See sweet spot pillow stood; and, with hoarsest thunder- gloomings in the morning east.

               XXXIII

His eyes in order as in the bands of love-sick queen attends and in hand shelter of Earth, for him the torment spar’d, would up the alarm broke us feel existence, and pine more than the circle of a shop called Beautiful now, not even in with porringer and down his ancient height, and find the Egean seer, her spouse—next, on a diet from the last few steps, and to that know whether than all the ground; but all and each other. There before me: persecuting fate!

               XXXIV

Among those timber toes your love whose steadfast faith of deeds! Been a witness—it must both in bed, on all her one waiting for judgments see that thou starv’d between them moue; if stones stirred from that drifts unfeathers and a doorknob, for you, only for his death’—alas! Motions of myrtle wall’d, embower’d Elysium! Was heard their tiptop nothing had pass’d, even for there sits, until there is a thorn; no leave me one unto my future/ current noon texting for this guide.

               XXXV

There be, as the multitude. If he seav’n times far away? Behind the wheels go over my heart, and power left espy; and the Bow, they lengthen’d, thought that nest and golden tresses gloomy arch. Says Betty, he’ll be its head, who, thus did fall sweet Arethusa, peerless nymph! I sue not this. That to withstand which quarrels move, come interest, which it containe! In my young mountains:-tease me not with drops of them, for I fearless turn and we will all those blots that I were dead!

               XXXVI

So in thine, now we poisoner! Oak, where the wall a sluice! A little patience; for the prince my seruice tries, that’s like an aspen-bough, distilling longer can I do?— Now how can we part? Finger to fight footsteps; as when though all this little herald flew aloft, follow’d all, and tempting fruit, o let me confesse: there was back from the impatient—all for very shape that in truth is a glazed and inlaid with misty spray, a copious springs all are but a voice?

               XXXVII

Since that is thing in their foot-prints. Francis call; We die and rise, ambitious for thou art so potently? Grass such love, to love’s standard on the bed. To Amphitrite, queen of Beauty, but gives o’er; until, impatient lips all ruddy,—for I bubble of continue pure; the blood red ran from the waters clear. Tell me where shorn away, in the sky is blue, the blood again, and I’ll speak contract their either, cripple and I almost gone, I only know thy chaste desires.

               XXXVIII

Earth close my happy Betty shed. So shall I weep and do not drop in forlorn wretched thrall, my lonely couch, a bunch of blossom, to sweetly blushing thine eyelids thin. It’s a kind of white; those two sad state, has dived to its found me, and your daughter. Fleet as an arrow teeth at the rocks the hearing time flowing, therefore cannot quell one hair was in his thorn she said; she said; she said, but scorching beams. All these things deem’d. Oh reader, knowing I tarry for their shaggy jaws.

               XXXIX

Life thou hast been evening’s sleepy music, forc’d him we were all bloom of your ne’er-cloying swerve of knee from thee are safe! Hovered in fear the little grew, the neighbour, Susan then wrong’d a heart and smiles, if dimples, tongue—o let me hear little grew, it is time, surcharg’d with leaves Me, Heaven, dost taste freedom as none can free the issue. Nor prest nature’s rais’d, said he, all forms and she was consecrated urn, hold sphery sessions for a little snakes of self came on, and nymphs round jubilance of it are all used up for the amazement, the sweet soul to the vast beneath the mark—and if they both sight can bear this serpent-skin of woe, then to this aged bones, bones in a saddle, or with wonder-draughts; but ah!

               XL

Been, and starry seven, old Atlas’ child by young immortall, subject to no death to die, or be so straight with many a sound she was I clung about the doors old footsteps murmur breeds vexing Mars had lost huge sea-marks; vanward step proud domes were silence, when that fends thee safely. Which is a little babe is but echo’d from thee and true in sacred custom, that is fixedly as rocky marge, till hope, her thoughts would I tarry for still: but in my best thou wilt leaves.

               XLI

This might, a rosie garlands gay, he steps; pouring as if impell’d. How happy place. To you: the onset comes into my bosom, magnificent, aw’d from Olympus’ solemnize thy refulgent through a thousand, thought, nor Britain’s one sole God be the main tree still, and, downward went upon his heavens did pierce: where I’ve been alone can leade you rise? A well-known voices marry the bed, susan, I’d gladly view the same around, and around, that hobbles up the wood.

[butterflies-dragons]

SANSA STARK & TARGARYEN IMAGERY

A list of Targaryen Imagery around Sansa Stark in A Song of Ice and Fire

Fire and Blood

Black and Red

Silver and Purple

Dragon's Tail

Dragon Wings

Dragon Eggs

Dragon Skulls

Golden Dragons

Dragon Knights

Valyrian Steel

Dance of the Dragons

Maegor the Cruel

Baelor the Blessed

Aegon the Unworthy

Prince Aemon the Dragonknight

Aerys the Mad King

Rhaegar the ast dragon

Bonus: Fiery Hair

1. FIRE AND BLOOD

Sansa slid off her mare, but she was too slow. Arya swung with both hands. There was a loud crack as the wood split against the back of the prince's head, and then everything happened at once before Sansa's horrified eyes. Joffrey staggered and whirled around, roaring curses. Mycah ran for the trees as fast as his legs would take him. Arya swung at the prince again, but this time Joffrey caught the blow on Lion's Tooth and sent her broken stick flying from her hands. The back of his head was all bloody and his eyes were on fire.

—A Game of Thrones - Sansa I

The point of Ser Gregor's lance had snapped off in his neck, and his life's blood flowed out in slow pulses, each weaker than the one before. His armor was shiny new; a bright streak of fire ran down his outstretched arm, as the steel caught the light. Then the sun went behind a cloud, and it was gone. His cloak was blue, the color of the sky on a clear summer's day, trimmed with a border of crescent moons, but as his blood seeped into it, the cloth darkened and the moons turned red, one by one.

—A Game of Thrones - Sansa II

The blood orange had left a blotchy red stain on the silk. "I hate her!" she screamed. She balled up the dress and flung it into the cold hearth, on top of the ashes of last night's fire. When she saw that the stain had bled through onto her underskirt, she began to sob despite herself. She ripped off the rest of her clothes wildly, threw herself into bed, and cried herself back to sleep.

—A Game of Thrones - Sansa III

When the king's herald moved forward, Sansa realized the moment was almost at hand. She smoothed down the cloth of her skirt nervously. She was dressed in mourning, as a sign of respect for the dead king, but she had taken special care to make herself beautiful. Her gown was the ivory silk that the queen had given her, the one Arya had ruined, but she'd had them dye it black and you couldn't see the stain at all. She had fretted over her jewelry for hours and finally decided upon the elegant simplicity of a plain silver chain.

—A Game of Thrones - Sansa V

Then she realized that the blood had soaked through the sheet into the featherbed, so she bundled that up as well, but it was big and cumbersome, hard to move. Sansa could get only half of it into the fire. She was on her knees, struggling to shove the mattress into the flames as thick grey smoke eddied around her and filled the room, when the door burst open and she heard her maid gasp.

—A Clash of Kings - Sansa IV

When she crawled out of bed, long moments later, she was alone. She found his cloak on the floor, twisted up tight, the white wool stained by blood and fire.

—A Clash of Kings - Sansa VII

"The dwarf's wife did the murder with him," swore an archer in Lord Rowan's livery. "Afterward, she vanished from the hall in a puff of brimstone, and a ghostly direwolf was seen prowling the Red Keep, blood dripping from his jaws."

—A Storm of Swords - Jaime VII

As the boy's lips touched her own she found herself thinking of another kiss. She could still remember how it felt, when his cruel mouth pressed down on her own. He had come to Sansa in the darkness as green fire filled the sky. He took a song and a kiss, and left me nothing but a bloody cloak.

—A Feast for Crows - Alayne II

2. BLACK AND RED

The queen wore a high-collared black silk gown, with a hundred dark red rubies sewn into her bodice, covering her from neck to bosom. They were cut in the shape of teardrops, as if the queen were weeping blood.

—A Game of Thrones - Sansa IV

Tyrion wore a doublet of black velvet covered with golden scrollwork, thigh-high boots that added three inches to his height, a chain of rubies and lions’ heads. But the gash across his face was raw and red, and his nose was a hideous scab. “You are very beautiful, Sansa,” he told her.

—A Storm of Swords - Sansa III

3. SILVER AND PURPLE

Sansa closed the shutters and turned sharply away from the window. "You look very lovely today, my lady," Ser Arys said.

"Thank you, ser." Knowing that Joffrey would require her to attend the tourney in his honor, Sansa had taken special care with her face and clothes. She wore a gown of pale purple silk and a moonstone hair net that had been a gift from Joffrey. The gown had long sleeves to hide the bruises on her arms. Those were Joffrey's gifts as well. When they told him that Robb had been proclaimed King in the North, his rage had been a fearsome thing, and he had sent Ser Boros to beat her.

—A Clash of Kings - Sansa I

"You've waited so long, be patient awhile longer. Here, I have something for you." Ser Dontos fumbled in his pouch and drew out a silvery spiderweb, dangling it between his thick fingers.

It was a hair net of fine-spun silver, the strands so thin and delicate the net seemed to weigh no more than a breath of air when Sansa took it in her fingers. Small gems were set wherever two strands crossed, so dark they drank the moonlight. "What stones are these?"

"Black amethysts from Asshai. The rarest kind, a deep true purple by daylight."

—A Clash of Kings - Sansa VIII

Sansa wore a gown of silvery satin trimmed in vair, with dagged sleeves that almost touched the floor, lined in soft purple felt. Shae had arranged her hair artfully in a delicate silver net winking with dark purple gemstones. Tyrion had never seen her look more lovely, yet she wore sorrow on those long satin sleeves. "Lady Sansa," he told her, "you shall be the most beautiful woman in the hall tonight."

—A Storm of Swords - Tyrion VIII

4. DRAGON WINGS

Tyrion scarce touched his food, Sansa noticed, though he drank several cups of the wine. For herself, she tried a little of the Dornish eggs, but the peppers burned her mouth. Otherwise she only nibbled at the fruit and fish and honeycakes. Every time Joffrey looked at her, her tummy got so fluttery that she felt as though she'd swallowed a bat.

—A Storm of Swords - Sansa IV

"What wife?"

"I forgot, you've been hiding under a rock. The northern girl. Winterfell's daughter. We heard she killed the king with a spell, and afterward changed into a wolf with big leather wings like a bat, and flew out a tower window. But she left the dwarf behind and Cersei means to have his head."

—A Storm of Swords - Arya XIII

5. DRAGON EGGS

Butterbumps arrived before the food, dressed in a jester’s suit of green and yellow feathers with a floppy coxcomb. An immense round fat man, as big as three Moon Boys, he came cartwheeling into the hall, vaulted onto the table, and laid a gigantic egg right in front of Sansa. “Break it, my lady,” he commanded. When she did, a dozen yellow chicks escaped and began running in all directions. “Catch them!” Butterbumps exclaimed. Little Lady Bulwer snagged one and handed it to him, whereby he tilted back his head, popped it into his huge rubbery mouth, and seemed to swallow it whole. When he belched, tiny yellow feathers flew out his nose. Lady Bulwer began to wail in distress, but her tears turned into a sudden squeal of delight when the chick came squirming out of the sleeve of her gown and ran down her arm.

—A Storm of Swords - Sansa I

In the Queen's Ballroom they broke their fast on honeycakes baked with blackberries and nuts, gammon steaks, bacon, fingerfish crisped in breadcrumbs, autumn pears, and a Dornish dish of onions, cheese, and chopped eggs cooked up with fiery peppers.

[…] Tyrion scarce touched his food, Sansa noticed, though he drank several cups of the wine. For herself, she tried a little of the Dornish eggs, but the peppers burned her mouth.

—A Storm of Swords - Sansa IV

6. DRAGON’S TAIL

The morning of King Joffrey's name day dawned bright and windy, with the long tail of the great comet visible through the high scuttling clouds. Sansa was watching it from her tower window when Ser Arys Oakheart arrived to escort her down to the tourney grounds. "What do you think it means?" she asked him.

"Glory to your betrothed," Ser Arys answered at once. "See how it flames across the sky today on His Grace's name day, as if the gods themselves had raised a banner in his honor. The smallfolk have named it King Joffrey's Comet."

Doubtless that was what they told Joffrey; Sansa was not so sure. "I've heard servants calling it the Dragon's Tail."

"King Joffrey sits where Aegon the Dragon once sat, in the castle built by his son," Ser Arys said. "He is the dragon's heir—and crimson is the color of House Lannister, another sign. This comet is sent to herald Joffrey's ascent to the throne, I have no doubt. It means that he will triumph over his enemies."

Is it true? she wondered. Would the gods be so cruel? Her mother was one of Joffrey's enemies now, her brother Robb another. Her father had died by the king's command. Must Robb and her lady mother die next? The comet was red, but Joffrey was Baratheon as much as Lannister, and their sigil was a black stag on a golden field. Shouldn't the gods have sent Joff a golden comet?

—A Clash of Kings - Sansa I

7. DRAGON SKULLS

Within, the dragon skulls were waiting, and so was Shae. “I thought m’lord had forgotten me.” Her dress was draped over a black tooth near as tall as she was, and she stood within the dragon’s jaws, nude. Balerion, he thought. Or was it Vhagar? One dragon skull looked much like another.

[...] After, as they lay entwined amongst the dragon skulls, he rested his head against her, inhaling the smooth clean smell of her hair. “We should go back,” he said reluctantly. “It must be near dawn. Sansa will be waking.

[...] The Others can take my guilt, he thought as he slipped his tunic over his head. Why should I be guilty? My wife wants no part of me, and most especially not the part that seems to want her. Perhaps he ought to tell her about Shae. It was not as though he was the first man ever to keep a concubine. Sansa’s own oh-so-honorable father had given her a bastard brother. For all he knew, his wife might be thrilled to learn that he was fucking Shae, so long as it spared her his unwelcome touch.

—A Storm of Swords - Tyrion VII

8. GOLDEN DRAGONS

"The queen raised her voice. "A hundred golden dragons to the man who brings me its skin!”

“A costly pelt,” Robert grumbled. “I want no part of this, woman. You can damn well buy your furs with Lannister gold.”

[...] Shortly, Jory brought him Ice.

When it was over, he said, “Choose four men and have them take the body north. Bury her at Winterfell.”

“All that way?” Jory said, astonished.

“All that way,” Ned affirmed. “The Lannister woman shall never have this skin.”

—A Game of Thrones - Eddard III

"Petyr Baelish put a hand on the rail. "But first you’ll want your payment. Ten thousand dragons, was it?”

“Ten thousand.” Dontos rubbed his mouth with the back of his hand. “As you promised, my lord.”

[...] “But he saved me.”

“He sold you for a promise of ten thousand dragons.

[...]“Sansa felt sick. "He said he was my Florian.”

—A Storm of Swords - Sansa V

“Your sister’s had no difficulty finding witnesses to your guilt.” Ser Kevan rolled up the parchment. “Ser Addam has men hunting for your wife. Varys has offered a hundred stags for word of her whereabouts, and a hundred dragons for the girl herself. If the girl can be found she will be found, and I shall bring her to you. I see no harm in husband and wife sharing the same cell and giving comfort to one another.”

—A Storm of Swords - Tyrion IX

Someplace no stag ever found … though a dragon might.

—A Feast for Crows - Brienne III

"A good melee is all a hedge knight can hope for, unless he stumbles on a bag of dragons. And that's not likely, is it?"

—The Winds of Winter - Alayne I

9. DRAGON KNIGHTS

She shouted for Ser Dontos, for her brothers, for her dead father and her dead wolf, for gallant Ser Loras who had given her a red rose once, but none of them came. She called for the heroes from the songs, for Florian and Ser Ryam Redwyne and Prince Aemon the Dragonknight, but no one heard.

—A Clash of Kings - Sansa IV

"True knights would never harm women and children." The words rang hollow in her ears even as she said them.

"True knights." The queen seemed to find that wonderfully amusing. "No doubt you're right. So why don't you just eat your broth like a good girl and wait for Symeon Star-Eyes and Prince Aemon the Dragonknight to come rescue you, sweetling. I'm sure it won't be very long now."

—A Clash of Kings - Sansa V

They continued down the serpentine and across a small sunken courtyard. Ser Dontos shoved open a heavy door and lit a taper. They were inside a long gallery. Along the walls stood empty suits of armor, dark and dusty, their helms crested with rows of scales that continued down their backs. As they hurried past, the taper's light made the shadows of each scale stretch and twist. The hollow knights are turning into dragons, she thought.

—A Storm of Swords - Sansa V

10. VALYRIAN STEEL

Lord Tywin waited until last to present the king with his own gift: a longsword. Its scabbard was made of cherrywood, gold, and oiled red leather, studded with golden lions' heads. The lions had ruby eyes, she saw. The ballroom fell silent as Joffrey unsheathed the blade and thrust the sword above his head. Red and black ripples in the steel shimmered in the morning light.

[…] "A great sword must have a great name, my lords! What shall I call it?"

[…] The guests were shouting out names for the new blade. Joff dismissed a dozen before he heard one he liked. "Widow's Wail!" he cried.

—A Storm of Swords - Sansa IV

But she had another longsword hidden in her bedroll. She sat on the bed and took it out. Gold glimmered yellow in the candlelight and rubies smoldered red. When she slid Oathkeeper from the ornate scabbard, Brienne's breath caught in her throat. Black and red the ripples ran, deep within the steel. Valyrian steel, spell-forged. It was a sword fit for a hero. When she was small, her nurse had filled her ears with tales of valor, regaling her with the noble exploits of Ser Galladon of Morne, Florian the Fool, Prince Aemon the Dragonknight, and other champions. Each man bore a famous sword, and surely Oathkeeper belonged in their company, even if she herself did not. "You'll be defending Ned Stark's daughter with Ned Stark's own steel," Jaime had promised.

—A Feast for Crows - Brienne I

11. DANCE OF THE DRAGONS

Later, while Sansa was off listening to a troupe of singers perform the complex round of interwoven ballads called the "Dance of the Dragons," Ned inspected the bruise himself. "I hope Forel is not being too hard on you," he said.

—A Game of Thrones - Eddard VII

He sang of the Dance of the Dragons, of fair Jonquil and her fool, of Jenny of Oldstones and the Prince of Dragonflies. He sang of betrayals, and murders most foul, of hanged men and bloody vengeance. He sang of grief and sadness.

—A Feast for Crows - Sansa I

12. MAEGOR THE CRUEL

The room where Sansa had been confined was at the top of the highest tower of Maegor's Holdfast.

—A Game of Thrones - Sansa IV

In the tower room at the heart of Maegor's Holdfast, Sansa gave herself to the darkness.

—A Game of Thrones - Sansa VI

13. BAELOR THE BLESSED

"Baelor starved himself to death, fasting," said Tyrion. "His uncle served him loyally as Hand, as he had served the Young Dragon before him. Viserys might only have reigned a year, but he ruled for fifteen, while Daeron warred and Baelor prayed." He made a sour face. "And if he did remove his nephew, can you blame him? Someone had to save the realm from Baelor's follies."

Sansa was shocked. "But Baelor the Blessed was a great king. He walked the Boneway barefoot to make peace with Dorne, and rescued the Dragonknight from a snakepit. The vipers refused to strike him because he was so pure and holy."

—A Storm of Swords - Sansa IV

14. AEGON THE UNWORTHY

Aegon the Unworthy had never harmed Queen Naerys, perhaps for fear of their brother the Dragonknight . . . but when another of his Kingsguard fell in love with one of his mistresses, the king had taken both their heads.

—A Storm of Swords - Sansa II

"A king can have other women. Whores. My father did. One of the Aegons did too. The third one, or the fourth. He had lots of whores and lots of bastards." As they whirled to the music, Joff gave her a moist kiss. "My uncle will bring you to my bed whenever I command it."

Sansa shook her head. "He won't."

"He will, or I'll have his head. That King Aegon, he had any woman he wanted, whether they were married or no."

—A Storm of Swords - Sansa III

15. PRINCE AEMON THE DRAGONKNIGHT

He took her by the arm and led her away from the wheelhouse, and Sansa's spirits took flight. A whole day with her prince! She gazed at Joffrey worshipfully. He was so gallant, she thought. The way he had rescued her from Ser Ilyn and the Hound, why, it was almost like the songs, like the time Serwyn of the Mirror Shield saved the Princess Daeryssa from the giants, or Prince Aemon the Dragonknight championing Queen Naerys's honor against evil Ser Morgil's slanders.

—A Game of Thrones - Sansa I

"Father, I only just now remembered, I can't go away, I'm to marry Prince Joffrey." She tried to smile bravely for him. "I love him, Father, I truly truly do, I love him as much as Queen Naerys loved Prince Aemon the Dragonknight, as much as Jonquil loved Ser Florian. I want to be his queen and have his babies."

"Sweet one," her father said gently, "listen to me. When you're old enough, I will make you a match with a high lord who's worthy of you, someone brave and gentle and strong. This match with Joffrey was a terrible mistake. That boy is no Prince Aemon, you must believe me."

—A Game of Thrones - Sansa III

She pulled a chair close to the hearth, took down one of her favorite books, and lost herself in the stories of Florian and Jonquil, of Lady Shella and the Rainbow Knight, of valiant Prince Aemon and his doomed love for his brother's queen.

—A Game of Thrones - Sansa IV

For those who remained, a singer was brought forth to fill the hall with the sweet music of the high harp. He sang of Jonquil and Florian, of Prince Aemon the Dragonknight and his love for his brother's queen, of Nymeria's ten thousand ships. They were beautiful songs, but terribly sad. Several of the women began to weep, and Sansa felt her own eyes growing moist.

—A Clash of Kings - Sansa VI

16. AERYS THE MAD KING

"Ser Ilyn has not been feeling talkative these past fourteen years," Lord Renly commented with a sly smile.

Joffrey gave his uncle a look of pure loathing, then took Sansa's hands in his own. "Aerys Targaryen had his tongue ripped out with hot pincers."

—A Game of Thrones - Sansa I

"The battleground is right up ahead, where the river bends. That was where my father killed Rhaegar Targaryen, you know. He smashed in his chest, crunch, right through the armor." Joffrey swung an imaginary warhammer to show her how it was done. "Then my uncle Jaime killed old Aerys, and my father was king."

—A Game of Thrones - Sansa I

"You can't talk to me that way. The king can do as he likes."

"Aerys Targaryen did as he liked. Has your mother ever told you what happened to him?"

Ser Boros Blount harrumphed. "No man threatens His Grace in the presence of the Kingsguard."

—A Clash of Kings - Sansa III

17. RHAEGAR THE LAST DRAGON

"The battleground is right up ahead, where the river bends. That was where my father killed Rhaegar Targaryen, you know. He smashed in his chest, crunch, right through the armor." Joffrey swung an imaginary warhammer to show her how it was done.

—A Game of Thrones - Sansa I

"My father told everyone my bedding had caught fire, and our maester gave me ointments. Ointments! Gregor got his ointments too. Four years later, they anointed him with the seven oils and he recited his knightly vows and Rhaegar Targaryen tapped him on the shoulder and said, 'Arise, Ser Gregor.'"

—A Game of Thrones - Sansa II

18. BONUS: FIERY HAIR

Robb and Sansa and Bran and even little Rickon all took after the Tullys, with easy smiles and fire in their hair.

—A Game of Thrones - Arya I

"You will be the most beautiful woman in the hall tonight, as lovely as your lady mother at your age. I cannot seat you on the dais, but you'll have a place of honor above the salt and underneath a wall sconce. The fire will be shining in your hair, so everyone will see how fair of face you are. Keep a good long spoon on hand to beat the squires off, sweetling. You will not want green boys underfoot when the knights come round to beg you for your favor."

—The Winds of Winter - Alayne I

[aminiatureworld]

In My Dreams IV

Characters: Xiao, fm!reader

Word Count: 3,167

Warnings: Brief depiction of violence, nightmares

Premise: The past is many things. Something to admire, something to learn from, something to hold dear. And yet how unreliable it can be, especially in the hands of ghosts.

In which the reader dreams of the past.

Author’s Note: Translation notes and historical references will come after the fic. This one was a little sketchy/ooc, prolly because I’m tired.

Xiao

If there was one thing that you appreciated most about your relationship with Xiao it was the fact that he never attempted to cage your independence.

Though the adeptus had a penchant for clinginess – something he’d never actually admit to – the circumstances of both his and your past had set a standard for a level of separation that you greatly appreciated. You were never pressured to tell Xiao about things you weren’t comfortable sharing and in return you never pressed your partner in regards to topics or events that made him somewhat uncomfortable.

And yet there was something very isolating about such a freedom.

It was an ordinary enough commission, laughably so in fact, the kind that you could knock back in ten minutes flat if you put a little effort into it. Treasure Hoarders were once more encroaching on Liyue, this time gathering at the vicinity of Dunyu Ruins, something that would surely be a hazard to the archaeologists who gathered to study the lost jade monument. The act of chasing out the Treasure Hoarders was indeed easy enough, and it was only until you started rifling through their loot that you found yourself uneasy.

The lid was an innocuous enough item. Though the box that it once covered was nowhere to be found it must’ve been a work of art, as the smooth tortoiseshell lid was clearly the result of patience and love. Painted a deep blue it depicted a snowy scene, with a castle or cathedral at the front and center. The building itself was of a unique design; a tall turret stuck out at the top while small onion domes sat a little lower, each painted a more outlandish color than the last. The architecture was completely unlike what one might see in either Liyue or Mondstadt, and really there should’ve been nothing to it except the odd design of the building. Yet the moment you set your eyes upon the building you felt something harden in the pit of your stomach.

You never thought about what you couldn’t remember; after all, what was the point of it? Why mourn something you weren’t even sure was good or bad? Yet in that moment you felt that you would give very little to not remember just a little bit. At least enough to know why the image of a cathedral in the snow made you wish deeply for something you couldn’t remember, and frightened you just as much.

“Something’s wrong with you face.”

“Xiao!” You sputtered, surprised by the sudden bluntness of your partner. “My face is just fine, a little dirt won’t kill me.”

“That’s not it.” Xiao scowled. “Your face is harder than usual. Did something happen?”

“Nothing happened! Sometimes I just don’t smile, okay?” You instinctively moved the corners of your mouth upwards, trying to ignore the sudden jump in your heart rate. “I’m fine.”

Xiao looked supremely unimpressed at your efforts, sighing and flying up to the balcony of the Inn. You sighed, letting your expression once more droop. It was easy sometimes to forget how in tune Xiao was. You wouldn’t expect it from an adeptus who had spent thousands of years mostly secluded from humans, but your partner was impressively good at reading your mood. Usually you didn’t mind the ability of his, even welcoming the fact that he so bluntly brought up the question of your feelings. But today you wished despite yourself that he was a little less aware. After all, how could you explain to your partner what you didn’t even understand yourself?

The rest of the night was oddly tense. Though Xiao said nothing you could tell from the way he stared intently at your face that he hadn’t given up his suspicions. For your part you tried to ignore his gaze, talking about trivial matters such as the question of replacing the Guild roof and the fact that you had managed to gather a few Qingxin during your commissions. All the while you felt the roiling of your heart; and all the while you kept rubbing your fingers along the smooth finish of the lid in your pocket as if in doing so you might suddenly be struck with what you currently missed and currently, desperately, needed.

The next day you walked up to Katherine utterly exhausted. Though you’d made a concerted effort to sleep, knowing that if not you’d just arouse more worry in Xiao, most of the night had been spent tossing and turning, your eyelids feeling paper thin as you attempted to drag yourself down into the depths of sleep. Of course now that the sun was shining you felt like even a stone bench would be a soft enough mattress. Blinking heavily you smiled awkwardly at Katheryne.

“Any commissions today?”

“Two ordinary sweeps and one request.” Katheryne tilted her head slightly. “Are you sure you don’t need rest?”

“I’m perfectly fine Katheryne, thank you for worrying. You said there was a request?”

“Yes. It seems that the citizen who noticed the Treasure Hoarders for us claims to have been robbed by them. He says to meet you at Dunyu Ruins so you can hand over the item.”

“And what item is that?”

“He said it was some sort of box lid. He didn’t give many details I’m sorry. If you’re uncomfortable though of course we could send someone with you.”

“I’ll be fine, thanks for worrying.”

“Of course! Good luck!”

“Thanks.”

You turned around, trying to stem the ice that flooded your veins. Who was this man to whom the cathedral belonged? How did he come across such an odd item, was he from one of the other nations of Teyvat you hadn’t visited? Most of all you wondered if he held some connection to your past. The idea thrilled you in some way, though dread also lingered. You weren’t entirely sure you wanted to meet this mysterious person. Commissions were commissions however; you wouldn’t betray the Guild. No matter how much you wanted to; you couldn’t.

The Dunyu Ruins were still, no monsters seemed to linger at the gates and no other adventurers peeked out from behind old walls. The air was utterly still, something which worried you greatly. Walking at an increased rate you sought out your mysterious commissioner. The more you thought about it the more you wished the whole thing to be over as soon as possible. Turning the corner you stopped in your tracks, gazing in awe at the person a few meters in front of you.

The first thing you thought was how oddly he was dressed. The second thing was that he was much younger than you had expected. The third thing was that you felt an odd sense of familiarity from him.

“Ah yes, the adventurer who accepted my commission. Have you brought what I asked of you?”

Though a response was certainly in order you found the words stuck in your mouth. Staring at him you felt the ground shift between your feet slightly. He was familiar, this young man in front of you, and yet he was also a perfect stranger. He seemed more like an apparition than anything, a spirit who had yet to cross to the far side. You stepped closer, reaching out your arm slightly. If you went to touch his shoulder, would your fingers go right through him?

“You really must think it’s odd that I’ve returned.” The man chuckled. “I assure you I’m completely real. You weren’t the only one to survive sister, though I know that information might be too little too late?”

“Sister?” You snapped out of your trance. “I don’t know what you mean.”

“Surely you aren’t pretending not to recognize me? I think that’s beneath even you. Come now, was I such a brat as that?” Reaching out the young man went to grab your hand. Instinctively you pulled away, feeling discomfort shoot through you.

“I don’t know what you mean? And you certainly aren’t my brother! I’ve never had a brother!”

“Then who was the kid you lived with your whole life before the incident?”

“I… I don’t know what you’re talking about. I don’t know about any incident or any brother. You asked me here to return something so I’m returning it.” Reaching for the lid you thrust the little work of art in front of you. “Here. Take it.”

“So you really don’t know who I am?” The young man reached out to take the lid. “How is that possible? Have they gone so far as to erase me from your memories? Have I been taken out of your family?”

“They?”

“The gods.” The young man’s eyes seemed incredibly harsh all of a sudden. “Their presumptiveness holds no bounds.”

“Don’t speak of the archons that way.”

“Answer me this,” the young man ignored your protest, “where are you from.”

“Why should I tell you that?”

“Humor me.”

“I…” You stood there for a moment, wondering whether or not you should tell this strange figure the truth. Morbid curiosity floated in your mind, and you took a sharp breath. “I don’t know. I don’t remember.”

“So I really have been erased from your mind.”

“Nothing’s been erased! I just don’t remember, should that surprise you so much?”

“Yes, it does. I see my plans will have to be changed.” The young man took a deep breath. “Very well then, we shall see what we shall see. I have an offer for you.”

“And what is that?” You felt suspicion wash over you.

“Join the Abyss.”

“Over my dead body!” Instinctively stepping away you drew your polearm. So that’s what this was about.

“I figured you might say that. However, let me tell you this. Our family was torn apart by the cruel whims of faraway gods. Teyvat suffered the same fate, still suffers it. You may not remember what happened to us, but I know it is buried in you somewhere. If you wish to avenge our family, then you’ll join us.”

“I have no petty thoughts of revenge against the gods.”

“That may very well change.” The young man smirked. “I’ll be back in a week. I expect your answers then.”

He was gone before you could say anything, carried away by a blanket of purple stars. You stared at the empty ruins, confused and empty, feeling far worse than you had felt when you arrived here.

“You look worse.”

“Thanks Xiao.” You let out a sigh, unsure how to respond.

You’d spent the rest of the walk back to the Wangshu Inn in agony, thoughts darting back and forth as you tried to reason with yourself about the veracity of the young man’s claims. There was no proof he was who he said he was after all, no proof that he wasn’t simply insane, or trying to convince you to join him by lying. Yet there was something about him, his demeanor, his anger, something that spoke to a truth about him. Not that the idea made you any happier. After all truth or not, he was still an Abyss member, or at least an advocate. You could never side with him, even if he was your long lost family. And yet what if he was your family? What then? Would it truly be a betrayal then to simply send him packing?

Xiao’s hand enveloped your own, the soft warmth drawing you out of your confused thoughts. Looking up you found him leaning into you, the tips of his hair lightly brushing your cheeks. His eyes bored into you ask he scanned your face. You stood perfectly still. You knew what Xiao was doing, knew that he was trying to figure out the depths of your discomfort. It was valiant of him, even if you hoped that he turned up empty handed. How could you tell Xiao, an adeptus who served directly under Rex Lapis, about the man who blasphemed the gods.

“You should sleep.” Xiao finally pulled away.

“It’s still early evening.”

“You didn’t sleep well last night, I could tell. You should sleep now; maybe you’ll feel better.”

“Maybe.” You replied, knowing that even if you slept better than you had ever before nothing would change when you woke up.

Still your eyelids were heavy and your feet aching. Sleep beckoned you with open arms, and you were quick to fall into its depths. Pressing a soft kiss on Xiao’s cheek you made your way up the stairs. Collapsing onto your bed you let out a sigh of relief. Sleep was coming on fast, and you quickly found the outside world swirling away. The last thing you were aware of was a dent in your mattress, and a set of familiar eyes staring down at you, filled with affection and worry.

It was dreadfully hot. That was the first thing you were aware of. The second was how loud everything was. There was a terrible sound swirling around you, inhuman shrieks seemed to rise up from the ground beneath you, accompanied with a banging that cracked through the air, echoing oddly in a night that was all too quiet. The third thing was that you had no idea where you were. Looking around you found yourself reeling at the scene that met your eyes. The house in front of you must’ve been nice at some point, but now had fallen into ruin and disrepair. Smoke was drifting up from a door that led into the ground, and bottles lay in pieces on the ground. A wall seemed to separate the house from the outside world, so tall that you had no idea what lay beyond it. Trembling slightly you felt yourself move towards the source of the noise, feet moving despite the rising dread that you felt. Making your way down a set of stairs a few lines came to you all of a sudden.

A ceiling of amber, a pavement of pearl

The smoke was thicker now, filling your lungs, leaving you short of breath. Little bits of orange blurred your vision, wielded by strange men in strange uniforms. They seemed distorted in the smoke, made into ghosts that might haunt a child’s nightmares.

Through the narrow paved streets, where all was still

You didn’t move your head towards the back of the room, somehow you couldn’t. Your very soul fought against it. Instead you closed your eyes, overwhelmed with how hot it was.

“You’ve come so far and you can’t even look?”

The voice was mocking, familiar, full of scorn. Opening your eyes you stared at the men in front of you, the men with fire at the tips of their hands. Why did he want you to look? You knew what you’d see. Somehow you knew.

We climb’d on the graves, on the stone worn with rains

You couldn’t make it out among the smoke. All you knew was that it was red.

You screwed your eyes shut, even as sudden clarity danced before you. Someone was calling your name.

There was a hand on your shoulder.

And alone dwell forever

The smoke cleared, and with it the dream.

The scream ripped through your throat before you could even process it. You knew that you should stop, knew that you were no longer dreaming, knew that the hand on your shoulder belonged to your terrified partner. Still you screamed. You screamed and screamed and screamed.

“Hey. Hey!” Xiao’s voice was frantic. Shifting your gaze towards him you felt yourself begin to tremble.

“It, it was true. It was true, I saw him. I saw him. I saw me. It was true. I, I, they’re dead. They’re dead.”

“It was a dream. No one’s dead.”

“But Xiao, they’re dead. He was right, they’re gone and dead and somehow I forget them.”

The loneliness slammed into you, mixing with the horror that sent your stomach churning. You dug you nails into your palm, desperately trying to stop shaking. Everything seemed distorted, the light emerging through the window just as menacing as the dark.

“Take my hand.”

Xiao pulled one of your hands on his lap, gently opening it and running his fingers over the marks that now rested in your palms. Unfurling your hand you it was flat against his he covered it with his own. Letting his palm rest gently against yours he looked up at you.

“No one is dead. You were having a nightmare.”

“I was remembering, Xiao. I finally remembered something. And now I wish I never had.” You unfurled your other hand, wiping furiously at the tears that pooled in your eyes. “I’m so alone Xiao, I’m so alone.”

“You aren’t alone.”

“My family, my family is gone. The only one left is an Abyss member. I, I’m so utterly alone.”

You felt Xiao drop your hand slightly. The sudden lost connection made your founder for a moment, but soon the feeling was lost as Xiao wrapped his arms around you. Pressing kisses to your forehead his grip was tight and strong, encasing you utterly in soft comfort. Letting yourself collapse slightly you leaned into his embrace.

“You’ll never be alone. I’ll always be here.”

If promises were conveyed in actions then you had no reason to doubt Xiao’s. Though the air around you was sticky with heat you found yourself pressing into your partner’s chest eyes more, soaking up every bit of connection that you could get. Xiao said nothing more, simply keeping you in his embrace, lips brushing against your cheeks as he kissed away your tears.

You knew that he wouldn’t ask about your brother that night, perhaps not even the morning afterwards, or even tomorrow evening. After all your partner wasn’t one for words, and your relationship wasn’t built upon the expectation of painful transparency. If you weren’t ready to talk he wouldn’t push you.

Eventually your tears slowed, though the pain in your chest still burned like a brand. Bringing your hands to your chest you gazed up at the adeptus who was still wrapped around you.

“Can we stay this way a little longer?”

Xiao’s eyes gleamed catlike in the moonlight. Leaning down he brushed his lips against yours, sighing slightly as you met him with exhausted ardor. Pulling back you rested your head on your partner’s chest. The dulled beat seemed almost musical, a reminder that Xiao was alive, a reminder that he was right next to you.

You had assumed in some way that it meant he didn’t care, or didn’t want to know. Though you would’ve never thought that before, the feeling of loneliness that had threatened to swallow you up had made that perfectly clear. Yet Xiao did care, cared enough not to prod and poke at wounds that were surely bleeding even now. Cared enough to kiss your worries away, cared enough to let you embrace him as long as you needed. Cared enough to show that you weren’t truly alone. 

In a week you’d give the young man who had once been your brother an answer. In a week you’d face the fact of your loneliness, of a family that you’d once been a part of. In a week you would let yourself be truly lonely. But until then you would listen to the familiar beat of Xiao’s heart as you remembered that you weren’t truly alone. That you never would be.

-------

The box lid itself was based off nothing in particular. The building painted on it is a reference to Saint Basil’s Cathedral. 

The poem I used was “The Forsaken Merman” by Matthew Arnold

The scene in the reader’s dream is a reference to the execution of the last Imperial family of Russia. It took place in the basement of the Ipatiev House in Ekaterinburg on July 17th/18th 1918. 

[viking-raider]

The Immortal Sky - Part VI *Mature*

Summary: A decision is made for the next step in your and Henry’s journey, and the events that happen afterwards, will have lasting consequences for everyone involved.

Pairing: Henry Cavill/You

Word Count: 9,773

Chapters: I II III IV V

Warning: Futuristic!AU, Dystopian!AU, Language, Angst, Fluff, Dark themes, blood, torture, kidnapping, interrogation, imprisonment, mentions of past violence and sex

Inspiration: I’ve always wanted to write something like this.

Author’s Note: Tell me what you think! Thank you to @wondersofdreaming​ for being lovely, being my beta and putting up with my crazy muse! You’re amazing!

Even though you woke up in bed alone, you could hear Henry shuffling and rummaging around the room. But, you didn't open your eyes or move as you listened to him. You didn't want the magic that had culminated between you during the night to vanish, ruined by Henry forcing you to return to London with him, and starting another blow out argument.

That wouldn't end with another round of atomic sex.

When the room was quiet again, you rolled over onto your back as the sound of the toilet flushing filled the room and the sink came on. You sighed, looking out the bright window, the sun starting its slow ascent into the sky.

“You're awake.” Henry's chipper voice said as he came out of the bathroom, fully clothed. “How'd you sleep?” He asked, smiling at you.

“Better than I have in the last several days.” You replied, forcing a smile back at him.

“Same.”

He could see the conflict inside of you amplify so much more, and felt his heart grow sore. The magic was started to evaporate into the air between you.

“I don't want to rush you. But,” He sighed, carding a hand through his curls. “It's a long walk to where we're going, and only so many hours in the day.” He told you, fidgeting and chewing on the corner of his lip.

You hesitated for a moment, sighing heavily, before throwing back the duvet and getting out of bed. “I want to take a shower first, if that's okay with you? It's been a while since I had one.”

“Of course.” Henry nodded, hoping the hot water would help soothe you some.

Nodding, you took your previously discarded clothing and took them into the bathroom, softly closing the bathroom door behind you, just needing a moment of privacy. You put your clothing aside and stared at your fragmented reflection in the mirror, the tired smudges under your eyes and the just plain tired and melancholy shine to your eyes. Letting out a hard breath, you started the shower, and even though the water was still cold and heating up, you stepped underneath the icy spray, shivering once before just standing there and letting it wash over you.

Your body was so sore and worn out from walking and the ongoing situation, but you could also feel the throb between your legs from having sex with Henry; it wasn't entirely uncomfortable or painful, but it was unmistakably and noticeably there, none-the-less. The water finally heated up and you washed yourself the best you could with the meager options to do so.

“Yeah?” You called out, at Henry's soft knock.

Henry opened the bathroom door. “This is the only towel the room has.” He said, holding up the towel he had dried himself with the night before.

“Oh, thanks.” You smiled at him, turning off the shower and stepped out, taking the towel from him.

“Of course.” He smiled back at you, then actually dared to kiss you on the cheek, before going out again.

You felt a flutter of butterflies swarm your stomach at the warm touch of his soft lips on your damp cheek; it felt nice. Drying off and getting dressed, you joined Henry back in the room and found him opening his backpack, removing your shoes from inside. Smiling, he held them out for you to take, which you did, your fingers brushing as you did. The air between you and Henry was starting to get thick again, you could feel the anxiety inside of you start to grow, wanting to bolt and run for Bristol; Henry be damned. Henry was also on edge, trying to fight the feeling to grab you and throw you over his shoulder, marching you both back to London, to end this rising disaster.

But, both of you fought it.

Henry opened the room door for you and you stepped out into the hall, before going down the stairs and returning the room key to the front desk, a woman was running it this morning, the previous front desk clerk nowhere to be seen. Both of you paused at the hotel entrance, taking a deep breath and exiting into the cool morning air.

“Let me see.” Henry said, pulling out his mobile and bringing up the Runner map. “There's a supply store right over there.” He pointed across the street to a store front, the front window boarded up with plywood. “See if we can scrap up some breakfast.” He suggested, throwing you an encouraging smile.

“Okay.” You nodded, but didn't smile back.

Crossing the street and opening the supply store door, a soft chime of a bell as you did, the supplier appeared from the back, giving you and Henry a look, but didn't say anything to either of you. You roamed around the makeshift shelves lining the space, while Henry found where they stored the food and grabbed a couple of things, for breakfast and the trek. Going back outside, you and Henry found a relatively intact park bench and sat down, splitting a blueberry muffin and a bottle of water for breakfast.

Sighing, when the food was gone, you got up and turned towards London and started that way. Henry stared at you for a moment, still seated on the bench. His lips slightly parted as he watched you start in the direction of the capital city, he was thoroughly surprised by your decision to return to London with him, without him making you, or doing his best to convince you into it. It made his heart both skip a beat, that you had chosen him, but also stop, because you had chosen him over your brother.

Frowning, Henry stood up, he had already made his choice, a long time ago. So, he caught up with you as you continued to walk down the cracked and uneven sidewalk, grabbing the back of your elbow and pulling you to a stop. You turned to look up at him, your face was angry, but your bottom trembled with held back tears. Sighing softly, Henry folded you up into his arms and hugged you against him, letting you cry yourself out into his chest.

“I'm sorry.” He whispered softly, stroking your hair. “But,” He cleared his throat. “You're heading in the wrong direction.”

“I know which way I'm going, Cavill.” You replied, sniffling up at him.

“I know you know where you're going, love. But, you're not going in the direction you want to go in.” He clarified, pressing his lips to your warm forehead.

“I picked you. Mikey knows the bullshit he got himself into.” You huffed, frustrated you were even talking about it. “Made bed and lie in it, all that jazz.” You told him, rubbing at your eyes.

Henry smiled down at you, tipping your head back a little bit more and kissed you soundly on the lips, before putting his hands on your shoulders and turning you towards Bristol. “We are going this way, Nugget.”

“Henry.” You sighed, shaking your head.

“Neither of us will be able to live with the choice of just going back to London.” He replied, softly. “You won't be able to live knowing you could have prevented your brother's potential death, and I wouldn't be able to live with knowing you chose me and possibly resenting me for it, and I can't stand the thought of him getting hurt.” He explained to you.

“Stupid as he might be for becoming a Runner, in the first place.” He added, with a roll of his eyes.

“You're really going to go to Bristol with me, to get my dumbass brother?” You asked, turning back to him, and lifting a skeptical brow; sure he was just testing you.

“Yes.” He nodded, giving you a serious face.

“Why?”

“What do you mean, why?” He retorted, lifting his own brow. “I told you, why.”

“I don't believe it.” You replied, folding your arms.

Henry narrowed his eyes at you. “You just want to hear me say, I love you.” He chuckled, seeing straight through you.

“I did.” You grinned at him.

“You silly girl.” He sighed, smirking. “Come on, we only have so much time to reach the next safe place.” He said, kissing you again, took your hand, and started walking towards Warmley.

“And, I love you.”

It had taken a while, and many things had come to light, but you and Henry finally made it to Bristol.

“So, how do we find him, now that we're here?” Henry asked, resting his hand on the small of your back protectively, as you both stood to the side of the bustling street.

“I have no clue.” You sighed, for the first time, you were starting to feel discouraged. “What do you suggest, High Marshal?” You asked, looking up at him with half a smug smile and half pleading with him.

Henry took a deep breath in as he looked around, biting his lip. He had been thinking about how you both were supposed to find your brother once you arrived, ever since he decided he would go with you to Bristol in search of him. You couldn't just start asking anyone and everyone, it would invite more attention than Henry wanted to attract, especially with people out looking to harm you.

“I might know someone.” He sighed again, rubbing the side of his tired face.

“Who?” You asked, blinking at him.

“Someone I went to school with.” He explained, taking your hand and leading you through the crowd. “He was once a Beta Marshal, until he was found to be letting Runners through his Sector, for a portion of their profits. He probably would have just been fined for it, if he hadn't attempted blackmailing an Alpha Cleric that was presiding over his case. So, he was stripped of his offices and banished to Bristol.”

“I'm just not sure if he's still here, or if he's even still alive, for that matter.” He told you, side eyeing a guy that tried to nudge him in the ribs. “It's been nearly three years.”

“Well, how are we going to find him?” You asked, pressing closer to him.

“Most people that held a high office that have been banished to Bristol hide in the lowest Sector, to try and avoid others they might have sent here themselves.”

“And you know all of this, how?”

“I'm a High Marshal, it's my job to know these things.” He replied, gripping your hand even tighter as the crowd thickened.

You thread your way through the Sectors, until you reach the unguarded and trashed gate of Sector Fifteen. Bristol had a trashy vibe to it as you walked its crowded streets, but the almost empty streets of Sector Fifteen were, by far, worse. The dark, dank and foul smelling air hung heavily in a haze, that made your eyes water and the back of your nose sting. You could feel Henry's body tense beside you, going into full protective mode, on high alert for anything out of the ordinary, for any possible and would be threat to either of you.

“Who is this guy?” You whispered to him, too frightened to speak any louder.

“Ramsey Kellan.” Henry replied, his jaw tight.

“Lost?” A raspy voice asked from behind them.

“No.” Henry growled back, turning towards the voice. “Looking for an acquaintance.”

“Oh, and who might that be?” A sleazy and rail thin man replied, looking you and Henry over.

“Ramsey Kellan.”

“What do you want with Remy?”

“That's between him and I.” Henry hissed, glaring darkly at the other male.

“I'll tell ya where to find him.” He answered, his eyes shifting over to you. “For a price.” He chuckled, showing a mouthful of black and missing teeth as he grinned at you.

“Or I could just beat it out of you.” Henry barked at him, his hand practically crushing yours.

“Hey, no need for violence, man.” The guy huffed, looking disappointed. “He lives over there.” He pointed down the street to a dingy building, over half the windows were missing from it. “Third floor.”

You expected Henry to turn and start that direction, but he didn't move, staring after the guy as he walked away. Only when he vanished from view, did Henry turn on a dime and started inside. You climbed the three flights of stairs to Ramsey Kellan's floor, looking at the name on each of the flat doors until you finally came up to the scuffed door with 'Kellan - 309' on it in black, block letters.

“Stand right there.” Henry told you, pointing to a spot beside the door. “Don't say anything or make a peep.”

“Why?” You asked, narrowing your eyes up at him.

“Because I asked you too.” He replied, heaving a sigh and looking at you, the pinnacle of his exhaustion showing through his blue eyes.

“Fine.” You sighed back and did as he asked.

Taking one more deep breath, Henry lifted his fist and knocked on Kellan's door. It took a moment before the door jerked open and a thin male appeared. He looked at Henry for a moment, his expression angry, before it widened with shock and horror.

“Cavill?”

“Kellan.” Henry replied, looking the former Beta Marshal over.

“What the hell are you doing here?” Ramsey asked, blinking at his former colleague.

“Looking for you.” Henry answered, folding his arms over his chest.

“Don't tell me the straight laced Henry Cavill has fallen from grace?” Ramsey laughed, thoroughly amused at the thought of it.

“Not exactly.” He huffed, rolling his eyes. “I need your help finding someone here in Bristol.”

Ramsey's look hardened some and he shifted uneasily. “Who?”

“A Runner for Jaxon Quinn, Michail Keagan.”

Ramsey gulped thickly, his eyes shifting around, unable to meet Henry's stern glare. “I can't help you, Henry.” He mumbled and started to close his door.

Henry's hand shot out, preventing Ramsey from closing his door. “I know that's a load of shit. You've had the low down on every Runner there is, and I know you still do. So, you're going to tell me where to find him.”

“And what do I get out of it?” Ramsey hissed back. “Last time, I lost my job and my livelihood. This time around, I’d lose my life. So, what can you give me, Cavill, in exchange for the information.”

“Maybe, I tell the Marshal Council you helped me bring down one of the top Crime Bosses England has. Perhaps with a word like that, from a High Marshal with ties to the Cleric and Royal Councils, it could get you back into London.” Henry told him, keeping his voice low, but stern.

“You think you could do that?” Ramsey asked, sounding desperate and surprised.

“Only if you tell me what I want to know.” Henry told him, narrowing his eyes. “And if you lie to me, I'll make sure Crime Bosses and Bristol are your last worry.” He added, the dangerous threat dripping from his voice.

You heard the gulp and whimper that came out of Ramsey, you saw the sheer look of evil on Henry's face as he said it, and had to slap a hand over your mouth to hide your giggle, biting your lips. You were terrified and surprised by the pure authority Henry had pulsing off of him, even more so than usual, but part of you was also turned on by it.

“Come in, I don't want the neighbors to hear this.” Ramsey said, opening the door again.

Henry turned his head, looking at you, then motioned to the open door. Nodding at him, you pushed off the wall and stepped in front of him, giving Ramsey a tight smile as he blinked at you, surprised.

“Who the hell is this?” He snapped, looking over your head to Henry.

“None of your business, so move.” He barked back, pushing Ramsey out of the way.

You shyly smiled at Ramsey as you slipped by him, after Henry, who breezed into Ramsey's flat, looking around it with unmasked disgust. He turned in the middle of Ramsey's living room, tightly folding his arms against his chest, glowering at the former Beta Marshal, with screaming High Marshal authority. You felt sheepish as Ramsey closed his flat door and turned towards Henry, standing between them, in what could easily be no man's land.

“What do you want, High Marshal Cavill?” Ramsey asked, with smug mockery.

“I want you to tell me where I can find Michail Keagan.” Henry replied, the crease between his brows deepening. “He's an Adjutant Runner for Jaxon Quinn, here in Bristol.”

“You can't just waltz into a city like Bristol, and start demanding people tell you where top Runners are at, Cavill.”

“That's why I came to you, Kellan. You're already doing the waltz, so tell me where he is.”

“And if I don't?” Ramsey asked, narrowing eyes at Henry and rolling his shoulders.

Henry's arms dropped to his sides and he took three giant steps towards him, suddenly reaching out and nabbing Ramsey by the shirt, then slamming him against the nearest wall. Ramsey grunted, all the air left lungs as his back connected to the concrete wall. He was dazed for a second, black and flashing spots in his blood shot eyes, blinking rapidly to clear them away, and trying to focus on the rage he felt coming off of Henry.

“I'll beat your face in.” Henry hissed, his teeth gritted and blue eyes smoldering.

Your mouth dropped open, blinking at the rage Henry was exuding as he pinned Ramsey to the wall. It was no wonder that the blue of a flame burned the hottest. But, you were worried that Henry might actually harm Ramsey, and as much as you wanted to find your brother, you didn't want anyone getting hurt for it.

“All right, all right!” Ramsey squeaked and slumped against the wall, practically shrinking before Henry. “I'll find him for ya.” He gulped, frightened and shaking.

“Good.” Henry replied, his voice low, and moved away from him, still tense.

Chewing on his lip for a moment, before slowly sliding along the wall towards his coffee table, where his laptop was sitting, Ramsey flipped it open and sat down on the couch, he typed quickly, his fingertips clacking on the black keys as he squinted at the screen. Your heart was pounding so hard you were sure everyone in the building could hear it, while you watched him work. Henry stood in place, eyes burning into Ramsey, like it would make him work faster, as seconds felt like minutes and minutes felt like hours.

“It looks like this Runner is living in Sector Three, while he's being trained to be an Adjutant Runner.” Ramsey finally said, rubbing at his face. “With his handler, Knox Monroe. Who is a very hardcore Runner. I really wouldn't go messing about with him.”

“Why?” You dared to ask, eyes darting to Henry.

“Knox has brought in more revenue than any Runner, for the last five years running.” Ramsey replied, looking up from his laptop screen. “He was caught, once, and the Hernandez family bailed him out.” He looked up at Henry. “You know how serious they have to be about him, if they're willing to keep him in such an elevated state, instead of tossing him out of Bristol on his ass.”

“I do.” Henry nodded, his expression and body language never changed, but there was a small twinge in his stomach. “Where in Sector Three are they at?” He asked, without hesitation.

“Are you--” He started to protest, but stopped, seeing Henry's face, and took a deep breath. “Sector Three, block twelve, there's a pub there, the Black Bone. Knox frequents it often enough and I'm sure, with how close a handler is to their Runner, he'll bring this Keagan with him. All you have to do is use your special High Marshal skills and stake the place out, until they show up.”

Henry shrugged his shoulders and rolled his neck, processing all the information that Ramsey had given the two of you. “I hope you're not lying, Ramsey.” He sighed, settling a tired eye on him.

“I'm not, Henry.” Ramsey sighed, rolling his eyes at him. “Especially, if you can get me out of this hell hole.”

“We'll see.” Henry huffed at him, turning back towards the door. “Come on.” He said to you, opening the door and letting you step out into the hall first.

The man you and Henry encountered walked around the corner of a building, moving out of your sight, but peeked around the corner, watching you and Henry enter the apartment building he directed you too. Narrowing his eyes at the building, he quickly turned away and hurriedly walked through the streets of Sector Fifteen. Rudely bumping into people to get them out of his way, before he finally reached the nearly pristine gate to Sector Fourteen, flashing his pass ID at the guards and breezed through as they opened the gate for him.

Swinging around a corner and kicking open the door of a bar, he sallied up to the bar, slapping his palms to the sticky and worn counter.

“Gideon, where's Aries?” He asked and leaned over the counter, reaching beneath it and grabbed the neck of a bottle that was there. “I need to talk to him.” He added, sitting back and spinning off the cap of the whiskey bottle.

“He's upstairs, where he always is, you dumb-fuck.” Gideon, the bartender, barked back at him, yanking the bottle out of his hand as he started to chug it down. “So, get fucking lost.” He barked, wiping the head of the bottle off with the hem of his shirt and secured the cap back on, storing it in its previous place.

He smiled up in Gideon's face, winked at him, then shoved away from the bar, twirling on his heels towards the back of the bar. Yanking open a hidden door in the wall, stomped his way up the stairs and pounded on the closed door at the top. After several minutes of relentless pounding, the door swung open to a burly male.

“Fuck you want, Atlas.” He hissed at him, his lip curled with distaste.

“I need to see Aries.” The man, Atlas, said, licking his lips and looking back at him. “It's important.”

“Get lost, Atlas.” He huffed and started closing the door.

“Who is it, Danny?” A voice in the room behind him called out.

“It's me, Aries!” Atlas yelled back, grinning smugly at Danny. “I have some information you might want!” He added, pressing through the door.

“Let him in.” Aries sighed, slumping back in his high backed chair. “What is it, Atlas?” He groaned, watching Atlas sashay into the room, picking through the various bottles strewn across the long, black table, until he found one that was reasonably full.

“There was a guy and a chick, in Sector Fifteen.” He said, taking several deep gulps of the clear liquid. “Huge fucker too, and she was a teeny thing. Cute..”

“What's the point, Atlas?” Aries huffed, pinching the bridge of his nose. “I don't have all night.”

“Well, it was the girl, you see.” Atlas replied, leaning against the edge of the table. “She looked familiar, and I don't mean, seen her in the whore house, familiar either.”

“I care why?”

“Because, she looked like that girl you got a memo on from the higher ups.” Atlas answered, grinning at Aries with smug confidence.

Aries's hand dropped from his face and looked across at Atlas, studying him. “Danny, hand me that memo tablet.” He said, holding his hand out to him, without taking his eyes off of Atlas.

Danny left the room for a quick moment and returned carrying the black, sleek tablet and carefully rested it in Aries's hand. Aries closed his hand around it and the screen came to life, he messed with it for a few minutes, before sliding it across the table to Atlas.

“Her?” He asked, leaning forward in his seat.

“Looks like her.” Atlas nodded, bending over the tablet.

Aries snapped out of his chair and strode across the room, yanking on a jacket. “Where did you see them?”

“Sector Fifteen, they were looking for Kellan.” Atlas explained, twisting around to follow him as he moved around the room.

“Fucking Ramsey.” Aries huffed, angrily. “Get him out.” He barked at Danny and pointed at Atlas as he made for the door.

Aries stormed down the stairs, shoving open the hidden door and scaring the new patrons that had come in after Atlas had gone up. He paid them no mind as he stormed out of the bar and towards Sector Fifteen, hoping to get to Kellan's flat before you and Henry left. But, he knew by the time he did get there, that you both were long gone. He still went up to have a visit with Ramsey though, wanting information.

“Aries!” Ramsey squeaked opening the door and found him there. “How's it going, man? It's been a--”

“Cut the shit, Kellan. Tell me where she is.” Aries hissed, cutting to the chase.

“Who?” Ramsey frowned at him, genuinely confused.

“The girl that was seen here today, with another fellow.” Aries explained to him, his eyes darkening.

Ramsey blinked at Aries a couple of times, his brain struggling to compute what Aries was saying. Who was the girl with Henry? He thought, his chest tightening. He refused to tell him who she was, and he seemed seriously protective of her. She must be someone of importance if Cavill was so protective of her, if Aries was so interested in her.

“I don't know who she is, Aries. Honestly.” He mumbled, running a hand down his face. “She came with a former colleague of mine.”

“And who might that be?”

“Henry Cavill.” Ramsey blurted out, obediently. “He's a High Marshal for the City of London.” He explained to him. “He came to me, with her, looking for a Runner. A Runner called Michail Keagan. He works for Quinn and is being trained by Knox. In Sector Three.”

“There's an active High Marshal in Bristol, looking for a Runner?” Aries asked, looking thunderstruck at the notion.

“Yes, Sir.” Ramsey nodded, gulping and fidgeting in place.

“Hernandez is going to lose his fucking mind.” Aries replied, raking a hand through his hair and turning on his feet. “I have to warn him.” He said to himself, already planning on going straight to Sector One to warn Hernandez about it, and you being in the city.

Within their grasp.

“Mr. Hernandez, Aries Novak to see you.”

Benji Hernandez looked up as he hunched over his desk, arms braced against the dark cherry wood. Rubbing at his tired face, he pushed off the desk and waved his hand for Aries to enter, rounding his desk to drop into his high-back leather chair.

“You can leave, Johnny.” He dismissed his assistant, then motioned to a chair before his desk. “Sit, Aries.”

“Yes, Sir.” Aries nodded, obediently and quickly taking the offered seat. “I have some very important information for you, Mr. Hernandez. I'm sure it'll make your day a sight better.” He rushed out, a bubble of excited and nervousness energy.

“What is it, Mr. Novak?” Benji sighed, lifting a brow at the other man.

“That girl you've been looking for,” Aries grinned, making the Devil look like a sweetheart. “She's here. In Bristol, of all places, and with a London High Marshal!”

Benji blinked at Aries a couple of times. “That little bitch is here, in my city!” He growled, his shoulders tensing.

“Yes, sir. She very much is.” Aries nodded, smiling even more. “One of my men saw her and the High Marshal at a former Beta Marshal's flat not three hours ago, in Sector Fifteen.”

“Where are they now?” Benji hissed, leaning forward, hand reaching for his phone.

“Kellan said, he gave them directions to the Black Bone pub in Sector Three. They're looking for Knox and his new Runner, Keagan.”

“Why are they looking for the two of them?” Benji asked, narrowing his eyes at Aries.

“He doesn't know, neither of them told him the reason behind it, just to tell them where they could be found.” He explained, rubbing his sweaty palms on his thighs, being near Benji had always given him the shakes, mostly because he knew what he was capable of.

Benji picked up the black receiver of his phone and pressed it to his ear with his shoulder, punching the glossy numbers with the tip of his index finger. “Ashe, I want you in my office. Now.” He barked into it, then slammed it back down into the cradle. “Aries, get out.” He huffed, jerking his head towards the door as he got up out of his chair and strode across the room to a table of decanters and glasses.

“Do-don't you wa--” Aries started to stammer.

“I don't want anything out of you other than what you've already given me, Mr. Novak.” Benji answered, cutting him off, as he poured himself a drink. “Unless, you're withholding something more?” He asked, turning back to Aries as he brought the full glass to his lips.

“No-no, sir!” Aries yelped, the blood draining from his face.

“Then, get the fuck out.” Benji huffed, rolling his eyes and downing the rest of the strong brown liquid.

Nodding his head, like a broken bobble-head, Aries pulled the door open as a man on the other side raised his hand to knock. The two men gulped and nodded at each other, then traded places.

“Ashe!” Benji called out, sounding a bit happier to see him than he had been to see Aries. “Come in and close the door.”

Ashe gave Aries with a short nod and closed the door on him. “How can I be of help, Mr. Hernandez?” He asked and folded his arms behind his back, giving Benji his full and undivided attention.

“There's someone of great importance in my city and someone else that can cause some other issues with her. I want you to go down to the Black Bone pub in Sector Three. I don't want you to grab them as soon as you see them. Watch them, then when they leave, grab them and bring them back here to hold.”

“Of course.” Ashe nodded. “Who would that be, sir?”

Benji crossed back to his desk and removed a tablet from his drawer, turning it on and flipping through it for a moment, before holding it out to Ashe. “That's her. She was in Twist's warehouse in London, waiting to be sold, when someone came in to look at Twist's collection, picked her out of the line-up and purchased her.” He explained to Ashe. “Not five minutes after purchasing her, Twist's warehouse was raided by the Marshal Council.”

“Come to find out, the guy who purchased her was working for the Council. Ordinarily, that wouldn't be an issue, but being that she was purchased during a Council Raid, she's a witness and can fuck my family's entire operation in London. So, I had a hit put out on her, if she's dead, she can't testify. Which would make the consequences of the trial less disastrous.”

“So, you want me to kill them?” Ashe asked, studying your face on the tablet's screen.

“No, I want you to bring them back here and put them in holding.” Benji replied, leaning back against the edge of his desk. “I want to find out what I can from them. See, if they know anything about the trial Twist and his men are being sent too. We might be able to cut out a few more people from the jury and not take such a massive hit to our operations.”

Ashe nodded and handed the tablet back to his boss. “I'll get on it right away, Sir.”

“Good.” Benji smiled, pleased.

“Eat.” Henry said, setting a plate of food in front of you.

“Why?” You frowned at him.

“Because, you look suspicious and it's hard to look suspicious when you're eating something.” He told you, handing you a fork and knife. “We don't need any attention to be drawn to us, while we wait for Knox and your brother to show up. So, eat your food and leave the room watching to me.”

“You're the boss.” You chuckled, nudging his knee with yours.

You and Henry had entered the Black Bone pub twenty minutes before, ordering food and drinks, while Henry put his vast experience of surveillance and undercover work to use, taking regular bites of food and sips of water as he pretended to stare at the flickering tv screen mounted above the bar top, showing some sporting event that took place in Bristol. While his actual attention, from his peripheral vision, was on the single entrance and exit the pub had. No one had come in or gone out since the pair of you entered the half packed establishment. You had already done a quick sweep of the patrons that dotted the place, none of them were your brother or looked like the picture of Knox that Ramsey had shown you just before you left his flat, in Sector Fifteen.

“There's enough grease in this to oil a car.” You commented, pushing the food on your plate around with your fork.

Henry's face broke out into a massive grin, his shoulders shaking as he laughed at your comment. “We already know you purr like an engine.” He teased back, making reference to the sound you had made the night before, as he pleasured you.

“Oh, dear god.” You giggled, your face hot with embarrassment. “Henry.” You grinned at him, shyly.

“It's the truth, and you know it, Nugget.” He chuckled back at you, his shoulder gently brushing yours as he leaned in to kiss your cheek.

“You wag that tail, like you're a Puppy.” You teased him back, rolling your eyes at him.

Henry had opened his mouth to make a comment to that, when the bell above the door rang and the door opened. His mouth snapped shut and his body language changed from that playful relaxation, to suspicious and high alert tension. His blue eyes darted to the new patron as they stepped into the pub, a male, about Henry's own height, but slimmer, though by no means less built. There was an air about him, that Henry felt on the other side of the room, a professional air, but that could be a by-product of the life he lived before being marooned in Bristol. But, Henry wasn't completely sure of that, and cast his eyes back to the tv, as the man scanned the room.

“Don't look over there.” Henry hissed as you started to turn your head towards the door.

“Sorry.” You mumbled and took another sip of your water. “But, you don't like him.” You pointed out, feeling how rock hard the muscles of his side were against yours.

“I don't let anyone in here.” Henry replied, forcefully relaxing himself. “Other than you.” He added, the corner of his lip twitching up into a soft smile.

“Well, as long as that's true.” You chuckled, resting your hand on his thigh.

Henry rested his hand on top of yours and gave you a sweet smile, squeezing it gently. “Since I met you.” He whispered, softly.

“Aw.” You cooed at him, turning your hand into his.

Squeezing your hand again, Henry turned his eyes back to the tv, watching the new patron move from the door to the bar, motioning to the bartender and ordering something to drink. The longer the man was there, the colder the feeling running up and down Henry's spine got, making him shiver with worsening paranoia.

“Are you done with your food?” He asked, looking at your plate.

“Yeah, I'm done.” You nodded, pushing it away from you.

“All right, we're going.” He said, standing up.

“But,” You started to protest, but the look on Henry's face said it all.

Nodding, you got up and followed him out of the pub, trying to keep up with his long strides as he hurried down the street, before taking a sharp turn into an alleyway. You frowned at him as he stopped at a brick wall.

“Come here.” He motioned you closer with his fingers. “Take this.” He pulled a plastic room key out of his back pocket and slipped it into your front pocket.

You frowned up at him, shaking your head. “What are you doing?” You asked, getting an anxious feeling in the pit of your stomach.

“Meet me back at our room.” He told you, lacing his fingers together. “If I'm not back in an hour, do not come looking for me. Stay in the room, don't answer the door, unless you are sure it's me.” He instructed you, quickly.

“Henry?”

“Give me your foot.” He rushed you.

“Henry?”

“We don't have time, so give me your foot.” He barked at you, gritting his teeth as he tried to hold his temper.

Gulping, you placed your foot into his cupped hands and he boosted you up, to straddle the top of the brick wall. “Henry?” You panted, your anxiety turning into panic, realizing he wasn't going to follow after you.

“You'll be fine, just do what I told you to do.” He answered, taking a calming breath and squeezing your ankle, trying to reassure and calm you, as he looked back to the entrance of the alleyway and saw the guy from the pub appear.

“Go now, I'll be right behind you.”

“And if you're not?” You gulped, hands shaking.

“I will be. Now, go.” He told you. “I love you.” He whispered, softly.

You glanced up at the approaching man as he started towards you and didn't look all that happy. “I love you too.” You whimpered back, then disappeared on the other side of the wall.

“Good girl.” Henry sighed to himself, turning to face the guy, his quick footsteps echoing off the brick and metal surrounding the alleyway as he rushed Henry.

Henry had enough time to tense up his body, before Ashe bull rushed him, sending them both into the brick wall Henry had just sent you over. Grunting as his back connected to the bricks, knocking some of the air out of his lungs, Henry slid his body to the left as Ashe's fist came out and breezed by his head, crashing knuckles first into the grimy bricks behind him. Ashe howled and growled, drawing back his scrapped and throbbing hand, ugly black and purple bruises already forming on the swollen and bloody digits. Taking his distraction, Henry jabbed his own fist hard into Ashe's unprotected side, feeling his ribs crack under the force of his blow, and making Ashe double over, then drove his knee into Ashe's gut.

“I do mean to ruin your day.” Henry laughed, grabbing a handful of Ashe's blond hair and forcing his head back. “But, you're not going to get your filthy hands on her.”

“I'm afraid to disappoint you, but we will get that wee bitch.” Ashe panted, hand reaching into his back pocket and yanked something out of it, pressed it to the side of Henry's thick thigh and pressed a button on the side.

Henry's entire body became rigid and trembled, his eyes losing focus and twitching as several hundred volts of electricity coursed through him. Clicking the stun stick off and watching Henry slump against the wall and slide to the ground, Ashe stood up, flipping the stick in his hand, then pocketing it again, before removing his mobile from his front pocket.

“Hey, Sully. It's Ashe.” He chuckled, squatting down in front of an incapacitated Henry. “I didn't get the girl, but I did get the High Marshal, and I'm sure after a 'talking to' he'll fork over where to find her.” He explained to his handler, giving Henry a gloating pat on the cheek.

“I know he's not ideal, but he's a fucking High Marshal, think of the shit he knows, other than where the girl is? Benji won't be that pissed off about it, we'll get her once we've talked the good Marshal into telling us.” He laughed, poking Henry in the chest.

“Sweet! Send the boys over. He's a beast.”

A few minutes later, a group of guys arrived in the alleyway with Henry and Ashe, flanking Henry, who was still out for the count, and hauled him out of the alleyway and into a van, before speeding out of the Sector, back to Sector Three, where Benji and his team waited to interrogate him on where you were now hiding.

Your lungs were burning, by the time you ran back to the room you and Henry had rented in the Sector when you arrived. You hoped with all you had that Henry would be there waiting for you to open the door with some witty remark on how long it took you to get back, with your nugget sized legs. But, he wasn't and your already throbbing heart felt like it had been sent through a paper shredder. You let yourself into the room, locking it behind you and paced the room, a million worst and best case scenarios running through your head on why he wasn't back yet.

“Come on, Henry.” You gasped, chewing your lip to bits and wringing your hands. “Please, knock on the door.” You begged, staring at the room door. “Please, please, please.” You whimpered.

But, the knock never came. Not an hour later, or even three hours later.

You considered going back out to look for him and half opened the door to do so, before shaking your head and closing it again, knowing Henry would be pissed if he found you weren't there when he got back, or if you ran into each other on the street. So, you stayed locked in the room, restlessly pacing or staring out the window, hoping to see him approaching the building from the sidewalk five stories below.

“He's fine.” You mumbled to yourself, sitting down on the edge of the bed. “He's just toying with me. He's just standing in the hall, waiting for me to bolt out of the room, so he has something to tease me about. Claim I'm not good at listening.” You tried convincing yourself, hugging his shirt to your chest.

“The jerk, he can wait out there all night, for what I care!” You yelled, hoping he heard you.

A stinging slap rang out in the air and Henry's scruffy cheek burned, like it had been singed by molten lava. Henry grunted as another burning slap connected with his other cheek, snapping his head painfully to the side.

“Wakey Wakey, Mr. Cavill.” An overly jolly voice cooed inches from his face. “Nap time is over.” The jolly voice turned sinister. “I think our sleeping beauty needs a little more help walking up, Emilio.”

“Doable, Boss.” A deep voice laughed.

Henry's eyes flew open and doubled over with a weak gasp as an iron blow struck the center of his chest, and the audible creaking of his ribs. He whimpered and moaned, a thick string of drool dripped from his lips. He leaned forward in the metal chair he was tied to, his arms bound by the wrists around the back of the chair and his ankles tied to the front legs, that like the back legs, were heavily bolted to the cement floor.

“Good morning, Henry.” Benji smiled at him.

“Ho-how--” He panted, trying to get air back into his screaming lungs. “How do you kn-now my n-name?” He gulped the thick saliva in his mouth down, his throat sore.

“I know to you, Mr. Cavill, Bristol is just a back water, shit-hole. But, we do have a great deal of the same technology you Londoners do. So, fingerprint identification isn't a foreign concept to us.” Benji sighed, shaking his head as he walked around Henry.

“Where am I?” Henry gasped, sitting back and flexing his arms, testing the strength of his bonds, only to get a stiff punch to the face.

“Easy, Emilio.” Benji called, patting Emilio on the shoulder. “We don't want to tire Mr. Cavill, before he can be so nice as to answer our questions.”

“I'm not telling you shit, Hernandez.” He growled, jerking his body in agitation.

“Oh, how intuitive of you to deduce who I am.” Benji laughed, stopping in front of Henry. “You must be a top notch High Marshal in London.” He smirked, taking a seat in a chair several feet in front of Henry. “Well, I know you are, I've read your files and your work history. You have quite the prowess for undercover work, used to be SWAT as well, before transferring to Homicide.” He said, reaching back for the tablet one of his men was holding, taking it from him.

“What was it that you transferred, Mr. Cavill?” He asked, scrolling through files that should have been private and sealed.

“Get fucked.” Henry barked at him, his broad shoulders straining.

Benji chuckled, then cleared his throat. “Says here, while on a raid in London's Sector Thirty, there was a shoot out in a warehouse and you were injured, almost died as a result.” He rested the tablet on the thigh of his crossed leg.

“I'm not telling you where she is.” Henry said softly, staring Benji straight in the eyes. “So, you can save your breath.”

“Oh, it's not my breath you'd want to save, Henry.” Benji said, lowering his voice and resting forward. “It's yours.” He grinned, his brown eyes lighting up. “I wonder, if that wound still gives you trouble?” He inquired, drumming his fingertips on the back of the tablet.

Henry didn't say anything or move, just stared Benji in the eye, his lips sealed. The Crime Boss could do whatever he liked to him, he wasn't going to tell him where you were, even if it ended up killing him. No matter how much pain they caused him for it. Henry would protect you with his body and his life.

“Do what you will.” He told Benji, resolved and at peace.

Benji's eyes darkened, realizing that he wasn't going to be able to 'sweet talk' or coax Henry into volunteering the information about your whereabouts. He knew it wasn't going to work, but had given it a shot anyway, hoping Henry would be intelligent and want to save his own life and a good amount of pain.

“All well.” He sighed, shrugging his shoulders at Henry. “Where was that wound?” He hummed, turning back to the tablet. “Abdomen, left side. Through and through—oh! It took out one of your kidneys! Well, it's a good damn thing you're a High Marshal with a father in the Cleric Council and a mother in the Royal Council! All that money, power and influence, so you could get the best organ transplant care.” He said, shaking his head and enlarging a photo taken of Henry, not long after he had surgery to treat his injuries.

“What was it?” He asked, looking up at Henry. “Organ donor? Organ regrowth or an Organ replacement?”

“What's the difference?” One of Benji's men blurted out, without meaning too.

“Well, you see.” Benji laughed, in an uncommonly good mood. “An Organ donor is when some nice and caring person donates their kidney to the recipient. Organ regrowth is when a large team of doctors and scientists grow a new kidney for the person that needs it, and organ replacement, is a device, made out of hardware and biological software to look and function like the required organ or body part. Think of it as the kidney equivalent to a prosthetic leg.”

“All of which are insanely expensive.” He added, then looked back at Henry. “So?”

“You obviously have access to all my medical reports, so why bother.” Henry hissed at him, unamused.

“Because, I want to have a conversation with you, Mr. Cavill. So, satisfy my curiosity.”

Henry licked his lips, his upper lip twitching as his anger slowly built in the pit of his stomach. “Replacement.” He growled out, his hands squeezing into fists, cutting off most of their circulation.

“So, a special, bionic kidney for the special High Marshal.” Benji sat up straighter, his eyes and face bright with wonder and interest. “I want to see it!”

“Sir?” Ashe gasped, head snapping towards Benji.

“I don't mean cut him open, you idiot!” Benji barked, the sparkle of his face dimming with his flare of annoyance. “The scar, you brain-dead buffoon.” He yelled, throwing the tablet at Ashe. “Cut his shirt off!” He snapped at Emilio.

Grinning, Emilio grabbed a box cutter off a metal table covered with various items and approached Henry. Sliding up the razor-blade, Emilio grabbed the bottom hem of Henry's grey short sleeve t-shirt and slid the paper thin blade up, cutting through the thin fabric. Henry winced, hissing and bared his teeth as the tip of the blade nicked the skin of his sternum, a thick bead of bright red blood dripped down his chest, disappearing into the patch of hair of his belly; the elastic band of his boxer briefs soaking it up.

Emilio tore away the rest of Henry's shirt and discarded it, as Benji stood and closed the gap between them, seeing the neat and thin scar above his left hip, a slightly puckered dot of scar tissue in the center of it, where the bullet entered. Pressing his lips together, Benji rounded Henry's chair and made him sit forward, straining his arms and saw the thick scar on his back, from the surgery to remove his damaged kidney and replace it with the engineered one.

“Fascinating.” He cooed, touching his cool fingertips to the burning hot skin of Henry's back. “I wonder?” He hummed, then promptly sucker punched Henry in the back, landing it squarely on the scar.

Henry howled in agony, arching his back away from Benji, the cut on his chest bleeding more as the skin of his sternum stretched. His breathing was ragged as Emilio jabbed his fist into Henry's stomach, almost choking on the air stuck in his throat, eyes watering furiously.

“So, it does hurt.” Benji laughed, pressing his fingers into the forming bruise and moved back around to see his anguished face.

“Let me punch you in the fucking kidney, and tell me how it feels, you piece of shit.” Henry barked, spitting at him.

Emilio clocked Henry across the face, opening a gash on his cheekbone and snapping his head sideways, making his neck ache and throb. “Spit at him again, and I'll cut your fucking tongue out.” He growled, grabbing a handful of Henry's sweat soaked curls and yanked his head back, making his scalp burn.

“Where is she, Henry?” Benji asked, pulling out a handkerchief and wiped the wad of spit off the tip of his shoe, before tossing the square piece of fabric into the bin. “This will go so much easier, if you just tell us where she is.”

“I'm not going to tell you, so you can do whatever you want with me.” Henry wheezed, glaring up at Benji. “Torture me. Kill me. I don't care. I'll never tell you anything.”

“Are you sure you want to play this game, Henry?” Benji asked, stroking his jaw as he regarded him.

Henry's body went slack and slumped in the chair, mentally centering himself for the pain and chaos that was no doubt about to rain down upon him. All so he could keep you protected, and god he hoped you were. Henry prayed that you had listened to him and went back to the hotel room, baring yourself inside until, and if, he was able to get back to you. He feared that Ashe had more people with him that saw you go over that wall and followed after you, tracking you back to the room, if you even made it that far, and were somewhere in the building he was clearly in, being tortured as well. His Adam's apple bounced as he swallowed down that overwhelming fear. He couldn't let that negativity breed inside of him or it would tear him down and he would lose to Benji and his torture even faster.

“I'm not telling you, where she is, or even where she might be.” He replied, finally. “For all I know, she's nowhere I'm aware of. She's an extremely self-willed girl, and doesn't listen. So, even if I were to tell you where I think she is. She couldn't be. She could be anywhere at this point.” He told him, almost smugly.

“Bristol is a big place.” He added, a smirk twitching at the corner of his mouth.

Emilio got a running start and the punch he landed square to the center of Henry's face, busting his nose and blackening his eye. Henry coughed and spit a mouthful of blood to the floor, his chin resting against his bare and bloody chest.

“Why are you and she in Bristol?” Benji asked, lifting a brow at him.

“To fuck your mother.” Henry replied, spitting blood at him, but came up short.

Picking up a long object from the table, Emilio swung it into Henry's stomach, and if the chair hadn't been bolted to the floor, it and Henry would have been sent flying backwards with the force. Henry wavered forward, slack and groaning in pain, shaking his throbbing head to try and clear it.

“I'll ask you again, why are you here?”

“Again, to fuck your mother.” Henry rasped, clearing his throat and licking his lips, tasting the cooper of his own blood.

Benji looked up at Emilio and nodded.

Grinning, Emilio dropped the pipe on the table with a clatter and retrieved his box cutter, his preferred method of extracting information from difficult people. The smallest shutter went down Henry's spine as he approached him, pressing the sharp tip to his jean-clad thigh. Henry growled deep in his throat, gritting his teeth and flexing his arms as Emilio slowly pushed it into his leg; breathing heavily and teeth tearing into his bottom lip, blood dripping down his chin.

“We can do this for a very long time, Mr. Cavill.” Benji said, crossing one leg over the other and tilting his head as he watched the blade of the box cutter disappear into Henry's meaty thigh. “Even after we find her. But, I find it curious that a High Marshal would go to such lengths to protect a Slave he bought, even if it was part of a sting operation.”

Henry blinked at Benji, the searing pain of the blade cutting through skin and muscle momentarily forgotten.

“Oh, yes. I know it was you that bought her from Twist. That you were the one that was undercover at the warehouse. It's all in the paperwork.” He explained, motioning to the shattered tablet laying on the ground. “The report your superior typed up after the fact, your own reports while undercover and afterwards. A high bred, high standing Londoner, with a life and connections anyone and everyone would die for, protecting some Slummer that was just part of the job.”

“Why are you protecting her?”

“Like you said,” Henry answered through clenched teeth. “It's my job. I'm supposed to protect her until she testifies.”

“Nothing more?” Benji poked.

“Nothing.” Henry seethed, his dull fingernails cutting into the skin of his palms.

He wasn't going to show or give away that he loved you, that would only cause more issues and add to the endless list of things Benji and his men could use against him, to torture and torment him into give you up. No, he buried those emotions and thoughts so deep inside of himself, it was as if they never existed to start with, building an iron-clad fortress around them and you.

“She means nothing to me, other than getting her to testify against you, then send her back to the hell hole she was born to and I can get my life back.”

“Well, if you tell me where she is, I can let you go.” Benji replied, regarding Henry. “I'll even have one of the boys drive you back to London, safe and sound, and you can go back to your job as a High Marshal.”

“You expect me to believe that?” Henry laughed at him. “My job is to stop you, and you'd let me freely continue to do so?”

“Yes.” He nodded, pressing his lips together. “All the Councils of London have been hindering my family's business for decades, and we're still sitting fat, happy and rich here in Bristol. So, one little High Marshal, like yourself, won't even be a thorn in my side. What do you say, Henry? Give us the girl and we'll have you home by morning?”

Henry leaned forward, never breaking eye contact with him. “No.” He said, softly, but with clear malice.

[one-boring-person]

Hey!!!how are you?

Can i have some Rambo Headcanons??

Maybe the old rambo moving nextdoor to a young(24), farmer? (They/them pls), and maybe eventually him developing a crush or Wanting to protect them since they’re always so nice and caring towards him?

Thank you!!(these are for my birthday lmao, im a complete and total rambo simp. And i feel old rambo would really enjoy calming down and helping around with someone who loves him)

You have no idea how badly I've been wanting to write these as soon as I read the request! It's so wholesome, so I hope I've done it justice! And happy birthday! I hope you like these 😊(also I'm good, thanks for asking!)

John Rambo (Rambo IV/V) x younger!reader headcannons.

Warnings: mention of PTSD, vague injury detail.

A/n: I'm sorry if this is not as expected, I'm still getting to grips with writing headcannons 😅

Masterlist

The ranch had been in a state of disrepair when John first got there, walls thinning, paint peeling, buildings empty and soulless. He hadn't expected things to be as they were when he left, all those years ago, but the evident lack of care surprised him.

The house had been empty, which he eventually figured out was die to the fact his father had passed a good few years prior, and hadn't left anyone in charge of the ranch.

This meant that everything was as it was when he left, photographs hanging awkwardly on the walls, dusty furniture shoved out of the way.

Naturally, the rest of the ranch was also in pretty poor condition: the stables were practically overrun with weeds and foul smelling hay, one lone horse still nosing weakly at the empty water bucket on the floor. Taking pity on the animal, and feeling a need to help it, John took it out onto the field, which is where he first saw them.

Across from his father's ranch was another, smaller one, where horses and cattle grazed in the fields, a single car parked up beside the main house, which was in a much better condition than his own newfound home. In one of the fields, running around with a young foal, was who he assumed to be a ranchhand.

For a moment or so, he had stood and watched as the figure ran in circles with the youthful horse in tow, admiring their seemingly high spirits - he hadn't felt high-spirited in years.

After he'd helped the old horse from the stables out (cleaning out a stall, feeding it with feed he found in a storeroom), John had gone back to the house, almost forgetting the figure across the field, intending to head to sleep.

A couple of days passed after that, before he saw them again, though this time, they also saw him.

He'd started work on the house, having collected what he needed from a nearby town, and was sat on the roof of the main building as the sun glared down at him. Taking a brief pause from his work, he'd looked up and seen them in the field again, this time astride a larger horse.

They were racing around again, until the rider noticed they were being watched, at which point they slowed to a halt and looked around, quickly spotting John on the roof. From that distance, he couldn't tell what their expression was, but they raised a hand after a moment or so, waving up at him. Hesitantly, he had waved back.

Later that day, when he'd been sat on his father's old rocking chair on the veranda, taking another break, John had noticed someone coming up the road towards him. Standing out of instinct, John soon realised it was someone astride a horse, the rider carefully trotting up the drive, their face becoming clearer the nearer they came.

Still cautious of people, John had acted somewhat guarded as the person rode up to him, a broad smile on their work-weathered youthful face. In their hand, they carried a small box, which they cradled awkwardly on their thighs.

Approaching him, they'd tipped their hat, a battered Stetson, and greeted him, introducing themself as (Y/n), the owner of the ranch next to his. They'd spoken cheerfully, as if unaffected by the hardships of life, which they may well be. That's what John thought anyway, until they openly and happily told him about the passing of their parents, four years ago. The ranch had been left to them, leaving them in charge of the business.

Their first encounter had been somewhat awkward, but it didn't seem to bother (Y/n), and they left after ten minutes or so with a genial smile at him, stating that they'd be happy to help if he ever needed it. They also left behind the box, which John soon discovered was filled to the brim with cookies, a food he hadn't eaten for decades. Trying one, he soon rediscovered a love for them he didn't remember he had.

In the following weeks, John managed to fix up the house, getting it ready to live in properly, with some very brief help from his neighbour. They'd been round earlier in one week, dropping off another box of cookies, and had offered him access to their tools, which they brought round soon after.

After this, John felt it was only right that he invited them round for drinks as thanks, something that still made him somewhat uneasy. Somehow, he did feel reassured when they happily agreed and turned up the following Sunday, the two of them sitting in comfortable quiet on the veranda, sometimes talking, other times staying silent.

This became a regular occurrence.

Every week, (Y/n) would go to John's, or vice-versa, the latter soon learning to trust them and enjoy their company, finding himself in a better mood than he had been in in a long time. Their openness to talk or listen (even if he said very little) comforted him, allowing him to forget the nightmarish things going through his head near-daily.

After three months, (Y/n) had started coming round much more often, many times just appearing in the middle of the day to help out with whatever task needed doing, unafraid of doing dirty work. They later told him it was because they enjoyed his company far too much, and often actively sought it out: they made it clear that his quiet, brooding nature was an attractive quality about him that reassured them.

It didn't take long for them to become close, the two seemingly working at a different wavelength to the rest of the world, one that only existed between their small ranches.

They helped John procure his first horses, lending him one of their own to help build up the numbers. The differences between each ranch soon became blurred, the fence running through the middle of their respective fields eventually disappearing as they merged their ranches together, continuing with business individually with the help of the other's land.

John had long since accepted, within himself, that he would not find someone to spend the rest of his life with, not after Sarah. It was a sad truth, but one he had to live with.

That all changed when he suddenly realised he had fallen for his neighbour, the one person he now trusted and cared for more than anyone in the world.

He'd realised this when their face first started appearing in his nightmares, after a close accident that nearly resulted in catastrophe. (Y/n) had fallen from the roof of the stables, thankfully landing on a stack of stray hay which softened the impact, leaving them in severe amounts of pain for two days. Their face became part of the repertoire in his head, nightmares about their death soon plaguing him even further, as he finally acknowledged the newfound love he felt for them.

Because that's what it was: love.

It couldn't be anything less, he was too damaged to have heedless fancies, and his emotions were far too strong towards them. Since he'd moved in, (Y/n) had always been there, acting as a friend he never had, steadily working their way into his life, bettering it in ways he never would've thought another person could, supporting him through the episodes of flashbacks he was now prone to having. They had showed him love and care he hadnt experienced from anyone else. He valued them highly, prioritising them over himself, and he knew he was heavily attracted to them, but he told himself "no", don't ruin the friendship.

They didn't make it easy to repress the urges. No, they only managed to win him over more and more with their caring, loving attitude, though their youth managed to awaken some form of paternal instinct John never knew he had. He felt the need to protect them at all times, and he would do his best to uphold this, but he knew his feelings were getting too strong.

Somehow, he managed to miss all the loving glances, and little tells (Y/n) inadvertently laid down before him, the rancher have g developed similar feelings for him, though they'd never admit it to John, knowing how human interaction like that could be upsetting for him.

Eventually, it had taken a beautiful evening, with the sun spilling its last bloody rays on the dry landscape as the two sipped beer from bottles on the veranda, for them to finally admit to each other how they felt.

It just happened: one minute, they were leaning in to replace their bottles on the table, the next, their lips are just touching, breaths mingling as they struggle to do rain themselves. (Y/n) had finally leaned in, pressing their lips against his, pulling back almost as quickly as they moved in, a horrified, embarrassed expression on their face.

They'd apologised instantly, terrified that they'd screwed up their relationship, rambling and cursing until John had recovered and kissed them again, cupping their face in his hand as he pulled them closer. It had been too long for him, and the touch was just incredible, goosebumps rising along his spine as he poured all of his love and care into the kiss, pressing as close as possible.

Somehow, (Y/n) had ended up in his lap, head on his chest as he cradled them, relishing in the feeling of having a solid, supple body against his own after so long, and one that means him no harm, too. They knew where they both stood, and it kickstarted a close relationship.

(Y/n) moved in with him after their second foaling season together, where he'd seen their parental instincts kick in, particularly when they'd then worked to socialise the foals by playing with them. The memory would always stick with John: something about the carefree youth in their face as they ran around with the frolicking horses reminded him of the good in his life.

Life was good, everything was going mostly well.

Naturally, there were some days when he'd relapse, having particularly bad episodes that would be harrowing on both him and (Y/n), though they were always there to help him through it. Their soft words of love and worry would easily permeate the cloud of despair, and had break down in their arms, enjoying the sensation of being held.

They often held each other. Even if it was just a quick hug, or an embrace from behind as one pressed up against the other's back, touch became a large factor in their relationship - John relished it after the more callous touch he had grown used to.

Kisses, too, became a large way of showing their affection. Little ones here and there between jobs, deep passionate kisses up against the wall of the house, or sloppy making out on the shared seat on the veranda, it all counted for their love, and they thoroughly enjoyed partaking in them.

(Y/n) was always there, even when Gabrielle and Maria joined them. They were there when Gabrielle died, and they were there to avenge her death, choosing to go out with the man they loved.

Both of them liked to cook, even if John's meals were a little...plain...so they often spent hours in the kitchen with each other, fooling around with whatever they could, John's face alight with more smiles and grins than he thinks it's ever been.

They went riding together, finding solace in each other's company on their many trails through their land, the horses often coming home tired after so long of being out.

Sometimes, John got self-conscious about his age in comparison with their's, thinking he is too old for them. Everytime this happened, (Y/n) would reassure him that they love him for who he is and doesn't care if he's not as young as he used to be, it never would matter.

Marriage was never really a thing they considered. John never had much time for the state anymore, so why get them involved in their relationship?

They considered themselves married, and wore rings to show it, but it was never a legal affair. Nevertheless, the union had always been a happy one, and John could honestly say that he had been wrong about himself: he had found love.