#its a temporary memory loss but ya know

[skebbles]

Doodles for chapter 2!

[steddiehyperfixation]

don't you forget about me (part two)

(part one)

Steve doesn’t know how long they sit there in silence, waiting. It’s making him insane. The seconds pass too slow; the seconds pass too fast. His mind is a storm; his mind is empty. He’s feeling too much; he’s not feeling at all. He paces the room; he sits catatonically against a wall. He needs to get out of here; he needs to stay. 

He’s been here before, just barely over a week ago, tense and anxious and despairing and waiting for news. But waiting to hear if Eddie will ever remember him again really should not feel this much worse than waiting to hear if Eddie will ever fucking breathe again. Steve thinks there must be something wrong with him. He’s being selfish and stupid. His pathological fucking need to be loved is not what’s important right now. Eddie is alive and awake and okay and that’s the only thing that really matters. That’s the only thing he should really care about.

Steve’s pacing again now, yanking his hands through his hair as he does laps around the room until Eddie finally appears in the doorway. 

Eddie must’ve just cracked a joke or something because the nurse is laughing as she pushes his bed into the room and he’s got this adorable grin on his face. Steve’s heart twists in his chest and he nearly bursts into tears all over again because god does he want nothing more than to press a kiss to those dimpled cheeks. 

“Good news, boys,” Eddie announces. “My brain is fully intact.”

“There’s no physical permanent damage to his brain,” the nurse elaborates. “His amnesia is likely a result of psychological trauma and the temporary disruption of brain function from blood loss and lack of oxygen that occurred at the time of his injury. But there is no obvious reason why he shouldn’t regain his full memory, given time.” 

So there’s hope. Steve breathes a sigh of relief. 

“That is good news,” Wayne agrees. 

Steve asks, “How much time?” 

The nurse gives an unhelpful shrug. “Impossible to say. It could be anywhere from days to months, or even years. I’m sorry, there’s no way for us to know.” 

Years. “Okay.” Steve pinches the bridge of his nose. He can keep it together. He can. “Thanks,” he tells the nurse. “I, uh-” He makes the mistake of looking at Eddie who looks right through him, and Steve can’t keep it together anymore actually. “I gotta update the kids,” he mutters, backing his way towards the door. Wayne nods in acknowledgment; no protests this time at Steve’s excuse to leave.

“See ya, Harrington,” Eddie calls after him, casual, impersonal, like they're nothing more than acquaintances passing by each other in a high school hallway.  

Steve can’t get out of that hospital fast enough. 

He makes it to his car in record time, slamming the door shut and sinking heavily into the driver’s seat. A ragged sob tries to claw its way up his throat now that he’s finally alone, but he forces it back, staving off his breakdown for just a little bit longer. As much as it was an excuse, he really does have to update the kids. 

Steve fishes his walkie out of the glove box. “Code - whatever, I don’t know. Code Eddie,” he says. He doesn’t remember the kids’ system of codes, nor would he be sure which one this news falls under even if he did. 

“Is he okay? Is he awake?” comes an immediate, eager response from Dustin. “Over.” 

“Yeah, he’s awake, and he’s fine, except he’s got pretty bad amnesia. The doctors say it should be temporary, but right now he doesn’t remember anything since May of ‘85,” Steve explains, trying his best to keep his voice even.

“Steve, come pick me up and take me to see him,” Dustin demands, “right now. Over.” 

“Me too. Over,” Mike chimes in before Steve can respond. 

“And us,” Erica adds as well. 

Steve pauses for a second, both to steady his own breath and to make sure no one else wants to jump in on this too, before he reminds them, “He won’t know you, any of you.” 

“I don’t care,” Dustin says, bossy as ever. “Just come get me. Over.” 

“Jesus Christ, kid,” Steve mutters to himself. He sucks in another breath; it wobbles dangerously. He’s just about reached his limit on how long he can keep himself from falling apart. “I- I need a minute, alright?” he manages through the walkie. “Can you just give me, like, an hour? And then I’ll take you guys to visit Eddie.” 

Steve doesn’t wait for a response before he slams the antenna closed, tosses the walkie aside, and finally, finally lets himself shatter. That sob rips free from his throat, followed by another and another and another. Tears flood from his eyes; his nose runs. It’s an ugly, gross, visceral cry that leaves him exhausted and raw and aching to be held by the time the last sob shudders out of him. Drained and hollow, he craves the embrace of someone who knows him, someone who loves him. 

He sweeps up his broken pieces, wipes the mess of tears and snot off his face, and drives to Robin’s house.

“Steve, oh my god.” Robin pulls him into a hug the second she opens the door and sees the look on his face. Steve clings to her. “What happened?” 

“Eddie’s awake,” he mutters dismally. 

“Oh! Not the tone I’d expect you to deliver that news in, but okay.” Robin pulls back, looking at him with narrow-eyed concern and confusion as she analyzes his puffy eyes and red nose and swollen lips. “And you look like you’ve just been crying because…?”

“Because he doesn’t remember me, Rob,” Steve sighs. “He doesn’t remember anything from the past 11 months.” 

Robin’s eyes go wide now. “Shit,” she says, so plainly it startles a short laugh out of Steve. 

“Yeah,” he agrees. “Shit.” 

She asks him more questions as she walks down the hallway so they can talk in her room. Steve once again reiterates what was said at the hospital. 

“So you didn’t tell him you two were a thing?” Robin asks, closing her door behind them. 

“Of course I didn’t.” Steve flops back onto her bed. “I didn’t want to spook him.” 

She sits beside him. “You didn’t want to spook him,” she repeats, looking down at him with raised eyebrows, “but you told him about Vecna.” 

“Well, yeah. I just-” He lifts his arms to gesture vaguely into the air as he tries to explain himself. “I mean, imagine how you would feel if you woke up in a hospital and some random guy you’ve spoken to maybe twice was by your bedside telling you you’ve been in a relationship with him for the past 9 months.” 

“Uh, I don’t know, dingus, probably about the same as I’d feel if said guy told me I’d nearly died fighting some evil twisted creature from a hell dimension,” Robin retorts.

Steve drops his hands onto his chest with a huff, shaking his head. “No, trust me. He seemed far less surprised by that than he did to hear that we were even just friends,” he says, a bit bitterly. Tears are pricking at his eyes again as he looks up at his best friend. “You didn’t see the way he looked at me, Robin. All he saw was King Steve.”

Robin softens, snark replaced with sympathy. “That sucks, Steve. I’m so sorry.” 

Steve sighs in agreement that yes this really fucking sucks. He sits up and scoots back so that he’s slumped against the wall, hitting the back of his head against it. “I think I’m a horrible person,” he admits, just venting now, “because of course I’m glad Eddie’s alive and all I really want is for him to be okay, and I know the nurse said he should remember eventually, but there’s still some sick part of me that thinks maybe it would’ve hurt less if he had just died.”

“I don’t think that makes you a horrible person,” Robin assures him as she settles next to him, shoulder to shoulder. “I think you’re just grieving, and grief is weird sometimes.”

“It was one of the worst things I’ve ever felt,” he mutters, “when he looked at me without recognition. To see it on his face, just the- the absence of everything that we’d built. I’ve never felt so- so- I don’t know, it was like I couldn’t breathe. He just- he doesn’t know that I love him. He…he doesn’t know that he loved me...” 

Because that’s what it is, isn’t it? It’s not that he’s lost someone that he loves, it’s that he’s lost someone who loves him. Because Eddie’s not gone, just his love for Steve is, and that’s what’s tearing him apart. It’s the fact that there’s one less person in the world who loves him. It’s the fact that Steve’s got this big gaping hole inside of him that’s always made him so desperate to be loved, liked, wanted, needed; and his biggest fucking fear is becoming obsolete. He could probably trace it back to his parents, the first to forget him, the first to stop loving him, but the fact remains that now Eddie has fulfilled that fear too. Now Eddie has carved that pit a little deeper, a little darker, validating the voice that whispers within it and tells Steve that he is forgettable, unlovable, so easy to abandon and erase. 

“Well, I love you,” Robin tells him, like she can read his mind (which, at this point, she probably can). She slides an arm around his shoulders, hugs him close. “And I’m not going anywhere.” 

Fragile as he is right now, Steve falls apart again in her arms, and she holds him together. Because she knows him, because she loves him.

It’s a quieter cry this time, soft and sniffly. Whereas the last one wracked through his body and left him fatigued, this one flows from him almost gently, and when his tears finally subside and he lifts his head from where it had been buried in his friend’s shoulder, Steve actually feels a little bit better, a little bit stronger. Which is good, because he’s gonna have to face Eddie again soon. 

“Thank you,” he says quietly as he pulls away from Robin, wiping at his eyes and glancing at the clock on her nightstand. It’s definitely been an hour by now, probably more. He stands. “I have to go, I promised the kids I’d take them to see Eddie.” 

“Then I’m coming too.” Robin stands with him. “For moral support.” 

Steve gives her a grateful smile. “I love you so fucking much, you know that?” 

“Yeah.” She grins at him. “I know.” 

~ 

The nurses have changed his bandages and upped his morphine, so Eddie’s considerably hazy now but at least he can raise his headrest and prop himself up a bit without nearly blacking out from pain. He’s boredly flicking through channels on the shitty TV in front of him, alone since Wayne had to leave for work, when Harrington returns followed by a very unexpected group consisting of Robin Buckley and four strange children. 

“Sorry,” Harrington announces their presence with an apologetic shrug, “I know you don’t know them anymore, but they insisted.” 

“Eddie!” a pudgy, curly-haired kid shouts before Eddie can even react, coming barrelling towards him and trying to hug him. 

“Ow!” Eddie yelps, pain flaring even through the extra morphine. “Fucking Christ, kid! Be careful!” 

The kid jumps back immediately, eyes wide. “Shit. Sorry.” 

“S’fine,” Eddie grumbles.

The kid looks at him expectantly for a moment before seeming to realize, “Oh, right, you don’t remember me. I’m Dustin.” 

“Ah, so you’re the guy I sacrificed myself for,” Eddie mutters, and Dustin looks a little sheepish. That means these must be ‘the kids’ Harrington had been talking about earlier. He surveys the group for a second. “Actually, I think we have met before,” he tells Dustin. “And you too.” He glances at a pale, dark-haired kid. The other two - a Black boy with a flat-top and a younger Black girl - look less familiar, though. “There was this, uh, open day thing at the high school for next year’s incoming freshmen; I talked to you about Hellfire.”

“Yeah!” Dustin’s whole face lights up, so bright and infectious it makes Eddie grin too. “Yeah, you did!” 

“So you guys joined the club, then?” 

This sparks a very animated conversation about D&D, the rest of the kids (Mike, Lucas, and Erica, as they soon reintroduce themselves) gathering around his bed now too to join in. It makes him feel a bit more like himself again, familiar, normal. Except, of course, for the fact that they’re not only talking about how they defeated Vecna in Eddie’s “totally epic” and “sadistic” campaign (adjectives courtesy of Dustin and Mike respectively), but also filling in more pieces of the story of how they defeated him in real life too. Still, it’s nice, fun. He totally understands how he could’ve gotten attached to these kids.

At some point, Eddie glances over to find Harrington hanging back and just watching them talk, fondly, wistfully. Robin whispers something to him and he sort of smiles, just a trace, and whispers something back. They seem close, intimate. Eddie wonders if they’re dating, and then he wonders why that thought makes him feel a bit sick. He waves them over. Harrington looks like he’s about to protest, but Robin gives him a Look and he allows her to grab his hand and drag him to join the crowd around Eddie’s bed. 

“So, what’s your deal, Buckley?” Eddie asks her. He doesn’t know her very well, they’ve only crossed paths a few times in the bandroom, but right now that makes her the most familiar person in the room to him. “Are you and Harrington a thing now? Is that how you’re involved in all this?” 

Robin wrinkles her nose and drops Harrington’s hand. “Ew, no. Definitely not.” 

“She’s my best friend,” Harrington says. 

Eddie snorts, doesn’t know why he finds that so comical. (He’s starting to get tired and it’s making him loopy. Or maybe it’s just the morphine.) “You've got a funny choice of friends nowadays, don’t you? Me and band geek Buckley and a bunch of nerdy freshmen.” He looks at Harrington with incredulous amusement. “Who would've thought, huh? Steve Harrington, collector of geeks and freaks.” 

Harrington doesn’t seem to find it as funny. He shrugs. “Yeah, well, it’s better than King Steve, collector of asshole bullies and shallow one-night stands.” 

“Yeah, ‘course it is,” Eddie agrees through another huff of laughter that breaks off into a yawn. “Didn’t mean it as a bad thing, Stevie. Was a compliment.” 

“Alright.” The barest hint of a smile flickers across Harrington’s face now, but then he’s looking away and corralling the kids and saying, “We should head out, let you get some rest.” 

And Eddie kind of wishes he’d stay.

(part three!)

taglist: @romanticdestruction @daydreamsandcrashingwaves @paintsplatteredandimperfect @hallucinatedjosten @mugloversonly @estrellami-1 @alongcomesaspider @thatonebadideapanda @tell-me-a-secret-a-nice-one @dragonmama76 @wxrmland @nuggies4life @sirsnacksalot @myguiltyartpleasure @marklee-blackmore @vinteraltus @sebastiansstanswhore @0happyeverafter0 @scarlet-malfoy (only tagged people who explicitly asked to be tagged; if you would like to be added or removed from this list please lmk!)

[theultimatekamehamehavoc]

was wondering if u had any thoughts about how byakuya, kyoko n makoto feel abt their talents or titles? just asking cuz lot of thh characters have interesting dynamics w their ultimates, like leon loving/hating baseball or even makoto feeling left out from all other ultimates because he was only "lucky." things change as makoto changes + he gains the unofficial title of ult hope and stuff, and kyoko canonically forgot about her talent until its revealed at the end (tho considering how much she investigates, she probably had a suspicion), but maybe you have some other ideas expanding on this?

sorry for the kinda vague question, your art is amazing btw

Alrighty then! I can work with this and I shall try my best to answer this! It's not to vague anyway and there's some interesting though experiments and discussions to be had here! Don't sweat it! Also thanks for the art compliment! Didn't know where to put this but I felt I shouldn't just not acknowledge it!! That might be rude! Here ya go though! Makoto: He feels both out of place due to his talent being just "the ultimate lucky student". He gets it to some extent though sometimes, he doesn't feel very lucky. When he becomes The Ultimate Hope, there's a still a bit of that feeling there. Mostly due to the fact that, he hasn't had this title for long. Just a moment ago, he still believed he was just some average joe. And now, he's impacting people's lives to THIS extent. It kinda puts him in a weird situation where Makoto gets where people are coming from but also has a bit of that self-doubt left inside of him. He's made himself believe that he's so average that it takes him a while to fully realize his strengths besides his optimism. Kyoko: Kyoko's identity is intrinsically linked to her Ultimate. Thus, even though she was relatively functional during her memory loss, it sitll hit her. It was if something was... missing. She couldn't pin point what but she had an inkling that something was off about her. Kyoko couldn't even give out info of her past to Makoto if she wanted to due to how bad her memory loss is. Once she finally recovers it, I can see her outlook on her talent being relatively the same but with some differences. One factor is that her regaining her memories wasn't clean and she may still have some fogginess in there. One cannot expect one's memory to just return to the way it was after what she went through anyway! Junko didn't hold back on her due to Kyoko being a detective and the headmaster's daughter. So, she might feel lost about her identity in some way due to the impact of the temporary memory erasure she got. Byakuya: Like Kyoko, Byakuya's identity is highly linked to his talent and world view. He distrusts others due to this and, because of his ties to his talent, in chapter 4, his whole worldview was put into question. This then led him freaking out during the trial, being defensive, and being forced to learn empathy. Though he ends up flipping back into his own level of normalcy, that revelation remains. The heir just ends up hiding it much better as to not have a freak out like he did before during that trial. That's short lived though since Junko ends up revealing that all the Togami's are dead which hits him hard once more. His legacy is almost gone. The great family name of the Togami's have fallen. And, sure. He's gonna rebuild it all. Kinda like with Kyoko's case though, it still leaves an impact. Byakuya heavily uses his last name as a crutch, showing it as a status of power. It's all he really knows. And, sure. He might not have had that close of a relationship with the majority of his family. It still stung though. It made him question even more on how great he really was. Yeah, Junko was diabolical and cunning. He still thinks of what could have been done to prevent all of this though and dwells. Also, the Ultimate title prob influences their outward appearance too. Though that isn't too crazy of a claim. But, maybe Makoto wears his get up both to subconsciously not seem bigger than he is but also to try and look a bit more presentable. Also it's trendy and he's a trend follower. It's probably comfy too. For Kyoko, the gloves are a key part of her backstory so there's that. She might also have that jacket or something cus it helps her keep a lot of notes in it. I dunno! Maybe it's got a ton of inner pockets to compensate for her skirt being pocketless. Also, for Byakuya, he's rich and all. Thus, it's all probably Togami branded and way too much money. I find it funny though that, he's the richest in the class but is the easiest to cosplay! Okay. May have rambled a bit at the end there! Hope this was good and made some sense though!!

[dateamonster]

i, for one, would love to hear your deep read of zombieland saga *eyes emoji*

ok i just got through lowkey ranting about zls (mostly abt how much i love junko this season) to my friend so i think im sufficiently warmed up to make a first class fool of myself on the internet by becoming another Guy Who Get s Heated About Anime

so i’ve been thinking abt this a lot since zls revenge came out- and just in general but i mean given this season is literally called Revenge it now feels especially relevant to talk about zls as a story about second chances and seeking personal growth after hitting absolute rock bottom. like in this case that rock bottom is obviously death, the greatest low you can achieve, but its also not just that i dont think. bear with me.

the zombie angle is obvi crucial to the show like its the hook its twist its the instigator for a lot of the wacky situations and hijinks and such but its also? not super necessary sometimes? or at least it feels that way. what i mean is the show is so much about the characters and their personal arcs in a way that i find so human and relatable that i sometimes legit forget this is a show about zombie pop idols

even the overarching goal that drives the plot forward of “saving saga” (though i feel like we still dont know everything there is to know abt that) has to do with this theme of second chances. its a story about comebacks, about trying to breathe life into something that seems dead. thats maybe sort of obvious, but its been hitting me how much that like core thesis informs the characters and makes their own resurrections feel.. more personal ya know?

sakura loses her shot at her dream in a split second accident and for a while isnt even able to process that because of her lost memories, while ai was at the top of her game when she died and now has to watch her former friends and fans move on without her, and lily was a child star who was literally killed by her commitment to making other people happy, only finding her love of performing again after her death. franchouchou and the mission to save saga was the reason all the girls were brought back from the dead, but it also becomes their second chances in that it gives them a reason to keep trying in the face of loss after loss.

its a funny cute show but its also got some pretty grim stuff baked right into the foundation and i think the reason it works and doesnt feel super tonally dissonant is because its so consistently heartfelt. its so easy to get sick of shows with “never give up!” type messages when it feels like the characters triumphs are assured and their struggles only ever temporary, but it never really feels that certain for franchouchou, and the losses they face send ripples of fear and doubt through its members that come back into play the next time the group is put to the test. junko doesnt lose all her anxieties after one successful show, and the way saki, who prides herself in her sense of strength and rebellious nature, struggles to contend with change and situations outside her control still feels as real every time because imo theres an understanding that that stuff leaves lasting marks, even to the resurrected, even to a zombie.

not to go even more off the rails than i already have, but i think its really interesting the many different ways zombies as a type of monster are portrayed and the way zls relates to that. the common thread as i see it, if such a thing can rly exist, is this fear of decay. not even necessarily death itself but degradation, deterioration, the processes through which every person is stripped of what makes them themselves, reduced to a husk with only the most base instincts still intact, moving around and affecting some pale imitation of life but completely empty inside.

zls as a zombie story is interesting to me because while i think those sort of fears are still present (the scene recently where saki fully realizes she’ll never get to grow up still strikes me as incredibly dark for the episode it was in, though im not saying thats a bad thing) zls supposes that a person can indeed overcome that state of decay.

it doesnt treat the idea lightly; positive change is HARD and a thousand times more so for these characters who have already reached what should have been their lives natural conclusion. the sorta thesis i feel like zls and particularly revenge are presenting is that personal growth is a constant battle against the path of least resistance, the predisposition towards stagnation or defeatism that occurs after a traumatic loss. it’s not enough to be handed a second chance, you’re still just another mindless zombie until you decide to try and be more, and even then you have to keep making that choice every day that youre alive.

so yea hopefully this doesnt all read as some totally insane Reach but like once again, it may not necessarily be that deep, but it COULD be. and thats whats important to me <3

[bunnys-beetlejuice-blog]

some kind of attention grabbing noise to clue you into the fact that its FIC TIME, BABES! again, mentions of self harm in this chapter, be cautious and take care of yourselves lost? confused? frightened? worry not. start here, for delicious tasty context

His home is broken. When he’d arrived at the Tudor, floating up the steps, he’d almost felt a sense of relief. No matter how bad everything is, at least he can see his dad and sister now. Even if they can’t see him, he can find a way to make them say his name, and maybe his presence will only be a band aid on a mortal wound, but they’ll at least all be bleeding out together.

But he doesn’t recognize the people in this house. They call themselves Lydia and Charles, and their voices sound the same, and they mostly look the same, but these can’t be his breathers, his family, because they hardly seem to count as one. Lydia’s only sixteen, but she looks older, sadder, the dark makeup and short dark hair a shock, when he’s only known her as fresh faced and long haired and blonde. And his Lydia used to smile, she used to tell jokes, she used to have life behind her eyes. This Lydia is functionally dead. She walks around, eyes half hidden behind hair and eyeliner, and sits quietly, hardly eats, picks at her food like she’s already accepted starvation as a viable escape method. Charles is just as bad. His father reeks of alcohol, a scent BJ can’t stand, and the gray at his temples is more pronounced than he remembers.

But worst of all, is how neither of them talk about anything that matters. He sits in his chair, at dinner, listens to Charles berate Lydia over some stupid school thing. “Mom always said high school was temporary. Ya know, unimportant,” he grates out, like he’s a part of the conversation, but no one turns to look at him. Lydia pushes her food around her plate, hardly reacts to the scolding, and that’s dinner. Two dead people, playing at being alive, neither doing an especially good job.

He goes before them, up the stairs, leaving a cold air behind himself, and he finds that he’s able to manipulate his bedroom door, though not by much, and it’s exhausting to do so. It opens only a fraction, but that must be enough to get Lydia’s attention, because she enters, pokes around, and even asks Charles about it. But he can see from the look in both their eyes, that this evidence of his existence isn’t enough. Lydia lays on his bed, in the dark, and cries for their mother, and he would give anything to cry with her. As it is, he hugs his knees to his chest, in the dark, and sits there, shaking and overwhelmed, as he listens to his baby sister softly sob herself to sleep.

He becomes well acquainted with their new bad habits fairly quickly. Charles is drinking himself into a stupor, every night, falling asleep at his desk, barely making it to work in the mornings, sometimes not changing out of his suit for a number of days, only applying cologne as needed, too busy in the bottle to take care of himself properly. That’s bad enough, but the first time he sees what Lydia does, now, it scares him so badly it’s hard to even think. She digs a shard of glass into her forearm, and it at least seems she’s not cutting to kill, but both siblings watch the red prick along the new wound in silence, until he speaks. “Mom wouldn’t like that,” he tells her, not that it matters. “You shouldn’t be doin’ that, Lyds. What if it gets infected? What if you get seriously hurt? Th’ blood’s supposed to be on th’ inside, kiddo,” he babbles, pointlessly, as she cuts deeper, sinks that glass further into her skin, and sits there, watching it, passively. Like it’s not happening to her. Like she’s watching something on a screen. Like she couldn’t care less that she’s hurting herself. “Dead Mom,” she addresses her empty room, as she often does. “If you can see this, you’re probably freaking out. This is coping. I’m coping.” She lies to the air in front of her. “You’re not,” he croaks out. “This isn’t healthy, Lyds, please..”

It’s a nightly ritual for her, at this point. She listens to music, looks through photos, and maims herself, and all he can do is watch her, trying to make sure she doesn’t do anything stupid, or stupider. A week into silently stalking his own family, and he’s still not any closer to being seen, or figuring out how to make them say his name. It’s torture. He follows the two of them around the house, plays at being their shadows, and trails them places, work, school, the grocery store, wherever. It doesn’t matter. He might as well not exist.

Actually, not existing is already starting to sound pretty good.

Lydia stands up from her bed, still bleeding, and the motion of that breaks his thoughts. She crouches low, retrieves a photo album from under her bed that he didn’t know had been there. She flips through it, and has to sit down, after only a second.

“That th’ blood loss catchin’ up to you?” he snarks, before glancing over at her, and his eyes widen. She’s staring at a photo of him. Several photos of him, actually, and she flips through the album, pages and pages of him. He studies her expression, as she lands on a picture that he recognizes. The two of them, coming back from that disastrous visit to the Smallpox Hospital, on the lift, over the water. She’s nine, and adorable, and he’s sixteen and grubby, but infatuated with the two who had been sitting across from them. Adam had taken Lydia’s instamatic, and snapped the picture of the siblings, making faces, the skyline behind them.

“You remember that day, Lyds?” he tries, as he watches her brow furrow. She sighs, like she’s disappointed in herself, and closes the album, and it’s deposited back under her bed. “Mama, some of these pictures, they make my head hurt, more than my heart,” she says, softly, which he understands. She can’t remember him, all the memories she has of him are locked behind whatever mental wall this curse has created, and trying does nothing but confuse her. Maybe she can’t even see his face, in the pictures. Maybe it’s a blur, out of focus, like the moment you wake up, and have yet to rub the sleep from your eyes. That’s all he is, now, just a dream she can’t remember upon her return to the waking world.

He can open and close doors, but only barely, and it takes the energy out of him. He finds that any fire he lights still affects the world of the living, but when he tries to spell his name out in flames on the walls, all he manages to do is scare Charles into calling an electrician, about a possible electrical issue causing fires. He hadn’t even been able to spell out a “B” because somehow, this stupid curse can tell his intentions, and he hadn’t been able to physically move his arm, to form the letters he needed.

A month into living in hell, he’s finding himself feeling more and more like he’s losing his mind. He knows humans can be driven mad by isolation, but he’d never thought of what the effects on himself would be, especially since it’s not true isolation. He can go into a crowd, surround himself with people. It just doesn't matter, which is what’s making him feel so unhinged, and more than once, he throws himself into a crowd of people, and screams and kicks and thrashes, begging them to see him. All he succeeds in doing is giving a group of New Yorkers a slight chill.

But the thing that makes him the angriest is the day he finds a red headed stranger in their house. He and Lydia come in together, her just returning from a day at school, and him returning from a day of tagging along behind her, and the siblings both stop, and cock their heads at the same time, the same direction, at the sight of the strange woman standing in the foyer. Her red hair is piled in sort of a silly looking bun on top of her head, and she’s got some very intense bangs, hiding her forehead. She’s also wearing almost exclusively purple. She's scrunching her nose, examining one of Emily’s framed prints, the one of Saturn Devouring His Son, looking a bit disgusted.

“Who th’ hell is that?” he asks Lydia, and Lydia addresses the woman. “Who the hell are you?”

The woman turns to face them, and then smiles. “Oh, hello there!” she says, like they're strangers, and she’s welcoming them into her home. She lifts her hands, and rings a triangle Betelgeuse hadn’t realized she’d been holding. “You’re bringing a very interesting energy into this house, Lydia,” the stranger smiles, like that’s the only facial expression she’s got. “You don’t say. I’m about to bring the energy of a bunch of cops here, too,” the teen threatens, staring at the woman, who places a hand over her chest. “My name is Delia,” she says, finally. “Your dad has hired me to be your life coach! He says you’ve been feeling down in the dumps, lately,” she gives an over exaggerated sad face. “But I know with a little positive thinking, me and you can turn that sad aura into a bubbling rainbow one!”

“Oh my god, you should bite her,” Betelgeuse says, instantly. “You up to date on your rabies shot?” Lydia asks. “Positivity makes me foam at the mouth. I wouldn’t get too close.”

Delia cocks an eyebrow, but does move, and allows the teen to move past her, up the stairs. “I’m just here to help you gain a new perspective, Lydia~!” she calls from behind her, as Lydia storms up to her room, and she slams the door behind herself. “Unbelievable,” she growls, throwing her bag on her bed, and he echoes her. “Un-fuckin'-believable!” he agrees, pacing around her room. “What th’ hell is a life coach, even?”

Lydia kicks at her wall, her big black combat boot leaving a mark on the red paint. “I’m the one who needs help? He can’t even say her name, and I’m the one who needs the hippie to come in, and try and change my perspective? A change of perspective doesn’t bring MOM BACK!” She ends her sentence in a scream, her face going red, and then she picks up her bag, and throws it at her bedroom door. The bang it makes isn’t satisfying enough, and she whirls around her room, looking for anything else she can throw around, and destroy. He settles on her bed, and watches, forced to be passive by the curse, as Lydia storms around her room, until finally, Charles throws open her bedroom door.

“You are being ridiculous,” he hisses at her, his grip on her door knob white knuckled.

“Get out! Get the hell out and leave me alone, and take that bitch downstairs with you!” Lydia screams, a hair’s breadth away from throwing a potted plant at him. “Scream and throw fits all you want, little girl. You can’t temper tantrum your way out of Delia being here. She’s going to help you.” She lobs the plant at him, and it barely goes sailing by their father’s head. Betelgeuse watches go over the railing, and then there’s the sound of it shattering on the entrance floor, followed by Delia’s surprised, “Oh!” Charles’ expression is deadly. “You can stay in here until you’ve calmed down,” is all he says, before slamming her door, and Lydia stands there, breathing heavily. “You learned how to throw those epic tantrums from me,” Betelgeuse tells her, as she flops on her bed, and screams into a pillow. read the rest right over HERE

[ly-canthropewrites]

Love or War

Pairing: Daryl Dixon x Reader

Word Count: 2998

Rating/Warnings: SFW. Brief mentions of previous season drama.

Summary: “I saw you staring at each other, I wasn’t sure if it was sexual tension or murderous rage” 

You can feel the heavy gaze from across the field. Intense eyes fixated on your figure as you rattle the chain-wire fence that surrounds the newest section of Alexandria. The post-apocalyptic town has been thriving since the end of Negan’s reign and with the undead being the town’s only consistent antagonist, it has given the community an opportunity to expand their borders. The chain-mesh fence was scavenged from the Sanctuary before the community fell off the map and serves as a strong protector as the new plot of land gets tilled. But it remains fragile when leant against and it has become a daily task during guard duty to rid the walkers that stumble near the temporary fence, a job you jump at to vent your frustrations. 

The deliberate noise draws the attention of the few walkers close by and they turn, growling as they catch your scent in the wind and they shuffle your way. It’s second nature now, muscle memory, to shift your grip on the knife handle and strike at their heads, using the fence for leverage and stability. The motions do nothing to quench the frustration and fire that rages inside you and you growl, yanking your knife from the last walker’s head with more force than necessary. The bloodied blade gets cleaned on the rag that is tied to your belt loops and then you are left with nothing to do, no more walkers to distract you from the boredom or the swirl of emotions that fester inside. 

You find yourself glancing over in his direction, succumbing to the gravitational pull of the universe and you don’t find yourself surprised at all to find him still staring at you, a dark scowl painted across his face. You sneer back at him, standing strong with your own gaze. 

“Stupid, fucking redneck,” you mutter under your breath and the fire that burns in your chest grows hotter, feeding off of your anger. 

The swishing of grass on your left distracts you and you are met with Carol only a few feet from you. You nod at her, giving her a tight-lipped smile as well before turning to look at the perimeter, finding nothing in the wilderness has changed and you sigh. 

“I saw you staring at each other, I wasn’t sure if it was sexual tension or murderous rage,” Carol says lightly, walking to your side and mirrors your stance; arms crossed and back straight. 

You scoff, openly showing that you aren’t in the mood for her banter today but it doesn’t deter the older woman. 

“Most definitely murderous rage” you grit.

“See, I don’t know about that - I see a lot of passion,” She teases.

You throw her a withering look, disdain heavy in your eyes and if Carol isn’t careful; some of that murderous rage will be pointed at her soon. 

“So if it is murderous rage, how long are you going to remain angry at him?” Carol tries a gentler approach, obviously getting the message and you wince, guilt beginning to set in as you mentally chastise yourself about your unrestrained attitude. 

Shrugging, you refuse to make eye contact with your old friend. “I don’t know Carol, he humiliated me,” you breathe.

“He didn’t mean too, he was worried,” Carol begins to defend him but when she sees you shaking your head and the flash of hurt across your face, she stops herself. 

“But he did it anyway. He humiliated me, he berated me in front of everyone, undermined me, treating me as if I am some soft fucker who hasn’t been beyond the walls” you spit and you render the woman silent, unsure about what to say next. 

When the silence between the pair of you becomes stagnant, Carol realises it’s time for her to leave and she steps back a few feet, mulling over her next words. 

“Talk to him,” she pleads and you snort, “Fuck no,”. 

Carol says your name in warning, making you roll your eyes. “I’m not fucking submitting. If he wants to talk, then he can man up and come to me with a goddamn apology,”. 

You hear her heavy sigh behind you before her retreating footsteps, leaving you to stew in your malcontent alone. It is your stubborn pride and bruised feelings that prevent you from talking with your old companion, from making amends and burying the hatchet, an ideal that is important in this world because life is too short and unpredictable to be so petty. And yet, you cannot help yourself this time. He hurt you, deeply, a stinging wound that will take time to heal. 

It’s not like you have done anything wrong in the first place. With the apocalypse a decade old, resources are unimaginably scarce, leaving only items that are grown, hunted or handmade to be used. It was commonplace for you to be the first person out of the gates in the morning and the last to return in the evening, spending hours and even days hunting, refusing to go back to Alexandria empty-handed. You are too stubborn for your own good, too arrogant in your capabilities to survive and adapt to the dangerous world. As a repercussion, your last run was almost the death of you. 

Enemies are like hydras; one falls and another takes its place. Negan was once considered Alexandria’s greatest threat, but that fear was usurped by the latest peril; the Whisperers. Negan ruled with fear and violence. The Whisperers rule with death. Their ability to influence herds is an obstacle that the community does not know how to overcome. The capricious nature makes every run, every scouting mission, every patrol dangerous and life-threatening. Therefore, it became law that no-one is to go outside the metal walls without a group and without informing the council. It should have been expected that you would struggle with this rule, never been one to abide by strict regulations, but the thought slipped the minds of the council and you kept slipping outside the gates. 

Your last run is a perfect example of why the rule is in place; you got caught by the herd with Whisperers dotted within. Perhaps they tracked you down or perhaps it was just shit luck that you ran into them, but it resulted in a fight for your life and an injury that planted fear on sight. It was sheer, dumb luck that allowed you to escape with your life; an old tree fell whilst you were in the midst of swiping at walkers and humans alike, and caused a great enough distraction that gave you the opportunity to bolt. You damn well shocked Rosita who stood on guard duty that evening as you came sprinting towards the main gates, coated in two types of blood and clutching at your side, out of breath with wild eyes. 

That night you had Siddiq inform you that you got lucky the knife wound at your abdomen was free of infection but he was stern to chastise that only one hour more and you wouldn’t have made it, wound too deep to be stemmed by only pressure and the combination of exhaustion and blood loss would have defeated you. His words didn’t shake you that night, instead, you shrug nonchalantly and smirked, telling him that death in this world is inevitable and you would greet it like an old friend.  

You refused to stay in the infirmary that night, scrunching your nose at the thought of being surrounded by sick people in a sterile environment, rather opting for the privacy of your own place. He was unable to stop you, letting you go with an armful of supplies and a sigh, watching you stagger down the pathway. You made it only halfway home before you were halted by a loud yell, the noise capturing the attention of not just you but the other residents that were milling in the nearby courtyard. 

“What the fuck wer’ ya thinkin’?” Daryl yelled, storming towards you with a glare that would frighten Hades. “How fuckin’ stupid are ya?” he adds. 

He berated you in public that night, practically screaming in your face about your stupidity, your lack of respect to the council and their rules, your selfishness and conceited attitude. He didn’t let you get a word in to defend yourself as he raged, words becoming harsher by the second. You could handle the words but it was the venom in his voice that surprised you. It was filled with so much anger, so much hatred and spite that you lost the words that you wanted to scream back at him. Instead, when he took a moment to catch his breath, you just walked away, your eyes on the ground as you stifled the bewildered cry that ached in your chest. 

The incident happened two weeks ago and you haven’t spoken since, avoiding each other like the plague but the distance hasn’t stopped either of your from directing heated glares at each other, consequently deepening the rift in your friendship. 

                                                          ----

The guard changeover occurs on dusk and when your replacement comes, you greet them with a tight smile as you pass over the unused rifle before quickly leaving the post. You don’t head home after the shift and instead, you go down to the armoury with hopes that working maintenance on the weapons will distract you from the words Carol has lodged in your mind. Daryl worried? You scoff at the thought. In a previous time, those words would have made sense - you and Daryl have been partners in crime since the fall of the world, similar in too many ways and it made sense that you were friends. But after seeing the pure acrimony he directed at you, you fail to believe it stemmed from a place of compassion. 

It was well past midnight when the doors to the armoury creaked open. It was probably someone on shift wanting to pick up more ammo or something alike. What you didn’t expect was to see the rugged hunter ease into the room. You stared at him with furrowed eyebrows and a twist in your lips, hands paused on the shotgun you were working on. 

“You weren’t home when I knocked,” Daryl states simply, gruff voice a melody to your ears after the long radio silence. 

“You know I don’t sleep when I’m alone,”

It’s true; you struggle to rest when there is no-one watching over you, a position that is usually filled by the man in front of you. 

Daryl nods, biting down on the inner side of his cheek as he reflects. Of course you don’t, you never have and he knew that. The poignant silence weighs heavily between you and Daryl shifts uncomfortably, moving further into the room to take a seat on the chair that sits in front of the sole workstation. You never sat at the workstation, preferring to sit on the floor so you had more space to work with but at this moment, you hated how you were positioned lower than the man. 

“Yer gonna use that thing on’ me?” There is a ghost of a sly smirk upon his lips, a sparkle of mischief in his eyes but you aren’t having it, you won’t befall to his sparse charm. 

“Don’t tempt me, Daryl Dixon,’’

The full use of his name and the stern attitude makes Daryl wince, the severity of damage he inflicted to you now evident before him. He nods silently, gnawing anxiously at his lip as you both fall back and stew in silence. You resume cleaning the weapon in your hands, needing to keep busy in an attempt to distract your mind from the chaos that sits in front of you. Daryl watches you, this time without the hatred and disdain, but his gaze is just as heavy as before. 

“Why are you here, Daryl?” 

He notes the tiredness in your voice, not the physical exhaustion that is a permanent state in this new world, but the emotional weariness that burdens you. 

“‘M here to apologise,” 

“Are you here because Carol told you to or because you actually want to?”

His hesitation is a loud answer and you scoff, glaring up at him with your teeth bared.  

“Of course not. Daryl Dixon never apologises because he actually wants to, no, someone else has to puppet him. You are so fucking incompetent,” you growl, “You can’t even do the right fucking thing. Whatever ‘apology’ you have concocted to make this all better; forget it, Daryl. I don’t fucking accept it!”. 

You take a predatory satisfaction in seeing the raw hurt flash across his face at your words. Your words are harsh, digging at old wounds that the man harbours but you can’t even conjure up the guilt or regret; hungry to dish out the same pain that you have received. Vexation and wrath raise its ugly head and you furiously rub at the long barrel of the shotgun, as if you would be able to transfer your rage through kinetic energy. 

“Yer keep sacrificing yerself for the group ‘n’ and I fuckin’ hate it,” He breaks the icy air. His voice cracks despite his whispered tone but you catch it the little hitch. 

Your cautious gaze meeting his is the signal he needed because he keeps going, as if the dam inside breaks and the words come spilling out; unrestrained, pure and honest. 

“You’v’ done it since the beginnin’. Take the burden of the group on yerself ‘n’ takin’ all the risks. We’v only survived this long b‘cause of ya. You’v always kept us goin’. When the prison fell, you wanted ter round everyone up ‘n’ then Terminus happened and..” he breaks off, eyes squeezing shut as he recalls the horrible and degrading things the savages there threatened you with; how they held the machete to your neck and how powerless he was to stop everything. You were so close to death that afternoon as well, mere seconds away from being just an empty vessel. 

“Then all the shit that's happened since. You’ve never stopped, never broke down. Just kept trudgin’ on. But it all caught up and you could’ve died out there… without me. ‘N I wouldn’t have known until it was ter late”. 

“But I could have died in here and you still wouldn’t have been able to do anything, Daryl - that’s life,” you argue.

Daryl’s head whips up so fast, you are sure he could have suffered whiplash, but you get distracted by the flames in his eyes. 

“It’s not life. You ‘ave no fuckin’ idea what yer do to me, woman,” Daryl groans, looking at you so helplessly, almost insulted at how you don’t get it. 

“Apparently I piss you off!” you retort, “Ya know, with my selfish attitude and lack of respect” you parrot his own words back to him, a glare resituating across your face. “You yelled at me, Daryl. You screamed in my face, in front of everyone, and then gave me the cold shoulder. Me, out of all people, your fucking friend”. 

He shakes his head while you speak, an action that only infuriates you more. You are ready to attack him about that, mouth already open as you reveal your disgust, “Stop fucking shaking your head as if I’m playing the vic-”. 

In your rant, you don’t acknowledge the scrape of the metal stool along the concrete, given barely enough time to react to the new stimulus of rough lips upon yours and a hand that grips your chin. Daryl swallows your surprise, mouth unyielding as he crowds into you, pushing you back against the back leaving you no room to run. He kisses you desperately. Frantically. It is messy and unruly, a bruising kiss that steals the breath from your lungs and makes your head spin. You can taste every single secret that has ever danced across his lips, taste the fear that dwells within him but has never been uttered to another soul. You learn more about Daryl in this instance than you ever will in a lifetime. 

You both are slow to break apart; lips barely separating as you catch your breath, greedily sucking in as much oxygen as you can to sate the burning of your lungs. 

“‘M so fuckin’ sorry,” he cries against your lips. 

His hand still has a firm grip on your jaw, which is sure to leave finger-shaped bruises in its wake, but like his kiss - his touch is desperate as well. 

“You’v neva been a victim. I was just so fuckin’ scared that I would lose ya. I can’t lose ya,” he stresses, a voice that sounds so pained and winced; it sounds as if the wounds were personally inflicted upon him. 

He drops his death-like grip on your chin, bowing forward to rest his head against yours, never straying too far from your space. Your arms wind around his hulking form; bringing him closer and Daryl lets himself slump against you, his head slipping to rest on your shoulder as he nuzzles into your neck and his body, although heavy, feels like comfort from a warm blanket. You can feel him utter endless apologises into the crook of your neck, lips brushing along your skin and you memorise the soft tone of his voice as he echoes “‘M sorry,”. 

You hush him, turning your head to press a gentle kiss to the dark tresses, whispering “I know,” to every apology he mutters. Eventually, the apologises fade and you are submerged in peaceful silence, curled into each other. You don’t need to ask why he couldn’t have just told you all those words at the beginning, to save you both the agony and trauma of the last few weeks. But your Daryl is complex, a stunning mosaic of intricate emotions that aren’t easily given and you accept that this is who he is. The man would go to war for love; for you.

Tags:

@guywithacrossbow​

@oncemorewithfeelingg

@rachelxxraucous

@gaenahelleborus​

[thekidultlife]

Through the Seasons | Seungcheol (COMPLETED)

Author’s Note: 

Please read this before continuing on to the fic! 😊 If you’ve read the first part of this story which I posted in a rush during my birthday, please. scrap. all. your. thoughts. about. it. Having completed it now, I truly regretted rushing to post it just to meet a deadline; that won’t happen again lol. 😂 I plan to write more slowly and carefully from now on because I want to be able to look back and read my stories without too much regret over how I could have written them better. I hope that you enjoy this one, and please look forward to this series! My plan is to alternate writing “The Return Of Superman”, “The And” and “Through The Seasons” during the coming weeks/months.

Birthday Greetings: This fic is one that I wrote as a gift, not only to our amazing SVT leader and my ultimate bias who deserves THE ENTIRE WORLD, Seungcheol (🥺❤), but also to my good friend, @peekabooseoksoon! Belated Happy Birthday! 🙆‍♀️ I hope you get to love this fic!!! 😄

Tags: I’d like to mention @coupsiekkuma, @minkwans, @eclvpe, @haven-cove​,  @nrhfzh, @iwalktheline97, @woozisnoots, @shoshishua, @toxicsocial, @elcie-chxn, @yslmingyux, @gostickywombat, @uglyratlmao, and @starlightshua!

Plot: Two people form memories, navigate through hardships and—most of all—learn to love each other more through the seasons of their relationship.

Warnings: Marked 18+ for suggestive content

Word Count: 10,386

1 | summer, as the night wind whispered

Bright lights flooded the town square through the colorful lanterns that hung in lines and swayed idly. The air was filled with the smell of mingling perfumes, food and beer. The cobbled streets were packed with people, of different ages, walking through the stalls that sold native handicrafts and trinkets. Tables that were laid out in the center of the square kept getting occupied as the twilight dissipated into a dark sky full of stars. Music from guitars, bagpipes and dulcimers wafted around, competing with the blare of jukeboxes playing songs from eras long past, classics that everyone still loved to sing and dance to.

One month ago, no one would have thought that this town would be celebrating like this.

A violent storm had hit and destroyed almost everything in its path, and a sense of despair had engulfed the people living there. The winds and the heavy rain had been bad, but the landslides really made things worse. Even at present, as the town held its celebration, helicopters could be seen hovering above the mountains that surrounded the town proper, their searchlights flashing here and there, aiding rescuers who made their way around the dark, slippery terrain, looking for missing people or houses that had vanished underneath mounds of trees, dark rock and soil.

Despite the tragedy and the uncertainty that hung in the air, however, the townspeople had been resilient. Pooling their resources, and seeking help from neighboring towns and cities, they managed to recover most of their losses and found cause to celebrate as houses, businesses and landmarks began to be restored.

Sitting on one of the tables, watching the merriment all around them, were three men, sipping on their beers, wearing jackets that identified them as university students hailing from a city five hours away. They, along with a group of other volunteer workers from their uni, had come to help and were now celebrating the last day of volunteer work. Just across the street, by the small parking lot of the town’s only hotel, vehicles were lined up, readied for the departure in the early morning. These three men expected to be on the first bus going home tomorrow.

The first two sitting across each other kept commenting idly about how hectic the day had been, but the third guy, nursing his drink close to his lips, was scanning the flow of people, his huge, sparkling eyes flitting to and fro. He could not process what his friends were talking about. He was too busy watching who came and went as the festivities rolled on.

“Choi Seungcheol, have you found her yet?” Yoon Jeonghan asked, lazily grinning. His dark brown hair fell down his eyes and he raked them back with his fingers. He glanced at his friend before turning back to the buoyant scenery. A crowd seated on the table next to them roared with laughter.

“I haven’t,” Seungcheol replied lightly, taking another swig. “But I will.”

Seungcheol’s seemingly dogged determination made the guy sitting across Jeonghan chuckle. “This will be a very interesting night,” Hong Jisoo said softly, smirking at Jeonghan’s direction. “Cheol won’t let up finding this mystery woman.”

“I, for one, think that we’ve had an interesting day already,” Jeonghan answered dryly, leaning back on his metal chair, “and an uncomfortable one at that. I didn’t like the fact that we had to follow someone for a whole day, all because some guy couldn’t just walk up to her and ask her out.”

At that, Seungcheol turned to Jeonghan and glared at him playfully. “Shut up.”

“Cheol is acting funny,” Jeonghan teased. “Isn’t he, Jisoo-ya?” Jisoo laughed and clinked bottles with Jeonghan in agreement.

“I have my reasons,” Seungcheol said defensively, turning back to the crowd. “I couldn’t find the right timing.”

“Oooh,” Jeonghan cooed. “The right timing.”

“I said shut your trap, Jeonghan. I think you’re drunk.”

“I will be if you still don’t find her.”

“You could dance with some of our other friends out there while we wait.”

“You know I’m too tired for that.”

Jisoo laughed again. “You could not find the right timing? After all the days you’ve spent here?”

“Complete bull.” Jeonghan grinned.

Suddenly Seungcheol stood, setting his beer bottle down so hard on the wooden table that Jisoo and Jeonghan could not help but complain in unison about the abrupt movement. However, they quieted down when they saw Seungcheol’s expression.

“That’s her.” Seungcheol pointed somewhere in the throng of people, his eyes wide, his countenance suddenly alight and stone-cold sober. The night breeze blew on his close-cropped hair as he looked on. 

His words were almost drowned out by the cacophony of voices and music all around them, but Jisoo and Jeonghan looked at each other knowingly, hearing his words perfectly.

`“Well?” Jisoo brought his drink to his lips, eyeing Seungcheol with a devious glint in his eyes.

A few moments passed, with Seungcheol simply standing there.

The right timing.

He broke off into a run.

He ran past tables and stalls and dancing couples, startling people along the way. His feet took him flying across the cobbled streets lined with lanterns, towards a spot by the exit of the square where stalls sold summer flowers. His heart pounded within his chest as he sprinted, his eyes never leaving what they had been watching for throughout the young night.

As he ran, he forgot how silly he had felt when, exactly five nights ago, he had hopped onto one of the buses leaving campus for the volunteer program. His only reason for joining had been his need for an adventure away from the city. He would have no other time for anything extracurricular in the months to come. The bar exam was looming over his mind, and before he poured himself solely to the task of preparing for it, he wanted to get away.

He remembered how you had stretched out a hand to greet him even before sitting down beside him.

Hi. You had smiled and he had felt like he was staring at the sun as you told him your name. Classical composition. You?

Non-music major, he had replied with a quick, albeit apologetic smile to return yours. I got on this bus by mistake.

Oh, that’s okay, you had said good-naturedly, winking at him, you don’t have to worry. We’re very good company. 

And you were.

As he ran, he forgot how tired he was. He had followed you and the other volunteers around all day, up and down the mountains, giving out boxes of food and clothing to the families that had been affected by the calamity. The first four days hadn’t been as grueling as this last one. But it had been worth it.

He forgot, too, how sorry he felt for his friends, who didn’t know what they had signed up for when they followed him to this town to check up on him.

All he could remember was the flush on his cheeks when he had watched as your fingers strummed at a guitar, and how he could not help but hang on to the sweet lilt of your voice when you opened your mouth to sing. 

"Deep breath and wipe those tears // Take heart and face those fears // We'll find a reason, // something to cling to; // We won't abandon // you. // There's hope in this season, // too."

All he could remember was the comfort that washed over the faces of the people who were listening, back at the orphanage in the mountains, where evacuees had taken up temporary residence.

He forgot about everything else and just ran, ran, and ran towards the only thing that mattered in his mind.

He had found you.

There you were—your hair rustling in the wind, wearing a billowing white dress that came down just beneath your knees and a knapsack that hung loosely on one shoulder, laughing with little children who were selling what looked like different sorts of flowers. You bent down to reach for a bouquet, and then lifted it to your nose, closing your eyes as you inhaled the scent.

Seungcheol drew to a stop as he neared you. His breaths slowed into pants, but his restless heart still fluttered faster than it would normally do.

Before he could lose his courage, he walked slowly to you.

He didn’t know what to say to you yet. After the bus ride, he only saw you every now and then, among the hundred volunteers that had joined. And all day long today, when he knew that he could not put off speaking to you anymore, he had been thinking about how he could approach you without scaring you off. There was one point this evening, after a little bit of beer, when he had felt like he could be brave enough to speak to you the moment he finds you.

But now, standing before you, he was tongue-tied, unable to say anything at all.

Sensing his presence, you turned, looking directly at him, still laughing, your hands holding a bouquet close to your face.

For precious brief seconds, the both of you just stood there, the night breeze beckoning as it made its sweeping touch upon both your clothes, trying to unchain you from where you both stood—whispering, it seemed, as it touched skin, Closer.

It was you who broke the ice.

“That was quite a run,” you commented humorously, your eyes filling with a gentle light. “Did I drop my wallet or something?”

Seungcheol laughed, blushing at the same time before scratching his head. He didn’t know that you had noticed him running. “Uh, no. Sorry. I must have startled you.”

“You told me during our bus ride that you came just to have some fun,” you said softly, your eyes taking in this handsome man before you and the jacket he wore. “But I saw how you worked hard, especially today. Thank you for coming with us.”

“And thank you for your songs,” Seungcheol replied, smiling. There was no flattery in his voice when he said this to you, only interest and admiration and another emotion that he himself could not clearly define at that moment.

Your eyes widened. “You listened?”

Seungcheol cocked his head to the side, hands in his pockets, still smiling. “All three songs, the whole afternoon.”

You grinned. “Ah. I didn’t know that I was in the presence of a fan. So…” one corner of your mouth turned up playfully, “…you ran all that way—” you motioned at the brilliant lights of the festival that was behind you both, “—not because I dropped my wallet somewhere around the bazaars and you picked it up by chance…but because—you loved my songs,” you grinned as you said this, “and you wanted my autograph. Was that it?”

He stifled a laugh, but it still bubbled out of his lips. “No. To be honest, I was going to ask you something else.” Seungcheol’s kind, hooded eyes smiled along with his lips. Courage surged inside him, just when he needed it. “Would you like to dance with me?”

Your slow smile answered his question before you even spoke.

“Yes.”

Closer, the wind whispered as you ran, laughing, with Seungcheol, back into the bright lights where the lanterns swayed, his hand not letting go of yours. And as Seungcheol pulled you close to him by the waist, your body arched up against him, and you threw your arms around his neck. You danced to the slow music, with Seungcheol’s eyes lighting up like the lanterns and his delighted laughter as melodious as the strings that strummed soulful tunes through the night.

Not far from where you danced, watching and making funny but adoring commentaries about how Seungcheol sucked at dancing, Jeonghan and Jisoo clinked bottles.

“It did become an interesting night.”

The town, in the morning, was greeted by blue skies and the young heat of summer. Business went back to normal, with the townsfolk reverting to their quiet, slow-paced lives in the fields and the mountains where their houses and livelihoods were nestled. The square held its usual number of regulars, some laying on the soft grass and others spreading colorful cloths around for picnics. Bicycles and occasional cars passed by.

There were no more buses that lined outside the tall, eighty-year-old hotel that was the pride of the town. No more guys wearing university jackets, no more stalls that lined the cobbled sidewalks.

Everything had gone back to how they were.

But traces of the festival night still popped up here and there in that sleepy old town.

High up the mountains, in the orphanage, children sang your songs and your words lingered on their lips. Some of them still had chocolates and candy from yesterday, leftovers from what their volunteer friends had given them as treats before heading back to the city. A plaque commemorating those who donated and came to help could be seen inside the town hall. And the gratitude people felt in their hearts as they watched their town being rebuilt made them remember their friends who had left in the early morning.

Some traces, too, weren’t just found in town. Some you brought home with you.

In that morning, you and Seungcheol were already five hours away, on a bus terminal, getting woken by the driver, who told you that you were now back in the city.

You had both missed the bus rides back to campus, but that was okay.

With your bags slung on your backs, you talked about Seungcheol’s upcoming bar exam, your major and getting breakfast somewhere. The impress of his touch on the small of your back as he gently guided you through the crowded streets reminded you of how you had felt when you danced with him all night. You blushed as he playfully protested about how his arms had gone numb when he woke up with you in his arms. Laughing with him as you both strolled along the hectic streets of the city, you found that you liked how Seungcheol’s voice sounded and how he would look you in the eyes intently whenever you would start to tell him something, no matter how interesting or uninteresting it would be. There was something intuitive and perceptive about him, something that you don’t normally see with guys that you had tried to get to know before. You liked that uniqueness in Seungcheol.

Sitting across him, eating your burger as you watched him type his number on your phone, you felt something new begin. And when he unconsciously reached out to take your hand while inside a cab that morning, you just knew, that you had both found in each other a memento from that summer night up in the mountains, in a town slowly recovering from a calamity, a town of cobbled streets and music and the wind that had teased and whispered, Closer.

2 | autumn, beneath the glowing streetlamps

Almost every sunset since the leaves started falling and the sky started to become painted in reddish-golden splendor, as people hurried along sidewalks or streets or in their bicycles and cars before rush hour set in, you would find yourself racing, racing and racing into Cheol’s waiting arms, warm and safe from the dropping temperatures and the cruel life of being an assistant producer for a crueler entertainment company.

There would be times when you would immediately look up from burying yourself in the warmth of Seungcheol’s embrace, smile sweetly up at his face and say in cute tones, “Hi, baby!”

There would be times when you would wrap your arms around his neck and stand on tiptoes to treat him with kisses as he laughed and whispered, “I missed you” in your ear.

And there would also be times when you would linger beneath his coat, shutting out all the bustling noises around you, eyes closed, and your words an almost unintelligible murmur on his chest. “Let’s stay like this for a while, please?” 

You would then feel him kiss your hair, nuzzle your face, replying softly, “Bad day?” before hugging you tighter and tilting your head up so he could give you one of his infamous pep talks. He would then be kissing you with a laugh when you would start to complain that he sounded like a lecturer you had back in your uni days.

It had been three years since you danced with the wind during that summer night, and your sunsets during this third autumn season with Seungcheol by your side usually consisted of these sweet embraces and small but meaningful whispers of affection.

But today, the sunset was different.

You are still racing through the streets, running, running and running, your coat and hair flying in the wind. But Choi Seungcheol—always standing out anywhere he went with his height and broad shoulders, huge coats and quick smiles—was nowhere among the crowd. And you now halted to a stop, catching your breath, eyes frantically searching for taxis as the dark blue and violet shades of the nighttime sky started to replace the golden sheen of the sunset.

Once you could get on one, you immediately gave out the address, telling the driver as nicely as possible to step on it. Then you leaned back on the plush leather seat, sighing loudly, looking through the car window as you sped past the city’s grey skyscrapers and its lights and the rush of commute. You listened to the noise of cars honking, of motorcycles zipping past your cab, and chatter from commuters as you sometimes halted at crosswalks. You observed these people rushing to and fro, eager to be where they needed to be. You engaged in pleasant talk with the driver, complimenting his choice of music, even confiding in him that you had helped make the second song that played.

Soon, you came to a place where the pulsing, white and yellow lights of the city softened into golden hue as the skyscrapers were replaced by townhouses and apartments, homey restaurants, little shops and an occasional clinic here and there. Passersby were not rushing in this part of the city. Rather, families were walking hand in hand, dads sometimes carrying their kids on their backs, laughing as they entered diners and restaurants. Old women in flowery dresses shuffled up the steps of their apartment, with their husbands or cats following closely. Lovers and students with their friends laughed softly as they quietly strolled down the sidewalks, amazed at the beauty of the coming night and the sighing of trees as their leaves fell. You smiled at a woman you knew as the cab slowed. And when it stopped, you got out, blinking as your eyes adjusted beneath the glowing light of the streetlamps, looking around.

This was your neighborhood. This was your world when five o'clock came and you were released from the pressure of work. This was your safety net when you felt like drowning. This was your home turf. 

And there he was, just as you knew he would be. He probably went straight home after court. He probably thought he could mask everything that had happened when he had rested enough. He probably didn’t want you to worry. 

Yes, there he was. Walking slowly to his car, shoulders slumped, his phone in his hand, probably going to shoot you a message that he was on his way to pick you up, he just ran a little late today. His head was bent down as he scrolled through his phone. His other hand was holding his briefcase, his most prized possession as a criminal lawyer. He didn’t see you coming towards him yet. But as he looked up from his phone to open the car door, his eye caught sight of you and he stopped, his hand on the door handle.

Immediately, Seungcheol’s despondent expression changed. His face lit up into a smile that almost didn’t look tired, his shoulders straightened up and he cocked his head to the side like he always does when he sees you looking at him, his now ash-blond hair touching his forehead. “Baby!” he called out endearingly, his free arm wide open.

There, beneath the glowing streetlamps, you ran up to him and wrapped him in a tight embrace, your feet on tiptoes, one of your hands raking through his hair, the other caressing his back, whispering his name over and over in relief. He’s here with me. Everything’s going to be alright.

“What’s the matter?” he asked, worried about you even at this time when you knew that he needed you more than you needed him now. “Did something happen at work?”

“No,” you whispered in his ear, still smoothing his hair, holding him close. “And let’s not talk about my work tonight.” You leaned back so you could look into his face. Your hands ran through the soft, ash-blond locks on his forehead. Now that you looked at him closely, you saw that he looked pale and drawn, utterly exhausted with his day. “Oh, baby.” You touched his face and he held your hand close to him like that, closing his eyes as he let out a huge breath.

Standing on tiptoes as the streetlamps glowed brighter and brighter in the night, as the trees shed red, gold and brown leaves and as people passed you by, each off to their respective evenings, you gave Choi Seungcheol a tender kiss.

He sighed shakily as your lips touched his. He trembled underneath your touch; it was as if all his carefully put-up defenses might fall apart in that moment.

And they did, right when you whispered against his lips, as gently as you could, “It’s not your fault.”

Tears fell from his closed eyes like the trees lining the sidewalk, weeping away their precious foliage. You felt his body heave into choking, unmanly sobs as he buried his face down your shoulder, his hold on you so tight that you felt just how much pain he was trying to release. The briefcase lay forgotten at your feet as his arms pulled you as close as he could to him.

Seungcheol couldn’t say anything, but you knew about everything already; the city may be vast and diverse, but news travels fast. There was no need for him to explain. You knew enough, and that was all you needed.

“Shhh,” you whispered, tears falling from your face as well, your chest aching at the sight of your man—this man who liked to look okay in front of you all the time—bent, broken, and crying. “You’ll be alright.” Your arms tightened around Seungcheol, and you closed your eyes. “You’ll be alright.”

There was a comforting lull as you both stayed that way for a while, not minding who saw you, not minding the time. Tonight, he needed you, and you wanted him to know that he could hold you for as long as he wanted. For as long as he needed. When you had felt like he had calmed a bit, you asked him, “Bad day?” Even though you already knew the answer, he wouldn’t be able to talk about it freely if you didn’t ask. 

You felt him smile sheepishly on your neck. “Yeah.” He sighed and buried his face onto your shoulder. “Bad day.” 

“Oh, baby.” You hugged him tighter.

“I’m sorry. I know that I’m not usually like this—”

“—I like it better when you lean on me, too.” You patted his back comfortingly, over and over. “I know that you don’t want to talk about it yet, at least, not right now, but I’ll always be ready to listen, okay?” 

“Okay.”

“No rush. But you can tell me everything when you feel ready.” You pulled away to stare into his puffy eyes. “I must say, though,” you commented with a bit of humor, “that red does not suit your eyes when it’s like that.” You smirked at him as his expression softened and his laughter came. You took out a handkerchief from your coat pocket and dabbed it underneath his eyes and his cheeks. “Doesn’t matter anyway,” you muttered lightly, knowing how much your nonsensical words would make him smile, “you still look good even when you cry.”

Seungcheol groaned. “Stop.” Then he kissed your forehead. “Thank you.” For making me feel better. You saw the words in his eyes, which began to sparkle again with a gentle light. He grinned at you, and a little bit of the sadness painted on his face seemed to dissipate. 

You grinned back at him, and you held out a hand. 

“Can we go home now?”

Seungcheol grasped your hand tightly and smiled. “Yes.”

The streetlamps glowed brighter as the dark ink of the night swallowed the brilliant colors of the dusk, and you both blended in with the people who were around you, walking towards whatever lay ahead for them in the coming night. 

Seungcheol didn’t tell you about what happened that day in court. He didn’t tell you about what had made him cry like that when you found him. He didn’t offer any explanation.

And you let it stay that way. You watched him from your perch on the duvet in your living room. He sat on the couch, poring over binders that held one-inch-thick documents and every now and then scribbling something on a legal pad. You watched him whisper to himself as he typed incessantly on his laptop. Paraphernalia from whatever he was working on was scattered on the floor in an order that only he could understand. You watched him for a time as he kept on working. This was how he was whenever something from his work would haunt him: he would meticulously go over where he went wrong (or where he thought he went wrong), and he would passionately redo that area until he was satisfied. He would anxiously (and sometimes even a bit obsessively) review each argument, each line, over and over again. 

Judging from his expression and from how he couldn't seem to stop doing this cycle of reading/writing/whispering, you knew that whatever piece of courtroom action he had brought home with him had truly gotten to him. 

You watched and watched, and then you gave up watching him. You hated seeing him become so immersed into a case because you've seen him like this before, and you hadn't liked how it affected him physically and mentally. 

You wondered about what you could do for him. Nothing came to mind. 

Sighing, you rose up from your seat, a bottle of beer in your hand. You padded softly towards the other side of the room, where an unvarnished upright piano was. 

You lifted the cover and you let your fingers run across the ivory keys. You sat down. As you stared down at the keys, a melody you’ve never sung before formed on your lips. You found the right key, and you began to play the melody that you hummed.

Slowly, scenery came to life in your mind, along with the words that painted its description beautifully.

“Autumn days of glory // autumn days of peace // red and golden splendor // in the sky and trees…”

You didn’t know where the words would lead, but you let your hands and your heart take flight. You let them come straight home where they needed to be. You let them express what you couldn't do in any other way.

“Fall is often like // a season of pure bliss // But fall is also when // change happens to things.”      

You remembered the moment you shared with Seungcheol a few hours ago, outside. You let your hands play on as more lines went out of your lips, giving voice to the emotions you had felt and painted the picture in your mind with.

“Let me touch your face // let me dry those tears // let me help you brace // for the colder winds…”

You heard footsteps behind you, but the song still flowed out of your lips as your heart poured out what it wanted to say through the music's timeless language.

“Autumn days of glory // autumn days of peace // let me stand on tiptoes // let me give you a kiss…”

You felt his arms around you, and you felt the touch of his lips on your neck. 

You found the last chord, and you leaned against him. 

You stayed like that for a long time.

Your hand caressed one of his arms as you sang softly, “I will hold you close // I will dry your tears // I will help you brace // for the colder winds…”

You felt him breathe deeply, and you felt his arms tighten around you. And when he turned your face to him to give you his most tender kiss, you knew that he had chosen to leave his books and legal pads and that case that haunted him. You knew that he had chosen, no matter how hard it was, to put the bad day behind him.

As he carried you up from that hard, unvarnished piano bench where you sat and onto the soft satin comfort of your bedroom sheets, you just knew. You just knew that no matter how bad days in the future might get, as long as you had each other, there would always be peace at the end. That both of you would always choose peace at the end.

That night, as the last of the leaves on the trees fell, and as Seungcheol's bare skin cleaved to yours, he bared his thoughts to you. You both stared at the naked truth of his anxiety, his worries. Hesitantly, at first, he let you in on his deepest fears.

That night was the beginning of honesty at its purest between you two. That night, you treated each other like the Bible where you had seen Seungcheol swear the truth and nothing but the truth countless times. That night, you both found safety in each other as you unmasked the pretenses that you both still put up for the sake of looking brave. 

That night, too, you both decided that there was no other way to overcome bad days, except to overcome it together.

When the streetlamps stopped burning brightly and another day came around, you both stepped out of the apartment, hand in hand, the warm glow on your faces obviously not coming from the sun, which had risen in a useless effort to bring warmth against the cold. 

You both went your separate ways, disappearing amongst the thousands of people who rushed about as the sleepless city burst with renewed life. 

Well, bad days, fire away, you thought to yourself as you tightened your scarf around your neck. After that night, the impending doom of a long day failed to break your spirit.

You had Seungcheol, and Seungcheol had you. Everything would be okay. You both just knew: everything would be okay.

Later that day, another golden dusk settled across the skyline. You raced down the busy sidewalks of the city again, looking out for a cab. The holiday season was almost upon you, and the air already had a festive spirit to it. As you glanced up and down the lanes of vehicles halting at the red light, your eye caught a figure to your left, among the crowds.

Waving his hand, his eyes alight, his smile as bright as it was during those first few days that leaves fell from trees, there was Seungcheol, wearing his huge coat, holding his briefcase and waiting, as he had always done, for you.

Smiling jubilantly, you ran to him, pushing against crowds of people, eager to become enveloped into his safe, warm embrace.

You were tired. It had been a very busy day: meetings, songwriting sessions, planning music video sets with other staff, and doing final checks on a concert stage took up most of your energy. But in Seungcheol’s arms, the fatigue you felt slowly washed away. 

"Baby," you whispered, closing your eyes as you leaned against his chest. You felt his kisses on your hair and you smiled. "Correct me if I'm wrong, but does that smile mean that you helped save the world today?"

At your words, you felt Seungcheol drew in a sharp breath. You felt his teeth sink into your shoulder playfully as his body reverberated with giggles.

"Please stop making me blush in public, babe!"

The forecast had said that temperatures would be at its lowest yet, but as you kept making jokes while basking in the music of Seungcheol’s laughter, you never felt the cold during that last sunset of autumn.

3 | winter, by the hearth

“And everything in time and under heaven finally falls asleep // Wrapped in blankets white, all creation shivers underneath.”

Like magic, the words you sang out perfectly described the hushed, dreamy landscape that unfurled before Seungcheol's eyes. Snowflakes in their different designs fell softly on the ground and on your nose as you walked, hand in hand, wrapped in your warmest, heaviest winter clothing. You were walking towards the huge family house that belonged to your maternal grandparents, and you were both enchanted by the frozen beauty of the vast garden you were walking through. And as if the sight of imposing life-sized statues and the creaking, barren trees lining the footpath wasn't enough, the series of mountains to the left of the property also peeked out from the stone walls, revealing their snow-covered peaks and adding a magical feeling to the scenery.

It was the first time that you would bring Seungcheol to a dinner with all of your extended family, and Seungcheol knew from the way that you smiled at him a lot that you were excited.

Excited, and something else. 

Despite the mixed expressions on your face that he could not quickly decipher to get a clear understanding of, Seungcheol returned your smiles. “How long has it been since you came here?” he asked, stepping over a mound of ice and snow that had formed along the pavement.

“Years." You looked up at him again, and you smiled wider. "It shows on my face that much, huh? How thrilled I am at having my whole family meet you?"

Seungcheol smirked. "I don't know how to get my family together like this. Do your grandparents hold gatherings like this often?"

"Not really. But they've been missing their children and us grandchildren, so…" you cleared your throat and paused. "Baby, do I look like Christmas lights are strung up on my face? Because my cousins tease me about my smile whenever I get excited.”

The brightness in your voice had dropped a notch, and Seungcheol examined your face again. “Well you do look excited, but I wouldn't worry about your face. You always look beautiful…"

You probably did not hear him, because you had let go of his hand to run ahead, towards the widespread arms of a very handsome old man who seemed to have the same light like yours in his eyes and the same humor on his smile like yours. 

Seungcheol hurried towards you and your grandfather, and he bowed respectfully. 

"So this is the lucky man," your grandfather commented humorously, shaking Seungcheol's hand heartily. "Come in, come in! Best to get out of the cold." Your grandfather shivered animatedly, and you laughed, leaning against him as you walked in. 

You seemed fine. Seungcheol smiled and entered the double doors after you.

The house was spacious and welcoming, designed with warm wood tones and bursting to life with patches of greenery here and there. The wooden beams and pillars that supported doorways were intricately carved with floral swirls and patterns, and the furniture style accentuated the vibrant yet homey tones. The smell of food and wine and the sound of logs being thrown into a fireplace filled Seungcheol's senses. Holiday music played in the background, and soft laughter from one of the rooms to the far right of the hall made Seungcheol guess that some family members have already arrived before you did. 

As he walked on, straightening his clothes, he ran smack-dab into a woman who looked a lot like you but was very much unlike you either. Seungcheol would never see you wearing a power suit in bold colors like this woman. The man behind her smiled at Seungcheol and offered a hand.

"Oooh, so this is my cousin Y/N's boyfriend!" The woman grinned. She held out a well-manicured hand. "I'm Sana, and this is my husband, Minhyuk. You’re Seungcheol, right?"

"Yes. Very nice to meet you," Seungcheol answered, his face lighting up when he saw you with a smile on your face, walking towards Sana. Sana is one of my favorite cousins, you had told him earlier. She's the loudest among all of us, but she's a really good person who took care of me a lot when I was younger.

Sana leaned close to Seungcheol, and he was once again struck by how her brown eyes looked a lot like yours. But hers, he observed, had a mischievous glint, while yours always had a gentle light in them. 

"You'd better be prepared for this family dinner," Sana whispered conspiratorially, "and don't let your guard down. Watch your manners--"

"--oh, come on, Sana," you groaned, pulling Seungcheol away, laughter in your voice. "It won't be that bad!"

"Don't say I didn't warn you! And sit beside me during dinner!" Sana's red-lipped smile made Seungcheol suddenly wonder what you both were talking about. You were both inside the parlor now, where drinks were being served and the people inside were more formal: quieter and older members of the family were either seated or standing around, wine glasses in their hands, conversing as they studied the portraits that hung around the room. A young man sat by one of the massive floor-to-ceiling windows of the parlor, his fingers flying across the ivory keys of the grand piano. The fire crackled as a man added more logs. Your grandfather was nowhere in sight.

Seungcheol wondered why your smile did not reach your eyes once these people started to come and greet you with their hugs and kisses. He wanted to ask if you were okay because you had grown quieter. Occasionally glancing at you as he introduced himself to members of the family, he noticed that your whole countenance had changed. 

The smiles and the laughter coming from you still rang true in his ears, but as your hands clasped before you as you engaged in conversation with an aunt of yours, you showed him a side of you that he had never seen before: very composed, very somber, very careful. The only relief that seemed to show on your face was when your parents finally came in, and Seungcheol was glad for the respite from your strained expressions and gestures. Your smile at them as they embraced you warmly was the only smile that reached your eyes throughout the whole introductory phase of the gathering.

"I'm so glad you're here, Seungcheol!" your mother said cheerfully, adding a warmth that Seungcheol hadn't felt in the room since you had both walked in. In fact, of all the people he had greeted today, nobody he'd met in this side of your family eased the tension he had been feeling since your voice changed on the way in. "My family has been waiting to see you for ages!"

Seungcheol kissed your mother's cheek and shook your father's hand, engaging in pleasant small talk with them. He had spent a lot of holidays and vacations with your parents, and they had been very enjoyable ones. In this fifth year of your relationship, though, you had quietly asked him if he wanted to go see your grandparents with you. He had known from the expression on your face that seeing your grandparents was an important family affair; and he knew now, too, why you had looked so anxious. 

Everyone walked into the dining room once the clock in the parlor struck six o'clock. A long table heaped with food and beverages on glassware greeted all of you. Seating yourselves, Seungcheol held your hand underneath the table, squeezing it reassuringly. You squeezed his back.

Seungcheol's eyes caught Sana's on the far side of the room. She was sitting on the opposite end of the table with Minhyuk, and she cocked her head to the side, mouthing words that looked like, "Sit here, you two!", gesturing at a couple of seats beside them that soon got taken by another cousin and his parents. Sana made a face, and Seungcheol grinned. You were busy talking with another cousin, Samuel, who had also brought his partner with him. Seated at the far end of the table, near the empty seat of your grandfather, Seungcheol waited for dinner to begin.

Clinks of glasses and forks and knives slicing through meat and spoons ladling soup were the background music to the words that this huge family exchanged. Laughter rippled through the room, and slowly, the tension and formality that shaped conversations a while ago stopped.

"Is that Counselor Choi from the City Prosecutor’s Office?"

The matronly voice made everyone's heads turn, and all laughter died down.

Seungcheol saw your grandmother for the first time. 

Dinner had long since started, but the way she gracefully sat down and the way her shoulders were set back made everyone excuse her for being late. Your grandfather silently took his place beside you, and you exchanged sweet smiles with him. Seungcheol watched as your grandfather leaned towards you, and he heard words like, “…talk to her…” come from his lips. Nervous energy engulfed the dinner table, and Seungcheol's ears must have been fooling him, because every clink and scrape of knives, and even the music, seemed to stop. 

Your grandmother, beautiful despite her age, laid her eyes upon Seungcheol. Her eyes were neither kind nor cruel. The aloofness there could have thrown any stranger off, but the spark of interest that lit up her eyes compelled Seungcheol to return her gaze and to answer.

"Yes, ma'am." He could have called her something else, but this aura she exuded seemed to ask for something that formal. "Thank you for inviting me."

When she smiled, her expression was guarded as well. "My granddaughter is very fortunate to have met you. And you're welcome. Please, eat."

After greeting the other girlfriends, boyfriends, husbands and wives seated around, the rest of the conversation was directed at other members of the family. Seungcheol learned that this side of your family was involved in medical and tourism careers. You were the only one he knew that had a different path from the rest of them. This hadn’t been obvious when he spent time with your parents, but on this table, careers and what you are doing to succeed in that career seemed to be very important. Careers steered the conversation.

"Ahyoung is planning on setting up a pediatric practice, Mother,” one aunt said as she set down her spoon. “She wasn't able to come because she had to tie up some loose ends with the clinic renovation."

"Working through the holidays? Ahyoung must be wanting to surpass my record as a workaholic." Chuckles around the table could be heard at this amusing remark from Grandmother. "The president of the hospital in that town is a friend of mine who could help her establish her practice. Tell her to give me a call so I can help her get in touch with him. How about you, Jaemin? I saw you on TV a week ago. You announced the opening of a...what was that...a museum?"

"A shrine recreation, Grandmother. We're currently in the process of recreating an entire temple from the Silla era. My archaeology team hit a huge find down south when they found the remains of what we initially thought was a hidden metropolis in the mountains. Turns out that was this temple where priestesses tried to read the stars—”

“—if you need a priestess to make your shrine look more realistic, you can hire me." Sana broke in as she winked at Jaemin, who immediately looked flustered. Younger cousins of yours immediately began doing their best to hold back their laughter and Seungcheol felt you giggle quietly beside him, too, as you drank your glass of wine. 

"Sana, instead of ridiculing your older brother, why don't you tell us about the latest findings of your research? And congratulations, darling. My former colleagues in Gynecology have been telling me that your research will be of a huge benefit to their practice.”

"Well, we are still working on developing this fertility treatment, as you know already, and we have the goal of obtaining a much higher success rate than in vitro fertilization. So, for example, if the success rate of a thirty-five-year-old woman is only at thirty-nine-point-five per cent, we would try to raise that bar by giving her a fifty per cent threshold of success. It’s still at a very experimental stage at this point, Grandmother, but the labs have been working on it incessantly...” 

Seungcheol stopped listening at that point. He focused on his food and on not letting go of your hand. Their topics were interesting and he would occasionally get roped into the conversation, but Seungcheol couldn't help but despair about the fact that there wasn’t talk about anything else except work and their different professions and future plans for their businesses or companies. It was the holidays, for goodness’ sake. There weren't many other stories shared aside from work life. Everyone seemed to be comfortable with that kind of setting, but it cut through Seungcheol deeply. Especially when he noticed that the questions didn’t get to you. 

The dinner passed like that.

Grandmother rose from her seat, her height, willowy frame and white dress making her look even more imposing. Silence once again reigned, and she spoke.

“Y/N, may I speak to you in private for a moment?” It wasn’t a question. She spun on her heel and left.

Seungcheol knew that she expected you to follow. And you did, whispering, “I’ll be back” before rushing out of the dining room. When his eyes roamed around the table, he saw that everyone was looking at him, and he put his fork down. He didn’t know what to think of what just happened. Your mother followed you out soon after.

"Don't worry," Samuel said reassuringly. "Grandmother may look like a very hard woman, but she's actually soft on the inside--"

"--and she has the softest spot for Y/N." Sana smiled. "She would never admit to playing favorites, but we all know in this table that she loves Y/N the most."

At a later time, while relishing dessert, your history with your grandmother began to unfold from the table, where only your closest cousins remained, and Seungcheol listened to them intently.

They told him the story about a grandmother who wanted nothing but the best of life for her family. A grandmother who had done her best to live a life that she knew would become a good example to everyone who followed her. Despite her stern appearance, she wasn’t the rich and evil grandmother who forced everyone to do things her way. Surprisingly, she was one who encouraged her family members to pursue what they loved to do.

“You see, even though most of us work in the medical field, we didn’t get these jobs because someone told us to, or because the woman we look up to in this family. We became doctors and businessmen because we wanted these jobs. Our paths turned out this way, and we’re enjoying ourselves.” Sana paused, letting her words sink first. “All our parents and our grandparents asked of us was that we pursue our dreams intending to succeed. And that was where she and Y/N took a bad turn.”

“Everyone in this family had turned out to be exactly who they wanted to be.” The unspoken words after that sentence held weight. All except one: you.

“Grandmother just couldn’t understand why Y/N did not choose to become the singer that she wanted to be. And what made her more furious was the fact that she doesn’t see how good she could be.”

Music from the piano drifted into the dining hall. Someone was singing carols, and Seungcheol was jolted from his reverie when he heard soft laughter coming from the parlor as well. It was then that he realized that most of the family had gone back to the parlor, where it was evident that they all loved to spend time together.

“Only one person plays beautifully like that,” Jaemin remarked. Seungcheol noted the ring of envy and admiration on his voice as you all listened to the strains of a piano. “You’re a very lucky man. My cousin isn’t just someone you meet out there.”

“Which is why she’s the favorite,” Hyorin, another cousin of yours, commented. “In a family of doctors and business magnates, she stands out.” Hyorin stood up, bringing her glass of wine with her. “I’m going there to listen.”

Sitting on the piano, fingers making music in a way that spoke to the soul, was you. It was one thing to just play music. It was another thing when that music communicates with its listeners, making them feel something. People were humming the carols that you played, but you didn’t pay heed to them. Seungcheol knew that once you were seated on that bench, you were in another world entirely. You smiled at your relatives as they all sang out songs and gave her requests. Music tied you all together and brought out the beauty of the human inside. Work was forgotten as you sang together. From the corner of his eye, as he joined the men in belting out “Smile Flower” by a classic boy group from more than fifty years ago, Seungcheol saw your grandmother smiling—genuinely—and nodding with your parents, who were also looking at you.

A change of key quieted the room, and everyone tried to figure out what the song you were playing. But nobody could tell what it was, only that it was in A minor. They waited for you to sing.

And when you did, a song they’ve never heard before, a song Seungcheol had never heard before from you, rose from your lips.

“Tossing out the lines that were never truly mine // Throwing to the fire what was never truly fine // I am in a place where no doubt and fears can get me // I am safe tonight with lover and family // by the firelight // by the firelight // I could be me.”

Later, when you and Seungcheol had gone home and you were both staring into the hearth which served as the only light in the living room and warmed you both from the cold of the night, Seungcheol mustered the courage to ask you what your grandmother had told you when she pulled you aside right after dinner.

You smiled and said simply, “She doesn’t want me to become an assistant producer anymore.” Your hand laced with Seungcheol’s underneath the pale blue quilt wrapped around you both. “She wants me to get my music out there to the world. She said she wanted me to stop hesitating about my future.”

“And what do you think about her advice?”

You turned to him, and your eyes were moist, your lips trembling with emotion as you smiled. “Baby,” you said gently, leaning on his shoulder, “it’s not that simple.” You sighed. “And I know I might sound like such a coward to you, but I have a reason for not pursuing a singing career. Besides, I think I’m already too old for that kind of life.”

“Yeah,” Seungcheol playfully acknowledged, “twenty-seven is too old for that kind of life.”

You laughed, but your eyes remained sad. “Consider that a sub-reason as to why I don’t want to be a singer. I know that I’m breaking my family’s heart by choosing not to become one because they want to see me actually doing something that I love. But you see, I’m not really in that bad a position. I’m doing something close to what I truly love. And for me, that is enough.”

Seungcheol held you closer with his one arm. “But what is the reason why you don’t want to be a singer? I’ve always wondered why, too. I didn’t ask you before about this because I didn’t want you—”

“—I don’t want a life where my most beautiful escape—my music—will most likely end up being my darkest prison.” You weren’t looking at him, but Seungcheol knew from your voice that you meant your words, and you wanted him to understand. “I’ve seen it happen. Every day, I work with talented people who were brave enough to let the world see their lives and listen to their music. I help them shine like the stars they are, but I always witness them burn too brightly and die out too fast in the end. And I don’t want that kind of life for myself. I want my music to be mine alone and to whoever I want to give it to. I don’t want my art to be pressured by people’s expectations and desires. I don’t want that kind of life.”

“Tossing out the lines that were never truly mine,” he sang. “Throwing to the fire what was never truly fine. I am in a place where no doubt and fears can get me. I am safe tonight with lover and family. By the firelight, I could be me.” Seungcheol looked at you. “Is that why you sang this to your family? So that they won’t worry about you being miserable because you haven’t fulfilled your ultimate dream?”

You looked at him humorously. “My ultimate dream is to be your wife and the mother of your children, dummy.”

“Oh.” Seungcheol blushed. “I forgot about that part.”

You let out a huge breath. “But you’re right. I just wanted them to know that I’m okay with my life. At the same time, though, I can’t stop wondering if I am missing out on something that I know I want to try deep in my heart.”

“So try doing it.”

It was when you hesitated when he said those words that Seungcheol knew.

He kissed your temple gently. “Baby, I think you should at least try.” Seungcheol stared at you as you pondered what he said in your mind. He knew that a million thoughts, pros and cons and other factors were probably racing around in your head at this point, and he didn’t want you to do that. “Come on. On the count of three, answer my question: do you want to sing your songs out there in the world or not? One.” You didn’t budge. “Two.” You gripped his hand tighter. “Thr—”

“—yes.” You wrapped your arms around his neck and you looked at him, staring deeply into his eyes. “But I’m afraid of the cost it would ask of me.”

“The greater the risk, the greater the joy,” Seungcheol commented casually as he laid you down on the couch, smiling as he kissed you. “Try it.”

“Don’t you think I’m too old? Or that I look too—”

“—This is not about what I want. This is about what you want. Your life. Your future. Your dreams.” He gazed at you again, and he felt the same flush that had crept on his face when he first heard you sing, up in the mountains, in an orphanage. So many things had happened since then. And he pictured you in his head, living your dream, casting the same spell that you had enchanted him with on thousands of people.

A performer, not a producer. That’s who my granddaughter is. Your grandmother’s last words before you both went home lingered on his head as he kissed you. Making music and performing that music is what she does best, and what she has always wanted. Help her get to her dreams. Don’t let her give in to her fears.

By the hearth, as he made love to you—his hands planted on your hips, his painfully delicious rhythm bringing tears to your eyes—he could not get over the truth that, with or without the spotlight on you, you were an amazing woman already. And he knew that he would continue seeing you grow into someone he will always be proud to love and to be with. But in his mind, he could not shake off the image he saw of you, of who you could be if you just became brave enough to.

“What does your heart say?” he asked you, his hand running up and down your bare skin, your limbs tangled together. The fire in the hearth had gone down into sizzling embers and the quilt barely covered you both, but your skin pressed against each other was warm with the afterglow of your lovemaking. “What do you truly want to do?”

You looked up at him with no hesitation, his heart stopped to beat for a moment that felt like forever: because there, in the sparks of light that burst to life in your eyes, he could see the woman you are, and the woman you could be, evolving into one.

“Baby, I want to try.”                

 4 | spring, and through the seasons after

The train of your dress fanned around you in its lacy magnificence, and the sun could not help itself but touch the beautiful, delicate material with its glorious beams. The soft grass underneath your feet sighed as you passed, and bursts of color from the petals strewn by your nieces gave a beautiful contrast to the peaceful green of the grass and the muted white tones of your dress. You hear people’s voices as you pass them by, their whispers of congratulations and the flashes of cameras. You looked to the horizon, on the sleeping waters of the early morning ocean, which reflected the rosy blush of the first dawn of spring.

You heard the piano start its music, and you hear the viola and the cello in their sweet duet. You smiled at your friends and your family as you passed them by. The crown of flowers in your hair rustled as the wind blew, and your veil flowed along with your hair as that touch of breeze passed.

One more step until you reach him.

When your eyes locked with the man that you will vow to love and to cherish and to be with forevermore, flashes of seasons past appeared in your mind: summers where drops of sun would scorch your skin, and where the smell of petrichor would linger after brief showers of rain; the crunch of leaves beneath your boots, and the colder winds that you would brace against during autumn; the calming hush when everything falls asleep and shivers under blankets of ice and snow; and the first days of spring, like this one, wherein what was frozen through would turn back to healthy shades of green, awakening with a new purpose.

As more memories came to your mind, a song formed in your heart and became written on your mind as you took in Seungcheol’s smiling eyes, brimming with tears as your hand touched his.

“Hold me close, darling // never let go // make this feeling last forever and a day // let’s stay.” These words, for that one summer night, in an old town, where you slow-danced to guitar and dulcimer strings as lanterns swayed with the wind. “Run your fingers through my hair // say you won’t care // if this feeling lasts forever and a day // let’s stay...”

“I love you so much // that I couldn’t keep it in anymore. // I need you so // like the air I breathe to live one more day, so stay…” These words, for that time when you remembered yourself frantically running across sidewalks as the golden glow of streetlights blended with the colors of an autumn dusk, and crashing into the safe, strong arms that will continue to hold you for as long as this life lasts and after.

“You keep setting my soul on fire // you make everything worthwhile…” These words, for that winter night when you felt the blazing sparks of the fire by the hearth of your house, where you decided to take the risk of burning brightly like the stars with your music. “You’re the sun that made me shine like this, // you’re the love that I just can’t resist, so please stay…” These words, for all the moments that you had doubted and he had believed in you as you made your dreams come true. These words, because from the privacy of the firelight by the hearth to the adulation of thousands as you stood beneath spotlights, he had been there.

“Love, let’s stay…Stay this way.”

Each memory and each turn of the seasons that passed through your mind evoked a variety of emotions within you. And you know in your heart that the reason why you could recall them so vividly and feel them so profoundly is that you did not create them alone.

Your eyes take in the man whose companionship had completed the scenes in your head. Through the seasons, he had been with you. He had laughed with you. He had cried with you. He had grown with you. And unlike the seasons which come and go, he stayed.

And he never left.

As you said your vows and exchanged rings and as you sealed the promises made with a kiss, you knew: through the seasons, he had truly, and sincerely, loved you.

- Super-Late Leanne.  ⏰

[outlier-rookie]

Of Blood and Greatness - Chapter 1

Chapter 1/?? - The Kid In The Camp

AO3 Link

https://archiveofourown.org/works/26305741/chapters/64050937

***

“Who’s there?” John’s rough voice called out as Arthur rode back into camp.

“It’s Arthur! You dumbass.” He yelled in reply, receiving a huff in return.

“You’re back. Dutch wants to speak to ya.”

“What’s he want this time?” Arthur asked, drawing his horse to a halt in front of the other man.

“Ask him yourself.” The scared man replied, walking right past Arthur to continue his patrol.

Grumbling under his breath, Arthur guided his horse, a proud Andalusian he’d taken to calling Admiral on account of the stallions headstrong and commanding nature, over to the hitching posts. As he rode over his eyes were drawn to an unfamiliar horse hitched by the camp entrance, waiting patiently and grazing on the tufts of grass at its hooves. It was a gorgeous Missouri Fox Trotter with a clean golden coat and a rich dark mane streaked with blonde. He didn’t spend long studying the horse and instead picked up the buck he’d stowed on Admiral’s back and began trudging over to Pearson’s wagon.

But for the second time in as many minutes, an unfamiliar sight drew his attention. Sitting at the circular table and looking very out of place was a kid. Arthur took a moment to study them as he passed wondering what a young one such as themselves was doing in the middle of a camp of outlaws. The kid couldn’t have been older than thirteen or fourteen and was on the thin side. They weren’t that tall either, wearing a shirt too big for their thin frame with the sleeves rolled up in an effort to make the ill-fitting garment more wearable. In their hands they fidgeted with a ratty old hat and their hair was mattered and dirty giving the impression the kid hadn’t had so much as a bedroll to sleep on. An old memory of when Hosea and Dutch first took him in, and later John, drifted into Arthur’s thoughts as he passed. He’d barely handed the buck over to Pearson when Dutch approached him.

“Arthur, good to see you back, son.” The dark-haired man smiled as he clapped Arthur on the shoulder, directing the younger outlaw back towards the kid sat at the table.

“So what’s going on?” Arthur asked, “John said you wanted to talk to me ‘bout somethin’.” As the two men approached, the kid raised their head and locked eyes with Arthur. Arthur was nearly at a loss for words as the kid stared right into his soul. Their eyes were an almost unnaturally vivid shade of blue; much more intense than his own. What stuck him as odd was the weary look they held. It was the same look he’d sometimes see in Hosea’s eyes. Tired, haunted eyes like that had no place on some kid. Standing, the kid placed the ratty hat on their head and continued to stare at the two men as Dutch started to introduce them.

“This here is, uh.”

“(Y/N). My name’s (Y/N).” The kid filled in.

“Yes, this here is young (Y/N).” Dutch continued, leaving Arthur’s side to stand between him and the kid- (Y/N). “Bold little thing. Road right up into camp saying they wanted to talk to the leader of this gang and wasn’t taking ‘No’ for an answer.” He explained, chuckling lightly as he did. Arthur nodded as he hooked his thumbs into his belt, shifting his weight into a more casual stance.

“Why you coming out here to talk to a bunch of outlaws like us?” He asked watching with a critical eye as the kid hesitated for a moment, their eyes flicking to the ground as they brought their hands together and started picking at the skin around their nails. It took a few false starts before they finally got the words out.

“I want… I want ta join the gang.” Their hands dropped back to their sides and once again Arthur found those piercing blue eyes staring intently at him once more.

“I dunno Dutch.” He started, barely managing to break his gaze away from those haunting blue eyes. “They’re awfully young to be, runnin’ with folk like us.” He said, waving his hand and gesturing to the likes of Bill and Micah.

“I ain’t that young!” (Y/N) snapped.

“Kid, you can’t be more than fourteen at the oldest.”

“I’m fifteen! And I can take care of myself!”

“They why you want to join up with a gang? We ain’t some orphanage kid and we ain’t good people.”

“Now now Arthur.” Dutch cut in, raising his hand between the two. “You were the same age when Hosea and I took you in. And John was much younger.” He argued, drawing an aggravated sigh from Arthur.

“I still don’t think it’s a good idea Dutch. Look at em. They’re just a kid. And the world’s changing, cracking down on folks like us. It ain’t safe-”

“I ain’t safe on my own either!” The kid interrupted. “I ain’t been safe since the day I was born. And besides,” They continued, crossing their arms and leaning back on their heels, doing their best to stare down their nose at Arthur, “I don’t come untrained. I can shoot any gun and hit any target and I don’t miss unless the gun fails.”

Arthur stared incredulously at (Y/N) as Dutch let out a hearty laugh.

“And that ain’t the only thing I have to offer.” They continued. “Them fellas, uh. The special lawmen, the uh, the um-”

“The Pinkerton’s.” Dutch supplied.

“Yeah them! The Pinkerton’s are looking for you and are crawling all over Blackwater. But they ain’t looking for me.” Arthur narrowed his eyes and crossed his own arms.

“Whatchu getting at kid?”

“They’re saying, Arthur, that they can get into Blackwater and get our money. We can get out of here and be on our way!”

“I don’t know about this Dutch.”

“I’m with Arthur.” A fourth voice joined the conversation as Hosea strolled up to the three of them. “You’re an avid reader Dutch. Haven’t you ever heard the phrase ‘If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is’?”

“Come on old friend, think of what this could mean for us! All that money we lost at Blackwater, back in our hand. Valentine is only a temporary stop and we need to move soon. With the money from Blackwater back in our hands we can do a hell of a lot more than what we were originally hoping!”

Hosea sighed and continued to argue against it with Dutch when the kid cut in once more, drawing the attention of just about everyone in camp.

“I already got it!”

Dutch and Hosea froze mid-argument.

“What?” Dutch asked and Arthur swore he heard a note of confusion in the older outlaws voice.

“Your money from Blackwater. I already got it, so even if you sent someone back there and they managed to avoid running into the law, you won’t find it.”

Dutch’s earlier lax and cheerful demeanour disappeared as he stepped closer to the kid, his voice low and dangerous. “And how, exactly, did you find out where we hid it if we are to believe you.”

“Adults don’t pay a lot of attention to kids. Even less so if they’re street kids like me. Heard some of them, fancy-looking fellas, talking ‘nd saying they was investigatin’ you and thought they might know where you hid your valuables in case something happened.”

“And you just happened to get there and find it first?” Arthur growled, arms dropping to his side, right hand hovering by his gun. (Y/N)’s eyes followed Arthur’s movements as they too came to rest on the handle of Arthur’s gun.

“Yeah. I did.” They replied sharply, raising their own eyes back to meet his.

A tense silence filled the air as the camp went quiet.

“Stay. Here.” Dutch’s voice finally broke the silence. “Hosea, Arthur, with me.” The three men trekked away towards Dutch’s tent leaving the teenager alone at the table; a quick signal to Javier had the Mexican man nodding as he set himself up to watch the (h/c) teen while the others talked. Once the flaps to the tent had been drawn and fastened, Arthur exchanged a worried glance with Hosea while Dutch rubbed at his chin, his eyebrows creased with thought.

“What’s the plan Dutch?” Arthur softly questioned a hint of worry colouring his words.

“I’m not sure just yet Arthur. Hosea, what do you think?” Hosea huffed before replying.

“I think we continue with the plan to get away from Valentine. We’ve just about outstayed our welcome and it’s time to move on. I think it far more likely that this kid is part of a Pinkerton trap set to catch us.”

“And if they are telling the truth? If they really have gotten our money out from Blackwater and it’s now within our reach? It a lot of money Hosea, if we had that back then we could get the hell out here.”

“Is the slim chance that they are telling the truth worth the lives of everyone in camp Dutch?” The older outlaw returned. “We’ve already lost the Mac, Davey and Jenny. If this kid is luring us into a trap, who else will we lose?” Dutch brought his hand up to his mouth and nodded solemnly at Hosea’s words, though the crease in his brow suggested he was less than happy with the answer he was given.

“And what do you think Arthur?”

Arthur scratched at his stubble, drawing a hissed breathe as he thought about their options. He strongly sided with Hosea. This whole deal of a random kid wandering into their camp, claiming to have possession of their money was already a wild tale. Add on to that the fact they were apparently willing to just hand it back over to them in return for a place in the gang was just confusing. Anyone with half as much brains as Marston who found the money would have taken it for themselves, and yet this kid was here and offering to give it all back to them with not a lot in return. And yet something was stopping him from outright refusing to consider the kid might be telling the truth.

“I want to ask the kid something first.” He finally said. “They gotta have a reason for wanting to join up with folk like us. This kid could have set themselves up for life if they were smart with the money but instead, they’re trying to return it and get in our good graces. I want to find out what that reason is first.” He finished.

Dutch and Hosea were silent for a spell before the eldest outlaw smiled and clapped Arthur on the arm. “And you claim you ain’t a thinker boy.” Arthur tugged his hat a little further over his face as he averted his eyes, muttering a half-hearted argument under his breath before making his way back toward (Y/N). The teen looked up at Arthur as he stopped by the table, silently regarding the young teen before him. Silently, he pulled out a cigarette and lit it as he kicked a leg up on the short barrel that acted as a chair. The two stared silently at each other as Arthur puffed away before taking the lit cigarette from between his lips and addressed them as Hosea and Dutch watched a short distance behind him.

“Why do you want to join the gang?” He asked slowly, his drawl weighing his words down heavily as he spoke. “You could’ve taken all that money for yourself so why go to all the trouble of bringing it down to us? Worse people than us could have found you and they wouldn’t have had any qualms about robbing and killing some half-starved fifteen-year-old kid sleeping out alone in on the plains.” He paused, taking another drag and lazily blowing out the smoke. “Whatever you want from us must be worth a lot more to you than money.”

(Y/N) didn’t answer straight away. They squeezed their hands tightly and Arthur could barely see them biting their lip from under their ratty hat.

“M’ Dad.” Was the soft reply. Arthur stayed silent and watched as the kid drew a shaky breath. “My auntie. She said that my Daddy is an outlaw. Said that- that he knows the Van Der Linde gang. I just. I want to meet him.” They finished with a shrug.

“What’s your Daddy’s name kid?” Dutch asked, coming up to sit beside the teenager who was suddenly looking much smaller than they did when Arthur first spoke to them.

“I- I don’t-” Again the kid tightly wrung their hands as if it would relieve the emotional pressure they were feeling. “I know what he looks like. That’s all I need. I don’t care if he wants nothin’ ta do with me. I just want him to know that I exist, I suppose.”

Arthur stubbed the end of his cigarette and dropped the butt on the ground, turning to look at Hosea and Dutch who shared a mildly surprised look. Arthur mulled over the information in his head. Fifteen years ago when (Y/N) would have been born, it was mainly Dutch and Hosea finding jobs that he’d sometimes join, while Susan and Bessie looked after John. Uncle might have been around then too but Arthur failed to see any similarities between the drunken old man and the kid who currently looked like they wanted the ground to swallow them.

As Arthur was mulling over everything, Hosea stepped up and took a seat by the teen.

“You mentioned your Aunt earlier, but what about your mother?” he asked gently.

“Don’t have one.” Came a barely legible mumble. Silence once again fell over the group but no one seemed eager to break it this time. Just as he was about to say something, anything really, Dutch beat him to it.

“How far away did you hide the money?”

“W-West of Valentine.”

With a nod, Dutch turned his attention to Arthur. “Arthur, I want you to take Javier and Charles with you and the kid.” Turning back to the kid he continued. “I trust that you aren’t going to lead my boys into a trap.” He said. “If you stay true to your word then there’ll be a place for you among us.”

The kid's face lit up at Dutch’s words. “Yessir!” They cheered; face aglow in the afternoon sun as they turned to Arthur. “We should leave as soon as possible. To be back before the sun gets too low, ya know?” Arthur grunted in response and waved for the kid to mount up. They only took a few steps before spinning back around. “Can I get my gun back?” Dutch shrugged and nodded.

Arthur strolled back over to Admiral, running a hand along the steed’s neck as the horse noses at the satchel hanging by the man’s side. Feeding the stallion a fresh apple, Arthur doubled checked his saddlebags for ammo and supplies while he waited for Charles, Javier, and the kid. Not even five minutes later he was joined by the kid, repeater slung across their back, with Charles and Javier at their heels. They boldly strolled up to the Fox Trotter, smiling brightly as the horse nosed at their offered hand before the kid swung themselves up onto the saddle.

Sparing a place at Charles and Javier and seeing the two men also sat up in their respective horses, Arthur nodded at the kid. “Alright then, lead on.” He instructed with a wave.

“Follow me, gentlemen.”

And with that, they were off.

***

Thank you for your patience! The first chapter for “Of Blood and Greatness” is finally finished!

As a reminder, this is a Red Dead Redemption 2 crossover fanfic as it contains elements of Percy Jackson (you don’t need any prior knowledge of PJO,)

[ephemerlskies]

emerald dreams: REDACTED | kth

⇢ pairing: taehyung x reader

⇢ genre: series, blackmirror!au, angst, fluff, artist!taehyung, strangers to lovers, set sometime in a dystopian era of technology, taehyung is s o f t

⇢ word count: 4.5k

⇢ warnings: explicit language, memory loss, mentions of death, themes of grief/depression

⇢ summary: in a technologically advanced utopia where a memory can be stored as a data file in a chip inserted in your head, it was entirely impossible to forget anything. when you met taehyung, a young at heart yet talented artist, he garnished an odd familiarity, raising suspicion that some of your memories had been lost in the digital cloud, or worse, erased from your memory chip.

♪ playlist: IDK you yet - alexander 23 • 4 o' clock - v & rm • jamais vu - bts • the story - brandi carlile •  moonlight - ariana grande ♪

╰ episode index: 01 | 02 (coming soon)

a/n: if you don't watch black mirror then just imagine that everything is technology based, even the inner mechanisms of your thoughts/mind/memories and social culture has centered around the automation of the human body. also the government is sleazy and controls literally everyone in this au >:) also, i'm going to try and update this weekly!!

Scenario No. 2: Re-test

You didn’t expect to be spending your weekly visit at your favorite coffee shop gasping for air in the single occupancy commode. An unsettling familiarity had reached into your chest and compromised the body of your lungs, now savagely hyperventilating for air, and seized control on the reins of every sensory neuron in your body.

First, it was the sensation of sound. That voice, that unusually specific coffee order, the soft lilt of politeness riding through his etiquettes of ‘please’ and ‘thank you’ struck right in your chest with a shockwave of deja vu, like you’ve heard that order before, a million times before perhaps. No part of you would let go of the fact that for some reason, this stranger was someone you knew very well.

And yet you had no idea who he was.

“Hi, how are you?” He smiled to ease the nerves of the overworked barista on this Sunday afternoon. Your ears picked up his husky, sweet tone through the scuttle of customers walking in and out of the shop and a commotion of side conversations that filled the room. It was quite noisy, enough so that it muffled any specific utterances, but the bass of his voice had met your ears with a strong posture of familiarity.

You looked over to the sweater draped over his frame that fit snugly against his broad shoulders. That was when your visual senses were overrun with the muted forest green of the knitted jumper. You’ve seen this color green. To be fair, green was always secured in your life abundantly through your own will. You had always loved this color and demonstrated this through small displays such as picking the green straw from a bundle of multicolored ones, or scanning over a set of shirts to find which one had the most green in it.

You surrounded yourself with a life full of green, but when this green sweater was paired with the voice there was a strange jolt of reminiscence.

It was not just a sweater, it was a sweater that you have touched, even worn before. And when he wore it, it wasn’t just any green. It was his green.

His figure drew closer to you as he waited at the side bar for his drink to be called, sending a waft of his scent to nullify those of fresh brewed coffee and pastries. Along with your eyes and ears, your nose now fell to the magnetism of this stranger.

He smelled of fresh evergreen with a bit of pinewood, mixing into an overwhelming oaky aroma. As the smells that resembled a tranquil forest ruminated through your lungs and your bloodstream, it weakened your body to a state of paralysis. Your motor skills were numbed to endow a series of mental backflips to figure out where this estranged attraction was coming from, and why it was him who provoked it.

Standing comatose in the middle of a populated coffee shop meant the clash of your body into another's was bound to occur. And of course, it was his body that bumped you out of the trance of obscured memories. It was his arms that held your shoulders steady so you wouldn’t topple over and spill your latte over yourself.

“Oh, sorry! Didn’t see you there. Are-” His eyes studied your aghast expression, “Hey, are you okay?”

This marked the compromise of your visual sensory. You looked right into his eyes, kind and concerned, and your surroundings had melted away into a whirl of unidentifiable colors. Your body was transported to a purgatory that rested between reality and a dream-like setting, which eventually molded itself into actuality before your eyes.

Redacted File No. 6

Suddenly you turned your head side to side and the territory that was once a café was no more, and had alchemized into a zone of unparalleled comfort. To your left, you were warmed by a wood-burning fireplace with stones crested along the frame of the pit. Your body was covered in a blurred canvas of forest green, and there were two hands holding your body gently and lovingly. It was a vision so incredibly clear and intricate it couldn’t be conjured through imagination or illusion, but a very real and vivid memory.

“Excuse me? I’m sorry… You’re okay right?” His jostling hands fainted the memory that swept you from the cafe. You blinked a few times before your eyes could refocus and land you to your present circumstances.

The man’s firm grip hadn’t abandoned your shoulders even though you regrounded your balance, which quickened the pace of your heart. They you earnestly, that even though you were certainly not going to fall over, he wouldn’t have let go. Without more than an array of unintelligible stutters to confirm you were okay, because you weren’t okay, you hobbled backward quite ungracefully to the privacy of the bathroom. After your rushed retreat, you tried to analyze the string of memories that pervaded your mind.

How do you know this man? Were these your memories? Or perhaps your memory chip glitched and downloaded files that didn’t belong to you?

The blunder of confusion racked your head with a slight tension headache. What was once a temporary occupancy of the restroom turned into a marathoned hideout until you could safely assume the stranger’s drink was made and he would leave the vicinity.

You checked your phone to count the duration of time spent. It had been about ten minutes since you pathetically holed yourself up, and it would be about five more minutes until you felt you could confidently emerge and escape.

You knew him, and for some reason it sent you into a fearful sequester.

Luckily, just last week you downloaded an upgraded storage plan which gave you access to all your past memories.

You activated the chip residing in your temple to trace every single unit in the archives, even the ones from as early as your birth, to see if anyone, including the likes of a passing stranger, a waiter that took your order three weeks ago, even a student from your high school class, resembled the man in the café. There were no records in your memory files of someone who echoed the same unsettling familiarity that this man had.

If the advanced technology that contained each capsule of every moment in time that you have ever experienced couldn’t give you the data on this man, then perhaps it was just an unusual coincidence.

One of those Twilight Zone-esque occurrences that isn’t deployed through factual evidence. Though you weren't entirely met with closure for this reasoning, it was enough to cope through the rest of your lengthened stay in the restroom.

What battered your precisely timed and nearly successful plan to avoid further interactions with this man was the light knock against the door. And it was the feeling of guilt that there must be other customers who planned on using the bathroom for its intended purpose that hoisted you up and had you reluctantly vacating the protected area.

Though, it was punishingly ironic that the one who had torn you from your sanctuary was the same person who put you there in the first place.

“Sorry,” He apologized about three times within the small window of time he’d been confronted by you and you already caught on to his habit of perpetual remorse, “Um, I just wanted to make sure you’re okay. I bumped into you and you kinda… freaked then ran and hid in the bathroom.”

If he weren’t so considerate to a stranger that was acting oddly evasive, this would have been easy. But he was considerate, and this was unbelievably difficult.

“Yeah um,” Your eyes sank down to rest on the comforting hue of his sweater, “I’m, uh, I'm okay. Thank you.”

He cleared his throat, dislodging the nervous laugh blocking his words.

“Okay well, I was just wondering if you were all good. You seemed a little shaken up back there.” Frankly, he still sensed something about him was off-putting to you, but he tried to deny it for the moment.

Your assurances fell gravely short of convincing since you couldn’t even bring your eyes to level with his. The soft-spoken gesture of kindness made you feel like a helpless animal that would surrender at the slightest sign of danger. It was a fair assessment for you acted as though his accidental collision into you through a crowded space was the end of the world.

“Yeah, sorry. Thank you!” You chirped to imitate a normal reaction despite this tremendously abnormal situation. “I was just um… It's just one of those days, ya know?”

Then, it was his smile that cluttered your sensation of touch. He was standing a respectable distance from you, however, his smile touched you. It cornered you into blurting out something even more peculiar than the overwhelming deja vu that had been commencing the moment you noticed him.

“Do I-” You paused to lower your voice that could have outsourced to the collection of ruckus in the café. Now in a whisper, you continued, “Do I know you?”

He didn’t offer a voiced response, but an equally bewildered expression. You couldn't quite read what this implied so you assumed he thought you were crazy, maybe even a bit creepy.

“Sorry! Fuck, that’s so creepy. I’m just gonna go.” Before you had the chance to push past him and the billowing clouds of regret, he obstructed your path to the doorway with his body.

“No! I think I know you too. Like, I’ve never seen you but I remember you. Like… Like a dream.” He scaled the length of your body with his eyes, which only manufactured his intuition into an undoubtable certainty. “I know you. How do I know you?”

“Hell if I know. I’m just as confused as you.” You felt your body slumping into itself under his gaze. He was attentive to every detail of you, from the length of your hair to the twitch of your fingertips, making you feel over exposed to this stranger that wasn’t a stranger.

“Well, do you wanna maybe sit? Have a coffee with me?” He propagated his interest like there was no reason to be afraid which only intimidated you further. There wasn’t a real threat in his invitation, however accepting it felt like you were walking on thin ice.

The government agent standing guard with a perfect earshot of every conversation wiring through the small café didn’t help ease your nerves either.

“I really should be heading home soon.” Guilt worked quickly to try and compensate for the discouraged expression on his face, “But… if you give me your number I’ll call you and maybe we can go out for lunch or something?”

He traded his grim with excitement while pulling a pen from his pocket and walking over to the condiments bar to write his number on a napkin. You had no clue as to why, but the fact that he had a pen on hand was strikingly nostalgic, much so as every other detail you had acquired from him.

Although entirely unheard of, you felt like this new knowledge of him was not adding to the collection, but rather dusting old artifacts that had simply been forgotten. You weren’t learning things about him, but instead remembering them; the more you stood watching him scribble his name and number on the napkin, the deeper you entrenched yourself in this theory.

Not to mention, you couldn’t recall the last time someone favored using a pen over a keyboard and a paper napkin over a digital contact entered on your phone.

What kind of person carries around a pen in the age of modern technology?

“Thank you. I’m ___, by the way.” Your hand wavered a bit before holding out to greet him, and when his hand made contact, you could have sworn on your own life that this wasn’t the first time it happened.

This was no introduction. It was a reunion.

The fix of his gaze had suggested he too felt reminiscent with the feeling of your hand.

A shared inability to let go held your hands together, trying to harness a bit of recognition or recall a social function where you two might have met in passing. Neither one of you had shown any intention to pull away, which dragged the formality of shaking hands into a gesture of mutual wonder; now you were not so much exchanging a handshake but rather holding each other. Holding tightly, as if you were rediscovering a mass of feelings that would give you an answer.

However, the answer was not generous enough to make itself available to either of you.

It could have been hours until you were able to unriddle this strange sensation, so you made the preventative move of pulling away before the warmth concocting between your hands would produce a light sweat on your palm.

He too seemed to retract upon regaining his sensibilities, but there was a glint in his eyes that suggested he would have held on for longer, maybe even forever if necessary. If it would regroup the unattainable and partially inexistent memories into cognizance.

“Taehyung. Kim Taehyung.”

Redacted File No. 12

You clung with desperate persistence onto the flaccid hand. Trailing up the arm was an indiscernible figure that had no features, no notable detailing, not even a vague outline of facial structure; just an ethereal glow that projected throughout the entire room. The nebulous haze terminated any identifiable aspect of the room except the hand you were holding, so you focused on the scant detail your eyes offered.

There was no specified context, no real evidence that you had to hold on, but something deep within you was urging for it. Some omnipotent instinct which prophesied that if you let go of the hand, you would in turn be letting go of the world.

You had to hold on.

However your hands wouldn’t obey you. Each time you tried to tighten your fingers, it felt as if the hand would continue slipping from your grasp. Or maybe, your hands weren't gripping at all.

They were numb, or paralyzed, and unable to execute your urgencies. The more force you exerted into your dire intentions, the easier it was for the hand to grow limp and melt through your fingers like liquid. It was frustrating, your willful attempts to hold on seemed to elicit the opposite effect as the hand, unowned by a certain being, resigned from yours.

“I don’t want to let go. I don’t want to let go.” You chanted through the tears, feeling as though that would somehow ignite a stronghold on the lifeless hand falling away.

But even so, it did fall away.

Perhaps the pain of it was that it wasn’t you who was letting go, but the hand that was being taken away from you. That you had been fighting a losing battle far beyond the prospects of your own decisions or control.

You begged for mercy, but were bestowed with your hands clean of what it was trying so desperately to hold onto. The hand slipped and when you peaked through the glaze of tears, your knuckles and fingers were gripping airy, cold emptiness.

“I don’t want to let go. I don’t want to let go. I don’t want to let go.”

Soon you were captured in a perpetual aria of pleas to the ears of a God that would not listen. Unsettling despair had mutilated the illuminating glow of the room to bleak darkness. The world of colors had fallen absent akin to the cold hand vaporizing alongside the dispersal of light.

Then, everything was black.

Your eyes shot open with deep distraught.

The full moon flashed against your dampened face; half of the moisture sourced from a cold sweat and half from the heavy tears pouring from your eyes.

You knew the only explanation for this dream, which resonated more closely to a memory than a figment of sleepful imagination, was curated by the peculiar events that took place earlier today.

Soon, the dream drifted from your mind as consciousness took its place. Your tardy response to write the sparse remnants of it had left you with nothing but a distorted plot of what transpired during your slumber.

Widening your awakening through long sips of water had forced you into an obsessive rewinding of your memory files. It was a shame there wasn’t technology yet to store memories of your dream, or you’d have been replaying the one you just dreamt about a hundred times.

You scanned through a collection of moments in the afternoon when you first met Taehyung. The clear, digital picture of him glassed over your eyes, taking the place once inhabited by the moon, as you pressed the play button on the handlebar of functions.

“Taehyung. Kim Taehyung.”

You rewound no later than a second after he introduced himself back to the beginning.

“Taehyung. Kim Taehyung.”

Rewind. 0.5 x speed.

“Taehyung. Kim Taehyung.” Said in a distorted voice from the ‘reduce speed’ function you equipped.

“Kim Taehyung.” You muttered to the empty room and the bright moon.

Sleeping was abstracted to an impossibility, and for the sake of your sanity, you walked over fish out the napkin in your coat pocket. It took you a while to move on from meticulously inspecting Taehyung’s handwriting.

The aimless effort to recall if it was the penmanship of some classmate had slackened to yet another unmet hope. Taehyung didn’t reside in your memories, but claimed quite an existence in your intuition. However, that wasn’t satisfying enough. You settled with the unsolved familiarity, though not before a lengthy wrestle between your eyes and the seven numbers scribbled into the napkin.

After dancing with the idea of it, you resolved some courage to finally dial. Each ping of the phone had you dreading for the automated message to inform you the recipient was not available at the moment, that you would have to hang up or wait for the tone to leave a message. Little by little your spirited nerve had depleted as you were now practicing what message you would leave Taehyung in his voicemail box, praying that it wasn’t full.

“Hello?” The sound of his voice interrupted the seventh or eighth ring, along with your rehearsal of the voicemail you assumed you’d have to leave being that the moon had been aging the sky into midnight.

“Oh! Oh, sorry I didn’t expect you to pick up.” After the chaotic pounding in your chest settled, you realized how nonsensical you sounded. Everything you methodically planned to say had been scattered by his unprecedented answer.

Instead of asking why you would call if you expected him not to pick up, he asked with a kind curiosity:

“Who is this?” He didn’t sound tired, in fact it sounded as if he had been hard at work preceding this call.

“Oh yeah! It’s ___, from the coffee shop. You remember me right?” Though you powered through, the worry was quite deafening. Taehyung seemed to pick up on it and diffused it with a gentle chuckle.

“Of course I remember.” On the other end of the line, he had been penciling a sketch on a blank page in his notebook.

The serenity of the stars and moon pinned on the navy blue sky never failed to spark inspiration. Taehyung was the type to refuse passing up a surge of an artistic muse, even if that meant he would shed a few hours of sleep from his routine. No matter the time or place, he always had a pen on hand to honor his heart’s unremitting passion.

He loved the moon and stars. He loved it so much as one would love a dear friend. He wished to be a part of the scenes of lights that hovered just out of reach, but could only settle on capturing a piece of the starry heavens on paper with his trusty pencil, sketchbook, and emerald-tinted muse.

“It’s late to be calling, but you’re lucky I was awake.” He said to hide how ecstatic he was you had actually called.

For someone you had just met, or at least you thought you just met, he threaded a flirtatious coyness in his response. It difficult to hush the winged eruption in your stomach because of that.

“Lucky, huh.” You repeated through a mumbled laugh, “I was just… I was thinking.”

“About what?” He had placed his phone on speaker mode and laid it next to his sketchbook.

There was a new inspiration that bore a louder siren than that of the moon and the stars. He sifted through the memory files throughout his day to the minute he first bumped into you, and though your face had been ingrained quite clearly behind his eyelids with each blink, he relied on the accuracy of a reference to perfect his drawing of you; not to mention he projected the image of your face to delight his undeniable attraction and to moderate the wildly romanticized version of you in his head.

Perhaps if he hadn't, he wouldn't be able to discern your face from the arena of glimmering stars scattered along the shaded skies.

“Just about how I think I was too quick to pass your offer.”

“Really?” That endearing lilt hope in his voice, the excitement expressed, acted as some puppeteer that manipulated the corner of your lips to lift into a smile.

No muscle in your body could ever be moved with the same conviction as it did when he was the reason for it. It bewildered you, almost to the point of frustration, as to why he had this power over you.

I just met him. I'm already getting this worked up? You thought how absurd it was you'd fallen this quickly, hoping it would ground you to the reality that he was still a stranger you hadn’t exchanged more than two conversations with.

Though, reality and memories and data files had all been obscured ever since you met Taehyung which was fascinating more than it was disorienting.

“Would you want to, maybe, grab coffee? Say next Thursday?” Your hand was subconsciously gripping the bed sheets, just like the way you gripped the disembodied hand in your dream, and awaited his response with full-blown suspense.

“I’ll see you next Thursday, ___.” Taehyung's confirmation put all your anxiety to rest, as well as your tightly clamped hand around the cotton fabric.

“I’ll see you.” You mimicked as if that would make the idea of seeing Taehyung again any less surreal. He laughed at this and brushed up a few finishing touches on his drawing.

“So just to clarify.” His pause gave entry for curiosity to wire through your head.

“Yes?”

“When you said you were thinking… you were thinking of me?” You wanted the upper hand to be reinstated with you, but your shy chuckle was no match to the smirk adopted on his lips that you couldn’t see, but you knew was there. You knew he was prideful when he swept the rug right out from under your feet, and you were right.

“Perhaps. And what if I was?” You framed your question to render your intimidation as flattery. Though, you had no idea how convincing this facade actually was and that it came off more suggestive than you had expected. There was a part of you that had fraternized with the romantic idea of Taehyung which might have registered your motive to reciprocate an undertone beyond platonic.

“Then that would be one thing we have in common.” He sounded responsive to your flirting and raised the bar significantly.

Your eyes and smile were directed towards the scenery displayed by your window, but they were not dedicated to the moonlit beauty of the diamond encrested sky. Though the midnight glades of stars were the ones to witness your smile, it was, without a shadow of a doubt, dedicated to Taehyung.

He was staring at the same moon, the same plot of stars, so perhaps you were looking into each other. When the moon twinkled, it looked awfully similar to a smile. Your smile.

For the moment, there was a radio silence that splintered through the two speakers of your and Taehyung’s phones. Even if the use of his hands weren’t engaged by his needful recreation of your face through his art, if his hands were left unused, he wouldn’t have mustered the discipline to end the call. Your unoccupied hands were trying to find any employment so you could have some excuse for not hanging up as well, not that there was anything else to be discussed.

Again, it felt familiar. The feeling of hesitance to be the first one to hang up despite the conversation’s recoil.

The cohesive idleness of you and Taehyung was unprovoked and ran out for about a minute. Neither of you had the intention to sever the virtual communion quite yet. The awkwardness of sitting in silence on the phone with a newly acquainted stranger was a delicacy compared to preemptively ending the call.

At one point, you were about to question if he had hung up; but the rhythmic and light breathing told you otherwise. And because of that mutual need to stay on the line, it seemed to be unreasonable to hang up, save for the yawn that eventually trimmed the call to an end.

“You’re tired.” He stated, now prompted with a yawn of his own upon hearing yours. “Goodnight, ___.”

“Goodnight, Taehyung.” Saying his name out loud sent you into that same blend of reminiscence and nostalgia.

His name was not unexplored by your tongue, that much was certain, and the thought of putting your entire life on hold to discover why it felt that way was a tempting venture. Why when he said your name, it felt like sitting in front of a wood-burning fireplace under the security of a green sweater and wrapped in safe arms.

More than that, you wanted to know if he felt all these things too.

“I’ll see you?” You asked instead of saying that dreadful word 'goodbye'.

“I’ll see you.” He repeated before reluctantly hanging up.

“___.” He whispered your name, hoping the inky sky would design it in the stars for the world to remember forever.

Hoping that the next hours, which would surely be spent on multiple sketched renditions of your face, would amount in some revelation of the mystifying familiarity. He believed shedding a few graphite imitations onto the surface of his sketchbook, soaked by the glow of moonlight, would somehow make him remember everything hidden in the dark compartments of his heart.

However, if it didn’t, he would be okay with it. Because at least he knew he would see you again.

“Meeting place: Silver Lining Café.”

“Thank you, Agent Park. Heighten surveillance on the two subjects.”

[i-growl-growl-growl]

The Warmth of The Teacup

The teacup was warm in his hands, the heat of the porcelain cup being the only sense of warmth to him since he returned to the town of CaiYi, actually it had been the only sense of warmth to him since he was doomed to this cruel fate. As he continues to hold the cup in his hands, grateful that he has found such a pleasant reprieve from the everlasting chilled, gloomy environment that has surrounded him for so long, he thinks back to the last time he had been here which was the time during the quest to scout Biling lake for river monsters that had been drowning fisherman and other river travelers. Just as the river had been swamped in thick fog during that time, the entire town has been a reminiscent copy of the harsh climate and weather (except the latter is intentional and everlasting). Everywhere he goes, no matter how near or far he travels, that thick fog and the brisk air, cold enough to cause his breath to form clouds as it’s released, has followed, so to say that he is grateful for the warmth of the mysteriously out of place teacup is an understatement that the gods would surely laugh at. As he wraps his hands around the petite frame, he wishes for the warmth exuding from it to never fade for surly it would give him hope that he is being forgiven for his wrongdoings after suffering for so long, even if the forgiveness is of only the slightest bit. Just the slightest bit of warmth has made him think of how hopeful he had once been, and still is, that this curse will someday be tamed and cured, faded away only to become a distant memory, a nightmare, of his.

The longer he thinks about such things, the more Wei Wuxian wishes not to think any longer of his eternal suffering. The said male holds that cup to him as if it is his very own dead but beating heart while wishing not to spend eternity in this world of suffering any longer. His lips quiver at the thought of helplessness and loss and regret that he feels. The cup gives him so much hope for forgiveness but it also seems to mock him as it brings back a lost source of happy memories into his mind, reminding him of what had once been and what could’ve been if only he hadn’t succumb to evilness.

Wei’s hands begin to shake, his lip quivering more, his eyes tear up and his body goes stiff all the while simultaneously shaking as broken sobs desire to escape his nearly crying form. He squints his eyes closed to a painful extent as he pushes back the urge to fall for the woe of his own being but the task is proven hard as he thinks of all that he gave up, all who have been lost- only to remain in his memory while their bodies otherwise rot in the soil of the earth all due to his bidding- he thinks of the simplicity of things since passed and the fun adventures that he had once sought. As Wei Wuxian sits in this empty tea-room in the ghostly formed replicant of the lodge where he and his friends once stayed, Wei Wuxian is once again overcome with grief.

“If only I could take back everything that I had done” he thinks to himself as it becomes harder for him to hold back his tears as he attempts to focus his mind back onto the warmth of the teacup only to feel the source dwindling away at a rapid pace.

As Wei Wuxian realizes that the teacup’s gift of reprieve is fading away, the despair within him surfaces once again, leaving his body just as cold as his foggy and freezing surroundings. He clasps the teacup tighter and brings it close to his body as though he believes that, in so doing, he will retain the heat that once exuded from the small object. It’s all a foolish act though, for he’s well aware that the full extent of his eternal suffering is being called back upon him. His hope of forgiveness has once again gone unanswered, instead, those who’ve cursed him have truly made a mockery of his suffering by sending this false source of hope to him.

Wei Wuxian cries. He cries and he cries and he cries until he has no tears left to release.

By the time he has finished crying, he cares not to drink the tea that remains in the now cold cup. Wei Wuxian sees it as an evil source of invasive memories more than the drink that it truly is. He looks down at the liquid in disgust and anger. How could he have believed that this cup of tea could be a good sign for him? Why had he fallen for the curse’s desire for him to pick it up?

Wei Wuxian is angry at himself. He shouldn’t have come here and he shouldn’t of been so enticed to hold the strange object that exuded anything other than the sense of being frozen. Why was Wei Wuxian still so foolish, even in death?

Wei Wuxian is so overcome with anger that he released the most pained screams as he throws the cup to the wall, shattering it to pieces through the force of hitting the wall. Wei Wuxian, rampages, tossing furniture, tearing drapes, punching walls, kicking mats. He rampages and rampages and rampages until the building is no longer recognizable as the lodge that he and his friends once visited. Once he is finished, he gives only a moment to look over his destruction. He cares not to feel regret for regret is all he knows, regret and false senses of hope.

Once Wei Wuxian has come to terms that he will never be forgiven, he heads out into the deep fog, the fog with its unwelcoming freezing chill of a breeze to accompany it. He walks into it and allows it to swallow his form as he paces further and further away from the lodge, getting lost in the thickness of the gloomy grey substance and the equally gloomy weather. He walks away from the lodge and into the fog, thinking of how forgiveness will never come.

Oh, but if only Wei Wuxian had staid in the lodge. If only the grieving soul had drunk that tea.

Once his soul source is to far to be felt by the presence of the shattered teacup in the lodge, once the tea can no longer sense his presence, it lights up into a blue vaporizing glow.

Once Wei Wuxians soul is too far to be sensed, the tea dissipates, its powers gone. The offering wasted. If only Wei Wuxian had seen its true potential and taken advantage of it.

The warm teacup with the tea had been Wei Wuxian’s source of forgiveness. It had been an offering from the Lan clan, an offering from all but most particularly one member of the Lan clan who has missed the once mischievous member of the Ying clan to be exact. If Wei Wuxian had drank the tea, if he had fully accepted the warmth of the source in the cup, then he would no longer be shallowed by the thick fog, he’d no longer be surrounded by gloom, he’d no longer be suffering.

Wei Wuxian had been offered forgiveness but he had failed to see it, he had failed to accept it is it should’ve been.

If only the suffering soul hadn’t of been so lost in letting the warmth of the offering be taken for granted, if only he hadn’t been so focused on using the offering to give him a temporary source of warmth, if only he had drank the tea for, even after its warmth had gone, if Wei Wuxian had drunk it, the warmth would’ve returned, it would’ve returned and it would’ve staid.

If only Wei Wuxian had drunk the tea from the warm teacup, he would’ve been forgiven and he would’ve returned to a place of warmth and love, he would’ve returned back to the human world.

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the ending sucks and the writing throughout this piece is sloppy but I needed to get something posted today, so here ya go.

Hope you enjoy, despite the incoherence.

Also, none of the gifs I found on google images for Wei Wuxian in fog would transer over to tumblr so I had to use this gif instead. (Just imagine that he’s sad and that there’s shittons more ‘fog’ around him)

~Savie

[adrrianraines]

how to feel alive • adrian x mc

kisses with meaning—tummy: you will always come back to me. song inspiration: somebody to die for—hurts

disclaimer: i’m still emo about that tapestry fragment where mc died so here ya go another fic nobody asked for

ADRIAN STOOD OVER the edge of raines corporation’s rooftop ledge, eyes dark, jaw clenched and mouth in a thin line. the broken pieces of the metropolitan area were sprawled before him, asking to be fixed but not knowing where to begin. shadows slowly drowned the city buildings as it blazed, the morbid image much like a mirror of his own misfortunes.

harsh winds crashed against skin as he raised a hand towards twilight, staring at the contrast his flesh made against the black canvas. he closed his eyes for a moment, senses swallowing each detail he can taste, absorbing each sensation he can feel. the ashes that floats in the air, the stench of blood coating the breeze, even burning debris above everything else. then, he can feel himself getting dragged far, far away as he closed his eyes.

“adrian!” he immediately knew who it was the moment her voice filled his ears as it pulled him away from a dreamless sleep. his arm shoots out to pull her close, their limbs tangling together under the covers with lips finding its way towards each other.

“mmm... five more minutes, please,” he murmurs as he nuzzles closer, enjoying the sensation of skin against skin—a warmth he’s too familiar to forget.

“come on! we still have work to do!” he felt a light tap against his chest as she laughed and wriggled herself away from his embrace.

his vision welcomed a face so alluring that he produced the warmest of smiles. he loved seeing her on his bed, hair a mess, cheeks flushed, and lips a shade of cherry red plumpness. it reminded him of how happy he was and how full his heart had been.

“may i have a kiss?” he asked with a smirk as he laid against the soft sheets with arms wide open. she laughed and climbed on top of him as he pulled her closer, never ever wanting to let go.

adrian thought he couldn’t be greedier than he already was. he kept wanting more than what he can hold, what he can grasp. but he knew it’s all he’d ever been when it came to her. then he succumbed to his desires, hands pinning her down as he showered her with all the love he can give, each touch a searing fire—the heat engulfing and burning. he wanted to feel her flushed against him, her voice crying out his name—like a whimper of bliss, a song of sweet surrender.

but she fades away before his very eyes. then he finds himself in his office, sitting alone with lights dimmed, bathing the room in somber luminescence. he ponders quietly with thoughts scattered about when he heard a soft knock at the door. sooner than later, he saw her again, vivid as day, strutting inside with a steaming cup in hand, lips curved in a saccharine trap.

“coffee? you’ve been working hard since vega’s failed coup.” somehow, somewhere deep within, his heart yearned and ached so badly at the sight of her. adrian motioned her to come closer, her presence providing a temporary lull of escape in a brazen wall of illusions.

“i don’t need anybody else...as long as i have you by my side.” he whispered as he wrapped his arms around her waist, head resting against her chest. he planted a tender kiss on a small spot above her tummy, the intimacy stretching his sanity to a thin line. when he felt her fingers brush his hair, it tormented him so much for the sensation felt real enough to warrant goosebumps all over his body.

“what’s gotten into you? you know i won’t leave.” she cooed against the embrace as he tightened his hold, afraid that if he ever dared open his eyes this time, she’ll disappear once more.

but he woke up with a start, vision greeted by a foreboding emptiness as panic bubbled in his system. he jerked his body up in a dumbfounded awestruck when he realized he’s not alone. he wasn’t sure how long he stayed rooted on the spot when finally caught sight of a figure holding him tight.

adrian’s breathing hitched as he slowly laid back down, careful not to wake her up. though she stirs a bit on her sleep but it was only to tighten her arms around his body, making sure he was within what her touch can hold. he turns and it pains him to look at her, each sight his eyes laid on an elaborate torture. for he couldn’t look away, he couldn’t close his eyes and his fingers couldn’t help itself but yearn to caress her inch by inch more and more. the flame within him that’s slow and subtle flickers alive.

in that moment, he realizes as he thinks to himself, that she’d always been too bright for him to desire. he’s suddenly too afraid—afraid of what his reality came into—that everything his hand ever touched only burned. and he’s reminded of the pungent smell of death, a sharp wake up call, all the memories fading away to the wee hours of the night.

foolish, his mind would say. what a foolish, foolish man, his inner demons would argue. it’s easier to ignore the pain. it’s easier to forget, it was never ending—like a broken record, a song on repeat. and he swallows it all—the ache, the longing, the regret, the torture, the loss. because forgetting her would be akin to leaping headfirst into the sun.

his resolve hardens as he finds his answer by stretching his arms wide open without hesitation, like wings spread out for its first flight. his emotions were drowning his logical senses with thoughts of her and only her. his mourning became evident each time reality sinks its teeth to his neck, sucking the life out of him, draining him to the core.

he knew deep inside that he didn’t want to love someone else, that no matter how many times he may wish he can forget, he’ll never get enough of her smile, the sound of her voice and the feeling of her lips against his own.

and he’d remember her in everything—of how the first light of dawn chases away dusk, of how the gentle early morning dew smelled, of how he plays music in his car stereo with her singing along as they drove across the lively city streets and even down to how his coffee tasted like. he’d remember her each time he closes his eyes, her memories staying fresh and alive for more years to come. he’d suffer remembering her but it was the only thing he could do to feel her close, to keep his sanity from teetering away.

he looks up, finally noticing the change that painted vivid colors on his dark, empty canvas. then he leaps from his feet, welcoming the feeling of soaring high and free, the wind whipping his hair, clothes and emotions away. then he perfectly lands to the next building’s awning just in time as the morning sun peeked from the clouds.

then he remembers. he remembers how it felt to live with her right next to him. he remembered how exhilaratingly happy it was, how much of a blood rush it’s been, how happier he became.

she was the wind engulfing him with open arms as he soared in the air like a bird circling the skies.

and he had never felt more alive.

dedicated to: @isabella-choices & @itlivesbeneath suffer with me ladies

[waspyb]

w/ @chibskimuses​ from here

A bet

A bet had been the reason he lost his position by the old owner, well that and he had been considered broken too, his purpose doing he lost blue blood. Lost the only thing there kept him alive and driving.

A android, a broken one.

Now he had been given off to some redhead, the exchange of words that he will be reset before left in his hand, a lie. He had all his memories, all the fact that he was defect, not knowing the new person, he consider his options. Would he been thrown on the street? or the trash? Was he one of those people disassembling androids for spare parts.

Fidgeting with his hands, he followed the red head along the streets of the night, the android knew most of them, the se-x club longer down the street, filled with Tracis- the Robots of his kind.

The noise from the casino long ago drowned out behind them, the bars and the busy streets long gone as they arrived at the new home. His.. Surely temporary home, for how long he would keep him.

Not having exactly listen, he was glad his program had taken over for him, some question asked, long responded with a “Yes sir,” followed by “I can go by what ever name you give me.” “ CyberSlut3000 “ “We are not doing that. Consider you won me in a.. Gamble, how about calling me Niki instead, yeah?” It wasn’t as much of a question as it would be the final choice.

The home wasn’t much, mostly it looked like it wasn’t being used that much, the owner mostly out than staying in, understandable, Though, when he would go out again, he could as well clean it up.

So now they did have walked inside the apartment doors locked behinde them, WHY DID HIS OWNER TRY TO UNDRESS HIM AS THE FIRST THING. “HIIIYYYEE?! Wait, wait. I know what I was made for, isn’t this going a bit fast? I look exactly like you, so there is nothing for you to explore.” This already seemed like a bad, bad idea.

He’d been promised a lot. A whole lot. ‘Great prices’ they’d said. ‘You’ll be able to get your very own android’. While that was all hunky-dory, this android certainly seemed... Off. Was it the personality it’d been instructed to have? 

Rinne had already gone through the posibilities. Considering if he should just discard the machine right then and there, but that’d mean taking the loss. Because that was certainly what it felt like. It wouldn’t even take the name Rinne offered him. Absooolutely awful. Leaning back with a huge sigh, the human rolled his eyes at the android-cyborg whatever. “Ya’ Niki? I thought ya said to give yer a name?” And he had. A good one, For a machine meant for sex, right? Had they given him the wrong one?

At some point he’d decided it was faster to just strip it down and see by himself. Pushing it towards the bed, cyan eyes narrowed as he pushed his jacket off of its shoulders. “Fast?” Was this some sorta joke?  “It’s what ya’ do right? Also yer have a totally different built. So be a good lil’ android and let me undress ya’.” Was he large? Small? He was a sex bot, perhaps he could adjust the size- “Say, do ya’all ask so many questions? Or is it just you, Niki~?”

[pokeshippingflashfic]

Hi! Someone sent this request to mythgirlimagines and I loved what she came up with. Could you come up with something else or expand on her idea please? :) link: mythgirlimagines(.)tumblr(.)com/post/190057630070/hello-could-you-do-some-hurtconfort-for-ash-and

(I went to ask @mythgirlimagines for use/expansion of her headcanons before writing this. Here’s hoping I do it justice for everyone. Not really sure what to expand on but I don’t mind fleshing out the situation in prose. PS: User @nebli suggested the stories Ash tells of his younger!childhood. I’m bad at headcanons so I asked for help.)

You practically bite into your own arm to muffle the deep inhale of brisk late night air as it filters into your lungs, bracing yourself stock still behind a grand oak with easiest access to the stream nearby your group’s campsite.

Your redheaded companion is sitting with her back to you at the edge of the water, unoccasionally sniffling and shoulders heaving in a motion you’re semi-familiar with because, hey, it’s not like you’ve never cried before in your life.

Oh. Misty’s… crying? 

That’s… that was new. Or rather, new-ish. You could scarcely remember her shedding a tear or few during the last few years on the road, though you think there was something back in the hidden village where you met Bulbasaur, and then there was the Lavender Tower… (How do you even remember any of that anyway?)

You shake yourself from your reverie, returning to present thought process.

You’d wondered why she was missing from the campsite. And yet you told yourself you were only getting up to use the nearest foliage as your bathroom and not to search for her in the darkness while all other companions (your Pokemon as well as resident caretaker Brock, returned to your group after his temporary departure in the Orange Islands) slept the night peacefully away… but here you are almost ten minutes later after walking obstinately farther than was needed to relieve yourself.

You should have remained wrapped up snug in your sleeping bag.

After all, what are you supposed to do with this? Though you loathe to admit it, you can barely handle Misty’s ire and passion and weird girly personality in any other instance; what are you supposed to do with a Misty who’s crying alone in the middle of the night?

You sigh as faintly as possible, a few memories fluttering to the surface of your consciousness in response to that question.

Misty following you out to the deck of a large cruise liner and begging to know why you look so troubled, offering you rather obvious advice in hindsight… but it sure helped to know she understood. 

Misty reminding you that Butterfree is leaving to start a family of his own with his new mate and you’d better take this chance to say your goodbyes while you have it… because that was more important than sulking over losing a friend.

Misty stalking rigidly into your assigned guest room at Indigo Plateau after your loss in the league, strong-arming you out of your brooding state.

Misty appearing over you after your hometown battle with Gary, a faint expression of sympathy flitting across her face before she points out that you’d better get a move on and start your trek to Johto if you don’t want to fall even further behind your childhood rival.

You roll your eyes so intensely in response to all these rather telling signs that you feel a bit dizzy a moment later.

Misty is crying alone in the middle of the night… and you know what you have to do.

But how to go about it? By the grace of all gods, it seems she hasn’t noticed your presence yet (though it’s assumed that she’s rather preoccupied). However the last thing you want is to set her off down the path of righteous fury and end up her victim.

Tsking to yourself, you squint your eyes shut again, brow creased in frustration. You’re thinking too much into this. It’s not like you to dedicate so much time to mollifying Misty of all people.

Instinct takes over and you bungle your way loudly through the foliage, sure to get her attention, making it look like an accident.

“Oh, uh, Misty. Funny running into you here.”

Stellar improvisation from the future number one Pokemon Master in the world. 

However if she senses anything amiss in your approach, she doesn’t address it. Perhaps because she busies herself instead with wiping furiously at her splotched red cheeks, hiccuping and doing her utmost to rub the dry red from her eyes.

“I was just going to the bathroom,” you continue, “I didn’t know you were up too.”

Despite knowing your best option is to play innocent bystander… a twinging pierce briefly tugs in your chest over the thought of lying to her. But there’s no time to dwell, nope, gotta dig in whether she catches on or not.

“So anyway… Uh, is something wrong?” Yep, that sounded natural. Well, it’s not that it didn’t but you are suddenly overtly aware that you’ve never honestly asked this question of her since the start of your journey together. Instead the question was always a condescending rebuff in the middle of a fight.

Lips pursed, gaze averted, “… Of course not, Mr. Pokemon Master,” she responds in a brusque yet weak murmur. It’s not the least bit convincing. Well, you weren’t exactly expecting the confrontation to be a cakewalk…

Your initial approach had been sudden - element of surprise enough to distract her from her potential mortifying rage at being discovered in so compromising a demeanor. Over the past minute or so, you’ve cautiously edged yourself across the clearing, eventually coming to a stop just behind her before easing yourself into a sitting position at her side.

Welp… here you both are, you couldn’t help thinking warily, fingers drumming softly against your own knees, waiting for something to give.

Oh, and give something did as the redheaded girl beside you, in a much too far removed reaction compared to her previous attempt at concealing her despondence, suddenly leans forward, presses her rather wet and beet-colored face into your neck, one hand curling loosely around the hem of your sleeve to keep you there as she releases a sharp bawl.

Whoa, wait, mayday! you shriek internally, eyes wide and scalp and ears flushing uncomfortably hot. Alarms are ringing in uproarious, disorienting fashion and the panic sets in so instantaneous and intense that it’s enough to make you feel positively ill.

This doesn’t happen. This has never happened before between you two! What’s she thinking? What’re you supposed to do?!

It’s life or death, you know, as your instincts kick in, the hand closest to her reaching up and brushing the back of her neck, grasping her opposing shoulder and pulling her ever so slightly closer to you while she continues weeping.

It’s hard to tell if this is the right move or not. True, Misty hasn’t made any negative maneuver against you but she also hasn’t given you any signal that her mood is improving. Doing your best to smother your impatience, you internally count the seconds, minutes as they pass, staring vaguely into the dimly lit distance while the teenage girl beside you carries on grossly using your sleeve as her new personal tissue.

Ick, the thought crosses your mind before you push it aside and barrel forward, unable to take the awkward tension anymore… But what to do about it?

“Ya know, when I was a kid,” there’s a brief pause when, bless her, Misty offers a skeptical glance between sniffles, “Uh, a younger kid, Gary and I were racing around the outskirts of Pallet and I tripped over him and landed in this lake nearby. There was a school of Magikarp swimming by and one of ‘em stopped to slap me in the face with its tail ‘cause I disrupted their formation.”

Despite her gloom, you hear a distinct snort in response to your story. Feeling invigorated by your success, you continue with your distracting babble. At the same time you bide your time coming up with your next contribution. You want to help her but you also don’t wanna offer her any ammunition she can use for blackmail later on.

“Once, there was this time when my mom was super busy with work and I was worried she was gonna get sick so I tried to make her some homemade juice using fruits and veggies from our garden. It, uh… I wasn’t paying attention and it ended up all over the kitchen,” you finish rather lamely, wistful as the memory came to mind.

This time you’re rewarded with a faint, faltering giggle. It impresses you just how much making someone - Misty - feel a little better can fill you with so much pride.

Still, though the actual crying begins to subside, her features are contorted with a sense of mourning.

“So…” you try again apprehensively, “are ya ever gonna tell me what’s wrong?”

She stiffens, shrugging then shaking her head. A fleeting question crosses your mind. What’s more important; your curiosity over what may have happened or the intent of encouraging a friend when they’re feeling low…?

Of course, you know the answer in a heartbeat.

“Okay well… are you ok - uh, will you be okay?”

A pause, one final brush between her face and your sleeve before she pulls a few inches away with a sigh.

“Nngh, yeah… I’ll be… I’m better now. I mean, not one hundred percent,” she elaborates at the sight of your raised brow, “but better than I was b - before you came along.” She finishes her statement with her facial features arranged in a complicated expression.

“I guess I should thank you, Ash.” And, unable to help herself, she adds, “Who woulda known you’d be good company in an emotional crisis?”

Ah, well if she can throw out a line like that then she must be telling the truth.

“Well, you know…” you reply almost bashfully, puffing up your chest before sobering up. “But I’m glad… that you’re okay. So wait, I guess you’re heading back to bed now?”

“Oh, um…” She appears slightly troubled over such a probing suggestion, buying time, focusing on wiping her cheeks dry. “I still feel a little restless. I’ll probably just stay here and stare out at the water. You know how much I love this kinda view.”

“Then I’ll stay too,” you reply automatically, so much so that your eyes widen, shocked at what your mouth had decided to commit you to without conscious thought. “I mean... if that’s okay.”

She blinks, gaze never leaving your person, though she moves her cursory glance up and down as if checking for remorse or bad intentions behind your offer. And yet, notwithstanding your awe, you find you don’t regret your decision. Finally her survey softens and, taking things a step further, she resituates herself so that she can rest her head against your shoulder again.

The initially jarring predicament lulls into acceptance. You find that you rather like don’t mind relaxing with Misty in such close proximity, especially when she’s in a good mood though, in retrospect, you wouldn’t mind it if she wasn’t either, provided you were in the process of helping her. 

You won’t talk about it tomorrow but you also quite enjoy the way your arms bump together before she laces her fingers with your own, spending the final twenty or so minutes of your time together wordlessly holding hands.

Some say love is truest when you know as much as you can about the other person… but on this night, in this instance, love is respecting a boundary and offering whatever support you can when it’s needed despite your ignorance.

(Yeah, by the time the two of them do head back to the campsite, Ash is practically ready to wet himself. Lol. And, as a reminder, this blog is currently - and always but definitely currently since I’m trying to get back into writing - accepting new requests via ask! Please view the rules and FAQ as needed!)

[inkedmyths]

Bamboozled again! Actually wait no this is the first time

Because I once again got going in the headcanon chat and had to write this out-

@linkeduniverse shenanigans ahead

Summary: So who were the first two to meet? Time and Warriors. How does that go? About how you would expect.

"Are you sure about this, hun?"

Link bit his lip as he looked into the worried eyes of his wife. Her brows were knitted together, and she searched his face with concern.

"You know I hate leaving. It's just... something's wrong." Very wrong. The hairs on the back of his neck stood up as he concentrated again. "I'm not sure what exactly, but I have to investigate. If it's a problem..."

"Ya have ta do somethin' about it, I know." Malon, bless her, smiled at him. It carried a sadness, but it was encouraging. "Always the Hero. Promise me you'll be careful, Link?"

"Of course darling." He leaned in for one last kiss. "If all goes well, I won't be gone for that long." If all doesn't go well, I may never come back, he thought. He pushed that nasty thought away, forcing a smile onto his face. He said his last goodbyes to his beloved before setting off down the road. She waved him goodbye, watching him go until he disappeared behind a hill.

It had been a long time since he'd gone travelling in full armor, much less this particular set. He carried all of his best gear, which may have been overkill, but he couldn't be too sure what he was dealing with. It could be nothing... but he doubted that. His instincts told him otherwise, carrying a feeling he hadn't felt in a long time. A feeling he hadn't felt since...

The masks felt heavy in his bag, despite them not weighing anything due to its magical properties. Memories he'd tried hard to forget resurfaced, and his hand drifted to the ocarina at his waist. Shaking his head, Link forced himself to focus on the present. Where was the disturbance coming from? He paused and focused for a moment. The woods to the left felt off.

He left the path, tromping through the underbrush. More memories swirled about his head of a distant and short childhood spent underneath the canopy of trees. Too short a childhood, really, but he brushed that aside. Birds twittered among the branches. Not too much could be wrong if they were still here-

A crash up ahead startled him out of his thoughts. His hand drifted up, ready to draw his sword if necessary. Swearing followed the noise, something which for some reason seemed to reverberate through him for a moment.

Well. Perhaps this was the answer to what he was looking for? He walked forward to investigate.

---

Link was having a bad day.

For one thing, he'd woken up with the worst hair day. It took him almost forty-five minutes to get his hair to lie properly, and even then one little piece was sticking up just wrong. By the time he got around to getting breakfast it was cold and they'd run out of bacon. He tripped over his own foot and nearly fallen down the stairs. Then someone spilled coffee on his scarf, which immediately had to go and wash before it stained.

To top it all off now, there was evidence of temporal issues happening again. No evidence to what was causing it. Just that something was happening. If it was Cia again, even though she should have been taken care of completely, he was going to scream.

Overall, a very bad day.

These were the thoughts that ran through Link's head as he stomped along his way.

He tried to calm himself down, if just a little bit. Breathe, in, out. "Get yourself together Link. You are the Hero of Warriors, Captain of the Royal Guard. You can handle all of this. That's why they sent you to investigate. "

He continued like that for a while, wrapped up in his thoughts and problems. If he'd been paying attention to his surroundings, he would have noticed he'd crossed into a forest where there shouldn't be one. He also would have noticed the sudden steep incline.

But he didn't, and yelped as his foot went down farther then he thought it would. This may have been just fine, but he then slipped on a patch of mud and fell. He rolled, crashing through the shrubbery down to the bottom of the hill.

He groaned, then followed that up with some rather nasty words. Pushing himself up, he spat a leaf out of his mouth. Now his hair was definitely messed up again, not to mention full of dirt and twigs.

Today was the absolute worst.

---

Choosing each step carefully, Link slowly inched into a small clearing ahead of him. What he saw was... not exactly what he was expecting.

It was a young Hylian man, whom it looked like had just fallen down a somewhat steep incline. He cycled through several observations about him: firstly, the brilliant blue scarf looped around his neck. Secondly, the fact that he was wearing armor. And third, the fact that he was swearing with the proficiency of someone who was well practiced with the art.

Aside from those observations, there was something about this man that felt... odd. Almost familiar, while also being foreign and strange. Who was he, and what was he doing here?

---

Link brushed off his tunic as he stood up. He muttered a few last insults directed at the very existence of the hill, before standing up straight. Then he heard the snap of a twig behind him, and he whirled around.

He wasn't sure exactly what to make of the man before him, except that he was obviously a warrior. His heavy armor gleamed in the sun that filtered through the trees. One blue eye studied him carefully, while the other was closed, a scar over it suggesting it was no longer functional. Strange tattoos marked his face in red and blue, giving him a fierce look. Not that he needed it. He was already an imposing figure.

Noting the huge sword on his back, Link let his hand drift towards his own. He shifted slightly, preparing to go into a battle stance if necessary.

---

The young man seemed as wary of him as Link was. He wasn't sure what that implied, but he figured he should try speaking before fighting. "Hello, stranger. What brings a young man such as yourself to this neck of the woods?"

The other Hylian blinked. "Business," he replied carefully.

That explained nothing, only raising more suspicions. "What sort of business?"

---

He wasn't attacking. Yet. Link didn't want to let himself be lulled into a false sense of security only to be attacked, so he stayed on guard.

"Royal guard business." That usually shut people up.

---

That was the first real weird thing. Link's eyes narrowed slightly. "Really? What does the guard want that's in a forest in the middle of nowhere?" As he said this, he reexamined the man. While he could tie some aspects of his outfit to the Guard, he didn't look like the soldiers he knew. An imposter? Or something more a little voice needled in the back of his head.

---

"Wait, forest? In the middle of nowhere?" For some reason it hadn't occurred to Link that he was in a forest until that moment. A forest which definitely shouldn't have been there. "Well shit. I guess this is the fucking anomaly."

---

Now that surprised him. The last thing Link had been expecting him to say. "Anomaly?"

The young man turned slightly red. "Shit, did I say that outloud?"

He ignored that comment. "Is that why you're here? Investigating the anomaly?" If that was the case...

---

Link blinked slightly. The man seemed to be taking this in stride. Was he the source of the problem.

"Well... yes." He watched him closely for his reaction.

"I am as well." The man scanned the surrounding area. "Perhaps I could help you."

That... wasn't what he was expecting. This man was investigating as well? He must be a local of this dimension, or point in time or... whatever. That explained his presence, at least somewhat.

"I mean, if you want," Link said, trying to play things cooly nonchalant. "What's your name?"

The man blinked once. "Link."

Oh fuck.

---

The scarfed Hylian turned pale, then groaned. "Oh my fucking god Hylia you can't be serious. This isn't happening. Not this shit again."

Link blinked. He had expected surprise, maybe awe. Not... whatever this soldier was doing.

"Fuck me, fuck this, and fuck these goddamn timelines and incarnations or whatever this shit is." The young man was moaning into his hands.

Hang on. Timelines?

"... I'm almost afraid to ask, but may I inquire as to the reason for your reaction?" He was met with a very familiar expression. It was the expression he'd seen in the mirror that morning when he'd sensed the disturbance. He braced himself for whatever he was about to hear.

---

He forced himself to take a deep breath. He can do this. This is fine. "Okay, please don't freak out or anything, but that's my name too. You're another Hero, right?"

The man, the other Link, had about the kind of reaction he was expecting. Shocked, he nodded, seemingly at a temporary loss for words.

"Alright. So, we are both," he gestured between them, "incarnations of Courage. From either different points in history, or from alternate Hyrules. For whatever goddess forsaken reason, something screwed up the timespace continuum, so now we are in the same place. You with me?"

---

He processed this for a moment. Another Hero of Courage? Okay, sure, why not? Would explain the odd familiarity if they sort of shared a spirit. "Alright. I think I've got it."

The other Hero looked surprised. "Really? Okay, okay, cool. Makes things a little easier."

He tipped his head to the side. "This has happened to you before?"

"Unfortunately yes. However the bitc- I mean, the person that caused it last time shouldn't be the cause this time, so I haven't the foggiest as to how it's happening now."

"Hm." He tapped his chin thoughtfully. "I'm not sure myself. I simply felt a disturbance in the continuum and set out to investigate."

"You sensed it?"

He nodded. "I suppose it's an ability that comes with being the Hero of Time."

The other Hero blinked, somewhat surprised. He seemed to get over it quickly, though. "Alright then, Time- can I call you that? It's far easier than saying 'Link', for obvious reasons."

"Fine by me. How about you, young one? What's your title?"

"Young one? What are you, my dad? Anyway, I'm the Hero of Warriors, so I guess that makes me Warriors. I can live with that."

Dad, huh? Well, he guessed he was getting to be that age. Or was he already that age? Didn't matter.

"So then, Time. You 'sense' any other disurbances?" Warriors looked at him expectantly.

He paused a moment, concentrating again. One ear twitched. "Not exactly, but my instincts are directing me that way." He gestured somewhere to the right.

"Alright. So I guess we head in that direction."

"We?"

"I mean, you said you were investigating the disturbances, right? And two Heroes are better than one.

Time chuckled. "I suppose you have a point."

"Of course I do. Now let's get going! The sooner we get this done the sooner I can take a shower." Warriors marched off.

Time chuckled once more. This Hero seemed rather brash, but he suspected he meant well overall. At least this meant neither of them would be fighting alone this round. He followed the scarfed blond into the trees.

And so the first two met and were on their way.

[benhardyisdaddy]

What A Time - Part 5

MASTERLIST 

(HELLO i feel like its been so long since ive posted SO i hope this chapter is okay, next chap will have more drama so YAS ok ily BYEEE)

Word Count: 1,306

“Can I see her? I need to see her!”

Roger, Bri, John and Mary were all over at Fred’s house sat on his couch. They all had tear stained cheeks as Roger told them what had happened to you. Mary sniffled and wiped her eyes.

“You can see her, Fred.” says Rog. Freddie jumps up and nods.

“Alright, then let's go!” he says loud. Rog shakes his head and leans back.

“You can’t see her right this instant, Fred. It’s not visiting hours yet. Besides…” he trails off. 

His mind goes back to the look on your face when he told you it was him. You had looked so confused. As if you were meeting a complete stranger. And to you, you were. Mary looks to Rog and squints her eyes, knowing he hasn’t told them everything.

“Besides what, Roger? What aren’t you saying?”

He looks up and furrows his brows as he exhales. He doesn’t want to tell them. Once the words slip from his mouth to them, it’ll be officially real.

“Rog?” asks Brian, raising his brows.

“She…” he starts. He runs his hand through his hair. “She doesn’t remember me.” he whispers.

“She doesn’t what?” asks John, shaking his head.

“She doesn’t remember me!” shouts Rog. “She has temporary memory loss. She had no idea who I was.” he whisper as his voice shakes. He feels his chest tighten and closes his eyes.

“She doesn’t remember you?” asks Brian, shocked.

Mary raises a brow and leans back.

“Lucky girl.” she says quietly. Rog’s eyes fly up to her and he lightly cocks his head.

“What?” he asks, knowing what she said. She looks to him and her face gets serious.

“I said lucky girl for forgetting you, Roger. If she can’t remember you, she can’t remember all the shitty things you’ve done to her.”

Roger’s jaw tenses and he takes in a deep breath, not looking away from Mary’s threatening glance.

“Ya know,” he starts. “She might not remember you either.”

Mary chuckles and shrugs her shoulders.

“At least when she remembers me,” she says loudly. “She’ll be happy! But when she remembers you,” she stands up from the couch. “It’ll be like you’ve broken her heart again!”

Mary’s shouting now, anger filling her every cell. Roger stands up to face her, his face turning red.

“You just love to remind me of what I did, don’t you!?” he yells.

“And you just love to pretend it never happened! Right!?” she yells back.

Freddie walks over and stands between them, putting a hand on Roger’s chest to push him back a little.

“Both of you, stop! Our friend needs us to be there for her, not tearing off each others heads.”

Mary and Roger look to him and slowly nod. Mary turns her back and crosses her arms. Brian watches Roger and he finally speaks up.

“Rog, why do you care so much? You have Dominique. I don’t understand why this is bothering you.”

Rog looks to him and freezes. He quickly looks down and shrugs.

“Where is Dominique anyways? It’s unusual seeing her not attached to your hip.” speaks up John.

Rog rolls his eyes and plops back down on the couch. He rubs his face and exhales.

“We broke up.” he says softly.

“You what?” asks Fred, sitting next to Mary.

“We broke up! I broke up with her.”

Everyone is quiet as they watch him look at his hands. He looks up and notices their stares.

“What?! People break up, okay?”

“When?” asks Mary, curious.

Rog looks up to her and then back down.

“The night of the party. I just… I don't know. Things changed.”

“You saw y/n,” says Fred.

Roger looks up and stares at him. He doesn’t move, which tells them all that’s exactly why he left Dom.

“You saw here and you regretted everything, didn't you?” he asks.

Mary tenses her jaw and gulps down a drink in her hand. Rog slowly nods.

“Yes.” he whispers, feeling tears threaten to pool in his eyes. He blinks fast, trying to make them disappear. He coughs to clear his throat and he situates himself. Mary watches him and her heart sinks.

“Just because you regret it, doesn’t mean you can make it better, Rog.” she says softly. He looks to her and shakes his head fast.

“No, you don’t understand! She doesn’t remember me!” he says fast.

Brian raises a brow and half laughs.

“Uh, yes we do know that. You just told us.”

Roger rolls his eyes and exhales.

“No, I mean Mary’s right. She doesn’t remember me, so she doesn’t remember what… What I did.”

Fred holds his head a bit higher as he looks at Roger suspiciously.

“What exactly are you trying to say, Roger?” he asks.

Rog looks to him and smiles.

“I’m saying that I can start over. Tell her we were... Are together. Have a better life with her.”

Mary makes an annoyed noise and shakes her head.

“So what? You’re trying to trick her now, is that it? Lie to her even more? No. I won’t let you do that to her!”

Roger leans forward off the couch and gets on his knees. He takes a step towards Mary and looks at her with sad, pleading eyes.

“Mary,” he whispers. “I know what I did and I know you’ll never forgive me, but I love her.”

“Roger, you don’t cheat on someone you love.” she says, looking angry again. “You don’t leave the person you love for someone else!”

He closes his eyes and his head falls forward a bit. He knows she’s right.

“I don’t deserve your forgiveness. I know that, but I also need you to know that the night I saw her again,” he pauses and feels warm tears fall. “It was like the first time we met. I didn’t care about anyone else in that room besides her. I realized everything that night and I tried calling her to tell her! I didn’t get to, but now’s my chance! It really is like we’re meeting for the first time! I can try again and this time do it right.”

Mary watches him and slowly shakes her head. She tenses her jaw and sniffles.

“No. I can’t stand back and watch you lie to her. I can’t lie with you. You’ll just end up hurting her.” she says quietly.

“Mary,” says Fred. She looks over to him and he has sad eyes. “Look at how pathetic he looks right now.”

Roger nods his head fast, not even wanting to argue with Fred on that comment. Mary can’t help herself as she lightly laughs.

“He did once make her happy. Maybe she deserves that again.” says John.

“She deserves someone to love her.” she says, looking at Roger angrily. He nods his head.

“I do love her.”

Her eyes soften as she watches Roger look to her like a lost puppy. He was waiting for her to to give him approval. He needed her approval. He wasn’t going to hurt you again. He means every single word he’s saying. Mary exhales and looks to Fred then back to Roger. She rolls her eyes.

“Fine. You can try whatever it is you want to do.”

Roger closes his eyes and smiles wide. He whispers thank you to her over and over.

“But,” she says loudly, causing him to pause and look at her. “If you hurt her like you did before,” she says slow and quietly. “As God be my witness, Roger Taylor, that will be the last time you hurt anyone.”

Mary’s eyes had suddenly turned dark. Roger felt a chill run down his spine as the rest of the boys watch her with wide eyes. She was being serious and they knew it. Roger gulps and nods his head slowly.

“I understand.” he whispers. Mary nods and stands up fast.

“So,” she says smiling. “Shall we go see our y/n?”

Tag List: @seven-seas-of-hi @ramimalekrp-roleplayerpage @mautand @peter-parkersbb @ @har-rison-s @rogermeddowtaylor @bacardihardy @fatbottomedcurls @rogers-rhapsody @rose-escobar @rogertayolr

[faveficarchive]

I, Conqueror: Part 1

by: SwordnQuil

Pairing: Xena/Gabrielle

Rating: Mature

Synopsis: The best Conqueror tale I’ve ever read, this story follows a similar line to Remember Nothing (No violence alt-universe Xena). Gabrielle wakes up to find herself in a universe where Xena has conquered Greece, Callisto is her right-hand, and the world trembles at her feet. Can she set to rights this world turned upside-down?

The moon was a pregnant sphere which hung heavily over the jeweled horizon, shining ghostly light into a sheltered glade hard by a small pond and protected by tall old trees who told their secrets to none save the owls perched regally upon their fragrant boughs.

A golden Palomino cropped grass near the pond’s edge, her hide burnished gold by the light of a cheery fire blazing near the center of the tiny glen.

The horse’s Mistress sat on the dew-dampened ground, her back resting against a fallen log, her hands occupied in the time-worn task of sharpening steel, the sound echoing across the pond’s still waters to sing against the opposite shore in a martial melody.

The woman’s companion lay, stomach down, on a fur bedroll, the noise of her quill’s scratching on leather parchment obscured by the rhythmic sounds of whetstone on weapon. Her body moved slightly, as her mind’s eye replayed the events which were being transcribed into the words she was writing. Her free hand came up occasionally to tuck a fine tendril of long, blonde hair behind one small ear. The quill ceased its movement as the young woman scowled, her fair brows knitting low over her eyes. "Xena?" she asked, not looking up from her parchment.

"Yeah?" her companion answered, continuing her task mindlessly.

"When I was going up against that big guy, you know, the one with the bald head and the eye-patch, did I double thrust with the left or right end of my staff?"

Halting her arm’s soothing motion, Xena tilted her head, thinking for a moment. "Right," she said, nodding definitively. "Definitely."

Gabrielle looked up briefly, grinned, then turned her attention back to her scroll. "Thanks!"

"Anytime." The sound of sharpening filled the air once again. "It was a beautiful move, by the way," she mentioned, off-handedly.

Gabrielle looked up once again, her green eyes wide. "Really?"

"Yes. Really." Xena’s expression was totally serious. "You’ve gotten incredibly good with your staff. Poetry in motion."

The bard couldn’t have kept her jaw from dropping open if she’d tried. "Thanks," she managed to finally stutter out after a few half-strangled attempts. "That means a lot, coming from you."

"Nah," Xena shrugged, " just telling it like I see it." Sheathing her sword, she stood in one fluid motion, the muscles in her long thighs shining in bas relief in the fire’s shadowed light. "I’m gonna check the perimeter. Be back soon."

Then she was gone, into the night, a soundless specter among the shadows.

Gabrielle blinked at the space her lover used to occupy, her face a study in perplexity. "Well, whadda ya know." She looked back down at the parchment, then gave up, knowing that after a bombshell like that, writing was a lost cause, her mind only wanting to replay the last thirty seconds of her conversation with Xena. "Poetry in motion, huh? Heh."

Rolling the half-finished story up and carefully tying the cord off, she gently shoved it into her scroll-bag, then flopped over onto her back, crossing her hands over her belly and looking up into the summer’s night sky as she awaited Xena’s return.

Several moments later, the bard found her view blocked by raven hair and dancing blue eyes. "See anything interesting up there?" Xena asked.

"Now I do," Gabrielle replied, grinning as she pushed herself up to lean on her elbows. "Everything quiet?"

"Yup." Removing her sword and chakram, Xena made quick work of her armor, bracers and boots, placing each in a careful order around their shared bedroll, her weapons the most close-at-hand. As was her habit this far into the wilderness, her leathers stayed on, much to her partner’s chagrin.

Pretending not to notice the expression on Gabrielle’s face, the warrior lowered herself down onto the bedroll, then gathered her lover into strong arms, placing a tender kiss to one fire-warmed cheek before settling back and looking up at the stars painting the night sky.

"You ok?" Gabrielle asked after a long moment, listening to the steady beat of the brave warrior’s heart beneath her head.

"Just thinking."

Another moment of silence, punctuated by the muted crackle of the banked fire.

"’Bout what?"

Xena’s chest expanded as she took in a long breath of air, then settled as she slowly let it out. "About the fact that I wish Autolycus had chosen a city other than Corinth to get himself arrested."

Understanding dawned and Gabrielle nodded. She knew that Corinth was one of the few areas that Xena actively avoided during their travels. It had been the sight of her worst defeat, the battle where she’d had to give up Solon and pull out, or risk the death of her son as well as the loss of her war. The Corinthians were sure to look none-too-favorably upon the Warrior Princess in their midst, even after all these years. Gabrielle heard it told from other bards that "Wanted" posters for Xena still littered the city’s walls.

Yet, despite it all, Xena was going back, willingly. All to help out a friend.

And Gabrielle believed that that particular act spoke volumes on just how much her partner had changed.

"Xena?"

"Mmmm?"

"What would have happened if you’d won that war? If you’d taken Corinth?"

The ensuing silence lasted so long that Gabrielle had given up on an answer and had just started to fall within the seductive web of Morpheus’ realm, when Xena’s deep voice rumbled beneath her ear. "Athens would have fallen and Greece would have been mine."

"Is . . .was . . .that what you wanted?"

Xena sighed again, awash in bitter memories. "At the time, yes. It was something I’d worked for for years. The loss of that dream, no matter how temporary a loss it might have been, devastated me. Borias was gone. Solon was with the Centaurs. My dignity stayed on the battlefield. The only thing I had left was my army, though I still can’t believe they stayed with me after all of that."

"And now?"

"Now? Gabrielle, the world doesn’t need someone like me having that kind of power. Say what you like about me and my seeming abilities to control my dark side. We both know it’s still there, waiting." She tightened her grip around the warm body laying so trustingly in her arms. "No. I have no wish to relive that particular dream again." Her voice, when it came again, held a definite smile. "Not when I have so many others I wouldn’t mind reliving, again and again."

Loosening her grip, she reached down and tilted Gabrielle’s head upwards, then met the soft, beckoning lips with her own, slowly deepening the kiss until both women were breathless.

"Oh yeah," Gabrielle said, grinning up at her lover, "feel free to keep reliving this dream as many times as you want."

Xena returned the grin with a feral one of her own. "I intend on doing just that, Bard. Starting now."

*******

Gabrielle awoke slowly the next morning, grumbling when a shaft of sunlight had the temerity to lance through the trees and rest on her closed eyelids. "Ugh," she muttered, pulling the fur covering over her head. "Just five minutes, Xena. I promise. Just five minutes."

There was no answer. Not that she had expected one, of course. Doubtless, the ‘up before the dawn’ warrior was swimming a few hundred laps in the pond, or working out some new, dazzling moves with her sword, or honing up on any one of her myriad of many skills, or whatever it was that she did when the haunting nightmares of her past pulled her out of the warmth of the bedroll and out into the land of the living once again.

The sun, as if realizing that its light wasn’t going to work in getting the small woman out of bed, commenced to use its other skill, heating the bard to near roasting beneath the thick fur of her cover.

"Alright already!" Gabrielle yelled, flinging the cover off her overheated body. Rolling onto her back, she scowled up at the sky. "Apollo, if you ever decide to come down and pay us a visit, please don’t hold me responsible for what I’m gonna do to you for these tricks you pull on me every morning."

The sun god wisely chose silence as the better part of valor, deciding instead to shine his rays on some other, more appreciative, territory.

Sighing in relief, the bard sat up, stretching, yawning, and trying to get her sleep-tousled hair back into some semblance of order. Her bladder chose that moment to announce, quite loudly, that a trip to the bushes was definitely in order, post haste, if you please.

Groaning over the unfairness of it all, she rolled to her feet and stretched once again, yawning until her jaw protested.

Her teeth shut with a snap as she blinked the sleep from her eyes and looked around the campsite for the first time since she’d fallen asleep in Xena’s arms the night before. Her urge to relieve the pressure in her bladder fell away just as suddenly.

"Xena?" she called out softly, turning her head to the right, the left, and the right again.

The waking forest’s soothing noises were her only answer.

"Xena? Xena, where are you?"

Silence.

Her heart sped up as she looked, once again, around the campsite. All of Xena’s possessions were gone. The absence of her weapons and armor were easily enough explained, given the warrior’s propensity to leave nothing, not even a simple fishing expedition, to chance.

In this case, however, everything was gone. Gone as if it had never existed.

Argo’s saddle and tack were missing, as were the saddlebags. The bard looked up. "Argo? Argo, come here, girl."

When there was no response, she whistled the command that should have had the warhorse at her side within seconds.

But she remained alone in the tiny glade.

"What in Tartarus is going on here? Xena, if this is your sadistic way of teaching me a lesson, please believe I’ve learned it. I swear on my father’s name, I’ll never sleep in again. Could you come back now, please? This isn’t very funny anymore."

More than a little annoyed with Xena’s antics, Gabrielle looked back down at the bedroll, sorely tempted to just go back to sleep until the Warrior Princess came back to her senses.

"No," she moaned softly at the sight which greeted her eyes. "Oh no. Please, no." Where two bedrolls had lain the night before, rumpled from their loving, only one now lay. Dropping to her knees, she buried her nose in the soft fur. Only her own body scent rose up to greet her. Of Xena, there was no trace. "By the gods," she whispered. "What’s happening to me?"

A noise sounded somewhere behind her and she jumped to her feet, staff in hand. "Xena, is that you?"

The noise was repeated and Gabrielle recognized it as the sound of booted feet moving through the forest, heedless of the noises they were making.

Correction. Many booted feet. And they were headed her way.

Whirling, she spied a likely stand of thick undergrowth and ran to hide within it, intent on discovering if it was friend or foe that was marching toward her.

Within moments, the first signs of human life entered into the glen in the forms of heavily weaponed and armored soldiers who were leading a large group of men, women, and children bound together by chains running through manacled wrists and ankles.

The bard counted twenty soldiers and at least five times as many captives. She tightened the grip on her staff, her quick mind coming up with and discarding various methods of attack. "Damnit, Xena," she whispered, "where are you?"

Gabrielle winced as the men and their captives shuffled by, trampling over her personal possessions as if they were just so much fodder littering the forest floor. As the last soldier slipped past her hiding spot, she began looking ahead, mentally constructing a path where she could remain hidden, yet continue tracking them until she could think of what to do against so many and still have a hope of being successful.

The woods became denser very close to the path the group was following, and Gabrielle chose that as her point of entry, slipping silently from her cover, already planning her ambush. "You owe me big for this one, Warrior Princess."

Just about to make her move, she was stopped by a hand on her shoulder. She turned quickly, staff raised, and narrowly missed sending a stranger into Hades’ realm. "Wha . . . . What are you doing here? It’s very dangerous out there right now. You need to get as far from here as you can. Quickly."

The stranger, a wizened old man with a beard that stopped at his belt-line, smiled calmly at her, as if he didn’t have a care in the world. "You must come with me. It is very important."

"I must . . . . Maybe you didn’t understand me, sir. You need to go back where you came from. Alone. I need to track those soldiers and figure out a way to get those people away from them. I don’t have time to talk to you right now."

The tiny man put a gentle hand on Gabrielle’s arm, his dark eyes earnest. "You must make time, Gabrielle of Poteidia. The fate of the world hangs in the balance."

Gabrielle’s eyes narrowed. "How do you know my name?"

"That is not important right now. What is important, however, is the message I must give to you."

Sighing in frustration, the bard dragged a hand through her hair, looking in vain for the soldiers and their captives. Perhaps, if she hurried, she might be able to set up her ambush further down the path. "I’m sorry. I can’t. I . . . ."

"You must. Please."

Shoulders slumping in defeat, Gabrielle schooled her face into an expression of polite interest. "What is it that you have to tell me?"

"Not here. Soldiers come. More everyday. Great armies are amassing in Corinth. The war is near. You must come with me to a place of safety. All will be revealed to you there."

"But those people . . . ."

"They will be safe, for the moment. They are to be used in the Conqueror’s mines."

Gabrielle’s eyebrows furrowed. "The Conqueror?"

"That, too, will be explained. Please. Come."

She shot one last look down the trail, then turned back to the man standing so patiently before her. She sighed again. "Fine. Lead on."

*******

Gabrielle found herself in a tiny cave, its interior brightened by the light of a small fire near the center. Thick furs lined the ground around the fire, and bags of food, water and clothing lay in disarray near the barren walls. The bard had visited more than a few hermits’ caves in her travels with Xena, and this one appeared to be no different from the rest.

While the man arranged his bone-thin body comfortably on the skins closest to the fire, Gabrielle chose to remain standing, reining in her impatience and need to help the captives she’d seen only with the strongest of efforts. Planting the tip of her staff into the sandy ground, she leaned against it, looking down at the strange man. "What is it you need to tell me?"

The man smiled his serene smile. "Firstly, my name is Manus. I am a Priest of the Fates."

"The Fates? What do they have to do with anything?"

Manus folded his hands in his lap and stared into the fire. "A great deal. Against their will, the tapestry of life has been rewoven into a present that should not be."

Bewildered, Gabrielle shook her head. "Would you mind explaining that a little better? I don’t think I understand what you’re saying."

"You know of a woman named Callisto, am I correct?"

"Yeah, I know her alright."

"In your reality, she is a goddess, right?"

The bard frowned. "What do you mean, ‘in my reality’?"

"Exactly as I have stated. Is she not a goddess?"

"Wha . . . ? Yes, she’s a goddess. Has she done something? Has she changed something?"

Manus nodded. "Indeed she has. The world you fell asleep in last night is not the world you woke up in today. As a goddess, Callisto managed to change the course of history by going back in time and preventing a very important thing from happening as the Fates had decreed that it should."

"And what is this thing that she changed?"

"In your world, there is a man known as Hercules. I assume you know of him?"

"Hercules! Of course I know him. Everyone knows Hercules! He’s one of the greatest heroes of our time!"

The old man shook his head sadly. "No one in this world knows of Hercules, because he was never born. Callisto killed his mother before she could give birth to him."

"By the gods," Gabrielle whispered, closing her eyes as she tried to imagine the horror of a world without Hercules in it. All the people he saved, dead now because he was not there. The giants and monsters he killed, free to roam the countryside because there was no one strong enough to stop him. "This is unbelievable."

"It is also, unfortunately, true."

"Why would Callisto do something like that? What could she stand to gain?"

"Her motives were not made clear to me, I’m afraid," Manus said, apology heavy in his tone. "As for gain, the only objective that can be guessed is her seat at the right hand of Greece."

"Say again?"

"The Conqueror is Greece, and Callisto sits to the right of the Throne."

"That’s the second time you’ve mentioned this conqueror person. Who, exactly, is the Conqueror? A name, please. Not more riddles."

"Gabrielle, I speak in what you call riddles only so that you may understand the gravity of the task I have been asked by the Fates to give you."

The bard balled her fists in frustration. "What task? Who’s the Conqueror? What’s going on here? I’ve got a lot of things that I need to be doing, and playing ‘twenty questions’ isn’t one of them."

Manus raised up his hands in a placating gesture. "I will ask you but one more question. I believe your answer will lead to your enlightenment."

Taking a deep breath to cool her temper, Gabrielle nodded. "Fine. What’s the question."

"What is the most important thing Hercules has done that has impacted your life most directly?"

Gabrielle frowned, thinking over all the times she had met Hercules. All of the encounters were important. How to pick one above the rest? Was it the unchaining of Prometheus? A chained Titan, particularly Prometheus, would certainly throw the world into chaos, but if that had happened here, in this supposedly new reality, the effects certainly weren’t the same as they were in her reality. Despite being very old, Manus seemed quite healthy. The fire blazed easily in its pit.

She scratched at the back of her neck. What else could there be that was important to her directly? The only other thing she could think of was when he first crossed paths with . . . .

She looked up, face white with shock. "Xena. That’s it, isn’t it. The Conqueror you’re talking about, it’s Xena, isn’t it."

Manus nodded. "Yes. Xena is the Conqueror of Greece. Without Hercules to help change her path from evil to good, she was able to gather another army and storm the walls of Corinth. Athens fell soon after. She rules Greece, India, Egypt, Chin, and many other lands with Callisto at her side. And now, even as we speak, she is preparing to go to war against Caesar’s Rome. The Fates have told me that it is a war neither will win. Like a fire, it will spread all over the known world. Its effects will be felt as far away as Gaul and other places which we do not even know exist. Millions will die and civilization as we know it will lie in ruins. This war must not be allowed to take place."

Gabrielle stood silent in shock, her mind awhirl with images. She couldn’t comprehend what she had just been told. The pieces refused to fit together in her mind.

"You are the only one with the power to prevent this from happening, Gabrielle," Manus said solemnly.

"Me? How am I going to stop a war?" Her eyes were bright with unshed tears. "Does Xena even know me in this reality?"

The old man stood and laid a compassionate hand on the bard’s chilled arm. "No, she does not. Poteidia and everyone in it was destroyed many years ago by a warlord named Draco who thought to challenge Xena’s superiority. In this reality, you never existed."

The tears escaped her eyes’ imprisonment, rolling slowly down her cheeks. "Then how am I supposed to do what you ask? It took me years to gain Xena’s confidence. And that was a Xena who had already chosen the path of the greater good. I don’t have that kind of time! And even if I did, she would probably have me killed before I even got a chance to speak to her."

"The road ahead is difficult, Gabrielle," Manus agreed, awkwardly patting her back in an attempt at consolation. "There may be, however, one thing that can assist you."

Wiping the tears with the back of her hand, Gabrielle looked down at the man. "And what’s that?"

"There is a jewel that sits at the tip of the Conqueror’s scepter. Xena does not know of its properties, though Callisto certainly does. It is called the Cronus stone and it, alone, has the power to help a mortal change the fabric of time. If you can somehow retrieve this stone, you can use it to take you back in time to where Callisto killed Alcamene. If Hercules is allowed to be born, the tapestry of life will be rewoven into its correct alignment and this reality will end. Yours will become the true reality once again."

"So, all I have to do is get close enough to Xena to steal the stone, figure out how to use it to go back in time, and prevent Callisto from killing Alcmene?" Gabrielle’s tone was wry.

"It is either that, or try to convince the Conqueror to give up her plans for this war. Either way, the balance of history rests upon your shoulders."

The bard shook her head. "Why me?" she whispered.

"Because you are the link, Gabrielle. You are the pivot-point upon which the two realities merge."

Lifting her staff, the young woman paced within the cramped confines of the cave, her facial expression shifting rapidly from grief, to confusion, to a steadfast resolve, to grief again. "Will . . .will I succeed?" she asked finally.

"Even the Fates themselves do not know the answer to that question, Gabrielle. I’m sorry."

Gabrielle laughed bitterly. "I figured as much. When have the gods ever been of any use to us." She held up a hand before Manus could reply. "Don’t bother. It was a rhetorical question."

Ceasing her pacing, she squatted down in front of the fire, staring into the dancing flames as if she could divine something from their shifting patterns. Xena’s voice sounded in her head. Gabrielle, you’ve never run from anything in your whole life.

And she hadn’t. Not really. Not when it counted.

She rose to her feet, decision firmly made, heart steeled for the path ahead. "Alright then," she said, voice deep and steady with resolve, "point me in the direction of Athens."

Manus smiled. "The Conqueror resides in Corinth."

The bard flicked her hand. "Corinth, Athens. Let’s just get this show on the road. I’ve got a stone to find."

The wise-man couldn’t help grinning at the young woman’s courage. "A few words of caution before you set out."

"What," Gabrielle asked, obviously distracted and ready to go.

"Whatever her reasons, Callisto exchanged her godhood for the chance to rule at the Conqueror’s side. However it may look, she is the same Callisto from your world. She knows who you are and doubtless will know of your purpose, should you be discovered by her. I have no doubt that she will do anything she can to prevent you from accomplishing your task."

Throwing her hands into the air, the bard rolled her eyes. "Great. As if it isn’t going to be hard enough trying to steal a jewel from the Conqueror of the known world. Now I’ve got Callisto to contend with too?" She spun to stare at the tiny man. "Anything else you’re not telling me?"

Manus frowned. "You are going to need to change your clothing."

Gabrielle returned the look. "My clothing? What’s wrong with my clothes?"

"You are wearing Amazon-style clothing, Gabrielle. The Amazons no longer exist, except in a few, isolated pockets, in this reality. And those who do exist are in constant fear for their lives. Callisto has made it her ultimate priority to wipe every woman see sees as an Amazon from the face of the earth."

"Callisto? Since when does she care about the Amazons?"

"She didn’t, at first. The Conqueror had considered them a threat and nearly obliterated the largest bastions of Amazons, figuring, some say, to come back at a time when they were at their weakest and cull from them their strongest fighters in exchange for the safety of the rest. Their newly risen Queen-in-absentia, however, a woman by the name of Velasca, ended those plans by almost succeeding in killing Callisto last year while the latter was on a scouting trip for the Conqueror. Callisto has taken a quite . . .personal . . .interest in them ever since. To walk about in the clothes of an Amazon is to sign your own death sentence."

Knots within tangles, Gabrielle mused, realizing that Hercules’ absence had effects far wider ranging than even she had first considered. Since, in this reality, Xena had not died and Gabrielle had not existed, there was no one to stop Velasca from assuming the throne of the Amazons. She sighed. The Amazons, her friends, gone. Her family, gone. Xena, a cruel stranger and ruler over most of the earth.

Of them all, only Callisto remained constant. Maybe I can use that to my advantage, somehow. Maybe.

"Alright, I can work with this," she said aloud. "Maybe. Is there anything else I need to know?"

"Not that the Fates have told me," Manus replied, rummaging through one of the sacks on the ground and coming up with a simple peasant skirt and blouse, which he handed over to Gabrielle.

Taking the clothing, the bard looked at the tiny old man and raised an eyebrow.

After a moment, the priest caught on, and laughed. "Fetching as I’m sure I would look in that ensemble, I’m afraid the Fates made that choice themselves. I only followed their instructions."

Gabrielle couldn’t help the smile that slipped out. "I guess I’ll have to take your word for it, for now. Is there any place I can change into these?"

The priest bowed at the waist, his beard scraping gently over the dirt-packed ground. "I shall step out of the cave to give you your privacy. Let me know when you’re done."

Several moments later, Gabrielle was dressed and receiving final instructions. Looking down at her long skirt and modest blouse, she couldn’t believe how much she’d grown from the young peasant child who’d first gone out into the world wearing much the same clothing. It now seemed just short of ludicrous that she’d even made the attempt back then.

And now, here she was, just three years away from being that naïve little girl hanging onto Xena’s coat-tails. Now she was expected to take on the world. Quite literally.

"Alright," she said as Manus finished off his ‘authentication’ of her outfit by ripping the entire bottom of her skirt off haphazardly while at the same time, rubbing dirt into the cloth. "Anything else?"

"That’s it, I think," the priest replied, tossing the spare fabric into the fire and watching as the flames greedily licked at it.

"Um . . .how long do I have? Before this war happens, I mean."

"From what I’ve heard from the soldiers who pass unknowing by my little home here, I would say a moon, no more than two at the very outside. When the Conqueror desires something, she doesn’t take her time obtaining it."

Gabrielle snorted. "That’s Xena, alright."

"It’s said that she’s waiting for more troops to arrive from the outermost reaches of her reign. Those from Chin are just now starting to come ashore. When everyone is present and accounted for, she will set sail for Rome."

A month isn’t a very long time to talk the ruler of the world out of a war. Especially a war against Caesar. I know how much she hates him, and I’ve got a feeling these two realities are the same on that particular score, Gabrielle thought, fidgeting with her skirt. I’m good, but I’m not that good. Looks like it’s the stone or nothing. Hope it comes with instructions or something.

Straightening her back and squaring her shoulders, the bard hefted her staff and blew out a long, cleansing breath. "I’m ready."

"Your staff . . . it might not be such a good idea." Manus, again, looked apologetic.

Gabrielle rolled her eyes. "And why not? Too long? Too short? Too . . .wooden?"

"Too Amazon," he explained, pointing at the markings. "If the soldiers don’t recognize it as such, Callisto and the Conqueror certainly will."

"They’re just going to have to live with that, then. This staff comes with me. Besides, if Callisto gets close enough to recognize my staff, she’s gonna recognize me well before then. I’m sorry, Manus, but I’m just going to have to take the chance that Xena’s army out there doesn’t know the difference between an Amazon staff and a Spartan war mace."

"That doesn’t seem very wise," Manus said, doubt coloring his voice.

The bard sighed. "Manus, I, a simple bard from Poteidia, am going, willingly mind you, up against the Conqueror of the known world to either steal a jewel from her scepter or to prevent her from waging war against her greatest enemy. If you can find any wisdom in that, I’d like you to tell me, because I sure don’t."

Manus smiled. "Point taken," he conceded.

"Great. I’m glad we got that settled. Now, which way to Corinth?"

*******

The imposing, monolithic stone of the Conqueror’s palace rose from the soil of Corinth like a Phoenix from the flames. An apt analogy, given that, in the end, a massive conflagration had signaled Xena’s triumphant entrance into the city that first time. She had expiated the city’s sins through burning and now stood at the precipice of a total retribution against the only man who had ever defeated her. All within a three-year time span.

The Conqueror was nothing if not extraordinary.

Without the castle, the massive grounds were filled to almost overflowing with soldiers setting up housekeeping in preparation for the upcoming war. The light from untold hundreds of campfires created a false dawn, stretching almost to the horizon.

The soldiers, still mostly Greeks, set about their tasks with a quiet military precision, each knowing that at any time, the gaze of the Conqueror could come down upon any one of them and send their souls halfway to Hades before their bodies even knew they were dead.

And no one, volunteer or conscripted, wanted to be on the receiving end of that.

Tents were set up quickly, armor was attended to and weapons were honed to a razor’s edge in preparation for the battles ahead. Conversations were muted and there was very little laughter, ribald or otherwise, to mar the seeming peace of the night.

It was a glaring contrast to the bands of marauders that the Conqueror herself used to lead those long ago years.

Few people knew that Xena had lost one army in her life. Being forced to walk the gauntlet was something she kept at the front of her mind each and every morning she looked out upon the lands she’d won through her skills. It was a humiliation she would never repeat. Back then, she had relied on some misguided sense of loyalty binding her men to her, before realizing the truth to the lesson that there is no honor among thieves.

This time, her recipe for absolute obedience was frighteningly simple.

Fear.

Fear had taken her to the top of the world, and fear would keep her there.

Within the castle, the atmosphere was much different. In the massive dining room, large enough to fit, it was said, the whole of Mount Olympus with room left over, the sounds of celebratory gaiety rang out against the imposing stone walls whose blank monotony was interrupted colorfully by gigantic tapestries which had taken many artisans years to create and maintain. Low music was barely heard beneath the sounds of voices raised in toasts, cheers, and drunken conversation. The room was filled with scents that hinted at savory delicacies from every land in the world.

Bold colors ran rampant in the massive room, the hundreds of torches serving to highlight hues every shade of the rainbow, as well as many others which Nature, in her infinite wisdom, hadn’t yet seen fit to create as yet.

Above it all, the Conqueror of Many Lands sat, her face expressionless as a granite mountain. The throne that supported her body was made by the same artisans who gilded their fallen leaders in gold and left them to slumber eternally beneath hundreds of tons of sandstone in the deserts of Egypt. It was gifted to the Conqueror by Cleopatra herself, who, it was said, traded her Queendom for a Conqueror’s kiss. The reality of the situation was much more prosaic than the stories the bards delighted in telling, but the romanticized idealism inherent in the tale made good press, and so each woman allowed the rumor to stand unmolested.

The Conqueror was clad in a long, heavy gown, its style, taken from the robes worn by the Emperors of Chin, one she’d long favored. Sewn into the gown were hundreds of priceless jewels, cunningly sculpted to form the iridescent scales of a large dragon which wrapped itself around her body and rested its fiery head upon her breast.

A simple golden headpiece sat atop her raven hair, which was bound up in an elaborate knot close against the back of her neck. Her body was barren of any further adornments, save for the large ring that nestled itself around her left middle finger, its clear stone the exact color of her eyes.

Behind her, huge, handsome, bare-chested men stood at attention, gently waving massive fans to dissipate the rising heat from her body.

All in all, she looked frighteningly remote and terrifyingly beautiful. The brightest jewel in Greece, setting herself up as a prize to be fought for and won. Untouched and untouchable. Perfection personified.

Or so the poets said, when seeking her favor.

She was also, at this very moment, utterly, absolutely, and abysmally bored.

The party, ostensibly thrown to celebrate her third year as the Ruler of Greece, had not been her idea. Far from it. Beneath the majestic robes continued to beat the heart of a savage warrior. In the depths of her soul, Xena still believed that her sword dictated her rule. Politics, she believed, were for the weak; for those who lacked strength of body and mind and so had to rely on false masks of ingratiating servitude to get what they wanted from this life.

And yet, civilization itself was built upon this eunuch’s game, and if she wished to be remembered as more than a bloodthirsty, and frightfully lucky, warlord, she’d have to play it better than anyone else.

And, for three years, she had.

It didn’t mean she had to like it, though.

Sharp eyes scanned the crowd yet again as she fought off the urge to drum her fingers on the clawed arm of her throne, wishing for something, anything, to break the monotony of the evening.

Cutting her eyes to the far right, she noticed Callisto, who had chosen to forgo her usual black leathers in favor of a gown that was, impossible as it seemed, even more revealing than her usual battle wear. It was done up in shades of gold and dark blue, with a neckline that plunged so severely that Xena was sure a private trim had been the order of the day before she slipped into it. Her breasts were just barely hidden, their innermost swells peeking tauntingly from their cover of sheer fabric every time the blonde woman moved the slightest bit.

Chocolate eyes met hers and a seductive smile curled the corners of Callisto’s full lips as she finished up her conversation with a swarthy man, leaving him pale and sweating and uncomfortably adjusting the inseam of his trousers as she walked away.

"Oh Xena," Callisto purred into the Conqueror’s ear as she bent forward at the waist, offering Xena a tantalizing glimpse of hidden treasures, "isn’t this party simply wonderful?"

Xena shot her second-in-command a look that would have frozen an erupting volcano, had one happened to be about. Callisto, however, wasn’t much fazed, being well used to that particular expression over the years, particularly when it was directed at her.

"Don’t be that way, my darling," the blonde continued, trailing a finger up one of the Conqueror’s arms. "Your people simply adore you." The seductive finger trailed along a bared and prominent collar-bone. "So why don’t you just sit back . . ." Then slowly dipped down toward the valley of the Conqueror’s breasts. " . . .relax . . ." Then slipped beneath the fabric, teasing warm, supple skin. " . . .and enjoy yourself."

Quick as lightening, Callisto found her wrist trapped within an iron grip as Xena pulled it from her cleavage.

Fighting not to allow the pain to show in her eyes, the beautiful blonde schooled her features into a girlish pout. "You’re just no fun anymore, my love. Haven’t you ever heard that all work and no play makes the Conqueror a dull girl?"

Remaining completely expressionless, Xena applied more strength to her grip, crushing the delicate bones of Callisto’s wrists until they were near to fracturing, then eased off, flinging the thin woman away from her, though not hard enough to cause the other woman to stumble and lose face in front of the crowd.

"Fine. Be that way," Callisto snapped, resisting the urge to rub her injured arm. "I’ll just have to find my fun elsewhere."

For the first time that evening, the remote expression of the Conqueror changed as Xena allowed a smirk to come forth. "You do that."

Callisto’s fingers itched to wipe the condescending expression from Xena’s face, but her mind called halt to her body’s demands. It wasn’t easy, Callisto being who she was, but in order for her carefully laid plan to bear fruit, she had to act the part of a loyal underling.

Closing her eyes, a smile curled her sensual lips as she pictured a vision sure to come to pass: a vision of the proud Conqueror, her hated and beloved enemy through past and present, through all realities, true and faux, Xena—the Warrior Princess—tethered at the neck and kneeling at her feet, a servile beast existing only to feed the whims of the one named Callisto.

Soon. Yes, so very, very soon, my sweet..

Opening her eyes, Callisto tipped a lewd wink the Conqueror’s way and slipped through the crowd, intent on playing through her fantasies in the peace and comfort of her own rooms.

*******

Drawn through the darkening evening toward Corinth by the horizon’s rosy glow, Gabrielle came through the last of the forest surrounding a gently breasting hill. Her eyes widened at the sight below her. Hundreds of small fires dotted the landscape, casting a glow that extended almost as far as the eye could see. The Corinthian palace, black against that rosy glow, seemed to rise up from those flames, remote and omnipotent. She’s in there, somewhere.

In her mind’s eye, Gabrielle pictured Xena looking down at this very scene from her room in the castle. Do you sense me? Do you know I’m here? Is there something within you that calls out for someone who never existed in this reality?

Crossing her arms, the bard rubbed flesh suddenly gone chill. Crazy as it seems, I hope so, Xena. Because that’s the only way this plan is gonna work.

Despite herself, Gabrielle laughed. "Yeah, if she doesn’t kill you first."

Slipping back into the forest’s concealment, the bard laid down her bedroll and set up a fireless camp for the night. To get to the Conqueror, she’d have to figure out a way to sneak through an armed camp filled with thousands of soldiers. Plans darted teasingly through her mind as she munched on some trail rations Manus had given her, washing the dryness from her throat with frequent sips from her water-skin.

Refusing to lock herself into one set course, she lay down on the thick furs and stared up at the stars, hoping that inspiration would be found beneath the comforting blanket of sleep. Shivering with the cold and without even a fire to warm some tea, she huddled in her bedroll and prayed for a miracle.

*******

The party was still in full swing when the Conqueror finally gave into her craving to be gone from the sights, scents and sounds of revelry in her name. A short nod, and her throne-bearers came forth, pulling the recessed handles and lifting her to their powerful shoulders as her eyes flicked over the gathered crowd for the final time.

As one, the people turned toward her, straightening proudly and lifting their goblets in tribute. "To the Conqueror!" they shouted in unison. "Long may she reign!"

Acknowledging the obeisance with the barest tilt of her head, Xena silently urged her bearers to escort her from the room, led by the Captain of her Royal Guard, the darkly handsome and lovelorn Marcus.

Her ears welcomed the stillness of the cool hallways as her eyes flitted over the patterns the torches drew upon shadowed stone walls. This deep into the castle, the only sounds that could be heard were the quiet, barefooted gait of her throne-bearers and the purposeful booted tread of Marcus, who led the way toward her private chambers.

Finally arriving at a set of nondescript doors—Xena wasn’t one to announce the way to her private sanctum—the throne-bearers set down the Conqueror. Smiling, Marcus offered his hand, which Xena took, allowing herself to be escorted up from the throne.

Releasing Xena’s warm hand, Marcus drew his sword and opened the door, stepping in quickly while holding his other arm across the threshold, ostensibly to prevent the Conqueror from entering until he had deemed her quarters safe.

Biting back her first smile of the evening, Xena easily evaded Marcus’ ‘protection’, twisting his arm out of the way and stepping into her suite of rooms.

"The day I can’t defeat a simple assassin in my own castle is the day I’ll gladly hand my crown over to you," she purred into her onetime-bedmate’s ear as she passed by, her face tight with a predator’s grin.

Heaving out a silent sigh, Marcus straightened and sheathed his sword, watching as his ruler’s azure eyes swept the length and breadth of the room, seeking any reason, no matter how minute, to draw her own cleverly hidden chakram.

The only movement within was that of the Conqueror’s body-servants, one, a tall woman with shining ebony skin; the other, a petite Asian woman, who came out into the main chamber and gracefully lowered themselves to the floor, kneeling with perfect grace at the feet of their Conqueror.

Determined to be of at least some help, Marcus moved past the trio and into the bathing chamber, his hand on his sword hilt in anticipation of trouble. Seeing nothing of interest, he moved off into the most private area of all, Xena’s sleeping quarters.

The room looked much as it always had, dominated by a huge, canopied bed; large enough, pundits said from behind covering hands, to service her entire army, horses and all. A huge fire blazed in the fireplace, and the sheets had been turned down and adorned with sweet-scented flowers, all in anticipation of the Conqueror’s nighttime activities, whatever they were to be.

Marcus couldn’t help the warm flush that ran through him at the memories of his own times between the Conqueror’s sheets. As with everything else, she was an extremely gifted and passionate lover who took him, a man who’d believed he’d seen and done it all, to places he’d never even thought to dream.

The flush deepened as he hoped that she would choose him tonight to assuage the boredom that seemed to emanate from her very pores.

Realizing that he was loitering a bit too long, the dark soldier blew out a breath and turned from the beckoning bed, traveling back through the bathing room and into the main room, to be met with a knowing glint in Xena’s captivating eyes. He blushed, then cleared his throat, feeling oddly adolescent. "All clear," he finally managed to say.

"As if there was ever any doubt. You may leave."

Startled, he looked up, but the glint in her eyes was replaced by that cold remoteness which had characterized her expression for many, many months, ever since her war with Caesar was assured. Suppressing a sigh of disappointment, he executed a flawless bow. "As you wish, Majesty."

With a look, he collected the throne-bearers, then left the rooms, closing the door softly behind him.

With perfect symmetry, the two servants rose from their places on the floor and began their task of divesting Xena of her accoutrements.

The heavy gown slid from her shoulders, revealing a warrior’s battle-hardened body beneath the vestments of civility, her coiled muscles and tanned skin glowing softly in the muted light of the room. The taller of the two women slipped the crown from her head as the smaller one stepped behind Xena, carefully removing the hairpin and unbinding the long, flowing tresses, allowing them to fall well past the tapered waist of the Conqueror.

"Your bath is ready, Majesty," came the soft-spoken words of Ling Li, the small, beautiful Asian woman who had been a gift from the beloved Lao Ma.

Giving the young woman a nod, Xena padded, naked, into the bathing chamber and slipped her long body beneath the gently steaming water of her hot-tub. She came up for air, pushing the dark hair from her face, then leaned against the back of the tub, allowing the hot water to work its customary magic upon muscles held tense in boredom.

Calming her thoughts, she allowed the sounds of the water gently lapping against the stone sides of the tub and soft noises of her body-servants as they moved around the room, awaiting her desires, to run through her, soothing her.

"Attend me," she softly commanded, not bothering to open her eyes.

A shuffling of cloth as it was lowered to the floor, and within seconds, another body joined the Conqueror in the steaming bath. The sharp scent of crushed herbs came to her nose and she lifted a lazy arm, allowing the woman before her to take hold of her hand and spread the fragrant lather across her heated flesh.

Squatting at the head of the tub, Ling Li lifted a ceramic jug and wet down the Conqueror’s hair once again. She then began to wash Xena’s thick, black hair, turning the chore into a chance to massage some of the remaining tenseness from her Lord’s scalp and neck.

Xena purred as a cat to cream as her body was lovingly attended to. Both servants had long earned their freedom, yet stayed in the Conqueror’s service for reasons Xena did not bother to divine. They served her well and she rewarded them in kind, raising neither hand nor voice to either, and demanding nothing they would not willingly provide.

She had taken both to her bed on occasion, separately or together, and would doubtless do so again when the mood struck her. But she also knew these two women, bound together by a common fate, had fallen into love with one another, and so she, mostly, let them be.

Feeling her body begin to respond to the intimate cleansing it was receiving, Xena reached down between her own legs and grasped the dark woman’s wrist, far more gently than she had done to Callisto earlier that evening. "Not tonight," she whispered, releasing her grip on the woman and coming to her full height in the tub.

The dark woman, Niamey by name, simply bowed and exited the bath, taking a towel from her lover and awaiting Xena’s exit from the fragrant waters.

*******

Carefully dried, then oiled with lavender, the Conqueror sat on a comfortable couch in the main room of her quarters, waiting patiently as Ling Li drew a comb through her hair, grooming the thick mass into some semblance of order. Xena had donned a royal blue, sheer, silk robe. The outline of her magnificent body could be glimpsed teasingly through the fabric, and both women surreptitiously enjoyed the view as they finished their attentions to their leader.

"Will there be anything else, Majesty?" Niamey asked, her ebony skin shining in the torchlight.

"You may go," Xena replied, waving them both away as she stood.

Both women bowed deeply, then exited the chambers on silent feet.

The Conqueror padded over to the massive window which faced east, toward Rome. Unknowingly, she echoed Gabrielle’s words as she stared with narrowed eyes out into the darkness. "Do you sense me, Caesar? Can you feel my breath on your neck?"

The night, of course, had no answer for her.

After a few more moments, she turned from the window and walked over to a massive table where her battle plans lay unfurled. A massive map of Greece and Rome stared back at her from the table. Her eyes scanned the map, picturing the day she would ride victorious into the Italian city, Caesar’s arrogant head skewered on the end of her sword.

A patch of lustful heat curled deep in her belly as a dark smile bloomed to life, unfelt, on her lips. She was the dark face of Death itself; the sword of retribution and the dealer of revenge.

A dagger appeared suddenly in her hand, and with a growl worthy of the demons of Tartarus, she thrust it through the heart of Rome, sneering as the bejeweled hilt quivered from the force of her blow. "You’re mine, Caesar."

*******

Morning came with sunlit promise, and Gabrielle spared a moment to send up a fervent prayer that the day before had been just a dream. But when green eyes, blurred from sleep, opened, only emptiness greeted them. "So much for that prayer," the bard muttered, rolling herself out of the bedroll and stretching her tired, stiff body. Hunger set upon her with a vengeance, yet a breakfast of cold trail rations held little appeal. The thought of hunting and killing an unfortunate rabbit held even less. "Well, they say the ‘lean and hungry’ look is in, these days. Might as well hop aboard that fad chariot."

Several plans had come to her during the night, but nothing seemed to stand out in her mind. The direct route was out. That much she knew.

Gabrielle almost laughed aloud as she pictured herself going amongst ten thousand or more soldiers, imperiously demanding to be taken to their leader. "Yeah. That’ll work. Wonder how effective I’d be without a head?"

Scratching the back of her neck under the long fall of her hair, the bard paced the confines of the small clearing where she’d spent the night.

A putrid smell wafted in on the early morning breeze and, wrinkling her nose in distaste, she followed the scent past the break in the trees, looking down at the massive army below. Women and children, most stooped from a life of heavy labor, wandered among the soldiers, ladling out breakfast from steaming cauldrons. From the stench, Gabrielle wondered if the women were trying to help or hinder the war effort. The men’s expressions, what she could see of them, seemed to be asking much the same question.

The bard’s face lit up. "That’s it! I’ll get myself hired on as a camp follower. Not quite as bold as presenting myself at the palace gate, but at least I’ll get my foot in the door."

Satisfied, for now, with her plan, or what there was of it, she confidently took apart her staff—the kitchen help couldn’t afford to look too aggressive—and stuffed it into her travel bag, which she then slung over her shoulder.

"Alright, Gabrielle. It’s show time."