#meanwhile here its like throwing a dart in the dark

[fortfried]

I have this friend who is able to remain hinged at all times. Like no matter what tragedy or life disappointments come to him, he'll be sure to clearly, succinctly and humorously explain what's going wrong atm. On insta stories! Now me? I'm gonna crash out on tumblr as a quick purge of negative emotions.

[lovebugism]

hi! i saw you were looking for some eddie requests for your summer fic fest and i have a wee lightbulb

friends to lovers pool day with eddie where a) he’s never seen the reader in a swimsuit before and his head is short circuiting and b) rhey apply each other’s sunscreen and they’re all blushy and UGH

thank you for the request angel :D — you and eddie have trouble pretending you aren't in love with each other while at a beach day with the gang (friends to lovers, grumpy!eddie, grumpy!reader-ish | 1.6k)

bug's summer fic fest (⁠ꈍ⁠ᴗ⁠ꈍ⁠)

The white sand is warm and heavy on Eddie’s feet. He buries them beneath the soft granules until his ankles are covered — until the fine grains, now heated by the merciless summer sun, start to burn his pale, delicate skin. It hurts less than how much he misses you, anyway. 

Ten minutes gone, and it feels like an entire lifetime has passed without you. Eddie’s left grieving about it, like a gloomy stormcloud beneath a very blue sky. His soft features are screwed into a very boyish pout that will likely stain his face the rest of the day. Or until you coddle him, whichever comes first.

“Jesus— Did you guys get lost on the way to the room or somethin’?” Steve Harrington chuckles from where he sits a few longue chairs down, dark eyes peeking over the tops of his darker sunglasses. 

Eddie’s head whips over his shoulder to follow his gaze. His heart swells into his throat at the sight of you.

You and Robin walk side by side, kicking up grains of white sand as you go, and looking like total opposites. The latter’s lean, freckled figure is adorned with a pair of jean shorts that go down to her knees and a plain black sports bra instead of a real bikini. 

Your sunkissed skin, meanwhile, clashes just perfectly with the pretty white two-piece you wear — patterned with an array of fruits and flowers. Peaches and oranges and strawberries. Daisies and hydrangeas and lavenders. The cups are a size too small for your breasts. The bottoms sit high up on your waist to display the expanse of your plush thighs.

Eddie forgets how to breathe.

“We got lost on the way to the gift shop, actually,” you quip when you’re in earshot again, squinting one eye to block the sun.

“Yeah,” Robin grouses. “’Cause you forgot to pack the sunscreen, Stevie.”

The boy’s scruffy face screws into a cartoonish look of offense. “You said you were bringing it!” he argues, gesturing to you with a wild hand.

“No— I said I was bringing everything else and that your one job was to remember the sunscreen.”

Steve settles back into his seat then — likely with the acknowledgment that he had, in fact,  forgotten the only thing he was supposed to do. “Oh…” he grimaces sheepishly. “Sorry…”

“It’s okay,” you sigh.

“You owe me seven dollars, though,” Robin monotones, then turns suddenly away. Her chopped locks swish around her shoulders as she squints at the water. “Here, Nance! Catch!” she shouts. The rest of you flinch at the volume of her voice.

The brunette girl looks over her shoulder from where she wades in the water with Jonathan (who’s still getting over his fear of open water, it seems, as he grips onto the girl’s hand for dear life.) Her sharp features pinch in a distant look of confusion. “What?!” she shouts back, tucking a rogue curl behind her ear when it billows in her face.

Robin opts to throw her the bottle of sunscreen, even though her eyesight’s almost as bad as her hand-eye coordination. The thing lands several feet away from its intended recipient — momentarily succumbed to the tides until Jonathan retrieves it from underwater.

In the split second of following silence, you turn to look at Eddie, who’s been uncharacteristically silent since you walked up. His face is all screwed like he’s pouting as his chocolate gaze darts up and down your form. 

“What’s wrong with you?” you ask him, laughing.

His eyes make one more pass over your body — savoring the sight of your bare thighs and tummy and chest — ‘cause he’s never seen so much of you before. “Did you walk all the way to the gift shop like that?” he deadpans.

You bounce a sunkissed shoulder in a lazy shrug. “Yeah?”

“…You didn’t break any necks on the way back, did you?” he teases, peering at you beneath his long lashes in a playfully solemn look.

Your chest warms with something more sparkling than a burn from the sun. You roll your eyes and avert your gaze to the bottle of sunblock in your fist. “Shut up and turn around,” you grumble.

Eddie watches you squeeze a dollop of lotion onto your palm and protests, “I’ll put some on my tattoos, but that’s it.”

“Putting sunscreen just on your tattoos doesn’t count,” you monotone.

“I hate the feeling of it, though…” he complains.

“Don’t care,” you lilt with a sweet smile. “Now turn around.”

Eddie concedes with less arguing than you’d expect. 

He huffs and turns his back to you, pretending to be annoyed to cover up how giddy he truly is. He knows there’s something deeper in your badgering — people don’t get so concerned about something as silly as sunscreen for people they don’t give a shit about. The thought makes his heart beat a little faster.

You warm the lotion between your palms before spreading it over his shoulders. His pale skin, glowing softly red already, is spotted with sparse freckles you could count if you wanted to.

Eddie tenses under your touch. “It’s cold,” he whines.

“Stop being a baby and move your hair outta the way.”

He grumbles like a storm cloud and parts his curls over his shoulders for you. Your hands trace the expanse of his back in a softer touch than he thought anyone was capable of. His skin buzzes accordingly.

You slap him hard on the arm a second alter. “There. All done.”

“Your turn,” Eddie insists, perhaps a hair too quickly to be casual, as he rises from the creaking longue chair. He manhandles you in front of him with gentle hands. Your feet shuffle in the sand as you let him.

“Fine— But don’t be annoying about it,” you scold with a stern look over your shoulder, passing the plastic bottle behind you.

Eddie scoffs. “Never once crossed my mind,” he promises, very playfully sincere, as he squirts a heavy glob of sunblock onto his palm. 

The cream is cold and heavy as he presses into your skin. You grimace, “Eddie!”

“What?” he exclaims in a similar tone, then smiles wickedly to himself. “It’s just sunscreen— don’t be such a baby.”

“That’s gonna take forever to rub in. You know that, right?”

“More fun for me,” he shrugs.

“Perv.”

“Don’t act like you don’t like it.”

He pokes you hard in the shoulder. You flash him a glare. “Don’t be such a freak.”

Eddie laughs as he rubs the sunscreen into your skin — warm and sunkissed and supple under his guitar-string-calloused fingers. His thumbs dip at your lower back, and he has to remind himself to breathe. It’s hard to, though, with his heart in his throat and all. 

When the lotion’s sufficiently melted into your skin, he pats you twice on the waist. “There. See? Easy peasy,” he teases. “I’d put some on your legs, too, but I don’t wanna be too forward.”

You scoff and sit in the beach chair beside him, feet in the sand as you stay facing him. “I think I got it from here, Eds. Thanks, though.”

“Figured,” he sighs and settles into his own seat. 

He tilts his chin to his shoulder, squeezing one eye shut from the sun. He watches you smooth sunblock over your thighs and tries to find something to say in the meantime. He struggles to make the words out, though, so he ends up just staring at you for several long moments.

“That’s, uh— That is a real cute bathing suit, though,” he ends up stammering. “Just, you know, by the way.”

You smear lotion over your calf with careful hands and peer at him beneath your lashes. “I figured that from your ogling,” you tease with a knowing smirk.

Eddie squirms. “Well… What about me, huh? I don’t get a compliment?”

You sit up straight again, trying not to smile too wide. “Well, you look very cute today, Eddie Spaghetti,” you lilt in a mocking tone, ‘cause sincerity’s never been your strong suit.

“Just today?” he murmurs, flashing you a doe-eyed look of expectancy.

“Maybe a little extra today,” you squint.

Eddie huffs and looks away, crossing his bare arms over his chest. His boyish dramatics are obviously meant to make a point, but really, it just gives you a chance to ogle at his happy trail without him noticing.

“Well, I think you’re pretty all the time,” he pouts.

“Shut up,” you laugh, cheeks warming.

“I’m serious!” he insists, then grows playfully sheepish. “But obviously, you don’t feel the same way—”

“Eds.”

“—Obviously, I think you’re unconditionally perfect, and you think I’m only perfect with conditions. It’s fine.”

You blink at him for several long moments, glare unwavering. Eddie maintains his pout in spite. “You’re just fishing for a compliment now, aren’t you?” you deadpan.

Eddie thinks for a moment, then nods. “A little bit. Yeah,” he confesses.

You rise from your seat with a huff, shaking your head and rubbing excess sunblock between your palms. Your body looms beside him. He can smell the coconut-strawberry concoction on your sunkissed skin from here. The summer sun shines in rays behind your head like a halo. 

“You’re lucky you’re cute, Munson,” you sigh in a honeyed voice before bending at the waist to kiss his cheek. 

Your lips just barely brush his glowing skin. He’s left buzzing about it anyway when you walk away from him, hardly apologetic for the state you’ve left him in.

He tries to come up with some stupid rebuttal to shout at you, but nothing comes to mind quick enough. His brain is full of nothing but static. He’s got a frog in his throat, too. He couldn’t say anything if he tried.

So, instead, Eddie watches silently as you saunter towards the tide with his wild head tilted to his shoulder, admiring the pretty view. (He’s not talking about the water.)

[treviso-nights]

by blood & thread - crow!rook/lucanis oneshot (rookanis)

word count: 4.7k rating: M (tw: blood, gore) summary: lucanis stitches up crow!rook after a near-fatal battle. there's blood, tension, and a confession slipped out like an apology. somehow, it ends soft. (suuuper angsty. takes place directly after 'blood of arlathan')

:)

The sound of the Venatori’s dagger slicing through flesh was a whisper amidst the cacophony of their fleeing.

A child. They’d had to hold the eluvian open because an elven child, no more than ten, had fallen behind. It would’ve been all right if they’d made sure every defeated Venatori was actually dead, but in the haste of trying to usher several dozen Dalish elves through one of the forest’s magical mirrors, time had been scarce. No sooner did Rook escort the child through herself did a half-eviscerated Venatori soldier pick himself up and launch a throwing dagger into her belly. It hadn’t mattered though… only the rescued had mattered, along with how close they’d all come to being wiped out by Elgar’nan…

Rook’s grunt of pain went largely unnoticed—save for Lucanis and Bellara at her side—the former of which blanched in alarm.

“Go,” she forced out through gritted teeth, speaking to her companions and the child alike. “Get the Dalish somewhere safe! Find Neve and the others and take them all through the eluvians. Don’t stop until you can find someone to put them up for awhile.”

Bellara’s terrified expression belied her next thought. Her trembling hands were already glowing, preparing to cast magic as she took in the blade buried up to its plain, polished hilt. “Rook, no. Let me heal you now—”

The request was promptly interrupted by Crossroad guardians, their metallic bodies shimmering with fury as the large group of refugees darted down a walkway. Rook, Lucanis, and Bellaris took to dispatching them at once while the rescued Dalish elves looked on in dismay. Where Rook fought, blood splatter slicked the ground, viscous and bizarrely saturated in the gray of the Fade’s atmosphere.

“Bellara,” Rook nearly growled, jamming her shortsword into the spirit’s neck. Her next inhale was a gasp. “Get. Them. Out. Of. Here.”

Protest was written all over Bellara’s face, but she nodded, squaring her shoulders. “Lucanis, get Rook back to the Lighthouse. The Vi’Revas is about a mile away—it’s faster if you run.” Loose, damp strands of dark hair were plastered to her neck. “Please tell me you can still run, or I’m going to have to—”

“She can run,” Lucanis replied. After sheathing both daggers, he closed in, slinging one of Rook’s arms across his shoulder.

“GO!” Rook urged again. When she and the other elves were far enough away, a groan unwillingly left her as Lucanis held her body to him, supporting Rook’s weight.

“If the blade severed an artery, you won’t even have minutes,” he murmured, hobbling them down the main walkway. “I don’t think it did, though.” Glancing down to make sure, Lucanis quickly gauged the severity of the wound. “Based on the angle of the entry wound, we should have enough time to get you back and put some stitches in you before Bellara or Emmrich gets back.”

“Great,” Rook hissed. “I’m so looking forward to the tremendous lack of pain relief.”

The path beneath their feet slowly began warping, shifting from cobblestone to grass. A signal that they were already one-third of the way back, though the two Antaam soldiers barring the corner they had just turned around clearly begged to differ. 

“For fuck’s sake!” Rook cursed, lunging out from beneath Lucanis. Swearing, he barreled forward, and his expression was a thunderstorm, all harsh lines and unforgiving fronts. With the two fanning out in opposite directions, dividing the Antaam was easy. Lucanis was deadly, whirling with rage rather than precision, each dark eye narrowed in on his target. 

Rook, meanwhile, took to her knees, biting back a cry of pain at the impact. She swiftly delivered several slashes to the Antaam’s gut, fresh gore splattering the side of her neck. He toppled forwards, forcing Rook to clumsily scramble away on an even bloodier ground. The red was everywhere—on her clothes, her hands, in her hair. She wasn’t able to stay horrified for long though, as Lucanis was crouched beside her in an instant, breathing laborious.

“On your feet,” he urged. 

The command was impossible. She felt so incredibly heavy.

“Please,” Lucanis begged. His umber-brown eyes were wide with anxiety. “I need to get you away from here.”

Like Bellara, Rook wanted to protest, but the palpable fear radiating off his body just served to close her mouth instead.

“With me,” he said. “One, two, three.”

They didn’t get far off the ground at all. Rook was too weak, too limp to hold herself upright. And as Lucanis pulled, she was unable to swallow the scream that tore through her throat. Stiffening immediately, he lowered them back to the ground.

“I don’t mean to scare you,” Rook sputtered slowly, “and I’m only telling you this for triaging purposes, but I’m starting to feel cold.”

She watched the anathema land, settling deep, as she knew it would against an experienced assassin.

Panic entered his gaze one moment before it was forcefully banished. “Consider me scared,” Lucanis said. He grumbled deep in his chest, paralyzed by the instinct to flee. Each breath was uneven, as though he was the one who couldn’t get enough air, though his expression was carefully smoothed of any terror. A mask.

“Save… HER.”

Purple light exploded from the First Talon, drenching both their foreseeable environment and them in it. As the air around them pulsed, warping their surroundings, magical aura began to gather around Lucanis as his two-toned voice sounded off again.

“SAVE. her. NOW,” Spite demanded.

Spite’s possession retracted enough for Lucanis to peer down at Rook’s face, at its pale and sickly hue, the blood rushing out of her lovely tawny skin. “Rook?” Lucanis asked, shaking her gently. 

When she didn’t respond, Lucanis shook her again, placing a gloved hand upon her cheek. “Tria?” 

“Here,” she eventually sighed, voice a sluggish whisper. Her eyelashes, however, did not flutter with any discernible movement.

Lucanis swore. “No, no, no,” he chanted. “Please, Rook, just hold on. I’m getting us home.”

“NOW!” Spite bellowed.

At once, wings erupted from Lucanis’s shoulder blades, feathered black and shot through with violet. Scooping her into his arms, and at the behest of Spite’s insistent shouting, they raced through the sky, with swirling clouds of gray, emerald, and beige roiling above them.

“I don’t know why I didn’t think of this before,” Lucanis muttered to himself. “Mierda.”

Rook stirred just as Spite’s unsteady cadence rang out once again. “I DO,” he snarled. “Love. Makes Lucanis. blind and. STUPID.”

“I heard that,” Rook chuckled.

Perhaps it was the internal bleeding, but the unabashed relief on his face when Lucanis gazed down at her helped to warm some of the chill away. “I don’t care what you hear as long as you stay awake,” he replied softly. “You are not dying. Not here, not like this.”

Hopefully not. The dagger in her gut, however, seemed to have other plans, though Rook was doing her absolute best to regulate her breathing and keep her eyelids from shutting closed again. After a particularly lucid moment, she zeroed in on a long, thin cut across Lucanis’s jaw. And although the cut itself wasn’t that deep, it would still scar. She made a little noise of protest at the thought, pressing a trembling, weak fingertip to the corner beside it.

“You’re hurt,” she scolded. “You better have Bellara heal that when she can.”

Lucanis scoffed… loudly. His subsequent glare seemed to be a scathing reproach to the reprimand, but after swallowing whatever it was he obviously wanted to say, he sighed, exhaling roughly.

“No. I think we should have matching mortal wounds to remember this pleasant evening out, don’t you?”

“... Hilarious.” Rook rolled her eyes at the jab, though the gesture was dangerously unhelpful in her attempt to keep her eyes open. Her next blink was lethargic, and she swore under her breath.

“ROOK. stay AWAKE AND. ALIVE,” Spite pressed. “Or Lucanis will be. SAD.”

As the wind tore through her braid, Rook found herself scanning the Crow, the hard lines of his cheekbones, his temples, the little twist his mouth did before glancing down, laying himself bare.

Despite the tautness in his arms and chest, Lucanis’s visage was a portal of stained-glass glimmering in the morning sun. Soft. Sacred. Accepting. His voice, and the musical lilt of his accent, was ever the same.

“He would, indeed.”

xxxxx 

No sooner had Lucanis laid Rook down in the Infirmary Room was he darting towards the nearest cabinet.

“Drink this,” he ordered, handing her a potion. “It should help staunch blood flow before I begin stitching.”

Rook did as he asked, weakly tossing the empty vial away. The blade’s guard, a two-pronged design that stuck out of her like some sort of cadaverous joke, was coated in crimson blood which had long since cooled. The sight was nauseating, and Rook’s head threatened to swim even as the health potion steadied her pulse. 

Before she could vomit, however, another vial was shoved into her hand. “A regenerative potion, for the pain.”

She downed that one even quicker.

“And this,” he added, tossing yet another vial her way as he flitted about the room. “Anti-venom. Those amateurs wouldn’t know a good poison if someone slit their throat with it, but still. Better to take precautions.”

The anti-venom went down less smoothly, tasting bitter and acrid.

“Agh,” Rook spat. She inhaled slowly, pressing a red hand to the dagger’s handle. 

“No,” Lucanis said. “Not yet.”

Dropping to his knees beside the cot, Lucanis unsheathed one of his own daggers, and with several quick and sure slashes, began to cut Rook out of her leathers. He carved with the utmost precision, befitting of a First Talon, and kept one hand against her collarbone, steadying her while the armor was forcibly peeled away. 

The shock of air upon her sweaty, blood-soaked body sent goosebumps rippling down her chest and stomach. Rook was not aware of the little sound she made in her throat, and so when Lucanis froze, gaze flashing to hers, she quirked an eyebrow at him. “What?”

“Did I hurt you?” The question was filled with worry.

Under normal circumstances, Rook would’ve waved it off, deflecting the attention like a well-timed parry. 

This was not a normal circumstance, however. And she had sustained a shit-ton of blood loss. 

Rook rolled her eyes, fixing a stare on the ceiling. “This is not how I imagined you seeing me in my smallclothes for the first time.”

“... Oh,” Lucanis replied, brows crinkling with thought. He continued to cut away the leather, politely averting his gaze from the sweat-stained breast-band. “But I’ve already seen you in your smallclothes before. Plenty of times. In fact, just this morning, in Arlathan. After all, we do travel together, you know. We’ve all seen each other like that.”

When he was finished, Lucanis stowed the dagger beside him and gently shoved what remained of the leather armor away from her belly. The throwing blade–completely exposed now–glinted even more ominously in the lowlight of the Infirmary Room.

“Yes,” Rook said airily. “But you’ve never been the one to take the clothes off of me. Until now, I suppose.”

Lucanis unexpectedly squeezed his eyes shut, drawing her attention back to him. “Rook,” and his voice was a low growl. “I am trying to save your life, and this… that mental image–it is not helping right now.” 

A pleased grin pulled at Rook’s mouth. Why was she grinning? Shit. This was definitely because of the blood loss. “As long as it gets the job done,” she chuckled, warm and fuzzy.

Wait. That didn’t sound right. Warm? Fuzzy? Hm. Rook was either about to die, or… 

“...Did someone put gingerwort truffle into that health potion?”

Lucanis, not making eye contact, nodded. “Davrin suggested it, as the truffles help to enhance base magical properties.” A pause. “Clearly, whoever mixed these together used too much of it.”

“... Ah.”

Lucanis, leaning over to the gathered supplies, retrieved another regenerative health potion. “Here. We have to stop the bleeding before I can stitch the wound. This will help your body to produce blood more quickly.”

Well, that certainly did not sound pleasant. She drank, and then sighed at the trouble of it all, running a trembling hand across her face. “Just tell me when you want me to take this blighted thing out of me.”

A moment later, Lucanis shifted, preparing the gauze, needle, and thread at his side. “Would you like to be the one to do it? Or do you want m—”

With a savage yank, Rook pulled the dagger out of her body.

“WAIT! MIERDA, Rook—”

Horrified, Lucanis expertly proceeded to slap gauze over the newly gushing wound as Rook shouted, “—FUCKING Venatori and their whore mothers!”

Eyes round as saucers, Lucanis gaped down at blood soaking into the cotton. “What did their mothers ever do to you?” 

Rook groaned as he pressed down. Maker, that had sobered her the fuck up.

“You’re right,” she said, freshly enraged. “I should leave their mothers out of this. What I should do is go back there and have Emmrich raise their spineless, useless corpses from abject DEATH so I can level them properly this time.”

For a moment, neither of them said anything else, and Rook allowed herself to breathe. “All right. I think I’m ready to be stitched now.”

Still kneeling over her, Lucanis attempted to smile, though it was really more of a grimace. “Good, because if I keep feeding you health potions and you overdose on gingerwort truffles, Spite would be very, very angry with me.”

Only a foot remained between them, and even half-conscious, she couldn’t help but take the opportunity to luxuriate in the feel of him so close—openly gazing at the flush in his lips, in the churning, nameless emotion simmering behind his deep, amber eyes.

Another moment passed, and Rook looked away. “I’m never actually ready, so, do it anyway.”

Wordlessly, Lucanis shifted, grabbing the needle and thread into his hands. “As you well know, being an Antivan Crow has necessitated that I become good at this,” he said. “It shouldn’t take long.”

Steeling herself, Rook huffed out a sharp breath and swallowed. 

When there was an uncharacteristically long hesitation, she worriedly glanced at Lucanis, and then down at the hand which still pressed gauze to the wound. “What is it?”

Lucanis grimaced. “I’m sorry for this, Rook.” He offered her a piece of twisted cloth. “Bite down. I know this is not your first time being stitched, but it still helps.”

She took it, muttering, “Don’t tell Viago if I scream,” before clamping her teeth around the cotton. 

Perhaps it was the anxiety cracking across her face that compelled him, but Lucanis slowly reached up, pushing back a few loose curls, also blood-stained, from her eyes. The touch itself was so gentle that it did help to calm her, if only minutely. Rook could see it–he did not want to hurt her. But until Bellara or Emmrich returned, there was no other way.

The entire room seemed to hold its breath, and then, he began stitching.

The noise she uttered wasn’t exactly a scream, but it was close. Very close. With every stitch, Lucanis seemed to gain focus, his warm, strong fingers a strange sort of comfort, even as the sensation of a needle passing through her flesh coated her entire body in cold sweat. It was impossible not to tense her muscles–she knew she should try to relax them, but she was so incredibly tired and there was hardly anything more in her world than the pain. 

Still, when Spite’s wings materialized, bursting into existence and splaying wide, there were suddenly tears in her eyes, and for reasons she couldn’t quite discern.

“Spite’s worried about you,” she heard Lucanis murmur, though his eyes never wavered from his task. “I can feel it.”

Rook choked back a sob, completely unwilling to acknowledge the hot liquid seeping down each temple. Removing the cloth bit an inch from her lips, Rook clenched her jaw against the agony. “I’m all right, Spite,” she whispered before promptly returning the bit to her mouth.

And as if Spite had heard this and yearned to reply, no violet light appeared anywhere in Lucanis’s face, though the raven-feathered wings at his back flexed and beat once in an answer.

The fresh blood–her blood–on his fingers was spellbinding in the room’s dim lighting. Another draw of the needle elicited a groan from Rook, and Lucanis allowed himself a singular glance at her, alarm further tightening his expression. 

“Breathe, Rook,” he urged, his honey-voice a soothing balm. “I need you to keep breathing for me.”

Rook’s next inhale stuttered, fractured by pain, though she heeded Lucanis and forced the next breath to be a little smoother than the one before—and the next, even more smooth, until the only thing she allowed herself to focus on was the feel of his hands on her skin, not the needle carving its way through her. 

She only allowed herself to see Lucanis, concentrated and capable, dedicated to the task of saving her life rather than the crimson red blood which had long since crusted on them both—the graceful line of each brow, the bridge of his nose, the widow’s peak which showed so prominently everytime he pulled his hair back for battle.

No doubt due to her Crow training, the pain, though a raging, roaring inferno, was at last shoved to the back of Rook’s awareness, until her jaw ached from biting down and Lucanis’s gore-soaked hands finally tied off the strings. 

Using another cloth, Lucanis wiped the red from his fingers, and then suddenly his hands were on her, calloused and stained and gently cradling her cheeks. “It’s done, my love,” he soothed. “It’s done.”

It’s done. Several more tears slipped from her eyes, trickling onto Lucanis’s skin as she removed the bit from her mouth. Rearing up on his knees, Lucanis suddenly peered into Rook’s face, fully, intently, before the mask he wore finally crumbled away, leaving nothing else there in his expression but reprieve.

And fear. A little fear, just behind the eyes.

“How do you feel?” 

“Tired.” Her entire body felt like sludge, though she no longer felt the threat of unconsciousness lingering behind that fatigue. “So tired. But… better, somehow.”

Lucanis nodded, searching each eye like he could see into her body, her blood, to make sure that she was the right kind of tired. Rook was about to say something else, but then Lucanis exhaled, short and sharp, before pressing their mouths together. 

Their first kiss.

Neither of them noticed that Rook’s hand was filthy when she slid her fingertips into the loose hair near his neck, nor were they bothered by the general ambiance of blood and gore, old and new, quietly settling around them. There was only the overwhelming sense of release and the knowledge that they were alive—that they were both alive…

When he pulled away, she could feel Lucanis shaking. “Are you okay?” she asked him, scanning him for any unaddressed cuts or injuries.

“Forgive me,” he said, sheepish. “I am not accustomed to… feeling like this, after a job.”

Despite the ache burrowing deep beneath her ribs, Rook managed to smile. “Are you finally feeling how the rest of us do when a contract goes awry?”

Lucanis’s stare turned hard. “You were dying in my arms, Rook. I would hardly call that ‘a contract going awry.’” 

“Right…” she sighed. “Not my finest moment. I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. It’s just… I get it now. I understand.”

Rook frowned. “Understand what?”

“What happens if we lose.” His thumb stroked over one cheek, still wet with her tears. “All this time, I’ve been so afraid that Spite… that I would hurt you. But then we barely escaped Weisshaupt, and after that, I watched Illario try to harm you, because of what he knew you meant to me—”

Lucanis’s voice was tender as he continued. “Today, I almost lost you again.” He leaned forward, pressing another feather-light kiss to her lips. “And now that I realize what’s at stake, it changes everything, Rook.”

Holding each other’s gaze, Rook uncharacteristically flushed as Lucanis smiled her most favorite smile—the heavy-lidded, easy smile that spoke of utter and complete contentment. The one he gave before their almost-kiss, in his room, when everything had seemed so much harder.

“I’ll do whatever I have to in order to keep you safe, Rook.” And his voice was a promise, the resolve in his eyes a steely, living thing. “This is not going to happen to you again. I swear it.”

Fresh tears tracked down her face, but there was joy in each and every one of them. She returned the smile, leaning into his touch.

“Sleep,” Lucanis whispered, gazing deep into her icy-green eyes. “You should be okay until the others get back.”

“Don’t go,” Rook pleaded, eyelashes fluttering with exhaustion. “Stay.”

“Always. Who else is going to make sure you keep breathing?”

That made her snort. “Thank you… Lucanis. For saving me.”

She was already halfway under, though the distinct sensation of his mouth against her forehead was still noticeable, as were his next words.

“You’re the one who did the saving, Rook.”

xxxxx 

An hour or so later, Bellara hurried into the Infirmary Room. “I’m so sorry we took so long. We had to hop through a few mirrors before we found any suitable hide-aways for the Dalish. How is she?”

“Shh, she’s been out for some time now.” Lucanis finally rose, stretching out the knots accumulated from sitting in one place for so long. He hadn’t been able to bear the thought of moving one inch away from where Rook slept on her cot, and so the evidence of their bloody afternoon—along with the dried blood upon his own hair, skin, and armor—remained a glaring precursor of the day’s events.

Bellara gasped, but wasted no time in approaching Rook’s sleeping form. She took in the cut-way armor, the supplies beside the mattress, and the thin blanket Lucanis had presumably used to cover Rook while she rested.

“Bad,” Lucanis admitted, grimacing. “It was a close call. I had to stitch the wound myself.” A flash of something soft, like regret, passed over his face. 

“She was awake for it.”

Bellara paled, slowly peeling back the blanket. “Creators…”

“I know.”

Splaying her hands over Rook’s belly, green, soothing light illuminated the room, eliciting a long, steady exhale from Lucanis while he watched. 

“Wait.” Rook’s voice was a hoarse whisper.

The green healing spell guttered out, Bellara flinching away from her in surprise. “Rook!” she exclaimed. “What’s wrong? Was I hurting you?”

Rook’s lilac, gore-stained braid wriggled as she shook her head. “Are you able to heal it enough so that it leaves a scar?”

The subsequent tilt to Bellara’s head communicated the mage’s bewilderment. “I’m… sorry?”

From behind, Lucanis stepped forward, a similar puzzlement written across his features. “Rook?”

Rook did not repeat herself but merely awaited, patient. If one were to look closely, however, a mischievous glint peeked out behind her icy-green, silvery bright eyes. 

Bellara was the first to break. “Sure,” she said slowly, deliberating. “But you’re still not going to tell me why?” And it was the little pout on her face was enough to force a Rook’s hand. Rook smiled, a sleepy gesture, and then very deliberately, flicked her gaze behind Bellara’s shoulder, where Lucanis hovered, brows furrowed in thought.

When she finally understood, Bellara’s mouth popped open. “Ohhh.” She turned just enough to join Rook in scrutinizing the First Talon, a feline grin plastered on her face. 

“Malidta sea,” he grumbled, gaze alternating between the two women. “What are you…?”  

Bellara’s subsequent snicker was what eventually gave it away.

Lucanis proceeded to go slack-jawed. “Oh.” But he quickly composed himself, a quirk of the mouth turning up in fondness. “I see. How… sentimental of you, Rook.”

“... I am clearly in the middle of something,” Bellara said, and she didn’t at all seem unhappy about it. “So let me do what I came here to do and get out of your… very unwashed hair. No offense.”

Laying still, the Infirmary Room was again suffused with emerald healing magic, its color and hum so much more vivid in the Fade. As the layers of tissue in her belly mended, Rook’s exhale of relief joined the spell’s song, the sound seeming to draw some of the lingering tension from Lucanis’s shoulders.

A neat, pink line remained in contrast with the brown canvas of Rook’s belly, and Bellara pulled back, satisfaction written on her face. “Is that okay?”

Rook, peering down, nodded gratefully. “Thanks, Bel. And thank you for overseeing the Dalish’s retreat. I know it was… risky.”

At this, Bellara’s large eyes narrowed. “If you ever do that to me again, Rook, I will never, ever, cook you that curry you like so much.”

“Hey!”

Lucanis’s voice was a growl in the back of the room. “Ditto.”

Rook’s tangible shock was only present a moment before Bellara threw herself upon her—albeit gently, with the mage’s arms coming to encircle Rook’s shoulders.

“I was really scared, Rook,” she confessed, the words full of a lingering anxiety. “I’m so glad you’re all right now.” 

Bellara’s cheek was warm where it pressed against hers. Reaching up, Rook embraced Bellara back, holding her for a length of time that was surprising, even for Rook. “... Me too.”

“Okay, then.” Bellara righted herself, clearing her throat on the way up. “Lucanis?” Pivoting, she took in the thin cut across his jaw. “Do you need that healed too? I have enough mana—”

“I’m good. I don’t mind another scar or two.” Lucanis smiled warmly, and this time, Bellara did not miss the quiet exchange of glances between the two lovers. 

“Antivan crows are so bizarre,” she mumbled out loud. “But…” and she sighed, deeply, forlornly. “So romantic.”

Lucanis snorted and began unbuckling his dirty, torn leathers. “Well said. Now, I don’t know about Rook, but I definitely need a nap after all of that.”

Hesitation entered her face. Bellara paused, glancing between Rook and Lucanis and asked, “Do you want me to ask Harding or Taash to watch the Vi’Revas for you?”

“No, that’s okay.” He proceeded to quietly drag another cot across the room while Bellara watched, confusion somehow present in every one of her blinks. 

“I have a feeling Spite isn’t going to hound my sleep anymore,” he elaborated, pushing the new cot directly against Rook’s. Rook’s expression brightened immediately.

“Oh! That’s good then!” Bellara tentatively agreed. A pause. “Er… why is that, exactly?”

Lucanis’s boots thumped on the ground. “Spite is… approving,” he said, settling himself on the cot.

Rook kept silent when Bellara glanced at her in question, another one of those mischievous smiles twisting her features. “... Of?”

Lucanis huffed. He ceased his undress and gestured vaguely at Rook, looking increasingly more comfortable with this line of questioning. “You know what?” he said, suddenly avoiding eye contact. “Forget it.”

Bellara frowned, chewing on the inside of one cheek before—there! The utter adoration in his eyes as he scooched in close beside Rook’s lithe body.

Her eyes nearly burst out of their sockets at the realization.

Lucanis immediately held up a hand. “Bellara—”

“Ohh, my gosh!” she gasped, jumping up and down on her toes. “It’s official? This is so exciting!” Bellara turned back to face Rook. “This is exciting, right?”

He wanted to scowl, that much was clear. Yet, instead, Lucanis found himself allowing the tiniest smile to appear… perhaps because he was tired, or maybe it was that Rook was still alive, and Bellara—along with Spite, after all—was happy for them. 

Lucanis sighed. Tenderly placing one hand atop Rook’s, he couldn’t tear his gaze away from her, the little crinkles at the sides of his eyes deepening with his smile.

“I suppose it is,” he admitted before laying flat, where he would undoubtedly drift off into a peaceful, dreamless sleep.

[lifeinacartoon]

Hay haw are you 😊I thought as it’s Nearly Halloween donlowen prompt. one were mark thinks his holtel room is hounted becuse he keeps hearing noises and the dorm opens and closes by itself. Gary and howard hear him screem and wimper so thay sleep with him for the night in Howard’s room. I can’t deside if this should be a barlowen donlow donlowen or mark/howard. What do you think,🙂

I changed it a little, I hope you don't mind, but wanted to fit with the Halloween theme still. All Hallows Eve

The Stanley Hotel loomed against the Colorado sky, its historic grandeur framed by snow-capped peaks and an eerie mist that clung to the building like a shroud. Gary, Mark, and Howard sat at a small table in the dimly lit bar, the wood creaking beneath them as they leaned closer over their drinks.

"You know this place inspired The Shining, right?" Mark’s voice was barely above a whisper, his eyes darting around the room as though expecting to see something move out of the corner of his vision. "Room 217 is where all the worst stuff happened. Guests have seen things—heard things."

Gary raised an eyebrow. "I thought it was just a story. Stephen King stayed here, sure, but ghosts?"

Mark huffed. "More than just a story, mate. Footsteps in empty corridors, laughter when no one's there. They say the fourth floor’s the worst. Kids’ laughter late at night… but there’s never any kids."

Howard chuckled, swirling his whisky lazily. "You’re too easy to spook, Mark. It’s just an old building with creaky pipes."

But as they swapped stories, there was an undeniable tension creeping in. The shadows seemed darker, the chill in the air sharper. The fire in the hearth flickered, casting long, warped shapes against the walls. When the clock struck midnight with a loud clang, they all jumped, laughing nervously at their shared unease.

"I think I’ve had enough of this ghost talk for one night," Gary muttered, pushing his chair back and draining his glass. "I’m off to bed."

Mark hesitated, glancing over his shoulder as if the room was watching him. "Yeah, same." *

By the time they’d all retreated to their rooms, the corridors of the Stanley Hotel felt ominously still. The walls, clad in dark wood, seemed to close in around them as the silence settled.

Mark’s room, dimly lit by a single lamp, felt too large and too quiet. He lay in bed, trying to drift off, when he heard it—a soft, distant whisper. He froze, straining his ears. Was it his imagination? But then he heard it again, faint yet unmistakable, coming from the direction of the bathroom. With his heart racing, he slowly got up, each step heavy with dread. He pushed the bathroom door open, but the room was empty, the mirror fogged over as if someone had just taken a hot shower.

He bolted out of the room, heading straight for Gary’s door. *

Meanwhile, Howard had been lying on his bed, staring at the flickering ceiling light, the rhythmic hum of the bulbs unsettling in the stillness. It had been doing that for the past half hour, and no matter what he tried—turning it off, banging on the wall—it wouldn’t stop. Eventually, he’d given up, throwing his arm over his eyes, hoping sleep would take him soon.

In Gary’s room, Gary had been trying to brush off the nagging feeling that someone, or something, was watching him. The hairs on the back of his neck stood up every time the wind outside rattled the window, as if a presence was trying to get in. He tried to tell himself it was all in his head.

Just as he was drifting off, a knock at the door startled him awake.

"Gary? You up?" came Mark’s muffled voice from the other side, frantic. "I’m not staying in my room, no way."

Gary opened the door, his eyes wide. "Mate, what’s happened?"

"I heard something. Whispering. There’s… something in my bathroom." Mark’s voice trembled, his hands shaking as he crossed into the room. "I’m not staying alone tonight."

"Alright, alright. You can crash here." Gary nodded, pulling back the duvet on his bed. "Howard can join too if he’s freaked out." *

It wasn’t long before Howard’s flickering lights pushed him over the edge. He wandered down the hall in his slippers, shuffling along the plush carpet, the soft sound of his feet the only noise in the otherwise dead corridor. As he reached Gary’s door, he hesitated, feeling a strange chill in the air. With a quiet sigh, he knocked firmly.

"Gaz? You still up?"

The door creaked open, revealing Mark already nestled in Gary’s bed, looking much too small beneath the heavy covers.

"Howard?" Gary blinked in surprise. "What’s up?"

Howard stood in the doorway, arms crossed and expression sheepish. "My lights keep flickering. I’m not staying in there with all that weirdness going on."

Gary motioned for him to come in. "Alright, mate, you can crash here. Sofa’s free."

Howard shrugged, yawning as he padded inside and dropped onto the sofa. "Just keep the ghost stories to a minimum, yeah? Some of us actually want to sleep."

"Night, mate," Gary chuckled, but as he closed the door, the atmosphere in the room shifted. Howard was already sprawled out on the sofa, seemingly oblivious, his soft snores filling the space.

It seemed all he needed was the assurance of his friends nearby to feel comforted, the eerie hotel no longer a bother now that he wasn’t alone.

Mark shifted in Gary’s bed, pulling the covers up to his chin. "This place really gives me the creeps."

Gary slid in beside him, the bed too small for the tension now building between them. "It’s all just stories," he said softly, but his voice wavered slightly as Mark’s warm breath brushed his shoulder. Their hands touched, fingers lingering for just a moment longer than necessary.

Mark turned his head slightly, eyes locking with Gary’s. "Are you sure about that?" His voice was barely above a whisper, and though the room was cold, heat bloomed between them as they lay there, faces inches apart.

Gary swallowed, feeling his pulse quicken. "Pretty sure," he murmured, but as Mark shifted closer, his hand brushing along Gary’s arm, it became clear they were no longer talking about ghosts.

The distance between them closed, their lips meeting softly at first, then more urgently, as though the strange energy of the hotel had pulled them together. Mark’s fingers tangled in Gary’s shirt as they deepened the kiss, the soft rustling of sheets the only sound in the room, save for Howard’s quiet snoring across the way.

Oblivious to the growing heat in the bed, Howard slept on, blissfully unaware of the unspoken intimacy unfolding just metres away.

Mark pulled back for a breath, his voice barely audible in the darkness. "Think we’re safe now?"

Gary smirked, drawing him in closer, lips brushing Mark’s ear. "I’d say we’re in good hands."

[aprillikesthings]

Can I squeeze in one more tonight let's find out

(and then it's time for an edible, a shower, and the last chapter of that kinky Adora/Huntara fic that I mentioned in this post)

s3 ep3 Once Upon a Time in the Waste

First, Catra's little self-indulgent pity party for herself at Scorpia

angy kitty!!

But yeah Catra's acting all nihilist as fuck in this episode just all "I don't give a shit about anything" in that way that makes it painfully obvious she in fact gives many shits about many things and is trying to convince herself as much as anyone else

Anyway at the end of the bar Huntara's previous friend are like UGH THAT SHE-RA BITCH and Catra literally says, "Are you kidding me?"

"not that like, I care, or anything, but where'd they go"

Scorpia: uhhhh why are we asking about them when that's not what we're here for???

to be fair to Catra this is in fact correct

her little emo speech here is so cringey

that said I am in fact amused that they did a close up on her butt

(lol I was LITERALLY just talking to @corpseauthority about the scene in Steven Universe where Peridot pulls the little alien shorts over her butt while giggling, and I found the post I made about it at the time)

Adora, Huntara, Bow, and Glimmer are poking around Mara's abandoned old ship, which has had most of its guts stolen for parts, but you can still hear Mara's voice saying "She-Ra. Etheria. Gone." It's spooky

every time Catra gets a new jacket I get gayer

Scorpia: this is fun :) Catra: ha ha yeah

And then they get ambushed

Meanwhile they find Mara! or a hologram of her anyway. It is unfortunately just a recording on a loop.

Adora has another understandable breakdown of sorts, and bangs on a dead console, and voila:

"Oh I have one of those, I guess I just stick it in"

-and another recording starts up

"if you're seeing this, it means you wield the sword. You're the new She-Ra. It means I failed. I was supposed to be the last. And I am so, so sorry."

Back to Catra etc., and both me and Catra laughed the first time someone said Tung Lashor

(I assume this is a character name they were stuck with from the original series, and I've noticed they mostly avoid lampshading the goofy names but sometimes you just have to)

CLAW HIS FACE

(she throws sand in his eyes instead, and then falls into the quicksand, and she takes the whip)

fangie!!! I was just thinking about how it's been a while lol. Anyway now all the random fighters in the Crimson Waste are chanting her name.

AAAAAND back to Mara

Side note: Mara definitely looks older than Adora

"We were the first ones to settle Etheria, to really study this planet's magic. How could it go so wrong?"

but then it starts breaking up--

"Light Hope use the --can't--weapon--the weapon--weapon"

"I opened a portal to a completely empty dimension and pulled Etheria in. I hid us from the rest of the universe to keep everyone safe. This is the one place they'll never find us. I saw what they would do. The deaths that would follow. I couldn't stop them before but I can now. Hiding is our only option. Maybe it's been a week. Maybe it's been thousands of years. I never wanted to be a hero. I won't be remembered as one.

"With it, you can activate a portal. So I'm begging you. Don't do it. Leave us here. If you open a portal death and destruction will follow.

"If not, everyone will--"

and the message cuts out and the room goes dark again.

AND THEN, TRANQ DARTS but we know who has those now don't we

But also bc of that kinky fic I'm reading this screenshot is v entertaining

I will never stop screenshotting the way their expressions change when they unexpectedly hear the other's voice

Catra's "hey Adora" is one of the better ones ngl

the minions take down Huntara (with two blowdarts), Adora grabs the sword, Catra grabs that with the whip, Scorpia has Adora held in a pose that is Not Suggestive At All, Actually

Huntara gets up, grabs Bow and Glimmer and runs, and Scorpia knocks out Catra with her tail venom

whomever storyboarded this episode draws unreasonably sexy Catras.

Anyway Catra gives a toast to Scorpia which is very nice of her but to be fair she is an excellent mood. We get to hear Catra's genuine happy laugh for the first time in like a whole fucking SEASON

poor Scorpia. Catra is only encouraging her :(

"Hey, this is fun, and it's called a 'party!'"

Catra gives a little speech about how YAY SHE HAS THE SWORD it's the key to the whole PLANET and NOW Hordak will have to respect her!!!

Scorpia: orrrr since you literally hate your life back there, we could just stay here?

the way she's hugging the sword tho

Me: I'm reading too much into things Scorpia: pssht forget Adora Catra: *ears visibly droop* Scorpia: anyway let's rule the Crimson Waste!!! Catra: uhhhh, I'm gonna go check on Ad--uh our prisoner Scorpia: *saddest face ever*

🎵more cartoon bondage🎶

whyyyyy is she so hot

Adora: did u know Hordak is trying to open a portal that allows a huge Horde army from space to find Etheria and murder us all Catra: duh I'm in the Horde I'm cool with that >:3 Adora: did I mention the part where they MURDER ALL OF US, THAT INCLUDES YOU

Adora's face tho

Catra: also pfft how do you know Hordak's plans anyway Adora: oh our evil mom Shadow Weaver told me, did I not mention she's at my place Catra: UGGGH

(now hate-fuck!)

Catra: so you're saying the reason Shadow Weaver ran off from the Fright Zone and got my ass sentenced to death in the Crimson Waste is because she wanted to hang out with you instead???? this is ALL YOUR FAULT??

(yeah this would in fact hit all of Catra's angriest/saddest buttons, and yeah of course she'd blame Adora and not Shadow Weaver)

Catra is lookin' a little deranged at this information but also

ahahaha

but yeah the party was still going on

The list of people that consistently make Catra visibly cry: Adora Shadow Weaver

"We are going to open a portal. And we are going to crush them all."

EPISODE OVER and in retrospect I should've given up and posted it and reblogged it bc I had to delete like ten images so I could post some really good ones near the end there

and this episode only took *checks clock* forty minutes longer than I was hoping. sigh.

[sukirichi]

earned it [04]

Gojo Satoru is a firm believer that if you work hard for it then you shall earn it. But on the other side, he’s not unfamiliar with his own sins. He also believes that there is punishment due for his sins as he’s earned it.

cw. DARK CONTENT, graphic violence, mentions of blood, explicit murder, sexual violence, angst, tw dubcon, mentions of mass murder, death threats, cheating, implications of suicide, typical mafia business + very unedited (please PLEASE read at your own discretion! if you do not wish to proceed to read because of the aforementioned warnings but want to know what happened anyway, please drop into my asks and i’ll retell it in a much less graphic version!)

chapter song. never forget you (zara larsson, mnek)

series masterlist

Death.

The stench of it reeked everywhere. Blood pooled at the ends of your dress, the warm liquid dripping from your fingers. You couldn’t see what was in front of you, not when your vision had been obscured black, painted red with everyone’s lifeless eyes staring back emptily at you and carrying an ominous message behind words that never had the chance to be spoken.

Satoru was gone.

You ran through flights of stairs as you bunched your dress up, dried blood present on your cheek. The gray cemented walls of this unknown building began to close down on you, suffocating you, trapping you – and then there he was. Your lover, your world, your everything – he stood on top of a pile of bodies, his face as grim as the deaths he’s caused, but that wasn’t what stood out from the scene. It was the fact you couldn’t recognize him anymore; the man before you was nothing else but the devil incarnate himself. Then, just as you ran his way, fingers outstretched to grasp at his shirt, Satoru disappeared.

He was gone.

A scream ripped out your throat as you scrambled for the sheets, pulling them up in a haste to shield yourself. The images were now gone, but that fear kept drumming into you, gloops of blood making its way through your room’s white exterior.

It’s not real, it’s not real – Satoru’s arms snaked over to your side, his eyes droopy from being woken up. You would’ve apologized, knowing he never really got proper sleep, but you were already wrapping your arms around yourself, gaze repeatedly darting back to the walls – to check for bodies, for blood, for death, for him.

“Hey,” Satoru drew you close to him until your head fell on his chest. Out of instinct, you flattened your ear above where his heartbeat rested. Thump thump – he was real, he was safe, alive – he wouldn’t do that. Satoru wasn’t that kind of person. You clung to him like a koala and mumbled incoherently at the skin of his neck, clutching his shirt so tight it wrinkled horribly. Satoru merely littered kisses all over the crown of your head to soothe you, although he was not free to this fear you felt; he was just as nervous for an unknown reason. “Angel, what’s wrong?”

“You-you were leaving—”

“Shh, angel, I’m not, I’m here,” he wrapped you closer to his body, the sheets still warm and smelling like him as if to add reassurance to his words. “You’re alright. I’m here, angel, it’s okay.”

“I was going to die,” you quivered. It had only been a fleeting moment when you saw it, but you were there too. Dressed in white, arms covered in lace and a crown adorning your head; it seemed as if you were meant to be on top of the bodies, and Satoru sat upon it like a throne. It transitioned from being the witness to being the victim in a minute and your chest squeezed so hard you choked out, “I was dying, baby.”

“You’re not going to die. No one’s going to hurt you, you understand?” Satoru cupped your cheeks to force you to look him in the eye. “I’m going to keep you safe no matter what. Not leaving your side, angel, that’s a promise.”

“Don’t you dare.”

“I would never do that,” he nodded before he raised your pinky. Satoru looped both your fingers and kissed the conjoined form, not once leaving your gaze the whole time. “I promise,” he whispered, foreheads touching and breaths mingling. Like one soul intertwined, you once mused, feeling yourself get lost in the depth of azure pools he harboured. “There’s nowhere to go without you anyway; you’re the greatest gift in my life. I’d do anything for you.”

“Don’t leave me. Please.”

“I won’t, angel. I never will.”

And you believed that. Like the fool you were, you really believed that.

The bank loomed over you, its mere presence impending and bringing about a wave of discomfort to you. Awkwardly, you stepped inside, hiding your face in your hair to conceal the nausea threatening to urge you to throw up. You couldn’t help but survey the entire area out of instant wariness, holding tighter to your phone.

Seeing as there was no line, you sat on the nearest open window. “Hi, uhm…I recently got transferred this money from…an old friend, you could say,” you informed with furrowed brows, fishing your phone out of your pocket as you logged into your account. The whole time, your hands turned sweaty and the phone nearly slipped from your grasp out of anxiety. The woman assisting you flashed you a sympathetic smile, patient and kind enough to listen to your small voice through the glass. “I lost contact with them so I can’t return it. I was wondering if maybe you could help me rewind the transaction?”

“Oh, we can definitely do that Ma’am, may I see?” Nodding, you handed her your phone. In an instant, the polite smile fell from her lips, altering into a nervous one the next. “Oh…” she blinked back at the digits, clearly overwhelmed from the amount of zeroes. Dropping her voice, she leaned closer to you, “Do you…do you know the account owner personally?”

“Yes,” you admitted, “Well, I used to.”

“And they wired you all this?”

“About two weeks ago, yeah.”

The employee sat there for a full minute, possibly contemplating how to go about this. It didn’t set well with you – that mysterious, almost suspicious smile she had – that you debated whether just asking for your phone back. “Excuse me for a moment. I think I should take this to the higher-ups,” she announced while scanning the bank with narrowed eyes, leaving before you could have a say in it.

The next minutes that passed had never felt more gruelling.

You sat there with a frantic heart, your jeans damp from the countless times you’ve wiped your hand on it. Nothing seemed to be out of the ordinary. People came in for their own agendas, the hushed ‘inside voice’ as faint as ever, then they left. Repeat. End of conversation.

It was just another normal, boring day for everyone else – but not for you.

“Miss?” a voice pulled you away from your thoughts. A half-bald man was now standing before you, the previous employee you’d been talking to right behind him, her head ducked down. Manager, his tag read, which made sense. He gestured for you to come inside the back parts of the bank, and you gripped your purse tighter as you followed them.

The inside wasn’t that special or different from the outside. There were lesser chairs but bigger, brighter white walls. His office was located right in the middle where the female employee closed the glass doors behind you, silent and timid as she prepared you tea. Meanwhile, you sat there with your hands wrung in your lap, stomach already falling from the grim expression he wore. “About the funds, I’m afraid we can’t do anything about this transaction. While it had been transferred you, neither us nor the bank has the authorization to do anything about this. Whoever sent it to you is the only one that can either take it back or liquidize it,” he pushed his glasses back to his face, an apologetic sigh leaving his lips. “I’m afraid we can’t help you with this, Miss, we’re really sorry—”

“No!” you slammed your palms on the desk, “No, I don’t want the money, wire it back to him!”

“Miss, we already told you, it’s out of control—”

You shook your head. This wasn’t real – Satoru had to be joking! He couldn’t just give you this and disappear into thin air! In fact, you never even cared for the money; you were just hoping that maybe you’d find a way back to him if nothing but digits was the only thing left to prove he even existed. Desperation clawed its way through your throat as you fell on your knees, helpless tears streaming down your face. “Please, you have to do something, I don’t want the money, I just want him back, please! I just need to talk to him once more and he’s your client, right? Let me talk to him, I know you have contact with him, Sir, please, I’m begging you—”

“Security!” the manager hollered. The sounds of doors slamming open made you stand up straight, eyes wide at the incoming pairs of guards ready to escort you out. “It’s best you schedule a personal appointment with the account owner, Miss. We also suggest you remain on the down-low instead of causing a ruckus like this. You don’t know who’s going to be grabbing at every opportunity to take what was given to you.”

“Everything’s been taken away from me!” you argued back, walking around the desk to clasp the manager’s hand. He pulled away for a moment before you squeezed his hands, the tearing of your heart too painful to bear. You just wanted to see him. “Come on, please, I don’t care about the money, I just—”

They didn’t let you finish. Just like Satoru, just like everybody else, they discarded you to the side, treated you like you were a nobody who didn’t deserve a second chance.

“Escort her out, please.”

And just like that, your fate had been decided. No...perhaps it had been determined the moment he left, and now you walked blearily along the narrowed gaps between buildings, unable to find your way back home.

Where was home anyway? Your penthouse with Satoru? Your cramped dorm back at the university? Your empty flat that had once been a happy home with your parents before they too, left you behind with nothing but a family portrait as a memory? It was pathetic. You meant nothing. Obviously, no one valued you enough, not even Satoru who’d just given you enough to let you live comfortably for the rest of your life. But no matter how much he provided, it wasn’t what you wanted. It wouldn’t bring back the one thing you wanted most, and you fell on the rough pavement, too tired to care about the stinging of your palms.

You clutched at your heart in a debilitated attempt to soothe way your chest squeezed uncomfortably. You were literally in the middle of the nowhere, trapped between the walls that hid you in the darkness and muffled your cries.

He’d left – he really left.

He didn’t keep his promise, and your nightmare had now become reality. You had to bite down your shirt to keep the agony to yourself, nails dug so deep into your jeans it left a mark above your skin. Hours passed, maybe minutes – who knew?

The sun had gone down and the streets grew busier than before, the honking and lively bustling of the night city like background noise to you.

Your key back to the penthouse weighed heavily at your back pocket. There was still the option of just going back home, but what good would that do? Everywhere you went, you were reminded of him. There was no escaping the beautiful memories he left you with, there was no exit from his miserable dream you were forced to wake up into.

Nothing mattered anymore. You felt so lost, the motivation to find your way back depleted just like your energy. You only had your bodily instincts to thank for when your stomach grumbled, demanding to be fed and nurtured even in such a hopeless situation. It made you want to laugh – that even as your heart and soul gave up on you – your body was doing its best to keep you alive and get through the day. You heaved yourself away from the wall and wiped the dirt away from your palms, the rhythm of your feet one heavy clump next to the other.

There was a nice Chinese restaurant at the end of the street that glowed brightly, invitingly. If you could just have dinner, maybe you’d feel better.

But you never got three steps across.

A cold blade had been pressed to your neck, sinister laughter echoing from the darkness of the night. “Scream and you die, sweetheart,” a gruff voice crooned in your ear, followed by a more high-pitched, maniacal chuckles. There was two of them. Fear lit your nerves up and you scrambled to run, but this man was too strong. He didn’t even have to try too much into increasing pressure to your neck, slicing the first layers of your skin that was enough to prick both blood and tears from you. “Ah, ah, ah! Resisting won’t get you anywhere. We just want to talk, okay? No foul play needed.”

You shut your eyes in submission, too afraid to even swallow the bile rising in case the movement would push the knife further. You could only let out a weak, “What do you want from me?”

“Oh, what else?” said his accomplice, showing up in front of you with a creepy smile. He tipped his head side to the side, revealing the silver replacements of his teeth that glinted under the streetlights. “You got his hidden slush fund, didn’t you?”

“I-I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Oh, sweetheart, you don’t need to lie, we saw you leave that bank. Plus, everyone’s been talking about it!” cheered the guy behind you, pushing you forwards with his blade finally withdrawn. You stumbled on your feet as they pointed to the nearest ATM. For a moment, you contemplated making a run for it. The ATM was only a few kilometres away from the Chinese restaurant and you could be safe if you run fast enough, but you were too obvious, the deceit written all over your face. The first guy then pressed a gun against your head, a silent reminder that you were the weaker one here. “Don’t even think about it,” he warned, “Now you’ll withdraw it little by little, okay? We just want a piece of it, a fraction of it is enough to last us a lifetime.”

Exhaling deeply, you raised your hands in surrender. “I can’t withdraw it.”

“The fuck did you say?”

“I said I can’t withdraw it! I don’t have access—”

“Bullshit, bitch, you’ve got so much of it, just give to us before we kill you,” he cocked his gun, his friend following suit and retrieving a pistol from his belt. Your lips quivered at the sight of two guns aimed at your way, but you remained firm in your spot, shaking your head at them. The man’s eyes darkened, displeased by your response. He narrowed his eyes at you before nodding to his friend.

“Fuck this man, she’s a selfish cunt. Take her phone and her belongings.”

“No, please, don’t—”

It was too late. They had pushed you on the ground, your bum throbbing from the fall. The second guy rummaged your pockets before pulling out your wallet, jaw dropping from the contents. “Fuck,” he exclaimed, flashing a Polaroid you had kept the whole time. “This you and Six Eyes?”

Your heart fell.

It was a photo of you and Satoru on your first anniversary where he’d whisked you off to a sky tower, arrogantly declaring that he’d make you experience the best date ever.

He wasn’t lying – his arrangement of fireworks and a romantic date in the sky really had been the best – and he’d snapped a picture of you then, sneakily landing a kiss on your cheek while you gasped at the display of fireworks before you.

Just seeing it felt like torture all over again, and the thief snickered at your tear stained face. “Oh, I see. You’re his whore, aren’t you? Everyone called it bullshit when word got around Six Eyes had a little angel hidden somewhere around here. I gotta say though, you are a pretty thing. Makes sense you got him pussy whipped.”

“Whoever Six eyes fucks – especially someone he liked enough to pay this much – that is fine meat, man,” the other muttered more to himself. His eyes then lit up with a thought, the smirk tugging at his lips screaming trouble. “It’d be a shame to not have a taste.”

You paled. Scrambling as much as you could with sore legs, you pushed their arms away from you. “Let go of me!” you cried out, kicking harder when they’ve discarded their guns and focused on carrying you instead. Everything muted that night except for the pounding of your heart as you struggled to get away from them, arms flailing the moment one of them yanked your shirt down to expose your bra. “Don’t fucking touch me, let go!”

It must be luck that your punch landed on his nose, a sickening crack resonating in the street. All of you remained still, with you flattening your back on the wall, arms protectively sheltering your chest and the pair staring at the other guy’s broken nose.

He winced at seeing blood on his fingers, “Oh, you’re just asking for it bitch,” he snarled, snapping his fingers to get his friend’s attention and pointing at you. “Grab her leg.”

Both of them made quick work. It all happened so fast you couldn’t tell which was who anymore. Your shirt had been ripped off; the straps of your bra tugged down to free a nipple while your arms had been knocked into the building behind you. One of them kept you immobile, their grips too strong and their bodies twice your size that you were easily overpowered. You never cried so hard in your life – not even when you realized Satoru had left – and your throat ached from how much you wept.

“Stop, no, let go of me!”

“Shut her the fuck up, bruh,” the man unzipping your jeans scowled, his fingers playing with the waistband of your underwear. You sobbed and screamed, fought hard as much as you could, but you were too weak. Too vulnerable. Too pathetic.

Maybe it was just better to let go.

Maybe it was just better to stop.

Your shoulders fell as they shimmied your jeans down your hips, each and every inch of your body no longer yours. Was this how you would die? Was this how you would finish? If so, you would’ve appreciated at least one last dinner.

You were about to close your eyes the moment you heard the sounds of a man’s belt unbuckling, too lost in your own horror that you failed to hear the screeching of tires, and neither did they. And then, like a light at the end of the tunnel, like an angel dropping from the heavens – gunshots rang through the air. Blood splattered to your cheek. Heavy bodies crunched against the ground.

He’d come back.

Except it wasn’t Satoru leaning in front of a car when you opened your eyes. The man stood a few inches shorter, blond shaggy hair falling just above his eyebrows, the ends dyed black. His body was tilted to the side, half of his weight shifted on a cane upon closer look, but you were mostly captivated in his eyes. He showed no malice intent; hell, he didn’t even spare a glance at the corpses with holes between their eyes, silently blowing the smoke away from his barrel like this was a common thing for him.

He had his eyes on you, uncaring of the fact you were half-naked before him since his attention remained on your face.

“So it’s true,” he mused, “I didn’t believe at first when they said Six Eyes really gave the notes to his girl. A commoner, no less,” he limped towards you, feline-eyes slanted to inspect you. “But nothing about you is common, is there? To get the demon to soften up…you really must be something else,” his gloved hands ran a finger down to your jaw, and you shut your eyes tight, leaning away from his touch. The man clicked his tongue at your reactions but withdrew his hand anyway, stepping a few feet away from you to give you space. “Don’t be so scared. You and I are not that different. We’re both just poor victims of facing the consequences of his actions,” he tapped his cane at your shoes, his face devoid of expression. “Stand up. You won’t get anywhere by crying. You need to learn how to fight.”

You swung the door open, ready to finally get the shoes you’ve been gushing to Naoya about for days. But you were met with nothing but a tuft of white hair, blood smattered on his cheeks, and lips crashing down onto yours. Satoru pinned you against the wall in the same manner he held you on that day he left, his kisses harsh and longing while you moaned into his mouth, legs turning into jelly.

“Angel,” he rasped into your mouth, grinding his boner to the thin material of your night gown. “I told you you’re fucking mine.”

Satoru forced his tongue past your lips and kept you close to him, his intoxicating scent tempting you to give in and enjoy it already. For a split second, you faltered, kissing him back with the love you once harboured for him, but then you blanked.

This was Satoru.

You were married to Naoya.

He’d began to leave kisses at your jawline when you pulled back, landing a sharp elbow right at his head. Satoru fell on the floor and you panted above him as you tried to make yourself decent. Fuck, that hurt like a bitch. You had to roll your shoulders back to get rid of the tension as you made the mental note to train in combat harder, pinching the bridge of your noise before you summoned the servants.

Satoru was knocked out for a solid hour. You found it funny that the infamous omnipotent Six Eyes was now sprawled all over your couch, soft snores emitting from his lips. He’d been pretty unresponsive to you so ice far, not even a budge as you iced the bruise you’d left on his face.

You sighed. His shirt was stained with blood, the pads of his knuckles matted with wounds and bruises. You couldn’t help yourself from brushing his hair away from his eyes, humming a little until his eyes cracked open. Satoru stared at the ceiling before his eyes landed on you hovering before him, your touch gentle in paradox to the heat of your gaze. “What are you doing here, Satoru?” you sighed, gesturing to the mess he had on his shirt. “Where have you been?”

“In a fight.”

“No shit,” you rolled your eyes, “You still haven’t answered my question. What are you doing here?”

“I-I don’t know. I just…I lost it for a moment and—”

“Do I want to know why?”

“It’s stupid,” he mumbled to himself and faced the couch. Even after seven years, he was still very much the petty kid at heart. You could confidently bet he was pouting right now, and you crossed your leg over the other, hiding a small smile behind your palm. “I overheard one of my men making a sleazy comment that Naoya’s wife looked like a bitch who would jump at every alpha male,” Satoru grumbled, prying for your reaction by looking across his shoulder. “I don’t know what came over me after that.”

“Did you kill them?”

“Almost,” he scrunched his nose, “Then I pictured your face. Maybe you wouldn’t want me to do that.”

“So you care about what I want now?”

Satoru shut his eyes. Of course you’d never stop bringing that up – both to your demises – since you were both a sadist who didn’t mind receiving pain every now and then. Five years of marriage with Naoya taught you to be resilient to all types of pain, the experiences and horrors you’ve lived through practically making you immune to them now. Satoru, on the other hand, didn’t seem to be on the same boat as you. He sat up, his hips flushed next to your thighs, burying his hands on his head. “Angel, about everything... are we not going to talk about what happened before?”

“Is there anything to talk about?” you deadpanned, surprising the guy who widened his eyes at you. Surely, he must be expecting a different form of hatred coming from you, but you were indifferent – numb, empty. “The past is in the past, Satoru. You know better than anyone else it’s easier to just walk away.”

“I’m really sorry.”

“For what?” you faked a smile, placing your chin on your hands while blinking up at him under innocent eyes. Naoya once told you that your attitude of being unbothered bothered a lot more people, and it was a technique you’ve loved ever since. Seeing Satoru crumble before you...nothing felt more satisfying. “For barging in here or for kissing me? Maybe both?”

“For everything,” he answered brokenly, “For all the pain I’ve put you through.”

“Do you think apologies are going to suddenly eradicate that?”

“…No.”

“Then I don’t need it,” you taunted, patting his thigh as you stood up, tying the knots of your robe safer this time. You couldn’t be bothered to wear underwear beneath them; if Satoru tried laying his hands on you again, you wouldn’t hesitate to cut his fingers off, and the plain sight of a dagger now strapped in your thigh was enough of a reminder for him. He made sure to keep his distance.

“Come with me. I’ll show you what we’ve been working on,” Satoru’s footsteps were silent as you led him past the secret doors hidden behind Naoya’s study, the room leading into an even bigger part of the house that stored most of your possessions. Satoru let out an awed gasp behind you once the lights and slight whirs of the machine buzzed through the room, chemicals bubbling from one side and little pills being packaged on the other. Your face lit up in a smile from the sheer pride of your hard work, arms extended to the side to present everything. “This is mostly where we manufacture Xenet. All of this – it’s mine. My personal little laboratory, or as Naoya calls it, my playroom,” you grinned, “I feel at peace here.”

“Making drugs?”

“Being safe,” you corrected with a roll of your eyes, “Acting like I’m normal. That gives me peace.”

Satoru was hot on your heels all the way to the main laboratory, where you’d pestered him into wearing safety gloves before entering. You donned a white coat from the blast of AC that enraged goosebumps, leading him in front of a huge clear wall that formulated Xenet’s pure creation. Stacks of purple powder lined up on layers all kept inside a cooling room, and you stepped to the side, muttering to yourself while checking today’s inventory like it was totally normal to manufacture illegal drugs inside your home.

You would’ve looked domestic if Satoru wasn’t feeling the slightest bit dizzy from the drug-coated atmosphere; one that you’d gotten resistant from.

“What brought you here?” Satoru voiced out, shaking his head to himself. He looked terribly devastated, cheeks sunken and dark circles lining his eyes. “I never thought...”

“That I’d be like you?” you finished for him. Tucking a stray strand behind your ear, you smiled at Satoru and pushed past him to list down your observations for today. “Don’t get me wrong. I’m not like Naoya; I’m not a mass murderer.”

“But you’re supporting him.”

“He keeps me safe as long as I’m useful to him,” you paused in your tracks, the spite evident in your tongue. “If you hadn’t left me, I wouldn’t have to be like this. There are thousands of people after me because you named me after that account. Other than Naoya, there’s really no other reason I’m still alive and breathing,” Satoru was speechless from your confession, which was good, since you didn’t want him chatting too much in the first place. You ignored him as you continued typing notes on your monitor, acting unaffected, but the way you punched through the keys told a different story. “This is the least I could do for him. In exchange of protection, I’ll be sharing my intelligence and give him what he wants.”

“Doesn’t it sicken you that we’re like this? That we do all this – for money, power, control – without the slightest bit of conscience?” Satoru scoffed, “You’ve been married for him a long time. I know you’re not a stranger to the fact we even enjoy this.”

You stopped your task, turning to Satoru with flared nostrils. “You know, Satoru, painting yourself as a demon to look like a victim won’t make me sympathize,” you spat out, absolutely losing it. “I don’t care what you’ve been doing before you met me. I don’t care that you killed or hurt people. I’m not the slightest bit of the angel you claim me to be because if I was as pure as that, don’t you think I would’ve stopped loving you?”

Everything crumbled to dust.

Years of convincing yourself you didn’t care anymore, years of healing yourself, years of working hard to forget him – and all crumbled to dust.

“What are you—”

“I knew!” you cut him off, “I knew everything. I’m not dumb, Satoru. No matter how much you tried to hide it back then, I saw the blood stains. I could smell the alcohol. I know drugs when I see it,” Satoru took a step back in surprise, but you kept going. Now that you’ve started it, you might as well finish it, and your eyes pricked with tears before you could stop it. “But I never cared. I was selfish – blinded by love. Back then, I told myself I didn’t care who you were because I loved you unconditionally,” You were breathing hard from finally releasing that damn fucking weight off your shoulders, your resolve breaking as you wiped your tears with the back of your hand while Satoru remained frozen. “Every night, I cried myself to sleep. I always asked myself why did it have to be you? Why did you have to be that way? Why did you have to be a monster? It broke me to no end, Satoru, but every time I tried to think of you as awful, you would hold me so close that it felt like everything was a lie,” your voice faltered, “I loved you in spite of everything you’ve done. I’m just selfish like that.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Why didn’t you tell me?” you cried, “Many times...I turned a blind eye to it. I didn’t want to force something out of you because I knew you weren’t ready, but I was always waiting, Satoru,” gesturing to the both of you, Satoru watched your frantic movements. “Did you think I didn’t mean it when I said I would love you no matter what – no matter who you might be? I meant every word of it. You didn’t have to leave me because I would’ve still left everything behind if you asked me to go with you. I don’t care anymore, I never did. I just wanted to be with you.”

“Angel...” he trailed off, debating whether to hold you or just stay put. Satoru chose the latter and ran his hands over his hair, breathing hard as he, too, wavered. “I was scared. Each time I see your face, I-I can’t help but think about losing you. It haunts me every fucking night that what if I’m not strong enough? What if I couldn’t protect you?” his voice broke, “You were the only good thing in my life. I couldn’t handle losing you just because you got too close.”

You shoved him hard. “That’s no fucking excuse! You told me – y-you told me that I made you feel strong, that I gave you hope, that I made you feel like nothing could stand in your way – so don’t stand there and fucking tell me you were scared!”

Satoru kept taking a step back from the force of your hits, and he took them all with a brave face, but it seemed that he too had reached his limit as you leered, “Don’t be a fucking coward!”

“It’s because I loved you!” Satoru gripped your wrists and tugged you to him, effectively taking the ability to speak away from you. “My whole life, I got everything I wanted and things were easy for me! I don’t know what it’s like to lose something because I had control of everything except you! I didn’t want you stuck and burdened with my sins all for the sake of something as greed!” he bellowed, his forehead connected with yours and the warmth of his body more than welcoming. “I am a greedy man, angel, I would take everything I want with no hesitation but I couldn’t do it with you. It was easier to let you go,” he mumbled, “Than to regret making you unhappy by revealing my true self. Because the way you looked at me – you loved me so much I don’t think I’m worthy of it,” Satoru trudged closer to you, almost rubbing his skin over your soft ones just to say, “I don’t deserve you.”

You pulled away from him.

You’d tore open every chance of reconciliation. And if you were to be honest? You didn’t regret it.

“You’re right,” you snickered sarcastically, “You really don’t deserve me. Here I thought maybe Naoya would be the weaker of the two of you, but he’s more of a man than you are, Satoru. Naoya never gave an excuse for anything – it didn’t matter whether he was capable of something or not – he always tried to the best of his ability. He’s not the type to give up before he’s even tried it,” You knew you were just pushing his buttons, this was much clear from how Satoru was holding himself back, but you couldn’t stop. You were unstoppable, harsh as you challenged your once lost lover who had now wound up before you once more.

“If you truly loved me and felt you didn’t deserve me, then don’t you think you should’ve tried harder?”

You wanted him to regret it. You wanted him to feel your pain a thousand times more. You wanted him to realize what he’d done wrong. But most of all, you wanted him to try harder, to redeem himself, to be worthy of a second chance.

But just like how he’d broken your heart before, Satoru did it again.

Because even after every fucking thing, the only thing he was capable of saying was: “I’m sorry, Angel.”

You’d grown too tired of apologies. But because it was him, because you loved him, then you’d fucking hear it all over again. Just try, you wanted to beg, try for me, Satoru.

“Your plans will continue to fail, Satoru,” you agonized, “You never protected me. The moment you left, my life turned to hell and I almost died way too many times for me to count. This time is no different. We’re all just pawns in the Zen’in’s game, so if you really want both of us to live, you should do your part,” Sighing, you turned away from him, just about ready to call it a night. You were too tired. “Give back the money to Naoya, and he’ll keep me safe until the end of it all. You can just go back to where you came from.”

“Naoya won’t stand a chance against Toji. It’s not his money anyway, he should give it back to his cousin—”

“And neither is it yours!”

“Don’t be fucking stupid, you see the flaw of his plans too!” Satoru gestured to your lab, to everything that you proudly claimed an effort of your hard work. “Even if I gave back everything to Naoya, it won’t stop Toji from anything! He might not kill you anymore, but he’ll definitely kill your husband and take over the mafia, or his kid, then where will you go?”

“Follow him into death like the good wife I am.”

Satoru was stunned by the lack of hesitance in your answer. “You’re serious about this,” he echoed, blinking back to process the gravity of your devotion to your husband. “Even if Toji somehow dies, it doesn’t change the fact Naoya will still proceed with plans to manipulate Japan to his will. He’s going to drug everyone until he’s at the top of the food chain. Your husband doesn’t want to be a businessman; he wants to be a god. Plus, he doesn’t care about you, he’s only using you!”

“Like I said,” you smiled weakly,  “He keeps me safe as long as I’m useful to him. Once he gets everything he wants, it’s game over.”

“No...” Satoru gritted his teeth, “No, I won’t let it happen. You’re not going anywhere; you’re not going to die!”

“So then protect me!” you shouted at his face, “Do what it is you never got to do before and protect me! I’m disposable, don’t you see? No matter what I do, no matter where I go, no matter how loyal I am to him, I am nothing! Each step I take forwards is just a step closer to my prolonged death!” you spewed word for word with so much venom Satoru felt like he was choking, but it was nothing in comparison as you fell on the floor, weeping with your fists pressed against your eyes. “If you hadn’t left me...I wouldn’t have to live fearing for my life every second. So protect me, Satoru. If you really want me to forgive you, at least save me this once.”

“I will, angel,” he promised – and how many more promises had he made, only to break them? You couldn’t be blamed for not believing him, for finding wariness in his words, for flinching a little bit as he crouched before you, cupping your cheek the same way he did before. “I promise you that. I’m never leaving, never gonna leave your side ever again.”

“You better not,” you chuckled darkly, eventually giving in from his touch.

Yes, he’d left you...yes, he’d hurt you – but until now it felt like home, even if it also conflicted with the fact this was wrong.

“My only wish is that when I die, I want to die without hating you,” you muttered with your lips hovering his, your breaths tangling and his hands finding its way to your hair. “So don’t make me hate you anymore, Satoru. Grant me peace before I leave.”

“You’re not going to die,” he closed his eyes and took the first leap of faith by grazing his lips with yours, a faint glimmer of the sweetness he once had the pleasure of savouring with each waking moment of his life. But he was stupid back then – he’d be even more stupid to not learn his lesson this time around.

“I won’t let that happen, you understand?” Satoru breathed out, “You will be safe. You will live.”

He had said it so confidently, so surely, that for a moment, you believed it. You believed maybe you’d really win this round and come out unscathed, to live, to survive – even if the chances were slim to none to begin with. For now, you didn’t want to be a mafia leader’s wife, nor did you want to be another’s broken lover. You just wanted to be someone who didn’t want to die, to find comfort in the empty promises from the same man who kept breaking and breaking them, and maybe for now, that was enough.

Without another thought, not even the image of Naoya’s smile, you let it go.

You pulled Satoru close to you and kissed him hard and deep, swallowing his surprised moan with that exact same greediness, that desperation to live. You knew the moment Naoya came back or Toji found you, everything would be game over. So for now, this was enough.

A/N. SOOOOO? THOUGHTS? THEORIESSSSS? DO WE HAVE A TEAM NAOYA HERE OR IS IT JUST ME HAHAHAHAHA

taglist OPEN (lmk if you want to be added/removed): @sixeyesgojo @shingekiyofeels @q-the-rockaholic @whatthefuckisthatthing @rogueofbullshit @kat-su-ki @kellyyween @sebootyforlife @greysoulthings @charlie-xo @aoi-turtle @ladywaifuuwrites @savantsoulfinder @my-reality-is-in-my-head @hannya-quinn @90s-belladonna​ @tinyfrogsinmybrain @kinekyuroo​ @evesmores​ @ambiguous-something​ @lilith412426​ @kakashiharusohma @aizawap​ | bolded users cannot be tagged ://

[therenlover]

In Fleeting Touches & Airy Sighs Chapter One (A Three Chapter Helmut Zemo/Reader Fanfic)

(Thank you to the wonderful anon who requested angst and smut between Zemo and the reader because Zemo had to be away from her on the run!)

Synopsis: A year after working together with Zemo in the events of Falcon and the Winter Soldier, Sam and Bucky seek him out once again in need of shelter from John Walker. Meanwhile, Zemo’s wife resents his absence and prepares for guests.

Tags: Flashbacks, Depression, Alcoholism, Separation Anxiety, Arguing, Struggling Marriage, Reunions

Rating: T (E in future chapters)

Warnings: Guns, Swearings, Reader shows signs of alcoholism/alcohol abuse, Reader uses a hot shower as a mild form of self harm

Word Count: 5000~

This fic has been crossposted under the same title to my AO3!

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Helmut Zemo was not often a man backed into a corner.

He was smart, resourceful, and had nothing left to lose. If it came down to the line, he would do whatever had to be done within his morals to achieve his goals, even if that goal was simply staying alive. The Baron bowed to no man, and made his enemies, no matter their size, fall to their knees with sheer wit instead of brute strength. That’s why, when he stood backed into an alley with the barrel of James Barnes’ gun to his forehead as the Falcon watched on, it was strange that he didn’t try to weasel his way out.

“We need answers,” Sam said, hands in the pockets of his dark hoodie. Bucky wore a similar one, only he wore a baseball cap instead of keeping his hood up. “How the hell did you break out of prison for a second time?”

Usually, Zemo would have replied with a clever quip. He had never been one to back down from a fight. This time, though, he looked almost frightened as he raised his arms in defeat. “I got in contact with friends on the outside during our short adventure together. They decided to help me out once I was re-incarcerated, willingly I might add. I had no part in the plan, but who would look a gift horse in the mouth?”

“And I guess I’m just supposed to assume you had no part in getting my pardon revoked?” Bucky spat.

“If you hadn’t noticed, James, I’ve left you alone,” A hint of his usual mockery slipped into Helmut’s tone, but he quickly pulled it back, “Believe what you want about me, but I’ve had some time since last year to… re-evaluate my feelings on the world. You had no choice but to do the things you did as the Winter Soldier, and as long as you pose no threat to society now I have no qualms with you,”

Despite the strangeness of Zemo’s response Bucky remained unphased. Sam, on the other hand, was less stoic.

“Man, I’m not sure if you’ve noticed, but the government is looking for Bucky and I harder than they’re looking for you, and it’s kind of all your fault, so excuse me for not giving a shit about your supposed sudden change of heart!”

“Can we get to the point? I’m afraid my flight leaves in an hour and I would hate to be late,”

“Cut the bullshit!” There Bucky went, pushing the cold metal closer to Zemo’s furrowed forehead.

“Bucky...” Sam warned.

“No, Sam, I can do this. Did you or did you not actively attempt to get my pardon revoked when you took us to Madripoor? Because thanks to you, a worse symbol than Sam is now standing unchecked with the title of Captain America AND he has access to the last of the new super soldier serum AND he’s trying to get us killed so we can’t tell the world about the awful shit he does,”

“I-” Zemo went to speak and, for the first time since he had met him, Sam believed he was being genuine. There was a tremble that made its way through him, all the way to his raised hands and even his voice. It was enough that Bucky even lowered the gun minutely. “I understood that by following my lead, the both of you were risking a lot. I didn’t intend any specific malice with my actions though, no. If I may… the two of you have attracted a lot of attention here in the past few days. I assume Walker is very close to finding you?”

Sam and Bucky shared a look before Sam responded. “Maybe, why?”

“I have a safe house,” he continued, “I don’t stay there often so the location isn’t compromised, but it’s my next stop. Might I suggest we take this conversation on the road? I would hate to host your reunion with Mr. Walker in an alley over my corpse,”

There was a moment of complete stillness. Zemo remained, face dark with that strange deer-in-headlights look, a perfect statue, as the barrel of Bucky’s gun remained pointed firmly in his direction and Sam shared what seemed to be a completely silent conversation with Bucky. It was true that they had been burned before. Zemo was a man with his own agenda who did what it took to fulfill it. That being said, he had returned willingly with them back to prison before he was broken out, and without his help, the band of freshly minted super soldiers would still be running around Europe causing chaos. In the end, Bucky lowered his gun slowly before tucking it away into his boot holster.

Zemo grinned.

“Don’t think this means we trust you,” Sam groaned, pointing a finger at the man.

“I wouldn’t dream of it. Now, gentlemen, I believe we have a plane to catch,”

As the trio began to make their way out of the alley Bucky and Sam fell to the flank of the group. “Do you really think this is a good idea?” Bucky asked, eyes darting between his two companions. Sam shrugged.

“At this point, I’m doing whatever it takes to get home to my family in one piece. If that means I have to ride in Zemo’s stupid private jet again and lay low for a while, then that’s what I’m gonna do, because Sarah and those kids don’t deserve to lose me all over again,”

“But don’t you think he’s acting a little… weird?”

“Don’t worry, I have my eye on him. If he tries anything we can just throw him out front when Walker tries to shoot us,”

“You’re doing a very poor job of concealing your conversation,” Zemo shouted.

Bucky stormed ahead as Sam laughed.

“Oh, shut up!”

Surprisingly, the drive to the airstrip was mostly uneventful, as was the relatively short flight from Zurich to Avignon. There was, of course, the usual cutthroat banter and tension so thick you could feel it like a fog hanging over the group, but in an unusual twist of fate, the baron did very little to initiate. Of course, he wasn’t fully innocent though. He never was. That being said, even as his chauffeur carefully navigated the stone roads to the dropoff point he was strangely quiet. He had texted someone earlier to have the house prepared for their arrival but he kept looking down at the phone as if a response would come. It didn’t.

Sam appreciated the break from the noise. To him, it was a moment of peace after a few months of constant opposition. For the duration of the trip, he had chosen to shoot a few choice quips Bucky’s way before taking a long nap. Bucky, on the other hand, was only growing more suspicious of Zemo by the minute.

After his time with Hydra, Bucky had become intimately acquainted with the type of man that Zemo was. He was ruthless, driven by ideals that couldn’t be changed by any amount of debate or theory read inside a prison cell, and willing to do whatever it took to fulfill those ideals no matter the cost. There was remorse but no regret. A man like that doesn’t just stop believing in the thing that led him to kill dozens if not hundreds of people, because once the impetus is gone so is the only thing upholding their sense of self.

In basic terms, he was hiding something. Bucky was intent on finding out what that thing was, a thing important enough to make Zemo of all people shut the hell up and tell his enemies exactly where his safe house was, and he wasn’t going to rest until he did. The answer came easily enough in the end, but not before Sam and Bucky were forced face to face with the strangest thing they had ever seen, even when including aliens and wizards. That thing was Zemo buying flowers.

The trio had gotten out of the car somewhere around the center of the city and continued towards the safe house on foot. A few minutes after they started, though, Zemo had spoken.

“I apologize, but I’ll have to stop for a moment,” He said, holding up a hand to alert the two men trailing him to the fact that he was about to stop. Sam quirked up an eyebrow.

“At a flower shop?”

There, to the right of them, was a small fleuriste. The window was a burst of bright color. Pinks, reds, whites, purples; a certain bunch of spring blooms had caught Zemo’s eye. He shrugged. “It’s rude to arrive at someone’s house asking for a favor without a gift, Mr. Wilson. Excuse me,”

With a comfort that said he had been into the shop many times, Zemo walked through the door and began conversing with the shop owner in perfect French, even referring to her as tu instead of vous as he made his purchase.

“Did he just say someone’s house ?” Sam asked Bucky, eyes widening.

Bucky gritted his teeth. “Yeah, I think he did,”

“So, we’re just showing up at someone’s door,”

“Yup. Not to mention they’re someone who aligns themself with him,”

A groan escaped from Sam as he ran his hand down his face in disbelief. “I didn’t expect much from Zemo, but damn,”

“It’s your fault for expecting anything from Zemo in the first place,”

“For once, you’re right,”

They dawdled for a moment. As their conversation stilled, Zemo returned, now burdened by a sizable bouquet from the window. Around them, the city was starting to get off of work. Families walked together as businesses had their 5 o’clock shift change. Somehow as the world around them came to life it didn’t look at Sam and Bucky with anything more than a passing glance. They were tourists, nothing more. For a moment Sam understood why Zemo would go to a place like this for safety and anonymity.

Without ceremony, the trio began walking towards their destination once again.

“I apologize for the delay,” Zemo said, keeping his pace brisk and remaining about a foot ahead of his companions, “I suppose it’s become a bit of a habit that I buy Y/N flowers whenever I come back. We shouldn’t be long now, though, the house is just a few more blocks away, maybe 3 minutes by foot,”

“Y/N?” Bucky asked. The name felt heavy on his tongue, familiar. That had to be a coincidence though. Zemo would never align himself with anyone who had worked for Hydra, and there was no other place he could have heard that name and had it hold any significance. Right?

Zemo chuckled. “Y/N is our host. I’d appreciate it if you tried to maintain some semblance of respect when we arrive, she tends to have quite the temper and it would reflect badly on me if she believed I was asking her to indefinitely house two people who would happily send her to prison,”

“About that,” Sam chimed in, “Who the hell are we about to be staying with? It’s not that I don’t trust you, but I don’t, and by extension, I also don’t tend to trust people who trust you,”

“I assure you, Sam, Y/N is more trustworthy to you than I will ever be,”

“That doesn’t answer my question, nor does it make me feel any better,”

“She’s American, and like you, she is seeking shelter from the government. Isn’t that enough for you?”

“Man, at this point I feel like you’re not telling us because she’s actually some sort of crazy Sokovian sleeper agent who’s gonna stab us in the back while we sleep. Am I crazy, Buck, or am I right?”

Bucky, who had been trying his best to stay out of the conversation, replied. “You are being unnecessarily evasive, Zemo, though that’s nothing new…”

“Right? Like, I’m really grateful that you’re lending us a hand, but I’ve gotta be honest, if I think for a second things are going south-”

Sam never got to finish his sentence.

Suddenly, Zemo stopped short, turning around and looking Bucky in the eye with a madness neither he nor Sam had ever seen before. His whole body was stiff, rigid. The hand that wasn’t cradling the flowers delicately was gripped in a fist at his side. He looked angry, but underneath the anger, he really just looked scared. “You will not touch her. Do you hear me? Do what you’d like with me, I have made choices worthy of punishment, but you will not touch Y/N. If you so much as think of it, all bets are off. Do you understand me?”

Bucky nodded, sharp. This was certainly interesting. Sam just smirked.

“Is there something else you want to tell us?”

Zemo walked up a small set of stairs towards a home to their right. “No, Mr. Wilson, I don’t believe so,”

The building was a nice one, all tan stone with dark wrought-iron fixtures on its many windows. It looked, for all intents and purposes, like a normal midtown manor-house for some upper-class member of the community. The normalcy of it all hid its true purpose in plain sight. It was genius, really. Over a dividing wall made of the same yellowing stone, Sam could see a small sliver of vibrant green garden space and a pool at the side of the building.

With a steadying breath, Zemo knocked on the door.

“You have to knock on the door of your own safe house?” There was a hint of incredulity in Bucky’s voice as he crossed his arms. This was going to be a disaster. Why had they agreed to this again?

“A little etiquette goes a long way, James, especially when you’re already in the doghouse,” Then, the door opened.

Bucky froze. There, standing in the doorway with a pistol in her hand and a fire in her eyes, was a woman he thought long dead: you. This couldn’t be right! He had killed you back in ‘02 with the rest of the AAHR...

You quirked up an eyebrow at Zemo.

“Give me one reason I should let you in and not shoot you on the spot,”

They were so fucked.

________________

The day, on your end of the world, had gone by much slower.

It started off like any other, with the alarm on your bedside table blaring as you opened your eyes and your arms reached out into the emptiness in the sheets beside you. Sometimes, when Helmut’s flight got in late enough, you would wake up and reach to the side only to find that he had appeared beside you in the night. Those were the best kind of reunions. They were free of pretense, no bitterness or resentment clouded your sleep-heavy brain when you opened your eyes to his peaceful resting face, and you could simply fall into the comforting rhythm of husband and wife. If you reunited with a clear head things tended not to go as well.

You groaned. It wasn’t as if there was even a guarantee he would come back, especially not after the way you’d left things last time. The philosophy of attendre et espérer, waiting and hoping like an Edmond Dantés type, wouldn’t do you any good, at least not anymore.

Maybe it was time to start moving on…

Tomorrow. You could start thinking about the next steps tomorrow. For today you’d enjoy what you had.

Getting out of bed was difficult but you managed. The sun streamed through the curtains that billowed gently in the breeze near your balconette, brilliant gold beams illuminating the dust that danced in the air. The first thing you did was shuffle along to the corner and pour yourself two fingers of brandy from Helmut’s private collection. It was like a morning ritual these days, a numbing agent against the loneliness. Once the drink was downed you moved on to the closet to get dressed.

Dressing yourself wasn’t of much importance these days. You couldn’t exactly leave the house, and nobody was visiting, so more often than not, it was easier to just wear the same pajamas for a few days until you knew Oeznik would be around to drop off groceries. Today, though, you felt… filthy. Not dirty in a physical way, just sticky and filthy and unclean under your skin and in your very heart. Maybe a shower would help.

You looked around the closet with a clinical eye. It was difficult to be in there, surrounded by lavish dresses and expensive suits that you and your husband had worn arm in arm while plotting the downfall of the Avengers before your unsteady alliance had turned into so much more. Everything still smelled like his cologne. In the small, often-closed, walk-in closet, the scent had only intensified, covering every article of clothing with a fog of cedarwood and sage. It made you sick, choked the air from your lungs and left you gasping for even a single breath that didn’t sit heavy on your tongue with the bitter taste of that familiar musk.

The alcohol had helped. It always did. The remnants of its burn in your mouth formed a sort of guard against the scent of the closet as you searched through a pile of shirts for something soft and easy to wear. Your hands suddenly stilled.

“Zemo, I’m gonna be honest, this is the ugliest sweater I’ve ever seen in my entire life,”

“I’m hurt! That’s one of my favorites,”

“Where did you even get it, a 90-year-old grandpa’s closet? Jesus Christ, it looks like something out of a shitty 70’s flick about family values,”

“I’ll have you know that I thrifted that sweater. It’s very eco-conscious you know,”

Your heart hurt. Well, no, your whole body hurt, but your heart ached a little more prominently as you carefully picked up the sweater and held it to your chest. It was terribly ugly, 4 sizes too big even on Helmut and covered in an olive and forest green argyle. Somehow he was always able to pull off the oversized thing no matter how ridiculous you had always insisted you found it. When was the last time he’d worn it again?

The memory evaded you.

Still, it was a happy relic, happier than most of the monuments to a failing marriage that lined the shelves of your beautiful personal prison. It wouldn’t hurt to hope that by wearing it, you might rub just a little bit of that lost happiness off onto your present-day, right? With one last forlorn glance around the closet, you gathered up the sweater and a pair of jeans before getting out as fast as you could. With the scent of cologne clinging to you, the shower wasn’t just a good idea now, it was necessary.

So, you showered. You took the stupid foot-long exfoliating brush Helmut loved so much and scrubbed and scrubbed and scrubbed yourself under the near-boiling stream of water until your skin was pink and raw. Disappointingly, even the new skin felt filthy. It was better, though, less intense. With some lotion and a little bit of Neosporin on the fresh patches of blotchy red, you were able to feel okay. Not good. Not clean. Just… okay. At least you didn’t smell like him anymore. The clock read 12:14 when you finally made it out of the bathroom in search of some real food.

Lunch, if you could call it that, was a silent affair. The fridge was almost empty and the pantry was only a little less bare, so you threw together a cheese sandwich, not even bothering to waste butter and grill it. You ate it plain with another glass of brandy out on the pool deck. It was gone sooner than you hoped it would be.

Oh well.

You finished your brandy with a sigh. Only seven or eight more hours until you could finish your day with a few more drinks and pass out in bed until nine or ten once again. Ah, dreamless sleep. That sounded divine. Now if only you could fathom any non-depressing way to spend the time between sleeping and waking. Swimming was out, the chemicals would burn your freshly eviscerated skin. Playing solitaire for the fourth day in a row sounded like absolute hell on earth. Even watercolors, a usual calming respite from the torturous and neverending monotony of life trapped alone in a house you had no help in stocking, were off the table ever since you’d run out of paper.

Somewhere inside the house, your phone dinged.

The second the sound hit your ears you jumped, dropping your glass and letting it shatter into a thousand tiny shards on the stone of the patio.

Phones were a difficult thing to own for someone who was trying to stay out of the eyes of the government. They were too easy to track and could tip off enemies to your location with very little error needed on your part. Even searching the internet for innocent things was too risky. If your search history was too similar to that of the alias you had used before Helmut went to prison, it would have been easy for them to find a connection and send someone to track you down. Still, you kept a cell phone charged and ready on the kitchen counter despite the risk for one reason and one reason only: Emergency contact with your husband.

He never texted from the same number on more than one occasion, always switching from burner phone to burner phone as he flew across the country doing god knows what, but if he was ever in a situation where emergency contact with you was needed, he was able to reach you at your number immediately. It had only happened a couple of times, and each time he had been in a considerable amount of danger. So, when you suddenly heard the sound you dreaded more than anything else in the world, you were quick to rush inside, even ignoring the shattered glass at your feet as you shoved through the doors and found the phone.

The small, LED display was lit up with the notification. It made your heart both soar and sink.

Flying home with two guests. Prepare the two rooms for their stay. We will be there by 5 at the latest - B

You read over the message several times before letting the phone fall from your hand and back onto the counter with a dull thud.

That absolute asshole.

Three months. Three months you had spent sitting alone. Three months without a call, or a text, or a letter, or even a word of when he was coming back by way of Oeznik. Three months! And after three months of loneliness and sleepless nights and empty bottles on the drink cart he reaches out through an emergency line of contact that almost certainly means he might be dying only to tell you he’s bringing two strangers into your safe house, the place even he refuses to stay in too long in order to not give its location away. The scar on your spine was starting to burn as you leaned up against the counter and cried.

It was ridiculous to think you had ever believed him capable of more tact than that.

Really, it was your fault. From the beginning, you’d had too much faith in a man incapable of being trustworthy, even to those closest to him. You knew that, and yet you had married him. Maybe the soft touches and sweet lies he had spoon-fed you had made you weak. Maybe you always had been.

“I’m not a child, Helmut, I know what I’m doing!”

“I don’t think you do,” he shouted. He was a few drinks in now, you both were. The nights before his departures never tended to end well when you both drank. “Because no matter what I do to protect you, you have the need to disobey me! Have you considered that I do the things I do for your own good!”

“Oh! Oh yes, the things YOU do!” You slammed your glass down on the table as you stormed over to Helmut, “I sit here all day like a fucking dog in a cage while you fly to fucking Ibiza and flirt with supermodels, but YOUR story is just so fucking tragic! I’m your wife, Helmut! I’m not an animal or your property, I’m your goddamn wife! You can’t just order me to sit and stay like a dog,”

He glared down at you, eyes hawkish and glinting in the low lamplight. For the first time in years, he looked threatening, “You may not be a dog, or a child, or my property, but you are a weapon! It’s my job to keep you here, away from the-”

“Excuse me?” You interrupted. The two of you stood, inches away and yet miles apart. Slowly, the drive in Helmut’s eyes faltered. “Say that again. I dare you,”

“Schatz, I-”

“No, Helmut, you meant it so say it again. Call me that again. I fucking dare you,” Tears were streaming down your face now. He took a step towards you, hand extended to wipe them away, but you were quick to take a step back out of his reach.

“You misunderstood me,”

“I don’t think there was anything to misunderstand,”

You swept the shards of your glass tumbler into a dustpan, hands still shaking even ten minutes after you’d read Helmut’s message to you. As you worked, your last conversation before he’d left echoed in your mind.

How had it all devolved into that? It wasn’t hard to remember Helmut before prison, jaded and broken and lonely. He had been so much like you and yet so different. Each of you seemed to be the perfect balm for the others' wounds. In the end, despite all of his flaws, you had found yourself in love. Now that he was a different man, was that love gone? You couldn’t say. All you knew for sure was that you weren’t nearly drunk enough to be facing the confusing feelings in your brain. With the last of your energy, you emptied the dustpan of glass into the trash can and returned to the house, sweater itchy against your irritated skin, to ready the guest rooms.

The job wasn’t a long one. You had never used the guest rooms in all the time you’d spent at the Avignon property, so the sheets were already clean. There was just a thin layer of dust on the furniture that needed to be swept away as you checked to make sure the dressers were bare and the bathrooms were stocked with amenities. Then, when that was done, you were left to your thoughts as the hours ticked by.

Most of the time you spent sitting on the couch doing absolutely nothing. It sounded terrible, and in all honesty it was, but what else could you do? The house was already spotless so cleaning wasn’t an option, and you didn’t quite feel like doing much of anything as you stared at the clock and tried to remember a time when your life was less of a disaster. As it got closer to five, though, you started to get antsy.

You had tried your best to not think about the obvious issue of the guests. Zemo was not the type to threaten his home, even if he wasn’t happy with you, so usually having anyone who wasn’t Oeznik or another paid lackey aware of the location of your safe house would be a big no in his book, but then you started thinking of the implications of him bringing people into your home. Your home, not his. Was he on his way to kill you? It wasn’t out of the realm of possibility. Or maybe he was bringing your replacement.

Now that thought made anger bubble up in your throat. You were no stranger to the idea that when your husband was away, he could be doing anything. There was no guarantee when he slept in lavish hotels or drank the night away in elite lounges that he kept his wedding ring on. The fact that there were two guests meant it was unlikely he was bringing two mistresses, but never impossible. Nothing was impossible when it came to Helmut.

No, it was more likely he had finally decided it was time to end your suffering. The shouts and boisterous laughter that started to sound directly outside of the front room window only confirmed the for you. Slowly, you crept towards the door and grabbed a small pistol from its place in the umbrella stand. If he wanted you dead you weren’t going to go without a fight.

Through the curtains on the front door, you could just barely make out the trio. When you saw them your blood ran cold. It was one thing if he needed help to take you down, but getting the Winter Soldier on board? Your rage only grew by the minute.

Helmut said something, probably planning the best course of action to catch you off guard, and you sneered. Two could play at that game. When he knocked on the door you opened it calmly and held the gun with your finger just barely ghosting over the trigger.

Everyone froze.

“Give me one reason I should let you in and not shoot you on the spot,” you said, rage coursing through every nerve in your body. You may have been in retirement for quite a few years, but you still knew how to handle a gun. Everyone there, except maybe the Falcon, knew that. As Zemo went to open his mouth, you prepared for a firefight.

“Because I brought you flowers,”

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

a/n: Sorry that only one chapter is out! The fic is just getting very long and complicated and I wanted to make sure you got as much as possible before the next episode drops lol. I’ll be working pretty much nonstop from now until then, though, so the next parts should be out soon!

TAGLIST: @tatestripedsweater​ , @elaineygrace​, @multiyfandomgirl40​ ,  @lovelymischief​ , @rami-malek-trash​ , @dazzlingseb​, @avgravy​ , @sarahsilver , @wh0re-4-techno​ , @forcebros​ , @sugarsweetkiss​ , @grandmuffinsharkbailiff​ , @killsandthrills​ , @novasstudy​ , @thnksfr-ptrkstmp​ , @inmate-marmalade​, @alanathedeer​ , @mossybank​ , @simsiddy​ , @xxspqcebunsxx​ 

Please do not post my work on other sites, thank you!

[lailoken]

“The idea that associating faeries and Witches with the dead related to an initiatory phase of the faerie encounter makes sense of why faeries are often confused with the dead, and why Witches are relentlessly associated with death. The Witch as poisoner of the well and bringer of disease is much like the apples of the Underworld upon which the Queen of Elphame claims "all the plagues of hell are upon," which could even be taken literally as diseases.

There is a risk in passing through the realm of the dead to get to the Crooked Path, there is a risk of an incomplete initiation that brings back demons of madness and disease instead of healing powers. For this reason many of the motifs of Witchcraft have to do with initiatory death and the Underworld, even though it is as much about the realm of Faerie as it is about the world of the dead. What we see in Witchcraft are images of blackness, skulls, bones, poisons and narcotic ointments, curses, animalistic transformations, cannibalism, perverse sex, and sorcerous tortures. This is all the uninitiated or partly initiated ever get to see. Our faerie light, the cunning fire, is hidden from view, but hidden in plain sight.

Initiation in other shamanic cultures involves things like dismemberment, eating of the flesh and blood by demonic entities and heating and forging symbolism. Eva Pocs talks about the way something was often removed or put in during a Witch's initiation in the Balkans. She says the removal of a bone or even the little finger was required in some parts of Europe. Just as Witches sucked illnesses or fairy darts out in the British Isles so did other Witches remove a bone from the body of an initiate, scratch them and take their blood for a pact or take something else from them that would serve as a relic of their personal power. The procedures of healing and the processes of induction into the cult resonate profoundly, and initiation can be seen as a form of drastic healing.

Things may also be inserted into people's bodies, both by faeries and Witches. You can see in the following charm that way back since the dark ages both faeries and Witches have been linked together in the practice of throwing elf shot or "witch shot" as it was also called.

The tenth century metrical charm “Against A Sudden Stitch" (WiÐ fœrstice) offers remedy against sudden pain (such as rheumatism) caused by projectiles of either ése [gods], ylfe [elves] or Witches (gif hit weere esa gescot OÐÐE hit wœre ylfa gescot 0ÐĐº hit wære hægtessan gescot) “be it Ése-shot or elf-shot or witch-shot." This brings to mind the physical ways in which Witches are renowned for putting things in people, such as pins of blackthorn into the heart of a poppet doll. The bewitched were sometimes seen to vomit up pins, and the tangled hair of the one who had hexed them. In this way both for good or ill, Witches and faeries were united in being held responsible for either removing strange body parts like an extra unnoticed bone, or instead inserting magical objects into the body of either a victim or potential initiate. As we have seen, when it comes to the realm of Faerie and humans the only difference between victim and initiate is a strong familiar spirit who acts as a kind of bridge and guide between the worlds.

Eva Pocs gives an account of how death and resurrection experiences were part of becoming known as a woman or man of Faerie. Lady Wilde also spoke how Irish Faerie Doctors often acquired their trade through having spent time in Faerie following abduction. Pocs tells us in her Fairies and Witches at the Boundary of South-Eastern and Central Europe that the living ones, as in people who had not passed through the initiation trauma, were not permitted to gaze upon the Otherworld in Balkan traditions. But the light-shadowed people who were either faerie already, or who had been taken away and "changed" were allowed to know it. The light- shadow was perceived as an aura around the person's head like a halo.

"As far as 'transitory death' and temporary soul journeys are concerned, they, according to several beliefs, mean initiation; if someone has ever looked into that other world,—eg. Has seen the fairies who must not be seen by a living person,—from that time on he/she is considered initiated." Or as another account from the area puts it: “The faeries killed him but revived him, giving him power." 

During these abductions the iele takes out a piece of bone and replaces it with a stake or wheel spoke. One year later in the same location they put back the removed bone. This trope of something being removed or inserted into the body of the initiate is found in many shamanic cultures throughout the world. In some cases the shaman is believe to be in possession of an extra bone that must be counted by the spirits.

These faerie motifs of abduction, initiatory death and repatriation into the community with altered status, and the insertion or removal of body parts and blood are all clues to better understanding how Witchcraft flows forth from the Faerie Faith. Eva Pocs points out the following similarities. Just like faeries:

"The witch, for instance, flies in the form of a crow or a whirl-wind, sits in a swallows nest, where she seems to sometimes be little, sometimes big, and sometimes disappears, she walks on the top of trees as quickly as the wind; or the whole witch company 'transforms into crows and alights on wil- lows'. They travel in green coaches on the top of the trees..."

Of course this close connection between the Faerie Faith and Witches was muddied by persecution of the Craft. The faerie practices were increasingly assimilated into the household and moved away from the wilderness, with Sicilian Fairie Witches going from house to house, rather than out into the forest. Meanwhile Witchcraft was given all of the dangerous Otherwise characteristics, the ones so crucial to initiation that were slowly being stripped from the faerie narrative. In the process the realm of Faerie was losing its teeth and claws, and Witchcraft was being vilified almost out of existence.

All of the negative or dark attributes of the faeries, which were originally part of their primordial ambivalence, were gradually settled on Witches. Cunning practices became strongly associated with Faerie, and Witchcraft with demons, even though originally it is almost impossible to make this distinction in a meaningful way. In this way most forgot that Witches serve with the right hand as surely as they blight with the left, a characteristic shared with the fées of Brittany. Faeries throw darts and blast crops as surely as they bestow blessings and cure the diseases they cause.

LOnce faeries, and the human practitioners of magic who had faeries for familiars, both shared in those characteristics, including the ones that do mankind good, and those that do mankind ill. Faeries, and the Witchcraft that grows forth from it into the human side of the hedge, carry with them all the plagues and poisons of the Earth, and also the potential inoculation and medicine that affects every cure.

Only those who have passed through the world of the dead are offered access to the Third Path. Only he who has walked that path and come back wearing the virid doublet of Faerie and learned to keep silent, can now come back and eat of the fruit upon which all of the plagues of Hell alight to find the secret of their cure. In the Underworld, the Tree of Knowledge and the Tree of Life and Death are the same tree.

Even in Britain where we don't find the bone tak- ing motif and only occasionally see an explicit spiritual death followed by resurrection, we do find the passing of the breath, where a Witch's shadow is able to enter someone else, giving them soul, through the breath and mouth, or illnesses is sucked away with the mouth. Witch teats also allow something to be sucked away as a form of nourishment to the familiar, who also sometimes drank the Witch's blood drops. Familiars were sometimes put in another person by blowing them into someone's mouth and we may conjecture during sexual encounters with faerie beings where vital force was being taken out and inspiration put in.

The relationship between faeries and Witches is as much peppered in the language of consumption and assimilation through eating as it is in sexual ex- pression. Witches and their familiars live off each other, eat of one another. Here do we perhaps find the origins of the "eat of me" theme behind the Housel or Red Meal. Where some Witches consume the body and blood of their Devil and his Dame, just as the Christians consume Jesus Christ.

In this natural religiosity of consumption and mutual nourishment we see the foreshadowing of all such edible sacraments. The spirit world is understood to enjoy blood. As early as the 13th century in Ireland Alice Kyteler sacrificed a black cock at the crossroads to the spirit Robin Artisson, her spirit lover and familiar—himself a man of Faerie, a dweller at crossroads.

Jeffrey Burton Russell says of Robin Artisson: “As much like a faerie as a witch's familiar, Robin appeared in a number of shapes, a cat, a shaggy dog or an Ethiopian."

Alice was also said to gamble about on a salve-covered broom (no talk of flying on it only of putting ointment on it mounting it and moving around) so perhaps something was introduced into her body via the salve. Even if the straddling of the broom does not suggest intimate applications of the unguent, flying ointments, regardless of how they are administered are always an herbal formula given to them from outside the hedge, which is put into the body via the pores of the skin.

Another Witchcraft tradition, prominent mainly in Britain that involves taking something out, is the practice of taking blood above the breath. This procedure, where one suspected of bewitching someone was attacked and scratched badly enough to make blood flow, usually above the nose and mouth, was believed to neutralize their power for a time. We can conjecture that the reason has to do with the way power or Virtue is considered to be stored in blood and breath and is connected via an invisible thread to the power of the familiar spirit nourished by these two things. The Witch's power and virtue is expected to leak out in great glut in blood above the breath because so much power lives in the skull. Drawing the blood above the breath can be seen as an attack on the Witchs familiar as well as herself. It is quite illuminating to look closely at the scratching attack on Joan Guppy, whom we have mentioned earlier in relation to Faerie Doctoring.

"They scratched her face with overgrown brambles, saying that Guppy 'was a witch and they came for the blood and they would have it and her life also before ... they left her." Not just blood but "the blood" — witch-blood. This statement is reminiscent of the sweet blood faerie Witches were believed to have in Sicily. We can conjecture that when they say they came for the blood and would have "her life" before they left, what they actually meant was her soul force or magical virtue, as they didn't actually kill her. Witchblood, sweet blood, the power that holds a tenuous thread, like a bridge made of one hair, between this world and the paradise of Elphame—a thread that must cross the abyss of Hell and is like-wise just as capable of unleashing it.”

—

Sounds of Infinity

Chapter 9: ‘Faerie Doctors and Magicians’

by Lee Morgan

[realcube]

CARNIVAL DATE WITH TENDOU 

choose-a-date ♡ choose love! — 2k event ♡ @giveitallyougotbuddy

tw: swearing & no beta

instructions: for each decision you make, you will be given points. at the end, tally your points and click on the links at the end to view your results! everything in red bold is a question for the reader

The carnival was packed. waiting patiently, you sat perched at the end of a bench, trying your best to avoid the ketchup smeared on the seat beside you, slurping your slushy while absently staring into the masses, observing the idle chaos.

Distant screams could be heard from the rides surrounding, as if that didn’t clog your senses enough, the blinding lights piercing through the night had you squinting and was on the verge of causing you a migraine. Noise-cancelling headphones or a blueberry slushy couldn’t save you; all you wanted to do was leave. Bored out of your mind amidst the overwhelming atmosphere. 

 Until, it all went dark. 

Cold yet soft palms were pressed over your eyes, shielding your vision as warm breath tickled your ear, “Guess who?”

> “My love!” ♡ 3 points

> “Tendou!” ♡ 3 points

> “Ushijima!” ♡ 2 points

> “God!” ♡ 2 points

> “No clue.” ♡ 1 point

A warm chuckle erupted from behind you; the hands parting from your eyes to reveal an upside-down tendou hanging in front of your face, his loud smile immediately filling you with joy, “It’s me!” He chirped, swiftly taking a seat beside you but only swinging one leg over the bench so he could face you and press his forehead against your own.

“Sorry I’m late, I got caught up back there.” He gestured in the direction the entrance, where you was lined with booths which you could hardly resist yourself, so you couldn’t blame Tendou for getting a bit distracted too.

“It’s fine, you’re here now.” You shrugged while pulling away from his touch slightly so you could continue drinking your slushy, casually offering him some too and laughing as he eagerly snatched the cup from your had and took a sip. 

Then, he pulled it away from his lips with a refreshed ‘ah’, handing it back to you with cheesy grin, “Thank you.” He paused, throwing off his backpack and bringing it on to his lap, unzipping it then staring at you with anticipation, “Alright, guess what I won you.”

You felt heat rise to your cheeks, the surrounding, flashy rides suddenly becoming more interesting as you couldn’t bring yourself to meet his crimson eyes, “You didn’t have to do that.”

“But I did.” He cooed, shaking his bag and considering the incomprehensible rattling noise to be a ‘hint’ as to what’s inside, “C’mon, guess what I won, just for you.”

Your unwavering blank expression was enough to prompt him to elaborate, “It’s a plushie of an animal that reminds me of you!”

> “A tiger!” ♡ 3 points

> “A bear!” ♡ 3 points

> “A bunny!” ♡ 2 points

> “A panda!” ♡ 2 points

> “A chicken!” ♡ 1 point

Tendou blinked a few times before bursting out into laughter, slowly revealing the plushie with a shaky arm, the inner corners of his eyes already beginning to glisten in amusement. “I—”

He stuttered, and you weren’t sure what was so entertaining about your answer, until you saw the plushie. Hello Kitty holding a cupcake.

“I probably should’ve mentioned that it wasn’t real.” He wheezed, struggling to pry his eyes open and watch as you scooped the item from his hands, admiring it with a concentrated look; the sparkle in your eyes causing the tips of his ears to redden. 

“I mean, cats are real.” You pointed out, absently squishing the kitty’s soft cheek with your finger; the sight was oddly amusing, however maybe that was due to the fact you were too tired to deal with anything else. 

The time you spent alone in the booming crowd had evidently drained you, but Tendou going out of his way to win you something, proved your waiting to be worth it; you couldn’t express how much appreciated him, but you could try. “Thank you so much, Satori.”

Even when you turned to smile at him, with his chin resting against his palm, his lovesick gaze never faltered; neither did his gentle smile, as he cooed, “Do you like it?”

> “Obviously! It’s so cute!” ♡ 3 points

> “Of course, but I feel like I need to win you something now.” ♡ 3 points

> “Yeah, I love it!” ♡ 2 points

> “Yep, you know me so well.” ♡ 2 points

> “I’m not sure.” ♡ 1 point

Tendou simply nodded, taking the plushie from your hand and placing it back in his bag for safekeeping. 

“Careful!” He laughed at your exclamation, making sure to zip it up extra slowly as if that was going to make a difference to Hello Kitty’s wellbeing. Once it was secured in his backpack, he slung it back over his shoulders, “I’ll give it back to you before we leave.”

There was a moment of silence between both of you while Tendou’s attention seemed to fray from his previous fixation on your lips, hence you followed his gaze to see multiple bags of cotton candy — of various sizes — hanging from the edges of what looked to be a ring toss stall. 

From the corner of your eye, you could see Tendou opening his mouth to speak but before it could reach your ears, you had already darted off in the direction of the stall with a mischievous smirk painted on your face; one would think you were about to cheat, but no, you were just proud of the fact you could finally win your boyfriend something. 

Upon approaching the stall, you slammed the crumpled game ticket which had been pushed down to the depths of your pockets, onto the counter. Allowing the worker to exchange it for a small, plastic ring. 

Preparing to throw, you leaned back and curled your dominant arm round your body, assuming that would provide it with more power. Your eyes fluttered shut as you took a deep breath, the stress of the carnival melting off your body and leaving warmth in its place. 

Just as you were about to step forward to through your first ring, a scream was ripped from your throat in response to feeling hot breath against your ear; a eerily mellow voice muttering, “What’re you doing, babe?”

All the warmth rushed to your cheeks, not only from embarrassment, but also how close Tendou was, for a split second. 

“What does it look like I’m doing?” You panted, placing your hand over your chest in attempt to calm your heartbeat, “I’m trying to win you that candyfloss.”

Tendou let out an elongated ‘oh’ of realisation as he stepped aside, giving you more room to practise your throwing technique, “Sorry for interrupting, carry on.” He sung with sickeningly sweet smile which you couldn’t stay mad at, even if you tried.

You huffed out through your nose and shut your eyes once again, attempting to find your zen while crossing your arm over your chest in order to put enough force into the throw. After stabilising your breathing, you pried one eyes open to observe the options laid before you. 

There were three rows of sticks; the farthest ones obviously being worth the most points, hence able to win you the largest bag of candy floss with the singular ring you had. However, the number of sticks in a row also decreased along a greater distance, hence it would be less risky to aim for the closer sticks.

Which one will you aim for?

> The farthest away stick ♡ 3 points

> The stick in the middle ♡ 2 points

> The closest stick ♡ 1 point

Surprisingly, the ring followed the exact course you sent it on, leading to it landing perfectly around the stick you aimed for; which left the worker looking almost as stunned as you, meanwhile Tendou was simply dancing, free cotton candy!

“You did it!” He cheered, shooting you a cheesy grin while being handed the bag of cotton candy, of a size in relation to how many points you won. But regardless of how large it was, Tendou simply appreciated the fact you went out of your way to win it for him.

One of his hands dipped into the plastic bag to take bites of the candy, while the other clutched the item in his back pocket; he was certain he wasn’t going to regret this. 

“So,” He almost stuttered, fidgeting with the strap of his bag, “Can I take you somewhere?” His found its way into yours, gently rubbing the back of your cold hand with his thumb as he awaited your response.

“Sure, but where is ‘somewhere’?” 

TALLY YOUR POINTS

4–7

8–12

[the-sympathetic-villain]

A Life For A Life - Chapter 5

AO3 | First | Previous | Next | Masterpost

Prompt by @local-space-case:  Prince Roman and his two loyal friends, Patton and Logan, are on the  hunt for a dragon. Meanwhile, Dragonshifter!Janus  is just trying to  find the right herbs to cure a sick/injured  Dragonshifter!Virgil. Bonus  points for Anxciet and/or Protective Remus.

Word Count: 3053

Chapter Warnings: Minor violence/threats, Sexual Innuendo, Blood, Injury, Effects of Poisoning, Mentions of Death, Kidnapping (Let me know if I need to add anything!)

---

    “Now, I can get behind a little self-flagellation but this is just pathetic.”

    Roman blinked in shock as the sudden echo of an unfamiliar voice filled his ears.

    His aim had held true as the arrow wavered through the stale, cave air and the dragon had stilled in just the right moment. He'd been prepared to let out a breath of relief. Yet, he found himself staring dumbfounded at the arrow that had stopped short of its target mere inches from the dragon’s face.

     A shadowy silhouette gripped the arrows shaft, having apparently stopped it in midair. Chills crept down Roman’s spine as the figure turned toward him with a toothy, white grin.

     “Come now. It's just rude to murder in someone else’s home.” The figure chuckled as he twirled the arrow in its unnaturally long fingers. “Unless, of course—You're the host.”

     Roman flinched as the figure's hand twisted, sending his own are headed back for Roman’s chest.

    “Roman, no!”

    “Lo!”

     Logan and Patton’s voices were muffled as a sudden wave of blue light shot illuminated the cave walls. A minor shockwave sent Roman stumbling back as the arrow headed for his chest shattered into a dozen pieces and clattered harmlessly to the ground.

    “Oh, our pathetic prince has friends. Does he?”

    The pallid figure traipsed toward him with a dangerous sway in his step. Dark circles accented the creature’s dangerous sneer, sending Roman stumbling back to clumsily land on the ground.

    He would nearly have mistaken the figure for a man, if not for the black pulsing veins etched into his white skin. Its eyes were white and without pupils and long black feathers seemed to hang from behind his ears like talismans.

    “Come now,” The beast purred.

    His sudden movements sent a fresh wave of fear across Roman's body as he started to scramble away. The movement was cut short as a hand caught his ankle, pulling him back until he turned to stare up at unnerving creature.

    “I love me a good meet and greet. Call your friends out, princey boy .”

    Roman bit his lip. “Logan—”

    “Don't make me drag them out by their toes.” The man cooed in a lilting tone that immediately  shut down any thoughts of rebellion in Roman’s mind. “I'd hate to have to hurt them.”

     Roman scowled at the creature’s smirk. “Logan, come out please.”

    The man's eye glimmered as he wagged a patronizing finger at Roman. “Don't forget the cute one. I wouldn’t want to leave anyone out of the fun I’m about to have with you.”

    “You bastard. Leave Patton out if th—"

    The man cocked his head with a condescending smirk, flourishing his hand. Roman’s hands shot to his throat as the muscles suddenly constricted. He heaved in a breath, unable to speak as the man leaned forward, head resting in his hands as he watched Roman suffocate with a infuriating grin.

     “Don’t hurt him, please.”

    Logan’s calm voice resonated against the walls, approaching slowly as Roman craned his neck toward him.

    “We're coming out like you asked.”

    Roman felt his heart pound in his chest at the seriousness in Logan’s tone. He could see Logan’s arm tucked protectively around Patton, eyeing the scene with caution as they stepped into the faint light.

    “Oh, goody-goody gumdrops.”

    The man jumped to his feet as breath flooded Roman’s lungs. His hands reached to the ceiling as he took a step towards Logan.

    “So glad you can join us.”

    “Stay back.” Logan's hand glowed with a faint blue light as he growled a warning at the creature. “I will not ask twice.”

    Tension seeped into their bodies as a brief moment of silence hung between them. The orange glow of the embers reflected in Logan’s eyes as the blue glow of his palms lit his face from below.

    His ferocity sent a shiver across Roman’s skin as he stared at the man he loved. He knew Logan cared for few things more than he cared for Patton, but to see the fury in full force was a staggering sight even for Roman.

   “Funny. You've got that nerdy look about you. I really thought you'd be the smart one.” The creature chuckled as pupils returned to his eyes, glittering  green as his eyes narrowed in Logan. “Are you really prepared to face a god with that cocky attitude?”

    “A god?”

    Roman’s heart sunk as Logan’s confidence faltered. He could see Logan hesitate as the creature approached, leaning into his face with a snarky smile.

    “You look like the type of nerd who'd know all about these things. Come on, don’t tell me you skipped studying the stories of these hills?” The man’s smirk grew unnaturally wide as he peered over Logan’s shoulder at Patton. “The gods buried themselves in the earth to give rise to the great creatures of the earth. Abandon all hope ye who enter here. Yada, yada, boring mumbo jumbo.”

     “I'm aware of the stories.” Logan’s lips pursed slightly. “Forgive for my ignorance. Which story is it that you supposedly from?”

    “A non-believer. Huh?” The man's lip curled into a dangerous smirk. “You’d best start believing in legends, Mr. Tense and Broody. You’re living one."

    Roman watched as Logan  pulled Patton closer to him, trying not to show how much Remus’ responses had unnerved him. “You didn't answer my question.”

     The man smiled, almost as if he was impressed by Logan’s bravado, before giving a dramatic bow towards Logan. “Remus, God of all creatures of the Dilonn Forest, scaled and slimy alike. At your service.”

    Logan’s expression fell as his eyes darted to the amber-scaled dragon whose stoic eyes were now watching their every movement.

    “We didn’t mean to—”

    “You didn’t mean to follow an injured beast as it fled from your grasp?”

     Logan swallowed the lump in his throat as he clenched his jaw. “That's not—”

    “All while carrying deadly weapons intended to kill said beast?”

    “I—”

    “Wait” Roman interrupted Logan's wavering protests, raising his hands in surrender as he leapt nimbly to his feet. “Logan never intended to do anyone harm. Only I intended to hunt the creature—"

    “Oh, I'll get to you in a minute.” The man waved off Roman’s   protests with a brusque gesture before turning to face to glowing amber eyes of the golden-scaled dragon. “But first, I’d like to hear from the one who spurned my creations most.”

    Roman stared in shock as the dragon raised its head in apparent indignation at the man's remark.

    “One bad day and you’re suddenly willing to throw away the gifts I’ve given you?”

    A wave of heat rushed over Roman’s arms as the beast let out a huff, all but rolling its eyes as he curled tighter around the man in its nest.

     “Bullshit. That punk would never want death for you. Even if he was gone, he'd roll over in his grave seeing the way you—Hey!”

    The man jumped back as a ring of flames burst forth from the dragon’s nostrils. Heat singed the air of the cave until the beast turned his head to rest his jaw on the unconscious man in his grip, ignoring the supposed god addressing him.

    “I'm not done with you—"

    The man continued to chastise the fearsome beast as though it were no more than a naughty child, allowing Roman to catch his breath. For the first time, Roman was able to take a long glance at the dragon’s hostage.

    He was young, at least a few years younger than Roman himself. His clothes were tattered and worn, barely held together by an amateur selection of purple and blue patchwork. Dark and disheveled hair covering shades of purple on his face. At first Roman worried they may be bruises, but leaning closer, Roman felt dread sink in his stomach as the recognition finally clicked in his mind.

    Purple scales.

    “You know what? Fine.”

    Roman’s eyes shot up as the man who claimed to be a god stepped forward to the body of the injured man in the dragon’s grip.  The beast’s golden eyes were devoid of hostility as the man approached. It seemed almost reluctant to move, clinging to the man in its nest like he was the most important thing in this creature’s life.

    “You win.” The man who called himself Remus stepped forward, voice full of melancholy as he stared down at the limp body of the man with purple scales. “I hate to see a good life cut short like this."

    The man's hand raised in a flourish and the air cracked like thunder as the unconscious man jolted upright with sudden breath. His eyes were wide as his head spun side to side taking in the scene surrounding him. Roman could see him suck in another breath, on the verge of hyperventilating when the dragon’s head curled back to him.

    “Jan, what's going on—?”

    Roman’s grip tightened on his bow. Despite all he'd seen, he still didn’t trust the wild beast not to turn on the kid on a whim. He prepared to lunge forward to protect the stranger, but the action was cut short as a raspy laughter filled the air. The man’s face broke out into a smile as he started to speak in a language Roman had never heard.

    No fear showed in the man's eyes as he threw his arms around the beast's head. Though the beast's head alone was nearly half the size of him, the man didn’t hesitate to close his eyes and press his forehead to the beast's temple. To Roman’s surprise, the beast responded with a series of grunts that seemed to match the man’s foreign tongue.

    “Are you speaking to it?”

    The words stalled in his mouth as the man tensed with fear at his voice, looking almost like a feral cat as he bared his teeth at Roman.

    “Him.”

    Roman’s brow furrowed. From the way he'd been speaking, Roman had half expected the man not to understand the Common tongue, but the single word the man had uttered only served to confuse him more.

    “What?”

    “I'm speaking to him.”

     The man’s snarl curled aggressively on his lips as his eyes narrowed on Roman's bow. He spoke in a heavy accent, spitting out the words with a distinct hiss.

    “Relax,” Roman tucked the bow on his shoulder and held up his hands, taken aback by the man's haste to angry words. “I'm not here to hurt you.”

     “The arrow you put through my gut says otherwise, wyrmkiller.”

     The man moved as if to approach Roman but the beast's tail curled tighter around him as if holding him back.

    “Let me go, Jan.”

    A deep growl resonated in the dragon’s throat. The sound was soft and almost sad as the beast’s jaw came to rest in the man's lap.

     The vitriol in the man's words dropped to a guilty whisper as he turned gaze to meet the beast's eyes. “I'm fine. I promise.”

     Roman's jaw dropped open as the amber scales started to shift. A subtle shimmer trailed up the dragon’s thick skin, muscles changing with grace until what say before him was not a beast, but a man, holding the other in a gentle embrace.

     Much like the man with the purple scale, this one's face glittered with a golden color, trailing up the man's face to slitted eyes. As the shift slowed, Roman could only stare in shock as tears fell from the eyes of the man with the golden scales and his arms curled tighter around the man in his arms.

    Stifled sobs filled the air as Roman’s eyes dipped to the waist of the injured man, finally noting the dark stain and tear on the front of the man's clothing.

     “The arrow—” Roman’s throat suddenly felt dry as realization sunk in his stomach. “I'm sorry. I didn't know you weren’t—"

    “Keep your empty words.”

    “But—"

    The man in purple’s growl drowned out Roman's pleas, letting loose a string of foreign words that Roman could only guess were swears. “Don’t lie to me. You’re only sorry because now I look like you.”

     “No!” Roman held up his hand. Hesitantly, he cast a guilty glance at the pair of men clutching each other as they stared up at him in abject fear. “I—Maybe, but I didn’t know you were intelligent—"

    “You piece of sh—”

    “Hey, I just put that body back together.” Remus chided as the man curled forward, voice stalling as he held his stomach. “Don’t go fucking up my blessing already.”

    The man glared up Remus. He was angry, yet his rough movements reluctantly slowed as he reacted to the creature’s concern. His purple gaze dropped to the ground as he rose to his feet with his partner’s help. With a weary glance at Remus, he pulled his hand away from his abdomen, staring blankly at the speckles of blood on his hand.

    “Fine. Can we leave?”

    “Not yet, my fair-skinned fiend. You know how this works. I just pulled you back from the brink of death.” The shadows around Remus’ eyes grew dark with a sudden rush of power. “You’re not out of hot water yet, Virgil.”

   Roman shivered as a growl resonated deep in the throat of the amber-scaled man, Janus. He crouched defensively as if intending to lunge at the smirking god, but to Roman’s surprise, Virgil raised a hand to stop him.

    “What do you want, my lord?”

    “Oh, so formal! You really  know how to get a man all hot and bothered—”

     Remus' reached towards Virgil in a flirtatious gesture that was cut short as Janus snapped his teeth at the forest god's hand, snarling like a wild animal.

    “Careful, Jan. You don’t know where those fingers have been.”

    “Would you like to find out?” Remus cooed, leaning into Janus’ face as the man snarled at him, letting loose a string of what Roman assumed were more foreign swears.

    Roman flinched as Janus’ statement ended with a deep growl and his golden eyes darted up to Roman.

    “Of course, I'm not letting the prince off the hook. He owes me a pretty piece for striking down one of my beautiful creatures.”

    Remus chuckled as he raised a hand in the air, flourishing a hand toward Roman. The moment elicited a gasp from his lungs as Roman felt himself pulled forward against his will.

    “In fact, our dear prince is going to be the one to set things right for you, lover boy.”

   Roman gulped as he found himself face to face with the angry, slitted eyes of Janus as the dragonshifter loomed over him. A snarl curled on the man's lips, exposing a row of sharp teeth that sent a shiver across Roman’s skin.

    “Personally, I'd love to get little more creative with your punishment,” Remus' lip curled into a dangerous smile. “but seeing as Virgie's living on borrowed time, I'm willing to cut you a break. You catch my drift?”

    “What?”

    “Well, seeing as the lot of you are prepared to slit each others throats, I'd like to propose a new game." Remus purred reaching an arm around Roman's neck. “Work together or pay the price. A life for a life—”

    Roman’s heart sunk as Remus spun him around to face Logan. His eyes were wide, arm tucked around Patton as he stared helplessly at Roman.

    The man's hand snapped behind Roman's ears and he blinked. In an instant, Patton vanished before his eyes and Logan spun on his heels, desperately looking for his brother.

    “Pat—What did you do to my brother?”

     Logan lunged at Remus, but the god sidestepped him with an unnerving amount of speed, chuckling as he smiled cruelly at Logan. Seeing the dangerous glimmer in the man's eyes, Roman lunged forward to catch Logan’s waist, stopping him before Remus could do anything worse.

    “Lo, stop!”

    “He has Patton—”

    “I know.” Roman whispered, pulling Logan into his arms as he let out a pained gasp. “I know.”

    “Do you really think I didn't figure out who made the poison who brought down Virgil?” Remus cocked his head with and indifferent look in his eyes. “As far as I'm concerned, you’re as guilty as our prince.

     “Patton did nothing. If you hurt him—”

     “Cutie's safe and he'll stay that way if you follow my instructions.”

    A loud groan interrupted Remus' rambling. Roman’s head spun around just as Virgil’s knees gave out, collapsing in Janus' arm. His scales were dark against his pallid skin as his partner whispered to him.

    “See, Virgie's not out of the woods yet and I can’t take him where he needs to go. ” Remus’ voice dropped, sincere as he approached the young dragonshifter. “If he doesn’t reach the silver spring in Doragon Valley in three days time, my magic will fail him and your poison will take his life.”

   Roman blinked, feeling Logan still in his grip as Remus raised a hand to the dragonshifter’s cheek. His breathing was unsteady as he leaned his head back into his partner’s shoulder.

   “But Doragon Valley is in the center of the city.” Roman breathed, chilled by the implication of Remus’ words. “The spring is sacred ground.”

    “Exactly, I may be a god but my reach only extends to the edge of the forest.” Remus whispered, turning his hand from Virgil to extend it to Roman. “So, here’s the deal. Take Virgil where he needs to go and save the life you sought to steal or I keep the kid forever.”

    Logan dropped his gaze, going limp in Roman’s grip. Roman could feel his partner’s nails dig into his arm, his chest heaving with grief over his missing brother.

    “Roman, please—”

    “Deal.” Roman interrupted Logan’s breathless plea. “Whatever it takes, we're bringing Patton home.”

    “Thank you.” Logan whispered, taking a small breath and allowing his head to sink into Roman’s shoulder.

    “Good.” Remus smiled, casting a glance at Virgil. “You'd best get moving then. You don’t have much time to spare.”

     With a snap, Remus was gone. An uneasy silence followed  as they stared at their reluctant new allies, lives of those they loved most hanging in the balance as they started their journey.

---

A/N: Alright, that’s the end of my spree writing on this so there won’t be an update immediately after this one, but hopefully I’ll cycle back soon. I can’t wait to write these poor boys having to actually try to work together ~~

General Taglist:

@justanotherhumanstuff @im-an-anxious-wreck @shadowyplaidpurseegg

A Life For A Life:

@arodynamic-enby @pixelated-pineapple @simplestoryteller @bloodymari-0666

[btsmosphere]

Across the Tracks | KTH

~summary: Don’t cross the tracks. Never once did you question what you had been told your whole life – at least not until a certain boy makes that a bit more difficult...

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | drabble

~pairing: taehyung x reader (she/her) ~word count: 7.1k ~dystopian au, strangers to lovers, angst, fluff, inspired by lady and the tramp ~rating: pg15 ~warnings: adoption, dystopia, violence, breaking and entering, arrest, electric shocks, burns, scars, swearing, probable overuse of the nickname ‘pidge’ oop

~a/n: hi guys, and thank you to everyone being so kind about the first part!! Again, cr to the wonderful, amazing @un2-verse​ for the initial idea, ilyy! Now, to everyone, enjoy the fic and don’t hesitate to come chat with me about it🥰

You weren’t exactly aware of moving. The moment you came to your senses was the same that your thick plastic bracelet connected with the back of a skull.

Still staring in shock at the figure that crumpled to all fours before you, you didn’t spare a moment to see as the other assailant was thrown off. The man was weakly moving, but the remnants of your fear mingling with the horror of your situation left a nasty taste in your mouth.

Meanwhile, your rescuer had turned their attention to you.

“Hey,” the familiarity of the voice was still lost on you, “hey, pidge?”

A hand landing on your shoulder finally forced your eyes to drift away from the man on the floor, currently stirring and groaning. When you faced Taehyung, it was to find soft, dark eyes watching you with a hint of concern.

Glancing back at the two men on the ground, Taehyung showed you his side profile for a second.

“Let’s get out of here, yeah?” his voice remained low, cautious.

He waited for you to go first, so you carefully stepped around the men, staying as far away from them as possible. Back in the connecting alley, you had to wait for Taehyung to reach your side to know where to go.

“What are you doing out here, huh, pidge?” he eyed you as you set off beside him.

Since you had started moving again, your hand had naturally gravitated over your shocker again, and you glanced down at it now.

“I… got lost,” your voice was small.

“You don’t strike me as the type to be anywhere near here, cub,” he spoke, deep voice cutting off for a moment as he peered around a corner before leading you down it, “so how’d you get lost?”

“I, um…” trailing off, you turned your eyes to the ground. How to tell him that you had run off like a child?

But he was alerted by your silence, looking back down at you.

“Pidge?”

“I- it was my fault-“ you started, throwing your hands out in defeat.

Taehyung stopped in his tracks beside you, startling you to halt as well. Though his hand began to reach out, slowly, he seemed to think twice and dropped it. Either way, you realised what he had noticed, the cause for his shock.

“They didn’t…” his head shook almost imperceptibly.

But you had already drawn back, pulling your handicapped wrist firmly into your chest, somehow self conscious under his sad stare.

Barely a blink, however, and the agonising stinging was shooting through you again. Involuntary cry leaving your lips, your knees seemed to give up as the electricity burned you.

But instead of meeting the stony ground, your body fell against another, two hands hurriedly pulling you against him by your upper arms. As the shock subsided, the ground returning to your feet, you pulled away. Your form still shook.

Gulping back the tears that had been startled to your eyes, you avoided his captivating gaze.

“You were right,” you sniffed

In the corner of your eye, you saw his hand lift. One finger brushed gently up your cheek, clearing back the hair that had fallen across it.

“I didn’t want to be, pidge,” his deep voice was like velvet, coating something so sad. “Let me see?”

Patiently, he waited until you eased the arm away from your chest. As you held it out, his fingers ghosted against your skin, just to hold the hand in place. Training his eyes intently on the device, he rotated your wrist.

At the same moment as him, you spotted the crack running up the plastic. A short laugh escaping as he looked up at you, Taehyung’s breath blew onto your skin, raising goosebumps in their wake.

“You did good, little cub,” he chuckled, “his head’s gonna hurt. But we gotta get this off.”

“Do you know how?”

Tilting his head, he seemed to give it some thought. Chewing the inside of his cheek, he looked down the alleyway, although when you followed his gaze you saw nothing.

“…yeah, I might have an idea,” he eventually nodded.

In a flash, a grin lit up his face, erasing the seriousness of before. Setting off again, your eyes widened as his hand slipped down from your wrist to grip your own.

Swallowing, you hurried after him, trying not to think too much about it.

In the end, you were quite glad for his touch. The neighbourhood he led you through made you uneasy; even more delapidated houses lined the streets, water splashing at each corner where the pipes were invariably broken, more graffiti littering the brickwork.

So although your eyes couldn’t help but wander, peering down every turn and darting to any small sound, you stuck close to his grounding presence.

Winding further through this unknown part of the city, the drizzle never ceased. Thankful for the brisk pace you were travelling at, you tried to control your shivering, clamping your jaw shut to stop your teeth chattering. Your blouse was all that protected you from the air, and it was being plastered against your skin.

However, Tae’s eyes missed nothing. Between checking the streets around you, he periodically looked back to you at his side.

When his hand first pulled away from yours, your fingers chased desperately after his, not wanting to lose a fraction of warmth.

“Hey,” he laughed, “don’t worry, I’m not going anywhere.”

Instead, he shook his arms from his black coat. Not waiting for you to take it, he dropped it directly onto your shoulders. As you shoved your arms inside, the warmth made you sigh.

“Thanks.”

“No problem,” he grinned, hand landing on your shoulder as he turned to look ahead. “We’re here.”

In front of you stood an enormous building. Large chimneys rose from its roof towards the sky. The dark of the walls seemed even blacker than the night, floodlights positioned periodically along its large perimeter fence doing little to illuminate the place.

“Exciting, isn’t it?” Tae stood in front of you, throwing his arms out, inviting you to admire the place.

But you only eyed the man in front of you, his midnight hair dripping a little onto his black clothes. Not that he seemed to care, equally dark eyes glittering as he grabbed your hand again and practically jogged onwards.

“What are we doing?” you hissed.

Tracking his way along the fence, he suddenly stopped in front of you, not bothering to answer.

“After you.”

The way he bowed, twirling his hands, made him seem like a butler. However, there was no fancy entrance to match; he was ushering you through a narrow hole in the fence, raw ends of wire snaking inwards.

You looked back and forth at the boy, those eyes watching you hopefully, and the tear in the fence.

Sighing, you slipped through, only catching the hem of your trousers before safely emerging.

“Where are we?” you whispered as Tae joined your side.

“This is the car factory,” he said, “it’s going to get that shocker off.”

“Oh,” you frowned stepping forwards-

Only to have a hand stop you.

“Stay close to the fence,” he warned, easing you back so you walked between him and the perimeter.

Although your feet trailed after him, your heartbeat near enough doubled when you noticed his secrecy. This was not something you should be doing.

“We’re- we’re breaking in?!” you exclaimed, wary of your volume.

A smirk met you as Tae looked over his shoulder.

“Why, does that scare you, pidge?”

But as you spluttered for a response, another jolt of electricity shot down your arm.

Yelping, you clutched at the fence beside you. When you opened your eyes, all traces of playfulness had disappeared from Taehyung’s face – instead, he was closer, hands reaching for you as he lowered to your eye level, searching for your gaze.

Finding you staring back, his eyes darted down to the heavy shocker on your arm.

“You wanna get that off, don’t you?”

A shaky breath left you.

“Yes…”

“Then follow me.”

Taehyung had promised to be back.

Still nestled in his coat, your fingers fidgeted as you kept your eyes on the patch of darkness he had faded into. Maybe he’s going to leave you, your mind spun in circles, he’ll steal something and leave you to take the blame.

Your heart knocked steadily against your ribs, no sound louder than your breathing and the light spatter of drizzle.

You already knew he had a history with the controllers, and this didn’t look good for you. But, glancing nervously behind you at the gaping blackness that lay down every alley, you knew you would fare no better if you left either.

Teeth trapping your lower lip, you hunched your shoulders and kept waiting.

It wasn’t too long untill a loud wail cut through the night. Practically leaping with fright, you whipped around, trying to identify what was happening.

The moment you turned back, Taehyung was right in front of you-

And getting closer still.

“Run!” he called over the siren.

With no time to ask questions, you quickly spurred your feet into action, racing away from the building Tae had just come from.

“Did you get caught?” you panted.

“No,” somehow he managed to send you a grin, “that’s not where we were aiming for.”

Bewildered, you opened your mouth again, but a shout rung out. Across the yard, nearer to the factory, several figures were running towards the source of the alarm.

Luckily the far edge of the factory was finally drawing near, and with aching limbs you pushed forwards, falling against the bricks the moment you rounded out of sight. Taehyung was right beside you, exhilirated grin still fixed in place even as his chest heaved.

“What now?” you breathed.

“In here.”

Shoving himself away from the wall, Tae moved to the base of a long window. Bars ran the whole way up, slicing your view of the factory inside.

As you watched on with alarm, he reached for the lowest bar and used one small hop to boost himself up. Eyeing him as he clung onto the bars and looked down to you, you shook your head.

“This is crazy.”

For some reason that only seemed to make him smile wider.

“Come on then cub, what are you waiting for?”

“We’ll- we’ll get caught..” you punctuated your unease with a glance behind you.

“Not if we’re quick.”

Chewing at your lip, you reminded yourself of the weight on your wrist, the uncomfortable burn still lingering there. You were just about ready to give in when he spoke again, those big eyes fixing themselves on yours once again.

“You can trust me, pidge.”

With only a small huff, you stepped forwards and hoisted yourself up behind him.

Maybe you were a little crazy, too, to be doing this. But despite the slight slick of drizzle on the cold metal, the climbing wasn’t too hard, more like climbing a ladder. You were well practiced in maneuvering your way up trees in the park, so you made quick work of the window.

At the top, you were met with another window, this time without bars. Presumably they didn’t expect anyone to reach it, as there was no lock apart from a latch that broke with enough force from Taehyung.

With his hands off the bars and shoving the pane up to let you in, however, your heart leapt once again to your mouth, this time spurring you on rather than causing hesitation.

Ducking inside, you quickly dropped onto wooden floor. The window scraped shut behind you, Tae’s hand finding yours again and pulling you to the right. Your footsteps fell softly within the shadows that climbed the walls, the dust drifting within slivers of moonlight that filtered through the windows.

Rows upon rows of abandoned workbenches stretched through the long, thin space. The next room was the same, though with more bits of machinery you couldn’t recognise also lined up on the countertops.

Slowing, Taehyung observed every one as you went past, but quickly tsked and sped up again, onto the next room.

“Aha!” he breathed in elation.

Though you could barely see a difference between this room and the last, you obliged as he led you, squeezing between benches, towards a machine that was bolted to the wall. Letting your hand fall from his, he investigated, closely examining every edge of the metal until he found a button.

As he pressed it down, a rumbling, though quiet, seemed to blare through the space.

Tae glanced back, but not at you, his eyes travelling to the doorways first.

“Come here,” he beckoned you.

Catching your wrist as you moved closer, he lifted it and placed it at the edge of a metal plate in the centre of the thing, illuminated by a dull yellow light that had flickered into life.

“What are you-“

“Stay still.”

Another button and the grating of metal made you both wince. At the firm grip on your wrist, you realised your hand had jolted from its place.

A metal column was steadily descending. Heading resolutely for your arm.

Just as your eyes widened in slight panic, Tae piped up-

“You know they use these things to shape the doors and stuff? This whole room, just for car doors! They use steel, it’s easy to mould-“

A gasp left your lips as you felt a small but definite tug on your arm. The metal had met with your bracelet, avoiding your wrist. Its pace barely slowed as it ploughed through the plastic as if it was butter, soon falling uselessly away from your wrist.

A gasp of joy left you as you were finally free to carress the irritated skin.

Cradling it, you rubbed gently to loosen your silver bracelet that had imprinted onto your skin when it was clamped underneath the shocker.

“Shit-“

You saw it at the same moment as Taehyung. A blazing red line was etched on your skin, winding around your wrist like another piece of jewellery.

“What’s this?” he was asking, fingers easing the gifted bracelet away from your skin.

“My parents gave it to me,” your eyes didn’t leave it, “when my papers came.”

“It’s silver.”

Blinking, you finally looked up at him.

“I think so.”

He drew his lip between his teeth.

But before either of you could speak again, a muffled shout broke you apart. Stepping in front of you, Taehyung moved forwards until he could see down from the window, jaw set.

With a curse, he spun around and grabbed your unharmed wrist, kicking the remnants of the shocker away under a bench.

“We need to go.”

Instantly alerted, your feet were already heading back the way you came, to the window, but you barely made it one stride before Taehyung was pulling you back. Eyes fixed ahead, he never returned your questioning stare as you flew through more doorways, past rows and rows until you were dizzy.

Somewhere below, a heavy clunk sounded as the main door to the building was opened.

And beyond the doorways you had passed through, at the other end of the building, footsteps could be heard echoing throught the space.

Shooting a look back in alarm, you thankfully found no one on your tail yet. The moment you looked forwards again, Tae was leading you down a rickety metal staircase, not caring about the din as you tore down it.

Feet landing on the ground floor, your eyes searched fruitlessly for a door.

“Tae, how do we-?”

The question froze in your throat as you turned around to him wrenching a grill off the wall.

“Quick, pidge,” he ushered you urgently forwards, “this vent comes out at the back, go!”

Both above and on this floor, footsteps were getting closer as you stared into the dark vent.

“What-“

“Just go, quick!” his hands pushed you gently forwards, but you could sense their jitteriness and took a deep breath, diving in headfirst.

There was enough room to get on your hands and knees, so you shuffled forwards as fast as you could, rounding a bend almost straight away. At the scraping of metal, you looked back to assure yourself Tae was behind you.

Only you were met with empty space.

Gaping, your mouth opened and closed in panic, knowing it unwise to speak up. Desperation was clawing at you however, the heavy footfalls of the guards audible even within the vent.

“Evening, gentlemen,” Taehyung’s voice floated through the grate, tone easy.

You gulped nonetheless.

“Lovely night we’re having,” he continued, oblivious to the way your heart was squeezing its way up your throat.

A bang rattled the metal covering just around the corner, Tae’s body slamming against it as you jumped away, hand flying to clamp over your mouth.

“What are you doing in here?” a voice you didn’t recognise snarled.

“Ah, well you see“ – how Tae was so calm you had no idea – “I was walking my dog and he saw this rabbit and chased it through the fence! I didn’t see where he went, I thought it might have been here, but as you can see, he’s not-“

“You think you’re funny, huh?” a new, equally unfriendly voice, interrupted.

“Well, I wouldn’t-“

Tae’s words were once again cut off with a harsh clatter of metal against brick. Jostling and scuffling was all you could hear for a moment, retreating further down the dark vent until the sounds grew fainter.

Eventually, near silence returned.

Sucking in a steadying breath, you inched back towards the grate, peering through a gap.

Taehyung was nowhere to be seen.

He was probably among the small gaggle of people walking away from you, but you couldn’t see well. Chest suddenly feeling tighter, you shrank back.

Glancing down the vent Tae had sent you into, it looked a lot smaller now. It felt like forever that you hesitated, the people in the factory disappearing completely from view while you grappled with the obvious conclusion.

If you were to follow Tae, nothing good could come of it except that two of you would be in trouble rather than one.

As much as you wanted him, it was perhaps a selfish part of you that knew you never wanted to cross paths with the controllers. It would surely destroy your conscience, your reputation.

So, with Tae’s words echoing in your head, you turned away.

This vent should come out at the back… okay, getting out shouldn’t be too hard. If you just got to the other side of the fence… but then, what would you do? You barely knew left from right in this area, how would you ever find your way back?

What if more people found you, tried to catch you like they had before?

A small voice reminded you that Taehyung wasn’t exactly a model citizen either, but at least he had helped you.

Not long later, you came face to face with another metal grate. Though it took you minute to shimmy it open, the metal rusty and screeching all the while, no one seemed to be alerted by the time you clambered out.

Fixing it back in place, you came to a stop.

The fence was only feet away from you, unlit as this was the back of the property. Beyond, you couldn’t make out much more than sparse bushes in the darkness.

Even the drizzle was dying now, forcing you to wallow in complete quiet as you remained frozen. The burning skin around your wrist still tingled, not allowing your pain to be forgotten.

You swallowed hard.

If you had felt alone before, you felt much more deserted now with the absence of Taehyung.

Wringing your hands, you glanced left as if it would bring you answers. With a sigh, you looked the other way down the building – only to jump out of your skin.

As you choked on a gasp, Taehyung’s grin only grew on his face, laughing at your fright.

“Taehyung! When did you get there? How did you-?”

“Didn’t think I’d leave you alone, did you, pidge?”

Still reeling in your shock, you merely blinked, prompting another deep laugh from him. Slinging an arm around your shoulder, he strode towards the fence, tilting his head to look down at you.

“Now, let’s get out of here, yeah? There’s a lot more to do.”

“But- Tae, what happened to you? How did you get away?”

Slipping through the fence first, you squinted at a cut on his head. It certainly hadn’t been there before.

“Plenty of practise, pidge,” he said, returning to your side. He offered up nothing more than a smile, but there was nothing behind it this time.

Sighing, you dropped the matter and fell into step beside him. Where his feet steered, you would follow, still none the wiser about exactly where you were. Though your fingers hovered over your wounded wrist, they dared not even skim the tender skin there.

After the fourth time it slipped down, making you wince, you quietly slipped your bracelet off and into your pocket.

“You hungry, pidge?” Tae nudged you after a few more minutes.

“I- I guess…” you shrugged, “I don’t want to trouble you-“

Tae actually laughed out loud then, throwing his head back. His arm landed across your shoulders, squeezing lightly.

“You’re no trouble, pidge. Never think that.”

“O-okay,” you returned, perplexed as he fixed you with a stare.

“First stop,” he announced then.

On reaching a run-down door, not even as tall as his shoulders, he clicked his heels, hands behind his back. When you laughed at him, he seemed satisfied and reached forward to rap on the door.

For a few moments, nothing happened, your eyes sliding between Tae and the door as he stood epectantly.

Eventually, the door – which was more like a plank – squeaked open, revealing a platinum-haired man. Poking his head out, a gummy grin lit up his face.

“Tae!”

“Hey Yoongi,” he greeted, stepping back so that you were visible, “I was hoping we could see Joon?”

Shuffling your feet, you watched Yoongi’s face darken slightly, casting his eyes over you.

“Yeah, sure,” he nodded, though his eyes never left you.

Melting away into the darkness inside, Yoongi was soon replaced by a taller man who hit his head on the doorframe as he came to meet you.

“Hi, I’m Namjoon,” he smiled at you, still rubbing his crown, “Tae, what can I do for you?”

“This is Y/N, she’s had a rough night,” Tae ushered you forward, “do you have anything for burns?”

Carefullly, he raised your wrist to Namjoon. Pushing his glasses onto his head, Joon leant forwards, squinting at the damage with a low hiss.

“Yeah, I should have something,” he stood back, “how did that happen?”

“Shocker. Silver bracelet,” was all Tae offered in explanation.

“Gods, those disciplinariums ought to be shut down,” Joon shook his head, then, “I’ll be right back.”

It wasn’t long before he returned with the promised treatment, helping you apply a cream that instantly soothed your skin.

“Okay, we’d better be off,” Tae rubbed a hand over your back as he said farewell.

Thanking Namjoon, you nervously took the small tub of cream he pressed into your hand. Waving as you walked away, you found the shabby door had already closed.

“Did we pay him?” you muttered.

“Don’t you worry about that, pidge,” he just grinned.

“B-but mother and father told me-“

“Things are different here, cub,” he explained, “if you have the money for something, great. But this side of the tracks, dunno if you can tell, but we’re not exactly well-off.”

“Did we- did we steal?” you whispered, scandalised

“You say that like it’s a bad thing,” he chuckled. You only gaped.

“Stealing is wrong!”

“Some people on your side of the tracks ought to be told that, pidge,” he quirked his head, bitterness creeping onto his face, “they take everything from us, and then pretend to make it better by stealing our children too.”

Stunned into silence, you merely blinked up at him. His mouth was set in a grim line as he turned to you.

“I’m sorry, pidge, but you gotta understand. You’re from round here too, when it comes down to it. It’s not ‘lucky’ that you got picked up by some rich couple, it’s a damn shame you have to be on the other side to have a shot at a decent life.”

“I- I think I understand,” you swallowed, “but don’t the people here work? Like father does? Then you shouldn’t have to steal.”

Tae chewed on his lip as he led you into a small alley, still moving slowly.

“It’s a bit different for us, pidge,” he spoke, “we make stuff in the factories, it gets sold on the other side. We work for them, and they don’t pay us enough to buy the stuff we’re making.”

Letting his words sink in, turning them over in your mind as you tried to make sense of them, you broke the silence as you came towards the end of the alley. Your voice was quiet, uncertain. Tae made everything you had been taught seem… unfair.

“Is there… is there really no way? No way out?”

As Tae seemed to chew on his words, his steps slowed. You had come around the corner, warm light seeping into the darkness from the back window of the nearest building. Instead of a cramped alley, this space opened up into a small yard.

A single breath in had your mouth watering – a rich scent was emanating through a vent at the back.

Just as you took another, a shout.

“Hey, looks who’s here!”

The door was thrown open. Tae’s chuckle reverberated in your ears as you startled, stumbling back into his chest.

“Here’s dinner,” he smirked.

“My favourite tramp!” a man greeted as he hurried out, an apron swishing around his knees, “it’s been a while, Tae.”

“Hey, Jimin,” they exchanged a brief hug before Jimin’s eyes fell on you.

Under his keen gaze, you shrank back.

“Who’s this?” he tilted his head towards you, but addressed the question to Taehyung.

“This is Y/N,” Tae fell back to your side, arm falling over your shoulders once again. “We’re kind of hungry.”

“You could at least pretend you want to see me,” Jimin scoffed, but broke into a smile, “but fine, food it is.”

Though Jimin fixed Tae with a stare and a quirked eyebrow, he said nothing else before whipping back inside.

“Hey pidge,” Tae started, “come with me.”

Hand gliding back into place, to intertwine his fingers with yours, he gently pulled you forwards. Reaching the back window of what you now presumed to be a restaurant, a small alcove revealed a narrow set of steps.

“Careful now, pidge,” he warned.

Schooling the curious frown off your face, you obliged, climbing ahead of him.

As you reached the precipice, all the breath was stolen from your lungs.

The stairs opened onto a small roof terrace; nothing to see in itself, a derelict rail running around the edge and a small table perched to the side. But the view…

Never before had you seen your city like this. Sprawled out, vast even in the night that hid away the corners of it, and dotted with flecks of light. Head slowly turning, trying to take it all in, you let your mouth hang open. Behind every prick of light was another family, another life you may never cross over.

It was as if the constellations had landed, just for you.

“Pretty good, right?”

Though you were reluctant to tear you eyes from the city, you were rewarded for your efforts with Tae’s dazzling smile. Perfectly at ease, he basked in the timid glow of night.

When his eyes turned to you, the world stopped moving.

You thought maybe you could forgo all the sparkle of the lights for the burning dark of his eyes.

“Having fun, lovebirds?”

Jumping back from Taehyung at Jimin’s voice, you noticed just how close you had gotten.

Either way, a grateful smile made its way to your lips at the steaming plates of food he bore, carrying with them that heavenly scent from the yard down below. Pausing for a moment before he handed the food over, you saw Jimin’s eyes flick between the two of you.

But as Jimin retreated, Tae pulled out a chair for you, once again bowing as if this was a five star hotel rather than an old roof terrace.

If you were honest, you were a bit uneasy about the chair being able to hold you, but it dutifully remained intact, allowing you to enjoy your meal.

And enjoy it you did.

Senses overwhelmed, you weren’t sure where to look. The awe-inspiring city lay right there, but an equally handsome man was opposite you, the lights sparkling in his eyes even as he slurped at his pasta.

Perhaps it was the fact you were starving hungry, but the meal was just as heavenly as the view, tastebuds gorging on the delicious sauce. Though you longed to dig in as Tae was, your table manners were firmly drilled in, so you persevered with your fork, twirling the spaghetti neatly around.

Somewhere along the way, your manners did devolve. As Tae leant back, stretching with a satisfied sigh, you were scooping the stuff into your mouth.

It wasn’t until you found him staring at you, soft smile curving his lips, that you froze.

“Sorry-“ you mumbled, hastening to wipe at your mouth.

“Hey, it’s alright,” he chuckled, then cleared his throat. “I was – ahem – just wondering if you wouldn’t miss a couple forkfuls of that.”

Ah, so he was making heart eyes at the food. You could hardly blame him and simply nodded, allowing him to take a scoop.

Laughing at his somewhat guilty eyes, you shovelled another mouthful for yourself, still slurping at the pasta in a way mother would surely scold you for, if she could see.

To your alarm, however, you found yourself yanked sideways as you did so. Eyes widening, you found your lips pressed awkwardly to Tae’s, one strand of spaghetti holding you there. It took you a second to react, hurriedly biting down and pulling away the moment you came to your senses. Nervous laughter was startled from you as you averted your gaze, heat rising rapidly in your cheeks.

But Tae’s eyes never dropped.

The barest hint of a smirk still graced his lips, gently sliding away into nothing as he watched you. Eyes lingering, he swallowed.

When you looked up, his lips were parted slightly as he stared at you. If you blinked, you might well have missed it, though, as he hastily pulled his mouth back into a smile. Then he turned away, forcing his gaze back to the city before you.

“It’s a beautiful night.”

His voice was low and raspy, taking him by surprise. Clearing his throat, a short glance at you instilled his hope that you hadn’t noticed.

Each of you obligingly let silence settle, leaving the leftover spaghetti untouched.

Instead, you sat back, content in letting the cool air wrap itself around you. Playing dot-to-dot with the spots of light, you didn’t mind the barest breeze that teased stray strands of your hair. All the while you were aware of the warmth coming from Taehyung at your side.

A deep sigh left him, joining the course of the air as it brushed past you.

“You see that pidge?” his eyes stayed on the city as he sighed. “There’s a world beyond that. Not everywhere is like this. They don’t have this side of the tracks and that side.”

Pulled from your reverie, you gave into his magnetism, finally fixing your gaze on him again. Gesturing at nothing in particular, he continued.

“We could run away… let this place break itself apart and- and just go where we please.”

The sparkle in his eyes was almost enough to spark something in your heart too. But down there among the dark, was your home. Your brother.

“But Tae, my family…” you whispered. As soon as the words left your lips, your teeth clamped around your tongue, some faint wish of having never said those words.

Taehyung shook his head, gaze falling to his hands where they rested in his lap.

“When you aren’t tied down… when you aren’t tied down then you can think these things. They can’t keep you forever, you know. True chidren move out, become people… you shouldn’t have to stay and look pretty on the shelf for them, pidge. Your dreams don’t have to live where you close your eyes.”

He turned to you then. You couldn’t have breathed if you wanted to.

Again, it seemed you had fallen into this man’s magnetic pull, somehow closer than you remembered getting. His eyes were too powerful for you to pull away from, somehow wide and shining while something dark flickered beneath those irises.

It was a slow surge as he moved forwards, his breath falling onto your cheek, your lips.

The darkness of the night, the city, the terrace, blurred at the corners of your vision, unable to look away from the entrancing boy – every fleck of gold in his eyes, each eyelash, sloping down, and now dropping shut-

There was no impact as his lips met yours, feather-soft as they pressed together.

You moved together with ease, slotting into place perfectly as your lips brushed. That was all it took. The moment you confirmed what he was silently asking, he was pressing into your mouth, lips much more than a phantom and very, very real.

Fingers that were resting lightly at your jaw now fervently tugged you closer.

Your head was spinning by the time both his hands were on you. Moulding to his touch, you indulged in his mouth as he pulled you onto his lap, hand gliding over your back. Craving more of him, you eagerly pushed closer, leaving no space for the breeze to weave between your bodies.

Breath fell hot between you as the kiss broke at last, but you found you had been robbed of all words.

“Just stay with me for tonight, pidge.” Tae’s voice was breathy, casting itself to the wind inches from his lips. A hopeful grin spread onto his face. “What’s life without a little adventure?”

Exhaling, you nestled into him once again, casting your eyes back out to the glimmering lights of the city. And he seemed happy with that, arms curling securely around you while they still could.

That night, you both dreamed of running away.

Fingers were trailing winding paths through your hair, rousing you from sleep. It was only slow, the world piecing itself together inch by inch around you, but now you blinked blearily, light filtering through your lashes.

When the hand withdrew from your head, you pried your eyes further open, twisting around.

Taehyung was already looking at you. Soft smile playing on his lips, he ran his hand once more over your head at your pout.

“Sorry, cub, didn’t mean to wake you,” he chuckled.

“No, no,” you shook your head, fidgeting to an upright position as a yawn forced its way out, “wh-what time is it?”

Only a shrug answered, a vague wave towards the sky. Turning, you found the city sprawled out ahead of you, but this time bathed in light as a glow pierced the horizon.

Gnawing at your lip, you kept in your words. It was morning, and you had never been away from home this long, even if it wasn’t your parents waiting for you there. You already missed this moment, knowing you would have to go.

Tae pulled you to his chest again, arms snaking their way around your middle, the ghost of his lips on your neck-

Sighing heavily, you turned back to him, though you didn’t meet his eyes.

“Tae I- thank you, but, I should go home now.”

A moment of silence elapsed, Tae’s arms not budging from where they circled you.

Then, he deflated. Releasing you from his lap, he nodded, more to himself than anything.

“Alright, pidge. Let’s get you home.”

Descending from the terrace, you let the view fade from sight without looking back. The walk was steady, but it seemed to stretch on for hours with the torture of walking beside Tae, unable to give in to your urge to reach out for his hand.

But you couldn’t allow yourself to do that.

Idly observing as the houses you passed became freshly painted, weeds between the paving slabs turning to freshly mown lawns, you tried to reason with yourself. What would Jin and Hoseok think? Not only had you crossed the tracks, but you had broken into a building with the notorious Taehyung.

And then eaten delicious spaghetti with him.

And kissed him.

Resolving never to speak of it again, you cast your eyes down. Why was your common sense betraying you now? Don’t associate with the other side, that was unspoken rule number one. You were better off here, you were lucky to have mother and father.

But that wasn’t what Tae had told you.

And something in you believed him. After your whole life being shooed away from the true children, watching them go to school and learn and do all the things you couldn’t, you wondered why they had taken you in after all.

“What flowers do you like, pidge?”

Double-taking, you were ripped from your thoughts to find Tae calling from behind you.

“I- I don’t know…” you frowned, eyes travelling to the property he had stopped beside.

“Okay pidge, wait here,” he grinned, “gonna need something to remember me by, right?”

He jumped. He jumped, vaulting over the short front wall before you could even utter a sound of warning. Dashing forwards, you watched with wide eyes as you saw him tramp through the garden like it was his own.

“Tae! What are you-?”

Stopping in front of a pristine flower bed, Taehyung’s hands fell on his hips.

“You gotta have a little fun, pidge! It’s harmless, don’t worry! Now do you like yellow or purple best?”

“Uh, um, purple,” you quickly decided, hoping to hurry him along.

Glancing over your shoulder, you scanned the road for anyone watching, bouncing on the balls of your feet as your fingers tapped impatiently on the wall. Finding nothing, you looked back to find Tae focussed intently on the flowers in his fingers, twisting the stems together with his tongue poking out.

Against your better sense, a smile fought its way to the surface.

Then, to your left, voices. Whipping your head around, you searched for the source, which revealed itself as two men emerging around the corner.

Head to toe in black, they sported a small orange stripe on the shoulder of their uniform.

Your heart rocketed in your chest, feet instantly backpedalling, but the controllers already had their eyes on you.

“Tae!” you caught his attention.

As if in slow motion, you watched him find the controllers standing at the corner, watched them locate him, and watched them each start running.

Feet slamming onto the concrete beside you, Tae was already gripping your hand.

“Now’s where we get going,” he panted.

Not hesitating for a second, both of you sped off immediately. Still fairly close to the tracks, despite being on your side, Tae seemed much more familiar with the streets than you. At some point your hands broke apart as he threw himself into a narrow path between houses.

Skidding around the corner after him, you did your best to keep up. The heavy boots thudding close behind were certainly good motivation.

Another turn and a fence stood resolutely in your way. Unfazed, Tae barely slowed down as he hopped over it with ease.

Scrambling after him, your foot slipped, scraping your calf against the wood. Still, you jumped again, struggling to reach the other side. The barrier was nearly as tall as you, only letting you snatch a glimpse of Taehyung disappearing through another garden.

Your eyes stayed on him as a bruising grip pulled your shoulder.

You didn’t struggle as your arms were yanked behind your back, manhandling you against the wall with barely enough time to turn away. Harsh brick scratched at your face while metal dug into your wrists for the second time.

Shoving you forward roughly, your feet nearly lost the ground, but you caught yourself, watery eyes staying on the ground while the hands on your arms marched you away. All you could do was hold in the gasps that constricted your throat.

You couldn’t even look back.

It had been a minute or so since Taehyung last heard the footsteps. Allowing his legs to drag him to a stop, his back fell against a wall, chest heaving. Nonetheless, a wide smile lit up his face with exhilaration.

“You alright, pidge?” he turned, one shoulder staying on the wall as he rolled around to see you.

The street was empty.

Upright in an instant, Tae’s smile vanished in a second.

“Pidge?”

He was already half-yelling but couldn’t bring himself to care when everywhere he looked showed him a distinct lack of you. Spinning in circles, his eyes roamed desperately to no avail.

Breath falling in choppy pants, he set his body in motion again, driving himself to the last corner he turned, then the one before that and the next one… at every empty space, his heart dropped agonisingly.

No no no, he had lost you! He was supposed to be getting you back home, safe and sound.

As much as he didn’t want you to go, this was never in the plan.

Forced to give up, though he must have been running for some time, he dropped his gaze to the flowers still held loosely in his hand.

Petals collided with concrete as Taehyung turned away.

Thanks for reading! Reblogs and comments always welcome and appreciated💜come chat with me!

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[nastybuckybarnes]

Mr. & Mrs. Barnes  -  Five

Pairing: Spy!Bucky X Spy!Reader AU

Summary: James and (Y/n) Barnes live the perfect apple pie life. Or so they think. In a marriage as close as theirs, secrets are bound to be revealed at some point, it’s only a matter of time. What will the other do when the secrets threaten their lives?

Warnings: Language, Fighting, Violence, Smut, Fluff,

Word Count: 2.8K

A/N: Bruh it’s been over a year. But here is the second last instalment of this series. I’ve got the ending planned out and it’s a little different than the movie, but I like it and I think it fits nicely. Me posting this is part of my New Year, New Series personal challenge where I finish the stuff I’ve started to make room for new stuff in 2021!

Masterlist Series Masterlist

SORRY IF I MISSED TAGS

~*~

“James I can’t handle this. You keep not dying when I think you’re dead.” He scoffs from the other line and you hear a car engine revving in the background.

“Stop trying to kill me then. I thought we were having a moment,” he says. You wipe your eyes and sigh. “We were. And I had to do what was necessary.” He exhales deeply. “I guess we’ll just… deal with this when we get home.” Your stomach drops at his tone, knowing exactly what’s gonna happen when he gets home.

“I guess so. I’ll meet you home then, James. And I love you. I really, truly do.”

~

You race home, obeying a grand total of probably three traffic laws on the way, determined to get home before your husband.

And you succeed. The house is empty and dark when you get home, you make sure of that. And you make sure it stays that way by locking all the windows and doors and arming yourself with as many guns and weapons your body can physically carry.

You situate yourself on the staircase, back against the wall while your eyes and ears stay peeled for any sudden noises or movement that would indicate that your husband is home.

Bucky has to break into his own house.

His own goddamn house.

That pisses him off. But, he does it and manages to do it silently, breaking in through a window in the dining room, clock and silencer in hand as he stalks around the house, looking for you.

When he approaches the wall by the staircase he stops, trying to figure out if you’re there or not. Eventually, he grabs a picture frame and decides to check for himself.

He carefully angles the picture frame towards the stairs, trying to see if you’re there in the reflection on the glass.

Just as he sees you, you shoot the frame out of his hand. He ducks down as you start shooting through the wall, each bullet missing his head by only a few inches.

When you stop shooting you wait, listening for any indication that he’s still alive.

“You still alive, Baby?” You ask almost teasingly, ignoring the tingling in your chest when you hear him groaning and his gun dropping to the floor.

Huffing out a breath, you loosen your grip on the gun, until you’re suddenly being shot at through the holes in the wall.

You roll down the stairs and into the corner, shooting at him through the wall again, pissed off.

You hurry down the rest of the stairs as he walks down the opposite hallway. You round the corner on your knees, gun raised and sliding towards the couch while he rounds the other corner, shooting at you. You shoot right back until you’re safely behind the couch, switching the magazines on your guns.

Taking a deep breath, you round the corner again and back up against the stairs, looking around for Bucky.

Meanwhile, he’s walking along the other hallway to the stairs, trying to catch you by surprise. It backfires horribly, however, when he knocks a mug off of the counter in the kitchen, sending it falling to the floor with a loud crash.

You shoot through that spot in the wall and he runs the opposite way, diving into the kitchen as you shoot at him through the doorway.

He throws open the fridge door, blocking your rain of bullets, and you grind your teeth in frustration.

He hides behind the counter, reaching up under the stove and cutting the gas line, hoping this does the trick.

He peaks his head out and, as suspected, you start firing. He holds the hose and you gasp as fire bursts and explodes towards you. You dive to the floor, backing away as fast as you can while trying to grab your gun.

That’s when he emerges from the kitchen, sleeves rolled up and ready to fight.

As you’re standing up, he knees you in the chest, sending you stumbling back into the wall. He knees you twice more in the stomach then tries to elbow you in the head, his arm connecting with the wall as you duck and swing your own elbow to the back of his head.

He stumbles away from you and down the hall, forcing you to follow him. You shove him over a vanity, making him fall to the floor with a loud grunt while you grab a lamp. He raises his arm just as you bring it down, breaking it over his elbow instead of his head like you wanted to.

He grabs your shoulders and all-but throws you into the wall, cracking the wall with the force of your fall. He grabs onto your arm and slams you against the doorway and, while you try to catch your breath, he pulls you into the dining room and shoves you over the table.

You end up falling over a chair and onto the floor, bringing many things from the table down with you.

You push yourself onto your knees weakly, the breath knocked from your lungs for a moment. He saunters around the table, no doubt with a cocky grin on his handsome face, and your own face contorts with anger.

“C’mon baby, come to daddy.” You grab your antique metal flower vase and wrap it in the table cloth, fury filling you at his taunts.

You get up onto your feet, spin around, and smack him across the face with the vase.

He’s momentarily stunned, and you use that time to wrap the cloth around the back of his neck and tug on each end. He leans towards you involuntarily and you slam your forehead against his, sending him back a step. You kick him in the chest and he falls into the liquor cabinet, bottles of expensive booze shattering around him as he falls to the ground.

“Who’s your daddy now?” You ask with a smirk, running out of the room.

You hear him stumble to his feet and chase after you as you approach the living room where your gun lies on the ground. Sliding to your knees, you grab it, only to have him kick it right out of your hands.

He tackles you to the ground and you use the momentum of the fall to roll him onto his back, you straddling his waist.

You raise your fists and lay into him, hitting him over and over again, mostly on his arms when he raises them to block your blows, but a fair amount hitting his face.

He blocks your punch with one arm then uses the other to grab you by the side of the neck and pull you onto the floor, switching your positions quickly.

Before he can hit you, you wrap your legs around his waist and your arms around his neck, slamming his head into the ground.

He groans then grabs you by the hips and stands up, stumbling a step as you stay clinging to his figure.

He runs you into the wall, and when that doesn't shake you off he slams you into the mirror on the opposite wall. You let go of him, sliding down onto the decorative stool and struggling to catch your breath while glaring at him.

You grab two heavy crystal decanters from beside your legs and bring them up, crushing them against either side of his head then diving forward onto him, legs around his waist again.

Your elbow finds purchase where his shoulder and neck meet, and you hit him there time after time, trying to find the spot of nerves that will make him collapse.

You eventually manage to get him on his back again, but before you can hit him he’s grabbing your hair and tossing you onto the floor beside himself.

He smacks you across the face and scrambles to his feet, then starts kicking you. You curl your knees to your chest to prevent him from hitting anything major, but he’s already landed a few solid kicks to your ribs and stomach.

You kick your own foot out and it hits its target between his legs, sending him crumpling to the ground.

The two of you struggle to your feet at the same time, and he stares at you, panting with his fists raised, and you do the same. He waist for you to make the first move but when your eyes dart a few feet to the left then back to him quickly, he drops his hands and dives over to where your guns lay strewn on the floor.

You grab yours and aim it at him while he grabs his and aims it at you.

Everything comes screeching to a halt and the house is silent, save for the panting coming from the two of you.

You slowly rise to your feet and he does the same, blue eyes trained on yours as you point the gun at his head.

He lowers his gun after a moment, glances down, then shakes his head and looks back up to you.

“I can’t do it,” he whispers. You shake your head, tears falling down your cheeks.

“Don’t! Come on, come on!” You shout, desperate for him to make the next move.

“You want it?” He asks softly, eyes never once leaving yours. “It’s yours.” He tosses the gun to the ground and you feel your bottom lip tremble.

He watches the tears, the sorrow in your eyes, and sighs when he realizes the anger and the determination are gone.

He takes a careful step forward and when you make no hostile move he pushes the gun out of your hand and tosses it to the floor.

His hands come up and cradle your face and you grab at his neck, pulling him in for a searing and passionate kiss.

His hands move down to your ass and he hoists you up, groaning against your lips when you wrap your legs around him, accidentally grinding against him. He pushes you to the kitchen table, sitting you down on it while his lips move down your throat, you gasp as he bites down, no doubt leaving a mark, and he kisses back up to your lips while his hands shove your dress up away from your legs, giving him access to what he wants.

You grab at his shirt, desperate for it to be off so you can feel the comforting warmth of his skin against yours.

He gets the hint and tears it down the middle, letting the shreds fall to the floor around his feet.

“James,” you whisper, gripping his shoulders and pulling him closer to you.

He pulls your dress off of your shoulders and lets it hang loose around your waist, his hands tearing your bra off then pulling your chest tight against his.

He groans at the feeling and kisses down your neck again before shoving his pants down his thighs and freeing his cock from the tight confines.

“You ready for me, baby?” He asks softly, voice a breathy moan in your ear. You nod, desperate to feel him in your already soaked heat.

He grabs your hips and pulls you to the edge of the table, sliding his cock through your folds a few times and hissing at the way your cunt soaks him within a matter of seconds.

“Please, James, please,” you beg, tears prickling your eyes. All you want is to feel him, every inch of him, against you.

He nods, pressing his forehead against yours as he slowly pushes himself into you. You moan lewdly, basking in the feeling of him pressing against your walls and stretching you so perfectly.

“Fuck,” he hisses. You lean up a bit, lips meeting his in a kiss that’s all teeth and tongue and fire. He slowly starts thrusting and you inhale sharply, moaning into his mouth and digging your nails into the meat of his shoulders. He grunts against your lips, hips moving faster while his hands grip your thighs tight enough to bruise.

You throw your head back, a loud moan tearing its way out of your throat, and his chest rumbles with a growl. He pushes you down flat on your back rather roughly, one hand coming up to grip your throat, his fingers flexing and squeezing around your neck.

Your mouth drops open, eyes closing as the pleasure builds between your legs.

“M’gonna make you cum for me, baby. Gonna make you cum nice and hard. You want that? Yeah?” You nod, prying your eyes open and gazing up at him, nothing but pure love and absolutely unfiltered need in your eyes.

He picks up speed, hammering into you with enough force to have you sliding up the table. The hand on your thigh pulls you back into him, forcing you to meet him thrust for thrust, and your pussy clenches with each thrust.

The intense feeling of him hitting every sensitive spot inside of you mixed with the overwhelming emotions flooding your body has you nearing the edge in record time,

He feels the fluttering of the walls, can see the way your eyes start rolling back, and he knows you’re close.

His fingers squeeze the tiniest bit harder on your throat while he pumps into you faster, angling his hips in such a way as to allow his pelvis to rub against your clit with every thrust.

Your back arches at the new stimulation and your walls convulse around his cock. He doesn’t stop, instead, he fucks you through your climax, determined to fill you up with his cum.

The spasming of your walls and the way you’re squeezing him so fucking tightly is enough to send him over the edge. His thrusts get sloppy as his muscles clench, his orgasm crashing over him in waves.

He cums inside of you in hot bursts, painting your swollen walls white with his release, marking you up and leaving his claiming mark inside of you.

A small part of his mind thinks back to the IUD you had packaged for him, and the thought of you getting pregnant makes him groan and lean down to kiss you, his hand moving from your neck to cradle your face.

He plants soft kisses across your face as you catch your breath, caught in your post-orgasmic haze. The hand on your thigh moves up to his shoulder, prying your nails out of his flesh and interlocking your fingers with his.

You pull your other hand up, fingers raking through his hair and massaging his scalp gently. He looks up at you, a grin on his face and you can’t help but giggle.

“How’s that for hate-fucking?” He asks. You roll your eyes and give his hair a tug.

“Shut up.” The two of you lapse back into silence, and this time you can’t keep the intrusive thoughts out.

“They’re gonna expect a body,” you murmur, eyes focused on a bullet hole in the kitchen ceiling. He hums his agreement, pushing himself up to stand straight and slipping his cock out of you. You whine softly, but follow his lead, sitting up and trying to ignore the feeling of his cum dripping out of you.

He leans back, not bothering to pull his boxers on properly, and looks at you. “So what do we do?” He asks. You take a deep breath and shake your head.

“If I don’t bring your head in on a silver platter then I’m sure I’ll be the next target. And there’s only so much running we can do.” He nods, pursing his lips before raising his eyebrows.

“Why don't our companies merge?” The idea seems so obvious that it’s ridiculous. “Maria would never agree to that.”

“Wait... Maria Hill?” You nod, looking at him curiously as he rubs his chin. “Maria and Nick have been butting heads for years. I’m not surprised we were sent to take out the same target. They’re always trying to one-up each other. Some fucking stupid falling out.” You raise your eyebrows.

“Nick Fury is your boss? Jesus Christ the man is ruthless.” Your husband chuckles then shrugs.

“C’mon. Let’s get you some clothes and then we can talk business.” You nod, hopping off of the counter and heading to the stairs, Bucky following close behind.

“Well... maybe getting dressed and talking business can wait. We’ve got some lost time to make up for,” he says from behind you, eyes focused on your ass. You shake your head, a smile on your face as you glance over your shoulder at him.

“You, James, are insatiable.”

He chuckles, slapping your ass and smiling at the squeal you let out. “Yeah, but you love it.”

“Can’t argue with that.”

[flutteringdreams-matw]

Out of Time (14)

First/Last

Read on AO3

Word Count: 7283

Previously: Dan duplicated and went for Jack, Maddie and Jazz. With some help from Dani, Valerie and Vlad, they defeated Dan... not before Jazz revealed that their parents know. Also... "You okay Mr. Lancer? How did you escape?"

Mr. Lancer started to answer, but a different voice beat him.

"Tuck."

"Danny!?"

Now: Meanwhile - Lancer's in trouble. Warning: Violence, ectoplasm, some graphic descriptions.

Please let me know what you think! Feel free to drop a reply or reblog whatever. Next chapter will be out on Wednesday (link will be in the replies!)

Meanwhile...

"And what, may I ask, gave you the absurd idea to come out here in the middle of a ghost invasion?" Mr. Lancer frowned as he glared at the two teenagers in front of him. Dash and Kwan looked at each other sheepishly, neither appearing to have an answer for the vice-principal. Lancer sighed, rolling his eyes slightly as he jerked his arm backward toward the school. "No matter - get to the Nasty Burger. That's the nearest safe zone."

"Isn't the school closer?" Kwan asked, frowning slightly.

Lancer sighed again. "It would be closer, but Phantom's shield caused parts of it to cave in." he shooed them quickly. "Now go on, I don't want Tetslaff on my case tomorrow morning about two freshman on her starting line-up injured in a ghost attack."

Both boys nodded, before they jogged past the school. Lancer watched them go with a slight frown, bringing the walkie-talkie up to his mouth. "Two more coming your way Maria."

He heard the gym teacher scoff. "Only you could get away with calling me that William," she replied gruffly. "I have a reputation to uphold."

Lancer hummed non-committedly, hearing the line click as she signed off. He took a look around the school grounds, making a mental note to figure out who left their cars in the middle of the street on a Sunday during a ghost invasion. He looked up at the dark sky, frowning as he saw jagged pieces of Phantom's shield looking like it would fall.

"Mr. Lancer?"

The teacher turned at his name and his eyes widened in shock. Daniel Fenton was staggering over to him. He looked injured, tripping over his feet as wide blue eyes looked at him in alarm.

"War of the Worlds! Mr. Fenton, what are you doing out here?!" Lancer exclaimed, rushing over to the teen. They met in the middle, Danny falling into the teacher's arms with a small cry of pain. "What happened!?"

"I-" he started, looking around wildly. "The ghost - it attacked. My family - Mr. Lancer, my family!"

Lancer frowned worriedly; the boy was in hysterics. "Danny, I don't understand," he said slowly. "Deep breaths now. What about your family?" He tried to get the boy onto his feet but needed some support. "Why are you out here on your own?"

A look of confusion crossed the boy's face briefly, before it subsided. "He - that ghost," the boy started, seeming to calm down. "He went after all of us. I escaped but my family - they must still be there!"

Lancer looked the boy over - now that he was up close he saw no definite signs of injury, nor did he seem to show any illness that he claimed to have when he was last in school. Lancer frowned; the teacher had been subject to this boy's excuses for two years. Danny may lie, but when he was worried or concerned, you could hear it clearly in his voice. This? This seemed different. It was cold - distant.

"Where? Your parents have been fighting for hours around the city - I saw your mother not too long ago." He turned west, toward the park with a frown. "Are you sure they were captured?" The boy nodded earnestly. "Alright, let's get you to the Nasty Burger and then we can get to your family."

Danny frowned. "The Nasty Burger?"

Lancer let go of the teen, seeing that he was stable now, and headed toward the local hangout, beckoning the student to follow. "The nearest safe area?" he supplied, a questioning eyebrow raised in Danny's direction. Again, a brief look of confusion flashed across his face - Lancer could have sworn the boy's eyes were red - before it disappeared, the boy in question nodding in acceptance.

They walked in silence, Danny following the teacher closely as Lancer spared him another glance. Danny's eyes were darting around but he held a small smile that made the man's skin crawl.

Something was wrong.

"Hey Mr. Lancer?" Danny called out evenly. They locked eyes, Lancer giving a small nod inviting him to continue as he faced forward. "Whatever happened to the test I cheated on?"

Lancer bristled, surprised by the question. "I don't follow."

"You know? Last year?" the boy continued. There was something in his voice that Lancer couldn't place. "The C.A.T.?"

Mr. Lancer stopped, eyes widening and not turning around. He heard the boy do the same a short distance away. He swallowed slightly, licking his lips before he answered. "You didn't cheat on the C.A.T." he said calmly.

"Oh," Danny's voice was tart now, something more sinister underneath. "What happened to the answers then?"

The teacher's gasped slightly, getting unnerved at the line of questioning. "Danny… you gave those to me." He turned around to face his student, suspicion rising throughout his being. What did the Fentons say about overshadowing?

The teen's eyes were dark, a scowl plastered across his face at the answer. "You know," the boy said darkly, not hiding any malice in his voice. "I wouldn't be here if it wasn't for you." The teen's body started to glow, red eyes radiating heat around them. Mr. Lancer stumbled backward, trying to get away from whatever was possessing his student. "If you didn't bring my family to the Nasty Burger, telling them about that test… I would have never existed. I suppose I have to thank you."

What!? Lancer thought, mouth opening and closing as green energy started to swirl around the boy's body. "American Psycho!"

The ghost, laughed, mixing in with Danny's voice, unnerving the teacher. "Do you see it yet Mr. Lancer?" he asked sinisterly. "The resemblance? Come on - you're a smart man." The ghost moved toward him, making Lancer move backward to get away. "It's the end for you," the ghost said, smiling as his hand lit up with the same green energy that surrounded him. As it raised its hand in striking position, it gasped - a red vapour coming from its nose. It barely registered the sensation before a black and white blur slammed into the ghost with a yell. The blur stopped, hovering in front of teacher as the ghost was flown backward, skidding across the concrete.

Lancer let out a sigh of relief as Phantom turned around, looking at him worriedly. "Are you okay Mr. Lancer?" His voice was gruff and low, as if it took too much energy to keep speaking.

"Better thanks," he said, eyes still wide as he looked at the scowling ghost thrown back. Phantom's gaze followed, a grim expression washing across his face.

"Still alive, I see," the ghost snarled, staggering upright. It still unnerved the man that he was in his student's body.

Phantom's eyes narrowed. "You seriously need to chill out." Lancer watched as the teen hero's eyes turned blue, as did his hands as he sent a blast of ice toward Danny Fenton's body. As the boy froze, Phantom turned back to the teacher. "You need to get out of here," he said urgently, landing and bringing a hand to his chest. "Dan won't rest until he kills you."

Lancer thought he might throw up. Dan…. Like Daniel? "Me?!" he asked incredulously. The teacher shook his head. "No wait - what about Mr. Fenton?"

Phantom tensed, frowning at the teacher. "That isn't Danny Fenton," he said darkly. "And it never will be."

"Come again?" Mr. Lancer asked weakly, looking to the frozen figure a few feet away. His form seemed to be melting the ice.

"When was the last time you saw him?" Phantom pressed, facing the frozen ghost and holding his arm out protectively to stop the teacher from running over. "Think Mr. Lancer - when was the last time you saw Danny Fenton."

Lancer blinked at the question. "Friday," he answered, looking ahead. "And he was ill."

Phantom raised an eyebrow at him. "Do you really think the Fentons would let him out to fight ghosts if he was ill? He's still hold up at Fentonworks under the ghost shield." Dan broke through the ice with a roar, cutting off their conversation. Phantom's jaw set, eyes narrowing as Dan mirrored his stance. "Mr. Lancer - you need to get out of here. I don't know how long I can hold him back."

Two rings of white light appeared at the imposter's waist, transforming him in a larger, flame haired ghost. Lancer gasped, turning back to the younger ghost in front of him; the boy did not look well.

"Will you-" he started, but Phantom glanced backward, a side glare indicating that he over stayed his welcome. "Be careful." With one last warning, Lancer ran toward Casper High, the closest place away from the feuding ghosts.

:-=-:

As Mr. Lancer finally left, Danny allowed himself one moment of relief before glaring across at his older self. I need to get him out of the city, Danny thought frantically as Dan stalked over. The older Phantom was furious, running toward him with a wordless roar. Danny braced himself, going into a fighting stance before Dan reached him, blocking a punch to the face. Danny ducked, sweeping his injured leg with a wince, knocking Dan off his feet and punching the older ghost in the face. Dan recoiled, growling slightly as he launched at the teen again, tackling him to the ground.

Dan grinned as he pinned the younger Phantom to the ground, punching him repeatedly in the face. After the sixth punch, Danny managed to free an arm and with a grunt threw Dan off of him. He rolled over with a groan, coughing slightly as he attempted to stand, ignoring the small drops of ectoplasm coming from his face. He gasped suddenly, flipping back in the air as Dan came at him again with a flurry of punches. Danny dodged them all. Eventually, he found a small opening and punched Dan clean in the gut. It hit true, sending Dan flying backward with a grunt of pain.

Danny dropped to one knee, wincing heavily as he eyed his evil counterpart. "You won't win," Danny told him, breathing hard as he glared at the ghost in front of him.

Dan smirked as he got up, breathing equally as hard. "Really? I thought I already had?" he goaded. "Face it Danny, you're fighting a losing battle here. Either I waste you now or I wait until you run the clock out on yourself. You may have saved Lancer - for now - but how about our parents? Jazz?"

Danny's eyes lit up in anger as he stood up. Plan be damned. Danny breathed deeply and let out a desperate Ghostly Wail. It caught Dan by surprise, sending him back toward a shop with a crash. The wail didn't last long, Danny cutting it off with a strangled cry of pain as he dropped to his knees. One hand came to his burning throat, the other curled around his side as the rings of light attacked him again. That was stupid, Danny berated, gasping as green sparks of energy attacked his core.

He was exhausted, wondering how he would ever think of getting Dan to the forest now as he doubled over. "Come on," he grunted, trying to focus through the pain. "You're not done yet."

A crash from afar had his head whipping up. Dan flew upward, hands alight with ecto-energy racing toward him. The evil Phantom landed forcefully on the ground, creating a shockwave of energy outward from the impact. It hit Danny in the chest, sending him crashing into a light post. The boy shook his head, trying to clear it and stand up. Another round of sparks attacked him, keeping him grounded as Dan moved toward him.

"It's like I've said before," Dan said as he finally reached him. "I'm inevitable." He picked the boy up by the collar and flung him across the road, hitting one of the abandoned cars with a sickening crash. Danny groaned, moving slowly and glaring at Dan.

Suddenly, Dan stopped - a blank expression on his face. Danny barely had a chance to register it before something shifted. Dan contorted, looking more animalistic than he ever had. He bared his fangs, tongue hanging out and red encompassed his irises. He let out a roar - sonic waves coming out, making Danny fall again. The teen looked up with wide eyes, frozen in the face of sheer power coming from his evil self. The roar caused the car windows to explode outwards as they cracked, bits of rubble started to break apart from the ground; this was no wail. This was raw energy. Red eyes locked with green and with a vicious smile Dan teleported in front of Danny, grabbing the injured teen by the throat. The teen let out a cry of pain as he was choked for the third time that day.

"You told them?!" Dan hissed, his ghostly echo much deeper than it was normally.

Danny let out another cry of pain as he stared at his evil self with wide eyes. What?

"Our parents." Dan continued, eyes narrowing. "They know who we are… and they accepted it." He threw Danny roughly into another car, causing the car alarm to go off. Quickly, Dan flew over again, grabbing him by the arm and put a foot on the boy's back. He pushed Danny toward the ground, hearing the small gasps of pain the boy beneath made. With a dark grin he pulled Danny's arm upward and after a sickening pop, Danny's shoulder came out of his socket. He barely registered the younger's scream through his fury.

Dan snarled, letting go of his arm to grab a fist full of his hair. "You don't deserve their acceptance!" He growled. The evil Phantom hurled Danny in the air; hands alight with green energy and sent a strong ecto-blast toward him.

The blast hit him straight on and with a shout, Danny was sent flying backward. His back hit the school hard, bouncing off it slightly as he slid to the ground. He groaned, looking around blurredly in the direction of his future self. So much for getting him out of the city.

"Was the old man worth it Danny?" Dan jeered at him. Danny's hands curled into fists at the sound of the ghost's voice. "You're weakened and alone, my duplicates are taking care of the family and what are you going to do?" Danny's aura shone brighter in anger as his vision cleared. Dan was staring at him almost gleefully, white fangs shining eerily over the town ahead. He started to walk toward the downed teen, hands alighting in green ghost energy. "Your whole world is ending and you're powerless to stop it."

Danny's core throbbed angrily at those words, filling him almost to the edge with harsh electrical energy. His aura sparked to life again and with a quick change of colour in one of his eyes, Danny released a strong ecto-blast coated with electricity straight from his core. It hit its mark, making the ruthless Dan duplicate disappear with a wordless shout of surprise. Finally free of the onslaught, Danny whimpered slightly, sinking lower into the ground as raw green sparks racked his battered frame.

Why'd I think this was a good idea again? He thought bitterly, wincing as something burned at his side. He moved his good arm slowly, vaguely realizing that it was the same side he was hit earlier and swore as his white gloves were smeared with ectoplasm. Not good.

He fumbled slightly with his belt, ignoring the searing pain from his dislocated shoulder as he attempted to grab the Ecto-Enhancers. Come on! As he finally grabbed the pouch, his fingers twitched, sending the Ecto-Enhancers out of reach on the ground in front of him. Danny glared at the small pouch, trying to levitate it closer but pain erupted through his entire being, letting out strangled moan as his vision blackened.

"Help," he whispered desperately, pushing his injured vocal chords further. To his ears, it sounded like he was yelling. He closed his eyes, finding it too hard to keep them open. "Someone. Help."

His injuries and his exhaustion were finally starting to get to him. Vlad wasn't kidding - this sucks. He tried to move again before he was stopped by sharp pains shooting through his ribcage. Broken rib... great. The distance sounds around started to fade as started to lose consciousness.

Danny didn't know how much time had passed when heard hesitant footsteps. Here, he thought desperately. I'm over here. The footsteps got closer. A clang of metal then he heard a voice.

"Brave New World!"

:-=-:

Lancer thought wildly as he hid under his desk in his office. Ghost shield's broken; can't head for the Nasty Burger while those two are at it. More explosions shook the ground as the two ghosts clashed violently outside. Lancer swallowed thickly, glancing to the flashes of green that illuminated the office. Come on Phantom he thought desperately.

The glass shattered as another explosion echoed outside. The teacher shuddered, glancing at the exit as he heard voices yelling outside. If he got to the gym, at least there would be something he could use to defend himself. He crawled out from under his desk, dusting himself off before he gave the exit another glance.

Another crash, a car alarm and a scream reached his ears. The gym it is. The man took off. He made it down two hallways before the building shook in a terrible explosion. Lancer gasped, watching as some of the lockers broke away from the walls, falling into the hall and blocking the way he came. When the building stopped shaking, Lancer continued his journey. He made it to the equipment room, opened it with a shaking hand only to be blocked by equipment that had fallen over. Great. Lancer looked in the small opening of the doorway, reaching inside to grab the best weapon that he could find. His hand found something cold and metallic, which he withdrew very quickly. It was an old beaten golf club. Since when did we have a golf team!? Nodding slightly at the weapon, he glanced to Tetslaff's office. Frowning slightly, he opened the door, peering into it. Once he realized it was clear, he moved to enter it before stopping.

It was too quiet.

Lancer paused, listening for any sounds from the outside world. No explosions, no screams and no ground shaking. He breathed deeply, waiting for something… anything to give him a clue of what was happening. A few minutes passed before he let out a breath. It must be over. He turned back in the direction of his office, wincing as he assessed the damage. "Insurance better cover that," he muttered, turning back to the gym hallway. He was close to the parking lot exit - not the best escape route but better than a sitting duck.

Lancer made his way slowly, golf club at the ready, as he moved through the corridor. He stopped briefly as he passed a window, sucking in a breath at the debris littering the football field. Careful to avoid the broken glass, he continued, keeping a close ear for anything out of the ordinary. When he reached the door, he paused, frowning. The last time I was outside, Phantom and that other ghost were about to…what do the kids call it? Throw Out? Do I really want to go out there? The teacher listened again, waiting at the door for some sort of sign that it was safe. Did they move elsewhere? No explosions, no signs of any fight nearby. He waited a few more minutes before taking a deep breath and opened the door.

The whole block was destroyed; cars with dents, craters on the ground, a few fires here and there. Lancer's jaw dropped, staring at the utter destruction. Green eyes looked at a particular deep crater with smears of green across the pavement. He felt his body move before he was aware, carefully following the green substance through the parking lot until he saw something crumpled on what was left of the wall of the school.

Rather - someone.

Lancer had never seen Danny Phantom so still; the teen's body was littered in injuries. He had his eyes closed, breathing shallowly while he gripped his side. The green ectoplasm oozed out of his body, looking more and more like blood with every second. Lancer's grip on the golf club loosened, letting it fall with a clang onto the ground. Phantom flinched slightly, curling his fist.

"Brave New World!" the teacher exclaimed, eyes widening at the spectre in front of him. Lancer moved toward the boy, kicking a small black pouch with a familiar logo on its front. "What-" Lancer started, picking it up and glancing back toward Phantom. The man jumped, gasping as Phantom's luminous green eyes looked at him desperately. "Phantom - are you... is that…" Phantom's eyes moved toward the pouch, back toward the teacher and back down to the pouch. Lancer frowned, his gaze following Phantom's to the item in his hand. "You need this?" Lancer asked. The ghost opened his mouth to respond, only voicing a strangled gasp and a wince in pain. Phantom nodded slowly, looking at the teacher with a silent plea.

Lancer un-zipped the pouch as he moved to Phantom's side. The young ghost's eyes followed him, blinking heavily as if he would fall unconscious at any point. Lancer's eyes widened, looking at the glowing green syringes and then back to the teen. "Stay with me," Lancer said gently, ignoring his trembling hands and offered the syringes to Phantom. The ghost moved, attempting to take one before he closed his eyes with a grimace in pain. He swallowed, breathing heavily before he opened an eye and looked at Lancer. Lancer looked at the syringes, then back up to Phantom as he realized what the ghost was trying to ask him. "You want me to give this to you?" Lancer asked slowly. Phantom's eye closed, pushing his head back toward the wall of the school before he nodded. Lancer's frown deepened, taking one of the syringes out of the pouch. His hands were shaking still as he moved it towards the boy's arm. "Are you sure about this?" he asked, noting that his voice too was shaking. Phantom's eyes opened again, green meeting green as they tried to communicate. Finally, Lancer nodded, steadying his hand as he injected the contents of the mysterious glowing substance into the ghost.

Phantom's eyes closed, a sharp gasp escaping his lips as the syringe became empty. "Phantom?" Lancer asked softly. He didn't respond. A small sense of panic and worry shot through the teacher. "Phantom, are you alright?" Lancer moved a hand to the ghost's face, touching it gently as he tried to get Phantom to wake up. Please don't tell me I destroyed our town hero. "Phantom, can you open your eyes? You need to stay awake. You're losing too much… blood? Is that your blood?"

Phantom let out a short wheezy laugh which turned into a small fit of coughs. Once they subsided, he nodded, finally opening his eyes and locked onto the teacher. Lancer sighed in relief, falling back to lean on the school wall. "You have to stay awake - my first aid training only covers humans you know." Phantom sent him a quizzical look. "What? I'm a teacher in the most haunted city in America. You think I wouldn't know first aid?"

Phantom gave him a small smile. "'kay," he rasped, wincing.

Lancer frowned, noticing the dark bruises around the ghost's neck; the evil Phantom might have crushed the boy's vocal chords. He then looked to Phantom's side where his blood seemed to have slowed. Odd. "What did I do to you?" he asked quietly, trying to keep Phantom conscious.

Phantom made a face, attempting to speak but a small groan came out instead. He closed his eyes tiredly, breathing through the pain. "Heal," he managed after a while, his voice still raspy and low.

At least I know I won't kill him. "Okay," Lancer said, swallowing slightly. Green eyes looked over the injured hero, finding the dislocated shoulder. He frowned. Phantom may not be able to stay awake if I reset it. "Phantom?" The boy hummed in response, opening his eyes slowly. "Your shoulder is dislocated, I can fix it but you need to stay awake. Can you talk to me as I'm doing it?"

Phantom groaned. "Hurts," he ground out, grimacing as green sparks appeared at his waist. Lancer's eyes widened as they coursed through the boy for a few minutes before disappearing. Phantom's eyes closed, groaning again as he leaned heavily against the wall of the school. "Story," Phantom whispered weakly, eyes scrunched tight.

"Story?" Lancer repeated, furrowing his brow. "You want me to tell you a story?"

"Distract-" Phantom cut himself off with a gasp as more sparks moved through him.

Lancer swallowed as Phantom's body tensed through the pain. Distraction… he wants me to distract him. "Okay, but you need to pay attention," he said gently. "I've had enough students fall asleep in class - don't want to add you to the list."

Phantom smiled, a hint of amusement on his face. "Teacher…..Boring," he wheezed.

Lancer's eyebrows rose. "Are you calling me boring Phantom?" he asked with a smile. The smile faded as Phantom's jaw clenched and more sparks moved through him. "Okay, okay - I'll make it an interesting one," Lancer rushed. "You just stay with me alright?"

Phantom nodded, relaxing slightly. Lancer frowned, moving to Phantom's left to get closer to his arm. "Did you know I have a playbook to guilt students into studying?" Phantom's eyebrows rose, but didn't open his eyes nor respond. "It's true. In my years of teaching, I had to get creative. Besides, my students - thankfully - don't want to learn much about my social life and figured I could mess with them. Interesting enough for you?"

Phantom opened his eyes and looked at the teacher, inviting him to continue.

"I'll take that as a yes," Lancer said, gingerly taking Phantom's arm in one hand and placing the other on his shoulder. He had to time this right. "So my ultimate play works like a charm. See, I have a photo of my sister on my desk and lead the wayward students to believe I don't have enough time to see her since I spend most of the time tutoring students." Lancer had Phantom's attention now, the boy's eyes swimming with confusion. "Here's the thing Phantom," Lancer continued, prepping himself to move the shoulder back into place. "I don't have a sister." Phantom's eyebrows rose incredulously. Here goes. "That photo? It's of me on Drag night."

"Wha-OW" Phantom yelped hoarsely. Lancer moved quickly, putting the shoulder back in place. The teacher grinned sheepishly, watching Phantom's eyes close tightly as the pain moved through him, hissing through his teeth.

"Derek thinks it's hilarious that no one has figured it out," Lancer said quickly, attempting to have Phantom focus back on the story rather than his pain. "He's even offered to dress up as Edwina Lancer to sell it one of these days as a play on my middle name. I think perhaps Ms. Fenton figured it out but she's never said anything nor told her brother, which worked in my favour last year."

Phantom looked at the teacher with wide eyes, gasping as he attempted to process both the pain and the story. "Derek?" he asked with another grimace.

Lancer smiled softly. "My partner; he travels a lot for work so we only ever see each other on the weekends."

Phantom was quiet for a few minutes, breathing deeply through the pain. "Why this story?" Phantom asked finally, his voice sounding less wheezy as he moved to sit up straighter. Lancer helped steady him when he faltered.

Lancer shrugged. "I get to go home to him after all this is over, thanks to you." Phantom gave him a small smile. They sat in a comfortable silence for a few minutes, Phantom throwing his head back against the wall of the school as he healed. It was Lancer who broke it. "Can I ask you a question?" Phantom turned to Lancer, nodding. "What was that ghost? He clearly did a number on you."

Phantom's smile disappeared, a dark haunted look drifting across his face. "Someone who shouldn't exist," he said quietly.

Lancer frowned at the response. "He said I created him," Lancer continued. "He wanted me dead."

Phantom shook his head. "You didn't," the teen assured, swallowing slightly. His voice was stronger now. "He's… a lot to explain." Phantom let out a long sigh. "Do you remember the C.A.T. last year?"

Lancer nodded, remembering the evil Phantom saying the same words.

"There was a timeline that caused some stuff to happen - really bad stuff," Phantom continued, shuddering slightly. "That combined with some really stupid choices on my part caused his existence. I defeated him once with some help, but he escaped."

"Sounds like a lot of time travel and alternate reality stuff," Lancer replied with a small smile.

"Kind of, yeah" Phantom said sheepishly. He swallowed again, pushing his head back against the wall and breathed deeply.

"Wait…" Lancer said, realizing something. "Is that why Danny Fenton turned in those answers? Because you asked him to?"

Phantom chuckled darkly. "Nah. He found out what would happen on his own; realized it was too high a cost."

Lancer frowned at the ghost's tone. Danny had been so relieved when he found out he could do the make-up test, showed up for detention on time and accepted it all in stride. In fact, he seemed like he expected more punishment than what was given. It took him months to realize that it wasn't so big of a deal once he came clean. "What cost was that?"

Phantom shuddered. "You really don't want to know," he said cryptically.

Lancer tried to reply, but was interrupted by a faint explosion in the distance. Phantom's head moved toward the sound, face hardening. The teacher frowned as he saw Phantom's eyes clouding in thought and concern. "You're not healed completely, are you?"

"No." Phantom's curt reply came with a frown. They sat in silence again, a few more explosions coming drifting to their ears before a light sparked in his eyes. "Do you have your cell phone?" Lancer frowned, taking out the older flip phone and showed it to the ghost. "I have an idea - can you call FentonWorks?

"FentonWorks?" Lancer repeated.

Phantom nodded, shifting slightly with a wince. "Yeah - they're supposed to have the ghost shield up soon."

Lancer furrowed his brow, but dialled the familiar number nonetheless. Phantom gave him a stiff nod before he leaned back against the brick with closed eyes. It rang twice before an automated message erupted through the speakerphone.

"You've reached FentonWorks!" Jack Fenton's voice boomed. "If this is a ghost related emergency, please stay on the line - or holler! We're probably there already. For the fudge watch, please press 1, if you're the V-man - HI VLADDIE! - press 2, if you're trying to reach my Jazzy-pants for a date hang up -"

"Dial 4304," Phantom told him. "Jack goes on a while, and that extension goes to the lab."

Lancer gave him a look of bemusement and did what he was told. It rang twice before someone picked up. "Hello?" he said.

Various voices filled the other line, too far and mumbled in the background for the teacher to make out. Lancer frowned, looking at Phantom for some guidance. Phantom's brow was furrowed in thought, perhaps trying to figure out the voices, but said nothing. Eventually, a voice got closer.

"What do you mean you don't know who's on the phone?" a young man's voice asked. Lancer didn't hear the reply. "Did you answer it?" again, the reply was too quiet to hear. "Clockwork, you're the Master of - for the love of all things technology Frostbite don't touch that!" Phantom grinned- actually grinned - as the voice continued to berate Frostbite for touching something called a 'Ghost Gabber'.

"What exactly is going on?" Lancer asked meekly. Phantom shrugged in response, still smiling.

"Check the infirmary for more gauze - Mrs. F has them stacked," the young man's voice continued, getting louder as he got to the phone. Lancer frowned, finally recognizing that he knew this voice. "You've reached FentonWorks Base Operations."

"Sound and the Fury - Mr. Foley?!" Lancer exclaimed. "What are you doing down there?"

"Mr. Lancer?" Tucker asked in disbelief. "What - you know what, never mind. The Fentons have me manning coms while they're out 'kicking ghost butt.' What's wrong - there's kind of a lot going on at the moment."

Lancer raised an eyebrow at the teen's tone. "More than whatever evil ghost we're facing demolishing the entire town? Or rather the school?"

"What!?" Tucker exclaimed. "Damn, he must have duplicated again without us knowing. You okay Mr. Lancer? How did you escape?"

Lancer went to reply, but Phantom chose to intervene. "Tuck," he said.

Tucker was quiet for a few moments before he spoke in a soft, hopeful whisper. "Danny!?"

Phantom smiled. "It's me." Lancer looked between the phone and the ghost in slight confusion. There was something more there that he wasn't privy to. Were these two friends!?

"Dude - where the hell have you been!?" Tucker asked incredulously, the relief evident in his voice. Definitely friends. "Are you okay?" the boy cut himself off. "No - wait Danny! Sam -"

"Is fine," Phantom told him firmly. "She's with Ethelwulf, safe and away from battle."

Tucker scoffed. "You do realize that Ethelwulf is currently holding off Dan's forces from entering parts of the city right? If she's with him, you know she's fighting too."

Phantom sighed, clearly amused. "So much for plan A then," he replied.

Sam… wait. "You're not talking about Sam Manson!?" Lancer exclaimed. His outburst went ignored.

"Danny, what happened," Tucker pressed. "You've been gone for - holy f - twelve hours. Please don't tell me you've been fighting all this time." Phantom was silent and Lancer had a sinking suspicion that was exactly what had happened. Tucker seemed to agree with the teacher. "Dude. Are you okay?"

Phantom's face twisted in concentration as he tried to answer the boy's question. "I - honestly I don't know."

Tucker was silent on the line for a minute before he responded. "Where are you?"

Phantom seemed to be taken aback by the question. "Tuck -" he started.

"Don't you dare lie to me right now," Tucker said angrily. "Danny - where are you." When Phantom didn't respond, the boy changed tactics. "Mr. Lancer - where are you two?"

Phantom gave him a pleading look, making the teacher frown but he answered nonetheless. "Casper's north parking lot Mr. Foley. Near the entrance."

"Tucker - you can't come out here," Phantom pleaded. "You're the only one who can -"

"Figure out the shield, I know," Tucker finished. There were some keys clicking in the background. "But I'm not leaving you out there."

Phantom frowned. "We may not have a choice," he said cryptically as blue and green sparks appeared again. Lancer was impressed at how well the boy weathered them now. "How close are you with the shield?"

Tucker sighed. "I'd say about 90% positive that I accounted for all the variables, but I'm not using it until we know that you aren't affected. We can hold Dan off until that point."

Phantom grunted in acknowledgement but did not reply right away. Lancer frowned at the quiet ghost, watching him in anticipation. They sat in silence for a few minutes before Phantom broke the silence. "You said Dan duplicated," he said quietly. "How're - "

"They're okay," Tucker assured him. "Well, your - Mr. and Mrs. Fenton are. I haven't heard from Jazz but I think Mrs. F went after her. Mr. Fenton went to find you."

Phantom nodded, eyes glancing above toward the last remnants of the green shield. "90%?" he asked. Lancer noted with unease how the boy seemed to glow slightly in anticipation, how he tested the movements of his fists, wincing only slightly if he found something a little sore.

"Yeah," Tucker confirmed. A beat of silence before Tucker gasped. "No. No way."

"Tucker," Phantom said tiredly. "90% is a lot. It's more than we had - and we need that shield."

"No," Tucker repeated quickly. "Don't ask me to do this."

"What are you talking about?" Lancer asked, confused.

Tucker sighed. "Danny, if I put up that shield and we're wrong, I'm going trap you out there. I can't - hell, you look awful."

Both Phantom and Lancer bristled, the former's eyes darting around before finding the surveillance camera near the school entrance. The boy let out a soft "oh", then sighed. Lancer's eyes followed Phantom's as he pieced everything together.

The teacher frowned disapprovingly. "Mr. Foley," he started evenly. "You didn't just hack into the school cameras, right?"

"Technically speaking - no," Tucker replied, a hint of guilt coming through his voice. "The mayor gave the Fentons access to all the cameras in the city."

"And how, exactly, did you know which camera it was?" Lancer asked.

"… I plead the fifth."

Lancer sighed. "Of course you do."

Phantom let out a fast stream of air through his nose before he stared straight into the camera in question. "Tucker, you need to put up the Ghost Shield; if you do, I can take mine down. It'll send Dan and his forces out of the city."

"With you out there like a lamb to slaughter?" Tucker countered. Lancer made a small noise of approval at the simile.

"Look - if I'm stuck out there, I'll have Ethelwulf and Sam out there with me." Phantom smiled ruefully. "Besides, there's something going on with my core. Even if we were at 100% there'd be a chance this wouldn't work."

"So you're saying regardless of whatever we do, I need to let you go out there injured? Fat chance."

"Tucker -"

"No Danny, you listen!" Tucker shot back angrily. "You're my best friend! Don't ask me to do this - it's literally life and death here."

"Don't you mean death and death?" Phantom joked.

"I'm not making this call," Tucker stated firmly, ignoring the small attempt deflection. "You asked me to put up that shield as part of a plan - that plan did not include you sacrificing yourself to save us."

"And what about the town?" Phantom shot back. Phantom's aura flared as he argued with the camera. "What about all the ghosts that Dan pushed out of the Ghost Zone? That shield can protect everyone in Amity and more importantly - I trust you Tucker. You always have my back."

Lancer sat in the silence that followed with his thoughts racing at what he heard. Mr. Foley saying that Phantom was his best friend confirmed Ms. Manson's involvement - meaning that Mr. Fenton must also be involved.

With ghosts. His students were involved with ghosts.

What was even more peculiar was Mr. Foley's hesitancy in his skills. Lancer knew he was a strong student - even stronger when technology was involved - but the oozing self confidence that normally accompanied his skills was nowhere to be seen. It must be dire if he's this unsure.

Phantom looked away from the camera and to the phone still in Lancer's hand. His eyes held a sad resolve as he spoke. "You told me you'd see my self-sacrificing ass from a mile away - I promise you that's not what this is. I'll be back Tucker. We need to get Dan out of the city, then I'll meet up with Ethelwulf and Sam in the forest. Ethelwulf will teleport us back. Tucker - if we get this shield up, I can actually recover."

Tucker sighed. Lancer assumed the young hero was getting through to his student. "What did Sam say?" When Phantom didn't answer, Tucker tried again. "Danny - you and I both know that Sam would not go along with that plan willingly. Especially if you looked half as bad as you do now. So what did you have to say to get her to agree to this plan?"

Lancer watched in slight amusement as Phantom looked flustered and slightly embarrassed by the question. It was almost as if … wait - could it be?

"I told her I'd come back," Phantom replied simply. His eyes avoided the camera, phone and teacher.

"That's it?" Tucker pressed. Lancer suddenly noticed the teasing shift in tone.

"Well - it was more how I said it rather than what I said."

Tucker suddenly laughed, making Phantom scowl. "Dude. You told her, didn't you?" he asked slyly.

Lancer watched Phantom sputter embarrassingly, making a lot of denial noises and looking very uncomfortable. Oh Mr. Fenton - you missed your chance.

Another loud explosion brought them back to reality. Phantom swallowed, any form of embarrassment gone as he tried to reason with the teen. "I get why you don't want to make the call Tuck," Phantom started. "I do - so let's do this together. Put up the shield and I'll be back. Promise."

There was a long silence before they heard Tucker exhaled loudly. "Okay," he replied softly. "I trust you."

Phantom smiled softly. "You're my best friend too, you know."

"I know. Hey Danny -" Tucker stopped, his voice cracking.

"Me too," Phantom said gently. He glanced back at the camera and nodded. "I'll be back."

"Good," Tucker told him, any emotion in his voice was replaced with a happier, joking tone. "Because if you miss my birthday next week cause you died, I'm running up your tab at the Nasty Burger."

Lancer watched as a genuine smile came across Phantom's face at the abrupt shift in tone. "The usual?" he asked.

"With extra everything," Tucker confirmed. More key clicks. "I'll get the shield up in 5 minutes. Be careful."

With a soft click, the line disconnected. Phantom sighed and looked at the teacher. "Thanks Mr. Lancer," he said, pushing himself upward. Lancer scrambled upward to help, but the teen simply jumped in the air and hovered in place. "Thanks to you, we can get that shield up and protect the town. And for you know… not letting me bleed out all over the parking lot."

Lancer frowned, looking the boy over. "Why do I feel that Mr. Foley was right? That going back into a fight like this would do you more harm than good?"

Phantom smiled, shrugging with one shoulder. "Probably because he is," he replied simply. "Besides, I'm not fighting alone. Between the Fentons, the Shield and my allies, we got a pretty good shot of getting him out of Amity Park. This will work."

Lancer nodded. "I can't stop you then?" he asked. Phantom shook his head. "Then perhaps a reminder, Danny Phantom, that Amity Park is with you."

With a determined nod and a small smile, Phantom disappeared. Lancer sighed heavily, looking down at the spot Phantom occupied just a moment ago. He knelt down, picking up the discarded pouch with one syringe left in it. Pocketing it with a frown, he then took out the Walkie Talkie. "Tetslaff - it's me. I'm on my way over. And do I have a story for you."

[lilyharvord]

The Chain (Part 11)

Hello Darlings, it’s been a long time coming, but here is the next part of The Chain. (: Please know that there is a little bit of forcing in this chapter to make things work, but its called a plot hole, not a plot no (((: Also, she is nice and long for you guys since it has been sometime since she got some TLC. 

I’ve got two words for you all: Time Travel.

Main concept: Two love struck idiots get sent back to a pretty UGH time period in their lives (that required me to reread all the books again) and have to hide the fact that they know everything. Stupidity ensues.

Enjoy

Find the rest of the fic here: Part 1 / Part 2 / Part 3 / Part 4 / Part 5 / Part 6 / Part 7 / Part 8 / Part 9 / Part 10

tag list:  @delilahlbard, @king-maven-calore, @thatoddgirl777, @elliekratzzz, @evangelineartemiasamos, @evangeline-of-montfort, @scxrletguardsdawn, @freaky-freiday, @petergrantkavinsky, @kuwei, @whatsup-gorls, @katiemoore,  @redqueenetwork, @tranquil-dusk (I’m trying to add you but for some reason it wont @... the same problem happens with @thatoddgirl777 and I have no idea how to fix it)

(/Mare/)

The barge glides through the murky water of the river and beyond the polished silver railing I rest my hand on, the shore of the Stilts rolls by like a faded oil painting. Ahead of me, hanging over the water, is an old tree Bree once dared me to crawl out on. The branches skim the water like skeletal fingers. I curl my own fingers around the railing in response to the memory of Bree’s laugh. I hope I get to hear it again, echoing in my parent’s town home. 

           The footsteps behind me are too light to be Cal. Even with all the work he has done to learn subterfuge, he is still a large human being. He’ll never be very good at sneaking up on anyone. I force an inhale when warm air washes over my side though. 

           Maven rests his forearms on the railing to watch the Stilts with me, his jaw tight and his eyes dark. I didn’t see him earlier today before we cast off, and I made sure he had no reason to speak with me now. I left nothing in those cells when I rescued Farley, not even a dusting of blood for Elara to use against me. Whatever he has come to discuss, it will define every point from now until the end.

           “Have you heard of the chess move known as the King’s Snare?” His voice is softer than I thought it would be, given how hard the planes of his face are.

           I glance at him warily, chewing on a response. I don’t want to talk to him about chess. I know he’s a master of it, that in all the years they played, Cal never beat him. Cal, the future general and war strategist who could throw together a plan in minutes with nothing but a handful of Reds, Ardents, and Silvers, never beat the boy before me. I don’t know why I think I have a hope of beat him or Elara.

           “No. I don’t play chess.” I murmur letting the wind shift the loose hairs hanging by my cheeks. It plays in his curls too, tussling them like a loving hand.

           The corner of his lips quirk up in a ghost of a smile before he turns to face me. He doesn’t flinch from my gaze, but that smile does fall. Pressing off the railing to stand at his full height, he tilts his head to the side as if in thought. “It’s a complex maneuver, and requires turns upon turns of preparation. It is the only strategy you can play once you initiate it. In each step, you make it appear as if you are losing. You let your opponent think they have won, and in the final step of preparation, you let your queen be taken and your king be cornered in a check mate.”

He shrugs before looking back onto the bank. His eyes sweep along the shacks on their tottering stilts. “Then, you take the opposing king with the only piece you have left. A pawn.”

           I raise a brow at it before saying, “sounds complicated. I don’t have the patience for playing the long game, and I especially don’t like playing with people’s lives like they are pieces in my game.”

           A fire lights in his eyes as he drags them over me, his expression hardening again. “I’m not so sure that’s the truth.”

           His words are a warning in and of themselves. Squaring my shoulders to him and stabbing my nails into my palms, I purse my lips in a line to swallow my retort. We stand in a stalemate for a moment before he reaches a finger out to let a strand of my hair curl around it. His expression crumbles for just a moment before that mask slides up and hides the wounded boy underneath.

           “Let’s not play this game Mare.” He bows his head and his lips almost ghost over my brow. I turn my head to the side to avoid the touch.

           “I just told you I’m not playing games.”

           His chuckle is humorless. With a quick step he closes the space between us completely and I have to crane my neck to meet his eye. 

           “You’re still useful to me and mother, but Cal has overstayed his welcome by a few years. His whole life actually, if I’m being perfectly honest.”

           No more dancing around it then, we are going full in with the truth. I twist my lips to the side, letting my sneer finally grace my features. “If you think for one second I’m going to let you two get away with what you did a second time, you’re wrong.”

           “Even if it means you lose everything you have coming?” He asks me that as if he actually cares. It makes me reel back while he smiles like a wolf. “We know Mare, and while it’s adorable watching you attempt to play against us, you played your final card last night.”

           My lightning dances on my fingertips. What I wouldn’t give for Tyton’s brain lightning, so that I could turn Maven’s insides into jelly and leave him on this deck before going after Elara. I should have ended all of this weeks ago. I could have, I know that for a fact. 

           “I haven’t played any of my cards yet.” I warm Maven with a raised chin. I let the mask of Mareena disappear and I let him see Mare Barrow, the girl who bested two kings, the woman who has seen more than enough front lines, and who was born in a storm on top of a mountain. She has been broken and put back together so many times that she knows every piece of herself better than she ever did before. She thrives in storms and turns them to her will like this boy turns words to his.

           “You haven’t seen anything Maven. Don’t for one second think you have cornered me.” My lips curl into a small smile as I look him over with a critical eye. “Besides, while you’re playing chess, I am playing another game entirely.”

           A muscle in his jaw flutters when I speak, and his eyes darken further.

           Pressing to my toes, I let my next words caress his lips like a kiss. “And if you two do know everything, I’m surprised you haven’t removed any and all letter openers from my reach while we’ve been together.”

           His face pales in a flush, and the air around us climbs in temperature so quickly beads of sweat begin to prickle on my brow. Ignoring the monster I’ve obviously poked awake, I set my hand on his chest right above his pounding heart and drop my eyes to his lips before looking back up to meet those icy blue eyes.

           “And as for your mother, I think I killed her too quickly the first time.”

           His tongue darts across his teeth for a second before disappearing as his lips pull back in a sneer. There is a flash of something akin to uncertainty in his eyes though. A thrill rushes through me. She didn’t tell him that part, and she might have even kept his own death from him. Interesting.

           Sliding back away from him and dropping my hand, I take in his flittering emotions he desperately tries to keep under control. I can’t image what is passing through his mind. If Elara didn’t tell him about their deaths, what else has she kept from him? It might be worth it to poke a little more and find out.

           Even as the thought of prying him open and exposing his hollow insides thrills me, I can’t help thinking of how he spent hours near my bedside after Samson had turned me inside out and left me a bleeding corpse. Nor can I ignore that once upon a time, a part of him had loved me.

           “Oh Maven,” I breathe, my chest aching once more as I look him over. “You could have been something wonderful if you had been anyone else’s.”

           His inhale is sharp, and the heat around us vanishes as he sucks it in to fuel the furnace of his emotions. The next words that leave me are as much a truth as they are a weapon that I use against him.

           “I might have loved you too, you know. I might have been happy with you.”

           His entire body goes taut like a rubber band pulled too tight. I can’t imagine what those words have done to him, I know what they do to me. They relive the ache and chase away the cold bite from the autumn breeze that cuts through my loose shirt. I have known for years that he would never truly leave me, that I will always love him in a strange way. But seeing all of this, and discovering that even when I might have had a chance to save him, there was no chance so long as Elara loved him too.

           “The game is beginning. Line up your pieces if you want to play chess.” I murmur to him before stepping around him and heading for the viewing deck. I pause long enough to glance at him over my shoulder though and say, “but just know, it’s hard to beat an opponent that knows every move you will make.”

(/Cal/)

           Mare finds me between meetings. Her dark hair is swept up in an elaborate hairstyle she picks at nervously, drawing strands out to frame her face. Glancing over my shoulder at the remainder of the council as they pass, I pause before her long enough to say colorlessly, “Is something wrong Lady Titanos?”

           The few sets of eyes that watch us look away with shrugs. Their ears are probably still tuned in, but as far as they are concerned, she is probably looking for Maven and happened to find me first.

           “Farley made contact. The Hexaprin Theater just like before.”

           She’s been gone most of the day with Maven, making appearances and smiling like the dutiful princess she is. I’m not sure how Farley could have possibly made contact with her during all of that, but it’s a relief she didn’t contact Maven first. Meanwhile, I’ve been locked up in Whitefire. My father has hardly let me out of his sight, which I suppose should be understandable. The attempt on my life shook him to his core. Even though I push back, insisting they wouldn’t try again, he refuses to let me leave the castle walls. I don’t know how I will get out to join Mare in this endeavor like she wants with the Sentinels that trail me almost everywhere I go. I guess it now truly understand how Mare felt during her time with us. I don’t blame her for constantly being irritable now. 

Still, my brow rises as the name of the theater. I know it well. When I was younger Julian used to take me to plays and tried to pique my interest in the art form. I had squirmed in my seat the whole time, eager to get out of the dark space and run outside. He gave up once I turned ten, realizing I didn’t have much love for the arts. I knew it saddened him, that he had hoped I shared the same soft spot for them that my mother did. 

My chest tightens at the thought of my uncle. I got him out of Archeon earlier than before, helping him and Sara smuggle away in the dead of night after he got Farley and Kilorn out of the cells. I sent him to Montfort with instructions to speak with Dane Davidson as soon as possible. To try and get him in contact with Guard. There’s no telling if they made it. I can only hope they managed to cross the border.

“It’ll be tough for me to get out.”

“This will only work if you come with me.” Mare insists, her eyes darting past my elbow to the doors of the council chamber. I know who she’s looking for, but she won’t find him.

“He’s seeing to something with his mother.” I instruct, even as I glance around just to be certain. Only a servant passes in a flutter of skirts. She curtsies to me and Mare before hurrying along, obviously loath to be around us any longer than necessary.

“The bloodbase.” Mare’s voice drops to a worried waver as she sets her hand on her pocket. I know she has the book hidden in the pocket of her jacket, the one Julian gifted her with the name of every Ardent he found within Norta’s borders. She sleeps with it under her pillow, her fingers curled around the faded cover as if Maven will creep into her room at night and steal it away.

Shaking my head, I grab her elbow and pull her into an alcove when I hear the sound of more steps approaching. I squeeze into the space between the pillars with her until our bodies almost have to become one to fit. Her hands rest on my chest as she evens out her breathing, recognizing a hiding place when she sees it.

A group of nobles pass us, Osanos and Iral judging by the colors of their clothes. I purse my lips and wait until they leave the hall to look back down at her and whisper. “I took care of it. I printed out all their names and wiped them from the database. They’re safe.”

“Unless Maven is already going after them.” Mare mutters bitterly.

“He hasn’t. I checked last known whereabouts too. Everyone is accounted for.”

“People lie on those stupid records Cal.”

“Not when you’re the first person in years to click on the page.” I let my lips curl into a knowing smile. She can think I’m stupid and hardheaded all she wants, but I do know my way around my own world. “There is a clicker at the bottom of each record to indicate the last time it was opened. I am the first one to look at them in years. You can’t lie to that program.”

           She expels a breath, before look up at me through her lashes. “You’re too stubborn for your own good. We’re meddling too much now.”

           “At this point, does it really matter?” I ask, repeating words I spoke to Julian in the dead of night when he questioned my decision to send him to Ascendent.

           Her lips draw into a tight line that pales her already painted lips. “No.” She agrees before sliding out of the alcove so I can follow her.

           When we step into the light, I watch the shifting sunbeams as they cut across her face. She crosses her arms before looking down the hallway and saying, “We need to get into the afternoon showing. Can you do that?”

           I grimace thinking about my father and the hawk like eyes he has kept on me recently. “It’ll be difficult, but nothing I can’t handle.”

           “Do you want to rehearse with me?” She teases, eyes lighting with laughter when she notices how I chew on my lower lip.

           “I think I’ll tell my father that I’ve decided Evangeline can take a long walk off a short pier and that I much prefer you and I plan to make heirs with you as soon as we enter than theater box.”

           Her eye widen and a blush paints her cheeks. It’s so ferocious the makeup almost can’t hide it. It makes me chuckle before reaching a hand out to cup her jaw and stroke a thumb along that warm puddle of red staining her skin. “Kidding love. Although I think that he’ll be so surprised and horrified that he lets me go just to see if I’m serious.”

           “Mess up my nice skirts Tiberias and I will take your hands for it.” She snorts before pulling away and throwing a smirk over her shoulder. “Get us tickets to the show and be there with me. Also, it might be a good idea to assign Walsh to a... different part of Whitefire.”

           I grimace, remembering the last time I saw her foaming at the mouth while I tried to close her throat to keep the poison from spreading. I sent her for Mare, trusted her with the secret that I met a Red girl in the Stilts and cared. Regardless of what Mare might have thought of me before when that moment passed, I did care. A part of me had been horrified to watch the light leave Walsh’s eyes.

           “I’ll make sure of it.” I whisper.

(/Mare/)

           The theater darkens, and I sink back into my chair, keeping an eye on the Sentinels standing in the doorway. They are here to protect Cal. Allowances had to be made so that he could leave Whitefire, but its an allowance that may cost us our meeting with Farley. There are more of them than before, but they’re simply a hinderance, one that will have to be dealt with at some point very soon.

           Honestly, Maven and Elara trying to kill him has simply become an annoyance now. If they hadn’t, it would be so much easier to sneak around with Cal.

           “They have to go.” I murmur, letting my eyes flint to them as I edge a little closer to the railing of the box and glance over it into the crowd below.

           With a quick nod, Cal leans back in his seat. Before Maven gave the secretary that came with us a mischievous smile and quick order to get rid of our tail. Cal can do no such thing without raising suspicion. It’s already gotten out that I am the one that shouted his name and stopped the bleeding during the Sun Shooting long enough for Sara Skonos to get to him and save him. But Cal spread a faster rumor behind it, his words burning like wildfire through the High Houses, erasing the rumor I know Elara started about us. My shout hadn’t been in fear according to his account, it had sounded like nerves. Maybe I’d lost Maven in the crowd and gotten overwhelmed by the proceedings, and when I had seen Cal I called to him for help. Because of that, I had been close enough to stop the bleeding when the gun went off.

           I had been shocked at the lie he told with an abandon to his father and the court, and how well he crafted it on a moment’s notice. Perhaps he needed to stop spending so much time around Dane. I had noticed that crafty man spending a suspicious amount of time trying to craft Cal into a better Statesman in the recent years.

           “Sentinel Osanos, if you could take the others into the antechamber.” He nods over his shoulder to the small sitting room attached to the box. “I doubt you and the others have any interest in this show and your presence is unfortunately ruining Lady Mareena’s first impressions of it too.”

           “I have my orders, sir.” The Sentinel warns, his eyes darting between the two of us.

           “I can handle anything that comes.” Cal lets his lips quirk into an arrogant smile. I haven’t seen it in a long time, but it’s one of the few soldiers masks in his arsenal. It still makes my stomach flutter. “Besides, Lady Mareena has proven herself quite capable of saving my life if need be.”

           Osanos debates it for a very long second as the murmurs below us quiet and the curtain rustles with the start of the performance. During that second, my heart pounds. I don’t dare look up at the grating above out heads where I know Will Whistle will appear.

           “Of course, Your Highness.” The Sentinel bows his head and then nods to bring the others with him into the room. The door clicks shut, and the lock engages. I grab Cal’s hand and squeeze it in silent praise, before glancing at him side on.

           “Impressive.”

           His smile falls as he looks away from the door and forward again. “We’ll have to be silent. We’re lucky my father didn’t send an Eagrie with us.”

           Unfolding from his position in the chair to relax further, he turns his hand over to lace his fingers with mine. The touch sends waves of reassurance through me. Now we just have to keep him hidden long enough that Will doesn’t recognize him and gets us to Farley. After that, I’m not quite sure what we will do.

           “Farley won’t let you on the Undertrain without a fight.” I murmur, glancing at our joined hands. He sweeps his thumb along my skin in a soothing motion even as his eyes stay forward on the stage as it comes to life.

Gentle touches in the dark, so very like how our relationship started. It almost makes me snicker. I suppose things never really did change between us.

He doesn’t reply to my comment, but I know he’s thinking about it all the same. His palm heats with his frustration, but he doesn’t show it on his face.

I let my eyes wander to the stage where I finally get a look at the play I never watched before. Brightly colored costumes dance across the stage and I tilt my head to look at them, trying to understand the story. “We never went to any of the plays in Ascendent.” I murmur to him.

There were plenty of playhouses, and I know for a fact Julian got us tickets to one he loved. We never got the chance to go, but now I wish we had.

“I’ve never been a fan of theater.” He chuckles and finally turns to look at me. He traded his finer regalia for a more toned down jacket and black shirt today. With the aid of the darkness, I can almost imagine we are in Ascendent, that it’s just another weekend and we decided to do something we’ve never done.

“Then when you annoy me, I am going to drag you to shows when we get back and tie you to a chair so you can’t leave.” I say with a smirk.

The ceiling panel above our heads slides away, and his eyes dart up at the same time as mine. We’re both accustomed to how the Guard functions. The sudden disappearance of the tile doesn’t surprise him like it did Maven.

“Show time.” I whisper to him before dropping his hand and stepping on the seat of my chair. Grasping the edge of the hole I haul myself up into the darkness. When I glance down to help him though, he is already half-way into the crawl space with me. The panel slides into place as soon as Cal vanishes in the shadows. I wait half a second for Will to sound an alarm to notice that I don’t have the right prince with me.

He does no such thing, simply speaks into the darkness the same words he did before. “Be quick and quiet. I’ll take you from here.”

I reach for Cal’s wrist in the dark and grip it tightly with a reassuring squeeze. Will turns and begins to climb through the space, not waiting for us to follow.

“Watch your head,” I instruct as I skirt the edge of the ceiling panel. “It gets low in a few places.”

Cal grunts in understanding but follows at a pace that surprises me. It was a tight squeeze for Maven, so I don’t really know how Cal manages but he does. I’m sure he has Farley’s work with him to thank for that. He crawled through enough sewer tunnels and drains with us while we were at the Notch after all. I’m sure while I was locked away with Maven he was doing the same thing too.

The sounds of the play overhead mask our movements as we drop down ladders and steps and through little trapdoors. Cal only smacks his head once, and I flip around to grab his head to check for blood when he curses soundly in the dark. I grimace when I feel the nasty knot already taking shape on his forehead near his hairline. That will have to be explained away when we get back, but we really truly don’t have time to assess it too much. Will sets grueling pace, and Cal practically shoves me forward when the Whistle almost disappears around a turn.  

It takes only minutes for us to drop into the access tunnels that connect to the Undertrain platform. The damp chill of the space presses through my thin jacket and pants, reminding me of the march we did into Archeon to save Cal and everyone from the Lakelander invasion. Cal drops lightly down behind me though, and instantly the space warms and the memory fades. It’s still too dark to see his features clearly which is only to our advantage. I can’t have Will trying to stop us now.

That cover does not last long though. The platform is haunted by a lone torch, and when Will turns around with a sharp smile, ready to bask in our surprise, his eyes widen as he takes in Cal behind me. I set my hand on Cal’s chest in response, trying to push him back into the shadows while I light my hand with lightning.

Will never gets a chance to act though, the furious screech of the Undertrain as it rushes into the station shakes the walls and announces Farley’s arrival. As it coasts to a stop in front of us, Will spins to the doors and waves his arms while trying to shout over the screeching of the brakes to give a signal to not stop. The train grinds to a halt though, and the doors still open to spill more light onto the platform.

Farley unfolds from the chair like a spring let loose. Her hand flies to the gun at her hip, and I spin to face her with my lightning at the same time. Even with my ears ringing from the sound of the brakes engaging, I can hear the click of her turning the safety off as she draws the gun.

“Farley—” I try to shout, but Cal beats me to speaking, his voice a dangerous warning echoing in the tunnel as he glares Farley down.

“Diana, stop.”

He would have gotten the same reaction if he burned her alive. Farley’s eyes widen at the usage of her birthname, and her fingers wavers on the trigger long enough for me to speak.

“He’s with us.” I urge as I drop my hand, but I don’t dismiss the lightning bouncing between my fingers like webbing. It’s my own warning to her. She knows what I can do, and like her, I don’t miss anymore.

Her laugh is unexpected, and I almost jump at the sharp bite of it. She keeps the gun raised, but her fingers slides from the trigger to rest alongside the barrel. It’s the only sign she is still listening to us. “The little prince was right. He’s whispered his way into your head.”

“The only ones whispering into anyone’s heads is Maven and Elara .” Cal speaks quietly, his eyes scanning the track and the platform for any more Scarlet Guard operatives. There are none to be seen though.

Farley tilts her head to the side, her eyes narrowing to diamond colored slits. Her jaw tightens, but she doesn’t pull the trigger or even move her finger in the direction of it.

I expel a slow sigh of relief and take a step forward. I can feel the burn of electricity in the train, screaming like an upset toddler to be released. Gritting my teeth against the heachache forming because of it, I murmur, “you trusted me to get you out of that cell, trust me in this Farley. Hear us out.”

Her eyes moves past my shoulder to Cal who staggers his stance to move in either direction if he has to avoid her bullet. Her jaw ticks, and the electricity reaches an all time high pitch that stands my hairs on end. I haven’t felt anything like it weeks, not since the shield during Queenstrial exploded around me and tried to contain me.

“Make your decision, the Undertrain won’t wait.” I grimace as I reach up to press my fingers to my temple where the ache is strongest. If she notices my use of the train’s name, she doesn’t say anything.

Cal takes a step forward, stealing ground, only for Farley train that gun on him again and rest her finger on the trigger. 

“Not another step, Your Highness.” She squeezes gently, putting enough pressure on that trigger that even the slightest movment on her part will fire the gun. I side step to put myself in front of Cal should she overestimate her abilities, but Cal simply pushes me to the side again.

With quick movements he unclasps the bracelets around his wrists and holds them up to the light for Farley to see. “Incentive,” he murmurs before tossing them in her direction. She lowers the gun to catch them one handed, almost dropping them due to their weight. I inch forward, my hand extended for them in surprise. I trust Cal to make a tactical decision, but he just threw his own tactical advantage five feet away from him.

The metal bands glint dully in the odd florescent lights of the Undertrain, but Farley glances down at them, unimpressed. With a quirked brow she raises the gun again, although its much more hesitant this time.

“I’m nothing without them.” Cal instructs while he sweeps his arms out from his sides as if to accentuate his point. “Keep them until we finish talking if it pleases you. But we do have to talk.”

“I know.” Farley reasons, her eyes narrowing before darting between the two of us. Even if I didn’t know her as well as I do, I could see the distrust and unease in her eyes. I can’t imagine what Maven has told her, but I know that he hasn’t spoken to her since before the Sun Shooting. It is our only advantage right now, that and the fact that Julian and I were the ones to get her and Kilorn out of the cells below the palace. It doesn’t hurt either that by the time we got down to the cells, the king was more concerned with his son almost dying than the rebels trapped in the cell before him. There had been no time for the interrogation that I know almost cost Farley her arm. She got off easy, too easy, because of us.

Whatever battle she is fighting with herself ends, and she steps to the side to let us pass.

(////)

Narcery is more disheveled than I remember. Perhaps it’s because I’ve already seen most of it repaired and turned into a decent city again years from now. Or maybe it’s because I’ve truly forgotten how downtrodden the world was before we began to right it. Either way, it’s hard not to grimace as we slink through the streets toward the café Farley stomps toward.

The Reds in the doorwards gasp and whisper as Cal passes, and I reach down to grip his hand. None of them are New Blood that I know of, but if someone gets it in their head to finish was Farley started, they won’t make it more than two steps.

He gives me a reassuring squeeze as we pass through the crumbling doorway of the café and into the dimly lit space. In his little booth, Kilorn practically almost leaps to his feet, his eyes wide while his hand flies to the gun on his belt.

“Stand down.” Farley orders smoothly, earning a frown from my friend. He doesn’t immediately listen, but his fingers eventually relax and drop back to his side. I release the tension in my shoulders in response. The air in the room shifts with the change in heat and static that Cal and I bring, but the ice in Kilorn’s gaze might as well be tangible too.

“And why haven’t we shot him?” He asks Farley as she drops into the booth.

With a wave of her hand, she dismisses him and glares in our direction. Cal’s bracelets clink against the dusty table as she sets them out in the open. With a tilt of her head, her expression relaxes and the nasty scar cutting through her lip softens. It never ceases to amaze me how young she really was when this all started. We were all still just children, playing games we never should have.

“They want to speak,” she says, her eyes dropping to our entwined hands. “And I have to admit I am curious what excuse Mare will give to explain blowing our entire operation to pieces.”

“We hardly blew it to pieces, you were almost completely successful.” Cal huffs behind me, and I dig my elbow into his side in response. No use pissing off Farley, or enticing her to pull that gun out again. We both know she will too.

Glaring at Cal for his comment, I address the other two sitting in the booth. “Maven gave you Cal’s name, but he was not the original target.”

“No,” Farley agrees, “he wasn’t.”

“It was Ptolemus Samos.” I turn my eyes back to her, and am rewards with a quirked brow, the only sign she is surprised by my knowledge. Kilorn is not as good at hiding his emotions. His brows dart up towards his hair line as he shakes his head in disbelief.

“You missed that meeting, the one where he gave us the original names! He told us that he never told you them... you can’t possibly have known—”

“I know because I’ve already been through that shooting before. You don’t get Ptolemus that time either.” I step forward and leave Cal behind me, safely in the line of my body. If Farley wants to shoot him at any point in time, she’ll have to shoot me first. “The Sun Shooting was a disaster that time, and it was a disaster this time.”

Kilorn blinks at me, confusion sweeping over his face now. Farley is simply more skeptical, and rightfully so. I didn’t exactly explain anything, just created more questions and puzzling conclusions for her.

“What are you getting at Barrow?” She murmurs as her eyes dart to the broken window behind me. I don’t dare look at who might be there. If its Shade, I will never be able to leave these ruins.

“You have to promise to listen to us, to let us explain as quickly as possible.” Cal speaks for me and the heat that rolls off of him washes over me as he steps closer, soothing tense muscles I bunch in preparation to run. His hand presses into my lower back only a second later. “We don’t have much time.”

Farley’s eyes narrow even further as she takes in how we stand next to each other, and how we remain close enough to protect the other at all times. Even if Maven told her that I was slowly teetering toward Cal, our body language suggests a deeper relationship and understanding of each other than could ever be established in a few weeks. Not to mention Cal knew her name, her real name. There’s no way in hell he could have found that out on his own.

“Who are you?” She asks quietly after a moment, earning a worried glance from Kilorn.

My lips curl into a slow smile as I take in her uncertainty. I can’t remember the last time Farley was on the backfoot. She has always been so headstrong and driven, but she reels back now, like a horse seeing a snake under its hooves. “We’ve all met before, and known each other for years.”

“Bullshit.” She says, pushing to her feet and advancing on me. Cal’s fingers curl around my arm to pull me behind him. I stand my ground though and raise my chin as she stand over me.

“How’s your dad? The Colonel? Has that eye healed up yet?” I ask with a quirked brow. Her breathing fluctuates at the mention of him while she stops dead in her tracks. Her eyes dart to Cal as if to assess how much he reacts to my words. He does nothing but glance down at me and drop my arm, catching on to what I’m doing. Farley won’t be bought over with a cute story like what we told Julian and Sara. She will need cold hard evidence, painful evidence if need be.

“It’s kind of cute that you decided your code name would be lamb, since his is ram.” I tilt my head to the side, earning an strangled inhale as she backpaddles. “Even more so given how infuriating he can be for you.”

Her whole face goes red, and tips of her ears tinge pink immediately. Kilorn opens his mouth to say something, thinks better of it, and closes it again. I don’t blame him, the fury in Farley’s eyes is enough to burn me to the ground.

With her lips pressed into a firm line, she presses her shoulders back to stand to her full height. “Are you Command?” She asks stiffly, her eyes roaming over me and settling on Cal when he barks out a dry laugh.

I elbow him again and shoot a glare, but he laughs at my expression. Turning his amusement on Farley, he says, “no. I’m not even on the list of people they would open a position for.”

“We know those in Command though.” I shoot a single spark into Cal’s arm to shut him up, making him snap back and rub the spot.

“I don’t believe you. Its not possible.” Farley growls setting her hand on her gun.

“I would appreciate you not drawing that gun Diana.” Cal warns his amusement dying as fast as my comfort with the situation.

“Who told you my name.”

“I know it from previous experience.”

“Don’t see how that’s possible.” Kilorn grumbles before rising from the booth as well. His eyes dart between the two of us, and as he starts to form his own opinon the curiosity in his eyes bleeds away into brittle resentment.

“Like I said, we’ve known each other for years.” I push past my locked jaw. This is starting to look next to impossible but if we have any hope of saving ourselves from the disaster to come, then we have to get them to listen to us.

“To be more clear, we will know each other for years someday.” I correct my previous statement quietly, letting the words hang in the too heavy air for a few seconds. Farley quirks a brow, realization crossing her features as she starts to put things together. She’s always been quick as a whip, and that works to our advantage.

Right when I think she’s about to say something though, she laughs. Kilorn blinks at her, taking a hesitant step away. I doubt he’s ever heard the sound, but I know it well. It still cracks on the edges the same way it does in the future. Honestly, it always sounds like she never laughs, even though I know for a fact she does that more than anything someday.

“Barrow, I have seen what you can do. And while it turned everything I knew about the world upside down… you cannot expect me to also factor some form of time travel into this whole mess.” She shakes her head, and dismisses me with a wave. Still laughing to herself she sinks down into the booth, and takes to fiddling with Cal’s bracelets. There is a hint of uncertainty behind her eyes though, and I know exactly who and what she is thinking about.

“There are hundreds—thousands like me Farley. You haven’t met all of them yet, but there are abilities far stranger than mine. My brother’s for instance.”

Her expression pulls tight for a heartbeat before she smoothers the emotion. I pull on that line though, and step forward, pointedly ignoring Kilorn who is still gapping like a fish and trying to come to the same conclusion as Farley. “I know he’s alive, and that he’s here with you. He jumps, appearing in different places in seconds. I make lightning. There will be a New Town girl who becomes our friend that can kill you with a thought and silence Silvers in the same way. There are three other Reds just like me in Montfort. There is a girl who can bathe everyone in a bubble of silence so no one outside of it can hear you. Another woman can remember every single thing she reads or that is said to her. Another older woman can change her face to be whoever you need her to be.” My heart squeezes at the memory of all the Ardents I rescued and then sent to their deaths. I promised them safety, security, and then pulled all of that away from them. All because one man told me I had to do it. “Is it so hard to believe then that there is someone years from now who can send people back in time?”

Those diamond eyes snap to me and look me over before Farley’s lips twist into a half sneer. “Your brother is dead Barrow, he was executed for—”

“Farley, please.” I whisper, coming to stand over her. Even sitting she is almost as tall as me, but I channel every ounce of military prowess she tried to teach me as I glare down at her. “If I walk out of this room, I will find him in less than an hour, and you will feel incredibly stupid when I do.”

Her lips pale as she pushes them together, tighter than ever before. Her eyes dance to Cal beyond me again, who has thankfully kept his mouth shut this whole time and has decided to simply sit on the edge of a table to watch us.

“He came with me.” I soften my tone and slowly sink down into the seat opposite her. Her eyes follow me like a rabbit would a wolf. Her fingers are cold when I take them, even with how warm it is in the room. She doesn’t pull away though, and I wonder if somewhere, her future self recognizes my touch. “I need you to trust us. I know how hard that is with everything that has happened, but Farley you have to.”

“Do we win?” She asks the question so quietly, I almost miss it while I’m speaking. Every muscle in body tenses against the truth that wants to escape though. I glance at Cal, wondering if he heard the same thing as me. He simply looks down at his boots, unable to offer any aid.

Swallowing past the rock in my throat, I look down at the table top. It’s dusty and cracked in some places. But it has no answers either. We have already done so much to destroy the path we were supposed to be on, what was one more change? “Yes,” I whisper and her eyes flash bright and wide.

“But we pay may terrible prices for it.” The last part almost doesn’t make it out. Shade’s death tries to claw that statement to ribbons, Archeon burning, and all the people we lost in the Harbor Bay siege and the final Archeon siege weigh heavy against my chest. The silence stretches to the breaking point around us as those memories consume me. I wish I could take back those words, swallow them and refrain from admitting to what I’m sure she suspects. She must read the memories as they pass across my face because her expression softens a hint.

“Its war Barrow,” the Farley I know so well comes to the surface when she switches her grip to grab my hands instead. “I never expected to win for free.”

She narrows her eyes at Cal then, who simply gives her a tight nod she doesn’t return. “I still don’t like you.” She announces a second later. “And I hope I never do.”

“You give me a hard time for years, I promise you that much.” He teases, some of the light returning to his eyes. I crack a weak smile at their banter, even though I ache at the reminder of the future relationship they share. Farley never does let him off the hook, and every chance she has to remind him of his past, she does. I don’t blame her though, she never lets herself get too congenial with anyone.

“We trust him… just like that?” Kilorn tries to burn a hole between Cal’s eyes with his glare. He doesn’t succeed, especially when Cal smirks at him and leans forward to rest his elbows on his knees. He’s the picture of ease, and I know that drives Kilorn insane.

“Relax Kilorn,” I tease, and then beckon Cal over to me. “He knows that if he steps out of line I won’t hesitate to put him back in his place.”

Farley glances between the two of us before saying, “So the second prince wasn’t lying. You two are…”

“In this together.” Cal finishes for her. His eyes narrow at what Maven might have inferred even as he looks down at me for confirmation.

“We don’t have time to get into details,” I add, making room for him in the booth as I lean forward to start drawing a map of Archeon in the dust on the table. “Maven and his mother know what we know. Which means they have been pulling the strings and trying to sabotage any advantage we have. They will not hesitate to wipe the Scarlet Guard off the map this time around.”

“I don’t understand.” Kilorn grumbles and crosses his arms tightly across his chest. “I thought we trusted that prince?”

“Maven is the one we have to worry about.” I finish drawing the bridge and narrow my eyes at the crude drawing. “He was always going to betray us.”

“How?” Farley sneers, obviously not happy with me inferring that she made a mistake in judgement. Maven was her recruit after all. “He’s given us names, information.”

“All fed to him by his mother, who is counting on us tomorrow night staging a coup and failing so that she can murder the king and remove you and any true Scarlet Guard opposition.” I murmur and watch as Farley’s fury melts into horrible understanding. My stomach drops but Cal speaks before I can.

“He’s already spoken with you and made the plan.” His voice is cold, even while the space around us starts to burn with the heat he releases. My own lightning wants to be unleashed as well. It takes more effort than I like to reign it in. I was wrong. He did speak with her, about more than just me and Cal. 

“He said Barrow would try to come to me and change my mind, that I had to know she was in collusion with you and planned to stand by your side when the time came. That she would ultimately betray me.” Farley breathes, her eyes widening. “He said that the coup was the only way we would win, remove you two in one swoop.”

“He and Elara were counting you believing him wholly and me not bringing Cal.” I growl, and swipe my hand through the map on the table to erase it. The plan is useless at this point. Maven already took it and molded it to his needs. I should have never spoken to him on the barge, maybe I should have just continued to pretend I was some stupid girl that didn’t know how to play the game. I may have destroyed any hope we had of beating him and Elara now.

“They also aren’t counting on us having any other plan. Or my support.” Cal murmurs before drawing his own map in the dirt. The angle is far different from what I drew. “They don’t know that I know the future or that I am with you all. They think Mare is the only one.” His finger moves through the dust and Kilorn finally edges closer to see what he draws.

“So we play into their hands.” He murmurs as he glances at me for my support.

“What?” I wheeze as I watch him draw the same offensive we instigated last time. “Cal, if we do that—”

“Then it all goes the way it did before, with the added benefit that when you get captured this time, we can stop Elara. We know what’s coming and we can plan for it.” Cal finishes drawing his map before drawing a second more detailed map of the Whitefire next to it. “This time, we won’t be alone in that room.”

I struggle to keep up with his thought process, trying to determine exactly how he plans to make this work. The only way Farley and the other Scarlet Guard members will make it into that room is in shackles like me. Elara will slaughter us all like pigs then. 

“The tunnels run under Whitefire right?” He asks Farley who hesitates for a second before nodding tersely. He etches a few makeshifts ones into the picture and then sits back to say, “when I take Mare captive for treason, you and a small unit will move through the tunnels and get to the throne room. From there, you wait for a signal Mare and I will give. When that happens, we take Elara and Maven.”

“Bold.” Farley murmurs as she glances over the plan. “And suicidal. We’ll never make it in.”

“You will if I don’t station anyone at a specific entrance. Name it, and I will keep the regiments away from it.” Cal waves his hand over the picture and glances forlornly in my direction. “If it fails, we still go to the Bowl of Bones, but this time we’ll know what to expect.”

My heart pounds in my chest as the memory of the too thin sand shifting beneath my feet almost overtakes me. Even though it is years behind me and days ahead of me, the heat of Cal’s fire trying to catch on the sand still burns my cheeks and my stomach twists at the echoing sound of the bar punching through Arven’s chest.

“In the meantime, you need to evacuate Tuck.” I whisper forcing the bile down as I look up at Farley. She blanches at the command, but I narrow my eyes to silence her. “Elara has seen in my mind. She knows about Tuck, she knows about a number of other Scarlet Guard strongholds like Narcery too. Did you not find it strange that Maven was not afraid to travel to a supposed heavily radiated place?”

She opens her mouth to argue with me, only to shut it like a trap and narrow her eyes. The thought never occurred to her, and I understand why. He probably got on the Undertrain and immediately started spilling honey and poison in her ear until she couldn’t even hear herself think. I can’t blame her for anything, he did the same to me, and I lapped at it like a starving child.

“Where will we go?” Kilorn whispers anxiously, his eyes darting to the street outside, as if a regiment might come marching down it right now. I don’t blame him. My friend is brave, always has been and always will be, but a Silver regiment is no laughing matter to him yet.

Cal stiffens next to me and says, “Irabella is the only safe haven. Mare was never there, but I was.”

“Why—”

“I doesn’t matter.” I interrupt Kilorn, and lean forward to speak again. “You just have to trust us. Tell the Colonel you have reason to believe Tuck and a number of other bases have been compromised. That an informate you have high up in the palace you trust explicitly told you that. The Notch is not safe either.”

Farley’s eyes widen, and it is then I realize that the mention of that safe haven is what finally secures her trust. The Notch was her hiding hole. Not one her father came up with. Command might not have even known about it. If what Cal and I said was true, and we were her allies in the future, she may have taken us there at some point. I wish I would have been smart enough to start with the mention of it. We could have saved time.

“And you need to start finding the others like me.” I whisper, as I pull the book out of my jacket pocket and set it on the table. The cover gleams against the dusty surface of the table, and I almost can’t pull my fingers off of it. The fates of so many reside inside of it. Cameron’s furious expression flashes through my mind as I ordered her taken onto the Blackrun. I will not force her into anything this time though. I only hope I don’t have to rescue her from a prison though.

I slide the book to Farley and trail my fingers off the cover as I whisper, “Maven and Elara might already be on the hunt for the Ardents in here, but I circled the names of the people that we rescued together. He will target them first if he is going after them, so you have to beat him to it.”

She picks up the book gingerly before looking between us and saying, “you mentioned the Bowl of Bones.”

Cal smiles wearily but leans back with the poise of a general to say, “we won’t have to worry about it. We’re going to avoid that point all together.”

Farley’s fears are not soothed by Cal’s confidence, and I can almost see the spikes she wants to drive through his eyes. At least she nods though, agreeing with him for the time being. I can’t even begin to express the relief that courses through me as she puts the book in her own pocket and nods once more.

“Then we will go with your signal.”

[hit-me-with-a-ladle]

Ch.12 (Creepypasta x Fem!Reader)

MAJOT TW WARNING: blood, gore and violence so if youre not able to take that please do not read

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There he stood, under the moon's dull light, looking up at the stars, a single cigarette tucked behind his rough fingers as smoke escaped his lips. Usually, he would use this time to calm his nerves before work, but right at this moment, he was furious. He, the Operators greater soldier, his right-hand man, was sent to do scut work. To clear the mess his comrades made. It was absolutely below him. Crossing his arms sharply and inhaling the last of the cigarette, he angrily threw the bud to the ground. But that wasn't even the worst of it, he was sent to do that work with non-other than Jack. The man he despised most in this world, even the mere thought of him made the masked man shake in rage.

Looking down at his pocket watch he saw the time, twelve-thirty-one-am, he was late. Both of them were supposed to be there on time at exactly twelve-thirty-am, but it was so like Jack to be inconsiderate of others time. The man grumbled tilting down his head as he propped his back on a lamp post. It was the dead of night in a rich neighbourhood, this place was the last thing from dangerous, the type that most people who lived there would leave their doors unlocked at night. Most of the houses looked the same, blending into one another, with a white picket fence and freshly cut green grass the smell of which wafted through the night air. It looked sterile, right out of a horror movie. But that wasn't the man's concerned, right at this moment, he was focusing on the one in front of him. A nice large white home with a big front yard and a front porch.

The sound of footsteps approaching snapped him out of his thoughts. " You're late." He declared, not bothering to turn around and look at the person behind him. " I got the memo late all right, it's not my fault, get off my back." The tall man quickly shot back standing next to him, starting to analyze the house. " Yeah of course it's not." Masky spat under his breath staring at his pocket watch once more, calming his nerves. "So why were we called here? This isn't exactly our jurisdiction." Jack asked, beginning to carefully approach the house. "It's The Rake, he went nuts and ran out of bounds, we were sent to subdue him and get him back before they kill him. Here take this." Masky replied while quickly throwing Jack a small silver pistol. "It's got three sleeping darts inside of it, so use it sparingly, it's all we got. Also, be VERY careful the darts are strong and sharp it can knock someone cold with just a prick." " Yeah yeah, But why do I have to use it? Aren't you the one with the shooting experience? Plus shouldn't you also have something to subdue him with?" Jack asked in confusion as he analysed the gun, it was a standard-issue shooting pistol with a nice leather handle, where the operator symbol was engraved on, and metal body. " My shooting arm is broken, it happened a while back. And for your information I do have a way, I have a blade laced in a similar liquid the darts are made from, it's only a little bit weaker." Masky finished quietly climbing up to the front porch, the wooden steps cracking softly under his weight as he neared the front door. Jack only sighed in exasperation as he quickly followed suit.

Masky put his gloved fingers on the doorknob and without any effort, it creaked wide open, exposing the barren hallway. Dead silence filled the room in a flash as both of the men stepped inside, things were very off. The small hallway led to three doors, one was on the right and centre of the wall presumably leading to the garage. The one across from the front door led to the living room and the third door was right under a staircase on the left side of the hallway that led to the second floor. Jack readied the gun holding it tightly in both of his large hands, while Masky gripped the knife. The hallway itself was quite cold, both of the men had begun to examine it, at first they only noticed the few misplaced shoes and the dirty circular carpet but looking at it further under the dim light protruding from the front window there's seemed to be scratches littering on the floor.

" You take upstairs and ill take this floor," Masky said peering at his protege. Jack quickly nodded as he carefully began going up the stair. Masky took in a deep breath, steadying his nerves and once again checking his pocket watch for reassurance, before approaching the garage door. Carefully opening it he scanned the inside, empty. Closing it gently, he went towards the living room door that was slightly open. Pushing it further he was careful to go in, something in the back of his mind was telling him to be extremely careful, he gripped the somewhat large knife even tighter as he fully walked in. The room was very plain, immediately he noticed the tv was on, but the sound was muted, though he didn't try to turn it off as it was the only source of light in the room. Masky learned from his past missions that turning the lights on in a house can be the stupidest thing you could do. Walking further his steps silenced by the large almond carpet as he tried to find any kind of clue as to Rakes whereabouts.

The Rake, one of the most dangerous creatures in the forest, and to most, the most terrifying, with its large, pale, human-like body and sharp talon-like claws, able to cut through a thick tree with a single swing. But what made Masky fear him wasn't his appearance but his behaviour, unlike most of the brain-dead, animalistic monsters that littered the forest, that acted on only instinct, he was fully aware of what he was doing, having this level of intelligence and sentience that made shivers run up the mans spine. He was unbelievably dangerous if not handled with the utmost care. Though the stranges thing is, he wasn't the type to kill humans, he was a monster that didn't need human meat to sustain itself, The Rake was also a territorial being, so him going out of his territory bounds was rather peculiar.

Making his way through the room, he noticed there was a sign of struggle, crimson stains dirtied the carpet and there were more of the same scratches on the walls and floor. A few chairs from the wooden dining table, that was in the middle of the large room, had been misplaced or knocked on the grown. There weren't any kind of decorations on the walls except one large painting hung right above the fireplace, depicting five people, a mother, a father and three children. A dash of blood was covering the father's face. Advancing his way even further there were no singes of any bodied all until he reached one last door, the door that lead to the kitchen. The first thing masky noticed were the dark drag marks leading to it, they were very faint, barely detectable if you didn't pay attention. Taking in one last breath he swung open the door and bolted inside.

The first thing he saw would make most people scared for the rest of their lives but it barely fazed the masked man who only seemed to get more frustrated. There, in the middle of the narrow kitchen, piled atop of one another like trash, where the lifeless bodies were the residents of the house. Their bodies, barely recognisable from their past forms. A giant puddle of blood had formed around them, seeping into the crack of the kitchen tiles. The stench was almost unbearable as flies flew around them in circles, the mother's cold dead eyes stared into Maskys soul as her tongue hanging loose from her dislocated jaw. Chunks of flesh were smeared across the walls and furniture indicating that the struggle lead over into the kitchen, but something was missing. Masys eyebrows furrowed as he counted the bodies. One, two, three, four...the father was gone.

Meanwhile, as Jack climbed up the stairs he carefully investigating every step, being very mindful with every stride he took, not wanting to make any unneeded noise. The first five steps out of all ten didn't have any tell-tale sign, but the moment he reached the sixth he too started to notice the strange scratched on the hardwood, and all the wait up the remaining four there were faint drops of blood. That seem to peak Jacks interest as he quickly walked up the rest of the steps. Now standing on the edge of another narrow hallway he made a layout of it in his head. On the right wall was another single door while on the left wall were three doors and right across from him, at the end of the hallway was the last door.

First, he approached the door on the right, preparing his gun he softly opened the circular handle and checked inside, an empty bathroom. Closing the door once more he went to check the door on the left side, first checking the one that was closed to the stairs. It was a bedroom, most likely for a young boy, other than an unmade bed there was nothing out of the ordinary. Next, he checked the middle door, another bedroom this time belonging to a preteen girl, and again the only unusual thing was the unmade bed. Confusion laced the tall man's masked face as he made his way to the final door, right before he opened it something caught his eye, more bloody drag marks. They were again faint but still somewhat recognisable. They both lead to the last room on the left and the room at the end of the hallway.

Jack readied the gun once more quickly opening the last door on the left, revealing another bedroom with an unkempt bed. But something told him to fully search it. At first glance there was nothing out of the ordinary, it just looked like a room a teenage girl would live in, all until he walked up to the bed and threw the thick purple blankets to the side. Lying stiffly on the bleached white sheets was a long severed finger, staining the sheets with a dull red. Jack grunted, picking it up with his gloved hands and inspecting the stump. It was sliced off with something very sharp. Placing it in his front jean pocket he made his way to the final room, it was the parent's bedroom. A king-sized bed was placed in the middle of the room, which itself had a very minimalist look to it. But unlike the other rooms this one was destroyed, again showing signs of strain, with torn pillows and bedsheets, red-stained feathers everywhere and most importantly, large, deep claw marks.

But even so, there was still no one in the room, as the tall man was about to search further he heard his comrade calling him. " Jack, you got something," Masky said, loud enough for him to hear. " No. What about you?" He shot back leaving the room carefully, still being on guard. " Me neither, but there's something wrong. Five people live in this house, three kids two parents, four of their bodies I found but one is missing. I think that Rake might have taken him somewhere, have any idea where that could be?" Masky replied with correctness, his voice full of authority. " No, but I found a severed finger in one of the kid's rooms, and something went down in the master bedroom." Jack quickly replied going down the stairs, Masky only humming in response as he stood in front of the entrance. " Is there a change he took the last body and fled?" Jack asked finally reaching Masky. " There's no indication, plus Rake isn't the type to flee like that with extra baggage." Masky said calmly, going deep in thought. " Then where the hell could he have gone?" Jack muttered in frustration, staring bullets in the back of Maskys head. "There's only one room we haven't checked..." Masky began talking to himself, quickly strutting to the door under the stairs, he glanced at Jack before twisting the knob. Briskly opening it, he saw a narrow concrete flight of stairs going downwards. " There was a basement!" Jack whispered in delight as he began to walk down with his protege. They both took small precise steps, making sure that whatever was down there could hear them coming, both preparing their weapons as they reached the last step.

It was a large rectangular room, its walls made out of cold concrete blocks that bearly isolated the room. There was a washer and drier bolted to the wall and a few misplaced articles of clothing, but the thing that truly caught their eyes was the hunched over monster trembling in the middle of the room. Disgusting slushing sounds escaped from its large agape mouth as blood sprayed all around it. Right next to it was the decaying body of the last member of the house. It hardly had any meat on its bones, its ribcage fully showing from its paper thing skin, slowly its head began to turn to expose its large sharp teeth smeared in flesh and blood, its stiff dead eyes wide open and staring at both of them with hunger, in its arms it held the severed head of the father. His brain was fully showing as half of it was completely eaten. Jack stammered back a few steps, shocked by the sudden sight.

Regaining his composure he cocked the gun and turned off the safety. But before he could shoot it lunged...

[random-mha-thoughts]

No Idea (Bakugou x Reader)

Pairing: Bakugou x Reader

Anon asked:  "yooo sketch was so cute and he was so in character! if you're taking requests could you write a fic where basically all of 1a is at the dorms besides the reader who's patrolling and she gets attacked by dabi and has to fight him off alone meanwhile 1a and dadzawa watch from the dorms via news channel? bonus points for a water quirk reader! you can match the reader up with either deku or bakugou!"

Genre: Action, angst/comfort

Word count: 2,005

Tags:  @yuki-osaki​ @liviitehe​ @iamsoftsodonttoucheume-blog​ 

a/n: Basically this entire ask is describing just a portion of what I’m preparing for my multi-chapter Todoroki fic that I’ve already teased about for my 500 followers special, you can call it maybe an alternate pathway, or a separate continuity that helps to characterize my OC.  And I guess this one is well-timed because I just hit 1K yesterday?? I don’t know how it happened either tbh There will be a special event and a separate mushy post to come, but thank you all so so so much from the bottom of my heart.

This ended up longer than I expected, but that’s okay because I haven’t posted in a few days and I had time today to bang it out in one sitting.  I know this request came from a fluff like Sketch, so I hope you also like angst because that’s my specialty ;) (not to mention I was waiting for someone to request something angsty because I’ve had that photo saved and ready to use it for the LONGEST time).  Thank you for requesting it anon!

"Kinda sucks being out on patrol on the weekend," I sigh to myself, biting into my taiyaki.  "But it isn't all bad I guess."

Mirko had called me out to do a quick patrol this weekend.  This part of the city has been pretty quiet lately, and I don't mind showing my face.  A few passerby's wave at me and I respond in kind.  I like this part of the job, being the hero that everyone knows, respects, and trusts to protect them.  It gives me more drive to save them in time of crises.

"Blue!" a middle school girl walks by and waves.

"Hi, Mina," I smile and wave back.  "Going home from cram school?"

"Yup!" she flashes me a toothy grin.  "Dad's making dinner tonight for once!  It's Mom's birthday!"

"That's wonderful," my smile softens.  "Wish her happy birthday for me, okay?  And get home quick before she worries!"

"I will!" the girl runs off down the sidewalk, waving behind her.

So cute, I think, watching her small figure weave through the crowd of people.  I swallow the last bite of my fish treat and continue on my patrol.  Thankfully, it's another laid back day: I direct a few lost pedestrians to their destinations, make small talk with more familiar faces, help a few elderly carry groceries to their houses, and the like.  I'm content with the mundane flow of a lazy Sunday afternoon.

While talking to a grocery store employee, a sudden explosion in the alley across the street breaks routine.

"Everyone get inside the nearest building or run as far as you can!" I scream out instructions to the citizens nearest to me as I keep an eye on the alley for the next explosion and help anyone within reach to look for cover.  That explosion wasn't normal, I know those blue flames like the back of my hand.

Looks like my Sunday stroll is over.  I dial on my phone as I thread through the frightened crowd toward the alley.  "Mirko san, I might need backup.  There's a very high possibility that the League is involved here, but I'll confirm-"

Right when I'm within a few yards of the alley's opening, another bright blue light flashes, triggering the surrounding crowd to scream and run away faster.  I assist a few others, waiting for the smoke to clear.  A silhouette appears amidst the dark fog, and I know exactly who it is.

"I'm confirming, it's-"

Before I can finish, the shadow stretches out its hand towards me and blasts flames straight at me.  Immediately, I put up a water shield in front of me, then start building it wider so the people near and behind me can get away without damage.  I already know what happens when something - or someone - touches those dangerous blue flames.

"It's-It's Dabi of the League," I force myself to say, the name burning as it rolls off my tongue.  "He appears to be alone."

"Roger.  Try to apprehend him by yourself before I get there!  I'll hurry over as soon as possible!" my mentor responds and cuts the call.

I make sure everyone within the immediate area is evacuated from the streets, scanning every inch wildly for stragglers.  Heat increases around the me suddenly, and darting my head back around shows the fire eating through my water defense without faltering.  Before it completely penetrates my defense, I jump over to the side behind a car, right before a giant hole is ripped in my shield.

I catch my breath calling the water back towards me into my water nodes and compartments in my hero suit.

"Looks like you've improved a lot since the last time I saw you, (Y/n) (L/n)."

His menacing yet familiar voice as he drags out my full name sends shivers up my spine.  Damn it, of all the villains, I had to face him!

"Aw, don't be shy now, I know you're happy to see me too."  His voice moves towards my left.  "We don't even get to see each other anymore."

"I'd prefer it that way," I snap, readying myself for another inevitable attack.

"You better give me a good fight, little one."

His voice-!

At the last second before hearing the crash, I jump out from in front of my cover, the intense heat from the blue flames just millimeters from burning my fingertips.  Dabi had jumped onto the top of the car, his voice being evenly split in both of ears signalling that he had moved from my left to right behind me in the nick of time or else I'd be ashes.

I finally got a good look at his face.  The stitches and staples etched into his face down to his chest and arms are all-too-familiar, along with his raven black hair and turquoise eyes.

"Reminiscing?" his head tilts, gravely voice taunting.  "I don't think you have time to do that."

I sprint off and around for more cover as he throws more fire pillars from his hands, trying to find a fire hydrant of water fountain to give me more material to work with.  Otherwise, I'm only limited to manipulating what's in the air and the stores in my costume.  To my dismay, there's nothing around.

All I have to do is slowly manipulate the water particles around him and condense them over his hands to stop his quirk temporarily.  That's the plan in my head that I'm going for.  But he's way ahead of me, predicting all my moves and constantly jumping to move away from where I've gathered the water particles and forcing me to start over, leaving me to dodge him and put some distance between us.

"I already know all your plans, you can't defeat me that easily by yourself," Dabi mocks me.

I'm at the end of my rope.  It's difficult to keep running and there just isn't enough water in the air to work for a fast attack.  I dodge another one of his attacks and wrack my brain to think of a different strategy.  My mind can only come up with one all or nothing plan, but if it doesn't work, I'll be done for quickly.

It's a risk I have to take.  I slowly start collecting as much water as I can into my suit and immediately around me.  Knock him out as quickly as possible, face him head on.  I take a deep breath.  My body shakes from exhaustion, anticipation, and fear.  I'll have to use my body's own water storage to help me, making this plan dangerous.

Right when Dabi's about to burn me at my new hiding spot I jump out and summon all the water I've stored to mobilize.  Drown him!  A sphere of water forms just around his head.  In his moment of shocked hesitation before he strikes, I force the water to go down his airway to suffocate him.  He catches wind of exactly what I'm doing somehow, raising his hands to send another blast at me.  I summon another set of water from my costume stores to surround his hands to keep the explosion tamed.  Come on, fall unconscious already!

But it's curtains for me.  He's summoning a larger blast to his hands, neutralizing my watery protection around them and I don't have enough stored up to replenish it.  Desperately, I start using up the water inside my body.  Damn it hurry up!  I can't-!

I feel myself reach my limit just as he completely disintegrates my water seal with an explosion, sending me flying backwards down the street until I roll to a stop.  I'm exhausted, I can feel my blood pressure and heart rate dropping, and I'm too weak to try anything else.

Through my dizzied vision, Dabi staggers towards me, coughing and sputtering.  "Damn kid, you really almost had me."

It didn't work, I'm a failure.  I don't have the energy to say anything back.

"Get your hands off her!" a female voice resounds, and stomps reverberate through the ground.

"That's my cue."  I crack open an eye to see him smirk down at me before using his quirk to lift himself off the ground.  "Until we meet again, (Y/n) (L/n)."  He rocket away without a hitch.

Damn it...

After waking up in the emergency ward attached to an IV for my severe dehydration, Mirko tells me Dabi got away and she rushed me right over to the hospital to treat me since I was unconscious.  They won't let me leave until I've replenished all my stores and my urine's clear.

"Also, your teacher's coming to get you," my mentor adds.

Aizawa is going to kill me.

"OI!  WHICH ROOM IS IT?!"

Oh for fuck's sake, I know who else is gonna kill me.

Bakugou stomps in, his head trying to be held back by Aizawa's capture weapon to no avail.

"YOU DUMBASS-!" my boyfriend starts off before the scarf comes over his mouth to muffle his screams.

"This is a hospital, control yourself," Aizawa grits at him deathly and walks next to my hospital bed.  "I guess you did the best you could, but I won't praise you for almost getting yourself killed.  It was a good strategy, it would've worked if you had backup."  He pats my head before smirking.  "Bakugou was about to cry when you collapsed."

"SENSEI!"

"I'll leave you two alone to talk."

Him and Mirko step outside the room, leaving my high-strung boyfriend to rush me.  "Do you have any idea how fucking worried I was, you dumbass?!  You almost got yourself kill, look where you ended up...!"

I drown out his screaming, noticing how bloodshot his crimson eyes are from crying.  He was so worried about me.  I reach my hand up weakly and touch his cheek, cutting his reprimanding screams off short suddenly.  If I had the tears to cry, I would.  Instead, I offer him a tired, melancholy stare of affection.  "I'm sorry," I manage out.  "I know I said I wouldn't use up my own body's water, but I didn't want to die, Katsuki."

The aggression melts away from him face and his hand reaches up to hold mine.  "I guess it was instinctive," he admits, closing his eyes and I feel him start to tremble.  "Why would you face a villain like that alone?"

"I called for backup-"

"You should've stalled for as long as you could!" he sobs out, gripping my hand tighter.

My own body starts to well up, feeling the tickle in my eyes but no tears can escape.  "I tried," is my soft reply.  "I'm sorry."

Bakugou envelopes my body in his, trembling warmth blanketing me with his high emotions.  "What would I have done without you?  When I saw you get hit by that explosion, I almost lost it.  Did you think about how I would feel if you pulled something like that and didn't survive it?"

I feebly return his embrace, tangling my fingers in his puffy hair to comfort the sobs wracking his body.  "I'm here, Katsuki.  I could have been in a worse condition, but I'm still here now."

His trembling and cries slow down to a calming end, and he remains wrapping me with his affection.  "You did well, except the almost dying thing, I guess.  I'm proud of you for holding your own as long as you did against a villain like him."

"Wow, a compliment?  You must have really been shaken up," I poke fun at him to lighten the mood.

"I can be nice..." he mumbles into my neck.  "You better drink a whole ton of water so we can go back together.  Everyone else is worried about you too."

My mind wanders back to Dabi.  I'll have to face him again eventually, and he knows what I'll try to do in the future.  I'll need to be ready.  But until then, I have a hotheaded Pomeranian boyfriend to comfort me from my past and build towards my - hopefully, our - future.

~

Sequel