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roman-writing · 4 years ago

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bring home a haunting (1/12)

Fandom: The Haunting of Bly Manor

Pairing: Dani Clayton/Jamie Taylor

Rating: M

Wordcount: 11,511

Summary: Dani almost has her life together, when a familiar face arrives back in town after ten years. A childhood friends AU written with @youngbloodbuzz

read it below or read it on AO3 here

“The sweetest thing in all my life has been the longing — to reach the Mountain, to find the place where all the beauty came from — my country, the place where I ought to have been born. Do you think it all meant nothing, all the longing? The longing for home? For indeed it now feels not like going, but like going back.” - CS Lewis, Till We Have Faces

—

I: 1987

—

The sound of water sloshing through the pipes was a constant drone in the air. Dani stared at herself in the mirror. Her hand rested on the tap, holding it open. Steam crept in along the edges of the mirror as hot water continued to stream into the white porcelain bathroom sink, pale tendrils framing her face like smudged fingerprints against the glass. She was still dressed in pajamas, her hair a rumpled mess. There were dark shadows beneath her eyes. Her face felt puffy and her stomach heavy, but above all else she just appeared tired.

There was movement behind her. The bathroom door opened and her head jerked up in surprise as the door frame squared around Eddie's tall silhouette. In the misted mirror, his glasses seemed to reflect all light, obscuring half his face in a gleam like the sun glancing across the surface of a windscreen.

His reflection smiled. "You still getting ready?" he asked. "We need to go in ten, if I'm giving you a ride to work."

Abruptly, Dani twisted the tap, cutting off the flow of water. She cleared her throat. "Sorry. No. I'll — I'll drive myself."

"You sure? I don't know if your poor little car will make it."

"No. It'll be fine," she assured him, trying to sound far more confident than she felt. Never mind that the local mechanic had given her a list of incomprehensible ills that plagued her car the last time she had taken it into the shop after it had broken down again. "Thanks, though."

"All right," he said, but still he did not turn to leave. "You know, I was thinking. We should probably sell it."

"Hmm?"

Dani had opened the mirror door to reveal a jumble of bottles and toothpaste and toothbrushes, only some of which were hers. She scouted around for what she was looking for. Even after a few weeks, everything still felt so displaced. She struggled to find the smallest item these days, be it her favorite sauce pan or a bottle of — oh, there it was.

"Your car," Eddie was saying behind her. "Don't you think we should sell it? We don't really need two. Not now that we're living together."

Dani froze with her hands cupped in the water of the sink. She could see her own reflection weaving and waving from the disturbance until her face looked disjointed. Like some sort of Picasso. An eye here. A jaw there. Scattered into separate chambers.

Without answering, she leaned down and splashed her face, rubbing at her cheeks until a foam lathered, eyes squeezed shut.

"Well?" Eddie asked.

She bought herself a moment by rinsing the suds from her face and reaching blindly for a towel that she had perched on a nearby rail for just that very purpose. When she spoke, her voice was muffled through the cloth, "I don't know. I just think —" She lowered the towel and wiped at her neck. "Wouldn't it be inconvenient? You having to drive me around everywhere?"

In the mirror, his outline shrugged. "I don't mind. More time spent with you, right?"

She offered him a weak smile, drying her hands and folding the towel neatly back on its rack. “You’re sweet,” she said. “But really. I mean — What if I need to pick up groceries on the way back from the school? Or what if I want to visit your mother? Or —?”

“All right. All right. You win,” he laughed, softly. He came up behind her, hands settling on her waist, gentle but heavy all the same. “Just think about it. Okay?”

The steam at the edges of the mirror had begun to fade, and Eddie’s features came into sharp relief. Looking at their reflection was like looking at the picture in their living room where they were posed for prom. Eddie’s hands clasped at her waist, and Dani still with that deer in the headlights smile. It was almost perfect. It was almost enough. Being a fresh-faced fiancée. Wearing rumpled pink pajamas. Living together. Watching a life unfold before her as though it belonged to someone else.

She shrank away from him in order to turn around. “I should finish getting ready,” she said.

He let her go but leaned down for a kiss. Instead, his glasses bumped the side of her face. Laughing, she pushed the glasses up his nose as he retreated with a wince.

“Sorry,” he said. “I’ll see you tonight.”

Her hand was still lingering on the side of his face — scratch of stubble beneath her fingertips — and Eddie pressed a brief kiss to her palm before striding from the bathroom. Dani stood there, clutching her hand back to her chest, listening to his retreating footsteps down the hall. Something curdled in her stomach, though she hadn’t eaten anything yet this morning. She passed it off as hunger instead of guilt.

Eyes squeezing shut, hand clenching into a fist at her sternum, Dani inhaled a deep steadying breath. Then, opening her eyes once more, she turned back towards the mirror and reached for a hairbrush.

—

The coffee in the teacher’s lounge was always dark as sin and tasted of battery acid. Dani pulled on the tap, filling up her styrofoam cup until her hand burned and she had to hold it gingerly from the top with her fingertips. Enough creamer followed so that the coffee resembled milk more than the original brew. She tested it with a sip, crinkled her nose, and added sugar until it was barely palatable. It would still strip paint in a pinch, but it would also keep her going throughout the day.

With a resigned sigh, she carried the coffee over to the round table in the back corner of the lounge, where her piles of notes and textbooks waited. The binders sported multi-colored tongues, every section marked with a tab and her broad loopy handwriting, and there was a satchel of pens and markers in every hue under the sky. Taking a sip of her cup of paint thinner, Dani pulled out a plain black pen. She trailed her thumb down the tabs until she reached the desired section, and flipped open to the correct page. There, she began to record her meticulous notes. She would pause every so often to flip through a textbook and double-check some figure or another that she had convinced herself she had forgotten.

The lounge was mostly empty but for her. It was still an early hour, even for her colleagues. Here, she felt like she could actually work. Back home she would inevitably feel like she had gotten in the way. Not of Eddie. Not usually. Though sometimes he would wander over to the table while she was trying to arrange a lesson plan and distract her with talk of banalities that always made her hand slip, that always made her lose her place on the page. Other times he would complain about how her work sprawled and took over the whole dining room.

Mostly it was the house itself. Still so fresh and new and clean, walls pressing in like a stomach lining. Spreading all her work notes out felt like she was intruding upon the space of the napkins and cutlery. As though all of the items people had bought them for their engagement were more at home there than she was. A house of cardboard boxes. Of clothes. Of china. Stuff. Things. Their things.

Dani’s writing had slowed. She shook her head briskly and straightened in her seat. Another sip of fortifying turpentine, and she was scribbling away again.

“Enjoy the summer holiday?”

Dani glanced up at the sound of that familiar voice. Hannah Grose, seamlessly elegant in a wine-dark skirt suit, stood with her hand on the back of one of the chairs around the little table.

A smile broke across Dani’s face, and she said, “Yeah! And you?” She gestured towards the chair with her pen, adding, “Please.”

“Not much to report on the western front.” Hannah sat, delicately leaning her elbow upon the table so as not to disturb the sprawl of Dani’s notes. “But I hear that’s not the case in your camp. Congratulations are in order.”

Dani could feel her cheeks strain with the effort of keeping her smile in place. “Thanks!”

“Well?” Hannah asked, her eyes agleam with warm curiosity. “Go on then. How did he propose?”

“Which time?” Dani joked half-heartedly. When Hannah gave a little huff of laughter, Dani said, “No, seriously. He’s been asking me to marry him since we were kids.”

“Well, congratulations,” Hannah said. “Do you have a date planned? Or is that still in the works?”

Dani fiddled with the pen between her fingers, repeatedly removing the cap and sticking it back on with a nervous jab. The plastic clacked dully against the unfamiliar band of gold around her finger. “Oh, no. Not yet. We — uh — we’re going to wait a bit. Eddie just started his new job, and I’ve — well. You’re the one who asked me to teach sixth grade this year. And I’m excited, but also I feel so unprepared for a whole classroom of twelve year olds.”

“Don’t be nervous, dear,” Hannah said, and though her tone was soothing her small smile was teasing. “They can smell fear.”

Dani’s laugh was slightly too breathy and too short to be heartfelt. “Oh, I know. It’s just —” She made a flighty gesture with one hand, “— getting a new batch in. It’s always a little nerve wracking. There are so many names to memorize in the first week. And sorting out the dynamics of them all, how they interact, and — well, you know.”

“No, I don’t. Not really, anyway,” Hannah said. “I came up the ranks through an administrative route. Never had any classroom time to speak of.”

“Oh, that’s a shame,” Dani said.

Hannah gave Dani’s notes a nudge with her elbow. “What was it you were just telling me about the trials and tribulations of homeroom?”

This time when Dani laughed, it was far more relaxed. “The kids are the best part. Really. That’s why you do it.”

Hannah gave her a knowing look. “Yes. And that’s why I hired you.”

“Have I thanked you for that, yet?”

“Only once a year for three years.”

“My next gift basket is in the mail tomorrow, then,” Dani joked.

“Hang the basket and bring me a slice from the cafe instead.”

“With coffee?” Dani asked, grinning when Hannah wrinkled her nose at the idea. “You got it, boss.”

“Tea,” said Hannah primly, “is perfectly serviceable. Thank you. It’s eight thirty, by the way.”

Dani’s eyes widened and she checked her watch to find that Hannah was, in fact, correct. “Oh, shoot!” Hastily, she scraped together the loose papers, shuffling them back into their notebook. Tucking it beneath one arm, she snatched up her styrofoam cup and made a dash for the door. “I’ll see you tomorrow, Mrs. Grose.”

“Don’t forget to bring back a receipt for the slice!” Hannah called after her. “You must let me pay you back this time!”

“Put it on my next remuneration review!”

—

The kids were all filing into class, and Dani was hesitating at the blackboard. She held the tip of a piece of chalk against the dark grain. Her hand had frozen on the final downward stroke of the 'M' when she thought — should it still be 'Miss'? 'Ms.'? What were the rules?

The sounds of children jabbering away behind her, chairs scraping, things being thrown, urged her into action, and Dani wrote the name she had always written before turning around.

"All right, let's settle down, please." She waited until twenty-five faces were turned towards her in relative silence — as good as she could hope for given the circumstances — before smiling. Then, she set aside the chalk and picked up a clipboard full of names. "Hi, everyone. I'm Miss Clayton. Welcome to homeroom. Let's go through names. Make sure everyone's here."

It was the same, she told herself even as she meticulously took roll. How different could a bunch of twelve year olds be to her usual ten year olds? She even recognized one or two names from when she had taught a previous class. One of her former students waved at her from the back of a row of desks, and Dani smiled in return.

She skimmed right over the roll call and into the first introductions to the year. It happened so fast, that she hardly even registered a familiar looking name on the list. The boy in question merely raised his hand upon his name being called out, and Dani forged on to the next. With so many new faces to memorize, she did not even pause to mull over the presence of a Michael Taylor in her class. There were too many of them. Always too many. She never could keep track. Always remembering faces, but never names. Maybe if there were fewer of them, she thought. Maybe if they were younger.

They never were.

—

Even after two weeks back in the classroom, the bell ringing never failed to make Dani jump slightly. She nearly dropped her chalk from where she was drawing on the blackboard. Already behind her she could hear the scrape of chairs and the excited babble at the arrival of the weekend.

Setting down the chalk, Dani turned around and began wiping her hands against her skirt. She had to lift her voice to be heard. “All right everyone, don’t forget your permission slips for a trip to the community library! If you don’t bring back a signed form, you won’t be able to go, and you’ll have to stay here! And, Michael? Can you stay behind for a minute, please? I want to talk to you.”

Michael’s head whipped around at the sound of his name. A few other students shot him odd glances and his shoulders crept up around his ears. He shoved his books and notes into his bag — a dark blue canvas with silver stars that looked like they’d been painstakingly drawn on — then slouched at his desk until the others had all left.

Sitting behind her own desk, Dani brushed at the chalk handprints on her skirt — she was always a mess by the end of a school week; chalk everywhere — and gestured for Michael to come closer. He hesitated before pushing himself upright and walking forward until he stood in front of her desk. His brow was furrowed but his head was bowed, looking contrite, as though waiting for some sort of reprimand.

Dani gentled her voice. “Michael, I just wanted to -"

"Mikey."

She blinked, faltering. "I'm sorry?"

"My name," he said very firmly for someone who stood with such a stoop. "It’s Mikey. I don’t like Michael."

With a smile, Dani said, "Of course. Mikey. You’re not in trouble. I promise.” With a light tap of her palms against the surface of the desk, she pulled out a piece of paper from atop one of the stacks and slid it towards him across her desk. “This is your homework from Monday. Do you remember this problem here? Number eleven?”

Shrugging at the weight of his backpack, he nodded.

“Well, I kind of messed up,” she said, lowering her voice and leaning forward as though revealing a secret. “And I copied this problem from the wrong section of the book. The back section of the book, I mean. Most of the others didn’t even try to answer it, and those that did got it wrong. Except —” Dani tapped a finger against the edge of the page, “— for you.”

Mikey did not say anything. His gaze remained dropped, as though he were studying his shoes.

“Do you know what this ‘x’ is?” Dani asked, pointing to the math problem in question.

Mikey shook his head. “No. I thought it was like a question mark?”

“Yeah.” Dani smiled. “Yeah, that’s right.”

He glanced up at her, saw her watching him, and then hastily lowered his eyes again, shuffling his feet.

Leaning her weight on her forearms, Dani said, “I know you’re a transfer student this year, and you came from somewhere out of state. Did your other schools teach you algebra by any chance?”

Again, he shook his head.

“Okay.” She ducked her head down in an attempt to look into his eyes. “I told you: you’re not in trouble. I just wanted to know — do you like math? Because it seems to me you’re really good at it.”

“I guess,” he mumbled. His hand tightened around the strap of his backpack. “Can I go now?”

Dani toyed with the edge of the page of homework. Then with a sigh she leaned back in her seat. “Yeah, you can go. Have a good weekend.”

He murmured some pleasantry in response, but in the next moment he was gone from the room so fast she thought she must have imagined it. For a moment, Dani frowned after him. She pulled his homework towards herself, studying the page. Mikey’s handwriting was cramped and messy, but there was no mistaking the fact that he had written every answer only once. There were no eraser marks to be seen. He even showed the steps he took to reach his answers.

Her thumb traced over his name at the top right hand corner. Then, with a little shake of her head, she set the page back atop the stack of other papers and began to clean up.

Even after the kids had mostly left, there were always a few stragglers left behind. Some trotted through the halls in packs on their way to whatever extracurricular activities their parents had signed them up for. Dani kept the door to her classroom open, and the squeak of their shoes echoed down the corridor along with the sound of their fading voices. Tilting her wrist to check the time, she pulled out the latest round of homework assignments that had been handed back to her earlier that day. The set she hadn’t had a chance to mark yet.

Best to just get it done with now. Her car was clinging to the last vestiges of life and had landed itself back in the workshop earlier that week. She would be here a while until Eddie got off work.

She grabbed a red pen and pulled the first page towards her. The pen flicked officiously as she scanned through the questions, barely pausing until she circled the final grade at the top and set the page aside in favor of the next. And so on. And so forth. It was almost relaxing. As relaxing as a known constant could be. She could always rely upon the dependability of homework that needed grading. Just like she could rely upon the dependability of death and taxes.

She glanced up only rarely from her work whenever a flurry of movement flitted across the corners of her vision. A bird darting from a tree branch here. A janitor sweeping the floors there. Dani paused to push her seat back from the desk and make small talk, asking after the janitor's wife and kids until he shuffled along with a wave, pushing his long-handled broom, which looked more like a breed of shaggy dog than a cleaning implement. She had almost finished grading the stack of papers, when she glanced out the window towards the street. She looked back down at the papers, then did a double take.

That was a student sitting on the curb. She recognized that blue backpack with silver stars. Dani checked the time again. Nearly four in the afternoon now. With a hum and a frown, she returned to grading, but her gaze would wander after each finished page back towards the window.

Finally, she capped the pen and set it down atop the finished stack of papers. She would need to enter those grades into the system later, but that could wait. For now, Dani swept everything into her bag before slinging it over one shoulder. Her keys jangled from their lanyard as she locked up and made her way outside.

Mikey was still crouched on the sidewalk when she approached. Her shoes clacked dully against the pavement, and he turned to look over his shoulder at who was approaching him.

Dani smiled brightly. "Hi!" she said. "You’re still here?"

Mikey nodded, but gave no verbal reply. Some sort of magazine was hanging loosely from his fingers, half open and tucked between his legs as though he had been caught red-handed.

Setting her bag down on the ground, she sat beside him and craned her neck to get a look at the cover he was clearly trying to hide. "Wonder Woman, huh?"

His cheeks flushed in embarrassment, and he refused to look anywhere near her direction.

"You know," Dani said. "I used to wait up at night to catch all the episodes of the show as they were airing. The Lynda Carter ones? You ever watch it?"

His eyes were wide when he finally turned to look at her. He nodded. "Yeah. I love that show."

"I recorded them all," Dani confided in a whisper, as though the two of them were in on a secret. "Still have them on tape at home, though I haven't watched them in forever."

"My sister gets annoyed when I rewatch stuff too often," Mikey said. He had straightened his legs, and now the comic book was sprawled across his bony knees to reveal a few inked pages.

She nodded towards the thin paper booklet. "I never read the comics, though. Are they any fun?"

It was like opening flood gates. Suddenly, she found herself being regaled about the entire publication history of Wonder Woman, while Mikey gestured wildly with the comic so that the loose pages rustled with every motion of his hands. His face came alight when he spoke. Dani listened with amusement. She perched an elbow on her knees and propped her chin on her hand, nodding along, asking appropriate questions. Once she asked what was obviously a dumb question, for he made a face and explained her error in great detail.

The early autumnal sun was slanting through the trees by the time a boxy silver sedan rolled up to the other side of the street. Dani could see a familiar mop of dark hair and the gleam of glasses through the windows. The car puttered to a halt, engine idling, and Eddie pressed down on the steering wheel so that the horn blared briefly.

Dani waved in his direction and said to Mikey, “That’s my ride. Are you going to be okay out here?” She glanced down the street for any approaching cars. “Someone’s coming to pick you up, right?”

In answer, he held up the issue of Wonder Woman. “It’s okay, Miss Clayton. My sister will be here soon.”

“Okay, then,” said Dani. Slapping her hands on her thighs, she pushed herself to her feet, bag hanging from one shoulder. She walked towards the car with a smile and a wave back at Mikey. “I’ll see you next week!”

He did not answer. He was already nose-deep in his comic book again. Shaking her head with a small chuckle, Dani continued towards where Eddie was waiting for her, tapping at the dashboard. It wasn’t until her hand was on the chromed door handle that she finally registered what Mikey had said.

A sister. He had a sister. At first she’d thought — well, a sister who got annoyed with a brother who hogged the television set would surely be a younger sister. But a sister who drove to pick him up from school was definitely not a younger sister.

“Danielle, are you all right? You look a little pale.”

The sound of Eddie’s voice made her jerk half out of her skin. She hadn’t even realized he had rolled down the window.

“Yeah,” she said, her voice catching in her throat. “Yeah. Can you just - Can you wait a second? I’ll be —I’ll be just a second.”

Dani shoved her bag through the open window into her seat, then whirled around and marched back across the street. Her hands were clenched into fists at her side. She could feel the bite of her short nails into her palms. Something acidic boiled in her stomach, twisting it into knots, until she stood over Mikey, struggling to find her voice.

“You said you had a sister?” she asked. “An older sister? And — And your last name is Taylor?”

Looking puzzled, Mikey shrugged. “Yeah?”

This was impossible. There was no way. For a long moment, Dani stared at him, his brown hair, his brown eyes, his narrow shoulders, the almost familiar shape of his nose and face.

Dani cleared her throat and tried to sound nonchalant. “And what — uh — what’s her name?”

With a quizzical frown up at her, Mikey turned a page of his comic book to where Wonder Woman was punching stars from one of her foes. “My sister?” he asked, as if it were the most bizarre question in the world. “Jamie. Her name’s Jamie.”

“Right,” Dani breathed, feeling like she’d just received a blow to the space beneath her ribcage. “Right. Of course. Sorry. I’ll just — Bye.”

Without another word, she turned on her heel and strode back towards the waiting car. She willed her breathing to even out, even as she felt something coil around her sternum and tighten with every step. Yanking open the door, Dani slipped into the car. She pushed her bag down to her feet and pulled the door shut behind her.

“Everything good?” Eddie asked.

“Yeah,” Dani lied, her voice sounding oddly high even to her own ears. It was difficult to swallow; her throat felt too tight. A rush of blood flooded through her ears in a deafening crash. She stared fixedly at the reflection of her own clenched hands in the slanted windshield, willing them to relax even as her knuckles went whiter. “Fine. Everything’s fine.”

And Eddie didn’t question it at all. He merely shrugged, put the car into gear, and drove away.

—

It stayed with her afterwards. Like a bruise upon her skin, blue and purple, tender to the touch. That cloying sense of the air too thick. Molasses on a hot summer day, the dark shadow that clung to her heels in sunlight, haunting her every step. She couldn’t breathe with it, couldn’t escape it.

Jamie. Jamie, here. Jamie, home.

Somehow Eddie didn’t notice. It completely passed him by, the way her eyes darted around as they stopped to pick up groceries, her clenched fists held tightly to her sides, consumed with the uneasy notion that she might turn around the corner and Jamie would appear, as if summoned by the gravity of Dani’s pounding heart.

It should’ve been easy — like most things eventually — locking it away. Erasing it. She had managed now for years, days, months. Except now the very thought of Jamie being so near again, so tangible again, made her somehow indelible. As if she’d always been there. Waiting. As if she’d never gone. It felt altogether at once like being peeled and stripped away, down to an exposed nerve.

Dani wished she could say she slept easy that night. Instead, after spending much of the witching hour staring at the ceiling, she finally succumbed to the sound of Eddie’s soft snores, his arm splayed across her waist, only to wake up feeling as if she'd been cracked open and hollowed out. Somehow, in between the moments of stumbling out of bed and driving up to the blue bungalow across town with Eddie in the small rental truck behind her, Dani managed to go through the motions of call and response. Her limbs moving, her mouth speaking all of their own accord, and she could only watch it happening. She pulled on the turn signal. The click of the light like an errant drip of a tap. It was only when she was cutting the engine to stare up at the house that was once hers, that something tightened in her chest, shunting her back to earth.

Carson met them by the front steps where he sat in his studded leather jacket that he wore regardless of the weather, two takeout cups in hand.

“Took you long enough,” he grumbled, standing and offering one of the cups to Eddie who reached him first. “Thought I was gonna have to drink these myself before they got cold.”

Eddie huffed a laugh, taking the cup. “Yeah, we wouldn’t want that,” he drawled before helping himself inside the house without a backwards glance, taking a long sip from his cup.

Carson stared after him for a moment before turning to Dani with a smirk, and said, “Someone’s in a mood.”

Managing a chuckle, Dani folded her arms around herself. “Yeah, he uh, he’s just eager to get it done, you know? Realtor wants the place empty by three today.”

“Well, in that case,” he said, holding out the last cup, his smirk softening to something kinder.

“Oh, thank you,” she said, taking it. The brush of his fingers against hers was warm and welcome. “You didn’t have to do that.”

“Sure, I did,” he responded with a shrug, and nudged her to take a drink, “Go on.”

At the first sip of what Dani had thought was coffee was instead a sweet and rich hot chocolate. Her eyes went wide.

Carson laughed at the expression on her face. “Thought you could use a little something sweet today.”

She smiled at him over the plastic top and took another longer sip. “Thank you,” she said, “For coming. You didn’t need to, but —”

“— You needed some extra muscle, which I’ve plenty of.” His grin seemed rueful. There lingered in Carson more of the boyish youth that Dani had seen in Eddie so many years ago. He wasn’t as gangly or as broad-shouldered as his older brothers, but he was always, without fail, a comforting presence in an otherwise rowdy O’Mara household.

“And yet none of your other brothers showed up, I see,” Dani said.

“Yeah, well,” Carson shrugged against his leather jacket, hands stuck into the pockets. “Guess, I’m just the only responsible one.”

“I knew there was a reason why I liked you best.”

He winked and lowered his voice. “Don’t let Eddie hear you say that.”

With a snort, Dani reached out and ruffled his perfectly coiffed hair so that it more resembled Eddie’s unruly curls. He ducked his head and swatted her away with a whine of complaint. She laughed when he stepped away to carefully fix his hair in the reflection of her car window.

“You leave your pomade at home again?” Dani teased. “Thought you never left without it.”

She could just make out his face in the reflection, nose scrunching up as he raked his fingers through his dark hair until it was suitably tamed. The door of the house one over opened, and a young man strode out, wearing a bathrobe and clutching a mug of coffee. Immediately Carson straightened, as though he’d been tapped with the wrong end of a cattle prod.

Dani waved. “Hi, Jason!”

Her neighbor lifted a desultory hand while he fumbled with his letterbox. “Last day?” he asked, voice raspy with sleep.

“Taking the last of it now,” she said.

Jason shut the letterbox and scooped up the newspaper that had been tossed onto his lawn earlier that morning. “Let me know if you need an extra hand.”

“I should be all right. That’s what Carson’s for.” She gestured with her hot chocolate towards Carson, who had his hands jammed back into his pockets and was now leaning against her car with an odd expression on his face.

Jason glanced over and nodded, no more than a jerk of his chin up, before walking back into his house with the newspaper tucked under one arm. The muscles in Carson’s jaw were clenched, standing out like the ropes of a sailing ship.

After the door to Jason’s house had swung shut, Dani asked, “I thought you two were friends?”

Carson grunted a wordless note. “We had a falling out a few months ago. Anyway —” He turned on his heel, grin back in place, and started making his way towards her house. “Show me the heavy stuff. Come on!”

By the time they first made their way inside, Eddie was already hauling out boxes filled with her things. The tops and sides of each cardboard box had been painstakingly labelled in Dani’s hand, the letters neat and blocky. Carson slipped by Eddie with an exaggerated pose as if squeezing through a tight space as they passed one another in the door. Eddie paused, arms laden, and turned his face to Dani while she climbed the steps leading up to the entryway. The extra step allowed her to press a chaste kiss to his cheek and, mollified, he continued on his way towards the truck. Once inside, she found that Carson was already heaving an armchair up with his hands. She moved out of the way so he could trot after his older brother, leaving her momentarily alone.

The house was bare. Most of her things had already been carted away the week before. The transition into their new shared home had been gradual, just like everything else in their relationship. Eddie settling in first and coaxing Dani along as though she were a particularly nervous show dog that had slipped the collar. Looking around now, hands on her hips, Dani felt like an intruder. Like she was an archaeologist who had wandered into someone else's burial site with a rusty torch and hammer.

It almost looked bigger now that it was so empty. Her footsteps echoed too loud on the wooden floors, the sound traveling further and longer. The bare walls once peppered with paintings and photos now like a skeleton expanding its ribs, waiting to expel her in one long sunken breath. Her thumb gradually drifted to her mouth as she took it all in, biting hard at her nail and skin, fixedly eyeing the spot where once a small reading nook used to be.

The sound of footsteps behind her was harsh and loud to her ears. “Hey, what did I tell you about that?” Eddie said from beside her suddenly, his hand gently pulling Dani’s away from her mouth.

She swallowed heavily and pulled her hand carefully back to hold into a fist by her side, and said, “Yeah, I know. Sorry. I just —”

“I don’t like you hurting yourself,” he said, frowning. She couldn’t help but let her shoulders slump at the concern in his eyes, and only managed to give him a tenuous smile and a nod. “Look, we’re almost done. Soon we’ll be out of here in no time and we can finally just focus on our home. Just let me and Carson do all the hard work.”

“I can help,” Dani said. “I want to help.”

He sighed. “Danielle -”

“I have my inhaler in the car. I won’t keel over and die,” Dani said.

“Hey, Ed, buddy, what happened to that deadline, huh?” Carson said, leaning heavily on the wall and pointing behind him to the kitchen, “You gonna help me with this thing or not?”

Eddie rolled his eyes, and briefly placed a hand on her shoulder before disappearing into the kitchen with muttered grumbling. Dani grinned after him before catching Carson’s eyes, chuckling and shaking her head as he winked at her before following Eddie.

“Gotta give her a minute to breathe, Ed.” Carson’s voice was soft, but still Dani heard it all the same and wrapped her arms tight around herself.

Clearing her throat, she strode off in the direction of her old bedroom. The bed had been taken away and put in their new spare bedroom for guests who might come to visit. The carpet still bore indentations from where the posts had once sat. Eddie had already been in here; the boxes were gone. Dani glanced around for any last remaining items that might have been forgotten. The closet door was slightly awry, and with a frown she pulled it fully open. There was a single wire coat hanger hooked on the bar that stretched across the closet. Her hand reached out to take it, when she froze.

There, tucked away into the corner beneath one of the built in shelves, was a small wooden box. She could hardly remember the last time she had seen it, let alone opened it. A layer of dust covered the top. Kneeling down, Dani pulled the box out and into her lap. She blew the dust off and had to wipe a bit more with the edge of her sleeve. It was made of plain wood with a bronze latch fastening the lid shut. Her thumb teased the corner of the latch. She worried her lower lip between her teeth before steeling herself and lifting the lid open on squeaky hinges.

Nestled inside were a series of photographs, faded with age. Something clenched in her chest as she touched the first one with trembling fingers.

She and Jamie looked so young, and they were. Barely fifteen. Jamie's arm flung around her shoulder, arm outstretched to snap the photo while she pressed a kiss to Dani's cheek even as Dani laughed and elbowed her ribs. Swallowing down the urge to be sick, she slipped the photo aside to see the next. Jamie was younger still. Her arms were outstretched as she balanced her weight on the narrow steel bar of the abandoned train tracks beyond the fields that surrounded the town. Dani could remember the day she took this with crystal clarity. The days of summer in those years had been longer somehow, stretching on into warm endless nights.

She was a furtive grave robber, flicking through picture after picture, exhuming a past that she hardly recognized herself in now. And pictures weren’t all that were stored here. There was a band shirt that had been half eaten by moths over years of neglect. An old Zippo lighter with scratched edges along the chrome plating. A necklace that was actually just a worn old half dollar coin pierced through and hung from a cheap chain. A cassette tape labelled Jamie’s Mixtape (1978) in a messy slanted scrawl, long missing its protective case. And finally, an old battered copy of Valley of the Dolls, where if she were to flick it open, she would find a pressed blue morning glory hidden among the pages.

She gently ran her hand over them, still trembling as if the living memories within the treasure trove thrummed under her skin with its own heartbeat.

In the distance, she could hear footsteps and the back and forth between Carson and Eddie in the living room as they manoeuvred a couch through the front door. When the footsteps drew closer, approaching down the hall, Dani hurriedly stuffed everything back into the box and shut the lid.

Carson leaned in the doorway. At some point he had shed his leather jacket, so that now he only wore a white undershirt that was two sizes too small, tucked into his jeans. “You good here? We’ve loaded the last of it into the truck.”

“Yeah,” Dani said. She pushed herself upright, clutching the box to her chest as though it were an heirloom. “Yeah, that's everything.”

His eyebrows rose and he nodded towards the box. “What do you got there?”

Dani’s grip tightened. She could feel the grooves of the box pressing into her skin. “Nothing important.”

—

Dani went about her routine on edge. At the supermarket, gripping the shopping cart between her hands and turning down the different aisles. At the gas station, stepping out of her beat up old car to work the pump. At the school, peering out the window at all the parents dropping off their kids in the parking lot. At the local cafe nearest the elementary school, picking up a newspaper and a slice for Hannah. Hoping for a glimpse of Jamie and dreading any encounter with her all at once.

Except Jamie never appeared. And Mikey sat at the back of the class, doodling in his notebook, not paying attention but knowing all the answers regardless whenever Dani called on him to participate. She could always see him after school sitting on the curbside and reading a new comic issue, or thumbing through a book from the paltry school library or scratching at his homework with a pencil. Not once did Dani loiter long enough to see him get picked up, and she felt a stab of irritation that he should be left alone for so long. But it wasn’t her business, and he got along well enough with the other kids during recess.

Dani was still stewing silently over the whole affair at dinner with her future in-laws. She sat at the dining table, chewing at the skin of her thumb, with Carson at one elbow and Eddie at the next. Mike, Judy’s soft-spoken stooping husband, sat at the head of the table, while Judy herself set the last of the platters down and invited everyone to tuck in.

“How’re the kids this year?” Judy asked as she spooned peas onto her plate.

Dani made a noise in the back of her throat, before lowering her hand into her lap. “Yeah, they’re great! I — uh — I actually have a transfer student.”

Judy made a sound to indicate that she was still listening even while she passed a platter across the table to Eddie.

“He’s really smart,” Dani continued. “I don’t really know what to do with him. He — well, he always looks a bit bored, to be honest.”

“Don’t they have some sort of advanced program for kids like that?” Mike asked. He had already tucked into the food even though his plate was only half full.

“I’d need to talk to the parent or guardian first,” Dani said, her stomach flipping at the thought. The peas had made their way around the table to her now, and she slowly scraped the last of them onto an available corner of her plate. Swallowing heavily, Dani concentrated hard on the steady movements of her hands, and said, “Judy, I don’t suppose you’ve heard of anyone new coming to town?”

Judy’s mouth was full. She frowned thoughtfully as she chewed, and swallowed before answering. “No, I haven’t, now that you mention it. I’ll have to ask around the ladies at the book club if they’ve seen anyone.”

Any hope Dani might have nursed of learning something new about Jamie’s presence in town flickered out like a snuffed candle. “Thanks,” she said, already feeling the conversation wander towards other topics. “Can you pass the salt, Carson?”

—

Sitting here in her Sunday best with Eddie’s warm hand in hers and a book of hymns in the other, Dani was sandwiched in the pew between her fiancé and her mother. Karen smelled sharply of cheap mall perfume, her dress pressing in tight on her ribs. The priest’s voice echoed from his place declaming near the altar, but Dani wasn’t listening. She was too preoccupied with the way her heart pounded in her chest, the clench of her stomach and the restless nerves that someone might have seen her.

She hadn’t planned on going to the movies yesterday, not at first. Not until she had seen the ad in Saturday’s morning paper, an art house theater two towns over advertising a one-time showing of Desert Hearts. It had caused such a stir in the community a few years ago that any curiosity Dani had felt toward it had died and shriveled up inside of her. Yet her Saturday afternoon had been free, and Eddie had been mercifully busy after helping her move the last of her things.

And now Dani sat in the same church she’d been going to her entire life, feeling like a marionette whose mouth was puppetted by invisible strings as she joined the others in song. The priest leading them through a hymn wasn’t the same man who baptized Dani as an infant. The bench she was sitting on wasn’t the same she sat in week after week. The woman on her right was virtually nonexistent. The man’s hand she was holding loosely in her left wasn’t the same man who she grew up with, he wasn’t the boy who asked her again and again to marry him.

This Dani, this new Dani, lied to her fiancé and drove an hour out of town the day before with a whispered prayer on her tongue for her car to just hold on for once, for just one more day to see a film that left her blushing scarlet and her stomach dropping not uncomfortably, sitting alone in the dark with a carton of untouched popcorn. This Dani would return to her car, and her first thought would turn to whether this would be the kind of movie Jamie would have picked as her choice of their weekly film showing — knowing immediately that the answer would be 'yes.’ And just as abruptly as the thought appeared, she promptly squashed the idea of even contemplating such a question.

Dani’s voice faltered, wavering over the words as a flash of guilt washed over her when the heat returned to her skin. She looked up at the cross, hanging on the back wall over the priest’s head, and glanced furtively at Eddie to see where he was in the verse, praying no one had seen her stumble. When service finally ended, and the ritualistic gossip on the front steps had been entertained, she allowed herself to be led outside. Eddie’s hand was warm and steady, completely enveloping her own, pulling her to the warm air where it finally felt like she was able to breathe again.

She felt a heady rush of relief when her mom begged off brunch, claiming to suffer from a headache as she walked to her car with a half-hearted wave. Relieved two-fold when Eddie needed to run off to the office for preliminary work for Monday, kissing her on the cheek in a goodbye that she barely registered before rushing off to his car. Until she was only left with Judy.

“So,” Judy asked, and for a brief terrifying moment Dani thought she might know, she might have finally seen her. In the end though all Judy said was: “How about that lunch?”

Judy linked their arms, pulling her in close until all Dani could do was smile and say, “Lead the way.”

The bistro Judy directed them to was relatively new, Dani had passed it multiple times over the last couple weeks but had never actually gone in, always driving by with casual curiosity and a bemused but charmed smile at the name: A Batter Place.

“You’re gonna love it,” Judy said, guiding Dani in with an arm linked in her own, “Their macaroons are to die for.”

Gamely, Dani smiled along to Judy’s enthusiasm as Judy pointed to various fixtures of the restaurant, steadily ignoring the strain building in the back of her neck. It wouldn’t be fair to say that Judy made her nervous. There were too many good intentions behind her warm eyes and her warm hugs, always with her hands full of containers of hearty food, always holding on a little longer than Dani expected, like she was afraid Dani would drift away. Judy, she knew, at least cared.

Perhaps that was why, after settling in their seats and ordering their lunch, Dani hid her hands under the table, fingers trembling as they picked at the skin of her thumb.

“So, how have you been, honey?” Judy asked over her cup of coffee, smiling that kind, good-intentioned smile. “I feel like I’ve barely seen you since school started up again.”

A small pressure valve released in Dani’s chest, and she finally allowed herself a real smile. “I’ve been keeping busy, and well — you know how it is with a new school year. This year especially is different.”

“Because of the higher grade?”

“Right. And I just — I want things to be perfect, you know?” Dani said, and chuckled ruefully, “Though twenty-five twelve year olds will certainly be a challenge.”

This she could manage. This she could at least be grateful for, the way Judy allowed the conversation to steer towards something that filled Dani with a sense of purpose, smiling proudly at her over the din of conversation around them with no mention of Eddie or long overdue wedding planning.

Judy took a pointed sip of her coffee. “Well, I know you like the challenge, but you can’t forget to take care of yourself,” she said, her lips pulling into a familiar smile. One to be used when nearing a cornered animal. Dani’s stomach sank, when Judy continued, “Now, I know you and Eddie need time to get used to living together, doing all the things couples have to learn to do alone but, you don’t have to steer clear of the house forever. I know we all recently just had dinner together but —”

Dani glanced away.

“— You could come over at any time. Like yesterday! What were you up to yesterday? I would have made lasagna for you.”

“Oh, uh —” Dani gave a nervous breathy chuckle, hoping to hide the grimace at the memory of the two women who had stared brazenly at her when she had exited the art house theater yesterday, Dani in her too bright blouse and high jeans, looking frazzled and out of place. She took a long sip of her coffee, hoping to hide the same feeling under her skin now. “You know. Busy.”

Judy waved her explanation away with that same smile. “Oh, well, never mind that. It doesn’t matter now. There’s always next weekend,” she said, and her hand reached over to clasp Dani’s before she could hide it again. “I’m just hoping I get more time to spend with my favorite future daughter-in-law before things get too crazy. Wedding planning and teaching a class of twenty-five kids is one thing, but thinking about raising a baby is another.”

A moment passed before Dani could process the words. A baby. Of course.

“Oh,” was all Dani managed to say, a polite smile frozen on her face as Judy’s grip on her hand tightened in a way that anyone else would have found comforting. The hand that Dani so wanted to pull away, to press against her chest. A pressure building inside her ribs, pulling her skin taught and straining at the edges. A ringing in her ears that sounded more and more like the whistle of a tea kettle or the whine of an over-revved engine.

She was only saved by the grace of their food arriving, the pressure abating to something manageable as Judy freed Dani’s hand to make room for their plates. It gave Dani the opportunity to down half of her coffee, hot enough to scald, and to clench a fist under the table, her nails pressing hard into the soft skin of her hand.

At the first bite of food, Judy hummed and sank back into her seat. “Now that is delicious,” she said, gesturing with her fork. “Go on, take a bite.”

Dani took advantage of the moment, letting the previous topic of conversation pass over them untouched as she pulled her own forkful of food in her mouth. She blinked in surprise.

“Wow,” she said after swallowing, sharing an incredulous chuckle with Judy. “That is really good.”

“I’m telling you, this new chef knows what he’s doing,” Judy said with a grin, as if she had known exactly how Dani would have reacted.

It should have been comforting, being so well understood. And for the most part it was. Afterall, Dani had spent much of her youth at Judy’s table, being fed day in and day out as if she were Judy’s own. Always having a safe haven. A home away from home, where she would be welcome. No questions asked. It should have been an absolute solace. Yet somehow, she couldn’t shake the feeling of being made of glass. As if she were standing there and Judy was looking right through her at someone else that didn’t exist.

The bell attached to the door rang as it swung open, and the sound drew her back to the table, almost startling her. She swallowed down an unexpected thickness in her throat, ignoring that steady pressure in her ribs, and shared another unassuming smile with Judy, taking a second bite.

“We should come here again,” Dani said, hoping to alleviate some of the pressure that was building in her lungs.

“Then it’s a date. Next Sunday.” Judy smiled wide.

It was so easy, making Judy happy, making her smile wide and bright like she’d won the lottery. It was something Dani was good at, pleasing others. The very thought of speaking up and potentially ruining the moment was enough to cause a vein of dread to thread its way through her. Yet something in that moment caused Judy’s smile to flicker, the sound of the bell ringing again as the front door swung open with a squeak of unoiled hinges. Judy’s eyes glanced over somewhere behind Dani’s shoulder and they slowly widened to an expression Dani had only seen once before — when Eddie announced their engagement during family dinner.

“Jamie Taylor?”

Dani tensed and turned around, and sure enough, there she was. Jamie Taylor herself. Dark jeans, big work boots, and a brown jacket, strolling into the bistro like she’d never left town. Like the air from Dani’s lungs hadn’t been sucked out by a gut punch releasing every single pressure valve at the very sight of her.

“Oi, Sharma! Whatever happened to you saying you could fix those hinges without my help?” Jamie’s voice rang clear across the room.

“Danielle, honey, you didn’t tell me that Jamie was back,” Judy said in a rush of breath, already out of her seat and walking toward Jamie like a woman on a mission, as if there wasn’t a hurricane forming within Dani’s chest. As if a swell of feeling wasn’t rushing through her as she sat unmoving with wide eyes attached to the lines of Jamie’s back, to the curl of her hair, unchanged, unkempt, and yet completely different.

Whatever Dani had expected to feel upon hearing that voice again, it wasn’t to feel all of it at once. She didn’t know which feeling to land on, watching Jamie turn at the sound of Judy’s voice, catching sight of the familiar lines of Jamie’s face as they twisted in surprise and fell into a charming smile as Jamie conceded to a tight hug from Judy; the fluttering of happiness, the rush of anxiety, the desperate desire to flee, the shock that belied the anger and muted resentment.

In the end, Dani just sat there, unable to move and unable to look away.

The pair pulled out of the hug, with Judy briefly and affectionately framing Jamie’s face with her hands like she used to. And Jamie rolled her eyes good naturedly with a crooked smile, burying her hands in her pockets. It was like no time at all had passed. They were teenagers again, and Judy was sending them off back home from dinner with warm hugs and piling their hands with leftovers in tupperware.

When Judy gestured over towards their table towards Dani, it was all she could do to not run and excuse herself to the washroom, to not slip out the back door. But it was too late, tension coiling in her body as Jamie’s head turned towards Dani and their eyes finally met.

It was suddenly incredibly hard to breathe. Dani blinked, and the look on Jamie’s face at the sight of her — startled, mouth agape — was gone, and all that was left was something entirely unfamiliar. A polite placid smile as Judy talked her ear off, answering Judy’s questions and gesturing across the counter towards a handsome man with a thick moustache wearing an apron. Even so, Jamie only had eyes for Dani, her gaze occasionally roving back, her expression unreadable.

Before Dani could do more than stare, Judy was guiding Jamie back to their table, a hand on her back. Dani’s stomach twisted itself into a knot at their approach. Her heart began crashing against her ribs until it was all she could hear. Jamie was looking at her with that crooked grin, and Dani didn’t know what else to do but stand from her seat, faintly dazed, a hand brushing against invisible lint and wrinkles along her sky blue dress.

“Look who I found!” Judy said as they pulled up to the table, as if Dani hadn't been on the verge of a nervous breakdown in the last minute. The last decade, if she were being honest with herself.

All Dani could do was give a trembling smile. “Jamie,” she said, almost breathless, the name feeling foreign on her tongue. “Hi.”

Jamie’s grin shifted into something like a smirk, gaze drifting over Dani so fast that she felt it on her skin like a flash fire. “Danielle,” she said, and Dani’s smile faltered. “Been a minute.”

“It has,” Dani said in between barely gritted teeth, the feeling in her stomach souring.

“I was just telling Jamie how this is the first time I’ve brought you here,” Judy interrupted, oblivious as ever. Jamie’s smirk dropped back into something softer, an eyebrow quirked and her head tilting curiously. “How today of all days, that we all walk in the same restaurant together. It must be kismet.”

“Don’t know about that, Mrs. O’Mara. Was never much one for kismet,” Jamie said with a shrug, looking so much like she’s sixteen again that a dull pressure returned to Dani’s chest. “World’s too chaotic for that.”

“And yet here you are.” Judy shuffled back into her seat and gestured to Jamie. “Come, come sit. Just for a while until your takeout is ready.”

It was only by the grace of luck and Judy’s affection for Jamie, that she gestured toward the chair next to her instead of Dani. Jamie didn’t argue, taking the seat, and Dani following after, almost a second delayed from the shock of it all. She could feel Jamie’s eyes on her as she settled in her chair, but Dani kept her attention low and focused on her food, feeling distinctly like she was in a dream.

“Danielle, truly, I can’t believe you neglected to tell me Jamie was back,” Judy admonished with a teasing grin.

She clenched her teeth. Dani had a hard time believing it herself. “Must’ve slipped my mind," she said.

“How long have you been back again, honey?”

“About two months now,” Jamie said. At the admission, Dani finally pulled her eyes away from the table to look up at Jamie, lounging back in her seat like she had all the time in the world, noticeably avoiding Dani’s gaze.

Two months. Two months, and not even a phone call. Not even a letter. Dani took another heady swallow of her now lukewarm coffee in an effort to ground herself. Some things just never changed, she guessed.

“We were so worried when you left, after — after everything, especially. We all were. I thought about you for so long afterwards. Kept you in my prayers,” Judy said, and while the words were sobering with the memories of those days, Jamie’s expression remained unchanged, detached and ambiguous, the corner of her mouth quirked.

“Then I guess I have you to thank,” Jamie said, “All that praying must’ve done something good. Mikey and I have been getting on quite nicely, if I do say so myself.”

Judy gasped, a hand clutching at her chest. ��Oh, Mikey! That sweet boy, how is he? Oh, I can’t believe it’s been so long. He must be — what? Eleven now?”

“Twelve actually,” Jamie said, then chuckled. It was something new. The way her eyes turned just a bit brighter, her smile more gentle, as she reached into her pocket to dig out a beat up leather wallet, flipping it open towards Judy. Judy gasped again, holding onto the wallet with a laugh. “Twelve years old and already reaching my chin," Jamie continued. "The little gremlin’s gonna have me beat by next year at this rate, I swear.”

“He’s wonderful,” Judy said, her eyes alight with emotion, “Gosh, he looks just like you. Except for the eyes, those sweet brown eyes. He’s definitely going to be a heartbreaker.”

“Not on my bloody watch,” Jamie grumbled.

“Have you seen him yet, Danielle?” Judy held out the wallet to Dani, who had to refrain from recoiling back, as if Judy was holding out a live snake.

“I have,” Dani admitted quietly, “He’s one of my students, actually.”

“Oh, so that’s what all those questions were about the other day,” Judy said, and tapped Jamie playfully on her arm resting on the table with her wallet. “What did I tell you? Kismet.”

Jamie flipped the wallet shut and returned it to her pocket. “Mikey did mention the name once or twice. Miss Clayton this, Miss Clayton that, and I thought: what are the chances?”

Dani swallowed down a scoff and the bitterness brewing in the back of her throat. Her left hand ached from clutching it so tight in her lap, knuckles white, crescent-shaped grooves in her palm. She stretched her hand out and ran it through her hair, her fingers trembling as they smoothed down the gentle waves and curls she put in that morning.

“Ah, so he’s done it then,” Jamie said, apropos of nothing. She leaned forward on the table, staring so abruptly and intently that Dani shifted away in her own seat slightly, hoping she hadn’t noticed.

It was the first time Jamie had fully addressed her since that singular hello. Dani frowned, that ever present knot in her stomach twisting tighter. “Sorry?”

“That nice big shiny rock on your hand.” Jamie gestured down to the aforementioned rock, and sure enough, there was her engagement ring, shining bright against the afternoon light pouring through the window. “Must’ve cost a damn fortune.”

Dani had thought the same, when Eddie had dropped to his knee, proffering up the box where the ring lay, his face flickering through a wide array of emotions — adoration, anxiety, hope. At the time all Dani could think, staring down at the large square cut diamond, was that it looked heavy.

“But isn’t it gorgeous?” Judy gushed, reaching out to grasp Dani’s hand to pull it closer for Jamie to see. Dani breathed out an awkward laugh at the sudden motion but let herself be dragged along. “I went to help him pick it out, and — gosh, well, we all know how many times he’s asked over the years. Our Danielle always liked to keep him on his toes. I just about died at the news when they officially announced the engagement a few months later.”

Jamie whistled low. “I can imagine,” she drawled.

Judy continued to ramble about the announcement. She released the hand that Dani tried to surreptitiously and swiftly return under the table, hoping to hide the desire to shrink under the table as well. Meanwhile Jamie seemed to be only half-listening, watching Dani with a tilted head and a sharp glance that left Dani feeling like a strip of overexposed film. Her eyes strayed to Jamie's old scar against her will, landing on the long stretch of a pale line that started from her lower lip and descended down towards her chin. It was usually hard to see, but today it was easy to find in the light of the room.

Dani swallowed thickly and glanced away.

“So, how’d he do it?”

“Mmm?” Dani looked back up, a little dazed.

Jamie’s head tilted pointedly towards her. “Ed,” she said. “How’d he go about it this time? To be honest with you, I had my bets placed on senior prom night, like he’d always planned. Flowers in the park after the dance, and all that rubbish.”

“He told you that?” Dani frowned.

“Wouldn’t shut up about it.”

“Oh.” Dani fiddled with the ring, glancing down at it. “No, it was um — “ She smiled, a frail subdued thing, only to fold her right hand over it, covering the diamond so that it dug into her palm, “ — it was during a dinner date.”

Jamie lifted an eyebrow. “In public?”

Dani nodded. “Yeah.”

“Christ,” Jamie breathed, looking somewhat horrified.

“Language, sweetie,” Judy piped in, seemingly instinctively.

And like clockwork, Jamie ducked her head sheepishly. “Sorry,” she said, not looking sorry at all.

Judy laughed, patting Jamie’s arm. “Gosh, just look at us,” she breathed, her eyes shining as they bounced between Dani and Jamie. “I still can’t believe it. Me and my girls back together again. Who’d have thought?”

Dani breathed out a chuckle, her cheeks aching from the force of holding a smile in place, not knowing what else to say. And what could she say, really? That none of this felt familiar? That it all felt so wrong? That after years of absence, to finally be just arm’s length away from Jamie, only to feel like she was meeting a stranger wearing a familiar face?

No. No, that wasn’t right. She worried her lower lip between her teeth, but Jamie had never stopped watching her. A shared look passed between them and it was there, finally, that she found something warm and tangible. The ghost of a memory of sitting across the table from each other at Judy’s during dinner, sharing a secretive knowing smile, while Judy gushed over Dani’s help in the kitchen, or admonished Jamie for yet another skinned knee. A smile pulled at the corners of Dani’s mouth, slow and real. Jamie blinked, her gaze softening as she mirrored Dani’s smile, and for the first time in a long time, Dani felt something in her chest unspool.

A bell rang. Jamie glanced away, and the moment was gone, leaving Dani chilled in its absence as if she had stepped out from a warm building and into a storm.

“That’s my cue,” Jamie said, sounding just as she had before, as if nothing had transpired between them. “Can’t let the kid starve without some lunch.”

She moved to stand but Judy’s hand held her in place. “Don’t think you can get away again this time without at least letting me give you my number,” Judy reprimanded not unkindly. "We got a new one at the house, you'll be surprised to hear."

Grinning crookedly, Jamie said, “And I imagine you’ll be wanting mine, then?”

Judy pulled out a pen from her purse and waggled it back and forth. “You know me too well.”

Grabbing a spare napkin, Judy jotted down a series of numbers. “Now don’t you forget to give me a call, all right? I want to hear all about your time away,” she said, handing over the pen and napkin for Jamie to rip out her piece, and note down her own number. Dani’s eyes strayed down to the confident, angled numbers, just barely able to decipher them from her vantage point. “And I hope you know, you and Mikey are welcome any time over for dinner. I want to meet that young man. See if he’s anything like his older sister.”

The words were fond, but Jamie snorted all the same. “Don’t you worry, Mrs. O’Mara. He’s my better half.”

Dani rose to her feet out of politeness when Judy stood to give Jamie a parting hug. For a terrifying moment, she thought Jamie might expect one from her as well, but Jamie only lifted her eyebrows and nodded before turning towards the counter to collect her order. She didn’t glance in Dani’s direction again as she left, pushing through the glass door and striding off down the street with the breeze in her hair. Dani watched her go, jaw aching from how hard she was clenching her teeth together.

Judy sat, and Dani followed suit as though she were simply mimicking Judy’s movements. “Jamie Taylor back from the dead after ten years. Imagine that.” Judy chuckled to herself and picked up her fork. “Feels just like old times, doesn’t it?”

“Yeah,” Dani breathed. “Just like old times.”

#thobm #the haunting of bly manor #dani clayton/jamie #bring home a haunting #dani clayton #jamie taylor #cfau #roman writes #FINALLY

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obnoxiouslylongandboring · 4 years ago

Text

War of Hearts

Stay with me A little longer I will wait for you Shadows creep And want grows stronger Deeper than the truth

Zemo helps John Walker put on his combat gear for an upcoming mission.

John stretches out the taut piece of fabric. It’s inlaid with kevlar (even a supersoldier goes down when they take a bullet), slightly thinner than usual for mobility’s sake. He turns to Zemo, raising an eyebrow. The man in question was tugging a pair of boots from the trunk where his uniform was.

“It will do the job, but the bullet will still hurt.” Zemo remarks. Often, when shot, the pain will not register fast enough. John had experienced it before. He would feel a blinding fire in his gut, and his feet would still be moving even when his body crumpled and folded under the hit. And lying there, in shock, he had thought- I’ve been shot. I’ve been shot. Over and over, blood spilling out of him, before it registered that he’s been hit again by another bullet.

“Just don’t freeze,” Zemo reminds him again.

“It’ll hurt just as much as being shot normally, just that the bullet won’t penetrate. You’re betting that I can handle the pain?” John knows he could, but it’s fun to rile Zemo up.

“You will handle it.”

“And if I come back with a shit ton of internal bleeding because of your negligence?”

Before he knew it, Zemo was centimeters away from him, gloved hand digging viciously into a blackened bruise on his torse. John grits his teeth to prevent himself from making any sound. Zemo leans in, close enough that John could feel the heat of his breath and inhale the delicate scent of cherry blossom tea. “Then take it as your punishment, and don’t be so foolishly careless again.”

Zemo takes a step back from him, fixes him with a searching gaze. John inhales slowly, recognising these moments as the eye of the storm, the silence and bated breath before thunder cracks the sky. He has learnt to treasure them. “And- I will not be negligent around you,” Zemo says, voice catching in his throat. Then he says, a faint sterness in his voice that told John it was a reminder- “Not in anything I do.”

The words what do you mean are on the tip of his tongue, but John presses his lips into a tight line. He doesn’t want Zemo to spell out the obvious for him- attachment is negligence as well.

Zemo seems to be pleased by whatever minuscule reaction (or lack of) that he showed. The man nods to himself, satisfied, as he turns away and reaches for John’s shield.

John puts on his suit with quick, practiced tugs. Then he buckles the buttons, alternating red and black, one by one in a slanted line down his chest; he squats down, yanking on his sleek combat boots. When he looks up, Zemo is observing him silently, head cocked to one side. John freezes, wondering if Zemo had been standing there the whole time, motionless, looking at his every movement. He reaches for his laces by the side table, but Zemo’s hands find his.

Oh. when had he taken off his gloves?

Wordlessly, Zemo lifts him from the floor. John could smell the leather still lingering on his bare fingers, and the softness of his touch, calloused only on the middle finger where a stylus rests. These are hands that hold heavy gold chalices and silver letter-openers, sharp as a knife. And they stamp royal carvings into hot wax, sealing letters that will decide the fates of millions.

John’s blood turns molten all of a sudden, pumping hard and fast under his skin. He wanted to spill blood all over those dainty fingers, and knowing Zemo, it could be golden ichor. He imagined it crusted into fingernails, could nearly taste it hot on his tongue, war paint befitting of royalty.

He lifts Zemo’s hand, holding that wild gaze, and plants a chaste kiss on the back, chapped lips sliding against soft skin. “Baron,” he says, reveling in the shaky inhale that he hears.

Zemo’s eyes are wide, pupils dilated. His hand hovers over where John’s heart is. After a few seconds Zemo retracts his hand as if burnt and glances away, with the expression that John has come to associate with cornered and run. But he does not take a step back, doesn’t even make up some bullshit excuse to run away.

John knows that neither shock nor fear can make Zemo come to a standstill. So here, there is something inexplicably different that has pinned him to place like a dried butterfly to a corkboard.

“Hold still.”

He watches, mesmerised, as Zemo sinks to his knees and begins to lace up his boots, fingers working deftly to thread string through metal rings.

When the job is done, Zemo straightens again and looks at him square in the eyes. Fully clothed and ready for combat, something deeply calm has settled into John, reducing the world around him to a gentle hum. “US Agent,” Zemo says. His expression is not loving or warm, but his brows are furrowed in worry and John knows it’s the closest thing to kindness he’ll get.

“I’m here,” John says. It might have been a trick of the light, or his brain hallucinating some source of comfort, but he could’ve sworn there was a smile on Zemo’s lips just then, for barely a second.

But walking away and out of the equipment room, he hears a soft good luck behind him, and knows there’s no doubt about it.

I can't help but love you Even though I try not to

#zemo #walkerbaron #kinda fluff #i wrote this when i should have been revising #nngh #john walker #baron zemo #I don't really like this? I think it could have been better ahhhhh #but nevermind #i hope yall will enjoy!#<3

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maladaptive-ninja-returns · 4 years ago

Text

It’s The Avengers (03x10)

Loki x Reader Avengers The Office AU (Slowwwwww Burn)

Season 3 Episode 10: Safehouse

Series Summary: Living in the Avengers facility post-apocalypse in a better timeline Tony Stark has decided to capture every moment by pulling The Office on the Avengers. All of housemates are pretty used to the idea except for you, who had just come here to finish her degree, and the newest member- Loki.

Warnings: soft moments

Word Count: It is an achievement to get this chapter out. Imma celebrate it. Oh fanfic Gods! Give me the power!

MASTERLIST in bio, darlings. Tags are open (check bio)

The camera only had space made up with the galactic beauty swirling in deepest green that can put the stars to shame. The black hole seemed to become bigger as the camera has decided to use a snail's pace to zoom out, giving the audience quite the treat into the pool seems to disappear and reappear under the pale lids with unsurprisingly long lashes. Those veritable brows are wrinkled- enough to make one concerned but not enough to force someone to come and sit next to him with an ice-cream sundae as Peter did once- as if wondering something under their hypothetical breaths. The camera panned out more to show those thin lips going thinner, almost into one nearly invisible line. A long breath is drawn in and those long white fingers are made to rest on his chin as he looks up into an endless void and even Javier- who is being recorded by the other tiny drone- is thinking some stuff. The camera panned out further to show him half lying on the pilot seat while his legs rested on the cargo box behind, away from the controls. A true piece of art.

Javier: *signs as he points to his tablet with Loki's live feed* this God could be a fucking model. *fans himself*

It wasn't long before his voice broke the silence. "Maybe it is the food," he contemplates for the room where his only audience is a busy fur-baby licking his nethers. "Or maybe it was the people on Knowhere. Or it was just that...dingy old-" Loki's casually furry brows were now carrying a full frown- "lair. I don't know." The sigh the left his lungs was loud enough to reach to the back while he lifted his legs to ground himself and droop into his own lap, running his hands through his nearly greasy hair. When was the last time he washed them? "Why is she mad, Lulu?" Loki groans, trying to massage his head to get something out of it. Lulu, on the other hand, decided this was the best time to lie upside down and play with the one blue firefly that got stuck in their ship while they were leaving Knowhere. "Why has she locked herself back there?" He raised his head and asked some invisible force before looking at Javier's camera.

Loki: I'm not concerned for her *pretends to shrug* I just *blinks* don't want my ship to be flooded with her tears. Humans just have the tendency to go all out with their hurt and pain unlike some of us. *camera zooms in to his face* *resting bitch face on* Tell a word about this to her and I will cut you.

A click of something in the back immediately heightened Loki's senses to make his elbow slip from the chair, making him look for support long enough to pose in the chair with the nearest piece of reading material like a man lost in a completely different world, doing an award-worthy job of pretending to not see you come in. "Do we have some sort of digestive tablets on board?" Your hoarse voice asked while barely looking around the space. "I feel bloated. It's fucking disgusting." The groan you let out made Lulu sit up and tilt his head in your direction with his fur standing straight on his back. Loki tsked, still not looking up from the catalogue of the best sex robots on the market in Knowhere. "I told you not to eat those Cheese Puffs on Know-" "OH MY FUCKING GOD!!" Your rage-filled outburst caught the god by surprise, making him jolt up enough to be caught by the camera for the amusement of a certain group of people hungry for entertainment. "THosE FUckING chEEse puFFs wOn'T do me as much damage as your BICKERING!!!" The painful frustration that left your lungs made Javier's eyes go wide. Loki turned to look at the camera in pure confusion.

Loki: *a glorious frown on his face* *arms crossed* *bites lower lip* *inhales* *raises finger* maybe she is sexually frustrated? Space can no human touch can do that to you. And she clearly hasn't watched porn since we teleported *scoffs lightly* *rolls eyes* thank Valhalla for that. I no longer have to hear those filthy noises from across the wa- *stops mid-sentence when a mug comes flying to hit him in the head* "Pervert," you call from out of the frame while Loki ruffles his hair to remove the shards of ceramic caught in there. Loki: Okay *stares at the camera* maybe she's not sexually frustrated. *pauses with his lips still apart* *camera pans in* unless this tantrum is a human way of getting my atten- *another mug comes flying*

"Okay," Loki spun around in his chair to put the ship in full throttle for a destination only he knew about, "that's it. I did not want it to come to this but we are landing here." The camera spun to you and your crinkled brows. "We are supposed to get back your juice, man. Stop making unwanted pit-stops." Lulu's camera caught the disgust on Loki's face as he closed his eyes and shook his head lightly. "Stop saying that." "What?" You crossed your arms across your chest, narrowing your eyes while glaring at the back of his head. "Your juice?" "It's my essence." "But it is your juice. You took it out and now you want to put it back in." "The essence was extracted out of me and I need to consume it-" "You know that sounds worse, right?" "..." "Don't worry, baby, we'll get your bad bitch juice." "It's NOT a ju-why am I even arguing." "Because it's a turn on," you muttered under your breath before sitting down with Lulu in your lap and tying your seat belt. "What?" Loki turned his head around. "Nothing." Innocent as ever.

Loki: I think she's forgetting I have good ears. *narrows eyes and puckers his lips*

You: Oh I know he has super-hearing. That's why I leave my laptop on a decent volume with some classic porno on whenever I'm mad at him. *shrugs and leans back in the chair* *camera pans in on your smirk*

On a Planet Unknown The cameras took in the expanse of the barren planet the group had landed on. The ground seemed to have been hit with a drought. There were small hills in the distance and a few craters scattered all over. The star of this solar system shone too far, bright with pink hues on its tails, making everything drown in a tinge of blush. It was hard to miss this strange sentiment on Loki's face. A mixture of nostalgia with a side of something sour. He breathed in this atmosphere, closing his eyes to reminisce something the others did not have a clue about. A serene smile painted on his lips while his skin reflected the baby pink hues with delicate softness. Javier, talented with his work, used his hovering little drone cam to slowly and cautiously pan in on Loki's face, being really patient on the controls in his hands. "So this is where your juice is?" The zooming in stopped as Loki's eyes opened, blinked twice and sighed some of his internal frustration out. "My-" you could see the boiling lines of frustration on his face while Javier caught the suppressed delight on yours- "juice...is not here." "Then why are we here?" "To get rid of you-" You whipped your head faster than he could finish. "-r grey clouds." Suspicion fresh on your face, you waited for him to continue. "When I'd fallen into the wormhole after my... alleged demise, this was the first place I discovered after a series of misfortunes," Loki exhaled, looking at clean nothingness in front of them. It was not much but Javier zoomed in your face that did a slow shift from the barren view to the sharp face that reflected nothing but a painful softness in those melodramatic hues. "This-" your voice was softer than you wanted it to be- "was your...safehouse?" Loki inhaled and turned to give you a thoughtful look. "In some ways, yes." The hints of smile that were on Loki's face seemed to question the expression on your face as your lips parted in slight horror before he was witnessing you jump away from something and right into his arms with a scream. "Something touched my foot!!!" No one really told Javier to focus on a specific genre yet there he was, letting his camera do a slow-mo on the way Loki's arm came to the rescue of your waist, holding you steady. And close to him. Javier neither missed the frantic grasp of Loki's black shirt under his overcoat by your hands as you turned around to watch what menace had bothered to make you their next victim.

Javier: *signing* I do not know how to activate Lulu's stomach music otherwise I would have added a cheesy track too. *smiles* *somewhere on Earth a boy forgets to breathe*

"Relax," Loki soothed you as he looked down at the familiar purple and pink light crawling up through the cracks in the ground, "here. Look." He did not push you away, in fact, he held you just as he did while you followed his gaze to look at seedling sprouting through the ground and growing leaves and a bud right in front of you in real-time; the bonus being the glow-in-the-dark veins and petals that shone purple and pink. A muted 'Woah' left your lungs while Lulu examined the little plant, tapping at it with his paw to be amused by the ripple he created in the bioluminescent flora. Loki leaned a little closer to your ear while you were still gawking at the plant next to your feet. "Look up," he whispered. "Huh?" Your eyes instantly went away from the plant towards the field that now had an abundance of these flowers while trees grew at a distance carrying the same effect in their leaves- with purple fire trapped inside them. "What the hell is this place?!" You could barely breathe. Loki, on the other hand, was having a gala time at the expense of your expressions. "There was once a...lets say a conscious planet that went by the name Ego. Ego created an ecosystem that would survive in the absence of a star and when in the presence of it, it would camouflage itself to keep the biome intact, because, you know, greedy neighbours, bad rocks, invading aliens, yada yada." You look at the camera to shake your head. "What you are standing on right now is a chunk of that ecosystem." You looked around once again. "So, this thing was bigger than what it is now?" Loki was delighted by your interest. "Yes. It was ten times the size of the earth. And-" he added with such a gush of stress that you were scared he was going to burst any moment- "it had dinosaurs."

You: *guffaws* Haha! Nerd!

Loki: *suspiciously stared at the camera* What. I have interests too, you judgy clots. *somewhere outside the frame you softly shout 'It's thots!'* Yes. *does not waver his gaze from the camera* That.

"Damn! I could live in this place forever!" Loki narrowed his eyes in slight discomfort. "Weeeellll-" The camera cut to you looking like you saw a ghost. "EGO WAS PETER QUILL'S DAD????!!!!!" You shout right into the frame before your body freezes and the shock disappears into a blank slate. "Wait a second..." The camera was already turning to Loki who was shaking his head and whispering to himself, "She went there."

You: *confusion level: the white guy who went to India instead of Indiana* How did Quill's parent even have sex?!! *camera pans in on the gasp that escapes you* Tentacles! *the camera pans out to show Loki standing next to you with he arms crossed across his chest* Loki: *tired* Pervert.

"This is a dead rock with the remnant prints of Ego," he continued, "Come, let's go inside." Saying that he started to walk in some random direction according to you while bringing his hand for you to take. Your eyes went from those long fingers open and waiting for you before looking at the back of his head. A step more from him and you rushed your hand to take his, wrapping your fingers carefully around his palm. The camera was quick to catch your free hand going for the back of your ear, scratching some itch while silently walking some distance with the God. "Wh-" you cleared the vibrating disturbance in your throat- "where are we going?" "Just a few more steps." And true to his words, a few steps later, Loki stopped, making you pause right next to him. Letting go of your hand- something that made you grip those fingers in the other hand, trying to wring them dry of secrets only you knew- to feel something in the space in front of him with his palm. And when he did, he grabbed the space and yanked it back, revealing the space to give way to a cottage. A small, dark, probably comfy cottage. In the middle of nowhere. Covered in glowing purple moss. While you stood there gaping at the incomprehensible science happening in front of you, Loki undid the padlock on the front door to open and enter first. "Stay outside till I tell you to come in," he ordered, not realising you were too engrossed in the exterior architecture of this little house to listen to him. Javier sent one of his drones inside while waiting outside with you. "Dude!" You exhaled while punching Javier on his arm, "this is heaven!!!" Turning the camera to face him, Javier looked at it and signed 'is it though?'. "Alright, come in," Loki's voice called for you from inside. "Hiding your porn stash, Loki?" you stated quite rhetorically before the camera found you frozen at the entrance of what looked like a living room. And your eyes stuck on Loki's face softly illuminated by the blue-ish purple flames captured inside a foot long lamp in the shape of a cuboid. You stood there in a ten-second daze, your eyes stuck on the face that worked meticulously with four more similar lamps before turning to look at you, immediately making you throw your gaze at the lamps. "Nice lights," you stated, a little louder than usual, clearly confused by your own pitch. Loki walked around the place, hanging the lamps to help light up the cottage, allowing you, the cameras and Lulu to explore the place more freely. The cottage felt more spacious on the inside. There was a sofa facing a window where you stood, a small but decent workstation behind it next to the wall with small tools stacked by the size and category. The walls were decorated with a league of tools that only Loki knew about. "Is that a Ghili suit?" you had to ask. "Yes," Loki answered without looking from the kitchen, "and no, you cannot try it on." You tsked and Loki smiled. "So-" you clapped your hands and walked around casually, letting your legs stretch with each step- "where the beds at." Loki turned to face you, taking a step towards you, holding his arm up to take the support of the ceiling as he leaned in to get his face close to yours. Javier- clever as ever- zoomed in at the bulge of Loki's bicep wanting to get free of the lone t-shirt that barely got to see the light of the day with that unexplainably fashionable overcoat. There was a split second where the camera looked at Lulu scratching away at the sofa in the living room, drawing his attention with a click and gesturing something out of the frame to make the little furball pause the massacre for a few seconds before pressing his stomach.

Can't Keep My Eyes Off You Lo-Fi version starts playing through Lulu's stomach.

"There are no beds here, darling," Loki cooed with his signature smirk right in your face. "There is only a bed." Your composure might have slipped for a second with his model-like posture but you had seen enough fuckboys in your life to deal with the God's sense of play. "Oh," you stressed sullenly while taking off your jacket and throwing it on the couch over Lulu, "guess we'll have to make do with what we have." You knew your puppy dog eyes won't do much on this creature but that slight distortion in his gaze when he blinked to look down at your sweaty tank top before coming back to your face was worth it all.

You: *chuckling* no matter where they come from they are all horny at some point under it all, aren't they?! *looks away from the lens at Javier* Hmm? *mocking a laugh* What? I was just joking with him. That's how friends joke with each other. *glares at Javier with the smile still smacked on your face* Don't read into it. *camera swerves to show Javier sign* Javier: Will Mr Stark think this as a joke? Just asking? *camera swerves back to the one-eighty your expression does* You: Oh, he'll kill him.

Back On Earth "Ooooh, Tony's gonna murder that punk." Sam's crackling whisper was followed by nods and hums from Peter, Scott and Wanda. Vision was the only one who tilted his head in deep thought. "Is it because Loki held Y/N's hand and holding one's hand shows a sign of affection?" "Yes, our big robot baby," Scott sang while feeding Vision another popcorn. "But Wanda and Natasha hold hands too. But it seems absurd for me to get mad at that," the AI continued while Wanda chuckled. "Wanda and Natasha holding hands is akin to two sisters holding hands," Scott explained, "and that's the only concept we will go with if we all like our necks intact." All the boys agreed. "Now Loki, on the other hand, is seen as a threat by Tony because Y/N, his daughter, is young and still a baby in his eyes whom he wants to protect at all costs. While Loki- thanks to his chiselled looks and accurately hot manners- seems like the boy no father would want their daughter to date. Because a man like that takes seconds to make a girl fall in love with him. Look at the dude. Look at the bod. And that's when he is wearing clothes on clothes on clothes. No wonder Tony wouldn't want him within a hundred feet of his daughter." Now, everyone was looking at a sighing Scott giving heart eyes to Loki on the screen. The camera turned to show a previously busy-with-her-nails Natasha pausing to look at the Ant-Man and wonder. "You are in love with Loki." "Head over heels, woman," Scott smiled without looking away from the screen. "Tell me one thing," Peter asked out of curiosity while chewing on the popcorn, "you learned the word 'akin' today, didn't you?" "It was the word of the day on dictionary.com," he replied without missing a beat.

Space Farm Safehouse One of Javier's camera had followed you up the attic, while you went looking for a place to hang your wet clothes. Unlike the eerie space shown in the movies, this one was spacious, had an entire wall with a window and a sofa set in the direction to enjoy the view of the flora sparkling outside. Putting your clothes on what looked like a wooden chair in the corner, you sat down on the sofa, eyes stuck on the view outside. The camera rotated to capture the wave of purple embers riding the plants and the cracks of the ground. The camera watched you inhale when steps were heard coming up the stairs, a figure out of focus walking behind you, disappearing to let you feel the cushion dip next to you. "Feels one hell of a place hide from the world," you whispered, never blinking for the fear of missing it all. La vie en rose Louis Armstrong but it's raining Loki chuckled. "Who hurt you?" The playful grin on Loki's face turned to ash when he turned and watched you sniffle while huge tears fell from your eyes. The God's face knew a new type of fear when he turned to the camera.

Loki: *raises his hands in defence* I swear upon my own self I meant it as a joke. *looks at the camera* Tony, if you are seeing this, it was a joke.

"Why does it hurt so much?" You sobbed while your eyes never once stopped the tap that had been set free. "Even after so many years, why do all those old memories hurt so much?" Loki did open his mouth to say something but nothing came out. He brought his hand forward to keep it on your shoulder but stopped short, taking it up to your head before receding his hand back to himself. "W-" "I am having a good day and suddenly I cannot stop thinking about the time my mom ripped all my drawing because she wanted me to do something more 'productive'. It's been, what, twelve years and that stupid memory is fucking me up today." By this time you were ugly crying, trying to stop your snot from coming out of your nose. Loki shuffled where he sat, finally bringing his hand up to let his fingers touch your head. "There, there," he sputtered, the pain of embarrassment bright on his face. "Loki I-uh-I am sooo sorry!" You bawled, clearly confusing the God even more. "You don't have to be s-" "I met Frigga on Knowhere," you stated between your tears and jerks, making him pause where he sat. "And obviously she was supposed to meet you but got stuck with me for some reason. And then before we could come to you, I asked her if she was the good guy, you know. To make sure she was not going to hurt you. And she was super sweet and she smiled at me and then disappeared and I am so sorry you were not able to meet her because of me." It felt like ages passed when Loki blinked and brought himself to the current space and time. His brows furrowed and his iris seemed to open wide in some heavy revelation. "Is that why you have been struggling since we left Knowhere?" You sniffled and took the white rag that came out of frame, making the camera pan out to watch Lulu sitting by your feet ready with another rag for you. No one knew where he got them from. "Is this why you did not talk to me the entire trip?" You nodded before blowing your nose into the rag and tossing it into the basket kept in the corner. Loki sighed. "Y/N." He scooched closer to you, taking your shoulders to turn you towards him."Look at me." You did. "My mother disappearing on you is not your fault." You whimpered, forcing him to move each of his hand from your shoulder to your face, his fingers running the length, allowing his palm to anchor itself over your jaw. "Frigga was a Witch. And she was no ordinary Witch. If she found a way to meet you even after her death then I am confident that she will find a way to meet me too. Okay?" He waited for an answer. The camera panned in to look at your tear-smeared face nod in between his hands. "Now I want you to tell me something-" he sang soothingly being as gentle with his words as with those hands still stuck on your face- "did these old memories come up after you met her?" That guilty puppy look you gave him confirmed some fear of his. He said something under his breath that sounded like an alien curse. Almost drooping with his eyes closed, he pulled himself back to face you. "I'm sorry you had to go through that, Y/N." He let his thumb stroke your cheek, neither of you realising how you leaned into his touch. "I think there is something else that made me go through it," you muttered through your hoarse throat. Loki simply nodded. "I think I'm about to start my-" "Period," Loki finished your sentence, sighing and taking his hands away from your face to let one arm move around your shoulder. "I know. I could hear your uterus howling on the ship." You adjusted yourself on the couch to bring your legs up and rest your head on his shoulder. "That must be quite scary for you, hearing my insides like that." "Ehh," Loki answered, looking at the scenery outside while meteors passed through the sky, lighting up when entering the atmosphere, "not as scary when your intestines growling before you let all the air out of your syste-ow!" "It's gas! It's normal. Get over it, you twat!" The sound of his chuckle reverberated throughout the cottage. Lulu slept at the foot of the couch while the two of you talked some more till sleep took over one and the other found a blanket to cover you and let your rest. "Let's find some cure for this bloody situation in the morning," Loki whispered to your snoring figure; finding himself sitting the foot of the sofa for a few more minutes before letting his hand pat your head a few times. Two pats and he moved his hand away, watching the camera entering the space. "What are you looking at?" he softly threw in Javier's direction, getting up and walking past him. "Go to sleep. I'll wake you up just with the first rays."

The Lounge "Oof! These idiots 'bout to fall in love." The camera zoomed out to show Rhodey sipping his morning coffee while Peter and Scott slept over each other on the couch, snoring quite loud while Zuko licked Peter's face while standing on the armrest. Rhodey looked at the duo, judging them and their will to sit there for more than twenty-four hours. "You guys are lucky Tony has another daughter to think about right now." He tsked and turned back to the TV, muttering 'fangirls' under his breath before walking away to get a refill.

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rokutouxei · 4 years ago

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you are still the sun that shines for me

part 8 of atelier heart

ikemen vampire: temptation in the dark theo van gogh/mc | G | 2793 | [ao3 in bio]

Life couldn’t get any better. You enjoy what you do here, spending your life without regrets with the person you love the most. That is, until you meet her. The woman who still loves Theo.

CHAPTER 4

You and Theo rarely work Sundays. It’s a rule—practicing work-life balance is important, the both of you say. Sundays are for taking King out for a walk or joining Vincent out for a little painting session in the flower fields.

Today, Theo asks you if you could sleep in a little longer.

By “sleep in” he means not get up at 7:00 am, which is about the time Sebastian asks for your help in the kitchen. This is a luxury that neither of you have afforded in some time—mostly because Theo is a workaholic, but also partially because you’ve gotten so used to the rhythm of life in the mansion—so this occurrence is special. He holds you by the wrist when you’ve gotten up and asks you to stay in bed.

You do.

Let yourself get tucked into his still sleep-warm arms, even if your mind is elsewhere. Last week’s little chat in the café had broken down the wall between the both of you, but you were still standing outside the boundary of it, wondering if it is now right to enter. Maybe, you think, maybe it is okay to sleep in, just a little longer, to delay what is… inevitable, today that you’ve decided to talk to Theo about it.

About his little Vincent.

You take a deep breath that comes out so shakily, you know Theo can notice it with your proximity. But there hasn’t been any hiding about all of this from the beginning, anyway, just the illusion of it. You know you are transparent to him the same way he is transparent to you.

The both of you are just waiting for your voices to come back.

You’ll just...take it slowly today. Find a quiet moment alone with Theo. Maybe not this early in the morning, but maybe in the late afternoon. You’re sure you’ll find an exactly right time to bring it up to him.

What should you say? Maybe you should apologize, first, for prying, for having carried this with you since that day at the exhibit a full two months before, so short and yet so long back it feels like a different lifetime ago. Of course, you won’t be telling him about the conversation with Vincent, at the cliffside, but maybe you should tell him about what you’d learned from the boy Vincent, maybe—

“Can’t sleep?”

His voice drags you back into reality, your eyes refocusing to see how close his face is, his beautiful sea-blue eyes. The familiar ones you’d seen on someone else.

“Just a little...distracted,” you offer.

Your heart is up your throat all at once. Should you bring it up now? You’d already been procrastinating on telling him about this for an irresponsible amount of time—no, you were waiting for him to be ready, maybe?—so you may as well do it now, right? Just tell him how you feel about it. He’s basically already asking you what’s wrong. This is your chance to say it. You’ve been waiting for this. You can’t keep sitting on this secret forever.

But before the words come out of your mouth, Theo speaks.

“Come with me out today, won’t you?”

You blink. All your resolution dissolves into thin air at the missed chance.

“Work? Yeah, sure, I can help.”

“I have something to pick up at the atelier, after lunch. I want you to see it, too.”

You nod, pressing your face against his neck. “Yeah. Sure.”

Inhaling his scent, feeling his warmth, relishing in his touch, you try to banish the thought of some other woman in his arms just like this, just like how he held you, how he’d promised the world to her too, maybe. How he’d married her just like that, and how you’re just… here. You try to let the thoughts come up in a cloud of smoke. Later, you tell yourself. Later.

Theo rubs a comforting circle on your lower back.

You leave the house after lunch. Arthur sends you and Theo off with a round of teasing that you do not understand, but one that seems to set Theo on edge—you don’t know why yet. Once you exit the carriage, you see the warm spring sun basking the streets in a golden light. It’s a Wednesday, an ordinary day, and the streets of Paris are the same as they’ve always been. Parents walking around town with their children. Busybodies rushing past. Carriages crawl up and down the avenue. You whiff the delicious smell of your favorite pancakes when you pass by your favorite café.

You think of all the memories you’ve made in this city. Down that corner, in a hundred meters you’ll reach the house of a marquis who loves rococo-styled paintings. Straight up the avenue is the café where you and Theo had your first date. If you turn left at that jewelry shop, there’s a bakery that lends its walls to display some of the young artists’ works. A pathway that leads out the side of a bookshop leads to the Seine, where you’d had long walks with Theo, talking about art, love, family.

You are so distracted cataloguing a little map of nostalgia that the whole time you are lost in memory, Theo is also seemingly lost in thought. He stays quiet, guiding you past crowds and on the safer side of the street. The only way you know he’s still with you is the comforting warmth of his hand in yours—your hand he had taken in his as he guided you down the carriage, and then hadn’t let go—and you hold hands all the way to the atelier.

There are no artists today, when you get there, no marquis; just you and Theo, the front door creaking when you enter. The gallery is as spic and span as always, filled with the kind of artwork the Academie loved to tout. But in this building, the magic is on the second floor, the room with the distinct smell of paint and thinner seeping through its walls; a scent that has become to you very familiar.

You go upstairs to the atelier, finding it empty as well, the easels pushed to the side with their respective canvases left out to dry, save for one easel, standing in the middle of the room. It’s covered with a white cloth; the window at the end of the room lets in just enough sun to spotlight the covered painting.

Theo shuts the door behind you, and then settles next to you. “Came for this,” Theo says softly, pulling you gently by the wrist toward the painting before he lets go, grips the cloth with one hand.

You feel him hesitate, but in a moment it is gone.

When he pulls off the piece of cloth, the painting is revealed—a painting of a gray near-spring morning, the trees without leaves and bare, sheets of ice slowly melting atop a glassy silver lake, shimmering white in the dim sunlight. This was a painting you’d seen a duplicate of, one time you were watching the younger artists work—but this one, and you’re sure because of what Theo had taught you, was an original, as original as can be.

It’s hardly the masterpiece that would change your life, as Theo liked to say, but it was an amazing piece, and you’d secretly wished you could own it.

“That’s... a Monet,” is all you say, stepping closer to be fully engrossed in the beautiful near-chromatic landscape, the white of the ice so stark you can almost feel its chill. You’re struck by the wonder of art, as you always do, with Theo. “That’s an actual Monet.”

“What do you think of it?” he asks, nonchalantly.

“Well, it’s, wow,” you say, rather eloquently, “Where do I begin? it’s beautiful.”

“It is,” he says, placing one hand on your waist, and another on the painting’s frame. “And it’s yours.”

The weight of his love is, all of a sudden, so heavy and certain on your shoulders. And oh, what a weight you didn’t mind to bring. You feel so childish so suddenly. “Why?”

He ruffles your hair. “Just take it or I’m taking it back.”

You pout a little, placing your hand on the frame too. “No! I want it. Thank you, Theo,” you say.

And then nothing else.

Just silence.

The both of you know there are things to be said, it’s just that neither of you know where to begin.

Theo decides it’s better to just do.

“I’m not… Vincent. I’m not my brother. I don’t have the skills for painting, and neither have I been chosen for creating anything wonderful. I’m just a mediocre, ordinary person.”

“You know I don’t like it when you say that,” you murmur, gripping his arm.

“I know. But it’s true, and I’m okay with it,” he says. “At the very least, this is what I can do. To buy, and sell, and share paintings. This is my whole life. This is who I am, this is probably what I was born to do. So this is what I can do for you.”

You bite your lip.

“This is the only way I know how to love you; to give you all of what I know how to give.”

You want to cry. You want to apologize for the days you spent discolored by envy, clouded with distrust. You want to take back all the time you’ve spent mulling about if Theo really loved you as much as he claimed to.

“I’m sorry I ever doubted you, Theo,” you say, throwing your arms around him—but this time, the touch doesn’t claw at you; it isn’t a constant chant of mine mine mine mine, but just the collapse of wanting to be held. “I’m sorry I ever doubted this. I just… I didn’t know what could happen. I’m not—I won’t ever be—ready to lose you.”

“You aren’t going to lose me. You were never going to.”

Your heart feels so real suddenly, in your chest. So heavy and alight. “I didn’t know that.”

“You should have, silly hondje,” he says, as he bends down to pick you up, place you on the sofa by the side of the room. You smooth your hand over its fabric and chuckle to yourself; this piece of furniture has seen so much history, if between you and Theo. And here it is to witness one more.

“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about it earlier.”

His voice wavers in a way you never want to hear ever again.

Months and months of words hidden underneath heavy tongues, but they dissolve all at once. “You didn’t have a reason to.”

The lump in his throat is too heavy to put into words. “I didn’t know.”

He doesn’t say it, but you can see it in his eyes, like the boy with his face and Vincent’s name is reflected right on its glassy surface. “I know you didn’t.” You press your hand against his cheek, and you’re surprised at how it doesn’t shake. “I’m sorry,” you whisper.

He looks up at you. “For what?”

“For holding this against you.”

He turns away with an exhale, making an expression you can’t make out. “You were right to do it.”

“Maybe I was,” you say, with a deep sigh. “But it still wouldn’t have been right of me to have made it all about myself.”

The words sink in between the two of you, refreshing and cool in its honesty, like melted ice.

“Do you want to ask about her?”

Theo doesn’t know.

He does, but at the same time, he doesn’t.

Because what then happens once he knows?

Look at how much happened, when he knew, just standing there in the gallery?

What more could happen if he dared to ask the rest of it?

And if he did… what is there to be done?

He frowns. “I didn’t think she would stay in Paris.”

“She doesn’t. She only came to visit, and heard about the exhibit when she was in town.” Theo doesn’t move. “She came to visit a friend, and… Vincent.”

Theo flinches. “Broer?”

“In Auvers-sur-Oise.”

The information clicks into place. Auvers-sur-Oise, where they’d taken Vincent’s body to the place he’d written about wanting to visit. Where he would have gone, if not for…

“I didn’t think…”

“Who do you think took care of all the paintings you’d left behind?” You snicker. “You left her a lot of work to do.”

“She didn’t have to.”

“She will, though,” you affirm. “She has, and she will, and she always will. Because she still loves you, Theo. That’s how much love you’ve left for her.”

Theo’s heart near collapses.

“You talk as if you know for sure.”

You smile, a small smile that’s equal parts hurt and equal parts forgiveness; doused in relief but also love. The rest of forever is a foggy place and you hold a lamp of certainty on it.

“You forget I come from the future.”

You pull his head against your chest and rest your head in his hair, shielding him from your own expression (teary-eyed, relieved, exhausted) and allowing him to hide his own.

“You don’t need to keep beating yourself up over this.”

He snorts, a wordless well, you did too, you’re one to talk. Oh, the delight of once again being able to hear what Theo does not say.

“I might have, but now I don’t. Want to know why?”

Theo snakes his arms around your waist.

“…Because you stayed. Because you’re still thinking of me when you’re dealing with all of this grief on your own.”

Grief Theo believed he didn’t deserve to live without.

“I left her on her own.”

“You did,” you say; there is no point in sugarcoating it now. “And at the same time, you didn’t. You taught her to stand, and you gave her so much love, and faith, and direction…” You shake your head, because by god, does Theo just keep giving and giving and giving and he doesn’t even know how much he is doing. “You gave her Vincentje.”

Theo holds you tighter, but really, it’s you that’s holding him together.

“You can go around saying everything is your fault, Theo, be the judge, defendant, the prosecutor, the jury—but it still won’t change the truth,” you say. “That at the end of the day, you’ve planted the seeds of greatness, and the world will watch it blossom from her.” You cup his cheeks. “From the artists you’re nurturing. From the art world you’re watching over. From me.”

You press a kiss on his forehead and settle him back under your chin. You feel him shaking, ever so gently.

“You don’t have to keep being the bad guy, you know?”

He sighs, like he doesn’t believe it. Or like he’s finally letting it out of his system. The two of you sit together like that in companionable silence for a long moment, as Theo begins to put himself together. And when the fog in his mind has cleared, he murmurs a question into your flesh, like he’s guilty for wanting to ask it.

“How is the boy?”

You smile. And it hurts, but smiling is what this moment deserves. “He loves his papa very much. He says he doesn’t understand art, but he knows how much it means to him, his mama, his papa, that he respects it. He says his papa is watching over him, and that’s the only way he can keep up with his mama.” You feel Theo clench his jaw. The sting of tears begin to grow on your eyes. “Theo, he looks just like you.”

A single laugh, pressed into your chest. “He ought to do better than me.”

“And he will, for sure,” you say. Adamant. “Isn’t it exciting to see what he can do?”

“Would you like to see it?”

You smile like it’s obvious. “Yes, of course. He’s a brilliant boy. Just like his papa.”

He presses a kiss to your shoulder before looking up at you. “Why are you like that?”

“Like what?”

Theo only looks at your face for a moment, and you wait for him to continue.

“I thought art dealership had to be a lonely job.”

The shift surprises you, but you nod. “It doesn’t have to be.”

“You taught me that,” he says, “in the ways you let me be alone, let me process this on my own, didn’t come at my throat for it. I want to apologize for how long it took. I didn’t mean to hurt you.”

The smile hurts. “I know.”

“When I got that Monet painting, I was thinking of you. I was thinking of how beautiful you are, how strong and yet so tender. How important you are to me. How even in this… coldness, you still managed to find me. Sit with me.”

“Theo…”

“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about Jo. I do, still have feelings for her—but they are regret, remorse. That chapter is over, and I am no longer part of her story; my exhibit in the gallery of her life is over. And you… you hold my whole heart. The main event, the masterpiece. I took you from the waves of time, you know? My little time-traveling knabbeltje.”

“Hey!”

“I love you, ik hou van jou, je t'aime,” he chants. “I’ll tell you over and over again, until you get sick of it.”

“I won’t get sick of it.”

Theo laughs, and oh, the sound of his laughter. “That’s what you think.”

You grin, pulling at his tie and kissing him on the lips. “Challenge accepted.”

(“I can’t believe you bought me a Monet to ask for forgiveness. Maybe we should fight more often.”

“Hondje.”

“I was joking!”

“You spend too much time with Arthur, if you’re joking like that.”

“Geez, Theo, don��t be jealous of your best friend.”

“We’re not friends.”)

Theo tells you to hang the painting in your room, but considering you already spend most your nights in his, the Monet hangs instead on the walls of his room, watching over the bed like a constant reminder of the lessons learned from the entire experience.

On the dresser is a letter you finally had the courage to show Theo.

On the dresser is a letter from Jo, addressed to you.

---

in the atelier: ice melting near vétheuil by claude monet, 1880

i don't have any particular smart reason for the painting choice, i just thought it was really nice; i feel like theo doesn't also need much spectacle to get his message across, so. also that’s a monet, okay.

fun fact, theo was hosting an exhibit by monet when he was preparing to get their apartment at 8 cite pigalle... didn’t know before i wrote this in, actually!

#ikemen vampire #ikemen vampire theo #ikevamp theo #ikevamp #ikevam #ikevam theo #atelier heart #you are still the sun that shines for me

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moonlit-jeno · 5 years ago

Text

Love Sick

Chapter 2- Donghyuck

pairing: nct dream ‘00 line + reader

genre/warnings: zombie!au, fluff, eventual smut, angst. some graphic violence/ gore

words: 2.3k

summary:

“You’re telling me that I slept through the beginning of the zombie apocalypse.” You deadpan, expecting at least one of them to break character and laugh. All four boys remain grim.

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They drive for hours, Jeno eventually switching with Jaemin so that he can get some sleep. They’ve only dared to stop once so far to grab a can of gasoline, the empty gas station far too foreboding for them to feel comfortable at. And then they’re driving again, through the dark streets, headed god knows where. There’s no cell reception and GPS isn’t working, so they’re driving blind. The map Jaemin grabbed is ancient and has been folded so many times that the creases blend in with the roads.

It’s early morning when Jaemin takes a right turn that leads them down a dirt road, with the trees growing thicker and blocking out some of the sunlight. Donghyuck shudders at the fear he gets from this place.

“Are you sure we should go this way?” Renjun asks, turning behind them to see how far from the main road they are.

There’s a nod from Jaemin. “Yeah, it looks alright. No harm in exploring.” Donghyuck snorts. Sure, they’re in a fast car with locked doors, but their eyes aren’t protected from the horrific sights around them. He’s still scarred from watching the guy bash his own head in an attempt to get to them, and he doesn’t want to add any more memories to that part of his brain.

The trees get a little thinner in one area, and Donghyuck has to squint to realize that there’s a house there. “Jaem, look.”

The car slows, Jaemin and Renjun leaning closer to get a better look. Jeno is snoring in the passenger seat, having driven for the majority of the trip.

“It’s fucking massive.” Renjun points out, and he isn’t wrong. The house is at least double the size of Hyuck’s own home. “Guess land out here’s cheaper.” It’s quiet as they decide what to do, the car humming idly. Donghyuck knows what they’re all thinking, what they’re all scared to say. They can’t stay in this car forever, and this house seems perfect. Isolated, huge, probably has running water and electricity. Of course, it only seems perfect from the outside. They have no way of knowing what’s on the inside. The place could be crawling with zombies- he cringes just thinking of the word- or it could have some people who don’t take kindly to strangers. He can only pray that it’s empty and that its owners don’t plan on returning.

“We should go in.” Jaemin murmurs, pulling over to the side of the road. Renjun hums in agreement, and Donghyuck hates himself for agreeing too. It’s the logical decision, but he feels sick to his stomach at the prospect of potentially running into a zombie. At the prospect of dying.

Hyuck reaches one shaking hand forward and nudges Jeno awake. He needs his sleep, sure, but he needs to be a part of this decision. He startles awake with a sharp inhale, looking around for a second before his brain fully wakes up.

“Well, shit.” Jeno coughs to clear his throat, laughing humorlessly. “Guess it wasn’t just a bad dream?”

Renjun doesn’t seem to have the patience for small talk. “We found a house. It’s pretty secluded, and we’re going to have to stop at some point anyways. Here seems as good a place as any.” Jeno blinks before turning his head and looking at the house. He shrugs. “I guess. Who’s going in?” Silence. None of them had thought that far ahead. “Someone should stay in the car.” Renjun points out. He doesn’t add the words “in case something goes wrong”, but they all hear them anyways.

Donghyuck considers it for all of one second before he realizes that a) it would leave him alone and vulnerable, b) he’s a horrendous driver, and c) he won’t be able to handle not knowing what’s happening to his friends in the house.

“Not me.” He says, meeting Jaemin’s quirked eyebrow with a stare of his own. “What? You’ve all seen my driving.” That at least gets him a snort and a ‘fair enough’ from Jeno. Renjun shrugs. “I’ll do it.” Another beat of silence. “Guess that means we’re going in.” Jaemin says, looking from Jeno to Donghyuck. “Guess it does.” He hopes his voice isn’t shaking as badly as he thinks it is.

Jeno mumbles a ‘fuck this’ and hops out of the car, Jaemin quickly following suit. Renjun pulls them all in for a quick hug before hopping into the front seat.

The walk up to the house is both the shortest and longest walk Donghyuck has ever experienced. He needs to know if it’s empty, if there’s something inside, but he also doesn’t. His day’s been bad enough already; he doesn’t need to add ‘being chased by zombies’ to the list of things that have happened to him.

They get to the front door, and it’s surprisingly clean- no peeling paint, the tiny windows at the top of the door clear of fingerprints and dust. Donghyuck looks to the side and finds some potted plants next to a pair of shoes. Jeno and Jaemin have noticed it too.

“We should knock?” Jaemin tries to suggest. It comes out as more of a question, and he clears his throat. “I mean, it looks like there might be someone here. They might be more willing to help us if we’re polite?” Jeno shrugs. Donghyuck glances back to the truck, engine humming softly. Renjun’s looking out the window nervously. “Right. On the count of three?” “One.” Donghyuck puts his fist up first. Jaemin and Jeno follow hesitantly.

“Two.” There so much that could go wrong. Donghyuck’s never been good at running, especially not under pressure. He wonders if an angry zombie is enough to turn him into an Olympic sprinter.

Jeno’s in a fighting stance, probably subconsciously. A habit from all his years of picking fights on the streets, before he started boxing and found a healthy way to channel his anger. He wonders if Jeno would be able to throw a punch, or if all his muscles would lock up. Donghyuck knows what would happen if he tried it himself.

“Three.” They knock together, three hands on one piece of wood. His heartbeat is pounding in his ears, stomach twisting so violently that he has to lean against Jaemin for support. He expects the door to fly open, expects 10 raging monsters to come pouring out, expects to stare straight into the barrel of an angry farmers gun. He holds his breath.

Nothing happens. Jaemin, who’s eyes had been squeezed shut, blinks at the door in confusion, leaning forward to knock again. There’s no response. He tries the doorknob, but it doesn’t budge.

“Strange. Should we break in?” Jeno asks, jumping up on his tiptoes to try and peer in through the windows at the top. It’s useless, they’re too high.

Jaemin nods and Hyuck steps back, prepared to have to ram his full body weight into the door. But the youngest just kneels down, pulling something out of his pocket before setting to work.

“Are you- where did you learn to pick a lock?” Donghyuck squints, watching the door open. Jaemin stands back up and winks, pocketing his paper clip. “That doesn’t answer my question!” They’re all slightly more at ease after no mysterious noises have come from inside. But the fear is still there, curling and stabbing at his gut. “We should check all the rooms first, make sure there’s nothing hiding.” Jeno’s suggestion is logical, of course, but that doesn’t mean Donghyuck likes it. Especially since they’d decided to split up for this part, so he can’t hide behind Jaemin or cling onto Jeno’s hand. He voices his complaints under his breath as he creaks open a door, peering into it and seeing in relief as nothing jumps out. Three more doors are opened, all devoid of zombies.

They regroup in the kitchen, Donghyuck being the last to join. Renjun’s there, groceries lining the table and floor. “Jesus, how long did I take.” Jaemin shrugs. “Pretty long. But there was no screaming, so we figured you were alright. Find anything?”

“Nah. All the rooms upstairs are empty, I even check the closets. You guys?” Two heads are shaken at him. “One of the doors was locked so I couldn’t check it, but I figure it’s fine. Didn’t want to bust it down and find out that I was wrong.” Jeno tries for humor but misses the mark. For once, Donghyuck doesn’t make fun of him.

“I was betting that you passed out in fear.” Renjun pipes up, and Donghyuck sends him a glare that he hopes is scathing. He gets a smile in return.

There’s a glass of water on the table and Donghyuck’s sandpaper mouth decides hey, that looks delicious. “Where’d you guys find the water?” Silence. The other three turn to look at the glass, the plate next to it. Jaemin swallows thickly. “It was there when we got here. Probably the owners.” Hyuck frowns, walking over to the plate. There’s breadcrumbs still on it and he pokes them. “Seems pretty fresh.” “It’s probably from yesterday. Left, figured they’d clean it when they came back.” Donghyuck feels bile rise in his throat when he realizes that they probably won’t be coming back, because they won’t be able to. It makes him think of other people that might not be coming back- namely his parents- and he shuts down that train of thought before he starts crying.

There’s another beat of silence before Renjun’s standing, walking over to the fridge. “We should take stock of what food they have. I don’t know how long we’re gonna be here, but we should eat the fresh food first. If there even is any.”

Donghyuck’s brain momentarily short circuits- it’s only been one day since the entire world seemingly turned upside down. It feels like it’s been a year.

He’s pulled out of his thoughts by Renjun shoving a plastic bag into his hands. It has four containers in it, and the receipt stapled to the bag reads that it’s from yesterday. His stomach growls.

“Shit, when’s the last time we ate?” His appetite, previously repressed by hunger, makes itself known with a by twisting itself in pain, growling again.

“Too long ago.” Jaemin says, pulling out half a container of soup. “Lunch time?”

The four boys watch impatiently as the food rotates in the microwave, the loud buzzing taunting them. The seconds count down impossibly slow, until finally it beeps. Jeno’s out of his chair in an instant, straight up moaning when the door opens and the scent of Chinese takeout fills the air. “It smells so good.”

“It’s also mine.” That voice doesn’t belong to any of them. All four boys freeze, whipping around to face the source.

A girl stands in the doorway, leaning against the wall. She looks to be around their age. “The cops are on their way. Figured I’d at least give you a chance to avoid jail.” Renjun, always the sharpest, easily replies. “No they aren’t. The phone lines are down. Nice try, though.”

She frowns. “Shit. Are you here to kill me then? Or just to eat my food?” The way she asks the question is so calm, it’s as if she’s asking about the weather. Donghyuck can’t help his giggle. She glances at him and he quickly calms his expression.

“We’re hiding. We thought this house was empty, but apparently these three couldn’t do their job right.” Renjun motions to the other boys, and okay, wow. He feels a little attacked.

“I didn’t check one room because it was locked!” Jeno exclaims, exasperated.

They start bickering, and Hyuck turns his attention back to the girl. She’s wearing a shirt that looks like it’s three sizes too big, the hem reaching past whatever pants she’s wearing. Her hair looks like it hasn’t been brushed in about a week, and there’s smudges of leftover makeup around her eyes. She’s pretty- not the time to be focusing on these things, but whatever, he can’t help it- even though she’s half asleep and looks about ready to give up and go back to bed. The biggest yawn he’s ever seen leaves her and then she’s walking over to the counter, plopping down on it.

“Sorry, hiding from who? I’m going to tell you right now that I will not be happy if the feds come knocking down my door.” She swings her legs back and forth, the action revealing neon pink sleep shorts.

The four boys all share a look. Jaemin opens his mouth, then closes it, considering the options. Obviously they have to tell her the truth, but there’s not really a way to say it that won’t sound crazy. There’s no evidence to back them up. No internet access to show her proof.

They have a silent conversation for a while- consisting of a lot of furrowed brows and widening eyes- before Donghyuck has enough and leans back in his seat, turning to her. “Zombies.” She snorts. “Yeah, I’m sure. Honestly, if you would’ve said aliens, I would’ve let you stay. But zombies? That’s kind of lame, don’t you think.” Renjun rolls his eyes. “Believe me, I wouldn’t be hiding from aliens. They would be hiding from me.” It’s Jeno’s turn to roll his eyes. “Injun, that’s not helping.” “We’re not joking.” Jaemin says, glaring at the other two before turning his attention to the girl. “Believe me, I wish it was. And I know it sounds crazy, but we saw it happen right in front of us.”

“You’re telling me that I slept through the beginning of the zombie apocalypse.” She deadpans, obviously expecting at least one of them to break character and laugh.

All four boys remain grim.

The smile quickly fades into a frown and she looks at them more carefully. Maybe it’s the fear and pain in their eyes at the memory of yesterday’s events. Maybe she can see through all of them, can see the horrifying images that are printed on the back of their eyelids. Whatever it is, she finally seems to believe them.

“You’re serious?” They all nod. “Shit.” She hops off the counter, walking over to them. “Pass me the food, you have some explaining to do.”

#nct #nct dream #nct fic #nct dream fic #jeno fic #jaemin fic #renjun fic #donghyuck fic #haechan fic #nct dream angst #jeno angst #jaemin angst #renjun angst #donghyuck angst #haechan angst #nct angst #00 line #x reader

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deathbyvalentine · 4 years ago

Text

Bad Memories

(TW for abuse, sexual violence and self-harm.)

One

The moment after she stepped from the concrete and before she hit the water was the longest of any of her lives. The air rushed along her goose-pimpled flesh, making her hair stream upwards. Instinctively she closed her eyes, blocking out the unreality of this world, focusing only on the blackness that enveloped her. And she felt... Relief.

Part of her knew this was not embracing her madness. It was not following her divinity. It was giving in to one of the only parts of ‘Violet’ that were left. The part of her that was small, in pain and scared. The frightened animal, the homeless girl, the statistic waiting to happen. It was her that pushed her forwards, that was hoping that when she inhaled the salt water, it would do nothing but kill her. End it all. Let silence take her. Everything was too loud here. Aggressively grey. The type of mundane that swallows you whole.

What had she looked like? Standing on the wall, arms wrapped around her bare skin, shivering. Nobody had seen her. Or rather - nobody had stopped. No coaxing good samaritan, no creepy dude, no concerned citizen. Did she want to be saved? Or did she just want to be noticed?

The water was freezing cold and when she hit it, it hurt. Water rushed into her ears, her nose and her throat from the irresistible inhale. It burnt with cold. She couldn’t tell which way lay the shore or which way was up. Some part of her wanted to keep breathing, sinking to the bottom and disappearing under the silt. But then, she didn’t get a say. Someone pushed her, forced her to start kicking, a survival instinct being wrenched from somewhere deep inside, hidden well by self-harm and suicide attempts. It never let her die.

Her head broke the surface and she gasped, the salt made her throat real raw, like she was breathing broken glass. She might have been crying, it was hard to tell when she was coughing, spitting up sea water.

And then, a moment later, the clawed hand, reaching for her. For a moment, she wished she could be pulled back under, the decision taken from her, her death somebody else’s fault, for a change, for the first time.

_____________________________________________________

Two

You’re not meant to form attachments in therapy. People come and go and you can’t stake your recovery on somebody else. Trauma bonds were not famed for their steady foundations. They were like sand and could slip away from under you at a moment’s notice. Violet reached across the gulf, until their fingers met in the middle. You could only touch if you worked for it. If you wanted it.

Steph was a puker. Violet would sit on the bathroom sinks, one eye on the door as Steph kneeled at the porcelain, uselessly dry heaving. Violet was thin but Steph was thinner, her elbows sharp and her jaw a razorblade. Violet had never seen a razor blade she didn’t love and Steph was no exception. It wasn’t her usual brand of love, obsessive and damaging, more a forest fire than a love. There was no desperate sex, no screaming arguments in the streets, no break ups. They were best friends. Nothing less.

It was Steph that came to talk Violet down when she didn’t know which way was up, that coaxed her out of bed when depression pinned her there, let her scream and rage or cry and cry and cry. Violet sat with Steph through three hour dinners, helped her eat carrot sticks, told her stories when the muscle aches kept her awake far into the night. Much to the chagrin of their doctors, they were inseparable. They ignored all warnings. How could this be anything but wonderful?

She should have known then really. Good things never lasted.

She woke up at three am and Steph’s bed was empty. The ward was quiet. No blaring tv, no laughter, no arguments. It was not peaceful. It was eerie. For a long moment, she wondered if this was one of those days she woke up in another world. It wasn’t always easy to tell. She swung her legs from the bed, feet meeting sticky linoleum and made her way to the corridor. The nurse’s station was silent and still and a sick feeling curled around the bottom of her stomach, weight like lead. The door to the girl’s bathroom was thrown open, spilling sickly yellow light into the blue of the corridor. She could hear something then, whispers like rustling leaves. She slowed her footsteps, turning her own presence into something ghostlike. In the doorframe, a barrier made of white scrubs met her, facing into the room. They didn’t notice quickly enough as she slipped through between them.

It took her a moment to realise what she was seeing. The screws pried from the bottom of the bathroom sinks, now scattered on the floor like confetti for a macabre wedding. The red that sat in thick pools, forming roads in the cracks between tiles. Then the body. And it was a body. It was not her friend. Because her friend was never so still, so unsmilling. Her friend didn’t have deep gauges along her arms. Her friend was not dead.

She didn’t feel it as someone gripped the top of her arms, steering her out of the room and into the corridor, back to the room that tonight would contain only her and nobody else. She went without a fight. She allowed herself to be tucked in as if she was a child. And she stared at the wall, unsleeping, until the room turned light from the rising sun.

Three

Violet’s mouth felt like an ashtray. The pulsing in her head, a pneumatic drill. Cautiously, she opened one eye. Immediately wanting to close it, she forced herself to face reality. A choice she regretted as soon as she saw exactly what the reality was. First of all, the reality was the dude laying next to her, still sleeping, still smelling of whiskey and whatever they were smoking last night. The room itself was not better. The wooden floor was devoid of polish. The walls only had the reminder of wallpaper on them, hanging in long strips that reminded her of flypaper. There was no door, not even the illusion of privacy. It had been kicked in and never replaced. After all, who was going to pay for it to be? Not the council, not the tenants and certainly not the cheeky fuckers that used it as a halfway house of meth den and squat. She leaned over Derek? Toby? whoever, to retrieve the joint from the top of a can, lighting it and taking a long drag. On the floor, more sleepers lay, in various stages of undress. Like she was. She stood up, her body suddenly aching in a hundred different places. The crook of her elbow from needles. Her knees from scaling the back wall and landing on them, scraping the skin. Her shoulder from someone’s teeth. Her brow from someone’s fist. She couldn’t even remember others, them cloaked in a chemical haze. One step forward and she flinched back - checking the underside of her foot she found a shard of glass, reluctant to be removed.

She found a shirt, hers or somebody else’s. She could not find her jeans, not upstairs, not in the bathroom that contained only a bath, not in the living room that had a TV with a smashed in screen and stained carpet. Nor could she find any milk for tea in the kitchen - not that she looked too closely when she opened the fridge and she realised it has been turned off some sometime long before it was emptied. She with more strength than skill managed to pull the bolt across the back door and step into the back garden. It was overgrown, which was exactly what she expected. She just needed to breathe something that wasn’t stagnant air or the deodorant of an unwashed man.

The air was fresh and cold. Her skin shivered into goosebumps and she wiggled her toes against the concrete of the step. The smoke curled upwards towards the sky in delicate ribbons. Inside her head, the Hotel was quiet. It didn’t matter if it was because it was morning or because she had finally managed to drug them into a stupor. For right now, it was just her.

Just her.

She exhaled in a shaking breath. It was only when it was quiet that you could take stock. She wasn’t quite sure how long this latest binge had went on. Her eyes were sore with smeared make up. Hair thick with smoke and unwashed oil. She had lost her ring, her necklace, apparently her jeans. Bruises felt painted all over her. Inside, those people would wake up and move on, like locusts directly after clearing an entire field of crops. They were careless people. Perhaps that was why she had chosen them.

As she finished the joint, she heard an odd noise. She stood, brushing grit from her and hunted inside, following the buzzing into the living room and underneath the couch. Wrinkling her nose at the dirt and dead insects, she managed, just about, to retrieve what was now recognisably her phone. She didn’t get up, crouching as she looked at the screen. An ex-boyfriend, probably calling to scream at her about a missing wallet or a fucked best friend. She pressed to decline without much consideration. But kept the phone in her palm, thumb posed questioningly over a contact. Before she could second-guess herself any further, she pressed it, moving her thumb straight to her mouth to chew on a nail anxiously. A receptionist, a waiting tone and then -

“Hi. Mal? Yeah, no, I’m okay.” She closed her eyes, listening to the voice on the other end. “Yeah. I think..Maybe could I come home now? I know what Zoey said but - oh. Thank you. Yeah, let me just go outside and look at the address.” The voice again and she barked out a laugh, almost surprised at the sound. “Yeah yeah, alright, always a comedian...” It was somehow easier to act okay now she was talking to him, the last reserve of normality able to be wrenched from a store she didn’t know she had. Sounding like your life wasn’t going to absolute shit on a phone was a learnt skill and not one she could always employ. But here it was now, arguably when she needed it least.

___________________________________________________________

Four

Landing in a hospital for a suicide attempt was fine. Landing in hospital because of self-harm, unintended to be a suicide attempt, was just humiliating. The factoring in that she didn’t actually remember if it was herself or someone else who lived in her head rent free and it was officially a clusterfuck. Her arns were stitched back together, cleaned out and bound up type by the sort of nurse she would have no doubt would later be calling her a drain on the national health service. It was very hard not to think that she had a point.

She wanted to scream. She wanted to rip the ivs out of her arms. She wanted to find a knife and gouge out her own bones, eyes, existence. Cross herself out until she was just a ball of viscera and dead matter. She realised a moment later that she was screaming, even though it hurt her throat, even though it made someone come into her room and whispering soothing words that made no sense, that jumbled up inside her head until it was another language entirely.

She wanted to be normal. Why couldn’t she just be normal?

_____________________________________________________________

Five

She felt her teeth clack together as she was slammed back against the wall, her head hitting it hard enough that for a moment, her vision swam. It had knocked the breath out of her and she couldn’t even think of anything to scream, say, do. It didn’t matter. His hands were tight around her arms, almost able to wrap his hand around them entirely. There was bruising force. She would have purple fingerprints on her arms to match the ones underneath her jaw from where he had gripped it. That was perhaps where she had made a vital error. He had forced her to look at him, to make eye contact and she had done all she could think of. And spat in his face.

She was regretting it now. His shoulder pressed against her chest as he fumbled with his trousers, muttering something about her being a bitch. She knew how this went. She screwed up her eyes tight, that old childhood belief coming back to her. If she couldn’t see it, it couldn’t hurt her.

It didn’t work. It never worked. She bit her own lip so hard her mouth filled with the hard tang of her own blood and she swore she wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of crying. She managed to keep that promise to herself. It was something she could hold onto, something she could focus on to blank out what was happening to her. One day, she’d forget this promise. A person can only take so much before the idea of pride, of ‘winning’ mattered at all. Before you accepted you were just losing.

And would keep on losing.

_________________________________________________________

Six

She was surrounded in fog. Somewhere, she could hear rushing water, loud and until nothing else could be heard. The fog was not cold. It was not much of anything. It left no moisture on her skin, she did not feel it in her lungs. It simply covered her. She moved slowly within it, never getting anywhere.

She blinked and it was night time. The window in her room showed a sprinkling of streetlights, the softer lights switched on in the corridor. Her mouth felt dry and her fingers didn’t work properly when she reached out for the glass. She knocked it off the small table, sending it tumbling to the floor.

She blinked and it was morning. She was sitting up in bed and the the light was crisp and clear. Someone was checking her pulse, making small talk and marking something on the Chalice Foundation’s clipboard. She gently put her arm around Violet’s shoulders, tilting her forwards to help her drink. And placing a pill on her tongue, bitter and hard to swallow.

Another few moments and the fog rolled over her, dragging her under and under, everything faded out. She tried to claw her way out, to blink free the daze that was descending over her. It didn’t work and she stopped trying. Sometimes you just had to let the tide take you. She wasn’t sure how long she drowned for. But when she woke up, actually woke up, the leaves had turned a beautiful golden colour and had started tumbling to the ground in great waves, settling against any surface that would take it.

____________________________________________________________

Seven

They were talking about her. She had to walk down the corridor naturally. If they knew she had heard them, they would hurt her now, rather than later. Don’t look at them. Don’t think about them. They could hear her thoughts so she had to think of something else. Anything else. Or find a way to keep them out of her head. She got to her room and she closed the door and she blocked it with her desk chair but it wasn’t enough it was never enough they would find a way in so she had to hide.

Underneath the bed was dark and she couldn’t make herself small enough. There was something breathing in the dark, something waiting, something that wanted to gobble her up and break her bones and punish her for all the bad things she had done and thought and thought about doing. Maybe if she got the badness out of her it wouldn’t come so she raked her nails across her skin as much as she could to try and scratch it out but it wasn’t enough it would never be enough.

Someone knocked on her door and it took all she had not to scream but if they heard her scream they would know where she was so she held her breath. There were two people watching her and she didn’t recognise them, they were new and if they were new they were dangerous and they would hurt her and some part of her would always know this and it would spread in her bones and she never forgot not really and neither would Zoey or Wendy or any of the others.

She covered her ears. She closed her eyes. But there were things living in that darkness too. In every darkness.

__________________________________________________________

Eight

There were no words for how it smelt. How it felt. The slickness of decomposition. The dead reduced down to liquid and mush and blackness and oh god she was going to drown in bodies. This was how it was going to happen. She could fall in here forever. Zac couldn’t reach her. Victoria couldn’t reach her. This would be it forever.

She broke the surface a moment later, heavy limbs moving to the side, her blindly reaching out to try and find hands, a surface, anything to drag herself out of the warehouse sized coffin, the bodies of millenia, a fucking metaphysical plague pit. It was in her ears. Her mouth. Her nose. Everything was death and it clung to her and she would never be clean of it, how could she be? You couldn’t wash this off. It would stick. In her mind as well as her body. She could save the world and this still would still exist. This moment. The thing is about time is that it never really ended. And neither would this.

____________________________________________________________

????

The crackling of pain from an injection. The snapping of bone. A parent turning away. Mal not stopping any of it. A break up because she was broken. On and on. On and on. On and on.

#prose #violet #rape tw #abuse tw #self harm tw

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mssjynx · 6 years ago

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5 with Ohmtoonz? Love you

alpha / beta / omega au

ohmtoonz drabble

5. I walked into the bathrooms during class and the whole room is reeking of anxiety because you’re freaking out in the back stall. Please let me in because if I don’t help you calm down I’m going to be on edge all day.

Luke thought he’d be able to make a quick run to the bathroom before his next test. He was already worried about it, not trusting his knowledge in the topic. He’d hardly studied for it, he’d been ill for several days of course content; he was overall unprepared and stressed out of his mind.

The second he stepped into the boys bathroom, he was slammed with a dangerously overwhelming scent of anxiety.

“Oh, fuck me,” he spat out, hand flying to his nose to try and block out the smell, but it did nothing as another stronger wave washed over him, the door shutting him in. “Dude,” he gasped, eyes locking on the last cubicle of the bathroom where the door was locked shut. His sharp ears picked up on the pained whimper that slipped from the back corner of the room and he felt every hair on his body stand on end. “Okay, co- come out, please. You gotta breathe, dude, you’re gonna suffocate in your own anxiety in there.”

His feet moved without his command, drawing him towards the cubicle and pushing through the stress and anxiety and fear that clogged his nose and mouth. “Go away!” The words were rasped out as if the boy speaking them could hardly breathe, and Luke’s fear for him spiked.

This kid needed to calm down or Luke was going to break through the door just to scent, cuddle and reassure him. “I gotta- I have to make sure you calm down before I think about leaving or I’m gonna lose my mind. You need to come out here.”

He dropped to his knees on the outside of the door, hand flat on the wood to gentle rattle it back and forth. “Please leave.”

Luke closed his eyes, head falling to rest against the door. “I’m not going to,” he promised. “If you won’t let me in then at least talk to me.” At the silence, he continued. “My name’s Luke. What’s yours?” He tried to keep his voice steady as he spoke through the door, his knees aching against the tiles.

The silence stretched for an agonisingly long few seconds and Luke held his breath as he waited for an answer. Eventually, it came: “Ryan.” Barely a whisper; a scared exhale.

Luke exhaled, dropping a hand to the cold tiles and sliding it forward to sit directly below the door. “Okay Ryan, let’s just chat. If you’re fine with me talking and asking questions, tap my hand every now and then and I won’t stop or go anything. If I say or ask anything you don’t want, hit my hand twice and I’ll stop. You let me know when you feel comfortable to come out but I ain’t leaving until I at least get to hug you and make sure you’re gonna be okay.” The words slipped beneath the door, washing over his fingers to where he couldn’t see.

A pregnant moment passed before he felt a soft touch on the back of his hand. It was fleeting, but Luke could recognise the soft pads of fingertips and the points of claws that refused to retract.

“Okay, sweet. What year are you in, Ryan?”

Another tap to the back of his hand before Luke picked up his shaky inhale. “Eleven,” he murmured. Luke took another deep breath in, his own heartrate pulsing faster than normal at the amount of fear and stress locked up in the one room.

He smiled still, tapping his index finger on the tile. “One year below me,” he said, leaning heavy against the door. “Am I right about you being an Omega?” he asked, humour in his voice as he tried to ease the other boy’s stress.

The sharp inhale was his first sign that it wasn’t working. Then two sharp taps on the back of his hand. He flinched, clenching his teeth but not letting the pause linger.

“Have any out of school hobbies?” he asked instead, frown curling sourly at the fresh burst of fear hanging in the air around him.

One tap to the back of his fingers. “I… I paint a- a bit.” Timid. Small. Terrified. Luke had never heard someone sound so fearful in their life. He spoke as if someone was listening, someone who wanted to hurt him, to hunt him down and fight him.

“What do you like to paint?”

Tap. A slow sigh. “I do a lot o- a lot of expression art. Close ups… of facial expressions.”

Luke hummed in thought, wondering about the style of art, the colours, the faces, the emotions. “You’ll have to show me some when you’re not locked in a cubicle, hey?” Tap. He grinned. “Are you in the arts programme?”

“Yeah,” Ryan said. “But I don’t- I don’t like showing my art off a lot.”

“Any reason why not?” Luke pushed, holding his tongue between his teeth as he waited. One tap. He relaxed.

“Just general nerves about not being good enough.”

Luke could hear the strength slowly, slowly returning to Ryan’s voice. Not every words was breathed instead of spoken and only now and then he heard the tremour in the younger boy’s words.

The anxiety still hung around them but it wasn’t so suffocating as it had been when Luke had stepped in. With the air thinner, Luke found it easier for himself to breathe and picked up on the touch of mintiness that wafted in the air. It was sweet and Luke felt like he could almost taste it on his own lips.

“Well I bet you’re damn amazing, Ryan,” he said, words heavy with sincerity receiving a quiet breath of laughter in response. Luke smiled. Tap. He smiled wider. “Do you wanna tell me what’s got you so freaked out?” he asked. Tap-Tap. “M'kay, how about what the colour of your eyes are?” Tap.

Relief. He waited as the boy hummed softly to himself. “People say different things,” he mumbled, words almost blurring at the edges, but another tap was laid to the back of Luke’s knuckles without him even saying another word. He found himself beggining to hang off the soft, slow cycle of Ryan’s fingertips. “Usually, it’s green. Sometimes I get blue or even a murky grey. I can’t tell myself.”

The air began to settle. “I’ll see what I think when I see ‘em,” Luke laughed softly, hearing a little giggle sound from the other side of the door. A tap to his hand. He softened his voice, turning his hand face up. “Are you feeling better?” he asked. A tap to the palm of his hand before those cold fingers settled atop his.

No more claws. “A bit.”

He could tell too: smell the calming down, hear the slowing heart beat, hear the comfort growing in his voice. “Do you want to come out yet?” he asked, feeling a flutter of hope in his chest. The last thing he wanted was for Ryan to snap back shut. But the single tap of Ryan’s fingertip against his reassured him and a reply wasn’t needed.

Luke reluctantly drew his hand back, pushing back up onto his feet and stepping back. Breathing in deeply, he lingered on the smell of mint that slowly began to overpower the anxiety. He held his tongue, waiting as the door slowly creaked open and a pair of big, pretty eyes peeked out.

“Ryan?” Luke asked and as the door swung open and revealed the boy inside, Luke felt his breath get stolen. Ryan stood with uncertainty, his eyes flickering up and down with his nerves. He could definitely tell the boy was an omega, with features so pretty and a form so fragile. As an alpha, Luke felt scared that if he touched the boy too roughly he could break him.

“Hi,” he murmured, anxious smile half formed on his lips. “Is this okay?” he whispered, unsure whether he was allowed to step out of the cubicle.

Luke held out a hand, keeping sure to relax his spine and not tense up too much. He didn’t want to scare the boy back into another panic attack. Thankfully, the boy stepped forward and took his hand with wary fingers. “Of course it is,” he said, tilting his head and smiline softly. He took a gentle step closer, maintaining eye contact with the omega as he tried to decifer their colour.

Green. Flecks of gold and sliver. Beautiful.

“Can I… hug you?” he asked, a gentle tug on her hand. “If you’re okay with that-"

Before he could finish, Ryan was stepping into his space and winding his arms around Luke’s waist. That pretty face tucked into his neck, arms tighter than every and Luke didn’t wait to wrap the boy in a hug. "Totally okay,” he murmured, mouthing the words against his neck.

He couldn’t help the satisfied sigh that left his lips, ducking his head down and allowing Ryan access to his pulse point, the omega letting a soft, pleased sound from his throat. The scent of mint filled Luke’s nose and he tightened his hold on the boy who scented him tenderly.

He pressed his nose to the soft brown hair and breathed in deep, mumbling a soft: “You smell so much better when you’re not reeking of anxiety like that.”

He didn’t care for the test he’d missed. He didn’t care for the rest of the school day. All he wanted was to make sure Ryan was alright and so that’s what he would do.

#fluffy-papaya #ohmtoonz #banana bus squad #bbs #fic #fanfic #drabble #prompt #alpha/beta/omega #alpha beta omega #abo #a/b/o #omegaverse

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artificialqueens · 6 years ago

Text

Not Casual At All: Things Left Unsaid (biadore) - Miss Alyssa Secret

Not Casual At All continues with 5,500 words of biadore smut and feelings, based on the prompt of Danny surprising Roy in his dressing room. Set this past Wednesday 8 May, before Adore appeared at Rain on Saturday.

Related fics:

ABCD dressing room

What Happens in the Sewing Room

I tried for shameless, plotless porn, but failed spectacularly. - MAS

********

Bianca paused across the dressing room threshold, leaning back on the closed door with eyes closed and taking a deep breath. Opening her eyes, she met her reflected gaze in the mirror with a sigh.

Two shows in one day had them all exhausted, the marathon of a musical so different from her own comedy tour. Staying in one place for an extended amount of time was wonderful, but the intensity of performing daily (and going from boy to queen in less than twenty minutes) was the trade off.

Even out of drag, meeting fans at the stage door - while always enjoyable - meant she was still wearing Bianca.

Bianca’s name was the one people called out, the one signed on programs and tickets.

Bianca was also the reason that Roy Haylock, costumer by day and sharp-tongued comic by night, was able to travel the world and perform for thousands of fans at sold out venues.

A reporter in the Philippines asked what he would be doing without Bianca. Leaving aside that she had always existed in his head in the form of biting commentary, it wasn’t a particularly difficult question to answer. Roy had been more than satisfied draping and designing for Broadway and coming home to his shoebox of an apartment with Sammy and Dede. Life wasn’t empty without Bianca, just different.

Without her though, he never would have had the experience of Drag Race. Without Drag Race, Bianca wouldn’t have met Adore and Courtney and Darienne. And without them - especially Adore - he might not have let down the wall around his heart.

Tossing his Sharpie on the table, Roy pushed his glasses up and ran a hand over his face. Being in different corners of the world was hardly unusual, but even the group text was no substitute for spending time in person. He’d been spoiled by those weeks at home, meeting up with friends for brunch and shopping downtown. Evenings out at the club or bar dancing and drinking with Adore and her endless supply of wigs. Lazy days with Danny on his couch talking over everything, followed by nights in the same bed.

Although he tried to tell himself he missed the sex (true), having Danny around meant more than that and it hardly happened every time they were together. What did you label having regular, non-committed sex with your best friend? Friends with benefits was too superficial, and ‘relationship’ felt too shallow to describe the kind of connection that went beyond anything physical.

Sex with Adore, with Danny, was easy and satisfying. It was interrupting a movie to suck each other off, a sleepy handjob after waking up together, or (one memorable time) pausing in the middle of fucking for conversation because Danny remembered a new restaurant he wanted to try. Above all, it felt safe falling into bed with someone he trusted. It was familiar and undemanding, no awkward morning after, with someone who already knew their way around his house, never mind his body.

Non-committed didn’t mean fucking tons of other people, at least on Roy’s part. He wasn’t joking about never knowing whether someone was genuinely interested in him or just wanted to get into Bianca’s wardrobe. At the end of the day, needing to keep some things personal and private won out. But asking Danny for - or even talking about - that kind of commitment would be unfair when they were on different continents several months out of the year.

Speaking of separate continents, they wouldn’t cross paths again for months - Adore’s tour in Australia and Europe out of sync with Bianca’s engagements.

Someone knocked on the door and he straightened from his slouch at the vanity table, twisting his lips into a smile from their introspective frown.

“Yeah?”

The knocking continued.

“You can come in,” he called, wondering if it was some of the theatre staff who were still being far too polite.

He turned as the door opened, and had half a breath to be surprised before Danny lifted him off the chair into a hug.

“What-“ The strength of his grip squeezed the air from his lungs, and for a moment Roy let himself relax completely, balanced up on his toes and faces buried in each other’s necks.

Danny finally let go (and had he waited for him to lean back first?), lacing their fingers together tightly. He was still carrying an overnight bag and smelled like stale airplane air, clothes rumpled (although with her closet, it was difficult to tell what was intentional and what was yesterday’s laundry on the floor). There was a hint of eyeliner smeared on his lower lids and a dusting of glitter on the temples along with a few days’ worth of stubble, skating the edge of gender construct as ever.

Roy opened his mouth to say something, but the sudden tightness in his chest choked the words back. Instead, he squeezed Danny’s hands in silence, soaking in the warmth of Adore’s sweet smile on his face.

“Hi.”

********

Danny took a moment to really look at him, taking in the loose black sweater and pants, the slouchy knit hat, and exhausted brown eyes. Even in his oversized glasses and without paint, he could see traces of Bianca clinging to Roy. It was more than the red stain of lipstick, something about the way his shoulders were tense as if he couldn’t relax enough to shed her presence.

Dropping the bag, he sat down and pulled Roy onto his lap with only minor protest. Roy always ran cold out of drag, and he immediately wrapped both arms around him again. The weight of his head came to rest on Danny’s shoulder, face hidden against his neck. Despite the days of rehearsals and backstage mayhem, he didn’t seem to be noticeably thinner than when Danny kissed him goodbye a few weeks ago. Relieved that Roy was at least taking care of his body, Danny focused on his energy as he spoke.

“What are you doing here? Not that I’m complaining, I just - aren’t you and Bunny hosting at Rain on Saturday?” Roy didn’t bother lifting his head, words murmured between them.

“Yup.”

“You aren’t staying, are you?” The question was more of a statement, shaded with a hint of wistfulness.

“Yeah,” Danny shifted their weight enough to slide one hand underneath the baggy sweater, arm curved against bare skin, “I gotta go back tomorrow night. I was kind of hoping you’d let me crash with you.”

The way his body sagged into Danny’s arm was both concerning and something that he’d think about later. Preferably when he wasn’t completely sober, because his situation with Roy was simultaneously the simplest and the most difficult relationship he had in his life.

Roy raised his head after a moment, not to reply but to rest their foreheads together. He smelled like coconut oil makeup remover and the musty aroma somehow present in all theatres no matter how new.

“What are you doing here, pussyface?”

As if Roy didn’t already know. But maybe he needed to hear it said out loud?

Danny carefully extracted one arm, wrapping fingers around the back of his neck to squeeze gently.

“I’m here for you, Willow.”

********

Being at a loss for words was becoming a pattern tonight, one that was unfamiliar to Roy. Clown face or not, he usually had a quick answer; Danny taking a trans-Atlantic flight to see him for less than twenty four hours was something else. His mental Rolodex didn’t have any entries under ‘Best friend: what to do when they do something completely impractical that you shouldn’t encourage but are very happy they did’.

There wasn’t any need to fill Danny in on how the show was going so far, no small talk to fill the air. They’d covered that and more via text message and phone calls.

“Have I mentioned,” he kept his tone light, “that you’re crazy and I love you?”

The Adore smile was back, the one that curved her painted lips into a bracket of mischief. Without lipstick, it settled on Danny’s mouth and only widened when he spoke.

“Not today yet, but I know you were busy.”

“I’m glad you’re here. I’m supposed to tell you that you shouldn’t have wasted money and time when you’ve got a gig coming up, but…” Roy was already aware of the calculation in the back of his mind of how much time they really had together.

“My turn to do something for you, bitch.”

“Yeah?”

Danny could usually read Bianca, and by extension Roy, with little effort. Except this time, he wasn’t sure what exactly he should do, only that he couldn’t not follow the feeling tugging at the pit of his stomach that Roy needed him. That feeling had led him to buying a plane ticket before he’d even stopped to consider if it was a good idea.

“Yeah. I’m yours for the next twelve hours. Thirteen. Fifteen? Whatever it is before 5 pm tomorrow.”

Voices and footsteps passed outside the door, and Roy inhaled sharply, physically unmoving but the slightest emotional step away that prickled against Danny’s intuition. He talked casually about energy all of the time, but being with Roy made him aware of everything that much more. Without that sensitivity blunted by a buzz of any type, it felt like he was pulling back and Danny wasn’t going to let him.

“Stop it.”

“What?” Roy frowned, not sure what he was referring to. “I should take you to meet everyone. There’s one of the girls in the cast who you’d love, and-mmmmphhhh“

The kiss effectively silenced his attempt to follow what should be proper hosting behavior and Roy lost himself in it without a struggle. Danny’s mouth was soft against his, the way he flicked the tip of his tongue against the inside of his lips familiar and welcome. Their mouths moved together slowly in a rhythm of licks and caresses that kept the kiss undemanding. He could feel the heat radiating from Danny’s hand underneath his shirt, fingers fanned out to press firmly between his shoulders. His own were buried in Danny’s hair, tugging in a way that was less controlling and more about anchoring them closer together.

They pulled apart a moment later, Danny’s tongue darting out to catch the threads of saliva connecting their lips.

“What do you need?” He spoke the words against Roy’s mouth, not kissing but breathing the same air. “Like, I’m cool with meeting the other guys if that’s what you want. Or we can hit up the spots from the last time? Or go back to yours and…”

Danny paused for a breath, then frowned and leaned back enough to make steady eye contact. “If you want me tonight, I’m yours.”

I’m always yours, even when I’m with someone else.

“However you wanna do things. I mean, we don’t have to fuck, like of course I’m down if you are, but-“

Without Bianca’s blue eyes, Roy’s were soft with exhaustion and what might be a little bit of relief. Danny waited, impatient but forcing himself to be still.

“This- this is good. Right here, us.”

“Okay.” If that’s what Roy wanted, Danny was happy to spend another hour making out in the dressing room. He’d half expected him to insist on going out, maybe walking the London streets together, or going back to his rented flat and fucking each other into the mattress. They’d done both over the years, and everything in between, but the slow kissing spoke more to Roy’s emotional state than anything else. Roy always kissed confidently, sometimes dominant and demanding (Danny enjoyed those, usually because they accompanied the kind of rough sex that left them both coming hard), other times gentler and so sweet it made his chest ache strangely to think about. Tonight though, his kisses felt almost tentative, as if he was afraid that Danny would change his mind if he pushed too hard.

“Hold on,” he murmured, gripping Roy’s hips until he took the hint, wrapping his legs around Danny’s waist as he stood. There was a high table by the window already half covered in bouquets and vases, and Danny pivoted to set him down there.

“Remember the last time?” Roy laughed quietly.

Danny paused for a moment, thinking about them in the bathroom of another dressing room a few months ago. The position was the same, but the mood a polar opposite - hungry lust that night versus sensual comfort in the here and now. He watched as Roy settled with his back to the wall between windows, clearly replaying that night as well.

“Yeah, but no corset no one waiting on us. Right?”

“Shouldn’t be. Who else knows you’re here?”

Danny moved to flip the lock on the door, also an improvement from the ABCD venue. “Just John and Mom. And the guy who let me in, he wanted to see my ID and everything and said he’d only do it if I signed his ass for his girlfriend. Oh, and the blonde lady. Faye? She said hi when I was coming up the stairs. And uhh, maybe some people I passed in the hall?”

Instead of becoming impatient waiting for Danny to finish the list, Roy looked more amused with every name, reading between the lines. “Okay, so half the cast?”

“…yeah. What did you tell them?”

“Nothing to worry about, pussyface. Just every dick pic you’ve ever sent me and that video of-“

“Hey! You said you deleted it when I asked you to send it!”

Roy chuckled, not the showy laugh but something quieter and more intimate.

“I’m kidding. And I couldn’t delete it, what else am I going to jerk off to in the tub?”

“You know,” Danny narrowed his eyes, “I still can’t always tell when you’re serious.”

That set off a Bianca cackle of glee.

“Get back here, bitch,” he accompanied the words with a tug on Danny’s shirt. “I missed you.”

********

Ten minutes later, Roy’s sweater was off but otherwise they were still where they started, necking like teenagers in the backseat of a car with hands above the waist. Danny was careful not to mark him, nothing that couldn’t be covered up easily. He might not care right now if his castmates knew what they’d been up to, but Danny really was trying to work on the whole professional thing.

Roy’s ankles were crossed just below Danny’s ass, and he used them to pull their bodies closer. He groaned against his lips when the erection Danny had been successfully not grinding into him made contact with his thigh.

“Was wondering if you were too tired from the flight,” Roy teased.

“Hey, I can’t help it!” He’d been trying to let Roy set the (extremely slow) pace and not push for more. “You make me hard.” Something else was contributing as well, but he kept that to himself for now.

“Save it till we get back? Should be a taxi outside, and-“ Roy was already hopping off the table and shoving clothes into his bag.

“I can, but we don’t have to wait if you don’t want.”

Slipping his glasses back on, Roy pinned him with a look. “I really don’t have anything on me in here. And-“

Danny cut him off again, actually ahead of Roy’s infamous over-preparedness for once. Way ahead. Possibly the only time, but he’d take it. He reached into the outer pocket of his own bag, coming up with a travel sized bottle of lube and a condom.

“Ta da!”

As he watched, Roy licked his lips and closed his eyes briefly. When they opened again, he shivered in anticipation at the hungry expression. Danny recognized the signs of suppressed arousal, and moved closer until they were toe to toe.

“You can have me right here,” he whispered intimately, “if that’s what you want.”

“Considering what I’d like to do, you’d be more comfortable at mine.” The calmness of Roy’s voice was belied by his hands clenching against Danny’s sides.

“Nuh uhh. I’m ready.”

“…what?”

“Airport. Delta lounge. I told you, I’m here for you however you need.”

Roy’s gulp was audible, and Danny’s smile widened. Apparently Bianca was the one picking up Adore’s traits, and not the other way around. Glancing down, he could see a bulge outlined by Roy’s thin pants, nipples hard against the fabric of his tank top.

“In fact…” Danny trailed his hand across Roy’s chest, tweaking a nipple through his shirt before sliding down to cup his growing erection. “I’ve got a surprise for you.”

It took a moment for the words to register, and Roy’s mouth was dry when he finally spoke.

“More than just being here?”

Danny caught Roy’s hands, lifting them to run his tongue over the sensitive skin between his fingers. Truth be told, he was a bit uncomfortable, but the thought of doing something for Roy who was always a generous lover…well, it didn’t take away the slight awkwardness, but it was worth it.

He guided their joined hands behind his back, nudging Roy to slip his hand under the waistband of his jeans. His fingers skated over the edge of the jockstrap, squeezing a little more aggressively as they moved towards the center. Danny locked their eyes together, tongue flicking across Roy’s palm as his other hand pulled aside the thong and came in contact with silicone.

Danny had precisely six seconds between Roy finding the plug and then finding himself face down across the table. All traces of diffidence and hesitation gone, he ground his clothed erection against Danny’s ass and grabbed a fistful of hair to yank his head back sharply. His eyes were dark with want when their gazes met, breath fanning hot over Danny’s cheek.

Roy paused for a fraction of a second, waiting for Danny’s slight nod. The kiss he pressed to Danny’s temple was gentle acknowledgement before using his grip to shove him back down roughly. His hands made quick work of Danny’s fly, jeans dropping to the floor for him to step out of and revealing the black straps hidden underneath. Roy moaned low in his throat at the sight. Danny’s ass was just as gorgeous as his thousands of Instagram followers knew, framed and lifted by the underwear, but he wasn’t bending over for them.

He took the opportunity to look his fill, discarding his own loose pants and shirt and giving his cock a few slow strokes. Danny wiggled his ass enticingly, and Roy could see him grinning against the tabletop, reflected in the lights on the window. He squeezed one cheek and then the other before slapping Danny’s hip sharply.

“You fucking cunt,” he groaned, affection warring with lust in his voice, “I can’t believe you.”

Danny responded by reaching back to wrap his fingers around Roy’s cock, rubbing the head firmly against his ass. “Only for you.”

It was meant to be seductive and smug, but the quiet sincerity hung in the air between them, even as Roy could feel himself leaking over Danny’s fingers. There was that thing they didn’t discuss.

He leaned forward to kiss the back of Danny’s neck, fumbling for the condom as nimble fingers smeared the wetness down his shaft. Danny’s thumb flicked over the slit, and Roy moaned out a curse, unable to resist thrusting into the tight grip.

Pulling back reluctantly, he rolled the condom on and reached for the lube, running a teasing finger along the strap of Danny’s thong. As he popped open the bottle, he took the opportunity to hook his finger underneath and stretched the strap before letting go abruptly. It pinged back, the sound of elastic striking the silicone overshadowed by Danny’s surprised yelp.

“Motherfu-“

Roy repeated the action, wicked grin forming as Danny whined.

“I’m not fucking anyone’s mother. Pussy isn’t-”

“Fuck off.” Danny twisted to look at him over his shoulder, face gone serious. “Bianca isn’t invited tonight.”

The automatic response was ninety five percent Roy, but he knew what Danny meant. "Sorry.“

“Hurry up, I’m fucking horny as fuck.” Danny’s voice was back to playful, and Roy drizzled a generous amount of lube over his cock, hissing at the cool liquid.

As soon as he set the bottle down, Danny was shimmying out of the thong, jockstrap still in place. Pressing his chest against the table, he spread his legs a little wider and Roy was treated to the sight of dark purple silicone against skin shining with slickness that had nothing to do with his cock. He’d have to remember to ask Danny later about fingering himself open in an airport bathroom…

Tracing the base of the plug with one finger, Roy leaned forward until he was nuzzling right under Danny’s ear. “Sure? Last chance to change your mind and we can do this in a bed.”

Danny looked up through heavy-lidded eyes. Even Adore at her most seductive had nothing on his kiss-bitten lips and the invitation written in the curve of his back. Roy knew full well it wasn’t surrender or submission. Sex between them was as hot as it was precisely because they both kept a modicum of control.

“Fuck. Me.”

The velvet-smooth, whiskey-deep demand went straight to his cock, balls tightening. Straightening, he pinned Danny to the table with a hand between his shoulders and pulled the plug out before pushing all the way in in a single powerful thrust. A loud moan that rose to end on a breathless whimper punched out from Danny’s lungs, and Roy let go of his shoulder to slap the hand over his mouth instead.

He dropped the body warmed silicone and wrapped his fingers around the crest of Danny’s hip, gripping just below the band of his jockstrap. It took a few seconds for the thrill of feeling Danny snug and slick and oh so hot around his cock to settle into something manageable. When it felt like he wasn’t teetering on the edge of coming, he pulled out almost all the way before snapping his hips forward again once, twice, a dozen times in quick succession.

Danny’s hands braced against the windowsill, shoving back to meet Roy’s thrusts. Reflected in the glass, he looked drunk on lust, eyes unfocused and cheeks red above Roy’s hand as he pulled in harsh breaths through his nose. Each slap of his hips meeting Danny’s ass was followed with muffled moans and whines vibrating against his palm.

Danny gripped the sill with knuckles gone white, fighting for the leverage to match Roy’s forceful fucking. Roy was thick enough that he’d be feeling the stretch for hours after they finished, even with the ample preparation. Every thrust pushed his hips against the edge of the table, bursts of friction against fabric an insufficient tease for his own painfully hard cock.

On any given day, Danny wasn’t particularly inclined to bottom for most of his partners. Besides the physical discomfort, it was difficult to be that vulnerable, and equally challenging to come during the act of fucking itself. Roy was, as ever, an exception. They still had occasional moments of awkwardness, but it was so much easier to manage when you weren’t worried about what the other person was thinking. The sound of Roy’s moans alone, the barely audible whimper when he bottomed out, the half-choked back fucks and so good he forced out, were pure erotic music. Coupled with what Danny could see reflected in the window…more than enough to keep him hard and leaking.

The vanity bulbs cast their corner of the room in harsh light and shadow, washing out colors and bringing details into sharp contrast. Roy’s eyes were mostly closed, mouth open as he gasped for air, lips and chest flushed a dusky hue. His hair was soaked with sweat and clinging to his forehead, stomach muscles flexing with every powerful thrust.

Shifting his chin up, Danny set his teeth against Roy’s palm and bit down. He felt so open, but it wasn’t enough. Not yet.

Their eyes met in the glass, Danny’s heavy with desire and Roy’s glazed over with pleasure. He slowed the rhythm of his hips, pulling his hand back from Danny’s mouth as he buried his cock deep before leaning down. Danny’s whimper in response was drowned out by Roy’s husky growl as he clenched down. Turning his head, he met Roy’s mouth in an awkwardly angled kiss.

“Still okay?” The hand that had been squeezing bruises into Danny’s hip came up to stroke the hair back from his face.

“…yeah. M’good.”

Roy shuddered at the sound of Danny’s sex-ruined voice, hips giving an involuntary jerk. He curved his fingers around Danny’s cheek in an intimate gesture at odds with the roughness moments ago.

“Do you - oh fuck…do you want to change?”

Danny nodded, pushing his chest off the table and wincing as Roy pulled out. He boosted himself up to lie flat, smiling thanks when Roy tucked his discarded sweater between his head and the painted brick. The jockstrap joined the pile of other clothes on the floor and he planted both feet on the edge of the table, legs spread wide around Roy’s hips.

Black-nailed fingers carefully traced his stretched hole, slicking it with more lube before sliding inside to stroke the cool liquid onto heated flesh.

“Fuuuuuuuuuuuccccckkkk,” Danny breathed out, palming his own cock and smearing sticky pre-come across the shaft. The moan turned into a series of whimpers when Roy moved his hand aside, replacing it with his own fingers.

”Don’t gotta.” Danny caught his hand clumsily as Roy reached for a condom. “ ‘m clean.”

“Bitch,” that was definitely a stare Bianca borrowed from Roy as he paused mid-stroke, “why didn’t you tell me before?”

”Not walking back with your cum dripping out of my-“ His words cut off with a moan when Roy deliberately twisted the fingers still knuckle-deep in his ass.

”When have I ever- never mind.”

Tossing the condom aside, he licked a wet stripe from base to tip, smearing pre-come over his lips, then curled his tongue around the leaking head to draw it into his mouth. Danny thrust up into heat and tightness, cock sliding over Roy’s swollen lips as he sucked and finger-fucked him. Two fingers became three, Roy’s moans matching Danny’s with every thrust as he lost himself in pleasuring him.

Danny tugged on his hair a minute later, and Roy let his cock fall from his mouth reluctantly. He stood with a kiss to a trembling inner thigh, slipping his fingers out.

“Ready?”

“Mmmmhmmmm.”

Danny pressed his shoulders against the table, arching up in invitation. He kept his eyes open, locked on Roy as he pushed back in slowly. Catching one of Danny’s legs in the crook of his arm, Roy tipped his hips up to slide in deeper than before. He paused there, buried to the hilt in Danny’s ass and rocking gently.

“Fuck…” If Danny voice was lust-drunk before, he sounded positively fucked out now. “Oh fuck, B…”

“Yeah? S’it good?” Roy kept up the barely-there roll of his hips, fucking into him in a way that made them both moan and Roy wish that he could feel it without a layer of latex between them. That was something (the one thing?) they’d never tried, mutual avoidance of even discussing the possibility. Roy told himself it was only because it was too risky despite precautions… too much like commitment.

Danny wrapped his free leg around Roy’s trim waist, slipping against sweaty skin and fingers tracing the line left from the corset. He clamped his heel against the small of his back, effectively preventing Roy from pulling out more than a couple of inches. Every movement Roy made inside of him felt exquisitely sensitive, from the stretch of his sore hole around the thick cock to the spark of lightning up his spine when he bottomed out.

Reaching up, he traced over Roy’s throat, fingers traveling across his chin to caress his lips. Roy caught a teasing finger gently between his teeth and wrapped his lips around it. Mimicking the actions performed on Danny’s cock, he sucked the full length and lavished attention on the fingertip with his tongue while moaning around it.

The wet pop when Danny pulled his finger free went straight to his balls. He tugged Roy down until their lips met, hips setting up a counterpoint to the deliciously slow fucking. Roy always kissed with his eyes open, something that Danny didn’t understand but appreciated in the urgent kisses as they panted into each other’s mouth. Despite the obscenely sexual context, his eyes held a different kind of intensity mingled with lust.

When Roy tilted his hips a little further up, the new angle provoked a breathless whimper. He concentrated his thrusts until he heard it again and focused on driving his cock into that spot over and over, Danny’s whimpers mingling with his own satisfied moans. Danny’s hand dropped from behind his neck, knocking aside bouquets to clamp onto the edge of the table. Petals scattered around and underneath him and onto the floor, filling the room with the heady scent of roses.

Roy slid his hand underneath Danny’s head, fingers gripping sex-tangled hair as he pressed their cheeks together, needing to be somehow closer. The motion pushed Danny’s leg further back against his chest, nails digging into Roy’s arm with every thrust. Maintaining his white-knuckled grip on the table felt like the only thing keeping him anchored, the only thing keeping Danny from blurting out endearments and pleas and promises on each breath.

He bit down on Roy’s shoulder when he felt his free hand slide between them to circle his cock, jerking him off in tight strokes. The relentlessly deliberate rhythm of fucking was driving them both to the edge. Moments later, a wordless, high-pitched whine meant Roy was close, chasing his own orgasm and determined to bring Danny along.

“Oh fuck…” Roy’s exclamation was barely audible over the sound of their bodies meeting. “Close, angel. Can’t…M’gonna-“

Danny clenched down around him, growling against Roy’s shoulder before releasing it from his teeth. His voice was raspy, ruined when he whispered, “Let go. Come for me.”

Roy inhaled sharply, driving his cock as far in as possible, and came with a strangled moan. Danny kept up a string of satisfied murmurs and yes, that’s it as Roy rode out his orgasm, hand gone slack between them.

Letting go of the table, he pushed the nerveless hand aside and rapidly stroked himself, hips rocking to rub the head of his cock against Roy’s stomach. Roy was still coming down when Danny arched underneath him and cried out his own release, whimpering as he tensed around his over sensitive cock.

Danny opened his eyes an indeterminate amount of time later, legs dropping to hang off the edge of the table. Roy wasn’t precisely dead weight on his upper body, but it wasn’t far off. His hand moved to the slick place where they were joined together, caressing the still-throbbing shaft before shoving Roy back with his knuckles.

“Out. Sore.”

Roy was gentle pulling out, but he still winced at the slide. Catching the expression before he could hide it, Roy frowned.

“Too hard?”

”Nah.”

”You’re supposed to tell me if it hurts.” Roy paused with the condom halfway off, concern written over his face. “Pussyface, I’ll stop. You know that.”

”Nuh uhh.” Speaking in more than single syllables seemed like too much work. “S’good. Just…” Danny’s lips twitched into a hint of a smile, “you. You’re big.”

Roy huffed out a breath of laughter, reaching for a makeup towel and bottle of water to clean them off. He soothed the skin with soft touches as he swept away lube and sweat before wiping the cum off their bodies. A twinge of guilt tugged at him when Danny hissed as he held him open to run the towel gently between his legs.

Tossing the damp towel into a pile, he held out his hands.

”C’mere.”

They ended up collapsing on the nearby couch together, Danny half on top of him. The silence was filled with breathing slowly returning to normal, air now stuffy with the smell of sex and crushed roses.

”Thank you.”

Danny raised his head at the quiet words. Roy wasn’t usually chatty after sex, preferring to communicate in touch until they finished coming down.

Unsure of the meaning, he answered with a noncommittal, “Mmmm?”

”For this. Doing this for me.” Danny tried to prop himself up further, pausing when Roy’s arms tightened around his shoulders.

”What…? I got off too.” He pushed against Roy’s chest until he loosened his grip enough for Danny to see his face.

Roy’s dark eyes were half-lidded in sated pleasure, but they were filled with the same intense something from earlier while they were fucking.

He chose the next words carefully, even as he still wasn’t quite sure why it felt important.

“Anything for you, Willow.”

#rpdr fanfiction #bianca del rio #adore delano #biadore #smut #not casual at all #missalyssasecret #submission #canon compliant

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otheroutlandertales · 6 years ago

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Anonymous said: what's next for wine and whisky?

This is the third chapter of this Ian and Rachel Modern AU!

Chapter 1, Chapter 2

Wine and Whisky - Chapter 3

by @whiskynottea

Rachel stood in the middle of the distillery’s reception area with a frown on her face. She looked around the empty, quiet room and reached in her pocket for her phone. She read William’s text again. Tuesday, 10am, first tour at the Fraser distillery.

Her first day at work - or something close to that. After Mrs. FitzGibbons’ formal mail informing her she’d been hired - which she’d read three times to make sure she really got the job and then let out a celebratory scream - her phone had pinged with a message from William, congratulating her and asking her to meet him at the distillery to show her around.

Now she was there, on time, and he was nowhere to be found. She started texting him but deleted the message - better wait for him for a few more minutes. The reception area was large but it gave her a warm feeling, similar to the one she’d had in the reception room before entering Jamie Fraser’s office. There were no framed pictures of the family here, hanging one next to the other in chronological order, but a large painting adorned the fireplace, one that seemed inspired by a group picture. There were more people than she could count, smiling in front of an estate that seemed at least three hundred years old.

Lallybroch, Rachel realized.

On the wall next to the painting was a beautiful collage with distillery pictures and newspaper snippets about the history of whisky. If Rachel hadn’t been absorbed in reading about the deep roots of whisky in Scotland’s life and economy, she would have heard the door open and then swing shut again.

“Oh! You’re here,” William said instead of a greeting, moving his sunglasses to the top of his head to reveal two slanted blue eyes shyly looking at her. “The coffee machine hasn’t arrived yet, so I went to the coffee shop on the corner, to buy us some coffee.” He flashed her a wide smile and gave her a paper cup. “It’s black, but I got extra sugar and milk, in case -”

“Black is fine,” Rachel said, smiling politely. “Thank you, William.”

He nodded, satisfied by her answer. “So what do you think?”

“The reception area looks nice! I like the bar in the back.” She pointed towards the side of the room with her paper cup, the bar still empty, but its dark wood stools inviting people for a whisky tasting.

“Da says the place doesn’t feel right, yet. He says the smell is wrong.”

Rachel frowned and sniffed twice, unable to detect the scent that might trouble Jamie Fraser.

“It smells of paint, new furniture, and new equipment,” William explained. “No barley, peat, or fermentation. It doesn’t smell like a distillery yet,” he winked at her and took a careful sip of his still very warm coffee.

“So everything is brand new here?” Rachel asked, tentatively trying hers.

“Aye, it is! Ready to see it?”

The distillery was impressive. The malting house very big, it’s floor patiently waiting to be covered with barley, to start the magical procedure of making whisky. Rachel listened to William intently while he explained how things would work, and tried to imagine herself working there, checking the process, seeing a plain crop transform into something complicated, enticing.

They were past the mashing room and heading to the washbacks used for wort fermentation when William’s phone rang. “Sorry,” he said with a grimace, “I have to take it.” William walked back towards the reception area with fast, wide strides, leaving Rachel alone.

Rachel walked up the remaining part of the corridor to get to the washbacks. She smiled when she saw the large wooden containers instead of the stainless steel ones she’d found on the internet. Fraser continued making his whisky the old way - she liked that. Rachel walked around the containers, thinking them filled with wort and yeast, the wood warm from fermentation, alcohol scenting the room. Biting her lip, she searched for a vantage point to check their washbacks’ depth - she’d read they could get almost twenty feet deep.

“Hi,” came a whisper in her ear, and Rachel jumped, a hand flying over her heart to calm its thunderous beating.

“Oh my God,” she whispered, breathing fast.

“Ye can just call me Ian,” the voice said, and she could hear the smile in his words. His hands took hold of her upper arms, keeping her stable.

“Ian,” she said turning around, and she couldn’t help but smile. Smiling seemed so easy when Ian was close. “What are you doing here?”

His eyes were closer to green today, and she wondered how she hadn’t noticed that in the bar. She had thought them a plain brown, back then, but she was mistaken.

“I came for supplies,” he shrugged. “Whisky for the bar. And you? What are you doing here?” he asked, although he knew exactly what Rachel was doing there. “Should I congratulate you?”

“I guess you should!” she said, grinning broadly. She suddenly felt self-conscious, and she fidgeted with a lock of her hair, before tucking it behind her ear.

“Congratulations, then, Ms. Hunter,” he said and bowed with a flourish. “It is a total delight to have you with us.”

She hadn’t expected such a formal response and wondered if he was being sarcastic. Maybe he didn’t care that she was hired. Deciding to reply in the safest way, she bowed back at him, and said, “The pleasure is all mine, Mr. -” She didn’t know his last name.

“Murray. Ian Fraser Murray,” he helped, the corner of his lips curling up.

“Mr. Murray,” she continued her sentence.

“So, what do you think?” Ian asked her, pointing around. “Pretty cool, ha?”

“Pretty cool,” she laughed at his rapid vocabulary change. “Will you work here, too?” The question was out before she’d realized it, and she bit her lip hard, hoping that her tone didn’t show the hope in her voice.

“Ah no, lass. Just at the bar. Someone has to sell the product, aye?”

“I guess so,” she agreed.

They kept silent for a moment, just looking at each other, enfolded in the quietness of the room. Rachel felt her heart beating hard against her ribcage, but her breaths were slow, calm. She breathed in the wood’s scent and the fresh and peppery smell coming from Ian, and she barely kept herself from inhaling deeply to take more of him in. Ian looked at her with a faint smile on his lips and opened his mouth as if to say something -

“I’m back!” William said, coming through the doorway behind Rachel, and then a barely audible, “Oh.”

“Morning, Willie,” Ian said, adjusting his hair in a bun, and Rachel involuntarily fixed her eyes on his biceps, the lines of his tattoo straining with the motion.

When William came to stand next to Rachel, he told Ian that the whisky he came for was in a white box behind the bar at the reception. Ian dropped his hands in his jeans’ pockets, in a way that said he knew that already.

He chatted briefly with William about the delivery and an upcoming event at the bar, and then turned to leave with a goodbye. When he was at the door, he stopped and looked back, his gaze fixed on Rachel just for a millisecond, enough to make her doubt she saw him looking at her altogether.

“So,” William tried to get her attention back. “Our washbacks.”

It took them more than an hour to finish the tour, and even though Rachel was focused on William and the distillery, for a good fifteen minutes she couldn’t get rid of the lingering question that flashed at the back of her mind.

What was Ian doing at the fermentation room when it was obvious that the whisky he came to pick up was at the reception?

Unable to find a convincing answer and unwilling to let herself hope, Rachel focused her attention on the tour.

She didn’t want to leave the stillhouse, the shiny copper pot stills reminding her of musical instruments waiting for someone to give them life, to start the music. They went back to the reception area, sat in the comfortable leather couch and spent another hour talking about esters and their fruity notes, aldehydes and their vanilla-like scent. Rachel was excited. Her coffee was long gone, and the energy boost she felt had nothing to do with the caffeine consumption. She wanted to start working as soon as possible, to be a part of the team that would produce some of the most extraordinary whisky.

“This is Lallybroch,” William confirmed her previous guess, when he saw her gaze fall on the painting over the fireplace. “My sister is an artist, this is her work,” he added with a proud smile.

“Impressive! And these are the distillery’s employees?” she asked and rose to stand in front of the painting, to find the faces she already knew among the strangers. Jamie Fraser was in the middle, his arm around the waist of the same brown-haired woman she’d seen in the pictures in his office. The painting was amazing, the details so close to life that it looked like an edited picture. Next to Fraser on the other side stood a tall, beautiful woman with long red hair, holding hands with a dark, bearded man, with the sweetest smile. William stood next to the woman with the curly hair, his hair a bit shorter, his shoulders squared like his dad’s. Ian -

“No,” William replied, interrupting her thoughts. “This is just family. My aunt Jenny, Da’s sister, has five children and some of them have already children of their own, so you can imagine…”

“And you all work for the distillery?”

“The distillery or the bar. Not all of us, though. My mam is a doctor,” he said and chuckled, hurrying up to continue when he saw Rachel’s puzzled look. “But one could say that she works for the distillery, too. She’s our honorary taster. And da’s inspiration, as he says himself,” he continued, rolling his eyes.

Rachel chuckled and turned to look at the picture again. A big, happy family. A moment later, she spotted Ian. He stood next to the short woman with the black hair Rachel had seen in the pictures in Fraser’s office. He was thinner, the tattooed hand scratching a huge dog’s ear. He seemed different, his hair held loose on the nape of his neck, his smile strained.

“Excuse me?” she said when she realized William was talking to her. “I got distracted.” She shook her head, as if to push the thoughts away, and turned to find William’s blue eyes looking intently on her. Lost in her daydreaming, she half expected to find Ian’s hazel ones.

“I was saying,” William smiled patiently, “That we have an event at the bar on Friday about underestimated blended whiskies. This year we’ll release our first blended whiskies, and we want to promote the idea of something affordable, yet with a great quality. You should come.”

“Of course I will,” she said, not sure if her first thought was to show Jamie Fraser that his decision to hire her was the right one, or to see Ian again.

If William had taken a few more minutes on the phone, Ian might have invited her himself. Maybe this was what he wanted to say before getting interrupted…

Rachel smiled at William who smiled back at her, and reached for her purse. It was time to go. The tour had answered a lot of her questions about the distillery, and had opened much more about Ian.

But Friday was close, and she’d see him again.

Continue to Chapter 4.

#outlander fanfiction #otheroutlandertales #mod whisky #pair: Young Ian x Rachel #ch: Young Ian #ch: Rachel #ch: William #modern AU #category: mf #Wine and Whisky #oot #*

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ribbonink · 6 years ago

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Counting Tiles

This one, as described by my friends as more or less creepy pasta. I hope you enjoy anyways!

I am locked in a room with a clown.

The room is-or was a white tile. Tile on the floor and wall, except the ceiling. The tile has become brown and coated in a rust like residue with age.

I understand now that they were laid out for me or those who have come before me. I understand now it was a board game. The tiles were about a foot in width and height.

When I first woke up here room smelled small and like a forgotten wet towel.

The only thing that that didn’t carry a depressive feeling was the clown. He was, what I first believed to be sleeping. But he may just have been waiting. Against the grays what and browns his big fluffy red hair and green and yellow costume contrasted brightly. Even under the buzzing light he looked cheerful.

I’m chained to the floor; both of my ankles have been locked with only the chains holding the cuff having only an inch of length. I cannot move from this one spot. My back is against a metallic door. With no knobs or way to push it open on my side. I don’t look at it as much anymore, it hurts to crane my neck and be reminded of what I know not to be.

The chain on the clown was different, only having one cuff and the length giving him reign over the entire room.

Initially, I believed this to be a terrible joke. Then what felt like hours passed. I struggled with my lock and the panic started to set in. The clown was still asleep.

Then I realized I never saw the signs of breathing. No rise and fall of shoulders. No inhale no exhale.

I did not want to be locked in the room with a dead body. Already my mind started to imagine the smell that would follow in a few days. What happens to the body after death.

In a humid room like this.

I yelled for the clown. I needed him to wake up. I needed company. I needed another living person. If he was alive maybe we can help each other get out of this.

He moved slowly. Pulling in his knees and rising on top of them his back was still to me.

I was still talking. I did not know the rules.

When he turned to face me, he had a closed mouth smile and wide-open eyes. His face paint was your average birthday clown; white face diamond eyes and red lips with the detail of blue. He had a bright red nose and shining blue eyes. Like his costume his makeup seemed new-like it was freshly applied. I remember saying “Thank god you’re okay” and then bombarding him with questions.

He started walking. The heels centering on one tile. Directly on the path of the tiles I was sitting on. After four steps my constant questions grew quiet. His closed mouth smile remained the same. He didn’t blink.

My perception of time was heavily altered with the only echo of daylight being two buzzing lights overhead. Never turning off.

Again, I thought this was an obscure prank played on me. I could see its title being clickbait. “Man spend day locked in room with clown, see what happens next!” I started laughing and the words “Okay! You got me!" almost escaped my mouth. But then he took another step forward.

Across the room his Crayola contrast against what could be a now emptied surgical room he stood.

For days it continued like this. I sat there he stood. If I made a noise-vocalized from a cough to sneeze. He’d step forward. So long as it was within his earshot. I learned this part easily. I could clap and snap. But if I were to vocalize loud enough, he would move. I was able to count how many tiles he was away from me. 110. Sleeping was difficult at first, I could not maneuver into a different position I had to face him. He unblinking. Bright red hair and shiny nose. Faced me. I’d go to sleep and I would wake back up to bright red hair and shiny nose and the closed mouth smile.

When the hunger pangs started to set in, that's when I dared to make another noise loud noise.

I yelled for my unperceived captors to give me something or just kill me. I begged to know why this was happening.

To my shock a slit at the bottom of the door behind me opened with a tray and plate of unknown substance. I ate it with fervor and then I looked up to see the Clown. He was just past the center of the room. 108

What I perceived were three days to pass. Sleep had almost become easier. But nightmares of hearing his chain drag forward of the silks of his costume come forward would snap me awake. I would quickly recount the tiles over and over 108,108,108,109. No. No.no.108. And try to lull myself back to sleep. The nightmare kept returning. I cannot sleep.

I had to count the tiles. I had to count and recount the distance. I had to make sure he wasn't cheating. Food has become a part of the daily pattern. Which I was thankful for because I had something to tell time with now. But and it made me wonder, would my unseen abductors would have fed me even before I screamed? Did I waste tiles? Or were the forcing me to lose this game. 104 tiles. Ten feeding times. I had to hear my own voice. The pain of holding in coughs are painful. I still haven’t slept. This is not right every time I recount the tiles it is wrong. I’m seeing things. I’m so tired. I couldn’t stand this anymore. I grabbed my foot and the metallic tray they served my meals pressed again the bottom of my foot. Pushing it towards my leg. It looked like I was trying to imitate the foot of a ballet dancer. But I need to go farther. I dug my teeth in my mouth and forced myself to muffle. The scraping noise of metal against the floor echoed throughout the room. I felt my foot burn and strain. Muscle, ligaments and tissue reacting like rubber bands being pulled taught far beyond their elastic range growing thinner. And thinner. Pop. With sudden give I fell over and screamed. I already knew he was closer. I had to be quiet but I screamed. I pulled my now loose foot through the cuff and began to repeat the act on the other. The sulfuric feeling that burned only pushed me to move. On my knees I crawled around the room trying to best not put any pressure at my feet as possible. Ignoring how loosely they swung until I tripped and my left foot hit a tile. An audible hiss escaped my mouth and I realized what I did. I stopped. He was still on tile 98 heading towards the direction I once sat. Facing and looking only there. The only thing that for a ghost of a moment I swore the clowns smile twitched slightly. He wasn’t approaching me so long as I am not there. I was hopeful now. I searched for anything and everything in the room. Anything that would help me open the door. It was empty for all but me, the trays, the chains, and the clown. Hope had just returned and it was already fleeting. I clawed at loose tiles allowing the porcelain to cut at my hands. The pain became too unbearable the more hysterical I grew. I counted the tiles again. Maybe they were a clue. I crawled to the furthest corner from him and allowed myself to hyperventilate. I was out of his earshot. I didn’t know why ensuring he didn’t move forward was still an objective to me. If he’s still heading towards the spot I certainly wouldn't be harmed. But what would happen after he reached there? After sometime I dared approach him. I was two tiles away crawling and shifting. Nothing breaking the sterile silence except the lights I’ve learned to ignore and me breathing through my teeth. His costume was of two different fabrics with two colors split down the middle with the splash of patchwork. The lemon-yellow fabric on his left looked soft and cotton like with shiny red polka dots sewn in. The right sign was lime green with blue tartan patches, the ‘seams’ of the patches made large silk thread tightly looped in lines along the tartan patches. Giant red buttons of whimsical shapes and sizes down his chest. He was still smiling and looking forward. He looked like an animation or a movie paused movement just about to happen. I could imagine the clown at a five-year-old birthday party about to reveal a big surprise for the star eyed child. I shuffled to look closer at his profile, not ever daring to step in front of him. His hair looked so soft and natural and his makeup expertly applied. The only evidence of days passing since application seen on the edges of his neck, dry cracks forming. I braved a step closer looking for the subtle rise and fall of his chest. Looking for any mistakes in his makeup or any inclination to get out. He was, the only thing in the room that I did not search until now after all. Then an Icy jolt shot through me. Anxiety and began rising through my as if my name were shouted in a furious octave. I felt his eyes burning me. I could imagine the clowns once jovial smile into a frown I could see those wide blue eyes and my spine coiled. I did not want to look up. I did not want to see what would happen next if I looked up. I held my breath I could feel him looming over me. Then and there, he was going to kill me. I knew it. I looked up. The clown was still looking forward. Unblinking and smiling. I must have been tired because I could have sworn he shifted. But his feet were still dead center on the tile. Hands still at his side. Close mouth smile. Looking forward. I let out a sigh of relief and jumped away horrified when he stepped forward, not fast but like a slow cog in a machine his chains slowly rattling behind him into stillness. Of course, the jump was enough to make me fall backwards landing on my feet. Of course, it felt like gunfire Of course I made a noise. Of course he moved forward. Frustrated. Confused. Tired. Aching. I pulled myself to the farthest corner of the room and relented to sleep. Blinking slowly at the bright red hair I thought of what day it might be out there. And for once I didn’t dream of the clown. I woke up to the sounds of chains and a door closing it felt familiar. My heart stopped as I saw his form domineering and unchanged standing in front of me. I was locked back in place. The cuffs now far tighter around my loose feet. He was far closer. Something in his unchanging smile and stiff straight posture told me I cheated. I played the game wrong. I had broken the rules. And all I could do was count the tiles. 7 tiles. Food. 7 tiles. Don’t sleep. You cheated. He’ll cheat too. 7 tiles. 7 tiles. Food. 7 tiles. Slam your foot. Stay awake. Weren’t there 8 tiles? 7 tiles? It was 7 tiles. I had forgotten my own name. 7 tiles. Food. 7 tiles. I think it was Mark. 7 tiles. Or maybe I knew someone who was Mark. Food. Slam the tray where you dislocated your ankle. Stay awake. 7 tiles. Was the clown always green? Food. They don’t serve it on a tray anymore. 8 tiles. Was the room always the slanted? Tiles. I fell asleep. I fell asleep and I spoke. I knew it but my body forced me to remain asleep and I couldn’t wake myself. When I finally regained consciousness. My feet ached. And he was standing over me. Tile four. “What is my name” I asked. My voice a hoarse echo of what it once was. 3 tiles “Who are you?” I asked the chains sound not pausing 2 tiles “What will happen now?” 1 tile I swallowed and the clown took another step.

#writblr #clowns #gore tw?#horror #horror short #horror story #short story

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lafaiette · 7 years ago

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Fic-prompt!: After the events of Trespasser, Solas visit Lavellan at Skyhold while she sleeps! Small kisses on her shoulder, her hair, inhaling her sent. He does it every week, thiking her sound asleep, but one day she wakes up during one of his visit!

This prompt is so beautiful, @faded-teacup, I cannot thank you enough for it ;_;

He knows he shouldn’t, but he can’t help himself. He knows this willhurt them both, just like he knew it would hurt the first time they kissed, inthe Fade, but just like that time, he cannot stop.

And so he visits her in her – not theirsanymore – tower at Skyhold, when he knows she’s sleeping and cannot hearhim. He quietly unlocks one of the windows and slips into the large room,watching her sleeping form in the bed. She looks smaller than ever, her leftarm always bandaged; she often wears her favorite nightgown, the one he lovedso much, too, and every time he comes, her red hair is sprawled on her pillowand her right hand is reaching to his side of the bed, as though she hopes tostill find him there the next morning.

That sight always makes his eyes swell with tears, no matter the numberof times he has already entered her room in secret.

Very little is different, today: her desk is still adorably messy; herheavy jacket is still on the couch where he saw it the last time he came here;the same fire is burning in the fireplace, the same paintings are on the walls,she is wearing the same nightgown from last time.

He does the same thing as before. It has now become a sort of ritual andhe follows the steps without making any mistake, knowing where to walk, knowingwhat to do and how. His heart aches for her and his lips burn, aware that theywill soon kiss her skin and hair. He moves slowly, careful not to make hisheavy armor thump against his body too much, and his eyes are fixated on her.

She sleeps quietly and he can see her face: pale and thin, sadder than ever,but confident and hopeful at the same time. Her right hand is resting on hispillow and he catches a glimpse of her left arm, the stump of it, stillbandaged. Breath hitches in his throat, a cold, choking hand squeezes his neck,and he has to stop for a second. He did this to her and yet he still dares tocome into her room to steal a few kisses, the blissful sight of her, her scentand the touch of her hair.

Wolves howl sorrowfully in the neighboring mountains and Solas stepsforward again.

He can’t see well for a moment, due to the tears in his eyes; she looksstunning and he feels wretched, disgusting, his touch foul, but he has beendoing this for weeks, now, and he’s beyond the point of no return. He slowlyleans down, trying to hold back his tears and sobs, and presses the softest ofkisses on her lips. Then he plants one on her brow, then one on her eyes,paying attention to her breathing and sighs.

He smiles and kisses her nose, too, just like he always did when theywere still together; there are more freckles on her face, now, little dots causedby the sun, and he counts them again as his gauntleted hand softly caresses hershoulder. Her scent is still the same, too, the same elfroot and flowersperfume she loved so much and that always lingered on his clothes.

He still keeps the armor he left Skyhold with in an enchanted chest, topreserve it and its scent, because it still carries her perfume and he oftentakes it out to press it against his face. This time, he presses his noseagainst her hair and closes his eyes, breathing in deeply. New tears form inhis eyes and he swallows them, his hands trembling. He searches for hers andeven if he knows it’s risky, even if he knows she may wake up, he doesn’t careand takes it, stroking her fingers.

He wishes he could remove his gauntlet, but it would make noise and hedoesn’t want to stop touching her even for a second. He keeps kissing her faceand her name almost spills from his mouth – Scarlet,Scarlet, Scarlet! -, but that would definitely wake her up, just like vhenan or ma sa’lath would, and so he forces his lips to stay closed and hiseyes burn as he closes them again.

He reopens them to see her face again as he kisses her lips for the umpteenthtime, but he gasps and freezes and all sensible thoughts leave his mind.

For she is awake and she is staring at him, wide-eyed and shocked,hopeful and awed.

He chokes again, but he’s unable to step back, away from her. They lookinto each other’s eyes and soon hers swell with tears, too, but she also smilesand he sees only love and sweetness on her face now. Her hand gently graspshis, not forcing him to stay there if he doesn’t want to, but also keeping himanchored on this moment, to remind him that this is indeed real, that they areboth awake and things can change.

He could stay. He could shed his armor and join her in bed, just likeold times, pretending his agents and men aren’t waiting for him in his base.They could make love and sleep in each other’s arms and watch the sun risetogether, pretending that the Qunari and Tevinter aren’t really fighting eachother to death in the north and that millennia-old duties and responsibilitiesdon’t exist.

“Solas.” She pronounces his name like a blessing, not a curse. It’s awarm greeting and tears fall freely from his eyes. He slowly steps away, evenif every movement hurts terribly, as if shards of glass were digging into hisflesh. He doesn’t look away from her, though, and even if he puts a certaindistance between himself and the bed, her hopeful, sweet expression doesn’tchange.

He wants to touch her again. He wants to kiss her again.

“Scarlet.” He pronounces her name in the same way, a blessing, asalvation, a balsam for his scorched, damned soul, and her smile grows. Hetrembles, like a cornered animal, and his next words are a desperate sob: “Mylove.”

She slowly pushes back the covers of the bed and gets on her feet, thebeautifully embroidered nightgown flowing down her body like silky water. Sheis definitely thinner, almost worryingly so, but there is still that oldstrength in her limbs, that same agility and speed that reassure Solas of hergeneral wellbeing. He knows she has started eating again, too.

She steps towards him and he steps back, as if she is the wolf wearingan armor and he the defenseless, bare one. She keeps walking forward, slowly,as if not to scare him or startle him, and he finally stops, because his wholesoul, every fiber of his being wants her, wants to be hold her and be held byher. He cannot fight anymore.

She reaches him and her only hand – so delicate, yet so strong, soft andcalloused at the same time – touches his cheek. He gasps and leans into herpalm, shivering, looking into her golden, soft eyes. She is still smiling andhe drinks on that sight like a man dying of thirst.

His hands finally move and he places them on her waist, gently,delicately. She gasps, too, and her cheeks turn red; he lets out a short, wetchuckle, his mouth trembling, because she is still so shy, still so innocentand pure.

“Ma vhenan.” he says and herhappy, soft laughter fills his heart with warmth.

“Ma vhenan.” she repeats inreturn, two wonderful dimples on her round cheeks, and he cradles her face inhis hands and kisses her, peppering her eyes, lips, and nose with quick, burningkisses that make her giggle and him chuckle. He does this as she stands awakein his arms and nothing ever felt better than this.

Her small hand rests on his nape and he leans down to receive her kisses;he can finally count her new freckles and she can kiss the bags under his eyesand his cleft chin; he can caress her hair, brush it back without fearing toawaken her, and she can stroke his ear and cheek.

“I’m sorry.” he says, voice hoarse. “This is not fair. But I…” He takesa deep breath and presses his face against her cheek, kissing it hard. “But Icannot stay away from you, vhenan.”

“This wasn’t the first time, right?” She holds him tightly, as thoughshe fears he will disappear. “You came here before, didn’t you?”

“Yes.” He strokes the soft skin under her eyes with his thumbs andrejoices when he sees she is still smiling. He smiles, too, his heart beating fast,full of life and love.

“And will you keep visiting me?” There is hope in her voice, and aprayer, and he is not a god, he never felt like one, but this is a prayer hewill answer, for she must not beg him, because he is unworthy of that and shedeserves so much more.

“I will.” he promises and her eyes widen, filled with joy and surprise.He knows she was expecting a vague response or a full refusal. But he accepted,he promised, and her hope grows, as well as his.

She blushes again, timid, and looks down at the fur of his armor beforeraising her eyes to him again and asking in a whisper: “Will you stay heretonight?”

He thinks of his agents waiting for his orders, of Abelas and hisSentinels, always reproaching him for the bonds he decided to keep, alwayswatching him with wary eyes, wondering whether the Wolf truly is ready for thisor not. He thinks of the raw, dangerous, frightening power flowing through him,of the duty that awaits him, of the end of the journey, and yet that hope thatis burning so lively in Scarlet’s heart – that unquenchable flame – burns inhis heart, too, and he keeps smiling.

“I will.” he says, a second promise he has every intention to keep, andthe sun rises behind his back, illuminating him and Scarlet and filling theroom with light as they kiss.

#dragon age #da:i #solas #scarlet lavellan #solavellan #lafaiette's fic #faded-teacup #inktober fic #I FELT SO ALIVE WHILE WRITING THIS #of course it's hopeful as fuck #because you know #i'm a hopeless romantic #thank you so much for this!!

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kapsbrakclapsback · 7 years ago

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Dreammaker, You Heartbreaker (1/?)

I’ve got chapter 1 of the Breakfast At Tiffany,s AU! It’s also on AO3. But here it is! Based on @takealottodragmeawayfromreddie‘s awesome idea.

The lost man moves with a purpose, walking with a fashionable black evening coat paired with a coffee to-go and a Danish, the oil of the pastry leaving dark yellow-gray stains on the white paper bag. Sunglasses stand on the bridge of his nose, and no passerby can read his story from his eyes because of them. The city feels awfully tall as it surrounds him, but as big as the world around him is, he can still hear the soft taps that his slightly worn but high end shoes make on the pavement below him.

Maybe he’s been walking for hours, maybe minutes. We don’t know, and it’s not even clears if he knows. Nonetheless, he stops, sure in his halted step as he makes a sharp turn to face the large, shiny shop window. He takes a sip of the bitter coffee and just lets himself look.

Everything about it gleams. Tiffany's was like heaven as imagined through children's books, full of sparkle and shine. The shine itself takes on a new, indecipherable meaning in the kind light of the 7 am rising sun.

He takes a bite of his Danish and lets his head tilt in fascination, Let’s his concealed eyes scatter about the magic charm of it all. He wonders for a second if he should take the glasses off, but remembers that his hands are full and decides that he probably couldn’t comprehend Tiffany's if he got to view it in its unshaded glory.

This is god, he thinks. This is salvation, this is heaven. Nothing bad can happen here.

He gives himself a few more moments to heal, to let the power of Tiffany's and all of its glittering diamonds seep into his soul. Then, he pulls his eyes away from it, and begins the walk to his apartment building, falling into step with the collage of New Yorkers until he is more part of the pavement than he is an individual.

——

When Eddie got out of his impossibly bright yellow taxi and pulled out his suitcase (the rest of the boxes were to come later, he'd been told), he took a moment to stand on the sidewalk and just look.

He gazed at the way that the city popped and whirred to life around him, like some grey-brown toy store. Everything around him was tall, com the buildings to the pedestrians, but Eddie had been short for a long enough time to know that the feeling was to be expected in most new places. People of all types passed him as he let his gaze travel across every surface. Despite the circumstances, he felt freedom burn in his throat, felt it sear behind his eyes.

He heard the taxi drive away, but didn’t tear his eyes away from the cityscape. It was only when some gruff shoulder knocked against Eddie's, and he was pulled back to earth. After taking a moment to collect himself, Eddie walked out of the flowing sidewalk and onto the steps of the apartment building.

Before walking in, he reached into his pocket for the key that would let him into the set of hallways to get to his room. When it wasn’t in his right jacket pocket, he checked the left and then the right again. Panic grew, blossoming into a fire when there was no unchecked pocket and no key to the building, only to his apartment.

He took a breath in and another one out, but the effort was futile. He still felt like he was on the verge of combustion when he decided to just ring up a room to ask to be let in.

Eddie let himself into the lobby-of-sorts of the apartment building (it was a mostly blank room consisting of a board and a locked door), and tried to cool the panic stirring up in his lungs with a long breath. He took note of the inhaler in his back pocket to calm himself before settling himself before the board of his destiny, as his occasionally fantastical mind referred to it.

Sufficiently convinced that he could handle the next set of events, whatever the hell they were, Eddie stared at the grid of pearly white buttons. He let the pads of his fingers trail softly over them, the romantic streak in his mind looking at the possibilities hidden in it. His hand, of its own accord as far as Eddie's concern, drifted to the mid-left of the broad board. He took a look at the room number, just to be sure (it was E4, and the number/letter pair burned itself into his mind with a crisp harshness. He supposed it was a result of his heightened emotion). Finally, he put his index finger on the button and pushed firmly, leaving no room for hesitation.

The piercing, alarm like sound was unpleasant for him, but he persisted until whoever was on the other end answered back.

"Who is this?" asked a rough voice, raspy with sleep. Eddie smiled despite himself, glad that he actually got a response.

"Eddie, Eddie Kapsbrak. I just moved in, and I don’t have my building key. Could you let me in?"

"What time is it?" Based on the slow, fatigued rhythm of the voice on the other end, Eddie presumed that he had only heard about half of what he had said. A yawn could be heard through the rickety speaker, further solidifying the tiredness of the man in E4.

"10:30, if my watch is anything to go by," said Eddie, carefully stepping around his words, making sure they were slow and not too rambling. He still felt the panic itch beneath his skin, but began to put on the most calm, collected face he could.

"Shit! Do you have a bottle of water, by any chance? I have an appointment and I can't turn myself into a man worthy of New York this quickly without help."

The request was odd, but Eddie still peeked into his satchel to check, and smiled lightly when he found an unopened bottle.

"I’ve got water. Room E4, right?"

"Absolutely. Come on up."

Eddie heard a click, and strode towards the door, feeling optimism beneath his feet. He pushed the door to the building open with ease- it wasn’t not the grand, decorated door at the building's front, this one was thinner and had a weaker knob- and he held his case, letting it swing back and forth as he made his way down a hall and up a flight of stairs. He followed this pattern until he reached the fifth floor. He let his free hand trail on the painted white banister by his side, but quickly retracted it at the feeling of dust beneath his fingertips.

He stopped in place, holding his hand mid-air to figure out what to do about the dust. He could feel the tips of his fingers begin to itch, and he had read enough about dust to know its dangers. Before Eddie could take a second to think, he jerkily wiped it off on the front of his jacket, before realizing that he had basically just transferred the dangerous substance from his skin to another place on his body.

Idiot, idiot, idiot, he thought, berated himself with a venomous tongue. Eddie then used his palm to make brushing movements on the coat to get as much of the dust off of it as necessary before pulling out some hand sanitizer from a pocket inside his coat.

He put a copious amount of the aloe vera scented jelly on his hands, and scrubbed with veracity as he continued walking, stilted and distracted, his attention focused on purging the dust from his vicinity. His mind began cycling through the possibilities, but was interrupted as he gave a glance to the placard next to a door, and was shocked out of his illness infested reverie with the realization that he was a few rooms away from E4.

E1 may have looked the same as E2 which looked the same as E3, but E4 was an anomaly, a misfit among the uniform set of doors. First, there was a welcome mat, and a well used one at that. There were scrapes of dried mud, and the corner was stained with a faded crimson color, probably red wine. There were some words printed on it, but they were worn past readability. Eddie knocked three times, keeping a borderline musical pattern to them. He didn’t get a response for a long enough time that he moved his hand to knock again, but he was interrupted as the door was swung open, revealing the man who lived in E4.

Eddie found his breath taken away, but not in the way that he was used to. The man was dressed in a tuxedo shirt that was a few sizes too big (on second thought, it probably didn’t even belong to him) and a novelty sleeping mask pushed onto his forehead. The mask was rose pink with shiny gold eyelashes, and it must’ve been either a gag gift or a party favor. He was lanky, with wild, dark hair that curled around in effortless twirls. There was a smattering of freckles around his nose and cheeks, and he had cheekbones that made Eddie want to collapse in the middle of the hallway.

The amount of time it took for Eddie to find himself helplessly infatuated with him was about the same amount of time as it took for the man to collect himself from his slumber just enough to groggily open his mouth.

"D’ya have the water, Eds?" he asked, voice dragging and low.

"Don’t call me Eds," Eddie responded without thought, shaking himself a bit as he grabbed the water out of his satchel and handing it to the guy, who grabbed it with a heavy hand and casually beckoned Eddie inside.

"Hey, what’s your name?" Eddie asked, stepping in after him carefully, putting his satchel and suitcase next to the doorway.

"Richie Tozier's my name, and breaking hearts is my game," slurred Richie, smiling to himself at some hidden memory, before uncapping the water and taking a deep, long drink. Eddie felt his heart twinge in an odd, bitter way.

Richie continued to drink, and Eddie took a look around his apartment.

E4 was as unusual on the inside as it was on the outside, as it was simultaneously cluttered and empty. There was a nice couch which had just been slept on, if the blanket and pillows were anything to go by, but it was paired with the oddest side table Eddie had ever seen. It was misshapen and crooked, like a shop class project gone wrong. Curled at a leg of the side table was a tan-colored cat, who slept peacefully.

"You have a cat?" Eddie asked, eying the pet with wariness, remembering a specifically scarring testimonial he read about a claw scratching out an eye that had made him swear off pets when he first read it in college.

"Yep. His name's Cat," Richie answered, putting down the bottle and moving to the other side of the living room. There, he pulled off the eye mask and placed it on top of a stack of newspapers.

"Short for Catherine? Nice pun."

"No, he’s just Cat. As in the animal. He’s a free spirit, doesn’t need a name. We're kindred spirits, him and I. I barely have a name myself," explained Richie, his voice becoming floaty as he became a bit more alert. He grabbed a hairbrush from the seat of a wooden rocking chair, and began to casually run it through his hair as he rambled.

"How can you barely have a name? Everyone has a name, whether they like it or not," said Eddie, following Richie as he moved to get something from his bedroom. He leaned against the doorway, arms crossed, as he watched Richie fish around for something.

"What if someone is called by everything but their name? What if people just point at them and start talking? They don’t really have a name," said Richie, as he found what he was apparently looking for at the bottom of a small basket. He held up the glinting slip of metal victoriously, and on second sight, Eddie realized that it was a jeweled clip.

"Well then, I guess their name is just 'Hey you', or the name that they introduce themselves as. You can’t just not have a name."

"Maybe so," replied Richie, lackadaisical and gorgeous in the pink lampshaded lights of his room. He peered into a mirror and slipped it into his hair, before grabbing a wide brimmed hat on his bedside table. An easy silence followed, before curiosity stirred in Eddie once more.

"So, what’s with the rush? What big event warrants all of..." Eddie trailed off, trying to find the right word for the flurry of hair clips and clutter that was this whole event, before finally choosing to make a noncommittal hand gesture as he said "this".

"I’m seeing Sally Tomato, and visiting hours are tight. He’s in Sing Sing right now, and I’ve got to give him the weather report," said Richie as he finished his sentence by moving into the adjoining bathroom.

"Sing Sing? The jail?"

Richie stuck his head out of the bathroom doorway to answer, and it was so cartoonish and peculiar that Eddie felt the corners of his mouth turn up, almost against his will.

"You know, I always thought that Sing Sing should be the name of an opera house," said Richie, and he then left Eddie's sight again. Eddie, however, could hear strains of an impression of an opera singer through the distance. It wasn’t a refined mimic, as the voice drifting through the doorways was more Richie's than anyone else’s, but it held an odd charm.

Richie then darted out of the bathroom, arms outstretched as he searched for something on the floor. He paused to look up at Eddie, staring bemusedly down at him.

"I’m looking for shoes, nice black ones. Shiny. You’ll know it’s mine if there’s a white line on the sole, it’s how I keep track of them at parties," he then dived under his bed, and Eddie decided not to contemplate on parties that required an absence of shoes and instead went looking.

There another stretch of silence, now accompanied with the musical sounds of shuffling through a messy bedroom, before Eddie spoke up again.

"You mentioned a weather report. What’s the deal with that?"

"Well, my good old friend Sally passes along messages with another one of my jail visitor friends. They’re always weird things, but never funny enough, which is a real shame. I mean, if you’re just going to tell each other the weather, might as well make it fun, right? But my little Sun-Dried Tomato wants me to quote verbatim, like some kind of fuckin' Latin teacher. It’s ridiculous, but what can you do? I mean, one time I- Found it! Got one shoe out of two. Any luck, Eds?"

Eddie tried to will the cobweb off of his left hand while making a sad gesture with his right.

"No luck whatsoever."

Richie, in that moment, seemed to be hit with some divine inspiration, looking past Eddie at a rickety wardrobe.

"Can you reach deep, deep in the clothes part of the wardrobe? I think Bev may have pulled something. That’s her usual stash space."

"Is Bev in Sing Sing too?" asked Eddie as he followed the instructions, his palm touching the (dusty, so ridiculously dusty) back wall of the wardrobe as he fanned it across to find the shoes. Richie was laughing softly at something Eddie couldn’t decipher when Eddie's hand hit the trademark stiff leather of a nice shoe, and he grabbed it with confidence, pulling them out victoriously.

Richie gave a cheer, and Eddie threw it across the room. Richie's catch was successful despite Eddie's inability to aim, and Richie disappeared back into the bathroom. Eddie, officially in the bedroom of a guy he had just met, took a deep breath and looked around.

This was an unknown feeling, the feeling of newness as it crashed its waves on him. He breathed it in, let himself soak in the unfamiliarity of it, until he was interrupted by the squeaking of door hinges. He looked to the door of the bathroom, and felt himself drown.

If Richie was beautiful in sleepwear and an eye mask, he was absolutely breathtaking in his streetwear.

His outfit, a semi-casual suit with a wide brimmed hat, was a fascinating sort of elevated normalcy. Richie himself, Eddie realized, was a sort of elevated normalcy. He had routines and schedules and everything that made Eddie dread daylight, but every movement was accompanied by a panache that was addicting.

"Do I look okay?" asked Richie, doing a goofy twirl.

"Yeah, I guess," replied Eddie, closing his dropped jaw and trying to play it cool. Richie rolled his eyes, smiling brightly as he pushed past the blushing Eddie, who followed his path as it led both of them into the hallway.

Finally, there Eddie stood, a changed man in the cramped quarters of the carpeted hallway in his new apartment building, the man of his dreams on his way out. Richie's back was turned as he flitted down the hall, swinging a bag with one hand and adjusting his hat with the other, and Eddie called out to him.

"Hey, Richie!"

Richie turned around, somehow looking both hopeful and afraid.

"See you around," said Eddie, and he smiled as Richie gave a soft wave.

Richie turned back, and Eddie swiveled to the direction of his room, feeling something warm and sunny grow in him.

#it (2017) fanfiction #reddie #richie tozier #eddie kapsbrak #the group chat is prob mad at me because i still haven’t written the legally blonde au but #hope this makes up for it

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dialux · 8 years ago

Note

1) I am so on board for the new "marriage of convenience" fic, awesome work as always, and 2) "huddling for warmth" pre-jonsa? I've alway had this image of ten sitting (snuggling) together in one of the tents, several days before the battle of the bastards, and desperately want someone to tell the story behind it.

OOOH let’s try to turn that image into words, can we?

(Also, nonny, funny story: I always thought the “share body heat” trope was absolute bogus and just fandom’s wishes, but turns out that it isn’t, and I AM SHOOK.)

[Sansa’s cold. Jon does his best to help. They never talk about it afterwards.]

...

Sansa’s cold.

Not so cold that she won’t survive, she tells herself. And it isn’t as if she has anyone to complain with- Sansa knows what they think of her, knows it well. Lannister, Stone, Bolton; it’s a miracle the Stark underneath hasn’t crumpled already, broken from the weight of her masks and griefs. The Northerners distrust her for her past, and the wildlings distrust her for what she represents, and in the end all Sansa has is herself, as it’s always been.

But, really, in the end, it all boils down to the fact that they just don’t like her.

So she keeps herself calm, unflappable, even in the fact of their utter contempt. Sansa’s suffered to get here. She won’t let herself falter now. She won’t complain, because she’s a Stark and a Northerner and she’ll show these thrice-damned people that if it kills her.

And yet- there’s a difference between facing off against lords’ disdain and being soaked to the bone in the only good clothes you have. The puddle she slipped and fell into was accidental; nobody had seen her fall, and she’d brushed herself off easily. The problem was in the tear of the furs which opened it up to the thinner layers below, and in the snowfall that came on later- they couldn’t find a proper place to camp for a few hours, and by that time her clothes almost froze solid.

Another violent shudder ripples through her, but she only clenches her jaw firmly and draws her hands closer to her torso.

She can’t call for more wood. Tormund was complaining to Jon just a few hours ago of the shortage in firewood; Sansa already has a private tent and a proper fire, which most of the wildlings don’t. Asking for more feels utterly selfish.

Just a few minutes, she thinks, eyes drifting shut under a bloom of warmth in her gut. I’ll take the furs off in a few minutes, and…

She’s asleep, or nearly there, when she hears the rustle of cloth outside her tent. Sansa flinches, jerking upright, and Jon enters.

“The Mormont’s have offered some more wood,” he says, stripping off his gloves as he strides in, heading to the basin of water. “I’m sure it’s just because they want us to leave, but it’ll ease some-” he turns, and Sansa isn’t sure of what he sees on her face but it must alarm him, for he moves towards her quickly, brows furrowing.

“Sansa?” He says. Then, when she lolls her head back to look at him: “What in the name of-”

Jon’s voice fades into a sort of dull murmuring, too soft for her to identify. She feels his hand hover over her furs, then flatten over her heart, resting over the damp cloth. He swears, loudly, fluently.

“When did this happen?” He asks. “Sansa. When did your clothes get so wet?”

“S-snow,” she manages to reply, dredging up the thought through a mind that feels slow and thick as molasses. “St-st-storm.”

“It’s been snowing for hours,” he snaps. “You couldn’t have said something?” He sighs, though, and steps away briefly before returning. Sansa feels him brush her shoulder, impossibly lightly. “Do you trust me?”

Sansa’s tired. She’s tired and cold and she can’t even find the energy in herself to shiver. She looks up at him, at her bastard brother whom she’s never much liked but always loved- she looks at him, and she wonders, How can I not?

“Yes,” she says, and the syllable drops between them like a stone.

Jon nods; one of his hands come up to cup her face, all sword-callused and warm, and the other does some fumbling things with the clasps along her furs. Sansa feels weightless, drifting along on a wave of syrupy sweetness, when something cold and sharp touches the inside of her elbow.

The abrupt jerk of her body startles Jon, but he soothes her, one hand cupping her cheek firmly and the other rubbing concentric circles along her palm.

“We need to get these clothes off you,” he tells her lowly. “You’ll freeze, Sansa, if we don’t. I know you’re probably not hearing me now, but…” his voice trails off again, but this time she’s more aware of the rustle of cloth falling off her, the rasp of the knife against her cloth.

Ramsay had, once, held a knife to her eyes. He’d taunted her with it, terrified her. Jon’s just as close as Ramsay ever was; but Sansa can’t feel even a drop of the terror that had surged through her only months previous.

When her clothes are off, Jon draws away.

Her eyes flicker open, tracking him lazily: Jon’s hesitating, and Sansa doesn’t know why. Then he reaches up to his neck and undoes the clasp, draping his fur over her shoulders.

“Sansa,” he says, leaning down and gripping her chin. “Sansa, listen to me: the wildlings know how to treat this kind of cold. They say-” he swallows, throat rolling, almost nervously; he looks like he’d once done in the godswood, she thinks suddenly, dared by Theon to swim in the black pool and afraid but still determined to measure up- then the memory fades, replaced by the tent and flickering shadows that are her homes now. There’s a faint warmth in her chest at the thought, though the rest of her is still comfortably numb. “-they say the quickest way to fix this is to- to touch each other. To be lying next to each other. To share the warmth of my body with yours.”

For a moment, Sansa wonders why he’s telling her all this; then she realizes: Jon can see the scars that Ramsay had left her, along her arms and belly and legs. The scars she’s hidden from the world for so long- Jon can see them, now, he has seen them, and though there’s anger and bitterness and grief in his eyes there isn’t anything resembling pity.

She nods, and he takes that as some sort of permission- Jon picks her up and takes her to the cot set up not a few feet away, and steps away.

Sansa curls further against the wool of the bed, turned away from him. The blankets and Jon’s furs have started little pinpricks of heat along her chest and belly, and it’s as painful as the pins-and-needles sensation that comes with trying to walk on a foot that’s fallen asleep.

And then he approaches, pushing her further on the bed so he can have some space with her, and wraps his arms around her- his bare chest to her back, broader shoulders hunching over her slighter frame, one arm slipping beneath her body to curl back over her waist and the other resting a handspan above the swell of her breasts.

Briefly, she thinks on what Robb would have said to see his sister and brother in such an embrace; on her father- their father- and her mother. But then, they’re all dead, gone, vanished.

All Sansa has is this man, this brother who died and then came back- and in his arms, she feels the pain of her family’s destruction lessen, just the tiniest bit.

They fall asleep like that, or at least Sansa does.

When she wakes the next morning, Jon isn’t in her tent. She’s warm, though, and the blankets are pulled up to her chin- Sansa picks herself up, reaching for her clothes. Jon was thoughtful enough to leave them in front of the fire to better dry.

She winces, inwardly, when her bones click like Old Nan’s used to- she’d always thought that disgusting, and now it’s happening to her. But then again, she’s alive, and that hadn’t been entirely guaranteed for a good portion of the previous night.

The normal camp rush is ongoing; Sansa picks her way through them, heading towards the commander’s tent where Jon will be with Ser Davos and Tormund, struggling to make a paltry army thrice as big as it’s actual size.

She enters, and they all pause when she does; it’s for a spectrum of reasons- she knows that much- distrust from Tormund, disquiet from Davos, and worry from Jon. The reason varies, but the result very little.

Sansa draws her furs together, inhales, and steps further in.

“You were saying, Ser Davos?” She asks, taking her usual position in the corner.

They just don’t like you, she thinks, and the thought is weary. One day, Sansa will just crumble under the weight of their expectations.

But when she skims the people’s faces, trying to understand the shift in dynamics that have taken place over the hours she’s been absent, she realizes that Jon is watching her instead of listening- there’s worry plastered all over his face, obvious as a painted mask.

Davos continues to talk. Jon doesn’t pay attention to him- he tilts his head, just a little, to the side.

Sansa never knew him very well at all. There are times when her knowledge of Jon’s emotions are on par with that of a rock’s. But she knows exactly what he means with that single look: are you alright?

Her muscles ache; she feels foolish; she’s tired, a pillar that’s slowly being worn down by everyone’s anger and hatred. Sansa dredges up a smile for Jon and nods, once.

One day, she thinks, she’ll crumble. One day, she’ll be all alone.

But that day is not today, and so long as she has her brother here, Sansa will not let herself be anything less than her blood.

#Anonymous #jonxsansa #jon x sansa #you get this before i need to run to work nonny #hope you enjoy it!#(also thank you so much for your sweet words you are SO KIND!)#dialux answers questions #dialux tries to answer prompts #my writing

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whatdoyouexpectthistime · 8 years ago

Text

Out of Office Drama: Goto and Miho

Under normal circumstances, all meetings aside from the date scenario were conducted at MJS headquarters – so this one should have been no different.

However, Miho, in her infinite wisdom, made an exception.

Shouldn’t have for a great many reasons – some her own, some not – but did just the same.

The hotel bar was not of her choosing, but it was familiar enough for her to feel comfortable waiting on her own. In the early evening, she could take small sips from her shiraz and not seem like a complete lush; she definitely looked like a woman there to meet someone, though her attire and the presence of a laptop and manila folder peeking from the top of the handbag beside her, suggested at least it was not a social rendezvous.

This is a really, REALLY bad idea.

“Sorry if I kept you waiting.”

She’d seen him enter of course, watched him glance around before spying her. His stride was purposeful but unhurried, and though he’d attempted to maintain eye contact as he approached, Miho had glanced down into her drink in a rather uncharacteristic display of cowardice? Bashfulness? Awkwardness?

Something like that.

“Just long enough for the wine to warm to the perfect temperature,” she responded lightly, finally lifting her eyes to his.

Inhale before the perfect storm – silver lined clouds threatening to break but not yet broken, gentle and controlled, power and potential evident but held in check.

“Are you all right?” he frowned, ducking his head a little to peer more closely at her expression, and Miho flinched.

“Distracted, sorry,” she apologised, shaking her head, and hopefully the stupidity from it. “Shall we grab a table?”

“Yes,” he nodded, motioning with a gentlemanly sweep of his hand that she lead him.

Just not on.

“Is this a usual haunt of yours?” she enquired, selecting a booth over a table.

“No, I rarely get time to enjoy places like this,” he admitted, waiting for her to be seated before doing the same, settling opposite, “and as you already know, I’m not much of a drinker.”

“I take it, then, I’ll be drinking alone?” she smirked, finally finding mirth, even if it was wry.

“Would you feel more comfortable if I ordered something?” he queried, but before she could answer he’d waved for a waitress who came over with a smile. “May I get a glass of…”

Goto looked to Miho’s glass, and she filled in the blanks.

“House shiraz,” she declared.

“Of course,” the waitress smiled, scribbling a couple of words down, before departing.

“You didn’t need to do that,” Miho told him.

“If we only ever did the things we needed to do, life wouldn’t be all that interesting,” he philosophised.

He seemed completely comfortable.

It was not uncommon for clients to act different following a test drive, but Goto showed no signs of awkwardness; in fact, he was, Miho thought, unusually cool considering what she knew of his rather bashful nature.

This did not escape her notice, and she eyed him suspiciously for a few seconds, before she retrieved the folder from her bag and handed it to him.

“Here’s my final profile,” she explained, and he flicked it over. “Please read it carefully to ensure you’re happy with my evaluation, and the wording; semantics can sway, so it’s important to be particular.”

The document was not a short one, and while Goto read in silence, Miho sat doing her best to show no interest in his reaction to any of what she’d written. Though he did seem a little different today than their last meeting, and in all those before that, she could tell when he reached where she’d detailed his romantic style and sexual performance – colour dappled his cheeks faintly, and Miho trapped a sigh in her chest until it dissipated.

Still, she remembered writing that section intensely, and the urge to cross her legs made her weight shift.

When the waitress arrived and put down Goto’s glass, he had still yet to look up from the paper; but he hadn’t turned the page in some time either.

“Problem?” Miho enquired, leaning forward a little.

Goto cleared his throat.

“I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t both confronting and embarrassing to read about myself like this,” he admitted, glancing at her but not making eye contact this time. “Flattering too,” he added. “You have quite a vivid way with words.”

“It’s crucial clients are able to get a clear idea of all aspects of their potential partner,” she expounded, falling back into practiced professionalism. “It’s how we’ve been able to enjoy the success rate we have.”

“And this is all your thoughts on me?” he prompted, closing the folder over.

“Actually I was so inspired, and sure you’d agree with my assessment, that,” she began, leaning down grab a thicker folio from her bag, “I’ve already selected three clients who are compatible.”

He looked at it, the black folio hovering across the table between them.

“That eager to get rid of me?” he questioned, eyes wandering up her arm, across her shoulder, but he stopped short of reaching her face.

His brows twitched, and he seemed transfixed by her throat. Neither of them had mentioned meeting in the supermarket day before last, and sure as hell had not uttered Subaru’s name – but Goto’s stare lingering there reminded them both.

Finally, he managed to refocus his gaze back into her face.

Then there was his tone. It lacked all humour, it lacked everything; and an emotionless mural painted over what Miho had seen happen several times before in this very situation.

Jazz’s voice rang in her ears – how sometimes clients, having enjoyed their time with them after long spells of loneliness or romantic disconnect, thought they felt more than they truly did.

“At MJS we pride ourselves on being both thorough, and efficient,” she responded – the line from their glossy brochure.

“Ahh, yes,” he nodded, still looking right over the folio Miho refused to lower. “You satisfy your clients, 100% guaranteed.”

“Mr. Goto,” Miho levelled, “if you are in any way dissatisfied with my service up until this point, then please say so. Only then can I do my utmost to correct the problem, and meet your expectations. Before that, however, all I ask, is that you at least glance these profiles.”

At this he frowned, his gaze diverted, and she saw him inhale a breath of strengthening resolve before he asked his next question.

“Which one is yours?”

“Excuse me?” she blinked once, the weight of the folder she held now causing her extended arm to tremble.

“Profile,” he clarified, and though she could see he wanted to avert his eyes, he did not. “Which one is yours?”

The sigh from earlier was suddenly resurrected, and had escaped from between Miho’s lips before she could clamp down. She couldn’t reward the courage it had taken him to ask that question, to convey to her in not so many words he wanted her among those prospective brides.

“Look,” she exhaled, finally placing the folio to the side and returning her hand to the base of her glass. “Sometimes during this process, that does involve the exposure of deeply personal…”

“Is that the MJS handbook speaking?” he interrupted, and Miho’s response was quick.

“Yes,” she said sharply, and a little louder than she had intended, “but also me, from experience. And every single client who thought they’d fallen in love with his or her representative, is now in a very happy relationship of our design.”

“You’re that good a profiler, you know exactly how I feel then?” he pressed, body completely still.

“You were bonded with someone with whom you had an absolute trust,” she articulated clearly. “Shared interests and lifestyle and occupation, by all accounts what should have been perfect, but it was taken from you. By your own admission, you blamed yourself and became convinced you were therefore not worthy of being loved again. You isolated yourself, and then here I am, sifting through all the dirty and unpleasant secrets you knew you’d need to face if you ever wanted to be happy again, and of course I accepted them.

“It’s my job to know you well enough to accurately find you a match so heartbreak, external factors aside, doesn’t visit you again – but asking me that, suggesting that…”

Shaking her head, Miho took a sip of her wine, but it was tasteless now.

“… It may seem harsh to say it so bluntly, but any affection I showed, was necessary to coax out how best you respond to intimacy; like our one-day marriage, it wasn’t real, merely a facilitator.”

Ice formed in her alcohol.

In her head the words were clear and definitive, to her ears, sure, stalwart.

“Your hands are shaking,” he pointed out.

“No they’re…” she began, but again he cut her off.

“You may be some manner of relationship profiler, Miss Fujiwara,” he said evenly, firmly, “but I’m a detective, and a highly trained one at that. I know lies when I hear them. I know lies when I see them. And I know dirty and unpleasant secrets that haven’t yet been faced, when I see them. For a woman who said she would own every word she speaks, I think you’ve strayed a little.”

A sardonic chortle sounded, and Miho shook her head again.

“We’re going to start parroting one another again?”

“I’ll look at your profiles,” he declared, “if you tell me why you’re so desperate to convince me I’m not truly attracted to you.”

Forget crossing her legs, Miho really wanted to get up and run, but that was not how one did business, and above all else, she was stubborn.

“This… isn’t about me,” she managed, but her voice was far thinner than she’d have liked.

“Correct,” he agreed. “It’s about a customer, and unless I’m mistaken, they are always right.”

There was a corner, and though Goto not once raised his voice, not once moved a muscle toward her, Miho felt herself backed more and more into it – not a feeling she enjoyed one bit.

“What I hear,” he continued, gesturing now with his hand as he spoke, “is a lot about me. Wouldn’t it just be simpler to say, I’m sorry Mr. Goto, but I’m not interested in you? Why not just say that, if it’s true?”

How the hell was she supposed to answer that?

“I…”

… am really glad neither Jazz or Selina are here to see this?

“You will look at the profiles?” she said finally, changing direction.

What does it even matter if he knows?

“Yes,” he agreed, watching her indeed like a cop just waiting for a suspect to crack.

“I was married to a police officer who spent much of his career undercover,” she revealed in more of a rush than she’d meant. “He was betrayed by his comrades and murdered, leaving behind a wife who couldn’t identify his body, and a family who didn’t care for justice, just wanted to forget.”

“That doesn’t answer my question,” he pointed out, a little more gently.

“Of course it does,” she chuckled, but it was an empty sound. “You told me yourself you’d often taken reckless chances in your work; should I encourage you to believe your feelings for me are real? Should I set myself up to…”

Miho bit her tongue – she’d said enough.

“That, answers your question, I believe.”

Nodding slowly, Goto took up the black folder and opened it, and Miho inhaled very, very slowly, counting in her mind to find some semblance of calm.

Then Goto closed the folder, and pushed it over to her.

Swapping upset for exasperation, she scowled from it to him.

“You said…”

“I said I would look at them, and I have,” he responded, “but what I want isn’t there.”

“I, will… take this under advisement and provide you with more suitable ma…”

“Actually, I think I have decided this marriage set up thing isn’t for me,” he announced. “Of course you’ll be paid everything you’re owed, but this process has helped me see love can’t be subcontracted.”

While Miho just stared at him with her mouth slightly open – a dumb expression no doubt – Goto glanced at his watch.

“We should get going,” he prompted. “The restaurant is only down the corridor, but we’re already five minutes late.”

Pursing her lips, and fighting down the heat of frustration that he wouldn’t just let it go for both their sake, Miho stuffed both folders back into her handbag and slid out of the booth.

“We’re not having dinner together, Mr. Goto,” she told him stiffly. “I have other work besides…”

“Another client?” he asked, standing also, though never getting in her way, never blocking.

He could see she was fixing to bolt, see how she struggled to keep it beneath the thin veil of her job, and knew his question was a mean one; so very not like him to be spiteful, to find himself submitting to his own frustration.

“You really shouldn’t ask questions to which you already know the answer,” she told him thinly. “Since we’re in the game of quoting past me, I’m sure you’ll recall I said I wouldn’t lie about what my work entails, you know perfectly well, and in fact you agreed no man in his right mind would dedicate himself to a woman who does what I do.”

Before he could respond, she held up her hand.

“And don’t say you, because we both know how much seeing me with Mr. Ichiyanagi pissed you off.”

By this time, a number of other patrons’ curiosity had been piqued – the standing pair seemed unhappy with one another, shrouded in thick tension: she like she might like to slap him, he like he would let her do it and go back for seconds.

“It did,” he admitted quietly, reaching for her collar that only partially hid the little red welt.

The sound of Miho snatching Goto’s wrist before he could reach his target was quiet, but their audience was attentive. They saw it came as no surprise to him, but to her…

Even after several meetings of deep discussion about the most intimate parts of a client, even after test driving, Miho had managed thus far to see them as words on a page, one part of a product requiring her to find the other in order to be successful in her work. This disassociation allowed her to enjoy the time she spent with them, but to cleanly let go at the end of the day – no baggage, no emotional attachment, because her job was to make them happy with someone else.

She’d been pushing so hard to see him as ‘client’ and not ‘man’, that the warmth of his skin actually surprised her, but before she could recoil, he deftly slid his hand through her hold and laced their fingers together.

A woman across the room audibly gasped.

Despite his audacity, Goto blushed; this was so far outside his comfort zone he barely knew himself; but at the same time, he knew he’d regret letting her just walk away before he was absolutely certain what he saw in her eyes was just his own wishful thinking.

“You’re going to make someone very happy one day,” she told him, a whisper so slight Goto had to strain to hear it.

“Give me a…” he began, but Miho was already pulling her fingers free and making good her escape.

She shouldered her bag and he watched her weave through the tables and exit before another female voice actually startled him, the woman who had gasped, a foreigner by appearance.

“Shouldn’t you go after her?” she half questioned, half suggested.

With a decisive nod, Goto left the bar, calling a room number out to the bartender as he left in order to cover his untouched drink.

“Miho!” he barked, seeing her enter the elevator at the end of the hall.

She turned to the sound of her name, scowled and shook her head, and even as Goto jogged toward her she pressed furiously against the ‘close doors’ button.

“Jesus fucking Christ, Goto, can you just let it the hell alone?” she growled, but closed her eyes, closed them, closed them tightly so she didn’t need to see his face that split second before the doors came summarily between them.

Despite appearances, Miho was relatively rational. She had come to a foreign country alone and now was part owner in a successful, lucrative business. Educated and worldly, financially secure and not at all bad on the eyes, she was ‘a catch’ – though we all know her attitude could use a little adjustment. The point is, it wasn’t as if she thought herself unworthy of a man like Goto.

Fear, is perhaps the most difficult thing to rationalise.

And so if Goto, being all other things the same, was not a police officer, this narrator can safely say you’d be thigh deep in smut again by now… or more likely still thigh deep in smut.

Miho knew he was being the honest one, watched him hedge his way out onto an ever narrowing limb in an attempt to get her to do the same; and she shook it furiously trying to dislodge him – not because she didn’t feel the same, but because the acuteness of burying a casket of ‘remains’, nothing even remotely resembling her husband, made her want to curl up into a ball and sob like a frightened child.

“It’s easier to be a bitch,” she shuddered out, trying to catch elusive breath and even more elusive calm.

No one would argue she wasn’t good at it.

It provided armour, and though she hadn’t truly ever had to use it against a client before, it had saved her many times when she’d felt her strength wane; but all she could see when she looked at her reflection in the elevator’s ear glass wall, was Goto’s face, and the expression he wore after her sucker-punch.

Ding.

The doors rattled open behind her, and the face she saw in the glass changed.

His hair was dishevelled, his posture slumped, his suit jacket askew, but he looked up from where he’d skidded before the doors to catch his breath, to see her turn: bewildered.

“Did you just… run, thirteen flights of stairs?” she murmured in shock, several hotel patrons and a couple of staff wondering something similar.

“You’re so… stubborn,” he panted, swallowing as he straightened and wiping the back of his hand over his forehead.

“Says Mr. Won’t Take No For An Answer!” she exclaimed, vexation emerging out the other side of shock.

“You haven’t said no,” he pointed out.

The doors began to close, but Goto pushed them back again, filled the space between them with his determination for one, last, attempt.

“Tell me plain, say no,” he told her, dark eyes serious and impossibly frank, “and you get your cheque in the mail and that’s the last of it.”

Just one syllable.

Almost as if searching for help, Miho peered beyond him at the various and sundry trying to look like they weren’t looking at the curious and dramatic scene. Her lips moved, they opened but seemed to lose their sense of language.

Goto stepped into the elevator and turned to the foyer.

“Sorry for the inconvenience,” he apologised, bowed, then allowed the doors to finally shut.

Miho turn back to the rear of the elevator and glared at the ground floor garden through the glass.

“Drama isn’t in your profile,” she said, her voice small – far too small for the likes of her.

“It’s certainly not my preference,” he responded, hitting the button for the top floor, perhaps to buy them some time, “but when necessity calls.”

“Ha, well,” she chortled thickly, “I’d make some revision, but you said you’re done.”

“I can’t and won’t force anything on you,” he scowled over her shoulder, there mere thought of that terrible thing.

He remained at what little distance the confined space allowed, despite his pursuit not wanting her to feel boxed in.

“But,” he continued, combing fingers through his messy hair, “I also don’t want you to refuse yourself the possibility of… love… out of fear I might be hurt, that I might leave you.”

“So you’re on a crusade to save me from myself, huh?” she snorted self-deprecatingly.

“You’re not the only idealist here,” he stated. “I don’t like to let go of the things that are important to me.”

“I’m not an ideal… anything,” she choked out, shaking her head, perhaps to hide the red creeping into her eyes.

Finally, Goto stepped up to her, and when she didn’t move he placed his hands lightly on her shoulders.

“Fine,” she inhaled sharply, dropping her chin. “You’re in my head, you’re under my god damned skin, hell I even…”

Before she could say something in breach of contract, she chewed off the end of her sentence and started fresh, digging out the strength she knew she had to turn and face him.

“But none of that changes why I have to finish this job and forget you.”

Ding.

The doors opened at the top most level, revealing the entrance to the dimly lit rooftop bar. Once more, Goto slipped his fingers in between Miho’s, and with gentle encouragement she followed him out.

He waved away the waitress that drew close when they approached a table, pulling out one chair for Miho before settling himself, their woven grip remaining throughout.

“When Natsuki was killed,” he said, his voice low causing the small candle between them to flicker, “the world I knew, cared for, ended.”

Miho didn’t want to hear this – it just made fighting the burn of ugly tears that much more difficult; but it wasn’t like she could tell him to shut up right there when he was sharing arguably his most painful memory.

Well, she could, but even for Miho it seemed there was a limit to how horrid she could be.

“I’ve already told you how I took stupid risks, not caring if I lived or died because, what was life without her? The one person I could trust without any doubt.”

He didn’t move to wipe the tears away as Miho finally blinked them free, just squeezed her hand and continued.

“I took my frustrations out on the criminal world, and it didn’t matter if I was hurt because, there was no pain more acute, than losing her,” he elaborated. “And I had even convinced myself it would have been better if I’d never met her, or been partnered with her at all. It took a long time, but I finally realised that was a terrible thing to think about someone who’d meant so much, and who had had such a positive impact on my life.”

That was quite the monologue, and Miho just stared at their hands entwined on the tabletop, trying not to sob.

“I know your pain,” he told her more softly, thumb grazing over the back of her hand, “and I would never wish that on you again, but I would gladly accept all that hurt myself… for just one day with you.”

“I hate you,” she muttered under her breath, words tangled in her throat. “You make it sound so god damned simple, but you can’t… promise you won’t…”

“No, I can’t,” he agreed, weathering her defensive abuse. “Some things are beyond my control. But give me a chance to make you some promises I can keep.”

“And if I do?” she murmured, and when she looked up, Goto was struck by the open vulnerability in her swimming eyes.

But he smiled a warming, penetrating smile.

“I’ll make you happy, for as long as I’m able to,” he replied, “and you’ll make me happy by allowing me to.”

“You know what I do,” she pointed out thickly, her fingers twitching in his.

“And I love that your job is about making people happy,” he nodded, then tilted his head a little to one side, hair sliding across his forehead. “Though… when I saw you with Ichiyanagi, knowing why you were with him…”

He paused, his scowl drawing his eyebrows right down over his eyes.

“I could barely stop myself from pulling you away.”

Miho’s lips pursed and her eyes drifted back down to their hands.

“Work is work… but… I wanted you to,” she admitted, drawing in a deep breath and exhaling a slow, calming sigh. “So, you’d ask I give up my career, my business?”

“Mm, no,” he answered, finally leaning across the table to gently wipe the watery drip of tears and mascara from the point of her chin. “Like I said, I like that your work is about helping others find love; but the whole sexual test drive part…”

He winced – was he asking too much already? It was clear in his expression he wasn’t sure, but at the same time, he had to think that client, ex-client of man she met in the street, ultimately to be with him completely she would surely have to give up sleeping with other men, even if it was part of her job.

“But,” he went on, obviously steeling himself, “until you’re sure, about me – us – I know I don’t have a right to ask you to give up anything, other than some time for us.”

“Really?” she sniffed a little incredulously, taking up a napkin from the table and dabbing under her eyes. “Hm, that’s generous and all Mr. Goto…”

“Seiji,” he corrected with a somewhat diffident smile.

“Seiji,” she managed, though even she felt a little self-conscious saying it now, even though she had moaned it during his date scenario. “But if I was going to try my luck with a man, seriously, there’s no way I could even think about intimacy on any level, with another.”

“Um, so?” he frowned, not quite sure what that meant exactly, whether it was a she would stop because she was going to try her luck with him or if she was just posing a hypothetical.

“I don’t know, what Jazz is doing and Selina…” she began, lolling her head back to look up at the clouded Tokyo sky, “but I guess, if I can get her to finally realise she and Aikwara need to get it together then we’ll have to employ some new staff for test driving.”

She had stopped crying, and seemed to be in serious thought.

“I should get onto Kyobashi about that,” she mused, chewing her lower lip.

“Kyobashi?” Goto questioned, trying to draw her back to the table.

“Oh jeez, forget I said that name, that’s, that is not supposed to be common knowledge,” she rushed, blinking back to the moment at hand.

Finally Got felt like he could relax a little – she wasn’t crying, she wasn’t fighting or defensive, and he thought she was already thinking of a strategy that meant she wouldn’t have to do client test driving anymore?

“So, you want to try for dinner?” he offered tentatively, giving her hand another squeeze to ground her further. “Or maybe just… room service?”

“Room service?” she repeated slowly, narrowing her eyes at him, and instantly he was rubbing the back of his neck in that embarrassed gesture becoming more and more familiar to her.

“I wasn’t going to give up,” he told her after a few seconds of squirming. “So, I banked on success, but… we don’t have to of course, we have a reservation at the restaurant and you’ve no obligation at all to…”

“Courage,” she sighed, really looking at him properly, her shoulders slumped as if really exhausted. “I’d add a note to your profile about how it’s one of among many of your admirable qualities, but I guess that’s a bit redundant.”

“It is,” he agreed with a smile, and stood from his seat. “So… which is it?”

“Room service,” she declared, also getting to her feet, but she remained where she was, with their hands still joined but a little stretched. “But, before that could you show me, that courage, just one more time… so I can, borrow, some of it.”

Kindly he smiled at her and in the faint candle lit night he stepped against her and cupped one side of her face.

“I will show you as many time as you need me to,” he whispered, before lightly touching his lips to hers, no matter who or how many were watching.

And when they parted, he was heartened by the soft, relaxed expression on Miho’s face, and the gentle pressure of her free hand against his chest.

“Come on,” he urged with a slight tug on her hand. “No one else needs to see that face.”

“Possessive?” she smirked, bumping into his side.

“Maybe, just a little bit,” he admitted, touching her collar to the side, and this time she didn’t stop him. “It’s hard not to be, when I know he’s marked you like that.”

“Mhmm,” she murmured, cringing a little when she thought her throat was only the tip of the iceberg. “Yeah well, I’m not with him now, am I?” she tried to reason.

“No, you’re not,” Goto agreed, and urged her back in the direction of the elevator.

SUGGESTED LISTENING for this scene - CLICK HERE Goto and Miho’s theme song - ‘Flames’ by VAST

Miho remained quietly at his side as they rode down to the seventh floor, following along to his suite without protest, but deep in thought.

“I feel like we’ve done this kind of backwards,” Goto chuckled nervously, looking back at her as he swiped the hotel card to open the door.

“You mean, we got married first?” she sought in clarification, her voice a little sheepish.

“Perhaps I need to carry you backwards over the threshold to undo it,” he suggested. “Though, if I’m honest, I don’t really want to.”

“I always thought I’d only get married once,” Miho admitted with a reserved shrug of her shoulders, following him into the suite. “Life, doesn’t always give us what we expect.”

“Nope,” he agreed, tugging her hand sharply and drawing her into his arms, “but it sometimes gives us second chances.”

Miho’s brows twitched, even if she hadn’t meant them to.

“And every single time you get that frightened look in your eye,” he said, brushing her hair back and holding her face, “I’ll kiss you, so you remember it’s worth being brave.”

“Please kiss me,” she begged in a whisper, and there was nothing in Goto’s expression that suggested he had any intention of non-compliance.

The slide of his hands into her clothing was slow and unhurried, like the gentle trace of his tongue between her lips and breath that sighed her name. Piece by piece their attire was cast aside, until Goto pushed Miho back to arm’s length and looked her up and down.

“Would you hate me, if I was to replace all these marks with my own?” he asked with a scowl, glossing his fingertips over each mark Subaru had left on Miho’s body.

“No,” she answered simply, turning her head to expose the first he’d spied on her throat.

With painstaking dedication, leaving no part of her unsearched, Goto applied adequate pressure with his mouth to renew the vitality of each palling welt, signing purposeful ownership over her flesh in a way Subaru could not have. And when he’d laid her down and suckled over the last against her right breast, he returned to her lips as if for reward.

“Feel better now?” she smiled dreamily, looking up at him, carding her fingers through his hair with one hand, stroking him lazily from base to tip with the other, until he had readied the condom to protect them both.

“It’s going to take a little more than that,” he told her honestly, walking fingers down her abdomen, and Miho closed her eyes.

This time she didn’t need to imagine it was him touching her, parting the slick warmth between her legs and working her clit so desperate for his ministrations alone. And she remembered every ridge, each standing vein that caused Goto’s shaft to pulse with the racing of his heart.

She believed it raced for her – but while hers pounded against the confines of her chest as she rolled, straddled him and looked down into his face her fears bubbled… bubbled… bubbled.

“No,” he hissed, rocking up, crushing is already ridged cock between them and bringing their lips together once more. “Right now it’s just you and me and how I feel about you.”

“You hardly know anything about me at all,” she frowned, arms wrapped around his neck loosely. “I could be an axe murderer for all you know; shit have one conversation with Jazz and she’ll tel…”

He cut her off with the surprisingly fierce thrust of his tongue into her mouth, and the clamp of his arms, hands that slid down her back and lifted her ass up from his lap, just enough to position the standing call of his length against the dripping welcome of her core.

On her knees, she hovered with him just resting there, looking into his eyes with growing determination – she didn’t want him to have to keep telling her to stop being pathetic, even though he’d never say it like that.

So she pushed him back until he flopped down on the pillow.

“I, on the other hand, know more about you than anyone else in the whole world,” she told him, her eyes rolling upward as she slid herself slowly down onto him. “Including how, perfectly you stretch me.”

When she focused again, it was to find Goto gritting his teeth a little, lying still, but the tensing in his thighs told her he badly wanted to move.

“If anyone else knew that,” he groaned as she leaned just a fraction and dug onto him even more firmly by digging down with her hips, “I’d be… upset.”

“You’re normally so composed… Lieutenant,” she grinned, rolling forward, undulating her body and squeezing tightly each time she drove against him, “I can’t quite imagine you, upset.”

“You nearly didn’t have to,” he hissed, digging his fingers into her thighs, aching to make her move more swiftly. “If you’d turned me away, I… I don’t know…”

Miho smiled, falling forward against his chest to speak against his hungry lips.

“You don’t need to know, Seiji,” she exhaled, nibbling, pecking, teasing until his grip tightened and he bought his body up to meet hers.

Amid gasping breaths, the slap of bodies meeting in the middle, and the heightening frequency of deep throated moans and passionate utterances comprehendible only by them, Miho and Goto found equal ground.

In the physically intense union of flesh and sweat, and the surrender of fear and baggage, both let go what tomorrow might bring – even if only for that night.

“You cum first tonight,” she declared, leaning back and supporting her body with her arms, bucking vigorously, bringing them as close as unreserved penetration could – and it had the desired result.

“Gah… Miho that’s…” he growled, strong hands clasping her knees urgently, until he forced the fingers of one hand to relax and release her, then applied them where they’d bring her the most pleasure.

“Think I’m… going… to let you get the… best of… me twice in one night?” she snarled, slapping one hand over his where he’d begun rubbing it against her clit.

“Hey!” he barked as she tried to pull his hand away.

The fight became so spirited in fact, Goto sat up again, and together they toppled right off the bed onto the floor – where he pinned her down.

“Best you know I’m trouble now,” she laughed, fighting the good fight, actually struggling with all her skill, but Goto’s strength and ability at subduing felons won out until both Miho’s hands were pinned either side of her head.

“Trouble I can handle,” he breathed against her throat, wetting it with his saliva, speaking cool against her flaming skin.

“You sure?” she scowled, snapping her teeth, then sinking them into his shoulder when she couldn’t capture his lips.

This did not deter his zealous efforts to thwart her plan, the depth of his plunge far and beyond their mere bodies. Legs clinching and trembling, fingernails digging and scraping, toes curling, and short, desirous breaths, intermingled with the profound longing for a peace both had told themselves was beyond their reach for too long.

It crashed together in a furious crescendo, the twist and grasp and ardent, uninhibited exploration of bodies holding nothing back, until both laid draped, content and spent in an embrace finally made tranquil by two hearts slowly resuming their normal rhythm – as one.

“You hoped that I’d remember,” he whispered against her brow, her head resting on his shoulder, “then told me to forget – that was never going to happen.”

“I’m sorry I said that,” she murmured, one finger outlining his nipple lightly. “It was selfish, and unfair.”

“I know why you did,” he smiled, kissing her lightly, enjoying the ache in his legs and the warm dampness of their interwoven limbs. “It actually gave me hope, that you felt more for me than just as a client.”

“Need to work on my poker face I guess,” she chuckled wryly, kissing his chest to the point where he let out a little noise of surprise at the sting.

“Did you?” he blinked, tilting his head to look down.

“Think you’re the only one who gets to leave marks?” she smirked, thumbing across his lips but refusing to kiss them.

“I suppose you haven’t looked at my back and shoulders?” he snorted, shrugging a little for emphasis. “I’m not going to be able to take my shirt off at work for weeks.”

“I don’t have issue with that,” Miho laughed, kissing against the various red impressions of her teeth across his broad shoulders. “This body is… perfect,” she added with a sigh, and Goto looked away, actually embarrassed. “Really?” she chuckled, wrapping her arm over him and squeezing him tightly. “You’re getting all embarrassed about how insanely sexy you are after what we’ve gotten up to?”

“For all you have difficulty saying, what comes to you easiest is what affects me most,” he grumbled, but it was an affectionate sound that lingered lovingly in Miho’s ears.

“And this is why women secretly rule the world,” she grinned, scratching her teeth down his right pectoral.

“Hungry?” he questioned.

“Well, this is the second time you’ve made me miss dinner,” she pointed out cheekily, sitting up and stretching her arms over her head.

Goto’s hand flat against her spine, ghosting slowly down its length, caused her to shiver and look back at him.

“I’m hungry too,” he told her frankly, index finger gliding slightly into her rear crevice before falling away, and Miho’s eyebrows raised. “What?”

“Nothing, I ahh, just didn’t really peg you for an ass man,” she snickered, purposefully shimmying back and sitting right on his hand, much to Goto’s surprise.

“Peg… ass…” he repeated, turning this over in his mind, and as he did, he looked a little more panicked. “Wait, you don’t think I was suggesting that I, that we…”

“So that’s a no?” she questioned airily, wriggling against his trapped hand.

“It’s not a… no,” he frowned in consternation, a little confused perhaps and a whole lot unsure. “It’s just not something I’ve really, ever thought about or – would ask a woman to… you know.”

“God you’re precious,” she gushed, rolling on top of him just long enough to kiss him firmly, before continuing on her way off the bed.

“I’m going to end up with a complex,” he muttered, rubbing his forehead, but Miho only laughed and strode over to snatch up the room service menu.

“Okay, my ass aside, what else are you in the mood for?” she teased, flopping back down on the end of the bed.

They ate, drank, and watched half of Madagascar before a tickle war devolved into another round of passionate exchanges that stretched well on into the morning.

Goto couldn’t remember the last time he woke up with a woman in his arms, let alone one like Miho.

Beautiful.

Successful.

Opinionated.

Fearless, and yet… fractured.

Forthright and formidable, but… fragile.

“I want to protect you,” he whispered into her hair, kissing against her temple lightly.

“Mmm,” Miho murmured sleepily, turning her face against Goto’s skin. “I will bite you again.”

“Please do,” he challenged, lips moving to her ear.

“Calling my bluff?” she grumbled, words muffled against his chest, dragging her leg up over him until her knee was bent against his stomach.

“I wouldn’t dare,” he chortled, tracing up her shin, then along her thigh. “Breakfast?”

“I don’t swallow, no matter how hot you are,” she snorted, giving his cheek a solid pinch.

“Vulgar,” he quipped, turning his face into her hand snatching a couple of her fingers between his lips.

“You don’t know the half of it,” she smirked, allowing him to suckle for a few seconds before she drew her fingertips down his stubbled chin.

“I’ll learn,” he smiled, genuine and determined. “No regrets?”

“No,” she smiled back, her expression serene, her heart calm. “None.”

“Okay, then go have a shower and I’ll order us some coffee,” he prompted, throwing the blanket off their naked bodies.

“Ughh, you know, the last time you told me to take a shower, I got out and you were nowhere to be seen?” she pointed out with a pout as he lifted her up, and actually set her on her feet.

“But you remember what happened after that right?” he pointed out, tucking wild wisps of her hair back over her ears. “And, you trust me?”

Miho turned her head against his palm – warm and wide, skin firm and manly, not too rough, not too soft.

“I will start calling you Aladdin,” she warned, kissing his hand before backing away.

“I could see you as a princess,” he mused, then suddenly looked a little abashed, perhaps realising he stood there totally naked before Miho’s open and obvious appraisal.

“Cuuute,” she grinned impishly, then ducked into the bathroom.

Miho didn’t loiter in the shower very long, and was actually a little disappointed Goto didn’t join her. Still, it gave her some space to process what she’d done and mull over her feelings.

The death of her husband had ruined her - this was a truth she had spoken to herself over and over like a mantra meant to save her life – but with Goto on her mind somehow those words didn’t have as much power.

If she was so defeated, then how did she have the close friends she did? How had she built a successful business with them? How had she not shoved out of that elevator, and stomped the hell away with that mantra ringing infallibly in her ears?

“Back to being spoiled instead of ruined?” she asked her reflection, smiling though her body was dotted with little marks… some not so little.

To her surprise, that question’s first answer was not to run the fuck away and hide, even though she’d had her fears, fears that could not be erased completely in one night, but had been at the very least weakened.

“Of all the men you’ve come to know,” she exhaled. “A lot of men, you never felt like this about any of them since...”

There was no way for her to pinpoint when she’d crossed the line between seeing him as a client and fighting against seeing him as more. All she had was where she stood now, with a pleasant fatigue still lingering in her muscles, pleasant memories of the night just passed, and a tentative hope those were not the last they’d make together.

Eventually, fighting a sense of déjà vu, Miho exited the bathroom.

There were no candles this time, but a spread of delicious breakfast goodies on the table.

What was familiar, was the lack of Goto.

“Seriously, if he went to shower somewhere else this time, I’m going to be really pissed,” she muttered, drawn by the small of strong coffee to the table, where her gaze perused what was on offer.

Fruit, muffins, cereal, miso, salad, various warm dishes hidden beneath silver lids, and a curious white box with a blue ribbon tied around it, accompanied by a little card instructing her to open it.

Suspicious, Miho looked around, expecting Goto to jump out and scare her – not that she thought he was really the prankster type. Apprehension still twisted in her stomach; she wasn’t a huge fan of surprises, but she picked up the box and tucked away the bow, inhaling and holding her breath as she lifted the lid.

Within was a tiny piece of folded paper – certainly not what she had been expecting – not that she had been expecting anything!

“What are you up to?” she whispered, smoothing out the paper to find a short note written inside. “I hope you’re at least a little bit disappointed,” she read aloud, “because that will make this a whole lot easier on me. Huh,” she frowned, staring down at it like there was more to glean from just those words alone. “The hell is that supposed to me…”

“Miho,” Goto said to her left, and Miho’s head snapped in that direction.

He was perfectly groomed.

Expression unflinchingly attentive.

Dressed in a tuxedo and positioned beside her chair on bended knee.

“No… way,” Miho exhaled, staring.

“Despite coming to MJS without expectation,” he told her, serious beyond measure, “I did so with every intention of finding that woman with whom I could share the rest of my life.”

“You’re really-” she began again, eyes wide, but got no further when Goto placed a finger against her lips.

“I had my doubts about the inorganic nature of the process, but every time we met I realised more clearly, something very natural was developing despite us. And when you left the other night, when I saw you with… at the grocery store, it hurt so much, I had to face the fact I’d fallen in love with the one person you wouldn’t offer in your meticulous profiles.”

The little diversionary note fluttered forgotten from between Miho’s fingers to the carpet, settling in the small space between them.

“And I’m amazed that you’re here with me now,” he pressed on, gaze undaunted despite the weight of each word, “grateful, blessed… and hopeful.”

The cry of tiny, old hinges called Miho’s attention to the scuffed wooden ring box that was pinched between Goto’s thumb and forefinger, and the very obvious symbol nestled in the black cushioning within.

Miho’s next breath entered her lungs as a gasp, a half-sob, and was imprisoned there as the world ground to a vivid halt. There was no sharper focus than that moment, nothing else around them but the hum of sincere emotions limited only by the frustrating constraint of verbal language.

“Please,” he entreated, and yet it didn’t sound like he was begging, just expressing not desire, but need, “let me be a support to your triumphs,” he went on a little breathlessly, but his offering did not waver in the slightest. “Please, let me stand beside you and face your challenges, as our challenges. And when this indomitable woman - who has dominated my affections so completely - finds her strength failing, please let me be the one to hold her safe until she finds herself again.”

There was no thought.

Amazement wasn’t thought.

Bewildering, unrestrained, unbalanced, shuddering, rocking, wonder wasn’t thought.

“There isn’t a single woman,” she managed shakily, hands twitching unconsciously where they rested across her knees, “in the world,” she continued, “straight, gay, undetermined, who could say no to that.”

“But I only need one, to say yes,” he pointed out solemnly, but his lips finally upturned, just slightly in an optimistic expression that shattered whatever reserve of resistance Miho had reflexively been clinging to.

“Let me be your husband,” he whispered, gently taking up her left hand and kissing the place where he’d already placed a ring once.

Not be my wife �� let me be your husband.

“Yes,” Miho uttered, the last of the air she’d been holding in her lungs, but the purest response possible.

With audible relief, Goto plucked the ring from its moorings and put the box aside, before settling the antique polish of the ring just over her fingernail.

“You… you’re sure?” he asked again, and Miho slid off her chair to bring herself to his eye level.

“You really want me to change my mind?” she chortled thickly.

“I don’t think I could survive that,” he admitted sheepishly, pushing the ring onto her finger, before entangling their fingers.

It was a little big, would need to be resized, but that was hardly a consideration for that moment.

“When my grandmother died,” he said quietly, resting his forehead against her lightly. “My grandfather gave me her engagement ring, pretty uncommon for their era, and told me I wasn’t to part with it for anything less than the love he’d felt for her.”

“How long were they married?” Miho asked, tilting her head up, desperate to kiss him.

“Over seventy years,” he replied softly, sliding his hand into her robe to pull her against him. “A pretty impressive record.”

“We got this,” she smiled, claiming what was of him, hers, allowing him to claim what was of her, his.

And thankfully, reverently, together they once more indulged in what was theirs.

@hifftn @nitelotus @smutmylifeup @smile-smile-ichthys

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