#like she deserves to break apart and have the whole world quake

[imogenisgod]

I keep having Imogens talk with Liliana replay in my mind and I think me and a lot of people really wanted her to bring up what Otohan did to Laudna. What Otohan did to her other friends, all the people that Imogen loves.

Like does Liliana know? She must not, or maybe she does. Maybe I hope she doesn’t because the idea that Liliana knows how painfully ripped apart her daughter was by the right hand of the man she is so stuck to like she’s a fly and he’s a glue trap, or a moth to a flame, would be exponentially devastating.

Anyway this is where I’ve been since Thursday night :(

Edit: it’s on ao3 now

[lesbicosmos]

How Deep The Bullet Lies (Chapter 1) - Stranger Things 4

Posting this on AO3 mostly (read here) but I figured why not post it here too

Summary:

This is basically what I think happened in between the last shots of Steve, Nancy and Robin in Creel House and that two day time jump because we were robbed. Eddie and Max still die ('die' in Max's case) so it's still really sad. Let the gays be happy next season Duffers.

Relationships: (brief, implied) Steve/Eddie & Robin/Nancy

Rating: Teen And Up Audiences

Archive Warnings: Major Character Death

Category: Multi

Chapter 1/? - Four Chimes

The old grandfather clock chimed from within the house. Once…twice…thrice…

“Four times,” Robin counted.

“Max,” said Nancy, panicked.

Steve’s face dropped into an expression of dread, grief, and anger all at once. Four chimes meant Vecna’s plan had worked. Four chimes meant four gates were going to open and expand and take over the whole town. Four chimes meant he had taken four victims. Four chimes meant Max was gone.

Steve had made a promise to himself that he would keep her safe, that he would protect her. He wanted to be like the older brother she deserved. But he had failed and broken his own promise. She was gone.

Before Steve could properly process what had happened, the ground was suddenly shaking. It was happening; the gates were opening.

Robin screamed as she fell backwards into the railing of the staircase. Steve caught her before she fell fully and Nancy took her hand to pull her back up, gripping tightly to keep herself upright too, the ground still quaking beneath them.

“You two, hang on to something other than each other!” Steve yelled over the excruciating sound of the two realities collapsing and tearing into one another.

Nancy and Robin grabbed hold of the railing to stable themselves, their hands still locked together. In any normal situation, Robin would be having an internal panic at the thought of holding hands with Nancy Wheeler but right now, that didn’t matter. What mattered right now was that they survived.

“Hey, if this gate’s tearing through right above us, we should probably get out of here, right?” said Robin, shouting like Steve so they could hear her.

Steve and Nancy nodded, then Steve took Robin’s other hand.

“On three, we run,” he said.

The girls gave a scared but approving look.

“One…”

The squelching sounds from upstairs got louder; closer.

“Two…”

Thunder struck outside, sending a flash of bright red light through the gaps in the broken windows.

“Three!”

The three of them ran. Robin nearly tripped over a vine but the other two held her up and within a few seconds, they were out of the crumbling Creel House and sprinting down the road, away, just as the rapidly expanding gash in the dimension ripped through where they were previously standing.

Steve, Nancy and Robin huddled together for balance further down the road, desperate to stay upright as the ground continued to shake and crack violently. The gate had extended to the trees now, having broken through the children’s play area Erica was being lookout from in the real world. God, they hoped she’d gotten out of there.

Within a few minutes, the shaking of the ground died down to a low rumble, and the group stepped apart, getting a good luck at the catastrophic extent of the gate’s advances. It seemed to go on for miles.

“Looks like it cracked right through to the centre of town,” Nancy observed, breathing rapidly.

“What do we do now?” asked Robin, her voice slightly increasing in pitch as it did when she was stressed.

Nancy looked away for a moment before concluding, “We’ll have to jump through to get back.”

“No,” said Steve quickly. “We’ve got to get back to the trailer park.”

“Steve, we can’t risk that! What if the ground starts breaking open again and one of us gets split in half or something?” Nancy argued.

“Nance, we have to go back. I’ve already lost one of the kids, I’m not risking losing another. There’s the other gate inside Eddie’s trailer, right where they were supposed to be for the distraction. What if him or Dustin got split in half or something?”

“They probably jumped through already. Radio them.”

Steve hurriedly snatched the walkie talkie from Robin’s backpack and held in a button

“Henderson, do you copy?”

Quiet static. Steve pulled out the antenna.

“Henderson! Munson! Do you copy?”

Quiet static again. Steve pushed the antenna back down and shoved the radio into Robin’s backpack again.

“I’m not going until I know they’re safe. You two go through, I’m going back.”

“We’re not leaving you here, Steve!” said Robin, matter-of-factly. “We have one radio between us, we won’t be able to stay in communication. And if you think I’m letting you go loose around this place on your own, you’re insane. I’m coming with. Nance?”

Robin turned to Nancy, who was debating both her options and chance of survival. They would be better off sticking together as a group and there was no changing Steve’s mind about Eddie and Dustin.

“Fine, but let’s hurry up. And if this ends up being for nothing and one of us dies-”

“Nance. Let’s just go.”

So they started running, narrowly avoiding stepping on any vines; if Vecna was still alive, so was the hive mind. They just prayed they’d be on the same side of the gate as Dustin and Eddie when they got there.

They reached the trailer park almost an hour later, tired of running and struggling to breathe. The air in the Upside Down could not be healthy. Steve had been right – the once small cut between the worlds in the ceiling of Eddie’s trailer was now a gaping wound stretching towards the centre of town, vines creeping into the lesion as if trying to pull it further open.

If only Chrissy Cunningham had been anywhere else the night she died, Steve thought, then Eddie would never have been wrapped up in all this, he wouldn’t have had to put himself in danger to distract demobats and wouldn’t be convicted of several brutal murders.

There was no sign of Dustin Henderson or Eddie Munson near what was left of the trailer.

“I told you this would be for nothing!” Nancy shouted, an odd tone to her voice. She was angry, obviously, this was a life-or-death situation and they had just wasted time, but there was also a sense of sadness and understanding – she knew why Steve insisted on coming back and she knew how protective he got over the kids, especially Dustin (and now especially after losing Max).

“We still don’t know whether they got through, though, anything could have happened to them-”

That’s when they heard the cry of anguish that came from a small clearing a few trailers away.

Chapter 2

[ninastarkov]

The poetic justice and character arcs in this last episode though??? Can we just go through this—

okay first—Victoria Hand shoots Garrett. THAT was perfect. And now in that timeline, Ward will be trained by her. She gets rid of the man who orders her death.

Enoch puts all the pieces together. He ensures that Fitz, his best friend, can regain his family. And when the chronicoms receive empathy, and the team asks if they’re on their side, they say “as we have always been”—a callback to Enoch’s final words, “as I have always been.”

There are many references to putting the pieces together or something similar, which reminds me of one of Skye’s big lines in season 1: “One person doesn’t have all of the solution, but 100 people with 1% of the solution?...Pieces solving a puzzle. I think that’s beautiful.”

Daisy kills Nathaniel and saves Kora—killing the man who tore her family apart and saving one piece of it, too.

And CHARACTER ARCS:

Deke Shaw. He stays behind, for real this time. It completes his arc from a self-centered guy who only cares about his own survival, to a member of a team, a family. He’s willing to sacrifice for someone else, even though another person volunteered to do so. He just wants Daisy to be happy. And the other piece of his character arc—from a man who was always a loner, to a part of a team, to the future leader of shield. Ridiculous, yes, but also perfect.

FITZSIMMONS FINALLY GET A HAPPY ENDING. Need I say more? They deserve it more than anyone. They went from scared scientists to incredibly capable ones that could hold their own in a fight, but it was never a weakness that they couldn’t fight like some of the others. Their strengths were just as important, until the very end. They have found each other again and again, and now they can stay together.

Melinda May. She goes from a woman haunted by her past, closed off and alone, to someone who is warm and kind and has faced her demons and moved past them. She has forgiven herself for Bahrain, has learned to express her emotions, and now her arc is complete. She calls herself the cavalry because she has accepted that part of her past and she is no longer ashamed. She’s a teacher now, which perfectly represents how she knocked down her own walls and is willing to engage with the world, with others.

Elena Rodriguez. I have so many emotions about her arc in this whole season. We learn that her limits are self imposed because of events from her past. She learns that she doesn’t always have to bounce back right away, that not doing so does not make her lesser or less of herself. And this lets her unlock her full abilities as an inhuman. Yoyo will bounce back, but not because she has to—because she wants to. In the end she is an agent for Mack, working with Piper and DAVIS! From the start, she has wanted to do good for the world, and that hasn’t changed. She’s out in the field changing the world.

Alphonso Mackenzie. Mack. He becomes director of a new SHIELD, complete with a fury trench coat. He started off as just the mechanic, a man who didn’t want to fight and break, but fix things. Throughout his time on shield he did become a fighter, but never one who lost sight of his original goals. Mack’s arc shows us that you can fight for good reasons. You can fight without losing yourself and your morals. Him being director is perfect because he can guide shield by his code—to do good above all else.

Daisy Johnson. From Mary Sue Poots to Skye to Daisy to Quake to Destroyer of Worlds and back to Daisy. Daisy started off as a hacker with no one. She was alone, with no family and nothing to be a part of. But shield gave her a family and a cause. Her blood family history was always tragic, but she learned that her parents didn’t define her, and managed to save her sister in the end. By this season she has accepted who she was and who she is. She has learned about her powers and they are a part of her that she is not afraid of. She has lost so much, but keeps going despite it because she has a family, now, and she will do all she can to protect them. And once Daisy has finally accepted all of herself, enter Daniel Sousa—a man who will help her up when she falls down and be by her side as she changes the galaxy. I think it works for Daisy to end up with someone because she found herself before she found Sousa. She is whole without him but he will always be there for her, and makes her happy. Daisy has a family, is happy, by the end.

And Phil Coulson. Phil, who has died so many ways and still comes back fighting, who has always been selfless and kind, put together this family and gave these people a home. After 7 seasons of choosing others, in the end he chooses himself. Phil’s life belongs to him, whatever he wants to do with it. His future may be unknown, but he wants to see the world before he decides. He’ll see May, too. Coulson is what brought the team together, is who built shield up from its shattered pieces. None of this would exist without him.

A Spy’s Goodbye (well, a regular goodbye) to Agents of Shield.

[yelena-bellova]

Congrats on 900 followers <3 , 7 and 16 for the prompts for daisy/sousa thank youuuu

Whatever Comes After Forever

Plot: A look into Daisy and Daniel’s life after the finale

Word Count: 2.1k

Warnings: None!

A/N: I got carried away with the domestic Dousy, whoops lol

————

7: “You really were my first and last.”

16: “Will you love me like this forever?”

————

The Astro Ambassadors were currently as far from Earth as they could be.

It was important that they establish good relations with other planets, that was kind of the whole point of their mission. They’d finished up a meeting with the leader of the world they were on, Daisy couldn’t pronounce the name, and he’d told them to go enjoy themselves. Kora had taken some of the rest of their team and headed into town, Daisy was trying her hardest not to worry about her sister. It was a strange adjustment, but with each day they were building a stronger relationship.

“She’s fine, Daisy.”

She turned and looked down to Daniel, eyes closed and relaxed on the blanket they’d brought to the hill. His hand was absentmindedly stroking her back as she sat, where they’d positioned themselves provided a perfect view of the city below. But the view next to her was far more attractive.

“Do we have some psychic-link I’m not aware of or something?” she asked as she laid down next to him, his arm wrapping around her shoulders and drawing her in closer.

“No,” Daniel replied, “I just know you.”

Daisy smiled, admiring the sunset glow that lit up his side profile. After all they’d been through, after a year together, she was still just as crazy about him as she’d been when they began dating. He’d adjusted so quickly to space, he was still in awe of the fact that they were actually there. She’d sneak a glance at him sometimes when they were in the cockpit, his eyes wide and his jaw slackened as he stared out into the cosmos. It was adorable.

Daniel turned his head and opened one eye to her, “You know, it’s rude to stare.”

“Can’t help it,” she smirked.

He smiled softly and wrapped his free arm around her waist, pulling her flush against him. She snuggled into him, her face resting in the crook of his neck and her hand pressed to his firm chest. Daisy had died and gone to Heaven, she was sure of it. There was no way that she could possibly be this lucky.

“I love you,” Daisy said with a kiss to his cheek.

“I love you too,” Daniel replied, squeezing her tightly and pressing a lingering kiss to her forehead.

“Will you love me like this forever?” she asked after a few moments of silence.

“I’ll love you forever and in whatever comes after forever,” he whispered.

Yep, she’d definitely died and gone to Heaven.

————

After they’d returned from their long mission in space, they both decided to take a long break. Kora continued training at SHIELD and under Daisy’s watchful eye, she was flourishing.

Daniel and Daisy decided to take the next step in their relationship and get an apartment together. They’d technically been living together on Zephyr 3 for months, but this felt much more official. They found a place close enough to SHIELD for work but far enough away that they could begin building a life of their own. They’d painted the walls, adorned them with pictures of their adventures in space, and assembled all their furniture. They were flat on their back exhausted.

“I don’t think I can move,” Daisy groaned, she was laid out on their loveseat, her clothes stained with dried blue paint.

Daniel chuckled from their L shaped couch, “The mighty Quake defeated by some bookshelves.”

Daisy craned her neck to glare at him and pointed a finger, “It should be illegal to have that many different types of screws for one piece of furniture.”

Daniel laughed again before slipping back into humming a song on the radio. It was one of the few expensive purchases he’d made, he’d sprung for one that looked like one he’d had in the fifties. It also had a port to plug in your phone which, surprisingly, he used frequently. The Spotify playlist he’d made of all his old favorites was still playing from the kitchen table. Daisy heard him get up but didn’t open her eyes until she sensed him standing over her,

“Dance with me.”

She looked up at him, the sight of his warm eyes and outstretched hand too perfect to turn down. She took his palm and let him pull her to her feet before moving his hands to her waist. Locking hers around his neck, they began to sway slowly to Frank Sinatra’s voice. Daisy tucked her head under Daniel’s chin and relaxed into his body. This was another moment that she felt was too good to be true. Dancing in the apartment she shared with the love of her life with no threats, no danger…Just them.

“Will you love me like this forever?” she asked, looking up to lock eyes with him.

Daniel sighed, admiring his girlfriend in all her glory with her messy bun and paint streaked face. He brought a hand up to cup her cheek, “I’ll love you forever and in whatever comes after forever.”

He leaned down to slide his lips over hers softly, they kept swaying in each other’s arms long after the music had stopped.

—————

“You look gorgeous!”

“Daisy, that dress! Daniel’s going to be all over you as soon as he sees you!”

Daisy giggled at her friends as she took a look at herself in the full length mirror. Even she had to admit, she looked stunning in her sweetheart neckline, strapless, lacy wedding dress.

“Auntie Daisy looks like a princess!” Alya exclaimed, tugging at her mother’s arm.

“Doesn’t she?” Jemma replied, spinning her daughter with one hand while her other rested on her very visible bump.

A knock at the door prompted the women to turn to their attention, May came through.

“It’s about that time,” she announced, “You ready?”

Daisy took a deep breath, “Definitely.”

Yo-Yo, Kira, Jemma and little Alya filed out of the room one by one, all wishing Daisy good luck before taking their places. Daisy waited anxiously for her cue to come, she wasn’t having second thoughts about Daniel, not at all. But just as she’d felt when they got their apartment, it all seemed to good to be true.

Another knock, this time she knew exactly who it was.

“Come in!”

The door opened and revealed Coulson, clothed in a much dressier suit than usual. As soon as he laid eyes on Daisy, tears sprung to his eyes at the sight of her.

“Wow…” he whispered, his voice compromised with emotion.


She rushed across the small dressing room into his arms, needing reassurance that everything was going to be okay.

“Coulson, I’m scared.”

“Why?” he asked, “What’s wrong?”

Daisy shook her head, pressed into his shoulder, “I just feel like I’m waiting for the other shoe to drop. Nothing in my life has ever gone as well as Daniel and I have but what if we go through with this and-and something happens and it ends?”

“Daisy, Daisy,” Coulson soothed as he wrapped her in his arms, “Shh..”

Once her breathing had calmed and she’d stopped rambling, Coulson pulled back to meet her worried eyes,

“There’s no one more deserving of a happy ending than you,” he said confidently, “And it’s waiting for you at the end of that aisle. You have to trust in the fact that you and Daniel are strong enough to make it through whatever lies in your future.”

Daisy hadn’t realized there were tears in her eyes till one dripped down her cheek. Coulson was quick to pull a handkerchief out of his pocket and dab at her face.

“Now,” he began with a smile, “I think they’re waiting on us out there.”

Daisy laughed as she collected herself, locating her bouquet and adjusting her dress.


“Okay, let’s do this,” she said with a genuine smile as she took Coulson’s arm.

They left the dressing room and walked the short distance outside, they could hear the violinist that was playing as the bridal party made their way down the aisle. Soon enough, the song switched to the one Daisy had selected as her bridal march. Coulson looked to her for assurance that she was ready, she exhaled slowly and nodded. They began their walk out towards the aisle, all eyes in their small wedding party turning to her but she was only focused on one pair.

Daniel.

He waited at the end dressed in a very dapper black suit, his hand coming up to his cheek to brush a tear away at the sight of his beautiful fiancé. Suddenly, all of Daisy’s racing thoughts calmed and she couldn’t get to the aisle fast enough. Coulson was right, she had earned her happy ending. Daniel and her could make it through whatever came their way, they’d certainly made it through a lot already.

Once they reached the floral archway, Daisy handed her bouquet to Jemma and Coulson switched positions to stand between Daniel and her. To be honest, neither Daisy nor Daniel could remember a thing he was saying. They were too engrossed in each other until they heard the word ‘vows’ spoken.

Daisy volunteered to go first as Jemma handed her the small folded piece of paper,

“Daniel,” she started, “I never in a million years thought I would end up here. Let alone with someone standing across from me who I had to the travel to find,”

A quiet chorus of chuckles rang out.

“But here we are and here I am saying that I would have crossed a million galaxies, traveled to any decade and taken any risk needed if I knew that it was you waiting at the end of all of it. I love you more than anything in this world and whatever may come, good or bad, I know that I can face it with you by my side.”

Daniel swiped at his eyes again as Daisy handed the paper back to Jemma while he took his from Mack,

“Daisy, I shouldn’t be here. But because of you and the team, I’m standing here ready to begin my new life with you. The new life you gave me. You are my first and my last, my beginning and my ending, you’re my superhero. I promise to always pick you up, to always support you in whatever insane ideas you have and to be there in whatever way you need me, till my last breath,” he took Daisy’s trembling hand, “I will love you in this forever and in whatever comes after forever.”

Tears freely streamed down Daisy’s face as he finished, giving her all the reassurance she needed that they’d be okay. They exchanged their rings, said ‘I do’ and then Coulson proudly told Daniel that he could kiss his bride. He took Daisy into his arms and dipped her as they sealed their marriage in the sweetest of kisses.

This, Daisy thought, this is what forever feels like.

————

They’d retired from field work once they’d found out Daisy was pregnant, two years after their wedding. She’d given birth to twins, they’d named them Phillip Daniel Sousa and Mackenzie Anne Sousa. While completely overwhelmed trying to handle two babies, they were happier than they’d ever been. Daisy doubted her abilities as a mother at first since she’d never had a stable family herself. Daniel refused to let her believe she was anything but the best mom in the world.

After Phillip and Mackenzie’s first birthday, Daniel and Daisy agreed that it was time to move out of the city. Their relocated to upstate New York, buying a small house perfect for their family. Their status in SHIELD changed once more as they became consultants rather than full time agents. Neither of them wanted to give up their work totally, but they put their family first before anything else.

Their children grew up hearing stories of their father’s adventures in the fifties and their mother’s daring tales of traveling through space. When they were ten, they both discovered their Inhuman abilities. Daisy trained them to master their abilities flawlessly, she couldn’t have been prouder of her children. When they were older, Phillip became a SHIELD agent while Mackenzie went to SWORD, she was much more interested in space than her brother.

Decades later, Daniel and Daisy sat on the front porch of their home watching the sunset. Their hair had greyed, their skin had wrinkled and they’d lived through more life than most had. Their love had not only survived, it had flourished and grown stronger. They’d kept their vows to each other each and every day, through thick and thin.

Daisy peeked over at her husband, admiring the sunlight on his face just as she had that day on the planet she still couldn’t pronounce the name of. He caught her and turned to face her, his arm wrapped around her waist tightened as he pulled her closer to him.

“You really were my first and last,” he remarked with a smile.

“And I still would’ve travelled to any galaxy to get to you,” she replied, tracing the still sharp jawline.

Daniel leaned forward and kissed Daisy’s temple, “Happy Anniversary, Quake.”

She wrapped her arm around his middle, “Same to you, Danny Boy.”

————

900 Followers Celebration

[marabrosca]

[REUPLOAD] No Rest For The “Wicked” (Iron Bull x Lavellan)

a commission for @silversong79

words: 2k

summary: Guilt follows the Inquisitor into her sleep, and Bull is there to bring her back to reality. But when reality and dreams are the same, what is she to do?

tags: nightmares, hurt/comfort, soft, cuddling, red templars

Read it on AO3 

Summer was admittedly not the most favorable time of the year, Iolanthe would say. Between the rare waves of heat, the occasional crop drought, and the Halla being harder to keep track of as they sprung about the plains; she was happy it didn’t last long. But what good would she be at her job if she didn’t strengthen her nerve? Her clan and the Halla needed her to do her duty, to keep them safe, even when it meant sweating through her tunic until it needed to be peeled away from her skin. Even when her feet swelled in her boots and her back ached, she’d return them all home by nightfall. Nothing allowed her to sleep better than knowing her clan was safe, and knowing that they could come to her in their time of need.

When she saw the Keeper approaching, eyes set hard, she forgot about the Halla, and the pasture.

“Is something wrong?” “We need to speak.” The Keeper responded, disappointment in her voice.

“What happened? Did I do something wro-”

In a flash the staff she had been using to herd was ripped from her hands, and the Keeper shook her head with a tsk.

“Look at what you’ve done, child.” The words struck hard in the elf’s ears, even if she didn’t know why she was being scolded.

“Can’t even hold your weapon properly, and just look at what happened there.” The old woman’s finger pointed to a spot on the ground, but nothing seemed wrong with it. There was just grass and dirt. Iolanthe stared at the older woman in silent confusion, only being met with a steely glare, and the elder began to pace back and forth. Iolanthe bent down to examine the grass, then opted to kneel when she was sureshe had missed something.

“What…do you mean?” Iolanthe asked with a shuddering breath.

The Keeper didn’t answer, just continued to pace, eyes staring hard at the ground. Another tremble shot up Iolanthe’s back, and it was then that she finally noticed her breath- that it was, well, there. Visible. She shifted her knees, and the grass answered with a dry, miserable crack. She looked down, and it had all turned black. Was it burnt? Her hand reached down to touch it and, no, it wasn’t singed. It was quite wet, in fact, like it had just been smothered in snow. Iolanthe retracted her hand, lifting her head to focus again on the Keeper, who paced in deafening silence.

Cassandra now turned to face her, a hard expression pressing her features tightly together.

“I can not say I trust you with this,” the Keeper’s voice spoke from the Seeker’s mouth “but we have no other choice. You let everyone else die.”

Iolanthe was wracked with shivering now. Wind had picked up all around her and was beginning to slash her skin whenever it pleased. The cold, heavy armor laid on her like dead weight, and she could barely hear the Keeper’s words over her chattering teeth. It hurt. Everything hurt.

Without thinking she stood, suddenly, and when she focused her eyes again she was on a mountainside. It was so high up she swore she was in the heavens, above all Thedas and all life. The pitch black of the night left nothing to be discovered aside from the faintest twinkling of snow that piled high to her knees. Her breathing was ragged now, and once again she was left alone, waiting, in the dark. Her legs dare not move in fear of falling down a slope.

As she was about to cry out, desperate for any other presence, the Anchor on her arm lit up in a flash, making her reel backwards. Not a moment later, the snow glowed a dim, eerie red. It stretched for miles; and before she could process the image before her, the red shone even brighter. Harsh, red light illuminated every expanse of ground with such intensity that it could not be directly looked at. And there was heat. So much heat. Heat enough to burn the underside of her boots, to chase away the frigid mountain air.

She turned to run, not knowing exactly where, but away. Tears pricked the edges of her eyelids, catching the wind and making them sting. A rumble and the echo of rocks falling apart followed her heels, until she stumbled and fell to the restless earth. Cracks began to form in the mountain’s hard surface, that bright red light growing stronger.

“Stop! Stop it!”

The earth responded with a great split, and from it arose the tip of a crystal. The hue was a blindingly scarlet, and it seemed to radiate a vibration that turned Iolanthe’s stomach. Her hands made contact with the ground and she began pushing herself away from the intrusion, gasping as it rose higher, the mass of it uprooting the stone. With dawning horror she realized that the crystal in front her could only be red lyrium. The kind she had only seen one other time so far.

“No…oh Gods no…”

What she saw next nearly stopped her heart. Long, gray, craggily fingers wormed themselves from deep below, followed by sodden hands and arms. Bright red glowed in the veins of the rotting flesh. One of the hands shot up and grabbed her ankle, pulling her several inches forward towards the split that was gaping wider and wider. Iolanthe reached for her sword but it was gone. She tried to scream but it was drowned under horrid cries from the creatures down below. The creatures…

The Red Templars.

Guilt and shame and fear overwhelmed her as more hands yanked on her boots, moaning and wailing as if in harmony. “Help us…you did this…You…” Red smoke ascended into the air with each word, it stung like acid, and made Iolanthe choke.

Neon light blinded her as she was nearly dragged over the edge, not being able to find the strength to pull herself up.

“I’m sorry! I’m sorry!”

And then she fell.  

Iolanthe shot up and awake, letting out a shriek she barely registered, as it mixed with the still-echoing wails bouncing back and forth in her mind. Sweat soaked through her shirt, eyes darting wildly, breaking through the haze of her visions. She came-to enough to realize it wasn’t the hands of corpses constricting her, but rather the sheets she had tangled up, no doubt from thrashing in her unrest.

Gone were the moans and screams of the corrupted. Gone were their rigid, sharp digits on her skin. And gone was the red smoke that choked her through her tears. Iolanthe looked down at the sheets around her legs and felt her whole body quake. Only two breaths managed to escape before she dropped her head to her knees, sobbing. Was she being punished? Was she an offense to the Gods for fighting under this Andraste? How many more people were going to be hurt because of her?

The Red Templars had been her fault. Their corruption was the result of her taking up more power than she deserved, more than she could handle. And failing. Then they had come to kill everyone else, and were still out there. Corypheus would infect them, turn them into monsters like him, and she’d stand between them and the world, and do nothing. Because she couldn’t. Her whole life had become a joke, and the Anchor had become a death sentence.

She was about to cry again when a sudden crash and heavy footsteps bounding up the stairs ripped her from her grief, but her mind was still drowning in the visions, and didn’t even recognize the sound until a massive great-axe poked out from the lower half of the stairs.

“Boss! Are you alright?” Iolanthe’s gasp caught in her throat, mouth agape in confusion until Bull rose to her line of sight. His head swiveled, eye focused on the dark room for an assailant, but he was quick to see there was none.

“Boss?” he said again, chest heaving from the adrenaline, still not letting his guard down.

Silence stretched between them as she stared at him with wide eyes. Her breath came out in small puffs, mouth dry and face wet from tears.

“What are you doing up here?” her voice croaked in a whisper, a simple question, as if nothing had happened. The Qunari’s weapon slowly descended to his side, marking the confusion in her expression, and the glossy distance in her eyes. Had she not heard herself screaming? Another minute of silence passed, and he decided to place his weapon at the banister and walk carefully to her side.

“You were screaming for help. Were you asleep?” Iolanthe slowly turned her head from him, staring blankly ahead. He let her breathe and process what was going on, and when she did, it was evident. Tears sprang a new, and a shaky exhale left her lips. As soon as the sobbing returned, Bull sat himself on the side of the bed and pulled the Inquisitor to his chest. A massive hand stroked the back of her neck and black hair, and the other arm wrapped around her back. It was painful to hear this, but he had to let it ride out to find out what was causing it.

They don’t know how long the sobbing and sniffing and gasping continued; but when the storm was ebbed, blue-green eyes –now also mixed with red- looked him in the face.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered. The Qunari brushed some tears off her face and peeled away sticking wet hair.

“You don’t need to apologize,” he answered, softly, a part of him that was just for her. His arm didn’t leave her when she sat up, wiping her face roughly against her shirt-sleeve. There was frustration, then, along with distress. “Do you want to talk about it?”

“I don’t want to think about it- the dream. I-I don’t want to talk-” “Ssh, it’s alright. You don’t have to.” Iolanthe’s torso jumped with an involuntary sniff. She wished she could just stop crying already. The longer it went on, the more it felt like she lost, like the terror had gotten the better of her and wouldn’t leave. She’d never survive like that.

“How did you hear me screaming from all the way downstairs?” Bull’s eyebrows shot up, then he turned his head…almost sheepishly?

“I, um,” he coughed out “I wasn’t downstairs. You’ve been…off, all day, jumpy. It was bothering you to be left alone. Something was telling me to wait, just in case.”

Iolanthe rested her head on his chest, listening to his heartbeat, eyes stinging.

“Thank you.” it was a whisper, but she knew he had heard it when his lips touched her forehead. The kiss had been a surprise, much gentler and intimate than what they normally did, but she sunk into it.

“If you were in need of help you should have asked. You don’t have to put the weight of the world on your back.” “Yes I do, I don’t have a choice.” “No, you have people here that will help you. You have me.” “…I know. I just feel like…the more I talk about it…acknowledging it will make it stronger.”

“No. Keeping things to yourself until you fall apart is only going to hurt you. I’m here for you, and not just for the job.”

This time he kissed her cheek, barely brushing her skin, and she let out a relieved sigh. There was a warmth in her face now, and a feeling of change in that room. Her head rested back on his chest, breathing finally becoming smooth.

“Are you alright now, Kadan?”

She barely processed the name, opting to nod and squeeze his hand.

“Stay with me?” “I’ll stay here all night if you want me to.” “…I do.”

Their bodies moved until they laid flat, Iolanthe’s upper body now resting on his. She could almost purr at the gentle fingers in her hair.

She didn’t sleep that night, even with her eyes closed Bull could tell, and he stayed there all night. He’d be by her side no matter what. After all, killing demons is what he did best; be it on the battlefield or right there, in the heart of the woman he…

Loves.

[phoenix-downer]

Circling Penelope

Sora/Kairi. Post-canon. Angst, romance, hope. Based off of the Odyssey. 3000 words. 

Time didn’t have any meaning anymore, and the usual boundaries between waking and sleep and death had all been blurred together. That meant Sora had no break, no relief from his thoughts. And they traveled to Kairi almost constantly.

He pulled her lucky charm out of his pocket and stared at it. How many weeks and months had passed in the Realm of Light? How many days and nights had she spent waiting for him to return to her like he said he would, only to be disappointed because he still wasn’t home yet?

“Kairi, I’ll come back to you, I promise,” he said as he stroked the shell that had his face on it. 

The Final World was endless though. He was on a journey that had no clear path. Sure, the destination was obvious, but how to get there was the real question. His wanderings just took him through endless memories and shifting tides of scenery. A meandering odyssey with no way of knowing how to get back to his Penelope. 

“Just once, I’d like to see her again. Just once. Is that really so hard?” he asked no one in particular. All he got was silence in response, same as ever. Sighing, he kept walking forward, and ripples spread out from underneath him. One foot in front of the other in the hopes that it really would bring him a step closer to home. A step closer to her. 

“Sora…” came a voice from far away. Her voice.  

He perked up. “Kairi? Is that you?”

He sped up, and the scenery around him began to shift. The water beneath him swelled and pulsed till it formed waves pulled by some invisible moon. The sands of the Play Island rolled in, and the familiar trees and shack and waterfall all sprang into existence. It was like watching a popup book come to life, a realm from some happy fairytale. 

And best of all, someone very important was here, standing on the shore facing away from him. She turned, and her entire face lit up when she saw him. 

“Sora!” 

“Kairi!”

He broke into a run, not caring that the waves were doing their best to keep them apart. The water sloshed all around him as he tried his best to reach her, and she likewise ran towards him. Right when he was about to reach shore though, he halted. Darkness was swirling around her feet. Was this really his Kairi, or was it just another illusion? 

“Sora?” she asked, tilting her head, her eyes questioning, curious. 

“You’re not real,” he said, hanging his head as he fought the awful sinking feeling in his stomach. “The real Kairi doesn’t have any darkness in her.” 

She stared at him, unblinking. “Why wouldn’t I?” 

“You’re still a Princess of Heart. That means you’re not like me. You don’t have darkness in you like I do.”

“But I’ve had plenty of reason to grow darkness in my heart. Losing my heart, getting kidnapped, getting broken into pieces… and being abandoned by you.” 

He clenched his fists. “Kairi, you know I never wanted to leave you—”

“But you did.” 

He just stared at her. His own heart felt like someone was stabbing it with a knife as tears filled her eyes. He never wanted to be the reason she cried. 

“Why do you keep abandoning me?” she asked, her lower lip trembling and her voice quaking.

“I haven’t abandoned you!” he cried. “This is just a temporary separation, I promise!” 

“You’re dead, and nothing you can do can change that. Which means… you can’t keep your promise.” 

“Kairi, I swear I won’t let anything stand in the way of us being together anymore.” 

He really, truly meant it. He was sick of not following through for her. He was tired of everything else getting in the way, like he and Kairi were forever doomed to be apart. 

She sniffed and wiped her eyes. “Then prove it to me. Come ashore.” 

She held her hand out, and he tensed. The darkness was still swirling around her feet. How did he know this wasn’t just some trick? What if going ashore and taking this Kairi’s hand doomed him to be separated from the real Kairi? 

Was this even a fake Kairi? Maybe it was the real deal. Maybe this was some side of Kairi that she didn’t let anyone else see. 

“Kairi, I—”

She lowered her hand. “It’s okay. This is what you do best. Leave me behind to fulfill your duty to everyone else.” 

Her words were full of bitterness. Another stab to his heart.  

“I told you, I’m not gonna live like that anymore! You’re my priority now.” He took a deep breath. “And by ‘you,’ I mean the real you. This is just an illusion, it has to be. I have to get back to the real Kairi.”  

“What if this is how you’ll get back to me? What if this is your only chance?” 

“It can’t be.”

“But what if it is? Which would you prefer, an eternity of solitude spent looking for me, or getting to be with me here and now?” 

He stared at her, took in the way the breeze blew through her red hair, how the sun made her eyes shine. She looked so small, standing on the beach all alone. He wanted to hold her, to comfort her. Wanted to make up for abandoning her and leaving her behind. 

“You’re lonely,” she said softly. “So lonely you can hardly bear it. No one is meant to be alone, least of all you. Your journey has been long and hard, and you deserve to rest.”

Rest. What he wouldn’t give to finally sleep. He hadn’t been able to, not since he got here. 

“Sora, please, stay with me. Even if it’s only for a little while.”

“I guess… a little while wouldn’t hurt.”

She finally smiled again. “No, it wouldn’t. Just a short break before you continue on your journey.” 

A short break sounded nice. He hadn’t had much of one in a long time. 

He took a step closer. 

She held her arms out, and he wanted to hug her really badly now. “I told you, remember?” she said with her classic Kairi charm. “You’re safe with me.” 

“Safe with you, yeah.” 

He took a few more steps. A hug would be really, really nice. It had been way too long since he’d felt the warmth of another person. And to go so long without her warmth—

He broke into a run and flung himself into her arms. Hugging her was as good as he remembered. He ran his hand over her hair and pulled her as close as possible. Whatever the danger might be, this was more than worth the risk. 

“I’m back,” he said, glad at last to be reunited with her. But she was oddly silent.

“Kairi?” he asked, leaning back a little to search her face. Why hadn’t she given him her usual return greeting? 

“I’m glad we’re together again,” she said with a smile. A nagging thought at the back of his mind told him this was wrong, this was all wrong, and yet… he couldn’t bring himself to leave. 

She reached for his hand. “Come with me.” 

He let her lead him towards the Secret Place before taking one final look behind him. The sea stretched into the horizon, and he thought he heard his name rolling in with the tide.

Then Kairi squeezed his hand, and he turned to look at her. “Coming!” he promised, and the rest of his hesitation melted away. 

So long as he and Kairi were together, everything would be fine. 

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Being with Kairi was as good as he’d imagined. He’d missed talking to her, hanging out with her, seeing her smile, hearing her laughter. They had all the time in the worlds now to themselves, just like he’d always wanted. They spent hours together on the Play Island, doing things they’d done as kids and revisiting nostalgic memories. 

And yet… this nagging voice at the back of his mind still wouldn’t leave him alone. Everything was right and good except for that. 

“Sora?” Kairi asked with a frown as he stared out at the sea. The two of them were making a sandcastle like they always used to with… with… 

“Where’s everyone else? The other people we used to hang out with, I mean.” 

“We’re together, that’s all that matters.” 

She added another bucket’s worth of sand to the castle like that settled the issue. 

“Yeah, I know, but… don’t you think it’s weird that we’re the only people here? And I can’t… I can’t remember our friends’ names.” 

He frowned. Something like this had happened before. His memories had gotten all mixed up. But that time it was his memories of Kairi that he’d lost. This was… the opposite?

“How come I’m having trouble remembering them, but I can remember you just fine?” he asked.

She shrugged. “It’s been a long time since you’ve seen them. Maybe that’s why?”

“It hasn’t been that long, has it?”

 “Almost a year, I think. It’s okay, people fall out of touch when they don’t see each other.”

“A year?!” he demanded. “I’ve been here for an entire year?” 

She put her hand on his arm. “You’ve been with me for almost an entire year,” she said sweetly. “That’s the longest we’ve been together in a long time.”

“Shouldn’t our friends be here? Where are they?”

Her perfect mouth twisted into a pout. “Are you saying I’m not good enough for you?” 

“No, that’s not it at all! I just—”

She scooted away from him, a wounded look on her face. “You want to leave me behind again, don’t you?” 

“Kairi, never, I never want to leave you—”

“But you do. I’m not good enough anymore. You can’t keep your promise after all.” 

She buried her face in her hands, and his heart sank. He hadn’t meant to make her unhappy. He was just wondering where everyone else was.

“I will keep my promise,” he said softly as he put his arm around her. “I’ll stay with you, always and forever.” 

Her face brightened, and she leaned against him. “Thank you, Sora. I know I can always count on you.”

He smiled, but it felt kinda fake, even for him. He would keep his promise, but… the nagging at the back of his mind hadn’t gotten any better. In fact, it had gotten worse. This place was wrong. He felt it on such a gut level that he knew this whole situation couldn’t be okay. 

But being with Kairi? That felt right. He could ignore the wrongness a little longer if it meant being with her. 

The voice whispering over the waves was so faint he barely heard it anymore.

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Sora was frolicking in the sea with Kairi today. He never swam out far because it made her upset, but they enjoyed swimming in the shallows together. They were enjoying a vigorous game of “splash me” when something bumped up against his leg. 

A bottle? He lifted it out of the water to get a closer look. When he glanced around, Kairi was still safely underwater. There was a letter inside the bottle, and he pulled it out. 

Sora, 

You’re trapped in an endless dream. None of what you’re seeing is real, and you have to get away from the phantom. She’s the one keeping you there, and you’ll never be free so long as you’re under her spell. 

The letter wasn’t signed. Sora’s hand shook a little as he tried to come to grips with what it said. 

“I’m… trapped?”

“What’s that? A letter?” 

He yelped and jumped in the air. Kairi was right behind him now, peering over his shoulder. He dropped the letter into the water, and she frowned and fished it out. 

“Huh? It’s blank.”

Sure enough, the message was gone like it had never even been there. Sora took a deep breath to calm his nerves, then looked at Kairi. 

“Weird, huh? Guess it was just a prank.”

“Guess so.” 

He tossed the bottle back into the water and followed her to shore. But this time, the voice coming over the waves was a little louder, and he couldn’t get what the letter had said out of his head.

Was he really trapped? 

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The bottles kept coming. The letters inside all had variations of the same message, and the writing always disappeared by the time Kairi noticed and tried to read them. 

“This really is strange,” she said with an airy laugh. “Letters without any message? Who would send those? And so many, too.”

“I don’t know,” Sora said, “but it’s really freaking me out.”

He didn’t tell her why, of course. If the letter-writer was telling the truth, if he really was trapped here because the person he thought was Kairi really wasn’t Kairi at all, then spilling the beans was a terrible idea. He couldn’t tip her off that something was wrong because then she might try to stop him from leaving.

And something was wrong. He could feel it in the depths of his soul, in the deepest parts of his heart. The nagging thought at the back of his head had gotten more and more insistent. He had to figure out a way out of here, and soon.

When she was getting supplies from the Seaside Shack one afternoon, the answer presented itself in the form of yet another bottle. The letter inside was different this time.

Come home to me, please.

Kairi 

The answer he’d been waiting for, ever since he’d arrived here and told this Kairi “I’m back.” The right answer, the true answer, the answer the real Kairi would’ve given him. These messages were from her. They had been all along. 

The world around him spun and he felt sick to his stomach. How long had he made her wait, and all for an illusion? An illusion that had promised him comfort in his loneliness and desperation, but an illusion nonetheless. He’d sold the real Kairi out with hardly a fight because he was that easily swayed. That easily deceived.

No, that wasn’t true. He’d known he was being deceived. He’d just enjoyed the deception so much he’d played along with it for a while. But he couldn’t anymore. He just couldn’t. This fake, this illusion, couldn’t compare to the real Kairi, and he wanted to be reunited with her as soon as possible. No more making her wait. Not for one more second.

He tucked Kairi’s letter into his pocket. Even if the writing faded, this was proof he was doing the right thing. Every step closer was a step closer to home. A step closer to Kairi. 

“Sora?” the illusion asked from behind him, and he froze.

When he turned his head, she was there, her eyes staring at him, unblinking. A smile was plastered on her face, but he shuddered as he stared at her. How had he ever thought this was the real Kairi? Whatever this was, it was so cold, so empty, so fake. 

“I’m leaving,” he said. “I’m leaving, and you can’t stop me.” 

She tilted her head. “But you promised. You promised you’d stay.”

“I promised Kairi I would be with her. Not you.” 

“But I am Kairi.” 

“No, you’re not. You’re just a fake. An illusion. You’ve kept me away from her long enough.” 

Her lower lip trembled and her eyes filled with tears. “You’re really leaving me? But you’ll be all alone. I never wanted you to be alone.” 

“I won’t be alone. I’ll be back with Kairi.” 

She shook her head. “We’ll both be alone. Don’t leave me, please.” 

As he watched her cry, his stomach twisted itself into knots. A part of him wanted to comfort her, even though he knew it was a fake. 

It was a fake, right?

But her tears… those were real enough. 

He sighed and retraced his steps, then wrapped his arms around her as she cried. Fake or not, he couldn’t stand to see any version of Kairi cry.

She sniffed and leaned back a little, then cupped his cheek.

“You’re right. I’m not the real Kairi. But you’ve been so kind to me… so good to me… that I couldn’t help but want to be with you.” 

Before he could react, she was standing on her tiptoes and pressing her lips against his. A soft, gentle kiss of farewell. This much he would allow her. He didn’t stop her because his compassion got the better of him. He would go home to the real Kairi, that much was certain. But he couldn’t begrudge even a fake Kairi a moment of comfort. It just went against every feeling of tender compassion he held for her in his heart. 

“Now go, find your Kairi,” she said sadly. “She’s waiting for you.” 

He nodded, then turned away from her and faced the sea. He knew he couldn’t look back. No matter how difficult it was, he had to keep moving forward. Only then would he and Kairi be reunited. 

As he waded into the sea again, the voice on the waves was louder now. It was all around him, and he knew he recognized it. 

It was Kairi’s. It had been all along. She’d been guiding his way home, even when he’d gotten lost.

“I’m coming, Kairi,” he said as the water got deeper. “I know I’ve asked a lot of you, but I’ll be home soon, I promise.” 

With that he dove underwater, ready to meet her no matter how long the journey, no matter how much time it took to find her. Seeing her again would be worth every step, and for her, he would travel the entire universe if that was what it took.  

She was his home, and no matter what happened, that would never change.

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A/N: Charlie requested a kiss prompt between Phantom!Kairi and Sora, so this fic is dedicated to her! Originally the prompt was set in her Blight Sora AU as per her request, but then it kind of took on a life of its own and made its way into some unspecified period during Limit Cut. A big thank you for the prompt! It was really interesting exploring Kairi’s abandonment issues and Sora’s guilt over (very much unwillingly) leaving her behind again in more depth. 

I’d also like to thank @rapis-razuri​ for her help; she gave me the suggestion that I go for a Circe-and-Odysseus kind of a vibe when I hit a rut, and she also came up with the title. It’s a pun on Circe’s name and also ties into the whole “Sora = Odysseus” and “Kairi = Penelope” idea that’s been kicking around our brains for a while. If you think about it, the story after KH3 is an odyssey of sorts for Sora... and Kairi as well, based on how Re:Mind and Limit Cut went. 

Anyway, hope you enjoyed! This marks the final kiss prompt I was requested to write! If you’d like to read the other ones, they are “A kiss to pretend,” “A good morning kiss,” “A kiss on a falling tear,” “A kiss in secrecy,” “A kiss in public,” “A kiss out of necessity/A kiss to wake up,” “A kiss for luck,” and “A kiss because the world is ending” plus its follow-up chapters. 

[darkskyatnight]

Achilles, achilles, achilles come down

Takes place at the end of Season 5

Achilles, achilles, achilles come down,

Won’t you get up off,

Get up off the roof?

Daisy stood on the ledge. Her dad was gone, her mother shut down. Her hair had gone back to its brown, and her face streaked with grime and tears. How could he be gone? The man who meant everything to her and the woman who sheltered her? The man who made her believe in everything, and the woman who helped her protect that everything?

You’re scaring us, and all of us,

Some of us,

Love you, Achilles, it’s not much, but it’s true.

Her team wasn’t much of a team. She could barely look at Fitz without wanting to throw up. Jemma was out of her goddamn mind with stress, and Elena had turned into a smug, panicky wreck.

She wasn’t a leader, she was a soldier, a shield like her father before her. She missed him, so much.

You crazy ass cosmonaut,

Remember your virtue,

Redemption lies plainly in truth.

They’d been to space and back, and her dad should have left her there, she’d wanted it so badly, she couldn’t be the reason to destroy the Earth. He’d ICED her, and brought her back. She was reminded how much she was loved, and how many would miss her. But would they?

Just humour us, Achilles,

Achilles come down, won’t you get up off,

Get up off the roof?

It was a long way down, and vaguely she could hear her mother, pleading with her. It drowned out in her agony, her fists clenching the rails so hard they turned pale. The weight of the world shook with caged tears, a burden heavier than man. She wanted it gone.

The support she’d gotten after coming out of that chrysalis was stifling, she’d killed her friend by going down there, and what had she gotten but paranoia and suspicion, worry and fear from the woman she considered a sister. A team split because of her, patched back through months of regaining trust.

Achilles, Achilles, Achilles come down,

Won’t you get up off,

Get up off the roof?

She turned to her mother and shattered, the weight of the world crushing her back as she fell, clutching the woman who made her. She’d been through so much, yet she’d stuck to Daisy like glue, piecing her back together. The woman who’d taught her to protect and fight, who’d raised her.

The self is not so weightless,

Nor whole and unbroken,

Remember the pact of our youth.

They’d been so young when they joined SHIELD. The trio of troublemakers, the fun-loving Fitz, now dead under a pile of rubble, a man she couldn’t reconcile with who he’d been, the one who’d torn into Daisy’s neck, the feeling of powerlessness, her ribs and lungs contracting in terror as she wailed.

Jemma, the upbeat scientist eager to learn now a ruthless agent toughened by trauma and anger directed at the right people, but nurtured to a sickened blade that cut those around her.

Where you go I’m going,

So jump and I’m jumping,

Since there is no me without you,

The promise whispered between parent and child held them together, Daisy ever the follower latched to her for comfort and security. May the one who’d pulled herself together for Daisy’s sake, now a warrior broken in the safety of her little girl, held strong and tight in each other’s arms.

Soldier on Achilles,

Achilles come down, won’t you get up off,

Get up off the roof?

She’d been expected to hold everyone together at the peak of their terror, the peak of the apocalypse, and expected to lead when the team was falling apart, pulled back from a precipice only to be thrown to the wolves, free-falling into hell over and over, just barely kept from death, only to be saved moments before.

Love the way they light candles in Rome,

But love the sweet air of the votives,

Hurt and grieve but don’t suffer alone,

Engage with the pain as a motive.

It had been an adventure at the start, missions that were full of wonder and mystery and action and urgency. Then the Agency came crashing down around them and with not much left to salvage she’d been shown how to harness her anger, her pain and focus it at the ones who deserved it. She’d been Skye then, the one to roam the clouds, now chained to earth.

Today, of all days, see,

How the most dangerous thing is to love,

How you will heal when you’ll rise above.

How could she tape herself back together again, paint it over with a sleek glaze and pretend? The bandaid would come off sooner or later, and the pain would come flooding back, the dam irreparable.

She’d get through it with the help of those who loved her, despite her keeping them at arms length for a long, long time, they’d wormed their way in.

She’d come back stronger, but for now she agonised.

Achilles, Achilles, Achilles jump now,

You are absent of cause or excuse,

So self indulgent and self referential, no audience could ever want you.

“We didn’t choose you!” The words reverberated through her, her memories of Hive forced to the surface, Daisy’s memories clear as day, the shatter of Mack’s ribs, the blood she’d had drained, the weakness and the sickness, and how she begged to be taken back by Hive.

Now, the words seemed rougher than ever. People looked at her like she’d break, her or them they didn’t know, not that she cared, the intent was the same.

Her friends now hated her, the brother and the sister she’d made in Fitz and Simmons changed from how they were. It made her chest ache, and she wanted to stop the tears rolling down her face, vaguely aware of the swollen soreness in her throat.

You crave the applause but hate the attention,

Then miss it, your act is a ruse.

It is empty, Achilles, so end it all now.

It’s a pointless resistance for you.

She’d been so eager to please people. Her parents most. Being a legacy was hard for her, she wanted so desperately to be worth what her parents are, what the other agents saw them as. She just wanted to be accomplished like them.

The ledge looked so inviting, its whispers crooning to her, pulling her towards a spinning, everlasting darkness, twisted and wrong. It wanted her dead, it wanted her to jump.

“You’re okay, Dais.” May whispered softly.

Achilles, Achilles, just put down the bottle,

Don’t listen to what you consume,

It’s chaos, confusion, and wholly unworthy,

Of feeding and its wholly untrue.

Hive had been an addiction she’d found so hard to cleanse from her veins, her lungs, even on her lips. She felt dirty with how she was used, her body sickened and dirty from his touch, and his awful obsession. She’d hurt so many, lashed out harshly, saved by her own uncle before his death. She felt his sacrifice was in vain so many times, the void screaming at her, trying to dig its claws in.

You may feel no purpose nor point for existing,

It’s all just conjecture and gloom,

There may not be meaning, so find one and seize it,

Do not waste yourself on this roof.

A good amount of her days were a painful numb sensation, time dragged out before her, spent mourning Lincoln, every time she’d see him in the bright smile of a child being helped by a nurse, she’d see him in the lights of the bay as they shone, and the mountains as snow fell down them.

She’d given herself a mission with the Watchdogs. She could save her people, stop a genocide waiting to happen, and her anger would be her blade she’d drive into the sharp structure of their militia, shattering them apart.

Hear those bells ring deep in the soul,

Chiming away for a moment,

Feel your breath course frankly below,

And see life as a worthy opponent.

Her return to SHIELD during her mission had been fraught with tears and apologies, nestled deep in her parents’ arms. The quiet of the evening as they cleaned the scabs on her arms, the soft pain of their embrace she allowed herself to be pulled into, the promise on her lips that she’d stop destroying herself.

Today of all days, see,

How the most dangerous thing’s to love,

How you will heal and you’ll rise above,

Crowned by an overture bold and beyond,

It’s more courageous to overcome,

Throwing herself into the arms of Hell itself had been a job, the obsession AIDA had with Fitz, and yet the love she still had, that good part of her, and how distraught Fitz had been, the HYDRA world the robot bitch had created out of love and admiration for their team turned twisted from regrets, how they healed from their pasts, and how that world ended, not with a bang, but a whimper.

You want the acclaim, the mother of mothers,

(It’s not worth it, Daisy)

More poignant than fame or the taste of another,

(Don’t listen, Daisy)

But be real and jump, you dense motherfucker,

(You’re worth more, Daisy)

You will not be more than a rat in the gutter,

(You’re so much more than a rat)

She felt the warm grip of him around her shoulders, a shield wrapped around her back, the brunt of the dark hissing against her back, but he kept it away, his protection over her lasted even after he was gone, he’d always be with her.

“I can feel him,” she sobbed into her mom’s shoulder. Daisy held her tighter as May laughed wetly. “Me too, me too.”

You want my opinion, my opinion you’ve got,

(No one asked your opinion)

You asked for my counsel, I gave you my thoughts,

(No-one asked for your thoughts)

Be done with this now, and jump off the roof,

(Be done with this now, and get off the roof)

Can you hear me, Daisy? I’m talking to you!

Daisy felt herself pulled up, safe and whole, led away from the ledge, her legs quaking nervously, but as close as she got to the door, she felt herself getting stronger, happier, lighter. May opened the door as the roars got louder. Daisy looked back with a sad smile, and she swore she could see him, the same dopey grin he’d give her, wearing his Cap t-shirt, and a drop splashed on the pavement before, she turned, away, away.

I’m talking to you,

I’m talking to you,

I’m talking to you,

Daisy come down,

Oh, Daisy come down…

The stairs were safe, the stairs were strong. Each floor was a distance lower, a stretch from the rooftop, and a guided hand taking her towards her life, a life she refused to leave, no matter how it called to her. Daisy and Melinda held strong, grimy and sad, but together.

The whispers grew fainter, more desperate, the tentacles on her mind slipping away, the dusted sensation fading into the air.

Throw yourself into the unknown,

With a pace and a fury defiant,

Clothe yourself in beauty untold,

And see life as a means to triumph,

She slipped her jacket on, it still smelled like the day he bought it for her. Standing over the sink, looking into the mirror, she grabbed the scissors and began.

With her outfit made, her hair cut just shorter, she stepped out into the street. Time to thrive.

Today of all days, see,

How the most dangerous thing’s to love,

How you will heal and you’ll rise above,

Crowned by an overture bold and beyond,

Ah, it’s more courageous to overcome….

I love you, Daisy…

[whumping-every-day]

Backhand Slap

Option D was overwhemlingly the majority, so here we have it! Many thanks to everybody who put in a request :) And I will still be doing Callum + stitches, which was the second most requested option. This is set fairly early into Gabriel’s time with Stefan and Maria, about two months after chapter 3!

Masterlist 

-

The mug shatters on impact, and Gabriel stares past numb fingers as the dark liquid spreads across the tiled floor. It’s a dream, he thinks. It has to be a dream.

“Sweetheart? Everything okay in there?”

Gabriel flinches at the sound of Mistress’s voice, and his whole body floods with dread.

It’s not a dream. 

He looks back at the mess at his feet, and suddenly there’s a ringing in his ears. 

Gabriel’s staring at the mess, and at the remains of what he knows was Mistress’s favorite coffee mug, and he can’t breathe. He can’t move, can’t think, and it’s like there’s a band around his chest, constricting with every inhale. 

“Gabe?” 

The second time Mistress calls for him it snaps Gabriel out of his stupor. He’s quaking as he falls to his knees, trying frantically to scoop up the shattered pieces. There’s not enough air in the room, and Gabriel’s hands shake so badly that one of the pieces slices into his palm, drawing a hiss of pain from behind his teeth. 

He has only seconds. Gabriel is hyper aware of the doorway, and of whoever might fill it at any moment, because as soon as they step into the kitchen they’ll see what he’s done. There’s a hitched sob lingering in his throat as he manages to get the cabinet door open. The biggest pieces go in the garbage just as Gabriel hears his Mistress get up in the living room. 

He whimpers on the next exhale when he looks back at the mess. It’s too much, his pitiful attempts at cleaning haven’t done anything to conceal his transgression. The coffee had hit the ground and splattered, all over the cabinets and the legs of the table.

Gabriel is huddled in the middle of the mess when Mistress’s shadow falls over him. 

“I’m sorry,” he whimpers. “I’m sorry, Mistress, please, I didn’t mean to, I didn’t-”

“Didn’t mean to - oh, sweety, you’re bleeding.” 

Gabriel doesn’t mean to, but he shies away from his Mistress’s outstretched hand. There’s a sharp pain in his knee, but Gabriel’s eyes are blurring with tears, he can’t even see the shard of ceramic he must be kneeling on. He keens softly, miserably, cowering on the kitchen floor.

“Please,” he gasps again, but when he dares a glance up, Mistress’s face is harsh with tension. 

“Sweetheart, I need you to stop moving around,” she murmurs, and it’s gentle but commanding, a tone that immediately has Gabriel stiffening to obey. “You’re not in any trouble,” she adds. “If you move you’ll get cut worse. Just... stay where you are, okay? Stay.” 

Gabriel’s ears are still ringing, and he’s still trembling. But he latches onto the command even as he quivers and snatches in quick, unsteady breaths. He’s not sure what he’s more afraid of; his Mistress’s anger, or her disappointment.

“Stefan!” Mistress calls, and Gabriel flinches like the word was a slap. He looks up at his Mistress with big eyes, and whimpers softly when Master calls something back from upstairs. 

They’ve been merciful enough to let Gabriel learn from his mistakes, so far. But this is not a mistake he can learn from, not without punishment. This a lessen that has to be ground into him, beaten in until he can remember it. 

They haven’t punished him yet. But somehow, Gabriel has always suspected (or feared) that when the time came, it would be Master that delivered it. 

Master is bigger than Mistress. Master will hit much harder. And he doesn’t know their limits yet, doesn’t know how much punishment they will make him take before he’s forgiven. 

His Master rounds the corner then, saying something to his sister, but Gabriel doesn’t hear what. The room is spinning, suddenly, and he can’t even feel the blood trickling from his palm and down his wrist, or the shard biting into his knee. He can’t feel the cold tile under his knees, or the way he’s shaking apart.

Gabriel’s whole world is narrowing, and when someone takes a step towards him the boy bleats in blind terror and scrambles backwards. More shards get embedded in soft skin, and blood streaks the unforgiving tile, but Gabriel doesn’t feel it.

“Gabriel? Gabriel, it’s alright, please, stop moving, you’re okay - oh, shit.” The words are said in quick succession as Gabriel cries out and then launches himself backwards, away from Stefan’s approaching figure.

Stefan stops, quickly falling into a crouch – but the damage is done. Gabriel has gone glassy-eyed and panicked, and he keens again and claws weakly at the cabinets when Stefan tries to shuffle closer.

“Oh, god, his feet, Stefan-”

“I see it,” Stefan mutters. He’d been in his study when Maria had called, and he understands why – he’s in shoes and she isn’t. She’s watching anxiously from the edge of the shards, and Stefan carefully scooches a bit closer.

Gabe sobs at his approach, and Stefan grits his teeth.

“Mari, I’m going to grab him,” he says quietly. “Can you-”

“Tweezers and the first aid kit,” Maria mutters, already nodding. “I’ll be right back.” Gabriel whines piteously as she leaves, blue eyes staring desperately after her.

“Gabe?” Stefan tries one more time, but the sound of his voice just has the boy crying harder, twisting uselessly against the cabinets. Every motion smears more blood across the floor.

Stefan moves with purpose; there’s no way to make it less frightening, so Stefan focuses on speed as he pushes to his feet, strides over to where Gabriel is cowering, and scoops him up. The boy wails at the contact, and he’s breathing in short, terrified bursts, eyes squeezed shut.

Stefan carries him out of the circle of broken ceramic, and then carefully sets him down again. The moment he’s put down, Gabriel starts whimpering apologies again.

“ ‘m – ‘m s-sorry, Master,” he cries. “I didn’t, I didn’t mean it, I’m sorry-”

Stefan opens his mouth to interrupt, but Gabriel’s not hearing him. Their sweet pet is cowering against the wall and babbling apologies, and it breaks Stefan’s heart.

“Gabe,” he tries. “Gabriel, sweetheart, please listen to me. I promise it’s okay, you’re not in trouble. It was an accident, I know…”

It’s like the boy doesn’t even hear him, and his gasping inhales are starting to take on a wheezing quality. He’s panicking himself into passing out, still bleeding all over the floor and shaking like a leaf, and Stefan closes his eyes for a moment as he realizes what has to happen.

“Gabriel,” he tries, one last time. It’s firmer, commanding, but there’s still nothing. Gabriel’s eyes are open but distant, and he’s still apologizing in hitched, pitchy little whimpers.

The boy’s skin has gone ashy pale, and Stefan is hyper aware of his own strength as he lifts a hand and smacks him across the cheek.

It’s not hard, just enough to startle, and to leave a faint red print against Gabriel’s cheekbone. Stefan feels sick inside, but the boy’s apologies have stopped. In fact, everything has stopped.

The boy is hanging there, head turned to the side and mouth open, not even breathing. But then the lack of oxygen makes itself known, and Gabriel drags in a shuddering gasp and collapses down to his hands and knees.

“Tha-ank you M-Master,” he croaks. “Thank you for, for teaching m-me better.” He’s still unsteady, still trembling, but when Stefan sinks lower into his crouch Gabriel’s eyes follow him, no longer absent and glassy.

“Are you hearing me again, sweetheart…?” There’s nothing in Stefan’s voice so much as sadness, and Gabriel whines softly in response. But he nods, lifts a hand to cup his cheek. “Okay. That’s good, sweetheart, good boy.”

It makes Stefan’s stomach turn to praise him now, but Gabriel clings to it like he always does.

The boy’s cheek is stinging, but it won’t bruise. Gabriel can tell that already, and he doesn’t quite understand. Master is certainly capable of dishing out a proper punishment, a real lesson. But instead he’s chosen to be lenient with his disobedient pet.

“Do you understand why I did that, bud…?” Gabriel balks, and answers timidly.

“B-because I deserve, I deserved it.”

“No, sweetheart.” Master shakes his head, and Gabriel flinches. “I did it because you were panicking, and there are sharp bits of ceramic all over the floor. If you move you will get hurt more.”

It’s like the words bring all the pain rushing back, and Gabriel’s breath catches as he looks down at his knees. The blood is rude and garish against the grey tiles, smeared on his clothes, all over his hands. “I’m sorry,” he gasps, and Master shakes his head again.

“I want you to listen, bud. Can you?” Gabriel nods again, sniffling softly. “Good. This is very important. You are not in any trouble. This was an accident, and-” Master hesitates just for a moment, and Gabriel thinks he sounds almost pained. “And you’ve been punished already. So there is no more coming. Do you understand?” Gabriel nods again, but Master must sense his uncertainty. “Say it back for me, sweetheart,” the man instructs gently. “Say the words.”

Gabriel’s throat feels clogged, but he sniffs again and tries. “I, I’m not in any – any t-trouble.” It sounds like a lie, feels like a lie, but Master nods encouragingly, so Gabriel tries again. “I-I’m not in t-trouble.” It’s a bit steadier, the second time, and Master smiles.

“Good. That’s probably hard for you to believe, sweetheart, I’m so proud of you.” The boy eases visibly under the encouragement, even if he’s not quite sure he believes it, yet.

Stefan gestures to one of the chairs. “I’m going to put you in a chair for now, okay? Your mistress is coming back soon with the first aid kit.”

It’s not really a question, Gabriel knows, and he clings to his Master’s sweater when he’s picked up again. He’s still trembling faintly with the leftover adrenaline, but he goes where he’s put, and Master pulls up a second chair so that their knees touch.

“Thank you, Master,” the boy mumbles.

“Sure thing, bud,” the man answers quietly.

When Maria gets back with the first aid kit, she doesn’t comment on the red mark on Gabriel’s cheek. But she fixes Stefan with a long, challenging look, and the guilt in his eyes is answer enough.

She pulls the pieces of ceramic out of Gabriel’s flesh shard by shard, then cleans them and bandages his feet. When she finishes he thanks her, and she smiles and says of course.

“I’m sorry,” the boy whispers, and it’s quieter than before, just for them. Maria pauses in putting the gauze away, reaching out to gently squeeze his shoulder.

“Hey, now. You didn’t mean it.” Gabriel nods, but he’s still frowning.

“It – it was-” It seems to be taking a lot of effort, and Gabriel winces, shrinking in on himself.

“It’s okay, sweetheart,” Maria murmurs. Stefan is nearby in the kitchen, listening but not engaging. Gabriel hesitates, braces himself, starts again.

“It was your – your favourite,” he mumbles guiltily. “The mug, it was – you s-said it was your favourite, and I’m sorry, Mistress, I’m – I’m sorry.” It’s not as panicked as before, but it’s even more miserable, as if breaking a mug is an unforgivable sin.

“Oh, Gabe.” Maria is careful when she extends a hand, and she doesn’t drop it until Gabriel reaches out to take it. She squeezes gently, running a thumb over the back of his hand. “You are much more important to me than some silly mug,” she says seriously. “To both of us.”

Gabe looks up timidly, as if seeking confirmation. His Mistress’s eyes are just as warm as they always are, and when he risks a peek over at Master, the man nods in agreement.

“Way more important,” he murmurs.

Gabriel inhales, and suddenly it’s wet.

Mistress closes the first aid kit and tidies up the remnants of bandages on the table, and Master sweeps up the remaining shards. By the time they are finished Gabriel’s eyes are dry again, and his breathing is mostly under control. But there’s still something reverent in his eyes as they help him upstairs, and when Master wraps his arms around him Gabriel holds on tight.

His cheek is tender when he rests it on his pillow, but Gabriel doesn’t shy away from it. The pain is a reminder. He’d done wrong today, and Master had cared enough to make him better.

They have been so gentle with him, these two, but that night, as he drifts off to sleep, it’s the faint pain in his cheek that Gabriel takes comfort in.

[lobstermobster-95]

Incrimination

Notes: Realized I forgot to post this on here as well. My first take try at modern au!

Summary: When Runaan catches Rayla sneaking back home in the middle of the night, they both lose their tempers and Rayla makes sure to let him know exactly who she'd been with. But when he pulls her world out from under her as a response, Callum is there to catch her before she hits the ground.

Pairing: Callum/Rayla

Word Count: 2,577

AO3 Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22370722

The lamp in the den flicked on before Rayla even had a chance to head toward the stairs. The abrupt change in lighting left her rubbing at her eyes and wincing as she tried to clear the spots from her vision.

“You’re late,” a stern voice said from the sofa.

Her eyes may have been clouded, but Rayla didn’t need them to know Runaan had not in fact stayed late at the studio like he said he would.

She groaned and rubbed more furiously at her eyes until she could finally see him glaring at her with clarity. His arms and legs were both crossed tight and his lips were pursed into a straight line.

Shit.

“Rayla, I expect an explanation for this,” Runaan said. “Now.”

Rayla swallowed the trepidation growing in her throat and let herself remember exactly why she’d gone out in the first place.

She was pissed.

“You cut me out of the show, so I went to go blow off some steam,” she said simply, pulling her backpack from her shoulder and letting it thump to the ground.

Runaan looked at her in disbelief. “Blow off some steam?” He repeated back at her as he gestured out the window where he’d undoubtedly seen the car that dropped her off. “And who exactly did you go, ‘blow off some steam’ with?”

Rayla knew he already knew the answer to that. He just wanted to hear her say it out loud. She folded her arms across her chest and firmly held his gaze. Fine, she could play this game.

“I was with Callum,” she said coolly, daring Runaan to react.

React he did. Without hesitation, Runaan rose from his seat and stalked over to where she was still standing in the foyer, glowering all the way.

“I told you to never see that human boy again,” he practically snarled.

“And I told you that I’m an adult and I don’t need your permission,” Rayla fired back. “Besides, you’re wrong about him. Callum doesn’t study dark magic because he knows it’s awful. He’s kind and good and he doesn't care that I'm an elf. He would never do anything to hurt me. He’s my best friend.”

Runaan looked thoroughly unimpressed.

“You’re a fool, Rayla,” he said, pinching the bridge of his nose like he would when he had a migraine. “That boy is nothing but trouble. Humans are nothing but trouble. You’ve known him less than a year and look what’s happened -- you’re sneaking back here at one o’clock in the morning after doing who knows what all night. What happens when he shows you who he really is? What happens when you don’t come home at all?”

Rayla had grown used to Runaan’s bigotry during her first year at Katolis Tech. He’d been against her enrolling in a predominantly human university in the first place. In the end, she’d learned how truly wrong she’d been about humans. Yes, some were terrible and did terrible things, but there were so many like Callum who were incredible and just wanted the hostility between humans and elves to finally end.

But no matter what she said, Runaan would never listen, and she refused to stand there and let him tell her that Callum was some kind of punk who would drag her down.

Rayla glared at Runaan in furious silence for a moment before she pulled her hair back from the right side of her face and tugged down the sleeve of her sweater.

Runaan’s face when he saw the bright purple bruise sitting at the juncture of her neck and her shoulder was instantly priceless. His eyes went wide and his mouth fell open, wordless and stunned.

Rayla smirked as she let her hair drop. “That was my idea by the way, not his. If anything, I’m a worse influence on him.”

She expected Runaan to yell and scream, to curse at her for letting a human touch her like that. She expected him to try and send her to her room like a child. What she did not expect was what he actually said, his voice quiet but quaking with anger.

“Get out.”

Rayla’s smirk dissolved.

“What?” She asked, not quite believing his words.

“You heard me,” he said, seething. “I can tolerate a great many things, Rayla, but you seeing that human is not one of them. This is precisely why I said you were not ready to dance at Kalik Hall with the others. You are thoughtless and impulsive and you deliberately disobey me.

“You want me to treat you like an adult? Fine, then you can stay in your human’s bed instead of your own.”

Rayla couldn’t seem to find her breath. She and Runaan had always fought, even when she was a child. Ethari always said it was because they were so similar, both firey and stubborn with quick wits and sharp tongues. Even so, she never could have imagined that their fighting could come to this.

She felt her heart breaking as she reached down for her backpack and hefted it once more onto her shoulder. She kept her eyes on Runaan the whole time, daring him to back down, to take it back.

He glanced between her and her bag for a moment, his expression betraying nothing. A terse nod was all he offered before walking around her and opening the front door.

A beat passed as they both stood still and rigid, each looking at the other with steely resolve. Rayla would not give him the satisfaction of seeing how much this was shattering her.

So, she looped her other arm through the strap of her backpack, held her head high and walked straight out of the door without looking back.

She could feel his eyes on her the whole time.

The sound of the wood slamming behind her sent the pieces of her heart scattering into the cool April wind. The sting of the night air seeped into the open crevices and brought tears rushing to her eyes.

She wouldn’t cry, not where Runaan could still see her. He’d always taught her to fight through pain, to dance even when her feet bled and to stay strong even when she was miserable.

So she started to walk.

She couldn’t entirely grasp where she was headed, just that she had to leave. She was no longer welcome in her home. All she could do now was put one foot in front of the other.

Rayla knew she could have handled the situation better. Showing Runaan the hickey was definitely overkill. But she wanted to hurt him. She wanted to hurt him like he’d hurt her when he cut her out of the show she’d been dreaming of for months. She wanted to hurt him for the things he’d said about Callum.

Rayla was several blocks away when she finally felt the first tear fall. She brushed it away impatiently as she pulled her phone from her pocket, wincing at the sight of her own haggard face briefly reflected back at her before the screen turned on.

She wiped at her eyes while scrolling through her contacts. She found Callum’s name and did her best to clear her throat before hitting ‘call.’

The line rang twice before he picked up.

“Hey,” he said, somehow still managing to sound light and affectionate even when she could hear the sleepiness in his voice. “You were right, I am already way too cold lying in bed without you.”

Despite everything, Rayla couldn’t help but smile. That was what Callum did for her. He could make her smile and laugh and feel better no matter how shitty the situation or how adamantly she was avoiding her problems.

“Hey,” she said back, hearing the scratchiness in her own voice. “I-um, I know you just left, and I’m sorry, but I really need a favor.” She never knew a phone call could make her feel so small.

She heard Callum shift immediately. “What’s wrong? Are you okay?” He didn’t sound tired anymore.

“Runaan was home and I opened my big fucking mouth and it didn’t go well,” she said with a sigh as she sat down on the curb beneath a street lamp and ran a hand through her hair. “Could I stay with you for a while?”

She could already hear the jingling of keys on the other end of the line.

“Of course you can, I’m leaving right now. Where are you?”

Rayla looked up at the street signs.

“Corner of Addison and Burr,” she replied.

“Okay, I’ll be right there,” he said, the sound of a door quickly opening and closing echoing behind him.

“Thank you,” she whispered, her voice shaking as she felt more tears just waiting to spill over.

“Always,” he said gently. “It’s gonna be alright, Ray.”

Her usual sarcasm was quick to come up with a defensive reply, but she held it back. Callum didn’t deserve that from her, not right now.

“Yeah,” she said quietly instead. “Maybe.”

She hung up and let her head drop into her hands, a full sob finally tearing its way from her lips.

Runaan had rejected her. He didn’t want her as a dancer or a daughter. She knew Ethari would feel differently, and maybe if he’d been home, he could have talked his husband down a little. But the feelings would still be there. Runaan would still think she was a child and a fool and he would never be able to accept how she felt about Callum.

She didn’t know how long she sat there on the side of the road, sobbing into her hands.  But she didn’t move until she heard the sound of a car pull up in front of her.

Looking up through bleary eyes, she saw Callum throw open the driver’s side door and run to her. He dropped to his knees in the gutter and pulled her into his arms where she continued to cry.

Rayla clung to his jacket as her body shook with the strength of her sobs. Callum stayed silent, holding her tightly while he rubbed circles on her back and stroked her hair.

He was the only person she’d ever really cried in front of as an adult. He’d come into her life as the antithesis of everything she’d ever believed about humans. He’d broken down the walls Runaan had helped her build and made her feel safe in her own skin.

When they first started dating five months ago, they’d sat out on the deck of his apartment drinking cheap wine from Soren’s stash while they stargazed and shared stories from their childhoods.

They eventually came to the story of how her parents left her with Runaan and Ethari to join the Elven Council when she was five and hadn’t returned for her. She initially threw around a few jokes and wry comments to diffuse the weight of the lonliness and abandonment she described in her story, but Callum saw through it all. He saw how much it had hurt her, how much damage it had done.

But seeing the cracks in her walls hadn’t scared him away.

Instead, he told her about losing his own mother and how he’d cried for weeks when he found out she was gone. He told her how he still cries sometimes when he thinks about her.

Everyone grieves differently, he’d told her, but not letting yourself grieve at all can be a slippery slope.

Two hours and several glasses of wine later, they were huddled beneath a blanket while they shared a single patio chair, their faces both streaked with tears and their lips swollen.

She teased him about it later, saying that he’d gotten her drunk and made her cry on their fourth date, but in reality, that night had meant the world to her. For the first time, she’d given herself permission to fall and Callum had been right there to catch her.

And now he was doing it all over again.

He cradled her until her sobs turned into hiccups, never once letting her go. When Rayla eventually pulled away, he tucked a strand of hair behind her ear and kissed her forehead.

“Come on,” he said gently. “Let’s go home.”

He pulled her to her feet and didn’t let go of her hands until she was nestled in the passenger seat, her bag stored in the trunk.

Her brain was numb now, but she supposed numbness was better than agony. She let herself sink into the soft leather of the seat, her head drooping to the side as she watched the lights of the city whizzing by as shapeless blobs.

Callum didn’t press her to talk. She was about three shots of whiskey and one good night’s sleep away from being ready to talk just yet. But in the meantime, he kept hold of her hand, stroking the tops of her fingers with his thumb.

They reached his apartment as a soft rain began to thump against the windshield. Callum pulled into the garage and took the key out of the ignition but didn’t move to get out.

Lolling her head to her other shoulder, Rayla was met with his concerned eyes.

“Are you okay?” He asked seriously, taking her hand in both of his now.

She squeezed back reassuringly. “I will be,” she said. “I’m sorry you had to come deal with me when I’m such a mess.”

Callum shook his head. “I’ll always be here for you, Rayla, messes or no messes.”

There he went making her smile again.

“Thank you,” she said.

They spent the next several hours on the couch watching old samurai movies. After seeing her tear-soaked face, Soren brought out a bottle of his good bourbon, but not before asking if there was anyone she needed him to beat up. She patted him on the cheek and told him it was cute that he thought he could beat someone up worse than she could.

But she was grateful all the same.

When she and Callum finally fell into bed, he held her close and kissed her deeply as the light of early morning began filtering through the drapes. They were both content in knowing that they wouldn’t be attending classes today.

“You know I love you, right?” He whispered into her ear after kissing his way down one of her horns.

Hearing those words still sent a shiver up her spine.

“I love you too,” she whispered back, her brain now happily buzzing from affection and the warmth of alcohol.

She lined his jaw with kisses before pulling away his scarf, only to rediscover the matching hickey she’d given him last night.

It was funny how much trouble one little bruise could cause. All it took were a few burst blood vessels for her to get kicked out of the only home she’d really ever known. Falling in love with a human was definitely a complicated business.

But then again, Callum was worth it. He would always be worth it to her.

She would talk to Runaan again at some point, she knew she would. Ethari would never let either of them rest until they did. Whether she would ever want to live with him again was a question for another time.

But for now, she kissed the mark on Callum’s neck, happy to know that he would be there when she woke up.

[dabatcavebyhonie]

Parasite- I have confusion

*Warning TV family this has spoilers but it’s a detailed especially due to their Movie wins! So sit back and enjoy.”

What a trip this movie was. I say it was like going down a rabbit hole filled with lies and aristocratic behavior. Parasite had me “shook”. I was quaking in my boots. Honestly it was a pure masterpiece. I was on the edge of my seat the entire movie. So I’ll break down the movies into three pieces: 

Twisted, but okay,  Bro stop,  and whaaaaa

“It's funny how the colors of the real world only seem really real when you watch them on a screen.”

― anthony burgess, A Clockwork Orange

Twisted but okay

So I’m used to watching subtitled films but boy, do they talk in this movie. We open to see a messy shack of a house in the slums of Seoul, South Korea. Theywork cheap odd jobs to pay for the rent of their house which gets peed on and wrecked by drunks at night. The beginning makes it seem like such an innocent movie. 

Boy was I wrong.

  Min  gives him a gift. A rock that is supposed to give  the owner good luck. The madness starts with Ki-woo’s friend, Min comes and tells him that he’s studying abroad in America so he needs Ki-woo to tudor a girl in english for exams.  But he’s not even in college. So Ki-woo tells his sister, Ki-Jung, to make him a fake certification that he’s in college and in fact, give him a new name. At this point all I can think is “shady but alright,” until when he starts tutoring Park Da-Hye and then tells the matriarchs of the Parks  that he knows an art therapist called Jessica. We flash to the next day to see Ki-Jung dressed up and practicing the lie that she in fact is an Art therapist. Hmm not morally sound….  

We then see her getting a ride home from The current schaufer…..oh no… what is she about to do?

You start to realize how messed up this family within The first 40 minutes of this long movie.  They’re manipulating the Park family. By the end of this first half of the movie every single member has entwined themselves in this family.  I thought that Ki-Woo was a fantastic mastermind until we made it to the second half. 

Bro Stop

So, update in the storyline, Ki-woo has become involved with Park Da-Hye and The Kim’s have basically become the help of the Parks without the Parks even understanding. In fact, when the Parks go on a camping trip for Park Da-song’s  The Kim family basically move in and get drunk. They basically celebrate being a manipulative family. Until one of the old staff showed up. The mother, Chung-sook , is told by the old housekeeper, Moon-kwang, that she left something in the house since she was fired so Quickly. Feeling guilty,  she lets Moon-kwang in and everyone hides but follows Moon-kwang. 

Oh my…

She walks down to the pantry filled with canned food. Chung-sook walks in to see her pushing against a shelf. When it suddenly budges….. She reveals an underground house. 

Guys I was like “Who wrote this movie?”. 

We see her husband who is absolutely obsessed with Mr.Park. in a very creepy way. In fact, he bangs his head on these buttons to light Mr.Park’s way. Then Geun-sae, Moon-kwang’s husband is low-key creepy. Apparently, they have lived in this underground bunker since the previous owners and actually are hiding from land sharks. Then Chung-sook demands her to leave but the rest of her family tumbles down the  stairs. 

Oh dear…

Without their knowing Moon-kwang records them calling each other dad, and mom. Moon-kwang black mails them. Let’s just say that wasn’t pleasing to them so they horribly beat up Geun-sae and Moon-kwang. Until Chung-sook gets a call that the Parks are rained out and she needs to get the food ready. The Kim family scrambles to clean up and they hide while locking Geun-sae and Moon-kwang in the basement. 

This is the moment when I tell them “bro stop…”

The Kims hide. The Parks go home. They hide and the last phase connects the whole movie together. 

Whaaaa

The little Da-song goes outside in the pouring rain to go camping. We learn that he’s actually reading Geun-sae’s morris code. And he learns of the manipulation of the Kims. Back inside, The Park parents supervise Da-song. And start talking about their staff. They say that they all smell bad. Like a lower class smell. And say it’s especially Ki-taek Kim, the father. Mr. Kim becomes extremely hurt by this. 

When all of the Parks are asleep, the kims sneak out. It was raining;so much that the lower homes and sub-apartements were flooding. This includes theirs. The bathroom overflows their whole life floats away as they try to fill it out. Ki-Woo  finds the rock that his friend gave him and doesn’t let go of it. The family minus Chung-sook  slept in an emergency shelter. 

Next day the Parks decide to have a party for Da-song. During this time we watch them support The Parks and bend to their every need without the Parks even knowing of them losing their home. We watch them wrinkle their nose from the smell of Ki-aek Kim and how hurt he looks from their comments. Then the party starts. 

Everyone in their bougie chiffon dresses and fancy suits move and act unrealistically. For an impromptu party we’re surprised to see how clean and organized it looks. It gives me  heavy Meteor Garden vibes. It was so elegant in comparison to the messy lives of the Kims. We see the Parks control the kims like dolls telling them what to do and how to  dress until Ki-Jung dressed in all of her elegance walks out with the cake. We see Geun-sae escape by bludgeoning Ki-Woo with the rock he’s been carrying  and runs out of the house to the party. Geun-sae stabs Ki-jung and she drops to the floor. The Kims rush to see their family on the floor covered in blood. But suddenly when Da-song starts to seize the Parks asks Ki-aek Kim for the keys to take Da-song to the hospital not Ki-jung dying on the ground. The twisted irony of this moment leads to Mr.Kim throwinging the Keys which land next to Geun-Sae and Mrs.KIm who are fighting. Finally, She stabs Geun-sae with a meat skewer and he dies. With disgust Mr.Park grabs the keys and twists his face from Guen-sae’s smell.

 With anger Mr.Kim stabs and kills Mr.Park. Then Mr.Kim disappears. They don’t know where he is but we do. In the basement where Geun-sae was. Because Ki-woo wants to save his dad he gains enough money to  buy the garden house and set his father free.

Conclusion

Overall this movie is a crazy mind warp and deserves every award. I recommend everyone to watch it cause it makes you think about social structures. Originally, I thought that this was about the poor preying on the rich due to them being a parasite controlling and sinking their teeth into the Park’s life. 

However, we see in the third act that the rich also use and abuse the poor. The Parks didn’t really care about their workers, not even the ones before. Instead of helping the rich housekeeper due to her illness, Mrs.Park kicked Moon-kwang to the curb. Now, when “Jessica “ bled out on the grass they couldn’t care less. Instead of thinking this thriller is about the Kim family being Parasites, it’s more of a twisted symbiotic relationship.

[deathstunt]

beetlejuice: the musical sentence starters.

‘we have only each other.’

‘scripture tells us: sorrow not, for we do not walk alone.’

‘you’re invisible when you’re sad.’

‘nobody understands.’

‘grownups wanna fix things.’

‘is it being greedy to need somebody to see me and say my name?’

‘holy crap, a ballad already?’

‘sorry to barge in.’

‘let’s skip the tears and start on the whole, y’know, being dead thing.’

‘if i hear your cell-phone ringing, i’ll kill you myself.’

‘we should have carpe’d way more diems.’

‘i do this bullshit, like, eight times a week.’

‘just relax, you’ll be fine.’

‘drink your fifty-dollar wine.’

‘full disclosure: it’s a show about death.’

‘everybody gets on fine here.’

‘every show i do, like, a ton of coke.’

‘jesus, pass the dramamine.’

‘we’re all on a hit list.’

‘hey, that’s just statistics.’

‘there’s a giant snake here!’

‘how you doin’? ...not good.’

‘death is taboo, but it’s hardly something new.’

‘there’s nothing medical professionals can do ‘cept maybe just bill you.’

‘that’s the thing with life, no one makes it out alive.’

‘gosh, it’s awful, aint it tragic?’

‘blah, blah, bible, jesus magic.’

‘namaste, you freakin’ posers.’

‘i have mastered the art of tearing convention apart.’

‘look at this crib!’

‘i know to the untrained eye, it’s boring.’

‘why do you polish your crib when you don’t have a kid?’

‘are you willing to take the next step?’

‘the world will never wreck you.’

‘together, let’s leap off the cliff.’

‘why rush?’

‘soon enough, our hopes and our dreams will be crushed.’

‘what about global poverty? what about world peace?’

‘no habla español, dos cervezas por favor.’

‘what’s the point of having children if we’re covered in debt?’

‘see, i wasn’t kidding!’

‘i’ll be your guide!’

‘jesus, i can’t spell.’

‘let’s all get naked!’

‘i understand that it’s a lot to process...’

‘lucky for you, i dropped by.’

‘i’m like a ghost-zombie jesus!’

‘i think we’re a perfect fit.’

‘come on, let’s make out a bit.’

‘it’s the perfect day to die.’

‘i need a little help here.’

‘i’m probably talking to myself here.’

‘i’m a bunch of broken pieces.’

‘it was you who made me whole.’

‘hurry up, get happy.’

‘forget about your mom.’

‘he wants me to smile and clap like a performing seal.’

‘you won’t believe the mess that we’ve become.’

‘you held my hand and life came easy.’

‘i want something to believe in.’

‘wake me when i’m twenty-one.’

‘daddy didn’t lose a mom.’

‘i’m running out of hope and time.’

‘i’ll go insane if things don’t change.’

‘whatever it takes to make him say your name.’

‘you couldn’t frighten a fly.’

‘you are super polite, middle class, suburban, and white. well, all of that is finished tonight.’

‘i want scary faces, now go!’

‘sever a head, preferably someone you know.’

‘don’t be so vanilla.’

‘would a little anger kill ya?’

‘c’mon, drop your panties!’

‘i’m trying to fill you... with wisdom and skill!’

‘you gotta make ‘em see you!’

‘raise the stakes by punching a baby.’

‘they’ll be quaking in fright!’

‘you’ve got some evil deep down inside you.’

‘what fills you with rage? being mean to a pet? chefs who use too much sage when they make their noisette?’

‘well, there’s lot there to use.’

‘maybe this time pretend like you mean it.’

‘i want freedom.’

‘i know that beggars can’t be choosers, but do they have to be such losers?’

‘why god, slash satan, did you send these bed wetters?’

‘even, like, a tax attorney would’ve been better.’

‘well, that was a soliloquy, so you’re the one who’s being rude.’

‘that needy pervert was right.’

‘let’s haunt this bitch!’

‘i’m sure we can haunt our own house.’

‘the universe is more than just space with no end.’

‘think positive, act positive, you are a child of the earth!’

‘science makes no sense.’

‘who needs evidence? go with your feels!’

‘crystals speak to me.’

‘everything happens for a reason.’

‘be a beacon of light in the world.’

‘gee, i hate to break it to you...’

‘the pacific islands are sinking, but negative thinking is hardly the cause.’

‘you think life is all unicorns and rainbows ‘cause you’re bored.’

‘positivity is a luxury that few can afford.’

‘one day, you make wake up alone.’

‘be prepared to take your eggs and freeze ‘em.’

‘sounds like terrible things can happen.’

‘god, it’s mortifying.’

‘what’s the point of even trying?’

‘nobody said life’s fair.’

‘by the time you read this, i will be gone...’

‘there’s nothing for me here. i’m alone, forsaken, invisible.’

‘that makes two of us.’

‘you could use a buddy, don’t you want a pal?’

‘don’t end yourself, defend yourself!’

‘together we’ll exterminate, assassinate!’

‘go ahead and jump, but that won’t stop him.’

‘i’m on the bench, but coach, just put me in the game!’

‘being young and female doesn’t mean that i’m an easy mark.’

‘i’ve been swimming with piranhas, i don’t need a shark.’

‘yes, life sucks, but not that much.’

‘be a doll and spare the lecture.’

‘really, it’s a flattering offer...’

‘it’s not as if i’ve lost my mind!’

‘he can help, we found him on yelp!’

‘every word is the truth.’

‘that was possession.’

‘what do i need you for?’

‘hold up, girl, i’m your pal!’

‘i know, i went a little hard on the sell.’

‘he was already dead!’

‘the three of us alone can wreck dad’s evening.’

‘together we can make a grown man weep.’

‘it’s our house now, kid!’

‘it’s not their fault that they’re overprotective.’

‘you could be killed by a random sneeze.’

‘everything’s gonna work out.’

‘i’m just gonna ring the bell of this creepy looking house.’

‘no one gets molested by a gothy teen.’

‘maybe i should come back another time when your parents are home?’

‘the sound of a scream is music to me!’

‘you wanna answer it this time?’

‘don’t oversell it, act natural.’

‘i don’t live here, i’m dead.’

‘we’re ruining lives.’

‘no more condescending adults hanging around.’

‘take it and trash it, burn it or smash it.’

‘we have to adapt to survive.’

‘we’ve got nothing to lose!’

‘i was driving lamborghinis, slipping super-dry martinis, and the tiniest bikinis on a yacht, but i was depressed.’

‘i had such low self-esteem, i was a mess.’

‘if i only knew the truth back then, i wouldn’t have had my little accident.’

‘don’t cheat on the one you wed.’

‘why did it take death to see happiness was up to me?’

‘if i knew then what i know now, i would’ve laughed and danced.’

‘life is short, but death is super long.’

‘whichever path i choose i lose, you know.’

‘you always saw life as a game, but since you left it sucks to play.’

‘is this the end you meant for me?’

‘i promise, i’m never gonna forget you.’

‘it’s messy, but they’re all that i have.’

‘i’ll make the best of being flesh and bone.’

‘now, i really love creepy old guys.’

‘hey baby, smile!’

‘one of ‘em loves me and wants to be mine.’

‘i’m a creepy old guy!’

‘i’m so happy i could cry!’

‘girls may seem disgusted, but we’re actually just shy!’

‘you know, i am older, but i’m glad i waited.’

‘fix his hair, get him prepared for armageddon.’

‘sure, the groom’s out of a tomb.’

‘she’s marrying a creepy old guy.’

‘have you guys seen lolita? this is just like that, but fine.’

‘i know that on the outside he’s disgusting...’

‘even on the inside, he’s disgusting.’

‘i found me a wife.’

‘i was ignored, but now i’m adored.’ 

‘cause i exploited, tortured, and lied.’

‘give it up for my underage bride!’

‘i can’t believe some cultures think this kinda thing’s alright.’

‘doesn’t he deserve a chance at life?’

[alloveroliver]

Zeta x MC |Alice| “Irrevocably.”

Smut/Angst: Zeta Oswald

F/F Cradle Citizen Alice AU: Alice meets Zeta right out of high school. WC: 2,284

Ikemen Revolution Fanfic

• ·  .  ·  ´  ` · . ·•· . · ´   ` ·  .♡ .  · ´  ` · . ·•· . · ´  `  ·  .  · •

Zeta’s legs tremble under my touch. She slips her small hand through my hair, coaxing me on with her sweet moans. I allow my tongue to add more pressure to her bundle of nerves, licking in long strokes to make her lose herself.

Her hand falters in my hair as she leans back in the plush chair. Her essence tastes sweet on my tongue the longer I pleasure her dripping core. My hand moves from holding her thigh open towards her pussy. Using just my middle finger, I enter her slick entrance. Hooking my finger against her sensitive patch, she whimpers out a strangled version of my name.

With ease, I let my finger slip in and out of her while my tongue circles diligently over her pink clit. I had no idea how much time we had left, but I was willing to make the most of it while we could. The door remained locked behind me, but I couldn’t help but feel the dread of knowing her parents hold the key to enter at any time.

Pushing past her family's disapproval of us, I added a second finger. Her beautiful moans fill the room, more dainty than anyone else I’ve ever been with. Her essence quickly coated my fingers the more aroused she became.

Letting my tongue trace around her slit tenderly, I looked up at her. The hallway beyond the door was silent still, but I never dropped my guard. Her short brown hair naturally waved at the ends and brushed against her bare shoulders. My earlier kisses left her blouse askew, revealing her chest with just a few loose buttons.

“I love you, Zeta.” I kept fingering her but kissed her quaking thigh. “I always will.”

Her beautiful voice mewled while she cupped my cheek. “I love you too, Alice. More than words could ever describe.”

My lip trembled with emotion. I moved back down to Zeta's core and sucked hard on her clit, trying desperately to distract myself from the tears that threatened to fall. I was going to miss her more than anything in this world.

“Mmm,” Zeta arched her back off the chair. “I’m close!”

My heart sank at how loudly she cried out. Someone could hear us if they were to walk by and that terrified me. The office was dim, with small particles of dust floating in the few streams of sunlight that cut through the thick blinds, giving us a false sense of hope we wouldn’t be found.  

“Cum for me, babe,” I whispered, thrusting my fingers faster. I added pressure to her clit with my tongue, just the way she liked it, to help bring about her climax.

Zeta’s moan ripped through the air. Her legs shook next to my head while her pussy throbbed sensually on my tongue. Her walls flexed around my fingers, and I playfully scissored them through her ecstasy.

Her chest heaved, making her breast more tempting than ever. I reached my free hand up and cupped the swell of her chest. She was so beautiful, even losing control like this. How was that any fair? I would never find anyone else on this planet as goddess-like as she, and I knew it.

“Alice-” She pushed her chest into my hand as her orgasm slowed. I rubbed her cute nipples between my fingers until she stopped writhing and began jolting.

“Another?” I joke, licking her overstimulated clit. She jerks and lets out a panting laugh.

“No,” She tried to catch her breath. “If there is another time in here, it would be you cuming in my hand.”

I swallowed thickly. Her innocent face didn’t match the lustful words that ever left her mouth. Walking past her on the street, seeing her sweet smile, you would never know such sensuous words could ever touch her tongue. I loved this about her, how she could look so innocent then lean in and whisper the most naughty things to me.

“I just want to kiss you,” I admitted, standing up and closing her legs slowly. I fixed her skirt, pulling it back down to her knees and leaned in.

With her essence on my tongue, I pressed my mouth to her plump lips. Her violet eyes were still hazed from her pleasurable pinnacle as she softly closed them to meld her mouth to mine. My fingers traced her breast before moving her button up shirt to cover them. With my tongue teasing the seam of her lips, I began to button her blouse closed slowly.

I fixed her shirt over her exposed shoulder and slid the last button into place. “There.” I traced the clasp slowly.

“Please… Don’t make that face.” Zeta warned. “We’re together now. We should think of only this moment and how happy we are.”

I tried to invent a small smile, but I couldn't be like her. All I could think of was the future. A future in where she wasn’t with me. My heart throbbed with pain, and I slipped into her lap. Zeta wrapped her arms around me and placed a kiss atop my forehead.

“We can still send and receive letters.” She pushed my bangs away from my forehead.

“I know, and I will write to you frequently. I promise you that.”

“Good. I will do the same.” Her face lit up with a gorgeous smile, and I melted into a puddle. “The years will go by faster than we know it,”

Years. I wished I was dreaming all this was happening, but I knew better. Her parents wanted her to take over their flower shop. However, Zeta would have to share the funds with her whole family that worked there. She would have to support her parents and all her siblings while barely scraping by for herself.

“If I could go with you… I would.” I wrapped my arms around her neck and hugged her tight.

“I know, love… I know.” She lightly scratched my scalp, soothing me against her chest.

Working to support her family was something she was willing to live with. They were aware that she might marry one day, and her new husband would take her away. But, until then Zeta was to do everything she could to support them.

One thing they didn’t bet on, was me — a woman working part-time at a confectionary in the middle of town. I lived alone in a small apartment, not really big enough for two people. I couldn’t support her solely even if I tried. I loved my job, but I never wished to be someone other than myself so much in my life.

To be able to support her as she became my wife. To spoil her rotten like she deserved. I wished, for the first time in my life, to be something I’m not. I let out a long sigh and rested my eyes. Her fingers sent soothing vibes through my body, allowing me to relax.  I wished we could stay like this forever in one another's arms.

When Zeta’s parents found out about us, in the worst way possible, it threw a wrench in their plans. Our nude bodies rolling together under the sheets in her room was the last thing they expected Zeta and her new ‘friend’ to be doing when she told them of me.

It was the last thing I thought I would be doing too. I had no idea my feelings were reciprocated for her, but I didn't regret it for a moment, not until now that is. They didn’t approve. In fact, her father physically tore us apart while her mother cried in the doorway. It was traumatic enough for both of us to keep away from each other for months.

I had no idea what Zeta’s parents planned for her life before she met me. The fact that I wasn’t a man, or that I didn’t have a job to support her made me a useless speed bump they had to overcome.

I leaned over and kissed Zeta’s cheek. Her hair fell away and the scent of flowers populated my nose. The floral scent was soothing and unique to her. It was a fresh smell mixed with a clean hint of soap. Her scent wasn’t bottled and sprayed on her but absorbed through her environment working at the flower shop for so many years.

My heart ached to wonder what she would smell like after having her nose buried in books, far away from flowers for so long. Would she let her hair grow longer due to her busy schedule? Would she… meet someone new? Someone who didn’t complicate her life like I did?

I swallowed my pride and took a deep breath. “If you meet someone you like better… I don’t want you to feel tied down to me…” Hot tears burned the corners of my eyes as I buried my face in her shirt.

“I wasn’t planning on breaking up with you.” Zeta’s voice grew thick laced with sadness. “Is that w- Do you want to break up?” An awkward air settled around us, but we kept one another in a warm embrace.

“I-” I didn’t want to break up, no. I wanted to steal her away and elope with her on the beaches of the north isles and buy a cottage in the mountains to the south. We could live off the land as we learned to grow vegetables and live as freely as she deserved. “I wish for you to be happy.” I choked out.

“Being happy is being with you.” A ghost of a sob shook her chest. I hadn’t realized she was holding back tears.

“I don’t want to tie you down to me. I want you to be free and happy.”

“No! You aren't an anchor to me. You are freedom.” She cupped my face and pointed my gaze up to hers. Our watery eyes met just as keys jingled in the hallway.

“Shit! They’re here.”  I jumped out of her lap, but it was too late.

Her father stood in the doorway, filling the width with his massive body. I barely managed to make it out of her lap, but the scent of sweat and sex that filled the small space would give our other activities away.

“Get away from her!” He yelled.

I gulped, holding Zeta’s hand tight as I took a step back.

“Dad! Relax, we were just saying goodbye.” Zete rolled her eyes, wiping her tears with the back of her long sleeve shirt.

“Hurry up and say it, then leave. We already packed the carriage full of your things. You leave now.” He stepped into the room and moved away from the doorway for me to leave.

Would she still want me after being the reason she was torn away from her family for years? After she realizes I’m not worth all this trouble, will she resent me? I bit my lip and rubbed the back of her knuckles with my thumb.

“Alice!” Zeta yelled as her father took a step into the room.

Zeta hugged me to her body. I watched her father roll his eyes while I wrapped my arms around her as well.

“I love you. I love you, I love you.” Zeta chanted in my ear.

“I love you, too.” A sob wracked my chest.

Her family was ready to send her off to college if it meant we wouldn’t see each other anymore. Her father was furious and refused to explain to anyone we met why Zeta and I would hold hands.

“Get your friend out of here. I don’t want her on my property.”

“Girlfriend.” Zeta corrected for the thousandth time.

Another set of footsteps moved to the doorway. I thought it was her mother by the quiet presence. Instead, I saw her older brother gazing into the room.

“I got this, dad.” Sirius clapped his father on the shoulder and guided him out of the room. “I have a good handle on it.”

Sirius stood a few inches taller than his father, more slender yet still gave off the same vibe as being able to kill someone with their bare hands.

“Mom is upset about her daughter leaving, why don’t you go comfort her. I will make sure Alice gets home safe.”Siris reassures, never taking his hand off his father's shoulder.

Zeta hugged me harder while her father dragged his feet out of the room. Sirius rubbed his hands together and nodded.

“Zeta, I will escort her home when you’re ready to leave.”

“I can go now.” I rubbed her back. “I don’t want you to miss your carriage and get to the campus too late. Traveling takes a lot out of you, and you need to unpack a bit when you get there.”

Zeta nodded, tears clouding her beautiful amethyst eyes. I pushed a piece of her hair behind her ear and cupped her cheek.

Sirius turned away as I pressed a delicate kiss to her lips. It was short but passionate.

“You’re right.” She laughed through a sob. I wiped a rushing tear off her cheek with my thumb. Another tear fell, and I kissed it away. Too many tears were shed due to this situation. I couldn’t take it anymore. I kissed the next tear that fell, and another until our lips met again.

This kiss lingered, making me dizzy due to the way she held my body in her hands. Our lips slanted together, and my mind went blank. Somehow, despite the family drama, this moment was absolute bliss.

So beautiful, so charming, gracious and kind. Zeta was everything I ever wanted, but everything that I couldn’t have.

.

.

I am still out of the country, but I hope you like my Zeta fic! I love my idea of Zeta so much and I wish we could have more content for her XD Zeta route when?!

[orangeflavoryawp]

Jonsa - “The Dread of Winter”

A re-working of the forehead kiss scene, because soooo much more could have been said.

The Dread of Winter

“Jon’s chest heaves, once – long and slow – like he’s trying to reign in something more than just his breath.  ‘Sansa.’  She steps toward him once more.” -  Jon and Sansa.  When truth has its day.

* * *

“You were right about Rickon.”

He says it and she has never felt more guilty about being right in her entire life.

Sansa flits a gloved hand to the snow-touched rampart before her, looking out over the hills as Jon stands staring out similarly a few feet from her.

“I didn’t want to be,” she says, because it’s the truth, if the truth even matters at this point.

He glances at her out of the corner of his eye and shrugs his cloak tighter to him – his cloak, that she had stitched herself, and she catches sight of it in the white-touched cold, the crisp air of Winterfell’s battlements.  Below them, banners with flayed men lay burning.  The wolves have returned.

But not all of them.

It is a hollow victory in some respects, but the part of her that had filled these halls with screams still rejoices in some small measure.  She will take her comforts where she can.

He sighs then, and it’s a weary sort of ire, one she has grown used to in Jon’s presence of late.  “Was it that easy?  To give him up for dead?”

Sansa’s eyes snap to his with a fury she hadn’t thought herself still capable of, not to him at least.  “Nothing about Rickon’s death was easy.”

She had seen his corpse when they brought it in, seen the arrowhead protruding from his chest and knew that it had not been a painless death.  He had likely gasped for air in the same way that she had those many nights Ramsay’s blade cut along her chest, his mouth smothering her scream with a moan of delight.

Ramsay liked his victims gasping.  It reminded him of the life still left in them, the air still filling their lungs, the blood still rushing through their veins, the heart he still had yet to crush.

Be still, be silent.  Learn to live in the breathless.  This is what Sansa knows.

Rickon was wild-born and now he was wild-dead and some part of Sansa still thinks he got the better end of the deal in all this.

She shuts her eyes to the thought, remembers smoothing her cool hand over little Rickon’s feverish forehead that night he lay abed sick, and the pleading lilt to his voice whenever he asked her to sing him to sleep, and the way he used to swipe her lemon cakes when he didn’t think she was looking (she always was, and she always let him).

“I loved my brother,” and yes, she’s aware of the way the word ‘my’ instead of ‘our’ makes Jon flinch just the slightest and yet she cannot keep the spite from her voice, “I loved my brother from his first breath to his last but I would tell you the same if I could do it all over again.”

“We’ll never get him back.”

Because nothing in the world could have returned Rickon to them at that point and she won’t risk more to a losing cause.  She has weighed the scales (it isn’t her first) and she knows the cost.  

She knows the cost.

(She tells no one how she sobbed herself to sleep that night after meeting Ramsay in the field outside Winterfell.  How she had curled in on herself and wished for her brothers over and over and over again.  Robb and Rickon and Bran and Robb and Rickon and Bran and –

Robb and Rickon and Bran please, oh gods, please.

Maybe being Stark means knowing how to say goodbye.)

“How dare you try to shame me of my grief,” she says lowly, dangerously.

Jon looks away, glances out over the white hills, licks his lips.

A steady silence pervades the space between them, neither of them willing to speak, and she wonders if maybe it wasn’t also grief that had him lashing out.  She forgives him for it, in her heart of hearts, but the part of her that still cries over her too-innocent brother’s too-soon death still quakes in fury, still keeps her steadily from him.

In the end, it’s Jon who breaks the silence, gripping at the stone wall before him, his profile like a mountain in the snowfall between them.  “We’re here because of you.  We’re home – because of you.”  He says it like a final admission, like a curse.

She startles at the proclamation.

He turns to her then, his gaze obscured slightly in the falling snow, and maybe that is best – otherwise she’d have to face that endearing look of his, that face full of tender longing, and she doesn’t know what to do with that just yet.

“I’m not simple enough to have missed that,” he says, and it seems almost an insult when he voices it.

She eyes him cautiously.

“But at what cost?” he finishes.

Ah, and there it is.

Sansa bundles her furs closer, turning to face him fully this time.  “The Eyrie isn’t a threat.  My cousin has pledged to our aid.”

“And how easily is this cousin of yours manipulated by Lord Baelish?”

Sansa huffs, grinding her teeth.  “Blood matters to these people.  To the Eyrie. To Riverrun.  If I call on them, they will answer.  The North is loyal.”

“But these are not Northern houses,” he reminds her, with a ferocity that only reinforces the sentiment.

She stills, matching his steady glare with her own.

Jon shakes his head, stepping closer finally (and she doesn’t acknowledge the breath of relief she releases when he does). “Sansa, please, you have to understand –”

“I understand perfectly.”

Jon releases a low noise, very near a growl, and Sansa blinks at him, then furrows her brows in determination.    “We’re here because of Lord Baelish,” she says, clipped and sure.

Jon scoffs at the comment, turning from her, stalking away in aggravated petulance, and then stalking back just as furiously. “Lord Baelish stands for no one but himself.”

“Do you think I don’t know that?”

“Then why trust him?”

“I don’t trust him, Jon, but we need him.”

Another scoff, Jon’s hands in the air.  “I see the way he looks at you.  Would you still say we need him when he demands more than he should?”  He snarls at her then, and it startles her into breathlessness, her eyes trained on his, chest heaving.

She closes her eyes then, the memory of Littlefinger’s lips pressed to hers too warm and too jarring to bring the proper words forth.  “He…” She stops, heaves a breath, opens her eyes.  And this is where she understands.  Jon is looking at her and she understands.  It doesn’t matter what she says now.  Because he knows what Petyr Baelish wants as much as she does.

Had he become so transparent?  Or was this something more?

It doesn’t matter.  They don’t have the numbers to man the Northern border without the Knights of the Vale.  She has played this game before.  She knows how to keep her allies happy.  She knows how to play the part.

Sansa straightens, her fists curling at her sides. “You don’t approve of my choices. Fine.  I understand.  But I saved us out there.”  She points out along the battlements, past the hills, out into white and cold and still, snow-touched death – out into the fields where she had seen him gasping (dying) and sent her men forth.

And she would do it again.

“I know the cost.  I know exactly what Littlefinger wants, and you’re a fool if you think I haven’t weighed the consequences before.  I lived with him.  I survived by him.  I know him.  More than anyone else can claim to.”

“That doesn’t make you untouchable!”

“No, it doesn’t, but it makes me the best person able to handle him.”

“’Handle’ him?  You say it like he’s nothing more than a weapon.”

Sansa lifts her chin, her eyes hard.  “He isn’t, if you know how to use him.”

“And you do?’  Again, the incredulous scoff.

It sets her skin to righteous blazing, her anger stirring her forward, her steps light in the snow.

Jon takes no note of her encroaching proximity.

“It’s not without risk, no, but nothing in this venture ever is,” she says lowly.

He stares at her then, hard and unyielding. The snow billows between them.  “I don’t like it.”

“I never asked you to like it,” she retorts.

He throws a narrowed glare her way.  “Sansa.”  Always like a warning, and oh, how she tires of such warnings.

“A smart commander would use him,” she snaps.

           “Like you used me?”

           She stops then, eyes blinking furiously at him.  “What?”

           A scoff leaves his lips then – faint, but enough to brand her with its incredulity.  “Don’t play dumb, Sansa.  It doesn’t suit you.”

           She licks her lips, takes a deep breath.  “Is that what you think this was?  This whole… endeavor take back Winterfell?  Our home?”  She steps closer.  “You think I used you?”

           Snow crunches beneath the curl of the gloved hand he lays atop the stone ramparts when he looks at her out of the corner of his eye.  “Whether you meant to from the start or not… aye, aye I think that’s exactly what you did.  And I let you.”

           It’s startling, she realizes, how very not wrong he is.  Startling enough to catch the breath in her throat, enough to strangle whatever words were fighting for air.

           He turns to her then, a sigh leaving him, and he reaches for her hands, holds them delicately, even as she blinks startlingly at him with the motion.  He holds her hands with far more tenderness than she thinks maybe she deserves this very moment, but she lets him hold her anyway, stilling out of some kind of awe (and maybe this is the start of it all – this is her downfall).

           Jon looks to their joined hands, runs a gloved thumb over her knuckles.  “You are my sister, Sansa.  And I would fight for you again, I would, but – ”

           She stays silent, lets him collect his words.

           Looking up at her, Jon furrows his brows, eyes softening.  The look is endearing as much as it is frustrating and Sansa regrets that she hadn’t noticed before quite how much like their father Jon looks – in a tragic, somber sort of way.

           “We have to trust each other.  There’s too much at stake not to.  Too many enemies trying to tear us apart.  We need to be together if this is going to work at all.  We need to be honest with each other.”

           This is the same boy who used to entreat Robb from her company in order to play swords in the courtyard, and the same boy whose arm Arya used to take when she snuck from their sewing lessons together, and the same boy who never glanced at her from the far side of the hall during feasts.

           But this is also the boy (the man, she corrects herself), who gave her warm soup and bad ale and a cloak she had clung to after the night terrors came to visit that first night at Castle Black. And this is the man who said ‘We fight with what we have’, knowing it likely meant his death (again), and never going back on that promise he made when he held her hand over the letter full of Ramsay’s foul threats and nodded his assent to take their home back.  And this is the man who broke his knuckles across her husband-captor’s face with a ferocity that would have scared her had it been another man’s jaw he shattered, and still – still – he passed the key to the kennels from his blood-drenched glove to hers with nothing but a somber nod and one final look over his shoulders as he left her to pass her sentence.

           Sansa feels the well of something not unlike shame fester in her throat, but she swallows it down quickly – too quick to taste the full sourness of it.  Her throat is stained with it regardless, and she begins to wonder if it will always be thus with him.

           But Jon is silent now, has been for a while, simply staring at her, and the words are too many and too few in her head and nothing seems right so she does nothing when he slips his hands from hers and sighs his resignation, turning from her as though to leave.

           “I did, Jon.”  Her voice has found air before she has a chance to school it into calmness and he stops beneath the stone threshold, a glance over his shoulder.  She licks her lips.  Presses on.  “You’re right.  I did use you.”

           His brows furrow as he turns back to her fully.  Snow catches in his hair once more.

           Sansa flexes her fingers at her sides, wills herself not to press a worrying thumb to palm, and Jon’s gaze flicks to the motion a moment before returning to her eyes.  She begins to wonder when he started to read her so well.  Had it been from the very first?  No.  Not from the very first.  From Castle Black perhaps.

           They parted as little more than acquaintances when last they were at Winterfell together and have since returned to each other as strangers.  She wonders now if perhaps she had missed something along the way, all those years ago, in a summer-touched Winterfell she hadn’t bothered to properly share with her bastard brother.

           (But those years are past and she has no mind to return to them anymore, not with the years in between keeping her from them and Sansa already knows that yes, yes she had missed something along the way – something too dear to linger on now without the stark wither of regret lighting her bones.)

           Swallowing tightly, Sansa straightens her back, lifts her chin. “You had an army.  You had the experience.  And you’re father’s son as much as I’m his daughter.  I knew I could persuade you in the end.  Ramsay’s letter only helped.”

           Jon’s chest heaves, once – long and slow – like he’s trying to reign in something more than just his breath.  “Sansa.”

           She steps toward him once more.  “You know what Ramsay did to me.  In some small, vague measure, you know.”

           She can see the clench of his jaw from where she stands but he says nothing.

           “Perhaps I never told you precisely but – ”

           “You don’t have to,” he interrupts her, eyes drifting down.

           Sansa swallows, presses on.  “But you know enough.  You know I would have made good on my promise to never return to him alive.  You know I would have done whatever it took to take back our home.”

           He looks at her then, those dark eyes unblinking, keenly aware. “Sansa.”  A ghost of a rumble.

           She looks at her hands then, notices how her thumb has found the crease in her other palm already, how she worries a hole into her gloves even now.  “You made it easy to feel safe.”  Her thumb stops its path at the heel of her palm.  She looks up at him.

           Jon heaves something very close to a sigh, but it’s tinged with pain and frustration.  It knots in his body, pulls taut.  He rubs a hand down his face.  “I promised I would protect you, Sansa.  And I stand by my promises.”

           “I know.  I know your word is your life.”  She scoffs, more fond remembrance tinging it than any kind of skepticism.  “I’ve known it since we were babes.”

           “’Safe’ was supposed to feel easy.  I wouldn’t be doing my duty otherwise.”

           “And is that what I was?  Your ‘duty’?”

           Jon stops, brows furrowed.

           Sansa takes a deep breath, feels the sting of winter take root in her lungs. “You wanted honesty, Jon.  So be honest.”

           “I don’t… Sansa, what are you – ”

           “We used each other.  You and I.”

           Anger flashes over his features then, and Sansa is quick to step closer, close enough to reach a hand to his cloak, to clutch at the fur draped over his elbow.  He steadies then, face softening minutely, and she cannot let herself think too long about what that means so she licks her lips and continues on.

           “You said father’s ghost would come back and murder you if you didn’t watch over me.  You said you had to watch over me.  You said this like it was an obligation, a duty.”

           Jon’s lip curls slightly, his frustration bubbling forth but she doesn’t stop, only curls her fist tighter into his cloak, the swell of fur bunching between her knuckles.

           “I don’t begrudge you it, Jon, I don’t.”  And she doesn’t, not truly.  

           Back from death, and she still doesn’t understand all of what he tells her, if he tells her anything at all, but she does understand this:

           His watch has ended.

           (And another begins.)

           He had been lost when he cut that rope and hung those men (and one boy he would not utter the name of, though she sees the ache in the white of his knuckles when he speaks of him).  

Jon has always been a ward of duty.

           Don’t look away.  Father will know if you do.

           “You’re a protector, Jon.  And I needed protecting.”  Her chest tightens.  “And maybe I was just the nearest thing when you lost the Black and your brothers and I don’t begrudge you, Jon, I told you, but I – I…”

           “You weren’t.”

           Sansa stops, suddenly shaking.  Not enough for Jon to notice, but enough to make her clench her jaw shut at the rattle beneath her skin.

           “You weren’t just the nearest thing,” he says, voice low and guttural. He blinks, takes a steadying breath, glances out over the ramparts for a moment.  The white is comforting.  Always has been.  The snow of home.

           Jon sighs, rubbing a hand over his eyes.  “You were home,” he tells her finally, hand dropping from his eyes as he finally looks at her.

           Her hand unfurls from its fist in his cloak.  “I’m not Robb or Arya.”

           “No,” he says.  “No, you’re not.”

           Her throat flexes.  She clears it.  “We had little affection for each other as children.”

           “Aye, that’s true.  But there was affection, still.”

           She blinks at him.  “Jon.”

           He lights a hand along her shoulder and she stills beneath its weight.

           “We used each other, aye,” he says softly, and the breath stills in her throat at his admittance.  “I needed purpose and you needed a sword.  And maybe… I don’t know.”  He stops, licks his lips, tries again.  “Maybe that’s exactly it.  Maybe we didn’t use each other so much as we needed each other.”

           “What if I still need you?”  She breathes the words before she can stop herself, before she can regret it. Because he wants honesty, she reminds herself.  Because he wants trust.  And because she wants it as well.  “Not as a sword, not as…”  She stops, takes a breath.  “Just as Jon. Just… Jon.  What if I need that still?”

           It would be easy to say it was because of Baelish.  It would be easy to say it was because the dead are coming and the northern lords never wanted her in the first place and because Cersei still wants her throat slit and because of a hundred different reasons why she should want him here but this –

           But that she wants him.

           Jon.

           Jon, who stays her nightmares with a warm hand at her brow.  Jon, who gives her his last piece of salted ham.  Jon, who wears her hand-stitched cloak in the fall of winter.  Jon, who looks her in the eye and says what he means, even when he doesn’t say it well.

           Jon, who loves her, and she knows this – she knows this because she loves him, too – even through everything.  Even through battle haze and barren homes and brittle cold.

           Jon – who stayed his fist over Ramsay’s bloodied face and let her take her kill.

           Some dark part of her will always love him for that, even when she knows she shouldn’t, even when she knows it is too dangerous a thing to revel in.

           “What if I still need you here, Jon?  With me?”

           Jon looks at her, just looks at her, his lips pursed tight, his brow furrowed, and it is a face she dreamt of once, she knows.  Because he has always been home to her as well.  Maybe not so well as Father or Mother or Robb, but he was. He was home.

           He is home, now.  The only one she knows anymore.  The only one she wants to fight for.

           He takes a step closer, and Sansa can feel the heat of him already.  The wolf in her bristles at it, unsure, but when the warmth of his breath hits her cheeks it all eases into something else. Something that knots in her throat and keeps her rooted before him.  And then his hand lifts from her shoulder and rests against her head, his gloved fingers sifting into her copper hair in a way that shouldn’t feel quite so comforting as it does.

           He leans in, and for a moment she thinks he might kiss her, right there atop the ramparts, right there in the harsh snow of winter, right there with his hand bracing her head gently and her mouth parted in trepidation and his eyes darker than she’s ever seen them and she wonders – she wonders –

           If maybe she would let him.

           But he tilts his chin upwards in the last moment, his hand urging her head down just a fraction and his lips meet her brow, hold fast, light with a sure tenderness that sets her eyes to watering.  He kisses her there, and all at once he has never felt more like a brother and, simultaneously, not like one at all.

           He releases her slowly, but keeps his lips braced to her skin.  “Then you shall have me, Sansa.  Because I think I still need you, too.”  His whisper ghosts across her forehead before he pulls back, keeps his hand in her hair, locks gazes with her.

           She pretends not to see the way his eyes flick to her lips – just the once – and maybe that makes her craven.

           (But there are worse things, she reminds herself.)

           He pulls away fully and she finds her hands curled into the front of his tunic, keeping him there against her.  He blinks at her in surprise.  “You were home to me, as well,” she whispers.

           His lip quirks upward in that mark of fondness she has learned is the most open his affection will ever allow him to be with her, and she loves him all the more for it.

           “And I don’t want – ,” she starts, takes a breath, looks down at her hands curled in his tunic, and only continues when she feels the steady reassurance of his own hands folding around her elbows, holding her to him, “I don’t want it to be just ‘home’ between us.”

           His brows furrow in confusion, but he lets her continue.

           “There is so much that has happened to us since then.  So much we still don’t know about each other, and I want… I want to learn it, if you’ll let me.  I want us to be more than simply the last Starks to each other.”

           His gaze drifts from hers then, and she has to clutch him harder.  “And you are a Stark, Jon.  You are.  You’re more Stark to me than anyone I’ve ever known.”

           His eyes snap back to hers.  “Sansa,” he says almost as warning.  Again, a warning.  A warning she has never heeded.

           “Anyone,” she stresses.  And she knows that means more than Robb, more than Father, more than her.  “Being a Stark isn’t just blood and honor.  It’s the North.  It’s the people.  It’s choosing them, again and again, even knowing the cost.  It’s fighting for them, and knowing exactly what that means.”  She unfurls one fist over his chest and spreads her hand over the heart-wound she knows lays beneath the layers.

           He winces, though not from pain, and oh, how she wants to hold him for it.

           “Being a Stark is putting the lives of your people before your own, something you know intimately, something you know better than anyone.”  Her hand burns where it rests against him but he doesn’t try to remove it, only grips her tighter, shifts his hands from her elbows up her arms.  “I have the Stark name, it’s true, but I haven’t always lived up to it.  And I… I want to, now.  You make me want to.”

           Jon shakes his head.  “You’re more Stark than you think.  The Vale rode for you.”

           “Littlefinger rode for me.”

           Jon nearly snarls at the reminder.

           Sansa’s hands are at his cheeks before she realizes she’s moved.  “Jon, listen to me.”

           And he does.  He hasn’t always.  But then neither has she.  And maybe that makes them more family than she realized.

           “You’re right,” she begins.  “We need to be together on this.”

           “But Baelish…”

           “Do you trust me?”

           He snorts, and she can’t stop the smile that graces her lips at the apologetic look he gives her following the noise.  “Sansa, you said it yourself, we can’t trust him.”

           “Do you trust me?”

           He is silent for longer than she is comfortable with, but then they had agreed on honesty, hadn’t they?  She can’t fault him his hesitance.

           “Aye,” he says finally, his face between her hands.

           “This is about more than me,” she says, and she knows he understands. “This about the North.  And the people we’ve vowed to serve.  This is about what it means to be a Stark.  We do what we must.”

           “We do what we must,” he echoes breathlessly, staring at her.

           Her hands slip from his cheeks and he catches them between them, presses his forehead against hers and just breathes.  They stand there sharing breath and time and thought for longer than either thinks is proper but neither has the heart to pull away.

           “I’m sorry I wasn’t truthful,” Sansa says, lip trembling, eyes watering.

           Jon hushes her, his hand reaching to the back of her head once more.

           The snow falls around them.

           “Winter is here,” she whispers in the space between their lips.

           “Father always promised,” he chuckles, and it seems to break the quiet, and then he’s reaching around her, tugging her to him, burying his nose in the furs at her throat, and her hands are grasping at his back, anchoring him to her and there – there in the cold and frost and stillness – there in the heart of a white twilight, they vow silently to each other –

           “The pack survives.”

           The snow never stops falling.

           And Starks never stop howling –

           Even in the dread of winter.

[maladaptive-ninja-returns]

Without Question (7)

Steve Rogers x Reader

Content: angst, fluff, and some new discoveries apparently

Warnings: None

Word Count: I finally found it. Finally found the time. I know this isn’t what you were expecting to be updated but this is what I saw the first thing I opened in my WIPs here goes my shaking hands finally getting the drug they are so addicted to. By that I mean writing. Purely writing. Nothing else.

MASTERLIST

“It’s really dark in here. Literally, as well, I mean.”

You sit down on the floor housing nothing but the endless void.

It feels weird to not see your reflection beneath you. Trying to touch what looks like a floor but all that comes in your hand is emptiness. Pure black emptiness.

“Must be lonely in here,” you ponder to yourself, your eyes trying to find some sort of source of light that was lighting up your existence in this hollowness.

But there was nothing.

You turn back to the only other entity you can see in the dark apart from you. A small blob, all black, but somewhat standing out from rest of the emptiness, rests in front of you at a safe distance. The darkness inside it seems to glimmer sometimes. Either that or your eyes play with you inside the void. Whatever it is, you are glad you can see the creature that had been controlling you all this time.

“Is this normal?” You tilt your head as you look at the blob, your fingers making swirling movements in the non-existent floor beneath you. “For people, you tried to possess to talk to you? You know, have an...intervention of sorts?”

The blob appears to move a bit, its shape forming and deforming. It takes a few moments for you to register it breathing just like you. Nothing else happens for the next few seconds.

“I don't know how these things go,” you whisper, opening your bent legs and stretching them. Even though you're in a dream, the cramps feel real. Your arms lean back and you close your eyes, taking in one long breath. “I don't know why these things go.”

Your muttering breath spreads around you without any idea if it's actually reaching the hearing organs of that organism.

Don't forget to breathe, Loki’s remnant of a  voice lingers somewhere inside your mind from his monologue safely saved in some corner. Remember, that parasite is inside you. You are in control. Do not let her make you think otherwise.

Taking in one deep breath to calm down this minute flutter of fear running down your chest, you start humming the first tune that comes inside your head and just like that your feet start to turn with the hum.

“Sing another anime intro one more time and I'll end you right here,” thunders a hoarse voice from somewhere very close to you, causing you to force open your eyes and watch the familiar fanged atrocity staring you right in your face.

Your heart wants to run back and hide somewhere in the void to scream as loudly as possible in the first three seconds. As soon as the fourth comes, the long breath works, bringing a hint of ease along with a silent jolt that doesn’t let your position falter.

“But intros are good!” You respond ever so innocently, making that creature glower and narrow his wide eyes at you.

“Outros?” You ask, with the purity of a child.

“Is there anything that doesn't constantly play in your head and isn’t upbeat?” The creature questions furiously, her forced exhale sweeping away your hair like a wind gathered up from inside a bog. It takes you a moment to gather your half-conscious senses to reboot after that smelly encounter.

“Woah, okay,” you state calmly, “I’ll stop as long you talk to me.”

She huffs at you and turns to walk away towards the direction she quite possibly had been moping, curled up and sulking at the possibility of being tricked by the infamous trickster.

“How about we call a truce?” you blabber, not wanting to sit there talking to yourself, giving an open invitation to all those dark corners of your mind to make up things that did not exist in here. “I won’t use that weapon-thing on you as long as you cooperate with me.”

She stops midway, her figure- which you are sure is at least six feet tall- flinches a little before turning towards you with a calculating thought.

You shrug.

“You want a host. I would have been dead within a few weeks if it wasn’t for you. Just my way of thanking you. But I speak this for myself, not for the people out there who were ready to kill you when they had the chance. All I want to know in return is why you and your friend are here on earth.”

The creature covers the distance between the two of you within one step, her eyes curled at the edges seemingly smiling at you as she brings up her gooey claws to caress your cheek. You are sure that the void around you experiences golden lightning at her mere touch, turning the shadowless void into a gold haven for just a second.

Your breath falters. Your shivers quaking the still space surrounding you.

What in the actual f-

“What makes you think I want a truce?” she coos, “How can you be sure I won’t kill you when I want to?”

She can already register the change around her, smiling at the unbelievable effect she just had on you.

“Because,” you clear your throat, your shoulders slightly shaking away the buzz surrounding you, “you would have if you had the chance. Loki educated me a lot, actually, when he snatched away the controls from you. He planted this sort of a virtual bug inside my mind that turned on the moment I fell asleep, telling me all about you. So, yes,” you nodded, a tiny smirk creeping over your lips, “I know you are not much of a Bram Stoker’s gooey version of an alien female Dracula when you are on your sanity meds, which is okay. All of us have hard times. Nothing to be ashamed of.”

She pauses.

You watcher her shoulders rise a little, building up some tension along with her fists before letting it all go.

“Curse that wretched trickster.”

__________

A wince reaches Natasha’s ears, making her shut her book so loud that Sam flinches despite sitting five feet away from her.

“For the last time, Clint, stop touching your wounds or I’ll cut your veins off.”

The hall falls silent.

Everyone except the Black Widow is looking at Clint to watch what he does next while his finger is hovering over his bandaged chest, wondering how fast he would be able to run out the door the moment he pressed the point that was throbbing the most.

“Have any of you seen Y/N?” Loki’s voice finally breaks the tension in the room as Clint drops his hands and plops back on the sofa, receiving a relieved sigh from Dr Cho and Banner.

“She’s with Steve,” Sam mutters, the ice pack still healing his swollen cheek and eye.

Loki walks about the room, his eyes scanning the skies outside the glass as Natasha’s gaze follows every premeditated cautionary step the God takes around them.

“That son of a bitch better not come back again,” Clint announces with his eyes closed and chest relaxed, “or I won’t go easy on her like the captain.”

“Clint,” Natasha warns him.

“Babe, it’s alright,” Sam interjects her, “he won’t do anything like that.”

But Nat doesn’t lower her gaze, already planning fifteen ways to give him a slow death.

None of them, except Dr Cho, notices Loki still frozen by the glass, his gaze stuck towards the endless clear blue sky over them while his fingers rub against his thumb in some internal forethought of whatever in the blue ocean he is constantly staring at.

“What is it?” the doctor finally asks.

Cho is sure he hasn’t heard her for a moment when suddenly he shifts his gaze towards the crowd inside.

“Where is the captain?” Loki appears genuinely curious before turning towards a confused Helen, “I believe we have a storm coming, doctor.”

“And why is that?” Bruce comes and stands by Cho, resting his arm assuringly around her.

“I don’t know,” Loki almost shrugs before walking towards the elevator, “but I do know there are three entities standing right in the middle of it.”

___________

Steve is still resting by your side, his eyes never leaving your form as he feels a warm wave of sleep wash over him before he is woken up by the dreams of you engulfed in a black mass calling out for help as he is stuck there on the floor of the Quinjet, not able to get up and help you, screaming more at himself than at the gunk swallowing you whole.

And every time he wakes up, he is relieved to find you there in his arms, resting like you were, making it seem like that’s how it always is supposed to be.

He dips his head further into the pillow to once again study your features in the morning light like he did when you first fell asleep yesterday.

He is still not sure what to do with this sudden flicker of a light he had protected in the midst of a hurricane on the wick of a tiny candle that now rests inside his care, filling him with a forgotten warmth.

Your easy breaths are an unintentionally welcoming vision for him, feeling the rise and fall of your chest along with the lightest snores leaving you. Your hand rests on his chest loosely holding on to the black fabric that he wears, making him wonder if it was alright for you to make him your anchor of all the people in this world.

And just as he is watching you with the utmost care, not wanting to soil the purity basking in the first rays of the day, a latent ache brings itself upon the surface.

Do I deserve this? He wonders to himself watching the curled up light in his arms breathe easy in his presence.

Will I ever make it right?

“Loki is here to see you, Captain,” Friday announces just as the door opens, making Steve draw the blanket further over your shoulders before half getting up to fume at Loki’s figure barging in without so much as a knock, followed by Bruce, Natasha and Sam.

“I don’t think we have much time,” Loki declares even before Steve gets the chance to speak, making the Captain all the more furious at his warnings out of nowhere.

As if to prove his point, you flinch a bit violently in Steve’s arms, getting up with a jolt, your eyes opening wide while your lungs try to find air around you.

“They’re coming for her,” you whisper into the cold air.

“Wha-”

Before Steve can complete his question, Loki brings forward his dominant hand and twists it, engulfing it, in green and gold as everyone else who entered the room watches you and Steve disappear right in front of their eyes.

The bed that housed the two of you now sits empty but for the blanket that had covered you and a bewildered Stacie whimpering at the sight you vanishing into thin air.

“What the hell was that about?!” Bruce curses at the God.

Loki gives the room a once over before his eyes stop at Stacie clawing at his feet.

With one finger pointing towards the ground, he makes her sit down and wait for further instructions, evidently catching everyone’s attention.

“That was a warning,” he finally speaks.

“There’s a war coming our way. Trust me, doctor,” he utters before walking out of the room, “you won’t like to hear any possible end to it.”

TAGLIST

Parmanent

@magiclolipopqueen@choke-me-sweet-pea @choke-me-sweet-pea @smexylemony @hazzastyles2471 @lokis-lady-death @lokixme @l0kisbitch @tarithenurse @hiddlestonstansworld @itheoneofmanyfandomsi @nalokoniloki @fuckidontknow @qualitynerdwasteland @cryinglots @unipanda1006 @literalangels @meganlikesfandoms @kcd15

WQ

@gemgemswift @supernatural-kinda-girl @jessicagoddamnjones @klmpun

[chalabrun]

dreams of altissia II

Word Count: 2,723 Pairing: Noctluna Rating: M Warnings: Some CSA mentions, some sexual scenes Summary: Based on @v0a‘s Noctluna art series of the same name, Luna has been through hell and back in the journey to become Oracle, especially following the invasion of Insomnia. With Noctis and Lunafreya finally in Altissia together, after twelve years they break down old barriers and finally meet the real people letters and notebooks alone couldn't bear the weight of. 

( READ ON AO3 ) 

She couldn’t remember a morning so peaceful, where a dreamless sleep had yielded an unerring sense of peace. When azure eyes fluttered open, it became clear. Laying on her side, she rolled over and found Noctis shifting sleepily as his nose had been buried in her back, bicep utilized briefly as a sort of pillow that was obviously disturbed when she rolled over. Still such a deep sleeper, Luna observed fondly as she ghosted a caress along his cheekbone that caused his face to twitch some, but he was otherwise undisturbed.

 Wistfully, and maybe with brief envy, she wondered what life Noctis had lived that allowed him to sleep with such an unfettered deepness. She knew better than to think Noctis’ life had been wholly without obstacles, with traumas of his own, but an undisturbed sleep was foreign to her. Lunafreya remembered those nightmarish early nights when Ravus was her only defense against lecherous and domineering men who saw them as spoils of war.

Several times had Ravus given himself up like that, in her place. So her dignity would be intact while Luna spent the whole night quaking in terror for what they did to her brother.

They were prisoners of war. Maybe still so. Peace hadn’t come until later at night and she was so, so used to sleeping with a razor blade beneath her pillow. Something to defend herself, and there had been many times when Ravus or Gentiana couldn’t be there that she’d been forced to use it, even if she never killed.

 No, merely impressed upon these malevolent men that the Oracle was not a girl to be trifled with.

 It was only much later that Lunafreya was allowed to live in Fenestala again, where the people rallied around her and guarded her with their lives. That didn’t always make her sleep any easier, however.

 Such defensiveness had been learned, and never left her.

 Though, that bitterness ebbed away when she saw stormy blue eyes blink over at her, a fondness pooling like honey in her breast and made such thoughts impossible to hold on to. In these long years, she never blamed him. Not when it was up to them to save the world.

 “Mornin’ Luna,” Noctis greeted, voice thick with sleep, but his smile was so soft, so seraphic she thought she might melt beneath the tenderness of his gaze. A tenderness she wondered she deserved after the fleeting bitterness of her thoughts, her own unconsciously spanning as she swiped an errant bit of bangs from Noctis’ face. Even as a child, Noctis had always been so lovely and compassionate, willing to do anything to make not only her happy, but the world. Even if Regis had mistakenly sheltered him from his role as prince, there was no one more princely than him.

 “Good morning, Noctis. Did you sleep well?” she broached, feeling his arm remove from being a pillow for her neck than angling himself so he might pull her in closer. It was only then that she blushed at their nakedness, feeling something a little too firm press into her thigh. A sharp flush suffused and she wouldn’t get her answer straight away.

 She mewled softly when he swept her underneath him, back arching and nails clawing into his shoulder blades as she embraced him with her arms and legs, already wet with want and cloying when he kissed her, unrefined but still passionate. Their bodies were hot and warm, Luna never realizing how sorely she wanted a man on her, inside of her, until she and Noctis had slept together the way they did, yielding themselves soft and vulnerable.

 It wasn’t meant to be as painstakingly deliberate as last night’s had been; just some quick shag to relax them both. She rolled underneath him as Noctis thrust into her, her body prepared compared to last night’s virgin experience. For Luna was still a woman, and she still desired, still wanted to feel cherished by more than just family, but by a man who loved her and she, him. That didn’t absolve the love, the pulsating need as she felt his hips gyrate inside of her, he a man and she a woman who was allowed to ache with need and want and not feel shame for it.

 They climaxed long moments later, Luna’s arched back collapsed into the sheets as she swore she could hear Noctis fall asleep again into the pillow, but not before Luna jostled him awake. “Come now, you don’t intend to make my morning like this, do you?”

 Noctis couldn’t help but smile shyly at her, lifting himself up a bit. “Sorry, ‘s just—you’re so warm, and all.” He rested his chin on her sternum, that boyish smile making her melt again. In their afterglow, maybe it wasn’t so untrue.

 “Am I now, Noctis? I wasn’t aware Lucian princes preferred using oracles as pillows. Perhaps I ought to keep that in mind,” Luna said with a playful roll of her eyes, manfully propping herself up and rolling him off so they might finally proceed with their morning. Taking him by the hand and tugging the sleepy man by his hand, she led them into the shower where they sensually kissed each other as the enormous Jacuzzi, in-laid bath filled with water from its gilt faucet. Lovely in its shade of marble white, part of her was touched Camelia had allowed them such stately living quarters.

 The sunlight bleached through the translucent white curtains that adorned the few opaque windows within the bathroom, the pair of them concentrating wholly on bathing themselves, cleansing each other of the acts from the night before.

 It shouldn’t feel like sin, Luna reminded herself as she massaged her fingers along Noctis’ scalp, the younger man drowsily bowed forth from the deeply relaxing ministrations. Even if Luna herself couldn’t feel so at ease. This…it was new. Intimacy. Feeling each other skin to skin and not having to feel as though she deserved to be damned or judged for the most natural thing there was: a bond between people.

 People who loved each other?

 The sudden mental question caused Luna to stop, hands sudsy and frozen that Noctis didn’t notice immediately. Her brows puckered together: did they love each other? A guilty conflict brewed in her chest, if because it hadn’t felt that way. Because of the age difference between them, it wouldn’t have been right to see him as a romantic interest. In fact, she hadn’t. But, here and now, with the water the only thing that divided their bodies, realization trickled slowly.

 It had been maybe a year and a half ago after the prince’s birthday. Sometime in the Fall. The letters they were sending each other didn’t sound so friendly, as mischievous. What were innocent prods to her changing appearance—how she wore her hair up now, the copious amounts of gowns—weren’t those of just a boyish, platonic curiosity. Even if they didn’t pinpoint one another, some of those conversations had spanned pages and pages. About the future, what they thought ruling their kingdoms would be like. Assigning themselves spouses with grey faces and placated smiles and wondering what being wed to them would entail.

 It was then she realized, she couldn’t see Noctis with any other queen. Ruling alone, and…her, somewhere close by. Not as his queen, but as the Oracle she was supposed to be.

 …Oh. She didn’t like the thought of that very much, did she?

 “Luna?” The blonde snapped from her reverie when Noctis had turned around, looking fairly comical with suds still making his hair clump in spiky tufts where her hands had been scrubbing. She smiled kindly at him.

 “I’m sorry, Noctis. I was simply…thinking,” she explained vaguely, her expression kind but enigmatic. Surely he could see that. Noctis was no fool, after all. “Regardless, we shouldn’t linger too long here. We still have the memorial ceremony to attend.”

 “Yeah, right. Almost forgot.” Noctis was quiet for a long moment before adding, “…Can I talk to you about something?”

 “Yes, Noctis, of course,” Luna said, leaning attentively as Noctis moved to sit adjacent to her.

 “What happened with you and Nyx… Did you see it? When he passed, I mean,” Noctis broached, expression seeming to falter. “He and I were tight. The other guys don’t know how to warp, right? Well, he taught me everything I know in that regard. He was like an older brother to me, and…I know he was in the city. He told me when he drove me to my apartment few nights before the invasion happened.”

 Lunafreya grew contemplatively quiet after Noctis had spoken. In their letters, Noctis had mentioned Nyx in this capacity. Of how they’d often go with the other Glaives to the immigrant district to hang out after training at Takka’s. She just hadn’t known how close. But in that day and night, she understood why. “Only moments before. He was standing on one of the shoulders of the Lucii. The Mystic. You know which one that is, right, Noctis?”

 Noctis nodded gravely. “…Yeah, I do. That was Somnus, my ancestor. The guy who started it all.”

 It was bitter, the way the tears came. They weren’t dramatically sobbed, or anything like that. But, Luna didn’t let them fall in vain. It wasn’t just Regis and Nyx he mourned, but that of his city, his people who had fallen. The Glaives who had betrayed them and the people who had died regardless. Luna embraced him quietly, fingers worked soothingly into his hair as Noctis sobbed into her shoulder, unhindered around her.

 The memorial service would be soon, but it could wait a few moments longer, couldn’t it?

 *

About an hour later did they finish getting ready and dining on a quick, continental breakfast she was certain Noctis was glad to have. Ignis always did sound like an exemplary cook, but nothing quite beat breakfast in bed with someone you loved.

 Lunafreya mulled that thought over, a quiet blush summoned and deciding that, yes, she did love him. She wanted to.

 Noctis had sent Ignis a lengthy text and apology, but a picture with Luna quelled any fears and the others were largely okay with it. By an indignant blush and the rattling of his notifications, he was certain they were more than okay with it. Positively zealous as only a man’s brothers could be.

 Something good in the wake of so much travesty.

 They arrived minutes later in a motorcade of sorts taken instead by gondola, a few policemen on jet skis flanking them as the rare sort with a secure cabin reserved for nobility and other high-ranking officials meant they were well within their right to sojourn this way. Noctis, smartly clad in a suit, contrasted well with Lunafreya’s white gown. It seemed appropriate for mourning, but above all, she secretly relished in how they would look together.

 She was allowed to admire her fiancé, wasn’t she?

 Lunafreya and Noctis disembarked with she on his arm, people murmuring among themselves as they caught a glimpse of a King of Lucis and the Oracle finally together as the empire had promised. Except, it wasn’t in the way they’d hoped to see them together. The wedding, and all that.

 The sky above was disarmingly clear and sunny, but even she could see the gathering storm clouds that would inevitably gather. Even more so, the darkness that was beginning to encroach on the world, as if they were the last bastion between it. For wasn’t that the truth?

 Throngs of people gathered before the Cathedral of the Tidemother in expectant wait, Noctis and Luna heading towards the podium where Lunafreya, and possibly Noctis, would be speaking. There was a pall of expectancy and quiet murmuring hung over them, fraught with gossip. Some was less than decorous, but they were too far to catch anything intelligible. The crowds grew quiet as she stepped up to it, chin raised and noble.

 “Today we are gathered here because we suffered immense losses from the war. A war not of our choosing between the powers of Lucis and Niflheim. However, as we all know, that war has come to an end. Hexatheon above, we have been blessed with a peace we must keep, we must maintain—especially in the time of darkness to come.” Noctis stepped forth and took her hand, she smiling at him and he at her.

 “But, we are not here to luxuriate in misery. No, there are those we have lost from all sides. From Lucis, Tenebrae, Accordo, and Niflheim, not only from the war. Countless lives we would do well to remember.” Luna hung her head, raising her hands and asking for supplication from the people amassed. “Please, bow your heads and meditate upon those you have lost. And together, we pray.”

 Though she was of the people, her prayers weren’t simply for them. Luna prayed for her mother, for her father, for King Regis and Nyx Ulric that would join Noctis’ in heaven. The Astral Plane was home to them, she knew. And, grimmer still, they would both be joining them soon.

 But, as the gods might, she could only hope and pray that they might be able to be happy before that time came. Even if only for a little while.

 *

Hours later, just as evening was beginning to fall dusky and pink upon the waters of Altissia, they were on the Altar of the Tidemother. Not to summon, but it was the hour of the remembrance service that would come to its conclusion. Altissians were gathered on water taxis, watercraft, gondola, and even as small as jet skis. Some had even kayaked or rowed to where they were, but the sea of faces had something in common: as they bobbed on the water, each held a floating paper lantern. One for each person one was praying for.

 At the farthest end of the altar, opposite the raised portion where she’d be standing in a few days’ time, the stair sunk into the water before it disappeared. A raised platform beneath the water meant there was space to stand without worry of drowning, which was where she and Noctis were. Their feet just touching the water, they held three paper lanterns between them: one for Sylva, one for Regis, and the last for Nyx Ulric. The man who had been her selfless friend for a night and had been Noctis’ bother for as long as the prince could remember.

 Slowly, she and Noctis descended into the water together, the water filling beneath and around her dress in an unusual but welcome sensation. Though the gown would inevitably end up ruined, she didn’t care. Indeed, she didn’t. Not when they were remembering those who had died selflessly, who had sacrificed so much for their sakes. Noctis stood steadfast by her side, the quiet glow of the candles illuminating their faces secretively, as though they were prepared to tell one another a story.

 Maybe they were. Maybe it was coming.

 Carefully, once they were submerged to the waist, she and Noctis lowered their lanterns gradually into the water and ensured they were steady before letting the current take them away. Then, almost in unison did those on the waters do the same, a sea of light joining theirs as the currents took the lanterns out to sea that bobbed languidly upon the water.

 Noctis circled his arm around Luna’s shoulders and brought her close to his side, trying and failing to hide the tears bubbling within her eyes. “I’m sorry, Noctis,” Luna whispered with a quivering voice, shoulders shaking on a sob, “that I couldn’t save them. King Regis or Nyx Ulric.”

 “Hey, Luna—that wasn’t your fault,” Noctis murmured as he took Luna in his arms, holding her while she wept. “They died protecting what mattered. Please, don’t blame yourself.” By the thickness in his voice, she could tell that he was bare motions away from breaking down himself. “They’re watching over us now. They’re gonna make sure everything’s alright, in the end.”

 Luna nodded blearily and buried herself against Noctis, warmed by him, comforted and protected.

 If only they could remain like this for eternity.

[thestalkerbunny]

"I think what I miss most of all.....is..Sugar" Marnie had said finally after what felt like hours of contemplation of the question.

The rest of the group nodded solemly. For the past 5 weeks-or what their wrist pads assumed was 5 weeks-they had been surviving solely on M.R.E Packets. The food was bland, tasteless-but assured to give them the recommended nutrients to survive. And sadly, there had been more and more of the M.R.E.s to go around. What started as a group of 20 strong had been cut down to 5. The trechrous terrain, the frequent intense quakes that took place practically on clockwork-some times just spontanious. The lack of shelter, the heat in the mornings, the freezing cold at night, it had picked them off one by one.

"I think you need to be more specific." Adra mused, placing her chin on a hand. "Like, there's so many kinds of sugars. Chocolates, fruit candies, carmels, licorices-"

"Nobody likes Licorices, Adra." Tia snapped, still in a foul mood. She had slipped early that morning and twisted her leg. She still sat there, letting her food go cold as she tried to use the scraps of medical supplies they had left to make sure her leg didn't get anyworse. Adra scowled at Tia in distain

"The cherry ones are good. The kind you pull apart in strands? The Black stuff can go off and die." Adra tried to defend herself. Tia muttered something and went back to her leg. Marnie stirred the greyish brown glop around for a minute in it's vacum sealed package.

"I just miss sugar in general. I remember Vannie-do you remember Vannie? She'd work in the cafeterias at the academy. And every now and then, when we got Sugar in, she'd give me a little bit extra. I dont know why. Maybe it was because I didn't complain or bitch about her cooking. "Marnie dared once again to put more of the M.R.E into her mouth, gagging as it slid down. "Anything honestly tastes better than these things."

"Didn't Vannie die before we left?" Adra asked quietly. Marnie bit her lip, regretting sharing her fondness. It had become a habit of Adra to recall bitter awful events. There had been contaimination out breaks more and more frequently before the mission had been launched. Those who had ventured outside became contaminated with a white pollen that smelt so sweet like the Sugar they all longed for. And it dragged whoever touched down a dark cold path into death. "They found her in the kitchen. She cut off her hands."

"Y...yeah." Tia muttered. "Vannie....Vannie was one of the good ones. She didn't deserve to die like that."

The silence took the group again, the 5 of them quietly watching the fire crackle and flick agaisnt the obsidion landscape. No dirt to press hands into, no grass, not even a soft breeze to blow against the carapace of their suits. Even the sky was empty and starless. It was like being in a giant black hole. Mix's head laid on Adra's lap, quietly and fitfully sleeping. It had been a long hard day for them all, more so on Mix. Mix's own sister, slipped and fell off the cliff side-hours before they set up camp for the night. The minute they set the fire up, she laid down and went to sleep-hoping to escape the sorrow she was feeling in the waking hours that was her new reality.

"Nobody deserves to die like that." Yi finally stated. The 4 looked at the commander, the leader of this mission. She had a face that took great effort to look at-let alone love. She was covered in scars from foolish errors and mistakes that were not repeated to scars of bravery. One eye didn't work, the eyelid sealed up with stitching, claw marks decorating it. "And that's what this mission is for. To make sure none of us have to venture out while that contaimination is still surrounding our colony." The group nodded in affermation.

The Mission. With the contamination surrounding their colony of only a few generations old-everything was at risk. The inhabitants were starving, babies where weeping and crying to be fed, tensions were rising among the ranks from soilders to commanders. Everyone was turning against each other out of pure starvation. It was the portal that was their saving grace. It appeared in short sparatic periods during the day, appearing for long swaths of time at night. On the rarest occasion it spat out nutrients that kept everyone calm. Not big chunks, but small tidbits, like a stingy ungrateful god. It was something to keep them satisfied, but it was never enough.

Tia, Adra, Marnie, and Mix had been hand picked into the group of 20 to go on this mission by Yi herself. Tia, a member of the enhanced solidjer training program, Adra who had been one of the surviving scientists that came, Mix the scout, Yi their commander and Marnie the Linguistics and historical artifaces expert. All that was left after 16 deaths of friends and comrades since they entered this damned portal in the hopes of finding the source.

"Look. It's a long day tomarrow. We make the home stretch." Yi rolled out the map that their cartographer, Stevie, prior to her being taken by the heat, had made. Yi had taken up the mantel and was filling it in as they went. "Stevie and Yonie said that according to the mineral trail and the carbon they found on the nutrients that came thru the portal it's less than a few more hours away. We make it to the source, we take what we can and we get out. We've lost too many good women on this venture. I dont want anyone else lost." Yi's one good eye cast over her few remaining crew members. "I want everyone of you to be careful. And I'm not saying this to be a nag. " Tia rolled her eyes as Adra nodded solemly. "Marnie are you listening to me?" Marnie had been sitting there silently as Yi spoke, tearing a part the reminants of her M.R.E. Package into small shreds.

"hmn." She looked up. Yi's one good eye stared intently at her. "I'll be careful, Yi. I was listening." Yi turned away from the artifacer.

"Good. I want you all to get some good sleep tonight. We need all the strength we can muster to make it tomarrow." Yi watched quietly as her girls laid down one by one. Tia made her place a bit farther off from the others-her training demanding isolation to assure her strength. Adra gently laid down Mix on the group, Mix fitfully turning over. Adra sighed and submitted and curled up against Mix, acting as a teddy bear in place of a twin sister who dutifully was always by Mix's side. Marnie shuffled and prepared to settle in for the night.

Marnie had only been asleep for maybe less than an hour before she felt something shake her awake.

"Hmnn? wazut-"A hand shoved against Marnie's mouth. Yi placed a finger, shushing her to silence. "Yi??" Marnie wheezed quietly. "Yi what's wrong?"

"Nothiing, I just wanna show you something" Yi whispered. She pulled Marnie up off the ground. "This way, Marnie." Marnie stumbled as her commander tugged her hand along. Yi led Marnie down thru the blackness for the longest time. Marnie was still blinking, trying figure out if this was just another stress induced dream brougth on by the mission and the M.R.E's mixing in her stomach poorly. Yi finallly stopped pullnig her along, stopping before a slate against the black void wall. Marnie took a tenative step forward, her hands covering her half agape mouth.

"My god, Yi-it's.....it's so beautiful." Marnie whimpered. "I....I think im going to cry." She rushed to the slab running her hands over the sleek surface and the indented ruins, the massive holes along the horizontal side. "Look at this thing, it's HUGE! How long do you think it too them to carve this? And look at these massive holes-the edges are so clean and sharp it's like they were PUNCTURED! And the paint-oh god the paints!" She flinched as she ran her fingers along the marks and runes that ached to be dechipered and decoded. "Yi, this is the best thing I've seen this entire TRIP! I gotta take pictures I can spend the whole trip decoding it, this is thing could tell us what the beings of this world had been like-are like?! I DON'T even KNOW! I thought this entire plane of reality was empty and abandoned, but this is proof that some sort of life has been here and left it's mark! I-" Marnie stopped her excited chatter as she felt Yi take her hands again. Marnie looked up at her commander. So rarely did Yi smile, back home and on this mission. But she smiled at Marnie.

"I'm glad your happy." Yi said quietly, running her thumbs over the palms of Marnie's unscarred hands. "It's....so nice to see you smile again."

"Ptthph-what are you talking about, Yi, I smile."

"Not since we left. You were so excited to come on this trip and you seemed to dissapointed the closer and closer we got to our destination. You never found anything along the way." Yi let go Marnie's hand and placed her palm against Marnie's cheek. Marnie pressed the hand against her cheek wit her hand, feeling the scarred skin of her commander. She closed her eyes briefly, in bliss. "So every chance I got, I went out looking for something, anything really-any sign that there was life at one point. And I found this thing. An-and I dont know what it is or what it means, but you probably would." Marnie looked up at Yi who immediately turned a bright red color.

"Yi, this means the literal world to me. You can be.....really sweet. When you're not stressing over the well being of others to the point of exhaustion." Marnie leaned up on her toe tips and lightly pressed her lips against Yi's tattered scarred ones. "And you know what." Marnie whispered after breaking the chaste kiss. "You mean the world to me too. So I want you to be careful tomarrow, too. You said you dont wanna lose the rest of us....well.....I dont wanna lose you. I'd rather come home with nothing and you alive than to come home with everything but lose you."

Yi made a sharp tittery noise a cross between an akward giggle and her weak attempt at clearing her throat. "oh uh-well then. If-if you say so." Marnie pulled away and pulled up her camera off her wrist pad and began to immediately clicking picutres of the slab as her commander waited for her to finish, still giggling and tittering quietly to herself.

-

The minute day broke, they left the encampment. It didn't take long for their remaining memebers of the mission to catch on how insufferably hot it got during the day. Sometimes the pitch black scaled ground burned to the touch. They were making double time, the few perks of suddenly going from a group of 20 to a simple set of 5 in only the span of a few days. Yi and Tia led up in front as Mix and Adra tailed in the middle. Marnie kept lingereing back behind, still trying to study the pictures on her wrist pad, running to catch up and make sure she wasn't left behind.

"Come on, Marnie, KEEP UP! Or we're leaving you on this black shit stain of a plane of reality." Tia snapped angrily. Marnie snapped to attention again, scowling at Tia's scolding. The super soilder program had it's perks, but Tia just seemed angry all the time.

The blackened plains gave way to a vast silver smooth surface eventually that shone and blinded them in the sunlight. In the far distance, there seemed to be giant pillars that reached twords the heavens and a swirling black storm that surrounded them, crackling with electricty and life.

"It's like it's made of solid mercury." Mix whispered softly, sheilding her eyes from the reflection. Adra tapped away at the Wrist Pad.

"The Chemical count in the air says it's at least 70% plastics. It seems solid and safe to walk on."

"Is it though?" Tia growled, tapping the edge of the silver with her boot tip. "70% isn't a lot. Look, follow in direct line after me, step where I step. MARNIE, PAY THE ATTENTION"

Marnie jerked back up out of her daze. She had been staring at the storm high above in the distance, looming and encircling their destination. Something about the way the clouds moved mesmeriszed her so much that she was almost stuck in a trance.

"YEa-YEAh." She studdered. "Follow you, step where you step." Tia's glare lingered for a long while before turning to the horizon ahead. Tia immediately slipped and stumbled after the first 3 steps, her boots unused to the slick smooth texture of the silver ground below making her look like a new born baby deer learning how to walk. Mix laughed, the noise startling the party at first. It had been weeks since they heard anyone make a remotely positive happy sound since this started. Tia snarled and found her footing.

"Alright, alright, laugh it up. Come on we're burning daylight."

The procession began their cautious treck twords the pillars, only slipping once in a while against the ground. It felt like ages, time passing so slowly. The air grew cold and stale after awhile, the heat giving away to a coldness that the group had never truely felt before.

It was then when Adra's body began to shut down.

It started with a slip here and there, Marnie running back to help her up. And then it turned to a stumble. Then into Adra barely making a few feet ahead at a time. The Mission had been running her ragged, every waking hour she had spent trying to analyze the plane, she was running on fumes and what remained of her hopes and dreams. She eventually submitted to riding on Tia's back. It was when they were only a few hundred feet away that Tia suddenly stopped in her tracks, frozen in place for several minutes.

"Captain Tia, what's wrong?" Yi demanded. "Why have you stopped?" Marnie watched as Tia slowly swallowed and took a very slow breath.

".......Dr. Adra........Has......left us."Tia whispered slowly.

"What?" Mix quivered softly. Tia shrugged Adra off her shoulders and laid her on the ground. She looked like she was asleep, something she truely deserved. There were still dark rings around her eyes and her face was so hollow. Tia got down on her knees and placed an ear against Adra's chest.

"She's gone." Tia murmered quietly. "I felt her stop breathing. No....no gasping. No sudden movement. She just slipped away while she was sleeping." Mix crumbled to her knees and began to obsessively shake Adra's unmoving form.

"No- NO. ADRA. ADRA WAKE UP! PLEASE ADRA. ADRA-ADRA-" She began to hysterically scream. Yi and Marnie watched as Tia pulled back her hand and struck Mix clean across the face.

"GET AHOLD OF YOURSELF, SCOUT." She practically had to scream over Adra's wails of pain and misery. Tia grabbed Mix by the shoulders and began to violently shake her "She's GONE. SHE'S DEAD. SHE ISN'T COMING BACK."

"Captain." Yi snapped. Tia pulled back immediately away from Mix who immediately threw herself back over Adra's now cooling body, sobbing into her friend's shoulders. Yi turned her attention to Mix. "Private Mix, we have to keep going. We will have time to mourn for Dr. Adra later. Right now, we are so close to completeing our Mission."

Mix made a few more heaving noises before finally pulling her face up-eyes ringed red and snot dribbling from her nose as fat tears covered her face. She looked like a child. Sometimes Marnie forgot that Mix had been one of the youngest of them.

"It's....what Adra would have wanted." Marnie said gently, getting down on Mix's level. "Complete the mission. Make sure she didn't die in vain. That.....none of them died in vain. Comon." She wrapped her arms around Mix and pulled her up. "Let's keep going." Mix choked and sniffled as Marnie led her on twords the Pillars. Yi and Tia hung back for a moment.

"Commander, what should we do? Shall we burn the bodies like the others?" Tia inquired flatly. Yi had knelt down by Adra's cold body and was pulling things out of her pack. Notes, pictures, flash drives to her Wrist Pad. Commander Yi stopped as she pulled a locket off Adra's neck. It had the royal crest on it in beautiful white engraving ink. She felt a lump fill her throat at the single sight that brought her such comfort and memories of home.

"Yes. Burn her." Yi finally managed to say. "Catch up with when we're done. We're heading on ahead." Tia pulled out her lighter as Yi turned on her heels and jogged ahead to catch up with Marnie and Adra. Tia bit her lip. This would make around the 12th person she had to burn on this damned mission.

The smell still was so sour no matter how many times she smelled it.

-

The towers were sleek and white with bright marking along the entire circumfrance. Numerous towers stuck out of the base, tall and proud. Almost organic looking. Had she not have her arms wrapped around Mix, still comforting the now deadly silent Scout, Marnie would have gotten just as excited as she had the night before when Yi showed her the slab. Yi and Marnie stared mesmerized by the tower and the organic pillars.

"What are they?" Marnie whispered softly. Yi consulted Adra's wrist pad and her eyes grew wide and white.

"Food." She said, jogging a bit ahead. "They're FOOD." She practically screamed.

"Wait-COMMANDER, oh shit, comon Mix" Marnie unwrapped from around Mix and grabbed her hand, pulling her along as she ran after Commander Yi. Yi had reached the tower and practically flung her arms against the base and hugged it's sleek surface.

"It's NUTRIENTS. It's what we've been hunting for." She practically shrieked, giddy. Marnie looked confusedly at the slender organic trees, vaugely yellow with large malformed crystals growing out of them.

"It's food?" she echoed dumbly. Yi excitedly pointed at Adra's wrist pad, numbers and figures that didn't make sense to Marnie.

"It matches the coding sequence perfectly to the crumbs that came thru the portals. This is the SOURCE of all the food we've been recieving." Yi giggled practically giddy with thrill and excitement. "If we can just get some seeds to take back or even some fragments of the trees, we can regrow them back at the colony."

"Then that's what we'll do." Tia said, finally making her apperance, smelling of campfire, her face still grim. "Everyone load up on seeds and fragments." She pulled the grappling gun out of her pack and shot it up twords the tall edge of the slick pillars. It made a satisfying 'Kch-CHNK!' noise as it looped around something far in the sky. Tina gave expermintal tug. "We're gonna have to climb up."

"Mix are you okay to climb?" Marnie asked quietly. The Scout turned away for a minute before slowly nodding. "Okay. Good. It's almost over."

The Climb took what felt like hours, the sky above changing to a soft pale orange as they got higher and higher. Marnie felt like something was coiling around her throat and worming it's way into her lung the air was so thing. By the time she managed to pull herself up to the edge where Yi and Tia were already waiting, she was completely out of breath.

"God......Dammit......." She gasped. "I'll......never..........get used to.....climbing like this....." Marnie struggled as she pulled herself up to her knees. "What's......wrong?"

"It's Mix." Captain Tia said flaty. Marnie looked around and saw Mix standing at the edge of the pillar, gazing out at the empty blackness that they had traveresed. The wind whipped around her for a minute and she looked up at the sky. She made a soft gasping noise as she gazed up into the heavens.

"Oh god........Oh God.........Oh God.........."She whispered over and over again. Marnie watched as tears welled up her already swollen red eyes, trickling down her cheeks. "There's no way back."

"Mix, come over here away from the edge." Commander Yi ordered. Mix didn't move. She stood frozen, staring at the sky. "Mix?" The scout raised a foot forward. "TIA!" Yi screamed as Mix took a step forward into the abyss. Tia had already darted before Yi had even gave the order and flung herself across the ground, scraping her stomach as her hands wrapped around Mix's dangling over the edge. Marnie screamed and ran and half stumbled over to help Tia pull Mix up

"DAMMIT MIX, WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING!?!?" Tia snarled trying to heft Mix back up. Mix's body was limp and quiet and when Marnie had reached the edge and held out her own hand for Mix to grab, the Scout had finally looked up. Marnie stared at those red ringed eyes that had cried so much. Truely mourning for every loss this mission gave to them. The loss of all her friends, of her own twin sister, of Adra.

"Don't look at the sky." She whispered. Mix then grabbed something from her boot and Tia began to scream as a hunting knife was embedded into her wrist.

She let go.

And just like that, Mix was gone.

Marnie felt the tears burst out of her eyes as she had watched Mix's saddened face dissapear into the blackness and minutes later, the tell tale thump of her comrade's death. She couldn't make a sound, not even a squeaky sob no matter how much she wanted to. She felt like she had just run out of sadness, run dry of tears.

Tia was still howling as she ripped the knife out of her wrist and immediately began to try and lick it clean like she was an animal. Yi stood there, frozen by what just happened. In a single day, she had lost 2 more subordinates, one to the sheer exhaustion and the other one who simply tossed herself over the edge. She felt that knot well up in her throat again as she watched Marnie pull herself off the ground and turned to Yi.

"What did she mean, 'Dont look at the sky' ?" Marnie whimpered. Yi shook her head slowly and for the longest of times, the two stared at each other, afraid to go first.

"One." Yi started.

"Two" Marnie whispered

"Three." They both said and turned their eyes up to the skies above.

It was then when Yi threw up everything she had in her stomach. The rations burned as they came up in a greyish bile and the commander ungracefully gagged it all up a the feet of her subordinate. Marnie didn't even seem to notice. She stared up the way Mix did, transfixed and hypnotized.

"Those......Those are........."She finally wheezed. The tightness in her lungs constricted even more and she almost felt faint. Tia who had finally stopped screaming and licking her wrist also had looked up.

"Teeth." She murmered quietly.

Numerous flat plates hovered into the muted orange sky that began to turn black and clouded again. The Darker the skies grew, the sharper and brighter those teeth grew in neat rows that spread into the most mencing of cresents. The mouth seemed to stretch for miles, high above. It eventually pulled a part and wheezed and suddenly a blast of hot air nearly knocked Marnie off her feet. It smelt putrid, it smelt like death and it smelt like the bodies that Tia had burned 13 times in the past 5 weeks. The way the black clouds moved and squirmed reminded Marnie of worms in a garbage bag, pushing and pulling-trying to release themselves from their imprisonment to no avail. It was nausating to watch, but like a train accident, she couldn't find it in her soul to tear her eyes away.

Marnie watched as one, two-no FOUR-eyes blinked slowly into existance. Pupils rolled around the whites of the eyes trying to focus in on something before finally zeroing in on the organic pillars. There was a loud noise that almost sounded like whistling as numerous tentacles-about five of them shot from the skies. The tendrils wrapped around the pillars and the ground shook violently as the organic pillars were ripped up. The tendrils retreated into the massive maw, already salivating and dripping massive droplets that splashed into the ground, turning it almost grey and weak. Tia struggled to her feet as she also watched this giant beast, this abomination dine upon the nutrients they had sought for so long like it was nothing. The pupils began to roll about against in all directions, trying to take in everything all at once.

Then it zeroed in on them.

"Run." Tit hoarsely coughed.

"uhuhh." Marnie moaned, still entranced. Yi spat into the ground and struggled back up to her feet, legs shaking.

"GODDAMIT, RUN-RUN FOR YOUR FUCKING LIFE, MARNIE!" Tia screamed at the top of her lungs as the tendrils shot down again, striking meters away from where they stood. The ground shook so violently as the tentacles hit the tower's surface. Everything began to crumble at once at the impact, the tentacles squirming around, seeking out anything it could to destroy. Yi grabbed Marnie by the hand and began to run. Marnie barely snapped out of her trance as Yi pulled her along before she could find the brain connects to make her legs move. She looked back in absolute horror as the tentacles reached Tia and Tia, god oh Tia.

Tia had whipped out the hunting knife that Mix stabbed her with and lept upon the tentacles. She shived the squirming creature repeatedly only for it to throw her immediately. Tia had barely bounced back from the impact when a single tentacle reared up and slowly pressed down on Tia's body and all that followed was a whimper and sickening popping noise.

Marnie could feel the rations crawling up her own throat, now ready to throw up. Yi was frantically pulling Marnie along, trying out run the shaking of the ground and the tentacles that suddenly caught on to the fact that there were 2 missing. The slithering tentacles moved after them in an alarming pace, it's vibrating pulsating flesh catching them in minutes. Marnie and Yi began to hysterically scream as the tentacles wrapped around them and pulled them up in the heavens, the air practically crushing them against the pulsating flesh.

"Yi-oh god YI!" Marnie screamed, looking over at her Commander. The impact as the tentacles had grabbed them left Yi in a limp rag doll like safe, ragged breath pulsating in and out of her body. The Tentacles finally stopped moving and the air pressure released her from her imprisonment. Marnie laid on her back and stared in the 4 eyed abyss that stared back with judgemental slit like eyes, as if it was struggling to see the insignifagant speck that was Marnie and Yi's body. At the far distance, the abomination simply looked like something trapped in a garbage of sorts trying to get free. Up this close to it now, her tune had changed. It wasn't trapped. It was the opposite.

And Marnie couldn't stop screaming.

-

Commander Yi stirred awake 8 days later. The sound of hospital noises filled her ears, nurses heels clacking about as they scurried, the intercom system asking for a Dr. Nadia to come to the ER, the sounds of saline drips, resperaitors and the common wheezing and drone of a hospital. It was all so familiar to her, she had been in hospitals numerous times before.

She just never expected to be in one again after the Mission.

"Marnie." She croaked. Her throat felt try and tattered, every fragment of her body burned when she tried to twitch her muscles.

"Oh god, you're awake." Whispered the nurse that had been checking on the saline that had been hooked up into Yi's body. Yi's one good arm shot out and grabbed the Nurse violently by the wrist. She squeaked out in surprise.

"WHERE'S MARNIE." She tried to scream, but only came out again in a hoarse broken whisper. "Is Marnie okay? Did she make it-"

"Commander, please. Dont move so quickly." A familiar voice chided. Yi turned her head. Dedria sat in a plastic grey chair in the small hospital room. Dedria had been head of the department that worked to open the portals and study them. It was with their smooth talking that they even got the money for the mission. Dedria nodded slightly at the Nurse who quickly finished hanging up the saline and scurried out, shutting the door behind her.

"What happened?" Yi croaked again.

"Well. We manged to get a pin point on your location. I mean, after we lost it week 4. It took a bit of work, but we finally managed to get a bead on you and force open a portal underneath you. You could imagine our shock when you fell in. We could have sworn you were dead Yi." Dedria stood up and walked over to the wall which had instructions for the nurses to follow. "A broken arm, shattered ankle, rib cage completely caved in, a concussion so severe that it could put the best of our military to shame. Your internal bleeding was so rampent that you were basically just a sack of broken bones and blood. We manged to pull a 3 nighter and put you back together, Humpty Dumpty." Dedria chuckled softly. Yi's one good eye blinked slowly.

"How long have I been-"

"8 days. Solid week. Doctors said you were already showing signs of extreme fatigue that they essentially had to put your body into a drug induced coma so it'd get the proper repair time that it needed." Dedria slowly rubbed the back of her neck. "I didn't think you'd wake up so early. I thought you'd be out for another month."

"Where's Marnie?"

"Hmn?" Dedria blinked confusedly for a few minutes.

"Dr. Marina of the Artifacers and Linguistics Department." Yi said slowly and deliberately. "Where is she?" Dedria sighed slowly.

"Yi, you were in pretty bad shape when you fell in. You were borderline dead. We dont know what happened while you were in the Black Plane....but.......Marina......" Dedria pinched the bridge of her nose as if this was extremely difficult to think about, let alone explain. "Marina is broken."

"Broken." Yi flatly ecohed.

"She was awake and concious when you two fell in. And she's been awake for 8 days straight. She's stopped sleeping, Yi." Dedria looked away from Yi to avoid the Commander's single intense gaze. "I dont think she could if she wanted to. She's been admitted to the hospital's psychological ward."

"I want to see her."

"Yi, you still need time to heal up, your ribs are still basically mush-"

"DEDRIA." Yi snapped. "Please. Please Dedria."Yi began to sob quietly. "I need to see her." Dedria bit her lip, her brow furrowing. She hating seeing people cry, especially people like Yi.

"Alright........I'll.....I'll see what strings I could pull."

"Thank you, Didi." Yi whispered.

"Dont call me that. Yi-Yi." Dedria snorted as she left the room.

-

Dedria made good on her word. It took 3 days of smooth talking, bribery and Yi behaving for once in her long track record of numerous hospital visits, but she was finally confirmed wheelchair ready. Yi winced as Dedria and a nurse helped her into the chair. Everything still felt sore and they were already trying to ween her off the painkillers that had been helping make this entire ordeal bareable. Yi was on a cocktail of drugs, sleeping pills, tranquilizers, painkillers, antibiotics. Yi had begged Dedria to get a drink repeatedly during her visits, only to have her superior wave her away and say 'Maybe when your pee can get thru a drug test clean, Yi.'

Needless to say, Yi was starting to develop a worse temperment than usual when confined to one place. But for Marnie she behaved. That was the only thing that kept her from going absolutely apeshit on the nurses, doctors, on Dedria. And it was the promise to visit Marnie.

Dedria wheeled Yi down the long white corridor, patients waiting out in halls being tended to by doctors-some obvious victims of the white poison that still was spread around the colony.

"Things have tapered off a bit."Dedria explained as they turned. "They've been working on some strong counter agents against what they're calling 'White Death'. People that have been exposed to it have at least a 70% chance of survival now."

"That's good." Yi muttered, trying keep calm. Dedria wheeled her into the elevator and pressed the button for the psychological ward.

"Yi.....we need to talk about Marina-I mean....Marnie."

"What's there to say?"

"She......she's worse than I intially let on. You think you're on a lot of stuff right now? Dr. Marina-Marnie, I mean, she's on everything this hospital's got. Painkillers, anti-psychotics, anxiety medication, stomach pills, she can barely keep food down and she can't sleep without borderline overdoses of sleep medication."

"She's been thru a lot." Yi mumbled. "That.....place.....that Black Plane. It was Hell, Dedria. I'm pretty sure you sent us to Hell."

"Look. I'm just saying." Dedria chuffed a sigh as the door slid open and Yi was wheeled down to Marine's room. "Just....get ready for the person you're about to meet."

The room was dark. The windows drawn and the only noise was the sound of saline drip and the snow of the tv. static. Yi could barely see the outline of Marine sitting up hunched over in the bed. She slowly rocked back and forth.

"Marnie?" Yi whispered softly. The figure jerked around and stared at Yi with wide awake eyes, ringed red and sleepless. Marnie gave a ragged inhale and exhale.

"It was on the outside." She croaked. Yi tilted her head, confusedly. "It's insides. Where on the outside. It had no skin. It was like a living mass of meat tissue. There was no carapace, no exoskeleton, everything just exposed to the elements and it was that size. It was that size. And we were eating it's scraps. It's Insides were on the Outside."

"Marnie-" Yi wheeled a bit forward as Dr. Marina of the Artifacer and Linguistics department began to cry, burying her face into her hands and screamed again and again thru the tears.

"ITS INSIDES WERE ON THE OUTSIDE, ITS INSIDES WERE ON THE OUTSIDE. ITS INSIDES WERE ON THE OUTSIDE."

-

"So yeah, we had ants in the car." Reeda said taking a sip of her sprite. Her mother raised a slight eyebrow as her daughter regaled her with the tale of her school day.

"It's all that junk you and your brother leave in the car. I keep telling you if two vacumed it once in a while"

"It's fine." She waved off her mother's scolding. I mean, I think like some of them got near my french fries. I smooshed like one and I let the other two get away. I threw 'em outside"

"You should have just killed them both."Her mother sighed, pulling the ant poison out from under the skin. The Ant problem was just getting worse around the part of the yard where they parked the cars.

"Yeah. But I like to leave at least two alive." Reeda took another sip of her sprite. " 'Go tell your people what you saw here' Kinda thing you know?"

"They're ants, sweetie. It's not like they're that complex"

"Eh. I guess you're right." She shrugged. "I just want them to think twice about trying to steal my french fries like that."