#imagine being so close to death and falling in love after your whole world unravels. but not knowing if they can hear you

[tartglias]

almost falling (headcanons)

characters: scaramouche and xiao

warnings: VIOLENCE. i’m 98% sure i kept it slight but just in case don’t read if you’re sensitive please!!

request: “Anyway, so I'm requesting for Xiao and Scaramouche (fitting, they're sadists HAHA) their s/o (separate) is about to be thrown off the balcony after someone pushed them and hit the railings and they're about to hang on edge of their life. The boys just came back after whatever mission or errand they finished and saw the blasphemous attempt of a masochist (because how DARE they attempt such on their s/o?) Trying to kill their love. They sprinted or used their powers to get to them and stopped calamity from unraveling (sorta) into their world. Yes add some Overprotectiveness and probs them hunting to rip that masochist's head if it's not too much. Headcanons pls--“

[a/n: i loved this headcanon and i knew what you write from the start (which i never do lol), but the mental gymnastics i had to do to find the vocabulary omg... i can’t say i’m a big fan of how this turned out because of that]

•••••

Scaramouche

Scaramouche had to do some business in Mondstadt, and since you wanted to visit your friend Amber, why not accompany him? It took a while to convince him since he usually doesn’t like the idea of mixing his personal and work lives, but he has a soft spot for you, believe it or not. Not that he would ever admit it.

Before he left you to do your things, he made you promise to meet him at the Good Hunter after an hour, on the dot. He had a busy schedule, but he still wanted to treat you lunch so you excitedly agreed by kissing his cheek and nodding.

After the meeting, he hoped to see you sitting down at one of the tables waiting for him, but instead, he saw no one. “I thought I made myself clear about punctuality” he thought.

“Did you see my partner? They’re about this height tall, *hair color* and probably accompanied by some friend called Amber?” he asked the girl that took orders at the Good Hunter, with a very obvious fake smile. “Not really, I’m sorry” she said, giving an apologetic look, which quickly turned into a frown. “Although, I thought Outrider Amber was out on a mission today. She even ordered some food supplies this morning, are you sure your partner was with her?”

He took a moment to think. He knows you were meeting with Amber because you kept rambling about how you haven’t seen her in forever and you wanted to surprise her. He can’t recall a time when you lied to him, either. Something about having an honest and open relationship with him, so you couldn’t have lied. And you wouldn’t leave the city without informing him, either.

So he decided to scratch out the possibility of having to search you through all Mondstadt. Then, he nodded towards the girl and left without saying a word.

Walking through the city, he paid attention to details. Something was off, he was sure of it.

After a while, he heard a yell. At first he wasn’t going to do anything about it, it’s not his problem plus he still has to find you. But when he realized the owner of the voice yelled “Leave me alone!”, he knew it was you. He ran towards the origin of the sound and found out that you were on top of the wall that protected Mondstadt.

He climbed as fast as he could and when he got to the top, his blood boiled at the sight.

A big tall man was holding your arms tightly, and then pushed you to the edge. Your back hit the railing and you let out a pained yell. You saw the man approach you with intentions of pushing you again, but before you could lift your arms to protect yourself, you heard thunder.

“You heard them, leave them alone. Now” you heard Scaramouche say. The atmosphere became dark and tense very quick, making a shiver go down your spine.

The man let out a short laugh. “You can’t intimidate me so easily. They were mine first, I’m just reclaiming my property”

Oh boy

“I don’t think you heard me, stupid. Leave them alone, now. Or I’ll make sure you suffer the most painful and slow tortures ever imagined. I have a whole book I want to test out anyways, you know.” Scaramouched threatened, and when you saw the look on his face, you gasped. You never saw him like that

He had a creepy smile, no, it was the smile of a sadist, actually. Small thunders came out of his fingers, and by each second, they grew stronger. You noticed that the man started shaking, now reconsidering everything. Scaramouche tilted his head a bit and let out a laugh. “You don’t want to play anymore?”

The man quickly left, or more like ran for his life without sparing you a second glance. You dropped down to the floor and noticed the sky get clearer, and so did the sound of thunder. You were still teary-eyed and overwhelmed from the situation with the man, but you lifted up your head to see a calmer Scaramouche.

You didn’t notice before, but his purple eyes were sparkling with pink thunder, and once he kneeled down in front of you, they turned back to their original color.

He wrapped his arms around you, keeping you close and away from the edge. “Are you alright, my beloved?” he asked you, a hint of concern filling his face. “Now I am. Scaramouche... I never saw you like that” you said, holding his hands that previously let out sparks and thunder.

You heard him sigh. “I lost control. Your scream and then seeing you almost falling... it made me snap. I can’t lose you.”

You kissed him, hoping that this way he can understand that you’re not scared of him and also reassuring him you’re not going anywhere either.

“You scared him for life” you said once you pulled away, laughing slightly. “I’ll scare him for eternity because he won’t be alive after I catch him”

Xiao

He told you numerous times to call his name if you ever found yourself in trouble. Even if it’s just a whisper, a thought even, you just have to say “Xiao” and he would drop whatever he was doing to come to rescue you.

In full honestly, you thought you could handle things on your own. You didn’t need him to come to rescue you, unless a very real danger was knocking on your door. Which unfortunately, leads to this situation.

Moments earlier, you were at the top floor of the inn, waiting for Xiao to come back. Everything was normal, until you noticed two suspicious looking men approach you. At first, you didn’t think much of it since adventurers often ask you for certain locations or roads. But this thought quickly changed when one of them came from behind, a little too close for your liking, before covering your mouth with his hand.

“A little birdie told us you’re close to an adeptus” one of the two men said, standing in front of you with a smug smile. “We need a favor”

It happened very quick, you were fighting for your life as you screamed and tried to kick the man holding you down. You almost succeeded, if it wasn’t for the other man in front of you. He held your arms tightly and pushed you towards the edge, you lost your balance and tripped over it, but quickly managed to grab onto the railing.

“Go on. Call the adeptus for help, we’ll love to have a small chat with-“ the man started saying, but got cut off by a strong wind that made him trip over. It was Xiao.

His eyes immediately landed on you, you were trying so hard to lift yourself up but you were slowly slipping. You weren’t going to last much longer and rage filled both his body and mind almost instantly.

How dare they lay a finger on you to get to him? “Worthless. Pathetic. Stupid.” he muttered each time he hit the men, until knocking them out. His eyes went back to you, and he immediately sprinted towards the railing.

But he was late

Your hands that desperately tried to grip the railing and lift yourself up were red and they hurt, and just when he was about to extend his hand for you to take, you slipped and fell.

You thought it was over, truly. You yelled out Xiao’s name as you tried to get hold of anything that could possibly prevent you from hitting the ground, but you were far away and the floor was coming closer and closer. You closed your eyes, ready to face your end.

But that end didn’t come, and you found yourself wrapped in Xiao’s arms while strong winds surrounded you, keeping you from hitting the ground abruptly. Once his feet touched the floor, you heard a faint sigh of relief from him.

Now on the ground, you dropped to the floor while you sobbed in Xiao’s arms, suddenly very aware of how close you came to meeting death. He kept you close to his body, as if you’re gonna slip away from him again. He faced many monsters and wrath in his life, but he never felt as scared as he did at the moment.

“I’m sorry” Xiao muttered out once your crying calmed down. Drying your tears with the sleeve of your shirt, you looked at him questioningly. “You almost died because they were after me”

This made you cry more

He was kind of confused? Why were you crying again?

“Xiao you don’t have to apologize because its not your fault at all and you also saved me! I should apologize for not being careful and tripping!” you sobbed again. “But it’s not your fault either...” he whispered as he patted your head, not sure how to calm you down.

Xiao doesn’t kill humans, but nothing is going to stop him from making hilichurls, mages, and other monsters appear in the way of these two men. He’s going to make them pay (indirectly)

[lene-loki]

Never Too Close

Summary: After the events of Avengers: Endgame, (Y/N) Romanoff is mourning the death of her sister Natasha. She is unexpectedly finding comfort in the presence of someone who shares the pain of losing the people he loved.

Pairing: Bucky Barnes x Natasha Romanoff!Sister Reader

Warnings: Character Death, Spoiler for Avengers: Endgame, Angst, Grief, Suicidal Thoughts

Word Count: 2264 Words

A/N: I hope ya’ll liked this Imagine. Please let me know if you want to get tagged on future Imagines or Series that I want to write. This isn’t proofread and please excuse grammaticaly and verbal mistakes since English isn’t my mother tongue. And now please enjoy!! With Love, Léne xx

(Y/N) = Your Name

The pouring of the rain sounds like a faint whisper in the distance. When I close my eyes and listen precisely to the rustle I can almost hear the voice I long to hear. I open my eyes when the wind starts to blow into my ear, making my whole body shiver. A raindrop lands directly on top of my cheekbone and gets mixed up with a teardrop that escapes my eye. The wet droplet almost feels like a passing kiss. As if she is standing right beside me and kisses my tears away or maybe she cries from heaven herself and her tears end up on my face. I like to think that she watches me from above. Seeing my every move. Despite the rain a familiar warmth is spreading through my heart, making me feel safe and not alone anymore. My eyes blink the tears away, trying to focus on the words that are written on the wooden cross in front of me. The fact that her death is still so recent that she has to wait for a stone to mark her grave, makes me sob. I have looked so many times at that wooden cross that I started to hate it. She deserves a beautiful, carved stone. Not a dirty, broken cross where her name already starts to fade. But she has to wait. Her coffin isn’t set enough to put a heavy stone on top of the earth. I wipe the back of my hand over my tearstained cheeks before I kneel down in front of the grave. Everyday I bring a new kind of flowers by. Making the earth dissapear in a vibrant, little garden. It helps my own mental health to transform the place of grief into a little paradise for her. And I hope this is exactly where she’s at now. In a paradise. My eyes tear away from the flowers before I start counting them again like I always do. Because the number of the flowers is the number of the days since she passed away. My chest hurts, my heart starts to crumble inside when I once again think about the empty coffin under the ground. My sisters body dissapeard when she sacrificed herself to get the Soul Stone. Now all that remained of her is the memory.

Although it’s past midnight when I leave the graveyard I can’t help but to ring Clint out of his sleep - as well as his wife and his children probably. He picks up the phone with a yawn, his voice raspy from his deep sleep. He is the closest I have to family now and he knows. He always cared for me and Natasha and now that she’s gone he’s supporting me more than ever. Giving me a shoulder to cry on no matter how late it is. That is exactly whe he’s never annoyed when I call him at times like this. My loneliness leads the conversation as I tell him that I don’t know where to go. “Where are you right now, (Y/N)?” I shrug my shoulders even though he can’t see. “I think I’m near the Avengers compound.” My voice is barely louder than a whisper. My throats stil sore from my hour long crying at Natashas grave. “I can pick you up. You can stay at mines if you want.” He suggests and I can hear him fumbling with the bedsheets in the background. Ever since Natashas passing, I stayed at the Avengers compound in her former room. But sometimes it gets too much being surrounded by her memories and her whole life in just that little space. Everything in her room reminds me of her scent, her smile, her voice, the look in her eyes - especially that tiny twinkle in her iris that always appeared when she felt extremely proud of me. I have to pull myself together to not sob again and alarm Clint even more. As much as I want to escape from the compound for a little while, I don’t want to wear out Clints care for me. I feel like I already asked too much of him. “No, it’s okay. I’m sorry that I woke you.” I swallow the lump down in my throat in hopes he doesn’t hear how near I am to losing it all again. He sighs at the other end. “You’re sure?” “Yes.”   “Okay, love. Don’t apologize for calling me.” His voice sounds so soft I could fall asleep immediately on the side of the road. He just has this soothing affect on me. I hang up after telling him that I love him and walk in the dim lights of the streetlamps to the compound.

Inside the building everything is pitch dark. The only light comes from Wandas room. It’s red and spreads in chaotic rays around the space of her own four walls. She surely is training her magic since she still hasn’t full control over her powers what burdened her more than usually the last couple of days. I decide not to disturb the Scarlet Witch and seek refuge in Natashas room. I really try to sleep but since Thanos happened my nights are as restless as my hurting heart. I’m still wide awake physically but dangerously exhausted mentally when I hear voices in the early morning hours in the kitchen. Wandas voice makes me wonder if she’s been awake the whole night as well. I leave the room in my short pyjama shorts and my plain white T-Shirt. I wouldn’t fall asleep anyway so I might as well just get up and start another day of inner misery. I round the corner to the kitchen island where Pepper placed a large bowl of exotic fruits on top. The blonde showed me a sad smile since she’s lost in her own grief. Pepper disappears out of the kitchen - leaving me alone with Wanda and a familiar brunette man which I recognize from Tony’s funeral. I can’t remeber his name but I recall the pained expression on his face and the devastated haze over his pupils. He seems like he always looks like pure misery. “Good morning.” I greet them both shyly since they haven’t notice me yet. Wanda immediately sends a heartful smile in my direction while the stranger’s corners of his mouth just twitch the slightest bit upward - almost to tiny to notice. I also perceive his new hairstyle. The last time I saw him he had messy, long waves. Longer than shoulder length and a full beard. Now he has his hair cut short and looking neat with his jawline covered in dark stubbles instead of the fullgrown beard. “Bucky, this is (Y/N). She is Natashas’ sister.” Wanda explains him in her thick, sokovian accent since he developed the same look of recognition on his face as me. Now the puzzle pieces click together. That is Bucky Barnes. Steves’ best friend and the other Super Soldier. His facial features unravel in realization. “Oh, right. Hello, (Y/N). Nice to meet you again and I’m... Sorry about your loss.” He frowns at the last part. “Thank you, it’s nice to see you again in less sorrowful circumstances.” I try to lighten up the mood a bit because I don’t want to start my day already with a bad encounter that reminds me once again how miserable I am inside. Unsure if we should shake hands, Bucky’s metal arm jerks briefly in my direction but he instantly lets it sink again - wrapping the room in an uncomfortable silence. “Well it was nice to see you again. I got to go now.” I excuse myself from the weird situation and leave without breakfast to go to my Natasha’s room. I still feel uncomfortable calling it my room since it was Natsha’s place to live for so many years. I didn’t completely lie to Bucky and Wanda since it’s a new day and time to pick up new flowers for my sisters grave. I change into comfy short, cotton pants and an old, blue pullover from Natashas wardrobe before I leave the compound.

I take a cab to the same  flower shop I visit everyday. Where even the owner knows me by name already. Today marks exactly thirty days since Natasha died. A whole month without my older sister by my side. I ordered a special type of flower for this occasion. A bouqet of beautiful Royal Azaleas - the most precious flowers of our native country Russia. As beautiful as Natasha and I like how it brings a bit of our home to her - making her little paradise even more exotic. At the graveyard I am so consumed in my own thoughts to where I’m going to place the Royal Azaleas on the ground in front of the wooden cross, that I don’t notice right away the broad figure a few feet away from me. He’s standing upset in his posture  and bent a little forward above a grave. It’s the back of his head - his freshly done hair and the colour of his shirt that gives him away and I realise that it’s Bucky. I decide against it to walk up to him since he’s mourning in his own world as well and obviously needs his space. My eyes tear away from the picture of the broken man in front of me and I finally walk straight up to Natashas grave. I crouch slightly to put my bag on the ground. I brought a little shovel to set the new flowers into the earth directly in front of the cross - making the Azaleas stand out from the rest. It is when I walk over to the well a few feet away from me to pick up the watering can, that Bucky notices he’s not alone. The can is filled to the brink and quite heavy in my hand as I carry it to Natashas grave, losing waterdrops on my way there. I silently water the flowers - careful not to drown them in the lack of strength I have in my hand that is holding the water can. The whole time I can feel his stare on me and I can almost feel his inner battle if he should come up to me or not. A few moments later he starts nervously walking up to me while I clean the little shovel to stow it away in my bag. “Do you still the need the watering can?” He asks hoarsely as he comes to a halt beside my bend over figure - blocking the sun out of my view which throws a few rays on the water droplets. Making them sparkle inbetween the flowers of Natashas floral paradise. “No.” I smile softly at him and stand up again. He returns my friendly grin and takes the water can but doesn’t leave straight away. He hesitates a second unsure of if he should leave me alone again, but somehow I long for company - not wanting to speak with the wind again and hallucinate about Natashas voice. “I lost everyone. Natasha was the only one left of my family. Although Clint supports the weight of my grief to make me feel like I’m not alone I still feel like it. I always felt like I’m alone in this world and deep down I don’t feel like I belong to the Avengers either. It was Natashas community. Not mine.” My eyes start to sting with upcoming tears while I open up to Bucky. I don’t really know why I do this. I guess I never felt so out of place and so lonely like I did in the past days and it scares me. Bucky clears his throat, his glance burning holes into my soul as he watches every slightest movement of my facial expressions. “I went through losing the people I love so many times that I lost count of it.” He blinks the tears away which threatens to fall from his eyes. “After Steve left to live the life with Peggy he always dramed to have, I officially got left alone. Steve was so much more than my friend. He was my brother.” He sniffs. “And now I’m searching for a sign - just something that keeps me in this life.” I let my tears run freely as I identify his words as my own feelings. And I realise that we are two souls hurting from the same experiences building a connection to one another through the desperation of having lost any strength to keep living. “Without wanting to get too close to you, I think you just as broken inside as me.” He speaks up. His eyes are swollen and red, still glossy from fresh tears which haven’t stopped being reproduced and leaking out of the corner of his eyes. I strangely feel comfort in the detail that his blue pullover matches mine. My heart starts to pick up a pace as I cross a vulnerable line between us and say: “I think you can never be too close to someone. I’m sure closeness is what we both need the most now.” I gift him a teary smile which he returns with a faint tint of red across his cheeks. Our encounter feels like a big step for the both of us - coming out of our shells we’ve been hiding in like anxious snails and I could feel it in the beating behind my ripcage that it was towards the right direction.

[ssa-pretty-boy]

Fika

Fika: (Swedish origin) a moment to slow down and appreciate the good things in life

Summary: When Spencer Reid works a rough case there’s only two people in the whole world that can make him feel better.

Word Count: 3.3k

Pairing: Spencer Reid x Fem!Reader

Warnings: brief mention of case details (the usually criminal minds type stuff), implied death of a child (not Spencer and reader’s), other than that its fluffy 

——

The case had been brutal, a grueling two weeks only made worse by the scorching heat of the Arizona sun. To be fair, all cases involving children weighed heavily on the team’s shoulders and hearts. But when presented with a mop of curls and pair of big brown eyes so breathtakingly similar to the ones he held so dear to his heart, it was safe to say Spencer Reid was unraveling at the seams. When he closed his eyes all he could see was that little girl’s face. All he could hear was her mother’s sobbing, a heartbreaking wail that rattled through his very soul, as J.J. delivered the horrendous news that they had been too late. They had caught the sick bastard and he would never see the light of day again but that didn’t erase the fact that their baby wasn’t coming home. 

Later that night they had stumbled on to the jet, all bleary eyes and bruised bodies. ‘Exhausted’ didn’t even begin to cover they way they all felt. Rossi and Emily were asleep before take off and Morgan was nearly there ten minutes into the flight. Hotch was quietly doing paper work specifically to avoid sleep and the horrible dreams he knew this case was going to bring him. J.J. was FaceTiming Will and their boys, assuring them she would be home soon with new a baseball cap for each of them. 

All the while Spencer didn’t know what to do with himself. He tried to read first but when the words of his favorite book failed to bring him any solace he tried to sleep. When he proved too fitful and the leather seat too stiff, he decided to try watching a film on his iPad. After a solid twenty minutes of not even hearing what the actors were saying he gave up on the film too, shucking his headphones off and stuffing them back into his satchel. Knowing full well he wouldn’t be able to concentrate on the board and it’s pieces, he didn’t even bother pulling the tiny chess board out of his bag. With a defeated groan he leaned his head against the seat and tried to go to sleep for the second time. Just as the cool tendrils of unconsciousness started weaving around him, he felt more than heard someone settle into the seat next to him.

“How are you holding up?” J.J.’s voice was soft and tender, a tone she probably used to sooth Henry and Micheal when they were upset. Normally the motherly tone would grate on Spencer’s nerves but truth be told, at the moment he welcomed its comforting cadence. She watched as he swallowed, his Adam’s apple bobbing in this throat and he was quiet long enough that she thought he was attempting to ignore her. After a few heartbeats, his eyes opened and his head lulled to the side so that he could look at her. 

“They just looked so much alike J.J.,” similar to her own, his words were quiet but his voice wavered and cracked like all the grief and anxiety from the past two weeks were just now starting to bubble to the surface. J.J. attempted, and failed, to keep her face poised and collected. They all noticed the uncanny resemblance between Julia Hodges and Amelia Reid almost as quickly as Spencer did himself. He had managed to keep a calm front for the sake of the parents but he felt like there was something burrowing in his chest and attempting to rip him apart. He just simply could not stop imagining his family in place of their’s.

“There was this one case we worked a few years ago in Milwaukee,” she paused, trying to collect her racing thoughts before continuing, “It was a trafficking ring that we stumbled on. We thought it was just a kidnapping until we got there. The little boy looked so much like Henry; they even sounded the same.”

“I remember him,” Spencer’s voice was still a quiet rasp, “His name was Oliver Moore and he was five years old. Like Henry.”

His friend nodded slowly, her focus had turned to the table in front of them, her fingers absentmindedly tracing patterns onto its wooden surface. Even with that case being far behind them, it had been almost ten years ago now she realized, she still had nightmares about it. Unlike Julia Hodges though, they had gotten to Oliver Moore just in the nick of time it had seemed. But the conditions they had found him in... J.J. didn’t even know how to put it into words. 

She nodded her head, blonde hair sliding over her shoulders and shrouding her face. “I kept in touch with his mother for a while. I just couldn’t let it go. How much he reminded me of Henry, I mean. I still have nightmares sometimes that it was Henry in his place.” Brushing her hair back behind her ears, she turned her attention back to Spencer then with eyes glassy but a small smile on her lips. “There are just some cases that you can’t shake. They feel sticky and slimy and even though we catch the bad guys and sometimes we’re able to save the people they were trying to hurt, it still feels like there’s this stain on your heart. And after a while its like all you can see in the world is the darkness and death. You just need to go home and hold her, Spencer. Love on her and kiss her and hug her. It will remind you that there are still good things in life, that there is still some innocence out there.” 

He tried to smile but he knew it looked more like a grimace twisted on his face. J.J. gave his hand a sympathetic squeeze before standing and going back to her original seat beside Derek. This time when Spencer tried to fall asleep he succeeded. 

——

Six hours and forty seven minutes later, he was pulling into his driveway with the nagging thought that sometimes he hated his job. He loathed having to be away this long. Truly, he really did. It made him feel like he never saw his family anymore, like he was missing all the important milestones in his daughter’s life. Like her fourth birthday party for example. There were still some balloons tied the the mailbox at the end of the drive and what looked like confetti and streamers all over the porch. He had called that morning to wish her a happy birthday and assured her he was going to bring a special surprise home for her but it did nothing to combat the guilt eating at his stomach for not actually being there.  

He tugged a hand through his already unruly hair and let out a deep sigh as he climbed out of the car. As quietly as he could, he unlocked the door and walked inside the dark house, quick to disarm the alarm as to not wake his sleeping wife and daughter with its insistent beeping. With a somewhat renewed energy at the thought of seeing his favorite girls, he bounded up the stairs two at a time, carefully minding the extra creaky ones, then padding down the hall to his daughter’s bedroom. Eternally grateful for the well oiled hinges of the door, Spencer pushed on the white wood and Amelia’s bedroom door swung open silently. The covers were rumpled and pushed back but there was no curly headed little girl amongst them. For a harrowing second, Spencer felt his heart seize in his chest, his grip on the doorknob turning his knuckles bone white. But then he saw her slumped into her beanbag chair beside the tall white bookshelf, her favorite book opened on her lap. He couldn’t help the smile that split his face as he entered the room and scooped her up into his arms, the book falling to the carpeted floor with a soft ‘thud’. 

He hugged her tightly to his chest, swaying back and forth ever so slightly. When everyone found out that Y/N was pregnant, the other parents on his team had told him that there was nothing compared to the love he would feel for his child. Spencer never doubted that he would love his children, not even for a fraction of a second. But what he felt on the day Amelia was born, and every day after, was like nothing he had ever experienced before. A tiny hand came up to rest on his cheek, pulling him away from this thoughts, and he turned his head to find a pair of sleepy brown eyes looking up at him. “Missed you daddy,” she yawned, her eyes already fluttering shut again. 

He pressed a kiss to the crown of her head and whispered against her hair, “I missed you too angel. So much.” She smelt like her mother’s shampoo he noted with a smile. He carried her back to her bed and tucked her in the way she liked before placing another kiss on her forehead. 

Just down the hall his own bedroom door was already opened, a soft yellow light spilling out into the hallway. Y/N must have waited up for him. Or tried to he realized with a small laugh as he saw her sitting almost exactly like their daughter had been just moments ago. With a book splayed open in her lap and her reading glasses slipping down her nose as her head lulled to the side, she was slumped against the headboard fast asleep. Spencer sat down at the foot of their bed and took his shoes off, tossing them in the general direction of their shared closet. Deciding to forego showering and brushing his teeth, he dressed for bed quickly and moved to turn off Y/N’s bedside lamp. Careful to note what page she was on, he slipped the book from her hands and moved it to the nightstand before reaching for her glasses. 

She stirred then at the feeling of his hands near her face, she jumped slightly as her eyes slowly blinked open and a drowsy grin pulling at her lips when she realized it was him. “You’re home,” she rasped, her voice raw from sleep and the day of wrangling a house full of four year olds. Cupping her cheeks in his hands, he leaned down to press a soft kiss to her mouth. “I’m home,” he repeated with a smile, feeling the weight of anxiety slowly start ease from his chest. “How was the ballerina dinosaur party?” He didn’t even try to ask that with a straight face, every time he even thought ‘ballerina dinosaur party’ he practically erupted into a fit of giggles. But his daughter had gotten her stubbornness honestly and was determined that was to be the theme of her birthday party.

——

“Mia, have you thought about what kind of birthday party you would like to have?” He asked her as he flipped her pancakes on the hot griddle. When he didn’t get a response, he turned to look her to see she was staring rather intensely at the stack of coloring books in front of her on the kitchen table. She mumbled something then shook her head, curls bouncing at her shoulders and her little eyebrows drawing together in what her mother called her ‘baby genius face’. Spencer couldn’t help the laugh that bubbled out of him, “What are you thinking so hard about, baby?”

Amelia turned that precious little pout towards him then. “Don’t laugh at me, daddy. S’not nice.”

Spencer clamped his mouth shut, having to bite down on the inside of his cheek to keep from laughing again. Y/N strolled into the kitchen then with a brush, some hair ties and a spray bottle in her hands. “Yeah, daddy. S’not nice,” she echoed, turning to stick her tongue out at at Spencer before she set to work pulling Amelia’s hair into two little buns on the top of her head.

“Thank you, mama,” Mia said, flashing her mother a toothy grin. 

“You’re welcome, sweet girl.” Y/N squished Mia’s cheeks and kissed her nose, earning a sweet peel of laughter. Spencer smiled at his girls as he plated the last of the pancakes and covered them in syrup. Y/N gaped at the plate when he set it in front of their daughter. Amelia, the resident sugar addict, on the other hand was practically drooling over it. “You,” she said, poking Spencer’s chest with her pointer finger, “are handling the sugar rush that’s going to give her.”

Spencer gave her a bashful smile and raised his hands in front of him, “You know all she has to do is look at me and I give her anything she wants. She could have asked for ice cream and I probably would have agreed. So really its your fault for asking me to make breakfast.”

With a playful slap to his chest she pushed past him to grab the other two plates sitting on the counter behind him. “For the love of god, Spencer Reid please do not give our daughter ice cream for breakfast. Ever.”

He laughed as he sat down in his designated seat across from his wife, and dug into his own stack of pancakes. They ate in silence for a few minutes before Amelia gasped, her fork clanging against her plate as she dropped it into the sticky sweet syrup. She was practically bouncing in her seat as she looked at her parents with wide, excited eyes. “I know what kind of birthday I wanna have!”

Clearly amused, Spencer set his own fork down and smiled at his mini me. “And what have you come up with, Mia?”

Her smile widened as she looked between her mother and father. “A ballerina dinosaur party!” The pure glee and excitement was practically radiating from her as she started clapping her sticky hands together, thrilled to no end with her clever solution to the ballerina versus dinosaur party dilemma. 

“Well then, daddy and I will make that happen for you.” Y/N laughed and extended her hand out for Amelia to high five, she was clearly just as excited. Amelia slapped her mother’s hand before jumping out of her chair and running excitedly into her play room. Seconds later she came back into the kitchen, bouncing on the balls of her feet. “May I be excused, please?” 

Immensely proud that the manners they were drilling into her were clearly sticking, Y/N beamed at Amelia before throwing her a wink. “Nice manners, sister! And yes you may. Go wash your hands before you play though.”

Amelia was racing off again then, calling out a muffled “thank you for breakfast!” as she washed her hands. Spencer was silent while Y/N stacked their plates and carried them to the sink. “What’s going on in that head of your’s, doc?”

“Ballerina dinosaurs-” was all he could say before Y/N cut him off.

“Are you really about to go tell that excited little girl that she can’t have a ballerina dinosaur birthday party for some scientific reason you’re about to pull out of your ass?” Knowing damn well that he wasn’t going to tell that sweet little face ‘no’ for anything in the world, she was smirking and leaning against the kitchen counter with her arms crossed over her chest.

Sliding down in his chair, he crossed his own arms and huffed out ‘no’. Y/N laughed and came around the table to sit in his lap, his arms instinctively wrapping around her waist and her’s going around his neck. 

“How did she come up with that?” he wondered aloud. She might have only been three but they could already tell that she was following in her father’s footsteps, well on her way to becoming a child protege much like he was. But every ounce of her creativity came from her mother.

 ——

That earned him a soft laugh and a even softer, “It was really fun. We missed you though.” She took his hand in her’s and brought it up to press kisses against his knuckles. “How bad was it, Spence?”

He had spared her most of the nitty gritty details but for the most part she knew what happened. Talking it out with a third party frequently helped him, so her lending a listening ear wasn’t anything new to their relationship. The smile instantly dropped from his face and his shoulders sagged again. “Bad. Really bad,” he whispered as he stood and made his way around to his side of the bed. Y/N settled down into the covers and held her arms open to him. Spencer all but dove into her, burying his head into the crook of her neck and wrapping his arms around her as best he could given the way there were laying. They were quiet for a moment, the only sounds were the white noise maker that could just barely be heard from Amelia’s room and Spencer’s sniffles. Soft lips pressed a kiss to his temple and her hands started running through his hair, making sure to scratch his scalp the way she knew he found soothing. “Do you want to tell me about it, baby?” 

He tensed in her arms but relaxed again after a heartbeat, breathing deeply against her neck. It poured out of him in a rush, in all the nasty detail he’d spared her from over the phone. Y/N’s breath hitched and her arms tightened around him when he told her how much Amelia resembled Julia Hodges, and she was immensely grateful he hadn’t told her about that part until now. “I just,” he started again after a long pause, “I couldn’t stop thinking about you and Mia.”

“Oh, Spence,” she cooed, trying desperately not to let her voice crack. “We’re okay, baby. We’re okay.”

“Can we throw her another birthday party? Just something small with the team maybe? I really hate that I missed it,” his voice was small, almost as if he was afraid she’d say no.

“Of course we can,” she laughed softly, “I’ll call everyone tomorrow and set something up.”

He smiled and lifted his head to press a sweet kiss to her mouth. A sweet kiss that quickly melted into something more as he settled between her thighs and his hands slowly slipped under the sweatshirt she was wearing. The pair were so caught up in each other that they failed to hear the soft patter of tiny feet running down the hall. The door slowly creaked open and a tiny little girl appeared, her pajamas rumpled and eyes wide. They jerked apart as Amelia called out to them. “Mama? Daddy?”

Y/N was shoving Spencer’s hands away, trying not to laugh as his fingers ghosted against her sides. “What’s wrong baby?”

“I had a bad dream,” she mumbled softly, looking down at her bare feet. “Can I sleep in your bed?”

Spencer smiled at her as he patted the space between him and his wife. Quick little feet made a mad dash for the bed and she pulled herself up with a quiet ‘umph’. Amelia burrowed under the covers, snuggled comfortably between her two favorite people in the whole world. Y/N wrapped Amelia up in her arms and Spencer turned toward them and threw his arm over them, his hand a comforting weight on his wife’s hip. Just as sleep had started to claim him, he felt Amelia start to squirm.

“Daddy?” she whispered softly into the dark room.

“Yes princess?” His voice already turning gravelly, his tired eyes opening to see his wife smiling at him over the top of Mia’s head. Both of them already knew what she wanted before she even voiced her request. And she sounded so hopeful that he didn’t dare deny her when she asked softly, “Will you tell me a story?”

He smiled and pulled his girls closer to him. “A long time ago,” Spencer started, his voice soft, “there was a dinosaur who loved to dance…”

[fandomfiish]

Thominho || End of the World Song recommendation: As the world caves in x cancer by clem turner @its-tea-time-darling @thominho-incorrectquotes @graeae hehe~ ░░▓░░░░▓░░░░▓░░░░▓░░░▓░░ mournful cries for something that was not yet lost had dulled.

minho could still spot crowds below the hill, he imagined the silent wonder as they stare at the sky, waiting, huddling with strangers. striking conversations that would soon not even remain a memory. drinking up everything they could ever take, everything undiscovered. he would've remained somewhere else if it weren't for thomas. he remembers watching it from the news, it didn't even feel real at that time, even when that panic start rising up his throat.

"when it happens,"

thomas static voice mumbled over the phone.

"will you be with me?"

they never knew when it will happen, no time frame was given. just soon. all everyone could hope was that soon was enough to say their goodbyes, that soon enough to be able to be content of their own lives, that soon enough to cope. he watched in the first few minutes, the chaos unraveling right outside his window. his feet planted in his recently cleaned room, resisting the urge to go outside and run, to do something he once loved to do in his final moments, to run and exhaust himself waiting for death itself to envelop him to eternal rest. but he couldn't. there were notations and notes scattered in his head. quiet questions, head-shakes, and I told you so’s. all the things he’d said he would do when the time was right.

he glanced at the unopened box the size of his palm, the what if's surrounding the said item disappearing as the news reached his ears.

all of it morphed into black nothingness. until minho saw him. looking out of a window too from the complex across, watching it all fall to shit right outside, there was a glimpse of hope, of innocence, of endlessness. if only a little. he realized that, even in a dark and inevitable moment like this, he can want. that it’s possible for him to love while everything he once knew crumbled.

minho with a blanket on his arms headed to their meeting place. he had called a few people, the important ones anyway.

"we're heading to the park, said they were holding an event there. newt explained

"who's coming?" the line went silent for a few seconds, as the only thing he heard were footsteps.

"me, gally, ben, frypan, winston, clint, hell even teresa and brenda are here." minho couldn't help the smile appearing his lips as he heard their names.

"how is chuck handling it?" the line went silent again, longer than the first one.

"as great as a bloody kid could handle it, though he was happy that he could join us this time" a cheer sounded from Newts side of the call.

"what about you?"

minho arrived on the top of the hill, surprisingly there we no one else there, the others must've preferred being below the hill.

"i'm meeting with thomas."

"of course you bloody are." newt said, mimicking their normal bickering.

then it was silent, just the sound of footsteps and the wind, many unspoken words treading on them. "this is really it, huh?" newt whispered.

"this is it."

minho could feel something creeping up his throat, it would take his breath if he lets it free. "thank you, minho."

they could pry, open up but ... this was enough.

"thank you."

and the call ended.

minho finally arrived at their meeting place, and he let himself stare at the road below, it was packed although there was no movement. they must've gave up and abandoned their cars and sit on the sidewalks with the rest. what-ifs lingering in the air. it was a beautiful sight, even with the context of why.

"minho, over here!"

the sun was setting, an orange glow radiated from thomas like he was otherwordly. he was crouched next to a lone oak tree, dirt staining his knees as he dragged a finger across a leaf. "surprised you didn't run to get here." thomas said.

"nah, don't wanna run right now"

thomas nodded, his hugging his knees closer. "do you think flowers will grow under this tree?"

every time they meet here, thomas never fails to ask that question.

minho reply was always the same 'who knows, only time will tell.' but right now it's different.

his friend's eyes fluttered on the ground as he shrugged, "i dunno, it's doesn't matter much now, does it?"

thomas forced himself to grin, "maybe, but he might like the company anyway"

"minho?" thomas asked suddenly, "are you alright?"

it felt odd, talking to thomas like this. they were always playful and it was rare for one them to leave an opening for something deeper. the question couldn't be brushed away easily this time. it seemed the tears had come, washed over his eyes and gathered on the soil below. "not really." his voice shook.

thomas patted the ground next to him. minho sat down, ruining his new blue jeans in the process, the blanket in his bag long forgotten. "i guess i thought this wasn't a situation i needed to plan around ... i thought i had time but i wasted it all."

it was silent for a second before thomas spoke up, "you know what i've been thinking? in retrospect, everything i've done is lackluster and once i'm gone, it goes with me. but i think that's the point, the experience. even though compared to others i didn't achieve much, there were people that made it special. something had to lead up to it all, didn't it?"

he turned to minho before continuing, "for example, you ... i know i don't show it often but ... you are a pretty incredible instance in my world." he concluded.

"is that what you were telling the tree?" he joked as thomas slapped his arm.

"you know i'm not good at these things! ... i had to practice."

after the laughter died down, they bathed in the earthly slumber their city below resembled. the seconds before sleep where you let the unknown beckon you into the darkness. no more shouting, no more car horns blaring, just the rise and fall of chests. trees swayed slowly in the breeze as sunlight began to wane till it gave way to the moon.

then there was a hum, it started as weightless as the wind, until it picked up into a chorus of people singing. the corners of thomas’s mouth flicked up. minho couldn't help but follow the action. it was hard to clearly make out the words but it was a melody anyone would recognize. thomas began to sing along, minho let himself have this moment. glancing at him. all of the voices coming as one, it had him thinking, maybe the world wasn't as far apart as he'd once thought. "you should sing too." thomas suggested, beaming.

"you know i can't." minho shook his head.

"wow, you're going to lie even when a black hole is waiting to swallow us up."

minho opened his mouth to respond but thomas was quick to interject, "no excuses, there are no consequences for being prideful now."

that was ... true. but he still didn't do it. stubborn until the end of time, he used to proudly proclaim. thomas rolled his eyes and rose to his feet. "fine, let's do something else then." he said as he held out his hand for the other to take.

he took it, curious as to what he had planned. thomas guided him to the wide path and curled his arms around minho’s neck. minho stared back, not understanding. "put your hands on my waist, you dork."

minho hands fumbled to their place. "dancing? without music?"

thomas’s eyes softened as he tilted his head towards the lights, "we have the whole city singing for us."

"but i don't know what to do."

thomas brushed the hair out of minho’s face, "honestly, do what feels right."

they swayed while minho’s fingers wove through thomas’s hair. it was relaxing. they would occasionally stumble over nothing and blush when they made eye-contact for too long. it felt right. it didn't feel in the least bit juvenile or comical and soon they had become in sync. it was a song that he had on a worn-out record but minho swore he discovered something new to it. "the big finale?" thomas prodded, leading minho to cast him away from his body.

thomas spun out, the wind playing with his brown hair as quiet giggles surrounded him. he was rolled back into minho’s arms who held him tightly. thomas’s back was against his chest, the weight felt grounding in a way. "i think ... i need to tell you this." minho hesitated, letting thomas go.

"what is it?" thomas’s voice was timid, minho was used to hearing that tone from him but this felt different.

the gaze from the boy was disarming, almost as if he was as nervous as minho. the thoughts had crept up on restless evenings and left him tired from envisioning every outcome. it was terrifying and it was the reason minho was just now learning to acknowledge it. he tried to get his head clear, as his lips worked for the right words. "even if it's over, even when we turn to nothing, even if this moment is insignificant in the grand scheme of things, i want you to know that this is exactly where i want to be."

there were worse things than unrequited feelings, he knew that more than ever now. despite this, thomas looked at him with an expression that begged for minho to explain further. three concrete words on the tip of his tongue yet it never left its place. "i'm glad it's with you."

as those words fell into thomas’s ear, minho noticed the briefest flicker of fear and uncertainty. it disappeared though before minho even realized it had come. he felt something settle in his heart when thomas closed the space between them. "can i?"

the answer was simple. "yes."

thomas’s arms laid around minho’s neck, with the determination to never let him go again. his hands falling between a grip and a brush of fingers. when their lips met, euphoria spread out like a venomous bloom in his chest. it hurt like nothing he'd ever experienced before but it was beautiful. that moment could've been his end. the close of another abandoned storybook. thomas would've been every one of his moments if he had the option. in a trance, he'd almost neglected to breathe until the other boy moved, a tear dropping onto minho’s lap before he got away. but he wouldn't bring it up. he knew.

the stars shone brightly that night like they were giving them one last beautiful show. but even if the stars had long disappeared, minho had someone beside him who was much more captivating. his own cosmic mission.

thomas had his head rested on his’s shoulder, fabric softener clouding around him, the lavender scent had become home without even realizing it. he found himself ... content, lost in the peace, forgetting where he was, and what was looming. "if there is an afterlife, how long before i can have a moment like this again?" he thought out loud.

"you can wait. you can wait, my love." minho smiled, softly patting his head.

thomas leaned into the touch, happy to have seen him in this way. gentle, loving. "i like that, can you say it again?"

far off, the forest seemed to grow, the city lights and their glow blurring into thin lines. he felt himself finally relax. "my love."

then time dwindled, split, stretched until all of normality that remained was a silent, wispy breath.

[psalloacappella]

à deux

Day 1 Prompt:  Rain

@sasusakublankperiodweek Ao3 | FFN | ↓

“Cold,” he croaks, like unhinging an old metal joint. Instead of the weight of unused years, it’s the weight of unshed tears. The strain in his voice zigzags, lost, falls into its baritone groove. “You always are, when it rains.”

Upon awakening in the bleak dawn, the day’s significance settles on them — at once a burdening melancholy and poignant relic.

At first blush it could be any morning, but as shinobi experienced with the passage of years and the disorientation of traveling dimensions, both are loath to disregard the importance of date and time.

He’s standing at the window. You would assume he’s still lost in a daze of sleep.

Sakura gently presses her cold (they’re always cold, on days like this, days in which it pours and rain floods the countryside and small villages and cleans the dust from these everyday, hard lives) fingertips to his back, alerting him to her presence. Still they are in the phase of learning the lore of one another despite all the things already known, and it is the truest labor of love.

“We should stay one more day,” she says quietly. He hasn’t acknowledged, but hasn’t resisted.

Some days, that’s good enough.

But she overdoes it; that’s who she is. Love may be gentle but her manner of it isn’t always:  Indeed, she is fierce with people that rub her the wrong way, especially those invoking his name out of turn; she eats too fast, as indulgence; she hugs children too tightly when she knows she’ll never see them again, knowing that they are ships flickering through towns, some benevolent symbol of an oppressor they’re too young to put a face to.

Today is the anniversary of death. Over time they’ve both come to know this as an old friend, but this is Sasuke’s most notable scar.

Sakura cannot reach him on days like this, and that’s okay.

“The rain, after all. Traveling in this would be a pain — we’ve tried that before.”

She slides her arm around his waist, pressing her cheek to his warm back.

Don’t cry. It’s not your day. Don’t be so emotional.

Tears escape, they always do. To his credit, he never resents it.

Even with him now,  his equal, there are bouts of disbelief and self-loathing in which all she manages to do is convince herself nothing about her is helpful, that she’s still yearning for him to turn around.

Now the other arm, hanging on to him as if he’s unwieldy, as if he’ll sink into the chilled wood floor and out of her sight for good.

Sasuke’s hand and grip are warm, flash and fire. She knows this is in more ways than one — unspeakable ones, really.

Some grunt of assent, no fully-formed word at all, but she hears him swallow hard, once. It’s easy to, in a small corner of the world which hasn’t yet begun its day.

Hot fingers, frigid arms.

“Cold,” he croaks, like unhinging an old metal joint. Instead of the weight of unused years, it’s the weight of unshed tears. The strain in his voice zigzags, lost, falls into its baritone groove. “You always are, when it rains.”

Sakura resists the urge to click her tongue at his misdirection, the veneer to gloss over his emotional state.

“I’m all right, Sasuke-kun.”

“Hm.”

“I am! It just settles into my hands, that’s all. It’s close to an equinox, you know. The seasons are turning.”

(He’d never admit he likes that about her — nervy, a little more quick to correct, less scared, and that it’s brought him some delight, some sparkle to her that continues to surprise him.)

She feels him scoff under his breath, probably at her ability to pinpoint their location in time, in space, in the universe no matter where they are. When you save lives on seconds of analysis, on minuscule doses, these things become instinctive.

So of course, she knows what today is.

Pressing her nose into his shoulderblade, she says, muffled, “Should I call for tea, then?”

It’s a long beat before he nods, knowing that she’ll have to let him go to complete this task, leaving him alone at the drafty window — the chill having a chance to seep into the cracks in his soul.

They’re always less protected on these days.

.

.

The sleeves of his shirt always drown her wrists and hands, and though she has to flick and adjust them as she moves about the inn room, it’s one of her favorite ways to trap heat against her body. It’s not as cold as the caves they’ve sometimes inhabited, but close. Though the teapot scalds, it’s welcoming.

“It’s steady,” she muses, eyes on the persistent rain. “The whole village will be quiet today, in weather like this.”

Sasuke nods in response with unfocused eyes, collecting himself to meet hers. Green, watching him in a searching way. The way he does to her on all other days, seeking signs of regret or distress or any emotion within his ability to repair or ease. At once, old lovers and new.

A memory sears, a sharp grazing against the mind:  A low table, scattered small dishes like this with food remnants vivid, colorful; a sullen father, the corners of his mouth sagging; his mother beaming, hiding laughter behind her hand.

A brother, by then already burdened and saturated with the weight of his destiny, still finding the almost offensive wherewithal to poke him in the face.

“You haven’t touched anything,” she chides gently.

Tuning in again to them, this, arriving momentarily from his sojourn of the past, his eyes flicker to her own messy plate. Lately she’s only pushed food around in the mimicry of an indulged meal. Worries about her being sick. She just blusters, waving away concerns. (I’m a medic, for god’s sake, I’d know!)

“And you,” he responds, indicating her own dregs with his rude, handsome chin.

She shrugs, burying deeper into his shirt. “Perhaps it’s just the day.”

“You’re coddling, aren’t you? I don’t need that.”

It comes sharper than expected, and he regrets it the second it leaves his lips. He  imagines what Itachi would say, knowing he possesses a great love which he’s taken for granted time over, time again. He’d reprimand him, as he should.

Often he settles for his ex-sensei’s silent admonitions instead.

Finishing a sip of tea, she sets the mug down and sighs. Getting to her feet, she collects a few scrolls she’s been poring over the last few nights and looks at him, a bit less readable this time.

“You’re allowed to feel this, you know, Sasuke-kun. You’re allowed to love, and you’re allowed to hurt.”

She half-turns, but stops and adds,

“And you can even feel it all at the same time.”

Sakura retreats to the corner where one of the few furnishings sits. A chair, large enough for her to fold herself into and unravel her resources. A plant discovered in this new region they had crossed into last week, similar and yet different enough to pique her interest and spur her to research. She’s been lost in common roots, and he’s been mired in the loss of his old ones.

The ability of the mind to experience multiple things at once is truly remarkable. To an observer he watches her study with intent as she furrows her brow, yawns often throughout. Sasuke can see her as well as his past all at once.

Anniversaries of his dead loved ones shouldn’t mean so much. After all, he’s been alive without them longer than with.

Sasuke wishes he could explain that her presence is enough. That her loving him has been enough.

“We could still go through the traditions, if you’d like. Collect what we need. I know,” and her breath hitches, and she glances away under his dark eyes, probably feeling she’s pressing, said too much, “there’s no grave to do it with, but—”

“It’s fine.” He tries, he does, to say it with less bite. Gods, he’s transparent, his pain and denial. He’s not ready yet. Will he ever be?

“This is your day to grieve,” she says softly. “You should do that however you choose. No one can tell you how to feel — not even me.

Even me. He knows she knows his weakness. Watches her yawn again and awkwardly adjust her body, as if her own skin is uncomfortable, blink and he’d miss.

“There’s nothing I want to do,” he confesses, sounding hoarse against his will. “Nothing at all.”

A pause, a long one, in which the rain sings against the roof.

“Then you don’t have to,” she says. “You just grieve.”

And so he does.

Pretends to read.

Stares out the window.

Lingers in the discomfort of his own skin.

Paces.

Touches no food, lapses into a mausoleum silence so complete the lines of them blur against their own dimension.

He can feel his brother’s touch, and she can feel his agony.

She rises periodically, offering him tea, sliding her arms around him from behind again. He alternates between silence and quiet shakes that he’d never admit were sobs.

By dusk he’s in her lap, hair mussed and wild, feeling spent from everything and nothing at all, from wandering in the better memories of a brother he can’t bring back.

It slips from his lips in a moment of weakness, it hurts.

“I know,” she whispers, pulling her fingers gently through his untamed locks. “It always might. But don’t forget, every day has the same number of hours.”

It’s not until they lie down again, the day a simultaneous blur of grief and guilt, that she says in a soothing whisper, “And look, darling — you’ve made it through another. You always do.”

And while he can’t articulate that each year it’s a little more muted, the pain easing off him as they pass, if only marginally, he manages to thank her only in twilight when he’s spared from knowing if she can hear him at all.

.

.

On the second day of rain he awakens before her, an arm curled around her stomach in a way that aligns with some adagio ballad pouring from where, he doesn’t know, the universe, some sign, and as intelligent as he is the facts are slipping from him whether due to the haze of sleep or the turmoil of his ghosts, the way the dead and the living and the coming to life knot themselves with one another, soaking him with an instinct and some sense of surety so intoxicating that he buries his face in her long, wild hair where nothing can see his face, but she will know his heart.

If everything’s a cycle, then the old and new must cross paths in their rotations.

The darkness bleeds away and he realizes she’s waited to spill the joyous news, not wanting to acknowledge that alignment of the stars to spare his feelings, and for that he is endlessly grateful and guilty.

But he likes to think his brother, despite his faults, would have liked to know he continued forward, that he accepted the love he didn’t feel he deserved and tried, desperately, to welcome life anew.

Sasuke presses his lips to the back of her neck, and his warm hand against her stomach.

“It’s still raining,” she murmurs, still in the place between wakefulness and dreams.

He thinks he feels the flutter of his future against his palm. He only whispers,

“Let’s stay here for now.”  

[translations-by-aiimee]

Dig a Grave to Dig Out a Ghost - Chapter 5

Original Title: 挖坟挖出鬼

Genres: Drama, Horror, Mystery, Supernatural, Yaoi

This translation is based on multiple MTLs and my own limited knowledge of Chinese characters. If I have made any egregious mistakes, please let me know.

Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4

Chapter 5 - Expert

The subsequent calm was something Lin Yan wasn't expecting. The thing seemed to have decided it tortured him enough and nothing else happened the rest of the night. Lin Yan changed back into his clothes and unplugged his computer. Even though he knew that that probably wouldn't do anything, the screen actually powered off and didn't come back on at all in the night.

Perhaps a new storm was brewing in the silence, but Lin Yan was too exhausted to worry about it. The alcohol that was left in his system worked as a great tranquillizer, and he rolled over and fell asleep.

While he was deep in sleep, something cold pressed itself on his lips again, but Lin Yan was too much a heavy sleeper to realize it.

When he woke up, the entire room was clean. All the red paint had disappeared, the light gray printed wallpaper and the screen wall painted by the students of the Academy of Fine Arts were intact, and the glass was spotless. There was no other evidence to prove that the absurdity of last night had ever happened except for the shameful traces of liquid on Lin Yan's body and clothes. He took a bath and threw the red clothes into the washbowl. Compared with the power of the invisible thing, he was clearly at a disadvantage. Instead of running around without a plan, it was better to observe what happens as things unravel.

After he finished packing things up, Lin Yan took out his phone and texted Yin Zhou about the meeting place. Unexpectedly, he got a reply almost instantly: See you at the school gate in half an hour.

Lin Yan looked at himself in the mirror. Within just two nights, he looked like he had been doing drugs for years, he had a scruffy stubble growing, and his eyes were red. The mint scent of his shaving foam made Lin Yan feel for the first time that his typically monotonous life was actually so much more beautiful than that. The blade was thin and sharp. Just one long stroke across his neck and there would be nothing left.

Humans were such fragile creatures.

"Shit. . ." Lin Yan hissed, sighing at his unfortunate luck and put his fingers under the water. His hand had slipped and he sliced his fingertip on the blade, red blood seeping out. Lin Yan wrapped a bandaid around his finger, leaning against the wall and pondering about how unlucky it was to feel the pain.

He didn't know what kind of dye was used on the funeral clothes, but it had bled dramatically in the water. After a while, the whole basin of water had been dyed red. Lin Yan glanced at it in disgust as he left and slammed the door shut.

At 8 o'clock, Lin Yan saw Yin Zhou holding a Scallion pancake and some fruit in front of the school gate.

The two of them regretted trying to drive. The roads were clogged with morning rush hour traffic to the point that they couldn't even see the end of the lines of cars. What genius designed this kind of urban roundabout? Five ring roads surrounded the main road and they were forced to convene together every morning and night.

Lin Yan and Yin Zhou were nearing the third ring road and they still didn't have any temper, so all they could do was turn on the radio and eat the breakfast that Yin Zhou brought.

"A 13-year-old boy from a remote village in Sichuan was found hanged at home wearing a red coat. The locals suspected it was most likely cult-related. It is reported that the boy's time of birth and time of death are both extremely negative times and very suitable for. . ."

Lin Yan snapped the radio off.

It seemed that everything in the world had been messed up overnight. Even this kind of unreliable news could be relayed to the public.

Yin Zhou didn't care. He swallowed the last bite of his pancake and hiccuped. He said with satisfaction: "I spent the rest of the night in the library. I was starving and I couldn't buy anything. It's great to feel full."

"There was no exam recently, what were you doing at the library?"

"I was studying the enemy's intelligence. This enemy works in the dark. Can we defeat it if we understand how it operates? What do you think, buddy?"

Lin Yan turned his face to look at the crowded traffic outside the window. He stayed silent for a while before he said softly, "Do you really believe that there are ghosts in this world? I feel like something is wrong with me. Maybe I should see a psychiatrist first."

Yin Zhou's eyes widened in surprise: "Come on, even if something's up with you, I'm totally normal, yet we both saw those clothes yesterday."

". . . At your house the day before yesterday, I was the only one who thought it was cold, and I was the only one who could feel ‘it’ in the house."

Lin Yan sorted out his thoughts and told Yin Zhou his experience of being choked by someone last night.

Lin Yan wasn't expecting it but Yin Zhou exploded after hearing this, and blurted out: "Fuck, that ghost was a rabbit master* during his lifetime?" He scanned Lin Yan's face over and over again: "Little Brother Lin, don't tell me. . . you can be considered a nice-looking guy if you look closely. He's dead and maybe he's lonely and wants to recruit you as his wife."

*because they would kill the rabbit by snapping its neck

"Fuck you. If you aren't going to be serious, get out of my car and leave. Don't forget to burn two boxes of condoms for me when I croak." Lin Yan said quietly. The car behind him honked its horn twice, and Lin Yan realized that while he was talking, a 5-6 metre gap had cleared in front of him. He hurriedly followed the line of traffic.

"Furthermore, in the middle of the night, I obviously saw that the whole house was covered with red paint, but in the morning there was nothing. It was as if I had been dreaming."

Yin Zhou dragged the backpack out of the back seat and hugged it in his arms. He said, "Hey, let me show you the results of my brother's research." As he talked, he opened his bag and took out a dozen crumpled papers from it and spread them out on his knees. He flattened them with his hands and started going over them from top to bottom.

"You can't take care of shit. I feel uncomfortable just looking at those."

"See, the attributes of a wife. This ghost saw it perfectly."

A grass mud horse roared and ran across Lin Yan's heart.

Sure enough, these geeks are something else.

"Listen carefully." Yin Zhou pushed up his glasses with his long fingers: "There are generally two modern interpretations of ghosts. The first is due to the discovery of dark matter. You know the law of conservation of energy?"

". . . Go on." Lin Yan gave him a blank look.

"The universe expands at a certain rate every year. If the law of conservation of energy goes as normal, where does the energy that supports the expansion of the universe come from? According to this question, modern physics puts forward the concept of dark matter and dark energy. It does not generate electromagnetic waves, cannot be sensed, and cannot be measured. The law of gravity estimates that dark matter and energy account for 96% of the mass of the universe, and the remaining 4% is what humans can now recognize."

"Many unexplainable phenomena are therefore attributed to the results of dark matter, such as meridians in traditional Chinese medicine, the power of the mind, and ghosts. There are many discussions on this field abroad, but it is obviously blocked in China and difficult to find." Yin Zhou spread out his hands.

Lin Yan nodded. This was a bit like a science fiction novel he had read once.

"And the second one?"

"The second type is attributed to electromagnetic waves. The environment in which the deceased died is not conducive to electromagnetic wave attenuation. The powerful thoughts it had before death form a unique energy field. If a person's own frequency is similar to it, it will resonate when they come into contact. The waveform of the original ghost is greatly strengthened so then the two can sense each other."

Lin Yan was stunned: "You mean I. . . resonate with the ghost?"

Yin Zhou said indifferently that it was possible. He turned and smiled mysteriously: "Do you know how to explain love at first sight using electromagnetic fields?"

Lin Yan's heart stuttered.

"It's just resonating. It's the same with both men and women."

Yin Zhou sighed: "I don't want to fall in love for a while. It's boring, it's like a ghost."

The cars finally started moving again, and they finally got off the third road ring after being stuck for three hours. Lin Yan turned on the navigation and stepped on the accelerator to hurry towards the destination.

He always thinks that love was just like a ghost; he didn't believe in either. He only understood the panic and anxiety he felt when he encountered it, but he has never imagined that ghosts were also like love, triggered by a specific reason in a specific environment and dragged forcibly into the abyss, unable to escape.

"Have you been in touch with anything special recently, or have you been to anywhere special?"

Lin Yan thought about it for a moment and shook his head: "No. Every day I'm in the study room, tutor's office, library, home, cafeteria, there's nowhere else. But I have come into a lot of contact with lots of things from several dynasties."

Yin Zhou clumped the pile of information in his hand, and put it into back his backpack despite Lin Yan's contemptuous eyes, and clicked the buckle shut.

"Impossible. The electromagnetic waves would have decayed early in a small object, even if the Maoshan technique was used."

A thought suddenly flashed through Lin Yan's mind.

"There was this one place. . .Last month, my old man arranged an internship position for me on an archaeological team. It was a tomb with small specifications. I was there for less than a week."

Yin Zhou's eyes lit up all of a sudden: "There's this show, we should wait and check it. . . what the fuck!"

Lin Yan slammed on the brakes. Yin Zhou's head slammed into the windshield with a bang, and he wailed in pain.

"What are you doing?! Braking like that is going to kill you. What if we got rear-ended?!"

Lin Yan looked at the empty windshield in shock. He pulled the car over and, when he turned to Yin Zhou, his face changed.

"You. . . didn't see that just now?"

"What!" Yin Zhou took off the glasses that had been knocked off-kilter, trying to push them into their original spot, and couldn't help complaining in grief.

"There was a hand. . . stretching down from the roof of the car."

Yin Zhou was stunned and looked up at the window glass cautiously. A truck came up from behind, went around their car and drove on.

Lin Yan was too scared to speak for a while. He recalled the stiff white hand that had slapped on the windshield from the roof of the car just now, but it disappeared in a blink of an eye. There were speeding trucks or tankers everywhere on the sixth ring road. He opened his mouth and looked at Yin Zhou. The other party understood his thoughts immediately. Yin Zhou took a breath and hesitated: "Then this thing. . . it wants a human life."

Lin Yan shook his head. He always felt that there was some motive behind everything that had happened, but he couldn't say it out loud.

They drove out of the city in a blink of an eye. The endless rows of poplar trees and the green border fields in the suburbs relaxed the tension of the two people in the car a lot. Lin Yan rolled down the car window, and the car air mixed with the fragrance of flowers and plants that poured in. Inside the car, the stuffy scent of the pancakes was blown away.

After the twist and turns the GPS took them on, the car turned onto a rugged path paved with stones. The surrounding buildings were replaced with independent bungalows and small farmyards. A yellow dog squatted on the steps and stretched its neck. Some hens gathered in groups lazily together. Every now and again, they passed by a white goose on the side of the road. Lin Yan slowed down and stared at the map displayed on the GPS. He glanced at Yin Zhou distrustfully.

"If I keep going, I'll have to turn around to go back to the village. Did your mother send us to a reclusive expert?"

Yin Zhou leaned over to study the map, then turned his head in confusion and looked out the window. He happened to pass by a house, a yellow mud bungalow, with a faded couplet on the door. The old man in front of it only lost two front teeth, and he was leaning back to watch the excitement. . Yin Zhou scratched his scalp suspiciously: "The address my mother gave is at the end of the village, and she said it was amazing. Let me buy some tributes to bring with me. I can't do it alone."

So Lin Yan stopped the car when passing by the market, and bought two gifts according to Yin Zhou's suggestion. . . that bastard.

"Are you sure about all this?" Lin Yan looked embarrassedly left and right, carrying a live turtle in one hand and walking back, Yin Zhou happily pointed at the turtle's head and said, "What do you know? , These kinds of psychic masters rely on this stuff to keep up with their lifestyle. Trust me."

Lin Yan threw the two bastards into the trunk, took out a bottle of mineral water and handed it to Yin Zhou. He also opened a bottle for himself and took a few sips.

The country cicadas cried one after another, and the green wheat was headed; it was a wonderful scene of peace and prosperity.

Several children wearing red and green were squatting on the ground playing fan cards not far away. Lin Yan asked Yin Zhou: "What did your mother saw that name of the expert was? I'll ask around."

He couldn't help but imagine a scene of a bamboo hut with a mantle drooping in front of the porch. An old man in white with his hand stroked his beard and smiled slightly. He and Yin Zhou knelt forward on one knee, clasping their fists and begging, "Master, please guide me!"

Yin Zhou took a note from his pocket. He squinted at it, and said perplexedly: "Second Immortal Gu."

Before Lin Yan had enough time to swallow, all the water was spat back out.

"Ahem. . . is that so?"

In a small courtyard in the northeast corner of the village, Lin Yan and Yin Zhou found the legendary Second Immortal Gu’s house. When Lin Yan saw Second Immortal Gu's respectable face from outside the door, the regret in his heart was like torrential rapids. There was an enclave in an empty black room; he didn't know which god was being worshipped. An old woman in blue flower cloth sat cross-legged on the futon with her eyes closed and rests her mind. The red cloth strip that was tied to her forehead was quite imposing.

"This posture rivals some of the best dancers out there!" Yin Zhou pointed at the scene inside and couldn't help muttering softly.

"Come on, this is who your mother mentioned. Be respectful." Lin Yan said embarrassedly.

"What should we do?"

"Let's take a look first. Maybe the real person hasn't shown up."

Lin Yan and Yin Zhou walked through the door. Hearing the movement, the immortal woman lifted her eyelids slightly, and hummed from her nose aimlessly.

"Oh, ahem. . ." Yin Zhou couldn't hold back his grin and quickly concealed it with a cough.

What happened later was a farce. After receiving the turtle and two hundred yuan brought by Lin Yan, the woman suddenly became energetic. She worshipped the gods with incense and poured a bowl of clear water on Lin Yan while muttering words. After turning around Lin Yan more than ten times, she finally opened his eyes sharply. Lin Yan was so frightened by her that his body was shocked. The only thing she did was shout: "Aha! I saw it!"

"There is a little girl standing behind you!"

Lin Yan and Yin Zhou looked at each other, each holding their breaths.

"Oh, this baby girl died terribly. She said that she was locked up and could not be born. She didn't have money to buy clothes, and she didn't have money to pay her way through death. That's why she's gotten involved with you. . ."

"Wait, I'll ask her how to resolve this. . ."

The immortal woman closed her eyes and began to sing. Lin Yan pointed at the door to Yin Zhou and said: "Do you need someone to grease your feet, what are you waiting for?"

After reciting a long list of words, she opened her eyes and saw that there were no longer two other people in the room.

The immortal woman had no choice but to touch the newly collected two hundred yuan and shook her head, muttering that the young people nowadays are really impatient. Then she staggered around to pack her things up.

When she picked up the bastard turtle, she couldn't help but give a long sigh.

[wonderland-in-bloom]

if only

[malleus draconia x reader]

@geodraconia asked: Hey there ! Love your writing ~❤ Can you write a piece for Malleus and a s/o who dies protecting him? They both loved each other but never confessed it and were always struggling.

good angsty fics for a good rainy day. also i wrote the whole fic on paper cuz i didn’t feel like typing it out on my laptop. it just gives me different vibes lolol~

♡

THE grueling memories ate at him. it clawed at him. it hurt him, demanding to be felt. he would spend the cold, lonely nights leaned against the fence of the ramshackle dorm. the place where he and the love of his life first met. he reminisced on the bitter yet sweet memories of him and his love. why did he even go back to that broken down dorm even when he knew it was no longer abandoned? why did he even go back every night to meet the human who would soon steal his heart? why did he even help them when they were in need? why did he even fall in love..? his love’s soothing voice still rung in his ears. “malleus...” how his name would gracefully escape their lips and be heard as a blissful melody to his hears.

you were his world. and he was yours. he would give anything and everything he had to be able to have you be beside him once more. after all, he never got to say the three words to come out of his mouth. those three word beings a declaration of admiration and affection, “i love you”. tonight however, was different. tonight had been a night of dread. a night where he got reminded who’s fault it truly was that you were now gone. 

“malleus please listen to me! it’s all too suspicious! do you not see?” you pleaded him to stay. malleus had received a letter from an anonymous sender. the letter consisted of an invitation for him to meet this anonymous sender at 5 pm in an unknown location to malleus.  “(y/n), please. there’s a possibility it might be something important.” he replied. you didn’t agree with decision. you knew he practically had a target painted on his back. you knew the many enemies he had as it came with his infamous title. “it’s worrying! the letter told you not to take lilia, silver, or sebek with you! please! how does this not sound suspicious at all to you?!” you grabbed his hand, trying to pull him back and hopefully just make him listen to more of your words. he thrashed his hand and pulled it away from you.

“(y/n) why do you even bother?” although he didn’t raise his voice, you were able to tell from his tone that it was cold and menacing even. because i care about you, those words almost slipped out. “well...it’s because...” you really couldn’t answer. you really didn’t know what to answer. “if you don’t even have an answer then why should you bother?” malleus hissed as he left the room. tears pricked the corner of your eyes. your suspicions still stood and you took it upon yourself to run as fast as your feet could take you and chase after malleus. malleus stood there in an unfamiliar are which was a clearing surrounded by trees and a dark forest. he examined his surroundings while waiting for the anonymous sender to show up.

“draconia.” a hooded figure stepped out from the shadows and presented himself in front of malleus. he recognized him. of course he did. he would recognize that face anywhere. it was his fated enemy, a student from royal sword academy. “i want nothing to do with you.” he started to turn away before the figure cleared their throat. “this rivalry has to end.” malleus stopped in his tracks. “excuse me?” his rival stepped forward towards malleus. “this has gone on for far too long!” you popped your head out from the trees to be able to witness the scene unravel in front of your very eyes. “i propose peace. i want this rivalry to end. what good has this rivalry brought onto us? it has brought both our sides nothing but disaster. i want that to stop today. please. i don’t want to see anyone suffer.” 

the first thing that came up in malleus’s mind was you. he could imagine the smile on your face when he’d tell you how the rivalry had stopped. how happy you would be. now he felt guilty for treating you the way he did earlier. “so, what do you say? allies?” malleus hesitated. no matter how much he hated him, he wanted to do this for you. his precious (y/n). oh how you’ve made his heart gone soft. he turned around to gaze into his rival’s eyes. you couldn’t stop yourself from smiling. finally, the day arrived the stupid rivalry between the two of them was about to stop. while lost in your own thoughts, you could hear a click coming from a nearby distance to where you were standing. you were aghast to see the sight of many students from royal sword academy wielding crossbows with a red liquid coating the sharp edge of the arrow. you learnt well enough from professor crewel’s alchemy class, that the red liquid was one of the deadliest poisons which was able to kill anything, no matter how strong they were. an agonizing, painful death. 

your breath hitched as your body was filled with the rush of adrenaline. you realized that the signal was going to be when malleus and his rival would shake hands..! malleus had already extended his hand to shake hands. you took off running in their direction as fast as you can. however it was too late. the arrows were released and you didn’t have enough time to warn him. “malleus..!” you stepped behind him, shielding him from the incoming arrows. your back faced the tree-line as you slowly started to feel a sharp, hot, piercing sensation on your back. he failed to comprehend what was going on as when he turned around, your back was covered with arrows, piercing through your skin and coated you in a layer of dark red. “(y/n)!” he caught you in his arms. blood trickled from your mouth but alas you kept a smile. “b-before...i do ha..have an answer....for you.” it was hard for you to breathe, let alone talk. 

“i bo...bother...because...i...i care...about you, m..malleus!” it pained him to hear your words as you struggled to engulf large amounts of air as you could. it pained him to hear your usual sweet, alluring voice become so hoarse and lifeless. it pained him to hear you like this. a lump formed on the back of his throat, suffocating him. “no..no..! (y/n)! stay with me! please...” you felt yourself getting weaker and weaker, slipping away from life’s grasp by the second. “malleus...” with your weak, blood stained hands, you reached out to touch his face, for the last time. “i...i...i lo--” your eyes were struck with lifelessness as your hand grew limp, falling out of malleus’s reach and onto the ground. your final breath left your pale lips. you were gone. physically there but in all other aspects, missing. malleus had just witnessed his whole world crumble. tears streamed down his face. this couldn’t be real! this must be a nightmare! malleus held you close to his chest, sobs erupting from him. 

all those who wielded the crossbows retreated, afraid what would happen to them. malleus growled as his eyes glowed a dangerous green laced with malicious intent. “some alliance..!” green flames erupted and burnt everything around him, getting rid of his rival and al his goons in the process. there was no end to this flame, there was no end to this pain. there was no end to this grief. there was no pain to this guilt. lilia, sebek, and silver arrived moments too late as the three saw his suffering figure which cradled your dead body in his arms. if only he had just listened. if only he didn’t let himself but so full of himself. if only he was able to admit to you and himself that he truly cared about you. it’s all my fault. if i just listened to you, none of this would have happened. (y/n)...i’m so sorry my love. 

you were always ravishing in his eyes. both in life and in death. your body was encased in a glass coffin adorned with an array of flowers. malleus had cast a spell to prevent your body from ever decaying. even in your state, you still had a smile visible on your face. that was the same smile which you had when you parted with your love. malleus stood in front of your coffin placed in the middle of a secret garden he built just for you. in the past, he hoped that one day the two of you would spend time with each other in this secret garden of his, but now the circumstances were different. now one was lost in the depths of death while the other was roaming the living world however not feeling alive. “(y/n) my love...i’m so so so sorry.” he placed a blood red rose on top of your glass coffin. he bent down and kissed the coffin. “i’m so sorry. if only i wasn’t so dense. so stupid. so full of myself.”

“if only i realized sooner....things would’ve been different. if only i was able to tell you how much i love you. if only...”

♡

ok that was a tad bit angsty ehehehe. all that aside, i miss the comfort of writing in a proper notebook lol. i’ll make the drafts for all these fics in my book first i guess eheh

love, a♕

[ears-awake-eyes-opened]

The mirror

(Hayffie ❤️. Exploring Effie in this one. Writing this really touched me.)

***

Iridescent euphoria enveloped her like the bubbles she blew as a child with soapy hands, a wand, and her face turned toward the sun. She touched his forehead, tracing each line that time and worry had etched into his skin.

“I met a palm reader years ago at a party. She said every line on my body tells a story of my life.”

He slung his arm over her hip and slid a fingertip along her tailbone. “Hmm... Every line?”

Effie rolled her eyes. “She didn’t specifically mention my ass.”

“Maybe that’s because your ass didn’t show up in her crystal ball.”

“Haymitch! Stop teasing.”

He got quiet and continued to caress the base of her spine. “...So, what did Miss Palm Reader tell you about your future?”

Effie glanced from his eyes to his chest. His body was weathered there too, tanned by late summer and peppered with scars left long ago by staying alive. She touched him with intention. “She said my love line is long and unbroken...”

Love was a subject Haymitch didn’t like to linger on, regardless of the intensity of his feelings for her.

“...She said I was going to love one person my whole life.”

“It’s good she didn’t give you a voodoo doll of the poor guy and a sack of pins to stab him with.”

She stroked his forehead with the backs of her nails. “...Who says she didn’t?”

Her grin lit him up. “What do the lines on me tell you about my future?”

She kissed along each one, pressing her lips to the deep furrow between his eyebrows. “These tell about your past, honey.”

The lines dug in deeper as his memories dreged up pain.

She touched the circles below his eyes and stroked his jaw. “If I could wave a wand and take away that pain, I would... though I wouldn’t change a single thing about this face.”

Haymitch was unnerved to love her like this. He pulled her against him and let his body express the feelings that stuck in his throat.

***

When Effie was a child, an oval-shaped makeup mirror had been the most irresistible aspect of her great-grandmother’s vanity table. The frame was glittering bronze, standing on four legs and decorated with cherubs. The mirror pivoted between a regular view and a magnified one.

“Effie dear, did you wash those bubbles from your hands?”

“Of course, Nana.” Effie treated the mirror with reverence, pivoting it with care for her great-grandmother as the old woman applied makeup to her crinkled face and styled her silver hair.

When the tasks were finished, Effie climbed into her lap and gazed into the mirror at her own sun kissed cheeks beside her great-grandmother’s painted ones. “Nana, there’s nobody as colorful as you.”

“Oh, Baby Doll, you’re so dear. When gifted with beauty, you must remember that every mirror has two faces.”

“Your face and mine??”

Nana chuckled and hugged her tight, “Yours and mine for now, but look deeper into yourself.”

Effie squinted and peered in the mirror as hard as she could.

Her great-grandmother continued, “In every mirror there is the face looking in and the face looking out. A person can be beautiful on the outside but ugly on the inside. Or there may be moments when you think you’re ugly on the outside, but you always have the capacity for a beautiful heart. What do you see about yourself, and does it reflect what you believe?”

“I see a girl. And when I grow up, I want my outside face and my inside face to be as pretty as yours are.”

“Ah, they are, dear one. They already are.”

A few years later Effie had inherited the bronze mirror, and it sat henceforth on the table of her own modern vanity bordered in bright lights. She’d looked into that mirror nearly every day of her life. Including the day she accepted the job of escort. Including the day Snow announced the third Quarter Quell and her veils began to fall.

In the mirror she’d caught glimpses of what was happening in the depths of her heart, and she started to question the nature of beauty and ugliness. She’d watched the incipient unraveling of her entire world.

When she was reunited with the mirror after the revolution, the face looking in and the face looking out were both altered — unadorned with facades, and vacant. She’d squinted and peered then as hard as she could to find herself. But self-discovery can take a long time — forever even — because just when you think you know yourself, you change again.

***

By the time the mirror moved with her to District 12, the fine lines at the corners of her eyes, which used to appear only when she smiled, deepened and stayed. Despite a lifetime of foundation with sunscreen, parasols, wide brimmed hats, topical serums to encourage cellular repair, gentle exfoliating cleansers, moisturizers, and antioxidants, her skin had betrayed her. In her efforts to achieve beauty, she hadn’t accounted for the wear and tear of years of exaggerated and false smiles. After a night of poor sleep, Effie saw in her reflection unmistakable wrinkles. Makeup refused to conceal them. Another betrayal. Her heart sank.

She lingered upstairs awhile in mourning, trying to decide what to do. She needed coffee, but she didn’t want to be seen looking like this. She packed a bag for a trip to the Capitol and put on a fashionable hat with black netting which covered her eyes.

When she showed up downstairs, Haymitch was discomfited by her appearance. The bag and the hat felt ominous. “What are you doing?”

She set the suitcase at the bottom of the stairs. “A train departs at 10. I’m getting on it.”

“Why? ...What is this?”

Mortified, she refused to look at him. “I really don’t want to talk about it.”

His stomach churned, and he took a deep breath to keep from throwing up his breakfast of coffee and bourbon. “Are you leaving me?”

“What?! Goodness, no! Of course not.” She glanced at him then moved toward the counter to pour herself a cup of coffee. She needed an excuse to look away again.

“Then what’s going on?” He thought more about her hat and wondered if somebody died. “Is it your family?”

She could hear anxiousness in his voice. It wasn’t fair of her to say nothing, but embarrassment kept her silent. She didn’t want to be evasive or make up an excuse. Their connection had been good lately, really good, and she wanted to keep them good.

“My family is fine.” She sat with him at the table, keeping her eyes on the mug in her hands. “I’m going to see a... specialist.”

He was growing agitated, imagining alarming scenarios, and he was pissed that she was being vague. “What kind of specialist?”

She didn’t answer.

“Effie, you can’t just pack a suitcase, tell me you’re going 2000 miles away to see some kind of specialist, and then just leave!”

She knew if the situation were reversed, she wouldn’t allow that to stand either. She’d be terrified. She looked up at him. His face was pale. Perhaps she’d terrified him too, which only added to her shame about it all.

She confessed in defeat, “A plastic surgeon.”

Confused, he glanced at her chest.

“What for?” He didn’t like where this was going. Her body was familiar — how she looked, the way she felt. He didn’t want her to be cut into or changed.

She hesitated before answering. “My eyes.”

“Your eyes?! What’s wrong with them?”

“They’re wrinkled! My skin around them is cavernous!”

“Cavernous?! No, it’s not. What’s wrong with some wrinkles? Stay alive long enough, and everybody’s got ‘em.” Relief washed over him, and the color returned to his face. “All this over a handful of wrinkles? Shit, Effie, someday your drama is gonna be the death of me.”

“This matters to me! I look dreadful.”

Dreadful? He stared at her in incredulity then reached for her wrist. “Leave your coffee. I need to show you something.”

“But the train...”

“Don’t worry about it. Just come here.” He stood up, and his grip on her wrist was persistent.

Being touched eased some of the turmoil she’d been feeling, as if she wasn’t so alone with this. She let him hold on as tight as he wanted, and she followed him back upstairs.

In their bedroom he sat on the stool in front of her vanity. The tension within her melted further at the sight of him on the pink velvet cushion. She almost smiled, then remembered that would only accentuate the wrinkles at the corners of her eyes. He pulled her into his lap and swiveled to face the bronze mirror.

“Haymitch, I’ve already looked. I don’t need to see this.”

“I want to see this.” He pulled the pin that held her hat in place, took the hat off, and set it on the vanity table.

She closed her eyes as he ran his fingers through her hair.

“Look.”

She looked, and focused on his reflection instead of hers.

“What do you see?” His words stired up memories that were inside her even before he was.

Her tone was wistful. “I see two faces. Yours and mine.”

“What else?”

Old grief welled up in her. Sun kissed and painted cheeks... belief... beauty... unraveling... fear... self-discovery... “Our hearts,” she said.

He wrapped his arms around her waist. “I heard somewhere that every line on your body tells a story.”

“I think I’ve heard that too.” She couldn’t help but smile, regardless of the consequences.

“Tell me the story, sweetheart. The story of these lines.” He brushed his fingertips along the corners of her eyes. Her skin there was damp now from grief spilled over.

“I smiled. For probably 25 years straight through. I hardly ever stopped. I couldn’t stop. Because if I did, then what would have become of me?”

What we do to stay alive is unique for each person. Forcing a smile through pain can cut as deeply as a knife.

“If I could take away that pain, I would,” he said, “Though I wouldn’t change a single thing about your face.”

She shifted in his lap and laced her fingers behind his neck. “That sounds familiar.”

“I heard it from a girl. The longer I know her, the more beautiful she gets. She’s the prettiest damn thing I’ve ever seen.”

“She’s getting older.”

“That’s what staying alive means, honey. ...I want your stories, even the ones that’ll be the death of me.”

Her story with him was certainly long and unbroken. She’d expected that much. She’d expected pleasure in agitation, in kisses laced with bourbon and coffee, in bubbles popping along her skin and leaving her a mess.

God knows she’d expected to love him with madness. She just hadn’t expected him to feel it too. In such a mess, she hadn’t expected to experience this kind of beauty.

[imagine-loki]

Atlas: Space, Mercury

TITLE: Atlas: Space

CHAPTER NO./ONE-SHOT: 2/12

AUTHOR: fanfictrashdump

ORIGINAL IMAGINE: Imagine narrating episodes of Loki’s life with the Avengers based on the songs from Sleeping At Last’s “Atlas: Space” album. 

RATING: T-M

NOTES/WARNINGS: Welcome to my Sleeping At Last’s Atlas: Space challenge, aka Another writing project I do not have time for, but my brain insisted on doing.

This series will be less like a multichapter fic and more of a one-shot compendium, but that they all interconnect in one way or another. It will revolve around Loki and Becca’s relationship (Taking Turns, Glow, Helmet Heists–don’t worry, more Loki-Charlie stuff will be along) and I will use those one-shots as reference to the timeline. Each chapter will be one song, used as inspiration for the story.

Warnings include: language, maybe, and morally grey debates about killing bad guys, angst (so much angst), and a thoroughly confused Loki.

Chapter 2: Mercury

Summary: Becca did not expect to feel this way after her first official mission. Loki did not expect to care how she felt, one way or another. Takes place after Helmet Heists.

=

“Heya, Lokes. How’s it going?”

Loki looked up, brow furrowed in a calculating expression. Tony Stark was not one to casually strike up a conversation with him unless it was of the utmost importance and he had no other choice. Therefore, the almost cheery way he had plopped himself down beside him on the couch was a matter of extreme curiousness.

Loki was having none of it.

“What is this?”

“I only asked how you were?” Tony sounded unsure, put looked all around innocent until he let out a long puff of air that made his cheeks inflate. “OK, I wanted to ask you how Becks was.”

Loki rolled his eyes and turned the page on his book, his attention now on the tight script before him. “I daresay she’s your employee, Stark, not mine. Why would I know?”

“Maybe because she’s the only person you talk to, and you’d be able to tell if she were OK. And the fact that you’ve been sticking to her like glue since we got back from the Hellhole. I don’t know, it gives me the inkling that you do, indeed, know.”

Stark wasn’t wrong.

Rebecca was the only human that Loki seemed to find bearable most of the time. She wasn’t loud or brash or mindless. Her taste in literature wasn’t half bad, either.

But she was human. And mortal. And beneath him.

For the longest time, he had tried not to get too attached, but this last mission certainly became a turning point in their relationship. It wasn’t bad, per se. They understood each other’s body language in a way that only two introverts could, and they worked together well as a team, but… she was so soft and innocent and everything he was most certainly not. Loki tended to scoff and ridicule humans such as this, not attempt to ensure their safety and their ongoing wellbeing, even after the fact.

Those eyes, though…

“Lokes?” Apparently Loki had been silent for much longer than was considered normal. He tended to do that a lot, as of late, always in relation to that dreary mortal.

Loki shifted uncomfortably at the memory of Becca’s eyes on the jet ride back. “I would say she takes issue with the moral ambiguity of killing an enemy. Regardless of whether or not they deserved it.”

Rows of houses Sound asleep Only streetlights Notice me

He nearly wanted to laugh at himself. Taking issue was probably the understatement of the year.

More than once, while he was doing his nightly walks, he would find Becca on the roof, staring at the world below–at the forests, the darkness, at the nothingness. She would stand, shivering in the night air, as she tried to make out shapes in the inky black abyss. It would take him two or three mentions of her name to rouse her from contemplative stupor. And, even then, Loki could tell she was not all there.

She always smiled, pushing through the oppressive chaos in her head and ask him about his day. As if she had not been fixing to fall apart a second before.

Damn her and her empathy.

I am desperate If nothing else In a holding pattern To find myself

I talk in circles I talk in circles I watch for signals For a clue

More than once he had swallowed whatever irritation would bubble to the surface in an effort to get her talking. Instead of his usually acidic demands for her to get on with it, he simply nodded in what he hoped was an encouraging manner and waited for her to spill her thoughts, as repetitive as they were. Not that he could blame her.

He remembered the first time he had killed something. He was seven. It had been a rabbit while on a hunt. He cried for three days, afterwards, until an Einherjar had scoffed and told him that was how life worked and he needed to accept it. Loki hadn’t cried when that particular soldier did not come home from a siege in Vanaheim a hundred years later. Nor for the hundreds that had been lost in battles, since. What was the point? Creatures lived and died, sometimes by his blade. That was life.

How to feel different How to feel new Like science fiction Bending truth

“Why do you keep asking that, Loki?” She had whined, pulling the edges of his cloak, which he had laid over her bare shoulders to shield her against the wind. He had asked if she was doing alright. “You know I’m physically fine. You made sure of that.”

He had not meant to inquire after her physical well-being, and Becca very well knew that. She also knew that he would die a fiery death before insisting “but, how do you feel?” Loki had made an annoyed noise and stormed off with the intention to hide in his room. He had doubled back, halfway there, only to watch her wipe away tears from the corners of her eyes when she thought herself alone. He still went back to his room, but he felt like a rock was lodged in his stomach all the way there.

“Could you do me a favor and keep an eye on her? She’s been really jumpy and anxious at work, but she keeps telling me she’s fine.” Tony sighed. “I just worry about her, man.”

Loki offered a sympathetic look, despite his initial reaction to sneer back at the Iron Man. Breaking old habits was hard. “I know. I will.”

No one can unring this bell Unsound this alarm, unbreak my heart new God knows I am dissonance Waiting to be swiftly pulled into tune

The Asgardian prince had found his friend in a hidden corner of the library. It looked like she had started to read one of the many tomes on Asgardian technology he had lent her, before her mind betrayed her. Becca was staring straight in front of her, brown eyes empty of any emotion yet full of doubts and insecurities.

“Rebecca.” His whisper clapped like thunder in the eerie silence of the library.

She snapped out of her trance and offered him a smile. “Sorry, did you say something, Lo?”

Gods above, help me.

Loki sighed, pulling a chair beside her and sinking down. Even seated, he was still significantly taller than her, but she found that she felt a little less nervous when he tried to get on her level. It was a kindness, she knew, but the concern buried deep in his gaze did little to make her feel better. If anything, she felt worse. If she had stayed in the jet, if she had followed directions, who would she be today? Could she be able to sleep? Could she stop waking up in cold sweats at all hours of the morning?

“Dearest, talk to me.” The use of pet names were few and far between with Loki. He much preferred calling anyone “hey, you” or “imbecile come here”. So the use of a term of endearment…

Did she really look in that dire a state?

“Tony sent you, huh?” Becca thought she might as well deflect until he felt uncomfortable. That usually worked.

“No, I sent myself,” he assured, frowning. The expression he received in exchange screamed you’ve gotta be kidding me. “Though Tony expressed interest in also knowing how you were,” he admitted and Becca rolled her eyes. Swallowing whatever shard of emotion that was attempting to convince him to let the whole thing go, he craned his neck until his gaze  could easily fix on hers. “You cannot go on like this, you know it. You cannot keep replaying scenarios in hopes of finding a loophole to villainize yourself with.”

I know the further I go The harder I try, only keeps my eyes closed And somehow I’ve fallen in love With this middle ground at the cost of my soul

Becca groaned, the sincerity in his voice making the pit in her stomach grow larger. The edges of her perfectly crafted calmness began to fray and she was sure that the god could easily feel it unraveling under his stare. “It can’t be this simple, Loki.” She couldn’t live her life without feeling guilty, she meant. Surely, she had to spend the rest of eternity purging herself of these demons before she could allow herself even a morsel of comfort. If not, was she not just a monster? 

Loki chuckled drily, placing a hand on her shoulder and its weight felt like a welcome balm to her shot nerves. “Who said anything about simple? You took lives. Nothing about that is simple. Believe me, I understand. But, on rare occasions, the ends do justify the means.”

Her head fell, hanging between her shoulders in a sign of defeat she should have never had to deal with. Stark shouldn’t have asked her to come on the mission, but she saved ten of the two dozen from dying in battle due to faults in their equipment. She saved him from what she thought was certain death (and might have been). Her heart was too good for this dark, sludgy world of his, he knew.

He wanted to hate it, to scoff at her naivety, at her hopefulness for the rotting lump that was her world. He couldn’t. He craved it, instead, and wondered how he had ever lived his thousand plus years without that little beacon of hope.

His chest hurt. Loki supposed that was the place his heart was meant to be, and the phantom organ had clenched at her tears, once she had managed to face him again.

She sniffed. “I don’t know if I can live with that.”

Yet I know, if I stepped aside Released the controls you would open my eyes That somehow, all of this mess Is just my attempt to know the worth of my life In precious metals

“I can,” he said simply. The surety of his voice and the clear lack of remorse made her something inside her feel warm like lava, rather than a fireplace’s hearth. She shuddered at his set expression and the glimmer of bloodlust in his stare. “I would have killed a hundredfold more, if it meant bringing you back safe. I will never live to regret that.” Loki was surprised to find that none of these words were a lie. He didn’t want her dead. He wanted her to thrive. He wanted her not to feel this gnawing emptiness that followed the taking of life. “You are my friend and you’re worth many more than that.”

“I don’t think that’s true, but thanks, anyway,” she muttered.

“Would I lie to you?” Never in his life had he wished for someone to ignore his nature and reply in the negative, than he did right now.

Becca’s mouth twisted in a reluctant smile. “Absolutely.” His heart clenched again, and this time there was no doubt about it. “But I don’t think you are.”

A long stretch of silence encompassed them.

“I want to return.”

“Return?” He frowned.

“To the field.” She sighed, pulling her shoulders back and sitting up straight. He had seen that pose before, when she was resolute to solve an issue or dissect a conundrum. He saw it when she had run from the jet and skidded to a stop beside him. “The reason I’ve been feeling so miserable is that fact that I feel awful about what I’ve done, but I can’t ever leave you guys out there alone, again. Not after what I’ve seen. And I’ve never felt this conflicted.”

“It’s what we signed up for, dove,” he assured, tucking a strand of her long brown hair behind her ear with incredible gentleness. “You needn’t worry about us. We’ll be perfectly fine as long as you’re there to greet us back.”

“That’s like telling me I don’t have to worry about the sky suddenly turning green. I’m going to do it, anyway.” Becca wasn’t sure why, but she followed up his silent question. “I’m going to get my training certifications back up-to-date, log in some time on local raids, and I’m joining missions.”

“Darling, you don't–”

“I’m going back! That’s final!” Becca snapped so loudly that Loki jumped, startled, and leaned back ever so slightly.

He blinked a few times to live down his surprise and offered her a nod. “Then, I will dutifully follow.” He smirked, nudging her side playfully. “Someone has to keep you alive.” Lest I attempt to destroy this pathetic planet, once more. 

He hated that this was his first thought, but he knew he would follow her to Helheim and back to see her through. He needed to protect that light, that shine, that glow. 

I’ll go anywhere you want me

[thelordstears]

I present, more fick fack fookin’ writing. Enjoy you gremlins

"I wish my mind wasn't an abuser. But here I am allowing abuse of self. My mind is a den of wolves, tearing into every good memory I ever had, making a feast out of misery, how could I ever be whole when the world's broken me down to dust?” - Pamela Northutt

“ You wouldn't believe the things I've seen, the hell I've been through, you would say I stole it straight from a fictitious novel, but no, reality is often darker then fiction ever could be.” - Pamela Northutt

“ I'm nothing but barebones and thoughts of self harm, I'd walk into a den of lions if it meant I could find peace. The lions could tear into me, and still it'd be better than what my thoughts do to me. Because maybe, finally I'd be able to rest.” - Pamela Northutt

“ I don't need a metaphor to explain this pain, but it seems it's all people understand these days. You could say, "I'm hurting, and I don't know how to fix it." And yet people wouldn't believe you, they say you're crying wolf, you have every reason to be happy, so be happy.” - Pamela Northutt

"The truth stings as a bullet wound would. Because often, it's what'll kill a man. Ya know, I heard of this plant, once, the Gympie-Gympie, it's sting is so bad, that it leads horses to leap off of cliffsides, now the only thing that has that affect on humanity, is the truth.” - Ewan Hanstammer

“ I've watched men pull the trigger because they learned the truth, they learned their wives were having affairs, or a family secret that lead them down a rabbit hole, but they were never Alice, and this was never Wonderland, it was simply reality, and isn't that what makes it oh so frightening?” - Ewan Hanstammer

“ All it takes to unravel a life is a single bullet, and all it takes to kill a man is a single word.” - Ewan Hanstammer

“ Man kind is doomed to swallow lies, because they just know the truth is just as lethal as the electric chair.” - Ewan Hanstammer

“ I'd plead to the Heavens, but all that ever got me was a coupl'a thoughts from my own damn skull.” - Joey Broker

“ They say it's all apart of God's plan, then what is the end goal of all this pain? Is it supposed to make me stronger? Cause all I feel is weakness trickling through my damn veins.” - Joey Broker

“ If I was given a gun, and was told to shoot the man who undid me, I'd cock my pistol and go forth into the unknown with the intent of pulling the trigger twice. Once against his skull, once against mine.” - Joey Broker

"My heart bares as many tragedies as the night owns stars.” - Connie Averfollow

“ All I can do is lay here and remember, by God do I wish I could forget them but I can't, by God I fucking can't.” - Connie Averfollow

“ I suppose I had Rosita for a wonderful twenty three years, but these fifteen years without her is what hurts.” - Connie Averfollow

"I'll say sorry for all I've done, if only it would change a damn thing." - Connie Averfollow

"I am missing, because who you knew is just another portrait slapped onto a carton of milk and forgotten the next day.” - Harry Downsworth

“ I gave the devil her dance, twirled underneath the flames of my childhood innocence, and now here I am helpless and left for dead in my own damn skin.” - Harry Downsworth

“ I'm a haunted memory of what's forgotten by the world, but always remembered by me.” - Harry Downsworth

“ Where once the sun shone bright and I could see every color my eyes could perceive, now I see the world in black and white. Because I suppose I'm the absence of light, because all I can feel is darkness.” - Harry Downsworth

"My heart is ruled by a blood thirsty wolf whom prowls underneath the moon and asks only one question. How doth I hunt in a world where hunters are condemned?” - Oskirrith Boncoat

“ I find the world works in strange and mysterious ways, one can kill to survive, and yet find damnation, but another man can kill to protect his family, his country, and be called honorable. There's no in-between.” - Oskirrith Boncoat

“ I bare bloodstained fangs and howl at the crimson moon, because that's all a wolf can do, really. He can deny his instincts, his inner nature, but all he'll do is starve.” - Oskirrith Boncoat

“ This world was made for those with ill intentions and unholy desires. I'll send you to your God howling, but I'll go to mine bloodstained.” - Oskirrith Boncoat

"Can't claim you're fighting for peace when you load your rifle with death. But that's all the world ever does, forces us into impossible situations and expects us to choose.” - Santos Valos

“ I've got my scars on this battered heart of mine, I hold them close, because they're what keeps me going. I won't go down without a fight, if I'm to go down, it'll be spitting my blood and baring my fangs. If I'm to die, it's to protect my damn sister.” - Santos Valos

"I'm a bloodstained lullaby flyin' on crimson wings. All I got left these days, is the thought'a revenge, and I ask da question, does that make me cruel or broken?” - Adelaide Debbens

“ He was me guidin' light, 'e gave me the world with the smile 'e'd give me, and now dat I don't 'ave 'im, I don't have the world, mate. I have nothin' but me damn gun and a sin on me fuckin' mind.” - Adelaide Debbens

“ 'E had no reason ta kill my love, but I 'ave plenty'a damn reason ta kill him.” - Adelaide Debbens

“ I don't need a gun ta take back what's mine, just a dagger and me damn wit.” - Adelaide Debbens

"These days, being yourself is a damnable offense.” - Charlie Holyman

“ I could hold onto my faith in God, but is that the crucifix I carry on this scarred back of mine? I'm whipped and bloody from this world's abuse, been through things no woman should have to see and tried to hold onto this faith I got, but holding onto something that's already lost is a dangerous game. It's just like playing Russian Roulette with a fully loaded gun, you're doomed to lose.” - Charlie Holyman

“ You're the forbidden fruit in the garden of Eden and still I would take you. It might be a sin to love that woman, but I've lived a life of it and I imagine one more sin doesn't change my destination.” - Charlie Holyman

“ I could run from all this pain, but it'll always catch up to me. No matter what way I put it, I'm doomed to this sorrow, because it's a piece of me. Perhaps I'm bad natured or just looking for a way to cope, but I'm sorry. Cause I suppose losing oneself is the human condition, and I'm coughing up myself." - Charlie Holyman

"The world shoved a blade in my hands and told me to fight when I was only a child. And so I went to war, fought in a quaint little ghost town filled with secrets and unheard prayers, I suppose when the Lord can't hear you scream, all you can do is go hoarse.” - Eliskira Waters

“ I brandish my blade with pride, I've bared the markings of battle since I was twelve. I speak a foreign language of violence, my accent is a tangy iron, and my vowels are the clashing of metal.” - Eliskira Waters

"The sirens sing a bloodshot lullaby, I've followed them time after time, because when the one you love's life is on the line, you'd steer your ship into jagged rocks and capsize your own boat. And so I have drowned for her, not in the sense that I am dead, just in the sense that I'm not the same woman she married.” - Dove Patchens

“ I'm surrounded by love, but I fear if my darkest secrets tore their way out of my throat, they would choke on the darkness I keep inside of me.” - Dove Patchens

“ I couldn't possibly be my namesake, my father named me Dove, because he believed I would fly free. But here I am, in a little birdcage, believing this is what it's like to be free. As a man once said, a bird born in captivity will think flight is a crime. But alas, alas, it's freedom, and the key is nothing but an illusion I can't reach. I'm a dove trapped in a cage of misery, believing it to be peace." - Dove Patchens

"Despite da daggers in me back and da scars on me 'eart, I stand tall through da bleedin' if only ta protect me damn family. I 'ave spent me whole life protectin' what I got, I dun't fink aboot wot I dun't 'ave, because dat'll only distract me from da present.” - Pearl Joy

“ I dun't knu wot happened ta 'im, but I can only 'ope 'e finds peace, in 'is mind, in 'is life, and hopefully death isn't da only cure ta 'is pain.” - Pearl Joy

“ Me family is da only reason I'm 'ere, dey love me, dey support me and I'll always brandish a spear and me fangs when push comes ta fookin' shove.” - Pearl Joy

"I've been ashes before. How could I ever remain the same after I burned in the fire of who I am? The way I howled and shrieked as I was damned rings in my mind, and perhaps, I should've stayed in the dark abyss.” - Eldridge Wolfmoon

“ Somedays I wish I was still dead because at least I didn't have to deal with life. By God, isn't it so much easier to be dead than alive? I was a floating nothing in an abyss, for I would always choose nothing, over something.” - Eldridge Wolfmoon

“ This world is wicked in nature, no wonder the roses have thorns and the berries are poisonous.” - Eldridge Wolfmoon

“ I fall asleep and see only flame, my death haunts me. I am my own ghost, haunting the halls of my own mind I am the fly amongst spiders and always wonder why it is I caught in the web. I'm standing stagnant, because I'm so stuck in the past, I can't live with my death, it was supposed to be the end, so why am I still here?” - Eldridge Wolfmoon

“ You may never right your wrongs, only accept them.” - Eldridge Wolfmoon

“ "'Eavy is da burden 'a my sins, but 'ere I lay, crushed by da damn weight.” - Arnold Schull

“ I've been a bloody rippa' since da age'a fifteen, covered in the blood of boys doomed ta early graves. I'm a bloodstained wolf, me claws covered in crimson and me 'eart a pitch black lagoon'a sins yet ta be committed.” - Arnold Schull

“ I don't want redemption, I don't want forgiveness nor love, nor anythin'a the damn sort. I just want some damn rest, mate. But 'ere I am, fightin' for me life and sinnin' as if there were no damn tomorrow. And if I continue on dis path, there won't be.” - Arnold Schull

“ I'm a broken commandment, God said thou shalt not kill, and so I killed the good man I were. God said thou shalt not steal and so I ripped me still beatin' heart from my chest and watched it drip the darkest shade'a black.” - Arnold Schull

“ I seek guidance, but alas I am given a candle with no flame, the wax already dripping down my fingers, and I must tread forward with no light to guide my way.” - Salvatore Broker

“ All my life I have read from the words of God, but it's often I ponder on if I read all the wrong words, perhaps I've always been in the Devil's trap and just never once knew of it. Do you think rats in mazes know they're an experiment? I would be no different, I could be chasing dead ends and think I'm free.” - Salvatore Broker

“ I spit what I believe to be the truth to those in the pews, not realizing all that came from my lips was venom.” - Salvatore Broker

“ I've been scarred, pushed down and made ta put down those I called brotha'. But I stand tall despite that, I can't let the past be a burden, I can't let the future be a tragedy.” - Alejandro Schull

“ My son 'as fallen far, but I think, if he only realized his heart was never black, just broken, he could get back up.” - Alejandro Schull

“ I'm a soldier, I've got me daggers on stand by, but my heart will never be cast aside so I may get something done. If I am to kill a man, I deserve ta feel the after affects.” - Alejandro Schull

"I am a prison warden watching over his own cell. It seems no matter how hard I try I can not escape this prison of myself, because a man who doesn't have hope can't escape a situation he put himself in.” - Christian Holden

“ I suppose I have to raise my pistol and fight, because this new world is a war even if my whole life's been a battlefield. So I'll raise a glass to the broken world, down my poison of choice and head right into battle.” - Christian Holden

"I'm a wayfaring stranger of my own heart and soul. Because nowadays, I don't even know myself.” - Andrea Maywill

“ How am I to hold onto my past when it's the very thing that breaks me down to tears?” - Andrea Maywill

“ Don't trust a survivor until you know what they had to do to become one. I wouldn't trust myself if I was a stranger, and isn't that the saddest thing, to not trust yourself?” - Andrea Maywill

“ I'd say I regret my actions, but I'm alive, aren't I? If I hadn't killed those men, I would be dead, my sister would be dead and my promise would be broken.” - Andrea Maywill

"Knowledge is a weapon. And so I use it as a bullet. I can make truths into lies and lies into truth, I am a man of many tricks, I'm a puppeteer cutting strings to marionettes that no longer hold any use to me. Life is invaluable when faced against the grand scheme of things, you're one cog in my catastrophic master plan. You're one piece on my board of pawns, everyone I hold power over is a Queen's Gambit. You could cry out "Stalemate! Stalemate!" But I'd watch you charge recklessly into battle and die for a cause you never once believed in.” - Remington Burlwitz

“ I have no care for who you are, just what you can do for me.” - Remington Burlwitz

“ Every cold case has one thing in common, someone knows the truth. Would you like me to know the truth of yours?” - Remington Burlwitz

“ I'm everything people warn you about, the boogeyman, the tall dark stranger your mother tells you to stray away from. I'm an urban legend come to life, beware the myth based in reality." - Remington Burlwitz

"They've always said night time is when the soul is at the most peace. I find this untrue, how else do you think monsters come to be?" - Remington Burlwitz

"I'm the ghost of Evergreen's Bay, where I go, cold shadows follow and death coils around the surrounding area like a creeper vine snaking up a mansion of former riches." - Remington Burlwitz

“ I've asked for forgiveness a thousand times, and I'll ask a thousand more, because perhaps one day, someone will hear my sorrowful tale and say, "You poor soul, you are forgiven for all you've done." - Joshua Schanahost

“ I've never been a devil, no one really is, we're all humans, you could come up with a hundred metaphors to describe the actions of people, but all it ever does is make a story out of murder.” - Joshua Schanahost

“ How could we ever be perfect if we never knew the definition?” - Joshua Schanahost

“ I am not the victim here, but I am not the one who should be blamed for this bloodshed. There's a snake in the garden and he's pitting us against each other, if only we could see the decisions of one man can lead to catastrophe.” - Joshua Schanahost

“ I got sins on my mind and revenge on my got damn agenda.” - Chase North

“ We all got a breakin' point, and life found mine.” - Chase North

“ I can tell you I'm a good man lookin' for a reason ta cling on, but I'm not. I'm just a bad hombre with a pistol and a death wish.” - Chase North

"Isn't it a strange feeling, to miss yourself? I've tried hard to find who I am, but all I find is the past, I suppose I'm just a memory, these days.” - Karrassa Diabaso

“ My scars shall never bleed golden, they'll never make me stronger.. they'll only ever break me down and force me to remember, I haven't lived, not truly.” - Karrassa Diabaso

“ I'm a cruel being, living off of the dying cries of other's, I've hunted people down in forests where they'd be buried, ripped into young women with a dagger and cruel intent, how could you possibly call me anything other than a wolf?” - Mason Miedan

“ Life is a cruel game of choices, and it just so happens we're all victims of it. There are no losers or winners, all we can do is play until our life flashes before our eyes.” - Mason Miedan

“ My father has always said life is a series of choices, and if I'm still alive I must've made all the right ones.” - Mason Miedan

“ My blood lust is unparalleled, some may compare me to Jack the Ripper or the Zodiac, but they're dead and buried, and I'm here. Isn't that what scares you?” - Mason Miedan

“ How am I ta march forward when all I do is look back?” - Weron Jameson

“ Bessie was everythin' I had, her smile lit up my world and made me forget 'bout all the pain and the scars engraved in my mind. But now, I'm gon' have ta get used to livin' without her.” - Weron Jameson

 “I see it in my nightmares, Saul's bloodstained bat and Bessie layin' on the ground, her heartbeat still.” - Weron Jameson

“ He thinks he can just bat us around like yarnballs, but he's gonna learn he's in a wolfs den and he's just a little kitten who's curiosity brought him too death's god damn gates.” - Weron Jameson

“ I got a bullet with Saul's name on it, and I'm sure he's got one with mine. But we'll just have ta see who draws quicker.” - Weron Jameson

"You can romanticize life all you want, in all it's bloodshed and tranquility. There's a certain beauty in the way nothing can come of peace if it wasn't fought for. Nothing can be if there was no violence, and I suppose I'm a fine example of that.” - Olympus Woods

“ I've altered many's state of self, twisted their perception of wrong and right and let them lose their minds. I'm a cruel deity, making experiments out of people. But this is for science, sacrifice is required.” - Olympus Woods

“ I've bound up Heaven's steps and found myself in God's throne, after all, I oppose even the simplest of rules. Time opposes all, but it doesn't oppose me.” - Olympus Woods

“ I'm a black rose in a garden of withered daisies and daffodils.” - Olympus Woods

“ I wish to wipe emotion from my slate, but thus far all I've done is clear other's shelves and arranged it with shiny new anger and soft spoken regrets.” - Olympus Woods

“ My wings are shaded black and my heart a shade even darker then the nebula. And so I stare into the abyss, and perhaps I stared too long, because I hath become death." - Olympus Woods

"When life's got you beat, take a deep breath and remember the worst days don't reflect your life, the best days are the ones you'll reminisce over when all seems lost.” - Chris Shaw

“ Love is the glue that holds people together, so in a world filled with hate, drown it out with the sound of your heart beating for another.” - Chris Shaw

“ You don't have to pull triggers and watch men die to be strong, all you have to do is get out of bed and take care of yourself.” - Chris Shaw

"Dese days I'm just a souvenir, a reminder dat good fings end, just a relic 'a Rome. Rome were conquered and burnt ta ash in one day, and I must ask da question, when will I be ash? All I do is fight fo' me life, but do I really got a purpose?” - McCannon Bowitsend

“ I'm followin' da paf' 'a a sinna', so me destination must be Hell. But isn't hell pain repeated ova' and ova' again? And 'ere I am, livin' a life'a pain and nuthin' else.” - McCannon Bowitsend

“ I 'ear the crowd chant me name, once upon a time dat would'a filled me wif' glee, because I'd just earned meself a spot in the championships. But now me name is a death omen ta all who hear it.” - McCannon Bowitsend

“ Uncle McCannon is comin' home, broken or not. I've broken a thousand bones, and I spose I'll break a thousand more. Because me heart beats for me family, and I can't just let em go.” - McCannon Bowitsend

“ I am beautiful with all my battle wounds and heartbreaks.” - Sherine Skidmore

“ I know people think God's abandoned us, but do you not think he weeps for our fates? Do you not think he furrows his brow as the Devil tempts thousands upon thousands of lost souls. There is no Messiah of a broken human race, because we are not broken we are survivors.” - Sherine Skidmore

"I can't find myself if I can't even meet me in the middle. I yearn for a day I can mediate with myself and come to terms with who I am, but all I ever was is a girl hiding from the spotlight.” - Hermione Vallwing

“ The stage rotted beneath me and I fell beneath the planks and boards, I climbed to the scenery and swung from the noose tied upon the painted sun. The crowd whoops and cheers for the girl who swung, because to them it's all part of the act.” - Hermione Vallwing

“ I wanna burn this theater down, get rid of these haunted memories, but all I hear is lights, camera! Action! And then my traumas play on repeat, and all I can do is stand behind the camera, watching as the horror unfolds in the screen that resides within my shattered mind.” - Hermione Vallwing

“ Death was never beautiful, and yet the poets wrote of such splendorous scenes and beautiful prose.” - Hermione Vallwing

"My memory is a blank state haze, I can think, but I don't remember. I suppose that's the tragedy of living.” - Pam Maywood

“ All I know is the name I found on a torn yellowed sheet of paper, Pam Maywood, the lost girl, traveling through her own mind finding nothing. I imagine I'm a ghost of my own mind, wandering the halls, trying to find more about this mysterious home I roam.” - Pam Maywood

“ If this is a Labyrinth, I fear the beast inside. Might he have bloodstained fangs and crimson claws? Will he be made up of sorrows I don't remember, or will she be in the mirror with a foggy mind and regret for something she doesn't remember?” - Pam Maywood

“ I see things, and hear whispers in my head, are they perhaps clues to this mystery? Are the things I see a glimpse into who I am? I've seen men fighting to the death that disappear the moment I reach them, I've heard howling on the wind and cackles from the sky. Is my past so demented that I'm only allowed snippets of it?” - Pam Maywood

“ People seem to forget even faked strength is strength, you don't gotta be strong, you just gotta act strong.” - Caldio Pastel

I've been shown the darker side of life, but I'll be damned if the credits roll.” - Caldio Pastel

“ You can't kill me, because I have the one thing you don't have, hope.” - Caldio Pastel

“ I met a beautiful woman who holds my heart, Hermione is strong, even if she doesn't think so. She's everything I ever imagined the woman I'd dance with would be, sometimes she's scared, and that's okay, the world is scary but I'm here for her whenever she needs me. Her traumas play in the screen of her mind on repeat, but whenever a nightmare strikes her down my arms are hers to crawl into.” - Caldio Pastel

“Here I am, fighting in a world that wants to kill me off and roll the credits without a second thought. But the audience claps and cheers for an encore, so I raise my fists and give it my all. Give me a standing ovation for all my efforts to live because I'm here to survive and you won't draw the curtains on me just yet." - Caldio Pastel

"If I had a dollar for everyone I've failed, I'd have thousands in my pockets." - Morston Framstein

"How sad, to be scared of your own thoughts." - Morston Framstein

"I'm a shadow of my father, these days." - Chloe Perwitz

"You can not poison a dream, you're only creating a nightmare." - Treydus Elron

"Your dreams are the world, and there's no limit to what you can do." - Treydus Elron

"I looked for guidance, but all I found was empty bullet casings." - Cormen

"You know. Through all this harsh pain I've been through, I've found even the snow can bring joy." - Ella Leopard

"The world never needed super heroes, just people willing to fight." - Mike Pennington

"My whole world crumbled before me, and all I could say, was goodbye." - Cora Eltivere

  "I stared death in the eye, and I'd say I won, but ain't I in the coffin 'a myself?" - Denzel Thievesmire

"The wolf does not cower from the sheep. So why do you stare me down with a pistol and expect me to quiver?" - Vivientos Hallows

 "I'm not much a man these days, just'a dog barking at his own tail wishing he could catch what he can never hold." - Cadencia Malrosa

"I am both the rabbit and the wolf, vying for somewhere to burrow, and yearning for bloodstained fang of the man who ruined me." - Wolfetta

"Time flows endlessly as a river, and unfortunately for you, so will your blood." - Morias Doorvensteil

"You know, the world is full of men who want to watch it burn. I suppose I have to be the blizzard that snuffs out the blaze." - Delaura Presha

"I can feel the shadows of my doubt creepin' up my skin." - Dusk Showtella

"I played whimsical tricks to amuse the crowds, and yet I fell victim to a trick of dark intent." - Medora Domeel

"I found as many monsters in the light as I did the dark." - Jerry Winstead

"Am I the vulture who picks from the bones of the dead or the one who hovers around death, and is a warning of things to come?" - Jeremy Vultures

"Seems trouble follows wherever I roam, either I'm death or very unlucky." - Franco Jonwitz

"I watched angels fall from the sky on burning wings and learned what's holy may become damned." - Demalliosa Vanberg

"Be the hero, they say, be the hero. Give me a reason, and I'll burn my cape before your eyes." - Caldwell Ramirez

"They say death before dishonor. So be honorable." - Caldwell Ramirez

"I always knew the dark, brother. It was only a matter of time before even the angler fish in the abyss of my soul's lights blinked out." - Caldwell Ramirez

"I wear a dress of shadows and own a heart the color of the nebula." - Clementine Ashburnum

"The future don't look to promising, guess all I have is hope." - Grifold Hangers

"I've been running from death for so long I'm afraid I became it." - Nathaniel Wessonlock

"I'd say my destination is Hell's gates, but ain't I already there?" - Cal Dunbar

"All it ever took ta make a good man wicked is a little bit of pressure. And I've cracked, sadly enough." - Cormelo Rivendell

"You have to fight for the future if you want to see it. Somedays it's tough, but you just gotta brave through it, after all, if you can survive your past, you can survive your future." - Don Bellzfort

"I've seen what it is war does to men, it makes the best of men wicked and the wickedest of men weep. War breaks all, it would seem, no matter the color'a your heart, it'll break ya." - Valkrane Pernotte

"In a world filled with shadows, one has to learn to become one to survive." - Fox Rivendell

"I've learned to fear everything, because most days it's my fear that keeps my heart beating. I can't be proud, because fear is what left other's hearts still." - Markalos Callenwoods

"I'm a walkin' tragedy, these days." - Julie Forkroad

"I'm up against the world, spose I gotta be a meteor to survive these days." - Garret Crane

"My brother's shadow swallows my light." - Ozzie Ramirez

"The Heavens and Hell are one in the same when faced with a man half Devil half God." - Lazarus Occult

"The world ain't never needed perfect, just doable." - Granville Van Steenburg

"Out of all the things you should hold onto, hold onto your heart the tightest. Because losing your heart will only result in the same cycle that caused yours to stop beating red." - Ted Axel

"The world won't break me down, I have my heart and hope. I suppose in a world filled with shadows, I have to be the light that swallows it." - Veronica Crowell

"I'm too old to cry these days, and too young to die. So what am I to do but run into the war we've waged with nothing but my sins on my tattered sleeve?" - Logan Orencia

"People say the world needs men willing to kill for a righteous cause. But I don't think the world needs killers, it needs fighters, because a soldier knows the word mercy, a killer does not." - Jolt Netz

"Can't find any peace of mind in a world that shows you chaos and chaos only. Suppose the only peace I have is the quiet after an explosion." - Arello Vendesto

"Da world shows ya wot it is ta die while yer still good and breathin'. Spose I can only eva' lower meself inta'a coffin'a me own fear." - Sheamus Soderstrom

"I'll keep runnin' down this path'a broken bones and spilt blood, cause the beast behind me is myself, and I spose I can never escape." - Finn Desandra

"I'm alone with my thoughts, plagued by the wicked touch of my past. I breathe in toxins, and I suppose I'm choking on my own doubts." - Keith Desandra 

"My heartbeat is cold, I fear. After all, the world froze and all I'm left with is ice to shovel into my soul." - Darwin Crocker

[wardencommanderrodimiss]

heart of a falling star

Self-indulgent Byleth fic because I maintain that all of Byleth’s shit could make for a really interesting character if they weren’t a near-silent avatar character, so I’m taking it upon myself to explore the possibilities. 

Featuring B from my Verdant Wind run, and Claude, and her response to Rhea’s revelations at the start of Ch 22.

(I know some of the questions raised here are answered in Silver Snow, but I hadn’t played that when I wrote this fic. And besides, while I know it now, this is still only what Byleth gets in this route. And all that Byleth gets to know in Verdant Wind is....just enough for it to be super fucked up when you step back and ponder it.)

----

“There you are.”

Shadow swallows the monastery cemetery. Beneath her hands, the grass and stone are cool, and high above her head, the sun is nowhere in sight, hidden behind the high towers and walls. B looks up from where she sits sprawled on the ground next to her parents’ grave; Claude stands over her, his eyes moving from her to the freshly-plucked blossoms, pulled right out of the greenhouse, laid on the stone, to the Sword of the Creator resting in the grass. The cemetery is empty but for them, the rest of the monastery engaged in frantic scrambling over the new army on the horizon. And B should be, most of anyone, but she needed a moment to process the fantastical tale that Rhea wove. Her head as it is now, she would be of no use in a strategy meeting or a war council.

“Went looking in the captain’s old office first,” Claude adds lightly. 

She’s not surprised that’s where he went - that he knows that habit of hers. Certainly it could be Alois or Leonie haunting the captain’s old office with a candle lit late at night the way they both carry torches for a man B isn’t sure any of them really truly knew - it was her, not either of them, who barricaded herself in that office for a week after Jeralt’s murder, food left at the door by worried colleagues and students. It is still her who goes back there some nights when she can’t sleep with the burdens of war. So either Claude on some late-night wanderings of his own has swung by her room to see if she’s there before concluding that it’s her in Jeralt’s office, or he’s just made a guess that happens to be correct. And just taking guesses isn’t quite his style.

“I didn’t know you came out here.”

“Once or twice,” she replies. After the battle in the Sealed Forest, she leaned up against the headstone, pulling strands of her new bright hair out in front of her eyes as she told her father’s grave what had happened and wondered if he would still recognize her, his own strange child, after this transformation. And then again after the Flame Emperor unmasked herself, another development that she thought for sure Jeralt would want to know, she sat down and told him about the chasm that opened between her feet in the Holy Tomb and how she still hadn’t found her footing again. Then, and then, and now this. 

Claude shifts his weight, seeming to be deciding what he wants to ask. To indulge his curiosity about the past, or to remain mired in all their present difficulties. “How are you feeling?” he asks. “Now that we finally have answers, and they’re all that. I mean, my head is spinning, and I can’t imagine that you…”

There’s so much to think about in what Claude has just said that B does not know where to begin. We. We finally have answers. It wasn’t always we - at what point did it become we? True, they both always wanted to unravel the secrets of the Church, Rhea, and Byleth herself. And true, when Claude had asked to read Jeralt’s diary, B had determined that, just as fighting an enemy is easier with an ally at one’s side, two heads are also better than one for unearthing truths buried deep. 

But she had also handed him Jeralt’s diary knowing as she did that she was opening up her dead, unnatural heart to someone who was not seeking answers for her sake. Even as a student Claude wanted as much information as he could gather about anything, to have it and use for his own benefit. Gathering cards to hide up his sleeve, but those she knew he had in hand he always kept close to his chest, and he’d made it clear in conversation, at the Goddess Tower, in the library, on missions, that he wanted her on his side in pursuit of his ambitions. As long as there was nothing to gain from revealing what he read in Jeralt’s diary, and her allegiance to lose, it would remain a secret between them.

So now: we. He isn’t wrong to say that, though she can’t pinpoint just one moment when it shifted. A series of moments. When Edelgard unmasked herself and the whole world was upended and the enemy gave them a face, but such a familiar one, to unite against. When the Imperial army was closing in on the monastery and he told her that this couldn’t be it for them, not with his ambitions still unfulfilled and her secrets still buried, and he wasn’t going to say goodbye to her, his friend, not yet. When she, still soaked through to her skin by the river, reentered the monastery and found him waiting for her as though she hadn’t spent five years vanished from the earth. Moment by moment. 

Now that we have answers, and they’re all that. That; ghastly secrets Rhea kept for a millennium. A bloody burdensome truth that B has heard twice now, first when Rhea told them on the terrace, and then from B’s own lips as she repeated the whole story to her father’s grave. Before his death, Jeralt had begun to wonder if he made a mistake by leaving the monastery. She wonders now, if he were possessed of the full story, would he take back those words? If he knew, she wonders, would he have tried to run from Alois even in Remire Village, try to flee the Knights of Seiros because to go with them was the more unthinkable alternative? Would he never have brought Byleth along for a job in a town so close to Garreg Mach, never risk coming close enough that she could fall back into Rhea’s hands?

How are you feeling? The one question Claude actually asked, the response he is waiting on. He watches her with his head slightly tilted, concentrating, studying her, while her thoughts run circles through her skull like rats scuttling across a day-old battlefield. How does she feel? She knows an answer, the only feeling she can manage to grab hold of and focus on: “Somewhat relieved.” 

He could assume that meant that she is relieved to have any answer at all. Someone else would, but Claude won’t. He assesses her with his bright eyes, knowing there is more of a mystery here to be teased out of her in some way or another. And she just wants to tell him, to spit out this thing that has been eating her for months on end, and she doesn’t know if she even can get it into her mouth after the way it has so deeply twisted itself around her insides. 

But if she can’t tell Claude then there is no one left living in the world that she can tell. Never anyone but Claude, who stood in the cathedral with her and told her he couldn’t believe in a goddess whose divine protection stopped at Fodlan’s borders. Claude, who told her that he hoped Rhea was alive so they could get answers (these answers) from her, but otherwise he was curious to see what a Church without her could look like. How it could change. How they could change it, together, without Rhea. (Again: we.)

“I’m relieved,” B repeats, “to know why she was so interested in me. That it was because…”

The words writhe around upon her tongue, worms in a bucket of bait, vultures and crows wheeling about in the sky. Already the words aren’t right, aren’t what she knows. No, it wasn’t just that Rhea was interested in her; interested is the wrong word. She could have lived with Rhea being interested in her, but interested implies too much emotional detachment. Hanneman was interested in B’s Crest of Flames. Rhea, however, was not interested in B. Rhea was invested in her. Rhea loved—

“You saw how happy she was to see me in Enbarr,” B says, knowing that she is flailing wildly from one thought to the next, and that Claude will just have to trust her that she’ll double back and map for him the connecting path between. “Not just happy to be rescued. Happy to see me.” Another pivot, and another wild swing in a new direction. “I never loved her the way that people like Cyril or Catherine love her.” Claude snorts, no doubt thinking that very few people do. “Or the way a lot of members of the Church do. But I also didn’t love her the way she loved me. I felt guilty for that. That Rhea loved me so very much more than I ever loved her.”

It sounds, as the words leave her tongue and finally fall into the open air, so petty. So inconsequential. They have fought battles that shape the future of Fodlan and another looms on the horizon eclipsing the faint hope of dawn’s light, and she is concerned with - this. Guilt. Silly, childish guilt. 

“That sounds like it shouldn’t ever have been your burden,” Claude says, leaning against the wall that surrounds the cemetery, his eyes scanning the horizon and the sheer cliffs that drop down into mountain mist. “That sounds like that was Rhea’s problem.”

“If only Rhea’s problems remained simply her problems,” B says. Claude inhales sharply, the preface to a laugh that never comes, and his eyes are solemn and serious when he looks back at her. “But I’m relieved to know now that it wasn’t ever about me.” 

She might as well finish this confession; it is already halfway out of her mouth and she cannot swallow it again the way she has held it down for the better part of a year. Held it deep haunting her since she came back to life and learned that Rhea still hadn’t been found, spoke with Seteth and Catherine and Cyril who were so desperate to find her, desperate for B’s help in the search when B would rather offer her sword to the war. 

(If their aims conflicted, if their paths diverged, B would choose Claude over Rhea every time. She has. She trusted Claude with her secrets when he asked for them because they could use those to get to Rhea’s secrets. She placed her heart in his hands years ago and left him to it. She never could have trusted Rhea with the same, even when Claude’s intentions seemed murky then too. Knowing nothing, B threw her lot in with him. Knowing everything, she is glad she did.)

It is better to rid herself of it, spit out this feeling that haunts her, let it leave behind merely the faint lingering trace of bile in her mouth. “She didn’t love me for me. She loved me because she hoped I would become something else. If she succeeded I - I never would have existed.” Everything she is, and Rhea would have unmade her. “If she didn’t know I was that child as soon as Jeralt and I returned to the monastery” - could she have sensed Sothis’ heart, or just guessed? Did B look enough like her mother that Rhea would know? Who was B’s mother, she still doesn’t know - “she knew when I picked up the Sword of the Creator.”

She closes her eyes and continues. There’s more; there’s more as she cuts deeper into the tangled mire of her own head. “When she gave it to me to wield as I might, she - she hoped that since I was the vessel for her heart, and the sword was her bones, that would I just - not gain the powers of the progenitor god, but become her. Get swallowed up by - overtaken? Like—” She yanks at her hair like she wants to tear it out. Several times she has barely stopped herself from doing so. “That’s what she wanted, that was her endgame, erase me and give my body to Sothis and all I am would be gone.”

Sothis merged with Byleth. Sothis gave her powers over to her, became part of her soul, changing her irrevocably, because Sothis had the power but the body was Byleth’s, and Sothis could not use it as she was. It was the very opposite of Rhea’s intent: the child should have given rise to the progenitor goddess, but instead, Sothis became Byleth. When B sat upon the throne in the Holy Tomb, she was met with silence. 

The goddess is gone. Rhea tried to resurrect her and instead set them all down the path of losing her forever.

Claude shakes his head, though she is sure that the gesture doesn’t mean a denial of her summation. “And you have to wonder what would’ve happened if your father hadn’t faked your death and fled,” he adds.

That strange life she led, that baffling way Jeralt chose to raise her - her birth year unknown and the day to celebrate it simply plucked off a calendar at her choosing, a blade in her hand as soon as she could properly hold one - was to keep her safe, out of Rhea’s grasp. She could not accidentally tell someone when and where she was born if she herself did not know. She could not say with confidence she was Jeralt’s child if he did not even plainly tell her such and merely let her assume their familial relationship. If Rhea was to learn that this was the child who disappeared in that monastery fire, it would have to be from someone else, because Byleth Eisner could not tell her. 

(But it was still B who told her, wasn’t it; by picking up the Sword of the Creator, she told her.)

“The amount of power she has,” Claude continues, “I mean, how did she even - do that in the first place? Who knows what she could have done next, when we barely know how she did - everything she did.” He shakes his head, throwing his hands wide in helpless surrender. “I keep coming up with new questions I want to ask her. None of them really urgent to understand Nemesis’ threat, or for the fact that she had to drag herself up from her deathbed to tell us even this much, but still. Why you? Was it because of your father? Had she tried before you, or were you really the only newborn she could get her hands on in a thousand years?”

A thousand years. The next time someone speaks of Saint Seiros, B might start retching. Or laugh. Or, most likely, stand there blankly and say nothing while she wonders what the repercussions would be if she announced Rhea’s secrets to the world once hers and Nemesis’ corpses have cooled. If anyone would even believe her. Rhea isn’t even dead yet. B does and doesn’t want her to die. She does not know how she could grapple with either.

“Perhaps it was my father,” B says. She doesn’t want to consider the possibility that Rhea tried before; what would have become of those children? Could they have gone on to be normal, Sothis’ heart failing to implant, or would the failure of the ritual - would that irrevocably change them? Kill them? “He - Rhea knew him for a very long time.” They met when he was young. That statement hadn’t meant anything to B until recently, when Alois told her how old Jeralt really was. More than a hundred, and that just a fraction of Rhea’s long life. “Maybe she thought a child of his blood would…”

His blood. His blood. He had been given someone else’s Crest-bearing blood. If Rhea knew him when he was young then she would have seen when his aging so drastically slowed. She must have known that he was something more than a normal human. Did she think that could make a difference in her ritual? The risk of alienating an ally she had for a hundred years, compared to the chance that his child could finally be the one that could give rise to Sothis - clearly, Byleth knows what Rhea chose. Rhea chose her mother over Jeralt. Her mother over a newborn child. Her mother over everything. 

Claude is staring down at her with raised eyebrows. “Huh?” B asks. He might have said something.

“Thought not,” he says, with just a touch of the smug triumph he always holds when he’s got a plan that he’s not quite ready to unveil, but he knows it’s going to knock the ground out from under their feet when he does. “I asked if your head was still here with me.”

“Oh,” B says. And then the obvious, stupid answer that he already knows: “No. It’s not.”

“Yeah,” Claude says. “As I said, I thought not. But,” he adds eagerly, leaning forward, a sharp gleam in his eyes, “you do look like you’ve just realized something.”

“No,” she says, and then she second-guesses that, and says, “Maybe. I don’t know. It doesn’t matter. None of this matters.”

He leans back against the cemetery wall, clear disbelief written on his face. She wouldn’t have brought this conversation to this point if it didn’t matter, except she did. “Defeating Nemesis is the only thing that matters,” she says, “and we know all we need to. We know that the Sword of the Creator, that it, and I, are the only things that will - that can—”

The Sword of the Creator. Sothis. B chokes on her own heart high in her throat. “I’m the only one that can equal Nemesis, Rhea said. The goddess is dead but I’m not. I have her powers - the sword - her - her bones!” 

Her bones. The goddess is dead and desecrated and B has the remains lying in the grass at her feet because she couldn’t stand to hold them in her hands.

After what happened to Miklan she was terrified to use the Sword of the Creator, compatible Crest or not, because she couldn’t trust why Rhea gave the sword to her, couldn’t be sure that Rhea wasn’t waiting for something to happen. But Claude in the course of his research found the images of a dragon with a Crest stone in its head (the Immaculate One, Rhea), and when he reported his findings to her she became assured that she would be safe. After all, the Sword of the Creator had no Crest stone. And it seemed to be the Crest stone that caused the transformation into a beast, the Crest stone that held the power. Her Crest was compatible with the sword, and it had no stone. Surely she would be safe.

(She should have wondered how the sword had any power without a Crest stone. She never understood enough to wonder.)

But Rhea did want something to happen. Rhea was waiting for some kind of transformation because of the Crest stone. Not the same transformation into a demonic beast, and not into the Immaculate One, but a transformation all the same. Rhea set her on the throne hoping to wipe away all that she was and for that small price, B’s life, return Sothis to the world.

“The Heros’ Relics are all made out of bones,” B says. Claude - Sylvain - Hilda - and all the others. All of them are carrying corpses, but there is one key difference between the rest of them and B. “I knew her. Sothis, I knew - I told you that she - she was a presence in my mind. She spoke to me, advised me, teased me, lectured me - comforted me, gave up herself to save me! So that I had the power to return to you!” 

She finds herself on her feet before she knows it, stepping over the sword and spinning about helplessly in front of her father’s grave. “And then she was gone and I mourned her, I mourned her when there was only silence left in my skull! She was my friend! And I have to - I have to wield her bones into battle because if I do not then all of Fodlan falls.” Everyone she loves will die, just as in her every nightmare, all the times that never came to pass because she bears the powers of the progenitor goddess to turn time back. This must be another time that does not come to pass. “It doesn’t matter what we know - all that matters is that I can stop Nemesis. The goddess is dead but I’m not, so I can’t - care - I can’t - think about the rest that Rhea told us. The truth - her bones.”

Her words don’t make sense. She wants to look at Claude, to see if he understands, really understands what she means, that Sothis was someone to her, a precious friend and ally for the time that B had her voice and not just her powers - and she doesn’t want to look at Claude at all. She doesn’t want to see Claude looking back at a stranger. She remembers him dumbstruck when Rhea told them about the Crest stone, Sothis’ heart; she remembers how long it took for his wide eyes to turn to her. She remembers that he looked like he was looking at something else, something unfamiliar. She doesn’t know if she can look herself in the eye in a mirror ever again, and she doesn’t know how Claude could look at her the same way ever again.

“She was my friend,” B repeats, choosing not to meet Claude’s eyes, to look anywhere but at him, and she looks at her hands tugging her hair past her shoulders. She has never become used to this green that marks her and haunts her and yet is still not even quite the same green as Sothis’ hair. She does not look like Sothis. She looks like Rhea. All she is, is what Rhea made her. Does she hate Rhea for that? She doesn’t know. “Sothis was a goddess but - she was my friend, and I can’t bury her remains. I can’t put her back in the tomb. We have no other option than for me to keep bloodying her bones the way Nemesis did. I can’t let her rest.”

Seiros’ tomb was empty because Seiros yet lives, if perhaps only for a little longer. But the sword was in the tomb because the sword was still someone’s remains. Not Seiros but her mother, the goddess. Sothis. 

“No,” Claude agrees quietly. “We really don’t have any other choice.”

“It’s the only way to end this,” B says. “As long as we can win, it doesn’t matter why - why me, why Rhea made me the - it doesn’t matter. I told you it doesn’t matter that - why I—” 

A weight presses on her chest, like the weight of magic wielded against her, trying to pull her life from her or drown her in the dark, a growing pressure that she can’t breathe around. Half of her lungs cut off from her throat, every breath a shallow panting one like she’s wounded, and she can’t fathom why. It feels like she remembers crying felt, the only time she ever did. She can’t breathe and she can’t speak and she needs to keep speaking. “Why she made me. What she made me. It doesn’t matter. It only matters what I am now.”

Blood of the goddess, equal to the Fell King Nemesis. Bearer of the Crest of Flames. Wielder of the Sword of the Creator. Ashen Demon. A child that never cried. A heart that never beat. 

She lays a hand on her chest. There should be something there. There’s nothing there but heaviness that doesn’t let her breathe deeply enough to stop gasping sharply; she chokes on too much air that she never actually swallows. All of Rhea’s confession finally bears down on her too quickly, too heavily, too late. She wants to scream it at Rhea but Rhea is dying and Rhea isn’t here and B has a thousand more questions for Rhea and B also never wants to speak to Rhea again. “My heart, she - she took my heart. She put a stone in its place, she - she gave me a stone for a heart!”

Until she braces against something solid she has no idea she is trembling; Claude closes his hands around her upper arms, trying to steady her, but her every gasp and cough sends another shudder through her. “Hey,” he says softly. “B - B. C’mon, breathe.”

She can’t - she can’t - why can’t she breathe. She presses the heels of her hands into her chest, like the pressure will finally make something in there start moving, start beating, finally this late in her life work like it should, but all it does is hurt. It hurts, it all hurts, the quick breaths struggling to sink into her lungs and the weight inside of her ribs and up to her throat where it’s tight on the inside, too tight. Everything is wrong. She tips forward until her head finds something solid to lean against, Claude’s chest, and in there he has a heart that beats. His heart, that once he knew about hers, once he knew what an aberrant freak she is, still consoled her by reminding her that the diary made clear that Jeralt loved her, how obvious it was it every word he wrote that he loved his dead-eyed heartless child. His heart, that he hid long after she handed him hers, that he finally offered to her in return, telling her about his goals, his ambitions, his dreams, trusting her to understand. 

His beating heart, and hers—

“My heart - she put a stone in for my h-heart—”

“Easy there.” Claude moves his hands from her arms to hold her closer, her hands pressed against her chest that houses a stone now wedged between them, against his chest, and his hands rubbing a small circle on her back. “Give yourself a moment, all right? And don’t tell me again it doesn’t matter - clearly it does.”

Her eyes feel like they are burning, like smoke has found its way into them and they hurt like everything else hurts. “Why did she do this to me?”

They both know why. He doesn’t remind her. “Shh. Just try and breathe.”

If she doesn’t speak, she can simply focus on breathing, finding a steady rhythm to match the rise and fall she feels with her forehead resting on Claude’s chest. She doesn’t have a beating heart, but she breathes, and she has blood pounding through her veins. She’s no ghost, and she’s more than bones. She’s more than a vessel for these broken pieces of Sothis. 

She opens her mouth, words at the ready, and instead just inhales another longer, slower breath. One more stolen moment of silence and calm before she has to raise her head and face the world again. Before they have to hold council for strategy in this next battle in a war that won’t end. “I’m sorry,” she finally says, and the words don’t choke her. 

“Hey, don’t mention it,” Claude says. “I asked. I was worried about you. Everything Rhea said, and you just - didn’t react at all.”

He had been the one to ask the questions, to make sure they understood each new piece of Rhea’s assertions, repeating her unbelievable tale back to her. And B had listened, silently, with a vacant hollow space growing in her chest, swallowing up all of the emotions she had come to learn since Sothis awoke. Even as Claude had asked, “But the Sword of the Creator doesn’t have a Crest stone. How’s B able to wield its full power like that?”, there was some part of her that knew, had already heard just enough to know, and when Rhea said it Claude went silent, and B was not even numb with it. Numb implies that there is something beneath the numbness that is being suppressed, that will return with warmth. There was nothing in her then, nothing to warm up from the cold, nothing but that emptiness within her ribs stretching wider.

“You put her heart inside me?” she asked Rhea, just to be sure, even though she was sure, sure the way her father in his diary had been sure that something happened that was Rhea’s fault that left his child without a heartbeat. It was a stone, not a heart. She asked Rhea, just to be sure, and her voice didn’t sound like her own; she sounded just as empty of anything as her chest was. Rhea put a dead god’s heart in her, and B felt nothing at all. She looked at Claude, saw the horror drawn across his face, and thought she should share in that, shouldn’t she?

And after too long of a delay, the first feeling that welled up in the hollow in her chest had been that relief, and she hadn’t realized there was that dull horror drowned beneath it, waiting for the relief to subside to surge forward. This haunting revelation - the bones of someone she knew - that led her here.

But just as she knew Sothis - she knew her. She knows what Sothis said as they drifted in the darkness of some other world. The only way for them to return would be for Sothis to give up herself, all that she was as an individual consciousness, and she did. She refused for them to die there, even if it meant for her some other kind of death. B knew Sothis, knows what she did then, and knows if they could speak now that Sothis would scold her as she often did, demand that B pick up her damn bones and bring them to battle because they have no other choice. Are you going to die, instead? Sothis would ask. Are you going to let your friends die? Are you going to sacrifice the world because you’re too much of a fool to pick up that sword? Burying my bones again won’t change what happened in the Red Canyon! It will only mean that Nemesis slaughters everyone you love, too!

B cannot be happy about it, but she will do it. She would never have done anything else. Sothis was her friend, but Sothis is gone. Claude is still here. Claude and all of B’s other friends are still here. And she will protect them, with Sothis’ help, like she always has. With Sothis’ powers and Sothis’ blood and bones. 

“I’m okay,” B says. It’s probably mostly true. “I’m—”

She tries to draw back, but Claude doesn’t yet let her go. His hands move to her shoulders, holding her at arms’ length, keeping her closer than she would have stayed. Meeting his eyes, she finds a concerned gaze. Not horror at something right in front of him become so unfamiliar. Just concern, for a friend.

The hollow empty space in her chest fills up a little further with warmth, and she amends her statement. “I’ll be okay,” she says. “And I’m with you. I’m ready to fight as soon as we do. You don’t have to worry.”

“I wasn’t worried about that,” Claude says. “I knew you would be. You’ve never let me down.”

Her throat grows tight again. “What’s our next move?” she asks him. She has no doubt that he already has one; together, they brought together an army, and he maneuvers it to the battlefields it needs to reach, and she leads the charge once they’re there. (And the admiration goes to her, Rhea’s favorite with the Crest of Flames and the Sword of the Creator, though she would be lost without Claude; it isn’t fair, but Claude doesn't care about fair. He cares about winning, and together, they do.)

“Hilda’s fielding any new messengers that might arrive,” Claude says, “and making up a map of Nemesis’ army’s movements. I told her as soon as I get back to her, I expect her to help us start rounding up our war council for a strategy meeting, as quick as possible, so we’ve got to go find her now. I wasn’t starting anything until I had you with me.”

And she had run, instead - her whole life, trained to charge into the fight, and now at this most dire moment, she turns and runs. “I’m sorry,” she says, again.

“Hey, I also needed a moment to process it all,” Claude says. “I mean - Saint Seiros, I just—” He shakes his head, finally releasing B’s arms and stepping back. “We’ll have plenty more time to discuss this when this is over. As long as you’re good right now, I am too.”

Right now. She can do right now, set aside these feelings for right now since she has given voice to them, freed herself of their weight. The Sword of the Creator still lays in the grass by the gravesite, Sothis’ body next to the place that B’s parents are buried. She picks it up, running her fingers along the uneven edge, segmented like a spine, its color almost that of weathered bone. She wants to apologize to it, but Sothis would laugh at her if she did. Don’t apologize. Just go kill Nemesis! Save Fodlan and your friends who are still living! I’m not the one to worry about!

(She thinks she has Sothis’ indignant cadence down, still, but her voice is fading into dim memory. Voices are hard to keep - even Jeralt’s, she has begun to lose.)

Claude, standing in front of her, on the other side of the sword, is watching her carefully when she raises her head. His eyes drift down to the same place hers lingered, there in the hilt the hole where her heart goes. Sothis and Byleth’s shared heart of stone that carries the flames in their blood. B carries Sothis’ Crest in her veins and her heart in her chest and her bones in her hands. 

“I wonder who Failnaught used to be,” she says, and Claude looks away. 

“Someone,” he says finally, “who I hope would be happy to help us kill Nemesis.”

B knew Sothis, but the rest are empty echoes through the ages. Nameless multitudes, like all of the bones that mingle in massive, unmarked graves on all the battlefields they have left behind during this war. All the slaughtered villages Nemesis leaves in his wake like he did a thousand years ago, devastated, burnt to ash. 

“Claude,” she says sharply, and his head snaps back around to face her. He might expect something else about Failnaught, but nothing in her head can move so linearly, not right now, not the way the world swirls around them. “Nemesis marches under the Crest of Flames. He’s slaughtering civilians under that banner. But our army - we also - can we even still—”

Claude shakes his head. “We’ve come this far under that banner. I don’t really feel like surrendering it to a madman now, do you?” He pauses a moment for her to consider that, but he doesn’t wait for her to respond before he continues, “The Crest of Flames is ours. We’re not going to let him take it from us. And we’re not going to let him take Fodlan from us, either. If we lose, here, now, it’s all for nothing, and we’ll never see the sun rise on Fodlan’s new dawn.”

“That’s not going to happen.” B weighs the familiar sword in her hands. It is time to lay this all to rest - no more Red Canyons and Remire Villages. Whatever it takes, her Crest and blood and Sothis’ bones - if it takes her heart, she will give it gladly. If she must lay down her life, then she will. For everyone she loves, and for the rest of Fodlan with them. “We’ll see your dream through to the end.”

Claude grins at her; even with the darkness bearing down on them from the horizon, his eyes are bright. Back before B knew how to smile, she could still recognize that Claude’s smiles were another mask he wore; she could still notice that his smiles didn’t reach his eyes in situations far less dire than this one. His eyes of stone, and her heart. In the time it has taken her to learn how to have emotions, he learned to be honest with his. 

“And there’s no one I’d rather have with me,” he says. “Shall we go plan our next move?” He offers her his arm, like in Deirdru entering the chamber that hosted the Alliance Roundtable, displaying to the lords the strength of their united front, Duke Reigan and the archbishop’s titleless mercenary successor. But there’s no one else around, no opposition in front of them to stand strong against - nothing but the doubts in B’s own head, the ones she hasn’t said because she can’t let herself give voice to the possibility that they lose. Her fears, and perhaps Claude’s own as well. 

She loops her arm through his and together they leave the graveyard. 

[dragonrajafanfiction]

Dragon Dancer III: The Golden Apple

To record the conversation between Herzog and Tachibana, no device could be in the building without being discovered by these experienced conspirators. Fingel suggested an external laser tap to measure the vibration of voices against the window glass. A computer would reverse engineer those vibrations back into voices. 

Fingel would need to be outside the tower, very high up. It was Lu who suggested he use a drone capable of carrying his weight.. Heavy rain was forecast. The rain and clouds would conceal it.

Next was the question of entry and exit to get to them. There were only two ways into the building, an elevator and a metal fireproof stairwell. Both would be well cleared and blocked off by Tachibana.

"Can Fingel get photos of the inside?" I asked.

"Oh absolutely!" Fingel gave a thumbs up.

"Then that's all we'll need. So long as I can see where I'm going I can go there."

"Won't you be at the lab?" Nono asked.

I looked at her. "Remember what I said at the Mambo cafe? I can move both through time and space."

Nono gasped. "You…  plan on being in both places?"

"If I have to. Is there a clock in Tokyo tower?" I asked

"There is!"

"Fingel, be sure the photos you send me as coordinates include it."

Ruri eyes squinted shut with glee. "This is turning out better than even I imagined!" He sobered again. "I don't believe Johann Chu or Nono are capable of taking down  the King. Your job is simply to corner him and control the surrounding areas. In fact, I believe you are very well suited to the job of overwatch Lu Mingfei."

"It is my typical job at this point." He sighed, resting his chin in his hand.

Ruri then turned to me. “I’ve been very interested in speaking with you, Carli.”

I smiled and sighed to myself. “Yeah…”

“You’ve been an obsession for both Herzog and Tachibana for a long time seemingly without reason. Even though Cassell has monitored Japan for a long time, it wasn’t until your arrival that things finally began to unravel.”

Ruri’s voice turned wistful. “And now you speak to me of being sold… because you’re an emperor hybrid.”

“It reminds me of those ancient Greek legends where they throw golden apples on the field to start wars.” I said.

He chuckled. “I couldn’t have said it any better myself. You are indeed a beautiful golden apple. Fiercely desired by all.”

Negative emotions welled up in me. Starting with Anjou, then Caesar, then the Comemnus Corporation, the Devil clan, and Hydra… who would be next? This constant pursuit made me want to end my life, to hide in the sweet embrace of death, away from their grasping hands. “What do you think I should do?” I asked.

“You should keep doing what you are already doing. Using it to your advantage.”

I couldn’t help but pull a sneer. “Bait?”

The smile Ruri gave me was absolutely chilling. I leaned away, remembering that I was the same age as some of his victims.

“I don't have any pictures of the facility. But I do have the address. The lab looks like a dental office from the outside but there's a side door that leads to a staircase. I can give you the access code. Just… " He paused. "Be prepared to destroy whatever you find down there."

He returned his gaze to Lu Mingfei. “The King called Masamune Tachibana shortly after Erii’s arrival back at the Hydra headquarters. Why do you think that is?”

Lu looked up at him, a little surprised he knew that.

“For many years, he has kept her alive at the expense of everyone around him. You were quite close to her. Do you know why?”

I glanced at Johann, but his expression was unreadable. “I just assumed he loved his daughter.” I said.

Johann’s eyes narrowed slightly and then he let out an amused sigh.

Lu looked at me. “Tachibana is a jerk. He uses her. But Herzog contacted him after her return, not the other way around. It can’t be good.”

“The sooner this is all over, the sooner we all can be free. Let’s keep that in mind.” Ruri put away the schematics and the recording device.

Johann took my hand. “We should rest. The night will be long. Especially you, Carli. You’ve been passing too many sleepless nights.” Johann helped me off the stool. I looked out the door. The morning light had intensified. 

I blinked.

I had forgotten it was daytime.

I took a pill and slept through the day, dreamless. The mission was not to begin until 10 pm, but my part of it would start only after we were certain of the King’s preoccupation with the meeting. I would listen in remotely.

I sat underneath a bus station across the street from the dental office. “Come in, Come in” It was Ruri’s voice. “Report your locations.”

“This is Carli. At the lab.” I answer. “It’s quiet here. Not much activity.”

“It’s an older part of town. Not many people live here outside retirees. A perfect place for someone who’s lived as long as him to conduct his research. They ask few questions now that they’re waiting around to die.”

“Are you always this melancholy?”

“Life has made me quite bitter, yes.”

Fingel cut in. “This is all very lovely and tragic. I’m miles off the ground in the cold and rain and I’m miserable enough already! Can you please SHUT UP?!”

“Where are you anyway?” Lu asked. 

Fingel continued his rant. “I’m 60 meters from the window. Wanna come say hi? I’m just hoping I don’t fall to my death here because I’ve never flown on a drone!”

Johann answered. “Meixiu, I will send you a photo of the price time you need to come get us at our location when we’re ready to act.”

My phone dinged. It was a sample photo. He’d taken a digital alarm clock from the hotel to set it up from their hiding spot outside the tower. “Clever!”

“Quiet all lines! Vehicles are approaching the tower!”

That was my cue. I stood up from the bus station, put my hoodie up over my head and walked to the side of the dental office. The key lock readily opened after I put in the access code and sure enough, a dimly lit stairwell led down. I propped the door open and took quiet steps down.

Another heavy door opened into a room. I paused. “Do you see Herzog?”

“It’s only Tachibana for now.” I held back form the door, waiting for confirmation that Herzog had indeed left this lab.

“The lights all went out? It’s a black out!” Chu hissed.

“The whole area is dark. Stand by.” Ruri said calmly.

“That’s the voice of Herzog! He’s here!”

I smiled and nodded and opened the door to the lab. The room lights came on automatically over two rows of incubators lining either wall. Even though Herzog had only purchased five of my eggs, there were at least a dozen babies here!

My cellphone vibrated and I received a video call. But instead of Fingel, it’s a live feed of the Tokyo Tower observation deck!

“You’re welcoooome.” He said smugly.

The audio was amazing given it was only transmitted via laser measured vibrations on the glass. Herzog was sitting at the piano, tinkering lightly on the keys. “If you’re concerned about security, there’s a scanner on the table. Take it and sweep the entire place. There’s no surveillance. We are truly alone.”

Tachibana glanced around. “I trust you have already made that certain. I don’t want to waste precious time.” The elderly man approached him. “Are you still set on world domination? Even after all these years? I’ll say, time has not had any mercy on your body.”

Herzog stood up, his body shimmering. “Does this appearance seem more pleasing to you, dear friend?” His body is changing into a different form, familiar to me.

Before I could stop myself, I said. “The man... with the badges.”

“What’s that?” Nono asked.

“A long time ago, this man approached Isaac’s grandparents to invest in their company to manufacture the dragonsblood serum. His grandfather ended up turning into a servitor because of it.”

The fire stoked in my chest. “They had a little girl. The servitor killed her. Her name was Charlotte… I… ...I was given her name.”

My head was starting to burn now. I took a deeper breath and slowly let it out. Did the Matriarch at Comemnus Corp know that this would happen? Did she know that I would end up here, to take revenge for her daughter’s death? Is that why she named me this? How could that be possible? Was it just coincidence?

Johann. “The audio Ruri gave us mentioned they met twenty one years ago. Does that sound like the same time?”

“No, He would have made the deal with Comemnus before he met Tachibana.”

“I see.”

Mingfei. “Carli… how do you know this?”

Nono shut down the conversation. “Clear comms.”

Herzog chuckled. “We are the ultimate liars and schemers, you know that! How could two devils like us have the gall to ask for salvation?”

Tachibana nodded in agreement. “Yes, you are right. After the myriad of sins I have committed, how could I possibly count on God’s mercy… tell me about your bargain.”

Herzog obliged. “I know Hydra has also been looking for a way to use the blood of the Light King to make the perfect evolution elixir and you’ve found several keys toward that end… but … you still need your teacher’s help.” The spoken smile, smug in its delivery, was apparent despite the mask over his face.

Tachibana didn’t react to it. “You believe that my only goal is to get rid of you in order to rule the world alone? And now that the god is to be awakened, I’m forced to share my throne with you?”

Herzog laughed, shaking his head in dismay. “I know all too well what you’re truly capable of.”

He gestured broadly. “You have controlled the Hydra, your son is soon to be named high patriarch of this Mafia, your mute daughter has the power to destroy the world! For decades, you’ve done everything you could toward your ends. You’ve twisted the intentions of your colleagues, even fooling Cassell elites into murdering the members of the Devil Clan, most of which you created.” He continues to laugh. “You even convinced your son that ordering the execution and destruction of that girl’s family was the way of justice. Just who is the biggest devil here?”

My phone clattered against the tile floor. Fire raged from my chest to my head. 

Johann. “Carli… Carli come in.”

My voice is a bitter whisper. “Everything… Everything I’ve suffered… it’s because of them.”

I looked up at the rows of children lining the walls and I finally understood what Chisei was trying to tell me. Human kindness dictated that a child’s life was sacred, beyond sacred. That these innocent souls had to be guarded at all costs. But the root of their existence could no longer be ignored. They weren’t born because I loved Ruri or Chisei. They were here because that man had created them with a sinister purpose.

My mind flashed back to India, snuggling with Johann. I told him my father was a dragon, that my father had saved my life. “Why?” He asked me, terrified. “What does he want from you? Why does he want to save you?”

I said because he was my father.

“No,” He’d told me. “That was the reason he gave you to fool you.”

“Why am I here... why am I here?” I whispered. “Why am I here?”

“Carli? Carli! Are you alright?” Johann asked me. I’d forgotten my comms were on.

Herzog grew more passionate as he spoke. “To bring back to life the Light King! Only then can we extract her fresh blood. This is the only thing that can evolve a human into a pure blood dragon! But I need all the keys to open the Forbidden Gate. I know that you possess some of them and you know that I possess the remaining others, save one.” He chuckled. “But I believe she will come to me soon.”

“And who gets the elixir?” Tachibana asked, unmoved by the theatrics.

“Equal distribution. One gets the pill, the other gets the world.” He paused. “This daughter of yours, with this treatment, would evolve into a pure dragon. But she will still be your daughter. The same lovely person as before, extending her life greatly..”

Lu Mingfei. “Erii? Turn Erii into a dragon?”

“You really think I would do that to my daughter?” Tachibana asks.

“Of course! She’s a devoted child. She would destroy the world for you. This is why you brought her up isn’t it? To have a dragon at your disposal? The ultimate weapon?”

Tachibana folded his hands behind his back. “Then both you and she would be pureblood dragons. Is that your intention?”

My stomach was roiling. I couldn’t see this situation through human eyes any more. These weren’t just babies. These were lab rats. They were tools. He would take them and turn them into dragons, just like Erii.

“You never had any children… did you?” Tachibana asks, head bowed.

“Silly question. I have no need for petty things like that. In addition, ordinary women do not appeal to me. But your daughter is no ordinary woman. Of 100,000 humans given dragon blood directly, only one can survive. But your daughter has proven herself to be that one.” Herzog’s voice takes on the pleasant tone. “To have her destroy the world at my side would be a genuine pleasure.”

“So you’re going to give it to her. Not to Chime? You raised him as a son.” Tachibana says.

Herzog snorted. “I cannot give the pill to Chime. I can’t trust him to do what’s necessary. Even as he eats at my table, his heart is far removed from my goals.”

“Then, it seems then we have a deal. But you’re not afraid I will betray you?” Tachibana says.

“What king would be foolish enough to assume otherwise? We will battle to be the one on the throne, Tachibana, sooner or later.”

I looked on the rows of incubators. Within one, a soft, tiny hand reached up towards the sky. Is this my purpose? Is this why a dragon kept me alive? To take over the world? 

I picked my phone up off the floor. I found the picture of Erii’s room and texted Chisei Gen.

“You were right. I should have listened to you.”

“Where are you?” Came the reply.

“I’m next to what might be our children. Or might not be. There are so many of them. Herzog isn’t going to turn them into super hybrids. He’s going to turn them into dragons! I can’t save all of them. Thank you for being patient.”

“Don’t worry. I will kill Herzog in a moment. Wait for me.”

I gasped. “Chisei is!”

My comms came alive. “What’s he doing here?!” Nono hissed.

“Brother!” cried Ruri. His voice was the cry of fear and worry, not of anger. “Don’t let him get in! He’ll die!” 

“Carli! It’s time for you to move! We attack the king now!”

“I’m on my way.” I took one more look at the rows of children. I wanted so much to save them, but would it just lead to more suffering? For me? For them? Would it be the first step toward a world full of dragons?

Johann’s photo of their location appeared on my phone. I could teleport there, the time stamp was there.

I approached the first child. They were only identified by numbers. Which one was Chisei’s? Did it even matter? “I can’t... I can’t make these kind of decisions!”

I was only human. A human with human feelings and human thoughts. What would a dragon do? A dragon doesn’t feel these things. They’ll gladly eat their own family if it benefited them. 

I let my dragonblood rise in my eyes, blinking in the dim light that became bright as daylight. I felt my pupils constrict. Immediately, my emotions dampened. The calculation was simple. There were only three bloodlines fit for me.

At the top of the list, Lu Mingfei towered. Second, was Chisei Gen. Third was Chu Zihang. All others were unworthy. When I looked upon the children, I felt a deep offense. None of them. None of them were the worthy ones. These children had a twisted blood.

Herzog’s. He said he didn’t have children. He lied. His dragon mind simply didn’t view them as such.

Likewise, the light spear appeared in my hand. What had been very difficult for Carli to do was a simple thing for Ouroboros.

[strawberry-skies-xx]

you wingless thing

C H A P T E R   T E N

tags: rape/non-con, dead dove: do not eat, geralt / jaskier, original female character, original male character, angst with a happy ending, angst, angst and feels, rape, past rape/non-con, implied/referenced rape/non-con, implied/referenced abuse, emotional hurt/comfort, psychological abuse, emotional abuse, emotionally repressed, fae jaskier, fae magic, hurt jaskier, torture, revenge, past torture, hurt/comfort, past abuse, jaskier whump, feral jaskier, creature jaskier, inhuman jaskier, eventual happy ending, love confessions, idiots in love, wing kink, homoerotic wing grooming

author’s note: *hamilton voice* ladies and gentlemen, the moment you’ve all been waiting for...

nyla gets wrecked! :D

main masterlist | story on ao3 

Geralt doesn’t deal with it in the morning - or, for the entire week and a half they have left. He doesn’t get rid of Jaskier - rather, he only grows more attached, and he knows he shouldn’t, because when Jaskier inevitably leaves him he’ll hurt more for it, but he can’t help himself. No one has treated him like the fae has, treated him like a person before a Witcher, and Geralt is helpless to resist.

Nyla doesn’t do much for the last week and a half - only shows off her claim on Jaskier, but does nothing so terrible as what she brought Jaskier to a week and a half ago, which they are not talking about. Jaskier said that he doesn’t want to talk about it, and the first time Geralt did he nearly went into a panic attack, so they don’t. Geralt and Jaskier don’t talk about when he holds the fae through the nightmares, either. It’s a long list of things they don’t talk about.

Their time is up, now, and Jaskier wakes up with an excited energy, the same that he had before they made the deal with Nyla, except this time it’s a certainty. Geralt doesn’t want to think about what will happen when Jaskier leaves him once he gets his magic back. He hadn’t come to terms with it before, he still hasn’t now.

Nyla meets them in the front room, where they first made the deal, and for once Jaskier is allowed to wear whatever he wants. He picks a dress, because it falls over his wings loosely in a way that it doesn’t hurt, and Geralt tries not to look at the way the black fabric shimmers in the light, like the outfit he got for the fae before they found Nyla. He tries not to look at the fae at all, tries not to put himself in more pain than he’s already in.

Nyla smiles, but it’s bitter and her scent is tinged with anger. Geralt wonders if she’s going to follow through on her deal, and he’s fully prepared to try to force her to do it if she doesn’t. They didn’t go through all of this for nothing.

Nyla looks at him, senses his suspicion, and her lips curl up in a sarcastic smile. “Don’t worry, Witcher. I’m a woman of my word, and as pretty as the fae is, and as much as I want to keep him-” she reaches out and traces her fingers along Jaskier’s jaw, while he falls completely still, “-I don’t go back on promises.”

She meets Jaskier’s eyes now, taking her fingers off of him, and suddenly her face grows serious. “But I need a promise from you both. Once I take this collar and the enchantments off, I will be allowed to walk free. You will not hurt me.”

Geralt growls. After all she did to them, she expects them to let her walk free? At best, she’ll be allowed to live, in Geralt’s opinion. There is no way he isn’t going to at least hurt her for what she did to Jaskier - he doesn’t care what she did to him. It’s Jaskier that matters.

The fae looks over at him and shakes his head, and the growl dies in Geralt’s throat. He resents not being able to do anything, but this is Jaskier’s deal, and they’re so close that he can’t ruin his chances at getting the other half of himself back now.

“I will agree,” Jaskier says, and Geralt frowns slightly. Strange wording, he thinks, but he doesn’t put much more thought into it. He’s too focused on the i agree that he himself grits out, and the surge of anger that rushes through him at her satisfied smile.

“Good,” she says brightly. Her smile turns to a smirk, and Geralt gets the feeling that she knows something they don’t. Which, isn’t a particularly new feeling, but it’s never worked out in their favor before, and there’s no reason to assume it will now.

She lifts her necklace from her neck, revealing a small silver key on the chain, and unclips it. The key fits perfectly in the dimeritium collar, and Geralt frowns.

“Why do you have that key made already?” he asks. Jaskier freezes, and she doesn’t look at him, unlocking the collar in a complicated series of twists.

Her tone is neutral when she speaks. “You couldn’t find a sorceress powerful enough to undo this collar and enchantments until you found me,” she says, and now she turns that smirk on Geralt, whose stomach is slowly sinking with dread for what she’s going to say next. “How do you think Erynd put the collar on?”

She lifts the collar off of Jaskier, taking the enchantments with it in a simple flick of magic, like unraveling thread, and the fae slowly turns around. Geralt ignores the feeling of his magic stirring to life, and surges forward, intent on hurting Nyla for everything she did, rage surging through him. She put the collar on, she knew who Jaskier was, she hurt them in so many ways for the past month. Geralt is going to make her pay.

He’s halfway to her when her magic slams into him and he goes flying back towards the wall.

“Don’t touch him,” Jaskier hisses, and the whole room crackles with energy suddenly. Her magic vanishes, and Nyla yells as she is thrown back by Jaskier’s magic, now alive and thrumming around them, charging the air with tension like the air before a thunderstorm. It rages around the three of them, but somehow doesn’t touch Geralt, who stands and watches Jaskier turn towards Nyla, his magic pinning her to the wall.

Geralt can feel them both - Jaskier’s magic and Nyla’s. Nyla’s magic struggles like a trapped bug, the hum distant beneath the storm that is Jaskier, and the pure rage radiating off of the fae as he holds Nyla against the wall. His wings extend out from his dress now, and Geralt can almost see the Chaos lashing around him, raw and powerful.

“You said,” Nyla gasps, “you wouldn’t hurt me!”

Jaskier smiles, dark and dripping with threat, and his tone is lethally calm. “I said I will agree. Not that I did. Only Geralt agreed not to hurt you, and he’s not bound by fae magic.”

Nyla’s eyes widen and anger floods her scent alongside the fear. “I held my end of the deal up!” she protests indignantly.

Jaskier is unfazed. “And I held mine. A bit too well, I think.” He raises his hand, and twists, and Nyla screams, arching against the magic holding her in place.  Geralt doesn’t dare move, for fear of breaking the apparent bubble of protection he has around himself. He does, however, feel a cruel sense of satisfaction at seeing Jaskier get his own revenge on the woman who tormented him.

Nyla glares, panting from whatever invisible pain Jaskier inflicted on her. “You’re punishing me for using the freedoms my end of the deal gave me?”

Jaskier’s smile fades, the anger in his scent growing sharper. “Yes,” he snaps. “Because how many others have you had those freedoms on? How many others have gotten hurt because of you and your freedoms? ”

He twists, and she screams, gasping out words through the pain. “You’re… a hypocrite… for saying I’m bad… and then… doing this!”

Jaskier smiles again, just as dark and dangerous as before, and flicks his other hand, summoning a familiar dagger into his fingers. Geralt realizes with a shock that it’s the dagger he gave Jaskier, before they found Nyla, before she took their personal belongings, and he feels inappropriate heat flood his body at that thought.

“What you did to me is nothing close to what I’m doing to you,” Jaskier says, as dangerously calm as he’s been this entire time. “I could bring you to the fae court,” he muses, spinning the dagger in his fingers. “They have much more of an imagination than I do, and not nearly as much mercy.” He grins, and for the first time Geralt can see his true fae nature beneath the optimism and humanity - that of vengeance, and trickery, and destruction. He’s torn between letting Jaskier kill Nyla and killing Jaskier himself, because as human as the fae is sometimes, he’s still fae, and if this is what Jaskier has hidden beneath his humanity, what he does when he gets angry… it scares Geralt to think of what he could do out in the world.

Except, the magic thrumming around him that should’ve been raging, like every other bit of Jaskier’s magic, is instead almost caressing his skin, weaving around him softly, and it smells like sweet lemongrass. None of the anger Geralt can smell on the rest of Jaskier’s magic, like before a thunderstorm, is on the magic touching him… and even if Jaskier was truly evil, Geralt wouldn’t have been able to kill him anyway. He’s a bit ashamed of himself for even thinking of it - as if Jaskier would betray him like that. Jaskier is fae, but he’s like none of the fae Geralt has ever known - he complains about dress fabrics, and sings bawdy songs in noble courts, and lets Geralt wash his wings, and curls up next to him at night. He’s more human than he is fae, at least in personality, and Geralt would protect him with his life before he’d ever think of hurting him.

“No, no, don’t,” Nyla pleads, squirming, all her self-righteousness gone in a flash at the simple threat of the fae court. Jaskier’s grin fades, and his eyes darken.

“I won’t. Like I said, they don’t have nearly as much mercy as I do,” he replies, and Geralt watches Nyla relax for all of a second before Jaskier raises his dagger. “You’re lucky you’re getting a quick death. I’d have given you to the fae court without a second thought if I was in any less of a generous mood.”

Nyla’s eyes widen again and Geralt almost wants to laugh. He knows it’s dark, but after seeing what Nyla did to Jaskier? After talking Jaskier through panic attacks, holding him through nightmares, knowing the scent of Jaskier’s fear better than his happiness?

Geralt couldn’t care less what happened to Nyla.

“Songbird, please-”

Nyla falls silent as Jaskier throws the dagger, blade flipping through the air to land point-first, lodged in her neck and the wall. The low hum of her magic stops abruptly, leaving only the thunderous storm of Jaskier’s, which gradually calms to its own steady thrum around Geralt.

“I’m not your songbird,” Jaskier tells Nyla’s dead body, hissing the last word, and then goes quiet. He lets out a breath, all his anger leaving him and replaced by the sour-sweet scent of anxiety, the acrid tang of fear, and underlying it all, the dandelion scent of satisfaction.

He turns to Geralt, blue eyes wide, and Geralt steps towards him. He should be afraid - Jaskier did just kill a powerful sorceress, after all - but all he feels is concern as Jaskier lets Geralt wrap his arms around him, and his voice is distant and numb when he talks into Geralt’s shirt.

“She’s gone,” he whispers. “She can’t hurt me- hurt us.”

Geralt hums. “Let’s go.”

Jaskier stays still for a moment, but nods and steps back. Geralt watches him, unsure of why Jaskier hasn’t hidden his wings yet - surely he didn’t want Geralt to see them, and he was definitely planning on leaving as soon as he got his stuff back, but Geralt wasn’t thinking about that. He was savoring the time he had with Jaskier right now, and dealing with when he left later.

Jaskier’s wings flutter and he flicks his fingers, summoning their possessions that Nyla had taken, and both him and Geralt hear the quiet footsteps from around the corner.

Geralt looks up and sees one of the servant girls watching, hidden halfway behind the wall, the tang of fear and confusion rolling off of her in waves. He looks at Jaskier - he is certainly better with people - but the fae steps back and shakes his head. His eyes are tired, in a sense that goes much deeper than physical fatigue, and Geralt can’t blame him for not feeling up to dealing with people.

Geralt turns back to the girl and makes himself as non-threatening as possible, making his voice as soft as he can. “You’re free,” he says, and at the stronger scent of confusion from her, he opens his mouth to reply again.

He’s cut off by the loud snap of fingers from Jaskier and the wave of magic resonating through the mansion, and his eyes dart to the fae.

Jaskier sighs. “They were under a spell,” he says shortly, tiredly, before returning to checking his things.

Geralt looks back at the girl, but she’s gone, leaving behind the faint floral scent found in all of Nyla’s mansion, and he frowns. He turns back to Jaskier, who has both their bags slung over his shoulders and is wearing the emerald outfit Geralt had bought him so long ago, wings magically extending through the back of it. His frown gets deeper.

“You’re not leaving?” he asks, and he really does try to hide the note of hope in his voice, but Geralt has been dreading the time when Jaskier leaves so much that it’s impossible for him to. He can’t hide the note of hope in his voice, and he can’t hide the resulting spark of it lighting in him, despite his best efforts to tamp it down these several months.

Jaskier shakes his head, not even trying to analyze why Geralt had thought he would leave. If he hadn’t been tortured both mentally and emotionally for a month by a manipulative, sadistic sorceress, and if he hadn’t just killed her and been left with the adrenaline drain from that and finally realized he could let his guard down, he’d have known exactly why Geralt thought he would leave, and been able to deal with it. But right now, all he wants is to take his things, build a fire in the woods, and curl up with Geralt next to it.

And maybe… he could have what he’d wanted for so long, now that there is nothing in the way. It’s obvious Geralt didn’t want him to leave, so… it is possible.

Jaskier can’t find out without trying, though, so he looks up at Geralt, meeting golden eyes that are so carefully blank of emotion save for the small spark of hope he knows is lighting in them, and steps forward. He feels Geralt’s hands hover around his waist in response, so close to holding yet not, and he leans just slightly up, pressing his lips softly to Geralt’s.

“I’m not leaving you,” he whispers against his rough, scarred skin, and feels Geralt’s hands land on his waist. Jaskier has never known anyone to be as gentle as Geralt is, holding him like he’s fragile - and, past the tiredness, he knows it’s because Geralt thinks he’ll hurt him.

He wants to prove him wrong, wants to show Geralt that he’s possibly the kindest, most human inhuman creature he’s ever known, and he couldn’t ever hurt Jaskier. Especially not as he presses his lips back to Jaskier’s, soft and sweet and nothing like his scarred, calloused skin and title as a Witcher imply.

Geralt pulls back from the kiss, though he doesn’t move away from Jaskier, only buries his face in his neck, and hums softly. “Love you,” he whispers, so quiet into the skin that if Jaskier was human, he wouldn’t have heard it.

Jaskier smiles and pulls back, sliding Geralt’s bag off of his shoulder and offering it out to him. “Well, then let’s go.”

Geralt lets the corner of his lips quirk up, and he takes the bag, following Jaskier out of the mansion and leaving behind the memories and pain there. They’re not starting a new life, but simply continuing what they had and didn’t say, and Erynd and Nyla are going to haunt them both, but Jaskier and Geralt both find they don’t care, as long as they have the other.

[throw-away-world]

Beyond Healing

Title: Beyond Healing

Pairing: Crowley x Aziraphale

Genre: Romance/Angst/Comfort

Summary: “Listen, Aziraphale,” He pauses because Crowley would only ever use his name when it is really serious, “You can’t keep running away from your feelings. I know that we used to consider a lot of things. But those days are over. Over, Aziraphale. What we have to do now is to be fucking honest. Because honestly, honestly, honestly, I love you so much. So much. If you think I regretted choosing you then you’re bloody wrong. Because I’ll choose you again and again even if you stop choosing yourself. I’ll choose you for the both of us.”

Note: Or the time Aziraphale almost gets eaten by his anxiety and paranoia. And they’re just a mess of emotions.

oOo

There is nothing in the world that Crowley could ever love besides Aziraphale. Perhaps, it is a caving ache within his chest, feelings not meant for a demon oozing out from every crevice of his whole being, bleeding for even a drop of the angel’s love. Perhaps, it is an undeniable truth plastered in every news if he could, just for Aziraphale to look at and end up thinking something entirely else. Perhaps, it is a miserable punishment, to love with every fiber of his soul, only to end up being denied.

Crowley could not count on his hands anymore how many times he has offered himself for Aziraphale—how many times he would choose the angel over the very essence of his redesigned existence just to keep his gaze, to stay by his side.

It is laughably wretched how for many a short moment he would see Aziraphale almost becomes unravel with his affections, only to see him take a hundred steps back—afraid, always frightened by things he gets himself ruffled inside his head.

“Angel,” He utters quietly, stepping obediently back when Aziraphale flinches under his fingertips. Soft blue eyes closing sadly, anxiously, before darting open, left and right—almost in a panic. He took another step away, “Aziraphale.”

“I got to go.”

He watches him leave as he does so many times. He had gotten so familiar seeing Aziraphale’s back that it is downright wrenching—the empty popping space that surrounds him surreptitiously consumes him inside, a perfect mirror of the caving gravity his soul only ever experiences when his angel would turn away.

“What are you so afraid of?”

.

.

.

“Is it so disgusting realizing you love a demon?”

oOo

Aziraphale, perhaps, is an open book for anyone willing enough to read him. He is indeed a rather expressive being, always wearing his emotions on his sleeves when it is inappropriate. He wondered if Crowley could see.

There are not enough words in the vocabulary of humans to describe the depth of his love for the demon. He knew that once he truly accepted his feelings, he would be all over the place.

Perhaps, he would even suffocate Crowley with the amount of affections he harbors for him. Perhaps, once Crowley realizes how disgustingly in love he is, he would end up chasing him away. Perhaps, he, himself, would be suffocated by his bottomless affection for the demon—how heavily grounded he feels whenever he felt his eyes on him, how his stare would scorch his skin, mar it red with just his gaze, how he has to constantly refrain himself from glowing whenever Crowley is around lest he gave it all away, how his heart would just explode whenever the demon utters his name.

He imagines a lot of things with Crowley.

A soft atmosphere. A homey cottage. Hot teas. Candlelit dinners. Midnight picnics. Quiet murmurs. Hot touches. Genuine promises. Warm cuddles. An unravelling of existences under unadulterated love.

“Aziraphale.”

He turns and meets the glares of the Archangels he left behind.

“What are you doing here again, Gabriel? Perhaps, you are not done threatening me the other day?” He puts his bravado, disguising the churning in his stomach to the best of his ability. Gabriel huffs, crossing his arms, “We saw you again with that thing.”

“That thing has a name. He is Crowley.” He pauses before adding, “Anthony J. Crowley.”

“I don’t care.” Gabriel has always been an insufferable big man, always trying to direct things his way, “I warn you, Aziraphale, know that I’ll find ways to make your life miserable—take the most precious thing away from you and vanish it in front of your eyes. This is divine punishment.”

“Nothing about it is divine, Gabriel.” He counters, “Stop being a child. You keep telling me that for over two years already.”

“And I’ll keep reminding you, you disgrace.” With a whirl, they were gone and he is left alone once more.

He imagines a lot of things with Crowley.

One of which is Gabriel’s threat coming into fruition.

.

.

.

“I’m sorry, Crowley.”

oOo

The empty book shop was a dawning answer to Crowley.

Aziraphale left. No farewell. No letter. No warning. He left. He left. He left. The thought races continuously inside his head, a hollow echo mocking his shriveled disposition. He sees black, lips tightening, and he thumps and thumps away on his chest because it felt like he needed to breathe—he needed something inside his chest besides an erratic beating exploding inside him, choking him.

Hands finding their way to long red hair, yanking and yanking—the physical pain is nothing compared to the chaos he is feeling.

Suddenly, he wishes he burns down with the book shop. Maybe Aziraphale would come back to him then. If he knew that he is on the brink of death, probably, he could hear him say his confession—he needed to hear it just once if he could.

But Aziraphale left.

He left him.

That’s his answer.

.

.

.

“OI! A FUCKING BOTTLE HERE.”

“Sir, please. You have enough.”

“Enough? Enough?” He is near madness, hysterical, “I ought to be enough, ‘s what I am. But the bastard left. Left. Just like that. Enough, my arse. Fuck. Fuck. JUST FUCKING GREAT, AIN’T IT?”

oOo

Skittish.

That’s what he is. His silhouette would even startle him. It’s laughable. Truly. He couldn’t even be relaxed in his own home, his thoughts are quite frightening. He had to get away for a bit to clear his mind.

“Please, pray tell, why you seem to be coming over quite a lot, Mr. Fell?” Madame Tracy is a nice woman by all means. A little odd around the edges but she always means well. Their little friendship after the Armagedon’t has been flourishing splendidly to the point that visiting has become a norm.

Yet, he knows that visiting seven times a week is a bit quite too much. Performing a miracle just to transport himself in his hiding place and her house is exhausting but takes his mind off things.

“I’m sorry to disturb you on a fine afternoon, Madame Tracy,” Aziraphale started, wringing his hands in worry, “It seems that I am quite all over the place lately.”

“Oh my, whatever do you mean? Is this about Mr. Crowley?” The flinch gave him away and he sees the frown lightly marring Madame Tracy’s lips. He shrugs, “It’s not that… It’s just… I mean…”

“Does Mr. Crowley know?”

“Know what?”

“How you are feeling overwhelmed?” Her eyes were kind but stern, a sense of a motherly figure. He looks away in shame, hands altogether stopping from its tick. She walks towards him, hand gently caressing his hair in a reassuring manner.

“What is there to be overwhelmed, Mr. Fell?”

There are a lot of things, he thought. There are a lot of things he kept on stressing about. Many of them, if not all, involve Crowley. From a point to another point, he would round up to thinking about the demon. And about the fear that is keeping him grounded. Fear. What a monstrous thing to feel. Especially when it’s about losing someone.

“Everything.” He replied, “Oh, everything, Madame Tracy. I’m so very afraid. I don’t know what I’ll do if I lose him. Or if the angels harm him. Just thinking about it makes me lose myself.”

“You told me that you’re not on Heaven’s side anymore nor Mr. Crowley is on Hell’s. What is causing this fear?” She queried, her eyebrows shooting up in confusion. He shook his head, “I may be not on either side but the threats kept on coming. I can’t. I just can’t risk it.”

“What do you have to risk, Mr. Fell?”

“Crowley!” He frets, “I can’t risk him. He is everything to me. And Gabriel warned me—he warned me that he would take everything that is important to me. What if they already knew? They’re just waiting to strike. I just—oh, Madame Tracy, I can’t lose Crowley. I really can’t.”

“Dear boy,” She uttered, voice a lull in the afternoon rain, “do you love Mr. Crowley?”

“Yes.” He doesn’t hesitate in the face of a kind woman, awfully docile under her gaze, “Yes, I do.”

“Then why are you running away by yourself?”

.

.

.

“I—”

oOo

It’s been a week—a tiresome week.

Crowley lifts another glass to his lips, tongue darting to taste the alcohol. He could get alcohol poisoning—that will discorporate him probably. It will send him right down to Hell. And the demons could feast on his soul.

He doesn’t need to live anyway.

He got his answers.

After six thousand years, he finally had gotten his answer. Quite fetching, really. How creatively painful must an angel be to break a demon’s questionable heart. Aren’t they supposed to be creatures of love? Shouldn’t they be more open to it? Be delighted that they made a demon fall?

“Huh.” He chuckles drunkenly, “Fall. All heavenly creatures on Your side are just so adept in making creatures like me fall. Amusing, ain’t it?”

The silence fouls his mood even more. He doesn’t expect for anyone to give him a response. But it still pricks his overly sensitive senses. He stretches his hand and laughs loudly as the sound of glass hits the wall.

He paces towards it, picks up the shards with bare hands and crunches them.

.

.

.

“Aren’t I a miserable one, Angel? Maybe, ‘s why you left.”

.

“Couldn’t accept loving a failed existence, huh?”

OoO

The concept of love is—it’s always a beautiful thing. It is soft and warm. Something like a cotton candy, sweet. Or maybe like crepes! He always loves crepes. It is just too savory—tempting, really.

But love is not a sinful concept at all, it isn’t supposed to tempt people. But humans’ way of feeling things is rather complicated. They just don’t feel a single thing of pure goodness. They are warped strings of emotions that got jumbled altogether, blurred into grayness that you can’t see where they start or end—there’s no clear demarcation for it. It’s an absolute mess!

Not that immortal celestial beings could say otherwise. Especially, immortal celestial beings that had been on Earth for far too long. Crowley and him had always been a special case. He supposed that it’s been a long time coming. Perhaps, it has always been part of the Ineffable Plan. God has always been mysterious that way but he dares not question Her. Not that it stops him from questioning the Archangels, but still.

God is different, he likes to believe that She understands.

He likes to. Really.

After the almost Apocalypse, things were rather hectic. He was always trying to get away from Crowley. Their lovely night at the Ritz was so memorable that it had triggered emotions, opened dams that should not be opened. How could an angel be so in love with a demon? This incredible, cunning, amazing demon he had for company for many millennia, who could possibly not fall in love with him? But oh! If this is written in the Ineffable Plan then She had something in store for them. And he really never liked the surprises She would come up with.

Sometimes, they’re just so cruel.

And he doesn’t—

He really doesn’t—

What would he do if falling in love with Crowley is just a stepping stone for a bigger Plan? And what if that Plan means someday hurting him so it could be achieved? What if they would be so in love but then it gets torn to pieces? He doesn’t want to be involved in the Plan anymore. He knows he’s not on Heaven’s side anymore nor Crowley is on Hell’s.

But one can never be too careful. The angels like to remind him that quite warningly.

He admits that he had done things that should be punished. Maybe. Just maybe She is just waiting for the right time to punish him because now he has something he really does fear losing.

And if he lost Crowley—

If he does lose him—

If one day, he woke up and suddenly Crowley was taken away from him—

If Crowley gets hurt because of him—

He would, absolutely would, just die.

He’d rather keep him alive. And if it means constantly deflecting, then so be it. He’d rather be unhappy if it means keeping Crowley alive.

.

.

.

Right?

.

“Then why are you running away by yourself?”

.

“Because I—”

.

“Do you love Mr. Crowley?”

.

“I do.”

.

“Then why are you running away by yourself?”

.

“Do you love Mr. Crowley?”

.

.

.

“Why am I running away?”

OoO

“Crowley?”

It must have been his imagination, his fantasy seeping out into the shadows of his confinement. How hard did he wish to hear Aziraphale call his name again?

“Crowley, where are yo—oh, dear!” He felt warm arms, hands gingerly picking the shards that imbedded themselves into his skin. He winces as dried blood surrounding the wounds make the cleaning more painful.

“What have you done to yourself?!” Aziraphale’s frantic voice beckons him a little closer to consciousness. See? See? If he hurt himself, Aziraphale might appear. “Oh, stop chuckling, you wily fool.”

“You came back.” Whatever this is, it felt too real. It’s an amazing imagination—the only thing other demons don’t have. He croaked, letting all his feelings out, “You came back. I’m glad.”

His imaginary Aziraphale pauses, wet droplets hitting his cheeks.

“Oh, Crowley, you fool.”

.

.

.

Another morning graces his eyes and he flinches, eyes opening.

.

.

“Angel?”

OoO

When Crowley wakes up, he is besides him. Aziraphale is a shivering mess, eyes red. He had thought he would lose Crowley then and there. The poor demon was covered in glasses from head to toe, bottles of alcohol rolling left and right. He thought Gabriel has finally made his warning a reality—but there are no traces of holy presence in the vicinity, just an extra-large amount of indescribable pain.

“Angel, where did you go?” Crowley asks, eyes almost glaring. Azirphale averts his eyes, “I’m sorry, my dear. I was…”

“Why’d you left?” Why’d you left me?

It breaks him to see Crowley like this. He never thought he would cause him such pain. A surge of guilt creeps in. He bits his lips, eyes down-casted in shame. Crowley looks so fragile, so hurt that he is afraid that if he touched him, he would crumble.

“I was…” He starts again, “I was just overwhelmed.”

“Overwhelmed.” Always quick with his wit, Crowley snaps, “Overwhelmed is when I run to you, begging you to come with me to Alpha Centauri because I thought we would not be able to stop the bloody apocalypse. Overwhelmed is when I sat down at a bar, crying myself into a drunken stupor because I thought I lost you. Overwhelmed is when you told me you’re never going to talk to me again if I don’t come up with a plan. But I never truly ever left you, didn’t I?”

“My dear—”

“No. No.” Crowley puts a hand up, “Let me speak, Angel. I waited and waited and waited. When I kissed you and you told me you had to go, I let you—trustingly so. It always pains me but I hope! I hope even under such severing misery, even when you constantly deny me of the feelings I deserve from you to have, even when you constantly pretend you don’t feel the same way. I hope! But, maybe, you thought of me too disgusting? Too wretched? How would a pure creature such as you love a fallen like me?”

Every word he spoke were little knives carving at his soul. He had hurt Crowley deeply this time, more than the last time that he did when he threw his request away to the pond. Looking at the crumbling state of Crowley was stabbing him.

“I did not leave, per say.” He intervenes mistakenly but Crowley only hisses at him before spatting, “I went to your book shop! And they’re empty. Not a single trace of your beloved books nor your things are there. I confessed to you and the next thing I knew is you’re gone!”

“I just kept it away somewhere.”

“Somewhere you did not tell me!”

“Crowley, let me explain!”

“NO!” Crowley explodes, eyes starting to sting, “NO! What you need is to sort yourself out! Let’s stop this dance because it’s killing me. I don’t want it anymore.”

Aziraphale scrambles, arms hugging Crowley tightly, “I’m so sorry, my dearest boy. I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry for hurting you. I’m so sorry for being so cowardly. I just don’t want you to die.”

“Die?”

“For the past two years, Heaven kept threatening me.” Aziraphale mutters, “They told me that they would destroy everything that I love. Crowley, that’s you! Everything that I love is you. I don’t want you to get destroyed for my punishment. I’d rather die myself a million times in place of you. I never intended to truly leave but if that’s all it takes to save you I—”

“I don’t want it!” Crowley shrieks, arms finally responding to the embrace, “If you leave me, I will just discorporate myself and send myself to Hell. Be tortured for all eternity than live without you. Because I finally have you. Just to lose you because you left willingly, that’s too much. I don’t want it.”

“But if I ever do, it’s because I want you to be happy—” He sobs.

“Listen, Aziraphale,” He pauses because Crowley would only ever use his name when it is really serious, “You can’t keep running away from your feelings. I know that we used to consider a lot of things. But those days are over. Over, Aziraphale. What we have to do now is to be fucking honest. Because honestly, honestly, honestly, I love you so much. So much. If you think I regretted choosing you then you’re bloody wrong. Because I’ll choose you again and again even if you stop choosing yourself. I’ll choose you for the both of us.”

Crowley knows a lot about him. He pretends that Crowley doesn’t. But truthfully, the demon does. And it’s overwhelming how much he would hold on to someone as imperfect as he—as insecure and painfully oblivious as he. He always knows what to say and when to say them, always reading between the lines of what he speaks. Perhaps, he never really had a chance in ever hiding something from Crowley. Perhaps, he naturally couldn’t.

Because he always comes around to a point where Crowley is waiting. Always patiently waiting for him.

“I’m sorry, Crowley.”

“No,” Crowley starts, “It’s I love you, Crowley. You got to compensate me double for making me miserable, Angel. I almost poisoned myself. Yuck.”

He couldn’t help the watery smile, couldn’t help but notice how normal they could chat around after a dramatic outburst—as if it’s always meant to be like this, with him by Crowley’s side.

“Aziraphale?”

He hummed in response.

“You’ll not suddenly disappear, right?”

.

.

.

He doesn’t.

[pcttrailsidereader]

Trevor’s Eternal Trail

As a parent and a PCT hiker, I can’t imagine a more difficult but therapeutic testimonial for a father to write. Doug’s son, Trevor, died on March 27th after slipping on ice and falling several hundred feet to his death near Apache Peak not far south of Idyllwild.  This poignant reflection that will help Trevor be remembered as a complex, passionate young man and not just a statistic.

In Memory of Trevor Laher by Doug Laher

I am the father of the Pacific Crest Trail Hiker, Trevor “Microsoft” Laher, who perished in the mountains south of Idyllwild, California, this past Friday, March 27, 2020.  As you can imagine, we are devastated by the loss of our son. But somehow, my wife and I want to let the world (or at least the hiking community) know who our son was, how much he loved hiking, and why (despite everyone’s best efforts) he chose to stay on trail.

We just don’t want Trevor’s legacy in the hiking world to be that of an anonymous asterisk in PCT lore of someone who died doing what they love.  He was a man, a brother, a son, a grandson, a cousin, a friend, and boyfriend to his lovely girlfriend, Elise. He had his whole life in front of him.  This is who he was, and this is his story.

One of the greatest days of my life was the day he was born (Feb. 12, 1998, in Cleveland, Ohio). He loved playing sports as a child, but soon realized he didn’t possess the dexterity and speed to compete as an athlete, so he turned his interest and energy to academics, where he excelled.  And although we relocated to Texas in 2010 due to the recession, we still cheered on and watched our beloved Ohio State Buckeyes on Saturdays. Some of my fondest memories I have with Trevor are the times we spent watching our team as we proudly donned the school colors of scarlet and gray.  The 2010 move of the family to Texas, for a new career opportunity, was tough on 12-year-old Trevor. He threw himself into academics and video games as a mechanism to deal with the sorrow of leaving everything behind in Ohio.

Trevor was introduced to hiking in 2015 when a friend invited him on a trip to Yosemite National Park. They day hiked more than 50 miles in three days. He walked away in love with the hiking and instantly knew that he wanted it to be a mainstay in his life—to climb to mountain peaks and see the soul of our planet. It was as if the world that had existed before had only been visible to him in black and white and now suddenly everything had turned to vibrant colors. He loved the beauty of the trail—the experience and the solitude. He loved the endorphin rush of a physically exhausting climb. He loved hiking by himself.  He loved hiking with others. He loved the trail.

Shortly after his trip to Yosemite, he immediately began planning his first overnight backpacking trip with his close friend Alfredo. The flu prevented Alfredo from making the trip with him and thus began my love of hiking with my son. I served as his back-up and went from “Couch to AT” in 12 hours.

We were completely ill-prepared as we set off into the Smoky Mountains on our first backpacking trip.  We predictably made all the classic first-time hiker mistakes. We carried too much food, packed for our fears, and off we went with 50-pound packs saddled on our backs. Trevor knew I was not in shape to do this hike when he asked me to join him.  I agreed to do it to spend time with my son. He told me, “Dad…I’m getting you to the top of this mountain—you lead the way. We’ll go at your pace. Stop as frequently as you need to. We’ll get through this together.” It took nearly five hours to traverse more than 3,000 feet of elevation gain over five miles to the first shelter.  Trevor offered multiple times that we could head back down to the trail head and call it a trip. But we hadn’t driven 12 hours to turn around and head home. We persevered. The trip took a physical toll on my body (chafing, exhaustion, soreness, and two lost toenails). And despite all that, it was an adventure of a lifetime that I will cherish forever.

When it came time to go to college, there was really no decision to be made. Ohio State was the easy choice. While there, he blossomed and turned into an amazing man. He joined the Trekking Club at Ohio State. He hiked the Presidential Traverse in the White Mountains of New Hampshire and the South Kaibab Trail in the Grand Canyon (down and back in less than six hours). He also made at least one trip back to the Smoky Mountains every semester with his good friend Chandler. Trevor simply loved hiking.

Trevor and I would try to schedule hiking trips together when we could, mostly while he was on break from school.  Our most recent adventures included Eagle Rock Loop in the Ouachita National Forest and the Outer Mountain Loop in Big Bend National Park.

It was during this time at Ohio State that he developed a passion for exercise and fitness. He was obsessed about being physically fit because he knew he would need it for something he had been dreaming about since he was 17 years old.

About 18 months ago, Trevor told me of his intentions to carry extremely heavy course loads over his next three semesters at Ohio State so that he could graduate a semester early to hike the Crown Jewel of all long-distance trails, the Pacific Crest Trail. I objected at first. It was a source of contention with us for several months. Then, approximately a year ago, I started buying in to the concept of him hiking the PCT. And if he was going to make this hike, I was going to serve as his wingman, his trail manager so to speak.

For months on end, I spent hundreds of hours watching PCT vlogs, reading books, and watching gear reviews.  I began the long process of purchasing all of the gear he would require for his adventure. Trevor had two main agendas during this time. First, to study hard so he could finish school early. And second, to focus on maintaining, and even increasing, his already high level of fitness. Trevor ran 30 miles a week to keep himself in top physical condition.

We both obsessed over the trail. As the research and days passed, I became more and more emotionally invested in Trevor’s hike. I wanted this adventure for him as much as he did for himself.

Trevor hiked Big Bend a second time right before Christmas 2019 with his best friend Domenic. In grieving with each other this past week, Domenic told me that “Trevor and I had just finished the trail. I was exhausted and I was looking back at the mountains with amazement, bewilderment, and wonder. It’s at that moment Trevor looked at me and said, ‘Now you know why I’m so passionate about hiking the PCT!’ ”

Trevor’s need to put mileage under his feet prior to his trek was one thing, but his training for the PCT was next level. He deprived himself of comforts knowing that he would not have them on the trail. On our last training hike together (a quick 15-miler), he laid down in the creek bed soaking himself through.  Trevor knew there would be stretches of the PCT that he would need to hike soaking wet, tired, and exhausted.

Trevor’s cadence might be as slow as 2.6-2.7 miles per hour when doing a leisurely hike with me, but he could instantaneously turn on the jets at a moment’s notice.  I was always in awe to see him hike at a 3.5 mile-per-hour cadence up steep climbs. And he could maintain that pace for hours. He was 6’3” and 200 pounds. He had long legs with a huge stride. If God wanted to create his vision for a perfect hiker, it was Trevor.

Unlike most PCT hikers, Trevor knew he was not going to make it to Canada. Trevor was a brilliant computer coder.  He was offered a job at Microsoft, starting mid-July. So, when it came time to securing the permit for a PCT start date, he knew he would have to start early. Even with starting early, he would only have around 100 days on the trail. His target was to reach Crater Lake by July 1 and call it an adventure.

We knew starting in mid-March had its risks. We developed a plan accordingly. If there was heavy snowpack in the Sierra, then he would bail at Kennedy Meadows and head immediately to the Southern Terminus of the 800-mile Arizona Trail. We felt our alternate plan wouldn’t be needed as reports of a low snow year in California made an early start on the PCT possible. We were happy his plans were coming together.

So on March 9, roughly a month after turning 22 years old, Trevor, my daughter Olivia, and I headed to Phoenix, Arizona, to spend a week with his grandparents, after which they would drive him to Campo a week later. Everything was in great shape. And then, suddenly, everything started to unravel.

We got to Phoenix on Monday the 9th. There were growing concerns about the coronavirus, but nothing significant—at least that’s the way it was when we boarded the plane. Upon landing in Phoenix, the world was changing in front of our very eyes. The stock market had crashed. Concerns of the virus were growing with each passing day. That week was full of excitement for Trevor and anxiety for me.

The day before we left, I told him that maybe going on the hike was not such a smart thing to do anymore. But he was within spitting distance of the Southern Terminus of the PCT in Campo, so the yearn to start on March 16 was strong. In his mind, he was practically touching the Southern Terminus. Nothing was going to stop him now.

His sister (Olivia) and I flew back to Texas on Friday, March 13. Saying our final goodbyes at the airport, Trevor gave me a longer embrace than usual—much longer in fact. And in that embrace, he whispered to me, “I love you Dad. Thanks for all you’ve done to help make this adventure a reality for me.” To which I replied—“Go hike the shit out of that trail!”

His grandparents dropped him at the terminus on Monday morning.  A few quick photos, big smiles, and some hugs. Then he was off on the adventure of a lifetime.

Trevor pushed himself to Lake Morena on day one. He couldn’t have been happier. It was in Lake Morena that he connected with his tramily. The tramily would morph into larger and smaller groups of people over the coming days, but there were three gentlemen whom he consistently stayed with through the entire journey: Leo from Milwaukee, Jannek from Germany, and Cody from Australia—the latter two were with him on the morning of Friday, March 27, when the accident happened.

His group hiked through a snowstorm, pulling into Mount Laguna on Wednesday. They were fortunate enough to hole up in one of the tiny houses to escape the snow. Their game plan was to stay there two nights as heavy snowfall was scheduled through Thursday. But they wanted flexibility in their plans and only booked one night. When they called the next morning to book a second night, they were told the tiny house had already been booked. They had no choice but to head back out into the snow.

I spoke with his hiking partner, Leo, this past Saturday. He told me how miserable that day was. They were cold, soaked to the bone from the heavy wet snow. They were miserable. The group struggled unsuccessfully to find a protected location to set up camp. It was in that moment, during their first real moment of adversity on trail, that Trevor told him, “It’s during these moments of adversity, through trial and tribulation and our actions in dealing with these moments that define who we are as human beings.” Hearing Leo recount this to me brought me to my knees. I had been sobbing all weekend after I learned of his passing, but this shook me to my core.

That same day, the day of the snowstorm, the Pacific Crest Trail Association (PCTA) had issued a statement that all thru-hikers not yet on the trail should postpone their hike, and that all hikers already on trail should get off due to COVID-19 concerns. I pleaded with Trevor that it was time to end his dream. To come home. The trail would still be there for him next year. Or five years from now. Or even 10. Trevor said that until it became illegal to stay on the trail, he was going to continue hiking. “This is my dream Dad…I’m living it right now. The views, the vistas, the things I get to see are the most beautiful that I’ve ever seen in my life. If I lose this opportunity now, I’ll lose it forever.”

And so became our daily argument for the next week. I begged him to postpone his trek. I told him he was being selfish. I told him he was putting himself and others at risk. That he wasn’t thinking about Elise, his sister, his mother, or me. I threatened I was going to withdraw financial support and would no longer resupply him (my last option). I think we both knew I would not do that.

I said things I regret. I even lobbied the USFS to terminate all PCT permits to no avail. The most haunting, prophetic thing I said to him was, “Please come home. I don’t want you to get sick on the trail—or worse yet, die. It would devastate me if I had to be the one to call Elise and tell her something happened to you.”

After about 5-6 days of trying to convince him to come home, I realized he was staying put. There was no getting him off the trail, at which point I would focus on supporting his hike. I vowed to myself, if he wouldn’t come home, then I’d at least do what I could to keep him as safe as possible with current information and good resupply boxes.

Trevor and the group trudged on. They were closing in on Warner Springs, having just passed PCT mile 100. I sent Trevor a text and asked him how he was feeling and how his body was holding up. He told me other than a few pesky blisters, he was feeling great and that his body was strong. I remember him saying there were a couple of members in his tramily that were nursing some injuries… sore ankles and knees, but he said could not have felt better.

Trevor’s closest trail friend, Leo, was nursing a bum knee after hiking several days without a break. Leo got a hitch from Warner Springs via the PCT Trail Angels Page on Facebook to a hotel to take of couple zero days to heal up. Leo encouraged Trevor to take those zeros with him but Trevor, Jannek, and Cody were still feeling strong. Trevor had limited time on the trail. They were going to press on without Leo. While sitting in his hotel room for a couple of days watching the news, Leo learned of the severity of COVID-19. He decided to end his hike at this point. I’ve asked myself multiple times, “What would have happened had Trevor stayed back with Leo that day?” His decision to press on will haunt me forever.

Our last communication with Trevor was on Thursday night. They had just pulled their 8th straight day of “twenties” (twenty-mile days) by completing a 3,000-foot climb. Arriving to their camp site at PCT mile 166.5, they hunkered down for the night. Trevor sounded exhausted. He was eager to complete the last 14 miles into Idyllwild where he, Cody, and Jannek were planning to take two zeros. While in town he’d pick up his resupply (which included his ice axe and microspikes) in preparation for Mt. San Jacinto and Fuller Ridge. He never made it to Idyllwild.

A friend called me on Friday to notify me of a tragic accident on the PCT close to Trevor’s last known location at mile 166.5. Of course, at that time, we didn’t know the hiker involved was Trevor. The news report mentioned a hiker had succumbed to their injuries before the rescue team arrived.  The report suggested the rescue occurred “near” Mountain Center, of which Trevor was close to the prior day. He was now some 10-15 miles past that point. But when you’re dealing with the wilderness, the word “near” could mean one mile, five miles, 10 miles, or even 25. I was slightly concerned and would remain that way until I heard from Trevor, but I was confident he was well past the search area. I had two thoughts. First, Of all the hikers on the trail, what is the likelihood this deceased hiker was Trevor? Second, He had his driver’s license with him. If it was Trevor, Search and Rescue would have certainly reached out to me by now. I was confident it was not him, but would remain mildly concerned until I heard his voice. That voice never came.

7 p.m. rolled around in Dallas/Fort Worth. I knew Trevor would have been in Idyllwild by now. Every time I tried calling, it went straight to voicemail.  He would likely have access to internet in town. Therefore, he would most likely be on his phone. It was also about this time every night that he would check in with us via call, text, or his Garmin InReach.  I started to worry. I called the Riverside County Sheriff’s office.

I won’t go into all the details of the next several hours, as some of those details will only remain with my family. Speaking to the Sheriff’s Deputy who orchestrated the Search and Rescue, and then subsequently to the Coroner were some of the most difficult conversations I’ve ever had to have in my life. My life was changed forever when the Coroner told me, “We have Trevor.”  

To the best of our knowledge, Trevor slipped on a patch of snow-covered ice near Apache Peak (PCT mile 169.5). Trevor’s accident was first reported by Cody and Jannek via their emergency GPS device at roughly 9:38 a.m. PT. Rescue crews from the Riverside Mountain Rescue Unit and the California Highway Patrol Medic and Air Operations Unit arrived on site at roughly 10:30 a.m. Five fire trucks, two helicopters, and more than 24 rescue personnel fought the elements during the rescue mission.  One helicopter focused on rescuing Cody and Jannek while the other attempted to locate Trevor. Dangerous terrain, coupled by severe weather, prevented the helicopter from locating Trevor. They were able to locate a safe landing spot to drop Medic Charles Rhodes of the California Highway Patrol (CHP) onto the trail. Medic Rhodes hiked and eventually bushwhacked a total of five miles to reach Trevor at 1:30 p.m. Sadly, prior to Medic Rhodes’ arrival, Trevor had succumbed to his injuries from sliding several hundred feet into a steep ravine. I am grateful to the men and women who risked their lives to recover my son. I will forever be in their debt.

As you can imagine, Friday, March 27, 2020, was the darkest, most painful, heartbreaking moment of our lives. The grief of losing our son has hit us like a tsunami. The unstoppable waves drown us in grief each time they hit. There’s nothing that can be done to stop them. It’s several days later now, and the waves still come.

I yearn for the day when Trevor’s family and closest friends can talk about him and look at photos without pain or grief, but instead smile and recall the happy times we shared together.

Trevor was not a statistic. He was not a PCT asterisk. He was everything you want in a son. As parents, we were so proud of him. He was our child. Trevor LOVED hiking! He was handsome, responsible, and smart. He was going to make this great world a better place. He was convinced he would someday write a computer program that would change the world. Most importantly, I want people to know that he cared deeply about his family and friends. He was philosophical. He was a deep thinker. He genuinely cared for others, encouraging those closest to him to be “the best version of themselves they can be.”

Just as in life, Trevor made the same impact on others during his brief time on the PCT. As communicated to me by his close trail friend Leo, who said, “While our time together was brief, it was intense. We had several deep conversations on the trail and my viewpoint on the world has in many ways changed because of Trevor.”

My hope and wish is that Trevor’s death can start the healing of a hiker community that has been ravaged and torn apart by COVID-19. What was once a free-spirited group who loved “The Trail,” the community has become name callers who have hurled insults at each other because of one’s position to hike or not to hike. I beg of you, that if there is one way we can honor Trevor, I ask that you put aside your differences and come together as a community. And I ask that you not judge Trevor for his decision to remain on the Trail. COVID-19 did not kill my son. His death could have happened to any one of us, in any year.

In closing, I’d like to leave you with a quote from Trevor shared with me by his girlfriend, Elise. In which Trevor says, “We are not individual souls, but a collection of the souls of the people we love the most—we are one in the universe.”

Be good to each other. Love each other. Come together as one hiking community and heal the pains by which the coronavirus has inflicted upon this community. That’s what Trevor would have wanted.

Hike on, my son. I count the days when we’ll be rejoined again on the highest of all mountain peaks in Heaven… on the Eternal Trail. The trail of eternal life.

[yespoetry]

Caitlin Scarano: There Is No Ending

I know we’re all sick of poems with deer but let me explain

 Last night: a forest of hospital beds

 I want to ask all these strangers: do you ever think every day you’re getting closer to your death or do you wake in the morning with hope crusted in the corner of your eyes, your teeth already grinning at the air?

 Grief is a very complex machine, it told me so itself, a matrix

that takes years

A.     to navigate

B.      from you like teeth

 Dear J, I have a few acres all to myself now, you should see them

 I’m sorry you had to turn so many stones

while I looked on at a careful distance

 The male human heart at age 36

Who knew, I guess

 It’s true that I didn’t mind the horses starving outside my window, as long as they

            came when called, as long as they were gentle with their teeth

            I mean, I had many apples going to rot, what else could I have done

 I read about how the water in Lake Superior is replaced every 191 years

 Remember the spot where I dove under and was rolled by a wave and for a moment I did not know what was up or down, what was past or present, you or⁠—

 That winter, the lake froze, trace lines of cracks in the ice colliding, the fractures in my body all met

 In another dream, you’re in front of me⁠—solid, tangible, with a dark beard and corduroy pants

I ask you about dying and he you say, Let’s go to this city I know

Then you disappear into a tangled forest and I follow, stumbling, ripped by thorns

 You’re always just out of reach, always just turning the next corner

 Remember those children we watched while we ate ice cream on that green bench in Sault Saint Marie? Silly

            that isn’t my favorite memory of you, not by far but it’s the one I keep

coming back to

 I took it so I should have wanted it

But the sugar made my teeth ache

 Every memory is two-sided, like that day we lay in the grass watching ships pass through the lochs

Distance is deceptive

It was sunny, the photos you took prove it

            But the wind⁠—

 Or the wind and the rain that day we met at the lighthouse, you wore a black sweater, I hadn’t seen you

            in years, you looked younger, time doing its mirror trick

 The scene draws us

We weren’t ghosts but we were

both adrift, though only one of us knew it

 When I reach the city you spoke of, it’s been abandoned for decades

 Every memory is two-sided, like the time you were driving and the Jeep hit

black ice and spun out

Like the time I was driving and my car died as we coasted down hill

 In a human dream, electric blue hydrozoan creatures blossom in the Superior’s deepest water

 Every memory is two-sided, and nothing is mine to claim

 I run these dirt trails near my house, I think of you, I touch my chest, count my breaths

One day I came upon this mother dear and two fawns, they were tiny, spotted, legs so ready to give out but they did not give out

 J, you should have seen them

  Generational, Domestic

 I drink from the cup that made me

before blood congeals across the top.

 Touch the muscles of your back

while you sleep. What does cruelty express?

 A fear so deep it creates its own

gravity, the world pours in around

 the rim. Despite how light clawed, it could not

get out⁠—not after, not from within. I live by a river

 and dream of living by another river. Throw my baby

teeth into it like coins in a well. Wish and watch

 water pass, think of how it bows and braids,

think of the circulatory system, nervous

 birds on loop. My niece appears in a dirt-stained

dress holding yellow zinnias as they blossom

 and rot, blossom and⁠—Does movement remind you

of death or escape? When you bite the inside

 of my thigh, what memory of violence 

unfurls like a seed? Generational, domestic. Your mother

 tells you she prays for us and I swallow

it whole like a duck egg. A blue mud wasp

 taps against my window, where its always

been. While we sleep, bindweed inches up

 the walls and ceiling. Coils around the lamps.

Tomorrow, we’ll eat the heads of morning.

 A Litany of Dreams You May Borrow

 The one where I pick sunlight off my skin like scales or sequins

 Or I have a boy’s torso and a jaw

that doesn’t lock when I start to laugh

 Any of the dreams with snakes or my mother trapped in a radiator vent

            because they spring from the same well

 My little sister and I are teenagers again, still speaking to each other, and she climbs a sugar maple and never comes back

 The ones where rain comes through the roof but not the ones where it is snowing in my room

 S. and I still live together but a gray horse circles the house, starving

No one names it

 My father is in a hospice bed, holding up his rot-dappled organs one by one

as offerings to me

 The cow pasture

where I’m in a wedding dress carrying a pitcher of his blood

 B. and I are back on the beach at night and she kisses me except this time ocean is made of milk and sweet

 No one invents sin so we sun ourselves on the rooftop

 Any dream of my grandfather⁠—that skull for a face, the parrot watching on, the white sheet and long fingernails

            In fact, you may keep them, convince yourself there is a lesson

 The dream where the brakes gave out

The dream where the brakes gave out

 His head is in my lap and the window is open even though it is January outside

 A war between nations of men takes place in my mother’s dining room

            My sisters and I watch from beneath a table

 Those you can leave: any dream where he says my name

aloud or his mouth is against my hair, any dream

where the dead forgive

 The first girl I loved asking Are you sure you don’t know me? until she disappears

 The whole room slants and I fall from the bed to the wall as if the house is trying to shake me from itself like a parasite

 The dream I had after S. found the knife I hid beneath the nightstand

 The one where I saw our sons using sticks as swords, their mouths yellow

and chose not to have them

 The first gentle boy from my childhood is back and we are in love

 When the church burns down and my sisters and I are blamed

 The one where what I love is not unwell, not in need at all, so I shrink to the size of a kitchen ant and crawl away

 My mother is my daughter and when she speaks, hummingbirds fill her mouth like arrows

 The one where I actually forgive him and he leans back then, rests his eyes, says

            There is no ending

  Alessandra sends me two pictures of her son eating his first strawberry

 while I’m home alone reading about central sleep apnea because this morning Calvin woke me up at 5AM by rubbing my back because (he said) I kept holding my breath and he is afraid (but doesn’t say) that I might stop breathing all together. On our jog today Cara told me that she’s going to try dating again and there isn’t much out there so she’s meeting a corporate lawyer all the way in Seattle for lunch on Thursday. Part of me is jealous—to get to meet strangers that you might have sex with or raise a puppy with is to feel very specifically alive right? The internet says I cannot suffocate in my sleep. I have this one memory of when I’m four or five and my father is sitting in the tub and I just let myself in to the bathroom and ask him how often he clipped his toenails and he laughs like kids are so fucking werid and says and said Maybe once a week? When we can’t stop worrying about each others deaths this is how I know we need each other. I can’t remember Alessandra’s baby’s name even though I met him once when we were in Portland. I don’t want children but one time on a long drive I imagined a three or four year old kid in the backseat of my Subaru asking me smart and weird kid questions and me giving honest answers and developing this whole lifelong relationship with a human like there is a way to never be lonely. I was startled by a sound but it wasn’t really a sound just a door closing in my body. I didn’t tell Calvin about it. Instead we talked about our little sisters and how we’re scared for them. The internet says my brain will panic and wake me up. I tell him I want him to confide in me but what do you say to I have a very real fear that the next time I hear about her it could be that she’s dead. I get it at least somewhat—what it means to see a boat drifting away from you. The last time I saw M she was more angry than any person I can remember it was like being beside a live wire I wasn’t sure if I could speak if I could even ask her if she was okay without making her not okay like the whole world is made of string and it can unravel if you say or even think the wrong thing. I don’t think there is a way to never be lonely. In the pictures the baby’s fingers are red and his laughing and sitting on a checkered picnic blanket and it looks like real summer in Wisconsin. I don’t really want to date strangers again. Everyone good I’ve found I still don’t know how I kept them. Some days I don’t want him to leave the house for fear of what might happen next. I remember when M and I were little she was hardly ever mad just withdrawn and we were there like two islands beside each other never really able to say what we meant or needed and now my mother calls me and she’s just painted the trim in the living room mountain air white and she starts to cry thinking about thirty years in the house where she raised us that she wants to sell and I say You haven't left yet and she says I’m already gone. Calvin just texts his sister now even though he knows he won’t get a response and I imagine those messages floating in a black void with stars because it all goes somewhere. I write back Don't you wish you could remember your first strawberry? The interest promises me I’ll take another breath.

 The mountain has no childhood to speak of

 and no child to soothe. Thought it might tell you something

of its formation, even though it does not remember.

 Or that there is no universally agreed upon definition

of a mountain. It would speak less about light

 and ascension and more about its insides. I have veins,

the mountain would say, a circulatory system of sorts

 but no organs. The mountain would predict your disappointment.

It would refuse your offer for a brain and a heart. Knowledge

 and loneliness, the mountain would explain, pass from sky

to water to stone. Mountain embodies strangeness, thus has no notion

 of strangeness. Mountain understands destination.

It has been desired. It knows you

 think it’s trapped; that it has never left and will never leave.

But, if we let it speak, it would tell you: I have touched

 every corner and crevice of this carved valley. Has seen so much

come and go⁠—loon, kingfisher, lynx. The people that

 tried to erase people. Mountain has hounded

wander. But will have nothing to say about hunger.

 If you sit with it long enough, mountain might admit, I am afraid

of dying. Of the slow wearing, the slow away. Wind and water.

 Mountain will teach you a word that means both companion

and destroyer. Though it does not sleep, mountain dreams,

 of being ripped out by the roots. Mountain wonders

if mountains bleed.

Caitlin Scarano is a poet based in northwest Washington. She holds a PhD in English (creative writing) from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and an MFA in Poetry from the University of Alaska Fairbanks. She was selected as a participant in the National Science Foundation’s Antarctic Artists & Writers Program. Her debut collection of poems, Do Not Bring Him Water, was released in Fall 2017. Her work has appeared in Granta, Best New Poets, Best Small Fictions, Carve, and Colorado Review. You can find her at caitlinscarano.com