#i wanted to stay up later but then this revealed itself to be a Nausea one

[lycankeyy]

In the spirit of everything being epic tomorrow everyone please pray that my migraine is a one day thing thank youHSKAHDKAJSKQ /LH

[blog-name-idk]

Mold a Pretty Lie | 05

Pairing: professor!Jin x Fem undergrad!Reader

Genre: College!AU, Unhealthy relationships, toxic relationships, virgin reader, eventual yandere, eventual smut

Summary: They say love is like a garden that requires regular care and attention. Kim Seokjin, your kind and handsome professor, is more than happy to cultivate the vines that bind his heart to yours.

Word Count: 4,727

Rating: 18+

~~~~~

Seokjin was staring.

He knew it would be obvious to anyone looking, but luckily for him it was just the two of you in his office, and you were absorbed in reading an article. There was no one to call him out on the way his gaze was laser focused on you.

Or, to be exact, the bruise on your lovely, otherwise unblemished neck. One that looked suspiciously like it had been made by a pair of eager lips.

He didn't like it. He didn't like it one bit.

Who exactly had you allowed to mark your skin like that? Was it one of the boys who had gotten you drunk the first time? Did you go out with them again despite his cautionary advice?

Seokjin shouldn't care so much about what you did in your free time. This was probably a good thing - you would get over your crush on him, finish your project, and go on to do whatever great things you were sure to accomplish. The thought left a bitter taste in Seokjn's mouth. Despite his best efforts, his curiosity consumed him to the point where he found himself biting back suspicious queries he technically had no reason to make.

Several days later, the question answered itself. The bruise was almost gone, faded to an imperceptible hue that he could only see because of how intently he studied you when you weren't looking. No new ones had appeared to replace it, and Seokjin found himself relaxing. Perhaps it was just a one-off. You were young, it was likely you had just had a careless lapse in judgment, or -

"[Y/n]!"

Seokjin watched your head swivel, and the way you smiled at the handsome boy in the doorway made his own stomach clench into a hard knot. Why were you looking at this boy the way you looked at him?

"Aw Tae, you didn't have to come all the way here, I'm just finishing up," you said happily, though you spared an apologetic glance at your professor that did nothing to dull the thorns pricking his chest.

He recalled that this was one of the boys from your group project - Kim Taehyung. Who had taken you out and gotten you drunk, and was now smiling at you in a way that set Seokjin's teeth on edge. And you were calling him Tae. The two of you were close enough for nicknames?

"Hey Dr. Kim, great lecture yesterday! I'm just here to take [y/n] off your hands," said Taehyung with a sincere, boxy grin that Seokjin wanted to rip off his face. Seokjin forced himself to give the student his usual carefree smile before he pretended to review the paper he had been grading, feeling an inordinate amount of irritation filling his veins.

Take you off his hands? You were his research assistant. This Taehyung was just some college kid who was clearly distracting you from your studies with his charm and good looks. Was he the reason you had been leaving on time these days rather than staying around to chat after hours? Was he the one who had left that taunting mark on your neck?

"I could have met up with you at your dorm," you said over your shoulder as you logged out of the computer. Seokjin tensed. You had been to this boy's dorm? Bitter tendrils of darkness began to twine themselves around his chest, shadows made longer by the bright glow of your smile.

"But I wanted to see you sooner," the boy said with an obnoxious pout. Jin wanted to roll his eyes, but it was clear Taehyung's comment had had the desired effect, because the flustered look you sometimes wore around him appeared on your face. Couldn't you tell this kid was just trying to get in your pants?

"You're impossible," you scolded, though the way you beamed at him revealed your true feelings. Something akin to nausea simmered in Seokjin's gut at the eager way you grabbed your bag and scurried to Taehyung, and when the boy wrapped an overly familiar arm around your waist his vision flashed red.

He leaned in close - too close - to whisper something in your ear, and your soft giggle added fuel to Seokjin's irritation.

"I'll see you tomorrow, professor!" you chirped happily, letting Taehyung usher you out the door. By the time Seokjin could reply, you were gone, leaving behind a mass of angry vines in his chest.

He stared unseeing at the paper on his desk, unable to keep his mind from wandering to what the two of you were doing. You said you were going to meet him at his dorm - were you… going to stay there? Alone? Would you show up to his next lecture with a new hickey to replace the one that was almost gone?

A loud crack broke Seokjin out of his spiraling thoughts, and he looked at his now ink-covered hand to see he had snapped his pen in two. He let out a frustrated growl and tossed the broken plastic into the trash before stalking out of his office to wash his hands.

Why was he so fucking irritated? You two were college students. College students hung out and flirted and hooked up all the time, it was normal.

But you, you were anything but normal. You deserved the best, not some barely post-pubescent child who didn't know what they were doing. Your smiles were too precious to be wasted on boys like Taehyung, your laugh too dear. Judging by what he had seen today, you seemed to be completely smitten, liable to get your heart broken by a boy you were far too good for.

Vines constricted around Seokjin's chest as he remembered your tear-stained face so long ago, the quaver of your voice as you tried not to cry. He couldn't let that happen again.

He rounded the corner and stopped short, the scene before him searing itself into his mind with infuriating acuity. You, backed against the wall, wrapped in Taehyung's undeserving arms as he kissed you. You, pretty fingers threaded through Taehyung's hair as his tongue invaded your mouth. You, sighing in a way that made Seokjin's blood run hot as Taehyung's hands drifted down your lower back.

"Ahem."

As soon as you registered the awkward throat clearing, you broke away from the boy and stared at Seokjin with utter mortification on your face.

"P-professor," you stammered, hands immediately scrunching at your shirt in an anxious fidget. You were slightly breathless, and Seokjin tried not to be distracted by the way you chewed your lower lip. It was already swollen from your… activities… and your teeth were only making it more apparent. "Uh, w-we were just - "

"Sorry Dr. Kim," said Taehyung cheerfully, clearly feeling none of your embarrassment. He took your hand in his, blissfully unaware of the fury brewing under his professor's skin. Seokjin was struck with the sudden urge to break the fingers currently lacing their way between yours. "We'll get out of your hair."

The boy tugged you away and you left, meeting Seokjin's eyes with a backwards glance that looked almost as agonized as he felt. He realized he was grinding his teeth, jaw tense as he stared at your retreating form. Was Taehyung taking you somewhere to finish what he'd started?

The thought of that pretty sigh of yours popped into his mind unbidden, and he swallowed hard as his hand clenched into a fist. The stickiness of the drying ink reminded him of what he had come out here for in the first place, and with a sigh he went to the bathroom.

Seokjin watched the ink run off his skin down the drain, but the image of your body pressed against Taehyung's refused to disappear.

~~~~~

"H-hi, Dr. Kim," you stammered awkwardly, hovering in the doorway like you had at the beginning of the semester. "Um, how are you today?"

You kept your eyes fixed on his chest, unable to bear the possibility of seeing judgment or disappointment marring your professor's handsome features.

Why had you let Taehyung kiss you like that not a minute after leaving the office? What started as an innocent peck turned into two, then three, to more soft kisses that had made your knees weak and your chest fill with warm honey. Before you knew it, you were pressed between the wall and his body, surroundings forgotten.

Of course someone would come across you, and of course with your luck it was the last person you'd pick. What must he think of you now?

"I finished the first draft of the research paper," you babbled, not letting him respond to your question as you shuffled into his office. Maybe if you never shut up, he would forget he'd seen anything. "I think it - "

"Relax, [y/n]."

Your professor's voice, full of its usual good humor, cut off your panicked ramblings and you looked up to see his familiar smile. Your shoulders sagged in relief, and you gave him a tentative smile back. Until he motioned for you to sit across from him at his desk rather than the separate table you usually worked at.

You obeyed with trepidation, sinking into the chair and doing your best not to die of embarrassment.

"I'm really sorry about yesterday," you began preemptively, feeling heat prickle your neck as you remembered your professor's shocked face. "I shouldn't have - "

"It's alright, [y/n]," Dr. Kim's soothing voice cut you off again. "You're an adult, and you weren't disrupting a class."

He trailed off, and you looked at him in confusion. If he wasn't upset with you about that, then why did he want to initiate a discussion? You ignored the prickle of your own disappointment at the fact that he didn't seem to care at all that he had seen you kiss another boy.

Dr. Kim cleared his throat, looking uncharacteristically hesitant as you looked at him expectantly, waiting for him to explain what he wanted to discuss.

"Before I go on I'd like to say that this topic isn't strictly appropriate to discuss, but I feel it's important because I care about you as a person in addition to being my student," your professor began, and you felt your stomach flutter at the bare suggestion that he might see you as more than just a charge he was guiding.

"Not… appropriate?" you asked faintly, shoving down the thrill his words sent down your spine. You were overthinking, like you always did.

"That boy - Taehyung - is he your boyfriend?"

You blinked, completely caught off guard by the question. That had not been what you were expecting.

"N-no, not… yet?"

Your reply was pathetically tentative, and you hated yourself for your inflection. Taehyung was certainly sweet and affectionate, but there hadn't been any discussion about feelings or relationships. But that was normal, right? The two of you were getting to know each other better, and since the party he had been showering you with affection.

The slight furrow of your professor's brow said something different.

"I don't mean to pry or overstep, but isn't that the same person that got you drunk the night before my lecture?"

Dr. Kim's words sent hot flames of shame licking at your cheeks, and you shifted self-consciously as you found your eyes drawn to a scratch on his desk. How did he remember that? And why did you tell him about it in the first place? You ran a finger along the grooved wood and nodded, because your throat felt too constricted to speak.

"There's nothing to be embarrassed about, I'm just concerned," he said quietly, reaching across the desk to put his hand over yours. Your professor's touch was gentle, and he gave you a reassuring squeeze that sent warm tingles through your veins.

"Um, I don't intend to let any relationships interfere with my schoolwork or research," you offered, as it was the only thing you could think of that he might worry about. It was hard to think rationally when you were distracted by his soft skin and the fervent hope for your hand not to start sweating.

You peeked up at him to see a fond smile on his face, soft and sweet and dangerously close to daydreams where he'd smile at you for other reasons. His eyes caught yours, and for a moment you found yourself captivated, unable to look away.

"Of course not," he replied with a chuckle. Then he hesitated again, looking at you with so much concern you felt your insides melting.

"I know it's not my place, I just don't want to see you get hurt or taken advantage of."

Huh? Your confusion must have shown on your face, because those plump lips twitched again into a rueful smile.

"You're a beautiful girl, [y/n], anyone can see that, and I worry that your… friend's intentions aren't completely pure."

You were vaguely aware that you were staring, but it was taking all of your mental capacity to process the words that had just tumbled out of your professor's lips. Did he - did he just say you were beautiful? Not pretty, not hot, but beautiful?

Before you could spiral completely, the end of his sentence nudged your mind.

"Taehyung's not - he's not like that," you said uncertainly, though doubt began to poke at your chest. He was always openly flirty and affectionate with everyone - had you made a mistake thinking you might be special? Dr. Kim squeezed your hand again, and the sympathy on his face made you feel both giddy and shy.

"I saw Taehyung speaking privately with Miss Lee last Monday," he said simply, grip tightening on yours as your face fell. "I'm not sure what it was about, but it looked... somewhat intimate."

"W-what? But…"

That didn't make any sense, Taehyung and Lee Yoojin weren't friends. You had never even seen them speak to each other. Yoojin had even been a part of the group of girls that had made your first few weeks hell for monopolizing the boys' (and Dr. Kim's) attention. And Monday? That was after the two of you had kissed, after the two of you had started - as Phoebe would call it - "hanging out."

Then again, even if it was true, it wasn't like Taehyung was technically doing anything wrong. He hadn't promised you anything, even if his actions had led you to believe that what you had was something special. Maybe you were just being too hopeful, overly clingy when he just saw this as a fun way to pass the time.

It still stung.

You didn't want it to be true, but Dr. Kim had no reason to lie to you, no reason to stick his unnecessarily perfect nose into student drama. You looked down on the grain of his desk as heat prickled your eyes, too distracted to notice the way your professor's own gaze flickered to the way you were chewing your lower lip.

Dr. Kim pulled you out of your thoughts by nestling your hand between both of his, and you felt your face grow warm despite the way your thoughts were racing.

"I'm sorry, [y/n], I didn't mean to upset you," your professor said apologetically, looking worried at your silence. It was an odd sensation, to be both dejected and embarrassed by his revelation but still feel delight from his touch. "I just thought you should know."

"It's okay," you mumbled, wondering why he always had to see you at your lowest. Even if it was gratifying, the way he looked out for you when he didn't need to. "I just feel like an idiot."

Your breath hitched when his thumbs began rubbing distracting, light circles on your skin, and you looked up at him in surprise. He was smiling at you, so much sincerity in his dark brown eyes that you could feel more of those flowers blooming in your heart.

"Don't say that," Dr. Kim said firmly, apparently oblivious to the way his touch was making your mind and pulse race. "You're a lovely person, both inside and out. If he doesn't see that, then he doesn't deserve you. And it's just your first year, there's no need to rush into anything in any case."

There it was again.

Lovely. Beautiful. Did he really think that? He couldn't know that every time he spoke, his sweet words wrapped around your heart in a knotted mess you had no desire to untangle.

"Thank you," you managed bashfully, hoping he didn't catch the breathless quality of your voice. "I - I know you have a lot more important things to do, so you taking the time to talk to me about this is - I just - um, I really appreciate it. It means a lot."

"I've already told you, there's nothing more important than your well-being."

And there was another seed in your chest, sown as gently and carefully as each stroke of his thumb against your skin. Your professor's words were a balm against the wound of his earlier revelation, soothing the humiliation and making you feel lighter than you expected.

"You're going to give me a big head," you giggled, smiling at him and hoping your admiration wasn't completely obvious. Dr. Kim looked genuinely pleased to have cheered you up, and for a moment you let yourself drink in twinkling dark eyes, his full lips, and inviting smile. For a moment, you let yourself pretend that he wasn't your professor, that he was holding your hand and calling you beautiful for another reason entirely.

Then a door slammed outside, shattering your illusion. The both of you jumped, and Dr. Kim gave a chagrined laugh before pulling his hands away. The moment was gone.

~~~~~

"[Y/n]! Want to get coffee?"

You forced a smile as Taehyung bounded up to you after lecture, Jimin following after with his usual cheeky grin. As you finished packing up your bag, your eyes met Dr. Kim's, and you felt your heart skitter. You couldn't quite decipher the expression on his face, but you assumed it was worry, considering the news he had given you a few days before.

"Um, I actually have to get somewhere," you hedged apologetically, though the way Taehyung's face fell made your stomach churn a little in guilt.

"You've been so busy lately," he whined, looking at you like a kicked puppy.

You hesitated, especially when Jimin added his pout to the mix, before you glanced over their shoulders to see Lee Yoojin staring at you with narrowed eyes. Her cold gaze was enough to douse the ember of guilt that had appeared in your chest, and you suddenly felt a spark of irritation take its place.

"Actually," you began, deciding to seize your courage now before you could change your mind, "Tae, could I talk to you alone for a second?"

Jimin sighed, before shocking you by wrapping an arm around your waist and pressing soft lips against your cheek. "I'll let you guys be for now, but I'm not letting Taehyung monopolize you forever," he complained, making your own mouth fall open in surprise. What did that mean? He pranced off before you could answer, leaving you even more confused than ever.

Taehyung was smiling at you as if you were the only person in the room, but when you spared a glance to the front of the lecture hall and realized Dr. Kim was still watching. Had he seen Jimin's kiss? You hoped he didn't think you were being stupid, or that you were ignoring his advice from earlier.

"Let's get that coffee first," you sighed, grabbing your backpack and slinging it over your shoulder. Your friend's eyes brightened and he grabbed your hand like he'd been doing recently. You felt like it would be too awkward to refuse, and you let him lead you out of the lecture hall, wondering if you were imagining the sensation of eyes boring into the back of your head.

You stewed in your thoughts as the two of you walked to the cafe in the student union, oblivious to the way your silence put a glimmer of concern in Taehyung's eyes. He paid for your coffee despite your protests, and as soon as you sat down at one of the rickety tables he took the chair next to yours, letting his knees brush against your own.

"Is everything okay?" Taehyung asked, and you took a bracing sip of your drink before meeting his gaze. You had made a split second decision to talk to him about what was going on, but you had no idea how to broach the topic.

"What were you talking to Yoojin about last Monday?" you blurted before you lost your nerve, internally berating yourself for sounding like a jealous girlfriend. Tae's eyes widened, and his next words only made you feel worse.

"How did you hear about that?" he asked in surprise, looking uncharacteristically nervous. Your stomach dropped at his expression, your mind already racing to the worst possible explanation.

"Does it matter?" you asked with a frown, not missing the implication that he didn't seem to have intended to tell you. You looked down, playing with the edges of your coffee sleeve so you didn't have to keep looking at him. "I just - I know we're not anything, but I thought…"

"Um, she wanted to… uh, start hooking up," Taehyung mumbled. "Like we did at the beginning of the semester. But I said no!"

"What?"

You felt odd. Fuzzy. Hazy. Like it was someone else sitting there, trying to understand what was happening.

"Jimin and I… we hooked up with her at the beginning of the semester," Taehyung explained nervously, and something icy settled in the pit of your stomach. Both of them?

"At… the same time?" you asked faintly, taking another gulp in the hope that the warmth of your coffee would help thaw the cold feeling inside of you. It didn't.

It wasn't so much that they'd done something wrong - it was that you had no idea, and apparently Taehyung had had no intention to tell you. Why? Was it because he thought it would lessen the chances of… of doing the same with you?

Taehyung cleared his throat awkwardly, his cheeks tinged a faint pink that you would have found cute at any other time. "Uh, yeah. And separately, too. But it was before we met you!"

"Oh."

Another frigid shard pierced your chest as you remembered Jimin's words and actions earlier. They had both always been flirty and affectionate, but… was this just a thing they did? Had their end goal been to eventually have you in their bed? Would you then be discarded for a newer model like apparently Yoojin had?

"Is that - is that what you want from me?" you asked, unable to keep the hurt from your tone. "Is that all this is?"

His eyes widened, and he shook his head frantically, taking your hand in his own. You pulled it away.

"What?! No, of course not," he said in a rush, looking a little desperate at your action. "[Y/n], I really like you."

A few days earlier those words would have made you elated. Now, you weren't sure what to feel. What if he was just saying that to appease you?

"So what was that Jimin said about you 'monopolizing me'?" you asked flatly, crossing your arms as you waited for Taehyung's response. He wilted at your tone, and you hardened your heart against the effect of his devastating puppy eyes.

"He likes you too," he mumbled, looking worried about your reaction. "But he'll drop it if it makes you uncomfortable!"

Uh. What? This was officially too much for your brain and heart to handle.

"I… I think I need some time," you finally managed, wondering what kind of alternate reality you had found yourself in. How exactly had you gone from invisible to… whatever the fuck this was, in just a few months?

"I - yeah, okay," said Taehyung reluctantly. He looked so dejected you found yourself wanting to console him, especially since he had been nothing but sweet to you. But this was all new territory, and you didn't want to blindly believe in someone you had just met a few months ago.

You didn't hate him - you couldn't, and he really technically hadn't done anything wrong. And he was being honest now that you'd asked him point blank, which you appreciated. It would just take some time to soothe the cracks in your chest, and think about what you wanted without being influenced by pretty eyes and stolen kisses.

"We are still friends though, right?" Taehyung asked anxiously, looking at you with those puppy dog eyes that were so difficult to resist. You felt your smile grow into something more genuine, cautiously optimistic that he seemed to want to be friends even without the option of something more.

"Of course, Tae. I'll let you know if - if anything changes."

The relief on his face was palpable, and for a split second you wondered if you had misjudged him and the situation. But then a familiar set of broad shoulders at the counter caught your eye, and you remembered your professor's words.

"You're a lovely person, both inside and out. If he doesn't see that, then he doesn't deserve you. And it's just your first year, there's no need to rush into anything, in any case."

Dr. Kim was right, there was no reason for you to rush headfirst into whatever this thing with Taehyung was - had been.

Your professor turned and you forced yourself to look back at Taehyung, feeling embarrassed. You especially shouldn't be pining after a man just because he was gorgeous and kind to you. And thought you were beautiful.

"I really do have to go to my next class now," you said apologetically, trying to reassure Taehyung by patting his head the way you knew he liked. "But I'll see you in lecture on Friday, okay?"

"Yeah, okay," he replied, also standing up and giving you a relieved smile. His one-armed hug was comforting, a reassurance to the both of you, and as you watched him you felt another pang of uncertainty that you pushed away.

You let out a sigh, slumping in your seat, suddenly exhausted. Had you made the right decision? Or were you just being an oversensitive prude? Why couldn't these things just have a definitive, empirical answer?

A blueberry muffin plopped down on the table, startling you out of your musings. When you glanced up, Dr. Kim was smiling down at you.

"Are you alright?" he asked, his tone even softer than the expression on his face.

"I - I'm fine," you replied, shocked by your professor's intuition and consideration. It never even occurred to you that he might have been eavesdropping.

"Good," he murmured, his approving tone making your chest thrum. "I've been worried."

The words chased away the lingering discontent leftover from your conversation with Taehyung. Your professor cared, enough to check up on you and even get you a treat to cheer you up when he thought you were upset. You remembered the Powerade he had left you, and forced away the petals that stirred in your chest at the thought.

"I'm a big girl, professor," you retorted lightly, giving him a cheeky grin that surprised even yourself. "You don't have to worry so much."

Dr. Kim's laugh was light and free, cheering you up even further.

"Too late," he teased back, those plush lips of his curved into a wicked grin. The sheer playfulness of his response almost sent you reeling, but you were able to gather yourself enough to give a good-natured eye roll.

"I'm not that helpless, am I?" you asked almost petulantly, looking up at your professor with your best pout. To your surprise, his eyes went wide and he stared at you for a moment before responding.

"Apparently not," he replied with a slight cough, looking oddly disconcerted. For some reason, the tips of his ears had gone pink. He wasn't getting sick, was he?

"Are you okay, professor?"

At your query, Dr. Kim straightened, though something in his smile was different in a way you couldn't quite place.

"Of course, [y/n], never better."

~~~~~

Next | Masterlist

Tags: @moonleeai @random-and-out-of-context @amenjiminsan @innebulae @lonewolfsinclair @seoqity @lilacdreams-00 @chowb @shescharlie @mazmaz30 @definetlythinkimanalien @seokjins-luigi @lucci-girl @xicanacorpse @bighitbabie @8loominghell @jung-nika-hoseok @staradorned @zealouslightcookiebasketball @kissme-ornot @dyhrbls @nabiolive

[embrassemoi]

Surrounded by the Moon and Stars ✷ 34

Pairings: Sirius B, F!Reader, Remus L    Warnings: DARK THEMES, heavily implied domestic abuse (the Black family) A/n: I’m editing this in a restaurant rn. Nobody can say that I’m not committed! Anyway, if there’s more errors than usual, it’s bc I’m on mobile. Sorry!

【 Masterlist | Previous Chapter | ao3 】

Chapter 34: Secrets of Our Souls

━━━━━━━━━༻✩༺━━━━━━━━━

Meet me at our place at midnight. Be careful. Make sure nobody follows you.  R.A.B

Y/N read the letter several times before folding it in half while her eyes glazed the crowd of students in the Great Hall in search of Regulus.

A no-show.

Since the start of the term, she’d been trying to get hold of Regulus but her attempts were futile. He was as finicky as a shadow, never staying still long enough for her to grasp, to spot.

Everything about his inconspicuous disappearance and the peculiar letter left her deeply unnerved. He'd even gone as far as using a different owl to respond to her letters; not the usual Black family owl.

In many ways, Regulus was mysterious; highly unusual — dare she say frightening.

“Oh!” Marlene exclaimed. “A secret admirer?”

“Give it back!” Y/N said indignantly as Marlene pried the letter from her hand, unfolding it. Before she could read the contents, Y/N nearly tackled it out of her grasp, snatching it back while Marlene pouted. “It’s private.”

Continuing to sulk, Dorcas smiled at Marlene. From between the sliver of space from under the wooden table and their bodies, she watched as Dorcas held Marlene’s hand; thumb grazing over her knuckles. Y/N eyed them questioningly.

“What are you not telling us?” Dorcas mused, leaning on the table with a sly smirk.

Marlene snapped her fingers. “Oi! Ginger snaps!”

Lily peered over, smile vanishing, placing her fork down. “Did you just call me a…?”

“Would you prefer traffic cone then?” Mary teased.

“I like Carrots more.” Dorcas added, shyly.

“Anyway, you two are pretty much attached,” Marlene said. Had she known better, she would have recognized Marlene’s tone for jealousy. "Who sent that letter?”

Lily shrugged but her face turned downwards at her uncomfortable body language. “She said it’s private. Leave it.”

The conversation ended at that.

Y/N felt a little nudge under the table and as she looked up, Lily’s head was tilted, conveying the silent question, ‘are you okay?’ She didn’t answer as a couple of first years bounced up to Marlene, tugging down on her sleeve. She turned to them, flicking her blond hair out of her face with a wide smile.

One first year was close to tears, another one standing on their tippy-toes to whisper something in her ear.

“Please can you come to the common room? It’s scary and I-I miss my dad!” One of the first years cried out.

Marlene cooed, hugging them lovingly. With a nod, she stood and pressed a kiss to the side of Dorcas’ cheek. She managed to make it seem like she was whispering in her ear before turning back to the group. “See you tossers later!”

Dorcas watched Marlene walk away. First years jumping, hanging off of her while Dorcas’ fingers grazed the spot on her face where she kissed her. She dazzled radiantly.

Before midnight, Y/N left her dorm, heading to the Marauder’s room and knocked on their door. She vaguely heard footsteps approaching before it opened.

She smiled before she could even register it. “Moony.”

He grinned widely. “Whiskers,” Remus said pleasantly, leaning against the door frame, his hair falling slightly over his eyes. “How may I help you?”

“Seeing you has already helped a lot.” She joked while Remus blushed madly. She laughed at his reaction. “I need to talk to Bambi.”

Remus had his eyebrows raised but opened the door wide and beckoned her in.

She noticed a bed pushed far to the left, isolated from the other beds. The curtains were almost nearly closed aside from the sliver that was still open. Black was there, book in hand with a few pieces of parchment laid surrounding him. He was already looking up at her.

They truly isolated Black from them in every way possible.

“Oh hey, Y/N.” Peter smiled before throwing her a small wrapped sweet her way. “Greetings!”

“Thanks, Pete!” She caught it. And dropped onto James’ bed. His glasses were strewn, laying on his bedside table as he flicked through his book.

“To what do I owe this pleasure?”

“Do you mind if I borrow your invisibility cloak tonight?”

James surprisingly didn’t push further as he simply went through his trunk and threw her the cloak, only asking that she would be careful with it.

She hopped out of the room, rushing out to the cold corridors and threw the cloak over her head. As she passed through various hallways, she finally opened the door to her and Regulus’ small hideout. A couple of candles were lit and the familiar Slytherin and Gryffindor blankets clashed together.

Huddled in the corner of the room on the couch, small and curled with his legs pressed against his chest and chin perched on his knees, Regulus was there, shaking.

She rushed up to him, keeping her hand visible and only touching him when he realized it was her. Consoling people was always a challenge in itself.

“What happened?”

Regulus’ voice was strained and tired. “C-can you hug me? Please?”

Her heart could have shattered as she roped him into a large, crushing hug. His aching sobs crashed through her chest. Y/N’s arms were tight around Regulus, his head face pressed against her shoulder and she could feel his tears seep through her shirt. Doing the best she could, she soothed him, petting his hair.

She couldn’t tell just how much time had passed until Regulus’ snuffles calmed down as he harshly wiped his tears. It was the first time she was able to truly get a close-up of how he looked.

To put it lightly, Regulus looked like shit.

Any of that regal, youthful glow of his diminished. And she realized it only faded whenever he went home. His skin was dull and grey, eyes sunken. Even his long hair was cut lopsidedly.

“Do you want to talk about it?” She asked.

“I… It’s…” Regulus trailed off, face full of worry and trouble. “It’s…”

“It’s okay,” she rubbed her hand up and down his shoulder. “You don’t have to tell me.”

But something caught her eye. Regulus’ trousers rode up in his shaking state. A large bandage was wrapped messily on his leg. The skin around the bandage was red and a few scars peaked out. But as soon as she realized, he had too and quickly pulled the fabric down.

“... What is that?” She asked softly. She didn’t know what it was, but something heavy sunk in her chest — the feeling of sickening, frightening dread.

He refused to answer.

“You have to get that checked out —”

“No!” Regulus shouted, complete panic filtering through his face.

“Whatever that is, it isn’t going to heal properly if we don’t.”

Regulus debated for a while and she saw the conflict on his face before relenting. “I’m embarrassed by it…”

She mustered up any kind of energy left and smiled. “I won’t judge you.” She managed to catch his eye and held it. She went over her options quickly.

1. Leave Regulus?

Option one was already tossed out the window. The weight of the situation was far too grave to continue to let it slide by again and again.

2. Press further?

But how?

3. Make him feel comfortable?

Bingo.

If he was ashamed by his scars, then maybe if she showed hers…

She turned to Regulus, lifting her sleeve. A scar ran across her forearm from Snape’s attack during the Quidditch match.

“I got this a couple of months ago in a nasty fight.” Then she pointed to the small scar on her leg from when she was dragged by Moony. "I got this from an accident."

But then, she sucked in a deep breath, mustering up all her bravery and courage, pushing down every bit of insecurity. She tugged down the collar of her shirt a bit, just enough to reveal the top of a much more faded scar that travelled down to her sternum. “And I got this from a heart surgery.”

She fixed her shirt to sit properly again. “I was born with a heart defect. It went undetected until my mom found me, hardly breathing and had to perform open-heart surgery on me. I was supposed to die but here I am. Healthy and alive and I haven’t had a problem since.”

Regulus looked up at her wide-eyed and his body became less stiff.

“I used to be so… ashamed of it. Maybe I still am, I never talk about it… Only you, my mom and someone at Ilvermorny knows. But my point is, I am more than my scars, and you are too.”

She swallowed her fear, now cursing herself and resolved to shut up. Waiting, she wondered that since she showed him the scars that perhaps he would too.

Regulus considered her, almost astonished, finally moving to pull up his trousers and peeling off his bandage, wincing while doing so.

It felt like a cold bucket of water was splashed all over her body. She desperately tried to keep her face blank as the overwhelming urge to cry while combating the wave of nausea hit her.

His skin was butchered �� fiery red. They weren’t neat, like what a surgeon's scalpel would be like, but messy, crisscrossed and viciously deep. It had hardly healed and they were old enough to be a little over a week or two old. And undoubtedly painful.

Whoever did that to him was enraged, furious.

“Shit… Regulus… who did this?” She asked quietly, more to herself than him as he remained silent. She stood, commanding, “We need to get you fixed up.”

“It’s not that b —”

“Stop lying.”

“Just don’t take me to the hospital wing.”

Wanting to know more, she was too afraid that any more prying would result in Regulus completely shutting down and withholding more information. Instead, she picked up the invisibility cloak, threw it over him and wrapped an arm underneath Regulus' arms to help him walk out of the room.

She went to the only other place she knew she would be able to offer any resemblance of help.

Once reaching the Potions classroom, muttering Alohomora, Y/N helped Regulus sit down comfortably at one of the extra tables and immediately got to work. All sorts of magic went around as she grabbed an extra textbook and flipped to the Essence of Dittany page.

Shelves, jars and cabinets opened and closed on their own accord, all taking ingredients as they fell into a boiling cauldron.

“What are you doing?” Regulus questioned, nervously drumming his fingers on the table.

“Making you something.”

It was still between them. She didn’t know what to say, only what to do. Everything went through her mind like a step-by-step process, like a robot categorizing its own emotions.

Because what was the right response to something like this?

She stared at the bubbling cauldron, slowly stirring to avoid eye contact. “You don’t have to tell me but… you didn’t do this to yourself —”

“No,” Regulus said, calmly and steadily.

“Then… to the person — people who did… will they bother you again?”

“Probably not… I’ll be okay.”

It wasn’t the answer she was hoping for.

Once the potion was completed, she poured it inside an applicator and made sure to cast a quick cleaning spell. A soft blue glow emitted around his leg until disappearing. She looked up to him, fisting his shirt and shoved it inside his mouth. “I’m sorry, this is going to hurt.”

She took the applicator, pouring a couple drops onto his wound. A greenish smoke billowed around them as it bubbled on his skin. The skin was stitching itself back together and over his wound. Regulus moaned in pain, fist banging on the wooden table.

She finally pulled the cloth from his mouth once down and ran across the room to find more clean clothes to dab off the sweat from his face. Y/N thought for a second he was going to faint.

“I’m so sorry Reg… Sorry…”

He didn’t say anything for a while, only nodding in response meanwhile she monitored his condition. She gave him the wrapped candy that Peter gave her, hoping that it would help him regain some energy. She was beginning to grow worried that she might’ve brewed it incorrectly as her mind mulled over possible counter potions.

“I know… you said... you don’t talk to my brother much…” Regulus croaked out. She closed the book, rushing up to him. “But... you are in the same friend group… right?”

She chewed the inside of her cheek. A white lie wouldn’t hurt.

“Things changed. We’re friends. Why?”

There was a long pause. “Is he okay?”

A million questions went through her. Even if they were estranged, wouldn’t he know?

“He’s okay.” Lie. “He’s just been… stressed as of late.” True.

“Is he still staying with the Potter’s?”

“Yes.”

He smiled, eyelids drooping but everything about it told her something wasn’t right. “I’m glad.”

Regulus refused to let her help him walk back to the dungeons and left with his wound almost fully healed. And she was left with more questions than any answers as she slithered into bed.

What was he not telling her?

But then she thought about the summer with Matthew. Why had he been so surprised that she had been with a member of the Black family? Or how did he even know them? What was it about them that commanded so much respect and international recognition?

A couple of footsteps padded her way and Y/N felt her bed dip, a weight sliding beside her.

“Are you okay?” Lily whispered. “Been worried about you these past couple of days.”

“Yeah,” Y/N said, turning to the side to look at Lily through the night. “Jolly.”

“You sure? It can be our secret?”

She remained quiet and it gave Lily her answer. She turned onto her side before mumbling. “Feel free to stay tonight.” When she didn’t feel Lily leave, but she wiggled around to become comfortable, she sighed, forcing herself to sleep.

There was certainly far too much happening in her life at the moment for her to fully care about Lily’s bizarre and avoidant behaviour. She just wanted the next day to come.

━━━━━━━━━༻✩༺━━━━━━━━━

The next few days were uncomfortable and Y/N was beyond exhausted.

Breakfast was nothing more than her sipping on a glass of water, studying the Slytherin table, worried for Regulus.

Was he being bullied? Was he… no… the wound was a bit too old for it to have taken place at Hogwarts.

She spent most of the day in the library, simply reviewing her Herbology and Advanced Potions textbook.

Much to James’ dismay, all the free periods they had in sixth year were due to the overwhelming work and increased difficulty in lessons. Fortunately for Y/N, Potions was partially a free class and she never had to worry about it aside from the essays. It was far too easy.

During class, she would figure out new techniques, tricks, but to her dismay, Slughorn had really enjoyed how both she and Snape performed together and often paired them up during potions. She hated to admit it, but there was a reason why Snape was a favourite student of Slughorn. He had talent. Although, he was in a permanently vindictive mood around her which made him even more unbearable.

The tip of her eagle-feather quill moved across the pages of the textbook and she pulled back momentarily to review her book.

Nightshade… Powdered silver… Stewed Mandrakes… Slughorn had said it helped werewolves… What if Remus —

“Whiskers! There you are!” James said, strutting up. He sat down on the couch beside her, both tucked away in the corner of the library.

She gave a little wave of her fingers before closing her book. James suddenly became slightly dejected at her reaction. She couldn’t force herself to put on a show.

“Something wrong?”

Y/N felt like there were no answers to everything that had been happening recently. Only if Matthew was there.

But James was.

“I need to ask you something.”

His head swivelled around to see if anyone with prying ears was listening in before nodding.

“Could you tell me about the Black family?”

She had never seen James go so rigid. His cheek hallowed as he chewed the inside of his cheek and waited for her to elaborate.

“I know I don’t talk about it but Regulus is a friend of mine.” She didn’t miss the way James stiffened further at that. “And he’s… worrying me. He’s… god, I don’t know what to say.”

James threw up a silencing spell, encircling them. “It’s okay, go on.”

“Regulus’ leg was butchered. I think he’s being bullied or it’s darker than that.”

James’ skin, which was usually a warm, rich look, seemed as if it paled, almost giving him a gray appearance. “Did he say anything about his family?”

“No. But he never talks about them. Is that the reason why Black stays with you?”

“Even with the non-existent respect I have for Black, I feel like I can’t tell you much,” James said and she understood why. “But the Black family — they’re fucking insane. Their Pureblood mania is probably one of the worst I’ve ever seen.” James took a moment to look at her reaction after mentioning blood purity. “He has a reason to be scared of them.”

“So you’re telling me that his family… they hurt him?”

James looked down, the gravity of their conversation finally hitting him. He took off his round glasses, rubbing his temples. “I’m not sure. Maybe? It was probably another Slytherin. His parents… love him — I don’t see them laying a hand on him. He didn’t mention running away? Did he?”

“No.”

She heard James curse under his breath as he grabbed his hair out of habit. “I’ll talk to him.”

“About what? You can’t tell him I told you, he’ll —”

“Relax. I won’t. I’ll ask him to move in with me.”

Y/N felt like she could faint there and then. Everything in her body felt wobbly, weak as she grappled with the idea of Regulus and his home life. Then Black… did he also go through what Regulus has been through? The thought made her sick.

James’ voice tugged her back to reality. “Promise me something.” She waited for him to continue.

“I know Regulus is your friend and that he’s going through a rough time but…” James struggled with his words. “But… be careful around him. He’s not much of a threat but his family is. There’s a reason why Black lives with me; no matter how angry, how much I hate him, I would never let him go back there. To them.

“The war is approaching and they have eyes all on Regulus — watching everything he does.”

Goosebumps covered her entire body. Everything James said sounded more like an underlying threat of sorts. She wondered if that was the reason why he refused to be seen with her publicly. “Are you saying that he’s a Death Eater?”

“No,” James responded briskly. “But it’s not to say his parents won’t force him to. If you knew his family, you would understand —”

Both students snapped their heads up from the figure slowly approaching them as James eased off the silencing charm.

Professor Elway was there, holding a large leather-bound book and a stack of parchment, most likely essays she had to grade. She only gave a small nod to James before smiling widely at Y/N which caused James to mutter something vaguely familiar that sounded like ‘favouritism.’

“Ms. L/N! How wonderful to see you!” Elway was enlivened. “I was just thinking about you.”

“Oh! Erm — thank you?”

Elway laughed, “Your work has been incredible! I’m very impressed.”

She felt James nudge her under the table.

“Oh!” The professor exclaimed. “There’s a Duelling club session tonight I’m supervising. I’d love to see you there?”

“I’m sorry, but we have a paper due in Transfigurations.” James helped, cutting in for her. She felt herself relax into her chair.

In no time, Defence Against the Dark Arts became Y/N’s favourite class and duelling was incredibly fun, but all she wanted to do was sleep. Perhaps another time…

Professor Elway gave a little sigh but nodded her head. “Then I’ll see you next session! Have a good day, Ms. L/N and Mr..?”

“Potter.”

“My apologies, Mr. Potter. Have a fine day!”

While they watched her leave, both students were left with a similar deep, icy trepidation that clawed at their soul and a single question heavy in their hearts.

━━━━━━━━━༻✩༺━━━━━━━━━

【 Next Chapter 】

© gotkindabored 2021. Do not repost, translate or modify

[nothing-but-dreamy]

QUARANTINE

Pairing: FFXV!NYX ULRIC x MALE!READER

Words: 2.140

Warnings: fluff

A/N: @slowkib - here you go :) I hope you like it. Thanks for this request

A/N II: This is a loosely sequel to MESSAGES. So, if you wanna know how these two have met, you can catch up on it but it's not necessary :)

Synopsis: Yn got hit by a virus what means he and Nyx have to be quarantined. But Nyx finds a way to 'sweeten' the time for YN to recover quickly.

Nyx and YN were dating for a few months and so, YN’s sister was determined to meet the man who had stolen her brother’s heart like a thief with the promise to never give it back. She stayed over the weekend. Two whole days, all three had a lot of fun together. YN was happy to see how good Nyx and his sister got along and all too fast, the time was over again and YN’s sister had to go back home.

While Nyx cleaned up a few plates and glasses, he looked at YN who had a content smile on his lips even if he seemed to be a bit pale, “Your sister is nice. I like her.”

“I'm happy to hear that because she already loves you. She threatened me to treat you right or else she would ... Well… trust me, I wouldn't have a good life anymore.”, YN said and coughed softly.

Nyx blinked several times, staring at YN, disbelieving that his boyfriend, a skilled fighter and great soldier of the royal Kingsglaive, would be intimidated by his sister who was two heads shorter than he was, "You... She can threaten you? I mean, for real?", Nyx asked amused.

"Always had, always will. She might be younger and smaller than me but she can be a beast if she wants.", YN answered with a grin, remembering what kind of troublemaker she had been in their childhood.

"Good to know.", Nyx said grinning.

"Don't you dare to-", but YN stopped as a coughing attack prevented him from speaking further.

Concerned, Nyx laid his hand on YN’s shoulder, checking on him as he became even paler, "Are you alright?"

YN just waved with his hand, "Yeah, yeah", he said hoarsely, slapping against his chest, "I just choked on something.", he whispered.

But the next day, YN laid in bed, coughing violently and fighting with the full aftermath of the virus that held Insomnia in its iron grip for a few months. Obviously, without knowing it, YN's sister had been infected and now, he was the one with all the symptoms: fever, fatigue, muscle aches, headache, sore throat and nausea saying, the whole package.

While caring as best as he could for a suffering YN, Nyx did what the citizens were encouraged to do: he called a doctor, YN got tested and the result was clear: positive.

Nyx was tested negative but still, because they lived together, they had to be both quarantined for two weeks. As the next step, Nyx had to inform their Captain. Drautos wasn't pleased about the information that two of his men were out of service because of some ‘common cold’. As the Captain asked why they had to be both in quarantine, Nyx saw himself forced to tell the truth and revealed the relationship he had with YN. But, somehow, Nyx got the impression that the relationship itself wasn't the biggest problem rather the fact that the Captain had been completely unaware about it during the last months.

But because the Captain still wanted to have the upper hand like always, he sent Nyx and YN a big pile of documents and paperwork that got postponed because of the last battles. Nyx wasn't pleased about the boring 'office' work but as long as he and YN were quarantined, there was no way Nyx could say anything against it … or run away from it to fight a small, cozy fight against some demons which he would prefer more in this moment.

Luckily, YN recovered quickly and so, after one week, he was almost the old one. Almost. He was still a bit tired, was coughing and needed to rest but at least, he was fit enough to help Nyx a little bit with the paperwork. Especially, YN did it to prevent a raging war inside their apartment. While YN had been forced to stay in bed, he already had heard Nyx cursing while working.

First YN thought Nyx was just annoyed about the work itself but then, one afternoon as they sat together to work through the piles of documents, YN realized that Nyx wasn't just 'annoyed' rather, he was frustrated and even kinda aggressive.

"This stupid thing!", Nyx called out while pressing keys randomly on his PC.

YN raised his glance questioningly from his own PC and papers to look at the hero, who obviously got defeated by a bunch of wires and circuit pressed into a plastic case, "Everything's good over there?" he asked, grinning as Nyx slammed his whole hand on all keys he could find at the same time.

"Sure! Fuc- it works pretty wonderful!", he hissed through gritted teeth. Once again, Nyx pressed a bunch of keys he had no idea of their functions. As the PC finally just gave up and shutted down, Nyx leant back in his chair, pinching the bridge of his nose with closed eyes while sighing deeply, completely defeated.

YN tried his hardest to keep the grin out of his face but it wasn't working. Nyx heard the muffled sound of suppressed laughter and the moment he looked slowly up, his beloved boyfriend burst out with laughter. Even tears of joy were running down his cheeks.

Nyx gritted his teeth, "Good to see that you’re feeling better again. At least one of us has fun here.", he said annoyedly, standing up from the chair to look out of the window to become calmer again. It was cold, raining and all in all not the worst weather to be forced to stay inside.

YN felt guilty for laughing. He hurried over to Nyx and from behind, he snaked his arms around Nyx' waist, pressing a soft kiss on the outer rim of Nyx' ear, one of his weak spots, "Come on. Don't be like that. I didn't mean to laugh at you. It was just ... you fight against demons and whatsoever and then, you get defeated by a PC? Seriously?", YN chuckled.

Nyx scoffed, "I tell you, this thing has a will on its own. And it's mocking me. Besides, we're Glaives. We fight. We don't do 'paperwork'.", he said, quoting the Captain's words in a silly voice.

"So, what? You wanna disobey and ignore the Captain's order? Again?", YN asked amused, knowing how rebellious Nyx could be from time to time.

Nyx grinned, turning around in YN's arms and lying his own around his neck, glad that YN already had some color back in his face, "What shall he do? We're in quarantine. We're not allowed to leave this place or to invite someone in ... at all.", he said with a low voice.

YN raised an eyebrow, knowing this kind of mischievous glance already from the hero, "You have something in mind then?"

"Oh, yes. Indeed, I have.", Nyx nodded with a grin.

Ten minutes later, Nyx had collected everything he needed while YN just had watched him, sitting in an armchair. Nyx had prohibited him to do anything else than just waiting because even if YN felt better he was still stricken. On the other hand, Nyx wanted to have his idea as a small surprise. So, he collected all the pillows and blankets he could find and threw them into the living room which was quickly turned upside down. Nyx took some chairs, arranged them with the couch and had built something that represented a cozy fort. The couch was the fort's backrest. Chairs left and right were holding up the blankets while the carpet was covered with pillows and bed covers to make it even more comfy. As Nyx was done, he stepped next to YN, lying an arm around his shoulders, "What do you say?"

"That looks pretty perfect. You have done that before, don't you?", YN asked and looked up. There was already a melancholic smile on Nyx' lips.

"Yeah, I did this often with Selena. Mostly, when she was feeling sad or when she was sick. Then, I built one of these, stole some ice cream and cookies from the kitchen and then, we hid there the whole day. We were talking or watching TV until we fell asleep.", Nyx remembered, pulling YN closer to his side before he pressed a soft kiss on his boyfriend's crown while inhaling his scent to feed the painful memories with sweet new fuel to make them comfortable again.

YN enjoyed the affection with closed eyes, "So, you stole ice cream, huh?", he asked softly to light Nyx' mood up again. He was happy that it worked as he heard him chuckling.

"Well, stealing would mean no one knew about it. I'm sure our mother knew it. I mean, back then, as a kid, I felt pretty smart but now, I know that someone had to buy the things, so I'm sure she knew when we would build our little cave and prepared the sweets for us."

YN frowned. Everything was perfect except the fact that they had no sweets in the kitchen, "Shall we order-", but he got stopped as someone knocked at the door.

"Not necessary. I already took care of that, too.", Nyx said with a grin and went to the front door, opened it and came back with a paper bag full of stuff Crowe had brought after Nyx had texted her.

"What's that?", YN asked curiously, closing up on Nyx.

"Everything we need to get you back on track.", Nyx said grinning.

"But I'm already feeling better.", YN argued half-heartedly as he saw the colorful labels of the bag's contents.

"Yes, but 'better' is still not completely recovered. So, here, the ice cream will help you with your sore throat. Cookies are great in warm milk with honey to fight against the temperature of your fever. And the chocolate will just make you happy.", Nyx listed while pointing at the different items.

"And the gummi bears? Are they for my running nose?", YN asked chuckling, pulling out the bag of sweets.

Nyx snatched it out of YN's hand, "Oh, these are for me. At last, I need something to throw at you when you say stupid things again. Gummi bears for a running nose... never heard such a silly thing.", Nyx mumbled while rolling with his eyes and bringing the bag in the kitchen.

YN laughed, took his laptop and crawled into the pillow fort to get comfortable already while waiting for Nyx to come back.

Ten minutes later, Nyx appeared with a tablet which was laden with bowls full of ice cream, sweets and two mugs with warm milk. YN received the tablet, placing it in the middle. Nyx crawled next to YN's side before he closed the door made out of a blanket to enclose them with coziness. Pressing on a switch, a chain of light went on which was installed around the chair and illuminated the fort in a soft warm, romantically light. Nyx leant against the couch with his back, raised his arm to give YN the space to cuddle against him, using Nyx' upper body as a pillow.

YN was just about to start the movie he had picked out on Netflix as Nyx got a call on the headset he had still in his ear out of habit. Cursing under his breath, he answered the call, "Yeah? Hey, Captain. Yes, we're still in quarantine. One more week, that’s correct, Sir. Yes, he's feeling better but he's still not recovered completely. He still has to rest.", Nyx answered the Captain's questions. To underline Nyx' statement, YN coughed slightly.

Nyx had difficulties to keep the amusement out of his voice and nudged YN's side in revenge because the coughing was so badly acted, "What did you say, Sir? Oh, yeah, the paperwork. We're working on it. Yes, at this very moment, we're sitting in the living room and looking at the screen. Yes, Sir. Alright. Good da- huh, he hung up already.", Nyx said with a smirk, taking the headset out of his ear to lay it aside where he wouldn't notice it at all for the rest of the day.

"You lied to the Captain.", YN stated with a smirk.

Nyx looked him in the eyes while shaking his head, "No, I said the truth. We're in the living room, looking at some screen. The paperwork can wait. First, I want to make sure that you're fit again.", he breathed before he kissed YN softly, "And now, we should hurry with the ice cream or we will have just soup left."

"You could put some gummi bears into it to keep the consistency- hey!", YN called out as a gummi bear hit his hand.

"I warned you.", Nyx said grinning before YN cuddled back against Nyx' side, the best place in the world to recover from whatever virus there might ever be.

[inkweaver22-blr]

Phew! Here’s chapter 15!

I’m not sure how I feel about this one so let me know what you think!

AO3 Link

<Previous | First | Next>

Scattered Cicadas - Chapter Fifteen: Distressing Encounters

Tang faces a foe more powerful than Lady Bone Demon.

----------

Tang ran his fingers through Xiaotian’s fur as the young monkey slept. He smiled at the content look on the kid’s face.

He didn’t like this timeline.

These quiet moments of safety and peace were becoming increasingly infrequent this cycle. Tang did his best to be a comforting presence for his son, but the threat of their enemy always loomed in the back of everyone’s minds.

Tang looked at the clock and sighed. If he was going to get any work done before the shop opened he would have to get going soon. Tang placed a kiss against Xiaotian’s forehead before standing to leave.

“Baba?”

Xiaotian was looking up at Tang with half open eyes, obviously still more asleep than awake.

“Go back to sleep, Xiaotian,” Tang said as he resumed running his hand through his kid’s fur. “I was just checking on you before I left.”

“Where ya goin’?”

“I need to head to the shop early to do some paperwork. You don’t need to be up yet.”

“M’kay,” Xiaotian slurred, already falling back asleep from the sensation of Tang stroking his head. “Be safe.”

“I will.” Tang leaned over and placed another kiss on Xiaotian’s head. “I love you.”

“Love you.”

Tang’s heart leapt. It was the first time Xiaotian had confessed his feelings to him this cycle. He smiled down at the once more sleeping figure.

He probably wouldn’t remember this conversation later, but Tang was proud of how much progress Xiaotian was making. The amount of emotional trauma he had been subjected to this cycle was immense. That his loving spirit hadn’t been extinguished was a miracle. Tang was going to do his absolute best to nurture that spirit back to full strength no matter what.

Tang left the apartment and made his way to his antique and artifact repair shop. He was Tripitaka once again this cycle and seemed to have developed a knack for tinkering with relics over the years.

Pigsy, in contrast, was a semi-retired mercenary who liked to hang out at the shop when he had nothing else to do. It was an interesting change in dynamics with Tang being the busy one with a shop while Pigsy loitered around distracting him.

Not that he minded seeing his husband for most of the day.

Tang unlocked the shop and made his way to the back to put away his coat. He picked up several sheets of paper and began working on checking his inventory.

If it had only been Pigsy and himself swapped around, Tang might have found this cycle to be enjoyable. Unfortunately for nearly everyone, that wasn’t the case.

Tang frowned as he absently made a note to order more clockwork springs for his personal repair kit.

This timeline was… pretty bad. It seemed that there was some new crisis every week that would leave horrible emotional damage on anyone involved. Worse yet was the demon who was responsible for the majority of the trauma.

The Monkey King.

Tang shuddered as he remembered the first time he saw the cruel expression of the monster that wore the face of a member of his family.

Tang thought the cycles where he was the villain were bad enough, but at least he could choose to be reformed.

The Monkey King was a bloodthirsty and malicious foe that made any evil version of himself seem tame in comparison.

This anomaly in personality was the result of a plan hatched by Wukong and Macaque hundreds of years ago. Early on during the Journey to the West, the two monkeys had swapped places, with no one being the wiser. So while Wukong was off plotting his revenge against Heaven, Macaque was the one who learned humility and love from Tripitaka and the others.

The end result was the Monkey King being sealed under a mountain with his own staff by Macaque with the assistance of Queen Iron Fan and Red Son who wielded the Samadhi Fire.

Not without a steep price, however.

Macaque had lost his right eye. Red Son had almost been consumed by the sacred flames until Guanyin placed a hoop around the boy’s neck, sealing the flames and unfortunately his memories of being a demon as well. His parents were forced to keep him a bit at arms length to prevent the seal from breaking.

Tang clenched his pen as he thought about the more recent events.

Mei, who was being emotionally neglected by her parents, had witnessed Xiaotian’s adoptive father, the Yellow Wind Demon, being freed from his mink form. She had attempted to fight him, only to be blown away. Once she returned with her family’s spear, she managed to force the demon to retreat. Macaque had then proclaimed he would take her on as his student.

But the worst was yet to come.

Yellow Wind Demon tricked Xiaotian into removing the staff that was sealing the Monkey King away. It was then that the horrible truth had been revealed.

Xiaotian was a clone of the Monkey King.

Tang had to stop and take a few breaths as nausea rushed through him. Luckily Xiaotian had become independent enough that the Monkey King couldn’t just dispel him, but that didn’t stop Tang from having nightmares about it.

Mei and Red Son had rushed off to save Xiaotian from Monkey King’s clutches, and Tang had followed after them. The pure hate the demon monkey had sent his way when he had recited the tightening sutra for the first time in all the cycles to rescue the kids would be seared into his memory for years to come.

Xiaotian had turned against his creator and now lived with Tang and Pigsy in their apartment. The trauma of being a copy of that monster was still strong, but Tang intended to smooth it out with endless kindness and love.

Tang pushed his glasses up and rubbed his eyes as the image of a sinisterly grinning Monkey King filled his head once more.

He had been extremely lucky that he hadn’t been recognized as Tripitaka by the demon. He had no doubt the Monkey King would then stop at nothing to hunt him down for turning Macaque against him. Not that it had been too hard once he and the others had pointed out to Macaque how abusive the Monkey King was in their relationship.

Tang sighed as he tried to focus on his inventory list.

He hated feeling this powerless. The Monkey King was the most terrifying adversary he had faced across the timelines. Worse than even Lady Bone Demon and the Mayor. He was going to get ulcers from how worried he constantly felt.

The bell above the front door chimed, signalling an entering customer. Had he forgotten to keep the sign flipped to closed?

“I’m sorry,” Tang said, not turning from his paperwork. “But the shop is closed at the mome-”

A paw clasped around his mouth and a strong arm wrapped around his waist, pulling him close against someone. Tang dropped his papers as his glasses fell from his face.

“Hello Tripitaka,” a horrifyingly familiar voice said.

Tang turned in terror to see the sneering face of the Monkey King leaning close into his own.

“I missed you so much.”

No no no no no!

How had he found out?!

“Let’s go find Liu Er and the kid and go home now, hmm?”

Tang’s blood ran cold.

Monkey King didn’t want him dead. It was so much worse than that.

He wanted Tang to be a part of his twisted family with Macaque and Xiaotian.

The thought of being used against his old friend and son to make them comply made Tang’s pulse quicken.

He couldn’t let that happen!

Adrenaline rushed through him as previous years of fighting experience kicked in.

Tang shoved his foot back into his captor’s, managing to catch Monkey King by surprise and push him off balance. The strength of the Earth suddenly seemed to flow through him as he grabbed the demon’s arms and managed to throw him over his head into one of the displays on the wall.

Instinctively, Tang raised his hands as another power came forth. He quickly called out the tightening sutra while casting a binding spell simultaneously. The Monkey King snarled in pain as his fillet squeezed his head and ropes of golden-yellow light wrapped around him.

Tang waved his hands and recited another spell, summoning several domed barriers of light around the demon as he knew the ropes wouldn’t hold for long. He would worry about how he was doing this once he was out of danger and not running on autopilot

“You’ll regret that!” The Monkey King bared his fangs at Tang as he strained against the magic ropes, several of them already beginning to snap.

“The only thing I regret, Wukong,” Tang said coldly, his hands glowing golden-yellow as he began to manipulate the Earth beneath the shop, “was not being a good enough teacher to show you the error of your ways.”

The Monkey King snarled in defiance as two enormous slabs of rock burst through the floor and fused together around the barriers holding the demon. Tang rushed forward and placed the strongest seal he knew onto the makeshift prison.

It wouldn’t keep the insanely powerful demon trapped permanently, but it would buy Tang enough time to get to his husband and son and escape to somewhere safe.

Tang picked his glasses up and ran from the shop, placing another seal on the building itself for good measure. A few of the friendlier shopkeepers from the neighboring buildings were standing outside.

“Are you alright Tang?”

“We heard a loud crash coming from your shop.”

“The Monkey King is trapped inside,” Tang said a bit breathlessly. The shopkeepers looked panicked. “He’s after me. I need to get my family to safety. Can you make sure this street is evacuated before he escapes?”

“Holy shit!”

“Y-yeah! We’ll take care of it! Just go get somewhere safe!”

“Thank you. You all might want to stay away for a while as well in case he tries to use you to get to me,” Tang said. They all paled a little at that and quickly left after wishing him good luck.

Tang took off at a sprint towards his apartment. He had left his phone in the back of the shop with his coat. Hopefully it was still early enough that neither Pigsy or Xiaotian had left yet.

The adrenaline was quickly wearing off, and he felt the powers he had used ebb away entirely. Tang would have normally been endlessly fascinated at this new development, but the threat of the Monkey King was still hanging over him. He would have to examine what had just happened later once they were all somewhere safe.

There was an explosion in the distance, followed by an enraged roar.

Tang grit his teeth as he ignored the stitch in his side and ran faster.

He really didn’t like this timeline.

----------

And here we have the second most popular AU by @winterpower98, the absolute angst-fest that is the Swap AU.

The scene where Wukong shows up is directly referencing this comic that got commissioned by @stylishbutdefinitelyillegal.

I’m not sure if I managed to capture Tang’s thoughts on this timeline clearly or if I just managed to give a brief, crappy summary of it instead. :/

And what’s up with those powers from past cycles showing up? That’s certainly never happened before.

Guess we’ll have to wait and see!

Until next time!

[angstyaches]

Hunger

I couldn’t pick a better title, but here’s some Shayne and Charlie goodness, Charlie Two intrusion, nausea and hunger followed by fluff and comfort, bit of Shayne’s childhood, Shayne’s disordered eating, Charlie’s Feelings™. Hopefully it comes together somewhat coherently. The hunger/comfort aspects were definitely encouraged by @trashytums and their recent posts, so I can’t not mention that.

CW: nausea, emeto (well, gagging), hunger, saliva (only a bit), mild horror elements, disordered eating, reference to unhealthy parental relationship, food. (Let me know if I ever miss something.)

Swallow the World: The Ouija Board, Pt. 6

Charlie paused in the upstairs bathroom on his way to his wardrobe, seeing stars over the toilet bowl, retching like something really wanted out of him. His headache was clearing a bit, now that there was some distance between him and the Ouija board, but those black eyes kept hovering in front of his eyes, keeping him dizzy and nauseous.

He hadn’t eaten anything since breakfast, and his stomach was starting to ache with the effort of trying to bring up nothing. Charlie retched as he thought of Shayne putting himself through this for days, or however long he did. Charlie didn’t know. Charlie hadn’t thought to ask.

Charlie gagged again before dragging himself to his feet and grabbing onto the sink. He stared into the mirror, waiting for his head to clear. He felt hot and clammy in his hoodie, yet his body was trembling all over.

After looking for too long without blinking, it looked like a deep, shadowy chasm was opening up under his left eye, his skin turning transparent to reveal dark blue veins that ran in a spiral pattern across his cheekbone. Above his eyebrow, his skull seemed to adapt a new shape, curving up and out of his skin.

He lifted a finger to touch the side of his head, to convince himself that strange deformity wasn’t really there. It wasn’t; all he felt was his normal, human skin, but he also realised that his left hand had taken on that waxy, swirling look too.

The left side of his face began to smile at him.

Hi.

Charlie gasped, closing his eyes for a moment before daring to take another look. Everything seemed back to normal, but he was still shaking as he left the sink, turning at the door to go to his bedroom.

He stood there for a moment, swaying a little on his feet.

What did I come in here for again? Right.

Charlie pulled out a pair of soft tracksuit bottoms that he rarely ever wore, thinking that if they were too big for Felix’s waist, he could just pull them tighter with the cord. His legs shook as he went back downstairs, wishing he didn’t need to go back to Elliott’s car, back to where the board was.

“Hey, Charlie?” Rin called from the sitting room.

What now? Charlie shuddered with dread in the hallway and diverted his route, finding her crouched on the carpeted floor while Shayne lay curled up on his side of the sofa, knees almost to his head.

“What happened?”

“Oh, nothing.” Rin looked over. “He just keeps asking for you.”

“What? Really?” Charlie didn’t know whether to be happy or scared. He wanted to know what was going on with his friend, of course, but that didn’t mean he felt qualified to try to deal with it right now.

Rin nodded as she stood up, putting out a hand. “I’ll take those to Felix and then head home. Are you going to be okay? I can stay if you need me to.”

“Honestly,” Charlie said shakily as he handed over the tracksuit bottoms. “I’d really appreciate it if you could just get that damn Ouija board from Felix and drive it far away from me. It’s making Charlie Two – it’s making me feel… just horrible. Like my body’s fighting against itself.”

“Okay,” Rin frowned, examining Charlie’s face quickly. For an instant, he panicked that she could see the details of the demon he’d seen in the mirror, but then he realised she was just concerned about him looking pale and sick, which he most definitely did. “I’ll keep the board at my house, and we can decide what to do with it later. Call me if you need anything. I’ll come right back.”

Charlie pulled her in for a quick hug before she headed for the front door. He clung to the doorframe to the sitting room, watching in almost agony as Shayne tried to curl even further into himself.

“I heard you summoned me,” Charlie said, crossing the room to crouch by the sofa, near Shayne’s head. He’d expected his eyes to be closed, but instead they were glossed over and still. He didn’t even blink as Charlie waved a hand in front of him.

“Hey,” he said, letting that hand rest on top of Shayne’s. “What do you need me for?”

Shayne let their fingers interlock, just like they had for most of the car ride home. He drew Charlie’s hand closer to his chin, his stare growing even glassier. He started to open his mouth, widening his jaw with a crack. Fear trickled through Charlie’s stomach and he almost gagged again as he realised what was happening.

He’d given him his left hand; the hand that wasn’t entirely his.

Shayne’s eyes fell shut. He drew the joint of Charlie’s thumb into his mouth, closing his teeth over the skin that stretched between Charlie’s thumb and forefinger. The bite was gentle at first but slowly grew more firm as his jaws clenched visibly.

“Sh-Shayne?” Charlie whimpered.

But Shayne remained just like that, not biting any harder but not letting go either. His eyes closed a little more tightly, saliva pooling between his tongue and Charlie’s flesh. His other hand was pressed against his belly, fingers curling harshly into his t-shirt.

Though his heart pounded, Charlie was kept still by the maddening thought that maybe, maybe he’d allow Shayne to rip him to pieces if that was what he needed to do. It didn’t mean anything except that he must have been so, so hungry.

“It’s okay,” Charlie whispered. “It’s okay.”

With his eyes still shut, Shayne frowned. It seemed to take some effort for him to unclamp his jaw and remove his teeth from Charlie’s skin, and when he did, he shoved Charlie’s hand away and scrambled up into a sitting position. He tried to push himself further back on the sofa, drawing his arms up to cover his head without ever opening his eyes.

“Hey, hey, stop,” Charlie gasped, rising from the floor and sitting next to Shayne. He’d hoped Shayne would sink against him like he had in the car, but instead he flinched like he wanted to get away, twisting his fingers into his hair.

“Don’t want to hurt you,” he sobbed from beneath his arms.

“You won’t.” Charlie pressed his forehead against Shayne’s neck and slid a hand towards his knee. “I know you won’t. You almost did, but you stopped.”

There was a beat of silence before Shayne’s stomach growled. He winced and tried to curl up tighter and shake Charlie off, but Charlie just nuzzled his head against Shayne’s and stroked his leg until the sound tapered off and he stopped tensing quite so hard.

“How long’s it been since you’ve eaten?” Charlie asked, his voice pinched. In the past, he’d felt comforted listening to the sounds Shayne’s stomach made, but this was different. 

“Last demon,” Shayne mumbled, “was Tuesday.”

“I don’t mean demons; I mean food.”

Shayne shifted a little lower in the sofa, drawing his legs a little further from his torso. His gaze went distant again, but he let out a little sigh as Charlie ran his hand across his stomach.

“Shayne, answer me,” Charlie whispered.

“I – I don’t – maybe a week. Could be longer.”

Charlie swallowed and tried to stay calm. “I know you don’t like being offered food, but I’ve got to make dinner for myself anyway.”

“Charlie –”

“I know it’s hard for you, but I’ll feel so much better if you eat something.” Charlie rubbed slowly up and down Shayne’s belly. From the way he’d been clutching it earlier, and the look on his face now, it must have been killing him.

Shayne hesitated, watching the motion of Charlie’s hand. They both felt his abdominal muscles tighten and cramp a second before another whine of hunger rang out. This time Charlie felt it through his palm, and Shayne leaned his head a little harder against Charlie’s instead of trying to push him away.

“Please, eat with me?”

Shayne swallowed audibly, his body tensing again. “Okay.”

Charlie made Shayne some weak tea first, filling the mug halfway with boiled water and topping it up with cool water from the sink. He sat with him on the sofa as he sipped it, hoping it wouldn’t upset his stomach.

“Feeling okay?” he asked as he finally took the empty mug back. Shayne nodded, and Charlie felt relief for the first time since the afternoon.

He went back to the kitchen and boiled the kettle again, deciding to make some mugs of instant soup and defrost some bread in the microwave. He didn’t feel like eating anything too heavy either, not after being so nauseated in the car for so long. When everything was almost ready, he went to get Shayne from the sofa and bring him to the kitchen table.

Charlie had expected Shayne to try to eat too fast, and was ready to jump in and tell him to slow down before he made himself sick. Instead, he watched in distress as Shayne took slow sips of soup, breaking off the tiniest pieces of bread before bringing them to his lips. He never opened his mouth until he was just about to put something inside. At first, Charlie assumed he was just feeling self-conscious because of his hang-up about accepting help, and he tried not to read into it; but the longer it went on, the more it looked like Shayne was convinced that eating was a test, and that someone was going to give him an evaluation when he’d finished.

He wanted to ask what the hell his foster parents had done to make him act like that, but it seemed like a question for a different time, when things weren’t already so heavy.

“What’s your favourite food?” he asked instead.

Shayne jumped a little, frowning across the table like talking over food wasn’t something he’d even considered possible.

“I – I don’t know?” he replied, almost defensively.

Charlie blinked. How could he just not know?

“Why, what’s yours?”

“Roast chicken and gravy, with my mum’s mashed potatoes. She makes it nearly every Sunday.” Charlie picked up a third slice of warmed bread, wondering with a pang of guilt why he’d never thought to invite Shayne over on Sundays.

“My mum used to make tarts.”

“Oh, yeah?” Charlie smiled. “What kind?”

Shayne shrugged, but not in the heavy way he usually did. He glanced towards the kitchen window. “There used to be a gooseberry bush in the back garden here, and an apple tree. Sometimes we’d go blackberry picking.”

Charlie glanced towards the window too, wondering what had happened to the bush and the tree after the house had been sold.

“She’d let me stand with her in the kitchen and ask me to taste the fruit before putting it in the pastry, to make sure it wasn’t too bitter.” Shayne met Charlie’s gaze, but just for a second. “She didn’t have a sense of taste, because she didn’t need human food. I think the Devines thought I’d be... more like her.”

Charlie realised Shayne was taking a long break between bits of bread, and was idly turning his spoon in his mug as he spoke. Shayne realised Charlie was watching him, and he made a little flustered noise in his throat.

“It’s okay if you’re finished for now,” Charlie said. “Don’t force yourself if it’s going to make you feel sick.”

Shayne blinked like he’d just heard something surprising.

“When you’re hungry again, I’ll make you something else,” Charlie promised. “Even if it’s in the middle of the night, okay?”

Again, Shayne looked surprised, and Charlie couldn’t help but laugh.

“What’s up with you?”

“It’s just – you’ve been putting up with me all day,” Shayne mumbled. “Didn’t think you’d want me staying over.”

“You seriously thought I’d send you back to the vamps after the day you’ve had?” Charlie asked. “And I haven’t been putting up with you; I’ve been looking after you. That’s what people do when they care about each other.”

“Still, I’m sorry.”

Charlie shook his head as he picked up the mugs and plates from the table. “And when people care enough about each other, no one has to say sorry for stuff like that.”

He turned towards the kitchen sink, turning on the tap to rinse the dishes. His eyes kept getting pulled up towards the window, towards his own eerily translucent reflection in the dark of early nightfall. He shuddered every time he felt that pull, carefully avoiding eye contact with himself for fear of what would look back at him.

You didn’t do anything, Charlie couldn’t stop himself from thinking. You gave me absolute hell over the Ouija board, but when we could have been devoured, you didn’t do anything.

Neither did you.

Charlie frowned, slowly looking up at the glass. Both his eyes looked dark and obscure in the reflection, but he could once again see that strange protrusion above his left eyebrow, and that knowing half-smile.

Do… Charlie’s breath felt like it had been stolen. Do you love him, too?

“Hey, Charlie?”

Charlie gulped and turned around to see that Shayne had folded his arms and put his head down on the table, like he often did at his desk at school. That either meant he was tired, or his stomach was hurting.

“Are you okay?” Charlie walked over and put a hand across Shayne’s back. “Ready to go lie back down? Bed, or sofa?”

“I don’t mind where, but...” Shayne gave a small groan. “Can you rub my stomach again?”

Charlie swallowed hard again, afraid that his heart was about to slip up his throat and escape through his mouth.

“Of course,” he said. “Whatever you need.”

[lo-55]

Broken Wings

By all rights, the scars shouldn’t have existed in the first place. Ace x Marco   

 By all rights, the scars shouldn’t have existed in the first place. Ace x Marco

Ace first noticed the mark before he was Whitebeard’s son. Or, more accurately, before he knew he was one of his sons. Back when everyone who was not named Portgas D. Ace had already accepted that he was a part of the family, and was just being difficult at this point.

Ace had a lot of hiding places on the ship. He’d found at least a dozen in the week he’d been their captive, small slates that could be safely removed and revealed enough space for a young man to squeeze in, storage rooms that were barely used, and one particular closet that housed the spare sails. He could hide away all day, until his stomach demanded that he steal food or he had a new plan to try and take the old man’s head.

Frustratingly, no matter where he went, Marco could always find him. Was he a phoenix or a freaking bloodhound?

Ace had hoped that his latest hiding place would remedy that.

After all, who would look in their own window seat for a captive?

Ace muffled a snicker at his own cleverness and settled against the wood, safe behind the curtains that Marco kept drawn. Ace wasn’t sure why Marco had the box with the window in it, which gave the best view of the seas. The window’s even had a latch, unlike anything Ace had seen on a ship before. Most rooms only had a porthole, if that, and they definitely didn’t open.

The young man was very smug, settled in and waiting. Let Marco find him now!

Ace woke up from that thought sometimes around sunset, the narcoleptic attack ending as quick as it came. He looked out, watching the sun burn across the horizon as it sank into the waves. Orange melted down in the water, molten fire. Ace breathed in the dying warmth, drawing it into his veins.

The door opened with a soft clock, so minute Ace almost missed it. He stiffened, barely daring breath. Had Marco found him?

Even if he had, it wasn’t like Ace had gone snooping through his things. He’d just sat himself in the window and taken an unwilling nap. He hadn’t gone through the carefully stacked manila folders, or pulled open the drawers in the desk. He hadn’t gone riffling through the closet, or even touched his sheets.

Ace waited a few minutes before he carefully parted the curtains, just enough to peak out.

Marco was facing away from him, dropping his lilac shirt into a hamper. He reached for the blue one he had already laid out, stretching the scar on his back.

It was bad, ugly, stretching from beneath the sash at his hips up to his shoulder blades and back. The cut that had made it was too jagged for it to have been done cleanly, or with any skill, and it was clearly done with the intent to hurt, mock.

Ace pulled his face back, suddenly sick with the feeling of intruding. He waited until Marco had left the room to sneak out, running off to hide somewhere else. He didn’t go back to the window box. He had already seen more than he was meant to.

~                                                 ~                                ~

The second time Ace saw it was at an onsen on a winter island that was under their protection. They had gone to celebrate Ace finally becoming Whitebeard’s son. It was a lavish affair, and after the party wound down everyone parted ways. Some went back to the ship, some went to see what the local girls thought of pirate boys. Ace decided to try the water out.

Now, he may not have always been the most strategic of thinkers, but Ace was, by no means, stupid. Impulsive, reckless, bullheaded even, but not stupid. So when he decided he wanted to soak in the hot water, he grabbed the nearest person to him, who happened to be Marco, and declared,

“Take a bath with me.”

To which he received a slightly more open eyed stare than usual. Marco went back to his sleepy expression a second later.

“No,” he said blandly. Ace frowned, about to argue, when he remembered the macabre decoration carved into his new brother’s back.

“Then watch me take one,” he countered instead. Marco stared at him again, until Ace realized his mistake. Face heating, he smacked the bird. “Not like that! If I fall asleep in the water, I’ll drown.”

“Then stay out of the water, yoi,” Marco reasoned. He hadn’t even flinched for Ace’s blow.

Ace made a face at the older pirate, face scrunched up like a bulldog trying to get a biscuit.

Marco snorted at him and the lines of his face eased into a softness that made Ace’s stomach curl delightfully around itself. He swallowed back a lump trying to form in his throat, eyes wider.

“Alright, alright,” Marco waved his hand. “I’ll make sure you don’t drown.”

Ace positively beamed at him. He threw an arm around his brother, dragging the taller man into him. To his credit Marco didn’t stumble, just leaned down at little to make up for the different in their height.

“You’re the best!” he told the phoenix, handing him the praise a few inches from his face. Marco, lackadaisy as ever, poked Ace’s hat a few inches higher.

“Just start walking, yoi.”

Ace did, his arm migrating from being looped around Marco’s neck to his arm. If Marco thought anything about how childish Ace was, he didn’t mention it.

Both of them had a room to themselves, but Ace went to his for the sake of actually knowing where that was. The rooms were already impressive enough, especially to someone who’d grown up the way Ace had, but more than the wide space or the fine paintings on the wall, more than the well stuffed cushions around the small table or the silk sheets over the mats, the baths were grand.

A hot spring, each expensive suite accompanied by one, bubble up from the ground with water that bordered on scalding. Rich minerals rolled through the stone with the water that filled the bath, big enough to hold five men, let alone two. A tree swung it’s low branches down near the water, causing ripples where it brushed. The whole thing was bordered with a powdery snow fall that hadn’t quite melted yet.

Ace stripped, shameless in front of another man, and tossed his clothes carelessly into the corner before he slipped into the water.

On anyone else it would have been too hot to simply jump into. For a man made out of fire, it was just warm enough to sink into his skin and feel pleasantly warm.

A soft, contented sigh escaped him. He hadn’t realized until then the kind of pressure he’d been under, constantly anxious, waiting for someone to get sick of him and attack. Constantly weary of where he was, who was around and what was in his food. Always truing to come up with a way to kill Whitebeard, even surrounded by a ship of people who kill and die for him.

Ace’s head lolled back. His chest caved in with the built up stress finally being released.

Long fingers slid into his hair, drawing dark eyes open to look up at Marco’s droopy eyed stare. A small tug and a soft ‘thump’ sounded behind his head.

“You still have your hat on,” he explained. Ace hummed and leaned into the fingers. It felt nice, being touched like that. Luffy had been all about physical contact, but there was something different between his little brother clinging to him at every opportunity and Marco taking the time to make sure he didn’t hurt his most valuable possession, some foreign in the gentle way his fingertips touched Ace’s scalp.

“Thanks,” he remembered his manners, at least. When Marco’s touched wandered from his head to his shoulders, to one of the arms Ace had stretched out on either side of him, he did nothing to stop it. Not even when his fingers found the familiar crossbones over the extra letter in his name.

Ace looked at Marco’s face, waiting for the inevitable question. A question that never came.

Marco pulled his hand back to himself, to Ace’s disappointment. On impulse, Ace grabbed it before it was out of reach.

Marco glanced at him.

“Yes? He prompted.

Ace paused. He hadn’t thought that far ahead.

“Are you sure you don’t want in?” he asked again, fully expecting denial.

When Marco sighed and pulled his hand back to take off his shirt, Ace was stunned. He hadn’t actually expected for Marco to join him, but here he was, stripping down. Ace would be lying of he said he didn’t watch him, letting his eyes wander down the man's legs, up over his chest, and higher until he met a smug smile and dark eyes.

Ace’s face heated quickly and he looked away, sinking down in the water. Shit.

“Like what you see?” Marco teased, easing himself in across from Ace. The younger man didn’t miss the way he kept his back to him.

“Eat me,” Ace replied, eloquence personified.

Marco snorted and sunk in to his shoulders, tilting his head back and letting out a groan that had to be intentional. Ace decided then that Marco was a dick.

“I didn’t say it before, yoi,” Marco said some minute later, “But welcome home, brother. We’re glad you found us.”

Ace flushed warmly, a goofy smile spreading across his face. That same warmth curled in his stomach once more, Marco met his smile with a half one of his own.

“I’m glad I didn’t get a lucky shot in and kill the old- and kill Pops,” he tested the word, rolling it around in his mouth. His father. Ace hadn’t known how much he needed one until he had one, and now he didn’t think he could ever let go of the feeling of being someone’s son. Someone other that him.

Marco laughed, long and hard. Ace’s face only got hotter.

“You were never going to kill him, you know,” he said, without the mocking bite that Ace expected for trying to murder the strongest man in the world, on at least twenty seven different occasions. He sighed heavily.

“I do now!” Ace tilted his head back against the stone, slightly cooler than the water, and closed his eyes.

He woke up when he found himself being jostled, picked up out of the water and slung over Marco’s shoulder like he weighed nothing at all.

Dark eyes blinked a few times before they focussed on his butt, then quickly migrated to the scars mutilating his back. Ace swallowed a sudden wave of nausea and anger. They were even worse close up, horribly detailed in their depiction. It made his stomach roil with the desire to burn whoever had done it to ashes.

He pressed his face into Marco’s back, so he wouldn’t have to see, and wrapped his arms around his chest and an awkward hug. It drew a soft laugh from the man carrying him.

“Go back to sleep,” he advised for the first time, “I won’t let you drown.”

Ace had no doubt about that. He obeyed and closed his eyes.

~                                           ~                                       ~    

Ace saw it again weeks later, though he didn’t ask about it.

When he ran his hands down Marco’s ribs and lay his lips across his chest, Marco let him push the shirt off. The fire in his veins roared to life and he tumbled into the bed, letting Marco roll them until he was hovering above Ace, kissing his hard. Ace thought he could drown like that, kissing Marco, grasping at his shoulders, sinking his nails into his arms.

They tumbled, pressed against each other, kicking up a ruckus that settled more than a few bets.

Ace found himself laid out of his back, grinning like mad at the ceiling. His head was hazy, his skin was steadily cooling even as Marco ran his palm across Ace’s stomach, reaching a small scar that slid between his ribs, barely an inch across.

Ace didn’t have to look to know the one his fingers had paused on.

“They took me by surprise, before I ate the fruit,” he said without prompting. “Probably the closest I’ve ever come to dying. And it’s tiny!”  

“Right into your lung,” Marco agreed. His fingers moved on, to a slightly larger mark, much more faded, on his chest. He tapped it, drumming his fingers over the three slashes. “Feline?”

“Giant tiger,” Ace confirmed. “I was like, eleven? It looked smaller from in the tree…”

Marco laughed at him and leaned down to look him in the eyes. “How don’t you have more scars?”

“Luck? Stubbornness? I don’t have your healing factor,” he elbowed Marco playfully. Still, Marco had scars of his own. Worse than any of the ones Ace had ever seen before, and he’d seen some shit.

His thoughts must have showed on his face for some of the calm bliss Marco had been exuding dissipated. His smile faded, his sleepy eyes dimmed and he rolled, snatching his shirt off of the floor. Ace watched him, letting the horrible image on Marco’s back burn into his retina.

Ace could still picture it even after he’d dressed and walked out the door.

~                                             ~                                              ~

The fourth time, Ace couldn’t help it.

Marco had, for once, slept in. Ace had volunteered to go get him. He didn’t see anything wrong with it. He even knocked, softly, before he poked his head inside. There wasn’t much room for shame on a pirate ship. So Ace walked in, paused at the doorway, and stared.

Marco had fallen face first onto his bed and was out cold, his shoulders moving steadily with each breath. Up, down, up, down. His lilac shirt lay crumpled under his arms, his pants hung uselessly over the edge of the bed, leaving him in nothing save his boxers.

Green, Ace noted idly as he approached on soft feet.

He stood at Marco’s side, looking down his long body. As strong as he was, the man was light enough for most of them to lift with one hand. A side effect of being part bird, Ace figured.

The scars stretched across his back, before Ace’s eyes. It made him sick. His fingers itched, drawing to lay feather-light across the horrible fresco painted into Marco’s skin. He followed the curve that wrapped across his shoulder blades, down his ribs, to his lower back.

“Who hurt you?” he breath the question to the air.

“I haven’t always been Whitebeards son, you know.”

Ace snatched his hand back like he’d been burned, head snapping down to look at Marco’s face. Even though his smile was amused it didn’t quite reach his eyes.

“You’re awake,” he wanted to smack himself for such a stupid statement. Marco just smiled at him, indulgent.

“Hand me my pants,” he pointed, “And I’ll tell you a story.”

Ace grabbed them and handed them over, stomach clenching in a way that nothing to do with the way the ocean rolled under their feet. Marco sat up and pulled his pants on, threading his favorite sash through them when Ace gave it over without needing to be asked.

“You don’t have to tell me anything,” Ace warned him.

“I know,” Marco assured. He didn’t reach for his shirt quite yet. Ace watched his face, not his back or his shoulders. Focused on the lines of his face instead of the marring on his back.

Ace waited in silence for Marco to do on. When he did, it was a credit to his skills that he sounded exactly the same way he always did. Unbothered by anything.

“Not all pirate’s work the way we do. Not all crews are a family, or even a group of friends. Some of them are cobbled together by desperate people, or bound as one by force and fear,” Marco looked at the window, not at Ace. “We were formed before Gol D. Roger started this age of piracy. It was a dark time, for the world and for me. The captain found use for me, for my abilities and my adaptation. I made a good shield in a fight, and I was too young to understand what he was doing to be wrong. What boy wouldn’t do anything to protect their ‘father’?”

Ace swallowed a lump in his throat. He didn’t dare say anything.  

“Someone shot through me once, though, and hit him in the leg. He found a fitting punishment. He made sure I couldn’t forget my failure. If I didn’t know what seastone did before, I certainly did after.”

“Marco…” Ace didn’t know what to say. So he kissed him, long a slow. Trying to explain what he didn’t have the words to say. That his father was a piece of shit. That that wasn’t his father, Whitebeard was. That Ace was glad he was here and would fight anyone who tried to hurt him again.

Marco kissed him back, smiling against his lips. Ace wrapped his arms around him, pulling him close. He let his hands slide up, across the mangled skin. A heat burned in his chest, fury at the man who had done that, love for the man it was laid upon.

Ace let Marco push him back onto the bed, fingers ghosting across his back. A fire ignited around them, blue and red warring as the two pirates grasped at each other desperately, feelings burning into skin.

As blue flames wrapped around him, Ace chased away the memory of the wings on Marco’s back.

He let himself be consumed by the fire.

[softbiker]

Born to Run - Chapter 17

Warnings: angst, alcohol abuse, anxiety, heartbreak, police violence (potentially triggering encounter, please heed the warning), language

Word count: 3.2k

A/N: Well, here it is. All I can do is say...I’m sorry. But I promise I’ll fix it. I decided to go ahead and post this tonight because I haven’t gotten to write much lately, I’ve been working constantly and now I’ve got a second job - so I just love getting to write and post when I can. Thank you for sticking with this story. It’s almost a year old now! As always, let me know what you think!!

“I dunno, Mom - I mean it’s not like I planned this-”

“Well, no, honey,” her mother huffed over the phone. “It doesn’t seem like you planned any of it.”

Y/N winced at the sting of her words but didn’t argue. With her phone wedged between her ear and her shoulder, she grabbed another stack of underwear and socks from the dresser and turned back towards her bed, where a suitcase lay open. A few pairs of jeans and a couple of sweaters were already folded inside. Off to one side, her toiletry bag was stuffed full - skincare and toothpaste and hair products she might not even use but tossed in anyway in her flustered packing frenzy. Her grip on the socks in her hands tightened to keep her fingers from trembling.

It had been 2 days since her fight - breakup - with Bucky. For the first 24 hours, she fell into an anxious, disorganized catatonia; she shuffled from room to room in her house, pacing and biting her nails, opening cabinets at random then promptly closing them. Her fingers tapped restlessly against her thigh, and her heart raced at a breakneck pace. If a single clear thought managed to arrange itself from the scattered clutter of her panic, it was only Bucky’s face, red-eyed and tear-stained as he pleaded with her. After splashing some water on her face and changing into sweatpants, she had put herself to bed, settling in for the longest night of her life. She tossed and turned, hearing the minutes tick by from the clock on the wall. At around 3 am, she threw off the covers in heartbroken frustration and stalked to the kitchen, setting the kettle on for tea and raiding her cabinets for any treats she could find. Thank God she still had that fancy dark chocolate she’d gotten last time she went to the city; it was the only thing her cupboards could provide in the way of comfort food. Armed with a steaming cup of lavender chamomile and an entire half-pound of dark chocolate she settled back under the covers and grabbed the T.V. Remote from her nightstand. If nothing else, she prayed Netflix could distract her, fill her mind with different faces, different voices - drown out the one that wouldn’t leave her.

She managed to doze off towards the end of Breakfast at Tiffany’s, tearful confessions playing in the background of her not-quite-dreams, and woke just before 7. A cold, clear morning greeted her through the window, the air in her room practically frigid, but something in it settled her. Quieted the static that had blurred out all thought since Bucky walked through her door the day before. With a deep breath, she threw off the covers and swung her feet out of bed, leaving the tea cup and chocolate wrapper to deal with later. It was her running shoes she reached for.

An hour and 10 kilometers later, she jogged back up her front porch steps, breathing heavy and feeling light. Her cheeks were charted from the wind, and her nose was running, but the grip on her heart had shaken loose. And as she clambered into the shower, stinging hot and billowing steam, new thoughts began to string together - thoughts for tomorrow, and the tomorrow after that.

Still in sweatpants, hair dripping, she’d scribbled down a list while she sipped her coffee. Names, to-do’s, a seed of a plan. In order, she phoned the clinic, her best friend, her residency program coordinator - and now, at last, her mom.

“I’m driving up to stay with Kat for a few days - maybe a week,” Y/N sighed, ignoring her mom’s comment. “Just to…clear my head, you know?”

“Sure, sure,” her mom agreed. “Though I don’t know why you couldn’t come here…I haven’t seen you since Thanksgiving-”

“Mom.” She closed her eyes, one hand settled on her hip. “It’s not a vacation.”

“No, sweetie, but it doesn’t hurt to come let your mom take care of you…”

Knuckles pressed to her eyelids, Y/N sat down on the edge of her bed. The old mattress creaked, as it had every night she slept in it for the last several months.

“I-I just,” she licked her dry lips and tried to swallow. “I need to be alone for a little bit, Mom. Once I’ve got it all figured out, I’ll let you know. And maybe…who knows, maybe I can come visit soon.”

“Sweetheart.” The voice on the phone is tired, resigned. “Why do you always try to do these things by yourself? You don’t have to be alone.”

Y/N’s throat tightened, her fingers curling into the fabric of her pants. She breathed slowly, warding back the lump that threatened to close off her voice.

“I’m sorry, Mom. But this time I do.”

**********

“You’ve got to go in there and wake him up-”

“I’m not doing it - I wouldn’t touch him with a 10 foot pole when he’s like this.”

“Well, someone’s got to. We’re bugging out in just a couple days-”

Heavy-eyed, and feeling like death warmed over, Bucky stirred at the sound of the voices outside his bedroom. Harsh winter sunlight burst through the blinds over his window; even before he opened his eyes it hurt. Something throbbed inside his skull, and his tongue felt thick and heavy in his parched mouth. Why the hell did he feel this bad? He couldn’t remember the last time he drank like this, to the point of blacked out nausea. His stomach roiled as he turned over, and he felt far too old to be drinking like there was no tomorrow, like he hated himself-

And then he remembered.

Y/N.

Suddenly he had no interest in getting up, getting water, getting something that would settle his stomach. He covered his face with his hands, fingers pressing firm against his eyelids and blocking out any light that came through. It was hot in his room, the combination of heating and a pile of blankets that someone had tucked him in with, but he didn’t move the covers, choosing instead to sweat underneath them.

How had he fucked up so badly? The best thing that ever happened to him - and now she was gone, baby, gone. It would’ve been alright, maybe, if Natasha had allowed him to talk to Y/N himself, but-

Natasha. Just the thought of her set his blood on fire, and he sat bolt upright in bed, his eyes flying open - only to immediately regret it as a stronger wave of nausea threatened to claim him. He quickly folded himself in half and put his head between his knees. When his head finally stopped spinning, he propped his elbows up against his knees and threaded his hands through his hair.

Already, he felt a thread of shame and guilt tugging at his gut. It wasn’t right to blame Natasha. He knew that. The lies were all his own; all Nat had done was reveal the truth.

But, God, the look on Y/N’s face - she had never looked at him that way, not even in the beginning when she was afraid he might be a criminal. It chilled him - right down to the marrow of his bones - the cold anger, the mask of disgust and disinterest that she wore to hide the way she hurt. And she did - he could see her pain cracking the ice in her eyes, no matter how she tried to hide it.

He hated himself for it.

A soft knock at the door, and Steve’s blond head poked in.

“Oh,” he said, eyebrows jumping in surprise. “You’re awake.”

Bucky’s scowl deepened as Steve and Sam kindly let themselves into his room and took up post at the foot of his bed.

“Yeah - thanks to you two. You wouldn’t know how to whisper if your life depended on it, Wilson.”

To his credit, Sam didn’t respond - merely rolled his eyes and cast an exasperated glance at Steve. With a sigh, Steve crossed his arms over his chest, his eyes down on the soft blue quilt Bucky had haphazardly wrinkled during the night.

“Look, I understand that you’re really upset right now.” Steve’s voice was soft, barely more than a murmur. “I know…I know how much she meant to you.”

Bucky felt his eyes starting to burn as he stared at his friends, and he hastily scrubbed at them with his palms, sniffing.

“But,” Steve continued, licking his lip. “We’ve got our marching orders - we’re on standby to pull out any day now. We - I - can’t have you going on binders, AWOL for 24 hours, and then stumbling in here piss drunk at 3 in the morning.”

“We thought you were dead, Barnes,” Sam added, clenching his jaw. “We’re on fuckin’ suicide watch, man. You’re gonna drink yourself to death over a breakup? Huh?”

Growling, Bucky reached behind himself for a pillow and hurled it at Sam’s head.

“Shut the fuck up-”

“No, Buck, Sam is right.” Steve’s brows were knitted together tightly. His eyes were sympathetic, but the rest of him was unflinching as stone. “You can’t do that again. What if you’d run yourself off the road, or gotten hit by a car?” Bucky scoffed, but Steve didn’t back down. Raising his voice he went on. “No, I really want you to think - would you be better off dead? Is that what you want? Is that what she would want?”

Eyes squeezed shut, Bucky saw her face right before him once again, her smiles, the way she used to look at him. The panic in her eyes during his parking lot showdown with Rumlow, the way she bit her lip when she was concentrating on something, how sleepy her eyes were in the mornings - each little piece of her, precious secrets he had tucked away in the hidden corners of his heart. He had thought, dreamed, that he had a lifetime to collect them all, fit all her parts together like a puzzle one piece at a time, and love every moment of it. Now, though. These lone pieces are all he has left, and they will never be enough.

What did she want? He knew only one thing for sure - that she was the only person who could say.

“I don’t think it matters to her either way, punk.”

**********

A few miles outside of town, just past the last lonely gas station, was the exit ramp to the interstate. The road had seen better years; the pavement was pitted with potholes and cracks, haphazardly patched with uneven lumps of asphalt that left drivers weaving between lanes and wondering which would do more damage to their tires. But, since this part of the state saw less traffic than other areas, infrastructure money was slow to trickle down towards repair and reconstruction.

Y/N had driven this road a handful of times - as she moved into town, and then when she had taken the drive a couple of times to visit her friends in the city. It was desolate enough to be a slightly depressing drive; nothing but scorched fields for miles on either side of the road, and the steep ditches that banked it on either side were overgrown with wispy stalks of dead grass. Overhead, a grey and overcast sky shadowed everything, promising a winter day best spent indoors.

She tuned in and out of a true crime podcast while she drove, hardly seeing the road in front of her. Her mind was too far gone on the events of the past few days - and everything she had to do with the coming ones. But there was something comforting here, in the grip of the wheel in her hands, a travel mug of coffee still steaming in the cupholder, an open road ahead of her. She felt…awake, present. Bruised, but not broken. And ready to get back up.

Of course, it shook her when a cop car pulled out of the overgrowth on the shoulder of the exit ramp, putting on speed to keep up with her. Mentally she reviewed her driving - still only 5 over the speed limit, her lights were on and working, her tags were in date. They had no reason to pull her over, she rationalized.

And they didn’t. The car stayed right behind her for the next 10 miles, quietly driving at her speed, keeping a couple car lengths’ distance between. No flashing lights, no sirens.

So why were her palms sweating?

After 20 miles, the sirens finally started blaring, blue and red flashes blinking in her rearview mirror. Despite being raised to respect the law, she felt nervous as she glanced back at the car, easing her foot off the accelerator, but not quite braking to pull over. She bit her lip, hesitating another few seconds as the alarm grew louder behind her. Her stomach clenched nervously.

Stop freaking out. You’re just worried about getting a ticket. Sucking in a deep breath through her nose, she scolded herself and gently pulled her car over to the side of the road, careful not to get too far into the muddy grass along the shoulder. Fingers fidgeting nervously on the steering wheel, she watched as the officer got out of his car and strolled up to her window at a leisurely pace. His head was shaved, and he wore dark mirrored sunglasses, in spite of the gloomy light of the day. As she rolled down her window, she squinted at his face, trying to recognize him from the adrenaline-blurred memories of the night Bucky killed Brock Rumlow - but the low slope of his cheekbones, the clean-shave, the firm-set frown are all unfamiliar to her.

“Good afternoon, ma’am,” he greeted her, one hand on his hip. It drew her eyes down towards his gun. “License and registration please.”

Instinctively, she nodded and reached towards her wallet lying in the passenger seat to dig out her license. The officer was silent, propping one hand against her car while he waited; she could hear her own heartbeat in her ears and willed herself to calm down.

Clearing her throat, she gathered her courage and spoke up.

“Excuse me, officer-” He barely glanced up from where he was perusing her car registration. “Why did you pull me over?”

He looked up at her fully at the question, shifting his stance and licking his upper lip.

“One of your tail lights is out,” he said, shoving her papers back through the window. “That’s a real safety issue.”

“My tail light…?” Her tail light - which had been changed only a month ago. She knew, because Bucky did it himself. He had always been worried about her safety; every time she was going somewhere without him, he did a full inspection of the car, testing brakes and changing the oil, going over every last inch of it and then filling up the tank with gas before she left. Last time, she’d sat in the garage nursing a cup of cider as she watched him fiddle with the lights…

She shook her head to lose the thoughts of him.

“I’m sorry, sir, but my tail lights are working just fine, I just had the bulbs changed.” She leaned forward in the seat, peering up at the officer. “Are you sure that there’s something wrong with them?”

Frown deepening even further, he crossed his arms and widened his stance.

“Ma’am, I’m going to have to ask you to get out of the car?”

“Excuse me?”

“Get out of the car, ma’am.”

“What? Why?”

“Please, just calm down and get out of the vehicle.”

“But-” her protest broke off as he shifted his stance back, one hand inching towards the mace in his belt. She glanced at her phone, sitting in the unoccupied cupholder with her aux cable connected to it. Her fingers twitched - for a microsecond, she contemplated the very bad idea of reaching for it, refusing to get out of the car, calling-calling…someone. Someone.

But surely, if she cooperated, this would all be worked out with just a minor headache, or maybe a ticket, she reassured herself. She repeated it in her head as she unbuckled her seatbelt and opened the door, climbing out of the car carefully, her hands held out to her sides where they could be seen.

Once she was out of her car, the officer took a step forward and pushed on her door, shutting it with a resounding click.

“Okay, I’m out of the car…”

“Turn around and put your hands on the hood.”

“I’m sorry, what?” she exclaimed, hearing her voice hitch in alarm. Her eyes cast up the road and back towards the exit ramps - there were no other cars in sight. No witnesses. “Am I under arrest?”

“Shut the fuck up,” he growled, out of patience. His hand went to rest on his gun now. “Turn around and put your fucking hands on the hood of the car.”

Her fists curled and she stood her ground. She willed away her thoughts of Bucky.

“No. I haven’t broken the law, you can’t arrest me for having a tail light out-”

In a blink, his gun was up and trained directly on her.

“Put your hands on the fucking car!” he yelled, loud enough to make her wince at the volume. Her thoughts tunneled on the barrel of the gun aimed at her chest.

Wordlessly, she turned and planted her hands on the cold metal, shivering in just her sweatshirt, her winter coat tossed in the passenger seat while she was driving. The tips of her fingers went numb and her eyes watered, stung by the wind. Her dry tongue pressed against the backs of her teeth - if she tried to swallow she’d choke.

“Who are you?” Her voice shook, but she managed the words. Scared and alone, but she’d fight, goddammit. She’d fight. He would want her to fight. “Who the hell are you and what do you want?”

“Shut up.” A firm, cold point of pressure between her shoulder blades as he pressed the gun against her back. There was a faint buzzing sound and then the rustle of fabric; when he spoke again, it clearly wasn’t to her. “Yes, sir?” He answered his phone. “Yes - we’re on schedule. I have the package. Will confirm when its secure and en route.”

Her heart raced wildly and her mind went white with fear. What was he talking about? This had to be some kind of mistake, a misunderstanding-

Just as she opened her mouth to speak again, the butt of his gun came down against the back of her head; her vision exploded in stars, and then faded to black as she slumped against her car. Barely conscious, she felt herself being dragged away down the road, lifted and shoved into the backseat of the squad car, unceremoniously dumped with her face down against the cold leather. The engine hummed to life; a seatbelt clicked - not hers.

“Sir?” He spoke again from the front seat. “Package is secured.”

She wondered if Bucky was coming to find her. He would, she told herself. He’d come.

And then, nothing.

[the-silentium]

Jinx Pt.2

Masterlist

Pairing: The Swedes x Reader

Words: 2260 words

Warnings: Angst, torture, blood, swears... I think that’s about it.

Tags: @jossambird​

//General//

//Reset//

//Reset all//

//Enter password//

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

//Resetting//

As the cog turned onto the screen of your iPad, you felt lighter, free of the anxiety that someone could find a way into your tablet or simply see a drawing by accident. Your fear of hurting your new family was too great, even though they had promised to never touch your device again. 

Your relationship with them only got better in the weeks following the revelation of your ability, their acceptance of who you were only increasing the confidence you had in them, leading you to open more about yourself. 

You were throwing the tablet into your bag, put on your red squared flannel coat when Oscar's impatient shout came from the entrance of the apartment. You rolled your eyes at his eagerness, clearly, you'd never understand why he loved hunting people down so much. I wasn't your favorite part of a job, your favorite being when the mission was done and you could go relax somewhere or, as of late, pass time with your new family. 

"Took you long enough." You rolled your eyes, to what Oscar fake gasped. 

"We have all the time we want, relax." Pushing your luck, you ruffled his too perfectly arranged hair, dashing to run for the car where the older brothers were waiting as he went to grab your arm. 

Hurriedly you pulled on the 1968 Ford Mustang door handle multiple times, ultimately finding it locked. 

"Shit." You muttered, the dead leaves cracking under Oscar's boots alerting you of his presence right behind you. 

"You'll regret that." He whispered into your ear, an enormous handful of leaves falling in the back of your shirt making you yelp. 

Your back curved at the rough contact, hands flying to the hems of your coat and shirt to make them fall, some of them getting stuck in the fabric despite how hard you shook it. 

Otto knocked on the window, signaling that it was time to go, your childish behavior would have to wait for later. You sigh, letting the victory to Oscar -this time-, taking place on the back seats. 

The half-hour road would have been pleasant if it wasn't of the leaves crumbles scrapping your back. You tried to ignore it the best you could by humming to the songs on the radio and ignoring Axel's glances in the rearview mirror. 

"This place would be scary at nightfall." Oscar said, whistling in admiration when you all gathered at the door of the building. 

"Good thing we are not staying here for nightfall then." A shiver ran up your spine at the idea of walking in the abandoned factory in the dark. Who knows what could be hiding in the thrashed rooms. 

Axel's hand fell on your shoulder, his gaze searching yours to reassure you that it'll be alright. He'll protect you. His lips did the tiniest of twitch when you smiled wholeheartedly at him, grateful you at least have one brother who you could trust fully to not scare the shit out of you when you'd least expect it. 

Otto snatched the keep out sign, throwing it in the bushes. Immediately, you had to suppress your instincts that were screaming at you to get out of there as fast as possible, passing your nerves as a result of Oscar's night plan. 

The silence in the building was strange, although not uncommon. You checked a room on the right for your target as Oscar checked a room on the left, regrouping with the others when you found no one. 

"Why would a guy hide in here?" You whispered to Oscar, who shrugged. Needles were lying everywhere along with broken glass, old tools, torn pieces of fabric and broken furniture. You couldn't progress as silently as you'd like, glass crunching under the sole of all your boots, rising your anxiety slightly. 

You repeated the process a couple more times, checking a room, regrouping, until a metallic door fell from the top of the door frame you just passed, right behind your back trapping you inside a windowless empty room. After recovering from the initial shock, the loud bang of the door landing on the ground almost giving you a heart attack, you tried lifting and pushing the door, not to avail. Bangings came from the other side, Oscar's muffled calls of your name barely reached your ears. 

"Oscar! Axel!" You hit the door, your worst fear coming true. "Ott-" 

A metallic noise behind you killed your brother's name in your throat, your body reacting as quickly as it could, gun at the ready. The absence of light made you press your back firmly to the door, wishing that maybe you would pass through it by some mysterious phenomenon, the incessant hits on the metal stressing you more and more. 

A soft whooshing sound caught your attention on your right, along with a pungent smell. Panicked, you slide on the door, landing on your ass to hide your face into your clothing, praying that your family would get you out of there before the gas had reason of you. You dropped your gun without wanting to, your only source of security disappearing in the dark. You sit there, hearing the banging, feeling your heart rate decreasing, your respiration slowing and you knew. You were screwed. 

"Y/N, are you alright? Kärlek!" Axel… He sounded distressed. It… made you feel… worried? 

A weird sound registered in your brain, your fingers twitching in response. You jerked as a hand grabbed your wrist, a weak scream leaving your mouth as something poked into your forearm. 

The hits on the door became louder, worried voices morphing into menacing ones. 

"Sweet dreams, agentin." The distorded voice whispered, a hand softly closing your eyelids for you since you couldn't do it yourself. 

*********

You were shivering uncontrollably, the cold air mixed with your wet clothes made it impossible for you to gain some sort of warmth. You were tired, oh so tired, but you fought. You fought as hard as you could. Against the nausea, against the cold, against the exhaustion. 

It took a while for you to get seated in the wet tiny cell, the remaining effects of the gas slowly disappearing from your system. 

"We can finally get started." 

Your head was still turning, your mind was still foggy but your instincts were still sharp. Your body moved by itself, retreating as far as it could from the voice, until binds on your wrists stopped your escape. 

"Wh-who are you?" You finally managed to open your eyes, taking in the dark humid cell you were in. Droplet of water ran onto the stone walls, gathering into small puddles where some courageous rats were drinking unbothered. The two oil lamps weren't enlightening much of the room, just enough to show you your dirty cell and all the sharp tools exposed onto the table. 

"Did you seriously think the Commission didn't have enemies?" A vicious smile stretched his lips, your blood running cold. He took out a set of keys, unlocking your cell before stepping in. 

Honestly, no. It never crossed your mind that a time-traveling company full of mercenaries could have enemies. How the hell did the guys in the Infinite Switchboard missed that?

The binds bit your skin the more you pulled on them, trying to evade his sickening form. 

"We knew you'd come for us sooner or later. We just had to set up the perfect time for agents to come do their handy work." He pulled your hair back, a disgusting smell of cigarettes assaulting your nose. "I'm glad to see that our plan worked. So einfach zu betrügen. Ein Haufen Idioten."

 You glared at him, your fear overpowered for a moment by your training, your heartbeat slowing to a steady beat, your muscles relaxing, testing the strength of your legs in an urge to hit him where it hurts. And hit him you did. 

Satisfaction flowed through you in waves at his cries of pain, the way he fell to his knees almost made you laugh. That was before the knuckles connected to your cheekbone, sending your head right into the wall. You didn't have the time to recover that hands wrapped tightly around your neck, his body straddling yours, restraining your movements. 

"No more playing around. Where is your briefcase?" 

The pressure alleviated for a second, allowing you time to spit on his face instead of talking like he wanted. He cursed in what you thought to be german before his hands tightened around your throat once more, lifting your neck to pull you back on the ground. 

Your cries were muffled by his hands, white lights dancing before your eyes. 

"How do you use them?" He yelled into your face. 

As his patience reached its limit, your lack of answer pissing him off, the shine of a knife caught your attention just before it cut slowly, steadily into the skin of your abdomen, superficially enough so you wouldn't die on him, but enough to make you think about a new way to approach the situation. 

"Maybe this will help untie your tongue." 

But it didn't, your mind deeply buried in one of your best memories to resist the pain your body was enduring. 

After a while, the pain stopped, letting in its wake an uncomfortable throbbing. You allowed yourself to return to reality, leaving the comfort of your mom's arms, your brother's teasing, your sister's giggles and your father's laugh. 

Tears flowed from your eyes as soon as your brain registered the white-hot pain, the new many cuts tainting your belly made you feel like you were burning. 

As you dug into your flesh to execute your plan, tears flowed from your eyes, and pleas from your mouth. Pleas for your beloved Swedes to find you in time, because for the first time in 16 years, you wanted to live. 

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

"Ready to talk today?" 

The man came back, lamp in hand, chasing the rats as soon as the light revealed them to the world. You'd had to hit them so they'd leave you alone, the blood under you enough to attract their hungry stomachs. 

"Ready to die?" You answered with a smirk. 

He took the bait, letting his annoyance guiding his actions. Unlocking your cell, he approached, the light of the lamp lightening the drawing on the wall, made of your very own blood. Giggles bounced around the cell as you saw his eyes taking in the monochromic illustration of himself, lying on the floor with a hole in his chest. 

"Think you're funny?" Quickly, he put the lamp on the floor, something metallic hidden in his hand. He jumped on you again, the exhaustion of your sleepless night fending off the rats making you powerless against the needle entering the vulnerable skin of your arm. 

"I guarantee you that you'll talk. I have all the time I want." He got up, grabbed the lamp and disappeared down a hallway. 

"Continue telling you that, asshole." You muttered, analyzing the hole in the crook of your elbow. "Son of a bitch." 

Without losing any precious second, you removed your coat, dipping it in the puddle on the floor and pressing it to the wall to erase your artwork, smudging the dried blood to protect any other eyes that would venture your way. 

You reduced it to a massive stain, or so you thought in the absolute darkness. 

Or was it dark? The hallway was bright again, his footsteps coming your way. 

"Not dead yet? Shame." You shot, uncaring of what you would get in return. 

"Y/N!" Oscar's voice boomed, hurting your beaten head. 

"Turn it down, dude." You whined, massaging your temple. Boots appeared in your peripheral, attracting your eyes. 

"He-"

Arms engulfed your form, tight but cautious of your bruises and wounds. 

"Jag var så orolig. Snälla säg mig att du är okej." He pulled away, eyes frantically running over your face and front. 

"Sorry, I don't speak handsome." You giggled, turning into a full-on laugh when he frowned, checking your head for bleeding. "It's so unfair." You pout. "The perfect Scandinavian stereotype. Handsome, gorgeous and cute all in the same family. Do you guys know how many women's love lives you've ruined just because they've looked at you?" 

Shit, talking so much is exhausting. Your head became very heavy, falling forward on a hard chest. 

"Vad är fel med henne?" Otto asked, bringing the lamp closer to better assess your injuries. 

"The not-so-handsomes can't understand. Not everyone speaks Ikea." Your words were muffled by Axel's shirt, which by the way, was very very soft. 

"I'm fairly sure she's drugged. Or hit her head too hard. One of the two." Oscar snickered, unlocking the chains around your wrists. 

A hum vibrated in Axel's chest, snuggling more into his body at the feeling. Arms moved under your knees and back, lifting your battered body with care, stopping when a hiss escaped you. 

"Sorry." He whispered, waiting for you to smile at him to position you better in his arms and follow his brothers out of the underground complex. 

"You can kiss it better." Your eyes found his captivating ones, his usual stern gaze now replaced by a soft one. 

"It's not you talking, Kärlek." He averts his eyes. 

"No? I wanted it for a year though, not just now." You snuggled in his neck, the tiredness finally catching up to you. You fell asleep to the sound of a frenetic heartbeat, safe in the arms of your beloved Swede.

[keelywolfe]

FIC: The Royal We ch.3 (baon)

Summary: Family helps family. Sometimes right into the path of an oncoming car.

Tags:  Spicyhoney, Kustard, Established Relationships, Angst, Hurt/Comfort

Part of the ‘by any other name’ series.

~~*~~

Read it on AO3

or

Read it here!

~~*~~

Instinct was a tricky thing, Edge knew. Occasionally useful, generally unreliable, most of his instinctual urges for fight or flight had been forcibly trained away by his brother by the time Edge was old enough to be left alone so that Red could go out and scrounge food for them. Instinct was not to be relied upon and taking an instant to assess a situation before blindly engaging meant the difference between dust and another day.

And so, while instinct was clamoring inside him to scoop Stretch directly into his arms and carry him inside, right up to their bedroom to bar the door, his brother’s training remained and allowed him the logic to know that if he tried it, Stretch would very much resent it and might revolt, taking a shortcut to anywhere and dragging Edge along on the nauseating ride as punishment. That was strain that Stretch did not need and vomit that Edge’s boots could do without. Better to side with logic and help Stretch make his slow way to the sofa.

But there was no sigh of relief when they reached it. Stretch only blindly lowered himself to the cushions. He rolled to his side, both arms clutched around his skull and a low, thin whine escaped him. Edge tried to cover him with the blanket still in his hands but Stretch flung it off almost immediately. Small wonder, there was sweat beading on his skull, pale orange running down the sides of his face to soak in where it was still buried in his sweatshirt-covered arms.

“I’m calling the doctor,” Edge said tersely. He didn’t know what was wrong, but this was past any ordinary headache. He couldn’t simply stand here and watch his husband quiver in wretched pain, already reaching for his phone. Only to hesitate as Stretch jerked half-upright, looking out from underneath his shading arms long enough to shake his head wildly before sinking back down with a wince.

“no! no, they can’t help, i just need to…i gotta tamp it back down.” Stretch let out a shuddery breath, whimpering out, “it’s been so long.”

Edge lowered himself down to the floor next to the sofa, stretching out his bad leg with a grimace; it was letting him know on no uncertain terms that he’d been standing for too long. The urge to touch Stretch, to offer some comfort, was overwhelming and likely unwelcome. Instead he gripped his phone, only loosening his hold when the case creaked ominously. “What’s been so long? How can I help?”

“can’t.” A single word, clipped and pained. Not at all what Edge wanted to hear. His phone groaned again in his hand and Edge tossed it carelessly on the coffee table. not bothering to watch it clatter to a stop. At least he could spare his devices any further trauma.

For too long he sat and watched as jerky tremors rocked through his husband. His eye lights tracing Stretch’s hands where they were clenched together over his skull, the bones bleached pale and joints taut. In tiny increments, his grip eased, his breathing slowed.

“there,” Stretch sighed out. “there, that’s…that’s better, a little better.”

“What’s a little better?” Edge asked, worried and frustrated. “What is going on here? Explain.” This was something new, an unwelcome snag in their homey life quilt, and the sudden tension that seized Stretch had nothing to do with pain. “Please, tell me, don’t leave me out of this.”

“i won’t,” Stretch whispered, low and resigned. “can’t, really.” He moved to lay on his back, one slim arm still slung over his sockets as he sighed heavily and began, every word slow, chosen with care. “i was sitting on the porch with janice when sans messaged me, asked for help. i almost said no, it’s been so long, but. it was starting to get dark and cold, i couldn’t let jude stay out any longer, not if i could help find him. so i met up with sans and we went looking for his soul.”

That gave him a pause, nothing like he’d expected, if he’d expected anything at all. “You…what?”

“we…i looked for his soul,” Stretch repeated doggedly, “gave up the job but i still have the tools. sans was already trying, but i have more magic than him, you know that much. i can see further, i had a better shot from the get-go.

“You Checked for him?” Edge asked, confused. None of what Stretch was saying made sense. Checks wouldn’t be useful in a search, the range was only a few feet and required a certain amount of focus. He reached out to feel Stretch’s skull above his blocking arm, searching his forehead for a fever. If this were some sort of pain-driven delirium, he needed to call the doctor, right now.

Stretch flinched away, cringing back into the sofa cushions. “no, no, not a check. i can see souls without pulling them. we can, judges can. only problem is you can’t really narrow the field, it’s all or nothing.” He shuddered, curling inward and swallowing convulsively, his tongue rasping dryly over his teeth. “saw too many people, too many souls, all over, while they were searching. even a glimpse is so much. just need a few minutes, y’know, s’like a watch, you gotta let it wind itself back down.”

“You can see souls,” Edge repeated, slowly, as if the words would somehow make more sense if he drew them out. But the meaning didn’t change no matter how it was said. Judges could see souls, Sans and Red and Stretch, they could see them without first pulling them free from a Monsters’ chest, they could see…they could see so much, he said. Too much.

Dawning understanding was rising, coupled with a highly unpleasant thought and nausea of his own stirred. Edge spoke without thinking, his voice preternaturally calm as he asked, “Have you seen my soul?”

“i’m not even looking at you, babe,” Stretch scoffed. Hardly his best attempt at obfuscation; his hands twitched briefly into fists before forcibly relaxing, his mandible going tight as his jaw clenched. Little tells revealing unwanted truths.

This wasn’t the time for it, his husband was still hurting, but Edge couldn’t help demanding, raw panic rising through his rigid control. “That is not what I asked, give me a straightforward answer for once! Have you seen my soul?”

The silence couldn’t have lasted more than a few breaths, a quiet eternity before a soft, pained confession, “yeah.”

Now that he understood, clarity was coming in strong waves, splashing into him and knocking him off balance, but he understood, all too well. “You saw when we first arrived here. Didn’t you.” Fresh from Underfell, his LV still boiling so close to the surface before he’d better learned to control it. Snarling at every perceived insult while it throbbed hotly in his soul, demanding kill or be killed, but not here, not in this place, never again, and Stretch had seen that, had…had hated him then, most of those insults were from him.

“yeah. i did.” Softer yet, thickly. The arm that wasn’t over Stretch’s sockets reached out, his slender hand grasping. Edge scrambled back from it thoughtlessly, nearly wrenching his ankle and ignoring the jagged protest of pain shooting up his leg. Unable to touch, not right now, not with the sourness sitting at the back of his tongue, his bitter gorge rising. His brother never told him about any of this and now Stretch was only admitting to it years later, he’d seen and he never said—

Edge closed his sockets, forcing himself to take a long, calming breath. This shouldn’t be such an issue; he’d seen Stretch’s soul a dozen times now, hypocrite that he was, held it in his hand, taken comfort from it, felt the slick welling from it in the moment of orgasm, silvery sleek against his bare phalanges. He’d seen Stretch at the very peak of his vulnerability, been given that gift time and again.

He may never have offered that in return, but Stretch had seen his soul and he was still here. Had sought Edge out from the beginning, those first cautious flirtations came even after he’d seen, even after all the ugliness already between them back then. In this world, sharing souls didn’t even hold the same level of importance, casually summoning them for doctors to treat or scientists to study. It shouldn’t be an issue and Edge wanted to say it was all right and couldn’t. “When was the last time you saw it?”

That grasping hand wilted, settling empty back on Stretch’s chest, and Edge couldn’t stifle the unwilling thought that it was close to his soul, “a little while before we started dating,” Stretch admitted, still achingly soft, “right around when i decided that i didn’t give a shit what ass-gore wanted, i was washing my hands of the whole judging biz. this is the only time it’s ever done any good for me, anyway, never felt like it ever helped anyone else, it only ever hurt them.”

“And you haven’t looked since?” Edge demanded. Not that he didn’t believe him, he did…and he didn’t, he needed to hear it. “Why?”

That barricading arm rose and Stretch looked out at him from under it. His eye lights filled his sockets, not their normal pale white but a faded orange, blearily diffused, Edge wasn’t even sure how much he could actually see, souls or otherwise, as Stretch said, simply, “you don’t want me to see it.”

The words were hardly accusatory, but Edge couldn’t stop a flinch. The urge to run away was strong, to flee…and go where? There wasn't anywhere he could go to hide what had already been seen.

Stretch said nothing, only closed his sockets again and slumped back down. Expecting perhaps to be shouted at for…not lying, not this time, but certainly a creative withholding of information. Red lying to him was nothing new, but there were a dozen times Stretch could have brought up the fact he'd already seen Edge's soul, more, any time Edge asked to see his, he could have spoken of this.

Only, Edge knew something else about lies, from his brother. At some point, the lie becomes too big, the burden barely balanced, and for Stretch to bring it up would be risking exactly this. The lie became less important than the fact that it was kept for so long. Some might consider it better to keep waiting and hope it never came up. Someone who was entirely too adept at avoiding confrontations, who hated to disappoint anyone, who sometimes gave off a façade of carelessness that was only a thin disguise for how deeply he did care.

Someone like Stretch.

"It’s ironic," Edge said at last. He felt oddly distant, speaking from outside himself. “I was just talking to Dr. Lee about my inability to show my soul to you and you’ve already seen it.”

“i didn’t mean to.” His voice was so achingly small, then louder, cautiously interested, “you saw doc lee?

“For my assessment,” Edge admitted. The shame was grounding, jarring him back to earth, and who was he to complain about a discreet withholding of information? He’d never meant to keep his visit a secret, only planned to discuss it at the right time, or so he’d told himself, for several days now. “She wants to see me again.”

“gonna go?” The words held no judgment, and Edge held back a pained bark of laughter at his own unintentional mental pun.

“Yes.”

“that’s good. she's good.”

“It is good,” Edge said roughly, “because you deserve to see my soul and not simply when you can’t help it.”

“babe, you don’t need to—"

The distance between them was abruptly wrong instead of a reprieve. Edge crawled back over to him and kissed him softly to silence him, tasting his relief as Stretch pushed into his touch. It soothed, some, but the jangling agitation in his chest was still stirring warningly hard. He wanted to be here and didn’t, he wanted to hold Stretch and push him away, a painful conflict that needed resolved. He drew away again despite Stretch’s tiny sound of protest, “I need a minute. I’m not angry at you, I promise. But I need some time to think.”

“yeah, i get it,” Stretch sagged back into the sofa. “go on, do what you gotta do. i’ll be here when you get back, i’m not going anywhere.”

An implied promise and a near threat in one and Edge cherished it. He snatched up his cane and struggled to his feet, limping outside. On the porch, he paused to tighten the straps on his leg brace. It helped, increasing the support as he started off into the cool evening. After standing in place for so long, walking felt good, the sidewalks emptier than normal even at this hour. The other joggers he occasionally saw were probably already home, the sweat built up from searching for Jude showered away and curled up for their favorite nighttime activity with their family. And here he was, alone, with the cold air against his bare skull bracing, clarifying, as he walked. Despite what he’d told Stretch, thinking was more the opposite of what he was doing. He let his mind wander, focusing on nothing at all, let the agitation swirling in his soul ease and settle. He didn’t need the violence of sparring to settle his LV, not this time.

He wandered through the empty streets, letting time pass without a gauge. Until the ache in his leg began to threaten again and his soul was calm and by then, his wandering had already taken him back to his own street. Back to his home.

When he stepped inside, he saw Stretch was curled asleep on the sofa, half-buried in the blanket. As Edge watched, he let out a faint, shuddery sound, his breath hitching. There were faint stains still visible on his cheek bones; he’d been crying, and remorse settled in. He’d needed his space, but he didn’t wanted it at the cost of more pain for his love.

Edge sat down with him, his hip on the edge of the sofa cushion, tracing one pale orange streak down Stretch’s cheekbone with a gloved fingertip. Even now, he was the loveliest thing Edge had ever seen, his sunrise and starlight together, shining brightly from a perfect soul.

Stretch stirred, his sockets drifting open and before he could even properly focus, he smiled, sleepily beautiful as he mumbled, “hey, babe.”

“Hey, yourself.”

Some of that openness closed over, shading his eye lights as he woke further, hesitantly asking, “everything okay?”

“Okay in that we’re back to the status quo, yes.” Edge stripped off his gloves, infinitely cautious of his sharpened fingertips as he gently cupped Stretch’s face, cradling it between his palms.

Stretch’s sockets went wide, unsurprisingly considering how rarely Edge touched him ungloved. That much, at least, was a vulnerability that Edge could offer him. “what do you—“

He broke off as Edge leaned in to kiss him, his sweet breath sighed out between them. It lasted longer than Edge meant, he lingered, one kiss merging into the next, the next, and he drew away with only the greatest reluctance, taking in the renewed haze in Stretch’s eye lights with satisfaction.

“I want to share my soul with you, love, I do. But I’m not ready yet,” Edge admitted. “Even knowing that you’ve already seen it I—I can’t.”

The gentle smile that softened Stretch’s mouth nearly made Edge lunge in for another kiss. “that’s okay. babe, seriously. i don’t need it. i love you, all of you, seen and unseen.” He cupped the side of Edge’s face, his thumb gentle as it ran Edge’s cheekbone, skirting along the crack that ran through it.

It wasn’t okay. Edge was no judge, but the unfairness of it grated; they should be equal partners, they should, he trusted Stretch beyond words, with his very life. And yet, showing his soul still felt like too much, an instinctive rejection of offering up his own weaknesses that even his brother’s training couldn’t overcome. As much as he hated himself for it, he couldn’t. Not yet.

But he couldn’t not give something. Stretch was touching his hands now, his blunted fingertips grazing against the slender, scarred bones, appreciating the novelty of it. That was something, but wasn’t enough, there must be some other vulnerability he could offer as proof of the measure of his trust. He had to equalize at least a little, couldn’t let Stretch bare himself down to his very essence every time and offer nothing in return.

It didn’t take much coaxing to get Stretch to shift back enough for Edge to settle next to him, nestled in as the smaller spoon. He took Stretch’s hands in his own, twining their bared fingers in a gentle knot, their wedding bands nested together in the same fashion as their bodies. “I’ve never told you why I’m afraid of spiders, have I.”

Stretch shifted, his arms briefly tightening, wary curiosity roused as he said, slowly, his warm breath brushing Edge’s skull. “no, you haven’t.”

The words were difficult, stalling unspoken on his tongue. Edge closed his sockets, and let his head fall back against Stretch’s sternum, right above where his soul would manifest if he called for it. With some difficulty, he dredged up his voice and the words came easier once they were begun, "When I was a child, my brother and I were living on the streets in New Home for a time--"

~~*~~

Some hours later, the chime of a phone woke Edge. He managed to detangle his hand from Stretch’s, fumbling out to check whatever message someone at the Embassy thought urgent enough to send in the middle of the night. But to his weary surprise, the phone he came back with was not his own, but Stretch’s.

Normally, Edge would respect Stretch's privacy and even if he didn’t, the whims of his Twitter menagerie held very little interest for him. But tonight, they’d earned their rest and he didn't want the phone to wake Stretch. He started to turn off the notifications then paused.

It was a text from Red. Another Judge and secret keeper, and Edge unlocked the phone to check it with hardly a twinge of guilt.

knock knock.

Edge considered the text, studying those words like the puzzle they likely were. Long minutes passed, then another light chime and the screen lit up.

c’mon, knock knock…please.

His brother saying please was surely a sign of impending doom. Morbid curiosity drove Edge to finally reply, who’s there.

iowa

iowa who

iowa big ass apology to you. sorry, kid.

Behind him, Stretch finally stirred, his chin digging into Edge’s scapula as he peered over his shoulder blearily, “who is it?”

"My brother. He's apologizing." And if a please meant impending doom, Edge had no idea what to make of that. Either they should be running for a bunker or buying a lottery ticket, there was no way to tell.

"hnnn,” Stretch sank back down and made a fair attempt at burrowing into Edge’s spine. Lacking that, he settled for the blanket and to be as close as physically possible, more so, Stretch did often treat time/space as less of a rule than a suggestion. “tell him he's a dick for me. a big ol' meaty one."

"I'll refrain from commenting on my brother's genitals in any capacity, if you don't mind, and tell him the apology is accepted."

“works for me.”

Edge sent the text and tossed the phone back on the coffee table. It was past midnight, they’d been asleep together for hours. “I should make something for a late dinner.”

Stretch’s grip abruptly became strangling, his slender arms more like steel. “Or I can stay here and we’ll eat later,” Edge conceded, sinking back down. The blankets were invitingly warm and so was Stretch, far more enticing than even the finest meal from the heavens, much less the leftovers in their fridge.

“good idea, glad you came up with it.”

“I have my moments,” Edge murmured, squirming loose enough to turn and rest his skull on Stretch’s chest. They’d never made it back out to the chicken coop, he realized, to see if Nugget’s persistence with her stolen egg was rewarded and how. Well, that could be dealt with tomorrow morning, along with checking in on Undyne. It seemed her baby shower would be postponed until the literal baby could attend themselves.

His drowsiness was beckoning him back down. Faintly, Edge could hear a soft throb from within the cage of Stretch’s ribs, the light, lulling pulse of his unsummoned soul, and Edge let sleep claim him again.

~~*~~

tbc

[mcrmadness]

Anxiety stuff. I just need to vent in order to calm down so don't mind about me here venting. (And just a draft doesn't feel the same, I need this OUT of my system, scream it into the void.)

I don't know what is it with my body/mind now but I'm extremely tired of whatever it is. I don't like it at all and it reminds me of the anxiety phases I have had in the past and that always gives me even more anxiety because those times have been some of the worst experiences of my life.

Currently I can't sleep. Because my heart keeps beating so hard? Like not really faster, just so hard that it feels like it's shaking my whole body. If I try to breathe long and deep, I feel like suffocating and my breathing is slightly broken(?) because the pulse feels like it punching me in the stomach meanwhile. Nothing hurts and I'm not out of breath, I'm just so sensitive to any sensation of my body that it makes me easily overwhelmed. I tried sleeping but the heart distracts me from that too much. I tried listening to a nature document meanwhile but nothing.

I'm also shaking a little. This is where the anxiety steps in. This heart beating and shaky feels happen sometimes when I eat and the blood sugar levels go up too high. I just ate about 1-2h ago so it maybe was just that. I'm currently sitting on my sofa and rocking myself back and forth which often also helps me to calm myself down and I'm already feeling better. Still I put some rye bread in the toaster, I'm not really even hungry but sometimes ALSO low blood sugar level does this same thing! In the past I have had very wild fear of low blood sugar and I have often eaten for anxiety because I cannot stand the psychosomatic symptoms of anxiety AT ALL so my first instinct was always: eat, in case it's low blood sugar and ice often had trouble telling those symptoms apart from each other.

However, I think the shaky feels are from migraine. I had quite a strong one yesterday. I had stayed up almost 24 hours, didn't drink any tea in that time and slept very weird hours and woke up at 10pm on Friday night. I already had a headache that later either turned or revealed itself to be migraine instead. I took painkillers at night but I still had mild headache but strong neck muscle pain all the way to the morning. I couldn't take another painkiller yet but went to sleep instead. I could fall asleep and slept pretty okay, on my sofa tho. The whole day after that I had this post-migraine zombie feel. Where anything physical feels bad in the neck and head and causes mild nausea. Certain posture in the neck still feels slightly painful. But I didn't have any proper headache anymore so I didn't take painkillers. It's nothing new that I feel this shaky the whole day after migraine, especially after such strong migraines. It's just my health anxiety and my tendency to become overwhelmed and overstimulated by such things that then make me to want to do nothing else but sleep, but I can't sleep because I'm so severely overstimulated. Both tire me out until I basically pass out from exhaustion.

Anxiety is not neat, especially not on worse days. I don't know what's causing this now. The days that are getting logger? Usually spring is my time and I become energetic. This year it apparently means I have so much energy I'm almost maniac and my brain doesn't care about time nor light but basically refuses to sleep more than every other night/day. And it's exhausting too. I haven't been out since last Sunday. And now is yet another Sunday morning. We're supposed to go to the supermarket today. I've been hyperfixating on creative stuff and haven't showered since Wednesday. I stink awful.

Last week I was stupid and decided to cook before doing the dishes - "I'll do them once I've eaten." WRONG. I never do the dishes after eating and cooking. Brain says "we don't need the sinks nor the dishes in next 2 weeks, no need to worry about them until that :)" Usually I do the dishes because I need SPACE. And utensils. That day I had enough of both. And this is always the result and I never learn. Now my sink is full of stuff, I have one clean plate in the cupboard and no clean utensils left. I'm too tired to take care of them and my brain is overjoyed when I can tell myself "I don't need to do them now because I've had migraine and I deserve rest." because it's a good excuse, no need to feel bad for procrastinating. Usually everything is "oh and I SHOULD do this and this and this"...

I think I feel physically awful also because migraine just affects the whole body. My neck muscles still feel awful. It's hard to explain. During migraine they basically feel like they'd suddenly start sinking in size but they're still attached to the rest of my body so it feels like the muscle would be pulled to every direction possible. And after that you feel liike you'd have spent a day in those torture machines where they stretch yours arms. Sometimes feeling sore, but usually just plain stiff. Like the whole body feels like it has turned into stone. No wonder why I feel like I can't get air from ny heart beating against my lungs if all my muscles are so stiff they're hard like stone and can't relax even that much that air could have enough space to move between my lungs and mouth/nose.

I think the heart beating was actually just high blood sugar. It's back to normal now aka I can barely feel it which is good. My neck still feels awful but I'll try to get some sleep soon. I'm starting to feel tired finally, too.

I have therapy on Monday. I hope I somehow get more sleep than just two hours before that.

[michaelgambons]

Baseline Romantic

Chapter 4

‘Shit’ she said, sitting up abruptly, the alarm temporarily forgotten.

The last night comes flooding back to her. She turned to look at Ben, still fast asleep next to her, mouth slightly ajar. He looks ridiculously good, blonde hair falling slightly over his forehead, long eyelashes fluttering slightly.

What on Earth had she been thinking? Nausea rose in her as she realised the implications of what she’d done. Not only had she slept with one of her best friends, who she was sure would normally have no interest in sleeping with her had they both not been so blackout drunk, but it had been really good sex. The best Y/N had had in ages. And then there was Dan, Y/N groaned slightly as she remembered. What on earth would she tell him? Should she tell him? What did she want? Did she want Ben?

She brushed that thought from her mind. Dan. That’s what she needed to sort first.

She swung her legs out of bed, nausea mounting. Her taxi to the station was arriving in 30 minutes, and she looked and smelt like she’d spent the weekend at a brewery.

———-

Established on the train packed full of morning commuters, Y/N opened her laptop and tried to concentrate on preparing for her meeting, but her mind couldn’t settle. Guilt overcame her; she can’t believe she’s just cheated on Dan. She would *never* cheat. It wasn’t her, she was loyal to a fault. And yet, she remembers Ben from the previous night, as she had slid his jeans down him, revealing his ridiculously pert bum, his face above hers as he pushed into her, his blonde slick with sweat. She didn’t know sex could be that good. Even though it’s an ungodly hour of the day, Y/N felt a familiar feeling aching through her body, making her shift awkwardly in her chair.

Snapped back into reality by a commuter squeezing past her, Y/N turns once again to her laptop. Her daydreams would have to wait until later. The policy document wouldn’t write itself.

———

Y/N slumped into her chair, grunting slightly as she checked the time in the bottom of her computer screen. 16:45. Just 15 minutes to go. She checked her phone for the hundredth time that day. Nothing from Dan, but 3 missed calls from Ben.

She should have replied to him, they needed to talk it out. To try and rescue their friendship before it was too late. But whenever Y/N had plucked up the courage to call him back throughout the day, something else had got in the way.

‘You look very sorry for yourself today Y/N’ Megan says, laughing as she gazed over her computer at you. ‘Good weekend?’

Y/N glanced around before she answered. She had to get this off her chest, she needed to talk to someone about it. And who better to talk to than Megan, who knew no one involved and could tell no one?

Y/N take a deep breath. ‘Mate’, she whispered, ‘I really fucked up. Big time’

Megan laughed at Y/N before realising that she wasn’t joking. Concern clouded her face. ‘What happened?’ she asks. ‘Actually’ she said , looking at her watch, ‘tell me over a pint. I’m buying.’

—————

‘Which one’s Ben again?’ Megan asked, frowning slightly, taking a sip of her pint.

They’re huddled at the back of a bursting pub full of loud businessmen in slick suits, cradling their pints.

‘The actor one’ Y/N responded. ‘Blonde hair-‘

Megan interrupted ‘-killer cheekbones? I know which one you mean. He’s fucking gorgeous. What about him anyway?’

Megan sits for a second after Y/B finished telling her story. Her silence is deafening.

‘Have you spoken to Dan yet?’ Megan asked

‘No’, Y/N responds, ‘I feel sick even thinking about it.’

‘Stop me if I’m wrong though, Y/N, but it doesn’t sound like you really want to be with Dan at the moment. No one cheats’ (Y/N recoiled slightly at the use of the phrase, still unused to hearing it directed at her) ‘because they’re happy in their relationship. It doesn’t come out of nowhere’.

Y/N sighed slightly. ‘I know. I know, it’s just... it’s easy. It’s familiar. And who knows... if I leave Dan when will I next meet someone I like? Or who likes me back? It’s such a leap into the unknown’

Megan stared at Y/N incredulously. ‘Are you seriously telling me Y/N, that you’re staying with this bloke because you’re worried you’ll never meet anyone else? Did the last weekend happen in a parallel fucking universe? You can get anyone you set your mind to. Clearly’ she said, gesturing at you, ‘you can do better than Dan’.

Y/N hummed slightly into her pint, unconvinced.

‘Anyway’ Megan says, smirking, ‘if you’re not interested in dating Ben, can you give me his number?’

—————

Y/N had finally plucked up the courage to return Ben’s calls the day after she got back from Peterborough. Sat on a park bench in her lunch break, sushi balanced on her lap, she had taken a deep breath in before tapping on his name to call him.

‘Y/N- hey!’ Ben answered on the third ring. ‘I thought you were never going to call me back’

‘I’m so sorry, it’s just been so hectic since I got back!’ Y/N lied pathetically

A silence fell between them. Neither knew how to bring up what had happened the previous night.

‘So...’ Ben started,

‘I don’t...’ Y/N started simultaneously

They laughed, which broke some of the tension. ‘You go’ Ben said.

‘I’m so sorry about last night, Ben. I don’t know what I was thinking. It was a huge mistake, I was just completely wrecked. Ive been really worried it’s going to spoil our friendship ’

There was a slight pause before Ben replied. ‘Yeah... absolutely’ he said. Y/N couldn’t help but notice that some of his bounce from earlier had faded. ‘Don’t worry about us’ he continued softly. ‘I was just worried about you!’ He paused before continuing, ‘have you told Dan?’.

‘No’ Y/N replied, ‘not yet. I haven’t really decided what I’m going to do yet. I mean it’s not like I’m in love with you or anything, it was just a drunk mistake!’ she laughed, but Ben was silent.

‘Yeah... sure. Whatever you’re most comfortable with Y/N. I haven’t told anyone, by the way, I assumed you wouldn’t want anyone to know.’

‘I’m so sorry Ben, I feel like I’ve put you in a terrible position’ Y/N replied.

‘Hey! Honestly don’t worry about it. Don’t give it a second thought’. ‘Let’s leave it there, unless there’s anything else you wanted to say. Have you heard about the new Fleetwood Mac Blues album that’s coming out? Wanna come round and listen to it together when it does?’.

Y/N put the phone down 10 minutes later, feeling relieved.

Chapter 5 now out!

https://michaelgambons.tumblr.com/post/622841467806826496/baseline-romantic

[spookyspaghettisundae]

Bullets Only Buy Time

Loud rap music thumped from the radio inside the car. Some old stuff from the ‘90s, but it all blended together. The smell of weed smoke hung heavy in the thick clouds, billowing out of the cracks framing the vehicle’s windows. The dead of night made way to the deep blue twilight of dawn.

Still, that uneasy feeling weighed down his gut. Tension in his torso, like every muscle was so taut, steeling itself like tissue constantly only seconds away from cramping up. He did not quite feel sick to his stomach, but even his insides felt weird, tingly. D-Baser took a long drag from the blunt and passed it over to the younger man beside him, on the driver’s seat: Kid Lizard.

No matter how many times he had staged these takeovers, it never got easier. D-Baser had checked his guns more than once. Nothing ever took off the edge. Drive-bys were usually easier to keep some mental distance to.

Knowing you were gearing up to kill some people? Up close and personal? Always the tougher deal.

He checked his sub-machine guns again.

Lizard arched a brow and let his disdainful look sweep up and down the guns resting in D-Baser’s lap and hands.

“You keep checkin’ that shit like that, it’s gonna fall apart from wear 'fore we even walk in that sorry-ass joint,” he told D-Baser. “'Sides, we’re gonna need some special toys for this crazy mothafucka.”

D-Baser clicked his tongue, shook his head.

Lizard’s nostrils flared and smoke shot out of them like jets, like a dragon’s breath. He held the blunt back out to D-Baser.

“I got some tequila in the back if this ain’t enough to calm yo nerves,” Lizard told him.

D-Baser clicked his tongue and shook his head again. He rolled down his window, letting some of the heavy cloud of smoke escape. Cooler morning air poured inside, carrying the salty smell of the sea. Almost soothing. He had come to love that smell and had even missed it a bit.

“A'ight, suit yourself,” Lizard said in a high-pitched tone, smirking. He took another long drag from the blunt and placed it in the ashtray. “Might change yo mind later.”

D-Baser was doing his damnedest to zone out. He could not stand this sort of casual talk. Never liked the way some of the other muscle in their crew—especially younger ones like Lizard—did all their little rituals of chest-pounding and braggadocio to get themselves in the right mindset to walk into a place, guns blazing, and waste some sorry motherfuckers.

Unlike them, he fancied himself more Zen. Turning inward, almost like meditating. Not that he cared to learn anything so spiritual—out of respect towards ancient traditions—but just because it worked better for him. Accordingly, D-Baser’s focus blurred as he stared blankly ahead of himself.

“Shit, man, I need you on top of yo game tonight,” Lizard said. He slapped D-Baser on the chest with the back of his hand to tear him out of his trance, earning himself a glare of contempt from his homie. “I’m tellin’ ya, this one’s gonna be a weird one.”

He pointed at the five-story apartment building they had parked outside of, across the road. The silver rings on Lizard’s hands glinted in the dim light from the rising sun.

“Why the fuck are we waiting till it’s light out, anyway?” D-Baser asked him with a sneer. “The heat’s response is faster like this. What the fuck is the boss thinkin’?”

Lizard stopped pointing. His attempts at acting cool melted away and he had likely forgotten whatever he wanted to say. A lop-sided smirk stayed plastered to his face, revealing gold-plated front teeth that sparkled in the rays of morning sunlight.

The fiery ball rose across the horizon, blood-red and slicing through distant clouds.

“He didn’t tell ya nothin’, huh?” Lizard said. It did not sound like a question.

D-Baser averted his gaze and stared at the horizon. Seeing it always gave him a weird sense of nostalgia—marveling at that same vista of the morning sun as it bathed the silvery skyline of all the towering high-rises in all manner of beautiful colors, and the broken dreams it painted in his memories—mixed with the misery and death he had seen ever since and authored with his own two hands.

Those hands looked clean right now. Scrubbed them clean plenty of times before. Palms marked with wrinkles and lines, some scars from knife cuts and other scratches. How long had he been in the game already?

Another backhanded slap to his chest from Lizard brought him back. He glared at his homie again, and the tension started making way for anger. The red heat welling up in his belly rose and almost reached his hands, almost made them curl up to strike back as a little lesson.

But he appreciated it—the anger was good now. It balanced out the tension somehow.

Lizard still grinned at him like an asshole and opened the driver’s door, getting out.

“C'mon, lemme show you the toys. Yo peashooters only gonna help you so much today,” Lizard repeated.

He rounded the car to approach the trunk. The sigh that escaped D-Baser rattled out into a groan and he followed suit. The hip hop track thundering away inside their car resonated outside of it, and only know did he really consider that their targets in the block across the street might be aware that they were there.

Thick, heavy curtains masked the insides of the building. In the small cracks between them, only darkness lurked behind grimy windowpanes in desperate need of proper cleaning. That darkness stared back at D-Baser. Like something or someone in there watched.

Watched him.

He tore his gaze off the windows and the eerie absence of anybody behind them and looked at the contents of the open trunk. Lizard had already popped the lid and made a sweeping gesture with his hand, like some sort of goofy stage musician presenting his main act.

D-Baser had to look twice. He did not quite believe what he was seeing. He had expected an overkill of guns and ammo back here.

Not this.

Arrays of pointy silver rods, wooden stakes, diamond-encrusted and gilded crucifixes, mean-looking machetes, and small plastic vials with cheap stickers depicting the Holy Mother Mary.

“Yo, what the fuck is this?” he asked Lizard.

D-Baser picked up one of the sharp-tipped silver rods and weighed it, surprised by how heavy it was.

“Yo, put that shit down,” Lizard cautioned him, shoving his hand and the stake back down towards the trunk and looking around to see if anybody had seen it.

D-Baser glared at him and resisted, shaking the silver stake at him.

“What’s this Dracula shit? You fuckin’ kidding me here? Y'outta your fuckin’ mind?”

Lizard’s grin widened, so much so that it had to hurt. His gold-plated teeth drew D-Baser’s attention again, the engravings of the letters forming “LOVE” upon them on full display. D-Baser hated Lizard’s look so much. Such pretentious, flashy bullshit.

“Boss said we’d be needin’ this. That’s why we’re waiting for sun-up, yo. I’m baffled he didn’t tell you nothin’,” Lizard said, the pitch in his voice rising with each sentence.

D-Baser rolled his head, letting his neck emit some cracks. Lizard patiently awaited his response.

“I just got back from a gig outta town, haven’t met up with the boss since I got back. You seriously tellin’ me the boss thinks that Marv and his boys are fucking Draculas or somethin’?”

Lizard cackled, asking, “You been seein’ that pretty piece o’ meat on the other side o’ town? I get it.”

“Whatever—get off my ass. Answer my fuckin’ question, foolio.”

Lizard’s wide, shit-eating grin slowly crumpled, reverting to the former lop-sided smirk until it fully faded from his face. Something dark flashed in his eyes.

“Yeah, boss said this, all serious-like. Like, he slapped the shit outta OGC when he started ripping into him with jokes about his Nosferatu rant.”

Lizard was dead serious. D-Baser read it clear as day, mirroring how the warmth from the morning sun was spreading throughout his limbs as it hit upon his skin. You could not make this crap up.

Now the nausea set in.

“You gotta be fuckin’ kidding me,” D-Baser muttered.

No reply from Lizard. D-Baser took a deep breath and weighed the metal stake in his hand again.

“Well, fuck. Is this like the movies? Bats, stake through the heart, heads off, garlic, and all that shit?”

Lizard grabbed a stake, some holy water, a cross, and one of the machetes, sticking the objects into his belt and pockets.

“Not gonna lie, homie. I don’t think the boss really knows himself. He sent me and Noize around town to round all this shit up and he didn’t seem to really have a specific plan.”

D-Baser stared at Lizard. The anger dissipated. He was not mad at this kid anymore.

“Shit. Boss finally fried his brain with some of the hard shit? I saw some shit outta town, but this is the whackest shit I’ve heard or seen all my fuckin’ life,” D-Baser said.

He felt like he was standing beside himself, like he was listening to himself speak. All of this was surreal in so many ways. So unsettling that, rather than sinking in, he was slipping out of his own body for a spell. Whatever he was preaching to Lizard right now, it reached his own ears with delay, like it had to pierce through a fog in his mind first. Everything he said, he said it more for himself than anything else.

Kid Lizard was still just a kid, as far as D-Baser was concerned. Sending them in broad daylight, armed with vampire hunting “toys"—as Lizard had aptly put it—to make a hit on some lowlife punks trying to muscle in on their turf?

Whatever unhinged crap the boss was sending them to do, doing it like this was bound to get the kid killed.

Then D-Baser looked up. That darkness behind the windows of that apartment building, it still loomed. Looked back at him, like something there stared at him with burning malice. The heavy bass continued to thump from inside their car, the blunt smoke had all escaped from it, his vision of the block unobscured.

The darkness, it leered. Lusted.

Lizard stayed silent.

D-Baser wondered right then and there if he was not losing his own mind. The tension was fully back, and he stuck one of the silver stakes into his belt. Crammed two of those ridiculously cheap-looking plastic holy water vials into his pocket and snatched one of the machetes, cradling its grip in his palm for a moment.

"Gotta be fuckin’ kidding me,” D-Baser repeated, muttering again. “Need to have some serious words with the boss after this shit.”

Lizard slammed the trunk shut and made his way back to the driver seat where he grabbed his guns.

“Sun’s up, my man,” Lizard remarked.

D-Baser returned to the car’s front as well but pushed past Lizard and grabbed the blunt from the ashtray, firing it up with his lighter again in one fluid motion, and taking a deep, long drag.

Blowing the smoke back out sounded like a hurricane to him, drowning out the thunder of his own heartbeat in his ears, the blood pumping furiously in it, carrying an appetizer of adrenaline to come. He felt it in his bones. The music still droned, though the rapping rhymes barely got through to him in any comprehensible fashion.

It did nothing to remove the edge. If anything, D-Baser felt even worse than before. Muscles so taut they felt like steel being bent to the point of snapping. His stomach had made a 360-degree twist and he counted his blessings that he had not had a bite to eat all night, or it would have probably splattered out onto the dirty curb right about now.

Where he looked at the asphalt, where sidewalk and street met in gritty marriage, he almost saw that imaginary spray of projectile vomit. Then his mind’s eye replaced it with splatters of blood.

D-Baser looked at Kid Lizard. Lizard shot him another stupid grin, theatrically brandishing his pistol and machete like some idiot posing for a lousy movie’s promo poster.

He did not even have it in him to sigh at the kid. Deep down, he knew this was not going to end badly. Lizard was going to die.

And while he silently refused to believe that vampires were real, the shadows behind those windows, leering inside the building, that darkness maintained their oppressive air. Like the curtains were hiding some ominous presence. His mind refused to combine the thoughts of some goons like Marv and the fictional concept of vampires.

Then again—had they ever seen him out in daylight?

D-Baser tossed the blunt away and leaned inside to grab a sub-machine gun. He checked it again, assuring he could shoot some motherfuckers.

“Fuck it. Let’s go kill Dracula.”

He marched towards the building with newfound determination, tightly gripping the weapons in his hands. Lizard followed with delay, taken aback by D-Baser’s fierce pace and sudden burst of determination. This was how his generation rolled.

Vampires, no vampires—did not matter one lick, all just some dumb motherfuckers who needed wasting. That was the way of this city. That was his way.

As these things always did, time slowed down and sped up in equal measure. Like a blur, D-Baser acutely registered every small detail around him and yet none of it really breeched his consciousness, waiting with unholy patience to crash down on him once his day’s work was done.

Kicking in the door, wood splintering and something smashing into a glass table, hostile reaction waited. Crept around the shadows for a few seconds. The dust had yet to settle around D-Baser as he stood inside the entrance, gun raised, allowing his eyes to suggest to the dark premises within.

Then the hissing started. People inside, hissing at him like feral cats.

The sub-machine gun’s muzzle roared to life with flashes of light, unleashing bullets all at three different targets. Figures lunged at him, leapt at him from several directions. He barely swiveled, bracing against the recoil with years of experience and training the sleek little steel weapon on each of them, gunning them down like anybody else.

One of them twitched after eating a dozen shots. Then another. He only realized after the fact that sharp fingernails had scratched his leg from the floor where one of them dropped. He rammed the metal stake right into a rib cage.

Not as deep as he had hoped. It thrashed and clawed at him, fingernails scratching up his shirt and skin like little knifes. The struggle was on, thrashing against each other as a person riddled with ten bullet holes wrestled with D-Baser at the door.

Kid Lizard was somewhere inside now, screaming, dragged through the darkness of the room by two figures, the motes of dust dancing in the meager light pouring in through the front door.

The third one had gotten up faster than D-Baser had expected, and the searing pain of fangs piercing the flesh, and blood being sucked out—it all hurt like hell.

Gritting his teeth, he did not scream. He would not. Did not want to give this creep the satisfaction. He instead slammed the vamp into the doorframe and then threw himself out with it into the sunlight.

D-Baser groaned with pain as the human figure clinging onto him—fangs sunken deep into his shoulder—exploded into flames. The fire licked at him and burnt his skin, wracking his body with searing pain. D-Baser shouted and kicked and flailed around, throwing the creature away from him, sending it rolling onto the sidewalk where she went up in bright flames like a dry bale of hay.

His own clothing had not caught fire, fortunately. Unfortunately, judging by the phenomenon he was witnessing right now, vampires were real after all.

D-Baser did not really have the capacity to concern himself with such thoughts right now, though.

Lizard’s screams behind him had died down and made way for pained, gurgling noises, orchestrated and punctuated by what sounded like wet bags of meat slapping against hard counters. Or flesh tearing. It was not like D-Baser was familiar with this sort of noise. Motherfuckers he normally dealt with tended to use guns and knives, not claws and fangs.

Emitting a string of profanities as he shot a glance down at the deep wound on his shoulder, from which blood rhythmically and menacingly pumped out, D-Baser ejected the clip from his gun and he inserted a new one to replace it with a motion reflecting his callousness and routine.

The gurgles from inside the apartment briefly sounded like Lizard was whimpering and pleading for his life.

D-Baser’s gun flared up with more automatic fire, short burst after burst peeling the horrific monsters off Lizard’s mangled, twitching, half-dead body. The vamps only reeled; the bullets only bought tiny windows of time. The stakes were not as effective as D-Baser instinctively believed.

A glint of sunlight flared up off the surface of the machete as he slung it out of its place on his belt.

More work to do.

Always work to do for men like him, in a city like this.

—Submitted by Wratts

[thelibraryofhell]

Pretentious and Cringy: RoseBlood

For our very first condemnation to this library, we are given RoseBlood by A.G. Howard. Follow the read more for a full count of its sins and stupidity. Warning: it gets long.

This doesn’t count as a sin but great Satan the damn description is way too long! This was likely not the author’s choice though which is why it gets a pass.

This YA novel from New York Times bestselling author A. G. Howard marks the beginning of a new era for fans of the Splintered series. Rune Germain moves to a boarding school outside of Paris, only to discover that at this opera-house-turned-music-conservatory, phantoms really do exist. RoseBlood is a Phantom of the Opera–inspired retelling in which Rune’s biggest talent—her voice—is also her biggest curse. Fans of Daughter of Smoke and Bone and the Splintered series will find themselves captivated by this pulse-pounding spin on a classic tale. Rune, whose voice has been compared to that of an angel, has a mysterious affliction linked to her talent that leaves her sick and drained at the end of every performance. Convinced creative direction will cure her, her mother ships her off to a French boarding school for the arts, rumored to have a haunted past. Shortly after arriving at RoseBlood conservatory, Rune starts to believe something otherworldly is indeed afoot. The mystery boy she’s seen frequenting the graveyard beside the opera house doesn’t have any classes at the school, and vanishes almost as quickly as he appears. When Rune begins to develop a secret friendship with the elusive Thorn, who dresses in clothing straight out of the 19th century, she realizes that in his presence she feels cured. Thorn may be falling for Rune, but the phantom haunting RoseBlood wants her for a very specific and dangerous purpose. As their love continues to grow, Thorn is faced with an impossible choice: lead Rune to her destruction, or save her and face the wrath of the phantom, the only father he’s ever known.

That first paragraph would have sufficed for description and given the reader some mystery. The second could have stayed but it’s on thin ice. And we don’t have ice in hell. 

To summarize the story: Rune Germain is a 16-17 year old girl from Pleasant, Texas who is, in her own words “possessed by music”. Thanks to a rich aunt and some nepotism, she gets the chance to go to RoseBlood, a conservatory in Paris that is a refurbished opera house that, according to Rune’s online research, is the place where Gaston Leroux’s Phantom Of The Opera story really took place. Upon arrival, Rune is immediately overtaken by music and makes an enemy in Katrina Nilsson by interrupting Kat’s audition for Renata in the school’s opera. She also makes friends with a few other students who really have no bearing on either the plot or Rune’s adventures. She eventually finds her Love Interest Thorn - real name Etalon, stalking her as she goes about her day to day life, and immediately falls in love with him because they are Twin Flame and Destined by Destiny. It is soon enough revealed that Rune, Thornalon, and Erik are all psychic vampires that must feed off humans to survive. It is also soon revealed that Rune and Thornalon are Christina Nilsson’s soul reincarnated and split and that Rune “has Christine’s voice”. It also turns out that Christina and Erik got married and tried to have a child who was born premature and died. Erik was driven mad(der) by the child’s death and somehow, in the 1900′s, managed to build a contraption that kept the baby “alive” until he could track down Christine’s soul and reunite the pieces and transfer it to the baby... Needless to say, he failed, Rune and Thornalon live happily ever after, and Rune suffers no consequences from any of her terrible actions through the whole novel.

Sin count time!

Sin 1: The school name! RoseBlood.  What does it have to do with anything? There are bleeding roses later in the story but why would a school name itself RoseBlood? This choice is never explained. It has no French basis, no connection to the opera-house turned school, and no connection to Gaston Leroux’s original Phantom Of The Opera.

Sin 2: Overwrought descriptions right out of the gate.

At home, I have a poster on my wall of a rose that’s bleeding. Its petals are white, and red liquid oozes from its heart, thick and glistening warm. 

Mom looks out her window where the wet trees have thickened to multicolored knots, like an afghan gilded with glitter.

I trace the window now curtained by mud, imagining the glass cracking and bursting; imagining myself sprouting wings to fly away through the opening—back to America and my two friends who were tolerant of my strange quirks.

These are all from chapter one. It only gets worse as you go.

Sin 3: Racism. Main character Rune Germain regularly describes herself as a “gypsy”. According to her, on her father’s side, she’s a g*psy. Moving through this review, I will be censoring the word. I’m a demon of hell, not a piece of shit. Rune never says Roma or Romani in the entire book. There’s no references to Romani culture, nothing about the problems Romani people face in the modern day, nothing. Rune is also as white as a piece of paper. You can see it on the cover

And in how she describes herself.

People say we could pass for sisters. We share her ivory complexion, the tiny freckles spattered across the bridge of her nose, the wide green eyes inside a framework of thick lashes, and her hair—black as a raven’s wings.

If you look up pictures of Romani people, you see that they’re far from ivory skinned. 

It’s not only Rune. Her Aunt Charlotte does it too. The “Phantom” does it. And Roma culture is treated very poorly throughout the novel. Rune several times refers to her “g*psy blood” as “cursed” or “terrible”. One example:

Nausea sweeps through me at the thought. After our encounter, I realized why I was enchanted by the spider’s feeding rituals, that there was something in my g*psy blood—something tainted and wrong.

In this modern day and age, can’t humans stop demonizing and stereotyping an entire culture? Or using “half-g*psy” lineage to make characters “exotic” or “mystic”? No? Fine, I’ll see you down here eventually. 

Sin 4: The Love Interest’s backstory..... TRIGGER WARNING FOR FURTHER DISCUSSION OF RAPE, CHILD TRAFFICKING, AND REFERENCED CHILD SEXUAL ASSAULT.

Rune’s Love Interest is named Etalon. His mother was sexually assaulted by a psychic vampire who is apparently from Canada - I have no idea why Howard felt the need to include that - and it ruined her life to the point where she was forced to turn to prostitution to feed herself and Etalon. A man kept trying to “buy” Etalon from her because he was beautiful. She kept refusing, and eventually, she was murdered. Etalon was quickly snatched up into child trafficking where, at one point, he was forced to drink lye water to damage his vocal cords because he wouldn’t stop singing. He eventually escaped when Erik found him and took him in, renaming him Thorn. 

Love Interests with tragic backstories are a staple of the YA genre. It makes them mysterious and interesting. It often drives the main character’s interest in the aloof and unusual bad boy. Quite often, these backstories involve dead or missing parents, being turned into a vampire or werewolf, or some combination of all of these things. It’s very rare that it gets so real. Child trafficking is a very real and prevalent issue in the world and it needs attention brought to it. But not like this. Using it as a character’s backstory is something that takes a level of skill Howard simply does not have. It needs to be written with respect to victims who might read it and not just be used to give characters a compelling but otherwise unused backstory. Thornalon never displays any indicators that the time spent in this situation traumatized him. There’s no signs of PTSD or other mental health issues that might arise from what he went through. There’s also no signs that Howard donated any money from book sales to charities like Child Fund, Save The Children, or ECPAT-USA. This is a very serious topic that NEEDS more attention brought to it and Howard glossed over it like it was nothing. 

Sin 5: Underutilized setting.  Rune comes from Pleasant, Texas and moves to Paris, France. But there’s no sense of wonder from her. She never talks about how beautiful the city is or learning French. Supposedly, the school only admits American students.

“How many foreign boarding schools offer admittance only to American kids? This is a rare opportunity . . . a taste of French culture in a setting that feels like home.”

Oooor the author couldn’t be bothered to deal with French translations or expanding the student body to include a diversity? There’s no French culture anywhere in this book. Any time Rune goes into Paris, it’s skipped over. There’s nothing about it that says Paris. It could have been set in New Jersey and it wouldn’t have made much of a difference. 

Sin 6: Each chapter begins with a quote from a different author and work. Including, weirdly enough, Karl Marx... Beginning a chapter with a quote is fine, but it should be consistent. Picking a single work or author to use helps to reader see a consistency in the theme of the book. Since this is a Phantom of The Opera based story, it would make sense to use quotes from the book. Instead, the author uses a different work for each chapter, and it’s honestly just annoying. 

Sin 7: All promise, no pay off. This book has a promise of action and mystery. It’s got a fabulous premise and a setting that could be beautifully used if in the hands of the right author. But it misses the mark on good characters, action, and keeping a consistent pace. 

Punishments: For being tone-deaf and generally bad at writing, author A.G. Howard is condemned to have the dead tree in her backyard become home to her state’s buzzard population. For being a terrible protagonist, Rune Germain is condemned to find a mistake in the middle of her knitting projects just as she is about to finish them. For the terrible Phantom Iteration known as Erik, we condemn his instruments to always be just slightly out tune. And Thorn/Etalon... we order you to get a lot of therapy and a service dog. 

So let it be recorded. Today’s story time is concluded. 

[sneezysmonsterlovin]

Alien Boyfriend: Yunko  Part 1

Not edited because yawn

Warnings?: Uh brief mention of death? Blood, but like really minor. I think that’s it.

Summary: You and your crew were shot down after returning from a rescue mission, and crash on an unknown planet. You find yourself waking from homeostasis, and are taken in by a pair of strange scavengers. 

Word Count: 2,519

The faint smell of something burning wakes you. Slowly opening your eyes, you feel something tight strapped your face. Something shatters not far from where you lay, muffled by the leathery belts wrapped around your head. You startle, sitting up quickly. Or, you would if your bones hadn’t felt like complete jelly. Your arms barely twitch, and you don’t think you can feel your legs.

Squinting in the dark room, you searched for the source of the noise. It was difficult, laid across an unknown slimy substance in a dimly lit room. The room was small, and you could see four giant glass containers, a dark black smoke slowly curling out the side of the one to your right. The air felt thick, and the more you breathed in the dizzier you felt. Struggling to turn your head, you felt a sharp pain in the back of your neck and you winced, freezing. A sharp piece of, what you assumed to be, glass dug into the back of your skull, the wet ooze below you seeping into the cut. “Oh no!” The high pitched shrill was somewhere behind you, accompanied by the click clacking of nails against the floor. A pair of hands clutched your shoulders, nails- no they were much to large, they were more like talons- dug into the cotton fabric clinging to your body. A second pair cradled your head, lifting it off the sludge and glass, and you gasped at the sight in front of you.

One of the glass containers, the one in front of you, had burst open. The one beside it had similar cracks in the surface, save for a single blackened hand hanging out of the largest breach, dripping in blood. The similar ooze that had stuck your legs and arms like glue as you were lifted was filling the other two containers that had not yet busted.

“Are you alive? Wait, that’s a dumb question, I meant are you okay?” The voice was closer now, beside your ear. You watched in silent horror, not able to move anymore than you were before, as a hand left your shoulder and reached towards your face. It was white, with two long curved talons and a smaller talon centered perfectly in the center of the hand. A black wristband strapped around it’s arm, covered slightly by a blue fluff that bellowed out into giant black feathers, shaping a gorgeous wing. The talons wrapped delicately around your mask and tugged, the leather straps loosening easily and dropping from your face. An oxygen mask, you noted briefly, before the hand tossed it away like trash and turned you gently.

You held your breath, stomach lurching as you were turned to face the alien creature whom cradled you in it’s arms like a fragile doll. It was smaller than you, not by much but it was noticeable. It’s head was round, lips hardened and black in what resembled a beak. Skin just as white as it’s hands, the blue fluff had trailed its way up the creatures arms and covered its body, it’s face clear reminding you vaguely of a monkey, with a few flecks of what you realized to be scales outlining it’s cheeks. The side of it’s head was shaved, a single black line-Tattoo?- sliding around the side of it’s head, curving around it’s cheek and stopping at the chin. In place of ears were small, bean shaped holes, and as your head drooped to the side you noticed it’s loose white collared tank, a second pair of arms sprouting closer to it’s stomach. The pair that had once cradled your head, you realized as the aforementioned hands trailed down your shoulders to wrap around your torso and thighs, the larger pair of arms supporting your neck and knees. “Right, I’ll get you to the med room. I can’t believe you survived so long, this ship must’ve been abandoned for a while if the rust is any indication.” You picked up a faint masculine tone to it’s voice, with a more apparent tone of muscles that pressed against your side as it lifted you easily. You were left with no other choice but to watch your surroundings as the creature carried you out of the room.

The ship was familiar, and as the alien practically skipped through the halls, you faintly recalled boarding it. You and your crew had just returned from transferring a group of refugees to a safe-zone when something had shot you down. In a rush to try and preserve yourselves, your crew had went into homeostasis. Tears pricked at your eyes following another rush of nausea as you realized who that hand from before had belonged to, and you tried your best to blink them away with a shaky breath. The woman had been like a second mother to you, having taken several bullets for you and you had trusted her completely. Your heart clenched, the blood rushing your cheeks as you choked a single, quiet sob. It had sounded horrid, voice croaky and broken, and the vibrations against your throat felt foreign. The creature- it seemed rude to just refer to it like that but you really had no clue what species it was, humans had only encountered two other intelligent alien species and neither had resembled this one. His feathers bristled at the noise you had made, and its tight grasp faltered. You noticed it staring at you out of the corner of your eye, but as the airlock opened and revealed the planet you had crashed on, you really could care less. Well, that’s not true, it was slightly unnerving to have those bright golden eyes, three of them, fixated entirely on your being. But as you stared out at the cold desert that seemed to stretch on forever, the horizon only breaking upon reaching a smaller ship then the one you had just been on,one that was sleek and black, with green lights and a curious logo stamped on the side of three eyes and tiny square just below it.

The wind seemed to be colder than the air itself though, and the warm fluff that was so tightly tugging you against it distracted you. The creatures pace picked up, and you reached the space ship in no time, door opening automatically at your-well, the aliens-presence. You noticed it smelt strongly of something familiar, but you couldn’t quite place it. And as the alien stepped farther up the stares, you noticed the creature smelled just the same, albeit a bit stronger.

The creature continued into the ship, the door slowly shutting itself behind it, and a voice echoed throughout the metal structure. It was clearly robotic, and spoke in a tongue that was just as strange as this whole incident. The alien cooed at you, seeming to find your expression shift into one of confusion amusing, and kept up his fast-paced skip walk. The ships insides were very open, a table centered in room with several stools nailed to the ground around it, twice as many doors lining the wall. A brief glance to the left of the table revealed the ships control room, but you only got a small glimpse of the many flashing buttons and lights before the alien had brought you through on of the doors on the far side of the room, one that was filled with several black beds, iron bars lifted just so slightly to keep patients from rolling off. There were plenty of cabinets and jars of different liquids with a language that you assumed was the one that the ships voice had used stamped onto the white tags taped to their sides.

“My name is Yunko, I’m a scavenger. You’re pretty lucky, you know.” The alien gently rested you on the bed nearest to the far wall, propping you up on a pillow that held the same texture and consistency as a bean bag, molding to your back like jello but stiff enough to hold you up. Yunko turned, resting one of his lower hands on the wall that faded from its plain silver metal into a sort of window, the gray sand and soft brown sky catching your eyes once again. “Your life pods were about to blow. Actually, they did, the liquid that was in yours just seemed to manage to protect you from most of the blow. Pretty cool. You’re pretty cool too, I’ve never seen something like you.” Yunko turned, and you watched in surprise as the scales that lined his eyes, cheeks, and nose turned a beautiful shade of orange. “I mean, someone. I think. My translator is active, so I’m assuming you’re capable of speech.” The orange lightened. and shifted back to the previous snowy color, and you almost wished he’d stayed the breathtaking color forever. You assumed it was a he, at least. It seemed rather masculine, although it is an alien so who was to tell.

“You should get some rest, I’ll be in the other ship, doing my job.” Yunko shrieked, and you concluded that it was in amusement. “As soon as you can move, you just come find me and we’ll run some tests to see if I have anything for you to eat.” With that, Yunk swiftly turned, skipping out of the room happily. Your gaze flickered down and realized that he wore a tight pair of silky pants that tightly hugged his bird-like legs, and peaking out of the bottom of his shirt was a pair of long black tail feathers. Gaze trailing even lower, you caught a glimpse of his strange feet, and realized that his skip-walk was due to a slight limp he had in his right leg, caused most likely due to a lack of talon on the inside of his clawed feet, throwing off his balance. You mused briefly that he looked kind of cute in the baby animal kind of way, before closing your eyes to ponder all that has happened.

You didn’t see Yunko again until what felt like hours later, spending your time mourning your lost friends and past life, very much aware of the fact that you might never see any of it again now that you’ve been stranded for who knows how long, and picked up by some random alien scavenger, that admittedly wasn’t as bad as you first feared. You were still a little worried he might turn out to just want to eat you- it wouldn’t be the first time you met an alien that saw humans as another food source rather than a fellow intelligence, but he was really your only hope. Your ship, if the gaping holes and smell of death were anything to go by, was in no condition to fly, and Yunko seemed nice enough. The thought that he might eat you was quieted when you realized if he wanted to do such a thing, he needn’t get you back to full health to do so, unless it was a weird alien ritual.

You weren’t tired, and felt restless to get out of bed, so as soon as you got feeling back in your legs you pulled yourself over the cold iron, only to regret it afterwards as you tumbled to the ground, your muscles not used to being used in such a long time. The sound of something clattering to the ground in the other room surprised you, and you looked up just in time to watch as the doors flew open and a new creature stormed in. This one was much larger than Yunko, and by extension, you. It had only one arm though, the spot the other would be covered in plenty of scars. He was completely scaly. except for a metal jaw and long red hair pulled back into a bun. He wore a tight sleeveless black suit, a gold belt hung loosely from his thin hips. He didn’t wear shoes either, his feet ending in a pair of hooves. His ears were pointed and droopy, a lighter shade of lavender than the rest of his body.

For a brief while, you simply stared wide eyed at the alien as he seemed to speak to you in the language from before, and he only paused when he seemed to realize you couldn’t understand him. His shoulders slumped and he raised a hand to his jaw, and you watched as he spoke once again. “She’s awake? Oh! Just stay right there! I’m just about finished, and then we can take off!” You realized the alien had called Yunko, as the bird man prattled on through the speaker, loud clashes of metal softly made its way through the speaker-er, the aliens jaw.

Said creature seemed to look exhausted as it made it’s way towards you, towering over you with such an intimidating presence you didn’t bother fighting as he plucked you up by your waist and made his way out of the room. The alien surprised you as he gently turned you over in his grasp, gently placing you onto one of the stools instead of dropping you like you had expected. He then turned without a second glance at you and made his way towards the control room.

You sat in silence, kicking your legs and every so often pressing your weight onto them, waiting for Yunko to arrive and break the uncomfortable silence that hovered like a storm cloud throughout the room. You could still see the other aliens muscly arm as it moved about the controls, and wondered quietly if every scavenger was as strong as these two.

Yunko didn’t take much longer to return, speeding through the archway that led to the common room with several bags tossed over his shoulders. Upon seeing you, he placed them down by the door, and rushed over like an excited child.

“You’re up! How are you feeling?” He trilled, talons clicking together when he leaned over the table to peer at your face.

“Okay...” You croaked, scrunching your nose once more at the uncomfortable feeling talking had caused. Yunko didn’t seem to notice, and simply tilted his head in interest at your expression. You briefly realized neither he nor the other alien made any real facial reactions, Yunko’s face stoic other than the occasional squinting, and the scarred alien having a literal jaw of steel, leaving not much room for any expressions in the first place.  

“You sound horrid.” Yunko stated simply. “But I guess I can’t imagine every alien to sound as darling as I.” He straightened, before looking over at the alien in the control room. “That’s Ciks. He looks plenty scarier than he actually is, don’t worry.” Yunko turned to look at you once again, eyes squinting as another birdlike shriek tore through his throat. The noise surprised you, as it did the first, and you couldn’t help but giggle quietly at the sudden noise. Yunko stared at you wide eyed, mouth slack before he straightened and nodded, motioning for you to follow him.

“This way, dear! Let’s go see what we can do.”

[lady-wallace]

Whumptober Day 18: Infection

Prompt: Infection (alternate prompt #11)

Fandom: Supernatural

Links: Ao3   FF.net

~~~~~~~

Dean winced as he peeled back the bandage, the tape sticking to the tender skin around the gash across his ribs. He bit his lip as he revealed it.

           He’d gotten it in a fight with a rougaru last week, and it still hurt. In fact, it still looked pretty bad too. The stitches Sam had put in pulled painfully, and some were red around the edges. A bit of off-color discharge was on the bandage as Dean threw it into the trash, nausea welling up at the sight. Yeah, so the wound may be infected. But they didn’t have time to deal with it right now. He’d figure that out once they got back from their next hunt.

           There was a knock on the door before Sam peeked his head in and Dean instantly dropped his t-shirt back in place, not wanting Sam to see the wound and fuss over him when they needed to go. He couldn’t afford to sit this one out, not with Cas human now, and still getting his sea legs. It looked like they would be going up against a whole vamp nest and Dean knew it needed to be all hands on deck.

           “Hey, are you ready?” Sam asked.

           “Yeah, just grabbing my gear.”

           Sam nodded and left again. Dean let out a fortifying breath and pulled his shirt up again, gripping it in his teeth as he applied a new bandage. Then he grabbed his duffle, cringing at the effort of hefting it over his shoulder, and went to join Sam and Cas.

XXX

Stake outs were never fun, but this one seemed even worse to Dean. His body ached, his head ached, his wound was unbearableand all of this was making it really hard to concentrate.

           He nearly jumped when Sam opened the car door, slipping inside with food and coffee from his run to the gas station.

           “Got the snacks,” he said, handing them out. “Hey, you okay?”

           Dean had been looking at the food with distaste, his stomach also a little queasy. “Hm? I’m fine,” he said.

           “You just look a little flushed,” Sam said.

           “It’s fricken’ hot in here,” Dean retorted, taking the coffee and giving it a long sip.

           “Sam, Dean,” Cas warned and they turned to look out the window.

           The vamp they had pegged was leaving the building and getting into a car.

           “Show time,” Dean said and started the Impala up, pulling out behind the vampire.

           They followed it to an old abandoned hotel in a pretty unpopulated part of town—the perfect place for monsters to hide out.

           “Let’s go,” Dean said, dragging himself out of the car. He paused a moment, suddenly lightheaded and masked it by holding onto the roof of the car as he closed the door. He took several deep breaths, his wound pulling as he did, then went to grab his machete from the trunk.

           “Dean, are you sure you’re all right?” Sam asked, concerned. “You look a little sick.”

           “I’m fine,” Dean grunted, but he was beginning to think he had a fever, and not from a cold. He was really gonna have to get that wound looked at after this.

           Neither Sam nor Cas looked convinced of his reassurance and, frankly, neither was he. He shook his head and followed them into the hotel. They were already here, there was nothing he could do about it.

           There was no one down on the lower floor when they entered, but they could hear movement on the next floor up. They crept up the stairs as silently as possible and tried to see where the vampires might be hiding.

           There was a muffled sound in one room and Dean stopped the others, going to open the door.

           Inside, they found three young girls bound and gagged. They hurried inside, and quickly released them.

           “Are you okay, did they hurt you?” Sam asked.

           “Did they make you drink anything?” Dean followed up grimly.

           The girls tearfully shook their heads, then one screamed.

           Dean and the others whipped around as a vampire launched itself at them.

           “They’re ours, hunter!” it snarled.

           Cas was closest and lashed out with his machete, but the vampire was fast and the blade sliced his arm instead of his neck. He shoved Cas aside into the wall and rushed Sam and Dean.

           The two of them surged forward, and Dean swung, only to have his wound pull and agony shoot through him. He gasped, doubling over.

           “Dean!” Sam cried as the vampire turned toward him, spotting weak prey. The vamp lashed out at Sam, throwing him into Cas who was trying to rejoin the fight, then had Dean slammed against the wall an instant later, fangs close, nearly brushing his throat as Dean struggled weakly, his body simply not having his usual strength. He wrestled with the vampire for the machete, the blade pressing closer and closer to the hunter’s throat until it started to slice into his skin. A drop of blood slid down Dean’s neck.

           The vampire inhaled deeply and leaned in, licking the drop of blood from Dean’s skin before he cringed and backed away. “Your blood is tainted!” he snarled. “You’re sick!”

           Sam was on him then, swinging the machete and taking the vamp’s head off. Dean gasped and slumped against the wall.

           “You okay?” Sam asked him.

           “Come on, we need to go see if we can find the others,” Cas said, as he was helping the girls to their feet and they huddled around him tearfully. “The girls said there were at least five of them.”

           Dean nodded and took a step forward, trying to catch his breath. Dizziness overcame him, though and he reached for the wall, missing it, and then felt himself falling.

           “Dean!”

           Arms caught him before he could hit the ground, but that was the last thing he remembered before the darkness overcame him.

XXX

Dean woke later to the familiar, ominous sounds of a hospital. He groaned and raised a hand to rub over his face.

           “Hey, Dean, how are you?”

           Dean opened his eyes and glanced over to see Sam worriedly sitting beside his bed. Cas had been pacing the room, but he came over as soon as Sam addressed Dean.

           “Mm,” Dean grunted, wincing as he shifted and felt the wound in his side pull. He raised a hand to touch it, but Sam grabbed his wrist to keep him from doing so.

           “Don’t, the doc stitched you up again.”

           “Hurts worse than before,” Dean grunted.

           “They had to flush it out,” Cas informed him. “You’d gotten an infection.”

           “Why the hell didn’t you tell us it was that bad?” Sam demanded, anger born of worry coloring his voice. “You’re lucky we caught it when we did, otherwise you would have been a lot worse off. And you should know better than to hunt when you’re injured.”

           “And don’t forget that I can’t heal you anymore,” Cas added, a pained expression on his face.

           Dean closed his eyes again. “Look, I’m sorry. I know I’m an idiot. I don’t know what I was thinking.”

           Sam sighed tiredly, and ran a hand over his hair. “Well, I’m just glad you’re okay. They want you to stay for a couple days and are giving you antibiotics.”

           “Screw that, I’m getting out of here tomorrow,” Dean grunted, but he was already falling back to sleep.

           Sam huffed a laugh. “Okay, whatever you say, Dean.”

           “Hm,” Dean murmured before he was completely asleep.