#most of the darker inks i have left are either almost out or ones i save for special occasions bcs theyre fancy and also in small bottles

[snapcracklepop-myjoints]

repeating "i do not need another light purple ink" to myself thru gritted teeth until i gain the strength to close the browser tab is. like. a weekly occurrence for me. im like tantalus and sisyphus rolled into one if they were really into fountain pens also

[charliemwrites]

Since I’ve been going pretty hard on dark fics lately….

Who’s up for some childhood friend Simon?

In his worst moments, when he thinks of his inevitable premature and violent end, he hopes that he’ll be able to hold out long enough to die in your arms. Even if they have to fly him straight from the battlegrounds to you, lay him in the grass outside your flat, he wants your face and voice that puts him to his final sleep.

Most moments aren’t his worst moments. But he still thinks of you and prepares. Everything is going to you, of course. Price knows. You’ll get Simon’s tags, his mask, a flag. You’ll get a letter.

He started one night after you two reunited, a little drunk from a thank-fuck-we-survived post mission celebration. It’s a little wobbly and ramble in some places, but never threw it out - never reread it either. Finished it in one hour, three pages long.

He’s added onto it since then. On hard night, nights he misses you. When he’s nostalgic and tipsy, when he wakes up from nightmares soaked in your blood. It’s about 12 pages now. Different colors of ink, different types of pages. Even one slanted and awkward because his writing hand was broken so he had to use the other.

He doesn’t bring it home to you with him. Doesn’t want you to accidentally discover it and think it’s something else. It stays where Johnny will find it if the worst happens; Simon trusts him to give it to you.

He never really thought about it the other way round. Couldn’t stand to face the prospect again. Not when he can feel the bullet scar beneath your shirt sometimes, or sees you rubbing at it in cold weather.

(He doesn’t consider it his worst moments but he knows you would - that he’d crawl in that grave with you.)

But it’s almost happened again. You’re sitting caddy-corner to him at a briefing table, listening to Price as he explains the situation. Simon’s watching you watching Price. Your shoulders are relaxed, fingers fiddling with your temporary access card. Not nervous, just occupied while you focus.

You’re not worried at all. Simon feels like he’s falling apart right here. One shake of the stupid uneven table and all his pieces will just slide apart into a useless pile.

Without looking away, your hand slides across the table and hooks around his. He doesnt startle - he’s ghost right now, and ghost is rock solid - but his fingers twitch around yours. You shoot him a quick smile and then refocus on Price, picking at a worn patch on the skeleton design of Simon’s glove.

Duct tape for a collapsing soul.

Price concludes, “You’ll stay here, safe and sound with an escort.”

Simon speaks up for the first time in what feels like days.

“I’m not bein’ deployed, skipper. Not right now.”

Price snorts. “‘Course not. You’re on leave with little miss here in sweden.”

“Sweden,” Simon repeats, unimpressed. Not one of the Laswell’s better lies.

“Land of tall blondes,” you chime.

“No one else knows I’m a blond.”

You shrug. “Their loss.”

Simon snorts, you grin, and Price dismisses you both in short order.

You’re staying in Simon’s room; the captain didn’t even offer you temporary quarters. Not that you minded, happy to toss your things amongst his and climb into his bed.

He cleans his favorite gun impulsively at the desk while you futz around on his computer - probably investigating the latest set of unreleased movies he bribed from Laswell.

“You get ten minutes of brooding left and then we’re getting food and watching a movie.”

He scowls down at the magazine, oiled cloth in hand.

“I’m not brooding.”

“It’s like you have your own lighting. I swear those shadows are darker next to you.”

“That’s just how light works.”

“Oh it would have been so much cooler if you said, like, ‘I am the shadows’.”

He pauses, casts you a long, flat look. You beam.

“Ooh, yeah, with that face too! C’mon, say it!”

He blows out a dramatic breath, then grumpily repeats, “I am the shadows.”

You laugh, hopping up from the bed to approach. He shifts his gear out of the way, clearing a space for you to lean against his desk, your knee touching his.

“Im alright, Si. There’s nowhere safer I could be.”

He sets the pieces in his hands aside, flexes his fingers spasmodically.

“Could just not know me. Anywhere would be safer than knowing me.”

You click your tongue, purely derisive. “That’s stupid.”

“That’s just facts, babes.”

You shake your head. “No, it’s your guilt complex. There’s nowhere I’d rather be than right here.”

He arches his eyebrows - not that you’ll be able to see it past the mask. But you know him well enough to just know.

“Right here?” he challenges. “On a military base? With who fuckin’ knows out to get you? Just because you lived two doors down from me in kindergarten?”

You sigh, that one that tells him you’re employing extra patience purely out of love and experience.

“Right here, Si. Wherever you are,” you confirm.

“Should cut your losses,” he says, trying his best impression of the machine he became after he lost everyone but you. He’s never felt less protected in the mask.

As always, you see right through him.

“A bullet couldn’t take me from you, Simon Riley. The ‘Ghost’ doesn’t stand a chance.” You curl your fingers around the back of his neck, duck down until your forehead knocks against the hard mask’s. “Because it’s me n’ you ‘til the sun stops rising.”

An oath made of picked daisies and shared blood. The weight of it presses on his chest so hard he feels buried again. Layers of earth crushing him, you up above, the only heaven he knows or needs.

“Me ‘n you,” he rasps.

You let him stay like that another moment. Absorbing the warmth of your fingertips, crept beneath the edge of the balaclava. Breathing with you until he’s sure you’re synched. Heart, breath, blood, down to the firing of your neurons.

“Alright, no more brooding. You’ll feel better with some food.”

Simon exhales, sloughing off the gloom and pessimism that weighs on Ghost’s shoulders. You’re here, right here. Nothing will happen to you when he’s still breathing.

“Think I have a few more minutes.”

“Nah, it compounds when I brood with you.”

“You brood like a rainbow broods.”

You snort and flick at his mask, tugging him up with you towards the door. He lets himself settle, listening to your cheerful babble all the way to the mess.

[corgate-epistolary]

May 5th, 624

(Transcript under the cut) (Read on Ao3 HERE)

[Delivered to Corgate May 6th, 624 – Received by Elowen Vance on May 14th, 624)

[Front of Envelope: Letter was mailed in a brown craft paper envelope tied with natural twine, addressed to:

Elowen Vance Corgate Post Office May 5th, 624

With the return address of:

Eris Mirrows 87 Lancedragon Strt. Avalon

In the top right, there is a sticker depicting an black engraving-style ice cream bowl on a white background, below which are the words “FOR YOUR HEART”.

Back of Envelope: The letter was sealed in mottled red & white sealing wax, with a wax seal depicting a crescent moon surrounded by orbital shapes & stars. Letter was tied with craft twine, with a small treble clef & key tied to the cord. In the bottom left there is a sticker depicting a black engraving-style steaming cup on a white background, below which is the word “BONJOUR”.

Interior pages: Written on mottled medium brown paper. It is lightly, almost invisibly, lined with slightly darker brown lines. In the top center, approximately 1 inch from the top, the words “THANKS FOR LIVING YEARS” can be seen on the paper. The writing is tidy, slightly rounded print in black ink.]

Eris Mirrows, A.Mg. 87 Lancedragon Strt. Avalon

May 5th, 624

Dear Ms. Vance, It is with great pleasure and a hint of surprise that I receive your letter. I did not expect the Corgate post system to be so quick to get your words to me. The simple fact that they have railroad tracks still amaze [sic] me. I do not know how Mg. Hawkins convinced you to move with him to this backwater part of the country without so much as a raise. What you would do for him, I wonder… Or rather, what he would do without you. I am pleased to read that Mg. Hawkins is in his element in the countryside and having a great time. Meanwhile, I have rarely heard Mg. Equlee complain so much as in the past few days. Something about how they will succomb [sic] to boredom without the most entertaining clown in town. I am divided between patting him on the back for the loss of his favorite pastime of picking a fight with your mage, or believing his condescending tone and idly nodding along. I have no doubt that they will

[End of Page 1] [Eris Mirrow’s address & the date appears on all pages, and have been eliminated for clarity]

find a way to piss each other off despite the distance, but I would never dare ruin the sulking of Mg. Equlee; which is the reason I have passed your most sincere apologies with as much dramatics as I could muster. You would, without a doubt, have been a better performer of this trick than I was. I do not know which shocked Mg. Equlee the most; to hear an apology from my mouth or that Mg. Hawkins did not leave a message for them through your letter. Either way, they resumed their theatrics a little less loudly so I suppose it must have worked. For what it is worth, I do share your reservation on this assignment. The Council does not make a habit of sending their greater mages away from Avalon without a reason. I remember on Kathrina Devolee, a good five years back or so, who’s [sic] name had been sullied by dirty rumors of unconventional use of magic, to which the Council had answered with a swift assignment to the North. I do not believe anyone has heard much from her since. (Writing these words, I realize it was indeed you who told me this tale. It goes to show, once again, that you are the ever flowing source of gossip in this part of town. I will do my best to fill the role in your absence, but do not keep your hopes up.)

[End of Page 2]

I have been around Vimes Place to get your satchel back. It was, as you have so helpfully provided, propped on the front table. You will forgive my curiosity as I could not help but wonder exactly what novels you would put alongside such ever-so-important notes. I am unsurprised to find there your classic Aliyah Prestance. I do not remember a time of our lives where you did not carry at least one of [scratch out - “your”] her works. I might’ve shipped a few recommendations of my own in your satchel, so do not be offput [sic] if it seems heavier than you remember it to be. Mg. Equlee was glad to put some complex lock on the whole package, no doubt just a tad more complex than necessary, just to be annoying. I hope you will be able to retrieve the contents fast enough. I will, of course, keep a watchfull [sic] eye on your plants. My green thumb might not be as good as yours but how hard could it be, right? Your plants are safe with me. I hope the countryside treats you well and

[End of Page 3]

that you will keep describing its people and sights in your letter. The world always seems brighter through your eyes, though I ever so wonder where that enthusiasm keeps coming from. I am hopeful that the Coucil [sic] will call you back soon enough. In the meantime, have my good wishes and thoughts.Awaiting your reply, Eris.

[To the right of the signature is a sticker depicting a tiger, a small girl, and a rabbit. The small girl is pulling clothes out of a suitcase the rabbit is sitting on. The art is done in an engraving style, with black lines on a white background.]

[sunbabycentral]

I have a very certain look for each of the sunbabies in my fic so if anyone is curious and wants to know more, click in the read more for detailed descriptions and their ~approximate faceclaim~ (aka not age accurate, but how I imagine they'll look when they're older)

(Also this got long IM SORRY)

Will: shaggy curly blonde hair that gets more sun bleached in the summer months. A darker golden in the winter, but more angelic halo gold in the summer. Dark blue eyes with a golden heterochromatic center that looks like the sun's rays. A dimple in his right cheek. Once got an ear pierced by his older sister but never wears it. Relents and lets his younger sisters paint one (1) pinky nail gold. Tall and lanky, but stronger than he looks. Stylized sun tattoo in golden ink on his skin. Deeply tanned, but considerably paler in the winter. Long fingers perfect for ring wearing (he never does bc of the infirmary). Delicate looking features, but a boyish delicate. Clear laughter, thick southern accent, voice is slightly gravelly with a bit of vocal fry, but not too much.

Faceclaim I use for him in my head: Gavin Casalegno, specifically in "The Summer I Turned Pretty"

Kayla: ginger hair cut short into a mid length bob, homemade dyed green ends. Bright and clear blue eyes with a golden center like Will's (and all of the Apollo siblings) like the rays of the sun. Paler, but covered in tons of freckles. Muscular from archery training, could knock you out in one punch. User of claw clips to keep her hair out of her face in the infirmary. Doesn't really have an accent, but you can hear her Canadian accent slightly on certain words like "about". On the shorter side. Always has lots of bandages on her fingers from archery and cutting herself on her arrow fletchings.

Faceclaim I use for her: Sadie Sink

Austin: dark skin, warm brown eyes with the Apollo Kid Center. A higher thin voice, very New York accent. Lanky like Will, but won't be nearly as tall as him. Likes to wear gold rings on his fingers. Wears his hair in braids or locs most of the time, sometimes puts gold accessories in them. Still very childlike in his face since he's one of the youngest kids. The best posture in the cabin, can often be found with some musical instrument in hand.

Faceclaim I use for him: Caleb Mclaughlin

Now into the ~semi canon and OC kids~

Anteros: very lithe figure, almost delicate and breakable looking until he's yelling at you in the infirmary. Normally has brown hair, but currently dyes it a silver/white blonde. Piercing blue eyes with The Golden Center, flecks of green as well. Pierced nose on the left side, uses either a gold ring or a sun shaped stud. Enjoys painting his nails with his younger sisters. Higher voice, very Valley (Girl) boy California accent. Would not be caught dead without his Eyeliner. Obsessed with his daggers, is very dangerous, do not piss him off.

My faceclaim I use for him: Troye Sivan

Yan: semi canon. Athletic build, probably the "buffest" Apollo kid. Dark brown almost black eyes with a darker Golden Center. A gazillion piercings in his ears, his favorite being a dragon cuff. Probably will get a lip piercing. The emo kid people think Nico is. Longer shaggy black hair he keeps pulled back in a ponytail with loose bits hanging out. A smile that says "I have done something and you will never know what." Can be found with a leather jacket with a aroace flag lapel button. Enjoys morning runs because he's a masochist. Oldest in the cabin, but refused leadership because his English isn't perfect and Will had been there longer (he was claimed post Manhatten). Can be found swearing in 3 different Chinese dialects because no one can understand him.

My faceclaim I use: Minghao Xu

Melody: French Princess. No really. Long floaty blonde hair with an "Aurora curl" to it. Wears lots of bows and ribbons in her hair. Would not be caught dead without makeup on. Very delicate, regal gait. Was a ballerina and it shows. Has a very thick French accent and switches languages constantly when she forgets the English word for things. The world's biggest lesbian, loves her girlfriend very much. Very girlie, very sweet, Will kill you if you piss her off. Craves violence (jokingly... unless?) Dimples in both cheeks. Green and Blue eyes with The Golden Center. Smile that could blind a person. Very. Short. Pocket sized.

My faceclaim I use: Sabrina Carpenter

Sohee: the cutest baby angel you will ever see. The youngest camper in Apollo Cabin. Wears ribbons and bows in her long straight black hair. Light brown almond shaped eyes with The Golden Center, look almost amber in the sunlight. Dimples in the tops of her cheeks. Has never wanted a day in her life. Would be the last to die in a zombie apocalypse because everyone else would protect her. Brightest laughter you've ever heard, like tinkling bells. Has a slight Korean accent, but not super noticeable unless you're listening for it. Looks like she could be knocked over by a strong wind, but she will kick your ass even though she's ten. Freckles splashed across her nose, and a beauty mark under her left eye. Long eyelashes she bats to get her way.

Faceclaim I use: Hyein Lee

Gracelynn "Gracie": semi canon. Cutie patootie little blondie. Looks the most related to Will. Pretty blue eyes with The Golden Center. Definitely has a Mormon raised mom and you can tell by the way she dresses. Her hair is more wavy than curly, but you can tell it WANTS to curl, but is too heavy. Always looks like she's about to take flight. Pale, but millions of freckles everywhere. Always has a blue headband in her hair. Permanent "I'm terrified" expression on her face. Evil witch giggle you can hear from a Mile Away and it is SCARY. Best swimmer in Apollo Cabin.

Faceclaim I use: McKenna Grace

I will probably make this for some other important non Apollo Kids, but for now, this is too long as it is

[cebwrites]

scar headcanons (Hiraishin Pirates)

a/n: wanted to get these onto paper before I forgot because I haven't been inspired enough to write them into fic form, lol

oc crew word count: 0.8k

Kirin

A scar vertically across his left collarbone from getting in the middle of a fight between Daz Bones and Bon Clay when they were all still Baroque agents (Bon-chan didn't leave him unhurt either, their kick to Kirin's head gave him a hell of a concussion)

A spiky, horizontal scar (frantic, poor stitching) across his abdomen slightly under his navel from his desperate teenage dysphoria brain taking control and attempting something very very stupid that he still hears about to this day

A diagonal scar going into the inner thigh of his left leg, and stitching scars all across his right leg post-Marineford

A big, jagged scar that gets darker further in from his brother post-Dressrosa (he had a rough time getting around in the direct aftermath of receiving that wound, so hasn't healed that well); this scar tends to hurt on rainy days

And small nicks around his waist and lower back, almost as if they were made by the end of a hook

Aside from those, he has smaller scars here and there all over his body, Kirin's not as particularly fussed about protecting precious skin as his partners' are - ironically no other scars on his torso though, even as he struts around shirtless two thirds of the time with active goading to whoever tries to challenge that

Reiji

Miscellaneous (slashing) scars on his arms in no particular order, and some on his legs but not many, Reiji also has stitching scars on his right thumb + pinky and his left index + ring finger

His biggest scars are a big spiky one just above his heart that comes out through his back

[There are no other scars on his back or other parts of his body, some would say that's fitting for a swordsman but he'd rebuke it]

Rio

More than they care to count since they blur together after a while, especially on their back, the majority of them whipping and laceration marks

Rio doesn't go out of their way to avoid reflections of their back anymore - the tiger tattoo covering that accursed dragon claw on their skin - but they don't need to see it to know those scars would always remain; he feels them, constantly, whenever they move or shift even the slightest amounts

Rio has more scars on the back of their upper arms and legs but they've gotten used to those, barely feel em anymore

On the under side of their left arm, they have a long, jagged gash Post-Timeskip; when Rio stands with one hand over the other, sometimes they'll brush their fingers against it out of habit

Izzy

A mildly disturbing fact Izzy realized about himself after getting his devil fruit is that, after a while, his scars don't seem to last nearly as long as they should

Small nicks he'd expect, but at some point they began noticing what should be life-long mars on their skin start to fade, even if from a long time ago, almost like an old tattoo

It kind of instilled a deep-seeded fear that one day he too would fade like ink underneath someone's skin they didn't bother to touch up, gradually, helpless to stop it, and without anyone really noticing - a partial drive behind his dream to leave his literal mark on the world, by tattooing 10,000 people they'd never truly be forgotten and live on through their work

Tetsu

A lot less than some people would typically assume - Tetsu wants his body to be a canvas for his husband's art, so there's no way he could let that art get damaged, right?

He still has quite a few, though, namely on his torso and legs from direct stab wounds (his arms are surprisingly clean)

He has a circular bullet scar on his right shoulder after taking a shot that was initially for Bepo, now it's the center of a beautiful wave illustration from Izzy that he takes to brag about any chance he gets

Alto

Much like Izzy, most scars he gets are impermanent - but only on Alto's "puppet" body, and unlike them, as soon as Alto returns to his human form, they're no longer there

If they're injured in that fleshy form, though, that scar is forever, even transferring over to the next body they carve; this is possibly why no matter how many times Alto carves himself new wings, they never sit comfortably and eventually always have to be shed

The new wood he attaches to his head is unmarred, but mind and body (the human one) still retain the memory of his flight being ripped away by cold government hands

Migi

Stitch scars all around their right hand, slightly below the wrist, where they received their namesake from (the mission gone awry that marked them with this still a fresh, bitter memory before the timeskip)

They have a scar over their right eye as well, usually hidden by her scope; the damaged caused was bad enough that she needed a replacement, but luckily enough someone with the most gorgeous obsidian eyes was kind enough to give her theirs

Migi has few other scars aside from these two, their position as a sniper usually keeps them far from the toils of melee combat and even if there is trouble close up, one of their crewmates is quick to back them up

[amidst-wonderland]

what is the character’s go-to drink order?

nora's not overly fussy, she'll drink whatever she can get her hands on in the moment, particularly if she's in the house. there's no social obligation for what she's drinking in the comfort of her own home and how much she drinks is for her judgement only.

that said, when she's out in the pub she'll usually start with a 'sweet sherry' because it doesn't taste like death and slowly waning into shandy's or rum depending on the occasion.

she's also partial to tonic wine (yes, that one) because it's sweet, full of caffeine and gets nora absolutely off her rocker.

what is their grooming routine?

she's not really got one. nora grew up in a time and an environment where grooming was out of the question, hell she only got a bath once a week that was shared with the rest of the house.

she didn't start shaving her legs, nor arms until she was eighteen.

even when she came into money later in life she didn't mind with stuff like that as it was never in her nature to do so. self-care in the twenties was medicinal alcohol and equivalently being told to 'just be happy' when your feelings get a bit down.

what was their most expensive purchase/where does their disposable income go?

jewellery. nora's always liked to collect little trinkets and jewels generally, whether it be off the pavement or handed down but nowadays she can afford to wear it.

the most expensive item nora owns, she didn't buy for herself because its her wedding ring.

but en masse a lot of her money goes to materials and fabrics as the sewing machine was gifted to her by polly after george was born, which also means a lot of money isn't spent buying the kids clothes.

do they have any scars or tattoos?

i've mentioned this before but nora has a small tattoo of a rose at the bottom of her back that was given to her by one of sabini's bartenders who was interested in her, not that nora bothered to notice (she was too enamoured with the ink).

what was the last time they cried, and under what circumstances?

nora's timeline is all over the place, but i guess if we're going based on where we are in canon (and if we're canon compliant) the last time she truly cried was finding michael lying dead on the gravel after being shot by thomas in the finale.

i'm going to write it eventually so i don't want to get into the specifics but to put it bluntly, she is not okay.

are they an oldest, middle, youngest or only child?

nora's the youngest of three. she has an older sister and an older brother - twins, with edith being the firstborn. edith looked after her and alec looked out for her.

there's quite an age gap between nora and the twins (six years - they're the same age as ada.) so the twins were almost fifteen by the time carmen left the mcleod's so edie was left to do a lot of the heavy-lifting when their auntie and dad weren't around which then put her off having children until later in life when she eventually adopted before moving to canada.

describe the shoes they’re wearing

nora adores her mary-janes, especially the red ones. growing up all of her shoes were either edie's old ones or were so cheaply made they were falling apart by the time she returned home.

describe the place where they sleep.

nora's had a few different bedrooms over the years with varying degrees for luxury but her favourite was in their home on the coast. in contrast to the rest of their home, their bedroom was dark and cosy when it needed to be and it was fresh, bright and open throughout the day.

the room is covered in little trinkets, jewels, perfumes, candles and just stuff nora and michael have collected over the years. there's a lot of browns, beiges, reds and golds.

this is the vibe / logistical layout but its a lot darker, like this colour pallet

polly referred to their bedroom as an "up-market whorehouse."

what is their favourite holiday?

it's not so-much a holiday but nora always makes a big song and dance about hogmanay. she's happy for anyone to take on christmas as long as she gets new years, because 'if yer gonnae dae it, then dae it bloody right.'

music's echoing through the halls, drinks are flowing, the kids are running about loving the fact their cousins have shown up past midnight for nora's insisted 'first footing' and they're allowed to stay up and play. baring in mind nora's hogmanay, like any good hogmamay party is a three-day commitment.

also, get a drink in her and that lassie is making sure the shelby's are fully aware she not singing old lang syne but auld lang syne.

new years is a huge deal in scotland and nora takes a lot of pride in it (basically, christmas was banned in scotland so we took the celebration to the 31st instead).

she makes everyone little new years gifts with homemade shortbread and bottles of irn-bru she's collected over the year.

what objects do they always carry around with them?

typically just her house keys, she'll bring the car keys but it's usually michael who will end up driving.

in her bag nora will have an emergency sewing pack, cigarettes and lippy.

So my problem with most ‘get to know your character’ questioneers is that they’re full of questions that just aren’t that important (what color eyes do they have) too hard to answer right away (what is their greatest fear) or are just impossible to answer (what is their favorite movie.)  Like no one has one single favorite movie. And even if they do the answer changes.

If I’m doing this exercise, I want 7-10 questions to get the character feeling real in my head. So I thought I’d share the ones that get me (and my students) good results: 

What is the character’s go-to drink order? (this one gets into how do they like to be publicly perceived, because there is always some level of theatricality to ordering drinks at a bar/resturant)

What is their grooming routine? (how do they treat themselves in private)

What was their most expensive purchase/where does their disposable income go? (Gets you thinking about socio-economic class, values, and how they spend their leisure time)

Do they have any scars or tattoos? (good way to get into literal backstory) 

What was the last time they cried, and under what circumstances? (Good way to get some *emotional* backstory in.) 

Are they an oldest, middle, youngest or only child? (This one might be a me thing, because I LOVE writing/reading about family dynamics, but knowing what kinds of things were ‘normal’ for them growing up is important.)

Describe the shoes they’re wearing. (This is a big catch all, gets into money, taste, practicality, level of wear, level of repair, literally what kind of shoes they require to live their life.)

Describe the place where they sleep. (ie what does their safe space look like. How much (or how little) care / decoration / personal touch goes into it.)

What is their favorite holiday? (How do they relate to their culture/outside world. Also fun is least favorite holiday.) 

What objects do they always carry around with them? (What do they need for their normal, day-to-day routine? What does ‘normal’ even look like for them.) 

[unoisveimved-un-proffesional]

Alright, 👏story time! This is something I've not told or talked to anyone about except the one person in it with me. It's a short one of when I was 4 years old, it was a pretty pivotal point in my development. Just a warning, it's not a happy story.

So my mother and I were homeless, my little 1 year old brother was in his baby car seat on the right side of the back car car seat already asleep, this ain't about him, and we're planning on sleeping out of our car parked right on the side of a street tonight, right? Lights off, engine off, radio off, heat off, the sun was just starting to set, and I was sitting in the back. It was fall, early in the month of October, and in Alaska fashion, real cold, so I was gonna have to sleep wearing a coat. So, we've had multiple people walk past us and I liked watching people and cars go by, so I stared out the window passing the time. At this point, I was comfortable sleeping in a car, (and I'd only have to get more comfortable with it) so I wasn't very disturbed, not thinking that much about it really.

The sun was halfway down, the sky was dark at the edges and it was only getting darker, and the clouds closer to the sun had looked pink for a bit now, and this dark skinned native man walks past, and I point this out now because, for a while I didn't point it out to myself until thinking it over and, anyway so yeah, dark skinned native alaskan man, he didn't look like he had proper clothes on, wearing a couple of layers, his jacket didn't have a zipper, he had fingerless gloves and a beanie with a dangling thread, and his jeans had torn at the bottom, I couldn't see his shoes though, not like it matters that much anyway right? So he's walking past, it was so cold I saw his breath, and combined with his movements, I could tell he was taking slow, long, deep breaths. His mouth was hanging slightly open, and he wasn't blinking, he didn't look like he felt cold either, and I think I might know why now.

Almost halfway past the back left window where I was looking at him from, he was just like 4 feet away from the car at this point, and blood starts pouring out of his mouth, down his bottom lip and dripping onto his jacket and the shirts below it. It poured out in a small burst at first but kept draining, coming out in smaller little floods after that within the span of the 2 seconds I saw it happening. It was, it was blood, it wasn't vomit or, vomit mixed with blood, he didn't hurl all over himself, no it, it just poured, gathered inside of his mouth and spilled out, thicker than water, and with a light red hue, somewhere between ketchup water and strawberry milk, the color kinda changed as he walked because of the light from the sun, not perfectly illuminating everything, but still present to provide a shine. His breathing than also became quick and shallow, but his walking pace stayed the same.

Oh yeah, he kept walking. He didn't stop. He blinked 5, maybe 6 times, briefly upon the first spout, and that was the most reaction he gave it, like his body felt it happening, but his mind wasn't attending to it, his mind was somewhere else, and his body was left to the most simple and fundamental parts of the brain. He briefly, less than half a second, turned his whole head to look at me, didn't move his eyes, and then within that same time frame, about now just shy of half a second, he turned his head forward again and kept walking. His eyes were a deep brown, but the sunlight gave the bottom half of his iris' a slightly orangey glow, and the center of them was like tiny black dots, a brief tap with an ink pen on paper. His eyeballs were shaking, unlike the rest of his body, which was uncomfortably still, his legs may have been moving on their own, and his arms looked almost detached from him, like they couldn't move.

He looked scared, like he didn't know, he didn't know what to do, what was going on, if he had at one point he didn't anymore. His eyes looked like that of a dying animal, but animals lay down when they're dying, when they have those eyes. He just kept walking, it must've hurt so bad, but I don't think he had much of a choice anymore.

Once a couple of seconds had passed and he was some distance past our car, I asked my mom if she saw, and she told me she did, and kept her face from my gaze. She was oddly quiet, she always has at least a sentence or three or four to say, a blabbermouth my grandma, her mom, called her, she never really responds so simply. I bet she was stressed, because we were homeless, we didn't know yet what to do, it had been like that for 2 days now and we must've been running low on gas because the next day she didn't drive anywhere, and she must've been shocked seeing that, maybe holding back tears of her own.

I asked her "Can we help him? Is he gonna be okay?" And she said "No, I don't think there's anything we can do for him. I don't think he's gonna be okay." and I responded "Well doesn't he have a home? Or somewhere to go? Is anyone gonna take care of him or take him to a hospital?" And she told me "It doesn't look like it." I looked around and saw cars driving past us, and driving past him, as he kept walking to god knows where. So I said "Why is no one helping him?!" And she said "Because... no one cares about him." And I told her "Well I care! We have to help him!" and, after a brief moment of silence, I said again "Mom we have to help him!" and after a couple more seconds of silence, my mom just said "We can't." Still hiding her face from me, holding her head down, and taking deep, long breaths, but they were shakey breaths. I sat there, and, an hour later I couldn't stop thinking about it, and I very quietly teared up and cried myself to sleep.

Yeah, obviously I never forgot. You know, it, it had an impact on me. For the better, you know, I guess I was already a kind person but, that kind of helped motivate me, to really want to keep people from dying, from being killed by this awful world we built. I think it also made me do a lot stupid, very unselfconscious things to try and help people. It's a little funny too, like we're homeless, almost out of gas, no money, and I'm saying "We have to help this man!" like, did I seriously think there was anything we could do for him? Invite him to die and bleed out on our car seat? Really, there was nothing we could've done, and everyone else ignored him, because they had the money to ignore him, and we didn't. We also didn't have the money to help him.

I haven't told that to anyone, only asking my mom if she remembers every couple years. But I don't go a day without even just briefly thinking about it.

[neptune-midheaven]

The Third House Placements and Their Handwriting Styles ~💖🌺🐚

Welcome back babes 😁🙏✨ I’m back posting someee bit but anything nonetheless ! This was a post I wanted to do for a while, this really intrigued me💫

I’m going to be talking about third house placements and their unique to the placement writing styles. Third house rules hands, arms, fingers and writing, correct !😄🎶 There is a correlation between handwriting and third house in astrology as it literlaly rules over it, so components in your third house astrology will dictate how this will look. Use all of the possible combinations you have in your chart ! 🙂☝️

For generational planet ruled signs, use whatever works better.

🔆Sun/leo ~

May have a gift in being very dramatic and showy whenever they express their ideas or in their communication they can be very bright and charming. They’re very talented at absorbing knowledge and facts, they usually are the types of people to dish out random facts about anything whoever you’re talking to them, they have so much random knowledge kept in their minds it’s almost funny. They’re silly and a bit childlike people,

Handwriting style 🦁

Regal, nice looking. They have a confidence to their writing, if the whole class wrote on one piece of paper, theirs would stand out more, maybe a “I can trust what they write is the best there is here” is what people reading over theirs would think.

🌙Moon/cancer ~

Loves sentimental things, talking about the past and family makes them feel good and safe, attachments to the mother, most likely missed her or their family whenever they had to go to school, homesickness at school

Handwriting style 🌝

Soft, homely words. Shyer? They write with a grace and their words are poetically beautiful. It looks like something out of a movie. Nostalgic, their ink is softer and lighter, their curves are soft, their lines and o’s are soft and so sensitive. SO gentle and calm. It’s sleepy?

💫Mercury/gemini/virgo ~

The wittiest, most social people ever. They’re all definitely extroverts, I am one with my gemini in 3rd house ova here 😘, they love talking, and never stop talking and love chatting about anything and never stop chatting about anything, they love walking up to random people and never stop walking up to random people and staring a convo with them out of nowhere 😀. My friends bully me all the time for this. I understand. The one kid in school with like all the answers, they just knew the answer to things and easily got good grades. People asked them for answers all of the time since they are so smart and intelligent, they absorb what they’re being taught so quickly they don’t ever let the teacher finish talking. They’re fast and versatile.

Handwriting style 🤸‍♀️

Fast writing, so many words. They write super fast and probably have so many typos in their essays and papers. Handwriting can look like crap 🤨😐. Like there’s no rush, you’re gonna get your paper done on time! You can’t read what they write al of the time because they rush through writing everything. Their letters and words look fancy somehow, like they were written by the scholar of all scholars, they’re just unintelligible words and sentences. Teachers may need to ask what the student with this placement writes because they can’t read it. Scribbles, jumbled and mixing up things all over the page. You can tell they write fast with the jagged lines and crooked n’s and t’s ajakksks.

💕Venus/taurus/libra ~

Very sweet and charming way of talking to others, they have strong persuasive powers with their honeyed words, they can almost charm you into doing anything, they seem so innocent and sweet. These people are very kind though of course! They love giving others compliments, strangers, their friends, their family, they’re such sweet people to have in your life. They attract partners and relationships by doing their daily tasks, lovers can show up suddenly when they’re running errands or they can attract a lot of interest at their school.

Handwriting style 🍓

The most pleasant, aesthetic handwriting i have ever seen, even if their handwriting is bad it still becomes an art style somehow, i don’t really know how else to describe that. It’s like no matter how bad it could possibly look or how incoherent it is, their script still manages to look NICE.

💥Mars/aries ~

Very loud voices, a bit like sun, but it’s more like their power and strength is used whenever they talk. They could be meaner or aggressive classmates, angry talkers, I know so many people with this placement who talk so mad, so much cursing, ranting and screaming. We love it all.

Handwriting style 🥵

Very rough and fast handwriting, similar to mercury; however, it has more fervor, the messiest and most impulsive handwriting out of all of the other placements.

🐚Jupiter/sagittarius ~

Loud and expressive communicators, similar to the sun here, but they’re louder and bigger. You can hear their voices from across the room and they’re usually the know-it-all’s in the classroom. Very friendly and fun to talk to, they talk about so many exotic and interesting things. They love to crack a joke or two. Also, it’s something about these peoples voices are just FUNNY. Like how they talk is like hilarious and jolly in a good way. It make you wanna crack up and feel good. They make you feel good and BLESSED when they talk to you.

Handwriting style 🍀

Larger letters, I’ve noticed they have bigger “holes” and like to expand their letters over the pages, their words go over the lines and it could be messy usually, sort of like mars fashion but it’s just wider words on the paper.

🪐Saturn/capricorn ~

Very punctual people with perfect punctuation. They hate it whenever their thoughts are messy or unorganized, it makes it hard for them to think thoroughly like they are expected to. They’re the smarter most mature minds in the room. Very deep, daddy voices. IDK HOW TO DESCRIBE IT. THEY SOUND LIKE THEIR DADS. ITS CRAZY. They talk with so authority and sureness, their diction is so perfect it makes everyone mad.

Handwriting style ✏️

Perfect handwriting, they hate it when their sentences look off or unstructured on a page. The most rounded o’s, the straightest lines and perfect length for every letter they write. Correct punctuation once again, their words look like they were printed by a typewriter.

🌪Uranus/aquarius ~

Very different minds, they could feel strange or odd in school, like they were just the oddball learners, had weird interests, or was a huge nerd over so many subjects. Crazy coffee drinkers, the ones with monster drinks and twenty textbooks that are about to fall out of their open backpacks because they rushed to get to school on time. The craziest people actually, their minds are like on drugs, they can be hard to keep up with.

Handwriting style ⚡️

Weird ways they write certain styles of their letters and their words can “come out” of the page. They write SO fast this is usually why they take harder classes in school with more work just solely on the fact they can write much faster than anyone else. Maybe comic-book looking writing? They’re dynamic and crazy like harsh lines and crazy o’s, there’s something unique about the way they write.

🌊Neptune/pisces ~

Such idealistic thinkers. They want to see the good in their surroundings, they do need to be careful with this because surroundings and things can be deceiving. They can absorb such much of their surroundings, they can be quieter communicators because of this. It can be taken advantage of since they’re overwhelmed by conversations or they can be easily fooled by the wrong people. Like they believe things that aren’t even true? Or they like tell a lot of white lies when they’re talking that make people go like uhh is that even true?😀😀 But they play it off when they’re caught lying, it’s very deceptive. The quietest kids in school that either did drugs or tried to escape class by doing some illegal stuff, or they just left. Some were never seen at school.

Handwriting style 🌀

The sleepiest handwriting I’ve ever seen. It’s provably hard to read what they write. Faded words maybe? Faded words on faded paper. So poetic though, it’s pretty but not in a venus way, it like captivates you. It’s hypnotizing they way they draw out their e’s and their a’s have a dreamy tail that connects to their next letter.

🥀Pluto/scorpio ~

Obsessive minds, they want to know everything possible, they want to reach the deepest depths on information and knowledge. They are motived and driven to know as much as they can, and they always seem to succeed. They’re very smart. The kids in school who would keep to themselves or would obsess over what the teacher taught them, the way they communicate is like they’ve read the same page over and over again for days. Obsessive.

Handwriting style 🖤

Darker, hard to see words, they can have obsessive writing. It’s perfect but fast writing, maybe a bit scary that they have the ability to write so much with so much power? People can be freaked out with just how much they know already. So their words can be very persuasive, so the letters would be magnetic, you love their writing once you read one of their essays. You’re obsessed, just like they are.

[viking-raider]

Quarantine: Ink

Summary: Henry wakes up with some ink that you put on him.

Pairing: Henry Cavill/You

Word Count: 1,737

Warning: M - Language, Fluff, Prank, Smut - Mention of Cock-warming, intercourse, cream-pie, simulation

Inspiration: There’s a company called Ink Box I’ve always wanted to try and I thought it be funny to prank someone with it, and thought I’d write a prank fic with Hen about it.

Author’s Note: This story is for and dedicated to @littlefreya​! You have my deepest love and support, lady.

You ripped open the brown packaging and smiled at the two pieces of film inside. You had ordered them two weeks prior and received them the day before, and had intended on waiting on the best moment to reveal them to Henry, to convince him to use them with you.

But, one thing had led to another and you and Henry had ended up ripping each other's clothing off and making love in the living room, before ordering take away and having a sweet night in together.

Speaking of your beloved boyfriend, he was still upstairs in bed, sprawled out on his stomach and snoring softly. With quarantine in place, Henry got to sleep in most mornings, which was nice, he worked so hard, between his work outs and his filming projects, getting up at four-thirty in the morning, he deserves to sleep in til ten or eleven.

That's when the idea hit you, with a giggle.

Taking the items upstairs to the master bedroom with you, you smiled at your peaceful and oblivious Puppy, still on his stomach, arms folded underneath his pillow and his head resting on top of them. Biting your lip, you carefully pulled down the blankets still covering his stark body, your fingers, light as feathers, touched the base of his neck and traced down the slope of his broad back, lingering in the hollow of his spine, before cupping one of the cheeks of his plentiful tush in your palm; chuckling softly.

“You are beautiful.” You cooed at his sleeping form, a bubble of loving pride in your chest, before you carefully got into bed and straddled his hips, making Henry moan and grunt, shifting and his face pinching as you disturbed him. “Ssshh.” You purred, leaning down, and kissing the space between his wide shoulders.

“Sleep, Puppy. Sleep.” You mumbled, nuzzling his shoulder blade and rubbing the back of his head, until he moaned again, relaxing and dropping back off to sleep.

Henry settled, you relaxed and sat back, sitting on his thighs, and stared at him for a long moment, before nodding to yourself and picking up a single use, primer wipe packet that came with the two items you ordered, and ripping it open. You gently rubbed the wipe in circles on the back of Henry's right shoulder, chewing on the inside of your cheek as you did, waiting and expecting him to wake up and catch you at any moment. But, he only made a couple of noises and shifted a few times, otherwise he was blissfully unaware and out cold.

Rubbing Henry's shoulder with the wipe for thirty seconds, you tossed it on the nightstand and let the spot dry, while you picked out which of the two items you wanted to apply to the spot, before finally settling. Gently peeling off the protective film from the back, you carefully pressed the sticky side down to the clean, dry and exfoliated section of Henry's shoulder, smoothing it out, so there were no wrinkles or creases, hoping Henry didn't move too much while it was there, for the next hour. With that one down, you moved on, starting to giggle again, but slapped a hand over your mouth, so you didn't wake Henry up with it. You opened the second primer wipe and used it on the exposed side of Henry's neck, being even gentler and careful, knowing just how sensitive the skin here was; but you couldn't resist putting this one here on his neck, where he would almost always see it and likely couldn't cover it up.

With both applied to his skin, you slipped off of him, laying down beside him, arm slung over the small his back and cheek pressed to his clear shoulder blade, listening to the gentle rise and fall of his breathing, drifting in and out of sleep yourself, until you heard Henry's alarm go off.

“Wait, wait, wait!” You protested, jumping up out of bed, pressing your hands down on his back. “Don't move yet.”

“Why?” Henry frowned at you, feeling the filmy patch on his neck and tried to reach out and touch it.

“You still have ten minutes.” You told him, catching his arm.

“What have you been doing, Nugget?” Henry sighed, a ghost of a smile on his lips as he laid back down and relaxed.

“You'll see in ten minutes.” You chuckled, peeking to making sure none of his moving wrinkled the film stuck to his skin, and was relieved when they weren't. “Did you sleep well?”

“You know, I always sleep well, when I'm buried cock deep in you.” He chuckled coyly, smirking, and his sleepy blue eyes sparkling mischievously.

You grinned, uncontrollably, and looked away from him, almost shy. “I do know that.” You chuckled back, licking your lips and clearing your throat. “But, you know what I mean, silly bear.”

“I did.” Henry sighed softly, reaching out to gently trace your side with the back of his fingers. “Did you?”

“Mmhm.” You nodded, gently touching his neck. “Okay.” You smiled, gently peeling the applicator film off his neck and shoulder. “All right, you can look now.” You giggled, grinning, impishly at him.

Henry pressed his lips together and narrowed his eyes at you, skeptical, but got out of bed and walked into the bathroom, seeing what was on his neck first. “You did not!” He barked, coming back into the bedroom, his eyes huge and mouth hanging open.

“How could you!?” He demanded, but the betrayed amusement was very clear in his voice.

“And it'll only get darker over the next two days.” You grinned, stepping up to him, to touch the faint, blue-ish, World of Warcraft, Horde symbol on the side of his neck, just below his left ear. “You're a traitor to your precious Alliance now, my precious Paladin.” You teased him, tickled with delight.

“Did you see the one on your shoulder?” You asked, lifting a brow at him, more than sure he had not.

“What?” Henry snapped, his voice breaking a teeny bit, and turned to go back into the bathroom.

You followed him into the bathroom, watching him turn his back to the full length mirror and crane his head over his shoulder, struggling to see his back to spot the other temporary tattoo on his shoulder that you had put on him, then looked back at you, shoulders dropping and eyes even wider at the Cat nose and whiskers.

“Seriously?” He huffed at you, shaking his head.

“I was originally going to put that one on the inside of my wrist.” You explained, trying to hold back a burst of laughter. “But, I got carried away.” You told him, finally losing control and busting out into a hoot of laughter, doubling over.

“How long do these last?”

“It'll fade in three weeks, promise.” You told him, wiping away tears, seeing the panicked worry in his face.

“I am so fucked, if I have to do any interviews or PR stuff.” Henry laughed, looking at the Horde logo on his neck; tracing it with his finger. “Why the Horde crest?”

“They didn't have the Alliance Lion.” You replied, hopping up to sit on the counter. “Plus, I thought it would be funny, since I know you're such a die hard Alliance player.” You chuckled, leaning in to kiss the crest, hands resting on Henry's bare sides.

“What sense of humour you have, my love.” Henry cooed, turning his head to capture your lips in his own and stepped between your legs. “You do know, I will get you back for this.” He whispered against your lips, kissing you deeper, his hands grabbing the back of your knees and yanked you closer to him.

“I expect nothing less.” You laughed, wrapping your arms around his neck and your legs around his waist.

A hum rumbling in his chest, Henry grabbed the back of your head and deepened the kiss, tongue swiping by your lips to flick across your tongue, making both of you moan at the same time. You rocked your hips against his, feeling his cock awaken against your thighs and folds. Henry's teeth pulled at your bottom lip as he pulled his body away from yours enough for you to slip your hand between your humming bodies to grab his hard length, stroking the throbbing organ, your thumb caressing the weeping, uncut head, before guiding it to your entrance.

“Christ, you feel so fucking good.” You moaned into his neck, hugging your legs tighter around his hips as he pushed inside of you.

“You too, baby.” Henry groaned, placing open mouthed kisses on your neck and shoulder, while thrusting into you. “You're so snug around me.” He panted into your ear, planting his hands on the counter, on either side of you, and used the leverage to increase the strength of his thrusts, making the items on the counter rattle and a couple knock over

“Uh, Henry!” You cried out, one hand grasping the top of his shoulder, as you leaned back on your other one. ”God, fuck!” You let go of his shoulder and started rubbing your clit.

Both your and Henry's breathing was as erratic as your movements, lost in the moment of heated passion and pleasure. Henry grabbed you by the waist, slapping your and his hips together as his thrusts became wild and involuntary, starting to reach his plateau. You could feel the increased throb of his cock inside of you, the hot swelling against your walls as his balls tightened with his building orgasm. Henry snapped his hips into you one more time before throwing his head back and going completely rigid, his stiff cock pumping ribbon after ribbon of hot cum into your core, helping you tip over into your own plateau, your hand falling away from your clit.

Henry sluggishly wrapped his arms around your torso and hugged you against him, kissing your lips and temple, before breathily whispering into your hair. “I'm picking out yours.”

You chuckled, pressing your cheek to his chest, feeling his pounding heart slowing down. “I'll show you the website during breakfast.” You promised, turning your head to press a chaste kiss to the Horde logo on his neck.

[jadelynlace]

ink drinker / modern vikings au, Ivar x F!Reader

author’s note: long story short, I wrote this series but used an OFC that I use for most of my longer series. many thanks to @victoria-styles for her suggestion of making it a reader / Y/N story. major plot tweaks as well.

synopsis: Ivar was only meant to be a friend with benefits, but he caught feelings for his older brother’s best friend: you.

pairing: Ivar x Reader

✎

“Not into the million dollar bullshit?” You heard a voice beckon from behind you, stepping forwards with a light to start the cigarette that hung between your Oxford red stained lips.

“Crawling through the depths of hell sounds more pleasant than being here,” You grumbled back through the cloud of grey smoke slipping past your lips. You watched the figure next to you light up his own cigarette, taking note at how his fingers curled around the stick as he laughed with your words. “I’m only here to calm Hvitserk,”

“And he’s not even here,” He said back with a laugh, blue eyes peeking to grab at yours.

“Structure fire across town,” You tell him. “Told him that if he’s so inclined he can bring the truck over here and spray the party with the water,” Ivar laughed at that.

“Fuck, you clean up nice. And I love a woman in uniform,” He teases, smirking as you do too. It went silent for a second between you two, sticks of chemicals on your lips as his eyes did not miss the way your dress hugged at your body, how your stilettos were secured around your ankles. He couldn’t pull his mind back quickly enough before he was imagining them over his shoulders, your lips that curled around the filter and how they might look around his cock. How you were the first person who gave him complete reign over the ink he was going to forever mark your body with.

“Let’s just say I’d rather slice my own tongue off and choke on it than admit to that, actually wearing something other than the blues, and enjoying it,” You groan as the man next to you laughs, a sick snicker coming from his lips and you find yourself smiling too. “But you don’t clean up half bad yourself, Ivar,” You tease back as your eyes catch sight of the roll of his sleeves, how he maneuvers the buttons and pulls the white fabric back to show the first indications of sleeved out arms.

“Where do you want to go?” Ivar asks, taking the cigarette from his mouth to stub.

“Excuse me?”

“I didn’t think I fucking stuttered,” He started in challenge. “You said you didn’t want to be here, so where would you like to go?” He asks a quick swipe of his tongue over his lips as he cocks his head to the side awaiting your answer.

“Alright, Ragnarsson, you’re fucking on,” You laugh back, crushing your own stick with the spike of your heel as you follow him.

*

Hvitserk was a man who took most things with a grain of salt, others came with a few shots of whiskey. He had seen the darker side of humanity, and you were right there with him when he did. Your interest in becoming certified for emergency medicine had followed you since your high school graduation, and you were right on the top of the sign up sheet when class enrolled. And you stayed on top when your graduated. Company firings and how it lead to short staffing, moving of some onto better things lead to an opening you leapt on and found yourself paired with a paramedic with blonde hair and a smile that could cause most of the human population to smile back. It did not take long for a friendship to strike up, even outside of the station and the blazing sirens. His humor, his companionship kept you sane, kept the darkness of the horrid calls at bay, you two grew close, quickly.

Even if company policy allowed the romantic attachments between co-workers, you still couldn’t find yourself catching some sort of feeling to Hvitserk. He was a friend, your best, and it was left at that. You trusted him with your life, you’d gladly lay on the stretcher and head into the emergency room as long as he was the paramedic who was treating you.

Sigurd came next in the line of his brothers, an obsession with music, and nothing but the best that world could offer. He had an artistic hand, Hvitserk drove you towards his place of employment for permanent artwork to your liking and that was how you met Ivar. He watched you tip toe through his portfolio, but if Sigurd had talent, then Ivar was a God. You had never seen such movement on skin where he would trace his ink. You didn’t want to pull a design off of the internet and ask Ivar to put in on you, it seemed almost rude, instead you told him where you wanted it, and told him to go crazy. He looked at you in such a way, thinking you were joking. Perhaps too un-educated in the world of tattoos, but you held your ground and he was proud of such a feat.

Work was all too consuming, trying to leave space for time other than the blood pressure cuffs and patient history. You’d spend time out on town with Hvitserk, his brothers soon in tow, a party of their own that they could become. You were shocked Hvitserk hadn’t caught on, that none of them had, how long you had been spreading your legs for Ivar in secret. Petty bantering between the two of you, the others making bets to see whom would kill whom first, but that chatter went towards the foreplay that would follow you two into the bedroom. The most shock you came to realize was how Ivar was always there in the morning—it took a lot of you to convince him to leave, but he always mumbled something about five more minutes just for holding you.

Perhaps it was how your days were spent doused in testosterone, one of the three women of the entire station, entire company, leaving you to be able to handle yourself around men with egos far bigger than the dicks they would carry. That was how you were so seamlessly integrated into the Ragnarsson brother’s, struck up like the sister they never got. That was how Ivar found himself thinking about you far more than a friend with or without benefits would, how tightly you snug around his cock, how you look and sounded when you came for him, how you had pulled more from him than any other woman he had slept with. How you made him feel appreciated and not like a man who needed to navigate himself with his dick to get what women he wanted. How you didn’t toss him to the side after the first fuck. You drove him crazy and he didn’t have the words to admit to it.

“If I hear a grumble from you one more time Ivar, I am going to kick you out of the shop,” Sigurd spoke from his spot at the front desk, thumbing through a magazine of industry products as Ivar hissed a curse at him in reply. “What the fuck is you problem?”

“Y/N,” Ivar answered all too quickly.

“What? She hurt your ego too bad last time we were out? Didn’t stroke it enough to your liking?” Sigurd teased.

“No,” Ivar said. “She didn’t stroke me enough to my liking,” But Ivar said the words far too quickly before he could catch them.

“Are you fucking her?” Sigurd said, sitting up in his chair. “You two are fucking?” He laughed.

“Shut up,” Ivar grumbled, a toss of his pencil flying to grace the space Sigurd was at.

“She cut your dick off? That the issue?” He teased. “Hvitserk’s going to go ape-shit, dude,”

“That’s why we’re not telling him yet, right Sigurd?” Ivar said “Right, Sigurd?” He repeated with an extended finger at his brother.

“How long have you two been fucking—I need to know that, for science, and because I am still in shock. How did you—her? She’s too good for you Ivar, you have to be careful there,”

“Two years,” Ivar remarked and Sigurd nearly fell out of his chair.

“Fuck! You ask her out yet?”

“We’re not talking about this—or telling anyone else, right?” Ivar said again.

“Yes, sir,” Sigurd nodded, a fake salute from his hand as his mind was still scrambled.

“Don’t call me sir,” Ivar snapped.

“Yes ma’am,”

*

You’d never forget the call that came through dispatch a month after you and Ivar had started to screw around more often than fuck buddies would. The address sounded familiar, but Hvitserk was the one who made the connection it was the shop. Ink Drinker was a parlor bathed in black; walls and dark floors that made the rooms look like they never ended. The art displayed belonged to that of Ivar, of Sigurd, of the few others who came and went for their tattoo work. The owner had wooden sculptures of his own to line the spaces, but you had only ever seen the man through his social media.

You feared suddenly something happening to Ivar, or Sigurd, readying yourself for the sight that may hold them there, but it wasn’t them. A patron had passed out to the sight of the needles, sending Ivar to sour his entire mood at the weakness for something he found so simple. His flash of anger changed suddenly when you and his brother showed up, jumping from the rig in full expectance to see either sibling in a bloody mess after fighting to their death.

“I called and specifically asked for Hvitserk Ragnarsson and his partner,” Sigurd teased as the teenager came too, apologizing and still paying Ivar for the appointment he was too scared to cancel.

“I was hoping it would be a trauma call, you finally snapping and kicking Ivar’s ass,” You answered back, smirking at Ivar as he rolled his eyes in distaste. Ivar’s eyes climbed your whole body as you worked, the uniform marking your hierarchy and importance as you took the patient to the hospital. His text message not ten minutes later almost made you head back just to smack him.

“You’re keeping the uniform on next time we fuck.”

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[ziracona]

Here, for @accursed-worm​ -- this will probably be the most I can put out for a while, with work and life together how they are, and it’s a shame it doesn’t look how it could on AO3 or somewhere else with more font formatting available, but I hope you enjoy the rest of beginning. Feel free to skip ahead to where it left off for you before if you’d like!

Signifying Nothing

  There was an awful stench in the air, a kind of rot that wasn’t easy to recognize. A little like the smell of a dead mouse left for too long under a house, or a discarded deer carcass. It wasn’t either of those things though. It was something much worse. ‘Putrid’ wasn’t a word naturally occurring in anyone’s internal dialogue, but for once it would have been. The smell was overwhelming, and it was coming from everything.

A scuffed black shoe that used to shine with its polish set down on a few small shards of broken glass and the quiet crack made the wearer pause.

The shoes belonged to a man, fairly average in height but with a light build, dark skin, and darker hair that fell into his face. Even stained as it was from hard wear, his white lab coat stood out against the grimy grey and brown walls covered in blood spatter and soot stains and something orange and rotting.

The man stepped further into the room, carefully stepping over the larger chunks of glass and torn metal and rubble that littered the floor. He reached the center of the room and made a slow circle, taking everything in.

Anyone watching would have been able to tell two things at a glance. One, that the man was being cautious and two, that he wasn’t being as cautious as he should have been. He stood out against his surroundings as much as the lab coat did, scanning the walls and leftover carnage more like a tourist at an art gallery than a tattered man in a ransacked laboratory.

Floor to ceiling, the lab around him looked like the aftermath of a horror film. Most of the tables had been flipped, some broken, and writings and beakers and broken glass littered the floor. The room’s one window was busted halfway up and a ragged panel of glass still half-hung in the pane, like a waiting guillotine. Both doors had been torn from the walls. One had fallen into the doorway; the other was in shreds around the room, solid oak torn apart like tissue paper. One small chunk of it still hung from a hinge where it had been broken through, and long, deep scratches ran up it. A large, menacing chandelier hung from its chain in the center of the room weakly, likely to go at any moment. The other lamps were on the ground, and there were still scorch marks around a particularly large one showing where it had caught fire to the research materials around it. Even some of the walls were in pieces, laying rubble around the room amidst tables and test tubes. More noticeable than the state of the room itself was the blood. It was everywhere, reds and browns of various ages flung across the walls and the floor and the implements scattered among the debris, but no bodies. There was an overwhelming smell of corpses, and no corpse.

The man kept walking. He stopped by a pool of ink which had a book floating in it. He knelt, almost reverently, and touched the cover with a finger. There were many things a book could recover from. Soaking in a pile of ink was not one of them.

He stood then, using his forearm to push his hair out of his eyes, and took a small pair of glasses out of his pocked and put them on, blinking as his eyes adjusted to the magnification.

Everything around him was still. A crime scene the day after, a battlefield after even the medics and grave diggers had gone.

The man with glasses took a large messenger bag off of his shoulder and set it on a table. He opened it and rummaged around inside for a few seconds, then froze. Something behind him in the far corner of the room had moved.

Ever so slowly, the man turned to look, eyes unblinking, fixed on where he’d caught movement.

There was nothing.

Very quietly, the man took a syringe out of the bag and readied it like a knife. Slowly, he walked towards the corner of the room. If he’d been careful before, now he was being meticulous. A large broken piece of metal, sharp and jagged on the end that had snapped when it was torn from a lamp and laying a few feet away caught his eye, and he stooped to pick it up.

Still cautious in his approach, the man’s footsteps on the stone floor were the only sound as he got close to the pile of rubble he’d seen movement by, jagged hunk of metal at his side and syringe at the ready in his left hand, and then in one quick, practiced motion the man moved beside the wall to see behind the chunks of stone. He immediately gagged and stumbled back, trying to fight the intense urge to vomit. He failed. The man turned to the side, leaning on a still upright lab table for support and wretched until his body was just dry-heaving. It took him almost twenty seconds to stop. Finally, the man managed to weakly push himself back upright, using one forearm to push his curly hair out of his face, and with his other shaking hand he took a little cloth out of his pocked and used it to wipe his mouth.

It hadn’t just been the sight—he was used to seeing things most people couldn’t begin to imagine. It had been the smell, up close and all at once. It had caught him off guard. Face resigned and exhausted, the bags under his eyes appearing even deeper and his face more gaunt than when he first entered thee room, the man took a breath and went to look at the body again.

Gods have mercy on us all, he thought absently. He didn’t mean it. At this point, that thought was more like a sick joke than anything, but it had become automatic.

The man walked over and knelt down to get a better look at the corpses. He hadn’t even realized at first that there were two of them. The smell that came from the oozing, pussy, decaying mass of mutilated flesh and growths that covered the scarred victims was almost unbearable on a physical level, and he had to keep his forearm over his mouth and nose, trying to filter out some of the smell.

One of the bodies was smaller than him and shrunken. It had cuts all over its still form which oozed an orange substance he was all too familiar with—that disgusting puss secreted by the spirit whose world they were trapped in. He’d seen the nectar before many times. Once every year, when it purged. It was the only genuinely reliable marker that existed to keep track of the passage of time. God, did they use just the raw materials? And so much of it. What is this? It smells like the usual rot, but burned. The thought was a little more olfactorily descriptive than he meant, and his body tried to gag again, but there was nothing left in his stomach to come up. Steeling himself, the man put his syringe in a breast coat pocket, pulled a hard-worn pair of rubber gloves from a back pocket, and pulled them on. From his messenger bag, he took out an empty vial. Leaning over the smaller body, he scraped some of the puss from one of its arms and closed it in his little glass jar, inspecting the sample carefully before placing it in his sack. He shifted then, and used the blunt end of his broken piece of metal to poke at the figure a little, moving one of the arms which covered its chest to get a better look at its torso. Absently, his free hand reached into a pocket and took out a clunky old pocket recorder, marked simply by the initial “C” and hit record.

“Multiple injection marks,” he said to the recorder, eyes fixed on the corpse as he tried to get a better angle on it, “all up and down the ribcage, as if whoever did this was attempting to get it into the bone marrow itself. The subject is young—thirties at the oldest. I don’t recognize the body.”

Gentle as he was going, his metal rod accidentally took off a chunk of flesh the size of a napkin, peeling back and sloughing off the side to reveal mucus and bone and clotted blood, thick with orange lumps. The man gagged again and took a deep breath to steel himself.

“The smell is worse than normal,” he continued, clearing his throat to try and bite back the urge to gag, “Could be due to the natural composition of the body, combined with heavy injections. Decay level of the tissue is low, maybe a week at most, but the chemicals seem to have altered body chemistry heavily, greatly lowering the integrity of the skin. That, or it’s been here a long time and the serum did the opposite,” he added as an afterthought. “Unlikely, though.”

He moved a little, crouch-walking to save time, and leaned over the body again at a new angle. “There are skin lacerations around the subject’s wrists and neck. Not deep, but pre-mort…” Shackles, he realized, glancing instinctively to look for the objects. Had it broken free and been killed? There was no wound he had seen that would have caused death, but he’d only just started. As he looked down, he realized that one of the ankles was still cuffed to a heavy chain embedded in the wall. “It was shackles,” he continued, remembering the recorder, “one is still connecting the subject to the wall. The others seem to have been removed.” He clicked the recorder off, then after a second held the record button down again. “Something has completely trashed my lab, but left the bodies. No recent signs of a presence here either. Everything is at least half a week old, going by blood. Maybe five days. But before that, somebody got very, very busy with my research notes.” He released the button.

I wasn’t gone from the lab that long was I? A few months? What the hell happened here? The man looked at the small, shriveled corpse beneath his feet. Female. About my age, weren’t you? Who were you before this? How long did it take for them to kill you?

He had only given the larger figure a casual glance so far. It was slumped against the wall, half-sitting. He turned his attention to it now, clicking the recorder back on.

“The second body I’ve found is larger and more deformed. There are no puss sacs or growths like seem to have killed the first subject, but the chemical seems to have been altered on this one to include organic compounds from the area. There are sharp vines coming out of its shoulders and arms, covering its head, with large growths above its skull. It looks almost like a stag.” The man clicked the recorder off again and got closer, looking the body in front of him up and down. It was like a tree had overgrown a person, seeping into their body, symbiosis. There were little dark slits on the thing’s head where eyes would have been, and horns made of rotting wood rested above its expressionless face. A huge chunk was missing from its chest, leaving what was left of its ribcage bare and exposing the remaining organs inside. He raised the recorder again and continued his analysis. “Exposed chest wound, including major bone damage to the ribcage which leaves the heart partially exposed. Possibly—”

Again, the man had the impression that something had moved, and he froze. –There it was again!

He squinted, leaning in closer to the figure in front of them. It had come from inside the thing’s chest. Insects, rats? Why the hell—there aren’t naturally occurring animals here, so why would a…

His eyes were only a few inches from the corpse’s chest when he saw it for real, as clear as the vines digging into the thing’s lungs. The exposed heart beat.

In an explosion of movement, the monster’s arm swung out and caught him in the chest, throwing him backwards into the pile of rubble behind him with enough force to knock the breath out of him.

He didn’t even have time to connect the pain in the back of his shoulder and down his arm with the blood dripping onto his fingers before it was on him, lunging for his throat, and the man scrambled backwards, toppling over the pile of rubble blindly as the thing crawled after him, roaring like a beast.

“Oh fucking shit!” the man yelled, his brain’s first attempt to give him a rational response or solution to the situation. He crawled backwards, trying to move faster than the thing was crawling towards him, which was physically impossible. It lunged at him and he rolled out of the way, leaving a smear of blood as he crawled beneath a table and came up stumbling to his feet on the opposite side of it.

In the half-second of safety the metal table offered he got a good look at the monster in its entirety. Horns included, the thing towered over him by a good two feet, head tilted and gold-orange puss dripping from its cuts and wounds and mouth and eyes. If you could call them eyes—they were something anyway, a flickering white-blue light coming from where there had been nothing but darks slits on its face for eyes before, and the lights stayed trained on him as it moved impossibly fast and flung the metal table between them across the room in one swift motion. He could hear the table crashing into a wall as the beast leapt for him, its arm catching hold of his hair and taking a handful as the man tore himself free and threw himself to the ground underneath its arms and past its legs, twisting as he hit the ground, snatching at the syringe in his breast coat pocket and digging its needle into the popliteal artery at the back of the monster’s knee, driving his thumb against the plunger, and emptying the container of pentobarbital into the monster’s leg. It spun with him, just as fast, and swung at him again, its hand catching him in the cheek and sending him skidding along the floor backwards into the same pile of rubble he’d been bashed against before.

Without hesitation, the horned beast came at him with a fury, but it stumbled, and the man rolled out of the way and watched it crash into the rocks it had knocked him against moments before. It shook its head like it was trying to clear it and took another step towards him, and then a much slower, more shaky step, and began to sway. It tried to grab a nearby gurney for support and it fell, taking the stretcher with it as it collapsed onto its side

The man sat were he’d rolled, breathing hard, arms still poised to help him crawl backwards quickly if he had to, eyes fixed on the monster in front of him.

It twitched and made an agonized sound and tried to pull itself back up and failed, and tried again, and again its shoulders gave out. It turned its head towards him and he saw a shudder run down its whole body, and the lights beneath the slits on its face flickering. The golden-orange liquid drained from it more slowly now, as the beast excruciatingly dug its fingers into the stone floor and tried to crawl towards the fallen gurney.

The man got to his feet shakily and blinked in surprise at the blood dripping down his arm. Choosing to ignore the wound for now in favor of more present danger, though, he turned his attention back to the creature on the floor and realized for the first time that this second test subject had been shackled too—was still shackled. Its left leg was connected to the wall by a long tether which had almost reached its length. As he watched, the beast dragged itself over to the fallen stretcher and tried again and again to pull itself up from its prone position. With each attempt he could see it getting weaker as the drug took hold.

Noticing his piece of torn lamp pole from before laying by the rock heap where he’d lost it when he took the first hit, the man in the lab coat walked over and reclaimed his weapon, then crossed purposefully to the creature on the floor.

As he neared it, he could see from the slow, ragged rise and fall of its chest and the slow flickering on and off of the lights that seemed to be its eyes that it was fighting to stay awake. As he got close to it, it swung a hand weakly at him twice before its strength gave out and the arm dropped to the ground.

After waiting a few seconds to make sure the drug had worked its way deep enough into the thing’s system, the man knelt by the monster and leveled his piece of metal. He saw it move its shoulder, trying to will an arm up to defend itself from him, but the drug had set in in earnest now and it had seconds before it was dead to the world completely. He looked from its throat to its exposed heart, trying to decide how to deal with the thing. After a second, he decided on the heart and the man placed one hand on its chest to steady his aim, and then he raised his jagged piece of metal over its exposed heart and it made a sound almost like a whimper.

He hesitated then, looking down at the thing beneath him. The lights behind the slits of its wooden face were fading out, but its chest still rose and fell. He knew it was looking at him as it lost consciousness, and he felt it shudder under the hand he had on its chest. Its breath was coming in quick and shallow, even with the sedative seeping through its veins, and he realized suddenly that it was scared of him and scared to die.

The lights behind its eye slits went out and the creature’s head lulled to the side as it lost consciousness and the man raised his makeshift weapon again. Then he stopped.

Instead, he moved his hand to the thing’s face and felt the rough wooden surface. There was a crack over the left side, which spiderwebbed out from near its ear. Gingerly, the man followed the crack down the monster’s cheekbone to a place where a small chunk about the size of a fingernail had broken off the wood. He let his fingertip rest on the spot, and felt the sticky-warm of fresh blood, and the rough-soft of damaged human skin beneath the wood.

He let the chunk of metal fall from his hand then and collapsed back onto the floor and sat there, staring at the thing in front of him. Out of the corner of his eye the bright red button on his tape recorder caught his eye. It had landed by an overturned table about fifteen feet away, miraculously intact. For some reason the sight reassured him, and the adrenaline drained from his system as he calmed down and it left him exhausted. He brushed his hair out of his eyes and took a deep breath, thinking hard.

After a second, he pulled himself unsteadily to his feet, crossed to the recorder and slumped to the ground beside it, leaning his back leaning against the pile of rubble like it was an easy chair. He picked the dented machine up and pressed record.

“Okay. Well. The big one wasn’t dead. It attacked me, but I was able to inject it with a high dose of pentobarbital. Nice to know some things still work on creatures under effects of the serum,” he said, then released the record button to take a shaky breath, eyes on the unconscious monster about ten feet away. He hit record again. “Unsure how to proceed now. I have to do something fast. It’s still breathing, and I don’t think the OD is going to kill it,” he paused, watching the thing’s heart beating weakly in its open chest cavity. “But uh,” he continued half-automatically after a second, “I think it might be salvageable. Yeah. Yeah, I might have to see what I can do. It, uh…” He ran his fingers through the curly hair that hung in his face. “When it couldn’t defend itself anymore, that thing looked…it acted an awful lot like a regular human being. It, uh…” He looked at the thing’s slumped form. It seemed so much less tall now, less imposing. The yellowed ichor that had been pumped into its veins was slowly dripping from where its ears should have been, leaking down its collarbone and seeping past vines into its chest. “Yeah, I might have to see what I can find out.”

The man released the button and set down the recorder, then he slowly slid the rest of the way down the rock until he was laying on his back on the ground. He put his hands over his face and groaned. “Fuuuuck.”

  _______________________________________________________

 V’s Field Journal.

Date and time unknown.

Final entry.

 It is dark, and cold, and I don’t think I will be able to hold on much longer out here. I’m losing myself. But I can’t just give up after everything; that would hardly be fair to the others. Not after all of this.

My name is Vigo.

I uh. I don’t really know where to start. I am no stranger to writing, but uh, it has always been academic in nature before. Journaling—that to me is new. I’m afraid on top of that that I am no Benedict Baker. That foolish man, who knowing the power of names chooses to go around throwing his full one about at every turn, even in a place like this. He carves it into walls and signs it on notes he scatters behind him like debris marking the path of a storm. …Well, maybe he’s the one who was right after all, though. He’s lived longer. I’ll honor him by continuing his tradition. But I won’t bring in my full name, not even now, when it seems like I could hardly take on more damage, because names have power. I may be wrong, after all, Benedict has often made some good points to the contrary when debating me, and out of all of us only me and my hidden name are truly lost for good. But even so.

I am who I am.

I could go back, and cut all of these verbal placeholders to sound more loquacious, but somehow that seems disgenuine, and honestly it seems fucking stupid to be wasting my time on worrying about editing at all when I have so little left. How can it possibly matter with a deadline coming so fast now? It can’t. This doesn’t have to be pretty, it just has to be, and so you’ll have to take the words as they come. Make of that and my fragments what you will. I suppose you would anyway.

This is a last, well, not a will, I guess, but a last testament. Something to leave behind. Thank you for reading it, by the way. I am glad. Truly, deeply glad, that I wasn’t the only one.

Where to start?

I am…what is relevant here? Fucking Benedict Baker should have been the one to end up here doing this… I have often been called ‘Alchemist’ in this place, though it’s hardly a fitting term for me. I was an apothecary—or maybe a chemist, is as accurate, before this life. There wasn’t just one proper title for it, so even I’m not sure which to pick. My family had long been a bit of a one-stop for all ailments and needs of a chemical, spiritual, or bodily harm nature, and I took up the family business. We are Sámi up here…or—there, there back home. Not here…Though, my mother’s parents were foreigners who left a home in Ethiopia and somehow in a desperate attempt to drastically avoid France at all costs, went about as north as they could go and ended up settled with us in Scandinavia. She always liked that…anecdote. It’s a bit of a joke. I hope you got it. She would be glad you got it. Anyway, my father’s family provided a broad range of services to our home, and I suppose in a way whether I like it or not, that’s more or less where my path begins.

We grew up right on the edge of Sweden and Norway, my sister and me—on the Norway side. Used to introduce myself to people at school by saying from where I lived, I could wake up in the morning and throw a letter to Sweden from my bed. I might have actually been able to, if I’d tied a rock to it, come to think of it… Fuck. I can’t write like this. I’m very bad apparently at anything but academic writing. –Which I swear I’m good. I really am—exemplary, even. But this…? I… … The family trade was medicine, of a lot of kinds. Growing up was actually rather fascinating, the way I did it. There was a lot to learn, and apothecary, shamanistic, home remedies—we did it all, and we were good. I was never sick growing up, not once for more than a day, not unless it was because I’d decided to try mixing some new concoction and tested it on myself to see what would happen and my mother and father had decided to let me learn a lesson the hard way. There was a spiritual side to the practice too, a deeply important one. I come from a line with noaidis in our history and our blood. My father was one, whose songs used to fill me with wonder as a child. As a man. I was…I should have been one. I tried to be. I suppose in many ways I was, at least for a little, there at the end. He would have done it better…but, he would also have been proud. Fuck.

I feel as if I’m already butchering this. I am. I know it. Oh—damn it, I can do better. I can. I’ve read enough of Benedict’s work.

Okay.

Okay. I’m telling this wrong. Please, allow me to start over just one more time. I think I know the way to write it now. I’ve been following the wrong character up till now.

See. This story isn’t even really about me. It’s about four people. Not me.

Well. I suppose it is one-fourth mine, but I think now probably that I am the least of us. I wish I’d thought to tell them that. I will have to settle for writing it now instead.

This story is not long, but it is hard, and it is not yet quite over.

It is the story of a mechanist, a chronicler, an alchemist, a man, and a monster.

Let’s start with one of them instead.

  _______________________________________________________

 __________ Part 1: The Mechanist ______

Alex Lin grew up on Prince Edward Island, Canada, underneath the red oaks and among bluejays and foxes and caribou.

As a young girl, Alex took an interest in the same things everyone thought she would. She learned to farm, to ride a horse, to cook. She was small, and her family spent a long time having to coax her into including English and French into her conversational Mandarin even well into her teens. She says it wasn’t because they were hard—she just didn’t like the sound of them. Alex used to tell her parents and her two little brothers and one older brother that Mandarin was like chewing bubblegum, and French was like chewing hay, English like chewing tobacco, and there was only one of those three things her tongue liked.

From the first day of school on, Alex liked to experiment with her hair. She would chop odd parts of it off, use watercolor paints to temporarily dye in highlights, pin it up, tie it up, braid it down, pigtails, ponytails, supposedly once a mohawk for about half a day before she was dragged out of school to change it. Her parents yelled at her to stop, and her neighbors and friends gawked and judged, but her brothers who liked trouble just as much as she did started to style theirs in solidarity. All three of them. Once her eldest brother wore a pink bow in his tiny little goatee, and his mother promised she would stop bothering Alex about the less ridiculous cuts so long as he never did that again.

Alex was often in trouble. Her parents were loving and good people, but four rambunctious kids was a lot to deal with, and life was hard. Life always seems to be hard, doesn’t it? Especially when you’re decent. I suppose that’s part of being human.

As is doing things you shouldn’t—another thing Alex loved. In particular, she was exceptionally handy—almost impossibly—at getting fires started. At age six, Alex set fire to her own hair to see if it would really smell bad. It did, but the experiment fascinated her as much as it horrified her mother.

At age eight, Alex figured out that certain household liquids were particularly flammable, and even more to her delight that so were several solid objects she had never even thought to suspect. In a quest for bright flames and the fulfilment of her wonder at the process of them, Alex almost killed everyone in her home by attempting to light, among other things, a large bag of fertilizer high in ammonium nitrate on their porch one night, but saw the “DANGEROUS: EXPLOSIVE” warning label at the last second and took the bag back into the barn, her family never the wiser (Possibly a wild stroke of luck, but I’d argue it’s more likely the universe probably wasn’t ready to let go of her just yet). They were, however, wise to Alex’s combustion of the town sign one year, when Alex was suspended from school for violating the dress code. So was the local Sheriff’s office. She was eleven at the time.

Afraid their daughter might lean into this life of arson, Alex’s father wisely led her into a different area of interest. While it had little to do with fire, it had a lot to do with tinkering and a keen mind—both qualities Alex also had in spades, and so mechanics became her new passion.

It started with her father simply taking her along to patch up tractors, the car, doors, windows, the windmill, the pump—anything—especially anything with enough gears to have some pluck to it. Alex had a gift for machines, and Alex was only 14 when she convinced the local mechanic to hire her on if she could fix the next car that came in by herself in under an hour.

While she failed spectacularly at this, because the car that came in had nearly been totaled in an accident, she got done—correctly—four times as much as the mechanic himself thought he could have done in an hour, so after a heavy amount of debating, drinking, and saying, “what the hell” to each other loudly while clapping each other on the back, the mechanic and his workers agreed to hire Alex on part-time.

Understandably, the thought of their 14-year-old daughter working as a mechanic was somewhat horrific to Alex’s family. There was a lot of panicking, and talking, and very persuasive counter-points about the Sherriff and fires and adult men and the dangers of mechanics, and in the end her older brother Ham (short for Hamlet, according to Alex herself, but of questionable credibility) also finagled his way into a job at the mechanics. Ham kept his job for the next 18 months, until he felt like he could sound the all-clear. Alex kept hers for the next seven years.  

I guess it would be more appropriate to say that Alex never really lost that job. She got interested in other things, rather, and started to move from fixing cars all the time to fixing them half the time, and building things at home, until by age 21, she wasn’t so much employed by the mechanic shop as she was simply a welcome face that ghosted in and out as she pleased, and took up an occasional odd job for them. As interesting as making things was to Alex, though, breaking them was more fun. Sure—Alex could do both. Her father used to try and persuade her to re-think her passion by saying anyone can break something, but only the truly gifted can repair them, but Alex decided that, while that might be true, only the really, really gifted could break things you weren’t supposed to be able to break, and get away with it.

When Alex turned 24, she officially stopped working at the mechanic’s shop altogether. To celebrate what she considered a banner year (reaching 24, for reasons that are still unclear to me), she decided to go on a tear with some new friends.

It was the dawn of the 1970s Alex was driving through, and counter-culture was on the rise in prominence all around them, and Alex was intrigued by every bit of it. While things were moving not quite in sync with their lower cousin country, up in Canada, the Civil Rights movement, the resurgence of groups promoting Women's Rights, the anti-capitalist, anti-imperialist, and anti-war movements all ricocheted around her. In particular, the American Indian Movement, which extended to Canada, caught her eye. While she had opted out of a college education, many of her friends were joining protests, and Alex agreed with the anger at the world around her. She had always wanted to break and burn things, but just for the joy of it, never with the intent of destruction or achievement in her heart. Suddenly, Alex had a cause.

None of this is to say Alex was a violent person, some pyromaniac with a hatchet and a can of gasoline. No. It was something very different. Fundamentally different even from the unmotivated chaos she had gravitated towards with wonder all of her life. For the first time in her life, things made sense to Alex, because everywhere she looked, Alex was seeing the people all around her struggling against law enforcement, establishment, government, war, and she looked down and realized all her life she’d been learning and training for really one thing—how to break stuff really, really well, and in that moment her father’s words came back to her, “Anyone can break things, Alex, but only the truly brilliant can fix things,” and she realized in that moment that he was right, but also that there were people out there fighting things they couldn’t beat alone and she had the particular skill set to help them. She was the key. Alex changed her mantra then. No more “Only the really, really gifted can break things you shouldn’t be able to break and get away with it,” no, that had been close, but the real truth was that, “Only the truly gifted can fix things, but sometimes the only way to fix things made wrong by others, is to break them.”

And break them she did.

   _______________________________________________________

 When he woke up, he couldn’t move. That realization registered before the pain in his chest or the burning in his veins. Fear.

Thick straps held down his wrists and ankles and others were fastened at his waist and throat. Something had been shoved down into his mouth—a rag maybe, and tied in place, and when he tried to shout he choked on it and only a muffled almost nothing came out. He tried to struggle and lunge against the straps then, but the straps didn’t budge, and the motion strangled him, and the strangulation with the choking were too much and he couldn’t breathe and that scared him and he had to stop moving and focus on forcing his chest to rise and fall and pump oxygen into his lungs. His breaths came in ragged and desperate, afraid.

As his eyes focused, all he could see was the white ceiling above him, so he turned his head to try and see his surroundings, and it was the same lab as before. The pain in his chest was worse than it had been when he lost consciousness and the shackle was gone and in its place were tight leather straps holding him down against a cold metal table. He remembered then—he remembered the strange man in the lab coat scraping skin off the corpse next to him and reaching for him and trying to fight him off and being injected with something. He remembered the awful feeling of trying to move and not being able to—like slowed motions in a dream but worse, and the way the man had picked up a weapon and looked down at him and knelt beside him to kill him.

He hadn’t killed him though, no—this was worse. His mind was filled with fragments and images—being chained to a wall and having syringe after syringe of gods knew what injected into his veins—the way he felt like he was burning from the inside out, and watching the thorny vines grow out of him and into him and peel the skin around his chest back until he wasn’t sure how he was still alive.

Thoroughly panicked, he tried again to fight the restraints with everything he had, thrashing in spite of the way it hurt and cut into his skin and choked him.

There was the hurried sound of footsteps then, and he turned his head and saw the man in the lab coat rush into the room from a little doorway on the left.

The second he saw that his subject was awake and trying to free itself, the man in the coat closed the distance with incredible speed, not pausing until he was beside the table.

The creature on the table continued to thrash and choke himself, trying desperately to get away, only becoming more frantic as he saw the man begin to dig through his bag and withdraw a large syringe full of something clear. The man in the lab coat paused then and looked down at him.

“Easy now—I can’t have you making noise and leading someone else here,” said the man in a calming voice, towering over his prisoner, “And I really don’t want you getting out and trying to kill me again. I’m sure you’re not enjoying this, but I need you here and still to fix this. Now don’t move. This won’t hurt you unless I mess up the insertion.” He held up the syringe as he said the last bit, and the man on the table felt the bottom of his stomach drop out at the sight.

The man in the lab coat put his hand on his prisoner’s head and forced it down and to the side, exposing the veins on his neck. He tried to fight back against the force of the hand, but he had so little ability to move at all, and he helplessly felt the chilled metal dig into his throat and the sensation of something cold spreading from the point, and his vision started to fog.

His memories hadn’t had time to un-jumble, and he was so confused and lost, everything coming in fragments that hurt, like pieces of a shattered mirror that cut when he tried to pick them up to look at them and remember. He couldn’t even remember why he was here, or where, exactly, he was—what was going on—who he was? Why this was happening? And now everything was fading again, before he had had time to do anything.

He felt the man let go of his head then, and slowly he turned his neck and looked back up at him, trying to see his face. Why? Why are you doing this? What do you want from me? Dark skin, but lighter than his own—and curly hair that fell in his face. He couldn’t make out the lab coat man’s features though. Everything was too blurry, and black was creeping in the edges of his vision.

Shit. He could see the massive hole in his chest and the vines digging into his flesh, but he was afraid something far worse would have happened by the next time he woke up. If he woke up.

“Please...” he tried to manage through the gag, but it just came out as a choked sound. He saw the man in the lab coat cock his head at him.

“What?” the man in the lab coat asked, looking a little surprised.

He tried to speak through the gag again but he couldn’t. The words slurred and just became a pained and weak sound, and then he lost consciousness again.

  _______________________________________________________

 “The subject is of African descent,” the man in the coat said into his recorder, looking down at the body on the table before him, “probably late thirties in age. I’ve been able to extract enough growth from his face safely that I think I can begin moving onto the more intense fusions.”

The layer covering the man on the table’s head had been almost more like a mask than growth. It had been connected to the skin, but more in the way a scab was than a tumor. Surface layer only. It had caused a lot of bleeding and skin loss, but he’d been able to get the horns and plants from off the man’s head, and there had still been a human face underneath. The bigger problem was going to be the man’s chest. The arms and legs, especially closer to the torso, were also deeply affected. It looked like the main serum injection point into this man had been through his back, right between the shoulder blades, and most of the growth stemmed from there. The plants had dug into his skin and back out, winding around bone and flesh and tearing through muscle and replacing it with themselves, wrapping all the way around to his rib cage and pulling the flesh back and away to expose his chest-cavity. He was missing chunks of so many internal organs it was almost unbelievable that he was still living.

“The organs present the biggest issue,” the man in the lab coat continued, pressing down the record button on his little recorder again, “I have been able to fairly successfully reverse engineer the serum used here—thankfully our destructive friend left unused samples, so I didn’t have to dig. However, reversing what has been done isn’t exact. I can get rid of the plants, but it’ll kill him, because undoing the damage there won’t bring back what the thorns and vines have torn through.”

He looked the motionless body up and down, wincing at the way the tendrils cut through its thighs and calf muscles and bit deep into its lungs. “It’ll die,” he continued in a voice that was slow and careful, “If I am not very careful.”

He, I suppose, thought the man in the coat to himself, not ‘it’.

The man on the table was breathing shallowly, raggedly, and it was getting worse the more of the serum damage he undid on the man’s body.

The man in the lab coat wiped his brow and took a deep breath, trying to think calmly. “Alright,” he said into the recorder, “There’s really only one possible way to do this. I’m going to have to inject him with my own alteration of the formula to keep him alive, while undoing the damage from my predecessor’s work.”

He picked up a handful of notes from a previously overturned gurney he’d repurposed and glanced at them, face forming into a grimace.

“Or, I guess I’m technically his predecessor,” he corrected, looking at the marked-up versions of his own research.

But what kind of fucking idiot just injects whatever he can find into the nearest people to see what will happen? Sure, he was a little impressed that according to these notes the lab’s previous user had managed to catch more than one thing that came after him, but injecting them with serum wasn’t about to help anyone—those things were hard enough to deal with before shooting them full of this stuff. The puss the serum was made from could do many things, but the most easy and basic of them was a loss of mental control combined with one of the most powerful steroids he’d ever seen. And that? That was about as far from the recommended combat strategy for a gigantic, armed monster he could think of.

The man in the lab coat sighed, picked up his syringe, and flicked it with a finger reflexively, watching the gold liquid settle. “I’m combining some of his own unspoiled DNA from the least affected areas of the body to see if I can accelerate the natural regenerative properties of the base serum I developed. I don’t want to have to inject him with the amount I know it’ll take if this doesn’t work out, because that’s likely to make him go mad…” he glanced down at the body, which was beginning to toss fretfully against its restraints. He placed his hand on the body’s forehead and felt intense heat. A fever? He’d been a motionless corpse to all appearances seconds ago. Apparently the first DNA shot was doing something. “The first dose is having definite effects,” he said into the recorder, “About a ten-minute delay between injection and response. Going in for round two.”

He set down the recorder, forced the weakly thrashing body’s head down against the table, and injected his syringe’s contents into its neck. The whole body shook under his fingers and went still, then started to toss again, but more slowly, more faintly. He still hadn’t regained consciousness, which was a blessing for them both. To his credit, there did seem to be some regeneration in the chest already. The muscles and skin were taking it faster than the organs though, which was worrying. Still, a little early to call it.

“I can see some cellular growth already,” said the man in the coat, pressing record, “but it’s slower than I expected. Still, promising. Seems to be inducing fever. It’s likely the plant tissue and the growth I’m inducing are treating each other like hostile bodies. We’ll see.” He sighed. “It’s going to be a long night.”

It was a very long night.

The man on the table woke up several times, the pain beating out the sedative. That was another problem—the man was already strong, and the serum boosted his defenses, and the man in the lab coat had to keep injecting him with more serum to keep him alive, but it was hard to tell amidst the unpredictable cocktail he was throwing into this person’s body exactly how his collection of sedatives would work, and he was choosing to err on the side of caution, because the drugs he carried were technically intended as a method of euthanasia. This, however, meant that the subject on the table kept waking up in intense pain and trying to scream, and fighting against his restraints and damaging himself, and he wasn’t sure what would happen if the man woke up to intense shock when he was in such a weakened state enough times. Mentally or physically. The fact of the matter was, trying to keep his prisoner alive was torturing the man to his breaking point. He could tell, every time the other man’s eyes opened wide with fear and his chest began to rise and fall at a panicked speed and he could quite literally see his heart beating inhumanly fast through the open chest wound, just how agonizing this was. The gag he’d made was good, and necessary—the creatures in the fog were always listening for sounds of life and pain—yet the pain was so unbearable that he could still make out his prisoner’s agonized screams through the gag that smothered them. He might be the only one who could hear, but the shouts echoed in his head long after he’d put the man under again. Often he found himself dozing off, only to be woken by a sound between a scream and a sob, choked and painful, and repeated, because the act of making it was the only relief from his intense suffering that his prisoner could try to give himself. As awful as the initial process must have been, the thorny vines forming and cutting through his muscles and pulling back skin, winding around bone, tearing away flesh as they forced their way in, the reverse process was just as bad, like removing a knife from some’s chest over and over, the agonizing pain of ripping out longer and more horrifying than the wound itself could have ever been.

It was like a nightmare, but a nightmare in which he was the thing stalking prey through the night for once; he was the beast ripping apart the same flesh and killing the same victim on repeat past the point where pain should lose meaning, and the man in the lab coat did not like it.

He thought about stopping—he would have, maybe. Several times he went up to the agonized man on the table as his chest tore itself apart and the serum in his veins burned with his blood, and he choked on his gag and strangled himself with attempts to get free, determined to just inject his prisoner with an overdose and end it, but each time he came to do it, the man saw him coming and looked at him with so much fear that he couldn’t. In its desperation, the subject on the table always tried futilely to get away from him, and never once did its eyes meet his with the request to just end it, but rather that was always what it seemed most afraid of, that the man in the lab coat was coming to kill, and if the thing he was cutting up into little pieces and tearing back together still wanted to live through all that suffering, how could he kill him?

It took 61 hours of this agony before the man in the lab coat actually believed what he was doing would work. He woke to his dismay from an accidental two minutes of sleep to see he’d fallen asleep across the stomach of his subject, but then as his eyes adjusted to the low light he saw that beneath the still partially-open chest wound, the subject’s lungs had begun to regrow. He should have gotten up and started working then, but he just stayed there, close to the unconscious man’s abdomen, watching the lungs reform for the next hour, praying thanks to everything he’d ever considered believing in that this had worked.

By the end of the next 24 hours, the most critical wounds had healed, and his prisoner’s vitals were becoming more stable and predictable.

It was also at the end of those 24 hours that one of the warning traps he’d set on the lab’s perimeter triggered, and the man in the lab coat knew he’d overstayed his welcome.

And then, it was also the time that one more thing occurred.

  _______________________________________________________

 When the prisoner came to, the unbearable suffering of the past several days was fresh in his mind, and involuntarily trembling at the memory, he waited to be hurt. But the pain was gone. Well, the pain wasn’t really gone per-se, but what he felt now didn’t feel like pain compared to the absolute, excruciating suffering he’d been waking up to for what seemed like an endless stream of nights. As he realized this, the man strapped to the table slowly opened his eyes, blinking at the harsh light. He couldn’t see much, even of himself, neck still strapped down to the cold metal table, but he turned his head to look for the man in the lab coat who was always there. He didn’t see him, for once, and as he considered that and the lack of pain he waited for the other shoe to drop.

The silence lingered though. The shoe didn’t drop.

Move, he told himself desperately through the drug-induced haze that still hung over him, he will be back soon, you must move.

He tried, using all of his strength to tear at his restrains, attempting to keep quiet as he did. Finally, in a burst of strength, he felt his right wrist break something—part of the strap holding it snapped, and another two tugs freed it.

As soon as he had a hand free, the fear of the man in the lab coat returning intensified. It was as if he could hear the seconds of his window of opportunity ticking away on a clock above him. With all his might, the prisoner grabbed the strap pinning his neck and started to try and break it, but his fingers grabbed onto the cold touch of steel and he was awake enough to remember how things like this worked, and he found the buckle for the restraint and released it. The strap at his waist still pinned him to the table, but he felt immeasurable relief at being able to move his head again. He wanted to go for the gag, but no, you have limited time, think, he told himself, and he undid the strap around his waist and hurriedly went for the one at his other wrist.

He heard footsteps then.

Shit.

He thought fast, considering trying to tear through the buckles around his feet and run, but he remembered the syringe and how fast he lost consciousness to whatever was in it.

I’m going to regret this, he thought in a controlled panic, and laid back down on the table, setting the straps at his neck and waist to look natural and slipping his freed hands back into place.

He turned his head towards the doorway and closed his eyes to imperceptible slits, waiting for the man in the lab coat. He didn’t have to wait long.

The man in the lab coat rounded the corner quickly, something between a jog and a speed walk, looking agitated but contained. He paused by one of the gurneys around the room to dig through his big bag, and he withdrew a bottle and a syringe and carefully measured out an amount for use, all the while casting glances back the way he’d come.

As soon as he had what he wanted, the man in the lab coat hurriedly crossed to the table his prisoner was strapped to.

“Okay,” he heard the man whisper to himself, “vitals…”

The man in the coat reached down to check his subject’s pulse, and the prisoner shot out his free hand and locked it around the wrist that held the syringe like a vice.

“Jesus Christ!” the man in the lab coat shouted in shock as he tried to propel himself backwards and jerk his hand away, but his prisoner’s own strength mixing with the overwhelming power of the serum made that like trying to free himself from a hydraulic press and his words devolved into a scream of pain as his prisoner increased the pressure on his fingers until he heard them snap.

The man in the lab coat let go of the syringe as his hand was crushed, and it fell to the floor where it shattered. He reached for the inside pocket of his coat with his other hand, but his prisoner was faster. He wasn’t about to be drugged again, and he grabbed the man in the coat by the throat and slammed his head forward into the side of the table, stunning him and cutting it open with a rush of blood, and then he slammed him against it again just in case, before throwing him with both hands at the nearest wall.

The man in the coat slid like a lifeless piece of debris and slammed into the ruined wall about fifteen feet back with a thud and lay there, trying weakly to drag himself to his feet, but dizzy and blinded by blood from his own forehead.

While he struggled, the prisoner sat up and jerked the restraints off his feet as fast as he could, rolling off the far side of the table as soon as he was free before even stopping to check where the man in the coat was. The second he hit the ground the prisoner regained his feet, taking a large piece of rock from the floor with him. His captor was still struggling to regain his own feet as he did so, and he moved towards him with the practiced walk of someone prepared to kill, knowing how fast the smaller man was and remembering what had happened last time.

“Wait, wait!” The man in the lab coat stammered out, making it to his feet and stumbling backwards along the wall, trying to keep away, “I’m trying to help you!”

The prisoner chucked the rock and the man in the coat ducked just in time. Debris and dust scattered over him as the rock broke into tiny fragments from the force of the throw.

The man in the lab coat came up with a shaking hand holding the small syringe he always kept in his breast coat pocket leveled at his assailant like a knife. “Listen to me, I’ve just been fixing you—” he stopped and rolled out of the way as his prisoner grabbed a drawer from a desk nearby and threw it at him.

They were about fifteen feet apart, the man in the coat trying to keep objects between them and wipe blood out of his eyes with a forearm while keeping his syringe leveled.

“You don’t understand,” said the man in the lab coat desperately, “please—I’m only—”

His prisoner saw an opening and leapt over a table between them with impossible speed, catching the hand with the syringe as it swung down at him and the two grappled. The prisoner used his superior size and strength to force the other man against the far wall as they struggled, cutting off any chance at letting go and making a break for his bag across the room and the supplies he kept in it. Despite how much smaller and weaker he was, the man in the coat wasn’t letting go of the syringe easily, and he was fast. Before his prisoner had time to really register what was happening, he got his feet up against the wall behind him and used it to propel himself forwards and knocked both of them to the ground, digging his teeth into the soft flesh of his prisoner’s hand as they fell. The prisoner let go on impulse, and was suddenly struggling against the full body weight of the man on top of him to keep the needle from digging into his chest. Desperately, with the bitten hand, he made a lung for the fingers he’d broken on his assailant, snatched them, and crushed the hand again with everything he had. The man in the lab coat screamed in pain and lost his grip, and the prisoner tore the syringe out of his hand and sent it skittering across the floor.

His captor fell back from him then, clinging to the broken hand and trying to crawl backwards, but he wasn’t fast enough, and the prisoner came after him, unrelenting, grabbed him by the throat and lifted him into the air. He struggled against the hand at his throat weekly, but the prisoner bashed his frame against the wall to stun him and his efforts weakened.

“If you kill me, you’ll die,” the man in the lab coat choked out, trying desperately to pry the fingers away from around his throat with his usable hand, “The serum dose I gave you is on a timer—without enough counteragent to level it out it’ll kill you.”

The prisoner hesitated, fear suddenly creeping in behind the rage and memories of night after night of anguish. Beneath his hand he could feel the skin on his enemy’s throat beginning to bruise and see his face start to turn pale blue-purple as he lost oxygen.

“Please,” the man in the lab coat managed, voice strained and ragged and weak, “You don’t have to do this—you’re not a monster—I can help you.”  The fingers which had been trying so hard to pry away his own lost their grip and were barely applying any force at all.

Monster? You’re the one who’s done this, thought his prisoner, still angry and afraid but suddenly feeling unsure, You.

The man he was choking to death was trying desperately now to make eye contact with him, his eyes pleading. His voice had lost its ability to be heard through the asphyxiation, but he could tell from the movement on his lips that he was trying to say “please,” and the prisoner remembered how he had done the same thing strapped to that table.

He might be telling the truth about the poison, he rationalized to himself, and let go.

The man in the lab coat fell to the ground, coughing and gasping desperately to fill his lungs. The prisoner could have killed him then, just as easily—stomped his head into the floor, run him through with any number of the sharp broken objects lying around. He couldn’t fight back, on his hands and knees, fighting to gain enough oxygen to keep himself from passing out. But he didn’t; the prisoner just stood and watched.

“Thank you,” he heard the man in the lab coat say weakly between coughs, cradling his broken hand “thank you…”

Both men heard the sound at the door at the same moment and turned to face it as one person. Footsteps. Loud and heavy. And fast.

He didn’t know what was coming, but he wasn’t about to lose his freedom again, and the prisoner closed his eyes and felt for his blade. Something told him he was going to need it. Who he was and why he was here had come back in pieces, and he remembered the gift his guardian had given him—the sickle with three prongs, and he tried to sense it, having no idea if it was still here. It had been when he’d first been beaten. Not by….

No, that’s right, it wasn’t this man was it? It was another. At least at first. He didn’t have time to wonder, he had to act. Reaching out, he could sense its presence under a pile of rubble halfway across the room, but he’d only made two strides towards it when the third man entered.

The prisoner stopped, watching, like a feral animal at the ready. The new man stopped too, turning to look from one potential victim to the other. He was big—maybe not quite as tall as the prisoner, but broader. Covered in muscles and chunks of metal, and dripping the same gold serum he himself had been only a few days ago. A mask with a false grin made of sharp teeth covered his face, and the prisoner couldn’t see his eyes through it.

“Trapper,” he heard his previous biggest problem whisper from where he was still trying to regain his breath on his knees.

The Trapper looked at him and he looked back. It was always grinning, and he couldn’t see its real face beneath the mask, but he had a feeling that it was smiling there too. It looked from the prisoner to the man in the lab coat, who had regained his feet and was doing his best to inch towards his bag on the table in the center of the room. Slowly, the Trapper gave almost a nod—as if he recognized him, and turned away from the prisoner. He started to walk towards the man in the lab coat, fingers flexing around an incredibly large meat cleaver as he did, easily cutting the man in the lab coat off before he could reach his bag on the table. The prisoner watched and backed up. He’s not here for me, he thought as his feet automatically took him towards the pile of rubble he could sense his own weapon under.

The Trapper got close and lunged at the man in the lab coat, who threw a handful of dirt he’d gotten from gods only knew where into his face, blinding him, and made a mad dash for his bag. He almost made it too, but two feet shy the gigantic thing chasing him snatched him by his collar and threw him against the wall he’d started by.

It was so almost exactly what his own first instinct had been minutes ago that it was uncanny, and for some reason it made the prisoner uncomfortable to see it playing out. He hurriedly knelt beside the rubble he knew covered his blade and dug through it until he found it—a bit dirtier for the wear, but perfectly intact.

He heard a shout of pain and turned to see the Trapper had thrown the man in the coat onto the ground and was pinning him there with a foot on his chest.

“Help!”

He knew the man in the lab coat meant him—that he was begging him for help—but why should he? After everything that…He looked down at himself and the hole in his chest that was gone and felt doubt again. He vaguely remembered the look on the man in the lab coat’s face when he’d been about to stab him after that first fight.

Fuck. Fuck! Maybe he’s telling the truth about the poison, he thought again, trying to rationalize a motive for his gut instinct.

With one hand, the prisoner used his sickle to cut the thick leather cord still wound around his mouth, and he pulled the rag that had been jammed down his throat out and spat it onto the ground.

“Please! I can help you!” the man in the coat called desperately, trying to look for him from his position pinned on the floor.

Why do you think I will help you?

The prisoner saw the Trapper bring his meat cleaver down and somehow the man in the lab coat moved so it just barely grazed him, and he hooked his foot around a cart behind the Trapper and brought it crashing into the man’s back, knocking him off balance just enough for the man in the coat to struggle free. He only made it four feet before the Trapper had him by the back of his coat again and rammed him against the wall, pinning him against it with his forearm. He drew back his meat cleaver as the man in the lab coat desperately struggled.

“He’s mine!” shouted the prisoner, leveling his sickle at the Trapper.

The Trapper stopped mid-swing and turned to look at him, very slowly. He took in the blade, the stance, the look on the other man’s face, and he let the man in the lab coat drop to the floor.

His attention on the prisoner now, the Trapper moved towards him with steady strides, and the two stopped and circled each other slowly, like feral beasts settling the score over territory, each waiting for a second of something they could use to their advantage.

The prisoner saw his first. He leapt over a table and swung at the Trapper, knowing it would miss, but giving himself time to dodge the counter-attack. The swing from the cleaver came fast and sure, and he barely ducked in time, using his momentum to go for a strike under the broader man’s ribs. His sickle hit exactly where he’d been aiming and cut in, but as it did and he moved back, the cleaver sliced backwards and raked him across the chest. He’d had no idea that someone could move such a big weapon so quickly in close quarters, and he tore his sickle free and gained some distance, the two circling each other again. He was faster than the Trapper, but his opponent was stronger. His blade was one made for stabbing—cutting into things. The Trapper’s was for slicing—clean, deep cuts, like a razor, where the sickle went in like a hook and dug. The prisoner tried to process this into a strategy, and his opponent saw an opening and took it, flinging a lamp at him. The prisoner ducked out of the way and rolled past the swipe from the cleaver behind it, getting in close for an upward swing at the chest again, but this time the Trapper moved, taking it only as a graze, and the prisoner barely managed to catch the cleaver in the prongs of his own blade as it came down with a strike that would have cut through his left side. They were close, almost grappling, and the prisoner leveraged himself and slammed his elbow into the other man’s face, moving to catch the cleaver again as it came for a swipe at his side, and using his free hand to punch the other man’s throat.

It worked, and the Trapper stumbled back and took the sickle across his chest, just shy of the neck the prisoner had been aiming for.

He pressed on with a vigor, trying to keep the Trapper from having a chance to recover, swinging relentlessly, hitting first the cleaver as the Trapper managed to block him, then the man’s forearm, his chest again, and then the man’s hand as he suddenly lunged forward and caught the sickle, seemingly feeling no pain as it dug into his palm.

With nowhere to go, the prisoner reached up for the cleaver he knew was coming and managed to catch the Trapper’s hand, leaving them locked in a grapple—his blade securely stuck in the other man’s hand, and the cleaver hanging above him with a fury, like a guillotine blade waiting to drop. Fighting with everything he had to keep the cleaver from coming down was the single hardest thing the prisoner had ever done. How the hell was the Trapper so strong? His memories clicked in painful crackles and it made sense then, as he watched the gold serum dripping down the man’s face. He could see it pulsing through cuts on his arms, flooding his veins, dripping down his cleaver. The horrible stuff had burned when it was inside him, but it had made him stronger. And as he watched, he saw the cuts he’d left on the man’s forearm beginning to close and then he could tell that he had been right. The Trapper was grinning under that mask.

He lost the struggle against the cleaver and let go of his sickle to roll out of the way, desperately shoving a cart between them. The cleaver sliced it in half.

The Trapper didn’t bother to take the sickle out of his hand. He just kept coming. The prisoner backed up just as fast, knocking a bookcase down to try and block the man’s path. The man just grinned at him, placed his foot against it, and crushed the solid oak like it was nothing.

Shit.

He was out of options. It has to kill him, or he’ll heal back too fast.

In a burst of speed, the prisoner leapt for the Trapper, taking the swipe from the cleaver on his left shoulder and ripping open the other man’s hand as he wrenched his sickle free. He swung for the throat and the Trapper’s damaged hand somehow still had the strength to catch the sickle again. The prisoner didn’t even have time to be afraid or do anything except focus on not losing his grip on the sickle this time before the cleaver came down and dug deep across his chest, and taking advantage of his lost balance, the Trapper placed his foot on the prisoner’s chest and kicked him backwards onto the ground.

Even wounded, the prisoner was fast, and he rolled the second he hit the ground, coming up sickle ready. As he did, he saw the Trapper take a step towards him and then roar and whip around, and he saw the man in the lab coat fall and roll back out of the way himself, emptied syringe in his hand. The Trapper swung at him and missed, and made it two steps after the retreating assailant before the drug overcame him and he fell to the ground with a crash that was somehow louder than anything the prisoner had heard during the fight itself.

They looked at each other then, the man in the lab coat and him, each breathing hard and damaged. In a rather horrifying moment of realization, the prisoner found that his legs were starting to give out underneath him. The blood. You’ve lost too much, his brain tried to warn him.

“Thank you,” said the man in the coat, starting to walk towards him, the brown bag that had been on a table now flung over his shoulder.

“Oh no,” said the prisoner, leveling his sickle at the man in the coat and backing up, his voice dry and ragged from choking on the gag and nights of screaming, “don’t come near me with that. You just felled a man twice my size with it. I’m not going back on the table.”

The man in the lab coat held up his hands, palm out, and placed the empty syringe on one of the room’s few intact tables. “Okay, okay.” He slowly took the bag off from over his shoulder and set it on the table, then turned to look at his prisoner.

“The lab coat too,” said the prisoner, trying to hide the weakness he felt coming over himself, “you keep one there.”

The man in the coat nodded and took it off, setting it on the table.

“Thank you,” he said again, gently, like someone trying to coax a frightened animal, “please, let me help you.”

“What do you want from me?” asked the prisoner suspiciously, taking another step back almost unintentionally as his captor started to slowly edge towards him.

“I want to help you,” replied the man, voice still calming, palms still up, “You’ve lost a lot of blood,” he added, gesturing.

“And the poison?” asked the prisoner, suddenly remembering that.

“Well, half-true,” replied his captor, “I really didn’t want you to kill me. I do have what you need to heal completely though, and you won’t on your own.”

The prisoner stumbled then and tried to catch his balance on a little desk as he fell, and missed, landing on his hands and knees. He pulled himself up quickly, but the damage was done. He could tell from the look on his captor’s face that he knew now how close he was to passing out.

“Just let me help you,” said the man again, too close now.

As he started to black out, the prisoner lost focus and fear kicked in, and he stumbled back in his desperation to get away, the memories of the table and the needles and the agony suddenly very strong and fresh.

“Keep back!” he said as threateningly as he could, raising his sickle.

“It’s okay,” the man said, not stopping, “I’m going to keep you from bleeding out.”

He fell again then, and his captor dashed forward and caught him before he could hit the floor. He tried to swing the sickle at him, but gentle pressure on his wrist disarmed him, and his vision started to go blurry.

“Don’t put me back on the table,” he said pleadingly. It was the only thing his panicked mind could think of—the thick leather, the cold steel.

“I won’t,” said his captor, steadying him, “now let’s just try to get you back over to my bag. I have a needle and thread and we can stop you from losing any more blood.” He slung his prisoner’s arm over his shoulder and used the not-broken hand to raise him up and shoulder him towards the table with his supplies.

“My name is Philip,” offered the prisoner weakly as he felt himself starting to slip away.

“What?” asked the other man, pausing from his focus on his destination to look at his prisoner in surprise.

“I just thought,” said Philip, losing consciousness, “that it would be harder for you to kill me if you knew my name.”

He was vaguely aware of the outline of the other man’s head nodding. “That’s smart. I wasn’t going to kill you, but knowing your name would make it harder if I was. I’m Vigo, then,” said Vigo, “just in case next time you wake up you want to strangle me again. I don’t want to die either.”

Philip blacked out then, slowly, like lights fading before a film began. The last thing he remembered was doing his best to repeat the other man’s name in a whisper so he would not forget it.

[littlefishbigsea]

Siren’s Umbra | Chapter 1

Author’s Note: This took far longer than I was expecting, but here it is. This story is an extension of a small scene I wrote a while ago (which will make a reappearance within the context of the story once I get there). I hope you enjoy. If you’d like to be tagged in future updates, let me know. 

Story Summary: Azriel finds it increasingly harder to stay afloat adrift in his own darkness. As tensions rise between himself and his found family, an unlikely but welcome distraction takes the form of a young priestess. Eager to prove her worth, to learn, and empower herself, Gwyn aligns herself with the aloof spymaster. With the continent scrambling to avoid yet another conflict, Gwyn and Azriel must work closely to unravel the secrets of Mount Ramiel.

Trope: Friends to lovers

Word Count (so far): 3.2k

Tags: Fluff, Light Angst, Smut

Additional links: AO3

Chapter 1 - On Leathery Wings

It was early spring in Velaris. The sky was a weighty blue velvet drooping over rooftops. Ironically, since the attack, the dawns had been breathtaking. As Azriel stepped out into the bright sunlight from the darkness of the townhouse his shadows all but disappeared.

“Well,” his brother said in way of greeting, smirking up at him from the street. “Don’t you look like shit? I thought moving to the townhouse was meant to give you peace?”

“I don’t know the meaning of the word,” Azriel grumbled, voice flat. “Why are you here?” And grinning, but he didn’t need to ask that to understand why Cassian wore such a look.

He’d been wearing it for weeks now. Azriel had been attempting to remove it during practice but the general was more resilient than Az gave him credit for. Cassian’s happiness was decidedly infectious.

“I’m here,” Cass answered, “Because Rhys would like to see us. He’s up at the House.”

“Why didn’t he-“

“Look,” Cass interrupted with a shrug. “I don’t know what’s going on between the two of you - I mean you almost killed one another at the cabin - but you need to work it out.” He waved a hand back and forth at the spymaster who scoffed and stepped past him. “I’m serious,” Cass went on to explain. “I could use a night out. Just us. It’s been a while.”

Good luck with that, Azriel mused to himself. Rhysand hadn’t left the River House since Nyx was born.

“Married life chaffing, Cass?” Azriel teased, biting back a smile.

“We’re not married. Yet,” Cassian corrected. “Emerie and Gwyn have been over almost every night this week. As much as I love-“

This is where Azriel tuned his brother out. Call it cruel, but this was the same one sided conversation he’d had with Cass, oh, three times now. Was it really conversation if only one of them were speaking? Azriel didn’t personally believe head nods and hmphs counted as conversing but he’d mastered the art form.

He sympathized. He really did. Cassian recounted being kicked out of his own bed, finding a small Pegasus in his boot and how one of the girls had, once again, inked something inappropriate on his forehead while he’d been sleeping. Azriel couldn’t help but smile at that, though he erased it quickly.

Cassian might complain but Azriel knew his brother adored his mate and her friends. Even he had to admit that the girls brought an abundance of laughter and joy to the House whenever the trio graced it’s halls. A rare and intoxicating sound that had even roused him from his room multiple times only to catch Cass peeking curiously at them from around a dark corner.

Though if he was being honest with himself, which he rarely was, Azriel was beginning to find the townhouse, comparatively, suffocatingly quiet. Too far removed from his family and friends. Late at night Azriel felt the creeping dark closing in, a sinister umbra spreading through him like venom. It was with great mental effort that he stayed his darker thoughts, but he was finding it more challenging of late. His ongoing feud with Rhys wasn’t helping.

Shadows dashed, darting from his shoulders to comfort the spymaster only to reel back in the morning light. Azriel focused his attentions away from the dark corners of his mind to beat of his footsteps. The last thing he needed to dwell on was what happened during Solstice.

It was still early morning in Valeris. The war-torn homeless still slept against the walls of buildings and the ice carts weren’t even out making deliveries. He preferred this time of day, just before the spring heat shimmered against the streets and curled the ends of his hair.

Aside from Cass, who was waving his arms, going on about the amount of women’s underthings he’d found in all sorts of strange places, it was mostly quiet. There was no one to stare or utter harsh whispers as Azriel passed.

Normally he flew or called shadows to him and winnowed within their comfort but this was a rare moment when Valeris was tolerable. He’d once described the city as the loneliest place in Prythian and he’d meant it. Tens of thousands of people flocked these streets and not a single one looked him in the eye. Very few did.

With one brother mated and the other in the process of being so, Azriel hadn’t felt more alone in his life. He had no stories to share with Cass on their morning walk. None that would make the general laugh or smile. No, his stories were best kept to himself - locked away were Rhys could extract what he needed and not question his shadowsinger’s techniques.

“You’re not listening,” Cassian suddenly accused, huffing a sigh. His arms dropped. The courts greatest general defeated.

“I’m always listening,” Azriel corrected. “You’re frustrated you don’t have your mate all to yourself anymore.”

“You-“ Cassian gave him a glare worthy of Amren. “And when have I had her to myself exactly? Every time-“

Again, Azriel tuned his brother out.

The House of Wind came into view, a great gleaming crown atop the mountains. His gaze lingered on the lower levels that housed the library. Not that most would know to look there as the windows were magically kept from view. The dozens of priestesses that worked in those stacks were kept hidden and protected. Just as Rhys had promised them.

Light flickered as shadow danced across his wings and over his shoulders. Braving the soft, dewy light to whisper in his ear, their chilling touch reached up his neck before spilling secrets.

She was at morning service.

A flash of color, heated cheeks and bright teal eyes - it wasn’t clear to him, still, this obsession his shadows had taken on. Over centuries he’d gathered unmeasurable amounts of information on his kingdoms allies and rivals. Yet, he couldn’t speak to what his friends had for breakfast this morning. He was painfully aware, however, that a certain priestess had sipped honeyed tea and eaten a single slice of rye smattered with butter and cinnamon and that her nose scrunched when she-

“Nesta wants you over for dinner,” Cassian commanded, ever the general.

“All right.”

“I have to go by the River House. Elain made a bundt. Nesta will likely murder me if I forget to bring it back,” Cass huffed. “Bundt? Have you ever heard of such a thing?”

“It’s cake.”

“Why not just call it cake then? Why be confusing?”

“It’s a type of cake.”

“No, chocolate is a type of cake.”

“Cass, chocolate is a flavor.”

As they approached the thousand steps that led up to the House, Cassian and Azriel kicked off in tandem aiming for the open balcony above. The air was cool as it passed over their skin, heated from the walk over. Matching the steady beat of his heart, Azriel’s enormous wings cut through the mornings low hanging clouds.

Rhysand, their High Lord, waited for them. Once he caught their approach he turned, heading inside. Azriel’s gut tightened. Their fights didn’t often escalate to this level. On a single hand he could count the times they’d fought to the point of not speaking.

His boots touched down upon stone before Cassian’s. He held, waiting for his brother. His hesitation to follow Rhys inside didn’t go unnoticed.

“Azriel-“

“He ordered me to stay away from Elain,” emotionless and flat, the words left his mouth before he could think better of it.

Silence settled between them. The rare outburst had Cassian’s eyes growing round and Az couldn’t tell if he was going to yell or laugh. Maybe both.

“Why,” Cass drawled so slowly Azriel almost missed what he was asking. “What have you-“

“I haven’t,” Azriel stopped him.

“How did you know what I was going to say?”

“I didn’t, I just know it wouldn’t be good.”

“Point,” Cassian admitted with a tilt of his head, “but why would Rhys ask you stay away if nothing was happening?”

“Something almost happened.”

“Something? Almost happened?”

Azriel sighed.

“Lucien-“ Cassian hissed.

“I know.”

“Feyre and Nes would have your balls.”

“Would they?”

“Yes!”

“Glad to know just how unworthy everyone thinks-“

A strong grip on his upper arm had Azriel turning, eyes flashing gold. Cassian’s gaze was hard, unapologetic. His hand dropped, fully aware of the rising shadows that now threatened to gobble his brother whole. The Night Courts general understood danger.

“It has nothing to do with worth,” he grumbled angrily in a rare sign of lost temper. “Everyone is overly protective of that girl, how are you surprised?” Azriel blinked down at him. “She has a mate, Az. Regardless of how either of you feel - which I really don’t want to know about, by the way, please leave me out of that shit - but like I was saying,” Cassian blew a breath from between his lips before going on in an even tone. “whether she wants it or not, she has a mate. She has a decision to make regardless of you.”

He had a point, one that Azriel laid awake at night thinking of.

“Besides,” Cass continued, turning to walk into the House. Azriel followed reluctantly. “You’ve been around each other all of what, 6 times? I mean, how involved are you that Rhys had to - you know what, I said I didn’t want to know.”

He almost smiled at Cassian’s bluster. Azriel was grateful for both his brothers and their never ending, often un-needed advice, but conversations like this if had with Rhys often descended into quick-tempered arguments.

The High Lord of the Night Court waited for them just inside. He held himself casually, pouring another mug of hot tea. The top buttons of his crisp shirt were undone but the stiffness in his shoulders told Azriel that Rhys was prepared for a fight at most, and at best he had news they wouldn’t like.

“Morning,” Rhysand greeted, lifting his face to them. Bright, amethyst eyes regarded each of the Illyrians, looking for anything amiss.

“Morning,” they answered in unison.

“How’s my boy?” Cass asked greedily, boyish grin in place at the thought of his nephew.

“Well, as is his mother,” Rhys replied eyes warming at their mention. That warmth didn’t last when his purple gaze met Azriel’s.

“I have something for you,” Rhys stated without so much as a lead up. Straight to business then.

“The queens are no longer a threat,” Cassian mused, dropping into a nearby sofa with no desire to confront Rhy’s straightforwardness.

“I need Azriel at Mount Ramiel,” Rhys corrected, tone leaving no room for discussion.

Cassian’s eyes darted between his brothers as the temperature in the room suddenly dropped. Leaning against the far wall, shadows coiled and snapped at the spymasters shoulders. His lips parted, an argument rising from his throat.

“The outside interests surrounding Ramiel concern me. Given Nesta’s vision, I believe it’s something we should look into with haste. If there is something of interest there, Azriel will find it,” Rhysand offered, cutting off the shadowsinger.

None of this came as a surprise to Az other than being kept out of the decision making. Ever since the Blood Rite, the war camps had been acting suspiciously and he knew it bothered Rhys to the point of keeping the high lord awake at night.

“You’re sending Azriel to the war camps,” Cassian barked. “Are we cutting them loose? Razzing them to the ground, then?”

“I’m not sending you to deal with the Illyrians,” Rhys corrected, eyes on his spymaster, and shook his head.

“He’s sending me to sneak around in the dark,” Azriel offered.

“You are quite good at it,” his brother smirked, violet eyes flashing in reply. “I’ve had the priestesses pull everything from the library, including my own personal collection. Lore, histories, whatever they could find.” Rhys took a long, slow sip of tea, eyes closing only briefly. “Gwyn has offered to assist in translations. Her command of ancient language is rather impressive.”

“Should you really be dragging the priestess into this,” Azriel accused.

“She volunteered,” Rhys countered with a shrug. “Besides, I think she’s proven herself to be capable, don’t you? She’s identified some areas of interest around the eastern slope. A good place to start.”

Seething, Azriel attempted to put a damper on his temper. He couldn’t help but feel that Rhys had gone behind his back. It was one thing to order him about, but what was he thinking involving Gwyn? The priestesses were never a part of this side of the kingdoms business. Icy rage spilled, drip by drip, down Azriel’s spine.

“Cassian,” Rhys observed, turning to their brother, “Elain was waiting for you at the River House this morning. Something about a cake needing to be retrieved? If you go now you might catch Nyx before his mid-morning nap.”

There was no argument from their brother. Carefully his gaze met Azriel’s, a gentle warning in their depths. He often found himself in the middle of their conflicts and Azriel had to respect that he didn’t complain about it. Much.

“I’ll let Nes know you won’t be at dinner,” he said. With a heavy sigh Cass lifted from the couch. He nodded his dark head at Rhys and then Az before sauntering back out into the light.

“What is this really about,” Azriel asked, voice as cold as his stare.

“I beg your pardon?” Rhys cooed with a raised brow.

“Why wasn’t I included in the planning?”

“I didn’t need you for it.”

The declaration hit Azriel in the chest like a fist. Air rushed out between his lips in a shocked gasp. He stepped forward, dragging shadow with him.

“Rhys-“

“It’s nothing personal, Az,” Rhys pleaded.

“Personal,” Azriel growled, voice low. “I’m your spymaster and brother.”

“Az-“

“You’re overstepping,” Azriel went on, the words flowing like the Sidrah - cold and unstoppable. “Again, you’re taking everything on yourself.”

“I’m only doing what I can to keep everyone safe.”

“Safe,” Azriel accused, “Is that what you were doing keeping Feyre in that bubble? Honestly, how do you find that any different than how Tam-“

“Enough!”

Beneath them the mountain shook, rattling glass and sending a few stray books to the floor. Rhys was on his feet, wings snapped open behind him. On opposite sides of the room, one bathed in shadow the other night incarnate, they regarded one another.

“Brother,” Rhys once again pleaded with his spymaster. “I know you’re angry with me. I admit, I have not been myself. Between Feyre and Nyx, you and Koschei - the fucking Dread Trove,” he trailed off, running a hand through his dark hair. “We’re spread thin, you know that. We need our allies. Old and new.”

He’d all but said the same on Solstice. After all these years did Rhys not see him? See beyond the courts infamous torturer? To the male that lurked inside his own shadows? A long, tense silence labored between them. As always, an impasse.

“Azriel, let yourself feel something for once. I don’t care who-“

“Is that all,” Azriel grunted, moving his gaze away from the high lord’s. If Rhys opened his mouth with more shit to give he was sure he’d lose what was left of his shredded control.

“Dismissed,” Rhys conceded, shoulders dropping.

Azriel was outside and shooting off the balcony into the sky before Rhys could utter another word. His wings churned the air with each vicious beat. Burning agitation flooded through him. HE could feel it in his very bones. Attempting to soothe, his shadows coiled close, whispering.

Rhys had a lot of nerve. Of anyone, he knew Azriel best. Mor always accused them of being too similar and its why they didn’t always see eye to eye. He wasn’t sure he agreed with that assessment. Rhys was level headed and controlled. Azriel felt as if he were unraveling. Control wasn’t the way he’d describe it, rather an effort to hide it all away so it didn’t need to be dealt with.

The training rings came into view as he rose but he didn’t linger, swinging wide so that he’d remain unseen. Dots of color milled about. The priestesses were gathering for training. He could sense Nesta below with Emerie. And her.

He would have to send word to Gwyn about postponing their lessons. Meeting with her had become something of a guilty pleasure. He found he enjoyed teaching the doe eyed priestess more than he thought he might. Training was Cassian’s thing. Az found he didn’t often have the patience or care for it.

Shadows hissed, warning not to rely on Clotho for this. Azriel would be better served sending a note himself. The thought of those large, sea glass eyes darkening with disappointment made his chest ache.

Let yourself feel something.

Rhys’ words replayed in his ear as Azriel made the descent to the townhouse. He’d moved his things over months ago though Cassian always seemed to find some excuse to get him back to the House of Wind. Despite living there for years it no longer felt like home to him.

It hadn’t come as a surprise when Rhys had asked him to chaperone his brother and future mate. Neither himself nor Rhys actually expected Azriel to have to step in between the two. Rhys had simply wanted a backup in the event Nesta lost control which was likely to happen given how often her and Cassian argued.

So, Az had let them battle things out on their own. And they had. All over the House in fact. Repeatedly.

Though he had to admit, interrupting them at the most awkward times had become a game to him. But, he had, in all the ways one would being around a newly mated pair, grew incredibly frustrated. In a way it had become a torture of its own.

That frustration was likely what fueled his blunder the night of Solstice. One look at Elain and he’d been as hard as the mountainside the House of Wind was carved from. Azriel hadn’t been able to help himself. She was beautiful and everything he forbid himself. She wanted him, it was obvious, which made the entire situation all the more confusing.

In the end, he wasn’t sure where he stood with the girl. Cassian’s hadn’t been wrong in his assessment. They’d barely spoken to one another, let alone discussed her intentions with Lucien… Azriel would rather not think on the male who’d sat idly by while his high lady’d been tormented.

Landing at one of the terraces, Az made his way into the townhouse. He’d taken the largest room upstairs. It had the most wall space for his blade collection.

Azriel threw daggers and maps into his pack with such force, they almost went through the bottom of the bag. Rhys was right to send him on this mission. He needed space. A couple months in the mountains would do good to clear his head.

Before he locked up after himself, Azriel grabbed some paper from his desk and wrote a quick note to Gwyn. His careful words sounded clipped and overly formal as he reread the hastily scratched message, but shrugged off the concern with indifference.

Without goodbyes, the shadowsinger quietly left the city of Velaris. His wings carried him away, further into the mountains. He tucked all thought of his brothers and the priestess with molten hair from his mind. Wrapping himself in shadow, Azriel became the cold, unfeeling monster his reputation afforded him.

He felt nothing. Was nothing. His Illyrian wings carried him further away until he was nothing but a bruise against an otherwise perfect sky.

[michellen324]

Heartslaybul Demon

Heartslaybul x Demon!Reader

Sypnosis: [Name] beating the shit out of Riddle in his Overblot form and possibly traumatizing the Heartslaybul dorm.

Disclaimers: I do not own Twst or KNY. As a demon, there will be mentions of violence, cannibalism and gore. Swearing is also included in this!

[Not that much Heartslaybul x Reader in this one too. I suck at romance :p]

Her eyes narrowed at the shorter boy in front of her. A barely audible sigh escaped her lips -stained red from blood, hers or someone else’s, she didn’t know- as she leant on a bush hedge in front of the crowd as two of her endearing idiots decided to battle the dorm leader for their freedom.

The fight began, and not a second later, the red and black collars snapped around their necks, blocking their use of magic.

A tyrant; He was no different from a tyrant, using his magic to harm others and have them bow before his feet for the sake of his rules. He was almost like him, but at least he wasn’t a merciless killer.

“You know..”

[Name] said, pushing herself off the bush hedges, and walking towards the trio.

“Enforcing these rules of yours are completely wrong, no? Are they really for the betterment of the dorm, or is it for your own hedonistic pleasure?”

The red-haired male turned towards her, angry that she dared defy him.

“What is wrong is all for me to decide! If you can’t even follow a simple rule, just what was your education like? You were probably born from parents that can barely use magic and didn’t even receive much in terms of schooling before coming here. You’re utterly inadequate.”

[Name] tilted her head at the boy’s words, letting a small smirk at his weak insults. If he was trying to get her angry, than he would have to do better. She’s heard better insults from the pitiful demons she’d kill in her lifespan. A small giggle left her mouth, making the few who heard her look at the girl in confusion.

Why was she laughing after she was insulted? 

“Shut the hell up!!”

Ace burst out, surprising the girl as he landed a solid punch on his dorm leader. Not bad. It was best if he did the punching, because if she were to start getting aggressive… she was most certain her target would end out alive -let alone in one piece.

An audible gasp was heard from the crowd of students, seeing their dorm leader get struck in the face extremely hard.

“Ahh... I don’t care. About the dorm leader, about the duel, any of it.”

“Ow... He hit me?....”

Sure, the dorm leader was skilled with magic, but considering his weak frame, he was easy to manhandle. A hit from Ace must’ve hurt him extra hard.

Ace muttered to himself, before going on a full blown rant. His words spoke nothing but truth, and you couldn’t have felt prouder at the fact his moral compass shone brighter than before.

[Name] hid her smile behind the flowing sleeve of her kimono, seeing Ace slowly push Riddle to the edge.

Finally, Riddle burst open and stated screaming as the headmaster and Trey attempted to calm him. With your sharper senses, you could hear another student in the crowd finally snap and throw an egg at Riddle. 

[Name] almost lost it right then in there, covering her muffled giggles with the soft cloth that was draped on her. 

Her laughs were soon stopped though, as the dorm leader collared every student. Sharp [EyeColour] eyes narrowed at the male, knowing full well that must’ve taken a lot out of him. 

She let out a small ‘tsk’ and felt the collar now around her neck, not liking the tightness of it. Breathing in, she felt he blood demon art still flow throughout her. It seems like the collar didn’t work when it came to demons. Now.. would it be possible to rip it off? It’s made from magic, but since it took on a physical form, surely she could destroy it with enough force. If that didn’t do it, maybe she could decapitate herself and wrangle the collar off.

As the students started flooding towards the exit of the garden, [Name] watched as a huge wave of magic erupted, transforming the once beautiful garden to what looked like a battleground.

Her hands reached the collar around her neck, and surely enough, she could snap the collar off, hearing a satisfying snap and crunch of the collar snapping in half. Huh, guess her theory was true.

[Name] braced herself for the impact of the magic force, but found herself facing nothing as sudden glowing symbols of the cards started flowing around, covering the rest of the students and protecting them from the force. The rainbow colours and faint glows made the card suits look increasingly beautiful as they flew around and illuminated her face in the darker garden.

It was Trey’s doodle suit! His magic had quite the potential after all, and she wondered if he would be able to overwrite her demon blood art, or if he could even overwrite someone’s existence? The magic could be deadly if used and manipulated in a creative way.

That was the final straw for Riddle, as he ticked slowly into madness. The smell of ink was stronger than before, and finally, Riddle stood looking different. He was in a dress decorated with thorns as his left eye glowed a red. His voice was a deeper echo than before, truly ending the look with a villainous touch.

To any normal person, they would be shaking by this threatening person however, [Name] was not a normal person. In fact, she wasn’t a person at all. She was a demon, and as all demons do, the one person they feared was the man they were forbidden to ever speak about, made by him, and cursed to never say his name.

In fact, as someone who has met and fought plenty of demons, all of them she met -even the unfortunate children- were much more terrifying than him.

[Name] let out a laugh; One that everyone could hear. This was amusing to her, and she briefly wondered what “Overblot” humans taste like.

“Uh, [Name]? I don’t think this is a time to be laughing.”

She waved off the concerned words of Ace and Deuce, as she walked towards Riddle. Everyone else made noises of surprise and displeasure, not knowing that [Name] was quite literally immortal and could not be killed anymore.

“How... How dare you!? I’ll take your head first!”

She let out another laugh at this. Even if her head was removed from her body, both would function just fine on their own. Her head would grow arms and eventually a body, while her body would act like a well-animated corpse until she instructed it not to.

“And how will you do that, Rosehearts-san? You’re collars won’t affect me, and even if you rip it off with your bear hands, I’ll still live.”

She mocked Riddle, walking closer to him. Now that she was out of range from Trey’s doodle suit, he attempted to collar her once again. A cold metal wrapped around her neck, and for a second, Riddle though he had won against the confident female. That was until he heard the snapping of a metal, to which he saw [Name] rip off the metal with her bare hands.

A scary smirk emerged on her face, making Riddle gulp and back away. Something about her... it screamed for him to get away from the scary [HairColour]-[n]ette female.

“Start praying to the Great 7, because you’ll be lucky to leave with every chunk of flesh on your bones.”

The battle was extremely one-sided, as Riddle couldn’t even dream of matching her physical capabilities. Despite the magic he shot left and right at her, she either dodged, or let herself get hit right on, only to suffer near to nothing or regenerate in less than five seconds.

The only real threats she faced were back in her world, but she was in a whole new one now.

[Name] made sure to hold back, as punch after punch, kick after kick, and throw after throw, [Name] finally had Riddle was beat into submission.

He was tired, over-exerted, and in pain. [Name] was perfectly fine however, and maybe even looking a little refreshed. The rest of the witnesses were in shock though, even Ace, Deuce, and Grim. The three knew that she was strong since she was able to defeat the monster in the mine with a single punch, but this took the cake.

Slowly but surely, Riddle turned back, the magic in the atmosphere being removed. As Riddle panted on the ground, he felt her grab his arm surprisingly lightly and felt himself move in front of her.

With a smile and a much more calm face, [Name] turned around to the (terrified) crowd of students looking at her.

“I’m done!~”

One face that showed pure bliss, others showing terror, that was the beginning of the rumors of the so called ‘magicless’ prefect, also known as.

“The Demon”

[adam-banks2024]

Bliss

Word Count: 2.1k

Summary: Adam steals you during a long study session to go play some hockey like the good old days.

The scent of parchment paper filled the Great Hall, along with that of fresh ink. You could see it shine on the paper if you were seated directly in front of a tall window. The most light comes through during sunrise and sunset, but at the time I’m studying, I wasn’t there during those hours. 

It was almost noon on a Saturday, but here I am, studying. These tables were a place I usually enjoyed, mostly because of the large quantities of food, but it soon had become the place that gave me migraines and a strong urge to doze off every now and then. 

Ever since I started my sixth year, the advanced potions class had turned into a monstrosity that I wasn’t sure I could handle. At first, it started with a few trips to the hall every month. Then it turned into weeks...and now I’m studying during most of my free time. 

I can’t understand why I’m struggling with this class in particular. In all of my other classes, I’m performing above average. Apparently, I just can’t get the hang of “the art that is potion-making.” God, if I hear one more uninspiring word from Snape I might jump from the Ravenclaw tower.

At this point I had been studying for at least four hours now, and I hadn’t even eaten anything that would resemble breakfast. Unless two stale crackers count. The best part about the whole situation is that I had only managed to memorize the ingredients of one potion in my whole time studying. One. So, still, I must persist. Because I do not want to spend a study hall with Snape. I let my grade fall once and suddenly I found out how awkward and unsettling an hour with the professor was. It’s not like he would even help me. He just told me to read from the book and stared at me the whole time. As much as I hate to admit it, having no time to relax was better than spending any extra time with Snape than I had to

As I reached across the table for more ink, a separate hand was already there. 

“Hey.”

 A long, dark robe hung from his shoulders, and a green and grey scarf was loosely wrapped around his neck. His cheeks and nose had a blush, while the rest of his face appeared icy. He carried a bag with him that had unorganized papers going every which way. 

“Oh hey, Adam. How’ve you been?”

Adam passed the vial to me and I dipped my quill. He put his belongings on the table and sat on the bench. 

“Pretty good. You?” He ran a hand through his hair, trying to calm the mess. 

“Eh. I’ve been better.” My voice was laced with tiredness and a pang of hunger. Nothing that would have been noticed, though. 

He paused for a moment and then spoke again. “What’s wrong, Snape got you down because he couldn’t meet for a study session?” 

I snorted. Me missing Snape? Yeah, sure, in his dreams. It took me a few seconds to compose myself before I responded. “No. Quite the opposite actually.” Adam hummed in response and gave a small laugh. 

Once the noise subsided there was an awkward pause. I was waiting for him to respond, and I honestly didn’t know what to say. I hadn’t had a decent conversation with the kid since the beginning of fifth year. Now we’re almost done with our sixth. I decided that maybe if I returned to my studies, he’d take that as an opportunity to drop the conversation. 

I hadn’t even gotten the chance to open my book before he cleared his throat. “Gosh, I feel like I haven’t seen you in forever.” He leaned his arm against the table and rested his head in his palm, fingers twiddling with the feather of my quill. 

I sighed, slouching in the process. “Yeah. Social interaction has been foreign to me.” 

Adam moved his other arm to the table, resting his head in both hands now. “Well I’m glad that you were just studying and not being torn apart by the whomping willow.” 

“Haha, yeah. I think I would prefer the willow.” We both laughed, knowing that potions class was hell. Well, I assumed that he thought it was hell. 

“Ahh, don’t say that.” It looked as though he was trying to think of what words to say. Mouth opening and closing, eyes darting everywhere. He must have pieced together what he wanted to say.  “You should join me and the guys for some skating.” I shrugged my shoulders, not answering. I knew that if I entertained the idea at all then I wouldn’t be productive the rest of the day, so I decided to read over my notes to get my mind off the subject. Still, Adam persisted. “Maybe take away some of your stress?” I paused. A break sounded really nice, but could I really afford one right now, or even have enough energy? 

“I don’t know, Adam. I have an exam on Tuesday.” 

Adam stood up and walked around the table with a childlike bounce in his step. “C’mon, y/n, it’ll be fun. Just like old times.” Now he was sitting right beside me, his lip now forming a pout.

 “Well...I guess skating for an hour or two couldn’t hurt. What time were you thinking?” He pulled me up. “Right now!”

All of my belongings were still in the hall, but I don’t think Adam had any regard for that. He seemed extremely excited that I had agreed to go skating with him. Well, and other people. Obviously. It’s not like it was just an invitation with him. They probably just needed an extra player so the teams were even. Whatever the case, I was glad to leave my studies for a few hours. 

We earned glares from the portraits as we ran through the west wing haphazardly, bumping each other as we went. Giggling filled the air and it was just like it was a year ago. There was no awkwardness, no distance. It was like we had stayed in touch the whole time we were apart. I’ll have to make a mental note to not let that distance between Adam and I grow again. 

“So, this is where I leave you.” I smiled at him as I turned to enter the Hufflepuff common room. “Well, for a moment. I don’t really want to get yelled at for being in  another house.” Adam shifted his feet.

“Oh. lighten up, cake eater.” He didn’t say anything, just stared at me. “Okay fine. If you’re that much of a stickler to the rules, you can stay out here.” He gave a sheepish grin.

As I walked up the stairs to my dorm, I wondered how that kid was even in Slytherin. He follows the rules, he’s super kind, and he brightens the room. Then again, you find tons of kids who break their house’s stereotypes. 

I ended the thought as I reached to grab a coat, scarf, and my skates. It had been at least half a year since I used them, so there was no doubt that I would be a little rusty when I got back on the ice. Once I was all bundled up, I made my way back to the hall where I found an Adam Banks standing in the same position that I had left him.

He gave a small smirk as I exited. “Ready?”

“As I’ll ever be.”

He hooked his arm through my arm and started to tow me to the frozen lake that was above the Slytherin common room. A blush drew to my cheeks, but I wrote it off as the scarf I adorned. Thankfully he didn’t notice. He was so focused on getting to the makeshift rink that I don’t think anything could have phased him. Not even Dumbledore in a bright, pink dress. 

The trek was long, but there wasn’t a lot of snow, so that made the trip more enjoyable. As we neared the lake, I could see the other guys in the distance. I could only make out Connie and Guy because they were holding hands, but there were four other people that I couldn’t see out on the rink. 

“Who’s all gonna be there today?” I looked up at Adam. The blush on his nose was even darker now because of the cold.

“Umm, Charlie. He had the idea in the first place. Averman wanted to come too. I think Connie and Guy. And then we asked Julie and Goldberg so we had goalies.” He smiled as he spoke, his love for hockey apparent.

Adam and I had played together when we were first years, but we hadn’t really known each other then. That’s where I first learned how to even skate. While I was still getting the bearings, Adam was already an extremely skilled player. When we were closer he used to tease me about it all the time, but he eventually stopped, and then just stopped talking to me all together. Maybe that’s why I’m so excited to go skating with him. After all, there’s no better feeling than reconnecting with an old friend.

The lake was pretty bare aside from two makeshift goals on the ice, and a few benches on either side. There weren’t any blue or red lines that we would have for actual games. Just plain ice. 

“And you’re sure the lake is frozen enough?” Images of me falling through into the chilly water invaded my mind. 

Adam shrugged his bag from his shoulder, “I’m a hundred percent sure. And if I’m not, I personally allow you to punch me.”

I rolled my eyes as I started to sit on one of the benches, putting a skate on. “Wow. how convincing.” He didn’t respond, so I just laced up my skates. Looking at the other people skating around, I wasn’t so sure how good I was gonna be. It had been at least three years since I’d really played a game of hockey, and you could clearly tell that these people practiced consistently. 

I stood up once I laced my other skate, and started to make my way to the ice. Much to my surprise, my balance wasn’t awful. I could successfully skate and stop without much effort. There were still times where I would wobble or need to regain my balance, but I should be able to hold my own. 

Adam brought me a stick and nudged my shoulder. I almost tripped, but I caught myself before anything else could happen. 

“You’re real funny, Banks.” I spoke through gritted teeth, still struggling to stay afoot. He offered both of his hands out to help me gain my bearings again. To my surprise, he started skating backwards, pulling me forward. I laughed, “where are we going?”

I could see Adam’s breath as he laughed with me. “To play, silly goose.” An amused expression was painted on his face while speaking, and he gave a big smile after. I started to skate with him instead of just letting him drag me along. After a moment, he just stopped. Because physics exists, I kept sliding and bumped into him. I almost fell but Adam grabbed me by the elbows before I could drop to the ice.

When he pulled me up, our faces were only an inch or two apart. The world around me seemed to fade until it was just Adam. Neither of us had said a word, we just stood there. Staring at each other. It was in that moment when I realized the blades of my skates were slipping on the ice. I didn’t really know why, because the lake was definitely frozen over, like Adam had said. It might have been because my knees had locked

Then I noticed the slight tug on my arms. I realised I was being pulled, not slipping. I was being moved at such a tiny rate that it was almost unnoticeable. Almost. As I neared Adam’s chest, I simply stopped breathing. My heartbeat sped, and I slowly started to lose my hearing. This feeling that I was only now feeling, had it been there the whole day? At the table, running through the hall, walking to the lake. Was it there the whole time? I was just to blind to have seen it. All of the time Adam and I had spent before we lost touch, was the feeling there too? 

Once there was no more room between him and I, Adam started to part his lips. My stomach was instantly in knots, and my mind preparing myself for the moments that were to come. Nothing else was said, and Adam closed his eyes. With no hesitation, he closed the gap between us, and pressed his lips against mine. 

There were no fireworks. No sparks, no pits in my stomach. Just pure bliss, as I kissed the boy that I met in fifth year.

[burnedbyshoto]

eternal love

— A simple love story between a tattoo artist and a flower shop owner. —

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pairing: todoroki shouto x reader

warnings: fluff, cursing

word count: 10,505

a/n: so, ngl... this was something that blew up in my mind at 2 am a few nights ago and after fighting others on whether I should write it, I finally did it!!! I super loved writing this, and I hope you guys will enjoy reading it!!!! a lil fluff for the soul, have fun :D also uh, this works for @bnhabookclub​‘s event so huzzah!

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Spring was a season of renewal. The world is going back to what it once was in its beautiful glory. Baby pinks and soft greens illuminated as far as the eyes could see, the morning mist unable to freeze because of the warmth in the ground. 

The gentle echoing sounds of animals, insects, and more returning to regular activity, the cold winters finally defeated. Butterflies danced in the air, birds sang in the trees, and love was in the air. 

What would be perfect with love?

Flowers.

“Good morning, y/l/n-san,” an elder greeted you.

Your cheeks were already burning with exhaustion, it was only eight in the morning, and you were tired. You wiped the back of your hand to your sweating forehead, your fatigue ignored while you smiled in greeting. “Good morning!”

She stared up at you with kind eyes, her hands holding onto her cane while she cocked her head to the side, “You seem to be quite exhausted this morning.”

There wasn’t much you could say or reply with because it was true.

“Well, we finally have a whole bunch of flowers back, and with White Day approaching us, I’m trying to make sure we’re on track!” you explain, trying to fix the multiple buckets of assorted flowers that you would have outside of your store.

You were a flower shop owner. 

Your entire life, you had lived a life where you had grown up working alongside your parents. This was a family business, and with your parents eldering years and you finally back from schooling, they had decided to take an impromptu trip to see the world, leaving you behind to take care of the store. It wasn’t something you minded; after all, they had allowed you to seek all of your own adventures in your life despite only being owners of a flower shop, but it was a lot of work for just yourself. 

You couldn’t hire anyone to work at the store, after all, while you had never grown up to live in a moment of discomfort, it was because your parents and yourself busted your backs for this store was why it survived. But now it was just you.

Winter had been fine, the flowers never had to leave the store, but this was spring.

Renewal, return, and romance suffocated the airs of Japan, and your slow winter business was already becoming a quick and demanding spring one.

Brushing your soiled hands onto the relatively clean apron you wore, you sighed at the sight of the elder looking past you. ‘Was she that old that she spaced out in public?’ you couldn’t help but think while staring at her. 

“Who’s moving into that shop there?” the elder spoke up, and you hummed, turning around to follow her extended finger. 

The shop next to your family’s flower shop had been vacant for years, the last time you remember anyone being there was in middle school. Now in your early twenties, you didn’t even realize that anyone was moving in. There were a lot of men too! How you had so apparently been ignorant to their massive hustle to move things in shocked you. Damn, maybe you were past the point of exhaustion at this point…

“I… I don’t know,” you admitted, your eyes growing when you realized just how neater the store looked. They had obviously been working on repairing the store for some time now, the store was painted in a clean and crisp color, the brick walls scrubbed and glittering like new. It was pretty aesthetic.

 “Y/l/n-san! Please help me, it’s my wife’s promotion day, and the flowers I ordered online never arrived!” a voice screamed from a distance away, and your attention turned towards a man who was sobbing while scampering his way over. 

And even with your want to just stare at the army of men moving in machines you’ve never seen in your life, you exhaled softly, turning to face the scared customer.

“Of course, follow me!”

You bid your farewells to the elder and hurried inside, ready to create an arrangement of flowers that the customer would enjoy.

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Your exhaustion of the day never seemed to end, the spring day had brought a plethora of customers to your storefront. Many couples, new and old, are surfacing to pick out fresh bouquets together. Their happiness is charming, personalities warming and smiles ever so sweet. They always asked about how you were doing, how your parents were doing — after all, this was a tight community, and they asked about the new business next door.

You couldn’t respond to that last question, your face always burning up in your embarrassment of not knowing. There was no reason for you to not know, after all, it wasn’t as if you were ever doing anything that wasn’t running the store. There was no one to rely on but yourself at this point, but still, exhaustion didn’t mean you could miss the purchase and remodeling of the store right next door to you!

Soon it was nine at night, the now empty wooden carts that were once outdoors dragged back indoors of your store. You took count of your sales today, grinning to see that you had managed to sell everything you had put out today except for a few leftover peonies. You moved back towards the door, ready to turn the Open sign to the Closed side. But you paused when you saw three men walking out of the neighboring shop. 

Your eyes focused on the three of them talking comfortably. You had no idea what they were saying, but still, you concentrate on them, curiosity getting the best of you. They talked for a while while you continued to peer through the glass on the door, the conversation must have been lively considering that one of the men was laughing so frequently you almost wished you could hear what they were saying. But alas, eventually, they embraced, and two of the three men entered the large truck that had been parked in the alleyway practically all day and left.

Frowning, you saw that the man was still standing out there. He was unmoving, looking at who knows what with his hands stuffed into his pockets. The night was dark, and the lights on the street did little to help you create what he looked like in your mind. But with a passing car, the soft light illuminating the man with the gentle headlights, you got a clear image of him.

Well, it would have been clear had your guts scrambled into a knot at the sight of his own eyes piercing into yours.

He had noticed you.

With a loud cry, you dove to the floor, your hands pressed against the cool wood while you thought about your next plan of action. Would he come and confront you? Stalking people like this wasn’t cool in the slightest, and if he wanted to walk over and ask you about it, you wouldn’t be able to lie in the slightest. You knew that about yourself. Or maybe it was just you freaking out? There was a solid chance that this was just you freaking out, right?

Your palms sweat while you pushed off the floor, your body trembling as if you were the starring role of some American horror movie. Sucking in your air, and with a hammering heart, you peeked through the glass. No one was out there.

Sighing in relief, you were grateful to believe that it was either your imagination that he stared at you, or he just didn’t care. But still, even with the exhaustion weighing heavy in your bones, you knew you owed him a greeting. Your mother would have your head when she returned if you didn’t. Plus, it helped that the pink peonies still sat in the bucket, their petals still strong and firm, beautiful and lively. 

With a nod, you walked over to them. Grabbing the peonies, you organized the delicate flowers into a full and lush looking bouquet. You hoped that he liked flowers, and wouldn’t mind the kind you gave him, primarily because you couldn’t provide him with anything else. Nevertheless, you wrapped the flowers in a tan paper and walked out, ready to give your greetings to a newcomer.

The store felt a world away while you walked towards it, and upon stepping in front of the store, it stole your breath away.

It was a tattoo shop.

Tattoos in Japan were no longer being associated with the Yakuza, years of trying to get everyone to accept this western practice by the younger generations had finally succeeded. Tattoo shops were blooming in numbers across the country, and it seemed that your area was no different. 

The outside had large windows, and without even entering the shop, you found it to be quite classy indoors. This wasn’t at all what you were expecting from a tattoo shop! You had always assumed that it was black, something similar to the gates of hell feeling. But with the sign not claiming it was closed, and the store hours showing that it was open until eleven at night, you pushed past the doors. You were glad to see that your pink peonies would make a generous splash of color in the darker colored storefront.

“Hello?” you called out, your voice ever so softly echoing against the unoccupied room. “Is anyone here?”

Cringing at what you said, you groaned. If there was no one here, would that make you a criminal? Oh god, please don’t let that be true! But if there was no one here, why would he leave with the lights on and the door unlocked?! How stupid—

“Can I help you?”

Oh fuck, you’re screwed, was all you could think at first when you turned towards the black curtained hallway. 

The man who stood there was tall, his shoulders wide, and legs firm. His arms — which were covered shoulders to wrists in tattoos, his right side containing only black inked tattoos, and his left in the most colorful ink you’d ever seen — were defined with muscle, stretching the fabric of his dark grey t-shirt. 

A line of piercings down the cartilage of his ears, identical on both sides of his head. His hair, however, was something you’ve never seen before. Half white, half red, with an undercut and detailed shavings at his temples, it was currently held back with a thin black headband that exposed his eyes to you. He was heterochromatic, you could tell immediately by the piercing blue and dark grey eye color he held. But there was nothing to disguise your reaction when you saw the tattoo — scar? — that covered his eye like an overlarge eyepatch.

There was no smile on his face, just a quirked eyebrow and his lips set in an unamused frown.

“Is that a tattoo?!” you asked your jaw to the floor. Your fingers touched the place where the red skin on his face would be on your own. 

“No,” he responded after a beat, his eyes were unbelievably annoyed. Obviously, not at all amused by your intrusion and rude words. “It’s a burn, but again, can I help you, or are you just going to stand there and stare. Not that you look the type to get tattoos, though.”

“I do have piercings, though,” you couldn’t help but defend yourself, your skin feeling like it was burning under his gaze. “But okay, yes. I mean, no! No, you can’t help me because I’m not here for your services.”

His gaze on you only seemed to intensify, a fire and ice storm erupting in his eyes while you wanted to punch yourself in the throat. Good god, be normal.

“I’m your neighbor! Well, I guess I can give you my name. Y/l/n y/n at your service,” you try, your hands thrusting out the peonies in your grasp. His gaze didn’t drop to the flowers, not even a twitch of an eye, which only coursed anxiety through your blood. “I’m the owner slash, not the owner of the flower shop! I hadn’t noticed you ever moving in except today, so I felt super bad! Um, so I just wanted to stop by and say, well, welcome! And uh, well… I just felt bad! These are peonies.”

“I know what flowers those are,” he responds, but his gaze remains unfazed.

What the hell was his problem, you thought, the hairs on the back of your neck rising as if you were being confronted by a deadly predator and not some stupid hot tattoo artist with a bad attitude.

“Oh, cool! Most people think they’re roses for whatever reason,” you laugh, looking at the flowers, your shoulder shrugging. 

“I also know they’re the only flowers you had leftover from your sales today,” he spoke again, and your face twisted when you returned to his gaze again. 

“Excuse me?”

“I was outside when you were pulling all your carts inside, and they were the only ones who weren’t sold today,” he shrugs, his arms crossing before his chest. The muscles on his arms only seem to expand at this, the ink dancing across his skin, forming new images in your mind while you feel like punching him in the jaw. “Is that what you feel about your new neighbor? I’m deserving of day-old flowers that you were unable to sell?”

“Of course not!” you exclaim, the frustration in your blood climbing while you held his stare. “I mean, are they new and super fresh flowers, no! But they haven’t even wilted yet because I know how to take care of my crap! I just finished the winter season where flower sales are always less than favored, so sorry I couldn’t toss you a thousand yen bouquet!”

There was a silence that floated across the room, his eyes staring into yours, and you could do nothing but stare back at him. Your shoulders rag with your uncontrolled angry breathing, what a fucking asshole he was! Who did he think he was?!

“Well, I guess I’m sorry to hear that you’re broke,” he sighs, finally taking strides over towards you. There’s a part of you that yells to leave the store immediately, and an even larger part of you that screams to step at him too, throw him off his trail! But in your indecisiveness, he stands before you, taking the flowers from your hands. “Todoroki Shouto.”

“That is so obviously not my name,” you roll your eyes, your arms folding across your chest. 

There’s a small huff of air from the man, his eyes looking at you full of judgment and the smallest bits of amusement. 

“Oh!” you gasp, your hands covering your mouth.

“I’m Todoroki Shouto,” he tries, his eyebrow lifting again, his lip trying perking into a smirk. “But, thanks for confirming we don’t have the same name.”

If there was a god, he would shoot you from this world at this very moment; your fists shoved into the pockets of your apron.

“Okay,” you agree, your lips pursing in your horrible, horrible attempt at masking your hurt pride. “Well, I am utterly exhausted, so I am going to leave now. Have fun with your dumb tattoo shop, Todoroki-san, I am… going to sleep.”

You turned on your heel, ready to run from this shop like the devil was hot on your heels.

“Well, see you around—” he responded, your hands pressing onto the door to leave— “Y/l/n.”

The ringing of your blood in your ears heavily outweighed his voice because you didn’t even stare at him as you continued to walk down the pathway to reenter your shop. Maybe it was a good thing you didn’t look back because had you, you would’ve seen Shouto’s fingers caressing the pink petals of the flower, and his lips moved to say one thing.

“Welcome.”

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It had been a week since you had seen Shouto. The new tattoo shop seemed positively overwhelmed by new customers, countless amount of young people filing into their appointment times, and the few days he had free hours. It, fortunately, did bring you new crowds of customers. Friends and couples alike bringing in the warm spring air into your shop while they bought flowers in commemoration of their new tattoos. 

There was no stopping this, it seemed.

“Thank you for your service, please come again,” you called out after the giggling and slightly tipsy group of girls who happened to be your last customers of the day.

Today has been a good day.

You weren’t at all exhausted, in fact, you felt relatively light on your feet still despite it being 8:56 p.m. Since it was so late at night, and with the knowledge of there hardly ever being last-second customers you started cleaning up for the night. But as you grabbed the broom, the familiar bell of the entrance of the shop rang in your ears.

Sighing, you dropped the broom and turned towards the counter, “Welcome!”

The figure at the door shocked you, it was Shouto. He stood there with his fingers hooked in the loops of his black jeans, and the white v-neck did nothing to conceal anything about his tattoos or his dumb muscles. 

“Hey!” you smiled, the smile on your face as fake as the festive flowers sitting on the counter — the ironies of working at a flower shop.

“I’m looking for recommendations,” Shouto admitted, his strides stopping him before you. “It’s one of my friends' birthdays coming soon, in a few weeks. He doesn’t like getting presents, but he likes flowers. I was hoping you could help me out here.”

Your jaw drops, words failing you seeing the way that his hair falls so elegantly between his eyes. His eyes are concentrated on the pre-arranged flower arrangements demonstrated on the table as samples and you cough.

“Uh, yes, do you know any of his favorite flowers?”

“No, he’s not really that open about his interests,” Shouto admits, his shoulders shrugging,

“When do you need the arrangement?”

“His birthday is April 20,” Shouto says, a sigh on his lips while he looks up at you. “I’m not sure if there was a time requirement to request things, especially given that you work here alone.”

“I do not work here alone!” you cry, your blood sparking in a fury. “I mean, yes, right now I do, but it’s not always like this! I’m just being a good child and letting my parents have the travels of their lifetime!”

Shouto hums, his face unconvinced, but he seems a bit perplexed, “Did I do something that first night to you?”

That takes you entirely off guard, “Excuse me?”

“Well, after the first night we officially met, you have avoided me very well.”

“I-I’m very busy with this store!”

“I walked out of the store to pick up supplies while you were speaking with your own customer. I saw you run into the door, trying to make your way back indoors.”

“You saw that?!”

“A lot of my friends say I can come off coldly at first, and I know that it’s true, and I’m trying to work on it. I, myself, was exhausted that day too because we put the entire shop together in a single day, so I let myself slip up,” Shouto admits, and you can feel your face beating in time with your embarrassed pulse. Why was this so hard? “I haven’t had the time to come over since opening, so I’m trying now.”

“So the birthday thing is a fake way to get me to talk?” you asked, your lips twitching in your losing battle to keep from smirking.

“Yes and no,” he smiles softly. It almost takes you by surprise, the smile seemed too gentle, too sweet to be on the face of someone who looked like they’d murder you in an alleyway. “I’m not that incompetent to know that I have a few weeks to give until I really need to get those plans under wraps.”

There’s a laugh that bubbles in your throat, and you sigh, unbelieving of what he was doing. 

“You’re kind of weird,” you tease, untying your apron for it was now long past the store's open hours. “But since you’re not a customer, I will be asking you to leave at once.”

“But—!”

“No exceptions! I can’t be seen playing favorites, the elders will gossip,” you firmly state, moving from behind the counter to shoo him from your store.

“I want to buy a flower then,” Shouto insists, pulling out a leatherbound wallet. 

Your eyes narrow, lucky bitch.

“What flower would you like?” you ask. Your customer service smile painted on your face. 

“Do you happen to have any ajisai’s?” Shouto asks, and you think.

You did have some!

Nodding, you pointed your finger towards the pack where small bouquets of ajisai’s sat. Shouto nodded, walking over and grabbing one and making it back.

“That’ll be seven hundred yen,” you say the moment he arrives back.

“The sign said six hundred,” Shouto points out.

“You have me seven minutes over closing time, it’s my gratuity tip,” you tease, grinning when he places seven hundred yen down. You focus back on the cash register, inputting the last sale into it and fixing up the computer before returning your attention back to Shouto, who was staring at the flowers in his hands.

“Here,” he says, thrusting the flowers into your hands and walking away before you could yell at him.

The pink-tipped flowers sat in your hands, ajisai — or hydrangeas — were small and delicate flowers, but they were stunning in your eyes. Rolling your eyes, you put the flowers next to the fake festive ones and went to clean up, the small smile on your own face irreplaceable as you cleaned up.

⋄⋆⊹⋄⋆⋄⋆⊹⋄⋆⋄⋆⊹⋄⋆ Two ⋄⋆⊹⋄⋆⋄⋆⊹⋄⋆⋄⋆⊹⋄⋆

In the following weeks, you and Shouto had begun a strange friendship of sorts. Your breaks during your lunch and dinner times were accompanied by Shouto, who was always over at the time. The tattoo shop was doing exceptionally well, and because of that, he even had other artists there with him, and just gained an official piercer. They were a great crew, all bright and caring people who often had you laughing on the rare occasions you visited his shop. But Shouto always had his time slot blocked out during your breaks, and he would come over with snacks and opinions for the two of you to discuss.

He was definitely an odd person. He was very open about a lot of things, almost too honest. In weeks, you knew more about him than some of your own childhood friends, and you had been involved with most of their stories! Todoroki Shouto was someone to admire though, he was brilliant, a person who never failed to make you smile with his often idiotic tendencies. 

He was smart but dumber than a rock.

But as the two of you grew comfortable, there was one thing itching at the back of your mind, the one question you always had when you saw people with tattoos. 

“What do your tattoos mean?” you couldn’t help but ask, your eyes shining while looking at his arm that was poised high to deliver the cold soba noodles into his awaiting mouth. “I mean, I know there’s a lot, but one side is colorful and bold, and the other is simple and beautiful.”

Shouto finished the noodles on his chopsticks, his lips soaked with the oils on the noodles. “Do you want to know about a particular one?” he asked, resting the chopsticks down and extending his arms for you to see. 

You leaned forward on the stool you were sitting on, observing the lines that created the art on his skin. You were fascinated by both sleeves, and he had incredible artwork on both sides of his arms. There was also some hidden motif behind each side, fire versus ice… But which one to ask about first?

“Can you just tell me why you have two sleeves that are starkly different?” you asked with a curious glint of your eyes. “I mean black ink on one side versus only color? Is there a reason, or was it just something that happened by accident?”

“Oh, there’s a reason for it,” Shouto adjusted on his chair, clearing his throat while he extended his arms. “You can tell just by looking at me, but my left side is what I’ve always associated with my dad: the red hair, blue eyes. My right side is something that I connect with my mom: the white hair, grey eyes. Colored tattoos are always more painful, they tell a very exact story. There isn’t any room for argument because it is seen in one way and one way only. You can deceive, and you can hide, but the truth is there. When I got my first tattoo, I still hated my dad with everything I had, and I wanted to cover every part of my body that I could that would erase him from me. Which is my left side. And like colored tattoos, he was painful, exact, and unchanging. My right side is black ink only because things become confusing, discerning, unknown—” his fingers trace the curving lines on his right arm— “you don’t know where it starts, where it ends, but it’s ever present. It’s comforting because it can change with how you need it to change. You can have other fills in its blanks, to piece together its story, but it has distinct intentions. It’s strong and adaptable.”

You take in his words, unable to think of anything but absorb his words. There’s a soft understanding to his tattoos. Once done in defiant, spoke stories of not only who he was, but who he is today. 

“Okay, so I know I’m just a super lame florist, but what do you think about me getting a tattoo?” you asked, your teeth biting into your lower lip with your confusion and hope. “I mean, I’ve never really wanted one before, but that was because of social stigma and all, but seeing yours and your friends all the time… I’m curious.”

Shouto’s brows raise; he doesn’t say anything; however, studying your face.

“What are you thinking about in particular?” he asked his eyebrow scrunching, his head tilting to the side. “Anything at all?”

You blew a raspberry, your hands pressing to your lap, your shoulders falling to your ears.

“I like symbolic things a lot,” you admit with a shrug. “I don’t think I could ever get a sleeve tattoo, so I want it to make sense and have meaning to me. Like… I don’t know a sakura blossom, but maybe not that? I don’t know!”

Shouto laughs softly, the sound pleasant on your ears while you thrash your legs like a child. 

“Well, I think I can help you at the very least draw you something,” he suggests, a hand offered out in a deal. “I am a tattoo artist, after all.”

“I’m not sure if I can trust you,” you playfully scoff, your arms folding across your chest while you shake your head. “I might doze off under the needle and wake up to a walking penis on my back!”

“A penis?” Shouto repeated, an award-winning smile gracing his face while you huff, your laughter failing at being masked.

“It’s what happened in middle school to people caught sleeping! Didn’t it happen to you?”

“Not at all.”

“Right, you rich kid middle schools were a breeding ground for far worse. What type of prepubescent hazing did your school do?”

“What makes you think there was hazing?”

“How could there not be!”

The doorbell chimes in the distance and the lively debate is over when you check the time, it was time to reopen it seems.

“I’ll figure out what you did back as a pubescent child,” you promise, watching as Shouto rises with you, his own alarm going off. “But would you really draw me a tattoo?”

Shouto nods, following you out to the entrance of the shop, “I will if you ask me to.”

Uncertainty sits in your stomach, you weren’t sure if it was something that you wanted right now, it had, after all, come up as a moment of trying to create conversation more than being an honest truth. But if it was something that Shouto drew for you, maybe you would.

“I’ll let you know if I want it,” you promise, your eyes closing with your warm smile. 

Shouto hums in agreement, his head nodding once. He seems to hesitate for a bit and ultimately walks over to where there was a gathering of flowers and picks out a single himawari. Your eyes narrow in silent teasing when he walks it over to the counter, his hands already reaching for his wallet.  

You accept the change, giving him back what you owed him, and was once again shocked to see him resting the flower in your hands. 

“For you,” he smiled, his shoulders shrugging.

“You’re so weird,” you wrinkle your nose, still accepting the flower from his fingers with a bright smile. “Thank you for the beautiful himawari.”

“Mm, you’re welcome,” Shouto nodded, slipping on the beanie he had removed upon entering the warm flower shop. “See ya later, y/l/n?”

You nod, waving as he left to which he graciously flipped the sign for you to read that you were once again open. “Bye, Todoroki-san!”

Himawari flowers, otherwise known as sunflowers, always filled you with warmth and love. A flower that is known to be a personal sun on this earth without ever once providing a shred of warmth. There was no denying that it was beautiful, but you shook your head, leaving it on the table in the hallway that leads to your home above the shop. You’d dry and press it once the day was over. 

Yes, you decided, that’s how it was going to go.

⋄⋆⊹⋄⋆⋄⋆⊹⋄⋆⋄⋆⊹⋄⋆ Three ⋄⋆⊹⋄⋆⋄⋆⊹⋄⋆⋄⋆⊹⋄⋆

“I always forget the wedding season is a thing! Stop looking at me like that, and please help me!”

Most people would never expect to see a community staple member who ran the flower shop to be on their hands and knees, holding onto the ankles of one of the most intimidating and newest members of the community while they begged for help. Well, to be honest, no one could even consider what you were doing to be begging. It was a full-on psycho messy bitch cry for help. 

“I said I was going to help you already, what else do you possibly need from me?” Shouto groaned, his vans clad foot trying to wiggle you loose from his ankle. “...don’t tell me.”

“Well, you know what I’m asking then!” you whine, your eyes welling with tears at Shouto’s straight face.

Your face had an array of dried petals on your face, dirt caking the undersides of your fingernails, grass, and leaves in your hair, and desperation reeking from your face. 

“My parents still aren’t back! My friends are all busy living their own lives too far away to help me properly, and you’re the only person I trust! You’re a tattoo artist, you have to have a delicate hand, right? Please help me and let me use your crew too, I promise I’ll pay!”

Shouto groans, managing to kick you free from his foot, and pulling you up to your feet so that the noisy people watching would hopefully leave. “If you want the others to help you out, you need to ask them. I’m not going to force them to do anything.”

Your eyes blow wide, excitement simmering in your cells while your hands grip onto his biceps for support, and his own hands rested on your hips. 

“Really?! You’ll let me do that?!”

Shouto breathed heavily out of his nose, took a second to recompose himself before letting that small smile appear on his face. The grateful squeal that left your lips was something that shocked him, Shouto won’t lie, but it was the hug you threw around his neck that had him stumbling. He watched in a frozen trance as you stormed into his shop, arms waving animatedly above your head while you explained your need for help to his employees. He didn’t follow you in though, choosing to instead watch you from outside the shop because it was his break right now, and he wasn’t going to be spending it inside the shop. 

You returned with a smug smirk on your face, dirt-smudged on your cheek while you nodded your head in victory. 

“Well, it looks like I have a team,” you say with a mock casualty. “I am, what the cool kids call, persuasive.”

A weird feeling floods to the tips of Shouto’s fingers at your words was this… annoyance? There was no reason for him to be annoyed that his friends would be coming over to help you. You needed the help. So what if you wouldn’t be talking to him and only him.

“Persuasive, or annoying?” Shouto tries you, and the way you focused on him in your flustered state was enough for a small chuckle to escape his lips. Before you could respond in defense to your persuasive tongue, he was already en route towards your shop. “You wasted five minutes of my break, please don’t waste the other ten.”

He wasn’t sure what made him grin more, the loud cry of “you’re an asshole, Todoroki-san,” the childish stomping coming from behind him, or the cheerful laughter that soaked your tongue at your own silly antics. But still, the grin became a soft smile when he turned to face you, the shop door in his hand while he held it for you. 

“After you.”

“Damn right, after me.”

~

“You guys are actually very good at this,” you marvel, peering over Shouto’s shoulder, watching as he and his coworkers assembled the vase of statement flowers.

Todoroki Shouto, Kaminari Denki, Shinsou Hitoshi, Midoriya Izuku, and Bakugou Katsuki.

Five equally large men, decked out in tattoos and piercings, with a punk look to them sat pinched together on tables meant to hold more than five men dainty arranging soft pinks and white-colored flowers with your princess pop music blaring in the background. It was very different to how they were in their shop, but it amused you to see them like this.

They were a group of childhood friends who apparently all had the same dream and worked together to make this tattoo shop. Shouto, being the most wealthy of them, had been the name signed on all the papers, explaining the reasons why he was the one you had first met those many nights ago. 

But with five different weddings coming up at the moment, you were more stressed about getting these things done and fast. The good thing, however, was that it seemed most of them were striving perfectionists. 

Shouto, Bakugou, Midoriya, and Shinsou were all on top of it, having only needing you to explain the arrangements once for them to get it. Kaminari took two tries, but he was also very, very social, and took his time. They were a bizarre dynamic, but it was something you enjoyed.

“Damn right we are, this shit is so fucking easy,” Bakugou responded back, shoving yet another completed arrangement your way. “And why are you just fucking staring at us? Why aren’t you helping?”

You hummed, grabbing the completed vase, and placing it with the others from this particular wedding. “Because I already met my quota, and I can’t pull out the other arrangement until you guys are done.”

“Oh, there’s another one?” Midoriya asked, handing you a completed vase.

“Well, if you guys don’t mind!” you feel your face heating while they were finishing up their final vases, Bakugou snatching some of Kaminari since he had more leftover. “I just didn’t expect you guys to haul these so quickly! And well, there’s just one left I have to do!”

“We are amazing,” Kaminari says, twirling a stem of baby’s-breath in his fingers. “I can see why you were so eager to sign us to your shop. “I make perfect commentary, Shinsou has that calming effect, Deku is sweet and kind, Shouto is obviously the closest to you, and Bakugou.”

You blinked, as did everyone else, staring at the blond who wove the baby’s-breath into the arrangement with a soft touch. Wasn’t he going to finish that sentence?

“And I what?” Bakugou growls, his ears tinging red with his annoyance.

“Hm?” Kaminari perks his eyebrows, his gaze lazily resting on the ash blond. “Oh, no, that was it!”

There was a loud screech of the chair against the floor, and Midoriya was holding back Bakugou while Kaminari screeched, hiding behind Shinsou.

“Here you go,” Shouto sighed, handing you the prior arrangement for this wedding batch. 

“Thank you,” you smile gratefully, the sounds of the raging war between Bakugou and Kaminari fading into background noise while you hold Shouto’s gaze. “For all of this too, you guys are keeping me from a countless amount of all-nighters.”

“Well, as long as they don’t wreck your shop, then I guess the payment will be okay,” Shouto sighed, not bothering to even look at how Midoriya was losing ground on keeping Bakugou back.

“As long as there isn’t any blood or teeth on the floor, I’ll give it to ya,” you grin, gesturing with your head for him to follow you.

While you and Shouto had gone to get the final wedding arrangements, Shinsou had managed to get Bakugou to calm down and sit. This arrangement was simple, and there were only twelve of them you needed to make, and before you knew it, everyone was leaving, waving as they went. Only Shouto stayed behind, helping you put away the chairs and the tables, while also setting the flowers into the freezer until they would be collected.

It was almost midnight by the time the two of you had cleaned up the shop, and Shouto leaned against the counter while you sprawled onto the floor, exhausted. 

“I think,” you mumble, exhaustion fluttering through you. “I think Imma just, sleep here.”

“I’m not going to let you do that,” Shouto sighs, walking over to you. “You’re bordering disgusting right now, and you need to shower before sleeping.”

“I’m not trying to impress anyone right now,” you point your finger at him definitely. “I think I can become one with the ground right now.”

“Yeah, that’s not happening,” Shouto decided, pulling you up to your feet. Something that made you groan and press your forehead to his chest when you got you up. “Come on, let’s go. I’ll walk you to your stairs.”

Snorting, you shake your head, pushing him away, “No, it’s okay, I was just being annoying. Besides, I need to lock up down here once you leave.”

Shouto frowns, but he doesn’t move to argue with that, because it was true. 

“I’ll see you bright and early tomorrow morning!” you insist, smiling sweetly up at the man who was wearing one of your bandanas. 

“Okay,” Shouto finally agreed, moving towards the door.

When you got to the door, ready to see him out, Shouto paused. 

He turned to you, his head tilting, and your lips parted to question him, but before any words could fall from your tongue, he raised his hand.

In his hand, he rested a pink arusutoromeria. It was most definitely a leftover from one of the arrangements statement flowers, but it sat daintily in his hand. Under the moonlight, it was almost ethereal in his hold, and you felt a small warmth build in your cheeks.

“That’s called stealing from my clients, ya know,” you tease, the exhaustion in you dying the moment you took the flower from his hand. “I’m going to have to take this out of your paycheck.”

“Don’t pay me,” Shouto insisted softly, his lips peeking into a half-smile. “I would’ve helped, even if you hadn’t asked.”

“That’s ridiculous, I wouldn’t have let you,” you shove his arm, but he went unmoved. His two-colored eyes shining in mirth while continuing to stare at you. 

“I know,” he whispers, his gaze holding yours. “Goodnight, y/l/n.”

“Goodnight, Todoroki-san.”

Shouto licked his lips, his face wincing just the smallest bit before shaking his head, “I think you can drop the formality, we’re passed that.”

You didn’t have time to react, only whispering his last name while he exited your shop into the nighttime. But you looked down at the arusutoromeria, otherwise known as the Alstroemeria Peruvian lily. The peachy and pink waxy petals smooth under your fingertip, but it made your heart warm.

Shouto really did pick the most beautiful flowers.

But why was it always for you?

⋄⋆⊹⋄⋆⋄⋆⊹⋄⋆⋄⋆⊹⋄⋆ Four ⋄⋆⊹⋄⋆⋄⋆⊹⋄⋆⋄⋆⊹⋄⋆

“The shop isn’t open today, Todoroki-chan!”

Shouto turned around to see two elders watching him while he had failed to open your shop’s doors.

“Oh, thank you,” he thanked them, bowing in greetings. “Do you know why? Y/l/n didn’t mention anything yesterday?”

“We do, actually! The park hosts the summertime festival, and they’re in charge of the floral arrangements you see going on there! Y/l/n might be there right now!”

Shouto nodded, the banners that had been advertising for the said festival had been up for the past two weeks.

“Thank you,” he said, leaving the two elders to themselves before returning to his own shop.

Today was a busy day, and since he wasn’t going to have time to spend his break with you, he decided he’d just move on to his latest client. Ignoring the questionative and gossiping look of Kaminari, he called on the girl who was here for her last touch up.

He’d go and see you when you returned. 

It was three in the morning when you were finally back at your shop. Festivals were indeed something of exhaustion. You spent six hours putting up flowers all over people's booths and stalls in order for things to look beautiful. Then when the festival began at three in the afternoon, you’d be in your own booth handing out single roses, lilies, and tulips to lovers, friends, and family who wanted to cheer others up.

Flower sales have always confused you. Flowers, after all, were almost pointless since most of them were bought without the roots and soil. You were gifting something that was on the verge of death that wouldn’t last longer than twenty-one days if you were lucky. But you couldn’t complain, on the other hand. The people’s faces that exploded with affection and love after receiving the flowers made it worth knowing that these dying presents had meaning to them.

But festivals by yourself were hell. 

Restocking the flowers, handling the money, trying to give out the flowers all by yourself had proven to be a handful. This was at the least a two-person job, and with your parents still not returning anytime soon, it was hard. You couldn’t ask anyone to help you because everyone you knew who would accept your money to work had to work until late today too.

But you had survived, as you had been for the past few months. So when you tiredly stabbed your key into the air, trying your best to get it into the lock, a sudden noise scared you.

Turning towards the sound, your tired eyes widened upon seeing Shouto walking out with a young woman next to him. She was tall, grand, and even with your tired, dried out, and blurry eyes, you could tell she was beautiful. You saw the way that politely and effortlessly giggled, her dark eyes warm and sweet while she talked to Shouto.

And Shouto, how you had entirely missed him today. But he was obviously enraptured by this woman, his facial features looking kind and sweet while they talked.

A weird feeling tightened in your stomach, what the hell was that? You blinked multiple times, your head muggy and far too foggy for your liking. This wasn’t your business, you thought, finally succeeding in opening your shop door. But with a strong pull of the wagon you had, you watched in horror as the top bins clattered to the floor.

You hauled the wagon in, desperate to get out there and get the remaining fallen items off the floor. You thought having eaten only breakfast today would have rendered you unable to be as stupidly strong as you were at that moment. But as you went to pick up the boxes, you saw Shouto approaching you, his hands shoved into his pockets.

“Oh, hey, Todoroki!” you laugh, trying to lift the boxes, but you were failing at it. “I didn’t see you all day, how are you?”

Shouto shrugged, his lower lips jutting out slightly too. 

“Good, I didn’t realize you were working for the festival, all day at that,” he admitted while moving to help you. “How’d it go.”

“Well,” you think about it, watching your friend take the boxes from your hands and holding them with ease despite your own fumbling. “I, um… it was hard.”

Shouto listened to you while you explained how you handled your booth on your own. How this was one of the busiest festivals your city hosted and how you hadn’t had time to relax since the festival began at three. He listened to you without making any input of his own, the occasional chuckle from hearing about entitled customers, or customers who thought buying a red rose for someone they were going to break up with was a bad idea. 

Cleaning up with Shouto with you was relaxing and welcoming, his presence was always one you received, and after a long day, it was sweet and soft. 

But while in his explanation as to who the lady — Yaoyorozu Momo, as he named her — was doing at his shop so late, your stomach wailed in hunger. Your face burned in embarrassment, your appetite finally remaking its appearance. 

Shouto chuckled, finding glee in your horror before nodding towards the hallway that leads to the staircase of your home. He had been up there a handful of times now, and he smirked, “I’ll make you something since we didn’t eat together today.”

“How can I trust you’re a good chef,” you ask, despite already making your way to the upper level of the shop, ready to stay up even longer with Shouto.

The next hour is spent with the two of you eating and talking. The conversation between the two of you is light and flowing smoothly. You’re on the couch with him, a blanket on your laps while you rest your head against his shoulder.

“Tell me about your tattoos,” you mumble, your exhausted body feeling warm and safe against his right side. 

“Which one?” he asked, shifting his left arm towards you so that way you could continue resting on him.

“Any,” you sigh, your fingers brushing against his wrist. “They’re all beautiful.”

So he does.

Shouto tells you about the special ones first. The fire on his left wrist, the ice on the right. They were his first tattoos, something he had associated with himself since he could remember, but a symbol of how they were both significant parts, equal in their fury, but gentle, beautiful, and healing when needed. He had dizzying patterns on his right side, something he had always acquitted to being his more assertive side. The designs were distinctive and almost dizzying to look at, but each pattern he had drawn, each twist and turn meaning something. The black ink was daunting, powerful, and reserved. He even admitted to letting his friends color in the spaces where you could still see his pale flesh, it was something that he enjoyed because even being as old as he was, the childlike entertainment never left when someone did it.

His left side was stunning though, every color in the rainbow melting and mixing on his skin. This side was artistic, bold, a creation of vibrant dreams, and they warmed you up while he explained every secret behind them. He was scary on this side if you couldn’t find the outlines of each clashing drawing, but up close, with your breath gently warming his skin while you peered at his skin, you realized just how gentle it really was. It wasn’t scary or overwhelming. It was quiet, warm, and a soft gesture to who he used to be, and who he was now.

The two of you were close friends, nothing could ever say otherwise, but as the two of you lay on the couch together, you positioned between his legs, your head laying on his chest. Sleep was a mere kiss away when you snuggled into his chest, your finger pressing against the t-shirt he wore.

“I think I’m ready… for you to draw me up a tattoo… do you think you can surprise me, though? I have no ideas…” you mumbled into his chest.

“Of course,” Shouto responded back, and before you could blink, the world turned dark, sleep consuming you in a gentle embrace. 

You weren’t sure if you imagined the feel of his soft lips on your forehead, but when you woke up the next morning, you were alone. The blanket was tucked around you, pillows resting under your head, and a flower sat on the coffee table before you.

A kaneshon.

A carnation.

Your cheeks warmed at the sight of it, knowing immediately that it was left behind by Shouto. Grabbing the flower within your fingers, you pressed the sweet-smelling flower to your nose. If he continued doing this, there was no stopping the way you felt towards him.

⋄⋆⊹⋄⋆⋄⋆⊹⋄⋆⋄⋆⊹⋄⋆ Five ⋄⋆⊹⋄⋆⋄⋆⊹⋄⋆⋄⋆⊹⋄⋆

Two weeks later.

“So, what do you think of this?”

You were sitting in Shouto’s private room where he had his tattoo appointments, you were by the wall, sitting on a stool by a desk where he was showing off his tattoo design for you. It was stunning; honestly, it had everything in the world that you could be asking for.

Simple, elegant, and sophisticated.

It fit your personality, hopes, and dreams. 

It was perfect. 

“Wow,” you barely managed to breathe, your fingers touching the sketch he had presented to you. Was feeling it okay? You hoped so.

“Do you… do you like it?” Shouto asked, his eyes trying to read your face, but failed to see how you reacted because he was behind you.

“This is amazing, Todoroki,” you shake your head, pulling back to stare at your friend with a great smile. “I mean, I know I said I wanted you to draw me one, but I wasn’t expecting you to make it so… personalized to me.”

“...you’re special to me,” Shouto admitted, his body both relaxing and tensing under your gaze. “I had to make this special for you.”

“Well, you sure did!” you agree with a laugh, your cheeks warm with your grin. “But how much will this be?”

“4,000 yen,” Shouto answered with a straight face.

You laughed in his face, remembering that all their starting prices were much more than that, “Come on, don’t be ridiculous. How much?”

“I wasn’t lying,” Shouto confirms, his gaze unwavering. “I like you a lot, and you mean a lot to me, so I’m giving you a discount.”

Your jaw drops, you’re unable to speak, words failing you with every breath. “A discount, not a free tattoo.”

“It’s not free, I’m still making you pay.”

“Yeah, and even I know that price is absurd!”

The two of you argue for some time, the money you throw down on his desk is immediately slammed back into your wallet. You feel close to victory; that is, until Shouto threatens to make your tattoo actually free. To that, your lips twist, a defeated look in your eyes while you huff.

“Fine,” you spat, turning around ready to leave the shop, given that your break was nearing its end. 

“Y/n,” he calls out suddenly, and the way that your name sounds on his lips makes you shiver. He had started to call you by your given name as of late, and to hear his warm and deep voice say your name made you wonder why you two hadn’t done this earlier. After all, the two of you were too close. 

“Shouto?”

He looks ready to speak, his tongue wetting his lips while he stares at you, unsure what to say to what to do.

“What did you think of the kaneshon?”

Two weeks later and he had finally spoken about the flower he had left behind.

“It was beautiful, I loved it,” you smiled in return, but you didn’t miss the way that his eyes seemed to cloud at those words. Obviously, those weren’t the words he wanted to hear, but what was it that he wanted? “Another flower to add to my collection.”

Shouto’s lips quirk into a smile, and you watch while he reaches behind his bench and pulls out a tsubaki. You’re silent as he walks it over to you, pressing the gentle stem into your hand.

“For you,” he whispers, and you can feel your heart hammering in your ears at how close he is. The dim lights of his room, the smell of ink, bleach, and, most importantly, Shouto sending your blood into a craze. 

Kiss him, your brain told you, but you were frozen, too busy counting the number of eyelashes he had. 

“You didn’t buy this from me, what are you doing helping my competition?” were the words that came to your mouth instead of the confession you so wanted to give.

“No,” Shouto laughs softly, and he adjusts his position almost to give you dizzying fantasies of him kissing you. “I’m growing them, actually.”

“Oh, so you’re my competition,” you tease, and Shouto sighs, his eyes rolling and nods.

“Yeah, the tattoo shop was a decoy to us becoming the best flower shop in all of Japan.”

“Sounds like I should be worried.”

“Oh, you should.”

There was no denying the fact that the distance between your bartering lips was disappearing, but the shrill beep of your alarm destroyed the space between the two of you as you stepped away. You had an appointment to get to after all.

“Um, dinner?” you ask, stumbling to the door. “Sounds good?”

Shouto nods, his lips in a small smile, “See you then.”

With the camellia clenched tightly into your hands, your blood boiling in your destroyed passions, and the sounds of the others saying goodbye while you left, you felt weird when entering your flower shop, one thought running repetitively in your mind. 

You had feelings for Shouto.

⋄⋆⊹⋄⋆⋄⋆⊹⋄⋆⋄⋆⊹⋄⋆ Six ⋄⋆⊹⋄⋆⋄⋆⊹⋄⋆⋄⋆⊹⋄⋆

You twirled the akaichurippu in your fingers.

It had been two months since you worked out you had feelings for Shouto, one week since he had given you this flower, six days since he started avoiding you, and two days since your parents had finally returned home.

With the three of you now running the shop, you were able to relax a whole bunch more. Your parents had returned on a honeymoon mode, their gazes wistful and in love, finding it almost hard to readjust to the life they had left behind for a year. It had been a year since you had met Todoroki Shouto, and you were baffling in love with him. But you had done something obviously because he was avoiding you like the plague.

He hadn’t been over in six days, and they had been such lonely days without him. Of course, once your parents had come home, it had been grossly lively with their romantic sighs and glees, but it didn’t do much to qualm the Shouto sized hole in you. 

Stupid Shouto, stupid feelings, stupid everything.

Tossing the flower onto the counter, you sat up from your slumped state, watching as your dad swung your mom in a circle. Stupid parents with their stupid love, you bitterly added while puffing out your cheeks.

“Wow, what’s that look for!” your dad caught on immediately, staring at your unamused form. He trailed his gaze down to the red akaichurippu, otherwise known as the red tulip, while your mother stood up herself.

There was a shocked gasp coming from them both, and you watched as your parents approached the counter like excited children, the flower being picked up by your mother.

“Who gave you this?!” your mother asked, her eyes sparkling in glee, and your dad seemed conflicted in the same delight, and distinctive stern dad look. 

“Shouto,” you sighed, your eyes rolling.

“The one that’s ignoring you?”

“The very same!”

“That’s strange,” your dad’s eyebrows furrowed, his head tilting. “He’s just next door, and he doesn’t seem to be going anywhere anytime soon… why is he ignoring you after giving you the eternal love flower?”

You froze.

“I’m sorry, what?!”

“The red akaichurippu flower is the symbol of eternal love,” your mom explained as if it was basic knowledge. “They’re much more romantic than a boring red rose, in my opinion. You’re also a florist y/n, why don’t you know these meanings or intentions?”

“Oh my god,” you said in horror, and you stood up, racing upstairs to grab the flowers you had dried and pressed. The flowers he had given you throughout this year.

Your parents were shocked when you slammed down the book with flowers, your fingers shaking excessively.

“What do these mean,” you demand, your fingers shaking while you point at the different flowers.

“Ajisai: apologies and gratitude.”

“Himawari: adoration, loyalty, and longevity.”

“Arusutoromeria: devotion, loyalty, ‘I like you,’ friendship.”

“Pink kaneshon: affection.”

“Tsubaki: humility, discretion, and perfect love.”

Red akaichurippu: eternal love.

Red akaichurippu: eternal love.

“I have to go!” you yelled, racing out of the store, the ringing bell and following shouts of your parents doing nothing as you ran into the tattoo shop.

“Shinsou!” you called at the purple-haired man who was staffing the front desk, obviously having no scheduled appointments today. “Is Shouto—?”

“No, he’s taking his break right now,” Shinsou smirked, his eyes full of amusement, which spoke to his knowledge of what was going on. “You can go in.”

You smiled and went down the hallways of the tattoo shop that you knew intimately. You could hear the buzzing of the tattoo guns going off in Bakugou and Midoriya’s rooms, the light chatter that came with passing Kaminari’s room until you made it to Shouto’s room.

It was quiet inside, and as you opened the door to step inside, the flower in your hand feeling heavier than lead when you saw Shouto sitting at his desk, eating cold soba slowly.

“Shouto?” you called, and Shouto didn’t move, obviously ignoring you. 

“Come on, don’t ignore me,” you plead, moving towards the bench only to have him turn towards you, his eyes blank, cold, angry, and burning through you when he faced you. So maybe he wasn’t ignoring you? “Okay, uh, thank you for looking at me, but I need to explain something to you!”

“Make it quick, my break’s done in two minutes.”

A cold sweat erupts in your body, and you thrust the red tulip out.

“Eternal love,” you say quickly, your body shivering at that statement, and Shouto looks at you, then at the flower, then back at you. 

“Yeah, I knew that already, idiot.”

Your jaw drops, and the smallest bits of annoyance pricks at you. You often forgot what it was like to be under his calculating words and not being at his side, laughing at the victims of his words. 

“Okay, well, I didn’t,” you continue on, your fists dropping at your side, annoyance, fear, happiness, and love flooding through your body. “I’m a florist, I know that. I have lived my life as the child of florists, and I have taken on their trade, but one thing I never knew about was flower meanings.”

“What?”

You shake your head, your gaze dropping to the flower in your embarrassment, “I’ve never known any flower meaning outside of funeral flowers, the red rose, and spider lilies, but that’s because of the culture behind it, not necessarily because of the language of flowers. And I was mad at you today, so I had this flower out, and my parents who do know about flower language told me what this meant, and every other flower you’ve bought for me… I didn’t realize you were confessing to me using flowers… I didn’t ever expect a tattoo artist to know the meanings! Had you been a florist yourself, then maybe I would have thought to look up the meanings behind the flowers, but I just assumed it was you picking flowers out because they were pretty.”

“Flower tattoos are popular,” Shouto breathes, his eyes swimming with flashing emotions while he rises to his feet. “It’s sort of my job to know the difference. I mean… you brought over peonies that first night, and they’re a flower you use to welcome other people, so I figured you knew.”

“No,” you laugh breathlessly. “I only picked those out because they were the only flowers I had leftover from that day… I guess you would make an amazing florist after all,” you chuckle, your heart hammering in your whole being while he stepped closer to you. “I’m a blunt person, straightforward confessions are the only way to deal with me.”

“Most blunt confessions have always ended with rejection from me,” Shouto states, his fingers grabbing onto your waist. “That tends to scare people off.”

“Try it with me,” you whisper, your fingers resting on his broad shoulders, the shiver under your skin electrifying as you knew what was happening.

“I’m in love with you, y/l/n y/n,” Shouto grinned, and you didn’t give yourself a chance at responding because you slammed your lips against his.

It was a passionate kiss, one that had your back arched into him, the flower falling from your fingers and onto the floor. Heads tilted with your dancing lips, and fuck was every gentle caress of his lips, sending your mind in a whirl.

More and more, your lips slanted against each other, and there was no say as to what was going to happen next. You pulled away, a galaxy in both your eyes and a desire, a promise for more when he would meet your lips again.

“Shouto, your three o’clock is here!”

The two of you froze, and you laughed, your lips meeting his that sought after yours for the kiss was too short.

“We’ll talk later.”

[anxiouslyfred]

Met in the Woods

for @dukexietyweek‘s prompt Pirates/Adventure, I focused on Adventure

Summary: Remus didn’t run away, he just went on a wander through the woods. Virgil got kicked out of their home and took to the woods to try and survive. Somehow meeting was the calmest part despite Virgil attacking Remus.

Warnings: vague fighting, eldritch being mentioned, self-esteem issues, homophodia mention

/\/\

Remus hadn't run away. Really he'd barely even left home, despite packing the largest pack they had full of survival supplies and taking off into the woods one morning before anyone else woke up. There was no point in writing a note, not when he'd definitely be coming home, at some point, probably.

The woods had always called to him, filled with mysteries and adventure if only he had the time to explore and find it, and finally Remus was following the call. He already knew where the first glade was to make a camp in, after that he could follow the river some knights mentioned when reporting their patrols.

He wasn't expecting the glade to already have a tent in it, or for said tents owner to have him flat out within seconds of emerging from the treeline.

“Who sent you after me? I'm not going back, whatever crap they've told you!” The person had a staff poised to strike and with all of Remus's weapons currently under him and tied to his pack he wasn't too inclined to make it an actual fight. Besides, not being recognised as one of the sons of the areas Lord? It was basically a dream Remus never expected to happen given the amount of public appearances he was bribed into.

“Nobody sent me, not a clue who you are. Can I stick my tent over here? Heading to the river at this time of night is just asking for a patrol to catch us.” Remus shrugged, rolling to stand up again only to jump back when the staff was swiped at his legs. What was with them trying to lay him out?

A snarl curled their lips and Remus was fascinated. Most people couldn't get quite so vicious an expression, not even an enraged Roman had managed it yet, although he did get complimented on being fearsome when rampaging. “Like I'm going to believe that! They kicked me out and now expect to get me dragged back, begging for forgiveness or some shit?”

“Woah, I've never managed to get kicked out before. How did you manage that and can I try? Sounds like the best release from responsibilities ever!” Remus leant forwards, although still staying out of the staffs range.

“Writing in a journal about liking how men look. Seriously, people will kick you out for the most dull stuff. Thinking there's dangers in too thin ice, and telling people to sharpen weapons with them directed away from you to avoid self stabbing, oh that's fine. Like watching spiders and write stories without even showing them to anybody about how hot the guy next door is, nope get the hell out.” Remus frowned while listening to the rant. Those motives really did sound incomprehensible, but the persons frustrated movements did sometimes cause their top to tighten and show off muscles or make his cloak move like bats wings over their arms.

It was enough that Remus was moving forwards, bending to catch the staff as it was swung, holding it still. “Seriously? The Lord's of this land are 2 men together. We've got non-binary folks as tax collectors and both of the Lord's sons are attracted more to masculine physics than feminine and your family kicked you out for that?”

“Explains why they do everything possible to keep us kids stuck to the farm, then.” The mumble was clearly not directed at Remus but he shrugged and nodded until they looked back at him. “So if you aren't someone sent to drag me home what the hell are you doing out here?”

“I'm Remus, and just felt like a wander. Male too by the way. Who are you? I've already gathered that you're here cause you got kicked out so won't ask why.” He answered cheerfully. Whomever this person was, they'd been more interesting than most people Remus encountered.

The suspicious glare that had been fading was back a full force. “Virgil. Human, and who the hell just decides to go wandering with a full pack including a tent?”

“I do. Wanted to escape for a while, and now I'm gonna stick with you too.” Remus decided, shrugging off his pack to start setting his own tent up. “All the better if someone actually does come after you, right?”

/VR\

Virgil didn't trust this guy. Who the hell just attaches themselves to a stranger they meet in the woods? There had to be something going on here, or the guy had to be freaking insane and liable to attack in a moment of rage.

“I'm going into that cave! Are you coming?” Remus cheered, pointing further along the river.

There at least was a cave this time, a large excavation into the cliff face that was on the other side of the river. The last 'cave' Remus had tried to explore had just be a darker type of rock that the mad guy had run head first into before realising.

“It's a cave on the edge of a river. You're going to slip on the rocks and kill yourself, or get attacked by a bear taking shelter in it.” Virgil ground out, but carried on following behind Remus getting closer to the cave with each step. “I'm not willing to die for a maniac who won't leave my side.”

Remus just shot a grin over his shoulder as he finally started wading through the water. “Then why are you still following me? Besides it'd be awesome to battle a bear. Maybe I could get some brilliant scars!”

“It's called self preservation, something you seem to have abandoned already. I'm more likely to survive if I have an idiot who runs into danger when predators decide human smells like a good dinner.” Virgil snarked back, pausing to take off their shoes and roll their trousers up before entering the water. They weren't going to have wet feet for hours, no matter how willing Remus was to get his shoes drenched.

They still weren't happy about entering the cave when hours later they were trudging back out a completely different entrance lugging a chest in addition to their packs. “I told you going in there was dangerous!”

“You didn't get hurt, did you? Only blood on either of us is from that, that, actually what the hell was that? We need to go home just so I can get that thing drawn, painted, memorialised for eternity on the walls and given some kind of name.” Remus was twisting to look back at the cave even as he kept moving, holding the other end of the chest.

“Can we figure out what we're doing with whatever the hell is in here? It's heavy and neither of us are going to be ready to fight with a massive chest carried between us.” Virgil dropped their end, effectively bring them to a stop and threw themself on the ground for a rest.

There was still daylight so they weren't worried about a threat approaching unseen and really needed to stop after the fight they'd just gone through. Any creature with that many limbs should be somewhere out at sea, not in caves nowhere near the shore.

“You take it. You're the one who got kicked out from home and nobody would leave something worthless in a cave like that. Bet you could get a house almost as good as the Lord's manor with the treasure in here.” Remus decided, having sat on the ground nearby for only a second before he was  rooting through the pack from his back. “Snacks, pen, ink and paper. You eat something. I gotta start planning out my paintings.”

Virgil was already shaking their head, backing away from the chest as though it would be forced onto them. “No no no no. I'm not taking all of whatever's in there. We got it together. You should get some of it. How about half each? Or you get 3 quarters and I get the rest since I would literally have been killed when that thing first came out?”

“And here I thought I was just a chance for you to escape when I jumped forwards. You were fighting there too. I guess we could go half each.” Remus sighed as though accepting any of it was a hardship rather than treasure won. “Only if you come home with me. Let me introduce my family to the greatest reluctant best friend ever!”

They gaped at that declaration. If anything Virgil would just call them and Remus acquaintances. Sticking together in the middle of woods when no other people has been seen for days could easily turn to barely acknowledging each other once back in town. “If that's what it takes for you to take the treasure that's rightfully yours then fine I guess.” They agreed, already moving stuff about in their pack to find the empty bags they'd managed to grab when hurrying to leave their old home. At the time they'd expected the bags to be for any belongings or tools they could make and acquire while alone in the woods but the contents of a random chest was what they'd need to hold now.

Virgil left Remus to carry on drawing while attempting and after about 20 different tries, managing to unlock and open the chest. They sat separating the treasure by types and into 2 piles of each, kept as even as possible. With the sky clear and dusk not due for a while, it was a relaxing enough break after the cave systems.

/VR\

Looking up at the manor that Remus had just started leading them up to declaring 'Home!' had Virgil reconsidering everything they knew of the place they grew up in.

That was the Lord's manor and for Remus to live here he had to be... nope, NOPE! Virgil had definitely not just accidentally run into one of the sons of the Lord that ruled over his town. Remus must actually just be like, one of the servants, or maybe a gardener? Places like this had gardeners and knights right? Remus must be something like that and had taken some time off too....

All of their rationalisations to prevent panicking about having attacked and then travelled with a Lord's son proved futile when as soon as Remus opened the doors servants were swarming him, asking where the young sir had been, did he have any injuries, and anything else they'd only do for... The son of the Lord's also hurrying through the hall to greet him.

“I went on an adventure!” Remus proclaimed, waving off the servants and turning to look for Virgil who had fully started panicking and wondering if he could turn and run now. “And I made a friend too. That's Virgil and he's brilliant!”

A servant was immediately coming over, offering to take his bag while the Lord's looked him over curiously, listening to Remus who was still talking utter nonsense; a fairytale of a Virgil that they couldn't fathom how Remus thought was them.

“Well anyone who has Remus as besotted as this is more than welcome to remain with us as long as you care to, Virgil. Are there any titles that you hold?” The Lord asked, smiling at them now and holding a hand up to pause Remus's ramblings.

“No, My Lord. I am estranged from my family currently and would not be in line for any titles even if that weren't the case.” They couldn't come out with a rant about being kicked out in front of a Lord, but to deny that they were probably the lowest of his lands would only lead to worse things later.

The Lord just nodded but Remus glowered. “They've got money though. Helped me fight a beast in a cave and we found this massive chest of treasure that can get him a home and stuff now. Seriously, even while claiming they wouldn't risk death for me they followed me into the cave and fought just as much as I did when this brilliant creature attacked. Someone get my paints set up in the gallery across from my room. I know what's going on the far wall now!”

“Money wasn't our concern, Son. I'll check if there's any titles we can bestow on them for bringing you home safely.” The other Lord spoke up now and Virgil was really wishing their parents had at least mentioned the names of the nobility that ruled over them. Maybe they could ask one of the servants soon, since Remus was likely to forget about them now he was back home and around his family.

It definitely seemed possible since with the comment about finding them a title the Lords were heading to other rooms in the hall and Remus was racing down a different corridor while a few servants came to direct Virgil to somewhere else. They just let themself be led through getting measured for new clothes and settled into rooms that had at some point been requested for them. They could at least work on getting a home here before the hospitality of the Lord's ran out preferably.

/RV\

7 days had passed and Remus was confused. Each morning he'd asked Virgil to come and help him paint, or join him in the science lessons he'd insisted on getting. Each time they'd nod and come along but disappear somewhere on route to where he wanted to go.

His best friend kept hiding from him and it didn't feel like a game or even like something they wanted to do if the wary glances each meal were anything to go by. It was like Virgil was expecting him to tell him to leave, gained some hope whenever Remus asked for them to do something together but gave it up seconds later as a lie. Remus wouldn't lie, especially not over wanting someone's company. He just wanted Virgil to be around him.

Today he was going to put a stop to it. He still chattered through breakfast, arguing with Roman over painting styles and trying to get Virgil to agree with him but he didn't move to get up or say anything after his meal was finished. He just sat, waiting for Virgil to finish eating and hoping he hadn't been cutting their meal short with the invitations.

“Do you not want to be my friend?” Remus blurted once they were the only ones still at the table, making Virgil startle.

“What, of course I, no, I do, definitely do but you, I mean, I thought you wouldn't. I'm just a nobody and you have all these exciting things that's you basically bounce in your seat when you talk about.” Virgil tripped over their words, clearly concerned over Remus's question but not sure how to answer it.

Remus just watched them try to reply, concerned but making himself be calm, still. “Then why do you keep disappearing when I want to share them with you? Sharing them would make any activities like a million times better! Hell just arguing with Roman is way more fun when I've got you beside me.”

“But I'm nothing!” Virgil exclaimed, pushing down on the table. “Why would you want anything to do with me except because of pity?”

“Yeah, definitely, I pitied a guy attacking me with a staff and stuck with him because I thought he needed some charity.” Remus rolled his eyes. “Pretty sure you are more than any scoundrel I could find walking into town just because you don't give a shit who we are, if you think something's dangerous or harmful you're gonna yell about it.”

“And you don't give a damn and do it anyway, claiming there's nothing dangerous that could harm you!” Their response was a glare that just made Remus grin.

He'd missed being told off while Virgil was constantly hiding themself away. “Still take more care than I would without the reminder. Besides I love that, always needed someone to give reasons for why they're upset and you just give them.”

“Love? Besotted? Why is everyone talking like we should be courting now? I don't even have somewhere to live. Get them to stop playing with my heart like that.” Virgil moaned, apparently focused on a word Remus had barely realised he'd spoken. Watching them lean on the desk it was clear there had been more said by the servants too in the last week.

He shrugged leaning back in his seat. “They aren't. If you'd actually let me find you or come to help with my painting this week you might have realised that I am very likely to fall in love with you.” He held back from saying it had already happened while coming back from the cave. It seemed like it would be too much for them, no matter that the painting in his gallery had basically made Virgil his universe, cradled and treasured by the creature they'd battled rather than fighting it.

Lost eyes looked over to him as they processed the words. “So we can be together together? I'm not – not going to get kicked out again for liking you too much?”

“Nope, I mean I made sure our rooms are next to each other deliberately so we could go through the courting without being too far apart.” Remus pointed out. “On that thought, can I actually give you your courting gifts now? I keep trying to but you disappear before I've got them out.”

Virgil nodded mutely for a second, watching him, before leaning forwards for a kiss, barely more than a peck before they were pushing away trying to get more distance between them. “Sorry, should've asked, but um, yes, courting, we can do that!”

“You don't have to ask if you want to kiss me, but if it makes you feel better we can do constantly asking.” Remus couldn't hold back his grin, and knew it was the one servants backed away, concerned over what his manic joy would cause today.

Courting first, and convincing Virgil they were far more than their mind said over time.