#just want to treat the ground you step on as holy land

[theinfinitetrial]

I believe in no god but Im sure I could worship someone into divinity

[rosewaterandivy]

Through Me Prequel - iii. justice

Summary: The world is of but men and beasts, and you cower to none.

Pairing: Steve Harrington x fem!reader, Eddie Munson x fem!reader, Steddie x fem!reader

WC: 8.5k

Warnings/Themes: cursing, criticism of religion (catholicism/xtiantiy mostly), religious themes, canon-typical violence, death, idolatry via smut, blasphemy, heretical notions, angst, occasional fluff (as a treat), Biblical & western literary canon and media references/allusions

A/N: This is the last of three prequels centering on the three main characters. This has been in the works since last July, oh my GOD!!! 👀 Thanks to my loves @jo-harrington @powderblueblood and @big-ope-vibes for letting me prattle on about this! 💜

Please do not interact if you aren't 18+.

Nota bene: Reblogging, commenting, and liking my work is always appreciated; reposting, however, is not. This (*) is a singal to check the footnote at the end!

Enjoy! 💜

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"How lonely to be something that nothing wants to kill."

— Jeremy Radin

Wednesday, July 3, 1985

You are a weapon.

Salvation is an aptly named town, all things considered.

Unfortunate for this particular demon possessing the preacher, however.

After clearing the room, you inspect the various holy icons in the light streaming through the dirty window. A thrash and hiss from the man strapped to the bed as you happen upon a particular amulet tells you everything you need to know.

You step away from the window and onto the bed, kneeling over the preacher as his head rolls back, avoiding your gaze. Lowering yourself to speak directly to the demon in question, you greet, “Hi, I’m Constantine.”

A growl in response.

“I know, I know. My reputation precedes me.”

And press the amulet to his forehead, watching as it sizzles against the skin. Your free hand settles against his chest in an attempt to stabilize the man as the demon thrashes, screeches, and shakes in his body.

Muttering incantations under your breath as his wife looks on from the doorway with her Bible, thumbing worrying over the golden cross strung around her neck. You begin the prayer anew and wait for the mortal flesh to admit defeat, a human, after all, can only take so much. Finally, the body gives in and the thrashing subsides— the preacher unconscious for the time being.

Inspecting the lax body, you lean closer following the subtle movement of his breathing. The visible blue veins of his neck bulging slightly before the demonic form rears up from his throat with teeth bared.

Dropping the keyring of amulets from your hand, you land a punch directly to its gaping maw, regretting having left the gold knuckles in the impala. Shaking out your hand to alleviate the sting, you turn to the wife. “I need a mirror.”

She just stares at you, tears falling down her sunken face.

“A mirror,” You reiterate, “At least three feet high. Move! Go now!”

A few parishioners scurry off in search of a mirror. You jump from the bed and rifle through your bag by the door. Once you’ve grabbed a rope, you toss it on the bed.

“Sorry about the window,” You say to the wife as you grab a chair and break through the glass. Chunks of it fall to the ground from the second storey, a few grazing the trunk of the impala.

You string the rope through the far grate of the fire escape above and crawl back through the window, very much regretting parking so close to the scene today.

Some people return with the mirror after you’ve rotated the bed to face the now broken window. Straddling the prone preacher once more, you grab both ends of the rope and have them raise the mirror above the bed.

“Tie this onto the bottom of it.” You give one end of it to the woman to your left. Turning to your right, you give an older man the other end. “Loop this over the top, on my signal pull.”

He nods, doing as you ask and taking his position at the head of the bed, rope in hand.

To everyone else, “And whatever happens,” You lower your palm to cover the preacher’s eyes, the demon awake and glowering. “Don’t look.”

Palm covering the preacher’s eyes, you begin chanting in a litany of tongues— Latin, Hebrew, Enochian. The growling and thrashing begins anew, the demon not wanting to be ousted from its host. Everything is going according to plan when,

“Holy shit!”

A corner of the mirror comes falling toward you as a man backs away from the bedside, his hair rapidly graying and eventually turning white. His back hits the wall just as you secure the mirror with your arm, allowing the demon enough leverage to go for your throat.

Hand crushed to your windpipe, you let go of the mirror hoping it’ll hold as you grab the preacher’s wrist.

Clearly, no one can be bothered to follow directions anymore. And as much as you try to do your job without tapping into divine intuition, at times it can’t be helped.

Right now, for instance.

Shutting your eyes and taking a deep breath, you relax and allow yourself to sink into your true nature. It’s a risk, the full might of a celestial body against a mortal is no contest. And you’d hate to accidentally injure or, god forbid, kill the guy.

One hand on his wrist at your throat, the other pressing against his chest you open your eyes. The demon caterwauls for respite— the ethereal light burning against its skin, sizzling and crackling.

Using just enough of your power, you get a palm over his eyes again and maneuver the preacher so the demon could reveal itself. It’s invigorating, the thrum as it rushes through you— replenishing the depleted reserves of power in this finite form.

With a blink, divinity slips back to its slumber. Tucked neatly beneath the cage of your ribs, a warmth emanates from it, contented to be of use. But all too alluring, and you can’t become reliant on it.

Not again.

“Smile pretty, you ugly son of a bitch.” You say, taking your hand from his eyes and tilting to the side so the demon has a clear view of the mirror behind you.

It lurches from the man’s throat and lands with a thunk in the mirror’s reflection. The preacher, reeling from the remnants of possession, gazes into the reflection, eyes gone black and smiling widely.

You glance back, to see that the demon is stuck within the mirror. It hisses lowly in response. “Ugh,” With a roll of your eyes, you flip it off. “For your boss.”

Turning back to the man holding the rope, you say, “Pull it!”

He heaves with the effort; the mirror getting stuck against the window frame while the demon pounds at the glass containing it.

Shit.

Rising from the bed, you take the rope from him and give it a tug. When it doesn’t budge from its position, you walk and take the place of the man, placing one foot against the metal bedframe quickly followed by the other and leaning back.

As you tug against the rope while the trapped demon continues to punch its way out, you pull your body upward and climb your hands along it, nearly parallel to the floor at this point. The bed lurches against the floor with a metallic sounding groan.

The wood of the window frame begins to bow against the pressure. With one last forceful pull, it finally gives and sends the mirror careening through the window. Which lands you directly on the floor. You fall to your back with a thud, head knocking against the wooden planks.

The preacher’s wife rushes to the bedside, stepping on you in her haste. From your position on the ground, you listen for a sign that the demon has either escaped or the mirror has held it and shattered against the pavement.

Or your car.

You really hope it’s not your car.

There’s the sound of shattering glass from below, just as the preacher breathes in erratically and opens his eyes.

“Oh, John, you’re okay!” His wife sobs, “Thank God!”

You snort and slowly sit back up, rolling your sore neck and shoulders.

Right, thanks be to He.

Thursday, July 4, 1985

You are aching.

It’s what rouses you from sleep. Car pulled on to the shoulder of a county road somewhere between Salvation and Hawkins. Illinois, if you had to guess— farm land and cornfields as far as the eye could see.

You don’t feel pain, generally speaking, you don’t wound or scar. But none of that explains the chasm in your chest, like something cleaved it open and scooped out your guts. It makes you restless, skin itching as if it's been pulled too tight.

Sitting up, you don’t feel any better.

Back in the driver’s seat, you consult the crumpled map under the light from the dome lamp and decide to drive on what little rest you’d managed to get.

Not that you rest, per se. Recharge is more accurate.

After the engine turns over, you shift the car into gear and pull back onto the road as Creedence Clearwater Revival streams through the speakers.

One hand on the wheel as the other hangs from the window, catching the late night breeze. Heart squeezing inside the chamber of your chest. Hurt radiating from the fissure outward and flooding your veins.

Foot pressing more forcefully on the gas than you’d intended, car picking up speed on this lonely stretch of highway. If only you could just put your finger on it, what’s causing this uncomfortable and foreign sensation— you can taste it on the tip of your tongue, like ash and smoke.

A couple hours later, you turn on the familiar road driving past the ‘Welcome to Hawkins!’ sign. It takes you toward the new mall, awash with flashing red and blue lights.

“Oh, fuck.”

Taking a hard right you pull into the parking lot and kill the engine. Rifling through the glove box you finally find the gold badge you need and reach an arm into the backseat, searching for the slippery feel of a nylon jacket.

Slamming the car door and stowing the badge, you spot a familiar crop of curls hidden under a Camp Know Where hat.

“Henderson!”

He turns back immediately, eyes blowing wide at the sight of you. Hesitant to leave his post near an ambulance, you make your way toward him as you shrug on the jacket and pocket a walkie-talkie that had somehow wound up in your car.

“I knew you weren’t just a camp counselor,” He says with relief and hugs you tight, arms squeezing you around the waist.

Hand at the base of his head, feeling and looking for any injuries, you smile and pull him back to continue assessing. Satisfied that Dustin is safe, you crouch down to his level to ask, “Wanna tell me what you’re doing here?”

He doesn’t immediately respond. Casts his eyes to the pavement and kicks at some stray gravel, “Was just visiting Steve at work s’all…”

Your heart nearly leaps from your chest.

Steve.

Eyes cutting to the ambulance, you take a breath and school your features into something placid.

“Was he—”

“He’s fine, I think,” Dustin is quick to say, “At least, that’s what the paramedic said. Wouldn’t tell me more because I’m not family.” He glances to you again, concerned. “He took care of us, made sure we were safe.”

“That’s… good.” You sigh, scrub a hand down your face. “I’m glad kept you safe buddy.”

Slowly, you stand back up fingers grazing the gold badge at your hip. Running a hand through your hair, you address Dustin, “Does your mom know where you are?”

“Uh,” He flushes a deep pink. “Not exactly.”

“Right, come with me then.”

Weaving through the crowd of people assembled, you walk Dustin in front of you, hands on his shoulders, back to the ambulance. The paramedic leans against the side of it, looking toward the mall.

“Let me do the talking,” You say lowly. He nods and comes to a halt at the side of the vehicle.

A beleaguered paramedic greets you. “Kid, I told you already. You’re not fam—”

You cut him off in a brusque tone, flashing the badge at your hip. “Special Agent Constantine, FBI.”

That shuts him up.

“I understand you have one Steve Harrington in your care, is that correct?”

He nods, dumbly.

“And is it a habit of yours to linger at the scene of a crime when a patient in your care needs immediate medical attention?”

“No, ma’am.”

“I thought as much. You are going to take him,” You push Dustin forward, “And Mr. Harrington directly to the hospital.”

Dustin looks a little too smug at the dressing down you’re giving the paramedic.

“Once there, Dustin will be contacting his mother and you will see to it that Harrington receives the tests and treatment he requires.”

He nods and opens to the cab of the ambulance to let Dustin in.

Momentarily calm in the knowledge that Steve will be fine at the hospital, and that you’ll see him later, you quell the inferno raging in your chest. And dust your palms against your slacks in an effort to stop yourself from slipping into something more than human.

But just barely.

This fucking night.

You shut the door of the cab, arm leaning on the windowsill. “I’ll check on you at the hospital once I’m done here, alright?”

“He really is fine, you know,” Dustin says. “A little banged up, s’all.”

“I’m sure he is,” You agree. “Now—”

“Do you want me to give him a message?”

“Uh.”

“I know you went on that date,” He blurts out. “And Steve has been mumbling about this girl off and on so, I just put two and two together.”

“What?”

Dustin balks. “Oh,” He pauses in thought. “I just assumed it was about you.”

“Huh, okay.” You take a breath, try to give him a reassuring smile. “Tell Steve I had to go to work and I’ll try to not do anything stupid while he’s gone.”

Whatever Dustin was about to say is cut off as the engine to the ambulance turns over, red and blue lights flashing as it pulls out of the parking lot.

_

The badge does most of the talking, you’ve found, in situations such as this. After speaking with Hawkins PD and the United States military officers, you know that Starcourt served as a Russian cell for scientific experimentation and espionage. A fire broke out from an explosion in the subterranean bunker, and there was a carcass of some kind in the food court.

“We’re working to identify it now, Special Agent,” The officer reports, exhaustion evident in his voice. “But if you’d like to go in ahead of your team, we’d welcome the extra help.”

You nod, spying a familiar face in the crowd. Murray’s comforting a sobbing woman as the mall burns, but the expression on his face is reserved solely for you— confusion and disbelief, before it quickly devolves into blind fury.

“I’d be happy to help,” You say to the officer, “Let me alert the team and I’ll be back to suit up.”

Murray hasn’t left the bereaved woman yet. Blending in with the crowd, you grab the walkie from your back pocket and hold it against your mouth, as if you’re talking into it, and stand at his back.

“You’re not supposed to be here, kid,” He says over his shoulder.

“Finished up early, also? Not a kid,” You reply. “Rumor has it, I’m a world-class bad ass and good at my job.”

He snorts, “I’ll believe it when I see it.” His hand rubs soothing circles on the woman’s back, her sobs are beginning to subside from exhaustion more than alleviated grief. “But you still shouldn’t be here.”

“In your professional opinion? Or—”

“Your boss has made it crystal clear that you’re not to be involved.”

You pause, considering the information.

Jobs had dried up for the most part over the past few weeks, Murray would throw you a line every now and again, all easy and quick gigs, generally things deemed well below your pay grade. The recent exorcism being an exception.

With a lack of jobs, and no messages from on high, you’d been left to your own devices. Crashing with Steve or hanging out with Eddie and keeping an ear to the ground for any news of relics or artifacts.

“Well, I’m involved now.”

“Mmm,” He hums, arches a knowing eyebrow. “Didn’t say you were shacked up with Harrington either.”

You sigh, “Didn’t realize you were such a gossip.”

“Didn’t realize you were getting sloppy.”

The walkie in your hand crackles to life before you can hiss out a reply.

“Constantine, do you copy? Over.”

An apologetic shrug to Murray as you press the call button. “Yes, Dustin, I copy.”

The woman Murray’s been comforting lifts her head, “Constan— That’s her?”

You turn back, curious. “That’s me.”

Murray looks just as perplexed as you do. The woman sniffs, pulls back from where she’d been sobbing into his chest. “The kids— Steve, he said—”

But you never figure out what it was Steve had said, because the officer has flagged you down and waves you over to suit up and head in to the scene.

“Sorry ma’am, but I have to go.” Murray can surely smooth that over and just fill you in later.

You turn back toward the military tent and radio back to Dustin. “I’m about to head into the mall, buddy. I’ll let you know when I’m done.” You step into the tent, “Stay with Steve. Over.”

The hazmat suit is ready for you, another officer at the ready to assist. You shuck your FBI jacket onto a nearby chair.

“Don’t do it.”

You look to the walkie in your hand, shocked.

Because it’s not the rushed intonation of Dustin’s voice sounding through the speaker. It’s Steve. Not his usual pep and cadence, but him nonetheless.

“I’ll be fine,” You assure him, and you will be. You always are, but he doesn’t necessarily know that just yet.

Or at least he shouldn’t. You hadn’t had that conversation yet.

“C’mon angel,” He sounds tired, as if the act of speaking is beyond his capabilities.

“In and out, no problems,” You say, stepping into the suit at your feet. “I’ll be there in no time, promise.”

“... Okay. Be careful.”

You smile against the speaker, slipping a free arm into the suit. “I’ve seen worse, Steve. Over and out.”

Passing the walkie to another officer who places it with your jacket, you slip your other arm into the suit, duck your head as they place the SCBA over your face and zip you up.

A new radio has been supplied for you and the rest of the team going in. As you turn to leave the tent and enter the scene, Dustin’s voice comes through the walkie on the chair.

“I knew it!” He crows, “I knew you were his angel!”

“Dustin,” Steve scolds, words slurring, “Knock it off man, she’s working.”

_

Dustin and whom you can only presume to be Mrs. Henderson are slumped on the chairs in Steve’s room at the hospital, completely passed out. Tiptoeing in, mindful not to wake them, you perch at the foot of the bed.

Steve is sleeping, chest rising and falling with his steady breaths. The hum and beeping of the machines are the only sounds in the room. He looks awful, his left eye beaten black and swollen up with blood, hip lip split and bleeding. They’d cleaned him up and bandaged what they’d could, according to the attending nurse.

All that’s left to do was for him to heal and rest. The tests would come back tomorrow, there was a concern for head trauma— a concussion, but he should be discharged the next morning.

You thumb at the jewelry on your left hand, unused to the ornamentation. Figured the easiest con was to pass yourself off as newlyweds, allowing you to sign his discharge papers and take him home when the time came.

“That’s new,” He rasps, head lolling to the side as he looks at you. “Who’s the lucky man?”

You crack a smile, “Oh, just some guy. Don’t worry, he treats me real nice.”

“He better,” His hand falls to your leg, grasping your thigh. “If he knows what’s good for him.”

It’s new, this thing between the two of you. Too soon to put any sort of name to it, and this is certainly not the time, nor the place. His thumb traces patterns against your thigh, nail scraping against the fabric every so often. You remind Steve that he should be resting right now and he tells you the same.

“Counter offer,” He says when you won’t budge, “I’ll rest if you lay down with me.”

It’s easy to grant his request. Slow hands smooth away the hair from his forehead, slides the sheet off his damp shoulders, growing warm with perspiration. You have to be delicate. Don’t want to startle him any more than he already is.

“Glad you’re here.” He says, hooking one hand under your back and turning you over until his front touches yours. You place your chin on top of his head, press kisses to his hair. Your hand grips his in the dim light, letting him know that wherever you are, his words are reaching. He squeezes back gently, head settling against your chest.

A sniffle. A shudder. A shiver as goosebumps break across his arms. Steve’s not entirely awake anymore— eyes sliding back shut, sleep’s grip too strongly clamped down. It had been an exhausting few days— rigorous missions heavy on your mind and body, torture and drug-induced interrogations wreaking havoc on his.

A tug to pull the covers up, encasing his body inside the cocoon and kissing his brow. Tender. Sweet. Pouring what little claim you had to a soul into it. Not even a week with Steve, and it’s mended the cracks inside you, pieced you back together better than before.

It’s gone past midnight now. Somewhere inside the second hand of liminality— not quite sleep and not totally awake, the weight atop your chest leaves. Where it was once perched and heavy, crowding the breath inside your lungs, choking the peace from your brain.

“Everyone sleeps.”

He sounds worried— but you’re not quite sure. He sounds far away.

You lean closer and close your eyes. “Evil doesn’t sleep, Steve… And neither do I— or so they say.”

“Hush.” There’s no bite in his retort. Only a breath of a laugh.

You sigh, the weight of the week taking over suddenly now that he’s near. Something about him. Soothing. Soft fabric settles over your shoulders and wraps around your arms. Then, a hold. Secure. Safe.

Warm, like a fire. Tender, like a lover.

“C’mere, honey.” Deep. Low timbre and sonorous. It runs up your spine and beckons oblivion.

There is darkness and a soft touches. He’s blue and gold in the dim light, holding you by the hand. A stroke of a finger across your cheek. “Even angels rest.”

October 11 1985

The impala idles in the Hawkins High parking lot as you wait for Eddie. It’s a Hellfire night, so you’ve brought a well-worn paperback to pass the time. The van is out of commission currently, waiting for parts to come in at the body shop. And Steve’s working the closing shift tonight with Robin. Thumbing the pages, you turn to a dog-eared page and begin to read.

Will all great Neptune's ocean wash this blood

Clean from my hand? No, this my hand will rather

The multitudinous seas incarnadine,

Making the green one red.

“Psh, get in line buddy,” You scoff, so taken with Macbeth’s unraveling, that you didn’t even see the double doors of the school burst open, the Hellfire members streaming forth.

Eddie saunters over with Henderson, Wheeler, and Sinclair in tow, chain clinking against his thigh rhythmically. Head turning at the sound, your lip curls into a smile as he opens the door and slides in the passenger seat.

“Hi,” He greets, hand falling to rest against your thigh while the kids pile into the backseat. “D’you mind dropping the gremlins off? Already told ‘em not to touch anything back there.”

“Not at all.” You chirp, earning a quick squeeze to your leg. “Just, uh, buckle up, I guess.” You turn to glance back as you reverse from the parking spot, catching Henderson’s curious gaze falling to Eddie’s hand at your thigh. “And if you see anything rolling around back there, no you didn’t. Capiche?”

The three boys nod, eyes wide and darting to the floorboards.

Ignoring Dustin’s eyes burning into the back of your skull, for now, you elect to drop him off first. Sending him down the sidewalk to his house with a perfunctory wave, your lips pulled in a straight line. That could be a problem.

Mike and Lucas are relatively quiet in the backseat as you drive through the suburban neighborhood streets. They’re polite and grateful, mumbled thanks and goodbyes from each as they shut the door and fumble for house keys. You wait until each has entered the house and given Eddie a wave before maneuvering to Loch Nora.

“Dustin’s getting suspicious.”

Eddie’s fingers flex against your thigh, thumb rubbing circles against the warm denim. But he says nothing, just uncomfortably clears his throat and taps his foot in time with Metallica’s “Creeping Death.”

Your hands grip the steering wheel, turning from one sleepy street to the next. It’s route memory by now, navigating back to Steve’s. If pressed, you could probably find your way blindfolded and dropped at any point in Hawkins. You knew that Eddie and Steve kept their distance in your absence, both unsure of how to proceed without you there as a buffer.

They get on well enough, if a bit haltingly. The boys starting high school this year brought them into each other’s orbit, but your presence cemented it, a red string fit for three. Not that it was exactly discernable to the naked eye, more of a feeling than anything. A steadying pressure against your left ring finger, cording you to them and them to you.

And, subsequently, them to each other as well.

It’s not something you’d personally encountered before, but there were murmurs and vague mentions of it in the forgotten texts. Whimsical notions at the whims of pulp romance authors and film executives, the basis for any romance worth its salt.

You kill the engine after pulling into the driveway, hands finding his before he can bolt.

“Hey,” You say, finger curling under his chin to lift his gaze. “I know this… arrangement isn’t the easiest.”

And his eyes, so wide and wet, stare back at you skeptically. Lacing your fingers together, you open your mouth to continue.

“It’s uh,” Eddie interjects, worrying his lip between his teeth, “It’s not hard for just me.”

You blink in response.

“Steve and I,” He continues, “We talk about it. Not much, obviously.” He sighs glancing toward the front door. His palm is damp against yours, eyes dart from your gaze, narrowing as they settle on Harrington as he shuts the door and walks toward the impala.

He leans agains the door, forearm slung against rolled down window. “Hey, thought we were doing dinner.”

Glancing from Eddie to Steve you let out an indignant huff. “Change of plans,” You turn the key in the ignition and rev the engine. “Get in, loverboy.”

Clearly your attempt to protect Steve and Eddie had failed in disastrous fashion. Sure, you could blame a myriad of things, your ridiculous work schedule, for one. But at the end of the day, it all fell on you really. If you had just taken the time to talk to them, maybe some of this tension could’ve been avoided. Or at least resolved.

But no, you didn’t do any of that. So instead, it festered.

Leaving hurt feelings on all sides and an increasingly jealous set of boyfriends. Just fucking peachy.

Pulling into a clearing of the forest on the outskirts of town, you kill the engine and stomp out of the car, pine needles trampling under your boots. Fisting the lapels of your trenchcoat your chest heaves, mind racing to find the words and tone that could explain this mess away.

Two car doors thud in the distance, lowered voices in conversation as Eddie and Steve walk further into the clearing.

What is going on?

Don’t look at me, man. Fuck if I know.

The guys stop walking a few paces away, sharing confused looks and shrugs as you continue further on.

It would be as easy as a flick of the wrist, but still there was hesitation. You hadn’t slipped up in years, centuries at this point, and never of your own volition— the orders had come from on high.

To reveal yourself for what you truly were would be— well, there wouldn’t be any going back after this. No greeting St. Peter at the pearly gates or whatever schlock they spouted now.

Judging the distance safe enough, you turn on your heel, slowly, always slowly so as not to startle. It was like wading through molasses most of the time, but something you had grown used to in your time among them.

The mortals, that is.

Seeing them across the clearing you steel yourself for the fallout. And you know, for all the tales of your kind the world over, it never failed that one person would fail to heed the warnings.

In their hands, you’d left Steve and Eddie with torn scraps of cloth and instructions to cover their eyes until you said otherwise.

Dusk was quickly falling. The once overcast blue sky receded into remnants of seafoam green and teal. There was no breeze; the air felt thick and humid as it coated their lungs with each inhale. It was also silent - no crickets or birdsong accompanied the evening.

The air around you stills, the sounds of the clearing— birdsong, subtle wind, chirps and chitters from the edges of brush— all of that falls away.

You cough lightly to clear your throat. “Wrap the cloth around your eyes, secure it tightly,” you instruct, “Otherwise, the light will blind you.”

Eddie huffs in agitation, “What the fuck are you talking about?” The strip of cloth remains in his hand as he bristles, “Some of us have things to—”

“Eddie.” Steve’s voice is low in warning before he moves to wrap the cloth over his eyes.

The temperature plummets drastically as the wind begins to howl. You monitor the storm clouds now crackling with lightning and rolling through the sky at an uncomfortable pace. Taking a tense breath in, they pause inhaling the tangy scent and taste of newly forged metal - sharp and pure at the back of their throats.

And with that, you slough the mantle from your shoulders.

Their bodily response is both sedate and swift in coming. Temporal reality feels as if it is both being stretched agonizingly apart and contracting back together too quickly. A demanding rain begins to fall but the droplets evaporate before falling to the ground - all too hot and cloying but the air is somehow refreshing and cool.

Eddie is sick, vomit splashing onto the ground and just missing their feet. Steve feels an acrid bile rising its way up their throat and makes an effort to stifle it.

The crackling lightning intensifies, all of which is your doing, and through a cloudbreak a white burst of flame appears. A monstrosity, really, stories tall with a white-hot heat as it lands in the clearing. A swath of the field is scorched beneath the beaming tower of flame.

An energy reverberates throughout their chests - a constant buzzing hum that defies all reason. A sniffle emanates from Steve, the cloth around his eyes bleeds with the precipitation of his tears - why he is crying he could not say as he stumbles to his knees; a shortness of breath that Eddie hasn’t dealt with in years comes upon him as he staggers to the ground.

“BE NOT AFRAID.”

A buzz, a sound, a feeling, an innate knowledge.

What was once a furious beam of white-hot flame has transformed into a divine being: six pairs of wings, countless phosphorescent eyes, stories tall, bedecked in arrays of gold and billowing white. The voice - if you can call it that - is soft as a lover’s caress but harsh and cacophonous at the same time.

“YOU HAVE CALLED.”

Every blaspheme, exalted prayer, cursed assemblage of words, tear strewn plea; they had all been heard. The odds had been weighed. There had been agreement. And here was the answer.

“YOU HAVE BEEN DEEMED WORTHY OF AID.”

A boom of thunder and the apparition vanishes.

Eddie rips off the bandage from his eyes and glances up to find a winged body fallen right where you’d been standing, scorch marks in a charred circle around you. He rises quickly and breaks into a run, Steve not long behind. He drapes his jacket over your prone form. Mindful of the enormous dove gray wings, he scoops up your lax figure and turns.

Eddie, who can’t seem to stop the silent tears as they track down his face, is the first to speak, “W-was that an…” he trails off, not wanting to shatter the illusion.

Before he can step forward Steve stops him with a hand to his shoulder - holding him in place. “This isn’t possible,” he mutters before growing in confidence, “That literally should not happen.”

Steve sighs and claps Eddie on the shoulder, “Welcome to the club buddy, we’ve all seen things that shouldn’t happen.”

“Is she bleeding?” Eddie asks from the backseat, your head resting on his lap.

You’ve been out cold since the clearing, as silent as the grave.

It’s more than a little unnerving.

Steve takes charge because Eddie can’t string more than a sentence together before going silent in shock.

He’s driving the impala back to his house, taking the back roads and speeding as if he could outrun the devil. He takes a moment to glance back, eyes going from Eddie’s cow-eyed stare to your limp body and back again.

”I dunno, is she? Can you staunch the flow with something?”

Eddie grabs the black bandana from his back pocket and gently turns you on your side.

Dull splotches have seeped onto the backseat, four to be precise. Eddie gently dabs the fabric at the four open wounds seeping a golden fluid. He clears his throat and glances up to meet Steve’s gaze in the rearview mirror.

“Harrington, I think we have an issue.”

Steve hums in assent and punches down on the gas pedal.

A soft groan falls from your lips as Eddie sets you down on the couch in Steve’s living room. His bandana is covered in this golden fluid, which he can only assume is something akin to blood. Modesty be damned because the wings are proving to be quite the problem, you’re gently turned onto your stomach so they can inspect your wounds.

The first appears at the nape of the neck, followed by the sprouting of two wings, further down three identical wounds lie all equally spaced and of the same size. They’re minor enough to clean and bandage. “Ichor,” Eddie guesses, as Steve returns with the first-aid kit.

Steve takes a step forward, “Eddie, the wounds need to be attended to first,” he says cautiously.

Nodding to Steve Eddie moves to the side. Allowing him to get out the gauze and bandages. He places a tube of neosporin to the side as well. Together they attend to the wounds, applying the salve and bandages as best they can before sitting back on their heels.

Eddie swallows audibly.

”Got any beer, Harrington?”

Steve snorts and does one better. He claps a hand on Eddie’s shoulder before rising and disappearing into a room just off the entryway, only to return with two glasses and a bottle of bourbon.

”Atta boy,” Eddie says, taking the bottle and opening it. He ignores the crystal glasses and takes a pull before handing it off to Steve.

With a deep sigh, Eddie begins: “She said we had called; what does that mean?”

Steve takes a sip of bourbon and shrugs, “Prayers, I guess.”

Eddie sighs, “Okay, sure. And how are you the expert here?”

He shrugs, “I think I’ve known for a while…” He reclines slightly on the carpeted floor, “I’ve known her for a few years now, but I met her after Barb disappeared. She said she was a detective and asked me a few questions.” He takes another drink. “After she left, I had the worst headache of my life and slept the day away. Woke up with dried blood in my ears.”

The room stills with an uneasy quiet.

“In that… form, I guess, she doesn’t really have a voice as we understand it,” He shifts slightly and leans forward, “Well, they do and they don’t. When we heard her ‘speak’ what did you hear?”

Eddie sighs and grabs the bottle from Steve. “I-I’m not sure,” He relents. “I felt this thing, like a vibration in my chest but I also heard something. Kinda soft, but strong?”

As he explains, Steve nods. “Yes, that’s how it is for me,” He ignores the fact that Munson can hear you as he can, for now. “From what I can tell, humans have adverse reactions to encountering the divine. Crying isn’t uncommon. And you threw up. Their arrival also brings about a natural feeling of supplication: falling to your knees and stuff.”

Eddie remains quiet and stoic as they take turns passing the bottle back and forth.

“How did you know?” He asks softly, concentrating on the amber liquid, “I mean, you’ve known for how long?”

Steve shifts uncomfortably.

“He saw me meditating,” a familiar voice supplies, low and husky from disuse.

Eddie jumps off the floor, out of his skin nearly, wheezing out a “Jesus Christ,” under his breath and brings the back of his closed fist to his lips. He turns, unable to settle his eyes at where you currently laze on the couch.

Two pairs of eyes fall to the form who can now speak. “Well,” You acquiesce, “Meditating is an unfortunate word for what transpired, nearly gave Steve a panic attack I’m sure.”

He smiles and huffs a laugh. “So that’s what that was,” He says, taking a step toward you. “How you feelin’?”

Eddie, having taken in the fact that he’s in front of a bonafide heavenly body, averts his gaze and busies himself with another drink. “So you’re an…” He trails off again.

“An angel,” Steve affirms, eyes not leaving yours.

A cock of your head, “In a general sense, yes.” A roll of the shoulder, flutter of wings.

And with that admission, Eddie killed the rest of the bottle.

Be not afraid, indeed.

You lie low for the next few days, regaining your strength, readjusting to the advent of visible wings.

Eddie ran back home to grab a bag of clothes and to let Wayne know he’d be at Steve’s for the time being. Meanwhile, Steve had tried to warn off the kids and Robin from dropping by, and made up some excuse about having the flu.

Things were quiet.

Steve made sure you were comfortable upstairs and hovered around anxiously, while Eddie remained jumpy and kept his distance.

It hurt and you tried to be brave about it.

More often than they knew, you could overhear Steve’s furtive whispers to Eddie about how nothing had really changed all that much. You were still the same as you’d ever been.

”She could literally kill us, Steve.”

You crouched at the top of the stairs, hidden by the balcony rail as they talked downstairs.

”Don’t be like that man.”

”Like what?” Eddie laughs despite himself, “Realistic? God-fearing? Did you even pay attention in Sunday school?”

”Uh, not really no.”

Eddie sets something down on the table with a bit more force than he’d intended.

”When God wants something done, a punishment doled out or a message sent, d’you know who does His bidding?”

”Angels.”

”Right. And everyone knows the most famous of them all.”

”Are you—“ Steve stops short, seeing a streak of gray on the upper floor. “She’s not the Angel of Death, Eddie. For fuck’s sake!”

”Yeah?” He volleys back, incredulous. “And how are we supposed to know that?”

”Because we know her.” Steve rises from his chair and makes his way out of the room. “She would never do anything to hurt us.”

”How can you be so sure?”

”I just—“ Steve pauses on the staircase, head turned back to face Eddie, hand gripping the railing hard enough to turn his knuckles white. “I can’t explain it man, I just know.”

”Well I don’t.”

A flapping sound, like a whoosh of air distracts them.

Two pairs of eyes, one whiskey-warm, and the other flecked with glimmers of gold and green follow your bumbling footfalls up the stairs, and out of sight.

They turn to each other in the inky blue, and maybe it begins there.

Steve knocked softly on the door as it creaked open, leaving you little time to quell your tear-stained cheeks. Doing your best to wipe them away, you make room for him on the bed.

Sitting at your side, he wastes no time in winding an arm around your hips and pulling you into his lap. Your wings retract ever so slightly, relaxing bit by bit into his grasp.

”Hi,” Steve’s voice had dropped into a low whisper, his thumb worrying along your hip.

A tingle runs down your spine and fans out across your wings and making your body tremble.

”Miss me?”

Your head drops to the juncture of his neck and shoulder, you can feel the tendons flex as he swallows.

”Not just you.”

”Give it some time,” He sighs, “This is new for him.”

His hands fall to rest on your hips before sliding slowly to the small of your back. His fingers caress their way up and down your back.

Shivering, you sit up and rest your head against his. Steve’s lips brush against yours lightly.

“I can hide them.”

”The wings?��

”Yeah, just glamour them like I have been.”

”Honey,” He sighs, breath ghosting along your lips. “I don’t think that—“

”Then what will Steve?” A laugh escapes you. “What can I do to get him back?”

”Eddie didn’t leave,” Steve points out. “For all his… concerns, he’s still here. That has to mean something, right?”

You shift in his lap, his lips grazing along your neck.

”Besides,” He says, voice soft, hands inching up your spine. “They like me.”

He nips at your ear and you lurch forward in a shudder, wings arching as tension coils in your body.

In all your years, you’d never met anyone as unflappable as Steve.

He was consistent, reliable, and easygoing.

But he was also insatiable.

”Okay,” You acquiesce, “That may be true.”

Steve’s fingers brushed ever so lightly along the base of your wings, sending a shudder straight through you.

Emitting a low whimper you move to draw back, to distance yourself because it shouldn’t feel like this, so wildly arousing.

”C’mon angel,” He cajoles, “It’ll help you relax.”

”Yeah?”

He presses a kiss to your temple, fingers tracing gently along the delicate bones and plumage, “Promise.”

A warm heat was gathering in your pelvis from his ministrations. It felt odd to have someone touch a part of you that none other had before. Odd, but not unpleasant.

”We’ll go slow.” His fingers brushed a spot that sent your back into an arch, your hips flush against his own, a gasp falling from your mouth.

Just outside the door, in the shadow of the hallway, Eddie can smell it in the air. A musky salty tang wafting through the air and into his lungs that ignites the kindling of his want.

His eyes ran up and down taking in the scene. The flush of Steve’s face and the sweat beading along your skin, illuminated by a warm yellow glow from the lamp on the side table. Eddie looks at you with a curious expression on his face.

Steve spots him as Eddie enters the room and shuts the door with a soft click. You turn suddenly in his grasp only to see that Eddie has recovered from his former shock and trepidation.

He can see your bare back flanked by gray wings fluttering every so often as Steve drags his finger along them. He’s managed to sidle his way within arms reach, expression growing more intent with each step.

A thrilled shiver slides down your spine at his approach, and you fail to suppress it as Steve kisses you hungrily. Eddie tries to swallow the feeling away but it catches in his throat.

You’re straddling Steve’s thigh and moving against it in slow winding orbits. The underwear sitting at your hips does nothing to keep the arousal smeared between your legs at bay.

Steve only pulls back as you're nearly gasping for air, trailing hungry kisses down your neck and jaw. Eddie’s eyes drop to the gleam at Steve’s thigh, how your slickness catches the dim light.

He’d watched you go earlier, cursing his stupid mouth as Steve trailed after you, feeling guilty and shitty for upsetting you.

It wasn’t worth it, he’d decided not long after. Given a choice between having you or losing you, there was no contest— he’d choose you every time.

Eddie shucks his clothes as he crosses to the bed, dropping his shirt, belt, and pants off haphazardly. Each step feels impossible, like quicksand, but he pushes through the heaviness of the room.

Facing him, your face is a mask of confusion, pleasure, and elation. He can see the exact moment that you relax, slumping slightly against Steve as he holds you upright, one hand extended toward him.

”E-Eddie?” His name falls like a tumble from your kiss-bitten lips. There’s a split second of modesty when you realize the state you’re in and move to cover yourself before Steve distracts you by nipping at the curve of your shoulder.

”Figure it out?” He mumbles with a pointedly raised brow in Eddie’s direction.

In lieu of response, Eddie simply lets you tug him down onto the bed before settling at your right, hand curling around your waist. He’s already rock hard, in awe as he watches you arch and shudder under Steve’s hands, hips winding slow against his thigh.

Your brain is positively spinning. Between Steve’s mouth biting and sucking along your neck and Eddie’s hand guiding your hips, you’re about to lose it completely.

Eddie marvels at how lightly Steve works his fingers against your wings, brushing along the undersides of delicate bones and soft feathers. Tentatively, he brings his free hand to the wing closest to him, a single finger stroking downward.

Your eyes nearly cross at his touch and you make an undignified noise lurching toward Steve with such a force that he falls back on the mattress. He grips your hips and moves you from his leg as Eddie’s breath ghosts along your neck. You’re turned around to face him, Steve pressing your back to his chest, the wings trapped between you.

”Hi baby,” Eddie’s husky voice sails into your ear.

You feel so small between them, impossibly so. Vulnerable and exposed in your skin. Steve bites down on your shoulder, and you nearly forget your own name. Too invested in Eddie edging closer to you. His hand trails up your wing in such a way that sends a spasm through your entire body.

A low, throaty moan slips up and out of your mouth as you push yourself and grip his shoulders. He turns his head enough for your lips to brush, his breath fanning out against your skin. His nose brushes yours as your lips descend, his mouth falling open in a harsh gasp.

Kissing Eddie is like coming home.

Warm and sweet, slow like honey.

”You,” He says pulling away, eyes so blown they’re nearly black, “Are the best thing. You’re amazing.”

Steve’s hand squeezes at your hip as your head drops back against him. The tip of Eddie’s tongue traces up your sternum before dropping a kiss at the hollow of your throat.

”Stop,” you say, “That’s not—“

Steve shushes you with a kiss to the top of your spine. “Listen to him angel.”

Deft fingers brush back your hair beginning the frizz in the heat.

“I know this thing between us,” He glances to Steve and back to you, “It’s … unconventional.” Eddie’s finger traces your cheekbones lightly. “And we’re doing our level best not to fuck it all up.”

From behind you, Steve nods in agreeance. His jaw grazing the nape of your neck, fingers trailing at the sensitive underside of your wings.

”And there’s been something we’ve been meaning to tell you for a while now.”

Your fingers still along the band of his boxers, his stomach muscles contract in anticipation.

“We love you,” He whispers, lips kicking up in a smile. “Every single part.”

”And we’ve got you.” Steve adds with a squeeze to your hips.

”That is, if you’ll have us.”

The simple admission lights a fire in your chest as you surge toward Eddie, teeth clacking against his in your rush to get your mouth on him. Steve’s accompanying laughter is a comfort at your back, his hands a welcome anchor at your hips.

There’s a slight pressure at your ring finger, a soft hum in the air as a thin red thread, nearly imperceptible, stitches the three of you together— a fool, a hanged man, and justice.

Eddie’s not sure if he believes in God now, or ever really did, but he believes in this. Thinks that if he had to choose and do it all over again he would, every single time.

But that’s the funny thing about fate, isn’t it?

It’s a relief, knowing that it’s all come down to this.

The soft morning light falls against your skin, warmed with fading vestiges of the autumn sun. Crisp white sheets tangled beneath your legs, a smattering of skin exposed; it was sweet, this tender sensation of thrumming in his veins.

Eddie’s staring.

Committing this moment to memory for the rest of his days; your face bathed in shafts of light relaxed in slumber, body sated warm twisted in an impossible position. His finger traces the knobs of your spine, a gossamer touch barely perceptible; you snuffle briefly and sigh against the pillow.

Steve rouses not long after, a tanned forearm thrown haphazardly over your exposed hip and blinks blearily.

Outlining the faded marks against your back Eddie’s body curls closer to you— three waxing crescents in the golden haze of morning. Steve rubs his thumb against the jut of bone at your hip, he knows nothing of divinity, but he hopes it’s something akin to this: sun-warmed, sweet, and pliable.

A lot like you.

You’re half-asleep, or so it would seem. But you gaze at them now coquettishly from beneath your lashes, all mischief and love— peering at him like a sunbeam through stained glass. Glorious in your benevolence, full of color and life.

This is why they would return to you, time and time again.

Self-admittedly, they know nothing of piety or faith, but they do know this: the slow smile of your pretty lips, dextrous fingers falling from the sheets to reach for them, and the desire to slip beneath your skin to the heart knocking in your chest—

That is devotion.

Sacred.

Holy.

[elementary-my-dear-daddy]

Earning Your Keep

Analogical (Virgil & Logan)

This story will be a series for the sugar daddy idea i've had running around in my head for some time now lmao. I really hope you guys like it since I enjoy writing it :)

Read it on AO3!

Virgil likes to take care of those he holds close, and maybe also a stranger that offered him a ride home.

Virgil was never rich. His family was big and his parents couldn’t make very many ends meet for most of his life, leading him to work his way through school. Once he graduated with a bachelors in psychology, he picked up two jobs to start paying off his loans, one in retail which drove his mental health into the ground, and the other as a behavioral health tech at a rehab center, which only had night-shift positions open and kept him up all night. He was paid and treated like shit, and on the cusp of breaking down when he got extremely lucky. For his 27th birthday he got the usual card with a cheesy message from his grandparents, but instead of the typical twenty bucks or a gift card, he found a lottery ticket sitting neatly inside. He didn’t think much of it, handing it over to the convenience store clerk when he was picking up an energy drink before his next shift.

“I don’t think this is worth anything, but if it has anything on it can I just use it to pay for this?” Virgil put his drink on the counter while the clerk scanned the ticket.

“Woah, woah. Oh my god.” 

“What?”

“Dude, you just won.”

“Huh?” Virgil knit his brow in confusion. He glanced over at the cashier’s screen, noticing the rather large number it displayed.

“Yeah, you won the jackpot! It’s over like 200 million! Holy shit! Here, sign it and take it to a lawyer!” The person handed him back the slip of paper and a pen. Virgil’s brain had short-circuited, causing him to just follow instructions. He didn’t really understand what was happening, so he just took the ticket back and walked out and back to his car, driving straight home and immediately typing ‘what to do if you win the lottery’ into his computer.

A bunch of results came up saying a bunch of stuff- tax experts, lawyers, and a bunch of steps that caused Virgil to lay down on his bed and rock back and forth for a little while. He didn’t believe this was happening to him. Maybe it wasn’t real? This was just a nightmare right? A really good bad nightmare.

All the things he saw online said not to tell anyone, but he couldn’t just sit there not making a decision. He picked up the phone and dialed the only person he knew who could possibly help him out.

~~~~~~~~~~

“You what ?” Janus’ voice hissed through the speakers on Virgil's phone, “Is this some weird joke, because it isn’t landing well.”

“No, no, I promise it's real, I-I checked and the numbers match up and I verified it at the gas station and, and-”

“Virgil, breathe. Calm down. I’m coming over so we can talk. I’ll help you get this figured out, and make sure you aren’t having delusions of grandeur.” Janus sighed, “I’ll be there in 10.”

Janus was over shortly, Virgil working with him to figure out the next course of action. Everything was going so fast. The next day Janus helped him set up meetings and accounts, and get lawyers and a budget going. The week flew by in between the contracts and calls. Even the next few months seemed to go by in a blur of bureaucratic processes. 

The first thing he did was set his parents up with a decent place to live and help them with their debts and medical bills. He did the same for himself, getting his student loans paid off finally and allowing himself to move into a spacey yet cozy penthouse. He quit both his jobs, but tried to end on a good note with his boss at the clinic in case he did ever want to go back. He was, probably for the first time in his life, comfortable.

~~~~~~~~~~

Time kept passing and Virgil had to now figure out what he wanted to spend his time on. He’d picked up his passion for music again now that he could afford nice equipment, but never had the intent to go anywhere with it. He looked into some online classes he could take, just for fun and to keep his mind stimulated. He even worked with Janus and some of his lawyers to start a charity for helping disabled students with loans that didn’t have the luck that he had. That was as close to a job as he had, once they had an office set up he made a regular schedule to help sort things out with it.

The routine he made helped him adjust to his new life. Getting up, going to the office, processing applications, working on his classes and playing music. He didn’t really spend his money anymore beyond his needs. Nothing fancy brought him much happiness. He didn’t host parties or have many friends that hung out with him before he became well off. He’d tried to go on a few dates, but the people he’d seen either knew him from the news when he originally won or they’d act disinterested until he brought up his money. The one time he actually thought he’d found someone he was interested in, the guy had thrown a fit that he wanted to end their 3rd date early to not have a panic attack.

They went to a planetarium, which for the most part Virgil enjoyed, but the segment about how small of a spec the earth was in the grand scheme of the universe triggered the existentialist anxiety of dying alone and not mattering. He had to run out and go calm down, but that proved difficult with his date shouting.

“Do you know how fucking rude it is to just run out on your date? I had to pay for these tickets, you know, and they aren’t cheap!”

“I-I know, i’m sorry, I can, um, here I’ll pay you back-” Virgil started to reach for his wallet.

“Whatever, it’s fine, let’s just see if they’ll let us back in, cmon.” The guy tugged at Virgil’s arm.

“Um…Actually I was wondering if…s-sorry uh, could- could we just go home?”

“What, are you not having a nice night? You could at least not waste my time, you know.” 

“I know, I'm really sorry, we should- maybe, uh… you can go and I’ll just head home and call an uber-”

“Ugh are you serious?” His date frowned, “You know what? Just go, I don’t wanna deal with this anymore. Don’t call me again, we’re done.” 

He watched his date head back into the planetarium and sighed, resigning himself to a bench outside to shake off the rejection. He shivered as a spike of anxiety hit him. He had to count his breaths, but it wasn’t working. He was gonna end up alone and live a completely inconsequential life that had no impact whatsoever and-

“Are you alright?”

Virgil looked over at a man a few feet away from him. He stood tall, sporting glasses and a polo with the logo of the planetarium. Virgil didn’t couldn’t quite make out the name on the man’s name tag through his watery eyes. Oh shit, was he crying? No no no this couldn’t happen in public, he was a grown man crying in public-

“Oh, apologies, I didn’t mean to startle you. I just thought I should intervene.” The man looked at Virgil with concern, “May I sit?”

Virgil nodded, easing slightly as he did. He took a shaky breath and wiped away his tears, “I-I’m so-sor-ry. I could-n’t stay in there. S-sorry.”

“There’s no need to apologize, take as much time as you need to gather yourself.” He spoke calmly. His tone comforted Virgil enough to steady his breathing and collect his thoughts.

“I’m…I’m good. Sorry.” Virgil sighed, “Just had a shitty date.”

The man frowned, “I see. Was he your ride home?”

Virgil nodded, “Figured I’d just get a cab or something.”

“Don’t waste your money, my shift just ended. If you’re comfortable with it I’d be happy to offer you a way home.”

“No no I can’t, I mean- It’s fine it’s not like money’s the issue I just don’t wanna leave him here alone.”

“After he just left you?” 

Virgil looked towards the doors of the planetarium. He slumped his shoulders in resignation, “I guess you’re right.”

“I don’t mean to intrude on your personal affairs, but he is not worth your time if he does not respect your boundaries, and I don’t feel comfortable leaving you in a potentially unsafe environment. I would feel much more assured if I knew you returned home unharmed.”

“Fuck it, ok.” Virgil sighed. He looked over at the man and was able to see him a little more clearly. His name tag attached to a Dr. Who lanyard read Logan in bold font. He looked rather lanky and had bags under his eyes comparable to Virgil’s own.

“Would you like another minute to calm down or would you like to walk with me to my car now? I don’t mind waiting.”

“Uh, no, we can go now. Th-thank you, um, Logan.” Virgil offered a half smile.

“Of course, uh…”

“Virgil.”

“Virgil.” The man- Logan, stood up and motioned for the other to follow him.

Virgil stood and accompanied him to the car. It wasn’t the fanciest thing in the world, far from it. It looked like one of the windows had been punched out and was covered with cardboard and duct tape. It looked like an older car, and when they got in Logan had to start the engine a few times before it actually got running. 

“Please excuse the state of my car,” Logan said pulling his seatbelt on, “I’d fix the window on my own if I could but I’ve been too busy to do so. Here, do you mind putting your address in so I can get directions?”

Logan handed Virgil his phone, the other quickly inputting the info and handing it back. Virgil fastened his own seatbelt as they drove out of the parking lot.

“So, you work at the planetarium?”

“My shirt indicates so.”

“Right.” Virgil nodded, “What started that?”

“I needed a part-time job to work during nights while I attended college. I studied astronomy and a professor recommended applying for the position. The job just stuck after I graduated.” 

“That sounds pretty cool. You get to go to all those shows, right?”

“No, I get to sit in the ticket booth.” 

“Oh.” Virgil looked out the window as they drove, “I didn’t realize.”

“It's alright,” Logan said, shrugging, “I’ve seen them all anyway, when I had more free time.”

“You can’t take a day off?”

Logan’s lips pursed, “Not really. I work two other jobs.”

They both spent the rest of the ride in silence until the car approached the area where Virgil lived.

“You…live over here?” Logan questioned, looking around at the tall, well-kept buildings of the city.

“Um, yeah. I guess.” Virgil sheepishly rubbed the back of his neck, “I moved here a few months ago. Doesn’t feel like it though.”

Logan hummed in acknowledgement, still looking around at how different this place seemed compared to where he lived. He pulled up to a decorative building with too many stories to count from his view. He parked the car and turned to Virgil.

“Thank you for allowing me to take you home. I’m sorry you had a rough night but hopefully you’ll find someone else that will accommodate your needs appropriately.” Logan offered a smile.

Virgil returned it, before clumsily reaching to take off his seatbelt and pull out his wallet, “Uh, here.”

He offered a wad of cash to Logan, who in return pushed it back, “No, please don’t worry about covering gas. It isn’t far from my-”

“Take it. Get your window fixed too. And if you need anything else just, um, give me a call or something. Thanks again, Logan.” Virgil said, getting out of the car and shutting the door.

Logan watched him greet the doorman (his building had a doorman?) and head to his apartment, before staring down at the cash. It added up to about $350, plus Virgil's business card. He blinked and debated trying to go after him, but decided he wouldn’t be able to find him since he didn’t know which apartment was his. He pulled out his own wallet and stuffed the cash inside. The card Virgil had given him had his name and number, along with the name of a charity Logan heard the name of a few times from the news. This was too much to process, so Logan just put the card in with the cash and drove home. That was a problem for someone much more well rested.

~~~~~~~~~~

Virgil flopped down on his bed as soon as he got home. He pulled out his phone and immediately blocked his date’s number, writing him off as just another insensitive asshole trying to take advantage of him. He let his mind relax in the safety of his home and tried to just forget about tonight. Except Logan. He couldn’t get him out of his mind.

Working two jobs had Virgil on the verge of a panic attack almost every night, he couldn’t imagine working three like Logan had. And how long had he been driving that car? Wasn’t it dangerous to drive when your engine doesn’t turn over and you don’t have a window? Those bags under his eyes, was he not sleeping well? Was the money he gave him enough to cover everything? 

Virgil exhaled through his nose and flipped onto his back. These were morning problems. Or at least wake up at 3 am and worry about life problems. He glanced at his clock- 10:30. Definitely something to deal with tomorrow.

[tarnishedxknight]

Historic Feud || open to mutuals

{ This starter involves Basch and Drace in their MCU verses. Any muses who might be there and observe or step in can jump on this starter. Feel free to say that any of my other muses are there as well, or if your muse would run to get another of mine to help them break up the fight. I can run with whatever you want to do with it! =) }

"Dalmascan!" Drace called across the grounds. This had gone on long enough. Ronsenburg had paraded himself around the compound, accepted by the Avengers as some sort of valuable asset, while Gabranth was treated with all the condescension and dismissal one might show a petulant child. Drace could abide it no longer. Gabranth deserved more, he deserved better, and Ronsenburg should not be allowed to escape his sins unscathed. "We have a score to settle," she said, facing him unafraid, despite the grave injuries she suffered at his hands in their own time.

Basch was positively weary of this. Even now, even here in this unfamiliar time, Archadia was still waging war. There was so much anger in people like Drace for people like him, and he simply did not understand why. A difference in lands? Leaders? Sigils? Names? Was that all worth the violence and bloodshed? The suffering and the death? Hadn't Archadia had their fill of this yet? "You would continue old feuds, when nearly all we fought for is already lost?" he asked.

"Consider it a promise kept," Drace said sternly.

"I would prefer a lesson learned than promises kept," Basch said. "We've begun anew here. Why continue this hatred?"

"Because there are those of us who still hold honor in high regard," Drace replied.

"What honor is there to be found in this? I've no personal issue with you. The lands we fought for are gone. Let go of your hatred," Basch said.

"Do not preach to me as though you are some pristine, holy saint!" Drace yelled. "This has nothing to do with our lands, but personal issue? Aye, that is another matter entirely. You stand in insult to one you should have protected, one you should have valued more than your own pride! One I have cared for, supported, and loyally stood by in your place! You should have been there for him! But arrogance, righteousness, and hollow selfishness under guise of virtue meant more to you than your own kin, your own blood! And now you strut about this place, a preening bird flashing his colors to misdirect and impress, and all the while what you call honor is nothing more than lies!"

She was refaced now, losing control of her emotions yet again, for Drace felt so passionately about this that there was no way it could not affect her in an extreme way. "You have fooled them all here, but not I. I know you for who you truly are, and I shall not allow you to forget it. Their treatment of him has been nothing short of disrespectful, and you, with your insistence upon proving yourself the better in their eyes, are to blame!"

Basch's brow furrowed as he realized... this was not about Archadia vs. Dalmasca at all. It was not about the war, nor politics, nor different sovereigns served. This... was about... Noah. An ache settled in Basch's chest as he realized Drace loved him. It was written there in the emotion in her eyes, the tension in her stance. This was about honor, yes, and she was defending Noah's. "Thank you... for being there for my brother when I was not," Basch said sincerely. "I am truly grateful to you for that."

"Spare me your false humility! I am not so easily deceived as others here," Drace said. With that, she tossed him a broadsword. The Avengers had accommodated the Ivalicians by stocking some weapons they were more accustomed to wielding in the training gym. Drace had two smaller swords for herself. They were not her cherished weapons she had used as a Judge Magister, but she was proficient with many different weapons forms, and against a predictable knight, these would do just fine. "We settle this now. No more talk. No more running away from the past."

Basch caught the sword by its grip and let out a soft sigh at her words. "Very well," he said wearily, knowing that he deserved this for what he'd done to Noah. And he would lose this fight, he also knew, for he could not harm the woman his brother loved, nor someone who was a source of support for him.

And so it began. Steel on steel, the two warriors battled once more, a swift and savage dance of skill and emotion, pain and determination, love and hate...

[peculiarreality]

Hello 🖖🏻

I giggled when I spotted Gary? Gaaary.

So would you please tell me more about that WIP and also The Devil Went Down to Georgia (But He Wasn’t Expecting the Zombie Apocalypse) ?

Hello!

So, 'Gary? Gaaary.' is a fic in a series I've been (very slowly) working on about Fallout 3. There's a Vault in Fallout 3, Vault 108, where all of the living residents are clones of this one man named Gary. The only word they can say is 'Gary', and in-game it's kind of hilarious!

The Garys are hostile in the game, but 'Gary? Gaaary.' is about a Gary clone who ends up following the main character of the series around as a companion.

Here's an excerpt!

"Gary?" Kenickie stared down at the clone and blinked. "You're not attacking me?" he asked, lowering his pistol. The clone shook his head. "Gary. Gaaary." He stood up slowly and held his empty hands out. His intent was clear, he didn't want to fight. "You're not going to attack me?" "Gary."

As for 'The Devil Went Down to Georgia (But He Wasn't Expecting the Zombie Apocalypse)', that one's about the 4-player zombie apocalypse game Left 4 Dead 2, which takes place in Georgia.

The premise is basically just, "What if Nick (one of the Survivors) was part demon, and Ellis (another survivor) was a monster hunter?" and it came from someone else mentioning something that happened in one of their games.

And here's an excerpt of that under the Read More! (Warning for mentions of gore, it's a zombie apocalypse after all!)

"Wow. Seriously, Ellis, you really outdid yourself this time." Flames licked the floor and the side of the car from the gas can Ellis had blown up as Nicolas Bianchi spoke, calmly standing in the middle of the mini inferno. He dropped the remnants of the gas can and stepped forward, out of the flames that seemed to almost part before him. "Oh, save it," he muttered as Ellis crossed himself. "It's not going to do anything and you just look stupid doing that." The gambler's eyes burned red, the only indicator that he was anything but human. Ellis stared for a bit, and Nick could only imagine what was going through his mind. Probably some prayer, if he was as God-fearing as the rest of this shitty town. But then Ellis came running up to him and shoved, sending him reeling straight back into the dying fire as a Hunter landed where he'd been. The mechanic raised his shotgun and slammed its stock into the leaping zombie's jaw, stunning it and sending it sprawling. "Holy shit, Nick, that was damn close!" he exclaimed as he leveled the twin barrels at its face. A quick pull of the triggers and both barrels emptied into its skull, sending bits of blood, brain, and bone across the ground. "You alright?" he asked as he held out a hand. This time, it was Nick's turn to stare. Never before had his, for lack of a better word, demonic nature been ignored in favor of saving his life, especially not in the South. "Yeah, I'm fine, kid..." He accepted the hand anyways and let Ellis pull him to his feet. "Why aren't you, you know..." "Runnin' and screamin' about brimstone an' hellfire?" At Nick's nod, he shrugged. "Iunno, I guess ya just ain't that scary. Always thought demons'd look like the ones in Doom, but you just look like a man. An' I was always told demons was evil, but you just been helpin' us since we met. An' ma always wanted me to think fer myself. She'd be mighty disappointed if I treated ya like a freak fer bein' what y'are." He gave Nick a slightly uneasy smile, in which Nick could almost see a trace of fear. "Besides, man, it's a zombie apocalypse. Can't choose yer fellow survivors, ya know? An' it's always better to get along with those yer survivin' with."

Thank you so much for asking about my WIPs! ♥ I hope to eventually finish them both... ^^;

[mysticstarlightduck]

Find the Word Tag Game!

Thanks for the tag, @stesierra! I have been tagged for this many times before, and always wanted to try it, though at the time most of my WIPs were very early in the drafting process and I couldn't find the right words to fit the game.

Now, I'm going to try to do it! I'll choose excerpts from multiple WIPs of mine to make sure I find all the words.

My words are: Demon, Habit, Erase, and Slaughter.

Demon -

(Snippet extracted from Enchanted Illusions)

Context: After escaping from a group of monster hunters, Evangeline and Clarence - her vampire best friend who was deeply injured in the prior confrontation - are chased into an old cathedral by the leader of the vampires. With no other choice, Evangeline makes one last stand against the hunter, alone, to protect her injured friend.

[...] “It is a demon! A beast unworthy of mercy, an unholy creature of the night which needs to be eradicated from this land. Step out of the way, child, and let this be done.” The leader of the hunters said pragmatically, though she knew he was just being condescending. Evangeline stands her ground against the hunter, even as he steps closer. Behind her a wounded Clarence lay on the ground of the cathedral, keening brokenly as blood flowed down from the gash at his side, a steady red stream making a puddle underneath him. Evangeline knew her friend was losing far too much blood, even for what a vampire could physically handle. They were running out of time.

“He is not a demon, he’s a person. Clarence is just as human as any of us, and he doesn’t deserve this! In the time we’ve spent together he’s only shown me kindness  - which is a thousand times more than I can say for you, Barnaby. All you ever did was torture him and try to kill us.”

Thunder crackled on the storm outside, and the so-called holy man glared at the answer, his polite facade fading away just as easily as it’d appeared.

“I’ll only say this one more time, girl. Step away, or I will be forced to treat you as a threat as well.”

Evangeline scoffed, shakily leveling her thin sword at him as she braced herself to defend her friend. “I’m not going anywhere. If you want to hurt him again, you’ll have to get through me. Let’s see how well this ends this time - how’s the eye, hunter?”

Barnaby narrowed his eyes, the fresh scar across the left side of his face crinkling as a reminder of their last confrontation. Fury filled his features, and a disdainful smile came next. 

“I see that this demon has corrupted you too. A shame really, you had so much potential.” Barnaby said, reaching for his weapon - a wickedly sharp scimitar forged from the finest silver. Evangeline held back the urge to recoil when she saw the sharp tip glimmering in the candlelight. 

And with that, he struck and the fight began. One attacking to destroy and kill, and the other fighting to defend the one she loved. [...]

Habit -

(Snippet extracted from Open Secret Files)

Context: Manipulated by his superiors, Theo Stallard - a young detective - finds himself in a dire situation he never intended to happen, and which will have very bad consequences, for himself, his family, and his friends, as the villains frame him for a crime he did not commit.

[...] “This villain will pay for his crimes,” The government officer said coldly. “We have our methods, he’ll regret ever crossing this line, and will tell us everything about his operation, do not worry, detective.”

Atlas snarled, struggling against the agents holding him back, only to receive a swift punch in the ribs. With a cry, the young man doubles over, coughing. The Director smiles. 

Theo winces, concern and doubt growing within him. This is wrong, it isn’t what he worked for.

“The investigation isn’t through yet. You’ve got no right to arrest him without proof, much less to physically harm him.”

Atlas looked up at Theo, shocked. The Director looks to the young detective, answering him with a dangerous smile. 

“I will do as I please. Whatever it takes to get this superhuman under control - he is a threat just for existing unchecked, and one I will not allow. He has committed crimes, I just haven’t found physical proof of it, and when I finally do, it’ll be the last nail on his coffin. Vigilantism is a nasty habit, and it will not be tolerated on my watch, as you should know.”

She paused, lowering her voice and leaning closer. 

“And I believe I don’t need to remind you that your brother was involved in this case and that your part in the capture of this vigilante is the only reason he hasn’t yet been arrested. You’d want to keep things this way, wouldn’t you, Mr. Stallard?”

Theo grimaced. “This wasn’t the deal. You lied to me, you all did. I was only supposed to retrieve the lost files, you never said anything about arresting someone without a single shred of evidence.” He glares.

“Stop being difficult, detective. We’ve all got prices to pay and you’ve done your part. You’ve got a promising career ahead of you, and I can ensure it stays that way, or not. It all depends on your silence.”

“I won’t let you do this. You won’t get away with it - I’ve read the files. Yeah, I did. And you know what I found? Your entire operation is a farce, a scam to tamper with the limits of human DNA, and for what? To build a perfect soldier. Someone who can control the mutants and superhumans you so despise. This is more than illegal, and I refuse to be a part of it.”

The Director shakes her head, disappointed. 

“You do know how to make things difficult, don’t you?”

Before Theo could answer, the Director pulled something that looked like a small pistol from under her jacket and shot. A glass dart lodged itself in his shoulder, and everything went numb. As he fell to his knees, limbs shaking and twisting at the effects of the serum, the Director walked over to him.

“Ah, ah, don’t you fret. This is just a serum, you’ll be asleep in a moment.” She knelt down before him. Theo tried to move his arms and push her away, but his limbs didn’t seem to respond to him, as if weighed down by rocks. The Director reached for the bag behind him, shuffling through its contents until she found what she was looking for - a folder containing the incriminating files. “You did a very good job, my boy. It’s a pity you’ll spend the rest of your life in jail for stealing government property, once the news gets notified of how you went rogue.” She patted his shoulder condescendingly, rehearsing her lie, before a smile crept up on her pink lips “Don’t worry, though, I’ll take good care of your little brother. With his talents, he would be perfect for my tests, don’t you think?”

Theo whimpered indignantly, trying to get up but not moving a muscle, his vision hazy as the woman stood up. 

The last thing he saw, as consciousness slipped away, was the outline of an armored car driving away, then it all faded to darkness. [...]

Erase -

(Snippet from Supernova Initiative, funny scene)

Context: Spending some time on the main planet of the Dantraxxi System, the team seeks to relax and lay low after multiple chaotic confrontations with the intergalactic wars. Pax decides to try and fix a very broken race ship for the sake of partaking in a local race, but his trial and error to get the old piece of metal to fly leads to some hilariously chaotic interactions as it crashes onto the station.

Pax clambered out of the fallen racecraft. Behind him, greasy smoke billowed from the motor and he noted that the ship had left deep drag marks on the metal floor, a tell-tale trail from where it’d crashed. Gears stuck together on the engine, creating a high pitched whirring sound before flying in all directions, making Pax jump.

In front of him, just a few feet away, he saw Kailathell holding a tablet with a smug look on her face, narrowing his eyes - and promptly discarding his goggles, darkened with grease and soot - he finally understood why she was chuckling, as the hologram came into view. The footage of his not-so-glorious attempt at flying the makeshift ship was looping on the screen. 

“Oh hell no. Erase that! Erase it right now!” 

Kai shook her head, laughing. 

“Nah, fun-size, this one’s for the scrapbook! It’s too glorious to throw away. I think I’ll call this: moments before the disaster. The future needs to see this.” She spun around playfully when Pax tried to take the tablet from her hands, too easy to avoid. Impatient, the teen was nearly jumping around her, but it only made his friend laugh more.

“Give me that!” He lunged for the tablet, only for Kai to hold it high above her head, making it impossible for his human height to reach.

“Ah, ah, ah…. No you don’t” 

Pax jumped a few times, growing impatient with the realization that it was completely out of his reach as the alien girl stood still. Behind her, Pax saw his brother walk by.

“Aw, come on, that’s not fair! Ethean, do something!”

Ethean took one look at the chaotic situation of his brother and their friend and shook his head with a barely restrained laugh as he walked away. “You’re on your own for this one, bro.”

Pax scoffs, turning back to Kai, who still had her arm held high, a smug, victorious grin on her face. Though irritated, Pax can’t keep the laugh out of his voice. “You’re literally impossible when you want to be, you know that, Kai?”

The alien smiles. 

“Yes, yes I do. And I am proud of it. You’re not taking this tablet from my hands, ever, baby!” Kai  did a little twirl, before pointing the tablet on his direction. When he made a grab for it, she swiftly pulled it back, before he could even touch it.

Pax smiled, challengingly.

“Fine. I’ll just hack into it later anyways.” Kai sticks her tongue out, placing her tablet onto her backpack. “I’d like to see you try, human boy.”

She walks away, and Pax follows her with her eyes. On the background, the other members of the team walk by, and he overhears their conversation, turning around to realize they’d been standing there the whole time. 

“You owe me 20 credits.” Cassiopeia says, contemplating the wrecked race ship before them, with her hand extended to Aleks. 

“Ugh, fine.” The young mechanic sighs, reaching into his pockets and pulling out a few dirtied Dantraxxian credits. Cassiopeia proudly pockets them as the sputtering of the ship them slowly goes  silent.

Pax tilted his head, amused.

“You guys had been betting on me?”

Cassiopeia dismissed him with a flick of her hand.

“Nah, betting against you. Aleks thought that the piece of space junk you claimed to fix would last 10 minutes in the race, I was more realistic. Bet on 5 minutes, guess who won?”

Pax made a face at the young space pirate, which she returned in equal fashion. Beside her,  Aleks grinned genuinely, trying to be reassuring.

“You’ll get the hang of it, Pax! When I started fixing ships most of them exploded, so crashing is actually one step ahead.”

For a moment, Pax only blinked, trying to decide if the mechanic had been joking, only to realise his friend was being utterly serious. “That’s so reassuring, thanks.” Pax replied, a deadpan look on his face. 

Aleks gave him a thumbs up as he walked away.

“Always here to help.”

Cassiopeia laughed and walked towards Pax. “Come on, let’s get you out of these beat-up clothes and into something presentable. We're going to the city, I know a tremendous ice cream place on this planet, you’ll love it. Plus, we’re just joking. Though the crash was - indeed - the most hilarious thing I ever watched through a camera system, the ship was too beyond repair anyways.”

“Yeah, ice cream sounds amazing! And um, yeah, I kinda should have seen the crash coming when I chose to fly that ship in the first place, so no hard feelings”

He giggled, and Cassie smiled. “Good, let’s go then!” [...]

Slaughter -

(Snippet from The Last Wrath)

Context: Trapped in the royal court of the Capital city of the Morosyn Empire, Luciaya voices her dreams of one day escaping and going home to freedom. Her best friend, Quinn, a royal courtesan, has different thoughts on the concept of freedom in the Empire, and in doing so reveals his tragic past to his deeply worried friend.

“If the plan works and we’re lucky enough, we can go home one day. Wouldn’t that be great?” Luciya said, looking at the purple birds flying freely above the Imperial City’s many spirals.

“What home?” Quinn asked, bitterly leaning over the castle’s marble parapet, eyes fixed on the arena below them, where the festival’s fights had begun. “There’s no home to return to, my friend… At least not for me. Not while they rule over every aspect of our daily lives.” He said, running his fingers pensively over his gold bracelets, gifts from his many patrons.

He looks up at Luciya with a sigh, before staring straight ahead, eyes jaded as he begins his explanation.

“Let me give you some perspective then. A few years ago, I lived in a village in the Arkellyan province of Kyreen. The Morosyn Dynasty had conquered the kingdom's capital more than a decade prior, that’s true, but there were some provinces yet untouched that remained free. Kyreen was one of those places. The Emperor, and his army, would soon change that.” He paused, eyes fixed on the gladiatorial combat below, wincing at the sound of metal against metal. 

“My village resisted bravely, and the Emperor - long may he live” He sarcastically spat the last bit, a touch of deep disgust in his mellow voice at the imperial salutation, mocking the voice of the Imperial nobles who said it. “He wanted to make an example out of us. Long story short, the royal army slaughtered my village, and… almost everyone died. A few of us were selected to be sent as slaves to the Empire, to ‘prove the efficiency of his Warlords’ - for outstanding traits. Some were the strongest, or more important, more… beautiful.” He looked at his hands blankly and shook his head. 

“And now, here I am. It’s been five years. I haven’t seen a glimpse of the world outside the Imperial City for five years, and I am to entertain a nobility that I despise. A dancer who has no say on whose music he dances to.”

There was venom in his words, eyes aimed sharply at the nobles sitting on the other side of the stadium, who were cheering joyously on the gruesome battles below with gilded garments and fresh wine. Quinn scoffed, turning around and leaning on his elbows, so his back was turned to the unsavory scene before them. He shrugged tiredly, looking up to Luciya, who was now staring at the conflict below with a haunted look.

“So, you see? We’re all trapped here. We’re all slaves - to an arena,” He gestured vaguely with his head to the gladiators fighting below “to our beauty, or our debts. Even to our names and ideals. It doesn’t matter. Really. All the roads lead to that fancypants princeling seating high above everyone in his golden chair, laughing at our blood that pays for it. While that guy is alive, we’ll never truly be free. And we’ll never truly be safe.”

Quinn pushed himself away from the marble parapet, swiping a piece of candy from the pristine table of a soldier beside them. He quirked his head at Luciya, before smoothly walking away. “Food for thought.” [...]

Your words: sharp, tug, lovely, shimmering

Tagging (gently with no pressure): @clairelsonao3, @rickie-the-storyteller, @writernopal, @tabswrites and @elshells

[gcngnirgirl]

She stared at the picture that was on the nightstand. A picture before she learned of what type of person Miku really was, before she even knew that Miku didn’t think of her as just a friend.

Back when she had shorter hair, before she’d let it grow out of her own volition. It was in her bedroom for some reason, and Hibiki didn’t know why.

It was a relic of ages past. A relic of her younger, more naive years. But she froze upon hearing the same voice from back then, too.

“Hibiki...” She was standing in the doorway. Hibiki continued to stare at the picture before slowly looking at the girl who had decided to give her the cold shoulder and an abusive treatment over a secret that she’d kept for her own safety. “Hibiki, I-”

“Shut up.” Hibiki stated. “Are you the one who put this here?”

“We’re friends, Hibiki, so I thought you might like-”

“We’re not friends, Miku. We stopped being friends when you decided to shut me out over something that I was keeping for your own safety.” She grabbed the picture, throwing it at Miku. There was a slight satisfaction hearing the shattering of the glass. Oh, how she wished it had hit Miku. “‘We don’t keep secrets from each other’, when you could’ve been in danger! You know how much that hurt me, Miku?! I thought you had been my friend, and would understand that it was for your own good!”

“Nothing should’ve been kept secret from me!” Miku shouted back. “You and I never kept secrets from each other, so why start then?!”

“Yeah, right! You kept it a secret you were going to Lydian up until you learned of how everyone was treating me after the incident! Oh, and let’s not forget you literally abandoning me at a concert for a duo I didn’t know of! I bet the whole Aunt-in-an-accident thing was a lie and you just wanted me to be alone!”

“You are mine, Hibiki! Your love, your body, everything! Mine!” Miku stepped over the picture frame, heading towards Hibiki. “And I’m not letting you go anymore... We’ll be together forever.”

“I’m not your friend anymore, Miku. Accept it and move on.” Hibiki said.

“No. Because you’re all I have. You cruelly cut me out and forgot I even existed. I wanted to remind you, Hibiki, that I’m your only friend and your only love.” As Miku continued to advance, Hibiki looked towards the window. They were pretty high up, but she wasn’t going to stay here with Miku.

Turning to the window, Hibiki ran at it and tucked her body as she crashed through the glass.

“Balwysiall nescell Gungnir tron.” The holy chant came easily, as Hibiki adorned the armor of the Symphogear, Gungnir. Jumping onto the roof of the nearby building after landing on the ground, she stared at the girl staring up at her from the broken window. Miku was yelling something at her, but she could care less about that. Turning away, scarf fluttering in the cold winter air, Hibiki started to jump from roof to roof to put distance between her and Miku.

“I need to find a new place to live,” Hibiki murmured to herself as she hopped onto a skyscraper. “Away from Miku, and a place she’ll never find me at.”

[princeofgod-2021]

LIGHT OF LIFE 372

John 1:4

UNDERSTANDING PROPHETIC MANDATES 6: SECRETS THINGS 6

Amo 3:7 CERTAINLY, THE ALMIGHTY LORD DOESN'T DO ANYTHING UNLESS HE FIRST REVEALS HIS SECRET TO HIS SERVANTS THE PROPHETS. GW

Last lesson, we discussed how God hood winked the devil. But do you also know that this same CODE was hidden in Prophecy of old through Isaiah?

Read the following scripture please.

Isa 53:7-8 HE WAS TREATED HARSHLY AND AFFLICTED, BUT HE DID NOT EVEN OPEN HIS MOUTH. Like a lamb led to the slaughtering block, LIKE A SHEEP SILENT BEFORE HER SHEARERS, HE DID NOT EVEN OPEN HIS MOUTH. He was led away after an unjust trial – but who even cared? Indeed, HE WAS CUT OFF FROM THE LAND OF THE LIVING; because of the rebellion of his own people he was wounded. NET

When you read that He said nothing, you are quick to assume that it [only] depicted Jesus’ humility and total surrender to God’s will, but there is something deeper: He was quiet because he had something “up his sleeves”; a plot to unfold by His death.

Vs 8 gives an impression of a pitiable death, but God was just making a fool of satan and the kingdom of darkness.

Joh 18:4-6 JESUS, KNOWING FULL WELL WHAT WAS ABOUT TO HAPPEN, WENT OUT TO THE GARDEN ENTRANCE TO MEET THEM. STEPPING FORWARD, he asked, “Who are you looking for?” “Jesus of Nazareth,” they replied. (Now Judas, the traitor, was among them.) He replied, “I am he.” AND THE MOMENT JESUS SPOKE THE WORDS, “I AM HE,” THE MOB FELL BACKWARD TO THE GROUND! TPT

That was John’s account of Jesus’ arrest in the garden. satan should have seen that He was eager to be arrested.

He went out to hand Himself over them to but they couldn’t even handle Him because the anointing was too strong on Him.

If they can’t arrest Him, the “Plan” fails.

Joh 18:7-8 Again Jesus asked them, "Who is it you are looking for?" "Jesus of Nazareth," they said. "I HAVE ALREADY TOLD YOU THAT I AM HE," Jesus said. "If, then, you are looking for me, let these others go." GNB

It’s evident that God reduced Jesus’ anointing then, just to let them hold and take him away.

Read now the “indirect” proclamation of that Secret Code behind the death of Jesus.

Isa 53:10 YET IT PLEASED THE LORD TO BRUISE HIM; he hath put him to grief: when thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin, HE SHALL SEE HIS SEED, HE SHALL PROLONG HIS DAYS, AND THE PLEASURE OF THE LORD SHALL PROSPER IN HIS HAND. KJV

Why should it please God to bruise Him?

Because His death will cause God’s PURPOSE to prosper.

That Power beyond the Cross, beloved, is also a Principle, but unknown to satan.

It is the Power released when innocent blood is shed; the blood of a God!

Let’s read the above verse in New English Translation, shall we?

Isa 53:10 Though the LORD desired to crush him and make him ill, ONCE RESTITUTION IS MADE, he will see descendants and ENJOY LONG LIFE, AND THE LORD’S PURPOSE WILL BE ACCOMPLISHED THROUGH HIM. NET

Once He has Paid the Price, His descendants will live long “and” God Purpose is fulfilled [after His death].

The death of our Lord Jesus was simply a means to an end, greater than just the Propitiation of our sins.

The [end] Purpose was not His death but the Power it was to release.

Act 1:8 But I promise you this—THE HOLY SPIRIT WILL COME UPON YOU AND YOU WILL BE FILLED WITH POWER. And you will be my messengers to Jerusalem, throughout Judea, the distant provinces—even to the remotest places on earth!” TPT

Not only will the Believers receive Power but they will let everyone else who believes, in on this great opportunity.

Mission accomplished and satan failed woefully.

Did you ever imagine why despite all Jesus preached on Earth, he seemed not to make much IMPACT?

Joh 6:65-67 Then Jesus said, "YOU CANNOT COME TO ME, UNLESS THE FATHER MAKES YOU WANT TO COME. That is why I have told these things to all of you." BECAUSE OF WHAT JESUS SAID, MANY OF HIS DISCIPLES TURNED THEIR BACKS ON HIM AND STOPPED FOLLOWING HIM. Jesus then asked his twelve disciples if they were going to leave him. CEV

It was important not to let the evil spirits see much progress and hence be over-apprehensive about what the Apostles can do after Jesus is gone.

Joh 14:12 "I can assure you that whoever believes in me will do the same things I have done. AND THEY WILL DO EVEN GREATER THINGS THAN I HAVE DONE, because I am going to the Father. ERV

Satan felt that if people kept leaving Jesus, the Apostles couldn’t do much more.

But then, POWER came, and…

Act 2:41 THEN THOSE WHO GAVE HEARING TO HIS WORDS HAD BAPTISM: AND ABOUT THREE THOUSAND SOULS WERE JOINED TO THEM THAT DAY. BBE

After Jesus’ death and resurrection, unimaginable exploits suddenly sprung up.

May the all-powerful God deliberately perplex, frustrate and confuse your enemies, IN JESUS NAME.

Join us on Friday for progress in this enlightening and explosive Subtopic.

Keep Shinning!

Brother Prince

Wednesday, June 28, 2023

08055125517; 08023904307

[thelittlehareofhell]

Bound By Heart

Demon! Nightmare x Angel! Fredbear

"Prince Nightmare. It's time." The male said, bowing to the dark furred male gently. "You must take to the throne with your bride."

"I'm not marrying her." The prince hissed, not looking at the servant addressing him. "You know the one I love is no devil, nor female."

"Prince Nightmare, you must give up your fantasies... There is no way for you two to marry during war—" He was cut off.

"There is and I will have it happen!" Nightmare growled, baring his teeth harshly as his claws scratched the frame of his bed.

"I-I'll give you time, your highness.... But please, you must step up to your duties. Your kingdom depends on you."

»»————-　　————-««

"Fredbear... Darling, give up your sights on that filthy man. He doesn't love you. He wants to control you, please see that." The gentle voice of the golden angel's mother came as she brushed her fingers through her son's fur.

"I don't believe you. I can't..." Fredbear said softly, his ears down. "I love him, mama. I can't just give up on him..."

"We're doing this to protect you." The female replied, sighing softly.

"By forcing them to leave their home and declaring war against them over one suggestion?" Fredbear retorted, ears flat.

"They didn't want you to love each other. They wanted him to control you through manipulation." Fredbear's mother sighed, taking Fredbear's brush and running it through his fur. "This is for your own good, Fredbear."

»»————-　　————-««

Nightmare was sat up in a tree, wings covering him as he curled his tail around the branch. He was at the border between the two kingdoms, the tree he sat in making him hard to see against the sooty colored, dark grey bark of the tree and the sky behind him that led back to his kingdom. He was waiting for his old friend, the wait making him a bit worried considering how their kingdoms were still at war. However, he was doing his best to keep himself hidden for the case of an angel soldier coming past the border.

Fredbear was walking towards the border holding a basket of treats, something that his old friend would like very much. He had to randomly carry holy water when he went up because of this so called war. He felt bad for the demons because they where only suggesting something which really got the angels nerves but yet again he had no saying in this so he just had to meet his old friendnin secret now. He passed through the trees as looked at the neon lines that separated the land. He sat down and waited, thinking it was a bad idea to yell out Nightmare's name.

Nightmare came down once he saw Fredbear, landing with a soft thud as he wasn't too graceful when it came to landing from landing when he was already so close to the ground. Folding his half feathered wings he came over, sitting in front of Fredbear.

"Hello again, Fredbear." He said, his voice rather monotone though he bore a soft smile on his face. He looked more mature than the last time they had met; More prominent horns and in a suit that was made for the devil royal family.

"Hey Nightmare" Nothing much had changed of Fredbear accept for his bigger wings and his size abit. He seemed very childish still and very upbeat and bright as he gave a big smile. He puts the basket in between them for both of them to able to grabbed a cherry muffin and a frizzy soda from the human world "Seems like your horns grew bigger" He chuckled abit "You kinda look like a goat from the MakMak world" He joked trying to build conversation between them. He seemed very relaxed as his wings had fold in.

"Yes... I have been compared to a goat before. I personally don't see it.." He replied, taking a bite of the muffin Fredbear had brought for him afterwards. He slowly moved his tail behind him, the tip brushing against the only non-dead grass that he had known ever since the two had been separated. "The only resemblance I see is my horns."

Fredbear kinda seemed interested in the horns "May i touch them? They seem very heavy to carry on your head" He said as he took a sip from the fizz soda "Do they feel heavy on your head?" He asked, curious.

"I guess.. No one's ever asked. Then again almost everyone I see daily have horns themselves." Nightmare responded, bowing his head to Fredbear so he could touch his horns. "I've never really noticed their weight. They don't feel heavy to me. I've had them my entire life, so I suppose my muscles and horns grew at the same pace so I could support them on my head without any issues."

He blinked a bit, having an admiration for the golden angel bear. Especially when it came to personality. The positive tone he had despite the violence between their people was impressive to him.

Fredbear felt his horns but made sure he didn't touch anywhere that will make Nightmare uncomfortable. He seemed amazed as he then thought of a random question "Do you wash your own horns?" He said as he stopped touching his horns. "And if you do, do you wash them on a daily basis?" He asked while smiling.

"I keep them as clean as I can. I wash them several times a day. I don't like my fur and horns being dirty." Nightmare said in response, one ear flicking to the side. He had a soft smile in response, shifting his wings slightly. "I guess I can say that I like whens things are neat and well-kept." He continued, allowing Fredbear to touch his horns without much issue. Unless it was the tips, since for some reason those were sensitive to touch.. and that what Fredbear end up accidently touching. He really didn't think much of it as he softly felt the tip. He smiled as it gave off a nice little glare "Is there anywhere I shouldn't touch?"

Nightmare flinched at the touch, raising his hand to tell Fredbear to stop. "That.. Please don't touch the tips of my horns. They're sensitive." He said, lifting his head back up and meeting Fredbear's gaze. He moved his hands to his lap, glancing past Fredbear and at the angel palace in the distance. "Have your parents calmed down at all? Or are they still holding their grudge about my parents' proposal that we marry? For whatever reason they had..." He asked, his voice lowered at that last sentence.

"Well, they're mad. They really didn't like the marrying thing. Whatever they say about it, I was kinda wanting to marriage thing to happen" He blushed abit as he blushed a neon white "And, well, you going to hate me for this but.. I kinda did something to your muffin.." He blushed more.

"O-Oh... You did? Wait you did what?—" He seemed a bit worried about that last part. He seemed worried, his ears down as he had a look that said he had a fear that his friend was trying to give him something that would harm him. He curled his tail around his knees, meeting Fredbear's gaze. "What did you do?" He asked, a bit of fear of betrayal in his head.

"I put a love potion in your muffin, it not harmful" He kept blushing, sure he love potioning his friend but he wanted to make sure. The Love potion didn't force the victim to fall in love. It just made them deeply love there crush or lover "Just relax, i'm not going to hurt you" He promised Nightmare as he gave a smile as he then got the other muffin from the basket and ate it. He seemed to be getting alittle close to Nightmare.

Nightmare stayed silent, not really understanding just why Fredbear was doing it. He didn't know what to think. "Does it.. take any time to take effect?" He asked, having a bit of a blush on his face since he was assuming now that Fredbear wanted him to love him.

"Well, it takes full effect when you feel warm inside" He seemed to get really close to Nightmare "There's no side effects and no you will be conscious so you see everything that happens while your under the potion" He smiled as he was close enough to Nightmare to kiss him as he was sitting on his legs infront of Nightmare. Lust filled his eyes abit as he really wanted to do this. From when they turned 7 he alway liked him, he always help him and comfort him while he was down. Him being away from him but a random feeling in his heart he could only tell as love, he always sat it his room and draw couple pictures of Nightmare and barely slept. Now that he has Nightmare now, he wanted him, and his heart needed him~

Nightmare was in a wild mix of emotions, though a feeling of desire and lust was slowly building up inside him. His heart was beating quite quickly, and he was blushing a lot. He was a little 'shy' since he could tell by the way Fredbear was acting that he had desires. Alongside the look in the angel's eyes. The kind of desires that would only infuriate the angel bear's parents more.

Fredbear put his hand on Nightmare cheek as he went in for a kiss, he didn't care about anything else as all he focused on was making Nightmare his own. Maybe his lover for life, he then kissed Nightmare making the love potion effects stronger "Mmm~"

Nightmare's initial reaction was to instantly try to pull back. He hadn't been very open about the small crush he had on Fredbear, and he felt it was too sudden for Fredbear to be doing something like this, however after a few seconds he just allowed it, that feeling of lust rising up again. It wouldn't take much else for it to get too overwhelming to try and deny, avoid and run away from.

As Fredbear kissed him he then stopped "Oh dear! I went to far! I knew i did!" He seemed embarrassed as he didn't really mean to kiss him. He just wanted to get closer to him "I didn't mean to suddenly kiss you without your consent!" He seemed really embarrassed as he teared up abit.

Nightmare's gaze went to the ground for a moment, and truly before he could stop himself he pulled Fredbear up against him and met his lips to Fredbear in a rather passionate kiss, which would likely catch him off guard.

Fredbear was shocked at first. He though he messed up but slowly just relaxed and kissed back. This was his lover for life and he knew it. He kept kissing back slowly.

Nightmare found it difficult to hold back at that point, which is how after a few minutes he would be on top of Fredbear, his wings draped over the both of them as he met Fredbear's gaze with such lust that it was probably clear what his mind was going to.

Fredbear then broke the kiss as he then looked up at Nightmare "Nightmare? what are you" It then snap to him, what Nightmare was about do as he become hardly flustered. Was he going to mate with him?

"Shhh~" Nightmare cooed into his ear, tone like silk and smooth, eerily gentle. "I won't hurt you.."

Nightmare was already in the correct position, searching for the permission he so desperately wanted from Fredbear. It was hard for Nightmare to hold back on his desires, but for the sake of not making Fredbear avoid him, he was waiting for the other's consent.

Fredbear gave him the looked meaning he gave him consent "Be gentle with me please" He seemed wildly flustered.

Nightmare went for Fredbear's neck with his tongue, licking him gently as he proceeded to enter the angel, his force much more gentle than he had originally hoped for, but listening to Fredbear's request. He had to adjust himself for a few moments, soon the carefully thrust into him, his attention fully on their special moment.

Cute moans came out of the angel as he felt more loved. His wings covered around them abit, he held on to Nightmare as every time he was thrust into his wings twitched.

Nightmare had some difficulty with being as gentle as Fredbear was likely hoping for, but he was trying to keep his promise to take it easy for Fredbear. He didn't moan as frequently, but he still did enjoy it enough that he was occasionally moaning at the pleasure of finally being able to express his true feelings for the angel.

"Fuck~ Fuck~" He kept moaning as he felt really warm inside as Nightmare kept thrust "M-more~" He gave him permission to go fast or harder.  As he then kissed Nightmare again.

Nightmare picked up his pace, going much harder on Fredbear, which would likely cause minor pain. He huffed softly, continuing to lick Fredbear's neck, leaving tender kisses every now and then. "I-I'm close.." He said with a bit of shakiness, his body still tensing up as he was close to releasing in the other.

"S-s-same..~" He kept moaning and moaning feeling Nightmare inside of him. He feels like he forgotten something but doesn't bother as he stuck his tongue out in pleasure.

Nightmare kept going, shaking a bit until he finally released, moaning as he did so, his body requiring a few seconds before he exited Fredbear. He was panting, getting off Fredbear and sitting down next to him.

"I.. never thought we'd be able to do something like that." He said, wrapping his wings around himself, fluffing up the feathered half.

Fredbear gave a loud moan as he was seeded in. As Nightmare pulled out he then remember that random though. It was that me was a fertile male meaning he could get pregnant. He instantly got up and started panicking. "I- God- I just remembered something!"

"What? What's wrong? What did you remember?" Nightmare asked, his eyes showing concern. He looked around, noticing a change in the energy around them. "I think we need to part ways soon, Fredbear. I think there's a patrol coming close. I'm going to have to cross the border soon." He then said, urging the angel to hurry and leave as soon as he could.

"Alright, but listen real quick. I just remember that I'm a fertile male, which means there a good chance i could get pregnant from this!" He said as he was kinda in a panic.

"I'm sorry.." Nightmare said, hugging him and giving him a kiss on the cheek. "I wish I could stay.. but I can't risk being captured. It would only make things worse." He then said, looking back towards the border.

"In the human world... when their moon is full, meet me back here. We can talk about this then. I love you..." He told him, giving him a mournful look as he took off, flying through the border, back towards his home with a feeling of guilt. In the thick smoke of the sky in the devil's kingdom, it would only be around twenty seconds before the angel would lose sight of him. Nightmare just hoped that Fredbear would be safe until he could see him again.

As Nightmare left he gave a sigh, he didn't know what he will do now. If his parents figured out he was pregnant with a demon baby, who knows what will they do. He cried abit as he then cleared his face, he had to accept this and hide this fact. He kept repeating what Nightmare said in his head so he wouldn't forget.

"Prince Fredbear. You must return to the palace. There's been a sighting of a devil troop near the southern border." Came the voice of an angel soldier, whom landed next to Fredbear. "We can't have them doing anything to harm you."

Nightmare carefully flew back through his bedroom window, landing and looking back out at the faint glow of the neon border line, sighing in the process. "I'm sorry.." He whispered, feeling guilty for having to leave Fredbear in his state of fear of the outcome of their decision.

Fredbear sighed "Yeah i know" He followed the angel guard back to his palace. He seemed sad and passed right by his parents. Going to his room and laying on his bed. He looked at his window as he had his mind on Nightmare and only him. He blushed as he had a feather that fell off him during their intercourse.

Nightmare whistled, calling his trusted phoenix to him. The bird landed on his shoulder, waiting for a command. Quickly writing a note for Fredbear. It read 'Send someone you trust to the human world and get three pregnancy tests. In two weeks, use them and if all of them are  positive then we'll have to discuss what we're going to do.'

Once that was done, he gave his phoenix, Pele, the command "Find a dove and  have it carry the note to the angel palace. Have it taken to Fredbear."

He then released Pele, hoping the message made it to Fredbear before anyone else saw it.

Fredbear still laid there on his bed as a random dove carried a note to him. He read it and looked abit surprised. He then looked around and then saw his pet mouse. He picked his mouse up and whispered in his cat ear what he wanted him to do. Unlike  other mouse he was smart a knew what to do. Fredbear then teleported him to the human world, nervous, yet happy to have Nightmare's love.

»»————-　　————-««

The war got more tense, and more violent causing defense to be tough. It was only nine months later that their defense became too low because of the lack of troops. It was only this time that anything can cross the boarder. A dove came to Nightmare window with a note, it read:

'Nightmare...,

Please meet me at the golden lake please!'

The note ended there as there was a wet substance at the end of the page.

»»————-　　————-««

Nightmare read through the note rather fast, moving back a bit before going past two soldiers, pushing one out of the way, yelling "Move!" And taking off towards the lake. He knew that he'd probably have at least one soldier sent after him, but he didn't care. At least if it was another devil that found the two of them they wouldn't be angry. If anything they'd be happy. It could be a reason to stop  the war. Nonetheless, Nightmare was going as fast as he could.

Fredbear could be seen at the lake. He was laying on his sighed as he softly rubbed his 9 month pregnant belly. He panted hardly as he was in labor. Painful throb went threw him every second. He breathed in and out waiting for Nightmare to appear. He didn't want to have his baby by himself. So he did his best and kept breathing in and out and wait for his Nightmare to arrive "Y-your so determined to come o *He grunts as he said outside* to see me and your father.." He seemed to cry as this was very very painful.

Nightmare took only a few minutes to arrive, landing and quickly moving over to Fredbear. "It's okay.. I'm here now." He said, holding Fredbear up against him, gently moving Fredbear's legs apart to aid the birth. "This makes it easier for the baby to pass through." He explained, his knowledge on birth and labor few, but his wish to try and help Fredbear great.

Fredbear grunts in pain as he started to push "Oooh god it hurts!" The tip of the baby head was coming out. Fredbear was in a large amounts of pain. He shifted as he cried, he cried not because of the pain, not because of the possibility of the guard finding them. It was that how thier child was going to be treated being half angel and half demon. He gave a yell of pain as he kept pushing.

Nightmare squeezed Fredbear's hand, reminding him to breathe in between pushing. He also kept his eye out for any soldier or guard that may find the two. He would fight to the death if he had to. It may have been a small crush when they were young, but this was now, and he wasn't going to let any harm come to Fredbear.

He kept pushing as the baby head came out. He gave a gasp of breath as he felt the baby's head come out.

»»————-　　————-««

Nightmare used his feathers to dry off the baby, afterwards placing it on Fredbear's chest, smiling at him. "They're here..." He said, holding Fredbear close. "Our family is finally together."

Fredbear cried in joy as he softly rubbed there baby back "Welcome to the world little one" Fredbear common smile came right out his face. He softly picked up the baby in his hands "Do you wish to hold him, Nightmare?"

Nightmare was about to respond until he heard approaching wings and he looked up. Instantly he growled a bit and spread his wings over Fredbear and their baby. Angel guards.

Nightmare's instincts were telling him to just drive them off, but he knew that being violent would only cause more hostility, so all he did was make it very clear that he would defend Fredbear if he had to. For now.

His ears were back, wings spread out to where Fredbear and their baby were completely covered.

"I'm not letting them hurt you." He said firmly, glaring at the guards as they landed.

The Angels held there spears towards nightmare. As this was going on, the baby let out a cry. The Angel hostility went down as the looked at the child, they seemed curious and mildly confused as the looked at the child "We must.. report this.." The Angels then flew off towards the angel castle. They where going to tell the Angel King and Queen about the angel-devil baby that was just born.

Nightmare remained there, his hold firm but not painful. He curled his tail around Fredbear, nuzzling his cheek. "We can't flee. There'd only be troops sent out after us. We have to stay here... Maybe a child will make your parents swallow their pride and accept that they can't choose who you marry or love." He said, sighing as he tried to direct the baby towards Fredbear's chest so it could try to nurse. "I... Don't know if you're going to be able to feed the baby with milk... But you can try." He then said, looking at the small child on his lover's chest.

Fredbear tried to feed the baby as the baby suckles off of something below Fredbear chest "Maybe.. But it a possibly..." Fredbear held the baby close to him "I just hope they don't take him away from me.." He started cry abit as he feared of what the future had for them. His wings almost curled around himself as he laid there, scared.

Nightmare wiped the tears from Fredbear's eyes, making him look at him. "I won't let them take him. Even if it means one of your own has to get hurt in the process. They have to realize that it isn't their choice." He promised, pressing his chest up against Fredbear's cheek to allow his extra fluffy fur to be up against him and hopefully calm him.

Fredbear smiled happily as you reassured him. He felt more confident as the baby opened his eyes. His eyes looked like Nightmares, the baby babbled as it looked at it parents "He has such beautiful eyes.." As Fredbear said that, the baby babbled happily as it little non-fully grown wings moved abit.

Nightmare tickled the little belly, smiling softly as he did so. "A perfect mix of our looks.." He said, resting his head on Fredbear's.

He was also keeping aware of any signs of incoming troops of either race, determined to keep his little family safe.

"... Nightmare, we should.. run away to the human world..." He says as he held their child closer "I don't wish to wait and see what will happen now..." He started crying again "If it's ok with you...."

"I don't think that's a good idea.. We wouldn't be safe there either. It actually could end up being more dangerous for us.. Especially me and the baby. Most humans have a poor view on demons. And.. I don't want to think about what some would try to do to an angel like you. I don't trust them..." Nightmare replied, watching figures in the distance getting ever closer. "Besides... I think it's too late to run without us being followed." The demon bear gestured to the incoming figures in the sky.

"I know, but i have a spell that can costume us as human...." He said "If we do it now they won't know it's us..."

"I'm taking you back to the devil palace. As us devils only ever suggested a marriage, the subjects of the kingdom shouldn't be hostile towards you. We'll hide you there... I'll go to your parents myself. All I ask of you is to write down your feelings towards me and explain our new family. It may be a dangerous risk but we belong with our people and families, not among humans." Nightmare said, getting up and carefully picking Fredbear up, keeping their son between them. "Hold him and onto me tightly." He instructed, looking in the direction of the castle of hell. "I'll fly us there myself. You're in no condition to fly just after birth."

"Alright, just make sure to stay safe my love" He said as he held on to Nightmare and held to his baby tighter so he wouldn't slip from hid grip "I don't wish for are child to not see his father."

Nightmare nodded, taking off and carrying Fredbear and their child back to his kingdom, gaining several confused looks by devils who saw him with Fredbear, the son of the ones that forced them out of their original home.

He took him to the palace, landing and taking a defensive posture upon seeing his mother and father enter the room. Neither seemed angry, more so surprised.

"Prince Fredbear? What are you doing here? Isn't it dangerous for you to be away from your castle?" His father began, only to have Nightmare's mother wave at his face to silence his questions.

"It is quite a surprise to see you, yes... But that doesn't mean we can't treat you well. Nightmare, let him down, dear." She said, looking Nightmare in the eyes.

Nightmare frowned, though kept himself from growling. "He's not in a condition to be moving around on his own." He responded to his mother, gently moving one of Fredbear's arms to show the child he held.

He looked abit scared as Nightmares mother looked at his child . He didn't think of much harm to come to him or his baby. He was just intimidated by there presents. He relaxed as the baby looked at his papa's parents and babbled happily.

Nightmare moved Fredbear to the throne he was set to inherit upon marriage, setting him down and giving him a tender kiss on the cheek. "I'll be back. I promise." He said, rubbing his son's head afterwards. "They'll protect you." He continued, even though the baby wouldn't be able to understand him yet.

He then turned and left before his parents were able to ask him what he meant with his statement.

After he was gone, the devil bear's mother moved over to Fredbear, kneeling down to get at the baby's level. "You two did love each other..." She said quietly, offering a finger to her grandchild.

"Yeah, it was kinda love a first sight.." Fredbear softly sigh as he baby happily player with his Grandma finger, babbling happily "At this moment i just want my child to have a normal life" He said as he offered for Devilbear's grandma to holding the baby.

Nightmare was by then landing in the castle Fredbear grew up in, having small cuts all over him from crashing through a window. He made eye contact with both of Fredbear's parents, standing tall and eyes narrowed. "You cannot control your son's life forever." He said firmly, ears back. "It's not your choice who he loves. He loves me, we have a child. Get over your pride. Your son is acting more mature than you."

Back with Fredbear Nightmare's mother accepted the invitation to hold the baby, holding him gently and being sure to stay close to Fredbear to help him keep his peace of mind. "He's so beautiful..." She whispered, smiling softly with wet eyes from how happy she was.

The baby babbled as it suckled on his own thumb "Haven't thought of a name for him"

The grandma bear gently tickled her grandson's little belly, smiling as she listened to his golden colored father. "That's something that should be discussed with Nightmare. When he comes back from wherever he went, of course.." She said, her tail swaying as her husband came over to watch.

The baby kept babbling happily as he was tickled. Fredbear looked abit upset. He hopes the Nightmare stays ok. Fredbear slowly started to fall asleep, him giving birth really took much out of him and him trying to stay awake.

"We won't be upset if you rest, dear." Morana, Nightmare's mother, said while looking at the half-asleep angel prince. "Birth takes a toll on the body. Rest will be good for you." She continued, setting the little baby on Fredbear's chest so he could feel comforted that his baby was close.

Fredbear smiled as the baby was suckling on his own thumb. The baby then started babbling upset as it was not in his grandma hands anymore. Sure the baby liked to be with his father but, Morana tickled him. He like that very much so he started crying. The baby cries weren't that loud just a medium volume cry as he cried to be in his grandma hands again.

Morana laid her hand against the baby's back, hoping that he'd fall asleep so Fredbear could rest and not be woken up by the upset child. "He's got the same spot that Nightmare had when he was young... A spot that he loved to be tickled on." She said quietly, looking at her husband.

"Dear, fetch one of Nightmare's old plushies. Maybe that could be a comfort for the little one." She instructed, receiving a nod from the baby's Paternal grandfather, Mabuz.

The baby calm down as it felt his grandma hands. The baby knew it wasn't a tickle but he felt relaxed. The baby have softly as happy babbles as he looked at Morana. A little baby smile came cross the baby face as it gave a happy giggle.

Morana stayed with Fredbear and the baby while Mabuz got a plushie, rubbing the small bear's back gently. She was hoping that he'd fall asleep, though if not she hoped the plushie would keep him calm so his dad could sleep.

Speaking of which, Mabuz came back with a small, grey bunny plushie that was less soft due to time and use than if it were new, but it was still something that the baby could cling onto for comfort.

Morana took the plushie and set it near the baby, watching to see the reaction her grandson would give to one of his father's old plushies.

The baby softly grabbed it, the baby started to put it in his mouth. Being curious as he is he thought it was food. The baby seemed calm as it had the plush it mouth. He suckles abit on it as he falls asleep slowly. The baby mind slowly going into his first sleep.

Nightmare came back to the palace, having a difficult time landing at first. He came up to Fredbear, kneeling down beside him. "Your parents wish to see you tomorrow." He said with a smile, hinting at good news. He had a cut on his cheek that was bleeding a little bit, but that was from the broken window of the angel's castle. "We may want to leave the little one here, just until everything's sorted out between our kingdoms." He offered the tired angel a wink. "I'm sure you'll enjoy what they have to say."

"I may" Fredbear said tiredly. He softly held the baby "Nightmare.. I wanted to ask.. Do you have name for our child...?" He felt numb but better abit rested. For a moment he smiled, smiled thinking that the war was just near over. And maybe.. Nightmare and him can get married, but only right now. He could just imagine.

"Perhaps.. Eijaz? It means miracle. For our little baby is a miracle." Nightmare suggested, tail swaying behind him. He leaned in to give Fredbear a kiss, leaving a tender touch on the male's cheek with a smile. "What do you think?"

"I think that's a great name.. Our little miracle , Eijaz.." Fredbear smiled happily as lil Eijaz gave a sneeze, from suckling on the plush he was given. Fredbear offered for Nightmare to hold him "Do you wish to hold him, my love?" He smiled as since he loved him, Nightmare wouldn't mind be called lover.. right?

Nightmare smiled, taking Eijaz gently, holding him and rubbing his back gently. He used his wings to carefully cover the little baby, having the slight worry of him getting cold due to not being able to control his own body temperature. He didn't have much experience with children, but it was just what he thought of while holding Eijaz.

Eijaz babbled happily as he was held by his father. Fredbear went back to sleep. He was really tired and him giving birth took alot out of him.

Nightmare glanced around, seeking a servant not performing a task to request formula from.

He knew that there was a formula commonly used for young devils somewhere in the palace's kitchen, but he didn't want to go too far from Fredbear. Since Fredbear was a bit weaker due to the exhaustion from giving birth Nightmare was feeling extremely overprotective and didn't want to leave Fredbear alone for long. As he glanced around Nightmare was rubbing Eijaz's ears, which were soft and fluffy since Eijaz was a newborn.

Eijaz gave cute giggles as he suckles his thumb. His personality was like Fredbear as he had a little smile and always had a bright feeling. Fredbear sleep softly as he felt relaxed, he softly smiled in his sleep.

Nightmare looked to his mother and gestured for her to hold Eijaz, letting her take him as he then returned to Fredbear. He carefully picked the angel up, looking at his parents and quietly requested that Morana come with him to his room and that Mabuz have his crib from when he was a baby taken to his room and set up for Eijaz. He wanted Fredbear to be close to Eijaz for the angel's peace of mind, so he thought that this would be the best way for him to do so.

He moved fast down the hallways, wanting to put his lover down as soon as possible to lower the chance of waking him up. Luckily, Nightmare made it to his room, as he entered and gently laid Fredbear down on his bed. Afterwards, he covered his sleeping lover up and looked to his mother, nodding to her and taking Eijaz, and his plushie, back before sitting on the other side of the bed and holding his newborn son while Fredbear would rest.

Eijaz gave light babbles as he kept suckling on his plush, of course some fluff got into his mouth causing him to cough abit. He then cries as Fredbear laid in the bed still passed out, his wings covered himself like a cocoon

Nightmare rubbed Eijaz's ears a little bit, then the cub's belly, afterwards tickling him with one finger. He wasn't very experienced with children, let alone newborns, so he wasn't sure how he would be able to calm Eijaz down. 'Maybe he's hungry..' Nightmare thought, silently wondering how he'd feed Eijaz.

Eijaz then calmed down, as he softly grabbed his father hand. It seemed like he took possession of whatever pleased him as he babbles happily while softly suckling on it.

Nightmare looked over at Fredbear, giving a soft sigh and standing up again. He left the room quietly, heading down to the kitchen and scanning through what the palace had to offer for a newborn, stopping once he found the formula he was looking for. With his free and arm Nightmare carefully prepared the formula as he soon gently nudged Eijaz's mouth to try and get him to latch onto and suckle on the bottle he had gotten instead of his hand.

Eijaz didn't suckle on it because it looked unfamiliar to him. He gave a uneasy groan as he moved his head away.

"Eijaz, dear, you need to drink from the bottle.." Nightmare said quietly, trying to nudge Eijaz again; See if he could tempt the baby into latching onto the bottle, or in some way get him to drink from it. With a few nudges, he then suckles off the bottle. He got use to it when he tasted the milk that was kind of the same as his father's.

Nightmare smiled when Eijaz took the bottle, carrying him back to his room and sitting down next to his lover.

Meanwhile in the background a few of the servants of the palace were quietly setting up the crib that Nightmare slept in when he was a baby in one corner.

Eijaz drank it all, for a little guy he sure was hungry as he still suckles off the bottle after it was finished.

Nightmare's mind lingered on the thought of if he should wake Fredbear up so he could let Eijaz nurse; Not wanting Fredbear to be exhausted but not wanting to deny Eijaz the chance to nurse and get the benefits of his father's milk that weren't as easily provided with a supplement formula. After a few minutes he decided to take the risk and wake Fredbear up briefly to get him to try to nurse Eijaz.

"Love... I know you're tired, but Eijaz is still hungry and I already gave him a bottle. I think you need to let him nurse." He said, gently nudging his lover to wake him up.

Fredbear woke up as a soft sigh came out of him. He yawns as he reaches his hands out for Eijaz. He wasn't mad just abit woosey as he just woke up "It alright... Just hand him here" Fredbear said as his cute smile appeared back on his face.

Nightmare smiled, gently giving Eijaz to Fredbear and having a calm look in his eyes. "When you feel ready, your parents want to speak with you. Along with my family... Perhaps we could bring Eijaz along; Let them see the grandson they now have." He swayed the tip of his tail. "It would be nice.."

"Sure.., just give me a few hours of rest..." He said as Eijaz kept feeding off of Fredbear. Fredbear seemed to be drifting off to sleep.

Nightmare nodded, silently agreeing. He got up, leaving the room to allow Fredbear to sleep uninterrupted; Unless by Eijaz. He went to speak with his parents; Discuss the request for them to accompany him and his lover to the angel palace, and the possibility of ending the war. Along with backup plans if Fredbear's parents attempted a betrayal towards the family their son had passed his genes down with.

»»————-　　————-««

Around six hours later Nightmare was again nudging Fredbear, this time more formally dressed and holding some clothing that would fit the golden male. It was a more pale white & gold version of the traditional clothing of a newly wed devil; Seemingly sewn and made during the time Fredbear had been asleep. "Wake up, love. They would like to meet us there soon and I wanted to be sure that these clothes fit you. Since your current ones still need to be clensed of the fluids and such from Eijaz's birth." His voice was soft and caring, hinting at how he didn't want to wake up the sleeping angel but didn't want them to disappoint the angel's parents either.

Fredbear softly yawned, the cute smile on his face "Alright" He yawned loudly as he was back to his energetic self. But of course he wasn't moving the fastly as he slowly sat up with Eijaz in his arms. Eijaz was asleep as Fredbear seemed to held him close "Heh.. seems like he having his first dream" He said as Eijaz seemed to babble in his sleep.

Nightmare smiled, setting down the clothes he had for Fredbear. "These were sewn for you while you were resting. I hope they fit.." He said, looking at their little boy as he was having his first dream of his young life. He smiled softly at the sight, wondering if this was what their parents felt like when the two of them were still small cubs like Eijaz.

"They will fit" He said as then Eijaz started crying, he was still asleep. Looks like his dream turned into a nightmare instantly.

Nightmare gently took Eijaz and rubbed his back, trying to gently wake him up to try and calm him down. He turned his gaze away from Fredbear so he could change, focusing on helping their child before they'd depart for the angel kingdom.

Eijaz kept crying as Fredbear then hummed something, it was way to soothing. It was enough to sooth Nightmare and Eijaz as Eijaz cries went away. Fredbear continued to sing not knowing that Eijaz was asleep.

Nightmare smiled, glancing back at Fredbear. "You have a beautiful singing voice, love." He said, nuzzling Eijaz gently with his nose, careful with his horns. He shifted his wings a bit, after a moment stretching one outwards before folding it again. "I have an itching urge to fly. It's been too long since I've been able to fly around for more than a few minutes."

"Well, if you want to I don't mind watching Eijaz until your back" He said smiling as he sat up, his eyes still looked tired but his face and body said otherwise.

"I believe the flight to the angel palace should be enough to satisfy the urge to stretch my wings and fly. And if not I can always fly around while you and my parents talk to your parents." Nightmare insisted, nuzzling Fredbear gently. "Whenever you're ready we can head out. My parents are prepared for us to depart."

Fredbear got up and stretched his wings. He felt air pass through them, they went back to resting position as he slowly got up.

Nightmare stood up, swaying his tail slowly as the tip brushed against the ground. He took Eijaz and left the room, going and standing beside Morana to wait.

Morana gave Eijaz a few of his seemingly favorite thing; Tickles. It was gentle and quick, though it was still something from the small male's grandmother.

Eijaz chuckled as he was tickled, Fredbear then came with the clothes that Nightmare gave him. He looked beautiful in them.

Nightmare's smile grew when he saw Fredbear. "You look amazing, my love." He said, Morana agreeing with a nod.

"I'm glad that it fits you. I was afraid is was too loose." She said, stretching her dark grey wings.

Fredbear smiled more seeing her stretch her wings made him do the same without him thinking.

Nightmare came and gave Fredbear a kiss, smiling happily. "Are you ready, my love?" He asked, Morana and looking excited to potentially see the end of the war. Mabuz seemed more numb to everything, seeming a bit suspicious about the request for all of them to be there. The years of war had taken a toll on his ability to trust Fredbear's parents.

"As ready as I'll ever be" Fredbear softly smiled as the knew the end of the war, was coming to a close at this moment. Probably they're about to make history, either bad or good. He kissed Nightmare back as he smiled.

"Then, let's go. I believe they'll make you happy." Nightmare said, taking Fredbear's hand and hopping up into the air, half dragging his lover with him. He was beginning the flight to Fredbear's home palace, being followed by his mother and father. Nightmare held Eijaz close to his body to be sure he didn't drop him, all while Eijaz clung onto his chest fur.

Fredbear flapped his wings as he followed Nightmare, he wasn't as fast as Nightmare but a decent speed. He smiled as he knew this war was all going to be over and he will live happy with Nightmare and Eijaz. Maybe get married, he started imagining things but kept focused to fly.

Nightmare kept his quite frankly excited pace until the angel palace came into view. The angels that weren't guards nor residents of the castle seemed in a bit of shock seeing Nightmare and his parents with Fredbear without being attacked. Nightmare was actually able to see the window he broke through the day before. He still had a few cuts from it.

Fredbear landed in afterwards but made sure to not step on any glass, his smile loosened abit as he was now about to confront his parents. Heck, he was extremely nervous but tried to keep his happy expression as he started the conversation with "Hi mama, hi dad"

"Welcome home, darling." His mother said, looking to her husband.

"We're disappointed that you lied to us about where you were going, but that cannot be changed now."

There were a few guards holding their weapons towards Nightmare and his parents, though they received a stern look from Fredbear's father.

"We thought of it last night, dear. That it might be time for you to take to the throne. We can no longer hold you back from whom you want to marry." His mother continued, looking to Nightmare. "All we want is for him to take care of you."

Fredbear took a look around as he just softly smiled, he now knowing he can now marry Nightmare and live happily with him "Thank you mama" He gave a bright smile as he wished right now that Nightmare would get on his knees and propose. Which, with a huge smile, Nightmare did.

»»————-　　————-««

[lazyliars]

/rp

Before I get into it, I want to state that is EXPLICITLY an analysis of the Characters, and is not intended to touch on how the cc’s played them in a meta sense unless specifically stated otherwise.

Also, this is technically a part two to my other post, which took a more in depth look at Techno and Phil’s reactions to Tommy’s death. It’s not necessary when reading this post, but I don’t address their reactions here.

So. The question must be asked.

Are we [the Syndicate] the baddies?

Yes.

The End.

 Why are the Syndicate the baddies?

They got damn logo is a wither skull.

The End.

That's not how this works.

Yeah, yeah. You’re right.

The Syndicate's goals as an organization are not inherently bad. They seem to have good intentions behind them, and the focus on the freedom of it's individual group members is important to remember when talking about it; It is not a government. There is no hierarchical power system. No one is forced to do anything against their will, or surrender any of their rights or power to remain a member. It is not a government.

I also want to address Techno and Phil backing Ranboo into a corner – I see them getting a lot of flack for this, but I personally do not think it is relevant to the greater discussion, or necessarily representative of any contradictions within the organization. It was clearly played for laughs, and after they back off they clarify to Ranboo that they won't force him. Then later when Phil and Ranboo are alone, Ranboo feels safe enough to express that he felt like he was pressured into it, and Phil assures him he is allowed to leave whenever he wants; He is not being forced to do anything, and he is not being coerced or blackmailed.

None of the Syndicate members have done any wrongs against each other in the context of the Syndicate, OR gone against any of the Syndicate's core principles.

That, said, holy shit are they the baddies.

Listen, there's trying to telegraph a meaning or message to the audience and then there's having your logo be wither skulls on blackstone. That is straight out of the skit I keep referencing, seriously.

Okay, but, they laughed at it! It was played as a joke, just like the Ranboo thing!

The Ranboo thing was improv, the Syndicate's headquarters were planned – the artistic choices that they made reflect on what role they want the build and the organization inhabiting it to play in the future storylines.

Wither Skulls kind of have some CONNOTATIONS. Techno is an English major, I don't think he chose the most threatening imagery possible on accident, and then joked about the way people would interpret it just to stir the pot. This reads as hugely intentional.

And beyond that, the jokes they make during this part aren't “haha yeah, we look bad but we're actually good!” they're “you can tell by looking at these that we're the good guys wink wink, this is good guy stuff right here :)” It is a joke about how they are definitely not the good guys. This isn't even a case of unreliable narrators, this is one step down from flat out saying the meta intent.

But okay, I hear you, I'm talking about things that haven't happened yet. The Syndicate hasn't used any Withers, they could be an aesthetic choice.  Lets look at what they do in practice.

So, they barge into private property, assess Snowchester's right to continue existing based entirely on their own ideals of what Freedom is, and then only once Tubbo assures them that they have no standing leader do they grant the place their approval to, and I gotta stress this part, continue existing.

 In my Quackity meta, I already talked about how Government in the context of a M1necraft RP cannot be compared to IRL Governments on a one-to-one scale. They don't serve the same purposes or have the same type of power. What I didn't talk about was Agency in the context of m1necraft governments.

In an irl government, if you are born into one, you can't really leave without committing a massive overhaul on your life, which can be expensive and difficult, if not impossible for many people. Even in a “benevolent” government, the simple physicality of where you were born can prevent you from leaving it easily.

The same hurdles do not exist in the Dream SMP. People who join M1necraft governments choose to. They want to, either at the beginning when they form one, or later on when they join up. So far, no Government has just Sprung Up and forced the current residents of an area to become dependent on them, except maybe the Eggpire, who's status as a government is... shakey.

And even when people want to leave or separate from the government, they have been historically able to do so without any trouble or any effort from said governments to stop them. Jack Manifold emancipated from Manberg. Fundy and Quackity both left to start new nations. In all cases they were allowed to do so without any attempts on the part of the governments to stop them, either through force, or institutions preventing them from doing so.

The most anyone has lost when leaving a government is their house, which is still usually their property anyway, and is something that is easily rebuilt elsewhere and is inconvenient to move anyway.

The only exceptions to this might be Schlatt exiling Wilbur and Tommy - but even then, they weren’t trying to leave, they were trying to get back in, and of course the original L’manberg revolution, where Dream attempted to force L’manberg back into the Dream SMP, which wasn’t even a government at that point in time.

I don’t consider Phil’s house arrest an example of a government forcing someone to stay a citizen - that was treated less as a matter of a citizen wanting to leave the country and more as a threat to national security. Still pretty fucked up, but it’s a different issue.

What I'm saying is, If Tubbo wants to create a government out in the middle of nowhere, threatening no one, forcing no one to join either through force or desperation, and allowing people to join willingly because they want to, then he should be allowed to do that.

The Irony of the Syndicate, a group of people consisting of some of the richest, strongest people on the server, going around and enforcing 'Freedom' that entails no one person having more power than any other, is absurd. 

It shows an extreme lack of self-awareness and/or self-righteousness, as they seem to think that they deserve to be the ones who decide what constitutes a government.

Snowchester is a small independent nation - they shouldn’t have to live in fear of being obliterated if they don’t walk on eggshells to meet an arbitrary standard decided by people who’s only authority on the matter COMES FROM THEIR PERSONAL POWER. No one elected them! No one chose them! They were not “approved” by the server at large to enact this kind of law.

The Syndicate are not a government, but they are an unsupervised power structure exerting their ideals on a land that did not ask for them. Like, These people have invented an actual Authoritarian-Anarchist faction. How the hell did they manage this?????

Back on topic.

Tubbo shows them the crater left by his nukes. The reaction is oddly positive – the nukes are fine by the morals of the Syndicate, apparently. I'd argue that they come across as more impressed than anything else; they seem to respect Tubbo for having gotten ahold of “real” power.

(There's a few good memes out there about “We can excuse nuclear weaponry, but we draw the line at Government!”)

So. By the Syndicate's standards: A single person or group of acceptably equal persons with weapons of mass-destruction are only worth “keeping an eye on” because they might provoke other people.

Like, I consider Project Dreamcatcher to be one of, if not the most morally ambiguous thing Tubbo has ever done, largely because it was all on his own initiative. He holds some culpability for The Butcher Army and Phil's house arrest, but they weren't his ideas and he was mostly following Quackity at that point.

And Phil tells Tubbo, IMMEDIATELY AFTER SEEING THE NUCLEAR CRATER:

“Looks like you've reformed a little bit Tubbo, I'm proud.”

And it's fine. Crimes against nature? Fine. A sign of healing in fact!! Tubbo is having a sweeeelll time and he definitely didn't make these nukes specifically in fear of being attacked by these exact people! Tubbo is doing great. Tubbo is doing fine. Tubbo. is. FINE.

Anyway.

I don't think this presentation of the Syndicate was an accident. Looking at the greater lore of SMP right now, after the Egg is done, their list of enemies is slim, and considering that they seem solely invested in taking down governments, that leaves maybe Snowchester, Kinoko Kingdom, and Eret and the greater Dream SMP.

Snowchester has not been shown to be corrupt, evil, or have any intent to go down that route. The most ambiguous thing they've done is, again, is the nukes. Other than that, it's pretty much your average cottagecore snow village.

Kinoko is presented in an even more morally 'good' light, Karl having founded it specifically for his Time-travel library purposes, which are currently being treated by the narrative as a selfless act, if not downright heroic.

Eret is also a fairly 'good' aligned character atm. He's been on that redemption grind since the og betrayal, and doesn't seem keen on backtracking. He's actively tried to leverage his position as king to make things better, and hasn't been quiet about that. He was also 'validated' by Tommy*, a character who has been described both by his allies and enemies as “the hero,” so take that as you will.

What I'm getting at is, all of the current potential enemies for the Syndicate aside from the Egg, are currently being cast as 'good,' and if they were to be attacked, they would undoubtedly have the moral high-ground, unless something drastically changed.

The only potential shakeups I can think of is are a Dream escape and/or a Wilbur revival, both of which could draw the Syndicate's attention and ire, depending on how things go. That said, it's just as likely that either or both of them would join the Syndicate – Dream still has that favor, and Phil and Techno both seemed to think Wilbur would've agreed with their blowing up L'manberg.

Both of those characters are currently **villains – the fact that they're both prime candidates for the Syndicate is a huge indication of the direction it's going to go as the plot moves forward.

((*I know some people are gonna come at me for painting Tommy as the “deciding factor” of what is morally good, so lemme just stop you there. I'm not talking about Tommy somehow having the 'right' to decide who is and isn't good, and definitely not the right to decide who should and shouldn't be king. I'm saying that Tommy, a character who the narrative treats as, if not a good person, then a person who is trying to be good, was in support of Eret, a character who has also been trying to be good.

Eret doesn't gain the moral highground because Tommy said so, he gets it because a character who the narrative treats as trying to do better, acknowledged Eret's earnest attempts at doing the same.

**I'm referring to Wilbur here as a villain because Tommy seemed convinced he would be if he were to be brought back. There is always the possibility that he's wrong.))

So, to summarize this: I read the Syndicate as being intentionally positioned as future antagonists, if not outright villains of a future arc. They are NOT a Government but their goals are contradictory with their means, and it is important to keep in mind that they plan to enforce their own brand of freedom on people who did not grant them either the authority or permission to do so.

So, uh. Can you tell I loved these streams? They were seriously so good. I kept switching between Ranboo and Techno's POV's trying to keep up with everything. I still have to watch Niki's!

All in all, I'm super, super excited for whats coming next, egg stuff, Syndicate stuff, Tommy stuff, all of it.

[tacticaldiary]

Leave, Then (pt. 2)

Pairing: Reader x Keigo Takami (Hawks)

Genre: Hurt/Comfort

He comes back and falls to his knees as he realises she’s actually gone. He lost her, and he knows damn well that he deserved this. One more chance is all he asks for and he’s lucky that Y/N is willing to give it to him.

I’ve had so many people ask for a part 2, so here it is- finally-

Masterlist

The familiar door has never looked as daunting. 

A week later, Keigo stands in front of their apartment door. The mission had been shorter than expected and he had tried to come home as soon as possible. Over the past week he had been doing bad... well, terrible. Unable to focus, he had very nearly slipped up multiple times, having to endure questions about what was going on. 

He hadn’t been sleeping well either, spending the whole time thinking about Y/N. He felt terribly guilty about everything. She was one of the best things to ever happen to him, his light, his home. He can’t quite believe he said what he did when they fought.

As he unlocks the door and opens it, he feels a stab of cold fear when he sees all the lights switched off. 

‘Don’t expect me to be waiting when you come back’

No. No way. He hoped she didn’t go through with it. The feeling of dread doesn’t go away as he snaps out of it and practically runs to their bedroom. Throwing the door open, his eyes widen as he sees the closet door open, more than half of Y/N’s belongings gone. The bed was neatly made and looked like it hadn’t been slept in. 

He spots a piece of paper on the bedside table, and with slightly shaking hands, he picks it up. A few minutes of reading later, he slowly sinks to his knees, the paper floating down and landing before him. 

She was gone.

A sob rips it’s way through his throat, raw and harsh and painful, and he tucks his wings tighter against his back, subconsciously seeking out some sort of comfort. She was really gone. He lost her because he couldn’t appreciate her, because he hadn’t been treating her right. All the times they spent together flash in front of him, the nights they spent flying over the city, her tucked safely in his arms while they flew, the days they spent together, walking around parks, on picnics, lounging at home and watching movies.

The good and the bad...all gone. Because he couldn’t see he was wrong. That he was hurting the one person he swore to protect. 

“Keigo?” A voice startles him through his misery, and he looks up slowly in disbelief, tears still staining his cheeks. Taking in a shaky breath, he scrambles to his feet when he sees her.

“...Y-Y/N?” He asks in a shaky voice. She was here...she was here! Before he can stop himself, he paces forward quickly and throws his arms around her, crushing her to him, tucking her face under his chin. 

“Holy shit...I-...I;m so fucking sorry, I thought...I thought you left, that you really left and...” He stammers out, mind racing.

“I did.” She cuts him off, not pulling away, but keeping her gaze fixed to the ground.

“You...did?”

“I did leave, Keigo.” She sighs, trying to pull away. He finally relents, but only lets her pull away a little, holding her close by her arms. Her heart feels heavy as she sees his tear stained face, as she watches his eyes rake across her, desperately drinking her in. 

“I came back to get another pair of shoes...I didn’t know you were back already.” Her voice is quiet, because she’s sure that if it were any louder, he would hear the slight wobble in it.

“Y/N...Y/N I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry, love.” He says, catching her gaze. “I didn’t...I wasn’t thinking straight.” She can see the desperation in his eyes, how he longs for her to believe him...but she can’t let this go that easily. 

“You hurt me. Practically called me useless, Keigo. That...that wasn’t okay.” She stares right back at him. 

“I know, I didn’t mean it, I swear. I’m here now, I’m here. I’ll try harder, baby, I promise just...just please, don’t leave me.” He’s still shaken up from the shock of thinking she was gone.

“For how long? You’re here now, but how long will that last?” Her voice starts to shake. She wants him back just as much as he wants her, but at the end of the day, she needed him to know how much he hurt her. She had been miserable for the past few days, staying at a friends house. 

At that, he takes a deep breath. “I know I’ve been neglecting you, and hell, you didn’t deserve that...you never did. You’re one of the best things in my life. I-... you’re not useless. You never were. You’re the most important thing in my life.” He hooks a finger under her chin and tilts her head up to meet her eyes, which are watery, just like his.

“I missed you so much. I promise I’ll try and be better. I’ll...take on less shifts or-or work less-”

“I don’t want you to put me before your career.” She cuts him off again, eyes wide. “I would never ask that, Keigo, I know how much you love your job. It’s just...” She sighs tiredly. “I just want you to be home sometimes, y’know? I never see you, I never know you’re okay.” She frowns.

There’s a beat of silence, before Keigo steps forward, closer to her, arms sliding down to hold her waist gently. “You’re always going to be more important than my career, Y/N.” he says sincerely, causing a few stray tears to slide down her cheeks. “I’m sorry, love. I’m so sorry.” He mumbles lowly, bringing up a hand and wiping away her tears with his thumb. He ignores his own tears, wanting to comfort her. 

“I love you. You don’t have to forgive me, but...just-just give me a chance to show you. Please.” He holds his breath, waiting for her answer. Keigo nearly collapses to the ground in relief again as he sees her nod slowly. 

“One chance.” she whispers, before wrapping her arms around him and pulling him in for another hug. She nearly starts sobbing as his familiar scent surrounds her, making her feel safe and loved. “One chance, Keigo.”

“That’s all I want.” she hears him whisper back, his breath tickling the top of her head as he holds her tighter. 

They would be okay.

Requests Are Open! Feel free to stop by and say hello!

(11/04/2021)

[st0nesnglitter]

Spoil you

James and Sirius spoils you and Remus

Poly relationship :)

Couple of mentions of sex n sexy stuff :)

—————

”Come ooon, pretty please” Sirius whined and gave you, literal, puppy-eyes.

Remus sighed and shook his head again. James and Sirius had been begging the two of you for the last ten minutes to spoil you. They thought that your academic skills, along with some others, deserved a treat and didn’t expect this much resistance.

”Just wanna treat you right” James muttered against Remus’ shoulder and Remus shot him a grin.

”Thought you treated me very right last night” he teased and James rolled his eyes.

”Can you two just let some very handsome gentlemen buy some things?” Sirius moaned and threw his arms up desperately ”let us be selfish”.

You scoffed and Remus’ thick brows knitted together.

”How is it selfish to buy us stuff?” He asked and Sirius lips formed an evil smirk.

”Cause we can buy any outfit we want and out of courtersy you’ll have to wear it” he placed a kiss against Remus blushy cheeks as he stood up and walked over to the phone.

”I will call and make a reservation at your favorite restaurant tonight, and then Jamesie and I will treat you for an outfit of your choice and an outfit of our choice” Sirius said matter of factly before leaving to book a table. You sighed and turned to James.

”I am not happy about this” you muttered and crossed your arms.

”I’ll make it up to you, don’t you worry sweetheart” James said with a carefree smile as he walked out to Sirius.

”I don’t like them” Remus pouted and you nodded in agreement.

After an hour of getting ready, and some convincing, you were strolling down the streets of muggle London. Since people still weren’t used to seeing four people in a relation like yours you had split up to look like two couples. Sirius had tried to argue that it didn’t mean shit what other people thought and that you should walk around, but Remus specifically did not like the stares and Sirius did not push him on that.

So you walked with James hand in yours with Sirius and Remus behind you. As you walked by a store with fancy suits Remus stopped as he looked at a deep red pinstriped suit.

”You like that one Remmy?” Sirius asked with a smile ”lets go in for a fitting” he nudged Remus to the entrance.

You and James sat down on the seemingly expensive, velvet couch as Remus stood awkwardly by the changing boot waiting for the employee and Sirius to return with the suit in the right size. The suit was gorgeous and you couldn’t wait to see Remus is something a little more dressed up than his sweaters, even though you loved them. When he walked out James sucked in a breath and Sirius chuckled.

”Holy shit Moony, you look like a million bucks” a wink was sent toward James before Sirius attention was brought back to Remus. He stepped in front of the mirror and admired the clothing that adorned him.

”It’s really nice...” Remus trailed off and you sensed that he would turn the sentence into something more negative ”but also really expensive” he looked over at James with guilty eyes.

”’S fine Rem, every dime is worth it see you look that dashing”.

The employee made a few adjustments in the waist and over the shoulders and then Sirius walked up and payed.

”Thank you Si” Remus mumbled with a shy smile and a blush over his cheeks.

”You look so incredibly adorable right now” Sirius smiled and smeared a kiss against his cheek.

James nudged you with his hips as you started walking around again.

”Your turn darling, what do you want?”

”Maybe that dress you’ve been eyeing” Sirius chipped in ”the black one, with embroidery”.

You bit your lip at the temptation, but still wanted to hold your ground about not letting them get you stuff. Remus ears perked at the mentioning of the dress.

”I, uh, wouldn’t mind seeing you in that dress” he said and James chuckled.

”See, do it for Rem”.

Your head came down in a nod and James face lit up.

”Atta girl”.

As you inspected the reflection of you in the dress you felt slighlty nervous to walk out to show the boys. Once they saw you in it you’d have a hard time to say no, since Remus had switched side last minute.

”C’mon puppy, wanna see you” Sirius called and you pulled the curtain to the side and stepped out.

Three fully grown men looked at you with wide eyes, looking like Remus did his first time in Honeyduke’s and he saw the displays of chocolate. You felt shy under their gazes and looked down at the skirt of the dress.

”I do like it” you said under your breath and James stood up and walked over to the register to pay. You walked out a little giddier than you’d like to admit with the bag in your hand.

”And to think that we needed to convince you to do this” Sirius said cockily behind you but you just ignored him.

James looked down on his watch to make sure that you still had time for him and Sirius picking out what they’d like for you to wear and get back to the apartment to change. His mind was still used to make timeplans from his Captain days and headboy duties.

The next person to stop by the entrance of a store was Sirius. His eyes lit up at the mannequins outfits and walked right in. You looked back and sighed.

”Oh no”.

Everywhere you looked there was heaps of lace, satin and even some latex, some pieces not being more than what looked like a single thread. Sirius walked around nonchalantly and flipped some of the garments, not quite finding a favorite.

”Prongs help me out will ya? What do you think about her in a maid dress?” He asked, as casual as if he talked about the weather.

”What about Remmy in a maid dress” James whispered and Sirius shivered at the thought.

”You have a very powerful mind Potter, ask if they have it in his size”.

James dashed away to talk to the girl behind the counter whilst Sirius kept browsing. His eyes landed on a lacy bodysuit and he couldn’t tear his eyes away.

”Remus, darling, what do you think of this?” He asked as he picked it off the rack.

”It’s very nice” Remus said with more confidence than you would’ve imagined and you tried to look over his shoulder to see what they wanted to put you in.

The bodysuit had an intricate pattern of flowers and you saw how the cups were made for accentuate the chest. It was almost corset-like and you knew that the boys would either keep you in it forever or rip it off of you the second you put it on. Sirius gave the black one he was holding to Remus and picked up a lavender one, then a red. The boys favorite colors on lingerie.

”Well I think it is decided” Sirius annonunced as he saw the color leave Remus’ face as he saw the lavender one ”we will be getting these”.

”No Sirius, wait, you said one outfit of your choice not three!” You exclaimed.

”Well you are in a relationship with three people so I think it’s only fair that we all get our favorite color, don’t you think?”

You huffed and Sirius walked to James to pay for the four garments whilst you and Remus waited.

It was about to be a long night..

[writingsbychlo]

smoke and fire (09)

word count; 13,103

summary; following up a storm, there’s a crash on one of the highways, and things don’t always go as planned in rescue attempts.

notes; there is going to be some big realisations in this part. it’s angsty, but you’ll love it.

warnings; reference to death, panic attacks, car crashes, near-death experience, mild injury/gore reference.

“Holy shit..” You mumbled, staring out at the scene ahead of yourself on the intersection, Newt’s jaw dropped much like your own as you looked out at it all. Smoke curling up into the air, crushed cars and contorted metal with flames curling up. Blue sirens of other ambulances and firetrucks, the other side of the amalgamation of cars, and you stepped down from the ambulance in shock.

The call that had come over the alert ten minutes ago had been no joke, it was a true disaster, the no longer muffled wails of emergency vehicle alerts, the crying of people in pain, the workings of machinery and metal grating against metal to make you shudder in uncomfortable shock. The firetrucks of your own house pulled up next to you, the ambulance having the edge on this case as it was easier to weave through other cars along the highway, and the same look of shock was mirrored on all of their faces. 

This wasn’t the first car crash you’d dealt with, far from it, but it was certainly the worst. Police and traffic wardens were beginning to divert traffic, all the lanes with cars moving in both directions being stopped, and you planted your feet tightly to the ground and wrapped your jacket more tightly around yourself as the strong and chilling winds that had been the cause of the accident came back to claim more victims. The females roared up, only encouraged by the howling winds, and you cursed under your breath at the cold. 

An oil tanker had tipped over, blocking all of the lanes in both directions, broken fences from where it had tipped and cars had simply managed to smash into it and one another repeatedly as they tried to swerve, leaving the mixed wreckage of at least twenty cars littered across the tarmac. Bumpers, glass and framework, and there were too many pieces to began even starting to try and match them to smashed vehicles. 

Opening your door back up and hopping back up into the warmth of the ambo’ cabin, Newt ran a hand over his hair, scratching at the back of his head lightly as he sighed, gaze scanning repeatedly over the sights before him, and Brenda bumper her hips against his as she came to stand next to him. Twisting the dials on the radio, you unhooked the speaker from the set screwed into the dashboard, bringing it to your lips and listening as it crackled. 

“First responder dispatch centre, how can I help?”

“This is the paramedic of Firehouse ‘21, reporting to a call on the bridge entered-” Flicking your wrist up to take a look. “-eighteen minutes ago. Please notify all local hospitals to expect heavy patient incoming, various degrees of injury. Most likely to be expected is concussions, broken bones, burns and smoke inhalation, as well as various lacerations and punctures.”

“Noted, and the local hospitals will be informed. Thank you for your call.” The buzzing across the radios returned, static to fill the space as the call came to an end, and you hooked the material back up. Reaching backwards and behind your chair, you fished around for your bag, snatching it up in one hand and taking Newt’s with you, the man having paced away to stand with groups of firemen as they waited for their instructions. 

This was yet another call that Vince would take control off, ready to discuss a plan with the other house Chiefs to come up with a plan of action, divide and conquer the scene before you all, everybody coming at it from another angle to handle it. Slamming the door shut and wrapping your arms around yourself tightly once again to shield yourself from the cold. Stepping along towards your partner, your cheeks were already beginning to sting from the low temperature, and you came to stand before him, handing him his bag.

“Thanks.” He took the pack from you, hanging it on his shoulder, just with one strap, and tucking his hands securely into his pockets, bunched up in fists for warmth. “You call it in?”

“Notified all hospitals in the area, and gave them a vague list of injuries to expect.”

“Good call.” He mumbled, and you tried to tune into the chatter you were hearing. From what you could gather, the Chiefs had all divided up the area into sections, a certain number of cars and rescues to make. 

Three other teams on sight, one would deal solely with the tanker, neutralising oil and saving the driver from the cabin while making sure that the punctured and leaking tanker never met fire; arguably the most pressured job of them all as they struggled to fight off the looming explosion. The second and third team would split the cars on the other side, the morning rush who had all been heading into the city leaving far more casualties than those on your side who’d been heading the opposite way, and you would be left to deal with those on this side of the overturned tanker that was covering the entirety of the highway. 

There was so much commotion and noise that you couldn’t even hear the racing of the waters underneath, despite the crushing strength of the icy water running under the bridge below your feet, the rumbling of it normally audible when it was this chaotic, right after a storm had hit, but it was overpowered today. You shook again, the chilling temperatures making everything that much more difficult, the knuckles in your fingers already beginning to go stiff with the cold weather. 

“Alright, team. Listen up.” Your head snapped up as Vince spoke, his hands clapping together, rubbing for warmth before they were tucked back inside of his pockets, and you envied the heavy-duty jacket he already had on. “We have everything to the left of the overturned tanker. We are not - under any circumstances - to venture out of our zone. There is spilt oil, fires, and a lot of jagged metal. I don’t want to hear anyone telling other teams what to do.” He shot a pointed look to Gally, he scowled a little, everyone else chuckling and you supposed there was a story that you had yet to hear. 

Vince continued on, commanding the firemen, but you and Newt were able to tune out as you were left to your own devices, the two of you turning in unison to explore the area with your gazes. There weren’t as many cars to be attended to as you suspected there were on the other sides, but it was still over ten, and you worried your lower lip between your teeth as you tried to establish where to start. There were groans of pain, calls for help, and your fingers wrapped around your bag handle as you gripped on and tried to steady your thoughts.

The most concerning of it all was the van on the edge of the bridge. Clearly spun out, the side was dented and scraped from the collision. The barricades on either side of the van were missing, torn and unstable as one of the front wheels hung over the edge, but it seemed reasonably stable, no wobble or shake to it, even with the howling winds. 

“You wanna’ take that one?”

“Oh, no, that’s a treat for you.” You smirked, turning to look at Newt, and he rolled his eyes, holding out his fist and raising his brows. Matching his pose, you twisted to face him more fully, your fist landing on an open palm. “I can’t read you anymore. You used to suck at this game.”

“I have tactical skills now. It’s all about logic. I’m basically a Vulcan.”

“You’re basically a nerd.” You teased, and he scoffed, his good foot swinging up to kick you lightly enough in your shin that it didn’t hurt, but it still made you tremble as you tried to avoid it. He moved again, stepping towards you, and you shoved at his shoulder as you backed away. “Cut it out! I take it back!”

“Yeah, you better. Just for that, you’re taking the van!”

“Rock, paper, scissors!” You demanded, and he shook his head, turning his back on you and wandering away towards the car closest to himself, and you gaped at him a little, before turning back to analyse the van. It would no doubt need to be stabilised, and yet it was barely over the edge, but it was still concerning, and as you peered inside, you could pick up no movement, finding that there was an unconscious driver inside, if not unconscious passengers, too.

Turning back to find a fireman to help you, you jumped violently in shock at finding one directly behind you, your entire body jerking as you stepped back, and a familiar and raspy chuckle met your ears, held low to hide his brief amusement in a tense situation, and you scowled flashy up at him.

“Fucking hell, don’t do that!”

“I’m sorry.” He grinned, holding up a peace offering and apology that made your eyes widen. “I brought you a coat, so you wouldn’t get cold. Might restrict your movement a bit, though.” Thomas lifted the jacket up to sit over your shoulders, and you dropped your medkit to the floor, pushing your arms through your sleeves and wrapping it up tightly around yourself. For once, with the lack of any fires near yourself, you didn’t feel so overheated by the jacket, and instead comforted by it. 

“Thanks, I was freezing, actually.” He only hummed, letting go of the lapels as you fastened it up at the front, pressing down the velcro seals but not bothering to zip it up in case you needed to remove it frequently for your venture. Grabbing your bag from the ground beside your feet again, you stood back up. He was staring at you, a soft smile on his face but there was uncertainty hidden behind it, and you hated that you were at fault for it. 

You knew he was waiting for some kind of response to his actions of only a few days ago, the sweet touch of affection he had offered you after your visit to the vet. The dog was sitting happily and warm back at the station now, probably curled up on the couch, and yet you were standing here in the cold, trying to work out what to say to the man before you. 

Your mind had been clouded these last few days, spinning with too many thoughts to process. Your job, your friends, the life you’d lived for the last half a decade as opposed to the one looking you in the eye now, and whether you were willing to let yourself open up to that change. You wanted to, you wanted to let them in and to know that you had a true place in this house, but with your track record it was hard, and you were unfamiliar with having a family so intense after years of being alone. 

“I just need to think, okay?” Reaching out a hand when his shoulders slumped, he perked up a little as his fingers curled back around yours, loosely but enough to show he appreciated the gesture, and you squeezed gently. He nodded his head, licking over his lips, and while you knew that the look in his eyes was disappointment, there was also understanding. “I need your help.”

He took a sharp breath, his hand pulling back from yours as ‘Thomas’ disappeared and ‘Lieutenant Stephens’ took over. Jabbing a thumb over your shoulder, his eyes flickered to the van, brows furrowing a little. 

“It’s my job to head into that van, and in the interest of being less reckless, I figured you’d want to hook me up to some ropes before I do.”

“The fact that you even consider going in there without any deeply concerns me, y’know.” You rolled your eyes fondly, shaking your head as he stepped back, but he was spinning on his heel to begin commanding his team. The Truck team were already spreading out across the space deemed to belong to your firehouse, and Newt was halfway inside of a slightly crushed car to reach a patient, while Thomas began to gather equipment and a team for the van. 

Stepping over to said vehicle as you waited, you pressed your hand to the back of the van in a feather-light touch. Skimming your fingers across the cold surface of the backdoor, your fingers hooked under the handle, pushing down on the button and pulling the warped metal out, the door swinging open. 

From what you’d been able to see through the windows along the side, there was no movement, but there was still hope to get a verbal response as you called out. The cabin remained silent, and you peered inside, finding only one person sitting within there, a driver slumped across the steering wheel, airbag deployed and beginning to deflate. You suspected lacerations and possible broken lungs, as well as a concussion and one hell of a headache when they woke up. 

Pulling back, you rounded the car, peering over the barricade over the edge of the road and swallowing thickly at the height of the drop down into the river, the waters raging below you, and you checked the sights of the engine. You were no mechanic, and you couldn't tell much from the outside, but it didn’t look like the metal had crumpled too much, meaning you wouldn't have to cut away metal around his legs to get him out, making your job a lot easier if he wasn’t trapped under an engine that had been forced into the main vehicle compartment. 

“Ready when you are!” Brenda was waving a harness at you as you turned to face her, and Minho was busy planting anchors in the ground. Enough to support you, the passenger inside, and the ropes that would be secured around the vehicle to hold it steady. The team were working quickly and efficiently, threading them through the tyres and around the van in various locations to keep it still while you crawled inside. 

Taking the bundle of fabric from her, you dropped it to the ground, beginning to become familiar with these harnesses now, and you were certain you could get it on yourself. Pulling it up after stepping one foot into each loop, you eased it up your legs, tightening it at your waist and around each thigh, making sure that the straps were secure enough to reassure you. 

“You’re going to have limited rope, alright? So, try not to get it stuck on anything, because we need a lot of these anchors, we’re going to have to stand far back and away from the cracking concrete to have any grip.

“How much rope is ‘limited rope’?”

“About three metres.” She winced, and you turned to look at the vehicle, a brow raising. 

“Bren, this van looks about three metres if not more, can’t we get a longer rope?”

“We need all the rope we have for securing the van.” You knew she was right, there was more distance to be covered there, and it as important to keep both yourself and the passenger safe and secure, but it didn’t make it any easier to navigate the carbon and be able to move when you’d be tugging on a leash with no give. “Take a harness into the van, try to secure the patient inside of it. We’re getting another rope and anchor grouping set up, by the time you tend to them, we should be ready.”

“Gotcha.”

She grinned, holding up her palm flat, and you chuckled a little, before slamming your own hand against hers. It may have been a childish gesture, but something about the silly actions of high-fiving in support of one another had relieved just a little bit of the crippling tension looming over you both in the moment, and so as you grinned to one another, it was worth it. “You got this!”

“You bet I do.” You winked, hearing her let out an encouraging cheer, before she was hanging over the spare harness to you and walking away to take the end of your rope through all of the anchors and support set up to take the weight off of her. Thomas was working on another rope, giving you a simple nod as he watched you go, approval and encouragement you were sure, before you were placing your first foot onto the metal of the van, and then a second, climbing up and into the precariously hanging vehicle.

Once you were balanced within, both feet on the wooden backing of the van, you were left to try and navigate your way through the space. It was cluttered, work tools and plywood, all strapped down for security, and you were grateful to see that at least those restraints were intact; if they’d swung forward when this van had hit the railing, there was a likelihood they would have unbalanced the van.

Setting your bag and the spare harness down on the passenger seat the driver was still strapped in, and as you took another step forward toward him, the breath was forced from your lungs, the harness pulling tight around your stomach as the rope ran out, going taut through the anchors and giving you no budge. 

“You okay in there?”

You turned back to look at Chuck, his eyes scanning over the inside of the van, bright eyes and flushed cheeks as his curls blew around his face in the breeze, and you nodded. Looking over the man before you, your fingers took his chin gently, tipping his head up to sit straight instead of at the uncomfortable angle it had fallen to lay at, and checking for a pulse in his neck. It was weak, and his breathing was shallow, but it was definitely there. 

“Anything I can do to help?”

“You can grab a neck brace and the board from the ambo’, I don’t think this guy is waking up anytime soon.” Chuck nodded, moving away to gather the supplies you’d listed off to him, the heavy sound of his boots scuffling on the tarmac fading out as you focused on the man before you. There was a nasty graze across the side of his neck, a fleshy burn from the friction of his seatbelt against his skin, but he could simply be glad he was wearing it, because otherwise, he would have gone through the windshield. 

The airbag was going down, and you pressed onto it, the hissing of air sounding out as you pushed it to help it deflate, giving you more space to work with, and see what you were doing, trying to reach across his body as you waited for the fabric safety precaution to reside. 

His nose was bleeding and it was swelling with purple bruises under his eyes and across his cheeks, a broken nose that was bad and would need professionally resetting, but that was the only initial examination that you could do with your limited range of motion. 

Tugging a little on your rope again, and hoping it would offer a little more give, you were disappointed as it held strong, trying to work out how to get closer to the patient, to be able to properly reach him, and start examining him for the further injuries you suspected he might have.

“Okay, I got the brace and the board.” Chuck was panting slightly, lugging both pieces of equipment, the support like a surfboard under his arm as the padded brace swung in the other hand, and you chuckled. “Alright, set the board down, I’m not sure how I’ll get him into it, but you can tell Brenda we aren’t going to need the spare harness, he’s out cold. I’ll trade ya’.” He nodded, placing the board down on the ground and letting the brace follow. 

Picking up the edge of the fabric you’d left with your bag, you shifted, swinging it over your shoulder and the van rocked a little at your sudden movement, your blood running cold, but it stopped after only a moment as the ropes that the Squad team had set into place held it steady; Chuck’s eyes as wide as yours. “Maybe no more sudden movements, then?”

“I think that’s a good idea, kid.” You grinned a little, trying to reassure the young candidate despite your heart leaping into your throat with fear. “Now, pass me that neck brace, nice and gentle. Roll it cross the floor.”

He did as told, tucking the straps in carefully and pushing it down the slight slope of the van, watching as the plastic rolled unevenly across the floor before getting wedged behind the passenger seat, stuck just underneath it, but the bright yellow plastic was still partially visible. You reached, the straps around your waist restricting your movements and digging into your flesh, almost to a painful degree, and your fingers brushed over it, but you couldn't grab a hold of it. 

“God, I can’t do anything on this freakin’ leash.”

“Oh, please don’t do what I think you’re going t-” You ignored him, fingers working over the latch on the carabiner that was keeping you secure, and you felt the tension around your waist give way from the second that it was unhooked. “You terrify me, do you know that? Do you have no concept of danger?”

“There is no danger, Chuck, I’ll be fine.” Clipping the band onto one of the poles in the headrest so that you could reach it again easily, you stripped off your coat to give you more flexibility, and left it in the footwell of the seat you currently resided next to. “You guys got this van all roped up, and it’s right there. I just need to be able to move if I’m going to save this man’s life.”

You rubbed sweaty palms against the fabric of your pants to dry them off, your first call was to unzip your bag, and to locate a pair of sanitary gloves, before interacting with him at all. Once the plastic covers were sealed over your hands comfortably, you were settling into a slightly uneven passenger seat to get a better look at him. 

Ideally, you really needed the seatbelt out of the way, but in his unconscious state, doing that would probably make the man fall forwards, and so you tried to work around it. Pressing your fingers gently along his chest under the unmoving strain of a locked safety belt, you pressed for hard patches, finding none under your fingers, breathing a sigh of relief as you found no external signs of immediate internal bleeding, muscles tense but skin not having hardened up.

Moving up to his eyes, you lifted one eyelid open, finding the keyring on your bag and unhooking it, flashing the small torch across his eyes, and watching for any pupil reaction. It was fast, an immediate reaction that was impressive and reassuring, and everything about the situation with the man in the truck was looking up. He was incredibly lucky. You were progressively growing more confused, however, as to why he was so heavily unconscious when so little seemed to be wrong.

Even the nerves in his legs were twitching when given stimulus, suggesting that he didn’t even have any kind of paralysis or delayed response time. His body seemed to be handling the shock and the adrenaline exceptionally well, and he should be awake. 

Reaching under your seat, you leaned forward, finding the brace and tugging it out, brushing it off and undoing the velcro seals that Chuck had put into place as it rolled, the ripping down of the two sides separating filling the cabin. 

“Chuck, time for you to go and grab another fireman, I’m going to work out how to get him loaded up onto a board, and out to you guys.” 

“I’m on it.” He gave you a salute, an ‘aye, aye, sir’ following it, and you couldn't help but chuckle at his antics, a heart of gold in the kid for being able to find amusement in the situation. You assessed the situation, ready to try and get him out of here, so that you could follow swiftly behind him, not wanting to be caught in the metal box any longer than necessary. Once you had him out and being carried to the ambulance, you could properly tend to his wounds. 

You’d need to put some disinfectant on the raw skin where his seatbelt had been, clean up his nose, and do a more thorough bodily exam to confirm your results but as far as you could see, there was no harm in moving him. There was only the trouble of getting him onto the board by yourself, in such a cramped and awkward position. Sweeping your eyes over the vehicle for anything to help, you scanned the chair, raising a brow, and twisting to look at your own. 

It took a moment, but your suspicions were confirmed, a handle on the outside of the chair near the door was present, to adjust the angle that the chair was sat at. Testing it, you reached around your seat, pushing the handle down and feeling the chair spring forwards, the wrong directions, and you huffed. Instead, you tried pulling up next, and it began to retract. The more you inched the chair backwards, the further it went, never reaching a limit as it sat halfway flattened, a good bet that the driver’s seat would do the same, and it was the best option you had so far.

 The door on the other side was a little more battered, the metal warped in, and as Chuck returned with Thomas by his side. He took a single look over the cabin, before his eyes were widening, and then narrowing on you. 

“Did you take off your harness?”

“No!” You moved, kneeling a little, half between the man's chair and half on the passenger as you hooked your thumb under the edge to show him. “I just undid the rope so that I could move around and actually do my job.”

“Are you insane? Do you have absolutely no concept of danger?” Thomas hissed, and you stuck your tongue out at him, moving to get a better look at the gap between his chair and the door, and whether you were going to be able to get your hand to the lever.

“That’s exactly what I said!” Chuck agreed, and you sighed at the pair of them.

“Put your rope back on, right now, or else-”

“Or else what, Tommy? What are you gonna’ do, huh?” You paused, raising a brow at him, and his jaw snapped shut. “You gonna’ come in here and make me? Unbalance the van with all your stomping around as you wrestle me back onto the rope? I think not.” His lips flicked up at the sides, lips rolling together to contain his smile, and his head ducked, but you didn’t miss the quiet chuckle he let out. When his head lifted, however, the amusement was gone, and that same endearing concern was back, making you sigh. “You got this whole thing hooked up with wires, I’m perfectly safe. I trust you.”

He swallowed thickly at your words, nodding his head, before his shoulders slumped a little. “Alright, fine. So, you got a plan or what, sweetheart? Because I don’t see how you’re going to get him onto that board alone, so maybe I will have to come in and wrestle you back into your ropes anyway.”

“Oh, ha ha.” You scoffed, adjusting yourself to be able to reach, and wincing as the screeching sound of metal and the slight wobble at the uneven weight distribution toward the driver’s seat brought back unsettling memories of your time in the elevator month’s prior. “I’m going to lower the chair back, and loosen his seatbelt as best I can. We can wiggle the board under him slowly, I’ll get the neckbrace on him, and push him up far enough for you to drag him the rest of the way.”

Thomas chewed on his bottom lip, nodding slowly as he thought through, and watching as you moved to lean over the man. Your hand was pressed tightly between the side of the chair and the metal as you worked your way down, blindly searching by touch for the lever you needed, and finally, you squeezed your fingers over the handle, but barely able to move to pump it and lower the chair carefully. “No sudden movements, okay? I don’t want any extra stress on those ropes.”

“No sudden movements, I promise.”

You flexed the handle, the chair lowering by an inch, maybe a little more, and you kept it up, your arm beginning to ache from the angle you were working at already, but with each squeaky sound, his chair was lowering more and more, straightening his spine out carefully as he lay down, your other hand resting against his forehead delicately to keep his head straight.

As he was lowered further and further, you pumped the chair as far as it could go, getting his body as streamlined as you could, and you were already making progress with him. Chuck was ready, holding the board up for you, and you nodded your head, letting go of a tense breath and leaning back to rotate your arm slowly to ease the cramp that was building in the muscles and tendons of your shoulder.

Shifting between the seats, and standing hunkered over as not to bump your head against the roof, you positioned yourself before him, Thomas holding one side of the board for stability, and Chuck on the other, watching for your advice silently. Cupping his head carefully, glove covered palm under the back of his skull to keep him steady, you lifted his head forwards just slightly, holding him still and curling your fingers in a motion as though to say ‘come hither’, and the board inched forward. 

As the plastic came into your peripherals, you reached out, guiding it to rest on the fabric of the chair under his head, pressing in until they reached the junctions of his shoulders, and then they stopped. Your palm was held up flat to them in signal, and while it would have been just as easy to talk, something about breaking the tense silence felt wrong, as though it would disturb the concentration you all had going.

Supporting his head still, you moved your other hand to lift his shoulders up, grunting a little at the added weight and strain on your arms in the less than ideal position, but it worked. With each wiggle and shift, they got the board a little further down under his body, sometimes stopping when it got caught on the safety belt or his clothing, but otherwise being completely successful. As the board bumped the backs of his legs, still bent over the seat with his feet pressed to the floor, you placed his head down, facing a whole new challenge. 

“What now?”

“I need you to get in here with me.” His face deadpanned, and you grinned, the blank look on his face amusing you. “Relax, not right up here with me. I just need you to pull him upwards very slowly onto the board while I adjust him. Once he’s on the board, I can strap him securely, and get the neck brace on him. You guys get him out, I get out of this death trap, and I see some other patients.”

“Doesn’t sound too bad.”

“Try to keep his head still, okay? We don’t want him getting any more injuries that we could have prevented.” Thomas only nodded in conformation, before he was stepping up, the van wobbling a little as he did, and he lowered himself down to one knee.

Reaching over the man, and inching two thicker-gloved hands under his shoulders, finding it harder to get a grip than you did in just your rubber gloves. He didn't move, though, waiting to be told to do so as you unclipped his seatbelt, the material slinking away across his body and back into the holder. Just as you prepared yourself for the neck brace, turning back to the passenger seat beside it, you watched his head roll to the side, cheek pressing into the fabric limply.

“What did you do?”

“I didn’t do anything!” Thomas' voice raised a little, insistent he hadn't, and you fixed him with a questioning look. “I swear!”

You didn’t get a chance to question him, before a loud gasping was sounding in the van, followed by a groan that bounced from the metal walls of the van, and his eyes were snapping open. Everything was still for only a moment, and you tried to process your words, mind spinning and you didn't have a chance to think before he was sitting up roughly, the car rocking with his movements, and he let out another agonised noise at the motions.

“Sir, I need you to rel-”

“What happened?” His head whipped from side to side, face screwing up before he was wincing, and the blood that had dried on his skin from his nose was soon replaced by a fresh gush of red, dripping over his lower lip and along his chin as he panicked. Sitting up further, the car rocked, and his hands flew out, gripping onto the edge of the van for stability. “What the fuck happened?”

“(Y/N), put your ropes back on!”

Your head snapped up to Thomas, his eyes wide as he pointed to the rope you still had clipped to the opposite chair, and you nodded your head at the precarious rocking of the vehicle. A hand grabbed your wrist, jerking roughly in fear as your attention was brought back to the man, and there was another shout of your name from Thomas, falling on deaf ears as the pleas of your patient drowned him out;

“Are we over the river?”

“I need you to calm down for me, okay, can you do that?” You tried to place a hand on his shoulder, to stop the moving that he was doing, but the whole vehicle groaned under the pressure, the sound of snapping and crumbling concrete making itself known, and then came a tearing, a loud banging against the side of the van, and Thomas jumped a little as he backed out of the van to peer over the top.

“What was that?”

“(Y/N) put your damn rope back on, now!”

“What was that, Thomas?” Your voice raised, demanding again as the vehicle swayed and you struggled to remain upright, his jaw clenching and nostrils flaring. 

“One of the support wires snapped, the movement is too much, it can’t take the weight.”

“The supports are snapping?” The patient sounded more panicked than either of you, and the grip that had been almost bruising around your wrist was released, your hand snatched back to your chest as you gripped it supportively. That same large hand landed on your shoulder, a brief push as he struggled to his feet and pushed past you in a haze of blinding fear and adrenaline, the vehicle moving violently as he tried to clamber his way on shaky legs from the van. 

You fell, the pressure from his push making you stumbled and your legs caught on the edge of the passenger seat chair, your body falling backwards and head hitting against the dashboard, shoulder landing on the handbrake and a sharp shock of pain ran along your entire body at the feeling. The sounds of your team members shouting at you, at the patient, at anyone else all became muffled for a second as your ears rang at the collision, your eyes squeezed closed, and you forced yourself to take a deep breath in and out as you processed the pain and tried to suppress it to be dealt with later.

The car came to a steady rest, no longer moving so aggressively but simply swaying, and you tried to adjust yourself carefully to be able to sit up. Thomas and Chuck were watching, with no sight of the patient, and both of them relaxed a little as you came into view. 

“Is he alright?”

“Is he alright?” Thomas seethed, and you blinked a little to clear fuzzy vision as you focused on your surroundings. “That idiot almost just made this van tip. He ran off to find Newt, I assume. Are you alright?”

“I’m fine, just a little achy.” You muttered, the understatement seeming to make the throbbing in your shoulder seem worse. “It’s not his fault, he was in pain and confused, he wasn’t thinking clearly, it’s not his fault, Tommy.”

His anger didn’t seem to die down at all, but his resolve broke, and he choked back whatever he had to say, shaking his head. “Can you reach your rope? We need to get you out.”

You regretted using the passenger seat as your test for the lever one, because even at the most outstretched your arm could get, you still couldn't reach it from here without moving. Shifting up onto your knees, the van jerked again, tilting a little further as a sound of metal on stone so piercing it made your stomach churn and body shudder sounded out, another lurch forwards, another wire giving way, and you still couldn’t reach your rope.

“No! No, don’t move! There are two wires doing four wires’ job right now. Please, just stay still. Let me think of another way to get you out, just give me a minute, I can do this!”

Thomas’ voice was frantic, and you took a deep breath, trying to calm yourself as well as him, knowing that while he was all worked up, his mind wasn’t going to be clear at all. “You need to relax first, you’re going to work yourself into an anxiety attack.”

“Relax? You’re hanging over a river in an unstable van that could go at any moment! How could you possibly tell me to relax?”

“Thomas!” His head snapped up, eyes wide, his gaze steady as his eyes found yours, and you watched his shoulders loosen a little. “Please, just take a breath. I need you to not be Tommy right now. I need you to be my Lieutenant, okay?” He nodded, forcing himself to take a deep breath despite how shaky the inhale was, and letting it go slowly. 

“Yeah. You’re right. Okay.” It was like watching him shift into a new person before your eyes, a single deep breath, before he was letting out a sigh, and he stood up from his hunched-over position to look around the area surrounding you both outside of the truck. He let out a ragged sigh, trying to steady his own nerves, and you were struggling to do the same, feeling you the rushing of blood inside of your ears was almost deafening as your heart pounded, palms growing sweaty. 

Distracting yourself, you peeled off the rubber gloves, fixing flexing when they were free of the latex, and you tried to control your jitters. The van was tipped at an uneven angle now, and as you leaned forward, it wasn’t much of a strain to catch sight of the raging river below. The river was raging, the normally calm and steadily flowing waters were trampling anything in their path; branches, twigs and debris jostled in the rolls of water as the storm floods were washing away all the broken branches and eroded concrete it had created, the barriers up the side almost flooding over as the heavy rainfall you’d had was drained away.

One thick blue rope was pulled to its maximum tightness around the front of the vehicle, caught against the car’s metal insignia across the front, and some of the strings were beginning to snap, one thread of cotton at a time coming loose. 

“Hey, Lieutenant?” He ducked back down, eyes wide as he stared at you, cocking a brow in silent questioning. “Not to rush you or anything, but that last rope is fraying, and I don’t think it’s going to-”

The van screeched against the concrete, dragging forwards a little more, and the sound of several voices suddenly shouting filled what had only a second ago been reasonably calm quiet. You couldn't pick out a single voice, it was a calamity of panicked yells and commanding orders, and Thomas had disappeared from the end of the van, leaving you entirely alone. 

It wasn’t a feeling you liked, sitting in a metal tin as it rocked unevenly, the sounds of the tearing rope becoming louder and more common, the more strain put on fewer threads was speeding up the rate at which the rope was giving way, and there was a burning in the back of your throat as tears threatened to burn. 

You sniffled, cursing yourself for being on the verge of tears when you had bigger priorities right now than crying, but you couldn't help it. You were terrified, you were facing a drop of twenty feet while trapped inside of a van, into water that would be well below zero in temperatures, travelling at speeds you’d never be able to kick your way to the surface within, and it was overwhelming. 

A gasping breath, and another one, before your eyelids were growing heavy and as you shut them, you felt tears begin to leak free. You were barely balanced in the passenger seat, your legs aching and muscles tensed as you tried to hold yourself steady at the uneven angle, and parts of your body were growing numb as the dull pain became overwhelming. 

“How ya’ doing in there, (Y/L/N)?”

You couldn't help the weak laugh that you let out, wiping at your cheeks and looking up to face Thomas, his eyes flickering over with concern, but he kept his emotions steady, handling this much better than you were; but then again he wasn’t the one hanging over the edge of a bridge. “You know, just hanging out.”

“Can’t be that bad if you can still make puns.”

“Oh, I’m loaded with them, ready to drop at any time.” You insisted, silently thanking him for the fact that he was overlooking the tears still running down your cheeks and the wobble of your lower lip, instead just offering you a chuckle at the ironic words you had spoken. “So, how’s that rescue plan coming along, or are you just planning to leave me in here? Just when I thought we were getting over our issues..”

“Well, this would be a pretty convenient way to solve all of that.” He grinned, and you wiped your cheeks clear, skin stinging from the hot salt. “We’re just going to get some new anchors into the floor. If we can get a stabilising rope around this van then we’ll send someone in to get you, okay? Just keep holding on for me, you’re doing great, an-”

You squeaked a little at the tremor that shook the vehicle, your eyes going wide and Thomas’ words dying in his throat. That preamble seemed to be the warning, because only a  second later, the van was jerking again, another foot or so over the bridge and the back wheels were almost over the edge now too. 

Your body fell forwards, side colliding with the edge of the dashboard, ribs flaring up with pain and your leg twisted a little as it was caught in the gap between the chair and the flooring. The van was almost perpendicular now, you were pressed to the glass, the board you’d intended to lift your patient out on had slammed into the glass and it as fracturing in one corner, and despite the fear you had expected to be racing through you at this point, you felt an unsettling wave of calm. 

The voices outside were louder, the two ends of frayed rope hanging by the passenger windows, destroyed and useless, and you swallowed thickly, pushing yourself up a little bit and trying to gain your bearings, a headache forming behind your eyes from the stress and the panic bubbling inside of you, but crying no longer felt appropriate. 

“Hey, Tommy, are you still there?”

“I thought you wanted Lieutenant?” He sounded about as stressed as you felt, and you could no longer see him, all of the weight being held on the rope that Brenda was supposed to be holding for you, and you had no doubt that she must be under immense pressure on the other end of the machinery to hold it steady, but the thinner ropes designed for you weren’t going to hold very long. 

“Yeah, but now I want Tommy.” You mumbled, knowing that he couldn't hear you, and you tried to sort through your thoughts. “I’m scared.”

“I know. But I have a plan, alright? You’re just not going to like it.”

“I can’t say I’ve been all that fond of any of your plans, if I’m honest.” He gasped, a false sound of offence echoing around the cabin, and the weight on your shoulders lifted a little. “You can’t be all that surprised. So far, you’ve had me crawling between buildings on ladders and abseiling into elevator shafts that were dropping. It would seem that me and these harnesses just have some bad luck.”

“Yeah, well, if you’d stayed on your rope both of those times, you’d have been just fine.” He teased, and you scoffed at his statement, knowing that there was an air of both truth and falseness about it. “I’m going to lower another rope down to you, and you need to clip it to your harness, alright?”

“Sounds easy enough.”

“Yeah, but then comes the scary part.” He was trying to sound brave and you knew it was for your own benefit, but you were seeing right through him. “I need you to hold still and let the van drop away. We’re going to cut the rope, and the vehicle is going to drop out from under you. We can’t get any more anchors in the tarmac because of the cracks, so we’re going to have to do this the old fashioned way.”

There was a rope being lowered, and the glass underneath of you cracked a little bit more as you reached for it, fingers brushing against the metal of the carabiner, and you felt relief flood through you at simply having it in your hands. Your fingers worked over the catch quickly, unscrewing it to be able to hook it onto the front of your harness, and making sure that you did it up as tightly as you possibly could with the trembling you currently had. Tugging twice on the rope, you let out a sigh of relief.

“Okay, we’re going to cut the final wire, and you need to slide between the front seats before we do. Don’t try to climb, you’ll unbalance the van and it could drag you over the edge with it.”

Your body tensed as you stayed still, daring to shift fractionally to press your feet to the cracking glass underneath you, and it splintered even more, chips beginning to fall away as it threatened to break entirely. “I’m ready.”

It was a lie, a blatant, stone-cold lie, and yet you knew it needed to be done. Only a second after you’d said it, the ground underneath your feet was falling away, the already unstable vehicle tumbled forward with a groan, and your eyes squeezed shut. The breeze it created as it passed you by, the spray of water that came up from the almost deafeningly loud crashing it made as it hit the surface of the icy waters, and ten you were swinging. 

Dangling precariously over the edge, the muffled shouts of everyone above seeming like white noise as you tried to focus on simply holding off the upcoming panic attack that was bubbling within you, the droplets of cold water on your cheeks a direct contrast to the tears that were leaking free. You felt nauseous, a hand coming down to cover your stomach as the other cupped over your mouth, a precaution as you felt your gut twist into knots at the way your centre of gravity was spinning. 

It was the same way that your stomach would flip on a rollercoaster as it shot down a steep cliff, but continuous and without the rush of thrill, each jerk in the rope as you were tugged a few inches back up towards the surface making more adrenaline surge through your body to drown out the screaming fear that was threatening to consume you.

You waited, simply trying to catch your breath, trying not to let the stress get to you any more than it already had, and as the edge of the crumbled and broken concrete came into sight. The tips of your fingers were stinging and sore as you scrabbled against the stonework of the road pulling yourself up until you were on your hand and knees, head hanging, and head pounding.

It was all too much, your body feeling weak and your mind buzzing as you thought over it all, and the flashing lights around you were almost blinding, but it reminded you of where you were. You reached out, a hand wrapping around your own as you were pulled to your feet, and the flushed face of the man who’d saved your life was standing before you. 

“Are you okay?”

“Yeah.” You whispered, and he chuckled, using his teeth to pull off his glove and drop it to the ground, before a warm palm was closing over your cheek. The other soon followed, thumbs wiping away tears you had forgotten were even present, and you sank a little into his touch as he held onto you. “You have a job to do, Lieutenant.”

“I can spare a second to make sure you're okay.”

You nodded, sniffling a little, and shaking your head free of his grasp to wipe at your cheeks yourself. There was enough adrenaline racing through you right now to give you the power to fight a pissed off bull, your entire body jittering from head to toe, and you could barely think straight. “Really, Thomas, I’m fine.”

He stiffened slightly, and you knew you were shutting him out, but you couldn't help it, you’d been so scared in the moment, and yet, it hadn't been alone. You were scared because for the first time you could remember in your career, there were people who cared about you, and that had somehow made it all the more terrifying a prospect. You’d never had so much to lose before now.

“I should get back to work.”

The silence felt weighted as it hung between you, and your arms wrapped around your body at the chill of the winds that were sweeping over. You knew he hated the change of topic that you’d made, he was reaching out to you once again, and you were too afraid to return it. “I think Newt is just about done here, why don’t you head back to the ambo’ and get him to patch you up, instead.”

“Thomas..”

“I have a team to run.” His voice was firm again, and you felt locked out. You knew you’d messed up, you had done it to yourself, but you hated that he was disappointed in you. It was an unfortunate turn of events, something unexpected that made everything seem like a risk, and yet you weren’t used to having people who cared around you, to feeling like such a close-knit member of a team that it would affect them all so deeply.

He was walking away from you, a frown on his lips, and you wanted to reach out, but you didn’t know how to.

You turned away yourself, regretting the action as you did, and you wanted to glance back over your shoulder, but you knew he was angry. Still, it didn’t help the pain you felt, the pit in the bottom of your stomach, and every step you took away from him with bad blood still sitting heavy between you made you feel like you were wading through wet concrete. It was odd, how only a few months ago this kind of arguing had been the usual between you both, and yet now, it made you feel like you could barely breathe, a weight sitting on your chest. 

You couldn't take it. “Thomas!”

When you turned, he was glancing back over his shoulder, face sitting neutral and a single brow raised as he waited for you to keep speaking, but as you took further steps towards him, his face softened a little further. He turned to face you fully, eyes widening a little and his jaw dropped to ask you what was wrong, but he didn’t get a chance. A soft sound left him as your body collided with his, your face pressing into his chest as your arms circled his waist, and his breath was rushed from his lungs at the impact. 

You didn’t know what to say, and so you didn’t say anything, because, after a moment of shock, he seemed to silently get the message. His head boxed, his arms wrapping tightly back around you as he pulled you up to his height, his head bowing as he held you just as securely as you were holding him, and you let the tension in your body slip away for a second, to let him hold you up.

“We’re okay, I promise. As long as you’re okay.” You barely caught his words, mumbled into your hair, and it took you a second to process them but then you were nodding, and pulling yourself even closer to him in that moment. He was warm, and comforting, and now that you were actually holding him, everywhere he wasn’t touching felt cold.

His arms loosened around you, coldness sweeping in around your hands as he moved, and you stole a further second in the embrace, before his arms were falling away fully, and you were letting him go. His jacket was shucked down his arms, his eyes flickering over your face slowly before he was lifting the heavy jacket up and wrapping it over your shoulders, pulling it tightly around you, the fabric already heavy with heat and comfort he’d created. 

He waited as you pushed your arms through the sleeves, a hand closing over your hand, thumb brushing over your palm as he held it up, your skin littered with grazes and raw flesh from the broken concrete you had climbed over. “Go and get cleaned up, alright?”

It felt easier to walk away now, his gaze hadn't been so harsh and his smile was burning into the back of your mind as he turned from you again, jogging over to join Minho and Fry as they were using the cutters to pry open the metal on the side of a car that had become quite contorted as it had roughly collided into another. Newt was already waiting for you, tinkering around the back of the ambulance as he waited, and when he turned to find you at the scuff of your shoes on the floor, the scowl on his face melted away, only to return a second later with much more power. 

“You took off your damn rope?”

“I couldn't reach the patient.” You whispered, a growl leaving his lips, and as he hopped down from the vehicle, wincing a little at the sudden pressure on his leg but ignoring it to walk over to you, your body tensed up. You were prepared to be yelled at again, to be chastised by your friend, and your walls were shooting back up in protection. 

“I was scared. Don’t fucking do that. That’s not what ‘bestest friends in the whole wide world’ are supposed to do, okay?”

You couldn't help the relieved laugh that bubbled from you, your head shaking a little as he stood before you. “Yeah, well, it’s not official until you get it stitched on a t-shirt for me.”

“Yeah, well, I’ll get an extra-large one. You and Tommy can share it.” He was smirking now, tugging at the jacket you had wrapped around yourself, and you flushed with heat, but didn’t flinch. Instead, you wrapped it a little tighter around your body, like a piece of armour, and smirked back.

“Oh, you’d like that, wouldn't you?” He scoffed as you walked past him, hopping up into the ambulance to reach for the med bag of his that was sitting on the floor, and he took it from your grasp, a hand on your shoulder as he pushed you back to sit on the stretcher. 

It went quiet after that, as he held each of your hands up one at a time, mumbling apologies as he wiped disinfectant over each twisting fingertip, and cleaning the small cuts and scrapes across your palms. You had torn nails with dirt stuck underneath, and he took his time to file them down gently so as not to catch and tear any further, and you bit on your lower lip.

It was startling to be cared for so lovingly by another person. 

He took a clean wipe and cleared the dirt from your face, the aloe cooling against your skin as he said nothing about the tracks within the dirt you were sure existed, made by your tears, or the raw flesh of your lower lip from nervous biting. When it was all done, he brushed a delicate hand over your head, tucking your hair away behind your ears, and offering you a friendly and reassuring smile, before packing away his equipment. 

“You were right.”

“I usually am, love.” He grinned, closing up the backdoors of the ambulance and locking them tight, ready to make your journey back to the firehouse. Your legs swung under you as you watched him pack away, pouting a little bit as you realised that you’d lost your own medkit, your lucky charm that didn’t quite feel so lucky anymore, but it had at least found you House ‘21, and that's all that mattered now. 

“About a year. I know it hasn’t been a full year yet-”

“Almost has!” He chirped, and you followed him up to the front, taking a seat in the passenger seat and doing up your seatbelt securely.

“What I’m trying to say is.. thanks.” He started up the engine, backing out of the spot slowly as his job was all done, and you were well in need of getting back to the house. “Thank you for making me stick around, Newt.”

“Thanks for sticking around.” It was a simple reply, but you caught the meaning hidden underneath, and clearly, you weren’t the only one who struggled with really putting your thoughts and feelings into words. Newt was one of the best friends you had ever had, and for the first time, you were finding a home in a firehouse that you weren’t immediately looking to escape from, but saw a future within. “Are you sure you’re okay?”

“Why wouldn't I be?” He shrugged, eyes fixed on the road, but flicking over to you occasionally. 

“You’re shaking a little.”

You glanced down, finding that you were, in fact, shaking slightly. Your hands balled up into fists, and you tucked them a little further within the sleeves of the coat that you were wearing. “It’s just an aftershock. The adrenaline wearing off.”

It wasn't exactly a lie, the adrenaline you’d been flooded with was beginning to slow down, to fade away, and you were left with slight trembles and some nausea that wouldn't go away for hours, but you could handle that. You’d had the same feelings after the elevator drop, and after going into any burning building for at least thirty minutes, it was always scary. 

You just didn’t want to look any deeper. 

He didn’t push further, but there was a frown on his lips, and despite watching out of the window at the scenery flashing by, you could feel his gaze sometimes move over you, studying you, but silence hung heavy. The car was pulled into the docking bay, and you were still trembling, your mind spinning with everything that you’d encountered, and you hated that it was taking so long for your mind to clear. 

Ever since you were little, all you’d ever wanted to do was help people, to save lives, but there were times when you put yourself at risk to do so. You couldn't help it, when you’d spent so long living alone, you forgot what it was like to have to take other people into consideration. You didn't have much of a family to rely on, but every passing day made the crew of Firehouse ‘21 more and more your family, the people who would be there with you for the rest of your life, and that same burning was coming rushing back to your throat, and the ache behind your eyes. 

The door on the other side of you slammed shut, Newt exiting the vehicle, and your bottom lip shook. Your chest felt tight, and you gripped at your chest underneath the material, a hand freeing from the sleeve to press over your chest, your heart beating erratically underneath. Tears pooled in your eyes, and you took a gasping breath, everything suddenly coming crashing over you, and you could barely suck breath into your lungs despite how much you were gasping and trying to. 

The thoughts in your mind were spiralling so much that they seemed to go into overdrive, a  dizzying array of thoughts that made you feel like you were drowning. It was almost blinding, the flashes of thoughts from within your one head making you feel like you couldn't see, couldn't hear, everything was slipping away into background noise as the unsteady race of your heart, and the support of the door you were leaning on fell away. 

Two hands were holding onto you tightly, pulling you out of the vehicle and your legs gave way, a shock running up your body as your knees collided with the concrete flooring. It was a shock of cold, chilled metal and biting winds against ear stained cheeks, and your lungs were burning as you tried to breathe. 

A warm presence to your side, a hand wrapping over your own and undoing your fingers from the clutching that they held, your nails having dug painfully into damaged palms, and you clung to them instead. It was Newt, the shushing in your ear told you so, holding you tight and steady as you tried to focus, tried to clear your mind and sort through your thoughts, until there was nothing left but the sound of your own sobs echoing around the room. 

You were stronger now, and despite the crying that you couldn't seem to stop, you were able to be pulled to your feet, out of the cold and a wash of heat rolling over you as your feet followed the guidance Newt gave to you, the lights in the rec-room flicking on at his motion over the switch, the pair of your being the first of the team to re-enter upon coming back from a call. You settled down on the couch, curling into the cushions, and trying to get a grip on your raging emotions. 

“You wanna’ take this coat off now? Get comfy?”

They were the first of the words spoken to make any sense, to not be a garbled blur in your ears, and it was at least a good sign as you began to refocus. You nodded slowly, sitting forwards enough to peel the coat from your arms, and it was left sitting over the back of one of the armchairs.

He reached for the remote, the television flickered on in front of you, a movie you didn’t recognise playing on the screen but it gave you stimulation to focus on, your head pressing to the cushion as you sat steadily, shoes kicked off and legs pulled up tightly to your body. 

You didn’t understand much about what was happening on the screen, the characters flicking past and the conversation going over your head, but it was stable enough for you to use as an anchor. The doors opened and closed, you heard the firetrucks pull up, and they progressively trickled into the room. Newt was tinkering in the kitchen behind you, the hob flicking on and the sound of pots and pans clattering lowly, and the couch dipped a little beside you as Brenda sat down.

“Hey, how you doin’?”

Her shoulder bumped against yours, and you twisted your head to look at her, shrugging slightly and offering her the best smile you could. “Better now.”

She only nodded, glancing away over your shoulder, and you had no doubt that Newt was giving them a different story, but it was true. At this moment, you may be fragile, but you had a sneaking suspicion that the panic attack you had was unrelated to the accident at all. You were a paramedic, you worked with firefighter’s, risking your life on a day-to-day basis was just a part of the job description, but you’d made a crack in walls within yourself that you didn’t even realise you’d put up.

You had made breakthroughs in your own mind that you didn't realise needed to be made, and it had been so thoroughly overwhelming that you hadn't been able to handle the influx. Brenda moved, her own coat still sitting on her shoulders and she wandered away to get changed, taking Thomas’ coat with her, and she squeezed your shoulder as she passed you by. 

“Made you some tea.”

Chuck was next, a steaming mug held out in front of you, a mixture of herbal essences curling up into the air and you hummed happily at the smell, reaching out to cup the warm porcelain, your favourite mug holding the drink, and you smiled. “Thanks, Chuck.”

“It’s Gally’s. It had the word ‘relax’ printed in large letters across the front of the box, so I figured it might help.” You brought it closer, sniffling it lightly, and the smell of chamomile and vanilla flooded your senses, your mouth watering a little, desperate to taste, but you resisted. Instead, you blew cool air on it, your eyes flicking up over Chuck’s head as a shadow took over. The boy twisted to look too, his Lieutenant glancing down at him, and he took the hint, offering you a final smile, before he was moving away. 

Thomas took his place, and you sipped your drink as you watched him take a seat before you.

“I’m sorry for getting angry at you.”

“I was being reckless.” You conceded, and his head tipped to the side, his gaze fixed on his hands as he played with his fingers. 

“You were trying to save lives, you were doing your job, and I got protective. If it had been anyone else, I would have understood that. I shouldn’t have gotten mad, when I was supposed to be doing my job, being a Lieutenant, not something else.” He gave out a sigh, like he was chastising himself, and you didn’t want him to, even if he was right. 

“I’m not used to having people who care about me so much. I should have thought about that.” He dared to glance up, a nervous look in his eyes, and your voice remained low, a hushed whisper for a conversation only to be shared between the two of you. “I don’t mean to shut you out, Thomas. Especially not after the other day.”

“What do you mean?”

“You know what I mean.” You mumbled, a pink heat spreading across his cheeks. “It’s all just very new to me. I know you must feel like I’m playing hot and cold, and I’m really sorry about that, but I’m trying to work everything out. I’m trying to work out how I feel. I don’t know how to act around you, sometimes.”

A cheeky glance passed over his face with that, and you rolled your eyes at him, biting on the inside of your cheek to contain your smile as he grinned. “Oh, cut it out. I don’t mean you, I mean all of you. I’m not used to having a family, or such close friends. I’ve never belonged anywhere before.”

“You belong here, with us.” He was honest now, and a hand was pushing out across the cushions between you both, and offering, and you rested your hand over the top of his own. “So, not even a little bit of it was about me?”

“You’re insufferable.” He was beaming once again, clearly knowing just which buttons he was pushing, but his thumb lifted up, closing over your own. “Maybe it was a little bit about you. There’s something, I don’t know what it is yet, but it’s there. It’s different.”

“It’s different for me too.” He mumbled, and his fingers parted, letting yours slip between his to weave together, and that cocky smirk became more of a bashful smile. At least you know that while he may make you flustered, you had the same effect on him. That smile was back, the one you rarely ever saw, cute and shy as he looked at you, and you felt warm under his gaze, but you were unable to look away.

It was like a weight had been lifted off of your chest as you confessed it all, a rock you didn’t even know was there, like someone had been pushing down on your lungs and you were finally able to fight them off. His hand lifted, moving over the back of the couch, until his fingers were toying loosely with the ends of your hair, a tied back bunch that was falling loose from the stress of the day, and his fingers inched up towards the bobble. 

He waited, checking it was okay, before pulling it loose, fingers working through your hair as it was eased down and out of the pattern you’d put it in, to fall loose around your face. His fingers skated over your scalp, soothing the ache within, and you let your eyes fall closed as you sank into the touch he gave you. 

“That was your right of passage!” You bounced on the couch as Brenda fell into place beside you, unbalancing you a little, and her arms wrapped around you as she twisted you to face her a little bit more. Thomas’ hand fell away as he chuckled, and you didn’t even need to ask her what she meant, before she was barreling on; “You almost died-”

“Brenda!” You grinned at the loud shout Newt let out, and she shrugged. 

“What? She did! She knows she did, it ain’t a secret!” The blond huffed, and went back to his cooking, and you turned to face her again. “As I was saying, you almost died, and we rescued you. You really are a member of the team, now!”

“She already was, you moron!” 

“Newt! Shut your mouth!” She hissed, and he stuck his tongue out, and you felt the cushions shift again, lifting your mug to your mouth to hide your expression while waiting for the next voice to chime in. 

“It’s true, I wasn’t a part of the team until I almost fell into a mince grinder in a factory four years ago when the bridges gave it.”

“Oh, dude, c’mon. We’re cooking.” Fry huffed, and Minho shrugged. “Alright, well, mine wasn’t as exciting. Just a fire where the doorway collapsed, eight stories up. Brenda drove the truck around to the side and Gally smashed the window out, he made me jump out of it to reach the ladder.”

“I caught you, didn’t I?” Gally was stirring his own tea, before he came to sit in the armchair to the side of you all, and your attention turned to him, waiting for his story. “I got trapped in a crumbling building, debris fell on me. Thomas dug me out.”

You turned to face Thomas, his hand still sitting behind your head stretched out along the couch, tapping at the cushions, and he directed his gaze to you when he realised he had your attention. “What about you?”

“My story?” You nodded, and he swallowed thickly. Everyone else seemed just as caught in curiosity, as though they didn’t know the story, and he seemed lost in his thoughts. “Mine is a little different. It came before the firehouse. I was in a house fire when I was younger, my mom was pretty badly hurt, a lot of trauma, she never fully recovered. Newt lived across the road, we couldn't have been any more than six, but he came over the next day, and asked me if I needed a friend. I don’t think I’d be the same person I am if it wasn’t for him, he’s stuck by my side ever since. Does that count?”

Silence hung over you all, and you turned to face him a little more, his eyes locked on yours, despite everyone else in the room, and you nodded. “It counts.”

“So, you’re telling me that I need to almost die to be a part of this team?” Chuck sounded utterly appalled, and you couldn't hide your laughter, the sound mixed with everyone else's as it echoed around the room, harmonious mixing like wolves howling.

“Well, that and passing your exams, kiddo.” You bit your lip upon speaking the words, and the amusement in the room only continued, the hand from behind your body slipping down to rest over your shoulders, and you leaned into him once again. 

The stories continued being passed around, and there was an overwhelming sense of camaraderie as they all relived the moments that had bonded them so intensely. This was what made them a family, and what made them so important to one another. This was what you’d never had before, you’d never fit into a team like this. Every house was different; dynamics and friendships and interpersonal relationships, but you’d never found your fit before now. 

You wanted to fit in, you had wanted it for so long. Craved family and friends and to know that you had a place, and being here with them felt right, and yet it was like dread was hanging over you, sitting on the throne but having a sword on a fraying rope overhead. You were waiting for the other shoe to drop, for something to go wrong, to prove to you that you weren’t supposed to be here, that your life would be spent as a wanderer, and that this was as close as you would get.

“So, what movie are we watching? It doesn’t look very good.”

“That’s because it’s not an action movie, Minho. They’re all you watch.” Thomas sighed, and you shrugged. 

“I don’t know, Newt chose it.”

“Uh, no, wait a damn minute, missy.” The voice was closer than you expected, and Newt came to round the couch, kicking a foot at Chuck and telling him to move up on the other couch, offering you a bowl of pasta by placing it down on the coffee table before you. The gesture went unspoken but not missed, still trying to help soothe you, as though he knew you even better than he knew himself. “I did not choose the movie, it was just what came on when the television turned on.”

“So I can pick something else?”

“No, Min, you have awful taste in movies.” Your partner scowled, snatching the controller from him, and the group began to bicker, discussing what movie you would all watch, as though you wouldn't likely be interrupted by another call, or the end of your shift. You could always hope to reach the end. 

Lips brushed over your ear, and you paused, breath held as you waited to see what Thomas had to say. “What are you thinking about?”

It was a loaded question, the real meaning hidden between the lines. He wanted to know if you were thinking about him, or more specifically, all of them. It all felt too good to be true, too tempting, like a siren song. 

And yet, as warm honey eyes stared at you expectantly, soft and patient, a plate with a freshly-made snack from someone who loved you sitting on the table and a hot drink that was cooling in your hands, you placed the mug down, knowing that right now, you were willing to take part in the illusion, to put all thoughts aside and just accept what you had right now.

“Nothing. I don’t want to think right now. I just want to be here with you all.” He nodded his head, and you leaned forward to put your drink down on the table with your meal. “With you.”

“Okay, angel.”

The pet name made your stomach do flips, his confirmation having a deeper meaning beyond simply acknowledging your statement. He was accepting your feelings, and accepting that you needed time, but that you were processing how you felt. He was just accepting you for your trying, and giving you the time you needed. He leaned forwards, pressing a kiss to your forehead that made something spark in your guts, an excited anxiety at the gesture. 

He backed away, giving you space, and yet you didn’t want it. Shuffling forwards a little more, his face little up in something indescribable as you rested against him, head settling on his shoulder and an arm wrapping around his waist, and barely a second passed before he was holding you back. You didn't want to talk about it, or put any kind of label on it like ‘cuddling’, which Newt would undoubtedly do the next time he got you alone, because you still didn't know what it meant. All you knew was that right now, you wanted it.

For the first time in what felt like decades, you allowed yourself to be truly vulnerable with the people around you.

[itspeachxx]

I hate(d) you

Genre: Angst? + Fluff

Pairings: Mark x Reader

Word count: 1.1k words

Warning: A few cuss words here and there

Summary: You two hated each other but somehow that changed.

“The student who ranked  1st place for this yearly exam is...” the class began drumming on the table, slowly building the tension. You sat at the edge of your seat, fingers crossed and feet tapping obnoxiously. 

Me

Me

Me

“And it's a tie!” Mr Kwon yells happily in front of the classroom. 

You leaned back in your chair, the drumming stopped, and so did the obnoxious tapping from yourself. A tie? Not again.

You looked over at your nemesis, sending a glare his way. You were not stupid. You knew who the two students were, you and Mark fucking Lee. 

It started in august when the school had started again. You achieved good grades, which made both you and your parents very proud. But then Mark Lee transferred to your school, your class specifically. Everything did go well, or in the beginning, it did. But then he started scoring more points in tests and ranked the top of your class. Your parents got disappointed, and so did you. Ever since then, you two have furiously competed against each other in every exam and assignment, both hoping to be the one who gets complimented by the teacher and receives a Great work note on the paper as well. 

"Mark and Y/N, I need you two to go to the storage room and pick up some books for me" Mr Kwon spoke from behind his desk. Your head snapped towards Mark, eyes sending him daggers. Mr Kwon held a piece of paper out, waiting for one of us to accept it. Mark being stubborn, stood still beside Mr Kwon, waiting for you to take it. Unwillingly you dragged your body towards them both, taking the paper and flashing Mr Kwon a tired smile. 

Mark closed the door behind him as we entered the storage room. It looked as if no one had been there in ages. A layer of dust forming on the shelves as well as the tables. "Can you find the books instead of slacking off? How did you even manage to get into our class with that kind of laziness". Mark looked up from his phone with an annoyed frown evident on his face. He took slow steps in your direction, "hold this ladder while I find the books". For the first time, he obeyed without any rude or sarcastic remarks. 

Why are these books placed so high up on the shelf? 

Not wanting to ask Mark for any more help, you decided to do it yourself. You stood on your tippy-toes and made small jumps to reach the books. Unluckily for you, the books were located in the far back. As if luck hasn't already abandoned you, Mark had a terrible grip on the chair. Before you could grasp the books properly, the chair had tilted and along with the chair, both you and the books hit the ground.

"Mark! I gave you one job and you can't even do that properly- holy fuck. You're bleeding!". Looking down at Mark, who made you land safely (by accident), you noticed the small wound on the side of his forehead. 

Where did the wound come from? Looking around, the realisation hit you. Amongst the paperback books, laid one book which stood out in particular. A fancy-looking book, with a metal border, decorating each corner. 

Mark who hasn't been saying a word except for wincing in pain, finally spoke up. "I like the view of you on top of me, but can you get off?". Of course, that's what he would say. What did you expect? 

You quickly got off him, reaching a hand out to help him up. Without any hesitation, he got up, but that wasn't without him stumbling. How hard did that book hit him? "Come, let's go to the nurse's office and get you a bandage". 

The heavy books made your arms feel numb, as you both waited for the nurse to arrive. She had been busy eating her sandwich and assured us that she was almost finished with the entire thing. Not wanting to wait anymore, you placed the books on the bed beside Mark, grabbing bandages and rubbing alcohol wipes. 

"D-do you even know what you are doing?" he scoffed refusing to look at you. 

You glanced down at him, the red tint spreading across his cheeks not going unnoticed by you. You grabbed his chin, making him look you in the eyes. His skin felt warm against your own cold hands. "Of course I know what I'm doing. But what are you exactly imagining, for you to be blushing like that?", you pulled his face even closer. You were standing between his parted legs, leaning forward. You could feel his heavy breathing on your lips, which made your confidence grow even more. 

"Now tell me, Mark, do you really hate me? Don't lie to yourself", you could feel the poor boy shaking against your touch and you enjoyed every second of it. That was until the shaking stopped and with just a push from him, the roles were reversed. Mark was now the one hovering over you. With you pressed against the bed, Mark having a hold on your wrist, your mind couldn't function properly. 

"Mind explaining why your heart is beating so fast?" His action left you speechless.

Has Mark Lee always been this hot? 

"Because I never realised how handsome you are, until now"

"Stop playing with me", his voice was stern yet his words came out in a whisper. Never had you taken the time to appreciate his looks, every time you looked his way it was to mentally cuss at him. But now, with him this close, it was impossible to focus on anything that wasn't his looks. 

"Why do you hate me?" judging by his face, it was a genuine question, which he had craved the answer to ever since you started treating him differently. 

Why did you hate him? He never did anything wrong, to be frank, you quite liked him in the beginning. That was until he was turned into a competitor by your parents. 

"I don't hate you, I'm just not used to competition" you couldn't even look him in the eyes anymore. The mood had completely changed.

"We are always getting compared and ever since you started, my parents have only gotten more disappointed in me for not being like you". What's with this feeling? Mark let go of your hands and placed them on either side of your head. "I don't hate you, I just feel like I have to-" 

His lips. Never would you have thought you would end up in a situation like this one. Mark and you, in the nurse's office. With him on top of you and most importantly, him kissing you. You would never admit it, but you didn't hate this scenario. And you definitely wouldn't mind him doing it again. This might explain the disappointment when he pulled away, but also the butterflies it left in your stomach.

"Well, I don't hate you either".

[milfgritty]

constellation of asters | m. frost & j. farabee

❀ ⇢ requested: yes | no ❀ ⇢ genre: poly!au | soulmate!au | gender neutral reader ❀ ⇢ word count: 12.9k ❀ ⇢ a/n: yea i have no excuses for this. enjoy.

everyone has a soulmate, it’s just a simple known fact. a red string, a soulmark, first words tattooed on the inside of your wrist, there’s something to help every person find theirs. except, well, you never had any of those. growing up, you (kinda) came to terms with the fact that you might just not have a soulmate at all. it’s not until you meet morgan and joel that you begin to reconsider the possibility that you actually have not one, but two.

⇢ posted: 02.07.21 . | . masterlist

There are the lucky ones in the world who are born with an identifying soulmark. Something that leads them straight to their soulmate, whether it be a red string of fate, or the date of their other half’s birth, or even a tattoo shared only by the two of them. 

You, though?

You wish you were one of them. But alas, no string, no tattoo, no drawings, not even a damn clock. Nothing to ever even allude to the existence of your supposed other half. When you were younger it terrified you, made you think that something went wrong wherever soulmates were paired. Left you alone, destined to never be the perfect match for anyone. You used to watch in envy of all the kids in the schoolyard proudly displaying their tattoos, showing off whatever new their soulmate drew on their skin that morning. Knowing that they would remember that you were one of the unlucky ones soon enough, the ones people whispered about under their breath, never loudly as though terrified if someone heard them their own soulmate would vanish.

Not having a soulmate was kind of a big deal, if you couldn’t tell. 

And still years went by and you grew up with half-assed reassurances of ‘don’t worry, I’m sure your soulmate is out there somewhere, you’ll see’ and ‘maybe you just have an invisible soulmark, didn’t you know those are a thing?’. Years went by, and you grew up, and you rationalized. 

You didn’t need a soulmate. People without them got along just fine, and sometimes people lost theirs without ever meeting them in the first place. Hell, you were actually luckier than everyone else because you had the free will, the agency, to pick who you wanted to spend the rest of your life with. So what if they weren’t handpicked and perfect for you, you would be happy, dammit.

That’s what you told yourself, at least. 

~

Done with a particularly rough day of classes, you figured it was only fair to reward yourself with your favorite drink from your favorite cafe near campus. It was a special treat that you rarely afforded yourself, what with you fitting the stereotypical broke college image to an almost painful extent. Dodging other people on the sidewalk, you clutched your jacket closer around your body to protect from the harsh wind. The bag on your back straining under the combined weight of your single (five subject) notebook, textbooks, and laptop, you cursed yourself under your breath for not at the very least putting it in your car before making the five minute trek. 

Slipping into the tiny cafe nestled on the corner, you allowed yourself a sigh of relief. You took the moment to drop your stuff at a vacant table before making your way to the counter. Waiting in line, your eyes scanned the menu despite knowing exactly what you would get, as you did every time you let yourself come here. Back aching and your hand attempting to massage it from the worst possible angle, the line continued to shorten until you could order and retreat back to your table. 

You were tempted to stay, even after getting your coffee. Free wifi, decent music, and minimal noise? Easily get through at least homework for one class. But a larger part of you yearned for your warm bed and cozy blankets, preferably with pajamas. And so, it was with maximum effort that you picked back up your bag and coffee and slipped out the door and into the windy outdoors once more. 

The walk back to your car was more bearable with the addition of a hand warmer, so much so that you took the longer way through the small park you had walked past on your way there. With the trees above and around you and the dancing leaves raining down, their colors slowly changing from their normal shade to the yellows and oranges of autumn, a smile slipped onto your lips. Your eyes lingered on the flowers lining the pathway, your mind trying futilely to identify which ones they wer—

A body slammed into yours, shoulders knocking violently as you were shoved off balance. Your still mostly full coffee fell from your hand, lid flying off and spilling onto the ground. You landed miraculously not in the growing puddle of hot coffee, but still flat on your ass as you stared up in shock at the man who had somehow remained standing. 

Seconds ticked by as you stared at each other, uncomprehending. The tall and outrageously sturdy stranger broke through his shock first.

“I’m so sorry, holy shit,” he rushed out, hand reaching down to help you up. Gazing unblinking at the outstretched limb, you allowed him to pull you up. Bare skin touching yours, you only allowed a split second of disappointment when there was no discernable reaction before smothering it back down.

Really, you thought, what did I expect? A mark to show up on our hands linking us together? How naive. You really thought you had gotten passed doing that.

“It—it’s fine,” you mumbled, sparing a despaired glance down at your spilled coffee, “don’t worry about it.” How neither you nor your bag didn’t end up in the puddle was beyond you, but you’ll take it. 

His gaze followed yours, landing on the pitiful cup. “Fuck, your drink, I’m so sorry.”

“Seriously, it’s fine. Stop apologizing,” you told him, adjusting your bag and turning to leave. There was no way you were going back to the cafe and getting another drink, this one was already indulging yourself. 

“No, hey,” he lightly grabbed your jacket, stopping you. “Let me buy you a new one, make it up to you for spilling that one.” 

Suddenly much closer to his tall frame, your eyes caught on his brown ones. There was just something about him that you could already feel your resolve chipping away. 

“I was on my way to Starbucks anyway, it’s no problem,” he continued, as though sensing he was breaking you down. At the mention of Starbucks, though, your nose involuntarily scrunched. Something he definitely caught. “Or wherever it was you got that,” he laughed, his smile making your heart catch a beat. 

You shouldn’t, you really shouldn’t. Not when he’s oddly pretty and he could have a soulmate who’s not you and—

“Yea, sure.” You smiled, “Luckily for you, it’s pretty close to here.”

His smile widened, eyes crinkling at the corner, and his hand dropped from your sleeve. It was strange how much you felt its absence, but you pushed the thought away. “After you then,” he stepped aside, gesturing you forward. 

Moving around him, you fell in step together, going back the way you came. 

“I’m Morgan, by the way,” he—Morgan—introduced himself after a beat. Studying him for a split second, you thought the name suited him. 

“Y/N,” you said in response, ignoring the way his smile made you want to smile, too.

“It’s nice to meet you, Y/N.” And the two of you kept walking. 

~

Two months. It had been two months of hearing Morgan talk about Y/N this, Y/N that, and Joel still wasn’t quite sure if he liked or hated you. 

Depends on the day, really.

It wasn’t anything against you as a person; it was just, well. He wasn’t sure what it was if he was being completely honest. Maybe it was the way Morgan brightened at the mention of your name, maybe it was how he always brought you up in conversation, maybe it was how obvious it was that he liked you.

But he definitely wasn’t jealous. Of course not. How ridiculous.

He watched Morgan move around in their shared kitchen, rambling on and on. Something about how you joked earlier when you were hanging out that you would wear his jersey if he bought it for you. At that moment, he couldn’t hold the thing he couldn’t quite identify in anymore. “So have you brought up how you feel, yet?” 

Morgan stopped and closed the fridge door that he had half his body shoved inside and digging around in as he turned to face him. Brows furrowed, he shook his head with a look of poorly feigned confusion. “I—what? No, it’s not like that. Why would you even ask that?” he questioned, staring him down.

Joel shrugged, fidgeting on the stool he had perched himself on when Morgan went into the kitchen. He really wasn’t sure why he had asked. He just had. A part of him didn’t want to know why.

“Just feels like the two of you have been hanging out as much as you can. The way you talk, it’s pretty obvious how you, at least, feel,” he replied. He picked at his sweats, avoiding his roommate's gaze.

Morgan cleared his throat, turning back to the fridge. “I don’t—not like that, man,” he told him over his shoulder. He gave the fridge a second glance before closing the door, walking past Joel and out of the kitchen. 

“It’s not a big deal if you do,” Joel said as he followed him back into the living room. “You haven’t found your soulmate yet, plenty of people date before they do.”

“Why are you so concerned about it, Beezer?” Morgan pivoted on his heel to face him, forcing Joel to stop in his tracks unless he wanted to run him down. 

“I—I don’t, I’m not,” he answered, mind racing, “I just think you’ve been practically obsessed with them for months and I haven’t even met them—”

Morgan laughed sharply, cutting him off, “Is that what this is about? Seriously?”

“I mean, kinda? It’d be nice, at least.”

“Fine, then I’ll ask if we can all do something together this weekend. Is that good for you, Joel?”

Ignoring the sarcasm in his last sentence, he maneuvered around his body and flopped down onto the couch. “It is actually, thanks.” In his head, however, he was less certain. How was he gonna be able to interact with you? Would his jealousy—no, not jealousy—be obvious to Morgan, to you?

Aside from the noise coming from the TV, the next few minutes passed in relative silence after Morgan crashed down next to him. Their previous conversation already partially forgotten, Joel became focused on the shitty reality show that had started to play without them noticing earlier. 

“Look, it’s not like I’m an idiot,” Morgan started suddenly, scaring him slightly. Joel’s head turned toward him, brow lifting in question. Morgan glanced at him before returning his gaze to the TV and continuing. “It’s just, yea. Maybe you’re right.”

He trailed off, leaving him to wait. “And?”

Morgan rolled his eyes and shuffled further into the couch. “And, I don’t know if I even have a soulmate,” he steamrolled on, “Just because I might not doesn’t mean—doesn’t mean no one does, you know? I don’t want to be the selfish asshole who gets into a relationship with someone who might have a perfect match waiting for them, someone that isn’t me.” 

“You don’t know if you have a soulmate?” The piece of information stuck out to him. Hit him in the gut and made his heart jump into his throat.

His roommate shrugged, continued to steadfastly ignore him. “Never had a mark or any of the other shit people had. It’s not—not that big of a deal. But I don’t want to be with someone and always be afraid that they’re going to find what I can’t and leave me behind.” 

Joel swallowed roughly, his heart racing. “Oh,” he mumbled, voice as quiet as Morgan’s had become by the time he had gotten done speaking.

“Yea,” Morgan huffed a bitter sounding laugh, “Oh.”

“You know,” Joel spoke lightly, softly, as though worried that talking too loud would ruin everything, “People always say that things work out in the end, even if it’s shit getting there.”

This time the laugh that escaped Morgan was more real, less cold. “Is that your way of making me feel better, Beezer?”

“Depends,” he smiled, bright at the sound of his laugh, “is it working?”

Morgan threw a pillow at him, it bouncing lightly off his head. “Dude, shut up,” he told him, the smile on his face softening his words. Following his advice, Joel adjusted himself on the couch, heart feeling just a bit lighter than it had previously.

~

“So I was thinking,” Morgan started as you walked down the street together.

“Absolutely shocking, continue,” you cut in, rewarded with a shove as you laughed.

“As I was saying,” he stressed, “You should come over for a game night or something this weekend.”

“Uh,” you stuttered out. “Yea, sure. Sounds fun. Will Joel be there?” You hadn’t meant to sound so shocked, but as it was, you most definitely were. In the what, two, three? Months since you had known Morgan, you never went to his place. Never met his elusive roommate. Sure, you had heard about Joel. It was hard not to when Morgan could—and had—talk for hours about his teammate. 

But you had never met him. And to be honest, at this point you were kinda scared to. 

Sure, he seemed like a nice enough guy. Except he clearly meant the world to Morgan, and well, Morgan meant the world to you. And yea, you weren’t sure when he began to mean so much, but he does. And you want Joel to like you. What if he doesn’t?

“Yea, Beezer’ll be there. Finally get to meet him.” He nudged you lightly, shooting you a smile. Smiling nervously back, you ducked under his arm and into the cafe as he held the door open for you. 

Coming to the little cafe on the corner had become tradition, Morgan falling in love with the shop just as much as you had. It didn’t bother you in the slightest since he pays for you whenever you two come. Which is, to say, far too often.

Placing both of your orders and finding a table, you turned to your friend. “Do you think,” you began nervously, picking at the edge of the table, “do you think he’ll like me? Joel?”

Morgan looked up from his phone and tilted his head. “Of course he will. Why?”

“I don’t know,” you shrugged, lying through your teeth. “It’s just, he’s your roommate—and your teammate—and wouldn’t it be, like, a little awkward if he actually hates me?”

Your question seemed to stump Morgan for a minute, his mouth opening and closing, eyebrows scrunched up as he looked at you from across the tiny table. You sat quietly, watching him think over his answer. Eyes wandering his face, your lips quirked as you just managed to pick out the way his lashes curled at the ends. So unfair, you thought, why does he get the long eyelashes? Finally, he seemed to get his words in order.

“Even if he doesn’t like you, which he definitely won’t,” he rushed out the last half, “But if he didn’t, it wouldn’t matter. It’s not like we would stop hanging out or anything. We would just, just keep hanging out the way we have been.”

Watching him, you chewed on the inside of your lip. “Promise?” you asked, voice coming out quieter than you had wanted. You hated the way you feared losing Morgan, scared that he had wormed his way into your life so quickly. 

His foot nudged yours under the table, breaking you out of your thoughts. Eyes meeting yours, your heart gave a tug at the sweet smile dancing across his lips. “Yea,” he told you, “I promise.”

Breath catching, you smiled back. “Then this weekend it is.”

~

The weekend came far sooner than you expected. 

“But you’re on your way, right?” Morgan questioned you over the phone. Figured you were running late today of all days. It was Saturday, dammit, you slept in late. That wasn’t a crime.

“Yes, Morg, I’m on my way. Leaving right now,” you reassured him, grabbing your keys off the counter and making your way to your door.

You heard his—frankly, exaggerated—breath of relief even on your end, gaining a fond eye roll out of you. “Okay, good,” he replied, “See you in like, twenty?”

“Uh-huh,” you muttered halfheartedly in response, more focused on locking up behind you. “I’ll see you in twenty.”

The only downside, of course, is that twenty minutes was definitely not enough time to settle your anxiety. And so soon enough, you were at Morgan’s shared apartment, and walking up to Morgan’s shared apartment, and oh god you were in front of his door, oh no—

This is fine. This is fine. Taking a deep breath, you reminded yourself that no matter what, even if Joel didn’t like you, Morgan wouldn’t drop you. He promised. 

Christ, that sounded lame even in your head. 

Psyching yourself up, you raised your hand to their door and knocked. Ignoring the way your hand trembled lightly, you almost jumped when the door swung open faster than you expected.

“Hey,” Morgan appeared in the doorway, beaming down at you, “You made it.”

A snort left you without your permission. “Yea, you dork, I made it.” 

Catching his eye roll, you grinned as he stepped aside and swept his hand out. “Welcome to our apartment.” Your grin widened at how dumb he was and moved past him, brushing lightly against him as you entered. 

Walking in, your eyes caught on the form draped against the couch. Heart stuttering, all the anxiety that had briefly left you came flooding back. Morgan stepped around you, guiding you over to the living room. 

“Hey, asshole, you gonna say hi or what?” he asked, picking up a pillow and throwing it at Joel. It thumped softly onto his chest and rolled off the couch, causing him to glare up at Morgan. 

You stared wide eyed as Joel huffed and slung his legs over the side of the couch, standing up and unfolding to a height similar to Morgan. Giants, you scoffed lightly under your breath, they’re literally giants. Casually, you maneuvered until your body was just barely behind Morgan.

“Sup,” he did a weird head nod thing, his eyes roaming up and down your body. “I’m Joel, it’s uh—it’s nice to finally meet you.”

You smiled weakly up at him. “Y/—” you tried, cutting yourself off and clearing your throat, “Y/N. Nice to finally meet you, too.”

The two of you stared the other down, silence filling the room as Morgan watched the two of you watching each other. Rocking on your heels, you alternated between looking at him and around the room. 

“You know, uh,” Joel started abruptly, slipping his hands into the pockets of his sweats, “Frosty talks a lot about you. Can’t shut up, I don’t think.”

“Dude,” Morgan hissed at him as a laugh slipped past your lips. You felt your cheeks warm, your smile finally feeling less forced and more genuine.

“It’s funny,” you told him, ignoring Morgan, “he talks a lot about you, too. Once he gets started, it seems like he can’t stop.”

“I hate both of you. Why did I think this was a good idea,” Morgan said, throwing his hands up and slipping in between the two of you into what you assumed was the kitchen. The sound of yours and Joel’s laughter followed him, the pair of you sharing a conspirator’s smile. 

Joel was the first to break, his smile lingering as he spared you a glance and followed Morgan. “Don’t be like that, Morg. We’re getting along already. Isn’t that what you wanted?” 

Giggling, you walked in after them. “I don’t know what I was worried about,” you teased, sidling up to the counter, “Joel is great.” 

“Oh, you would think so,” Morgan rolled his eyes, pulling a sweet tea out of the fridge and handing it to you. Smiling in thanks, you opened it and took a sip.

“Wait,” Joel stopped and shook his head, “were you actually worried about meeting me?”

Eyes widening and head shooting up, you were positive panic flitted across your face. “Uhhh,” you started, shifting from foot to foot and shrugging, “A little? I mean, you’re his roommate and teammate and he talks about you all the time—”

“—I do not—”

“Yea, you do, Morg,” you laughed, glancing over at him before returning your attention to Joel. “But, yea. After so long without meeting, I guess I kinda built you up in my head and I got worried you wouldn’t like me and things would, I don’t know, be awkward for Morgan. It’s dumb.”

It was dumb, you realized, standing there. Joel was...you didn’t even know how to describe it. He was soothing. Calming in the same way Morgan was to you, like a balm to your anxiety. Easy to talk to, joke with. It had barely been ten minutes and already you could tell that. It was the same feeling that made you let Morgan buy you another drink when you first met.

“It’s not dumb,” he told you, lifting one shoulder in a half shrug, “I guess I felt the same way.”

“Really?” you asked, surprised. For some reason, you didn’t really expect him to feel much of, well, anything when it came to meeting you.

Grinning, he nudged your foot. “Don’t look so shocked. Even NHLers have feelings, you know.”

“Shut up,” both you and Morgan chorused, glancing at each other before laughing. It was then you realized how close the three of you were, the kitchen not exactly the largest room. If you moved one way, you’d bump into Morgan. If you moved the other, it would be Joel. 

“Wanna play fortnite or something?” Morgan asked, clearing your thoughts. He knew you well enough to figure out what the scrunch of your nose after his suggestion meant. “Or not fortnite, you have a better idea?”

“What else do you guys have?” You asked, hoping against odds they would have something that wasn’t completely awful. 

Joel and Morgan shared a look, communicating silently. 

“Uhh,” Joel started, “I think we have like, Skyrim? Never got around to playing it, though.”

Eyes immediately brightening, you straightened. You almost didn’t notice how the move brought you that much closer to him. “Dude, Skyrim came out like ten years ago. How have you never played?”

“Looks like Skyrim, it is,” Morgan muttered, squeezing past you to the living room. 

“I don’t know,” Joel tried to defend himself, “It’s not what I usually play.”

“Well, that changes today, buddy.” 

“Did you just call him buddy, oh my god,” you heard Morgan’s voice distantly, covered mostly by Joel’s shocked snort. 

Thirty minutes later found the three of you sprawled across the couch, limbs just barely intertwining as Joel tried still to make his way through the character creation screen. 

“Is that a cat? Do they have fucking furries in this game?”

“I swear, I’m gonna throw my sweet tea at you,” you threatened while swallowing down laughter at Joel’s commentary.

“Do it, I’m not getting you another one,” Morgan told you, his hand lying lightly on the bottom of your calf. 

“Yea, you would,” you smiled over at him. 

A snort came from Joel’s direction, followed by, “Dude, you would.”

“Shut the fuck up, Beezer, I didn’t ask you.”

Mock gasping, you reached over and hit Morgan’s shoulder, eliciting a sharp ‘hey’ from him. “No being mean to each other,” you laughed, settling back down, shoulder brushing against Joel’s side.

“You heard the lady, Frosty,” Joel smirked, sticking his tongue out at him. 

“I’m never letting the two of you hang out again,” Morgan groaned, throwing his head back. His thumb had paused in the motion of rubbing circles into your leg. 

Exchanging a glance with the boys, you smiled. “I think it might be a bit too late for that.”

~

“You know,” you had innocently told Morgan and Joel a few days ago, “it’s kinda funny that two of my closest friends are professional ice hockey players and I’ve never even gone skating before.”

He was shocked at the revelation. Horrified, even. And definitely planning on rectifying that minor fact, something Joel fully supported and helped plan. Sadly, it took a few days before he and Joel were both home and didn’t have practice or a game and you didn’t have classes or homework, leaving the three of you able to hang out. 

He always counted it as a minor miracle when all of your schedules lined up. In the months he and Joel had known you, it happened far less than he would’ve liked. But as much as it felt better, more…more right, for it to be the three of you—which was normal, you were best friends; he didn’t like one of you more than the other—he took what he could get and didn’t complain. 

Much.

That’s how Morgan found himself at an ice rink with his two closest friends on his day off, watching one of them tie the other’s skate.

“You could’ve done this yourself,” Joel told you, fingers making quick work of your laces.

You beamed down at him, a satisfied little smile on your face, “But you do it so much better than me.”

Morgan laughed to himself, bending down to finish lacing up his own skates. Joel had gotten his done first and found himself helping you, not that he exactly put up a fight. Finishing up, he stood and leaned against the boards, peering down as Joel worked. 

“You waiting for us? That’s so sweet,” you smiled up at him, resting your weight on your hands behind you. 

Joel huffed a laugh and half turned to look over his shoulder at him, flashing him a smirk, the asshole. “Our Morgan? He’s just a sweetheart, isn’t he?”

Morgan reached out and kicked him, mindful of the blade of his skate. Rolling his eyes, he maneuvered around both of you and stepped out onto the ice. 

“Just for that, I’m going without the both of you.”

Hearing the teasing calls of his name accompanied by laughter, he smiled and went to do laps around the rink. Slowly he went through the motions, glancing behind him now and then to see if Joel had finished yet. 

When he finally did, Morgan made his way back to the two of you. “You ready to see what you’ve been missing out on?” He teased, eyes catching on the way you wobbled unsteadily and clutched tightly to Joel’s arm next to you. 

“Quick question,” your laugh came out high pitched and as unsteady as your walk, “just how hard is skating?”

“Please, don’t worry,” Joel scoffed, shortening his steps to help you. Morgan watched his teammate stabilize you, the steady rock to your choppy sea. “Skating is one of the easiest things in the world.”

“Okay, let me rephrase,” a cheeky smile flitted across your lips, “how hard is skating for us normal people?”

He shared a fond look with Joel, laughing quietly. “Trust us, you’ll be fine.” 

“I do,” you responded without a moment’s hesitation, pausing in your baby steps before continuing. “Trust you, I mean.”

The breath left his lungs in a quick rush, not expecting that, not expecting how sincere and matter of fact you had said it or how it affected him. It wasn’t fair, how quickly you could throw him off balance with what seemed like barely a thought. 

Joel cleared his throat, his hand tightening around yours. “Good,” he told you, voice remarkably soft and low before returning to normal. “I guess it’s time to get you on the ice, then?”

Morgan had to laugh a little at the fear that filled your face at Joel’s words, the way you immediately clung somehow even tighter to him. Smiling, he reached out to you, offering you his hand.

“You said you trusted us,” he told you, “So trust us. We’re not gonna let you get hurt.”

He watched your eyes meet his and fly down to his outstretched hand, back and forth between the two. One of your hands slowly let go of their iron grip on Joel and settled into his.

“Promise?” You looked from him to Joel, eyes painfully doelike. 

Once again, he shared a soft glance with his teammate before looking back at you. 

“We promise.”

You nodded, taking a deep breath and appearing to steel yourself. “Okay, alright, I’m good. Let’s fucking do this.”

Laughter peeled out of him and Joel. “There’s our Y/N,” his teammate grinned, helping you out onto the ice. The two of them kept their grips on you tight as you shakily stepped onto the ice, making sure you didn’t immediately fall.

Your first steps were wobbly, with the only thing keeping you from eating ice being him and Joel. Slowly, the three of you made your way across the ice. “There you go,” he encouraged you, “just like that. Slow and steady for right now—”

“Head up, try not to look down so much, alright? We’ve got you,” Joel reassured, the two of them going back and forth, offering advice and making sure nothing happened.

It took a bit, but soon you were giggling and flashing them pretty smiles, your grip on them loosening slowly but surely. It was enough for Morgan to speed up and swing around to skate backward in front of you.

Catching your worried glance, he smiled. “Still here, just letting you skate more on your own,” he squeezed your hand, now being held more for assurance than to help keep you up.

And so the three of you kept skating around the rink with you getting more and more confident until you were on your own and no longer needed them to hold on to. Morgan watched proudly as you went from wobbly steps to actual skating, though your arms still stayed out by your sides for balance. 

“Show off,” you yelled and laughed, attempting to shove Joel when he went to skate in wide circles around both of you. 

“What?” Joel threw his hands up, laughing loudly and dodging you. “I’m just skating circles around you.” 

“Ha ha,” Morgan grinned when you sarcastically laughed at Joel’s antics. “You’re simply hilarious, you dork.”

“I know,” Joel smiled happily, swooping in to smack a loud kiss to your cheek before speeding away. The kiss nearly knocked you over, leaving you gawking after him.

Morgan observed the two of you as he glided in front of you, a wide smile stretching across his lips. Small huffs of laughter left you as you skated—still not great, but definitely better—over to him, grabbing his hand and trying to tug him. 

“Morgan, come on,” you giggled, “help me avenge my honor.” 

“Oh, of course,” he replied, nodding his head in mock seriousness. He pulled you along in chase of Joel, the three of you laughing as you went around and around the rink. 

It wasn’t until you two caught him—Morgan suspected Joel had let them catch him, like they wouldn’t have been able to eventually—and Joel decided to try to teach you how to skate backward as Morgan followed that he realized something. 

He realized as he watched the two of you smiling and laughing, as he skated behind while Joel held your hands, as both of you made corny jokes and looked back at him to make sure he was still with you, he realized that—fuck.

He was fucked. 

Because he looked at you and heard your laughter and felt his heart tighten. Because he looked at Joel and the way he looked back at him with a fond look and toothy grin, and his heart stopped.

Because he looked at both of you and felt the same exact thing. And he realized it didn’t feel right when all three of you were together because you were just his closest friends. 

It was because when he was with the two of you, his heart skipped beats and all of these feelings weighed him down and lifted him up and—and—

Fuck. He was well and truly fucked, that’s what he realized.

~

Humming quietly under your breath, you picked up the plates from the table and made your way back to the kitchen. Stepping around Morgan, you reached down to put the dishes into the sink for him to wash. After you let them sit, you hoisted yourself up and onto the counter next to him and watched as he grabbed for one of the dirty plates.

“You think Joel will be back soon?” You asked him, tilting your head and pursing your lips. 

Morgan met your gaze and held it as he washed the plate. “Hopefully, we can’t start the movie without him.”

Dinner and a movie at their place. It was almost like a date if you let yourself think about it. But you didn’t, because they’re just your friends.

Your tall, attractive friends that you had completely platonic feelings for. Okay, mostly platonic feelings for. Fine, not at all platonic and actually very romantic feelings, but you refused to think about it. There were two of them and one of you and that, that was weird. Right? 

Right?

Kicking yourself mentally, you shot him a tiny smile. “Do we even want to know what he chose this time?” Every movie night, a different one of you had complete control over the movie. Tonight was, regretfully, Joel’s night to choose and he refused to tell either of you what you were watching. 

It went without saying that you were a bit scared. 

“I don’t think so,” Morgan made a face, putting another plate in the dish rack. You laughed lowly to yourself, watching a smile creep over his face as he glanced back at you.

“Either way,” you told him, “he needs to get back soon, I’m starting to miss the weirdo.” Shimmying down from the countertop, you walked over to the fridge to get a drink. 

Morgan made a noise of agreement, finishing up and turning off the sink. He turned to face you, grabbing a hand towel from next to him and leaning against the counter. He stared down at you without responding; the action causing you to grin slightly in confusion. 

“What’s up?” You questioned him, stretching your foot out to lightly tap his.

Head shaking slowly, his mouth opened a bit. Closing it, his eyebrows squished together in what seemed like deep thought. 

“Do you ever think about your soulmate?”

The question caught you off guard, making your body physically recoil just a touch. You shook your head, mouth hanging open. “Uhhh,” you stuttered, a startled laugh making its way past your lips. “Not if I can help it, why?”

“What do you mean?” He asked, brows still furrowed and an intent look painted across his face.

Shrugging, your eyes flitted around the room. At your side, your fingers twitched against the counter, creating a muted tapping noise. “Nothing, just...I don’t know. It’s not my favorite subject. You?”

“Yea,” he said with a forced smile, “Same thing, I guess. Not if I can help it.” 

You hummed softly, trying to figure out his expression and the change in subject. You couldn’t recall ever, ever, talking about soulmates with either Morgan or Joel. Not in the entire time you had known them. It was like some sort of weird unspoken taboo topic, never brought up, never talked about despite how popular it was for everyone else. Never asking what your soulmark was, or what date was splayed across your skin. Like there was a sense of fear lingering around it, which made sense for you but never for your boys. 

The boys. Not—not your boys, you scolded yourself.

“It’s just, you and Joel,” Morgan started, scaring you a little. “The two of you get along really well.”

Was he? Was he implying that you and Joel? Soulmates?

For a split second, your mind ran wild with the thought. To be soulmates with Joel, with his smiles for just you and Morgan, and his wild hair and dumb hats, and horrible facial hair and horrible jokes and—

How nice it would be. How irrevocably nice it would be. 

But even as you let yourself think about it for that split second, you knew it wasn’t what you wanted. Not entirely. Because it wasn’t just Joel in your daydream, but Morgan, too. With his pretty eyes and the look of exasperation he always had when he was with the two of you. The three of you. 

Always the three of you.

Shaking your head before you knew what you were doing, you replied, “Me and Joel? No, no, I mean—”

“You’re always happy and smiling around him,” Morgan cut you off, not making eye contact, “maybe the two of you—”

“I’m always happy and smiling because I’m with the two of you, you idiot,” you rolled your eyes as you cut him off in return, ignoring the way your heart pounded in your chest. 

He pursed his lips, about to retort when the sound of the door opening caught your attention. 

“Alright, assholes. I’ve got the goods,” Joel’s voice called out, the door closing behind him and keys clattering loudly into the horrible gritty tray you had gotten them. You and Morgan remained quiet as Joel made his way into the kitchen, digging around in the bag he was holding. 

He paused upon entering, eyes lifting to look from you to Morgan and back. His arms slowly fell, his face screwing up in cautious confusion. “So, uh, what did I...miss?” he asked, stepping inside apprehensively. 

“Soulmates, apparently,” you told him sarcastically when Morgan kept silent. You made grabby hands for the bag, reaching in to grab your bag of peach rings. 

Joel winced, a just barely audible ‘oh boy’ falling from his lips. “What got you on that god awful subject?”

You snorted, already shoving a peach ring into your mouth, “So you agree? It’s an awful subject?”

“Oh yea,” he nodded, reaching over and tugging at the peach ring balancing between your teeth before it tore in half, shoving his stolen half into his mouth and chewing obnoxiously. 

Pulling back, you batted at his outstretched hands, “you should’ve gotten your own. Stop stealing, thief.”

“I prefer the term rogue,” he replied, shooting you a cheeky grin. A soft ‘oh my god’ left you with a groan as you rolled your eyes and set the bag down.

Morgan’s continued silence worried you, and you could tell it unnerved Joel just as much. You stole glances at him, his posture tense and face troubled. The whole soulmates thing wasn’t your favorite, but what was going on inside of his head that had him like this? Was he still thinking about you and Joel—which was a ridiculous idea. But maybe that’s just because you knew the truth you resolved yourself to. That you just didn’t, for some unknown reason, have a soulmate to begin with. 

“What’s going on in your big boy brain,” Joel nodded at Morgan, eyebrow quirking as he watched him.

Morgan startled almost imperceptibly, his attention shooting to his teammate. He shook his head, “Nothing, just the whole soulmates thing.” 

“Still?” You frowned as you crossed your arms, puzzled. 

“Dude, just move on already,” Joel told him.

Morgan rolled his eyes, shifting his weight from foot to foot. You saw his grip on the countertop behind him tighten for a second before relaxing again.

“What’s going on?” You asked him, reaching out to lay a hand on his arm.

He flinched back, a tiny movement that you wouldn’t have noticed if you weren’t already watching. Swallowing roughly, you stopped and let your hand fall, hurt coating your insides. Morgan licked his lips and rubbed at his chin, face screwing up. 

“Don’t either of you ever think about the people you have feelings for being a perfect match for someone else? That it doesn’t matter what you feel in the end?”

Taken aback, you share a look with Joel as you grasped for words. Because you do think about that, about how Joel and Morgan have someone waiting for them that isn’t you and you don’t know when it’ll happen, only that it will and you’ll end up left behind like you always are. Alone. It wasn’t often, but late at night, the knowledge crept over you like thick sludge, refusing to move or leave.

“All the time,” Joel spoke before you could string together a sentence, his voice weak and a frown marring his features. “But it does matter, doesn’t it? Because you still have time with them now, and you can’t waste it for something that might happen.” 

“But it will,” Morgan stressed, the hand that had rubbed his chin flying out to his side with a look of helplessness. “It will happen.” 

“But you don’t know that,” you countered, fighting to get the words out. Your throat was tightening up, your heart pounding away. “No one really does. You don’t even have to end up with your soulmate.”

“Why wouldn’t you,” Morgan laughed without humor, “why wouldn’t you leave to be with the person hand picked for you?”

“Because I don’t have one,” slipped past your lips without your permission, the truth behind your words hitting you like a brick. Tears pricked behind your eyes as you swallowed harshly, stepping into yourself. 

Morgan moved back and hit the counter behind him with a dull thud, staring at you with an unreadable expression. To your other side, Joel looked down at his feet, hands shoved into his pants. 

“I never had one,” you continued, softer, quieter. Weaker. “I’ve always been the person without someone made just for me, but I’ve moved on. Because it doesn’t matter. It’s what I make of it, and it’s the scariest fucking thing, but it is what it is.”

“What if I can’t move on?” Morgan whispered, unable to meet your eyes. 

“Then the people you were scared of leaving weren’t worth it to begin with,” Joel told him, gazing at him sadly. 

Morgan’s face dropped forward into his hands, rubbing harshly. The three of you were silent, the tension nearly suffocating. Waiting, just waiting for the other shoe to drop.

“I can’t just get over it,” Morgan said, shaking his head. 

“Why not,” Joel questioned just as quietly, running a hand through his hair. 

“Because I just can’t,” Morgan threw his hands up, voice raised as he stepped forward. “I can’t stop thinking that my feelings are a waste. That all of this is just a waste.”

“All of this?” You asked, uncomprehending.

“Yes, all of this,” he told you, gesturing wildly between the three of you. “Us. This. It’s a waste.”

“What’s that supposed to mean, Morgan,” Joel was the one to ask this time, his voice low and daring. Daring Morgan to say it, to tell you exactly what he means.

“That I look at both of you and see two people who are going to leave me. Two people that I care about, that I want to be with, and know that it won’t last.”

The shock that came from him admitting his feelings and finally giving you the knowledge that you weren’t alone in your pining all these months still wasn’t enough to overwhelm the rest of his confession. The part that said that we were a waste, that cut a part of you that you kept hidden.

“Did you ever stop and think about how we felt?” The words left you as you stepped away, needing to get away. “That we might, for just a second, feel the same?” 

“But it doesn’t matter,” Morgan nearly cried, voice shaking. “It never did.” 

Nodding, you swallowed down tears. “Okay,” you whispered, maneuvering around Joel, who had remained quiet. “Okay.” 

“Where are you going?” Morgan asked, reaching toward you.

Nearly laughing, you told him, “Away. I’m sorry, Joel, but I can’t be near someone who thinks everything about us, our friendship, our relationship, our feelings, are a waste. Not right now.”

Joel nodded, glancing back at you and offering a weak smile. “Don’t worry, I get it.” 

Returning it, you turned and went to grab your things. 

“Wait,” you heard Morgan before you saw him try to follow you, looking between you and Joel. “No, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean—”

“It doesn’t matter, Morg,” you whispered, shrugging lightly. “I’m gonna go for awhile. I need to go.”

“No, please—”

Dodging him, you left the apartment. Vaguely, you heard Joel tell Morgan to stop, to let you go. Silently, you thanked him. You just couldn’t be near them right now, constantly reminded of your feelings and knowing at least one of them thought it was all useless.

All of this is just a waste. Us. This.

You nearly ran out of the building and to your car, just barely making it in before a yell forced its way out.

“Fuck,” you hit the steering wheel, letting your head droop forward to rest on it. You gave yourself a minute to pull yourself together and turn your car on, starting your journey back to the apartment you had slowly considered home less and less. 

And so you drove away from the one you had begun to consider home, and from the boys that made it feel like that, and to the place you could finally let yourself break down.

~

Day after day became a week and then two. There was now this tension between him and Morgan, you weren’t replying to his texts the same way, and he wasn’t even sure if you and Morgan had talked at all since that night. He hated it.

Joel hated this. 

It didn’t help that everything was bleeding over onto the ice and he couldn’t stop it. Couldn’t stop making rookie mistakes, couldn’t do anything when Morgan got yelled at for fucking up on a play. Couldn’t do anything.

The two of them were this close to getting benched, they both knew it. He knew this couldn’t keep happening, but he didn’t know how to stop it. 

He saw his phone light up on his nightstand out of the corner of his eye. Mentally, he debated leaving it and continuing his inner dilemma, but a glance at it convinced him otherwise.

Sitting up in bed, he struggled against the blankets tangled around his legs to reach over and grab it. He crashed back down, lifting his phone above him and pulling up the text.

[10:38pm] armrest ; coffee tomorrow? 

Seeing the name he had you under brought out a grin. You hated it the moment you saw it and argued that everyone was short next to a group of hockey players, which is exactly why both he and Morgan had you listed as it. In a sense, it was a reminder of better times.

[10:40pm] bumblebee ; yea ofc

[10:40pm] bumblebee ; the two of us?

He didn’t miss the fact that you texted just him and not the groupchat—the one aptly named the 3 stoiges, because Morgan made it with a typo and you and Joel kept it there to bully him. Time after time, Morgan tried to change it, and yet every time he went back, there it was once again in all of its dumbass glory. 

[10:43pm] armrest ; yea i wanted to talk about everything. just the two of us for now

[10:44pm] bumblebee ; im there just lmk when

You texted him back the time, and that was that. The entire exchange left him feeling underwhelmed and anxious. It felt wrong. Stilted. He missed the jokes and subtle digs at each other. The goodnight texts that just kept on going. 

He had a hard time going to sleep after that, not that he was doing a good job of it before. Tossing and turning, knowing that his teammate was his roommate and just a door over and that it didn’t matter because they hadn’t actually talked since the fight. And probably wouldn’t, since that was how things seemed to be going.

But tomorrow, maybe tomorrow would change things.

~

Morning came and went and he woke up to his alarm, feeling the opposite of well rested. He had slept like shit, just like he had been for the past two weeks. Getting out of bed, he got ready to go meet up with you, ignoring the absence of Morgan in the kitchen or on the couch. The lack of a good morning and a smile from his arguably favorite teammate. 

He left the apartment in a rush, something he had found himself doing a lot of lately. Not on purpose, he didn’t think. It was just like a lot of other things in his life now; it felt different. Less warm, duller. Void of life, of everything that made it home to him. 

An open bag of peach rings still abandoned on the kitchen counter, never moved. A little shittily made origami crane knocked over on the coffee table, never fixed. Hoodies missing, never returned. Reminders.

He made it to the little rinky dink cafe on the corner soon enough, refusing to admit he hesitated a bit before he went in. It wasn’t like he hadn’t seen you at all since that night, but he would be lying if he said it was the same as before. 

You were at their usual table, wearing a recognizable sweatshirt—one of theirs, but at this point he wasn’t really sure if it his or Morgan’s—and clutching a cup in your hands with a cup sitting across from you. Hearing the bell ring, you looked up and spotted him, giving him a tiny smile.

He didn’t want to think about the way the sight made the tension bleed from his body, the familiarity filling him with a rush of warmth. He made the short walk to you, slipping into one of the open seats.

Both of you ignored the still empty third seat.

“You’re late,” you told him, with just enough of a smile to take the edge off. 

He grinned back. “You telling me you weren’t, too?”

Your laughter rang softly through the mostly empty cafe. “No.”

“Thought so,” he replied, taking a sip of the coffee in front of him. His go to order, just the way he always got it. 

God, he missed you. 

A few beats of silence passed with the two of you just soaking up the other’s presence. 

Clearing your throat, you looked down at your hands and picked at your nail. “I think it’s probably time we talk about…”

“That night?” he finished for you. “Yea. I think so, too.”

Another pained smile passed between both of you. Another beat of silence. 

“You know—I mean—” you tried to say, taking a moment to close your eyes and take a deep breath. “I care about you and Morgan. About both of you. Not—not platonically either.” 

He couldn’t stop the smile from spreading, the heat creeping into his cheeks. “Yea, I figured.” You deadpanned at him and he had to resist the laugh bubbling up inside of him. He nudged your foot under the table. “Me, too. Non-platonically care about both of you.” 

“Yea,” you rolled your eyes, grinning, “I figured.”

Letting the laugh out, he shook his head. “Ass.”

You shrugged, taking a sip of your drink, “You started it.”

“I missed you.” 

“I missed you, too,” you whispered back, smile gaining a sorrowful edge.

Staring at you, he felt so many emotions. So many things, and yet something was still missing. 

Licking his lips, he risked a glance to his right, at the empty seat next to him. “It doesn’t—things don’t really feel the same without him, though.” 

“Yea,” you looked at the chair for a second, pain flashing across your face so fast he almost didn’t catch it. “They don’t.”

Hearing you agree, he let the breath he had been holding go. He picked at his cup, resisting the urge to down it. Dimly, he realized you had gotten his coffee before he got there. Which meant you bought it for him. The broke college student who rarely gets anything from here got him coffee without thinking twice. That feeling in his chest grew, fondness for you radiating throughout him. It was a small gesture, one you probably barely thought about, but it made him fall even harder.

“You know, I keep,” you stopped, tilting your head with a jaded smile before steamrolling on, “I keep hearing him say it in my head. ‘Everything’s a waste.’ And I know he didn’t—didn’t mean it like that, but…”

“But it still hurts,” he finished for you quietly, watching you and the way your shoulders hunched forward. 

“Yea, it still hurts.”

“We’re all just miserable anymore, aren’t we?” he asked, knowing the answer and asking anyway.

You laughed softly, glancing up at him. “That we are.”

“It wasn’t supposed to be like this.”

“No,” you held eye contact, steady and intent, “It wasn’t.”

The bell above the door jingled, your conversation dying down. The two of you nursed your drinks, avoiding the painful subject. Pushing it off and dragging it out just a little more.

“I don’t want us to end here, Joel,” you told him, voice barely a whisper. “Not like this. I don’t think I could handle it.”

“I don’t think I could either,” he replied. He could handle not being everything he wanted with the two of you. He resigned himself to that a long time ago. Could handle not being in a relationship, unable to hold or kiss either of you, to look at you and know both of you were his.

He could handle that. What he couldn’t handle? 

This. 

These past two weeks, the three of you barely talking. The tension, the awkwardness, the lack of everything that made you work. Not having either of you really, truly, in his life anymore. 

“I’m gonna talk to him,” he told you, not letting himself think too hard about it. He nodded, ignoring your unreadable expression, and kept talking. “I’m gonna talk to him and then we’re gonna—we’re gonna—”

“We’re gonna fix things?” You croaked out, gnawing at the inside of your bottom lip.

“Yea,” his throat tightened, making him force out the words, “Yea, we’re gonna fix things.”

~

He cornered Morgan later that night in the kitchen when he finally came out of his room to get something to eat. 

“We need to talk.”

Morgan jumped, keeping his back turned to Joel as he dug through the fridge. “About what?” He asked, the forced casualness of it shining clear.

“I think you know what.”

He slowly drew himself up and closed the fridge. “I don’t think—”

“Yea, we do,” he cut his roommate off, his arms folded across his chest. “We both know we do.”

Morgan turned around, facing him with his eyes closed and shaking his head. “Please—”

“We can’t keep going on like this, none of us can,” Joel forcibly told him, refusing to back down. He was doing this for them, for you and for Morgan and for him. “I was with Y/N earlier.”

Morgan flinched back, ducking his head. “Yea? How—how is—”

“Good,” he softened his voice, uncrossing his arms and taking a step toward him. “Come on, let's go sit down.”

“Okay,” Morgan whispered, nodding and following him slowly to the couch. They sat further away than they usually would, a space left open for the one not there with them. 

Joel opened his mouth to start, but Morgan cut him off before he could.

“I’m so sorry,” he told him, avoiding eye contact. Clenching his hands tightly on his lap, he squeezed them periodically. “I didn’t—didn’t mean anything I said that night. Not really. Not like that.”

“I know.” 

“I was just scared,” he kept going, still not looking at him, “I still am. Fuck, I wish I could go back and just—”

“Morgan,” Joel stopped him, getting up and moving to sit down on the table in front of him. “Look at me.”

It took a second, took him reaching out and nudging his face toward him. 

“We know. We’re all scared. And we can’t take back what was said, but we can move forward. Together. The three of us.” 

Morgan shook his head, tears lining his eyes as he leaned imperceptibly into his hand. “How?” 

He almost laughed, but stopped himself in time. “I don’t know,” he shrugged helplessly, smiling at him. “But we will. Because we care about each other. That’s all that matters.”

“Yea?” 

“Yea,” he laughed this time, his hand pressing further into Morgan’s face, the other coming up to rest on his knee. 

Morgan’s hand found his, and they stayed like that for a while, taking comfort in finally being near each other again. Mentally, physically. 

“I missed this,” Morgan told him, blinking softly up at him. 

Joel grinned back, “Well, I don’t know if we’ve ever done anything like this before, but—”

Morgan scoffed, rolling his eyes and pushing him away. One of his hands came up to subtly wipe at his eyes and Joel pretended not to notice as he reached out and pulled him back to him. 

Hand threaded in his hair, he tugged him in to rest his head against his neck. “Kidding,” he laughed, turning to nuzzle into Morgan’s hair. “But seriously, I did, too.”

Morgan’s hand squeezed his side, the two of them lapsing back into silence. At least, until he broke it.

“So, which one of us is gonna text our better part?” 

~

[8:17pm] frostbite ; come over?

The text from Morgan lit your phone screen and sent your heart into a steady gallop. You knew Joel was going to talk to him, but for some reason, you hadn’t thought it would be so soon. 

Was it bad that you didn’t feel ready?

Honestly, if you thought about it, you didn’t think you would ever feel ready. In a way, this was the buildup of months of dancing around each other. It was terrifying, that tonight everything would be out in the open.

You would be lying if you said a part of you couldn’t wait.

[8:19pm] armrest ; omw over

Rushing around, you put on shoes and threw back on the hoodie you were wearing earlier when you saw Joel. You grabbed your keys and locked the door behind you, making your way to your car. 

The drive to their apartment was short, though it still took everything in you to obey the traffic laws on the way there. The walk up filled you with even more anxiety, your hands shaking despite your best attempts to settle your nerves.

You knocked lightly on their door, unable to manage more than a mediocre tap. Luckily, it was Joel that opened the door, beckoning you inside with a hand on your waist. He pressed a kiss to the side of your head, sending heat into your cheeks.

“He’s in the kitchen making tea,” Joel told you, closing the door behind you. 

You nodded, dropping your keys onto the Gritty tray. Together, you made your way to the kitchen. 

Seeing Morgan for the first time in two weeks, after not having spoken at all was...was strange. It hit you like a fist to the gut. 

You saw how exhausted Joel looked earlier, disheveled and messy. But compared to Morgan, he looked only a bit different from usual. Morgan, though—

He looked rough. 

Heavy bags under his eyes, hair wild, clothes wrinkled. Even his shoulders were hunched in more than usual. Your heartstrings tugged just looking at him. 

“Hey,” he mumbled when he looked up and saw you, mustering up a weak smile. 

Slowly, you made your way to where he stood. He set down the cup of tea he was reaching out to offer you, worry plastered on his face.

He took a deep breath and started to talk, “Look, I’m so sor—”

You caused him to stop mid-sentence, throwing your arms around him and gripping tight. “You’re such an asshole,” you told him, voice muffled in his shirt. Burying your face deeper, his arms came up and wrapped tightly around you.

“I know,” he said, laying his head on yours, “I’m so sorry.” 

You didn’t respond, taking the moment to really let everything sink in. Giving him one last squeeze, you let go and stepped back, picking up the mug that you claimed as yours on one of your first visits.

“Living room?” you asked, smiling at the two of your boys—because you finally let yourself give in and call them that, because they were yours and you didn’t plan on letting go so easily. 

“Living room, it is,” Joel answered, reaching around to grab his mug and guide you over. Morgan followed behind, staying close. 

Like none of you could bear to be more than a few feet anymore. It was just a tad ironic at this point. 

The three of you settled down in your usual seats, with you in the middle, Joel to your right, and Morgan on the left. You put your tea down after taking a sip, smiling when it tasted exactly how Morgan always makes it for you. 

“So, I guess this is where we talk about everything,” Morgan said, putting his cup down next to yours and turning to face the two of you. 

Joel followed suit, nodding. “That it is.”

For a second, the three of you sat there in silence, looking around at each other. 

“Any volunteers to go first?” You ventured finally, raising your eyebrows. Your question earned you a pair of laughs. 

“I’m the one that started this mess, so I’ll go, I guess.” Morgan darted his tongue out to lick his lips, glancing between the two of you. 

“That night, I let my fear take over. And I know I’ve already told both of you, but I’m sorry.”

“Morgan,” you tried, but he stopped you. 

“Let me talk,” he smiled, so you let him. “At that point, I just really let myself consider that I had feelings for the two people I thought of as my closest friends. And it made me scared, because there are soulmates out there and I know—I think—I don’t have one. But as far as I knew, both of you did. The thought of losing you to someone I had no chance against, it made me lash out. 

That was wrong. I shouldn’t have taken it out on you. We’re adults, mostly, and I should’ve handled it better. I’m sorry.”

You were aware you were gaping a little, but you were unsure on how to stop. Joel got his bearings back before you.

“Yea, you definitely handled it like shit,” he said, shrugging and getting a snort out of you and a ‘fucking hell’ from Morgan. “But it is what it is. It got the ball rolling and we can’t go back. We can only go on.”

“When the fuck did you get good at talking about your feelings?” You turned to him, an incredulous look on your face. “Seriously, you were like the last person I expected to be spouting off relationship wisdom.”

“What can I say,” he grinned, “I’m a man of wisdom. Isn’t that why you care about me non-platonically?”

“Why do I like you,” Morgan muttered to himself, covering his eyes, “Literally why.”

“Moving on,” you announced, choking back a laugh, “On the subject of soulmates, as far as I’m aware, I don’t have one either, so there’s that. And right now, I don’t know if me having one would even stop me from wanting to at least see if this is something worth having. Which I think it is.”

“Yea, I remember you mentioning the soulmate lack,” Joel nodded, “And I agree, with the second part.”

Bumping his shoulder, you went to pick up your tea. 

“So that’s two out of three?” Morgan asked, looking at both of you.

“Make that three out of three,” Joel butted in, raising his hand. “Like 99% sure I don’t either.”

“So none of us have soulmates?” You looked between Morgan and Joel. “Really?”

“Lucky?” Morgan hazarded a guess. 

“I’ll take it.” Joel grinned.

“And to clarify, there are mutual feelings here? Threeway feelings?” 

“Don’t—don’t call it that,” you replied to Morgan, wincing. “That’s just bad.”

“I don’t know,” Joel told you, grinning, “I like it. Threeway Feelings. New groupchat name?”

“Yes.”

“No.” 

You glared at Morgan, repeating, “No, motion overruled.”

“You’re two to one,” Joel teased.

Smiling sweetly back, you told him, “Cute that you think this is a democracy.”

Laughter rang through the apartment. It was almost like the past two weeks had never happened at all. 

“But let me clarify,” Joel started, sitting up straighter and holding up a hand, fingers up, “All of us think we’re soulmate-less, and even if we’re not, it’s something we’ll deal with when we get there,” one finger down, “All of us have feelings for the other two people in this room,” another finger, “and we’re not dating yet?”

“Correct,” you confirmed.

“Sounds about right so far,” Morgan nodded.

“But we should, though,” Joel said, glancing at you, “Date, I mean. It’s the next logical step, right?”

“Kinda worrying when he uses logic,” you leaned over to stage whisper to Morgan. 

He nodded, leaning close, “I agree.”

“I’m right here, jackasses,” Joel threw a throw pillow at Morgan, apparently taking the name literally. 

“Were you? I couldn’t tell,” Morgan replied sarcastically, throwing it back. 

Closing your eyes, you sucked in a deep breath and tried not to laugh. 

“I agree with Joel, though,” you told them, stopping them in their tracks. “About dating.”

“You wanna date us?” Morgan asked you, Joel pointing at him to back up his question. 

Rolling your eyes, you smiled, “Yes, I wanna date you. Do you wanna date me?”

You felt ridiculous for asking, like a flashback to kindergarten with a note saying ‘do you like me? yes or no’.

“I don’t know, what are the options?” Joel asked, pretending to think about it.

“Yes or yes,” you deadpanned.

“I think I’m gonna have to go with yes on that one,” Morgan told you, leaning in to press a kiss to your cheek. 

“I’m gonna have to go with yes, as well,” Joel nodded, kissing your other cheek. 

“Okay,” you tried to ignore the pulsating heat in your cheeks. 

“Wait,” Morgan stopped, clearing his throat and looking over at Joel, “Are we? I mean—”

“Dating?” Joel asked, lips quirking into a soft smile. 

Morgan nodded, staying quiet. 

Joel shook his head and laughed, “Yea, I think I could manage dating both of you.”

“Yea?” Morgan smiled. 

“Yea.” Joel returned it.

“Cool,” Morgan said, running a hand through his hand before stopping and frowning. “I know that all of that shitshow was my fault, but we’re never doing that again, right?”

“Oh, seconded,” you immediately replied, “Never again.”

“Thirded,” Joel agreed, nodding wholeheartedly.

You looked at your boys—now officially yours—and smiled. 

~

Their first date, it was decided, would be dinner at Morgan and Joel’s apartment, just the three of them. Private, no pressure. 

You showed up, dressed up but not too much, as per Joel’s vague instructions, at 8pm on the dot, making it the only time you were ever on time for something. You liked to think that if it wasn’t at your boys’ apartment, they’d be late, too.

“Well, don’t you look lovely,” Morgan let you in, bending to kiss your hairline. 

“I could say the same for you,” you replied, taking him in, pressing a kiss to his chin.

Not the usual pre-game suit, you noticed, unable to decide if it was disappointment or relief in your stomach. He was clad in a nice pair of pants, his dark blue button up undone at the top and the sleeves rolled up to his forearms. Sans shoes, because of course.

On the whole, a very nice look, in your humble opinion.

He noticed your glance down at his lack of footwear and grinned, “Footwear optional.”

“You should’ve mentioned that sooner,” you groaned, bending down to remove your own shoes that had already begun to pinch at your toes. 

He laughed, waiting for you to finish and take his hand, leading you to the kitchen. 

Joel waited for you there, bent over a pot on the stove. Shirt completely unbuttoned, tie hanging around his neck. Shaking your head, you stepped up behind him to wrap your arms around his back, kissing his shoulder blade. 

“Who let you be in charge of dinner?” You teased, catching his eye as he turned around in your embrace to return it. 

“Say the word and we’ll order pizza,” he whispered back into your ear, lips lightly brushing it.

A tingle ran down your spine as you withdrew, sharing a secret smile and ignoring Morgan’s snort. 

“I’m sure it’s not that bad,” you told him, leaning against a counter. 

A laugh bubbled up and out of you at Morgan’s subtle wince. “Dinner’s just about done, anyway. Guess we’ll find out,” he said, getting out a few plates. 

“So, what exactly is on the menu?” You questioned, unable to quite tell. 

Joel looked up at you, opening his mouth and closing it quickly. “You know,” he answered, hand bracing on the countertop, “I’m not sure if I can pronounce it right.”

Giggles flew out of you even as you felt a sense of apprehension take over. “This is gonna be good.”

Sharing a laugh, you got to work setting the table and bringing over the food, which you cautiously noted smelled somewhat decent. Not—not really entirely good, but decent.

“Not gonna lie,” Joel told both of you once everyone was seated with a plate, “Kinda scared to eat this.”

“You’re really not filling me with confidence here, babe,” you replied, getting a tiny forkful of food. 

“On three?” Morgan proposed. 

“On three,” you and Joel agreed. 

“One,” you started.

“Two,” Joel continued.

“Three.”

You shoved the food into your mouth, barely giving yourself a moment to reconsider. Slowly, you chewed, watching your boyfriends’ faces.

It seemed the general consensus was…not good. 

“I think we fucked up somewhere,” Joel swallowed loudly, grimacing.

“Oh, we definitely did,” Morgan agreed, pushing back his chair and standing. “I’ll get my phone.”

“Pizza?”

“Pizza.”

~

“We’re only here to get essentials,” Morgan reminded the two of you, grabbing a cart. 

You and Joel followed behind, hands swinging between your bodies. “Yea, totally,” you smiled, “Essentials.”

“Of course,” Joel nodded gravely, before turning to you and whispering, “We’re definitely getting the stuff for ice cream sundaes, right?”

Giggling, you nudged into him. “He said essentials, Joel. Obviously, we’re getting the stuff for ice cream sundaes.”

“I can hear both of you, you know,” Morgan called back, looking over his shoulder at the pair of you. 

You shot him a smile and blew him a kiss, knowing Joel was beside you doing something just as cheesy.

The next thing you knew, Joel was speeding up and dragging you along to catch up to your other boyfriend. “I’m getting in,” he dropped your hand, lifting a leg over the side of the cart. 

“No—Joel—oh my god,” Morgan tried to jerk the cart away, laughter spilling out of him.

“Joel, you’re not getting in the cart,” you shoved him, blissfully ignoring the stares coming from the old lady down the aisle. 

Joel pouted exaggeratedly, turning to face you. “Why not?”

In a quick motion, you propelled yourself into the cart. “Because I am!” Your giggles came out maniacal, joined with Joel’s bark of laughter and Morgan’s groan of disappointment. 

“Where’s the food gonna go?” Morgan asked, continuing to push the cart with you in it. 

“In the cart with Y/N,” Joel told him, bumping lightly into his shoulder with a grin. 

You pointed at Joel, agreeing. 

Morgan shook his head, that exasperated fondness prevalent on his face as he sighed and tried not to smile. “Fine,” he relented. 

~

“You know, that monkey kinda looks like you,” Morgan overheard you tell Joel as he paid for the cotton candy. 

“You’re such an ass,” Joel pushed you, laughing. 

“Speaking of asses,” Morgan said, coming up behind you and handing over the cotton candy, “Do you think they have donkeys here?”

You threw your head back with a loud laugh. 

“This is the zoo,” Joel replied, grabbing his hand, “...I actually don’t know. We should check.”

“In the whole zoo, you want to see donkeys?” You asked in bemusement, leaning into him. 

He shrugged, wrapping his unoccupied arm around you. “What can I say, I’m a man with taste.”

“Oh, for sure,” Joel retorted, snorting and squeezing his hand in his own.

~

Limbs tangled, you relaxed on the couch with your boys.

A book in one hand, you carded your fingers through Joel’s hair with the other. Sprawled across your lap as you rested against Morgan, he was the perfect image of relaxation. Rain pattered against the windows as a romcom played in the background, the volume just low enough to zone out. Morgan and Joel—okay, just Morgan, because you were pretty sure Joel was half asleep at this point—were watching, attention set on the tv.

All in all, an excellent night. 

~

Seeing your boys over the summer was difficult, but you made it work. You always did.

It was one of those incredibly rare days where you lounged about in the midsummer heat with them, Morgan and Joel taking a slight break from offseason training to just be together. It was nice, and it was quiet and exactly what you needed. 

You had made the mistake of putting on one of their thinner, more threadbare hoodies last night and the decision was catching up to you. You untangled yourself from the pile of limbs on the bed belonging to your two boyfriends, ignoring their cries of protest, and just barely managed to get up. 

First, you were gonna turn up the air conditioning, and then you were gonna take off this damn hoodie. 

Meandering over to the A/C, you accomplished one mission and moved on to the next one. Pulling the hoodie over your head, you felt your shirt slide up and refuse to separate from it. 

“Hey,” you heard Joel call from behind you, “Did you get a tattoo without telling us?”

Confused, you yanked the hoodie the rest of the way off and turned back to them. “No?” You answered, but it came out less sure than you would’ve liked. 

“I definitely saw something on your back,” Joel insisted, reaching over and swatting at Morgan to get his attention. 

“Hmm?” Morgan grumbled, switching sides to look at you. 

“Come here,” Joel beckoned, an action you reluctantly obeyed. His hand on your hip turned you to face away from him, your back in his line of sight.

You shivered, feeling his fingers glide across your skin as he lifted your shirt. In an instant, you felt his grasp waver, a choked gasp slamming out of him.

“Holy shit,” Morgan breathed, the bed creaking as he shot up. 

Spinning, you turned to face them, grabbing at your back. “What?” You demanded, terrified of their answer, “What it is?”

Adrenaline poured through your veins as Joel lifted his gaze, now wet with tears, to meet yours with a wide smile.

“It’s a soulmate tattoo,” he told you, standing up and cupping your face. His lips came down fast and hard to yours, the emotion behind the kiss slamming into you. 

You felt Morgan come to stand behind you, lifting your shirt to look. His fingers traced down your spine, almost reverently, sending shiver after shiver through your body. 

“Liar,” you croaked when you and Joel split, refusing to believe it. 

Joel shook his head with a disbelieving laugh, “I’m not. Go look in the mirror.”

You pulled away, making your way slowly to the mirror by the door, your boys close behind. You twisted around, craning your head as you pulled up your shirt. Your breath stilled to a halt when scrawled writing along your spine become visible out of the corner of your eye with every inch of skin shown. 

And there, once your shirt was all the way up, was an indisputable soulmate tattoo curving down your spine.

morgan frost ~ joel farabee

The names of your boys—your boys, you nearly cried—written in calligraphy on your body, separated only by three flowers. 

“Soulmates,” Morgan whispered, finger stilling on the flowers. 

Recognition sparked deep in your mind, a memory surfacing behind your eyes.

Your eyes lingered on the flowers lining the pathway, your mind trying futilely to identify which ones they wer—

“I know those flowers,” you mumbled, lips parting as you stared uncomprehendingly. 

Joel laughed a little, fingers running up and down your side. “I didn’t think you were into flowers.”

You shook your head, fixated and unable to look away. “No, I know those flowers. Asters. They were—”

“In the park by the cafe,” Morgan finished for you, catching on, “The day I bumped into you.”

“The day we met,” you said, smiling. “I was trying to figure out what kind they were, it’s why I was distracted. Why we—”

“Met,” Morgan gaped, a smile slowly spreading across his lips. 

You nodded, unable to talk just yet. The sight of those flowers, ones that you hadn’t really given any thought to after you had googled them one day after being curious. Flowers that were now imprinted on your body, a permanent reminder of everything you gained in such a relatively short amount of time.

To your side, you watched Joel take off his shirt and turn around, revealing flowing names down his spine separated by three dainty flowers. 

y/n ~ morgan frost

Morgan mirrored him on your other side and sure enough, there were your names in identical print and the same tiny three flowers. 

joel farabee ~ y/n

A perfect set.

~ fin ~

[im-totally-not-an-alien]

Final Fantasy 7 prompts # 73

1. Puppet! Cloud drops out from a random vortex after his master was defeated. Where did he land?

On Sephiroths office desk in Shinra tower of course. Sephiroth poked him with his pen a few times before Cloud woke up.

"Master!" The blond exclaimed as he wrapped the larger man in a hug. Of course. Of freaking course, thats when Genesis barged in with a stack of paperwork tucked under his arm, (not even bothering to knock mind you!) "Ugh, Seph, you are not going to believe-" the redclad figure stopped in his tracks.

"...this isn't what is looks like."

Genesis wiggled his eyebrows suggestivly, "Sure it isn't." And he was back out in the hall without another word. The soft click the door gave seemed much too loud in the silence and only seemed to add to Sephiroths humiliation.

Thus began Cloud following around his "Master" wherever he went while Sephiroth and the SOLDIERS/Turks did everything in their power to stop him, only to fail hilariously or get beaten up by the (comparatively) petite blond for thier efforts

2. The Holy Trinity encounter Winged! Cloud from the future or a parallel dimention or something and instead of viewing him as a monster they think he's an actual angel and treat him accordingly.

3. Cloud had just finished burying a dead chocobo (may she rest in peace) he had found when he heard a twig snap from behind him.

He reached for Tsurugis handle only to pause when he saw a bright yellow ball of plumage peek out from behind a tree. The blond let out a small laugh. That was by far the fluffiest chick he had ever seen, hells, it was a perfect circle/

Cloud reached down and picked up the baby, "Hello there, are you lost?"

"Kweh!" The little circle cried out and Cloud was quickly surrounded by three other chicks, all wild and overly fluffy. He absently wondered if this was a new breed while they preceeded to peck at him with little effect. He just scooped them up and drove them to Bills place after a ruddementry search of the nearby area.

That was the end of it.

Until he woke up the next morning with three of the chicks sleeping on top of him. The blond was baffled and got up to search for the fourth, only to find it perched on Denzels head, shifting its balance as to not fall whenever Denzel began nodding off, threatening to fall asleep and plant his face in his breakfast.

If Cloud took a picture-or a dozen-no one would have to know

4. A mysterious ailment has been effecting all the creatures Hojo created using Jenovas cells causing them to run amok. With Cloud missing and AVALANCHE busy dealing with rampaging monsters, Denzel and Marlene sneak off to search for the missing blond, but will they find him in time? Or will Cloud be in the same state as the others?

5. Reno found Cloud at a mall in some nowhere town dressed as a girl. He was originally planning to use this as blackmail material before Cloud came out to him as trans.

Now Reno goes out with him and helps him keep his cover...while disguised of course. Wouldn't want anyone to recognize him and- by extention- Cloud.

Besides, if anyone did recognize them, Cloud had full permission to blame Reno and let him take the fall for it.

6. The SOLDIERS apparently had a "Chocobo protection squad" when Cloud was a trooper. He had no idea why Reeve had insisted he read this annoyingly thick file on it until he realized half way through the first page that it was about him

He was the "precious cutie chocobo that must be protected from the evils of the world"

Cloud wanted to burn it on principle...but was too curious to stop reading. Apparently most of the members were still alive and it seems he owes them a great deal, so maybe he should take Teef and the kids to visit some of them. Maybe bring gift baskets...

7. Cloud cursed as he stepped on the edge of his cloak, sending him tumbling down from the path and deeper into the cavern.

Cloud picked himself up from the ground, grateful his goggles kept any of the dirt and debris from entering his eyes.

He heard something from behind him and whirled around to slash at them with his dagger...except there was no one there.

Poink

Oh no. He looked down at the little creatures, wearing cloaks much like his own, only brown instead of the worn black fabric the professor gave them. The blond looked down sadly at the number tattooed on the back of his hand.

Guess I won't be going to the Reunion after all. Shame. Mother had said Zack would be there as a guest and he really wanted to see him again.

Poink!

One of the little creatures- Tonberry- mother supplied - was clutching the edge of his cloak and attempting to lead him somewhere.

Did...did this creature think himself one of them?!

Aka Numbered! Cloud! gets adopted by Tonberrys

8. Hojo waking up strapped to one of his own tables with Cloud and Sephiroth standing over him, grinning like mad men.

9. Au where Sephiroth escaped as a child and fled into the wild and was eventually taken in by the "dead" professor Gast and his wife Iflana

He was "never found" by the Turks and eventually grew up to be a bad ass vigilante.

Cloud shared a similar fate but kept running instead of being taken in, eventually becoming a vagabond until the fateful day when their paths crossed and the pull of Reunion drew them together

10. Enraged blue eyes locked on to the blond. It may have been nearly a thousand years since Shinra fell, but he would know that man anywhere.

Not just anyone could have destroyed a corporate entity as powerful as Shinra and in the span of a single month no less! But he didn't care much about that, oh no.

He cared about the fact that this lovely creature killed him and his fellow firsts and then had the audacity to just disappear into the sands of time, stripping materia of its power and somehow causing Gaias mako to sink deep beneath the soil, never to be seen by mere mortals again. After it did, monsters began appearing less and less frequently, until they stopped appearing at all.

With Shinra so thoroughly destroyed and no other sustainable power available, information and records deteriorated, leaving Shinras history spotty at best and non existent at worse (probably didn'thelp that records seemed to conveniently disappear). Now Shinra, monsters and magic are all considered fairytales from a bygone era.

He and the others occasionally visit the lake that was once the city of Midgar to light candles in honor of all they had lost. Like hell he was going to let the blond escape again. Genesis opened his phone and made a call, "Seph, I found him."

11. Cloud meeting Female Sephiroth. Shes rather impressed that he's completely unaffected by the boob window. It had been the death of many men before him, that was for certain.

Too bad he wants to kill her, she has a feeling she would have liked having him around. Maybe she'd introduce him to Angel's puppy? She had the peculiar ability to befriend everyone she met

12. Time traveler Sephiroth saves time traveler Cloud from the labs with Genesis and Angeal.

Cloud is wondering why Sephiroth saved him and what he's planning.

Meanwhile, Gen and Geal are freaking out and asking annoyingly sane questions, like "Who is this guy?", "Why do you seem to know him so well?", and my personal favorite "Why is there a man being held captive in the labs?!"

13. Lab Experiment Cloud au where teenager Cloud barrels into Sephiroth in the middle of escaping the tower and asks if Sephiroth is his dad.

Sephiroth stops functioning and he just stands there frozen in a full battle stance while Genesis fights and subsequently captures the teenager, who he then promptly kidnaps.

*later*

Sephiroth bursts into the labs and confronts Hojo, asking if he was a father.

Hojo laughs and says "Of course you are! Do you have any idea how many creatures I've spawned with your DNA?"

Cue Sephs mental breakdown and Genesis's rampage on behalf of his friend.

Angeal does his part by babysitting with some office secretaries

Aka: the trinity raising a broody teen

14. Post OG Nebilheim is super duper haunted and Yuffie is NOT okay with that.

Cloud is even less okay and they talk about it while sitting on the roof of Clouds abandoned house...well, the fake one anyway

15. Everyone gets therapy but its from the perspective of a therapist who is %1000 done with Hojo

Bonus: This is actually questions posed by a friend and it helped spawn number 10.

What would Shinra do if Mako where to suddenly disappear? How would that even happen?

Bonus Bonus: What would be the quickest/ most brutal way to take down Shinra and/or SOLDIER? How would the Firsts feel about being completely owned by a stranger who appeared out of nowhere? (This was also my thinking about 10)

Announcement: Due to lack of interest, list #75 will be the final one. Thank you for reading my ideas. It made me super happy!