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gloomwitchwrites · 4 months ago

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Tattoo Artist Simon "Ghost" Riley x Female Reader

Content & Warnings (per the warnings MDNI): swearing, describing a man’s size, brief alcohol, non-descriptive mentions of sex, intimidation

Word Count: 3.5k

A/N: Part Twenty-One of Ink & Needle

The past resurfaces. Simon's enemy shows his face.

Chapter Twenty

ao3 // taglist // main masterlist // ink & needle masterlist

Three Years Ago

“Confess, bitch. Give us the details.”

Sam takes a towel to a bottle of prosecco, the cork popping as she dislodges it. Jade collects four tumblers from the mini-bar and sets them out on top of the low dresser the television sits on.

“Don’t leave anything out,” adds Jade, tossing her blue hair over her shoulder.

All of you are freshly showered and wearing the fluffy hotel provided robes. The softness is absolute heaven. Like wearing a cloud.

You sigh heavily and fall onto your back on the plush hotel bed, hands pressed over your eyes. There is a pleasant ache between your legs—a reminder of your wraith. His scent still lingers even though you stood under scalding water and scrubbed the day away. There is a hint of mint. Of black tea. A whisp of smoke.

Maybe it’s in your hair.

Maybe it’s embedded into your skin.

Thorns that have burrowed and only time will push them out or leave them to fester and infect.

“What do you want to know?” you groan, rubbing your temples.

Already, the alcohol is beginning to creep from your system, leaving a tension behind that signals an oncoming hangover. It’s not piercing yet. Just a nuisance. Sam tops off the glasses and the prosecco is distributed. The bubbly drink burns your nose a bit but it drives off the blooming headache.

Begrudgingly, you push up to a more seated position, your three best friends staring back expectantly. It’s the moment of truth. You’re facing the jury. This is your judgement.

“Was it good?” asks Sam, one eyebrow arched in question. She takes a sip of her drink, leaning slightly to the right, adjusting the front of the robe.

“Yes,” you reply slowly.

“And?” she prompts, waving her hand in a signal to go on.

“Do we have to talk about this right now?” you mutter, staring down into your dwindling glass of prosecco. If you’re going to get through this conversation, you’re going to require more.

Jade sets her glass down on the side table between the two beds. She goes up on her knees, excitement buzzing through her bones. “How big was he?” she asks. “What did it look like?”

“Jesus Christ, Jade,” you groan.

Yes. More prosecco will fix this.

“Just say when,” interrupts Jade. She brings her hands flat against each other, and then slowly starts to move them away.

Sam snorts, and then chokes on her beverage, nearly rolling off the bed as she goes for a tissue. You stare dumbly at Jade, not saying anything.

“Just say—seriously? Seriously?” Jade’s hands are unrealistically far apart. “This is impossible. I’m starting over.”

“Stop,” you laugh, grabbing her hands. “He was…decent?”

“Decent?” snaps Sam. “We don’t get any details? Color? Length?”

“Girth,” adds Jade. “A prominent vein?”

Sam rolls her eyes. “Girl. Give us something!”

You glance over at Evie. “Are you going to help me at all?”

She shrugs and sips on her prosecco. “I’m curious too,” she says softly.

You down the rest of your prosecco and immediately regret it. A wave of indigestion hits you and you swallow down a burp.

“Okay,” you concede, holding up one hand placatingly. “Fine.”

The three women settle onto the bed, all their attention on you. It takes a moment—a deep inhalation before you begin. But you do, and you tell them most of it. You talk about Ghost’s proposition out in the alleyway and of where he took you to. You describe the positions he put you in, and how damn good the man was at tonguing orgasm after orgasm out of you.

They sigh and swoon. They giggle or simply stare open-mouthed.

There are some things you don’t say. You don’t tell them how you felt in your heart when you left or the circumstances of why. The sense of needing to run was insistent and strong, but looking back—you now feel shame.

You regret not staying even for a few extra minutes.

“Damn,” sighs Sam, leaning back on one elbow.

Jade just blinks, her mind still trying to process the information.

Evie smiles behind her glass, and you know that look. “What?” you prompt, lightly smacking her thigh.

“Sounds like you had fun.” She lightly smacks your thigh back. “Aren’t you happy we went?”

Now

“Bag packed?”

“I think so. How’s Lillian?”

Evie takes a bite of her sandwich and glances down into the bassinet. “Asleep. For now.”

“How are you feeling?” you ask softly, walking around to the side of the bed. Sitting down on the edge, you lean back slightly, staring at your friend.

It’s been over a week since Archie’s parents came to visit. The rest of the day and the following, Evie was a mess. But her cheeks have color to them now, and the bags under her eyes are almost non-existent. She’s always been the mediator, but it doesn’t seem like she’s willing to the mediator in this anymore. Her fuse no longer sparks.

While Evie hasn’t spoken it out loud, her actions indicate her willingness to separate from Archie’s family completely. It would be better for everyone, but mostly for her mental wellbeing. She’s dealt with too much of their bullshit, and it’s time that she breaks away from them for good.

It’s their own fault. Their own behavior that has caused all this. It never had to come to this, and now they likely won’t see their granddaughter at all.

“Better,” she sighs. “A bit nauseous.”

“Headache?” you ask.

She nods. “I just need a little caffeine. Maybe something carbonated.”

“All the paperwork signed?”

“Yep. On the table in the kitchen.” Evie takes another bite of her sandwich, chewing slowly. “Thank you for doing this.”

“It’s fine, Evie. I’m happy to do it.”

“I know,” she says quickly. “And I know I keep thanking you, but I do mean it. Having Amelia around is wonderful, but she wouldn’t be able to do everything you’re doing for me.”

It’s true in a way. Amelia has been integral in helping with Lillian, but it is you that has spent all your time taking care of the financial end. Mister Grant calls you. The estate agent contacts you. You are Evie’s voice at the moment, and you’re more than happy to do it.

“I’m not the one packing anything up,” you laugh, throwing up your hands. “All I have to do is point and Jennifer’s assistant will label it.”

“That’ll be easier,” sighs Evie. “I can’t imagine trying to go through all our belongings by hand.”

You shrug. “I get to eat lots of takeout in the meantime. I’ll be fine.”

Evie reaches out and squeezes your hand. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome, Evelyn Green.”

Her grin is infectious as you push up from the bed and snag the backpack you packed. Hefting it over one shoulder, you salute Evie and walk out of the room backwards. You hear her giggle all the way down the hall.

Once the paperwork is in your hands, Amelia drops you off at the train station. You spend the entire trip hunched over the paperwork and reviewing the list you made of all the items Evie wants to keep. She’s giving you liberty to make the final call on most things, but you know it’s because she’s doesn’t want to deal with any of it.

It’s understandable. Everything in the home reminds Evie of her dead husband, and she’s already emotional delicate. If she doesn’t want to look at or deal with any of it, you’ll carry the burden.

When you arrive in Cambridge, it’s a quick taxi ride to the house.

The quiet is almost ominous, and the dark rooms seem bigger without anyone here with you. For a moment, you consider calling Simon to ask if he’d like to come out here and join you. But the idea is quickly dismissed. Simon has work. He has a job to do. Already he’s made numerous changes to his schedule just to accommodate your needs.

It’s not like he wouldn’t come if you called. You know that if you picked up the phone right now and dialed Simon’s number, he wouldn’t even hesitate. Simon would come like a moth to a flame.

But moths are often consumed in fire.

You think better of it.

The estate agent, Jennifer, and her assistant are supposed to arrive early in the morning to start the pack-up process. There isn’t time to dwell on your feelings or how much you wish Simon was here with you.

On the kitchen island, you set out the paperwork, organizing it now so you don’t have to deal with it in the morning. You just want to sleep—to have as much quiet as you can before the work begins. Lillian keeps Evie up, but the little one keeps you up as well. The lack of sleeping is starting to eat away at you.

It’s a fresh start in a way. You sleep deep and you sleep hard. When Jessica and Mollie arrive, you’re refreshed.

“Evelyn wants these packed?” asks Jessica, gesturing toward an array of kitchen appliances.

“Yes,” you confirm.

Jessica nods and Mollie writes “pack” on a sticky note before attaching it to the mixing bowls. Plenty of things are going into storage for now—at least until Evie is confident enough to find her own place that is uniquely hers.

You haven’t broached the subject explicitly. It’s only been mentioned in passing, and Evie agreed that she didn’t want to sell everything off only to have to replace it later. What she truly wants is for the house to be sold. To create a space that doesn’t constantly remind her of her dead husband.

You and Jessica walk around the entire house and garden with Mollie trailing behind, her arms loaded with tape, paper, and sticky notes. It takes several hours to go through everything, and by the end you’re starving. The coffee and croissant you ate for breakfast are out of your system entirely.

Jessica taps away at her phone, a frown on her face. “I swear. I’ve been having issues with this thing all morning,” she grumbles.

Mollie shrugs. “Want me to reach out to them?”

“Please,” sighs Jessica. “They’re supposed to deliver the boxes for us. Find out from John what time.”

Mollie nods and grabs her tablet, her fingers tapping away furiously. She gives her back, one arm clutching the tablet while her other hand unloads the pens from her coat pocket.

Jessica turns to you with a bright smile. “I’ll find out when the boxes are supposed to arrive.” She lifts her phone in the air. “If this will cooperate. Bloody technology.”

“It’s fine,” you laugh. “They’ll get here when they get here. I can manage until then.”

“Too true,” she beams. “At least you have a few to start with.”

“But the rest will be boxed up independently?”

“Yes,” confirms Jessica. “Just take the things that Evelyn wants. Leave the rest. I have the keys. When the team is ready, I’m meet them here. We’ll take care of everything else.”

“Wonderful,” you sigh, as you say your goodbyes and escort Jessica and Mollie to the front door.

The boxes do arrive, but so do an endless parade of people. Mister Grant stops by to review the paperwork before handing over more for you to take to Evie when you return to London. The appraiser comes to evaluate the house, and several different contractors arrive to assess potential fixes that Jessica suggested during the walkthrough.

It’s an avalanche of faces—and the only one you want to see is Simon. It’s the face you think about when you slip into bed that night. It’s the face you imagine when the ache between your thighs grows and you need some sweet relief. It’s the face in your dreams that night, and the one that lingers when you wake.

You need Simon like plants need the sun. He is your light. Your sustenance. This love blooming in your chest is a twisting beast that intends to devour you whole. It is lovely. It is consuming.

All you want is him.

When you return to London, the first thing you’re doing is heading for 141 Ink to spend an afternoon in his shop. Watching Simon work is a pleasure. You’ve only witnessed it a few times, and it was hypnotizing when you did.

“Really?” you mutter, staring at the text message on the phone screen, stuffing the rest of your breakfast into your mouth.

It’s Jessica! New phone! Sending the assessor out to you today! One last walkthrough!

“They were just here,” you groan, staring around at all the empty boxes. “Why is this necessary?”

The boxes were delivered, but they were all flat. At least packing tape came with. Otherwise, you’d be out of luck. Evie wants some things to come to Amelia’s and those are the items you’re supposed to be collecting. That is supposed to be your focus at the moment.

And a new number for Jessica is annoyingly inconvenient, but you’ll deal with it. Her phone was acting up yesterday.

“Whatever,” you say to the ceiling, updating your contact information for Jessica.

You continue to pack, taking breaks every so often to check work emails. You’re in the zone—a flurry of activity—so when the doorbell goes off, you nearly flinch at the sound.

“Jesus Christ,” you mutter, sealing a box with packing tape.

Pushing up to standing, your knees pop. The doorbell rings through the house again and you sprint to the front door, legs a bit achy from crouching.

You open the door, a little breathless. “Hi!”

A man in his mid-thirties stands on the other side. His dark hair is cropped short and he wears a polo with khakis. On the left side of the polo is a little logo that says “Heisman Consulting.” He clutches a clipboard in one hand and has a utility belt hooked around his hips. Behind his right ear is a sharpened pencil.

“You must be the assessor Jessica mentioned,” you greet.

“That’s me,” he says, presenting his hand. “I’m Jack.”

You take it, giving him your own name. It’s a firm, strong handshake. His eye contact is intense. It’s a bit strange actually. You’re not sure why he’s staring like he’s trying to see into your soul.

“We just had the assessor here yesterday. Did Jessica give a reason for another visit?” you ask, trying to keep your tone light.

Jack just grins and it’s disarming. “Second opinion.”

“I see,” you say slowly, not understanding at all.

What’s the point of a second opinion? Did the first one already come back? That seems unlikely. These things don’t happen overnight. But you’re not the expert on real estate. This is out of your depth.

What you want is to leave this conversation as quickly as possible and return to your task. “I have a few things to take care of. I’ll make sure to stay out of your way while you walk around the property.”

“That won’t be necessary,” replies Jack, his smile still in place.

“I’m sorry?”

“Jessica wants you present for the inspection.”

You laugh, the sound awkward as it leaves your lips. “No she doesn’t. I’ll be around. Just come grab me if you need something.”

Jack shakes his head, shrugging his shoulders casually. “Jessica isn’t happy with the last assessment. Wants someone else observing.”

“Like a witness?” you ask.

He shrugs his shoulders again, and the unease only grows. Why does he want you to stick around so bad? If anything, you shouldn’t be in his way at all.

“Fine,” you concede, attempting to give him a smile. “Not sure I’ll be of much help.”

Jack glances down at his clipboard and removes the pencil from behind is ear. “S’all good, love.” He winks and notes something on the clipboard before his gaze scans the room.

Love.

In Jack’s mouth, it sounds like an insult. It doesn’t sit right. The only person you enjoy calling you that is Simon.

You try to smile, but it falls flat.

There are too many things to do, and you only have a few days to complete them. You’re supposed to be in Cambridge for the weekend—returning at the latest on Tuesday if necessary.

“Where would you like to start?” you ask, taking a cautious step back, edging toward the paperwork sitting on the counter.

Jack takes another gander of the kitchen and living room. It’s strange, really, how he’s observing the space but not really looking at it. It almost appears passive, like he’s not interested in it at all.

You tuck the loose paperwork into the binder Mister Grant left and lean against the counter, arms crossed over your chest.

“Let’s cover the outdoors first,” Jack finally says. “Weather is all right for now. Never know when it might rain.”

“Sure,” you reply. “Let me grab my coat.”

You quietly excuse yourself, heading for the guest bedroom. It’s at the end of the hall. Tucked away. Even though you don’t sense a presence at your back, you keep checking, glancing over your shoulder like Jack will suddenly appear.

It’s silly, really. Why are you uneasy about all this? Jessica sometimes gets back to you last minute on things. It’s just a little tight. A little odd. But it’s not completely unusual.

Grabbing your coat, you return downstairs, finding Jack near the patio door. He’s hunched over a bit, blocking your view of the handle.

“Want to start in the backyard first?” you ask loudly, tugging on the coat.

He turns sharply, his mouth a firm, flat line before morphing into a smile. He’s still blocking your view of the handle.

Reaching behind him, he slides the patio door open. “Sounds great.” He moves with it and stays there. “Ladies first.”

You slowly approach and brush past him. Jack is far too close and you wrap your coat a little tighter around you as he exits after you. With clipboard in hand, the two of you begin walking the perimeter of the house.

Jack never removes any tools from his belt. He doesn’t measure anything. He only observers and makes notes on his clipboard. There are no questions asked. Nothing. The silence is excruciating, and while you’re itching to break it, you don’t dare do so.

There is a chill beneath your skin, and it’s not the cool December air. It might be cold out but it’s not that cold—not like it can get in the States. This is a creeping chill. One that starts at a point in your chest and slowly spreads outward until the tips of your fingers and toes feel numb.

Jack isn’t wearing a coat, but perhaps he’s simply used to the weather. He doesn’t appear bothered by it.

“Anything I can help with?” you finally ask once the two of you make it back to the patio area.

“Just keep close,” he winks, stepping inside the house.

You stand just outside, unsure if you want to go in at all. Your phone burns a hole in your pocket. The urge to call Jessica is intense—nearly stifling.

You step inside, glancing back the interior handle. The screws are gone. And the lock is clearly broken.

“What the fuck,” you mutter, whirling around to find Jack standing nearby, a hammer clutched in his fist.

Jack isn’t smiling. His frown is deep. A scowl. Your gaze darts to the hammer in his hand and then back up to his face. He’s between you and the front door. The only way out is through the patio door. It might be directly behind you, but you still have to run along the side of the house to make a break for the road.

If you’re fast, you could do it. But you’ll have to give Jack your back. And he’s wielding a fucking weapon. Even if you’re out of swinging distance, he could still hurl it at you like a javelin.

Slowly, you slide your foot backward.

Jack remains utterly motionless.

“I’m calling Jessica.”

Again, Jack doesn’t move. Doesn’t speak.

You take another slow step backward.

Without taking your eyes off of him, you fish out your phone, holding it up in the air. With Jessica at the top of your message list, it’s not difficult to hit the “call” button. There is a pause before you hear the muted ring coming from your phone.

But that isn’t what unnerves you.

A ringer goes off. Loud. Near.

It’s not Jack. He still stands there in the middle of the room with hammer in hand. Unfazed.

It’s coming from behind you.

The muted ring from your phone and the loud, audible one sync together. Jack’s gaze slowly shifts from you to a point over your shoulder.

Your eyes burn and you don’t realize that you’re crying until the salt of them sting your cheeks.

Jack isn’t looking at you anymore. His gaze is beyond. Absorbed elsewhere.

Twisting, you glance over your shoulder and find a man standing just outside the patio door. He holds up a ringing cellphone and half of his face is covered in burn scars.

“Hello, love,” he says, voice gruff like he’s smoked an entire pack of cigarettes. “The name’s Kit.”

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bullet-prooflove · 2 years ago

Text

Real: Nestor Oceteva x Reader

A companion piece to: An Act of War

Tagging: @annetje @anime-weeb-4-life @danzer8705 @drabbles-mc @alwaysachorusgirl @witches-unruly-heart @mysoulisasunflower @im-just-a-mississippi-girl @est1887

There’s silence, that’s all Nestor can hear as he sits on the couch, you’d fallen asleep on last night wearing nothing but one of his button up shirts. He remembers coming in late and smoothing the hair away from your features as he pressed a kiss to your forehead. The blanket that had covered your legs was still tossed over the arm, a chaotic testimony to your presence. He couldn’t bring himself to look at it. Instead, he gulps from a tumbler of scotch and feels the burn ignite in his chest.

He's tried your cell phone, and it’s had gone straight to voicemail.

It never goes straight to voicemail.

He doesn’t bother to leave a message; he knows there was no point.

It’s you in that burnt out car. He hopes that you hadn’t known the end was coming, that it was over before you realised what was happening.

He fills the glass once more and sags back onto the sofa, his eyes closing, blocking out the world around him. He doesn’t want to be here in the home that the two of you have made together, in the place that’s brought him so much joy. His eyes sting and he pinches the bridge of his nose to stave off the tears that threaten to overwhelm him. He remembers the last time he felt like this, sitting on his brother’s bed after the funeral, staring at a picture of the two of them as kids.

One night, he promises himself, sucking in a breath. One night to wallow, one night to grieve, one night to bury the pain, one night to get numb. He’s coming for them after that, he’s releasing that vitriol, that agony, that rage and he’s going to burn their fucking lives down around them and salt the earth.

He’s half a bottle in when he hears the scrape of the key in the lock. It’s quiet, just the scrape of metal and he just fucking knows that they’ve coming to finish the job. He wonders who it will be on the other side of that door, will he recognise the face, or will it be some nameless stranger?

He almost lets it happen. He wants the release that comes with death, he wants the anguish he feels in his chest to die with him. He wants to see you again, even if it’s in the afterlife. But he also knows you wouldn’t want this for him, that you’d want him to fight it, to find a way to keep on living.

The gun is already in his hand as the door opens, his finger on the trigger as he holds it at chest height. He may be drunk but he’s sure he can still hit centre mass if he has to.

When you step through the door he freezes. His heart fucking stops in his chest because he feels like he’s seeing a fucking ghost. You look tired, there’s a sprinkling of dust in your hair and on your jeans. Your jacket is slung over your arm as you close the door behind you softly. It isn’t until you look up, your eyes resting on the gun in his hand, you realise that anything’s wrong.

“Nestor?” You question.

He’s on his feet in an instant, gun clattering on the coffee table. You don’t know what’s happening but you’re suddenly wrapped in his arms and it feels like he doesn’t want to let you go. He smells like smoke and scotch, there’s a tremble in his shoulders, you can feel the muscles quivering underneath your fingertips.

“Tell me that you’re real.” He whispers against your skin, his breathing ragged as he clasps you close. His voice is broken, you can hear the emotion in it as he chokes. “Tell me that I’m not dreaming and you’re really here.”

You’ve never seen him like this, so raw, so distraught. It breaks your fucking heart. Your palm comes to rest on the nape of his neck, your thumb tracing the curves of the tattoo that’s inked behind his left ear.

“I’m real.” You tell him softly. “I’m here my love.”

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cdyssey · 2 years ago

Note

Prompt. Barbara finds it hot that Melissa has a tattoo

ANON, IOSFHOI. So I was working on this prompt before the latest ep. came out, and what do ya know—Barbara's storyline was all about tattoos!! I worked in some stuff from the episode where I could.

AO3 Link

CW: Emotional Infidelity

—

“Zach wants us to get tattoos of each other’s names,” Jacob announces to the teacher’s lounge one lunch period, and Melissa is the first to vehemently protest, “Hell to the no.”

She even sets her fork down—even though it’d already been halfway to her mouth with a bite of homemade ziti—to give the kid her full and undivided attention.

This is how serious she is about him not getting the dumbest fucking tattoo on planet Earth.

“Absolutely not, Mr. Hill,” Barbara—who is sitting next to her in her usual chair—agrees with a vigorous nod, regarding the junior teacher with the same concerned look one might give a cartoon construction worker before they walk into an uncovered manhole. Melissa can see it in her eyes—how much consternation the idea is already giving the older woman.

Between Jacob and that one kid’s mom, it hasn’t been a good week for Barbara and tattoos.

Personally, Melissa thinks they’re fucking hot for the most part.

There’s only one exception, and Jacob is unironically proposing it.

“Aw… I actually think it’s a sweet idea,” Janine smiles at him encouragingly, to which Melissa and Barbara both turn to her sternly.

“Stay out of this one, Janine,” Melissa shakes her head.

Quite kindly.

“Please leave the advising to the adults,” Barbara says at the exact same time.

Quite warmly.

And Gregory jerks a casual thumb in their direction. “Yeah, I’m with them. That’s weird.”

“What?” Jacob pouts, offended by the synchronized disapproval. He crosses his stick-like arms over his chest and glances at each member of his four-person audience with wounded puppy eyes. “You didn’t even hear about our design ideas! I’d have a left shoe tattooed on my forearm, and he’d—“

But Melissa mercilessly cuts across him. “Stop right there. Ya ain’t doing that and hear me out as to why.”

“If it’s because you think we might break up—“ The young teacher starts loudly, indignation in every syllable.

“It’s not that,” she talks over him even more loudly. “Jesus, don’t get your boxers in a twist.

“I don’t wear boxers, thank you very much! I wear specialized underwear that was sourced from recycled materials at a local dump.”

“Damn,“ Gregory mutters as even Janine cringes. “Why would you even admit that aloud?”

“I think he’s proud of the fact,” Janine sighs knowingly, rubbing one of her brows.

“The point isn’t the underwear,” Melissa says hurriedly as Jacob opens his mouth again, presumably to preach about the rainforest-saving wonders of recycled trash underwear to them all. “The point is that you shouldn’t get a tattoo like that when you’re as young as you are.”

“I’m nearly thirty!” Jacob protests, and Barbara laughs richly, smirking around the rim of her coffee tumbler.

“You say that like it means something, sweetheart,” she hums coyly, offering Melissa a wink.

At sixty-five and fifty-nine respectively, the two women can both happily scoff at the idea that thirty is even remotely old. What they’d both kill to have thirty-year old bodies again! So much energy and zeal, all of their joints still working as God intended…

“Life changes and its people do too,” Melissa grins at her friend rather impishly before turning to Jacob again. “And while I think you and Zach are great, both of ya could be forty, fifty, sixty, and suddenly want to die from embarrassment ‘cause ya’ve got each other’s names stamped on each other in permanent ink.”

“And you could also break up,” Barbara, somewhat of a perpetual realist, offers neutrally.

“Yeah, that too,” Melissa shrugs one of her shoulders.

It’s harsh but true.

“Cynics, both of you,” he laments in the dramatic tone of someone who is already half-convinced, peering back and forth between each of their disapproving faces like a pendulum. “So what if it’s a mistake? Shouldn’t it be my mistake to make and eventually learn from?”

But Melissa only shakes her head again, her readers slightly rattling where they’re loosely perched on top of her hair.

“Take this from someone who’s already learned that mistake so you don’t have to,” she says in an almost casual voice, drawing the widened eyes and lenses of every person and camera in the room. She takes a careful bite of her ziti and pretends to be unbothered by the excessive attention.

“What?!” Janine and Jacob yelp together.

“Melissa Ann Schemmenti,” Barbara begins in a hushed voice—always deathly serious when she uses the second grade teacher’s full name. Her dark eyes are comically stretched open, her mouth rounded in a perfect ‘o’ of surprise. “You don’t mean to tell me that you have Joseph’s name tattooed somewhere on your body, do you?“

Joseph.

Only Barbara has ever called her ex-husband by his Christian name—usually to indicate her dislike of something he had just done.

And it’s fair enough, of course, because the kindergarten teacher is the one who saw the writing on the wall when their marriage started to fall apart in the first place.

Who was the loudest person to tell Melissa that she deserved better.

And who had been the only one willing to identify Joe’s flaws and name them for what they actually were when all the rest of her family kept preachin’ about how divorce was a sin and they just needed counseling from Father Zogby and blah, blah, crushing Catholic guilt, blah.

And Melissa had loathed Barbara for all of that initially—for her meddling and her cloying concern, for her righteous, stinkin’ judgments—but then, when Barbara showed up to her house with a homemade poppyseed chicken casserole the very evening she got served papers, she had never loved the woman more.

Loved her in a schmaltzy, dramatic, I’d-kill-for-you-goddammit kind of way.

Loved her in the same way she knew all the carefully organized spices in her cabinet.

Intimately and perhaps entirely too well.

In hindsight, that casserole had probably been the beginning of the end for her.

The moment when her friendship with Barbara Howard first became complicated.

“Did,” Melissa corrects pointedly to which Barbara coughs into her napkin—suddenly averting her eyes—and she immediately feels more insecure than she did even two minutes ago when everyone started looking at her all funny. Unwanted attention, she can take. Hell, if push comes to shove, she can solve it with the application of Rocky and Balboa—the names of her well-timed fists.

But Barbara’s disapproval and Barbara’s censure?

Barbara’s politely phrased criticisms?

Barbara’s scandalized coughing?

And Barbara’s passive aggressive smile?

These multiple condemnations have always gotten under her skin, even from the beginning of her time at Abbott when she just thought of Mrs. Barbara Howard as the snooty kindergarten teacher down the hall who looked and sounded like she had a Bible shoved up her fine ass.

“Got it lasered to hell with the money I won from that scratch-off last year and then paid my girl Ronnie a whole paycheck to get somethin’ else in its place,” she continues, forcing herself to grin smugly. This revelation settles just as well on the faces of everyone in the room as the first.

Incredulously.

“Melissa,” Barbara breathes next to her. “Oh, my Lord.”

She ignores this invocation, isn’t sure that she likes the tone.

Largely because she can’t tell whether she’s receiving the other's marked disapproval or not.

“What of?” Gregory asks, perhaps the only unaffected one of the bunch. Bless him, he even looks a little bored by the topic of conversation.

Good kid.

She needs to bake him a pie sometime.

“A bunch of roses,” she shrugs, a little red in the face, feeling the weight of Barbara’s intense gaze raking her over from the side—not even or just barely three feet away. The way they sit these days, their knees are nearly knocking beneath the table. “All different colors ‘cause I like ‘em. They’re my favorite flowers.”

“Where?” Jacob inquires nervously, gesturing vaguely to her body. “I’ve never seen a tattoo on you before.”

“That’s because it’s a tramp stamp,” she arches a brow, incredibly amused by how he immediately blanches at the bluntly articulated phrase. “I don’t reckon you’re looking at my ass, are ya, buddy?”

“No, ma’am,” he squeaks hastily, his voice at least an octave higher than usual. “Absolutely not.” And then, seemingly realizing that he may have gone overboard on the rebuttal, he quickly adds, “Um, not that you don’t have an ass worth looking at! I’m sure your ass is top of the line.”

Barbara makes an indistinct noise in the back of her throat that goes unmentioned as Jacob rambles on, but Melissa, perpetually attuned to the woman sitting next to her—sensitive to every microscopic movement and word—is briefly undone by the fragmentary sound. (What does it mean? What is Barbara thinking? Is she still staring at her? Does she disapprove of the tattoo in the same way that she does PG-13 movies? Or is it more so the fact that it had once been Joe’s name etched into her skin, carved there like an oath?)

Jacob is still talking when she forces herself back into the moment. “More than top of the line, really. I bet people of all genders are very appreciative of it. It’s just, you know”—he points frantically at himself instead of finishing the thought—“but anyway, thanks, Melissa. I’ve changed my mind. You’re right. I’m not getting the tattoo.”

She hadn’t expected a litany of praises for her ass to come from Jacob Hill of all people today.

Huh.

The world continues to surprise her all the time.

“Good,” she chuckles deeply and goes to shovel another bite of her rapidly cooling ziti into her mouth—still resisting the urge to the left, still trying to be distant and intriguing and tough in front of her colleagues and all the ubiquitous cameras besides. Still a little distracted, her mind full of Barbara. “Then my work here is done.”

“Why?” Janine finally pipes up, cocking her head curiously.

“Why what?” Melissa shrugs, placing her ziti fork down again. “Ya gotta be more specific than that, kid.”

“Why, uh, get something else there when you were able to get the first one removed?”

She can’t lie—it’s a very good question—smart, logical, incisive.

But it’s one that she doesn’t particularly feel like answering because the plainest and most intolerable truth is that she didn’t want to live with that ghost on her body. Even when the tattoo was gone, annihilated into atoms and nothingness, she still knew it was there, the memory of it pressed into her backside like a blade. She and Joe were both young and fucking stupid when they got them, barely out of high school and unaware that nearly three decades later, they’d both be screaming that they hated each other across their shared room.

But that’s hard to admit to herself—much less to a room full of people—so she comes up with a much more palatable lie.

“Tattoos are sexy,” she smirks straight into the closest camera, hamming it up. “Isn’t that right, Barbs?”

She finally feels brave enough to glance to her side again, where the older teacher is now looking anywhere but her, seemingly engrossed by something on the ceiling, her cheeks dark with blush.

“You know how I feel about tattoos,” she murmurs in her lilting church voice, the kind she only uses when she wants to imprint a moral lesson. “The body is a temple for the Lord.”

Even though she’d been expecting the answer, it still stings a little.

It still hurts.

Barbara's most deeply held convictions often do.

“Yes,” she replies stiffly. “And I decorated mine with flowers.”

It’s an icy end to their conversation.

Barbara only stares at her, disc-eyed and speechless, as Melissa angles her body away, violently spearing her ziti like it’s done something to her.

—

Barbara’s mouth tastes rather awful…

... because her foot has been stuck in it all blessed week—starting with offending Tamika’s mother and apparently continuing with hurting Melissa’s feelings as well.

She had been shell-shocked—simply appalled!—to learn that Joseph Lombardo’s name had once been tattooed above her friend’s… top of the line ass as Mr. Hill had so colorfully called it.

And she had been, well, she doesn’t know what exactly happened to her body when Melissa explained that she’d gotten the tattoo removed and replaced. As heat had clambered up her throat and settled somewhere in her cheeks, she had thought that maybe she was experiencing a hot flash of sorts.

Yes, that was it.

A mere hot flash that was incidentally coinciding with Melissa talking about her floral tattoo. And as she determinedly looked at Melissa and then away from her—for completely unrelated reasons, of course—she recited Bible verses in her head and asked for the Lord God Almighty to help her.

With the hot flashes.

Obviously.

Hours later, when her kids are napping and the lights are out and her door is firmly closed, Barbara impulsively Googles roses for no reason at all, scrolling through the plethora of flowers and idly wondering about the vivid colors that are stained across Melissa’s canvas of a skin.

Red would go perfectly with her long, wavy hair, but blue would be a striking option for contrast.

Magenta is Barbara’s favorite color.

Black is stately and beautiful and melancholic all at once.

She scrolls and scrolls and feels abjectly guilty and she scrolls, occasionally replaying the scenes from lunch in her mind’s eye alongside fantastical imaginings of a smooth and continuous back, going on and on forever, with a spray of varicolored roses climbing down the trellis of a spine. She’ll apologize to her friend later—sincerely, humbly, and emphatically. She will beg her forgiveness and contemplate whether she even deserves it—always and forever her worst critic, the first to discipline herself when she realizes the error of her mortal ways and the last to let herself off the hook for them.

She hurt Melissa’s feelings.

How careless of her and how cruel.

But school doesn’t end for another hour, and there’s nothing she can do with her guilt until then except live with it and scroll, scroll, scroll.

She daydreams of petals blooming across a pale apricot sky, scarlet and utterly beautiful.

—

“Goddammit, Ava,” Melissa exhales bitterly as she bends over for the third time. Her back is even starting to ache from the repeated exertion; she’ll have to lounge on her heating pad all evening just to work out all the newly formed kinks. “Are you gonna help me with these boxes or what?”

The second grade teacher and principal are in the front foyer, where the UPS guy had just unceremoniously dumped ten fresh cases of copy paper in front of the double doors. Mr. Johnson’s already gone home for the day, which means that someone’s gotta get all of this shit out of the hallway before tomorrow morning.

Melissa had grudgingly volunteered and dragged Ava along with her, mostly because she still doesn’t feel like talking to Barbara yet.

In hindsight, this wasn’t the best choice in the world because Ava is currently alternating between taking selfies and simply laughing at her struggles.

“And miss this view?” She smirks suggestively, gesturing at Melissa’s backside with a flourish of her well-manicured hand. “It’s like if I got front row seats to Beyoncé and decided I wanted to go home before she’s thrown it back even once.”

“What’s up with people talkin’ about my ass today?” Melissa huffs, finally lifting the box and dropping it onto the nearby cart with a dramatic thud. She leans on its handle for a minute to catch her breath and tenderly massage her lower back, lifting the tail of her shirt a little to work the tips of her fingers against the skin there.

“It’s something to celebrate,” Ava laughs, now back to taking selfies, professionally adjusting her head to capture an assortment of angles. “If I had your ample endowment, I’d be backin’ that baby up against every Sally, Dick, and Harry in the club. Ya feel?”

And she thrusts her hip outwards just for emphasis and a little oomph, clearly amused with her own cleverness and innuendo.

“Why do I even talk to you?” Melissa shakes her head wearily, currently wondering why she didn’t just ask one of the three twerps or even her own (dubiously helpful) aide. Annoying as they all occasionally are, at least they won’t openly objectify her on school grounds.

“‘Cause I’m Oprah and you’re Gayle, and besties gotta ho each other up.”

“Don’t you mean hype?” She asks skeptically, though her mouth vaguely twitches at the corner.

“Yeah, sure, whatever,” Ava replies, not really paying attention anymore, and so Melissa, snorting once despite herself, leans over again to grab the next box, conveniently looking away when the telltale and familiar clicking of heels arrives…

—

Oh, sweet baby Jesus and the grown one too.

Barbara is staring at Melissa Schemmenti’s ass.

More specifically, she’s staring at the sliver of white skin that’s visible between the bottom of her hiked up blouse and the waistband of her tight black jeans, where she can just see an explosion of autumnal color.

Ruby and violet and peach and gold.

The delicate black outlines of petals, the ink stark against her creamy complexion.

Barbara had come to apologize, to make things right between them, but the second grade teacher is bent over in a very specific way, and her wretched body is coincidentally trying to act out again at the exact same time. Her mouth is rapidly drying—her face inexplicably heating up—and her knees suddenly feel liable to give way beneath her in an entirely undignified manner.

My, my, these hot flashes, she thinks.

She should call her gynecologist soon and get them seen about.

“See?” Ava points at her, cackling mischievously. “Even our straight-laced, Jesus-lovin’ Barbara’s turned on by you. Look at her all flustered!”

Melissa turns around instantly, her hair whirling behind her like fire, and straightens upwards into the air in a not entirely graceful movement, stumbling a little and clutching her lower back like it’s hurting her.

She doesn’t admit to it, though.

Never admits to any of her hurts unless forced to a knifepoint.

“She isn’t turned on,” Melissa scoffs readily, rolling her darkly framed eyes. “She’s just here to preach at me again.”

“Damn,” Ava curls a fist over her red mouth, bitting her centermost knuckle. “That’s a read.”

“Wrong. Both of you,” Barbara shakes her head slowly, merely annoyed by Ava’s crass accusation and simply undone by Melissa’s.

(Is that what she thinks of me?)

(Is my moral judgment the one thing she has learned to expect?)

(Have I preached at her enough to teach her to do so?)

“I came to apologize,” she pleads, very quietly, wishing Ava wasn’t here watching the whole affair like it's one of her favorite shows, wishing that the cameras weren’t in their faces, silent and omnipresent voyeurs. “I’m sorry, Melissa.”

A pause as she catches her breath and assesses the other’s expression: Melissa is simply staring at her, caustic and always so damn wary. She doesn’t sleep with a baseball bat beneath her pillow as far as Barbara knows, but she might as well for the way she carries herself in the world—as though there is a threat on every corner.

“I’m so sorry,” she goes on, impulsively reaching out to cover Melissa’s hand where it’s resting on the handle of the loading cart, squeezing once and squeezing tight. The other teacher's skin feels cold against her own. “I didn’t intend to hurt your feelings… and I hope you forgive me for doing so. I’m sure your tattoo is gorgeous, a Paradise unto its own.”

Wild and magical and elegant all at once.

A garden of prismatic delights.

Like you, she could say, but she’s deeply conscientious that this could be construed as proving Ava’s teasing point. She’s not turned on, Principal Coleman—not consumed by the mere thought of Melissa, not breathless at her overwhelming presence, not knotted with the unbearable tension of her absence.

She is simply having hot flashes.

There's a perfectly medical explanation for the chemical reactions turning her body into a whirling merry-go-round.

Melissa softens almost immediately, melts like ice cream beneath the sun, gentleness in her eyes.

Love.

Unfailingly quick to forgive her.

Maybe a little too much so sometimes.

“Forget it,” she shrugs, working her thumb from beneath Barbara’s palm and staying it against the side of her hand. She shivers at even this slightest touch, feels its impact and its echo reverberate down the length of her entire arm. “Water under the bridge and shit.”

They lock eyes over their clasped hands, the air taut between them, like a power line humming with electricity.

After a few seconds, though—a few heartbeats that Barbara feels all the way up in the column of her constricted throat—Melissa withdraws her hand and pulls it to her hip, tenderly rubbing at an apparent sore spot.

The moment passes just as quickly as it had come, and Barbara lets out a breath that she even didn’t know that she had been holding.

“Let me help you with these, sweetheart,” she offers gently, tilting her head to the still unloaded boxes. “You’re going to throw your back out if you keep it up.”

“Don’t you have a bad back too?” Melissa squints at her suspiciously and quite correctly.

Barbara does indeed have a less than stellar back, but that’s never stopped her from lugging boxes of classroom supplies to and from her car every week. (In fact, this particular exercise probably started her troubles in the first place some decade or two ago.)

“We’ll have bad backs together,” she says firmly, making quick and fluid work of rolling her sleeves up to show she's serious.

And Melissa Schemmenti just smiles at her radiantly, the shade of her lips like a sunset.

Like a rose.

“Booooooring,” Ava groans, peeling herself off of the wall she had been leaning against. “This is boring now. Bye.”

“See ya,” Melissa laughs as the principal heels away.

“Wouldn’t want to be ya,” Barbara completes the sentence and wraps an arm around her friend’s shoulder, fluttering again when their hips accidentally brush.

—

Fifteen minutes later, all the boxes have been loaded on to the cart and wheeled into the office next to the supply closet. Twenty minutes after that, both women are still on the office floor, sitting side-by-side against the wall, groaning and moaning and bitching about their mutually aching backs.

“Now why—in the Lord’s precious name—did we decide to sit down again?” Barbara clucks, wincing painfully as she slowly and laboriously pulls her knees up to her chest.

“‘Cause we’re dumb fucks and thought that resting would help,” Melissa answers grimly, even finding it difficult to angle her head to the right to glance at her friend.

“Yes, well, that will do the trick every time.”

“Guess we’re floor dwellers now,” she snorts despite the seriousness of the situation, always a quipper, even in the pits. “I ain’t gettin’ up ‘til I can get a muscle relaxer in my system.”

“That’s hardly the spirit,” Barbara shakes her head reprovingly. “We just need to think creatively. Do you have your phone on you? I left mine in my classroom.”

“Yeah. It’s in my back pocket.”

“Lean forward then, honey,” the other teacher instructs in her familiar teacherly tone, “and I’ll grab it. We can call Janine to come help us up.”

It’s as good of a plan as any, and it’s one they should have probably come up with sooner, but they’d been having fun on the floor up until this point, cackling about Jacob’s tattoo idea again, complaining about Ava, and just talking about their day.

Domesticity.

The two women wear it well.

Melissa, screwing her face up tightly against the persistent ache in her hip, manages to slowly pushes herself away from the wall nonetheless—enough, at least, so that Barbara, who has more mobility in her torso, can reach behind her. But even after she’s slipped the phone from her pocket, the kindergarten teacher doesn’t immediately withdraw her hand, the warmth of her lined palm conspicuous against Melissa’s cool skin.

“Ya okay back there?” She asks, swallowing hard. She inexplicably thinks of what Ava had said about Barbara being turned on by her tattoo.

It was ludicrous, of course.

Utterly stupid.

Barbara hates tattoos, and she’s happily married, and she doesn’t get turned on by women.

None of which frankly applies to Melissa.

“Oh, um, yes,” Barbara says quickly. “Just ensuring that you don’t have a knot on your back… and you don’t, thank Jesus.”

“How’s the view?” She teases, unable to pass up on the opportunity to flirt with her friend. It’s overall harmless, and she’ll take what she can get.

Microgestures and moments.

Little snatches of an intimacy that they could have possibly shared in a different life.

(A quiet fantasy of Melissa's, an awful delusion.)

“Top of the line,” Barbara murmurs, unexpectedly playing along, her voice almost convincingly affected, a low rasp where it is usually honey smooth.

“Simply stunning...”

It is almost pathetic how quickly that Melissa's breath hitches.

How easily she forgets herself—where she's at, who she is, and dear God, what she's sworn to never, ever do.

And that is to desire her married friend.

That is, to openly and unrepentantly love her.

But in those couple of elapsed moments—in those infinitesimal, fleeting seconds—her wildest dreams are suddenly as tangible as the slender fingers arched against her back, surely touching rose petals. And she is thinking about her lips against Barbara's own, mixing the shades of their lipsticks into vibrant, new colors. And she is lost in the depths of the other woman's dark and soulful eyes. And maybe she'd twist her hands into the collar of Barbara's immaculately pressed shirt, gathering the fabric in her palms. And maybe she'd finally brush her thumb against that sharp and beautifully hewn jaw. And perhaps she would not feel guilty about doing so because, in her quiet fantasy—in her awful, awful delusions—there wouldn't be any more barriers between them to feel guilty about.

There would be no vending machine boyfriends and good, devoted husbands.

No unrequited feelings.

No deep and total shame.

But there is, there is—there always is—and she finally comes back to herself when a door audibly close somewhere in the distance, and the world rights itself on its overturned axis again; her entire nervous system recalculates and reboots, and logic reappears to her like a sudden slap in the face.

Barbara Howard hates tattoos.

And she’s happily married.

And she doesn’t get turned on by women.

So Melissa laughs a little too loudly.

Pushes Barbara on the arm a little too hard.

And the other teacher finally withdraws her hand, clutching the phone tightly between her fingertips.

“Oh, can it, ya old softie," she laughs hoarsely as Barbara's cheeks slightly darken, perhaps with embarrassment, perhaps with mortification. Hell, she doesn't know, and she's too frazzled to want to ever find out. "Flattery isn’t gonna get us off this floor."

"Well, I thought it wouldn't hurt to try," Barbara muses, clearly joking.

Because it's all just a joke to her after all.

And it's a very good joke—Melissa has to admit—gut bustlingly hilarious.

A real goddamn hoot.

Barbara ever flirting back and meaning it.

#barbara howard #melissa schemmenti #work wives #abbott elementary #s: abbott elementary #reginianwrites #janine teagues #jacob hill #gregory eddie #ava coleman

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bestialremains · 5 months ago

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a door creaking open to a room coated in dust / the tinkling keys of a piano from floors away / a green tie in a double windsor knot / stacks of journals stained with ink and extra pages / the clinking of wine glasses over dinner / two sides of the same weighted coin / the smell of ozone when lightning strikes / a hidden vault beneath the floorboards / a mind like a steel trap, like a labyrinth / the crashing waves of a raging river / a dagger sheathed beneath immaculate suits / the loyalty of a guard dog / the sound of ice hitting the bottom of a crystal tumbler.

basic information

name: amycus octavian carrow.nickname. brother, carrow. age / date of birth. 27 / april 1st (4:31am). place of birth. isleworth, london, england. blood status. pureblood. affiliation. death eaters / the knights of walpurgis. gender / pronouns. cis male / he/him. sexuality. bisexual. relationship status. single / no longer betrothed. occupation. unspeakable, currently on loan to hogwarts school of witchcraft and wizardry as the professor of magical theory at request of the board of governors, est. 1068.

physical information

face claim. jonathan bailey. height. 5′ 10½″ / 180 cm. weight. 72kg / 11st 4lb. build. mesomorph / square shaped head, muscular chest and torsos, large heart, muscular arms and legs, even weight distribution, toned arms, lower body fat percentage, fast metabolism. dominant hand. right. eye color. brown. hair color / texture. black / naturally thick, often swept back, no longer sporting sideburns. scent. nutmeg, cinnamon, cardamom, grapefruit, lavender, licorice, sandalwood, amber, patchouli and haitian vetiver. recognizable features / scars. warm brown eyes. stubble/beard and mustache. faint burn marks on the back of his right hand from getting trapped in a hand of glory at age seven. dark mark on left forearm. tattoo on his right shoulder of janus, the two faced god of beginnings, gates, transitions, time, duality, doorways, passages, frames and endings. speech patterns / accent. amycus grew up surrounded by the elite -- his mother and father, his twin sister, their assorted cousins and children of appropriate families. as such, he speaks with a received pronunciation accent. he is prone to using what we know would probably refer to as antiquated terms, speaking in a low voice or trailing off sentences mid realization (despite many, many attempts to train him out of this as a rude, common habit.) voice claim. jonathan bailey. languages spoken. english, french, latin, greek. languages written/read. ancient sumerian, latin, greek, english, french, german, italian, spanish, futhark.

magical information

wand. bloodwood (prized by the south american magical communities, bloodwood is known for its brilliant red colour. they seek owners of passion and those who are action takers. bloodwood wands are curious - they create an intense bond with their owner and reflect their emotions in the magic produced, especially when it comes to love or anger. one must be very careful with this power as rash and passionate decisions can produce immensely powerful and irreversible magic. these wands are great tools in the hands of an individual who can control their emotions and use it to their benefit. one who has mastered the use of a bloodwood wand is said to be an exceptional dueller. it is said that bloodwood possesses a natural temptation for dark magic, and may cause their ownership to change due to the current owner not being dark enough.) / white river monster spine core (the white river monster is a species of magical fish native to the white river in arkansas. it is a large grey cross between a catfish and serpent, with spines running down it’s back. it can reach lengths of up to 20 feet. river monster spines often refuse to produce magic for any but their first owner; they are “one generation wands” and ought not to be passed on from their original master, because they will lose their power and their skills. this is one of the rarest cores, not often seen, as it is difficult to master, for the creature from which it is taken is one of the most independent and detached in the world. being such a rare creature, this wand respectively seeks a rare breed of witch or wizard, rendering it difficult to place. river monster spine is not well suited to what is commonly referred to as ‘bangs and smells’ magic.) / unbending rigidity (an unbending wand takes its preferences to the extreme, and will totally and utterly refuse to perform magic its first owner would not perform. the unbending wand bests suits a strong headed or stubborn master.) / 10’’ length (longer wands may suit taller wizards, but they also tend to be drawn to bigger personalities, and those of a more spacious and dramatic style of magic. neater wands favour more elegant and refined spell-casting.) / this is not amycus’s first wand, though it is now his primary one that he purchased after experiencing some difficulty with his original wand while conducting experiments for the department of mysteries. patronus. raven. boggart. alecto, on the other side. amortentia. whiskey, petrichor, rosewater, cinnamon. school. hogwarts school of witchcraft and wizardry. house. slytherin (class of 1969). clubs / extracurriculars. dragon club, slug club, ancient studies club.

psychological information

temperament. choleric-melancholic. positive. resourceful, personable, loyal. negative. calculating, strong willed, obsessive. mbti. entp. moral alignment. neutral evil. element. fire. primary vice. pride / lust. primary virtue. diligence / faith. zodiac. aries sun, aquarius moon, aquarius rising. quote. "hunger was unquenchable desire; it was suffering. to eat god, therefore, was finally to become suffering flesh with his suffering flesh; it was to imitate the cross." - caroline walker bynum, from holy feast and holy fast: the religious significance of food to medieval women. character parallels. klaus mikaelson (the vampire diaries), tommy shelby (peaky blinders), crowley (supernatural), lucifer morningstar (lucifer), petyr baelish (game of thrones).

familial information.

father. ___ carrow (wizard, alive) - coming soon. mother. ___ carrow nee yaxley (witch, alive) - coming soon. number of siblings / placement. one / eldest. siblings. alecto elizabeth carrow (witch, alive) - the tails to his heads, the heads to his tails. two sides of the same carrow minted coin, they share a bond that he prizes above all other familial relationships. his pain is her pain, and vice versa. his loyalty, first and foremost, is to her and to house carrow - then, the rest. pets. gyre falcon named zeus.

#amycus: intro;#lumostask

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ethicaltheory · 6 years ago

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Platinum blonde hair, no pigment, no soul, chopped it off, still feel nothing.

- AMJ

#poem #poetry #grunge #tumbler #tattoos #cute #spilled ink #spilledink #girl #cute girls #girls with tattoos #platinum

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kassandras-one-braincell · 3 years ago

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Teehee thinkin thots abt flirting with Soma at a bar in a modern setting or something like that and when she asks what a pretty thing like me is doing in a place like this I respond with a really snarky but flirty comment. And we keep going back and forth progressively getting more suggestive and then she’s taking me home and the only thing I can say after that is her name bc she’s [redacted] [redacted] [reda-

Ugh yes. Soma chatting you up in a little gay bar? Wearing a button-up with the first two or three buttons undone, showing off her tattoos, and some rings on her big inked fingers? And she’s super chivalrous and sweet and her deep voice has you ensnared like *that*?

She offers to buy you a drink and lets her hand touch yours when she slides it over to you, effectively shutting off your brain. But you still nod to her bourbon, joking about how stereotypical it is for a lesbian to drink whiskey at the bar. She laughs, saying that she’s always enjoyed stronger tasting beverages, to which you respond without thought that you also like stronger things, eyes glued to the way her hand grips the tumbler.

[redacted] [redacted] [redacted] [redacted] [redacted] [redacted]

Then she’s making you breakfast in the morning, because she’s a gentlema’am, and asking when she can see you again 🥰

#brainrot go brrr #soma jarlskona #❀ sugar and spice ❀

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jadelynlace · 3 years ago

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How Ivar Met Aiden⎮Ink Drinker Modern Vikings AU⎮Deleted Scene

☞ catch up with the series here.

☞ requests are currently closed, but they will reopen soon!

We’ve established that these two met in college, Ivar was studying calculus and Aiden was studying biology. They shared a dorm, and they lived together in a small apartment after graduating. Aiden was also the one who helped Ivar figure out he was bi-sexual.

But, what brings two totally different majors together? I’ll tell you! Introduction to Art History.

And, when you’re a freshman, you think “Oh, an 8 am class won’t be too bad!” No, it’s not bad. It’s fucking terrible.

Both Aiden and Ivar are artists, both of them were told to get degrees in “useful areas” because drawing won’t pay the bills. That’s why they both became tattoo artists, to shove it in peoples faces. Yet, they decided to take the courses that appealed to them, after all they have the electives and could pick freely.

Ivar takes his seat in the back of the lecture hall, energy drink already half gone, but it’s not like he slept well anyways. He opted for a single dorm, which in retrospect wasn’t the best idea he’s had, but he hates everyone, and wants to be alone. Even when the loneliness is killing him.

Now, who do you think decides to sit next to him, even with dozens of open seats around the room? That’s right, fucking Aiden. Plops down in the chair next to him, pissing Ivar off until he watches the man set his coffee down. Aiden sets the tumbler on the table, pops the top off momentarily, reaches into his bag and pulls out the same flavor Red Bull Ivar drinks. (It’s the tropical one, in the yellow can, if you were wondering.) And cracks that open, dumping it straight into his coffee as if it’s a normal fucking thing to do.

“Either I’ll meet the Gods or become one,” He says to Ivar before he takes a swig, and Ivar thinks there’s no way that tastes...decent.

“That can’t taste good,” Ivar says back.

“Oh, no, I’d rather drink straight cum but it’ll keep me awake!” Aiden laughs. “I’m Aiden,”

“Ivar,” Ivar says back, cautiously eyeing the man as he sips his own energy drink.

“Are you an archer?” Aiden asks back and Ivar almost swallows his drink down his windpipe.

“You know what my name means?” Ivar asks back.

“My Dad’s a history professor, I know a lot about a lot...none of which I care much about. What’s your major?”

“Calculus,”

“Wow, you’re a nerd, huh? Mine’s biology, only because apparently I can’t make a living with drawing,” And that alone, that makes Ivar very interested in the conversation.

“You draw?” Ivar asks.

“All the time, it’s the only thing that’s keeping me from...you know,” Aiden says, striking his finger across his throat. “Do you draw?”

“All the time,” Ivar says back. “Let me try that,” Ivar then adds, picking up the coffee and taking a swing. “Oh my god. You’re right, I’d rather drink straight cum too,”

Ivar looks forward to the lecture the next time class meets, where Aiden sits down with an espresso shot that he tosses back as if it’s tequila, and then chases it with a different flavored energy drink. The chaos, the organized chaos this man exudes reminds Ivar of Hvitserk immediately, and he’s quite frankly curious how this man is still standing after what he puts into his body.

It’s no shock that they become friends quickly; much more quickly than Ivar thought possible, let alone thought he was capable of. Aiden’s style of artwork is much more traditional than Ivar’s (think traditional, colorful tattoos, verses the ones Ivar does), and they are both content to sit in the same room and draw. Not soon after, Aiden’s roommate leaves randomly, so he has a spare bed and asks Ivar if he wants to move in.

And that’s when the fun really begins.

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☞ The dividers are by @firefly-graphics

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kylejsugarman · 3 years ago

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wow i wasn't expecting so much kind feedback from that post :’) below the cut is the fic, “love will not break your heart”. PLEASE remember this was written five years ago and i wasn't expecting to fall back into moral orel but here tf we are ❤️

i. idolatry

"Who does that cloud look like?"

"Umm…" The brunette tilted her head pensively, tracing the arbitrary peaks and valleys of the cloud in question with a critical eye. Her expression of solemn concentration buckled under a luminescent smile as she finally identified the cloud's likeness. "It's Joshua! See the beard?"

"Oh, wow, you're right!" He pointed to an adjacent puff of condensation on the verge of dissipating under the snowy glare of winter sun. "And there's the city of Jericho!"

She giggled in agreement and rolled onto her side; verdant streaks of earth branded her baptism-white cheek. A strand of sandy hair had escaped her new red headband (he had nervously presented it to her and promptly melted at the sight of her grateful beam) and now unfurled down the length of her pearly face. He brushed it back into place, then blushed.

"Uh, sorry."

"It's okay, Orel," she said with an adoring laugh. His timid eyes--coppery pools into which one's best qualities were inevitably reflected--found her own, then flicked downwards in humility. Though she appreciated his respect for her, the reverence with which he treated her was slightly disquieting. There was something to worship in both of them, something she felt she failed to adequately express. "Orel?"

The eyes, lit dreamily by a refulgent sky. "Yes, Christina?"

She touched a hesitant hand to his face and waited for the momentary tension of his form to abate as he recognized the tenderness of the gesture. There was the inexorable flutter of panic in her gut, as if her father were crouched behind one of Inspiration Peak's many bushes waiting to snatch her and drag her back into the study, but she quashed it readily. Her love for Orel was stronger than her fear of her father and with its pristine power she could have demolished that study with a single fiery glance.

But Christina had always favored creation over destruction, so she leaned over and pressed a soft, pink kiss to Orel's mouth. She tried to whisper "Happy Valentine's Day" to establish her motive, but was immediately silenced as he braced himself up on an elbow and shyly reciprocated the kiss. He tasted like candy heart chalk and mint.

"I love you," he said after he had bashfully withdrawn his head.

The world was shiny and new, the clouds morphing cheerfully behind him into benevolent figures who would shelter the tender bloom of their love. And Christina Posabule reached up to frame Orel's face in her gentle hands and said "I love you too" for the first time.

ii. respect

"Ugh. I never did understand the appeal of French toast."

Dottie scrutinized the buffet offerings, her angelically-proportioned visage contorted into a rictus of disgust. Her plate was sparsely garnished with a serving of greens and a mimosa, which she had already taken a drag from. As she eyed the decadent bricks of syrup-drenched toast, Florence calmly forked an omelet onto her own plate and waited for Dottie to make a decision. The Valentine's Day brunch was rarely an extravagant affair, but there were certainly enough dishes to satisfy even Dottie's impossibly high culinary standards.

"I think French toast is wonderful," Florence said. She expected this remark to be met with a haughty sniff or snide comment, but Dottie abstained. She even summoned a mordant grin.

"Well. I suppose the French are the superior culture for a reason." The blonde delicately pronged a lone slice of French toast onto her plate, taking care to select the most lightly-sugared piece on display. "Alright, I'm done. Quick, before I change my mind."

Florence led Dottie back to their booth, which had been denoted by the placement of their respective pocketbooks on the table (Florence's sturdy handbag looking markedly haggard next to Dottie's designer clutch). The two women supped here together after church, a tradition that had been inaugurated shortly after the Reverend's Easter sermon. Dottie had apologized to Florence in a rare fit of humility and promised to stop berating her roommate for her figure; Florence, ever the victim, dutifully accepted her apology. However, Dottie had surprised her by making a noticeable effort to curb her cruel commentary and even started contributing to the community by taking on sewing projects. Her lovely dresses soon filled the closets of every woman in Moralton--including Florence's. The rather flattering candy-pink wrap dress that Florence was wearing now was Dottie's handiwork, a fact the blonde managed to work into every conservation.

"Darling, that dress is absolutely divine on you," Dottie said, lighting a cigarette.

"Yes, thank you." Florence smoothed down the collar and smiled at the sight of her freckled hands. A modest diamonded band adorned her ring finger.

Dottie noticed her admiring of the piece of jewelry; she pursed her polished lips expectantly. "I really think you should've sprung for something bigger."

"Oh, I think this is just lovely the way it is," Florence insisted. She elevated her hand in order to demonstrate the diamond's iridescence. A slant of noon light caught the mineral and fissured apart into chromatic prisms; diamonded specks twinkled across the laminated tabletop. It was a rather appropriate expression of Florence's own appearance, something the ring's buyer had obviously taken into consideration. "Aren't you happy with your ring?"

"Me? Why I'd rather die than have this ring taken off my finger." Dottie inspected the arrangement of jewels gracing her own finger, which were independently lustrous and set into an ingot of platinum. The colors matched the sheen of her blonde curls perfectly.

An inexorable smile pressed dimples into either of Florence's cheeks. "You really like it?"

Dottie flicked her cigarette ash into the table's decorative vase with an insouciant tap of her manicured finger. Her expression was characteristically enigmatic ("you can't let them think you're interested," she had lectured Florence as she practiced looking jaded in the mirror), but the favor with which she regarded the ring was unmistakable. Finally, she said "I love it" in an emphatically decisive voice tempered with genuine affection. An affection that Florence reciprocated with an echoing of the sentiment before cutting into her omelet and watching Dottie slice willingly into a piece of French toast.

iii. requited

"Um, anything else, Steph?"

The tattooed, pierced, and freshly dyed vision of beauty glanced up from her book, eyes lightly glazed from an hour of reading. She had salvaged a rather intriguing volume of essays about evolution from a seedy bookshop in Sinville and was determined to complete the tome before it could be snatched and tossed on the literary pyre. Forghetty's wasn't exactly the ideal location for intellectual pursuits, but Stephanie had abandoned the shop at the mere notion of Karl and Kim Latchkey requesting some disgustingly romantic apparel for the holiday and decided that she deserved some discounted Valentine's vodka for soldiering through the week unscathed.

"Another vodka would be great."

Dolly smiled warmly. "Coming right up."

As the blonde scooped ice into a tumbler, Stephanie became suddenly and acutely aware of the candy-pink heart branding the small of Dolly's neck. Despite having stitched ink into countless arms and sides, she was shocked by the heart's symmetry. It was absolutely flawless.

"One vodka," Dolly said, sliding the glass across the condensation-varnished bar. Her fingers were impossibly long, slender--piano fingers. Stephanie could not fathom why these trivial details fascinated her so, but she was suddenly pressed to learn more about the daisy-pretty bartender who had dutifully refreshed her tumbler for the past hour. Starting with that immaculate tattoo.

"Thanks. Uh, Dolly? Where'd you get that ink on your neck?"

"Ink on my--?" She palpated her neck in befuddlement before remembering the previous night and giggling wanly. "Oh, it-it's just pen. My friends thought it would be funny if I actually got a tattoo, so they had the guy draw it on, but I… I chickened out, I guess."

"Oh."

"It's not that I don't want a tattoo," Dolly quickly amended, tipping Stephanie's colorful arms an appreciative nod. "I'm just kinda chicken about needles."

Stephanie quirked an amused eyebrow. "So you would get a tattoo?"

"Well." She sheepishly wrung a damp cloth out over the bar top and made a concentrated effort to appear occupied by the menial task. "Maybe."

"That heart's pretty cute. I think it would look nice back there."

Roses bloomed in Dolly's porcelain cheeks. Though her friends had never abstained from making passively nasty comments about Stephanie's unusual appearance and proud deviance from Moralton's constrictive status quo, Dolly had always fostered a secret respect for her. There was something alluring about Stephanie, something that begged back story: Dolly longed to read the text that accompanied the illustrations trellising her arms like ivy. "You think so?"

"Definitely. And if you're scared of needles, I've got an assistant who could probably distract you," Stephanie added with a playful smirk. Orel had curbed several customers' needle anxiety with breathless sermons about the incredibleness of Jesus and anecdotes about his occasionally distressing adventures ("and then I died! Three times! It was neat!")

"Would you really give me a tattoo?" Dolly asked, equally hopeful and horrified.

"If you're up for it."

Dolly twisted the cloth in her hands for a moment. The yearning to know Stephanie--to know every corner, every fold--was blossoming urgently in her chest. She wanted more than a tattoo. She wanted to familiarize herself with the inky mysticism enshrouding Stephanie Putty and if that meant romance, if that meant public scorn and disappointment and disgusted looks, so be it. She wanted Stephanie. She wanted all of her.

"Doll?"

"Y-Yes," Dolly sputtered, visibly flustered. Then she grinned cautiously and set down her hands on the bar top, allowing Stephanie to admire their delicate whorls and pearly nails at a closer proximity. "I'd love that."

iv. infatuation

"I know you think I'm stupid, Marionetta."

They had cloistered themselves away in a small clearing that provided some margin of protection from their schoolmates' scorn. A mild sky opened above them, achingly empty, painfully wide. As he stared into its doleful depths--oppressing himself not to betray the shame making dewy his eyes--he recalled the passages he had studied about the atmosphere. His old teachers had refused to teach the subject, citing the lack of a Heaven in the textbook's diagram of the Earth's atmosphere. He imagined it was sandwiched between the mesosphere and thermosphere, an impossible realm illuminated by auroras and burning space debris. But in the absence of substantial evidence that such a place existed, he was content to call the clearing Heaven, as long as Marionetta was there.

The girl smoothed imaginary wrinkles out of her dotted skirt. Even

#syd squeaks #moral orel #me putting dolly and stephanie and florence and dottie together my MIND!!!#thank y'all for all the sweet messages though

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alessiaoldschool1987 · 9 months ago

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the-last-cuddlebender · 4 years ago

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When Aang Was

When Aang was hurting, he became a walking wound. His reflection turned into a stranger. His smiles got a bit bigger—his magician’s one-liner to hide his slight-of-hand—, but he couldn’t keep himself above water forever. Even he sometimes forgot that he lost everything and everyone, and forgetting turned remembering into daggers through each of his lungs. It stole his air—his element, his last connection to them.

...the Gaang have a few things to say about that.

And Aang’s family would be damned if they let him bleed alone.

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

A/N: The Gaang will walk backwards into hell if it means they can give Aang a hug when he needs one. This was HIGHLY inspired by this beautiful photoset by @imreallyhereforkataang💕 because Yin and Yang make me soft for the airbean I stg. (also special thanks to @demigodseameg16‘s fic request for putting orphan!Aang on my mind!) (also, also, this is my first time writing Mai so ya-hoooo)

Rating: T

Words: 5,074

ArchiveOfOurOwn (AO3)

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

When Aang was happy, he talked really fast. His master’s tattoos lost meaning. He tripped over his own feet—graceless but playful—and laughed like giggles were more vital than breathing.

He was an airborne contagion that no one could escape. His family were patient zero, and, almost four years after the war, his quest for world domination was nearly complete. Peace was proven with the smiles he nurtured in others, and his empire of friends and friendly acquaintances circled the globe a dozen times over.

Their symptoms of Aang were chronic—their cheeks always hurt, their middles never stopped aching, he hid their breath behind hurdles of giggles and slap-fights about the absurd...

The list went on and on, just like the peel of his laugh and the warm feeling he left in his wake.

If only the world could see him when he curled up like a cat in its favorite sunny spot every time he lounged across the fuddy-duddy Firelord’s lap. If only the world could see him when Suki caught him using her good makeup—the expensive kind she saved for formal occasions—and the monstrosities he made of his and Sokka’s faces. If only the world could see him when he sent messages to Sokka saying they were from Toph demanding a rematch of whatever they were practicing lately.

Mai didn’t exactly help. She graded his antics with a rubric and gave him feedback, to boot. She refined his nonsense like a blade on a grindstone for greater impact and outcome every time.

The world definitely saw him when he and his lifeline went out in public. He guided Katara down an invisible red carpet every time, and he announced his befuddled Moon’s presence without having to say a single word. He adored getting her flustered—his Mighty Katara—and seeing the beautiful color she turned into. He especially loved the sharp smacks she swatted his shoulder with. He adored her puffed cheeks and her face’s valiant attempts to scowl at him. She hid in his arms from something that wasn’t embarrassment, and Aang kissed her hair at another mission accomplished.

But even if they were ever ‘cured’ of him, his family knew they would never be rid of him. Aang was a master of his craft. His hugs were blue ink, his understanding was his steady hand, and his shoulder to lean or to cry on was a thousand fine needles. His tattoos were unseen but brighter than the sunset’s reflection when the Ocean was in a good mood.

To the world, he was a cure, but, to his family, he was a vice. Neither his better half nor his siblings could shake his grip on them, no matter how hard they rolled their eyes and shooed him away. He saw their pursed lips and grumpy looks as something they wore and that he could take off of them. He found the cracks in their armor like he was a thief turning lock tumblers, and he dug his hands into where they hid their joy.

He was a purple pentapus in airbender robes clinging to their arms, their legs, and their backs. He was their goofy little brother and their grinning parasite, and they wouldn’t have him any other way.

They loved his smile, despite how badly it crippled them. His joy was so second nature that his good feelings became as essential as Mother Nature. The flowers weren’t pretty if Aang wasn’t smiling. He was their greatest weakness—the biggest, happiest, dorkiest chink in their armor.

May the Spirits help the next person who tried to kill him.

Katara would not be held back a second time.

Toph would find someone who needed some punishment if she was left out of ‘the fun’ again.

(Sokka tracked the bastard down, and Suki caught him without—just barely without—snuffing him out)

(Zuko held Aang’s head in his lap while Katara patched up what was broken and tugged his bleeding spirit back into him)

(None of them knew what to do when his fever hit critical. He started talking to people—children, mentors...family—who had been dead for over a century. The six of them were worse than lost when their seventh begged for his old family to talk back to him. He was sorry. He was so, so sorry. He missed them so much—please, he missed them and he missed home so much—)

(When Aang was conscious two days later, Mai sat him down and taught him all that he didn’t want to know but all that he needed to learn about poisons)

...

Four years of healing were four years of silly smiles and cozy camp-outs in the Palace courtyard. Four years of new family were four years of new brothers and sisters discovering, together, what family really meant.

Four years of new family were four Fall seasons where and when nothing (seemingly) happened. Four years and four seasons of dead and dying things came and went like they were never there.

Four Fall seasons became four bundles of dead branches burned between Summer and Winter. A pile of ashes became a memory barely remembered and a nightmare never forgotten.

Four years and four fires were four times he slipped away, unseen, from the anniversary of the war that they ended. Four times he slipped away were four times left by himself with a feeling that was worse than alone.

Four temples and four Fall seasons were nothing more than marks on a map and a calendar.

In the room that Aang used to call his in the home that he used to call theirs was where he kept all of the ‘counts’. At first, he marked the things they missed, just tallies and names on the wall.

Four years and four Fall seasons meant four-thousand names and smudged scribbles of forgotten faces and places they might have thought were pretty. His hands wouldn’t stop shaking and what was left of his heart wouldn’t stop breaking as he carved chalky tattoos, like unhealed scars, into the wall—the one with the window overlooking the places where he struggled to remember playing before.

He didn’t know he was forgetting them until he started having trouble remembering them. The tallies were lives lost, the dashes were shadows without faces, and the names of his family—the names of his old family…—decorated the head of the bed that he used to call his.

He left them notes like they could read them and asked them questions like they might respond.

Four years and four Fall seasons meant nothing to him. He lost everything and everyone in the blink of an eye.

Aang tried not to stay at the temple, especially if he was alone. Thinking alone was dangerous. His thoughts were wild and threatened to burn him.

He made the mistake, once, of walking past the hidden hall that he and his friends—his old family...—used when they sewed chaos into the weave of their home. The hall was stuffed with fond memories but so poorly constructed—so narrow—that it only allowed enough room for a one-way direction to and from the outside.

It was a charred hole with a sooty-black throat that greedily swallowed his shadow. The blackened stone was melted—glassy—and smelled like the instinct to run.

It wasn’t until Aang got back to his family—his new family…—that he imagined his newest nightmare.

It wasn’t his new family’s fault. They weren’t the ones on the festival ride just to his left and screaming into his ear.

Aang’s empty stomach turned inside-out, and he dry-heaved so hard that he couldn’t breathe. It was a strange feeling, struggling for air, having his element all around him but kept just out of his reach.

Those few seconds of breathlessness turned the ground black and the sky into dirt, but someone caught him before his knees buckled. Someone else was patting him from head to toe with tender touches that left no part of him unturned.

His family were worried sick—sicker than he felt. They asked him in a million different ways and in a million concerned voices if he was okay.

Aang struggled to smile for them. It took him four or so tries to get it right. He couldn’t do anything about his shaking, though.

“Can...Can we go home, now?” He whispered his trembling words like they were secrets never meant to be said aloud. He looked at them like a wounded animal limping back to its master—a stray tucking its tail but crawling closer, desperate, with a broken smile peace-offering and a fit of flinches at any sharp sound. The beating was inevitable, but he pleaded for the chance to feel something soft before he was kicked again. He leaned into Katara’s hand, and he flinched and pressed harder when she was warm and real and didn’t move away from him.

He was their goofy little brother and their grinning parasite.

Aang fought his struggle to smile for them, and he trusted his big brother to carry the whole of his weight. Zuko was warm and familiar, and his gentle squeeze was a promise to not let go; Katara’s worried touches and soft kisses were safe, and she swarmed around Aang like a mobile shield.

Aang sensed their tensing. They were his family, after all. He always had two fingers on their happiness’ pulse.

Their questions were a distressed tidal wave.

He didn’t stop smiling even when he closed his eyes.

He couldn’t tell if the hushed voices he heard were from his new family in front of him or from his old family behind him. Aang remembered...

Aang rearranged his lips into what he remembered a smile felt like.

“Please? C’n we...Can we g-go home?” He opened one eye and found both of Katara’s waiting for him. She was horrified and concerned to tears, and she wasn’t the only one.

Aang almost sighed. His strength was bleeding out of him along with everything else. He struggled to keep smiling for her, and he struggled even harder to keep his eyes open. He flinched from the kicks that were their heartbroken looks, but he tried to give them a reason to smile.

Zuko was really warm, though. And Katara’s hands felt really nice on Aang’s face.

The flame of his consciousness flickered—a candle left out in the rain.

“Please, K’tara?” He spoke without meaning to. It was an impulse, an instinct. It was the orphan and the last airbender crawling through the carnage and finally having a spot on the stage to speak.

Cold sweat beaded his brow, and frozen shivers shook his insides. He just wanted to go home, wherever or whenever that was. Everything was too blurry. He couldn’t remember anymore.

Even his new family’s faces were blurry, now, and Aang’s element was torn out of him when his first choke on everything and everyone he lost freed the Oceans behind his eyes.

He just wanted to go home...

“...Please?”

Aang’s voice was the last of him to break, and his family all flinched like they could feel it. His shattered pieces fell all at once and shredded everything he knew and loved.

He curled his fingers into Zuko’s robe to keep himself above water. He shook like something dead about to be churned to ash and carried away—a forgotten memory—on an indifferent passing breeze.

...

When Aang was scared, he talked too fast. His sunshine-warm smile lost meaning. He hugged like he was trying to hold onto something, and he laughed a sound that rang hollow—distorted—like an echo returning from far away.

Toph was the first to notice. His heartbeat was...off. He acted like he was surprised by their group hugs, but the evidence of feeling anything was only skin-deep.

Aang was never happy. He didn’t get happy, either. Aang was happy. He and the word meant the same feeling like how the sun would always mean warmth.

Katara noticed it next—nearly in the same moment. She had no seismic sense, but his kiss wasn’t laden with giggles and his heart didn’t try to beat out of his chest to get to hers when she hugged him.

Suki saw it but didn’t tell the others. She was an elite warrior trained for years in the art of stealth. Aang was the White Dragon and White Lotus tile all in one, but he had a terrible poker face.

Five years marked the start of a new quartet and the shedding of all things old to welcome all things new. They knew Aang loved the festival of the anniversary of the war that they ended, but something was different this time.

Sokka’s instincts saw it coming. Zuko’s hearing picked up on it, too.

Toph won him a prize—a plate of pastries trying to be fruit cakes. Aang greedily ate them and said that he loved them.

His shoulders shook and said that he missed them.

His lip trembled and said that they scared him.

Suki touched between his shoulders and guided him towards something called ‘volleyball’. It was a three-on-three game.

None of them realized until they picked teams that Aang was no longer with them.

It was a three-on-three game.

There were seven in their family.

Mai cursed and cut the net before it could become a fire hazard, and she was barely fast enough to save the netting from turning to kindling when Zuko pulled his hair and charred the sand.

They found him an hour later by following the echoing huffs of Appa’s soft sounds.

Appa held him like he had to chase and pin him down, but Aang held him back like he could never hold on tight enough.

…

Hawky was a master navigator and a tool of military purpose.

Hawky was also distracted when he stopped in the Fire Nation Palace on his way to Aang’s room.

Hawky had never seen a turtleduck before. He was domestic and curious even though the mother turtleduck chased him off like he was a massive predator.

And that was exactly how Sokka found his old bird—soaked and waddling for his life.

There was a message in his pack.

Toph threw open her door to find whoever was about to die from such a fast heartbeat just as Sokka ran past, grabbed her, and sprinted them to the others.

Toph would have fought him if she wasn’t so confused.

Sokka didn’t cry that hard even at that time of year when some girl name Yue had to go away.

…

Hey, Gyatso!

I guess it’s been a hundred years, huh? That’s so weird to think about.

I’ve been meditating just like you taught me. Well, I think I’m doing it right. It’s hard to tell, anymore. I sit in front of the mirror to correct my stance, but it hasn’t felt right in a long time. It’s okay, though! I’ll figure something out. I’m sure there’s a prayer statue in one of the temples that’s still in one piece. I could always check in the mountains, too, but I don’t I can’t I’ll try to check the temples again, first.

A good friend told me yo the Air No all of the Guru Pathik said you’re not really gone, and I believe him.

It’s cold today. It rained, before, so new plants should be growing soon. You would really like it here.

Do you I I miss you. I try not to, but Guru Pathik said to let my emotions flow. He’s gone with you, though. It’s been two years, now.

I wish he He left befor Could you give him a hug from me when you see him?

I hope you don’t miss me, Gyatso. Missing people hurts a lot. I really hope you’re happy, Gyatso. I really, really do.

Please, please, please, don’t miss me.

I miss loved love you!

…

Hey, Gyatso

I have more family, now! You’d really like them. Katara could beat you at Pai Sho, for sure. I tried to show them how you swirled the gooey center of the fruit pies, but I don’t think I did it quite right. It’s hard to tell. I tried it a few times in the mirror, but, when I remember you doing it, I can’t see your hands anymore.

I’m trying, though! I’m trying!

Toph helped rebuild the statues in the temple. I don’t really know how, though. Mai and Zuko convinced me to stay with them and teach the schools how to host a dance while the others left on Appa.

The statues look great. They look almost life-like.

It’s been a hundred years, huh? I try not to That’s so weird to think about.

I can’t thi I don’t kno Please don’t miss me, Gyatso. I’ll write to you more so you don’t miss me. I promise. It’ll be okay.

I can’t s Please, please, please, don’t miss me, okay? Please?

I loved y

My fathe

I loved you, Gy

…

Wet scars like blood splatters littered the letters by the dozens and made Aang’s handwriting nearly illegible.

Katara couldn’t make herself read any more.

She was the last one to break.

Sokka had been the first.

The second she sat next to where their family cocooned him on the bed, he hugged her like she was the only thing keeping him from falling.

She had seen her brother cry before.

But Katara had never seen Sokka weep.

Missing fathers and fathers missing were scars that never quite closed.

Katara choked on years lost and years alone, and she barely felt their family huddle around them, blanketing them, protecting them from what they couldn’t see.

Sokka’s hand left his grip on her to search for someone who wasn’t there. Katara beat him to it, though. Her empty hands pawed her brother’s back and were only mildly tamed by Suki’s tighter hug.

Aang...

The worst part was the helplessness. It wasn’t like they could bring back the dead.

The second worst part was the guilt. He had been alone even when he was right with them.

The third worst part was admitting that they couldn’t heal him. He needed something stronger than stitches to mend his heart.

Sokka tensed and tried to get up with that bullheaded air of setting his mind on something, but he only collapsed further into Katara’s arms. Zuko held them tighter and hushed the both of them. He tried to distract them with a strategy or a plan of what to do.

“...What can we do, Zuko?”

Zuko shut his mouth. Suki held them tighter. Toph sniffled and fisted Sokka’s and Katara’s shirts.

In the too-far-off distance, Appa groaned a series of soft sounds.

They all paused. They all broke.

Suki was the last to start weeping.

…

Clumps. The beast was easy enough to track.

Appa recognized Mai well enough to remember Aang being happy—trusting her—when he hung upside-down from her shoulders and laughed that happy sound that made Appa’s world of no bison feel full of new life.

He let her pass but not without groaning a hurried list of what she had to do to help his buddy.

Mai patted Appa’s nose.

Aang was a pathetic bundle of orange in the far corner of the cave. He was a mountain breaking apart, but his tumbling boulders didn’t make a single sound. His words were cut. His voice was obsolete. He pressed himself into the wall like he might get to something better if only he could come out of the other side.

Mai was a shark fin cutting through still water, and she sunk to a seat right beside him. The ground was cold and damp, but he burned so hot that she could feel the licks of his fever from here.

Her sitting down was the placing of a needle onto a spinning record, and his sounds of sorrow finally broke free of him. They bubbled in his throat like blood threatening to drown him, and he coughed when the instinct to survive overrode his waning will to keep breathing.

Mai closed her eyes and emptied her lungs. She touched the bare skin of his back. He flinched like she had struck him, but he didn’t duck away from her.

Mai let her presence fill his silence. Even he didn’t know what he needed, but she kept doing what seemed to be working. Her hand rode the waves of his choked sounds in long, looping circles that lasted as long as the time it took to take two breathes.

His hiccups dulled to whimpers. His sniffles quieted to shivers. He dug his nails out of his arms and scowled like he was struggling to remember.

The apex of her hand’s circle was his inhale, the bottom of the arch guided his air out. She unwound him in every way and through every layer until he released himself and uncurled enough to show some of the yellow of his robes.

Aang bobbed his head like a metronome.

Mai kept scratching long, looping circles on his back.

He huddled into himself with a ghostly small smile and a barely-there hug, and Mai would have startled if she was a weaker woman.

Aang started to hum.

His vibrato was something within him thinning and threatening to break.

When he started to sing, that thing within him frayed.

It broke when he got to the upturned chorus. It was supposed to be a happy song.

Mai hugged her knees with one arm and scratched his back with the other—keeping him alive like a broken music box from a hundred years ago that lost its key and was fighting fate from becoming obsolete.

…

Aang wore his smile like it was something he could take off.

The Blind Bandit ripped it off of him.

The Blue Spirit broke it in half.

The Kyoshi Warrior tossed it into the fire.

The Painted Lady threw its ashes away.

The Swordsman melted it down and forged it into something protective.

The Dangerous Lady kept its daggers in her sleeves and dared someone to hurt him again.

...

Toph sat across from him and didn’t let him be alone.

Zuko walked past his room to remind him that there was a way out.

Suki brought him books with pictures to show him how to feel again.

Katara was his shadow, his shield, and his favorite dancing partner, coaxing his smile to come out and play with hers.

Sokka told him jokes and laughed hard enough for both of them.

(Mai sat with him and listened to everything she didn’t need to know but everything she wanted to learn about his loss.)

...

When Aang was loved, he couldn’t talk fast enough. His past and his future lost meaning. All that mattered was his family right in front of him and the smiles that bellied their every feeling.

They were tattoos that he could never wash off, not that he would ever, ever try.

Five years of wanting were five Fall seasons of feeling lost. Five Fall seasons of searching were five Fall seasons of feeling alone.

Five friends and one love were six members of his second family.

Two brothers a foot taller and three sisters twice as strong as him meant Aang rarely won when they wrestled.

Sokka was safe and familiar as he sat on Aang’s back. Katara shoved him off. Toph laughed and took his place.

Aang walked, almost skipping—so giddy that he was going to spill over—next to them. They went slow on purpose to stretch out the precious journey home, but he didn’t mind. He told them all about his first family and everything he loved about them.

“—it, Zuko! He rode a dragon, once, too! Oh, Katara, you wouldn’t believe—“

Five years and five seasons of dead and dying things meant nothing to them. They almost lost him in the blink of an eye, and they wouldn’t look away ever again.

They were each a stretch of ink tattooed around his heart. They were stronger than stitches. They were a part of him.

They shooed him away so they could pull him closer, and their smiles were challenges to the size of his own.

...

When Aang was hugged, all he knew was love. All of his wants and needs lost meaning. Everything that mattered to him was everyone who held him, and everyone who held him were always there for him before Aang even knew that he needed them.

Their hugs were surprises like finding out the dead were alive.

They surprised him every time. He flinched, however, like he had never done before.

He was trying, though. He was trying.

Him missing family and family missing him were scars that would always be tender.

Tender was okay, though.

The secret was the gooey center.

“...Sometimes...life is like this...t-this dark tunnel,” he told his swallowed shadow, “...C’n’t see the light...but if...if you just keep going...”

His family were already in the prayer field. They looked at him with faces armed with smiles and arms loaded with hugs.

Sokka waved and said something he shouldn’t have and that, even though it made their family laugh, compelled Katara to shove him into the fountain.

The water was cold.

Sokka screamed.

Aang froze for a small century. He didn’t breathe for a longer eternity.

...And then Aang laughed.

And Aang cried.

And Aang laughed so hard that he cried.

All Aang cared about were the arms now around him, and all he knew were their soft words spoken over and over.

“We love you.”

“It’s okay.”

“Sokka, you’re a dumbass.”

“Oh, shut up.”

The muted smack of a backhand sounded too much like Mai’s for it to be anyone else’s.

Aang laughed a little harder.

He didn’t want to go home, anymore. Home was a memory. Memories couldn’t feel like this.

In their arms, he was finally where he was meant to be.

In their arms, Aang was happy.

In their arms was what home should be.

And when they held him tighter, Aang never felt more wanted in his entire life.

...

And when next Aang needed to speak with him, he found a way.

“Hey, Gyatso,” Aang said, speaking to the person in the mirror who was once a boy, then the Avatar, and now a young man trying to make himself into something that his memories would be proud of. “Did you miss me? You won’t believe this, but Katara lost to me at Pai Sho this morning. She got me back with the fruit pie, though. It even had sea prunes in it...”

Aang talked some more, and he talked fast. The breeze wound into and through the folds of his robes like it was a lounging cat curling into the warm rooms of a new home and new favorite sunny spot. He smiled something brighter than joy and welcomed the windy hugs that could always hold him just tight enough.

When Aang talked to his father, his master’s tattoos lost meaning. The tattoo Gyatso had left behind was so bright that Aang’s eyes watered if he looked thought about it too much.

He talked and talked and cried and talked until he left himself breathless.

It was a strange feeling, being breathless.

His element was suspended away from him, but nothing felt out of his reach.

A body or two (or three) threw themselves at his door.

“Twinkletoes!”

“You better not have my lipstick again! I bought you your own for a reason!”

“Hurry up, Avatar, we’re going to be late!”

Aang laughed just as the—the wall opened?

Katara lassoed his neck with her arms and threatened to kill him with a kiss that yanked him above the clouds and dropped him into free-fall.

“What...” He blinked. “...I mean I...I-I mean I don’t...” He turned a color and temperature that made Katara smile like he hadn’t seen her do in far too long of a time. “...What do I have to do to get another?”

“Ugh.” Mai rolled her eyes and pointed down the wide hall of the secret passage. “Just don’t do anything stupid. And don’t be late for the fireworks.”

Aang smirked something evil, and Katara couldn’t help but smile.

The firelilies only looked pretty when Aang had two dozen in one hand and her hand in his other. He kissed her knuckles, offered his arm, and escorted her down the invisible red carpet. She hid her face in his arm and trusted him to keep her from walking into anything.

He laughed.

His empire breathed a sigh of relief.

The anniversary of the new world they built was familiar, but none of them felt home until they met together on the hill.

And nothing felt right until their sickness started acting up again.

“Aang! Get back here!”

“Aw, c’mon, Sifu Hotman! Where’s your sense of fun?”

None of them realized the fireworks were over until the sky got a bit darker and it was time to go home.

Aang was tired. And when Aang was tired, he dragged his feet and spoke in slurred songs. His lyrics found every lost feeling and forgotten meaning. They were long lists of pretty names and precious things, tender to the touch and still healing.

He was tired, happy, and teary-eyed as he sang a diary-entry of their day to the breeze dancing around them.

Four seasons were six loves and two families that would never let him slip away into the season of dead and dying things.

He was their goofy little brother and their grinning parasite. He was a candle left out in the rain.

So they built a fort around him. And they hugged him like they could never hold him tight enough.

And when Aang was at peace, he didn’t say a word. Words were meaningless. They were a constraint. They only meant a certain something.

So he laughed.

And he laughed.

He laughed even when his family cried, and he laughed harder when they learned to laugh with him.

Six years of found family were six years of found love.

And all six members of his family would never—never—let him Fall again.

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

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idontlikeem · 4 years ago

Note

Sid gets a tattoo--there are so many of your WIPs I want to know about, but I have so many questions about this one. When/where/why did he get a tattoo? Drunk night out? A dare he was too competitive to back down from? Or is it because he can't wear a metal wedding ring on the ice? 😏

I AM SO GLAD you asked about this one because i have the most work done on it and i am very excited about it!

SO. the conceit is that geno has been collecting tattoos ever since he came to play for the NHL. he doesn’t talk about them to the media, really, but his teammates know most of them. some of them are obvious, some of them obscure and might even seem silly, but they all have meaning (well, mostly).

sid....has never considered a tattoo before, but as he watches geno add to the ink on his skin over the years, he starts to think, maybe there’s something i’ve done that would be worth permanently marking. he spends a lot of time watching geno.

and then...well. did you guys ever see that tumblr post that went around about the person who was getting a tattoo and couldn’t sit still, and the tattoo artist put their hand on their throat and said ‘be still’, the person basically went limp, and the tattoo artist said ‘good girl’? yeah. that was the original inspo for this fic.

and here’s a quick lil excerpt!

Geno’s asked about his ink constantly; the media always has questions, always presses for details, but he just shrugs and grins and rubs at his face with his left hand, the harsh black numbers always so clear on his skin. He won't explain them except for these, the ones with the most obvious meaning.

They make him look a little dangerous, especially when he’s holding a tumbler glass of vodka to his lips in the low lights of a bar. Girls always like them, always pick up his big hands and brush their fingers over the marks as Geno smiles indulgently and allows it.

#asks #fic asks #tattoo fic

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mcfanely · 4 years ago

Text

When I Say “No.”

Mafia AU

Working alongside one of the most prevalent Mafia syndicates in Ninjago hadn’t been something that Zane had thought he’d end up doing. Usually he worked by his own code, ‘I protect those who cannot protect themselves, by killing those who harm them’, and any deserving target was fair game. Though as close as he was to Kai Smith, the Mob Boss and his employer amongst other things, there was a line he drew and he wouldn't cross it.

2298 words

It wasn't everyday that Zane was called into Kai's office. Or at least, not an official call. Usually he just walked into the so-called "base of operation" and then proceeded to let himself into the office - whether Kai was in there or not - and waited. Usually, picking out an expensive brand of bourbon from the Tantalus case to empty before his employer and reluctant... Partner returned.

This time, Zane was the one being invited in, properly. He was responding to a summoning and… He didn't know what to expect. To be honest, he never knew what to expect from Kai but such was the spice of life.

He paused briefly in the foyer, using a personal key card to activate the buttons to the correct floor; the top floor.

Zane stepped in, turned to face the door, and blew out a hard breath as it slipped shut.

He was relaxed, hands slipped into his coat pocket and thumbing lightly at the crimson gloves he had stored inside.

Arriving at the floor came far too fast. The click of his leather shoes was the only thing that echoed through the hallway as he stepped down the barren passage to the double doors that crested the far reaches of the building.

This meeting could easily be about the job they did last week, or the one that Zane had conducted a few days prior to that. Or maybe it wasn't anything all that interesting. Just an official meeting. A meeting where Zane had thought wearing a pressed suit was warranted. Though it wasn't like he'd dress down when meeting with Kai, or meeting with anyone. He had standards, even when he was working. Even when he was doing a job. Sometimes he'd feign to slip on a jacket, something more streamlined. Leather trousers and matching shirt when working out of people's eyes. At the other end of a gun, perched on top of a building, out of sight and out of mind as he stared down the sight and clenched his finger; and as always striking his mark.

Stepping into Kai's office, Zane's eyes immediately graced over the man's form. White dress shirt with the sleeves rolled up, polish Oxfords draped lazily over the corner of his desk. He was ideally tilting a whiskey tumbler in one hand, the other distracted with a small knife, carefully moving his thumb over the sharp end.

Zane frowned, but opted to not bring attention to the stupidity of the action, instead sitting on the opposite seat with the desk as a wooden wall between the two of them.

Kai's attention was loose for a moment before his mouth split with a grin, sharp teeth, his tongue moving over his canines in an almost predatory manner.

There was the illusion of blood between the teeth, over his cheek. Zane had seen it so many times with Kai's sloppy but effective work. The mess he always left behind, the carnage of the crime scene that thoroughly made him fall into the category of a disorganised killer. Partially anyway, if lack of care of the sanctity of the murder location was something to go by.

Quite opposite to his own surgical cleanliness.

"If you wanted to speak to me," Zane lent over the desk, his forearms flat against the wood. "You could have just called. But an escort from my place to the door." He raised an eyebrow, letting out a quiet and low whistle, "I have to say, Kai, I'm intrigued."

The man just seemed to regard him for a second, a calculating expression on his face. Zane stayed sitting, fairly unbothered by the other's silence. He could stay focused, relaxed. It had been years since he'd ever had any form of on the job stress and he wasn't going to start now. Or ever. He wasn't going to be riled by the mob boss before him; especially when they were as intimate as they were.

There was a slight huff, and Kai leaned over to meet him in the middle. Their faces were mere inches apart, and Zane could feel the unruly mess of Kai's hair on his bare skin. He kept his gaze level, an eyebrow raised.

Eventually, Kai's facade dropped with a bright grin on his face. There was a sharp thunk just to his left as the blade was rammed into the top of the desk. It would leave a chip, but the tactile ridges of the wood showed that it wasn't the first bit of knife damage it had or would sustain.

"I've told you I like you, right?" The question was said with a laugh, as if the point was obvious. It was obvious, very much so. The amount of times they'd been in each other's space, sharing glasses, alcohol, space. Beds.

"Only in the dead of night with the light off." Zane retorted, his arms crossed loosely over his chest. He tilted his head, "What's this for, Kai?" He spread his hand around the room loosely. "This isn't really your… method. You have a habit of tracking me down on my days off for a job."

"What makes you think this is a job?" He questioned.

"It's either a job or sex, one or the other."

Kai had the decency to nod and smile.

Zane watched as Kai moved his feet back under the desk, then paused as he felt the others shoe brush up against his leg.

"Job," Then he stopped, his slender fingers with wreaked knuckles slipped into his shirt pocket. "Or, more reference to last week's job."

He brought out a small image between his fingers, placing it lightly into the space between him and Zane. It was little, like it had been cut out of a glossy magazine. He realised after a moment, it was a picture day image from a school. A sample image from which the actual image could be purchased. It showed a young boy, a gap between his front teeth, a grin on his face.

Zane couldn't help but give a smile back at the image. It was pure, soft, and didn't have any place in either of their vicinities.

"He's a witness." The picture was tapped, and immediately his attention moved to his boss, eyes narrowed. He knew where those words led.

Beside himself, Zane shifted slightly in his seat. Uncomfortable, almost. The atmosphere in the room had shifted instantly, an oppressive sensation settled in the assassins chest.

No.

No way.

Kai didn't seem to notice the change, leaning casually back in the leather seat, the action causing a slight creak of material and metal.

"It was a job last week, not one of yours. One of mine. Details don't matter,"

They matter this time. I know that sometimes your word is enough but details are needed.

Kai was talking so easily, the words coming almost as if they were sharing a normal conversation.

"He needs to be dealt with."

There it was.

Zane could feel his own facade shift. He could feel the cool exterior break and melt down so quickly at what was being asked of him.

He could feel his steady hands start to fiddle, his fingers threading around his pressed shirt and rubbing at the fabric. The hairs on his neck prickled, the layers he'd chosen to wear were becoming that bit too much. All he could do was stare down at the image, not moving away from the deep brown eyes, the damn school uniform.

"Hey, babe--?" There was the brush of a hand against his own, calloused fingers and a light touch.

Zane pulled his hand away quickly, settling them in his lap.

His eyes were slightly wider than normal, his breathing carefully regular. It was weird, but he could almost feel the lines on his back burning. The inked snowflake pattern that stretched from the small of his back to his shoulder blades, one side arching over his left shoulder and up his neck. In the sunlight streaming through the panoramic window behind where Kai sat, the ultra violet tattoo was all but invisible. It was a cityscape from the height of his office, high enough up that people below looked miniscule.

"No," Zane met Kai's eyes. "No."

Kai seemed barely taken aback by that answer, a short simple breath blown out through smirked lips.

"No?" The word was repeated back at him. The tone he'd used mimicked as if the man wasn't sure he'd heard him right.

The room phased into silence. Sharp, palpable.

Then Kai stood quickly. The force of the movement caused his chair to topple backwards and strike the floor. Zane kept still, attention focused and emotion measured. He wasn't sure what was going on, what Kai honestly expected him to answer his request with.

Had he expected blind obedience? Like a dog? That Zane would stand up, take the image and go and do his job? It was a child.

A child.

All too promptly, Kai had stalked around the desk towards him. Hands were balling in his collar, tightening it around his neck. He was lifted from his seat and all too rapidly rammed down into the carpeted floor.

Kai was above him, his knees on either side of his hips, his chest bent forwards and his hands on either side of Zane's head. Breath hot and heavy against his cheek, pupils minuscule and the deep maroon almost red colour vibrant with some form of emotion.

The sniper stared up at the man as a growl bubbled up from his boss' throat.

"What did you say to me?" Kai spoke carefully, his teeth gritted.

The grip tightened.

Zane moved his hands so they were flat against his side, out of the way from Kai's assault. He could feel the pressure on his throat, the hard floor against his back.

"No." He repeated.

In response the hand in his shirt twisted, the material following suit and it only constricted him further.

Zane, beside himself, brought a hand up to wrap it around his wrist as a method to try and stop him from twisting any further.

It was instinct. If someone went for anywhere close to the face, the first action people took was to bring their hands up as a defence. Normally, he wasn't a slave to regular reactions. After so many years doing his job it had wreaked any form of normality that had been part of his life. When faced with a weapon his eyes didn't go immediately down to it, it went to the person holding it.

Then there was hands on his throat, he went in for his own attack instead of trying to alleviate the onslaught.

That was normally.

Now though, it was different. Very different. What Kai was asking him, telling him to do--

Zane bucked his hips up, hooking one foot around Kai's waist and used his weight and momentum to shift positions.

There was a grunt as Kai was forced to the floor with the cold killer on top, elbow pressed into his neck carefully. "I said no. I'm not targeting a child. No matter what you say, that's a hard no." Zane knelt forwards until he was right beside Kai's ear. "And if you try and do the job yourself, I'll hunt you down and the police will think it's a suicide."

He spoke with a level voice, barely wavering, whispered yet he was sure the point was across. Whatever experiences he and Kai had, the intimacy shared, if he targeted an innocent child--

Zane moved his other hand, using his hips to keep Kai pinned as he gripped the man's chin and forcibly moved it until they were directly staring at each other.

Only to be met with a smile, and eyes that gave out far too much affection and emotion for them to both be talking business. Then in an instant, their lips were together. The kiss was rough, and bruising. The assassin felt his eyes slip closed for a second before he came back to himself and placed more weight onto the arm over his windpipe.

"Kai, I swear--"

"I was kidding."

Zane froze in place.

Then in the next second and a sharp right hook to Kai's cheek later, and they were both laid on the floor beside each other.

The red clad man was groaning, jaw clenched before he spat out a clump of blood and what looked a lot like a tooth.

Zane winced, cradling his hand over his chest. "You bastard," He ground out. "A trick-- A child, Kai? Really-?"

There was a laugh from his right, and a sharp elbow to the side dissolved the noise into a gasp and pained grunt.

"I knew I liked you for a reason." Kai's said between stuttered breaths.

"What? That I won't target a child? You know my code, you know what I follow." He closed his eyes.

Somehow, for some reason, Kai pushed out one more chuckle. Zane wasn't even going to grace him with another strike. He just stayed still, one hand rubbing his own neck.

"No," Kai smirked, "I know your code. 'I protect those who cannot protect themselves by killing those who harm them'." His voice dropped in a mockery of Zane's. Then his voice shifted, going almost soft, "You had the guts to say no."

"Because you're an asshole."

There was a hum of agreement, "I could have killed you for declining the job."

Zane opened his eyes and turned to face Kai, an eyebrow raised. "You could have been holding a gun to my head and I still would have told you to fuck off."

There was a pause, then a quiet laugh from the both of them.

"Yeah," Kai sighed, grinning. "God, I love you."

AO3

#Mafia AU #zane #zane julien #zane ninjago #kai #kai smith #kai ninjago #ninjago #lego ninjago #Mob Boss #blood #tw: blood #tw: killing #reference to killing #oppositeshipping #Discord squad #mcfanely writes #mcfanely #mcfanely aus

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