#i want stained glass hanging in the windows and a pair of leather gloves made to fit my hands like a second skin

[grymmdark]

going to the massive annual craft fair in my city. i both love and hate it bc on one hand, i love handmade stuff, but on the other hand, i only have like $60.

[sailorhyunjinz]

~ 𝐈𝐧 𝐲𝐨𝐮𝐫 ���𝐫𝐦𝐬 ~

𝘞𝘢𝘳𝘯𝘪𝘯𝘨𝘴 ; chan x fem!reader, bonnie&clyde!au, criminal!au, 60′s!au, bank robbery, heavy use of tobacco, explicit language,weaponry, mentions of infidelity, manipulation, mentions of murder, mentions of reader being smaller than chan, mentions of religious beliefs, authorities, american style!au, death, implied su-cide. 

𝘯𝘴𝘧𝘸 𝘸𝘢𝘳𝘯𝘪𝘯𝘨𝘴 ; SMUT!! sex against a wall (lmao good warning there cherry), dom!chan x sub!fem!reader, angry sex, dry humping, degradation, blowjob, face fucking, rough sex, dacryphilia, choking, possessiveness, implied corruption kink, creampie, unprotected sex (be careful plz), piv, clitorial stimulation, orgasm (m/f), cum. 

𝘞𝘰𝘳𝘥 𝘤𝘰𝘶𝘯�� ; 5.9 k 

𝘕𝘰𝘵𝘦 ; this was heavily inspired by both well bonnie and clyde but also “the serpent” because holy fuck i loved that serie so much 

also warning right; this is purely fiction and not meant to romanticise crime and i think it’s pretty obvious that i don’t know shit about how to rob a bank neither do i know anything about weapons,,, so take this with a grain of salt.

𝘊𝘰𝘯𝘴𝘦𝘯𝘵 𝘩𝘢𝘴 𝘣𝘦𝘦𝘯 𝘦𝘴𝘵𝘢𝘣𝘭𝘪𝘴𝘩𝘦𝘥 𝘣𝘦𝘧𝘰𝘳𝘦𝘩𝘢𝘯𝘥.

𝘗𝘭𝘦𝘢𝘴𝘦 𝘥𝘰𝘯'𝘵 𝘪𝘯𝘵𝘦𝘳𝘢𝘤𝘵 𝘸𝘪𝘵𝘩 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘱𝘰𝘴𝘵 𝘪𝘧 𝘺𝘰𝘶'𝘳𝘦 𝘶𝘯𝘥𝘦𝘳 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘢𝘨𝘦 𝘰𝘧 18

It was love. Love had led you down this path and shattered the one you cared the most about, the one that held your hand, the one that promised to die for you. Silence filled your mind as you stroked his cold cheek, his eyes closed. 

Your partner in crime.

Bang Chan.

“Tonight, coming up on channel 4, the continuation of the Lagoons.”

You turned the knob on the car radio, the windows on the silver vauxhall viva rolled down, your hair fluttering in the light breeze that accompanied the summer heat. The voice on the radio got distorted as you shifted channels, the antenna on the car barely being able to pick up signal from how far out in the desolate area the two of you were.

“Who the fuck watches the lagoons?” you said, furrowing your eyebrows, searching for some funky tunes as Chan was driving, one hand on the steering wheel, the other resting on his thigh. He laughed, the cigarette smoke whiffing over to you, burning at the tip and hanging out of the corner of his mouth. 

“Where we heading, sweet cakes?” he asked, cocking his eyebrows and checking himself out in the rearview mirror. You scoffed, adjusting the silk scarf around your head and reaching into the glove compartment of the light colored interior of the car, grabbing the half empty cigarette box. 

“Don’t call me that, I’m married” you say, the flicker of the metal zippo echoing, a purple flame igniting and burning the white end of the cigarette in your mouth, the orange part quickly stained by your lipstick. Chan smirked, casting a glance at you as you puffed, putting the lighter on the dashboard and leaning back against the leather seats, exhaling the smoke through the window as you observed the mountains that passed you, sweltering heat making your vision blur.

“And still you fuck me. What’s he good for? Cheating on you? You should just throw that ring away, I’ll buy you a new one”

The ring.

You and your ex-husband never officially divorced. You just packed up your things and left one night when he was out drinking, probably snogging a woman younger his age. The emerald ring that he once put on your finger held no meaning, it was simply for aesthetic now. Memorabilia from when life was worse, reminding you to always strive for something better. It was ironic, the way the sun shined on the emerald green symbolizes wealth and toxic jealousy. You couldn’t help but to feel jealous of the many young women he spent his nights with. You thought you had moved on but maybe you hadn’t since you refused to let go of the ring. Thank god you didn’t have his child or else you’d be tied down for life. You escaped at the right time. 

You didn’t answer Chan, simply staring out at the window. The car zoomed past with speed, there was no time for resting since you two were the infamous criminals that could be captured at any moment, it was still a miracle you were alive and well despite how many times you’ve been in open fire with the authorities. The two of you always managed and had each other in the end and the plethora of guns that were loaded in the trunk could buy you freedom for a little while. A gritty highway that never seemed to end, the tumbleweeds rolling about in the distance, he searched for a place you could rest since dusk would soon arrive. Life as a runaway couple had it’s ups and downs but the worst part of it was not knowing if you would survive another day, cops could just arrest you, rip you from your lover and lock you up like you were once before, writing love letters to Chan on a filthy piece of paper until you were bailed out by none other than your mother that you abandoned for him. They didn’t understand. He might be a criminal, stealing cars with his older brother since he admired his fancy lifestyle with hookers, expensive liquor and gold. He was so close until he stumbled up to you through a mutual friend and fell head over heels, he was too much of a hopeless romantic for him to be able to lead such a lifestyle. 

A big sign was ahead of you, a small red building inching closer to the two of you. Sure, it wasn’t the safest place, anyone could call the authorities on you but luckily telecommunications weren’t that advanced out here, most of the news being the ones you heard from between others lips. You two were simply a married couple whatever new village you infiltrated or at least that’s what people thought, the two of you were simply well-off, being able to afford the most expensive cigars and perfumes. The cigarette had burned down, almost meeting your plush lips that were covered in the latest lipstick. You threw it out the window, Chan had done the same moments prior. 

“What you say, hm? How about here for tonight?” he asked in a low voice, his hair slicked to the side, his jaw clenching as he rested his head on the headrest, looking at you with a quick glance with a smile. He always smiled when he gazed at you, it was almost a reflex. He was too smitten with love. You nodded, grabbing your oval sunglasses from the seat in between you and Chan, putting them on and observing yourself in the exterior mirror. Now you were ready for greetings with strangers, hiding behind your dark tinted shades.

The young man swerves onto the dusty driveway, the dust billowing from behind the car as stones flew everywhere, the car coming to a hasty halt. Your back bounced against the seat, removing your safety belt and opening the car door, stepping out with your shining red heels. The hotel seemed kinda small, perfect place for two sought-after criminals to hide. The building was a cherry red, tacky curtain in mustard yellow covering the chipped white window frames that held up the grimy glass panes. It lied in a remote place, being the only building as far as the eyes could see, beside the hotel there was a kiosk where one could buy the most basic necessities like bread, milk and cigarettes. As you were looking around the place, standing with your feet wide and your hand on your hip, Chan was busy unpacking the car. Not the weapons that were nicely hidden beneath a blanket but your two small briefcases containing nothing more than a couple of expensive clothes, makeup, a small notebook of your poems, a camera and photos of relatives. As you observed the mountainous landscape and dry land where cactuses made their home a small old man hurried out, dressed in a half-dingy suit and vest, the colorful tie being the main focus.

“Welcome welcome!” he says in a scurried voice. “Please, let me!” The old man shuffled over to Chan, grabbing the briefcases out of his grasp to which Chan bowed subtly in thankfulness. You and him followed the man inside through a lime green door and were greeted by the lobby that had a dark oak check-in counter, decorated with small trinkets of older times, a golden clock and small piles of paper. The man put down the bags in front of the desk, you casting a glance at Chan that was looking at the keys and the tags attached on the walls on small hooks.

“How long will you be staying for?” the man asked to which Chan hummed, looking at you before clearing his throat and answering - “Just one night”

“alrighty hmmm,,, then I’m guessing a double bed would suit your fancy? You do make a lovely couple indeed” he said with a smile, showing off his yellow stained teeth, years of coffee and tobacco. You smiled, clenching your jaw in frustration. 

“Thank you, which room exactly?” you said quickly, wanting the old man to hurry his actions. He looked back, exposing his half-balding grey head of hair and stretched for a pair of keys at the top, the keys jingling as he put them on the desk. 

“Room 4, it’s just here by the side. That will be 30 dollars” he said, writing something down on a piece of paper. Chan opened one of the luggages, quickly pulling out the needed amount and tips out from one of many wads of cash that were neatly tucked away between clothes and other products. He put the green bills on the desk to which the old man heightened his eyebrows, the generous tip falling to his liking. 

“Keep the change” Chan said with a smile, picking up the briefcases and heading to the room. You smiled at the old man as well, picking up the keys and turning to head over to your lover. 

You put the keys in the lock of the brittle wooden door, a small golden plate saying ‘4′ with a clear font. As the door opened you were met by a rather rustic room, the walls colored light blue and the bed frame the same wood as the door, murky white duvet covers on the bed. Luckily it was just one night.

Chan started packing up your belongings, mainly picking up a map of the area that he bought at a supermarket hours prior. He unfolded the bunt of paper, laying it flat on a vanity that had a round mirror attached in front. He placed his index finger harshly on a certain point on the map, his fingers clad in all kinds of rings with jewels. 

“Here we are, Johnsons motel, right?” You nodded at his question, him continuing talking in a firm voice. “So if we take this route tomorrow at around 9 am we should be there by 10:50 am which is perfect, we c-” You interrupted him mid sentence.

“Chan, you told me we weren’t gonna do this until next week, we have money!” you yelled, only then remembering that the walls are thin in such a matured building. He sighed, turning to gaze at you with dark eyes. He hated it when you contradicted him, it was almost like he was addicted to making you his slave and sure, he did take care of you whenever you were hurt due to his actions but he liked having you totally dependent on him, risking your life for him. The veins running down his arms got bolder, he moved the arm that was holding him up from the vanity instead standing right in front of you with a wide stance, his eyebrows heightened.

“What did you say?”

Your back hit the tasteless blue wallpaper as Chan walked towards you, trapping you between the wall and his muscular figure. A harsh gulp descended down your esophagus as you gazed intently into his hooded eyes, yours twinkling with mere innocence though you were far from innocent in the eyes of the public. He looked you up and down, almost swearing with his eyes, gliding his tongue against the inside of his cheek. 

“I said why can’t we just wait with that for a bit? We robbed multiple stores last week and we have money? I don’t see why you need to hurry so, like fuck s-”

“So you think money grows on trees? We do this together y/n and I could just leave you whenever, I’d just laugh seeing your ass trying to survive”

He leaned closer to your ear, his body pressed against yours. His hot breath lingered near you, tickling the shell of your ear.

“Or better yet I could kill you, no one needs a criminal” 

His voice vibrated through you, the deep tone scaring you but oddly turning you on, the heat pooling around your core, your panties sticking to the thin fabric of your panties. You burst into laughter, catching him off guard.

“You motherfucker” you said through your teeth, smiling brightly at him. 

“I don’t like this attitude you’re giving me y/n, I’m not joking with you” he said with a devilish smirk, moving away from your ear and staring into your soul. It was almost as if he stared through you, his jaw moving as he clenched it.

“Does it look like I’m joking?” your facial expressions turned serious in seconds, the smile wiping off your face. You looked him dead in the eyes, not even flinching when he smashed the rough palm of his hand on the wall next to your head, the loud sound echoing in the cool room, the slight humming of the air conditioner above the bed.

“No and you won’t be after I fuck you” 

You wanted to rile him up even more, get him so angry that he had no other choice but to pin you against the wall and stuff his cock so far down your leaking cunt that you’d alert the other guests around the motel, hearing how good Chan fucks you. 

“Hah,,, is that your only threat?” you chuckled mockingly, running your pointer finger up his toned chest, lifting up his head by his chin and flicking your finger off it, striking a jeering smile at him. His knee traveled up your leg, jabbing at your wet clothed entrance to which you accidentally moan, the gain of friction finally arriving when your core was burning with pure arousal as Chan spoke. With a gleaming look in your eyes you rubbed against his knee, his slightly cold hands wrapping around your neck, feeling your larynx bob when you swallow your spit, not breaking eye contact for a second. His lips landed on yours, pushing his knee against your sex causing you to moan into the kiss as you rolled your hips on the flat surface of his dress pants. Your lips pursed, teasingly biting his bottom lip as a sign that you needed him, his tongue slipping into your mouth and danced around with yours in a sloppy battle. Your hands fumbled with the big metal buckle of his belt, undoing it in desperation and unzipping the black pants that covered his bottom half. Chan grunted as you palmed him through his boxers, his erection begging to be freed from it’s clothed prison, you squeezed his member, massaging it in your hands to make his knees weak, make him beg for you but this time you would be begging for him as he placed removed his knee from your dripping cunt causing you to whine from the loss of contact. 

“C-chan, please I need you” you pleaded in a thin voice, lifting your head up as his kiss diverted to your neck, his rough lips leaving kiss after kiss on the sensitive skin, moving down to your exposed collarbones. 

“You’ll only get what you want if you do whatever I ask you to”

You nodded eagerly, putting your hands down his boxers and stroking his cock, Chan groaning against the skin of your neck near your ear, your earrings rattling. 

“Yes, I’ll do anything! J-just fuck me already” you whimpered, your hot cheek against the wall. 

“Then you follow your little ass to the bank tomorrow and do what you are told, understood?” His voice was deep, humming as he nibbled on your ear, giving it small kitten licks.

“And if I don’t?” You challenged him for a last time, stopping your slow strokes down the shaft of his twitching dick and removing your hands from his underwear and instead wrapping your arms around his waist. He scoffs, pulling back and looking you in the eyes, slowly putting his hand around your throat and tightening.

“I’ll choke you to death, you know I’ll get away with it” he said with a lifeless smirk. You nodded in pure fear, your eyes twinkling in the minimal light that came from the sun setting outside the dusty windows. Suddenly his hands grasp a handful of your hair, gripping it by the roots and shoving you down on your knees that land on the frangible floorboards with a thump. He harshly lets go of your hair in order to pull down his pants and underwear, his hard veiny cock springing free mere inches from your saliva coated lips. Chan gave his cock a couple of strokes before rubbing the crimson tip against your lips, hissing when you poke your tongue out, him smearing his precum against the surface of your wet tongue. You pursed your lips around him, slowly working your way down his shaft, taking a breath of air every time you pull away, licking the underside of his dick with fat stripes all the way from the base to the tip, flicking your tongue off. His big hands grabbed either side of your head, him thrusting inside your throat, not caring if you gagged, that just made him even more viscous, hearing your desperate moaning and seeing the spit run down your chin and neck covered in his marks. Your head bumped against the wall with every thrust, your nose pressing up against his abdomen as he was balls deep inside your mouth. Your eyes burned, tears teasing at your tear duct, a cold salty stream rolling down your cheek as he stopped, pulling out your mouth, you coughing violently. He swiped his thumb over your cheek, wiping the tear with one finger before grabbing you by the neck, lifting your head up and looking into your eyes as he inserted his dick in your mouth once again, your thick saliva making his cock glisten. His silent groans only made you helplessly rub your thighs together, eager to have him inside of you. Every moan that slipped from between his swollen lips made the blood rush south, not to mention his fierce eyes that were glued on you as he coldly fucked your skull, no hint of compassion. He stretched out your throat, the clear outline of his cock making its appearance on your esophagus as he went deeper, groaning as you felt him twitch inside your mouth. As the familiar sensation of a knot in his stomach descended upon him he pulled out, rubbing the tip of his leaking cock against your glistening lips before he was quick with his movements. 

It didn’t take much for Chan to throw you over his shoulder, legs thrashing and you squealing, telling him to put you down. He did but not in the way you expected, slamming you down on the plushy bed, a fine layer of dust swirling in the orange sunset that shined in. The impact caught you off guard, knocking the air out of your lungs. Chan climbed on top of you, his belt buckle touching your body as he hovered above you. You hastily shuffled upwards to the headboard, lifting your hips as you removed your brightly colored bell bottom pants revealing your panties that already had a wet stain decorating them, Chan chuckling as his thumb glided over the patch of wetness. 

“You’re so needy baby, all worked up from giving me a blowjob, huh? I can slip my cock into you so easily” he purred at you, his fingers hooking at the elastic band of your underwear, slipping them down to your ankles, you shimmying your foot out of the fabric and letting the panties dangle from your other foot as your spread your legs, Chan being in between them. He danced his fingers up the wet folds that presented themselves in front of him, you squirming at the slightest touch. 

“You think you have control, you think you can do anything without me? You’re wrong, without me you’re nothing” he growled at you, his fingers covered in your slick as he teased your clit, fingers rolling in circles as you clutched onto the covers, knuckles whitening. You hurried by taking off your top, throwing your bra somewhere in the same direction, exposing your hardened buds, Chan’s mouth watering. He did the same, momentarily losing contact with your wet cunt as he pulled off his shirt, his perfectly sculpted body surprising you every time, as if you hadn’t fucked him countless times before. Chan attached his lips to one of your nipples, the other one being fondled by his hand, the cold pure silver causing you to shiver. Your hands stroked his soft hair, twirling it between your fingers and softly whimpering. He left tiny marks all over your chest, his lips sucking and gently nibbling on your supple skin. When your entire chest was a mess of marks and spit he lifted your legs, leaning them against his wide sturdy shoulders as he teased your wet entrance, rubbing his tip against your folds causing your back to arch slightly, a long pitched mewl forcing its way out of your mouth. When he finally slipped his cock inside you he groaned at your tightness. 

“fuck y/n, you’re so tight no matter how much I fuck you” he said, leaning over you so that your legs almost touch your chest, planting one hand beside your neck as the other one choked you, the restriction of air making you lightheaded but only adding to the pleasure that burned at your core as he relentlessly fucked into your squelching cunt. Your feet dangled near his shoulders lifelessly as the sheer momentum of his thrusts made you move upwards on the bed, the bed frame creaking due to the age it carried, you hoped no one noticed what scandalous activities was going on this room but it was probably already too late as your moans turned into high pitched cries. Your hands folded over Chan’s wrist as you tried to stabilize yourself, it took every ounce of strength to not close your quivering thighs. His thrusts got faster, rolling his hips against yours as the hand around your neck loosed, a harsh slap landing across your tear stained cheek, his thumb dipping inside your mouth, you latching on instantly.

“Look at you, thinking you’re so tough. You’re weak, remember that” he said with a lifted smirk, asserting his dominance through his dark gaze. You nodded, feeding his ego even more as the hand around your neck tightened, making you lightheaded with arousal, his cock ramming into your tight cunt that begged for release just like you. Chan loved seeing you like this. All fucked out with drool hanging from the corners of your lips, your eyes rolling back into your skull as he vigorously made your world shake, going hard enough to make the bed squeak loudly, the headboard bumping into the wall with every thrust. You couldn’t form a single sentence, blabbering incoherent sentences with his name stringed into it, in your mind you made perfect sense but your hesitant lips didn’t do the same. 

“f-fuck!” you cried out, the even pace getting sloppier as the skin slapping sound grew louder, bouncing against the awfully colored walls of the shabby motel room. You squirmed around on the bed, flailing your arms as you desperately tried to grab onto either your lover or the flowery sheets, your efforts fruitless as you felt your orgasm approaching with wide strides as Chan started circling your swollen abused clit with the pad of the hand that wasn't forcefully holding onto your throat, making you swoon. You arched your back as you couldn’t hold on any longer, clenching around his cock with every ounce of perseverance. With weak legs you interlaced them, trapping him deeper inside you as the merciless fiddling with your bud made you let out a breathy broken moan, your tits bouncing with the movements. The male looked at the tears that rolled down your cheeks, adoring your bloodshot eyes. How he loved staring down at his prized possession. He had ruined a once innocent girl, made her his with the mere power of love and crime. 

He lulled his head back as he was dangerously close to his climax, drawing in a harsh breath from between his clenched teeth, the air cooling down in his mouth before warming up in his tobacco-stained lungs. He was sent over the edge with a final thrust that made your body jolt in excitement, his thumb now simply resting on your clit as all thoughts were wiped clean from his mind, his hot seed spilling into your cunt, unknowingly making you cum as your abdomen contracted, your teary eyes squinting together, not in pain but in pleasure. His cum painted the quivering walls of your sex, draping his body over yours as he panted, staying inside you to ensure every drop of cum was where it supposed to be. His lips were coated with a fine layer of saliva, two lips meeting in a loveable kiss. It might seem odd to others. That you love a man that only brings you down or uses you, at least that’s what it looked like from a different perspective but you were infatuated, maybe even obsessed. He made you famous and he took you under his wing when you fled from your scumbag of a husband. 

Now Chan was the only thing that mattered.

He pulled out, falling down beside you, the weight of the bed shifting as his built back hit it. The cum dripped out of you slowly, hitting the sheets and staining them. You ruffled your hair before you stood up, cum running down your inner thigh as you made your way over to the shower. Chan instead crept down under the covers, staring up at the ceiling in a half lying position, casting glance at the dark oak bedside tables where a packet of cigarettes was left haphazardly along with your metal zippo, a gift from your dad that died in war. It was important to you, important enough to destroy you with smoke. Chan retrieved one of the deadly sticks from it’s pretty eye catching packaging and lit one end, inhaling the smoke. He put one hand beneath his head that was supported by the pillow as he other one momentarily removed the cigarette, flicking the ashes on the cold tile floor, the grey thick smoke spreading through the room, interlacing the bed sheets with it’s scent. The gentle tapping of the water on the bathroom floor calmed him, calmed him from knowing that tomorrow might be the last day he’s alive. Or maybe it’s you. 

Here you were again, getting into the sparkling clean car that was loaded with nothing more than a multitude of weaponry that many times wasn’t used against civilians, just to give a gentle reminder that you don’t fuck with the two of you unless you wanna get a bullet burned through your skull. If they ask for it they are gonna get it.

Chan loaded the suitcases into the truck where a blanket covered the weapons, the pile of murder machines looking innocent like this. The sand of the desert was blowing in your face, your long skirt flowing in the wind. Just because you were a criminal didn’t mean you had to dress out of fashion, the style was a part of it. You gazed out into the valleys of dust, the lonesome tumbleweeds drifting with the wind like a blind rat following the smell of musky cheese, not aware that it’s heading to it’s own death.

“Ready, sugarplum?” Chan said, wrapping his hand around your head and leaning it against his sturdy shoulder. 

“I was born ready” you whispered into the wuthering wind. He smiled but put on a serious face as you looked at him, before walking over to the passenger seat, opening the car door.

“Let’s do what we do best, darling.” you said with a bittersweet grin, sitting down and closing the door. 

The bank wasn’t too far away, that being that it was still in the same state since many other robberies required long car rides that was either filled with funky tunes or more cigarettes than you can count. This one wasn’t any different. His two hands were gripping the steering wheel as he drove faster than the speed limit, praying to whatever nonexistent god he had in his head that the police wouldn’t flash their red and blue sirens behind the vehicle. He probably prayed to the money. He often said that money did things not even god was able to do and there was truth in Chan’s words or maybe the both of you were too infatuated with the idea of money that you would go to any lengths just to get it. Just to smell the fresh dollar bills in your hands. The car was in complete silence, only the growling of the engine being heard. It was always scary heading to a new place, you never knew what would happen there. Maybe it’s the last time you witness your lover behind the steering wheel, the last time you feel the wind fluttering through you hair due to the rolled down window. Maybe it was the last time you would see the emerald green jewel reflecting it’s light as the sun bounced off the glossy surface of the stone. You denied your longing for your husband, beside all the cheating and drugs you were ready to stay with him but there was one thing that Chan could do better; love. 

You could tell how tense Chan was. The way he anxiously checked the rearview mirror and forcefully looked straight at the neverending road in the middle of nowhere. It was pretty apparent that this lifestyle was driving him mad, making all his nerves stand on the edge of his skin, paranoid to the bone. But there was no end in sight unless someone else put that end there. He was never gonna stop, go as far as he could and shoot for the stars. It was people like him, greedy people that life usually steered the wrong way and well,,, you were one of those as well, greedy for luxury even though the life you were living now was anything far from that. You turned to Chan, his one hand rested in his lap and you slowly reached over to grab it, rubbing your thumb over knuckles. His eyes momentarily diverted from the road to you, looking at your eyes that were focused on his slightly rough hands.

After what seemed like an eternity, Chan parked into the parking lot of the bank, the building being just as remotely placed as the motel. Perfect. The car was strategically placed near the road for easy escape if there would even be any required. As you stepped out of the car you opened the trunk, uncovering the multitude of weapons that lay beneath the blanket and passed Chan his favorite rifle, the M1918 Browning Rifle. You simply stuck to a revolver since you could hide it in your holster for when you needed two hands to grab the money and shove it into the burlap bag. 

There wasn’t much thought needed for the robberies that happened this far away from the city, the local police station was a good drive away so neither you or Chan worried too much but it was still a risk. The big wooden doors were slammed open by him, a shot up into the ceiling shattered a lamp and next second your ears were filled by the terrified screams of men, women and children. You didn’t hesitate your movements as you went up to the multiple receptionist desks where the women in neat uniforms were all kneeling on the floor. 

“Get the fuck up!” you yelled, jumping on the desk and pointing your gun at one of the girls, she looked rather young and innocent with her dark shaking pupils that wandered with pure fear. You yelled at her to open all the vaults, to which she complied not having any other choice than to get shot. Her hands quivered as she put the money in the bag, filling it up with valuable green bills that would promise you dreams. You glanced back at Chan that was pointing the rifle at the people that lied down on their stomachs with their hands on their head, the sound of a child's tears not even bothering him or his conscience. You held the gun to her head, lonesome tears streaming down her face as her legs were barely able to hold her up. A smile cracked on your crimson painted lips as the bag filled up, the feeling of adrenaline rushing through your blood making you fly on the clouds, you could do whatever you wanted in this moment. You were free. 

Just as you were about to turn around, signaling to Chan that the mission was done you heard another gunshot that was foreign from the usual sounds of the weapons you carried. It didn’t sound like it came from inside the building. The second after you heard a window shatter, glass flying over the civilians that screamed in fear once again and then you heard a thump, a loud one. You looked over your shoulder and there he was, your lover with a bullet through his back, the puddle of sangria red blood spreading over the bright vinyl flooring. This was the sight you feared the most in the world and here it was, right in front of your naked eyes. You dropped the revolver you held in your dominant hand and rushed over to him as you heard a male voice over a megaphone from outside the building. 

“Civilians, exit the building immediately”

The crowd of people squeezed through the doors, fleeing to whatever corner they could or hiding behind the countless cop cars that flashed their colorful sirens. You dragged Chan’s head into your lap as you fell down in defeat, looking at his closed eyes and his face that turned a pale blue with hints of grey, he was cold to the touch and his blood stained your clothes as well as the floor, the dark red marks on the floor that lead to his body as you dragged him closer to you, cupping his cheek. Frigid tears rolled down your cheeks and accumulated on your chin before dripping down onto his face, coloring his lips with a clear sheen. 

He wasn’t gone, he simply couldn’t be. He was your Chan, the Chan that always got away no matter what. Nothing could stop the two of you, not a stupid bullet through his back. You shaked him as you sobbed loudly, your lips quivering as black streaks of mascara covered the supple valleys of your cheeks. 

“Chan! Chan, fuck!! Wake up!!” you yelled as you shook him vigorously but his lifeless body was limp in your arms, no sign of life to be seen. You hugged him closer, not feeling his heartbeat or lungs filling with air from this cursed place. He wasn’t gone, he was still here and he would wake up one day, you told yourself these lies because they are easier to believe than the cold hard truth. Your blood boiled with pure rage. Somebody had stopped your dream life, that someone being the law itself but no matter who it was it still stopped you and you never took no for an answer. Your empty lost gaze diverted to the loaded gun that lied only footsteps away from your cowered body.

“Exit the building, leave the weapons” you heard the voice call out from outside, the megaphone crackling and distorting the voice. 

What was better?

Dying in the hands of the authorities or dying in Chan’s arms?

[orionwhispers]

Bravado // Tommy Shelby Imagine

(A/N - its been a long ass time and i wanted to ease myself back into writing but this ended up being long and also super super angsty. sorry that this illness imagine came during covid idk whats going on with my imagination lol. love you guys SO much thank you for always being there. reblogs, comments and likes mean everything to me.)

trigger warnings - LOTS of angst. fluff. implied smut. my hc that tommy has a fear of illness, bad descriptions of hospitals. 

He knew something wasn’t right the minute his car pulled into the driveway and you weren’t waiting for him under the great concrete arch, with that smile on your face that made his knees buckle and heart race like he was a love struck teenager.

You were always there as soon as he came home. Barefoot in a broderie dress in the summer with tousled hair and baby pink toenails. Wrapped in a hand knit blanket with fire flushed cheeks and woollen socks in the winter - even running across the gravel and into his arms in the middle of a storm, the ice cold rain whipping across both of your faces as you kissed under the light of the moon.

No matter how shit his day or week or month was, no matter what stained his hands or darkened his heart, no matter what lay heavy and hard deep in his gut, seeing you made everything vanish in the night air like wisps of smoke. You made everything worth it.

He refused to give into fear, he wasn’t that kind of man, so he swallowed all of the nagging thoughts and apprehensions as he came up to the dark foggy windows and the iron cast door. It felt strange turning his key in the lock without the weight of you in his arms or the sticky peach kisses you left down his jaw and neck, the smell of the vanilla in your hair and lavender on your skin.

The second thing that sent a jolt of white hot electricity down his spine was Mary, watching him anxiously and wringing her hands in the hallway. Usually, she was calm and collected, taking his jacket and leather travel bag with her signature placid smile and gentle fingers. Usually she would return to the kitchen and finish up whatever she was making - a hearty roast lamb with rosemary and garlic and glazed potatoes or a pheasant pie with honeyed carrots, always followed by a three layer chocolate ganache cake that was so thick and rich you practically had to saw through the sponge. She would always have dinner piping hot and dripping with gravy by the time the two of you returned downstairs, no matter how many hours it took for you to get... reacquainted.

Now she looked sheepish and pale, her skin almost translucent under the syrupy yellow lights. There was something about the way she stood, as still as a wraith, that made his blood run cold.

“Mary. Where is she?”

“Mr Shelby, I - ” Her voice was strained and hesitant, like a slowly fraying rope.

“Where is my wife?”

She moved forward, creases forming around her eyes. “We tried ringing you in Liverpool but the hotel said that you had already left, so we...”

“You rang me? Why? What’s happened?” He couldn’t hold back the desperation in his voice, and it lingered and festered around them both like a poisonous gas.

“Mrs Shelby came down with something a few days ago, we thought that it was just a common cold but unfortunately she seems to be getting worse.”

He tore upstairs before he could even think, his shoes leaving perfect muddy footprints on the cream carpet. He almost slipped at the top, and he lurched forward, his hands reaching out and holding onto the portrait hanging above the stairs for stability.

It was the oil of the two of you. A soft, personal picture that revealed more than he ever possibly could. The love in your gazes, the hint of a soft, drunk smile on the dangerous gangsters face as you leaned into him, melting into him like butter, him holding onto you as though he couldn’t bear to let you go. It was his favourite photo, one that always washed a sense of calmness over him, a reminder of the woman that he loved and the way he felt around you. But now he felt as if was riding out a terrible storm.

He lived his life with no fear, he was capable and practical and used to the sound of bullets and the copper sweet smell of blood. There was really only one thing, one terrible thing that he couldn’t control, and that was what drove him crazy.

Sickness.

It gnawed at his insides like a rabid dog, clawed under his skin and settled behind his ribs. Losing someone he loved was like ripping out a piece of his heart straight from his chest, and he knew better than anyone what it was like to lose somebody to a violent, quick death - the pull of a trigger or the smack of a fist. At least in those moments he could lock them away in his mind, he could leap in front of a bullet or crack the neck of any man who dared to get too close to you, but there was almost nothing he could do to stop sickness, and the devastation it caused.

When you first met him it had been a surprise, almost amusing, that this powerful God of a man had these small little quirks. His house was always sparkling clean and smelling of Lysol, his fruit bowls were filled with citrus fruits and round, plump blueberries. He always made sure you were wrapped up warm in the winter, always placing his coat around your shoulders and bringing an extra pair of gloves in case you forgot yours. It was adorable, the way he took care of you,

It wasn’t till a little bit later when you learnt of those he had lost. His mother and his childhood sweetheart taken away from him much too soon. It broke your heart when he told you late one night of the sallow tint of their skin and the way he could almost see them vanishing from earth, the way that illness had moulded and changed those he loved the most.

You understood.

Your best friends older sister had died of tuberculosis when you were young. The elderly woman across the street from your first flat had passed away from a bout of horrendous smallpox. Your brother lost his first child to pneumonia. Times were changing but the fear of disease was ever present. Medicine was improving and so was knowledge, but still there remained a huge, dark cloud of what could happen, one that always hung around your husbands head.

——————————————-

All Tommy could think was the worst as he ran through the landing. His heart was in his ears and his bones felt loose, like the sweet liquorice the two of you would share at the pictures. He came to a stop by the bedroom door, tentatively pressing his palm onto the wood and ever so slightly pushing it open, listening to the gentle creak it made.

The room was warm. The lace curtains were pulled shut, and your favourite lavender candles were flickering on your vanity, casting syrupy shadows against the wall. He exhaled loudly as he saw you, bundled up under a mountain of satin sheets and hand crocheted blankets, your hair splayed across the pillows.

He moved to your bedside, pretending not to notice the large, untouched jug of water and the tissue box next to you, hoping and silently praying that you weren’t sick - just asleep and waiting for him, ready to wrap your arms around his neck.

You were silent, your lips parting every so often as you breathed, your chest rising and falling. He reached out gently, as though he was picking up shards of glass, and brushed his fingers against your cheek. Your forehead was beading with sweat, your cheeks flushed, and yet your skin was ice cold to the touch. He recoiled quickly, his heart dropping like a weight into his gut, and he inhaled a shaky, deep breath.

He saw something curled up beside your hands, a fluffy white cloud with sparkling emerald green eyes trained on him. Despite everything, he smiled. He thought of your birthday - of strawberry cheesecake and champagne, and surprising you with a ribbon wrapped little kitten as you woke up. He thought of that day often. How you smiled and leapt onto him with tears in your eyes, his whole world blissfully quiet as he spent the day in bed with you and your new best friend.

He would have preferred a big dog, one with sharp teeth and a menacing gaze to ward of visitors whilst he was away. But you were drawn to the tiny, malnourished runt of the litter who was scared of his own shadow. A kitten no bigger than the size of his clenched fist. A little white hairball who only ate and drank from fine pink saucers. A cat that had a very frustrating habit of crawling in the bedroom right as Tommy’s hand was up your skirt and his lips on the sweet spot of your neck, the tiny thing mewling and crying until you picked him up and nuzzled him into your chest.

He was a horse lover through and through, and never saw himself having time for any other pets. But in the summer when you saw the litter from one of John’s barn cats and fell in love with the sweet baby who mewled and cried and crawled right into your lap - he knew that he would give you anything and everything you wanted.

Including a cat who refused to accept that Tommy was the man of the house.

“Hello, boy.” He said, leaning over to scratch Comet under the chin, using a voice he only reserved for the two of you. “Have you been looking after my girl whilst I’ve been gone?”The cat meowed loudly in reply, pressing his head into Tommy’s palm but not moving from his spot beside you.

Tommy suddenly felt you shift under him and his heart lurched into his throat. He turned to face you, cupping the side of your clammy face as your eyelids fluttered open, blinking under the candlelight. A rush of red hot heat built up in his belly as you registered him, that angelic smile growing on your face, your tired eyes glimmering with recognition of the man you loved.

“Tommy?”

“Hi, Princess.”

You smiled sadly. “You’ve been gone for weeks - I missed you.”

He felt his brows crease as he rubbed along your jawline softly, trying to stop you from falling back asleep. He felt panic in his throat as sour as vomit, and he tried to bite back the nagging feeling that something was very wrong.

“No, sweetheart, I’m early. It’s only Thursday. I left on Monday.”

“Oh.” You said softly, your voice as gentle as the breeze rustling through the trees outside. “Well let me welcome you back properly - let me make you a lemon drizzle or a...” You lifted your head from the pillow and shuffled under your blanket, but he pressed his hands against your shoulder and held you down.

“No. You’re staying right here.”

“But - ”

“No.”

“Hmm. Don’t leave me, Tommy.”

“Never.” He said, his tone firm and cast like stone. He stroked your hair softly as your breathing slowed, but it didn’t nothing to quell the hard thump of his heart in his chest.

——————————-

Tommy left the room as quietly as he could after you had fallen asleep in his arms. He hadn’t wanted to move, not when you were pressed against his chest, looking ethereal but vacant, sweat beading under your brow and your face lacking colour. He wanted to stay with you, curled up by his side, his fingers laced through yours, the sound of your heart thumping in his ears.

But he was a man of action, and seeing you there - your lips cracked and dry, shudders passing through your body and goosebumps raised over your skin - he couldn’t fight the fiery urge to do everything in his power to make you feel alright again.

He found Mary waiting outside the door, chewing on the skin of her lips and swaying on the balls of her feet in anticipation. He grabbed her by the arm, harder than he meant to and something he would apologise for later, and pulled her downstairs, determined to let you rest whilst he got some answers. As soon as they reached the drawing room he spun her around, clenching his jaw and pointing a finger at the anxious maid.

“Where the fuck is the doctor? Why isn’t he here?”

“Mr Shelby.” She said, stepping forward calmly. “We phoned Doctor Moore and he came on Tuesday to see her.”

“Tuesday?” He seethed. “My wife has been ill since Tuesday and no one called me?”

Mary raised her hands in defeat, making it clear that the decision wasn’t hers to make. “He said it was nothing of concern . He gave her some antibiotics and told her to rest. She asked us herself not to call you, she knows how you.. worry.”

He ignored her sugar coated attempt to quell his anger, but if anything it made his vision darken. “When it’s my wife, It is always my concern.”

“Mr Shelby, we were just doing what we were told. As soon as we noticed she wasn’t getting better we phoned the surgery again, but Doctor Thomas was out for the day and said he didn’t think it was necessary to come round again, so we -”

“I don’t give a fuck. My wife is the number one priority. Ring every doctor in England if you have to, get somebody out here now to see my wife.”

He stormed away, anger pulsating through his veins, but he stopped suddenly, and threw out over his shoulder:

“And call Doctor Moore’s ’office. Tell him to expect a visit from the blinders soon.”

———————————————————

Once, when you were first dating, you found Tommy at the door to your flat at midnight, with scraped knuckles and blood dripping from his nose. You let him in, cleaned him up and sat with him in the bath until his skin was clear and his breathing was even. He knew that night, as you were pressed against his chest and his lips were pressed to your scalp that he was truly, madly and completely in love with you.

He remembered waking up the next morning, love drunk and blissful, and finding the bed beside him empty. He found you in the kitchen, wincing slightly and pressing a hot water bottle to your belly as you buttered a few pieces of toast. He rushed to your side with eyes as wide as saucers, concern lacing the features that were usually ice cold and hard as stone. You were completely baffled as he held you at arms length, his bright cerulean eyes trailing up and down your body for any signs of injury he might have missed. You were bewildered at the sight of the powerful man practically on his knees as he made sure you were alright, and you bit back a giggle as his warm palms spread over your abdomen.

“What is it? Whats wrong?”

“Tommy. Sweetheart.” You said softly, bringing his gaze level to yours. “It’s just - you know - that time of the month.”

He brushed off your embarrassment and ran his fingers through your hair, pressing a uncharacteristically gentle kiss to your forehead, sending a swarm of butterflies around the pain in your stomach.

“Do you need anything?” He asked, half ready to run down to the corner shop and buy any amount of painkillers or chocolate bars or your favourite lavender tea that you might need; not caring who saw the seemingly terrifying gang leader in the street with an armful of strawberry laces and salt water fudges.

You smiled like the summer sun and he melted, pulling you close as you whispered in the shell of his ear that you only needed him, and that was all you ever needed.

That was the first time you fully saw the extent of Tommy’s fear, but it definitely wasn’t the last. He knew he wanted you forever and always, and it took only six months of neck kisses and pillow talk, red hot jealousy and possessive hands across your skin and dancing in the rain and falling asleep under the pale yellow moon for him to put a ring on your finger. You were both consumed by your love, as though it was the only thing that mattered, it was insatiable and powerful - the wonderful mix of the devil and his sweet little angel.

And with that, came the good and the bad.

Like when you got food poisoning after Arthur cooked you a Sunday lunch to cheer you up whilst Tommy was gone. He came home to you retching over the toilet bowl with Mary holding back your hair, and swore that he would kill his brother with his own hands. Or when you slipped on ice and broke your arm while out with friends in London, and Tommy went ballistic and tried to ban you from ever leaving the house. It was just in his nature, how he always made sure you walked on the side furthest from the road, kept an arm slung around you whenever you were together, kept his eyes alert and vigilant no matter where you were - always looking out for his girl.

But he had never been like this.

———————————————————-

You were falling in and out of sleep. Waking up drowsy and heavy headed, squinting under bright lights, an ache in your skull and a burning in your throat. Every so often you felt a pinch in your upper arm, a squeeze on your palm, a kiss on your forehead - but you always drifted back into unconsciousness.

You weren’t sure how much time had passed when you woke up. The room was dark and you could hear the wind howling and whipping rain across the windows. You felt all too hot and all too cold at the same time, and the bed was damp with sweat. You struggled and tried to sit up, your head swaying and feeling as heavy as one of Tommy’s marble statues; as if you had been carved up and moulded. You could hear voices out in the hall, and unsteadily got to your feet, moving towards the noises.

“Pneumonia?” You heard through the thick wooden door, instantly recognising your husbands voice. “That’s impossible.”

“Sir...”

“Fucking. Impossible.” You knew his teeth were clenched.

The other man cleared his throat.“I know that it’s hard to hear, Mr Shelby, but your wife is very sick.”

“Just...” You felt your heart flutter and clench in your chest as the sound of his broken words, could practically feel his desperation and you wanted nothing more than to hold him. “Just tell me how to make her better.”

The second man spoke again, his voice softening and lowering, something you knew Tommy would hate. “Mr Shelby, the first round of antibiotics didn’t work and that means that it’s time for something stronger. Usually I would suggest the Birmingham hospital but I don’t think it’s equipped for...” He paused, trying to think over his words carefully. He wanted to convey the severity of the situation but also didn’t want to risk getting a bullet in his head from your very protective husband. “...This kind of reaction. I recommend we send her down to London for extra testing.”

“London? That’ll take two fucking hours. How the fuck can you recommend letting my wife travel that far? Are you out of your fucking mind?”

“I’m my opinion this is the wisest choice to make, but unfortunately that could mean your wife might get worse before she gets better.”

“Worse than she already is? That’s not an option.”

The man you assumed was the doctor was insistent, trying his best to portray the severity of the situation but failing as your hardheaded husband had already come to a decision.

“I’ll look after her here. She’s safest with me.”

Once Tommy had spoken that was the final result, and the doctor slinked away into the darkness and shook his head. You remained peering from behind the door, your tongue between your teeth and your heart hammering.

Tommy took one look at you and frowned, scooping you in his arms like a baby despite your protests. He ignored you, acting playfully and cheerful but you could feel his heated skin and the see flare of his nostrils. You wanted to help him but didn’t know how, and let him tuck you under the covers once again. He kissed your crown and stroked your hair and you wanted to speak but no words would leave your mouth.

“You stay there this time. You know I have no problem with tying you to the bed.”

You rolled your eyes as he left, and his clenched fists and tightened shoulders told you all you needed to know.

————————————————-

Comet watched from his spot beside you as Tommy wrestled with the fire. He had noticed you shivering despite your high temperature, and bundled you up in blankets whilst sparking matches beside the fireplace. There were raindrops across his shoulders, evidence that he had been outside and to the log store right at the end of the property - a job that had always been for the Groundskeeper. Your precious cat nudged the tips of your fingers as you sighed and watched your husband throw kindling onto the coal, a deep unease settling over your gut.

“Tommy, my love, I’m fine.” It wasn’t exactly true but you felt he needed to hear it. But you could practically see your words wash over him and evaporate like ocean spray.

He was shaking a metal tin in his palm as he worked, and you groaned and let your head hit the pillow as he pulled out two round chalky tablets. You winced as he placed them beside your glass, your mouth already tasting like the sour talc medicine you had come to loathe. He raised his eyebrows and shot you a look that told you he wasn’t far off plugging your nose with his fingers to force you to swallow, and you childishly stuck up two fingers as you took them.

Your stomach rumbled with nausea and you bit back the bile in your throat as you settled into the pillows. You watched your husband as he pulled off his crisp white shirt, revealing his taut tan stomach and the deep ink tattoos that you loved to trace with your fingertips and your lips. There was something about him standing there, with those damn cerulean eyes and hidden muscles, that boyish hair and slender fingers that you wanted desperately around your throat, that made a million tiny fireworks spark inside of you.

But instead you pushed him away from you despite your body wanting nothing but him wrapped all around you. “Don’t get too close. I might have something contagious. I can’t have you getting sick.”

He ignored you, smiling inwardly at the way you always put others before yourself. It was one of the million reasons he had fallen for you. You were sweating out a high fever and shivering in pain, and yet you always thought of him first. He pressed his lips to your temple and pulled you closer, knowing that skin to skin was a way to bring down a fever - even if it meant he had to restrain himself from tugging off your pretty little white nightgown and whatever frilly things you had on underneath.

“I’m not going anywhere. Fuck it if I catch anything.”

“That’s easy for you to say. I’m the one who will have to dote on you hand and foot, you big baby.” You teased, pressing yourself into him playfully, finally giving in.

He held you like a child, trying to hard to soften despite the way you felt underneath him. Everything on him was running a mile a minute, and he couldn’t help but want to try everything and everything to make you feel better. His hand was pressed against your temple to always try and measure your fever, his other palm across your chest to try and count your heart rate.

He could hear Mary treading across the landing carpet but he ignored his anxious maid, instead letting himself be completely consumed by the only thing that mattered - you.

This was something he had to do by himself. He was the only one who could care for you he reminded himself. And he let the words tumble over and over in his skull until they were all he could hear.

—————————————————————-

You had been asleep for a long time.

Every hour, after pacing the length of the hall and sanitising his hands and wiping the beads of sweat above your brow and above your breasts he woke you up and held a cool glass to your lips. You mumbled and moaned and pushed him away but he kept his fingers across your wrist - harsher than he ever had before - and kept you as close to him as possible.

He couldn’t remember the last time he had cooked. Perhaps it was last valentines when the two of you had camped out under the stars, drinking icy white wine and sharing stolen, day drunk kisses. That night he had roasted a chicken over the fire and it had burnt to a crisp as the two of you rolled around the grass, his head buried in your neck as you giggled at the poultry going up in flames.

He was trying now though, easy, plain substantial meals that wouldn’t upset your stomach. Boiled egg and dippy soldiers. Crackers with smooth cheese. Bubbly water and ginger biscuits. Each time he went upstairs you pushed him away, your whole body shuddering and almost retching, and he felt like smashing the plates against the wall at his defeat.

It had been almost thirty six hours since he had come home and it had been almost as long since you had eaten something, and his heart thundered and shattered in his chest when he found you gasping and wheezing over the toilet bowl when you had taken a bite of toast to calm him. He rarely left you alone, only for a few minutes to put the still full dishes in the sink, to ring Lizzie and tell her that he wouldn’t be coming for reasons that he refused to disclose, to smoke a cigarette under the grey stone archway, his shaking hands and bitten fingernails barely visible through the sleepy rolling fog.

He had grabbed handfuls of papers and the brass ink pen you had got him for your anniversary and broke his own rule - bringing work into your bedroom. It had always been a sacred space. For candlelight and soft laughter, aching hands and heart shaped bruises, a sanctuary for him to breathe and to love and to be loved fully in return. But he was afraid if he didn’t have a distraction, he might just completely lose it, and he had to be there for you.

So he sat squinting in his glasses, the room almost completely dark save for a few candles because of the migraines that had started to spread throughout your skull, and let himself be drawn into the mess of squiggly lines and numbers that suddenly didn’t add up, with you still centre stage in his peripheral.

After about forty minutes of rereading the same sentence a dozen times to try and make some sense of it, he heard your voice, like a small crack spreading across a sheet of ice, coming from the bed.

“Tom?” You sounded so weak, he practically flipped your cream vanity as he got to his feet and darted towards you. “I don’t feel well.”

He lifted you as you reached your arms up at him like a child. He almost gasped at the sweat pouring from your body but didn’t want to scare you, and instead held your shaking, shivering body against his own. How could you be so hot, yet so cold at the same time? Your skin was prickled with goosebumps yet you were burning with a fever, and for the first time in a long time, he had no fucking idea what to do.

He left you propped up against the headboard and he entered the bathroom. He ran over to the claw foot tub you loved, twisting the faucet and trying to find the perfect medium between boiling hot and freezing cold. He didn’t want to overwhelm you, just try and soothe your raging fever, and he ignored the shelves of expensive bath oils and scented soaps that you coveted, instead opting for a handful of something meant to ease tension - praying to whoever was listening that it would help you somehow.

There was a brutal, awful moment as he lifted you from the bed, limp as a rag doll, where he imagined what would happen if your heart were to stop. He couldn’t comprehend what it would be like to miss the weight of you in his arms, the smell of your skin, the feeling of your lips against him, the shovels stopping and fading into nothing. It hit him square in the chest, as merciless as a bullet, and he had to lean against the doorframe to stop the two of you from plummeting to the ground.

He undressed himself first. Tugging his white shirt off, sliding off his slacks and his underwear, keeping you as close to his chest as he could. Then he pulled your nightgown up and over your head. He gathered your hair and secured it up with a claw clip so that it was away from your face, the heat radiating off your neck as fierce as the fire now burnt down to ash in the bedroom.

He lowered the two of you into the bath, sinking down beneath the eucalyptus smelling lukewarm water, letting it wash over you both. Your teeth were chattering and you were barely awake. He gathered handfuls of water, letting it drip over your shoulders and pulse points, grabbing a washcloth and running it over your raised skin, hating how you barely registered his touch. As he scrubbed over your collarbones and up to your face he saw your lips had turned to an awful, silvery blue, as vibrant as a fresh bruise. He hissed and tugged on the plug, now determined to get you wrapped up in a fresh towel and tucked back into bed.

You were soft and placid and he helped you out, lacking the usual fire that he adored. Your eyes were glassy and missing their vibrance, like the vanishing spark of a lighter - and he felt miles and miles of invisible distance between the two of you. You were unsteady on your feet and he used his body to prop you up as he warmed your arms with a fluffy white towel. You suddenly stopped, lifting your hand to your mouth as you started to cough - a horrible, dry, gasping cough.

He noticed it almost immediately. His eyes darting to the splatter of red against the white, a smudge of crimson that was as loud and commanding as a siren, a warning signal that something was definitely not right. A bead of scarlet that would linger long behind his closed eyelids.

He managed to get you back into bed, remaining calm as he stroked your hair and kissed your temple. He tucked you under the duvet and waited for your breathing to even before he ran downstairs, his heart thumping in his ears as he practically ripped the phone off of the wall.

“Pol? Fuck. I think - I think I need help.”

—————————————————————-

The room smelt like bleach and metal. Unfamiliar and clinical. There was something hard on your chest and covering your mouth, it tasted like wet pennies and was as heavy as a hand over your throat, but for the first time in days you could finally breathe. You tried to sit up, but there was a needle in your chest, a gown you didn’t recognise cut straight down the middle to accommodate it. You struggled and lifted the thin bedsheet above your shivering torso, trying to look around the cold room.

“Careful!”

It was Polly, dressed immaculately despite her surroundings. She reached out and placed a manicured hand across yours, and you smiled at the woman who had always been a calming influence when you had joined the circus of a family. There was concern in her eyes, rimmed with black eyeliner and lifted lashes but still swimming deep around her pupils. That made you frown, and you moved as much as you could to face her.

“What happened?”

She ran her tongue over her teeth, choosing her words. “You gave us quite a fright, love.”

“I did?” Your memories of the past few days were much like a fever dream, blurry and distorted snapshots were all you could really remember.

“Your pneumonia got worse. A lot worse.” She paused, looking over to the door and you followed her gaze. “They found fluid in your lungs.”

“So...” You started, gesturing to the needle in your abdomen and the breathing apparatus around your head.

She nodded. “Yes. You were in surgery. It was touch and go for a little bit.”

“Really?” You were bewildered. You couldn’t remember anything, let alone having major surgery. You looked her straight in the eye, asking her the questions that had been on the tip of your tongue since you had woken up. “Where is he? Where’s Tommy?”

“He’s outside.” She clicked her tongue, reaching deep into her purse and pulling out some hand cream, gently rubbing your dry hands like she was your mother. You leant into her touch despite all of your questions.

“What? Why?”

“I think he blames himself. God knows what goes on in that mans head. All I really know is he was bloody terrified.” She paused, looking over in the distance. “I’ve never seen him so scared, not even on his wedding day.” She smiled sadly, trying to lighten the mood, but it soon faded. “He didn’t leave your side the whole time you were asleep.”

Your heart thumped in your chest, a soft aching that you knew all too well. “I want to see him.”

“I know you do. But right now...” She stopped right as a handful of nurses entered, clad in long blue dresses with white aprons, hair tied back and smelling of strong soap and disinfectant. You lost Polly in the bustle as one spoke softly to you before tugging on the needle right beside your ribs, your eyes just catching hers as she left, a promise to see you soon on her lips.

It wasn’t her you saw next, but Tommy.

The nurses had cleaned you up with wet flannels and bowls of warm soapy water. Your hair had been braided and your face washed, and walked you arm in arm over to the bathroom so you could relieve yourself. A skittish doctor followed after, his eyes darting across you and his touch gentle as he changed your dressings and took your blood - obviously under strict instructions from your husband, and despite everything, you smiled.

You were sat listening to the clock tick. A romance novel you had been given was dangling dangerously close to the end of the bed, but you were too tired to focus on it. You heard the door squeal softly, and the sound of familiar footsteps across the tiling, each small thud sending shockwaves across your spine.

“Tommy.”

He looked tired. Exhausted rather, as though he had been awake all the hours that you had been asleep. His eyes were bloodshot and his skin was sallow and bruised. His clean shaven face was dark with stubble and his hair was ruffled and unwashed. You longed to reach out to him and cradle him against you, but he stood in the doorway, lingering like a ghost.

“Tommy?” You repeated, your voice almost a whisper, breaking his already shattered heart once again.

“How are you feeling, my love?”

You smiled softly, like spun sugar and sweet honey. No hospital bed or itchy gown could dull your infectious light. “Better now.”

He approached you almost cautiously. He settled down on the hard chair beside your bed and stroked a line down from your temple to your lips, his touch setting you alight like an electrical storm. There was a sadness in his eyes that reminded you of how he got when things were bad, and you willed him to come back to you. His touch was tentative and he inhaled shakily as you cupped his hand with yours, pressing a tender kiss to the inside of his palm.

“Don’t scare me like that. Ever.” He was stern, as though hoping his words would make it true. “I mean it.” He kept his gaze on your pretty face, trying his best not to stare at the harsh bruising on your delicate flesh or the sickly tone of your skin.

“Tommy I’m going to get sick, even you can’t stop that.” You teased gently.

“I can bloody well try.” His hands cradled your face, pulling you into him and kissing you fiercely, still mindful of the wires and tubes taped to your body. There was something about the tenderness and deep longing in the kiss that when mixed with your total exhaustion and love for your husband prompted tears to start falling from your eyes. You sniffled as he pulled away, concern dripping from his beautiful features, his powerful mind wanting to do everything and anything to stop your hurting.

“Hey, hey.” He said, running his calloused fingertips under your eyes and wiping your tears away. You leant into his touch and he kissed your temple, squeezing you even tighter into him. “You know I hate it when you cry.” He toyed with your hair and winked playfully. “Besides, all you need to focus on is getting better. You’re going to have to take care of me when we get home, this week has given me a fucking stroke.”

You rolled your eyes, kissing the inside of his wrist. “You’re a idiot, Thomas Shelby.” You blinked at the clock looming above you both, wanting to stay in your blissful bubble but also knowing that Aunt Pol would probably be in the vicinity harassing a poor nurse over your results. “You should go and find Polly, let her know that everything’s alright.”

He shook his head and nuzzled his nose across yours, an act so innocent that your heart dipped and swooped in your chest. “Later.” He said, breathless and consumed by you. Everything had been too much. Almost losing you had been harrowing, it had punctured him completely and he just needed to feel his girl safe and warm around him. He needed to know that you weren’t found anywhere.

“I just want to stay here for a while. Just me and you.”

You grinned. “Always.”

[spvce-cowboy]

reunion

ch. 3 of i’ll be here in the morning (the mandalorian x fem!reader)

previous-ch. 2: “gentle things”

next-ch. 4: “songbird”

rating: mature 

8k words

warnings: alcohol, drug use mentioned, jealous/protective mando, animal cruelty, descriptions of gore

summary: the luxurious rot of Canto Bight is enough to put anyone on edge. Mando is forced to ask for your help in finding a high profile quarry.

**

Mando leaves the fighting ring before the caterwauling nexu is able to deal the killing blow.

 He can still hear the sound of the gore spraying against the floor as he climbs the stairs towards the exit, the roaring jeer of the crowd obliterating the speakers inside his helmet. The inevitable outcome of the fight was clear from its onset given the state of the nexu’s opponent, some kind of sand-bear, who was already injured upon entering the cage-like structure.

This wasn’t the Outer-Rim fighting rings he was used to. This place has carpets and a fucking chandelier suspended right above the blood clotted, dirt floor of the pit. It has pipe smoke and dark liquor, the low rumble of voices that only rise in tandem with the progression of the fight. There’s a strange reserve among this crowd that Mando has never seen before, not in this context at least.

 The patrons still had that starved look in their eyes though—bloodlust, pure and simple. Somehow, all the tuxedos and hair gel makes it far more sinister than it normally would be.

Karga sent him here to gather information about the quarry, but after an entire day spent searching along with the past hour he’d spent floating around the fight hall where the informant was rumored to be, he knew to give it up before he wasted any more time.

Mando exits the underground arena, stepping into the late afternoon heat just as it begins its gradual descent towards an oncoming chill. Upon arriving at Canto Bight, he had learned very quickly to avoid the main streets. There were too many eyes and whispers for a bounty as high profile as this one for him to be spotted on his own like this, obviously searching for something. 

There’s something about this city that makes him absolutely revolted. It’s not the strongest testament to his resolve or his character, but, at the same time, it’s not something he can necessarily help.

Mando still has absolutely no clue what Karga was thinking, but here he is, regardless if it made any sense or not.

He returns to the Crest, deflated after a second unsuccessful day of trying to gather information about the quarry’s whereabouts. He is desperate for a lead, two of three informants proving to be completely useless and his patience growing thinner every second he has to stay on this forsaken planet.

Closing the ramp behind him, Mando heads straight for the cockpit, needing a moment to regather his thoughts. To brainstorm a better plan of action before it becomes too late to rendezvous with Karga’s third, and last, possible informant.

The problem was that there was absolutely no way he was going to be able to get into the racetracks on his own. Getting into the fighting pit—which was considered “seedy” by Canto standards--was already a total hassle, costing him far too many credits and straining what limited negotiation skills he had.

The second problem was that he’d rather take a blaster to the leg than involve you in one of his missions. But now that was kind of his only option.

Mando rubs a hand over the forehead of his helm as he paces. When that doesn’t work, he settles himself in his pilot’s seat, hunching over slightly against the weight of the beskar against his bones. Maker, he is fucking tired.

Swiveling his head to the side, he notices a pile of something on the console that he can’t exactly make out until he leans over it.

Resting on the command board is a leather string, a few palm-sized pieces of stained glass already fashioned to hang from it by smaller loops of the same material in varied lengths. It looks like you were in the middle of working on it when something else distracted you, several more discs of glass piled onto one another to the right of the unfinished project, and a few loose scraps of leather in a pile on the copilot’s chair.

Mando allows himself to admire it for a moment, rubbing his gloved thumb over the glass’s surface. By the time he glances up through the windows of the cockpit, looking at all the people milling about outside, his breathing has somewhat evened. It’s easier to think straight, at least.

He stands and climbs back into the hull, rounding the corner to peer into the space you’ve made for yourself.

It takes him a moment to see you over the pile of blankets you’ve kicked off your mattress. You’re asleep. Under the table. The kid taking a nap with you. Of course that’s where he expected you to be if you weren’t in the cockpit but—but.

You’re on your belly, head buried in your folded arms. You have one, bare leg hitched up over pillow. The length of your calf spills over onto the floor, socked foot delicately pointed. That’s not really what stops him in his tracks. Well, it is in part.

But you’re wearing one of his shirts.

It must have just been a mistake, he knows that. He’s seen you in one of your own that’s the same general color and cut, but he knows this one is his because of the hole in the elbow where it had caught on an exposed screw and torn a few days previous. He’d been too busy to mend it.

Mando tries to wake you before his thoughts could go anywhere else. He says your name quietly, then a little louder. It wakes the kid, who yawns and blinks up at Mando, making happy sounds up at him from where he’s snuggled into your side.

When that doesn’t work, Mando nudges your calf with the tip of his boot. You startle awake, a protective hand shooting out to automatically bring the child against your chest, blinking rapidly up at him.

“Oh,” you wince slightly at the light coming into the cabin but otherwise doesn’t visibly react when you realize it’s him. Your arm loosens from where it had wrapped around the kid. “You’re back. I thought you’d be gone a while longer.”

“I need your help with something,” Mando crosses his arms in front of his chest. It gives him something to do with his hands and how awkward they feel just hanging at his sides as you prop yourself up into a sitting position to listen to him, the loose material of his shirt pulling up to reveal little glimpses of your lower back and belly as you do. “I have to have a companion with me, to go into the racetrack. They won’t let me in if they think I’m looking for a quarry.” 

You nod, rubbing your eye with the heel of your palm, voice croaking and still hazy with sleep. “Yeah, yeah sure. I wanted to check it out anyway. Just lemme get changed and we can head out.”

You pick the kid up and place him back on the floor of the hull. He toddles over to Mando, nearly falling—your hands automatically reach out to hover over his sides--but he manages to catch himself on Mando’s pantleg, tugging the fabric in a determined up, now.

Your brow furrows. “What’re we gonna—”

“There’s a nursery. Karga cleared it,” Mando reaches down and scoops up the kid. 

“Gotcha,” your voice already sounds clearer. You reach out a hand for Mando to pull you up, he obliges. The blankets fall from where they’ve pooled around your lap as you do.

You pad down the length of the hull towards the fresher, your hips sway with the movement as you lift an arm to continue rubbing the sleep from your face. The shorts you’re wearing are a few sizes too big, you have them rolled twice at the waistband to keep them up. Mando looks away sharply once he notices. 

“Alright womp rat, how does some dinner sound?” Mando smiles to himself when the kid gives an impatient squeak. “Yeah, yeah okay alright. I’m the worst caregiver in the galaxy, I know.” The child keeps giggling as Mando makes his way into the cockpit.

Mando is running through some of the Crest’s vitals on the command board when he hears you climbing up the ladder.

“Do you think this would be okay, for the racetrack?” There’s a certain timid quality to your voice he doesn’t think he’s heard before. You have also literally never asked him for approval on something, so he’s already a bit surprised before he turns to look at you. 

The clothes you chose were simple, a fitted long sleeve and a pair of loose-fitting pants long enough to at least partially conceal your work boots. It shouldn’t have felt like much of a departure from your usual roster of outfits because it really wasn’t, but for some reason there’s something different about it that he can’t put his finger on.

You have your hair piled on top of your head in a bun. With it pulled back like that, all attention is drawn to the canvas of your neck, your delicate throat that gently eases into the soft planes of your face. There’s a nonchalant beauty to you that sucks all previous thoughts straight from his head.

“You might want to bring something warmer, a jacket or something.” He turns back to the command board, desperate to look busy and hide how long he looked for. “Temperatures drop on Cantonica as soon as the sun starts setting.”

“Oops—yep. Desert planet. I forgot,” you sigh. He hears the sound of your boots scaling the ladder back down.

He purposefully doesn’t look up when you enter the cockpit again, when you announce you’re ready he nods curtly, making brief but direct eye contact with you before setting a quick pace out of the Crest and into the streets of Canto Bight.

The nursery is tucked away, out of reach and notice, protection guaranteed. He leads you through a series back-street passages to get there, too nervous about the attention the three of you would get with the kid and the main roads. You carry him against your hip most of the way, occasionally adjusting the little hood you’ve fashioned to cover his most distinguishable features with every person you pass. 

The door is nondescript, positioned in the alleyway behind a semi-busy restaurant. Mando can sense your apprehension the second he steps up to press the buzzer. Within seconds, there’s the sound of a series of bolts unlocking.

A warm faced woman opened the door, wearing the clean white uniform of a nurse. “When Karga called in I hardly believed it,” her voice is light, but there’s a grating, nervous squeak to it that makes Mando scowl. Maybe it was just the day he was having, but just about anything was able to set him off.

Mando and the nurse exchange a few blunt words about pricing and care. He winces, slightly, at the cost, but it’s not anything either of you could notice. Right as Mando is about to turn to take the kid from your arms, you speak up.

“Is this… safe?” You ask again, holding the kid a little tighter to your chest. He realizes that it’s the first time since you’ve joined them that you’re separating from the kid, Mando thinks his anxiety is partially feeding off of yours. 

“Karga gave me his word. It’ll only be for a few hours.” Mando glances at the nurse, who was giving the two of you her very best customer service smile. “C’mon pal,” Mando nods towards the nurse. The child’s big eyes stare apprehensively up at you, then at Mando. One of his small hands unfixes itself from your shirt to reach out towards the bounty hunter. The nurse clucks her tongue, her hands on her hips.

“Someone seems like he’s already gonna miss his daddy.”

His stomach drops without warning. “I’m not his father.” The correction is biting in a way he doesn’t intend it to be. He’s vividly aware of your sharp inhale at his words. The nurse looks startled for a half second before blinking her eyes and retaining composure.

“Yes, yes of course,” she stretches out a hand as an offering of assurance towards the child, who has resumed clinging to the fabric of your shirt. “Hey little guy, c’mon. I’ve got a lot of friends for you to play with, and some snacks. You like the sound of that?” 

Mando catches your smile at the child’s ears flicking with interest, despite the fact that his hands are still firmly attached to you. Mando mutters something under his breath before taking the child from you, handing him off to the nurse and trying to push down the terrible feeling it gives him hearing the kid give a small whimper as the two of you walk away.

The racetrack is down a major boulevard, towering sandstone buildings line either side, their circular doors illuminated by bands of glowing yellow neon. The streets are a different kind of polished stone that makes Mando’s skin absolutely crawl for not discernible reason.

He thinks you’ve caught on to his worsening mood because you try to keep the conversation warm and light in a way he’s never seen you do before. Your eyes are fixed to a constant arcing movement, taking in as much of it as you can, but your mouth keeps moving about anything but Canto Bight. You avoidance just draws more focus towards the situation at hand, but he appreciates the effort.

When the two of you reach the racetrack, you stop talking completely as you scale the stands. You and Mando settle on two chairs pulled up to a tiny table, overlooking the standing room crowd below. Mando faces the crowds more than the track itself, however you angle your chair so that you can look at the racing fathiers with ease. Eventually you turn away, grimacing.

“What is it?” He asks, out of curiosity as well as a desire to fill the silence.

“They’re so beautiful,” you cast one more glance over the track as the group rumbles past to the sharp roar of the crowd. “But they look so sad.” You keep looking at the beasts for a beat longer before fixing your gaze to your hands clasped in your lap.

Mando finds his words slowly. “This planet… this amount of abundance. There is always a cost. They always make someone else pay.”

You wince, shifting your body so you’re only facing Mando and the expanse of the crowd that’s over his shoulder. You don’t look at the track for a while after that, purposefully keeping your body turned to keep your gaze away.

Mando finds fleeting solace in the fact that he was at least able to keep you away from the fighting ring, which is quickly replaced by guilt in exposing you to a similar cruelty in a less bloody form. He does his best to remind himself that you mentioned wanting to see the races previously, that the indecipherable emotion on your face was not entirely his fault.

 The wait spans an hour. The tension in Mando’s shoulders grows with each passing minute.

 “He isn’t coming,” Mando eventually grits out. “It’s… Maker I—”

 Jobs have started off way worse than this, he’s not sure why he’s allowing all of it to get under his skin. It’s this damn city, something about it makes him feel like there is a knifepoint digging between his ribs.

 You tap his hand lightly. Twice, with your index and middle fingers. It happens so quickly he’s almost able to believe he’s imagined it if it weren’t for the fact that you were still adjusting your hands in your lap after your hand had retreated. As if you didn’t know what possessed you to do that, either.

 “Hey. It’s fine. It’ll work itself out, yeah?” You maneuver your head to stare directly into his visor. For some reason that alone is infinitely more intimate than your brief touch. “We can just stay here for a bit longer in case the informant shows up, then pick up the kid, grab something to eat and hunker down in the Crest. Tomorrow’s a new day, or whatever.”

Mando looks you over, then nods.

 The sun is setting on the horizon, the tracks illuminated by the last vestiges of its light. This is the beginning of most everyone’s day, yet the drinks are already flowing, and have been for quite some time.

 There are far too many extravagant outfits, ridiculous little hats barely teetering on large skulls. The roar of the crowd grows with their drunkenness, the races becoming crueler the more the stands fill. Mando will never understand the value in any of this and he’s genuinely not sure what’s worse—the icy coolness of the fighting rink or whatever all this is.

 “Who’s the quarry?” You blink up at him. “If you don’t mind me asking.”

 “Tyreus Cavill. Some filthy rich kid who doesn’t know how to keep his damn mouth shut. He’s taunting the Gild to the point of insult,” Mando rubs his hand over the brow of his helm. “It’s been confirmed that he’s supposed to be at some kind of party tonight. That was just about the only information I could get.”

 “Was that why Karga mentioned deep cover?”

 Mando nods. “He said it would be my most viable option, which doesn’t make any kind of sense. Especially with no pre-existing contacts that could get me any intel on where he’s hiding.”

 You speak up after a while. Mando isn’t sure how long, too comfortable in the silence as is.

“You know my mother worked for the Alderaanian court?” You say it softly, quickly looking at the racetrack to avoid drawing attention to your words. You’re kneading the hem of your sweater, a nervous tick of yours he couldn’t help but notice. “I still remember all the things she had to teach me when we went to dinners at the homes of the survivors, the etiquette and everything. I’m positive it’s much of the same, here. All this,” you twirl your index finger in the air, gesturing to the whole of the track and presumably what lay beyond. “Seems very familiar. I could help, if you need it.” 

“Your mother?”

“She was the court singer--or, well, one of them,” your voice is tense. “My father was a professor. I don’t remember a lot, just that they loved me very much.” Your eyes are searching the crowd in some desperate search for something, he’s not sure what. Probably for any kind of distraction, or any reason to keep your eyes away from his. He waits in silence, patiently. “They moved to a different planet to have me, a few years before the annihilation, there were a few other survivors who were off planet when it happened. I remember my parents hosting them, and they us, on a few occasions. It was always a multi-day affair of trying to remind me what proper manners were.” You wrinkle your nose. “It’s all very stupid, if you ask me. But,” you turn your head finally and look at him evenly. “I can—”

Mando watches as your gaze floats to a space just above his left shoulder. Your entire body visibly tenses, lips parted in what he can only think is total shock. Your hands drop the edge of your shirt and hover in your lap, as if you don’t know what to do with them.

Before Mando can ask what is wrong, you’re getting up from the table and pushing through the crowd. It takes him a beat to register what has just happened before he is up and following after you, making considerably better time in catching up given the fact that the crowd seems to naturally part for him. He almost reaches out to touch you, but instead settles for aiding your pursuit by keeping pace and staying at your side, clearing a path for you with his body and an outstretched arm to motion people to the side.

“What is it?” He tries to keep his voice low enough to not be overheard, his head in a constant survey of the crowds before you. You shake your head and keep pushing forward, higher into the stands, swerving around servers with platters stacked high with strange looking drinks. “Hey—if we go any further we’d need clearance—" the higher in the stands, the richer the patrons get. They wouldn’t let either of you in without identification after the eighth flight, which you’d just swiftly pushed past. Mando checks over his shoulder and, sure enough, a server is murmuring something to a guard droid, pointing up at you.

You’re so far up by that time that you have at least a minute until the droid catches up with the two of you. You climb onto one of the raised platforms dotted with various aristocratic parties, dining over bright white table cloths, centerpieces of bizarre orange flowers bursting through the tables. You make a beeline for the centermost table, where a Twi’lek woman is dining with an Abednedo and a human male.

You approach the Twi’lek in three swift strides, grabbing her shoulder. “Febhana.”

When the woman turns, standing, there’s a kind of wide-eyed shock of absolute wonder that immediately turns into pure joy. The two of you leap into one another’s arms in a cacophony of ecstatic, indistinguishable sounds. One of some long awaited reunion.

The Twi’lek woman, Febhana, holds your face in her hands, yours slide over hers. There are tears in her eyes as the two of your chatter over one another in breathless delight. 

“I thought you—”

“I had no idea that—”

“I’ve tried to find—”

 You both cut each other off, staring into one another’s eyes before laughing again and embracing tightly.

 From over your shoulder, Febhana gives Mando one of the quickest, scathing once-overs he’s ever received. He can’t help but automatically have a little bit of respect for it, especially compared to the terrified, diverted eyes of her companions.

 “Who is this?” She asks, pulling away from your embrace slightly. You open your mouth to respond but she’s already babbling over your warmly. “Oh! No. Don’t tell me. Not yet. Let’s do this over drinks at mine—please. Please indulge me. Maker, look at you.”

 You let loose a laugh Mando doesn’t think he’s heard before. A certain tonal quality of complete release, familiarity. You nod as Febhana clasps your face between her hands again, in marvel. Mando doesn’t blame her, with that look of utter joy on your face he’d—

Well.

“Do excuse us,” Febhana swiftly addresses her dinner mates, they nod and mutter forgiveness, eyes still fixed to the ground. Mando knows for a fact that at least one of them has a fob on them by the tight anxiety exchanged in their brief glances towards one another. He ignores it for the sake of maintaining the moment between you and your friend.

 Mando trails behind the two of you by a few paces. As Febhana guides you through the crowds, she waves off the guard droid with an elegantly manicured hand.

**

Febhana’s apartment could be considered a house twice over by Mando’s book. She leads you and him through so many tall-ceilinged hallways and rooms to get to the… lounge, he guesses would be a proper term for it… that he genuinely can’t remember where the entrance is.

The room contains a bar stocked better than any cantina on Nevarro, a few odd pieces of furniture, and a large fireplace. Heavy, dark blue curtains hang from windows so tall he has to crane his head upwards to see the top. He guesses the luxury is communicated through the refusal to occupy the space with much else, despite the fact that it could be considered a small banquet hall.

Febhana makes you and her drinks while you settle on one of the sloping, white couches, scanning the room in the same way Mando has been, with a little more plain wonder in your eyes.

Mando hovers on the periphery, unsure of where to place himself until you motion him over to sit on one of the opposing chairs, equally abstract as the rest of the furniture. Febhana settles across from you on the couch, handing you your drink before leaning back and kicking off her heels.

The two of you are in a constant chatter that has so many names and dates and overlapping speech that Mando has a difficult time keeping up. What he does catch is limited and mostly inferred: the two of you escaped from the same warlord at different times, Febhana was able to scale the social ranks of Canto Bight with ease and an inherited wallet--most importantly, the two of your missed each other very much.

It’s been at least an hour since the three of you sat down when Febhana directly addresses Mando for the first time.

“And what are you doing here, Mandalorian?” 

Mando feels your eyes on him, burning, as you take a sip of your cocktail. 

“She saved my life,” he manages as a straightforward reply. “I’ve hired her as a medic.”

“Febhana,” you say. When you’re slightly tipsy like this, you have a breathless wonder in the way you go about describing things. “It’s… it’s been so good. I’ve been practicing all these languages and… Maker, all the places I’ve been. It’s just like you described, when we would tell each other stories to go to sleep. Everything’s so big and there are so many people.”

Febhana throws back her head in a laugh, nodding. “Well I know that, darling. Oh, stars, it’s so good to look at you again.”

You and Febhana go back and forth a while longer still, Mando happily settles into the rhythm of it. There’s the warm, familiar way women get so engrossed in one another that he finds completely novel, if not enviable. It softens something in him to see you so relaxed as you prompt Febhana to detail her exploits, the excited yip you make when she flashes you the wedding band strung on a series of thin gold chains looped around her neck.

Then again, the way the two of you seem so physically intimate occasionally makes something in his chest constrict uncomfortably. He isn’t sure where it comes from, all the little touches you give each other seem to come from a place of purely platonic joy in reunion. But there’s a little jolt in his stomach whenever he sees it happen. He doesn’t want to acknowledge it as jealousy, but… she gets to feel you. So unabashedly.

At some point there’s a lull in the conversation. You take this moment to stretch your arm across the couch, clasping Febhana’s hands in your own. “We’re actually here for a specific reason,” you say. “And I’m only asking you out of genuine, pure desperation—Mando… has a job, here. That’s gotten a little tricky. The bounty is on the head of Tyreus Cavill.” Febhana’s eyes widen considerably, but other than that she maintains composure. Taking a deep breath, you continue, “He needs to find him, Febhana—there’s intel that he’s supposed to be at some kind of event. Possibly tonight.” You glance up at Mando to check if you’re getting the details right, he gives you brief nod of assurance when you do. “Do you know anything about it?”

Febhana scoffs, shaking her head and withdrawing her hand from yours to grab her drink resting on the low glass table in front of you. “If you’re referring to what I think you are, it would be the Gathering of Rams, one of the most exclusive events hosted on Canto. I’d imagine that’s why he’d dare show his face, even with the price on his head. Unless you already have an in, you’re fucked, Mandalorian. That place is more fortified than a warship.”

You visibly deflate. “What do you mean?”

“It’s an old, and I mean old, money tradition. A dinner for just about every despicable person in the galaxy. I’ve only heard rumors about what goes on, definitely some serious cult-y type shit, oaths, rituals, the like.” She chews on a nail as she thinks. Something in her eyes lights up. “Wait. I think I… yes! Yes, I got the announcement a few weeks ago. Stars I think—” she looks down at the device on the inside of her wrist, tapping on it until—“Christ you two are the luckiest couple of bounty hunters in the galaxy, you know that? The Tagges are hosting the afterparty, tonight. The most eligible of all of Canto Bight will be there, and then some. I was invited a few weeks ago, I’d completely forgotten. With any luck he’ll be dumb and drunk enough after the Gathering to go.”

“The Tagges?” Your voice is filled with apprehension. You glance to Mando, then quickly back to your friend. “Febhana, there’s no way he can get in.”

“Hm, I’d think so too but there could be a chance…” Her eyes narrow, her face breaking into a toothy grin. “No, I’m a complete idiot. Maker, this is gonna be perfect--most of the ladies in waiting here dress their guard droids as glorified curtains. It’s a new thing if you get what I’m saying. If we go in together and disguise the Mandalorian as even more of a hunk of metal than he already is—” Mando grunts at the slight jab—“all one of us would have to do is get the target by himself with a little eye-batting and it would be a done deal.” 

You and Mando speak in unison.

“I am not going to be a honeypot.”

“She will not.”

 Febhana raises a brow, one side of her mouth pulling up in poorly concealed amusement.

“Oh I suggested no such thing, I’d happily volunteer. But I do need a wing-woman, for appearance’s sake. I am taken, you know,” she flashes the wedding band again, pulling the collar of her dress down a fraction to do so. “Would be unbecoming to go on the prowl in public like that without pretending like I was just assisting.”

Mando glances over at you, trying to gauge your reaction to her proposal before he came off as to overbearing. He didn’t have the right to, he knows that. But there’s some raw part of him that winces at the very thought of you and your safety getting involved in one of his jobs. Maker if you got hurt in any way—

Febhana’s voice breaks his thought before it can be fully formed. “Oh, this is going to be excellent.” She practically purrs, jumping off the couch and extending her hand towards you to help you up. You comply, giving Mando a raised-brow glance of well, let’s see where this goes.

As Febhana begins leading you across the room, Mando stands.

“Should I contact the nursery to let them know to keep the child overnight?”

“The child?” Febhana’s eyes flick between you and Mando quickly. “I’m sorry, what?”

You curse under your breath, pressing your hand against your forehead. “A kid we’re looking after,” you clarify for Febhana. “I’m so sorry Mando, I got excited so it completely slipped my mind. I…” you bite your lip. “If you feel like it would be safe doing that I… guess that should be fine.”

“My wife could also look after it,” Febhana regards Mando evenly for a moment. “If you’re worried about safety. Would that be sufficient?”

Your eyes brighten slightly, glancing at Mando, tilting your head in question.

Mando nods, addressing Febhana directly. “If she trusts you, I do. I can travel back and get him while the two of you get ready.”

“I’ll send a car for you,” Febhana throws the remark over her shoulder, already busying herself by flinging the double doors that lead into the hallway back open.

You inhale sharply as if remembering something, tapping your friend on the shoulder before she begins to walk down the hall. “Wait, Febhana—the car, is there maybe a taxi service you could call? With an actual driver? He… we don’t really ‘do’ droids, if possible.” 

“I have an ‘actual’ driver, darling,” Febhana playfully chides. Her eyes flick towards Mando. “I’ll ring him, he’ll be downstairs in a moment. You remember where the entrance is, right?” 

Your delicate rephrasing, that “we,” rings in Mando’s ears for the entire trip back to the nursery. 

Mando quickly returns with the child, slightly weirded out by the enclosed landspeeder Febhana sent for him. It’s unlike anything he’d seen before, more like a carriage than any hover-craft he’d ever set foot in. There’s a dividing curtain between the passenger cabin and the driver’s seat, which he has pushed away to make sure the silent man at the wheel doesn’t try anything. 

The driver has a stony demeanor that seems very similar to Febhana’s—she clearly wasn’t one to suffer fools, and the people she surrounded herself with seemed to reflect that. Thinking back to the way you initially interacted with Mando, he could potentially see how your shared history with Febhana could have informed that. The characteristic briskness, the unflinching resolve. 

The child spends most of the returning trip chattering in relief, little hands reaching out to touch Mando’s beskar in a continuous greeting.

“Right here, kid. Always right here,” he affectionately rubs the corner of the child’s ear. There’s a heavy guilt that had settled itself in the bottom of Mando’s stomach since dropping him off.

He wants to apologize in some way, to blame it on his mood or the mounting anxiety surrounding the job, but he doesn’t know how to phrase it in a way that wouldn’t make him sound like a complete jackass. So he settles for bowing his helm to bump foreheads with the kid in a small display of reassurance. It seems to settle something in both him and the child almost immediately.

Mando glances up sharply, nearly forgetting the parted dividing curtain. The man, a wiry looking human male, glances back at the two of them through the thin pane of the rearview mirror, then returns to chain smoking while wildly maneuvering his way through traffic. 

The hover-car’s abrupt stop breaks him from his thoughts. He glances out the window, recognizing Febhana’s apartment building. The entire block is in a similar style as the boulevard you both had walked down earlier, circular doors outlined by bands of glowing yellow light. The only difference were the towering, wrought iron gates in front of each building and a set of tall stairs made of the same sandstone leading up to each house. The driver gets out and opens the landspeeder’s door for Mando and the kid, then steps forward and unlocks the gate, holding it open for the two of them.

“Sir.” The driver’s voice is more of a growl. If it weren’t for the enhanced settings of Mando’s visor, it would be too dark to see the mass of scar tissue that formed a jagged line across the man’s throat. The old wound is only partially concealed by the lapel of his coat pulled up against the drizzling rain. He’s abnormally tall, so thin that it looks as if his skull is actively attempting to escape his face. “Febhana’s apartment is the third buzzer. The service droid will let you in. She told me you should follow it.” The cigarette balancing against his lip bobs as he speaks, his heavy drawl disrupted only in part by his eviscerated voice box.

Mando’s lip curls slightly but he nods, thanking the driver, ducking out of the hover-car and climbing the steps leading to the apartment’s door.

Just as the driver said, the front door of Febhana’s apartment is opened by a droid. Mando stiffens despite the fact that the thing just barely reaches his knee. It gives off a series of little sounds before turning away and maneuvering down the front hall. Muttering something unsavory about Canto Bight under his breath, Mando follows it inside.

When he arrives at the threshold of Febhana’s dressing room, she’s only just started pulling out dresses for you to try on. He deflates slightly, really hoping that the two of you would have gotten this part over with so he could begin scoping out the Tagge mansion as soon as possible.

Mando accepts his fate and seats himself for the time being, placing the kid on the ground to let him toddle over to you. You lean down immediately and scoop him up, lifting him in the air with a happy: “Hey, stinky!” The child giggles as you snuggle him to your chest, pressing kisses all over his face in reunion. 

You keep gently playing with the kid as you and Febhana resume your conversation: wiggling your fingers over his face for him to grab, tickling his tummy, gently pinching his socked feet. It’s something you sink into so naturally Mando can’t help but be mesmerized by it. It calms something in him, to see both of you like that. He pushes the implications of that feeling away for the time being, as he always does.

Febhana gives the kid a bit of a once-over but looks overall disinterested, turning her attention back to rummage through her closet. “So it’s supposed to be a formal dance, but if it’s anything like the similar things I’ve gone to, that shit quickly disintegrates. But it’s still weirdly important for them to keep up the illusion of appearances, even though most rooms with closeable doors are occupied by people railing lines or fucking. Or both. Usually both.” The Twi’lek woman plucks out some kind of red, silken shift, holding it in the air then shaking her head and returning to her hunt. “I’ve been to enough Tagge parties to be a familiar face, we can play you off as an old friend of mine, some kind of lady-in-waiting thing or whatever. Crowds like these don’t tend to prod too deeply into personal histories, and with tits like yours I don’t think they’ll be interested in asking too many questions.”

Mando clenches his jaw so hard something starts hurting. You give a bit of an embarrassed laugh, quickly diverting the conversation. “So how do we get introduced to Cavill?”

 “Honestly? The easiest thing to do would be getting you to snuggled up with one of his friends. He runs around with a group of bachelors who are not… pleasant company by any standards. Snotty rich kids,” she makes a face. “But if that’s not an option I could try to push some of my contacts there to get us into their circle. Seriously, darling, with men like this involved it is probably going to be one of the easiest bounties he’s ever going to collect.”

The strain being placed on every cell in Mando’s body in response to this conversation alone says the exact opposite.

Febhana continues pulling out dresses, layering some over a bench and discarding others all together.

“Febhana, will they know?” You ask it suddenly, your tone—not tense, necessarily, but definitely controlled, as if you were expecting an answer you didn’t want to hear but were willing to take regardless.

“It’s the Tagge family, so of course they know what happened to that fucker, but I don’t think they would care,” she waves off your fearful tone with a shake of her head. “Just as long as we make a bit of an effort to conceal your identity, for formality’s sake, it’ll be fine.”

“What happened to who?” Mando asks. Once he does, all the air is immediately sucked out of the room.

After an extended moment. “You didn’t tell him?” Febhana’s head cocks, you visibly swallow.

“I um…” your nostrils flare with the sharp inhale you take as you search for the right words. “When I escaped…”

Febhana interrupts. “She stabbed the shit out of the warlord who owned us. All his wife found was pulp. Didn’t take it well, the cunt. Nearly catatonic. The rest of us were able to practically waltz out of there because of this one. Owe this gorgeous bitch my life. All of us do.”

You smile at Febhana, reaching out to squeeze her hand. She winks at you, covering it with her own before turning to go rifle back through her closet. You keep your gaze to your hands when she does, lips pressed together. Mando doesn’t remove his eyes from you as Febhana continues. 

“So it might be a little difficult getting her in there, but to be honest the Tagges hated him anyway. Rival business type stuff, though, not the whole holding women captive or worker’s rights violations and debt bondage thing,” her voice drips with a kind of contempt that Mando prays he’ll never have directed his way. He notices your hands tighten slightly from where they lay in your lap, your arms loosely looped around the kid who now sits upright in your lap. “I know someone who can forge some papers well enough to present to the guards, he owes me some favors anyway,” Febhana continues. “They’ll be ready by the time we have to leave. Doll you up enough and I’m sure it’ll be fine—ah!” It is only then that Mando looks back over to the Twi’lek woman. Her eyes are lit up, fanged mouth pulled upwards in a triumphant smile. The dress in her hand is a deep plum color, fabric so thin he cannot make out what it actually looks like without a form to fill it. You reach out to it, rubbing the dress between your thumb and index finger.

“Perfect.” You and Febhana say it in unison, your widest smile of the night parted up at her. There’s a delighted, mischievous tilt to your mouth he’s never seen before.

Mando swallows, despite the sudden tightness in his throat. 

He waits outside while the two of you change, sitting on a strange tufted seat pushed against the hallway’s bay window. It’s piled with an obnoxious amount of silken pillows—it seems the longer you’ve been with him, the more surfaces his beskar encounters that it never would have otherwise. A part of him is able to find the humor of that, despite the discomfort of feeling wildly out of place in your friend’s luxurious home. He settles with his legs slightly spread, back hunched to brace his elbows against the tops of his beskar-clad thighs.

After about thirty minutes, a woman comes down the hall, absentmindedly cleaning a pair of large-framed glasses with the corner of her sweater, a thick, leather-bound book tucked under one arm. She looks as out of place in this hallway as he does—more like a Galactic librarian than a resident of an apartment like this. She puts her glasses back on and stops in her tracks once she sees him.

“Who are you?”

Mando clears his throat. “A friend of Febhana’s.” 

“No you’re not.” 

“Yes, I am--well. A friend of a friend.”

Her eyes narrow quizzically. “I’ve been married to that woman for five years now. I think I would know if she had a Mandalorian as a ‘friend of a friend.’”

As if on cue, Febhana emerges from the beaded curtain suspended over the entrance of her dressing room, barefoot and wearing a blue gown. She pads over to the woman, something bulky tucked under one arm, the other carrying the child in a sleeping bundle. Febhana places him in her wife’s arms delicately. “Lovely, we’re just getting ready for the party. Don’t mind her play-thing,” she tilts her head towards Mando without directly looking at him. “He’s just here for decoration.” 

Mando physically bites his tongue.

Febhana’s wife glances at Mando, before leaning up to gently kiss Febhana. “Alright, I’ll be in the study. Wake me when you get back.”

Febhana cups her wife’s face gently. It’s such an intimate gesture that Mando looks away, feeling as though his presence alone is an interruption. The couple talks quietly for a moment, then her wife exits through the same door she came in from.

“Here is the guard’s uniform. The measurements should be right,” Febhana stands in front of Mando, handing him folded pieces of dark fabric, and then a helm. It’s two halves of a black metal shell meant to fit and tighten over the face of a droid. There’s a thick pane of darkened glass cutting through the middle of the mask, presumably to not disrupt a droid’s sensors but it will render Mando’s absolutely useless. This night just keeps getting better and better.

The whole thing is not something Mando has ever seen before, though he was never one to frequent circles like Febhana’s. The only distinguishable features are symmetrical dips cutting severe cheekbones into the object’s silhouette. Two fixed pieces of gilded metal form a swooping triangle that hovers just over where his nose will be under the helmet’s featureless surface. Looping, thin chains dripping from the decorative structure to partially conceal the mask’s lower half. When he holds it up in the low light of the hallway, their movement creates glinting waves of light.  

All of it is purely flare, for the most part. At least the tailor made plenty room for armor beneath the--as Febhana put it--glorified curtains usually meant to conceal a droid. He heaves a sigh, taking the uniform from her. “This is the only option?”

Febhana shrugs. “Unless you want me and your girl going in by ourselves and trying to lure him out to you--which is certainly an option--yes.”

“She isn’t ‘my girl.’”

“Oh, trust me,” her smile is biting. “I know that.” She tilts her head towards the dressing room. “C’mon, the pretty one is almost done. You can use my room to change.”

When he enters, you’re seated at Febhana’s vanity. All the air is sucked out of his lungs.

The dress is really nothing more than a series of gauze-like drapes that spill from your body and pool onto the floor. The expanse of your back is completely exposed, the dress only resuming to cover you right above the base of your spine. One long piece of fabric serves as the illusion of sleeves, cinched at the swooping neckline by delicate, medallion-like embellishments that rest at the dip of both shoulders. The sleeves’ near-transparent fabric are fixed to ovular gold rings you have on the middle fingers of both hands.

Mando watches the fabric shift over the bend of your arm as you use said finger to swipe a little pigment on your lips. It glistens in the mirror he looks at you through. In that initial moment of deep focus, you have the severe look of a high official’s wife. Utterly untouchable. The most beautiful creature he’s ever witnessed.

His entrance breaks your concentration, you smile up at him, warmly, through the mirror.

“I’m almost done,” your voice breaks him from his stupor. Your other hand dips a small brush into a pot of powder. You dab it under your eyes and then stand, going to a crystalline bar cart and spraying some kind of perfume on your neck.   

Febhana steps into the room behind him. After a moment Mando finds his voice.

“And you said she isn’t supposed to be the honeypot?” It’s hard to keep the pain out of his voice as he says it. At this point it’s like the two of you are actively trying to kill him.

Febhana laughs, and the smile you give him is expansive yet strangely private at the same time. As if you and him were in on some secret, some inside joke. You cross the room and pat him lightly on the shoulder twice, before moving him aside in order to link arms with Febhana.

The two of you leave the room, picking up whatever conversation you were having before Febhana left to give Mando his things. He stands there until his heartbeat steadies, then moves behind the wooden room partition to put the uniform on.

It’s going to be a long night.

**

a/n: mando, babes, u don’t even know the half of it

jokes aside i am so excited for the next chapter you guys have no idea how much fun this is to write !! love a good ol’ fancy party w a bunch of degenerates. 

tag list: @im-the-nerdiest-of-them-a11  @walkingthegrounds @roseallisonparker @kaitlyn2907 @dinsbeskar​

please let me know if you would like to be added/removed!

[thewhumperinwhite]

Lost Dog, No Reward (1)

I made a thing! Dw, i’m still working on everything else too, but i needed to work on something new for a while because i have problems disorder

this owes a lot to @ashintheairlikesnow who is among my fave whump writers. i know she didn’t originate the universe, and i’m not double checking a lot to make sure this is actually bbu compliant, but her stuff definitely inspired me to mess with the bbu at all :3

TW for: violence/gore; amnesiac whumpee; choking; references to institutionalized slavery and accompanying dehumanization; gun violence; cops.

---

Ari’s never had a job go this badly before. Not in the years he still remembers, anyway.

Ari’s vision is always lopsided, and he’s always poor at judging distance, and now the blood squeezing between his fingers and ruining his leather gloves is making him dizzy, too, and all three of those things combine to make him trip over the concrete base of a street lamp and jam his torn-open shoulder against the lamp itself, and the pain takes his knees out from under him and crumples him down to the sidewalk, half-sprawled over forwards and losing time he doesn’t have.

He doesn’t know this street. It’s night and he doesn’t know the street which means it’s nothing but a string of locked doors between him and home; on his own street he knows who forgets to lock their doors, who will let him bleed on their couch for a night in exchange for money or a favor, which alleys lead somewhere and which don’t, but here he doesn’t know anything except that the police men shouted after him at first and now they’re not shouting, they’re only running.

While he sucks air in and tries to get his legs back under him, Ari runs through the options he still has in his head. It isn’t hard, because there aren’t very many.

He can turn and fight. That’s what he wants to do; he’s known how to fight longer than he’s known how to talk and he knows it would feel good. But the police men have guns so he also knows it wouldn’t feel good for very long.

He can stop. He can sit here gasping on the sidewalk, holding a lamp post in one hand and his guts in the other, until the police men come and find him. It’s possible they won’t shoot him again, if he’s already laying on the ground, though of course there’s no way to know; but they would certainly drag him away somewhere, somewhere he thinks vaguely would have white walls and no windows, and he doesn’t want to go there with them.

So really there’s only one thing he can do. That’s good. That makes it easy.

His shoulder isn’t too bad, really, or at least he doesn’t think so. It’s turned his coat hot and sticky with blood—the fur collar is all matted with it, which makes him sad, he’s only ever had the one—and it hurts, more now that he’s hit it against the post, but really they barely clipped him; he doesn’t even think it would make him dizzy on it’s own. It’s the hole in his stomach that’s the problem; that’s deeper and wetter and shifts when he pushes his hand against it, in a way that makes him sick. But Rotty said put pressure on the wound—Rotty wailed when he saw the knife go in, and made time for Ari to get away, and told him to put pressure on the wound—so Ari digs his hand against the wound, and he breathes out, and he pushes himself to his feet.

Up ahead there’s a store with its lights on. And Ari can’t stop, and he can’t turn and fight, but he can still run, so that’s what he does.

----

Pryce has always kind of liked closing up alone, because it means he gets to unplug his headphones and fill the shop with very loud vaporwave, which is genuinely pretty chill music to mop floors to but also, more importantly, an inherently funny thing to play very loudly in an empty grocery store.

He’s in the process of emptying the small trashcan next to his seat behind the checkout counter—which is almost entirely filled with the half-pack of cigarettes he smoked during his shift—into the enormous trash bag from outside the bathroom, when the front door opens. He hears it with a full body wince because it is after midnight which means he’s almost certainly blasting some poor unsuspecting drunk with objectively-not-even-very-good vaporwave, and Mr. Nguyen, the very nice old man who owns the store and puts up with Pryce’s bullshit and is thus the only authority figure Pryce respects, will be disappointed if he loses a customer because of Pryce’s unpleasant taste in music; so Pryce is already halfway through an apology before he actually looks up and sees the very large man standing in a puddle of blood in the doorway.

Pryce drops the trash can.

The man is visually bizarre enough that Pryce almost can’t register the full picture, just disparate, equally-baffling parts—the man’s hair is an enormous red-brown mane, it reaches his elbows in a tangled mass weighed down with blood; he’s wearing a knee-length brown-leather coat with a big (bloody) fur collar; his face is a mess of puckered scars pulling up on his mouth and down through one of his eyelids and in the brief moment he stands there staring at Pryce with his (bloody) mouth hanging open the fluorescents turn his eyes—which must be brown, logically they must be—bright orange.

Then the man barrels towards Pryce and all of Pryce’s muscles lock in place as he prepares to be shot or stabbed or at the very least body-tackled—

The man flings himself over the counter and folds his big (bloody) body into an improbably small space half-under the till, next to Pryce’s feet, approximately ten seconds before the front door opens again, hard, the glass banging against the display next to it hard enough to make Pryce wince.

There are two cops, both panting hard. Their guns aren’t pointing at Pryce but they are very much drawn, and they’re both looking at Pryce, who is still frozen completely solid with his eyes bulging out of his head.

“Where’d he go?” one of the officers barks at Pryce.

Pryce blinks.

Then he points over his shoulder, toward the back door. He half-turns, too, which is more movement than he needs to point but does give him time to nudge the big trash bag a little bit out and to the left.

“The back door’s unlocked,” he says, “I was taking out the trash, he must’ve—”

And they rocket past him, toward the back door and the alley, not sparing him or the big trash bag blocking their line of sight, apparently too excited to shoot somebody to notice that it wasn’t even a very good lie.

----

Ari listens to the police men’s shoe-sounds fade into the distance, waiting for them to come back and haul him out of his poor hiding spot and shoot him or drag him away.

They don’t.

The stranger’s worn red sneakers turn away from Ari, take two steps away from the counter; as more of the boy wearing them comes into view Ari watches him plant his hands on his skinny hips and stare after the police men. The boy lets out a breath, whistling on it a little.

Then the boy starts to turn back to Ari; he has time to say “Well—” before Ari leaps to his feet and gets a hand around the boy’s throat and slams him back against the tiled wall behind the counter.

The boy gasps, a thin hand taking Ari’s wrist in a very weak grip. His eyes are very wide.

“Why,” Ari says, his voice as harsh and scratchy as it always is, and thicker because it’s full of blood, “did you lie for me?”

The boy’s mouth opens and closes without words. He is smaller than Ari, and his sneakers are no longer touching the ground, because Ari is holding him up by his throat. His hair is longish—not as long as Ari’s—and colored bright blue-green. Ari doesn’t know how old—he isn’t good at knowing ages—but he’s grown, and Ari hasn’t ever seen him before, he doesn’t have many memories but those he does have he knows very well, he would remember this boy, whose eyes are a color he hasn’t seen before, almost silver, bright in his light-brown face.

The boy makes a sort of gurgling sounds and Ari realizes he is not answering because Ari is squeezing his throat closed. Ari makes himself loosen his grip and the boy drags in a breath.

“Just—trying—to help,” the boy wheezes.

Ari jerks back, dropping the boy back onto his feet; the boy slides down the wall a little, gasping and covering his throat with his hand.

“Why?” Ari says.

The boy blinks at Ari, wide-eyed. Then he looks away, not like he’s embarrassed but like he’s thinking. Then he meets Ari’s eyes, and he shrugs his shoulders with a wobbly, nervous smile.

“I don’t have very good impulse control,” the boy says.

Ari—doesn’t know what that means. And now he doesn’t know what to do, either. Which means he just stands there, staring at the boy for what he knows is too long because the boy drops his gaze with the same nervous mouth-twitch Rotty got at first, when Ari didn’t know how soon to look away. The boy’s eyes drop to Ari’s stomach, and he raises his dark eyebrows.

“You know you’re bleeding all over the floor?”

Ari looks down. If he thinks about it now, he stood from his crouch below the counter without thinking about the wound, and he hasn’t been putting pressure on it for a few minutes now. His ears are beginning to ring. There is a slow-spreading pool of blood on the tile under him. Ari looks back up at the boy, who is looking at him expectantly, and who did help, Ari thinks, though he isn’t sure why.

“I can—mop it up later,” Ari says. He tries to stand up straight and has to lean back against the counter to keep his balance. His vision is getting blotchy, now, a little. The job went bad before they paid him fully, and he’s already spent the advance on food, or else he would offer to pay to have the floor cleaned. Maybe he hasn’t stained the tile too badly yet. He takes a step sideways, trying to get out of the puddle, and immediately starts making another one. Blood has soaked from his shirt into his jeans—he has two pairs of those, so that will be alright—and is dripping out the bottom now, which means there must be a lot of it.

“Um,” the boy says. “That’s actually not—uh. Can I, like… help you with that? There’s a first aid kit in the office.” He moves, though he’s in range of Ari’s left eye, which doesn’t work well; Ari jerks his head up to see what the boy is doing, to make sure he isn’t moving closer when Ari can’t see him, and then the floor suddenly swings up into the side of Ari’s head.

----

The man crumples sideways and hits the floor hard, and Pryce stands there over him with a hand pressed over his mouth, like a useless idiot who’s never seen blood before.

Which. While it is true he has never seen this much blood in one place before. Thinking about that is not going to help this stranger not die on Mr. Nguyen’s floor.

The first aid kit, which he’s never seen used and which definitely doesn’t have, like, a blood transfusion in it, also might not help with that, but it is what Pryce has on hand at the moment. And as long as he’s already actively lied to the cops tonight. He may as well go all the way and also not call an ambulance, he guesses. He turns and scurries to Mr. Nguyen’s office to grab the kit.

Pryce’s throat is tacky with somebody else’s blood, because the hand the man used to halfway choke Pryce out was covered in blood. That’s not a very helpful thought either but it’s hard to make this one go away.

Whoever this guy is, he’s—quite strong. Pryce’s throat feels—well, like it’s going to bruise, for one thing. And the long moment of kicking his feet against the wall without being able to touch the ground was—well. A headrush, certainly. Presumably in an hour when he’s no longer entirely made out of adrenaline he will realize that it was a bad headrush and will have a panic attack or something.

At the moment it feels—he isn’t sure. Good. Exciting. And panicking would not be productive right now so he’s gonna ride this high as long as he can in the hopes that it will make him in any way useful to anyone.

The first aid kit is smaller than he remembers it being.

Pryce almost slips in the spreading puddle of blood when he gets back to the counter. The bleeding man is trying to sit up, which does not seem like a great idea.

“Uh—don’t try to move around,” Pryce says, trying to sound like he has any fucking idea what he’s talking about. “Is it—okay, yeah, let me—” The man’s big scarred hand is pressed against his stomach, just below and to the right of his navel. Pryce takes his wrist, trying to be both gentle and authoritative. “Let me see what we’re—”

As he’s pushing the man’s hand aside, something catches Pryce’s eye—something on the man’s wrist, underneath the blood, and he stops.

There’s a barcode on the man’s wrist.

Pryce stares at it.

Pryce’s brain is never not moving, faster than other peoples’ seem to; he has the impression it makes him an exhausting conversationalist but it does, in this case, allow him to scroll through many thoughts without losing too much time. They are:

Barcode. Barcode on wrist. Barcode on wrist equals… pet??? This huge dude is a pet??? Why would cops be after a pet? A runaway? No, not with their guns out, they wouldn’t shoot a pet somebody wanted back, that’d be like throwing away—Jesus pets are so expensive, why would anybody bring one here, why would anybody let one get so fucked, why would anybody let something so expensive get so hurt—

And then the man shifts uncomfortably and looks up at Pryce—his eyes are brown, though warm and light enough he isn’t surprised he thought they were orange, and one of them droops halfway closed, the eyelid clearly too damaged to lift properly—with clear uncertainty. Like he knows he needs help but doesn’t know if he can trust Pryce to give it.

It’s a human expression. That a human would make.

That’s a human person, Pryce thinks, and he shakes his head clear of everything else and pushes the bloody fabric of the man’s shirt aside so he can see the damage.

[thegildedlady]

Life Itself

In all of Revendreth (and quite probably all of the Shadowlands) no fortress stood with such dominating impenetrability as the spires of Castle Nathria. The structure loomed over the landscape of deep blue pines and thorny underbrush, casting a long shadow onto the valley below. Layer after layer of jutting turrets and stained-glass windows rose up out of the darkness in tiers, with the crackling lightning of anima-extraction glowing through the panes like the crimson compound gaze of a monstrous insect. Atop it all was a giant stone gargoyle whose watchful eye reflected those of the Master as he looked down upon the unfavorable ones residing outside the castle’s walls. Groaning bellies and parched throats were turned away at the gate. No trace of the drought could slip through its iron bars at risk of dampening the revelry within, and the Master would not have that. Those lucky enough to hold a coveted invitation to tonight’s masquerade made their way across the colossal cobblestone bridges that fed into the castle’s core, each Venthyr dressed more lavishly than the last. They dripped with rubies and diamonds and black pearls, golden chains softly rustling against velvet gowns and doublets. No expense could be spared if there was a chance that they might meet their Sire this night. He demanded perfection, and so perfection he would have.

The labyrinthian castle defied all laws of reality, twisting and turning in on itself with hallways that lead to nowhere and stairs that loop infinitely around the echoing stone corridors. An upstart without a proper escort could spend eons wandering Nathria’s grand halls before they ever found the main event that all visitors sought- the ballroom. Every visible inch of the space was leaden with scarlet drapery and gilded candelabras, their gentle light casting shadows on the walls and reflecting off the marble tiled floor. The results gave the whole room a hazy golden glow, much akin to how overindulging on anima consumption can simultaneously ignite and blur the user’s senses. It was a space designed to be jaw-dropping, and it served as the setting for the Dionysian delights of court. Though the ballroom was impressive enough empty, it came alive when the party started. Venthyr of all shapes and sizes packed the room to bursting, even in the air above the dance floor. Over the raucous chatter of the crowd and the tinkling of anima-flutes, a band of dredgers plunked away at waltz after waltz- some fast, some slow, all with an intoxicating rhythm that compelled the feet to move. Even the most sour of souls eventually joined the line for a dance or two. No one, in this afterlife or the next, threw a party like Denathrius.

Little did the pompous partygoers know that a much more exclusive, intimate soirée was taking place at that very moment beneath their feet. If you could peel back the layers of stone that made up the gargantuan structure- starting with the ballroom and digging down, past the private baths, the chef’s kitchen, the disembowelment room, and below the undercroft, one may find themselves standing outside the Master’s botanical laboratory. Two identical, ancient wooden doors guarded the entry, each with a long, pointed window that formed a coffin shape when together. The glass was opaque, but one could still make out the colors inside as they scurried around the room. Should you venture even further past the doors, one may find on any given night two very different people working within.

Cazimir looked the part of head scientist in his pale gray lab coat and goggles. A tug on the chain hanging next to his left ear brought down glass lenses in metal frames over his vision. He was fiddling with piles of indistinguishable plant matter with the intensity of some far more interesting task, while his lab assistant, Ciaragan, was throwing open windows to let the cool night air clear the room. Her smock was darker and dirtier than his, and hung a bit too short on her spindly legs as it was a much better fit for someone Dredger-sized. They were quite the odd couple- in every way Cazimir was ashen and cold, Ciaragan was warm and full of life. Where she was impatient and pessimistic, he was a calm, steady presence. The pair had worked together for what felt like years in Revendreth, though the exact amount of time could not really be measured. Tonight was nothing special. Even the soirée upstairs was to be expected, since Denathrius hosted guests around the clock. Cazimir hummed along with the soft melody floating through the open window, the music traveling down from the balconies of the grand ballroom above them.

“Ciara- pass me the forceps, please.”

She did as he asked, moving away from the open night and towards the dissection kit lying on his desk to retrieve the tool in question.

“Forceps,” she repeated as she plonked them into the palm of Cazimir’s hand.

“Much obliged,” was his reply. He didn’t look up from his work, but let his fingers curl around the metal instrument and added it to his ever-growing pile of sharp, pointy objects that teetered on the edge of the lab table. He resumed humming along with the waltz, hitting every note with eternal familiarity. Ciaragan rested her hand on the back of his chair as she silently watched him work.

“You enjoy this piece?”

“Hm? Oh, yes. Though it is not my favorite. They haven’t played that one yet.”

“Are these unique to the Venthyr, or do you play songs from your home world?”

“We play whatever the Sire wants to listen to, of course. His will is the will of Revendreth.”

“Meaning his taste is the taste of Revendreth as well?” she prodded.

He shook his head, taking a moment to lean back in his chair and break the line of concentration he had been walking. Cazimir was always ready to humor Ciaragan’s questioning. There would be time for work later.

“Taste?” he half-chuckled, “Taste is unique to the individual. Entirely subjective.”

“Yet you claim to have a favorite,” she pushed back, a sly smile appearing at the corners of her mouth. “...so there must be something about that particular piece that makes it superior to other pieces.”

He dismissed the idea with a wave of his hand. “‘Superior’ is the wrong choice of words here, I think. No, I would say instead that there is something appealing to me about that particular piece.”

“So it’s an issue of semantics, then.”

“It’s not an issue at all. It is an instinctive feeling- a warmth that starts in your core and spreads over your body, til your fingers cannot help but tap along to the rhythm and your head swims with the melody.” Cazimir reached up to remove his clunky goggles, tugged his leather work gloves from each finger, and smoothed a hand over his crown of curls.

“It is an attraction; natural as night and day.”

Ciaragan tried not to think about what Cazimir might find attractive. Instead she shrugged coolly before circling around him to take her chair on the opposite side of the lab table.

“I thought we were talking about philosophy, not physiology.”

“We can talk about whatever you desire to, my dear assistant.”

This brought the smile back to her lips. Ciaragan did not mind his doting on her- many more ‘dears’ had been slipping into Cazimir’s vocabulary as of late. He had also started calling her by her nickname, Ciara. The changes in their relationship were subtle, but never slipped past her unnoticed. How could they? No one else in this accursed place had ever shown her the compassion that Cazimir was generously giving. Many Venthyr considered it beneath their standing to interact with the souls bound to Revendreth, preferring the company of those freed from their sinful burdens already. But Cazimir was just... nice. He saw Ciaragan as the person she was and still wanted to be around her. That was more than she was used to.

“Why aren’t you at the party upstairs tonight?”

Cazimir flicked his eyes towards the ceiling, having nearly forgotten it entirely. “Bah, it is no concern of mine. The Master has given me enough to remain occupied with this evening. Besides, there will be another one tomorrow. Always is.”

“Still,” she said as she listened to the sounds of jubilation coming from the open window, “I’m sure you would have more fun there, rather than stuck in here with me.”

“Are you really so sure of this? You wound me, Ciara. I thought you knew me better by now.”

He clutched a hand over his heart and pantomimed his anguish, all the while unable to hide a grin. Ciaragan rolled her eyes and crossed her arms before defending herself.

“Oh, don’t be so dramatic. I can’t imagine picking at bark samples all night is more thrilling than whatever they’re getting up to.” She jabbed a finger upwards, though her eyes were set on the window where sounds of the party crept in to remind them of what they were missing.

Cazimir’s ear swiveled in its socket akin to a bat’s to locate the source of the noise. His eyes lit up when it hit him. “Ah! This is it, you hear? The one I was telling you about- my favorite…”

Before she even registered a change Cazimir appeared at her back and pulled the chair Ciaragan was seated in away from the lab table, bowed regally at the waist, and extended his hand for her to take. She was still in defensive mode, arms tightly wound across her chest and one leg slung over the other’s knee. Her cheeks flushed hot and red, and her mouth fell slightly agape. What was he doing?

“What are you doing?” She demanded, trying to convey the annoyance in her voice clearly.

“I’m asking you to dance the waltz! Does this gesture have a different meaning on your home world?”

“N-no but-”

Her feet left the ground before she could complete the objection. Cazimir was much larger than her and found no trouble scooping her up around the waist to pull her into a spin. He held her hand in his, clumsily at first, but adjusted to a gentle leading grip. Ciaragan felt his arm pinned against her back as he danced her around the room, her shoes barely brushing the floor. You could only just hear the muffled waltz drifting out of the grand ballroom above them. She had meant to protest, but no words would come to her. The mind was a fickle mistress- all that energy formulating how she would berate him for declining her declination was useless when he set her senses alight. Now all she could think about was the closeness of their bodies, the pulse in her wrist, the roughness of his palm, and the heat pooling in her belly. The air between them was hazy and blurred the edges of the world as they spun through it. Her golden gaze locked with his eyes, black as night, and saw the same conflicted desire reflected back at her.

Neither of them realized when the song had ended, or when they had stopped dancing. They just stood like that, holding each other, for some time afterwards. Neither quite knew what to say, either.

Finally, Cazimir blinked.

“I must say… You make an excellent dance partner…” His voice rumbled low in his chest.

Though his own appearance had been somewhat ruffled in their motion, the Venthyr’s undeath kept Cazimir from experiencing the breathlessness Ciaragan was still catching up from. She was much more disheveled than he, with strands of ebony hair falling over her face and dripping down her shoulders. Beads of sweat formed on her brow and her face was awash with rosy colors. Her chest rose and fell, the sound of her labored breathing the only accompaniment to the next song lilting in from above. She stared up at him under heavy eyelids.

Cazimir could not focus on one part of her for long as his eyes swept over every inch of Ciaragan, dark and hungry for her. She had never seen him look at her that way before. It was almost frightening. Almost.

“What’s wrong?” she whispered.

“Nothing, I- ...You’re so-”

With her free arm, she instinctively reached to push the hair from her eyes and fix herself. “Oh, I must look all out of sorts.”

He stopped her before she could reach anything, taking her ever so gently by the wrist and bringing it down to meet the other as he placed his hands around hers.

“You look like life itself, my dear. I wouldn’t change a thing.”

----------------

There were no birds to sing the arrival of day in Revendreth, no sunrise to paint the sky in pink and golden hues- mornings were just as shadowy and gray as the evening time. The guests of the Master dragged themselves back home at break of dawn, worn and weary and gorged on anima. Every soul in attendance would be riding on Denathrius’s coat tails for weeks to come as they delighted their village with tales of the Master’s decadence. Though all would claim to have had the best night of their afterlives, that special victory was quietly confined within two coffin-shaped doors deep inside Castle Nathria’s corridors. Ciaragan slept a dreamless slumber, while Cazimir kept watch over her nearby. What they shared was heaven, hell, and everything in between.

[bangtan-gal]

Birth Claim

Bang Chan x Fem!Reader Powers!AU Warnings: swearing, angst, not much fluff, light smut, a little bit of a rough plot, mentions of blood and death, dubious consent, low-key kinda kidnapped Word Count: 12.7k (lol go me) A/N: Yee Haw

   A cloud of frosty breath puffed out around you as your heels clicked against the cement. Your mouth was snuggled into a fuzzy scarf and a thick jacket fell to your knees. Your tights were thicker than your liking and your boots were lined with faux fur. Not a single soul littered the streets as you marched down the sidewalk alone. The sun, although covered by clouds, was still high in the sky and it hadn’t begun to get chilly yet. 

   You held your chin high and kept your back straight, your gaze only focusing on what was ahead of you. The sound of your heels echoed on the empty streets and the blankness sent chills down your back. What once was the most populated part of the district was now a ghost town.

   A whistle—from something or someone—sounded from behind you. Your back stiffened and your heart dropped. Your steps faltered for a moment, only for them to speed up moments later. Your hands curled into fists, fingernails painfully digging into your palm. It was probably nothing, it was just nothing. The mantra repeated itself in your head.

You turned into your apartment, hustling up the stairs. You swiped your keycard over the scanner, bouncing as you waited for it to beep and flash green. You swiped it again, your hand shaking as you shoved the door open the second you saw the green. You locked the door, gasping, and then pressed your forehead against the door.

You shrugged your jacket off, fumbling to hang it up in the darkness. Your nails scraped against the wall, searching for the light switch. When the cool metal pressed against your fingers, you pushed the switch up, only for nothing to happen. You flipped it again.

“You’ve got to be shitting me,” you grumbled.

   You felt your way through the apartment, hand brushing along the velvet couch and your glass cabinets. Your hand grasped a light fabric and you slowly pulled it back, letting the grey sunlight pour into your living room. It didn’t do much to change the lighting, but it was better than pure darkness.

   You turned around, closing your eyes and pinching your nose, breathing out deeply. Of course, the power is out. Your apartment used to be one of the most expensive in the city, but once this side of town became a warzone, maintenance disappeared. Now people pay to not live here.

You opened your eyes with a groan.

And then you screamed.

   A man with light brown hair leaned against your wall. He wore all black and stood completely still. His gaze ran over you, his body poised as if waiting for something. Your heart raced in your chest and you watched him, your hands pressed against the cool glass behind you. He tilted his head, hair softly falling across his face and something gleamed in his dark eyes.

You opened your mouth.

“Han. The name’s Han,” he introduced himself, stepping forward. He held out a gloved hand, raising his eyebrow when you shied away from it.  “Don’t be afraid sweet, I haven’t done anything yet.”

Yet.

“You snuck into my apartment and cut the power,” you mumbled. “Doesn’t that count as doing something?”

   Your chin slowly rose and straightened your back. Han scoffed and then took a quick step towards you. You jumped, slamming your head against the glass as you tried to get away. Heat raced up your neck and face and you refused to meet his gaze as you studied your boots. He chuckled and you watched his feet as he slightly paced away.

“You have a 4.0 GPA, one of the top students in your college, right? I’m sure that means you’re not too dense so you might have a vague idea as to why I’m here,” Han murmured. You glanced up, watching as his silk glove ran over the glass cabinet. He pulled it back, eyes squinting as he inspected the dark fabric.

“Something tells me you’re not here for money or goods,” you commented, still pressed back against the glass. His whole outfit was linen, minus the gold-hued combat boots and the gloves—“is that real leather?”— you nodded towards the boots.

He smirked. “Indeed. Cowhide if you’re really curious.”

Real leather… cowhide. You pursed your lips, narrowing your eyes at them. Not even you had the luxury of that. It made no sense, animals were scarce, even more so when it came to animal products. Especially something so materialistic as combat boots. You hadn’t had a proper piece of meat for nearly three weeks.

The only sound that filled the room was your erratic breathing. He paced along your floor, running his hands along the walls and the couch. With a sigh, he sank down into the couch, crossing his legs and leaning back. He fit in so well with the opulent layout of your home. It was… chilling.

“You have a bone to pick with my father?” You queried, slightly straightening up against the surface behind you. He shrugged, studying his nails boredly. Your teeth dug into your lip and your fingers scratched at your skirt. He waved his hand in front of his face.

“Everyone has a bone to pick with your father, Y/N,” he chortled. “But let’s say… that my bone to pick isn’t just mine. I was sent here to come to collect you sweet and you will be coming with me whether you like it or not.”

You frowned.

“And what makes you think that?”

   With a flagrant roll of his eyes, he pulled down the collar of his shirt. You tilted your head, squinting your eyes as you tried to see exactly what he was showing you. There: a yellowy-orange tiger was imprinted into his skin. He let go of his collar, the fabric jumping back up to cover his collarbone. Han raised an eyebrow, standing up slowly. He slid off one glove, gently tucking it into a pocket.

“I would like to say I’m sorry Y/N… but I’m not one to lie.”

   He approached you. You fumbled sideways, running over a small table. The vase that held your Nana’s ashes tumbled to the floor. He caught you before you could escape and you blindly lashed out, trying to scratch at him. His hand—warm and buzzing—wrapped around your wrist and a strange sensation started from the contact zone and spread. Your body sagged and you fell against him, your eyelids slowly drooping.

Darkness consumed your vision.

++++++

The back of your head pulsed as light started to peek through your eyelids. You grumbled, covering your eyes as you sat up. A blinding light cast across the room, sending warmth running along your arms. Dizziness filled you and you grunted, pressing your hands to your ears. What’s going on?

You clutched the comforter that you were tucked into and then froze. It was white… white. Your comforter was purple. You jumped out of bed, hurrying towards the window and looking out. The sky was a brilliant blue, with very few clouds littering the canvas. The ground was at least 800 feet below you and was a blurry twist of gray and black. You pressed a hand to your stomach, shocked when skin met skin. A silk robe hung loosely on your shoulders, with only a bra and undies on.

Neither of which were yours.

   You tried to piece together how exactly you got here, but your memory was fuzzy. You remembered the darkness of your apartment and the man… the man, what was his name?  Your teeth dug into your lips and your eyebrows furrowed.

“Damn.”

   The door opened with a squeal. The same man from before stepped in, this time dressed in white. His collar dipped low, revealing his creamy skin and the golden tiger that stained his skin. You stepped back, wrapping the robe tightly around you. He snorted, not even sparing you a glance as he walked past you towards a large dresser in the corner room.

“You’re expected downstairs soon sweet,” he said, opening the doors with a flourish and shuffling through the fabrics.

“Who changed my clothes? Where am I? How long was I out? What did you do? Why can’t I remember anything?” You fired off, watching as he tossed something gray on the bed. The brunette ignored you for several minutes as he continued to throw articles onto the comforter. He finally whirled around, sighing when he saw you standing in the same place.

“Could you get dressed?”

“Could you leave?” You shot back.

   He snorted and sat down in the chair, raising a curious eyebrow at you. You pursed your lips and then made your way towards the clothes. It was a mix of gray and pink. A sigh fell from you as you quickly threw off the robe and pulled on the outfit that was laid out for you: light gray pants and a medium pink shirt made of pure silk.

“Are you going to answer my questions?”

A forceful sigh followed.

“I changed your clothes—I’m grown and its nothing I haven’t seen before—you’re in the Deep City, just for the night, it’s not my place to explain that, and maybe you’re just a dipstick,” he explained.

You turned around, hands seated on your hips. You narrowed your eyes and he boredly pulled at his gloves. There was a gleam in his eyes: a flicker of a bright color that burned in their dark depths. Cold ran along your spine and you involuntarily shivered.  He stood up, throwing a pair of gloves at you. They matched the color of your pants and were a soft material. You raised your eyebrows at him.

“What’s up with the gloves?” You murmured, raising your own and nodding towards his.

“You’d better wear em or you’ll regret it later on.”

He didn’t explain as he stood up, his hand wrapping around your upper forearm and dragging you towards the door. You followed along silently, a sudden fear creeping down your neck and rushing along your shoulders. Something had happened to get you here. Whether it was drugs, pure force, or some other force… it was something that could clearly take you out. You didn’t want to tangle with it again.

The walls were a dark wood that had recently been polished and the white carpet was unstained. The man stayed in step beside you, his eyes focused ahead of him as the two of you made your way down the hallway. His grip slowly loosened up, but you could feel a silent threat radiating from it. Despite the immense urge to run, the fear of the unknown held you back.

You descended a flight of stairs and were met by a spacious parlor. The chairs and couches were made of sleek black leather with silver lining. The floor changed from carpet to a blue-stained tile. A large deep brown rug sat in the middle of the floor, a sparkling glass table holding it down.

“I didn’t realize it took fifteen minutes to get someone, Han,” a voice interrupted your gaping. A man that was close to the same height as your escort approached. He was adorned in all gold and looked like a prince as he approached. Midnight black hair fell right along his eyebrows, brushing against his light skin and a shock of gray eyes squinted at you.

   You blinked, glancing at Han and then back at the stranger. Why were they both so… pretty? You weren’t sure if it was their actual looks, the flattering clothes they wore, or just the way they held themselves.

   Han shrugged beside you, slowly releasing his grip on your arm. You unconsciously ran your fingers over the area, the skin feeling sensitive and raw. You watched out of the corner of your eye as the two glared at each other, both of them looking ready to fight. Your shoulders hunched and you shrunk into yourself, not in the mood to experience something so brutal, especially in your current state.

“Would the two of you shove your dicks in your pants and calm the fuck down?”

   Another man marched into the room, arms crossed. You watched as Han backed down and the black-haired man bristled before slowly relaxing his shoulders. As he approached, you noted that he was taller than both of them and his frame was larger. He was surprisingly dressed more casual, with a polo shirt and light-washed jeans. His hair was light blue and styled back over his head.

“Minho, aren’t you supposed to be helping Felix right now?” He asked, nodding at the silver-eyed boy.

Something close to a growl came from Minho.

“Yeah, what’s it to you?”

The blue-haired man smiled, but no amusement shone in his eyes.

“I’m sure neither Chan nor Changbin would be happy to see you sitting here causing problems,” he cooed, tilting his head.

“Fuck you Woojin.”

   The young man stormed off, the room slightly lightening once he left. The tension didn’t completely leave and you noticed Han shoot a questioning look at the taller man. If he saw, he didn’t reply, he just walked towards one of the chairs and sat down.

“Come sit down Y/N, we have much to talk about,” Woojin said, motioning you over.

   Your legs wobbled beneath you as you stumbled across the tiles and sat down on the couch. You clasped your hands in front of you, your eyes focusing on the fluffy rug that your feet were now buried in. You listened as Woojin shifted, a small sigh escaping him and then tensed up when Han sat down directly beside you.

You were caged in.

“I’m sure you’re curious as to why you’re here?” He queried, leaning forward on his knees. You shrugged, refusing to meet his gaze. “I’d like for you to use words, Y/N.”

   You glanced up, sharply meeting his gaze. His eyes had a lavender tinge to them and despite his soft features, you could feel something radiating off him. It pulled at you, luring you in, and begging you to spill your secrets. There was a sharp pain in your left temple and you pressed a finger to it, closing your eyes and letting out a hiss. If your eyes were open you would’ve seen the warning glance that Han sent Woojin’s way. The discomfort quickly subsided and you opened your eyes, staring at the table in front of you.

“Yeah… yeah, I am,” you murmured.

A satisfied hum came from the man.

“You see here Y/N, your father owns a huge rationing company which is perfectly fine. We actually didn’t have a problem with your father until two weeks ago. Th-”

“His new business contract?” You interjected, playing with the gloves on your hand. Woojin raised an eyebrow and then nodded, his blank expression faltering for a small moment.

“Indeed. Do you know who his new partner is?” Han said, placing his hand on your knee. You scooted away, sending him a quick glare. Woojin chuckled and the look of horror that flashed across the brunette’s face would’ve been comical to you if not for the situation you were in.

Before you could reply, Woojin answered for you. “Clidei Industries: they sell technology and are constantly working on new things. They’re supposed to help make rationing cards so people won’t have to bargain and struggle for rations anymore. The only problem is that Clidei isn’t only selling your father technology; he’s selling him some sort of drugs.”

   You blinked, your nervous scratching on your gloves ceasing. That couldn’t be possible, could it? Your father was a good man, why would he buy drugs? Especially with drugs being such a problematic view in this day. Drugs were the main reason the world collapsed in the first place and people wouldn’t even take pain medication or anesthesia. He owned a large rationing company, drugs would only make him…

“Unless people don’t realize he has them or what he’s doing with th—holy shit,” you gasped and stood up.

The roiling in your stomach that had been bothering you since you woke up was suddenly unbearable. You covered your mouth and rushed from the room. You stumbled upon an empty tin box and emptied the contents of your stomach into it. Han was right behind you, stepping back once he realized the reason you ran.

You slid to your knees, pressing a hand to your forehead and the other clutching the box. What was your father planning to do? You knew your father well, you knew he would only do what he thought was best for society. He wouldn’t put drugs in rations, would he? Maybe it would be an antibiotic and a calorie gain. He wouldn’t put anything dangerous in them.

You accepted the cloth that Han offered you and wiped the sweat from your forehead and your mouth. With weary steps, you followed him back to where Woojin waited for you. You met the man’s gaze and scowled. When he motioned for you to sit, you stubbornly resisted, deciding you’d rather have this conversation standing up.

You were your father’s daughter after all.

“You’re wrong about what my father is doing. He would never do something that dark,” you huffed.

Woojin raised a dark eyebrow.

“Your reaction proves otherwise.”

“I haven’t felt good since I woke up,” you retorted, waving the statement away. Your stomach just decided to act up at the wrong time. Woojin snorted and opened his mouth, a snappy reply ready. You cut him off. “I’m famished, where could I get something to eat? Or do you plan to starve me?”

   Woojin glared at you and something crept along the back of your neck. You brushed it off, crossed your arms, and met his stare with a sneer of your own. His gaze looked past you to Han and the boy wrapped a hand around your wrist, dragging you from the room. You kept your back straight and chin high as you sauntered away, but once you pushed past a pair of doors and into a new room, you sagged down.

   You weren’t hungry; you’re stomach felt too messed up for food but you had to escape that situation. How were you supposed to argue with him over whether your father was bad or not? All the signs were there and it just seemed weird that your father had been so silent about the drug part. He told you everything—why didn’t he tell you that? But he’s your father, no matter what, and you have to protect him. All I have to do is get out of here and then talk to him about it.

And even if he was doing something terrible, you would never throw him to these savages.

   You sank into a chair, leaning against the quartz counter. Han opened up the pantry, shuffling through the shelves before he pulled out an orange and a bag of bread. He threw the fruit to you and took out a slice of bread, shoving it into a toaster. You turned the orange over in your hands, a loud sigh escaping you. After this, you’d be forced to go back into that room and try to argue in your father’s favor.

Shame flooded through you and you dropped the orange on the counter. What happened to the vicious girl that you usually were? Where did that “rich little bitch” go? Where was the spunk? The fire? Why were you so quiet around these people?

If they were trying to hurt your father through you, all you would have to do is be uncooperative.

   You managed to eat the orange and ate half the toast that Han made you. Your stomach screamed in protest the whole time, but the way the boy watched you forced you to choke it down. He led you back into the parlor and you forced yourself to straighten up and dig for your usual self. You wouldn’t be able to get out of this if you didn’t have a backbone.

   There was a conversation going on when the two of you stepped in. Silence ensued when the two of you got closer. Another man stood next to Woojin, his hair a mix of brown, black, and blonde. He was the same height as Woojin, but there was something that made him seem taller… harder to ignore. You made eye contact and then his eyes slowly moved over your body, his face blank. Nothing shimmered in the depths of his dark eyes.

“Y/N Y/L/N,” he hummed, tilting his head at you.

“Another random guy I don’t know.”

   If he was expecting something different, he gave you no hint. He watched you silently, his head still tilted as he stood tall in the middle of the room. You stiffened up when both Woojin and Han left, the doors slamming shut behind them. He adjusted his jacket and then sat down. His leaned back, spreading his legs, and his veiny hands dropped to rest on his thighs. You looked away, sucking your bottom lip into your mouth and chewing on it.

“So, I’ve heard that you have questions,” he murmured, a smirk pulling on his lips. Your heart raced as you made your way towards him, sitting down opposite of him and shrugging.

“I’m sure you have things you would like to explain,” you replied, resting your chin in your hand. A dark eyebrow tilted upwards, the corners of his lips pulling upwards.

“You’re not going to be leaving for a while, Y/N. You see here, we’re not using you to get to your father exactly…” he sighed, twisting a ring on his index finger. “Y/N, confirm this for me: your mother died right after you were born and your father never remarried, right?”

You pursed your lips and nodded.

“So you’re his only child, which makes you the heir for the company?”

You didn’t have to nod, his inquisitive stare told you that he knew everything he needed to know.

“What’s your point?” You snapped.

   A low chuckle came from the man. He swiped his thumb over his bottom lip, a curious looking shining in his eyes. He leaned forward, his elbows resting on his knees, and eyes wide while he watched your face.

“You take over the company once you graduate from college and you’re in your last year, which means in under four months it’s yours,” he stated. “The business deal has been signed, but it will take at least six months for it to be secure. Which means that if you’re given the business on time, you’ll have two months to destroy the contract.”

   You wished you could smirk back at him because he got his details wrong, but you weren’t stupid. He knew, he most definitely knew what all the conditions were for you to take over the company once you graduated. You glowered at him, your hands tightening into fists and your nails were starting to scrape at the fabric that covered them.

“What makes you think I’d do that?” You asked, your voice short and curt. Heat was pulsing in your veins and your teeth were tightly pressed together. You felt like you were already losing and it was infuriating you because the killing blow hadn’t been dealt yet.

“Why hasn’t your father told you about the second part of the deal, Y/N?”

You blinked.

“The drugs are awful—yes—but what’s more awful is letting an inexperienced child take over one of the biggest companies of this age. It’s not just the chance of you failing, but will the people really accept you? You’re young and your own classmates still see you like a bratty child. Clidei Industries has an heir, who’s older, more qualified, and a man. See, what if your father wanted those drugs so bad that he was willing to merge with Clidei and let his son take over both companies?” He said, his eyes widening as he went. You blinked, lifting your head and staring at him. He… he couldn’t be serious, could he?

“There’s no way,” you mumbled, shaking your head. “You’re lying.”

   He flicked an eyebrow up and then grabbed a remote that lay on the table. He turned around, pressing a few buttons and you watched as a screen came down and flickered to life. It immediately opened up to a channel: there your father stood beside Yuvo Clidei, his son behind him. They were announcing their business deal.

“And I’m honored to say that soon our children will come together and Yuvo will take over my company in the future.”

He turned the TV off.

Silence.

“No… no no, no nononononononono, he-he wouldn’t do that. H-h-ha-he, he wouldn’t put me in an arranged marriage. Espe-ha-especially without telling me,” you stammered, standing up. He watched as you turned around, running your hands through your hair. There was no way your father would do that.

Would he?

   At least, the man you knew as a child would never do that, but how close have you been with your dad the past several years? How often did you see him nowadays? How much did he really tell you about business? Hell, when was the last time the two of you had dinner together and just… talked? It’d been at least over a year and people can change their ways in just three weeks.

   You hiccupped, bringing your hand up to your mouth, feeling the tears that ran down your face. You suddenly felt too hot and the walls were way too close. A sob escaped past your lips and you closed your eyes, teeth burying themselves in your bottom lip. The man approached you, softly gripping your shoulders and forcing you to turn towards him. You stared at his chest, trying to force the tears to disappear and struggling to even out your breathing.

“It wasn’t fair of him to do that, but the contract won’t be permanent for six months and that means you can still legally take over in four months,” he muttered, leaning down so you’re face to face. You can just barely meet his gaze.

“And what illegal work are you gonna do to get rid of him?” You sniffed, searching his face. He had to know that part of the contract your father made—you’d only take over the company after you graduated if he died before then.

“Don’t worry about that baby girl,” he cooed. “If you take over, the deal with Clidei can fail and you won’t be forced into a marriage with that pig.”

You snorted.

“I’m still an ‘inexperienced child’,” you grumbled. He rolled his eyes at your quote but met your gaze, something close to honesty burning in them.

“Once you take over, you won’t be an inexperienced child anymore. You’ll be a queen and people would be stupid to deny you of your birth claim.”

++++++++++++

   Two days passed in silence. You hadn’t seen the man, Chan, since your talk and you’d been stuck with Han the whole time. You occasionally saw Woojin or Minho pass by and sometimes nameless faces, but Han seemed to be the only one content to give you company. You had expected yourself to fall into a shell of who you were, but shockingly, you didn’t seem too broken over what you’d just found out. Actually, you found yourself more determined to take over the company now.

Of course, nothing seemed to be happening.

   Han kept claiming that Chan wanted to talk to you soon about his game plan, but whenever you asked, the boy would just shrug. So, instead, you resorted to being bored half the time and the other half spent annoying Han. He seemed fun—he sometimes got your jokes and would occasionally crack of few of his own—but he never wanted to do anything. The place was big and interesting and you hadn’t seen all of it, but there was nothing exciting about staying indoors. You wanted to go outside, but Han seemed extremely against it.

You pulled on your outfit of the day—once again something picked out by your personal babysitter. It was a black silk jumper, with a white leather belt, and the usual pair of gloves to go with it. This time though, there was a hat and a pair of sunglasses thrown in. You held up the hat, a simple baseball cap, frowning at it.

“Ah yes,” Han said, the door creaking as he stepped in. “We’ve been given permission to go outside today. Have you ever been to the Deep City?”

You shook your head and grinned at the boy. You pulled on the cap and grabbed the sunglasses, hurrying after him. Han walked quickly, with a hop in his step and you clearly weren’t the only one excited for the field trip. The two of you made your way through the hallways and past the parlor and into a new room.

Minho leaned up against the wall beside a door, looking extremely bored. He wore a deep blue shirt, matched with white trousers which were held up by gray suspenders. It was the first time you’d seen him in short sleeves and your eyes fell on the silver tattoo of a tiger on his bicep. You shivered unconsciously at the sight of it, still trying to get used to the idea that the people you lived with were Miroh. Miroh. The lead gang of District 9. The dangerous ones.

“Why are you here?” Han asked, his eyes shifting towards you wearily and then to the door.

“Chan told me to come along with the two of you,” Minho sighed, pushing off the wall. “And I couldn’t get out of it because Felix is still on his nocturnal schedule and Woojin… I don’t even know.”

The brunette beside you frowned.

“Am I not enough?”

   Minho shrugged, turning away and opening up the door. He stepped through and motioned for you to follow him. You carefully did and Han followed behind you. You were greeted by a stairwell and you groaned, realizing you’d be going down hundreds of flights of stairs. You’d be exhausted before you even reached the ground.

   The three of you made your way down in silence. You finally reached the bottom and your heart raced as you approached a set of double doors. Minho carefully pried one open, stepping out. You stepped out next, covering your eyes as you looked around. The sun was nowhere in sight and the streets were crowded.

   A hand wrapped itself around yours and you glanced down, staring at Minho’s bare hand as he held tight to you. You tried to pull out, but the black-haired boy shot you a warning look. You sighed and gave up, letting him pull you along as you marched down the sidewalk.

“What exactly are we doing today?” You murmured. “Are we going shopping? Getting food? Going to a park?”

“We’re visiting a friend of mine. Be on your best behavior, keep the hat low, and put those sunglasses on. We don’t need you getting recognized,” he instructed. You nodded, struggling to put the sunglasses on one-handed. Minho watched, unimpressed, as it took you multiple tries before they were snug on your face. “Don’t talk to anyone, don’t look at anyone, and don’t get separated from us. The Deep City is dangerous, especially for someone like you.”

“Shouldn’t I be fine if I’m under your guys’ protection?” You queried, trying to keep the mocking tone out of your voice, but failing. Neither boy replied. Minho was intent on dragging you along and sending a glare at anyone who passed too close to him. Han walked beside you, keeping a careful eye on everyone.

You glanced around, trying to get a view of the great Deep City. The sidewalks and streets were cracked, but the buildings were shiny. Water fountains were placed here and there and trees were reaching for the sky. Fairy lights hung from overhangs and between trees. You could only imagine how beautiful it would be at night.

The place was more crowded than any place you’d ever been. Even in college and high school, you’d never seen so many people. Was this place really safe? It confused you if people were so scared of Miroh, why would they flock to the City that they ran? Or maybe the views your father gave you were wrong—maybe people actually worshipped the gang. It was possible that your father only saw them as a threat because they threatened the way the world had functioned for the past several years and that would put your father out of business.

Finally, you arrived at wherever Minho wished to terrorize someone. You stepped into a slightly rundown building, cool air running through you. The inside was bright, with neon lights and blinding yellow walls. The three of you stood out completely from the interior. Minho’s grip on your hand tightened when several people shot curious stares your way.

Minho made his way towards the woman who stood behind the counter. She was dressed in bright pink and her eyes were a terrifying purple. She looked up when you approached, a smile slowly pulling at the corners of her lips. She nodded at Minho, glancing to you and then to Han.

“Jisung, Minho, and…?”

“Unimportant,” Minho muttered. “Chan had an order made a week ago, has it arrived yet?”

She nodded and then glanced at you. “Unfortunately I can’t let dearie come see it unless you tell me her name.”

She sent a sarcastic grin Minho’s way, batting her eyelashes. He snorted, letting go of your hand and muttering a soft ‘you wish.’ He nodded at Han and your other hand was taken by the brunette. Minho followed the woman into the back, his back stiff and hands clenched into fists at his sides.

You harrumphed.

“So… Jisung, huh?” You chortled, turning to the boy. He groaned, pinching the bridge of his nose and shaking his head.

“Real name,” he explained and then glanced around. “Minho’s gonna be a while, do you wanna go get ice cream?”

   You nodded, deciding to leave the topic of his name behind and go get something sweet. You wondered if it would be real ice cream, with actual milk. You tried to think of the last time since you’d had milk and your mind came up blank. Most animals were scarce in general, but dairy cows were extremely rare.

   He dragged you outside and hurried across the street, where a cart was. The man there greeted the two of you. Han refused to let go you of you, all throughout ordering and paying. You kept it simple, getting a cup of vanilla. You found a park bench and sat down. You looked around as you enjoyed the desert. The few bits of grass were extremely green, the trees looked healthy, and there wasn’t an unhealthy gloom over the city like most places. Once you finished, Han offered to throw it away.

“Don’t move and if anyone approaches, ignore them,” he said, raising his eyebrows. You raised yours back, nodding quickly. The boy hurried off to find a trash can and you sat in silence. You closed your eyes, leaning back and basking in the light breeze that brushed against your skin.

   A hand fell on your shoulder and you opened your eyes. It wasn’t Han. A woman with white hair stood over you, watching you with an ominous stare. You jumped up, whirling around and placing a hand over your heart. Your sunglasses were held in her hand and you froze.

“I know you,” she murmured, the words hummed out like a song. You shook your head.

“You must have me mistaken for someone else. I just have one of those faces,” you stammered, a shaky laugh following after. She slowly moved around the bench, moving towards you. You backed away, unable to ignore the odd vibes running off her.

“I know you,” she demanded, eyes narrowing. You glanced over your shoulder, searching wildly for Han. How hard was it to find a trash can?

“N-no you don’t.”

   Somebody grabbed the back of your neck. You stiffened up under the touch, gritting your teeth when their hold tightened. Dammit, you should’ve just gone with Han. The woman stepped forward, her hand reaching out to trace your face.

   A gloved hand grabbed the woman’s wrist and Han stepped into view. A look of fury burned in his dark eyes. He glanced at you, to whoever was behind you, and then back to the white-haired woman. The sunglasses dropped from her hand and she watched Han with a slightly surprised stare.

“Who the fuck are you?” He snarled, his lip curling back.

She raised her nose. “I could ask you the same.”

   You expected him to do some dramatic reveal of his tattoo or mention something related to Miroh, but instead, he let go of her wrist and shoved her back. He met your gaze for a fleeting moment and then narrowed his eyes on the person behind you. He ripped off his gloves, tossing them on the ground, and his hands curled into fists. You wriggled nervously, biting your lip.

“Deep breaths sweet,” he huffed and then his foot rammed into the person’s knee. The grip on your neck loosened enough for you to yank away. You got a good look at your captor, a large man with a crew cut. Han was a lot smaller than him, but he didn’t seem to care.

   You backed up, watching in horror as you watched the man swing at Jisung. He kept dodging, backing up, his eyes focused solely on the man’s face. When the man swung again, he caught his hand and then moved his grip to his wrist. There was no twist or hit back, instead, his eyes lit up and you watched as the man’s eyes rolled into the back of his head and he dropped to the ground.

   He turned towards the woman, cracking his neck. Light yellow sparks flickered between his fingers as he approached her. She backed up, eyes darting between him and the people that rushed by. No one seemed to notice what was going on. You glanced past Han, frowning. Three more men came sprinting from across the street, eyes focused on your protector.

“Han!” You squeaked out, trying to warn him to the attackers, but it was too late.

   Two jumped on him wrestling him to the ground while the other checked on the woman before turning to you. You backed up, your knees pressing against the bench and then your eyes darted past him. Minho stepped out of the store, his eyes darting back and forth as he searched for the two of you.

“MINHO!”

   Your scream was loud and piercing as you tried to step back again, only to fall onto the bench. Your eyes focused on the man before you, no longer trying to see if Minho heard you. You blinked and then Minho was just there: right in front of you. His fist connected with the man’s skull, a dull thump being heard as he groaned. He wasted no time ramming his foot into the man’s stomach, knocking him over and wrenched one of the men off of Han.

   The younger boy sprung up, his eyes bright orange and raging. You watched as he pressed a hand to one of the attacker’s chests and light started pulsing from his hands. You clasped a hand over your mouth, not noticed the woman and one man hurrying off. Both boys backed off from the two left and then turned to you. A bruise was already forming on Han’s cheek, his hair was a mess, and grass and dirt clung to his shirt.

   Minho scooped you up, shouting orders at Han as he raced across the street. You barely kept up as the man rushed back towards the Miroh building and barrelled up the stairs, not even faltering with your added weight. He slammed open the door and hurried into the parlor, dumping you onto the couch.

   He disappeared into the kitchen, a loud scream of frustration coming from the room. You gasped, pressing a hand to your face and pulling back to see it wet. You hadn’t even noticed you were crying and suddenly you were more aware of your racing heart, the sweat that clung to your hairline, and how you felt extremely cold.

   He took off his gloves. That night in your apartment, he’d done the same thing. You remembered the feeling of everything being drained from you. You sat up, ignoring the way the room spun. What are these people?

++++++++

“I want to talk to Chan.”

“Y/N, he’s busy,” Minho argued. You crossed your arms, trying to push past him. You had a vague idea of where Chan’s office was—you’d seen him disappear behind the glass wall multiple times. “Just let me explain it to you.”

“No, I will talk to Chan,” you demanded. You didn’t know who to trust, but so far Chan had been the most honest with you, even in the one conversation you’d had. Minho opened his mouth, ready to brush off your whines, but then closed it. He turned around just as the door behind him opened, the man in question stepped out. Dark circles were under his eyes and his hair was a mess.

Chan waved Minho away and then motioned you into his office. You marched in, plopping down on the couch. He leaned up against his desk, pinching the bridge of his nose and a letting out a loud sigh. You crossed your legs, tapping your hands on the arm of the couch. He looked back over to you.

“I’m assuming something happened that can’t be explained by science or reasoning,”  he murmured.

You nodded.

“Something tells me you already know the answer to that question,” he sighed. “But I’ll explain anyway.

“Before we all found each other, the nine of us had nothing in common. We weren’t experimented on in some weird lab, our parents did have some disease, nothing weird happened in our childhoods that would give any explanation as to why we had these… abilities. The universe clearly dragged us together though, because we’re all here now.”

You opened your mouth to interrupt, but Chan raised a hand and you slowly closed it.

“The first one I ran into was Felix. It was mid-winter, freezing cold outside, and the boy was in shorts and a tank top, not even aware of the weather. I took him into my apartment, ignored his claims that he was fine, and took him under my wing.  It took a while for me to realize the boy had powers like me, but one day I walked into the kitchen to see him freezing his water. When I realized I wasn’t alone… I guess you could say I made it my mission to find others like us and train them,” he explained and you watched as he picked up a glass and studied it. “Hyunjin protected me from a spray of bullets, Minho disappeared right before my eyes, Jeongin tricked me into giving him all my money, Woojin found me, Seungmin lit Kiol building up, Changbin could control things with his mind, and Han was draining the energy out of lightbulbs to stay warm.

“Y/N, you might think we’re monsters because we’re not normal, but don’t run from us, we’re here to help,” he said, pushing off the table and slowly approaching you.

“Were you ever gonna tell me?” You asked, holding up a hand to keep him at bay.

He bit his lip. “I’m not sure.”

   You stared at him, waiting for something like anger or hatred to come forward, but nothing did. Instead, there was a rush of relief that raced through your body. You closed your eyes and leaned forward, closing your eyes. He was being honest and that seemed to be all that mattered at the moment. Your own father hadn’t been honest; shouldn’t you take shelter in the one person who’d been truthful with you?

“There’s nine of you?” You queried, brushing your hair out of your face as you looked up. He nodded, his eyes running along the length of your body. Chan chewed on his index finger, his shoulders stiff. You had a hundred questions, millions of them that begged to be answered, but you didn’t really want to dive into his world. Depending on whatever his plan was, he would put you on your rightful throne in a couple of months and help you out for a while, but you probably wouldn’t see him after that.

“Chan, if you want me to work with you, I need to know exactly what you plan to do,” you said.

He sighed.

“In order for you to take over the company by the time you graduate, your father needs to be dead. That’s in four months. Your father’s planned death is the day after your graduation, at 9:50 AM. One of Minho’s powers is possession, we plan on having him possess your father and walk him in front of a car, which will be driven by a random man so it can’t be found as murder. Jeongin, you haven’t met him yet, but he has the ability to… persuade others to do whatever he wishes. He’ll convince the driver to do it, with those exact details.

“The deal won’t be official for another two months after that, so we are going to establish you as temporary CEO within three days. We can’t make you permanent CEO immediately, because you’ll have to not only fight the Clideis, but you’ll also have to convince the people. The first week after your father’s death will be silent, that much can be expected. The second week, there will definitely be meetings and it will be our job to get you into every single one—invited or not.

“We’ll play nice that week, but the third week you will announce your decision: you will be taking your father’s position. The Clideis will argue, but you’ll have to stay strong. This is where you’ll start doing most of the work. You’ll need to gain the people’s support and trust and somehow scare the Clideis out. Destroy the contract before they can complete it and then you take it over it. After that, we trust that you’ll only work for the greater good of society.”

You bit your lip, taking all the information in. It was a lot and you weren’t sure how well you could sell it. Getting the people on your side… persuasion wasn’t your strong suit. You unconsciously dug your nails into your knees, already knowing how you could get rid of the Clideis. You had an unfortunate past with Yuvo Clidei, that his father didn’t know about.

“I need my phone,” you demanded. “I have some stuff on it that I could use as blackmail against them.”

   Chan raised a curious eyebrow before his eyes slowly glazed over. The clock ticked loudly in the dark office as you waited for him to get back to you. He shook his head, blinking his eyes as he forced himself back into reality.

“Done.”

++++++++++

   Three months rolled by in a blur. When you weren’t at college, you spent most of your time with Chan or Han, occasionally having lessons with Woojin and the boy Chan had mentioned, Jeongin. You saw Minho every now and then and someone with deep brown hair and wide eyes. Woojin was beating knowledge into your head, going over everything you would need to know about business, and most specifically: your father’s business. Jeongin was teaching you how to talk and act to get people to be swayed to your side, but in most lessons, you found yourself just nodding and zoning out because the boy really had a way with words.

“And that’s why I think you should get me ice cream,” you cooed, tilting your head at Han. The brunette looked unimpressed as he crossed his arms and leaned back in the chair.  You groaned, burying your head in your hands. You were better at bribing people to do what you wish, not talk them into it.

“You talk too much like an essay,” Jeongin pointed out from the corner. “You use too academic words and it’s too controlled. Your voice is good and you smile a lot and flirt when you need to, but if you make your talk flowery and smoother, people will listen to you.”

You send a glare the younger boy’s way.

“Easy for you to say dipstick, you literally have to smile and people would lick dog shit off your shoe,” you snapped. The boy chuckled and shrugged, messily running a hand through his red hair. Then you turned back to Han. “Can I please have some fucking ice cream?”

   Shrill laughter came from both boys. You pouted, crossing your arms. Han was the easiest to push over and you could barely convince him to do something for you without questioning you. How were you supposed to get a whole group of people to listen to you, and even more of, support you?

But you really wanted ice cream at that moment.

   You widened your eyes and popped out your lip at Han. He looked over, saw your attempt at a puppy face, and burst into even louder laughter. He fell back in his chair, eyes closed,  and head tilted back. You stood up, tossing your hair over your shoulder and marched towards him. You leaned over him, placing your hands on either side of him. He didn’t notice at first, but you leaned closer, tilting your head.

   Han finally opened his eyes and froze when he realized just how close you were. You moved one of your hands from the chair arm to his thigh, slowly snaking it up. He opened his mouth and then shut it, swallowing loudly. You leaned forward till you were nose to nose and smiled softly.

“Can I have that ice cream now?”

   You massaged his leg, watching as the boy started to crumble. Han shifted, running a nervous hand through his hair. You bit your lip, smirking as you tilted your head the other way. His cheeks were bright red and he refused to meet your gaze.

“What the hell?”

   You jumped away, ears turning pink when you turned towards the doorway. Chan leaned up against the frame, sweat running down his body. He stood in just a tank top and basketball shorts, his muscled arms, and legs on display. His shirt was wet, clinging to his body and complimenting his carved chest and stomach. His hair was a mess and holy crap, he looked like a whole snack.

Suddenly you didn’t want the ice cream anymore.

   He glanced between the two of you, eyes narrowed. You opened your mouth, trying to explain, but an awkward squeak just came out as you made wild hand motions. Standing there with Chan’s scrutinizing stare on you made you wonder if you and Han were too close. Hell, you were basically just straddling him without any emotions. Han stood up, ready to come to your defense, but Chan shot him a glower.

“Y/N, come with me please,” he huffed, turning around and walking away. You glanced at Han, sticking your tongue out and hurrying after the man.

   You caught up, nervously playing with the sleeves of your shirt. The two you walked to the kitchen in silence. The man grabbed a glass of water, leaning against the counter, sipping at it as he watched you over the rim of the glass. You shifted, tucking your head behind your ear.

“Y/N, I understand that it’s easy to get close to someone when you spend all your free time with them, but I would appreciate it if you could refrain from romantic or sexual relationships, whether there are feelings or not. I need my boys on full focus and I need you to be as well. There won’t be much connection between us once you leave and I don’t need there to be any broken hearts when that happens,” he explained. You shake your head.

“You just walked in at the wrong time,” you argued. “Han and I are only friends—no-not that. I was just trying to convince him to get me ice cream.”

Chan raised a dark eyebrow and placed the glass in the sink. He wiped his forehead, his bicep flexing as he did so. You looked away, turning your knees inward and pursing your lips.

“You shouldn’t have to use your body to get what you wish, Y/N. You’re a strong woman and being sincere will get you where you need to be,” he murmured and walked towards you. He took a piece of your hair, twisting it around his index finger and searching your gaze. “If you really need to do that to get your way, then maybe you’re weaker than I thought.”

You blinked, watching as the man left. You stood in silence, completely shocked by his words. You did it as a joke because you knew exactly how Han would’ve reacted, not just for the sake of getting ice cream. Eyes narrowed, you whirled around and raced after Chan. You rushed in front of him, arms crossed, and glared up at him.

“I’m not weak!” You retorted, pressing your pointer finger to his chest. He stared down at you, looking unimpressed, almost like you were just a puppy that was yipping at his heels. “Because if I was weak, you wouldn’t have even bothered with me. You would’ve either gone to Yuvo and scared him into listening to you or found a completely new candidate. Instead, you came to me and I’m not dumb—you’re thorough and have enough information to make sure nothing could go wrong—so you knew my personality, my quirks, and what ticked me off when you came to collect me. You knew what weak spots to hit in our first conversation. Everything you’ve done up to this point has been to drag out whatever you saw in me!”

He listened to your rant, staring at you with a completely blank face. When you finished up, panting loudly and your finger still digging into his chest, he snorted. Chan grabbed your wrist, yanking you forward and leaning down until your foreheads almost touched. His lip curled up and his warm breath fanned over your face.

“Maybe so, but I won’t tolerate you playing with my members like they’re toys. I don’t care the reason you were feeling up Jisung, but I do care about their performance, and most importantly, your performance,” he hummed.  He moved his mouth so it grazed along with the shell of your ear. Fiery hot shivers ran along your arms and spine and an unintentional gasp escaped from you. Chan stiffened up against you, his grip on your wrist loosening, and his body slowly sinking closer to yours.

   He pulled slightly back, tipping up your chin with his thumb. With him, this close you could see the gold and blue flecks in his dark eyes. You weren’t sure if he was leaning down, but you knew for sure that you were leaning towards him, your eyes fluttering. Your gaze dipped down to his lips before darting up to his eyes once more. God, he looked so inviting and his body warmth called out to you like a secret song. You closed your eyes and let your lips carefully brush against his.

   There was a moment of pure serenity as you pressed tighter against him. Chan responded for a fervent moment and when you spread your hand on his chest, you could feel his racing heart. He stiffened under your touch and then shoved you away. You stumbled back, eyes flying open and watching as the man pressed the back of his hand to his lips before he turned around and disappeared into the next room.

   Your hand shook as you pressed it over your own heart, feeling the unsteady stutter that hid there. You blinked, licking your lips and running a hand through your hair. You shook yourself out, trying to force yourself into the right mindset.

“Y/N? Are you okay? He didn’t say anything too rude, did he?” He asked, popping around the corner. You smiled tightly and shook your head.

“No, but I think I deserve that ice cream since I took a hit for the team,” you joked softly and the boy nodded.

“Ice cream it is.”

   As night rolled around, you found it impossible to sleep. Han had gotten you tacos and you’re favorite ice cream, apologizing repeatedly for making you go into the hell zone alone. You’d brushed him off, choosing to eat dinner in your room and then you tried to retire early, but it was nearing midnight and you were still wide awake.

   All you could think about was how soft Chan’s lips were, how he felt so amazing right there and then the bitter, frigid air that followed afterward. You understood his reasoning behind no relationships, but you wish you didn’t. A prickle ran through your body and you sighed, sitting up in bed. You slipped out, trying your best to be silent as you made your way down the stairs. You felt your way through the parlor until you found the kitchen door and stepped in.

   Surprise ran through you when you found the lights on. A boy stood with his back to you, his hair a white-blonde and his body was lithe and lean. He turned around, holding a container of ice cream in one hand with a spoon hanging from his mouth. He froze when he saw you, eyes widening. You glanced down, staring in dismay at your container of ice cream. You’d been wondering why everything sweet in this place always seemed to disappear so fast.

He pulled the spoon out of his mouth with a ‘pop!’ and blushed. “You’re Y/N, right? I’m Felix.”

The first boy Chan met.

   You smiled and reached over the counter to shake his hand. His grin was a shining white as he gripped your hand and lightly shook it. His skin was numbing and it burned through your anatomy. You unconsciously rubbed your hand vigorously against your shirt, pressing your lips together.

“Sorry ‘bout that. Channie and I have tried multiple times to figure out how to warm my hands up, but it seems to be impossible,” he apologized. ** (Remember this for Felix’s story)

You chuckled. “Are you the reason everyone wears gloves all the time?”

His voice was deep as his chuckle joined yours.

“Believe me, I wish,” he huffed. “Those are more of a safety precaution. Not everyone in the group can completely control their powers.”

   A comfortable silence fell over the two of you as Felix turned around to dig through the drawers for something. He produced another spoon and handed it to you, offering the container of creamy sweetness to you. You dove in, sighing when the flavor hit your tongue. You flopped into the barstool, scooping out another spoonful and savoring it quietly.

“How do you like it here?” Felix queried. “I’ve heard about you, but I don’t really get to hear about how it’s going or even talk to you.”

“It’s fine. A little stressful.”

   He snorted and nodded, his eyes full of pure understanding. He shuffled across the kitchen and searched through the fridge, pulling out a jar of peanut butter and a banana. You contemplated him as he found some bread and made a sandwich, humming a soft tune under his breath. He seemed to be a lot younger than the others—there wasn’t a dark aura that radiated off him. You knew the Jeongin was the youngest but even the young teen had something mysterious and brooding hiding in his far corners.

Felix walked around the counter and sat down next to you, his stomach grumbling as he quickly devoured the food. Amusement filled you as he managed to scarf it down in just four bites. At this distance or lack of, you could see a spray of freckles that covered his face and noted the way his skin shone unnaturally under the kitchen lights. He glanced over at you, mouth screwed shut, cheeks puffed up, and eyebrows raised. You giggled.

“Is there a reason you’re staring?” He mumbled after he swallowed his food.

You shrugged.

“You don’t remind me of the others,” you said, glancing over his face.

Too much innocence.

“I get that a lot—you’d think I’d be colder because my powers—but because of my powers I feel like I’ve always made it my job to be warm and sunny,” he murmured, brushing the crumbs off his shirt. Then he scoffed; “Rather ironic, isn’t it?”

You shook your head.

“I think it’s a good thing… everyone here seems to beat down and ominous. Chan’s a good leader, but sometimes you need someone with an actual smile to keep people closely knit,” you vocalized. Han was fun and loving at times, but you saw the shadow behind the shine in his eyes and you always dwelled on those times he would go silent, his eyebrows would furrow, and you could practically see the horrors flash across his face. It was refreshing that Felix didn’t emanate that feeling.

A shy smile pulled at his lips.

“Thank you.”

You hummed.

“It’s unfortunate you’re leaving so soon, Y/N. I wish I could’ve met you earlier.”

One Month Later…

   You crouched next to Han, the two of you completely hidden by shadows. Your eyes ran over the silhouettes in the coffee shop, wondering which one was your father. Minho sat on a park bench next to the building, earbuds in and head bobbing as if he was listening to music. His arms were completely covered, hiding his Miroh tattoo from view. Chan and Woojin were hiding on one of the roofs, both over-looking to make sure everything went well.

   Your heart thrummed loudly in your ears, realization pounding through your body because today was the day. You’d walked across the stage last night, in your purple satin gown and had accepted the flimsy piece of paper with an immoderate smile. Chan had been satisfied with your lessons; the way you talked and presented yourself had managed to improve immensely within the last month you had.

The door opened and your father appeared, a double-shot Americano in hand and his phone in the other. He made his way towards the crosswalk, completely oblivious to what was going to go down in a couple of minutes. The streets were mostly empty, giving the driver a perfect runway. Minho’s eyes peeped open, the silver irises noticeable even from across the street. He glanced at your father, his body stiffening and then sagging, his eyes rolling into the back of his head as his conscious completely moved.

Your hand tightened around Han’s, perspire collecting along your jawline and forehead. He squeezed your hand, but his eyes were completely focused on the scene and his worry was definitely not directed towards you.

Your father stalled at the crosswalk, suddenly finding interest in his phone as Minho waited for the truck to approach. You glanced down the road, unable to stop your gasp when you saw the pickup truck. Your father’s gaze snapped towards it and you listened to the sound of the vehicle picking up speed. When it was barely five meters away, the man that raised you stepped out and rushed in front of the truck. You looked away, covered your mouth and tried to drown out the thump of a body being hit and the sound of the truck still going as if nothing happened. Screams filled the air and you were sure one of them was yours.

Han let go of your hand to race across the street to where Minho struggled to stand up. You surveyed the situation, noting the way his skin was much too pale and his head lolled to the side. Chan had told you that Minho took some damage whenever the life he was possessing got injured or killed. Han wrapped the boy’s arm over his shoulders and started stumbling down the sidewalk.

You made the mistake of glancing towards where your father was. Red gushed across the dark pavement and you looked away, tears pricking your eyes. You were supposed to wait for Han or Woojin to come to get you, but suddenly the idea of letting one of them touch you, lest come near you was sickening.

You stood up and turned around, quickly racing down the alley and taking several sharp turns. You had no idea where you were going, but you couldn’t face them at the moment. Hell, you couldn’t face yourself.

You kept running for awhile until you found yourself in a familiar place. Your steps were loud as you stumbled along the cement, coming to a stop in front of the white gate. You ran your hand along the fence and glanced at the soft blue house hidden behind them. The gate squealed as you shoved it open and marched up the walkway. Creaks sounded underneath you as you stepped up the old wooden porch.

Despite the crazy amount of money your father had and continued to make, he always preferred the simple, rundown house. You remembered him always saying that it was like a reminder that everything was still normal. You sniffled as you bent down to get the spare key from under the mat. The sound of the door unlocking was loud and for a moment you thought it would be impossible for you to step into your childhood home.

But you did and you shut the door loudly behind you. The house was gleaming and clean, as expected. Your father could never live in a mess. You slid out of your shoes and walked across the carpet, moving down the hallway, and tracing your hand along the wall. As if in a trance, you walked into your room, looking around. It hadn’t changed since you left—it still had the same color scheme of blue and white, with the same posters and paintings decorating the walls.

Your hand ran along the dresser and your finger came back up, dustless. A sigh escaped you and you smiled, but it was bittersweet. Would this house go to crap now that there was no one to take care of it? You had never developed your father’s cleanliness and even if you did, did you really want to live here? In this big house, all alone?    You sank to the floor, leaning against the bed and closing your eyes. Your hand skimmed along your shoulders and down to your collarbone. Your hand slowed over the spot where you knew it was—the ink. A grimace darkened your features as you traced the pattern, having it memorized. The memories of your hand grasping Chan’s tightly as the needle approached your delicate skin and marred it for eternity flooded your mind.

“A backup plan… in case nothing else works, this can get you where you need to be.”

The small black tiger on your skin that matched the rest of Miroh. If your words and your image couldn’t get you your birth claim, then this would. The Clideis wouldn’t dare challenge you, knowing who stood behind you; and the people would be split between respect and fear. You knew what the mark meant, you knew it would put you on a beacon of power and terror.

“But I don’t want to win them over with fear…”

   That was a lie, because deep down inside, you knew that as long as you had Miroh on your side, you would always be on top with fear. You would run the biggest business, you would choose how much food each family got, all because you had a gang that represented agony, horror, and gore behind you.

“You scared us.”

   You jumped, eyes widening as you watched Chan step into your room. His eyes darted around the room, a mix of emotions shining in their depths as he surveyed the place. You didn’t move from you position and looked up at him. Chan sighed and walked towards you, sliding to the floor next to you.

“Y/N… I am truly sorry, but this had to be done. Your father was a danger to the survival of society and it had to happen,” he declared, fingers playing with the edge of his sleeves. You nodded, biting your lip.

“You could’ve just gotten rid of the Clideis,” you mentioned, but it was pointless. You already knew his answer. He glanced over at you, the sunlight dancing beautifully across his skin. His hand reached for years, wrapping around it tightly.

“You can do this, Y/N, with or without the tattoo.”

   He closed his eyes, taking a deep breath and then opened them. His other hand wrapped around the back of your neck and brought your head to his. You let him pull you until your lips met. You melted into him, your hand tightening around his and your other running along his jawline. It was sweet, simple, and soft. You pulled back first, keeping your eyes closed and nodding.

“I can,” you whispered.

+++++++

   It took time, it really did. You had about five days left to take your father’s spot before the contract was officially in place. Then it happened and the Clideis arguments crumbled and the people cheered louder for you. It was deafening, standing on that stage between two security guards as roars and claps filled the air.

   It had been an accident—your collar had slid to the side for a moment to reveal the tattoo that marked your skin. No one believed it at first, but then your own banner was raised in the Deep City, surrounded by nine masked dangers, with all their tattoos on display. The Clideis disappeared in a snap and no more protests from the community. And so, Y/F/N Y/L/N’s daughter took the biggest business under her finger.

You remembered when you were up on that stage, you remembered seeing the bright smile that you could always recognize despite only seeing it twice: Felix. The white-haired boy stood on a ledge, hands tucked in his pockets, and a broad smile on his face. Then you quickly noticed the others: Minho’s silver stare, Woojin’s light blue hair, Han’s eccentric outfit, Jeongin’s smirk that was impossible to ignore, and then there was Chan.

He stood out in his white and gold uniform, his hair no longer multi-colored, but a dark blonde. Your heart had thundered loudly and suddenly you couldn’t hear the shouts anymore. You hadn’t seen him since that day in your old house and the tingles that rushed over your body were blinding. You’d nodded in acknowledgement and he’d nodded back and that was it. You allowed yourself to be escorted to your bachelorette pad and then sat in silence, sipping a glass of wine in victory.

Your gaze flicked towards the computer screen on front of you as it lit up. Chan stepped into your home, no longer adorning the white suit. Instead he wore a simple hoodie and sweatpants. You closed the screen and finished your wine, allowing the man to silently move into your kitchen.

“Hello Chan.”

“You did amazing,” he complimented, his hand squeezing your shoulder as he stepped up behind you. You nodded, your body relaxing under his touch.

“I thought Miroh was supposed to cut off contact after it was done,” you sighed, setting down the glass. You peeked up at him, tilting your head curiously. Chan shrugged, running a hand lazily through his hair.

“We’ll do yearly checkups to make sure everything’s all right. I’m just here to make sure that you’ll uphold what you promised.”

“I would never do what my father dared to,” you stated. Your heart no longer squeezed whenever you mentioned the man, you could easily talk of him and keep a straight face. Whatever love you once felt for him was gone—he raised you, but he wasn’t the perfect man you always saw him as. Your mind wasn’t meant to be set on his death, you were meant to focus on your world. The world that could crumble if you just barely brushed it wrong.

“So, I figure this is good-bye?” You queried. Chan’s hand ran through your hair, a soothing touch if it wasn’t for the sadness that lurked behind it.

He hummed in agreement and then bent over you. His lips brushed along your temple, to your ear, and he proceeded to ask what you were drinking. You got him a glass and the two of you conversed over the bottle.

You weren’t exactly sure how it happened. The two of you were mostly just talking, with occasional kisses here and there. Then suddenly you found yourself pinned beneath him on the table as his mouth moved down your neck. His hips rutted against yours as he struggled to unbutton your shirt. A gasp fell from you when he gave up and just ripped it open, his warm mouth trailing along your breasts.

You helped him wiggle you out of your pants and you struggled to throw his shirt off. A blush ran along your cheeks when you saw the planes of muscles along his stomach and chest. Chan hissed as he pressed a kiss to your inner thigh, his fingers dancing along your panties. You whined, arching your back and the man finally gave in.

You gasped, hands flying down to grasp his hair and eyes squeezing shut. His tongue ran up your slit and then his mouth enclosed your clit, harshly sucking on it. His fingers danced along your stomach and legs, keeping you in place as you writhed beneath him. When you begged for more, he groaned in response and wasted no time sliding two fingers inside you.

“Fuck, Chan!” You squeaked, tasting your own blood when your teeth dug too tightly into the bottom lip. He peeked up at you, his hair a mess from your insistent tugging and a glisten on his nose and chin. “No foreplay please. No foreplay.”

Chan mumbled something along the lines of wanting to cherish you, but listened to your pleas. He threw off his boxers and pushed you farther onto the table. He climbed on top of you, sucking marks on to your neck and collarbone. Your hands gripped his biceps and your legs wrapped tightly around his waist as you waited.

There it was again—that small moment of serenity before the world rocked itself. Chan’s eyes flashed a muted blue and then he was there. You mewled when he filled you completely, his cock hitting you right to the core. He grunted, sitting still for a few moments before he started.

It wasn’t hard or rough. It was soft and slow, a gentle rocking as the new of you created a melody with your moans. Chan’s mouth kept meeting yours in soft brushes and his tongue would dart out along your lower lip. Moments passed as he continued to thrust into you, his eyelashes fluttering along his flushed cheeks and mouth slightly parted. You felt yourself come undone, eyes pinching shut and nails burying themselves in your lover’s back. He followed you soon after, saliva hanging from his mouth as his hips stuttered against yours.

You woke up in the morning in your own bed. It was mid-afternoon and the sounds of traffic down below were mild. You glanced over, expecting to be met with empty blankets, but found Chan’s sleeping face. A smile broke out on your face as you traced along his cheekbone, mesmerization running through you. He was still there.

His eyes slowly opened, narrowing against the harsh sunlight that danced across the two of you. Chan yawned, stretching out his arms and then nestled back into you. He smelled like sex and you couldn’t stop your nose from wrinkling, but you didn’t mind.

“I don’t want this to be the last time I see you,” he mumbled, tracing patterns along your skin. You glanced over at him and brushed his hair out of his face.

“It doesn’t have to be,” you commented.

He chuckled.

“You’re right.”  

[alitheamateur]

The Grind-Chapter 29

I helped clean up the dishes, and he emptied all our trash into the dumpster behind the shop before we journeyed to the next stealthy location on his to-do list. I made sure to cork the pricey wine bottle so I could take the last bit home to sip on in bed with him, not wanting to waste a drop of the bittersweet goodness. Colton peeled off his jacket to drape over my bare back since the evening temperatures had chilled noticeably, then we locked up and he offered his aid to the car, considering my acutely inebriated state.

Instead of following the traffic further into the eventful side of town, we made a left and headed off towards the outskirts. It was a part of Pittsburgh that normally would have me on edge consider the late hour, but with Colton at the wheel there was truly never any reason to fear. He wasn’t a certified superhero, or a proclaimed savior of humanity, but I felt he was my own personal, daunting vigilante. I was independent, and capable on my own, but with him I could be fearless.

I looked out the side window as the streetlights and skyscrapers became scarce, and felt the dizzy aftershock of the merlot floating through my veins, creating a warm blaze over my cheeks. Rolling the window down a crack for some cool breeze to chill my alcoholic hot flash, we turned on the very familiar street where Mac’s gym used to sit. I stretched in my seat to get a good look around, continuing the trend of confusion.

“You okay, Livvy?” Colton tested as he parallel parked directly in front of the cloudy, dust stained windows of the unoccupied building.

“Yeah, just a little hazy from the wine is all. And wondering what we’re doing here.”

He only half-smiled and opened the door, gesturing for me to follow suit. Checking carefully for any oncoming vehicles, I slung open the passenger side to meet my offered escort on the sidewalk. The “A” of the sign above the doorway was cracked and barely hanging on by some sketchy wires, and the street number that was stickered on the glass was pared and faded. I felt instantly sad for Colt seeing the current state his once second home. In fact, it had probably been more of a home to him than the old, dingy apartment he was held up in when we first met, considering the innumerable hours he spent training here.  As our steps accidently synced in speed toward Mac’s, Colton tore away a graffiti marked “For Sale” sign heftily tapped to the glass. He disconnected our hands to pull a key tucked away in a pocket of his wallet…

Shards of broken glass from the overhead lights furthermore shattered as we walked over the polluted floor of the abandoned gym. Most of the equipment remained intact and the ring still stood in its place, only now stained a bit with the passing year of lacked maintenance. A red-wrapped box, taped with a black bow had been placed in its center, which I gathered was exactly where Colton was dragging me. He gaped the stretchy, leather-like ropes open and grasped my forearm to keep me from woozily face planting. From side glance, I watched him drink in the sight of my leaning figure, and the spilling out of cleavage as I did so.

“I hate seeing the place like this. I know it has to be pretty brutal for you too, babe.” I weakly slurred in a sympathized manner.

“This place got a lotta memories, for sure. For the both of us, hm?” He approached me from behind covering me in a bear hug, kissing the crook of my neck, and inhaling in my most customary scent. A reminder of the first night we spent together standing in that very spot made the echo of our moans, and the feel of his hands on me play back like a fantasy in my mind, and I sunk further into his body.

“Be careful talking about such things, Ritter. I might just be drunk enough to let you take advantage of me right here again.”

“As much as I need to get my hands on you, you should open ya’ present first.” He suggested, nudging me onward with a pat to the behind.

I squatted to lift the box, and felt the barely-there weight of its contents. Colt remained in observance over my shoulder, quietly inspecting for a reaction as I worked my nails over the knotted, silk bow closure. It fell to my feet, tickling over my exposed toes in the stilettoes I wore, and I then dropped the cardboard lid shortly after. Lined with tissue paper inside, the black gloves Colton wore to fight Danny Mendez were laid next to each other. The grained leather was softer than when I had first gifted him with them, now broken in and loose due to the blows thrown, and punches blocked.

“Colton. These belong to you, babe. I don’t even deserve a pair this nice. And besides, they have your name on ‘em, silly.” I reasoned, turning slow to face my one-man audience.

“I think I can maybe do somethin’ about that little name issue, pretty girl.”

Suddenly, the crisp box and its contents crashed to the floor, falling buoyantly from my now numb hands. Instead of spinning around to meet his smiling eyes, I had to sink my sights to discover him knelt a few feet from me, caressing a square velvet case.

“Colton, what ar-.”

“You listen, ‘n let me talk this time, baby.”

Uncontrollable outlines of mascara black tears initiated abruptly, and the white noise of passing traffic, and distant sirens ceased.

“The second I looked into those bright emerald eyes of yours Livvy, a fuse kicked inside me. All those emotions that I had turned off a long time ago, fuckin’ came roaring back. The typical me, woulda walked right out that morning with a coffee to-go, without a second thought. But it was like every time I looked back at ya’, I swear I could literally feel my heartbeats inside of me. I coulda counted them out loud, Liv. You had me in this… this trance or somethin’. You know I ain’t gonna say all this the way you deserve to hear it, but I need you to know what you are to me, Elliott. How much you mean t’ me.”

I could hear his voice crack under the pressure he had put on himself, and the lump of tearful release he was trying to choke back into his throat.

“There’s a billion damn reasons why I don’t deserve ya’. We both know that. But there’s another billion reasons why I want to. You’re the most intelligent woman I’ve ever met, and the only one I know who could get me laughin’ like a damn idiot the way you do. I love that you always have a little smudge of leftover makeup unda’ your eyes when you wake up every mornin’, and that you can have me beggin’ in desperation the second you put on a pair of those shoes like the ones ya’ wearin’ now. And don’t even get me started on how thrilled I get seeing you strapped into a pair of sparring gloves. As nervous sick as it gets me, I love it all the same. I ain’t never wanted to be a better man, babe. For myself, and sure as hell not for anyone else. But the man I am with you, the man you turn me into, is a far better one that I ever thought I could be. C’mere, Livvy baby. I ain’t gonna bite.”

Following the suggestive direction of his nod, I weakly closed the distance between us, and he took my chattering hand into his. He laughed, and tried to still the very obvious nervous, euphoric emotion coming through my skin.

“You are such a beautiful, loving, kind heart. Not to mention sexy in the most subtle ‘n real way. You’re strong as a fuckin’ ox, inside & out, and you sit my ass straight in line every day. God knows I need that. I want to spend the rest of my life being ya’ sidekick, and watchin’ you succeed with whatever your heart wants. I can’t promise I’ll be as perfect as all the otha’ men you truly deserve, and I need ya’ to be patient wi’ me when I get all caught up in me head. There ain’t nobody else I’d rather have nursin’ my wounds after a fight, or eatin’ a whole gallon of ice cream with on a cheat day. You’re my only light, and any chance I have at bein’ a decent man is only because of you. So, Liv Caroline Elliott, will you marry me?”

The flawless solitaire sent iridescent beams of sparkle bouncing across the ceiling as the light caught it in Colton’s suddenly shaking hand. The stone was impressively hefty in carats, and was uniquely chiseled into the shape of an octagon. I knew that little quality wasn’t just a coincidence, and Colt had made this purchase with careful consideration and lots of preparation. His dedicated search for the perfect diamond to join the two of us together was a thoughtful sentiment no one could refute.

He bore his soul without question, so unnaturally against his nature, and let his every emotion spring forth for me to potentially criticize and dismiss. The metamorphosis I had witnessed overtake him the last months satisfied my hearts every yearning, and I knew fully that Colton Ritter was the only man who would ever fill the shoes of my true love. As tears began saturating his soft, bristle-like eyelashes too quick for him to conceal and rub away with his shirt sleeve, I wordlessly nodded an accepting, smiling ‘yes.’

“You ain’t gettin’ off that easy 2-1. A man’s gotta hear you say it.”

“Yes, Colton. Yes, yes, yes! A hundred times over, yes. I will marry you. Only if you promise me, to stop selling yourself so short and trying to convince the world what a monster you are. When it comes to the cage, sure you’re unforgiving and dangerous. But otherwise, we both know that’s so far from the truth. Whether I’m the only lucky individual who gets to see it behind closed doors or not, you’re so kind. And you’re the most loyal man I have ever met. Any time I’ve been lucky enough to spend with you, have been the best minutes of my entire life. And when I happen to think about the time passed without you, I cringe at the memories we could’ve made. I want nothing more than to spend whatever life I have left by your side.”

The feeling of the cool silver band as he slid it with ease over the knuckle of the proper finger sent a tsunami of wedding color schemes, and potential venues flooding into my train of thought. Never was I the girl for fairy tales, and tulle and princes riding in to rescue the damsel, but the countless possibilities of marital bliss with Colton had birds chirping and singing around my head.

My newly crowned fiancé lunged in to seal the celebration with a deep kiss, pulling me into him by a hand on the back of my neck. The sticky tears wetting his face mixed with my own as our faces touched in embrace, and Colton dipped me like the closing move of a Salsa dance, laughing when I yelped in surprise.

“What is it about this little place, I wonder? It seems Mac’s has been pretty important to us over the last years.” I pointed out, as he kissed the fine jewelry now situated on my finger.

“Yeah…… Well, uhm... About that…”

I looked at him through slit eyes, and cocked a quizzical, suspicious brow at what had him so apparently tongue tied.

“You’re right. This shit hole has been pretty damn important t’ me. And a’ course, to us too. I can’t stand to see it just sittin’ here. Rotting.”

“I’m sure if there was anything Mac could do, sweetheart, he would’ve already. Maybe we’ll get lucky and the next owner will give it a good makeover, y’know? Freshen it up.” I attempted to cheer him up with positive outlook, and cheery suggestions.

“Oh, I think you right. The next owner is gonna get this place back on its feet, and back to it’s roots. Some new bags first thing, and a definite fuckin’ fumigating.” His nose crinkled as he looked around at the mildewed ceiling.

“It sold? Someone finally bou-“

I froze, and Colton’s instantaneous smile furthermore proved my suspicions. He had torn down that weathered ‘for sale’ sign before we came inside, and the little key tucked in his wallet should’ve been my tell-tale.

“COLTON?! It’s yours? You bought it? How? Whe-“

“Hey, hey, hey, hey. Take a breath, ya’ crazy chatterbox. Yes, I bought it. And yes, it’s OURS.” Colton annunciated the significance of ‘ours’ in his confession, assuring I understood that this cherished little corner of a rickety, dark corner block in Pittsburgh now belonged to us. Together.

“I was thinkin’… How does 21 Punches sound to you? I mean, I’d like to have Mac maybe be a manger for me, y’know, when I can’t be here ‘n stuff. But I do wanna change that sign out front.”

Invisible atoms of a tranquil fog consumed the every corner of being, and my legs felt insubstantial on a cloud of celestial contentment. This stiff as cement man, who seemed to turn to near wet, molding clay in my presence wanted to name his most prized possession after a silly, what I viewed as irrelevant, high school basketball number from my ancient days as a Westfield Warrior. I half expected a hidden crowd to jump out into a surprise party, or a horse drawn carriage to wheel up outside to seal the finishing touches on an evening of unadulterated shock and romance.

“I think you’re the best thing about this smelly, foggy, freezing city. And I think you should take me home right now, and let me show you exactly how amazing I think you are.”

Forgetting any class or feminine daintiness, I grabbed firmly around the bulge of his thin, extremely well-fitting slacks and parted two buttons of his shirt to tickle his beating chest.

“Home? We own the place now, ya’ naughty lil’ thing. I could just take ya’ right fuckin’ now if I wanted to.”

“Slide your hand under this dress and get to it then, Mr. Ritter.” I sighed fervently into his ear, sloppily sucking his neck just under the line of his beard.

The lack of undergarments he discovered as he used two fingers to crawl up the side of my leg caused him to groan out hauntingly.

“Your wish, is my fuckin’ command, Mrs. Ritter.”

tags: @torialeysha @eap1935 @mollybegger-blog @littleluna98

[guerrillathoughts]

Making a local connection in Morocco

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The scent of Maghrebi mint tea filled the tent, the door fluttered in the occasional breeze revealing the sand dunes with our camels kneeling in the heat as the sun scorched the sands. The dunes stretched out for what seemed like endless miles in every direction to the horizon. I sat on a low wooden bench, happy to be in the cool shade. With a smile on my face I took a deep breath, sipped my tea and thought back over the last few weeks. I couldn’t wait to get off that seat. The temperature in the cramped minivan as it rocked along the road was torture. I stepped off the bus into the midday sun with my backpack flung over my shoulder. As the minivan doors squeaked shut behind me, the intensity of the heat hit me. My nostrils were filled with dry warm air that I could feel filling my lungs. The bus pulled away and left me in an empty street. Ramadan. I looked around the palm tree lined boulevards, walked past the shutters of the empty pizza joints and stopped on a wall at the pristine beach that met the Atlantic Ocean. When I had set out for Africa, I wasn’t expecting a western resort never mind an empty western resort. None of this felt authentic. 

I was deflated. I only had a couple of hours before I was due to catch a boat to the Canary Islands. I conceded that I was to spend my only hours in Africa on this beach, alone. The silence was accented only by the sound of the gentle rolling waves, the warmth in my lungs and the smell of the sea air in my nose. There was nothing wrong; at any other time I would have been elated to be in such a beautiful location. But that was not quite what I had seen in my minds eye.

“You see nothing today. It’s Ramadan”. I turned around to see an older gentleman standing just over my shoulder. I hadn’t heard him approach me, I thought I was entirely alone. The gentleman must have been in his 50’s at least, with dark brown skin, a receding hair line, a thick black moustache, and small oval glasses. He stood in sandals, light wash denim jeans with a yellow linen shirt stretched desperately across his potbelly. His name was Omran.

There was an extreme serious language barrier, but we tried to have a conversation. I speak English where words can be pronounced in the same way and mean completely different things; Omran spoke Arabic which has letters that my alphabet has no equivalence for. It was hard work, but well worth it. That kind of communication meant we had to pay close attention to each other. We listened, not just for a gap to signal our turn to talk, but to the tone of voice which established mood and feeling, for intonation to discern if a question is being asked, or a statement made. We focused on the movements of the face, the motion in the hands. 

“I show you Agadir.” I followed him to his beige 1980’s Mercedes 240D, got into the front seat and through force of habit I floundered trying to find a seat belt. There was no seatbelt. We drove through the rich part of town, he showed me the Ornate mosque, the white washed walls of the villas and the houses of rich. I sat behind the leather dash, with its mahogany details as the fans blew out hot air making no difference to my comfort levels. He began to make a swirl in the air with his hands saying

“This no Médina.” 

He then pointed down a main road made the swirl again and repeated the motions while saying 

“Médina; No Médina! Médina; No Médina”.

Then changing his inflection, he pointed down the main road and said

“Médina?”

I agreed to his question, with absolutely no idea what he was asking but I had enjoyed his company so I went along. He drove me from the riches, and across our language barrier he explained that the Médina is the old town and that this is where I would see the “real people”. 

He parked up and we took a walk together through the markets, the first of which was a meat market and a real culture shock. The bodies of meat hung from bars above me while the legs and heads were discarded; sensing my uneasiness with this, Omran insisted that I pose with the pile of black and white goat heads, the heads of horned rams and the head and legs of a Camel while he took a photo. Then he walked me to another market and the multitude of smells assaulted my senses as I walked off the dusty paths, out of the heat and into the cooling shade of a spice market. There were many stalls with bags of spices, as tall as me and the colours joined the advance as the assault on my senses continued; reds and oranges of the Harissa spices, yellows and beiges of the curry powders, the green of mint leaves and the browns of the cloves and grains. The dusty, dirty, old spice market is how I had pictured that part of the world; My search for authenticity suddenly felt successful. The hustle and bustle of the market, the bartering, the buying and the sound of the busy streets outside filled me with utter joy. To my self-appointed guide, this must have seemed rather irrational; this was just his home.

Omran brought me to one of the stalls and introduced me to a friend of his, who welcomed us out behind his stall to a little room, with short benches and a small table in the middle with a beautiful throw draped around it and he began to make tea. His friend was a lot older than he, with similarly dark skin, a thinner moustache and stood tall towering over me, wearing a dark grey traditional tunic, the thawb, stained with the all colours of his spices. His English was exceptional and we discussed football and my home country of Ireland. He tells me the tea should be ready and he began to pour from a beautiful swan-necked steel pot into a short glass and handed it to me, before sitting down next to me. Noticing that he was not having a glass himself I began to feel a suspicion rise in me.

“Are you not having a glass yourself?” “Oh no, this is Ramadan and I am not allowed.” “Oh I don’t want to be rude…” “Please friend, to reject our hospitality in our culture is more offensive than to drink tea, merely because I am not having any.” I push the suspicions out of my mind. The tea is delicious, with hints of menthol.

“This is lovely, what is it?” “That my friend, is Maghrebi mint tea. It is a traditional drink for us”

After sitting and talking a while he leaves for a moment and returns with four bags.

“This one is for chicken, this one is for meat, and this one is for fish. This is our tea. For you.” “Oh thank you, how much do I owe?” “No, this is for you” He showed me how to write my name in Arabic before me and Omran decided to take our leave. I was guided across the street to a dusty outdoor fruit and vegetable market, where wooden carts with metal bindings were piled with carrots, donkeys stood next to carts of turnips, men in thawbs and skull caps stood next to enormous piles of Mediterranean oranges, watermelons and tomatoes. We ventured through what could only be described as a gap in a wall and ascended three flights of stairs to a row of mini-markets selling all kinds of branded shoes, clothes, bags and gadgets. Omran even stopped to buy a new pair of sandals.

We walked back to his car and got back inside, and as with every other time, I floundered looking for the seat belt that was not there. As we drove around, Omran parked on an active and busy street, raised five fingers and seemed to be insisting he would be right back; leaving the keys in the ignition, he pressed the door lock and got out of the car causing the door to bolt behind him. I felt the nerves swirling in my stomach, as memories of the tea I drank alone flooded to the front of my mind. I tried to push these thoughts from my head, but it was futile. I kept looking at the keys hanging in the ignition, trying to formulate an escape plan. Every noise around me was amplified and somehow muffled at the same time; I heard laughing and adjusted the rear-view mirror and caught sight of a group of men walking up towards the car. It was them, these were Omran’s co-assailants. They were younger, fitter and in numbers. Every news report, movie and all the hysteria of the anti-arab media flooded forth, waves of memories crashing, each one fighting for its turn to play out in front of me. I frantically looked round the cab still trying to form a plan; I searched under my seat as far as I could reach, I opened the glove box, I stared at the key and then I tensed up, sat back and stared into the rear-view mirror. The group split, four walking up the left of the car, three on the right. I sat bolt-upright and waited. The men walked past the doors, past the bonnet, regrouped and then simply walked on. They were not Omran’s co-assailants. I relaxed and looked around. Men continued to man their markets, women milled to and fro doing their shopping, children played and dogs barked. The co-assailants I was waiting on did not exist. 

I became annoyed at myself for my attitudes, and then I became annoyed at the media; how dare they affect my attitudes towards others so blatantly. I became annoyed at Liam Neeson’s character in Taken, considering all his enemies were Arab. I then returned my annoyance to its rightful place; myself. Only I am in control of how I see the world. In my arrogance I had not realised how much I had been impacted by all the propaganda. I closed the glovebox tried to return Omran’s rear-view mirror hoping he wouldn’t notice I had moved it. Soon I noticed him come walking around the corner with his arms laden down with shopping, which he placed in the boot. He wrapped his window and I leaned over and opened the door for him and he clambered in to the driver’s seat, started the engine and asked would I mind if he drove to his house to leave the food in for this evenings meal. I obliged. 

We drove out of the dusty streets, passed a big communal square and towards the suburbs of the town. The streets narrowed and I wondered how he could possibly steer his seemingly massive Mercedes through the maze off winding streets as the building leered over us. He pulled up next to a doorway and together we carried his shopping into his home. I yearned to take Omran up on his offer of sharing his evening meal with him and his family, but I had to say no, and apologised profusely remembering what I had been told about rejecting hospitability. He drove me back to the beach he had picked me up from and leaving all my stuff in his car we went for a walk along the beach and I thanked him for all he had shown me throughout the day. I offered him money, but he rejected it. Time slipped further away and I had almost forgotten that I had to catch a boat and I had missed my bus to the port. Omran rushed me along a road that although empty earlier, had burst into life, as we hurtled through traffic, swerving in and out of spaces, thrusting through gaps that I was convinced the Mercedes was too big for. This was the second time today I was concerned I may not see the end of it. Horns blared, lights flashed and gestures were made but eventually we passed through the gates, past drab military buildings under the red fluttering flag of Morocco and into the port. I thanked Omran once again.

“Shukraan!”

“Shukraan?”

“It means thanks” “Ah I see. Shukraan”

We shook hands and Omran returned to his Mercedes. I went to immigration control.

A light breeze and the smell of fresh tea brought me back to the tent, in the sand dunes where my camel reclined outside. I thought about the lessons I had learnt that day in Morocco, before reaching into my bag and taking out my notepad and pen. 

I wrote about that day; I wrote about being in Rome just two weeks prior where I shared a great experience with a couple I didn’t know and how I travelled to Sperlonga with them and I wrote about the Australian man that helped me hike through the mountains in Spain. I reflected on how trust and travel are related. One of the toughest things to do while travelling is managing your trust. If you trust the wrong person, then you could ruin a great trip but if you choose not to trust the right person and an experience could just slip away.

I finished my tea, tied my keffiyeh around my head and stepped back into the dry baking heat. I put my aviators on and awaited assistance climbing back on to my camel. I may never meet Omran again, but I will not forget him or my hours on the African continent.