#last time i heard from him he just told me to increase my dose when i brought up side effects

[silver-rings-and-rabbits]

Open Heart 2 - Chapter 20

Inevitable

Matthew was in for surprise the next morning when Ethan caught up with him and told him the diagnostics team had been officially disbanded as of 6AM. After chatting with Naveen, Ethan had decided the team should focus on diagnosing and curing as many people as possible.

“Now that the funds originally used to run the team can be redirected to the clinic, we can keep that open a little longer than predicted, and I’ve heard that a few other departments are considering doing the same,” he said. “Anything very complicated can be transferred to Kenmore. Since they were bought-out, they’ve had a big increase in funding and equipment; would-be diagnostic patients are in good hands.”

He said the last sentence as if it gave him a stomach-ache, and Matthew laughed as he walked to the clinic.

He didn’t know what he expected, but it wasn’t a line of people all down the hallway and out the door. Doctors filled the exam rooms and nurses walked up and down the line, diagnosing patients where they could. Naveen was leading a boy down the hall, calmly explaining how he would mend a broken arm. Baz was conducting an eye exam in one room, Elijah and Sothy were treating a food-poisoning patient in another.

“Hey Matthew,” Jackie said from behind him. “You were sent here too, huh?”

“This is insane. It’s like we’ve got half the city in here!”

“I know,” Jackie grinned. “Fancy a competition? Whoever logs the most patients gets coffee from the other.”

“You’re on.”

Matthew called in a woman who had pink eye, which would clear up on its own and a warm, damp cloth would soothe the itching. She was followed by a man dealing with a pinched nerve that would require painkillers. After the man came a tired dad: his toddler twins had come down with chickenpox at the same time.

“Try to keep them from scratching. An over-the-counter antihistamine will help. Have you had chickenpox yourself?”

“Yes, when I was five. My wife suggested having some neighbourhood kids round, but is that safe?”

“It’s much better to get chickenpox as a child, so go ahead, as long as the parents have had it.”

The man looked a tiny bit relieved as he left. Jackie seemed slightly frazzled as she saw her patient off.

“That guy should have had his tonsils out years ago but absolutely refuses surgery. I spent ten minutes trying to convince him that it was in his best interests, but when that ended up being a lost cause I had to help him find a ‘new-age’ alternative. I give it about eight months before they start bothering him again.” She sighed. “Any joy on your end?”

“Wait, you’ve only seen one guy? I’ve just said goodbye to my third patient, and they were a set of twins!”

“I hope you dance in the rain and get pneumonia.”

Matthew was still smirking as he called in his next patient, a thirteen-year-old girl coming in for a second HPV vaccine. The fact that she was terrified of needles and had fainted when receiving her first dose wiped the smile off his face, and he spent a lot of time working on anti-anxiety techniques. He finally got the jab done by playing Olivia Rodrigo very loudly as the poor girl sat with her eyes squeezed shut and her mom tightly holding both her hands. He gave her an extra candy for her ordeal.

“Matthew?” Ines found him between patients, an hour later. “Oh good, you’re available. Can you help us out?”

She stepped aside and Esme walked into the room, rolling her eyes.

“There was a collision with someone carrying over a tray of surgical tools and Esme cut her arm. It may require a stitch or two, but Esme would only agree if you were the one to do it.” She spoke with a look of motherly exasperation, directed at Esme.

“Sure, leave it with me.”

Ines left and Esme sat down on the bed.

“I told her she didn’t need to make a fuss but…”

“No, she was right,” Matthew said, peering at the cut on Esme’s arm. “You’ll need a stitch for this. And to think, out of all the doctors here, you trust me the most!”

“Well, if you’re gonna get mushy about it…”

Matthew cleaned and disinfected the wound before infecting a small dose of local anaesthetic.

“Have you thought about where you’ll go after Edenbrook?”

“I’ve applied to hospitals in New York. Figured it made sense, being in the same state as the PI and everything.”

“Have you thought about a sabbatical or anything? It might give you the chance to travel to them in person.”

“I’m not sure I want to do that, at least not right now.” She chewed her lip. “I’m not the same as I was back then, and I doubt my parents are too. So the PI’s just going to locate them and then we’ll go from there. And if they do want to see me…I can visit.”

“I’m sure they will,” Matthew murmured as he put a stitch in Esme’s cut and covered it with a small bandage. “Alright, that’s good to go. Page me if it starts violently spurting blood.”

****

The deluge of patients continued throughout the day. When Matthew finally got the chance for a break, he realised another six hours had passed. He and Elijah took a breather in the lounge, drinking cups of coffee.

“Can you believe today? I feel like I’ve been run over with people.”

“Same. How’s Sothy handling it?”

“He’s actually doing really well. I cracked down since you saved our asses – he’s been scared of you since then,” he added, smirking, “And made sure he actually started learning stuff. He complained at first but once he realised that’s what needed to happen he’s been going up and up and up. What about you? I don’t see you working with Esme as much.”

“Dr Banerji wanted to take off some of my workload whilst I was recovering from the attack, so she’s bounced between me, Zaid and Ines. Regardless, she’s very independent. She’s been able to handle it.”

“At least she hasn’t been making your life difficult by…I don’t know…administering illegal drug treatments!”

“That was one time!” Matthew snorted into his coffee.

****

The rest of the week passed in a similar fashion. Matthew would be directed to either the clinic, where he would treat minor illnesses and ailments, or to the ER, where he would stabilise emergency victims before they were transferred to receive the rest of their treatment elsewhere. According to Aurora, Mass Kenmore was slowly filling up. She wasn’t quite working the same frantic hours as everyone else, and offered to be in charge of dinner back at the apartment. This was met with mixed reactions from everyone until she ordered pizzas. They couldn’t live on takeaways forever…but they wouldn’t be working like this forever either.

Matthew focused on the positive, that he was helping as many patients as he could and the cost of care was coming in cheaper than usual. Kyra had appealed to Naveen and got him to agree to cut large bills. It wouldn’t make a difference to Edenbrook’s situation, she said, why burden patients now? It was the last thing she could do to make sure Edenbrook could help as many people as possible.

Friday night, Matthew finished up his shift and left the hospital to find it was already Saturday morning.

“How the hell did it get to be tomorrow?” he groaned, suddenly feeling disoriented.

“Matthew, over here!”

Keiki was jumping up and down, waving her hands at him, and just being generally too perky for a teenager at the crack of dawn. Bryce was loping behind her, yawning.

“Hey Lahelas. What’s got you so excited?”

Keiki whipped a folded piece of paper from her pocket and held it up excitedly.

“I got in to Invictus! I’m gonna be a full-time student in September!”

“Congratulations!” Matthew looked over at Bryce as he gave Keiki a congratulatory hug and saw him beaming with pride. “So if you don’t start until September, what’s got you up so early?”

“We were invited in for a campus tour, since we’ve never been before,” Bryce said. “Lucky us, it starts at 9AM and is a two and a half hour drive.”

“Do you want to come with us?” Keiki asked. “Bryce told me that you, Jackie and Raf helped him search…and you helped me settle in when I got here.”

“That’s really sweet of you.”

Matthew was so touched, he went back inside Edenbrook and swapped his shifts around to keep the day free.

“Are you sure your car can make the journey? It doesn’t look like the strongest model…” he teased as they walked towards Bryce’s car that was possibly the same age as Keiki.

“You’re right, we should take your car…OH WAIT, you don’t have one,” Bryce retorted. “Just for that, get in the back.”

“Good, because I’ve been at work and need to stretch out.”

“And I was going to fight you for shotgun anyway.”

Matthew sprawled over the backseat of Bryce’s car, and Keiki instantly started fiddling with the radio and CD player as Bryce pulled away from the hospital.

“Can we play a podcast?” she asked.

“Put headphones on if you want, but you won’t be able to connect it to the speakers.”

“You should update your car.”

“If you’d rather I spend my trust fund on a fabulous car…”

“No, no, I’m good!”

“So hang on,” Matthew said. “Technically, who’s paying for school?”

“I am,” Bryce said. “My trust fund will cover the fees. Keiki’s still got her fund, luckily, but she won’t be able to access it until she’s eighteen.”

“I guess I’ll be upgrading your car then.” Keiki grinned up at Bryce with gratitude; she wouldn’t forget any of this.

As Bryce cautiously wound his way through the Boston traffic, a young man pulled up behind them in a bright red car. The car itself was almost as loud as the motor and the driver kept attempting to overtake but couldn’t get round the oncoming traffic.

“I smell a car crash,” Matthew muttered.

“Did your mommy buy that car?” Keiki said as the driver finally managed to get into the next lane at the traffic lights. He seemed to be trying to trash-talk them through the window, but before Keiki could get the window down to hear, the lights were green and the boy racer was zooming away.

“Go after him, Bryce, we’ll show him who’s boss!”

“No way. I fully intend to get to Invictus with you and my car in one piece.”

“What about you and Matthew?”

“We’re a doctor and a surgeon, we’ll be fine. But you, I have a duty of care for.”

Keiki accepted this with a roll of the eyes but she perked up when a plume of smoke came into view on the highway. It was coming from a familiar red car, and a boy racer was stood next to it shouting down the phone. Keiki took great delight in rolling down the window and flipping the bird as Bryce tooted the horn.

“I love karma,” Matthew said.

“Let that be a lesson to you, Keiks.”

Now that they were out the city and on the highway, the drive became smoother. Keiki flipped through (and dismissed) Bryce’s CD collection, then bickered with Bryce about how far she could roll down the windows without messing anyone’s hair. Matthew settled down on the back seat and closed his eyes, letting the siblings chatter fade into the background…

He was woken up suddenly by Bryce honking the horn.

“Rise and shine, Matthew, we’re here!”

“Jesus Christ, couldn’t you have just poked me?!”

“Keiki said the horn would be more fun.”

“No I didn’t!” Keiki gasped as they climbed out the car and stretched their legs. Bryce had found a spot next to a garden lined with hedges and colourful flower beds. Matthew recognised it as the spot where the kids were pictured playing with a tightrope on the website, but there was no time to stop for a proper look as Keiki was practically skipping along the path to the reception desk.

The whole campus felt like a grand manor house, with the main office being the first in a row of mews around the back of the school building. It was followed by the admin office, the porters cabin, the accommodation and finance office, and a health clinic that included sexual health. Matthew couldn’t help feeling a little impressed with their openness.

“The tour starts in the English department at ten and goes round the campus, lasting for around two hours,” Keiki said, reading the timetable she’d been given. “Can we look at some dorms until then?”

“You got it.”

They found the dorms – a slightly more modern building – across the road where a boy called James showed them his room. It was standard: a single bed, a desk and chest of drawers and not a lot of floor space, but the window was tall and James had a lot of posters on the walls and trinkets on the desk.

“Pretty sure this is bigger than my room at med school,” Matthew said.

“You moved into a closet, your standards are low,” Bryce reminded him. “Nice view out the window though.”

The window looked out onto a garden where students were milling around, enjoying the spring morning. Some of them were eating toast, most of them held mugs.

“Is there a common room or anything?”” Keiki asked.

James led them down the hallway to a living and kitchen area. A TV hung on the wall above some brightly coloured couches and bean bags. A long table was along one wall and a large bookcase was along the other. A sign encouraged leaving unwanted books on the empty shelf for other students to read.

“We go to the cafeteria for proper cooked meals but we can have snacks and hot drinks here,” James explained, indicating the three fridges, microwaves and kettles. “But if you don’t want to share anything, keep it in your room.”

“Noted,” Keiki giggled. “Are all the dorms like this?”

“They try and keep them generally the same, it just depends on the building. There’s a few houses down the street that the school bought and converted, so they look different, but Invictus keeps them up to standard. You live in the same room until you graduate but you can apply for a room swap if you need.”

Keiki wanted to find out more about the accommodation but they had to move on to the English department for the academic tour. It was led by a very tall man who looked very stern until he opened his mouth and exuded an energy that was impossible to dislike. Keiki seemed very keen on the feminist literature module in the English department and was pleased to hear there would also be a creative writing assessment.

“She’s always writing in a notebook,” Bryce said to Matthew in a low voice. “But whenever I ask to see it, she tells me to mind my own business.”

Moving on from English into Science – a decidedly less photogenic square block hidden by trees – Keiki was introduced to a woman with a lot of curly hair who looked more like a stereotypical art teacher. Keiki asked plenty of questions regarding chemistry and physics and what kind of experiments they did. The curly-haired woman took a shine to her, telling her it might not be that exciting in reality but she appreciated the enthusiasm.

“What do you think?” Bryce asked, as they sat in the cafeteria two hours later drinking coffee. “You look like you’re having fun.”

“I really like this school, Bryce,” Keiki said, with a shy smile. “I think it will be one of the best decisions we’ve ever made.”

“Actually agreed. It’s going to be great for you.”

Keiki went to use the toilet and Matthew noticed Bryce was looking oddly pensive.

“Are you alright? Don’t tell me you’re empty-nesting!”

“Of course I am! My nest! It’s empty!” Bryce acted dramatic, but there was an edge of seriousness about it. “It’s crazy that when she first got here, all I could think about was sending her home and getting my bed back and not having to hide my underwear. But now…I’m really going to miss her! Don’t tell her that,” he added, sternly, and Matthew laughed.

“I’m sure she’ll miss you too. But it’s a good thing. You get your apartment back and, instead of sending her back to horrible parents in a lonely mansion, she’ll be going somewhere she can really thrive.”

“I guess it really is the best of both worlds, huh,” Bryce said. “Thanks for coming with us, Matthew. You look dead on your feet and we really appreciate it.”

“Anything. Just don’t wake me up with the car horn again.”

****

Matthew was back to the throng of work on Sunday – word had spread around the city and now it seemed like the entire population was there for the most minor of problems, not that Matthew minded – but on Monday morning, he spotted a familiar face in the atrium.

“Raf!”

“Surprise,” Raf grinned. “I feel like I haven’t seen you in ages. I know you’re busy but I wanted to stop and say hello.”

“It’s always good to see you,” Matthew said. “If you’ve got some time, wanna help out? We’ve got so many people in today, the nurses won’t know which way is up.”

“If nothing else, I can be a coffee gopher,” Raf joked as Matthew led him down the halls to the clinic. “Oh wow, you weren’t kidding…”

There was a long line of people snaking around the rooms, some standing, some draped against the wall, and some just sitting on the floor.

“Hey, Ronnie, can Raf lend a hand with the triage for a while?” Matthew asked a passing nurse.

“I have four years’ experience as a paramedic,” Raf added.

“Come with me,” Ronnie said, and led Raf to the nearest nurses station to start triaging the waiting patients. Meanwhile, Matthew was pulled back into his examination room to diagnose as much as he could.

“Matthew!” Sienna rushed into the room. “I have to administer some vaccinations and I’m out of candy! Do you have any spare?”

Matthew hunted around the cupboards and found a bag of lollipops tucked away at the back.

“Godspeed,” he told her seriously, before calling in his next patient.

The patient in question was tall, but kept his head down as he shuffled into the room and sat down. He only looked up after removing his baseball cap.

“Keller? What are you doing here?” It was unprofessional, but the last time Matthew had seen Mitch he had been extremely disrespectful to Sienna. He cleared his throat and tried again. “I mean, what brings you here?”

Mitch looks up at Matthew slightly apprehensively before revealing his hand. It was haphazardly wrapped in a slightly blood-stained bandage.

“Attacked by a soup can lid,” Mitch muttered. “Thought the bandage would hold but…looks like it needs stitches.”

Matthew unwound the bandage to reveal an angry red gash across Mitch’s palm.

“That looks like…I’d estimate four stitches.”

Matthew retrieved a suture kit and started prepping to mend the wound.

Mitch watched warily, as if he half-expected Matthew to stab him with the needle, and an awkward silence fell as Matthew treated the wound.

“Keep those covered and dry,” he said, rebandaging his hand. “Come back in a week to have them removed, sooner if you think they’re infected.”

“What happens if Edenbrook’s closed?”

“We should be open for another couple of months but other hospitals will be able to take care of it.”

Mitch nodded. He shifted where he sat, looking like he had something he wanted to say.

“Um…is Dr Trinh working today?”

Matthew went very still.

“Why do you ask?”

“I need to talk to her about something.”

“Really? I hope it’s an apology for your attitude.”

“Um…yeah.” Mitch looked like he hadn’t considered that until just now. “But also something important.”

He wasn’t any more forthcoming so Matthew made him wait where he was as he walked down to where Sienna was tending to someone. He approached her as she finished up and saw off the patient.

“Mitch Keller just turned up in my exam room. He said he wants to talk to you.”

“What about?” Sienna’s smile fell and she looked doubtful.

“He wouldn’t say, he just said it’s important.”

Sienna considered. Then her expression hardened. She stood up straight and lifted her chin.

“Alright. Send him in here and I’ll deal with whatever it is.”

Matthew would always have Sienna’s back but he had the feeling she wouldn’t need him for the moment as he sent Mitch to where Sienna waited for him.

His shift diagnosing patients finished an hour later so he went to see where he could help out next when Rafael caught up with him, slightly out of breath, eyes bright.

“Hey, you alright?”

“Yeah, just a little surprised at how fast-paced everything is. You said it was non-stop, but the reality is something else.”

“Honestly, I love it,” Matthew grinned. “We’re helping so many people…speaking of which, I’m done at the clinic for now. If you’re good to carry on, want to team up?”

“With you, always.”

They ended up being called on to be runners; moving furniture and equipment to help the staff in the clinic, and after carefully bringing a portable sonogram to a pregnant woman, Elijah called them in.

“Can you guys bring a gurney for Mrs McGregor here? She’s had severe vomiting and I don’t want her fainting. A wheelchair will do.”

“You got it.”

They found a spare gurney a few hallways down, but as he went to pull it towards them, Raf stumbled and his leg gave way.

“Are you alright?!” Matthew gasped, rushing over and kneeling beside him. Thankfully the corridor was empty.

“Yeah…” Raf murmured. He sat up slowly, a little pale and obviously shaken. “I just got dizzy. Maybe…maybe I overdid today.”

“Have you stopped at all since you came in?”

“No, I was helping run triage for a couple of hours before I caught up with you. To be honest, I thought I was doing OK. I’ve never collapsed during physical therapy, and running triage was familiar to my paramedic job, so I started to think…well, it was almost like exactly how I was before the attack. I guess I got over-confident.”

“Do you want to get checked out?” Matthew asked. “I’ll page Dr Mirani if you don’t want to go back to the clinic…”

“No, I’ll be alright. I’ll just go home and rest up.”

Raf stood up slowly, bracing himself against the wall.

“Raf…”

“Don’t worry about me. I’ll catch up with you later. Sorry I can’t be of any more help.”

He started walking away before Matthew could say anything else, but no matter how tall he stood, he couldn’t quite hide the tremor in his side.

Matthew had to return to work as if everything was fine, but he couldn’t get the image of Raf collapsing out of his head. Sure, he’d said he was OK, but he did have a tendency to downplay his problems…

“Matthew, are you OK? You seem lost,” Sienna said as she walked out of her examination room. “I was going to grab a cup of coffee if you want to come?”

“Er…sure.”

Matthew didn’t think Raf would want anyone to know what happened yet, so he thought of something to divert Sienna’s attention.

“Was everything alright with Mitch?”

“Everything was fine. You’re not gonna believe this, but he wants to restart his residency. He’s applying to some smaller hospitals just outside of Boston, not as prestigious as Edenbrook, and he wanted me to give a reference.”

“You’re kidding! What did you say?”

“I told him I would provide an honest reference, but if he screwed this one up, never to contact me again. I’ve helped him as much as I can; it’s on himself now.”

“As long as you’re happy with your choice.”

“I am. I felt partially responsible for how his residency ended, now I’ve remedied that. And I won’t have to pick up his slack.”

“Best of both worlds,” Matthew said as they reached the coffee machine. He glanced around the half-empty cafeteria, remembering the many hours he had spent studying here. They had hosted a going-away party for Mrs Martinez in this very cafeteria…and it was where he told Rafael about the part he’d played in her death. A lot had happened since he’d arrived at Edenbrook, and the idea of letting it all go was scary.

****

Upon getting home, tired and aching, he collapsed straight onto the sofa. He didn’t move when the doorbell rang a few minutes later. When no movement came from the bedrooms, he realised he was the only one home. The doorbell rang again.

“Why don’t we have a clapper for that yet?” he groaned into the cushions. “Coming!”

He dragged himself up and over to the door and opened it to find Rafael, smiling sheepishly and clutching a brown paper bag.

“Too late for a home ice-cream sundae bar?”

“Oh my god. Get in here.”

Raf laughed as Matthew pulled him into his apartment, but pushed him back towards the couch.

“Go sit down, you look worn out. Where do you keep the bowls again?”

Matthew watched Rafael making his way around the small kitchen. He moved with confidence, no longer limping, and when he brought back two bowls, spoons, and glasses of water, he had a genuine smile. Matthew returned it as he opened up pints of Madagascan vanilla, mint choc chip, and cherry chocolate. Raf had also brought sprinkles, fudge sauce, and chopped nuts.

“Good god, you’re brilliant.”

“Dig in.”

They loaded their bowls with a bit of everything and Matthew closed his eyes as he took his first bite, moaning in delight. Raf smirked.

“Tastes good then?”

“This is the best thing I’ve eaten all day.”

They spent a few minutes enjoying ice cream in peaceful silence until Matthew cleared his throat.

“So…how are you doing? Tell me honestly. It’s just you and me.”

Raf hesitated, then put down his half-empty bowl.

“I’m sorry I scared you,” he said. “I kind of left you hanging this afternoon.”

“Don’t worry about that. You seemed really upset earlier.”

“I was. Everything had been going so well, I had almost convinced myself I was back to full strength. Nearly collapsing was a very harsh reality check.”

“It doesn’t mean you’ll never recover. It was a bump in the road but you’ll be able to move past it. We both knew recovery wouldn’t be overnight.”

“I know. I called my physical therapist for help once I got back to Vovó’s. She agreed I overdid it and cancelled the session I was supposed to have tomorrow.”

“How are you feeling physically?”

“I’m fine now. I took a nap, then sat in the garden for a while, and then Lucas dropped by and we did some yoga.”

“Lucas does yoga?”

“No, but I needed to stretch out and de-stress so I forgave his lack of flexibility,” Raf chuckled. “Then I texted Sienna to ask when your shift was over so I could surprise you with a treat. Judging by the look on your face, I’d say job well done.”

“Spectacularly done,” Matthew said, as Raf picked up his bowl again. “I’ll be there for you whenever you need it. We can do yoga, or eat ice cream, or just sit in silence.”

“Thank you.” Raf took Matthew’s hand and kissed it. “Right now I’m just happy to enjoy what’s right in front of me.”

With their bowls wiped clean, they sat back on the couch, full and content. Matthew swung his legs across Raf’s lap.

“Thank you,” he said. “I don’t think I realised how much I needed this until you showed up.” He gently took him by the chin and kissed him.

“Well…you’ve looked after me so much I wanted to return the favour,” Raf said.

“You always do.”

They kissed again and again, until they heard a key in the lock. Jackie and Sienna looked at them with bemused expressions.

“I swear to god, if I have to regularly come home to you guys making out—”

“There’s ice cream in the freezer.”

“You’re forgiven. Care to join me, Sienna?”

“You got it!”

Raf laughed as he gave Matthew another squeeze.

“Shall we move into your room? You look exhausted.”

He stood, offering Matthew a hand to pull himself up, then they said goodnight to the girls before going to Matthew’s room. He wasted no time, stripping down to his underpants and collapsing into bed. Raf sat beside him, stroking his hair.

“Would you like a back rub?”

“Mmm…yes please…”

With a smile, Raf started rubbing up and down Matthew’s back and shoulders, digging into the stiff muscles, smoothing out the knots. Matthew gave a deep sigh of contentment as he slowly loosened up under Raf’s touch. The comfort of his bed and the warmth of Rafael made it very easy to drift into a peaceful sleep. He was barely aware of Raf kissing his forehead and whispering ‘good night’ before leaving the room.

But even the most comforting bedtime routine couldn’t keep the bad dreams away, and his sleep was disturbed with visions of himself wandering the plastic corridors in a desperate search for something important he just couldn’t find.

****

The next evening, the roommates plus Bryce were all huddled on the sofa but the mood was far from cheerful: they were looking into hospitals where they could transfer their residency. Aurora hovered with the coffee pot, keeping them fuelled with caffeine and third party observations.

“Anyone found anything yet?” She asked.

“I’ve just applied to Mass Kenmore to join their research team,” Elijah said. “The formula has a lot of potential, and I didn’t have a lot of options when I developed it. Mass Kenmore’s the only place that will enable me to work on it properly…”

“Elijah, you saved mine and Raf’s lives. This formula could save thousands more. Don’t feel bad for wanting to chase that.”

“Don’t let Landrat in on your secrets,” Jackie added.

“Oh my god, I just remembered,” Aurora said. “We didn’t broadcast the attack through the hospital but word got round and he eventually heard about it. He came rushing over and begged me for all the details of the research and what it was like working with Ramsey. The only way I could get rid of him was by snapping that I thought my friends were going to die and I didn’t appreciate him treating it like reality TV. He hasn’t spoken to me since.”

“I’m not even surprised he’d think of it like that. Good for you.” Jackie clinked her coffee mug against Aurora’s.

Matthew turned back to his laptop. He had to admit, he’d started to consider Kenmore – just because he didn’t like two of the doctors working there didn’t mean they were all the same – but Aurora’s story left a bad taste in his mouth. How many doctors thought the same as Landry and would hound him for details about the attack? Or would Landry and his judgemental glare constantly follow him around the hospital? And if he still thought he was right about Mrs Martinez, perhaps he’d think nothing of telling other doctors that Matthew couldn’t be trusted. Edenbrook had witnessed Matthew being cleared of all charges, Kenmore not so much.

“What about you, Sienna?” he asked.

“There’s a hospital in Nevada that wants to talk to me but…I don’t know, it’s in Nevada,” she sighed. “I’ll be completely on my own to start with.”

“That wasn’t an issue when you moved to Boston?” Bryce asked.

“No, I moved in with my ex-boyfriend first. Regardless, I grew up in Massachusetts so it didn’t feel like a big deal.”

“I was on my own when I moved to Boston and it ended up OK,” Matthew reminded her, and Sienna smiled.

“I’ve been looking at Carson General in Chicago,” Bryce said. “If you want moral support, I’ll send you the link and we’ll look at it together.”

“Do they have a peds department?”

“Sure, why?”

“I think I want to restart as a peds resident.”

Everyone looked away from their screens to stare at her.

“Really?”

“Since when?”

“Since the attack, pretty much. Things were really hard, as you all know, but I sort of ended up checking in at the peds department to fill the emptiness. The kids were always so sweet and fun to chat to. I guess it just clicked.”

“You’ll make an amazing paediatrician,” Matthew reassured her happily. “Actually, Bryce, can you send me that link too?”

Leaving Boston scared him, but at least Chicago was on the same side of the country.

“How about you, Jackie? Any joy?”

“There’s some promising places but…as soon as I get recognised as accepting Panacea kickbacks they’ll turn me away.”

“They can’t when you’re one of hundreds of thousands of doctors who accepted those kickbacks.”

“Besides, your skillset speaks for itself. You turned Gary Garrison into a competent doctor within half a year!”

“From what I hear, you didn’t even have to torture him!” Bryce added.

“I know, I know. I went soft.” Jackie was starting to smile.

“Joke all you want, but you’ll make an excellent attending one day,” Matthew said, with sincerity, knowing that, for all the stern exterior she put on, Jackie had a good heart. And he had a sneaking suspicion that, since the memorial, she had started to care more.

“Aaaw, you guys! I’m going to miss you! I didn’t want this to end!” Sienna sniffled. She had been keeping it together, but now her tears were welling up.

“Hey, it’s going to be alright!” Aurora said, grabbing some tissues for her. “You don’t need to cry.”

“I knew our residencies would end but…not like this! We had another year…then we could have stayed at Edenbrook!”

“Come on, we’ll keep in touch!” Matthew said.

“You know it won’t be the same.”

“Jackie, are your eyes glistening?”

“Bryce, I will break every bone in your body!”

Sienna threw her arms around Jackie in a big hug. Matthew joined her, and so did everyone else.

“This isn’t hellish at all,” came Jackie’s muffled voice, but she was smiling when they broke apart. They sat in contemplative silence for a while until Elijah spoke up.

“It’s not over till it’s over so…what do you say to a big blow-out night? For old times sakes.”

“Can we get super dressed up and go somewhere fancy?” Sienna said. “I need another excuse to wear my gala dress.”

“I’ll get dressed up, though if you wanted to wear your gala dress you could just do that.”

“What about Raf? Will he want to join us?”

“Way ahead of you,” Matthew said, already texting. “Alright, he’s game!”

Ninety minutes later, the group met Rafael outside a downtown bar named ‘Marbles’. It was full of sleek, black furniture, indoor plants, and lights in mason jars. Everyone had gone all out, wearing the fanciest suits and dresses they could find in their closets, though Sienna hadn’t had time to style her hair and simply wore it down.

“I’ll get the first round,” Matthew said. “What’s everyone having?”

“Something strong. I’m ready to go off the rails tonight!” Jackie said, receiving a cheer of agreement from the others.

“Am I going to be scraping you guys off the floor later?” the bartender joked as Matthew approached. “Sounds like you’re celebrating something.”

“Call it a going-away party,” Matthew said wistfully.

“What’ll it be?”

“Let’s see, seven of us so fourteen…no, twenty-one shots!”

The bartender burst out laughing.

“You know you can order as you go, right? At this point I’m obliged to remind you I have the right to refuse service later!”

But the bartender got mixing as Matthew went to the corner booth that his friends had taken. He slid into the velvet seat between Raf and Jackie as the bartender brought over a large tray of shot glasses.

“Holy smokes!”

“That’s what I’m talking about!”

“Alright guys, these are white gummy bear shots. Cherry vodka, peach schnapps, pineapple juice and a splash of soda,” the bartender grinned. “Enjoy.”

Everyone grabbed a glass and held it up in the air.

“If I may get sappy for a moment,” Bryce said. “It has been an honour working with you all and I wish you the best of luck with your careers…and I have no intention of losing touch with any of you.”

“Even Jackie?”

“Especially Jackie. She will have a front row seat at every award ceremony for my surgical achievements.”

“Dream on, Scalpel Jockey!”

The group laughed and downed their shots. It was exactly like a liquidised gummy bear in it’s fruity sweetness, just with the added burn of alcohol.

“Strong,” Aurora coughed. “Way stronger than the name let on.”

“Don’t tell me you can’t handle it,” Bryce teased.

“Yeah, otherwise one of us is going to be getting way out ahead on this night, and fast.”

“Raf, that’s big talk for someone who was worried about his own alcohol tolerance two months ago!” Aurora took another shot to prove a point.

Three shots and a cocktail pitcher down, the group were having trouble sitting still as they wobbled around the bar, squealed and laughed loudly with each other, and snapped selfies with unsteady hands. Matthew in particular felt very happy with the people around him, though it didn’t escape his notice that the bartender was watching them cautiously.

“OK, I have a very doctorly diagnosis,” Elijah said, grandly. “And that diagnosis is…I’m drunk.”

“Whoa…either you were swaying when you said that…or I was,” Aurora blinked slowly.

“You’re not swaying, Aurora, you’re perfect. Very stable.”

“Thanks Bryce. I’m gonna miss you.” Aurora started clumsily pointing to everyone in turn. “And you. And you. And you. Also you,” she added, patting Elijah’s cheek

“We’re going to miss you too,” Matthew beamed, though he wondered if he might start weeping.

“Guys.” Elijah leaned forward. “I have a…confession. I’ve been holding it for so long but I have to come clean.”

The gang fell silent in anticipation.

“Sienna…remember when you bought a pint of rocky road ice cream, put your name on it, put in the freezer and then someone ate it?”

“Y-yes?”

The group collectively held their breath.

“…It was Jackie. I’m sorry but I love everyone here too much to keep this dark secret any longer.”

“Your ‘coming clean’ is to rat me out? Traitor!” Jackie shrieked, but Sienna reached across to grab her hands.

“It’s OK, Jackie, you’re like a sister to me! Heck, I’d buy a second pint of ice cream for you to steal right now!”

Jackie gaped at Sienna for a second…then her lip quivered and she burst into tears.

“Jackie, you’re leaking!” Matthew gasped, momentarily forgetting his own drunken emotion.

“Quick, plug it up before the alcohol escapes!” Bryce cried.

“I’ve got tissues!” Sienna almost fell off her chair trying to retrieve them from her purse.

“I’ll look up knock-knock jokes on my phone!” Elijah started searching through his pockets.

“Stop…being…so…adorable,” Jackie wailed. “You’re making it woooooorse.”

“Jackie, listen.” Raf steadied himself on Matthew as he leaned towards her. “You’re always welcome to camp out on my couch if you want to come back for a Boston reunion sometime.”

“That’s so sweeeet…” Jackie tried to hug Rafael but ended up slumped against Matthew, so she sobbed over him whilst Raf rubbed her arm.

“It’s gonna be OK, Jackie,” Matthew consoled. “We’re all gonna miss us and we all thought we’d have more time so it’s OK to be sad, but we’ll all make it work—HEY you got my text!”

Everyone looked up to see Kyra, in a black cocktail dress, looking extremely amused at the scene before her.

“I could tell by the number of typos that it was going to be a good time,” she giggled. “What are you all drinking? Clearly I have some catching up to do.”

“We had candy shots!”

“Something about gummy bears…”

“And sex on the beach!”

“Yeah, but the drinking kind, not the sex on the beach kind.”

Kyra was still giggling as she made her way to the bar and came back with a cocktail glass and a shot glass, and did her best to catch up with the group, who ordered another pitcher, this time a tequila sunrise, though Raf decided not to have a glass. Soon they were back to their loud laughing and joking as the clock ticked closer to midnight, until Kyra grew quiet and reflective, stroking the rim of her cocktail glass.

“Can I be real with you guys for a second?” she said, suddenly. “I wanted to apologise…”

“What could you possibly have to apologise for?” Matthew spluttered.

“Edenbrook. I have to apologise that I couldn’t save it. Or anybody.”

“That is not on you,” Jackie said resolutely. She’d stopped crying but her make-up remained smudged around her eyes. “You did your best and you did a damn good job.”

“She’s right, Kyra, no one could have tried harder,” Raf said.

“What does trying even mean anyway?” Kyra sighed. “Edenbrook closes or it doesn’t. People live or they die…Did you know Danny helped me through my first cancer surgery?”

“Kyra…”

Kyra was a little too far gone and the mood grew sombre as she continued to speak.

“I knew Danny for years. He saw me through the worst of my surgery. And Bobby always said hello, bought me coffee once a week. Sweet Bobby. How is it they die and I’m OK?”

“Because it was in no way connected to your life. You’re not to blame for that. You were literally in surgery for the whole time.”

“And don’t wish for your place to be switched,” Jackie said darkly. “Sometimes bad things happen to good people, but it doesn’t mean you’re bad.”

“I know it has nothing to do with anything, but it doesn’t feel that way. But that’s why I wanted so much to save Edenbrook, and why I’ll keep fighting the good fight. Edenbrook saved my life.”

“It saved mine too, several times,” Raf said. He wrapped his arms around Matthew and hugged him close. “I wish I could have saved Danny and Bobby. But I don’t regret going in there. If I could save Matthew…I’d do it again.”

Matthew sniffled, leaning into him.

“Is it weird thinking the attack brought you guys back together?” Bryce asked. “Like, your anniversary is the anniversary of the attack.”

“Wait…” Matthew detached himself from Raf to speak. “We have to mark our anniversary? It’s not like we’re married…”

“We can mark whatever milestones we want to,” Raf smiled, rubbing Matthew’s back. “Technically we got back together a little after the attack. And…I don’t think we have to mark just one or the other. Nothing’s black and white.”

“…Maybe zebras…” Elijah murmured, but Sienna cleared her throat.

“Can I raise a toast? To Danny and Bobby. For being so cool and fun…making us smile…being great to work with…”

Her voice choked off. Elijah covered her hand and continued the toast.

“Danny and Bobby. We’ll never forget you. And we wish you were still here.”

“Danny and Bobby…Danny and Bobby…”

One by one, the group raised their glasses and clinked them together in a toast. Sienna began to sob, looked after by Elijah and Aurora. Matthew turned to Rafael and kissed him. No one had the heart to pull them apart.

The bar closed at 1AM and they were sent out into the street, stumbling a little, still talking and laughing loudly. Matthew suggested Donahue’s – why mess with a winning formula? – but when they got there, last call had already been called.

“This is what happens when we go out on a random weeknight…everywhere closes early,” Elijah laughed. “Whose stupid idea was this?”

“If you guys humour me,” Kyra said. “I have an idea…”

They snuck in through the staff entrance of Edenbrook and piled into the elevator, finally emerging onto the rooftop.

“I always wanted to come up to the helipad but I was never urgent enough for a medivac,” Kyra sighed, wistfully, looking out over the lights of the city.

“That’s right, always look on the bright side,” Elijah said. “I don’t suppose anyone grabbed a beer along the way?”

Matthew looked out over the lights and skyscrapers. The apartment he’d grown up in had a similar view over Denver. He didn’t miss it; it had stopped being home a long time ago.

“You sure it’s OK that we’re up here?” Sienna asked.

“What are they gonna do, fire someone?” Jackie sniggered.

“This view takes me back,” Raf sighed, as the group huddled together to take in the view. “Helivac trips…they were something.”

“A good something? Or a bad something?” Aurora asked.

“To be honest, someone had to be in a really bad way for the helicopter. But flying was something else. I still miss that kind of rush.”

Matthew scooted closer to him, relishing his warmth.

“I’ll buy you one for your birthday,” he said. “Not your next birthday, I need to save up. But when I’m a hot shot doctor making mega bucks, I’ll buy you a helicopter.”

“I’ll start looking for apartments with helipads,” Raf laughed.

“Speaking of apartments, when do you move again?” Bryce asked.

“April 1st. Vovó has been dealing with it by buying, I kid you not, eight new throw blankets. ‘In case you get cold, anjinho’,” he quoted, with a fond twinkle in his eye. “Although that makes one each for everyone, so you can all come and stay at Casa Aveiro!”

“Woohoo!”

“Let’s raise the roof!”

“You might have just made a mistake, Raf!”

“Never!”

“I know that wherever life takes us, we’ve bonded too much for it to be the end of us,” Matthew said. “And I’m going to fight tooth and nail to make sure you all remain a part of my life.”

“Stop being a sap and dance!” Jackie laughed. She took her phone out of her purse and opened up a playlist, cranking up the volume until dance music blared over the roof.

“Woo! Dance with me, Elijah!” Sienna cried, spinning round him. He wasted no time, rolling along to the music, and soon Jackie and Aurora were dancing alongside. Not one to be left out, Bryce threw himself right into the middle, giving it his all. Matthew watched from where he stood, completely content to hold Rafael and watch his friends have fun.

“You know you don’t have to buy me a helicopter,” Raf said, sliding his arms around Matthew’s waist and kissing his cheek.

“I’d give you the world, Raf.”

“Are you alright?” Raf asked gently. “I know there’s a lot of things changing right now, I hope you’re not too stressed.”

“Hmm…I don’t wanna talk about that right now.”

Matthew started kissing Raf full on the mouth. He made a little surprised sound, then started kissing him back, holding him close.

“Come home with me tonight,” Matthew begged, and Raf could never say no.

****

The next two weeks passed in the same fashion as they had before, with an ample number of patients passing through the hospital. Raf moved into the North End with the help of his family and friends. Matthew wanted to help but when the day came, he found himself so exhausted, all he wanted to do was sleep. Besides…he had a sneaking suspicion the increased nightmares were because of the prospect of leaving him…losing him again.

The day before the hospital closed, Matthew stood outside with his friends. They had all taken the T together and were now staring at the glass front of the hospital one last time.

“I guess this is it,” Matthew murmured, still in denial.

“Yep,” Jackie replied.

“You know, I wouldn’t change a thing,” Sienna said, She slipped her hand through Matthew’s as they walked through the doors.

“Valentine, I’ll need you on administration in the diagnostics office today,” Ethan said, by way of greeting.

Matthew followed him up to the seventh floor where he got started transferring patient files. They worked in silence, Ethan not having the energy to talk, and Matthew didn’t want to open up the prospect of leaving, when a familiar face suddenly appeared at the door.

“Oh, thank god, you’re here,” Leland Bloom gasped. “Please…my wife…she’s in a bad way…”

“Mr Bloom, the diagnostics team was disbanded,” Ethan said. “But if you need medical attention I can send you to Mass Kenmore.”

“No. We’ve tried every hospital in Boston and no one can figure out what’s wrong,” Mr Bloom spluttered. “Please doctors, I’ll pay whatever you want, your diagnostics team is my last hope.”

He was frantic, looking suspiciously close to tears. His hair was unkempt and his clothes rumpled, wildly different from the stern, uptight billionaire Matthew had seen last August, and he didn’t know how to react. He and Ethan looked at each other…then Ethan nodded resolutely.

“Dr Valentine, page Dr Mirani. Mr Bloom, please bring in your wife,” he said. “The diagnostics team can take one last case.”

Tags: @sazanes @rafasgirl23415 @ceruleansnake0

[traumatisedfangirl]

i’m tapering off my mirtazapine without consulting my psychiatrist because he never answers anyways (literally took him a year and a half once), because of the severe side effects i’m experiencing. i won’t be able to sleep at all and will probably take longer to get back to my mutuals because of the withdrawals. hope you all understand.

[tomtenadia]

Remember us - part 5

Hello everyone....

Your weekly dose of angst is here... but in this part we have a bit of domestic fluff...

CW: mention of miscarriage and depression

-----

“Aelin, please.” His voice gruff with pain.

“I said get out.” She snarled at him from the bed.

Rowan moved a step towards her doing the exact opposite of what she had told him “I am not.” His arms folded at his chest “do you really think that being alone will help? That kicking me out will heal the pain of losing our daughter?”

Aelin sobbed hard and threw the pillow at him and he took the hit “don’t.”

“I lost her too. Will you accept that the pain is not only yours?” He shouted back “I feel like my heart has been ripped out of my chest. And it fucking hurts because she was my baby girl too.”

“Stop…” her sobs grew in intensity “You have no idea of the pain.”

Rowan moved closer “No I don’t. I did not carry her in me for five months. I don’t know that pain.” He caressed her head “but she had a hold on my heart since the day you showed me the sonogram.”

“You are hurting me.” She said quietly looking away from him “and I need you to go.”

“Fireheart…”

“I said get out.” She shouted.

With his heart breaking, Rowan left the room.

Rowan woke up with a gaps, feeling the desperate need to get air in his lungs. He drew a hand on his face and felt tears. Had he been crying?

The memory was still vivid in his mind and it left him with unbearable anguish in his heart. In the dream he had felt both their pain. It had been real. His thumb reached for the ring on his fourth finger a gesture he had been doing a lot recently.

The memory had left him in a daze. How had they survived such deep pain? How could two people recover from such destructive sorrow?

But they did. Somehow their marriage had proven stronger than loss.

He sighed and took his phone to look at more picture of his family. He had so many that it took him a lot to go through them all. When he unlocked the phone he saw a text from Aelin sitting there, waiting for him.

Eagerly he opened it I am going back to work today, is it okay if I come and visit you?

Like a desperate man Rowan texted back as fast as he could please, it would make me very happy. The tv seems to be a very poor companion.

After he sent the text he realised his words had been true. He needed to see her.

Great. I am taking Tom to the nursery and I am on my way.

His lips tugged upwards in a smile. Then he made himself presentable. Aelin had brought him clothes and Evalin had brought some more so slowly and very carefully, he walked to the wardrobe. His right leg still getting used to have weight back on. Once he was done he went back to bed and fixed his ruffled hair. He was nervous. He had said to Evalin that his heart told him to try and that was what he was going to do. Apologise first. Then slowly start to get back to his old life. He knew it was going to be a tough ride but their time apart had increased that tug between them. He was afraid to admit that he had missed her daily visits.

Aelin arrived an hour later and as soon as she walked into his room, his heart raced.

“Hi you,” she said softly, still standing on the door.

He gave her a smile and with his head motioned to the chair. She took the offer and sat in front of him.

“Rowan—” she started but he stopped her.

“No, let me go first, please.”

Aelin nodded and he took a moment to gather his thoughts. This was his chance to right his stupidity.

“I am sorry for what I said.” He told her “but I need you to understand how frightening and overwhelming this is for me.” Pine green eyes met blue “memories have started to trickle back. Some happy some more painful, but they helped me understand us a bit better. When I married you I promised we would face this adventure together.” He took a deep breath “You said that life can be unpredictable and cruel but that at each other’s side we could conquer anything.” He told her grabbing the hand that was on the bed near his leg “what I am trying to say is that if you are happy to take back a husband in less than minted condition, I will be grateful for the help.”

Aelin stood and kissed his forehead “Yeah, yeah I will take you back.” She sobbed hard, standing in front of him.

“This is not going to be easy.

“I know.” She brushed his hair in a loving motion and the gesture felt familiar to Rowan “but our marriage has withstood far worse.”

“I know. I saw a memory of it.”

Aelin sat back down, the smile disappearing from her features “but you fought for us. Even when I was so broken that I was ready to give up everything. You brought us out of the darkness.”

“Yrene said they can let me go home in a couple of days but she needs to know that I have a place where to go.”

Aelin took his hand “you are coming home.”

*

Rowan was in Aelin’s car and together they were driving home.

He had been so nervous that he barely slept. In the past couple of days Aelin had visited whenever she could and had discussed the new challenge ahead. Evalin was going to stay. Thomas would go to nursery but Freyja would stay with her grandma. Rowan had agreed that he could not yet be trusted with being alone with an infant.

He was nervous about meeting their kids; Thomas in particular. He was the one who remembered him the most and did not want to break the boy’s heart.

Aelin had tried to explain to Thomas that his dad had been in hospital and unwell and that his memories had disappeared. Thomas had cried at the sadness of his dad not remembering him. She had told all of that to Rowan.

“I am terrified.”

“Don’t. Acknowledge Thomas, play with him. Even if you don’t remember things just go with it.”

Rowan sighed and then he saw Aelin park in front of a lovely detached house with a garden at the front, a swing set and a tree with a treehouse.

“The tree has a treehouse on it.” He noticed, admiring their house.

Aelin chuckled, “you built it for Tom last year. You two would sleep in there from time to time and pretend to be on some sort of incredible adventure.”

Rowan smiled and then opened the door of the car and grabbed his walking stick. Dorian had assured him that it was time to leave the crutches behind and use the stick. They had practiced together until he was comfortable with it.

Aelin grabbed his bag and joined him “let’s go, mum is making lunch and I am starving.”

“You are always hungry.” He said to her and Aelin stopped in her tracks.

“What did you just say?”

“It just came out, I am sorry.”

She turned fully to him and smiled “you said that to me a lot. Together with complaining about my diet.” She took his free hand “come on buzzard, time to meet our two terrors.”

As soon as they walked into the house and Aelin announced their arrival a little blonde hurricane crashed into him, grabbing his legs “Dad, you are back.”

Rowan looked down and saw his son with his arms wrapped around his legs, green eyes shining with happiness.

His hand brushed his blonde hair “I am.”

“Mum, can I play with him?” The boy asked eagerly grabbing his father’s hand.

“Later, Tom. Dad just got back. Give him some time.”

In that instant he noticed Evalin appear with a girl in her arms “welcome home, Rowan.”

“Thank you, Evalin.” He said, not being able to stare away from the little girl. She was his clone.

Freyja seemed to recognise him and leaned forward, extending her arms to him.

Rowan looked at Aelin almost as if to ask permission and she nodded. He took the girl and sat down on the sofa. Freyja’s head leaned on his shoulder and Rowan’s hand went to her back in a protective gesture. A moment later Thomas joined them and hugged his sister and a bit of his dad.

Aelin sobbed at the scene. They had both been scared. Both worried. Because Rowan had confessed her that hurting the kids was the last thing he wanted. But now looking at that precious moment, she realised they would be fine. Thomas was easy going and Freyja always had a deeper connection with her father. And she knew, from the way Rowan had taken his daughter in his arms that no memory loss would ever took away the bond they had.

“Hi, my love.” He whispered to the girl, inhaling her scent. Freyja snuggled closer. “Come to my side, Tom.” The boy grinned and climbed on the sofa and on his knees he turned to his dad and hugged them again “I missed you, dad.”

“Well, you need to tell me everything you did while I was away.”

Aelin’s hand went to her stomach and smiled tenderly at the man in front of her. He could not yet tell his son he had missed him so he had found a way not to disappoint him.

“Mum, you come too.”

Aelin brushed her tears away and sat on the arm of the sofa just beside Rowan. It was the first time they were that close. Rowan turned his head and stared in the depths of her blue eyes. His eyes moved down to her lips and then back up. That thread between them pulled hard and before he knew it, he was kissing her. His body recognising hers. He pulled away only when he heard Thomas disgusted sounds.

Aelin stared at him with an expression he could not decipher. Maybe she was mad at him for kissing her? But it felt right. In his soul, kissing her had been right.

“You cheeky monkey.” Aelin stood and grabbed Thomas and started tickling him and the boy and Aelin’s laughter was the best music for Rowan’s ears.

*

After lunch was over the kids had gone out for a walk with their grandma and Aelin had given him a tour of the house. Rowan was impressed. They had a lovely house with four bedrooms and spacious enough to welcome a big family.

“You lost your parents when you were 20. They left you a nice stash of money that you never used. When we got married you used that money to buy this house. Our home.”

She sat at his side on the sofa, with a cup of herbal tea in her hands.

“I am sorry I kissed you. I should have asked first. I am sorry.” He looked away embarrassed at his gesture.

Aelin placed the tea on the table then grabbed his face with her hand and turned to him “Ro, you are my husband. You don’t have to ask for permission to kiss me.”

“I know, but I don’t know where we stand on that aspect of us.” He explained looking at her “I don’t know where I stand. I kissed you because it felt right, but I don’t think I can go any further right now.”

Aelin nodded “of course.” That was probably their last big challenge. There was so much to deal with right now that sex was very low on her priority list although her hormones were having another opinion and that kiss had awoken in her the need for him, she had to be patient “but you can kiss me anytime and without asking, if you feel like it.” And winked at him.

He gave her a smirk that was so familiar that for a moment she felt like Rowan was truly back.

She stared into his pine green eyes while her hand was still on his cheek and then she moved and her lips met his and Rowan did not pull away. He just stood for a moment but then his mouth parted and opened for her and Aelin, at the invitation, deepened the kiss feeling the need to connect with him again.

Rowan froze for an instant at the kiss but as she did not move away he let it happen and slowly he melted in the feeling of her lips on his. Aelin’s hand sneaked on his back, pulling him closer and as Aelin deepened the kiss Rowan felt a strange feeling surge in him. Was it passion? It burned in him that strange desire and when Aelin’s tongue brushed his a moan left Rowan and he pulled back, not sure about what was happening between them.

When they pulled apart they were both breathless and Aelin caressed his face and smiled “it looks like this part between us hasn’t changed.”

Rowan lifted an eyebrow and Aelin chuckled “the fire between us. Before we had the kids we sometimes spent entire days off in bed.”

The top of Rowan’s ears turned red and she giggled and kissed him again and Rowan this time did not hesitate and her hands sneaked under his t-shirt and after a few more minutes of their make out session Rowan pulled back and stared deeply at her “you are stunning,” he whispered. He had thought that from the beginning. Rowan leaned back on the sofa and Aelin snuggled closed to his chest, inhaling deeply his scent and his arm went around her back.

“If you are uncomfortable, you tell me.” She said to him, her hand close to his heart.

Rowan shook his head “this feels nice.” His head turned to her “I don’t know how to explain it, but it feels right.”

“Hold me.”

And Rowan pulled Aelin to him, enveloping her in his strong arms.

He thought that perhaps, with her at his side, not everything was lost.

He closed his eyes and welcomed his dreams.

[my-emotional-self]

Toxic Love Chapter 7

Pairings: Steve Rogers x Reader, Bucky Barnes x Reader, Steve Rogers x Reader x Bucky Barnes

Summary: Finding out your soulmates were Steve Rogers and Bucky Barnes was one thing.  But when someone from your past comes back to haunt you, you have to figure out if a relationship with two super soldiers is something you really want to pursue or if you’d rather go back to your comfortable single life.

Series Warnings:  18+, Swearing, Angst, Fluff, past mentions of rape, self-harm, attempted rape, domestic violence, stalking, death threats, possible Dark!Steve?, Steve will be an asshole a LOT in this series but I don’t know how dark it will get, explicit sexual content, mental health issues, kind of A/B/O dynamics but not really (no they are not actual wolves, more like the hierarchy), mentions of suicide, flashbacks of suicide, nightmares

A/N: There will be no taglist for this story!  I apologize in advance!

8 Years Ago – Age 17

“Y/N, do you know why you are here?” the shrink asked from across the large desk.  You looked down at the typical uniform of a patient at a psychiatric ward.  Yes you knew why you were in here.  A few months ago you witnessed your father’s dead corpse hanging in your living room.  The next thing you knew you were writing a suicide note of your own and your foster parents found it before you could do anything.  Now, you were stuck in a psych ward, probably until you at least turned 18.

“Yep,” came your short response.  

The shrink glanced down at her papers in front of her, going through all of your notes.  “We want to help you as best we can Y/N.  You’ve been through some very traumatic experiences in your life and you’ve witnessed a great deal.  We are going to get you all the help you need.”

3 Months Later

“Have you heard of Borderline Personality Disorder Y/N?” your psychiatrist, Dr. Wang asked.  

That made your head snap in her direction.  Here you were, still stuck in the psych ward after three months and you weren’t sure why.  “I’ve heard of that, yes.  But I thought I was just depressed,” you mumbled, chewing on your fingernail.  

You were clinically diagnosed with depression shortly after coming here.  

“Well, that’s what we originally thought at first.  But the longer you’ve spent time here, the more I and the rest of the staff have discovered it is BPD.  You’re intense mood swings, combined with your ongoing feelings of emptiness and the intense bouts of anger you have are all signs of BPD. We are going to switch up your medications and that will really help with your mood swings and anger issues.

~~~

 No matter how hard you tried, sleep never came to you that afternoon.  You tossed and turned all afternoon in your bed and nothing seemed to be working.  Not only that, but you were really starting to get more irritable as the day went on and you knew it was time to change the dosing of your medication.  It was like clockwork, every year to year and a half. The only problem was that you couldn’t leave the tower without Steve, Bucky or an anyone else.  How were you supposed to get an appointment with your Psychiatrist if you couldn’t leave the tower alone?  This only increased your anger and frustration as you got out of bed to get ready.    

You brushed your teeth and put on a some jeans and a t-shirt, not really caring what you threw on. All of the specific clothing you wore for work was in the closet of your game room along with your makeup and accessories.  

Upon leaving your room, you saw Steve and Bucky sitting at the island in the kitchen of your shared apartment.  They both looked deep in thought over some paperwork and you assumed it was for work.

Grabbing a bottle of water from the kitchen, you were about to head into the elevator as you didn’t want to disturb them, but Steve spoke up and caught your attention.  “Where are you off to?”

“Oh, umm, I’m heading down to my game room.  I’m going to work tonight,” you mumbled out as you pressed the button for the elevator. You noticed it was on the ground floor and it would take a few minutes to get to your level.  

“What time do you plan on being done?” Steve questioned.  

You huffed in annoyance, already irritated as anger began to creep through your bones.  “I don’t know.  Whenever I get done,” you snapped.  Immediately you felt regret, but sometimes your emotions got the better of you when you were in dire need of a medication change.  

“Hey, what’s with the attitude?” Steve commanded as he got up from his seat and stalked over to you, hands on his hips.  You noticed Bucky looking at you from his seat with furrowed brows.  They had never seen you angry like this.  You were always so compliant and easy going.  

“Look, I’m sorry.  I’m just tired is all.”

Steve looked at you sharply, his lips in a thin tight line.  “Alright.  Just make sure you get to bed at a reasonable time tonight.  Promise?”

“I promise,” you answered back.  

~~~

In the comfort of your game room, you quickly got to work.  Digging through your closet, you decided on a light pink tank top that said ‘Gamer Girl’ in black letters with two gamer controls on it.  Since your webcam only showed your top half, you threw on a black pair of cotton shorts to be comfortable.  

Next, you put your hair up in space buns, making sure they were situated just right so they wouldn’t be in the way of your headphones.  You put on your typical game night makeup: bright pink eyeshadow with dark smoked out liner, some mascara and blush and you were good to go.  

Turning on your monitor, you began to power everything up and once that was done, you logged in. Immediately your followers started putting in their messages off to the side and you smiled as you read them. You always tried to read as much of them as you could.  

As the night went on, you knew you should pack it up and listen to what Steve said; getting to bed at a descent time and getting rest.  But you were having way too much fun tonight and so were your followers. It was one of the best nights you’d had in months and not just money wise.  

Ignoring the clock you continued to play and interact with your followers with the microphone that was attached to your headphones.  Every so often you would glance to your messages box and see what some of them had said.  Most of them were cheering you on but of course you always had some haters in there as well.  

It was when you noticed the screen name of one of them that made your blood run cold.  JSmith20. ‘It can’t be’ you thought to yourself, trying to keep as composed as possible as hundreds of people were watching you game in this very moment.  

John’s last name is Smith and he always told you how his favorite number was 20, because that was how old you were when you met him.  No, but he’s still in prison.  He hasn’t gotten out.  He’ll be in there for many more years to come.  It had to be one of his friends right?  The same friend that had been delivering those letters to your old apartment.  ‘Yes, that’s right.  It’s just one of his friends trying to torment you’ you thought to yourself.  

Then, the person behind that screen name typed a message into your message box.  

Hey babe.  Do you miss me yet?  I can’t wait to see you – J

Yep, your composure went out the window reading the message.   Then another message from him popped up.  

I see you are no longer living in that little one bedroom apartment.  Did you really think you could up and move and I wouldn’t be able to find you?  Oh babe, how cute.  I will find you and we will meet again soon.  I promise – J

As you stared at the words on your screen, you heard groans from the other players on your team.  You had just lost the game.  

“Shit,” you swore, anger bubbling up inside of you.  “Fucking damnit!”  You slammed your fist on the desk.  

You rarely lost games. Losing always put you in a foul mood. But because of already being irritable and your emotions on over drive, losing just made everything worse.  

Looking at the clock it was just before five in the morning so you logged off and shut everything down.

You took your hair out of the buns, immediately feeling the tension in your head ease.  Ever so quietly, you opened the door and poked your head out into the hallway.  It was bitch black so you used your phone as a flashlight and tiptoed to the elevator. Before pressing the button on the elevator, you paused.  What if the noise of the elevator woke up Steve or Bucky?  You had promised Steve that you would get to bed at a descent time and seeing as it was just about five in the morning, well, you kind of figured you’d be in trouble.  

Instead, you opened the door to the stairs which was situated right next to the elevator.  At least taking the stairs would be much quieter.

You climbed the stairs up a few levels until you reached your living level and you waited on baited breath for a few moments.  Nothing. Nothing but silence.  As quiet as a mouse, you snuck through the door and dashed to your room, thanking your lucky stars that the palm scanner didn’t make any noise.  

You took a nice hot shower, washing off all of your makeup and the stress of the last few hours.  As much as you wanted to forget John messaging you, it wasn’t going to happen, neither was any sleep.  

Rather than even bothering to get into bed and try to relax, you sent an email to your psychiatrist letting her know that you would more than likely need a dose change on your medications.  Frantically typing away at the email, you explained how you were beginning to get irritated and it was harder for you to control your bouts of anger.  

Luckily for you, Dr. Wang was an early bird and she emailed you right back.  She wanted you to come see her for an appointment and your heart immediately dropped.  That wasn’t going to happen as one of your rules was that you weren’t allowed out of the tower by yourself.  And as much as you liked Darcy, you couldn’t trust her to go with you and not say anything to Steve or Bucky.  

Typing out your reply, you explained that you were unfortunately not able to meet in person and if there was anything else that could be done.  After you hit sent, you began to pace in your apartment, clearly on edge with everything going on.  You just wanted to feel better; you hated feeling this way.  It was as if you weren’t in control of your body and you definitely weren’t in control of your emotions.  

A notification came through your laptop and you rushed towards it, almost tripping over your feet. As you read her words, you could have cried right then and there.  She had agreed to a phone call appointment and she had time right now to discuss things with you.  

Grasping your phone, you dialed her number.

“It’s good to hear from you Y/N,” Dr. Wang stated as she answered the phone.  

“Oh Dr. Wang it is so good to hear your voice.”

She let out a soft chuckle. “Yes, it has been a little over six months since we’ve last spoken.  How are things going with you?”

“Where to begin,” you started off saying.  You let her know that you indeed met your soulmates and had moved in with them. You went over the rules that Steve had given you and she made you feel better as she stated she had seen way worse rules.  Hell, she said your rules were like a walk in the park compared to some she has heard.

“Alright, now, let’s get down to business.  How are you feeling these past few days?” she asked curiously.  

“Ugh, not good. Moving was stressful but I have been feeling really irritated over the last few and I’ve had a few bouts of anger rush through me that makes me want to punch something, but I’ve luckily been able to hold back on that.”

“What about any risky behaviors such as reckless driving, spending sprees, binge eating, drug abuse or sabotaging anything positive in your life?”

“Not yet,” you stated. You knew the routine.  She was going over all the symptoms of Borderline Personality Disorder to see what has changed with you.  

“Ok good.  How about any intense fears of abandonment or rejection?”

That question always hit you like a punch to the gut.  The only reason you had stayed with John for so long was because of that right there. He purposely wouldn’t let you see Dr. Wang or he wouldn’t take you to get your medications refilled and because of that, you were starting to feel those feelings; not wanting to be abandoned no matter what.  

“Nope,” you replied.  

“Ok then.  I am going to increase the dosing on your current medications but I want to warn you.  Without you coming in and personally seeing me and without getting some blood work done, I don’t know how well this dosing is going to work, if it will work at all. We might need to discuss changing the medication all together,” she stated.  

“I understand Dr. Wang. And do you think maybe you could prescribe some sort of sleep medication for me too?”

“I can prescribe a one week trial of a sleeping medication for you.  After that, I really need you to try and come see me in the office and we can discuss that further.  Now, did you want me to send these prescriptions into your regular pharmacy?”

“Yes, that would be great. Thank you so much Dr. Wang.”

“No worries at all Y/N. Give the office a call and get an appointment set up.”

“I will.  Thanks again.”

Now that you had your medications all taken care of, you had to figure a way to leave the tower so you could get them.  

[wrenhyperfixates]

If It’s Meant to Be

Pairing: Loki x reader Summary: After you breakup, Loki regrets how he pushed you away. He can only hope that you’ll come back to him. Warnings: lots of angst and some fluff at the end A/N: Requested by the lovely @gaitwae​. Hope you enjoy!

Tag List: @lucywrites02​ @frostedgiant​​​ @lunarmoon8​​ @twhiddlestonsstuff​​ @lokistan​​ @thelokiimaginechroniclesficrecs​​ @gaitwae​​ @whatafuckingdumbass​​ @castiels-majestic-wings​​ @kozkaboi​​ @cozy-the-overlord​​

Disclaimer: Gif not mine.

It happened on a sunny day that Loki found out you’d moved on and started seeing someone else. It didn’t feel right that the world should be lit up by the golden rays when there was such a storm inside him. He tried his best to push his thoughts aside, he really did, but you kept popping into his mind. You and that boorish new boyfriend of yours. Loki didn’t know the man, but he already hated him. In reality, he hated himself far more for letting you go.

Loki had blocked most of the events leading to your breakup from his mind, but on the floor among the glass he’d shattered, it was coming back to him. He hadn’t even meant to break anything, not exactly. It was just that he was so angry, he wasn’t looking where he was going. Then the god bumped into the end table and, in a fit of rage, flipped it over. He hadn’t been thinking about the vase sitting on top of it. Or what was in it for that matter. Otherwise he may have been more careful as not to end up sitting among shards and your favorite flowers.

Back when you were dating, he had gotten nervous that he was no good for you. You had always been so understanding of his feelings, but it was different this time. He hadn’t told you how he felt, so you couldn’t help him through it. Instead, he started going on more missions, sometimes not even telling you. It hurt him when you confronted him on that.

“You’re just up and leaving without so much as a goodbye,” you said with teary eyes. “I keep finding out from Tony that you’re gone again. Is it something I did? I’m just... I’m just worried about you, Loki.”

He held you closer that day than he had in months. “I am so sorry, darling, please believe me. I will tell you from now on, you have my word.” He kissed the top of your head and rocked you back and forth. You buried your head in the crook of his neck and cried a little. “You also must know that this is not your fault. I swear it on my life, it is not because of anything you did. I love you, my darling, truly I do.”

“Then what is it, Loki?” you asked, raising your head and lifting your hand to cup his cheek. He leaned into your touch. “What’s wrong? You used to tell me these things. You know you can still talk to me about anything, right? I’m still here for you.”

“I know. I just... It feels like something I need to work through myself.”

“I understand. Just, I’m still here, ok? We don’t have to talk, even. I could just hold you.” You paused, looking into his eyes. You saw it in that moment, his heart fracturing. “You know, like you used to let me.”

You were too pure for him, he knew it. He knew it as you spoke those words. He knew it as he let you hold him, the vile, venomous snake that he was. And you did it gently, so gently. Somehow he was still breaking. Loki kept himself together as much as he could manage, started telling you when he was leaving, though the missions only became more frequent. And longer, too. For your part, you held on as long as you could, were there for him as much as you could be. But it was too hard when he kept distancing himself from you.

“Listen, Loki,” you calmly said one night after he returned to the Tower, as tired and removed as ever. “I love you. I love you so much. But I can’t keep doing this. I can’t be in a relationship with you if that’s not what you want. And it seems like you don’t want it anymore. Your gone so much, and when you’re here, you’re so far away that you may as well have not come back. Just talk to me,” you pleaded. “I want to this fix this. Just talk to me.”

“I am sorry, darling. I can’t. I- I just don’t want to ruin you,” he replied, head bowed.

You took a deep breath, trying to quell your tears. Loki winced as your voice broke. “Then I’m sorry too, but I have to go. I wish you all the best, my love.”

For one final time, you kissed him. It was slow, it was gentle and tender. It was a goodbye. Still, you looked over your shoulder before you closed the door, silently praying for him to say something, anything, to stop you. He didn’t move, and so the door clicked behind you as he let the best thing to ever happen to him walk out of his life.

What was it that you Midgardians say? If you love someone, let them go. If it’s meant to be, they’ll come back to you. Well, Loki decided that was a load of rubbish. Because you most clearly were meant to be. Maybe the first part had some merit to it, though; he let you go because he loved you and couldn’t bear to let you chain yourself to a monster. He couldn’t help but wonder if he actually was one though, for surely monsters didn’t have hearts. But him? He knew he had one because he could feel it breaking.

After that day, Loki tried to hold on to the fragments of himself as he felt he was drifting off into space. He didn’t slow his pace on the missions, now a distraction to numb his pain.  Then one day, Tony made him take a break. He spent nearly a month moving around the Tower like a wraith, void of any outer expressions. Avoiding the lower floors at all costs, he mainly stuck to the private sections where he and the other Avengers lived. It was a precaution to keep himself from bumping into you, who worked in the Tower.

Two months later, he felt well enough to go outside again. He took the stairs down with Thor on one of the days he knew you wouldn’t be in. His brother looked afraid that he might turn to ash by stepping out into the sun for the first time in a while. Needless to say, he didn’t, but Thor kept throwing him worried glances as they went on their run.

From there, Loki took things one day at a time. He still thought about you often. About three months after the breakup, he started visiting the floor where you worked, hoping to catch a glimpse of you. Maybe if he saw you, he’d even get the courage to apologize. Then again, maybe it’s better if he just leaves you be.

He still hadn’t decided which was better when he got too careless one day, and you caught sight of him. He heard you say “excuse me” to whoever you were talking to before taking off in the direction where he was. Panicking, he fled the scene, but you still followed. At the end of the hall, he turned. But by the time you rounded the corner after him, he was already gone, having teleported back to his quarters.

Now he wonders what you would have said to him. Alas, he stopped seeking you out, so he’d never know. Plus, Tony was finally letting him volunteer for missions again, so he could fill his time that way. Even that began to hurt, though, as he realized he used to have your warm embrace to return to. These days, he went home to a cold, empty room. He’d lay on his bed and create small illusions of his memories with you until he realized it was doing his mental health more harm than good. Wasn’t that what had gotten him into this mess in the first place? His mental health? So, he sat up and stretched out, finally deciding to drag himself out of this slump he was in.

If there was one silver lining to come out of this, it was that his teammates actually became his friends. He wasn’t sure exactly when he began to think of them as such, but he did. It was in no small part due to the increased amount of time he was spending with them in your absence. You would have been proud of him if you knew. You’d always encouraged him to get to know them better, to not be such a loner. Satisfied with having you and his brother, he never did much listen to you on that matter. Well, now he was being forced out of his comfort zone. After all, he could only handle his brother in small doses, and he was all Loki had now.

Five months had passed since you’d left Loki, since he’d pushed you away. After weeks of trying, Loki’s friends had finally coaxed him into attending Tony’s latest party. So, he appeared in a full suit and tie with his fellow Avengers. Rather begrudgingly, he was enjoying himself.

He was laughing by the bar with Wanda and Bucky when he saw you. Despite trying not to look your way again, he failed and kept stealing glances at you. Eventually, he caught your eye, and you gave a shy little wave. He returned it along with an small but excited smile. Just as he was about to take his first step towards you, a man he didn’t recognize came up next to you. The stranger put his arm around you and handed you a drink. And then you kissed him, shattering Loki’s heart all over again. By the time you looked back over, the trickster god was gone.

Storming down to the ground level of the Tower, he pushed through the door and out into the world, desperate for fresh air. Suddenly feeling like he was being choked, he loosened his tie from around his neck before taking it off completely. It was too bright out, the sunlight blinding his eyes as he walked without direction. Just away, far away. He walked until the sun rose again the next day, the same thoughts circling in his mind the whole time. This was his fault. He’d let you go. He’d pushed you away. There was no one to blame but himself.

Loki slept all the next day, worn from his mindless wandering. It was like all the progress he’d made over the last several months were drained from his body. Still, he tried to carry on with his normal routine, and went for his morning run with Thor. Sometimes Steve and Sam joined them, too, but they were both on a mission at the moment. It was a good thing, too, because Loki didn’t think he could handle the embarrassment of the double take he did had they been there. Just as he and his brother were exiting, the man he could only presume to be your boyfriend entered. But you weren’t working that day, and sure enough, he swiped in with his own card. Now not only would Loki have to avoid you, he’d have to avoid your boyfriend, too, lest seeing his face threw him in a blind, vengeful rage.

Four more months passed, and Loki was doing an excellent job of not seeing you or Owen, which he later found out was your boyfriend’s name. And yet, he longed for you. Your gentle touch. Your kind words. The Avengers kept pushing for him to start seeing someone else, but he still didn’t feel ready, leaving him to pine for you from afar.

Loki walked into the elevator after quickly dropping off a file on the floor you worked on. Thankfully, he managed to avoid seeing you. As the doors began to close, he heard a voice asking him to keep them open. He obliged while the person quickly rushed over, the large stack of papers they carried covering their face.

“Thank you,” they said, struggling with the unwieldy stack, voice slightly strained as they desperately tried to keep from dropping it.

“It is no problem. What floor?” Loki responded, hitting the button that corresponded with their answer. “Would you like some help with that?”

“I’m fine. I-”

Loki caught the falling stack with impressive reflexes as the person cut out and dropped it. He looked at their now exposed face. It was you. Neither of you said anything for a moment as you both somewhat awkwardly balanced the papers between you.

“Oh! Hi, Loki. I, um,” you cleared your throat, “I guess I could use some help.”

“Yes. Very well, then,” he said, taking slightly more than half the stack. It was oppressively silent for another moment as you both stared at the numbers denoting what floor you were on dropping far too slowly for your liking. Loki swore the elevator had never been this slow before. “So, uh, how have you been?”

“Oh, I’ve been fine,” you replied, diverting your gaze for a minute. “You know, same as usual. How about you?”

“Fine, fine. Same as always, really.” Another awkward silence. “I heard you were seeing someone. How is he doing, your boyfriend?”

“Do you mean Owen? We actually broke up a few weeks ago.”

“I am sorry,” Loki apologized. “I did not know.”

“It’s totally fine,” you laughed it off in a way that was music to his ears. “It just wasn’t meant to be.”

As the doors opened and you deposited the papers where you needed to, Loki couldn’t help but think of that Midgardian phrase again. He’d loved you, and he’d let you go, completing the first part. Well, maybe it was time to make good on the second.

“I do not suppose,” he began, “that you would like to go out for a coffee sometime? Just to catch up, is all.”

You smiled at him softly. “I would love that.”

After setting your plans, you parted ways. Loki felt happier than he had in a long time. After all, you’d come back to him, even if it was just as friends for the moment. But he was certain it would turn into something more, sooner or later. Why? Because deep in his heart, he was sure he’d always known it. You were meant to be.

[systlinsideblog]

Part 8

The mansion of Saphrar of Turia was, in fact, very beautiful. It was also built like a fortress; the merchant was, it seemed, very paranoid in addition to being very rich. Quietly, Systlin approved, but right now it was an annoyance.

“We think we’ve picked off most of his archers,” one of the women said as Systlin arrived. Systlin looked the compound over, narrow eyed. There were bodies draped over a few of the crenelations around the enclosing wall, arrows sticking from them. “But we’ve not siege equipment strong enough to break open the gates.”

“Of course.” Systlin cracked her knuckles and rolled her neck again; fighting for the day, then, was not quite through. She eyed the gates; they were smaller, of course, than the gates of the city.

For good measure, she took out the whole front wall. A few hidden archers did fall screaming with the dust and gravel of the broken wall. As the dust cleared, she spotted the front door of the mansion proper and Broke that as well. A group of horrified mercenaries in the front garden watched the wall crumble, and then quite meekly laid their weapons down and knelt, raising their hands in surrender.

“Finally.” Systlin said. “Some people with a little sense. Bind them, and take them to the Ubara’s mansion.” A pause. “And after this, someone ought to show me to the Ubara’s mansion. I could use a bath, I think.”

That drew a laugh from the warriors around her. She drew her weapons, and led the women into the house.

They were met by some delighted slave girls; when they spotted Systlin they cried out in joy, and one rushed forward and took her by the hand.

“This way!” She tugged. “This way, Mistress! Our master is hiding, but I know where he is!”

Systlin followed. Followed through a hall, down some stairs, down more, her warriors close behind. House slaves parted before them, and some women peeled off to remove their collars and chains. A delighted murmur followed them down to the cellars.

They found Saphrar of Turia hiding in a hidden cubbyhole under a flagstone that moved on a cunning little mechanism. He cringed when Systlin pulled it open; she made a disgusted noised, bent down, grabbed him by the collar of his robe, and hauled him out through mean strength.

“And how well did that work for you?” She said shortly. “Hiding like a rat, behind hired swords?”

Even as she spoke, he twisted, and snapped. Even as she pulled away, his teeth sank into the back of her wrist. She buried her knee in his gut and he let loose, wheezing, but grinning through a mouthful of her blood.

“Well!” He croaked. “Quite well! Because where all of the warriors of the city failed, where the Wagon people failed, I’ve succeeded! Enjoy, she-sleen!”

“Fuck.” Systlin muttered. “Shit.” She slammed an arm out even as her warriors lunged forward. “ALIVE. Keep him alive.”

“So I can give you the antidote?” Saphrar crowed, gleeful. He had, Systlin saw, two false teeth shaped like fangs, gleaming gold. “I won’t! You can torture and kill me, I won’t!”

Systlin licked the blood welling from the marks his hidden fangs had left. There, a bitter note. She rolled it over her tongue as she’d been taught in the Iron Mountain so long ago, opening her mouth slightly to smell as well. Faint subtle scents and tastes, the combinations of them…

“Fuck,” she said again, picking notes out.

“Ubara!” Her warriors had Saphrar by the throat, and Dina was clutching at Systlin’s arm, frantic. “Osk venom! Some merchants use it, fangs like that are popular…a physician! Get a physician! Get the Ubar!

Several women left at a dead sprint.

Systlin gently but insistently shook Dina’s hand off, and she went for her belt pouch. Saphrar was still cackling, even through the arm around his neck.

“Fifteen thousand of the warrior caste, dead!” He said, gleeful. “A whole High Caste gone, failed, and a lowly merchant kills the beast!” He dissolved into more laughter.

“Ubara! If it spreads…”

“It already is.” She could feel the pain beginning as she fished a tiny packet, neatly wrapped in waxed rag paper and tied with thread, out of her pouch. She carefully undid the thread, and opened it to reveal a white powder. She licked the tip of a finger, dipped it into the powder, and then licked the powder off and made a terrible face as she pressed her tongue to the roof of her mouth; the stuff was terribly bitter as it dissolved through the thin tissues of the mouth. She re-wrapped the powder, and handed the packet to Dina.

“Ubara?” Dina’s voice was near panic.

“That packet,” Systlin said, deliberately calm. “Is my life, Dina. Give it to no one else. Do you understand? No one. This is my life, in this packet, and I’m trusting it to you.”

“I…” A hard swallow. “Yes, Ubara, but…”

“I am a Queen…you call it Ubara here, but I am a Queen on my own world as well, and have enemies. I trained with assassins before that. Listen, no, listen. In the Iron Mountain I have trained to tolerate many poisons and venoms better than most, and that should help, but I am going to be very sick very shortly. I know, I think, what this Osk venom is, or at least what makes it deadly. That,” a nod at the packet, “will counteract the effects enough to keep me alive while it runs its course. I will not be able to give it to myself. If my breathing looks like it is near stopping, give me as much as I just took, no more. What will stick to a single wetted fingertip. Too much will kill me. I do not need to swallow. Place it under my tongue, rub it on my gums, inside my nose. Do you understand?”

Dina was white. All her women were white. But Dina nodded, once, her lips thin and trembling and terror written all over her face.

“Good.” Systlin took a deep breath; sure enough, it was more difficult than it had been minutes ago. “And keep him alive.” She nodded at Saphrar. “I want to see his face when I don’t die.” A beat. “If I do die, give him to Foicatch.”

“Ubara.” Dina’s voice was thin. “Yes.”

“Good.” Systlin said, and then swayed, and quickly sat heavily down on a crate. She could feel the cold sweat breaking out; she doubted that most of her warrior women had seen her sweat before. She was, after all, a fire witch, and the hottest of days was no bother to her.

It was good, though. The symptoms were telling her that she’d been right, and even as her breathing grew more labored she felt the tingling rush of the compounds distilled into the rescue powder hit. Breathing eased slightly. The dizziness did not. There was a roaring in her ears, and vision blurred. She pitched to the side, and hands caught her.

The room swam. Things were happening around her very rapidly; she could hear them, but picking out meaning would have taken too much concentration. Her fingers were tingling, and her wrist was burning. Her breaths came hard and labored, but she kept breathing.

A familiar face, a familiar voice. Foicatch, sounding near panic. She tried to raise a hand to his face, but her limbs weren’t responding. She was lifted onto something…a stretcher?...and moved.

Time passing. Movement; she was being carried somewhere. Nausea, and her vision was just a blur of colors. Movement stopped; she was laid on something soft. Time passing. Hands on her, a prick of pain in her arm, more time passing. Her breaths started to rasp and struggle, and she wondered…but there! The bitterness of the rescue powder in her mouth, and soon breathing eased again. Not by too much, but enough for her to keep forcing air in and out. People speaking, hurried and frantic. Someone else, calmer. She felt hands easing away armor and boots and weapons. She wanted to protest, but hadn’t the strength.

A warm, wet cloth. Someone was cleaning away mud and blood. She knew the hands. Foicatch. Someone else. A woman? Of course a woman…

Sura hadn’t wanted her to go to the Iron Mountain. Systlin, with her father’s murder hanging before her eyes, had disregarded Sura’s advice for the first time, and gone anyway. The Master of Knives had welcomed her, tried to bend her to his will like he’d bent others. His gift for pushing at minds was rare, and terrible, as terrible as Breaking in its own way. She’d managed to shunt aside his power with her own, undoing it before it could bend her to him. She’d pretended that it had taken, and he’d set her to train.

What a prize, she’d heard him say once. A Breaker, at my feet. What a Hand I shall make of you. The world will tremble.

She remembered his blood on her hands, after she’d slit his throat at last. You took the contract for my father, she’d told him, as he bled out on the floor. You sent your Hand. That’s why I came, to kill his killers…

The bitterness of rescue powder in her mouth, again. Her face was numb, and her hands still tingled. Her head was pounding like a drum.

Snake venom in vials, lined up. Tasting each, carefully, picking out what snake it was from by taste and scent alone and reciting how it killed. She’d drunk snake wine before, but tasting the pure venom was another thing entirely…

Bitterness in her mouth. Voices. Her hand was in someone else’s; she would have known Foicatch if she were dead. His voice, worried. She was lying on something soft.

She’d been good at it, though. It had interested her. She’d memorized them, and the plant poisons, and the mineral. She’d memorized which of the little packets they all carried for emergencies could help the body fight each…

Bitter in her mouth. She blinked, slow, and thought that things might be a little more in focus. Her breaths were still coming harsh and difficult, but she tried to move her hands and her fingers twitched. She would have smiled, were her face not still numb.

The weeks of terrible sickness, as each of the poisons was administered in turn, in gradually increasing doses. They each were expected to endure a lethal dose of each poison in time. She’d passed that test, as the others, but she remembered little of it. Just pain, sickness, heaving though her stomach was empty. A headache like her head was pressed in a vice, that had lasted days.

Bitter in her mouth. She could feel her hands again, and this time another dose didn’t come, because her breath, instead of stuttering and slowing, came stronger. Her vision cleared, slowly, and her headache receded. She lay there, eyes closed, concentrating on her breath, until at last she did not have to fight for it any longer. It took what felt like hours.

She opened her eyes.

She was in an enormous bedroom, on a bed. She was nearly naked under the blankets, save for a light wrap robe someone had found. She was clean. Her hair had been combed and washed and re-braided. Ice and her knife and her armor sat next to her; they’d been cleaned as well.

Foicatch was sitting next to her, slumped back in exhaustion in a chair. He’d at least consented to remove his armor; he was wearing a long tunic that was too tight across his shoulders, and had at least scrubbed a wet cloth over his body and through his hair. Dina sat on the floor before the fire, distractedly cleaning her already spotless knife. As Systlin moved, Foicatch’s eyes shot open, and he sat up. The relief in his eyes was almost painful.

“Thank the Lady’s mercy.” He said, quietly and with feeling, and kissed the back of her hand. “You scared me.”

“When we see Sura next,” Systlin said, her voice still raspy from a dry throat. “I’m going to tell her that I was right about going through the training and not just dragging the whole bloody mountain down on his head. How long…”

A watery sort of chuckle. “Oh, she’ll hate it. Two days. Rumors are running wild, but everything’s under control.”

Dina approached warily, and very carefully set the tightly wrapped packet of powder on the bed beside her.

“She wouldn’t give it up even to me.” Foicatch said.

“She was right not to. If you gave me a dose the size of your fingertip, it would have been enough to kill me. Dina’s got smaller hands.” She hauled herself up into a sitting position. Her wrist still hurt, and was still red and swollen, but the worst of it was past.

“You told me it was your life.” Dina whispered.

“It was.” Systlin took it carefully, and set it on top of her neatly piled gear. “I owe you my life, Dina of Turia. If there is anything in my power to give, it’s yours.”

Dina trembled a little, and Systlin realized that she was crying silently. She realized suddenly what it must have been for Dina, for all of her people here, to see her fall. To see hope itself lying like death on a bed, struggling for each breath. To feel the prospect of chains looming again…

No. She’d taught them enough. Even without her now, she did not think any of the slaves she’d freed would ever be forced into them again. She’d started enough; it might take long, without her, but she’d planted the seeds. She saw suddenly, in a dizzying rush, warriors from the plains spreading out, bringing low the fighting men and freeing the slaves from one city-state after another, a steady march clear across Gor, and all done through sweat and courage and blood alone.

Centuries, it might take. But it would have happened, even had she died in this bed.

Though, as she thought on it, she wondered what would happen, should her body expire. And then she realized, quite suddenly, that she’d thought of them as her people.

You already know the answer there, sister. The whisper in her mind was familiar by now. You cannot kill a goddess of death with poison.

“Ubara sana,” Dina said quietly. “There is nothing I would ask that you have not already given me. You owe me nothing; you already gave me back my life.”

“The offer stands.” Systlin said. “If ever there is something in my power to give you, say the word and it is yours.”

Dina gave her a look that was half frightened, half wondering, and quite suddenly she leaned down and kissed her full on the mouth. Systlin froze in surprise, and Dina pulled back as if burned, nearly cringing in a way she’d not done in more than a year.

“I’m sorry!” She gasped, and there were more tears streaming down her face now. Systlin stared, almost bemused; that she hadn’t seen it before was astounding, really. “I’m sorry! Ubar…”

Foicatch was also staring in a rather bemused way. “Well,” he said. “It’s not like I can fault you in your tastes.”

“Dina?” Systlin’s throat was as dry as sand already, and still sore, and it sounded like a croak more than a voice. “I…sorry, water…”

Foicatch picked a cup up from the table beside the bed. A gesture, and water appeared as he pulled moisture out of the air. It trickled into the cup, and she drank greedily.

“You should have said something.” She said at last, handing the wooden cup back. Foicatch filled it again.

Dina was still looking faintly terrified, as if she’d overstepped somehow. “I…but…” she gestured weakly at Foicatch.

“You’d not be the first woman in her bed.” Foicatch shrugged, handing the cup back to Systlin and watching as she drained it as well. “I’ve had other men and women in mine as well.”

“He’s terrible taste in men.” Systlin narrowed her eyes. “Downright awful. That miserable little Cabot man? Really?”

“He’s attractive. And it’s been amusing to watch him panic over things.” He filled the cup a third time. “Sucks a mean cock, once he finally works past all the nonsense about shame and his manliness, but then goes maudlin and sulks for a week. Still, a fun enough diversion.”

“Sounds dreadful. This is what I mean. Awful taste in men.”

“I don’t…” Dina looked slightly faint. “I don’t understand.”

Foicatch shrugged. “Few people do, to be fair.”

“What it means, is that this,” Systlin caught Dina’s hand and pulled her back. She watched the other woman’s lovely face slowly go from confusion to hope to disbelief as she kissed the inside of one of Dina’s wrists. “Will not anger him. The fact that he takes other lovers now and then does not anger me. Though,” She sat up too fast, and her head was spinning again. She grimaced and lay back again. “It may have to wait.”

“Ubara sana,” Dina said, even more faintly. “I think that I can wait.”

“Good.” Systlin took a breath, and hauled herself upright again. Her head spun still; she gritted her teeth and rode it out, and the lingering nausea. “For now, I need clothes.”

“Ubara!”

“I need to be seen.” Systlin said simply, and got her feet under her. Foicatch offered an arm; she leaned on it. “I’m all right, Dina. I’m a tough bitch to kill.”

“I…”

The door opened then, and a woman in green robes swept in. She had olive skin and very black hair, braided and pinned up in a coil on top of her head. She carried a case, and when she saw Systlin on her feet her face lightened from its cool professionalism.

“Oh, excellent.” She said. “You’re back with us.”

“This is Zephra.” Foicatch said. “A physician. She’s been checking on you. Dina?”

“Of course.” Dina hurried out.

“You really shouldn’t be on your feet.” The woman said, severely. Systlin was reminded instantly of Myssa, the royal True Healer and Physik. “Though I suppose you must be seen as soon as possible. Sit for a moment.”

Systlin did. It never did any good to argue with physicians or healers. Zephra laid a hand on her forehead, checked her pulse, listened to her breathing, and at last made a sound of approval. She drew a stylus and pad out of her bag, and began making notes.

“You’ll live.” She said. “That powder of yours is ingenious; I managed to get a tiny bit from your devoted guard to analyze. It is, in truth, very similar to what I would have given you, and I did not wish to cause an interaction with what you had already taken, so I thought it best to leave your girl to it. If it had truly come to it, I did have an apparatus ready to breathe for you.” She nodded to the corner; Systlin looked, and saw a great cylinder of glass and copper and leather. “But you did not react so strongly to the Osk venom as most would. I am glad to see you recovering.” She examined Systlin thoughtfully, tapping the stylus against her lips. “You’ve survived other things that you should not have, judging from your scars.”

Systlin touched the scar under her right breast with a wince. A spear had transfixed her there once, long ago, piercing clean through. “True enough.”

“The physicians of your world are skilled indeed, if they can mend such injuries.” Zephra said bluntly. “I could not do it. Neither could a doctor of Earth.”

“True-healers.” Foicatch said. “They can repair flesh with a touch, as I can command water and Systlin can command fire and Break.”

Zephra’s eyebrows rose. “That,” she said softly. “Would be a gift worth having.”

“It’s rare. Those who have it are held in high regard.”

“I was lucky.” Systlin touched the scar again. “It was a spear. I should have died there, but there was a True-Healer nearby. I got very lucky.”

Foicatch’s hand tightened on her shoulder for a moment.

“Well.” Zephra hummed quietly. “I suspect that this will only add to the growing legends that are being spread around. Before you arrived at the city, we had heard that you were a terrible spirit who ate the flesh of men.” A spark of humor in her dark eyes.

Systlin made a face. “Only half true.”

A laugh. “I have never seen,” she said. “Men so frightened as they are now. Not all of them, of course; there are good ones to be found.” She tapped her stylus against her lips again. “It does my heart good.” The smile turned bitter. “If you’ll have my service, Ubara, I would give it, wherever you go.”

Foicatch and Systlin both looked at her oddly.

“Ah, yes. You likely do not know…I am a free woman, of a high caste. I was able to study, and am able to ply my trade. Most free women are not allowed such, did you know? A free woman of the metalworker caste does not work at the forge; a woman of the scribe caste may be illiterate.” The smile grew more bitter still. “Our options are to inherit wealth to live well, or to Companion a man of means and bear his children. I was lucky, Ubara Sana, in that I showed aptitude as a physician and was accepted into the caste. Even still, I was not allowed to do the work I studied and trained for. Not until I had Companioned a man of the physician caste and borne him two children.”

Systlin stared. Foicatch said, flatly, “What.”

“My daughters,” Zaphra continued, “Are dear to me. But I did not renew my Companionship with their father, and had I a choice I would not have taken their father to bed or borne them. I wished only to work as I had trained to do. I am what is called ‘frigid’ by the men of Gor; I have never felt desire for anyone. Unlike what many suppose, this is not an affliction. Many people are born thus, and forced to conceal it. My male colleagues scoff at the idea, and insist that it is an aberration that could be remedied by a proper man, and perhaps some slave chains.” She put her stylus and pad away, businesslike. “As if the only ones born thus are women. Free women of Gor are not free, not truly, even if a collar is never set on us. I think that with you that may change, and my daughters may taste freedom in truth. It is at the least a better chance than any we’ve had before.”

“Ah.” Systlin tested her balance again; it was better. She gently eased off of leaning on Foicatch, even as Dina reappeared with robes. “I see.”

“I thought you might, given what I had heard of you from your women.”

“If you wish it, I accept your offer.” Systlin let Dina help her shrug into the robes. The other woman also wrapped Systlin’s braid around her head like a crown and deftly pinned it into place.

“I am honored, Ubara sana.” Zaphra inclined her head.

“Right.” Systlin took up her sword belt, and buckled it into place over her silken robes. “Dina, where are the warriors?”

“Many are in the camp. More have taken over the guard houses. Many have bedded down on the lower floors of this mansion.” Dina looked at her. “They’re taking turns here, because not all of us could fit in the Ubara’s mansion. Your honor guard stays, of course, but the rest have set up rotating shifts, so that they could all guard you for a time.”

Systlin blinked, and felt her throat tighten and heat in her eyes. “Have they.”

“I’ve told you many times.” Foicatch said, softly. “You’ve never had any idea what it’s like, from the outside.”

“You are the Whip-Burner.” Dina said, as if it were simple and obvious. “The Chain-Striker. They’ve been burning slave couches in bonfires for two days, in your name. The courts have already been set up, and the judging has already begun. Those sentenced to die are being burnt on the couches they chained us to.”

Systlin closed her eyes, and that other power she did not like to think of or acknowledge stirred. And for a moment she could taste it on the air, like honeyed wine. Justice.

For a moment, just a moment, she could feel rather than hear twenty thousand mentions of her name, and it ran through her like ice and fire at once.

“Good.” She managed. “Well done.”

“The next time you wonder why any of us,” Systlin knew Foicatch was not talking about the people of Gor, but of their true home. “Are willing to follow you to the death, I’m reminding you of this.”

“Smug prick,” she muttered, because the last time she’d said that aloud and he’d looked at her funny and told her that she’d earned it, she’d laughed.

“Yes.” He agreed easily. “Now, here.”

He opened the drawer on the bedside table, and drew out a golden hairpin. At the top glimmered a red stone. Systlin took it, and looked; it was a star ruby, larger than her thumbnail. She looked up at him, stunned, and he smiled.

“There’s a great deal of wealth in the vaults of the Ubara of Turia.” He said. “Aside from that in the chests of the Ubara Sana of the plains. I set a few people to combing through with orders as to what to find.”

He took it back and slid it into place in her hair, so that the ruby gleamed just above the center of her forehead. “It might not be the Fallen’s Blood, but I thought it fitting.”

“I take it back. You’re not a prick.”

“Still smug?”

“Yes, but I like that about you.” She touched the stone to make sure it was secure. “Come now. People need to know I’m not dead.”

[dianapana]

SH Day 7- Genin Era

Rated T

Honestly I’m never confident in writing in the original Ninja Universe, my depiction of most of the characters is so OOC and that works fine with AUs but I fell like I need to be in character to write in the Ninja Universe, not sure I achieved it in this story but yes…either way, I hope you enjoy.

~Love Dia.

@sasuhinamonth

Hinata POV

When Iruka sensei first announced the teams, I was disappointed that Naruto-kun and I were on different teams, but the more I thought about it, the more I realized that it was actually best that way. No matter how hard I try I always get flustered and distracted around him and for a ninja focus is important, especially in the middle of important and dangerous missions. And even despite being on different teams, I’m always able to find him around town and look from afar, just seeing him is enough for me. I got used to this way of thinking for a while now, thus when Kurenai mentioned that we’d go on a mission together with team 7 my anxiety levels rose higher than my excitement to see Naruto. I was already too weak and dragging my team down, father always made sure to remind me just how much of a disappointment I was, our initial track record of failed missions, or barely passed ones only added as proof to his words. I was terrified I was going to put everyone in danger, I was scared to make a fool of myself, I was filled with fear that was threatening to overflow from deep inside me.

I tried approaching Kurenai about the issue, tried to ask her to allow me to stay behind, but they needed every one in our team in order to track a run-away criminal, they needed Shinos bugs, Kiba’s nose and my eyes. Naruto’s team was in charge of fighting him if necessary and bringing him into the village. Kiba had been furious when he heard our job was to be a map basically, but I was glad we wouldn’t have to fight. However, my relief was short-lived when Kurenai mentioned that it was an A-class criminal so there was a high chance that team 7 would need our help in combat as well.

The day of the mission started pretty similarly to my usual days, I got dressed, packed bentos for everyone and left bright and early for the training ground where we were told to meet up. The whole way there I kept thinking about what I should do if Naruto was already there, what if it were just the two of us there, what would we talk about? Or would we just sit in silence? However, my worries were futile, Naruto wasn’t there, it was only Shino, I and Uchiha-san. Shino greeted me, but Uchiha-san didn’t acknowledge my existence, the three of us stayed in silence which usually I wouldn’t have minded but my thoughts were hectic and I would have liked any sort of distraction. Slowly more people joined, Kurenai, followed by Sakura and Kiba and soon there was no longer silence, Sakura was talking to Sasuke and Kiba was complaining to Kurenai-sensei. After a few minutes of being ignored Kiba let it go and came to talk to me, he was telling me about some of the new dogs his older sister rescued and Akamaru placed himself in my lap for pets, it almost felt like a normal day and for a moment I forgot all about Naruto and the joined mission, that was of course until Naruto appeared, he had been running to get here on time, you could tell he was hurrying by his slightly red cheeks, the rapid way in which he breathed and the droplets of sweat rolling down his temples.

His sunny disposition was wonderful from far away but it was maybe a bit too bright and blinding from this close. I followed him with my eyes as I were so used to do, not even registering he was walking to me until he was barely a few feet apart, his eyes focused on me with a smile.

“Mornin’ Hinata-chan” I loved how my name sounded on his lips, I blushed hard and murmured a reply, before any more talking could occur Kakashi-sensei arrived as well. Kurenai laid down a map for us and told us to gather around, I was too conscious of Naruto’s presence so I moved as far away from him as I could, I needed to focus on the explanation, my distraction could already be seen for in my attempts to distance myself from Naruto I bumped into Uchiha-san. I screeched, took a step to the side and apologized but he didn’t acknowledge me this time either. The only nod I got from him was when I gave everyone their bentos right before we split into smaller teams.

Thankfully I was able to focus on the plan and understood my part in it. I was to be in front of the team together with Kakashi-sensei and Uchiha-san, I’d use my Byakugan at the beginning until my chakra level was about half and then took small breaks if we hadn’t found the criminal by then. I was glad that Naruto wasn’t directly next to me, however, I was extremely uneasy around Kakashi and Sasuke as well, I had hoped at least Kiba would be next to me, but he was with Sakura and Kurenai to the left while Shino and Naruto were in the back.

“Ok Hinata, you can turn it on whenever you want, if you see anything unusual let us know immediately,” Kakashi said as we stepped outside Konoha grounds. The scroll with the mission information had a portrait of the man and information about his chakra type as well, which all in all helped me a lot, I knew exactly what I was looking for, thus being able to ignore all the movement around me that belonged to the team. The criminal had escaped from Suna three days ago and from their sources, he would pass through the forest outside Konoha somewhere today or tomorrow depending on his speed.

We had been running for almost 3 hours when I felt my chakra levels falter for a moment. I had never used it for such an extensive period of time, plus Kakashi and Sasuke’s speed was much higher than I was used to, all in all, I was having a tough time keeping up with them. I turned off my Byakugan when I felt my left eye hurting badly. “My chakra needs to recharge” I let them know and Kakashi nodded. We didn’t stop running, however, we slowed down significantly in order for Shino and Naruto to catch up with us, Shino too had been using his bugs and was tired, thus it was only Kiba that was still actively searching. Once my chakra felt stable enough, I turned on my Byakugan again, I could still feel discomfort in my left eye but ignored it for the time being.

Another hour passed when Akamaru barked loudly and not even a second later I spotted the criminal, he was far to the left, Kurenai’s team was maybe 45 minutes away from him, I informed Kakashi of that and we too turned to run that way, slowly increasing our speed.

“Hinata, we need you to keep your Byakugan active and let us know exactly where he is going, Shino if you can send some poisonous bugs ahead, our best plan is to knock him out without much fight needed”

The closer we got the more I felt his chakra overpowering me, the faster we ran, the faster he ran too, I wasn’t sure if he knew we were on his tracks, he had made no movement that indicated he knew. It was a split-second event, he was one, he was alone and then there were two others. before I could even open my mouth to tell everyone I felt a sharp pain at the back of my neck and the world slowly started getting blurry and black, the last thing I saw was Uchiha-san’s hand reach out to me.

Sasuke POV

The mission started about 2 hours ago but I could hear Hyuuga’s breath getting heavier and heavier with each step, I kept waiting for her to tell us she was tired, but she didn’t. Kakashi was quite far ahead of me and her but I’m sure he knew she was tired as well. Finally, an hour later she admitted to being tired, I turned for a mili-second to look at her and her left eye was closed, you could see the eye twitching underneath her lid, she had exhausted herself. We met up with the dobe and Aburame, I expected Hyuuga to lose her composure just as she had at the meeting place, but she was either too focused or too tired to give Naruto any attention. Even Naruto was uncharacteristically quiet.

The mission had been a long run thus far, that was until Hinata finally saw the suspect in the distance, we changed our path the way she guided us and kept increasing our speed. Kakashi told her to keep her Byakugan on and she made no comments. Out of everyone I was the closest to her and I could hear her getting more tired by the second, I kept mental tabs on her just in case she was going to pass out. For a split second, I heard her breath patter change, as if she was about to speak and I turned to look at her, her left eye was bleeding and from behind her came a man that hit her hard with the side of his hand on the nape of her neck, I reached out to her and barely caught her, held her against me before we hit the ground. Before checking how Kakashi and the others were faring I cupped her face and brought it up to my ear, for an agonizing long second, I couldn’t hear or feel her breath, but thankfully she was breathing, she was alive.

“Sasuke, take care of Hinata” Kakashi ordered, he had already knocked out the man that attacked us and was carrying currently carrying him on his back while writing a scroll and running at the same time. I picked Hinata up and continued running too.

“Is she ok?” Aburame asked and I nodded trying to ease his worry. I had been worried too, for a moment there I panicked, what would I have done had she died? Her left eye was still bleeding slowly, it looked as if she was constantly crying blood, I could feel my shirt getting wet with her blood, having her blood on me made me feel even more in charge of her safety.

“I found them too, I put a bug on each of them, there are three men in total” the information was welcomed “Kurenai-sensei’s team should reach them about 10 minutes before we do, I managed to inject with a small dose of poison one of them, the other two killed my bugs” Despite Hinata’s approximation beforehand, the criminal and his partners, apparently, were running too, all we could do is try to catch up to them in due time.

Holding her into my arms I felt oddly detached from the mission, for the majority of it I had been distracted, more interested in her state of being than the mission itself. Today had been one of my first interactions with her, what was it about her that caught my attention? Her blush and stutter when Naruto was concerned? Her loud scream when she bumped into me? The bento she offered me with no alternative reason? Either way, her presence distracted me and I did not appreciate that, her weight in my arms felt comfortable and even that annoyed me.

“Sasuke, you turn around with Hinata, I trust that there are no other men involved with the criminal. We can’t be sure how long the chase will take, Shino will keep trying to poison them and we hopefully will be done soon, however Hinata needs medical attention”

My detachment to the mission only furthered, I asked no questions, I gave no reply but simply turn around and run towards Konoha. Despite the extra weight and the long run thus far I wasn’t tired, I was oddly energized, my blood was boiling and I was running even faster than I have ever had. We were about 5 or 6 hours away from Konoha, but I wanted to reach it in 4 if possible. My focus returned and I heard every little leaf crunch on the ground, every little branch being moved by the wind.

When we were getting closer to Konoha, meaning maybe under an hour away Hinata moved into my arms, I stopped abruptly and looked down at her, her eye had stopped bleeding 2 hours ago thankfully, her complexion which had been white before was rosier and I could feel her sweating under her enormous jacket. I lowered myself to one knee and propped her legs onto my knee thus using that hand to undo her zipper, then without much thought I took off her jacket and threw it on the forest floor, it was covered in blood, sweat and dirt anyway, she wouldn’t miss it. I got back up and adjusted my grip on her, my hand was touching the skin of her upper arm, it was moist and hot but soft. I was about to start running again when her eyes fluttered open. The sclera of her left eye was blood-red, her right eye was also red but not quite to the same extent.

“Uchiha-san…? Where are we?” her voice was meek, but for the first time, she was looking me straight in the eye.

“We are maybe 1 hour away from Konoha”

“D-did the mission end…? where is everyone else?”

“The mission hadn’t been over when we departed form the group. Kakashi sent me to take you to the hospital. I am sure he assessed the situation and decided they could finish without us and that this was the best course of actions”

I had no expectations of how she would react, but her sudden sobs took me by surprise. Without even realizing it, I brought her body closer to mine and raised it a little. “Hold onto my neck” I ordered, Hinata looked at me with glossy eyes but obeyed nonetheless. I resumed running in that position. Was I offering her privacy to cry? Was this meant to comfort her? Even I couldn’t say.

The rest of the run went by fast, after crying for a while Hinata fell asleep, in the meantime, I started nothing things that I was grateful for. I was grateful for her short hair since the wind couldn’t blow it in my face, I was grateful for the soft skin of her arms since they felt nice onto my neck, I was grateful for her height since it made her the perfect size for me to carry, I was grateful that she was asleep and not dead.

When we reached the hospital, I placed her onto the bed in the room a nurse guided me to. She didn’t let go of my neck for a moment and whispered “it’s a-all my f-f-fault, I ruined another m-mission. I’m so s-s-sorry” her voice broke, and for some reason hearing her say that hurt me as well. I didn’t know how to comfort her, so all I did was rub circles on her back with my hand, I sat down on the bed and allowed her to keep holding onto me for a bit longer. “You did nothing wrong, thanks to you the others knew where the enemy was. We failed you because we didn’t notice the man behind” I had heard about the Hyuuga blind spot from father, but had forgotten about it until that moment. I wasn’t sure f my words or actions were of any help to her, but she didn’t cry, she was just hiding, and even that didn’t last long, for the doctor came to check on her.

I walked out of the hospital and went home to rest, in the middle of the night, hours later I heard a knock at my door, it was Kakashi-sensei. He came to let me know everything went well and to ask about Hinata. I told him what the nurse told me, a blood vessel busted in her left eye, she was knocked out and had a slight concussion, but nothing major. They were going to let her out of the hospital in the morning. After Kakashi told me some more about the mission he left for the night and I made a sudden decision.

I found myself in front of the hospital. I knew which window belonged to Hinata’s room, I had seen her through it when I left that evening. So instead of going through the door, I decided to jump onto one of the trees and then right outside her window. I tapped it lightly, not wanting to wake her if she were asleep, but thankfully she wasn’t.

“Uchiha-san?” she said as she opened the window for me to get into the room. She looked confused and embarrassed. I walked to her bed and took a seat on the side of it.

“I just wanted to let you know the mission was a success, everyone is fine.” Her eyes widened. “You didn’t ruin it, as I said before they couldn’t have done it without you” it felt odd o say that and the more the words gained meaning into my mind the more embarrassing they became. “Either way, I just thought you’d worry so I came to tell you that there’s no need for that”

I got up and wanted to leave, the room felt small and warm, but Hinata grabbed the back of my shirt. “Thank you” she mumbled the words about a dozen times, each time a little quieter and broken than before. I wanted to stay and comfort her some more, but I also didn’t want to see her crying anymore. My feelings were confusing me and so was she, so I simply replied ‘go to sleep’ before going out the window and leaving her behind into the dark hospital room.

The first week of Sh month done oof, can't believe I pulled through, especially since I didn't really plan on posting anything but day 1 so most stories (apart from day 6) I things I randomly wrote at 1 am. Thank you for reading and interacting <3

[preciousthingsareprecious]

Hearts Pounding and Blood Coursing

I am back with yet another D&d week fic! Is everything I write going to be set in Dick as Batman times? Maybe. Maybe. This one certainly is. 

Dami Calls Dick “Baba” / First “I love you” / “You’re not my father!” “I am well aware.”

Summary: When Batman goes missing on patrol, it's up to Robin and Batgirl to track him down. Will they fall into the same trap he did, or make it out in one piece?

AO3 Link

~

The old warehouse looked ready to collapse in on itself any second. Damian wondered why Gotham was so littered with them. He’d told Grayson a hundred times that they needed to do something about them. Wayne Enterprises could surely step in and repair them or rebuild them or do anything to prevent them from becoming hives of villainy as they were wont to do in Gotham. 

Grayson. Damian’s chest tightened. Grayson would not be able to talk Lucius into anything if they did not rescue him soon. The stupid man had gone on patrol alone and had not returned. Thus it was up to Batgirl and Robin to rescue him. 

“You ready, Baby Bat?” 

“Call me that again and I will paint that horrible motorbike of yours a garish shade of orange.” Damian snapped, less focused on coming up with proper revenge threats and more on finding his lost partner. 

“Alright, remember the plan, you’ve got the window on the second floor and I’ve got the one on the first. We meet in the middle or wherever we find Batman.” 

“I would not forget such a simple plan so soon after making it.” Damian replied, already pressing a gloved hand against the window in question to test it, “Now may we begin? Or would you like to chatter until whoever is inside parades Batman’s dead body out of the front door?”

“No, let’s go.” Brown replied. 

Damian nodded, the glass was firm under his palm, not quite as ramshackle as the rest of the building. He slipped a laser cutter out of his belt and ran it across the edges of the window, and let it fall backwards into his palm. 

“And Robin?” Brown added, as Damian was setting the glass aside, “Batman’s going to be just fine, okay?”

“Tt.” Damian responded, then added a quick, “I know. He will.” as if to convince himself of the fact as well. 

He climbed in the window and dropped quietly into the building. Damian found himself in what looked like an office. An old desk stood off balance, titled down on a broken leg. Papers and overturned file cabinets took up most of the rest of the room, with huge windows that looked out over onto the warehouse floor below.  

Damian slipped out of the door and into the hallway beyond it. He flicked a flashlight on to illuminate the dark interior and crept through, ears perked up for any sounds. 

The whole building smelled of dust and mildew, and something else that was sharp and sour. Around him, the walls were covered in ancient cracked paint that might have once been white, but now looked more yellow than anything under the beam of the flashlight. Cracked and broken picture frames featuring staff, products, and some construction site Damian couldn’t recognize decorated the walls, and floor where some had fallen. 

An eerie unsettled feeling crept it’s way into Damian’s head, tingling from the back to the front like cobwebs. He spun on his heel, the flashlight swinging wildly first behind him, then up to the ceiling to check for the source of the feeling. 

Nothing. He was alone. 

Slightly abashed, but still feeling odd, Damian turned again to continue down the hall. The feeling only seemed to increase as he walked. No doors presented themselves at first, which was strange. This building should have a number of offices in it. 

Damian thought back to the blueprints he and Brown had analyzed a few hours earlier. Grayson had left them open on the Batcomputer. Their one big clue to where he’d gone. 

There was one section of the building with a longer hall than others, but Damian had thought he hadn’t come in that way. Had he already gotten turned around? That quite simply wasn’t possible. He’d only been moving for a few minutes. 

He slowed his pace, flashlight swinging from wall to wall as he carefully examined each one. No doors still. So he must have come in the other way. Perhaps his fretting over Grayson had caused the error. Mother had not been entirely incorrect in her assumption that feelings for another caused problems. 

Still, Damian had decided that he was willing to fail a little more if it meant keeping Grayson in his life. 

The further into the building Damian moved the worse it smelled. The sour, acrid, scent that had been mostly hidden under mold and disuse gradually became the prevailing one. Damian scrunched his nose at it, and tried to figure out where he knew it from. It tickled his memory, like something he should know and made the hair on his arms raise. 

So far, he had heard nothing from Batgirl. Though, that was a good sign. They had decided to keep the comms silent until they found something or needed immediate assistance. They had no idea what Batman had run into in this warehouse, nor how he had been taken down. It was best not to draw too much attention to ones self, and wasting time with pointless updates or incessant chatter would be just that. 

He could have sworn he’d seen the same picture of the construction site three times now. But, no he was probably just seeing things. Mistaking the weird old building and land for something else in the dim light.

With every step that unsettling feeling grew stronger, until at last, he came across a door. 

Damian should have been relieved seeing it, but the anxious feeling only grew as he reached out to turn the knob. 

Slowly he eased the door open, and peered into the room, listening for any sounds of occupation. When no lights flared on or voices sounded he took a step into the room. 

The smell here was far worse than it had been in the hallway, as if something inside were the source of it. Damian gulped back bile and stepped further inside, his flashlight held ahead of him like a shield. 

As he did so, the world swayed sideways. Damian blinked, trying to clear his vision, but the room still seemed skewed to the side. 

He took another step forward and all at once the memory of the smell hit him. Fear toxin. Not as strong or as tick as he was used to, and still masked with unknown notes but Crane’s toxin all the same. 

He reached up to alert Brown of the situation and tapped the comm unit in his ear, comforted by the fact that the usual hum of connection reached his ear. 

Before he could say a word though, something cracked against the back of his skull and his world went black. 

When Damian came to, it was slow and plagued by shadows cast over everything from the back of his eyelids to the ceiling above him. He blinked at the ancient popcorned paint and yelped as all at once it seemed to morph into staves, razor sharp and now raining down on him. 

Damian shot up from where he lay, and found himself not impaled by a hundred sharpened stalactites of paint but simply faced with a throbbing headache and hands bound in front of him. 

He sat, just breathing for a few moments and staring down at the cuffs and his gloves. After a moment the nightmare faded, but left that same lingering uncomfortable feeling he’d gotten on entering the hallway. Fear, he now recognized it as, not the overwhelming fear Crane’s toxins were best known for, but something more subtle. Like waiting on the jump scare in a movie. 

The room didn’t smell of the toxin, and Damian assumed what he was feeling was lingering effects from what he’d breathed in earlier, and not a new dose. 

The lighting in the room was provided by a dim bulb hanging from the ceiling which Damian glared at. Of course Crane would be so predictable as to make the room he’d been placed in creepy in the most cliched of ways. 

His gaze travelled down from it and across the mostly bare room. More yellowed walls, cracked with age, and decorated with dreary photos resided here. And then there was—

“Batman.” Damian breathed. 

Grayson lay in a crumpled heap in the center of the room. Damian had been dropped in at the back, either before his brother had been returned or Crane had purposely carried him over the unconscious body of his partner. And Grayson had better only be unconscious or Crane would feel Damian’s wrath unleashed fully against him without hesitation. 

Damian scoffed at the flimsy cuffs Crane had put on him and picked the lock quickly. The villain had not even bothered to attempt to remove Damian’s belt or other gear. 

Soon he was up on unsteady legs, much to his displeasure, and then taking the few strides needed to reach his Batman. 

He crouched beside him and began his examination of his partner. The first thing he noticed was the rise and fall of Grayson’s chest. Then his eyes caught sight of the variety of bruises coloring his chin, how his lips were split and swollen, and the various rips and tears littering the Batsuit. One lense of his cowl was broken out and Damian could see another ugly black bruise over his closed eye. 

Crane had not wasted a moment with Batman it seemed. Something he would pay for if Damian had the opportunity to avenge Grayson. But first, he needed to get his brother out of here and inform Brown of the true danger lurking in the warehouse. 

This time when he activated his comms no one bashed him over the head. 

“Batgirl.” He said, keeping his voice low, “Scarecrow is here. He has incapacitated Batman and locked us in a room together. I will do my best to get him out, but I would do better with your assistance.”

As much as he despised asking for help, Damian was not a fool. He could not both carry Grayson and defend him if Crane returned. Batgirl’s backup would be key in them all getting out of there alive, and in potentially apprehending Crane. 

“I will be right back.” Damian promised Grayson, then stood. 

There was only one door in the room, and Damian moved towards it. He was careful in his examination, wary both of traps and his mind playing tricks on him. He was far too lucid for the earlier gas to have been pure fear toxin, but he could not discount it having lingering effects beyond what he had experienced waking up. 

He tried not to wonder if any of this was real or fake. He was sure now he’d imagined the hallway being longer than it was. If that was false, what else might he be seeing that was a lie? What if he was hallucinating his Batman being there, beaten and bruised? What if something worse lingering outside the door? 

What made it worse, was the fact that with Crane lurking it was highly likely a nightmare was waiting for them, real or imagined. 

It didn’t matter. Damian couldn’t be frozen by what ifs. His Batman was hurt and needed him. Grayson needed him to act like this was real and keep moving. 

The door was not locked. Of course it wasn’t. This trap was turning into an even deeper trap with every minute longer they stayed. It made the fear in his chest twist into dread. A cold sharp worry right between his ribs. 

Damian swung the door open right into more darkness. He growled, this was getting ridiculous. The one thing he no longer had on him was his flashlight, dropped when he’d been foolish enough to get knocked out. 

Fine, he had other light sources he could work with. And if he had to walk in the dark he would. Brown was surely on her way, even if she had not responded to him yet. 

He turned back to Grayson to crouch beside his brother. 

“Batman?” Damian prompted, shaking Grayson’s shoulder gently, “I would much prefer it if you were mildly conscious and were not complete dead weight.” 

He prayed that the Grayson who woke up was both sensible and toxin free. It was a hope he thought might be in vain, but based on his own experience with Crane’s toxin tonight the man seemed to be testing a new strain. It seemed less all encompassing and more designed to disorient and instill a quiet, constant, fear of a more general nature. 

His brother groaned. 

“That’s it.” 

Damian’s encouragement seemed to help drag Grayson back to the surface. So much that he watched a bleary blue eye blink open through the shattered cowl lense. Grayson’s eye was bloodshot, but his iris looked normal. Well, normal enough for a possibly concussed, probably drugged, and definitely beaten, Batman.  

“Come on Batman, we need to go.” Damian said, tugging at one of Grayson’s arms. 

His brother mumbled something incoherent, but allowed himself to be dragged up from where he’d been curled. It took some effort, but eventually Damian had Grayson awkwardly positioned over his back like some kind of kevlar covered sloth. One arm draped over Damian’s shoulder, fingers brushing against his uniform, with the other was held tightly in Damian’s hand. 

He tapped his R insignia to light it up. The beam was pathetic compared to his flashlight, but it was all he had right now unless he wanted to waste time searching Batman’s belt for a flashlight that might or might not be there. 

On Damian’s first step forward, Grayson seemed to be putting in some effort to push himself with his feet. By the time they made it out the door, and took a random left down the hallway, he was already flagging. 

Damian grit his teeth and bit back a complaint. Even this situation was better than the alternative. Damian would drag Grayson for miles over dealing with him under the influence of fear toxin the way it normally worked. 

He hefted Grayson a little higher against his back from where he’d slipped. His brother’s chin rested on his shoulder, and Damian could feel his breath against his neck. He felt Grayson’s breath pick up, as he stirred back to wakefulness. 

“What’re we doing?” he asked, voice thick with exhaustion. 

“We are escaping a trap you fell into.” Damian explained. 

Grayson tried to pull away, “S’not safe. You have to go.” 

He was thrashing now, so much so Damian had to stop moving forward just to keep him held up.

“Stop fighting me and we will! If we do not keep moving we will be in even more danger--idiot!” 

Grayson had thrown himself off Damian’s back, and thumped against the floor with an oof. After a moment he flipped over to look up at Damian, a deep frown on his lips. 

“Batman!” Damian snapped, then realized, that perhaps he had been wrong in his assumption that Grayson was not dealing with toxin effects. 

He was a fool. He should have given Grayson a shot of the anti-toxin the moment he found him. 

“Calm down.” Damian said, lowering his voice to something soothing, “You are injured and drugged, and if you do not listen you may hurt yourself worse.” 

Grayson pushed himself up on his palms, wincing, “You need to leave, Scarecrow is here and he’s after Batman.” 

He nodded, kneeling beside Grayson, “I know. You need to let me give you a dose of the anti-toxin, and then we are leaving.”

“Don’t tell me what to do.” 

Damian blinked at him, surprised by the sudden petulance in Grayson’s voice. It sounded a bit like Drake when he was disagreeing with Grayson. 

Careful, Damian slipped a vial of anti-toxin out of his belt, and popped off the lid. He held it out so Grayson could see it. 

“Okay. I am not telling you what to do, simply asking. Will you let me give you this? It will help you feel better.” 

Grayson shook his head, lips going from a frown into a pucker. Is this how everyone felt when Damian was being difficult? He would have to keep that in mind in the future. Grayson was a saint for putting up with his antics longer than the ten seconds Damian had been dealing with Grayson’s. 

“Listen. We need to get moving. If we stay here much longer we’re going to get caught. You need to let me do this.” 

Damian reached out to take Grayson’s arm. He was just about to press the syringe between a tear in the uniform when Grayson yanked his arm back.  

“You’re not my father!” He shouted, sounding almost just like Damian had heard himself sound a  hundred times when he’d still been wary of his brother. 

“I am well aware.” Damian frowned, furrowing his brow. 

It felt very strange to him to imagine Grayson seeing Father in Damian. It was a complicated feeling that made his chest feel tight like he was about to cry. It was also something he could not linger on for long. Grayson was not in his right mind, and every moment they sat there on the floor was another moment Crane could find them in. 

More than that, it was frightening. A word Damian did not use often or lightly. Seeing Grayson like this was...wrong. Grayson should not be childish. He should not be so confused he saw Father in Damian. For one they were nowhere near the same height. For the other, well, Damian did not think himself worthy of being compared that closely with his Father yet. Perhaps ever. 

But it was more unsettling to see Grayson so helpless. So disarmed by this drug in his system. Damian did not like it, and he wished to right this wrong as soon as possible. He resolved himself to get the anti-toxin into Grayson’s veins now, no matter how the man fought him. 

Of course, that’s when he heard it. The creek of a footstep on the wood paneling in front of him. 

“Stay down.” Damian said, standing, then added, “Please.” 

He didn’t wait for Grayson to respond. Instead he spun on his heel, trading the syringe in his hand for a batarang. 

A few feet before him, Crane stopped in his tracks. Even illuminated by Damian's dim light he could see the man wore his typical scarecrow mask, and carried a scythe in between his palms. 

“Hello, Little Bird.” Crane sang, “I see you found your bat.” 

“Tt. He was not hard to miss.” Damian said, bracing himself. 

Crane hefted the scythe, pointing it towards them, “Of course. I was hoping you’d be a little more impacted by the sight and not run off so quickly. You’re a hard bird to frighten. Do you know how much toxin I pumped into that hallway earlier?” 

Damian shrugged, “I don’t care. In fact, I’ve had enough of your blabbering.” 

He threw one then two batarangs at Crane watching the man deflect one with the scythe, and dodge the other. 

Crane tsked him, stalking forward. “Not so fast, Bird Boy. I have a bone to pick with your mentor first.” 

“No.” Damian growled, brandishing a third batarang in his hands, “Keep moving and I will end you.” 

“Doubtful.” Crane said, his mask pulling up into a smirk, “Bats don’t kill.” 

“Batman doesn’t kill.” Damian corrected him, “You touch him again and I will not hesitate to take you down.” 

Crane chuckled, and took a step forward, only to yelp, then jerk as if he were being shocked. When he collapsed forward, Damian saw the source of his sudden strangeness. Batgirl stood, taser held forward, a blinding grin on her face. 

“I had it covered!” Damian protested. 

“You’re welcome.” she said, already moving to zip tie Scarecrow. 

“Tt.” Damian said, and opened his mouth to argue further, but was stopped by a hand on his ankle. 

“Damian?” 

He turned, and found Grayson leaned forward just enough he could grab Damian. He was looking confused, and concerned mouth turned down and eye worried. Damian’s heart skipped a beat. Grayson had heard him say he’d kill Crane. Damian would not break his promise, not with Grayson safely behind him, but he’d also been furious with Crane and ready to defend his Batman however he needed to. 

Dread pooled in his stomach. What if Grayson thought Damian serious? What if he--He did not have time to worry about that right now. They needed to get him home and taken care of. Batman’s health was his priority, not how he viewed Damian. 

“It’s alright.” Damian said, voice dropping back to a careful softness he hoped would soothe an toxin induced reactions, “We are leaving.” 

Damian knelt again by Grayson’s side, and began the process of trying to help him up. Thankfully, Brown was here. Once she’d finished with Crane, she added her own strength to Grayson’s other side, and together they carried him out of there. 

The exit was surprisingly close, and soon Damian was settled in the back of the Batmobile beside his Batman. While Brown drove, Damian held Grayson's hand and did his best to explain the rescue to his brother. At some point, however, Grayson passed out again, tilted over, and against Damian. It was not an unpleasant feeling being the one Grayson trusted enough to fall asleep against. 

Pennyworth took over when they got home, and Grayson was, mercifully, mostly fine. Bruised, battered, and unconscious, but he’d be fine. That knowledge eased some of the tension in Damian’s chest.

Both Grayson and Damian received doses of anti-toxin. The way it almost immediately started to make Damian feel better hinted that he'd been more effected than he'd first assumed. Damian would never voice it, but he was grateful for Brown's save. He wasn't sure how well he would have done in a true fight against Crane in that cramped hallway.

He showered quickly then planted himself at Grayson’s side, ignoring Pennyworth’s suggestion that he should lay down and rest his own bruised head while he waited for the anti-toxin to completely remove the lingering feelings of fear in his system. Sitting was just as good as laying, and this way he could keep an eye on his brother. Brown offered to stay, but Damian waved her upstairs along with Pennyworth. He’d be fine keeping an eye on Grayson, while they moved for a cup of victory cocoa, or tea in Pennyworth’s case. 

There was no victory for Damian tonight. Not until his brother woke up and he knew he was fine. 

Even being home, and not in the middle of some wild trap, Damian still couldn’t get over Grayson being so vulnerable. It was wrong. His Batman could be an idiot, but he was also competent and strong and worthy of respect. He was not helpless or so confused he viewed a child as Batman. 

So Damian held vigil. 

He played on his phone, opening up a mindless game he could pass the time with while still being able to keep one eye on his brother. Unfortunately, Damian ended up getting kind of wrapped up in a particularly hard level. It took a solid ten minutes for him to clear it, and when he looked up again it was into bright blue eyes, totally aware of where they were and who they were watching. Damian’s cheeks flushed. 

“Grayson.” he said, dropping his phone into his lap and straightening. 

As he did, his phone slipped off his thigh and smacked onto the floor with a loud thump. Damian stared down at it for a moment, briefly considering leaning down to pick it up. Instead he planted his fists in his lap and looked back up at Grayson.

“I am glad to see you have awoken.” 

His brother’s lips quirked into a wry smile, “You would have seen a bit earlier if you hadn’t been so focused on, Candy Crush?”

“Angry Birds.” Damian muttered, cheeks still hot. 

He leaned forward to examine his brother. He couldn’t say Grayson looked too much better, but the split skin on his forehead was cleaned and closed with a butterfly bandage, and his lips were looking less swollen. His expression, happy and open is what was truly improved. 

“You are looking better.” he said, “I’m glad.” 

“I’m feeling better.” Grayson responded, “Wanna give me a run down of what happened? My memory is spotty at best.” 

Damian kicked his feet up onto the bar on the bottom of his chair, “When you did not return by morning Brown and I began to make a plan for your rescue.” 

Grayson nodded, “You found me?” 

If his cheeks were not already red they would have blushed again, he shook his head, “Crane got the drop on me. I am not sure what he was planning, however it seems my intent on getting you out upset his plans.” 

“We were moving down a hallway--” Grayson stopped, his eyes widening, “Oh, Dames I’m sorry. I was the worst wasn’t I?” 

Damian tilted his head, “What do you mean?” 

“I kept seeing Bruce, and for some reason I was mad at him.” Grayson ran his hand through his hair, “That was you, right?” 

“You were not too much trouble.” Damian shrugged, “In fact you may have helped prevent Crane successfully sneaking up on us again. In the end, Brown saved us both.” 

He wanted to ask if Grayson remembered the actual confrontation, but at the same time Damian was not sure he wanted to know. He almost squirmed, but held back. Robin did not squirm. 

“Thanks for coming after me.” Grayson said, reaching a hand out to Damian. 

After a moment, Damian took it. 

“I am glad you are okay.” he said, “I--did not like seeing you injured.” 

“I bet. You sounded pretty angry.” 

Damian wasn’t sure how to respond. He tapped his heel on the wood under his foot. 

Grayson squeezed his hand, “It was sweet, you threatening him.” 

“You--” Damian spoke before he thought about it. 

“I?”  

He swallowed, “You did not think I was serious, right?” 

“You promised me you wouldn’t kill, right? I believed you then, and now.” 

Damian nodded, “Of course. He should not have hurt you.” he added, again losing the words before he thought about them. 

Grayson slipped his hand out of Damian’s to reach up and brush it through Damian’s hair. 

“You either.” 

“Tt, do not be so sentimental. It is foolish.” 

There was that smile again, “I think I have the right to be sentimental. My baby brother and basically little sister came running to my rescue.” 

Grayson reached for Damian’s hands with both of his, “In fact, I’ll be a little more sentimental.” he pulled Damian forward, “Join me? I’m tired and I don’t want to be alone. Plus I doubt Alfred’s going to let me trek upstairs until at least tomorrow.” 

Damian rolled his eyes, but allowed himself to be tugged forward, “Fine.” he relented, “but only because Robin must make sure Batman rests properly.” 

[hufflepuffhermione]

43 for the prompts? Thanks :)

Prompt: “I feel like I can’t breathe.”

Am I overly emotion about the parallels between Rosslyn and Gaza? Absolutely. So what can I do but make everyone else partake in my suffering?

You never really realize the things you take for granted until suddenly they’re stolen from you.

Breath, for one.

Josh wonders if he’d ever given his breathing a second thought before all of this. Maybe during all those meetings with Hoynes jogging along the Potomac, but even his gasps for air were unconsciously displaced by his mind going a million miles a minute on policy or strategy. Maybe, further back, when he had played the trumpet in his high school band for all of three weeks, until he realized that it reminded him too much of Joanie and quit without a word in hopes that he might remember less. They had told him to be consciously aware of his breathing back then, in the hot, windowless band room filled with kids who didn’t appreciate the music the way Joanie did. Maybe the last time he consciously considered his breathing was even before then, when he had been all of eight and his lungs had been filled with smoke and he hadn’t been able to stop coughing. But even then, it hadn’t been something he thought about; he had been too consumed with watching everything he knew in life go down in flames and trying to find Joanie within the chaos. He had failed her, but he could still breathe, so how could he complain about his own shortness of breath when there was no longer air in Joanie’s lungs?

But now? Breathing is about all he can think about.

His pain medication has worn off just enough to allow him to drift into consciousness, so the pain is not awful, at least not compared to how it was when he drifted off however many hours ago. The medication, however, is not at all effective in disgusting the tightness in his chest, or the shallowness of his breath, or the lightheadedness he feels because he’s definitely not getting enough oxygen.

It takes him a minute to realize why everything feels so off, but when he focuses enough to realize just how difficult it is to breathe, he begins to panic. His breaths grow even faster and shallower, and one of the many monitors begins to beep incessantly, and his mind is too addled by drugs to notice Donna until she comes to stand over him and clutches the hand that doesn’t have IV tubes coming out of it. “What’s wrong?” she asks.

He blinks back tears. Where did those come from? In the two days since he woke up from his surgery, he hasn’t cried at all. If he had the capacity to be embarrassed or frustrated, he would have been, but he can’t think about anything else than his struggle to get air into his lungs.

“I feel like I can’t breathe,” he whispers. His voice is still raspy from the ventilator that he was on during surgery; this is probably the longest sentence he’s spoken since he woke up.

“I know,” Donna says. “Your lung collapsed and they had to repair it, that’s why.” She squeezes his hand.

He looks up at her with panicked desperation.

“I called the nurse,” Donna continues. Josh is reassured by the sounds of her voice; if she keeps talking, maybe the panic of breathlessness will go away. “They said they might need to switch you to an oxygen mask for a little while. But that’s okay, it’ll help you breathe better. Just breathe with me if you can.”

Josh still can’t do anything but stare at her. He’s not sure that she’s gone home since he was shot; his memory is still fuzzy, but he thinks the clothes she is wearing are the same that he saw when he first woke. He wonders how long it’s been. She has bags under her eyes and her hair is pulled back in a ponytail, a tell-tale sign that she hasn’t washed it in a while, but in his drugged mind, she’s never been more beautiful. Her chest rises and falls steadily, and unconsciously, he tries to match her breathing. He can’t exactly, since something in his chest keeps hitching and he keeps beginning to hyperventilate, but as long as he keeps focused on watching her breathe, it suddenly doesn’t seem so hard to get air into his lungs.

A nurse comes in and checks his oxygen levels, frowning as she moves around her bed. “Mr. Lyman, are you having trouble breathing?”

Josh summons all the energy he can to nod.

“He woke up and started to panic and I think that’s making it worse,” Donna explains, still not letting go of Josh’s hand.

The nurse nods and moves around the bed. “Your O2 levels are low, so I’m going to switch you to an oxygen mask, okay?”

He feels like he’s about to drift off again, too tired to fight against his breathlessness, when the removal of his cannula suddenly makes it even harder to fight for oxygen. The difficulty is relieved quickly after by the placement of an oxygen mask covering his nose and mouth, but this induces a sense of claustrophobia that seems to increase the panic rather than relieve it.

“Josh,” he hears, and he thinks it’s coming from Donna but his brain is so fuzzy he can’t quite be sure. “I know it’s hard, but can you keep breathing with me?” She takes in a loud, deep breath and exhales slowly. “Just try to breathe with me.”

It’s a little easier now that he has more oxygen, and as he focuses on matching Donna’s breathing, he can begin to feel the panic melt away.

She reaches out to stroke his sweat-beaded forehead. “It’s going to get easier,” she says. “I promise. We’re just going to breathe through it.”

-

Donna blinks against the light steaming in through the blinds. God, she aches everywhere, although her leg throbs with a vengeance unmatched by the rest of her body. But worse than any of that is the tightness in her chest, the difficulty of getting air into her lungs.

She reaches for the morphine clicker and presses the button; she’s not sure how long she’s been out, but surely it’s been long enough for her to have another dose.

That won’t help with the breathing, though.

She looks to the figure in the chair by her bed. He’s asleep in a position which cannot possibly be comfortable, but he’s here. How is he here, all the way in Germany? He shouldn’t be here, he should be in DC. Surely the President needs him.

But Josh is here.

It takes a minute for her to remember that he had been here before, too, the minute she had first woken up. How had he managed that? Why did he bother?

She tries to take in another breath, but starts coughing instead, a painful, sharp cough that seems to tear at her insides.

Josh is up in an instant, on his feet, his eyes meeting hers. “Donna,” he says, and she’s certain she’s never heard her name spoken so softly, so reverently. “Donna, do you need something?”

“I feel…” she stars, and it strikes her just how difficult it is to get the words out when she doesn’t have enough breath, “I feel like I can’t breathe.”

Josh’s face falls, but he tries to disguise it as best he can. “Yeah. They said you’ve got a collapsed lung, that’s why it’s so hard to breathe,” he said. “It’s not too bad, though; you didn’t need surgery for it and it’ll reinflate in the next few days.” He cracks a smile at her, although she can tell it’s taking everything in him. “If your goal was to outdo me, Donnatella, I think I’ve got you beat since they had to go in and patch up my lung when it collapsed.”

Donna manages a ghost of a smile, but it disappears when she tries to take in another breath and feels like she can’t get any air.

Noting the distress on her face, Josh takes her hand. “Hey, it’s going to be okay, alright? I know better than anyone how much this sucks. It’ll suck for a few days or weeks, and it might even feel worse when they bring in a respiratory therapist to torture you, but I’m not going to let you slack off on your breathing exercises because you never let me.”

Josh settles himself on the side of the bed, deciding the chair is not nearly close enough. He still hasn’t shaved and his pallor might best be described as ‘gray’, and Donna wonders if she looked that bad after spending days without leaving the hospital when their roles were reversed. Her thoughts are interrupted again by the panic rising up in her when she tries to take a deep breath.

“Hey, I know you don’t think I remember this,” Josh continues, “but when I woke up and couldn’t breathe, you did it for me. Not literally, but you told me to breathe with you and that kept me calm enough to avoid completely panicking. So I’m going to breathe in and out slowly, and try your best to do it with me. It might hurt and you might not be able to do it, and that’s okay, but here.” He takes a sharp, loud inhale, and follows it with a slow exhale. “Breathe through it, Donna. It’s going to be okay.”

-

Having a private office to change in is really quite a step up from changing in the dingy West Wing bathrooms. She’s wearing a new dress, one Josh gave her at Christmas (although she suspects he might have asked CJ for some help picking it out). She notices, with a tug of her heart, that the slit goes up the left side of the dress, and it is otherwise not short enough to reveal her scars. That, she’s sure, was something that Josh thought of.

The first state dinner of the Santos administration is upon them, with the Prime Minister of Germany as the guest of honor. She knows Josh is a little nervous about the event—he had a run-in with the Prime Minister back when he was Deputy Chief of Staff that did not go so well—but he’s matured and she hopes that all will be forgotten.

She pulls on her heels, takes a minute to steady herself, and heads towards Josh’s office. One of these days, she’ll make him come over to her office so she doesn’t have to make this trek in heels, but she knows that he’s barely got time to breathe, let alone walk across the building.

Donna knocks on the door to his office and enters, grinning as she does.

He holds up a finger without even looking up to see who it is. “Sorry, just gotta finish reading this,” he mutters.

She rolls her eyes, but allows an indulgent smile that he won’t see. He works so hard, but he really is trying to make time for her. He’s already dressed in his tuxedo, although his jacket is lying on the couch in the corner, and his bowtie is, unsurprisingly, hanging undone around his neck.

Finally, he stands up from his desk and really begins to take her in. “Donna, you look…” He shakes his head, and clutches his hands to his chest dramatically, collapsing back into the chair. “God, Donna, I feel like I can’t breathe?”

“What? What’s wrong?” Donna asks immediately, her mind running through all of the horrific possibilities before she can manage to notice that he has a smile on his face. “Is it your lungs? Your heart? Josh…” She realizes she’s standing right next to him, clutching his hand, and he’s grinning up at her.

“I was going to say, I feel like I can’t breathe because you take my breath away, but you didn’t let me get that far,” Josh replies, chuckling.

Donna frowns. “You were so dramatic about it, I thought…”

“What can I say? I enjoy being a little dramatic from time to time.”

“It’s just… Josh, don’t do that to me again. You scared me?”

His face softens. “I scared you?”

“I don’t know, it’s just… the last time you said that was after you’d been shot, and I thought…” she shakes her head as if the memory will dissipate. “And then you were clutching your chest…” She doesn’t want to think about it anymore, but there’s a part of her that will never not be worried about him.

Josh stands up and wraps his arms around her. “I’m sorry, I really wasn’t trying to scare you.”

“I know,” Donna says.

“The compliment still stands, though. You look incredible in that dress,” he says. “I mean, I think you’d look even better out of it, but I’m not sure the Prime Minister of Germany would agree with me.”

Donna reaches to his shoulders and takes the ends of his bowtie in her hands. “Need me to do this?”

“Always,” Josh replies.

She steps back and takes a look at her handiwork. “You know, once in a while, you look good enough to take my breath away too. In the best way possible.”

“I can think of another way to take your breath away,” Josh says, reaching forward to take her face in his hands and kiss her until they both have to come up for air. “Was that good?”

“All of a sudden, I think I like feeling like I can’t breathe,” Donna teases, before going back for more.

[senju-sekhmet]

The Leash (Part 11)

Summary: Your rescue was supposed to be as smooth as these missions can be. However very quickly, Tobirama faces off against an enemy that has no form, color or smell - and time is running short, very fast. Unless he figures out what truly holds you hostage, your life will be lost. Warnings (for the finished work): Blood, illness, descriptions of heavy injuries and graphic violence, torture (both depicted and implied), needles, morally grey territory, human experimentation, panic attacks, character death, angst with a happy ending ~6000 words (this chapter, finished work: 80.000) Previous: Part 1; Part 2; Part 3; Part 4; Part 5; Part 6; Part 7; Part 8; Part 9; Part 10 Read on AO3!   Disclaimer below the cut!

DISCLAIMER! Part two of the finale! More to go after this though as you can tell, stay with me <3 Other than that: enjoy my very self indulgent work, filled with my own headcanons and angst galore. Let me know what you think and thank you so much for reading!!!! ________

Tobirama was nothing if not dutiful. The time for your last dose had come faster than he wanted to. And he’d be there to administer it. He made sure to look more presentable before he entered your rooming using the hiraishin seal. What for, he didn’t know anymore. It didn’t matter, did it? Failure was certain, anyway. Perhaps it was for decency. Or maybe he needed the moment to recover. He was too numb. Spent from the breakdown. The short minute he spent at your shared home - that already screamed mute guilt at him - to wash off his smeared facial paint and reapply it before teleporting to your room.

You were in your bed, perfectly still. At peace. Of course. You couldn’t take any withdrawal anymore, at all - your body was too exhausted. To think this was how you’d pass - a shadow of your former self, at the limit of what you could take, physically, in every sense. You had fought a gruesome, cruel battle, gave it your everything, and now? Now, it was all for nothing. The sorrow flared again in a most painful way.

You won’t even hear his words.

He wouldn't even get to say goodbye.

Dazedly he strode closer to your bed, silently wondering where Hashirama was. He’d surely be here in a moment, he barely left your side. Your condition wouldn’t allow it - although with the seals covering your pale skin, you were stable, at least stable enough to allow him to tend to other duties, briefly. So long as the withdrawal didn’t kick in. He seized the moment while it presented itself like this.

He wouldn’t get another.

His eyes prickled again as he shuffled closer to your side. Briefly, he sat down on the side of your bed like he always had done when nobody else was around - but soon, the ache in his chest pulled him down onto his knees on the floor, by your side. The tightness inside was yet expanding and stealing his breath viciously as he wheezed past his clenched teeth for more air. Looking at you - your content face, the way your chest moved evenly albeit too fast - weak maybe but alive - it was tearing him apart. He didn’t know how to even exist with the grief that was seizing him faster than a fire ate up dry parchment.

His shaking hands reached for your cold, slender one, enclosing it in his, slowly bringing it to his face as he nearly buckled over it. Already, his chakra expanded to cover your network gently, coating it, wrapping around it in an utmost tender way. Tears welled just as the sorrow overflowed inside of him, like a barrel that was full and kept being poured in. The moment was sheer agony and yet he didn’t want it to end - to let go - because that would be the end.

Very tenderly he increased the connection to examine you, briefly - you still wouldn’t respond, but that was normal. You hadn’t woken in a couple of days during what was your lucid interval because you simply were too strained - Tobirama wondered if you could at all, really. The exhaustion was too great. Still, his examination found you were no better nor worse than the last time he performed it - your body was heavily impacted by each time the withdrawal had wreaked havoc inside, particularly your lung and heart were affected. At the same time the seals steadily streamed their support into you to keep your blood pressure up, your airways free, your attacked organs functioning. Not to mention the many wounds from the torture that had not been healing as you had been fighting for dear life. There wasn’t a part of you that wasn’t affected in some way, damaged, dysfunctional - critical, but not so that it couldn’t be helped.

It was, just like they had judged, a narrow edge they had been teetering.

And now it would tilt. The delicate balance they had managed to uphold, all they had done-

“I’m so sorry,” Tobirama finally spoke, his voice but a broken, haunted whisper. The baritone wrecked by guilt and sorrow alike, entirely unlike him and yet with an utter tenderness, reserved for you and your ears only. “I’m so sorry, Y/n.” Tears still flowed. “I’ve given it my all, my love. I couldn’t do it. I had it - I thought I had it - but in the last moment, it eluded me,” he continued, slowly cracking more by his sobs. “My failure will cost you everything,” he was practically wheezing now. “And I will never forgive myself for it. The void inside of me won’t ever be filled.” He paused for a moment to take a few shaking breaths, stroking over your forearm as he still cradled your hand to his face, rocking back and forth on his knees now. 

“Please, forgive me, for I’ll never be able to.”

He didn’t know how much time had passed when he heard the door being opened. He needn’t tune into his sensory skills to know it was Hashirama, only his brother carried the gargantuan aura about himself.

His steps froze the moment he realised Tobirama’s pose. “What are you doing?”

Tobirama didn’t move nor open his eyes. He didn’t want to break the connection with you. He’d savour every single second that he had left with you. With a numb voice, he explained the result of his last experiment to his brother, his final findings, their implications.

During it, Hashirama got on his knees by Tobirama’s side, an arm flung around him in comfort. ________

The clinking of metal armor echoed through the corridors of the interrogation and information headquarters. Two fully equipped shinobi made their way down the hall. One of them carried an odachi in front of his chest with both hands - sheathed. For now. They were given respectful nods and salutes where they passed members of the unit, but nobody questioned their purpose nor their destination. After a left turn they were greeted by a burly man with stern, pale eyes and two more members of the unit, all dressed in a black uniforms. Only curt greetings were exchanged before they descended the winding staircase down into the cell block. 

Their appearance gathered attention immediately. A rumble clattered through the bleak prison, growing with each cell block they passed. They needn’t go far. It was the middle cell block where they intended to go.

The prisoner’s gaze swept up as the group of five halted in front of his cell. Recognition flashed in his gaze, followed by laughter that carried an eerie sense of finality. “It happened, finally?”

Nobody answered. The burly man unlocked the door to enter with his two subordinates. The prisoner flashed a toothy grin, aimed precisely at one of the armed shinobi, namely the one carrying the odachi. “I’ve won,” he sneered, “I’ve fucking won, I’ve told you!” - his voice was a hoarse shout in the end, strained by the pain of a broken jaw. The three interrogators made quick work of the chains that held him tightly wrapped in the middle of the cell to ready him for transportation, arms still secured and legs only allowed a minimum of movement to walk.

The two armored shinobi watched them entirely impassively, showing not even a shred of emotion. 

The prisoner’s manic laughter echoed off the prison’s wall forlornly, hauntingly. An utterly broken sound of defiance only a certain kind person would have.

A shrill scream broke through the dismal setting. “You fucking idiot! I hope you rot in hell!” - the woman of the far end. Nobody paid attention to her.

The group made their way down the corridor that was only illuminated by a few candles along the way, passing the stairway they had taken down. The prisoner kept chattering. His voice carried a slight tremble now, “How did she die? Tell me, come on. I’ve never actually seen it, but I learned it’s fucking gruesome in the end,” his eyes were alight with sick pleasure.

The shinobi dressed in blue battle armor adorned with a white fur collar gripped the odachi so hard his knuckles turned white. His back was turned towards the prisoner, he couldn’t see the way his face scrunched under his happuri.

Nobody answered him.

He kept jabbering along incessantly. At some point the tone had taken on a perfectly fine frantic edge. Blubbering, almost, to himself. Eventually, they reached a door the burly man unlocked. The room beyond was dark but lit up as soon as they entered. No windows were inside, just like in the prison block, but no seals adorned these walls. This room was entirely bleak save for dark, crimson stains on the stone floor in the middle of the room.

The subordinates dragged the prisoner into that very center. With an ungraceful kick to the back of his knees, he was brought to kneel. The two shinobi stood in front of him and the man in the red armor crossed his arms. His expression was sorrowful, moved. But the taut line of his jaw and the coldness of his gaze betrayed no lightness about this situation.

“Zenji of the Stone Village,” he began somberly as the three interrogation unit members lined up behind their prisoner who now was wheezing on a low tune, his stare fixated on the harbinger of his fate. “The actions of your unit have endangered our borders, the civilians who live there and ultimately,” he paused meaningfully to take a deep breath - the stone cold tone cracked a little, pained lines wrinkled his smooth face. “Cost the life of one of our own.”

Immediately, Zenji’s mien lit up. He grinned widely, but he did not give the red-armored man another glance. Instead, his gaze was trained on the figure in blue, whose scarlet eyes were murderous as he stared him down, face framed by his happuri and finely applied facial paint. He looked spotless. Zenji cackled again.

“I do not wish for there to be more bloodshed,” the shinobi continued, entirely unperturbed by the behavior of the prisoner. “However our village can and will not condone these actions with idleness nor continue to nurture an enemy we cannot possibly ever release. Your kage,” Zenji’s head snapped back to the red-armored man momentarily. “Made clear he is not interested in an exchange of prisoners.”

The room became completely silent.

“I bear no revenge nor joy, but as the Hokage of Konoha, I’m here to tell you that you have been sentenced to death.”

The blue armored man stepped closer now, odachi still tightly clasped, but the man in the red armor raised his hand slightly, prompting him to stop and give him an irritated stare.

Zenji’s ragged breaths came wheezing so loudly they echoed off the walls as his wide eyes stared at the man, motionless besides the fight for oxygen.

Hashirama regarded the prisoner with the same cold gaze he had been wearing all the time. “Do you wish to speak one last time?”

That was his clue. Zenji threw his head back to release a long groan, each breath transforming more and more into a chuckle. A disconcerting lull settled over the room as it died down with a sense of finality and his eyes locked with Tobirama’s. “Oh, I fucking do,” he began, grinning widely. “To him. It’s my last wish.”

Tobirama’s eyes narrowed and he clenched his teeth, giving no verbal answer. Hashirama did instead. “Very well.”

Zenji cocked his head. “Tell me, how did you fail? What part of the leash didn’t you copy? I want to know.”

Tobirama’s eyes closed slowly and his jaw worked visibly. “Anjia…,” he began slowly, his deep voice so low it was barely more than a strained growl.

“Answer him, Tobirama. A dying man’s wish should not be denied.” Hashirama’s tone left no room for discussion.

Tobirama’s eyes opened again to give Zenji a glance of sheer hatred, his nostrils flared, scarlet glare ablaze. He did not even attempt to hide the fury in his voice as he spoke. If he spat the words out any more in fact, they’d be lost in the rage. “I created a leash of my own and tethered Kimi to it. However…,” he worked hard to find the next words, Zenji’s grin widened already, likely in anticipation for the best part of the story, “... it would appear my sealing technique differs from yours, if just slightly.”

The prisoner burst into laughter, Tobirama flinched. The sheathed odachi trembled slightly from the force he held it with. “I fucking knew it! Ah,” he replied when he had gained a grip on himself again. “The seal. The master’s finishing touch. Unique, really.” Zenji wriggled his eyebrow in a manner that prompted Tobirama to bare his teeth slightly. “I knew you wouldn’t be able to copy mine. Ha!”

Hashirama cleared his throat. 

But Zenji was not yet finished. “I’m not a liar though, y’know? I keep my promises,” the grin now was sickening. Gloating. Zenji cherished this moment as though he was an actor on a grand stage. Living it to its fullest. “And I promised to tell you everything once Y/n croaked, so here we are.”

Tobirama exhaled a wheezing breath as he stepped closer abruptly, Hashirama’s hand shooting up instantly to lay on his shoulder guard. “Brother, please,” he whispered, turning towards him slightly. Then the cold stare was back on Zenji. “You need not besmirch your Village’s secrets now.”

“Ah, ah,” Zenji sneered, “Why the fuck should I care? I’m as good as dead anyway, and I want to teach Konoha’s best scientist how he could have saved his oh so beloved.” His voice dripped with caustic smugness and Hashirama had to grip Tobirama’s forearm lest his brother shot forward and delivered the sentence just for these words alone.

Tobirama’s expression was one of sheer murder. His teeth were bared and the scarlet gaze alone was ready to kill a man - just like the rest of himself, particularly the large weapon he carried; the same weapon he had used many times before.

Zenji continued to live his show. “Now I needn’t explain the weaving process since you kinda copied it - well fucking done, man - but my seal - ah, let’s see. My seal is relatively simple!” Hashirama’s grip on his brother tightened as he near vibrated with lethal energy still, spurring Zenji to even greater extravagance. “Of course, it was passed down to me by the one who taught me, but I made some modifications,” he drawled lazily, an adventurous glint to his gaze. 

What followed was a detailed explanation about the intricacy and yet simplicity of his own sealing process Tobirama couldn’t stomach anymore - he turned away lest he drove the odachi through the prisoner’s neck on the spot, perhaps. It was impossible to tell in the dim light - the shadow looming over his face hid his expression well and with the happuri, his profile was somewhat obscured. Only the taut stance, the clenched grasp on his weapon were telltale signs of the high-strung situation - a tight coil, ready to lash out any second. 

Zenji didn’t hold back on information about how exactly he performed the seal that made the disruption stick within the leash - everyone else listened quietly. Hashirama’s mien had turned stony throughout it and the three members of the interrogation unit simply watched the man with practiced nonchalance. 

“And that,” Zenjia finished his grand, final play, “is what could’ve saved Y/n. Too fucking bad.” The grin he wore was nothing short of sick. “Maybe I can tell her too, when I’m dead, hm?”, he tilted his head.

Suffocating silence befell the room.

Hashirama cleared his throat. It was time for the execution of judgement, literally. He turned his head towards Tobirama, whose back was turned towards the prisoner at this point. “Very well,” he concluded with a loaded kind of finality.

A few moments of heavy silence later, Tobirama turned around.

His head was tilted downwards slightly, shadows cast over his face.

Then he looked up.

Smirking broadly.

He lowered the odachi that he had clasped so tightly throughout all of the conversation - more like, Zenji’s soliloquy, and stepped yet again closer to the prisoner.

The smirk became smug, and smugness became condescending as skin around his mouth wrinkled in an utterly arrogant way. There was a satisfied, bright glint in his scarlet gaze. “You are without a doubt the dumbest shinobi I’ve ever encountered,” finally, he bared his teeth in a wide grin. “And for that I thank you from the bottom of my heart.” His baritone voice dripped with sarcasm.

Zenji’s expression fell apart. His jaw hung open slightly and his gaze was wide as he tried to process the change of demeanour in who he deemed by now his arch nemesis. “What the fuck?”, he spat out finally when Tobirama didn’t speak again.

He simply clicked his tongue sympathetically and arched both eyebrows. “Y/n is not dead. In fact, thanks to you, she will live.” Both relief and caustic smugness were tangible in the way he worded this, no doubt basking in the moment of figuratively crushing Zenji under his heel. Who still didn’t find the words to answer yet, but Tobirama was more than happy to supply him with more fodder. “Certainly, time was running quite short - almost, imagine, almost - you could’ve won.”

Zenji’s jaw trembled beside the pain that must cause him alongside the rest of him. The man still hadn’t found his words again.

Tobirama wasn’t done with the verbal execution, however. “I truly did not know how to copy your seal after creating my own.” A slow nod, his baritone voice now came rolling smoothly, “And then it occurred to me - why not use your petty thirst for revenge for Y/n? All it’d take was make you believe she died. And here we are,” a smile  spread over his lips again. “You delivered perfectly.” Then, he had the audacity to give Zenji a single pat on the head as though he was praising a dog.

The prisoner recoiled from the touch as though it was scalding hot. “Fuck you!” he screamed from the top of his lungs, nearly tipping over from his kneeling position, had it not been for Ikuro’s hand shooting out to secure him by the shoulder. “Rot in fucking hell, Senju!” he howled, but it was no more than a little bandaid for the hurt pride.

Tobirama already turned around to Hashirama, any trace of smugness or gloating gone from his expression. “I’ll get to work. Thank you, anija,” he dipped his head slightly. Zenji was still shouting profanities at him, but it was no more than a background noise.

Hashirama smiled broadly, much more like himself. “Of course.”

Tobirama turned back to Ikuro and his subordinates. Now, he actually took a slight bow. “And thank you, too. There still is little more to be done, but I’m very grateful for your support.” 

Ikuro had already wrestled an unruly Zenji off of the floor, but the burly man wore a wide grin. “I - no, we will be expecting you. Right, Zenji? Come on, let’s get you back to your compatriots. They’ll be glad to see you again,” he finished with a dangerous chuckle.

The sounds already drowned out as Tobirama initiated the hiraishin seal teleport to the laboratory.

You only had a few hours left.

_______

You were suspended in sweet nothingness.

You had been for a while really, perturbed only by occasional nightmares. They were dim and far away, visions of what had been. Maybe. You weren’t sure anymore. 

It hadn’t been like this before. Before, your world had been on fire. You had been on fire. Being burned from the inside out and yet too powerless to scream out your agony at the world. Something - someone - had chained you up in the nothingness with no company except your torment that you suffered through, over and over again. Until it faded, and the nightmares came. You laughed about those now. Then, all was calm. For a while.

Your reason for going through all this was becoming but an abstract concept.

Until you weren’t even sure anymore what might be happening. Dimly, you remembered your strength leaving you - waking up was getting harder, eventually it was tantamount to the one armed climbing exercises you used to steel yourself with. You actually had been able to pull off something like that?

Tobirama had been by your side every waking second. His face; you’d never forget the expression. Never before had you seen him haunted by distress of this kind while his chakra warmly embraced you, while he comforted you - telling you he was working hard. You had wanted to comfort him in turn, then. He needed it more than you - he hadn’t looked fine. Drawn, worn out.

Unwell. Sick, almost.

Things must be looking very bad, you knew then. It reminded you why you went through all this. But you all were losing the fight, it seemed?

No matter how much you fought, how badly you wanted to - during the phases in which you weren’t suffering from being burned alive nor haunted by nightmares, you couldn’t wake anymore. You wanted to. So badly. But your eyes wouldn’t open and ultimately, the darkness was your lonely repose in which you anxiously waited for the next time the fire began to light up again.

But that had been fading. The fire’s burn was becoming shorter. And your consciousness was slipping more. Sometimes, you thought you felt Tobirama’s presence, but maybe that was wishful thinking.

Eventually it was just you and forlorn nothingness with the occasional nightmare. 

Had you died?

It changed. The fire returned once more - and this time, this time it felt as though you were burning away. Not like before - when it burned you out until someone snuffed out the flames - now, it consumed your very being. It became so great at some point, pain was all you were - nothing besides the scorch of the fire that ate you alive.

You realised then, this must be it - every moment more of you faded and the pain kept on roaring through every single cell of your body. But you - you were becoming duller and duller. You didn’t want to. Not yet - this wasn’t how you were going to go down, was it? Yet the promise of eternal rest after this, all of this pain - it was alluring. After all you’ve been through, was there really a point in returning?

Tobirama would choke you personally if he ever caught on to these thoughts.

But he’s not here, is he? 

You were all alone.

Ready to go. You had fought, you had tried, you had walked the road to hell many times over but eventually even your stamina would forego you.

Except they didn’t let you go. Something - no, someone was holding you back. Any time you were dipping into the part of darkness you just knew there was no returning from, there was a pull. It was forceful, unpleasant - a jolt that might have spurred your heart to keep on beating, your lungs to draw air and each organ of your body to keep on functioning. 

You wanted to reject it.

I don’t want to, anymore. I can’t. I just can’t. It hurts too much. Please.

They didn’t let you.

You wanted to cry.

You were suspended in nothingness by titan chains that forcefully kept you right on your very own pyre while pain was becoming you.

_______

He didn’t want to take any chances. But he didn’t have time, either. Tobirama had no choice but to follow the information Zenji had given as dutifully as possible and hope this was it - that the bottle of leash he had crafted was identical to what Zenji would have produced. Really, it was an all out move. His back was against the proverbial wall while yours lowered more and more into a coffin.

You were going into withdrawal again, and he knew what that meant.

Never before had he woven the leash this fast - frankly working with a larger quantity of base substance seemed to make the whole process easier, and yet at the same time more demanding. Not that he felt any of it, he was focusing entirely on getting this done as fast as possible. Once he was satisfied with the result - enough to give it to you that was, which was about the highest standard he could think of - he teleported straight into your room.

Where his brother was bent over your sweating, and shaking body as his palms glowed lightly.

The rattle of your breath - Tobirama knew it well. He had heard it many times before.

A dying person’s breath.

“I’ve got it,” Tobirama whispered as his heart spasmed alongside your flat rasps for air. Blood rushed in his ears and ice-cold through his veins. He struggled to keep the floor under his feet as he staggered closer swiftly. He wouldn’t lose you now. Not after all this, not with the solution to your demise in his hands.

Hashirama didn’t even answer him; his expression was wrinkled by deep concentration and a fine sheen of sweat had formed on his forehead.

Numbly, Tobirama plucked the vial with Zenji’s - his - leash from his pocket and effortlessly opened your mouth. Your skin was icy to the touch and so pale, were it not for your faint chakra signature, he’d have thought you dead already.

The image branded itself into his mind, scarring him forever.

He poured the leash in and tilted your head back so it’d run down your pharynx, giving your scalp a trembling stroke with his hand.

With prickling eyes, he moved to bend over you, place his palms on you as well to assist his brother in healing - no, in keeping you alive. As soon as he established the connection needed for examining and healing, the reality of your condition rolled over him like a boulder. Your body’s reaction to the withdrawal was as violent as ever, just like the substance that was causing it. A proverbial bushfire that had spread throughout all of you. Hashirama wasn’t just stabilizing you alongside the seals - he was taking aggressive action to keep you alive. There wasn’t a part of you he wasn’t actively pouring his own chakra in to keep on working. Were it not for him, you’d be long gone already - in his brother’s chakra’s embrace you’d stay alive, barely, so long as he forced your body to keep on going, and going. Tobirama was positive you were well beyond what you could take any more in terms of another person’s chakra. 

The alternative was you dying. 

It was another problem they’d deal with later. Swiftly, he began to assist his brother to split up the efforts evenly and try to keep you alive to the best of his abilities.

The next moments felt like an eternity.

Work. Work already. It was all Tobirama could think of while his chakra bolstered your failing heart to keep it on pumping, wound through your lungs into the tiniest alveoles to clear them of fluid and repair tissue damage so that you might breathe.

Just work.

Agonizingly slowly, the drug was taking effect. Already, your chakra began to clog, freeze - the muting component hit your network exactly like the leash would.

Tobirama thought time and his heart both froze in the next few moments that surely decided your fate.

The withdrawal’s flame died down and fizzled out as though water had been poured over it.

Time was starting again.

He started to breathe once more. Before he realised it, he sank to his knees at the side of your bed. He couldn’t focus any more, he barely felt the wheezes that escaped him as a few heavy sobs wrecked his torso.

He had done it. Finally.

The oppressing feeling of time running out - the rock that had been crushing him was lifted.

But the elevation did not last long.

Reality - the parts that weren’t circling around the fact you were at least not going to die due to a lack of the leash - very quickly yanked him back to the situation at hand. Already, he dragged himself up again to aid Hashirama once more, who had not once broken focus. They had stopped the destructive withdrawal, true enough; but the damages it had wrought were not gone of course. Swiftly he gathered himself to concentrate back on aiding his brother in keeping you alive, really, a task no less dire than before. Rather, it was time to tip the scales into the opposite direction now.

He couldn’t say how long the two of them sat in silence, simply forcing you to keep going by continuously pouring their chakra into you.

He wouldn’t lose you - not now, not after everything you both had gone through.

He wouldn’t let you go.

Bit by bit, your body started to function more and more on its own - requiring less of the forceful aid both brothers were providing. That wasn’t to say you were becoming stable at all - tentatively, Hashirama would nudge Tobirama to withdraw some, only to watch you relapse quickly.

As it was, your condition remained critical.

Some time later, his brother allowed himself a momentary almost-break. Hashirama hummed deeply. “She’s well into chakra overload now,” he announced somberly, gazing at your face. “However we can’t stop yet.”

Tobirama’s attention was still mostly turned inwards and towards you as he did the brunt of the work so his brother could catch a breath. There wasn’t a part of you his chakra wasn’t aiding in some way; all he managed was a brief grunt of agreement.

Effectively, chakra overload wasn’t much different than a late allergic reaction of the body to the procedures a medic nin had performed. The extend of what a patient could take and experienced varied from how well-versed the healer was - and Tobirama knew his brother’s skills to be capable of healing fatal wounds without sending the person into overload - but your system barely had been able to catch a break from the agonizingly long time of capture, torture and what effectively just served to keep you alive for more torture. And then of course, all that had followed back home, in Konoha.

But what they had been doing to you for who knew how long?

That was as good as keeping defying death itself.

Hashirama sighed deeply. “I suppose we have no other choice anyway. The next few hours will be decisive.”

An ice-cold shiver ran down Tobirama’s spine, disrupting his strained focus momentarily. 

Of course. They couldn’t keep on going like this forever - and neither would you endlessly, readily respond to what they did.

Either you’d start pulling your own weight again, or…

Tobirama swallowed heavily.

Silently, Hashirama’s efforts picked up again alongside his own to stabilise you.

_________

Tobirama had thought weaving the leash was about one of the most straining things he had done. But like so often these last few days, he had been wrong - cradling your very life with his proverbial hands was wrecking him a lot more for numerous reasons - the least of which was the exhaustion setting in.

Because if one thing was keeping him going, it was his determination - he wouldn’t, he couldn’t lose you, not now, not after all this.

Slowly, they had begun to lessen the intensity of the aid they provided and watched whether you relapsed into a more severe state or not. If you did, they settled back to the previous level - and waited again. A tedious procedure, but there was no other way.

Eventually, the time you managed without any aid from him or Hashirama had increased substantially - naturally, the seals on your body still were working strongly, though.

Both were now standing next to your bed, an eerie silence had filled the room, save for your flat, strained breaths.

Hashirama spoke first. “I don’t want to say this is over, yet,” he announced somberly. His mien was drawn, tired. His brother had his limits - keeping someone alive for hours pushed even him. Something told Tobirama he still could have kept on going, though. “Though we will watch now. Her overload is very severe. If she makes the next hours well enough…” He trailed off, giving Tobirama what best could be described as a sad glance.

Tobirama didn’t know what he felt anymore. In these last hours he felt just about any kind of extreme emotion - utter heartbreak, loss, sorrow, murderous fury, followed by exhilaration, followed by despair, topped off with numbing focus.

Truth be told, he could sleep while standing at this point. And yet at the same time, he was restless. He knew - he knew, just a bit longer. Just a bit. 

He swallowed heavily. “Alright.” His gaze was locked on your gaunt features still. “We should keep her sedated,” not that he believed for a second you’d be anywhere near waking anytime soon. “There will be no more withdrawal challenges. We’ll keep her chakra locked and use the seals to stabilise her until the overload fades.” Perhaps he was just convincing himself this would work, too.

Hashirama hummed in agreement. “Frankly her weak state may be advantageous. She’s too weak to have much of a too severe reaction now, I believe.”

Tobirama’s gaze flickered momentarily to his brother, then back to you. He hadn’t considered that angle. Then, he sighed deeply. “The irony,” he muttered finally.

A low chuckle was the answer, which irritated Tobirama slightly. However his brother’s gaze bore an honest kind of appreciation he always had a hard time spitting sarcasm at. “Either way, I’m hopeful she’ll make it. You’ve done it. The plan was… daring, but.” He shrugged.

He could only give a curt snort in reply. “I regret not having used my enemy’s pettiness and thirst for revenge for Y/n’s advantage sooner.” The solution had been so obvious when it revealed itself to him in what had been the darkest hour of all this fight. When he had crumbled by your bedside with his brother by his side. He frowned then. “Although it made the show most… credible.”

Hashirama’s mouth formed a thin line again as he nodded. His brother might not have fallen apart like Tobirama did, but his reaction had been just as intense. And just like Tobirama, he had been ready to protect you with any means available. Using his position for a mock execution was nothing difficult. “Now to find a cure.”

Tobirama sighed again and crossed his arms. Luckily, time wouldn’t be pressing him this time. Although he had not spent a single second on the matter, either. “I first will create the leash in such a way Y/n doesn’t need to suffer the psychotropic effects of the base substance anymore.” His baritone voice was firm. With the weight off of his chest, the protectiveness was filling him again. You were not going to suffer any more than you had. And he knew precisely how to make that happen. “It’ll just be medication she has to take regularly.”

Again, his brother hummed affirmatively. “Very well. Even so…,” he frowned then, growing quite stern. “You are going to sleep now. For about a day or three.”

Anger flashed through Tobirama faster than he had truly comprehended the words. “Anija, I will not-”

“Yes. You will.” Hashirama crossed his arms. “You’ve been awake for, what? Forty-eight hours? More? Don’t make me throw you out.”

Tobirama’s voice had risen in volume before he realised it might disturb you, but the ire stewing inside made it near impossible to keep it down. “I most certainly will not before I made the drug more bearable for-”

Something flashed in Hashirama’s eyes. One didn’t need Tobirama’s sensor skills to feel the surge in chakra that his brother emitted - but for him, it was like staring into the sun. Sometimes, it was too much. Like right now.

He yielded with no more than a curt “Alright,” before teleporting to your shared home.

Now, it didn’t feel so forlorn anymore.

[ezekielbhandarivalleros]

Addicted to Weed - Chapter 1

Characters: Jake Tweneboah (MC), Sienna Trinh, Jackie Varma (Mentioned)  Ethan Ramsey (Mentioned)

Summary: Sienna finds out about Jake’s weed problem

Rated - M

Taglist: @princess-geek @gamechoices-player @secretaryunpaid @arnikki-2406 @choicesficwriterscreations @riana-drarry @treasure-seeking-elf @lisha1valecha @yourresidentplayer @schnitzelbutterfingers

Also thanks for @secretaryunpaid for helping me make the necessary changes and editsl

Jake let out a sigh of relief as he stepped through into his apartment. Quickly he locked and dead bolted the door, and slid the security chain into place. After nearly three years at the hospital he never entered his apartment without immediately doing those three things. He turned on several lights and moved to the kitchen to start a pot of coffee brewing before dropping himself onto the couch.

Jake retrieved a cup of coffee and settled himself into the couch. He kicked off his shoes to display his mismatched socks as he loosened his tie. He was very glad to be home, but at the same time it increased his anxiety. While he was an introvert and did enjoy spending time alone with Jackie, the last few months had been hard. Lately when he was alone he turned to Weed, but for the past two weeks he had been trying to avoid using it. He hadn't been very successful. He had tried to wean himself off slowly, but once he had taken a small dose he usually got to the point that he didn't care and ended up taking more. Already, though he had only just gotten home, he felt his eyes drifting to the bathroom where he kept the drug hidden. He gripped his coffee cup tightly, trying to fight off the urge to use.

He thought briefly about calling one of the team to see if they wanted to go out for something to eat, but quickly decided against it, deciding he needed the rest of the evening to relax. Jake sighed and put his cup on the coffee table. He rubbed his face and again his eyes drifted to the bathroom. He was so tired, but he knew that he probably wouldn't be able to sleep without some help. He groaned and leaned back on the couch, and tried to distract himself by watching random videos on Youtube.

Abruptly he stood and crossed to the bathroom. He tore open the medicine cabinet and pulled the last of the weed out of its hiding spot in a box meant to hold cough syrup. Not that he really ever had anyone over to his place besides his old roommates, but he still wasn't careless enough to leave it out in the open. He tossed the box aside and unscrewed the top of the bottle. He held it wavering in his hand. He wanted desperately to just tip the bottle to empty the contents into the sink and be done with it. He had had this battle with himself many times before. Two times he had even succeeded, but then found himself calling his dealer only hours later to gain more.

Jake ran into his and Jackie’s bedroom and pulled out pieces of rolling paper and made blunts. Jackie was the only person who knew that he still smoked as he told the others that he quit a few weeks ago. He remained on the floor for quite some time, feeling no desire to move back to the living room with the tv still on.. He was perfectly content where he sat, enjoying the feeling of nothingness and after a while he dozed a bit. He didn't know how much time had passed before he heard a knock at the door. It had probably hadn't been more than an hour or two. He tried to ignore it, but whoever it was knocking was persistent.

Groaning, he rolled to his knees then used the edge of the bed to pull himself to his feet. He legs felt rubbery, so he stood there for a moment to steady himself. He looked at his reflection and stifled a giggle. At the moment he found looking in the mirror incredibly funny, but he wasn't entirely sure why. It felt somewhat surreal, looking at himself. The knocking at the door became more persistent. He sighed. It was probably was one of his friends. No one else ever came to his home this late.

He cringed as his door was pounded on, and this time was accompanied by a voice. "Come on, I know you're home. Please open the door." Jake sighed heavily. Sienna. Of course it was her. Anyone else would probably have given up, but she would be there until two in the morning, still knocking if he thought that  was home. Jake shook his head and made his way down the hallway slowly. He hadn't even made it halfway when Sienna knocked again, louder.

"I'm coming, I'm coming," Jake called out. He made it to the door and fumbled with the locks, struggling with the security chain. It took several tries for him to be able to slide it free. He swung the door open. "What are you doing here, Sienna?" he asked, not bothering to try to hide his irritation. "Hey, grumpy much?" Sienna smirked and raised her hands. Jake didn't respond except to glare and gave a roll of his eyes. "Aren't you going to invite me in?" "You've never been out this late before. Why did you decide to just show up in the middle of the night?"

"Somebody's cranky when his beauty sleep gets interrupted." Sienna pushed past Jake into the apartment without his invitation. He held up a brown paper bag. "I left the office about an hour after you did and I thought I'd stop and grab some Chinese at that really good restaurant and then realized how close I was to your place so I figured I pick some up for you and Jackie and bring it over here, but as she’s asleep you can have hers”

"That restaurant is almost seven miles from here, Sienna," Jake said.

Sienna didn't seem fazed as he walked into the kitchen and rummaged through the cupboards for paper plates not caring if she woke Jackie up. "I got those egg rolls that you like." "Okay, I see we're just going to pretend that you showing up here is normal," Jake grumbled. He followed Sienna as he brought the plates to the dining room.

Sienna looked around the luxury apartment, taking in the well-used but comfortable looking furniture and the many shelves housing hundreds of books and the one shelf that contained dozens of science fiction DVDs. " I can definitely tell that you live here and It shows that mostly everything belongs to you."

"It's my apartment, Sienna. Was it supposed to look like someone different lived here?"

She raised an eyebrow. "You usually reserve this level of hostility for occasions."

Jake blushed and looked away. "Sorry. I'm just tired."

Sienna shrugged. "Sit down and eat."

"I'm not really hun—"

"Sit," Sienna interrupted. "Eat." She ordered.

Jake dropped into the chair, looking a bit like a child who had been reprimanded for something. He grabbed one of the egg rolls and took a small bite.

"I'm fine," Jake said quickly.

"How often have you been using the drugs?" Sienna asked conversationally.

Jake looked up, the expression on his face giving the impression of him being a deer caught in the headlights. "What are you talking about?" he asked, voice a little higher than usual.

Sienna pushed his plate of food away and leaned forward, elbows on the table, and his face suddenly deadly serious. "You're high right now, aren't you?”

“Hey, I was still eating that” Jake screamed.

Jake laughed, the sound slightly hysterical. "Sienna, you- you're confused. I-I'm not-… I don't-…" he sputtered, trying to keep the smile on his face. "That's crazy," he finally managed to finish.

Sienna's face was still locked in that serious look. "I'm sorry, kid. I knew something was going on with you, we all did. I thought maybe it was PTSD. But we all left you to deal with it on your own. We should have been there for you. I should have been there. I should have seen. I'm sorry."

The faux smile fell of Jake’s face as she spoke. He dropped his eyes to the table, seeming to struggle with himself to find the words. It looked as though he was trying to decide if he wanted to admit to the drug use or to continue to try to deny it. The internal battle waged for nearly a minute before he looked back up. "Pretty stupid thing to do for someone who's supposed to be a genius isn't it?" he smiled, but it was bitter and self-deprecating.

"Not stupid. Not really smart either," Sienna sighed, looking at Jake his dark eyes troubled. "It's Weed, isn't it?" “Jackie has been telling me.”

Jake nodded, almost imperceptibly, avoiding eye contact. Morgan wasn't reacting to this in a way he had expected. There was no yelling, or threatening. No accusations or anger, only a weary acceptance. "I stole it from one of they younger interns after their first week and got hooked, not even my brother whose a year above me knows. After I ran out I bought my own. I t-… I tried to stop. I really did. I threw it out twice. But I always-… I always got more afterwards." He ran a trembling hand through his hair.

"How often do you take it?"

"Usually only once a day, but I don't take it at all if we're working a case," he elaborated, shooting a quick glance at Sienna.

"Why do you only take it when you're home?" She asked him. She was still acting much to calm for Jake to understand, and things that Jake didn't understand made him nervous.

Jake shook his head. "If the other know, for sure Ethan might have to report it, and you'll be fired. I won't tell him as long as you stop."

Jake looked desperate. "I've tried before, Sienna. I don't think I can do it." He looked so hopeless that it almost made Sienna want to cry.

But she didn't. Instead she leaned forward and put his hand on the older man's shoulder. "Yes, you can, and you will. You've only tried by yourself before. Now you've got help. You don't have to be alone anymore."

[kenmasgameboy]

【ｒｅａｃｈｉｎｇ】

an oikawa x seijoh president!reader

oikawa toru has so many girls falling at his feet, but it wasn’t always like this. when y/n met him there was no one yet to inflate his ego, when he was pure to himself, the person he is when it isn’t performative. she fell in love. after forcing a rejection from him, where he says he never saw her as a girl, she’s determined to become the absolute perfect girl for every one except him.

profiles: [ student council ] [ on the block ]

masterlist

listen to the mixtape while you read

↬ entry #1: age 6 ➺ chapter 1: age 18  ➺ next

age 18:

𝕚. different now

MAKE SURE TO READ THE WRITTEN PORTION BELOW THE CUT

Your hands felt like they were surely going to fall off at any moment. You never really did get used to being in front of big crowds like this. Even last year when you had to give your first speech as a presidential candidate to the school you wanted to burst into flames. Your hands always did this thing when you were nervous, ever since you were little they’d become so gross and clammy. You hated that about yourself. What a weak give away.

The principal was just beginning the ceremony, and you waited outside in the hallway until it was closer to your turn to speak, pacing back and forth you stared out the window. The mid day yellow light peaking through the large trees in front of Seijoh’s campus. You really loved these trees, they would always shake and rustle in new ways everyday, reminding you of ways that you could stand your ground but continue to change in your own way. Some seasons shedding yourself completely bare and growing a new color, or a new branch, breaking them off as you went.

Today, even the trees that normally would be there to offer you a quiet calmness didn’t help you today. Your body still succumbing to its stage fright. This was your first appearance as Aoba Johsai School President to your student body that you represented, you needed a perfect impression. You needed to be perfect. The more you thought about it the jitters in your hands only increased, you tried to loosen the tightness, shaking them from your wrist downwards in hopes they would just fall off. You always did this before volleyball games and it never failed you. You only stopped your nasty habit when you heard rapid footsteps coming in your direction.

“Hey, there you are. I’ve been looking for you everywhere.” Sora’s voice carried down the hallway. Your vice president had been looking for you. His chest heaved in breaths to try to regulate his body after running around.

“Sorry. I’ll be inside in a second, I just—” You said, pulling your hands behind your back to hide them. But it was too late.

“Are you nervous? Why? Everyone already loves you it’s not like they’ll change their minds now.” Sora said it lightheartedly, but there was a pressure that sat on your shoulders when he said it. An extra weight of expectation.

“Don’t say that.” You shrugged off the compliment, thinking about one face in particular. You groaned at the way he still had an effect on you. You thought of Toru’s eyes, “Not everyone.”

“Maybe not. You’re right, I can’t speak for everyone.” Sora smiled softly, “But as your Vice, I can speak for you. And I know you’ll be perfectly fine up there. I have full confidence. If you start stuttering, just take a second and keep going. We practiced this morning, right?”

“Right.” You nodded, your throat suddenly becoming overwhelmingly dry. “I know, I just have a lot on my plate today, there’s too much I’m not looking forward to.”

“Then let’s check one thing off, right? Let’s go out there.” Sora said, he grabbed your hand in his tugging you along. You weren’t ready, he wasn’t listening to you yet. But maybe he was right, you did need to be out there sooner than later. Still, you needed a few moments to collect yourself, to dampen your hands, something.

“Then let’s check one thing off, right? Let’s go out there.” Sora said, he grabbed your hand in his tugging you along. You weren’t ready, he wasn’t listening to you yet. But maybe he was right, you did need to be out there sooner than later. Still, you needed a few moments to collect yourself, to dampen your hands, something.

You couldn’t say anything, You became paralyzed in place as you looked at the back of Sora’s head. Your legs felt numb as they carried you in stride behind him down the hallway. His hand holding yours, it reminded you of someone again. Seeing him again this morning in class must’ve resurged these memories you pushed away as nothing. This was different, this wasn’t him. The back of Sora’s head was shiny and straight. His blond hair didn’t bounce, and he didn’t look back to smile at you. There was a sinking feeling in your stomach, it didn’t feel like nerves or anything like that. It felt like a settlement.

Your eyes ended up drifting off to the right, only slightly enough to catch the eyes that were more familiar than you remembered. His hair looking darker than when you were young, but it shined all the same. He still shined, even when he wasn’t smiling at you. Your eyes followed each other. The moment slowing down to make your first dose of eye contact in 2 years a dangerous and addictive cocktail.

Your hands were still sweaty, still nervous and shaking. It broke away from the confines of Sora’s palm. You need to grip them tighter when she’s nervous. The boy who stood innocently by the restroom found himself offering silent advice in his head. Toru couldn’t take his eyes away from the light that poured between the gap of You and Sora’s palms. It’s like he saw an opening, illuminating his opportunity and his body.

For the first time in ages, he felt the nostalgic need to grab those familiar sweaty palms. For a second he thought you’d stay with him, stay back and ask what he was doing in the hallway by the boys bathroom and not by your side? Why did he waste so much time? Did he think you were more beautiful today than every day he’s seen you before? He needed you to ask him those questions. 

His daydream was over in a second, once your face contorted from the hopeful surprise of someone who used to calm you into a disappointed grimace of remembering the hurt he had caused you that erased everything from before. You kept jogging behind Sora, no words were exchanged. You didn’t need to say anything to Toru, he heard you loud and clear.

“I hope you regret it. I hope you regret everything. I’ll never trust you like that again, not really.”

To him, this was a challenge worthy of taking. The time to change it all was now.

***

       【ｆｕｎ　ｆａｃｔｓ】

➺ Michi was late to the student arrival because she was slipping a love letter in Oikawa’s shoe locker. He didn’t even see it that day.

➺ Ito has really never spoken to y/n except she held the door open for him one day, he took that as she’s in love with him and too scared to tell him.

➺ Ito approached Matsukawa, Hanamaki, Iwaizumi, and Oikawa when all four were together. It was actually Oikawa who told Ito he had no chance in hell with y/n. the exact words he used was “she’s not just going to fall in love with someone who’s never cared enough to get to know her first before saying something like that. theres no way in hell you’d have a chance with a girl like her.”

➺ the other three just kind of stood there agreeing but also like “.__, tough talk coming from you, Oikawa”

➺ y/n has been starting libero since her first year, despite debating dropping volleyball in high school she decided this would look great to universities that she was involved with more than just student council. she still was invited to girls Japan youth camp for her achievements as an athlete. regardless, she still knew her real reasons were that it was the last piece of something he gave her.

➺ unlike oikawa, y/n hasn’t even thought about dating anyone in high school. she’s been single her whole life despite getting a fair amount of confessions in her time.

➺ y/n also follows oikawa on a fake account.

taglist: @chibishae34 @bby-bokuto @shittykawaa @1-800-schmacked @artsamber @berriesii @bbyazu @roseestuosity @gaytoasterstrudels @mirdy47707 @trippy-kitty @iwanttogotopluto @hvneymun @a-listaire @princessmidas @glyxiebear @akaashiwife @anejuuuuoy @kiyoojima @deimmortales99 @unstableye @sugawarabby @haikyuufairy @ashaite @bettys-other-shoe @defchamseoul @honeymoneyy​ @animatedrapture​ @alexthe80swhore​ @nellieleverlin​ @forhyunryu​ @thosenerdy3amthings​ @mariachiii​ @dishonestkilla​ 

reply with a comment or send an ask to be aded to the taglist!! if your name is crossed off it’s because i couldn’t tag you, let me know if you’ve changed your username!

a/n: wOW what a doOZY of a long first chapter, they all won’t be this long but i felt like i had a lot to set up. Let me know what you guys thought!!! i hope this guys got you a bit more hyped for this story! more to come!

[clonecaptains]

HIGH DOSAGE - a first order!poe dameron x reader fic

rating: m - smut, sexual themes, sex pollen. 

word count: 2.8k

summary: Captain Dameron needs the location of the Resistance base, and you’re going to tell him. You’ve been given truth serum to tell the truth - or is it really truth serum?

a/n: finally it’s done!!! i struggled with this one! i’m newish to the poe fic side of the fandom so i’m sure something like this has been done before but i wanted to take a stab at it! this is a sex pollen fic and it IS consensual~. and was like 95% inspired after i watched ticky tacky and sucker punch. also i’m planning on adding more parts to this! there will for sure be a part 2. and as always feedback is appreciated!!

HIGH DOSAGE 

The cuffs and bindings around your wrists and ankles are beginning to hurt. You’ve been in this room for hours. There’s fear and adrenaline pumping through your veins, you’re on edge. Your mouth is dry, your forehead is covered by a sheen of sweat, and there’s a weird scent in the air. Is it supposed to be this hot in here? The air is thick. Is this an interrogation tactic?

If it is, you don’t know anything.

Truly you don’t.

Your uncle is part of the Resistance. He’d come to get you and was taking you to their base when the ship was intercepted by the First Order. Stormtroopers shot you and your uncle with a stun gun, and that’s the last thing you remember.

Now you’re here, alone, in this dark room strapped to a table. At least the table is tilted upright and facing the door, so you can see who comes in. At the moment, two Stormtroopers are guarding the door. They’ve been standing for hours, only rotating shifts once.

You don’t dare ask what’s going to happen to you, or your uncle. You know better than that. This is why you weren’t told the location of the base. Though you suppose now if something happens to your uncle you won’t have a way to find the Resistance if you don’t know. And what if they torture you anyways? Did they intentionally turn off the air-cooling units for this room? It’s so hot! And what is that smell?

Being alone isn’t even what’s bothering you. You’ve spent most of your life alone. You’ve only just recently found your uncle. You’ve lived a solitary life, not having much interaction with anyone. Strange as it sounds, having the Stormtroopers stand guard doesn’t bother you. It’s not exactly good company, but at least you’re not alone.

The quiet doesn’t bother you either, except when the main door hisses open. You jolt violently, the cuffs digging into your skin further from the harsh movement. It takes a moment for your heart to calm down from the scare, but when you see a uniformed officer in the doorway, nerves turn into fear.

Then…is that…arousal you feel?

You can’t get a good look at him yet, but you can see that with a flick of his hand he sends your company of Stormtroopers away.

He takes a step closer to you and removes his hat. The brim had been shadowing his face and now you can get a good look at him.

Is it fear or attraction running through your veins now? Because he is one of the most attractive men you’ve ever seen in your life. The crisp clean black uniform accentuates his broad shoulders. His jaw is sharp and clean shaven; there’s a light grey tint to his skin indicating he shaves often. Dark curls are on his head, they’re slicked back with gel – not a hair out of place. His face looks like it’s been carved from stone. His eyes are cold; his mouth drawn in a thin line, surrounded by soft plush lips. He still hasn’t spoken. He seems to be watching you look at him.

He waits for a beat longer before he begins to speak.

“I’m Captain Poe Dameron,” he says adjusting his black leather glove on his left hand. He gives you a look, raising an eyebrow – as if he’s waiting for you to acknowledge who he is. But you have no idea who he is, you’ve never even heard his name. “Does this not bother you?” he asks, he’s walking around the room.

“Am I supposed to know who you are?” you challenge back. “Because, I don’t.”  

“No?” his voice is cold, and somewhere behind you now. “Are you not with the Resistance?”

He’s standing in front of you again. He really is so handsome. What is wrong with you? He’s waiting for an answer, and you have no idea what to say.

“Not….yet.”

He cocks his head, “not yet? Either you are or you aren’t, sweetheart.” He steps up close to you, his face inches from yours. You can smell him, he’s smells clean. His aftershave is strong in your nose. His breath is warm fanning on your cheek.

“I-“ the temperature has only seemed to increase, and he smells so good. It’s making your head spin.

“What?” he tuts and runs a gloved finger along your cheek and jawline. You shudder and feel flushed. You can’t tell him anything, because you don’t know it.

“I’m not scared of you.”

“No?” he cups your jaw with his hand and forces your mouth open. “That blush on your cheeks says you’ve got something else in mind.” His voice is right by your ear and you shiver. “Do you like this?”

Do you? Do you like this? He seems to get more attractive by the second.

“What are you going to do to me?”

“Whatever you want,” he purrs, he licks his teeth and it makes a slight smack sound. Now it’s your turn to cock your head. Whatever you want?

His body is so close you can feel the heat from him. His stare is ice cold, but there’s somehow a heat hidden in his eyes.

“It should be getting stronger,” he tells you.

“It?” your head hurts now. Pulsing. What is he talking about?

“Do you not know?” he whispers in your ear.

Like shock to your core, you feel it then. A sharp pang of arousal, low in your belly. You try to shift to relieve the pressure building at your core, but you can’t. Your legs are spread and strapped down.

“What did you do to me?” you grunt.

“I didn’t do a thing,” he steps back, watching you squirm. He explains to you then that upon your arrival, after you were rendered unconscious and brought into this room – you were given a truth serum.

“But I don’t know anything!” you interject. He holds his hand up to your lips to stop you from speaking. The touch of him against you has your skin feeling hot again.

“You were given the wrong vial by mistake.” His lip snarls for a beat. A flash of frustration crosses his face. Not at you, but at someone else.

“What was I given?”

“Can you not feel it? Coursing through your veins?”

And you do feel it. Feel something. It feels like you’re on the edge of a high, but not quite there. It’s building, and as he steps closer, it burns hotter.

“What did you give me?” you shift. That pressure is building.

“One of my troopers was to give you the serum on my desk,” his fingers curls into a tight fist. You can hear the leather rub together. “Instead he gave you the pollen vial.”

If your brain wasn’t so clouded with the thought of how badly you need him to touch you, you’d notice his anger at those under his command not following orders.

“Pollen?” your blood is pounding; you need him to step closer.

“It’s from the outer rim,” he explains. “Used mostly for,” he pauses, “recreation. The high it gives during more intimate activities is said to be unparalleled.” He’s drawn closer to you again, and you swear you’ll die if you can’t touch him.

You’re visibly wriggling, trying to relieve the tension but it’s only making it worse.

“The dose they gave was too strong,” he says pulling back. “There’s only one remedy for what you’re feeling.”

Ah. You get it now. Whatever you want, he’d said.

“Let me guess,” you sigh, your frustration only growing. “To give me…what I want, I have to give you something in return?”

“That’s usually how these things work,” he flashes a grin. Even his teeth are perfect. You’d like to feel those teeth clamp down on your-

“Who says I even want you?” you shake your head trying to rattle these thoughts loose.

“I’d say you did,” he purrs.

What is happening?

Maybe if you close your eyes it’ll go away. Right? Just close your eyes and don’t look at his face – at that gorgeous face.

“That won’t work,” he chuckles darkly. “I’ve tried.”

You open your eyes back up to see him facing you with a brow raised.

“You’ve tried?” you scoff.

“My troopers took this from my desk, this was my personal stash,” he shakes his head. “They used the last of it on you.”

The more he talks, the less relief you feel and the hungrier you become for him. Arousal is pooling from your sex; your nipples are stiff. And your neck feels hot when you see his eyes flick down to your breasts. Any other time, you’d be horrified, but right now your desire for him is so strong. It’s all that’s in your head.

“Ok,” you wince, “what do you want? Just please, touch me.” You don’t care how you sound, begging for him. This ache between your legs is stronger than you’ve ever felt.

“Alright then,” he grins and takes a step forward, he’s so close you can feel his body heat. But he’s not quite touching you. “Where’s the base?” His gloved finger traces along your neck. Your shudder is violent. You think even if you did know you wouldn’t be able to tell him.

“I don’t know, I swear I don’t know.”

“You have to give me something,” he tuts. He’s standing so close, this is torture. You fully expected to be tortured but not like this. You’d rather the other kind of torture right now than the ache you feel that’s white hot.

“I don’t know,” you cry. “Please. They didn’t tell me on purpose.”

“They?”

Your uncle. You can’t sell him out, though you imagine he’s being tortured too.

You can’t imagine why someone would willingly use this. You’re in agony. Your skin feels hot. Your blood is boiling. It’s as if all your senses on are high alert. Your breasts ache, needing to be touched. Your ears ring from the blood pounding in your skull. Your clit is throbbing, needing a release. You’re soaking wet between your legs; the desire is painful.

And he’s just standing there, he has you right where he wants you. He didn’t have to use a truth serum; this is the truth serum.

Are you really going to give up your uncle for an orgasm? How long will this last?

A tear falls from your cheek. You’d rather deal with this pain then risk the life of anyone else. Even though the very smell of Captain Dameron in front of you is making you tremble.

“You really don’t know do you?” he asks. He’s done this enough to tell when someone doesn’t know.

“I swear, I don’t know.”

You look up at him and you see his face change. The face of stone has softened. Is that pity?

Without a word, his gloved hand cups your clothed sex. Your gasp is loud, finally some relief. You start to buck against his hand, chasing the high. But he won’t let you.

He presses his other hand against your stomach, keeping you still.

Are you really about to let a captain of the First Order finger you?

Oh.

“Yes,” you cry, “please, right there.” You whimper as his hand slides down your front and into your underwear. You cry out loudly when the smooth leather touches your clit. He presses down and you scream. Every nerve in your body is on fire, and it feels so good.

His finger is steady in its rubbing. Precise comes to mind, or at least if would if you were coherent. This is without a doubt the best feeling of relief you’ve ever experienced.

Your orgasm builds quickly, and you come with a strangled cry in his ear. You imagine if someone heard you, they’d think you were being tortured.

“You’ll want another one,” he tells you, working you through this high. And he’s right, you still have an ache.

“I want to feel your skin,” you whimper, hanging your head with a sharp gasp.

He pulls his hand from your pants, and you already mourn the loss. Your eyes follow his hand as he puts his middle finger in his mouth – tasting you. He bites the glove and pulls his hand from it. He flexes his fingers and slides them back down your pants.

The first touch of his warm finger has tears falling from your eyes.

“It feels so good,” you cry. You can’t even be bothered to care how badly you need him. And he seems to be happy to give you what you want. In fact, he’s a little jealous you’re getting this high he was planning on having.

He dips a finger in your heat, and you come faster this time than the last. You know this is stroking his ego. You can see the pride in his eyes, but right now it’s the sexiest thing you’ve ever seen.

“More?” he asks, cocking his head. He’s greatly amused.

Your eyes flick down to his crotch, that’s what you want. And though his uniform is black, it does little to hide the desire he has coursing through his veins.

He pauses, he huffs out air from his nose. He’s thinking.

He surprises you then by releasing both your hands from your restraints.

“Why did you do that?”

He doesn’t answer, he avoids your gaze. You smile to yourself. It’s a small gesture, but it speaks volumes. He’s not interested in taking advantage of you.

“You sure you want this?” he asks, his hand on his belt. There’s no going back from this.

You nod and place your hands on his broad shoulders.

“The pollen will wear off as soon as you’ve finished, you’ll go right back to hating me after.”

Oh right. You forgot you’re suppose to hate him.

“I need this,” you tell him. You’re still in this pleasurable pained state.

He nods and unzips his pants. He reaches for your hips and tugs your pants down around your thighs. He pulls himself out of his pants and steps up to you, pushing your underwear aside, his tip touches your entrance, and your head falls on his shoulder.

When his cock fills your slick heat, you gasp and unable to control yourself – you grasp for his hair. That perfectly gelled hair is now a mess between your fingers. He grunts thrusting up into you, his teeth dig into your neck.

This is the high, now you get it. Now you know why this is used recreationally. You’ve never felt a high like this, or such a strong feeling of pleasure. Every nerve is on fire. You’re pulsing around him and your moans join together. You’re not sure if it’s the pollen or him, but he’s good. He knows exactly what he’s doing.

You’re close to your end, and you almost don’t want it to stop. You look at his face, his lips. You want to kiss him.

So, you ask.

“Can I kiss you?” you whisper.

“No,” he turns his head so you can’t reach his lips. He gives a deep thrust inside you and that’s the final push to send you in the strongest rush of a release. Your vision is clouded, and you feel like you might explode from your pores, pleasure seeping from your skin.

You shout then, and he grunts following behind.

He’d said it would wear off after you’d finished, but when he pulls out of you and steps back adjusting himself, you still think he’s handsome. Your vision clears, and you feel better. You feel good, really good.

But he was wrong.

Because when he pulls a rag from you don’t know where, and cleans your thighs, your heart skips a beat. He straightens up and your face warms – hot under his gaze. He’s quiet, you can tell he’s thinking again.

“They will have killed your uncle,” he avoids your eye contact again, pulling your pants back up covering you. “I’m sorry.”

You sniffle, but you aren’t shocked. What shocks you is his next move.

He kneels and unbinds your ankle restraints. You step down slowly, unsure if this is what he’d like for you to do. You look at him when you take your first step, and he takes a step back.

Facing him now you have the strong desire to kiss him. Is the pollen still in your system? Maybe it’s lingering in your bloodstream. While he adjusts his gloves back on his hands, you run up to him and grab his head. You pull him in for a kiss, and he doesn’t even move – but he lets you kiss him. You distinctly notice he doesn’t kiss you back – until you start to pull away.

When you do pull back, his eyes flick down to your lips and you see a sadness in his eyes. A guilt.

He smooths back his disheveled curls and puts his hat back on his head. Then reaches for your hand.

“Follow me,” he says, “I’m going to get you somewhere safe.”

//

i didn’t do a tag list for this one but im tagging: @pascalispedro, @damndamer0n, @tintinwrites, @poeticandors, @vintagemichelle91, @huliabitch, @himbopoes, @tarrevizslas

[kestrelmando]

Writer Wednesday - The Phone Booth

The great @autumnleaves1991-blog has put together a weekly “Writer Wednesday” where she provides an image prompt.

This one is Jack “Whiskey” Daniels/f!OC.

Set in my, as of yet, unpublished f!OC x Whiskey series “Whiskey Smash”. Basic relevant background info; Whiskey and Mezcal (my f!OC with previous mob ties) were partners in Statesmen, just barely dip their toe into catching feelings when a near death experience with Mezcal scares him away due to his past. They haven’t talked/seen each other in a couple years at this point.

Warnings: Swear words, descriptions of a fight, impalement with a high heel, descriptions of wounds

-- 

A mission hadn’t blown up in her face like this is a long time, a really long time – the last one was years ago on that dingy rooftop where he had finally finally yanked her in and kissed her only for the night to end with her shoving him out of the line of fire. Three bullets later, two doses of Ginger’s experimental clotting serum, 3.5 liters of blood loss and she had woken up alone.

Just a note next to a vase of purple hyacinth and white amaranth; ‘I can’t do it again. – J’.

Oh, and she’d protested heavily on taking a mission in fucking New York. He was running the NYC branch, he could find someone local but Champ had insisted. It was supposed to be a simple recon mission; blend, listen, collect evidence.

Mezcal had wined and dined all evening, batting her eyelashes and smiling with doe eyes. She was this close to sticking her hand into the right pocket when someone had recognized her. He locked eyes with her across the room and recognition rippled across his face instantly. One of her father’s high level enforcers – hard to forget the boss’s daughter especially when she all but disappeared.

He knew better than to cause a scene in a private residence with stupidly rich people floating around between them. What the hell was he doing here? She made her excuses, off to powder her nose, and slipped into the empty side hallway. There was a small window in the butler’s pantry three doors down or she could try just walking out through the foyer and the front door. He’d be expecting the foyer, the cleanest exit was usually the simplest, so she made for the pantry.

She slipped off her heels and carried them, the click being far too loud on the marble floor, and quietly slid the pocket door open. The window was small, almost too small, but she was confident she’d make it and more importantly – the enforcer wouldn’t. Mezcal slid the door mostly shut and quickly went the window, shoving the frame up and grimacing at the chilly fall air.

A hand closed around her ankle just as she was halfway out, one knee dangling and the other in an awkward bend, and yanked her back. Her shoulder and head crashed against the upper window pane and frame with a crunch. Dazed, she dropped one shoe to the ground and swayed. Still, her free hand locked around the window frame. She would not be pulled back into the house – the other shoe came up, stiletto first, and embedded into his cheek.

The enforcer howled with pain, ripping it from his face with an arc of blood, and wrapped his beefy hands around both legs before dragging her back inside. They both tumbled to the ground at the momentum and she rolled to her feet, hands raised and ready for a fight.

 --

 She didn’t know how long she walked. Her head was swimming, ears were ringing. The cold autumn night bit at her bare feet and tattered dress. It was just like some rich asshole to have his home nearly on the slopes and away from everyone and everything else.

Eventually she stumbled onto a tiny town – if you could call it that. The storefronts were all long closed and she considered breaking into one for a phone and some warmth when she saw the lone phone booth. It stood out like a sore thumb, a relic even, but more secure than using a phone inside one of the stores.

She dutifully trudged to the booth and slipped inside, grimacing and checking the coin return for any spare change. At least one thing went right; seventy five cents in quarters rolled into her hand. Mezcal paused, she had to pick the right person to call and seventy five cents wasn’t going to give her long. After a mental run through of possible contacts, she sighed and let her head slump against the booth.

It had to be him. Goddamit, it had to be Whiskey.

He was all but guaranteed to be at the office still and the New York City branch was only a hour and an half by car. She squeezed her eyes shut tight, willing herself to forget his forlorn face all those years ago when he said he didn't like going home to an empty bed. 

She slid the quarters into the phone and dialed the number she would never admit she knew by heart; Whiskey's direct line. 

It rang twice before he picked up, voice stretched and thin, "Whiskey."

The air left her lungs and her tongue cemented itself to the roof of her mouth. Absurdly, she felt tears prick at her eyes. Even tired and lacking its usual ridiculous bounciness, it was the most beautiful sound she'd heard in ages. He sighed into the receiver.

She finally found her voice, "It's me." 

He breathed her name like a prayer, "Mezcal," he paused and then pressed on more urgently, "What's wrong?"

"I'm in New York, Middletown. I need extraction. I...I was unable to get back to my planned exit."

"Darlin' are you hurt? Where in Middletown?"

She leaned out of the phone booth looking for a street sign, "Oak and Main, phone booth."

"Are you hurt?"

"Nothing a good night's sleep won't fix."

He muttered something she didn't quite catch before saying, "Sit tight,  extraction comin' in a hour."

Mezcal hung up the phone, and slid the phone booth door shut in a vain attempt to stem the flow of cold air. She sunk to the floor and drew her knees up to her chest, wrapping her fingers around her numb toes.

--

Time was immaterial; all she knew was cold. The thin dress offered no insulation and both shoes had been lost on the grounds of the target's home.

Headlights cut through the night and she raised her head to see an unmistakable white bronco and a familiar stetson emerge from truck.

He didn't send a driver.

She tried to unfold her frozen limbs but everything was sluggishly moving. Instead, she reached over and slid open the phone booth door.

He caught he gaze over the hood of the bronco. Whiskey hurried over to her and immediately bent to help her up, hissing at the iciness of her bare arms.

She let herself be pulled up, mumbling, "You didn't have to come."

He knew her meaning; he could've sent someone. Instead he just replied, "Yeah I did."

They walked back to the truck, Whiskey's hand on the small of her back, and he opened the passenger door for her. The interior light of bronco illuminated her face and his face quickly morphed into alarm. He blurted out her name, her real name. "Kenna?" 

"You should see the other guy." She attempted with some bravado.

He gave her a once over in the light and all but lifted her into the truck, "Where the fuck are your shoes?"

"Just... let's go. Get the heat on, I'll tell you on the way back."

Whiskey nodded tightly but shut her door and got in on the other side. He turned on the truck, got the heater running, but didn't make a move to go anywhere. Instead he flicked on the overhead lights and reached into the back, broad shoulder brushing against her, and fished out a Statesmen first aid kit. 

He opened it with a snap and began pulling out various items, not glancing up from the kit, "Start talking."

"Recon, potential medical front for a bioweapons dealer. Wasn't supposed to see any action."

She sucked in a breath when she caught his eye. Those damn eyes. His brow had that knit in it and his gaze was the same soft one it had been that night all those years ago. She pointedly did not look at his mouth.

He reached up and tucked his fingers under her chin, turning her head to apply antiseptic to a small cut near her temple and on a few scrapes along her arms. Next was a prototype field ice pack, he gave it a few vigorous shakes and the small pouch froze. 

His fingers swept across her cheekbone, just below her black eye. "And who did this, sugar?"

Silence loomed between them and he frowned, anxiety swirling in his gut the longer she didn't say. His other hand crept up to cradle her neck.

"Kenna--"

"An enforcer. One of his enforcers, Jack."

The knit in his brow increased, his lips turning down into a frown. "Do we need to go take care of it?"

Mezcal smiled grimly then, "No. Dumb city kid was too enraptured by the fancy dumb waiter. The new, modern hydraulic dumb waiter."

Whiskey smirked at that and pressed the ice pack to her swollen eye. She told herself it was just her icicle limbs thawing in the warm truck, but a wave of heat rolled through her as his gaze openly drifted down her body. 

He picked at the tattered line of a slit in her dress, just above her knee, "Anywhere else we need to address?"

Her mouth was a desert, "Just the usual flesh wounds." 

Whiskey hummed and slid the slit over slightly to investigate, the fabric sliding across her legs and opening further up her thigh.

Like a goddamn curtain opening on a reminder of their last op together, the dress revealed the raised, white, puckered scar of a bullet wound. The same wound that nearly bled her dry in Jack's arms. 

Mezcal slowly raised her head to meet his eyes and she could see it happening in real time; his eyes became distant and his expression closed off. Her heart clenched -- goodbye Jack, hello Agent Whiskey. He moved his hands to wheel and they set off back to New York City.

Later, as she took a company car to drive back to Kentucky that night, she didn't bother saying goodbye. They were back to strangers.

[crimson-dxwn]

Room 8297 (Fox/Mouse Companion Piece)

When you try and write a little companion one-shot and end up creating an OC complete with backstory and appearance…

So @detroitbydark and I were having a little convo about what the nurses on Mouse’s ward think about the constant Coruscant Guard presence and I got a little carried away. She was gracious enough to let me write a little scene from one of the nurses’ POV. 

Warnings: Angst. A lot of it (I’m a dramatic bitch). Medical stuff, nothing explicit. 

Word Count: 1,900 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ It was finally the end of her shift. It had been another frantic, exhausting day. The Medcenter was understaffed and it seemed like Tekla always had one more task to do, more charting, endless paperwork. She allowed herself a stretch from her gray-wrapped lekku down to her toes before lowering herself into a seat. She’d been getting ready for sign-out to the night shift when an alarm went off from one of her rooms. SW-8297.

Mouse, she’d heard one of the soldiers call her. A strange nickname, but the men guarding her door said it with such fondness that Tekla couldn’t help but attach it to her patient too. Only in her head, of course. Tekla hadn’t been out of school long, but she prided herself on her professionalism and bedside manner. As she checked the alarm on the screen before her, other nurses hustled around, busy with last minute vitals checks and scribbling down notes for the next shift.

Tekla checked her wrist chrono. She’d given Mouse her last dose of pain medication an hour ago, which should have kicked in by now. Luckily, the woman was young and healthy and had been recovering well. By far the strangest part of her stay had been the fact that she was under constant guard. 

According to her chart, she’d been mugged on her way home from work. Tekla had overheard the medics saying that the man had been caught, so she wasn’t completely sure who or what the red-and-white-clad clone soldiers were watching out for. But they kept watch nonetheless. An endless rotation stood perfectly still at attention, never faltering, never a piece of armor out of place. Their discipline was impressive. Working at a civilian Medcenter didn’t give Tekla a lot of chances to interact with them, but she knew from the Holonet News that they had helped liberate Ryloth from the Separatists in the early years of the war. They seem like good men. Their brothers probably saved my family. As Tekla walked the unit, she would occasionally get a peek at their guard changes. Usually the men spoke briefly for a while, laughed and joked sometimes. They seemed more concerned with her patient’s well-being than randomly assigned soldiers would. They must know her.

Sighing deeply, she rose from her seat at the nurse’s station and headed towards 8297. It was more likely that the alarm was from a malfunction or Mouse moving around in her sleep than anything serious, as she’d been prone to nightmares over the last week. It wasn’t uncommon after being attacked. Mouse’s overnight nurse, Miri, had told her at the beginning of her shift that the slight woman had woken the night before, disoriented, screaming. The trooper on watch had been able to calm her down without having to use any meds, but she’d still slept poorly. Tekla prayed Mouse wasn’t having another nightmare. Her thrashing tended to spike her pain to unbearable levels. She was getting discharged tomorrow, or that was the plan at the moment, and she needed all the rest she could get. The last guard outside Mouse’s door had been attired differently from the rest, with inverted armor colors and a dark visor adorning his helmet. Tekla thought she spotted the Senate seal on one of his shoulders as she’d rushed by earlier. She was good at noticing patterns, and she knew for sure she’d never seen that armor before.

The injuries her patient had arrived with had been serious - a through-and-through shot to the right abdomen and a blaster graze on her left shoulder. She’d spent days in a bacta tank, and even after that she’d needed inpatient care.  No cuts, bruises, or scrapes though, except for some transparisteel lodged into the back of her neck. No scratches from fingernails, no dirt or grime on her shoes or clothes. Working on Coruscant, Tekla had seen her fair share of assault victims. Mouse’s injuries were unusual for a mugging, to say the least, but who was she to argue with the Jedi that brought her in? Jedi don’t lie…do they? She continued to ponder her blasphemous question as she made her way towards Mouse’s room. Regardless of the suspicious nature of her injuries, whoever had shot her was no professional, judging by their aim. The woman was lucky the bastard didn’t know their way around a blaster - guess it wasn’t much of a shock they’d caught the man so soon.

As she entered the hallway, the absence of a guard outside Mouse’s room immediately took her by surprise. Probably just another nightmare. The pain meds likely aren’t helping either. That didn’t stop Tekla from increasing her pace. Until she reached the doorway, that is. Voices were just audible, one male which she didn’t recognize, and the other female, which she knew immediately to be Mouse’s. Unbearably curious, she stopped to listen for a moment.

“…leave once I do.” “Yes, that was the deal,” she heard the male voice say. “You’re not going to come back,” replied Mouse. “No, cyar’ika. I’m not.” Tekla felt the finality in his statement, all the way from the doorway.

After a moment of silence, Tekla poked her head into the room. The trooper was in bed with her, blood-red armor still on save for his helmet and a glove. They were curled around each other, face-to-face, her with one hand on his neck and his ungloved hand stroking softly through her hair. His eyes were closed, brow knitted ever so slightly, as if he was in pain too.

Tekla may have been new, but she certainly wasn’t stupid. He and Mouse were together. So this was the reason she had what amounted to an honor guard outside her room. They looked so peaceful, lying together on the bed. There was no way she could disturb them like this. Mouse’s vitals had been stable up until now and her color was good. Better, actually. From the door, Tekla could see the small woman’s chest rising and falling slowly. Leaving them for a little while longer isn’t going to hurt anything, she thought to herself. She felt intensely voyeuristic, even though they were both fully clothed and Mouse was mostly tucked under the blankets. He’d been courteous enough to leave his twin pistols on the table by the window. She was glad; blasters made Tekla nervous. Both of them looked like they needed rest. Who was she to say that having him there wouldn’t help Mouse get better?

Then, right before she turned to leave, the clone’s eyes snapped open and met hers. They flicked to his blasters on the table beside her, protectively down to Mouse in his arms, and then at the floor, shame flashing hot as he looked away. But he didn’t move a muscle - she even thought she saw him tighten his arms around Mouse ever so slightly. Tekla lowered her eyes in response and carefully closed the door just a bit more to give them some privacy.

—————

She made her way back to the nurse’s station, which by now was packed with everyone getting ready for sign-out. Her coworkers were chatting excitedly, eager to head home, exchanging gossip and stories from the day they’d been too busy to relay earlier. Tekla wondered what had to have happened between Mouse and the trooper for him to take so long to come see her, and then to leave her? It seemed incredibly cruel. She moved to sit, and a familiar voice wrenched her out of her musings. Le-Tii, one of the veteran nurses on the unit had taken the chair next to hers and was eyeing her suspiciously.

“You know patients aren’t supposed to have visitors past 1700, Tekla. You’ve been here long enough.” 

“She’s fine,” Tekla offered. “I didn’t want to disturb them like that. Plus he’s not exactly a visitor.” 

The stout man huffed in annoyance. “Please tell me they at least had their clothes on.”

“Yes!” Tekla was flabbergasted. 

“Hm. Good,” he picked at his nails, clearly bored. “’cause I’m not quite sure I approve of my taxes paying for the Republic’s finest to screw my patients in their downtime.”

“Well I think it’s sweet,” Tekla retorted. She felt some sort of protectiveness over Mouse. She was so patient and kind compared to some of the other patients that she cared for, and the woman had obviously been through a lot. How much harm could one night with him do?

“He’s a Commander, you know. Guards the Chancellor personally,” the man said, opening a ration bar, “If you look close on the Holonet you can tell it’s him. His armor’s different.”

A lowered voice from behind her back had joined the conversation. 

“I bet he’s the one who shot her.” Looked like Miri was here for her shift.

Tekla gaped as the meaning of Miri’s words sank in. She felt better about her reaction when she looked over at Le-Tii, who was sporting the same expression.

“No, hear me out. She’s been here, what, over a week? And he’s come here three times. Twice I saw him turn on his heel and rush out before he even got past the nurse’s station.”

“That’s ridiculous, Miri.” Tekla couldn’t believe what she was hearing. She shook her head. “No. Why would he-”

“-when do they ever need a reason? She woke up screaming his name last night and he hasn’t come to visit her once.” 

“That’s a horrible thing to say.” The thought terrified Tekla. It hadn’t crossed her mind in the whole time she’d been caring for Mouse. She thought back to the image of the two lovers lying in the bed together, to the look in the man’s eyes when he saw Tekla in the doorway. No. There was no way he did this.

“It’s not horrible if it’s the truth.” Le-Tii offered, finally deciding to contribute to the conversation. 

“Well I just checked on them and she’s actually looking better now than she did the whole day, so take that as you will.” 

“I’ll believe it when I see it,” Miri replied, indignantly as ever. 

The human woman was always fond of reminding Tekla that she had more experience than her. Something in her manner told her that the other girl had something against Twi’leks. Or maybe it was just non-humans...and clones, apparently.

To Tekla’s relief, Miri dropped the subject and they began their sign-out routine. Right before they handed off their last patient, Tekla noticed a flash of red at the corner of her vision. He’s leaving, she thought, poor Mouse. He walked past the nurse’s station, head studying the floor, trying to be inconspicuous. He wasn’t successful. Almost every head in the group turned to watch as he made his way to the lift. A bizarre silence made its way over the usually animated group. Not once did the visored helmet turn back.

“Good riddance,” she heard Miri mutter under her breath. “All those things know how to do is kill.”

—————— -Later that night-

Tekla hesitated before she typed the word into the search bar on her datapad. Cyarika. She hoped she spelled it correctly. 

The results popped up and she studied the first entry: Mando’a to Basic Dictionary. Cyar’ika: n., beloved.

[caddy-whump-us]

I feel like the things I’m writing lately for the vampires aren’t so much whump as they are angst or just “scenes from a captivity.” So if you’re still reading this stuff, I hope you enjoy it. I’ll get back to Etienne in a bit; it’s Nikolai time right now. And I’ll get back to some more “classic” whump soon.

This piece also involves a character named Cyprian who I think was mentioned before? All the backstory you need should be here anyway. He’ll be showing up a bit more hereafter.

I also highly recommend this playlist for some mood music.

---

“Glad as I was to hear from you, do you truly believe you can mend the rift between you?”

“I was hoping you could tell me.”

They were sitting before the fire again. They were always sitting before the fire, with the night pressing in like black walls. But this time there was a stranger with them.

His Lord sat on the couch to one side of the fire, and Nikolai sat on the little velvet stool beside him. Across from them, though, was the stranger--to Nikolai, at least. Adrastos seemed to know him all too well as they spoke across the elaborate, twisting patterns of the carpet between them. 

White faces, such white faces, like moving marble statues when they spoke, one to the other. But this stranger, their guest, seemed, although they both had the same smooth, grave-marble faces, younger in some way. The way he lounged on the couch, the tilt of his head. 

But his Lord was just as nonchalant; the comfort of a lord in his own home, of course. Nikolai was beginning to fidget: twisting the ends of the ribbon around his neck, pulling at his jacket draped over his shoulders, worrying at his fingers. 

Nikolai watched them from under his brows. All of this sitting before the fire was for show, pantomimes and shadow-plays of life as it had once been and could never be again for these two monsters. Yes, pretend to be cold and weary after riding out to this house and come warm yourself by the fire. It was a play for the two of them only, a game. After all, Nikolai and the postulants all knew them for what they were. Perhaps this was their only entertainment left.

Adrastos reached out and began to stroke Nikolai’s hair.

“After everything you’ve done, Cyprian?”

Cyprian shrugged, his eyes closed, white palms turned up in the dark. His hair was auburn, dark in the shadow but copper bright in the light of the fire, in loose waves that fell across his forehead. 

“Or is this because you know Viktor will have to choose an heir someday?” Less question than statement. “Perhaps Ruslan told you--”

“About the new boy he’s caught? No. But I heard tell of it.”

“Cyprian, please.”

Cyprian rolled his eyes. “Black swan,” he said, then went on, “I’m quite comfortable as I am. I don’t know that I’d need an inheritance.”

“You’re living a bit like Ruslan these days.”

“I enjoy it, the squalor down in the shadow of the university.”

Nikolai’s eyes flicked up to Cyprian’s face and he found Cyprian looking back at him, eye to eye. Cyprian shifted in his seat, rested his chin on his hand. 

“I only ever met Ruslan perhaps twice, you know.” 

“Viktor tolerates him but there’s no love lost between them.”

“They’re too different. And your master needed you to bridge between them.”

“Is that why you wrote to me, then?” Adrastos said, leaning forward across the span between them.

Cyprian matched him. “I’ll have a lineage of my own someday.”

“After what you did?” Adrastos hissed.

But Cyprian went on: “As will his new” a pause “black swan. What is a disagreement between us now could become true factions within a few years. Think of that.”

Adrastos sat back, considering. “You could as easily be killed. Kill the serpent in the egg, as they say. After all, you know what you’ve done, as do I, as does he.”

Cyprian looked disinterested and was looking sidelong at the fire.

“In fact,” Adrastos went on, “some scrap of what you have done has made its way back to him.”

Cyprian still looked towards the fire. Nikolai tried to see the color of his eyes in the firelight, with no success. 

“So. It’s not inheritance, it’s not envy, it’s not guilt, it’s purely to prevent this speculative ‘war’ between the lineages. You’re a fool if you believe that could happen.”

“I am already outnumbered, that is true.”

“You’re only half a fool, then.” And Adrastos leaned forward again, his fingers steepled before his mouth. “So why are you here?”

Cyprian was still turned aside. He closed his eyes. “Because I need him. And I need you to help me back to him.”

Adrastos scoffed. And Cyprian turned on him, blazing. 

“I do! You know the things I’ve already done. I’ve crossed paths with--” and he paused and closed his eyes.

Adrastos gave a low, slow sound of understanding. “Is that it? You’ve found the first of your impossible creatures, your own black swan.”

Cyprian dropped his forehead to his hand. “How do I resist it? Or how do I accept it? I don’t know what to do.”

“And you mean to go to him to ask.”

“He is still my maker even if I refuse to call him my master. He knows me.”

“Indeed so.”

“I understand the break between us. I promise you I do. But I need help to cross it. He needn’t speak to me again after this, so long as he answers me. If I write to him I’m sure he’ll burn my letters before reading them. I would have gone to Ruslan, but I know how things stand between them. And so--”

“So you wrote to me. I can’t say I’m flattered that I’m your last recourse, but here we stand.”

Cyprian was looking up at Adrastos and his eyes were wide and pained. “Will you help me?”

Adrastos sat quietly a moment, looking into the darkness beyond. Nikolai found himself twisting his fingers again and willed himself to stop. This unexpected meeting had pushed back his first dose of the day (call it that) and he was beginning to want for it. 

“I think,” Adrastos said, “I can do something for you. But more than half of it will still lie with Viktor. I can intercede, but only so far.”

“Any help would be welcome. I don’t expect forgiveness or for him to welcome me back with open arms. I only need his help. And I can promise him that he won’t hear of me again if that’s what he wishes.”

Adrastos set his hands gently atop Nikolai’s to still them. Nikolai looked up towards him, then down and aside, ashamed. But he could feel that strange fever beginning to come over him. His eyes were hot. The skin of his back was tight and itching. 

“Then I will write to him on your behalf. You’ll be in my debt, you know.”

“I do know, but I think perhaps it is worth it.”

Adrastos laughed, softly, and drew the jacket off Nikolai’s shoulders. “Now, come: we’ll pledge our cooperation.” He set his hands on Nikolai’s shoulders, “This is my black swan.”

Nikolai fixed Cyprian with his dark eyes.

“And his name?” Cyprian asked.

“Nikolai,” Adrastos answered, rising and going to the writing desk set against the wall beside the fireplace. He opened a drawer there and Nikolai breathed a sigh, almost a sob, of relief. He knew what was kept in that drawer. He opened his eyes again to find Cyprian staring at him and he ducked his head, all humility.

But still, he watched his Lord come back to the couch with the wooden box, the bottle, and the delicate knife; he kept his eyes most on the box and the bottle. 

“This is, perhaps, a bit taboo? A bit questionable? But you must experience it for yourself.” He spun a spindle-footed table from around the arm of the couch to stand on the rug among them all. “Consider this quite a demonstration of trust. But we’re pledging our good faith, aren’t we?”

Now Adrastos was laying out his tools: the syringe, the needle, the cord (a cord this time?), the harsh liquor to clean the implements, the knife, the bandages for after. Nikolai was trembling slightly. 

“Have you ever drunk from one who was drunk, Cyprian?”

Cyprian looked at him quizzically. “I have.”

“Then you know that sensation.” He had opened the grappa and let the stinging smell fill up the space around them. “In my life before,” Adrastos said, “I was at times fond of the spirit of the poppy. As content as I am now--” Cyprian interrupted with a scoff, but Adrastos went on “--I do miss those dreams sometimes. And knowing what we know about drinking from a drunk…” he trailed off.

Cyprian’s eyes narrowed. “It seems dirty, somehow.”

Adrastos held up the syringe and fitted the needle to it and began to clean it, gently, with the grappa. “Perhaps it does.” He drew up a full syringe of the grappa then shot it into the fire where it flared blue for a moment, then died. “But you must try it.”

Cyprian was quiet, but he looked from Nikolai to Adrastos and back again. 

With everything laid out to his liking, Adrastos slipped Nikolai’s jacket from his shoulders and helped him up onto the couch. Nikolai pulled off his leather slippers and set them neatly beside the clawed foot of the couch. Adrastos surrendered his place to Nikolai and Nikolai lay back, looking up into the ceiling, chewing at his lips in anticipation? Frustration? 

Adrastos crouched on the floor beside him, and smoothed Nikolai’s hair back from his forehead.

“I’ve been increasing his doses for several days now,” Adrastos said, not looking away from Nikolai’s face, “in anticipation of your visit.”

“Whatever for?”

“So he can endure the dose I will give him tonight, which he will share with us.” He began rolling up Nikolai’s sleeve. 

Nikolai breathed deeply once, and closed his eyes. The tightness had gone from his forehead and around his eyes. Already he seemed close to sleep.

Adrastos took up the cord and wrapped it around Nikolai’s bare arm. That blessed numbness and thickness spreading down his arm from the pinch of the cord--Nikolai licked his lips. 

With the needle in hand, Adrastos drew up the dose of morphine from the bottle, pressed a few drops back into the bottle and let a few more drops slip down the needle as he held it upright, examining it. He turned back to Nikolai and smiled.

“I could hold a drop of laudanum on the tip of a pin and I think he’d crawl across stones and glass to lick it off.” He smiled. “Or let me prick him with it.”

Now Adrastos had Nikolai’s hand in his. Now the chill of glass and metal against Nikolai’s skin. Now the pinch and sting of the needle. And now the hot rush of blood back into his fingertips as Adrastos untied the cord around his arm. 

“Come,” Adrastos said, “Sit here beside him.”

Soft shuffling in the dim firelight and Cyprian came to sit at Nikolai’s feet. 

“Just a moment more,” Adrastos said and, as he did, Nikolai’s eyes drifted open, rolled back to show the whites, and fell closed again. And in that moment he fell limp, boneless as a ragdoll, or as the old adage went, like a puppet with its string cut. His breathing was slow and deep and, to Cyprian, it seemed that he was almost smiling, as one would smile in a sweet dream.

Adrastos was leaning over him, smoothing his hair and his forehead. “You’ll be a wretch after our guest leaves, won’t you?” he whispered into Nikolai’s ear. “No, you can’t stay so blissful forever.” He kissed off the bead of blood from the needlemark and then he reached for the silver knife.

Adrastos took up Nikolai’s hand. “I won’t sully him with scars,” he said to Cyprian as he unfolded Nikolai’s fingers, a white flower blooming in the dark. “You needn’t worry: he’ll feel nothing.” Drawn so close as they were now, Adrastos whispered velvet in the dark to Cyprian.

With the silver knife, he cut small nicks and cuts into Nikolai’s fingers; the blood trickled down to pool in his palm. Adrastos cut him again low on the palm (the Mount of Venus and the Mount of the Moon, that was what a fortune-teller had said once when there was a traveling carnival passing through the town out beyond his house and Jonathan’s house and the forest and the fields and they had bears and wolves but maybe those were only dogs and a girl who would balance on the hand of the strongman and…) 

Adrastos held Nikolai’s hand like a cup, letting the trickles of blood gather there, then offered Nikolai’s cupped hand to Cyprian. “Try him,” he said.

Cyprian paused a moment, holding Nikolai’s hand, then sipped at the collected blood once, twice, enough to finish it. Salt, sweetness and copper. And heat. And something bitter, but that was his own mind: there seemed to be nothing he could do that was not a sin in someone’s eyes. He sat back again, leaning against the couch, licking the last tastes of sharp metal from his mouth.

Adrastos looked at him and smiled, then set to freshening the cuts on Nikolai’s hand, to start the flow of blood again. He waited, letting the blood collect in the cup of Nikolai’s hand, and watched Cyprian.

Cyprian had been sitting, waiting, with one arm on his crooked knee and his back straight against the seat of the couch when, suddenly, his posture slackened. His mouth dropped open. He leaned forward at first, then laid his head against the seat of the couch. His leg slid out before him, another puppet with cut strings. He raised his eyebrows in surprise and blinked slowly.

“How quickly the thirst can be slaked,” Adrastos said, watching him. 

He brought Nikolai’s hand up to his mouth but stopped short and, instead, toasted to Nikolai with Nikolai’s own hand and own blood, then drank up the collected blood.

He laid back against the couch as well, but with his shoulder pressed against it so he could go on stroking Nikolai’s hair a while, so he could go on lapping up the last droplets from Nikolai’s fingers. But he succumbed as well, and nearly as fast, with his head leaning on the couch.

Perhaps this oblivion was the nearest to death he would come until some madness took him and he killed himself out of boredom or frustration or because he had become some gaunt monster cursed with a nigh-endless life and buried in darkness as if buried alive--for so he was buried alive in a sense. Any number had taken their own lives, if the consciousness he endured could be called life, ending some of the great lineages, destroying their masters in the course of it, causing some great cascade of despair among some houses. 

But he had this sweet bliss now, for now, like wandering through an endless house of dark rooms, unhurried, unafraid, only passing from room to room, unaware that they were rooms, only moving without knowing he moved, gliding, existing without existing, persisting…

---

Some time later, Nikolai awoke, vaguely sick, his body still like wet sand and wet velvet. The two vampires were still unconscious, one at his head and one at his feet. And, yes, he did consider that he might kill them both in that moment. Or, if not kill them, make clear his rage, perhaps, though he felt only cold inside, with no heated rage. How long had it been since he had felt it? But still he could take the knife they had used on him and he could use it on them, make them bleed as they had made him bleed.

He was reaching out for the knife where it lay near Adrastos’ hand when he saw the dried tracks of blood in his fingerprints and in the lines of his palm. He held his hand in front of his face, considering it: he had not been bandaged. 

He looked to Adrastos, who had always been so careful to bandage the tiny cuts he made when he was finished, even when he took from Nikolai after a large dose like tonight. But the bandages were still in the box and the box was on the table and the table was perhaps a mile, perhaps two miles (or so it felt) from where he lay. He did reach out for it, but fell far short. 

He sighed and then wrapped his hand in the hem of his shirt in case any of the wounds opened again, and turned to lie with his face towards the back of the couch. Soon enough he would feel the fever of wanting again, his head would ache, he would shake, he would sweat and feel sick to his stomach. And whether that was better or worse than the leaden feeling now--he looked over his shoulder at the two vampires, still asleep if they did sleep, and envied them. He was past that bliss now, left in a useless stupor, and with only the fever to come.

He pinched his eyes shut to stop from crying and willed himself to sleep just a bit more, just a bit more.