#i have little rage left that hasn’t been traded for exhaustion when it comes to the mcu. but by god will i be salty about that fucking scene

[quietwingsinthesky]

hey you guys remember when endgame ground to a halt for a fortnite joke that went on for an entire scene. its been 6 years im still mad about that.

[quantumlocked310]

Summon Up Remembrance

@deans-ch-ch-cherrypie​. Cherrypie. My friend. My OG. My Vikings Mom. My shared braincell about everything Hvitty. You encouraged me to put myself out there and talk to people. You’ve given me some of my best ideas. You’re an amazing human who works so hard both in fandom and irl. I’m so happy I took the plunge and wrote you Bjornekram so we could start up this wonderful friendship. Congratulations on your 500 followers! Every single one is well-deserved.

So! In order to celebrate our love, I’ve tortured myself and Hvitty with this story inspired by The Little Match Girl. I’d say “Enjoy!,” but I have a feeling that’s not the right word...

Summary: What if Ivar hadn’t found Hvitserk in that cold forest in time?

Warnings: not a happy time, depression, graphic descriptions of violence, major character death, loss, despair, drug use, oral sex female receiving

Note: Title from Shakespeare’s Sonnet 30

Don’t forget to tap the moodboard to see it in its highest quality!

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He’d used his last coin to buy the matches. Everything else had already been spent on the sweet release the mushrooms and drink provided him. His greatest triumph bled into his deepest failure when Bjorn sentenced him to live in the frozen forest. He knew it would not be long. His half-brother had given him painful and terrible mercy. Already he could no longer feel his toes, and his hair was stiff with ice.

His first match is useless. Scraped against the frozen rocks he huddles behind for some semblance of shelter. He knows he’s going to die, but he’d like to have a last taste of heat before he goes. Even the memory of the bright burning flames of his execution can no longer keep the shivering at bay. The cold and wet sticks he’d gathered couldn’t catch, even with the pine needles he’d found to shove under the bundle.

He is resigned to no fire and no hope. Only four matches to keep him company. The last vestiges of drink and drugs are leaving his body aching and freezing; his hands have barely enough movement to strike the next match. He watches this one burn. Its tiny flame dancing merrily along the wood. In its flickering he sees a better time; his favorite feast.

He’d been younger then, and happier. Not yet burdened with a legacy and revenge. The feast fires had kept him warm inside the packed great hall, and his belly had been full of food and satisfied with drink. It was the night he learned a woman might prefer his mouth over his other parts, and he’d been fascinated. The thrall he’d danced with had taken him aside and shared in his body, and shown him things other women hadn’t yet taught him. Their copulation was in a side room; their sounds of pleasure hidden by the noise in the hall. He remembers the delicious wet heat of her body against his tongue, and the way she whimpered and begged so sweetly for him.

The match goes out and Hvitserk is thrust out of the memory. He grows melancholy as he remembers the thrall was killed by horse hoof to the head when she was cleaning the stables one day. A horrible accident.

He scrambles for the next match. Wanting to leave this new remembrance aside and see something joyful once more. The next match strike flares bright in front of his eyes and he hears the clang of axes on swords. His best battle. He’d felt invincible that day. Bobbing and weaving in between English soldiers. Feeling the thunk of his axe as he buries it in the flesh of his enemies. The sweet and terrible smell of blood and guts and fresh mud. Hearing screams and battle cries around him as the Vikings cut a swath through the English forces. Getting to fight alongside his brothers, and seeing the prideful look in Ubbe’s face when he swoops in at the last moment to save his older brother from danger. Ubbe.

The match goes out, and the cold rushes into Hvitserk’s head. His despair is palpable. Ubbe could not let him die as he’d wished for on that fiery spit. But Ubbe let him walk into this cold and certain death demanded by Bjorn.

His saddened breath rattles his chest, and he feels the exhaustion in his bones; the wet snow seeping further and further into his clothing to numb his skin. The stinging tears falling from his red-rimmed eyes freeze to his cheeks, and he is barely able to lift a hand to strike the match. The tears fall faster as he stares into the flickering orange and gold to find a moment of peace.

They’re all there. Ivar, Ubbe, Sigurd, and Hvitserk. The four of them that beautiful spring day, together in the forest trading blows of the sword and the axe. Even their verbal sparring brings a smile to his disheveled face. He remembers going toe to toe with Sigurd, and being equally matched with Ivar. The rush of adrenaline in the fight is a distant comfort, and he dwells again upon youth; how young they all were. Naive and furious; untouched by the horrors that awaited them.

The match goes out and shivers wrack Hvitserk’s body. He sobs and shakes as he memorializes the family he will never see again.

Desire floods his system. The desire he’s always had to escape, to be someone he is not, to chase the dreams he had but could never fulfill. He weeps for his brothers, his mother, and his father. The most torturous thoughts follow, and he mourns and cries for himself. For the person he will never be. For the women he loved, and the children he never gave them.

This is his last one. The last chance to see his loved ones again. To see his brothers happy and together and alive again. Perhaps he will catch a glimpse of Thora or Margrette in this last memory. He draws strength from this small hope.

His breaths rattle and he lights the match. In the tiny flame it is his mother. How tall she felt when he was a child. She is loving peering down at his small frame as he plays with a wooden horse from Floki. Her smile is radiant as she talks to him. Asking him about the horse and the world inside his mind. Her tone is warm and loving, and it floods his body with a final burst of heat.

The match goes out and Hvitserk’s hand falls. In front of him his mother hasn’t left. Standing there like she was in his memory, with a gentle, proud smile on her regal face. She raises her hand, palm up, open and beckoning him. He rises and falls deeply into his mother’s embrace, clutching at her silken robes that catch the salty tears still falling down his face.

“Come, my son. You have done well. We must go to meet your father and brother.” Aslaug wraps her arms around her beautiful boy and holds him close. She feels his sorrow and his perfect joy as their souls connect and ascend.

Some hours later the stomping of boots and the rattle of wheels can be heard in the forest. Ivar looks to his side, observing the landscape around him, and his eyes are drawn to a cluster of rocks. They’re not at all interesting he thinks, but a strong winter wind whips past his face, and the rocks flutter in the wind. No, not the rocks. The hood of the person hunched behind them.

Ivar calls for a halt and carefully climbs down from his rig. He doesn’t know why, but he knows he has to see who it is for himself. His heart is pounding, and his instincts are screaming, and when he rounds the cluster he sees why.

The body is Hvitserk.

White hot rage floods his body, and Ivar lets out a primal scream. His sorrow and pain released in one powerful sound. Tears flood his eyes and freeze on his cheeks. He gestures to the closest soldiers to help carry his brother. They can barely lift him; Hvitserk has frozen in place, but Ivar is determined to give his brother the Viking funeral he deserves.

Ivar cries and mourns, and swears that he will seek revenge on his brothers in Kattegat who shoved one of their own into the wild to die. They did not even allow his fearsome brother the warrior’s death he deserved. What Ivar misses in his incandescent rage is the sweet smile on Hvitserk’s frozen face. Ivar should be celebrating, because as he was not in life Hvitserk is euphoric in his death; together with those he loved and lost once again. The image of rapturous bliss frozen forever in time on the face of his mortal body.

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If you want to read other stuff I write here’s my masterlist!

Taglist: @deans-ch-ch-cherrypie @punkrocknpearls @solinarimoon @alexhandersen-marcoilsoe-fandom @southernbe @vikingstrash​

Photos are not mine they are from Pinterest.

[drachenonthemoon]

Irko Week Day 3: Cuddles

It’s been a mostly slow day at the Jasmine Dragon. They’ve been open for a little over two weeks and business has been excellent, although the initial hype rush is slowing down. 

Zuko is exhausted. Neither of them managed to get much sleep last night, the boy’s nightmares keeping them both awake, but at least what little sleep Iroh got was restful. Zuko’s slumped over on the counter, leaning heavily on his hands and struggling to keep his eyes open. 

Iroh moves across the kitchen to place a gentle hand on Zuko’s shoulder. He startles, but presses back lightly against the touch. 

“How are you doing, nephew?” 

“‘M alright.” He mumbles. Iroh chuckles. 

“We can close early this afternoon, alright? Zuko nodes, and Iroh leaves him be. 

In the late afternoon a man walks in, this man will likely be their last customer of the day. Zuko goes out to take his order while Iroh finishes brewing a batch of ginseng for a group of women already in the shop. 

Zuko comes back grumbling about stupid customers and stupidly specific orders. Iroh trades the order for a tray of tea and the boy leaves the kitchen again. 

He’s tidying up when raised voices and a clatter draw his attention to the shop floor. 

And Iroh looks up just in time to see the man - several heads taller and looming over the poor boy, pressed up against a table - backhand Zuko across the left side of his face. Iroh hasn’t moved so quickly in years, he’s across the floor and at Zuko’s side in seconds. The boy is trembling, and he won’t look up. 

“You’re going to have to leave, sir. Now.” The man splutters. 

“B-but I’m a paying customer! This this tea server has-” 

“This tea server is not only one of my employees but also my nephew. I do not care what he has or hasn’t done, you have no right to assault anyone in my shop. Leave.” The man stutters some more but the other customers in the shop stand up to support Iroh, including two Dai Li agents. He leaves reluctantly, and Iroh turns to his nephew. 

Zuko is shaking, still pressed against the table and curled in on himself, shrinking as much as possible. His breath is hitching and unsteady, but Iroh can’t tell if he’s crying or not. 

“Li? Are you alright?” Zuko doesn’t reply, but he does raise one shaking hand towards Iroh. The old man cradles it carefully in between his own. 

“Go upstairs, I’ll clean up down here and be with you in a moment.” Zuko nods, and then disappears quickly through the doorway. Iroh watches him go, and then turns back to the shop. 

He makes distracted small talk with the remaining customers as they leave. One of the Dai Li agents stops on his way out the door. 

“That man made his tea order as complicated as he could make it. And then when your boy brought it out, he complained that the green tea tasted too green. The lad tried to offer him something else and that’s when he got slapped.” Iroh humms. It is surprisingly common that they get customers ordering tea blend that they don’t like. But never have they had a customer resort to violence. It’s nice to get the story before going up to talk to Zuko. The poor child won’t want to talk about it in any capacity, Iroh’s sure. 

“I see. Thank you sir, for you assistance this evening.” 

“Of course, Master Mushi. I have a boy of my own at home, about the same age as yours, I wouldn’t worder. I’d want someone to stand up for him, if it came down to it.” 

“We all want the best for our children. Have a nice night.” 

“You too.” Iroh takes a deep breath, then turns to begin cleaning. Zuko hates crying or feeling vulnerable around others, and Iroh hopes to give him as much time to compose himself as possible. Although he also hopes the boy will allow himself to be comforted. 

With the cleaning done Iroh takes off his apron and heads up to their apartment above the shop. It’s dark, and mostly silent. Zuko’s not in the kitchen, or the main room, or his bedroom. 

His heart fills with fear as he turns to his own bedroom - the last room in the house - and then shatters as he opens the door. Zuko is curled in a tiny ball on Iroh’s futon, wrapped in all of their blankets and sobbing softly. His slight frame shakes with the force of his cries, but he makes very little sound. The notion of crying out loud was beaten out of him long ago. 

“Zuko? Can you hear me, nephew?” He goes still. “I’d like to come closer, is that alright with you?” Zuko’s head peeks out from beneath the blanket. Tears stream down his face, and there’s a bruise forming that mingles with his scar. Iroh’s heart breaks further. The boy nods desperately, and reaches a trembling hand out. That’s all the permission Iroh needs, and he moves swiftly across the room to gather the bundle of teenager and blankets into his arms. Zuko shudders, then turns and buries his head in Iroh’s collar. 

“It’s alright, nephew, it’s alright. That man is gone, and he shall never hurt you again. I am not angry with you, you are safe.” Zuko clings and Iroh holds him tighter. 

“I promise you everything is alright.” They sit like that for a long while, Iroh murming reasurances into Zuko’s good ear and slowly rocking the two of them back and forth. Eventually Zuko’s cries die down, and he goes completely limp in Iroh’s embrace. 

“Zuko, you understand that that man had no right to hit you, correct?” The boy lifts his head, biting his lip, and Iroh’s heart sinks. 

“I-I could have been more polite.” Zuko mumbles. Rage, for all that his brother has done to this precious child, this little boy who will defend those who hurt him as though he deserves their ire, fills his body and for a moment Iroh lets himself be angry. Then he lets that rage go, and looks down at Zuko in his arms. The boy snuggles closer, struggling to keep himself awake. 

“I do not know what exactly you said, it is perfectly possible you could have been a little nicer about it. But! There is never a good excuse to hit a child. Never. That man - no one, man or woman - had no right to hit you. It was cruel and it was wrong, and it should not have happened. I am deeply sorry that it did. You did not deserve to be hurt this afternoon.” Zuko opens his mouth, and then closes it. 

“Can… Can I stay here tonight? I won’t be a bother, I promise!” Iroh smiles and drags gentle fingers through Zuko’s hair. It’s starting to get long again, almost brushing his shoulders. 

“Of course you can, child. You will always have a place with me, and you will always be welcome to stay with me.” Iroh shifts, preparing to lay Zuko down and go get the extra futon but the boy grabs his robes tightly and makes a small noise of protest. He looks embarrassed at the sound, but stares determinedly up at Iroh. 

“Can we stay like this? Just for a little longer?” Iroh’s heart melts, and he drops a gentle kiss onto Zuko’s forehead. 

“Of course we can, Zuko. I will never give up the opportunity to give you a hug.” And so they stay. Zuko falls asleep not long after, worn out from a sleepless night and the dramatics of the afternoon. Iroh gently moves him to the futon and goes to make dinner, before joining his nephew. He doesn’t bother to get the extra futon, just lies down beside the boy and holds him close. 

They both sleep peacefully through the night.

AO3 link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/32145514

[kettlequills]

that world will cease to be: here in my shrine

For anon, who wanted a fic of Laat and Miraak exploring each other's bodies, and everyone who wanted a sequel to the soulmate au. Here you go: I tried. At the bottom there's a gloss of all the Dovahzul used, though pretty much all of it is contextually explained or translated.

This fic contains explicit n.s.f.w, sexual content, and is 1.8. +. Also: suicidal ideation, oral , b.d. sm, species dysphoria, light blood drinking, praise, overstimulation, abusive relationships, including featuring jealousy and possessiveness, and implied/referenced mind control and manipulation. Read at your own risk. Available on A03 here (and recommended, because this is Long).

There is an island where time does not exist. Or rather, where time has stopped, warped, turned half-counter-clockwise and decided that it would like to go four to the left actually.

Dead men stride ashfields that burgeon with last season's and four years of yesterday's summer crops. Their haunting cries part darkened smoke-clouds from a mountain that can't decide whether it has erupted and their dragon-claw boots leave no footsteps. No trace at all of them on silvery sand that thinks itself still a cliff, but a trail of dead netch and liquid-eyed nixhounds. Long-gone elves peer confusedly through gaps in ice-tunnels to a broken sky and thick air long distant from what their lips once tasted, trading the ancient pelts of great cats and wood-carved weapons made of some icy material that radiates magic with the commoners of Raven Rock. Sometimes, old Nords chase them through the snowfields up on the Moesring mountains, but that happens only in Sun’s Dawn, and everyone sensible knows to simply stay inside then. They will disappear on Tirdas, but it is Middas, all the time, until it is Fredas instead, shortly after Morndas afternoon (never morning). And that is not even starting with the month of Hearthfire, which as everyone in Raven Rock knows, is simply that time between ten and five o’clock where the sun shakes in what they have been generously describing as the sky.

The town itself is largely unchanged, for what could have been centuries now. Fethis Alor still tends his stand, the Retching Netch waits in a perpetual state of nearly closing down. Glover Mallory has yet to add a single wrinkle to his collection. Every so often, oldfolk come wandering out the barrows, shrivelled bodies that pay in ancient coins with flickers of life in death-blue eyes, but coin is coin, and if old Crescius has been working a thriving trade with the dead priest Zahkriisos in oil and coal, plenty of others in Raven Rock see no need to be stingy.

Occasionally, there are newfolk, outsiders. Furious bureaucrats from Morrowind, perhaps, come to see why their island flies colours that have not been seen since mighty dragons swept their hungry wings over every inch of Tamriel. Beggars, refugees, curious wizards, come to see the Temple. It is not often they last long before they are unmade from the fabric of expectation that links the threads of reality together, or they quite simply go mad. For the most part, though, even gods avoid Solstheim.

The Dragonborns are not known to be fond of gods.

It is best not to pay too much attention to the Temple or the dragons that live within it. Focus instead on the routine, the script, and know in your heart that time is broken and fate is a lie. Choose ignorance. The summer storms shake the ground from the Temple, Shouts of laughter and rage, growing pains, and dragons scatter from its roof like doves. It is a magical untime on Solstheim, and there are worse things than the total freedom of a world shaped by the expectant whim of two godsouled-mortals that keep for the most part to their temple and themselves.

Frea does not choose ignorance. She has been shaman of the Skaal for, at least, twelve generations, or maybe even three days, and the sight of the Tree Stone still turns her stomach. Sometimes long-dead friends are standing round it, smiling at Frea like nothing has changed at all (and it hasn’t, surely? The sun still rises on the day where Gjalund Salt-Sage brought the dragon-break into Raven Rock port), but Frea is tired now. Still young, still strong, she goes to make the same plea she always makes to the Last Dragonborn.

“When are you going to let us go?” Frea asks, over ale. This year’s season has been terrible for crops, but no one quite ever expects to run out, so the barrels remain full of thick Skaal ale that always tastes just like the last time Frea could remember having it.

She is growing to hate that taste.

Laataazin, the Last Dragonborn, is shorter than Frea, being one of those warm-blooded humans from across the sea. Their feet just lightly brush the ground from where they sit next to Frea on the fallen tree stump not far from the Stone. They wear the same armour they always have, as bright and well-used as it has been since the day they walked out of Apocrypha hand in hand with the murderer of Frea’s friends and broke the world. The only difference is their mask hangs from their belt instead of concealing their scarred spider-web of a face, its blank owl-eyes staring accusingly up at Frea.

They grimace at the ale Frea hands them, pulling the cork out with their teeth. Laat says nothing, but looks at Frea, the wisps of blonde hair that escape her hood, the air of terrible exhaustion that slumps her shoulders. They like the Skaal shaman; Frea is the sort of companion that Laat may have considered taking adventuring once, strong enough to keep up, quick enough to get out of the way, and wild enough to relish the months of uninterrupted travelling through the depths of Skyrim’s countryside.

But it has been a long time since Laataazin has gone adventuring, longer still since they have stepped foot in Skyrim. They miss it; the vastness of the wilds, the clear air, the promise of a fight and treasure to be won. Surely it must be time for a visit, soon? Laat cannot remember the last time they went. Beyond their beloved wife, there is little to draw them back there.

And I am here, Miraak presence brushes against their mind, like a touch on their arm. It is tinged with smugness.

Yes, Laat thinks, hiding their smile from Frea, you are. Did you not want privacy?

That is, after all, the reason they decided to hold their regular meeting with Frea today – it is not like Frea, not being dragon-souled, is aware enough of the passing untime to know if Laat reschedules. But Miraak has ushered them from the temple, claiming to want of all things solitude. This is impossible with their souls interlinked, but physical distance and polite-pretence is easy to arrange. It is unusual enough for Miraak to request it instead of Laat seeking the embrace of nature that it makes them immensely curious.

Miraak radiates discontent for a moment (you miss me, Laat’s chest warms), but withdraws. He is fussing with something involving water, trying not to get the sleeves of his robe wet. They do their best to leave him to it and focus on Frea.

“How long do you plan to keep us imprisoned here?” Frea is asking dolefully, as if rephrasing the question will compel Laataazin to give her an answer she wants to hear. “Trapped in this unliving existence, where no thing changes or grows as the All-Maker bade it?”

Unimpressed, Laat scowls at Frea. They kick the ash with their boots, digging with their heel a scar into the earth that exposes a scurrying beetle. That is change, right there. Not the same as the orderly march Akatosh imposes upon the land, but then, it is his rules that argue that two Dragonborn may not walk Nirn at once.

Laat is no longer inclined to listen to such rules.

Frea looks at the beetle. Something in her eyes flickers. Her loose hand drops the ale, which floods from the bottle, soaking the little scar where the beetle rapidly crawls to escape death by drowning. Curiously, Laat watches, but when the golden liquid gets too close they nudge a line of sand to dam it. The beetle, saved, disappears into the ash.

“I wish to return to the All-Maker,” Frea says, quietly.

A sudden surge of annoyance from Miraak catches Laat’s attention. Unthinkingly, they press into his mind. Through his eyes they glimpse Miraak’s bare hand – ink-veined and thin – clutching at a bar of soap, the dim outline of his body beneath the surface of the bathwater, even one knobbly knee, a hint of-

Laataazin, he chides, vexed. Laat blinks and with effort wrenches themselves away. Anchoring themselves to the feel of the wooden stump underneath them, they inhale the salty scent of seaspray and ashfall. Their boots scuffing the ash, Frea’s solid warmth against their side, the weight of their armour on their shoulders.

Are you all right? Laat asks. They are really trying not to think too much about the fact that Miraak is bathing, and that means Miraak is naked. He has never been fully undressed with Laat. They have seen only glimpses of his body beneath the robes when they have sex, his hands, and rarely, his face. Usually, Laat occupies themselves with something like hunting or sleep that distracts their mind when Miraak bathes, because Miraak is very sensitive to his privacy where his body is concerned.

Miraak is naked. And wet. Wet and naked.

Geh, he replies. I dropped the soap.

His indignation at their amusement tempts them to laugh out loud. They do not, because Frea with her gentle mortal-soul and fragile eardrums sits next to them, long legs not struggling to reach the ground at all. Cursed Nords.

Stop thinking about my naked body, he adds, and do not try to look.

Don’t be shy, Miraak, Laat teases slyly, doing their best to ground themselves in the moment, on the tree with Frea not in the bath in the temple, even as they poke fun at him. You’ve been inside me from the moment I awoke in Helgen, and I know you were still watching even when a gentleman might … look away.

They both know it is true, and though Laat is already well aware that Miraak watches them when they bathe, undress, or fuck, Miraak’s embarrassed defensiveness immediately confirms it. They have never minded - Laat has a soldier’s easy practicality about their body.

I was keeping an eye on you to make sure you were not taken advantage of in your many distractions, Laat Dovahkiin, he retorts. Laat has a vague sense of him splashing water over his face.

They roll their eyes and pull away.

“Dragonborn, do you hear me? I wish to die,” says Frea, intensely. “This is no way to live. You must know this, somewhere. Are you not tired of this unending nightmare?”

It is difficult to remain focused on Frea, because Miraak’s thoughts keep drifting to Laat like a ping on the edges of their awareness. They are soft thoughts, warm ones, shy-feeling, tinged with a little note of – is that arousal? Laat’s barely-restrained curiosity piques.

Is he trying to masturbate? It is rare for Miraak to do so. Admittedly, Laat doesn’t remember the last time he has tried without Laat sensing it and volunteering a… helping hand. No, the last time they have felt something like this from him, they followed him to the icy cell he prefers to sleep in when alone. In the memory, Miraak’s hand is hidden in the folds of his robes, but his masked face jerks towards Laat when they open the door, biting off a sound Laat is suddenly very eager to hear. Laat comes to sit beside him – ignoring his fluster, his demands – and murmurs to him about certain options they have. The night ends with Miraak writhing underneath them as they push into him, rocking him slowly against the bed while he gasps and begs, the echoes of his Voice he is desperately trying to muffle in the pillows sending shivers into the walls. There is no exact translation for ‘please, fuck me, please’ in Miraak’s preferred tongue of Dovahzul, but Laat learns that night several new ways to say it anyway.

Miraak sighs wearily, and Laat feels him cast an ice-spell in his bathwater.

Sorry, thinks Laat, sheepish.

“Please,” says Frea, somewhere distant. “Please hear me, Dragonborn. You are the only one who can wake us from this spell.”

Ni faas, replies Miraak, It is a memory I also … fondly recall.

Apologetically, they take a sip of their ale. They wince. Vile. The wines of Cyrodiil, where Laat likely hails from, are infinitely better. But Miraak enjoys the taste on their tongue, and they feel him hum where he lays in the bath.

Gripping Laat’s arm, Frea shakes them roughly. Snapped into their body, Laat blinks and glares at Frea. The Skaal is wise enough to back off, hands upraised, but her blue eyes are full of terrible sorrow when they look at Laat, no fear at all of Laat lashing out with a gauntleted fist.

“The Traitor has changed you,” Frea says to them. “He has changed us all. But you… I do not think any of the people you left behind would recognise you, Dragonborn.”

“You do not know me,” Laat signs, the shapes sharp and clipped. They are in Nirn now, after all, and their Voice would hurt Frea if not kill her if they spoke aloud. Dragons alone are strong enough to bear it. “You know nothing of the world beyond this island, girl.”

“I have heard tale of you, and when first we met… You slew Alduin World-Eater,” Frea shakes her head, slowly. “You would have helped us. You would know that what is happening is wrong.”

Laat rises to their feet, nettled by the reminder of their bitter fate, but Frea only stares at them, as if hoping something will happen. When nothing does beyond Laat’s glare, dimming into confusion at the odd look on her face, the light gutters out in Frea’s heart. Her shoulders bow, as if slumped by immense weights.

“I suggest,” Frea says heavily, “that you reflect on what it is that has changed in this time of unreality. And what has not. Tell me, what do you truly know of the lands beyond these shores that you have seen with your own eyes? Please, remember my words, Dragonborn.”

With that, she turns and crunches away over the snow.

Laat takes a step after Frea, rage bubbling in their gut like a noxious poison – Miraak, touching in concern the edges of their mind – but gritting their teeth hard enough to feel the bones creak, they drag themselves back. No. Laat likes Frea, they do not want to kill her.

They do, however, want to hunt.

Enjoy yourself, Laat thinks to Miraak, taking a moment to send him a soothing pulse. I’m going to go and catch dinner.

Don’t get something large, I have already prepared food for us, Miraak requests.

Full of surprises, today, aren’t you? He grumbles something about being much maligned that Laat ignores, already setting off at a light jog into the wilderness surrounding the temple.

It is a bitter day on Solstheim, with high winds and a brittle, icy chill. The animals are wary, and it takes Laat a few hours to find anything worth catching. Eventually, they manage to corner a small arctic hare. It is dead with a Shout, and Laat skins it with their boot-knife. The hunter in them unwinds at the kill, the blood on their hands.

Frea’s words echo through their mind. “Tell me what you know of the lands beyond these shores that you have seen with your own eyes.”

Laat considers. It has been a while since they have spoken to one of their dragon acquaintances. Odahviing and Venfokest avoid Miraak, but Odahviing at least is bound to come if Laat calls. Perhaps they will ask how Skyrim is doing.

Something about the prospect makes Laat feel a little uneasy, as if there is something they are forgetting.

When are you back? Miraak’s question is more a vague feeling of longing for their presence and a desire to know where they are than it is words, but Laat answers it anyway.

I am coming to you now.

They feel from him a definite tinge of bubbling excitement, and then again that strange anxious spark. Pruzah.

He is definitely planning something. Seething curiosity carries Laat home, to the great Temple of Miraak sprawling between towering fences of heaped dragon-skeletons, fused and warped together by thousands of years of moving ice and snow. Laat ducks under the tongueless jaws and over the fleshless claws, poised in permanent screams of rending agony. As always, they grimace. It is not their favourite of Miraak’s choice in décor.

The interior of the temple is much better, these days, its hard edges softened by the multitude of pelts that ripple along the walls like the sides of some great breathing beast. Laat has hunted all of these themselves, and it still plucks their pride to see the fruits of their work displayed so prominently in Miraak’s temple. The rabbit they pack in ice and leave in an empty brazier. It will not go anywhere.

You are skilled, he interjects into their thoughts. And also prone to cold.

Laat closes their eyes and goes to him, not needing to ask, not needing to see – Laataazin could find Miraak blind and deaf, robbed of all sense, even dead, even dying. The ties that bind them are beyond such petty things as flesh, as mortality.

Soul-of-my-soul, they think, trailing their fingertips over the thickly covered walls, the soft furs, the unyielding stone beneath. Breathing in the smoky scent of incense, the long-distant iron tang of blood and daedra. Always I come to you. Through Apocrypha, through storm, through time and fate itself, no creature could bar me from you that I would not tear asunder.

Do not keep me waiting any longer, Miraak answers, softly. Laat can feel his hunger.

He is outside in the room they usually use when sleeping together. It is fairly large, walled-off, but open to the great sky and set with wards to deter prying eyes and inclement weather. There is no furniture at all, save for a cooking pot in the corner by a fire, a small chest that holds additional blankets and other supplies, and a huge bed, made completely of stone in the Dwemer fashion. It is piled high with furs to make it soft.

The reason, of course, is Laataazin.

“Miraak,” they whisper, as soft as they possibly can, and their Voice shudders the air with a low sonic reverberation. Anything more fragile than stone would be destroyed in an exhale.

“Laat Dovahkiin.”

He is perched on the bed, masked face tilted towards them measuringly. Over his lap luxuriates a thick snow-bear pelt, his long fingers fiddling with something under it almost absently. They can just see a small glimpse of his foot peeking out of the shaggy fur, wider than Laat has expected, the curve of his arch flattening towards his clawed toes. He is wearing a robe of deep purple, belted tightly around his waist so that no skin shows in the fall of its folds around the tucked hood of his mask. But simply by virtue of how uncomfortably stiff he looks, Laat wagers his robe is only a layer thick, his gloves are nowhere to be seen, and he is not even wearing socks.

Laat starts to strip off their armour, hoping to join him in the plush furs. He shifts; his presence strengthens in their mind shivery and avid, like ghostly lips are under their skin caressing the tight strings of nerves as Laat’s fingers fumble over the buckles. An urgency makes itself known, whether it is his or theirs they cannot tell, only that it seems incredibly important that the bulky plate is gone, leaving Laat in their breeches and tunic.

“Are you hungry?” Miraak says in his rich, deep voice. “I made soup.”

“You made soup?” Laat signs, honestly taken aback. They scrub their hair with one hand, dissatisfied with the length of the limp strands. Time to cut it soon.

“I told you I did.” Miraak’s rejoinder is curt, but Laat can feel a storm of emotions inside of him, more nervousness, quiet sparks of hurt. Puzzlingly, underneath it all is vast breathlessness.

“I am sorry,” Laat signs, “I thought you meant you got someone else to cook.”

Like normal, they don’t add, but clearly Miraak senses their confusion.

“It is pea soup,” he adds, with all the snappishness of an insult, and then looks down at his hands like he is hoping they will wring his own neck for him.

Pea soup is Laataazin’s favourite. They like the warmth, the simplicity, even the odd green of it. It is the first meal they recall eating, served by Sigrid after their escape from Helgen. It is decidedly not Miraak’s.

Miraak acting strange, trying to make one of Laat’s favoured foods, wearing slightly fewer than his usual full robes, having just bathed –

“Miraak,” Laat signs, slowly. “Are you trying to seduce me?”

Miraak says nothing, but Laat can feel his frustration. Not for the first time, Laat wonders how they would have ever come to know him without a window into his soul, for his mask is expressionless, his body language has not changed at all, and his manner is anything but welcoming. Still, their heart squeezes at the thought of him taking the time to do something as simple and sweet as make their favourite soup.

“I am not hungry,” they sign, “but I would love to try it with you later.”

Laat takes a seat on the bed next to him. This close, they can see what he is fussing with in his hands. It is a coil of soft cotton rope, dyed black, and he is threading it through his hands again and again, rhythmic, hypnotic. His shoulders are tense. Understanding dawns as Laat gains a sense of what he wants.

“Want some help?” Laat signs.

The anxious movement of his hands pauses. His chin tucks close to his chest. The dim firelight plays over the gold surface of his mask, making the shadows jump and dance like the carved tentacles are twitching.

“Geh,” says Miraak. “I would relieve your curious mind.”

He trails off, but his mind does not, conveying a soft fear of exposure – unwanted, terrible, frightening, but at the hands of Laat, intriguing, even exciting. Another dragon-soul, who… knows, who has the most immediate window into how it feels.

No wonder he is being shy, Laat thinks, Miraak has never in all the time they have known each other reacted to having to remove his clothing with anything other than discomfort. To some extent, Laat even understands. They have times when their body feels wrong, too little, too soft, no teeth or claws or worst of all no wings, but for Miraak, that sense of not fitting his body never fades at all, and the marks of daedric corruption from years in Apocrypha has only worsened it.

Laat inhales. “You want me to take your robe off and touch you under it?”

They both feel the tug of arousal in his belly as Laat’s hands finish the signs. Laat’s approval at it makes the hair on the back of his neck prickle. The air electrifies, Laat’s blood warms. Already, Laat’s mind feels closer, overlapping with his, drifting in and out of seeing with their eyes or his. The rope seems to grow heavier in their - his - hands.

“Geh.”

Laat shifts to sit by his hip, trying to catch his eyes in the dark slits of his mask. Either he is avoiding their stare or the mask is at the wrong angle to penetrate the shadows.

“Tell me your watchword, Miraak.” Laat’s signs are firm but clear. They can’t hide their excitement from him, don’t bother trying, and his chest rises and falls a little quicker. Laat’s stomach quivers with butterflies.

He dithers, thinking through his choice, but when he speaks his voice is strong, steady, and confident. “Sikgolt.”

“Good,” Laat signs. They take the rope from him.

Miraak lifts his hands, and the voluminous sleeves fall to gather in indigo ripples around his elbows, baring his arms. Laataazin curls the first length of rope around his forearms and then just looks for a moment, memorising it. The contrast between the dyed rope and his sunless skin, stained murky ink-green-yellow like a slow-ripening bruise that makes Laat ache to dig their thumb in and push until it blooms purple. The green veins that fork through the softer skin of his wrists, the pulse-point that will hammer there if Laat tickles it with their tongue (and the groans that will fall from him, twisted, broken things, the bitten curses, the hungry ache).

There are scars there, just visible as thinned lines underneath the dark stipple of soap-softened hair, relics from a fraught past. His hands, thin and uncallused, a scholar’s hands still, offer up to the rope like the worshipful priest he still is (if to his own altar – Niid, zu’u losiil, he murmurs back), tipped by curving black claws that catch the light with a dim ebony sheen. He has filed them down, Laat can see the smoothed edges, the hint of dust caught under a nail that has escaped his washing.

Miraak has filed his claws so that he would not hurt Laataazin if he touches his fingertips to their bare skin, not even by accident.

The rush of admiration they feel for him is sudden, intense, and warm, warm, like the blush that climbs steadily into their cheeks. The arousal that sparks in one sparks the other, and Miraak is not as unaffected by Laat’s extended perusal as he is trying to pretend. Goosebumps raise where Laat’s eyes drag, and he grumbles and shifts on the bed.

It is false annoyance; Laat feels instead his anxiety, insecurity at having the marks of daedric corruption on display, his fear of exposure and powerlessness, the private worrying of his vanity.

Beautiful, Laat thinks, and politely ignores the confused feelings that flood through him as he catches their thought, all ending in an ember of lust. Miraak, despite his many conflicted feelings on his body, likes to be appreciated, but he finds Laat’s private, fond awareness of that fact intensely embarrassing.

“Laataazin.”

Laat’s shoulders shake in a silent chuckle.

They take his hand in theirs, smiling up at him. “Squeeze,” they sign with the other, and he obliges, gripping Laat’s hand until it feels like the bones creak. Laat makes a note of the pressure, then releases him with a gentle pat.

Loop by loop, they wrap the soft rope around Miraak’s arms six times, spreading the pressure out to protect his circulation. Checking the looseness with two fingers against his wrist, Laat tucks the tails around the loops, makes a knot, cinches it evenly, then knots it again for security. It takes a while, for Laataazin’s hands shake and tremble, and Miraak’s skin is sensitive to chafing. But as they work, Laataazin feels the rope’s increasing pressure acting upon him, the quiet, observant mood he settles into, dripped through with steady peace. His lassitude sinks soporific into the tired ache behind Laat’s eyes, and their head droops to rest on his chest.

“Not too tight,” he tells them, testing the rope. Laat skims kisses over his knuckles.

They allow him time to acclimatise to the ropes, feeling the minute tense of his muscles testing for give in the knots. They can hear the creaks of the flexing rope, his deep breathing metallic under the mask, even the distant wind blowing over the ashlands. Somewhere, a dragon roars.

Kruziikrel, Miraak identifies absently.

The fabric of his robe is silky and cool against Laat’s forehead. Beneath it, they can smell Miraak, old books, mouldy paper, spilt ink and the bitter reek of ash. From anyone else, it would be unpleasant – from Miraak, it is familiar, and thus, beloved.

Laat can feel the warm weight of their head on Miraak’s chest, the soothing hold of the rope, the robe shifting on his skin. He feels too warm, already, his breath fogging against his mask to blow soft as butterfly kisses against his dry lips. A little sleepy, too, wrung out by all the excitement and anxiousness of preparing himself for them.

“Ni faas. It was nothing,” Miraak rumbles. They can feel the vibrations through his chest when he speaks, the breath ringing in his lungs.

Their dragon soul.

It is tempting to indulge in the moment, lay their body across his legs like a pinning weight and allow them both to simply drift, hearts harmonising, breath mixing, until Laat has to untie Miraak’s hands and chase the blood to flushing. But they turn their cheek to the side, instead, so their breath skates into the opening of Miraak’s robe. He shivers.

It would be a shame to not take advantage of Miraak’s uncharacteristic willingness to be vulnerable.

Their fingers twist into signs. It takes Miraak a moment, either to parse it in his warm fog or to realise that Laat has signed, but when he does Laat relishes in the surge of indignation.

“I am not having a nap, and I am not that old,” Miraak huffs, and Laataazin laughs against his chest. It is nearly noiseless, but not quite. The furs tremble beneath them.

Wuth, they think to him. Old man.

“You’re the one whose – stopped,” Miraak snaps, and his voice loses its steadiness.

Must I do everything for you, Diist-Dovahkiin? Laat sighs gustily, teasingly, but they sit up and plant their weight square over his hips.

For a moment, they are both breathing through the sensations, Miraak’s heart thudding in his chest at the agonising burn of warm thighs squeezing his hipbones, the bend of Laat’s knees straining tight muscles from the hike to meet with Frea, the weight pressing his spine into the bed like a stone, even the arterial pulse he swears he can feel drumming his skin through the robe and their clothes pounding from the secret warmth of Laat’s inner thigh. The thought of all that blood, all that glorious heat, in their veins makes him dizzy.

Laat looks down at him and sees themselves mirrored in shadows over his mask and in his hidden gaze. The rolling slopes of their body encircle him, contain him, like a stopper in the narrow neck of a bottle. Their eyes smoke with intensity, flickers of amber red visible in the deep brown. In his eyes, they are handsome and powerful, beautiful as the killing edge of a new blade.

“You are so warm,” he tells them inanely.

“Let me see you,” Laat signs, bringing their hands deliberately wide in the movements so that their knuckles brush the blank gold face of Miraak’s mask. They want to show him his own face, his true face, the loveliness they find there among the ink-scars and exhaustion-wrung shadows.

Miraak hesitates. Old shames glare gluttonous at his vulnerability, and Miraak feels like shrinking into the safety of the mask. Is it not enough to let them do this? Must he lose every wall, every shelter, every defence he has against the rawness of this new Solstheim where bareness is unremarkable, and no one sings as dragons do? His face of flesh and skin does not even have majestic horns or tough scales - no, it is softened, wearied, by time and torture. The wrinkles he admires as they form on Laat and the steely greys of their hair remind Miraak only of the time he has lost to unwilling bondage on himself. They, after all, do not have the face of a prisoner of Apocrypha.

He is only a man. Despite the strength of Laat’s opinion of him, their dragon-soul, Miraak is only a man, and one beset by foolish vanity at that.

Laat says nothing, of course they don’t, but the swell of tender feeling is almost worse. This close, this hungry, the line between them is blurrier than it ever is. Without the mask, Miraak may as well … submit. Laat pursues the feeling, pressing into his mind, his body, until their touches feel mirrored and they are the hand that brushes and the skin that aches in response both.

Laat leans forward (catches Miraak’s irreverent thought about how so very warm they are, are they running a fever, against his bound wrists, his chest) and lifts the edge of the mask’s hood, revealing his neck. Old inkstains stripe his throat in greenish trails, splatters where he has coughed and choked on the fluid bubbling in his lungs, out his mouth. Laat can’t resist swiping their tongue over the arch of tendons, as if the coolness of their spit can smear such deeply-sunken marks. Tender kisses dot his shoulders, gentle lips mumble and mouth over the exposed ridge of his collarbones, blunt teeth threatening the bobbing gulp of the apple of his throat, sensations that spark fireworks behind his eyes. Laat’s lips tingle where they kiss him, his fragile skin papery and dry like the crumbling pages of ancient books.

They together feel his breathing fanning over his eyelids, penned in by the mask, as he tilts his head back. Exposes his neck to Laataazin, like a dog showing his belly to his master.

Beautiful, thinks Laat again, and Miraak swallows a groan.

Desire breathes like something living in the coil of his gut, drawing like a wave into his cock. The liquid movements of the robes over the sensitive flesh as Laat rocks back and forth over his hips while they kiss, sensuous, deliberate, rhythmic, just too far forward to grind against him, are exquisite torture.

Torture? Laat’s laugh is a sigh that ripples up to prickle the tainted skin under his ear. Miraak exhales roughly, flexing his wrists against the ropes to ground himself. They are edging ever closer to the lip of the mask, trying to steal it off without his notice. It is one of their more obvious designs. Not even close, soul-of-my-soul.

“What are you planning?” Miraak asks, more to reply than because he cares to know. Past experience has taught him that Laat is more than capable of using his anticipation as a weapon, stringing him on a teetering edge until he shatters like poorly blown glass in their hands.

You like it, Laat thinks, amused, indulgent as a cat in a sunbeam. Miraak, haughty, does not respond. He does not need to. The evidence that tells Laat they are right is beginning to rather eagerly tent his robe, after all.

This close he can smell the oil they use to clean their armour and weapons, and sweat, pure human sweat. Laataazin’s deals with daedra have been so much lesser than Miraak’s, and they barely have any marks, save for a wickedness in their grin as their hips roll against him that Miraak thinks must have come from straight from the Lord of Debauchery himself.

You know it didn’t, Laataazin contradicts. Their scarred nose bumps the underside of his mask as they lean forwards, palms pressing down heavy and soothing onto his chest. Hinting.

“Niid,” Miraak murmurs.

A flicker of disappointment, but Laat moves on from the mask without comment. They resettle their weight further over his hips, trapping his cock between their body and his. Miraak chokes, his arms twitching in abortive movement, like he could pull their body, their hands away. But Laat lingers, tracing the shape of his cock through his robe with heavy, palming strokes. It is so powerful a sensation that it hurts, hurts, like crackling lightning in his veins.

Miraak writhes, trying to unseat them, but Laat only rides him out like he is a bucking horse. His body undulates between their thighs and they grind down, eyes fluttering shut and mouth parting, a glimpse of their crooked teeth as they bite their lip.

Laat’s shameless pleasure in his struggle undoes him.

“Laat,” Miraak moans. They ground him with a hand to his chest, and his breath heaves like bellows against its firm weight.

Your arms are tied, Laat’s thought is involuntary, almost indistinguishable in heady lust, you just have to lie here and … take it.

They feel Miraak want to protest that he is not entirely helpless – there’s the Voice, there’s magic, they may be stronger physically but he could even flip them – yet his whole body is boneless, the ropes hemming him in sweetly, and they know if Laat just asks, he would take any amount of anything. To please them.

“Zu’u losiil, Laat Dovahkiin.” Miraak is shaky and breathless. I am yours. It is true. Without them, he would be a prisoner, lonely, bitter, still at the whim of the fates, bound to serve all his life in the hope for a taste of freedom. This service, he chooses. As they chose him, over the world.

“Good,” Laataazin whispers aloud, and the stone bed shakes. Somewhere distant, something smashes as it falls, shaken by the earthquake of their Voice.

Miraak’s eyes fly open to meet theirs through the slits of his mask, halfway through a ragged gasp. They see themselves as he sees them, scarred face is watchful, intent, their dark eyes alight with a rich glow.

“Laataazin.”

It is too much for him. Laat rubs his chest soothingly as Miraak’s head thumps back against the furs and his arms lift, futile, trying to cover his masked face, trying to hide. His knuckles meet only the coolness of his mask, smooth and hard, the antithesis of Laat’s body on his. He knows he is blushing, blotches of deep blue and yellow ink bursting like rotted flowers under the surface of his skin, knows that Laat could see it, if they open his robe.

The soul-of-his-soul thinks Miraak is good.

As if summoned, Laat deftly parts the folds of his robe and bares his chest. The bear pelt he lies on is so thick that the soft fur rises around the edges of his body like a wreath, his robe spread out beneath them like royal purple butterfly wings. The paleness of the fur and the richness of the silk all seem to exaggerate the archival yellow of his skin, warming to chlorophyll and indigo, like he is an unfinished painting given colour, depth, reality, by the paintbrush of his blush.

He is beautiful, and mine, they think, ghosting over pebbled flesh with indulgent, explorative touches. Miraak is thinner under his robes than he first appears, with jutting ribs from one-too-many forgotten meals to sustain a body that has not quite managed to process anything beyond ink with any reliability. His mottled skin is oddly smooth, hairless, and after a moment, Laat realises why.

“You shaved,” Laat signs, tapping his chest to get his attention. He lowers his arms cautiously, eyeing them through the slits of the mask. “Your beard, too?”

“Geh,” says Miraak.

Laat feels his embarrassed flush of self-consciousness. He shaved because he hopes Laat would put their mouth on him as they are so fond of doing, and does not want them to have to pick hair from their teeth. His hair grows very thick and all of it ink-soaked to dripping, leaving green stains on fabrics when he brushes against them. He worries; hardly thinks it’s beneficial for Laat to swallow any of Mora’s corruption that can possibly be avoided. Just as quickly, there is a fluster as Miraak tries to hide his thoughts from them.

Prickly and proud as ever, their dragon-soul.

“I wouldn’t have minded,” Laat assures him, their signs quick and fond at his worry. “And I certainly don’t mind you thinking of what I’m going to do to you.”

Their signs leave them free to smile, slow, wide, and Miraak shivers at the promise in it. Lightly they push on his elbows, encouraging him to lift his arms over his head so that his shoulders strain and his torso is exposed, like a sacrifice. Then, as Miraak has dared to hope, they lower their head and kiss his chest.

Laat explores, taking their time, feeling the raised lips of scars catch under their nails. He does not have many, all things considered, not half as much as they do, but there is enough to provide texture. Testament, they suppose, to his expertise with healing magic. Miraak runs cooler than they do, and as their searching hands find the secret, soft places that make him twitch and gasp (his sides are sensitive to broad strokes, but he jerks and hisses at gentle, featherlight circles over his hipbones, and the sound he makes when Laat licks a long stripe over his pectoral muscle and catches the edge of his nipple is so hungry it does not bear repeating), they feel him warm under them.

Sweat wells, bitter and acrid ink, in the dips of his collarbones, the dark hair of his armpits, his navel. Laat brushes the worst of it away and keeps going, ignoring the apocryphal reek and distracting Miraak from it before he can protest. They are determined to map his entire torso under their lips and tongue, the drugging strokes of their palms pressing against the heave of his lungs. His skin is soft and dry, curiously textured, delicate as vellum. When he blushes, sometimes the ink forms linear lines, swirls of no mortal language, as if it is trying to imitate the written pages of Apocrypha, like there are books not blood trapped underneath his skin. Laat knuckles his flesh until it fades into blotchy colours and pays it no attention at all.

They have no need for flesh-sunk knowledge and the words of magic lost to time. This is its own kind of lesson, and Laat will always rather be skilled in love than in secrets.

They hear the crackle of the fire, the wet noises of their mouth, Miraak’s moans and stifled cries. He whimpers when they give into the desire to suck on his skin until it bruises brilliant purples and blues, bright as an illustration commissioned by a master, so they do it again, again, until his nipples pinking with blood distract them. Laat torments the hard buds with quick, fluttering flicks of their tongue that make Miraak choke on a growl, and smile when they feel the tugging chains of arousal searing straight to his cock.

Miraak pants, half-wishing he let Laat take the damn mask off, because there doesn’t seem to be enough air and he feels like he is melting. It’s too much, he thinks, and Laat’s dark eyes flick up to his, measuring, probing for how he is doing, it hurts.

“Faaz,” Miraak gets out. You are hurting me. They must be.

Sensation so bright it might as well be pain has him arrested, senseless, sharp like needles in his lungs, and he is not sure where he is, only that the world is bound by the rope around his wrists, squeezing his thunderous crash of a heart into a mortal body that twists and rocks under Laataazin like it is possessed. He is aware that he is making noises, hisses and gasps and bitten off words that would embarrass him if he were more present, but Miraak is not – is gone.

He is, dimly, afraid of what is happening to his body, for he is fairly certain that sex has never been like this. With his nerves under-stimulated from years in bitter Apocrypha, Laat’s focused attention is utterly overwhelming. There are many reasons he prefers to remain clothed; safe concealment from the immensity of the world scraping at him like raw wool is one.

It always is like this, with Laat.

“You are fine, Miraak,” Laat tells him, knows he understands even if they are not certain he sees their signs, “This is not pain.”

He eases a little at their reassurance, but just to prove it, they bite him hard enough that their teeth carve welts into his flesh. Hard enough that the confused morass of sensation – pleasure, it is his and theirs, at the same moment – narrows into the piercing beam of pain, true pain. Miraak keens, and against him, Laat moans richly, reverberating.

If only – if only, but no, this truly is a rare opportunity. Laat needs to be gentle and relish the rare freedom of touching Miraak’s bare skin, not overwhelm him quickly.

Miraak bares his teeth. “I am not fragile,” he says, his pride bidding him ignore the quiver in his deep voice lodged somewhere in his stomach, and the nagging fear that he absolutely is, actually, and if Laat isn’t careful, his bones will shatter to dust like the ruined books that populate old tombs like monuments to impermanence.

“You blush so prettily when I treat you like you are,” Laat signs, cheeky. “Can you blame me?”

When they are done, though, their hands find his ribs again and push down, hard. Miraak wheezes a breath, but Laat only smiles at him, as if to say, See? We’re fine.

Miraak slams his head back into the pillows, hissing. Again with the praise. I am going to pulverise you in training later, Laat feels him think, and allows the ghostly curl of their amusement to thread like gold in his sternum.

Laat withdraws, gives him a moment to catch his breath. They check his bound hands briefly, then hum, satisfied by the strength of his grip. The break is barely a second, not long enough, just enough to admire his flustered state.

One hand tweaks his nipple, twisting it hard enough that the dull pressure will ache, the other smooths underneath the fallen robe around his hips and ghosts around the base of his cock. He reacts like their skin burns him.

“Niid,” says Miraak at once, “niid – Dovahkiin, saraan-“

The hand at his chest taps him. Laat does not move their other hand, not at all, allows Miraak to feel like he is dying, knowing that he will not.

“Your watchword, Miraak?” Laat signs. Their expression is serious, but their mouth is smiling, like they know a secret.

It takes him a moment, not to remember, for they feel the word come at once to the forefront of his mind, but to make his breathing cooperate so the word comes out steady and even. Always so proud.

“Sikgolt,” he says, at last.

“You know what to say, if you want this to stop,” signs Laat, “If not, behave.”

“I am not a pet,” Miraak tries to snarl, but his words are lost in an explosive cry when Laat spits into their hand and grasps his cock firmly with quick, rough strokes. Dry, it is just too much to be bearable, but Laat’s grip is workmanlike, brusque, and utterly unrelenting. Even when Laat smears his own ink-laced precome down his cock, it is not enough to prevent the agony of the friction.

Good, they think. Laat does not want him to be comfortable.

Miraak responds to that with a shattered sound.

Laat focuses on remaining in their own body, on the sweat-sticky shirt on their back, the slight grind and click of their wrist as they jerk him off, tries to distance themselves from the cacophony of Miraak’s thoughts. They want him to be overwhelmed, but not drag them with him to the point where they cannot be certain they will be able to watch him.

It is nice, they think meditatively, to be able to do this with him. They are surprised, but pleased, at how this night has gone, have not ever quite believed that Miraak would be capable of or willing to experience such a large amount of touch and vulnerability. After all, it took a long time of very patient compromises to reach the point of physical intimacy. Sex is studded with pitfalls, as having thick ink for blood means that Miraak’s arousal is not always reliable, and he regularly cannot bear touch, which his pride detests. Once they discovered they have a love of ropes in common and that Miraak can bring himself to ask for it, things became easier, and the rest Laat simply consigns to cultural differences he cannot explain in any way they understand, or the effects of his time in Apocrypha.

Still, Laat knows him well enough at this point to not need to think too hard about the movement of their hand on his cock. Dragging touches that form a circle for his jerking hips to thrust into, long strokes up the left side, switching to caress over the crease of his thigh and fondle his balls, rubbing that spot underneath that presses on the base and makes his eyes roll into the back of his head.

He is fracturing under their attention, their dragon-soul, twisting and shuddering on the bed like he can through movement plea for the violent pleasure to ebb enough for him to catch a breath. The mask shakes and casts golden reflections hurtling over the walls as he alternately thrusts his head back, then at once bows his body towards Laat, runnels of inky sweat pooling in the divots of his hips, staining the furs. He cries out, convinced they are hurting him, unable to register the intensity of the sensations he feels as anything other than pain.

Watching his anguish, Laat feels an erotic thrill. How glorious, to have a creature so ancient and strong under their power. They close their hand around his cock, caressing the sensitive underside of the swollen glans with their thumb. Miraak, sensing, perhaps recognising Laat’s warm appreciation, panics and jerks, his bound hands trying to interfere. Feeling indulgent, Laat lets him tug against their strength.

Laat squeezes his cockhead until he flushes turgid purple, then rubs their thumb against the dripping slit. They fuck him like this slowly, watching his balls flush and tighten up against the base of his shaft. It won’t take long. Cruel perhaps, for his mind is a mess and his body is not much better, but it always makes his cock throb.

Miraak howls like he is being murdered. His breathing is shuddering gasps and hitched sobs. He is being good, though, holding himself as still as he can through what Laat can tell is sheer stubborn will alone. His body tries to jerk away from their rough touch, and the sounds that fall so sweetly on Laat’s ears are utterly broken, but he does not wrench himself away. Miraak bears it.

He behaves.

A reward is due. Laat releases him to reposition themselves so their scarred cheek rasps against his cock and their arms are wrapped around his thighs and hips, holding him still. Miraak breathes heavily, they feel the muscles flex in his stomach and thighs as he strains to sit up without dislodging them.

“What -” His words crack off. He clears his throat and tries again. “What are you doing?”

“You’ll like it,” Laat promises. They dig circles into the bony jut of his hips, watching for his reaction. The hood of his mask hides his throat bobbing in a swallow, but Laat can see his shaky exhale. They can sense Miraak’s confusion, lust-fogged mind struggling to grasp what is happening, not even truly certain where he is, not particularly caring about anything beyond Laat, Laat, Laataazin. His thoughts are run-on strings of harsh dragon-words, difficult to parse, overshadowed by flashes of feeling and thought, lightning-bright among the seething sea of sensory overload.

Maintaining eye contact with the dark holes in the mask, Laat gives the bobbing cock in front of their face an exploratory lick.

Miraak jumps.

They do it again.

This time, he groans. Laat lowers their mouth to his cock and starts by licking him, flicking their tongue over the sensitive underside. When his hips start twitching and lifting towards them, they slip his cock into their mouth and go down, down, as if they mean to swallow him whole.

His bound hands fly to their hair, unable to get a grip on it, but Laat looks up. His mind is beset by visions of his cock hurting them, bruising their throat so they can barely speak, but Laat only shakes off his hands kindly, a strange feeling of warmth in their breast at his worry.

“I will not hurt myself,” they sign, “I have taken bigger than you before.”

So saying, their mouth envelops his cock. Their nose bumps against his hips, and they control themselves, drawing back just a little to gain a new breath, then back down. They swallow when they feel the head bump against the back of their throat, let it slide into the tight space there.

They catch an image flashing through his mind - young man, pale cheeks freckle-blazed, mask pushed up over frizzing carroty hair; “Quiet, quiet, do you want the whipping - you have to be quiet, Miraak!” Burst of coals against Miraak’s pinwheeling arm - incense and dragon rumbles overhead - “Vahlok- !?” - and Miraak rams his bound hands against his mask to cover where his mouth hides beneath it so hard Laat hears the metal ring.

Laat pushes in on his hips hard enough to bruise. They hum, quietly, but the shaking sound still catches Miraak’s attention, especially as the vibrations judder through his cock in their mouth. Name me, they think to him fiercely. Name who has you.

“Laat-aaz-in,” Miraak cries. The mask’s shadowed tentacles seem to curl and writhe like worms in the rain. His knuckles are reddening against the implacable metal, soft flesh, breakable, not enough to pierce it. They find themselves glad for once that it is there - they would not have liked to see him try to shove his hands into his mouth.

Make noise for me, my strong dragon, Laat thinks, bobbing their head even as their narrowed eyes watch him carefully, you can take this. It is for his benefit - he is still responding to their praise, to their encouragement, the iron core of his will soaking it in. It grounds him, earths him enough to birth a shattering wail rippling with the strength of the Voice.

“Niid!” Miraak tries to argue, “Laat – I cannot – I cannot-“

His mind is a mess, but they are confident he is present, that he knows where they are and what is happening. They can sense his watchword close to his mind, even lift their mouth for a moment to give him a breath to say it in.

Frustrated, Miraak jerks, and what comes out instead is “Aaz! Mercy - aaz, aaz!”

It is not the signal, so pleased, Laat continues. They are savouring the warmth of him, the throb and pulse of his veins through the soft, sensitive skin, his salty bitterness on their tongue, the reek of his sweat. A shame it would be to stop soon, for something as irrelevant as Miraak’s comfort.

“Zu’u losiil,” Miraak moans in a trembling voice at that thought.

They are reasonably certain that in the dark holes of his mask he is looking at them, so they sign to him, resting as much of their weight through their forearms to keep his hips still as they can. Still, he thrusts abortively when they try to take him down into their throat again, and Laat has to withdraw quickly to prevent choking.

“My strong dragon, I am here,” Laat asserts. “I will give you what you need. Shout if you need to, I have you.”

The wall stripes with the reflections of the mask in the firelight. He is breathing rapidly, his arms trembling lightly. His mottled skin gleams with the richness of his sweat. Miraak is trying, they can tell, but when they dip the tip of their tongue into the slit of his cock, curious to see his reaction, he breaks.

“MUL QAH!”

The thunder of his Shout rocks the room. Miraak’s Dragon Aspect roars into life, and Laat hurriedly yanks their hands back before they are pierced through by the sudden emergence of spines marching down his belly and chest, protecting his vulnerable innards. Frankly, given their choice of words, Laat is not entirely surprised. Still, the moment of distraction is all they need, and as Miraak stretches his resplendent wings, his iridescent tail, Laat swallows him down again. They hold their breath for as long as they can, encouraging him to rock into their throat.

“L- aaat,” Miraak manages. It is pleading. It has to hurt him, with how sensitive he is, how much this all is - the warmth, the wetness, the wet laps of their tongue, their breath, their humming, the flex of their muscles, the hungry pleasure of Laat watching him. If they allow him in their mind, they can feel it - the sharpness like the agonising piercing joy of being fucked with a needle, back and forth dipping in and out of flesh, pricks of red red blood lubricating the steely slide, back and forth, back and forth.

Swirling their tongue around him, Laat smirks. They grab onto the thick spines that jut razor-sharp from his hips and hold him still as they draw back up, hollowing their cheeks around him. Then down, to the accompaniment of his broken gasps and snarls. The spines make it much easier to keep him in his place. Despite his increased strength, Laat is always the stronger of the two of them. They control him like a wild animal breaking to the lash, Miraak’s power, his strength, his Dragon Aspect - they are nothing here unless Laat wills it.

You are going to take this until I make you come, they inform him. Miraak sobs.

His eyes are burning coals behind the mask, enough to shadow it. He is wreathed in horns, in fire, in the brilliance of his soul, the amber-blue scales that blaze over his chest, his arms, clinging the thickest to his scars in belts so bright it almost hurts to look at him. His bound hands are taloned and sharp, trimmed claws turned deadly knives, and Laat keeps a careful eye on them in case he tries to grab their head again.

They know he won’t. Miraak will behave for as long as they ask him to.

He slams his head back against the furs, in what Laat thinks is agreement.

It is thrilling. Triumphant desire burns in Laat, a thunderous need to break the shining, vicious, powerful creature before them, in their mouth, in their soul. His growls shudder their bones when they tease him, and his wings close around them like pressing hands on their shoulders, trying to urge them deeper even as he thrusts up. Laat resists the pressure, lets his cock scrape against their teeth as they rise up, a warning and promise both.

Miraak shudders a breath, his hands flexing into fists. His tail underneath Laat curls sinuously around their leg, angling for the fork of their legs. Laat moans as they suck him and grinds down against the muscular coil. They can feel the intoxicating ridged texture of his scales against them through their breeches, igniting sparks in the seething pressure in their belly.

They release his cock with a pop and sit up to rut harder against him, using the spikes thrusting from the bones of his hips to dictate his movement. They stare down at the slits of his mask with intense, dark eyes.

“Good,” Laat whispers, needing to vocalise their approval, and Miraak’s body locks up as he is ripped into orgasm.

All the grounding in the world cannot prevent the backlash of searing white that flashes across Laat’s eyes, the sympathetic clench in their belly and the heated lance of pure want that stabs into the base of their spine. Their hand fumbles at him, pinning his spurting cock to his belly with clumsy strokes, the other bracing themselves against the bed as it feels like shuddering waves rock the island.

Laat is even fairly certain that one of them briefly blacks out.

In the aftermath, Miraak shakes. His auroral wings curve around them both, like he is protecting them from the world. Shredded fur dusts his shoulders like snow from his gnashing horns. His come is sticky and warm on his chest, chased through with shimmering greens and blues. Laat, cheeks flushed and breathing hard, runs a finger through it, gathering some of the pearly fluid.

They lift their hand to his mask, intentions clear. Miraak’s bound hands scrabble at the edge of the mask, the deadly-sharp dragon-talons a hindrance, trying to lift it enough for them to reach him under the hood. In frustration, he tears it off. Laat hears it clatter to the floor beside the bed.

Exposed, Miraak pants. He is luminous with the Dragon Aspect, his eyes, the thinness of his veins limned as if he is lit from within, haloed by horns. Laat presses the finger to his lips and he lets it slide into his mouth obediently. He glows there, too, his teeth sharpened to lambent daggers of gold and blue. The gaunt arches of his cheekbones blaze with a green blush. His long, dark, wet hair is plastered to his forehead, dripping ink as it continues in a thick mane down his shoulders and back, speared by the flaming spires and spikes of his dragon-soul.

His curious eyes, double-irised, one malachite and ice, the other goat-pupilled and bronze, are dark with lust. Laat can barely make out his second irises behind the brightness of the Dragon Aspect. Fresh tears trace the paths of the stains on his face. When he blinks at them with his wet eyes, more follow. His thin lips hollow around Laat’s finger, and they can feel his tongue, forked in this aspect, soft, wet, warm, licking even as he draws back and releases them.

Laat cannot help the quiet, fractious sound they make at the sight of his tears, the dizzying pulse of lust. It rumbles between them like a stormcloud. His tail tightens around their leg, intangible muscles of light rippling around them like the coils of a vast snake.

“Beautiful,” they sign, “you are beautiful.”

The growl that rumbles out of Miraak is half-feral. His slitted eyes watch them, the tips of his wings brushing their back with ghostly caresses. Pulling off their shirt, Laat wipes him clean as gently as they can. They toss the soiled shirt over their shoulder, not particularly interested where it lands. Unbinding Miraak’s hands with just the slightest tinge of regret, Laat chafes them quickly to make sure the blood is flowing. If only they could keep him like this forever.

They try to avoid scratching themselves on the curving talons burning with the strength of Miraak’s Shout, but it is either that or the sharp scales that armour him like gauntlets. Pursing their lips, Laat stares at the small line of welling red across their palm.

“Hi los ahraan,” Miraak says, you are wounded, and then all at once his wings flare and his tail twists and his body surges, and Laat is slamming down onto their back. His sinuous length curls above them, flaming eyes narrowed at the cut like it is a personal offense. He leans down, great horns digging into Laat’s cheek, obscuring their vision.

Laat holds their breath, anticipation hot in their belly. His forked tongue flickers out and laves the cut. He is gentle, but it stings. When he pulls back up to regard them they fancy they can smell the tang of their blood on his breath. He rumbles at their approval, and they can feel the vibration all the way down into their breastbone. The heaviness of his perpetually wet hair falls about them like a curtain.

Laat tries to unwedge their hands, gives up and thinks instead, as strongly as they can, Remember, no magic, Miraak. It is only a little cut, not worth risking a seizure over.

“Geh,” he says. His voice is even deeper in Dragon Aspect, rough as untumbled stones creaking in ancient cliffs. His vast wings completely block out the surrounding world, until it feels as if the sky has fallen and they have been swallowed up into the gullet of Aetherius, as if Aetherius could ever be half as beautiful as the soul-of-their-soul. The wings of Miraak’s Dragon Aspect remind them of the skies of Sovngarde, flaring with impossible, vivid colours, martial flickers and deep, internal glow that cannot be tarnished by any amount of daedra.

Not for the first time, Laat feels a pang of jealousy. How come you get wings and a tail with this Shout, and I don’t? And with only two words?

“Zu tiid.” I have had time. “This Shout was my mind in my prison. Morah, Laat Dovahkiin.”

Meditate, Laat thinks sourly. You sound like the Greybeards. Can’t you just show me?

“Geh.”

But you won’t.

Miraak’s tail rubs along their leg, then twines round it like a thick vine. Trapped between their chests, Laat can feel the steady beat of his heart against their hands, the roughness of the patches of scales that fringe over his skin. They push lightly, and his wings spread as he lifts himself enough to free their hands. When he breathes, ghostly flames flicker and curl in his nose and mouth.

“Zu laan aam hi,” he says in his voice of a mountain, and Laat understands the sense of what he means from the press of feeling in their mind. He wants to repay the favour, to give Laat the pleasure they have given him.

They wriggle against him, considering, but their muscles cramp in fatigue. “That very much did for me too,” they sign, with a rueful smile, “I can’t believe you didn’t feel it.”

Miraak snorts, and pale flames shoot out to lick against Laat’s cheeks. They do not hurt, only tickle softly, like the soapy caress of water on dry skin. Well, he was rather preoccupied, they suppose, their smirk widening.

“You can give me a massage later, if you want, though,” they add, as his dissatisfaction with that answer is blatantly clear, “My back’s been giving me grief.”

“Geh,” he says immediately, with true enthusiasm, and they feel him twitch as if struggling not to flip them and begin at once.

Laat exhales in amusement. “What a dedicated servant you are,” they tease him. “If only I had a team of people half as devoted as you, I’d be living like an emperor.”

“Will this please you?” Miraak says, and before Laat can even sign his mind turns to practicalities.

His cult is the best place to start, though he is reluctant to lose many of them, but fewer than six servants is an insult of the highest degree to Laataazin’s status. Four, at least, Soskro and Mirdein were loyal blades - supplemented with Sulis and Ulf, all well-trained by Miraak himself and comely to the eye, which is important, should Laat wish a break from Miraak’s own charms. Then for variety, he could turn to Raven Rock, there is surely some soft-handed noble there craving the honour of serving Laat Dovahkiin (that Severin girl?), and perhaps that dashing sellsword that Laat enjoys, with the chitin armour and the handsome jaw-

No, no, Laat is laughing in breaths that shake the bed, No, I don’t need servants, Miraak, - sensing his mutinous feelings, they add swiftly - I don’t want them. And his name is Teldryn! He is attractive though, isn’t he?

“Geh, zu mindok,” says Miraak, unsure why they need to confirm the obvious.

“Perhaps,” Laat signs, “I’ll ask him to come join us one day, will you like that?”

Miraak’s wings tilt backwards like the ears of a startled Khajiit, and his cheekbones blaze emerald. “Rul laan,” he says, if you want, in a voice that strains to be noncommittal. But underneath that very interesting reaction there is a very real thread of baffling fear, and Laat reaches for him.

“I chose you,” they tell him, “I will keep choosing you.”

Miraak tilts his head, wary of his horns, so that their foreheads press together and their breath mingles. In that resonating voice, he murmurs, “This I know. We are the only ones who are real, Laat Dovahkiin. The others – their lives, their deaths, their pains or desires for freedom, it is less than nothing. I am here, you feel me in your soul, as I feel you in mine.”

Staring into those dual eyes, Laat cannot suppress a frisson of unease. They do not agree - how could they? It is as if he has reached down and found the darkest, guiltiest thoughts Laat regrets having, internal measures of their power against those around them, knowing, knowing, that all those who attempt to constrain them live in ignorance at Laat’s pleasure - but they feel him frown.

“Was it not I who sheltered you from the daedra in Whiterun, I who tended you when the Greybeards trained you in languages you did not know, I who comforted you in your solitude? As it was you who touched me in my cell in Apocrypha, brought me to Nirn and set me free. You alone, my equal. You would not have come to me in Apocrypha if you did not wish to stay with me, Laataazin.” Miraak pronounces each syllable separately, drawing it out as a dragon does. “You broke my chains, and now we are together, and so we will always be. It was not I who offered this choice, if you recall.”

“I do.” He is right in that. “Other people matter, Miraak. We all have lives, no one... is more real than the other. But you don’t have to worry. I still choose you, I am not letting go.”

Miraak’s nostrils smoke. “You will never have to, Laat Dovahkiin. My Voice sings your name. There is nowhere you can go that I cannot find you.”

Laat breathes out slowly and chooses to hear the devotion in his words rather than the threat to their freedom. If he does not fear their interest waning as he claims, they do not know what it is that he fears. They offer him a thread of their own affection, warm regard softened by their intimacy, and his slitted pupils dilate. His shimmering wings soothe against his back, and the Dragon Aspect flickers away.

With that, he rolls off them, casting an ice spell in one hand to cool himself. Frost sheens over his skin, crackling over the soaked robe. It melts in rivulets, taking his inked sweat with it, running down to freshly stain the furs, until he looks streaked with stripes of his natural paperiness like a painted statue in the rain. The sopping darkness of his green hair clings to his shoulders and neck, curls in long strands dragged straight by the weight down to his hips.

As Laat’s eye lingers on the exposed line of his thigh, loops of graceful text begin to appear out of the ink below. They tear their eyes away before their mind can convince them they understand it, and stare at his face until the itch of temptation subsides.

Laat is not certain what he is thinking of - they feel strange, deep musings turning over in his mind, in languages they do not know - but he seems content enough, if quiet.

They tap him to get his attention. “I wasn’t done touching you. Do you need to get dressed now?”

Miraak looks down at the robe clinging wetly to him like he has forgotten it is there. One hand rubs at the bridge of his nose, irritatedly brushing away a lock of hair that drips tears down the angle of his jaw. After a moment, his gaze rises to meet theirs, bolder than they would have thought without the mask.

“Niid,” he says simply. “How do you want me?”

Laat smiles and moves over the bed towards him, feeling his eyes trace over their bare chest, the softness of their belly, their strong shoulders, the slight sway of the relaxed muscle and fat of their arms. An ember of his appreciation warms the blood in their cheeks as they reach his legs.

Lifting his left foot into their lap, Laat kisses his knee. The shape of his bones are fine against their lips. He looks back at them, brows raised, but wedges some of the furs behind his back to support himself, and does not pull away. His foot flexes. The hard claws catch in the fabric of Laat’s breeches, pulling free a loose thread, and they pause to gently untangle him.

He has strong legs, muscled by years of dragon-riding. Laat runs their fingertips over the hard bumps and dips of the thick, crisscrossing calluses and scars that abrade the insides of his legs, imprints of dragonscales made permanent in his flesh. They rub the muscles they can feel underneath it, unsurprised to find them loose and limber. They kiss the soft crinkle of the side of his calf, just under his knee, smelling the warmth of his skin, his musty scent of books and scale.

Their tenderness affects him. Miraak leans towards them, wanting to touch, Laat watching the folds of his loose skin dimple at his waist. Obligingly, they shift closer, hip angled between his thighs, and draw his right leg into their lap instead, palm warm on his knee. He is cold from the ice spell, enough that their skin numbs.

His large hands reach for their face, drawing it to face him. His hands cup their cheeks – they feel him become aware, suddenly, of how small Laat is in comparison to him, how his palms almost eclipse their cheeks, his claws tangling into their short hair. Laat closes their eyes, sighing at the gentle scratch of his blunted claws over their scalp. It is unutterably soothing.

His thumbs brush over the thick spiderweb of scars patterning their face, depressing the cartilage of their nose. Their lashes brush their cheek, his exploring fingers over the thinness of their eyelids, careful of his claws. Lifting to encircle his wrist, not trapping, but touching, just touching, Laat squeezes him and they both sigh at the spreading warmth of lassitude.

“Can I kiss you?” Laat signs one-handed, their movements small and restricted by the circle of his arms. They know he can feel their subtle sort of longing, quite apart from sexual lust that burns like coals in their belly, and even a little nervousness. Nowhere to hide from the soul-of-their-soul.

Miraak hesitates. Laat winces at the confused storm of feelings washing over him, his desire to please and curiosity warring with old fear and instinct. Like any dragon, he does not, as a rule, like having his voice obstructed.

It is not the first time they have asked him, not the first time he has acquiesced. Nor even the first time that his face has been fully bare, not just Laat’s head under the warm darkness of the hood, the metal face angled up to let them just reach his lips. Quick brushes, sometimes longer, where Laat curls their hands into his robes and pushes against him, some bright sparking feeling in them, the forbidden soft warm wetness of their tongue ghosting along his lip, the brilliant spark of their blunt teeth scraping his lower lip until pain waxes, hot and hungry. But it never quite grows easier for him, even with the increase of pleasant memories.

His eyes soften. One hand drops, rubbing over their shoulder, admiring the round cup of muscle filling his palm, the indent of their tan flesh marking under his thumb’s claw. This is Laat Dovahkiin, who brought him from Mora’s cursed Apocrypha, who anchors him to Nirn, who keeps him company on his lonely island and wraps him in soft ropes like he is precious.

Laat is patient and radiates calm. They interpret for him the confusing signals of their bodies, the tightness in his gut that makes him feel like he can’t quite breathe (arousal, affection) the oversensitive pain of his hips and thighs (just a little muscle tiredness), and the throb of his airy mind (the pleasure of submission, soul-of-my-soul).

They know that he does not understand why they desire to put their mouths together so (to restrict his Voice? To gag him, to bite out his tongue? And thus disarmed, choke the air from his lungs? No, no, soul-of-my-soul, Laat whispers in his mind, for pleasure, only that…), but it is… important to them, and it is enough that they want it. For Laat Dovahkiin, he will do this thing.

Something in Laat melts when he thinks that.

“Geh,” says Miraak, unable to quite hide his trepidation.

He tugs them a little closer, his free hand trailing over the meat of their shoulder, stretching over the sharp forks of lightning scars on the back of their neck. Strokes over their muscled back, admiring the folds of their flesh. Laat is fat and warm where he is thin, ghostly, their solidity and weight as unquestionable as the earth. He moves the hand on their cheek to their chest, splayed wide over the ridges of their collarbones, the swell of their small breasts, feels the gentle movement of their breathing. It is only natural to crook his other leg around their body, holding them within the circle of himself, like they are a ship in his whirlpool. How odd, then, that Miraak feels as if he is being pulled into their orbit, not the other way around.

Affection brims in Laat at this thought. They reach into his mind, seeking to feel how he feels, measuring his reactions.

It is Laat that bridges the distance between them when Miraak is unable to, slow and patient with the unconscious reflex that has him jerking back before their lips meet. They simply wait for a beat, then close in regardless, hands squeezing his thigh meditatively. It is grounding.

They feel him think their lips are full, very soft and warm, uncharacteristically undemanding, treating Miraak as if he is a tender thing that must be lulled into peace. Soft, heady brushes of their lips over his closed mouth, sometimes diverting to dust along his cheeks, his jaw – once even, the tip of his nose, making him snort reflexively. Laat laughs at that in their silent way, the puffs of their exhales warm as their kisses on his lips.

Their eyes close when they kiss him again, and they feel him watch their face, close enough to see the near-invisible span of freckles buried under the scars, the faint gleam of sweat on their forehead, the rich curl of their eyelashes. The scraggy tufts of their hair dusting over their cheekbones, the warm shadows clinging beneath their eyebrows.

This is the good thing when they want to kiss him, Miraak thinks, for they come so close he can see every crinkle and crease of their skin, and he can fill his hands with their body.

He runs his hands up and down their spine, and their body yearns towards him like a plant in the sun. Laat sighs when he finds a tense muscle and undoes the knot with his thumb, and smiles when he lingers over their ribs, fascinated with the slow movement of their breath, the rolls and curves of their strength.

Close your eyes, Laat thinks, softly, softly, close your eyes, and open your mouth.

He obeys with a ripple of nervousness, but nothing happens for a long moment. Laat just keeps kissing him, close-mouthed, gentle, until Miraak eases. Their tongue, when it comes to flick lightly at the crease of his bottom lip, surprises him, but even more so is the hazy release of their exhale from their mouth and nose. Their breath is close enough that Miraak could breathe it himself. They feel his flare of excitement at taking and tasting the air that carries their Voice inside himself, and he clumsily nudges closer.

Laat obliges him with a speed that betrays their true eagerness, feels his head swims under the sudden influx of warm, warm approval, pride and pleasure, and their breath, tinted, he thinks, a little, with the power of their Thu’um. They stay like that a moment, Laat’s hands bracing on his stomach, breathing into each other. Miraak’s mind is clouded and warm where it tangles with theirs, as if it’s full of cotton.

Laat wants to kiss him so badly it feels like they want to devour him, greedy with their indulgence, wants his lips, his tongue, the warm wetness of his mouth. The urge to just take it, to fuck his throat with their tongue, is so strong, and they cannot help the way their hands dig into his sides, tense with their restraint. But this is good, they think, a little reluctantly, and there is no need to push on this. With this, Laat has patience on their side.

They pull back to let Miraak breathe properly, but do not go far. Their foreheads press against each other. Laat swears they can feel the hollow thudding of his heartbeat in their chest at the place where their souls meet like tributaries.

“I only moved slightly, there is no need for all this… excitement,” Miraak mutters, but his voice sounds a little destroyed, and Laat grins.

They move to pull away, but Miraak catches their face in his hands again, preventing them from going too far. Laat blinks at him, warm and steady like a cat, and sees their own face reflected in his eyes, his soul, their blown pupil, the way their mouth parts, almost automatically, at the proximity.

“You enjoy it so,” Miraak says, a little bemused.

It is not often that they manage to surprise one another, being as interlinked as they are, but Laat is truly shocked when Miraak furrows up his brow and boldly presses his cold lips to theirs. He has never initiated a kiss, not once, Laat has never thought he would. They feel his determination, shot through with threads of insecurity – am I doing it right? They are not responding – and, classically Miraak, his hands tighten on their cheeks, holding them in place, redoubling his assault instead of pulling back. It is a clumsy mishmash, and they bump noses and once clash teeth, but it is the best kiss Laat has ever had.

Afterwards, they lay down next to each other. Chilled, Laat wraps themselves in the furs they pull over from the drier side of the bed, sighing at the feeling of the cosy softness. Miraak presses up close behind them before they can roll back to face him, their bodies separated by the furs. Laat’s heart warms.

“Want me to fetch your robes and mask?” they sign, knowing he can see over their shoulder.

His nose against their hair shakes. “Niid. Like this I am fine.”

Miraak, insistent and affectionate as a cat, rubs and nuzzles his face against the back of their head and shoulders. His arm curves around their waist, pulling him flush against them. Laat can feel his warm breath against the shell of their ear. Involuntarily, Laat thinks of the warmth of his dragon-wings, how large they are. Larger than his arm, for certain.

Pulling back, Miraak’s lungs billow with air. He Shouts, and the shimmering wings Laat has just been thinking wistfully of drape over them like a blanket. His tail curves around them, hemming in their body against his. They can feel the bladed tip against their stomach, the point made dull by their thick swaddling of furs. It is immediately warmer in the safe cocoon of his wings.

“You didn’t have to do that,” Laat can’t help laughing as they sign, ignoring the stony bed vibrating underneath them, “It was only a thought!”

“Fah hi.” For you. The resonance of his voice echoed with the tenderness of the feeling they can sense in him seems to make his every word louder.

Laat is still for a moment. “I do love you,” they sign, eventually, the burning of their eyes making them glad that they are facing away. They clear their throat.

Miraak’s grip tightens. “Zu’u losiil, Laataazin.”

I am yours. Laat sighs, and wonders if he will ever learn that love and possession are not the same. Though they are not sure that Dovahzul has a word for love, not in the way that Laat means it. Is it even possible for him to return the sentiment in the language he prefers?

For some reason, this line of thought summons Frea’s face before their mind, her sanctimonious words, and Laat’s mood sours.

Sensing their disquiet, Miraak hums against them soothingly. “You are troubled.”

“Frea wants to die,” Laat signs. “I don’t know what to do about her.”

“Do you not like Frea?” Miraak asks, and they feel him turning faces and names over in his mind, struggling to recall which of the many people of Solstheim Laat means. The Skaal woman? He does not associate with the Skaal much - they are not overfond of him, and Miraak is likewise not fond of being called a monstrous traitor by people he must refrain from killing.

“I do.” Laat touches the twitching tip of his tail, as if to soothe his momentary annoyance.

“Then keep her,” Miraak says, as if the answer is obvious. “You will miss her if she dies.”

“But she is unhappy!”

They feel Miraak’s shoulders move in a shrug. “You know my Shout,” he says calmly.

At that, Laat jerks their elbow into his ribs and wriggles. Miraak’s enfolding wing lifts hesitantly, enough for Laat, sweating, to work their way down to lying on their back. Thus freed, they jab a finger in his face as they sign.

“That’s wrong, Miraak! It is immoral to compel someone to go along with you just because it’s easier!” Miraak’s fire-bright eyes blinks at the finger in his face, all four pupils narrowing to focus on it. Laat deflates. “It doesn’t last that long anyway,” their motions are jerky and frustrated, “it would wear off then Frea would cleave me in two with her axe, and I would certainly deserve it.”

“Only because you use it like a hatchet, Laat Dovahkiin,” says Miraak, gaze returning to Laat’s eyes, “blindly superimposing your mind over another. Bend Will works best as a suggestion enforcing a desire or pattern that is already there. Simply find what makes them happy, find what is a barrier to your will, and remove it. The Skaal girl wishes to live as she once did, yes, free to worship her god? Then with your words allow her to do that, and her mind will do the rest.”

Laat’s hands lowered. “I didn’t know it could do that,” they sign, meek, unsure whether the feeling in them is horror or awe.

“With time and patience, the limit to my Shout is your will and the breadth of your imagination,” Miraak explains. He lowers his wing again, slowly, as if fearing that Laat will push it away. “With skill, you could encourage a resentful Greybeard to become a career warmonger, or a compassionate enemy your staunchest defender to the grave, all of their own volition.”

Some strange tinge of unease roils in the back of their mind. Laat touches the wing, feeling the bony spur of the joint, the leathery membrane, unsure how to respond.

Miraak’s voice is quiet and persuasive. It rumbles like the song of earth into Laat, through each bone, each thought in their mind.

“What is worse,” Miraak murmurs, so soft, so low, so deep, “allowing a good woman that you care for to die, or bringing her many more years of happiness and joy through the use of one Shout? A lifetime of bliss with one you love, all for speaking three words? How could you deny her that?”

“I suppose,” Laat signs, but they cannot meet his eye for guilt.

They feel him observing them quietly, some strange dissatisfaction in him that they cannot identify.

“I will do it,” he volunteers suddenly.

“What?” Surprised, Laat glares at him. “No! It’s unethical! You cannot force someone to be happy, or to stay with you simply because you want them to! It would be nothing but a lie.”

For a brief moment, Miraak scowls, the jagged crown of horns and his glowing teeth making him look truly fearsome. But then his expression smooths. “Dismiss it from your mind, Laat Dovahkiin,” he says, gently. “It is simply handled, and already agreed.”

“Don’t hurt her,” Laat signs anxiously, searching his face, “You’re just going to talk to her? Don’t-”

Raising a taloned hand, Miraak clasps theirs to stop their words. He gives Laat a soft, odd smile. “She will not even remember we have spoken,” he promises. “Only where there was frustration and pain, there will now be joy and peace.”

He strokes their hands with the backs of his talons with immense tenderness, nuzzling in close to with his breath and careful rubbing of his sharp cheekbones caress the warm hollow of Laat’s neck. With his touch and his mind he lulls them, sending soothing waves of affection and warmth, feelings of safety, recalling to them the ache in their muscles from sex, the tender sweetness of their kisses. His nose fits under their jaw as if it has been made for him, and despite themselves, Laat sighs. It has never been wise, loving him. But how can they help it? He is the soul-of-their-soul.

“Zu’u aam hi unslaad,” he whispers, with the air of a promise, “rii se dii zii.” I serve you forever, essence of my soul.

They reach for his hair, combing the thick wet locks over his shoulder, avoiding the spines on his back. Droplets of ink run down their arms as they begin to braid, loose and messy.

“You worry too much about people that are not worth your time,” Miraak says, and by his smile Laat supposes he means it lightheartedly.

With a heavy heart, they allow themselves to be cheered, and offer him a small smile in return. “Who should I worry about? You?” they tease, not entirely how much they are joking.

He smirks. “You could.”

Despite themselves, Laat chuckles, hearing the distant crack of stone in their Voice. They tug on the messy braid of wet hair they’ve made, and Miraak goes, a tingle of arousal running through him at the sensation. Laat kisses his cheeks and nose, making his dual eyes flutter shut as he sighs.

“Why,” they sign one-handed when he opens his eyes at their lack of movement, fingers so close they brush his cheek, “you attempting to take over the world again?”

“Niid,” says Miraak, his taloned hand coming to cup their face with the tenderness of a man who knows he is touching something immensely precious, “I have the best of it here, and that is everything I desire.”

With thanks to thuum.org:

Geh: Yes.

Laat Dovahkiin: Last Dragonborn.

Ni faas: lit. no fear. No worries/it’s fine.

Pruzah: Good.

Sikgolt: lit. rune place. Library.

Niid: No.

Zu’u losiil: I am (emphatic) yours.

Wuth: Old.

Diist Dovahkiin: First Dragonborn.

Faaz: lit. (you cause) pain. You’re hurting me.

Saraan: Wait.

Aaz: Mercy.

Los ahraan: (You) are wound(ed).

Mul Qah: Strength Armour (Dragon Aspect Shout)

Zu tiid: I (have had) time.

Morah: Meditate/think deeply (upon it).

Zu laan aam hi: lit. I want to serve you.

Zu mindok: I know.

Rul laan: When (you) want.

Fah hi: For you.

Zu’u aam hi unslaad, rii se dii zii: I serve you forever/ceaselessly, essence/soul of my spirit/soul.

@argisthebulwark as promised.

[snelbz]

Lost Time {18}

Summary: It’s been four years since Azriel ran away from Velaris and left behind everyone he ever loved  — including the girl left standing at the altar. Now, he’s back home, but can he try and pick up the broken pieces of his life, or has there been too much lost time?

@snelbz​ / @tacmc​ collab

Lost Time Masterlist

Fanfiction Masterlist

My Ask Box

Azriel sat in silence in Cassian’s living room, both he and Rhysand staring at him, unblinking. Azriel was doing nothing, just letting them take in the information as he slowly sipped his steaming cup of black coffee.

It was a pleasant morning, sunny and cloud-free, warm. Azriel was exhausted, though. He hadn’t slept a wink. Every time he closed his eyes, all he could think about was Ianthe and the texts she had sent, the words haunting him.

She was in town.

In his hometown.

And she wasn’t leaving him alone.

After he woke up that morning, he got Novan ready to go and brought him over to Cassian’s after Elain had left for work.

After his second cup of coffee, he had told his brothers the entire story of Ianthe, the parts they hadn’t already known, then confessed about her texts, and the fact that Elain knew absolutely nothing about it.

Which he both felt equally confident and guilty about.

“So, let me get this straight,” Cassian said, at last. “Your ex, who is a model, and a little bit of a stalker, is in town, and hasn’t stopped texting you since last night…and you haven’t mentioned any of this to Elain. Your wife.”

Azriel nodded, watching as Novan chased the kitten up the stairs.

“And this Ianthe also got into it with you when you were in New York getting your stuff,” Rhysand followed. “Which Elain also doesn’t know about.”

Azriel gave them both an exasperated, pointed look. “Obviously you have all the facts, alright? Now, what do I do? Elain’s pregnant, tired, and sick. I don’t want to tell her about it if it’s nothing, she has enough going on, but I can never tell with Ianthe, I never know what she’ll do. She’s not the type that exactly takes no for an answer.”

“Clearly,” Cassian muttered, reaching for his coffee, and Azriel glowered.

“No, no,” Rhys said, stopping Az from giving Cassian a smartass remark. “That’s his thinking voice.”

Azriel glanced at Rhys and then at Cass and found him still holding his coffee cup. They sat in silence for a moment, the only sound Novan’s feet chasing the small ball of fur through the house.

“Just the texts and calls so far?” He finally asked, looking up at Az. He nodded in confirmation. Cassian shrugged. “I can’t do anything until she makes a physical unwanted advance on you or Elain in Velaris. And back in New York, did anything…happen? Did you make her a promise or anything?”

“Like, the last time I saw her?” Az asked. “Or before that?”

He had to admit, Azriel didn’t like the way Cassian’s eyebrows rose at that question. “Let’s start with last time and then explain before that.” With a sigh, Azriel ran through that last night one more time, remembering the rage in Ianthe’s bright eyes well. “Okay,” Cass continued. “Now…before that?”

Azriel sighed and hung his head. “I may have told her on a few, drunk occasions that I thought marriage was a sham and that with enough persuasion, I’d …” He groaned and dragged his hands down his face.”I’d always be down for a quick ride.”

Both of his brothers stared at him, and then Cassian asked, quietly for the sake of little ears, “Are you fucking kidding me?”

Azriel set down his mug before rubbing his temples. “Look, marriage wasn’t really my favorite topic throughout the years, alright? So, excuse me if in my miserable drunken state that I said bitter shit I didn’t mean.”

“That miserable shit is going to be what gets you in trouble,” Cassian said, staring his younger brother down. “You need to talk to Elain.”

Azriel scoffed. “And tell her that? No, I don’t think so.”

“Az,” Rhysand began, shaking his head, slowly. “I get the drunken shit, okay? But, that’s going to be what she uses to get her way.”

“I know, I know,” Azriel groaned.

“Ianthe seems like a piece of work,” Cassian said, leaning back and rubbing his eyes with his thumb and forefinger.

A little head peeked over the railing of the banister and they heard “Uncle Cass?”

They all glanced up as Cassian asked “Yeah, buddy?”

“How do I get power rangers on the tv?”

“I’ll be right back,” he muttered, jogging up the stairs.

Azriel sighed and took a drink of his coffee. “I need something stronger than this.”

“Apparently you don’t,” Rhys mumbled, taking a sip of his own. He set the mug back on the side table beside him. “Especially if you make stupid, fucking promises when you’re drunk.”

Az glowered at him, not saying anything, just throwing his brother a vulgar gesture. He finally sighed and said, “Things were pretty bad for me for a while. Didn’t really feel anything. Just took pictures and lived my life. It’s probably why my shots were so good.” He laughed, but Rhysand could tell there was no humor in the sound. “I could only see and feel emotion through my camera lens. I was numb to my own, so I…captured other people’s. And just continued to ignore my own.”

It took Rhysand a moment to say anything else, but when he did, his voice was soft. “I get it. Try not to worry about it, yeah? Just…talk to Elain when she gets home so that she’s aware, and prepared, but don’t stress out about it until something happens. And hopefully nothing will happen.”

Azriel nibbled on his lip for a second before nodding. “No, yeah, you’re right.”

And yet, he felt a heavy sense of dread in the pit of his stomach as each word left his mouth.

* * * * * *

Working the day after she got married wasn't exactly how Elain had planned things, but things hadn’t exactly gone according to plan for most of her life.

Not that she was complaining, she loved her complicated life and wouldn’t trade it for anything.

She smiled at the couple who’d brought a family heirloom in, an old dresser that belonged to his grandmother. She hesitated before saying, “I can handle the refurbishment, but I’ll let you know now, my turn around is a little slower than it used to be.” She tucked a hand under her small bump and explained, “I’m a few days shy of three months pregnant, and my husband is looking for a well-ventilated workshop for me-.”

“It’s no rush,” the woman - Claire, she’d written on her order form - smiled, and looked up at her husband. “It’s actually for our baby’s nursery. I’m fourteen weeks.”

Elain’s smile was genuine as she said, “Congratulations! Okay, that gives me a little bit of time.”

After finishing up with the sweet couple and with some help, Elain had moved the dresser by the door to have Az load up and take home after work. Leaning against her desk, Elain stared at her reflection in one of the elegant full length mirrors that she’d salvaged from an old manor house and wrapped a hand under her belly again. She dialed Nesta’s number and waited as it rang.

“Hello?” Nesta asked.

“Do twins run in our family?” Elain asked, not even replying to her sister’s greeting.

“I- What?”

“Do we have the twin gene?” She asked again. “It’s not like we can trace Az back, so do you know if we have twins anywhere in our family?”

The other line was quiet for a suspicious amount of time. “Why?”

“Because I just had a customer who’s fourteen weeks pregnant, which is only a couple weeks farther than me, and I look drastically bigger than her.”

Nesta was quiet for a minute, then she said, “After Miryam and I were joking about it, I decided to do some digging into our family history. It turns out that Mom’s brothers are twins. They live down south, if I remember right. They and Mom never got along. I think the last time we saw them, you were just a baby-.”

“Nesta,” Elain interrupted, recalling she and Azriel’s previous conversation about twins. Elain had been joking, too, for the most part, then. They hadn’t been too close to their mother’s family, but she figured Nesta would have known. “What if I’m having twins?”

“What if you are?” Nesta repeated, and Elain rolled her eyes.

“If I am, Azriel will surely freak the hell out,” Elain mumbled, plopping down in an old wooden chair.

“Just means my baby gets two besties instead of one,” Nesta chuckled and Elain knew she was doing the exact same thing she was, rubbing soothing circles into her belly.

She smiled and changed the subject, asking, “When are you going to tell us what you’re having?”

The sigh that left Nesta would have made a soap star proud. “Whenever I find out, you’ll find out. Cassian is looking for the perfect gender reveal. He takes the damn envelope with him everywhere he goes because he knows I’ll look otherwise.”

Elain paused. “Has he looked? I can have Donovan ask, you know he’d tell-.”

“No, it’s still sealed,” she sighed. “I told him he has until next week to find something or I’m taking it to Viv’s bakery.”

The bell above the door jingled, alerting Elain of a new customer and she said, “I’ve got someone coming in, but let me know and I can drop it off on my way into work, okay?”

“Okay, I love you,” Nesta said, and Elain could hear her getting back up to go back to work as well. “Call Yrene. See if she can set up another scan. Find me another niece in there.”

Elain was laughing as she tried to see out of the back office. “And how do you know it’s a girl in the first place?”

“I have a hunch,” she replied, simply, then hung up.

With a roll of her eyes, and a small smile, Elain was up on her feet.

There was a tall, slender woman with long, blonde hair and some of the most beautiful eyes Elain had ever seen. She was eyeing an old, vintage floor length mirror that Elain had already refinished. She had been hoping that no one bought it because she was so in love with it that she wanted it in the corner of her bedroom.

“Hi,” Elain said, once she had approached, her smile bright. “Can I help you with anything?”

The woman met Elain’s eye with a smile. “Yes, actually. I’m looking for a gift.”

“I can certainly help with that,” she smiled. “Are we looking for something in particular?”

The woman glanced around the store. “Not really. It’s- it’s sort of complicated.”

“Okay,” Elain said, confused by the hesitation in the girl’s words. “Who’s it for?”

“The love of my life.” There was no hesitation this time and Elain smiled at her. “He’s an old soul. And I just got into town, I don’t know the area. So I just…ended up here.”

She nodded, knowing she hadn’t seen the beauty around before. It was a small town. “Who is he?” She saw the hesitation on her face and realized that just because she was in a small town, she might not be used to how nosy small town folks could be. “I’m sorry, that was rude. Follow me,” Elain said, blushing.

She led her over to an old workbench she’d finished the week before. She’d been debating on taking it home for Azriel to store his spare lenses and bodies for his cameras.

“Oh, this is beautiful,” the woman said, and then she blushed. “I have an odd request.”

Elain blinked. “Okay?”

“May I...sit on it?” She asked.

“Sit on it?” Elain repeated.

She cleared her throat. “Yes, I’d like to have some pictures taken with it.”

Elain blinked but said, “That shouldn’t be a problem. It’s quite sturdy.” The woman hopped up, pulling a foot up and planted it on the surface. Clearing her throat and looking away, Elain asked, “Are you a model?”

The woman’s eyes snapped to Elain’s. “Why?”

“You’re very pretty,” she laughed, meaning her words. “That and the pictures.”

“Ah,” the woman smiled. “Yes, I am. And thank you, that’s kind of you to say. You’re very pretty, too.”

Elain’s cheeks turned pink. “Thank you.”

“You’re pregnant, I see?” she asked, glancing down at Elain’s hand that rested on her stomach.

“I am,” Elain said, nodding.

“Congrats,” she said, her smile radiant. “And the father? He loves you?”

Elain’s heart softened. “Very much so. He’s….well, he’s my soulmate.”

“Soulmate,” the woman repeated. “I want to know what that’s like.” She looked back down at the bench. After a moment, she fished her phone out of her leather satchel and held it out to Elain. “A picture? Would you mind?”

“Of course not,” Elain said, taking the phone from the model’s hand and snapping a few pictures as she posed. Elain nearly felt awkward. It wasn’t everyday that she photographed models on her refinished antique furniture.

Azriel would get a kick out of it when she told him after work.

The girl hopped down and took her phone from Elain’s outstretched hand. She looked down at her phone, smiling and approving of the pictures. “Thank you, do you mind if I look around for a minute? Everything is so beautiful.”

“Of course not, please,” Elain said, smiling. She gestured towards the back of the store. “I’ll be in my office, but my name is Elain. Just holler if you need me.”

The girl smiled, slipping her phone back in her pocket and said nothing else. Something in her gaze though, it suddenly unnerved Elain and she turned and was nearly back to her office when she heard, “Thank you, Elain.”

A moment later, Elain heard the bell above the door announce her exit.

* * * * * *

Azriel had just dropped Novan off with Miryam. She was going to bring him to the zoo for a grandparent’s day, which Azriel was pretty bitter that he couldn’t go with.

It’s a Meme/Novan thing, Miryam had explained.

Azriel wasn’t going to argue by saying how much he loved seeing the giraffes.

Even though it was true.

He thought he’d try to scope out some landmarks, though, see what he could photograph in the little town of Velaris, before he went home and edited some stuff he had to send in.

But then, his phone chimed.

It was Ianthe, of course, but that wasn’t what had him slamming on his brakes.

Ianthe was sitting on an antique bench that had been refinished in a shop that Azriel knew all too well.

After pulling a very dangerous u-turn, resulting in a vulgar gesture from the minivan he’d accidentally cut off, he turned around and sped back into town, toward Elain’s shop. He cursed every time he got stopped at a redlight, which was far too often.

He didn’t see any cars in the small lot and knew that Elain parked in the back, but it didn’t stop him from pulling crookedly into the first spot he reached and rushing inside. Azriel hurried straight to Elain’s office and found her sitting at her desk, a forkful of salad in her mouth. Her eyes were wide in surprise, a bit of green hanging between her lips.

“Are you okay?” Azriel asked, breathless.

Elain’s eyebrows raised and she covered her mouth as she chewed, her other hand instinctively covering her stomach. “Yes? I mean, I think so,” she said, once she had chewed and swallowed her lunch. “What are you doing here, baby?”

Azriel glanced over his shoulder and saw that no one was in the shop. He hurried back to the door, flipping the open sign to closed, and locked the door.

“What are you doing?” She asked, voice slightly panicked as she left the back office.

He didn’t answer, just walked towards her and rested his hands on her hips, one of his thumbs gently brushing over her belly. “We need to talk.”

Elain blinked, staring at him as if he had gone mad. “Okay…”

“There was a woman in here today,” he began, trying to slow his words, realizing how panicked he sounded. “Blonde, tall-.”

“What, the model?” she asked.

So they had a conversation, Azriel thought, as he closed his eyes and sighed. “Yes. She’s… She’s my ex, El. She’s here from New York, and I don’t know why.”

Elain continued to stare at him for a minute, trying to register his confession. “What?”

“She’s my ex. The…one I had been with, after you.” His words were soft, ashamed. “She…texted me last night, saying she was in town.”

Elain was blinking, shaking her head, trying to process what he was telling her. “How do you even—. She said she was here to—.” Her eyes widened and she smacked him in the chest. “Oh, my god, those pictures were for you!”

He raised his hands in surrender, but could tell she wasn’t angry with him, thank the Cauldron, just taken off guard. “Apparently, so. But I didn’t ask for them.” He took her hands in his, turning her wedding band over as he spoke. “This is what I said I wanted to talk about earlier.”

Elain’s eyes slipped closed and she nodded, recalling his text from that morning. Reopening her eyes, she said, “I understand why you wanted to have this talk in person now.”

He smiled, but she could tell he was worried. “And until Donovan was in bed.”

She nodded and wrapped her arms around him. “Why didn’t you tell me last night?”

Azriel looked away from her, at the floor, at his shoes. At first, he didn’t know what to say. There was no real excuse, no real reason to keep something from his wife. “I was ashamed. Embarrassed. Lainy, the years we spent apart… I’m not proud of them, you know? A lot went on, and I hate it all. Unfortunately, Ianthe was a part of that time we spent apart, and now it’s coming back to haunt me.”

Elain nodded, although she nibbled on her lip.

“You’re thinking of something,” he whispered. “What are you thinking?”

“That my husband has some creepish girl that’s in love with him following him around,” she whispered, her words rushed. “And… I don’t know. She’s here. Around you. Me. Our son, our family, Azriel.”

“I know,” he said, shaking his head. “She won’t hurt us though, okay? She’s harmless.”

“Is that why you hurried here once you found out she came to the shop?” Elain asked, exasperated. He could see the fear in her eyes, how shaken this had her.

He was still shaking his head, but he dropped his forehead to hers. “I rushed here because I fucked up in not telling you last night and she’s manipulative enough to say something.”

Elain scoffed and said, “She’s got some pretty big balls if she came in here and had your wife take pictures to send to you.”

Azriel chuckled and said, “You’re right. But just—.” He sighed. “Promise me you’ll be careful, okay? Keep an eye on your surroundings.” As her eyes widened, he added, “I don’t think she would do anything, but I’m going to worry until she leaves town. I can keep Novan with me, I can keep an eye on him. But you two,” his eyes softened as he gently caressed her belly. “I can’t always be with you. And I need both of you safe.”

Elain’s eyes lined with silver and she said, “I love you. It doesn’t matter that she’s here. What matters is that we have each other.”

“Exactly,” he breathed, leaning down to kiss her softly. He leaned back and gazed down at her. “Gods, you’re beautiful. Didn’t you say there was something you needed to talk to me about, too?”

Elain was beaming up at him, but she blinked, registering what he’d said. “Yes, sorry. You distracted me and made me cry.”

With a chuckle, Azriel kissed her forehead and walked them back to her office. He sat down in her chair, and pulled her into his lap. “Here, eat and talk. I’m not turning that sign back around until you’ve eaten and are full.”

With an eyebrow raised, Elain asked, “Of your cock?”

Azriel choked on air and when he glanced at her, he found her cheeks red. “I know what’s on your mind today. I’ll remember that later,” he said, squeezing her ass softly. “Now what were you going to talk to me about?”

Elain could feel how hard he’d become, but she did as she was told and resumed her lunch. Before taking a bite, she said, “I’m going back to see Yrene tomorrow at nine.”

Azriel tensed. “Why?”

Elain shrugged. “Just another ultrasound.”

Azriel nodded. “Should I go with you?”

“You can, if you want,” she said, softly. “But, it’s just to be sure…”

There was a moment of silence before Azriel asked, “Sure of?”

“To be sure of how many babies are in here,” Elain said, quietly, holding onto her stomach.

Azriel stared at her, blinking. “You really think it’s twins? I thought you were joking.”

“I feel like I’m so much bigger than I should be, Az,” she breathed. “I’m not saying it’s for sure, but… It’s a possibility.”

Azriel took a deep breath and nodded. “And, if it is twins?”

Elain looked up at him. “If it is?”

Azriel laughed, quietly. “Elain, any child I can have with you is a blessing,” he whispered. “One baby, two, three… I just want to grow our family.”

Elain’s eyes were tearing up. “Three though? That’s a little much.”

Azriel chuckled. “I’m just saying… However many babies are in there, Lainy, I’m going to be so grateful.” She started to cry again, but ate her salad, and Azriel laughed. He kissed her shoulder and said, “I love you, you emotional, basket case.”

She stabbed another bite and muttered, “I love you, too.”

* * * * * *

The scene was so sweet, that even from the coffee shop in the square, Ianthe could see the couple lovingly embrace, and her pale eyebrow arched.

She hadn’t lied earlier, Azriel’s wife was very pretty. She was also very much pregnant. She hadn’t expected that. But she hadn’t thought that Azriel was serious when he’d said he’d had a son, until she took to social media and discovered she was blocked on every platform she had. After creating bogus account after bogus account, he finally accepted one of her follow requests and she came face to face with a picture of a little boy, who was the spitting image of him all over his personal Instagram, his Facebook, everything.

So he apparently had another on the way, it changed nothing. She came here for one reason and that was to bring Azriel back home. Clearly, he had no issue leaving who ever this Elain was while she was pregnant once before. She’d just have to convince him to do it again. Her lips curved upwards slightly as she took a drink from the white mug.

Azriel kissed his wife, softly, as they snuggled into his chair as she sipped her coffee.

He had confessed to her years ago that marriage meant little to nothing to him. In fact, he had proven his devotion to Ianthe over and over again throughout the years. Late at night, early in the morning, between shoots. They had seen each other naked too many times throughout the years for him to just disappear without a trace, saying he was married with kids.

It was bullshit.

Where did this woman even come from? Azriel had said very little about his past through the years, about the women he had dated before. All she knew was that he hadn’t seen anyone, at least not seriously, throughout the time she’d known him. Then, he comes home for a funeral, is gone for hardly any time at all, and comes back to New York, rejects her, and has a wife, a kid, and another on the way?

Something didn’t seem right.

She had come here for a job, that much was true. The modeling shoot had lasted less than a day and when the agency asked when to book her flight back, she told them she’d pay for her own flight, as she didn’t intend to return yet.

Because she wouldn’t be returning alone.

[bellatrixobsessed1]

From Chin To Yon Rah (Part 26)

She wonders why it is that a night of great joy and serenity is always followed by one of anger or depressive overtones. The greater the fun, the deeper the sorrow. Perhaps fortune works in staima and she is fast to burn through it. Perhaps she needs to tread more carefully; make her wonderful days less wonderful so that her dismal days can be more bearable.

This time it is a greater, more profound sense of loneliness in the wake of so much and so pleasant company. That clatter of silverware is replaced by a clatter of items when the ship bobs the wrong way. The sound of pipa music and Hao-Bai’s humming has been replaced by the sound of ship boards creaking and the lively banter is replaced by the crashing of waves.

Azula feels like she will go mad; alone with her thoughts and with nothing to keep her entertained. Her days have grown as agonizingly monotonous as the scenery; blue sky and blue water, each wave the same as the next. There is nothing to watch, every now and then she sees a fin or two but they are never there long enough to cut through the boredom. At any rate, she doesn’t like staring at the open water for extended periods of time. It is too yawing, too expansive, too unclear and unpredictable. She no longer knows if she is talking about the sea or her own future once she leaves the ocean’s grasp.

She spends most of her days in her cabin, hands clasped over her belly, head propped up, and staring at the ceiling. Every now and then her cabinmate will pop in. The girl is just as quiet and private as she. Mostly they just exist in the same space.

Every now and then the girl will greet her with a good morning and Azula will nod. Rarely they exchange words and when they do it is mostly during bouts of bad weather when the ship seems fragile. When conversation with a stranger is less daunting than whatever is raging on deck.

Today she is alone with her thoughts. Unsurprisingly, that is worse than the storm.

Today she can’t bring herself to get up and get breakfast. Today she regrets having survived. There were plenty of good people in Wujing, people who have never hurt a soul and never would have. She is not one of them. Perhaps she is alive because she is a bad person; she thinks that the world has been made for bad people. That most of the time good people don’t last--they are too pure for the sick games and evils of the world.

She drapes her arm over her eyes. She wishes that Hajime were here to convince her otherwise. She rolls onto her side and curls herself up. She wishes that she were a good person so she could be with them.

She wishes that she could think well of herself on her own. Deep down she thinks that she knows that she isn’t so horrible as she sometimes feels. But right now she can only seem to think on the surface level. She is so terribly tired.

That day she learns to savor the unexpected.

.oOo.

He should be used to her shifting moods by now, used to the bouts of self-doubt and uncertainty. Granted she has been handling things quite well up until this point. He is almost certain that she has been hiding the tempest within for the sake of Caihong.

She’s a hyper child, prone to rude and blunt remarks but she is a good kid. TyLee adores the girl and Mai keeps her distance. Azula often carries her around on her shoulders.Even so, he can tell that a part of her breaks away each time the girl shouts ‘Rikka’ instead of ‘Azula’ or ‘princess.’  

He is certain that that is only a small fragment of her distress. He watches her tuck Caihong in again. The only person who finds it harder to grow accustomed to than he is Zuko. She has been tucking the girl in for only three days now, so he supposes that he hasn’t exactly had enough time to get used to it.

She brushes Caihong’s hair back and tucks the badgermole under her arm. And when she turns around he can see that she is thoroughly exhausted.

“What’s wrong?”

He watches the wheels turn in her mind before she finally answers, “me. There’s something wrong with me.”

Sokka furrows his brows, “Azula, what are you talking about?”

She leads him out of the room and closes the door behind her. Leaning heavily against it, she replies. “Why can’t I just be a good person?”

His expression only becomes that much more quizzical--she has been nothing but delicate and loving with the child.

“You just saved Caihong from a slave trader. Correct me if I’m wrong, but that’s a really good thing.” He can’t help but wonder if Hajime had ever had to have this talk with her. “You’ve been…”

“I was going to kill him, Sokka. He’s only alive because Caihong was watching.”

“Well maybe he deserved to die.” Sokka shrugs.

“What?”

“He sells and trades children. What kind of person does that.”

Azula shrugs. “What kind of person kidnaps children and tries to kill their own mother?” “The kind of person who is raised on war and hurting on the inside?” He shrugs.

.oOo.

And that’s just the problem. She has been raised on war and she can’t shake what it has warped her into. It’s always there and itching for a chance to come out. And, spirits, if that man hadn’t given it a reason to come out.

“I can’t get rid of it, Sokka.” She isn’t staring at him but rather at the floor.

“What can’t you get rid of?”

She rubs her lips together as she tries to piece together exactly what she wants to be rid of. At first she thinks that it is anger or hatred, but she isn’t angry anymore. She is only sad. Sad and haunted. “I don’t want to be a soldier anymore.” She loves the battle but she doesn’t want to fight. She doesn’t want to love the battle. She doesn’t want to be at war with her own mind anymore either.

Sokka wraps his arms around her. “Are you a soldier or a guardian? There’s a difference between a soldier and a guardian, Azula.”

“And what’s that?” she murmurs.

“A soldier fights for glory and pride--sometimes to protect people they love--with a guardian it’s pure love.”

“I’m not a loving person…”

She has never seen the man look so skeptical. “Do you even pay attention to how you interact with Caihong?”

She nods.

“You’re a loving person.” He swears. “You just have your own, prickly way of doing it.” He gives her a small squeeze.

“That doesn’t mean that I’m…” She gestures to her head, “that there isn’t something wrong with me. It doesn’t mean that I’m not fully capable of killing someone.”

“But it does mean that you have people that you love enough to kill for.”

“I wanted him to suffer.” And she is certain that she would want the man who’d killed Hajime and Atsu to suffer as well. The anger might have faded but the hatred is still there. There and waiting to flare up once more. There and thrice as deadly as the anger.

He holds his silence for a very long time. Long enough for her to begin to speculate that he is disgusted with her and is trying to find a way to put it diplomatically. “I killed someone before.”

She furrows her brows. “What?”

“I killed someone before. Your brother sent an assassin after us--he could explode things with his mind. He almost killed Katara so I threw my boomerang at him and…” He cringes. “I guess I hit the right spot at the wrong time. He...uh...he ended up exploding himself.” He stops messaging her arms. “Do you think that I’m an evil person?”

She shakes her head. “You did what you had to do.”

He spins her around to face him and carefully tilts her chin up. “Then why are you evil for doing what you have to do?”

“I…” she trails off. She doesn’t think herself to be an illogical person. So exactly how can she refute logic that is quite impeccable. “I didn’t have to kill him…”

“So you didn’t. It doesn’t matter if you wanted to, you decided not to.” He pauses again. “Katara wanted to kill…” for some reason he chuckles. “She wanted to kill a man named Yon Rah.”

Azula can’t help but roll her eyes.

“He killed our mom and so she almost killed him. Do you think that Katara is…”

“No, Sokka. She’s not a bad person.” Frankly, next to TyLee, she has to be one of the most morally sound of the bunch.

He squeezes her hands. “Neither are you. You’re more like us than your father or Zhao or any of them.”

“I could have been.” She mutters.

“But you aren’t. And you’ve had a whole lot of chances to be like them.” He ruffles her hair. “Can you stop calling yourself a bad person now?”

Azula sighs, “for now.” Until her demons return to tussle with her another day. Until the pieces in her mind align the wrong way again. But for the time being, his logic makes sense. For the time being, it is rather obvious that she is, at the very least, a decent person. “Good night, Sokka.” She places her hand on the doorknob.

He smiles, “good night.” He accents his words with a small kiss and another hand squeeze.

She turns the knob and makes herself comfortable next to Caihong. The girl grumbles something and scootches closer, bunching her little fists around the fabric of Azula’s robe. She isn’t a bad person. A bad person would have left the girl to her fate. A bad person would have never talked to the child at all.

Sometimes she needs reminders. Sometimes she needs to be fought with to be reminded. Most of the time, the reminders last for a good long while.  

[leonthecardboardunicorn]

The Oracle Prince, Chapter 6

Pairing: Viggo/Liz

Summary: We’ve found the gems of the Dragonkin, but now Hawkeye has their eye on the treasures of the noble families. The Foundation Day royal ball seems like the perfect time. Luckily, we have the help of the crown prince- Viggo?!

First: Chapter 1

Previous: Chapter 5

Over the next few days, we continued looking through the royal archives, searching for families affiliated with wind and water. To my surprise, a familiar name kept coming up again and again.

"Who knew that the royal family would be so gifted with water magic?" I asked. "It looks like it goes back as far as I can tell."

Viggo looked over my shoulder. He was so close that it sent my heart racing. "My grandfather was said to be particularly gifted at it."

I tried to compose myself. "I-is that where you got your mist magic from?" I asked. Viggo nodded.

"Dad was said to have been able to use something similar. Doesn't use it much now though."

"Then it's entirely possible that the royal family had the gem of water? I mean, it would make sense they'd keep one for themselves." Caesar sighed. "They must have a million jewels to look through though.."

Viggo sighed, leaning back in his chair. "Finding them wouldn't be the difficult part. The treasures of the royal family are kept in a vault, hidden away in a city. But they're all under such heavy guard that even I wouldn't be able to get to them."

I noticed Luca had been silent, staring off into space. "Not all of them.."

By the time we left the library, it was late enough that few souls would be up. Only Viggo, Luca, and I were left.

"Come on," Viggo said, "I'll walk you back to your room."

"Thank you."

Luca stopped him. "Actually, Viggo, I wanted to ask you something. About the gem of water."

Viggo sighed. "I already told you, all of the treasures of the royal family are under lock and key-"

"I know. All except one." Luca smirked. He brushed back his hair, revealing his earring- the treasure of Princess Aulelia.

Viggo went as pale as a ghost. "That was- How did you..?"

"I am Aulelia's son." He paused, then he smiled. "My name is Luciano Ordeous Gedonelune. Long ago, I was hidden away from the royal family, to save my own life- and then hidden away at the academy. The only token I had left of her was this earring."

"You are-" Viggo's eyes widened, at a loss for words.

Luca laughed, relishing finally being able to tell the truth, even if it was just to one. "How funny would it be if I was the one who had the gem? Not the pampered prince within his castle walls, but the son who was cast aside?"

Viggo's expression turned cold, his voice like ice. "So what do you want then?" he asked. "Do you think you'll come in here, tell my dad who you are, and become the new heir? Be beloved by the family, by the kingdom?"

"You can have it, if you want." Viggo smiled, but there was no warmth. "My title, my power, and all the crap that comes with it. You have no idea what it's like! They'd eat you up alive!"

"Oh, really? It looks so easy when you do it." He lunged towards Viggo, grabbing his collar. "You always do whatever you want, cause there's no consequences for you! What I'd give to live in this cozy palace, with your cozy guards, and the family that I never had! I never even had a chance!"

Viggo laughed. "That's rich. You coast by without a care in the world.  Not a responsibility to your name. Free to use people as you like. You're no better than the rest of them."

"Guys, guys!" I ran between them, pulling them apart. "Please stop this, you shouldn't be fighting like this!"

Viggo turned away, brushing past Luca. "I'm out of here."

"Viggo, wait!"

I caught up to him in the gardens. I thought he'd be in a rage or he'd be fuming. But he didn't look angry at all. He just looked.. exhausted, quietly staring up at the moon.

I approached him cautiously. "Viggo?"

He didn't look up at me. "Who'd have thought," he murmured, "all of this time, there was another royal out there, living freely at the academy. No guardians to drag him around, no nobles to come after him. I can't figure out why he'd want to give that all up."

"Luca is.." I sat down beside him, fumbling with my words. "I know he seems carefree, but he hasn't always had it easy. He's had to go through a lot too."

"Figures. If he's Aulelia's son, must be a story there."

"Viggo," I asked carefully, "how much did you know about your aunt?"

He looked off in thought, then sighed. "Not much; she died before I was born. Dad would sometimes tell stories about her, but.. even he didn't seem to know that much about her."

"Huh? How is that possible if they were siblings?"

"They were raised under separate roofs, with different guardians. To 'protect the heirs'." He sighed. "If I had had a sibling, we would have been raised the same way. Even as adults, she was sent away one day- and never came back."

My heart dropped. "I can't imagine living like that.."

"It's the tradition of the royal family. That's way Dad had me raised the same way. Nothing I could do to change it. Or any of the other rules. Between the constant rules and constant visions, my life's always been chosen for me."

My heart broke for him. "Have you ever.. thought about what it would be like if you weren't a prince?"

He was quiet for a moment. "..I guess I came close to it at the academy. Nobody knew who I was. For the first time, I wasn't a prince." He smiled. "I was just a punk getting into trouble."

"That must have been a relief for you."

"It was." His eyes darkened. "But then the Oxfords decided to reveal my identity. Even got Dad to agree. Said it was time. Then there was nowhere I could hide. They all feared me or wanted to use me again. The academy became a prison."

'The academy became a prison..' Seems like I'd heard those words from someone else before. "You know, I think you and Luca are more alike than either of you think."

"What?"

“You're both stubborn. You're both smart when you want to be. You're both troublemakers- goodness knows you've both ended up in the detention chamber enough." I didn't miss the slight smile at that. "And you're both trying to escape.

“There may be some things you can't change. You can't change that you're a prince, and I don't know if you can change your father. But.. you have a chance to form a bond with perhaps the one person in the world who can understand what you're going through. That is something that you can change, if you want to.”

"Something I can change?" I wondered what I heard in his voice.

"Your Highness." The familiar voice broke through my thoughts.

"Headmaster? What are you doing here?"

"I had some business to attend to with the king," Schuyler said coolly. "He asked me to come get you, Your Highness; he has something to ask you."

"..Right." He sighed as he got up. "I'll talk to you later, Liz-"

"Wait." He turned back. It hadn't felt like my place to explain Luca's story, but here was the one person who could. "Ask Schuyler about what you learned tonight. Have him tell you everything. He can explain things better than I can."

Viggo was quiet for a moment, and then he nodded. "..Fine."

By the time we met the next morning, the whole castle with buzzing with news of the next festivities.

A royal tournament. Anyone of noble blood would be invited to participate- and it was said the winner would receive a fantastic prize.

Once again, Luca waited until the others were gone, until it was just the three of us left lingering in the hall.

"A tournament sounds like a lot of fun," Luca said. "I bet everyone's waiting for a chance to fight the famous oracle prince." He grinned." Maybe I'll join. After all, they said anyone of noble blood could participate."

"Why wait?" I saw Viggo draw out his pipe. "We could go to the tournament hall and have a fight right now."

Luca didn't hesitate. "Sounds like fun. Show me the way."

"Viggo!"

Viggo smirked. "Don't worry. This might be the best way to settle things. Get all the aggression out, you know?"

They were both determined to do this. "..Fine. But if this starts getting too bad, I'm going to break it up. No matter what, all right?"

“Follow me.”

Viggo led us down a strange path. “Where are we? I've never been down here before.”

“A secret path to the tournament hall,” Viggo said without looking over his shoulder. “Only the royals and the ones they trust most know about it.”

“How kind of you,” Luca muttered.

My heart was in my throat as we entered the tournament hall. Right then, it seemed barren, but I could see how it would be grand in the light of day.

Viggo and Luca took their places on the opposite sides of the stage, each drawing their wands. I could see certainty in their eyes.

I settled into my seat, pulling Shu close to my chest.

'Please, let everything be all right..'

Viggo nodded. "Your move."

"Flau!" Luca chanted his spell, flames pouring out of his wand.

"Watch out!"

Viggo spun his pipe, releasing a barrier of mist. With a swing, his fist knocked into Luca, but Luca quickly blocked it.

"Not bad."

"I've heard about your tricks. I'm tougher than that." He smiled as he raised his wand. "Let's see how you handle this. Globus!"

The battle seemed to drag on, as they traded blow after blow. No matter how many hits they took, they both got to their feet again, refusing to give up.

"Pugnus Tempestus!" Luca nimbly dodged Viggo's fist of mist- only for Viggo's actual fist to crash into his face, sending him to the ground.

Luca struggled to his knees. "Urgh.. You really are as strong as they say."

"You're not so bad yourself. Come on." To my surprise, Viggo offered his hand, helping Luca to his feet. Luca accepted it. "..That would have been a perfect time to strike."

"Like I would do that." Luca laughed a little. "..I do feel a little better."

I let out a sigh of relief as I watched them, like a pressure had been lifted from my chest. It was like all their tension had been released in their fight.

"The Headmaster told me what you went through. About the tower and all." Luca nodded. "Sounds like you had it rough."

Luca looked away. "..I got my freedom. Eventually."

Seeing that their fight was over, I finally came over to the two of them. "I'm glad to see you're all right."

"Told you. Needed to get it out of our systems." I sighed.

Finally, Luca asked, "..Are you really going to participate in the tournament? Seems awfully compliant of you."

"Someone told me that I needed to bide my time until the time was right." My heart warmed as I heard his words. His voice was firm. "And I think you could help me find it. I could use someone good at gathering information. Someone unknown to the enemy."

Luca nodded. "Well, that's what I'm good at. I'll do what you need."

Viggo smirked. "Just one thing left to do."

My heart caught in my throat as Felix held out his hands over Luca's earring, his horns starting to glow.

'This is it. If this is the gem of water, that'll make four gems.'

But when the light faded, Felix shook his head. "This has a strong presence, but it's not the gem of water."

Luca sighed as he took the earring back. "Figures."

"Where did you get it, anyway?" Felix asked.

"It's an artifact of the royal family." Luca caught himself. "There's a reason that I have it, of course-"

“..I don't really care." Felix turned away. "Call me if you find anything else."

"Cheer up," Viggo said. "Just because it's not the gem doesn't make it less important. Or you any less of a royal."

"Thank you."

My heart warmed as I watched the two of them. After all that fear, it looked like things were going to get better for the two of them.

But we were still left looking for the gems. Although we would soon find one was closer than we thought..

Elias: Well, that was not the way that I expected Luca's secret to come out.

Klaus: You knew?

Elias: Oh, yeah, I've known for quite a while. There was an incident with sneaking into the Tower of Sorrow.. Oh, whoops.

Klaus: What?! Why was I not informed of this?

Elias: Well, you were very busy at the time! Or maybe you weren't around yet? For some reason, I can't remember.

Klaus: We'll talk about this later. But for now.. Next time, Stars.

[inactiive-shit]

In Perpetuum

Fandom: Sanders’ Sides

Title: In Perpetuum

Prompt: ghost story

Warnings: Deceit, mentioning murder/death/ptsd, I swear this is actually sweet

Pairings: romantic DLAMP

Words: 2,192

@sanderssidescelebrations​ yeehaw

They say that you can still hear his voice.

They say shades of purple and black move along walls when the sun goes down. They say stomping footsteps still go up and down the steps. They say shadows dance in windows when there is no light to cast them. They say the warnings are true. They say murder happened there, violently, and his spirit wants revenge. They say he waits for someone he once loved and mourns forever.

They say a lot of things. But the only way to parse the truth from decades of misinformation and rumors is to have been there.

 xxxxxxxxxxxxx 1950s xxxxxxxxxxxxx

 The man is wearing a skirt. Maybe that doesn’t strike you as odd, but it is. (Later, this would come to be a dress and make-up and heels, but he doesn’t know that yet.) The man is also wearing boots from a war zone he prefers not to remember. The man is, in fact, a soldier returned home from the Second World War just years prior. He is anxious, and he struggles, but he is lucky and mostly happy. (Later, this too would be distorted to extreme PTSD and anger and insanity, but that’s as far from the truth as you could feasibly be.) The man is sitting in the bright yellow kitchen watching another man cook breakfast. Also a strange occurrence given the time, but neither man has much of a mind for propriety.

The man cooking breakfast has never gone to war. His eyesight is too bad and he has epilepsy to boot. The government hadn’t wanted him, and he is more than fine with that. (Later, he would be distraught he couldn’t serve his country, torn apart by guilt at his in-action, but he hasn’t been told that yet.) He is making omelets because they are his favorite and the man sitting on the kitchen stool needs more healthy food. They can’t survive off chocolate, coffee, and cigarettes no matter how much they both may want to. (Later, this would translate to the dissention that plagued their house, the reason so many terrible things happened, but it’s not bothering anyone now.)

Upstairs, another man is sleeping in the master bedroom. He’s exhausted after a full night of working, but he will get up in a while to come to breakfast so he can see everyone else, and then he will go back to bed for tonight’s shift. (Later, he is the man the husband was cheating on his wife with. He is the reason the house is haunted. But he doesn’t know about all of that, and he’s pretty content where he is.) There is another man sitting at the desk in the master bedroom, writing quickly with minimal light glinting off his glasses so as not to wake his companion before he must. This man doesn’t really feel like a man, and while transgender was a word whispered only in gay bars and around campfires, that doesn’t really fit either. In fact, he doesn’t have the language to describe what he is, so for now he’s decided to stick with man. It is not unbearable. (Later, this gender dissonance will be the reason he was thrown out, the reason he was so alone. He’s never once felt alone, though.)

The last man in the house is smoking on the back porch, scratching absently at the eczema on his face. The flaky skin and heterochromia don’t really bother him anymore because he’s had years to come to terms with it. And in the army, it didn’t matter to anybody. They respected him once he proved himself, and nothing terrible ever came from it after that. (Later, the man’s face will be the reason people claim an inhuman creature descended on the house to bestow their untimely fates. Depending on who’s telling the story, though, he is the man the wife is cheating on her husband with.) He can smell the food cooking inside and he knows it will be done soon. He can’t wait to taste whatever his favorite cook has made this time.

“L?” the one is the skirt asks, eyes focused anywhere but the newspaper laying callously on the table. He hasn’t looked at one since he got sent home because the after-effects of the war and other forms of violence usually encompass the first page. He doesn’t like to be reminded of what he went through for a country that won’t let him exist. (Later, this is resentment and mental illness, rolled into one incurable ball of rage. It is not entirely wrong, though it is less rage than despair.)

“Yes?” the cooking one asks. (Later, the cook is the wife who cheats on her faithless husband. They will debate: can it be cheating if he did it first? There is no satisfactory answer.) In public, he would never accept being called anything but Mr. Abbott. He has the glasses and tie, the indisputable look of self-assured confidence on his face that keep anyone from questioning his decisions. It is a must in their society. (Later, he is called ‘stone-hearted bastard’ and ‘ice queen’, though many then thought the same of him. It is decidedly not true.) Here, he smiles at the other and sweeps the paper off the counter as he realizes his slip. He doesn’t want to hurt this man he loves so dearly with something so mindless.

“Should I go get the others…?” His question trails off like more words should follow. None are forthcoming, and the cook knows that his mind probably just stepped out for a moment. It’s unsettlingly common, but they haven’t found a way to help it yet.

“Yes, dear,” he says. “I think that would be best. The omelettes are almost done.” The once-soldier nods and heads up the stairs. He still walks with a kind of sharp precision he wishes he didn’t have; it is so different from the undisciplined kid he was when he left. He often wishes things hadn’t changed. More often he wouldn’t trade all his bad experiences that lead to this perfect present for the world. (Later, somehow, this is twisted into an unrecognizable shape, some malformed loathing for the people he lives with, the people who do not have those same awful memories. This has never been true. When he hears it, years down the line, he wants to score the walls with his anger at being so misremembered. He would not ask them to take these memories from him for anything.)

He knocks on the door to the master bedroom and sticks his head in. “Hello, sweetheart,” the one at the writing desk whispers.

“Hey, Patty,” he says back, watching the sliver of morning sun sparkle in his eyes. “L’s just about done with breakfast. You want to wake The Prince or should I?”

“I can get him,” Patty says, and he giggles quietly as a snore sounds across the room. “I’m sure Lo will need your help to fend off Dee, the fiend.” He slips out of the room and goes back to the kitchen. Sure enough, Dee is doing his best to steal food whenever their beloved cook has his back turned.

“If you must insist on nicking my food before it is all done,” L says, the hint of a smile playing around his lips, “the least you could do is have some manners and wash your hands first.” He thwaps the back of the man’s hands with his spatula, so the ex-soldier who served with the food thief crosses the room and wraps his arms around his waist. He’s about six inches taller than Dee, so it’s no challenge to pick him up and carry him across the room like a particularly rowdy sack of flour. (Later, this is aggressive, domineering behavior that strikes fear into anyone who witnesses it.)

“I thought L told you to stop grabbing food,” he mutters, nuzzling the other’s hair.

“He did,” agrees Dee. “But I am so incredibly starved, Virgil. I feel like we’re trying to live off rations again. I haven’t eaten a morsel in hours.” Virgil blows a heavy breath onto the other’s head and he shrieks out a laugh, trying to get away.

“You’ll live, snake. You ought to let that last meal digest before you begin trying to inhale something new.” He sets Dee down on one stool and then climbs onto the other himself. They always eat at the table, their perfect little family, but Virgil likes when his feet can’t touch the ground. He likes scuffing the plain wooden bar with his shoes to leave something behind in this house that can’t be easily wiped away. (Later, those marks are said to be friends and family being thrown into the furniture in a blind rage. Nobody knows that yet. They won’t know it for a long, long time.)

“Morning, love,” says the newly-awoken man, wrapping warm arms around Dee. He smiles as the warmth settles into his cold skin and work away the chill.

“Hello, darling,” Dee responds. He wonders how many times you have to refer to someone with love until it becomes a part of their name. He knows he’ll do it as many times as he needs to find out, and he’ll do it many more after that. (Later, this is possession, this is greed, this is ownership. It is made to be something sharp and hard, not all like it is.) “Did you sleep well?”

“Well enough.” He kisses Dee’s head and leans against him.

“To the table, all of you,” Lo says, hands loaded with plates. “It is time for breakfast.”

“At precisely seven fifteen,” agrees Patty. “You’re always so punctual, Lolo.” He twines his fingers with Virgil’s and pulls him to the table. Logan sends around the plates and takes his own seat. Their table is simple, pretty wood, circular so that no one can sit at ‘the head of the table’. It seems an outdated ordeal, and there are five of them besides; none of them want to sit alone.

“Roman, you can’t have my coffee,” Patty says, pushing Roman’s hands back. “You’re going to sleep in an hour, the last thing you need is to be kept awake.” Roman grumbles in protest and collapses onto Patty’s shoulder. Virgil hooks his left ankle with Roman’s under the table, and he links his right arm with Logan’s. Dee holds Patty’s hand with the one that’s not holding his fork, and he kicks one leg up into Logan’s lap as he laughs at the defeated look on Roman’s face. 

“Darling,” Dee says, “could you pass me the chocolate syrup?”

“Are you going to put it on your omelette?” Logan asks.

“Of course not,” Dee says, affronted. Logan raises an eyebrow. “Fine, fine. Only a little bit. But I feel like deserve chocolate.”

“I second that,” Virgil says and slides the bottle across the table to him. It is only then that Logan realizes Virgil has already smothered his own food in chocolate. He takes a sip of coffee and smiles. Logan sighs through his nose.

“Thank you, lovely,” Dee says. He blows a kiss to Virgil and then drowns the egg and vegetables in a chocolate tsunami. Patty confiscates the bottle a few seconds in. Dee pouts, but Patty is and always has been the master of puppy eyes; he’s been granted immunity.

They eat the best they can, all linked together like a human chain, and it’s peaceful. It is peaceful and nice and loving and wonderful. The omelettes are delicious, the coffee is strong, and the contact is comforting. They are warm and happy and so, so safe.

Roman presses a kiss to Patty’s coffee-stained lips, then extracts himself from their gentle tangle and heads into the other room for a moment. The remaining four look at each other curiously, but they stay relaxed around the table, content to wait.

The first strains of Sam Cooke’s You Send Me float through the kitchen. Roman comes back in and takes Virgil’s hand, pulling him up. They begin to sway slowly back and forth as Sam Cooke croons softly in the background.

“Darling, you send me

I know you send me

Darling, you send me

Honest you do, honest you do

Honest you do, whoa,” Roman sings in Virgil’s ear. Logan reaches across their table and takes Patton’s hand, and their spouses are bathed in soft, golden sunlight. Dee rests his head against Logan’s shoulder, and it is a moment in perpetuum.

 xxxxxxxxxxxxx 2019 xxxxxxxxxxxxx

 Like most ghost stories, it is twisted and corrupted and tainted. There are many versions of events that never transpired, breathing life into something unreal. The real story is one of love, of happiness, of unashamed living. The world may never know what truths it has lost, but the ghosts of the past will never forget what they have.

And if you look closely enough, watch the curtains just as the sun lights the sky, you may see the silhouette of two men swaying slowly to unheard music and three more sitting at the table, happy and in love.

[belladonnabear]

BNHA Scenario: Your Villain Ex Tries To Get Back At You But You're Saved by Your Boyfriend

Scenario: A long time ago you dated a man you thought was sweet and had a heart of gold. Turns out you dated a criminal and end up revealing who he is to the police! He manages to get away but you end up finding new love with Yagi Toshinori, Shouta Aizawa or Hizashi Yamada. While on a date, your boyfriend gets distracted by a villain and tells you to run off to hide. That's when your ex seizes the moment to get his revenge on you!

Yagi Toshinori/ All Might

Toshi in your opinion was the perfect boyfriend. You had been dating him for almost two years now and everything felt perfect. He was a gentleman with you. Never made you uncomfortable, always knew how to make you smile and he made you feel important.

Trust was a big part of your relationship. The two of you opened to each other about things you never tell anyone. You knew he was All Might and swore to secrecy. And he knew about your past as well.

You two were on a date together when it happened. The sun was shining as you two were walking hand in hand in the park. You two came to this park often so you knew the best spots to see the flowers and animals.

He made a flower crown out of daisies when you were watching the bunnies run around. He carefully placed the flower crown on your head with a goofy smile on his face. At the romantic gesture, you kissed him on the cheek. Causing the poor man to cough up some blood out of surprise.

Then with your quirk, you made some aster flowers and formed them into a crown. You placed it on Toshi’s head and took a picture of how adorable he looked.

However, the romantic moment was cut short when a loud noise was heard. Toshi braced you as he checked the area. A large ten foot villain that resembled a rhino hybrid was rampaging in the park. Causing mothers to run away with their children in their arms and elderly people fleeing for their lives.

Toshi frowned and told you to go hide while he deals with this. You take off running as smoke erupts from Toshi.

You took a shortcut to a secret spot you and Toshi would meet up at. While running you texted him what you were doing.

I'm heading to the flower shop on 23rd North Avenue! I'll be in the alleyway waiting! Please be safe! Love you!

Just as you finally made it to the alleyway, a familiar voice spoke.

"Long time no see baby~!"

A cold chill went down your body as you turned around to see your ex. He had a smirk on his face wearing a costume.

"Y-You're a villain now?"

Shadows erupted from his body and wrapped around you. Since you were already exhausted from the running, you stood no chance. You tried to scream for help but your mouth was covered by the shadowy tendrils.

"Now, now, babycakes we don't want any of that now do we? I was hoping I would run into you or that scraggly looking boyfriend of yours! He looks like a weakling!"

He was snickering at the flower crown on your head. Now you really were scared. He was after you and Toshi? You knew your boyfriend was tough but you couldn't live with yourself if something happened to him.

"Did you ever tell him about us? How you left me because you didn't love me for who I truly was? Does he really love?"

You did tell Toshi about dating a former villain. You told him everything and he was very understanding of your situation. That's part of the reason you loved him so much.

The story goes that you were naive and believed in his lies that he was a lawyer with a busy schedule. Before, he was a charming man with a good sense of humor. Things changed after eight months of dating.

He stood up many dates and you came to the conclusion he was cheating on you. What you found was much worse though. You decided to catch him in the act and followed him. 

He was at a warehouse with some suspicious looking men and you quietly began recording the ordeal. At this point, you knew something was off. 

That was when your ex brutally murdered the men with his shadow quirk and laughed like a maniac at their corpses. From this horrific experience, you went to the police and showed them the video evidence of him killing these men and explained everything.

However, your ex had gotten word of you turning him over to the police and left. He was seen on the news a few times but you never saw him again until now. 

The shadow that was covering your mouth moved. He wanted to hear your answer. With a harsh scowl you yelled aloud.

"DON'T EVER CALL TOSHI A WEAKLING! HE'S NOTHING LIKE YOU! I LEFT YOU BECAUSE I FOUND OUT THE TRUTH! THAT YOU ENJOYED KILLING PEOPLE WHO YOU THOUGHT WERE NOTHING! YOU'RE VILE TRASH! I'LL LOVE TOSHI TILL MY DYING BREATH! YOU'RE NOTHING-!"

The black shadows wrapped around your mouth again but this time they also went around your throat. 

They began suffocating you. 

You tried scratching at the black shadows some more and wiggled around trying to break free. Your screams were being muffled and your vision began fading. Your quirk was useless in this alleyway filled with no specks of grass anywhere in sight.

You saw the gaze your ex was giving you, as you were struggling to breath. His eyes were full of rage and vengeance. 

"You stupid selfish little-!"

"DETROIT SMASH!!!"

A loud yell was heard as your ex was punched directly in the face. The force of the hit reminded you a powerful storm, as he was flung across the alleyway. 

The shadows that were choking you vanished and you started coughing roughly. All Might leaned over with a worried look in his eyes.

"Are you okay? I'm so sorry I didn't get here soon enough! Please forgive me!"

"N-Not...yo-your fault..."

Police eventually arrived and your ex was arrested for multiple felonies. You were escorted home by All Might and when you were alone at your apartment, he hugged you.

The rhino villain was a simple villain for All Might to take down. Once the villain was with the cops, he tried to call you but you didn't pick up. That signaled to All Might that something was wrong. 

All Might left the villain to the police and bolted to your rescue. 

He kept thinking about the worse case scenario when he raced to your rescue. If he was even a minute late, you would be dead. Murdered by your ex for revenge.

Toshi didn't sleep well that night. He held you the whole night out of fear that you would be gone if you left his sight.

Not that you could blame him. The situation frightened you, as well. 

After this encounter, your relationship slowly began going back to normal. However, you changed a few things so Toshi didn't have to worry about you as much.

You texted each other more frequently. Having code words if you were in a hostage situation. He even taught you some self-defense as well but made sure you didn't get hurt.

However, your relationship was important and you wouldn't trade Toshi for anyone else. No matter which form he was in, he was your hero.

When you told him this, they man's face erupted red and he fell over.

Shouta Aizawa/ Eraserhead

Grumpy cat man loved you, even if he wasn't good at showing it. But that's part of the reason you two are still together. That and he loves you're a neko with a cat ears, a tail and even claws!

Part of him wonders why you're still with him but he doesn't complain. He's pretty happy you two are still together.

He knows how to calm you down if you're having a stressful day, his dry sense of humor does get some laughs out of you and he was reliable if you ever needed any help.

Which was really tested today.

The two of you were coming back from your favorite cat cafe. To an outsider Shouta might look impassive but you knew he was content with how the date was turning out.

You browsing at some handcrafted jewelry when a scream was heard. Both of you looked over to see a man snatching an elderly couples purse and he managed to snag another woman's purse as well.

The man was super fast as he kept stealing from more people. Shouta frowned at the situation as he recognized the villain from the news. The two of you nodded at each other and he took off with his scarf hovering around him.

Sirens began hollering as police went after the thief. People began running away panicking from the villain and you were about ready to join them when a pair of eyes caught your attention.

These eyes were feral and hungrilly began eyeing you like a piece of meat. It was another villain. However, you knew him better as your ex.

That's when you took off in a different direction to get away from him. You were panicking on what to do. Shouta was busy dealing with another villain and the police were going in the opposite direction you were heading.

Plus your ex had a Lycan Quirk, he could track you down his nose and follow you wherever you ran. He could only be in his true form when the moon was full but he was still stronger and faster than you were.

Just as you were about to grab your phone to call for the police, a heavy body slammed onto you. With a hiss of pain, the phone slid away from you.

Your ex showed off his white canine teeth with a wicked grin on his face. He truly looked like a beast, even without the full moon.

"Hey there pretty kitty, been awhile hasn't it?"

That nickname was always something you hated but he didn't seem to care. His grip on your wrists tightened and he snarled.

“If you scream for help, I’ll tear out your throat kitten.”

“What do you want?”

You two were together four years ago. He used to be a handsome polite man with a sassy personality. 

However that changed after six months of dating. He was starting to act like a real jerk. With him losing his temper around you and treating you like a pet.

His possessive nature was driving you mad and you finally had enough once you two were on a date. Some guys began picking on his strange werewolf looks and he lost control. Blood spilled that night as he killed all of them. He devoured them like a ravenous animal with no control. 

Taking a few photos, you took them to the police and an arrest warrant was set out for your ex but he was never found. Some police and heroes however were injured when they encountered him.

And now, he was here for revenge.

“I’m really disappointed in you. Unlike the other scum in my life, you didn’t judge me because of my quirk. Yet you were the one who ended up hurting me the most.”

He always did this to try and make you feel bad. And maybe you would have four years ago but things are different now.

“It’s hard being on the run from the law. But you seem perfectly fine, even though you betrayed my trust. You even ended up dating some other guy. Some homeless looking guy who apparently has a fetish for cat girls. Bet that’s the only reason he’s with someone as selfish as you.”

It was really hard trying to remain silent as he berated you. Then your cellphone’s ringer went off and your ex used one hand to wrap around your throat and the other to pick up your phone. You tried digging your nails into his arm but he was unbothered.

He smugly showed the caller ID and your heart froze.

It was Shouta.

Your ex answered the call as you heard Shouta’s voice.

“(Y/N)! Did you get away safely?”

Your ex put the phone on speaker.

“Don’t worry about thing dirtbag! Your girlfriend is doing just fine with me! We’re having a fantastic time, aren’t we kitten?”

He squeezed your throat tighter and you began coughing.

“Don’t hurt her! Let her go!”

Your ex laughed and howled with amusement. He leaned down closer to you mocking.

“But we’re having sooo much fun! Don’t worry about a thing! I’ll make her death painless!”

Fear rushed through your veins as your claws scratched your ex but this time you managed to get part of his eye.

He growled out in pain and you managed to slip away while running back to where Shouta might have been.

You could hear him behind you roaring in a fit of rage. That didn’t stop you as you kept running. Your cell phone wasn’t on you so you couldn’t call for help. You just kept sprinting and trying to get away from him.

You made it back to the abandoned jewelry stand you were at before. However, your ex was finally catching up to you and launched himself at you. Ready to tear you to shreds like those men.

But a scarf managed to wrap around him and he crashed onto the ground. Your tearful eyes saw Shouta looked furiously at your ex.

Your ex then tried to attack Shouta but with a mighty pull he missed his attack. Instead, your ex hit face first into the wall and was knocked out.

Once he made sure he was out, Shouta ran over to you with a look of concern in his eyes.

“Did he hurt you? Damn it! I’m so stupid! I’m sorry (Y/N)...”

The police eventually came and arrested your ex. After getting examined by a paramedic, you were free to go. With only bruises on your wrists and throat.

Shouta held onto you tightly as you made your way home and explained the situation. Apparently, while he was after the villain, he tried to steal Midnight’s purse. Which obviously backfired, since he didn’t recognize her in a civilian outfit.

He called to try and end your date normally since Midnight was going to take care of the villain but the phone call made him rush to save you from your ex.

You already told him about your history with your ex and made sure to keep an eye out in case your ex was around. But he ended up getting distracted by another villain and almost lost you.

You two got apps on your phones to keep tabs on each others location and called each other more often.

Shouta gave you some lessons to help defend yourself against a villain and for better usage on your quirk.

Keeps his eyes on you a lot more and holds you a little tighter every night. He also saw to it to make sure your ex got the maximum sentence.

Once things went along normally, the two of you settled down into your relationship once again.

While you began to trust him more, he began to cherish you much more. If his loving kisses are anything to go by, he’s happy you two are still here together.

Hizashi Yamada/ Present Mic

What an energetic man you have right here! He’s the man who helps you with anything you need.

Need something from the store? He’ll swing right by!

Want a back massage? Only if you give him one too!

Loose shoelace? He’ll just carry you everywhere so you won’t trip!

Hizashi was a man you adored deeply. He’s always been a ball of sunshine to you. Never failing to make you laugh or smile. He was your sweetheart.

Dating the pro hero wasn’t easy but you adjusted eventually. He really loved that about you. 

Eventually, you revealed to him about the sticky situation with your ex but he always reassured your worries. He loved you and no stupid ex would get in between you two.

Until he came back to bite you.

You had been on a date with the cockatoo man when it happened. He took you to your favorite restaurant as a romantic gesture. 

You slid down the railing as he caught you in his arms at the bottom. Kissing you and making suggestive comments about your appearance.

Your face turned red and you two kissed.

It was then interrupted by a few people running away screaming. Of course. It had to be a villain that would interrupt your date.

The villain looked like a naga looking creature. Sharp snake fangs with poison seeping out of them. He was holding a man hostage in his arms hissing angrily.

Yamada adjusted his glasses and motioned for you to leave. You took off running as the man went to go do his job.

After you began making your way back to the car, you freeze when you saw someone leaning on it smugly.

It was your ex. He was wearing his trenchcoat that was full of weapons probably.

You took off in the other direction but your ex began cackling at you. You activated your quirk and made yourself invisible, including your clothes. 

Why was your ex here now? Of all the times for him to show up, why now?  However, you saw a grenade roll towards you and you quickly tried to take cover.

But you ended up getting hit from part of the explosion and you were knocked up against some garbage cans. 

Your quirk was deactivated after the hit. Your coat took most of the damage but your head was starting to bleed. Suddenly, a click noise caught your attention. 

Your ex had a gun and it was pointed straight at your chest. You wanted to take off running again but you couldn’t feel your legs in this moment. Even if you did try to run, the blood from your head would give away where you were. 

“Nice try doll but I’m always prepared for the worst.”

You just glared at him. Remembering how you two got to this point. Five years ago he was a smart but cocky man who was interested in weapons. His attitude was very upbeat. A relationship developed and it went fine for six months. He said he worked for an agency that helps make hero weapons. 

What a lie that turned out to be. He sold them to the black market so that other villains could use them. You only saw this by sheer chance.

His attitude changed to a pretentious man child who thought he knew better than everyone else.  Which made you wonder what was going on with him. And when you checked in to see him at his work, it turned out he was fired four months ago. Now you were suspicious.

When you went over to see him for a date, he left the living room to take an important call from ‘work’. 

You heard a buzz go off in one of his jackets and were surprised to see some cheap looking flip phone. It had an address on it that lead to the docks with a single sentence attached.

Bring over the good stuff tomorrow night and we’ll give you the cash.

You thought he was smuggling drugs so you left the message as unread and pretend you didn’t see it. While leaving an anonymous tip to the police about what was happening.

Turns out on the news he was selling everything from illegal drugs, firearms and even explosions.

Your ex managed to escape and that scared you the most. You left the city after that and haven’t heard from your ex since then.

“Thought you could get away? Ruin my life and leave me like some stray dog?”

He kicked you in the stomach and you groaned in pain. He made a mocking noise and chuckled at your expression.

“It hurts, don’t it? Believe me, this pain is nothing compared to the last five years of hell you put me through!”

Another harsh kick was smashed into your stomach and you began coughing in pain.

“I was waiting for you to show up with your boyfriend so I could blow his brains out, then beat you as you see his corpse!”

He kicked you in the head and your vision started becoming blurry. More blood began dripping down as he laughed humorously.

“You should see yourself! A pathetic little girl who can’t save herself! You’ll wish you were dead by the time I’m done with you!” 

With the small amount of strength you have, you managed to kick his gun away from him when he was gloating. The gun went down the storm drain as you kicked him in the face as well. Then you used your quirk again to take off running he threw another grenade in panic but he missed you this time.

You tried holding the side of your head so he couldn’t follow you when you were bleeding. You found Hizashi running towards your direction and you felt immense relief.

However, so did your ex and he threw another grenade and this one aimed towards Hizashi.

You quickly pulled Hizashi away and barely evaded the attack. Smoke covered the area but Hizasi recognized your perfume.

“Babe? Is that you?”

“Y-Yes.”

Your quirk deactivated. You were getting dizzy from the blood loss and couldn’t keep up your form.

He looked worried but focused his attention on your ex who was looking for you. Hizashi took this chance and used his quirk on your ex. The screech knocked your ex back and he was blown away by the force of the attack. His eardrums felt like they were exploding and they rang loudly. He crashed onto the ground, blood dripping from his form.

Hizashi called the police and an ambulance arrived to take you to the hospital. His voice comforts you while you were waiting for them.

“It’s okay baby. He’s not going to hurt you anymore. I’m here now. Please don’t cry. I’ll make this up to you. I swear it.”

Your ex was arrested and taken away and your injuries weren’t too severe considering what you went through.

Never before have you seen Hizashi so upset before. He was lucky the villain was just some punk who got into a fight with some men. He became worried when he saw his car was still there and you were nowhere in sight. The sounds of an explosion caught his attention and he went after it.

Hizashi helped you through your recovery and helped encouraging you to move forward in spite of what happened. If you’re not happy, neither is he.

He’ll text you more frequently, even though he did that enough before. Calls you to hear your beautiful voice.

One time Hizashi gave you the most heartfelt statement you’ve ever heard in your life.

“You’re a real hero, ya know? You were brave enough to tip the police off to stop your ex and you even saved me from him! No one’s braver than you are! I love you 3,000!”

You finally let out a small laugh and hugged him closely. This is why you love him so much!

I hope you enjoyed this! This is a special treat for all of you~! If you have any suggestions for me to write, let me know! FYI I might not do all suggestions. But if I get inspired by one, I might just have to write it! Thank you!

[aestheticsandwriting]

One-Shot a Day, Day 6: Snowball Fights.

Sorry for the delay in not posting this yesterday, it was a crazy day. I’ll be posting today’s in just a few minutes!

Summary: Everyone comes to town for their yearly Christmas Get-together. Laughter, naps, important family news, and snowball fights ensue.

This was the time of year Tucker loved; every-one always busted ass all year long, saving vacation days and money so they could take the time to come visit. Occasionally, when they first started the yearly get-together, they had gone elsewhere, but eventually realized that, between him and Wash, Sarge, and Church and Caboose, it made more sense for the others to come to them. 

“Junior is your room ready for Theta to get here?” 

“Almost, Papa Wash!” Tucker smiles as he finishes putting the last few dishes from lunch into the dishwasher, setting it to delay starting until that evening, knowing that Wash had laundry going. Wash deemed it necessary for the house to be spotless, while Tucker and Junior both preferred a clean-yet-lived-in feel. The former soldier smiles again, rinsing his hands and drying them as he hears Wash ask their son to pick up something else when he’s finished in his room, the blond stumbling into the kitchen with an arm full of towels. 

“Tucker, did you start the dishwasher?”

“Nope, set it to delay since I knew you were doing laundry.”

“Oh thank you.” He plops the towels into the washer that’s in a little closet space on the opposite side of the kitchen from where Tucker’s standing. 

“Hey, Wash?”

“Hm?”

“Take it easy, yeah? The house looks fine, and you know none of them are going to judge us. Except maybe Donut cause we don’t have more decorations up, but what’s new there?” The smaller and the two men makes his way across the tile floor, socked feet barely making a sound, and stands on his toes to plop a kiss on his boyfriend’s temple. 

“I know. It’s just… dad always had to have the house spotless, and I guess that’s something that’s stayed with me.”

“I know. But is it worth the stress?”

“Not really.” A pause as he measures out the detergent, pours it in, and starts the machine, turning in his lover’s arms. “Let me make the guest beds, vacuum the carpet in the living room and guest rooms since it hasn’t been done in a while, and then I’ll stop other than finishing the load of towels?”

“You start vacuuming the living room, I’ll make the guest beds. Are the sheets on the beds?”

“The front room has the sheets piled on it, the back room doesn’t, sheets are in the dryer still. Thank you, Lav.”

“Of course. Now let’s get to work; North texted about thirty minutes ago, they had stopped to stretch, and it should only be about an hour until they get here.”

“Sounds good.” Dropping a kiss on Tucker’s lips, the taller man shoves him away playfully, Tucker laughing as he bends down to grab the sheets from the dryer. 

“Dad! Papa Wash! Theta’s here!!” Nine-year-old Junior runs out of his room where he had been playing, Wash and Tucker curled up on the couch discussing the upcoming Christmas dinner. The boy throws the front door open, a blast of cold air causing Tucker to curl tighter into his boyfriend. “Theta!” 

“Junior, come back in, you don’t have shoes on!” 

“Okay, dad!” The two boys, nearly inseparable, run into the house together, Theta dropping a duffle bag at the entrance, running over to give the two men hugs.

“Hi Wash, hi tucker!”

“Hey Theta, it’s good to see you again. You can take your stuff in to J’s room like normal.” The couple stands, each slipping their sneakers and another coat on, stepping out the front door. 

“Need some help?”

“Please! Apparently my son decided to abandon us.” The tall blond laughs, rolling his eyes fondly. “I can’t say I blame him, though, he waits all year to see Junior.”

“Yeah, Junior’s been talking about it non-stop since Thanksgiving. Hey South, hair’s nice.” Tucker compliments the female, who’s died her previously blond hair a bright purple since last year, having also had it cut recently, the short strands spiked in different directions. 

“��Sup, assholes?” 

“Wash, remind me again why we let her stay in our house?” Tucker smirks, waiting for a punch to his arm.

A simultaneous, “be nice,” comes from the mouths of both blond males, rolling their eyes at their boyfriend and sister respectively. 

“When are the other’s coming in?”

“Connie should be here tonight, she’s getting off work in about thirty minutes and then has to run home to do a few things before heading down, York and Carolina will be in sometime tomorrow afternoon, Lina has an appointment in the morning.” The four make their way inside, South taking her bag to the back room she’s using to bunk with Connie, North taking his into the office, Tucker following with the bag that holds the air matress he’ll be sleeping on, and Wash setting the small bag with the presents down by the tree.

“Are Grif and Simmons staying with Sarge again?”

“Yep, They’re staying with him, and so is Donut. I think Church and Caboose are letting Kai stay with them -she’s strangely good with Caboose- but that’s it. Last year was too overwhelming for the big guy. Maine’s got a hotel room like normal since he needs to be able to be away from people sometimes. So we’re the full house.”

“Well you know I appreciate you letting Theta and I crash here.”

“Of course. 

The next few days leading up to Christmas are a blur of people. Between the six people -plus York and Carolina’s dog, Delta- staying at Wash and Tucker’s and the other seven people coming and going at all different times, there’s never a boring moment, but Tucker wouldn’t trade it for anything.

Christmas finally rolls around, and everyone is piled into the house by eleven, Maine being the last to show up, surprising nobody. Christmas lunch is filled with laughter and stories of the previous year, and also excited yelling from Junior and Theta when they realize that it’s snowing again, hard. “Can we have a snowball fight after lunch, pleeeaaaasee dad?!” That’s Junior’s voice, Tucker whinces slightly at the volume of it. 

“Yes, I’m sure we can.”

“YES!” That’s Junior and Theta combined. 

“And to think, give it another couple of years and we’ll have another voice joining in.” North laughs, glancing pointedly at York and Carolina, the couple smiling brightly as the redhead places a hand on her rounded stomach. “Speaking of which, I believe you said you had some news? Do we know if it’s a boy or a girl?” The table goes quiet, all eyes turning to the pair.

“We do.” York grins, dark eye sparkling mischievously. 

“Well?” Wash prompts, wanting to know his sister and brother-in-law’s news, excited to find out if he’s having a niece or a nephew. 

“We’re…” Carolina glances at her husband, brows furrowing slightly and she bites her bottom lip. A slight nod from the dark-haired man sitting beside her. “We’re having twins. A girl and a boy.” The table erupts, cheers, congratulations, and exclamations from everyone around bringing a few tears to the redheads eyes as everyone stands to give her hugs, Maine included, and Church just barely remembering to catch Caboose in time so he doesn’t hurt the shorter woman.

After a while of talking and present opening, Junior and Theta ask if they can finally go have the snowball fight and everyone agrees. Bundling up and stepping into Wash and Tucker’s sizable backyard they start deciding on teams. “Theta and I are on the same team!” Junior announces, the purple-clad boy nodding in agreement, throwing an arm around his friend’s shoulders. 

“Alright, how about Theta, Junior, Wash, Simmons, Lina, Maine, York, South, and Kai on one team and Church, Caboose, Sarge, Grif, Connie, North, Donut, and me on the other?” After everyone agrees on Tucker’s team idea, they part sides, giving themselves fifteen minutes to construct a fort before the fight begins. 

“Time’s up, let the fight begin!” Wash calls out, Junior and Theta letting snow fly before he’s hardly finished with the phrase, Theta’s snow hitting Caboose right in the face, sending the blue-clad man laughing, throwing a handful of almost unpacked snow flinging back, never reaching close to a target. 

As the snow around them becomes sparse, the groups start venturing further away from their ‘bases’, closer into the middle towards each other. Simmons spots an opportunity, scooping a handful of snow and shoving down his boyfriend’s shirt as the darker-skinned man was retreating, laughing as he shudders with the cold. 

“You’re gunna pay for that, Simmons!” 

“If you can catch me!”

“Connie, duck!” Not knowing where the voice came from, the short, dark-haired female squats… right into a snowball thrown by South… who’s on the other team and had called for her to duck. 

Meanwhile, ten feet to her left, Tucker is sticking his tongue out at his boyfriend on the opposite side, who’s been trying to hit him for five minutes with no luck, only to get smacked right in the nose by his son and Theta, Wash laughing as he releases another snowball, this one landing perfectly on Tucker’s forehead now that his boyfriend was trying to spit the snow out of his mouth, making him laugh harder. “Yeah! Good shot uncle Wash!” Theta calls. 

The battle rages on for another thirty minutes, before Carolina bows out to go inside, exhausted and getting colder than she should be, York stepping out of the fight to go with her. Ten minutes later they call a truce, declaring a tie like usual, the group all tumbling inside laughing, covered in snow that Wash knows will leave puddles all over the floor. But maybe Tucker was right; he needed to take it easy more and stress about it less. Sure the water would need to be dried, but that isn't that big of a deal, a small amount of water on the floor for a short period wouldn’t damage it.

“Oh my gosh, what is that smell?” Connie inhales deeply, the others following her lead.

“In the kitchen!” York calls from the kitchen.

“Is that hot cocoa?” Tucker turns the corner, breathing in deep again.

“It will be once I get it all warmed up and combined. I hope you don’t mind that I used basically the rest of your milk supply? It was a lot, but I’ll be happy to replace it.”

“Ah, it’s fine. We’re not drinking as much as I expected, and homemade hot cocoa is worth it. Where’s Lina?”

“Showering. She wanted to get warmed up.”

“Is she okay? I hope she didn’t feel like she had to go out there, I don’t want her hurt or sick” That’s Wash making his way into the kitchen, arms wrapping around Tucker’s waist, eyebrows knitting together in concern. 

“She’s fine, Wash. Just really cold, and a warm showering was the easiest thing for her to get warmed up quick. She’s been doing great about knowing her limits.”

“Good.” Tucker feels the blond behind him relax at the words, knowing how worried he’s been about his sister. Wash turns, walking back into the living room to sit with the rest of the group while Tucker pulls out mugs and the mini marshmallows for the group. 

When Wash hears his sister open the back bathroom’s door he excuses himself, padding into the back hallway. “Hey, you didn’t get too cold, did you?”

“No, I’m fine Wash. Mostly just really tired now. You’re not upset that we waited to tell you we were having twins, right?”

“Of course not. As long as you -all three of you- are healthy?”

“Doctor says we’re doing great.”

“Good.” The taller of the two wraps his sister in a hug, dropping a kiss to the top of her head. 

“Wash… I wanted to ask you something.”

“Shoot.”

“Would you have a problem with us naming our baby girl Allison?”

“For mom? Of course not. I think it would be a great name for any daughter of yours.”

“Thanks.” 

“Of course.”

“Hot cocoa! Who wants it with marshmallows?” Comes Tucker’s voice. 

“I’m gunna put my stuff away and then be out. Cocoa with marshmallows for me please?”

“Course, Lina.”

The rest of the afternoon is spent talking, laughing, napping, and playing various different games, and by the time everyone has left, the few remaining in the house are exhausted, all quickly retreating to bed.

Yes, this is the time Tucker loves the most. Friends and found family all together making memories. And the snowball fights are fun too.

[sleepyseguin]

tyler seguin imagine // fight (nsfw)

a/n: feedback/requests always welcome xx

You expect Tyler to be nasty when he fights. All that push and shove on the ice, trying to say the worst thing possible to throw an opponent off their game. There are no limits when there’s a puck to fight for. So when he raises his voice that first time (and it was your fault, really, you’d accused him of something you knew he hadn’t done) you prepare for the worst. Cast back through your mind for things you’ve picked up on that hurt him. He doesn’t like people commenting on his family, doesn’t like people bringing up the real reason he got traded, doesn’t like his position at Dallas being threatened. You pile up the insults, waiting and ready for him to land the first blow, to taste anger bitter at the back of your throat.

 And he’s loud, but the only thing he really says is, this is stupid, you’re making something out of nothing, I’m going to bed, and then he’s stomping up the stairs, looking furious but wearing socks with polka dots on them that his sister bought for him. And you’re left to stand in the sudden silence of the kitchen, shaking with frustration about something that never even happened, about things he never even said.

 Cash whines to go out, seemingly oblivious to the thickness of the self-created atmosphere that makes your shoulders heavy. You open the back door, breathing in the clean night air and watching him trot off onto the lawn. Gerry appears, follows after him, never one to miss an adventure. Marshall must be upstairs with Tyler. You wonder what’s he’s doing, if he really has gone to bed. If he’s texting friends about what a bitch you are. If he’s pacing, fuming. You make yourself a glass of water, half watching the dogs through the kitchen window, half trying not to cry. Your body has produced all this adrenaline that roars through your bloodstream, only there was no need for it, and now you feel sick, feverish. You want Tyler’s gentle hands, a warm voice that tells you everything will be okay. You really thought he would rage and scream and say horrible things. People had warned you of that. Had murmured things about him being unpredictable.

 You feel like a disciplined child, knowing you were wrong, humiliated by your own actions as you walk up the stairs, half drunk glass of water in your hand. The door to the bedroom is closed. You can hear the television. The hockey channel. You lean your forehead on the wood, eyes closed. All the energy has drained out of your body. You feel limp, a rag doll with all the stuffing pulled out.

 “I’m sorry,” you say, not even sure if he can hear you through the door. Someone moves inside, the creak of the bed. You don’t expect the door to open, and almost crash right into Tyler’s chest. You squeak, a little bit, at the change in gravity, Tyler’s hand around your forearm, steadying you.

 “You alright?” He says, and he means your almost fall, but you start crying anyway, your face hot, eyes itchy.

 “Oh, fuck,” he says. You must look dumb, standing in the doorway, still holding your glass of water, trying to pretend you’re not crying even though there are tears dripping off your chin.

 “I shouldn’t have said that to you, I’m sorry, that was so mean,” you manage to say, looking down at your feet, Tyler’s dumb socks, your bare feet.

 “It was mean,” Tyler agrees, but he’s also trying to dry your face with his fingers, wiping away tears, patting your cheeks.

 “I’m so sorry,” you say, holding his wrist, feeling the fragile bones there move under your fingertips. Tyler sighs.

 “It’s okay,” he murmurs, swiping the last tear away with his thumb. You’ve managed to settle yourself with deep, gasping breaths.

 “It’s not okay. I thought you would fight back, but, you didn’t, and I really thought you would. And. I’m just. So sorry,” you say, stumbling, tripping over your own words.

 “I knew that you knew you were just trying to pick a fight. I wasn’t gonna rise to it. I thought I should just let you work your way through it,” Tyler says, “Which you did.”

 “You’re so smart,” you sigh, dropping your head into his shoulder. Your bodies are still carefully held apart, but he rests his cheek against your hair.

 “Not really,” he mumbles, “I just know you.”

 “I’m sorry,” you say again, embarrassed, exhausted. Tyler kisses your ear, mouth half in your hair.

 “I know,” he murmurs, and you let yourself sink into him, still holding the stupid water glass. It presses into his back as your arms loop around his neck. You can feel Tyler smiling as he supports you, the strength of his chest under you, his shoulders.

 “Come to bed with me,” he says, his voice quiet, private. You turn your face into his neck, breathe in the smell of him. Familiar. Soothing.

 “Okay,” you whisper.

You finally abandon the glass on the beside table, crawl under the heavy duvet, pressing your raw face into the pillow, remembering how to breathe slow and steady. Tyler goes to brush his teeth, up and down the stairs one last time to settle the dogs, and then he’s under the covers as well, the hockey muted, subtitles on. Your eyes are heavy, one foot on his shin, and Tyler reaches, tangles his fingers up with yours. You try not to smile, but he huffs a laugh.

 “Stop looking so pleased with yourself,” he says, but he squeezes your hand to show he’s only teasing.

 “I’m not,” you say, muffled by the pillow, “I just…,”

You close your eyes, so you can’t see his face as he wriggles down, closer to you.

 “Just what?” He asks, his voice low, rough. He’s tired.

 “Just love you.”

Your eyes are still shut, not wanting to see him recoil. It’s not like you haven’t said it before, it’s not like he hasn’t said it before. But you haven’t said it when you’ve been angry, when you’ve fought. So you don’t see him leaning down to kiss you, only feel the soft press of his mouth on yours, his hand in your hair.

 Your body opens for him, unconsciously, unknowingly, shifting onto your back, opening your chest, so he can settle, half supported on one arm, the warmth of his body on yours. He doesn’t need to say it back. You can feel it. The way he touches you, soft, gentle, careful. Like you’re precious. The way he shakes, just a little bit, when you’re out of your clothes and he sinks inside you, the way the breath punches out of him. Your legs wrapped around his waist, safe in the tangle of covers and sheets and pillows, Tyler’s strong body, moving around you and against you and inside you.

 “I’m sorry,” you whisper, again, just so he knows, your mouth by his ear, fingers tight in his hair.

 “It’s done,” he says, breathless, forgiving, “It’s done now. It’s okay.”

 “Thank you,” you say, because he doesn’t have to make it this easy, doesn’t have to be this kind. He smiles, big and happy, nudges his nose against yours. He reaches for your hips, shifts you, and when he pushes deep again you can’t think about anything but the now.

 You come first, because it’s always like that, because Tyler is just so good like that, and it’s a blur of his name and his hands and his mouth.

 “I love you,” he whispers, his voice a rasp, crushing you into him, like he can’t get close enough. When he comes, it’s with a shudder and a moan and his forehead against yours, a clumsy rhythm as he loses control. He goes all shivery and lovely, little rocks against you like he wants it to keep going forever. Your hands slip down his back, the sheen of sweat, the way he works hard to make you feel good.

 “Ty,” you say, on a breath, drawing him in close, like you can become one mesh of sinew and bone and muscle.

 “I know,” he says, and you don’t even know what he knows. That you love him so much it hurts. That you’re so sorry for misjudging. That when you think of the future he’s there. He’s always there.  Maybe he knows it all. He probably does. He reads you so easily, like he was made to do it. You kiss the tip of his nose, his cheek, his mouth. He smiles, and kisses back.

[qqueenofhades]

(Hilary, my queen, when you are able, would it be possible for you to write a little Kastle drabble because I am full of feelings and also dying thank you so much 💙)

Okay, this has been sitting in my inbox for a while as I internally promised to do it eventually, and also I just watched 2x11 of TP2 so clearly fic needs to happen. This goes into M-rating land, so somewhat below the cut.

Karen Page loves Frank Castle, and he is a fucking idiot.

Not that that surprises her, not that it’s anything new, not that she even expected anything different, but somehow it still burns in the back of her throat as she stands there in her bare feet, having traded her high heels to Creepy Ed the morgue assistant for the liberty of looking at the bodies with Madani. The alarm drones and sirens wail, and she can only shake her head, half-bitter, half-unsurprised. She’s used to the men in her life letting her down, to trying so hard to be there for them and receiving some kind of cold shoulder back, to giving and giving to a bucket with a hole in the bottom, but this, but this –

Does that Matt Murdock know you’re here?

(She was standing there, begging him to let her come with him, for them to be together, bared her heart and soul, told him to love someone – to love her – that wasn’t in his dreams, told him she would do anything, cleared him of killing the women in short order with Madani’s help, listened to him cry about watching his children die, held his hand and soothed his nightmares – she did all that and somehow he thinks she gives two shits about whether Matt knows she’s here. Implying that Matt wouldn’t like it if she was, that Matt gets any say in that, that Matt is her future, that Matt is any less broken – )

Karen Page loves Frank Castle, and he is a fucking idiot.

(Except she isn’t sure she doesn’t hate him. Not for being a killer, that didn’t change her feelings, it never could, but for being such a total, utter moron.)

Karen starts to walk. She supposes she’ll go back to the firm, she’ll go back to her life. Except for the fact that Frank, sadly in err as he may be about every-goddamn-thing else, is right that she is stubborn, stubborn as hell. She isn’t about to purchase an AK-47 and go on weekend murder sprees to prove that she understands his life and his choices, but she’s also not going to pretend they never knew each other, or whatever the fuck else it is he is doggedly acting like he wants. He’ll come back, eventually. They’ll wash up on the same shore. They always do, usually when the tide runs with blood and he looks like total shit. In five years, in ten, she might have actually gotten over him.

(She won’t have. She knows it. But Frank’s not the only one here who gets to lie to himself tonight. To try, somehow, to remember how to breathe.)

Frank Castle loves Karen Page, and he is a fucking idiot.

He knows it, of course he knows it, it took everything he had left in his battered soul to leave her, even if he’s so sunk in guilt and grief and rage that there was never any way he could remotely want to draw her into his vortex of destruction. He tried moving on, he tried living a new life, he’s done it, yeah? He’s done it. It didn’t work, and he’s exhausted of deluding himself that it ever will. He’s so goddamn tired he can barely lift up his head or focus, all he knows is that he needs to finish the job and make sure Amy’s safe, he doesn’t fail her like he failed every other woman in his life. He doesn’t know when he became willing to die for that mouthy brat, but he would and he might and he nearly did, and she’s the only one he can stand to have there because she already is, and Karen –

He knew what she was offering, for half a moment he nearly took it, thinks he would have kissed her then if the kid hadn’t turned up, but maybe it’s better that he didn’t. Maybe that would only be more cruelty, tearing himself away from Karen after that – part of him can’t believe it, feels like a schoolboy who just found out his crush likes him back. But it’s tempered with a grief that can’t be spoken, a pain goes on and on. Karen. Karen, she’s good, yeah? She’s so goddamn good and brave and beautiful. All the men in the world, and she warms herself by the glow of his burning garbage fire. Why?

(She loves him. She said it. She loves him. He doesn’t know how and he doesn’t know why and he definitely doesn’t think she should, but she does and he loves, he loves, he loves her and so he will die quietly one day, alone, rather than seeing her blood on his hands, her betrayed face, as he loses her too.)

He finishes what’s in front of him. There will be more, there will be this over and over, but with Pilgrim and Billy, for the moment, it’s done, Amy is safe, and she and Frank say goodbye. It feels like ripping his heart out too, like he envisioned a family ever so briefly, like this was his wife and his daughter and this was home, but it’s not. And after that, Frank doesn’t have the first fucking clue what to do. He tried running away once, starting a new life somewhere else, trying to start something with some other woman. Didn’t work. Less than nothing. Can’t do that again. What would be the point?

Where do you run away when running away didn’t do jackshit?

Do you just sit here, alone, in the dark, desperate for the sun, when the sun has told you she shines only for you, because you’re too much of a goddamn idiot to go out and get warm?

If you’re Frank Castle, it appears in fact you do.

Karen Page loves Frank Castle, and it’s been eight months now, nine, ten, since she’s seen him. He is still a fucking idiot and there have been the occasional rumors in the papers about where he is or what he’s doing, and she’s trying not to let her stomach wrench every time she sees one, but it isn’t working. Karen has not lived a quiet life, because Karen never does, but at least she hasn’t been outright almost murdered again. Foggy asks a couple times what happened, because he just knows that if Frank Castle was in a hospital in New York, Karen must have been there, but she doesn’t tell him. She just – she can’t.

Karen doesn’t go to the dive bar in Staten Island for Frank. She goes because she’s chasing up a lead for one of the firm’s cases and word has it there’s someone there who might be willing to talk. For the right price, of course, because nothing is ever anything but. She dresses down and takes her gun and is sitting at the bar, sipping some bad whiskey and waiting for the mole to show, when she glances down it. And feels like she’s been hit by lightning.

She’d recognize that profile, that craggy mug, anywhere, in any life, any time. It doesn’t matter. Then his head lifts, something makes him look, and their eyes lock. Of all the time she’s spent without him, that moment is the longest. Then she’s putting down her drink and he’s putting down his and two seconds later, they’re in the dim back corridor by the restrooms, grabbing at each other and hissing, what are you doing here, Frank, what are you doing here, Karen, huh? Goddammit, what are you doing here? And just then, she’s about to slap him, and she clenches her fingers until they burn. She still might. She isn’t sure.

“You should get out of here,” he says, because she loves Frank Castle, and he is a fucking idiot. “Not sure what might go down tonight.”

Karen ignores that utterly, entirely, and cannot overstate how good it feels to do that. Her hair is falling loose around her face, she lifts her chin and stares at him dead in the eye, and he flinches a little. Instead she says, “Happy. Are you happy, Frank? Are you?”

“What?” He stares at her like she’s suddenly started speaking ancient Sumerian. “What do you mean?”

“What do you think?” She takes a step, another. “Are you happy? Have you been happy? After – after? Was that really what you wanted? To be alone?”

She is so tired of begging, and she isn’t going to do it anymore. She isn’t even going to ask him to try again, because he can’t climb out of the dark, much as she wants him to, until he wants to. But she has to know if it made him feel good, made him fulfilled, to walk away from her. If that’s the case, fine. She’ll handle it, and she will walk away herself, and she will finally have closure, even if not healing. She just wants to hear him say it. 

Instead, Frank stares back at her, and stares, and tries to say a few things that he can’t, and Karen doesn’t need it, not entirely, not when it comes down to it. She can good and goddamn well see in his face, in the utter bleakness of his eyes, that he has not been happy, not a single bit. That he got what he said he wanted, that he was free to live down there in the dark, and he hates it. Fuckin’ hates it. And then, much as he deserves it and maybe it’s what he asked for and maybe she should quit every bit of this whatsoever, Karen can’t help it. She steps forward, and puts her hand on his arm. Just that. Nothing else.

And, that, well.

That pretty much does both of them in.

Frank Castle loves Karen Page, and he is a fucking idiot.

He knows, he knows, he knows he should not be doing this, but also he’s starving and he’s drowning and she’s here and she’s real and she’s touching him and he doesn’t deserve it, and then he’s swinging her around and crushing her against the wall and kissing her until their teeth scrape and their lips bruise and she’s clawing at him with both hands and they’re making gulping, whining noises of pure, brutal need and oh god, he is not strong enough to stop this, he isn’t. He is breathing, he’s breathing for the first time in years and years and maybe ever, and she’s in his arms and she’s almost hitting him and muttering, “Jesus, Frank, Jesus,” between turning her head to savage at him again, and fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck oh fuck, he kisses her and kisses her and then they’re shoving backward through the door and into the junker of a car he drove here. They barely stop making out long enough to do that, and five minutes later they’re at the utterly shitty motel where he took a room, and –

Karen’s shirt tears when he pulls it, and she is fuckin’ merciless about stripping off his, and then her hands are all over his scars and his hands are on her breasts and he’s still drinking her in like he cannot stop, and they walk in a tangle back to the bed and this is never how he wanted it to happen, this is everything he didn’t want. Not with polyester clutched between her fingers and neon stripes through the blinds and not so much as a fuckin’ condom, but that doesn’t appear to matter and she isn’t letting them stop. She wriggles around and she gets her panties off, and she gets hold of him –

Oh Jesus.

Oh Jesus fuck.

Then he can’t help himself, he’s crawling on top of her and their hands claw and clutch and he shoves into her, shoves inside, he half-thinks he hurt her but she’s just about striping her fingernails down his shoulders and making noises of need that raise the hair on the back of his neck, and even Frank Castle, fucking idiot though he is, isn’t that much of one. Then he’s jerking his hips and sliding into her, sliding home, and her mouth is open and wet and imploring and he’s not sure it’s a kiss, quite, even as his tongue takes her and moves in time to his thrusts below. He’s fucking her, he wanted this to be better, he wanted to make love, but he’s blind with need and so is she and she grips at his hips and doesn’t let him slip out an inch, rolls over and rides him harder. Then they’re tangled up past recognition and he comes so hard he goes half-blind and thinks briefly and insanely that she is, in fact, fucking an idiot. Then there’s nothing. Only her.

They lie there as if their spinal columns have been removed, until Karen stumbles off to clean herself up and get a towel from the bathroom.  Then she gets back into bed and lies down with her head on his chest and she doesn’t say a word. She doesn’t ask him to stay, to be with her. As if he says one more time that he won’t, it doesn’t matter how or why or how much she might understand on some other intellectual level, it will break her in half, and she can’t.

Frank Castle’s fragile heart shakes, and shakes. He shifts himself and kisses her hair, doesn’t know what tomorrow is, doesn’t want it to come. Just wants this night to last forever, if that’s what it is. If that is what they are. He doesn’t know. He so badly does not want to be alone for another moment. He cannot bear it.

Karen’s breath slows. She sleeps. He rubs her arm, he tugs the covers up to make sure she’s warm, he listens to the distant sound of an argument from the room above and the drone of the window unit. Oh God. He does not know how to do it, to walk away from her one more time. Maybe tomorrow he will know. And maybe tomorrow he won’t.

Frank sleeps too, eventually. He doesn’t dream about Maria and the kids, fading, voiceless. Instead, there’s a new house, somewhere on a leafy street. It has an extra bedroom and a big porch and space in the backyard. Amy’s there and she calls them Dad and Karen, and they eat dinner at the table and Karen’s pregnant and there’s a dog there too, some rescue pitbull. And Jesus, Jesus Christ, they are in pieces, they’re a mess, all of them together and individually –

And yet. Perfectly, beautifully, impossibly.

They are happy.

[phantomrose96]

Branding the Hero

U.A.’s class 1-A had seen more combat than all other hero classes in the nation. When they talked about these incidents among themselves, late at night in the common room before the lights shut off for the night, they tended to agree this was a good thing. They knew what heroing meant now. They knew what they had signed up for. It was a scarier world than they had seen on television, but it was one worth protecting.

The internships with Nighteye and Fatgum shook this resolve. But they did not shatter it.

Kirishima’s internship continued after Midoriya’s had ended.

Kirishima mentioned from time to time how busy Fatgum seemed behind closed doors, how often men showed up by the dozen for ‘talks’ with the hero, how often Fatgum left seeming frustrated and angry after a long afternoon holed up in the building’s conference room. Asui had seen it too. When Midoriya asked All Might about it, All Might waved it off as the ‘bureaucratic nonsense’ heroes deal with once going professional. He told Midoriya not to worry about it yet.

When senior year came around, the class was formally introduced to it, under the name Hero Branding.

It had a simple explanation: the hero names they had picked out freshman year were names for their brand, not themselves. ‘Deku’ was not the person—he was the name of a public image, controlled carefully behind the scenes by sponsors, agents, investors, and a team of PR staff. These people never appeared publicly. They would ruin the image of a self-motivated hero acting on his own resolve to save people. They worked behind the scenes. They had the final say.

All Might fumbled a bit with his explanation of the system, admitting meekly that at his level of prestige he was allowed to manage himself, and hadn’t dealt with a team in years. He tried to ease the fears of students who voiced concerns of becoming a puppet on strings. All Might assured them it wasn’t that intense. It was more just…irritating. Things like costume changes, charged political statements, or spontaneous hair-dying needed prior approval. Nothing too limiting.

Each student was assigned a team, and the whole week passed with stylists fussing over appearance, agents booking fan events, and sponsors talking brand promotion. Bakugou had blasted one overly-eager agent across the room. Ashido accidentally singed off a stylist’s eyebrow for trying to straighten her hair. But for the most part, the week passed without incident, only massive amounts of irritation.

Yaoyorozu adjusted the fastest of all of them. She giggled and talked and charmed her way through the week, until members of other teams were eyeing her own staff with envy. Yaoyorozu had completed photoshoots, signed three sponsors, and booked an appearance at an elementary school soccer team before any other student had even sorted out the hundreds of pages of contracts they needed to sign. She was a natural, instantly recognizable.

When asked about it in the dorm common room, Yaoyorozu dismissed questions with a bit of charming embarrassment, and talked briefly about how used to it she was. Her family came with a lot of social capital. She’d been attending publicity events since she could walk. She was disappointed with it all, like everyone else was, that heroing demanded this too. But she’d been preparing for it since freshman year, when her first internship gave her the inkling that professional life would come packaged with this sort of brand management.

Yaoyorozu’s costume was the first to change. Slits were taken out of the side. The straps were thinned. Heavy reinforcement was added to what remained, and Yaoyorozu mentioned with a bit of disappointment that it constricted her breathing. When Uraraka suggested asking for the costume to be changed back, Yaoyorozu laughed. She had suggested the costume change. It was a necessary sacrifice to bolster her professional image, and it gave more surface area to harness her quirk. The staff had applauded it. Her agents predicted an upshoot her in popularity among young male audiences. And it made sense with her quirk. It was a tactical, smart, all-around boon.

The other costume changes happened gradually, following a similar vein. Uraraka protested only a little when her stylists cut out a diamond-shaped swath from the back of her suit. Ashido argued with her people for a few weeks before she gave in, and agreed to the new leotard that left her legs exposed. Months of back-and-forth kept up before Jirou resigned herself to a form-fitting cat suit.

All Might tried to offer apologetic reassurances, that working with agents will get easier, and usually costume redesigns are for the best. The girls’ costume changes were nearly forgotten when Bakugou’s people took away his explosion flares, and all other disgruntlement was drowned under Bakugou’s sheer rage.

But time passed, and the students came into internships with mentors who knew how to handle their brand. They learned the tips of the trade, the strategies to get their way with costume, appearance, political stances, and image. The heroes were the ones truly holding the cards, if they knew how to play them right. The students ranted to each other late at night, showered and exhausted from internship work, until they slowly got the hang of controlling their brand. Bakugou got his flairs back. Jirou got her costume back. Yaoyorozu’s stayed the same, and most of her classmates were simply jealous of her chemistry with her public image team.

One night, Yaoyorozu did not return home.

This wasn’t too uncommon—most of the students had been on multi-day missions by now. But Yaoyorozu’s excursion hadn’t meant to take more than a day. She had managed to phone in that she wouldn’t be back at U.A. by the evening, and would appreciate if someone could take notes for her the next day. That had been at 9 pm. No one had been able to contact her since.

It wasn’t until 3 pm the next day that Todoroki received a text from her. “Mission’s complete. I’m okay. I’ll be back at the dorms by tonight.”

Yaoyorozu slipped back in quietly that night. Jirou was the first to notice, only because she’d gone into the girl’s room to find Yaoyorozu’s costume stripped on the floor, and the shower water running. Jirou texted out, and everyone except Bakugou gathered in the common area to see her.

When Yaoyorozu joined them, she was hardly recognizable.

Hair down, her nightgown fell far too loose over her shoulder. She was stark collar bones and hollow cheeks and thin wrists, her first few ribs visible beneath her sternum. She smiled, tired, but seemingly alright.

Todoroki stood as though ready to catch her. Yaoyorozu dismissed him with a wave.

“I know I look a little shocking right now. The doctors said I’m okay. I can gain the weight back.”

“What happened?” Midoriya asked.

“I had to over-use my quirk. But don’t worry, I’m already talking to my people.”

Yaoyorozu sat down. She crossed her legs, too-thin calves and bony ankles, feet with every tendon defined.

“About what?” 

“Changing my image. In hindsight, it was dangerous of me to maintain a BMI that low. I need reliable fat stores if I’m going to be any use on missions. It’s just how my quirk functions.” Yaoyorozu locked eyes with Midoriya. Her cheekbones cast shadows. “I lost 25 pounds from using my quirk on this mission. Doctors say if I’d dropped even 5 pounds more, I would have risked organ failure. I’m going to gain my weight back, and put on another 25 pounds on top of that, so I don’t ever run this kind of risk again.”

…

Yaoyorozu was tired. Everyone knew it from the look in her eyes during class, from the slouch in her back, from the late-night yelling matches that came muffled through the dorm walls. She vanished for doctors visits and returned with stacks of signed papers, most of which Jirou found in the girl’s room trash three days later. The telephone yelling matches slowly stopped. Yaoyorozu’s room grew quiet, save for the muted sounds of crying every few nights.

When Monday came around, Midoriya abandoned his normal lunchtime seat. He slid his tray next to Yaoyorozu and sat down. She looked up from her own plate—a cheeseburger, a sleeve of french-fries, ice cream and two milkshakes, all of which had been barely touched. Midoriya picked up the cookie from his own tray and held it out. “Want it?”

Silently, Yaoyorozu took it.

Midoriya waited, throwing sidelong glances to Yaoyorozu, chopsticks fiddling with his soba. “What did your agents say?”

Yaoyorozu bit into the cookie, chewing in silence. “They said I’m only allowed to put on five pounds more than my previous weight. ‘Chubby’ female heroes don’t get sponsorship and can’t maintain a public image, especially as a new hero who hasn’t even graduated yet.”

Midoriya’s eyes lingered on Yaoyorozu’s uniform, crumpled and too-big on a skeletal frame, hiding a sickliness not unlike All Might’s.

“…Then fire them,” he answered.

“I did.” Yaoyorozu put the cookie down. “I’ve talked to so many others. So has my mom. I got doctors notes. And when none of that worked I talked to Midnight, and Principle Nezu and All Might and….”

Yaoyorozu fell silent. Midoriya felt dread settle on his heart.

“They can’t do anything…?”

“They can’t change how the entire system works… Especially not now, when everything’s so uncertain.” Yaoyorozu picked up one of her milkshakes. She took a small sip and set it back down, eyes trained on her wrist. She moved her left hand over, and wrapped her fingers around her right wrist with ease, hardly any substance beneath it. “If I completely disregard what my agents say, I’ll never get networked in with the real heroes. I’ll never have enough footing under my name to gain sidekicks, or to be on the call-list for disasters, or to even be recognized on-scene as a hero. I’d just be a legal vigilante…and it’s more likely I’d be mistaken for an illegal one anyway. I’d have to carry my certification everywhere.”

“Could you…maybe do that?” Midoriya asked

“…Aizawa-sensei offered to let me be his sidekick… I was touched, but I don’t want to be a hero like Eraserhead. I don’t want to work at night and in the shadows and avoid people and never get my name out there. I want to be like All Might, like all of us do…”

“I’m sorry,” Midoriya whispered, because this time around he did not know what to say.

“…I almost died,” Yaoyorozu said after a silent moment. “Five more pounds and I could be dead. I can’t use my quirk at all right now. I’m useless like this.”

She crumpled forward, and her body jerked with silent, repressed sobs, ridges of her spine contouring through her uniform. Midoriya froze, only for a moment, before wrapping his arm around her and holding back his own tears budding in his eyes.

He wasn’t sure anymore what it meant to be a hero, or what this world saw in him, or what it saw in All Might and all the others.

He didn’t know, but at least it couldn’t be this. All he knew in his heart was that it couldn’t be this…

[littlewhitetie]

Interlude

I know it’s ridiculously late, but this was originally inspired by @blackpaladinweek Day 3: Break/Mend.

In which Keith takes care of Shiro after The Journey. 

There.

Keith’s heart leaps into his throat at the sight of the tiny Galra fighter. He’s fragile, Black tells him, but he’s in there.

Keith guides the Black Lion’s massive jaws to clamp down on the tiny ship, thrusters in reverse to ease the deceleration. Each move he makes is deliberate and precise, swift but gentle in carrying the ship to the hangar. The Lion sets the little ship on the hangar floor with utmost care, a mother with her cub.

As soon as it’s on solid ground, Keith bolts out of the pilot’s seat and leaps out of Black’s mouth. He sprints toward the fighter as fast as his legs will carry him.

The ship doesn’t open on its own. Shiro doesn’t step out to greet him.

Without hesitation, Keith pries the fighter open with his—no, Shiro’s bayard, and… It’s him. He’s here, he’s alive—though from the looks of it, just barely.

“Shiro,” Keith breathes, reaching for him when he doesn’t move. Keith tears off his helmet, and long, matted hair tumbles out. He’s been gone for far too long.

Keith tilts Shiro’s face toward him with hands too urgent to be gentle. Shiro’s lips are cracked, his complexion a frightening shade of grey. His eyes are sunken and hollow. “Shiro, wake up,” Keith pleads.

Shiro’s eyelids struggle to open. They manage eventually, cracking open just a sliver. “Keith,” he croaks. “You… found me.”

Keith’s chest swells at the sound of his voice—rough, weak, exhausted, but his. “Of course we did.”

Shiro gives him the faintest of smiles, and then his eyes slip closed again.

(Read more on AO3)

Trying to remain calm, Keith reaches for Shiro’s neck, pressing his fingers against his carotid artery to find his pulse. It’s there, but it’s rapid and thready. What happened to him?

The ship paints a partial picture. It’s a Galra fighter—did Shiro escape from the Galra again? More pressing, there’s a sharp, acrid odour telling of just how long he’s been in there, yet there aren’t any supplies visible in the tiny cockpit. There’s no sign of him having had access to food or water.

A clattering of footsteps fills the hangar in a steady crescendo as the others finally arrive, gathering around.

“It’s him,” Keith tells them, falling into leader mode, “but he’s not doing too good. Allura, can you lift him out of the seat? We need to get him to the med bay.”

“Yes, of course,” Allura says, clambering to his side. Shiro’s eyes are closed, but he elicits a pained gasp when Allura shifts his left leg. He’s conscious, if only just. He groans as she moves him again, lifting him into her arms. Careful, Keith wants to snap, but he holds his tongue. Patience. She’s trying her best.

“Can you guys go get a bed and whatever equipment set up?” Keith asks the others. “I don’t know what happened to him, but from the looks of it, he hasn’t had anything to drink or eat in days, and he might need a pod.”

Coran, Lance, Hunk, and Pidge respond with various forms of affirmation and hurry out of the hangar.

Carrying Shiro, Allura walks at a slower, metered pace to avoid jostling him more than necessary. Keith matches her strides beside her, not wanting to let Shiro out of his sight ever again. It’s a long walk from the Black Lion’s hangar to the infirmary, and they make it in silence.

By the time they get to the med bay, the others have a bed set up for him. As soon as Allura lays him down, Coran calls her over to help him calibrate some of the equipment. On the other side of the room, Hunk is poring over various containers in a cabinet. He trades chemistry jargon with Pidge, who types things into her wrist device at lightning speed. Lance just watches them, his eyes following their back-and-forth like a tennis match. He looks lost.

“Lance,” Keith says. “Help me get him out of this weird suit. Careful with his leg.”

Lance perks up, eager to be helpful. “You got it, boss man.” Keith’s not sure how to feel about being called that when Shiro’s back, but there are more pressing issues. He’ll sort that out later.

There’s no easy way of getting the worn, bulky suit off without moving Shiro too much, and they end up just tearing through the suit with Keith’s luxite blade. Keith and Lance share a horrified glance when they catch sight of what he’s wearing underneath.

Lance swallows. “Is… is that—“

“Yeah.” The unmistakeable tattered purple of a Galra prison uniform.

Keith’s stomach twists further as he cuts away the material covering Shiro’s left leg. There’s a bandage tied around Shiro’s left thigh that’s been completely soaked through, encrusted in dried blood. Lance blanches, looking as ill as Keith feels.

“He’s gonna need a healing pod,” Keith calls to the others.

“Unfortunately, the pod will have to wait,” Coran says, looking over a jumble of numbers and letters on a screen. “The pods use metabolic energy in the healing process, and he hasn’t had anything to eat or drink in a long time. We’ll need to treat that first.”

“We found something that should work,” Hunk calls from across the room. He and Pidge amble over carrying a packet filled with a clear liquid.

Coran pours the liquid into the mouth of a machine beside the bed—some sort of Altean version of an IV. He fiddles with a few things, adjusting settings, and then he inserts the needle into Shiro’s left arm. Or, at least, he tries to.

Shiro’s eyes fly open, and he tries to tear his limb away. “N-no,” he gasps.

“Shiro, Shiro, it’s okay,” Keith says, holding his arm in place with gentle but firm pressure.

“Nn… nnn…”

“Shiro, please,” Keith begs. “You gotta hold still.”

Shiro’s eyes are wild and panicked, but they lock onto Keith’s, and he stays still long enough for Coran to finish.

Leaving a hand on Shiro’s arm, Keith glances up at the others. “Guys, is there something else we can use that’s not…” He gestures vaguely at the line under Shiro’s skin.

Coran strokes his moustache. “Well, we could stick a tube down into his stomach through—“

“Uh, I don’t think that’s better,” Hunk interrupts. “Pidge and I can try to formulate some kinda oral rehydration solution that he can drink,” he offers, grabbing Pidge around the shoulders. She nods. “Y’know, sugars and salts.”

“Great. Do it,” Keith says with a nod. He turns his gaze back to Shiro. “Hey,” he murmurs, leaning in. “We need to leave this in for a little bit, but we’re gonna figure something else out real soon, okay?”

Shiro gives the barest of nods.

“Just rest ‘til then,” Keith says. “We’ll be right here.”

Shiro says something, his voice too low to catch his words. Keith has to lean in even closer to hear him repeat it, his ear barely an inch from Shiro’s lips.

“Just you,” Shiro whispers. “Please. The others… I can’t…” Can’t truly rest with them around. Can’t let them see him like this. Can’t be who he thinks they need him to be right now.

Keith would tell Shiro they’re not expecting anything from him, but that’s not exactly true. The rest of the team only really knows his leader persona. Maybe they’ve seen it slip before, but for the most part, they know the person he lets them see. The team is familiar with his confidence and determination and reassurance, and they do need that part of him. They nearly fell apart without it. It would be fine if Shiro let them see beneath that, of course it would, but it’s not something Keith could convince him of in a few words. Shiro’s got walls up just like Keith; his are just better hidden.

“Okay,” Keith says, quietly. He straightens up and turns to the rest of them. “Coran, you can monitor this stuff remotely, right? You guys don’t need to stick around. I’ll let you know if anything changes.”

“I’ll stay too,” Lance volunteers. “I don’t mind.”

“No. The rest of you should get back to the bridge. Figure out a plan for how we’re gonna infiltrate the Galra outposts Kolivan told us about.”

Lance gapes at him. “You—you can’t seriously be thinking about that right now!”

“Come, Lance,” Allura says, grabbing him by the wrist and dragging him toward the door. “We need your, ah, sharpshooter eyes on this plan.”

Lance visibly brightens at the appeal to his ego. “Well, in that case…”

Allura glances back as they exit, giving Keith a knowing look. Coran, too, nods almost imperceptibly. Perhaps those Altean ears of theirs were able to hear Shiro’s request.

“Supplies are in here,” Coran says, opening a cabinet. He goes through the different items, though Keith is well acquainted with them already—he prefers tending to his own injuries after battles to having someone else fuss over him, and he’s patched Shiro up more times than he can count.

“I’ll be keeping a close eye on his vitals from the bridge,” Coran tells him. “Let us know if you need anything.” Keith thanks him, and then they’re alone.

“Just me now,” Keith says.

Shiro’s face relaxes a fraction. His eyes flutter closed. “Thanks for staying,” he whispers.

“Of course.”

The rise and fall of Shiro’s chest slows, evening out. Once he’s sure Shiro’s asleep, Keith strips off his armour, disinfects his hands and knife, and begins the unglamorous task of getting Shiro cleaned up.

He cuts away the Galra prison clothes, tearing the awful thing into unrecognizable scraps of fabric. Keith had vowed to make sure Shiro would never end up in that uniform ever again, but he’d failed on that front. Twin storms of guilt and rage crash over him, turning his stomach more with each inch of skin he uncovers.

More of Shiro’s body is bruised than not, left a mess of green and yellow and brown. Whatever happened, he took a hell of a beating. His left leg is caked with dried blood from the thigh down. Gingerly, Keith peels away the bandage to reveal a nasty wound that’s still healing. It looks infected, and the area around where the skin’s been broken is burnt, angry and red and blistered.

The burn mark is shaped like a hand.

Keith swallows down his nausea. He can’t change what happened to Shiro, but he’ll fix him up as best he can. He focuses on his task, wiping away layers of blood and grime.

A few whimpers escape Shiro’s lips when Keith cleans the wound, but he doesn’t wake. With practiced precision, Keith applies a salve and dresses the wound, his hands all too familiar with the motions.

He reaches for Shiro’s face, dabbing at the blood on his cracked lower lip and wiping away the salt of dried sweat. He moves slowly, cloth lingering longer than it has to as it moves over Shiro’s features. When his face is clean, Keith discards the cloth and abandons all pretences, cradling Shiro’s cheek in his bare hand. “I missed you,” he whispers. “I missed you so much.”

Moments turn to minutes. Keith loses himself in a slew of emotions and half-formed thoughts, how could this happen and what can I do and he’s here he’s here he’s here.

Keith doesn’t move until Shiro starts to stir. His brow pinches and his jaw clenches, a groan slipping through his teeth.

“Shiro?”

A hitched breath; another moan.

“Shiro, what’s wrong?”

Shiro’s shallow breathing picks up in pace, becoming harsh and erratic. Something on the monitor starts flashing, graphs spiking.

“Coran?” Keith says over the comm system. “Coran, something’s happening. What should I do?”

“Not to worry, Keith. It looks like he’s just having a bad dream. Unpleasant, certainly, but not life threatening,” Coran assures him. “I imagine you’ll know what to do better than any of us.”

Just a nightmare. Not good, but better. Keith thanks Coran, requesting clothes for Shiro and a tablet when asked he needs anything, and turns his attention back to his best friend.

Pain is etched into Shiro’s features as he suffers through his nightmare. It’s difficult to watch, but it’s better not to wake him. Keith learned that the hard way, and he’s got the scar to prove it. He keeps an eye on Shiro’s left arm to ensure the IV is still in place, an eye on his right arm out of instinct.

Shiro’s distressed noises get louder, more desperate. Still, Keith waits. It’s better for both of them, but Keith hates not doing anything. It’s always been hard for him to sit still. He drives his fingernails deep into his palms and bites down on his tongue hard enough to draw blood.

Finally, with a stuttering gasp, Shiro’s eyes fly open, dazed and disoriented.

“Shiro,” Keith says, carefully moving in close enough to touch. “Shiro. It’s alright. You’re safe.”

Shiro’s eyes dart frantically, and when he catches sight of the IV in his arm, his right hand moves to tear it out. Keith grabs his wrist before he can.

“Shiro, please, we gotta leave that in,” he says, keeping his voice steady.

“No, I don’t—the lab—I…” Shiro trails off.

What lab? What did they do to him?

Keith eases Shiro’s arms back to his sides, keeping his fingers curled over his left wrist. “You’re not there anymore,” he promises. “You’re back at the Castle. We found you.”

Shiro doesn’t speak, silence punctuated only by uneven breaths.

“I’m sorry it took us so long,” Keith says, quietly. “I’m so sorry, Shiro.”

The look Shiro gives him isn’t angry, or blaming, or resentful; it’s so much worse than that. It’s mournful, despondent, broken. It crushes Keith, an implosion in his chest, squeezing tears from his eyes and carving fissures across his heart. Shiro’s silence speaks volumes. He doesn’t tell him it’s okay, doesn’t tell him he’s okay. His silence is honest.

“Where were you?” Keith asks, but he doesn’t get an answer.

Agitated and afraid, Shiro’s eyes return to the line in his arm. His metal fingers twitch. “Have to get this out,” he rasps. “Need it out of me.” The desperation in his voice deepens the hollow in Keith’s chest.

“Just hold on. I’ll see where the others are at,” Keith says, keeping his voice even. He opens up a comm line. “Hunk? You guys almost done?”

“Almost,” Hunk’s voice comes. “Give us a couple doboshes. We’ll be there soon.”

Keith cuts the comm and turns back to Shiro. “Just hold on. Hunk and Pidge are on their way over. They’re bringing something you can drink instead.”

Shiro’s eyes dart away. “O-okay.” He doesn’t seem assuaged at the thought. More distressed, even.  

“Do you… not want to see them?” Keith asks.

“I… Of course I do,” Shiro says, but he still won’t meet Keith’s eyes. “I’m just… tired.”

Keith gets it. He really does. “Okay. That’s fine. I’ll be right back,” he says, giving Shiro’s shoulder a brief squeeze before heading outside to wait in the hall for Pidge and Hunk.

They arrive shortly, Hunk carrying a pitcher and a cup, Pidge carrying the tablet and clothes he’d requested.

“How’s he doing?” Hunk asks.

“Can we see him?” Pidge chimes in.

“He’s stable. But you can’t see him yet. He’s, uh, resting.”

“Okay. Well, let us know when he’s awake,” Hunk says. “We wanna see him.”

Keith shifts uncomfortably. “Right. Yeah.”

Hunk and Pidge instruct Keith in how much solution to give Shiro and how often. When Keith heads back in, Shiro’s already got his metal fingers over the IV, ready to tear it out, though his hand is clumsy and shaky.

“I got it,” Keith says, hurrying back over, working as quickly as he can to remove it. Shiro’s relief is palpable. “Okay. Let’s try something else.”

Keith adjusts the bed so Shiro’s sitting up, his back at an incline. He pours a small amount of the liquid into the cup. “Here. Drink this.”

Shiro’s hands are still trembling, so Keith curls his fingers over Shiro’s and helps guide the cup to his lips. “Small sips. Nice and slow,” Keith says. Shiro obliges. By the time he’s done, his eyelids are starting to droop.

“You can rest,” Keith says. “I’ll be right here in the room. I’m not going anywhere.”

“Thanks, Keith,” Shiro whispers.

Keith waits until Shiro drifts off. It doesn’t take long. Keith pulls out the pad, brings up some files, and settles in.

…

Keith helps Shiro to drink the sugar-salt solution at regular intervals in between nightmares. Keith cleans him up and changes the sheets when he throws it back up, rubbing his back and soothing him as best he can, gently urging him to try again a bit later.

Shiro apologizes over and over—Keith shouldn’t have to do this—but Keith reminds him of all the times Shiro’s taken care of him. This is nothing. Keith doesn’t mind at all.

Keith tries to do work while Shiro’s asleep, but his thoughts keep coming back to Shiro. He has so many questions. Where was he? When was he? His hair is too long—maybe the Galra did something to him; maybe he was somewhere where time moved more quickly. Keith really hopes there’s another explanation; he hopes Shiro wasn’t suffering for the years the length of his hair implies.

Keith asks Pidge to extract any information she can from the Galra fighter. As Keith listens to the pilot’s log she downloads, he’s unable to stifle a choked noise that threatens to become a sob. If Keith had been looking for him when they were at Thayserix, maybe they’d have found him sooner. He was in there for seven days. Any longer, and he’d have—

Or what if Shiro had caught up to Voltron, and they’d done to his ship what they do to all other Galra fighters? Something awful crawls up Keith’s throat, and he forces himself to stop contemplating what-ifs. He can’t think about that. He can’t.

The space suit. Allura and Coran tell him they’ve never seen anything like the outfit Shiro was found in. It certainly isn’t Galra. It does look like something that’s been mass-produced, though—some sort of uniform, maybe? It’s a good thing he’d had it; he’d used up the ship’s supply of oxygen somewhere around Day 5. But why was he even wearing it in the first place? Was he out in space at some point, outside of the ship?

And the injuries. From the looks of it, he must have acquired them not long before getting in the ship. The massive bruises suggest he was thrown around. Maybe a crash? But the ship was intact. Maybe he had been back in the arena. He was definitely fighting something or someone. The wound in his leg looks like it came from a weapon—the wound Shiro had had to cauterize himself.

And a lab, Shiro mentioned something about a lab. God, what happened to him?

Keith needs to know. He’s curious, of course, but more than that, if it involved the Galra, it could be important to know for the sake of the mission.

“Shiro,” Keith says after a few vargas have passed. “Can you tell me where you were?”

Shiro flinches. “I… I can’t remember much.”

“What do you remember?” Keith asks, coaxing him.

“I… Can we talk about this later?” Shiro pleads, and Keith can’t bring himself to press the issue.

“Yeah. Of course.” Keith puts a hand on Shiro’s broad shoulder. “Well… whatever happened, I’m glad you’re okay.”

Shiro gives him a weak smile, one that says, ‘that depends on your definition of okay.’

“I’m glad you’re alive, and you’re gonna make a full recovery,” Keith amends. “Let’s see how your leg’s doing.”

Keith fetches the supplies to change his dressing, grimacing as he unwraps the wound. The Altean salve has helped a bit, but it still looks bad. “We’ll have to get you into a pod as soon as you’ve got a little more in you.”

Shiro freezes up.

���Shiro?”

His eyes are glazed over, lost in some kind of flashback. Keith waits for it to pass with bated breath. When Shiro finally snaps out of it, he vehemently shakes his head. “No,” he gasps. “No pod.”

Keith frowns. “Your wound’s pretty bad.”

“It was worse before. It’ll heal on its own,” Shiro insists.

“That could take a while,” Keith says.

“You’ve been flying the Black Lion, right?” Shiro asks.

“Yeah, but—”

“So you can handle it for a little while longer. Can’t you?”

It’s a request. It’s not what Keith wants. But if this is what Shiro needs, then… “Okay.”

They settle into silence, something comfortable and familiar. Keith’s about to go back to his pad, when Shiro asks, “How long was I gone for?”

It hurts just thinking about that time. “Eighty-four days.” Eighty-four days of grief and loneliness. Eighty-four days of poor leadership and indescribable stress. Eighty-four days of failing to find Shiro. Why had it taken the Black Lion so long?

Shiro’s expression is unreadable. Maybe it had felt like more, maybe less. “Well, I’m glad you were able to take my place as the Black Paladin.”  

Keith bristles. “I’ve been flying the Black Lion, but I am not the Black Paladin.” His voice is sharper than he intends, but he’s adamant about this. “I could never take your place.”

Shiro’s lips quirk up, and it’s hard to tell whether his smile is genuine or self-deprecating.

“I’m serious, Shiro,” Keith says, just in case it’s the latter.

“You always are,” Shiro says. His voice is exhausted but fond. “So if you’ve been piloting the Black Lion, who’s in Red?”

Keith’s only partway through his explanation of the Lion shuffle when Shiro dozes off again, falling into a fitful slumber.

Keith tries to keep working, but it’s hard to focus on interpreting the Blade of Marmora’s intel with the pained noises Shiro makes in his sleep, the way he gasps and shivers. He gives up when Shiro starts crying out, forming words Keith wishes he couldn’t make out.

Shiro wakes from what sounds like his worst dream yet with a scream. With a surprising amount of strength, he pushes himself off of the bed, struggling to his feet.

“Whoa, whoa, hey, where are you going?” Keith asks, just barely catching him before he collapses.

“My room, or just… not here. Please.”

Shiro should probably stay here in the infirmary where he can be monitored, but his eyes are pleading.

“Alright,” Keith concedes. “But I’m not leaving you alone.”

After sending a brief message to the team to tell them he’s moving Shiro, he helps him to his room. Shiro leans on him heavily, and by the time they reach his bed, Keith is bearing nearly all of Shiro’s weight. The walk there takes all of Shiro’s energy, and he’s asleep in a matter of ticks.

Keith claims the edge of Shiro’s bed and pulls out his pad. He’s greeted by the blinking lights of several new messages. Another Galra outpost identified. Another distress signal. How should we prioritize? How should we approach this part of the plan? How’s Shiro? Can we see him yet?

There’s so much to be done, and Keith’s going to have to figure out how to balance it all. He’ll need to decide how to divide his time between taking care of Shiro and his duties with Voltron. He’ll need to find a way of preventing Shiro’s reclusiveness from affecting team morale. Ultimately, he’ll need to strike a balance between what Shiro wants and what the universe needs. He’ll get Shiro to tell him what happened, even if it hurts.

Keith gets back to work.

Keith doesn’t remember nodding off. He doesn’t remember becoming a body pillow, but that’s how he wakes, with Shiro clinging to him like an oversized teddy bear. It’s distinctly uncomfortable—Shiro’s metal arm digs in under his ribs, and his grip is so tight it’s hard to breathe. Still, there’s nowhere Keith would rather be.

He wriggles out of Shiro’s arms just enough to roll over to face him. For once, Shiro looks like he’s at peace, finally getting the rest he needs. Shiro pulls Keith in close again, eliminating any space between them.

There’s a lot Keith has to do, but all of that can wait. For now, he’s right where he needs to be. With a small smile, he burrows deeper against Shiro’s chest. Taking in the steady one-two rhythm of Shiro’s heartbeat, he goes back to sleep.

[jonerysonline]

You Didn't Ask Me to Stay

The boat rocks under her feet and she has to grab the railing to hold herself steady. It’s a strange feeling; she hasn’t felt uneasy on the seas in years, since she was just a little girl. But it unsettles her now-or maybe it’s just that she’s so deeply unsettled that everything shakes her. The world is always roiling under her feet, even when she’s on dry land. 

Viserion. Her child, her sweet child…gone now, dead where he’ll never be found again. It happened so fast she still can’t quite realize it had happened; she’ll be hit by waves of panic and loss at random times, or waves of depression that drag her down so deeply that nothing can shake her out of them. 

Except for Lord Snow. Jon. 

He’s been asleep for days and she’s barely moved from his bedside-not to eat, not to sleep, not to send ravens back to her advisors on Dragonstone. It’s as though by focusing on him and pouring all of her energy into caring for him she can make the wight hunt not happen, somehow. Or at least it doesn’t torment her as much as it did. Her exhaustion is bone deep; she always feels tired these days but when she sleeps her dreams are plagued with nightmares and she awakes gasping, with tears in her eyes. 

But then finally, today he’d awoken…and she’d seen how his eyes had looked around the cabin with thinly veiled curiosity and overwhelming worry. Then they’d focused on her and those beautiful eyes had softened. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.” The first thing he’d said, and it had done nothing to abate her deep sadness. “I wish I could take it back. I wish we’d never have gone.” 

He’d took her hand then and she’d jerked back. Not because his touch was unpleasant but because it was strange; it felt strange, after so many days of thinking about it-wishing and wondering-for him to finally touch her. 

“I don’t.” She’d thought about it long and hard in her days of solitude. At first she’d wished they hadn’t, when the grief was so bitter that she could taste it…but slowly she’d if not accepted it than realized that it had been necessary. Not her child’s death, but the rest of it. “If I hadn’t gone, I wouldn’t have seen. You have to see it to know. And now I know.” She thought she’d been all out of tears to shed but they’d been pricking at the backs of her eyes, making her feel sick. “The dragons are my children. They’re the only children I’ll ever have. Do you understand?” He’d nodded. A rush of rage had suddenly filled her, because to her they were never monsters who could tear down the skies. They were her children, her babies, who cried out for her when they were scared and had trusted her for so long to care for them and protect them until she’d trusted them to protect her. And now the Night King had taken one of her children away from her. Dead was dead. Dead meant that he would never come back. “We are going to destroy the Night King and his army. We will do it together. You have my word.” 

He hadn’t taken his eyes off of her and she could see the tip of one of his scars peeking over the top of the blankets they’d piled on top of him. “Thank you, Dany.” 

It had shaken her. No one was that informal with her. No one addressed her like that, not even Missandei. “Dany. Who was the last person who called me that? I’m not sure. Was it my brother?” She shook her head. “Mm. Not the company you want to keep.” 

“All right. Not Dany. How about my Queen?” The words should have sent a shock, or a thrill of something through her-but they hadn’t and they didn’t, even though she’d been waiting so long to hear them. “I’d bend the knee, but…”

“What about those who swore allegiance to you?”

“They’ll come to see you for what you are.”

She squeezed his hand, trying to commit it to memory-the feel of it, the heat of it, living and real. “I hope I deserve it.” 

He hadn’t looked away from her, even for a second. “You do.” 

She had felt strangely vulnerable and childlike then, alone in the room with him..and then she’d had to leave, because the tears were becoming too hard to ignore and she didn’t want to cry in front of him. Even though she’d let her guard down more around him than she had in front of anyone, in a very long time, she still couldn’t let him see that part of her-the part that wished he hadn’t gone, who wanted everything to be as it was when the White Walkers were just a bad dream or a story to make children afraid of the dark. 

When she still had Viserion. 

“You should get some rest.” It had taken all of the self control she had not to run from the room-or to look back at him. 

She had gone straight to the top deck of the ship; she’d learned from experience that no one would bother her, because no one else would be foolish enough to be on the top deck in the middle of a snowstorm. The tears freeze to her face now and she doesn’t think she’s ever felt so entirely alone, with only the frozen world to keep her company. Even though she knows Jon is only a floor or two away, the distance between them seems insurmountable-a gap that she couldn’t cross. Or maybe she doesn’t want to, because she knows that something will happen if she did: something that will change everything. 

So she grieves in silence, unable to show him this innermost part of herself and hearing Tyrion’s words in her head. He loves you. And now, she’s beginning to realize, she loves him. 

She wakes up sometime in the middle of the night, shaking and crying, tangled in her blankets, with her screams on her tongue and an icy spear embedded in the dark space behind her eyelids-because someone is shaking her awake. 

Her eyes adjust to the darkness slowly; her cabin is cloaked in shadow and the few candles she’s set out have almost burned down to the wick. But there’s Jon, by her side somehow. He’s shirtless and barefoot, as if he just gotten out of bed himself. But it makes no sense. Why could he be here? “It was just a dream. Just a bad dream.” 

“You aren’t supposed to be up. You’ll tear your stitches.” Some of his injuries are especially deep; it hurts to look at him. It hurts to remember that it wouldn’t have taken much to end him and maybe if she hadn’t done what she did…did she trade her child’s life for his? 

It’s not a question she particularly wants to think about. 

He won’t stop looking at her, so tenderly. “You were screaming. I thought you were hurt.”

“Well, I’m not.” She forces herself to stop crying, for the tears to become little more than shuddering sobs. “You can leave now.” 

But he doesn’t. Instead, he sits down on the bed next to her-carefully, as if he’s worried she might flee at any moment. “You left, earlier today.”

She can’t look at him. Sadness, grief, guilt burns her eyes, her stomach, the back of her throat… “You never asked me to stay.”

“I know you’re hurting…” 

“I’m…fine.” It doesn’t sound at all convincing, even to her. She wishes he would go away. She couldn’t keep this lie up forever. “I’ll live.” 

He takes her hand, as if he’s still getting used to it just like she is. “I can’t imagine what you must be going through right now.” 

The words come out before she can stop them. “They trust me to protect them…he died alone, crying out for his brothers, and there was nothing I could do to save him.” She feels hollow with grief; she can feel it consuming her and it’s all she can do to hold it at bay. As it is, she lets out a strangled cry-like a sob stopped midway through. 

Carefully Jon takes his other arm and pulls her a little closer. She doesn’t protest, until she’s leaning into his side like his shoulder is the only thing holding her up. His grip is tender but strong, holding her close. It makes her feel like a child again; she couldn’t remember the last time she’d been held with such gentleness, such compassion, from a man who doesn’t expect anything in return. “It’s all right.”

“I’m sorry. I don’t want you to see me like this-” She can’t look at him. 

“Like what?” 

She can’t hold back the sob this time. It tears from her throat, full of grief and sorrow and unbelievable heartache. “He’s dead. He’s dead and it’s my fault.” I made him come. I didn’t save him. 

He holds her close and he doesn’t seem to mind that she gets tears all over his bare chest. “It’s not your fault. I chose to lead them. It was a suicide mission. I didn’t realize it in time.” 

“And what if it’s not enough to convince Cersei? All that we went through, all that we suffered, and she still doesn’t believe us? Why would she?” She can feel her walls coming down and she’s scrambling to put them back up. She has to be stoic, queenly; she can’t show any weakness, even around him. She has to be strong, but she’s not strong now. She wants to send him away…but at the same time, she wants him to stay so much that the heat of her desperation surprises her. 

She’s supposed to be certain, but she’s not. Not of this. Not of anything, anymore. 

“We’ll do it together. Whatever comes next, we’ll face it together. I’m not going to leave you.” And she senses that she’s talking about more than just the wars to come; he’s telling her, subtly, that he won’t let her sleep alone tonight. He’ll chase away the nightmares and deal with whatever comes next and it doesn’t impact his opinion of her. 

She’s clinging to the last bits of her walls desperately, trying to force the broken pieces back into slots they don’t fit into anymore. The world feels like it’s spinning and she’s boneless, broken, afraid. Gods, she’s so afraid. 

Suddenly a memory comes to her, crystal clear and perfect-Viserion crying for her in the middle of the night, sometime in the Red Waste. How she let him curl up on top of her chest and fall asleep like a cat, his entire body practically humming with love. 

The look in his eyes when she betrayed him later and put him in chains because she knew full well he didn’t harm that child. He would never harm a child. He was her sweet one, the dragon she trusted above anyone else…never a monster. 

And she breaks. 

True to his word, Jon stays with her-when she cries so hard she can barely see, when the grief feels like it will drown her alive. It’s never taken her like this, never so savagely. There’s nothing she could do but ride it out, like a great wave. But she can’t pretend. Not anymore. She can’t be strong, be certain, be a queen or even a Targaryen-she’s a mother mourning the loss of her child and a girl scared for the future. 

She waits for Jon to leave, but he never does. In fact, he doesn’t say anything; he runs a hand through her hair occasionally, or rubs soothing circles on her back, but he’s always with her. He never seems disgusted or out of his element; he didn’t even seem surprised to see the Dragon Queen in pieces. 

He doesn’t even try to put her back together again, which she appreciates. He gives her the space to grieve, while letting her know that he’s there, whenever she might need him. 

Eventually the sobs become hiccups and then little more than sniffles. Eventually she’s silent, feeling numb and sick. And still he doesn’t leave. 

She’s exhausted herself; she’s so tired she can barely keep her eyes open. Jon realizes it; he disentangles himself from her carefully, and she feels cold without his skin pressed to hers, without his warmth or his touch to anchor her. “I’ll get you a glass of water.” He leaves on silent feet and she waits for him to not return, assuming that he just made an excuse to escape-but he’s back a moment later with the water. 

She drinks in silence. “I’m sorry you had to see that.”

“You’re human, and you just suffered an unimaginable loss. I’d be more concerned if you didn’t grieve.” His voice drips honesty and she clings to it like she’s alone in a dark sea and he’s the only one who can keep her afloat. 

She wants to try and laugh it off, but she can’t. She places the cup back down on her nightstand, mostly empty, and sighs raggedly. “I’m afraid to go to sleep again. Every time I close my eyes, every time I try to sleep…I see it, again and again. I can’t stop it.” She turns to look at him and her voice only trembles slightly. “Will you stay with me tonight?”

“Of course I will.” He lies down next to her, making sure they’re both comfortable-and then she blows out the candle, all too aware of him in the darkness. He sends a pleasant current of warmth through her, dissipating the ice that’s set into her bones ever since she left the battle, and his curls tickle the side of her face. His arms are around her, strong and steady and there. 

She drops off to sleep, warm and safe in his arms. And she doesn’t dream a single dream. 

When she wakes up before him, as the first light of dawn creeps in from beneath the heavy curtains, he’s still sleeping peacefully beside her. 

He never left. 

[crimethinc]

The Power is Running–A Memoir of N30: Shutting Down the WTO Summit in Seattle, 1999

On November 30, 1999, tens of thousands of anarchists, indigenous people, ecologists, union organizers, and other foes of tyranny converged in Seattle, Washington from around the world to blockade and shut down the summit of the World Trade Organization. The result was one of the era’s most inspiring victories against global capitalism, demonstrating the effectiveness of direct action and casting light on the machinations of the WTO. The crisis of capitalism has only intensified since 1999. Today, we should learn from the struggles of the past, take inspiration from the courage of those who fought in them, and renew our assault on the structures that impose inequality and ecological destruction. The following narrative recounts one participant’s experiences in the events of that historic day.

This text is excepted from the zine N30: The Seattle WTO Protests, which also includes a blow-by-blow account and analysis of the events of the week. For perspective on how far-right nationalists have dishonestly attempted to co-opt opposition to the consequences of neoliberalism, read “What Did You Do in the Anti-Globalization Movement, Mr. Trump?” To learn about the infrastructure of the mobilization, read the Seattle Logistics Zine in our archives.

I can’t do it. I can’t. I can’t tell you what it felt like any more than a bird could tell me what it feels like to fly. I can tell you my story, but it’s only my head talking. My heart can’t write, and my guts don’t have lips. I cannot truly explain how it felt to taste ecstasy in every breath as the invincible forces of privilege and coercive power finally lost control, how it felt to stare down the world’s most ruinous and abusive bullies and watch them blink, how it felt to fall in love with tens of thousands of people at once, to not know what would happen next, to become dangerous.

And that is a tragedy that haunts me as I write every one of these words. Because if somehow I could share with you what I felt for ten days in Seattle, you would never settle for anything less again. You would kick in your TV, run outside buck naked, tear up the freeway with your bare hands, flip tanks upside down, and dance with panda bears through the streets. The barbarians would emerge from exile to knock down heaven’s door and the dead would rise up from their coffins and cubicles. And once you got a taste of the sublime joy of reclaiming control of your life and your world, of regaining your lost kinship in a human community of which you are an integral component, of realizing your wildest dreams and desires, you would do whatever it takes to make it happen again.

Monday, November 22 to Thursday, November 25

On Monday I leave for Seattle from Columbus, Georgia on a Greyhound bus, alone, already hungry, with no money and nothing to eat. Six hours later in Atlanta my bag is whisked away to a different bus, leaving me with no warm clothes and nothing to read, either. I stare blankly out the window at the bleak, diseased wasteland of concrete and smoke and cars, at the trees and fields and hills and rivers, at all the cities I’ve never seen before—Chattanooga, Nashville, Louisville, Indianapolis, Gary, Chicago.

I scrounge what little food I can at bus stations, but by Tuesday night I am hungry enough that I’m starting to get mean. In Chicago a grizzled old man gives me a sandwich, which I eat, and a dollar, which I give to another grizzled old man. I stare and think and try to sleep. Milwaukee, Madison, Eau Claire… Wednesday morning, Minneapolis. Haggard young women with kids, disgruntled truckers, teenage runaways. Fargo, Bismarck, Billings. The North Dakotan whose car broke down in Minnesota who can’t afford to fix it. Butte, Missoula, Coeur d’Alene, Spokane. The grizzled young man who buys me a waffle in Montana because he hasn’t seen me eat in a day and a half. I fall asleep a few hours past Spokane in the Cascades and wake up, Thursday November 25, at about midnight, in Seattle.

I stagger off the bus, meet my mysterious liaison Ms. J, and am miraculously reunited with my long lost bag. Fifteen minutes later I stand outside of the 420 Denny Space, a nerve center of sorts where I find dozens of people bustling around with saws and paint and walkie-talkies, plotting and planning and building. This is a very good sign, but after seventy-eight hours of Greyhound time it’s also pretty jarring. I’m utterly exhausted, ravenously hungry, and in no condition to conspire yet. I catch a ride south from downtown to the Roasted Filbert, a cavernous, dusty, unmarked warehouse with concrete floors, no windows, and a purple door; which is serving as a refuge for everyone who shows up at 420 with nowhere to stay. I find a space inside, curl up in my bag, and pass out listening to warm bodies breathing all around me.

Friday, November 26

At dawn I ride back up to Denny with four others from Filbert. None of us know each other. Downtown the towers glitter in the distance like decorated tombs, spectacular monuments to wealth and power that loom overhead just as the institutions they embody loom over every aspect of our lives. I know that we are flying under their radar, and that we are not alone. For the first time in my life those almighty towers, and all that they stand for, look vulnerable to me.

Up at Denny, the bustle and activity of Thursday night has multiplied exponentially. I help out with the kitchen and the dishwashing, finally get some food, and spend most of the day getting my bearings. Around dusk Critical Mass issues out of 420. I ride with somebody on the back of her bike since I don’t have one. Later I just run. We ride around and around the upscale shopping districts downtown, taking over whatever streets we want, whenever we want, without any authorization or permission, singing, dancing, howling, and conversing with anyone who will listen. Someone begins chanting “We’re gonna win! We’re gonna win!” and for the first time in my life I believe it.

Much to my surprise and delight, I chance upon Mr. X in the midst of Critical Mass. I have only seen him once since I spent much of the summer of 1998 in a van with him. He is in Seattle with Ms. X and X-Dog. Our reunion is cut short, however, when a psychopath in a fancy car tries to run us over. Mr. X screams like a banshee, jumps onto the hood, slips a piece of cardboard under the wipers and over the entire windshield, pounds three big ass dents in the hood with his fist, and disappears into the night.

Later we invade the Washington Trade and Convention Center, where the WTO summit is supposed to be held, and ride in circles through the foyer for quite some time before a security guard punches someone in the face and the police finally manage to chase us away.

Saturday, November 27

I spend all morning and early afternoon at Denny. The 420 Space is serving as a welcome mat, training grounds, mess hall, and nerve center, and it is turning into a complete madhouse. Countless meetings and workshops, endless training and skill sharing, and ceaseless cooking, cleaning, eating, and welding all rage perpetually and simultaneously under Denny’s roof. More and more people pour in throughout the day, and it is beginning to get difficult to move around inside. I leave late Saturday afternoon for the Hitco space to make lockboxes. Hitco is every bit as wild as Denny. While others hammer away at mammoth puppets and matching sea turtle suits we set up an assembly line and build hundreds of lockboxes out of PVC pipe, chicken wire, framing nails, tar, sand, yarn, and duct tape. We turn them out late into the night. I ride to 420, walk to Filbert, and sleep covered with tar.

Sunday, November 28

Sunday morning Denny is an utterly unfathomable zoo. I learn that Saturday night banners were dropped all over downtown, one from the top of a crane over I-5. At noon a parade complete with giant puppets, street theater, radical cheerleading, and an anarchic marching band rolls out of Seattle Central Community College (SCCC). The street party is a roaring success, reclaiming downtown for hours and railing fiercely at all manifestations of corporate dominance. Unfortunately I miss it. I go back to Hitco around five to finish the lockboxes, unaware that the festival is still bumping. I get back to 420 around eight and run across Ms. C. We are eating dinner when we hear that a mass public squat is about to be opened on Virginia St. The word is free shelter downtown for anyone who needs it during the protests, and for Seattle’s homeless after. About forty of us steal through the night to recover a fragment of the world that has been stolen from us.

913 Virginia Street. The door opens, and two masked heads emerge from the darkness. “GET IN!” I run through the door, up the stairs, through a wooden hatch, onto the second floor. The door closes behind me. The building is enormous. This floor could harbor a horde of barbarians. The power is running. Androgynous ninja elves scamper about everywhere around me, hammering away furiously on a thousand different project. I board up windows at a breakneck pace with a tireless Danish carpenter. Plywood, two-by-fours, chicken wire, black plastic, anything. Next room. The cops are coming. They’re about to fire tear gas through all these windows. No they’re not. More rooms. Yes they are. Cover all this up so they can’t tell how many of us are in here. No they’re not. “WHO THE FUCK LET IN PHOTOGRAPHERS? I’VE GOT FELONY WARRANTS IN WASHINGTON STATE!” The cops are coming. Two rooms left. No they’re not. “KEEP THOSE FUCKING PHOTOGRAPHERS IN THAT FRONT ROOM! SOMEBODY GO TALK TO THEM!” Yes they are. We’re done. No they’re not…

There are two doors, one in front and one in back. The former can be opened from inside by dismantling the contraption that braces it. The latter, where Mr. N has constructed a virtually impregnable barricade out of toilets, concrete, rebar, plywood, and an iron fire door, could only be opened by a tank. The doors are adjacent to two stairwells, one in front and one in back, which lead to either end of a long winding hallway that connects about ten rooms. The rooms are vast and spacious, with 25’ ceilings, gigantic windows, and giant stages and lofts of various shapes and sizes. One has been furnished with an ample supply of food, water, and medical supplies. Someone runs out of another, arms raised in triumph, a crescent wrench in one fist and a plunger in the other. “THE TOILET WORKS!” In yet another Ms. I and Ms. S arm a security team with short wave radios. Every window on this floor is boarded up except for those in the front room—where earlier we gave a full fledged press conference before banishing the blow-dried talking heads of the corporate media altogether—and nothing inside can be distinguished from below. The third floor is essentially identical to the second, except that none of the windows are boarded up and there is a ladder to the roof in the back stairwell. There is no way to approach the building that is not visible from the roof, where someone stands guard with a short-wave radio, waiting for the inevitable. Here come the cops, this time for real…

We assemble in The Spiral Room and send Mr. G outside to negotiate, agreeing that he will not accept, refuse, offer, or request any proposal before we have all consensed to do so. The cops say we need to let in a fire inspector. They need to know if we are posing a fire hazard to ourselves. After much discussion we consense that this is complete bullshit. They don’t know the layout of the building, they or how many of us are inside, how sturdy our barricades are, or for that matter if we all have machine guns or not. They want to inspect the building to determine how difficult it will be to raid. When we refuse they cut the water, then the power.

By this time a bizarre circus has gathered below. Reporters, feds, and undercover agents film us, and our friends from 420 and the Independent Media Center film them. We hang banners and signs from the roof and windows. Mine says “RESISTANCE IS FERTILE.” Outside Mr. G wrangles with the cops. Inside we are embroiled in an absolutely endless meeting regarding their ever-changing promises and threats. As it gets later and later we are left with less friends and more enemies, who make less promises and more threats. The situation becomes increasingly tense, but they never move in on us. Around four they finally leave, swearing that they will return at eight with the landlord to chase us out. I sleep with one eye open, and wake up four different times to false alarms. The cops are coming. No they’re not. Yes they are. No they’re not.

Monday, November 29

Throughout the morning a crowd from 420 and everywhere else gathers outside, beating drums and singing. The cops return at eight with the landlord, block the doors, and refuse to let anyone in or out. Around noon we manage to get a lawyer inside. He tries to cut us a deal. We will occupy the building until Friday, then hand it over to Share/Wheel, a homeless advocacy group, who will convert it into a free shelter. The landlord claims he will get sued if someone gets hurt in his building. We write up a waiver clearing him of any liability for anything that happens inside. He refuses to sign it. This all takes hours.

The negotiations break down completely by late afternoon. The landlord wants us disposed of. The cops slaver in anticipation. Around 5:30 they swear that in thirty minutes they will kick down the doors, beat ass, break heads, and arrest everyone inside. They will let anyone who is willing to leave out now. This is our “last chance.” Nearly everyone opts out at this point, understandably having no desire to spend the 30th in jail. They promise to tear ass up to Denny and return with as much backup as they can scrape together. I know that whether this is our “last chance” or not, there are nowhere near enough cops outside to actually raid the building, and I cannot fathom why. Later I learn that crowds have amassed all over downtown. Some have surrounded The Gap, some the Westin Hotel so that the WTO delegates can’t get in to sleep, and some have attacked a McDonald’s, breaking some windows.

About fifteen of us remain inside. There a lot of people out front, but not enough. The situation looks bleak. At 6 p.m. the riot cops show up. We decide that there is no longer any way to defend the building, and that there is no point in making martyrs of ourselves—except for Mr. B, who says he will hide in the rafters and hold out alone if he has to. We dismantle the barricade at the front door and run outside.

We are greeted with a wondrous sight. The cavalry has arrived from 420. Somehow hordes of people have slid in between the cops and the door, and more stream in from all around. Everyone goes berserk. We pound and bang on everything we can get our hands on, howling and dancing and taking up most of the block. Mr. B is up on the roof, roaring at the top of his lungs with his arms raised to the sky as if all the indomitable power of the avenging squatter demon is running through the marrow of his bones. The cops are at a loss. Every time they try to give us an order or command we just dance, but when they try to charge their van across the block to disperse us we surround it and slow it down to a crawl, then beat and kick and rock it while the couple inside squirms. It is all they can do to limp their wounded warhorse through to the other side before all the little elves flip the damn thing over. The cops leave.

Pandemonium reigns. Up on the roof Mr. B roars in triumph, and the walls tremble at the tops of the tombs. I suspect that the cops are not prepared to start a riot on Virginia Street when so much of their force is downtown protecting the world’s most ruinous and abusive corporations and the delegates who represent them. A fragment of the world has been recovered, and it is safe for now. About forty people run inside, and I run back up to Denny.

A few hours later, right before I leave 420 for the night, I run into Ms. X and X-Dog. She tells me that Mr. X is in jail. She is trying desperately to bail him out before the state discovers exactly who he is and what he has done. I promise to keep in contact with her and to do all I can to help. Before I fall asleep back at the squat, beneath a window with the glittering banks looming over me, I remember the time Mr. X told me that there were only two things that he would never do. He would never hurt anyone, and he would never take anyone’s food. His captors do both, and some day they will suffer the consequences. They have locked Mr. X in a cage, and tomorrow it’s time for payback.

Tuesday, November 30

I wake up before dawn and walk to SCCC, where the festivities begin. Before long I am surrounded by thousands of friends, and at 7 a.m. we set out for the Washington Trade and Convention Center, where the summit is supposed to be held. As we near it we fan out, taking over the surrounding streets and blockading entrances to the building. Everything you can imagine turns into a barricade. Bodies, puppets, lockboxes, a fifty foot tripod, barrels full of concrete, dumpsters, cars. We begin to form a human chain around the convention center.

In an amusing display of either arrogance or stupidity the delegates all wear matching beige suits and big ID tags that say “DELEGATE.” Whenever they try to approach the building we stop them and chase them off. Without the protection of their armed servants they are as powerless as a brain without a body, and their expressions are priceless as they run away. Before long the chain is complete, and the only ways in are through parking garages, hotels, and underground tunnels. We cut these off one by one. I dart around by myself, patching up holes where blockades need help and trailing delegates to their secret entrances. I dog one for blocks, grinning malevolently at him as he searches in vain for a way into the convention center. He finally gives up and asks a cop for advice, and I listen in, rubbing my hands with glee. “How do we get inside?”

“Well, sir… right now there is no way to get inside.”

The opening ceremonies of the summit are postponed, then canceled altogether. This is when the cops begin to riot. They have failed their masters miserably and they are pissed.

I run up to the barricade at 5th and Seneca, which I hear is about to be attacked. The cops, sporting Darth Vader suits and unmarked raincoats, have formed a line across Seneca. Behind them there are five or six more on horses and a couple with big ass guns. We push a line of dumpsters in front of them so that they can’t trample us, and form an enormous immovable knot so that they can’t drag us away and arrest us. The cops flip on gas masks and begin to fire tear gas into the crowd. Others blast us with jumbo tanks of pepper spray. One throws a can of gas into my lap. Ronald McDonald and his band of merry devils run amok through my organs, burning plastic bonfires in my windpipe and hacking at my lungs with chainsaws dipped in DDT. Vampire fangs sunk down to the gums suck the soul from my skull, and all that remains in the hellish wasteland between my ears is fear and hatred.

Everyone around me starts to run. While I am getting up a cop bucks me in the face with pepper spray. Tony the Tiger is scouring my eyes with his chemical claws, my nostrils are searing, and I can’t see a damn thing. I scramble down Seneca stone blind and finally collapse in the street, gasping and convulsing. Someone pours water on my face and rubs life back into my eyes. I am born again in their hands. We all tear ass back up Seneca towards 5th to make out what the cops are doing and how to stop them. I realize that my friends are not all just going to bail when things start to get ugly.

And here come the cops, storming through the sickly clouds, ejaculating toxic gas as fast as they can stroke their triggers. They open up on us with rubber bullets and concussion grenades, and we stampede back down Seneca and around the corner. The stampede becomes a fairly orderly retreat as we book down 4th Avenue, hurling everything we can get our hands on out into the street to protect ourselves from their cars and horses. Trash cans, newspaper stands, concrete tree planters, dumpsters, construction barricades, anything that will stop them or slow them down. The gas is inescapable but we grab the cans and throw them back. The rubber bullets are legitimately scary but we chuck sticks, stones, and bottles and hope for the best. I find myself on top of a newspaper stand in the middle of 4th Avenue, unleashing a psychotic stream of invective at the interchangeable bullies who are approaching through the smoke. “FUCK YOU, COWARDS!, I’M INVINCIBLE!”

This is happening all over town. They can move us but they cannot disperse us. At 4th and Union the worm is beginning to turn. The cops, facing thousands and thousands of us now, are a little less gung ho than they were at 5th and Seneca. They form a line across 4th and we come to another standoff. Only this time no one is going to sit down for them. I find myself on top of another newspaper stand in the middle of 4th Avenue, roaring at the top of my lungs. “I can’t TELL you how THRILLED I am to BE here right now. I LOVE every ONE of you, like a SISTER or a BROTHER. There is NOWHERE, in the WORLD, EVER, that I would RATHER BE then WHERE I AM right now. There is NOTHING I would RATHER BE DOING than WHAT I AM DOING right now. I would RATHER be OUT HERE than spend another FUCKING SECOND in my CAR, or at my JOB, or WATCHING TV. I DON’T think these cops can say that. I DON’T think those delegates can say that. I would rather EAT MORE TEAR GAS than any more of their FUCKING fast food. I would rather DRINK MORE PEPPER SPRAY than any more of their FUCKING soft drinks. I would rather DEAL WITH THAT than ACCEPT THIS SHIT for another FUCKING SECOND. And I would rather DIE LIVING than continue to LIVE DYING…”

Black bloc in Seattle during the WTO protests, 1999.

Somebody hugs me. It has been so long since anyone has touched me that I nearly melt in their arms. Someone else jumps up and roars, and then someone else, and then someone else. I rest for a minute while a stout Chicano man recounts some interesting news. While the servants were busy terrorizing us and the rest of the blockades, the wily and mobile Black Bloc dealt with their masters in kind. Masked little elves armed with slingshots, sledgehammers, mallets chains, and crowbars attacked The Gap, McDonald’s, Niketown, Bank of America, Starbucks, Levi’s, Fidelity Investment, Old Navy, Key Bank, Washington Mutual, Nordstrom’s, US Bankcorp, Planet Hollywood, and other manifestations of corporate dominance, smashing windows and redecorating facades. I am ecstatic. Those glittering towers are not invincible after all. The greatest trick the vampires ever played was convincing us that garlic did not exist. Let their facade be torn to pieces, and may the walls come tumbling down.

The stout Chicano man tells me that during the LA riots he and his friends burned down police stations and nothing else. We freestyle from the newspaper stand until my larynx is throbbing. Eventually the cops get impatient and one of them bucks my man full in the face with pepper spray. I kiss him on the head, they club me and everyone else they can reach, and back down 4th Avenue I go, a phalanx of crocodiles in ankylosaurus suits at my heels wreaking havoc and pain.

Yet another standoff at 4th and Pike. The cops form a line across 4th Avenue. This is getting repetitive. I have inhaled so much tear gas, ingested so much pepper spray, and ducked so many concussion grenades and rubber bullets that running the bulls on 4th Avenue is no longer novel or fun. It’s just frustrating. We outnumber them almost immeasurably, yet they still attack us with impunity. They hold all the cards, they make all the rules, and they cheat all the time. I am terrified. We are in no way seriously prepared to defend ourselves. All it would take would be for one dumb ass aggro cop to decide to get his rocks off and open fire for all the rest to follow suit. It would be a massacre. Kent State. Bonfires smolder behind my eyes, and the smoke rises out of my mouth. I choose one—at random, for they all look exactly the same. Every inch of his body is hidden under black cyborg armor. He is armed to the teeth. His face is hidden under a gas mask, face shield, and full helmet. “O’Neil” is embroidered on his bulletproof vest. I plant myself squarely in front of his face and I stare dead into his eyes. He won’t look at me. He blinks constantly, looks down, left, up, right; anywhere but at me. It infuriates me almost beyond words that this coward has the impudence to attack me when I am unarmed but lacks the courage to even look me in the eyes. “Can you look me in the eyes? CAN YOU LOOK ME IN THE EYES? LOOK ME IN THE EYES, O’NEIL.” Nothing.

I know why he won’t look at me. When he was halter-broken he joined his trainers in a companionship stimulated not by love, but by hatred—hatred for the “enemy” who has always been designated as a barbarian, savage, communist, jap, criminal, gook, subhuman, drug dealer, terrorist, scum; less than human and therefore legitimate prey. I try to make it impossible for him to label me as a faceless protester, the enemy. I pull off my ski mask and continue to stare into his eyes. I tell him that I am from the south, about fixing houses and laying floors and loading tractor trailer trucks, about nearly getting killed in a car wreck in October, about carrying my dog around crying to all the bushes that she loved to root around in the day she died of cancer. I tell him that we all have our stories, that there are no faceless protesters here. Nothing.

“Can you look me in the eyes, O’Neil? I am a human being, and I refuse to let you evade that. I won’t let you label me as a protester, and I don’t want to have to label you as a cop. I refuse to accept that they have broken you completely, that there is not something left in you which is still capable of empathizing with me. I want to be able to treat you as an equal, but only if you prove to me that you are willing to do the same. And the only way you can do that is by joining us, or walking away.”

I remain dead still, staring into his weak cow eyes. He is blinking excessively and is visibly uncomfortable. “Can you look me in the eyes, O’Neil? The difference between me and you is that I want to be here and you don’t. I know why I am here. I am enjoying myself. I am reveling in this. I am rejoicing. I have been waiting for this to happen since I was a little kid. There is nowhere, in the world that I would rather be than where I am right now. There is nothing I would rather be doing than what I am doing right now. It has never been so magnificent to feel the sublime power of life running through the marrow of my bones. I know that you don’t want to be here. I know that you don’t know why you are here. I know that you are not enjoying yourself. I know that you don’t want to be doing this. And no one is holding a gun to your head and forcing you to. Wherever you want to be, go there, now. Whatever you want to be doing, do it, now. Go home and get out my way. Go make love with your girlfriend or boyfriend, go snuggle with your kids or dog, go watch TV if that’s what you want, but stay out of my way because this is a lot more important to me than it is to you.”

I have not moved my feet or my eyeballs at all. I have been trying to blink as little as possible. O’Neil’s eyes are quivering and squirming to avoid me beneath the mask. “O’NEIL! CAN YOU LOOK ME IN THE EYES? CAN YOU DO THAT FOR ME, O’NEIL? CAN YOU LOOK ME IN THE EYES. Basically this whole ‘Battle of Seattle’ boils down to the relationship between you and me. And really, there are only two kinds of relationships that we can have anymore. If you can either join us or walk away then you will be my brother, and I will embrace you. If you cannot then you will be my enemy, and I will fight you. The relationship that we are not going to have is the one where you are dominant and I am subservient. That is no longer an option. That will never be an option again. “Which kind of relationship do you want to have with me, O’Neil? Look around you. Look at all of these people singing and dancing and making music. Don’t you see how beautiful this is? Don’t you see how much more healthy and strong and fulfilling and desirable and fun relationships that rest on mutual respect and consent and understanding and solidarity and love are than ones that rest on force and fear and coercion and violence and hatred? Don’t you see that the life and the world that we are beginning to create out here is superior to the one that you have been trained to accept? Don’t you see that we are going to win? Don’t you want to be a part of this? I know you do because you still can’t look me in eyes. If you want to remain my enemy then so be it. But if you want to be my brother all you have to do is join us or walk away.”

Rebel Girl with the Infernal Noise Brigade, Seattle WTO protests.

At this exact moment the Infernal Noise Brigade appears. For the first time since I began this surreal monologue I look behind me. A small man wearing a gas mask and fatigues is prancing about in front, dancing lustily with two oversized black and green flags. Behind him two women wearing gas masks and fatigues march side by side, each bearing an oversized black and green mock wooden rifle. Two columns of about fifteen march behind the women with the guns. They are all wearing gas masks and fatigues, and they are all playing drums and horns and all sorts of other noisemakers. They are making the most glorious uproar that I have ever heard.

The Infernal Noise Brigade marches all the way to the front where we are standing. When they reach the line the columns transform into a whirling circle. We form more circles around them, holding hands and leaping through the air, dancing around and around in concentric rings like a tribe of elves. We dance with absolute abandon, in possibly the most unrestrained explosion of sheer fury and joy I have ever seen. On one side of the line across 4th Avenue there is a pulsating festival of resistance and life. On the other side there is a blank wall of obedience and death. The comparison is impossible to miss. It hits you over the head with a hammer.

The Infernal Noise Brigade.

When the dance is over I return to my post up in O’Neil’s face. I stare into his eyes and invoke all the love and rage I can muster to fashion an auger to bore through his mask and into his brain. And Cow Eyes cries crocodile tears. His eyes are brimming, with red veins throbbing. His cheeks are moist. He won’t look at me. “O’Neil, I don’t care if you cry or not. I don’t care what you’re thinking right now. I only care about what you do. Before long you will get orders to attack us, or one of you will get impatient and provoke another confrontation. What are you going to do? When that happens I am going to be standing right here. If you choose to remain our enemy then you are going to have to hit me first. You are going to have to hurt me first. I dare you to look me in the eyes when you do it. You may be able to hurt me and not look at me. You may be able to look at me and not hurt me. But you won’t be able to look me in the eyes while you hurt me, because you are afraid you will lose your nerve. You are afraid of me, and you should be.

“O’Neil, you all have been terrorizing us all day. If this goes on all night we will have to start fighting back. And you and I will be standing right here in the middle of it. I have no illusions about what that means. Neither should you. We may get killed. But I would rather deal with that than accept this one second longer. I would rather die than give in to you. I don’t think you can say that, can you, O’Neil? Would you rather die than be my brother? Who are you dying for? Where are they? Whoever gives you orders is standing behind you, man. Whoever gives them orders is relaxing down at the station, and whoever gives them orders is safe in some high rise somewhere, laughing at your foolish ass! Why isn’t your boss, and their boss, out here with you, O’Neil, risking their lives and crying in the middle of 4th Avenue? Why should they? You do it all for them! What are you thinking? I just don’t get it. They don’t care about you, hell, I care about you more than they do. You’re getting used, hustled, played, man, and you will be discarded the minute you become expendable. Please look me in the eyes. I’m serious, O’Neil, come dance with me…”

Someone whispers in my ear that another cop is crying down the line to my right. For a fleeting moment I can feel it coming, the fiery dragon breath of the day that will come when the servants turn their backs on their masters and dance…

…And then it’s gone. Because O’Neil is not dancing. He is completely beaten. His lifeless eyes don’t even quiver or squirm. And he won’t look at me. I could whisper in his nightmares for a thousand years, I could burn my face onto the backs of his eyelids, I could stare at him every morning from the bathroom mirror, but he would never look me in the eyes. He is too well-trained, too completely broken, too weak to feel compassion for the enemy. His eyes are dead. There is nothing left. The magic words that could pierce his armor and resurrect him elude me, if they exist at all.

“O’Neil, I know that you have been broken and trained. So have I. I know that you are just following orders and just doing your job. I have done the same. But we are ultimately responsible for our actions, and their consequences. There is a life and a world and a community waiting for you on this side of the line that can make you wild and whole again, if you want them. But if you prefer to lay it all to waste, if you prefer death and despair to love and life, if all of these words bounce off of your armor and you still choose to hurt me then FUCK you, because the Nuremberg defense doesn’t fly.”

I have nothing left to say. I sing the last verse of my beaten heroes’ song, softly, over and over and over again, staring into O’Neil’s eyes and waiting for the inevitable. “…In our hands is placed a power greater than their hoarded gold, greater than the might of armies magnified a thousand fold—we can bring to birth a new world from the ashes of the old…”

Eventually a cop down to my right either gets impatient or gets orders. He grabs a guy, completely randomly, pulls him across the line, and starts beating him. The crowd surges to rescue our friend, and O’Neil makes his choice. “LOOK ME IN THE EYES, O’NEIL!” He clubs the person standing next to me, and the cop standing next to him clubs me. “LOOK ME IN THE EYES, MOTHERFUCKER!” But he never does. I ram into him as hard as I can, praying that the sea behind me will finally break through the wall, drown the both of us, and carry my friend away to safety. But I am not strong enough, and the wall of death beats us back once more. Over my shoulder I watch one cop walk up to a very small older woman and unload a tank of pepper spray into her eyes. Her indomitable and bitter face is the last thing I see before I have to run away.

There are no words that are poisonous enough to convey the venom that I hold for O’Neil and all of the rest of his kind. These wretched scabs, these Uncle Toms, these despicable bullies, these hellish machines, these dead bodies are utterly beneath contempt. I look at their faces and I feel nothing but hatred. I run down 4th Avenue, ducking gas and grenades, my eyes brimming with red veins throbbing. Training has dehumanized me in O’Neil’s eyes, and O’Neil in mine.

Breaking the Spell, a documentary about the WTO that CrimethInc. helped to circulate widely afterwards.