#it does make me wonder how much fucking metal he wears though. how many piercings does he have. and WHERE

[jinxedshapeshifter]

I still can't believe there's a way to get Klavier to admit he's had to go through airport security "practically naked" before and that's one of the driving factors to me doing a third playthrough of Apollo Justice

[retrievablememories]

tokyo 2112 | baekhyun (m)

title: tokyo 2112 pairing: rich guy!baekhyun x reader genre: sci-fi/cyberpunk au, enemies to lovers, angst, non-explicit smut request: “hi, how are you? 💕 could i request some cyberpunk x baekhyun fic? i have in mind Tokyo, neon lights and explosive lovers. please feel free to choose the amount you want to write or you can. and thanks! ✨” word count: 12.8k warnings: body modifications/prosthetics, attempted robbery, physical violence (not between bh x reader, though reader does think about fighting him 💀), blood, non-graphic wounds, mentions of sex/one non-explicit sex scene, mentions of a car accident, frequent alcohol use/unhealthy reliance on alcohol, smoking, mentions of classism/poverty, mentions of experimentation, surgery is performed on the reader but not described, one mention of being weighed on a scale-like device a/n: this is my first real, lengthy attempt at enemies2lovers (or maybe just the genre “reader’s an a-hole who makes a lot of assumptions”) because i’m a clown and like to challenge myself for no reason...and this is why i don’t fool with this particular romance genre 💀 feedback is appreciated, this fic is just a whole lot of me experimentally punching above my weight and i’m a bit undecided on my feelings about it

also, i imagined the reader’s arm with a similar structure to the winter soldier’s, for reference

Tokyo, year 2112

You meet him in a Lower Tokyo club, the neon lights bleeding into each other and creating a deep, vivid landscape. It’s an unnaturally pretty scene—unnatural like everyone and everything else inside this club.

There’s a look of subdued wonder on his face, which makes you roll your eyes. He’s all made up and way too pretty to be in this dingy club with his gaudy piercings and expensive rings. Still, he enters the building in all his affluent glory, standing out against the crowd of gritty and cobbled-together androids and half-humans.

He’s a rich man’s son and an even richer man’s grandson. He’s known for being attractive, intelligent, and ridiculously rich—and that’s about all you know of the man himself. Him and his family have been excellent at keeping their personal lives air-tight, only ever letting the public know what they want everyone to know. But ultimately, they are only human. You know they cannot be as perfect as they try to maintain, and you can only imagine the unsavory things in their family history that go much deeper than anyone could ever think up.

“Do you think he wears all that to make up for the lack of enhancements?” Your friend Valor asks. He’s gesturing specifically to the man’s lip piercing and the chains hanging off of it, attached to the collar of his shirt. It’s a little strange, but it’s a signature look for him, and certainly not one of the weirder things in here.

“I’d like to rip it right out,” you reply in lieu of an actual answer to Valor’s question.

The man appears misplaced—like a researcher conducting a study of alien beings rather than a regular club goer—though he doesn’t seem to mind this. He just observes everything around him.

Valor chuckles and shakes his head at the display, throwing back another shot. “Weird.”

“Hm. Come on.” You steer Valor in the other direction, looking to get away from the man before he can get near your area of the club. Though this is your first time being in such close quarters with Byun Baekhyun despite his popularity across Tokyo, you’d like to cut things short if at all possible.

Another hour passes, and the drinks keep flowing. Your mind has gotten pleasantly hazy by now, almost enough to make you forget about the trespasser in your club scene. Almost.

You, Valor, and three other familiar faces sit at a small table near the back of the club. One of the guys is recounting some run-in he had the other week with the Droid Commission, though you can barely hear over the music that’s only getting louder, so you just nod and pretend to understand. However, he suddenly falters in his tale and his eyes dart up to a spot above your head. Turning back, you see that he is standing just over your shoulder. Without thinking, you recoil.

Baekhyun slides from behind you and comes to stand in front of you all now, a strangely convivial smile on his face. He acts like he’s merely visiting you all at brunch instead of standing in a club in the roughest part of the city.

“Exquisite work here,” he says, though his words drown in all the noise. None of you know what he’s saying, or who he’s saying it to. Noticing the acute confusion, Baekhyun lowers himself to your level, his scent passing across your nose as he does. Some robust and fancy cologne you don’t know the name of. Your eyebrows furrow at his proximity, and your blood rushes; maybe out of anger, or maybe just from being drunk. Then he touches your left shoulder, right where the metal of your arm connects to your living flesh.

Yeah, definitely anger.

“I said, this work is exquisite. Quite fascinating, really. Who made it?” Baekhyun has to get fairly close to your ear for you to hear him above the commotion, and you can feel the heat of his mouth next to your skin. His eyes travel the length of your arm, which is fully exposed in your tank top. His voice is irritatingly smooth, and the chains of his lip ring lightly brush your shoulder when he pulls back after he finishes speaking. Though your arm may be made of metal, it still has artificial sensory “nerves” running through it that connect it to the rest of your nervous system—and right now, they are screaming from that slight touch.

Maybe you really are just too damn drunk.

You look into Baekhyun’s dark eyes, which are imploring, coy, and playful all at once. The others at your table watch this interaction as if suspended in time, probably trying to process the sheer nerve of this dude.

“Fuck off,” you blurt out, and brush him off your shoulder with your flesh hand.

He remains unoffended; he even looks entertained by your blunt rejection.

The man who was previously telling his story speaks up. “You heard her. Fuck off, pretty boy.”

Baekhyun straightens up and nods, then reaches into his jacket. Two of the men leap to their feet, thinking he’s about to pull out a weapon—which would not be the first or last occurrence in this club—but he only brings out a business card, tucked between two of his fingers.

“Ever vigilant, aren’t you?” Baekhyun says, laying the card on the small tabletop. Then he directs his next sentence to you. “If you decide you feel like telling me more...get in touch.”

Then he disappears back into the mass of moving bodies just as quickly as he came. You flex the fingers on your metal hand, trying to figure out what the fuck just happened.

Both men at your table sit back down, although they’re still a bit disgruntled. Valor picks up the card to inspect it. “You gonna call that weirdo?”

“Please. You know me better than that by now.” You pluck the card from his hand and rip it up without a second thought. However, it takes a little longer to forget about the heated imprint of Baekhyun’s fingers on your shoulder, or his whispering voice fluttering against your eardrum.

Getting the arm was merely an act of survival, the way you saw it.

Money was low and jobs were scarce—ones that weren’t dangerous, straight-up unappealing, or low pay. There had been a scientific research trial for a new cybernetics program, and it paid much better than many other opportunities around—enough to live on for at least a year, give or take, especially with the cheaper cost of living in your area. You’d been terrified about giving up a part of your body, thinking your body might reject the foreign technology and kill you for the offense, but your desperation outweighed the fear.

Thankfully, it worked.

That was nearly two years ago, though, and the trial was long over. Even with you spending as frugally as you possibly could, the money was close to running out.

Odd jobs here and there help you out some, but they are few and far between and don’t pay nearly enough to make a living on.

You’re getting increasingly anxious about the lack of options and dwindling money, though you also spend half of your time getting drunk, hitting up the club, and simply trying not to acknowledge your crumbling life. If worst comes to worst, you can always think about finding another research trial and exchanging another body part. Maybe. These cybernetics programs often crop up more in Osaka, which would require you to leave the city, but maybe you could get another gig and scrape up enough money for travel...

For now, however, you are back at the club’s familiar bar and making small talk with the bartender, who’s an android without a real name or identity. Everyone just knows it as T-4000, though it appears to be fine with its little niche in the world. Sometimes it teases you about your arm and wonders when you will make a complete transformation into a “metalhead” like itself. Though you cringe, the company is better than nothing when the others aren’t around, so you allow the jokes.

Alone at the bar, you’re too preoccupied with staring into your drink to register the body sliding onto the bar stool next to yours until you hear The Voice flowing out again.

“One Blue Lagoon, please.”

Oh, fuck. You put your head in one hand and angle your body away from his in hopes that he doesn’t notice it’s you. But just as your fortune turns out, he happens to be facing your metal arm.

“Oh, it’s you again.” Baekhyun sounds pleased to see you, like this is some great unexpected coincidence, though you know that’s not likely true. You lift your drink to your mouth and pretend you don’t hear him, though that doesn’t deter him. “I never did hear back from you. How sad.”

“I have no desire to talk to you or anyone like you,” you say, still with your head turned.

“Anyone like me?” He chuckles.

“You don’t belong here, in case you didn't notice.”

“By whose definition?”

“Everyone’s,” you retort. T-4000 comes back with Baekhyun’s drink, and it gives you a look of bright amusement and curiosity with its digital-screen face as it rolls away to help another customer.

“I don’t concern myself with ‘everyone’s’ opinions,” Baekhyun replies, drinking from his glass. “Just the ones who matter.”

“Right, like your rich friends,” you scoff. “Why the hell are you even here?” You turn to him then, though looking at him feels like a mistake—like staring into a solar eclipse. He’s still wearing his chains, like always, and his eyes are smoked out with dark shades of eyeliner. The makeup makes him look eternally tired, but in some high-fashion model way.

“Because I don’t like being around my so-called ‘rich friends’ any more than you would.” Baekhyun smirks.

“So sorry.” You roll your eyes. “Maybe you should become a hermit, then.”

“You seem to be doing a good job of that right now. Where’s your friends from last time?” He looks around as if they’ll materialize.

“None of your business.”

Baekhyun leans on the bar counter, placing his arms on top of it, and his cologne hits you again. You try to hold your breath against the scent, though you can almost taste it in the back of your mouth. Shaking your head, you peer directly into his eyes now, which are as exceedingly curious as the last time. They’re still inky dark under this lighting, reminding you of black holes that absorb all light and life.

“Is it bad for me to want to know more about your arm?”

“Like I just said, it’s frankly none of your business.” You cast a forlorn glance at your drink, which has gotten dangerously low.

“Fair enough.” He sips again. “Now. What if I want to know about you?”

The back of your neck flares with heat, though you can’t fathom why. “You must be truly bored if that’s what you came here for. Unfortunately, you aren’t as interesting as you seem to think you are.”

“You injure me.” But you both know he’s not hurt at all by anything you can think of to say to him. “But this isn’t about me—it’s about you.”

“What about me? How you want to steal my arm and use it for scrap metal, maybe? Or to build yourself a body mod, even? You really stand out in here being the only one who’s not partway made of tin or some shit, and it makes people distrust you. You can figure that out, right?”

“You make a lot of assumptions.” Baekhyun swirls his drink around in his glass, the blue liquid swishing around the sides. “Let me make some, then. You seem like a mysterious, closed-off, and perpetually discontented person. And despite what you might think, it’s not my first time seeing you around. I guess I can’t interest you in entertaining my presence just for company’s sake?”

You pause, wondering where Baekhyun could have possibly spotted you. You don’t hang out in any of the places someone of his standing would usually be seen in. But then again, does he even frequent those areas of Upper Tokyo? He’s always spending his time mingling in Lower Tokyo’s notable haunts instead. “...Are you some kind of peeping tom or something equally pathetic?”

T-4000 perks up at that, even from its distance on the other side of the bar, and it scoots a little closer as if it’ll need to call the Droid Commission in another minute. Which, in actuality, is a terrible idea—calling on one of the city’s many vigilantes would have a more effective outcome, if need be, but sending them for Baekhyun of all people might land you all in prison.

“Tokyo is big,” Baekhyun deadpans, like it’s something even a baby would know. “You can see anyone anywhere.” Then his voice melts back into its normal suave tone. “I’ve noticed you in passing, once or twice. Your arm is something special, but it’s hard to forget a person like you.”

Despite yourself, you don’t totally hate the comment. That alone makes you want to leave the club and not look back for at least the next month or so, knowing he’s probably said this to dozens of other people before. You stay in your seat, though, trying to see what easy line this man is going to throw out next.

“I wonder why I’ve never noticed you, then.”

“You seem to be too consumed with your own problems half the time, even though I don’t know what those are. The stress is written all over your face, though.”

Can never miss a chance to be insufferable, it seems.

“Okay Mr. Psychoanalyst.” You knock back the tiny bit of drink left in your glass and push it away from you. You shake your head at the android when it gestures for a refill.

“Not a psychoanalyst, you’re just achingly easy to decipher.” His tone is casual, like this isn’t meant to be an insult, though you take offense anyway.

“You’re not very good at whatever this is,” you say.

“What do you think this is? Flirting? Maybe you wouldn’t be wrong there.” He laughs.

“Yeah, well. Get some more practice and then maybe you can convince some other poor sap to get to know you better and sign over the rights to their cybernetics, but I won’t be falling for it.”

“I guess that means I’ll just have to try harder, then.” And then he finishes his drink, too. “Not the stealing your arm bit, but the getting to know you part.” He pauses for another moment, and then says, “It’s easy to become enamored with this place.” He waves his hand around at the club’s surroundings. “Expect to see me around more often. I think I’ve already taken a liking to you.”

Baekhyun tips his empty glass to you and gets up from his stool. His cologne swirls around you as he leaves, not overpowering, but enough to make its mark on your olfactory memories. You don’t look back to see where he walks off to, too busy trying to ignore the small headache building behind your eyes and your elevated heart rate.

He’s already taken a liking to you. Why would a ridiculous comment like that even get to you?

God. You really need to get laid.

So, you do just that.

Not with Baekhyun, but with someone from the club whose name you don’t even remember before it’s even over. It was painfully uneventful sex, and it did nothing to banish the man from your mind, which makes you feel even more irritated.

Walking back to your tiny apartment afterwards feels like a certified Walk of Shame even though it’s late at night and no one really cares to notice you. You spit on the sidewalk as if that could properly convey your disgust. You think of Osaka again—and what the fuck are you going to do to even get the money to get there?—and of the business card that you’d ripped up without remorse.

You shake your head, sending that thought back to the depths of your mind. Nevermind. That doesn’t matter. What could he possibly have for you, and why would you want it? Tucking your hands tighter in your pockets, you keep your head down and remain inconspicuous until you get back to the not-so-welcome sight of your own place.

You, Valor, and a few others sit around a makeshift bonfire at Tokyo’s Rainbow Bridge—or what remains of it, anyway, with weeds and tall grass sprouting up in the space that was once its parking lot. For the past hour, this impromptu hangout been nothing but smoking cigarettes and drinking cheap alcohol and shooting the breeze. The nights are always much colder than the days, the chill biting into your skin and seeping into your clothes, but you try to ignore it and huddle closer to the fire. Maybe there is something, anything else you could be doing other than this, but you are just a bit too weak—and a little too lonely—to say no to the companionship. Even if it means listening to the uninteresting conversations of men who you barely know outside of the club or without a bottle of whiskey in their hands.

Your hangout session remains sleepy and boring for a while until someone makes a suggestion. One of them keeps going on about some steady, reliable work he’s supposedly found from a trusted friend, though he refuses to elaborate on what kind of work it is when asked. You make a sound of disgust and tune him out. Useless suggestions are as bad as none at all.

“Maybe we oughta rob that Baekhyun dude.”

You look up from the flames, fixing your eyes on the one who said it—a man called Lockjaw—and someone else chuckles in disbelief.

“You serious?” Valor asks.

Lockjaw sits forward in his ratty lawn chair, and with the way the light hits his face, it’s easier to see how his bottom jaw and teeth are completely metal. It makes you wince internally every time you see him, though you always feel kinda bad afterwards. That must’ve hurt exponentially worse than your own procedure. “Why the fuck not? He struts around Lower Tokyo like he has it all...and the bastard does. We sit and grovel for scraps, yet there’s a walking goldmine right in front of us.”

The idea of taking Baekhyun’s riches had never quite appealed to you or fully manifested in your mind. You didn’t want anything belonging to him, mostly because of your own disdain towards the man. However, the suggestion appears in sharp relief now, so obvious that it’s hard to believe no one else proposed it until now. You don’t immediately respond to this concept being thrown around, but something uneasy settles in your chest.

Valor sits back with a mildly disinterested look. “And you think someone like him doesn’t have major security hanging around waiting to incinerate someone with a ray gun if they tried it?”

“Do you ever see anyone hanging around him?”

“Doesn’t mean they’re not there. Somewhere.”

“Then we’ll be strapped up,” Lockjaw says, throwing his hands in the air. “And any of his little ‘security team’ who tries it will be blown into the stratosphere. That’s how we take care of that.” You shake your head only slightly, a movement not noticeable enough to be picked up by the others. You rub your tongue against the inside of your cheek, picturing all the ways this plan could go belly-up. To your irritation, Valor decides to drag you into the fold despite your efforts to stay out of the conversation.

“What do ya think, Y/N? Baekhyun’s been on your tail lately, maybe you could help lure him in.” That stirs up several murmurs and targeted stares in your direction.

“Yeah?” Lockjaw leans forward even more, his ass nearly slipping off the edge of the chair. “Think you can get in good with him?”

You shift uncomfortably in your seat. “Uh...it’s not like I’m buddy-buddy with him—”

“You don’t need to be, just tell him to bring his ass here and we’ll do the rest.”

Your mouth tightens. With all eyes trained on you, some expressions less friendly than others, it feels impossible to refuse. “I guess.”

“It’ll provide the money you’ve been worrying over for the past year.” Valor offers, and you shoot him a side-eye. Not like you needed him to broadcast your business to the world.

“That’s how life around here works,” another man chimes in, putting his cigarette out on the dirt and getting off his makeshift stoop of an upturned bucket. He stretches his arms and legs, and though you can’t see them under his long pants, you can hear the soft whirring and clicking of his metal legs. “Eat or be eaten. I’ve made my choice.”

Lockjaw gives a wolfish smile. Your apprehension rises, though you say nothing. “Eat, we will.”

You try to act nonchalant the next time you see Baekhyun at the club. You only notice him as you’re leaving, having already waited most of the night to see if he’d show up this time. You slow to a stop as you spot him in the alleyway behind the club, speaking to another club-goer—you’ve seen the person around before. You can only imagine what they were talking about before you’d interrupted their little scene, and the person scurries off, perhaps somewhat reluctantly, once it’s clear they’ve lost Baekhyun’s attention. Maybe that was the poor sap he’d finally found who’d be misguided enough to give up their cybernetics.

Baekhyun approaches you with a smile, his chains catching in the light of the flashy neon sign above. The kohl is dark and smoky around his eyes, in perfect sameness with every other time you’ve seen him.

“Hello, one who’s name I still don’t know—”

“You should come see me,” you interrupt. You want this to be as quick as possible, not wanting to dwell on any fake niceties.

Baekhyun lifts an eyebrow. “See you? At...your place, or—”

“At the ruins of Rainbow Bridge. Thursday night, around 9. Unless you’re too busy doing rich people stuff.”

“Rainbow Bridge…” He draws the words slowly across his tongue. Probably thinking of what a ruin the bridge is now—and has been for the past few decades—and wondering why you’re asking him to meet there of all places.

“I have a friend who lives around there—no fucking place to stay, you know, just holes up wherever he can. But he can...let you see the inner workings of my arm. Pick him up, take him back to your place; I’m sure you have a lab.” And because you know what he’s really looking for, you throw in, “He’s studied the technology, knows it inside-out. He could help you build...whatever it is you want.”

Baekhyun’s eyes, which you normally perceive as two lightless voids, sparkle at that last part. You can practically see the light increase in them. “Oh really?”

You roll your own eyes. “Yes, really. I’m not going to let you walk off with my damn arm, but you can...take notes on the mechanisms and shit. It’s up to you. I just got tired of you fuckin’ asking, so don’t think this is going to turn into some weekly meetup or whatever.”

He nods, slowly at first, and then more assuredly. “Alright, then. I’ll come.”

“So...yeah.” A sudden wave of anxiety crashes over you now that the trap has been laid. You feel as if you make one wrong move now, it’ll blow everything. He’ll find out and hate you for it. But why should you care about him hating you? “Then...see ya Thursday. Bye.” You decide to make your exit, walking briskly past him in the alley.

“Leaving so soon?” Baekhyun asks, turning back to watch your figure retreat. You wave one hand behind you in a dismissive gesture.

“I’ve been here all fuckin’ night, Byun. I’m going home now—to get some sleep, if I’m lucky.”

He chuckles, the sound fading behind you as you walk away. “Sweet dreams.”

Your steps falter just slightly when those words leave his lips, and several emotions begin warring in your chest. You ignore them all and continue on your walk back to your place, though you almost wish you could turn back to the club and ask for another drink or three. Something to get your mind off that ridiculously simple phrase that’ll be spinning around in your mind all night.

The night of the plan, you begin having major second thoughts.

It’s not as if you didn’t already feel shitty about it, but your mind keeps racing with how ridiculous of an idea this really is. It’s far too late to talk anyone out of it, as they’ve already stocked up on contraband weapons and laid their gameplan, but you feel less and less “okay” about being a part of it.

Most of all, you feel increasingly guilty about using Baekhyun’s trust in you for this; he never seemed to assume you had any other motives behind your invitation. Even if it’s ridiculously, oddly naive of him to trust you—someone he knows nothing about—you don’t feel great about exploiting that for your own gains.

It takes him less time to show up than you’d hoped. He’s right there at the agreed time, annoyingly punctual, his sleek black luxury car pulling up in the dirt and patchy grass. It looks like it was cut out of a magazine and placed there—almost comically out of place. Just like him.

Baekhyun gets out of the car and walks out onto the grass to meet you, uncaring of the mud and dirt he’s stepping in. He smirks, his hands in his pockets and his chains dangling. “Would now be a good time to get your name, or are we in too deep at this point?”

There’s no one else but him. Definitely too trusting.

You nervously chew your lip as you mull that question over. If everything goes like the others intend it to, there won’t be a point in telling him your name. But if he’s still alive by the end of the night, you could be exposing yourself. Still...a name won’t matter either way if he can give a perfect description of you to the Droid Commission.

Suddenly, you decide not to give it any more thought. “It’s Y/N.”

“Y/N, Y/N...” He says your name like he’s tasting a charming new food. “I like it. It suits you.”

Baekhyun’s smile is too sincere, and it doesn’t make you feel any better. “Come on.” You turn your back to him as you lead him through the tall grass and toward a broken section of the bridge’s main road. It leans against the main structure of the bridge and sticks halfway out of the muddy ditch that was once Tokyo Bay, its jagged edge reaching toward the night sky.

It’s darker under here, with the broken bridge blocking out the moon and stars and lights from buildings nearby. Your stomach rolls.

“So, who is this friend of yours?”

You turn to Baekhyun then, and you don’t know if he can read the anxiety on your face. Maybe he can. He’d proudly bragged about his own abilities for figuring people out.

It happens all at once, somehow slow and fast at the same time.

One of the men—the one with two metal legs—slinks out from behind the broken bridge and sneaks up behind Baekhyun, a stun spear in his hands. Its two large metal prongs are lit up with electricity. Those metal prongs are aimed directly at Baekhyun’s back, ready to make contact, but that never happens.

“Look out!” you scream, and shove Baekhyun out of the way. He stumbles off to the side, falling against the concrete bridge, and you wildly grasp the long spear with both hands, blocking the man from reaching Baekhyun.

“What the fuck are you doing?” Metal Legs shouts. He drives the spear’s metal bar forward, knocking it into your upper chest and collarbone with a force that makes your teeth chatter, and the pain and shock take your breath away for a few moments.

You’re not a fighter. You usually try to stay out of any ridiculous brawls when they do happen, whether at your apartment building or the club, but you do your best to hold the dude off. So even though you stumble back, you keep your hold as tight around the spear as you can and shove it back, putting your weight behind the movement and cracking it against the man’s chin. He howls with pain and anger and his hands momentarily loosen on the weapon. You take that opportunity to snatch it completely from him.

Nearby, Baekhyun is busy fending off Lockjaw with a long knife, both of them fully engaged in a fierce clash of blades. You feel a burst of surprise. He was armed this entire time? Had he realized something was suspicious after all? Most of all, how does he know how to fight?

You don’t have much more time to think about that, though. Metal Legs is recovering from the hit, his hand reaching for his side like he’s about to pull out his own knife or gun. You leap forward and shove the prongs of the stun spear into his ribs. He quickly collapses to the dirt, motionless after a handful of frightening convulsions. You feel cold fear at the idea that you might’ve just killed him, but you can’t dwell on that when you see the others bursting out of the tall grass a few yards away from you and Baekhyun. The backup, in case something went wrong—which it most definitely has.

Lockjaw has Baekhyun up against the concrete of the bridge, his knife near Baekhyun’s neck and Baekhyun trying to block the blade. The sharp metal inches increasingly closer to its target. With your legs shaking, you run up behind Lockjaw and dig the electrified prongs into his side, sending more volts through his body than you can imagine.

Lockjaw’s weapon drops, and Baekhyun stumbles away. The man takes a little longer to be knocked unconscious than Metal Legs, but you are relieved when he’s out a few seconds later.

You look at Baekhyun, who appears dazed and winded; you belatedly realize he might’ve received some of the shock too, with both men’s arms locked together when you initially used the spear. “Get out of here! The rest are coming—go!” A shot from a ray gun zips through the air between you two and burns the concrete of the bridge.

Baekhyun looks at you wordlessly. Then he grabs your wrist as tight as a vise. You glance at him questioningly, and your confusion mounts when he drags you along with him as he takes off towards his car. The red smearing across your hand and wrist tells you he must be bleeding from somewhere, and shock blooms in your chest for a wild moment.

The car door opens without him even touching the handle or speaking a command, and he jostles you into the backseat, trying to avoid the spear’s prongs; you’re still holding it tight, as you expected you’d need it to face the others—however futile that would’ve been. You’re so frazzled once you get in the car that it takes you a moment to realize Baekhyun is in the backseat with you. “What are you doing?!”

“Get on the highway,” Baekhyun speaks, ignoring your frantic question, and the engine roars in your ears as the car peels out of the grassy lot. The vehicle narrowly escapes another round of angry shots fired by the others, and the grass sizzles where the shots land.

A self-driving car. Of course he’d have one of those. You stare at the steering wheel as it turns on its own, maneuvering you both away from the scene of the crime and back onto the paved roads.

“Your arm…” You look at the sleeve of Baekhyun’s jacket. It’s torn now, and you can see the skin of his forearm underneath, which displays a long cut. Lucky for him, it’s not deep enough to need stitches. He has similar, smaller ones on his hands.

Baekhyun examines the wound and makes a sound of disgust. “It’ll be fine,” he says decisively. “The bastard wasn’t as good with a knife as he wishes he was.”

You nod silently, though the movement feels mechanical. As the reality of the situation seeps in, a whirlpool of dread forms in your stomach.

“Fuck, I-I’m fucked.”

Baekhyun gives a humorless laugh. “You’re fucked?”

“I’ll...need to lay low for a while.” Then you glance at him. “Unless you’re driving me to the Commission. Then, well…at least they can’t get to me while I’m in prison.” Your laugh is equally humorless.

“You’re going into hiding?” Baekhyun asks, and the corner of his mouth lifts. You don’t expect this reaction. Not after him almost being jacked and led into the situation by none other than you.

His smirk exasperates you. You almost want to roll your eyes at him not realizing why you’d need to hide. Or maybe he’s just playing coy about it; but you give him a break for now. “I ruined the plan and helped you out, so yeah, my own place is not gonna be safe anymore. ‘Friends’ are fleeting out here. Especially if you fuck with someone else’s money.” Valor crosses your mind, the only one you could really call a friend out of all the others—and only because you knew more secrets of his than they did. Your chest tightens with a strange guilt. You should’ve just said no from the beginning.

The car is quiet for a few long moments. Then Baekhyun shatters the silence with, “Come home with me, then. You can stay there for a little while.”

You bark out a laugh. “You can’t be for real.”

He sits back against the leather seat. “I wouldn’t have offered if I wasn’t. It’s a waste of time otherwise.”

“After I just—could’ve gotten you killed?”

“I said it before—you’re like an open book. Your emotions are practically written on your face. It’s pretty damn obvious to me you were never truly up for this plan. Unfortunately, you aren’t the badass you think you are, but at least your efforts saved me.”

“But I still—”

“You certainly don’t have to take the offer if you don’t want it.”

You become quiet at that. Even if you don’t think you deserve this level of mercy, you don’t want to shun this offer of safety and be left to contend with the streets alone. Your voice is tense and quiet when you respond. “I’ll take it.”

Baekhyun’s home is a penthouse in the heart of Upper Tokyo, which doesn’t surprise you. The contrast in his neighborhood’s appearance with what you’re used to seeing in Lower Tokyo is stark and painful—spotlessly clean streets with sweepers continually traveling up and down them, bright holographic billboards, people walking around with personal androids accompanying them. You begin to feel resentful again, and you wish you could swallow those feelings after he’s been gracious enough to rescue you, but you can’t help it.

You two must make quite a sight once you pull into the apartment building’s parking garage—you holding a stun spear, wearing a slightly shabby outfit of a T-shirt, jeans, and jacket, and Baekhyun walking out with disheveled, torn clothes and bloody hands. Someone gets out of the parking garage elevator once the doors open, and they give a startled look when they see you two.

“Good to see you, Jongin,” Baekhyun greets the other man. His tone is friendly, but his expression dares the other man to ask any questions—which you both know he won’t.

“Good evening, Baekhyun.” The man gives a slight nod in your direction as he walks past you two, though there’s no hiding the distaste he thinks he’s disguising. His eyes linger on your metal hand, and you feel exposed; you try to convince yourself he’s just looking at the spear, which would also make sense.

You try to shake the feeling off as you and Baekhyun step into the elevator cabin, but confusion rushes over you to replace it. The floor of the elevator is more like a scale, sensing the weight of your bodies and sinking slightly further into the floor once you step onto it.

“What’s that all about?” you ask.

“Oh, yeah. That. This isn’t like your typical elevator, it’s a teleportation channel,” Baekhyun says this nonchalantly as he reaches for the touchscreen panel on the wall.

“Um, what? I don’t want to be teleported anywhere.” You jump right back out of the cabin before the doors can close, and Baekhyun gives you a weary look as he holds them open with one crimson hand.

“It’s safe, you don’t have to worry about anything. All it does is take the atoms in your body and replicate them elsewhere; the floor measures your mass. I’ve done it hundreds of times.”

“You don’t say.” Sarcasm drips from your voice. “Yeah, no thanks. I’m not interested in turning into ground meat on the other side of that thing.”

“There are no stairs in this building, just teleportation channels. If you want to climb the side of the building to get to my place, be my guest.” Baekhyun starts pressing on the panel as if he’ll leave you behind, and panic spikes in your chest. You decide to get back on with him, much to your displeasure.

You close your eyes tight just as the inside of the cabin starts glowing with light, and you can only hope your last lived experience won’t be riding a teleporter with Baekhyun in the same night you tried to mug him.

Surprisingly, the transportation doesn't feel like anything. One minute you’re there on the parking garage ground floor, and the next minute you hear the whoosh of the doors opening again. It’s like you never moved an inch, but you obviously have when the doors reveal the lavish interior of Baekhyun’s home.

Grateful to be at your destination, you step out of the teleporter as quickly as possible. “How did we end up right inside your place?”

“Clever, right? It uses fingerprint recognition so no one else can get access but me, but you’d know that if you hadn’t slammed your eyes shut.”

For all your talk of Baekhyun being out of place in Lower Tokyo, you suddenly feel like the fish out of water inside his penthouse. There’s metal and glass and holographic materials everywhere, which is the same stuff you’d find in Lower Tokyo, but here it’s all much more sleek, shiny, and well-maintained. His living room alone looks bigger than your entire apartment.

“Come on, don’t just stand there.” He gestures for you to follow him further down the hall, and you hesitantly do.

“Um...I don’t really want to carry this all night,” you say, referring to the stun spear still in your hands.

Baekhyun turns back to you, blocking the path to the rest of the hallway. “Do you even know how to turn it off?” It’s still charged with energy. You look at it up and down, but it isn’t immediately obvious to you. You don’t want to admit that, though, and keep awkwardly looking for some sort of Off switch until Baekhyun can’t stand the silence anymore. “Look, just give it to me.”

Your mouth twists at that. It seems nonsensical considering he’s just given you a safe haven, but you’re wary he’ll try to turn the weapon on you. Maybe he was waiting to get you alone and dispose of you himself. He appears to understand your thought process, because he scoffs loudly and holds his hand out for the spear.

“If I really wanted you dead, I could’ve done it in the car—or better yet, let your friends take care of you. Just hand it over.”

“Mm, I think not. I don’t think you’d want to get blood on your pretty leather seats.” Still, you give him the spear, if a bit reluctantly. You don’t know what he does with it, but he takes it into another room and tells you to wait in the hall. When he returns, it’s gone.

Baekhyun leads you to a clean and unoccupied guest room. It’s large, with floor-to-ceiling windows that give an expansive view of the city below. It’s also nicely decorated, much like one of Upper Tokyo’s many upscale hotels, but it seems like it hasn’t seen a warm body in months. There’s a certain lack of warmth to it. “Don’t get many visitors?”

“Now is not the best time to make jokes about me filling my perpetual loneliness with frequent trips to your club, if that’s what you’re attempting to lead up to.” He steps through another door, which you find out leads to the bathroom. “Everything you need should already be here—except clothes. I’ll get those in a moment.”

“Right,” you mumble, your eyes carefully tracing over everything in the bathroom. You know your skeptical behavior is probably pissing him off at this point, but distrust has long become an inherent feature of yours. You’ll keep this act up if you know it’ll get under his skin.

The hot water in this shower doesn’t run out after five minutes like the one back home. You can’t shake the old habit, though, and you wash yourself as quickly as you can, body tensed with adrenaline as you expectantly wait for the warm flow to stop after the five minutes are up. When that doesn’t happen, your muscles relax a little. Though it feels good, you don’t know if you’ll get used to this any time soon.

The clothes he lays out for you on the bed are plain and black, but still better quality than what you’re used to seeing and wearing. Soft on your skin. Smell good. You wonder where he’s went off to—maybe to wash up and patch up his wounds, if he has any sense. You also wonder if you should try exploring his place, but you feel like that’ll be risky; he has too much advanced technology around here that would probably find a way to kick you out of the penthouse window at the first sign of nefarious activity.

...Which is how you end up merely sitting on the bed and waiting to see what will happen next. But not before checking the entire room for any signs of surveillance tech or something else foreboding. This is also when you make the joyous discovery that your phone is missing, and you reason it must’ve fallen out of your pocket in the earlier clash; you know you had it when you first met up with Baekhyun. That pisses you off, but there’s nothing you can do about it now. Though you feel disconcertingly cut off from the outside world without it, who would you even contact anymore? One of the others, who’d probably try to track you down and enact a cold, hard revenge for you blowing up the plan? Lockjaw’s face flashes into your mind, along with the other scalding looks you received the night of the planning, and you shudder slightly.

When Baekhyun comes back to your room—and you’re almost surprised that he does—he looks significantly smaller in presence without his all-black clothes, glittering face chains, and heavy makeup.

Indeed, the man standing in front of you with damp hair, baggy pajamas, and bandaged hands doesn’t seem like the same suave person from the club at all.

“So now what?” you say, raising an eyebrow at him.

He shrugs. “Well, if you’re going to be living here, you need a tour.”

Living with Baekhyun isn’t quite what you expected it to be. He’s home more often than you’d think, for one. You would’ve thought he’d always be in business meetings or off somewhere finding more luxury goods to buy or just doing whatever. You can’t really get mad at him for being in his own home, but you try to keep space between the two of you. With your own designated spaces, it’s not hard to do this, which you are at least marginally glad about.

Trying to deal with Baekhyun while completely sober isn’t your idea of a walk in the park. Despite yourself, you wish you could go back to the club even once; Baekhyun certainly won’t let you drink up all his liquor, nor will he tell you where he’s hidden it. For your own good, he claims. Sure.

To your surprise and slight relief, he doesn’t ply you for any more details about your arm, though you’ve definitely caught him running his eyes across it more than once—studying it like words on a page. Whatever’s spinning around in that mind of his, you can only guess. His lingering interest only makes you think he’s scheming for a way to take the arm off you when you’re sleeping or equally vulnerable, though, so you remain guarded around him.

“One day, you’ll have to understand that I’m not the evil villain you think I am,” he tells you. He regards your attempts to avoid him with a certain bored amusement, like how one might think of a particularly entertaining pet cat.

You let the steam of the food you’re cooking billow up across your face, making your eyes water from the slightly-too-warm heat before answering. Leave it to him to bother you during one of the times when you can get some undisturbed, Baekhyun-free peace. “Maybe you should stop dressing up as one whenever you go out, then.”

He chuckles. “It’s like you’ve made it your personal mission to throw verbal stabs at me whenever possible.”

You shrug. “I have to do something to pass the time here.”

Baekhyun rolls his eyes. “You could do that just by having a normal conversation with me.”

You cross your arms, looking at him from where he stands at the kitchen island. He’s in his dressed-down form now, sans eyeliner and jewelry.

His kitchen is not like any other you’ve encountered, fully equipped with the capabilities to make every single one of his meals by itself—and order more ingredients whenever necessary. It’s undoubtedly convenient. But you often still like to make food of your own, just so you don’t have to feel so...dependent on him for every little thing. “About what?”

“About who you are. What you like. What you dream about—I don’t know, something.”

“What I dream about.” You make a noise of disbelief. “How can you waste time on dreams when you live the life I do? I just focus on trying to survive. That’s it.”

Baekhyun opens his mouth automatically like he’ll say something, but he pauses as if he’s just absorbed the full weight of your words. Suddenly, there’s a certain sadness pooling in his eyes and pulling at the corners of his mouth, and you hate it—intensely. You don’t want his pity or sympathy. And yet, he’s already given it to you by letting you live in his home.

“Before you say something pathetic, just don’t,” you blurt out, wanting to stop him before he can start. “You want to talk? My favorite color is green, and my favorite food—alcohol. I have an arm made of fucking titanium, the club was my main hangout spot, and I hate entitled people. Talk about that.”

Baekhyun’s sympathy evaporates into an unimpressed expression, lost just as quickly as a whisper on the wind. “Closing the door again, I see. Alright. Have it your way.” He leaves the room then, giving his back to you and shutting you out similar to how you just did to him.

This should be what you wanted. But it only makes you feel oddly unsatisfied.

“Here.” Baekhyun slides something across the table towards you after dinner one day—another dinner where you sit on opposite ends of the table and where you try to ignore his existence. You instantly recognize the small, glistening package as a cellphone, though it’s a model much more advanced than you could’ve afforded.

You look up at him as he stands in front of you, one of his hands shoved into the pocket of his black pants. “...What are you doing?”

“Giving you something to communicate with so you don’t feel like some princess stuck in a glass castle.” You roll your eyes at that. “I’m not sure who you’d talk to since all your friends do hate you, but the thought counts. And everyone needs a phone.”

You sit forward to look at the phone in its packaging, tracing your metal fingers against the surface. The sensation circling around in your stomach is an odd one. “Please don’t tell me that you hosting me in your penthouse was just an easy way to get a sugar baby.”

Baekhyun looks slightly flustered at that accusation, and you’re gleefully, childishly pleased about taking him off guard. His surprise is quickly replaced with a shit-eating grin, though. “It’s nothing like that; I could’ve already had that kind of arrangement 100 times over.” His tone suggests that he has, which sends a chill crawling up your spine. But maybe not 100 times over. “I did it to help you out. But if thinking of it that way gets you off, be my guest.”

“Don’t flatter yourself, Byun,” you say, taking the phone out gingerly. It’s a lightweight thing, looking like it might dissolve if you look at it too hard. Its screen is clear raised glass—which you assume will project out the hologram technology this phone is inevitably equipped with—and has silver backing. It’s a piece of work. Though it appears fragile, you know it’s sturdier than that—or it wouldn’t be such a popular model as it is now. “It’s...nice, though.”

Baekhyun waves his hand noncommittally. “I wouldn’t settle for anything less—even if it’s for someone as eternally pissed-off as you.” You bite your lip against the rebuttal that wants to come rolling out, instead preoccupying yourself with figuring out the controls on this thing. Which takes an embarrassingly long moment. Baekhyun watches you for the duration of it, biting his own lip against the urge to laugh at the frustrated furrow between your brows and the crinkling of your nose. Really, the phone looks like a thin sheet of metal with a slice of glass over it; how are you supposed to operate this? Eventually, he says, “There’s a button on the bottom that activates it...you have to press that.”

“Right, clearly.” You try to rid yourself of your embarrassment as you turn the thing on, but even as Baekhyun leaves the room you can hear his chains clinking together as he laughs silently at your confusion.

As if your life could not get any more chaotic, your metal arm begins malfunctioning. 

The metal is not as flexible as it was just a few days before, and it gives you a hard time whenever you try to do simple maneuvers. Your arm is overtaken by a sensation that feels like nerve damage with how the entire limb and shoulder tingle and burn from wires that no longer want to do as they’re told. You’re not entirely sure what’s wrong with it—a good oiling could usually fix any stiffness when necessary, but this nervy feeling is new.

For a while, you try to hide it from Baekhyun, which feels kind of ridiculous even to you. You’re only hurting yourself more, but you are a little too prideful to give him the pleasure of inspecting your arm like he’d always wanted to from the start. You don’t want to be his science experiment.

However, it comes to a point when you must ask for help when your arm stops working entirely.

You wake up to this terrible realization. After another morning of having gotten only a little sleep the night before, something immediately feels wrong. Your arm is dead weight beside you. When you try to sit up, it doesn’t respond to your movements. You can only feel the painful tug on the flesh part of your shoulder where the weight of the metal pulls at it, and you groan in pain and annoyance.

You support your arm with your other hand to prevent the tugging, which quickly gets exhausting and annoying as you try to go through the morning motions. You can’t keep this up while washing, so by the time you get out of the shower, your shoulder is killing you from where the arm dangles.

When you get to the common room, Baekhyun isn’t there. He isn’t anywhere else in his penthouse, either. You don’t even know how long he’s been gone. When you bring yourself to finally call his number, you bitterly remember that you still don’t have it saved in your phone. You want to scream in irritation. You can’t leave to go look for him—yeah, right—or get help from anyone else, either, because of the fingerprint recognition on his apartment entrance. Now that you think about it, you are like a princess in a glass castle here. That reawakens another bout of anger in you. Safe haven or cage?

Baekhyun appears an hour or two later—you’re not totally certain, having refused to expend the strength to move from your current spot to check the time—wearing his usual getup. You don’t know if you should be relieved, but an emotion similar to that sweeps through you despite your lingering apprehension and dislike.

“What’s wrong?” he asks. His eyebrows crease when he sees you splayed across his couch, your metal arm propped up on the couch back.

Don’t be combative, you think to yourself. But it’s like an impulse; you can’t stop yourself. “Why do you immediately assume something’s wrong?”

“You’ve never been so casual,” he gestures to your posture, “around me or in my place before, so I’m trying to figure out if your brain has been infected by cyber bugs or something. Because if we need to quarantine, then—”

“Well, you’re not totally wrong for once.” You struggle to sit up, your movements stiff, and your arm slides off the couch back and slumps limply to your side. Baekhyun's eyebrows shoot towards his hairline at that, and he looks at you questioningly, stepping closer to you.

“What happened to your arm?”

“Don’t even fucking know…it’s been feeling weird for a week.”

“Why didn’t you say anything?”

You look up at him, cynicism coloring your expression. “I’m sure you can take a wild guess.”

He gives the familiar sigh-and-eye-roll combo, like he’s done probably a hundred times since he’s met you. “Yeah, I can.” He waves his hand. “No matter. I’m calling Yosuke.”

“Who’s Yosuke?” You turn to watch Baekhyun retreat—probably to his bedroom or office. He turns back to you momentarily.

“Someone who can fix your arm.”

— 

Yosuke turns out to be a man around the same age as Baekhyun—a big contrast to the older, wizened cyberneticist you’d pictured in your mind. He and Baekhyun act overly familiar with each other, apparently being long-time friends since their younger years.

There is no difference in how he treats you and Baekhyun, which is another thing you didn’t quite expect. He is clearly wealthy like Baekhyun, coming in with a nice suit and expensive jewelry and a suitcase full of more tools than you’ve even seen before, but he doesn’t have the haughty rich man aura. That makes you feel a little more comfortable, and you are glad that Baekhyun let you have some privacy with this and left the lab for the actual procedure. Even if it meant he didn’t get his wish of poring over your arm’s wiring like some kind of cybernetics kinkster.

To your relief, the fix is simple enough. The implanted electrodes in your shoulder that help send signals between your brain’s neurons and the artificial nerves have failed, but those are relatively simple to replace.

“Shitty tech, I guess,” you mumble, casting a displeased look at your arm. You aren’t sure why, but you feel embarrassed about it failing on you. Maybe you just thought it’d be reliable forever. “I got it as part of an experimental research program, so it was probably never going to be the most dependable thing anyway…”

“Hm.” Yosuke smiles. “Maybe not, but it’s still an extraordinary piece of work—especially in this early form. Some of these mechanisms are new even to me. Was that the 2110 Tokyo trial, by chance?”

You nod, though you feel a tiny bit less relaxed with knowing that even Yosuke doesn’t recognize all the intricacies of your limb. Hopefully you’ll still walk out in one piece. “Yeah, the very one.”

“Excellent work,” he reiterates. “It was an early research trial, but still yielded some of the most functional and human-like large-scale cybernetics of the last few years. You could’ve done a lot worse. Maybe you already know that, though.”

“Maybe,” you repeat quietly, but you are mostly speaking to yourself now.

—

After the electrode replacement is done in Baekhyun’s home lab, you can finally feel your arm like normal again. Yosuke does a few sensory feedback and dexterity tests to make sure your arm can function as it should, and he promises to come back the next day for another round just to be sure.

You almost don’t want Yosuke to go when he finally does pack up to leave. It feels nice to be around someone who doesn’t inspire some wretched, nonsensical anger in you.

Baekhyun slips back into the lab after Yosuke leaves, and you glance up from your arm at his arrival. He looks at your bandaged shoulder and watches appreciatively as you flex your metal fingers. “All good now?”

“It’s fine,” you mumble. “Thanks.” Saying that word to him is not easy, but you relent, figuring you should at least give him that much. “You should be thanking the gods you don’t have to go through this kinda shit.”

“Really.” It’s not a question, the way he says it. It’s filled with sarcasm. Baekhyun reaches down and rolls up his left pant leg, his chains hanging as he does, and you recoil, confused. Why the fuck is he showing you his bare leg?

“It’s cybernetic,” he says, barely concealed pride in his voice. “You can’t even tell, the work is so good.” Something like jealousy and anger stirs in your chest. Even if you had wanted to tuck those emotions back in, they’ve escaped from the cage now and are intent on running rampant.

“So. Byun Baekhyun is part-metalhead, after all?” You slide off the surgical chair you were sitting in for Yosuke’s procedure, coming to stand a couple feet in front of Baekhyun. You look down at his leg—which, for all intents and purposes, looks like a completely flesh-and-blood limb. “You joker. Quit fuckin’ around.”

“It’s not a lie.” He knows you won’t believe him, so he taps a spot behind his ankle twice. A long, thin panel that stretches from just above his ankle to his upper thigh opens on his leg, exposing the wiring and metal within. You can’t school your expression in time, and your mouth drops. “Incredible, right? Custom-made. So, yes…I do have an idea what it’s like.”

“Custom-made, huh.” You bite your lip so hard you think it might bleed. “Unbelievable. You’re the kind of person who does these things because you want to, because you can, not because your survival hinges on it. You must truly think you’re special.” The words come hurtling past your lips like venom.

“I didn’t choose this on a whim,” Baekhyun argues, straightening up to face you and letting his pant leg back down. The look on his face says his patience has finally run out, presumably tired of you throwing insult after insult at him since you’ve been in his home. “You don’t know anything about me other than what you’ve seen and heard on screens and from others. I’ve tried to get familiar with you. You reject it at every turn.”

“I don’t want to ‘get familiar’ with someone who gets custom cybernetics that cost hundreds of thousands just because they fuckin’ felt like it, while the rest of us have to do it just to get enough money to live for maybe a year on.” You’re gritting your teeth so hard that your jaw feels like it might crack.

Baekhyun steps closer to you, diminishing the space between you further. His eyes burn with animosity. “I was in a car accident, Y/N. I was just a teenager. No one even knows this but the people closest to me, and I don’t want anyone else to know it. I lost my leg and nearly my life with it. Before you start preaching to me about choices versus survival, realize that you aren’t the only fucking person in the world who’s ever had to do what was needed to survive.”

Your breath catches. You feel like the wind has been knocked out of you. Suddenly, all the fight drains from your system, and you are left feeling deflated and cold. His blazing eyes feel like two bullets trained on you, and your gaze falters.

Baekhyun doesn’t wait to see if you’ll have another response lined up for him; he turns heel and stalks out of the room.

As promised, Yosuke returns the next day for your additional tests. Your conversation with him isn’t as enjoyable as it could be. You are still reeling from Baekhyun’s revelation and unsure how to approach him. Neither of you spoke to each other for the rest of that night, instead choosing to actively avoid each other. You know you can’t keep this game up forever, though.

“Baekhyun’s in a sour mood today,” Yosuke remarks. “Rare for him. Any idea why?”

You shake your head, worrying your lower lip with your teeth. “Mmm...no.”

The slight smile on Yosuke’s face tells you he doesn’t believe you. “Well...I’m sure you two will figure it out sooner or later. He seems to have an affinity for you.”

“What?”

“He was pretty concerned when he contacted me about your arm. He’s mentioned you before then, too. He seems fascinated by you.”

You purse your lips together. You remember his days of annoying flirting in the club, which feel so far away now, and how he’d come to you with a bunch of flowery words and told you he’d taken a liking to you. Perhaps he was really telling the truth about that. You wonder if he possibly mentioned the attempted mugging to Yosuke, and you cough nervously.

“Well, he’s…” you wave your flesh hand, “...a character.”

Yosuke chuckles. “You two seem kind of fitting, I don’t know why. Similar love for recklessness, maybe—from how he describes you, anyway. Like peas in a pod.”

Fitting? Peas in a damn pod? The next words come thoughtlessly rushing out of you in an effort to change his mind and slap away whatever outlandish idea he has of you and the other man. “I don’t want Baekhyun.”

Yosuke raises an eyebrow, though he keeps his gaze on your arm as he watches the movements of your metallic fingers for any irregularities. “I never said you did, Y/N.”

In your haste, it occurs to you that maybe Yosuke really was just referring to your similarities—which you’ll continue to vehemently deny—rather than suggesting any deeper connection. Though that’s what it sounded like to you. Fuck. You don’t know anymore.

Is this what they’d call a Freudian slip, then? How wonderful. You rub your temples with your free hand and shake your head. “Then let’s just forget the last few minutes of this conversation.”

Yosuke smiles. “Whatever you’d like to do.”

—

Yosuke leaves soon after he’s finished testing your arm, but he reassures you that you can see each other again if you feel like having the company—just have Baekhyun arrange things.

Speaking of Baekhyun. You should probably say something to him. You’re not enthusiastic about puttering around his home feeling even more awkward than you did when you first arrived there. So, you walk to his office and knock on the door, turning your ear to it to see if he’ll give a response. You don’t have to wait to hear one, though, because the door panel slides back on its own.

You’ve never been in his office before, though you knew where it was—it was one of the places he decided not to show you on his little house tour—but it’s just as obnoxiously streamlined and full of tech as every other part of his home. Baekhyun sits behind his desk, elbows propped on its surface and fingers crossed together.

“Y/N.” His voice holds none of the playfulness, casualness, or even cool sarcasm you’ve heard from him before.

You step a few feet forward into his office. You feel like you’re standing underneath a spotlight, lit up for the entirety of the world to see. In reality, it’s just you and him here—Byun Baekhyun, one of the richest men in Japan.

He stays silent, presumably waiting for you to speak first. That is what you came here for, so you do, even if it makes you feel like you’re going to peel out of your skin.

“I was a dick. I’m sorry.”

Baekhyun blinks. “An apology? From you? The world must be ending.”

“I’m trying to be serious here, Byun.” You sigh. “I was...wrong to assume what I did about you. I guess...I don’t really know anything about you...but. I felt like I had you all figured out already. So, I’m sorry.”

The tension in Baekhyun’s shoulders releases, if only a little. His expression shifts into something not quite as impenetrable as it was just a few moments ago, but not completely open, either. “Apology accepted, then.”

“Thanks.” You shove your hands into your pockets. “Well, I thought...if I’m not to make any more assumptions about you, I should probably get to know more about you?” 

Baekhyun looks interested now, and he releases his hands from their formerly tense position. He leans forward slightly. “Then I should do the same with you.”

Your hackles raise, despite you trying to keep yourself more open-minded. “I...don’t want to. You know enough already.”

Exasperated, Baekhyun spreads his hands out in front of him. “Here we go again. What are you so afraid of? And why even ask me about myself if you don’t want to share anything about you?”

“You can think of it as gathering intel—not making friends. I’m not asking you about your life story so we can have picnics together and talk about our wildest dreams.”

Baekhyun scoffs in disbelief. “When are you ever going to be honest with yourself? Emotional constipation isn’t a good look for you.”

“Honest with myself about what?”

“You are attracted to me. You are interested in me beyond supposedly gathering intel. And for some reason I can’t conceive, it enrages you.” The words come off his lips with the trace of a smirk, and though they make your skin prickle with heat, his smirk makes you want to jump across the desk and land one good punch on him.

You snort. “You’re a piece of work. Attracted to you? Everyone doesn’t throw themselves at the first person with a whiff of money or notoriety.”

Baekhyun gets up from his desk to step closer to you, much like he did the other day. He’s close enough for you to count the moles on his face, barely noticeable except for when he’s at this proximity. His cologne wraps its scented arms around you and pulls you in. You didn’t notice it as acutely yesterday, too embroiled in the argument and trying to process what he revealed to you, but now it hits you full on. How is this not considered some kind of olfactory warfare?

“Then tell me you don’t want me.” He whispers it to you in that same stupid, silky voice he’d always used in the club. That voice, combined with his scent, transports you straight back to that environment—the pungent taste of alcohol, the blinding neon lights, the ear-splitting music. And the one man who you just can’t figure out.

You open your mouth only slightly, afraid to breathe in more of his fragrance and lose yourself to it like a fool. “Fuck you.”

“That’s not an answer.” Baekhyun’s voice remains in the same low whisper, and he grins like he already knows the truth. “But I can do that, if you’d like.”

It doesn’t take much effort for him to close the rest of the space between you. When he kisses you, you don’t slap him, stomp on his foot, or knee him in the balls like you might’ve thought you would. Instead, you kiss him back—gradually, tentatively, but your lips fall into a rhythm with each other’s.

His lip piercing is unyielding on your skin; the edges of it press into your lip. The kiss is not rough or even frantic. You think this all might’ve been easier if it was—easier to allow yourself to keep hating him so intensely and channel that energy into your actions. However, all your previous thoughts of knocking his head off or pulling his lip ring off fall away; you just allow yourself to exist solely in this moment and absorb the feeling of his lips on yours.

Maybe now you could allow yourself to admit—internally, at least—that yes...you did want this. You wanted it from the first ridiculous time you met him in the club, and when he put his insolent hand on your shoulder. Whispered into your ear like he knew exactly what effect it was going to have.

Baekhyun’s bedroom—the one other place he hadn’t shown you besides his office—is neatly arranged and smells entirely like him. Other than those base things, you don’t care what the rest of the room is like. When you both somehow make it there, Baekhyun backs you up onto the bed, his lips still attached to yours.

The weight of his body is solid on yours. His tongue nudging against your lips and asking for entrance makes your body flush with heat. Before you can get fully invested, you pull away. He looks at you questioningly.

“Take this off,” you mutter, pushing his face chains away from you. He laughs lowly, pulling away from you to take his piercing out and put the chains away.

Pulling your clothes off comes naturally; it doesn’t feel clumsy and stilted like it did the last time you slept with someone. Baekhyun’s hands flit over every inch of newly exposed skin he can access.

The way Baekhyun touches your metal arm is reverent, worshipful, and you hadn’t realized how much you needed this—this kind of unabashed admiration—until it happened. No one has ever touched your metal arm in a way that wasn’t clinical or otherwise similarly detached. His fingers glide across it like it’s still made of skin and blood and bone, and he kisses the length of it, up to your neck and all the way back down to your metallic fingers again.

Water beads at the corners of your eyes. You try to ignore it. You don’t even acknowledge the few tears that do slip out, sliding towards your ears from your supine position.

Baekhyun lifts himself to be level with your face again. You turn away from him, too afraid to see whatever emotion will be lying in his eyes—not wanting to reveal the full magnitude of your vulnerability to him—but you don’t say a word when he presses his lips against the tear tracks on your skin.

Funnily, ironically, every motion comes instinctively. Him rocking against you, his heavy, dark breaths echoing in your ears, his long and low moans—your lips searching for his, your teeth creating blooming bruises on his skin. Though you have pushed him away and dismissed his proffered company at every opportunity, this intimacy feels like a grand coming-together—something that was bound to happen at the end of every road.

—

The sheets are twisted, the sweat is cooling on your skin, and you are both tired but satisfied. Content in a way that neither of you have truly been in a long time. You rest your head on Baekhyun’s chest, closing your eyes and listening to him breathe underneath you, the metal of your arm still warm from the heat of his skin. 

“I could give you an upgrade.”

Your mouth twitches. You think you might have imagined the words, so you stay silent for a while longer until Baekhyun nudges your arm, checking if you’ve already fallen asleep.

“Upgrade?”

“Your arm. I could...have a new arm built. One like my leg.”

You sit up to look at him, the sheets falling from your body. “Don’t say pretty things you think I want to hear just because you’re still in the post-orgasm haze.”

Baekhyun blows air out of his nose, too tired to properly argue or even scoff at you. “Like I said before, I don’t waste time saying things I don’t mean.” His voice quiets. “We both know you can’t get your limb back, but...I could...give you something to help, at least. It’s...easier to deal with the cybernetics when they actually look like they belong on your body.” You know he speaks from experience there, by the way his gaze falters and drops to his lap.

“To feel more like a human again, huh.” Some part of you—multiple parts of you, maybe—had still been grieving over the arm you’d given up almost two years ago. Maybe it was a silly thing to be hurt over compared to the many other problems in your world, but it was difficult to stop feeling like you’d sold away a portion of yourself for nothing. Nothing but fleeting money.

Baekhyun’s offer stirs something in you. You turn your body away from him, feeling the tingle in your nose and eyes again that could only signal one thing. “Stop doing this. Being so...I don’t know, forgiving. Not after all I’ve done and said to you.”

Baekhyun sits up then, resting his hands on your arms. “I want to do this for you. Stop acting like you don’t deserve anything good in the world.”

You turn back to face him after a long moment, though the tears still linger in your eyes. “I don’t want to be the only one who benefits.” You shake your head slowly. “If you really agree to give me a new arm...you have more than enough resources to help change the nightmare Lower Tokyo has become. Help them. Help us. I don’t want to be some one-off experiment or pet project you discard once you’ve gotten your fill—some broken bitch from Lower Tokyo you think you can fix and turn into one of your family’s many success stories.”

Baekhyun is breathless from your admission; this is the most transparent you’ve been with him since you’ve met. Though part of him wants to shrivel back from your words, he clings to your long-awaited honesty, even if it is only shared with him to rebuke him and his family’s selfishly opulent ways. He thinks of why you pushed so hard against him trying to make a personal domain of Lower Tokyo, leaving the comforts of his own place to absorb the shadows of yours, and a better understanding of your rejection begins to dawn in his mind. Tentatively, he brings one of his hands from your arm to your cheek, thinking you might still wince away from him, but you don’t move.

“You’re right.” His voice is tight with the knowledge of it. “I can help, Y/N. You, and everyone else. I mean—I will. If there is one thing you can trust me on…let it be this.”

You stare into his dark brown eyes, trying to hunt for any signs of dishonesty, though you find none. There is only the heat of his hand on your face, and his open, yielding expression. “I will hold you to that, Byun Baekhyun.”

[ladykissingfish]

A Date with an Angel // Part Two // Hidan and Obito

Hidan

“Order whatever you want; I swiped the old fuck’s credit card so dinner’s on him!” Konan panics at this, and refuses to pick up her menu until Hidan takes out his wallet and proves that he was just kidding. Today was Hidan’s turn at entertaining the lovely little lady, and he had originally intended to take her to a heavy metal performance at bar downtown (he was friends with the lead guitarist so they would have gotten in free). However, after he informed Nagato of his plans, he was met with a disappointing “Konan hates heavy metal.”, so he decided to take her to dinner instead. She seemed entirely suspicious when he approached her earlier (wearing a dress shirt and tie instead of his usual dirty muscle tank and ripped sweatpants), but nonetheless agreed to go with him to a quiet little cafe a few blocks down from the house. Konan has never really known what to make of Hidan. He was just slightly older than Deidara, but (in Konan’s opinion) ranking much higher on the “immaturity” wheel. He’s been nicknamed by the rest of the group as “Mr. Never-Dies”, because no matter what happens, what job he takes on, how badly he’s hurt ... he just keeps getting back up. One time he came home with blood running from the crown of his head and flowing into his boots, but rather than let anyone take him to a hospital, Hidan took out a needle and made Kakuzu stitch the gash on his forehead. No painkillers, no alcohol, not even any flinching. Anyone else would have been substantially messed up after such a heavy blood loss ... but Hidan was just fine, in fact laughing and talking like nothing was amiss. He’s extremely foul-mouthed and has a thing for telling dirty jokes, but today, on his date with Konan, he’s making a great effort to restrain himself. Hidan wants very badly to put his arm around her waist as he walks along beside her, but resists as he knows Nagato will tear him a new asshole if he makes her in anyway uncomfortable. He’s at a loss for what to talk to her about, so he simply asks her how she’s feeling. There’s a pause, and she goes “I’m not really sure. I lost my mood ring yesterday.” He bursts out laughing, so hard that she blushes. “That’s pretty damn funny, lady.”Konan tilts her head in surprise; nobody had ever complimented her humor before. In fact she’s usually told that the few jokes she does make are very flat, or somewhat dark. Fast forward to the cafe, where Konan is surprised again that Hidan asks for a table that’s “quiet”, and pulls out her chair for her. The waiter comes back and Konan is amused by the amount of food that Hidan is ordering. When it’s her turn, her mind is a blank, so she just orders the last thing he said (which was spaghetti and meatballs). “That’s all?” he asks, as the waiter collects their menus and leaves. “No wonder you’re so slender.” She asks him how in the world HE’S so skinny when he eats so much, and he explains he has a fast metabolism, like his mother. Konan is interested; she’s never heard him mention his family before. As if reading her mind, he says, “Me and those guys just don’t get along. They wrote me off as a brain-dead bastard when I said I wasn’t goin’ to college.” “College isn’t everything, you know. People have to do what’s right for them.” Hidan agrees, and begins telling her his much he enjoys working for Nagato, and the type of jobs they do. It’s interesting; when you got him away from the others and in a calm, quiet setting, Hidan was ... normal. Normal and actually very charming. And although he never says it out-loud, Konan gets the strong impression that Hidan has come to consider the rest of the group as being a surrogate family. Then the food comes out and Hidan turns into a different creature altogether. He eats much like an animal, viciously and indiscriminately. But instead of being disgusted by this, Konan ... feels relaxed. There’s an unspoken feeling here, that with Hidan, she can let go and be herself. She doesn’t have to worry about looking pretty, or eating daintily, or acting “like a lady”. In fact Hidan orders them ice cream sundaes for dessert,

then challenges her to see who can eat theirs the fastest. Hidan ends up winning, but they end up with a horrible case of brain-freeze that leaves them both paralyzed for several moments ... yet laughing pretty hard. Even though Konan ate far less than Hidan, she feels quite stuffed nonetheless and mentions this to Hidan, who immediately offers to give her a piggy back ride home. She hesitates to accept; it’s a ways home and Konan feels she’s not the lightest woman in the world (especially after a big meal). But he insists, and she lets him hoist her into his back and trot back to the house with her. They laugh and joke the entire way, with Hidan making numerous comments about how light she is and how good she smells. “That’s one thing about living in a house full of guys for so long; I got so used to the smell of ass and dirty socks and Doritos that I forgot there’s people in the world who know what the fuck deodorant and shampoo are!” Konan laughs so hard at this that she slips off Hidan’s back and lands on her knees in the grass, holding her stomach and howling. Seeing that she likely won’t calm down anytime soon to grab onto his back again, Hidan picks her up and carries her in his arms the last two blocks home. He sets her down gently outside the front door, telling her how much fun she is to be with, when she throws her arms around his shoulders, squeezing him. “I can’t remember the last time I laughed this hard,” she says as she lets him go, wiping tears from her eyes. “Thank you.” He hesitates, then leans down and very gently kisses her cheek, before telling her that she’s welcome to hang out with him anytime, because “I’ve got a million more jokes, doll, and I’ll gladly tell ‘em all to you.” He walks her to her room and chances giving her another kiss, this one on the forehead, before bidding her Goodnight.

Obito

“Can I ask you a question?” “Yeah?” “When we’re at home, when we’re around the others, why do you wear that thing?” It’s the next day, and Konan is at a bar (ironically, the same one that Hidan wanted to take her to the previous day) with Obito. Out of everyone in the house, Obito is the one that strikes Konan as being the most mysterious. To begin with, the day she met him he was wearing a unique orange half-mask over his face ... and never took it off. She questioned Nagato about it but he seemed reluctant to speak on Obito’s unique fashion choice, and none of the others acted as though there was anything strange about it. He joined he others for dinner each night but seemed to prefer sweets to actual food, and he was quiet. Nagato told Konan that Obito was more or less his right hand man within the organization, and had helped him recruit the other members. Obito never spoke to her unless she spoke first ... so naturally she had been surprised when he approached her as she was coming out of her room, and asked if she minded joining him for “a quick drink”. The bar, like everything else, was in walking distance of the house; but Obito took her on the back of his motorcycle. It was a short ride but an exhilarating one ... and it got even more exciting when, upon entering the bar, Obito glanced around, saw there weren’t many people, and took off his mask. He found them a seat at a table near the back, and ordered them both a glass of wine. Konan had tried her hardest not to stare at his face ((which was difficult; aside from a few jagged scars on the left side and what looked like a damaged eye, he was quite handsome)) but eventually he caught her looking, hence giving her the bravery to pose her question. Obito paused for several moments, as if contemplating what to say. “Why do women wear makeup? Why do people dye their hair or get piercings or tattoos or wear crazy clothes? It’s because they have something about themselves that they don’t like, so they try to cover it up. I don’t like my face. I haven’t since my accident.” Konan blinks, genuinely surprised at Obito’s answer. She chances it to ask “Accident?” He gave her a wry smile and ordered himself a shot of whiskey (and her an ice tea) saying he needed something stronger to tell her about it. “When I was a kid, my parents liked to go rock climbing. Took me with to National parks every summer. One year my dad got drunk and took me and my mom up a dangerous path. He pulled on a rock the wrong way, and it came out of the mountain, along with a bunch more, and crashed down on us. Really long fall; mom and dad killed right away. But me ... I guess the devil decided he wasn’t done with me. A boulder crushed this entire side of my body, and my face got fucked ... but I lived. Had to go to a lot of physical therapy. Also had to go live with my uncle Madara — that guy’s a piece of work. But anyway I lived and here we are, right?” Konan is quiet for a long while, watching the ice cubes float around in her glass. “I like you like this,” she finally says, and this time she’s looking him directly in the face. “I understand if you want to be someone different, or like, if you feel like your mask makes you different, but, if you ever want to be THIS Obito ... please come to my room. We can talk, we can listen to music and eat junk and watch movies and talk about books and —“ Obito interrupts her by putting both arms around her, squeezing her warmly. “Thank you, Konan.” They stay for another few hours, and Konan is pleasantly surprised to find that Obito without the mask, Obito away from the house ... is fantastic. He teaches her how to play pool, he keeps her laughing with countless stories about growing up with his “crazy uncle”. At one point in the night he convinces her to join him at the karaoke machine on the stage, and the two sing duets of Disney songs (to the thunderous applause of the few people at the bar).The ride back home is mostly quiet, him driving slower this time and her holding on to him, each filled with their own thoughts. Before they get to the front

door, Konan lifts Obito’s mask just the slightest bit, and kisses his cheek. “This is the best night I’ve had in a long, long time. I appreciate you letting me get to know you.” He smiles and blushes, then slides the mask back into place before opening the front door. Some of the others are in the living room, and Obito quietly greets them before heading to his room. Konan was awed by how effortless the switch from animated and somewhat goofy to reserved and calm seemed to be for him ... and found herself wondering if any of the others were putting on a facade as well. She takes her shower and goes to her room, intending to go to sleep early, but after about an hour of restlessly tossing back and forth, she gives it up. She turns her light back on and picks up the remote to her tv, thinking that maybe a good, boring show will put her to sleep. But before she can find anything, a knock comes on the door. She goes to open it, and is surprised to find Obito standing there. “I saw the light underneath your door. Can I come in?” She takes him by the arm and pulls him inside. Once inside, he slides off his mask and, looking around, finds a seat for himself on one of Konan’s chairs. He opens up his jacket to reveal a small book, worn and obviously read many times. “I saw you reading this last week. I remember you telling Sasori that you finished it. I was wondering; what did you think in Chapter seven, when —“

[bosspigeon]

maybe they’ll leave you alone, but not me

Pairing: Gen, with Tina Poname & Male Detective Friendship Word Count: 2187 Summary: Tina Poname’s the new kid in a sleepy little town in the middle of nowhere, and is learning the hard way that making new friends in a place like Wayhaven is easier said than done. Luckily, she’s got a can-do attitude and a forceful personality to help her befriend even the surliest of loners.

I just think Tina’s such a good character, and I loved trying to write from her point of view, and I love thinking about her friendship with the Detective. Especially with my boy, Arlo. I also read a bunch of articles trying to put together his infodump on the Satanic Panic fhdasjhgjskahg. Title, of course, taken from “Teenagers” by My Chemical Romance. (I like to think I’m Funny)

Tina takes her lunch in the courtyard.

It’s overcast outside, looking like it might rain later, but the courtyard is nice enough, landscaped with flowering plants and rustic stone pathways, though it is kind of small. She’d rather sit inside, just in case it does start pouring, but every table in the cafeteria was full, and the ones that weren’t very quickly became full when she walked past with her lunch bag. She’s learned quickly that small towns like Wayhaven tend to be pretty… insular.

She’s trying not to let it get her down. She’s the new kid, and with time other students will warm up to her, but for now she feels like she’s the ugly duckling set adrift in a little pond, and all the other ducklings think she has the plague or something. The metaphor gets away from her a bit, but her head’s been a bit of a jumble since the last move. But that’s leading towards things she’d rather not think about, so she doesn’t. Simple as that.

Instead she looks around her, taking in the very pretty little courtyard, even if it’s washed in the moody tones of the grey sky overhead, made more moody still by the shade of a tall, gnarled old ash tree in the center. There are a few wooden picnic tables scattered about, all of them empty.

All of them but one.

Tina almost doesn’t see him at first. He’s hunched over at a table directly under the ash tree, his back to her. His long black hair hangs almost to the bottom of his shoulder blades in loose waves, and all she can think is that he’s never seen a boy with hair so pretty before. Every time she sees a boy with long hair, it’s always a frizzy mess, and whenever she brings up that they really shouldn’t use all-in-one shampoo, they get all annoyed with her.

She makes the decision to flounce right over, rounds the table, and wiggles into the bench across from him. “Your hair’s so pretty!” she chirps by way of greeting, unzipping her lunch bag and beaming at him. He looks up at her, and she’s a bit stricken when she sees his face properly. His dark brows are bold slashes scrunching over pale grey eyes lined in smeary black makeup that streaks down his freckled cheeks. He’s got a square jaw and a strong nose, but he still leans more into pretty territory than handsome, and she’s beginning to figure out that the uniform guidelines in the student handbook are taken as more suggestions than law, given that his lip, nose, and ears are pierced.

He doesn’t respond, squinting at her, his mouth twisting into a frown.

“I’m Tina!” she offers cheerily. “I like your makeup!”

He frowns harder, almost snarling, with a bit of teeth showing, like he’s hoping to scare her away. Well, Tina Poname isn’t so easy to scare, and she’s determined not to spend lunch alone. She just smiles right back and starts rooting through her lunch bag, pulling out the neatly packed containers of healthy fruit and veggies and hard boiled eggs to find the yogurt-covered pretzels hidden at the bottom. She crunches on one while she eyes her new tablemate, who seems to have resigned himself to her delightful company and has turned his attention back to a notebook he’s doodling in while absently eating something she thinks is a kind of pretty little spring roll. It looks really good, and she’s a bit jealous.

He staunchly ignores her eyes on him, shifting a bit and tossing the hair hanging in his face over one shoulder, so she can properly see the black enamel inverted cross dangling from his ear. Without thinking, she leans across the table and flicks it.

He flinches away from her and glowers with such ire she’s surprised her clothes aren’t smouldering. She smiles sheepishly, but brushes off the surprise and barrels on. “I can’t imagine you’re too popular wearing those in a quiet little town like this,” she chimes in a teasing sing-song. “Wonder how many old die-hard religious types burst into flames at the sight of you?”

He scoffs and rolls his eyes so hard it gives Tina a headache. But she’s also more than a little pleased she’s gotten a reaction out of him.

She leans into it, figuring she’s found her in. “So, are you a Satanist or what? It’s cool if you are! Just think it must be hell in this place.” She can’t help but cackle at her own joke, slapping the tabletop and wheezing. When she recovers enough to notice, she catches him eyeballing her like he can’t quite figure out exactly what’s wrong with her. It’s a look she knows pretty well at this point.

“I’m not an anything,” he sighs, tapping his fingers on the wooden tabletop. His nails are painted black, but they’re chipping at the tips, and he’s wearing a few really cool rings, a couple of which looks like they might be antiques. “Besides that, the whole inverted cross being a symbol of Satanism is bullshit.” His voice is pretty deep, but not nearly as deep as she expected it to be, and softer besides, with a light, lilting burr to it. Regardless, Tina’s delighted to have gotten anything more than grunts and glares from him at all. She leans forward, crunching another pretzel. “Wait, really? What’s it mean, then?”

“It’s the cross of Saint Peter,” he almost bursts out, and then pinches his lips shut, like even he’s surprised he said anything. He looks at her warily, but she just waves at him to go on. He hesitates for another moment, before he continues haltingly, “When Peter the Apostle was supposedly executed under Nero, he’s said to have requested he be crucified upside-down, because he felt he wasn’t worthy to die the way Jesus did.” His broad, tight shoulders are loosening bit by bit the more he talks. “It’s a symbol of humility. It’s even used in the design for the papal cross, because the Pope is supposed to be the successor of Peter. And because of its mistaken associations with Satanism, now people like to claim the Pope is the antichrist.”

He rolls his eyes again and picks up another spring roll, gesturing at her with it before taking a bite and continuing while he chews. “I’m not sure exactly when people decided turning the cross upside-down suddenly makes it evil, but it can probably be traced back to the whole Satanic Panic debacle that kicked up in the 70s through the 90s. Anton LaVey—fuck that guy, by the way—published The Satanic Bible in ‘69, but most of it was pretty much plagiarized from a lot of other authors who philosophized about self-actualization and whatnot, including Ayn Rand—fuck her too—and then The Exorcist movie came out, and those things combined with the whole Manson cult thing earlier in the 60s and kicked off this sort of pop culture fascination with the occult and macabre. A lot of metal bands and other counter-culture music artists started using them in album art along with other bastardized religious imagery, and it turned into a whole thing with religious pearl-clutchers.”

Tina is astounded. Not just by the subject of the conversation (which is really cool, in kind of a weird way?) but with the way the boy  turns into a completely different person in the blink of an eye. Just a few minutes ago, he was all dour and moody and mean, looking as if he was a second away from biting her head off, and in the space of a few seconds, he’s morphed into someone totally different. His eyes are brighter and more expressive, he’s talking with his hands, and even the kind of monotone voice she’d heard from him before has changed. “Wow,” she says with no small amount of awe.

He seems to regain himself when she speaks, as if he’d forgotten he was talking to another person entirely. She watches him shrink, hunching his shoulders and looking down at the table, scooping up his pen and viciously scribbling a little spiral into the top corner of his notebook.

“No, seriously!” she blurts, standing up and bracing both hands on the table so she can lean into his space. “That’s really cool! How do you know all that?”

He gives her that same wary, hunted look from earlier, and she can’t help but pout. She wants to see what she saw just a second ago, when he looked like he was excited to talk about something. “Just stuff I picked up a while ago, and thought it was cool, I guess.” He shrugs and looks away, tugging at the spiked chain around his neck partially hidden under the crooked collar of his uniform shirt. “There’s this bookstore a couple towns over that kind of specializes in this stuff.” He lifts his hands and wiggles his fingers, mouth cocking in a wry almost-smile. “Plus, there’s always the magic of the internet.”

She laughs brightly, and it takes every ounce of her meager self-restraint not to reach out and try to physically drag that other boy out of him. “Oh, that sounds fun! We should go together sometime!”

He blinks at her, like she’s hit him over the head with her lunch bag. “Wh… what?”

She leans forward harder, until she’s essentially standing on her tip-toes and bouncing. “We should hang out! I’m sure if I ask really nice, my stepmom will drive us out there. It’ll be great!”

He keeps staring at her. She bounces a bit faster, hoping he doesn’t notice the pimple she couldn’t quite cover with foundation before she had to leave this morning. And if he does, she hopes he doesn’t say anything about it, because she doesn’t think trying to fight him will ingratiate her to him overmuch.

“I’ll buy lunch and everything,” she wheedles.

“I…” He looks away, eyebrows all scrunched again, but she can see him wavering. She wants to punch the air. Never doubt Tina Poname! “I guess? But why?”

Her smile falls a little at the genuine confusion in his voice, the way he’s not looking at her anymore, even to glare, the way he’s twisting one of his rings around his finger and almost hiding behind his thick, dark hair. She tilts her head and blinks at him. “Because I think you’re cool? Besides that, this town is kinda weird about new people? And you’re the only person who didn’t put a bag or book on every available seat when I walked by.”

“Mostly because I didn’t see you coming,” he mutters under his breath, and she barks out a laugh.

“Wouldn’t be the first time I’ve ambushed potential friends,” she giggles. “Hasn’t failed me yet. Except when it has, but I don’t count those.”

He finally looks at her again, still kind of hidden behind a curtain of hair, but she thinks he’s actually smiling at her. He starts to open his mouth to say something, but flinches instead when the shrill ring of the bell indicating the end of lunch interrupts him. He swears under his breath and starts to gather up his things, and Tina starts shoveling pretzels into her mouth while pushing her untouched plastic containers back into her bag. She’s going to regret eating nothing but pretzels later, but at least they’re more filling than melon or carrot sticks.

“Hey wait!” she exclaims through a mouthful of pretzels as he begins to stand, almost tripping over the bench to block him in before he can leave. She’s staggered, suddenly, when he rises up to his full height and she’s looking very up at him. She’s been taller than most boys all her life, so this is a bit bizarre. He looks down at her with his brows raised, tucking his notebook into a satchel covered in patches and pins. “Wow, you’re tall,” she says astutely, swallowing her pretzels.

“Uh… yeah, I am,” he responds.

She shakes off her shock and backs up enough to let him out of his side of the table, but she blocks his path to the door still. Though she’s not sure she could stop him from going anywhere if he really wanted to get past her, with those long legs of his. “I forgot to ask! What’s your name?”

He hesitates again before he quietly says, “Arlo.”

She shoves a hand out at him, “Tina Poname, at your service!”

He grants her a shake with his big, ring-laden hand, obviously bemused, but he’s doing that maybe-smile again, so she thinks she’s done pretty well here. “Yeah. Nice to meet you.” He turns and walks a few long steps away, then pauses and turns back towards her, waiting for her scamper to his side.

“Now that we’ve gotten that out of the way,” she says a little breathlessly, swinging her bag and turning to him with a sly little smile “since you’re the local here, what teachers will let me get away with eating in class?”

[scoooby]

The Reason to Live (is to Die For This)

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Beta: @tenderlyannoyinglight

Word count: 6.3k

Trigger warning: descriptions of pain, death and violence.

Relationship: Merlin/Arthur *if you don't like merthur it can be taken as gen if you skip the last hundred words

Summary:

"I don't want to leave him. He thinks. I can't.

It shouldn't be the first thing he thinks of. He should be thinking of his mother, Gaius, Gwen. He should be thinking of how Kilgharrah had said he was an immortal, but Kilgharrah is also a big lying liar who lies, so he shouldn't have believed him. But he doesn't think of any of those things, after ten years of sacrificing, his brain is wired to think of Arthur, only of him."

In which Merlin is stabbed instead of Arthur. Oops.

Merlin doesn't know where the blood came from, flowing down and not stopping. There's so much of it staining the ground and his clothes, forming a puddle, he feels dizzy and nauseous looking at it. It's been almost ten years, but the sight of injury still repulses him. It scares him even more because he can't find its source. No, it terrifies him. Whose blood is it? Where is he, exactly? But he tries not to dwell on it and wonders where Arthur is. Wasn't he just here? Silly Arthur, always disappearing.

He giggles, then sobers up. He has more important things to worry about. Like the blood. Blood is so red. Like strawberries. He wishes he could make strawberries right now, Freya likes them. Speaking of which, he should probably talk to her soon.

He touches his hand to his abdomen, startled when he feels something wet and sticky. Oh.

Oh.

It's his blood. He's been maimed. He's the one dying.

I don't want to leave him. He thinks. I can't .

It shouldn't be the first thing he thinks of, and he should be thinking of his mother, Gaius, Gwen. He should be thinking of how Kilgharrah had said he was an immortal, but Kilgharrah is also a big lying liar who lies, so he shouldn't have believed him.  But he doesn't think of any of those things, after ten years of sacrificing, his brain is wired to think of Arthur, only of him.

It shouldn’t be. He should be more carefree and alive and happy, like he is now. And he’s so happy.

He distantly hears a thud behind him, as if something heavy, clad in metal, had fallen.  Swords are made of metal. So is armour. Stupid armour. It takes so fucking long to put armour on Arthur.

He feels hysteria rise up in his throat, he feels like laughing, He doesn’t know why. He’s been stabbed, he should care more. But those thoughts don’t even hit him. He wants to run, to jump. He could fly, like Kilgharrah. Or Aithusa. Can Aithusa fly? He would have to ask Morgana.

But Morgana doesn’t like him.

Maybe Balinor would know when dragons start to fly. He knows a lot, right?

Oh, but he can’t. Balinor is dead. Balinor is extremely dead and rotting. Hunith would be sad if she found out, he doesn’t want her to be sad. She deserves the world. He won’t tell her.

“Don’t worry,” he coos, even though there’s no one there. “I won’t tell.”

He tries to get up, but his knees are weak. He doesn't know why his ears have started to ring. Hhhhh. Hhh. That’s all he hears. It sounds weird. Weird. Weirdweirdweirdweirdweird. What a word, All words should be like it.

Everything is just a blob of grey and black. All he sees is a spinning world and green spots in the corner of his vision. He doesn’t mind, he likes green. He tries to say something, to scream maybe, yet all that comes out is a small, meagre groan.

He feels his eyes closing- And that's it. That's all there is-numbness, and then nothing.

Arthur is not ashamed to admit that he killed Mordred. The knight almost killed Merlin and dared to smile after doing so. Arthur couldn't just let him get away with it, no matter how much it pained him. Guilt doesn’t even come to mind. Mordred isn’t worth it - he tells himself as he walks, knees shaking, towards his manservant's body laying still on the ground.

He's bleeding at an alarming rate. His eyes are closed; his face deathly pale. Arthur doesn't bother with modesty as he rips the stupid brown jacket off (one would think he would come into battle wearing proper armor, at least). He had imagined doing it many times before, in entirely different circumstances, maybe with a bed underneath them.

Merlin torso is littered with scars as wood is with lines. Most of them are healed, so that only white lines are painting Merlin’s pale skin, while others are red, but still no cause for intervention. An enormous hole inflicted near his lungs, however does. Arthur’s not new to blood or injuries, but looking at this one does make him wanna vomit.

He stops, unsure of what to do. His hands hover over the body. What can he do, dammit? He knows first aid, Gaius taught him some when he was little. Nothing has ever come  close or as grave as to this. He has been taught to call for the help of nurses, never to do it himself. He has to stop the bleeding, but how ? He's supposed to tie something around it; he remembers that much at least. He looks towards Merlin's face, exhausted and un-moving, a red cloth loosely tied around his neck. All he has to do to stop the blood temporarily, until he delivers Merlin to safe, more medically trained hands, is to tie the stupid red neckerchief around and hope for it to be the right thing.

He prays as he puts it around the gash. He's not entirely sure who he's praying to. It’s an unconscious reflex to beg for health. To be able to say it is someone else's fault, because he knows it's his. He should never have let Merlin come in front of him; let the sword pierce him. Damn him; damn Merlin; damn Mordred; damn the War; damn Morgana; damn everything.

It sickens him, all of it. This cave, this life. The air is dirty. The metallic smell of blood engulfing everything and making it its own. Throwing up would sound like a good idea if Arthur didn’t have more pressing matter at hand.

The air also smells of disappointment. What is he even doing? He's just two years into his reign, the army is practically gone. So many knights are dying in his name, right now,  with their belief in him. And now Merlin is going to die too.

No. Merlin can't die, I won't allow it. His resolve hardens as he picks him up in his arms, Merlin’s head on his shoulder, back bent so gravity can keep the blood inside. and carries him through the mass of dead bodies. Arthur places him on the horse and climbs on behind him, arms on the reins and still supporting Merlin’s head.

It's a long ride home. You have to make it. For him. Is the only thought he clings to.

The aftermath of the war lingers everywhere. Bodies within quarter of a mile of another, their sunken eyes staring at them as the ride past.

No one stops them, too busy focusing on their own injured. Arthur's head is down to not see them. They probably hate him. With all of his being, he agrees.

Morgana, from an early age, showed to be better fitted for the crown. Might have even made Camelot a better place, once upon a time, in a time long gone.

Now they're both just as terrible and ill-fitted for his home.

He tries not to think of her, it’s too painful. So, he focuses on saving Merlin again. Merlin. His best friend, who he had always hoped would become something more. His rock, the only one he could trust. Something he has proved over and over again, but something he had realised only during his father's funeral.

Uther’s death is a recent memory. Arthur had cried until there were no tears left to shed over anyone else after. Not out of love or grievance. His father’s love for him was long gone before he himself was. But because the moment Uther’s life ended, Arthur’s reign began and the feeling of no support or companionship with it. Morgana was gone. Ygraine had never been there to begin with, and the overwhelming responsibility hit him- hard . He had felt so alone. There was no one there for him. No one cared.

Then Merlin had placed a hand on his shoulder, whispered to him, told him he was going to be a great king and that he was sorry. As if Merlin was at fault. As if he wasn't the only reason Arthur was still standing.

It made him see more clearly that he might not ruin the kingdom- his kingdom. A spark of heat, mixed with joy and sorrow ignited like wildfire spread all over his chest, then back, arms and legs followed soon, and finally his face; he returned Merlin’s sentiment with a warm smile.

Maybe that's when he had fallen in love, or when he had realized that Merlin was the only one he could trust. He's still not sure which one it was, maybe the love had come slowly, or maybe, and just the seed had been planted back then, or maybe it had come fact and crashing.

And now he was going to be gone too. Arthur sighs, his eyes drooping from a week of no sleep. Everyone leaves. They always leave. Maybe he still had some tears left.

The dark is disorienting. Is he sleeping? Is he even alive? He has to be, he has to make sure Arthur gets back home.

"Emrys," he hears someone say. No, not someone- Morgana. Her voice is unmistakable, ragged and sickly sweet at the same time. She had always been like that, even before, a dizzying array of opposites.

"Witch," he whispers. "Why have you brought me here?"

The smugness in her voice is apparent, "That's very hypocritical of you, isn't it? After all, you're magical too. More than me, even." She didn't answer his question. "All alone now, aren’t you? No one to save you." He shakes his head; how did he manage to get here? The last thing he was doing was shouting at Arthur to bring him along ("I always thought you were the bravest man I knew." “That’s not fair.") Arthur's face had been so disappointed, and it had broken Merlin's heart. But if the war was still going on, then no one would be coming for him. He will have to get out of this by himself.

"What. Do. You. Want." He grits out, he doesn't have the patience, nor the time for this, he has to help them. The knights are strong, but even the strongest of human kind wouln’t last long against an immortal army. He has to be there with them, to help them, to keep them alive. No matter how much his words hurt, Merlin will still save them, because that is what he does.

She laughs. " You."

"I don't have time for games, leave me be."- turning his head around trying to locate Morgana’s voice; the darkness, the nothingness, hasn’t changed.

"Oh, but why would I do that?" Her cold hands are taking hold of his chin, nails digging into his face. She's right in front of him. Her silky dress pooling onto his feet, the edges of her dirty hair grazing his arms. "I have you right where I want you, no one is going to come to save you. I only need one thing from you." She pauses, her fingers snap; there are fires surrounding them in a circle. He struggles against the bonds of rope he didn't realize were tied onto him, but it's of no use.

She’s clearer now, seen better days too. Bags under her crazed eyes, a ragged and torn black gown, a cloak is gracing her hunched back. Frankly, it looks like she hasn’t taken a bath in months. She doesn’t even resemble the Morgana he used to know, the compassionate and cunning one.

This is his creation; he is the reason she is like this. He never should have listened to the fucking dragon, he should have told her about his magic, maybe things would be different then.

"I won't do anything for you,” he hisses. “I would rather die.”

“Oh, you will.” She says it like it’s a fact as if it’s inevitable that he will die soon, and a tremor goes from his head to his toes in a matter of a second. He’s supposed to be immortal, supposed to live for a long, long time. He’s not scared of dying, he supposes. He’s scared of what will happen afterwards. “And it will hurt, I can tell you that, it will hurt so much.” She inches even closer, impossibly so. “But that won’t be the worst part, no. The worst part will be that no one will care . Arthur won’t care. No matter what you have done for him, he won’t even notice you’re gone.”

He’s silent as her words sink in. Sow themselves into his brain, into his heart, tries to convince himself it’s not true.

“Arthur won’t rescue you. You need his help, but he doesn’t have your back. He’s not even looking for you. If you’re drowning, if you’re about to crack, will he even care?” Something on his face makes her look smug like she’s already won. “Face it, Merlin.” That’s the first time she’s called him Merlin and not Emrys since she found out. “You don’t matter to him. He thinks you’re disposable, But I know better.”

Merlin looks up at her. "You're sick," he spits, although it sounds small, unsure. "He would look for me. I know he would." The statement is more for himself than her.

She gives a small, cruel smile as if to convey to him how pathetic he is. “All I need you to do,” she continues, “is to tell me where you are once this ends.”

He's about to ask her what she means, when the fires go out and it all turns dark again.

He stops in the forest, to rest, though he's not sure if Merlin will even survive by the end of it. He lays him down against a rock and lights a fire. He has to make something to feed them, or they'll die of starvation before Morgana's knights get to them. He surveys the clearing they're in, and he's about to walk towards what he is almost sure is an edible plant (emphasis on the almost, kings don't always learn about herbs), when he hears Merlin whispers. He snaps back, his eyes are open, a once tantalizing clear blue now murky and grey.

"Arthur" he murmurs. "Art- I-"

He holds up a hand "I'm here Merlin," he says. "I'm here but don't speak, you need to preserve your energy."

He doesn't listen. "I-I need to tell you something and," he gasps, trying to breathe, "and I need you to listen without interrupting."

Arthur wants to tell him whatever he needs to say probably isn't as important as his life, but the look on his face tells him that it might be.

Merlin shudders, clearly exhausted. "I ha-have magic," he rasps. Arthur's mind goes blank. It's a joke, it has to be. Merlin can't have betrayed him too. He takes a step toward him, to reach out maybe, but thinks better of it.

"Stop being silly," he commands, but it comes out shaky.

Merlin eyes seem wet. When he opens his mouth to speak, all that comes out is a bare whisper, "I ne-needed to tell you. In, in case, I-I, uh, die."

"You can't die." He clasps Merlin shoulder this time, leaning down. "But stop delusioning yourself Merlin. You don't have magic, I would know." It's not real, he would've been able to tell. This can't be true, it can't.

"And I use it for you," he continues, seeing his expression. "Only-only for you."

"Shut up," Arthur whispers. Merlin flinches back. "Shut up, shut up, shut up."

"I-," he starts, but he cuts him off.

"Do not speak to me."

Arthur looks at him, something rising in his throat. He thought it would be bile, but it's laughter. Of course, of course, the only person he trusts has magic.

He stands up and walks away, until he's sure Merlin won't be able to see him.

Merlin’s heart sinks as he stares at Arthur’s back, she was right. He told him about his magic, and now he was leaving him to die in a forest, never mind the reason he was dying was that he had taken a sword for Arthur. Never mind that he had spent a decade protecting him, trying to stop hundreds of people from killing someone he himself hadn’t particularly cared for at the beginning. Never mind the fact that he had sacrificed so much, just so he could be comfortable living in a castle built on the sins of his father and the corpses of magic users. Ten years, all down the drain. Merlin wants to laugh, of course, it comes done to this. To Arthur abandoning him because he told him something he didn’t want to hear. Fuck him, fuck the pendragons. Couldn’t let him die in peace.

He stews in it for a while, too tired to cry. Too sick of everything to even care anymore. He won’t tell her though; couldn’t let it all go to waste. She’ll find out anyway, he knows, she has her sources.

Yet, he has more important things to focus on, Arthur will either come back, or he won’t. But his wound stays. The giddiness is gone, replaced with something else. Something warm, like a fire in his stomach.

He presses down on his abdomen.  as he sighs sharply through his nose, it helps with the increasing pain, stabbing his bone and overtaking his senses.

His lungs struggle to breathe, it feels as if they’re filling with water as he drowns; his whole body burns as his back arches and writhes. It’s like there’s thousands of needles being pushed into him from everywhere, as if the needles had been pulled out from a fire before being inserted into him- red hot and painful, so painful. He wants to stand up, to run and jump into a lake, but his legs feel like jelly, he can’t move. It hurts so much. He hears distant echoes of screams; they’re probably coming from him.  And just like that, it starts to ebb. The needles being pulled out hurts more, but the small burns they leave behind are definitely better than it was before. He slumps down against a tree, numb.

He feels his eyes droop. His pain is still shooting through his body, but at least he has some time before he has to feel it again.

He wakes up again in some time, not sure when. It doesn't hurt as much as it did before. He’s just tired. He lays there for what feels like hours, but the sun hasn’t even set, so it was probably a few minutes.

To his immense surprise, he comes back. Arthur… comes back.

"Come back to finish the job, huh?" Merlin snarls, refusing to believe that maybe he came back to help him because he cared for him. It's too good to be true. Arthur is compassionate and he is kind, but not to magic users. "One stab wound wasn't enough for you?"

Arthur's already been saved from the imminent death of his which has been prophesied for a few centuries already, Merlin no longer has to worry, and he doesn't want to either. If this is his reward, to be called a coward, to be ignored and hut out, what everything had been leading up to, he might as well have died years ago. He used to wake up with only Arthur in mind, He loved him, still does. He’s not going to go out any other way.

He was the reason he lived, and he is the reason Merlin is going to die.

Arthur recoils in shock, his mouth is hanging open a little.

Good , Merlin thinks, he needs a wake-up call.

"What?" He asks.

Merlin hopes his expression can convey his feelings and how unamused he is because his throat is clogged up and he's too exhausted to say a word more. He may be a warlock, but it doesn’t change the fact that he is in unbearable pain.

Arthur looks at him as if he's grown a second head. "You- you thought I was going to kill you?"

There's no reply. Arthur comes forward, stops when he sees how scared the other man becomes. He sits down onto the cold, hard ground. "Merlin," he says softly, "I, I'm angry at you, I'm not going to lie, but I would never, never kill you. I- how could you even-" he trails off, he kicks some dirt glumly. "Just, we’ll talk about this when we're back home, okay? When you're better."

Arthur doesn't know how Merlin could think that. He would never- he didn’t even imagine doing anything other than demoting him, at most. He feels betrayed, and he feels let down. But this is Merlin. If he practiced magic, there must have been a good reason.

Fuck. Has he been that bad of a friend? Has he been so distant that Merlin thought Arthur was going to kill him? He knows he should be angrier, and just a few hours ago, he was. He was ready to yell and to scream and to rage, but then he thought of Morgana. About how he used to love her, and how she changed when he turned her away, He doesn’t want the same to happen to Merlin, doesn’t want him to change too. If Merlin dies because Arthur abandons him, he will never forgive himself.

So, as he snuffs out the fire and tries to cover up his tracks, because he knows Morgana will be looking for them, he doesn’t say anything. When he picks Merlin up and places him on the horse, he tries to be as gentle as he can. When he squeezes Merlin's hand in what he hopes is comforting, he just hopes Merlin doesn’t hate him completely.  

Merlin floats in and out of consciousness for what he thinks is a day, but he can’t be sure. When he first wakes up, he’s trotting along on a horse, Arthur behind him, and then he’s in front of a fire, sitting on the ground, then the horse again. Once, he wakes up to strangled screams, but he’s not sure what was going on. He’s too scared to ask. The fifth time he wakes up, however, it’s different. It’s not a coincidence, it’s on purpose, Arthur is shaking him awake. He makes out that they are next to the lake, where he has sent away so many corpses already.

It's calm and serene, obvious to all that is happening around it.

“Wha-” he starts to say blearily, he knows they haven’t reached Camelot yet, so what is going on?

Arthur silences him by placing a hand on his mouth. “We’ve got company,” he whispers. Merlin stiffens up, never a good thing. Not when you’re trekking through the woods, your companion and you both in bad conditions, both starving, one run through with a sword. Not when your companion is the ruler of kingdom which has war being waged against it.

“Arthur,” he says, his voice still sounding heavy and drowsy.

“What?” His mouth feels swollen, and he is incredibly tired, but he can tell he’s agitated, so he doesn't beat around. “Use the sword."

He looks surprised, the expression he hates. The one he uses whenever he realises that he underestimates everyone around him. "I think I know how to use a sword better than you do, Mer lin."

Prat.

"I mean, don't use your old sword, use Excalibur. It can kill anything. " Saying even this much feels like he just ran from Ealdor to Camelot without break, but he manages.

He opens his mouth to reply, but then his eyes widen. "Did you hear that?" His voice is low but urgent. Merlin blinks, he didn't hear anything other than the wind and- oh, he hears it now. There's distant screaming, coming from a woman from what it sounds like. It's barely noticeable, but the sounds of footsteps and something heavy being dragged on the forest floor towards them is much, much louder.

They exchange glances, only for a second. Merlin gestures towards the sword and Arthur nods, not questioning him for once.

Merlin tries to speak, he wants to help, but his throat is becoming clogged, and his vision is becoming blurry and- I am not going to survive. He thinks, before his eyes roll back into his head, and he passes out once more.

Arthur does not dare to say anything, or to do anything, other than stay frozen in his spot, sword in hand.

The noises are coming closer and closer. The screams have subsided now, but the steps have not. He knows he should highball out of there, but he has a feeling that whatever is coming their way cannot be outrun, and 50% of his lessons in swordplay focuses only on telling him to follow his gut.  

"Emrys," says a voice. He inhales sharply, he recognizes that voice; knows it better than he has any right too.

"Morgana," he breathes.

She pouts, looking disappointed. "Seems like our Emrys isn't awake. Shame, I wanted him to see you die." She says it casually, as if she tells her once-brother that she’s going to kill him every day.

He reminds himself - this is not his sister, not the woman he grew up with. If he doesn’t kill her, she will kill him. And she will take his kingdom.

But he never meant for them to get caught up in this, he had to control himself. He can’t rush to hug her or stab her. He can see a flicker of what she used to be, the brave, young woman. He needs her to hold onto that. If she doesn’t, he will have to do it. And he really, really doesn’t want to.

But as she lunges at him, the flicker ebbs out. She has slipped through his hands, and she has changed. She has been carried away by the waves of sorcery, and it has ruined her. He remembers her being his hero when they were young, when they used to sneak out of the castle to look at the stars. Her arguing with Uther over whether it was right to commit genocide, the irony of which has stuck with him. Her teaching him to use the sword, having already mastered it herself. Her forcing him to make friends with Gwen, who grew to become his ex-lover and best friend and surrogate queen. The memories keep on coming, and they don't stop. But she, like everyone else, changed. No matter what time, she is different now. It will never come back. He wants to go back, when they were innocent and naive, when everything was left for them to discover.

But he can’t.

So he fights back instead.

It's all he can do to make his hands steady as his blade sinks into her stomach, as he buries it deeper and deeper until it comes out on the other side. She looks surprised, then grim. She'll be alive for a few days, at most, a few minutes, at best.

But he can't bear to leave her suffering, alive but dying, tortured. So, he stabs her again, this time aiming for the heart, and again. And again. And again. When he is sure that she's dead, he stops, sliding onto his knees. He glares at the sword in contempt. He killed her; he killed his sister.

No .

He killed the woman who wanted to burn his kingdom to the ground. He had no other choice.

But what sort of person is he? He's killed both his knight and his former sister on the same day, with the same sword.

He grips it harder, then looks at the lake. He needs to get rid of it, that's what he needs to do. No one can find out what happened today, he can't let them. He raises it and throws it in. He had thought it would land on the banks, considering how heavy it is, but it doesn't. Instead, the sword flies out of his grip, and cuts through the air, towards the lake. He swears he can see a hand reaching out of the water to catch it, but it's probably a trick of the light.

He turns to her body laid on the ground, eyes open and unblinking, mouth looking as if gasping for breath, cloak sprawled around her like wings. She's dead.

Somehow, he knows if he had used the other sword, she would not be; he knows enough about magic to realise that the high priestess cannot be taken down by a normal weapon.

But Excalibur was not normal, was it? Just another thing to add to his list of questions.

It takes him thirty more minutes to dispose of her body in the lake, staring as it sinks deeper into the water. He doesn't look away, no. He deserves this. He has to remember, and he will.

He doesn't move for a long, long time. Only goes so when he realizes that, although she is dead, Merlin is not yet. Arthur intends to keep it that way. He turns his back on her. Every step drains him, but he does it.

He can't be left alone again.  

It takes them two more days to arrive in Camelot. All of it passes in awkward silence, with Merlin getting paler and paler with every passing second. Arthur doesn’t say anything out loud, but his mind is racing. He doesn’t think of them. He can’t. So he focuses on magic instead. He’s not sure if he trusts magic fully, even now, but maybe he should be more open-minded. Maybe he should give it a chance. Maybe it'll be different than it was with Morga- her.

When he arrives, it is completely different to what he had expected. There are mourners, of course. People in white, downcast expressions, closed windows, doors painted black. But there are also red banners hanging everywhere, citizens cheering as he rides past, ignoring Merlin behind him. Cries of "she is dead" and "the war is over". People are grieving, and there are those celebrating. He doesn't ask how they know of her death, he doesn't want to know. They tell him anyway. Apparently, the army stopped attacking, all of a sudden. They had cried, and shouted, and had turned back. It is unclear why, but Arthur knows he is the reason. Morgana dying at his hands is the reason.

Some help him get to Gaius', seeing how unamused he looks. They clear out the road, offer them water. Arthur is grateful for them, glad that at least some of his people acknowledged the dying man and had tried to help.

The physician is busy when he throws the door open, Merlin in tow. There are many, many people here. All with varying degrees of injuries. Arthur can’t bear to look at them. It’s his fault. It’s all his fault. So he ignores them, marches up to him.

“He’s- he’s been stabbed,” he chokes out.

Gaius’ eyes widen, and he rushes to follow Arthur. He lays Merlin out on one of the few empty beds, his body sprawls out on it. It’s sickening to look at as if he’s dead already.

He sets to work immediately, ordering Arthur to fetch herbs and vials and all sorts of things he doesn’t know the uses of. The people around them stare at him blankly, as if they know he’s the king, but they don’t fully recognise him.

He knows when he is not needed anymore, and backs away to watch. It's odd, and it feels so wrong. It's wrong to watch as Merlin is cut open and healed. Like he's invading his privacy. Merlin deserves better than to be put on a show in front of so many people.

He does try to help. Tries to tell as many people as he can to move to the castle, where he is sure more doctors would be willing to help, but some are in too bad of a condition to be moved as they are tended to by nurses. So he elects to focus on his friend instead.

Gaius' hands have always been steady, for as long had Arthur had known him. He cuts open bodies without worry, without even flinching. Which is not the case today, he notices. No, his hands are shaking. Not much as to be obvious, but he's known the man for far too long to not be able to tell when he's scared.

He thinks Merlin is going to die .

Arthur recoils violently. He doesn't know where the thought came from, because it's not true. It can’t be.

Merlin is going to survive. He tells himself.

Merlin. Is. Going. To. Survive.

Merlinisgoingtosurvive

MerlinisgoingtosurviveMerlinisgoingtosurvuveMerlinisgoingtosurvive

He repeats under his breath, rocking himself back and forth on his heels until he almost believes it. He has to.

He's not sure where the time has passed, because Gaius is in front of him all of a sudden but Arthur remembers him standing over the table just seconds ago.

Gaius shakes his head and it takes a few minutes for it to register in his mind. Arthur can't be looking at him, and his heartbreaking face. Just like him, Gaius' only support was Merlin. Was. Not is, was. Merlin is barely dead, and Arthur is already starting to think of him as a memory.

The physician knows what it feels like, but Arthur doesn't care.

"You should've done better," he hisses. He doesn't regret it. Doesn’t regret causing the shock he’s caused Gaius. But it's his fault too. He's the one Merlin took a sword for. But he needs to blame someone else. Because he doesn't want to think of the implications of Merlin dying at his hands. Gaius looks at him as if he is about to break, so Arthur walks away. From him, towards the corpse. He can't bear to face another person he's hurt.

It can't be true. There's got to be something he can do, something. He can't die, he can’t fucking die. Not when there's not much left to say. Not when they've just won. It's supposed to be a thing to celebrate, a war ending, he can't mourn. He can't give a speech to his kingdom which wasn't written by his best friend. Can't lose him. He doesn't think he'll be able to live without him.

He doesn't want to. He won't.

Merlin looks too much at peace, content in a way Arthur hasn't seen him in a long time. His long lashes casting shadows onto his freckled skin, his lips are twisted into a scowl, but he is at peace. He still looks the same, though. Beautiful and striking. Arthur's rock.

And dead.

Arthur’s hands move at their own accord, to stroke the side of his face. A sob escapes him before he can stop it, pushing through his throat. His people need assurance, and him crying like a bloody fool won't help. But that's the last thing on his mind. All he knows is Merlin is dead.

He isn’t able to stop staring, can't help wondering what he will do now. Whether the body will be burned or buried. He will be given a hero's funeral, it's no less than he deserves. He will be clothed in Camelot’s colours, or maybe his Ealdor's. Hunith would know better.

Oh lord, Hunith. She will have to find out through a letter. No. Arthur will have to go to tell her. He can't let her go through it alone.

He's about to turn away, to tell someone to help him move the body when his lips move.

Merlin's mouth opens, just a little bit, but enough to tell that he's alive.

Arthur feels a shock go through him. It was just an illusion.

Right?

"Merlin?" he asks. It can't be true, no matter how much he wants it to be. It was probably a trick of the light, but that can't be right. Because Merlin's eyes are opening and he's staring at him and some colour is returning to his cheeks and oh-

This the man he loves. And he waking up.

"Ar- Arth," he begins but Arthur shushes him. He’s alive, he’s speaking. He doesn’t know how, but it’s real. It’s actually real.

"I'm here," he assures him "I'm here." He shocks even himself as he leans down to kiss him. He's even more surprised when Merlin kisses him back. It only lasts a second before he pulls back, but he just kissed Merlin. It was rough, it wasn't perfect. But he's breathing. They're both here. He can't ask for more.

"Wha- what was," he exhales through his nose, as if speaking taxes him, "that for?"

"I wanted to," he says, shrugging, still not over the euphoria. He just lost him, he’s never going to again. The least he can do is not hide from the truth. "And, I, I also kind of love you. Like, I’m in love with you."

His eyes widen a fraction, but Arthur can tell he’s too tired to question it further.

He wants to say more, he has so many questions as to how he's still breathing, when he started practicing magic, why, but he doesn’t. He has time, they have all the time in the world.

He turns his back, yelling for Gaius. The physician shows up immediately, face lighting up when he takes in the sight of his son very much not-dead.

"We'll figure it out," he says, though he's not sure he heard him over the noise. "We'll figure it out." He grins. Yeah, they'll figure it out.

He swears, Merlin is beaming right back at him.

[getitinbusan]

Jungkooks full sleeve photo is the most coveted and valuable picture in the industry. Every photograper is waiting for him to slip up and show some skin. Hired by Dispatch to catch him when he's most vulnerable, will you be able get the money shot? 18+ Smut

Exposed

Scheduled to go last, Jungkook nervously stood watching Taehyung finish his session. Not only was the concept of the shoot strange for him, the photographer was also really sexy,  the guys had spent the day texting back and forth about her. Of course Tae had nailed it, they were looking for raw sex appeal and vulnerability but Jungkook was afraid all he could pull off was cute baby bunny. 

The next comeback was supposed to be about ego and personal identity, basically them stepping out of their fan assumed contrived personas. A more grown up take on their image was in order, and Jungkook just hadn't been able to figure out who he really was yet, let alone how much of himself he was ready to reveal.  

"Thanks Tae, you're a superstar" you high fived him as he gathered his stuff to leave. Jungkook apprehensively approached introducing himself.  His hair was long and wavy and his stylists chose a wardrobe of a loose fitting button down with ripped jeans and black combat boots. He looked delicious but it was a look you'd seen a million times on him in every other magazine spread.

"You look nervous Jungkook, what can we do to fix that?" His shy smile made him look so young. "I'm just not used to this type of shoot, I don't know if I can do sexy," he giggled at his own words.

Perhaps pulling him out of his shell would be harder than you thought, "I think we're going to be ok." You pushed his hair back a little and stared at him, "It's not the sexy that's lacking here, it's your confidence Guk. Sorry, is it ok if I call you that?" He nodded, "So where do you want me? You knew exactly where you wanted him but didn't want to make it look calculated.

Looking around the set you mused out loud, "I shot Tae on the couch and Jimin felt comfortable doing his in the shower so why don't we get you to take the bed" his eyebrow raised and his lips pursed together. "I heard you may be a bit shy so I ordered a closed set. It's just us okay? Why don't you go and just hang out on it and I'll get the lights set up." 

You looked over and he was laying on the bed texting, taking your time you wanted him to relax.  

Group Chat 

J.K: She is HOT. Her skirt is so short, holy shit. I have to shoot on the bed, should I make a move? Did anyone? 

Jimin: I made sure to "accidentally" splash water on her white shirt while I did my shower shots. She seemed immune to my charms 😞

Jin: We had to do ours outside too many people watching to openly flirt. 

Yoongi:JK, I'll give you a million won if you can get through your shoot without cumming in your pants. 

RM: So disrespectful, she's a professional. Those tits though 👌

"Are you ready to start?" You asked trying to pull his attention away from his phone. "Yeah,  I think I'm ready now." Moving around the room with the camera you tested several angels as he posed, laying back, leaning over, grabbing the pillow.

Shaking your head you weren't satisfied, "Jungkook, when you're at home relaxing do you wear combat boots?"

He laughed, "No, especially not while I'm laying on the bed." Walking over to him you bent down and started undoing his boots, "What about that shirt? Does it need to be buttoned right up? Maybe we could lose a few?" You threw his boot across the room, "May I?"

You asked tugging at the toe of his sock. "Ahhhh you're one of those foot people" he chuckled. "Well I'm not, but if I was, your feet are actually pretty nice." He blushed turning his attention to his shirt, "is this better?"

Leaning over you crumpled the sheets around him, it was 100% intentional that your breasts just happened to be in his face while you propped the pillow under his head. His hand moved swiftly to pull his shirt over his growing hard on, he was fucked and he knew it. 

"Looking better," you coached his posing as you snapped off a few more shots. "Just better?" he sounded disappointed that he couldn't pull sexy off for you.

"Will you trust me Guk?" You asked him as you stood up on the bed over him. Gulping hard he nodded, he wasn't sure what you had planned but being as he could see your panties he was sure he wouldn't mind. 

You set the camera down beside him and leaned down to unbutton his shirt the rest of the way. Exposing his chest and abs you let out a subtle hiss, "well, that's something. Close your eyes okay… trust me, this is going to make the shot incredible."

Closing his eyes his brain went into overdrive trying to figure out what you were up to. Goosebumps took over his body when he felt you straddle his lap, your hands moved through his hair disrupting the perfection and your chest pressed softly against him as your mouth connected with his. His lips were soft and his tongue worked quickly to gain entry into yours. He was about to wrap his arms around you, when you stood up and grabbed the camera.

Snapping just as he opened his eyes in wonder, "What the fuck was that?" holding up the digital screen you smiled proudly. "This Jungkook, is sexy.  Look at your face, you look totally needy and unravelled. "Taking the camera out of your hands he inspected the photo and smiled. It certainly wasn't a side of himself he'd ever seen before. "Shall we continue then?" you asked. "I'm yours, use me however you see fit," he conceded.

"I was really hoping you'd say that," resuming you stance over him you took control. "Let's show them you're a man now, it's time for everyone to accept that you have desires, I'm going to put my leg in the frame and I want you to run your hands over it like you want me." Closer than before, he could now see your panties had little pink polka dots adorning them, "shouldn't be a problem" he muttered under his breath.

You egged him on, the camera clicking frame after frame, he was getting totally lost in the moment. Sitting up he wrapped his arm around your thigh and brought his face as close as he could to nestle beside your mound.  "Fuck Kookie, stay just like that but move your other hand so it's resting on the bulge in your jeans."

His mind was swimming with dirty thoughts as you spoke so frankly. You'd gotten him into a zone, was he just posing or was he just as turned on as you?

The answer came soon enough as you felt his hand move under your skirt. His fingertips ran over your wet panties and you could feel his breath on your thighs, "Is this sexy?" He asked while brushing his nose into your clit, "It's amazing Guk," Hooking his finger into the elastic he pulled your thong to the side and his warm tongue lapped against your folds. "That feels really good baby but we still have to get a few more shots. Let me take care of you okay?"

You tried to back away from his mouth but he got in a few last greddy sucks before detaching his lips and wiping off his chin. "You should have left that there, it would have made a great addition to the pictures."

He grabbed you around the waist pulling you on top of him  "Let's put it back then." You had to stay focused, "Can we take some with your shirt off?" You began running your hands over his chest, kissing his abs. He was hesitant, 

"I'm not supposed to show my tattoos, management won't let me." Moaning you sat up and took your shirt off, "I'll show you mine if you show me yours."

He couldn't help but stare at the metal piercings that ran through each of your nipples. "I don't care what anyone thinks about my piercings, I did it for me and for my pleasure, who gives a shit about anyone else's opinion. These tattoos represent you, you should be proud to show people who you really are."

He sat up with you still straddling his lap and let you push his shirt off down his arms. Your fingers traced over the details as you admired the artwork over his bicep.

"This is sexy, you having the confidence to do what you want with your body." Kissing your breasts he was lost in the empowerment you were giving him, "Do you know what I really want to do with my body?" You couldn't help but smirk, "I want to fuck you and I want you to take pictures while I do it." 

"That's one way to get the shot, fuck Jungkook I didnt think you would be so into this." Grabbing him away from your chest you pushed him flat on his back. You let your hands and fingertips admire his body before they made their way to his zipper.  Pulling it down slowly his cock strained against the elastic of his black boxers. Palming him gently you grabbed the camera with your free hand and took some pictures of him, "These are phenomenal Kookie, why don't you take the camera while I put your cock in my mouth." 

Pulling his boxers down just enough to free him, you smiled, "how the hell do you manage to look so innocent when you're walking around with this in your pants?"

His dick was a smooth honey brown that curved upwards, thicker than you thought he'd be with a beautiful cut tip. You saw the flash and looked up at him, "This ones for me." You weren't often the subject of photos but Jungkook was a photographer too and he'd decided two could play the game of directing the shot.

"Wrap those lips around me and fucking suck it," God you loved dirty talk. He wrapped your hair around his hand pulling it off your face, "that's beautiful, eyes up here,  look at me while you're choking on it."

Abandoning the camera to get lost in the pleasure, he fell back on the bed. Popping him out of your mouth he whined at the loss of sensation, "You want more Kookie?" he nodded. Laying on top of him you sucked marks onto his neck, "You want me to ride your beautiful cock?"

He still had his pants on, laying vulnerable, bare chested with his dick out begging for attention. Pulling your panties to the side you lined him up with your entrance and sank him deep inside you. The gutteral moan he let out was animalistic, he was so far gone in pleasure that you'd never seen a more beautiful surrender. He was calling out your name as you snapped pictures of his ecstasy,  sweat making his skin glisten under the set lighting.

You abruptly got off him, "why do you keep stopping?" You laughed at his desperate voice, "I want you completely naked Jungkook, I'm not done with you yet." He eagerly moved to get the rest of his clothes off and grabbed you so your bodies were pressed together.

He stared at you for a minute, tucking some hair behind your ear, "Why are you staring at me?" He smiled, "I want to capture this picture with my memory," he kissed you softly on the lips. Just as you started to blush at his tender response he smacked your ass and said "flip it over, I'm using the camera for this one."

Grabbing your waist firmly you laughed and squirmed as he wrestled you onto your stomach. "All fours babe," he commanded as you complied wiggling your ass at him, "I'm really into the bold side of you Guk." Positioning himself behind you he gave you a hard squeeze as he stuffed his dick back inside you.  He was rough with his thrusts and little cries left you every time he bottomed out. The curve of his dick had his head rubbing into your g spot perfectly, the pleasure and pain brought you to orgasam quickly as you clenched around him milking his cock as he came hard inside you.

"Hold still," he demanded, grabbing your camera you could hear the clicks, "so fucking beautiful." Laying down together spent he pulled up his final shot, his cum was dripping out of your pink abused pussy. "I think this one's my favourite."

As much as you wanted to lay here in post coital bliss, you still had a job to finish. "This is it, the final shot, Jungkook all fucked out." You arranged the top sheet to just cover his tired cock, pubic hair peeking out, muscular tattooed arms on display, sheets disheveled, hair wild and a grin that could only be caused by one thing.

"That's a wrap" 

[hubbie22]

tears ricochet

The shrill of the phone jolts him awake, “ ‘m yeah, mate?” He’s groggy and wonders if what he said was coherent. He’s on a newborn’s schedule, and his eyes are heavy with the thought of the sweet embrace of sleep.

“She’s awake.” If his eyes were barely open before, they must be coming out of their sockets now. And it only took two words. He must have sat there for ten minutes before, “Be there soon” comes out of his mouth. It’s the only words he can get out, his mind is too busy reeling from the news. He smashes the phone in its cradle, as he flings the covers off him.

Dom must have been up the whole time, but he didn’t notice. His mind was occupied with the memories, and the thoughts of what if. Must have been the phone piercing her once sleepy state. “Where are you going?”

He is putting on his coat, as he watches her settle back in the bed, “Gotta help with something, I’ll be back sometime this evening.”

“Hmmm, must be important.” She muses, as she pulls the covers up over her head; probably praying Felix didn’t wake from the sound of the phone call.

“She’s awake.” Those words jolt Dom up from her position. Of course she knew what those words meant. She wondered what it meant for her. Would this development change what they had? Because what they had, she thought was something that could last. If Rog kept his indiscretions discrete, they could make it. But now, could they make it? She pushes those thoughts out of her head, when the baby monitor starts to crackle with her son’s cries.

The drive to the hospital, he spent a better part of 1975 at, is a familiar one. He can remember the last time he drove here, not even realizing that would be the last time. He hadn’t meant for it to be the last time, but life seemed to get in the way.

“You should live your life.” The sound of another voice over the beeping of the machines causes him to stir. He has been sitting by her side, since before the sun came up. “Seems like all you do is record, tour, and spend your time here.” The statement was true, Roger went from being the life of the party to not even going to it.

Roger looks at the doctor, the one who's been there since the day she was brought in. He’s an older gentleman, salt and pepper hair and beard. “ ‘S like I’m letting her go? What does that say about me?”

His hazel eyes look at him with a softness, “You don’t have to let her go, she’ll always be right here. But you won’t be.” the man’s hand is on his shoulder, “it doesn’t make you a bad person to live your life. She’d want that? Wouldn’t she?”

501, 502, 503, 504…. 505.

The number is still fresh in his mind, as if he was told yesterday. His hand is on the door knob, when someone reaches to stop him. He turns to see Brian, Freddie, and Deaky. It’s Brian whose hand is covering his own, keeping him from opening the door.“Rog, I don’t know if it’s a good idea for you to go in there”

“Why the hell not?” His eyes are hidden behind sunglasses, his clothes while stylish are haphazardly thrown on. His blonde hair is sticking up, he couldn’t even remember the last time he washed it. He reeked of spit up and dirty nappies.

“Darling, Liv still thinks it’s Wednesday, March 9, 1975.” Freddie says with a forlorn look in his deep set brown eyes. “She thinks it’s the day after the accident.” The accident was a drunken hit and run that left Liv comatose, for five years. “She still thinks you two are together, Rog.” Those words hit him like a truck. It was as if a thousand pounds of metal was hurtled at high speed towards him.

His hands find his way through his spit up laden hair. His mind is racing with the revelation that Liv thought it was still March 1975. She still thought they were together. “She askin’ for me? She wanna see me?” He starts pacing, because she has to want to see him. Right? “I know Liv” he thinks for a moment on those words, mumbling “I knew Liv..” But those don’t seem like the right words either, so he settles on what he knows, “ I know she would wanna see me.” His blue eyes, shadowed by dark bags underneath. Freddie turns away, and Brian doesn��t seem to meet his eyes either. It seems it’s up to Deaky the deafening blow. “There is a difference between what Liv wants and what Liv needs.”

Roger winces he once was all those things for her, once. “I don’t belong in either of those columns?” He laughs, “Guess not anymore, huh?” He hates this feeling, “She’s gonna hate me either way.”

Brian sighs, “You can’t tell her about Dom and Felix, at least not today. Not when Liv is so...fragile.” Fragile was not a word he would correlate, with the girl that used to push him down grassy knolls as a child. The girl who had no problem getting her clothes dirty. She had been anything but fragile, until the accident. She looked helpless in that hospital bed.

Chrissie, Mary, and Veronica all file out of the room. Their faces flushed with the promise of renewed hope.

If he was honest, everyone wore that look; everyone but him. He knew he would have worn that look, if the world had not been cruel and time had not marched on. It wasn’t as if the love wasn’t still there, he just didn’t know what to do with it now.

The doctor, the one who spoke to him all those years ago is no longer here, he’s replaced by a young chap. Dark hair and piercing green eyes. “Dr Styles.” He says with an outstretched hand, which Brian takes without missing a beat. With the pleasantries and introductions, basically who was who to Liv out of the way the doctor said Liv was ready to know what year it was. “It will be better for her if it’s from someone who she’s comfortable with.” All eyes land on Roger, and he knows he has to do this.

The door felt it was made of bricks and not mere wood. When he opens it up, grey eyes and a huge smile blind him. Her dark hair is pulled into a side braid, long bangs falling out. Her skin is alabaster, nose dusted with a few freckles. She looks exactly like she did, when he saw her that last day. “Rog!” She opens her arms up wide, and he obliges. His nose is buried in her hair, which smells like strawberries. “Liv.” He holds her tight and for far longer than he should have.

She pulls back, “You cut your hair.” Her hands are running over his hair. Her face twists up in disgust, when she retracts her hand to see it covered when some sticky substance. Rough night?”

“Something like that.”

She cuts right to the chase, “Is that why you weren’t here when I woke up?” He knows he shouldn’t be taken aback by that question, it was so stereotypical Liv. But here he was, almost five years later and reeling from that one single question. If she notices his reaction, she chooses to ignore it. Or maybe she’s still foggy from coming out of her coma. “I have a sinking suspicion that it is no longer 1975, however, no one will give me a straight answer.”

He’s sitting on her bed, her hands in his, “It’s 1980.”

“Oh, a whole new decade.” She’s shocked, gray eyes harboring so many questions. “Explains why everyone looks older.”

“I look exactly the same.” He says trying to lighten the mood.

She wears a crooked smirk, “Mmm, no modesty? Or did you have any to begin with?” She tilts her head, “Hmm, I can see more wrinkles than I used too.”

He laughs, “Rockstar lifestyle.”

“Same Rog, always using that excuse.” She smacks his shoulder, causing both of them to laugh. She was right, it was his excuse for everything.

“Do I look… older? Bad? Different?”

“No, you look exactly the way you always have” His hands ghost her cheeks, and she leans in, “beautiful.”

She rolls her eyes, “Nice one, casanova.”

It was odd to be in this room and have a conversation. When in the past the conversations were one sided, met with the beeps of monitors and the slow rise and fall of her chest.

Before he can say anything else, the door flies open with a scurry of colorful language.

Fuck!

Dammit, Fred!

I got him by the legs Freddie, Run!

Freddie is basically falling in the doorway, with the boys falling in the room in different positions. The scene is actually quite amusing, Freddie is tumbling in the door, Brian is holding him back by pinning one of his arms; and John is tugging at Brian’s legs.

“I see time hasn’t dulled you three.” Liv says with a smirk on her chapstick coated lips.

“Darling, Liv, time could never dull me.” Freddie says as he swats Brian off him.

“I wish it would.” Brian grimaces as he is dusting invisible dirt off his pants.

“Wouldn’t be half as fun.” John says with a smile, that makes Liv feel like nothing has changed. Even though she knows so much has, she wonders just how much has changed. And what they are trying to save her from, by busting in here like this. This was the boy's MO, their way of making her laugh. Especially when Roger and her would be fighting, before or after a show. Most of the time, it was because of some groupie, and the fact that Roger was undeniably Roger. Once the thrill was gone, he always came back.

Her weeks are spent at physical therapy accompanied by an ever revolving door of visitors. She notices Roger doesn’t come as often, always phoning her with an excuse about his solo projects. Nor does he stay as long as she assumes he would, and doesn’t arrive as early as she thought he would; when he does visit. She wants to ask him about it, but she just is so wrapped up in having him with her. He tells her of the tours and the albums, the countries they have seen. She can tell that he leaves out chunks of the story, thinking she wouldn’t notice; but she does. However, she chooses to dismiss it. Chrissie and Veronica fill the void, they stop by everyday. Since the two did not have a job, like Mary, they can come by whenever they want. Veronica in the morning, Chrissie in the afternoon. They bring their children for Liv to meet, after Dr Styles approves it. It’s odd to see time in human form, it’s a remainder of all she missed. A remainder of how the world kept spinning. She chides herself at the thought of something so selfish. The world doesn’t revolve around her. It is an easy notion to think, but hard to face the reality of.

Mary and Freddie bring her a new magazine each time they visit. The two always seemed to visit as a pair. She enjoys that time spent with them, the three of them reading about the latest fashion like they used to do.

“Oh, a different one.” Liv says with a hungry smile, as Freddie puts the magazine in her hands. It’s a trashy one, something not very polished. And for some reason, Freddie always associated Liv with a polishedness.

“Yes,” He says with a huff. He’s perturbed, “The old bitty at the corner shop sold her last Vogue.”

“Tragic.” Liv’s tone is drenched with sarcasm.

Freddie sends her a huff, as he sits down in the standard issue hopital chair deemed comfortable enough for visitors to sit in for hours on end. Mary makes a cross between a giggle and snicker, as she sits in the chair opposite of him. The three fall into their well known routine.

She’s flipping through the pages when the headline catches her eye.

QUEEN DRUMMER, ROGER TAYLOR & GIRLFRIEND ENJOY DATE NIGHT AFTER BABY.

Her face doesn’t fall, instead it’s painted with a confused look. Instead of asking the two people, who would know in the room with her, she decided to read the article. She’s in the middle of it when the door opens, and Brian stumbles in with Chrissie. Ah, yes it’s the afternoon shift.

The four of them are chatting animatedly, when she breaks her silence. “Is this why Roger doesn’t visit?” She holds up the picture, eyebrow arched as she looks at the four sets of wide eyes. The room is quiet, as they all rack their brains for what to say. “I’ll take your silence as confirmation.” She looks at all of them, “Could have told me, ya know?” She looks at Brian and Freddie, “I know you two think I’m fragile, and I can’t handle it.” She sighs, “But Roger is Roger, I know him. And I know how he is. He wouldn’t wait forever. No one can wait forever, no matter what they promise themselves. Time marches on.” Forever is a funny word, it can be soothing and unsettling all at the same time. Freddie won’t meet her eyes, and Brian believes the ceilings tiles to be the most interesting thing in the room.

“Are you okay?” Chrissie breaks the silence. Her green eyes, filled with worry.

Liv closed the magazine, placing it on her bedside table. “I don’t know.” It was a truthful answer, it's the best one she could muster. “How am I supposed to feel?” Her eyes are downcast now, “Cause, I just feel lousy. Like I am just an inconvenience,something that popped up at the most inopportune time.”

“No!” Chrissie all but yells. “Why would you ever think that?” Green eyes are a cross between being pissed and sad, that she would even think that. “How could you ever think that?”

“Kinda obvious, Chris.” Liv shrugs, wrapping her cardigan around her. Something she did, when her nerves got the best of her. “I mean I just popped back in, and messed up this.” She motions to the four of them, to how much changed. “I woke up and there are more babies.” She looks at Freddie and Mary, “You two aren’t together.” Her head is in her hands, “Everything I thought I knew it’s not true, at least not anymore.” She pauses thinking maybe it’s time to tell them. “I heard the nurses talking about how Roger would visit everyday, and the one day he didn’t come back. He forgot about me, so he could live his life.” She’s smiling through the pain, “I’m sure all of you followed suit, and that’s okay.”

Chrissie’s arms are folded, she’s taken a more defensive stance. She looked rather funny compared to Brian, who was a giant. “Who do you think put your hair in a braid?”

“What?”

“When you woke up, your hair was in a side braid.”

“Yeah?” Liv wonders what the point of her hairstyle is, when she woke up.

“Who do you think read to you to keep your brain stimulated?” She can picture Brian, with a thick book about outer space, sitting at her bedside reading to her.

“Who do you think brought those flowers you saw when you woke up?” Mary asks quietly.

Freddie chimes in, “Who do you think painted your nails, showed you the latest fashions? Do you honestly think I wouldn’t keep you updated, darling?”

“Just because Roger moved on, it doesn’t mean we did.”

.

Roger comes the next day, sunglasses hiding dark circles caused from another night of sleep he didn’t get.

“She’s up today, been walking around more than usual.” The nurse says as he comes out of her room. And before he can ask his question, it’s answered “She’s in the garden.”

He makes his way to the garden, and he sees her dark hair among the greenery.

“Liv.” He shouts her name. And for the first time since he can remember, she doesn’t stop walking. She had never done that, not even when they would fight as kids in Truro. Not even when he would show up at her door, drunk and smelling like some groupie’s perfume. She doesn’t turn around, welding a witty remark aimed at him. “Liv!” He is running after her now. He wonders how he must look to the people passing them by. He reaches her, he grabs her wrist spinning her around to face him. “Why didn’t you slow down? Didn’t you hear me calling?”

She looks at him with the most forlorn look he’s ever seen. “It’s always you slowing down for me, Rog. I think it’s time you stopped. Your world doesn’t have room for me, not anymore.”

“What? No. That’s not true, I don’t slow down for you. And my world will always have room for you, ‘cause you are my best friend.” I slow down because of you, you made my world steady.

“Nothing is like it was.”

“Doesn’t mean it hasn’t changed anything-”

“Look at us!” She yells, “Yes! Yes, it has!” She backs away from him, before he notices he’s let go of her. “Everything has changed. And I can’t blame you for moving on, cause when I put myself in your shoes; I would have done the same thing.”

“I didn’t mean to hurt you.” His hands are in his hair, he’s pacing around the spot of gravel as she stands there. “I never wanted to hurt you. It was hospital, album, then tour. And you know me I can’t do a routine. Couldn't even sleep with groupies.” He says with wink, making her eyes roll. “And you…” He looks at her,big blue eyes shimmering with tears. “I didn’t know if you’d ever wake up. And it was like, I just existed with no direction.”

Her hands are on his shoulders, “When have you ever had direction?” She gives him a wink, making the mood jovial once again.

He snorts, “Never.”

“You always threw caution to the wind.”

“Because... I had you to be the mature one, the responsible one for me.” He laughs, “Who else would have convinced me to tell old Mr Durham I broke his window? I will always need you.”

She has a small smile on her lips, her mind replaying the memory. “And yet, here you are. You survived without me.” She chuckles, “You don’t need me, not as much as you thought. Your world kept spinning, and you lived your life. You did what I wanted you too. I just don’t fit in your life like I used too.”

“That’s not fair!” He throws his hands up. “You can’t just leave me now that I have you back.”

“Life isn’t fair.”

“I guess that’s why I never stopped...” he’s looking into those gray eyes he grew up with. “I never stopped loving you.” Was that a lie? No. It was more of a half truth. He sees Dom in his mind, remembering all the truly good times he had with her. He does love Dom, she’s the mother of his child. She helped him feel something again. Somehow, looking at Liv was like looking at who he used to be. It was like looking at the things he always wanted, all he needed for the majority of his life. But he just doesn’t know, he doesn’t know what to do.

“Yes, you did.” She says so quickly and matter of factly. “And that’s okay.” She says with a tinge of sadness in her voice. “I think that's why you have been avoiding coming here to see me.”

What was he supposed to say to that? What could he say to that? Tell her she’s right? This whole situation was so convoluted.

“You know, I’m right.” It’s like after all this time she can still read his mind. “I can see it on your face.”

“Always been good at reading me….still are.”

“How I always knew you stole my candy.” She said, digging a finger in his side. “Even if you claimed, “Liv, swear ‘s not me!” How I knew you lied to me about Rich Davies standing me up. How I knew a lot of things.” It was how she knew he loved her, she could read him. But now, she’s not so sure he does.

He smiles at her, “Always me, messing up your life.”

“Guess we are even, huh?”

“Liv.” He sighs, not wanting her to think she ever messes up anything in his life.

“What’s her name?” He didn’t expect her to ask, or to even want to know.

“Dominique.”

“That’s a pretty name.” She starts walking again, and he falls in pace with her. He must look ridiculous in his outfit,compared to Liv’s cardigan and jeans. He’s in a rainbow blazer, shirt half buttoned up, and bell bottoms.

“Yeah, she’s French.” He tells her how they met, and he notices Liv’s gaze stopped meeting his eyes somewhere in the middle of it.

“Do you love her?” There it was the one thing she wanted to know, she needed to know.

“Liv.”

“It’s a simple yes or no.” But for him, it wasn’t simple. Nothing about this was simple.

“You really want the answer?”

She stops in her tracks, “If I didn’t, I wouldn’t have asked.”

He knew the truth would hurt her. “Yeah, I do.”

She winces, but she smiles all the same.“Good. I’m glad.”

“What?” He looks over to her, can’t believe she’s saying that.

“I’m happy you love someone,” she takes her jab at him, “honestly, I was worried you couldn’t love anything but your car, your drums, and me for a time. And yes, in that order.” She’s reaching behind her hair, undoing the clasp. “I think she should have this.” It’s his grandmother’s engagement ring. It wasn't the promise of marrying eventually. It was promise that he’d always come home to where his heart was. To who his heart was. She places the necklace in his palm, “Who knows maybe this one will even change your mind on marriage. And if you haven’t, it’s a promise you’ll come back home.”

Home seems like a foriegn place, now. Home had once been her, then it was Dom and Felix. “I can’t take that.”

“Why not?”

“Because.” He couldn’t even finish the sentence.

“Rog.” She’s holding the necklace in one hand, trying to pry his fingers open with the others. “You aren’t giving anything away, you are making sure the mother of your child knows you love her.”

“Livie.” He hadn’t used that name in a while, and it makes her stop. Only Rog called her Livie. “It’s yours.”

“But it’s not.”

“I’m not taking it.” He’s resolute in his actions. He can’t take the last piece of him, she has to hold onto. He won’t. He’s already done so much, he can’t do this.

“Fine!” She says with a huff, rolling her eyes at him. She stuffs the necklace into the pocket of her cardigan.

The walk around the wooded path is filled with an awkward silence. “I, uh, I have to go. Left Dom with Felix, ya know newborn and all.” It was a horrible excuse to leave her, but it was the best he could do.

“I don’t think you should come back.” That rattles him from his thoughts, “At least not alone, it’s not fair to your girlfriend or you son.” And it’s not fair to make me hope.

“Guess, I’ll see you around then?”

She smiles at him, and he wonders if this would be the last time. It made him think about all those years ago, when the last time was really the last time.

[cowandcalf]

Writer’s Month 2020

Prompt No.11 - Light Part II (I couldn’t post all at once...so much to try to come up with shorter chapters...)

Chapter 1 - 5

Chapter 6

Dog tags – no one, no one touches a soldier's dog tags without permission. Danny knows that from a documentary he once saw about war veterans. It's a piece of their soul, of their devotion and it's extremely private. He feels how Steve relaxes behind his back. Danny knows Steve would have swatted his hand away if he had tried to grab the dog tags. He's so glad he's passed that test, too.

Steve stays where he feels safe, hidden. He does not step up and Danny's face is turned toward the wall. Two chains, each hang from a simple nail on the wall. Danny can read the imprinted names though. Steven Jack McGarrett and the second one, much more worn and battered, says the same name. Danny levels his breathing.

Steve speaks in a low voice. "In my line of duty, I've seen too much death. The base and the training camps can only do that much to get you ready for the real deal. You're never ready enough for what you're about to live through when deployed. It gets to you – to everyone – after a few years in."

Danny's eyes take in the small metal plates worn by their owners for years around their necks. The way they are put on the wall clenches his heart – they're discarded. The picture speaks of finality. One image that tells an entire story arching over ten volumes of human strength and utter devotion. Danny hardly stands to look at such raw intimacy. He doesn't even try to calm his racing heart.

Steve keeps talking, "you can't shake it even if you believe so at the beginning. We pretend it's not there. No one wants it but everyone deals in their own way with that shit." A longer pause makes Danny believe Steve has left. He doesn't break the spell of the moment. He gives Steve the time, he needs. "As a kid, you're afraid of the monsters under your bed. As a grown-up, serving your country, you're not afraid of any monsters until you meet them in your head."

Danny slowly turns around. He doesn't try to pretend. The chills of the words he's just heard drill into his bones. Steve controls the emotional reflection in his eyes. Danny only sees struggle and pain when Steve lets him. Steve's eyes are the only place where he could slip and someone could catch a glimpse of what lies beneath: where the purgatory of what he has witnessed burns on, keeping the monsters in his head alive. Otherwise, Steve stands out of the crowd due to his ridiculous great looks. No one on the street would assume this perfect shell of a body holds an eroded soul, worn down with ears of combat.

"Why the plants?" Danny wonders since he has bought the seldom flower for his aunt. And he desperately needs Steve to get rid of that robot-like look on his face.

Steve pushes his hands down his front pockets. He dips his head and hides his face. Danny can see how the tension creeps back and hardens Steve's muscles to a point where he's stiff as a statue. "Plants grow. Most plants sleep at night. They rest and they wait for the sun to wake them. Bushes, trees, flowers – they reach out, and with all they've got, they face sunlight. They grow stronger, grow bigger, make roots that hold them steady, embedded in the soil. They survive because they need light." Danny hears Steve swallow. His voice is even lower, almost a whisper between the wind in the leaves when he speaks again. "I need this – the light and the growing. I – all that. It helps." Steve makes an ashamed gesture, a flailing hand in the dusk to play it down. "God, this sounds so cheesy."

Danny's skin is too small for his body. He works his jaw and hopes his throat doesn't close up with the jammed emotions he can hardly contain.

"I'm a SEAL. Ex-SEAL." Words, spoken so tense and thin Danny almost misses them.

"That's why the dog tags are there and not around your neck?" Danny clears his throat.

Steve turns his head and makes it impossible for Danny to read on his face how hard it is to be out of the tightly knitted circle. Steve walks through blazing fire every time his eyes wander over to the two chains hanging on the wall. Danny can't even imagine how Steve feels. How has he ever thought he could make a difference? Love? Meaningful things? Danny wouldn't even know where to begin. Pfft, God, what's up with him? It's ridiculous. Steve lives in an entirely different orbit, unreachable, unattainable. Not his league.

"To who belongs the second pair? It's the same name on them, Steven McGarrett."

"It's my grandfather's, Steven Jack McGarrett. Ensign McGarrett. He perished on the U.S.S Arizona during the attack on Pearl Harbor, December 1941."

How can a piece of metal stand for the very soul of its bearer?

Danny's gaze gets drawn to the man in front of him, wearing threadbare jeans and standing barefoot in the golden light of the sinking sun. Love hot like fiery anger boils in Danny's stomach. He watches Steve, surrounded by a garden he has created so he won't drown in blood and despair and anguish. This green ocean is Steve's embodied back-up plan to survive would he ever make it back from the war alive. Danny's exhausted. Steve stays silent.

They watch the sunset. They still stand on the same spot when the shadows of the night grow longer and darker.

Danny's cell rings disgustingly loud in his pants pocket. He shakes his head to get rid of the dazed feeling in his head. "Chin? Yeah, sure. Give me the address I'll meet you there. Yep, see you in ten." Danny stares at this phone. Has he been that much out? He's forgotten about work completely since he has set foot in Steve's green world. Unbelievable.

"I gotta go," Danny points at his cell, "we've got a case." He could really need a break to get his head straight again.

"Sure," is all Steve answers.

The world is too loud after the reverent moments in the garden even if grief and loss have been woven into the open space between words and glances. It's was so exceptional Danny has nothing more to say. He has no idea how to catalog this afternoon with Steve. He's overwhelmed. He's glad Chin called with a case. He needs some time alone.  And there's more he doesn't know how to deal with. Steve tries to disguise he's not staring at Danny's chest or how his eyes stealthily crawl back up to his lips. This throws Danny even more.

Danny curls his fingers around the steering wheel. He lowers the window and braces his elbow on the frame of the open window. Steve walks over to him. He's still wearing the same tank top and jeans. The dirt on his clothes gives him a wild, untamed look. Steve doesn't seem to care how he looks. Danny can't take the smooth shift of strong muscles beneath sun-tanned skin any longer without losing control. He wants to touch and to smell with closed eyes like the primal side of his masculinity screams at him.

Steve bends down, one hand on the roof of the car the other still in the front pocket. He meets Danny's eyes head-on. "Raincheck on lunch?"

Danny holds Steve's piercing look. He nods brusquely, "raincheck on lunch."

And then nothing. Two men breathing and staring. Danny's stomach is heavy with suppressed emotions and the wish to yank himself free from the strong pull Steve's presence has on him.

"Do you make me say it?" Steve's jawline is sharp, his lips a thin line.

"Say what?" Danny breathes. He sweats in places he can't stand when it's not during sex.

Steve stretches to his full height and taps the roof of the car with his palm. "How can I reach you? Care to give me your number?"

Danny feels like the world's biggest dork. What did he expect? A kiss? And crazy SEAL stunt to yank him out of the car into Steve's massive arms? God, it's time for him to hit the road. "Sure yeah, it's 808-925-1717. Sorry, I've nothing to write it down –"

"I got it." Steve steps away from the car.

"Okayyy?"

"Yeah."

"Okay, see you. Bye." Danny turns the key and rolls off Steve's property. He watches in the rear mirror how Steve's figure gets smaller. He stands and waits and watches after Danny's car. He misses Steve's face the moment he can't see it anymore. The shape of Steve's body and the way he chews at his bottom lip is something he already wants in his life.

Steve watches Danny leave. He stands in the dark long after the Camaro's taillights have vanished between the thick green. He can't move. His chest is wide open. He feels the surf hitting the shore even if miles away. Sea means comfort and calmness. He's one with the water's movements. It's what carries him through hard times.

His fingers twitch. They feel empty. The front of his abs burns with the memory of arm muscles. Muscles hard as a rock. Steve closes his eyes and waits until the inner struggle ebbs away, giving space to numbness and a softer shade of despair. Every evening by nightfall he undergoes the same procedure: senseless questions shoot holes in his brain. What the fuck should he do with his life? How to move on? Where to start?

The night seems lighter today. He listens and thinks the wind carries the faint sound of an engine over to him. He imagines how Danny guns the engine to get to his task, his purpose, his job. And all Steve has is too much time at hand he cannot make pass faster.

Danny.

Steve vividly remembers the phone call he had with Kamekona when his friend told him about Danny. He was so angry he couldn't see straight. His fear and the fury made him almost spit fire. Kame made a decision without his consent. He was so sorry afterward, ashamed of how he lost it. He hung his head and sincerely apologized for his choice of words on the phone.

"Why are you calling again, Kame? You waste your time. I said already 'no' the first time. I don't want – no, YOU listen, man. I'm not interested! Fuck! How many times do you make me say it? Get it into your thick, stubborn head! It's a fucking NO from me!"

"We've agreed on the no-yelling, brah. It's time, dude. Sell your flowers, make some nice money. You could easily reforest the entire island with the crazy number of green you've stashed in your garden, brah. Wassup, man? Go for it, Mary's with me on this one. Time to learn to move on. Open a shop, go business, go big, dude. Get to know people."

"Don't you dare to drag Mary into this and don't try to sugarcoat it, Kamekona. It's still a huge NO. Don't – "

"He's good for you, brah."

"I don't want to sell my flowers to an arrogant haole, a freaking detective –"

"You don't even know him, man. You're a haole, too, buddy."

"We went to the same high school, Kame. What the fuck, man? I grew up here. It's MY island, too! And no, no, NO! I do NOT sell my babies to any-fucking-body! You got that, big guy? What does this haole even know?"   

"He's different –" 

"I don't care, Kame! Not happening! Not HPD, not the Governor, not the Queen of goddamn England – I don't fucking care! I don't sell my plants! And I don't want a stupid shop either. Stop pushing, you only get me angry." 

"Stop with the yelling already. Don't make me use keiki-talk, Steve-brah. Danny's good for you. He's a haole, yeah, but he's just the right person –"   

"What the hell is wrong with you? Got food poisoning? What's this bullshit all about? You hit your head one too many times, man. He's a white boy from the mainland, Kamekona. Jesus fucking Christ! Do you even hear yourself, huh? You, of all people, YOU want to send a stranger from fucking New Jersey over to my secret place?"    

"Yeah."   

"I don't need people, Kame, I need to be left the FUCK alone. No, I don't want him here."    

"Kawika feels it too. C'mon, Steve –"    

"Don't mess with me. I'm in no mood to be messed with. Shit! I don't need this spiritual crap from you guys about having a sixth sense. I'll drop by and blow up your fucking truck if you don't spit it out why THE HELL I need to sell my flowers to an arrogant cop I don't even fucking know!"   

"I dunno if he's arrogant but Danny's solid soulmate material." 

"You – I can't even. What the hell? Soulmate? My Ass. Are you fucking kidding me? I can't believe the ridiculous shit you're telling me, Kame. That one is even super low for you. Go fuck yourself."  

Steve remembers how he screamed into the phone. He was so close to driving over to murder his friend and to bury his body somewhere on the island. He almost burst at the seams with fury but most of all he was ashamed to lose it. He so lost it. He wanted to punch this Danny guy in the face the moment he'd pull up to his place.  

"I'm a freak, Kame. Don't you get that?  Messed up to the point of no return. I have fucking panic attacks. I can't sleep and I see stuff I shouldn't. What the ever-loving fuck do you think you're doing by sending me this guy over, huh? I don't believe in fairytales anymore and stupid love stories make me want to puke. I know my limits. You just made me want to punch something so hard my knuckles would break. I'm so goddamn angry I can't see straight. Happy now? You're such an asshole!"  

"You're done, man?"    

"Yeah, I'm done."      

"We Hawai'ians know things, brah. You, Steve, you feel the ocean in your blood. I feel different vibes coming from the stars, just like Kawika or Mamo. We know, brah, we just know. We feel the 'Aina' of the land. She talks to us. Your inner darkness needs light. Danny's light. Don't shot him in the leg, dude. Play nice. Danny's good for you."    

He would never admit it out loud but sometimes, Kame and Kawika scare him a little.   

Steve stays restless for the rest of the night. The fluttering in his stomach worries him the most. He's scared he might skid into another fit. But nothing happens. The strange, strong sensation won't disappear. His stomach kind of does some funny swoops he can't control.    

He lies in bed on his back with his hands spread wide over his nervous abs. His pulse rabbits under his skin. He stares at the ceiling and listens to the sounds of the night. He sees Danny's face when he closes his eyes. He shuts them often just to feel the comfort he can't explain. The revelation hits him hard. His eyes fly open but he stays motionless and just breathes. Steve feels the trickle of sweat running over the temple into his hair.

The label for that odd sensation lies on his tongue. It's so ridiculous he doesn't want to say it out loud. He would have barked a laugh if he was able to move. But he's thunderstruck by the fact that it has caught him off guard. He's been ambushed without realizing it. It's so obvious and so there, it frightens him. He can feel these little fuckers in his stomach. The dawning realization is worth a little anxiety fit.      

Butterflies.     

Steve turns to the side and buries his face in the pillow.    

TBC

Also on AO3

[genuflectx]

4th Dimensional Being/OC - CH3

Chapter 1 - Chapter 2 

Full Length: 19,543 Chapter Length:  2,218

Main Themes: Other dimensions, tentacles, confinement, nsfw Other Warnings: politics,  "godly" behaviors, vomit, feeling of loss of autonomy, comparison to a toy

(all images in aesthetic board are labeled for reuse with modification or are mine)

The next chapter gets nasty...

The 4DB Chapter 3: The Virus

They were all chattering like cicadas, a loud distant drone in the back of her head. Chris missed her phone. She missed Vincent. She even missed Mildred's occasional snarky comment. Instead she was here, the beginnings of a headache blooming, listening to the test subjects debate the pros and cons of their situation. Chris absently and quietly picked at her food.

John was grumpy. He complained that he shouldn't even be here. “Whatever this thing is it's keeping me from my job,” but he secretly thought that perhaps he'd be revered for his 'sacrifice,' assuming he was allowed to even talk about it after it ended.

“What do you do again?” Asked Cole at Chris’s side smartly.

John became red in the face but kept his composure. “Very funny.”

Aaron, nearly slumped over the cold metal table, shrugged and snorted. “Why's a ~mystical being~ need any of us anywho? A security guard, an energy-guy, a mayor, a fucking clerk for God's sake,” he gestured towards Chris.

“Well I know why he'd want me!” Boasted Nathan. “Must of saw me on the field and thought wow, I need him in my soon-to-be-cult!” His laugh was so loud. John sneered when he elbowed him.

The conversation just felt so shallow. Chris should have opted to sit with her roommate Morgan, but she had looked out of it ever since she'd first spoken with Gabriel the day before.

“So uh, what did it say to you guys?” Cole changed the subject suddenly.

Chris looked up, glancing around. Some of the men looked rather uncomfortable.

“Fucker wanted me to describe war to him,” Nathan answered quickly, his expression confused but vaguely amused. “Apparently they've had no wars. Not one. I think he's a liar, what a load of shit.”

John shrugged, leaning back a bit. “I was asked about my job. It was very tame.”

“Hey Chris, what did it ask you?” Cole nudged her from her thoughts.

The security guard chuckled. “How to send a letter?”

She ignored him. God, some of these guys were obnoxious. “It asked me about our government and how it treated me,” she shrugged, looking back at her food.

“I wonder what the eggheads will do with those recordings,” Nathan interjected. “Not like they can hear the bastard. It'll just be a bunch of government losers ranting about their jobs. Oh, and then me having to explain every damn World War like I was a school teacher. Whatever that thing is... it knows nothing about us.”

At least Chris could agree with that.

The experiments continued. The scientists began to fill out; the building became more abuzz with life than it had at the start. Suddenly the subjects felt surrounded. There was always some straight-laced woman or expressionless man beside them. Tailor, Sparrow, Rock, Dove, they all came with some codename. And, even in the reports of which the subjects could not access, Chris and her comrades were coded as well. Like they were trying to hide who they were, what they were doing, to keep their discoveries a secret from the rest of the world.

Regardless, a week had gone by and the only thing they'd discovered was that the 4DB was communicating directly inside of the subjects' heads. They tried to figure out a way to at least record the brain readings of the subjects' during sessions, and indeed found ample evidence that the auditory system was being stimulated. It was telepathy. Unfortunately they were having difficulty figuring out how to translate the brain's signals into actual words. They would have to stick with word of mouth.

“Have you learned anything about us?” Chris asked, walking around the pink square casually.

“Much. You are each individuals, like us. However, you are perhaps more individually inclined than I estimated,” they admitted curiously.

“I hope that helps you re-consider exterminating us. Cause... ya know, I sorta wanna live.”

Gabriel paused. “All things want to live. Even a virus wants to live.”

She scrunched her brows, angry. “We are not a virus, Gabriel. Grow up.”

“...No, I suppose you are not.” Gabriel went quiet for a while.

Chris calmed a bit and finished her circle. She leaned against the wall. “I wish I could go back home. I miss my friends. The people here- they're... I don't know. Not my sort. I'm tired.”

That was almost enough to make Gabriel feel some guilt, but if they had not plucked Chris from her home they'd have plucked someone else. “I do see the way you look.”

She rose a brow, confused. “Huh? What's that supposed to mean?”

“The way you look. When they speak.”

For a moment she was beside herself, believing they were saying some sort of gibberish. But then it clicked. Her brows shot up and her head went light. “You watch us when we're not in the chamber?”

“Of course I do. I am not confined to one spot,” they shook their heads.

She paled. Then she reddened. “Nooo no no, do you...” her voice got quiet. “...see us when we... pee? And shower?”

Apparently that was funny because they laughed strangely. “Yes. Now I see you are embarrassed. Do not be embarrassed, for I can see any part of you at any time if I wished. I can see all your organs. Like now, your heart has sped up.”

Chris placed her hand to her heart as if she could hide it. It was sort of cute. “Y-yeah? Well can you see I'm going to vomit?”

They looked to the right, down the vague rivers of time. “Maybe. A long, long time from now.”

She sighed, sort of sick. “Well Gabriel, nice knowin' ya. I'm out for the day.” Chris absconded from the chamber five minutes early. The scientists were not pleased.

As days ticked on Chris could see how the results of these studies were wearing away at the morale of the scientists. Some were exhausted, some were disappointed, some were scared and angry. They grew impatient with the 4DB. It still only spoke to them to issue commands. Then, one day, when a particularly irritable scientist got cocky, the 4DB actually laughed and shoved them. Right in front of their colleagues. None of the subjects saw it, but of course they heard about it through the grape vine.

The scientists wanted to stop sending the subjects into the chamber to test the limits of the 4DBs relationship with the lab. However, too many feared some retaliation so such a test never came to fruition. Instead, they spitefully released one lesser subject's contracts and then started increasing the amount of time the remaining subjects would spend with the scientists. Gale began to meet with Chris once a day, though in a much more comfortable room than the one they'd first conversed in.

“How have you settled in?” Gale asked, leaning comfortably in her chair and crossing her long legs. “A week and a half far from home... you must miss your friends.”

At this point she was almost too nervous to voice her true feelings. “Yeah, it feels more like a month,” she answered instead, uncomfortable.

Gale nodded and drummed her fingers on the table between them, observing Chris. She changed the subject masterfully. “You know, your recordings are the most interesting.”

That made Chris perk up, a bit of adrenaline pushing into her veins. “What do you mean?”

The other smirked, entertained. “You're the only subject so far who sounds almost friendly with the 4DB. And don't think we didn't notice you named it, too.”

Chris didn't want to admit that hearing that made her feeling sort of... special. “I didn't know you listened to the recordings,” her cheeks tinted.

“Of course! And transcribe as well,” Gale explained. “You call it Gabriel. Like before it made its presence known to us, like Gabriel's Children. The other subjects... well. Gabriel seems to get something from them that we just don't.”

Chris glanced down at her hand fidgeting in her lap, embarrassed.

“But wow, does it talk to you. Maybe it's your time in retail. You just have a way with small talk,” she began to laugh. “So Chris, I have a proposal for you.”

She lifted her eyes. “Um... y-yeah?”

Gale leaned forward, face friendly and tone pleasant, but Chris could feel the strange aura emanating from her piercing eyes. “Get closer to it. Make it friendly. It obviously favors you and we need that. We are more then well aware- based off your recordings and reports- that the fate of the world, no, maybe the whole solar system, depends on Gabriel's opinion-”

“Well there are more than one 4DB,” you interrupted.

She looked only slightly aggravated at the interruption, then continued. “-And Gabriel's opinion might just fall on its opinion of you. Try to get it to talk to us more naturally. Not just commands. It's not working with us like we'd like. And in return? You'll get cell phone access again,” she winked. “Have some time to chat with those friends you miss so much.”

Chris agreed. That wouldn't be so hard. All she had to do was keep doing what she was doing. The world would learn more, she would get her cell phone back, and maybe with some luck Gabriel wouldn't vote to destroy the Earth.

But then, during the next session in the chamber with the pink square, she found a tense heaviness in the air like standing underwater.

“I heard your conversation,” Gabriel said immediately, emotionless.

Shocked and anxious, Chris tried to play it off as nothing. “That was just... it was just-”

Gabriel cut her off. “Quiet. You miss your human friends.”

She was uncertain if she was allowed to reply or not, stunned. Instead she just nodded stiffly and crossed her arms.

“And if I comply by being more 'cooperative' with your knowledge keepers they will allow you to speak with these friends,” they went on. After a pause they added: “I am indifferent to your plight.”

When Gabriel said nothing else Chris took it as her cue to respond. She was quiet, as if trying not to be picked up by the small microphone clipped to her shirt. “I... nothing would change. All we have to do is talk. Just like before. That's all they really want.”

“We shall see,” Gabriel said plainly.

The problem was that their plan began to work, despite Gabriel being aware of it. Though they didn't necessarily speak directly to the scientists they did grow warmer to Chris. Chris had a way about her that just made Gabriel so... interested in her. She didn't make cutting remarks (as if that would have hurt anyways), she didn't refuse to answer their questions, and she didn't make light of the atrocities of her country. She just talked. Like speaking with Gabriel was the most natural thing in the world. They didn't quite mind the nick-name anymore either, if they were honest. They hated that they were warm with Chris.

Gale was 'happy' the two of them were still getting along. Chris didn't tell her Gabriel knew about the plan, but they obviously suspected it. Everyday the scientist looked a little more intense. Gale continued to drill it into Chris's head to get Gabriel speaking with the scientists. Was it more cooperative today? No. How about now? No. Gale held back her irritation. At the end of each daily session she was led to her room feeling uncomfortable and alone. Chris still hadn't gotten her cell phone back. Her friends probably thought she was dead.

“Has it really been three weeks since this whole thing started?” Chris sighed, sitting on the cold floor. She fiddled with the rim of her shirt's neck, knowing full well that would cause sound disturbance in the recording. She'd get a mouthful about that.

Gabriel, who was sitting comfortably beyond the barrier, twirled their tentacles around one another absently. “For you.”

Chris nodded. She was quiet a moment. “Then how long is three weeks in your dimension?”

“For you it is sixty seconds to a minute, sixty minutes to an hour, twenty-four hours to a day, seven days to a week. For me it is... time functions differently,” they tried to explain. “I've only met you a few 'days' ago.”

That was hard for her to wrap her head around. “And are you really learning by doing this? Keeping us here in a box? Just talking?”

“Yes,” they replied simply.

They really were. They not only listened to word-of-mouth, they saw into the deep wrinkles of the subjects' brains, saw their bodily chemistry rise and fall. They watched for reactions to key words, how the subjects interacted with one another and their human 'captors.'

Chris shrugged, pursing her lips. She didn't seem to believe them. “Ooookay. Ya know this could go a lot faster if you also spoke to the scientists.” Of course they both knew what Chris was trying to do.

“So eager to hear your judgment.”

She shrugged again, somehow feeling rather fond of Gabriel in that moment. “Nah... just to hear my friends' voices again.”

Soon, Gabriel automatically thought, surprising themself.

Chapters 4, 5, and the epilogue will remain Patron-only content! However, eventually the full story will be edited more and added to Gumroad as an e-book as well. So if you’d like to get to the nsfw or read the rest, check out NSFWGenuflect on Patreon or wait for the Gumroad release :}

[rxgerthatt]

once upon a time, I forgot her name

Pairing - Steve Rogers x Reader 

Summary - Steve forgets you. He forgets himself. He knew you once, he can feel it in his bones

Warnings - SMUT/memory loss/angst/gore 

A/N - so this is hella fucking long and I wanted it out earlier than this but ohhhh well. Its finally here! Hope you all enjoy!

“My name is Steve Rogers. I was born in Brooklyn. I’m Captain America.” 

It’s like a game. Look at the facts and see how many you can remember. He wonders if he was good at games before. He shakes his head. Starts again. He has to remember, he wants to remember, he needs to remember. 

“My name is Steve Rogers. I was born in Brooklyn. I’m Captain America.” 

The name is so foreign on his tongue, as though it doesn’t belong there. As if it’s not really his, and he finds himself staring at his reflection in the morning. The person staring back is a stranger. He’s afraid he’ll never remember. 

But he doesn’t cry. He cannot mourn what he does not know. And maybe that hurts more. Maybe that’s enough for him to grieve. 

He sees faces in his dreams - memories. Places and missions and a life before the accident, but it’s almost like he’s seeing someone else’s life through his own eyes. 

And he wishes to be a part of it, because he feels as though he doesn’t belong. Our need as humans is always to belong, to be wanted and to be needed by someone - anyone. 

The 1930’s. He feels the heat of a summer day in Brooklyn. He’s much smaller then, can’t stay in the sun for too long or he burns. The humid air makes his asthma spike, steals the air from his lungs like a searing, wet kiss. 

He feels a mans arm around his pointed shoulders - he’s much happier then - ice cream melting on their tongues and coating their throats, in a way that can only be described as blissful. 

“Captain Rogers?” 

His thoughts are broken, shards scattering like stars in his mind. They’re so far away. A nurse stands in the doorway, beside him is the man from his recollections. He’s different now, more obscure - criss-crossed in shadows and a dark past of his own. Long, unruly hair and a metal arm - ugly, puckered scar on his shoulder where it’s attached to his body. 

But deep down he’s still there. Much like Steve. 

“You okay pal?” He asks. 

Steve doesn’t know what to say, because he’s not, so he settles on - “Y-Yeah. I’m fine. What’s your name again?” 

And the hurt that flashes is the lapis glare of the man is enough to tell Steve that his words sting. “It’s Bucky.” 

“Mr Barnes is here to take you home,” the nurse adds. 

Home. Where was home for Steve Rogers? The man he was supposed to be. The man he used to be. They’d shown him pictures. There was no white picket fence, with wild viridescent grass. The kind that grounds you, caresses your skin like a thousand tongues, and sways with the cool breeze. 

No. His home was built like fucking Fort Knox. The grass was garish, and the white picket fence was a reinforced vibranium wall. Steve Rogers home was uncommon. 

But something about it made him smile. 

“Home.” 

***

2 months ago 

It was supposed to be easy. 

You’d done it a million times before. Save the hostages and get the fuck out. Ten shivering bodies followed in pursuit, grime covered and sweat slicked, and there’s children - small children. You’re glad you got there when you did. 

Until you aren’t. 

“Cap, (Y/N), I’m detecting multiple bogies outside of the warehouse - you gotta get out of there.” Tony comes through the coms. 

Simple recon turns sour. At least twelve men make themselves known. Hydra stragglers. The evocative emblem stitched to their chests and you wonder how they wear it with pride. 

It’s the weapons they wield that catch your eye. “Is that...” you turn to Steve, see the storm raging in the blues of his eyes, broken by shards of ice. 

“Chitauri debris.” 

And you have so many questions. But fail to come to any answers. Midnight blue energy forms around your hands, and you and Steve fight like rogues to protect the hostages. It’s like some twisted dance. Graceful, and beautiful and so fucking morbid but it’s you. And god, it was supposed to be so fucking easy. 

You’re blasted across the room, back slamming against a wall. You remember searing pain, skin split and violent red as your insides spill out of your hip. It’ll heal. Steve looks over, concern, worry, scribbled across his face like an artists page. Your eyes meet for just a moment before - 

It happens too fast. 

And your screaming. Steve’s body falls, crashes against the ground and the room goes silent. Or at least it feels like it does. And your world collapses. 

You turn murderous - kill every Hydra agent in the warehouse. Your eyes are fire. Gasoline set to a match. Aegean energy wrapping around their corpses and you squeeze until they’re purple and black and gasping. 

You crush their skulls with ease. Watch as their eyes pop from their sockets like marbles. Their blood spills across the floor in a flurry of bone and matter. It’s all gore and slaughter and pained screams. Relish in the sound of death. And you feel nothing. 

And when the job is finished you turn to him. Collapse on your knees beside his body and drop your hands into the blood that pillows his head. Your heart is pulled from your chest, veins and arteries attached, and you watch it burst in front of your very eyes. 

The jets arrive. Agents load the boxes of weapons, the hostages - and you carry Steve’s body in your arms. Your stare is blank. You feel empty. And Tony looks at you for reassurance - reassurance that you’re okay. And you can’t give it to him. 

“They came out of nowhere,” Tony tells you. “It’s as if they knew you would be there.” And his eyes spark, burn wide and bister, as he pieces together the coincidence of the hostages and the weapons. 

Nick Fury set you up. He knew Steve’s need to help people. He knew the hostages would be there, and he knew the weapons would be there too. Steve’s skull was cracked like a nut because of him. You were covered in Steve Rogers blood - head to toe - like some hellish angel because of him. Steve was lying on that table, fighting for his life because of him. 

And he would die because of you.

There’s a ringing. It’s long, and piercing and you feel your stomach in your throat because you know he’s dying. Tony holds you back as you scream at the doctors. 

If he dies, you die too. Please! Oh god. Please! 

You could easily throw him aside but you don’t. He wraps you in his arms, whispers in your ear, holds your face to his neck. But you don’t listen. And you’re crying, trails of anguish breaking rivers through your dusted cheeks. 

You mumble - “I’ve lost him. I’ve lost him.” 

*** 

Your knuckles bleed lurid red. It’s smeared across the leather of the bag like some morbid painting - your hands the brush. Angry red valleys coat your hands but they don’t hurt. Nothing hurts anymore. 

“I love it when we ruin the gym equipment.” 

You ball your fists and they’re coated in blue - pulsating twisting. And Tony holds his hands up, earthy hues coming to life with fear, the anticipation of being hit by raw power. When you realise it’s Tony, your hands fall to your sides once more. 

“If you’re here to lecture me on the importance of value Tony, I’m not in the mood.” You respond. 

“I’m not here to lecture you babe,” he walks further into the dimly lit gym, stands under an ugly yellow light and gives you a genuine smile. Not the forced, seductive smirk pulled over a pristine face. No. This was Tony. 

So you wait expectantly for him to speak. He pulls the pillow of his lip in between his teeth and chews thoughtfully. “Steve’s coming home today.” 

The penny drops. Hits the ground with a deafening thud and you feel the involuntary stiffening of your spine. Each vertebrae seems to snap in place. “Oh yeah?” You shrug it off, pack your gym bag and sling it over your shoulder. 

“Yeah,” Tony replies. “You should be there, to welco-“ 

“You know I can’t do that.” You’re stern. “He doesn’t know who I am, I can’t help him.” 

“You can’t or you won’t?” Tony is blunt - straight to the point. You guess that’s what makes him a reliable friend. “Because he needs you (Y/N).” 

Anxiety coils in your stomach, spirals tight like copper rod and it’s as though your nerves are set alight - sizzling like furious firelights, marring your skin. 

Tony’s hands are cool when they land on your shoulders. It’s a relief from the heat, and the simple gesture grounds you again. It Pulls you from your own head, and throws you on the floor - bare and unfiltered. 

“Whether you believe me or not, is your choice,” his irritated tone is oddly gentle. “But you both need this.” 

“He would do it for you.” 

*** 

“Welcome home Cap!” 

Smiling faces. Lips pulled tight over gleaming teeth. Each smile was familiar - resonates something deep within him. He just can’t place it. And he scatters around in his own brain, searching for names. 

“It’s great to have you back man.” One man steps out from the sea of faces, a warm toothy grin that sets his eyes alight. That earthy brown, the kind after heavy rain - welcoming. He’s a sturdy man, gleaming cocoa skin and clad in tac pants and a plain shirt. 

His name is Sam. 

“Hey gramps, welcome back to the world.” A smirk - devilish - and Steve knew this man was devious. He was smaller in build, compensated  with his wit, with a fancy suit and gaudy facial hair over olive skin. An air of confidence surrounded him like no other, but Steve could see the selflessness in him. 

Tony Stark. 

His eyes travelled to a woman. She was beautiful. Piercing blue eyes and pressed pale skin with a cotton pink hue. Her hair burned chestnut and it reminded him of autumn. Of trees clad in gold and brown and scarlet. That fresh natural smell of the earth, and the sound of birds singing in the trees - harmonious, peaceful. 

And he feels a hand. It’s warm and small but so fucking strong. Steve’s sees her - not the woman with the red hair - the woman from his dreams. They walk hand in hand, surrounded by the fire of fall and vivid colours. She stands out against the landscape, but Steve knew she always stood out. She was a dream. Clad in cut offs, black boots two sizes too big, and a tank top - no bra - her hair spills liquid down her back. 

He smells it. Orange blossom, burning wood. It’s pressed into each strand of hair, and Steve feels the velvet between his fingers. And her smile. Oh god her smile. It was like looking into the fucking sun, and it incinerates away every shadow, as though the sun were just shining on her. As though everything wrong with the world just stopped to see that smile. Everything about it feels like home. 

“Steve?” 

He’s mumbling, staring at the woman in front of him and she looks genuinely concerned. Natasha. Her name is Natasha. “Steve, is everything alright?” His eyes dart around the room, words stuck in his throat like hot glue. Everyone stares at him, marble eyed and worried. 

“Yeah... I just... never mind.” 

It’s dropped. Left in his mind to fester. That is until Bucky speaks from his side. Answers his silent prayer, puts a name to the girl he feels so connected too. 

“(Y/N) not here?” 

“Yeah... uh - something came up.” Tony lies, scratches the nape of his neck. “She wishes you well Cap. Speedy recovery and all that nice shit.” 

“(Y/N),” Steve repeats the name, tries it on his tongue for good measure. It feels right. It feels like the only right thing in the confusion of his mind, and he can’t help the way his heart skips at the sound of it. It’s so pure, and so beautiful. 

(Y/N).

*** 

2 months ago

Steve stabilises. Is whisked away from you as soon as the jet lands, with a faint heartbeat and his skull cracked open and spilling across the gurney. And you have one name at the forefront of your mind. 

Nicholas Fury. 

You’re like some hellish warrior queen, coated in the blood of her lover, eyes that could tear you apart with their stare - cold, hard, lost. Anger scorched white hot in your stomach, licked your insides and pushed through your pores to break free. Fury didn’t stand a chance against you. No one did. 

Tony was hot on your heels. “Please calm down babe,” he pleads, grabs your forearm and you growl. “Killing him will not make Steve better.” 

You tossed him against a wall. Gasps came from those who walked past, but no one dared cross your war path. They knew the outcome. Tony’s eyes begged from his position on the floor, searing pain shooting up his spine and he knew he couldn’t stop you. 

“What the hell is going on out here?!”

Tony gave Fury a warning glare. A glare that screamed - ‘run as fast as you can, she’ll still catch you.’ 

Before he could even process what was happening, you had raised your hand. 

Indigo stretched around his neck like a blue noose. He felt the tightening, a boa constrictor wrapped around his pulse and squeezed the life from him. He flailed pathetically, tried to pry the energy off, tap out - anything. But you were relentless, and you would kill him before he ever got the chance to explain himself. 

His eyes bulged from his head, veins popping and straining under his skin, it’s a wonder they didn’t burst and bleed across the hallway. His muscles struggle under your force. He makes this horrible gargling sound - the last of his life bubbling in his throat. And he looked so ugly under the stress you almost felt sorry for him. 

Almost. 

“He was a good man,” your teeth rub together like plates. “And you sent him to his death. And I will send you to yours.” 

You never got the chance. A small pinch to your neck and your body falls into Tony’s arms, blue cord loosening from Nicks neck in the process. And he’s on all fours, gasping for breath. 

You were sent to psychiatric evaluation for a month. 

Nick Fury escaped with his life and a neck brace. 

***

She comes to him at night like a fever dream. 

Her bare skin glistens like ice under moonlight, and he feels her melt under his hands. That sturdy exterior she has falls, breaks like the heavens and he only feels her. He only ever feels her. 

Her hands sliding over his body, reminded him of so much more - breathed life into his chest from her fingertips. Her hair falling like tendrils, brushed against his cheek, keeping his eyes focused on her. Steve flips them so she’s underneath, and her eyelashes flutter like black butterfly wings - kiss her sharp cheekbones and she giggles. 

Steve’s lips meet hers and he feels himself opening up to her. It’s trusting and passionate and as their tongues slide together he sees stars scatter his eyelids. 

He knows very few people see her like this. Very few people seldom see her vulnerable. So when she lets out a breathy moan at the feeling of his fingers dipping into her wet heat - it makes him feel special. Like he’s the only one in the world that can do this. Make her feel like this. Make her ache like this. 

And she comes fast. Gushes all over his hand like some erotic fantasy - hands fisted in the sheets, back arched, mouth gaping and his name rolling off her tongue like a prayer. 

Steve wastes no time pushing into her, stretching her to her limits but he knows she can take it. He fucks her with abandon. It’s a flurry of lips and spit and everything nasty but so fucking sexy and he loves it. Who knew Captain America was so dirty in bed? 

He devastates her like a storm, relentless and powerful, and she gives it just as good. Pushes her hips down to meet his with a slap. The front of his thighs sting, burn with passion as he drills into her at an unforgiving pace - finger tracing through the hair that cushions that heavenly face. 

An angel. 

And she tightens around him once more. The coil in his stomach snaps at the sound of her mewls, at the feeling of her squeezing his cock so tight she might pull the fucking thing off. And fuck - that would be hot. And he pounds faster and faster, shouts out to whoever’s listening as he bursts inside her - fills her with everything he has. 

They’re coated in sweat, laboured breaths and blush tinted faces. It’s all that true love bullshit, when he crashes down next to her. The kind he never thought he’d have. Carding his fingers through her hair, running along the soft skin of her face. He sees the love in her eyes, swirled in her irises in the haze of bliss and she’s so fucking gorgeous it hurts. 

She opens her mouth to say something. And he hopes it’s ‘I love you.’ He yearns for it. Wants to hear it roll of her tongue and hit his ears in the form of that sweet, sweet sound. But instead it’s - 

“Why don’t you remember me Stevie?” 

And he’s awake again. 

***

You hear him pacing at night. 

Sometimes he cries. Other times he shouts. But he always paces. It’s never ending - the thud of his feet, mumble of his voice - cursing himself because he can’t remember. And you want to help him, but you stop every time. Never making it far enough. 

You long to hold him. Tell him you love him and kiss him with the stars watching like some fairytale theatre performance. But life has a funny way of fucking you over. Always has. Always will. So you don’t. 

You cross paths one night. You’re all messy hair, a pair of short shorts and an oversized T-shirt. You fetch a glass of water and he’s standing in the doorway, staring at you as though you’re the moon. It’s the way he used to look at you, like he couldn’t believe someone like you could exist. Someone so undeniably amazing. And you couldn’t help the small flutter in your chest. 

Your heart beating once more. 

There’s a crimson flush running across his cheeks and nose, blue eyes speckled with stars. Golden hair a mess atop his head. And you want nothing more than to suck that pillowed bottom lip into your mouth and hold his face between your powerful hands. 

But you stop yourself. 

You offer him a small smile. 

***

He catches her stargazing. Sprawled across black grass underneath a Norway maple. Her arms are folded beneath her head, face illuminated in the night. And he wonders how she’s so effortlessly beautiful. He wonders if she were gifted to earth by the gods. 

Steve approaches her. She looks at him with those curious eyes, quirk a brow when he says nothing. 

“I see you in my dreams.” 

Probably not the best conversation starter. And he half expects her to walk off. So when she smirks he’s surprised. “Creepy way to start a conversation with a girl you just met, Captain.” 

Steve sits down beside her, runs his fingers through the blades of grass - coats them in the dew that rests there. “I’ve not just met you though, have I?” He asks, already knowing the answer. But wanting to see if she’ll be honest. 

She stiffens beside him, sit up and curls her knees to her chest - white knuckled as she thinks. And during the stretch of silence Steve second guesses himself. Maybe this wasn’t a good idea. Maybe she really hates me. Maybe - 

“You knew me very well,” she answers, finally. “And I knew you.” 

The silence returns, stretches between them like a void - dark and ominous and seemingly unbreakable. “We were lovers,” Steve looks towards her once more. 

“We were.” 

“You visited me in the hospital.” 

“I did.” She looks away then. 

“I forgot you.” He says it sadly. The weight crushes him, and he feels like he’s drowning again. “I’m... so sorry... I-“

“It is not your fault.” Her hand covers his forearm and it feels like it’s burning. His body longs for the touch his mind cannot remember and it hurts him even more to think that he had hurt her. He was still hurting her. 

The panic subdues with her touch, leaves his body feverish in the night. She releases him, studies the tree line intently. Her brows are pulled tight, the sparkle in her eye dulled. When she turns to him again, her face softens, her eyes sparkle and it’s like looking at the clearest night of the year - dark eyes speckled with glowing flames. 

“Watch the stars with me.” She says. 

And he does. 

***

1 month ago 

“The serum saved his life,” the doctor explains. “Made our job a whole of a lot easier.” 

Alexander was her name. 

The hospital was all bright white lighting and eggshell walls, paint peeled away and marked from the countless scrapes it had endured. The air was thick, loud with sobbing and bleach. It was garish and you hated it. 

“As we explained, he has suffered serious damage to his limbic system,” Dr Alexander’s hands flailed as she explained. “So, he has forgotten a lot.” 

Forgotten. Your jaw clenched, teeth clamping together like a vice at her words. “What do you mean?” 

You didn’t need it explained. You just didn’t want to believe it. You couldn’t come to terms with the fact that Steve might have forgotten you. No - not might - definitely, has forgotten you. 

The fear creeped in like a fever, making you sweat and your skin icy. It settled in your chest like thick smoke, clouded your lungs and made it impossible to breathe. 

“I’m sorry Miss (L/N),” she continued. “He’s only just remembering his name. But we thought by bringing someone close to him in, we would be able to trigger some memories.” 

You shake your head. Everything sticks in your throat and you become hyper aware of the situation. Hollow, tear stricken faces study you as you crash against the wall, your spine coils like a snake as it tries to push you to the ground. 

You don’t cave. You can’t. “Why couldn’t you have gotten Bucky?” You asked. “Sam?” 

Anyone but you. It was selfish and you knew it but you couldn’t see him if he couldn’t remember. You tried to think of the positives. He’s alive. He’s still here. But he doesn’t know you. He doesn’t know anyone. 

He doesn’t know himself. 

“Mr Barnes thought it best if you were to see him first,” Dr Alexander claims. “You are his fiancé. Romantic connections can be more successful in conjuring up the past.” 

You pulled it together. The shock dulled to a slight haze. But you were walking on unsteady feet, stumbling as though you’d been hit over the head. It felt like you had. 

She knocked the door and you heard nothing but your heartbeat in your ears, pounding away at the drums as though it were for fun. 

His voice replied. “Come in.” And it sounded just like him. But you knew the man on the bed was a stranger. You didn’t know each other anymore. 

And when you stepped into the room you could see the confusion. It was etched into those blue eyes like some sick tattoo, embedded in the ice. His eyes didn’t light up like they once did. He just stared. Looked between Dr Alexander and you and then - 

“Who are you?” 

It hit you. Hard. Sent your heart crashing to the pit of your stomach, but you didn’t let it show - stoic. And this man was not Steve, he was not your Steve. He was a shell, a broken jigsaw - scrambling to fit the pieces back together. It fucking hurt to see him. To see him so lost, and to come face to face with the cold hard truth. 

You remembered everything, and he remembered nothing. 

***

The lake was like a sheet of glass. It lay still, reflected the murky, bruised sky, and everything was in a violet hue. Honey locusts branched over the water, their garish mustard leaves falling into the reflection - rippling the sky, breaking the mirror. 

Steve knew this place. 

He could feel it deep in his bones, stirring his marrow. It was special to him once. And he tries to force the pieces together, to make them fit in some unfit shape. It’s a mess, jagged and unrefined. But he’ll get there someday, he has to. 

“You proposed to me here.” 

She smirks as he jumps and he narrows his eyes. She was sneaky, slink like a cat, and he never saw her coming. She slumps beside him in the grass, slipping her bare feet through the short blades. Steve stares at her, takes in the smooth shape of her profile, the sharp bones, outlined in silver that look so subtle. 

“I did?” He asks her, waits for her reaction and she turns to him then. 

“Mh-hm,” she picks a piece of grass, plays with it in her fingers and studies it closely. “You were a nervous wreck. Sweating, red in the face, stumbling over your words. It was pretty fucking cute.” 

Steve snickers. “Pretty fucking cute, huh?” And you nod with a smile, sadness swimming in the whirlpool of your eyes. But here you were, refining his memory, cutting off the jagged parts of the shape and making it whole - filling the cracks. 

And Steve remembers. He remembers he loves you. 

“I love you.” You’re startled by his words, turn to stare at him and he can’t read you - doesn’t know what your thinking for once. It makes him worry. Makes him think he’s overstepped the line. 

“You can’t love me Steve,” she says, gaze flitting to the horizon and he sees the violet in her eyes, sees the bruises. “You don’t remember me.”

“I feel you,” he slips in. “In everything. And I might not remember much, but one day I will.” 

When she’s silent he takes her hand, runs his thumb over her angry red knuckles. “I know I hurt you,” he whispers. “And I might not remember our first date, or your favourite colour. But I remember that I love you sweetheart.” 

“I remember that you love to dance when you think no one is watching, but I always would.” She hides the flush that rushes over her skin at his words, a small smile tugs at the corners of her lips. “And I remember making love to you right here on summers eve. The sky burned red and orange and gold, and I was worried, but you didn’t care if people were watching.” 

“God, you’re so cheesy Steve Rogers,” she laughs, and it warms him, because he knows she’s not laughed like that in a long time. And he laughs too. And it’s like how it used to be. 

She reaches around her neck, pulls a chain from beneath her shirt and places the warm metal in his hand. Steve looks down, catches the glint of a diamond in the lilac light and he feels his heart flutter. 

He looks to her once more. Her hand on his cheek. 

“When the day comes that you remember me, I will be here.” 

And he remembered her name. 

[babbushka]

Two Doves (3/6)

Drafted into a war he didn’t want to fight, Flip Zimmerman comes home to a country that doesn’t want him. With your help, he works through it all.

Flip Zimmerman x Reader

(Word count: 6k Warnings: War, gun violence, angst, ptsd, blood, graphic descriptions of death, graphic descriptions of violence)

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

After our war, the dismembered bits

—all those pierced eyes, ear slivers, jaw splinters,

gouged lips, odd tibias, skin flaps, and toes—

came squinting, wobbling, jabbering back.

-  John Balaban

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

After weeks of trudging through the water, the rivers and marshes of the dense thick jungle, they’re in the sky. It’s an altogether different type of being vulnerable, Flip thinks.

They’re up in the helicopters, for whatever fucking reason. There’s solidarity in numbers, about a dozen helicopters flying next to them, all in a formation Flip doesn’t know, wasn’t told.

He wonders what it looks like, down on the ground. How it must look to see a dozen metal birds crossing the horizon. Flip clenches his fist around his gun, he sweats. 

He hates this.

All he wants is to listen to your tape, but he’s got big ear-muffs on, they all do. Pilots said best to wear them so they don’t get their eardrums blown out, best to avoid the tinnitus.

You might survive the war, they said, but the tinnitus would drive you crazy.

As much as he wants to listen to the tapes, he doesn’t want to risk it.

It’s loud, so loud, and the world below them is so small, green as far as the eye can see. It’s like some hell, some tropical hell made just for him. Even up in the sky it’s hot, humid. How the fuck did that work? The engine and the blades of the helicopter drown everything out, every thought that Flip might have had is reduced down to it’s so fucking loud.

There’s five guys crammed into the back of one Huey along with Flip, but none of them are really doing anything. The pilots don’t tell them what was going on, they just hover, hover and fly around and around, searching for something.

“What are we looking for?” Eric shouts over all the noise, is the first one to dare ask, because surely they can’t be looking for people.

They’re too high up for that, can’t see past the thick canopy of green green trees, palms blowing around from the wind generated by their own machine.

“Shut the fuck up!” One of the pilots shouts, and Flip grits his teeth.

“He only asked a fucking question.” Flip shouts back, voice hoarse.

There’s no reason to be jack asses, Flip thinks.

Everyone pretends they didn’t hear him, which was probably for the better. He doesn’t need getting into a fistfight, not on top of everything else.

In the distance, one of the helicopters drops a bomb and there’s a great plume of smoke.

The jungle cracks in half, orange litters the sky, and Eric has his answer.

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

Flip doesn’t sleep that night.

You don’t sleep either, instead content to curl up against your husband on the couch as he shivers from cold that isn’t there. You make him hot chocolate, you put extra marshmallows in it and extra whipped cream and Flip drinks it even though he’s afraid it’ll make him sick.

So much sugar after none at all can’t be good, he thinks, but you made it for him, so it has to be good, he reasons.

It coats his throat and the roof of his mouth and it makes him calm in a way that makes him anxious.

When was the last time he didn’t have to worry? When was the last time he didn’t have to be so fucking on edge? It’s strange, not keeping one eye open, not looking over your shoulder, searching for enemies that are eight thousand miles away.

Is it going to be like this forever?

It’s pitch black outside and you’re both still awake, still on the couch as even the crickets have gone to sleep.

Flip sees the way you’re looking at him, but he can’t place the expression. It’s fear, it’s worry, it’s relief all in one, he doesn’t know how you do it. He can barely process one emotion, one feeling, one mindset – let alone three. He feels like he’s never had a very strong emotional threshold, but now…now it’s even more frayed, seams struggling around the edges.

He wants to tell you everything, wants to talk to you, wants to get it out.

He needs to get it out, he needs to.

He doesn’t know how.

“The brown walls look nice.” He says instead, says as you’re pressed so close against him, so close under the quilt his mother made, that he can feel the shudders that wrack through your body, “Lighter than I was thinking.”

You look to the dining room, to the brown walls. They’re the color of coffee diluted with cream, and Flip finds himself craving caffeine, real stuff, brewed stuff, not the instant shit he drank.

You look at the walls and you look at him, and Flip looks at nothing in particular.

“Do you want them darker? I’ll make them darker I was just – ” You start, but Flip shakes his head, pulls you impossibly closer, wants to crawl inside your skin and live there, he wants to live in you where he’s safe and warm.

He can’t, so he tries his best to get close, as close as possible, impossibly close.

“They’re perfect, really. They’re perfect.” He assures you, reassures you, and his heart breaks when even now there are tears in your eyes.

Your hand reaches up tentatively to caress his cheek, like he’s a dream, a ghost, something you’ve invented after so many nights alone.

You’re both so fucked, he thinks, fucked by this war in more ways than one.

“Kiss me?” You ask, you beg, desperate, and Flip accidentally jabs you in the face with his nose from how fast he ducks to capture your lips.

He sets the mug of cocoa down on the table, careful to place it on a coaster, careful not to fuck up the table like he’s fucked up everything else, and cups your face in his scarred hands. He pulls you into his lap and the two of you wetly cry against one another, kiss and kiss and kiss until your lips are puffy, swollen from it.

He kisses your lips, your cheeks, your eyelids. He kisses your nose and your forehead and your jaw and your neck, kisses every part of you that he can reach and hopes the kisses travel to the parts that he can’t; your heart, your lungs, your soul.

“I can’t…even start to explain how much I love you.” Flip is all choked up, he’s swallowing around hard lumps in his throat that have lived there for years, needing to try and unpack at least this small part of his brain, needing to at least get this part out of the dark pit in his mind.

“You don’t have to.” You rush to say, not wanting to force him, not wanting to make him do anything he doesn’t want to. He had been ordered around enough, you thought, “You don’t have to say anything Phil, you know I’m yours.”

He pinches his eyes shut, hot wet tears stinging stinging stinging, like acid and acrid smoke from fires that only exist in his head.

“I was worried…” He starts, but can’t finish, too afraid to speak the words, too afraid to confirm or deny.

That’s what he struggles with the most, he thinks, as he’s got you in his lap clinging to him, to every word he says, if he speaks the things on his mind they’ll become real, they’ll become things he has to confront. He doesn’t know if he has the strength to confront anyone, anything.

“What?” You ask, prompt him gently, not overbearing or forceful.

Flip wants to scream, but it’s too quiet, and he’ll scare you if he does, and the absolute last fucking thing he wants to do is scare you, now or ever.

“I was worried you wouldn’t want me – that you’d moved on.” And his pulse is racing racing racing, and he wants to run because you’re looking at him and he doesn’t know what you’re going to say, doesn’t know what you’re thinking, and the silence is palpable in the living room then.

You look at the brown walls of the dining room, look down at the scar along his palm, pink and shiny, freshly healed.

“You know, every night I would wait for you to come through the front door?” You say softly, so softly, and Flip can hear that you’ve got lumps in your throat too, you’ve got ghosts in your mind too.

“I’d lie awake in bed and listen for the front lock to unlatch, for you to drop your keys in the little dish in the hallway and then come up to bed and fall onto the mattress in all your clothes like you do sometimes when a case is long. Every single night, I’d wait, until I couldn’t wait any more and I’d fall asleep in your clothes.” You say, looking at him, really looking at him.

Flip looks back, sees the age in your eyes from being apart, sees how the two years have treated you.

He hates that they’ve not been kind, hates that they’ve treated you poorly.

“I played all your records and watched your favorite shows and I imagined you laughing along to them or singing terribly – ”

“Hey.” He interrupts with a soft laugh, and you laugh too just because you can, just because you can.

But then the laugh fades away and the softness around your eyes returns, and Flip’s stomach is twisted and churning because he’s terrified of the way your smile drops.

“…And then I’d cry because I didn’t know what you were doing, where you were, if you were alright. Jimmy came over like you told him to, came over every Tuesday and Thursday to help me with the house and my sanity, but then he would leave and I’d be sitting in this house alone, left with the ghost of you everywhere I looked. I’d think of something funny to tell you, and you wouldn’t be there, wouldn’t be coming home. I wrote them down, thinking I’d save them for when you got here, but then the first year came and you still weren’t.”

And you’re holding it together, but just barely, because if you lose it he’ll lose it, and then you’ll both be lost and neither of you can handle that right now, not right now, not so soon. He sees you shaking, and he’s shaking, and all you have is each other, and it’s more than enough; it’s more than enough but it can’t stop the shakes, the shivers.

“Can you tell me now?” He asks, and you smile at him sadly, shrug with one shoulder.

“I don’t think they’ll be funny now.” You reply, and for a moment, Flip wonders if anything will be funny again.

He can hear the same thought in your head.

“Tell me anyway?” Flip asks, begs, grasps your hands in his and brings them back to his cheeks, holding you, holding you as you’re holding him.

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

They’re dropping bombs, on the jungle.

Flip doesn’t know why, it doesn’t look like there’s anything there, just trees.

Birds fly frantically, try not to get consumed by the flames or the smoke, and most of them fail. Flip watches as the thick dark plumes envelop them, hears the horrific squawking of terrified creatures. He doesn’t know if he actually can hear them, or if he’s imagining it.

“Zimmerman! Start firing!” Someone barks an order at him, and he hates it, hates that he has to obey.

There are machine guns mounted to the sides of the Huey, and Flip’s stomach swoops when he’s told to man one. Wasn’t it enough to drop bombs like rain? Wasn’t it enough to incinerate the jungle – they had to shoot at it too?

Flip was getting so fucking tired of shooting.

He’s the oldest in the platoon, oldest one in the helicopter. These fresh-faced kids have no idea what they’re doing, there was never any time to teach them. He has experience, so he’s the one who has to do it. It’s his second time in Vietnam, and between that and the work he did with the CSPD before coming back to this hell, he’s the man most qualified for the job – no matter how badly he doesn’t want to be.

He’s just thankful he’s not the one dropping the bombs.

“Now, Zimmerman!” They shout, and he grinds his jaw, thinks that if he’s going to have to do this, he’s going to do it his way.

Fuck it, he thinks as he puts the tape in anyway, slides it into the small cassette player in his pocket. He’s about to stick the earbuds in his ears when he sees Eric steeling himself, like he’s going to throw up.

It’s the kid’s first helicopter ride, and he’s terrified, Flip can see it in his face.

After thinking about it for a minute, he silently hands the kid the cassette player, shoves it against his chest. He’s heard your voice a million times, and this kid doesn’t have anyone. Not a single person back home, no one except his mother. If your voice can give him comfort for ten fucking minutes, he’ll be glad.

Flip puts the earmuffs back on his head, and fires into the blaze as the helicopter whips up the flames.

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

You tell him as the sun starts to rise, as the purple light of dawn makes way for pinks and oranges and red. He listens and despite himself, he laughs, despite everything, it’s funny.

The way you tell the stories are funnier than the stories themselves, most of them belonging to the world of you had to be there. He tries not to dwell on the fact that he wasn’t – he wasn’t there.

He wasn’t there.

But you tell him, and he listens, and he laughs, laughs like he hasn’t laughed in a long time, and suddenly it’s the next day wholly and completely. The birds chirp and that’s how Flip knows he’s home without a doubt, resolutely – Vietnam didn’t have these birds.

“I was thinking,” You say, pressed so close to him on the couch, cheeks hurting from laughing like you haven’t done in a long time, “Of visiting the station today. Letting the guys know you’re home.”

“Yes.” Flip responds right away, the realization of his friends hitting him like a ton of bricks. “Yes, I want to see them.”

“Can I make you breakfast?” You ask, and his stomach growls, grumbles and groans, and you smile, take that for a yes.

When you sit him at the table he feels like he’s in limbo, like he’s never left and has been gone for a hundred years. The table is the same as it’s always been, the counters and the fridge and the stove and the oven all the same. The sink is the same and the walls are the same and the window is the same.

So why does it feel so different?

He catches his reflection in the glass of a vase filled with fresh flowers, wildflowers from the garden.

He doesn’t like what he sees. He feels old.

His facial hair has kind of gotten out of control, he thinks, staring at his reflection, trying to avert his eyes from his own judgmental gaze. It’s wild, wiry, it’s not terribly attractive. He doesn’t know how you can look at him so lovingly, so happily, when he looks like a man crazed.

“Ketsl?” He asks, and you rush to face him, rush to give him whatever he might want, might need.

“Yeah honey?” You respond, abandoning the pan on the stovetop to kneel at his feet, not wanting to overwhelm him.

He’s already overwhelmed.

“Before we go to the station, could you clean me up?” He asks, runs a hand over his goatee and sighs real deep. “I’d do it but…”

He doesn’t need to tell you that he’s afraid of his hands shaking while he holds the razor, afraid of accidentally cutting himself and losing it. He’s so afraid of losing it.

Has he already lost?

“Of course I’ll do it.” You say, sincere and so in love, eager to help. “After breakfast, we’ll shower and I’ll trim you right up.”

He blushes, holds your hand, kisses the fingertips there, and you playfully scratch under his chin, playfully tug on his ears.

“Thank you.” He smiles softly, suddenly shy, but you’re not having it.

You kiss him all over, smooch the sides of his nose, big smacks that have him laughing.

“Of course,” You say over and over again, “Of course.”

Because it’s not something you would even think twice about doing, and he knows this. It’s second nature to you, wanting to be there for him.

His heart soars.

“I love you.” He says, can’t get enough of saying it, can’t can’t can’t, so he says it again.

“I love you more, my handsome man.” You tug on his ear and he blushes, “Even when you’re scruffy, you’re my handsome man.”

He smiles and you smile back, until the smell of something on the stovetop burning reaches his nostrils.

“What’s that smell?” He asks, before things go dark.

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

Eric calms at the sound of your voice, and Flip wonders what you’re saying, what you’re talking about. The kid stares out into the jungle, has to squint from the heat of the fire.

Flip wonders. He knows he’ll listen later, listen as soon as they land – but then anxiety spikes.

What if he doesn’t land?

What if they’re another sitting duck in the sky, another bird that comes crashing down? So many helicopters have been shot down.

Flip has to resist the urge the rip the earbuds out of Eric’s head, suddenly so possessive of you – he doesn’t think he can bear it if he dies, and someone else gets to hear your voice.

But he doesn’t, he fires.

And the bombs drop, and the jungle burns.

A kid named Sam is the first one to notice it, the smell.

“Someone cookin’ bacon down there?” He asks in his thick Southern drawl, from Arkansas or Alabama, one of those. Flip didn’t bother keeping track anymore, so many kids kept coming and going.

He can’t possibly keep track, not with all of them dying.

Was it even worth getting attached, getting invested in any of them? He didn’t know.

But through all those thoughts Flip frowns, because he’s right, it does smell like bacon, like it’s been left on the stove too long, like it’s burning.

He looks in horror down at the bright orange sea beneath him, if he looks hard enough, he thinks he can see the tops of houses, straw things burned down to a crisp. If he looks hard enough, if he looks through the trees and the blazing roaring fires, he can see people running for their lives, can see them tiny like ants as he shoots and shoots the machine gun like he’s been told.

And dread washes down the back of his neck, freezes him, finger squeezed tight on the trigger when he realizes, when he figures it out.

If he looks hard enough, he can hear the screams of men and women and children burned alive. Scorched flesh and agony, smoke stinging, smell turning all of their stomachs at the abject horror of what they’re doing.

The smell hits their noses all at once as the helicopters pass by, and no amount of your soothing words can stop Eric from throwing up over the side of the Huey.

He’s not alone, they’re all like that, all except Flip, who doesn’t have the luxury of leaving the gun.

He hates himself for firing, hates the government for making him do it.

He has to close his eyes, screams too loud, too loud.

He can’t tell if they’re his or not.

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

He’s out of his seat, bolting for the bathroom before you know what’s happening.

It’s too much, it’s all at once, it’s all-consuming, the stench. That familiar stench, he’s sick, he’s retching into the toilet, heaving up nothing. He’s crying, all of a sudden he’s crying, and he wants to scream – he wants to scream and rage and throw a fucking fit as that smell curls into the back of his throat and stings his eyes and he’s surrounded by fire and rage and pain again.

You’re running in after him, latching yourself to his back, trying to ground him, trying to bring him off a brink of something, not knowing what. You didn’t know, didn’t know what went wrong, Flip isn’t telling you. He’s just hoarse and coughing and retching into the toilet, knees shattering underneath his frame as he clings to the porcelain bowl for dear life, as you cling to him.

There’s no words for this, to describe this, you don’t know, it kills you that you don’t know. It kills Flip that he can’t explain it, not when napalm explosions burn behind his eyelids, not when he’s coughing on smoke that isn’t there, not when he’s breathing in that smell that smell that smell.

“You’re okay, you’re safe.” You tell him, trying your best to remain calm, knowing he can’t handle any outbursts right now, knowing he can’t, “You’re home. You’re home with me, you’re safe.”

Maybe if you say it enough, he’ll believe it.

Everything is spinning, he can’t tell, doesn’t know where he is. He sees tile flooring and ferns at the same time, why is everything so green? He feels your hands on him and he knows that’s what’s real – but is it?

“I – I’m – ” Flip’s hyperventilating, and he’s crying, tears staining his face, staining the bowl of the toilet, and you hold him tight, wrap your arms around him.

He panics for a moment, afraid you’re the enemy, afraid you’re going to kill him, but the kisses on his back that you put there bring him back, pull him out. You’re the only one who would kiss his back, you’re the only one.

“You’re home. You’re not in the jungle, you’re in the bathroom. Our bathroom. You’re safe. You have to breathe.” You chant like it’s a prayer, repeat it over and over in a gentle tone, so gentle with him. “You have to breathe.”

He feels like he’s going to shatter, feels like he’s going to explode, like he’s going to burn burn burn. What’s that smell?

He knows that smell.

“I’m sorry,” He sobs, over and over, and you kiss his back now drenched with sweat. “I’m so sorry.”

He doesn’t know what he apologizes for, if it’s the killing, the burning, the fires, the destruction, or if it’s the fear can’t place, the outburst he can’t control. It’s got its claws in him deep, so deep.

You hold him tight, and bring him out. Pull him back out.

“You’re okay, you’re safe with me I promise. I promise.” You say, a steady anchor even though you’re scared shitless.

You can’t let him know that, can’t let him see how scared you are – you don’t want him to think you’re scared of him. You’re not, you’re not scared of him, you’re terrified for him.

He wipes his mouth with his sleeve and turns to face you, buries his face in your neck.

You hold him and kiss his forehead, he’s drenched in sweat.

“We’re going to shower, okay? You need to shower.” You can’t have him sitting in his own sweat and sick, you won’t.

Flip nods, tries to get himself under control, tries tries tries.

When he nods, you nod too, stand up and turn the faucet on, pull the tab so the water sprays from the showerhead above. You open the window, turn on the exhaust fan, try to air out the room.

As he stands up on shaky legs and the water warms, you bolt into the kitchen, grab the pan that had the forgotten crisps of breakfast burning, the bacon and eggs and hashbrowns. That’s the smell, you realize, and suddenly you hate it, you hate the kitchen, hate yourself for being so stupid. You fling open the windows, take the whole pan and run it to the garbage outside, throw the whole fucking thing away.

You’ll buy a new pan, new spatula, you don’t give a shit. You never want to see that again, you’ll never cook bacon again.

Not if it does this to your man, to your Flip.

When you come back inside, Flip’s naked, has his clothes folded on the counter. He reaches for you but you hesitate, you pull your clothes off first and throw them in the corner of the room, afraid the smell has lingered on the fabric, has stained the fibers.

Only once you’re naked you embrace him, let him yank you into his arms. The water from the shower is steaming up the bathroom, and you reach over to draw a heart on the mirror, right around the reflection of Flip’s face.

“You’re safe.” You tell him one more time, and he nods, he believes you.

You search his eyes and you find them clear, he’s there, he believes you.

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

The helicopters begin to descend, and Flip can’t help but think they’re crazy. They’re fucking crazy for going there, for being in this country.

The kids are all sitting down, legs swinging over the side of the helicopter as they fire their own machine guns unto the village below them, because it is a village, not just a jungle. It’s never just the jungle, it would seem.

They don’t belong here, how can they be winning? They can’t be, not like this.

You don’t fight wars like this.

The men in the platoon all get themselves ready to land. They load and reload their guns. Some pray out loud, some sit silently and stare at the sky. Everyone has their hand over their mouth, everyone is gagging at the stench.

The wind whips it up, carries it up into their faces, and Flip thinks he’s going to hell for this, they all are.

Eric sees, just as Flip saw. Eric can tell he’s losing his nerve, so he gives him an earbud.

He hands it to Flip with wide eyes, terrified eyes, eyes that ask questions Flip doesn’t have answers for.

Flip accepts it, his heart thudding wildly, and tries his best to block out everything but the sound of your voice. It’s soft and sweet and gentle and not at all like the chaos around him not at all like the death and destruction he causes, he takes part in. You’re so much more gentle and human than half these monsters, the pilots who laugh at the explosions, the ones who give the orders with glee in their smiles.

Flip doesn’t know how anyone can smile, like this.

Everyone is shouting, but no one can hear, not over all the noise, not through the roar of the engine and machine gun fire, not through the screams and the explosions and the sounds of trees cracking, bending over backwards too far until they snap.

He doesn’t even know what you’re saying, can’t really process the meaning of the words you’re speaking, even though they’re right in his ear.

He thinks he catches something, a fragment, through the chaos before they’re landing, thinks he hears an

‘I love you.’

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

The shower is a blessing, hot water, scalding hot, scrubbing away the last legs of his fear.

“Come on, let’s clean up.” You say, and he feels like he could cry from the way you speak to him, the way you talk to him like he’s normal, like he’s not crazy. He didn’t know what he would do if you thought he was crazy, after everything else if you thought he had lost it.

It’s purifying, the water. He sighs as it darkens his hair, as it loosens the muscles in his shoulder.

When the water runs down his legs, it runs down clear. No pink, no red, no black of soot or brown dirt. No green.

Clear.

He now knows why so many faiths, religions, creeds all use water. He knows now.

He can’t remember the last time he showered in something other than a river, water that was truly clean, not just fresh.

Suddenly, it seems like the most important thing in the world to touch you, to cleanse you of his nightmares, of the tears he pressed into your skin. He washes your hair, takes his time. He did this for you every day, once upon a time. He did this for you now, and it was just like then.

His hands didn’t even shake, for once. The relief in his chest was almost enough to make him dizzy, when he realized his hands weren’t shaking.

He scrubs your scalp with shampoo, lathers and foams it up, laughs to himself about how you look. He breaths deeply, breaths in the orange and bergamot, a smell that is uniquely you. The perfume of it fills his lungs and he’s at peace again completely, once he has you rinse your hair.

You in turn, wash his body.

He lets his eyes close, lets himself simply feel the way your hands glide over his skin, the way the bath brush makes soothing circles across his chest and his back. He feels more and more like himself with every circle of the bristly brush, with every foamy sudsy pass of your hands.

He ducks to kiss you right under the spray, because he has to, has to show his thanks somehow.

You kiss him back, in in that kiss you tell him of course, of course you’ll do this for him.

You’ll do anything for him.

 When the hot water has run out and the shower is over, the two of you wrap yourselves in soft white towels. The fabric is soothing on his skin, and Flip revels in it.

You sit on the counter, spread your legs enough that he can stand in between them as you search the medicine cabinet for the shaving kit.

He only wants a trim, so that’s what he’ll get, you think with a smile as you fish out the small scissors and the tweezers. Flip’s goatee had a habit of growing kind of erratically, it always made you huff out a little laugh, random hairs popping up nowhere near the rest of them.  

Flip’s mesmerized by the way you look, the light coming in from the bathroom window that’s still open from earlier. It’s late enough in the morning now that the sky is a beautiful blue filled with white fluffy clouds. The light is buttery and warm, and catches on your skin making you glow in a way he was sure only existed in dreams.

When you pluck one of his hairs and he winces, he knows it’s real.

The thought makes him smile, which makes you smile.

“You gotta be careful,” You tell him with a grin as you pluck another one, “I don’t want to hurt you.”

“You’re so beautiful.” Flip sighs, and you blush.

God, how he missed that blush.

But it’s true, you’re gorgeous sitting there on the counter, your hair wrapped up in a towel in a way that Flip still doesn’t really understand. You’re gorgeous with those little silver scissors in your hand as you wait for him to relax his mouth so you can clip away some of the length of his mustache.

The corner of his mouth twitches from how it tickles, and you grin.

“You’re my favorite person, you know that?” You tell him, and he nods, crinkles his nose as you pluck another hair. “I’m sorry, I won’t ever make that again.”

He knows what you mean, and he nods. He sighs.

“I’m sorry, I don’t know what came over me.” he admits, and that truth scares him, makes him angry. “It’s frustrating, I don’t know what that was, what happened.”

You’re quiet for a little while as you trim the goatee, as you comb through the mustache and the beard, as you smooth in some oil so it doesn’t go all frizzy.

“I know you don’t want to tell me about it, but do you think maybe you might be comfortable talking to someone else?” You ask softly, carefully, not wanting to upset him.

He frowns, but you don’t see it because you’re putting the shaving kit away, rinsing the stuff down the sink.

“That’s not true.” He shakes his head, and you look at him with soft eyes.

“Hm?” You ask, lost in thought as water goes down the drain.

“I don’t not want to tell you.” He explains, fiddles with the star around your neck, “I want to tell you everything. I just don’t have the words, not right now. I don’t know how to say it, there’s so much.”

You’re thoughtful for a moment, always so thoughtful, and he looks just past you to the sight of him in the mirror.

Cleaned up and showered like this, he recognizes himself. Your hands did that to him, and he finds he just has to kiss them again, shower them with love and gratitude.

If he had the energy to sink to his knees then and there, he would, but he doesn’t, so he can’t.

He’s so exhausted, all of a sudden. A whole night of no sleep, and the smell of burnt bacon makes him exhausted. Go fucking figure.

“You don’t have to tell me anything all at once.” You say, reading his mind, because you have to be some kind of mind reader, he thinks, “But I need to know how to help you, how to avoid things like that. I don’t want you to ever have that again, if I can help it.”

“I don’t know what else there is, I don’t know.” He whispers, hating that he has to admit it, hating that he doesn’t know how to make this easier for either of you.

“Okay.” You nod, understanding, always so understanding. You let him kiss your fingertips and he could almost weep against them. He doesn’t, he doesn’t have any more tears, but you feel it anyway. “We don’t have to go to the station, if you don’t want. We can just stay in bed.”

“No, no I want to. I want to see everyone.” Flip says, and you smile, proud of him.

His heart soars at that smile.

“Let me remake breakfast? We’ll have something simple, cereal. I got the cereal you like, I’ve been eating it.” You blush, and Flip can’t help but tease you.

“Oh yeah?” He had always been fighting with you about his cereal, and you roll your eyes, already ready for an ‘I told you so.’

“Yeah – I have to add sugar though, it’s so bland!” You defend your tastes and he laughs, and you laugh, and he picks you off the counter and walks the both of you to the bedroom.

It doesn’t matter that his entire body is sore or that his legs are jello, it doesn’t matter. He’s got you in his arms, he’s going to visit his friends at his job that’s all still there, all waiting for him. Nothing matters anymore, at least he tries to tell himself that.

“It’s delicious just the way it is.” Flip says, and you throw a pair of underwear at him, blush crimson as he tosses it aside and tackles you instead.

“Gimme a kiss?” You ask, and this one is different, this one is hot and slow as he licks into your mouth, as he lets a hand sneak down between your legs.

You fall apart for him, and he takes everything you give him, gives it right back.

When you gasp into his mouth, he forgets about everything, just for a while.

But a while is enough, when it’s with you.

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

Thank you all for reading! Tagging some pals (if you’d like to be added to the tag list or taken off of it, please just let me know!  @adamsnackdriver @dreamboatdriver @kylo-renne @callmehopeless @kyloxfem @formerly-anonhamster @thepilotanon @solotriplets   @fullofbees @spinebarrel @bourbonboredom @driverficarchive @rosalynbair @redhairedfeistynerd @glitzescape @adamsnacc-kler  @ladygrey03 @venusianmaiden marvelous-blog-221 @edwardseyelashes @softcrybabykid @tinyplanet-explorers

[jflashandclash]

Tales From Mount Othrys

Luke: Two Toned Memories

 Author’s Note: This  short takes place during the events of The Titan’s Curse, after Percy and Thalia lose Annabeth and pick up the Sol Angelos. Uh, warning… kinda creepy. References to abuse. Luke-transition-into-titan. You know. Like a normal Saturday.

           Luke’s fingers were so warm and moist, he feared that his sweat would condense on the other side of the one-way mirror.

         She was right there: her cute, blonde curls matted with grime, her grey eyes boring into the glass—too smart to be tricked by something so obvious. The others tried to give her a Camp Othrys shirt to get rid of the manticore blood on her front. She refused, as viciously stubborn as Luke remembered from their travels.

         They had lost the Di Angelo siblings to Artemis’ huntresses and Camp Half-Blood. Honestly though, Luke thought this was a better catch. Even Kronos’ angry mutterings couldn’t change his mind.

         “I could make her kill Percy Jackson,” Flynn said, rolling one of her hair stilettos between her fingers. “It would be pretty simple.”

         Luke didn’t like the way Flynn looked at Annabeth through the one-way mirror. Flynn held the weapon like she could pin Annabeth as a lab specimen.

         Alabaster tapped a pen against his lip thoughtfully. “That’s not a bad idea. Can you postpone the effects of your charm speak?”

         They were talking about this too casually. This was Annabeth. Not some random demigod. Annabeth. His Annabeth.

         Flynn frowned. Mercedes, standing beside the three of them, remained silent, listening, as their spy master tended to until the end of meetings.

         Flynn had become more powerful since Luke met her, but he didn’t know she could give commands with a delayed activation time. His stomach churned at the thought. Luke bit his lip, paranoid, again, that she might be manipulating him.

         Alabaster shifted forward, flicking the pen to the side. “Even if you could give her a residual suggestion, Lou Ellen and I could concoct a poison and imbue something with said poison. Perhaps a gift she could give him. Or, even better, give Chiron.”

         “No,” Luke said. Anger made him bite his lip until he tasted something metallic. He hated that old, foolish horse. “Selena told me the most recent prophecy—” –I—“—Kronos has every right to be the one to kill Chiron.”

         The door to their makeshift interrogation wing busted open.

         An enraged satyr bustled into the room, appearing ready to gore the first person that made a Disney reference.

         In the hallway behind him, Jack’s voice drifted closer. “Phil! Wait! This is a joyous occasion! We finally get to meet his Annabeth, the one of valiant tales! You mustn’t—”

         “This,” Phil snarled, pointing at the one-way mirror, “is why you don’t send a monster to do a goat’s job! You’re giving me hemorrhoids here! Does that look like two children of the Big Three to you? I spend months tracking down two children of Hades, and this is how you repay me? By sending Mr. Splinter—”

         “Dr. Thorn,” Axel corrected, hiding a smile as he stepped in after. With Mercedes, Alabaster, Flynn, and now Axel and Phil, this room was too cramped. It should have just been he and Annabeth. No one-way mirror was necessary.

         “Whatever. Mr. Spikey! Mr. Lionface! That a better name? You send Mr. Tactless, Tasteless Lionface!” Phil huffed, stomping his hooves up to Luke.

         Luke didn’t want to deal with this right now. Annabeth was more important, wasn’t she? And Phil could be so loud and obnoxious.

         “And even if you didn’t want to send me, we could have sent the Pax Extraction Duo. Why did you send a monster to recruit demigods? We have demigods that are willing to go.  Who do you think a teenage girl and her little brother are going to trust more? A really hot, mysterious guy and his disarmingly cute little brother that are here to rescue them from bad guys that the gods sent to track them down, or a fucking LION with a SPIKE problem!”

         Luke didn’t remember making the motion. One second, Phil was shouting at him. The next, the back of Luke’s hand hurt. Phil was on the ground, clutching at his face. Jack was trying to help him up. Axel stood between Luke and Phil, facing Luke. No matter how much Luke wanted to avoid it, there was that look again: in Axel’s eyes, in Mercedes’ stillness, in Jack’s flinches.

Fear.

         Luke opened his mouth to apologize. The words that came out were, “Know your place, satyr.” Was that what he wanted to say?

         Maybe Luke shouldn’t feel bad. Phil had interrupted an important meeting about Annabeth. Why should Luke care about those pesky Di Angelos when he had—

         We needed them, Kronos hissed.

         For a breath, Luke was back in the closet. His mother’s old clothing—the cute stuff she had worn to impress Hermes—reeked of mothballs, so much that he kept one hand over his mouth and the other desperately pressed to bar the door. Green lights radiated through the closet’s slats as his mother screamed and shook the flimsy frame.

On an exhale, Kronos released the memory: Luke was back in the interrogation room that had too many people in it, too little air, and too much tension. It was just Kronos’ promise, a quick taste of the nightmares punishment Luke would receive when he laid down to sleep. Sometimes, it was easier not to sleep.

Supposedly, at some point, Luke agreed to let Kronos in his head and to enact such punishments for Luke’s failures. After Alabaster, Jack, and Axel dunked him in the River Lethe out of desperation, Luke couldn’t remember agreeing to that. It made reliving these nightmares worse when he couldn’t remember agreeing to such a deal.

         Phil scowled at Luke, wiping a streak of blood from the side of his mouth.  

         It was one thing to hit Alabaster in private or Jack when he was having an episode. It was another thing to hit Phil in public, in front of Luke’s friends. They were still his friends, right?

         Subjects.    

         Shut up and get out! Luke thought.

         Everyone flinched.

         Had he said that aloud? Luke’s hand was pointing to the exit of the interrogation room. He’d meant that for Kronos, hadn’t he? Not Phil?

         Or was Kronos puppeting him again without his even realizing it?

         This time, Luke carefully formed the words coming from his mouth, trying to prove to himself that they were his own. “Not now. We’ll talk about the Di Angelos later.” His finger shook. His voice shook. He couldn’t sound scared—Alabaster would take note if he sounded scared.

         Jack tugged at Phil’s arm. “Phil, not now, please. He’s stressed—”

         Phil shrugged him off. He spat blood at Luke’s feet. “I hope it feels good turning into thing you hate, kid.”

         Luke’s fingers closed into a fist.

         Axel’s gaze narrowed.

         Mercedes took a step backwards.

         Then Phil was gone out of the room, the door thumping shut after him. Jack bolted after the satyr. For a tight breath, Luke considered walking after Phil to make an example. We should kill him.

         Luke wanted the thought to alarm him. He liked Phil, right? Half the people in this room wouldn’t be here if not for that satyr. Phil helped Luke, back when no one else had. Back when no one believed in him.

         Even the sharpest tools wear down to uselessness with time.

         With the amount of blood forming in Luke’s mouth, he must have bit down on the inside of his other cheek. Begging Kronos to get out of his head would do nothing. Besides, what if those thoughts weren’t Kronos?

         We’re becoming the same person.

         His friends wouldn’t care that he hit Phil, not for long anyway.

         Jack would understand. Just like Jack “got confused,” he knew that Luke lost his temper. It wasn’t anything more than that. It was something that would be easy to control once he had Thalia here, once she reminded him of what he was before all he knew was Kronos.

         Flynn and Alabaster knew that you needed to use force to keep people in line. Axel had become desensitized to violence because of his father and Mercedes was a proper soldier: someone who took orders and saw actions without question.

         And Luke needed to focus on his plan for Annabeth. Phil didn’t matter.

         He gave them one of his charming smiles, unrolling his fingers from fists. He raised his hands in an open gesture. “Annabeth was more important than the Di Angelos. We need someone to trap Artemis—”

         Alabaster snorted. Throughout Phil’s outburst, he appeared unfazed. He folded his arms and leaned against the wall. There might be a spell pouch in his hands. Maybe Luke would need to start disarming people before they had conferences.

         “Any girl. Any young demigod female from Camp Half-Blood or New Rome would be adequate to get Artemis under Atlas’ burden, but it had to be Annabeth. Do you want Thalia to hate you?” Alabaster asked. He sighed, and Luke got the distinct feeling that Alabaster wanted to sound annoyed. Annoyance was better than fear.

         For once, Luke had a response to Alabaster’s insubordination. A smirk twisted his lips. “We need someone that will willingly help me with Atlas’ burden. She will help me.” Annabeth hadn’t lost faith in him, not like the others.

         Luke hadn’t liked this plan at first, but it was all part of the test. Part of Kronos’ overall plan. Prove yourself to me. Take Atlas’ burden. Show me you are worthy of the next world. He would. He was worthy. He had to be worthy. There wasn’t a choice anymore, and Annabeth and Thalia would pull through for him in the end. He’d given up so much for them…

         “They don’t need to be willing,” Flynn said. She rolled her hair stiletto again. Her dark eyes bore into him, the scars on her face distorting her expression. Although he’d been working with her for a year and a half, Luke still hated looking at her face.

         Annabeth would do it without Flynn’s interference. Pain shot through his cheek as he bit deeper into the pierced skin. “I’m going in to talk to her.”

         Mercedes cleared her throat. His little half-sister had done what she did best—faded into the background when she didn’t want to be noticed. Now, she lifted her head, the tan fabric of her hijab blending too well with her skin. He wondered if she wore the greys and tans to blend easier into the background. “Would you at least let me or Flynn talk to her first? Either one of us could get some useful information out of her and we might be able to put her at ease.”

         Luke glared. “What are you saying?”

         Mercedes swallowed. Although she stood her ground, the spymaster began to shake. “That she’s a thirteen-year-old girl tied to a chair, gagged, and probably terrified.”

         Axel hadn’t relaxed. He took a few steps to stand beside Mercedes, folding his arms. His jaguar tufts were low against his black hair. “And you, her captor, are an older male.”

         Luke stared past the two of them, at the one-way mirror. Annabeth’s curls were tangled in sweaty clumps against her temple. Her eyes looked defiant, but she must have been scared: kidnapped by a monster and mercenaries, misunderstanding her situation as one of danger instead of opportunity. He could comfort her and usher her into this new world, show her the potential of what it could be.

         He remembered the way her cheeks reddened when he teased her at camp, the way she looked up to him without hesitation, the way she knew he could be trusted when everyone else suspected him of fault. She always fell to pieces when he flirted with her. Luke never needed to think of her like that—no, not when he had Thalia. Thalia may have looked younger, but she was really nineteen now. Annabeth was just Luke’s little sister.

         When he closed his eyes to exhale, he could still see her face. Her curls darkened to black, the grey eyes swirled to green, leaving her youthful smile and all of its brilliance. “Rhea, my beautiful little sister.” Kronos’ hand—Luke’s hand—cupped her chin to kiss the redness of her cheek.

Luke’s little sister.

Rhea was Kronos’s sister. His wife.

Luke shook his head, feeling sick and woozy. He needed to get in there to talk to her. “No one talks to her but me. She trusts me.” His voice cracked.

Alabaster rolled his eyes. “This is true. For being a daughter of Athena, she is pretty dumb.”

         Flynn shrugged. She reinserted the hair stiletto into her bun, the charm at the end swaying gently. “Fine. If you’re going to waste such a good opportunity for information and the potential to kill Jackson, you might as well make use of her in other ways. Torrington, you have some Lethe water, right? We need to make sure she’ll still save him from Atlas’ burden when he’s done.”

         The room felt colder.

         Mercedes took a step closer to Axel. If he thought the two liked each other more, Luke might have guessed that she’d disappear behind Axel, much like Pax did.      

         Luke should have asked what Flynn meant or been offended. All he could do was watch Flynn’s curves as she exited their small interrogation room. “I’m going to check on Jack and Phil,” she called before the door silently shut.

         Alabaster’s knuckles turned white on his spell pouch. “We don’t have enough River Lethe water to use it recreationally,” he said, his tone slow and even.

         That made sense. If Luke remembered properly, Mercedes had petitioned to use their Lethe water for spy operations, a sensible proposition.

         “I won’t need any,” Luke said. He needed to get in that room. Everything would make more sense when he was able to talk to Annabeth, when he didn’t have their stares. He could dismiss Axel, Mercedes, and Alabaster. He just wanted things to be like old times, even how they were at the start of Camp Half-Blood, when it was just he and Annabeth. Before he realized how full of shit Chiron was.

         He stepped towards the cell’s door.

         Axel stepped into his way again.

         This time, Luke felt his fingers snarl into a fist before he lashed out. He held it. Jack wouldn’t want Luke to hit his surrogate son. No. And, Jack’s surrogate son would hit back. What would Alabaster and Mercedes do if a fight broke out between the two of them? This spoiled upstart of Hecates’ and Luke’s mysterious little sister. Luke’s hand tensed until his nails dug into his skin, Backbiter’s hilt chilled against his knuckles. Would they betray him? Would they all turn on him? They had too much power. We should have never allowed them that kind of power, that kind of trus—

         “I’m keeping the promise I made to you,” Axel whispered. His lips barely moved, looking more like sheets rustled in a summer breeze.

         Axel was a friend. He walked Luke through breathing and meditation exercises to help keep Kronos out of his head. There had been a promise—or a talk. The memory was fussy. Maybe Axel saw an opportunity to manipulate Luke after the River Lethe dousing.

         Iciness clenched Luke’s chest. Pain spread there, compressing inward. Someone who wants to help me stay me.

         Maybe Kronos wanted to isolate Luke from people who wanted to help him.

         Jack and Alabaster were the first two clear memories he had after the River Lethe. They said Axel had saved his life, plunging his arm into the River Styx to save him.

         Luke exhaled his clogged breath in the form of a laugh. He forced a smile at Axel, one that hurt his cheeks. “Yea, dude. Of course. Why are you all acting so serious?”

         What promise? What promise had Axel made? To keep Annabeth safe?

          Alabaster cleared his throat, reminding Luke that there were two other people in the room. Luke broke eye contact with Axel and broke the line of sight from Annabeth. He hadn’t realized how intently he had focused on her until the green of Alabaster’s gaze startled him. “The shock of seeing you might be the best thing to trigger Annabeth’s aid with Atlas’ burden. You still get vibes after a River Lethe dousing. For your plan to work, it would be best for Annabeth not to see you beforehand.”

         Mercedes nodded. Her acne flecked cheeks were pale. She looked nauseous. “Witchboy is right. We don’t understand its application well enough yet to use it yet for someone so important. We should just keep you separated.”

         Luke put up his hands and took a step backwards. “I can wait. Besides, it’ll be better when we have Thalia on our side. Annabeth has been brainwashed for years. She’ll come around once Thalia does.”

         This felt like a script he had repeated too many times. They didn’t need to be worried though. He would never do anything Annabeth didn’t want him to.

         Does someone who worships Zeus know what she does and doesn’t want? Does she know what’s good for her?

         Luke swallowed, his mouth tasting poignantly of blood. He rolled his tongue along the gouges he’d chewed into his lip. He trembled. Was there something wrong with him?

         “I’m going for a walk. And to apologize to Phil.” The words were hollow, a continuation of a script to make them happy, like when he told his mother that his dad would come back home and make everything better.

         No one moved when he backed up to the exit. Everyone tried to look casual: Axel stayed in front of the door with his arms crossed, Mercedes tilted her body towards him, Alabaster flipped open the spiral notebook that he kept with him.

         When Luke left, he made sure the door didn’t latch and waited.

         “I suppose we can send in Lucille or Mercedes to make sure she’s comfortable,” Alabaster said.

         “We need to set up a guard.” Axel’s voice was much harsher. “Who do you think we can trust and will be capable? Prometheus and Morpheus—”

         “Pax One,” Mercedes cut him off. Luke didn’t hear her footsteps before the door latched shut. Leave it to a child of Mercury to consider eavesdropping.

         Luke clenched his fists. They didn’t need to set up a guard to protect Annabeth. Or, maybe they did, to protect her from other people and monsters aboard the ship. Kelly would certainly love to get her hands on her. They were looking out for Annabeth’s best interest.

         The ship’s corridor listed. The piece of flabby skin protruding from his cheek ached, and yet none of it felt real. A world where his friends set up guards to protect his little sister from…

         He just wanted it to be how it was. Hadn’t there been one point in his life where things were good? When Thalia and he had been on the run?

         Luke exhaled. He didn’t need to worry about any of this: the changes overcoming him, his friends’ odd behavior, or Kronos’ plans. He would just be the head of Kronos’ army once Thalia killed the Ophiotaurus. He wouldn’t need to worry about Kronos being in his head after that. It would be fine. Everything would make sense.

         Thalia would come back and she would help him. She would save him. She always did.

  Thank you for reading! I hope you enjoyed! Stay tuned next week for Ajax’s The Birth of The Triple A Chimera.

[etherealwaifgoddess]

What He Wants (Pt. 3)

Main Characters: Bucky Barnes x Enhanced Reader

Summary:  On going series of Bucky getting his shit together and falling in love with you.

Warnings/ Content: Still angsty but with more cursing. Don’t judge our boy, he’s still grieving. 

Word Count: 1710

Author’s Note: Ya’ll thought you were only getting one installment today, didn’t you? Nope! Your girl was busy editing yesterday (thank god for coffee) and I wanted to get up as much as possible. This is a long part but I couldn’t really find a better stopping point. This part has a major tone shift as we are now introduced to our other main character.... YOU! 

If you missed it, check out parts One and Two

XOXO - Ash

What He Wants, Pt. 3

Bucky is met with eager smiles and admiration by the three men and one woman who wanted to shake the hand of what one dark haired man calls “a real American hero”. Bucky cringes at his word choice but forces himself to shake their hands. You sit up straighter on the sofa but don’t move to gaggle around him like the other four agents. You don’t look like an agent, Bucky thinks, you looked college kid. You are wearing a baggy University of Penn hoodie and thin grey leggings, your long curly hair sitting on top of your head in a messy bun. Bucky’s eyes trail over the soft, rounded curves of your body, thinking that you were just the type of girl he would have tried to chat up 80 years ago. Your eyes though, that piercing gaze, locked in on Bucky’s the second he entered the room like he was a puzzle you couldn’t quite figure out. Suddenly, a pressure builds in Bucky’s head almost like the early signs of one of his headaches but not as painful. You let out a harsh gasp and double over, eyes blazing at him as agony floods your senses. Just as quickly the pressure is gone and Bucky has a sinking feeling it was related to your outburst. 

“What the fuck was that?” Bucky demands harshly. 

“Minerva, play nice.” Michaels warns you. 

“Were you in my fucking head?” Bucky is beyond anger as he storms across the room to you. You are no longer staring at him with curiosity, it has morphed to fear and pain but it doesn’t deter him. In that moment as he crosses the room Bucky doesn’t care how beautiful you are, or how scared and hurt you look, staring up at him with those large, doe eyes. All he knows is that he spent too many decades having his brain poked at by other people to let it happen again. He lashes out his metal hand, pressing you down by your sternum onto the sofa, “Do you know what happened to the last people who fucked around in my head?” 

The other agents scramble to pull Bucky off of you as you struggle for air. Your small squeak of “yes” startles him so much he recoils, gaining control of himself briefly. Flashes from him are coming rapid fire as he towers over you, in your agitated state you can’t control things as well as you normally would. Everything coming from him is a scrambled mess of agony, terror, rage, and hate. Surprisingly, none of the emotions are aimed at you, they’re all aimed towards the man himself. You stare at him, trying desperately to control your breathing, wondering how he can function with all those awful things flying around his head. 

“Then stay the fuck out.” He hisses before walking back over to Michaels “Just show me to my room and keep that one away from me if you want her to keep breathing.” 

Michaels grimaces but leads Bucky down the maze of hallways to his quarters.

“She doesn’t always mean to do it.” Michaels says by way of explanation. “She’s well trained but sometimes she doesn’t have control over when it happens. Look, the mission itself won’t take more than a few hours if we’re lucky, and then you can be on your way. Please do your best to work with Minnie, she really is one of our best agents.”

Bucky wants to laugh at their nickname for you, Minnie is not a name he would have thought suitable for an agent of your caliber. He has no intention of going near you again but he is comforted by the loyalty and confidence Michaels has in you. 

When Michaels storms back in the common room you cringe. It had been a mistake trying to peek behind the curtain of the Winter Soldier’s mind but you had started poking around before you had even realized what you were doing. Michaels joins you on the sofa, sighing heavily. “You really know how to make friends, Minnie.” He grumbles at you. 

A lump forms in your throat, you hate letting him down. Michaels had been your first handler at SHIELD after your life had gone to hell and after everything you’d been through, you thought of him as a surrogate father. “Sorry, Michaels.” You say quietly, “I didn’t mean to at first and then there was this buzzing, like static, and I just wanted to know what was behind it. I’ve never seen anything like that before in my life.”

“It’s best to just leave that one alone. I was shocked as shit he agreed to come out and help us, it would be good we don’t burn our bridges right off the bat.” 

“I’ll apologize to him later. Make it a little easier to work with him tomorrow.” 

“You don’t go near that man, Minnie. I mean it. He’s a professional, tomorrow will be fine. I don’t want to risk you pissing him off more.” 

“Okay,” you tell him, only partly agreeing. You grab your book from the coffee table. “I’m gonna go read in my room for a bit. It’s quieter.”

Michaels nods and lets you go without any further warnings. He knows things can get a little loud for you when there were too many people around and sometimes you just need some peace. It’s an unfortunate side effect of your ability, sometimes you can't shut it off completely even when you want to. You collapse on your stiff metal bed, enjoying the quietness of your room despite how bare it is. You miss your apartment on the farm back home. It’s a tiny, outdated apartment above a barn that was currently home to a herd of sheep. You had needed the isolation after the incident that left you able to enter other people's minds. 

Eleven years ago you had been a bright eyed college kid getting to see New York City for the first time. You had one year of college left and then you would be graduating with your bachelors in psychology. The trip to NYC had been a last minute decision by your best friend to celebrate surviving finals. You were eating lunch in the park when the attack happened. Before you could get to safety, the Chitauri had flooded the park destroying everything in their path. You ran as fast as your legs could go, clinging to your best friend’s hand. You weren’t fast enough though and your arm jerked back as a creature split your best friend in two right before your eyes. The glowing sword like object in his hand swiped at you, lancing your arm open before an explosion knocked you apart. 

You had woken up hours later in a holly bush, your body covered in cuts and bruised beyond belief. The cut on your arm had already healed into a thin red scar but the noise was what concerned you the most. It was like being inside a stadium with everyone shouting at once. Luckily a SHIELD agent had found you and you blubbered to him that your friend was killed and you were attacked and now everything was screaming. You had heard his thoughts, that you were just another crazy person, and you cried to him that you weren’t. He had realized you heard the thoughts he hadn’t spoken and decided to take you back to headquarters. 

Director Fury had put you through a battery of testing and you had started to regret agreeing to them by the end. You spent weeks being tested like a lab ran until they had a plan in place to help you learn to control your ability. It had taken almost a year of hard work but you were finally able to return to a semi normal life. SHIELD was happy to accept you as an agent, though a freelance one. You took a few jobs here and there to cover your bills and pay off your student loans. You never got around to finishing your degree but had eventually saved up enough money to live comfortably. The farm had been a godsend. Cities were just too much for your senses anymore and you found refuge and a home on a little farm two hours outside Philadelphia in the backwoods of rural Pennsylvania. It was quiet and peaceful in a way you hadn't been able to enjoy since the incident. You knew you couldn’t hide there forever but part of you hoped you could. And you had, until Michaels had called with a high risk, but important mission. 

The mission in Somalia was enough to set you up for a lifetime if it was successful. You would be permanently retired after this one, no more running around playing super hero. It was mostly surveillance, reading people to know who was the bad guy and where the girls were being held, but it was also partly mercenary which you hated more than anything. There was a dark side to your ability that you tried your best not to think of, but which haunted you in the long hours of the night when you couldn’t sleep. If you wanted to you could do more than just witness people’s memories, you could manifest them. Even manipulate them if needed. You could reach into a murderer’s mind and bring up everything awful memory he had and make him think he was reliving them all over again one after another until they died from the agony, their hearts giving out under the stress. It wasn’t something you did often but the few times you had it left you cold inside for a long time after. Michaels knew you hated it, but in this case the men you were going after deserved no less cruel fate. You spent every day not on a mission trying to atone to whatever deity would care by using your ability to help trauma victims and returning soldiers deal with their emotional scars. You helped them focus their minds on the positive memories and in some cases had helped people move past their long buried trauma by working through what had really happened. It was exhausting work but you loved it. 

~~~ Okay that’s all for today lovelies! Hope you enjoyed! ~~~

[alittletournesol]

Kingdom Of Jinju {MinKey} 32/33

Chapter 32 : In your arms [M]

“The Princess won’t go to sleep if it’s not you who put her to bed, your Grace.”

Kibum stood at his quarters’ door, alone as his husband was having a talk with his mother and the General at the moment, and his expression lit up with pride. He was just about to lie comfortably in his bed, welcoming the blankets that had just been changed to fit autumn’s cool nights, but the coming of his former nanny had made all his tiredness vanish with these few words. The relationship he was developing with his daughter since they had come back to Jinju was making his days and nights warmer, and he couldn’t get enough of it.

“She’s already rebelling, isn’t she ?” He giggled, remembering how the woman would often cursing his sister and him as children when they wouldn’t want to go to bed either. “It’s like you will never really get rid of us, in a way.”

“You were still more obedient than your sister when it came to bedtime.” The nanny smiled. “I will wait for you in her chamber, if that’s alright ?”

“Tell her I’m coming, and please don’t use it as a threat like I’m going to scold her when I arrive.”

“Remembering my old tactics, I see…”

With a knowing look, the Prince closed his door and went to withdrew one of his dressing gowns from the wardrobe. He was already wearing his night shirt but if he had to walk in the corridors by night, he might as well prevent himself from catching a cold. Once he tied the silk, emerald green belt around his waist, and adjusted his long hair in his back, he put his slippers on and took the oil lamp from his bedside table. Making sure the glass globe was fixed, he left his room and made his way to the little girl’s own bedroom.

The corridors were quiet, almost all employees had joined their apartments by now. Only remained the few butlers who would turn all lights out once everyone would have gone to bed. In no time, Kibum was knocking at a wooden door and entering, smiling when he saw the smile on Sooyun’s lips. She was standing in her crib, grabbing hold of the bars to keep her balance, and her pouty face lit up when she noticed the man coming her way.

“You can go to bed, nanny.” The Prince gently dismissed the old woman, who pinched the baby’s cheek before bowing and leaving. “And what do you think you’re doing, little one ?”

Putting the lamp aside, he approached the crib and instantly lifted his daughter, placing a kiss on her cheek. Despite her enjoyment of having him around, it was noticeable how tired she was, her sleepy eyes looking smaller than usual. With a few caring words, Kibum held her against his chest, keeping her warm in his arms as he started walking in the room. Setting a slow pace, he took his time rocking her to sleep while caressing her dark hair. It was getting long for her age, black strands growing faster than one would have thought… but she was beautiful like this, especially when her grandmother would braid her.

With her small arms attached to her father’s neck, and her head resting on his shoulder, Sooyun was slowly letting herself dive into a well deserved sleep. Though, her eyes opened a bit when she noticed the door slightly opening, light piercing through the frame. Kibum turned around to see who was coming to them, also to protect the princess’ eyes and allow her to fall asleep despite everything. 

“Can we come in ?” Jonghyun’s blond head was peeking out and his eyes shined with goodwill. “I’m with Jinki.”

“Sure, she’s about to sleep.” The Prince whispered, intimating the proper tone to use if they were to join him.

The teacher nodded and slipped inside, immediately followed by his partner. The General had removed the metallic parts of his outfit to make his steps quieter, and this simple but considerate gesture moved the raven haired man. Both newcomers approached him, casting a look at the baby and smiling ; they were fond of Sooyun, particularly when she was so calm — her babbling could last very long during the day, and as cute as it was, it quickly trying their patience. 

“Is the meeting over ?” Kibum asked, still rocking his daughter but his hand caressing her back now.

“It is, and it was surprising, to say the least.” Jinki replied, his cheeks still tinted with pink. “I wasn’t expecting to hear such news.”

“Your father and the Queen had been obvious for some months, though… I was certain your perspicacity had made you notice them a while ago.”

“When it comes to the matters of the heart…” Jonghyun started, holding back a laughter, “he’s rather oblivious.” 

“Don’t make me curse in front of the princess.”

The General’s sulky expression made the two other men quietly giggle, his uneasiness tangible in the room. For sure, he couldn’t have expected this late meeting with his father, the King and his mother, to be about a love confession… and he was still feeling dumbfounded, deep inside. It had all been on Minho’s initiative, the latter having enough of these lovebirds trying to hide their mutual feelings for the sake of who knew what. 

But the parents’ worries were understandable ; they were both widowed for years now, yet they struggled to see their blooming relationship as appropriate. It wasn’t only about their late husband and wife, but about their respective children : although the latter were grown adults, they still feared their reaction and thus, had hid everything for a bit more than three years. However, admitting to everything had been such a relief, especially in front of their sons who — despite Jinki’s shock — fully supported them.

“Jinju’s rules forbid a widowed ruler to remarry.” The General explained. “I didn’t even know about it but Minho did, and he proposed them to leave the palace for a while. To take time for themselves, and to travel to Pugye.”

“Pugye ?” Kibum asked. “Why this kingdom in particular ?”

“It’s the only one that allows remarriage in itself, so… I guess they will make it official and come back as husband and wife.”

“Does it mean anything in terms of status, once they’ll return ?”

“The Queen Mother will lose her power as a member of the royal family, and as potential regent.” Jonghyun recited. “If anything should happen to the King before Sooyun is old enough to succeed him, you would take the throne, but if you were to disappear as well… the Royal Council would handle the regency.”

“And that is when the Queen tried to refuse, right ?”

“Your perspicacity will always impress me, your Grace.” Jinki quietly laughed. “It startled everyone, however, Minho assured that he’s planning a massive change for the Royal Council. So it was better accepted.”

“I understand that we will soon have a newly wed couple in the palace ?”

“Yes, your Grace.”

“I will make sure to congratulate them before they leave then. And, well… congratulations to you, my dear General.”

“Me ? Why so ?”

“You just earned a Queen as your stepmother, and a King as your stepbrother.”

“Oh fuck.”

Jonghyun nudged his partner so hard the latter realized his words and covered his mouth with his hands, blushing to the point even his ears turned red. He bowed several times to apologize, making the Prince softly laugh before he showed his daughter ; she had fallen asleep. 

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

Minho was alone in his quarters, his wet head above the small tub he had just used to wash his face. He had just come back from his small meeting, only to find the room empty though his husband’s clothes were resting on the bench at the foot of their bed. Where would have the latter gone, wearing only his night shirt, at that hour ? But that wasn’t the main thought running in the King’s mind at the moment. No, he was trying to cool his own body’s temperature with the fresh water.

It had been really hard to focus on all of this evening’s matters, to pretend he was fully listening to whoever was talking to him, when the only image he had been having in mind for hours… was the silhouette of the Prince, standing above him and threatening his chin with a sword. He had never felt so turned on by a scene that had merely last a few seconds, and now that he was alone in a private place… he could embrace this feeling.

But Kibum wasn’t there yet.

It only tried his patience, and Minho had already proven many times that he was no patient man. On the opposite, waiting for the door to open on the man he loved was only adding fuel to the fire his body had become. He was standing there, all his clothes scattered on the floor and his hair untied, the strands around his face wet as drops of water were still running down his cheeks and chin.

Would he come soon ?

The King splashed his face once again, relishing the short, cold sensation on his skin. He felt embarrassed by himself, as he realized he was aroused though he was all alone in the room. Straightening up, he turned around to grab a towel and wiped the water, rubbing his hair as well. He was almost tempted to open the window, perhaps the fresh air of the night would cool his body more than just water. He contemplated the idea long enough…

The door suddenly opened and his ears twitched when he recognized the humming voice. It even felt like he could smell his husband’s scent now, and that was when he wondered if he wasn’t going a bit too crazy about it. He turned over once more, finally seeing the Prince who was offering him his back at the moment, closing the door and making sure not to make too much noise. But when the latter eventually moved, their eyes met.

“My godfathers !” Kibum cursed as he got startled, curiously not expecting the other man to be there and staring at him. “You scared me, I thought you were still…”

It was at this instant he realized what he had in front of him. Though he hadn’t any time to react, because his husband had already crossed the room to reach him and captured his face between his big, warm hands.

“Minho, what—”

He got shut up by fleshy lips strongly pressing against his, drawing him into a feverish kiss he hadn’t quite expected — or maybe he had, from the moment he had seen his naked lover staring at him. He still gasped and let a whiny noise escape his mouth when his back collided with the door as a result of the strength Minho grabbed him with. But the latter didn’t pay attention to it, as he opened the other man’s lips with his tongue, one of his hand leaving his cheek to circle the thin waist. 

Kibum found himself pressed against the wooden panel, trapped by the King’s strong, naked body against him. His senses went numb as he returned the kiss, tongues meeting and messily intertwining as if it was their last kiss — he didn’t understand what had suddenly gone into the other man, though he wasn’t complaining. Before he could even adjust himself to the kiss, his mouth was freed and hungry lips went to his neck, the touch making him weak in the knees.

He was at Minho’s mercy, the latter pushing his dressing gown open and uncovering his shoulders. The Prince shivered and tried removing it all, but his wrists were caught and pinned above his head by a strong hand. His lips got claimed once more, as he felt a second hand grabbing his thigh and stroking it under his shirt. That felt delicious. He couldn’t say anything, for his husband didn’t allow him any form of time to even pronounce a word. 

The hand on his thigh went up, and Kibum gasped in the kiss when it grazed his crotch, his hips jolting forwards as the most instinctive reaction to this touch. The King broke their kiss at the same time he closed his fingers on the other man’s arousal, the Prince opening his eyes and diving into the depths of Minho’s dark irises. Their faces were flushed, their lips wet and swollen from the passionate kisses, but they stared into each other’s eyes as the older man was being stroked against the door, unable to move, stuck in the most pleasant trap.

Kibum had known many feelings when it came to sex, but it was the first time he felt so powerless yet holding Minho in the palm of his hand at the same time. His instincts were telling him to take control, but he had that strange, new sensation that craved the opposite ; the King had rarely showed himself so eager, so aroused before… and his elder wanted to see where he could bring them both. 

As a sigh escaped his lips and he bit his lower one, heat growing in his lower abdomen by seconds passing, the Prince noticed a quick glint in his lover’s eyes. The second after, the latter had disappeared from before his face, letting go of his wrists and falling down to his knees. His night shirt was raised by two impatient hands, uncovering the skin of his thighs until his chest. But the fabric was light and kept falling, Kibum repressed a laughter as he made one of his arms slip out of his gown to hold his shirt on his torso himself.

The picture that followed would have had its place in these ancient, secret and so forbidden books whose pages were painted with many forms of erotic sceneries.

His back still pressed against the closed door of the royal quarters, the older man had his emerald green dressing gown half dangling from his body, for only his left forearm was still covered at the moment. His nightshirt wasn’t covering much skin anymore, but he gripped the fabric and messily made it pass above his head to get rid of it, the whole thing now hanging from his still clothed arm. Only his long, dark hair could now metaphorically serve as clothes, black cascades falling on his skin and sticking there with his forming sweat.

He was beautiful without being asked, but his husband for sure added life to the erotism of this royal painting. In all his naked glory, tanned skin gleaming with sweat from this arousal he had kept to himself for too long, his knees were growing red from the friction with the carpet. But he couldn’t care less, as the only thing that mattered at the moment was his Prince’s pleasure ; he only lived to please him that night, and he shall fulfill this duty with the deserved passion. 

Everything had gone so fast to Kibum that he hadn’t quite realized when Minho had taken him in his mouth, his swollen lips around him sending him in cloud nine. His legs threatened to abandon him, but his husband’s hand was firmly gripping his thigh and maintained him on spot. It was like the latter was making sure he would have nothing to care about except for what he would feel… and feel, that, he was.

Slightly arching his back, the Prince let a soft moan escape his throat and this sound alone served as the most sensual pleasure for the King. The younger man soon felt slender fingers approach his face, grazing his cheeks and pushing a few strands of dark brown hair behind his ear. This gentle gesture contrasted so much with his own abrupt actions that a shiver shook his whole body and he looked up. His darkened eyes met with his husband’s sweet irises, the latter’s stare conveying such a warmth that Minho’s heart missed a beat.

The thin hand went from his ear to his cheek, until a gracious finger lifted his chin to make him come back to his senses, getting back on his feet. The King obeyed the gesture and pressed a hand against the wood to keep his balance, his strong body overhanging the thiner one and their skin grazing each other as their chests rose with each synchronized breath they took. 

Kibum slowly freed his arm from its last piece of clothing, both the gown and shirt falling on the floor and leaving him as naked as Minho. His waist was circled by the latter’s arm and brought closer, and the older man couldn’t help but laugh ; such impatience, tonight. With a torturous slowness, he raised his hand to his husband’s cheek and caressed it, while the other one wandered on his back.

“You’re different, tonight.” The Prince whispered, his eyes searching for any kind of explanation on the King’s features. “Is there anything you want to tell me ?”

“Is my body not telling enough of what I want ?” The other man said, a smile on his lips as he turned his head to kiss the palm near his face.

“You surely know how to talk with your body, and this will never not seduce me… but this time, I want to hear you.”

“I’ve been waiting for this moment all evening long… do you think I’m able to talk right now, when all I want is you to take me to bed ?”

“Now that’s interesting, my King… tell me more.”

Saying this, Kibum pressed his palm against Minho’s chest, softly pushing him backwards while staying as close to him as possible. The younger man let him do, his steps soon finding the bed and his body falling on the mattress as he pulled his husband with him. Both of them quietly laughed, and the Prince held himself on his stretched arms to overhang the King, their eyes never leaving each other. There clearly was something new in those dark irises that looked up towards him, as if he was the only one in the world.

“You beat me, earlier.” Minho eventually said, his hoarse voice coming more like a whisper than he would have wanted it to. “You were impressive.”

“A very good teacher made me the swordsman I am.” Kibum replied. “Did it please you, you who can’t tolerate to lose ?”

“More than you can imagine… I would let you win a thousand times more if it meant to see you look at me like that again, looking so beautiful and strong.”

“What have I done with you, Minho…”

“Everything. Almost… everything.”

“Almost ?”

“Y-Yes… there is something you’ve never done with me and… I can’t think of anything else tonight. Do you… do you get me ?”

“Who wouldn’t, love… tonight ? Are you sure ?”

“With you, I’m always sure.”

With a tender smile, the Prince lowered himself to press their lips together, erasing all the roughness from earlier. The King closed his arms around the warm body above him, hugging his lover close while he returned a soft kiss, this softness conveying everything he could think about. As strange as it was, his arousal was still the same as a few minutes before, but his body now expressed it with less strength, less haste. 

That was Kibum’s power on him, a single word, a single touch could soothe him, pacifying his ardent emotions. As to appease the burning fire of his body, his elder left his lips to press gentle, slow kisses on his face, going from his forehead to his cheeks, drawing a line along his jaw until he had his own face buried in his neck. Minho let him do, willing to feel. The lips attached to his skin were deliciously wet, but it was their softness that felt the best ; he couldn’t get tired of them, since the very first time they had kissed him.

Before he could even think, his own lips were captured again into a kiss he couldn’t describe with words. He lacked words at that exact moment, as he was being kissed at the same time long fingers were caressing his thigh. 

“Are you okay ?” The Prince eventually asked, breaking their kiss and looking at him in the eyes while he placed a hand on his neck. “It’s beating fast in there…”

“I’m fine, promise.” The King smiled, stealing a kiss from his husband. “I’m not scared. Were you ?”

“The first time ? A bit, but it’s all about trust. Do you trust me ?”

“I always trust you.”

“Then, promise me to stop me if there is anything I do that disturbs you. Anything.”

“I promise you.”

“Alright…” Kibum kissed him gently, for some long seconds, until he withdrew again. “It will be better if you… if you’re showing me your back, for now.”

“Like this ?”

Without thinking much, Minho slid on the mattress to have more space for his long legs, and lied on his stomach. He didn’t know what to do with his arms and the situation made his lover laugh a bit, before the latter approached and placed the pillow under his head. The younger man immediately hugged it, just like he often did when sleeping, and he waited. He didn’t really know what he was waiting for, because everything was always going smoothly when it was him preparing his husband. The habit, perhaps ?

Would he do well ? What if he wasn’t feeling at ease and ruined everything ? What if he couldn’t do it ? What it—

“You’re tensing up…” His husband’s soothing voice came to his ears, making the King realise that he was kneeling above him, his face just near his. “You’re worried.”

“I don’t want to disappoint you.” Minho confessed, his voice coming out as a shy whisper. 

“You won’t, clear your head of that worry. Even if we were to stop everything, you will never disappoint me, alright ? We’re not doing anything you don’t want to, I promise you.”

“I trust you.”

With a smile, Kibum gently moved the thick brown hair away from the younger man’s nape and lowered himself to press his lips against the warm skin. His hands were on Minho’s sides, caressing here and there in order to appease his tensed muscles. The King understood what his husband was doing and he closed his eyes, relishing the sensations and clearing his mind to only focus on them. There was no other sound in the room than the kisses and caresses on his skin, and he found himself relaxing from them alone.

He was extremely sensible when it came to sounds, and he knew the Prince had found out since the day he had fallen asleep in bright day, with his head on the other man’s lap, while the latter was softly turning the pages of his book. He felt the warmth of lips slowly going down his nape to pursue their treasure hunt on his shoulder blade. As he could imagine the path Kibum’s mouth was drawing on his back, he remembered his scar, that scar he never really talked about but secretly found ugly.

He reminisced the bathes together, the moments of afterglow when his husband would let his fingers wander around the old wound, tracing its edges… Minho had felt ashamed at first, since it was a constant reminder of how stupid he had been for disobeying his father, and how he had put his childhood friend in trouble. But more than that, it was like a stain that broke the harmony of his skin, of his shape, this long line… nothing like the pretty scar on Kibum’s eyebrow. 

He didn’t have many complexes but this ugly scar certainly was the worst one… but when lips fell on the top of the pink, in relief flesh, he opened his eyes. 

“My silly warrior…” The Prince whispered, his voice colored with amusement. “I love this one, who could guess it was caused by a clumsy sword… when it’s so beautiful and looks like the stem of the highest flowers in our garden…”

As if proving his words, the older man covered the scar with kisses, letting his lips trace it as if it was the softest thing in the world. The King found himself smiling, while his heartbeat grew a bit stronger when pondering this innocent statement. So it wasn’t repulsive ? It was beautiful enough for his husband to cover it with kisses the way he does on every part of his body ?

“Your back might be my favourite part of your body…”

Kibum’s muttered words, added to even more kisses and caresses, managed to erase all Minho’s ugly thoughts about himself, and he sighed with relief and comfort at the same time. Lips kept going down his back, and he shivered when they lingered over its hollow, the sensation overwhelming him. He didn’t even tense up again when he felt a hand caressing his butt, for it felt like following on from everything before. On the opposite, his shivers intensified and he let a soft sigh out, his toes curling on the mattress with a rather pleasant apprehension. 

“Will you kneel a bit for me…?” The Prince asked while his hands gently stroked the back of the other man’s thighs to encourage him. 

“Like this…?” The King asked in return as he bent his legs to have his hips raised. “More…?”

“No, it’s perfect like this. Remember your promise ?”

Minho nodded but the smile on his lips showed everything but fear or worry. His flushed cheeks made his husband giggle ; he himself knew how this position could be a bit embarrassing, even after many times. The King waited for a few seconds, wondering what his elder was doing until he heard the familiar unscrewing of the small oil jar. He could have asked himself many things at that exact moment : will it hurt ? Will he jerk away at the last moment ? 

But the only wonder he had when hearing slender fingers gather a knob of oil was… will it be very cold ?

He hadn’t time to reflect on this question, because he felt a hand closing around his shaft and gasped with surprise. He didn’t turn his head, but he felt Kibum’s warmth enough to guess he was kneeling beside him, gently stroking him with one hand while the other one was resting on his buttock. After a few seconds of just touching him between his thighs, drawing muffled sighs out of his mouth, Minho couldn’t repress another gasp when he felt a texture he knew very well, sliding between his buttocks.

It felt so weird, but he was glad he had got it wrong earlier ; it wasn’t cold at all, for the Prince had warmed the mixture with his fingers before approaching him. He was now slowly massaging his rim, coating it and making sure the strange sensation was balanced with the pleasure his stroking would make his husband feel. He knew exactly what to do, and this only made the King’s trust in him grow stronger. 

“Is this fine ?” The older man asked as his fingers were still gently rubbing around the hole, the sensation changing a bit whenever he would come there. “I know, it might feel a bit weird…”

“Yeah, a bit…” Minho replied before he got startled by the sound he made without any warning, when a stroke combined to his entrance being aroused sent a sort of wave through his body. “G-Gods…”

“I’ll go inside, alright ? Slowly, just like you do with me. Remember your promise.”

No sooner said than done, Kibum withdrew his hands to grab more oil with one, the other one holding his lover’s buttock spread. With his thumb, he rubbed again around that sensitive area and when he heard a sigh coming from the pillow, he smiled and softly, gently, pressed a finger against the entrance. As expected for a first time, Minho had a natural reflex but he managed to relax as much as possible, allowing the phalanx to push deeper.

The pace was slow and though it felt rather weird, the King got surprised ; weird, but not unpleasant. Closing his eyes, he let sensations overpowering his emotions, listening to his body. He could clearly feel the oil massaging his insides, as his husband’s finger was moving until it wasn’t strange anymore. It even felt… not enough ? Yes, that’s what the knot in his lower abdomen was asking fore : more. 

As if reading his mind, Kibum pressed a second finger. Despite his gentleness, Minho had to shut his eyes open because it didn’t feel as weirdly good as the first one. But he didn’t complain, because he could finally feel what his husband felt, and his sensitive side found that wonderful. He had lost track of time, but he soon felt the burning sensation being replaced by what he had felt just a few seconds before ; it felt good.

“Don’t forget to breathe, love…” The Prince smiled, making the other man notice that he had indeed stopped breathing. “I’m going with a third, alright…?”

When the third finger pushed inside, the King gasped ; that one hurt more than the previous ones. But he remembered every other night, he remembered of the pain would quickly vanish from his lover’s face to make space for this expression he found heavenly beautiful. But he also knew this one took a bit longer to adjust to, and so, he grunted a bit. But his patience was rewarded, when his gritted teeth slowly relaxed, and a moan escaped his throat. 

The slicking sounds were rather strange to hear, but they were familiar in a pleasant way. The pain had disappeared, and the oil’s warmth was deliciously pleasurable. Kibum kept moving his fingers, allowing them deeper with each second passing until his husband was starting to pant under him. There, now he would feel good. But the Prince didn’t want to immediately replace this foreplay, so he kept going. 

He had something in mind, but it had been quite long since he had last done this so it took him a minute…

“O-Oh…!” He heard Minho choke in the pillow and smiled, as he pushed again. “F-For fuck’s sake…!”

Kibum found himself feeling deeply aroused by the noises his husband made, all thanks to him, but he couldn’t take his eyes off Minho’s face ; flushed, covered with sweat already, with lips parted and his hand firmly holding the pillow. He was beautiful, there was no other word. His panting grew faster as the Prince was still pushing his fingers against a spot that definitely sent him on cloud nine. 

He couldn't open his eyes anymore, he felt like if he did, he would pass out. 

What he hadn’t expected, however, was to be hit in his stomach by this familiar sensation. That tight knot that seemed to travel lower and could only mean one thing. Before he could even realise and try preventing it, the King let out a hoarse moan and his body tensed, his hole puckering around his lover’s fingers despite him. Panting, he came on the mattress without being able to warn himself nor his husband, but it didn’t seem to bother the latter, who kept pressing inside, yet more gently.

With his hands clenched into fists near his face and his legs shaking, Minho breathed loudly, feeling his release and immediately wondering why it had to go wrong. After a few seconds, he felt Kibum’s fingers leaving him and he seemed to realise ; he was out of breath, but he didn’t understand. He kept his face pressed against the pillow, unable to look up… and that caused the Prince to caresse his lower back and frown.

“Minho ?” He called, his voice still so sweet as if he hadn’t just ruined everything. “Minho, what is it ?”

“I’m so sorry…” The younger man panted, unable to catch his breath for the moment as his orgasm was still shaking him from inside. “I fucked up…”

“What ?”

Kibum frowned even more and came closer, catching his husband’s arms and slowly turning him over. He couldn’t help but smile when he noticed how red the King’s face was, just before the latter hid it with his arms. With an incredible gentleness, the Prince put his hands on them and delicately forced them open to reveal Minho’s head. But the latter kept his eyes closed like he didn’t want to look at his lover.

“You didn’t fuck anything up, Minho.” The older man said, unable not to smile. “Come on, open those eyes of yours, you did nothing wrong.”

“But I came too soon…” The King eventually looked at his husband, and there was pure frustration dancing in them. “You didn’t even… you didn’t…”

“And what is so wrong about it ? You felt good and you came, that’s the goal of all of this.”

“But it was just…”

“Foreplay, yes, but it’s a whole new sensation to you so your body is receptive and really sensitive. It’s normal. Hey, don’t look away.”

Kibum cupped his lover’s face and made him look at him. For a second, he pressed their lips together and caressed his cheeks with his thumbs.

“It’s all right, love.” He smiled. “You just felt good, and there is nothing wrong with it, you didn’t come too soon, you came at the moment that felt right for you. It happens to everyone, especially for a first time. Did it feel good ?”

“It did, but…”

“No but needed then. Don’t feel sorry for me because you felt pleasure, never feel sorry for that, alright ? I’m pleased if you’re please, and… I did say it was foreplay, so if you still want to… we can resume…?”

“We can…?”

“You’re so adorable, of course we can. Do you still want to have me…?”

Unable to say a word, Minho vigorously nodded and his cheeks flushed again, making the Prince laugh and peck his lips. It quickly turned into a long, lascivious kiss that managed to bring the King back to his arousal and make him forget this unusual frustration. When they broke the kiss, the younger man was about to turn over but his husband stopped him, earning a questioning look.

Kibum just shook his head.

“I want to see you when we make love.”

The way his almond-shapes eyes seemed to sparkle when he pronounced his words made Minho feel loved beyond compare, and his heart missed a beat to resume with greater intensity. He held himself up on his elbows to watch his husband kneel back between his legs, generously coating himself with the oil before looking at him. The King immediately blushed, what made the other man laugh before he approached, pushing him back on the mattress.

With careful hands, he raised his strong thighs and pressed against their inside to push them, almost bending Minho in a half as he placed himself above him, their faces close and their eyes diving into each other. The younger man felt movements and brushes against his lower half, as his husband was blindly guiding himself forwards. When he felt something pressing against his entrance, he took a deep breath.

“Are you ready ?” Kibum asked, his care never reducing as placed a chaste kiss on the knee that was at his face’s level.

“Yeah…” His lover replied, nodding to support his words. “Yeah, take me…”

“Your wish is my command, my King…”

Saying this, the Prince leaned on even more to kiss his husband, the latter seeming to lift himself up from the pillow to meet him halfway. Minho’s breath got taken away when he felt his elder pushing inside of him ; as slowly as he was going and despite the long preparation, the pain was still quite perceptible and the younger man had to break their kiss to sharply inhale. 

It only took a few seconds for Kibum to be fully inside, but it felt way longer. When he realized, the King raised his eyebrows ; already ? he thought, and that made his lover giggle — his thoughts were way too noticeable on his features, his face couldn’t lie. To confirm what he was thinking, the Prince lowered himself and pressed their lips together once more, softly, as if careful not to break them. 

Minho smiled and returned the kiss, cupping his husband’s cheeks and keeping him close. He slightly gasped when he felt the other man move inside him, with care and gentleness, not rushing everything. It could take hours, he didn’t give a damn. It means the world to be in his King’s arms for a mere second. After a few seconds, his hips steady a slow pace to allow the younger man to adjust himself to this whole new feeling, and pleasure started painting his face with the warmest colours.

It took a minute or two for Minho to start panting, quietly asking for more, and Kibum fulfilled this request by gradually speeding his thrusts up. He was sighing himself, his voice sounding lower when he moaned and adding to his husband’s hearing pleasure. The latter let an expressive sound out when he felt the same astonishing sensation than earlier, a noise that combined a surprised gasp and a pleasured moan. The Prince captured his lips to breathe his moans and sighs, possessive for all these short, sharp sounds that let him know how good he was making his lover feel.

The King’s legs were trembling and his chest abruptly rose with each breath in, and he slid his hand between their bodies to grab his own arousal and amplify this delicious feeling. This time, he didn’t care if he came soon, because when he did, he was taken to seventh heaven and he knew he was bringing Kibum with him. The latter’s moans grew sharper in his ear and he held him close, his release staining their chests and already making feel so good…

But the best feeling came when he felt his husband reach his own orgasm. As strange as it felt, Minho was happy and didn’t let go of the other man, even when the Prince slowed his pace until his thighs were too painful to keep moving. The King kept his eyes closed, because he didn’t want to see the wooden ceiling ; no, he was pleased with what he saw behind his closed eyelids. Stars on a dark sky, nebulas forming because he had kept his eyes shut for too long… but at that moment, it was the best illustration of what he was feeling.

“I love you…” He heard Kibum breathe in his ear, and he relaxed his body to welcome him in his arms.

“I love you too.” The younger man replied with the same tone, hugging his husband tight. “I love you so much I could marry you again.”

“Silly…”

Minho smiled and buried his face in the other man’s neck. He wanted to stay like this forever, and he definitely wasn’t silly.

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

“He did what ?”

Jonghyun stood gaping for a moment before he realized his friend definitely wasn’t waiting for him. It was still early in the morning, perhaps too early considering he had fallen asleep only four hours before, but he didn’t think he was tired to the point of turning deaf. Though he could, since his beloved partner was snoring quite loudly lately, with his stuffed up nose… perhaps he should prepare some beverages for cold as soon as possible.

The blond man shook his head to snap out of it and ran after the Prince, who was heading back to his daughter’s room with clean laundry and towels in hands. On their way, they ran into the nanny and two house girls who let them know that the small tub was ready to be filled, though the water was still a bit hot. The presence of the old woman in the corridor instead of the baby’s bedroom didn’t seem to surprise Kibum… much to the teacher’s surprise.

“Thank you, I will take care of what is left.” The black haired man told the women. “You may go and make sure everything is getting prepared safely for her Majesty’s journey abroad.”

The employees agreed and bowed before they escaped quite fast, making Jonghyun aware that he definitely was in a better environment when alone at his home… not in this never-ending tumult of people running here and there to attend to their duties. It was rather impressive that a free spirit like his friend could remain completely calm and immune to panic in such a constant atmosphere. 

Speaking of him, the Prince had resumed his walking, almost leaving his friend behind once more. 

“By the Gods, will you stop !” The teacher eventually snapped. “Stop right there ! It’s barely seven in the morning, you can’t just drop a bomb and leave with no explanation.”

“You’re overreacting, hyung.” Kibum laughed but acknowledged the comment and stopped walking for a moment. “I can’t make it clearer, though !”

“Fine, but you’ll have to repeat it so I can assimilate that.”

His bright smile never left the raven haired man’s lips and his eyes were sparkling, making his friend’s heart beat with a good dose of happiness for at least a month. 

“Minho proposed to me again.” The Prince eventually repeated, his irises shining even more. “This morning, it was the first thing he said.”

“Details, details.” Jonghyun requested, growing impatient.

“Well, we woke up together as usual and we stayed quiet for a moment, to allow us some time to emerge. And when I wished him a good morning, he just asked me to marry him again.”

“What kind of night did you two spend for him to be like this right in the morning…”

“That has nothing to do with that ! I thought he was joking because… well he already said something like that yesterday but it was more an hypothetical thing, you see ? I laughed but he didn’t. He was just… looking at me, and he asked again. He said he was serious, that our wedding was no political arrangement anymore and that we should renew our vows for our first anniversary.”

“Have a real wedding, consensual and deprived of any bad feelings… That is utterly disgusting.”

“Liar.”

“Yeah, I’m so lying. This is wonderful, I presume you said yes ?”

“Of course I said yes ! But you’re the only one to know for the time being, so please don’t shout it from the rooftops.”

Smiling, the blond man pretended to zip his lips and throw the key away, but he couldn’t help hugging his friend to show his happiness. Kibum laughed and returned the embrace as much as he could, since his arms were busy, and he eventually dismissed the teacher to run to his daughter’s bedroom. He was awaited, and he had taken a bit too long already. When he arrived, his already large smile grew wider as he found Sooyun sitting on Minho’s shoulders, her tiny hands secured in her father’s large ones as he was spinning round and round.

Her laughter echoed in the room as the most pleasant sound ever, and the Prince left these two have fun together while he prepared the little girl’s bath. The water was indeed a bit hot, but the nanny had made sure to bring a bucket of cold water, to balance the temperature. Once it seemed perfect, the King stopped playing and approached the tub, removing Sooyun’s night clothes and slowly sitting her in the water.

Immediately, she started waving her arms and hitting the liquid, enjoying herself like for every single bath. Minho’s hand was placed behind her back to prevent her from falling backwards, while Kibum filled a little jug to wet their daughter’s hair. They couldn’t always be there for her bath or her meals, their respective duties often keeping them busy, but whenever they could take care of the little girl, they would dismiss absolutely everyone else and enjoy a moment with just the three of them.

“I told Jonghyun.” The older man eventually confessed. “I couldn’t hold myself back.”

“Should I be mad at you for this ?” The King smiled, looking at his husband. “I take it as a compliment. What did he say ?”

“Pretended to be disgusted by such a big amount of love, but he’s really glad. I thought it was for the best to keep the biggest announcement to ourselves for the time being.”

“So you agree with what I proposed ? You don’t say yes just because you love me, right ?”

“No, I promise you I’m not. The more I think about it, the more I enjoy the idea… I mean, we’ve been to every kingdom and met every ruler, they renewed their allegiance and we spent really nice moments with each of them. Or almost.”

“That was for Prince Siwon.”

“But he’ll be invited as well, it could be… entertaining.”

“So we’re doing it. We’re getting married once more and this time, we invite the Four Kingdom’s rulers.”

“Yes, we’re doing it.”

Both men smiled at each other and stopped talking, only exchanging with their eyes as they were both realizing what they had just decided. After all, they had defied all laws to keep their marriage, and nothing could force them to annul it now. It just didn’t seem official considering the first circumstances, and they wanted to renew their vows while meaning them. Kibum wanted to bow to his King without being forced to do so, and Minho wanted to drink from the same glass with his Prince, this time placing his lips where his would have drunk.

Unfortunately, their contemplation of their future wedding was savagely interrupted by water splashed straight to their face. Sooyun had enough of not getting any attention.

_____________

Epilogue

[frangipanidownunder]

Prompt: Mulder & Scully make a wrong turn on the way back from a case and end up somewhere cool.

City of Souls: fic

What a great prompt - thanks! I’ve never been to Colma so all mistakes are mine. Set late season 6, before The Unnatural.

He spits a seed outthe window and turns to her. He’d rolled his sleeves up hours ago, flung histie over the back seat. It might be the end of a California summer but the heatis unrelenting. Sweat prickles at the creases of his elbows. Immaculate in herseat, Scully’s still all business. Whole and upright.

           “When was the last time you worejeans, Scully?”

           She doesn’t answer. He hates thesilence.

           The sign reads ‘It’s Great to Be Alive in Colma’. He waits for her reaction. Nothing.He drives. On each side there are cemeteries. She’s drinking water and lookingout at the rows of uneven headstones.  Thereare hills behind them, scratched brown from too much sun. Withered. He makes amental note not look back too often.

“Scully, do you prefer Gunfight atthe OK Corral, the 1957 classic western starring Burt Lancaster and KirkDouglas or Tombstone, the 1993 remakestarring Kurt Russell and Val Kilmer?”

           He hears the creak of gristle in herneck as she turns towards him. There’s a tiny kink in her lips. Upwards. He letsout a slow breath.

           “I haven’t seen either, although Iunderstand the cast of each movie was stellar. Maybe you can invite me over fora classic western movie night, Mulder. We can drink beer in our Levis and talklike John Wayne or Clint Eastwood.” She’s teasing him. And his skin stipples inappreciation.

           “I see you with your hair tuckedunder a Stetson riding over the plains, outrunning and outshooting the outlaws,Sherriff Scully.”

Another cemetery looms ahead. Padgett is still a fresh nightmare. Herblood-soaked shirt stayed behind his eyes for weeks, a metallic tang taintedeverything he ate. He felt empty. Hollowed out, just like the bloodied chestsof the victims. Life scooped from them. Ribs yawed open, bones like gravestonesin rows. When she is quiet, he still feels empty.

He blinks away the image and turns to her. She relaxes into a smile,plays with a strand of that glorious hair. Now, he sees autumn sun, tastes theburnt edges of pumpkins, feels in his limbs the strange looseness of holidaysto come.

“Maybe we can spin our guns or crack our whips?” She’s still playing thegame and his heart thrums. And then she laughs. God, he loves that sound. Likethe pop of a vintage champagne cork, a surprise followed by perfection.“Mulder, why have we driven so many miles in the wrong direction?”

There’s another sign. Arrows to the town mall and the primary school andthe Cypress Lawn – Nobel Chapel. He turns towards the chapel.

“This is the City of Souls, Scully. Colma. Population 1500 livingresidents and 1.5 million  souls. In1900, the city of San Francisco declared the land in the town too valuable forburying the dead. In 1914, they sent eviction notices to all the cemeteriesordering the dead to be removed and relocated. Colma was chosen as the ‘end ofthe line’ so to speak. And now there are 16 cemeteries here, including a petcemetery.”

She leans towards him, adjusts her seatbelt. She’s still holding on tothat smile. But he’s holding on to it tighter. Her cheeks are pink. “But whyare we here?”

He doesn’t tell her he feels like he’s lost his soul and in some improbableway he imagines that staying here will fill him up with new life, will give himback some of what he’s given away this year. Just like that psychic surgeonstealing away people’s beating hearts, Diana has sucked the very core out ofhim with her unending support and her sly smiles. He feels her grip chafing athim, marking his skin so that Scully sees betrayal like a scarlet letter. Hedoesn’t tell her anything like that, although he should. He should declare hisguilt to her so she can flog him with her righteousness. He doesn’t tell her,though.

“Haven’t you ever wanted to see where Joe DiMaggio is buried? Or Frank‘the crow’ Crosetti? Wyatt Earp? Levi Strauss?” Her fingers rub across herplump lips. “I see you aren’t quite as into this as I am,” he says and shebestows a gentle shake of her head on him, one that’s accompanied by a quietchuckle.

“I can’t say I am, Mulder but if you feel that visiting the graves offamous sports people or cowboys, is something you need to do, then knockyourself out. I’ll be happy with a cold beer and a steak. I’m hungry. And thistown is making me crave dead meat.”

He laughs then. She’s funny, his Scully. She metes out her jokes inincrements, measuring out the time between each beat so it’s not too long, nottoo short. She’s good with her timing, like that. Knows just when to step in, whento step back. He hasn’t learnt that yet. But this business with Diana hastaught him that jumping in blindly, just for support of some kind, is not whathe wants anymore. Not what he needs.

He turns into the cemetery, feels a shift in the air. It’s not mournful.There’s something serene about it, a quiet calm. It’s in the cooling of theharsh sun, it’s in the shush of the leaves, it’s in the melodic birdsong. Thedead enjoy the longest rest, but the living can come here and reset.

She’s out of the car before him, shucking off her jacket and shieldingher eyes from the lowering glare. California Scully is brighter in every way,he decides. Kaleidoscopic despite her penchant for black work-wear. Everythingelse about her is a melange of soft colours. He takes her in.

“Walk with me?” she asks and offers an elbow for him to hook his armthrough. He wonders if she understands the irony of promenading around acemetery while the dead lie still beneath them. He’s sure she does, but Scullydoesn’t mind irony. She doesn’t like duplicity. She just doesn’t like beingtaken for granted.

He watches their shadows pass the headstones, long thin versions ofthemselves stretching out in some ghoulish representation of life. He needs tolook back at her, see the tangible partner on his arm.

He tips his chin towards her. “Those who couldn’t pay the $10 evictionand relocation fee left their loved ones to be piled into mass graves.”

“It’s a cruel and undignified story,” she replies. “But death is oftenugly.”

Her shirt was wicking bright red as quickly as her skin paled. Hehesitated because in that moment he was sure she was gone, and he had let ithappen. His fucking arrogance had led her to the terror of a death like that.Her beating heart stolen from its hearth right there in his own home.

The warm surprise of her fingers clasping through his shook the pictureaway, dissolving the stark of red death into the muted tones of Scully’ssmiling face. She nods to a plaque on a large sculpted rock. He reads thedetails.

“When you were in that travel agency, with Duane Barry, I used thisman’s case to highlight the potentially dangerous misreading of the situation.It’s one of the clearest memories I have of that time.”

He takes in the information as she speaks.

“The Gage Accident. Phineas Gage was working on the railroad at Vermontwhen a tamping iron blasted upwards and pierced his skull from cheekbone totop.” She touches the spots on her own face and he watches the grace of herfingers. “Miraculously, he survived but his behaviour changed so much that hewas no longer the same man.”

It might not have taken an industrial accident to change him, butScully’s ferocious charge for justice, right by his side, has been just as redhot. She has stayed on the same damned path, never deviating, while he’spinballed from belief to doubt and all the while dragging her along with him.Exposing her to horrors. How has she remained the same? Fuck, he loves her forit. He loves her sameness, her unwavering Scully-ness. You know what you’regetting. You get what you see.

“I remember you talking about him,” he says. “I thought it would be goodto see the memorial. And we really weren’t that far away. It seemed the rightthing to do.”

She tucks her chin to her chest. “Well, it’s a very ‘us’ kind of thingto do, isn’t it? It’s a graveyard. It’s macabre. I’m only surprised that it’snot raining. It would be just the kind of after-case date we would indulge in.”She looks away quickly, licks her lips. “If this were a date.” The words arebreathed out, low.

He looks around at the graves, thinks about the dead beneath them, lyingsilent in repose. Souls departed, bodies left behind. Bones desiccating toashes. He thinks about Phineas Gage and Levi Strauss and Jo DiMaggio, how theirlives are still known. He looks back at Scully and she’s waiting for him tospeak. He can’t find any words to tell her how much he wants her life to beknown for centuries to come. There’s a glint of sunlight off the brass of theplaque and he squints as it flashes in his face. He shivers but lets the sensationwarm him, like heat from the inside, filling him.

“There’s a 50s style diner not far away,” he says, looking back at her face, where he sees hope, forgiveness and he feels his soul settle back inside. “Let’s get that steak, Scully.”

[lilcutieana]

Oblivion ( Hybrid Min Yoongi)

                           CHAPTER   FIVE (Finale)

Word Count: 8.2k

Warning:  triggering, smut, mentions of abuse, blood, and drugs

.Rating: 18+

Pairing: hybrid Yoongi x hybrid reader

Genre: Angst/ drama/ smut (happy ending)

Synapse:  Min Yoongi, a beautiful and rare snow leopard hybrid, struggling to survive under the care of a ruthless owner who sells him for underground fights and sex. In a world where mistreating hybrids is a natural and where hybrids have been seen as worse than animals and treated beneath humans, would he make it out alive?

Chapter 1 Chapter 2  Chapter 3  Chapter 4  

‘Lilian, you’re free’

At first, I was confused. I’m Y/N. Why would he say another woman’s name when talking to me? Who is Lilian?

The phone made a constant beep, signaling it was disconnected. Confused, I kept the receiver where it belonged and stared at the wall.

The name seemed familiar but I just couldn’t remember why. Was it in a movie I watched? Or maybe someone from somewhere? Was it in a book I read? Or maybe in the lab…

The world around me tilted. My head spun making me dizzy and lose balance, causing me to tumble on the floor, trying to see. The room was spinning about, a ringing sound hurting my ears and tears prickled my eyes from the pain.

I couldn't bring myself to breathe, my head felt like it was splitting in two. The shallow shuttering breaths that I took, hurt my throat as if I was swallowing thorns, clogging it up, making it drier. Pawing at my throat, I tried easing the pain away, but nothing helped. The only sound I could hear was my heart beating like a drum inside my chest beside the incessant ringing of my eardrums.

What was going on?

And then it happened. Like a key being twisted inside, unlocking the Pandora’s Box that laid within. A myriad of images flashed past my eyes like a dam being broken of blocked memories. Nothing made sense, it was all too fast, too muted, too many faces, too many places, too many instances. But mostly in complete white or darkness. So much darkness.

My world tilted again, blurring my vision and spiraling into complete blindness. I fell to the cold floor crying, screaming for help. I don't know if my voice could be heard, for even my own ears won't let me hear anything except white noise. I still kept screaming for help until my throat felt raw. My ears, my throat, my eyes, and my head - everything hurt. Please....make it stop. Make it stop. MAKE IT STOP. 

The night I had dreaded the most had come. My nose picked the putrid scent of sewer water and gunpowder. Multiple footsteps echoed in the living room. Though I couldn't see or hear, I could feel the vibrations through my skin, reverberating through my bones and spiking up my heartbeat. This is how I die tonight, isn't it? But I couldn't, I wouldn't. 

I had promised my Yoongi. I had promised my little cubs. I had to survive, I had to protect. I wouldn't back down. Silently, my hands skimmed across the floor, looking for the walls. Bumping my head on my discarded slippers, I winced when it increased the pain in my head. Whimpering softly, I tried taking deep breaths to calm down.

Once again, I crawled on the floor, biting on my lips until I tasted blood to keep my voice in. Trembling hands trying to locate the cameras and mics Jimin had placed on the floor. 

My head was hurting so much, it felt like my whole body was erupting into a sweat and being boiled. This time, my fingers had bumped into a tiny round Mic along the wall. 

Taking a shuddering breath, I picked it up and placed it inside my bra and once again laid down on the floor. This time, pretending to have passed out while clutching my head, silently wishing whoever had come into the house would leave me alone after they found whatever they came looking for. 

My wishes went unanswered when footsteps came closer to where I was laying down. I tried to control my breath so as not to alert them. But in my condition, I had forgotten to control my tail that was twitching behind me giving me away. 

Something felt eerily wrong as nobody made a move towards me, standing around me in complete silence. I needed to be closer to sense them but I had to stay rooted to my spot or I would blow my cover. Though, I had a feeling that I sort of already had. 

"Is she dead? I see no blood" came a scared voice from the far right.

"No shit, ‘er ears are twitching, she's clearly jus’ passed out or somethin’." Retorted another voice closer than the first, with a thick northern accent. 

"Just shut up and tie her up you two. As a pet, she'd fetch us a fortune." Snapped a third voice from my left. His voice was deeper, more scary and dominating. 

“But sir, what if the lass hurts us?” grumbled the first man while moving closer to me.

“Does that animal look capable enough to even sit? Just stop stalling and do what you’re told you little...” Snapped the leader again. I guess he was running out of patience. If he came closer, I”d scratch his face and make a run for it. Even though I couldn't see. This was my home, I knew the place like the back of my hand.

The rain continued to pour outside in rivulets, the thunder shaking the window panes every few minutes. If I played my cards right, I could outrun them and hide in the woods behind the mansion, No way could the humans trace me crouching atop a tree in this storm.

I could hear them clearly now as one of them came forward and stepped on my head, crushing my left ear beneath his boots. Letting out a piercing scream, I swiped my claw at his shin and managed to rip his pants, earning me a kick to the shoulder. Holding my shoulder, I hissed in pain. It was throbbing along with my ear. The faint metallic smell of blood invaded my nose making it twitch. Was someone hurt? 

"Damn bitch! Got my leg” the man above me moaned in pain and hopped away. “Bring the Tasers." The scary voice demanded followed by hurried footsteps fading away. A heavy boot landed on my tail, and it took everything in me not to write out in pain. I had to hold out. I can't pass out now. 

"Give in you filthy hybrid." He spat above me enraged when I wouldn't react to him crushing my tail. 

"Scream for me. Tell me where your master is hiding. Call for him!" He snarled above me, dragging the last word and started pacing the room.

"What's taking them so long?" The man groans next to me after a few minutes pass by, tapping his fingers on a surface. Possibly the countertop. But I could already hear their footsteps echo near the room and in came the men, throwing what I can only assume as the rope on the floor next to my face. I tried moving my tail to trip the man who was at the counter but failed as soon as I lifted it an inch. Excruciating pain reverberated through the appendage. Clearly, he had broken some bones,or at the least cracked them. I just hoped they would heal overnight.

“Ah! So she does get affected.” The man crooned with a soft voice, “Tie her up.”

Hurried footsteps came to stop beside me. Some rustling of clothes, which, I’m guessing was due to some kind of papery thin jacket that rustled with his movements, he had bent down and grabbed my tail drawing a muted whimper from me and proceeded to tie it down with my legs.

“She might be a blind bitch, but she is still alive and would fetch us good money and who knows, she looks like she would be a good fuck.” Snarling at the direction the voice came from I slashed at thin air and barely managing to catch at something. My nail was stuck, with a strong yank, I freed my arm and possibly tore a part of my nail from the right pointer finger.

A scream tore through from beside me, “My Eye! This bitch got my eye!” and I could smell and almost taste the metallic tinge of blood getting stronger. Good. They deserved it. Frantic steps came closer to the guy beside me. Forgetting the rope they were tying up, they were busy with him.

“Blimey! Yer whole face is scratched mate, there appears to be a huge ‘ole in yer eye.” Chimed a voice in wonder stepping on my fingers. It took my everything not to scream in agony.

“Touch me and die.”  I know I was lying through my teeth but at this point, I had to. “I’m poisonous”, I snarled in their direction. They were just goons for the mafia, surely they didn’t have enough medical knowledge to take the risk.

“Shut up!” snapped the leader and then with a loud smack I felt intense pain and heat at my neck and was dragged into oblivion.

 ¤━━━¤°¤━━━¤°¤━━━¤°¤━━━¤

 I blinked my eyes open to the glaring light of the Sun and the chirping of birds overhead, then looked around me in awe. I was laid atop tall grass that stretched for miles, tiny green leaves and purple blossoms. Sitting up, I tilted back to lean against the tree and try to understand how I came here to be. Was I dead?

Immediately I looked at my stomach and raised my right hand slowly caressing over the pale pink dress I was wearing. My stomach looked fairly bloated, yet I could sense it wasn't from hunger. My cubs had grown. I could hear their thumping hearts underneath my fingertips and smile contented. They were safe. I was okay. Closing my eyes, I tried listening in on my surroundings, to make sense of where I was. How long was I here for? The air smelled fresh and so much like Yoongi. It calmed and comforted me. The weather was warm like the Sun above and I could faintly hear the trickling of river water in the distance. Something felt oddly nostalgic about it all.

 Just then the wind decides to blow in my direction, bringing with it the scent of hospitals that I had always dreaded. Twitching my nose, I tried scenting the air further. Maybe I was mistaken, but no, the strong scent of chemicals remained thick. A sharp pain in my wrist prompted me to open my eyes and see in wonder how the skies had turned a dark red and black at the edges. As my eyes wandered lower, my heart thumped in horror over how thorny vines were wrapping themselves around my wrists and ankles, rooting me against the tree I was resting on.

The grass that had surrounded me had turned to ashes and black muck, which was now eerily soaking my pink dress into a dark maroon and weighing it down. The grass fields that stretched far and wide until the horizon was replaced by dark murky water and a lone dead tree in the center of it all, holding me hostage through thorny vines atop its overgrown roots. The farther the area was from me, the foggy it was from the fumes the murky water let out. I was sweating in here, it was too hot. Rising up on shaky feet, struggling against the thorny vines holding me back, I stood atop one of the many roots the tree had all around it. This couldn't be real. This had to be a dream. Just had to. The vines got tighter around my wrists as if they didn't want me to escape this place. Drops of blood beaded where the thorns hooked into my skin. Far in the distance, I saw Yoongi walking away from me into the fog. No, he can't leave me, not again! Please come back. You promised me! Yoongi! My screams were muted. No matter how loud I tried, nothing could be heard. The vines held my hands down tighter and jerked me back into the tree. I couldn't move anymore. Tears flowed down my eyes and I closed them in defeat. I was so tired.

 "How's she doing?" A faint voice demanded from somewhere. The sound echoing across the field. I sprung my eyes open looking for the voice, but there was nobody anywhere.

"Not good enough. Her breathing is too slow she might not make it, sir". Another person murmured dismayed. I could picture a frown on their face, though the face looked distorted in my mind. I couldn't place the voice to anyone I knew.

"Then I don't want her. She's of no use to me when half dead. Go sell her somewhere and bring back a good amount." The first person scoffed, their voice sounding bored and unbothered. "My stepbrother owes me that much for all the trouble he put me through."

"Yes, sir."

I tried turning my head around to face the soft voices that filtered through my ears but they wouldn't work anymore the way I needed them to. I was held into place by thorns wrapping over me on my chest and stomach, arms and feet. My body felt so heavy and tired. I just wanted Yoongi to come back to me. Why'd he walk away? From me, from his own pups?

The air was getting colder and colder as if sucking out every last ounce of warmth it could from its surroundings and me. I was shivering, my teeth chattering against each other. Blinking my eyes open once again I was met with a different sight this time. The black boiling water had all but frozen to form a black shiny surface that looked like polished granite.

"This might hurt a bit noona, I'm sorry, the bones need to be reset". A soft voice whispered as if right next to my ears. I jerked my head to the left to see nobody there.

"Who's there? Yoongi!" I screamed and surprisingly my voice worked again.

"Yoongi? Is that your mate?" The voice whispered again astonished. Surprise evident in his voice. "Yes. He is! Please bring him back!" I gasped aloud as the vines started to loosen around my body one by one. The vines slowly curled back and receded into the tree. And then immense pain assaulted my shoulders out of nowhere bringing me to my knees. The pain was too intense and I screamed out loud into the air with tears brimming into my eyes that I tried to blink away.

Panting on all fours, I screwed my eye shut trying to endure the pain and my hand slipped on its hold in the roots and I stumbled forward and fell on the frozen lake. Beneath the surface, I could see a little girl dressed in a white hospital gown rushed down a corridor in a gurney with IV attached at her arm and frothing at her mouth. Eight men surrounded her in dark green clothing and masks on their face and one of them came forward and pushed a bunch of buttons on the touchscreen panel of the robotic hands.

‘Mutated Hybrid 8503- Lilian, will now go under blood replacement treatment’ a mechanical voice echoed from the robot and soon enough all of the men stepped back while the robot started injecting fluids into her stomach making her open her eyes suddenly and scream.

The scene faded away to the girl now inside a glass cage, she didn't look human anymore but had ears and a tail much like mine with one headless teddy bear on her arm and an uneaten bowl of some greenish slush in front of her. She looked lifeless sitting on the floor and staring at the camera at the corner of the room. The scene faded away again into black nothingness. No! Come back! I wanna see. I need to see what happened to her.

Crawling on the surface of the lake, I tried to see if there was more. That girl had the same name as mine and looked so much like me. Was that me? Are those my memories? 

The wind had stilled and the sky had become darker, completely maroon, as if bleeding, even the tree that stood tall and proud in the middle of it all was now dark and bare of any leaves or flowers, its branches filled with thorns instead. 

A crackling noise resounded from behind me and progressed towards me at a fast pace. The ice was cracking and soon I was falling underneath. The water was cold and chilled me to the bone, I was blind again, my headache too much for me to bare. The images of me in various scenes played all around me. The little pieces of lost memories assaulting me all at once, increasing the headache I already had.

I couldn’t hold my breath anymore, my lungs were screaming for me to breathe but I was drowning. Slowly and slowly I was sinking underneath. 

Gasping in a breath, I kept my eyes firmly closed, still scared of my dreams becoming a reality. Now I finally understood how Yoongi felt every time he woke up. The past memories still clear in my head. The transformation, the death of my parents, me being all alone and then Jimin. He was the one who had erased my memories. Well, technically he had only blocked them.

All I could feel now was wet from sweat. I was absolutely drenched to the core and a soft hand was kept firmly over my lips, making me unable to speak or even properly breathe. The air around me was stale and I could hear the faint echoes of voices right outside the room.

"Shh!" came a shaky voice from above me who motioned for me to keep quiet with a finger over his lips. It was then, that I realized with a start that I could see clearly again. If anything, my vision was far sharper than before. 

Nodding my head, I rounded my eyes pointing with my chin for him to take off his hand. As soon as he removed his hand from over my mouth, I smiled happily and took a deep breath, licking my dry, chapped lips and tasted the dry blood over it.

I could finally see! Looking around, the room was huge and in tatters. Probably a hall or basement. It had no windows or stairs, and just one rickety exhaust fan at the end of the room above a half-open door. The walls were peeling and the floor smelled of mothballs. The walls to my right had a column of doors which I assumed was probably wall cupboards. I was tied to a gurney with belts and straps over my stomach hands and feet, slightly elevated to make me half sit facing the only door that faced me.

"How long.." I tried speaking with a scratchy voice only to cough and hack violently. The hybrid lifted my shirt and wiped my mouth with it. Scrunching up his nose in distaste, he gagged turning around into his sleeve.

"You're bleeding. Here" Picking up a glass bottle with a straw he handed a suspicious looking pink liquid to me. Smirking at my narrowed gaze he shook his head. "Strawberry milk with painkillers and antibiotics crushed into it. I sneaked out some for you.” He said, as a matter of fact, his blue eyes shining against the dim light. At my continued narrowed gaze, he relented, “I'll explain things when you're done drinking."

Raking his fingers through his dark brown hair, he groaned aloud and sat on my gurney near my stomach. He had a huge dark brown shell on his back that I hadn’t noticed the first time. So he was a tortoise of sorts. A hybrid that can never hide his true identity. Holding the bottle near my lips once more, he smiled softly.

I was hungry and thirsty. God knew how long I was out for and pregnant. Horrified I looked at my stomach and then at the drink in his hand. Somehow, I knew it won't be poison since they needed me as collateral for gaining an inheritance. So, I was safe from being poisoned. For now. Taking a tentative sip, I enjoyed the flavor on my tongue and swallowed slowly. My throat hurt and I understood why he brought out the straw.

"I'm Robin.” He smiled at me. “Yeah, the irony, I know.” Rolling his eyes, he continued holding my drink so I could drink carefully and slowly. It was delicious despite the faint bitterness from the medicines he’d added to it. “Anyway, you've been here for two days and I've been taking care of you all this time," he said proudly, his muscled chest puffing out. He truly was a tortoise hybrid, wasn't he? Cute, innocent and loyal. Smiling sadly at him, I tried drinking more of the milkshake. It was cold and soothing.

"And um, the moment you came.." he looked grave and troubled. His fingers clutching on to the bed and leaving harsh indents on the surface. "I could smell you were pregnant and took it upon myself to look after you. You wouldn't even wake up!" Licking his lips he looked at my face, scanning for what I didn’t know.

Sighing he then bit the nail of his ring finger. Probably a nervous habit, “I patched up your tail and ears. I tried to, but I’m not exactly a professional so I wouldn’t know”. Raising his head, when he noticed most of the milkshake gone, he jumped down kept the bottle under the bed. Raising up, he smiled sadly and started removing my bindings one after the other.

“I had another hybrid reset your shoulder bone. Try moving your arm and see if its any better.” he asked nervously. Moving my arm in a circular motion, I felt no change except a dull ache in my muscles.

“I guess I’m fine” I replied suspiciously. Why was he being so good to me?

Wait…wasn’t I a prisoner here? Why’d he remove my bindings? Not that I minded one bit, but was he on my side? Could I trust him? "And the second day, I uh...I yeah, um...so like...you know", avoiding eye contact he fumbled with his fingers on my last cuff and screwed his eyes shut once it was removed. Stretching my hands and legs, I felt a rush of blood flow through them. Just how tight had they tied me up?

“It’s okay, just tell me, I won’t be mad.” I smiled at him in encouragement, ruffling his unruly hair for extra measure. Giggling softly, he nodded with unsure eyes.

"I bathed you and, uh... and... um... I saw your scars and um I swear I didn’t mean to, but I had to disinfect and I …” Even his rambling was cute. Just how old was he? He didn’t look older than a mere teenager. Taking a deep breath, he shoved his hand down his left pocket and produced a tiny black mic that I had slipped inside my bra while on the kitchen floor.

“I found this little thing inside your clothes while changing you and I panicked and accidentally turned it on. I'm sorry, I think I broke it. I didn't mean to. I'm sorry." He whispered his apology with a devastated look on his eyes. It had lost its luster and sparkle unlike before. But if that mic gave out any signal, it meant Yoongi must be on his way here now. Was this place even safe enough?

“Robin, just, where are we?” I asked him cautiously and he looked at me wide-eyed as if I’d asked the most obvious question to ever exist. Sighing deeply he shook his head and pointed at the poster I’d had missed before.

"It's the basement to the biggest hybrid underground fight cage of course. We treat passed out hybrids here. It's a makeshift first aid room, in a way." He boasted, proud of the place he was a part of. Though I'd never understood what was there to be proud of. Though the place is a makeshift treatment room made sense with all the weird wall cupboards the hall had. Maybe they were medical supplies.

"You've were brought here by the owner. Actually, you were sold to us to help the fighter hybrids who are too nervous to fight. But then I scented you.” He stared at my neck pointedly as if that answered all my questions.

“Noona, no hybrid likes to mess with mated hybrids, so I am keeping quiet until hyung comes." He mumbled the last part quietly, too quiet for human ears but my hearing was sensitive enough, and I caught what he had said, clearly.

"Hyung?" I inquired, seeing if he gave away any sign of nervousness and hoped it wasn't one of the mafia. He nodded gleefully and held my right hand in both of his, giving it a slight tug.

"You smelled a lot like the hybrid I saw outside Soekjin hyung's office that day. Oh! He is a doctor and I often visit him for things and figured the man who waited outside hyung's office is your mate. Blonde hair, bored look and gummy smile, he is the one, isn't he?" He asked bouncing on the spot as if he had solved the Rubik's cube in just a couple of twists. He had met Yoongi? It did sound like my Yoongi. At my slight nod, he looked pleased, the sparkle returning in his eyes.

“I asked the owner call Soekjin hyung because you wouldn't wake up even after a whole day and that a hybrid specialist was needed, along with a leopard hybrid cause that's what you are. I hope hyung gets the hint and comes for you." He smiled big and looked at me in anticipation. Patting his head, I closed my eyes. If they found the location and my condition, they should be here soon. I just hoped nothing horrible happened meanwhile.

"I've talked long enough, I need to go. Pretend you're still tied up and unconscious. It will help in the rescue process." with a sad smile, he started moving out the door.

"What about you?" I asked in a hushed voice, hoping not to give away that I was awake to the guards stationed outside. He just shook his head and shrugged.

"Soon," just one word and he was gone with a faint scent of Jasmine and rain. I wondered how many more hybrids were locked up here and how we could save them. It wasn't easy, but it had to do. I wonder if Namjoon had something up his sleeve. He did act like he did the last time we met.

Lying down on the gurney, I laid waiting for my mate to come. Then an idea struck me. If this room held medical equipment, surely, I could make a weapon out of something to protect myself. Just in case.

Most of the drawers held bed sheets, plastics, cotton rolls, pillows, blankets and other necessities. The last one, however, had medical supplies. I stocked in some painkillers, anesthetic, syringes and a scalpel. Hopefully, I won’t have to use them and tied them securely inside a gauge and wrapped it around my waist. I left the scalpel outside and hid it inside my breast pocket of the loose striped shirt I was wearing, courtesy of Robin, I assume.

Checking the drawers if they looked untouched enough, I laid back down onto the gurney and closed my eyes, waiting for someone to come into the room. Though the door was open and I could get out anytime, I was outnumbered and didn’t want to risk hurting my abdomen and stressing out the cubs.

Screeching with a shrill howl, the noise hit the metal hallways with a force and echoed until the basement I was in, sending waves to my eardrums at a splitting level. I plug my animal ears with my paws, leaving it slightly parted for caution and wait for the howling to end. Darkness and a pungent scent of dread and fear permeate the air. The humans seem to wait along with me in complete silence. After a minute, the howling dies down and is instantly followed by rapid gunshots and heavy footsteps going all around the rooms above me. The whole building seemed to shake in its foundation. The muted screams for mercy had my blood boiling. How dare they? After all, they had done?

They were soon vanquished by the roar of an animal lost to its primal nature. The gunshots and things hitting the concrete floor hard could be heard all around me. The humans were fighting hard against whatever it was that had come for them, trying their very best to survive. But, all of this would never have even happened if not for their selfish ways. I hear muted footsteps coming my way, cautious and calculated, like a skilled fighter or perhaps an assassin. His scent soon flooded my senses, making me want to rush into his arms, but I kept still, with the scalpel in clutched tightly in my hand, lying on the gurney as I was asked to. Almost as suddenly as the chaos had started upstairs, it had stopped and silence descended the building. Only the echo of a single pair of boots walking down the hallway could be heard.

My head whipped to the door. Slowly, the boots got closer and closer, my breathing picking up with each step that ricochets off the walls. When the boots were right outside the door, the person paused as if listening in for something on the other side. I held my mouth tightly, lest I make a sound and stopped breathing entirely, my body freezing in its position. The scalpel laid forgotten on the bed beside me.

A bloodied hand clutched at the door and slowly pushed it open. I wanted to throw the scalpel beside me at whoever the hand belonged to, only if I could. My body wouldn't move, it was shaking like a leaf, and I felt rooted to the spot in absolute fear of whoever it was that had come. As the door was pushed open, my blood ran cold at the mop of blond hair and spotted ears that emerged from behind it. Yoongi fell on the floor in a heap, breathing heavily, his chest rising and falling at a rapid pace, eyes screwed shut on his hands and knees. With a shuddering breath, he willed his body to turn over and flopped down on the floor like a starfish. It was then that I noticed how his white button-down shirt was soaked in blood but I couldn't see any visible injury on him.

Willing my body to move, I felt frustrated as I couldn’t yet move fast enough to get to him. Though the fear of the unknown had subsided, my reflexes weren’t fast enough. Punching the wall behind me softly, I slumped against the bed in defeat.

"Yoongi!" Gasping out his name, I tried reaching for him. As if his name itself garnered all the energy in the world, I felt myself feel better than and not as dizzy as before. Bracing my weight on my hands, though it hurt a bit, I jumped from my position on the bed and reached for the cupboard again. I had seen an oxygen mask and machine before in there, somewhere. Opening the door to the wall cupboard wide open, I scanned the contents of each shelf and came up with nothing worth helping him.  "Where is it?" I snapped frustrated trying to locate the damned thing. I swear I had seen it earlier in one of the shelves. Damn it! Why can't I seem to find things when needed?

"It's okay, I'm not hurt." He mumbled with a scratchy voice. I knew he was only saying it to calm me down. I knew I had to calm down. But how could I? He was out of breath and....and what if something happens to him because of me? Finally, I found it in the back, shoved behind the cotton rolls and screeched in joy, my tail thumping aggressively at finally being of some use for my mate. He needed me. I could finally do something! Scrambling around with the equipment, I found instructions on how to use it and set up the equipment accordingly then crawled my way towards him on all fours. It was easier to move this way.

I held the mask over his nose and let the machine pump liquid oxygen to it. Breathing deeply, his body went lax and I gently picked his head with one arm and kept it over my lap hoping nobody would come in now. Not until he is okay. The eerie quietness of the whole area was enough to put me at ease. Nobody was here anyway. Inquisitive fingers explored his cuts and bruises along his arms and then trailed lower to find smooth skin along his torso. He had healed, the previous bruises all but are gone, but where was the blood from? Perhaps some of the humans? What happened to the guards? How’d he get here?

Opening his eyes, he gazed at me fondly and lifted his hand to gently cup my face in his Palm. Turning my head sideways, I kissed his wrist and held his hand to my face. I could feel his love for me in his touch. His sincerity, his desperation, his loneliness without me, it was all there in his gaze. Lowering my head, I kissed his temple and brought his hand to my belly. "They're okay. I'm okay." I tried reassuring him. But then his eyes rounded as if he remembered something and sat up straight, almost knocking me over in his haste.

"We need to leave before the police come" he looked into my eyes urgently with a pointed stare that demanded no rebuttal of any kind. Nodding slowly, I saw him as he stood up with a slight limp and dusted himself. He must have hurt himself when he toppled down on the floor back then. I must have been staring too long at him cause next thing I knew, he was smirking at me. Extending his hand, he held mine in a tight grip and squeezed it to offer comfort. "Is it safe out there?" I asked him with caution. Surely something must have happened for him to have so much blood on his shirt. He stopped in his tracks and with his eyes screwed shut, he shook his head no.

"We came in with dart guns and smoke bombs. I held my breath to get to you and the lack of air made me dizzy." Scratching his head he avoided eye contact with me, knowing all too well he would be reprimanded for being so careless. "I'm not too sure if it's safe enough now to not get affected by the smoke. Though the humans should be out cold and be sleeping if they didn't kill off each other already in the panic. But we have to try." He offered a weak smile in apology. Well, there's always more time to reprimand him. I wanted to get out of here first. But, the babies, I couldn't risk exposing them to such chemicals. Holding my belly protectively, I glared at him for even suggesting us to go through those toxic fumes.

"I can't. We can't, Yoongi. The cubs. They won't make it through the toxic fumes." With eyes wide as saucers and mouth hung open, he slammed a fist onto the wall, a couple of flakes falling on the floor from the vibration. "I can't believe it didn't cross my mind. I'm so sorry, Y/N. I just... I wasn't thinking!" Yanking on his hair, he bent over and squatted down. "I'm such a bad father already."

"You're just trying to protect us Yoongi. Don't be so hard on yourself. I just got to tie a piece of cloth on my nose, and I'll be fine." Walking forward, I ruffled his hair, hoping it would comfort him and then softly ran my nails through his hair and his ears, satisfied when I heard him purr softly. Bending down, I kissed atop his head and down his neck, scenting him mine again. Tilting his neck, he held onto my head closer to him and I bit down on my mark that I left on his neck, hearing him groan aloud and pant softly underneath my lips and smiled. Licking the bruise with care, I got up and pulled him along with me.

“Help me find some surgical masks. They should work just fine.” Squeezing his hand, I turned around and moved to the cupboards once again and spotted the cardboard box containing masks kept at the top shelf. Pouting at him, I pointed towards the box. With a smirk, he stood beside me and tiptoed to reach it, yet failed. It was way beyond both of our ability and I giggled at his failure. Scowling at me he lifted me up by the waist and I then pulled the box down and then when he slowly slid my body down, I kissed his nose as an apology.

Apparently, he had other ideas, because soon the nose kiss turned into a passionate kiss, not that I was complaining. Parting away from his lips, I smiled at him giddily. His hair was a mess, face flushed a pretty pink, eyes hooded and lips swollen red, he was all mine and the most beautiful man I’d ever laid eyes on. My mate. Mine.

“Let’s put these on and leave here”

 ¤━━━¤°¤━━━¤°¤━━━¤°¤━━━¤

      Two Years Later

Nothing felt as satisfying as a mother when you get a full night's rest and the kids don't even wake up until well past eight am. I loved my cubs to bits, they were my whole world but waking up to relay crying match among all four of them at the middle of the night was never a good experience. If one started to cry for some reason, everyone cried together like a symphony. Not to mention the many times they had to be changed and fed throughout.

Humming to myself softly along to the soft tunes of the music box Yoongi got us for our first anniversary, I packed their lunch boxes one by one for their first day out with Namjoon and his mate to the Zoo.  They were all so adorable but had quite the different food palette and were notorious when it came to throwing tantrums. Yoongi had spoiled the kids rotten along with Namjoon and Jimin. 

Namjoon and his mate were the most adorable couple I had ever met. They lived far away but visited us whenever they could and loved our kids as if they were their own and the kids loved them just as much. They had helped us settle into this new town which was very much hybrid friendly and comprised mostly of the hybrid population. We had all been through thick and thin together the past two years. My pregnancy, our small wedding, building a home, raising kids and most of all—finding a new career and identity.

We were both getting intensive therapy and counseling and helped out at the daycare center. However, since it was summer vacation, and the weekend at that, the center was closed and we had the whole three days to ourselves as long as Namjoon helped us out.

The cubs were all born a few minutes apart. BaekHyeon, the oldest, was quiet and mature of the bunch, he would always silently observe and learn. It was hard to tell if he was upset, angry or hurt unless paid close attention to. He was a mommy's boy through and through. 

Then there were the rowdy bunch --- Dae-Ho and Dae-Hyun, they loved to eat and sleep as much as their father and would be up to no good if left alone for too long. Preparing food for them was such a task, they would never only eat veggies unless you bribed them with fish or meat. They always stuck together and would get sick or anxious when separated, even for baths.

Lastly, there was Hwa-Young, the most adorable little girl and weakest of the bunch. She was a fragile little thing and had the least of the hybrid features. She was the most human and only had tiny ears, no tail or sharp canines and was always coddled and protected by her three older brothers. They loved her to death and would do anything to keep her smiling. I was so proud of my toddlers, truly, they were the most precious thing a woman could ask for.

I still vividly remember the day the kids were born. It was springtime when most dog hybrids went into heat and the lab was jam packed and busy. I had opted for at home birthing for that exact reason and Seokjin was only too happy to help in the process alongside a panicked Yoongi. It took four hours of torturous labor pains and an hour-long pushing out babies one after the other, but despite the pain and screaming, I was very much happy and ecstatic to have become a mother. 

The moment I touched their tiny fingers and held them to my naked chest, I felt like weeping. And the moment they had snuggled up to me, I had all but vowed to protect them with my life if I had to. Yoongi had at first been skeptical, but the moment he laid eyes on the pink little cubs with their tiny tails wrapped around their waist, he had all but stumbled in and cried like a baby himself. The days since then, he had dedicated most of his waking hours with the kids and even now, I bet he was in the nursery, trying to wake them up and prepare them for the day ahead. Strangely, they were all very friendly and sociable, thanks to all the hybrid friends we have, including Robin. We were like one big family.

Looking at the framed photo of us two smiling big fixed by the fridge with a cute hulk magnet made me remember the day it was taken. I was in a pearl white knee-length gown and Yoongi in a Black suit looking absolutely ecstatic. He had asked me to marry him that day.

He had been a complete wreck all through the day and blamed it on the nagging parents at the daycare job. But I had known better. I could feel his loving stares and watched him fidget around me all day long. Later that evening, he had asked me to wear something nice for he wanted to take me out on a date. Poor sod didn't know that Jimin was really bad at keeping secrets and had unintentionally spilled his guts when he asked me if I wanted to be married or just remain bonded as mates. 

I had dressed in his favorite white dress and paired with the only pair of black heels I owned and a simple pearl necklace that Namjoon had gifted me on my birthday last year. It had been exactly eleven months since the kids were born, the night when he took me to eat pizza since they were my absolute favourite and then while stealing the last piece, he had blurted out, “Will you marry me?” and looked absolutely shocked and mortified that he had spoken out loud instead of just practicing in his mind. 

We later found out that Jimin had helped him choose the simple rose gold infinity ring and had also been following us all night and secretly taking pictures when he finally revealed every picture he had collected of us as he gave his speech on our wedding two months later. He was quite the cunning and smart guy, I had to give him that. Namjoon had replaced the role of my father and gave me away to Yoongi. He still plays the role of our father really well, after all, the cubs dote on him as if he were a grandparent, though he and I were the exact same age.

 "Any more berries and Hwa-Young would surely get a stomach ache." Whispered Yoongi by my ear, nipping it and then sucking on the lobe. Startled at the cold arms sliding around my waist, I shook my head and leaned into his warm embrace. Picking up the extra berries I had packed accidentally into her lunchbox, I closed the lid and stacked it on top of the other three. 

Turning around in his embrace, I tiptoed and kissed him ardently. It had been a while, precisely a whole month. His lips were just as soft and pillowy as ever and he tasted like mint from our toothpaste. We weren't rushed, it was slow, steady, careful little Pecks and licks and then it progressed to soft bites and nips. His hands wandered all over my body, lifting my shirt up halfway and palming over my breasts. Panting into his mouth, I detached from his sinful lips, mirroring the same desire reflected in his eyes.

 "I missed this," trailing my hand across his abdomen, I palmed him over his shorts and felt him grow stiff in my hand. "Need you now," growling, he hoisted me up in one fell swoop and softly helped me lean against the wall, nosing around my neck and scent glands his grip over my thighs tightening.

I felt heat flash over my skin, and I could practically feel the warmth of his palms seeping into my skin, his breath raising goosebumps in its wake and I felt myself get wetter by second. Kissing my neck, his deft fingers slowly worked my core over my panties. "You're so wet for me", groaning out loud, I held onto his hair as he slid my panties aside and slipped two of his fingers in.

"Only for you", I panted into his mouth as he started scissoring his fingers, his stare never leaving my face, he opened me up slowly and then twisted his fingers in a way that hit the one spot that had me straightening up in his hold and shuddering from intense pleasure. "That's it baby, come for me"

His pace went faster and more brutal like it was him who was chasing an orgasm and not me. With every thrust of his fingers, he touched that one spot that had me keening. Moaning his name in earnest, I clutched onto his hair and let his sinful mouth cover my moans of ecstasy as I came undone on his fingers. Slumping over his shoulders, I panted heavily, chest heaving from exhaustion but I wasn’t done with him yet. I needed more even after coming down from a high I hadn't experienced in weeks. "You're the most beautiful when you come for me like that." He rasped into my neck, licking a stripe from the base till my ear.

"Please, Yoongi, I need you now," I moaned by his ear, knowing it would get him riled up and was glad when he hurried to push his shorts past his knees and slid my panties aside. Adjusting my height and grip on him, I held onto his muscular shoulders for support as he slowly slid inside, inch by delicious inch. It felt so good, the slight burn of the intrusion felt incredible after a month-long dry spell.

I knotted my hand into his hair and tugged it to get him moving. He just smirked and bit my shoulder instead. He just felt so incredible and good inside me, but it wasn’t nearly enough, I  needed him to move. I could feel my slick sliding in between our thighs and it turned me on further.

"Yo-oongi"

"So amazing", he breathed out, "Fuck, I missed being inside you. You're just so...so perfect. I still can't believe you're all mine, Y/N.” he spoke in a rough whisper looking down where we were connected. The veins on his neck were straining and prominent and I licked it and sucked a pretty peach bloom onto it. God, he looked so good all marked up mine.

“No, you're all mine, Mrs. Min" he growled while looking into my eyes and pulled back his hips until only his tip remained, then slammed back in. "All mine." His hair was unruly from my hands, sweat glistening along his face and neck which were now deeply flushed and chest heaving from how fast he was moving inside me. With every move, I was lurched forward and down, like in a boat, just faster. His muscles were wound tight under my palms as they rested on his biceps. I couldn't hold back anymore from all the sensation and closed my eyes shut, moaning at how good he made me feel.

"Do-don't clench on me like that." He stuttered out into my chest. "Need to come with you." Pushing his chest onto mine, he forced us both into the wall and sped up, his thrusts more brutal than before. Sliding a hand down between us, he rubbed on my clit, making me screech from overstimulation. "Shit, sorry." and slowed down a bit. The pressure in my stomach was building, slowly but steadily. The grip on my thigh he had was bruising, but I didn’t mind it one bit. It felt so good. He must have felt me getting close, for then he slid me lower and bit on my mark he had over my neck. Everything around me turned blurry and I could feel myself let go, my body shaking with how intense the orgasm was this time.

And then I felt him still inside me and come undone with a shout soon after he thrusted a couple more times and pulled out with a stuttering breath. Sliding down from his arms, we fell into a heap, all arms and limbs tangled on the floor, giggling like teenagers. "That was amazing, Yoongi", I smiled up at him and combed through his unruly hair with my fingertips. "I think we should shower now and check on the kids. It's almost time for their day out."

Just then a shrill cry could be heard from upstairs followed by three other groans.

“That’s our Hwa-Young, she inherited the awesome screech from you, baby.”

“You sure it's not the same sound you make when you get excited?” 

“Shut up, Mrs. Min” 

Chapter 1 Chapter 2  Chapter 3  Chapter 4