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keilemlucent · 4 years ago

Text

pretty eyes & starshine: ii

(NSFW)

hawks | takami keigo x reader

ao3

part i || part ii || part iii (epilogue)

beta’ed: @shadowworks & @firein-thesky

word count: ~15.2k

Healing takes time, but it’s easier with someone else around who’s on the mend with you.

(You and Keigo learn to start living again.)

warnings: codependency but make it sexc, injured reader, post-trauma symptoms, reader has abandonment issues, angst, ouchies <3

a/n: part 2 :’^) we made it!! soft hurt and very horny codependency that involves keigo’s immaculate d*ck. all that is left after this is part 3 which will be more of an epilogue :’^)

enjoy loves <3

✧ ✧ ✧ ✧ ✧ ✧

The doors to exit the hospital scare you.

How can they not?

They’re... automatic.

The glass panes are wide, sliding and slapping as folks come and go, the quiet ring of metal on metal and the slap of the plastic padding makes your heart race.

Get over it, get over it, get over it—

It’s just some doors, they’re normal.

You’ve walked through automatic doors so many times. Never before had you even taken conscious note of them.

(But that was before you heard them let in that man who—)

Without thinking, you take a little, tentative step back from them.

Consider you are leaving your own slice of healing hell; you are shakier and sweatier than you would’ve liked. Your clothes are like the ones... he used to wear, cheap garments obviously pulled from some industrial multipack that stank like plastic and rubbing alcohol.

You hate it.

But you didn’t have another choice. Your old articles were bloodied and disposed of long ago, and the hospital gowns you wore during your stay were far more uncomfortable than your scratchy, wide pants and crewneck long sleeve the same pale, lifeless blue as your old bed sheets.

It would be enough.

You shift the crutch under your right arm and shuffle the backpack on your shoulders. It contains just enough to get you to the shelter, where they’d supposedly have a bed— a cot, more than likely. You had a toothbrush, some extra socks, and a prepaid card for a single, one-way train trip across the country and into the unknown.

Tears stung your eyes as you lingered by the doors.

It all feels so uncomfortably real. The world kept moving, and you’re reentering it far-more battered and perpetually bruised.

And completely alone.

(The thought horrifies you to your core, but you try to ignore it.)

Despite the time you spent at the hospital, you were leaving without a hint of reverie. Everyone, nurses and doctors and anyone who has fucking eyes is too busy dealing with the casualties that had lasted months.

It didn’t matter how long you stayed. You were just a body. A fucked up one too.

You count yourself lucky to even have the backpack, as cheap and sterile as it smells.

It all unnerves you, but you didn’t have a choice. Numbness settles over you as you accept your future.

There... is a little glimmer that he will show up.

(He won’t. Empty promises.)

(Everyone leaves.)

(Why’d you call him, anyway?)

(Because no one had spoken to you like a human in a month.)

Solitude makes people desperate and crazy.

You are a little crazy, you know. Maybe not in a bad way, but certainly in a way that is eating you up and out in ways you don’t understand. You don’t have the energy sort through it all. You just have to finally start moving forward. Or try to.

Tentatively, you walk toward the doors, stepping out and onto the pavement. You lurch and you would’ve tripped if not for the crutch shoved under your arm.

For the first time in a long time, you suck in fresh air and the trickling sunlight. It feels fresh, cleansing you with each little inhale as you face your cheeks to sky. You have your moment, basking before your journey.

Then someone whistles. You ignore it at first.

The person whistles again, calling out—

“Your ride’s here, starshine!”

Your breath punches from your lungs. You whip your head to the sound.

Though it’s overcast, you do see your morning sun.

Your steps stutter as you nearly trip over your feet.

He is standing, not far at all, leaning against a shiny black car, sleek and expensive and out of place. He’s all overgrown hair and lazy-expressions, one which stretches into a grin as he sees you.

And you see him.

(He really came?)

(Of course he did.)

Your crutch nearly clatters to the ground as you stumble toward him. The moment you waver, he’s running to catch you.

You meet each other halfway.

And without a goddamn lick of shame, the moment you near him, your arms lock around him. Your face buries into the hollow of his throw and you inhale. The scent of him, a bit spiced but mostly skin and sweat fills you. Not a hint of antiseptic.

And you shudder at how good it feels.

He stabilizes the two of you, greedily wrapping his arms around your waist and squeezing as if to give a much-needed greeting.

There’s a moment of heat between you, familiar and blessed and so damned missed that you both share shuddering breaths.

“It’s good to see you, starshine,” He soaks up any part of you he could get to. So casually, he touches like he wants to consume you.

You squeeze him just as hard.

“You came?” Your words muffled into his skin.

He simply nods, and the only confirmation you need to sink into him. Perhaps, there’s onlookers, but neither of you have the mind to care. All you care about is the shift of his muscles beneath your fingertips, the heat of him, his golden, pretty visage—

Like he had so many times, he tucks hair behind your ears and tension drains from him.

So tenderly does he squeeze around your middle where he holds you up, “Let’s go home, starshine.”

You want nothing more.

...

The drive to your new home is long, but you don’t mind.

The world has changed in the months you’d been tucked away in the forest-hidden hospital. As disconnected as you were, you still heard of the unrest and upheaval across the country. The political clashes are marked by the... contrarian billboards lining the highway, new slogans battling each other every mile or so.

The scenery slowly goes from flatlands, to wetlands, to rolling hills that are a lush green. From the safety of the car, you could see that the air even looked wet, and you could imagine the way it would stick in your throat and tacky the tips of your fingers.

“Where do you live?” You finally ask, voice soft in the melancholy softness of the light mist that sprayed the car.

“In the mountains, high-up,” He squeezes your hand (the one he’s been holding the whole ride). Quietly, he adds. “I still couldn’t bear to be too close to the ground.”

He laughs, though it fades into the suddenly heavy air.

This is the world, isn’t it?

You blink, gulping at the face of your reality, and let your eyes go half-lidded as you trace the shapes of growing evergreen as your drive takes you higher and higher.

...

Keigo had made up the guest room for you.

He doesn’t have much for extra sheets and softness, let alone decor, but he does what he can. The bed is made and pressed with clean lines, freshly washed. The curtains on the windows hang heavy, but warm up the room with their clement, tan fibers. It’s a start, with lots of space for you to add your own touches as well.

He’d spent the night prior on it, laboring, like he was preparing a nest as opposed to a simple bedroom.

(It is a nest, but he doesn’t need to accept that just yet.)

There wasn’t anything else to do for a while when he first escaped that fucking hell. He’d really given up. Keigo was uncomfortably content to rot away as he had dreamed of since he’d been burnt. The little, dusty corners of the cabin would’ve made perfect places to waste away in peace and alone.

Except, he didn’t.

Keigo started to make the home better.

He isn’t sure if it was out of some need to just do something, and the outdated, worn cabin was his most available canvas. Part of him is convinced it’s some buried avian instinct, and without the Commission’s constant hovering, he has no reason to suppress those more animalistic urges. The need to nest somewhere cozy and safe took him over, and he had gotten to work.

The cabin is cleaned up incredibly well. New appliances, floors patched and polished. The furniture is mostly old, but it’s obviously been shined and tended to. The living area isn’t horribly large, but it’s more than enough space for the two of you. It has wide windows that looked down upon the slopes and peaks that your home is nestled in. The colors are warm oranges and tans that are easy on the eye. Nothing too red and nothing too blue.

Nothing too imposing.

(Nothing too reminiscent.)

He leads you from the car, gingerly helping you up the rickety stairs to the front door.

The wound on your leg may be ‘healed’, but you don’t appear comfortable in the slightest. Your expression pinches with half of your steps, the bending of your scarred flesh undoubtedly painful. It makes something in his chest squeeze as he navigates you into his house, from the snow into somewhere warm. A place that he crafted all on his own. Shaped with his own hands. A real possession, all his own.

When you enter, you don’t say anything, only tightening your grip on his hand.

“I like it,” You smile, soft and dreamy, worrying the strap of your backpack. “... Are you sure it’s okay for me to stay?”

“Of course,” Keigo assures you. Of course, it was okay for you to stay. “I’m happy to have you here, especially when the other option is one of the shelters.”

You wouldn’t have lasted a day with your bum leg and natural softness.

The thought has him gulping, the heat flaring in his chest as he tugs you closer, ghosting his lips over your temple.

With only a bit of stumbling, he shows you the rest of the home.

...

You’re quiet the rest of the day, curled up on the couch in the same clothes you left the hospital in. There’s clear exhaustion in your face, from the dark circles ringing your eyes and the tremble in your hand and leg. Keigo is content to cover you in a nice knit blanket he purchased down in the nearby town, and let you rest.

His own back burns when he catches glimpses of your scar. It ran down all the way to your ankle, even bleeding onto the top of your foot. The gnarled flesh brings back memories of screaming and metallic exam rooms.

And he, like you, stares at a wall for a while before making dinner.

You can’t manage much.

The TV glows with some show you might’ve watched and been engrossed in it. But the hollow feeling in your chest keeps you submerged in the static of your skull. It’s more comfortable than acknowledging how quickly the picture moves in front of you.

Your only motion is a ‘light’ scratching over the thin fabric of your pants.

‘Light’.

He enters sometime later, bearing food and an easy smile that falls all-too quickly.

“Hey, starshine— oh fuck,” His voice clips as he enters, setting down steaming plates on the coffee table and pulling your hand from your thigh. The tips of your fingers are stained with enough blood to make your eyebrows shoot up.

Your eyes shoot to your leg, where you’d apparently tore through the thin fabric of your pants and torn your skin up without even thinking. So close to the scar—

Heat flares between, light bouncing in your eyes as you cover the hole, “S-sorry, fuck, I didn’t even realize.”

“It’s okay, it happens,” Keigo assures you, softer than you’ve ever heard him. “Let’s clean you up quick and then eat, okay?”

You nod, exhaling a weight from your chest as the light skitters out of your eyes.

And the heat fades from the room. The absence of it chills Keigo, and the abruptness makes his nose scrunch.

He patches you up quickly and with a precision that screams ‘yes, I have done this far too many times.’ The wound isn’t too severe, just a nasty-looking scratch. The dried blood on your finger is wiped away.

You both settle onto the couch, eating in silence.

Something hangs in the air, thick and unsaid. Questions and paragraphs that have been ignored up until now. Not out of will, perhaps just tired negligence.

But, Keigo has always been the blunt type, so he finally asks one of the many facets that needs to be broached.

“What’s your quirk?”

A little surprised sound lodges in your throat with a bite of baked fish, “My quirk? I thought you figured it out already.”

Keigo raises a feathery eyebrow, “I’m a bit slow these days, starshine.”

The nickname makes something settle pleasantly under your ribs, and the light, little orbs of yellow and orange return to your eyes.

And heat fills the room, like it had so many times before. Like those first nights in the common room, stargazing in the lamp and starlight. It’s warmth that bleeds between his bones and tendons, through and through.

Keigo puts it all together, jaw going slack and eyes going wide.

Had he never realized it?

It does make sense, in retrospect and without a sinfully heavy dose of painkillers swimming in his veins. The heat that permeated all of the nights you sat, eyeing the stars and each other.

The odd heat of it all.

You’d been warming the two of you. Souls cold from the sterility of it all.

“That’s your quirk?” Keigo leans in closer, inspecting the little specks of light in your irises. The tell. “This whole time?”

“U-um, yeah,” You worry a hangnail. “I don’t mean for it to be activating all over the place, but it has been since everything happened.”

“Why’s that?”

You chew the plump of your bottom lip, brows pinched.

Without thinking, Keigo bows to the will of the ever-present, needy feeling in his chest and presses a little kiss to your forehead, willing it to smooth away some of your worry.

I’m not upset, the action says, but the cabin is quiet.

“... You know how cats purr?”

Keigo quirks an eyebrow, “I do.”

“Well, I think it’s kind of like that,” You met his eyes, the light returning and the fire-like warmth tickling the hair on your arms. “Cats purr when they feel good, but sometimes, they purr when they’re not doing well.”

“... ‘Not doing well’?”

“If they’re in pain, or if they’re really scared,” You go quiet, tracing a seam on Keigo’s jeans. “They’ll purr to comfort themselves. It’s like that.”

Comfort themselves.

No wonder all those nights you spent together, you felt so warm. It was your quirk—

And you must’ve felt awful.

Part of him feels betrayed, just for a moment, before it dissolves with the watery look you wear as your injured finger traces over his knuckles.

And the heat of you flares.

Your quirk is a part of you.

“I didn’t think to tell you.” Your voice wobbles, yet remains vacant. “‘M sorry.”

You don’t need to apologize.

If anything, the knowledge only strengthens Keigo’s resolve.

...

The first weeks at the house are odd as you both settle into rhythms of living. There’s an orbit to how you choose to live, though it’s not predictable or reliable. It can’t be, there’s no way for it to be. You float around each other like little planets to a fickle sun, unstable and wavering, but elliptical, nonetheless.

You’re both learning to be human again with your own rhythms.

Keigo’s biggest challenge is dragging himself from bed each morning. The lazy bones he thought the Commission had broken and beaten out of him still remain somehow. Now that he has no obligations to tend to at the break of dawn, he thoroughly enjoys lazing about in the sheets, even if he’s just staring at his wood-paneled ceiling wishing that Dabi had finished the job and burned him dead.

He’s doing great.

Despite his sluggishness, you move about on your own.

You make coffee each morning, and curl up on the couch under the same knit blanket. A few patches of the multi-colored throw have been pulled apart by your restless hands.

Neither of you comment on it.

Though Keigo takes longer to rise, you move far less during the day during those first weeks. You’re tethered to the cushion until the sun goes down.

It’s like the nylon straps at the hospital never left your wrists.

Your vacant nature scares him, if he’s honest. There’s an unspoken, massive wound you carry with you, both physically and mentally, and its manifestation is a little haunting.

Keigo knows about trauma, knows about how the mind worked and how to, you know, deal with it. He is— was, a hero, for fuck’s sake. Trauma is in the job description and he’d had his fair share of bruises before he went undercover, before he killed Jin (REALLY don’t think about it—), and lost his wings. He’s stitched himself up by filling up his schedule with anything he could. Distractions. Things to occupy him, help him forget for a while. If that didn’t work, he always had a bottle or two of imported soju that he could nurse.

Again, coping.

The state you’re in is the opposite of coping, it’s being. Existing. The strain you carry from everything shows in you, and the way that it’s manifested terrifies him.

Keigo is smart enough to know to keep a few boundaries. He can’t fix you and he can’t get it in his head that he can. He’ll smother you; he knows he will. The solace he finds comes from being there when you need him, and always being close by.

It’s all he can do to soothe what’s obviously an open wound. He has his own, that you tend to in your own way as well when you can. It’s all give-and-take, naturally and easily.

You’ll find yourselves on the couch together, leaning and touching so naturally, but with no intent. Your little fingers trace shapes over his clothes, hearts and lettering he can’t catch. The heat of you will cling to him, whether your quirk activates or not.

He holds you, simply and truly. Tries to be a new, kinder being.

...

You don’t have much that is solely yours.

You’d been living in an odd combination of Keigo’s clothes and the single outfit you arrived with. It works, enough. Most garments are worn until they’re filthy, but it takes you a little too long to notice.

Keigo notices.

One day, he sits down with you and his heavy, black credit card and helps you pick out... whatever you wanted. The guy is loaded and will be until he dies, and he’s smitten to help you pick out whatever you need.

You’re more challenged by the task.

“I’m fine, you don’t need to do this,” you murmur into his collarbones, narrowing your eyes at the laptop screen. “I have enough.”

Keigo clicks his tongue, rubbing the fraying fabric of your shirt, the same, cheap scratchy fabric from the hospital. Your pants are soft cotton, old ones of Keigo’s that he should probably throw away. You adore them, and spend most of your time in them, too.

“You deserve some nice things that are yours, don’t you think?” He coaxes with some extra soft touches as you glare at the screen.

Perhaps, you think to yourself. Your jaw locks.

You deliberately avoided thinking about your lack of... things. The absence of all the bits of you that you had once carried tugs at something deep in your chest. Grief, probably. Loss at the very least. Your home has been torn apart and you have nothing. Not a single remnant of then except you. And you’re hardly a good cast of the existence you once lead.

The world feels dimmer with the thought.

...

The house gets cold at night.

It’s inevitable, with the chill of the snowy valleys and peaks slipping through drafty windows and cracks in the woodwork. It slunk into the house once the stars rose, sinking bone deep. It’s easier to ward off during the day. The little stray touches and the ambiance of shared presence helps.

But, you slept separately.

It’s cold— so fucking cold in your beds. Keigo hates it. Despises the way how it makes his eyes droop and his body heavier than it should be. Despite not having wings any longer, his other avian traits lingered, and torpor was definitely not in his top three faves. He can only be thankful that he thought to invest in an electric blanket for himself, for his nest.

Though it would be a lot better with you in it, the last thing he wants to do is push you. You’re fragile. Everything is fragile. Keigo has laid awake on more than one night, trying to make sense of all of it, everything and coming to the conclusion that sleeping in his too-big, too-cold bed would have to do.

Sometimes, there’s no way to swallow the state of things.

...

“Your packages are here.”

You look up, eyes wide and sweet.

Oh, yeah. Material goods.

Clothes.

Objects.

It takes a while, but the result of your shopping spree is a small horde of packages down at the town post office, all with your name attached. The idea of so much newness is daunting, but your few remaining garments are threadbare and practically falling apart. It’s necessary, you acknowledge, even if you’re terrified of not living in Keigo’s worn crewneck.

(Change can be good, you remind yourself. The thought is quiet.)

Keigo stands by the door, buttoning up his coat and lacing up his boots as you watch from your soft perch on the couch. The blanket has a new, wide hole picked in it, but you don’t notice.

“Would you like to come with me and pick them up?” Keigo flicks his gaze to you with a careful, easy smile.

You hadn’t left the house since you’d arrived.

The thought sends your stomach knotting and sweat gathering in your palms. You jerk your head side to side, sinking back down into the cushions.

Keigo doesn’t hold it against you. You can tell by the way his expression softens around his eyes.

He leaves after kissing you on the forehead a few times, telling you he’ll be quick to return. It’s not often that he leaves, though he’s always timely on coming back. His excursions are never more than a trip to the town market, thankfully. An hour or two feels like a lot, but the too-still air and quiet of the floorboards without Keigo’s pacing unsettles you.

Not having him near unsettles you. The thought of having him gone for too long shoots something hot and needy in your chest.

(Don’t leave, don’t leave, don’t leave—)

Thankfully, just like always, Keigo isn’t gone for long. And he returns bearing a few armloads of packages and some takeout curry. You take it all, and him, greedily.

(Thank you, thank you, thank you.)

...

It’s a few days later when Keigo wakes to you knocking on his door in the early hours of the morning.

It had been a... rougher day. You had been a bit livelier early on, joining him on the snowy patio for morning coffee and even taking a quick walk around the neighboring forest. With the snow so deep, you could only go so far though. The motion of it aggravated your injury, left your gasping and clawing at Keigo’s arm as the scar tissue pulled.

The scar is still dead, thank god, but the impact is just as present physically as it is mentally for you.

The rest of the day you spent curled up on the couch, taking little sips of water between short naps. That night, you hardly touched your dinner. Keigo was smart enough to cut up some fruit and lay it with a handful of crackers and offer it to you throughout the rest of the night. You nibbled at the bits, but hardly consumed much at all.

You went to bed early, giving him a hard hug before retiring to your lonely room.

Those days are the worse, the bad ones. They’re the ones where Keigo wants to break all the boundaries he still has. The little touches and kisses he gives you are one thing, but there’s much more he wants to do. Craves doing. But, pushing you too far or too hard would break you. He’s smart. He knows that. So, Keigo doesn’t wait. He satiates all those protective needs.

He accepts circumstance, just as he always has.

(He doesn’t understand how much you crave him, but that’ll come later.)

That night, things begin to shift.

His voice cracks with sleep as he calls for you to enter. You linger in the door frame, clutching a pillow to your chest, like a scared child who’s had a—

“Nightmare?” He asks, sitting up and tugging a blanket with him to cover his bare chest.

The cold air of the cabin hits his scars. He hisses under his breath, shoulders drawing tense. You must notice, eyes going a little wider as you recede from his room. The darkness of the hallway nearly dissolves you. His chest aches, hands tightening around the fabric in his fists.

“Come back here, starshine, come on,” Keigo calls, praying you’ll heed him. “It’s alright. What’s wrong?”

Keigo half-recognizes that that’s a very loaded question, but you’re both a bit sleep addled. Maybe it will slide.

Your eyes alight in the pitch of the room, sputtering with little orbs of amber. Your atrophying arms squeeze the pillow, and you take a few more tentative steps closer.

“... We’re safe, right?”

The question surprises Keigo, enough to make his old wounds ache.

One loaded question answered for another.

It’s reasonable to ask. It’s very reasonable to ponder. Keigo has wondered about it too. The townsfolk don’t know who he really was, and he was quite secretive about the initial move. The world hadn’t caught onto the fact that ‘Hawks’ had moved him and his new love to an isolated little cabin in the woods, and hopefully they never would. Society had a lot bigger problems, according to the over-processed news channel he tuned into on occasion.

Keigo was old news at this point.

So many heroes had been called out for poor behavior. Scandal after scandal, coverup after coverup. Corruption, everywhere. It was an industry secret, all of the bullshit behind closed doors. Keigo’s little double-agent schtick and you know, murder of a good man (for the love of god, do not fucking think about Jin) was still bad, but the public had a whole new slew of bullshit to torch people at the stake for.

Still.

He’s glad no one knows about your little hideaway or you.

“We’re safe, starshine. Very safe.”’

It makes his answer easier to say, more honest.

You inch closer from the doorway. There’s a tremble in your shoulders that runs to your hands. You’re only wearing a t-shirt and thin shorts, maybe just panties, he can’t tell. Your scar runs down your thigh and calf, gnarling and twisting the flesh it dared to mar. The seam of it is a shining black that Keigo had failed to notice before.

It reminds him of why you’re so scared and the types of nightmares you must have.

“... Promise?” You stop at the foot of the bed, throat bobbing with a thick gulp.

Keigo gives a sympathetic smile, patting the sheets next to him, “I promise. You’re safe. We’re safe.”

You look skeptical, but climb into bed with him all the same.

Something stirs in Keigo’s chest as you do. As he watches you clamor over the sheets and blankets he... nests in, the heat of it fills him. A combination of yours and his own, spills through his ribs and down to his toes.

He shudders with it, something needy wriggling down from

You sit up on your knees, sinking into the mattress and holding the pillow tight to your chest. Watching, eyes still alight and wide.

“Do you want to talk about it?” Keigo asks.

You don’t, you both know that, but breaking the silence is a start.

You push the pillow against the headboard, trading it to link your fingers with his, over his chest and pressed to the linens.

You squeeze and let out a breath you’ve been holding. There’s a weight to it, like there’s something you’re actually carrying. There has been something you have been carrying, but only you are able to see it— feel it in its actuality.

But, that doesn’t mean you have to shoulder the burden alone, especially on darkened, lonely nights.

He tugs you closer, mindful of your tenderness and the scars you both bear. The night is only lit by starlight, and the room is dark with the new moon. It makes it easier to be closer as you settled into the bedding next to him.

It’s uncomfortable for a few moments.

Despite how much contact you share, this feels different. The little touches, kisses and caresses you trade throughout the day are second nature. Comforting someone else who so obviously needs it. His person who needs it.

(He wonders if you think of him as your ‘person’ too.)

You lay on your side, facing away from him as you fall into his nest, still tense, still on edge and unsure. It reminds him of those first days at the hospital, when you both had lost your tongues and yourselves and just enjoyed the stars together in oddly comforting silence and broken conversation.

It’s a process, he reminds himself.

Keigo slides closer, throwing an arm over waist and adjusting the blankets with his other. There’s plenty, piled on top of each other without much reason. Careful hands properly tuck you into it all, next to him, with him. He brings them up to your chin, pressing stray hairs back into place and laying a trailing kiss or two over the back of your neck.

“... Is it okay if I stay?” Your voice sounds far-off, like the question is more for yourself than for him.

He can feel the unease and fear still bound up in your shoulders. It’s always there, whether it’s a moonless night or a snow-glitteringly, sunny day. The tension he presses his thumbs into is held in all of the muscle of your back, in your hips, your hands— everywhere.

It makes part of him ache.

A few little coos, soft little rumbles, roll from the back of his throat.

Normally, he’d be a bit embarrassed. But at the birdish chirps, you’re falling deeper in the sheets, the nest, and against his chest.

“Please stay,” He assures you with a squeeze. A small comfort, one he’d keep giving.

The odd quiet returns, sans the little sounds in his chest.

Slowly, tentatively, you turn in his arms. Your own lock over his waist, splayed low on his spine. The pads of your fingertips brush scars, the old ones and the new. It makes him writhe a bit in his own skin. It’s unfamiliar, compared to all of the cold prodding and meaningless pleasure he was used to.

It is the closest anyone of familiarity has been to the scars in a long time, and you, preciously, grace him with the softest touch. No expectation in it, just some much-needed, shared bits of love. Once again, precious.

And you both relax into it all. The ambient thrum of the other's body, the shared breath and smells that mingle between you. There’s little pains and stings that never really go away, but with the other so close, neither of you mind.

It’s hard to tell when your quirk settles, and the organic heat you create together fills the rooms and your lungs.

All Keigo knows is that he falls asleep with your lips brushing the hollow of his throat, still and warm against his chest. The feeling of the living rhythm of your body with your breath lulls him off, content and hazy.

...

You never sleep alone after that night.

Keigo pulls you into his room, or you pad in after brushing your teeth and pulling on your soft, soft sleep clothes. The bed feels a lot less big and lonely with the two of you wrapped up in each other, fully giving in.

It puts Keigo at a remarkable amount of ease.

The urge in his chest to ‘keep you safe’ feels the most sated at night, when he can keep as close as you both can bear. Your hands always make their home at the base of his spine, or the fat and flesh between his lower back and his rear. The pads of your fingers rub away years of stored tension and weight, quietly and kindly before you fall asleep each night.

During the day, you’re equally as needy, though you’re slowly becoming a bit more independent. You’re more lucid in general. Though the couch and worn blanket are your greatest comforts (other than him), you’re beginning to stray and poke around the house a bit more.

The shelves have a few more familiar comforts, things Keigo had slowly accumulated to pass the time. There’s a video game console or two he’d never used, a few stacks of books he’d heard were good, and some tucked away art supplies if inspiration struck.

As much as he urges you to take and use whatever you’d like, you’re still tentative. The first few times you pluck a crisp book from the shelf, Keigo’s back aches with how the old muscles that once controlled his wings tried to puff-up non-existent feathers. Despite how it tugs at all the wrong parts of him, he still glows at the progress.

You start to help him with dinner too. That’s some of your favorite time.

There’s a rhythm to it, when you both start preparing meals together. Keigo can’t season food for shit, (though, he’s made leaps and strides with cooking that pats himself on the back for) but he’s quite skilled with a knife. Remnants of his training that have domestic applications.

He doesn’t tell you that that’s why he’s so good at dicing vegetables and paring meat, he just chatters to fill the air. You tend more to the process of cooking, seasoning and watching and nodding along to his words.

The more meals you share in creating, the more you start to speak up.

It’s progress, even in something so small.

...

But progress isn’t linear.

It’s not even a goddamn line and it’s fucking infuriating.

...

The depth of winter bears down on the hills, the house, and the two of you. You’re coping, both of you. But the momentum of it is fragile.

It scares you, secretly and privately.

You feel fragile, and you have for a long time. Your scar remains tender, gnarled and ugly on your leg. You avoid looking at it at all cost, though Keigo has free reign to graze tender touch nearby it.

That’s how you find yourselves, leaning on each other on the cushion of the couch and idly watching the glow of the television. Your cheek tucks over his shoulder and you watch with half-lidded eyes. You’re only half-there as Keigo changes the channel.

He hums after a few moments.

“There’s a storm coming tonight,” Keigo tells you, lips just a touch dry against the shell of your ear. “I’m going to go to town and—”

Oh wow.

You interrupt, fisting the front of his shirt, “Can I come?”

The question stuns both of you.

Your eyes are honest as you peer up, genuinely unsure if you can.

“Of course, starshine,” Keigo assures. You notice the way his eyes, his pretty eyes, look wide and bright. All for you. Wow. “Let’s get you out of the house, hm?”

Getting out.

Time has stretched out and you can’t remember the last time you left for anything more than a little stroll on the backroads, Keigo on your arm. Going to town and seeing people strikes something odd that has your stomach churning.

You’re nervous when you finally pile into the car, both bundled up with hats, mittens and scarfs (Keigo wears a mask to better hide his identity, but he’s sure some of the townies have figured him out.) The tasks are simple. Stock up for the coming storm and make sure he pays to plow their little backroad out once the storm passes. Easy, things that wouldn’t take too long, but it still makes your palms sweat.

Keigo massages your thigh as you drive into town. The comfort of the snowy hills and evergreens disappears, and it has you in goddamn knots.

You squeeze his hand, locking your jaw.

“I’m scared.” You break the silence as the small structures of the town come into view. “I don’t know if this was a good idea.”

You haven’t decided again.

He kneads his thumb into the tension in your thighs with a little smile, “Let’s give it a try.”

“It’s scary, though.”

“I know.”

You pull at a hangnail with your teeth but say nothing else as you roll in and park at the small market.

The first thing you notice is the goddamn doors. Automatic doors.

When you see them, you want to climb back into the car, maybe the trunk for fuck’s sake, and hide like you’ve never hidden before. Go home and bury yourself in a snow pile with how your heart hammers in your chest and your breath catches.

Deep breaths.

You catch yourself, just a little.

You keep walking, Keigo’s hand in yours and you enter the market like nothing feels as wrong as it is.

The store is small, but there’s a decent selection, all things given. Keigo places a basket in your hands, tells you to ‘go nuts’ and ‘literally get whatever you want, especially if it’s salty or sweet’ and you heed him the best you can. He busies himself talking to the clerk, organizing with that honey-voice you crave.

You take a few deep breaths and walk around the market like a normal person.

(Even though, the last time you were in a situation close to this, you got that nasty, cute scar on your leg.)

(You suppress the thought for as long as you can.)

The basket gets filled quickly, but you stuff it to the brim. Keigo picked out plenty of good food, and had learned how to cook decently, but having some... agency felt nice, if not fucking terrifying.

You’ve got your back turned to the entrance of the store when the (automatic) doors suddenly swish open.

A chill so cold and hard shoots down your spine and you freeze, hovering over a box of breadcrumbs.

One...

How long was it between that sound and when he touched you?

Two...

This was a terrible idea.

Three—

It was four—

Four—

Four seconds, you propose, as your heart beats out of your chest and you sweat under your arms. Four seconds from the door opening to pain.

You wait.

And wait.

Nothing.

Just more voices from the front of the store, a figure entering your aisle and then leaving.

You hate the way you're so rigid, tense enough in your shoulders for it to hurt. The ghost of the wound on your leg makes you want to fall to the ground and writhe, but you grab the box of breadcrumbs and try not to think.

It works, and you land next to Keigo, presenting your filled basket to be rung up.

You bury your face into his shoulder and take a deep inhale. Keigo keeps you close, tucked in your side with an arm around your waist. Your anxiety must’ve been quite visible, as he takes to quietly rubbing your shoulders over your sweater.

Things get hazy as you feel safer. Keigo laughs and sways the two of you as he speaks to the clerk.

(Her sons are going to blow your little house out when the storm passes. The family cat recently got out and came back pregnant. Her husband has been reading some odd literature he found on the internet. Something about ‘the strong triumphant over the weak’. Her daughter might be able to return from her foreign university now that the travel restrictions had been lifted.)

Everything moves forward, even if it’s unpleasant.

It’s an awful reminder at an inopportune time.

You watch your feet as you crunch your way back to the shotgun side of the car, only relaxing when you hear the doors lock and the engine thrum.

...

The storm comes, just as the faces on TV said it would.

You’re in the country, in the hills and mountains where the weather is already turbulent and changeable. All the same, the overcast skies dump snow over the land and blanket the world in quiet and cold.

Snow silence sucks the sounds from the air, sans the howl of angry wind.

You’re tucked away and safe. It’s Keigo’s only solace.

After going into town, you keep more to yourself as the storm takes it sweet time rolling in. He recognizes the far off look in your eyes; it’s the one you wore stargazing, but there’s no kind smile on your face. Just a thoughtless frown as you go through the motions of your day.

It makes his chest ache.

(Part of him regrets bringing you with him to the market. It rots part of him, and he can only hope it sprouts again.)

Finally, when the storm truly comes and the hills get heavy and crisp white, a bit more of you returns. Keigo wants to take the fragments you’re willing to give him and tuck them close, horde them and squeeze. The way he’s gotten abashedly greedy for you has him handsier and needier.

He’ll take what he can get, and give what he can too.

It’s easiest to bear at night, probably out of habit. Maybe the time in the hospital fucked both of you up (yes, for sure, it did), but nighttime was the time where you were open and easy with each other.

The storm gives the perfect opportunity to all of your time shamelessly twisted together, only leaving for brief coffee breaks and light meals. Otherwise, you’re both nested.

Pillows and blankets piled on the oversized mattress, all soft against your scars and old scratches. Keigo’s still fond of the color red, he can’t let that go, but he trades in the scarlet that was once his ‘brand’ for a deeper burgundy. All the sensations are rich and velvety, whether it’s the bedclothes you’re wrapped in or the touches you share.

It feels safe.

The feeling is something almost foreign to Keigo. He’s been getting used to it, even as the isolation weighs down on him. No one around means no reason to be so alert. The house isn’t bugged, there’s no villains or Suits watching his every move. He’s just a flightless bird, with no cage, but no captors either.

It feels amazing.

It feels even better that you’re always the heat against his side. That you and your perfect, sweet hands always know how and where to touch. Your words flow easier when you’re so close, so surrounded and so deliciously suffocated.

Keigo fills you up in all the best ways, and you’re finally able to breathe easier.

You tell him your secrets, little stargazing facts and facets of you that you’d held away and far from him before.

“Do you know what cosmic microwave background radiation is?” You ask, sweet as your lips nip at his jaw.

“No, not a clue,” He laughs, the giggle only you get to hear.

You hum, shifting your thighs so it lies over his. Your hips grind, slow and unhurried as wind rattles the windows.

“It’s this ambient radiation that’s just everywhere, all the time, forever,” You tell him, voice going a little huskier despite the fact you’re talking about theoretical astrophysics. “It’s left over from the Big Bang. A little bit of the beginning that never stops.”

“And how do you know all this?”

“A documentary, love.”

The questions fade as your lips slide together, lazy hands sliding into each other's hairs. You pull, only lightly, just to bring him closer. Keigo gets greedy, (again, always), licking into your mouth and tasting you. It’s all cheap coffee and the stale mint of toothpaste, and he drinks you down like the finest nectar. He sucks on your tongue, moaning at the way you keen and shift next to him.

It’s not enough. It never is, so he rolls to sit himself over your hips and grab your jaw in a tight grip. He can’t be too forceful, he can’t— his little birdbrain won’t let him do anything too rough to you, even if neither of you would mind it. He tilts your head just right.

You roll your hips up, breath mingling with his as it hitches and shudders from you. It’s so much, so much good, but it still doesn’t feel like enough.

Keigo pulls away, eyes half-lidded to take in your own blown pupils. It makes something purr in his chest, to see your eyes already glassy and wide for him. Your neck is thoroughly covered in darkened splotches, already sucked and bitten while the storm sang.

Little marks of him.

“You’re all mine, you know?” Keigo nearly moans at the way your expression goes gooey and sweetened. He tightens his grip on your jaw just a fraction, enough to make you gasp before he licks and nips below your ear. Just to make sure you hear him. “‘Everywhere, all the time, forever’, I’ve got you.”

“Y-you do,” you gasp as Keigo shifts your sleep shorts off, pushed away forgotten in the nest. The thin tank top you’re wearing is hardly covering anything, not that either of you care. The nearly-sheer fabric of it stretches over your collars and curves beautifully. It does nothing to hide the way your breaths heave or the sweat and heat gathering on your neck.

You’re bared to him.

And if Keigo’s being honest?

You own each other, in the most pleasantly fucked up way.

“Y-You’re so good,” The word holds weight, so much heaviness. Keigo groans, palming one of your breasts and rolling one of your nipples. It’s ambient, something to occupy himself as he resists your words. Just a little—

Your hand slips into the front of his sweats, bare beneath, and wraps around the velvet of him. Thick and hot, firm in your hand but not close enough.

You squeeze, almost in warning.

“You are good.” You gasp as Keigo pulls off you, leveling gazes with you, all pretty eyes reflecting the starshine and snow. He is good. There’s so much more to it than that, but your poor, fucked up little mind can’t synthesis it yet. Only that Keigo is good, warm, safe, and wholly yours. And you’re his. You stretch to ghost a kiss over his lips. “My good boy, always keeping me safe. You keep me so well.”

He stills, even as you slowly pump in his cock. It twitches in your hand, your thighs squeezing between his hips.

Keigo’s mind races, in the best way.

“That’s it, isn’t it?” He murmurs, head tilting and body sagging to drink down your kiss-bruised lips. More, more, more— “You just need to be taken care of.”

“I don’t need to,” You lie, huffing.

Keigo raises an eyebrow, biting his lips as your grip floats down to his balls, massaging them in your soft grip. It’s tender, weirdly vulnerable, as the whole of you two are.

“Maybe you don’t need to, you’re very capable,” Maybe not right now, but he knows it’s in there. “But you want it.”

“I-I like it,” You scramble the wording, shoving down his sweats, huffing again and urging Keigo to kick them away. Your palm goes to his cheek and drags him closer. “I like you a lot, love you, you know. You make me feel... safe. It’s a good feeling.”

It’s the most honest you’ve been in a long time, and it sits in the air. Keigo remains silent for a moment, silent and trying to control the way his birdbrain wants to take you. Wants to fuck you up and ruin you for anyone else.

You’re his, aren’t you?

“Good girl,” Keigo breaks the tension, squeezing your hips to the point of bruises. His, his, his. “I keep you so good, don’t I?”

You nod, spitting out little affirmatives between kisses. They dot his cheeks and forehead, slipping to his nose and downward. You pull his bottom lip into his mouth, letting out a little half-sob as Keigo’s touch drifts to your cunt, to your clit that’s swollen and untouched.

More, more, more—

“You keep me so good,” You gulp, whining and grinding into the heel of his hand. Slick coats your sex, sticky and hot. “So, so good—”

Keigo drops down the bed, ignoring the flare of his scar tissue, to seat himself between your thighs. They get thrown over his shoulders with a squeeze. His hands cup your ass, slipping a pillow beneath your hips before eating your cunt like he’d die if he didn’t.

It’s one of his favorite things. Stuffing you full of him until your belly swells is another, or seeing the way his cock opens and stretches you until you’re gasping for breath and begging for more, more, more—

Keigo slips a finger into you without resistance. He curls it, unyielding as he massages the little knot of nerves in you that makes you arch and beg for more, for him.

You choke on a sob when he adds another finger, and he hushes you so sweet, tears prick your eyes.

“Starshine,” He coaxes, withdrawing only to give your clit, a few kitten licks and slow kisses. His gaze flickers towards yours, holding your wet eyes. “Doesn’t it feel good?”

You nod, the meat of your thighs squeezing around him. Keigo would be happy to die like this, you soft and opened for him, crying for him. Broken and cracking for him, by his tongue, by his touch, Him. His.

“Who takes care of you?” He curls his fingers, and you throw your head back into the nest of pillows.

“Y-You,” Your voice breaks and you rub at your cheeks.

“Who knows just how to keep you so well? How to make you feel so good?”

He presses a third finger in, tending to your clit as you cry above him. You’re molten around him, and he laps you up until the smell and taste of you is all he comprehends.

This is what you both need, isn’t it?

Each other. All of each other.

Your cries turn sour quickly, and it has Keigo jolting up, fingers withdrawn and leaving you to feel empty. The little sobs turned into hiccupping cries, one's stifled with the back of your hand.

Keigo rises over you, tugging you hand away to get at your cheeks, kissing them soft and sweet.

It isn’t often that you cry, surprisingly. You probably should more often.

“Tell me what’s wrong,” Keigo urges. Please, please, just tell him what the fuck is wrong. He knows, you know, the meat of it all. But please tell him something he can tend to. Something he can stitch up because god, he needs to be useful— “What’s making your cry sweetheart? Tell me.”

You paw at your forehead, “It’s silly.”

You sniffle and look at him with the most unguarded expression he’s seen you worn. The vacancy is gone, the hollowness and pain has been pulled away in the safety of that perfect nest and all that’s left is—

“‘M scared,” You mumble. Your arms curl over your chest, covering what’s primitively most precious to you. “I’m scared.”

Your eyes grow bright and heat, hotter than anything he’s felt from you, explodes over the room.

He’s half-choking and he fucking loves it.

Something in his chest snaps and he worries your hair, bringing his nose to yours, nuzzling and nudging your hands away. He nips you. His poor little birdbrain.

“I’m afraid you’re going to leave.”

Keigo stills.

He sits with your fear for a few beats.

“I’d never leave,” He says easily, truthfully and fully. He couldn’t.

Those long nights in the hospital and the warmth passed between you had so easily gotten you wormed his chest, right next to his second and third rib. He can feel it, always; you’re ever present. He grabs your arms and holds them to yours sides. You’re exposed, soft flesh and squirming a bit beneath him. He wants to mark you purple and near-bloody, so that no one would think of you as anything other than his.

His, his, his.

He shows you.

Worn hands, a bit chapped with the dry air, pull your high to rest on his shoulders. He massages your calves, kissing your ankles.

“I mean this real lovingly, starshine,” He breaths deep, fisting his cock with a few slow strokes. “I’m not going anywhere.”

You don’t get a chance to protest as he slides into you in one stroke. The stretch of him has you burning; he can tell by the way your hands fly to his shoulders, nails digging into his shoulders as your little cries only get harder.

“Bear it, I know you can,” You had before, and you would many times more. The stretch feels amazing, even if it burns something in your core. You like it, how the pain pricks something that shoots into your toes. Only Keigo gets to fuck you up, gets to own you. “You’re always good f-for me— f-fuck, so fucking good—”

His, his, his.

There is, of course, the inverse.

You grab his jaw, your grip tight like his was earlier, and you meet his gaze. You blink away tears, sniffling, but expression set with determination.

“You’re mine too,” You squeeze around him, grinding down to the root of his cock. “‘M only good for you because you’re mine too, Keigo. All of you.”

Without thought, your hands ghost over his scars.

You have avoided them for so long. It was an untouched spot, something tender and from a time where Keigo was being that was entirely and wholly different from who he is now. It’s a piece of him that’s always been off-limits.

But you’re both so cracked open, you do it without thought.

And something in Keigo snaps.

He pushes you down by the backs of your thighs, folding your legs to your torso. And he fucks you.

His hips slam against yours, opening you up with pants and groans. You feel full, full of him in every and all ways, everywhere, always, and forever.

You’re greedy with your touches, tugging him closer and uncaring of the way your nails scrap over his shoulders and arms. His body is yours and you’re his. It’s disgusting, it’s fucked up and perfect the way you slot together. It’s like little, scared pieces of existence slide together, and everything feels whole, yet open and uncracked.

Keigo fills you up with a sob, tears dripping down his cheeks as you pressed down on the burns and scars that rack down his back.

“Fill me up,” You demand, the heat of you swelling as his hand dips to your clit, circling and rolling with the little pleas falling from both your lips.

The world drips as his thrusts go harder, sloppier as you tip your head back and scream. Your voice breaks, hoarse from all your pleading and possession.

Keigo stuffs you, tip of his cock pressed to the deepest parts of you. His cum, all him, leaks from around his cock as he gives a few more weakened grinds. He makes sure you’re full, content and sated and his.

He falls over you, coating your cheeks in kisses and praise. You sputter little sobs for him, begging for him to be closer, despite the way he still fills you even as he softens.

It never feels like enough, the closeness. But you’ll settle for all of him that you can get.

...

The storm passes, and you spend your time much the same way. Fucking, feeling, and for a little, blessed while, forgetting.

Eventually, the snow stops falling. The wind that has been whipping the power into tree trucks and your windows falls still. It’s peaceful, then. Not that it wasn’t before, but without the weather bearing down on you, you’re both less hungry. Still greedy, just not starved.

You share the first morning after the storm outside, on the porch. Keigo had shoveled a little clear patch and you’d brushed off the two, brittle lawn chairs that had seen better days. You fixate on the task a bit too much, the steaming coffee you’re to share is forgotten. The straining plastic of the chairs is a yellowed-white and bright red. It felt strong enough under your fingers, cold fingers, as you cleared away the snow.

It feels like a remnant

Whatever fixation you have on the object passes as Keigo runs a hand up your spine. His hand is wide and warm, still a bit warm from the toasty mugs.

You rearrange your chairs and yourselves to be close as can be, in your little patch of snowless porch, and sip at your coffee as the world begins to wake up.

...

Oddly enough, the storm helps you make forward progress, at least a little. You take up making breakfasts on your own, occasionally carrying plates into the bedroom with a big, previously unseen grin

Keigo returns the smile so big, his cheeks burn for hours.

You take to a few of the little crafts and things Keigo has been hoarding. Paper folding and little canvases with acrylic painting are your favorites. Sometimes, you paint your little strokes and press creases from the comfort of the couch. Other times, you make you place for the day at the kitchen island while Keigo makes his day-long meals.

There’s a rhythm to it that’s so good.

It’s progress, and seeing it visibly start to the fill the walls feels good for both of you. Your little canvases get hung around the cabin, little portraits of the stars and their mother, all for you and Keigo to admire. ;;

...

He gets the call exactly three weeks after the storm passes.

Keigo awakes before you to the shrill ring of his cell. It vibrates against the bedside table, loud enough to wake the both of you. You both startle out of sleep, squeezing each other.

He takes the call in the other room, after he sees the contact name.

[Suits] Calling...

He paces as he listens to her drone on.

There’s no greeting, no “hey, how does it feel to be a flightless fucking failure?”. It’s business. Just business. It’s always been like that with her, and the lot of suits that treated him like a fixture until he got particularly cracked and unsightly.

“So, you come into Tokyo, we’ll do a small event—”

“The event you’re describing really doesn’t sound small,” Keigo tilts his head and gives an angry smile to his own reflection in the mirror. “It sounds like a circus that I really have no interest in being a part of.”

“It’s for the people, Hawks—”

It makes him snap.

“Stop fucking calling me that.” He growls into the receiver, grip tight enough to hurt. “Stop calling me, stop asking me, I am not coming back.”

The woman is silent on the line for a beat, before spitting, “What if I didn’t give you a choice?”

His blood runs cold before burning in his veins. And he laughs.

“You think you could?” He only feels a little hysterical. “You don’t have any power, not over me, not over anyone else as far as I’ve seen, Madam President!”

“Hawks—”

Shut up, shut up, shut UP.

“The Commission is dead, the world is in chaos, and putting the corpse of a hero on the big screen isn’t going to convince anyone that this is all fixable,” Keigo chest gets tight, and he can’t tell if it’s from the uncomfortable laughter he’s spitting or the sobs that are locked in his chest.

“So, you’d rather turn your back on the people you swore to protect?” Suits speaks with no emotion, not an ounce of feeling. “Selfish.”

Selfish, selfish, selfish. The word echoes in his mind, worms its way down his throat and suffocates him.

“You’re really going to say that to me? Of all fucking people?” He feels his nails break skin where he’d been clenching his fist. “Me, selfish?”

“You left, didn’t you? Ran away?” The woman has the stones to fucking laugh. “Everyone’s lost something. You’re not special, and it doesn’t justify—”

“What the fuck are you getting out of this?” Keigo interrupts, burning, burning— “Did you call me to go to this little gala or did you call to dig into your perfect little hero? You told me I could be done. Should’ve known you were lying, you always lie—”

“You’re being childish.”

“Oh my GOD!” Keigo nearly screams and doesn’t notice how you’ve tip-toed from the bedroom. “Do you hear yourself?”

“I hear you screaming at me, the woman who practically raised you, like some petulant brat. Get a grip, Hawks.”

He snaps.

“STOP FUCKING CALLING ME THAT!” He screams into the phone, vision going white and scarlet. “I am not Hawks! Hawks is DEAD! Why can’t you understand that? There’s no fucking hero to attend your little ‘healing’ gala, there’s just me. ‘Childish’, ‘selfish’, and wingless, babe. That’s what I’ve got, and this is what I am.”

Suits takes an audible sigh, and Keigo can almost see how she’s shaking her head at him, “You’re being ridiculous, Hawks. Take at least a goddamn ounce of responsibility for your actions that helped cause all... this.”

Ah, there it is. The thing Hawks has so properly compartmentalized, tucked so far back in his psyche that it’s almost impossible to reach.

How much of the dissolution of... everything is on him?

Something in him snaps, and it slips through his own fingers.

“I’m not going and this, Madam President? This is for me.”

Selfish, selfish, selfish.

He hears her unspoken words echoing in his skull as he hangs up, slamming the phone on the countertop.

Something hotter than rage and more poisonous than pain fills his blood, and it makes him want to both wretch and break his fingers in the same breath. He slams a fist onto the phone, cracking it against the countertop. He can buy a new one—

“S-Sweetpea?”

Keigo freezes.

You’re at the mouth of the hallway, hardly out of the shadows, eyes wide and fearful. His chest somehow gets even tighter.

Normally, he would’ve rushed to comfort you, calmed himself down to console you for seeing his little outburst.

But he doesn’t that day.

He breaths ragged with his lips slowly curling, panic’s ugly cousin turning his spit acrid behind his teeth.

“Here, let’s go back to bed, okay? We can—” You take a few steps closer, hand outstretched and eyes beginning to light.

Oh, and Keigo’s hit by fucking envy, and it’s over.

“Don’t.”

You freeze, “Pretty eyes—”

“Don’t, just don’t.”

You don’t move as Keigo trudges to the door, throws on his thick parka and snow boots, pocketing his keys and grumbles to you that there’s leftovers in the fridge.

It’s shitty and selfish.

And he just doesn’t care.

He can’t make himself care as the door slams shut behind him, the sound echoing off the trees and so quickly dampened by the snow.

...

Keigo drives, white noise in his ear that echoes the wind in the treetops of the mountains he’s descending. He’s only half there as he leaves town.

It’s still too much.

...

You, on the other hand?

You’re frozen, stuck-still, as you watch Keigo climb into the car and drive off. Maybe your mouth has gone a bit agape, you aren’t aware of your body.

You panic.

There’s no other word for it, not that you were able to think of as you were untrenched in it.

There’s something thick and knotted that is rolling unraveling in your chest. The... thing is worse than a feeling and runs deeper and hotter than you can manage.

You tried to manage it.

While Keigo is god fucking knows where, you paced the house, always within eyeshot of a window. Hoping for a glimpse of his dark parka, or the tufts of his blonde sticking out in the snow, a return—

Fucking nothing.

He just left.

No return time, no destination, just a departure with no explanation. He’d obviously left the cabin before, you’d handled those times quite well, but he’d never stormed out. Never raised his voice and screamed and then just left.

Is he okay?

(You heard most of the call, at least his side of it. Is that awful Hero Commission he told you about calling him back? Or even worse, dragging him away.)

(He’d tell you, wouldn’t he?)

(Guess you’ll never know! Because he’s fucking gone.)

It made something seize in your chest, hot and awful as you walked your circuit, praying. Worry is damning.

How could he just... leave?

You need him back.

You alone without him.

Your thoughts rot you, despite the winter’s cold outside. The chill of the cabin seeps into your bones, coats them and leaves you sticky and downright paranoid. The lack of... presence (his presence) was driving you up a wall. The air is too still, the floors quiet and without the telltale old creaks of movement that you’ve become accustomed to, and the cabin is silent other than your breathing and rabbit’s heart.

Beneath the anger was a thick layer of fear.

You are alone.

The feeling rolled its way into you as the sun began to dip lower in the sky.

What if he never comes back?

Of course he is, you remind yourself, hurriedly, worrying the scary on your leg and picking at the core of it. He wouldn’t leave.

Why wouldn’t he?

The thought gets your poor little heart racing faster, air choking in your lungs. Your head whips to the window to see the empty, snowy driveway.

“I-I’m alone,” You break the silence of the house, the walls answering with their pensive quiet and the wind shaking the fresh snow from thin branches just outside.

All alone.

All fucked up and broken and fucking alone.

“He wouldn’t leave,” You start talking to yourself, threading a hand in your hair, gripping. “He cares, he wouldn’t just leave.”

He cared about being a hero too and he left everyone else.

What if things changed?

Insecurities, new ones and old ones, cloud your mind and vision and stuffed your lungs. The grip on your hair goes tighter.

All alone in the mountains.

All.

Alone.

It scares you more than anything, how much you need him.

Tears prick the corners of your eyes as you tug at the roots of your hair. It hurts, but everything is starting to hurt very quickly, and a bit of hair pulling is child’s play to how it feels like your chest is being hollowed out.

You really have so little. It stuns you in the moment as you choke back a sob. The little house in the mountains, Keigo, and the starlight you still both enjoy— that’s fucking it. You’d never returned to your ‘apartment’, or rather the remnants of it. Any possessions you had were lost to destruction and unsalvageable. Your meager relationships and friendships had fallen away when you were bound to hospital for months.

He’s all you have.

“No, no, no,” You nearly trip in your pacing, dragging your feet as you accept your reality. “He can’t l-leave.”

The world responds with silence. The mountains are cold and lonely, just like you are. It’s cruel, it all hurts and after being in a daze so often, the reality of your situation hurts like a hot brand.

He’ll come back.

He cares.

You desperately try to convince yourself as you tug your parka on, throwing on your boots. You don’t bother to fasten or tie anything, you just stumble onto the deck blindly and scan the hill of the drive.

Not a single soul.

Something rotten curls up behind your teeth. Bile climbs the back of your throat and you have to swallow to keep from vomiting. Your chest is too tight, the world is too bright, and you’re terrified.

You’re not sure what to call the type of panic response you have; it doesn’t make any logical sense. Your heart runs in your chest, your breath is hot and tight, and you simply slip to the ground in the fresh snow.

And you wait.

...

Keigo drives until he’s nearly out of town, into some flatlands near the river that gurgles and churns nearby. The surrounding forest is the perfect place for a pensive walk.

It’s the best place for him to just get it out.

It had been a long time since Keigo had just talked to himself. Audibly sorts himself as he walks along the bank of the almost-frozen river. He doesn’t keep his voice quiet, no, its full volume complaining. It’s anger that’s bundled up in his chest that’s finally being lit and the smoke of it nearly chokes him out.

It’s not fair.

He does feel a bit childish, thinking about it like that. But hadn’t he done enough? Hadn’t they told him that he’d done enough? He lost it all and was just starting to the plant the seeds for a new life to sprout. Couldn’t he just have that? He’s not the shiny thing he used to be he’s fucking worthless. And that’s fine. He’s made peace with it and can find worth outside of saving people.

He’s capable. Adaptable. And he’s doing it all at his trademark speed.

But the thing that makes his gut twist is facing everything he (ran away from) left behind. The only short statement he’d given after Dabi’s video was nearly as viral as the actual video of him killing Jin (don’t think about it, don’t think about it—)

He’s not sure what possesses him to pull out his phone and pull up the video. It’s not hard to find.

It hurts to watch, but he does it anyway. Fucking masochist.

He’s standing beside Enji and Tsunagu, all of them in hastily tailored suits. They all had their visible injuries. Scars and brands that had just been carved and burned into skin. They look haggard, they look beaten.

Because they were.

Keigo watches as he adjusts his microphone in the video and gives his statement. Stupidly simple and vague, all at the same time.

“The villain Dabi did not lie. I am the son of Takami, and I killed Twice of the League of Villains. It was all necessary. Please accept my apology for the upset I have caused.”

His voice doesn’t even sound like him. It’s manufactured and broken. He remembers how the smoke had charred his throat and lungs for the first few days, before he was transferred from Central to the big facility in the tall-tree-ed forest.

He bows on the video and Enji begins his statement. Something solemn about the suffering he’s caused his family, how he wants to atone and how he is atoning. The public was too angry to listen and is too angry to listen. And the world Keigo ran from is the result.

He lets himself cry.

Finally.

His shoulders shake as he hunches over himself. The tears slip down his chilled cheeks and make little divots where they fall into the snow beneath him. His little gasps turn into sobs, the kind that hurt your chest and give you a headache that lasts for days.

He repeats a little mantra between scratchy breaths—

“I’m still good.”

He falls against the thick bark of a tree and slides down to the ground.

He let’s go.

It’s good for him, cleansing. Maybe it’s the rushing of the nearby river or the snow he's buried his hands in, but with each ragged breath he can feel some of that filth that’s clinging to him fall away. Not all of it, not by a long shot.

But feeling the worst is the first step to feeling your best.

So, when Keigo’s ready, he stands and moves forward. Trudges onward, albeit a bit slower.

...

Keigo returns home just as the sky begins to change from red to indigo with the night. It paints the pines and evergreens an eerie, dark color, shadows long and deep against the fluffy snow.

His gut twists in knots as he gets closer to home.

He’s tired. Exhausted. His eyes are still puffy from his tears, sore and aching. His body still feels tight, tense in his shoulders and arms as he grips the steering wheel. He needs rest. A good cup of tea and maybe a beer later.

And you.

As weak as Keigo feels, he knows he fucked up... just a bit.

It wasn’t fair to storm out. He isn’t dumb. All the same, if he stayed with you in the cabin, he probably would’ve said something he regretted. Or locked himself in the bedroom all day. It wouldn’t have been good or fair for you or him.

(Coward.)

Probably, but he was also burned alive fairly recently, so he had to give himself a bit of credit.

As he nears, his stomach drops.

You’re on the porch. You sit on the steps, parka pooling around your waist as your head rests on your knees.

Something’s not right.

Some of his old, honed senses trill to life, seeing you. Something in his gut twists, the muscles in his back tense, the old ones that controlled his wings.

You must be cold.

Keigo leaves the car and slaps on a smile, “Waiting for me, starshine?”

You twitch, curling over your body harder.

Something is very wrong—

He calls your name, your actual name, and you hardly stir. You all but twitch from where you sit, head tilting up just the slightest bit. It’s not enough to ease any of the worry pulling his old muscles, if anything, it makes it worse.

He falls to his knees in front of you, ignoring the crack his bones make.

“How long have you been out here?” Too long, he knows the answer, but he still has to ask.

“... A while,” You murmur, barely audible. “You’re back.”

“I am,“ Keigo pushes you up by your shoulders, scanning your face as more fear curls in his gut.

Your eyes are glassy and unfocused.

“We need to get you inside, now,” He isn’t sure if he sounds scared or angry (probably both), and he can’t make himself care.

You’re freezing.

Too cold, way too cold.

Keigo had to take plenty of survival courses during his training with the Commission and he had learned plenty about hypothermia. His avian anatomy made him more susceptible to the cold and knowing the symptoms for himself kept him from turning into a bird-adjacent popsicle more than once. He’d rescued his handful of civilians—

(Don’t think about being a hero right now or you’re gonna start crying again.)

You’re not some civilian, you’re you and you’re in front of him with darkened lips and dull eyes and full panic breaks his ribs.

...

You remember how pretty red the sky was.

You like sunsets.

You should see if Keigo wants to watch the sunset sometime.

Keigo’s gone.

You could drive—

Keigo drove away. You’re alone.

You aren’t sure how long you sat in the chill, but it was comforting despite how your fingers and toes began to ache. Outside, there were plenty of sounds and sights to keep you company. The wind whistled through trees, and the sky echoed a few, far-off sounds from distant civilization.

It was nice. Peaceful, at the very least.

...

“Inside, you need to be inside,” Keigo sputters, pulling you up under your arms. Your feet drag for a moment before going flat, and you sway in his arms.

Getting you inside makes his body ache in new ways, your weight mostly on his side. Old pains crawled to the surface as he dragged you to the couch, setting you down on the cushion and assessing you better.

His hands run over your body, over curves and divots he knew and loved and the chill of you filled him with dread.

“Your pants are wet from the snow,” Keigo swallows, rising. “I’m going to grab you dry clothes.”

As soon as he tries to move away, you catch his wrist in a weak grip.

And finally, half-lucidly, you regard him with terror in your eyes.

“You l-left,” You spit, lips curling over your teeth. “You left, Keigo.”

You use his real name and he really wants to die a little.

Sure, Suits used it on the phone with him and it made him see blood fucking red, but it’s you, and you saying the name he never really had, for the first time, so fucking angrily makes part of his secretly fragile heart break.

He freezes, breathing hard through his nose as he looks down at you.

“I’m sorry,” He says softly. “Let me get you warm, then we can talk, okay?”

You don’t look convinced, tightening your grip on his wrist and pulling him closer.

Keigo gives in, so, so easily, dropping to his knees and pulling your icy hands into his. He rubs warmth into them, bringing them to his lips and breathing hot over your knuckles.

“Please, starshine. Let me get you warm.”

“I’m already warm,” Your voice slurs, entirely unconvincing.

“I say this very lovingly,” He says, somehow cracking a smile, “but you’re genuinely hypothermic. You can be as mad at me as you want, but you need to get warmed up.”

You chew your lip, cupping his cheeks with your freezing palms, “... You’re not leaving?”

Your voice drawls and Keigo makes a note to turn up the thermostat.

“No, god, no, I’m not,” He tries to assure you, shaking his head, but your grip only gets harsher. He placates you with a squeeze to your knee. “Please let me help.”

He can’t tell you how much he needs to. How hyper aware he is of your chill and of his own thumping heart. That protective urge in his chest wants to just pull you to his chest and wrap you up in him, in his heat, but that’s for later.

Your eyes' gaze goes softer, little specks of light bouncing between your irises. The room fills with blessed, familiar heat and Keigo can feel his shoulders slacken and some of the worry in his chest dissipate.

...

He returns with some of his own soft joggers, fleece-lined and well-loved. He grabbed a few layers, and an armful of blankets and pillows. Anything he could carry gets brought as his little, avian mind craves something he suppressed for years so well.

Nest, nest, nest.

Heat them first, then nest.

He helps you slip into your new, dry clothes as your teeth begin to chatter. Thank fucking god. Keigo is smart enough to check your toes as he slips onto fuzzy, thermal socks, and they all look to be healthy and functioning.

You’re quiet during the whole ordeal, save for soft breathing and snapping teeth. You occasionally grab his hand and hold it to whatever part of your skin was bared, mumbling something about how warm he is.

Keigo eventually gets you settled and surrounded by blankets and pillows which you sink into, eyes hardly open. Only then does he feel like he can pull away enough to start the nearby fire.

It feels somewhat unnecessary, given you’re still heating the room. It’s probably somewhat for the atmosphere, considering the sky is nearly fully black. A bit of crackling flame and light would do you both good.

(He rarely lights fire, but considering the flame is a kind red and not a fucking disgusting blue, he can bear it. Especially now.)

When the fire is stoked, he turns back to you and deflates.

“I’m sorry,” You say, all soft and half-lidded from the blankets. “That was... dumb.”

“It was.”

Keigo can’t fight you on the obvious.

There’s a goddamn list of questions he wants to ask you. ‘Why’s and ‘what’s, but he has a pretty good idea of why you were sitting outside and what you were thinking.

He’s not sure you’d want to talk about it anyway.

The couch creaks when he sits down a few feet from your little nest, running a tired hand over his face.

“... You know, this couch folds out,” You shift a little, slow and lethargic. Still cold. “We should sleep out here tonight.”

He turns to regards you, and it takes everything in him not to fucking break.

“Why?” His voice shakes and he knows you can tell.

You hum, leaning toward him, “Change of scenery. I think we could both use it.”

“Later.” Keigo agrees. The urge to wrap you up in his (wings) arms feels unbearable, the little avian tickings in his skull loud and needy. “Warm first. Futon later.”

You huff weakly, but lift the blankets to let Keigo slip behind you. His body curls around yours, finding the coldest parts of you and tending to them first. His hands clasp over yours and your feet get tucked between his calves.

“Thanks,” You murmur, neutral and vacant.

Keigo doesn’t push you.

Instead, you stay tucked in his arms, still shivering, but significantly less cold. Your lips and cheeks look a far healthier color and they’re warm to the touch. He traces his fingertips over the curves of your face and neck, preening in the only way he can muster up.

You eventually break the silence, when the fire is all but embers.

“I heard some of that call…” Your voice trails off. “It sounded bad.”

“It was,” Keigo agrees with a little nod. He really doesn’t want to think about Suits and, you know, the rest of the world, but it feels necessary. “Very bad.”

“Who was it?”

“Old boss.”

“… And?”

Keigo sighs, squeezing you probably a little too tightly, “Why don’t we focus on warming you up from your hypothermic excursion and not my shitty life as a shitty hero—”

“You weren’t a shitty hero, Keigo,” He can hear the mourning in your voice and it makes him want to die, just a little. You cup his cheeks, eyes sad and soft around the edges. “You were a really good one.”

“Was I? News to me.” He laughs, the bitter sound tasting like bile. He hates it, the feel of it mixed with the heat and softness of you. It feels wrong. “I don’t want to talk about all that, starshine. Please just drop it.”

Your face hardens.

“No.”

“… No?”

“No, I’m not done,” You sigh, big and hard. “I think we’re more fucked up than we talk about, Keigo.”

He winces, but you keep going, and he doesn’t move to stop you.

“Probably.”

Your jaw sets like stone on stone. It makes him internally wince as your hands go to cup his cheeks.

“I’m fucked up, you’re fucked up, everything is fucked up. We can ignore it up here, quietly, but it’s true, isn’t it?”

Yes.

“Yeah.” He feels his gut roll, but he doesn’t stop you. His grip goes tighter on your hips. “You’re not wrong.”

“Can we just… Acknowledge it? Please.” You ask, beg, softly as you rub his cheeks with your thumbs. “Please, Keigo.”

He doesn’t know what to do at first. He really wants to lock up. Shut down. Lock all the nasty feelings in chest, behind his heart, so they can burrow into his spine and keep him moving forward.

He wraps his hands around your wrists.

Your eyes look glassy, tears sticking in your bottom eyelashes, but not daring to fall. Not yet.

“Keigo, I’m fucked up, I know that, and that’s okay,” You deflate a little. “I’m getting better. We’re getting better. I know we are.”

“We a-are.”

Keigo’s voice cracks, hoarse in his throat and tight as the uniform belt he used to wear. His lungs feel hot, too stuffed even as he tries to swallow the heat that’s welling up on the very back of his tongue.

“You are good, Keigo, I promise,” You lean in to give his forehead the lightest kiss and Keigo feels part of himself die in the best way. “Please, let’s just talk.”

And so, he does.

…

He tells you about Jin first.

You’d heard about him, the villain Hawks killed during the War. Published for the world to see, over and over, forever. The video was one you’d only seen once, during your early days at the hospital, but you could recall the footage on your grainy hospital television.

Your pretty eyes, pretty Keigo, cut him down. One of his old feathers, hardened into a stiff blade, struck Jin across the chest, arcing up to his neck and slicing a few important arteries and veins. It was an imperfect job, one that probably made his death more painful and prolonged than it needed to be.

You don’t let go of Keigo’s cheeks as he tells you the story. You can’t, you’re too busy thumbing away the little tears that roll down his cheeks.

He speaks between sobs that break from his chest. Underused and much-needed.

“He was good, starshine,” Keigo curls in a little on himself, but you keep him mostly upright. “I had to, y-you know? I didn’t have a choice, if I didn’t—"

How many more people would be dead?

His body convulsed, the little tears turning fat as he collapsed into your chest and buried himself in you. Like he was hiding, and god, did you let him.

You hushed him, soothed him with little kisses, and listened.

“And then Dabi—”

You hate him, obviously. You only know his name and visage, and you hate him so much it hurts. Part of you wants to rub at his scars like he lets you, but you decide against it in Keigo’s fragility.

He tells you of the blue flames, how the boot felt against his back, how his throat burned for weeks from the heat and smoke. His grip on you goes so tight, you’re afraid he’s going to tear your shirt to shreds.

“He took them, starshine,” Keigo’s voice muffled into your shoulder, the sound of it rattling you. “He t-took them!”

And he slumps against you, well and truly, and can’t muster up another word. All you could do is hold him, rocking him from your little, shared spot on the couch and whisper to him little comforts. You’re crying a little too, breath tight and hazy as you let Keigo shatter in your arms.

He’s not ready to talk about his wings and that’s okay. More than okay.

So, you soothe him. He soothes you right back, rubbing at your sides, hips, thighs— whatever he can reach and touch and claim. You’re good, you’re the closest he’s going to get to permeance and he’ll be damned to let you go when you feel so good and he feels so fucking awful.

You fall back onto the chest, pulling Keigo with you so he can lay atop you. His ear presses to your chest, heart thumping in his ear while you lock your arms around him. Caged in and held, with the lightest pressure on the thick skin of his scars.

“I’ll never truly get it, I can’t,” You admit, quietly as you smooth back some of his tear-matted hair. “But I want to be here. I want to listen when you’re want to talk. Need to talk. You can dash off on your own, Keigo, that’s okay. Just know that I’ve got you to, okay?”

Keigo sniffled, peering up at you with wide eyes, “Are you sure you can handle it?”

“I am now, aren’t I? Just a few hours out from nearly being a popsicle,” You hum and joke, glowing from the inside out when Keigo graces you with a little smile.

It takes a few more moments for him to cover, haul himself up to the crook of your neck and breathing hard and deep for a while. Like he’s trying to absorb you through scent alone.

“… Are you okay?” Keigo asks, squeezing you so tight it hurts. (And you want more of it.) “You’re not as cold anymore.”

“I’m feeling okay,” You paw at your face a bit, rubbing your cheeks like they’re still numb and not flushed with blood and sticky with drying tears. “I just freaked out a little.”

“… Because I left?”

You nod, chewing your lips.

“I don’t want to be alone, Keigo,” You whisper it, though he already knows your admission. “I’m terrified of you leaving.”

“When I left,” Keigo rises to meet your gaze, gooey and cobbled. “Did you think I wouldn’t come back?”

“… Maybe,” You shake your head, refusing to look at him. “You didn’t say anything about coming back, just about… leftovers.”

You both frown.

“I panicked.” You shake your heard.

“… That’s what happens when you panic?”

“I guess?” Your mouth feels too dry. “I don’t know. I got scared. I panicked. What else was I supposed to do?”

There’s an obvious answer or two, but it’s unspoken.

“I’m not leaving,” Keigo rubs at your cheeks. “You’re gonna have to try pretty hard to get me gone, starshine. I love you too much to go easily.”

It’s a declaration, a strong one, and god does it feel fucking good to hear.

“… Promise?” You ask him as his palms cup your cheeks and jaw.

“Promise.”

“I heard on the call—”

Keigo interrupts you with a kiss, hard and long that steals your breath and makes your head spin.

“Promise.” Keigo breaths, pretty eyes meeting your heat-filled ones. “Everywhere, all the time, forever. I promise, I’m not going anywhere.”

It’s a start, even if that insecurity is so deeply rooted. The adoration in his eyes, and the sweetness of his touch tempers it all. It’s there still, just like how there’s so much unspoken that needs to be sorted, chewed on, and digested.

But now?

The embers in the hearth need another log or two. The futon needs to be folded out and I’d be best if you shared a cup or two of tea. Preferably something with lavender that’ll scent the cabin with the smells of spring and herbs.

Now, you’re both more than enough.

…

thank you for reading!!💞keep an eye out for part 3! 👀

ko-fi

#salem writes #hawk x reader #hawks #takami keigo #takami keigo x reader #mha x reader #my hero academia #anyways ouch <3 #kiss it better keigo #enjoy this big boy heheh #kith kith :'^)

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txemrn · 3 years ago

Text

The Missionary's Daughter

Ch. 1: "Meant to Live"

Need to catch up? Prologue: "It's Over"

Chapter Song Inspo: "Meant to Live" by Switchfoot

Series Song Inspo: "Changed by You" by Between the Trees

Pairings: Drake Walker x OC (Margot Hughes); Liam Rys x Riley Brooks

Series Warning: 🛑 for mature audiences only (🔞); series contains angst, language, NSFW🍋 material; trigger warning: heavy discussion/depiction of drug and alcohol abuse, suicide, religion, mental health; please be advised and exercise discretion

A/N: When I say that this took a village, it would be the understatement of the century! Huuuuuuuuge thank you to all of my amazing sweet writing sisters that encouraged me and helped me pull this together, but especially to @charlotteg234 for brainstorming and mapping this out with me, @kat-tia801 for doing the same, but then having to deal with me incessantly asking, "Does this sound right?" and @chemist-ana FOR GIFITNG ME MY FREAKING AMAZING MOODBOARD! It's SO beautiful, and it literally puts me in the mood to write about my Druggy Drake and Margot! Thank you so, so much, friend! Most of the characters and some of the plot belong to our friends at Pixelberry.

A palpable crackle ignites the sterile air of the staff locker room. To say she was ‘nervous’ is a painfully severe understatement to the jitters that spark from her fingertips. But, rather than dance chaotically like cut wires on pavement, she is lightning, mesmerizing, lighting up the sky with excitement and power.

***

Dressing for another Monday morning at her weekly volunteer job at the prestigious Cordonia Family OB/GYN, Margot Hughes swiftly shimmies a monogrammed ceil blue scrub top down her curves. Pulling her brilliant strands of autumn harvest into a high bun, she slips on her work clogs while nudging her locker closed with her knee.

Before leaving the changing area, she catches her visage in the mirror, the unflattering fluorescent lights casting more shadows onto her worried features. She can feel the rumble of her rapid heartbeat echoing in her ears; her chest constricts tightly as her breathing becomes shallow. Her eyes begin to sting with fear as the whites burn red, threatening with a glaze of tears.

Today is the day her entire life will change; everything she has ever wanted, everything that she has ever worked for will suddenly determine the course of her future in a single moment. Seeing the all-too-familiar terror in her eyes, Margot flutters her eyelids shut. Her fingers nervously trace along a simple chain around her neck until they finally grasp tightly to a dainty sterling silver charm: a cross.

“Take my anxieties, Lord,” she whispers with prayerful conviction, her sparkling blue eyes gracefully opening to look at her necklace. She exhales deeply. “Your will be done.” Margot stares at her reflection for a few more moments, focusing on her breathing to calm her restless heart. “You are strong, Margot. You've got this,” she affirms herself in a hushed tone, a bright smile breaking across her face. “This is your day--" suddenly overwhelmed with peace, a joyous smile paints across her face. Chuckling to herself, she glances upwards: “I'm counting on You.” Taking a deep cleansing breath, she eagerly exits the stillness of her thoughts, and joins the bustle of the morning's clinic appointments. Today is her day.

***

Halos of blurred auras bleach his vision as Drake cautiously opens one blood-shot eye. His tongue sticks to the roof of his roughly parched mouth as he massages his pained forehead. Clueless of what day it is--much less what he did last night--he is greeted with a sudden glorious sensation: a supple wet mouth on his hardened morning length.

His body relaxes back onto the dampened, disheveled sheets of his bed; he releases a pleasurable exhale as he blindly reaches for the head behind the lips. He strains to focus his view, but can only make out a foggy shape of a nude woman with long, tousled brunette waves.

It’s her. His love.

Drake smiles; delicately tangling his grip in her strands, he admires how even the afternoon sun catches her beauty perfectly. He quietly smacks his lips. He can still smell her on his stubble; he can still taste her on his tongue.

Had she told Liam? Were they celebrating that they could finally be together?

As she takes in the head of his girth, he arches his back, relaxing his body into her hungry touch. Closing his eyes, he offers a guttural groan deep in his chest as she swirls her tongue around his firm thickness.

“God, you’re incredible, Riley--”

---

Pulling out a pen, Margot reaches across the counter to grab a patient’s clipboard--that is until Iris, the front desk manager grips her long, manicured nails to the other side of the particle wood. “Miss Mary-Margaret,” she leans in conspiratorially, lowering her voice, “do we know anything yet?” Margot chuckles, shaking her head. “Child, you better come find me the moment you know!”

“Only if you promise to start calling me ‘Margot’” the young blonde jests, opening her client’s chart.

“How about I start calling you what we’ll all be calling you in just a few short years: ‘doctor’?” Rosy pink swirls splash across Margot’s face, warming her cheeks to the touch. She bows her head coyly at the mention of her dream becoming a reality. The thought that she will soon find out if a medical career is in her future makes the twenty-one-year-old’s heart leap with unbridled excitement.

For as long as she can remember, Margot has had a strong desire to serve and help other people. Much of that selfless attitude was instilled into her heart by her own parents. They were called to be Christian missionaries when Margot was only eight years old. After much planning, church fund-raising, and prayer, Roy and Mary Hughes left their comfortable home of Lafayette, Louisiana, and settled in the small Mediterranean country of Cordonia.

Many of their friends and family were shocked that the church would send them to such a beautiful area of the world. Typically missionaries humble themselves to serve the needy, the homeless, the lonely and the sick. They sacrifice the luxuries of home for the sake of loving humanity. They help people in war-torn countries, third-world countries, countries that don’t have electricity or running water. But, this country?

Cordonia itself is a lavish nation, rich in heritage and traditions. And funds. Thanks to the ideal weather conditions, the fruitful soil produces bountiful harvests and exquisite supplies for fine textiles that remain in high demand throughout the world. The Cordonian government, a monarchy, discovered a new opportunity to expand their wealth in the late 19th century: costly tariffs to international investors. Within the first ten years of increasing the taxes on exports, the national treasury was not only in the black, but their funds had exponentially increased every year. Farms were flourishing as the working class became larger, stronger.

But, the treasury began to dwindle quickly due to the extravagant demands of the royals. For the first time in the country's history, commoners were wealthier than some of the nobility. Disdain from the upper class quickly ensued until finally, in the early 20th century under the rule of William I, a new tax law was implemented to all of Cordonia: anyone involved with international exchange would have to pay into the treasury to handle such business.

Unfortunately, there were no limitations to this new tax law, and many farms floundered, property ownership being seized by the government. Families were uprooted; jobs were lost, and worse, assets were sold for even more money, filling the pockets of the greedy leaders. The people that once had a plethora of goods at their fingertips were now starving and unsheltered. And vengeful. The Cordonians were outraged by the gouging, many of them forming violent riots, banding together with outside influencers in hopes of overthrowing the government.

On the cusp of a civil war, King William I decided to rezone the country, providing a place for the displaced working class to claim safety and sanctuary, a place that would offer shelter, education, and more affordable options for goods. To appease the people even more, he named the project ‘the Core,’ paying homage to their greatest export, the Cordonian Ruby. It was also a way for him to forever express his gratitude for such a fruitful nation: they were the core reason the nation was thriving so richly.

Like many government-assisted programs, it didn’t take long for the cracks to show in the infrastructure. And with funding cuts over the years, the Core began to crumble, striking a sharp contrast from the rest of Cordonia. The Core, now often referred to as ‘the slums’, have become a breeding ground for crime, drugs, and prostitution. It is the blemish of Cordonia, its existence often not acknowledged amongst the elite.

But, according to the Hughes, ‘God saw the need’. They were sent to serve in the slums of Cordonia, starting up several free programs, including a nightly soup kitchen, afterschool programs to keep children out of trouble, and trade classes to help adults out of poverty. The people accepted the help and adapted quickly to the missionaries; but even more importantly, they embraced these Americans as their own, many of them forming important and lasting relationships with the Hughes.

But, still there was something missing, something that burdened the missionary’s oldest daughter: healthcare. Having good health and access to a doctor is still treated as a privilege in Cordonia, and time and time again, the curable were disabled or buried. A change needed to take place. And Margot, although unsure of how, knew she would devote her life in making it happen for the Cordonian people.

As she makes a few notes on her clipboard, an olive-complected arm stealthily reaches around Margot, gracefully grazing her sun-kissed skin before gently placing a cup of piping hot black coffee in front of her. Staring at the hand, she instantly knows who it is. And she titters, playfully rolling her eyes. “Tadd! Another coffee?” She grabs the coffee, twirling on the ball of her foot to face the clinic’s young ultrasound technician. "My tab must be over a hundred euros by now!"

"Oh, don't you worry about that," he chuckles, rocking on his feet. “Plus, I figured with your new gig at Bríki--” he jovially shrugs his shoulders.

“You figured what?” Margot playfully punches his shoulder. “That I could sneak you free coffee?” She gives a mischievous smile, raising an eyebrow. “I don’t think Mr. Pavlis would appreciate me offering free drinks, especially since I haven’t even started yet--”

“That’s right!” Tadd eyes widen. “Today’s the day--!”

“As if I didn’t already have enough to be nervous about today,” Margot’s voice becomes shaky, as she clenches her teeth in a forced smile.

“Hey,” Tadd’s voice turns into an endearing whisper. He shifts his head until his piercing jade eyes meet Margot’s baby blues. “You have nothing to worry about. We both know you did well on that American doctor test--"

"The MCAT," Margot stifles a laugh, rolling her eyes into an appreciative grin.

"Whatever," a crooked smile grows across Tadd's handsome features. "And as far as the coffee shop, you're a fast learner. And a hard worker. Plus, if they see what we all see in you--" he sighs, his gaze never breaking free from hers, "-- they're going to love you."

Margot looks down at her feet, hugging her clipboard tightly to her chest. Feeling her palms begin to sweat, she coyly looks back up at her dear friend. "Thanks, Tadd."

After a few silent moments of staring at each other, Tadd clears his throat. "So, um--" he starts, "have you heard anything yet? About the test?" Tadd changes the subject. Margot shakes her head as she takes a pull from her coffee. "Well, when you do, um, maybe we could, I mean, I thought we could--"

Suddenly an intercom buzzes overhead. "Thaddeus to exam room four. Thaddeus to exam room four."

Tadd furrows his eyebrows, looking to the ceiling before resting a kind half-smile back on Margot. "Duty calls," he nervously sighs as he bounds down the hallway. Halfway down the corridor, he spins around to face Margot. "Hey, um, come find me! Before you leave at noon!" He finger-guns the air before returning to his pursuit.

Margot awkwardly finger-guns him back before smacking her forehead with the palm of her hand. "Seriously, Margot?" she mutters to herself, turning her attention back to the central desk of the clinic; however, she realizes quickly that the attention is all on her.

"When are you two going to make it official, Miss Mary-Margaret?" Iris chokes in the midst of her belly laughs, nodding with other scrub-adorned coworkers.

Biting her bottom lip feeling her heart flutter, Margot straightens out her demeanor, becoming stoic. "I--I don't know what you're talking about--"

"Margot, isn't it obvious?" Chimes in a jolly intake nurse. "That boy loves you--!"

"Who? Tadd?" Margot feigns innocence. She fixes her attention to the chart as she scribbles down more notes. "It's not like that--I mean, we're not, um--" she sighs. "We're just friends--" An instant roar of laughter abrupts from the reception desk, making it impossible for Margot to hide her toothy-smile paired with her scrunched up nose.

"You say that now, baby girl--"

"That's right," chimes in another giggling co-worker, "friends for now!"

An older plump nurse places a tender hand on Margot’s hand, a knowing smile spreading across her face. "Some of the best relationships come from friendships, moró. Give it time. Let the love grow," she winks at Margot.

Margot fidgets with her pen, delicately licking her bottom lip. She then tries to form words with her mouth, but no sound is heard. Her pink cheeks reveal she is flustered. She quickly closes up the chart, pushing loose hairs behind her ear. "Have a good day, ladies."

Hearing the squeals of her coworkers diminishing behind her, Margot quickly escapes into an empty exam room. Closing the door behind her, she leans against it, looking up at the textured ceiling tiles. She can feel the butterflies in her stomach bouncing through to her heart as her legs wiggle with weakness like gelatin.

The idea of 'falling in love' excites Margot, an idea she has dreamed about ever since she saw Baby meet Johnny. But, so far in her young life, she has never experienced it first hand, let alone a romantic hand- hold. Was this love? All she knew for sure was today was not the day to figure it out.

***

As soon as Riley’s name escapes his breathless moans of ecstasy, a searing sharp pain instantly ignites around his hardened girth. And Drake sees red.

"Fuck!" He lets out a guttural roar until no sound comes out of his mouth. He gnashes his teeth, trying to breathe through the agony, but only froths at the corners of his lips. The veins in his neck and his forehead protrude violently as streams of tears roll down his face. Petrified to move, his face turns a deep ruddy color. Before turning violet.

A sudden sensation of relief washes over him as the stabbing sensation fades to throbbing. Drake nervously looks down at his softening cock, relieved to see his member in one piece. "Goddamnit, Brooks," he pants furiously, "you fucking bit me--"

The brunette quickly tosses her curls out of her eyesight right before her fist meets Drake's jaw. "Oh, shit!" The cracking of the joints in his face echoes around the room. Drake starts to gently massage his chin. "You're not Riley--"

She climbs off of his body, standing her naked body in front of him. "No shit, Sherlock!" She slinks her short black spaghetti-strap dress over her dangerous curves before hastily grabbing her clear platform heels and racing out the door. "Fuck you, Drake Walker!"

***

A heartless, cocky laugh pours over the phone speaker. "Shit, Walker. Just--" the baritone voice trails back into a fit of laughter.

"It's not funny, Leo--" Drake warns, accidentally shifting his weight in bed, stirring a soreness to his recent injuries. "Ow!” he sucks air quickly between his gritted teeth, “fuck!" he whimpers to himself, adjusting the cold packs on his genitals.

"But you actually called her a different name, bro. A different name! With her mouth on your salami, your pocket rocket, on your--on your anaconda--" Leo's words fade back into cackles.

"As if you remember every goddamn hook-up’s name--"

"Dude," Leo interrupts, "if she's going to go all hungry, hungry hippo mid-blowie, I'm going to remember her name."

Drake scoffs. "Bullshit--"

"What? I'm serious, bro" Leo's voice becomes sincere. "All of these bitches we meet are looking for one thing--" he pauses dramatically for his wounded friend to finish his sentence; but the silence proves Drake is clueless as to where Leo was going with this. "A connection, Walker!" Leo's voice drips with conviction. "These women don't want to feel like they're disposable, even though--" he chuckles to himself, “let’s be honest: we’re doing them a favor--”

"--’A connection’, Leo" Drake interrupts, urging the conversation back on track.

"Right! ‘A connection," reaffirms Leo, circling back to his point. "Now, okay,” he knowingly titters, “I can’t remember all of these names--”

“Ha! See?” Drake barks.

“--Which is why--” Leo enunciates over Drake, “I use a single pet name. ‘Girl’.”

"'Girl'? That’s your trick? You call them 'girl'?" Drake raises an eyebrow in disbelief.

“Hear me out,” Leo continues. “If you call them something like ‘baby’ or ‘sweetie’, it can be seen as patronizing, that you’re clearly looking to smooth-talk your way into their pants--” Drake rolls his eyes, moving the phone to his other ear “--but now, calling them ‘girl’, I’m showing I want to be a friend, that I just simply want to connect. And then when you’re having your way with her, call her whatever the fuck you want as long as you finish the name with ‘girl’. Good girl. Dirty girl. Naughty girl. Sweet girl. Or in your case, hungry girl--”

Drake clears his throat, stifling a laugh. “--That is the dumbest shit I’ve ever heard--”

“Hey!” Leo interjects. “Who is wearing a bag of frozen peas on his one-eyed trouser snake?”

“Touché,” Drake sighs. “So, where are you right now?”

“With Jason up at his shop.”

“Who?” Drake lets out yawn, looking at his bedside alarm clock.

“Shit, Walker, you really were fucked up last night," Leo sighs. "Jason. You met him last night.” Leo’s voice lowers into a whisper. “He helped you get fucked up last night.”

“Oh! Right, right,” Drake rubs his head, “that was--wow, that shit was--”

“Good, right?” Leo finishes. “Hey, come join us at his shop. We’ve got coffee, and he’s got some new, um, product he’d love to show you--”

“Oh, Leo, I don’t know--” Drake removes the melting bag of vegetables from his lap. Gently lifting up on the waistband of his boxers, carefully inspecting his bruised parts.

“Does Liam have you working today?”

“No, no, it’s not that--” Drake hesitates.

“Oh!” Leo knowingly exclaims. “Does Riley have you working today?” He begins to chuckle. “You might need to let her know that you’re currently indisposed for --”

“Leo--” Drake warns.

“Then what's the hold up?"

Drake glances over at the mirror affixed to his antique dresser, but he doesn't recognize his own reflection. There's an emptiness in eyes, an inexplicable turmoil overcoming the man he once was. How did everything get so complicated? How did he get to such a place that it's better to be absent in life than to live it?

She was just a friend--at least that's what he convinced himself when Riley Brooks first caught his eye. Beautiful. Extremely witty with a fight he had never seen before. When they first kissed, he swore it was a mistake. Hormones. It had been so long since he had touched the delicate petals of a woman's lips.

But, this wasn't just any woman. It was her. And he soon would find himself wrapped up in her bedsheets, wrapped around her finger, wrapped in an awful web of lies.

And, all of his transgressions were against him, his very best friend, the man he regards as closer than a brother, his closest ally and confidant. Normally, Drake would turn to Liam in a heartbeat with any troubles, but this? How could he? How could he talk to Liam about his own devastation when the truth would devastate Liam?

It's been four days since that fateful night of Liam's coronation, four days since the love of Drake's life walked away from him, forcing his hand into harboring secrets from the crowned prince. It's been four days since Drake heard his own voice in his head, four days since he's been sober enough to even think. Even though he deemed the temporary escape necessary, the sudden twinge of discomfort in his groin makes him realize that taking another hit right now is the absolute last thing he needs.

"I think I better stay put," Drake answers, combing his fingers through his disheveled tresses.

"Suit yourself," Leo jovially retorts. "If you need any oxy for your boo-boo, hit me up--Oh, and Drake?"

“Hrmmm?”

"Her name is Whitney."

"What?"

"Jaws? You know, the bitch who chewed on your Moby Dick?" Drake sighs heavily, regretting that he ever told Leo what had happened. "Her name is Whitney."

Drake furrows his eyebrows. "Now, how do you remember her name--?"

"Oh, bro, you don't forget WAP Whitney--oh shit, you probably haven't gotten a good look at your sheets this morning, have you?"

With a grunt, Drake ends the call. “Fuck me,” he mutters under his breath. He carefully gets up, waddling to grab his clothes before heading to the bathroom to get ready for the day.

In the middle of splashing his face with cold, soapy water, Drake's phone rings. Grabbing a hand towel he carefully saunters back to his room, answering the call without hesitation. "Just let it go, Leo--”

"Drake?"

An icy chill shoots down Drake’s spine, freezing him in his steps. He knows that melodic voice anywhere, a voice that reminds him of early morning sunrises and late night silver moonlit paths. “H-hey, Riley,” he stutters, caught off guard. A brief awkward stillness falls over the conversation. “How are you--?”

“I miss you, Drake,” she interrupts.

Drake’s vision suddenly begins to spin as the air in the room becomes stagnant. Stiffening his bottom lip in anger, his breathing quickens as he reaches out carefully to brace himself against the wall.

“Drake?”

“I’m here,” he chokes out. “What do you want, Brooks?” He can hear the tears in her voice, but he wills himself not to care, he wills himself to not even ask.

“Drake, I think I made a mistake--”

“No,” Drake barks out, “no, you can’t do this to me--”

“Drake, please,” Riley sobs, “I’m on my way to the doctor--”

“The doctor?” Drake’s tone suddenly changes. “Are you okay? Is everything with--um, you know--” he slaps his forehead with the palm of his hand, “--okay?”

“Yes--” she sniffles, “--no. I just, I can’t do this alone, Drake. I can’t do this--”

“Riley--” he roughly says her name to grab her attention, “you made your decision: you chose Liam. You want to raise our baby--my baby with him--”

“Don’t you think I want to have this baby with you? That’s all I can even think about Drake,” she takes a moment to calm down her shaking voice. “I love you, Drake. I want a life with you. I want you to be there when this baby is born, when this baby needs his or her father--when this baby needs you--”

“Riley--” Drake exhales with frustration, pinching the bridge of his nose, “--but Liam--”

“I know, Drake. I know--” Riley takes a deep breath, “Can we just talk? In person? Just so we can figure this out? I can come over there--”

“Brooks, I--” Drake stumbles over his words as he runs his fingers over his coarse, overgrown stubble. Of course, he wants her to come over. And to stay. But, has anything changed? Liam just proposed, and she made it clear what her intentions were. But, still, it’s possible she had a change of heart, and this was a second chance he may never get again. He sighs heavily. “Sure. Okay."

After finishing his impromptu conversation with Riley, Drake realizes he needs to make another phone call. He scrolls through his call history, and clicks the green send button.

"Did you change your mind, Evander Holyfield?"

"Funny, Leo," Drake sarcastically responds. "So, yeah, um, what's the address to the shop?"

***

“Does that--does that say what I think it says?” Margot nervously stammers. "I think I saw my score--oh gosh!"

“Here. Let me look--”

Margot quickly covers the computer screen with her hands, "No, Mrs. Iris!” Margot squeals. “I’m not ready--I’m not ready for this!”

“Child, you have been ready for this for months. Now, if you don’t get your hands out of the way--"

"What's with all the commotion?" A few technicians and nurses pile into the room, each giving an endearing rub to Margot’s back. Everyone begins craning their necks to see the computer, covered by Margot's arms. "Is it time? Have they posted the scores?"

"They sure have!" answers Iris before turning to Margot. She tucks several blonde wisps behind Margot’s ear before putting her finger under her chin. "C'mon, baby," she smiles encouragingly, "it's more fun celebrating than worrying."

"I'm--" Margot takes a deep breath, biting back her tears, "--I'm so scared--"

"--and the Lord knew you would be, baby." Iris wrinkles her nose at Margot, her voice becoming stronger. "That's why He called you to be courageous. C'mon."

Margot bites her lip, slowly nodding her head. Feeling the storm brew in her eyes as the weight of the world sits on her chest, she carefully peels back her hands. Her eyes scale the black and white on the screen, but nothing seems to make sense. A burst of silence overwhelms her hearing, time standing perfectly still. Her only company is the beating of her heart.

Take my anxieties...

You have nothing to worry about…

Your will be done…

Be courageous...

Like suddenly breaking through the surface for air, an abrupt roar of cheers fill the room, shaking Margot from her trance. "Our baby girl got a 519!" screams a tearful Iris, pulling Margot from her seat and into a tight embrace. Other coworkers join in, creating a giant group hug.

Margot remains speechless, shocked by her score. She always knew she was an excellent student, studying hard all through school and excelling in her classes. When it came to the MCAT, she was confident she would score better than average, a score of 500. But, to even be noticed by top medical schools, she needed to score in the top 5%, a score 517 or greater.

News swept like wildfire through the clinic, and shortly thereafter, Tadd and some other technicians filed into the breakroom with a decorative chocolate cake and punch in tow. "I knew you could do it!" Tadd cheers victoriously, offering a chaste hug to Margot. "Dr. Hughes," he swipes his hand in the air as if to paint an imaginary portrait. "It has a nice ring to it."

"I still don't understand why you put yourself through all of that," mentions an older phlebotomist. "Cordonia has a medical school right down the road--"

"Because Margot wants to go to one of the best medical schools in the world," interrupts a deeply demanding, yet sincere voice. “To Harvard. Like me.”

"Dr. Ramirez," Margot smiles brightly, jumping up to greet her mentor with a hug.

"That is, you are still looking at my alma mater for medical school--"

"Yes ma'am!" Margot's eyes light up with the thought that her dream of going to Harvard Medical School is becoming her reality. "It would be such an honor to go there, let alone to follow in your footsteps."

Dr. Ramirez pulls Margot in for another tight hug. "My word, Mary-Margaret, 519?" she presses her cheek to Margot's, "I am so proud of you."

"Thank you, Dr. Ramirez," Margot warmly responds, "thank you for taking a chance on me and helping me so much with my studies and research--"

"You know I did that for selfish reasons, right?" The practitioner stifles a smile while Margot squints her eyes with suspicion. "Cordonia needs more female physicians, and more importantly, physicians that will make a difference in its healthcare," she grips tightly to Margot’s hand, "for everyone. I believe you will lead this country in a health care reformation."

"I don't know what to say," Margot clears her throat as she fights back the tears. "I hope I make you proud--"

"You already do." Dr. Ramirez gently touches Margot's cheek lovingly before turning to exit the room.

"Oh!" Margot quickly chases after the obstetrician, “can I talk to you? Privately?” With a nod, Dr. Ramirez leads Margot into a quiet corner. “I know my work-study ends in two weeks--”

“I know. Don’t remind me, Margot--”

“Well, I was wondering,” Margot chews on the side of her mouth, fidgeting with her fingers, “if by any chance I could possibly stay on?”

“Oh, Margot, I wish I could. Unfortunately with budget cuts--”

Margot shakes her head. “No, no, Dr. Ramirez, I meant if I could stay on, shadowing my usual Monday and Thursday mornings, I mean, if that’s alright. Learn more? Keep up my skills?”

“You want to continue volunteering with us?” The doctor gives an inquisitive look. “Don’t you want to get a job to earn money before you move to the states next year?”

“I already got that covered,” Margot assuredly answers. “I just got a job at Bríki, the coffee shop past the square--”

“Oh my gosh,” Dr. Ramirez’s eyes light up. “Does Aleksi still own that place?”

“Mr. Pavlis? Yes! Him and his son run it together, I believe--”

“They have the best coffee,” she energetically smiles, “now I have another reason to stop by.” She kindly places her hand on Margot’s shoulder. “Of course, you can stay on as a volunteer. Whenever you want, however much you want. It is a pleasure to have you around.” With a squeeze of her arm, Dr. Ramirez turns to go to her next appointment, but stops halfway down the hall. “Oh, Margot? My nurse stepped away to make an important phone call. Do you mind escorting my next patient to the exam room?”

Margot dutifully nods with a grin. She twirls around, bounding for the front desk to grab the chart of Dr. Ramirez’s next patient, a new patient. After making a few small notes, Margot opens the door to call her back.

“Brooks? Riley Brooks?”

*****

Tags: (this is my original tag list for this series; if you wanted to be added or removed, please let me know!) @alyssalauren @ao719 @bbrandy2002 @burnsoslow @charlotteg234 @chemist-ana @choiceskatie @forallthatitsworth @gkittylove99 @glaimtruelovealways @kat-tia801 @khoicesbyk @lovingchoices14 @lovelyladyk88 @lucy-268 @mainstreetreader @marshmallowsaremyfavorite @neotericthemis @nestledonthaveone @sfb123 @shannonwrote @shewillreadyou @sweatyrysconnoisseur @taniasethi @tessa-liam @texaskitten30 @thefrenchiemama @thegreentwin @twinkleallnight @yourmajesty09

#the royal romance #the royal romance au #the missionary’s daughter #drake walker x oc #choices fanfiction #trr fanfiction #liam x riley

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snowpeawritings · 4 years ago

Text

As Long-Standing As The Earth

Every day, Zhongli stares down at a little cube. The cor lapis-colored thing humming with Geo energy as the little dial that shows on one side slowly ticks.

When the dial reaches its peak, Zhongli feels like the earth is alive again.

Reader is gender neutral

CW (CONTENT WARNING): Reincarnation AU, Modern AU, Zhongli character story spoilers, blood warning

❄ Snowpea’s words: LET’S GO ZHONGLI BANNER DROPPING TOMORROW I WROTE 2K WORDS LIKE I PROMISED--

The first time he held the little cube, you were dying in his arms.

It shouldn't shake him, he thinks. He is the god of war, death became a norm when mortals and archons alike are associated with him. He is the long-standing pillar that brought his army to victory. Just like the earth that continues to stand, just like his energy that reshaped the land, he will not bow to whatever danger his immortal lifetime will experience.

It shouldn't shake him. It shouldn't shake his hands when he holds your lifeless corpse, your blood running down his skin like water weathering down stone. It shouldn't.

Yet it does. Each stream of blood crumbled his visage, eyes pleading at your dead ones to see if you will laugh at how ridiculous he looks. He would take any sort of jest from you just to see you that you were even capable of making jokes while bleeding out.

You never did.

And just like sand, he crumpled down onto the earth, hoping that he would be swallowed in when the gods took you away from him.

The second time he held the cube, it was when he used it for the first time.

He remembers it fondly; you were pledged to him beyond Teyvat's mortal realms, as a god and a mortal who were sworn to each other. You joked about it, saying you two were practically married to each other and wondered if he hated the fact that he had been tied down to a mortal.

Before, he would've laughed at the thought and said that you were silly.

He wished he could've done more than just laugh at your insecurities.

The Guili Plains were slowly coming to life as he spent his energy on making his abode. You mentioned to him before that you would've loved to sit back and eat your favorite cuisine underneath a red tree, surrounded by water as the sound of nature encompasses your dining wonderfully. He had hoped that the tree in the center was big enough for you to see.

As if realizing his fondness, a little cube-no bigger than his palm-glowed from his pocket. It hummed with elemental energy as he gasped at the dial pointing at its peak.

Terraforming would have to wait.

Ever since the Archon War, he began to loathe being an archon.

He sees old friends come and go or worse, die during the war. It wouldn't be a surprise that he was used to death.

No… that's not how he would describe it.

He was used to loneliness…?

Close.

Ah, he grew tired of being lonely. He supposes that was an agreeable feeling to describe him. The price of him wanting to end his loneliness was a price his heart couldn't bear. He was a smart god, cleverly providing strategies in order to gain the upper hand in the war.

Clearly, he wasn't smart enough to know the long-term consequences of his need.

The gods had warned him and he stood his ground as resolute as the mountains of Liyue.

The bustling village greeted his sight. Newcomers of Liyue and old villagers walked around, giving space for him to walk. Whether it was fear or admiration towards the archon, he couldn't care less. He set sight on a rather large house, its windows and doors opened for the public as wounded laid down on cots. Victims of people attempting to colonize Liyue, Treasure Hunters, or the sad case of Hilichurls, he couldn't care less.

He spots the aura of yellow energy before he could properly see the person. They were wearing a nurse's outfit, caked with blood and unknown grime from treating patients. Yet he never saw a more beautiful sight.

He approaches you and he feels the cube in his hand vibrate in tune with your aura. Making a deal with the devils be damned, he can never throw this opportunity away because he was an immortal.

"Oh, hello sir!" You greeted him and he felt the earth tremble slightly from your voice. "What can I help you with?"

He smiled at you, placing his palm in front of his chest pocket where the cube hummed. "My name is Zhongli. I heard that you are an excellent doctor?"

The third time he held the cube, he nearly threw it away along with his past.

He was no longer Morax, or Rex Lapis. He was just Zhongli, the head of the Wangsheng Funeral Parlor.

It was ironic, to be connected to a place of death and moving on when he tries to do the same thing. Not once did the thought of moving on never crossed his mind. Not once did the thought of giving up his life never crossed his mind because he was so tired.

His past seemed just as resolute as the earth, he thinks bitterly.

The cube that he wanted so badly to discard still kept reappearing in his sight. Whether throwing it outside the window or burning it in the fireplace or even chucking it at the Chasm. It doesn't matter, it keeps reappearing like it was gloating at him. Like it was sneering at him as it reminds him about this perpetual curse that follows him until his dying breath.

But that doesn't matter at the moment. He has a job to do as the head for doing the rite of passing. He follows the Traveler to the floral boutique, wanting to buy the best Silk Flowers for Rex Lapis's passing.

How fitting.

Before he could try to get a word out for the history of Silk Flowers, his words got trapped in his throat. He sees the same yellow aura that he associated with the color of Geo. No matter how much time has passed, he knows those vibrant colors anywhere. The cube inside his coat hummed annoyingly like it was trying for him to do something. You were blissfully unaware of his longing stare, busy trying to barter against a merchant for the cheapest price of cor lapis.

Oh, how much he wanted to march right next to you and barter with the merchant himself, say that the cor lapis he sold couldn’t hold a candle to the aura that you emitted, that he was willing to put the price of the cor lapis on his tab because you were worth it--

"Mr. Zhongli?" The Traveler's travelling companion asks. "Are you okay?"

He ignores them, chest tightening at the thought of seeing his love for the third time. "I… lost my thought. I apologize."

Stand as resolute as the earth, Zhongli scolds himself. You can't stay like this forever.

... Forever is nothing compared to an archon, though.

After having dinner with the Traveler with a smooth rite of passing, he would've loved to take Barbatos's advice and drink until he can't think.

The fourth time he held the cube, it was when he felt his powers slipping away.

The times have changed, he fears, for the Statues of the Seven slowly dwindled out until they were almost ruined. The age of metal and alchemy conquered Teyvat instead of the elemental energy and Visions that people possessed. He couldn't heal using the broken down Statues but at least he could share one last drink with Barbatos before the inevitable.

"You should see them build the first plane!" He said excitedly as he downed his umpteenth drink. "Looks like they don't need the winds from their archon anymore!"

Somehow, he wishes he could share Barbatos's anguished laughter as he drank himself into forgetfulness.

The age of innovation grew higher and higher towards its peak while Zhongli's powers grew lower and lower. Unsurprisingly, he doesn't mind it.

Anything to get rid of the blasted cube.

He gave up trying to get rid of it. Gave up on trying to find his love when the dial hits its peak. If giving away his gnosis meant that the cube would no longer work, he would. Even more so with the depletion of everyone's belief at Archons.

He hopes.

Alas, it appears Celestia would laugh at Zhongli's hopes, for when the cube glowed for another time, he nearly tore his hair out.

How many lifetimes? How many more heartbreaks? How many more funeral rites?

And yet he seemed to be the biggest fool despite being the eldest Archon, for when he sees you, an inventor innovating the new gadgets for tomorrow, he felt the earth beneath his feet tremble.

He missed this feeling.

"Hello sir!" You greeted him with enthusiasm that he wished he could relate to. "Care to see the future of mankind?"

He is the biggest fool there was. "I would love to."

And he may as well die as a fool.

The fifth time he held the cube, he was only fidgeting it around.

Funeral parlors were becoming commonplace but not a lot of customers. With globalization and the new funeral trends being used, people have mixed feelings about having such an expensive and extravagant rite of passing.

And it also doesn't help that he gets confused when some people don't even bother asking for his services. They just stare at him with a wiggly smile on their lips.

Regardless, he won't look a gift horse in the mouth. He sees the dial on its peak but he doesn't pay heed to it. He gave up. With how many people there are and newer countries emerging, he lost hope.

No, more like he doesn't care anymore.

It was probably an insult to you-no-it was a clear insult and it was scary that he doesn't care anymore. He can't be the man that existed before, assisting the Traveler and Childe. He can't be the broken down Archon that shared drinks with Barbatos. He was so goddamn tired that he deserves this sanctuary.

If he could even call it that.

And yet, he persisted. Not for Guizhong, not for you, but for himself.

He takes his time with his tea, relishing in the flavors as he used this time to calm himself. The sounds of the clock ticking, the ceramic of his cup hitting the table, and the distant sound of birds chirping were all welcomed to his ears. It appears that his daily tea rituals haven't changed at all ever since he was born.

As he sips up the last bit of his tea, a knock broke him out of his concentration. He allowed entry.

An employee under him bowed before straightening his back. "Mr. Zhongli, you have a customer."

He sets down the cup. "Bring them in."

The employee nodded at him before walking back to fetch the customer. He fixes his tie and moves his finished tea away, wanting to look best for the customer.

Hearing an extra set of footsteps, he raised his head to greet the customer but he felt the earth tremble.

Maybe Celestia had enough of his sulking as he sees you smile at him like the first of you smiled at the archon all those millenia ago.

"Hello, Mr. Zhongli," you greeted and his name never sounded so poisonously sweet in his ears, "I hope you aren't too busy with what I have to ask…"

He may as well start his own funeral rites for himself.

He takes a while before composing himself, not meeting your eyes as he gestured to the vacant seat on his left side. He can’t meet your eyes even when you sat down and smiled politely at him. It felt like his heart stopped, then jump started like an engine.

“So, um…” You said, fiddling with the tips of your fingers and Zhongli had to resist the urge to take your hands in his. “Mr. Zhongli, I was hoping that I could ask you something.”

He steeled his spine in order to not show the shiver he felt when he heard you say his name. Gods, when has it been that your past reincarnation said his name? Even in a non-romantic way? “Well, as long as it is within the Wangsheng Funeral Parlor’s power, I’ll do what I can.”

This time, you averted your eyes from him, your hand moving to scratch the back of your neck. “About that… it’s not really something related to the funeral parlor perse…”

He raised his brow, your nervousness almost easing him. “Oh?”

Your face flushed and Zhongli can’t help but feel his heart race just like before. “It’s ah… It’s just that I have a research thesis that I’m doing and for some reason, the people I’ve asked recommended you.”

He slightly deflated, then wondered why he felt disappointment in the first place. “A research thesis? Pertaining about...?”

You immediately perked up and you reached out from behind you. Your bag was sitting behind you, smooshed against the chair as Zhongli watched you curiously. From your backpack, you fished out a laptop, a heavy history book, a slim book, two notebooks, and a pencil case that’s practically bursting at the seams with stationery. You set them down on the table, the force clattering the plates but nothing was spilled.

You booted up your laptop, getting one of your notebooks and grabbing a pen. When the laptop finally booted up, you logged in and presented Zhongli what was on the screen.

He felt the earth tremble from his knee knocking up against the table.

‘History of Rex Lapis And Their Influence On The Modern World’

“I’m a huge fan of history, you see!” You explained quickly, grabbing the large book that shows an old copy of Rex Lapis Incognito, a book that he hasn’t seen a while. “I really appreciate everything that the old archons did for the world, even if people don’t believe in them anymore. I especially have a fondness for the adepti but they’re even more forgettable-but I don’t mean it in a bad way! I want to write this with intentions of people remembering what both archons and adepti did for Teyvat…”

He zoned out soon after you said ‘history’. He wasn’t the type to pray for a blessing when, after all, you’re a literal god. But it comes to a time where, after heartbreak after heartbreak, he grows tired and soon goes numb. He thought he hardened his heart ever since he subjected himself to this but it appears even bedrock can be reduced to dust.

He let out a small, shaky breath before raising his head. That doesn’t matter now. He was Zhongli, used to be adeptus, used to be archon, but now: a man.

He couldn’t be any happier.

“I admire your fondness for researching ancient history.” He said, cutting off your rambling. “I may not be as knowledgeable as any other book, but I will try my best. We should speak about this somewhere else, though. It would be dreadful to speak in a funeral parlor.”

Just like terraforming, he can be rebuilt.

#genshin impact #genshin impact imagines #zhongli #zhongli x reader #zhongli imagines #snowpea writes #scenario #AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHH ZHONGLI BANNER DONT HURT ME KSDKFNSKF #I OFFER THIS AS TRIBUTE

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neerons · 4 years ago

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Some of Takaomi Tsugaru’s best quotes

“Wipe the drool. I’m not THAT handsome, am I?”

“That’s all you have to say about mon visage?”

“True, going on a date with a pretty girl isn’t so bad. But it’s definitely more fun hanging out with you.”

“Your butt cheeks are two different sizes, too.”

“A little pet of Hideki’s and Hyogo’s? This I gotta see. Graduated with honors, eh? Singled out already, huh? Sounds like a gorilla girl. I picture a hearty, muscled lass with arms like hams. But what eventually materializes before me is a cute little hoppy white hare.” (—Tsugaru’s thoughts)

“Throwing her hard-written report into the trash basket has me in a great mood. Lalala...” (—Tsugaru’s thoughts)

“Drag her? She may be fierce, but she’s only bunny-sized. If she gets grabbed by three guys at once...” (—Tsugaru’s thoughts)

“She seemed so feminine. Having fun, and drinking more than she intended. (...) She flops back over, karate-chopping me in the face. How’d she manage to land a critical hit while sleeping?! Why did she decide to go into Public Safety? An innocent, carefree girl like this?” (—Tsugaru’s thoughts)

“This might be the first time I’ve really gotten a good look at her face. It isn’t too bad. She has a cute little nose, and her mouth moves like a little animal when it’s flapping. She’s even kind of charming. I scrutinize her face, drinking in the details.” (—Tsugaru’s thoughts)

“Probably because she’s a country bumpkin... No, no. She’s a daisy fresh girl raised on farm-fresh air.” (—Tsugaru’s thoughts)

“You four-eyed jerk...” (—Tsugaru to Ishigami)

“Don’t take my Little Hare... I want her all to myself.” (—Tsugaru’s thoughts)

“She and Goto could be doing it like bunnies for all I should care.” (—Tsugaru’s thoughts)

“I should drop Momo’s toenail clippings in that coffee of yours...” (—Tsugaru’s thoughts about MC)

“Don’t look so innocent while you’re sitting on a man’s thighs. I can feel her body heat... This proximity...” (—Tsugaru’s thoughts)

“I figured out from that little incident that dressing up isn’t your forte. Besides, it’s hard to compete with my beauty.”

“It’s a curse being this handsome.” (—Tsugaru talking about himself to Kurosawa)

“I hope you’re looking forward to it too, Little Hare... Our D.A.T.E!” (—Tsugaru speaking loudly to make the other guys jealous)

“I really wanted you to see it. How the old Namba gang would react. As the day of our date approached, Little Hare, they couldn’t stand it. Hideki’s frown line just kept getting deeper and deeper. And Hyogo was drinking so much coffee, he was practically vibrating.”

“Yes, we’re like Beauty and the Beast, aren’t we? Come along, Beast.”

“Are you jealous of our bro-date, Little Hare? (—Tsugaru talking about when he was hanging out with Kaga in the past to MC)

“Don’t compare your face and mine. It’s an insult.”

“You unfaithful hussy.”

“Little Hare takes priority.”

“You’re quite big, Little Hare. (...) Maybe I was talking about your chest.”

“No shoulder rides for you, little man.” (—Tsugaru to Noa after he was called “weird” by him)

“You’re right. You’re more of a snot-dribbler than a tear-spiller.”

“How can you say a handsome face like mine is ever “in the way”...?”

“Trying to make me hate you? ...Silly. Thank you for not changing. Please... always stay the way you are.”

“Hmm? You want a non-antidote kiss this time? Ahaha. You’re bright red. Like a tomato. Let’s see if I can make you... a squashed tomato.”

“We should at least go on a date before we get married. Let’s go on a date.”

“When I was a kid, I was always imagining things, never knowing that part of me would be killed off. But right now, I indulge in a little fantasy of Little Hare’s twitchy bunny face.” (—Tsugaru’s thoughts)

“Excuse me?! I fight a sudden urge to take a flying kick at Seiji’s back.” (—Tsugaru being jealous of Goto in his thoughts)

“I’d decided not to use my past to make excuses. But the complex I’ve been hiding... It’s in every part of me.” (—Tsugaru’s thoughts)

“Was she asking because she wants to be my girlfriend? I’d like to tell you... that you deserve that position, too. (...) Girlfriend, huh. When she asked me why I can’t get one... my heart skipped a beat. The only girl I can think of that could fit the bill is her.” (—Tsugaru’s thoughts)

“She’s taken tons of snaps of Squad Katsuragi, all glistening with sweat. You dirty paparazzo, Little Hare. What are you thinking, letting strange men into your apartment? Strange men who aren’t ME! I delete all the photos before taking a few selfies, then handing her phone back. (...) I set the lock and background screens as me too.” (—Tsugaru talking and thinking about MC)

“Can I say goodnight to the baby in your belly? Goodnight. I can’t wait to meet you.” (—Tsugaru talking to his mom and unborn sibling, as a child)

“I started having dumb, hopeful thoughts of being her someone special.” (—Tsugaru’s thoughts)

“A murderer’s blood runs in my veins. This was the one thing I didn’t want her to know about me. I didn’t want you to know... Not you. Not my normal, innocent Little Hare.” (—Tsugaru’s thoughts)

“I want to be a man you can feel confident sticking by. I don’t want you to stay around because you’re worried. You’re my first real personal relationship, I guess.” (—Tsugaru’s thoughts)

“I’ll save her, over and over. I’d do anything to rescue the woman I love.” (—Tsugaru’s thoughts)

“She purses her lips. Gah, so cute. (...) Then she smirks at me, seeming very satisfied. She looks so, so happy. Cute as heck! I want to grab her and take her someplace private...” (—Tsugaru’s thoughts)

“I’ll draw Momo frying Little Hare alive with his Momo Beam.” (Tsugaru’s thoughts)

“(...) Once there was a boy called Momotaro... He was friends with a little hare, and a mean dog called Hyogo and a cyborg called Hideki. They traveled to the land of demons to fell the demon lord Seiji...” (—Tsugaru making up a story for Noa)

“She’s so good at being honest and earnest with people. Knowing she might hurt them, but not backing down, for the sake of what’s right. And she knows how to soothe those hurts, too.” (—Tsugaru’s thoughts)

“I knew it was only ever going to be a dream. Such a pure, uncomplicated girl could never fall for someone... like me.” (—Tsugaru’s thoughts)

“I’ll have to start calling you Little Piggy instead of Little Hare.”

“So she and Seiji had a little kitty friend at the academy? I’ll have to crush their relationship.” (—Tsugaru’s thoughts)

“Be happier about being chained to a hot guy.”

“My dream’s to go to Momo’s wedding. Be happy, my friend.” (—His VIP room)

“Imagine Hyogo of all people having a soft spot for someone. What a shock.” (—His VIP room)

“Dreamed I was being attacked by Kaga Kong and Ishizilla. I must be tired.” (—His VIP room)

“I happen to love my talented little subordinate, after all.” (—Tsugaru talking about MC, in Shinonome’s route)

“She’s surrounded by men. Is that businessman staring at her? If he gropes her, I’ll bring social justice down upon him.” (—Tsugaru’s thoughts about a random man & MC)

“Stay away, ace! (...) She’s done with you all. She has a new man now.” (—Tsugaru talking about MC to Goto and the others)

“I bet you spent two hours getting ready for this. You look cute though.”

“Well I noticed you like eating.”

“What about Tsugaru variety? (...) I’d like to be bitten by you. Will you eat me up?” (—Tsugaru talking about an apple version of him to MC)

“Just for today, I wanted you to only think about me.”

“Doctor Doolittle?! Oh no, that’s a vet. ...Whatever! A doctor, eh... A detective is cooler than a doctor any day. Anyway, doctors don’t play fair. They act like group dates are their killing grounds.” (—Tsugaru’s thoughts about Hajime)

“Give you a call? Sure she will, buddy. (...) There’s silence when the guy departs. Say something. Tell me you like me way better!” (—Tsugaru’s thought about Hajime and MC)

“I wonder what she was like as a university student? He dated her back then... They would have held hands, kissed, and also... Whispered sweet nothings in bed. Aaargh! Why... Why can’t you be mine alone...” (—Tsugaru’s thoughts about Hajime and MC)

“I love you.”

“You could never forget the face of a good-looker like me after seeing it once, right?” (—His VIP room)

“I’m the type that makes sure he leaves his mark on the girl that means most to him.” (—His VIP room)

“I can see how chic you are - or trying to be at least. You dolled yourself up for me, right?” (—His VIP room)

“You could be honest and compliment me. Tell me how I’ve got a handsome face, but everything else about me is perfect.” (—His VIP room)

“Little Hare, you’re the only one for me.” (—His VIP room)

“Did you get a good shot? Send me the best one. That’s right, I was thinking Momo would like it.” (—His VIP room)

“Hyogo plus water is a crazy combo, isn’t it? Kinda like a demon lord that’s just emerged from out of the sea.” (—His VIP room)

“Hmph. Wait… Don’t you want to take a picture? You can make me your wallpaper, you know.” (—His VIP room)

“My clothes are supposed to be see-through and are supposed to cling to me. Sorry I’m too sexy.” (—His VIP room)

“Even when I’m wet my high quality remains… Wow.” (—His VIP room)

#takaomi tsugaru #hlitf tsugaru #her love in the force #hlitf #voltage inc #otome game #love 365 #voltage #voltage otome #tsugaru’s quotes #quotes collection #otome romance #love 365 find your story #quotes

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dreaminginthedeepsouth · 3 years ago

Link

Do you really think our pull-out from Afghanistan would have looked any different under the man who handled the coronavirus pandemic so well that he cashiered 400,000 American lives? He claimed over and over that he was going to end the “forever wars” and get us out of Iraq and Afghanistan once and for all. He was the president who said he could “make a deal” with the Taliban that was supposed to lead to a peaceful reconciliation with the Afghan government upon the withdrawal of American troops.

Taliban insurgents cleverly allowed cameras from Al Jazeera to film them walking through the presidential palace in Kabul demonstrating how a neat and tidy transfer of power looks, compared with what was attempted by the violent Trump mob that tried to take over the U.S. Capitol. This has led to predictable hand-wringing and pearl-clutching by the usual gaggle of Trump puppets, who the likes of MSNBC and CNN have been only too happy to allow on air to spew their anti-Biden garbage.

I swear, if I see the grim visage of one more Republican congressman lamenting the “chaos” caused by Joe Biden and the promises we broke with our “Afghan partners,” I’m going to puke. We didn’t have Afghan partners; we had people in a foreign country we showered with money and ordered around and told what to think and who to believe, which was us. Republicans have been waiting to hang “losing” the Afghanistan war around the neck of Joe Biden since he announced back in April that we would withdraw the troops remaining in that country by the end of this month. Unmentioned by all the Trump-puppets is the fact that Biden is doing nothing more or less than carrying out to the letter the deal Trump made with the Taliban last year: that we would pull all our troops out, that we wouldn’t engage Taliban fighters in hostilities and they wouldn’t engage us, and that the Taliban would pledge not to turn the country back into a stronghold for terrorist groups like al-Qaida and ISIS.

Afghanistan didn’t have a government, but rather a bunch of people with official titles who were paid to do what we told them. At least some of them were Taliban sympathizers all along, if not actual spies. Afghanistan didn’t have an army, it had a uniformed gang of men we gave M-16s and taught how to march and shoot. Some of those expensively trained Afghan soldiers shot and killed their American “partners,” proving just what side they were really on. That the Afghan army is said to have “melted” into the populace as the Taliban walked triumphantly into Kabul should hardly be a surprise. Raise your hand if you expected anything different to happen. I’ll wait.

Hmmm. No takers? I didn’t think so.

With Afghanistan, we didn’t even have the excuse that we were supporting a “war of independence” like we claimed about Vietnam. It was a big-power police action from day one. Bin Laden and al-Qaida hit us, so we went in there to take them out. We began losing Afghanistan the day we “took” Kabul from the Taliban and said we had driven al-Qaida terrorists out of the country.

Here’s the deal if you are a big, muscular country like the United States that thinks it should have so much say about the way the world is run that we have military outposts in 140 countries: The minute we “take” a city, or a region, or a country, we’ve lost it, because everyone who lives there knows two things.

One, that we were never really going to live there, like we would if we changed our citizenship or got a visa to move to a country like France. That’s living in a country. We did what we always do in countries we occupy but don’t live in. We walled off limited areas and turned them into Little Americas and called them “base camps” complete with resident McDonald’s and KFC outlets. That’s where the Americans who “took” Afghanistan lived, and nobody knew that better than the Afghans themselves.

Sure, there were some American civilians who actually lived in Afghan homes or apartments they rented or bought. Most of them worked for NGOs or international aid organizations like Doctors Without Borders or the dozens of groups that set up programs to help establish schools to educate Afghan girls and women. But few were in that country on official business of the American government. Most of the Americans representing our government lived behind gigantic concrete walls or Hesco barriers topped with razor wire and traveled in armored SUVs and Humvees in heavily defended convoys.

When I was in Iraq and Afghanistan around American troops, I used to ask them how they would like it if some foreign country moved a bunch of soldiers into their hometowns and seized property owned by locals and walled off that property and topped it with razor wire and then began moving around their hometowns in armored vehicles carrying soldiers with machine guns and grenades and even heavier weapons. To a soldier, they replied that would never happen in their hometowns, because people wouldn’t let it.

Everywhere we established an American presence in Afghanistan was a hometown that didn’t like being occupied by heavily armed American soldiers. So what did we expect?

The other thing the locals knew with certainty is that we would leave. Hell, they watched 20 years of American soldiers cycle through their service in one-year tours. If they worked with the American military, Afghans could get to know a lieutenant in 2002 and watch them return as a captain in 2006, as a major in 2010, as a colonel in 2016, even as a general in 2020. But nobody stayed. Few became familiar with Afghan customs. Even fewer learned the language. They knew we wouldn’t stay the course because most Americans Afghans came into contact with didn’t stay more than a year.

The very worst thing about an American occupation of a foreign country is our arrogance of power. It infects everything. We have the biggest army, we have the biggest air force, we have the biggest navy; we have the biggest, most accurate, deadliest weapons; we have the most money, we can buy the most stuff, we can provide the most aid, and we can spread the most influence, which is to say we can insist on setting the rules and we can get our way. Our arrogance breeds contempt for those who don’t recognize how right we are. If I had a dollar for every time I heard an American soldier use the word “backward” to describe something about either Iraq or Afghanistan, I could have retired by now.

The arrogance of belittling the “backward” way of life of those in a country like Afghanistan is breathtaking. I have known people in this country, the allegedly modern United States, who grew up without electricity in their homes, who carried water in a bucket from a spring to a house that had no indoor plumbing, who didn’t see a store-bought piece of clothing until they were 30 years old, who never slept under anything but a homemade quilt and didn’t see a wool blanket until they were middle aged; people who grew up without a family car, who fed themselves with what they grew and slaughtered. You want to talk about backward? How about refusing to be vaccinated for COVID, or states which have passed laws that control women’s lives by limiting or completely ending their right to abortions? Or worshiping god by holding that women cannot be leaders or pastors in church?

The Afghan people know who they are and more than that, they know who they have always been, and they are just as proud as we are. I once sat down in a family compound behind 20-foot tall mud brick walls with a farmer and his sons who were descended from the family that had farmed that land and lived on it in mud brick compounds exactly like that one for more than 1000 years. When I used the word “Taliban” with the father, it meant “religious people” to him, not enemy. He took me outside and pointed down the road to a nearby farm. “Taliban,” he said. He pointed further to another farm. “No Taliban,” he said. Both farms were his neighbors. What he couldn’t point to was the presence of anyone or anything having to do with the Afghan government, because in the remote region where his farm was along the border with Pakistan, there was no Afghan government.

We spent 20 messed-up years in Afghanistan flexing our muscles and spreading our money around, and now we are making a messed-up exit. We are leaving behind a country comprised largely of people just like the farmer I visited in his mud-brick compound, people who have never had contact with their government, people who live by religious rules and customs which are foreign to us and with which we don’t agree, even rules which we consider to be cruel and “backward.”

But it’s their country, and those are their rules and customs, and now they will return to living as they did before we got there and started ordering them around and demanding that they do things our way, or else.

It’s “or else” time in Afghanistan, folks, only this time it’s their “or else” that counts. That’s what you get when you invade and occupy foreign countries. You get shown the door and told not to let it hit you on the way out.

Whether or not we’ll learn a lesson this time is doubtful. But what’s not doubtful is that it’s not Biden’s fault. It’s ours, because we paid the taxes and elected the politicians who put us there, and we elected the politicians who kept us there, and now we have elected the politician who is getting us out.

Good on him.

Lucian Truscott Newsletter

#Afghanistan #articles #political #war #Lucian Truscott #Newsletter #quotes #military

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crusherthedoctor · 4 years ago

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Sonic & Tails: Beyond the Stars - Chapter 6-7 Interlude

Complications

“Say Tails, didn't you upgrade the Tornado before we arrived in Viridonia?”

“...Oh yeah. I did, didn't I? Thanks for reminding me.”

Tails shuffled his hand from behind his back, and quickly pulled out a small device, to which everyone displayed varying levels of raised eyebrows in response to how exactly he managed to do that. With a simple press of a button, he patiently turned his attention to the sky, which still had not a single cloud to its visage.

Confused by this, Sonic slowly looked all around the arid landscape. “What are we waiting for? We gotta go get it, right? No point standing around if it's not-... ...oh, there it is.” The moment he looked back ahead, there was a look of wonder on his face, as the famous plane was right where it previously wasn’t mere seconds ago, floating in the air triumphantly. Its engines were roaring with life.

“That was... almost as fast as me. Almost.”

“That's awesome!” Amy cried out happily. She had an equally amazed Cream and Cheese tucked under her arms to prevent her friends’ small frames from being blown away by the sheer force generated by the Tornado.

“Not bad, indeed,” Rouge added, after using her own gift of flight to examine the plane from above. “Seems like quite a breakthrough, little guy.”

“Yep!” Tails beamed, his tails gliding up and down in sync with his visible excitement. “With a push of a button, I can summon it to wherever we are! So if we need it in short notice, it'll be no trouble at all.”

Sonic ruffled his young friend's head once again, grinning all the while. “That's my bro! No way this WON'T come in handy!” He paused, as he put a finger to his chin. “Could have been handy beforehand too, come to think of it...”

“Absolutely impeccable work, Tails,” Lutrudis applauded. “At least some of our greatest geniuses aren't foul in spirit.” She was evidently unperturbed by the force causing her ponytail to fly in her face more than once. She brushed it aside every time, and her smile didn’t falter.

“But will it have enough room for all of us? Though I suppose Miss Rouge will be unbothered...” She turned her head up at the flying bat, before her ponytail flew in her face yet again.

“Well, there's four seats now, so technically we'd be just one short. But...” The fox motioned towards the wing. “That hasn't stopped Sonic before... even when there are seats available.”

“True,” Sonic confirmed, with another trademark smirk. “Now let's get out of here, I'm sweating like an Eggman who's about to be foiled.”

“...Me too,” Lutrudis agreed as she fluttered a hand to fan herself, unable to come up with a clever comparison of her own. Amy was likewise quick to nod in agreement.

---

After returning to the castle, and after a couple of showers the moment they returned, Lutrudis directed the gang to the kitchen. But not before two members of the group were finally given their gifts, after Lutrudis made sure to clean those as well...

“~It’s so beautiful!~” Amy’s line of sight was hyper focused on her new silver necklace, its emerald jewel matching the girl’s eyes perfectly. Cream was likewise enticed by her own necklace, and its garnet jewel was a similar match for the bunny’s own eyes. The two of them couldn’t have been any more over the moon with their gifts, with Amy practically dancing in giddy ecstasy. “I can’t get over how it looks!”

“Thank you so much for this, Trudy!” Cream shimmered brightly.

“But wouldn’t they have cost a lot?” Amy wondered. “I wouldn’t want you to burn a hole in your wallet for our sake...”

“It’s cool,” Lutrudis waved a hand, her tail swishing happily in response to seeing her fellow companions’ joy. “I couldn’t resist seeing the looks on your faces. And honestly, the price was nothing compared to the real difficulty of washing away the stench of oil,” she joked.

Although the visitors (except Rouge) should have been long used to the shifts between the rooms in the castle by this point, they still found themselves caught off guard by the kitchen’s unique appearance. Far from the reds of the halls, the blues of the bathroom, or the whites of the greenhouse, the kitchen’s primary colours were brown and black, and yet it was not drab in the slightest. With its warm shades, and combined with the wooden floor and the brick walls, it almost gave the impression of a country aesthetic, even though no such aesthetic was truly present in any obvious form.

They remained impressed with how the castle was able to maintain an overarching sense of comfort and beauty, despite each room being different in its own way, sometimes vastly so. Rouge also couldn’t help but wonder to herself if any of those pretty crystals were nearby... for reasons, of course. But alas, they had more important things to attend to. Namely, Rouge’s reports about them.

“So then,” Sonic started. “What did you find out about them?”

“Well if you spare me just a little minute... ah, here they are.” Rouge pulled out a small handful of documents from behind her back, and casually tossed them onto the biggest table in the kitchen. “There you have them. Knock yourself out.”

“Are we... allowed to read these documents?” Lutrudis questioned, after showing hesitance to do so. “Since it is G.U.N. work and all, they might get ever so slightly incensed that you’re sharing such documents with little old us...”

Rouge placed her hands on her hips, unfazed as ever. “They don’t have to know. It’ll be our little secret.” A smirk planted itself on her lips. “Besides, since Sonic is the one who actually saves the world from all the things that threaten it, it’s more useful in your hands anyway, let’s be honest.”

Lutrudis looked at Sonic, who himself turned to Tails, who then turned to Amy, who likewise turned to Cream, and she looked at Cheese, to which he looked back at Lutrudis.

“Chao...?” Cheese asked.

After a pause, they all shrugged, unanimously finding no reason to debate with the bat. And with that, they got right down to business. Predictably, Sonic was quick to skim through them, and at first, he seemed somewhat unimpressed with what he was reading.

“These... aren’t telling me anything we don’t already know,” he complained. “Different abilities depending on the colour, grey crystals are less effective than colored ones, stronger reactions when more of the same colour are used together... We know all this...”

“Keep reading,” Rouge commanded firmly. “There’s bound to be something.”

“Fine, will do...”

“Actually Sonic... I don’t remember THIS part,” Amy noted, as she quickly brought the file she was reading over to Sonic. “It says here that with the right amount of Chao and crystals present, they can directly open the way to the Ethereal Zone...?”

“Really?” Tails asked. “I... guess that’s not a conclusion without merit, but for all of Eggman’s antics, I thought it’d be more complicated than that?”

“It is, in a sense,” Rouge answered. She walked over to a nearby chair to lean against. “The Chao and crystals can open the way, yes, but you need a lot of them to do it. A lot of them. And not just a lot of them, but in the case of crystals, a lot of every individual type.”

“So more crystals than I have, then?” Lutrudis pondered, with a stroke of her hair. “But... they aren’t finite, they can respawn. Does it not count if it’s a... erm, replacement crystal?”

“Since they’re no less effective, logic would dictate that they would count. But doing it that way would likely take forever, especially if you’re as impatient as Dr. Eggman. Not to mention he’s already hunting after the Chao as well anyway. So he’s probably just finding crystals anywhere and everywhere he can for the sake of it being faster.”

“How many exactly?” Sonic asked. For all his comments at Eggman’s expense, he knew the doctor having access to so many of them would be no joke.

“More than any of us have seen so far. You’d practically need a mountain of them.”

“Sheesh... But where would Eggman be able to find such an amount? We’ve seen multiple spots with plenty of them, like the cave under here, but not to the level of what you’re describing...”

“Hold up,” Tails said, as he pointed to a particular section of the file he was reading. “There are people who live in the Ethereal Zone...? Or lived, past tense?”

Sonic’s ears stood up. “Okay, fair play, I DEFINITELY don’t recall that part. How did you find that out? Have you been there or something?” he asked half-sarcastically.

“Do you really think all those fancy murals and paintings around here are just a coincidence?” Rouge pointed out, in a playful tone with a wagging finger.

“Murals? Paintings? What are you...” He stopped, as he slowly recalled a number of recent occurrences. “You mean... like the ones in the desert town...”

“Or those carvings in Zephyr Mountain...” Tails recalled.

“And the ones by the meadows...” Lutrudis added. “Every one of them includes people in their visuals...”

“And those aren’t the only ones,” Rouge confirmed. “The Ethereal Zone may be little more than a myth to most people on this island, but the legends have always had an influence in their lives and culture.”

“And their buildings, considering some of them are prone to glowing,” Sonic dryly quipped. “You’d think that would be enough to confirm it’s real.”

“So is that gross monster who works for Eggman one of the people... or things... that live in there?” Amy asked, understandably puzzled to say the least. “It wouldn’t be involved in Eggman’s schemes for nothing, right?”

“Oh, so we DO have another Chaos on our hands?” Sonic continued, hands on hips. “These beats are sounding more and more like Chaos to me... minus the whole mystery world dimension thingymajig part, I guess. Right down to involving the Chao...” As if on cue, his attention was focused on a lone playful Chao swinging from his arm, which he soon tried to prevent from falling off.

“At this rate, I wouldn’t be surprised if the Wraith was a mutated Chao too,” he added, still focused on the thankfully unmutated Chao.

“I doubt that, but this is where it gets weird...”

“As opposed to everything else about this, which is perfectly normal...?”

Rouge rolled her eyes as she continued. “If it was someone or something that belonged inside the Ethereal Zone... then what’s it doing out of the Zone, if Eggman still hasn’t unlocked it for himself? Did it get out by itself, and if so, how did it do it? And furthermore, if this one managed to get out, how come we’ve seen no others like it?”

She sighed to herself, with a clenched fist. “Not even the A.R.K. reports were this complicated. At least with that one, the biggest hurdle was going to space.”

Everyone went silent. Though Rouge’s documents were definitely giving them more to work with, there were still some unsolved mysteries even now, and as far as they knew, Eggman was still in no rush to clue them in on the rest of the details. As they all quietly thought about where to go from here, Cream was the one who broke the silence.

“You’re really good at finding out things, Miss Rouge,” the rabbit said cheerfully, despite not fully understanding the documents to the same extent as her older friends. Rouge seemed to be caught off guard by the sudden compliment, but even she couldn’t help but smile at Cream’s innocence.

---

Since they still hadn’t decided on what their next course of action would be, everyone took the time to split up for a short while. Rouge offered to search around Lime Shores to see if she could uncover new info, and Amy demanded to go with her, possibly out of wariness as to whether the jewel hunter slash government agent was up to anything shady. Rouge didn’t even bother arguing with it, knowing full well that Amy’s stubbornness was comparable to that of the Blue Blur himself... or the Black Blur that she was even more familiar with. Must be a hedgehog thing.

Cream wasn’t sure if leaving Amy and Rouge to themselves was a good idea or not, considering she had some vague awareness of their past history with each other. But she decided to stick with Lutrudis despite that, confident that her older sister figure and the bat lady would be able to set any potential disagreements aside for now. The rest of the Chao were following them, as Lutrudis promised to take the diminutive creatures to somewhere special. As they were walking through the castle hallway however, with the rabbit holding the horse’s hand, something seemed to be troubling her...

“Trudy?”

“Hmm?”

“Can I confess to something?”

“Confess?” Lutrudis couldn’t help but let out a soft giggle. “As if you would ever need to confess to anything. But sure, you can tell me whatever you’re comfortable with telling.”

“I’m worried about what Dr. Eggman might do next...”

“Eggman?” The horse stopped in her tracks, and she made sure to kneel down to Cream’s height, albeit slowly so as to not put too much strain on her legs. “What’s he done to get you all concerned?”

“Well... all that stuff that happened in the desert. Those monsters that came to life...” Cream tugged on her left ear, looking to the side with minor anxiousness. “And the big ship that created the big hurricane...” She shuddered at the memory, holding tightly onto Cheese.

“Chao...!” Cheese muttered, slightly dismayed at temporarily being unable to breathe.

“Dr. Eggman does a lot of bad things, and I wish he would stop. But he’s doing really scary things now... What will happen next? And what does he want to do with all these Chao?” She was quick to turn her gaze to Lutrudis’ eyes, having once again seeked out the resemblance to that of her own mother’s.

Lutrudis glanced around at all the Chao floating above them. They exchanged various looks of concern, yet she simply smiled at every one of them, as if to ease their individual tensions. She turned that sympathetic smile to Cream, and gently stroked her cheek. “But we know what he’ll do next, sweetie... He’ll be ranting incoherently and screaming filthy words after we strike a blow to his overstuffed ego.” She followed it up with a wink, as Cream giggled at her comment. “Nothing Eggman has done has stopped you or your friends before, and that won’t change now.”

“I guess you’re right, heh,” Cream admitted, with a nervous smile. “I know it’s silly to be afraid, but...”

“Hey, don’t say that, there’s nothing silly about it at all.” She put both of her hands on the rabbit’s shoulders. “There’s no shame in feeling afraid, it happens to all of us. And heck, after everything you’ve been through, I’d dare say you’re brave where it truly counts.”

“Really?”

“Chao?”

“Would I lie to you?”

“...No, you wouldn’t,” Cream’s smile grew less nervous, as she nuzzled up against the horse’s chest to hug her. Lutrudis, still evidently not used to receiving them, took a moment or two to react, but slowly wrapped her arms around the bunny in turn, and rubbed the little one’s back. Her tail started swishing again.

“In fact... how about we do a little something to commemorate your previous, brave adventures?”

“Huh?” Cream gave her an inquisitive look. “What do you mean?”

“Well you see, you wouldn’t believe it coming from these hands, but I know a thing or two about knitting...”

---

“I’m still not used to Eggman being this hush hush...” Tails muttered, as he and Sonic took the time to have a calming walk outside. Though they were now accustomed to hanging around the castle, the size of its walls still amazed them greatly, and if they hadn’t been discussing Eggman affairs, the tranquility of the forest would have lowered their guards completely.

“Me neither,” Sonic agreed, as he took a swig of his fresh can of Chaos Cola. If he wasn’t already aware that Trudy was hospitable, he was very grateful for the contents in her fridge. “The doc would usually be the FIRST to tell us about his plan.”

“He even sent us a letter one time.”

“Well, that wasn’t actually him, but...” He brushed the correction aside, figuring it wasn’t important, since it’s still something he’d probably do. He made sure to cherish the therapuetic sunshine that was seeping through the greenery. “He’s never been shy about what he’s up to. Even when he’s tried to be more secretive, he could never resist giving it all away. But this time... even with his hints, we have incomplete info... Like that Wraith! We know it’s evil, works for Eggman, may or may not hail from the Ethereal Zone... MIGHT be another mutated Chao...?”

“He said all the stuff he’s been doing lately is connected,” Tails remembered, as he rubbed his chin intently. He took a moment to admire the pristine condition of the lake nearby. “But... how? So much of it feels so disconnected. He wants more Chao and crystals, that part’s easy to understand, but how does all the rest factor into it? And why has he made the Wraith part of it?”

“I bet he’s laughing it up right now,” Sonic grumbled out of irritation, with the frown to match. “Probably thinks we’re dummies for not knowing every last oh so brilliant detail of his convoluted spider web.”

“But we will get to the bottom of it, right?” Tails suggested with a hint of hope. “Don’t forget, we’re not on our own here. We don’t know where the Chaotix ended up, but we’ve still got detectives on our side. AND Rouge is a G.U.N. agent!”

“One of the only competent ones...” Sonic murmured to himself.

Tails was about to counter the hedgehog’s dismissive statement, but he stopped himself, with his body language indicating he actually agreed deep down, if reluctantly. “G.U.N. or no G.U.N, Rouge is still really smart, isn’t she? And... I know she’s been kinda sneaky a couple of times in the past, but I think we can trust her now.”

“Yeah, cause neither of us are Knuckles. We don’t guard a Master Emerald, so we have nothing to worry about.” Sonic chuckled out loud. “Just hope she and Amy stay out of each other’s hair for long enough, after what happened with Emerl...”

“Huh? Did something happen between them?”

“Eh, it was ages ago, maybe they made up since then.” He followed it up with another chuckle. “Maybe they were fighting over me,” he joked.

“.........”

Tails promptly went quiet, as if he were reminded of something from the back of his mind at that exact moment. He glanced smoothly in Sonic’s direction, attempting to maintain a relaxed disposition. Sonic didn’t seem to notice anything suspicious.

The silence continued. It seemed there was no reason for the peace to be interrupted, certainly not with the gorgeous view they were still fortunate to witness as they carried on walking together. But the moment Sonic took another sip of his Chaos Cola, the younger of the two decided to ask just one tiny, innocent question...

“So do you have a thing for Trudy?”

He almost felt guilty for causing Sonic to nearly choke on his drink, but not enough to hide the growing smirk on his face upon witnessing his friend’s abrupt change in behaviour. After taking a few seconds to cease the resulting coughing fit, and compose himself, Sonic calmly turned to Tails, an admirably constructed demeanour that was nonetheless betrayed instantly by his spines shooting up in defiance.

“Sorry, what?”

“I mean, y’know, I was just thinking that... maybe... from what I’ve observed... you might just be... possibly developing... a teensy weensy little... thiiiiiing...” The fox shuffled his eyebrows, complete with vague hand motions. “Foooorrrrrr...” He proceeded to subtly mimic a galloping horse.

Sonic blinked, and stayed silent for a couple of seconds, though it sure didn’t feel like just a couple of seconds. After an uneasy pause, another small chuckle eventually emerged from his mouth, and this time it was followed by a brief period of mocking laughter. Most people wouldn’t have thought anything of it, but Tails knew his buddy well, and he could spot the fakeness of his laugh from a mile away.

“Me? Seriously?” Sonic shook his head to dismiss the claim, though if one examined closer, it seemed to be more for his own sake than that of his friend. “You really think I’d be that kind of guy?”

“There’s nothing wrong with it...”

“Yeah, I know there isn’t, but... c’mon, it’s me we’re talking about! Can you imagine me in a situation like that? It’d be a laugh riot, wouldn’t it? Just wouldn’t work out.”

“Why not?”

“Too stuck in my ways, aren’t I?” Sonic shrugged casually, before he glanced at the inviting scenery once more. The desert may have looked nicer than most of its kind, but the fresh air was greatly preferable to him. He gazed at the leaves flowing freely through the calm breeze, and although he brought no attention to it, it was clear that he found it a convenient metaphor for the current subject.

“Settling down just isn’t me,” he continued. “And it never will be. I’d never give up my life, even in my old age.”

“Do you need to settle down, though?” Tails mused out loud. “No one ever said there’s only one way for these things to work out.”

The hedgehog almost seemed to ponder his friend’s words for a fleeting moment, and slowly appeared to be lost in thought. But, as if sensing he was lured into a false sense of security, he quickly shook his head again, freeing himself of the apparent curse that Tails had placed upon him... So he thought.

“Well anyway, the point is, that’s not what’s going on. You know I get chummy with people pretty quickly, even when they tried to kill me before the fact! And sure, Trudy may be cute, but-”

“~Oh, you think so?~”

Sonic’s eyes froze, and the barely concealed grin directed at him was not helping one bit.

“COMPLIMENTING A FRIEND ISN’T A CRIME!” He cried out defensively, and closed his eyes tightly. After taking a moment to breathe, he calmed himself down, and raised a pointed finger.

“...Nothing’s happening. Nothing’s happening. Just getting on with another friend is all.”

“That’s all?”

“That’s all.”

“That’s all?”

“That’s all, yes.”

“You sure?”

“Positive.”

“Absolutely sure?”

“...Are you... wanting something to happen?”

“No no,” Tails raised his hands, though his grin hadn’t quite fully disappeared. “I believe you,” he claimed, in a tone that implied a complete and utter lack of authenticity to that claim. “Just wanted to know what was happening.”

“Well, nothing’s happening,” Sonic reaffirmed bluntly, though a smirk was beginning to form on his own face as well. Even he had to admit the banter was entertaining, and considering who Tails had lived with for most of his life, it’s not like this mischievous side of him developed from nowhere. “So there you have it. Straight from the horse’s mouth.”

Tails immediately burst out laughing, only refraining from laughing harder in order to not attract attention from anyone who could be hearing. Sonic’s initial confusion very quickly switched to annoyance with himself, as he smacked his forehead upon realising his choice of speech. He pointed another finger to prevent any further commentary, to which Tails simply raised his hands again, and mimicked the act of zipping his mouth.

His amusement still refused to actually vanish.

---

Back to Chapter 6...

#Sonic & Tails: Beyond the Stars #Crusher's Fanfiction #Sonic the Hedgehog #Fanfiction

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beatnicksellar · 3 years ago

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Marda Loophole: TPB: Issues #7-12

Issue #7 – The Exodus Then: Mada opened her eyes to the inhuman sights and sounds of war Half-men strewn about Bramshott the RCAMC tent soaked in red gore Through the horror she saw her scarecrow the one she treated before Minus a leg he was alive and that was enough to lift her off of the floor Now: Mada opens her eyes to the fuzzy sight of 4 purple children overhead Siphoning energy from a radiant boulder their chant stirs her from the dead A tingle in her toes and sour taste in her mouth the Hole is as Dennis said He labours nearby as the kids stitch Mada together with amethyst thread With the dulling drone done the rock bathes everyone in its immortal hue The old wendigo’s cell unlocks in the uproar allowing her to slip through Before Mada’s blurry eyes the frailest child’s torn from the circuit and slew She can hear the rapacious wendigo sob as she reluctantly continues to chew The plaster walls of the outbuilding begin to buckle from the stone’s potency Suddenly Pope enters the Hole and descends the staircase with much urgency The doctor’s met mid-way by the limping wendigo who embraces him completely Mesmerising him with her wildfire eyes she gladly detaches his loins from his body Dennis returns to find the Hole in shambles with Dot eaten and Dr. Pope screaming He disconnects the kids and requests that Mada give the boys’ lives a new meaning One of the boys grabs a ledger while the other two grip Mada and they begin fleeing Dennis and the wendigo clash by the emitting mound soon buried under the ceiling South Calgary is silent for the first time since the 33 soldiers were secretly dosed But without the hum to calm them they thrashed 33 Avenue like a whipping post Possessed troops overturned the streetcar and chard the theater like it was toast Stiff pedestrians and sate scavengers guide Mada back to her husband Marc’s ghost She mourns over his blood-spattered prosthesis as one boy reads a shard of glass His brothers study the ledger as he peers into the sliver to see what’ll comes to pass ‘We’ll return when the streetcar does’ the scrying boy points to the upturned mass With crazed GIs loose Mada and her boys depart while a curious crow tails her ass… Issue #8 – The Wild Boys ♬♪♩♬♪♩♫♪♩♫♩♬♪♩♫♬♪♩♬♩♫♪♩♫♩♬♪♬♪♩♬♪♩ A gayageum plays notes from the concerto called Dorothea The ribbon of rhythm writhes on the airstreams over Korea Baroque tones stir the ancient visage which inspired its idea Eddying over the ocean to hover above a 33rd avenue pizzeria ♬♪♩♬♪♩♫♪♩♫♩♬♪♩♫♬♪♩♬♩♫♪♩♫♩♬♪♬♪♩♬♪♩♫ The melody meanders up 20th street pausing at its composer Three long-haired boys that look 10 but are very much older Standing before Currie Barracks Condo they are of one mourner The unrelated triplets commiserate over their deceased sister ‘I cannot feel her in there’ John the empath of the family confirms ‘I cannot reach her’ Robert retorts ‘all I hear is Dennis and worms’ Scryer James perceives future events but cannot grasp their terms ‘All I see is that the stone has been scattering its ill will like germs’ Treating the condo as if a gravestone they pay respect to her spirit With unkempt heads down the trinity are subdued for a moment Each recalls Dot, the Hole, the old woman then all begin to fidget John pulls a music sheet out of his shorts and whistles a snippet ♬♪♩♬♪♩♫♪♩♫♩♬♪♩♫♬♪♩♬♩♫♪♩♫♩♬♪♬♪♩♬♪♩♫♪♬ James and Robert join him in his performance of Dorothea No. 4 When done John tosses the concerto down onto the sewer floor As they skate through the Loop Mada’s name hangs in every store Coffee shops hum with anticipation over the 70-year-old folklore Around the corner of 35th avenue is where a hungry entity stalks A hefty shadow cast from a vacant lot that limps wherever it walks The boys are too distracted to notice the relic from Pandora’s Box Because a fireball is about to knock’em out of their graphic socksIssue #9 – The Vacant LotYellow barricades protect the rich soil within the vacant lotThough ideal for growth it’s contaminated by junkyard rot Comparable to the toxin that comprises Hausis’ blood clot An

inherit gift from her father and the affects it has wrought Over a century old she has been scarred twice by the stoneAs well Hausis has been forced out of more than one homeFrom her log cabin to that school and finally the catacomb A hole she fled full of a plum, revenge and astral syndrome Dark energy leached into her, those boys and the headless one Wendigo mixed with indigo and once again she was on the run But on the Rez her spirits calmed; she even adopted a grandson It was the last time she felt love as the Sixties Scoop had begun Hungry and hateful she hid her mercy and fed on colonial fears Hitchhiking Highway 16 in the 1970s she traded entrails for tears Retribution for her surrogate sisters who had began to disappear When the stone summoned her home she returned with souvenirs She settled in South Calgary and became a landlord to tasty tenants Bones buried in the vacant lot next-door while lying to their parents A cane sword to assist her limp and cutback on the slaying minutes Serrated steel dentures to masticate and absorb her preys’ essence A century old entity at last content with her damned life up until TONIGHT When her plums return assured and still ripe enough to enjoy a quick biteWhen her bone yard is deemed aseptic and police investigation is in sightHausis lunges at the wild boys only to be repelled by a nimbus of starlight… Issue #10 – The Above People CREEEAK! The tactless teenager forcefully opens the oxidized attic door In search of a white wig for her cosplay getup she stomps across the floor Rummaging through containers she finds something unusual in a drawer A thirteen-year-old letter that when opened clarifies exactly who it is for ‘Aline: It’s with regret and sadness that I write this letter to my daughter’ ‘I had to go to a dangerous place so I left you to be raised by your father’ ‘I never stopped loving you or dreaming of the day we would be together’ ‘When you are ready to meet amass juniper twigs and a magpie feather’ Elated to see her mislaid mother Aline flees the loft in her space-opera costume She sprints across 35 Avenue towards a vacant lot shrouded by juniper in bloom Ripping off a bouquet Aline is unaware that just beyond bodies are being exhumed She spots a pudgy magpie perched on the yellow barricade and plucks at its plume Clutching the vital items the Big Dipper shaped beauty marks on her right arm glows FWOOOOM! A blinding white light descends from overhead lifting her off of her toes Aline suddenly finds herself in a melancholy landscape of stars, clouds and shadows Before her sit 2 enormous Above People who enquire as to her odd-looking clothes ‘It’s for Comic-con’ she roars removing the wig ‘who’re you and where’s my mom’ Sun God laughs as Moon Goddess speaks: ‘We see that you were raise with aplomb’ The electric entities sizzle and pop as they struggle to alleviate Aline’s many qualms ‘Your father fell in love with our granddaughter: the Morning Star he wished upon’ ‘But she had to return to Sky-Country to rid it of the evil her mother had let loose’ Mother Moon details how Feather Woman disobeyed and iniquity was introduced ‘She moved the giant turnip that which protects our portal because she was obtuse’ Mother Moon adds she encased the dummy in indigo stone and made her vamoose That is the past but the portal remains open for dark matter to infest Sky-Country The same stuff brought down with the stone when it crashed in the 19th century Aline accuses her great-grandparents of killing her kin and for spreading villainy The Gods giggle at the allegation clarifying Feather Woman merely has an injury More gen is traded and a deal is struck: if Aline fixes the portal all will be forgiven Above People will help find the Morning Star and teach Aline of her nuclear fusion KRA-KOOM! A fiery comet crashes and Aline emerges from impact like a magician Gazing at the wild boys she states ‘You dudes are my gran and we have a mission’… Issue #11 – The Penultimate Sequential squares spread over an infinitude of glittering stars Panels parted by gutters spanning

centuries between the bars A billboard advertises Marc and Mada’s forthcoming memoirs Christened Marda; Loop denotes the superannuated streetcar Inset in the ad is a shot of Magpie gnawing on a decayed thumb bone Balanced on the sign she spots a bird below who was once well known Magpie cries: ‘Ain’t seen you since you left with THAT there veiled crone’ Alit next to Magpie Crow recalls his ghastly exploits beyond the stone ‘It was Hell’ he croaks ‘The screaming, the silence, the suicide attempts’ ‘It took HER forever to bond with THOSE boys and get over her regrets’ ‘Once she did’ Crow pauses ‘she spearheaded some tantalizing events’ Led by the ledger and scryed images they tracked the fiery GIs’ contempt While 7 indigo infected ones enlisted for Korea 26 settled in Forest City An innocuous epithet for somewhere death stalked the streets regularly Enclosed by thickets it’s where butchers would conceal a mutilated body ‘The Serial Killer Capital’ Crow yelps ‘We lured them out during the 1960s’ Crow clarifies that when the GIs moved there each become a major player: Mad Slasher, Bedroom Strangler, Balcony Killer + the Chambermaid Slayer Mada the bait, Crow the lookout, and 3 wild boys unified became the healer ‘In the forest we’d draw out the purple poison leaving the mortals tamer’ Mada’s nursing background afforded them a home and a baby-grand piano She worked while under pseudonyms the boys penned novels & concertos ‘Forest City was safe and we had obtained almost all of that fugitive indigo’ ‘Almost’ Crow echoed ‘We left for Korea in ‘81 on a plane from Toronto’ Magpie squawks sceptically: ‘And then miraculously back for the 70th Anniversary’ {Had it been that long?} the crone ponders {Why did they whitewash my tragedy?} The veiled woman below the advert grimaces then utters anachronistic profanity Stalwart in stance she shudders when the #7 rolls by renewed for the pageantry… Issue #12 – Giant-Size Finale The fixed indigo stone pulsates expelling the remnants of its space toxin Pumped into the faucets of 22 occupants of the new condo atop its coffin Dragging fingers thru mauve hair they’re rapt by the stone’s dim doctrine They riot inside the structure while outside Mada and her wild boys lock in ‘Try it again’ the costumed Aline guides from inside the infinite sealed loop She has juniper and feather in hand yet something is off within their group ‘That thing’s teeing me off’ Mada breaks from the ring and sits on the stoop The rebuilt #7 streetcar gleams in the parking lot next to an effigy of troops Suddenly…a service door opens and the old wendigo limps out of the edifice ‘You’ Hausis growls at Aline ‘You’re relations with that Metis bastard Dennis’ Mada perks up at the name of the man who inadvertently made her endless ‘Are you?’ Mada asks ‘She sure is’ Hausis sniffs ‘and it’s making me ravenous’ Incensed Mada bares the jagged indigo scar spanning the length of her collar ‘Dennis did this’ she states ‘and orchestrated the 1950 South Calgary slaughter’ Aline has entirely no clue as to what occurred because of her great-grandfather And before Mada can educate her the group is spotted by a police helicopter ‘Freeze Ms. Cranmer’ a voice booms as a squad car pulls up with guns drawn Hausis has been hiding since police uncovered the bodies she had feasted on Clotheslined and cuffed the 145-year-old Cree woman is beaten with a baton Aline, Mada and wild boys watch in horror as Hausis is tenderized like carrion The wild child named Robert tugs at Aline’s skirt pointing at the departing cop car ‘Dot’ the 80-year-old kid chirps ‘The hungry lady has carried our sister’s soul so far’ Mada is not their 4th because it is the frail child Hausis mauled like a chocolate bar ‘We need that granny back’ Aline barks at Mada who turns away rubbing her scar Aline suggests they take the idle #7 and propel it with a trick she has just learned ‘Can I borrow a feather from your crow?’ she asks of Mada who still feels scorned Crow leaves Magpie atop the streetlamp landing beside Aline his feathers formed ‘I am not getting on that ’

Mada repeats just as the crazed tenants emerge armed KRA-KOOM! The refurbished #7 streetcar rockets down 20th street like a fireball Crow and Magpie try to slow the tenants’ progress to the 33rd avenue mini-mall Meanwhile the #7 zips down the parade route until it hits the cruiser then a wall Everyone on the #7 is unscathed and so too is Hausis who’s eating a cop’s eyeball Magpie and Crow flutter in to warn everyone of the approaching horde of tenants The wild boys jump into action with a hand out for Hausis who sees it as penance ‘Doesn’t make me a plum’ she gripes grasping John’s hand as if she is pregnant As the 4 siblings unite clouds appear and a powerful deluge forms within minutes The first drop hits as the vicious throng reaches Marda Loop then the sky cries The drenched tenants lose their momentum as the mauve washes over their eyes The rain relents as does the horde but Mada’s inner ire cannot be overemphasized The wild boys embrace Hausis and in turn Dot whose soul has now been reprisedOnlookers have gathered at the site sad to see there’s no anniversary to reminisce Crow and Magpie peck at the injured police officers as Aline stares into the abyss She apologizes to Mada for her relative’s actions but asks for her not to be remiss ‘We cannot change the past’ she points out ‘But if you help us now we can fix this’The wendigo, the crone, the wild boys, the star-child and the scavengers all return Loitering outside of the Currie Barracks condo building hashing out their concerns Hausis has subsisted with the stone while in exile so she knows where it’s interned In the bowels of the sub-basement they find the ancient rock fading in a slow burn John, James and Robert the perpetual 10-year-olds encircle Aline and embrace her Hausis jeers as the boys kiss their kin then whisper in Mada’s ear: Goodbye Mother The siblings start siphoning the stone’s essence back; Aline waves Magpie’s feather Hausis and the boys convert to stardust they swirl around the stone and then enter Aline and Mada escape the building as the boulder flies backwards thru the nexus Its trajectory bearing straight for Sky-Country where it will rid the land of sepsis The portal is sealed and The Above People welcome Feather Woman and Hausis Back in South Calgary Mada stands in the quiet rubble no longer feeling headless ‘Wanna meet my dad?’ Aline asks of her lithe friend who nods producing a smile Mada calls Crow but he and Magpie are stardust in a constellation of their profile Unveiled Mada and neophyte Aline walk towards a rainbow after their long trial As both fade over the hill stardust diffuses and floats to somewhere worthwhile An End

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poisonichors · 6 years ago

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⋆ ◦ ° ☾ taylor hill + cisfemale + she/her — have you seen valery ‘val’ kashnikova? they sure have been hanging out at valdez county park a lot recently. they are a twenty-one year old known as the uncertainty principle*, and they currently work for the savages as a soldier, which they’ve been doing for five months. a heterosexual taurus, they are determined + independent, as well as stubborn + two-sided. thorns on a rose, lips against a loaded barrel, the moon cradled in tufts of white. × lacey. twenty-one. she/her. est. ×

* ❝ THE UNCERTAINTY PRINCIPLE articulated, in 1927 by the German physicist Werner Heisenberg, that the position and the velocity of an object cannot both be measured exactly, at the same time, even in theory. ❞

throwz this post on2 th dash like a shit flingin monkey hENLO i’m lacey bt u may also refer 2 me as? mr steal yo girl cos i will kindly respond 2 both ty

also i am so sorry for those of you who have to read this bible if u dont wanna read the whole thing its totally ok i’d jst cover the personality n valdez sections ja feel

plots and stats pages will be coming soon but until then!! click that heart button and i’ll hurl myself full force into those DMs whether you like it or not

ANYWAYS HERE’S VAL!! MY BADDEST BABE OF EM ALL

so, the breakdown.

VAL KASHNIKOVA

Valery is the poster girl of a family based off money and status. Her father who fronts as an owner of establishments on Wall Street also operates as the undercover head of a Russian mafia syndicate. Her mother is an ex-model, now focusing on the social aspect of the family.

Her mother consistently pushes her to play the role of the socialite’s perfect daughter, and prospective wife. Shoulders back, chin up, tummy in. Smile, Valery. No one wants to marry a scowling woman.

According to her mother, Valery’s sole purpose was to marry into another family of money. Valery was taught to walk, talk, and breathe etiquette growing up. The wife of a rich man must not be outspoken, opinionated, or insubordinate. She must always do as told, and with a smile on her face.

Being an only child, Valery finds it increasingly difficult to do anything but what she is asked of her parents. Choices were always made for Val before she could open her mouth; which remains the prime reason as to why she has such a tough time deciding things for herself, no matter how small.

She always feels the need to appease her parents, now that she’s all they have left. After Mikhail passed away, that is.

MIKHAIL KASHNIKOV

Mikhail was Val’s older brother of four years. He was the favorite, seeing that he excelled in everything he did. Valery was inevitably compared to her brother, growing up. Being neglected didn’t bother her as much as seeing Mikhail take on all the responsibility of carrying on the Kashnikov name.

One sibling had to deal with all the pressure while the other child was merely pushed away. An unlikely bond was shared between the two of them, despite being in polar opposite positions. Mikhail gave Valery the affection she was denied from their parents while Val was Mikhail’s escape from the world of law and politics. This shaped a very close bond.

Mikhail was a good influence on Valery to say the least. Though she’s independent in nature, Mikhail was always there to guide her through agonizing public events, seemingly impossible assignments, or give her advice through trying times. Valery could easily say that her brother raised her more than her parents ever did.

Most would say that Mikhail was incredibly protective of Valery, but only few truly knew that she was just as protective of him. In the midst of superficial families and business deals beyond them, Mikhail would always find them ways to run up to the roof and act their age like they very much deserved. It was only during times like these which made Valery’s childhood actually feel like childhood.

IN LOVING MEMORY

On his way home from a friend’s party, Mikhail’s Bentley was severely hit by an oncoming car. Word returned that a member of their rival mob deliberately drove into her brother’s vehicle.

Mikhail was rushed to the hospital and tended to by the best doctors in the country, but it was to no avail.

Mikhail Kashnikov, 22, was pronounced dead on August 29th, 2015.

After learning what had happened to her brother, Valery, age 18, stepped in and was immediately taken under her father’s wing to train and avenge his death. She slowly turned into a fighting machine driven purely by hatred and an insatiable need for vengeance.

SEPTEMBER 2015 - AUGUST 2018

She trained heavily with weapons, only needing two year’s time to become a skilled marksman and know her way around guns and knives (which are her specialty). She’s basically good at anything that requires a target. Hand-to-hand combat could use some work, but Val is never one to leave home without a weapon of self-defense on her person.

Valery operated more as a decoy when she first began, simply gaining trust and seducing information from rivals. As her confidence with firearms and blades grew, she gradually began to carry out more gruesome tasks, thus leveling up in her field. Jobs always were a little easier for Val than the other men. Besides, who would've thought a pretty girl knew how to use a gun?

TRIPLE-THREAT

The only part of growing up that Valery didn’t mind was learning music ━ let it be singing, dancing, or playing an instrument.

Dancing operated more as a front for combat and other agile ways. However, it slowly blossomed into a passion she shares heavily with singing and playing the piano.

Mikhail would play the piano while Valery sang along, they almost found comfort in such a cheesy activity. To this day, everything Valery knows on the piano is because of him. She sometimes likes to take private trips to it; she finds an odd comfort in the belief that when she plays the piano and sings, he can still hear her.

VALDEZ

Valery ’s family has shared an amicable bond with the Savages for years. Upon news of the outbreak in Valdez, the twenty-one year old was sent to serve the Caitos as a symbol of Kashnikov support. This isn’t out of the ordinary, seeing that Val’s training included working under other alliances to gain combat experience and further networking.

Val’s current rank is a Soldier in the Savages. She’s only been there for five months, so she’s diligently working on gaining trust through carrying out tasks and slowly making her way up the ladder.

The Kashnikova’s only condition is that she is allowed to conceal her visage when operating. She’s not open to showing her face around Savage halls and prefers to seek cover as a civilian when out in public. She prefers that very limited people know of her identity as a Soldier (maybe if you’d like to snatch up a plot about that?), which proves the importance of her saving face when not on the job.

PERSONALITY (HER FRONT)

Valery, finally away from home and family for the first time, is beginning to find herself. She’s naive and wide-eyed, seeing that she was always under direct authority and her choices were always made for her. A small fish in a big pond, if you will.

Despite not having many prior experiences, the brunette is very playful and open to new things. This makes her quite impressionable, seeing that she always chooses to see the best in people and has a hard time telling when someone doesn’t have her best interest in mind. Nonetheless, all she wants is to have fun! Bringing a smile to her company’s face is of utmost importance to her.

You can find her hanging out in Valdez County Park during the day. She can be seen either feeding the animals, teaching yoga, or trying her hand at some new instruments.

THE UNCERTAINTY PRINCIPLE

so the reason i gave her this label was because while she has two personalities, it’s impossible to pinpoint who she really is or at what point she’s transitioning from one mentality to the next. I decided it was a good play on the chem theory insert collective groan here, seeing that there’s no telling if she’s just being nice or has an ulterior motive. while it’s stated above that its a “front”, it’s more so her just trying to go back to being her normal self before her life in the mafia and crime syndicates. this causes a constant teetering back and forth between how she identifies herself in varying scenarios.

PERSONALITY (ON THE JOB)

Valery can be cold and calculated if need be, just how she was back home. Her work comes first and foremost to anything else. Fooling around isn’t in her nature when it comes to tasks at hand.

Her forté includes destruction of property, extraction of information, seizure, arson, armed combat, and termination.

uhhHh still figuring her out

omg figuring almost was fingering i cried a little bye

#outlaw.intro #finger guns my way off the dash to set up som pages wAho #gang tw #death tw #gun tw #knife tw

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the-house-of-the-nine · 6 years ago

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In Depths Below: Reunions Part 1

]|[ Hello Friends and Followers, in typical fashion, I am continuing the narrative of the Nine story by adding the next part of our story with this interaction between Lazarius and his prime, Zalra Azurestar. Marking specific characters for their contributions here. Thank you all for supporting us! ]|[

“I will be as safe as I can be...but humans are nosy...pesky and above all else, desperately in need of something to bicker about. I must say I miss Stormwind.” . . .

“In any case Zalra remains deep undercover there. . . I need to seek her out...”

[ L.K ] All but three weeks had passed since the planning of the Kashebahl siblings and their demon brother in law. The plan to end these Magisters who were planning to extort them. As it stood now, the Inquisitor had plans of his own. All that needed to be set in motion within the Bastille was proving fruitful. It was time for him to find her.

A slow roaming bird overhead. The sounds of waves crashing and falling against the sand. The heavy wind. The smell of sea foam and shells and rum? Must have been booty bay. The soft caw of the birds. The dark rolling blackness from the deep The pain of sorrow and hatred. The heavy sounds of drum like rumbles. The feeling of dread. The cloud of pure void manifesting in front of her.

Lazarius stepped out from the inky black vapor and as it expelled, so too did the foreboding evil. Calmness returned and he waded toward her showering her with a grin and cascading his hands down her shoulders with a grin. “My dear sweet Zalra...how I have missed you so badly these last few months. I have missed out training and our talks, our romantic nights and endless days fighting beside one another. Tell me dear...how have you been?”

[ Z.A ] Zalra’s eyes drifted to regard the bird’s silhouette against the twilight skies; circling her for a brief moment before heading out to the sea’s horizon. Her gaze followed the creature until it was nothing but a speck against the purple clouds. Peaceful was the description that immediately came to her mind, enunciated by the soft sigh leaving her lips as she allowed more shallow waves to cascade around her ankles. Oh, how much she had missed this. Being stationed in Kul’Tiras really did make the Ren’dorei crave the warmth; missing that brief satisfaction of her old country’s eternal spring. She found herself seldom visiting Quel'thalas, despite The Nine providing means to disguise herself.

It wasn’t until an odd sensation plagued Zalra's stomach, twisting anxiety into her very core, did she take her eyes from the stars. The feeling almost forced the woman to step backwards, but when vapor started to form before her visibly, she paused. This was…familiar. An audible sigh of relief escaped Zalra’s dark lips the second she recognized the aura passing through and even beamed when the man finally stepped forth.

“Lazarius,” she breathed, hardly able to make a sound, “Words cannot express how much I have missed you.”

Her accent danced heavy upon her echoed tone, as she went to hug Lazarius around the waist; she felt awkward at the thought of haphazardly throwing her arms around his neck. “I am…alright. Spying and what not is simple enough." She smiled. "How have you been?"

[ L.K ] Letting eyes fall upon the maiden and adapting to the change of temperature from Northrend to Stranglethorn. He waltzed up toward her and allowed the brief pause to linger longer than it should as he waited for a response.It came in the form of a hug, which was deflected. The much taller man raised her arms with a gentle guiding, he wanted those arms around his neck.

And when they were and he was able to stand, he made it a point to lift her from the ground. He wanted to hear that little squeak when she was dangling. He wanted to hold her. And she could tell from the tightness of his own embrace that this contact was something that was sorely missed.

As he held there holding her, waiting for her to wrap legs around his waist at this point, she could hear his labored breathing, he was happily smiling into her hair and face. “Things are complicated...”. Said the dark lord as he continued to hold her. The waves beneath them crashing now against the pair of them.

[ Z.A ] The exhilarated expression that shone upon Zalra’s pale face, shifted quickly into a look of embarrassment when Lazarius softly clasped her wrists in each one of his hands; only to find herself soon afterwards flushing a dark purple while her arms now rested around his shoulders. Despite this, a soft giggle bubbled at the base of her throat.

Damn, did she ever miss this… Zalra let out the small, mousy squeak Lazarius was presumably waiting for when she felt herself being lifted from her feet. Instinctively, her legs wrapped around the man’s waist, and he could feel her previously ridged posture relax in his hold.

“Complicated?” she breathed, finding herself focusing more on the feeling of Lazarius’ cheek against hers than the conversation at hand.

[ L.K ] The black eyed man would sigh. “I have many tendrils leeching out to the world and all are reporting much of the same. War. I’ve begun synthesizing a chemical void mixed with a bunch of other ingredients. Whistletorque claims it may help many Ren’dorei with their addictions and void dependence. But also highly potent and addictive when mixed right. It’s...a process and I have no intentions of offering it to them. . .let them suffer.”

[ Z.A ] Until the reminder of war and the insurmountable amount of power at the Inquisitor’s fingertips grabbed her attention fully. There was always a part of the Ren’dorei that was intimidated by this notion.

“How on Azeroth were you able to synthesize an essence like the void?” Those were code words that immediately had Zalra’s mind spinning into an array of possible inquiries.

[ L.K ] He would turn his face and lightly kiss her cheek. It was a pause. He moved a bit closer and kissed the bottom of her jaw. A pause. Her chin. A pause. The corner of her mouth. Had she not stepped in this would continue with each kiss, and if she hadn’t stopped, she would feel his own pair of cold voided lips against her own. A passionate, yet loving kiss that spoke more words than he could express of how he did in fact miss the connection they shared.

[ Z.A ] “What else have…you--” The kiss to her cheek elicited a soft gasp from Zalra’s dark lips, slowing her rate of speech bit by bit.

Another kiss, to her jaw, “--seen this drug--” Her chin. She swallowed audibly, “--d-do?--” His cold lips continued to the corner of her mouth, and once more, she was caught off guard. Resisting nothing this man did, she slowly allowed Lazarius to wrap her around his finger once those lips of his pressed against hers. However, much to both of their dismays, Zalra ended the kiss prematurely.

She leaned back enough to study Lazarius’ onyx gaze and in the brief moment of silence, she tried to spot the galaxies she missed seeing flit across his eyes. “I did miss you. Hearing you, most of all.” She whispered just under her breath, still studying his visage.

“Please, tell me more of what has been brewing. The war you hear. The synthetic drugs?…”

[ L.K ] “The void forge is fully operational despite the several months you have been stationed within Kul Tiras. Mind you I appreciate your exuberant efforts of espionage more than you can imagine...I believe I miss having you at my side most of all.”. He would not disappoint either, the kiss, the embrace and now the longing gaze. He studied every inch of her as if it would be the last time he’d be able to be this close, which under the circumstances...might be the case.

“You are aware that the forge and its intentions were to sacrifice those who were traitors to the Horde, not out of loyalty but simply because the ren’dorei are the closest tapped source of void energy outside the nether.” he would drawn in a slow breath as he continued on.

“ So...war criminals and non innocents are being used to fuel the forge. The husk...so to say, is discarded. Blood and sinew are sent to Lady Dawnblood the Magus for study and the pure raw void Magic’s are being studied, heavily so, by myself and the good doctor. This...’drug’ for lack of a better word; we have synthesized is a combination of the siphoned void magics, arcane and other potent herbal drugs that we are using to create a 94 to 97 and a half percent pure.. hallucinogenic.” he couldn’t help himself from smiling. “And it is something I plan to distribute without any hesitation.”

[ Z.A ] Zalra was immediately transported back in time at his mentioning of the void forge. Deserts and intense heat. Violence. And the creature that Lazarius formed into before descending into the intimidating depths of the catacombs. A path the woman did not follow; instead whisked away his younger sister from the scene. Guilt churned in her stomach, however, that image of horror lingered on the corner of her thoughts.

“I am glad to hear progress has been successful with your projects.” She responded, returning her conscious to the present. Hearing the percentage of purity that this hallucinogenic contained, her breath caught in her throat.

“That is potent…” she murmured mostly to herself.

“H-How have you tested it thus far?” she asked with natural curiosity. The comments on how the forge was being powered and used didn’t seem to bother her in the slightest. War criminals and non-innocents were the perfect fodder in her opinion.

Absentmindedly, with her arms still around the Inquisitor’s shoulders, Zalra’s fingers brushed against his locks resting against the nape of his neck. Comfortable and happy to finally see Lazarius again.

[ L.K ] “Do you really want to know how we’ve tested it?”. He said with a curious look while she brushed hair away from his vision. “Perhaps it is better to just leave the effects to a bit of trust...”.

Oh he was manipulative at that, canting his head to the size and flashing her that grin, that cheshire grin. A row of faded pearly whites peeking out behind his curled vile lips. Oh yes he would bat those beautiful lashes and charm his way along.

“You know you do not need to remain away..I am glad to see you are eager in your espionage but... it does get lonely without you...”. He would say softly to her. “Maybe I could kidnap you for a weekend ... you wouldn’t object would you? We could train at bit...dine......the usual activities we’ve always found so enjoyable?”. His grin returned and he would peer at her. “Or are you that deep under cover?”

[ Z.A ] “I--” She stuttered in response to his counter “I m-mean…” Did she? Of course in the urge to satisfy her curiosity the answer was quite obvious. She did want to know. How could she possibly resist pestering when there was something new to observe and study? However, despite academic pursuits, something caused Zalra to hesitate.

A tone buried under the Inquisitor’s words. Something that enticed the woman to shake her head slowly. No. Perhaps she could know at a later date. The diversion and manipulative intentions proved to be rather efficient; further confirming how much of a grip Lazarius had on the Ren’dorei.

And, oh, how that sly grin on his gaunt face kept Zalra complacent in her ignorant state of mind. “Does it get lonely without me?” she challenged; her accent dancing upon her soft, echoed words in a playful manner. “Hm…it does sound enticing…” she began, placing a kiss upon not his lips, but his cheek.

“Though, I don’t know if I’ll be able to sneak out. You just might have to whisk me away.” A sly grin of her own tugged at her dark lips while she attempted to tease Lazarius.

[ L.K ] “That was always the plan...I honestly had no intention of letting you go this time, far too long have I wished to be in this exact place, in this exact stance, with you so gracefully wrapped around me...death would be a welcome and fitting end here, should it claim me... I could say I was able to rest complete, with everything as perfect as it is right-this-way.”. He smiled widely at her and wriggled his nose in a cute manner.

My how he enjoyed the hunt, sappy words mixed with the eloquence of his thick accent and deep tones. He was purely flourishing at this point, wanting to not only flirt but woo her into submitting to his desires. Did he honestly have to try? Had she not submitted many times before.

“You do not know the half of it Zalra. Lonely does not even begin to express how missed you are. I have not been so forlorn in some time, without you it feels as though a part of me is missing...”. His eyes, galactic and swirling would drift to the side as his gaze fell on the sand and shore beside them.

[ Z.A ] Zalra’s round, freckled face flushed a deep burgundy while Lazarius spoke so eloquently. His speech of feeling so at peace, so comfortable that he could die at that moment captivated the young Ren’dorei woman. Her violet eyes remained fixated on the man’s expression as she studied his visage for any falter in his words; investigating any deceit behind his proclamation.

Finding none, Zalra relaxed. Gazing to the gentle waves, she slipped from his hold to once again, feel the warm waters against her toes. “Lazarius…I don’t think I h-have heard someone say…” she breathed, looking back to his eyes.

Opening her mouth, she attempted to continue with her sentence, however, found herself pausing when Lazarius wriggled his nose. Now that was an expression she had yet to see. And, boy, did it ever make her heart leap to her throat.

“I…” she paused.

“Cute--” The word was almost a whisper as it was clear she did not intend for her thoughts to become audible to Lazarius. But, it was true!

No, he didn’t have to try with his flirtatious words; she was a sucker for any words of caring.

“Without you it feels as though a part of me is missing...”

Now her heart ached. “Steal me away, then.” Zalra teased softly. “Whisk me to Northrend…and I will be yours for the weekend. To dine. Converse. Whatever you would like.”

[ L.K ] “I don’t think Northrend is nearly suitable for us...for our needs and our required optimal necessities...no no no we need something better, far greater than a cold underground tunnel hidden beneath miles of permafrost and tundra.”. He would smile as she kissed him once more, in truth, she was a welcome addition to his company. Zalra always seemed to bring out a much sweeter side of the man known to most as a ‘dark lord’ and a ‘demon among men’.

Lazarius waved his hand upward. “Maybe a moonlit veranda over the star lit skies and violet fields of the Nighthold in Suramar?”. He hummed to himself as an image of the horizon over the Shal’dorei capital came into light.

“Maybe the red timbers and rolling landscapes of the grizzly hills, nestled in a lodge with other wealthy couples?”. He laughed at the though.

“No... how about a cabin I keep hidden to the world on the summit of Kun Lai, in western Pandaria? Just the two of us? A hot spring? Huddled together in a blanket by the fire? Cindervine red and plenty of gnomish record devices to keep us warm?”. He wiggles his eye brows at her. “Sounds nice to me...private and romantic?”

[ Z.A ] “Oh?” Zalra murmured, canting her head to the side with curiosity. Their needs, hm? Well, truth be told, anything would be better than the dingy barracks she had to sleep in. It wasn’t that she was not used to minimalistic accommodations—her old apartment was proof enough—but, what really bothered her was so many people bunking in the same, large quarters. No walls. No privacy. He began to list luxurious getaway spots in enthusiastic detail; painting vivid imagery in her mind.

The bright twinkling starts against a purple sky. Smooth, curved architecture that always held lascivious hues. Or, perhaps the fresh scent of pine permeating through thick forests. Trees taller than one could imagine, and bears as far as the eye could see. Only images from texts surfaced to her thoughts as the Ren’dorei had not yet visited these lands. Which just excited her more. Then finally, the final destination was proclaimed with a rather alluring tone.

“Pandaria?” Zalra echoed, mulling over the suggestion. “All of those sound like luxuries I would like to experience for the first time.” She teased, smirking. “Sounds perfect to me.~”

[ L.K ] With that, Lazarius would turn and casually wave his hand toward the same position in which he appeared. A portal, no bigger than him and only double in width would rip from the space time fabric of their reality, an image that portrayed the inside of a cabin would be on the opposite side. His mastery of the void clearly improving over time—even now he had far greater control than before.

“Shall we?”. He asked, leading her toward the opening. A tear in the fourth dimensional wall which on the opposite side was a cabin.

As they neared the threshold, only if she would allow, would he step through without a though or word beyond that. It would be an instantaneous transition between worlds, she would see the inside of the cabin laid out before her in all of its majesty, it was like a lovely little resort away from home.

Couches, lounges, chairs and animal pelts across the wood floor. Cracking fire in a massive hearth with the entire northern side panes of glass exposing them to the clear night sky which overlooked nearly all of The valley of Pandaria. They were after all at the summit of Kun Lai. Steam would rise from the heated bath which was on the deck outside, the perfect combinations of hot and cold. On the table where the kitchen would be, all granite and marble of course, she would find a chilled bottle of champagne and of course his room temperature bottle of Cindervine Red. And beside that, a black parchment wrapped gift with a lovely violet velvet ribbon. For her?

Lazarius would step toward the large lounging sofa and grab what appeared to be a robe of some sort. His normal dressing gown would begin to be unlaced and unbuttoned slowly. His black eyes never once leaving the woman while she would more than likely wish to explore a bit. So the process of disrobing would be made more simple.

“Do you like it? I invested in this lodge before the fall of my estate and seizure of my funding by the war campaign.” idle conversations as he stripped down to a dark pair of cotton briefs.

“I come here on nights that I need to relax or be alone. I come here to find peace and quiet when an otherwise maddening world wishes to claim me...but most importantly I come here when I need to prepare.”. Now pulling the plum colored satin robe over his shoulders and tying around the waist with a sash, he would move toward the refreshments.

“Champagne or wine, dear?”. He said, clearly providing a glass of the red for himself. While waiting for her response. “You are fortunate, I’ve never actually brought anyone here...you are the first to actually know my little secrets and hidden hideaways.”. He said with a smirk, flashing her those lovely eyes and a wriggling nose as he took a sip and teased her.

[ Z.A ] “Shall we?”

“Of course.” As Zalra managed to bring forth Lazarius’ sweeter sides, so too did he manage to bring a warmer aspect of her forward. The icy, monotonous demeanor she kept up in Kul’Tiras was numbing, and it was nice to feel a little piece of herself again.

After gathering her equipment from the beach’s shore, Zalra returned to Lazarius’ side in an instant to keep pace with him through the rift; finding herself too excited to pay much attention to the preview the portal provided her. Though, even if she did, she knew it would not compare to the real thing.

A small gasp immediately left the Ren’dorei as her illuminated gaze took in the scene before her. Plush, cozy furniture and a warming hearth. Expensive accented design. And despite the snow lining the sizable windows, steam was seen obscuring a portion of their viewing to the dark skies. The beautiful display of stars captivated her attention as she slowly began removing her gear, neatly placing it in a corner near where they had just entered. Those violet eyes of hers still glued to the windows.

“Like it?” Zalra finally managed to breathe, “It’s beautiful! I…”

After leaning her bow against the wall, she turned to face Lazarius. “I love it. I really do.”

Luxury living was a taste Zalra found herself getting accustomed to. Was that a bad thing? Well, at least she looked considerably more at ease than one would expect. Her gauntlets, armour, and boots were then removed and left neatly with her bow, leaving her in only thin, under armor. Oh, right. This impromptu trip had left her no time to prepare, and she found herself without any changes of clothing.

Despite this, her ingrained anxious behavior subconsciously prevented her from asking Lazarius for any. Woops. With that briefly pushed from her mind, Zalra began to cross the threshold of the house to the northern end to gaze outside properly. Beautiful, snow-covered mountains surrounded either side of the cabin, and plains of farmland dotted the grounds below. It was breathtaking. And she could have stood there for hours if it was not for Lazarius’ smooth voice catching her attention once more.

She turned to face him, idly bringing her attention to his tattooed covered form; helping herself to the sight before his robe soon blocked her. Afterwards, she brought herself to hold Lazarius’ gaze with her own.

“If I were to ask what is going through that mind of yours,” she began, her tone smooth like velvet. “And what you could be preparing for, would you tell me?” Her eyes fell on his glass while walking towards him.

“Wine, please.” Her face started to flush a deep maroon upon him admitting her privilege to Kashe’bahl secrets. The pleasant ones, at least. She could feel her heart pounding in her throat as she spoke, “You haven’t? What about your other trusted advisors?” Standing a foot or two away from Lazarius, Zalra leaned against the granite counter to regard him.

[ L.K ] He was hardly surprised by her curiosity, after all it was a trait he found warmly inviting whenever she was around. Her curiosity was becoming, and quite fetching all things considered.

“You would find that there are more doorways and possibilities in my mind than any one person should ever be privileged to...”. He said in an almost scattered forlornly mild tone. The wine would be poured for two considering her request. “The beauty of the Pit of Lothia, in the Bastille is it creates a hive mind...I can always know who, what and where people are. Who they are with...talking to, collecting information..I’ve learned to silence it when needed. Like now.”. He smiled lightly into his glass as he took a sip with her.

[ Z.A ] Zalra leaned further on the table, her smirk growing wider, as her playful demeanor snuck its way visibly across her face. “Oh, really?” she paused, “How many of those doors are locked tight?” How many of those doors could she get through, was the actual question. Curiosity did have its faults, but she managed to vocally stay in her own lane enough to keep her expression from betraying her unintentional, intrusive inquiries that surfaced.

Her gaze drifted to the wine glass that was poured for her, before looking back at the Inquisitor. She had yet to reach for the drink while she listened to his descriptor for this…Pit of Lothia. Something she had not been privy to see. Not yet, at least. Would she ever have the chance to see what twisted magics Lazarius performed? Besides the brief moments of accidentally seeing monstrous forms and small teachings of the void. Though, she was grateful for what she had learned from him thus far.

“Have you ever tapped into this hive mind to review…me?” Zalra asked, bringing her drink closer to her. “In Kul’Tiras? Vol’dun?” Suddenly, a small bought of giggles left her Cute. “Apparently ditching my life in Stormwind on the dime wasn’t proof enough that I enjoy following your…suggestions.” She followed that up with a well-placed wink.

[ L.K ] “Of course I have, but not always intentional. . .I just happens. I don’t sit there watching it all.” he said with a playful laugh as he waved off the thought.

“If you would like honesty though...I was planning to falsify a reason to lure you here, if only for a few hours to gain your company. Something simple to lure you away from your duties... but you seemed interested and willing...as far as planning to do now? Well that depends...talk, drink...I have not been intimate with anyone in quite a while...some flesh, contact if only to have you need is needed. I have spent almost my entire time in Northrend alone.”. He would shrug it off like it was nothing.

“And given the amount of clothing you’re beginning to reduce yourself to...that and the wine are sure to make things challenging for me to resist tear what is left off and having my way with you...”.

He was grinning behind his glass, and again, shrugged into a chuckle as he took a sip. “In all honesty...”. He started slowly as he looked toward her. “I am teasing you but I really do miss your company...we spent so many weeks together only to have it end...so abruptly... it’s nice to have you back.”

[ Z.A ] Hearing the man mention his lack of intimacy within the Bastille made her pale, freckled face flush deeply “I--” Aw, here came the charming stutters. Lazarius always had a way to get the Ren’dorei flustered.

“I missed you too, Lazarius.” She finally murmured, holding her glass out for a little toast before drinking a considerable amount. Zalra was a hard liquor gal. She still didn’t grasp the whole “sipping” concept of wine.

[ L.K ] “The majority of us have never seen the Pit...”. He said absent mindedly, it was more or less in passing. “Save for the council. It just serves as a mixing pool for the collective blood I took from you and everyone else, mixed with the Magic’s and other various things, it allows passage to and from the Bastille. And yes, it isn’t as much a ‘tapping in’ as it is a constant. I always see and hear the entire orders thoughts and voices. Even now...”. He murmured into his glass sipping from it.

The talk of teasing and indulging his sexual desires was enough to cause him to glance up. It was no lie they’d been intimate in the past, and stopped for no lack of attraction. More or less due to her position in the field.

“I would like to see you return more often. There are plenty of things I’d like to train you in. So many avenues you have yet to master.”. He smiled as he thought about it and slow in his words, it would match his steps, making his way toward the large double pane glass window.

And then, quite suddenly. “Why do you stay with me?”. He said curiously. It was a question from out of the blue, but with his back to her as he peered out into the moonlit world from above, he would pause and ask more specifically.

“Why me? Am I that fortunate to say that I have in you, a pupil who surpasses any I have taken on? You’re proven countless times your talent...I just wonder what keeps you returning to me, there must be plenty of skilled teachers and better sources...and yet your loyalty remains with me...”

[ Z.A ] Zalra bit her lip softly, looking somewhat embarrassed for a fraction of a moment. If the Inquisitor had access to all members’ thoughts and voices, that would mean her failure in Vol’dun was displayed like a movie for the man. The lack of skill she demonstrated trying to scavenge for parts in the unforgiving desert. The camp she thought to be abandoned was filled with Bilgewater Cartel members, and upon spotting her in the shadows immediately attacked. She barely made it out alive, and now that she realized Lazarius saw this, she couldn’t look him in the eyes.

Thankfully, he took that opportunity to begin his pacing toward the northern end of the cabin to presumably study the sights. But then, a strange question bubbled from his cold lips that threw the Ren’dorei for a loop.

“Why do you stay with me?“ She took another gulp of wine; her glass was becoming half-full in the matter of a couple of minutes.

Why did she stay with him? There was a multitude of reasons, but now that she was put on the spot, she found herself struggling to find the right words. This was surely something she didn’t expect to be asked. “Why you?” she echoed, rhetorically confirming his inquiry; letting her mind digest what was being asked. “W-Well…I…” -

“You’re proven countless times your talent...”

As soon as those words were spoken, Zalra gestured her hand at the man while simultaneously taking another drink. Slow down, girl. “There. Right there. T-That is one of many reasons,” she began, “I have n-not had someone h-have so much confidence and faith in my talents in…fifteen…twenty…years…maybe longer.”

She paused for a moment.

“Back when things…were…right...” Her grip on her wine glass began to tighten as thoughts cascaded in her mind. She managed to fracture the stem superficially and placed the drink down before she actually shattered the thing. Hopefully, Lazarius didn’t inspect his dishes closely.

“And I’m not here for solely your teaching…” she murmured under her breath, “I…I like talking to you…you have this way with words that captivate me. Your ideas, projects…inspiring? I…”

.......continued Part 2........

@zalraazurestar

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