#looking back its just an endless parade of me Caring About The Rules Come On Guys We Need To Follow The Rules Stop Mucking Around

[wizardlyghost]

yknow i think i would maybe have had an easier time in life if i had been a little less autistic :/

[sabraeal]

If the Mind Is Willing, Chapter 1

[Read on AO3]

Written for @bubblesthemonsterartist, my partner in crime, for her birthday. Joanna likes to ask me for only the most niche concepts with which to delight herself and she certainly topped herself with this one, conceptually. I hope you enjoy the thing only you could ask for and the thing only I could write

With two minutes left on the gymnasium clock, Chizuru stumbles out from behind her desk and hands over her most important accomplishment of the past three months: her last exam. Of fall semester, at least.

It’s Sakai who’s sitting in the proctor’s seat when she approaches; of Matsumoto’s two TAs this semester, he was certainly the favorite, and Chizuru doubts it’s for his rather extensive collection of cozy-looking sweaters. Touchable, she’s heard some of the other girls giggle behind her in lecture, and today he looks it, the sweep of his bangs falling gently over his forehead and his cable knit almost certainly made from the world’s softest sheep. It’s just slightly too big for him, a size that would be down to her knees if she wore it, cuffs pushed all the way up to her elbows just to see her hand.

On Sakai, it sits just an inch past his wrist. She notices it when he reaches out, his smile warm as he says, “Congratulations. You’ve passed Biology 100.”

“Oh!” Her fingers pluck at her messenger strap hard enough to make music. “I don’t know if we can say that! There were quite a few questions I really had to think about.”

Sakai is too earnest to be wry, but he comes close with the way his mouth curves. “If you say so.” Her exam settles onto the top of the stack, pleasantly square with the papers beneath it. “You certainly took more care with your answers than most of these-- I mean, your classmates.”

Chizuru blinks. “What do you--?”

Her gaze sweeps out over her shoulder, spanning the gym-- the suddenly very empty gym-- and all she can manage is, “Oh.”

It’s late, she realizes, the night sitting soft against the widows. It’s faded in places, diffused by the ambient light, like crushed velvet in an old jewelry box, worn away where silver once sat. Snow tumbles past in big, chunky flakes, the kind that melt against the pavement up until they don’t, and--

“Oh no,” she murmurs, every hair on end. “The bus.”

“Still running,” Sakai confirms, chair scraping out from underneath him. “It’s just for show right now, but it’s supposed to get heavy later tonight. We’re in for a White Christmas, I guess.”

There’s a proper way to leave the gym, one that leads out to one of the campus’s many quads and also a ten minute dead sprint to the nearest bus stop. But someone’s propped open the emergency exit, its alarm off-- that has to be a violation of some kind, the sort the school would get itself fined for if a fire marshal saw-- and that’s the opening Chizuru takes, if only because there’s a stop right there, at the bottom of the stairs.

Chizuru’s for the rules just as much as anyone, but still-- she has a limit. It’s already a long bus ride to the house, and if she doesn’t catch the next one she’ll have an even longer walk back, not only in the dark but in the snow. Her father may have prepared her for a world of dangers, but no self-defense class could fend off hypothermia.

The air has a bite when she steps out onto the concrete stairs; it hadn’t crossed her mind to check the weather before she rushed out this afternoon, but if she had, she would have at least brought a jacket. As it is, she shrugs her sweater up around her ears, cowl neck covering what her hair doesn’t. It doesn’t do anything for her hands, and oh, they’re already cracked enough from an endless parade of labs and latex gloves. That last thing they need is to get chapped as well, but here she is, exposing them to the elements as her breath mists in the cold.

There’s a car idling on the street; black and boxy in the way that says expensive rather than vintage. That would be as far as her opinions go on the matter, except that it’s idling right where the 9 should be pulling up in the next two minutes. It’s cold, her hands are freezing, and although Chizuru believes in peaceful solutions, she’s just about ready to march up to that beast of a sedan and cite as much of the moving violations section from her Driver’s Ed manual as she can remember. She got in at least a few months of good study before she flunked her test, she could probably remember the choicest bits if she got her back up enough.

It’s an effort to overcome the inertia of politeness to be rude, but even as the voice in the back of her head tells her that this would make her a bad girl, that father would be so disappointed, there’s another that’s telling her: they started it! If they didn’t want to be told about the penalty for idling in a loading zone, then perhaps they shouldn’t have parked there!

And there is yet a third voice, one that may be quieter, a murmur beneath the others, and it says: maybe they’ll have gloves in there. She’d forgive any crime if it meant her hands could be warm; if someone handed her even the thinnest pair, she would probably kiss--

“Here.” Leather slaps against her arm, the sound dampened by the thick knit of her sweater. “It wouldn’t do for my wife’s hands to get cold.”

--Ah. Never mind.

Kazama stares down at her, impassively impatient as always, as if she is eternally one step behind his demands and he’s too polite to mention it. Chizuru stifles a sigh, offering him her most perfunctory smile instead.

“That’s very kind of you, Chikage.” She holds out her hand, gently pushing his out of her orbit. “But I couldn’t possibly accept! Not when you’d only get cold instead.”

“Tch. As if these would fit my hands.” He gives them an emphatic shake, and she can see now-- they’re small. Much smaller than his giant hands, both of them already covered with supple, skin-hugging leather. No, these are ladies’ gloves, a matching pair to his own, just a shade or two lighter. “These were made for you.”

Well, it would be rude not to take them now, wouldn’t it? “Ah...thank you.”

It’s not until she slides them on that she feels the silk inside them, skimming over her skin as tight as a stocking. When her fingers bend, there’s not even a hesitation; each one articulates as if there was nothing more than air around them. These must have cost a fortune, she doesn’t say, if only to cut off one of his avenues to ruin this, but still--

“They are made to fit your exact dimensions,” Kazama tells her, too satisfied with himself. “I had Amagiri measure your hands the last time you fell asleep at the library.”

Ah, there is it. The explanation that could turn silk scummy against her skin. “I’m sorry?”

Kazama takes one swaggering step down the stairs, and oh, it’s far too late to protest. “Get in the car, wife, the jet is waiting for us on the runway.”

Chizuru blinks. She knows all those words, she does, but the order he’s put them in-- “E-excuse me?”

“You’re coming home with me.” It’s not a question. “For the holidays, of course. My parents are eager to meet their new daughter-in-law.”

We’re not married sits at the tip of her tongue, but there’s no point, not with Kazama. Accepting a gift was the entry fee to this fantasy, and it’s clear by the way he holds his hand out to her, snow falling around him, that he means to take it as far as she’ll let him. 

“Chikage, I really don’t think--”

“Give me a break.” A shadow drops down right between them, slapping his arm away. “You really don’t know when to quit, do you kid?”

All of Kazama’s self-satisfaction curdles, turning his smile to a sneer. “How many times have I told you, old man? I am not a child, you cannot simply refer to me as a kid--”

“If you’re still young enough to live off your parents’ money,” Hijikata grouses, straightening the rumpled lines of his jacket. “Then you’re still a kid.”

His chin tilts, imperious. “I have my own money. It’s simply held in trust, which I will receive when I ma--”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah.” One hand flaps, waving him off; a distraction for the way the other tucks itself around her elbow, steering her toward the stairs. “The point stands. Now if you don’t mind, I’ll be taking Miss Yukimura home.”

“I do mind--”

“It was rhetorical,” Hijikata informs him, his grip urging her to stumble after him. “I don’t actually care.”

“Professor--” her feet tangle beneath her, tripping over little more than a crease between concrete slabs-- “wait, just let me--”

“Keep walking,” he mutters, picking up his pace. It had already been punishing before, her own legs too short to keep up with his, but not his step is worth every two of hers, and she practically has to jog to keep from being dragged across the sidewalk. “Look like you have a purpose. We don’t want to be anywhere near here when that idiot finally--”

“This is kidnapping,” Kazama decides, his words echoing over the empty street. “You are kidnapping my wife. I could call the police if I wanted!”

A curse hisses between the professor’s teeth, too soft for her to catch more than a syllable over their steps. It’s the only warning she has before he stops dead on the sidewalk, and it’s not nearly enough to draw up short, not before she stumbles over him, right into his back.

It’s impossible to miss the way his breath huffs out of him, hearing through his ribs that it’s not in humor but in resignation. “The sad thing is, they’d probably listen to him too, the rich bastard.”

Her head lifts from his coat, staring up at the knife’s edge of his shoulders. “Professor?”

“Listen, Yukimura--” she’s not silly enough to ask him where the Miss has gone, not when he turns, fixing all of his searing attention squarely on her-- “do you consent to me taking you away from this son of a bitch?”

His voice is pitched to be heard, the same way he does in lecture, trying to provoke a response, and oh, does Kazama give him one. His growl splits the night, voice rising to shout, “What did you say, you department store has-been?”

She balks. “I r-really don’t think we need to resort to name-calling, Professor--”

“Chizuru.” The sound of her name stops her as thoroughly as his glare. “Do you want to get out of here or not?”

“Ah...” She glances back to where Kazama stands, stomping in the snow. “N-no. I mean, yes. I’d like to go home.”

“Hear that?” Hijikata calls over his shoulder. “She says ‘go fuck yourself.’“

Her jaw drops. “But I didn’t--”

“This is why you can’t break a B in my class,” he grumbles, hauling her toward the faculty lot. “You don’t have any sense of imagination.”

“Don’t think this is over--”

Hijikata spares him the bird, flipped right over his shoulder. “Happy holidays, you miserable piece of shit.”

“Professor, please, we don’t have to-- oh.”

Amagiri does not so much stand up as appear, his suit camouflaged against the sedan’s black sheen. There’s not much that could slow Hijikata when he’s got a purpose, but this stutters him nearly to a halt, his gaze scraping over the pavement, and up, up until he meets the dispassionate gaze of the Kazama family bodyguard.

His breath mists into the air, roiling like smoke from a dragon’s snout. “Professor.”

Hijikata doesn’t shrink beneath that shadow, but his grip does tighten on her wrist. “Mr Amagiri.”

This mountain of flesh and bone shifts, his weight settling evenly on his feet, and there is not a day where Chizuru is not aware of how fast this man could be, should he be moved to action, not a moment where she doesn’t remember how quickly he’s able to insinuate himself between his charge and danger. But today, he moves at a geologic scale, his chin tilting down by inches until it rests against his chest, back bowed with respect. “Merry Christmas.”

It’s some consolation that Hijikata looks just as surprised as she is; his eyes wide and wary beneath his furrowed brow.

“Sure, yeah.” His head dips in a quick nod, not rushed or rude but simply...confused. “Happy Holidays to you too.”

Amagiri’s mouth pulls, one side a little higher than the other, and he steps aside. “Have a nice holiday, Miss Yukimura.”

“Thank you,” she murmurs. “I hope you also--”

“Alright,” Hijikata sighs, and with a firm yank, pulls her away. “That’s enough playing nice for one night.”

Chizuru is hardly an expert on automotive vehicles; Father only ever had the one, though he’d traded it in for the newest model every few years in a process as arcane as any medical textbook, and so long as it worked, that was as far as her concern ever extended. But even so, she does know this: Hijikata’s car cannot be worth the money he paid for it. Unless he actually bought it in the year it was made, which, she suspects, is not too distant from the one where she was born.

“You have a gift, Yukimura,” he mumbles, cranking the heat up to its highest setting. “And it’s attracting assholes.”

Frigid air blasts out of the vents, colder than even the outside, and she bites back a flinch. “I don’t think that’s quite fair, Professor.”

He huffs, the sound preserved in steam. “Really.”

“Really. After all, I found you--” ah, there’s no point in turning on the radiator if her cheeks are going to heat the whole cabin themselves-- “a-and if that hadn’t happened, w-well...”

She wouldn’t have anywhere to live, for one. No work study either, to cover what her scholarships couldn’t. And a dozen other things she can think of right off the top of her head, each more heartfelt and mortifying than the last, and now seems like an absolutely terrible time to have a heart-to-heart about how much he means to her. Even if there are only two more sleeps until Christmas.

His laughs saws into her silence, filling the space she can never quite close. “Oh, don’t worry. I’m including myself in the count.”

You shouldn’t. That’s what she wants to say-- what she should say-- but even thinking it makes her hands tremble, an inch too close to earnest. It’s fine to be thankful, but it would take a girl with more backbone than her to to tell a teacher that he-- that she--

“Speaking of--” Hijikata twists on the driver’s side to look at her, seat belt pulling tight across his chest-- “how is the house? You’re settling in fine? No one’s giving you shit, are they?”

It’s a little late to be inquiring about settling in-- it’s been months since her ill-advised attempt at deception, and his generous decision to allow her to stay. And yet her cheeks tingle so acutely she wonders if it’s possible to get a burn from blushing. Or at least some sort of permanent damage, maybe to the capillaries. Vessels that small are delicate, and she--

Ah, and she isn’t answering the question. “N-no, not at all! I mean, just fine. No wait! I’m settling in just fine, and no one’s, er...”

“Alright, alright, Yukimura,” he groans, flapping a hand at her. “Don’t hurt yourself. I’m sure the place is home sweet home by now. But living with that bunch of slobs isn’t bothering you?”

“Oh, no!” Her fingers curl around the center console, too timid to curl into his sleeve. “Everyone’s been very kind.”

His forehead crumples up in confusion. “Really? Those guys?”

“Y-yes! Of course.” Most of them, at least. Some have taken some...getting used to on her part. But Hijikata doesn’t need to hear that. “And I would just like to say that I’m so grateful you let me stay, even if I wasn’t, er--” a boy-- “what you were looking for.”

It’s an experience being on the receiving side of one of Hijikata’s stares. The intensity of it is a solid weight upon her neck, but she doesn’t bow, not an inch; instead she lifts her chin, meeting him halfway.

He must see something in her, some grain of truth, since he simply shakes his head, eyes narrowing before they slide to the windshield. “Well, I’m glad to hear it. But if any of them give you any trouble, make sure to let me know. I’ll take care of it.”

“Oh!” There must be something in her eye, a piece of sand or dust, or-- or something, since there’s no reason for them to tear, no reason for her tights to blur where she’s fixed her gaze to them. “I-I’m sure that won’t be a problem, Professor.”

“Really, don’t hesitate.” When she dares to look up, his mouth is hooked into a smirk, angled somewhere out the window. “You’d be doing me a favor. I’m dying for a reason to kick Souji out.”

The house is dark when Hijikata pulls his car, coughing, up to the curb. It’s strange; she’s not used to seeing it so quiet, so still. There’s never been a night since she walked through its doors that there hasn’t been some window lit up, some music blaring despite who else might be trying to make an early morning lab.

And yet tonight it’s as if the house itself is asleep, its energy emptied as thoroughly as its occupants.

Hijikata squints out her window, leaning over the center console until the space between them could be measured in atoms. Chizuru plasters herself to the passenger seat, but she’s still too close, the astringent tang of his shampoo both refreshing and overpowering at once.

“Hm,” he grunts, sitting back with a frown. “You sure you’ll be alright? I can always hang around if--”

“I-I’ll be fine.” Certainly better than she would be if she had to sit on the couch Shinpachi so proudly informed her came from a curb, making small talk with her professor like they were peers. “Most of the boys have gone home for the holidays, but Souji and Harada are still here. I’m sure they’re just--” sleeping is at the tip of her tongue, but it’s an unlikely option at best-- “out?”

His mouth pulls tight, a grim line for such a handsome face. Still, she’d be lying if she said he didn’t wear it well. “You have my number, don’t you?”

“I do.” For emergencies, though it’s more likely that she’d die in the event of one rather than use it. Every time she even considers calling him to fix the stove or get a plumber, she thinks about him possibly being in-- in pajamas. Being tucked into bed with his favorite book, reading glasses perched on his nose, and then hearing her call. To think Hijikata might unfurl himself from his mattress and come over-- Chizuru would never survive it.

“You’ll call me, right?” Her heart leaps at the gravel in his voice, in the concern he fixes her with when she dares to meet his eyes. “If anything happens, anything at all...?”

Chizuru hates to admit it, but smiling the way she does, so wide and bright people tell her it could power cities...it’s an effort. She can spend as long as she likes in front of the mirror, practicing her positive affirmations, and try to keep her thoughts bent to the brighter side no matter what misfortune rains on her day, but it’s true: it’s impossible to be all happy, all the time. She’s simply...good at pretending. Her smiles may not all come naturally, but they do come from the heart, and most people, well, they don’t know the difference.

But sitting here, watching Professor Hijikata glower at her with such concern-- it’s no hardship at all for her mouth to part, for her lips to spread wide enough her cheeks hurt in the good way.

“There’s no need to worry, Professor,” she tells him, meaning every word. “I’m sure everything will be just fine.”

Despite all her assurances on the safety of the neighborhood and her ability to use the legally registered can of mace in her bag, Hijikata’s insists on watching her hobble up the walk, his glare goading her on even as her tennis shoes threaten to slip on the snow-slick stone. There’s several points she’s certain she’s about to eat ice-- really, she needs to start checking the weather instead of throwing on any old thing-- but Chizuru keeps her feet, driven by the knowledge that at the first sign of trouble, all his promises will be worth less than the air he used to make them. Chizuru’s a survivor, tried and true, but if she has to suffer through a night of the professor fussing at her until one of the boys got home--

She shudders. It’s not from the cold.

Warm air washes over her when she steps in the hallway, enough that she sighs, long and relieved, before calling out, “Souji? Sanosuke?”

There’s no answer, not beyond her own echo. She toes off her shoes into the tray, bending down to straighten them, then the haphazard collection of boy boots sprawled next to them. There’s a pair of flip-flops mixed in, too big to belong to anyone but Harada. Chizuru shuts her eyes, steeling herself for a solid minute before she stacks them neatly to the side. At least she can take heart that he’s not wearing them now, wherever he is.

She sets her bag to the side, shaking the snow off her sweater before she slings it back over her shoulder again. She takes one step, then another, squinting down the dark hall, and then--

“The light,” she murmurs with a laugh. “I need a light to see.”

There’s a movement out of the corner of her eye when she flicks it, something out the window. Shadowy and large is her first impression, followed by the growl that shudders through the night--

But its lights flick on too, fixed toward the street. Hijikata. It’s Hijikata. Leaving now, because he hadn’t just waited until she was out of sight. Leaving now, because he waited until she was safe.

The window’s cool beneath her fingers, fogging where she touches. It covers the sedan until it disappears from sight, slipping through he fingers like water down a drain.

Father used to wait too, sitting up for hours until she came home from the library, or from a study session that ran late. She’d find him, asleep in his chair, groggily asking her the time as she coaxed him to bed. She...missed it. Not just someone being there, but someone who cared when she came home.

Chizuru pulls away, hand curling against her chest. She’ll have to-- to do something for him. As a thank you. Hopefully cookies aren’t considered a conflict of interest.

The kitchen is the first place she checks after her bag’s safely stowed back in her room. If there is a boy in this house-- a possibility that grows slimmer with each light she turns on and each dark room she passes-- that’s where he’ll be. Even a dark kitchen can’t smother that hope; Chizuru has come upon too many of her housemates in the dead of night, eating out of cans like they’d never seen a stove before.

Today it seems they all located here en mass; pots scatter haphazardly across the cooktop, each one left with less than a serving of each. Boxed mac and cheese in one-- the orange kind, its noodles already falling to pieces-- baked beans in another; there’s a particular sad one with only cloudy water she assumes was used for hot dogs. A veritable bachelor’s feast, made for seven. That’s the perk of being upperclassmen, she supposes: no last slot exams.

She picks up a pan, watching congealed cheese sag down the side. On second thought, maybe Heisuke and Nagakura headed home before dinner. There’s far too much left behind to account for two men who like to lick their plates clean, as well as the serving spoons.

Altogether, the remnants of their meal scrounge up a single serving. Months ago, Chizuru would have balked at adding different dishes to the same tupperware-- Father never liked his food to touch-- but there’s no point when she knows tomorrow they’ll all go in the same bowl, heated up until molten in the microwave. Dean Kondo might call her a civilizing force, but some days she is all too aware that she is winning battles in a war long lost.

She stares down at the culinary abomination that she’s recreated, and to her everlasting horror, her stomach rumbles.

“When was the last time I ate?” she wonders, hoping that out of sight means out of mind as she stuffs the concoction in the back of the fridge. “It must have been...?”

Lunch? No, it couldn’t be. She’d already been on campus by then. Surely she’d had a snack? Something from a vending machine, or maybe a power bar in her backpack--?

A grimace stretches across her teeth. Ah, well, that would explain why even mac and beans is starting to look appetizing. She really should eat something before she collapses into her pillow. Maybe an egg and rice bowl topped with some scallions, so long as they haven’t wilted. Or if there’s any veg in the crisper, she could make some steamed--

Ah, but that would take dishes. Chizuru peers into the sink, wincing as the tower of plates and pans teeters against the side.

Right. Dishes first. Dinner can come when everything else is clean.

Somewhere between the second pan and the sixth dish, dinner gets downgraded from rice bowl to instant ramen. By the time she’s winnowed the stack to something manageable, she’s starting to contemplate if there are any cup-o-noodles in the cabinets, and if not, which roommate she could prevail upon to borrow one. Anything to get off her feet and get something into her belly.

But still, the work isn’t done. Work first, food later. It’ll taste better once the kitchen is--

“You’re back?”

Stoneware slips from her hands, clattering into the sink, but Chizuru’s too busy jumping out of her skin to notice. “Who--?”

The shadow in the hall is too far too small to be Harada, and despite her intention to think the best of him, Souji would never bother to announce himself. He’d just sneak up on her all unawares and blow air down the back of her shirt. No need to piss yourself, he’d say, it’s just me.

No, it’s Yamazaki who shuffles across the threshold, snow still melting on his jacket and a wrinkle rucked up between his eyebrows. “And you’re doing the dishes? Yukimura, you know we have a dishwasher.”

“It’s calming,” she insists, sheepishly pulling the plug from the sink’s drain. “And the dishwasher would take too long. I think every pot got used for dinner tonight.”

He pads across the tiled floor, silent as a whisper, and it’s only then that she realizes he’s just in his socks. Big, thick woolen ones, the kind that only fit into boots one size too big, because of course he checked the weather. He might be an undergrad, just like her, but he’s still more responsible than half the boys in this house, regardless of age. “And they didn’t leave you any?”

“There was only a little left--” and not something she’d willfully choose to experience-- “I put it in the fridge, if you want it.”

His coat sighs as he opens the door, taking only a breath before he mutters, “Oh.”

It closes, just as swift. “I think I’ll pass. Were you planning on cooking for yourself? What were you going to--?”

It’s not until his fingers pluck the packet from the counter that Chizuru remembers her Top Ramen plans, the ones that had seen her rummaging in the cabinets as the sink filled to find out whether they still had shrimp flavor. As Yamazaki’s mouth twists, she’s not sure if it’s better or worse that they only had chicken.

“Yukimura,” he says, so even. “Is this all?”

“Ah...” It would be a mistake to inform him that she’d been considering cup-a-noodles. “I just thought I’d have something quick, There’s no point in making anything fancy when it’s just me.”

He huffs. “You’re worth a good meal. When was the last time you ate today?”

I can’t answer that on the grounds that it may incriminate me would be a clever way to see herself on the other end of one of Yamazaki’s epic scoldings, but Chizuru makes the executive decision to invoke her right to silence instead.

By the twitch of his lips, she hasn’t fooled him, not even a little. But instead of launching into his usual lecture on minimum calorie intake-- the human body can’t run on good will alone, Yukimura-- he simply sighs.

“It just so happens I haven’t had any dinner either.” He casts a look askance, eyes shining dark without the sink lamp on. “If you finish the dishes, then I’ll make sure we both eat something that’s a little more filling than broth and noodles.”

“Oh, no!” Her cheeks prickle again, and worst of all, so do her eyes. “Y-you don’t have to put yourself out, really.”

“I’m not.” Yamazaki doesn’t smile often, but he comes close when he looks at her, a soft rounding at one edge of his mouth. “It’s a lot easier to cook for two than it is for one. And you’re saving me the hassle of doing the dishes.”

“But--”

“Sit.” His hand taps her shoulder, so light, angling her toward the table, and--

And it’s not that she’s unused to touch, not in this house. Harada is always putting his arm over her shoulder, and Nagakura’s never met a personal bubble he couldn’t pop, let alone Heisuke treating the couch as a personal invitation to pile up like the puppies he shows her from TikTok. Even Souji likes to stand close, as if he stays just within sight, he can’t be forgotten.

It’s just that Yamazaki doesn’t do it. Not casually, as if he’s confident his touch is wanted. No, he prefers to stand a respectful distance away, pitching his volume to fill the space. With anyone else there might be accidents, points where hands brushed or shoulders bumped, but Yamazaki is a master of his own body. He doesn’t even make a noise if he doesn’t mean to, so for him to touch her so softly, so purposefully--

Her knees buckle. Just a little. And yet, still enough for him to notice.

“See?” Yamazaki doesn’t laugh, but there’s a hint of one in his voice, goading her across the floor. “You’re dead on your feet. Just give me a minute and we’ll get something in you.”

“I suppose,” she admits, begrudgingly. “But I still have to--”

“Dishes can come after.” The look he gives her is downright sly coming from him. “It would be a waste to run all these dishes and still have a sink full afterwards.”

It’s terrible how much he’s right. Even worse is how much better she feels now that she’s sitting.

“Alright,” she sighs, curling her toes. “Just for a minute.”

His mouth twitches. “Just for a minute.”

It’s not until the room smells utterly mouth-watering that Yamazaki finally says, “I’m surprised you made it home before me.”

“Hm?” She blinks up, just in time to see him roll up his sleeves, the cuff of his button-up holding up the bulk of his sweater. It’s odd, seeing skin; it’s darker than she expects, not a proper tan like Nagakura, but something more golden than ivory.

“I figured I might catch up to you on the bus, if, ah...” He coughs, head turns into his shoulder. It doesn’t hide the pink at the tips of his ears. “Sorry, that’s just-- you would have finished the test earlier. I don’t know why I thought...ugh.”

“Oh, no, please-- I only finished two minutes before time. Sakai was proctoring my room, I didn’t even think--” to remember that he must be proctoring the other; Matsumoto’s much less beloved undergrad TA. And after all the extra hours he put in, helping her study. Ungrateful, Father would call her, and she’s ashamed to think he might be right. “I was going to take the bus, but, er...”

There are many conversations she’d like to have with Yamazaki, but none of them involve Chikage Kazama. “...Hijikata offered me a ride home.”

His spine straightens. “The professor? That was kind of him.”

If anyone in this house could be said to play their cards close to their chest-- well, it would be Hajime. But Yamazaki comes in a close second. Even still, there’s a twinge in that even tone of his, the slightest hint of something like-- like--

Ah, right, envy. He might have snagged the coveted spot of one of Matsumoto’s TAs, but had he not been restricted by major...

“Oh! I’m so sorry.” Her hands clap to her cheeks, doing nothing to hide the way they burn. “I should have told him to wait. Then you could have--”

“Ah, no!” he chokes out, waving her off. “There was no way for you to have known that I was only a few minutes behind you. I’m just glad you didn’t have to sit out there. It was cold.”

“But I knew you had to be proctoring--”

“Yukimura.” His voice pulls her up short, not cruel or dismissive, but merely...firm. The same way Hijikata speaks when he wants the class to be quiet. “It’s fine, really. You don’t need to worry about it.”

It would be a mistake to say, just try and stop me. Harada or Nagakura might take that as a joke, but Yamazaki-- he would see it as a challenge.

“Here.” There’s no flourish; one moment there’s only the table in front of her, and in the next there’s a steaming bowl of rice, topped with a pile of stir fry that makes her drool. “Dinner’s served.”

It’s not often she gets to eat alone with one of the boys. The kitchen is the heart of the house, the room that’s never empty, and even if it’s just a dinner made for two, there’s a peanut gallery to accompany the meal. Or at least Souji, slinking around the counters as if the only way to eat is to steal off someone else’s plate. And to get a spare moment with Yamazaki, one that doesn’t involve studying, it feels...decadent, like sneaking a chocolate from the box. Between his upper level course load, his responsibilities as a TA, and the MCAT around the corner-- not to mention his elective thesis--

Well, he’s not often available, not totally. Not for these small moments, where it’s just him and her and the light above the kitchen table. When he sits it’s with impeccable posture: scapula pressed against the chair’s back, head straight on his neck above it. His elbows don’t even rest on the table.

“Is something wrong?”

Oh, she’d been staring. “No, I was just, um...” Appreciating you seems like it might not be...appreciated. “Spacing out.”

His mouth softens, curving somewhere near a smile. “Of course, this was your last exam, right? You have to be tired. How do you think you did?”

“Great! I mean, I think.” She must be tired; it’s not like her to boast. “If I do well, it’ll be all thanks to you. I wouldn’t have remembered anything if you didn’t walk me through the study guide.”

His cheeks are still rosy when she looks at him, flushed from being bent over the stove. But his mouth has lost its lightness, settling into a line as forbidding as his brow. “I don’t think that’s true at all, Yukimura. I might have refreshed your memory on the first part of the course, but you’re smart all on your own.”

“Ah...I don’t know about that...” It’s kind of him to say, but Chizuru is more than aware of how much hard work she has to put in to keep her grades at the top of the class. “I did have trouble with a few parts, after all.”

“You did?” Yamazaki stiffens in his chair, his attention swiveling from his bowl to her face with startling intensity. “Which part? You nearly aced the practice exam, so I can’t imagine--”

“Oh, just-- just that last part, with the genetics unit. I didn’t expect there to be a question that asked us to also link it with populations.” Now that she’s talking it out, it seems obvious, silly even. But her whole last fifteen minutes had been spent puzzling over human eye color on the macro level. “I know we’d gone over green eyes in class, but I didn’t really know how to handle hazel, so I just treated it sort of like...a recessive? Only heterozygous individuals had their own phenotype, but I’m not really sure--?”

“Ah, that’s fine. Matsumoto likes to throw in a few questions that get you thinking about what he wants to cover next semester.” Yamazaki shrugs, his mouth slyly hitched up at the corner. “Even geneticists argue about how hazel eyes happen. From what it sounds like, he’s going to give you full marks for your thought process.”

Chizuru can’t help it, she stares. “You mean it was a trick question?”

“Of course.” His teeth flash behind his lips, the quickest glimpse before they’re gone again. “But you handled it well, Yukimura. Good job.”

If the skin is but one single organ, the way Dr Matsumoto says, then every inch of it betrays her at once, heating up high enough that she’s sure she could fry an egg to go along with their dinners. Or well, what’s left of their dinners, since she’s polished off her whole bowl.

She stands, so suddenly that her chair screeches across the floor. “A-are you done? I can, um, start doing the dishes if you are.”

He glances up, and-- there, that almost smile. “Sure. I think I’ve done what I set out to achieve.”

Chizuru is putting the last dish in the washer when Yamazaki finally ventures, “Has your hair grown out?”

Her fingers fly up, tangling in the strands that just brush her chin. Quite a bit longer than where she’d last left it, up by her ears. “O-oh, I guess it must have! I hadn’t really noticed.”

“It looks...”

He hesitates. It’s strange how much she wants to turn to him, to try to read on his face what his mouth struggles to say, but there’s no good reason, not when she’s supposed to be keying in the wash cycle. Something she does a little too quickly this time, barely waiting for the confirmation beep before she claps the door shut.

“Thank you for cleaning up,” Yamazaki says instead, hands braced at the edge of the counter. “You always do such a good job.”

It’s silly how flustered the compliment makes her; it’s nothing he hasn’t said before, hardly more than polite, but still--

“I just did the dishes,” she insists, smothering the nervous giggle that threatens to rise past her throat. “Really, it isn’t anything.”

“Yes, but you actually loaded all the dishes on the right rack. And,” he adds with a weariness that concerns her, “you actually used the rinse.”

“But everyone can do that.” His dubious look doesn’t help her growing worries. “Can’t they?”

There’s no hesitation when Yamazaki says, “No.”

“But, everyone--” is an adult, she means to say, but she’d only been here two days when Heisuke reduced their laundry room to suds, and last week Nagakura managed to make mustard gas when he attempted to clean the upstairs bathroom. “It’s really not that impressive. Anyone could do it, if they--”

“You don’t have to do that,” Yamazaki says suddenly, his eyebrows drawn tight above his nose. “Make yourself small. I like that you’re-- I mean, it’s good that you’re competent. It certainly takes a load off my plate around here.”

There’s not a single reply in Chizuru’s exhaustive mental database of polite protocol that covers this. At least, not in a way that is humble enough to make her comfortable. So instead she merely blurts out, “Aren’t you going home for the holidays?”

She winces. No better way to show her gratitude than making it sound like she can’t wait for him to be gone.

“I am.” He hardly looks happy about it, not the way she would be if Father decided to fly back from his sabbatical and spend the day with her. “Just for Christmas, though. My family’s close by, and I don’t really need to stay there any longer than I have to. Plus I have-- er, plans. For after New Year’s.”

“Plans?”

“Ah...” His mouth pulls into a grimace. “I just have a, er, thing. Saito’s coming too.”

“Oh, is that why he left this morning?” She tilts her head, curious. “When are you leaving, then? Tomorrow’s Christmas Eve, so--”

“Tonight.” He shrugs his shoulders. “I’m coming back the day after Christmas, and my mom will complain if I don’t stay more than two--”

“Tonight?” She whips around, looking at the clock on the stove. “It’s almost ten! And there’s two inches of snow on the ground.”

“It’s not that far,” he promises. “Really. I’m used to driving in the snow.”

“The roads have to be terrible by now.” She’s afraid to pull back the curtain; it’s been an hour since she got home, and the snow’s been steady past the kitchen window. “And you stayed here to cook me dinner? Ah, you really shouldn’t have bothered, I would have been--”

“Yukimura.” Long fingers wrap around her wrist, arrestingly warm. “Don’t worry about it. It’s no big deal. I had to make my own dinner too. I’ll survive two inches of snow.”

“But...” Her mouth works, but instead of words, it’s just her pulse, banging loud between her ears. “What if there’s...ice?”

“I’ll drive slow.” His grip eases, her skin slipping from beneath it. “I promise. I think you know you can trust me to be careful.”

“I...suppose.”

It’s strange to just stand here; she’s supposed to be-- be doing something, anything really, besides standing here like two is two hands too many. Like she has two extra feet, trying to shuffle at the same time as her other ones. Yamazaki has spent precious time helping her, and she-- she--

“Tea!” she gasps, rushing to the cabinets. “I should-- I can make you tea. There’s a thermos right here, just give me a minute--”

“That’s not--” Yamazaki chokes, hands waving-- “you don’t need to do anything. I’m fine, really.”

“It’s no trouble at all,” she assures him, putting the water on. “Have you already packed? It’ll stay warm in the thermos, but fresh tea is best tea, I always say.”

Or at least Father had, when he’d dumped her hours-old, untouched mugs into the sink. Ah, perhaps he had been trying to make a different point.

“Y-yes.” He stares at her, wide-eyed, as she putters through the kitchen, pulling out the carton she’s seen him pick through in the morning. “I did it before I left for the exam. But what does that--?”

She shoos him toward the hall. “Go get it! I’ll be done before you get your shoes on.” 

It’s a generous estimate; he’s got both boots and coat on when she gets to him, brow furrowed in a knot she can’t quite untangle. He takes the tea though, even if he frowns through the scarf she puts around his neck, no matter how dashingly she knots it.

“There,” she huffs, triumphant. “All ready.”

“I guess.” His mouth rucks up, not in a smile. “I didn’t really think you’d be-- hm.”

There’s something about his tone that doesn’t quite sting, but it...niggles. As if she’s forgotten something best left remembered. “What?”

He reaches a gloved hand back to rub his neck, shaking his head. “Never mind. Thanks for the tea.”

“It’s not a problem.” Yamazaki’s not much bigger than her, but with his boots on it adds another inch, one that makes him feels tall. Not like Harada, but just...more. “Then I guess I should say...Merry Christmas? Since we won’t see each other?”

The hall is dark; only the porch light shines in to light it, and it’s an imperfect source, one that makes his eyes glisten black instead of the dusky violet she’s used to. It makes him...different. Both more real and yet more shadow as he turns to open the door.

“Ah...right.” His mouth flattens into a smile, but it’s like when a crumpled paper is pressed flat-- the ghosts of its wrinkles always remain. “Merry Christmas.” 

His eyes meet hers, and it’s-- it’s a lot. Too much, somehow, since the only thing she can think to do is squeak out, “Drive safe!” before she slams the door.

“Well,” she murmurs, spinning toward the stairs with hands on her hips. “I think that went well.”

She gets up to the first landing before she thinks to look back, to actually make sure Yamazaki got to his car, and--

And he hasn’t moved, not an inch from where she left him. His shoulders rise to his ears, holding there until his breath huffs out on a sigh, spending in the night air. His first step is hesitant-- no, reluctant, and oh--

Oh, she kind of pushed him right out the door. The door she didn’t even really want him to leave.

Her hand flexes on the banister. It would be easy to go back down, to tell him he should maybe stay the night, just one more before heading home, but--

But she misses her moment, and then the next, and before she knows it, he’s off the porch and out of sight.

[darth-salem-emperor-of-earth]

Here is my next entry for Day 4 of @naruto-fantasy-week​! I went with the prompt “Japanese Folklore” because I wanted to do something with the conflict between the Sun Goddess and Moon God and how their bloodlines influenced imperial monarchies from opposite kingdoms and what would it take to bring two opposing nations together (albeit begrudgingly). I had to prevent this idea from running away with me and focused on a small section in Itachi and Sakura’s courtship. That way, I could actually finish the little fic in time. XD 

Fanfic title comes from the song “Sun and Moon” from the Broadway musical “Miss Saigon”. And yes, I was not trying to be creative with kingdom names. I just went with good ole “Solar” and “Lunar” because the names worked. XD

Summary: With the bloodline of the Sun goddess running through their veins, the Uchiha dynasty had reigned over the land for endless decades. But their power has waned, the populace no longer adores them like they used to, and opposing kingdoms watch and wait for their decline. Now, the imperial family is desperate and the only way to cement their power is to marry one of the imperial sons off to someone who has the bloodline of the Moon God, the brother and foe of the Sun Goddess. Naruto Fantasy Week, Day 4. Prompt: Japanese Folklore. [Itachi x Sakura] 

Text:

Flashback

Thoughts

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“Love, that is all the earth to lovers—love, that mocks time and space,

Love, that is day and night—love, that is sun and moon and stars,

Love, that is crimson, sumptuous, sick with perfume,

No other words but words of love, no other thought but love.”

 — Walt Whitman, The Mystic Trumpeter

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The midday heat continued to beat down on the guards and servants who attended to their duties in the open foyer, where a cooling, welcoming breeze managed to infiltrate the open windows and doors and alleviated some of the humidity plaguing its working inhabitants. Sakura could already feel her inner layers soaked with sweat, cleaving to her body like a sticky second skin. Small tendrils of her hair plastered to the back of her neck and along the outline of her forehead, also damp from perspiration. Her chief lady-in-waiting, Ino, already had to reapply her blush and lipstick, knowing how much Emperor Fugaku, ruler of the Solar Kingdom, would judge the Crown Princess of the Lunar Kingdom, for simply sweating on a hot summer day after he kept her waiting for over a half hour. 

The princess sensed the reason for the delay and inwardly, Sakura was fuming at the blatant disrespect the Emperor, even now, was showing her. It was well known the Uchihas boasted having the blood of the Sun Goddess flowing in their veins, granting them divine rule over their subjects and they always looked down scornfully at those who were heralded to be descendants of the Moon God, the brother and rival of their precious Sun Goddess. But the last few decades, mayhap century, was not kind to the Uchiha rulers, as many of the Uchiha men (and sometimes, women) who succumbed to the unspoken but well known disease called ‘Mangekyō Madness’, reducing the afflicted into a bitter, paranoid mess cursed with blindness and rife with contempt for other clans, especially the so-called inferior ones. Everyone around them became an enemy to vanquish or subdue and usually, there was no cure or chance to regain sanity if the healers hadn’t taken steps previously to mitigate the effects of the illness. There were rumors this madness struck the Uchihas because of a crime one of their ancestors committed, Uchiha Madara, when he almost successfully wiped out the Senju clan to expand his kingdom’s territory. The Senju clan never forgot nor forgave the Uchihas for that massacre, especially since emperors after Madara vehemently denied the Uchihas were a part of such carnage and that Madara acted alone and was considered a ‘blight on Uchiha sun’. 

And thus, the imperial prestige slowly declined and now, Emperor Fugaku faced a dilemma: an unhappy, discontent populace, and watchful neighboring nations who were sharpening their weapons and honing their political strategy to see how much longer the Uchiha dynasty would last. Fugaku needed a strong alliance, once cemented by the bonds of marriage. So he begrudgingly entered negotiations with the Emperor of the Lunar Kingdom, Sakura’s uncle. Both parties agreed Sakura, the uncontested heir of her uncle’s great country, would marry one of the Emperor’s sons when she came of age. Such a celestial marriage would not only bring two mighty, prospering nations together but also join two royal bloodlines blessed by divinity. 

Sakura was thirteen when she caught wind of these negotiations and decided it would be her that decides which Solar prince she’d marry, not her uncle or her future father-in-law. And when the imperial family from the Solar Kingdom arrived a few months after her fourteenth nameday, Sakura began to enact her plan. 

Many of her entourage believed she would pursue the younger son, who was her age, but even though he was cannily pretty (most Uchiha were), Sakura cared not for his cold stares and the way he ignored everyone else if conversing with them was beneath him. He treated her best friend Ino brusquely when she tried to engage in several casual conversations to learn more about his character for Princess Sakura’s sake. Her final report on the second prince was less than glowing. There was that and the fact Ino swore to the Moon God that she witnessed him whispering in Karin’s ear, a medical apprentice who served the Uchiha family, and the girl kept blushing and smirking, taking the chance to suggestively stroke the young prince’s arm before he brushed her off to resume training. Even if there was nothing going on between them, Sakura sensed any relationship with him was doomed to fail. So she focused her attention on the older brother, Itachi.

Sakura smiled to herself as she recalled the first time she and Itachi encountered one another. It was a formal setting, a simple tea ceremony and later, a meeting for her uncle, Itachi’s father, and the ambassadors to discuss treaties and politics. Sakura found herself seated next to Itachi, the Crown Prince. Their discussion was, at first, cordial, ranging from her inquiring about how his stay in the Lunar Kingdom was faring and him saying he was enjoying the various landscapes he saw during his sojourn. Eventually, she learned he suffered from an unknown but not fatal physical ailment, which left him exhausted and tired often. In light of this information,  Sakura then recommended several teas with medicinal properties that would help boost his strength and energy if he drank them regularly. Three days later, Itachi returned to her to thank her personally for her sage advice, saying the teas she suggested were already showing some promise, and asked if she wanted to take a walk around the royal gardens and give him a tour. With a pleased grin on her face, Sakura whole-heartedly accepted, relieved to see Itachi was nothing like his younger brother, for simply being around the Solar heir put her nerves at rest and she soon found how easy and relaxing it was to talk to Itachi.

By the time Itachi had to return home, they already agreed to exchange letters to one another to continue their budding friendship. For four years they secretly exchanged letters back and forth, the friendship slowly melting into a clandestine romance, to the point they both vowed the moment Sakura entered the Solar Kingdom and stepped on soil from the imperial castle, the two of them would wed in secret. They couldn’t take a chance to leave the decision of Sakura’s groom up to Emperor Fugaku, for he was more partial in giving his second son, the spare, to the Lunar Princess because he believed his heir deserved a far more rewarding match. And to quell the rumors that Sasuke no longer had eyes for the noble girls his father tried to parade in front of him and was far more interested in a wandering, compassionate hedgeknight who often rescued or offered his services to the commonfolk amidst the Uchiha lands. He possessed eyes like the ocean blue and hair the color of the golden sun itself and Emperor Fugaku refused to let him on Uchiha grounds.

Within her first week in the Solar Kingdom, Sakura and Itachi were wed, their only other witnesses besides the presences of the Sun Goddess and the Moon God, the imperial family’s kannushi (who was entrusted to bless and formally bind the lovers together in a legal marriage), were Sakura’s chief lady-in-waiting and best friend, Ino, and Itachi’s cousin and confidante, Shisui. Her wedding night with Itachi was pure bliss and now that they were officially husband and wife, they had planned to break the news to the emperor tomorrow morning. 

Itachi went in first, knowing best how to pacify his father’s rage once he realized his original schemes were thwarted. He was also prepared to carefully explain to Emperor Fugaku why this matrimonial choice would suit all parties–Fugaku in particular. From her previous encounters with that rigid, unyielding ruler, Sakura suspected her father-in-law was the type of man who didn’t appreciate when events didn’t go his way or would balk at the idea of admitting that he made a mistake either in his reign or on his judgment. 

The doors leading inside the palace burst open and Itachi smoothly strolled out, the force of his gait causing his dark ponytail to swing around and collide with his left shoulder before resting there. Itachi’s expression remained stolid but the concern and disappointment marked in his obsidian eyes carried enough emotion and information for Sakura to surmise that Itachi’s conversation with his father did not go well at all. 

“Sakura, I am so sorry to have kept you waiting,” he apologized, grasping both of her hands to kiss them, his gaze never leaving hers. Sakura’s ire at her father-in-law steadily ebbed away, savoring Itachi’s touch and sweetness in their private, intimate moment together. “My father refused to come and greet you as my wife, and declared we are to be banished for a few months for marrying without his permission. He also rebuked me for falling prey to your wily charms.” He spoke the last part wryly and Sakura tossed her head back to laugh at the absurd accusation. Of course Fugaku would lay the blame squarely at her feet, for not falling in line and waiting to wed his second son simply so the Solar Emperor could feel far more superior over her and the Lunar Emperor. He may be hailed as a fierce warrior and shrewd monarch, but he also was such a petty man. 

“Banishment away from your father and all those prying, sneering nobles at court, where we can be left alone to our own devices?” Sakura mused drolly out loud, leaning in to plant a loving kiss on her husband’s cheek. “Are you sure the Emperor is punishing us?”

A half-smile spread itself across Itachi’s pale features, his eyes alight at her good humor. “He thinks you will be aghast to be away from such a pinnacle of power and influence and hopes when we return, you’ll be more of a demure, modest wife who will listen to his orders next time.” Both he and Sakura chuckled, imagining Fugaku’s future disappointment that his daughter-in-law was not so easily cowed.. “But we know that will never betide.”

“Of course not,” Sakura agreed, wrapping her hand around his as they sauntered out of the outside foyer and to the guest wings to pack all of Sakura’s effects before they started their journey to Itachi’s estates for their temporary exile. “If I was, then the Sun Goddess would never agree to our match during our covert marriage ceremony nor would have the Moon God made his presence known as well.” 

“I, the Moon God, father of the great lineage belonging to the Lunar Kingdom, come before you all today to bless this joining between a man of the Sun and a woman of the Moon. Do not forget the courage and willpower you had to make this moment possible, you shall need when the crowns sit on both of your heads.”

“I, Amatersau, the famed Sun Goddess, mother of the grand lineage from the Solar Kingdom, am here before you all today to also bless this joining betwixt two mortals, one of the Sun and one of the Moon. Bring back the prestige to my royal line and let the next generation of Uchiha men and women be stronger than ever!”

The words of both sibling deities still echoed in Sakura’s mind, a wish they claimed that only a couple of their caliber would bring to fruition. The Moon God and his sister, the Sun Goddess, a pair that was always at odds with each other since the dawn of time, somehow had their goals aligned when it came to influencing and blessing the union of two mortals who carried their divine blood. Albeit Itachi and Sakura truly didn’t need the blessing of two deities to know the true power and love of their union, despite how awe-inspiring it was to hear the loud, imposing voices of both the Sun Goddess and the Moon God all around them. Even if no one outside their small matrimonial ceremony believed their account, the future for the two of them seemed fortuitous indeed.

“Are you ready to go to your new home, my beloved wife?” Itachi’s face softened as he spoke. Those kind, mesmerizing eyes of his often took on a subtle but nonetheless elated luster whenever he continued to refer to her as his wife, and right now was no exception. Sakura’s heart swelled up with a mixture of pride, joy, and love towards him. They were indeed fortunate and blessed to have found each other even under the shadow of an arranged marriage.

“Yes, darling husband, I am,” she replied, giving his hand an affectionate squeeze. After all, a several month banishment with simply Itachi and her together, managing their estates, while devoid of haughty in-laws and other Solar nobles, sounded like the perfect honeymoon.

[archadianskies]

you're writing captain allen fic! can i um, request a nines/allen fic??? not sure if you're taking requests but it's a rarepair fo mine i'm desperate for more content /sweats no pressure though absolutely understand if you say no!!

→ on Ao3

While Markus and his merry band were busy demanding equal rights for the bots of America, a neat little plot was uncovered when the CEO of CyberLife was stood down. Part of their agreed terms was to halt the production of androids immediately, and release all those in storage as awakened deviants. What they didn’t count on was the discovery of confidential emails, staunchly denied by the government, placing an order of 200,000 RK900 units for the purpose of crushing the android revolution under heel and restoring the power balance back into the hands of humans. 

Never happened, of course, and the RK900 never went into production. Only one was fabricated, and was in its final stage of its testing phase when the revolution ended. It then became a reluctant olive branch offered to the DPD, a ‘sorry we tried to make killing machines behind your back but you can have this one and keep the prototype too’.

There’s no reason to double up, Fowler says, and this model has military upgrades so it will suit your unit better. That’s all the warning he gets before there’s an android standing in his office at 9:00am sharp on Monday.

“Captain Allen, I am the RK900. I have been assigned to SWAT unit 32, under your command.” He says, in a voice deeper than Connor’s and a little more polished. He seems to loom over him, filling out the space of his office like a large shadow, like a Terminator from those movies one of his mothers always liked.

“Do you have a name?”

“No, I was not assigned one.”

“You’re Connor’s little brother aren’t you?” He crosses his arms over his chest. “Heard you were called Nines or 900 or something.”

“No.” Firm refusal. “I do not wish to be associated with a number.” A pause, a frown. “It feels demeaning.” Feels , he says, because apparently androids can do that now.  

“We’re going to have to call you something.” He cocks a brow, and the android averts his gaze, unsure. “Well. You’re the newest guy to the team so that makes you the rookie.”

“Rookie?” The android echoes curiously.

“You’re the rookie until the next recruit shows up.” He shrugs. “That’s the rule. We’ll call you rookie until either you give us a name, with which we will occasionally call you while still referring to you as rookie, or until there is another recruit; whichever comes first.”

“Understood.”

*~*

Connor’s baby brother is 6’5” and if looks could kill everyone would certainly be dead. Terminator’s got the worst case of Resting Murder Face he’s ever seen; it’s as if the psychos at CyberLife used nothing but rulers to design him, as if they took Connor’s model and took away everything that could possibly allude to friendliness. They even gave him startling grey eyes, as if the brown of Connor’s eyes was too warm to keep. What he learns quickly, though, is that even if CyberLife made him look like a cold blooded killing machine, they failed to scrub away the almost puppy-like demeanour so integral to Connor’s personality.

He walks in on his team in the training hall enthusiastically trying to beat the android at every obstacle course, using their years of teamwork to try and pool their skills in order to beat CyberLife’s latest and greatest. They fail spectacularly, to no one’s surprise, but the rookie’s grinning in that slightly lopsided goofy way Connor grins and the team muss his hair like one would pat a dog and he lights up just the same. He’s just as eager, as desperate to please, to integrate, to gain the approval of his human peers and there’s something both endearing and a little sad about it.

*~*

Everyone’s lives depend on trust and teamwork and that means figuring out where the rookie will fit in best. He runs them through endless simulations and the android bests them all; he can be placed anywhere, given any role, and adapts to each situation perfectly. It’s not enough- a simulation is hypothetical, a simulation is safe and is nothing like the chaos of a real mission with very real lives at stake.

“Will that be all for tonight, Captain?” He knocks his reading glasses up briefly to rub at his tired eyes, looking up from his reports to find the android standing dutifully at parade rest in front of his desk.

“Weapons cleaned, locked and logged?”

“Yessir.” A nod.

“You’ve been here a week now.” He leans back in his chair, crossing his arms. “What do you think of Fowler’s choice, assigning you to my team?”

“I believe I am where I ought to be.” The rookie says slowly. “This is the department where my skills prove most useful. Connor is built to assist with detective work, and has the social programming to build strong social bonds. I lack such programming, and have been built with military modifications instead.”

“The team like you plenty.” He shrugs, and the android’s LED spins yellow as he looks away almost self-consciously. “I am glad.” He says quietly. “I find their company enjoyable.”

“Good. Their lives depend on how well you work with them, you understand that right?” Another nod, and he spares him one last glance before returning to his reports. “Alright. Dismissed.”

“Do you?” It’s said so quietly he almost misses it. When he looks up, he catches the briefest flicker of red before the android’s LED swirls yellow.

“Do I what?”

“Like me?” Another brief flicker of red. “You command this team, Captain Allen. You are the most integral part of it. I wish to get along with you too.”

He thinks back on the week that just passed, on the drug busts, on the anti-android protest that turned ugly, on the black market CyberLife raid. He thinks back on the stunned horror on everyone’s faces when the RK900 snapped a rifle in half, picked up a grown man and tossed him aside like a ragdoll in order to protect a fallen teammate. 

He thinks back on that afternoon when he ran a segment of the baton relay race, of both the SWAT unit and Android Crimes Division combined up against Connor and the rookie. He remembers how easily the brothers had beaten them and how his team had so melodramatically displayed their fake disappointment at losing by trying to tackle the RK900 and piling on him ineffectively. He remembers hearing him laugh and seeing him smile that slightly lopsided smile.

A killing machine with the personality of a puppy; loyal to a fault.

“We get along just fine, rookie.”

“I am glad, sir.” He says again, softer this time. “Good night.”

*~*

He turns 44 on the job, and they’re filthy from chasing perps through the slush, teeth chattering from the cold as they huddle in the van headed back to the precinct. He expects to die on the job, so a birthday holds no special weight. He bargains with himself that if he makes it to 50 then he’ll make a big deal out of it. Maybe.

He likes to think he’s still in his prime, and this job demands the best from him both physically and mentally. Careful with what he eats, diligent with his exercise and strict with his training he refuses to let himself slip up; he knows better than anyone what this job requires. Still, though, on missions like these he reluctantly admits to himself he’s not 20 and spry anymore.

The showers cloud with steam as they all scrub off and it’s heaven on his sore muscles and cold skin. Wrapping a towel around his waist he heads back to his locker to grab a fresh set of clean clothes, lost in his thoughts as he goes over the mission in his head. A success, though a messy one. Another slightly amusing, slightly horrifying moment when the rookie snapped a perp’s arm simply by squeezing a little too hard. Jesus he’s glad they’ve got him on their side.

Fingers ghost along his ribs and he instinctively grabs the hand and twists.

“Captain I-”

“What-”

“Sorry! You-” Red LED as he drops his hand, and the RK900 steps back to put distance between them. “Your scar- it’s- you have-”

He stares at him and the android fidgets under his gaze. Looking down at himself, he turns slightly and lifts his arm to touch the long jagged scar along his ribs. “Serrated hunting knife.” He taps a puckered scar below his collarbone. “Gunshot.” Another skimming his hip bone. “Gunshot.” Another on his shoulder. “Gunshot.”

The rookie steps closer hesitantly, reaching out slowly to give him every opportunity to knock his hand away. He remains still, and lets him touch a faint scar on his forehead. “And this one?”

“Courtesy of my cousin swashbuckling with sticks when I was five.” A small smile spreads on the android’s lips, and he takes the opportunity to look him over. God it isn’t fair the android literally hasn’t put in a day’s work to have a body in peak, perfect shape. He’s plated in kevlar too, and he raps his knuckles on the hard chest plate. “You’re brand spanking new, rookie. Not a scratch on you.”

“Shiny and chrome.” One of the men pipes up. “Don’t worry rookie, you’ll earn your battle scars too someday.”

“Then you’ll really be one of us.” He grins, and the android grins in return and something catches in his throat and he thinks oh no.

*~*

“Will that be all for tonight, Captain?” Every evening, the same question, the same earnest expression on his face.

“Weapons cleaned, locked and logged?”

“Yessir.” A nod. “I-” he steps forward hesitantly and thinks the better of it, stepping back. “Happy birthday, Captain Allen. Good night.”

“Thanks rookie.” He manages a tired chuckle. “See you in the morning.”

*~*

Not every mission is a success. Sometimes the intel is bad, sometimes the raid is premature, sometimes the weather fucks them up. Sometimes things just go wrong, horribly, horrifically wrong and all they can manage is damage control.

“No, not like this. Not like this rookie, not on my watch.” He skids over to his side and drops to his knees, the RK900 lying on his back with his chest blown open by an explosive. By a fucking grenade he caught to protect the team. The android is shaking uncontrollably, LED blood red and he bleeds and bleeds and bleeds. 

“I- I don’t know what to do. Rookie, I don’t-” there’s nothing to press down on, there’s no human anatomy here, he has no fucking clue. There’s just blue everywhere, and some distant part of him thinks Hank Anderson will literally kill him with his bare hands for getting one of his sons killed. And he wouldn’t blame him, he wouldn’t fight him on that either. “Not like this, c’mon rookie, please god not like this-” the call’s already been made, and a medtech van is being sent with the EMTs but he knows he won’t last that long. This is the worst part of the job and though he’d give anything not to be in this position, he wouldn’t wish this on anyone else.

The android weakly grasps his wrist, clumsily pulling his hand to touch an erratically pulsing circle just below his sternum. The blast has indented whatever it is, pushing it in a skewed angle.

“You want me to pull it out? Get it back in properly?” A weak nod, and he scrambles for his knife. “Okay, okay uh-” He wedges the tip of the knife under the edge of the glowing circle, and it takes a few tries for him to get it to catch properly, the blood making the surface so slippery the blade ends up sliding out of place. It pops up just an inch and then he has to reach in sideways through a missing chunk of plating to push it awkwardly back into an upright position, only then can he pull it out completely. It detaches with a wet click, and then he’s carefully lowering it back in until it latches into place. He’s trying not to focus too much on the fact he can see the rookie’s insides, at all the broken tubes and wires and the sparks, and the blood just pouring out.

“Stay with me rookie, what’s next? What do you need me to do?” The android pulls insistently on his hands, guiding them towards an open segment on his chest. “Here? I don’t- ugh!” he’s unable to stop the sound of disgust that leaves his mouth as the android pushes his hands inside of his chest until he touches some sort of glass component. It has thick tubes connected to it, and the blast has fractured it in several places. He shifts a little so he’s nearly straddling him in order to keep his hands securely on the biocomponent. It thrums in his hold, warm to the touch. Whatever it is, it’s stabilising him and the rookie looks less frenzied than before, taking slow, measured breaths most likely to ventilate his overheating systems.

It feels like an eternity before the medtechs arrive with their fancy equipment and then they’re very gently extracting his hands from the rookie’s chest and before swarming the android and whisking him away for surgery.

Somehow he makes it home. He’s not sure of anything, really, but somehow he’s showered and all the blue blood is gone and he’s in his favourite old hoodie from his academy days. His hands shake when he tries to pour himself a drink so he settles for a bottle of water from the fridge. When he looks at his hands they’re clean and then they’re not, they’re drenched in blue, and then they’re clean and they’re blue again and so he takes some advil and goes to bed.

*~*

He goes to Jericho in the morning, to see the rookie and he doesn’t know if he’s there to pick up a body or is there to visit as a guest. It’s the latter, thankfully.

“So he’s alright?” He asks one of the android doctors, and she nods with a smile.

“Yes, you saved his life.” She leads him down a hallway. “His heart was damaged by the explosion but you held it together and allowed it to keep pumping blood around his body.”

“I had-” he swallows thickly and thinks about the warm glass against his palm, “I held his heart in my hands?”

“And saved his life.” She gestures at a door. “He’s running a diagnostic cycle, but he’ll be ready for discharge in an hour.”

“Thank you.”

“Thank you .” She laughs softly, before taking her leave.

The rookie is propped up by a couple of pillows, looking down at his chest.

“Hey.”

“Look, I have scars now.” The android says quietly, tracing a few jagged lines on the black kevlar plating around the glowing blue circle beneath his sternum.

“In my defence,” he takes a seat by the bed, “there was blood everywhere and I couldn’t wedge my knife under it in one go.”

“I like them.” He smiles tiredly, touching one of the thin jagged lines. “They remind me you saved my life, Captain.”

“I was way out of my depths there rookie, I’m glad you were awake enough to guide me.”

They sit there quietly and he listens to the machines beep and whirr and tries not to focus on how exhausted he feels, how raw and exposed he feels because of all that’s transpired.

“I have been alive for exactly one month today.” The rookie says quietly.

“This is a pretty lousy way to start off the day, sorry.”

“I’m starting it off alive, so I would consider that far from lousy, sir.”

“Oh so you’ve got no social programming, but you’ve got sass is that it?” He rolls his eyes, unable to stop the smile on his lips. The android regards him with those striking grey eyes and he knows the only cold thing about them is the colour. Reaching for his hands, just like yesterday, he guides them to rest on his chest.

“You held my heart in your hands and you saved my life.” He murmurs, LED flickering yellow and holding. “Would it be alright if I entrusted it to you for safekeeping?”

He knows what he means, he knows what he’s asking of him and it terrifies him. He knows this job is hell, he never wanted a partner to get caught up wondering, waiting for him to come home and the one inevitable time he won’t. He’s kept everyone at arm’s length, he’s given his mind, body and soul to this job in place of his heart. Maybe this way they’ll keep each other safe. Maybe this way it’s better; they both know the risks, they both know what the job demands of them.

Leaning in, he presses their lips together and gives his heart in return.  

[a-collection-of-villainous-aus]

Pirate Au pt6

Omg I’m sorry I took so long, but I added sketches at least >>

What was he supposed to say?

 'Oh I've just been informed you were the pet of my ass of a brother!'

 This was ridiculous, it should not be so difficult to enter his own private chambers, it was his room and yet somehow he felt he was invading Acylius's personal space!

  Was Flug mad at him because he appeared or acted like his sibling, after all he knew him to not exactly be that of a decent nature...neither was he but at least he had standards.

 Pacing in front of his door, looking up only to glare at crew members who dared to even look funny at him, Mew Mew Loaf still in her water bubble was gently biting the end of her tail before letting go and doing it all over again.

  Thinking back to that night when Flug had been desperately pulling his mask back on, how it'd caught on one ear fin made of black spines and beautiful iridescent peacock coloured membrane.

 He'd even been so fortunate as to catch a glimpse on one corner of his lips, scarred, something had been done to them, though Black Hat had at least had the sense to realize that Acylius wanted to keep his face hidden, so instead of ripping the mask off he helped him to carefully pull it back down.

 That tender moment where Flug had leaned into his palm only to immediately move after catching Demencia's scent... It made sense, his merman...whom he hoped he could belong to one day...but would that happen or would he believed he was always being deceived thanks to Thaddeus's (White hat) behaviour.

Now understanding Acylius's situation he realised the full extent of why the merman recoiled from him, what reason did Flug have to believe they were different, apart from how they lived, one on the sea and one below.

 Then there was the given fact, he himself was the most feared being from this universe to the next...

 Acylius had learned remaining quiet and out of the way to certain beings, unless he was being pulled about and paraded like some show animal or trophy.

A small mew broke through his endless trail of thoughts, looking down at Mew Mew loaf, she stared back with big black dare he think it, adorable eyes, her gaze soon shifting to the door and then him again...oh she wanted to see her companion.

 Black Hat knew he should really go in, talk to him, let Acylius know he would not let Thaddeus take him, he was safe here...but what did safe even mean to a merman like him, it would all be honeyed words to someone who had spent who knows how long with White Hat...there were only two people that creature cared for, himself and Slug.

 He and Thaddeus might be brothers in species and of the Earth they crawled out from but gladly they would throw the other into a volcano if it would actually cause them to die.

"Having merman troubles?"

 A crew member drunkenly forgot their place and while it had not been meant maliciously, Hat as I have mentioned will only let so very few people talk to him so informally, eye turning black and red a snarl leaving his fanged maw, making the rest of the crew back away and carry on work harder than before lest they end up carrying the same fate of the man whose blood now painted the deck.

 Tongue snaking out its way out, licking his lips clean of any blood that had splashed over him, he eyed the corpse, considering if he should make a meal out of it until he was reminded that he was still holding Flug's pet...oh no...she'd seen that.

 He'd probably just given Acylius more reason to...wait was she staring at the body with the same hunger, crouching down he lifted the hand and pushed it into Mew Mew loafs  water bubble, rows of little sharp teeth were exposed and within moments there was no hand just a bloody stump.

 Well that was unexpected and interesting.

 "I presume he knows you are like this?"

 Hat inquired, peering into her bubble, she swirled in her water ball again and nodded before pointing with chubby paw fin at the body and then the door, mewing enthusiastically.

 Black Hat was staring, something was trying to click, match up and as she pointed to the door where Acylius was and the corpse once more he blinked, it dawned on him he'd never asked if the merman had wanted to eat and thus did not know what his favourite food was...until now.

 Well that might be a way to win his affections, beloved pet in one hand, and favourite meal in the other.

 While the thought of Acylius draped over him and turning him into putty certainly seemed delightful he would try to keep a clear mind, there were other things that needed to be done, to be talked about and he wanted to give proof somehow, that he saw the merman as more than just some doll to be played with.

Fingers curling around the deceased man's collar he watched his crew, door opening by itself a bloody trail followed as Black Hat easily took the body with him, top lip rippling in a growl

 "This mess had better be gone before I come back out!"

 With that he slammed the door, appearances where everything after all with these shallow humans, it was indeed a rare thing to find someone who had more depth than a piddling rock pool.

 He laughed quietly to himself as he

heard them scrabbling to clean up the red stain, heh heh that wasn't coming out but their fear and desperate attempts to scrub it out would be fun for a while.

 Looking over at the tank, his smile grew; face more fangs that flesh, oh my, so now Flug was paying him attention or more like the meal in his hand and pet in the other.

 "So you are finally acknowledging my existence?"

 He leered, chest puffed out and preening, if he'd been covered in feathers they'd have been fluffed up, though he was giving off an air of being smug Black Hat came to a stop as he heard Acylius giggling.

 "What has you so tickled?"

 His mood fell slightly and then looked to where Flug was pointing, it was at Mew Mew Loaf.

 "She likes you, clearly you did something right."

 The Pirate King stalled, repeating the words slowly

 "Done something... right?"

 Mew Mew was resting on what part of Black Hat's palm she could, purring away as her fish tail swayed in the water bubble, it was dawning on him...slowly mind you that Flug actually seemed to have relaxed a little...

 He realised now just how important this moment was, if he'd come in showing any aggression to this little creature, Acylius would have thrown up a defensive wall so thick he may never have gotten through to him.

 "Black Hat, you will not let any harm befall her will you?"

The demon was quiet as he turned his attention to Mew Mew Loaf who was nuzzling his palm and even gave it a small lick, she was clearly happy as you could even hear her purring through the water.

 Now imagine a chibi version of Hat, the way animes do when they make a serious character look adorable.

 He was staring at her...well shit and blast it all, he'd already intended no harm in the first place but now she was a tiny ball that if anything happened to her he would kill everyone in the world and then himself am I referencing that quote you're damn right I am, who said I had to be serious.

  "No, though after recent revelations, I understand if you do not trust me now or if ever."

 Black Hat answered softly, coming up as close to him as he could with glass parting them, levitating the bubble it then sank down into Flug's tank, watching as Mew Mew Loaf instantly swam up to Acylius and nuzzled him.

 The sheer joy in her little cries had him smiling a little; honestly he'd not even been aware he was doing so until he noticed Acylius now watched him in return.

 Mew Mew Loaf mrrped and went off swimming around the tank that was her new home.

Swallowing he, he found himself unable to move as the merman moved closer to the glass, to him…seeing finely scaled hands press against the surface the old Pirate King wondered what Flug was going to do, there was only the sound of water and the creaking ship as moments passed.

Hat finally breathed (despite not actually needing to) after Acylius broke the silence

“So…you know who once owned me?”

“Yes.”

 Their voices were quiet and when Hat had answered he could barely keep eye contact.

How could he when he’d given Thaddeus the world under water while he ruled the land…it was his fault this being had suffered at the hands of White Hat, there was no knowing what other fate might have befallen Acylius if he had not, would he even still be alive, would they have met there were so many what ifs the demon was more lost than anything…he knew it was selfish to be glad fate brought Acylius to him and yet a sting of guilt…because it was he who’d practically put the merman in Thaddeus’s hands.

Clearing his throat he then stripped the body of clothing with is powers as well as making sure it was stripped of filth or whatnot he was not about to feed the creature a dirty meal before also placing the body in the water.

Black Hat could sense the merman’s want to reach out to him, but he did not feel deserving of Acylius’s touch let alone attention, it took an iron will to move away and sit at his desk, despite it being pristine he kept adjusting objects on it, still avoiding eye contact, he knew it was shame he was feeling and he hated it, he’d never felt shame…he’d witnessed it and knew now why people looked like that when they experienced this emotion.

Mew Mew Loaf watched them both for a few moments before going to nibble on the other hand; she loved fingers, good for scratching, good for nibbling.

 Acylius let out a soft whine; it was pained as he curled in on himself and sank to the bottom of the tank…so now that the Pirate King knew he was the spoils of Thaddeus…he didn’t want him?

Heart aching and colours growing dull as if someone had drained his scales of life, gills flaring with each breath, a small mew was heard as his little pet came and nuzzled at him and another Mew, this one louder than the last making Amadeus (Black Hat) look up eye wide as he found Flugs tank was now was black, the water was darker than night itself, pieces of skeleton started pelting out, ricocheting around the room, embedding into the wood and one piece even hit the demon square between the eyes as the water bubbled and started spilling over the sides.

As soon as he made a move towards the tank something started rising up, the form was so large in height it had to bend over and all he could do was look up in awe as he realised it was Acylius towering over him a hand on the glass edge as his other wrapped around his currently in comparison tooth pick of a body.

A thick inky substance streaked the merman’s face, falling in thick strings, ear fins flaring as his eyes were such a pale blue they were near white, making his pupils appear no more than pin pricks, rows and rows of needle teeth exposed as Flugs scream was anything far from what Earthly beast could make, it was raging and full of pain.

Amadeus was not frightened of course, but there are many reasons to be scared…fear of never being forgiven, now that was something that frightened him, even if he felt it was undeserved.

Acylius’s grip was far from gentle, but it barely registered as pain, as he spoke though the Captain made sure not to turn away from him this time and listened as smoke left the merman’s maw

“So now that I am no more than waste to you, you who have pined and whined over me, who continued to show signs of envy when I showed my affections for Demencia now reject me…are you so out of touch with reality to recall merfolk customs or have you only ever cared for what you want!”

 Hat wanted to face palm into a black hole….of course their kind was commonly known to be in trios, Acylius hadn’t been favouring her over him, he was learning about them both, now though after this if Flug still liked him that would be one hell of a miracle and he dare not ask at this moment, looking down as glass cracked he saw as the front of the tank collapsed, water flooding the room, something that was easily fixable but that mattered little to Amadeus at this moment.

Heart racing and twisting inside he realised his mistake, by not allowing Flug to reach out after he himself had been clearly wanting to  all this time…rejecting the contact after finding out his history…had made the merman feel like he was disgusting, spoiled by Thaddeus…this wasn’t just anger it was masking the despair, the pain in him.

Freeing a hand with ease he reached out into the heart of the ink and muck and placed it on him, showing with this simple action he was not repelled by him, looking up at those white eyes the blue deepened, their colour never seemed to settle on one hue, always swaying in tone like the Ocean, water and glass drawing back to their place

“It is not because of something you have done Acylius…I turned from you because it is I who allowed Thaddeus to rule the waters simply because I did not want to, while  I consider myself deserving of most things, I see now  I am not deserving of you.”

Demencia was standing at the door, it was of course closed behind her cause she wasn’t about to let any prying eyes see this and if anyone had tried to look she’d have stabbed them out, the water had been up her shins and now as she watched it drawing back to where it came from, found everything to be dry as if it had never been.

Wow Black Hat never apologised for anything like…ever.

She stayed quiet as Acylius’s form shrank, melting away and letting go of Black Hat who landed on his ass on his desk just narrowly missing  sharp pointed object on its surface, even he noticed everything was dry and back in order.

“This is clearly not my magic…what are you?”

 Waters clearing and mask no longer in place, glaring at him with arms folded.

Black Hat was momentarily speechless...he’d perhaps expected a pretty face under that mask but this was breath taking, short ebony hair just long enough to sway in the water, face of white when caught in sunlight shimmered, lips scarred …no doubt the work of his brother and the way he was looking at him…any other circumstance and he’d be like take me I’m yours…well he was going to have to hold up his end of the bet later and confess he’d forgotten to feed him because he was too busy trying to impress him.

“What am I, I think the question you should be asking is who was I? I was next in line to be king, once deep sea merfolk were not despised, we as a race worked in unity, there was peace until Thaddeus , through years of manipulation  whittled down the numbers of my kind to the hundreds…we are not even that anymore…”

Mew Mew loaf could hear the cracking in her friends voice and softly mewed coming up to him and nuzzling against him, he cuddled her kissing her tiny forehead gently as he sat on the tanks bottom once more, continuing

“Now that we are rare, we are considered prizes and things to be used as status symbols, some are now stuck in their racial beliefs and some would seek to claim us for gain.”

 Black Hat wanted to curl in on himself and never look at him again, usually he didn’t care, he wouldn’t have cared…he never thought something he’d done would ever come back to bite him and so deeply

“I have never cared for the consequences for my actions…because they usually would not be any but-“

“Do not pretend to care now then, your false apologies would only insult me further, did you think just because I have dealt with your brother I would snivel before you?”

 Oh god…even as he was tearing him down to the bone with words he found himself loving him all the more, he deserved this  and knew it but to see him so forthright unafraid to tell him , call him out on his bullshit…he would bow to no one in his life but this king before him.

Mew Mew Loaf was loafing on Flugs ‘lap’ as best she could you know considering Flug didn’t exactly have a lap and she had a fish tail herself and rested listening to them quietly.

“No, I did not think you would snivel before me…you are far too stubborn for that…but you are afraid.”

It really was all coming together now, the more this went on, noticing how Acylius flinched, the slight recoiling at first before posturing, afraid yes, cowardly no, Black Hat realised Acylius had done the only thing he could have done and before Black Hat could say it, Demencia spoke up as she gently asked him

“Acylius, how long have you been running?”

End of pt six

[rebelwriter95]

Rules, Memories, and Other Uncomfortable Things.

Hiiii okay here we are!! Chapter One of my first fic! I'm really excited to show this to yall, I hope it came out okay. Just a note, the title of this might change and when it does I'll let you know before I change it. A big thank you to @whispersweetliestome for reading through it for me!! 😘

Word Count: about 2170.

Chpt 1/?

Rating: T *As a general warning. Might up the rating as we go. We'll see chapter by chapter :)

Warnings: Angsty. Does Mando count as a warning?

Chapter One

The sun was high in the sky by the time I finished weeding the garden. Standing up, I dust my hands off and then absentmindedly lean on the post of the fence behind me. I stare off into the distance, caught in my endless parade of thoughts again.  Life has been surprisingly good since I settled down. Boring, but good. I mean, what else did I expect when I decided to become a farmer? Sure there were some days when I miss my old life. It was a hard, dangerous, and sometimes nasty life, but it was my life and I was damn good at it.  

Something shiny catches my attention and I’m flooded with memories once the glistening figure comes into focus. All at once, my breath catches in my chest and I become acutely aware of how all of my nerve endings now feel like they’ve been zapped with a bolt of lightning. Why now, of all times, does he choose to come back? Things had just started to fall into place and feel somewhat normal. I try to focus on steadying my breathing, but it’s too late and I start to get lightheaded. I reach out a hand to catch my balance. Instead of finding the fence post, a warm leather-clad hand grabs onto my bare one and holds it tight. “It’s been so long”, a disembodied modulated voice rumbles. ‘Not long enough’ almost makes its way past my trembling lips. I continue to stare down at the boots across from mine own, afraid to look at the owner of the deep voice. 

** You reach out and grab onto the hand offered to you. “It’s been so long, I can tell.” No need to see his face, you could hear the smirk in his voice. “Yeah, yeah, yeah. No need to rub it in…” you trail off as you brush the dust off your pants. “Again!” you call, falling into place. You crouch in a staggered stance stance so that your right leg is behind you. After raising your fists in a defensive position just high enough to see above them, you wait for your partner to do the same. He chuckled and copied your stance. Left foot moves over right, then right foot steps back out. Repeat. It’s a careful dance the two of you share as you size up your opponent once again. Lunging forward on your left foot, you sweep your right leg out to try to throw the Mandalorian off his feet. Taking the bait, he jumps it cleanly and you seize the opportunity to quickly shift your body to tackle him as soon as his feet touch the ground. You land with your right forearm against his chest plate and knees on either side of his hips, effectively pinning him to the ground. Before you could say something witty, you feel the barrel of his blaster press into your soft (vulnerable) side. “Not bad, I guess” he chuckles. You cock your head to the side and tap the top of where his beskar chest stops with the small hidden knife in your right hand. “You guess?” **

A gentle cough pulls me out of my thoughts. Giving in, I slowly look up to the helmet that taunts my dreams late at night. A million questions run through my mind as I drink in the sight of him. Sure I was still mad at him, but that never stops the longing in my soul from calling out to him. I guess he finally answered. “What do you want?” I asked him after I found my voice. 

He takes a step closer to me and replies deeply, “Is that any way to greet an old friend?” I hang my head to try to hide the flush that is crawling quickly across my cheeks; knowing full well that respect should be shown at all times, no matter how badly things may end. His hand squeezes mine comfortingly while his free hand reaches up to stroke my cheek. I jerk back slightly before he makes contact. He sighs and his hands fall to his sides. Stepping around him and out of the fenced off area, I start walking back to my wooden abode. “Well, come on then. I’d at least like to clean my hands before you explain what life or death situation brought you to my doorstep.” I throw over my shoulder.  

Wiping my hands dry on a rag, I turn to where he’s leaning against my counter. “So, what brings you here?” He pauses, seemingly to gather the right words. “I need your eyes.” My eyes narrow and quickly dart over the chest that lays covered in dust, lingering in the shadows of the corner. “What makes you think I’d help?” I all but snarled at him. His head cocked and I mentally kicked myself for being a brat again. I rubbed my temples and started again. “Look around Mando. What makes you think that I would give all this up?” He pushed himself off the counter and stalked toward me. He set a small puck next to me then leaned in and said, “Because this isn’t who you are, and you know it.” I look down and finger the beat-up device before picking it up.

** “I had it covered you know” You claimed. “Oh so that’s what you call that little move? I’m not sure how almost falling off a cliff constitutes as ‘having it covered’“ he grunted. You drop the arm you were pulling to cross your arms and glare at the Mandalorian across from you, not that he could see the look on your face given the helmet shielding your faces. You wait until he turns to you and sighs, dropping the arm he has been dragging, to start talking. “Look.. You’re right. I lost my focus which caused me to lose my footing. If it hadn't been for you, this criminal here” You kicked him for added effect “would have gotten away. “I’m sorry.” He just nods in response, then bends over to pick up his designated arm. “Come on, we need to get him in the cryo freeze chamber before he wakes up.” You squat to pick up your arm, and then continued back to the ship. 

Once back on the Razorcrest, the two of you wrestle with the now conscious thief, trying to get him into the chamber. “Come on, stop fighting it,” you grit your teeth. “Look, I can bring you in warm, or I can bring you in cold.” You laugh to yourself at your own witty one liner, and you think you can make out a faint chuckle from the armor-covered bounty hunter to your right. The criminal seizes the opportunity to slip loose and shoulder-charge you. You recover quickly and throat punch him, then you use all your strength to shove the burly creature into place so the Mandalorian can hit the button that initiates cryo freeze. 

Rolling your shoulders and stretching your arms above your head, you glance around trying to find the little device you had placed on a ledge near the chamber before going out on the hunt this morning. Once it was located and in your hands, you turn to face the 6’8” tall man. “Are you ready?” you asked. He turned to see what you were talking about and immediately put his hand up in a “surrender” gesture. “Woah, hold on. That’s not happening.” He protested. You practically skip over to where he and the frozen form are still situated. “Come on, you said you would! Besides. It’s just one picture and it’ll be our little secret, I promise!” You wiggle in place just a tiny bit as a sort of silent plea. He signs heavily and shakes his head. “Be quick about it.” He finally replies after what felt like an eternity. You hold up the disk out in front of the two of you, posed in front your first bounty. “Say carbonite!” you laughed. Right before you took the snapshot, you quickly stuck your finger close to the frozen figure, in the direction of his snout.**

I chuckle quietly to myself, recalling the messy day that holoframe was taken. It was my first bounty by myself, some mid-level smuggler that crossed the wrong people. You know, career jump-start type thing. While I was trying to take him down, I saw something move in the corner of my eye and I got distracted just long enough for the surprisingly agile creature to kick me in the chest and send me flying backward. Thankfully, the distracting something turned out to be none other than my teacher, whom I had thought stayed back on the ship. After that save, I learned to not only stay focused, but also always have one eye on one’s surroundings at all times. Well, learned is a strong word considering what was yet still to come between us. 

I go to stick my finger in the holographic creature’s nose for old times sake but the Mandalorian’s hand reached out and turned the puck off. “See? You haven’t changed one bit.” He spoke with a hint of wistfulness that comes from years of close contact. “Listen... You know I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t important.” I squeezed my eyes shut, and take a deep breath. This man needs to stop talking, like right now, because his voice had this dangerous habit of dragging me into unsavory situations. I take another, deeper breath and exhale completely before trying to hand him back the puck. “I’m not sure how much help I can be, seeing as, you know…” I trail off and gesture shallowly to my back with my free hand. An awkward silence blanketed the already quiet house. His large hand wraps around mine to close my hand around the small puck then leaned in close enough that I feared that he would hear the erratic beating of my pounding heart. “Whatever you decide, this belongs to you.” he rumbled lowly in my ear. After a moment, he spins on his heel and heads to the door. I glance down at the device in my hands, the one I thought was lost to me forever. As of their own accord, my feet walk me over to the chest that sits in that lonely corner. My treacherous hands take the key hidden under the worn, work-stained shirt I’m wearing and unlock the heavy contraption that keeps the old secrets and memories locked away. Fingers stretch outward to run along the smooth, thick material of my deep purple cloak, gently though, like touching it any harder would release all of the history that was so carefully and deliberately hidden away. 

Choice decided, I scramble to my feet and run after the Mandalorian stalking away from my house, toward the setting suns. His head turns so that it looks as if he’s glancing over his shoulder when he hears my pounding footsteps sprinting up to him. He slows to a stop so you can catch up to his long, strong strides. “Alright,” I agree. I can see his shoulders perk up a bit as it registers what I’m agreeing to. Nodding in reply, he tells me that he has a couple of things to take care of before leaving tomorrow at dawn. “You know the deal, pack only the necessities. I’ll be back tomorrow at sunrise to pick you up.” I grunt a quick yes sir to the order given to me, falling back into old habits a hell of a lot quicker than I want. Turning back toward the meager house I had built myself, I made a list of all of the items I would need, and which supplies I could grab for the trip that wouldn’t spoil. Opening up the chest once more, I wrap the cloak around the contents of the wooden crate and stuff it into the combat bag I have hanging off my shoulder, then I start packing the rest of my essential items. 

The next morning, I sit outside in the cool damp grass meditating on the rules I created for myself late last night instead of sleeping. Hearing the screams  of the Razorcrest’s engines, I stand and dust myself off. I steal one last glimpse behind me before I mutter a soft good-bye for the me I could have been. Facing forward again, I whisper a careful prayer. One about hope. About surviving the coming storm I know is bound to happen. You don’t just mash together you guys’ personalities and expect things not to get heated. I square my shoulders and walk confidently up the ramp to where my old friend stands waiting for me, a sight that holds such bittersweet emotions with it. It’s like a punch in the gut though, and I have to remind myself to keep things professional. Remember the rules, I thought to myself. Stay composed. This can not end like it did last time.

[koryuusei-writing-portfolio]

Cherry Blossom Memories

Five centimeters per second. That’s the speed it takes a single cherry blossom to fall. Five, five centimeters per second, five petals on each blossom, five seconds to realize that I had lost you. Now, all I have is the time it takes for each pale, pink blossom to fall. And all I can do is count each second. This is all I have left of you.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

 Kyoto, Japan

June 27, 1869

五 (go)

The air was thick with the sickly sweet, metallic scent of death, blood, and smoke. But the world was dark and silent – except for a persistent ringing. I could feel the blood slowly creeping along my jawline and down my neck from the shallow pool that was starting to dry in my ear canal. The trap had been well planned, some sort of strange bomb that emitted a short, but bright light stole my sight while the following concussive wave of sound ruined my hearing. Of course, that was only after the Gatling gun failed to kill me killed my companions, though it did not fail to kill the soldiers that had come with me. I was starting to get the feeling that someone really wanted to get me out of the way. My fingers were cold beneath a warm, sticky layer that made holding my wakizashi difficult; I was not sure where my katana was. The short sword felt heavy in my hands, my arms leaden and sore, my legs stiff, and my body uncooperative and unbalanced. My heart beat against the cage of my chest and it was difficult to breathe. My mind felt sluggish and empty. Every part of me screamed for rest. But I wasn’t alone here, and I couldn’t give up. There was one enemy remaining, as far as I could tell. I took as deep a breath as I could manage and focused my remaining few senses, trying to pinpoint where he was so I could finally end this. Small vibrations in the ground told me he was close. I could feel him. The fool thought he could sneak up behind me. Instincts and training kicked in. I reversed my sword and thrust it backward through the air. It hit its mark; I could feel it in my bloodstained hands as the blade slid through flesh and muscle. Though my ears had not yet recovered, I heard a gasp of surprise, and, somehow, a word whispered in my ear.

“Sakura-sama.” 

The softest scent of tea and bamboo wafted through the scent of blood and death, piercing through me like a sword right through the heart. No! A whispered thought of denial and disbelief. It can’t be. He shouldn’t be here.

I felt my soul freeze at the familiar voice; icy tendrils spread from my heart throughout my entire body, to the very tips of my fingers still grasping the hilt of my sword. A body leaned against my back and slid to the ground, the lightest touch of fingers tracing a path from my shoulders. My sword was pulled from my hands, unfreezing my body. I whirled around to catch him, but for the first time in a long time I couldn’t move fast enough. The ringing in my ears quieted and my vision gradually improved from darkness to blurred color and finally cleared. There, laying on the blood-soaked earth was Koichi-sama. My Koichi-sama. My wakizashi protruding from his body. Behind him, the recently slain body of the man who appeared to have been my last enemy, my katana protruding from his back.

“Koichi-sama!”

My legs gave out and, in desperation, my hands instinctively applied pressure to his wound, trying to stop the blood, his life, from spilling out of his body. My hands moving futilely as warm blood waterfalled over them. His hand trembled as it reached for my face, reaching for the tears spilling from my eyes, cutting red-tinged paths down my cheeks. I grabbed hold of his hand and brought it to my lips, closing my eyes in a rare desperate prayer. Please, please, whatever gods that may rule here, please don’t take him from me.

“Please, don’t be sad. I have finally repaid my debt to you,” he smiled a pain-filled smile.

“Baka. I never held you in any debt to me,” I whispered. What about my debt to you? How can I ever repay you for all that you’ve done for me? 

“I’m sorry….” His voice was quiet, soft, like it was too painful to speak. “There’s something...something I have to–.”

“Shh…. It’s okay,” I choked out, my throat tight. “It’s – you’re going to be okay.” You have to be okay. You can’t leave me. 

“Please, smile...for me.” His voice was almost a whisper, a shadow, a pained echo, blood trickled from the corner of his mouth.

“Please, don’t leave, I can’t lose you. I’m not sure–.” the words halted in my throat as my voice gave out. My eyes burned, my chest constricted, and I struggled to fill my lungs with air. Please, no. Please don’t take him from me. Not now, not like this.. I prayed, my lower lip trembling. To which gods – my own or his – didn’t matter, just as long as someone, anyone answered my plea.

“I will look for you…in the next life,” eyes the shade of dark tea stared deep into mine. “I will find you again…my dearest…Sakura-sama…,” he gasped, his hand slipping out of my grasp as the light dimmed from his eyes.

“Koichi?” I whispered fearfully, hesitantly giving him a slight shake, my vision wavering in a watery haze. There was no response. “No. Please, no. Please, come back.” I pleaded to emptiness, silence, to an uncaring world. Suddenly, I couldn’t breath and my heart shuddered in my chest – aching, throbbing, breaking with the realization that he was gone and he wasn’t coming back. Something inside me broke and I laid across Koichi-sama’s still body, my head on his chest. There was nothing: no beating of his gentle heart, no breath in his lungs. I could feel the warmth start to leave his body and I felt a numbness spread through my body as part of me died.

A chill wind rustled dull, rust colored blades of grass, a shiver ran through my body and I wasn’t sure if it was from the cool air or the empty cold inside. I had nothing – no warmth, no tears, no pain. Just this painful, endless beating of my own heart, mocking me. How much time passed? Seconds? Minutes? Hours? Was the battle over? Who was winning? I didn’t know. I didn’t care. Time meant nothing. In those moments, time ceased to exist. Nothing was important anymore. Nothing mattered anymore.

The sound of approaching footsteps barely registered before a soft, deep voice spoke.

“Yori-san...I’m sorry…”

Osaka, Japan

November 23, 1867

四 (yon)

The sky was painted vibrant shades of red-violet, deep purples, and dark indigos with just a hint of gold on the horizon. The wind was cool as it danced gracefully through leaves of red, orange, and gold on the edge of the field, carrying the scent of late-season herbs from the nearby garden and the promise of rain, playing with strands from my unbraided ponytail. Katsura-dono had stood before me just moments ago, gazing out at that horizon.

“I’m sorry to take you from this peaceful life, but the time has come for us to move again and I need your skills once more, Yori-san,” he had stated, hands clasped behind his back.

“I understand.” I had known this day would be coming. Did I even have any other choice? I had sworn myself to this man, to his cause after all.

“I’ll send Nishimura with your next assignment.” Nishimura-san was my usual contact with Katsura-dono. He brought me my assignments from Katsura-dono, reported my successes, gathered intelligence, and whatever else Katsura-dono needed him to do.

“Yes sir,” I acknowledged with a bow. Nishimura-san had been me bringing news every now and again since we had all gone into hiding, keeping me up to date.

After the commander had left, I sat in the soft grass, still warm from the sun and watched as the last remnants of daylight began to fade beneath the horizon. I would miss this: the quiet, the peace, the fresh air devoid of the scent of blood. 

“Sakura-sama,” Koichi said quietly from behind me.

I didn’t look at him, instead I dropped my gaze to study the grass at my feet, each blade identical yet distinct from all the others. Hesitantly, he walked over and sat beside me, quiet and contemplating. In the clean, cool air, it was hard not to notice that he smelled of tea and sun-warmed bamboo.

“I saw Katsura-san,” He started again.

Silence. I knew what he was trying to ask, was afraid to ask. I knew, but I didn’t want to say the words. I wanted to hold onto this moment, this day, these past couple of years for as long as I could before I shattered the peace of it all. 

Koichi-sama sighed. “Do you have to go?” he asked finally. 

I turned my head to look at him. His warm, dark brown eyes caught the last bit of light from the vanished sun, highlighting the hint of green within. I wanted to remember these days. Wanted to remember him this way. These last few months had been the best I’d had since leaving home and I found myself loathe to lose them, to lose this time with him. I wanted to commit every detail to memory.

“I’m afraid I do. This war is not over. ”

“When?”

“I don’t know. Nishimura-san will come to bring me my next assignment.”

Koichi-sama nodded and turned to stare out at the now dark horizon. A smattering of jeweled stars began to glitter in the inky-black sky, looked over by a brilliant half-moon. I closed my eyes and tried to drink it all in, tried to commit the moment in my mind to take with me into the coming battles. This. This is what I was fighting for, why I bloodied my hands and my soul. This was why I had left my village and went to war. The endless parade of death and blood had ate at my soul until I had all but forgotten there had been a reason. This man was what it took to remind me of it all, to give me back my purpose, my soul. When had he come to mean so much to me?

“I had this made for you,” he said suddenly. I opened my eyes to look at him. There, in his hand, sat a kanzashi. It had one silver prong, like a thin chopstick or a tree branch, with three chains of pale, pink ceramic cherry blossoms dangling from the tip where a larger pink blossom sat. I took the ornament from his hand, my own trembling slightly as an emotion I could not name made my heart stutter in my chest. I stuck the prong through the base of my braided ponytail, the ceramic flowers tinkled pleasantly as they hit one another.

“I will come back,” I promised, looking straight into his deep, brown eyes. A warm hand wrapped around my own.

“I will be here, waiting.”

Kyoto, Japan 

August 21, 1864

三 (san)

Katsura-dono, the leader of our faction, stood on the footbridge wearing a mino and a bamboo jingasa that shadowed his face. Koichi and I stood further down the bridge, within earshot, but not looking like we were with him. Charcoal ruins surrounded us, some still smoldered. Smoke hung thick in the air, mixing with the early morning fog. These were once homes filled with families and now they were monuments.

Katsura-dono sighed. “We need to lay low for a while before we can regroup. I’m going into hiding for a while. I can’t return to Hagi and I can’t I stay here.”

“Should I come with you?” I asked.

“It would be safer if you didn’t. You are still our best kept secret. I’ve prepared a place for you on the outskirts of a small village near the base of Kenpiyama. I want you to lay low there until we are able to plan our next move. Nishimura will be in touch with you.”

“Understood.”

Katsura-dono walked down the bridge to join us, his black eyes looked past me. “Koichi-san. I was wondering if you might be willing to go with Yori-san. If you have nowhere to go, that is. It would be easier for her to travel and blend in if she wasn’t alone. It’s completely up to you, though.”

I chanced a glance back at Koichi-sama, his face smeared in places with ash. My heart felt constricted in my chest. I was surprised to find that I was saddened by the thought that he might leave. Koichi-sama looked a little taken aback, but nodded in response and I breathed again.

Katsura-dono nodded back to Koichi-sama before turning his attention back to me. “We’ll be in touch.” He turned to leave, walked down the bridge, and through what was left of Kyoto. I watched until he vanished from sight. Trying to put off what I had to say for as long as possible. 

“Travelling with me could be dangerous.” I didn’t turn to look at him. “Are you sure you want to come with me?” I didn’t really want him to leave; I had grown fond of Koichi in the time we had spent together so far. I’m not even really sure when it had happened, I just sort of got used to him being around. I’m not even sure of where I would be right now if he had never followed me to the ryokan that night. His presence in my life has been calming, reassuring. He gave me back my sanity. But I was a weapon, Katsura-dono’s weapon. That was my purpose and I could not afford for my focus to be divided, could not allow my priorities to shift. Even though it had been Katsura-dono’s idea to begin with, I had to accept that this might not be a good idea. Besides, I wanted him to be safe, and it wasn’t safe with me. “If you need money for food and travel, I’ll give you whatever you need.”

“I have nowhere to go.” I knew this, of course. He had said the same thing the night our paths had first crossed.

“Everyone has somewhere they can go.” A hand rested on my shoulder and I allowed him to turn me around. Koichi-sama looked down into my eyes.

“I would much rather be with you.”

 Kyoto, Japan

April 4, 1864

二 (ni)

“Have you thought about what you will do after all this is over?” he asked suddenly.

I looked up from the swirling red in the water basin and turned to look at Koichi-sama. He was setting out the food that the okami had brought onto the chabudai. A vase stood in the center of the table filled with sprigs of pink sakura. I grabbed the towel beside the basin and dried my hands.

“I haven’t really thought about it.” I admitted as I took off my kasa and untied the black silk scarf that hid my hair. I unpinned the long red-gold braid, unwound it, and let it fall to the small of my back. 

“Will you return to your village?”

“Maybe,” I hedged. I didn’t really want to think about the village I had abandoned, nor did I want to think about what kind of reception there might be if I did decide to one day return.

“Wherever you end up, I hope it will lead to a more peaceful life.”

Slightly uncomfortable, I changed the subject. I gestured to the vase, “Sakura?”

“I was helping the okami hang some washings and I saw that the cherry trees out back were in bloom and I... thought of you.”

“Me? Why would sakura make you think of me?”

“Do you know why some sakura are pink instead of white?

I shook my head and sat at the table across from him.

“They say that all sakura are white, but some turn pink because their roots soak up blood from bodies that were buried underneath. They are life that flourishes beautifully from death. It’s like you. You deal in death, soak yourself in blood, all in the hopes that something beautiful will grow.”

I looked at him in shock as he dipped his hashi into his bowl of rice. Over the past months since he’d followed me to the ryokan, Koichi-sama had changed. When he first came here, he was depressed, withdrawn, empty. He would help out around the ryokan when asked, but he mostly he sat and stared out the window. After a time, he started interacting with the customers, teased the okami, and helps out around the ryokan when I’m out. Sometimes, he would even run errands for the landlady or even a message or two for Nishimura, much to my dismay. I had even seen him smile a couple of times. But what was this about? Uncertain how to respond, I grabbed my yunomi and sipped the scalding green tea. It had been a while since I'd last drank tea.

“Yori isn’t you true name, is it?” he asked suddenly.

“Sorry? No, it isn’t. It’s the name Katsura-dono gave me when he recruited me.”

Koichi-sama nodded. “A new name for a new life. Makes sense.”

We ate in silence for a while and when the meal was done, he collected the empty dishes, slid the fusuma open, walked through with the dishes, turned back to shut it, and paused.

“Even you deserve to live the kind of life that you’re fighting for. Sakura. I think you should go by that name, in the hopes for a peaceful future in which you can live a life without bloodshed.” He closed the shoji and I listened as his footsteps faded. I sat drinking my tea, lost in thought. A new life? A new name? Sa-ku-ra? The delicate, soft scent of the blossoms in the vase wafted through the air. I smiled to myself. I like it. For the first time in a while, I did not taste or smell the scent of blood.

 Kyoto, Japan

February 12, 1864

一 (ichi)

    I paused outside the room, listening, my hand resting upon the fusuma. Silence. Except for the sounds of gambling down the hall again. Slowly, I slid open the door and tiptoed through, carefully sliding it closed behind me. I removed my kasa and the black silk scarf that hid my hair as I quietly made my way across the room to sit by the shoji, my tabi covered feet making no noise upon the tatami mats. A lit andon sat upon the chabudai illuminating a form slumped over the table, head resting upon his arms, an empty yunomi resting beside one slender hand. I was glad I had washed up outside. As my thoughts wandered back to tonight’s job, my hand exchanged kasa and scarf for the half-full tokkari nearby and lifted the bottle to my lips. “You drink too much,” Koichi-sama’s voice whispered in my mind. My hand paused, the room temperature sake halted by the tiny lip of the bottle, not quite spilling over into my mouth. When had this become a ritual? When had I started drinking so much? I didn’t even like the taste of sake. When did it go from having never had a drop to maybe it wasn’t enough? With a sigh, I placed the tokkari back on the shelf. Is this what war did to people? Was memory one of the usual casualties or simply collateral damage as warriors sought to drown it into fuzziness through alcohol? 

    I reached up and unpinned my customary braid and let it fall, the tip barely dusting the floor as I thought about the choices that had led me here: to this war, to this job, to these nightmares, to this alcoholism, to this uncertainty. Where had it all began? Did it begin with the moment Tokudaiji-sensei took me in? Or was it when he finally gave in and taught me bushidō? No. It probably began the moment that word of a revolution had reached our isolated village which led to my inquiry into getting involved in hopes that the villagers could return to their homes and have the ability to live in peace. It grew into curious obsession when Tokudaiji-sensei told me we shouldn’t get involved, that the villagers were happy and living peacefully in our village and that was what was important. It coalesced into determination the moment Tokudaiji-sensei was killed by rogue samurai of the bakufu. 

These were not things I should dwell on now. What was done was done. There was no going back. I turned my attention to more peaceful things, like the sleeping form hunched over the table. Flames from the oil-fed lantern danced through the dark strands of Koichi’s hair, giving the rich black shade warm red highlights while shadows played upon his face, accentuating his features in interesting ways and illuminating a thin, red line upon his cheek. The wound was a couple days old and wasn’t deep enough to leave a scar, but that did not stop the wince of guilt that passed through my body. I had never intended to harm him, but he, unknowingly, startled me out of a dream, a nightmare like so many others, more memory than dream. That was the same morning he had asked me about my past. The same morning he told me about his. It was also the same day he had finally asked the question that had been weighing on his mind. 

“Would you–” he hesitated.

“Would I what”

“Kill me. If you had to.” Nishimura-san had completed his investigation into Koichi-sama’s life and had left to report to Katsura-dono on whether or not he was a threat to our cause. 

“No.” I stated without hesitation.

“If you were ordered to?”

I shook my head. “No,” I whispered.

“Why not? Because I’m unarmed? If I held a sword, would you kill me then?” 

“No. I would never kill you.”

Such strange twists of fate that bring people together. I watched Koichi sleep as I thought about what he had told me about himself, about the events that had somehow led him to be wandering a dark alley that night, that led him to me. His father had been a doctor who had taught his sons what he could of his craft before he had been killed by ronin, leaving his wife to raise both boys when Koichi was ten. His mother moved from the city to a small village on the edge of Kyoto, returning to the life of farming she had been raised in in order to support herself, Koichi, and his younger brother. When he turned fifteen, Koichi was married to a local girl named Saimei. She was pregnant when she fell ill almost a year ago. Neither of them survived. 

Dark eyelashes gently fluttered against the tops of beige cheekbones and I found myself strangely captivated by the movement, by the way they slowly lifted and fell as they slowly revealed pools of green-tinted liquid brown eyes. Koichi-sama slowly curled his head inward with a deep inhale, then tensed his shoulders before pushing himself back from the table.

“Okaerinasai,” he murmured sleepily.

Kyoto, Japan

November 23, 1863

零 (rei)

I left the izakaya with blood-tainted sake on my tongue and a foul mood. I grew increasingly irritated by these false revolutionaries who only use their swords to bully the lower classes. Nothing but drunks who spoke loudly about nothing and lacked the honor and courage to really do anything but cause a scene. Dirty blades, nothing more. A large sigh escaped my lips, I didn’t know why such little men bug me so, they were more common than fleas and just as worthless. More’s the pity, our numbers were nowhere near to the bakufu’s and good swords were hard to find.

It was late, and the air was chill. It was time to head back to the ryokan. I headed down the empty streets of Kyoto toward the edge of the city, wishing the sake could fill this emptiness, could erase the faces of today’s missions. I turned a corner into an alley I’d walked through many times before and when suddenly a katana was slicing through the air from the shadows. I ducked and quickly stepped to the right, the blade whistled overhead, just missing my head. I slid my own katana from its saya and waited for my opponent's next move.

“I’ve been waiting for you, ishin shishi hitokiri.”

An assassin of the bakufu? How did he know who I was? Was there a traitor, a leak in our ranks? It was hard to believe, seeing as how few people actually knew about me. I was going to have to report this to Katsura-dono. The assassin came at me again and a deadly dance began. We dodged, attacked, and blocked trying to simultaneously read each other's’ moves and maneuver to land a hit. After a bit, he unsheathed another katana. I kept my wakizashi sheathed. Wielding two blades had its own drawbacks. My opponent was fast, cunning, and deadly. I struggled to keep up with his blows and then, with his blade racing toward me and my foot slipped. I twisted to get out of the way. Cold steel bit into my hip, pain erupting at the contact and I felt warm blood start to run down my leg. I jumped back from my opponent and took a moment to examine the wound. It wasn’t that deep. My opponent looked smug.

“I wouldn’t look so pleased about a little blood.” I taunted.

His smug look was replaced by a look of anger. Good. Anger made people stupid, easier to read. He rushed at me, blades down at his side, ready to be swung up. I stayed where I was, waiting. He got into range and swung one blade up at my head, the other at my stomach. I stepped backward, spun, bringing my own blade up, and through his neck. Blood sprayed up into the night sky, raining back down on the ground as his headless body collapsed. The head hit the packed dirt road with a moist thud and rolled a short distance, leaving an inconsistent trail of darkening red. I wiped my blade on his clothes and sheathed it, turning my back on the corpse to find myself face to face with another man.

He looked to be a few years older than I. His hair was neck-length and a deep rich black with the top layer pulled back into a small ponytail at the base of his skull. His eyes were narrow and a dark brownish-green like Oolongcha that has brewed for too long, the same shape as mine. His clothes were rough spun, and he had no weapon that I could see. A peasant, most likely. I recognized him from the izakaya. His face was emotionless and pale -- shock probably, not that I blamed him. But where had he come from? How long had he been there? He took an unsteady step toward the nearest building and retched.

Shimatta. No one who saw me was supposed to live, but I had never had to kill a civilian, never been seen by one before, and I had no desire to kill one now. This was not a situation I wanted to be in. I carefully adjusted my kasa to make sure it still shadowed my face.

“Go home and forget you saw anything.” I told him, deepening my voice and walked past. It was definitely time to get back, so I headed off again, leaving him in the alley.

I made it back to the ryokan without further incidence. My hip burned from the wound, but it wasn’t bleeding as much anymore. I would take care of it inside. Nishimura-san was standing by the doorway, waiting. Nishimura-san may have been necessary to our operation, but he was facetious, laid-back and frivolous. I found him annoying, crude, and a bit uncouth. 

“Bringing home strays now?” the older samurai asked lightly.

Confused I turned around and there he was, the commoner from the alley. Shimatta, I cursed internally. How had he managed to follow me all this way without my noticing? With a sigh, I turned back to Nishimura-san.

“I’ll take care of it.”

“Don’t have too much fun, now,” he said, amusement in his voice and a mischievous look in his eye. I glared at the older samurai and he chuckled as he disappeared into the ryokan. Another sigh escaped me, and I took a moment to massage my temples before turning my attention back to the commoner. Why in the world did he follow me? Who in their right mind would follow a samurai after being told to go home, especially after watching said samurai kill another right before their eyes?

Inside the ryokan, I splashed water on my face to wash off the dried specks of blood. The water in the basin was already tinged red from my hands. I used to scrub my skin raw trying to rid myself of that warm, stickiness that had that sickly metallic scent that just seemed to cling to my skin. But, what did it really matter after all this time -- how long had it even been? A couple of years at the very least. No amount of scrubbing could wash away the lives I took, could wash away that smell.

He stood there watching, waiting, questioning, I’m sure, why he was even still alive. I looked at him, wondering why he had followed me here. I had never had a witness, never had an innocent involved. Now what was I going to do? I had no desire to kill him, but now that he knew who I was and where we were located, I couldn’t let him go either. He was my responsibility now, my mistake, my stray they called him. His dark tea-colored eyes stared straight into my shadowed dark aqua ones (though I was certain he could not discern their color) as though they could gaze through their mirrored surface to some hidden truth floating in their depths. As though he could see through the deadness that I felt threatening to consume me. I’ve watched men drown there, foolishly thinking they could traverse these waters unharmed. He doesn’t even blink, doesn’t falter, and doesn’t turn away. Instead, it is I who am held captive in his eyes, eyes that are both warm and cold. I am pulled deep into those rich depths, there is a familiar sorrow there. Just as I begin to realize that I can’t breathe, he blinked, and the connection is broken. I felt light-headed, perhaps I had drank too much sake. This wasn’t like me.

“Why did you follow me?”

He looked at her with an empty expression. “I had no other place to go.”

“So…you risked your life to follow me after watching me kill someone right in front of you?”

“If you were going to kill me, wouldn’t you have done it there on the street? Why didn’t you?”

“A dangerous assumption,” I responded, ignoring his last question. “You’ve seen too much. Now, what do I do with you?”

“I don’t really care.”

I didn’t respond, I knew the feeling all too well. I’ve been doing this too long, I feared – killed too many people, I worried it was starting to eat away at my soul. I shook my head and sighed, my head was pounding. How was I going to explain this?

“It’s late and you’ve been through a lot. Sleep. You can take my futon.” It didn’t get much use.

Tomorrow. I’ll figure this all out tomorrow.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

I reach out my pale, cupped hands to catch one of the falling pink blossoms. The warm breeze pulls at a few loose strands of hair and I can almost hear your voice whispering my name. Sakura-sama, I will look for you in my next life. As warm tears spilled from my eyes, I cannot help but think that it was you who was more like a cherry blossom: fragile and beautiful, but tragically short-lived. Please, I silently beg, my heart aching in my chest, the wound still too fresh and ragged from the hole he left. I don’t ever want it to heal. Please don't let him find me again.

 Glossary of Terms, Events, People, and Places

The Meiji Restoration/Revolution: (1853 and 1867 ) the final years of the Edo period, the end of the Tokugawa shogunate and the samurai. Also the end isolationist foreign policy changing from a feudal system of government to the modern empire of the Meiji government.

Go: five

Boshin War: a series of battles fought at the end of the Bakumatsu from 1868-1869 This section specifically takes place during the battle of Toba-Fushimi which lasted for four days and ended in a decisive defeat for the shogunate ushering in the new Meiji era.

Katana: a traditional samurai sword, one of a pair known as a daishō

-sama: an honorific; the respectful equivalent of -san used when addressing of higher rank than oneself. It can also be used in a romantic sense in addressing a crush

Wakizashi: a traditional samurai short sword, the other half of the daishō pair

Baka: idiot

-san: an honorific with the equivalent meaning of Mr., Mrs., and Ms.

Yon: four

Katsura Kogoro: (Kido Takayoshi, also known as Kido Kōin) was a statesman of the Meiji Restoration. He is considered one of the three nobles who led the Restoration/Revolution which led to the overthrow of the Tokugawa shogunate and restored power to the emperor.

-dono: an honorific of highest respect, the equivalent of “milord”. 

No honorific: the only time that an honorific isn’t used is when the other person tells you that you can address them that way. It’s a sign that the two people are close.

Sensei: teacher

Kanzashi: a traditional Japanese hair ornament, during the Edo period men would gift their intended brides with one of these hair ornaments as well as a poem or love letter.

San: three (not to be confused with -san)

Kinmon incident: On August 20, 1864 (or July 19, 1864 sources vary) a battle between three thousand of the Chōshū Ishin Shishi and twenty thousand bakufu troops that took place in front of the Imperial Palace in Kyoto as the Chōshū attempted to storm the palace to seize control. It ended in the defeat of the Chōshū forces and the burning of thousands of civilian homes. This lead the bakufu to launch the first Chōshū subjugation (happens just prior to part three).

Mino: a straw cape; a traditional full-length garment used as a raincoat.

Jingasa: a traditional type of conical hat worn by samurai when traveling or encamped made straw and often lacquered to make it lightweight and waterproof.

Hagi: the capital city of the Chōshū domain where the Mōri clan were the daimyos at the beginning of the Edo period; located on the coast in southern Japan in what is now Yamaguchi Prefecture

Kenpiyama: Mount Kenpi, a mountain in Osaka, Japan.

Ryokan: a traditional Japanese inn

Ni: two

Chabudai: tables with short legs used for eating while sitting on the floor.

Okami: the owner or wife of a ryokan, innkeeper or landlord/lady

Hashi: chopsticks

Yunomi: a teacup that is taller than it is wide that is typically made of ceramic with a trimmed or turned foot.

Fusuma: sliding doors made of wooden frames covered in thick, opaque paper.

Ichi: one

Shōji: a door, window or room divider traditionally consisting of translucent paper (washi) over a frame of wood which holds together a lattice of wood or bamboo.

Tokkuri: a sake serving bottle.

Bushidō: “the way of warriors” contains the many codes of honour and ideals that dictated the samurai way of life

Kasa: a bamboo hat

Sake: rice wine that can be served warm, chilled, or room temperature

Okaerinasai: this is a formal way to say welcome home

Rei: zero

Izakaya: a traditional type of informal pub

Saya: the scabbard or sheath

Ishin Shishi: loyalists, or pro-imperialists who fought to restore power to the emperor

Hitokiri: a samurai assassin

Shimata: damn it, damn

~Author’s note: I wasn’t able to confirm the terms with a native speaker and my knowledge of the Japanese language is basic at best. If you speak Japanese, please feel free to correct any mistakes you find to help me out! :)

[fraink5-writes]

Blue Ceiling - Tablet I

I’m back--again! This time I present to you an Epic of Gilgamesh/Little Mermaid fusion AU, featuring Gilgamesh (as himself) and Kingu (because he needs love)!

Thanks to @leio13 for editing!

Summary: Expecting to become king of the merpeople as son of Tiamat, Kingu is suddenly forced to give up his tail and to go the surface to restore humanity's disregarded respect for the Goddess of the Sea. However, he severely underestimates the Uruks' willpower, especially that of their stubborn king, Gilgamesh.

This chapter can also be found on Ao3 here. Without further ado, please enjoy!

Small bubbles floated past Kingu’s vision towards the distant, blue ceiling. He didn’t bother to follow them once they left his vision. How foolish, he scoffed. What’s so good up there? Before they would disappear beyond the water’s surface, they would undoubtedly disappear from Kingu’s memory. So insignificant, they weren’t worth even his pity. Of course, Kingu had so much unused pity that he could afford to give them a brief farewell as they left his world.

Kingu hadn’t the slightest idea what would happen to the bubbles when they reached the top. Would they drift along the waves like the boats he had heard about? Would they grow in size, filled with the outside air? Regardless, like all things that went up, they would never come back down.

However, Kingu’s curiosity quickly returned to the expanse of blue which stretched limitlessly in almost every direction. The unreachable haze was the nebula of his imagination, and often he would sit at the outskirts of his city and think about dissolving into the current and leaving behind his boring, everyday life. 

Unlike the surrounding ocean, the city Atargata was completely stagnant. The population had hardly changed since its foundation. Because merpeople could not die of natural causes, most of the civilization’s founders still lived in the city and occupied the same civil positions they had from the beginning. Without fear of extinction, reproduction was completely unnecessary. 

For that reason, the news of the king’s passing by a human hunting incident came as a huge surprise, and the news that Kingu would replace him, an even bigger one. The population did not hesitate to make their discomfort known to Kingu, constantly arguing over who would “actually” become the sovereign. Kingu laughed at this useless activity, for none of those contentious fossils could ever be king. Kingu, on the other hand, was born to be king. He had been created by the mother goddess Tiamat to freshen the stale waters and guide them away from their old-fashioned ways. 

Kingu threw one more glance at his unreachable, endless horizon, sighed, and trudged into the city.

***

Atargata was a grid of searock. Due to the currents, the buildings lay flat at only one story. Instead the city slowly stretched across the sandy floor. Despite its boring foundation, the city was bustling with color and life; every wall was decorated with a coral mosaic, which had grown into an entirely separate community of fish. Far from an invasion, the mercommunity had accepted their right to live there and simply left them be. Kingu admired the way they swam peacefully in their large communities—no fighting, no competition. They were undoubtedly the best inhabitants of the city.

Kingu was thoughtlessly watching the school which passed through the market, blissfully aware of the carnage of fish for sale, when his imagination was interrupted.

“Oh, if it isn't Kingu. How strange seeing you here.” The snooty voice belonged to Atargata’s no. 1 diva, Ishtar. Her lips curled, excited by the storm of insults that brewed between them. “Shouldn't your mommy being doing the groceries?”

“She isn't my ‘mommy,’ and I'm not a kid. In fact—”

“Yeah, yeah, we get it. You're going to be king. You know, a king shouldn't throw a temper tantrum because of a little teasing.” With her hand waiting impatiently on her ruby-scaled hip, Ishtar’s eyes danced; Kingu’s resentment fueled them like oxygen to a flame.

Kingu wanted to smother them. He said nothing.

“Huh? Are you going to ignore me?” Ishtar folded her arms. “I’m giving you good advice, you know. That was like elementary school teasing. If you can’t even take that…”

“Aren’t you too old for child’s play?” Kingu returned his disappointment with his gaze.

“Excuse me! I am not that old.”

“And I’m not a child.” Kingu turned away, hoping to return to his business with the fish.

“Jeez… it's all because of that witch…” A muttered comment, only half-intended for Kingu to hear.

“She's not a witch. She was a mermaid too.”

“She's a traitor, flirting with humans.”

That's not—Kingu didn't know enough to say it wasn't true. But Gorgon, the supposed sea monster, hated humans. She would have never flirted with them, Kingu was certain.

Ishtar sighed. “You may be a brat, but you're still a merman. You should be on our side, not that monster's.”

“It's because you’re irresponsible..” Kingu had been holding that comment back longer than he had even realized. “All of you are too self-centered. Only Gorgon tried to take care of me.”

“Well.” Ishtar's face scrunched with displeasure. “If you're insistent on being on her side in spite of everything, then I assume you're prepared to take responsibility for her, ‘future king?’ What do you plan to do about the human issue?”

Kingu couldn't care less about the humans. As long as they remained on land, they were outside of his little world. Completely irrelevant. “What issue?” he asked, feigning the vaguest interest.

“‘What issue?’ Ugh! Does anything matter to you outside of your moody internal monologue?! It's the lack of respect! The humans have forgotten their origins and parading around like they're kings of the world!”

“Does it matter? The opinions of something so insignificant such as humanity shouldn't mean anything to our civilization. Let them think what they want. They are just fools.”

“Hah, so you're not on the side of humans either.” Ishtar looked surprisingly delighted. “You really are naive. If you want to be treated seriously, you should find out where you want to be.”

***

“You can just ignore her,” Gorgon spat, baring her fangs at an enemy who wasn't there. “Her head's just inflated because of her little cult. Even her fellow council members know she's just an idiot. So, you don't need to worry about her becoming king.”

“Of course I don't.” Kingu hastily dismissed the idea, which had never once crossed his mind. “The only one who will become king is me. It's my destiny.”

“Yes, that too.” Gorgon's sharp, purple eyes stared King up and down then drifted in the direction of the city. She grimaced. “Say, Kingu, why do want to be the king of those people, anyway?”

That should have been such a simple question—it was his duty to lead the people—yet it brought him to a halt. Indeed, he had no desire to rule those people; he hated them. But he had never questioned his own resolve to rule over them, and he wouldn't start then.

“I know what you're thinking, Gorgon. They're stupid and selfish, cruel and jealous. But that's why they need someone like me. I will mercilessly teach them how to behave.”

“That's quite a forgiving offer for such a despicable bunch,” Gorgon muttered, bloodlust seeping from every scale which covered her body.

That bloodlust was Gorgon's greatest flaw, Kingu thought. It'd really do her some good to let some of it go, or at least conceal it better. The rumors about Gorgon which had been circling around town since the previous king's death were not completely implausible, he had to admit. For his part, Kingu was certain that his suffering would be repaid in due time without needless acts of violence. Tiamat was on his side after all.

“Right?” He grinned. “They should try to be more like me!”

***

When Kingu next returned to the city, he had already forgotten about Ishtar and any other annoying face which plagued his usual visits. He ignored even the schools of fish as he swam through them, for his eyes were set on only one thing: the grand temple at the center of Atargata. The temple of Tiamat stood taller and more colorful than anywhere else, and because no person dared enter it, it was a bustling haven for fish. This time, however, Kingu had an invitation, so it could hardly be called intruding.

Inside, the corridors of the temple echoed with a doleful song. Although unfamiliar, the voice filled Kingu with an unplaceable nostalgia and an unfathomable sorrow. Without knowing the cause of her grieving, Kingu vowed to resolve it. 

The still figure of Tiamat was the eye of the storm of fish which, driven by her music, raced around the hall. Yet she was blind to her surroundings. Her song had wrapped her protectively, sheltering her from the saddening world outside. 

“Mother, I’ve come as you requested,” Kingu barely whispered, awed by the scene before him. 

“It is a truly grievous situation.” Tiamat’s eyes stared into a world beyond Kingu’s small one. He could see nothing in their nebulous purple. But her wordless song he clearly understood; it spoke directly to his heart. It ached with loneliness as it pleaded. Who could allow such sorrow? Kingu scorned the apathy of people and fish alike. But Kingu was different from those ungrateful people; he would do his utmost to heal her grieving heart.

“What can I do to help? Please tell me.”

Kingu’s heart stopped with Tiamat’s melody. She spoke with a soft voice. “The humans have forgotten me, their mother. They continue without thinking of the sea, of their roots.”

...The humans? As Tiamat’s singing vacated his mind, confusion seeped in. Of course, the humans are the most ungrateful of them all—above all, completely unaware of their insignificance. If Kingu’s enemy was humans, it would undoubtedly be an easy task. 

“How arrogant—those pathetic humans. They will no doubt rue their pride.”

“You must go up there and amend their ways, teach them reverence for their mother. Their young king, Gilgamesh, is especially insolent; you must correct him.”

The words repeated ad infinitum in Kingu’s head, blurring into meaningless but maddening sounds. He exhaled to clear all the clutter. “How should I do that?” The question floated in his vicinity, afraid to get an answer from Tiamat.

“You must join them. Become human. They won’t listen to anyone else.” 

The words knocked Kingu like a strong current, and he struggled to regain himself. He could not imagine being a human. To become human was to abandon his home, his aspirations, his pride. Kingu was a merman; to discard that was to discard his identity altogether. The possibility of becoming human had never crossed Kingu’s mind, yet suddenly, it was his reality. Even if he still had his emerald tail, Tiamat’s words had stripped him of his mermanhood on the spot. 

“Once you’re human, you must never mention your origins to anyone. You must live completely as a human.”

It was so lonely. He had been alone for most of his life, but never had he felt true loneliness, the kind that caused Tiamat to sing. It filled his heart with solid lead. “And when I’ve finished my mission…?” He choked out.

“I have arranged your meeting with the human king. There will be a storm on the waves; you must meet him then.” Tiamat’s song started again with the swirl of fish, signalling the end of their conversation.

As Kingu left the temple, the sorrowful melody chased after his tail.

***

Kingu held his breath before breaking through the water’s surface. The outside world was just gray. Gloomy, voluminous gases hung in the air as far as he could see, and water poured from the sky. Even the ocean was, from the top, a shifting surface of darkness, wave after wave trying to topple Kingu and throw him back underneath. He had never imagined water could be this unpleasant.

But the air was worse. Each breath was an inhalation of poison, scorching his throat. Yet, he kept inhaling—faster and faster. His lungs heaved, quickly moving the toxin in and out. But something wasn’t enough. Faster and faster. His heart raced to keep up. 

“King Gilgamesh!” The sound of a voice stopped Kingu’s breathing entirely. It came from a medium-sized vessel which swayed drunkenly atop the angry seas. Standing proudly at one of the curved ends was the only color in the depressing scene: a golden human. His short hair shone as golden as his armor. That man could only be the king.

The lustrous man disappeared under the waves along with his vessel. 

Oh. Kingu had to rescue him. As a mere human, the golden man could not breath underwater and would quickly die. How pathetic. Such weak lungs. It was probably more convenient to just let the human die. He was the source of their problems, after all. If the humans lost their insolent leader, maybe they would relearn their respect. What value did this human have which was worth saving?

Despite himself, Kingu dived back below the surface of the waves and sped after the human king. But the sinking human had already lost consciousness by the time Kingu had caught up to him. Hoping he was still alive somehow, Kingu grabbed him and raced to the surface. No response. Kingu needed to find land somehow. In the distance, he made out a faint moving light. Maybe it was the sun. In any case, it meant calmer water, so he pulled the body towards it. 

As the storm began clearing, Kingu realized the light was actually from a peculiar tower on the beach. But his surprise was drowned out by his relief at finding land. He threw the human on the ground and waited for him to wake. 

Maybe it was better if the human didn’t wake up. He was the greatest obstacle to Kingu’s objective. Instilling fear in the other humans would be easier if this one wasn’t around. And, at least, Kingu could say that he tried to save him. But then Kingu’s rescue attempt would have been in vain... 

In any case, it was out of Kingu’s hands. He decided to study the surrounding area to take his mind off the stress of waiting. So this was the land where he was forced to live. The sand, or so he figured, was a grainy substance the color of the human’s hair that stuck grossly to his wet skin. Beyond the beach, far in the distance, there seemed to be a stone wall. 

Before he could get a better look, Kingu’s attention was grabbed by the human next to him, who had begun to cough. Seriously? You’re on land now. If you humans can’t even breathe on land, what good are you? Kingu scoffed at the human as water sputtered from his lips. But if there was water still inside the human, then, Kingu realized, it was up to him to draw it out somehow. Reluctantly, he leaned in for a closer inspection. He had no idea how to deal with humans—much less a drowning person.. If he turned him over, would the water come out?

During his increasingly panicked contemplation, Kingu was startled by two ruby-colored eyes which stared at him. His heart skipped a beat upon realizing he had never been so close to a human before. He couldn’t move; the bright eyes, which had locked their gaze after a final coughing fit, commanded him to be still.

“Who…” The human began. His eyes drifted down from Kingu’s face. “...Are you?”

Kingu felt he had no choice but to follow that stare. There. Long, fleshy, and undeniably human. Legs? Since when? Kingu’s mind went white. 

When Kingu came to his senses, the man, who had slithered out from underneath him, was scowling. Nevertheless, he extended a hand in Kingu’s direction. 

Kingu could only stare blankly at the strangely amical gesture before he was ripped from the ground and placed on his feet. 

It hurt. Kingu’s new feet were brittle; they could break just from the weight of his own body. He immediately toppled over. The human grabbed him with another groan and started to drag him towards the wall. Kingu, unsure of what to do with his new legs, tried to imitate his helper, but it was too painful. One foot in front of the other. It hurt, it hurt, it hurt. 

Water droplets began welling up in the corners of Kingu’s eyes. Was this what it meant to cry? The tears which rolled down Kingu’s cheeks and met his lips were warm and salty. It was a miserable taste.

***

The walk through the city was lost on Kingu, whose consciousness was largely suppressed by the pain. But somehow he and the man he had rescued ended up in front of a decently sized brick building. It was someone’s home, Kingu guessed.

“Shamhat!” The blonde man barked.

After a minute or two of shuffling sounds, a human woman appeared at the doorway. “I’m sorry for the indecency, your majesty. I was with a customer.”

Kingu found nothing indecent about the woman. Wearing a plain, white dress, she had a simple but radiant beauty. Her brown hair shimmered green in the reappearing sunlight.

“Not anymore,” the man quickly dismissed. “I’m leaving this man to you.”

The woman, Shamhat presumably, eyed Kingu up and down then smiled coyly at him before turning back to the human king. “Yes, your majesty.”

“Also, fetch me a fresh pair of clothing before I go.”

“Of course.” Shamhat’s inspection had completely moved to the man’s sopping garments. “... What happened?”

“I’ll explain later. Just hurry up. Take him with you.” 

Having no control in the manner, Kingu was thrown harshly at Shamhat, who caught him surprisingly gently and eased him into the home and onto a bed. She quickly hurried off after that, giving Kingu a few minutes to reflect on what happened. 

He had rescued the human king, Gil… Gil-something and was taken to a mysterious woman’s home. He couldn’t make much sense of anything beyond that. 

He had legs now. Although the bed was a significant relief compared to standing, just the thought of his new legs sent him a painful shock. He never wanted to walk again. How could the humans do it every day, all day? They were undeterred to the point of foolishness. 

Shamhat returned and sat near the head of the bed. “Here you go.” Taking a cloth, she wiped Kingu’s cheeks. Apparently, tears still lingered. How embarrassing. To hide or at least avoid looking at Shamhat, Kingu turned his cheek. This action only made Shamhat giggle, so Kingu gave up and turned to face her. With a small smile, Shamhat seemed to be more than a human. Her unparallelled kindness and beauty could not be attributed to the selfish and arrogant humans.

“How are you feeling?” Shamhat asked. “Do you have a name?”

Shamhat’s gentleness had caused Kingu to drop his guard and he blurted out his name.

“So you can talk!”

Kingu nodded, aware of the irony, but he was too busy planning his next responses to the questions which would inevitably follow. He couldn’t slip up again.

“I’m relieved to know that. So then, Kingu, where are you from?”

“I don’t remember…” Kingu’s voice faded away with feigned shame. 

“You don’t remember?” Shamhat questioned him. “That’s troubling… What do you remember?”

“When I came to, I could only remember my name, Kingu.”

“Oh my!” Shamhat pursed her lips but quickly went back to smiling. “Well, that’s a good place to start!” Then she added, “Are you hungry? What foods do you like?” 

The question troubled Kingu, who hadn’t the slightest knowledge of the human diet. As he racked his brain, Shamhat chimed in again, “How about bread?” With a nod from Kingu (what did he know about bread?), Shamhat disappeared into a different room.

“Anyway.” Shamhat quickly returned with the strange food, apparently called bread. “I heard you can't walk; is this true?”

“Yes.” Kingu's voice was tinged with bitterness leftover from his miserable experience.

Shamhat blinked as though surprised Kingu confirmed her beliefs. “Then, how did you rescue King Gilgamesh?”

Even Kingu couldn't adequately explain that one. “I don't know. By chance?”

Shamhat inspected him. “Well, I'm very grateful, as is all of Uruk, I'm sure.”

“What kind of person is uh Gilguhh…”

“King Gilgamesh? He is an awe-inspiring person. Uruk's greatest king. He is responsible for the city's grandeur, its prosperity, and its safety. We owe our calm and happy everyday lives to him. And to you. If you had not saved him earlier, we would have been in trouble. So thank you. Thank you from every citizen of Uruk."

Kingu was ashamed to admit he understood her reasoning. When Atargata's previous king died unexpectedly, the city was taken over by chaos. They were disturbingly similar to humans in that regard. Kingu scoffed at himself. Why was he saving the human kingdom? He had to hurry back home and fix things in his own city.

[quentinsquill]

Fic: “It’s a Wonderful Pride” (The Magicians)

It’s a Wonderful Pride

Author: Lexalicious70

Fandom: The Magicians

Rating: R (language, brief descriptions of violence)

Word Count: 4,272

Genre: Canon divergent, crossover, (Good Omens) fic challenge entry

Summary: It’s pride month but Eliot, still grieving for Mike, can see little to celebrate about his sexuality. Can a fussy-yet-benevolent angel reignite Eliot’s flame and show him the light before he sinks into depression, booze and drugs?

A/N: This is for the @whitespiresarmory’s Armory Challenge, week two: “Pride.” I don’t own The Magicians or Good Omens; this is just for fun. Comments and kudos are magic, and as always, enjoy!

 Read it on AO3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19358269

It’s a Wonderful Pride

By Lexalicious70 (all_hale_Eliot)

 “You really aren’t going? El, come on!”

 Eliot looked up from his third glass of wine in 40 minutes to find Margo standing over him, her hands planted on her slim hips in a way that told him, (if he cared,) that she was annoyed with him.

 “I’m really not going.”

 “We haven’t missed New York City Pride in the three years we’ve known each other! It’s a bigger deal than our trip to Ibiza!”

 Eliot closed his eyes and Margo hesitated before she sat down on the arm of the couch.

 “I’m sorry. But El . . . I feel like getting away from Brakebills, even if it’s just for the parade, would be good for you!”

 “Because I should celebrate.”

 “It couldn’t hurt!”

 “And what exactly am I supposed to celebrate?” Eliot drained his glass. “The sound of Mike’s neck snapping? His body rolling to the floor like some fucking marionette with its strings cut? My complete naivety about our relationship?”

 Margo’s upper lip thinned out and she nodded.

 “Okay. I get that you’re mourning, and maybe I even get your necessity to literally turn into a living wine decanter. But I’ve told you already, El, that what happened wasn’t your fault! How long are you going to torture yourself over this?”

 Eliot swung to his feet, picked up his glass, and took refuge behind the cottage bar.

 “I’ll get back to you on that.”

 Margo threw her hands in the air.

 “Fine. Skip Pride, start denying who you are, marry a nice girl from Yonkers! I’ll be in the city if you change your mind.” She turned and swept up the steps and Eliot poured himself another glass of Chardonnay before returning to his prone position on the couch. Some wine slopped out of the glass and stained his paisley shirtsleeve and he frowned at the affront before taking a long draw on the glass.

 “Maybe I will marry a nice girl from Yonkers,” Eliot muttered as people began to filter out of the cottage, leaving it silent. His hand tightened around the glass and he resisted the urge to hurl it against the nearest wall. “Fuck knows it’d be simpler than—” He made a vague gesture to the empty air and drained the glass. His stomach clenched in protest and he frowned at it. “Oh, nut up. I’ve put you through worse.” He set the glass aside and threw an arm over his eyes to block out the sun pouring through the cottage windows. His pulse pounded in his ears, but the sound of his abused body was infinitely more preferable to the sound Mike’s neck made when Eliot had twisted his head around, like stepping on a dry tree branch on a November hiking trail. Eliot heard it all the time, as if the echo had imprinted itself on his brain synapses and played constantly on a hesitant loop that ground out the sound, a faceless something that cranked a distorted hurdy-gurdy of loss in Eliot’s ear each time silence ruled his senses.

 “Oh my,” a voice said in Eliot’s ear, “have I been sent to Clutter Cottage? But Druridge Bay is so damp!”

 “Fucking—!” Eliot yelped, sitting up, his sock-clad feet drumming on the couch cushions. He turned, the room slightly out of focus, to find a slight, and rather fussy-looking man staring around the common room. He wore his curly pale blond hair short and stood before Eliot in tan slacks, a blue button down and a brown vest, a cream-colored waistcoat, and a wide plaid bowtie that might have looked silly on anyone else, but this man wore it as if it were as much a part of him as his skin. It was impossible to guess his age. He didn’t seem to notice that Eliot had spoken.

 “It’s so glaringly bohemian,” the little man continued. “Rather too much so for Northumberland!”

 Eliot blinked to assure himself he wasn’t sliding into the hallucinatory stages of acute alcohol poisoning.

 “I’m sorry? I wasn’t—who are you, exactly?” He asked, and the man gave him a benevolent smile.

 “I do apologize for not introducing myself. I was just rather surprised to be called here so suddenly.”

 “Called? Who called you? Was it Margo?” Eliot asked, wondering in a dazed sort of way if she had called some sort of AA wingman or grief counselor before leaving for the city. The man shook his head.

 “My supervisors. You may call me Aziraphale, and you, dear boy, would be Eliot Waugh, correct?”

 “Yes,” Eliot nodded, the man’s correct way of speaking and upper-class British accent cutting through some of his drunkenness. It reminded him of the way some of the professors at Brakebills spoke, as if they wanted to be British and constructed their sentences so instead of affecting a phony accent. This man, though, seemed to be the genuine article.

 “Excellent. Well! Let’s be off then.”

 “Off? To where?”

 “To correct some misconceptions you have about your life, Eliot.”

 “Miscon—I’m sorry, who are you again?”

 “Aziraphale,” the man said with what seemed like endless patience. “Come along now!” He held out a hand and Eliot took a step back with a flat chuckle.

 “Recent events would warn me not to go anywhere with strangers who might be disguised as the Beast.”

 “The Beast!” This Aziraphale huffed. “Well! That’s—how rude!”

 “Is it? Because I—wait, what?” Eliot frowned. “You know about the Beast?”

 “I know of him because of my line of work, but to suggest that I go around disguised as him?” The man eyed him. “Despicable!”

 “I’m sorry?” Eliot’s wariness made it a question. “I didn’t mean to offend you. I only meant . . .” Eliot blinked and lost his trail of thought as this odd little man caught his gaze and held it. The blue eyes held no trace of obvious wicked intent and Eliot realized they were kind—extremely kind, and in a way that threatened to slam through every alcohol-soaked brick of the multiple emotional walls he’d built since Mike died.

 “I do apologize,” Aziraphale said after a moment. “There was a bit of a mix up, but now I understand. I am not your Beast, my boy, but you are as in just as much danger now from your own thoughts as you were from it when it attacked.” The man held out his hand again. “Now do come along, it’s getting late.”

 Eliot reached out his hand and slid his fingers between Aziraphale’s, and the little man paused.

 “Whoops! Can’t have you inebriated for this venture—” He touched Eliot’s forehead and a peculiar sensation filled his body, as if someone had discovered and flipped a reverse switch somewhere in his abdomen. The wine bottles he’d left near the bar began to fill and the drunken fog he’d been in for nearly three days began to lift. “There we are!”

 “What—how did you—”

“Your magic and my miracles are somewhat related. Like cousins, almost. I believe that’s why they sent me. You feel as if you are to blame for Michael McCormick’s death—”

 “How do you know about Mike? And I am responsible! I broke his neck! He was in thrall by the Beast and I—I murdered him!” Eliot wanted to shout, but it seemed the brazen, bitter attitude he’d given Margo had deserted him along with the alcohol.

 “I saw it when I looked into your soul.”

 Eliot tugged on the little man’s hand. His skin was pale and soft, with no evidence of calluses or the particular muscle tone most magicians had in their fingers and arms. No, this Aziraphale wasn’t a magician. He—

 “Wait.” Eliot gasped out a breath that was tinged with jagged amusement. “Did you say ‘my miracles?’”

 “I did.”

 “So you’re . . . uh . . .” Eliot gestured with his free hand, and Aziraphale nodded.

 “An angel.” He smiled and touched Eliot’s cheek. “You believe that the world you know would be a better place if you weren’t the person you’ve become, that your sexuality has been a blight on the people around you . . .that believing in Pride makes no difference to the future because you are contemplating cutting that short. But you’re mistaken on all fronts, and I’m here to show you why. Shall we?” Aziraphale made a slight motion with one hand and in a rapid swirl of color, Eliot found himself standing outside of Dean Fogg’s office.

 “What are we doing here?” He asked, and Aziraphale nodded toward the door.

 “You think your influence on others causes negative effects? Look there.”

 The door to the office slammed open and Margo marched out, her expression set, thunderclouds and damnation in her dark eyes. Eliot took a step forward.

 “Bambi? Hey, what—”

 Margo never slowed. She walked through him as if he were made of mist, and Aziraphale watched.

 “We don’t exist to them, Eliot. This is a universe where you never came to Brakebills, never had the courage to become who you are meant to be.”

 “Your expulsion and mindwipe will take place immediately, Miss Hanson,” Dean Fogg snapped as he followed on her heels. “We do not tolerate theft of Brakebills property from anyone, least of all a first-year student who decides to practice forbidden magic!”

 “You can kiss my ass!” Margo shouted, turning on the dean, her expression a mask of hatred and fury. “I don’t need this! I don’t need any of it! Mindwipe me? Wipe your ass, you pompous nobody!”

 “Jesus,” Eliot muttered as Fogg called security and they hauled Margo away even as she continued to hurl insults at him. “What happened?”

 “This is what would have happened to Margo if you two had never met during your first year. She arrived here brimming with fury and forging an emotional suit of armor no one would have ever broken through. But then she met you . . . your obvious flair, your refusal to settle into the background, it turned her away from all that anger, softened her edges. Because you would not accept a minor role in the Brakebills community, it caused her to become protective of you. And in that, she learned to curb the anger that would have otherwise shut her out of the magical community forever.” Aziraphale snapped his fingers and the scenery morphed; they stood outside a grimy building, its brick surface painted a fading urine yellow.

 “Where are we now?”

 “New Jersey,” the angel replied, “twenty years in the future.” He took Eliot’s hand and they walked through the aging wall. Inside, about half a dozen girls tended to what looked like a failing clothing store geared toward tween and teenage girls. Circular metal racks of clothing, their bases tarnished, littered the floor like elderly soldiers. The beige walls carried the distinct stain of nicotine, and a few customers poked through the merchandise, most of them being the kind of thirtysomething Jersey Shore-loving mothers convinced they could wear their daughter’s clothing. An office door banged open somewhere in the back and Eliot swallowed a gasp as Margo emerged. Her dark hair wasn’t so much pulled back as it was being forcibly strangled, and deep frown lines cut into her complexion. A cigarette smoldered in her right hand, and Eliot noticed that her fingernails, which she’d always kept filed and lacquered, were brittle, broken and gnawed to the quicks. Her dark eyes, ensconced between gaudy green eyeshadow and deep bags that cast bruise-colored shadows beneath them, darted around the room, unblinking.

 “Rene!” She bawled, her voice lined with a rough edge of years of tobacco use. “Why the fuck isn’t that order out on the floor yet? Are you stupid and slow? Huh?” She cut through the store like a torpedo, the cigarette trailing out smoke behind her. The young salesgirl flinched.

 “No Mz. Hanson, I’ll unpack it now, I was just helping a customer—”

 “What you were helping was your useless ass out of my shop! Go on! Beat it!” Margo brandished the clipboard she carried and the shopgirl fled as she burst into tears. “Yeah, go on, cry about it on the unemployment line, honey!” She then turned her baleful stare on the other girls. “And what the fuck are you dizzy cunts looking at, huh? Get back to work!”

 “That’s what Margo turned into without me?” Eliot asked, watching her slam back into her office, where they could hear objects being hurled around.

 “Without you, she never learned kindness or trusted anyone enough to soften her edges,” Aziraphale said. “It was your bond that helped mold her into the Margo you know now.”

 Eliot pushed a hand through his dark curls.

 “That seems awfully cut and dried,” he argued. “Besides, even if I did influence her for the good, that’s only one instance out of many where it didn’t fuck up someone’s life! And—and then later, we . . . I mean, she and I, and Q . . .” Eliot felt his ears flush with heat. “I can’t say this to an angel! And anyway, isn’t God a homophobe?”

 Aziraphale’s eyes widened and sparked with humor as he chuckled.

 “Oh, my dear boy, no! Whatever gave you that idea?”

 “About 90 percent of Christians I’ve met.”

 “Ah. Well that’s the fault of those who wrote the Bible, you see. Many of our admirers believe it’s the direct word of God. But it’s the desires of men, Eliot, men who want to control and erase much of what the lord has created, especially those like yourself. It’s something we never quite expected once Adam and Eve were sent out into the world to raise humankind. Now. Tell me about this Q.”

 “Quentin,” Eliot sighed. “We’re—well—I don’t know what we are now, since he says I ruined his life. And he’s probably right.”

 “Well. Let’s go have a look, shall we?” The angel flicked his wrist and transported them into Margo’s bedroom, where she and he and Eliot had all shared a dalliance just a few days before. Margo was applying a vicious smoky eye as Quentin sat with his hands clasped between his knees.

 “And it took me awhile to realize what I was so pissed about,” Quentin was saying, and Margo flicked a glance at him.

 “I could have told you why, Q.”

 “I know you could have, but I had convinced myself that Eliot fucked up my life that night because—because, uhm, well . . .”

 Margo waited, busying herself with her compact, and then Quentin blurted it out in that stammering way that Eliot found both frustrating and adorable at the same time.

 “Because I wasn’t upset about what Eliot and I had done! It—it was Alice, it was how she looked at me, the way she called me a whore, it—because I felt like one, waking up and seeing her sitting there! But before that, when I woke up and felt Eliot’s arm around my waist and his body up against mine, it—it felt right, Margo! The way our legs tangled together, the way he looked when he was asleep.” Quentin ran a hand over his face. “It let me know what I’ve been questioning about myself for years, ever since I went through puberty and developed a serious crush on my best friend James—and then one on Julia.”

 Margo nodded.

 “Congratulations, Q, you’ve figured out you’re bisexual.” Her full lips twisted up into a smug yet affectionate smile. “Welcome to the club.”

 “What? You mean you—”

 “Bi, pan, girls, guys . . . hot asses that go bump in the night.” She shrugged. “Call it what you want, Q. But El is your sexual lightning rod. Without him, you might never have figured it out and ended up with some frigid, narcissistic bitch because you thought it was supposed to happen that way. Or kept on thinking you were meant to be with Alice which, by the way, I think you’ve both figured out was the result of Mayakovsky’s fox spell, the bastard.”

 “And what if El and I were just emotion magic and booze?”

 Margo set her compact down and pinned Quentin with her gaze.

 “Do you seriously believe that?”

 Quentin scowled and tucked his feet up under his thighs.

 “No,” He sighed. Margo brightened and ruffled his floppy hair.

 “Good! And don’t sweat our sex, Q . . . I really don’t remember it and was out of the game for good once El came around and found you willing.” She rose from the bed and looked over her shoulder. “Want to come to Pride with me?”

 Quentin lifted his head and the frown lines on his forehead smoothed.

 “Yeah!” He nodded, and Margo rolled her eyes at him even as a smile curved across her painted lips.

 “Then get your bi ass in gear, Coldwater!”

 Eliot watched them leave the room together before he turned to his guardian angel.

 “Is this something that could have happened, like the other thing you showed me?”

 “Oh no, not at all. We’re looking at the present, dear boy.”

 Eliot closed his eyes a moment as that night came back to him in flashes that burned with a halo of booze; Quentin climbing into his lap, his naked skin filling Eliot’s field of vision, their mouths meeting, the way the back of Quentin’s neck, slender and fragile, fit in his hand as he gripped it to claim Quentin’s mouth once, twice, who knew how many times. He glanced at Aziraphale and then away, and the angel smiled and touched his arm.

 “I’m an angel, not a priest. You needn’t confess anything to me.”

 “The way he reacted the next day, I thought I’d forced him. That I’d ruined his life because of my own selfishness.”

 “No. He was embarrassed and guilty because Alice found him out. And if not for you helping him discover his true nature, he might have never found a path to happiness.”

 Eliot nibbled on his thumbnail as he gathered his thoughts. They were more lucid than they’d been in days, but that sound, like the snap of a dried branch, weaved its way through them.

 “I appreciate what you’re trying to show me,” he said at last. “But it’s because of who and what I am that Mike died. There’s no way around that—” He groped for the name and the angel gave a sigh borne of patience.

 “Aziraphale.”

 “Right! Aziraphale. Unless you’re going to tell me that Mike was the reincarnation of Hitler or the next mass serial killer, he didn’t deserve to die because I loved him.” Eliot felt the tremble on that last word and clenched his jaw. “And that’s what they want me to go out there and celebrate? That me being attracted to men got an innocent person enslaved to the point where I had to—” Eliot wrung an open palm over his mouth.

 “Oh, my dear boy. You sweet child,” The angel almost sighed it, and his tone caused a crack in Eliot’s walls. The cracks began to leak and then they burst open slowly, like a decrepit dam giving way to the onslaught of a flood. The emotional impact caused Eliot’s knees to buckle and he slapped both hands over his face in one last attempt to stem the tide, but it roared forth anyway. He began to sob, rocking back and forth, all his personal wards and defenses blasted away. A rustling noise registered in his consciousness and then smell of something sweet and warm, like the return of a childhood blanket, filled his nose before it seemed to enfold him. A wall of white, its touch like the sweep of his mother’s chenille housecoat, drew him into it. Eliot found the strength to raise his head and found himself cradled in Aziraphale’s left wing. It was enormous and he welcomed it, burying his face in feathers that were at least each a foot long. He groaned softly, his sinuses clogged, an acrid taste in his mouth, like rotten cloves.

 “I didn’t want to kill him!” Eliot cried into the soft recesses of the angel’s feathers. “I only wanted to stop him but then I saw what he really was and how the Beast had fooled me and all the pain, it was like it rolled out of me and . . . oh God, Aziraphale, I didn’t mean to kill him!”

 “No, child. What you wanted to kill was the agony of what you felt when you realized your lover was held in thrall. But, listen to me now . . .” The wing tip dipped under his chin and raised it so Eliot was looking into the angel’s eyes, so infinitely kind. “Mike isn’t dead because of who you are. He’s dead because of what the Beast is. He is an evil thing, twisted beyond all comprehension. It was he who put the poor boy in thrall, and it was he who sent him into your path. Yes, perhaps he understood your desires, as many evil things do, and he likely understood the temptation a handsome gentleman with your interests and tastes would represent.”

 “I should have seen through it!” Eliot cried, and Aziraphale smiled.

 “Many people say such things after the fact. But that doesn’t make it true. I believe the Beast chose you because you’re strong, and yet you have a great capacity for love. However, you must remember, Eliot, that he could have sent a thrall to Margo, or Quentin, or any other person on campus who might have fallen for a person of another gender. Your sexual preference isn’t the reason that boy is dead, Eliot.” Aziraphale reached out and brushed a few tears away from his damp, chapped cheeks. “He’s dead because evil works in ways that are just as surprising and mysterious as the Lord’s. You cannot deny who you fought so hard to become. You cannot throw away your pride. And something at Brakebills is waiting for you. Something real, a someone who loves you. One you will have several lifetimes to know and explore—but oh, dear, I can’t give away too much.” The angel helped Eliot to his feet and then the wings were gone, tucked away wherever they were kept. Eliot considered his words.

 “You mean Quentin—wait, did you say several lifetimes?”

 “Did I?” The little man cocked his head and gestured the question away with a careless motion of one hand. “Well! Never mind. It’s time for me to shove on, now, I have other people to see.” He touched Eliot’s cheek with the gentle manner of a loving father, a touch the magician had never known before. “Go find your friends, Eliot Waugh, and remember that you must always fight to remain the person you worked so hard to become.”

 Aziraphale was gone before Eliot could reply, but that phantom touch remained on his cheek. Eliot put his fingers to it and smiled before he left Margo’s room and headed for his own.

 ***

 “So this is Pride? It’s, uh—it’s crowded!” Quentin shouted to make himself heard above the joyful noise of the parade passing him and Margo. She whooped and hollered as she caught a set of beads thrown by some passing drag queens, and Quentin blinked. “Are those men?”

 “Yes, duh!”

 “They’re so pretty!”

 “That’s the idea! You’re such a dork!” Margo grinned and looped one of the shiny sets of beads over his head. Quentin rolled his eyes and then jumped as a long arm dropped onto his shoulder and a voice spoke in his ear.

 “Anal beads? I hope they’ve been cleaned!”

 Margo turned, her dark eyes wide as another equally long arm slung itself over her shoulders. Eliot grinned down at them, resplendent in black drainpipe jeans and a tight white tank top that spelled out I YNY. The heart gleamed with rainbow colors. Reflective Ray Bans covered his eyes and his dark curls spilled over his forehead in a way that was artfully careless.

 “El!” Margo threw her arms around him. “You shit! You came!”

 “What made you change your mind?” Quentin asked, leaning close so Eliot could hear him. It was as simple as turning his head, and his mouth met Quentin’s. The younger man’s dark eyes widened in shock and then slipped halfway closed as Eliot pulled back slowly.

 “The thought of doing exactly that!” He grinned, and Quentin blinked.

 “You mean you—”

 “Yeah, Q. It’s more than booze and emotion bottles this time.” He took Quentin’s hand, entwining their fingers, and Margo turned away so Eliot wouldn’t see the glee in her expression. Eliot pulled them both close, kissing each of their cheeks in turn before turning his face up toward the sun. Long rays of sunlight were breaking through the clouds and leaving smeary wisps behind.

 To Eliot, they looked like angel’s wings.

 FIN

[jimlingss]

Tell Me Lies [Prologue]

Prologue | Part 1 | Interlude | Part 2 [Finale]

➜ Words: 3.3k

➜ Genres: ????? (ooooh it’s a surprise), Spin off of ????

➜ PSA: don’t steal.

Blind. People have always been easy to trick, caught within the bubble of their lives, in the midst of pretentious phone calls or frivolous conversations, masking perfection for others, leading their chaotic lifestyles with short attention spans. They fail to notice their own surroundings, the little details that go unnoticed; from cheeks that are too hollow, marks of hunger and exhaustion made, to the clothes that are frayed at the hem, a trace of the second-hand material.   When people are happy and comfortable, there is no need to pay attention to the world outside.   “E-excuse me!” A young lady’s shoulder roughly collides with another. He’s rushing past, head downcasted, face covered by his black hoodie, and he doesn’t even spare a single glance or give an apology. She huffs out in annoyance, left to pick up her belongings off the ground.   You immediately stand from your seat, scowling at the stranger whose backside is disappearing, and you lean down, helping the woman. “Some people can be so rude.”   “Tell me about it.” In the grand restaurant, the noisy background of business conversations and meaningless chatter, the female laughs, easing the tension between her brows. The jewels of her necklace and the diamond on her finger sparkles in the chandelier’s shimmer. She glances up at you as you begin to shuffle her pens, paper, lipstick tubes and tissues back into her purse. “Thank you for your help.”   The both of you rise to your feet again and you give her designer handbag back. “No problem, Ms. Jeon.”   “Oh.” She’s surprised at how you directly address her, and she pushes a curl away from her face, batting her lashes once when she blinks. “I’m sorry. You are..?”   “I’m Seulgi, Kang Seulgi. I think my dad and your husband are business partners...or something like that. I dunno.” You give a sheepish smile, shrugging your shoulders slightly. “We met a while back.”   “R-right!” The pretty woman, no more than twenty-five, blushes from embarrassment, trying to recall the last dinner party. “I can’t believe I don’t remember. I must be getting old.”   “No, you’re not.” A giggle bubbles from your mouth and she smiles. “We all forget things sometimes, it’s okay. Actually, speaking of my dad, he’s coming with my mom in like five minutes. We’re having a family dinner today. They’re treating me since I’m turning fourteen on the weekend!”   “That’s so sweet,” she coos, her heart melting at the thought. “Congratulations, for turning fourteen, sweetheart.”   “Thank you.” Your arms are behind your back and you’re standing on the tips of your toes, rocking back on your heels every once in a while. Your pink dress is a bit wrinkled, the bows on it scrunched but it adds to your soft charm. “Do you actually mind if you sit here for a moment? They should be arriving soon but I don’t think they know where I’m sitting. I’d just go grab them.”   “Oh, of course. I have a date with my husband tonight, but he isn’t here right now.” The young woman scans the premise and then offers another smile. She takes a seat at the round table and gestures towards you. “Go ahead.”   “Thank you so much.” You dip your head in appreciation, ready to turn on your heel. “I’ll be right back.”   The strides of your steps are calm and constant. There’s no last glimpse taken as you weave through the tables and chairs of affluent people, marching straight out of the door.   It takes a mere five minutes. Five minutes before the waiter saunters to the table and slaps down a long piece of paper. “This is your bill, ma'am.”   “Bill?” The young newlywed immediately frowns. It’s almost comical, the way she stares up in confusion at the server. “There must be a misunderstanding. This table hasn’t ordered yet.”   The man in the red vest isn’t impressed, his brows lifting, and he clears his throat once. “There isn’t a misunderstanding, ma’am. Three people sat here and ate an entire meal, and we just cleared off the table a moment ago. The bill still needs to be paid.”   “I have no idea what you’re talking about.” She becomes defensive, hugging her purse to her chest and sitting straight to counter him. “I’m not even supposed to be here. My reservation is over there. I’m just sitting here because—”   “If you can’t pay the bill, then I will have to grab the manager, ma’am,” the waiter interrupts in a clipped tone, adamant and impatient.   She is completely baffled, muttering incessantly about the regrets the entire restaurant will have when they realize their mistake and just how important she is. The woman opens her leather purse, nearly ripping off the zipper in irritation, and she fishes for her wallet. The search begins with fury before it morphs to bewilderment and then into desperation. She’s scrambling for her belongings, dumping out the items inside onto the white-clothed table and opens her mouth before closing it like a fish out of water. In the meanwhile, the waiter is tapping his foot, arms crossed, and unimpressed at the whole ordeal.   “I—...I don’t have my wallet!” She nearly screeches and several patrons turn around from the noise, meal disturbed by her loud volume. “I dropped all my stuff earlier and—...and—”   The blindness pulls back like a curtain, light piercing through her pupils and finally, she can see. Realization hits her like a bullet train, the woman finally becoming aware of her surroundings, but it happens too late. Now, not only is the waiter waiting for her, the owner of the establishment has also paraded on the scene and all the customers are staring from their peripheral vision.   People are blind—   That makes deception all too easy.   Survival of the fittest and every man for themselves. In the short years that you’ve been on this planet, if there’s anything that you learnt, it would be to protect yourself first and foremost. If you don’t take care of yourself, no one else will. But, maybe there are two exceptions to that rule.   “Y/N!”   There’s a shout of your name from the distance and you leap down the hill, making your way to the two boys standing by the empty railway tracks. One of them is blonde, ruffled bangs almost in their eyes, black hoodie hanging off his frame and the other is brunette, his crinkled eye-smile already welcoming you back.   “What the hell took you so long?” The former bemoans, lowering his shoulders and giving you an exasperated expression. “We were waiting for ages.”   “Shut up, alright?” You move to dig your hands into your pockets, used to the movement, but you forget the tight attire that you’re wearing. “God, all you do is complain. You’re so annoying.”   He stamps his foot childishly. “I do not just complain!”   “Yeah, you bumped into her, whoop-de-doo. Anyone can do that job, dumbass.” You roll your eyes before moving to scratch your arms. The frilly material was grating against your skin and the shivers of the cold wind weren’t helping. It was times like these you wondered why the damn sun didn’t do its job, even when it was so bright outside. “Ugh, this dress is so itchy. I hate pink! Where did you even get this thing?!”   The corner of his lips curl. “Where your mom left you — the dumpster!”   A muscle in your cheek twitches and you jump to tackle him down. “I’m going to kill you, Kim Taehyung!”   He giggles, a box shape plastered across his face and swelling into his cheeks. His legs tremble as they try to hold him upright, even when you’re on his back, pounding him with your little fists. “I’d like to see you try—!”   “Will you two stop fighting already?” The brunette boy forcibly peels you off and drags you back on your feet. He holds the two of you apart and frowns. “It’s giving me a headache. Taehyung, you’re not being funny. Stop it.”   “You’re always taking her side, Jimin!”   The shrill protest is ignored and he turns to you. “And Y/N, stop being so mean to Taehyung.”   You openly scoff. “He started it!”   “Y/N.” His brown irises meet yours, timbre dropping a pitch, attempting to sound stern and intimidating. It doesn’t really work. At least not with his squeaky voice and adorable appearance, chubby cheeks, cute eyes and the entire nine yards. Still, you know better than to make him angry and you quiet down. “We’re a team and you guys fight too much. How are we supposed to get anything done? It feels like I’m doing all the work here.”   Jimin lets out a dramatic sigh. “You’re both too immature.”   “Immature?!”   It’s an explosion of rage and shouts.   “Excuse me?!” You scoff again. “The only thing you do is look at the reservation list and find people's names. Okay, I’m the one doing all the work here in this little ‘team’.”   At the same time, Taehyung knocks his head back, staring up at the cerulean sky. “Wow, I can’t believe you’d say I’m immature. I know I daydream a lot and I do a lot of dumb things, but I’m not stupid, you know. All of this was my idea anyways, you guys are just helping.”   “Okay, okay! I get it.” Jimin sheepishly grins, holding up his hands for mercy. “See? You two can work well together...if you’re trying to gang up on me.”   “Psh.” The trio of you begin walking, following the train tracks like you so often do, letting it lead you to the next destination. Regardless of the endless bantering and the petty arguments, it’s times like these that you feel the most at peace.   It’s as if the entire universe only belongs to the three of you.   “We only work well together if you make us.”   Your eyes roll once more. “If it weren’t for you, Jimin, I probably would’ve already punched him in the face.”   While you may be barely scraping by, you’re happy. There’s no need to pay attention to the world outside when you’re stuck in your bubble, the little world that belongs to kids who are no longer kids but not adults yet either. And maybe in that sense, you are also blinded.   “Uh, you throw like a girl.”   His little smirk provokes you even more and you take a step forward. “You wanna say that again?”   Like the coward that he is, Taehyung hides behind Jimin, and the latter raises his arm before you can launch. “Enough, stop it. I get it, I get it.” Jimin, the official peace-maker, exhales when you both return by his side without scraping each other’s faces into bits. “Let’s talk about something more important. What did you get Taehyung?”   He hums, pulling out a wad of cash from his pocket and counting through the bills. “Two hundo.”   People in luxurious restaurants outright leave tips on the tables and it’s easy to snag, especially for Taehyung’s slippery hands. On the other hand, you carry a different set of talents, primarily in speaking and charming others, but that doesn’t mean you aren’t slick either.   “She got a bunch of cards we can’t use.” You pluck the shiny plastic rectangles out from the woman’s wallet and toss them behind your shoulder, examining every inch of the leather. “Oh, six hundred in cash. Not bad.”   “So, that’s nine hundred. We get three hundred each,” Jimin deducts and you begin dividing the cash up evenly. “That, plus the entire meal we ate.”   Taehyung smiles, pocketing his share of the money and kicking a rock with his worn sneakers. “Should last us the rest of the week.”   “Hmm, I’ll search for a different place.” You’re already beginning to plan for the next trip, trying to consider all the locations that you’ve been to before. Typically, Jimin’s the mastermind behind the plans, strategizing and making arrangements, but lately you’ve been helping him. With time, things are becoming more complicated. “We should...aim higher.”   Taehyung picks up a stick to hurl, throwing it far like he wants a non-existent dog to catch it, and then quirks his head over to you. “What do you mean?”   “I dunno.” You shrug. “I just...I don’t know how long this can last us. There’s only so much petty theft and scamming we can do and there’s only so many restaurants and people to steal from. Every other day, we’re doing this and I think we should...invest.”   Jimin stares at you. “Invest?”   “We should do something bigger.” The more you talk about it, the more excited you get and so does Taehyung. You open your arms wide to the horizon of the sky, letting the sun beam down on you even if it doesn’t provide much warmth on this chilly day. The possibilities seem endless and your blind confidence extends even more so. “Like one giant scheme and be done with it! We wouldn’t have to keep stealing little by little, and we’d be rich!”   “I like the sound of that.” Taehyung’s humongous grin is infectious, and he turns to his other partner in crime. “What do you think, Chim? One big scheme, and we’d be swimming in cash! We’d buy a mansion somewhere in the mountains or something! All three of us living it up for the rest of our lives!”   “Maybe. We would need to plan a lot though.” Jimin smiles and you both watch as the gears in his head begin turning. “And as usual, we would only take from criminals or the wealthy. Not the poor or innocent.”   “I think we can agree on that,” Taehyung says, and you nod along. It goes quiet for a moment, Jimin considering the prospects while you wonder about the future. Then suddenly, Taehyung stops in his tracks. “Oh my god.”   “What?”   “What’s wrong?”   The pair of you are immediately on alert. The boy’s jaw has dropped, his eyes squinted into the distance like he thought of the best idea that’ll land everyone into a whirlwind of success but—   “That cloud looks like a perfect square! Do you see that?! Look!”   He’s pointing to the sky and then takes off, running and shouting about how it’s even possible. You and Jimin exchange looks and mutually sigh. “Why is he such an idiot?”   “God knows.” The boy beside you laughs, a chirpy sound that rings pleasantly in your ear, and after a moment, he peels off his navy blue hoodie, draping the fabric over your head. “Put it on.”   “What?” His scent has completely enveloped you but you tug on it, holding it in your hands to stare at him. “What about you?”   “I’m okay.” He smiles, his black and white striped shirt oversized on his body and the sleeves almost reaching to the end of his fingertips. If he’s cold, he doesn’t show it. “I know you don’t like wearing dresses and you look like you’re freezing.”   “Thanks,” you grumble in a pout, putting the sweater on and glad that it does indeed shield you from the brisk breeze. “Hey, Jimin.”   “Hmm?” When you suddenly stop, leaving Taehyung wandering ahead by himself, Jimin halts as well. He turns to face you, concern written across his features. It’s not often that you call him so softly and quietly. “What’s the matter?”   You reach down and over, taking his soft hand and opening up his palm. “Take it.”   He looks down at the crumple of cash, your share, now in his possessions. You let go and Jimin lifts his chin, his eyes boring in yours, gazing deep into your irises. “But what about you?”   “I don’t need it. I know your mom needs it more and it’s not like I have parents. So…” You give a meager shrug, diverting your vision elsewhere, away from his intense eyes and you begin to walk again. “I’d rather put it to good use. Just take it.”   He catches up with your quick strides, the corner of his mouth upturned. “Thank you.”   “Uh-huh.” You try to evade the touchy-feely conversation that you sense is arising. “Yeah.”   “No, I mean it, Y/N.” But unlike so many times before, this time, Jimin doesn’t let you brush it off. He puts a firm hand on your shoulder, stopping you mid-step, and then he turns you, reaching over until your chin is hooked on his shoulder, and he’s hugging you. “Thank you.”   It’s a bit awkward — at least for you it is. His arms are wrapped around your back, and he’s holding you so close, in a way that you’re not used to. You’re standing stiff as a board, arms at your side, even leaning away, backwards, from his touch but Jimin doesn’t let you escape. Your cheek is squished against his and the brat is practically squashing you for dear life, utilizing the rare chance he has at embracing you.   His murmur tickles your ear, “I don’t know what I would do without you or Tae. Thank you for being with me.”   At this age, your heights match….well, you’re sure that you’re a bit taller than him (despite Jimin arguing otherwise) — though, you’re also certain one day he’ll outgrow you. He’ll be taller, stronger, more reliable. You’re looking forward for such a day to arrive.   “Uh-huh.” You begin to ease, relaxing and even welcoming his affection. Jimin and Taehyung were always clingy from the beginning, the former more towards you, but even after four years, it still catches you by surprise. “Are you gonna cry?”   “I don’t know. Maybe.”   You can practically hear Jimin smiling and your own lips begin to move against your will. “You’re gonna get your own hoodie wet.”   When Jimin realizes that you won’t peel him off just yet, he steals the opportunity and nuzzles into you, digging his face into your shoulder and breathing in your scent. “Don’t care.”   If you were completely honest with yourself, you don’t know what you would do without the pair of them either. Those two idiots are the biggest blessing of your life. “Taehyung’s gonna make fun of you.”   “I don’t care about that either.” It’s weird for him to be hugging you in the middle of nowhere, next to some train tracks and a grassy field that’s been trashed by litter. Moreover, the minute Taehyung snaps back to reality and wanders back, whining about how slow you two walk, only to realize that you’re hugging, his face will twist in disgust, and he’s gonna complain even louder.   ‘Ewwwww, what the hell are you guys doing?! Gross! Get outta here!’   But like Jimin, you find yourself not caring either. For once, you savour the comfort Jimin provides, raising your hands to pat him gently on his back, something you’re aware his mother does.   He hums for a moment and then finally pulls away, smiling at you so brightly that his face might break. “You know, you act really mean and hardcore sometimes, Y/N, but I know that’s all fake.”   “What?”   Jimin giggles and ruffles your hair, making a mess of your head and patting you like you’re his pet. You immediately scowl, slapping his hand away, but he isn’t deterred. “You’re really sweet and kind.”   With that simple statement, he begins to walk away and you’re left baffled, jaw slack and you barely manage to keep up. “Am not!”   “Are too!”   “You’re a dumbass, Jimin!”   The boy hums a small note and tips his head to the side, looking off at Taehyung’s backside, who’s now chasing a dragonfly zooming across the field. “Maybe for you I am.”   Blind. Perhaps being ignorant to the cruel reality, to suffering and pain, the bleak future that is dawning upon all of you, isn’t so bad. Being trapped in your little, happy universe is all you need. Being with Jimin and Taehyung is all you could’ve asked for.

[theolddarkmachine]

Four Years- Sophomore Year

Settling back into the careful composure of his well worn scowl, Keith lifts his glass in Shiro’s direction.

“I’ll stick with Shirogane, then, thanks,” he says brusquely as he raises the glass to his lips in an attempt to hide behind another swig of beer that he forgets isn’t there until he sees the flash of Shiro’s eyes as they meet his gaze through the emptied bottom of his glass.

Heat sparks in his chest, sending a flare racing up his neck and across the rise of his cheeks at the sound of Shiro’s husking laugh as, in a show of dominance, he tossed back the rest of his own drink.

“Looks like we’re ready for something stronger.”

Part 2 of 5

AO3

Warnings: None for now aside from underage drinking and ridiculous flirting, because this is a slowburn and that’s just how it goes. Will earn an E rating eventually. and by eventually i mean in the next chapter :3c

A/N: Originally I wanted to add lyrics at the start of each chapter from songs I felt encapsulated the feel for the chapter. But then I just couldn’t bring myself to add lyrics from Tupthumping and format them like poetry, but I tried to work that in another way instead. Enjoy.

********************

There were a great many thing things that Keith Kogane had learned by his second year of college. The first, is that being in a fraternity wasn’t actually that bad.

Not that he’d ever admit to Hunk that he was right.

Again.

But it had gotten him out of the hellhole known as dorm living and had even given him and Hunk a usable kitchen that didn’t carry the high risk of tetanus. It had even come with a fridge that was almost always stocked as long as Hunk promised an endless supply of his “Beta Famous Bear Claws.”

Really, everyone won in the end.

The second, is that he was disturbingly good at drinking games. So good, in fact, that he’d earned the title of The Anchor and had been the Beta’s not-so-secret weapon in every drinking competition that they found themselves in.

His only true match, was known as The Champion.

Or rather, Shiro.

Though, how the Alphas decided he should be called that was beyond him when he currently sat with one more win under his belt.

And the only reason Shiro had managed to pull his most recent win from him, was because he’d used his dimple against him.

Keith still maintains that it was an illegal play.

The third, is that fate is a dick.

A dick that had paraded itself into his life in the form of one Professor Slav. A dick that had forced them into a group essay together that totaled half of their overall semester grade.

A dick that had landed him in a slightly sticky booth across from Shiro with two drinks between them and not even the excuse of any games.

We should celebrate, Shiro had said as soon as they’d dropped their fluid mechanics essay off at Slav’s office.

Yeah, that’d be cool, Keith had said, as if the mere mention hadn’t sent his heart crashing into the roof of his mouth along with the acrid taste of bile. It’s an exaggerated reaction, he knows. One that isn’t really warranted given his otherwise calm and cool demeanor towards his classmate and frat rival.

Which brings Keith to the fourth, and final thing he’s learned. It was a revelation that he kept wrapped in all its bits of ominous cashmere, folded and tucked safely between the space of his third and fourth ribs where even he couldn’t touch it.

Because touching it was dangerous.

Acknowledging the softness that lined his insides would be sticking his hand within the garbage disposal of his emotions that would surely cut him to bits and leave him bleeding out on the floor.

Acknowledging it would mean admitting what he had known that exact moment he’d walked into that calculus class his freshman year.

That he’s completely gone for Shiro.

And not in the perfectly acceptable way that could have been rectified by a drunken night and bad decisions. In the a way that left his heart a pale imitation of Atlas holding up the weight of Shiro’s smile.

A smile that is burning a hole through his sternum as he watches the Alpha grab his beer and raise it in salute.

“To surviving Slav,” he says, sliding the words through his grin as he lowers his gaze to Keith’s pint before snapping it back up to his face. Deep within the silver there, he sees the fire of a challenge that stokes the flames within his own chest as he closes his fist around the cool glass and lifts it.

“And to being dumb enough to want to stay in aerospace engineering,” Keith replies before draining half of his beer if only for the excuse of looking away from the blinding glow of Shiro’s look.

“Who’d have thought that we would actually work well together,” Shiro hums thoughtfully as  Keith resurfaces, looking him over as he wipes a lazy line along the condensation thats gathered along his own glass.

“Did we?” He asks dumbly, eyeing what’s left and calculating if he could finish it off in one more go.

The answer? Yes, yes he could.

The real question is, should he?

“I think so,” Shiro says easily, his dimple working its way further into the corner of his mouth as he watches Keith, some secret enjoyment turning his gaze bright. If Keith didn’t know better, he’d think that Shiro knows exactly what he’s thinking.

The very thought paints his cheeks red as he scoffs and rolls his eyes to the ceiling.

“That makes one of us.”

Regret hits him almost immediately as something a lot like hurt turns Shiro’s gaze downcast, pushing an awkward silence along their booth that’s painfully pointed. If he were being honest, they really had worked well together, but that isn’t really the point, is it?

No matter how well they may have worked together, it didn’t change the fact that Shiro is off limits, painted with a big fat X.

Swallowing down his apology, Keith cuts his gaze to the other bar patrons, mentally cataloguing each face that turns their way. He’ll never hear the end of it if any of the Betas catch him sharing drinks with Public Enemy No. 1.

Sighing loudly, Keith slumps further into the booth, turning his attention back to Shiro only to be met by his unwavering stare.

It’s the kind of stare that carries confidence and nonchalance, as if Shiro doesn’t care who saw them there. Though, now that Keith thinks about it, he supposes that only makes sense.

Sal’s was, for all intents and purposes, sacred ground where all rivalries were checked at the door since it was the one bar in town that didn’t look too closely at IDs. As long as no one made things difficult, they could overlook the differences in the laminated photos. 

That very rule made it the kind of place where even the most vehement of enemies would be able to share a drink side-by-side.

Of course, it was also the kind of place where drunken students would input the same song in the jukebox to play for an hour straight. 

At first, it had been funny. Now, it feels like an ill omen.

The song, a drinking tune made popular thanks to the 90s, kicked in once more as it listed off an obscenely long list of drinks. Keith is pretty sure that if anyone drank all of those, they’d be knocked down and definitely wouldn’t be getting back up again.

Granted, staring down the barrel of Shiro’s gunmetal eyes, he thinks he might just give it a try.

“So tell me about yourself,” Shiro’s voice is a burning ember stoked within the crashing roar of the bar patrons around them as he leans forward, gaze filled with intent as he breaks the awkward silence of their booth. It makes Keith’s heart flip a perfect 10 from the judges within his chest as he opts to throw back the last of his beer if only to buy himself a bit more time.

The smooth IPA washed down his minor panic, leaving nothing but feigned confidence in its wake as he emerged from behind the emptied glass.

“I’m not sure what else you want to know, Shirogane,” he says just as smoothly, leveling him with a careful arch of his brow as he settling back into the booth as he raised a finger with each point he made.

“I’m a Beta, I clearly like the pain of this major, and I’m the one that kicks your ass every weekend in beer pong. What more do you want to know?”

Deep lines crinkle the edges of Shiro’s almond eyes as he pulls his forearm up to rest his chin on his open palm. It makes him look younger, almost wistful.

“Shiro,” he answers, tucking his grin behind a careful sip of his beer.

“What?” Keith’s voice is a flatline as loses his train of thought to the slow drag of Shiro’s tongue along the slick liquid that coated his top lip.

“My friends call me Shiro,” the Alpha bites out, turning his smile predatory as his eyes glow with the dumbly breathless nature of Keith’s voice. Friends, was not the right word at all.

Friends, held a connotation that he never wanted a part in.

Friends, was something he wouldn’t have even wanted to be even if they hadn’t landed themselves in rival fraternities that pitted them against each other every weekend.

What Keith wanted, was something a lot stronger. He wants late nights, secret smiles and names gasped into the darkness of night.

What he wants, are early mornings, soft sunlight with softer kisses and his eggs over easy.

That, however, is a secret that he would take with him right to his grave, because Keith was a lot of things, but he wasn’t a traitor. No matter how enticing Shiro’s crescent smile and starlit eyes are.

Settling back into the careful composure of his well worn scowl, Keith lifts his glass in Shiro’s direction.

“I’ll stick with Shirogane, then, thanks,” he says brusquely as he raises the glass to his lips in an attempt to hide behind another swig of beer that he forgets isn’t there until he sees the flash of Shiro’s eyes as they meet his gaze through the emptied bottom of his glass.

Heat sparks in his chest, sending a flare racing up his neck and across the rise of his cheeks at the sound of Shiro’s husking laugh as, in a show of dominance, he tossed back the rest of his own drink.

“Looks like we’re ready for something stronger.”

The words, accompanied with a wink, carry Shiro away as Keith opened his mouth around a silent protest just seconds too late. A dryness fills his throat as he watches his classmate push through the crowd, ignoring the lingering eyes as he passes until he reached the bar.

From here, Keith gets a front row seat to the snug fit of his jeans, and the way his navy henley pulls across his shoulders, the fabric set just this side of too tight in a way that would make him go weak in the knees if he was standing.

Good thing he wasn’t.

Even from behind, Keith can see the confidence that holds Shiro’s head high as he starts to speak with the bartender. He can imagine the easy smile that would work itself high in the full of his lips, drawing his cupid bow taut and deepening that damned dimple. Something dark curled itself low in his gut as he watched the bartender toss back his head with a laugh, the sound of it snatched away by the sound of Chumbawumba calling out for one Danny Boy. Light flashes off his glasses as he returns his gaze to Shiro, his own mouth split wide as he reaches beneath the bar.

Keith shaking his head as he watches, shaking the blackened thoughts from his head as he turns away, biting down on his lip until he tastes the sharp tang of blood. If he didn’t know better, he’d think the tart taste on the back of his tongue was jealousy.

Good thing he did.

A tray of shots materializes in front of him, their contents sloshing over their sides as they’re dropped unceremoniously with a clatter on the table before him, causing him to jump as Shiro pushes himself back into his side of the booth.

“Are you up for a game?” Shiro asks, the silver of his eyes muted with a dark challenge as he licks across a sharpened canine. It’s a feral move that cracks that pesky space between Keith’s ribs wide with the brambles of sticky, sharp desire. It buries itself deep into his bones, forcing the gaps further and further apart until he isn’t sure he’d be able to keep breathing.

Crossing his arms over his chest in an attempt to hold it together, Keith tilts his chin high in defiance.

“I’m always up for kicking your ass, Shirogane,” he growls, pushing the words through his gritted teeth. A storm cloud rumbles across Shiro’s face as a hungry shadow turned it hard in a fleeting moment that makes Keith’s heart race. 

The air thickens between them, catching with the same static that fills the air before a tempest as they hold each others gazes over the tray of sharp smelling alcohol.

It would be something of a perfect moment if only Keith could hear something other than that damned song starting over yet again.

“What’re the rules?” He breathes, shattering the moment as Shiro shakes his head briefly, his gaze returning to their teasing shine as he reaches for the glasses between them.

“Simple,” he says with a shrug as he divvies up the shots until there are an equal amount on either side of the table. Six a piece.

Keith’s stomach turns.  

“I ask a question, if you don’t want to answer, you drink. You ask a question, if I don’t want to answer, I drink.”

It’s said easily, as if it the statement isn’t filled with all the makings of a trap. Shiro was handing Keith the opportunity to make this last as long— or as short— as possible. All he needs to do, is leave all his questions unanswered.

Six shots weren’t that many in the grand scheme of things, after all.

Keith’s certain he’s done more than that before.

Granted, that night had ended in a promise that he’d never drink again.

But hey. He never said he was perfect.

“Easy enough,” he agrees against the better judgement that screamed at him in the form of a strangely Hunk shaped angel on his shoulder. Smiling all teeth, he grabs one of the shot glasses and gathers it between his palms.

He takes a vodka drink, indeed.

“I’m glad we can agree.” A small shiver dances it way down the grooves of his spine as he watched Shiro’s hand fold around his own. “And in a show of good faith, I’ll let you go first.”

Violet catches steel as they eye each other. Lightning gathers along Keith’s skin as he hums lowly in faux thought as he thumbs the lip of his shot glass.

“Why aerospace engineering?” He asks finally, reveling in the way Shiro’s eyes widen at the tameness of the question. It’s a throwaway question meant to test the waters of Shiro’s intent, and Keith is sure he’s found it in the moments of silence that pass before he pulls himself back together to offer a low chuckle as he let’s his head hang with it.

“Would you believe me if I said I just love space?” Shiro asks, open and honest before him, coloring his tone a shimmery shade with a hidden plea to leave it at that. It flushes his system with curiosity as he let’s his eyes openly roam over the Alpha as if he could pull the truth from within his mind before shrugging noncommittally.

“Don’t see why I wouldn’t.” And though he tries to play it off coolly, Keith realizes that he means it. Through the weekly competitions and their short time as essay partners, Shiro had never given him any reason to question his sincerity. It was most of the reason why his heart always seemed to batter itself against the inside of his chest whenever he was near.

Shiro’s fingers rolled the shot glass back and forth within his grasp before he spoke.

“What about you?”

Keith’s reaction is instinctual as his hand twitches around the slick glass. He knows that he should throw it down for the sake of being one shot down and a bit closer to freedom. That would be the smart thing to do.

But there’s a heat pooling in his stomach and licking the inside of his veins and he wants. He wants so badly, that he’s sure he’s going to burn with it.

More importantly, he’s sure he’d enjoy it.

“I want to be free.” The words leave his lips before he can pick them apart. They carry a weight that hangs between them as Shiro nods in understanding that stokes the flames charring his insides.

“There’s something about the idea of making it up there that sounds like the best kind of escape.”

Pausing, he drags his gaze up from the clear liquid in his glass, filling his smile with wickedness  as he winks.

“And I just love space.” It earns him a bright laugh that dances over him as Shiro raises his shot toward him.

“Touché.”

“Why’d you choose the Alphas?” Keith throws out quickly once his laughter has died down, pulling his brow up in question as Shiro swallows down his shot without pause. There’s a sharp click of glass against wood as he drops it on the corner of their table with a hiss.

“Well color me intrigued,” he says with a laugh as Shiro grabs his next victim, shrugging a shoulder as he keeps his eyes down.

“I’d tell you if we were friends but apparently we aren’t.” His smile goes sharp, filled with the same bite as a wolf. It only grows more pointed as his voice dips into nonchalance.

“Which, why don’t you want to be?”

Air seizes in Keith’s throat as panic stings his edges, leaving him buzzing as he tries to swallow it down. Suddenly, the shot warming against his palm feels like bullet as he realizes taking it would only prove he had something to hide.

Though, from the way Shiro’s grin widens, he’s sure he already knows.

“You’re an Alpha,” he tries, ignoring the way his voice sounds strangled even to his own ears. Keith doesn’t even want to imagine what it sounds like to Shiro’s. 

Like the confession he was hoping to avoid, maybe?

The very thought fills his throat with the bitter sting of bile.

Tsking softly, Shiro raises a finger at him and wags it slowly as he falls into mock disapproval, shaking his head in time with each hardened sound.

“That, sounds like a lie, and a lie is two shots,” he says mercilessly as he uses that same shaming finger to push another one of Keith’s shots toward him. It stares up at him, it’s clear stare reveling that of Shiro’s silver as he cuts his glance between the two before he sighs.

At the very least, Shiro is letting it go, and he’ll play by the rules if it meant being able to hide the truth beneath the acrid taste of vodka.

The first shot burns the entire way down.

“Making up rules as we go, are you?” Keith hums, not putting much force behind it as he grabs the second.

It chases the first’s flames with a kamikaze crash.

“Guess you’ll never know.” Shiro’s laugh is kindling to the fire that the vodka has already set, and Keith can feel it snapping and popping as it grows at his core. Mixed with the pleasant buzz of his first beer, there’s a happy kind of tingle that’s making his fingertips feels like lightning clouds as he palms his third shot. It bubbles up within him until he finds himself laughing as well.

He can feel the weight of Shiro’s gaze on him, but he doesn’t care, because in that moment he can pretend that maybe this is something more than two classmates celebrating the end of a partnership neither of them had even asked for.

“Who’s the guy you’re always with?” The next question comes after his laughter has dried up, and it causes him pause as he tilts his head, pulling his brows together in question.

There’s only one person that Shiro could mean, and that’s—

“Hunk?” He asks, though he supposes Shiro wouldn’t actually know. That would make the question moot, though he figures it should be anyway.

Shiro doesn’t have much of a reason to care who his friends are.

“He’s my best friend.”

Silver cuts into him, carving deep grooves into his skin as if he was trying to decide if Keith’s answer is a lie. It tickles his insides and turns his cheeks a light pink as the alcohol makes him warm beneath the stare. Suddenly, Keith wonders if maybe he does have a reason, because something about that look feels exciting.

Feels like maybe Shiro understands the way his fingers are screaming out to touch.

The corner of his mouth twitches up around a smirk as he leans forward on his forearms.

“Why, are you jealous?” He breathes. Shiro holds his gaze as he snatches up his next shot, throwing it back and baring his throat before dropping it in his shot glass graveyard.

A thrill runs through Keith that makes the edges of his vision light as he mirrors his stance and pushes himself forward against the table.

“Do you want me to be?” Shiro returns, barely hiding his smile as Keith opens his throat around another mouthful of vodka. It’s accompanied by the sound of his triumphant laughter mixed with the sweet, dulcet sounds of Tubthumping.

“Why do you want to be my friend so badly?” Keith volleys before the glass hits the wood, not even bothering to drop it by the empties.

The game had gotten interesting, and there was no point in pretense anymore.

Shining steel flicks downward as Shiro considers his words, mulling them over between the teeth he’s running over his bottom lip. And then he’s looking up and painting Keith’s vision a metallic shade as all else falls away. It leaves him feeling light, as if he’s about to float away, and now he remembers why he promised to never do shots again.

“I tried to tell you last year, you’re my type.”

He says it like a summer breeze. As if it were easy. As if it was right. As if it doesn’t set Keith ablaze and fill his lungs with smoke as he shakes his head.

“Lie, take two,” he manages as he tries to smoothly push one of Shiro’s shots toward him. Vodka spills over the side and slicks the table beneath it as he ignores it, instead smearing it along the table top as he pushes the glass further. Everything goes loud around them as Keith finds himself sinking beneath Shiro’s starlight gaze as he searches for something that only he could know.

“My turn,” Shiro’s voice is pitched low as he drops his stare to Keith’s mouth. In a brief moment of clarity, he notices the way it’s gone almost black.

“Kiss me?”

Everything stops and speeds up all at once as Keith finds himself floundering, crushed beneath the question. He should pull away.

He should laugh it off and take his shot.

He should bite back the gasp that has parted his lips.

But this is a game of what he should do, and what he does, and what Keith does, is none of the above.

Instead, he finds himself moving forward, his body propelled by the heat of Absolut and desire until he feels the unyielding pressure of Shiro’s mouth against his. It gathers the glowing heat of a star in his ribcage as they move against each other. Licking into his mouth, Keith steals the moan from Shiro’s tongue as he curls his fingers into the fabric of his shirt to hold him steady.

The new star incinerates his bone and his skin before building him back up and he’s certain he can see new universes glowing against the backs of his eyelids.

It’s too little and all to much as the room starts to burn around him, leaving a single point of clarity in the form of a heated palm against his nape.

That very palm, is the last thing Keith remembers as everything falls away into darkness, leaving nothing but the echo of that god forsaken song in its wake.

You’re never gonna keep me down.

***

Pain slices through Keith’s temple as he’s awakened by the sudden violence of his alarm going off. Eyes flying open as he pushes his way up from his bed, he grabs for the trash just to the side of his bed, managing to get it into his lap before his stomach empties its contents into the bottom of its cheap plastic.

This was it, the big one. The one where he promises to never drink again, and actually means it.

Why was he even taking shots to begin with?

Moments pass as his mind races to catch up with with his pulse that’s racing in his ears before it crashes down around him. Snippets of memory play before his eyes in dark fragments, set to a soundtrack of Chumbawumba.

There had been a strong arm wrapped around his waist that helped him stumble from the bar.

A deep laugh at some bad joke Keith had told.

A steady hand that had pressed into his chest and pushed him into his bed before pulling the covers up to his chin.

There had been the soft brush of lips against his cheek.

Keith’s breath quickens as he presses his fingertips to the crest of his cheek as if to chase the phantom sensation that burns there. Shiro had brought him home.

Shiro had tucked him into bed.

Blanching at the thought, Keith threw his legs over the edge of his bed, ignoring the tug of his blankets as they fall to the floor.

Something bright catches his vision as his eyes are pulled toward a glass on his nightstand. And beside it, two white capsules and a note.

With one hand clutching the trash can to his chest, Keith reaches for the pills, letting his fingers drag over the top of squared letters that sit beneath them. Each blue ink mark is another scar against his ribs as he reads the words.

Take this, and learn how to hold your liquor :)

He’s definitely never drinking again.

Groaning loudly, and wincing at the flare of pain it causes in his temple, Keith tosses the pills into his mouth, ignoring the water as he swallows them down dry to chase after his heart that was still rapidly beating in his throat.

********************

[yukheii]

kiss, bite, foreplay

notes: title is a reference to the song haunted by beyoncé, which inspired this piece

warnings: nsfw; jungkook’s drabble has hints of light bdsm and polyamory so if you’re not comfortable with that i suggest skipping his

disclaimer: blanket disclaimers

KIM SEOKJIN ◦ [cr.]

“Ah—Jin, stop, I’m gonna fall!” you screech through laughter as Jin finally seizes tickling your sides.

Any other time he’d pay your orders no mind and continue on tickling you to his heart’s content, but he supposed that maybe the shower wasn’t the best place to do this.

Jin laughs at your tight grip on his shoulders, “If you did fall, holding on to me would only bring me down with you, you know.”

You growl and slap his chest, but are quick to lay your head there right after. You let the warm water cascade along your bodies before finally replying, “If I’m going down, you’re going down with me.”

You hear Jin’s laugh reverberate in his chest. You’re too cute for you own good, he thinks. “Stop laughing at me,” you mumble.

“What are you gonna do? Bite me?” he quips.

His words bring back flashes of your night together; bits and pieces of images of Jin’s soft lips trailing along your body replay in your mind. You remember the way he used those same words against you just a few hours ago.

But this isn’t last night; you’re not tied up to the bed and if wanted to, you could bite back.

You look up, your chin poking into his chest as your angle your head upwards. You squint your eyes as your boyfriend continues to both chuckle and coo at you. You huff, deciding that’s exactly what you’ll do.

You nip at his skin, just under his collarbone, “Maybe.”

MIN YOONGI ◦ [cr.]

“Funny,” you scoff, “I’ve never seen you have this much energy in the morning before.”

Yoongi hums into your neck and bites you—punishment for your snarky words—before carefully licking the wound. His left leg brushes against yours under the sheets, and you feel his boner as his body moves into yours.

The hand previously sprawled along your stomach reaches up to cup your face, turning it the opposite direction from where his mouth was on your neck, allowing him more planes of your bare skin to nip at.

“We’ve never had morning sex before,” he finally mumbles, taking your earlobe between his lips for a spilt second.

You inhale sharply, before trying to let your breath even out. “And you decide the morning I’m supposed to meet up with Youngjae is the best fucking time?”

Yoongi brings his hands to your chest. He flicks his thumb across your nipple over the thin cotton of your shirt. You can feel his wicked smile on your skin as he buries himself in your collar bone, “I like to be spontaneous.”

You roll your eyes just as Yoongi props himself on his knees, semi-straddling your half-naked body. He admires the dark circles beginning to form along your neck.

“You’re a sadist.”

“I’m an artist,” he chuckles, bringing your wrist up to his mouth and sucking just hard enough to leave a bruise to match the left side of your neck.

“Have fun with Youngjae, baby.”

JUNG HOSEOK ◦ [cr.]

You’re not quite sure how but less than halfway into your movie night you’d ended up in Hoseok’s lap with his mouth hot on your neck, but you weren’t really complaining.

His hands reach under your shirt to pull you even closer to him as his tongue works its way around the base of your neck.

“Fuck, Hoseok.”

Okay, maybe you were complaining.

“Ah, ah, ah,” he tuts, scraping his teeth along your skin, “You have to be quiet, doll. The boys are sleeping.”

His voice is gravelly and low and commanding and so so hot you moan in submission. But with the end of his sentence, his teeth retract and his endless teasing kisses return. He doesn’t suck hard enough on your neck, doesn’t grind deep enough into your hips, doesn’t give you what you want.

“Fucking hell, Hoseok, do something, please,” your whine pathetically.

He pinches your waist when you try to roll your hips. You hear Hoseok scowl into your skin before he’s biting into your collarbone, sure enough to leave a deep bruise. You roll your eyes back, his warm tongue finally relieving some kind of wanting on your body.

But when you moan out again, he’s quick to take a hand off your hip and coil it around your throat.

“I thought I told you to be fucking quiet.”

You don’t respond verbally, only nod, and it has him chuckling in the most sinister way. He presses his thumb a little deeper into your neck. He likes watching you choke at his hand, “So now you want to listen to me? Think you can just listen when you feel like it?”

He clicks his tongue, shaking his head and slowly drags his thumb along your bottom lip. He suddenly pulls your face forward, so that your right hear is directly in front of his mouth. He licks the shell of your earlobe, tugs with his teeth and laughs, “That’s not how my rules work, baby.”

KIM NAMJOON ◦ [cr.]

Namjoon’s quote on quote soft side is not one he shows publicly very frequently. That’s not to say your boyfriend parades around openly proclaiming his dominatrix fantasies—because he, really, doesn’t—but he’s not one for aegyo every waking moment of the day.

But he is cute. Really cute, if you do say so your self. And his cute habits are your favorite. Like the way he sits at the kitchen counter on a morning like this, very slowly cracking open eggs, so careful as not to break them.

He’s adorable.

“Namjoonie, what are you concentrating so hard on?” you question, coming behind him, wrapping your arms around his neck to make sure you don’t startle him.

“I, ah, um,” he blushes, “I was going to make breakfast, but I gotta, ah, you know, crack the eggs first.”

You giggle, letting your chin rest in the crook of his neck, before kissing his cheek, “You’re so fucking cute.”

“Ah, stop,” he says, flustered as you nuzzle your head further into his neck, “I’m not cute.”

“Yes you are,” you retort quickly. You place an open-mouthed kiss where his neck meets his collar. “You’re so. Fucking. Cute,” you reiterate, kissing him in between words. 

You don’t have to look up at him to know he’s a blushing mess, but just the thought of it makes you smile into him.

“Baby, don’t, if you leave a mark the boys will see,” he whines at the soft sucking on his neck, but tilts his head anyway.

“Would that be a problem?” you ask, dragging your nails along his sensitive neck, “Maybe I want the boys to know just how much I love my baby.”

PARK JIMIN ◦ [cr.]

“I’m going to fucking murder you,” you swear, scowl in place as you look down at Jimin.

He has the audacity to fucking giggle and scrape his nails down your sides. What a piece of shit.

“That’s no way to talk to someone who’s about to eat you out, is it?” Jimin muses with that stupid fucking smirk on his pretty lips.

“I’d be talking a whole lot less if you just got to it already,” you growl, feeling Jimin’s breath ghost over your core—again.

Jimin makes note of your words with an audible hum, but also makes it his point not to take them into account. He nuzzles his nose over your panty-clad cunt, dragging his lips along the inside of your thigh. As slowly as he can, he beings to litter kisses along your thighs, enjoying the way to beg for him to do more.

He makes it all the way down to your ankle on your left leg, and then retraces the trail of marks he’s made back up to your hips.

“Chim,” you moan when he bites the meaty part of your thighs, tongue jutting out to cool the burn right after.

He reaches out to pin your thrashing arms on either side of you.

“Look at me,” he orders. He smiles lopsidedly at the eye-contact, surprised by your obedience, before licking a broad stripe over your underwear.

“Such a good girl,” he hums. The vibrations go to your stimulus starved clit, and you’re on the verge of tears. But then Jimin is sliding your panties to the side, “Good girls get their pussy eaten.”

KIM TAEHYUNG ◦ [cr.]

“Tae, stop, no more,” you groan, attempting to push his body off of you—or at least get his face away from your neck.

The two of you had been on vacation for about a week now and Taehyung has refused to leave your side. More specifically, his lips seemed to be permanently attached to your neck, and his dick inside of you, for the entire duration of this trip.

And that was fine, because truth be told, you couldn’t stay away from Taehyung either. But the both of you had to return to work on Monday, which means you were left with only three days to hope and pray that all your hickies would start to fade.

“Taehyung, come on,” you drag out, sighing deeply as he sucks oh so gently at the weak spot right below your ear.

“You’re full-naming me now?” he responds lazily, no real intentions of holding a conversation.

“You—ah—you can’t leave anymore.”

“You don’t sound too convincing.”

“Taehyung.”

“Alright, alright,” he gives in, but you can feel, practically hear, the grin on his face, “I won’t leave anymore.”

You exhale, thinking you’ve finally got through to him, but you’re proven wrong when you feel him kissing at the dip in your collar. You groan, your skin still sensitive from the same spot he’d spent torturing last night.

“Tae, you just—”

“You said I couldn’t leave anymore,” he says, looking up at you through his eyelashes, “You didn’t say I couldn’t go over what I’ve already done.”

JEON JUNGKOOK ◦ [cr.]

“You look so pretty like this,” you praise, taking in the cream chiffon bows tied around his wrists and the way his adam’s apple bobs behind his black choker. “Such a pretty boy.”

Jungkook whimpers when you drag your nails down his chest, catching one of his nipples. He feels lightheaded—between your words and the restrains and the lips kissing deep into the dip of his hips, Jungkook feels like he could pass out.

“Doesn’t he look good, Hoseokie?” you reach out to bring your hand to the back of the older boy’s head as he continues to leave kisses along Jungkook’s hips.

“Yeah,” Hoseok he stops to look at Jungkook’s eyes and the lust swirling in them, “Really good.”

“You’re twitching so bad already, Jungkookie,” you point out. Hoseok lays his hand flat on his stomach, pushing him back into the mattress, “Hobi and I have barely touched you yet.”

“Want you,” he mewls, “Please, touch me.”

“But you look so good like this, Kookie,” Hoseok moves his kiss tease from his hips to jaw, “What if we don’t, huh? Gonna cum untouched for us?”

Jungkook moans from the pressure on his cock when you straddle him. You sprawl your hands over his pecks as Hoseok continues to trail wet, sloppy kisses wherever he pleases.

And when you rock your his hips forward, he does. He whines and groans and arches his back up into as much as he can, sensitive everywhere he can think of between you and Hoseok. Because of you and Hoseok. You two watch on with half-parted lips as Jungkook comes down from his high; watch as his chest heaves and his ears go pink and his eyes double in size.

You reach over him, stroking his flushed cheek, “Such a pretty, pretty boy.”

[finally-isaac]

Pathetic Fallacy

Read on ao3

Chapter One

Pathetic Fallacy is a funny thing.

Occasionally, the world will listen to the moods of its inhabitants. When a bunny dies, the skies will often cry. The birth of a butterfly is usually greeted with radiant sunshine.

But sometimes, the worst of times, nature can be cruel. The emotions of the day will juxtapose the world around it, spreading a false sense of feeling to those who are unaware of events taking place elsewhere.

The bright, beautiful sunshine of July 12th just so happened to be one of those cruel days.

The news would spread quickly, all of the castles courts knew, but it only seemed right to leave the young prince alone with the body of his newly dead mother - if only for a few moments.

The death of a Queen… She’d been ill for some time. At first, only small coughing fits would affect her days, but before long she fell victim to spasms and fits. When her legs succumbed to numbness she was advised to keep it hidden, but she had been adamant about her honesty to the people of her kingdom. She was aware of the weakness it showed, but she’d always seen the best in people - including the rulers of the surrounding countries, whom she considered friends. Even when she was officially bedridden, she ruled with a calm and kind hand.

To many, it was merely the death of a Queen. To many more, it was the death of a friend. To only one, though, it was the death of a mother.

Roman couldn’t fathom the brightness of the outside while he felt so dark within. Even with every curtain drawn, and every torch put out, the sunlight prevailed and pushed through every tiny crack it could find, as though to say, “Dear Roman, everything will be alright. Happiness will prevail,” just as his mother had said each time he had cried as a child. But how could it?

Knelt beside his mother's bed, clutching her feather-light sheets, Roman couldn’t help the moaning sobs that fell past his lips in endless waterfalls, drenching the sleeve of his mother's arm beneath him. He wasn’t sure how long he’d sat like this. Not long enough to have been pulled away, not yet, but long enough that his knees ached against the cold stone floor under him. His eyes burned, a never-ending river still running from the blue pools they held. His stomach rolled with nausea and his brain seemed to be pounding against his skull…

How could happiness prevail when the very embodiment of the word lay cold in her bed?

As time passed, Roman began to calm. His shaking slowed, and he became quieter with every passing moment. He wasn’t happy - far from it - but at some point, a person must run out of tears. For a prince, that moment was required to be fast.

He listened attentively to the room around him, choking back the remaining whimpers in his raw throat. He could hear the near-silent mumbling of the staff near the doors, the awkward side-steps of the guard behind him. They were all waiting for their next orders.

Roman took a slow, deep breath through his nose. He could still smell her in this close proximity, but the life behind her flowery scent was gone… As though a forest fire had snuffed out every bloom.

It was time.

The prince stood, blinking away the last of his tears. There was no time to mourn. The time had finally come to take action, and he knew that now the orders must come from him. He would plan the funeral, large and befit of the beautiful life it would celebrate, but soon after there would be a coronation.

With a final look at her beautiful, peaceful, sleeping face… He knew.

It was time for Roman to become King.

***

“Thomas! Get down from there, silly!”

“Never!” the boy yelled from his perch in the large oak tree. His brown hair danced across his forehead, nearly touching his bold brown eyes.

Grinning up at him, his father noted that the boy desperately needed a haircut. “Thomas, we’ll be late! C’mon, please?”

“Fine,” he sang, recklessly jumping down one branch at a time.

Laughing, Patton added, “Don’t rip your trousers! Those are your good pair, son.”

“I know, Papa!”

Patton landed on his feet with a heavy thump, not a scratch in sight. He grinned up at his dad proudly, showing off the gap in the front of his otherwise toothy smile. Though Patton couldn’t afford to give Thomas his well-deserved coin for the missing fang, the boy didn’t seem any less happy than any other day. Patton felt grateful to have such a mature, understanding nine-year-old as a son.

“Ready to go?” Patton asked.

With a hum of confirmation from the boy, the two set off. The walk to the castle wasn’t long, but they were planning to stop at the blacksmiths' shop along the way. Afterall, Mr.Thatch had promised to buy Thomas a balloon on the way to the parade!

Thomas stopped many times along the dirt path, picking white carnations and hydrangeas for the flower crown he was creating along their way.

“Papa?” he asked once he was done, “Would you like a crown as well?”

Patton smiled brightly as his beautiful little boy. How cute Thomas looked, flowers sat askew across his tiny head. How could he turn down this wonderful child? “Of course, my starlight.”

Again, Thomas flashed his papa a grin. “Mr.Drake has been teaching me much about flowers, Papa!”

“Has he?” Patton smiled, listening attentively to his son. “Do tell.”

Thomas ran off to the side of the path once more. When he returned his hands were filled with flowers. His smile never faltered as he explained, “Chrysanthemums indicate a long life, and Hyacinth’s symbolize playfulness. These orchids represent exotic beauty, and roses are symbols of love!” With each flower he listed, he added them to the crown. The array of plants looked odd altogether, Patton had to admit, but the thought behind them made his smile glow as he leaned down to let Thomas place it on his head.

“Now we both have crowns, Papa!” Thomas exclaimed.

Nodding, Patton added, “Yes, and soon, so will Prince Roman.”

“King Roman!” Thomas shouted, fist thrown in the air with a gleeful laugh.

“Yes,” Patton chuckled, patting Thomas’ hair gently. “King Roman indeed. It is quite the shame the Queen has passed… But Prince Roman will be a fine leader, don’t you agree?”

Thomas nodded, jumping ahead of his father to walk backwards as they spoke. “Of course! He’s beat dragons and armies, nothing can stop him!” A mock battle took place as Thomas mimed a sword and shield, swiping at the air and jumping away from invisible danger. “He’s very nice too! Remember, Papa? Mr.Thatch says that Prince Roman is very nice!”

Patton nodded once more. “I remember,” he promised, chuckling at Thomas’ antic. “Careful, starlight. Watch where you’re headed.”

“Yes, Papa!”

***

Logan Thatch didn’t consider himself an aggressive man. In fact, he thought himself quite fair and logical. Every day he would sit through listening to his customer's demands, however annoying and ridiculous they may be, and he would work hard each night to try to finish the projects requested of him. If a mistake was made of his own fault, he offered discounts and partial refunds, and if his customers simply didn’t like their product he was always willing to redo their piece for an equal price.

He was always smart with his money, saving for needed equipment and food, as well as a little extra should he need it. His math skills weren’t the best, but the knowledge he had was enough to get by. Once a month he would splurge just enough to take a math or literacy class in order to further educate himself. His reading was greatly improving every day!

But still, Logan was smart enough to know that money was tight. Afterall, he wasn’t the most popular blacksmith in the small town - by far, he wasn’t the best. His customers came to him for cheaper prices, not higher quality.

So when Lyle Drake arrived at Logan’s shop, on the morning of the coronation no less, to inform the blacksmith of the rising price of rent, Logan was infuriated.

“Fifty coins?! Mr.Drake, you must know that fifty coins is an absurd amount?” In his outrage, he found himself getting nearer and nearer the other man, but Mr.Drake seemed entirely unaffected by Logan’s outburst. “Twenty was already more than I could afford, and now you ask fifty of me? Every month? That’s just illogical, and frankly, it isn’t going to happen. It can’t. I’ll barely be able to afford bread!”

Lyle Drake chuckled, finally taking a step back from Logan, who had gotten close enough to see the golden shine of Lyle’s eyes. Both men were tall, but Lyle’s six feet won out by just a few inches. He was slim, with think black hair beneath his silk top hat. Half of his face was covered in green skin and scales, the result of venomous snake bite as a child, and his clothes reflected his abundance of wealth. After All, the Queens tax collector and royal advisor was paid rather well.

“Mr.Thatch, or rather, Logan, the kingdom has reached dire times my friend! The Queen's funeral, and now Prince Roman’s coronation… Very expensive events indeed. Everyone is required to chip in.” He paused, grinning in response to the snarl he received from the blacksmith, before continuing, “Besides, his royal highness has been advised to collect money to build a proper shrine for his beloved mother, God bless her soul.”

“I wonder who advised that, Mr.Drake?”

“I haven’t the faintest what you’re implying, Logan.” The two faced man turned on his heel and began to walk away. Only seconds later he called over his shoulder, “I’ll be by in a week to collect your rent, Mr.Thatch.”

Logan wanted to scream. He wanted to punch that slimy man and wipe that stupid grin off his annoying face. He wanted to-

“Mr.Thatch!”

His murderous thoughts were interrupted by a pair of arms flung around his waist, squeezing in a friendly manner. It took him a moment to realize it was Thomas, a young boy who occasionally helped him around the shop in exchange for a loaf of bread.

“Mr.Thatch,” the young boy continued, releasing the man from his hug before looking up with a grin. “Look what Papa and I made for you!”

Logan smiled, gazing down at Thomas and the boys' outstretched hands. A flower crown made of aster, gladiolus, and lilac… “How beautiful. Thank you, Thomas.” Logan gently picked up the braided plants and placed them on his head. Normally such ridiculousness would annoy him, however, he found he could never say no to Thomas. The young boy was such a bundle of joy and delightful energy. And Thomas’ father… Well, Logan’s smile brightened more as he watched Patton descend down the path towards the blacksmiths' shop.

The father's face seemed to be flushed pink as he greeted Logan, and the blacksmiths face mimicked the shy greeting without fail as Thomas ran around them with loud exclamations of his excitement.

After all, it was coronation day.

[dfroza]

(Clarity)

is an act of grace in the cleansing of the heart (inside, Anew)

and we see this truth in words written down and the significance of conserving such in Today’s reading of chapter 3 from the Letter of Romans as shared by Paul:

So what difference does it make who’s a Jew and who isn’t, who has been trained in God’s ways and who hasn’t? As it turns out, it makes a lot of difference—but not the difference so many have assumed.

First, there’s the matter of being put in charge of writing down and caring for God’s revelation, these Holy Scriptures. So, what if, in the course of doing that, some of those Jews abandoned their post? God didn’t abandon them. Do you think their faithlessness cancels out his faithfulness? Not on your life! Depend on it: God keeps his word even when the whole world is lying through its teeth. Scripture says the same:

Your words stand fast and true;

Rejection doesn’t faze you.

But if our wrongdoing only underlines and confirms God’s rightdoing, shouldn’t we be commended for helping out? Since our bad words don’t even make a dent in his good words, isn’t it wrong of God to back us to the wall and hold us to our word? These questions come up. The answer to such questions is no, a most emphatic No! How else would things ever get straightened out if God didn’t do the straightening?

It’s simply perverse to say, “If my lies serve to show off God’s truth all the more gloriously, why blame me? I’m doing God a favor.” Some people are actually trying to put such words in our mouths, claiming that we go around saying, “The more evil we do, the more good God does, so let’s just do it!” That’s pure slander, as I’m sure you’ll agree.

[We’re All in the Same Sinking Boat]

So where does that put us? Do we Jews get a better break than the others? Not really. Basically, all of us, whether insiders or outsiders, start out in identical conditions, which is to say that we all start out as sinners. Scripture leaves no doubt about it:

There’s nobody living right, not even one,

nobody who knows the score, nobody alert for God.

They’ve all taken the wrong turn;

they’ve all wandered down blind alleys.

No one’s living right;

I can’t find a single one.

Their throats are gaping graves,

their tongues slick as mudslides.

Every word they speak is tinged with poison.

They open their mouths and pollute the air.

They race for the honor of sinner-of-the-year,

litter the land with heartbreak and ruin,

Don’t know the first thing about living with others.

They never give God the time of day.

This makes it clear, doesn’t it, that whatever is written in these Scriptures is not what God says about others but to us to whom these Scriptures were addressed in the first place! And it’s clear enough, isn’t it, that we’re sinners, every one of us, in the same sinking boat with everybody else? Our involvement with God’s revelation doesn’t put us right with God. What it does is force us to face our complicity in everyone else’s sin.

[God Has Set Things Right]

But in our time something new has been added. What Moses and the prophets witnessed to all those years has happened. The God-setting-things-right that we read about has become Jesus-setting-things-right for us. And not only for us, but for everyone who believes in him. For there is no difference between us and them in this. Since we’ve compiled this long and sorry record as sinners (both us and them) and proved that we are utterly incapable of living the glorious lives God wills for us, God did it for us. Out of sheer generosity he put us in right standing with himself. A pure gift. He got us out of the mess we’re in and restored us to where he always wanted us to be. And he did it by means of Jesus Christ.

God sacrificed Jesus on the altar of the world to clear that world of sin. Having faith in him sets us in the clear. God decided on this course of action in full view of the public—to set the world in the clear with himself through the sacrifice of Jesus, finally taking care of the sins he had so patiently endured. This is not only clear, but it’s now—this is current history! God sets things right. He also makes it possible for us to live in his rightness.

So where does that leave our proud Jewish insider claims and counterclaims? Canceled? Yes, canceled. What we’ve learned is this: God does not respond to what we do; we respond to what God does. We’ve finally figured it out. Our lives get in step with God and all others by letting him set the pace, not by proudly or anxiously trying to run the parade.

And where does that leave our proud Jewish claim of having a corner on God? Also canceled. God is the God of outsider non-Jews as well as insider Jews. How could it be otherwise since there is only one God? God sets right all who welcome his action and enter into it, both those who follow our religious system and those who have never heard of our religion.

But by shifting our focus from what we do to what God does, don’t we cancel out all our careful keeping of the rules and ways God commanded? Not at all. What happens, in fact, is that by putting that entire way of life in its proper place, we confirm it.

The Letter of Romans, Chapter 3 (The Message)

and paired with this is the closing chapter of Malachi (as well as the closing chapter of the Old Testament) which means that all is fully rewound tomorrow to begin again with the first chapter of the book of Genesis

the 4th chapter of Malachi:

[The Sun of Righteousness Will Dawn]

“Count on it: The day is coming, raging like a forest fire. All the arrogant people who do evil things will be burned up like stove wood, burned to a crisp, nothing left but scorched earth and ash— a black day. But for you, sunrise! The sun of righteousness will dawn on those who honor my name, healing radiating from its wings. You will be bursting with energy, like colts frisky and frolicking. And you’ll tromp on the wicked. They’ll be nothing but ashes under your feet on that Day.” God-of-the-Angel-Armies says so.

“Remember and keep the revelation I gave through my servant Moses, the revelation I commanded at Horeb for all Israel, all the rules and procedures for right living.

“But also look ahead: I’m sending Elijah the prophet to clear the way for the Big Day of God—the decisive Judgment Day! He will convince parents to look after their children and children to look up to their parents. If they refuse, I’ll come and put the land under a curse.”

The Book of Malachi, Chapter 4 (The Message)

to be concluded with wisdom from Today’s chapter of the book of Proverbs for the 27th of january, here & now in 2020:

Never brag about the plans you have for tomorrow,

for you don’t have a clue what tomorrow may bring to you.

Let someone else honor you for your accomplishments,

for self-praise is never appropriate.

It’s easier to carry a heavy boulder and a ton of sand

than to be provoked by a fool and have to carry that burden!

The rage and anger of others can be overwhelming,

but it’s nothing compared to jealousy’s fire.

It’s better to be corrected openly

if it stems from hidden love.

You can trust a friend who wounds you with his honesty,

but your enemy’s pretended flattery comes from insincerity.

When your soul is full, you turn down even the sweetest honey.

But when your soul is starving,

every bitter thing becomes sweet.

Like a bird that has fallen from its nest

is the one who is dislodged from his home.

Sweet friendships refresh the soul and awaken our hearts with joy,

for good friends are like the anointing oil

that yields the fragrant incense of God’s presence.

So never give up on a friend or abandon a friend of your father—

for in the day of your brokenness

you won’t have to run to a relative for help.

A friend nearby is better than a relative far away.

My son, when you walk in wisdom,

my heart is filled with gladness,

for the way you live is proof

that I’ve not taught you in vain.

A wise, shrewd person discerns the danger ahead

and prepares himself,

but the naïve simpleton never looks ahead

and suffers the consequences.

Cosign for one you barely know and you will pay a great price!

Anyone stupid enough to guarantee the loan of another

deserves to have his property seized in payment.

Do you think you’re blessing your neighbors

when you sing at the top of your lungs early in the morning?

Don’t be fooled—

they’ll curse you for doing it!

An endless drip, drip, drip, from a leaky faucet

and the words of a cranky, nagging wife have the same effect.

Can you stop the north wind from blowing

or grasp a handful of oil?

That’s easier than to stop her from complaining.

It takes a grinding wheel to sharpen a blade,

and so one person sharpens the character of another.

Tend an orchard and you’ll have fruit to eat.

Serve the Master’s interests

and you’ll receive honor that’s sweet.

Just as no two faces are exactly alike,

so every heart is different.

Death and destruction are never filled,

and the desires of men’s hearts are insatiable.

Fire is the way to test the purity of silver and gold,

but the character of a man is tested

by giving him a measure of fame.

You can beat a fool half to death

and still never beat the foolishness out of him.

A shepherd should pay close attention to the faces of his flock

and hold close to his heart the condition of those he cares for.

A man’s strength, power, and riches will one day fade away;

not even nations endure forever.

Take care of your responsibilities

and be diligent in your business

and you will have more than enough—

an abundance of food, clothing, and plenty for your household.

The Book of Proverbs, Chapter 27 (The Passion Translation)

my personal reading of the Scriptures for january 27 of 2020 (Psalm 27 and Proverbs 27), along with Psalm 38 for the 38th day of Winter, and the paired chapters of the Testaments with Romans 3 and Malachi 4

and along with Today’s reading is a set of posts shared by John Parsons about the current reading of the Torah by Jews around the world:

Shavuah Tov, chaverim. Last week’s Torah portion (Va’era) reported how Pharaoh refused to listen to Moses’ pleas for Israel’s freedom, despite seven devastating plagues that came upon Egypt in God’s Name (יהוה). In this week’s portion (Bo), the battle between God and Pharaoh comes to a dramatic conclusion. The last three of the ten plagues are unleashed upon Egypt: a swarm of locusts devoured all the crops and greenery; a palpable darkness enveloped the land for three days and nights; and all the firstborn of Egypt were killed at the stroke of midnight of the 15th of the month of Nisan...

Before the final plague, God instructed the Jewish people to establish a new calendar based on the sighting of the new moon of spring. On the tenth day of that month, God told the people to acquire a “Passover offering” to Him, namely an unblemished lamb (or goat), one for each household. On the 14th of that month (“between the evenings”) the animal would be slaughtered and its blood sprinkled on the doorposts and lintel of every Israelite home, so that God would “pass over” these dwellings when He came to kill the Egyptian firstborn that night. The roasted meat of the offering was to be eaten that night with unleavened bread (matzah) and bitter herbs (maror). God then commanded the Israelites to observe a seven-day “festival of matzah” to commemorate the Exodus for all subsequent generations.

Just before the last plague was delivered, however, God instructed the Israelites to ask their Egyptian neighbors for gold, silver and jewelry, thereby plundering Egypt of its wealth. The death of the firstborn at last broke Pharaoh’s resistance and he finally allowed the Israelites to depart. Because they left in great haste there was no time for their dough to rise. The Torah states that there were 600,000 adult men who left Egypt, along with the women, children, and a “mixed multitude” of other Egyptian slaves who tagged along.

The Israelites were commanded to consecrate all the firstborn to God and to commemorate the anniversary of the Exodus each year by celebrating the LORD’s Passover in conjunction with the Feast of Unleavened Bread. During this time they were to remove all leaven from their homes for seven days, eat matzah, and retell the story of their redemption to their children. The portion ends with the commandment to wear tefillin (phylacteries) on the arm and head as a reminder of how the LORD saved the Israelites from their bondage in Egypt. [Hebrew for Christians]

1.26.20 • Facebook

The calendar of ancient Egypt, like our present Gregorian calendar, followed the course of the sun. The sun symbolized the power of the Egyptian sun god Ra (Re) who was also considered the creator and giver of life in some Egyptian myths. As far back as 2700 BC, Ra was regarded as the great god of heaven, King of all the gods, and lord of the resurrected dead. The daily rising sun was a symbol of creation (or the “eye” of Ra), and the shape of the pyramid is thought represent the descending rays of the sun. The Pharaoh, like the sun, was sometimes called the “son of Ra” and said to oversee everything upon the earth (note: the name “Ramses” can mean “Ra bore him,” though it is more likely that Amenhotep II [a name based on the merging of the gods Amun and Ra] was the Pharoah of the Exodus). Interestingly, the Hebrew word for evil or bad is ra’ (רַע), and the ayin ha-ra, or “evil eye,” might derive from this association. From a “macro” perspective, the call of Abraham out of Mesopotamia (Shinar-Babylonia) can be thought of as the beginning of God’s judgment of the religion/mythology of ancient Egypt...

The very first word of Torah indicates the awareness of the significance of time - בְּרֵאשִׁית - "in the beginning..." (Gen. 1:1), and according to Jewish tradition, the very first commandment given to the children of Israel (as a whole) was that of Rosh Chodesh (ראש חודש), or the declaration of the start (or head) of the "new month," particularly with regard to the first month of their redemption (Exod. 12:2). In other words, Passover month was to begin Israel’s year (i.e., Rosh Chodashim). Note that the word for month (i.e., chodesh) comes from the root chadash (חָדָש), meaning "new," and therefore the Passover redemption (chodesh yeshuah) was intended to mark a "new beginning" for the Jewish people. And indeed, God marks the start of our personal redemption as the beginning of our life as a new creation (2 Cor. 5:17), just as Yeshua is the "first of the firstfruits" of God's redeemed humanity (1 Cor. 15:45-49). [Hebrew for Christians]

For more on this subject, see “Parashat Bo: The Significance of the Moon" using the link below:

The moon's regular repetition of cycles suggests both change and renewal, wonder and mystery. The Hebrew word for month (chodesh) is related to the word for new (chadash) as it the word for renewal (chidush). God wanted Israel to look to the moon as their timepiece. Just as the moon wanes and disappears at the end of each month, but returns and waxes again to fullness, so we suffer until the return of our beloved Mashiach Yeshua, who will restore the glory of God fully upon the earth.

1.27.20 • Facebook

[jaydcstories]

THE RETREAT Chapter 7

After dinner, Charles and his nephew retired to the Smoking Room, another extravagantly decorated area with rococo mouldings, decadent wall paintings and one gigantic chandelier shedding a dim light over the deeply padded, whiskey and tobacco stained sofas.  This was the place for some serious post-prandial networking and the opportunity for Charles to introduce Paul to some influential business colleagues. Needless to say Paul was already something of a sensation after the fun and games they’d had with his rented slave and he was quite the centre of attention.

But the Smoking Room was no place for a slave, so Andy had to stand outside in the hallway with his collar chained to the wall. It was a long wait. One or two guests stopped to amuse themselves by stroking his cock and playing with his nipples, but it soon fell quiet and he was left alone with his thoughts.

The heat of his arousal had cooled now and without anyone looking on he was able to touch himself, smooth his cock and massage his balls, which ached so much from all that rough handling. But there was no hardness there now, and no desire to bring it back. Just a dull memory of the unfulfilled orgasm that he’d held at bay for so long and that now lay quietly coiled up like a sleeping snake in the pit of his belly.

Apart from the murmur of voices coming from the Smoking Room, the house was silent. He’d watched some of the guests go upstairs, presumably to their private rooms, and one or two had gone through the little door under the stairs that led down to the cellar. He wondered if any boys were still down there and where the rest of them had ended up. He’d not seen any sign of them.

As the time dragged on and he fought against the hunger that was nagging at his guts (the scraps he’d been fed at Paul’s table had only made him more desperate for some proper food) he began to realise he was standing there completely unattended. What was stopping him trying to make a run for it? After all his collar was only a light one and couldn't be that difficult to work loose. It was a tight squeeze but he could just get his fingers underneath the leather and he could feel some kind of catch or pin at the back. If he fiddled with it long enough, or maybe gave the chain a hard tug... He imagined creeping down the hall and finding an escape route out of this crazy house through some unlocked window or side door. He’d have to be quick and make straight for the trees—then he realised he had no idea what was out there or where he could possibly run to—and the absurdity of it all brought him crashing back down to earth.

It wouldn’t be so bad if he wasn’t so lost and abandoned. There was no one to care for him here. No one he could turn to for comfort or reassurance. There had always been someone before, an older slave, a friendly Master—or Carl.  But here he was nothing but an object of amusement for anyone who wanted to hurt or humiliate him.

He closed his eyes, leant against the wall and tried not to think of anything at all.

Meanwhile, in the Smoking Room, Paul was finding his feet. The atmosphere was heavy with booze and smoke and the endless conversations about money and business seemed to drone on forever, but his uncle’s friends had taken a genuine interest in him, and they showered him with advice about careers and investment opportunities. He soon had enough contacts for a whole year’s worth of job interviews and his future was looking a lot more positive.

“They treat me as one of their own,” he thought. “Which of course I am. I’m no different to them. I could have everything they’ve got. All it takes is a steady mind, a little common sense. It’s like Uncle is always telling me. You’ve only got to believe in yourself.”

Reaching inside his jacket, he felt the hard edge of the leather strap and thought about the boy outside. There was proof, if he needed any, of who he was. His uncle’s gift had done its work. Nothing could have surpassed the satisfaction he’d felt when he’d made that slave boy's hide tremble and burn. He felt sorry for the boy of course, but a slave is a slave and it would be far crueller to treat him as anything else. Anyway the boy wouldn't expect to be treated any other way. A slave needs a Master and Paul was proud to accept the burden of that responsibility. It was a measure of his birthright as a “son of the Reich”. In fact he was beginning to think it was his duty to make as much use of the slave as possible, otherwise there would be little purpose in keeping the boy alive at all.

He waited for an opportunity to slip quietly out of the room to reconnect with his prize and found the boy leaning against the wall with his eyes shut, as still as a statue.

Paul watched him for a while. There was something very appealing about that stillness—his lean body, all the weight on one foot, hands nestled behind his back, balls neatly bunched against his thighs, his head drooping slightly to one side.

“I wonder what’s on his mind. Perhaps  he’s pining for home. But slave’s don’t have homes, do they? They belong wherever their Masters want them. Perhaps he’s dreaming of some other life. He can’t have been a slave for very long. He’s too unsure of himself. Perhaps that’s why he looks so sad. A little scared and naive—but with the body of an athlete. I wonder how much he’d cost to buy outright.”

“Time to take him upstairs, I think.���  

Paul’s thoughts were interrupted by Charles, who had followed him out into the hallway.

The interruption also woke up Andy. His mind had been drifting so much that when he opened his eyes he couldn’t remember where he was for a second or two or how he’d got there. And when Paul released him and led him over to the staircase, his legs and back were so stiff that he wondered how long he’d been left standing there. He was more tired than ever now—and hungry—and confused.

Paul really wanted to be left alone with the boy, but his uncle insisted on accompanying them upstairs. Their rooms were adjacent with a connecting door, so it was difficult not to involve him, and anyway Paul knew his uncle was only trying to make sure that everything was alright.

In fact, Paul was feeling so horny now that he made the boy climb the stairs ahead of him so that he could enjoy the sight and touch of those smooth symmetrical buttocks. The boy’s physique was every bit as satisfying from this angle—broad muscular shoulders, tapering waist, meaty shanks and strong thighs. By the time they reached his room, there was only one thing left on Paul’s mind—and for that to happen he needed his uncle not to be there.

The room was spacious and much like any other hotel bedroom, with all the usual amenities, except that the bed, though nominally a single divan, was more than usually wide, and there were one or two extra items of furniture whose purpose was not immediately obvious. Also, one half of the room was dominated by a full length mirror, facing which were two wooden pillars about three feet apart, with metal hooks and hinges attached at various intervals. This whole area had its own lighting system controlled from a small panel by the bed.

Charles drew Paul’s attention to a chest of drawers which contained, courtesy of the establishment, an assortment of leather bonds, straps, ropes and chains as well as a few mysterious objects that puzzled and intrigued Paul.

Before taking his leave, Charles searched amongst these items for a set of straps which he fitted to Andy’s wrists and ankles.

“If you’re thinking of fucking him, which I’m sure you are, try hooking him up by the wrists between the pillars, I usually find that works pretty well.”

Grateful though he was for his uncle’s advice, Paul was getting a little impatient.  He wished the man would just go and leave him alone with the boy.

“I’ll be fine thanks,” he said, gently guiding Charles over to the door that connected their adjoining rooms. “I’ll see you later.”

“Oh, and  there's one other thing.”

Charles pushed past Paul and headed back to the chest of drawers.

“Here we are...”

He held up a black leather gag which had attached to it a solid rubber dildo moulded in the shape of a large erect penis.

“House rules,” he said. “Mustn't let the boy disturb the other guests. It’s surprising how one can get carried away. Howling and screaming is alright outside in the cages, but here in the house it’s rather frowned upon. So boy, come here and kneel down.”

Andy, who had been quietly trying to take all this in, didn’t think things could get much worse. For a while he had dared to fantasise about being left alone with Master Paul, who despite all the rough handling and humiliation, had at least shown a little sensitivity and warmth. Perhaps, if he behaved himself and gave himself up completely to Paul, then, he thought, his sexual inexperience wouldn’t be a disappointment. Paul would show him what to do and teach him how a good slave should give satisfaction. But the sight of the wooden pillars and the mirror and the ankle and wrist straps and Charles’s sly insinuations, had turned that fantasy into a nightmare. They were simply going to torture him and rape him—although technically he knew that a slave couldn’t be raped because he had no choice and is only there to be used anyway.

This was much worse than being paraded around the dining hall. He was caged in, isolated, at the mercy of two unpredictable tormentors.

Sheepishly he crept over to Charles and knelt down. The heavy black dildo looked far too big to go into his mouth and it took several slaps to get him to open up wide enough. But in it went, pushing down on his tongue and reaching back as far as his throat with its sick rubbery taste. He gagged and almost choked and tried, stupidly, to shake it free and got another slap. The harness was pressed hard against his lips, forcing his teeth to clamp down on the base of the dildo. The strap was pulled tight and buckled behind has head and that was it. They pulled him on to his feet and attached his wrists to the pillars. He stared at his reflection in the mirror and felt so much pity for himself that he began to cry—and to the satisfaction of both Masters, the gag proved very successful in stifling his sobs.

“I shall now leave you in peace while I take a shower and change into something a little more comfortable,” said Charles at last. “I’ll pop back in an hour or so and see how you’re getting on.”

THE RETREAT by John Dee Cooper

READ THIS AND OTHER STORIES ON JDC’S MALE SLAVERY FANTASY BLOG : deepen46.blogspot

[josephkitchen0]

The K.I.S.S. Approach to How to Make Compost

By Mark Staneart – I imagine I first heard the word “compost” about 40 years ago. Around the same time, I first encountered the word “organic.” Since then, the concepts represented by those words have become hopelessly complex and even ambiguous as more people search for answers to how to make compost. As “organic” gardening steadily grew in popularity, the word inevitably was adopted by corporate advertisers, and its meaning was diluted. Government regulation soon followed to complete the destruction of what once was a simple idea and a common, useful word.

“Compost” still has a definition on which most of us can agree, but it’s anything but simple. Over the years, I’ve seen scores of articles providing basic instruction, personal experiences, abstract theories and advanced, scholarly, annotated tutorials on how to make compost. Apparently, people ponder and worry endlessly about the exact temperature, moisture content and chemical composition of their rotting piles. Just as with nutrition, the literature on the topic has accumulated until the indecisive are doomed to remain so. Every imaginable theory and formula, and an endless parade of dubious and even preposterous assertions about the decomposition of matter are available for the curious and the gullible to consider. Just to get on with the business of growing the garden and eating well, therefore, I’ve resolved to rely on instinct over scholarship, and my first instinct is to keep it simple.

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What could be simpler than compost? I want it to turn my garden soil into a better growing medium by providing texture and nutrition. I cultivate a variety of plants for food and decoration, big and small, annual and perennial, deciduous and evergreen, cooked and raw, roots and fruits, leaves and stems, flowers and seeds. Perennials come and go occasionally, annuals more frequently. If I were obsessively scientific, I could custom make a little compost for the specific needs of each plant, but in my varied but simple garden, one size must fit all.

Content

I keep livestock and chickens, so composting chicken manure and used bedding is always available and forms the bulk of my compost. I eschew science in its application, although I’m vaguely aware of the nitrogen content in various types of manure. I apply fresh manure to the compost whenever the impulse strikes me and whenever I clean the chicken house. A compost pile is a lot like a stomach; whatever you put in at the top looks remarkably similar when it comes out at the bottom. You just can’t go wrong with manure.

With the exception of a few things which have been conceived in laboratories, everything decomposes, but some things take a little longer. Metals and plastics, for example, are of no use because, unless they are ground as fine as flour, they provide neither texture nor nutrition, and they are unlikely to decompose in my lifetime. Of course, I studiously avoid anything I suspect is poisonous, and my domestic critters get first right of refusal on anything I suspect is nutritious. I can compost it after it passes through the animal. Beyond those simple rules, almost anything goes.

The advice against composting meat and dairy products is rampant to the point of religious fervor, especially among vegetarians. The only simple and reasonable explanation for this advice is that some unwelcome wild animals—black bears, coyotes, raccoons, and rodents, for example—may be attracted. I’m not especially concerned because my pile is inside the fence and because I suspect these omnivores are just as likely to be curious about a vegetarian pile. I don’t create concentrated masses of rotting meat, but I’m not concerned if some leftover flesh finds its way into the pile from time to time.

  Paper products are virtually void of nutrition, but I don’t take any particular care to separate them. At worst, they are neutral, they may provide desirable texture and most of them decompose quickly with even a small amount of moisture. Other fibrous material, such as stems and stalks, decompose slowly and are difficult to move with a shovel or a pitchfork unless they are chipped, so I keep a separate, long-term pile for things like pruned vines and fruit tree branches, large garden plants like corn and sunflowers, etc. I cut them down to lengths of about three feet, and whenever I sweep up the sawdust in my woodshop or empty the ashes from the wood stove, I dump them into that pile to hold moisture and, thus, speed up decomposition. Yes, I hear the advice against sawdust and ashes — something about acidity and pH balance — but after a couple of years, when the bottom layers of my long-term pile start looking like dirt ready to be added to the garden beds, it doesn’t seem to matter.

On those rare occasions when I use a chipper, and I don’t want to leave the product where it lays, I can use it to mulch walkways rather than put it directly in the compost or the garden beds.

Moisture

Sure. Gotta have it, but you don’t have to measure it. If your pile dries out sometimes or never gets enough water, the organisms which cause the pile to decompose won’t thrive, and you’ll have to wait longer for a pile of garbage and manure to become a pile of fertile dirt. If you are impatient and a bit compulsive, you’ll want to carefully measure and control the moisture in your pile, but if you have better things to worry about, you still can have a fertile garden, sooner or later.

My compost piles are near my garden beds and adjacent to a small patch of lawn. They get moisture during the dry season whenever I put the sprinkler on the grass. When I’m watering potted plants, I turn the hose on the compost piles if they look dry.

Covering

I never do it, not because I don’t believe in it; I’m just too lazy to remove a cover and put it back every time I feed the pile. If you’re up to it, a dark plastic cover will hold the moisture and raise the temperature, resulting in faster decomposition. A cover also is essential if you’re intent on controlling the moisture content and preventing the rain and snow from washing the nutrients into the soil beneath the pile. For me, the nutrients which leach off are just the cost of doing business. I still get high-quality compost for my garden beds. If you have the space to rotate the location of your piles, you’ll find a superior place for a new garden bed where your compost used to be. The same is true for your poultry run.

Turning

All the known literature about composting insists on the necessity of turning the pile. Disturbing the pile once in a while distributes the heat and moisture more evenly, and aerates the pile, generally mixing the various materials more thoroughly, resulting in a consistent blend. When you move a well-turned pile to the garden, every shovel full looks the same. Turning, like covering and other steps in controlling moisture content, also promotes faster decomposition. In fact, a more tedious, scientific approach to compost usually is at least as much about impatience as it is about nutrients.

Esthetic considerations also lead to the scientific compost pile. My uncovered, unturned pile of random ingredients isn’t pretty, and around the edges, it doesn’t decompose as quickly as the steamy core. When I move it to the garden beds, I still can identify some egg shells, citrus peels, and avocado pits, but my garden doesn’t mind. The corn grows just as tall, the tomatoes just as firm and sweet, and I cover it with mulch anyway.

Material that is not fully decomposed is likely to contain active, unwanted seeds leading to the dreaded task of weeding the garden. A properly moistened, well-heated, well-turned, evenly decomposed compost pile will sterilize all the seeds it contains, but no matter how pristine our compost and no matter how thoroughly we mulch, weeds still grow and we still pull them out. Or not. I’ve harvested a lot of food from plants that have volunteered, but whether I pull them out or let them grow, I just can’t distinguish the volunteers out of the compost from the airborne and bird-borne varieties.

A good-quality compost will provide nutrition to your garden and greatly improve your soil.

Testing

Serious composters like to test their finished product to help them decide what goes into future piles. Some even use store-bought nutrients to achieve the desired balance. I might do the same if I were in the business of packaging and selling compost, but all I’m doing is growing vegetables. If any or all of the vegetables I plant fail to thrive, I will test my soil and, if necessary, add the store-bought stuff directly to the garden. I wouldn’t think of testing the raw manure, so I don’t test the compost either. If I’m going to worry about the precise balance of nutrients, the garden beds are where I’ll focus my attention. As long as my garden is producing what I’m expecting for my table, I have no need to know what it will produce in a test tube.

Containers and Compost Bin Design

Just an improvement on a plastic cover, a tumbler is appealing because it makes the turning so much easier, and it panders to our impatience by turning things like manure, grass, straw and well-chopped table scraps into rich loam in as little as a couple of weeks. But it takes many tumblers to equal the quantity which can be produced in piles on the ground. You can buy or build a simple and cheap composter with convenient doors and lids. Some even have bells and whistles like thermostats, automatic waterers, and mechanical cultivators, but if your goal is just to grow some vegetables, the cost is out of proportion to the results. I make three-sided enclosures from salvaged pallets fastened together with zip ties. They last at least three years.

Odor

I’ve never been moved to put anything in my piles for odor control, but if the neighbors a quarter-mile away are offended, and the bears are converging from miles around, your pile must be fermenting without decomposing, and you need to be a little more scientific. On the other hand, it is garbage and manure. If your olfactory sensibilities can’t tolerate a modest acquaintance with these fragrances, organic gardening may not be the hobby for you.

The simple, basic truth about learning how to make compost is that the best fertilizer is free. You don’t need to be a scientist or a tireless laborer to get it. Without studying too often, worrying too much, or working too hard, I make fine compost, grow successful gardens, and I never send any organic material to the landfill. From the first time I stuck a shovel into the ground, those have been the simple goals. Good luck learning how to make compost and remember to K.I.S.S.

Originally published in Countryside May / June 2009 and regularly vetted for accuracy.

The K.I.S.S. Approach to How to Make Compost was originally posted by All About Chickens