#my close friend is mourning a father figure my two friends here are both gone one on a research cruise the other visiting his ld gf

[sameteeth]

talking to my friend Subtle Ableism also isnt helping but i have no one else

[persephoneggsy]

I'm too excited about The Veilguard so I wrote a little fic trying to figure out my prospective Rook, Phryne. Tried to keep stuff re: the Mourn Watch vague since I'm sure we'll learn more about them in the game proper. This is mainly just me succumbing to the brainrot lolol

***

People often said that the dead looked like they were sleeping. All the tension and worries of the corporeal had vanished, leaving only an expression of peaceful repose.

Phryne had seen her fair share of dead faces – she’d been a mercenary for several years, and besides, she was Nevarran. Death was seeped into their very marrow.

Sometimes, it was true. Other times, she’d look down at see a face twisted with pain, shock, sometimes even sadness. She just never thought it mattered. Who cared what someone’s final expression was? Dead was dead; the mortal soul was gone, and if they found their bodies possessed, then the most expressive the corpse would be was dependent entirely on the spirit doing the possessing.

Now, though. Phryne looked down at her son and wished he looked like he was sleeping.

Rothe’s expression was much like it had been in life; hard and stern, his jaw stubbornly set and eyebrows furrowed as if he were in the middle of an inspection. Even in death, her eldest child was not able to relax, it seemed. She used to tease him for that, wondering how he and his sister had turned out so uptight. He’d always answer, “It’s obvious, Mother: we had to make up for your carefree nature.”

Even when his tone was light, his mouth would twitch into a short approximation of a smile before resuming its usual stoic state. And now, that was the face he would carry into eternity.

Phryne tore her eyes away from her son’s face – his too young face, he was barely thirty, why had she outlived her son – and focused on the rest of him. The Mortalitasi in charge of preparing his body had done a fine job of repairing… the damage. She’d been told his cause of death was a blade to his heart. It would have been quick, or at least quicker than bleeding out or starving or drowning. Small mercies, she supposed.

He was wearing his finest suit, the same he’d worn at his wedding, but with an added red-orange sash and emblem pin denoting the symbol of the Inquisition. His arms were crossed over his stomach, hands resting on the hilt of his trusted blade – it was broken in two when his body arrived from the Arbor Wilds, but Phryne had found a reliable craftsman able to repair it. One could hardly tell it was broken, now.

Rothe had left instructions for the sword. When he was old enough, and if he wanted it, it would go to his son, Quirin. It would be some time before that happened, thought Phryne. Quirin was barely five years old.

Maker. Phryne closed her eyes. Poor Quirin. Still a child, and both his parents gone. His mother was lost to fever just two short years ago, and now his father, lost to a cause halfway around the world. Her daughter, Elke, was going to take him in, raise him alongside her own son, Halig. She’d given Phryne a pointed look when she made that declaration, as if expecting her to argue. Of course, Phryne did not; Elke was a good mother.

Better than Phryne thought she had been, anyway.

A polite cough drew Phryne’s attention away from Rothe’s body. A man around her age was standing in the doorway of the funeral hall. Judging by the staff in his hands, topped with a skull, he was a mage, and he seemed vaguely familiar to her. Perhaps she’d crossed paths with him in the Watch.

“I’m sorry,” he began. “I didn’t realize there were still mourners here.”

Phryne glanced at the candles illuminating Rothe’s still form. They’d nearly burnt to their ends. Had she been there that long? It seemed that just minutes ago, the hall was filled with mourners, Rothe’s friends and acquaintances. Elke and the children had been among the last to leave, but now, it seemed she’d been alone with her thoughts for some time.

“It’s… fine,” Phryne managed to say. She smoothed down her mourning dress and turned away from the corpse. “Are you here to administer his final rites?”

“Yes, but if you need more time…”

“No, thank you.” Phryne managed a weak smile, which the necromancer returned, though his was much more sincere. He was quite handsome, she noted distantly, and if the body on the altar had been anyone’s other than Rothe, she might have said so out loud. As it was, she merely gave her son one last look over her shoulder. “He’s as ready as he’s going to be. Me too, I think.”

The necromancer chuckled kindly. “A relative?”

“My son.”

“Ah. My condolences.”

He stepped forward, joining Phryne at the altar. Shrewd eyes scanned over Rothe’s body. Phryne found herself watching the mage. She was a part of the Mourn Watch, and she suspected he was as well – last rites were typically conducted by Watchers, especially in cases where it was another Watcher’s relatives that had died – though she never saw much of the mages that made up the bulk of the order. Most tended to stay in their studies, talking to skeletons and doing research long into the night.

“Inquisition, hm?” he murmured. “They’ve been doing good work. You must have been proud.”

“I suppose I was.”

“It’s in question?”

“I am proud. But no mother wants to outlive her children.”

He gave a sympathetic nod at that. “True enough. But it’s clear that you loved him. I’m sure his spirit sits well at the Maker’s side.”

“I hope so.”

They then lapsed into a contemplative silence, which Phryne took as her cue.

“I’ll leave you to your work, sir,” she said, straightening her back as if she were in uniform. To her surprise, he waved a hand at her.

“Oh, no, please not ‘sir’. Emmrich is just fine.”

She spared him another smile; this one smaller, still tinged with grief, but genuine nonetheless.

“Emmrich, then. Thank you.”

Emmrich inclined his head towards her, watching as she turned and left the funeral hall. Once she was out of the darkened room, she let out a long breath. Emmrich. The name was familiar, too. Perhaps he was one of the more famous Watchers… which meant, hopefully, that Rothe was in good hands.

Her heart already feeling lighter than it had been for weeks, Phryne started making her way home.

[truly-sincerely]

Dark Star Falling (6 of ?)

Darling can tell this saccharine sentimentality is grating on Gortash. It’s hard enough for Darling, whose memories of Alfira are all wrapped up in guilt and regret, and of course there’s the Urge.

The thought is interrupted by another groundquake. Each of them reaches for the same candelabra instinctively. Darling swings their legs off the table and smirks at Gortash as the tremors subside. “This is the part where you tell me I should go.”

“You shouldn’t be wasting your time here. Orin has your–what was it?”

“My bear. She stole my bear,” they say, pretending to be hurt.

“Distracting me isn’t going to get your bear or our netherstone from Orin,” he growls, tiring of whatever this is. “Return to your little adventurer friends, clean yourself up, get some sleep, and make your father proud, or whatever it is you do in that gory ossuary.”

Sharp, hard laughter splits the room like a lightning strike. A wholly different laugh from earlier, but still Darling. They’re on their feet so fast their chair falls over. “That’s the answer! I figured it out! Fuck me, I really am that good,” they crow, their tail lashing back and forth behind them. They slap the table with both hands, “I know why this is all falling apart.”

“Get a hold of yourself, Dearest,” Gortash says. The guards have all taken half a step forward in alarm. He doesn’t look at them.

“We talked about this. You said we discussed why our predecessors failed, so we could succeed. No, I still don’t remember. But I solved it. Like the sphinx’s riddle.” Darling climbs up onto the table, completely losing themself in their revelry. He can see all of their sharp teeth when they say, “Now it’s my turn. I get to eat the sphinx. You’re so fucking clever but everyone has a blindspot.”

“Even you,” he keeps his voice firm as they advance on him on their hands and knees, spilling books and papers onto the floor. The candelabra they saved earlier goes too, but its everburning candles are harmless. It’s the tiefling on the table that seems surrounded by a halo of heat.

“Yesss,” they purr, sliding their hands over the embellishments on his lapels, pressing him against the chairback. They smell like sulfur, blood, and soot. “My blindspot got me killed and yours brought me back.”

They’re above him now, face as close as a kiss but only heat and breath pass between them. All of their weight comes down on him as one leg and then the other transfers from the table to the chair.

“Perhaps we should remove your armor,” he suggests, as the front of their chain skirt grinds into his lap. They snicker at him and slide their hands apart, pulling his jacket down around his elbows, ostensibly pinning his arms to his sides. Their hips sway, pushing the mail up against him rhythmically, and very quickly there’s even less room between the two of them.

“Don’t you want to know?” they whisper into his hair.

“You want to tell me, so go on.”

“People. You are utterly incurious about people. I misjudged Orin once but you misjudge everyone. They’re all statistics for you, and generalities. They have to be, don’t they? Anything else would be self-destruction,” Darling punctuates their sentences with little nips at his ear and neck. “Even me. We were partners for a decade or more, weren’t we? I’m sure of it. You didn’t mourn my loss. You went on without me. As tho I’d never been here. You let me be replaced. That’s when the plan failed.”

“You sound like a scorned, jealous lover.”

“This is why you need a poet too. What am I jealous of? You? Your praise? Your love for me? No. At the coronation it was our hard work, our plan. Did you mean any of what you said?” They’re pawing at his chest like a cat. If they weren’t wearing gloves he’d be in ribbons.

“I meant every word,” he says, taking one of their arms by the elbow and pulling the glove off.

“I wasn’t merely scorned. I was dead. Gone. A failure. A weakness that was excised,” they say with confidence, describing his rationale with unpleasant accuracy. “But without me you had no one to tell you that you were wrong. Ketheric was a self-important scold and Orin had nothing to contribute except as a warm body. Neither of them could’ve warned you not to send the Emperor after the prism. What was even the point of any of this without me to see it thru? You think you can rule your kingdom of ash, little tyrant? If anyone else had walked into that throne room with Ketheric’s stone you’d be lost already.”

Dearest had never said any of this to Gortash. They had never been this combative. They had never needed to prove anything with words–their actions were always enough. This desperate need to convince him of their competency is bordering on pathetic, but he can’t find fault in their words, as hard as those words are to hear.

They cup his chin in their hand, pulling his gaze back towards their face. “You can’t do that again,” they insist and the look in their eyes is so intense, so familiar, it doesn’t matter that they don’t remember. It doesn’t matter how much they’ve changed. Nothing matters.

“You’re making it sound as tho you’re going to disappear again,” he says. Darling slashes him across the chest in response. He groans and buckles, leaning into them and clenching his fists. They wrap their arms around his shoulders, using one to pull the glove off the other, while looking straight at the guard standing a few meters behind Gortash’s chair. Some idiot in a mask, probably called a Black Hand or something like that. Hard to tell thru the mask what they’re thinking about this turn of events.

“Were you around before? Do you remember me?” they ask rhetorically, knowing the goon won’t answer. They only answer to Banites. Darling’s expression is a challenge. The guards are all stock still. It’s kind of fun, having an audience. Darling sits up again and pushes Gortash’s shoulders back against the chair. “And what if I do?”

He clutches his chest, blood oozing thru his fingers, sliding off gold, coating skin. “I would wait for you,” he says, looking up with some effort, thru his fringe at Darling. They run bloody fingers thru his hair and loop their arms around his neck and wonder if it’s going to come to that.

First - Previous - Next

[robininthelabyrinth]

Associates - Part 4 - ao3, pt 1, pt 2, pt 3

There was a loud bird outside Lan Xichen’s window.

This was primarily notable because Lan Xichen’s window was currently set with an array designed to support his seclusion, designed to block out the noises of the outside world. As a result, the bird in question must have deliberately broken through several high-level arrays set down by Lan Wangji’s ancestors in order to make a racket outside his window.

It also didn’t sound much like a bird.

Lan Xichen was staring at his wall as the bird shifted from tweeting sounds to whistling to, eventually, a tired-sounding voice mournfully saying, “Tweet. Tweet. Shit. Tweet.”

Lan Xichen was not laughing.

He was in seclusion. It was one of the most sacred rituals of his sect – one of the most serious, the most respected. His own father…

No, he couldn’t even finish that thought.

With a resigned sigh, Lan Xichen stood up and went to the window, where the ‘bird’ had taken to mumbling curses more than anything else.

He opened it a very small crack.

“Nie Huaisang,” he said. “Go away.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” the ‘bird’ said. “I’m a bird.”

Lan Xichen was not laughing.

Nie Huaisang had ruined his life. He was not – it wasn’t –

Okay, it was a little funny.

(Lan Xichen had always had an excessive sense of humor, finding all sorts of things funny. His uncle had been mystified by it, telling him that it would eventually get him into trouble, and in the end, he’d been right, hadn’t he?)

“Very eloquent for a bird,” he remarked, and did not smile when Nie Huaisang cursed, although it was a close thing. “You can go away now.”

“Listen,” Nie Huaisang said. “I don’t need you to forgive me or anything, but you cannot miss Lan Wangji’s wedding.”

Lan Xichen had been reaching for the windowsill, but his fingers stopped in mid-air.

Lan Wangji’s…wedding.

He’d thought – he’d assumed –

“I know, I would have thought they’d be long since married! They were being idiots and pining from a distance, apparently,” Nie Huaisang said, correctly reading Lan Xichen’s thoughts. “They’re finally getting around to it, though, and if you’re not there, Lan Zhan will bite me.”

Lan Xichen pressed his lips together.

“He will. Don’t you remember what a bite-y little brat he was as a child?” A mournful sigh. “He’s gotten back in the habit, it seems. Whether through letters to others or even in person, if you want to judge by the state of Wei-xiong’s neck…”

Lan Xichen involuntarily snorted.

“Anyway, the main point I’m making is: they’re getting married. It’s going to happen soon. You have to attend, or else Lan Zhan will never forgive me, and obviously that’s more important than anything else.”

There was really no need for Nie Huaisang to engaged in these sorts of dramatics, Lan Xichen thought. It wasn’t as if there was any chance of Lan Xichen underestimating him ever again.

Did that mean that, just maybe, this sort of behavior really was what Nie Huaisang was like? That the overdramatic little shithead (there was really no other way to put it) that Lan Xichen had liked so much over the years was still there – that it hadn’t all been a lie, the way Jin Guangyao’s façade of kindness and compassion had been?

“Well? Can I confirm that you’re coming?”

“I’m in seclusion, Nie Huaisang,” Lan Xichen said, and he felt tired all of a sudden. Seclusion, and Nie Huaisang knew why. What he’d done…

“Uh, no you’re not. Not sure if you’ve noticed, but you’re talking to me, aren’t you? Seclusion broken. Problem solved!”

Some cruel god or goddess must have been behind making Nie Huaisang so funny, and Lan Xichen so susceptible to exactly that type of humor.

“That’s not how that works and you know it.”

There was a moment of silence.

Lan Xichen thought to himself that if Nie Huaisang said ‘I don’t know’ in response to that, he really would break seclusion but it would be for the sole purpose of hitting him, and then he’d never agree to see him again in this life.

Luckily, that was not what Nie Huaisang chose to say.

“Listen,” he said, and his tone was no longer exaggerated or emotional but simple and straightforward – the Nie sect way of things, as Lan Xichen was abruptly and painfully reminded. Nie Mingjue had been like that, too. “I’m not expecting any miracles here. I don’t see this as a way to make up with you or get your forgiveness; I don’t think that you’ll suddenly feel better once you’ve come out of seclusion or that you’ll see the light and stop being upset all at once. All I’m saying is…this is your brother. This is the rest of his life, his lifetime happiness, his marriage. Are you really going to pick yourself over him for this, too?”

Lan Xichen had to put his hand on the wall to stop himself from staggering. Whoever thought that Nie Huaisang didn’t know how to stab a man had only ever seen him on the practice field, he thought; they had never seen him in conversation, where his words were sharper and more accurate than any saber.

He wasn’t – he didn’t mean to be selfish, to be picking himself. He didn’t want to do to Lan Wangji what his father had done to their uncle, trapping him in the Cloud Recesses and a million obligations he’d never wanted, even though Lan Wangji was coming to the work far older than either Lan Xichen or Lan Qiren had done.

On the contrary, he had retreated because he knew he could not trust himself. If his judgment was so bad that he had permitted – not only permitted, but in his willful blindness all but endorsed – so many of Jin Guangyao’s vile actions…if he had then turned his hand so quickly against Jin Guangyao once he had learned the truth…Lan Xichen had demonstrated that he lacked either principles of honor or of friendship, and given all that, how could he trust his judgment going forward? Wouldn’t it be better for all of them if he just wasn’t there -?

“If you’re really all that set on mourning san-ge, I’m not going to stop you,” Nie Huaisang said. “But I’m asking you to reconsider, for Lan Zhan’s sake.”

Lan Xichen froze. “You think I’m in here mourning?”

“Why else?” Nie Huaisang’s voice was still ruthlessly practical. His brother’s voice, and as much as he had loved Nie Mingjue in life, suddenly Lan Xichen hated hearing it from Nie Huaisang’s mouth. “You picked him over the rest of us a million times over when he was alive; what’s this seclusion of yours anything other than picking him over us again?”

Lan Xichen didn’t even realize what he intended to do until he was already moving: going away from the window and to the door, opening it and stepping outside – breaking seclusion in truth, the way a few words through a window were insufficient to do – and walking around over to where Nie Huaisang was sitting with his back against the hanshi wall.

“How dare you,” he said, and Nie Huaisang looked up at him, startled. “That’s not it at all.”

Nie Huaisang wasn’t playing with a fan, for once, and looking down at him, sitting there in the dirt and mud in his sect leader’s clothes, Lan Xichen thought he looked small.

Not – pathetic, the way that he’d come to secretly think of him in his heart of hearts these past few years. Just small.

Young. Tired.

Like the lost little boy he’d been when he’d first come to the Cloud Recesses, all those years ago; the one who had inadvertently gotten Lan Wangji to return to himself after their mother’s death, all unknowing – Nie Huaisang hadn’t ever realized that Lan Wangji hadn’t merely been quiet back then but truly mute, nor that the first word he had said since the announcement of the death of their mother over two years before had been a long-suffering “Please” in response to Nie Huaisang’s childish demand that Lan Wangji mind his manners when asking him to pass the salt. By the time Nie Huaisang had been there a month, Lan Wangji had bitten three children and four adults for having said something rude about his new friend, rather than standing there staring at them vacantly the way he had in the past, and Lan Xichen thought he’d never seen his uncle happier about a violation of the rules.

Nie Huaisang looked like the boy who’d nearly paced a hole into the floor during the war, worrying about his brother and pestering Lan Xichen about Lan Wangji very nearly as much, if not more – his brother he’d worried about in an abstract way, in his not-so-secret belief that Nie Mingjue was truly immortal, but Lan Wangji was ‘just a kid’, in his words, as if he himself weren’t a year younger.

He looked like the boy whose heart had shattered into a thousand pieces upon the realization that his brother – the immortal, the all-powerful – was really gone.

“I killed him,” Lan Xichen said, staring down at Nie Huaisang. “Don’t you understand? I killed him.”

“I know,” Nie Huaisang said, the opposite of all his ‘I don’t know’s over the years. “I was there, remember? In the temple – I saw you do it, it was my fault, I instigated –”

“Not Jin Guangyao,” Lan Xichen said. “Nie Mingjue.”

Nie Huaisang fell silent.

“I had them for about the same amount of time, you know,” Lan Xichen said. “Nearly two decades: Mingjue-xiong throughout my childhood, and A-Yao my adulthood, and I killed them both. How can I live with that?”

“I don’t know,” Nie Huaisang said, and his voice was bitter. “For once, for real, I really don’t know. But it’s been over a year. Surely you’ve had time to figure some of that out?”

Lan Xichen hadn’t realized that it had been so longer. It had been forever in there, and also no time at all.

“Do you know,” Nie Huaisang said abruptly, “that right after it all happened, Wei Wuxian said to me ‘don’t associate with evil’?”

Lan Xichen blinked, and then he processed it and stared. “Wei Wuxian said that to you? Wei Wuxian?”

And Wangji accepted it? He wanted to ask. Did Lan Wangji agree with him – did he think that you were too far gone to be saved, that it wasn’t worth associating with you any longer? Your crimes were all in pursuit of justice, and mine done blindly, and yet if he can’t bring himself to forgive you, what hope do I have?

“Lan Zhan has been helping me fend off challenges to my position,” Nie Huaisang said. “And Wei Wuxian apologized for what he said, eventually. He said that he trusted Lan Zhan’s judgment, and if he didn’t think of me as evil, then as far as he was concerned, I wasn’t.”

That seemed like a fairly good standard to use, actually.

“Lan Zhan doesn’t think you’re evil, either,” Nie Huaisang said, and pulled his knees up to his chest. “Even if you don’t trust yourself, why not trust him?”

“…is that what you did?” Lan Xichen asked, and his throat felt sore. All that speaking for the first time in months was wearing on him.

“Yes,” Nie Huaisang said plainly. “After everything I did to avenge da-ge, I’d started to think of myself as willing to do anything, heedless of the collateral damage, another person just like san-ge – a smile to your face and a knife to your back. I still think that, sometimes. But every time I do, I just remind myself that that’s not the sort of person Lan Wangji, Hanguang-jun, would be friends with, and that means it can’t be me. You see?”

Lan Xichen did.

He did see.

He reached up and wiped at his eyes with his sleeve – his eyes had started flowing with tears at some point, he wasn’t sure when. “I’ll come out,” he whispered. “I’ll go to the wedding. I’ll help with – with everything, even if it will take me time. I promise.”

“Good,” Nie Huaisang said, and suddenly smiled up at him, bright and cheerful as a bird once more. “Because I’m serious, you have no idea, he will bite us both –”

Lan Xichen felt a laugh bubbling in his chest and thought that, with time, that he might even be able to let it out.

[tiktaalic]

Why exactly do you see Dean as gay rather than bi? Absolutely feel free to completely ignore this ask if you don't want to go into it - it's just I've heard that interpretation a few times here on Tumblr and I'd genuinely be really interested to hear your thoughts behind it, and how you relate it to the way Dean canonically acts on the show

the pithy answer is projection! the unpithy answer is that out of 320 episodes over the span of 15 years, there is one (1) where his attraction comes off as genuine to me, and it took place fifteen years ago (cassie). i’m a lesbian, and when i was younger i had really genuine and meaningful friendships with men that i thought meant i was in love with them. they were very dear friends to me and i cared deeply about them, and they continue to be dear to me and people i care deeply about now that my head’s on straighter. so that’s that point. 

this is. going to be a long post so this is the preemptive warning to everyone who can’t read tumblr paragraphs to zip scroll.

lisa straight up reads as a lavender marriage to me. the focus for both lisa AND dean is him stepping in to be a father figure. their conversations about how much they care about each other center around how good he is with ben/how much he loves ben. there’s like, nothing where they’re smiling at each other and actually enjoying each other’s company. she’s a two night stand he’s seen 4 times in the last decade. she is dean putting on his brave face and keeping his promise. lisa’s post dean boyfriend matt is in one episode for about 3 minutes purely so he can die, but this is the scene.

so like. lisa is CAPABLE of interacting with a man she’s dating in a way that looks like they’re dating, versus. this.

so that’s that point. we’re at season six and we’ve already gone through every long term relationship with a woman dean’s been in. but let’s get really technical! let’s go through bad boys and after school special and amara to boot. 

in bad boys, robin is dean’s first real crush when he’s fifteen or so. first crush being when you’re 15 rather than in elementary or middle school? gay behavior (joke). let those among us who have not had a straight crush as a teen because they were the first person to be nice to us throw the first stone! and that’s what it boils down to for me. it’s the first time dean’s had ANY stability, and he relishes it. it would not surprise me if she’s his first real friend. she’s definitely his first real NORMAL friend. she asks him what HE likes, what HE wants to do with his life. and that’s totally new for dean! to have choices and to have his wants given consideration instead of just having expectation after expectation loaded onto him.

it does not surprise me that dean, who’s been taking a masterclass in repression and masculinity since the tender age of four, dates robin. it would not surprise me if he dated robin and was gay. of course he’s going to throw himself 100% into a relationship with a girl when he knows he’s at an age where boys are supposed to be skirt chasers, when he meets a girl and she’s NICE to him and KNOWS him like literally no one else does. all of this accompanied by the “i am a boy and have positive feelings for someone who’s a girl this MUST be romance this MUST be a crush” like. this is going to get into overshare territory for a moment i apologize but As A Lesbian when i was 15/16 i actively had crushes on girls and rational-ed them away as Girl Best Friends :) while telling everyone that the feelings i had for my boy best friends were crushes aksdkfkndf. repressed gay people are stupid and dean is MUCH more repressed than me aged 16. so. robin box ticked. 

after school special: jail for dabb jail for dabb for a thousand years i know. trust me i know. BUT. 17 year old dean who’s fully pulled on the leather jacket and womanizer persona, who doesn’t talk to anyone in his class and just hangs out in janitor closets making out with a girl who thinks his persona is hot. and when she tries to get close to him, to form an emotional connection, he panics and self sabotages. which. yes. peak straight man behavior. i’m not arguing that this little characterization bit is the pillar upon which gay dean rests, i’m saying if you’re inclined, you can nudge it into gay kid going “oh no this is too much responsibility i gotta get out of this” behavior. and i’m inclined!

amara: the amara stuff is so. hdnfdkf. it’s this primordial connection or whatever stronger than dean and amara both and yet dean’s still able to buck it a few times for [drumroll........] cas! + i don’t have any of the posts on hand but i DO agree with the whole vibe of. “i would fuck the embodiment of my destruction and horrors and failings because my self loathing is THAT strong”. also: gay af for the being of destruction with an immutable pull on you and towards you to say i will give you your greatest desire and then give you your mommy back and dip.

and then there’s the various one night stand stuff. i don’t have the comprehensive list on hand, but off the top of my head these are times when dean has sex scenes that are given huge focus:

when he comes back from hell and everyone’s gently asking if he’s fine and he’s like could a guy who wasn’t fine do THIS [tries to sleep with a bartender and or angel]. when bobby dies and dean’s hardcore mourning and hardcore drinking to the point where i think his drinking is acknowledged for one of a true handful of times in the series. just checked the transcript for that one. the morning after:

DEAN: Ugh.

SAM: You look like crap.

DEAN: Yeah, well, I feel worse than I look. I do recommend the Cobalt Room, by the way. Awesome night. Although I think I'm getting too old for this.

which. again. normal straight man commitmentphobe hitting his 30s and going hmmm.... perhaps real connections would be nice? but that doesn’t contradict gay dean at all, it slots in. also this is season 7. season 7 and he’s too old for this. top of my head i can think of two more similar instances: s11 baby when he groans and goes “mistakes were made”, s13 advanced thanatology when cas is dead and he’s FULL ON grieving so hard that sam takes him to a strip club. and again. he over does it. again he throws himself too hard to the coping vices and when he wakes up he’s tired and sore and has a headache. the other time he gets laid is endverse, which uh. is basically dean in 24/7 mourn drink sleep with someone mode. there are like... a handful of times he has sex For Fun, enough to count on one hand. the rest are all real easy to slap the label PERFORMANCE or COPING WITH MOURNING on.

obviously all of these points go either way - you could absolutely interpret them as legit attraction to women. you can interpret them as legit attraction to women while these instances are still coping/performance. but for me personally they all end up on the gay column instead of the bi column. um. end manifesto i think.

[sweeethinny]

Come and sit a while with me

It's been a year since I started all of this, that I wrote a fanfic to celebrate Ginny's birthday, and here I am, posting once again, keeping the tradition <3

This story will deal with grief, suicidal thoughts, but it has a happy ending, I swear

Happy birthday, Ginny.

AO3 | FF. NET | SIYE

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It was a normal afternoon at the Potters' house, Ginny wasn't working today and the kids were on vacation, James had gone out with friends, Lily was at the pool with her friends, and she and Albus were enjoying their free time before they had to get ready to go out to dinner and celebrate Ginny's birthday, so they lay on the sofa in the living room, both of them with moisturizing masks on their faces and hair, and the TV on.

The perfect day for her, if she was sincere.

"Mom," Albus muttered, looking at her curiously. "When did you know you loved dad?"

''I always loved your dad.''

''No… when did you know you really love him?'' Albus looked at her, his hair in a bun and his green eyes staring at her in the same way he had since he was born, as if he wanted to know the whole truth, and not half lies. "I mean, when did you look at him and realize he wasn't just another one?"

''Let me see…'' Ginny changed the channel when the movie ended, trying not to smile at the memory. ''I guess I never thought he was just another one, but there was a specific day when I was sure he was the one I wanted to marry…''

August 11, 1998

Ginny loved birthdays, it was simply her favorite date, along with Christmas.

How could anyone not be happy on the day that was entirely and unique to them? Everything revolved around her: the cake, the celebration, the attention, everything. It was her day, the day that Ginny didn't share with anyone, and even though she sometimes felt a bit of a bitch about it, she was glad none of her brothers were born on the same day as her..

She didn't want to have to share this too.

But today wasn't that happy day. Today wasn't sunny and as much as Molly had become more involved in her garden, Ginny's favorite flowers hadn't bloomed in time, as if they knew she was in mourning.

It was the first time that someone would be missing at the party.

Even Charlie called her over the Floo so everyone could sing together and celebrate, but today, it would be eight Weasleys for the first time, not nine. And Ginny didn't know how to deal with that, with that pain that seemed to consume her in every way, and that made her close the bedroom curtains and hide under the covers because she was exhausted.

Exhausted from fighting. Of having to be strong. Not being able to afford the privilege of just crying and admitting it hurt. It hurt a lot. At times it seemed almost impossible to bear. Ginny wanted for the first time in a long while, someone to take over things for her, letting her sleep and cry freely, without judgment, without trying to fix what was broken.

She didn't want a solution.

But she couldn't do that, Molly was doing her best to make this date happy, so that Ginny would realize that there was reason to celebrate, that Fred wouldn't want her to spend all day in her room. She also thought this was unfair, because Fred didn't have to bury one of them, Fred didn't have to go through grief, he never faced that pain, so what would he know?

Ginny knew. She knew what it was like to want to die every day since he died, she was the one who felt this agonizing loneliness that seemed to get bigger every day, she was the one who lay in bed at night and thought she could go crazy at any time because it hurt so much and it was so exhausting.

"May I come in?" A knock on her door made her jump as she tried to hide her dark circles with some of the makeup she had on, and his voice made her curse herself for still being in her pajamas.

''Yes.'' She tried to hide her nervousness because things were still a little awkward between her and Harry, even though she had kissed him a few days after the war ended, on the sofa in the living room in the middle of the night, when her room looked very cold and lonely, and Harry looked so cute wearing plaid pajamas and with his hair cut.

He clearly blamed himself for Fred's death, and Ginny still hadn't gotten over all the latest events: the Carrows' tortures, the war, the deaths, Fred…

Ginny had certain doubts, even though she didn't like to think about it, that they would last.

Maybe they were that couple that everyone looks at and says 'what if life had been different with these two?', figuring they could be something more if there hadn't been so much destruction in their midst.

"Happy birthday." Harry still looked tired, he hadn't regained his weight, but he was already showing signs of improvement, which was good. Ginny was happy to see him look good.

He was wearing the outfit she helped him buy for his birthday when they, Ron and Mione went for a walk in Muggle London. A light blue T-shirt, dark jeans, and black sneakers. A simple outfit, no big deal, but one that seemed to make him look even more handsome, if that was even possible.

The woman who would marry him would be very lucky, Ginny thought.

''Brought it for you.'' She hadn't even noticed that he had his hands behind his back, looking nervous as he showed her a bouquet of honeysuckle, tied with a red satin bow, and a cream-colored card pinned there with his name signed. "I know they're your favorites, and I thought you'd like it." He smiled awkwardly. "I noticed yours didn't bloom this year, and I thought you might want to continue the tradition."

"You didn't have to worry about that." Ginny had to swallow hard to keep from crying in front of him, even though there wasn't a reason to.

"Of course I did, it's your birthday, I want to see you happy." Harry shrugged, his cheeks flushing as if he'd been out in the sun for hours on end. He was so cute, Ginny wished she didn't like him so much, because that way, when their imminent separation came, it wouldn't hurt so much. ''How is your day? I don't want to spoil the surprise, but I think your mom made your favorite cake.''

"It's okay, as far as possible," she shrugged. "Mom is trying to keep me away from the kitchen and all the preparation, so I decided to stay in the bedroom."

''Are you going to be here until party time?'' She thought Harry would start the same speech Hermione gave her when she said she was going to do it, which was the same as Bill and his father: Fred wouldn't like it. Besides, you need to celebrate that you're alive, enjoy life…

Ginny was ready to fight with him, just as she had with the three of them.

"Is there a problem?" Ginny crossed her arms, careful not to crush the flowers.

Harry was bigger than her, but that wouldn't stop her from kicking him out if necessary.

''No. Want company?" Harry looked sincere though. "We can assemble that puzzle you bought, remember?"

''Do you want to stay here? Assembling a puzzle?' Ginny followed Harry as he walked around her room as if the surroundings had been familiar to him for years already, looking for the box on her shelves, which was a total mess of old books, photos and other stuff.

"Of course, it's your day, we'll do whatever you want, ma'am."

August 11, 2021

''How did you know you loved him? Because he wants to assemble a puzzle with you?" Albus asked, no longer paying attention to the TV.

''No and yes. See, unlike everyone else that day, your dad respected my grief. He didn't try to make me go outside, see the bright side of things, nothing. He just stayed there with me, accepting that on that day, I wanted to stay inside my room, putting together a puzzle… He paid attention to the flowers I liked, in the cake." Ginny smiled. "That dawn, after everyone else went to sleep, I finally managed to cry, and son, it's a pain I can't put into words." She swallowed, not wanting to get emotional. ''Over time it gets a little easier, but that year, it was a pain that seemed to tear my chest apart. And do you know what your dad did? He sat with me, hugged me, and listened to me cry for an hour, not saying anything, just standing there by my side.''

The memory was no longer as painful as it had been, and Ginny allowed herself to smile as the image of Harry lying beside her on the bed, his arms around her waist, came back to her mind.

"He never tried to save me, he just stayed there with me, helping me when I needed it, and that was the most important thing."

"He saved you in the chamber," Albus remembered, a mischievous smile on his lips that reminded her of Fred when he was younger. Ginny didn't even know it was possible, but it was always the image that came to her mind when she saw Albus smile like that.

"It was a different situation." She shrugged.

"Did you doubt you would marry him after that day?"

"Never again." And it was true. ''Since that morning, when I woke up and he was still sleeping with me after I cried and sobbed things I don't even remember anymore, I knew he was the one I would marry.'' Ginny touched the ring that was already on her finger for over twenty years now, still smiling like a fool as she remembers the marriage proposal and the marriage itself.

"And why weren't you sure you'd be with him before that?"

''It's not that I wasn't sure, it's just that when you go through something really bad, everything around you seems to fall apart together, it's like nothing else has a solution and you are bound to fail whatever you try. It's a horrible feeling, I hope you never feel that.'' Ginny shifted on the couch to give him a closer look. ''Why this now?''

"Just curiosity." Albus smiled, his cheeks a little flushed. "Happy birthday again, Mom, I love you so much." He kissed her forehead, as she usually did.

''I love you too, my love.''

[drwcn]

CQL!AU: Everyone is an orphan except Wei Wuxian, and the Twin Jades are dark practitioners. Needless to say, that changes things. (canon what canon) 

Master Post

~

[1-3]

[1] Jiang Fengmian and Yu Ziyuan were the ones who died early. Wei Changze returned to Lotus Pier to become the guardian and regent of his best friend’s son and heir. 

Lotus Pier was black and white. Lifeless. 

That was the first thought that crossed Cangse Sanren’s mind when she and Wei Changze docked at the port, swords in hand, and their little son in toll. 

The people mourned. Posts were temporarily closed, the market suspended. Windows and doors of their bustling riverside town were firmly shut, with white and black drapes hanging from its sills and fluttering in the wind. 

Jiang Fengmian and Yu Ziyuan were dead. Two young cultivators, parents, taken from this world too young, gone before their time. 

“A-Ying, come child,” Cangse extended a hand to the boy who glanced around at the unfamiliar place with timid curiosity. 

“A-niang, what’s going on?” 

“No questions. You must behave yourself today.” Cangse brought her son closer to her, watching her husband’s usually smiling, gentle face pull taut into a mask that betrayed none of the grief he felt underneath. He held himself taller today, shoulders pulled back, spine rod-straight and jaws clenched. She’d forgotten, after all these wonderful years of travelling the world with their family, that this place was once his home. 

“Er’shixiong,” a man greeted them at the pier, flanked by a party of younger Jiang disciples, all appropriately garbed with white sashes around their waist. “Cangse-daozhang.” 

They had spoken in depth about returning. Cangse knew there was nothing she could do to stop him; Changze’s devotion to Jiang Fengmian ran deeper than she understood. It was never herself that Yu Ziyuan should’ve resented; though however misplaced Madam Yu’s jealousy had been, it was a moot point now.  

Chang’ge, I will not ask you to choose between your love for him and your promise to me. If Lotus Pier is where you wish to go, I will go with you. I cannot promise however that I will always stay. That — is not my nature. 

Thank you, Wumei*. I understand. 

They found Jiang Wanyin, the little lord, and his sister Jiang Yanli, in their mourning robes, kneeling and crying before their parents’ funeral altar.  

Wei Changze sunk to his knees beside them, and folded his body until his forehead hit the ground. “Shixiong,” he spoke to the spirits. “I’ve come back.” 

“Who are you?!” The boy Jiang Cheng, five-years-old and hurting, blurted out rudely through his tears. His sister held him from behind and gave a trembling nod of deference to the older man. 

“Wei-shishu.”  

Beside her, clinging to her skirt, Wei Ying looked up and asked quietly, “A-niang, are we going to stay?” 

Cangse Sanren, the favoured fifth pupil of Baoshan Sanren herself, smiled down quietly at her only child and smoothed back his hair. “Yes, A-Ying we will. Lotus Pier is home now.” 

(JC 5 yro; WWX 5 yro; JYL 8 yro)

[2] When Qingheng-jun’s respected mentor died - murdered - he made a very different choice. He turned his back on his clan and his responsibilities, and escaped into the wild with the woman he loved. They were just an ordinary family, living away from the chaos in a paradise of their own. But even Eden eventually falls, and nothing gold ever stays... 

Take A-Huan and A-Zhan and go! Do not stop until you are safe. Do not turn around. Do not come back. 

Shijie! You’re injured! Let me help you - 

Zhao Ming! Zhao Zhuliu, you listen to me: their names, Lan Xichen for the older, and Lan Wangji for the younger. It’s what their father and I wanted for them. 

Shijie - jiejie - 

Now go! Go! 

A-Niang, come with us! A-Niang, don’t go!! A-Niang!!! 

The forest burned like the autumn sun at dusk descending from the sky, red and golden and glorious. A single figure stood amongst the flames, corpses littered at her feet. Bichen fell from her grip, barely making a sound as it landed against dampened earth, soaked with Lan blood.  Those who fought her were dead, but she feared that she did not have long either.

“Rong-gege,” Qiu Baiti collapsed onto her hands and dragged her body towards the man who lay still amongst the carnage, arrows piercing his front, his sword Shuoyue still clutched tight in his left hand. 

Lifeless eyes remained open, as though he could not rest. 

“Rong-gege,” Baiti called helplessly, crawling to him and laying her head down against his chest. There used to be a heartbeat there, and if she closed her eyes, she could almost hear it again. “Wait, don’t go without me...” 

She was so tired and bled from so many places. It was not until a sharp cry and a familiar face descended from the sky that Qiu Baiti realized the inferno which surrounded her was not yet hell. 

"Qiu-jiejie!" Cangse rushed forth, almost tripping over the corpse of a dead Lan disciple in her haste. “Lan-da’ge, he -” A horrified gasp drowned the rest of her words. 

“Cangse...you’re here...” 

Cangse gathered her bosom sister into her arms and immediately drew upon a torrent of spiritual energy from her core, channeling them into her fingertips to heal her friend. She could tell that whatever combat Qiu Baiti had been through, it had already taken the little life inside her, and now hers was following it to the other side.   

“Hold on, I can save you - hold on -”

“Cangse - Cang - stop, it’s too late.” Qiu Baiti lay limp there.  

Death, it drew near, but she was ready. She closed her eyes as a slip of tear escaped beneath her lashes. "I did this to him, to all of them... if I hadn't...it’s all my fault. I was the one they wanted; he was just trying to protect me. A-Huan, A-Zhan...."

Trembling and in near hysterics, Cangse sobbed, “No, don’t say that! Where are the boys?” 

“Safe. A-Ming has them...you mustn’t tell anyone. Not anyone, promise me. Not even Lan Qiren. Especially Lan Qiren... Rong-gege trusts his brother, but I - I - promise me - promise -” Qiu Baiti gasped for breath, gurgling blood in her throat with each laboured attempt. 

“Qiu-jiejie, please - don’t - I - I promise.” 

“Good...Cangse...” Qiu Baiti clutched her hand and smiled, a crimson wound cutting across her pale, beautiful face. “Good.” 

And then she died, with the red of the forest flames still in her eyes. 

Cangse held her friend - dear, damned, dead - and allowed a scream to tear through herself. From the depth of her grief, she released a pulse of unrestrained spiritual energy that rippled through the dense woods as though the storm of her anguish could not be contained. And like a measly candle-light assaulted by the winter wind, the forest fire was extinguished in an instant. 

The sun was gone, and the night was dark.  All was quiet, but there was no peace to be found. 

 Cangse buried Lan Cenrong and Qiu Baiti in two unmarked graves side by side beneath a tall oak tree. She sifted through the bodies and the grime and collected the spiritual weapons they left behind — Shuoyue, Bichen, Liebing (cracked in two places) and the strings of Qiu Baiti’s shattered guqin — and stored them away in her qiankun pouch. She hoped one day that she would find Zhao Zhuliu and the sons Lan Cenrong and Qiu Baiti had left behind, and return these items to their rightful owners. 

It was not until three years later, not too far from her shifu Baoshan’s sacred temple nestled in the snowy mountain peak, where Jiang Yanli had been brought to strengthen her health and train as Cangse’s direct disciple, that Cangse perchance came across Zhao Ming again. 

He was accompanied by two youngsters, two beautiful jade-like children who called him jiufu. Cangse was not surprised in the least to find that both of them have learned the technique for which their mother and jiujiu were hunted: the core-melting hand. 

(LXC 9, LWJ 6 -> LXC 12, LWJ 9 ) 

[3] They called her “The Little Queen”. Wen Qing never wanted to be Sect Master, or Deputy Sect Master, or Regent Sect Master. She just wanted to live quietly with A-Ning and Wen-popo and study the art of healing that her parents practiced. But alas, life had other plans. 

Wen Qing was a month short of her tenth birthday when her life changed forever. 

Wen Ruohan, her father’s older cousin, who’d always been close with her family, had come to visit Dafan. Wen-bobo didn’t have siblings, and her father Wen Ruotian was as close as a brother to him, more than any other Wen descendent of their time. 

Wen Qing liked Wen Ruohan well. He was doting and found her intelligent. Her parents chose the simple village life, but they often spent New Years and holy days at Nevernight at Sect Master Wen’s behest and invitation.  

When Wen Ruohan came to Dafan and told her folks that there was a piece of the Yin Iron inside the Stone Fairy, her father had been eager to help, though weary he was of those powers he could not understand. 

He’d been right to be afraid. 

The extraction had gone horribly wrong, and the rebound of dark energy had eviscerated all those near by, her mother, her father, and Wen Ruohan himself. It was by the skin of her teeth that Wen Qing managed to yank her baby brother Wen Ning out of the way. Then, without thinking, she caught the vile, wretched thing as it sailed through the air. It landed in the palm of her hands, and there she stood, regarded with fear and bewonderment from all those in witness as the cursed item, which burned the life out of cultivators much older and seasoned than her, quieted in her small hands. 

The Elders said she had...a nature affinity. For what, they could not say. 

Wen Qing was brought back to Nevernight and given the name Yuefan: to exceed mortality. Within days, the heavy crown of Sect Master of Qishan Wen was placed on her head. 

It was then that she learned that her Wen-bobo, with no inclination to marry and bind himself to another, did not leave behind a legitimate heir. His young sons, 4-year old Wen Xu and 2 year-old Wen Chao were born to him by women of ill repute.  They were kind, good boys, but they were infantile and illegitimate. Wen Qing felt for them, but she could not change their fate. So for the time being, she accepted what she had to. 

The adults did what they could for her, but there was no one in the cold, vast palace of Nevernight to mind her or nurture her. She stood alone upon the towers where the eternal flames, fuelled by Qishan Wen’s combined spiritual energy, burned in their iron brazier, and watched over the lush volcanic mountain range that was hers to govern and protect. Those beneath her - servants, disciples - feared her and her unknown powers. Those advising her - Elders, mentors - had their own agendas. In any case, they stopped seeing her as a child the minute she held the Yin Iron in her hands and lived to tell the tale. 

It was a secret, they told her. She must guard it well. 

The Chief Cultivator Jin Guangshan sent his ambassadors to congratulate her succession. Gusu’s Lan Qiren and Qinghe’s Nie Heqiu both arrived consecutively to pay their respects to their ten-year-old colleague and fellow Sect Master. 

There was a momentary rumble amongst the Wen Elders about whether Nie Heqiu’s older son Nie Mingjue would be a good match for her someday, but as he too was set to inherit, the idea was put aside as quickly as it was brought up. 

Then came Yunmeng’s regent Wei Changze, bringing along an entourage of Jiang disciples and a boy one year her junior, the son he conceived with the revered Cangse Sanren. 

Wei Wuxian. 

Wen Qing liked him enough. He was spontaneous, agreeable, and clever, and he found her aloofness fun to provoke. They would’ve both been satisfied with the arrangement had she not met Yunmeng Jiang’s young Jiang-zongzhu some years later, and had he not crossed paths with the vengeful and infamous Lan Wangji. 

But life, as the gods have planned it, must have its mysteries. 

(WQ 10, WWX 9) 

TBH?  

Note: 

Wumei - fifth sister, Wei Changze’s nickname for Cangse. 

Details of Cangse and Wei Changze’s name as well as Qingheng-jun and Madam Lan’s name can be found here .

jiufu 舅父 - maternal uncle, formal.  

[alreadyblondenow]

Paint the lot red | Qian Kun

Qian Kun x Reader  

▸ FLUFF, ANGST, Smut, Vampire au ▸ Part of the Stephen King’s collab, hosted by @starryqian​ & @takitaro​ ▸ Inspired by Stephen King’s, Salem’s Lot 

Summary: Kun is a vampire, buying humans in exchange for immortality. He wanted to buy you and your house, but love changes everything. Convincing each other to be something you’re not. Kun wants to turn you into a vampire, but you want him to embrace being a human. Will Kun leave his family for you? Or you will accept the immortality he offers?

Word count: 6.8k

Warnings: mentions of car crash, family loss, Vanilla sex, depression from family loss, bloodsucking, virginity loss, unprotected sex, swearing, major character death, blood, mentions of alcohol, depression

A/N: Salem’s Lot is a handful but great book. I can’t follow the entire plot of Stephen King’s work, so heres my version of it. This is also inspired by Vampires VS. The Bronx... HAHAHA so, here. And sorry if the ending is SLIGHTLY close to my Jaehyun’s Body, but I plotted this first so 🤷🏼‍♀️ 

Tag list: @jimjamjaemin @inseonqt @thefouranemoi @jaehyunoos @sunshinedhyuck @neospirited @shanghai-lu @loeygotospacenow @mal-nakamoto23 @svteencarat @commentgirl @yukine-smx​ (I hope I did not missed anyone)

NEWS FLASH: The family of the famous writer Y/N, died in a car crash on their way to the airport for a family trip to Hawaii. All four passengers are dead on arrival including the driver. The funeral will be closed and private, as per the writer Y/N’s request.  

The sky has your favorite shade of orange when you arrived at the house. Home, you thought. Always the same big house that you grew up to. It’s been almost ten years since you step foot in this house and seeing it again for the first time made you regret every Christmas that you purposely missed just so you can avoid spending time with your family. And besides feeling that you’re home, you feel regret suffocating you. What was I thinking, you murmured. This house used to be filled with laughter and happiness. Nights where you and your family will watch TV together in the living room with all the lights closed, countless meals together and talking about random stuff while eating, drinking coffee with your mother, playing board games with your brother. But now, the house is filled with dust and despair.

The house feels cold and dirty but either way, it’s what you need. You would rather feel the emptiness of this big house and miss your family than be alone in your apartment. Maybe being home can make you write something worth reading for again, maybe being home will help you be alive again. Losing your whole family is a different kind of pain. The word ‘alone’ does not cover what you’re feeling right now.

It has been nine months since the accident but the sad news is still fresh in your heart that sometimes when you remember it, you just turned into stone and start crying out of nowhere. Thankfully, the town was understanding enough about what you’re going through in life. They were all careful not to make you remember your family’s death, and made sure to take care of you in ways that they can.

“I see some stores are closing? What happened to Miguel’s Ice Cream shop?” you asked Sophie, the owner of the small grocery store in town. You’ve known her since you were just a little girl, and your mother and father helped her grow her business.

“Well, since your father’s death there's this vampire family who’s been buying the whole town. One by one, Qian Properties. Offering money and immortality as payments” she says. The worry in her tone is quite evident as if she knew that vampires will soon knock on her store and offer her the same thing. Money and immortality.

After your family’s passing, the world has gone mad like they took every good thing from this world with them on their graves. Crazy how in nine months the things that are used to be fiction like vampires, are now the new normal. Everything happened so fast. Their kind grew and grew and now their population covers over almost 1/4 of the world. Vampires school, condominiums for vampires, hotel ran by vampires, humans being vampires. It’s crazy. But even though the world has gone mad, it doesn’t bother you because the pain that you’re dealing with right now is taking too much of your sanity.

As months slowly pass by, even though you hate writing right now, you still try and find your way back to loving what you used to do for a living. Writing was everything to you. There’s no greater feeling than sharing something you’ve created to the world, show it entirely, and watch the people love every bit of that thick thing we called a book. You lost your spark with writing when the accident happened and it changed your life. Everything you published became the talk of the world, people hating it and blaming what happened to your family. It was your darkest time. Losing your family and watching your career end.

You type, delete over and over again, and tried writing your feelings away until you see the sun setting again. A good reminder to call it a day. Then someone rang your doorbell. You quickly grabbed your robe and make your way downstairs, you see a man’s figure on the other side of the gate, wearing a nice suit, black trousers, and nice leather shoes.

“Good evening. I hope I did not interrupt you, I’m Qian Kun” he offered his hand for you to shake it which you accepted with a straight face. Qian. The family name of the vampires who are buying properties in this town and you’re not stupid to not know what he came here for. You wanted to shoo him away and tell him that you’re not interested in anything that he will offer. You have a lot of money and you don’t need immortality.

You crossed your arms and waited for him to talk more. “May I come in? I’m looking forward to this meeting for quite some time now” he says. You turned around and did not say anything but left the gate wide open. “Please” he added and he sounded desperate.

“Mr. Qian, I left the door open. What are you waiting for?”

“I- I suppose you don’t know that vampires cannot come in unless you invite them in” you didn’t of course.

“I’m sorry. I did not know. Please come in”

When you two settled in the living room, he started the conversation by introducing himself. You notice that he’s well mannered, polite, and careful with his words. He doesn’t sound fake like the monsters who pretend to care for you in the writing industry. Kun was straightforward without offending you, intimidating but not enough to make you feel small. He stated his intentions very clearly, “As a firstborn, I want my family to have a nice home. And this house is perfect. You will not be homeless, of course. We will find you a new house, cash, and immortality” he says.

You couldn’t agree more with what Kun told you. But the reason that he’s here to buy your house is something you can’t let him do. Even if he’s polite, nice, and handsome if you’re being honest. You can’t let him take away your home.

“It’s good that you love your family so much and you’re taking care of them. Something that I regret not doing” you take a sip from your coffee before you continue saying something that will bring you to tears, “are you aware that I lost my family, about a year ago?” you were calm when you said it, but it still hurt like hell. Admitting that they’re gone.

Kun was speechless. He felt like he ruined your peace and your time to mourn your family but most of all, it felt like he’s disrespecting you. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know” is all he can say.

“I have way too much money and I don’t want immortality. Thank you for your offer, but this is all I’ve got”

“I cherish my family too. I have a family and we don't have a home, you don’t have a family but you have a home. Be part of us, we can be your family”

You got offended, but still, there’s not enough reason to burst out and be hysterical. You gave him a small smile and shook your head, “Good luck finding a home Mr. Qian. I admire you taking care of your family”

The night ended coldly, both disappointed with personal reasons. Although he felt sorry about his visit, he still got his eyes on the prize. Kun will stand his ground and will try over and over again until you say yes to his offer. You, on the other hand, don’t know why you have a soft spot for the vampire even though he already offended you. Maybe it’s because you were moved for his honest reasons that you can’t let out your anger towards him even if you force yourself. He was just trying and finding his family a stable home, no need to get mad, you said to yourself.

As days go by, the vampire did not give up as expected. He continued his visit and greet you with the sweetest smile. He tried pursuing you, giving you flowers, bringing you books to read, chocolates, fruits, anything that crosses his mind that will try to change your decision. He was desperate for his family’s sake and it was obvious.

Sophie said that Qian properties chose this place because it’s far from the city. There’s a lot of trees and the neighborhood is peaceful. “That’s why he’s desperate. Your father made this town great. Don’t let that Qian family eat up of what your father built” she says sternly.

You walked alone to your house with a bag of take out, thinking of other ways to make your meal even more delicious. Since you’re alone in life, you don’t have someone to cook you a decent meal. When you were living alone in the city, you have your manager cook you good food. But now that you’re completely alone, you just have to make the best out of this take out.

“Hi” of course the vampire waited for you to come home. You smiled and let out a small laugh because both of his hands are carrying grocery bags.

“What are you doing? I have food and enough stocks for a whole family, and I live alone” It was a joke. You giggle and opened the gate, this time you did not forget to invite him in.

“That’s not why I’m here. I’m here as a friend a new vampire friend- Let me cook for you please, I need a friend”

Hearing him say those words made you think that Kun is a blessing in disguise. Finally, decent food. You don’t want to admit but having Kun’s company tonight made you feel happy. Not genuinely happy of course, but it’s nice to have someone to talk to. Surprisingly, he’s talkative but not annoying. The words that came out from his mouth made sense to the point that you’re learning new things from him. He was right, he’s here as a friend and not as a buyer of your house.

“Why do you want my house so bad?” you asked. Stirring the spaghetti sauce that he made.

“Hmm. I thought I’m here as a friend?” he smiles and refuses to answer your question. He looked handsome up close, but his unbelievably white skin is scary. It reminded you that he’s a vampire.

“Well okay, if you don’t want to answer that question. I didn’t know vampires eat. I thought you only drink blood from humans” you quickly changed the subject so he can feel comfortable.

“I love food and I love cooking. It’s my guilty pleasure. It doesn’t make me full, but if what I made taste good then I’m satisfied” he answered your question with a big smile. Proud and happy to talk about how he loves cooking.

For someone who doesn’t have a soul, Kun is a vampire full of life. You listen to him talk about the things he sees on TV and watches his eyes show you and tell you how he’s curious about the world. He’s well aware that there's so much you can do in a lifetime, he wanted to learn many things and go around the world. He’s almost more human than you are. “Well if you have all these dreams of yours why don’t you embrace life instead of living in the shadows for your family?” you hope he answers your question this time.

“My family is more important than my dreams and my wants in life. The things that I long for will forever be in this world, but my family can die anytime-“ he realized what he just said, “I’m- I’m sorry. I got carried away. Please- Uh, how’s the food?” he tried changing the subject but it was too late.

He’s right. Everything he said is right and you’re realizing it just now, “I wish I met you before my family died. Unlike you, I chose my dreams and turned my back against my family. And now I’m regretting it. Don’t worry, you didn’t offend me and the food is great. Really great” your tone was slowly turning sad and gloomy. The vampire was quick to be concerned but he can’t do anything to help you heal. So, he changed the mood and joked about offering you immortality and you argued with him and tried convincing him to embrace being human. It was a friendly debate that made him blush and your heart flutter.

Kun hates lying, even to himself. As he listens and watches you speak very closely while you drink your wine, he's slowly liking you and he's not afraid of what he's feeling right now. He loves how you talk about the things you've experienced already like he's listening to a book about wonders. You must be a great writer. The whole time you were talking about your first book to him, he was really impressed by your talent but he can't listen to you further. Instead, he just admired you closely.      

Then he kissed you.

He noticed how your lips were plump and red because of the red wine and the kiss was something he can’t control because he wanted to do it. “I’m not sorry about the kiss, I wanted to do it” at least he was honest about what he feels. "Please continue your story" and so you did, but this time you were smiling from ear to ear.

Good things come to an end. You felt that you went out on a date with Kun when the night ended. You felt nothing but happiness, butterflies in your stomach, cheeks hurt because of too much smiling. He flashed those handsome dimples of his and waved goodbye to you. Neither of you wanted to end the night so early but he had to go home to his family.

The next day, while you were trying so hard to put what you feel into writing, you look over the window and hope to see Kun’s figure outside your huge gate. But no, he’s not there. Until the sun is finally setting again and the sky turned into your favorite shade of orange, you were disappointed but only for a short span of time.

The same thing happened for a week. You waited for the vampire to show up outside your gate, but he never did. Maybe he finally gave up.

One fine beautiful evening, you were reading the books Kun gave you while you enjoy a cup of warm tea then your doorbell rang three times that it almost sounded so desperate for attention. Finally, the figure that you’ve been meaning to see showed up. You welcome him in like an old friend and he greets you with an exhausted smile. He looked tired and dull you noticed.

“I’m sorry I didn’t show up for days” you haven’t seen each other for a week and the first words you heard from him are apologies. “I was busy running the family business” he clears his throat and sat comfortably on the couch.

“Which is?” you asked.

“Buying humans so my family name will forever live,” he said oh so cooly. Surprising you with honestly again that never bothered you. In fact, he continues to surprise you. “And looking for a new town to buy” he added. You noticed during your long walks that people in this town continue embracing immortality in exchange for their establishments and loyalty for Qian properties. It sounds complicated, their business, but really it’s not hard to understand. It’s like a normal business that buys and sells properties and a big company that needed a lot of staff. But for Qian properties, lives are involved.

“What happens to the people you turn to vampires?”

“Besides being rich, they will have a long life, my family owns them and as long as they live, they will work for my family. But I can assure you that their lives are safe. We don’t harm them, rather we help them adjust to this new life they swore to- How are you?”

His sudden concern for you caught you off guard that you smiled and became shy in front of him. He’s not here as a businessman again, he’s here as your friend, Kun. Whom you kissed and waited for his presence every day.

“I waited for you every day” he smiled at your honesty. But then, his smile slowly fades away. He holds his chest and pretends that he’s okay to not make you worry. “I’m not stupid you’re hungry. When was the last time you drank blood?” you brought him to your kitchen to give him a plate of raw steak. But he told you steak does not cover it. You were trying so hard to help him ease his hunger. Then you realized, you have blood.

“Try not to kill me? Or turn me?” you exposed your collar bones to him and standup in between his legs. He was sitting on the kitchen counter like a bored teenager with a bottle of water in his hand. He let out a cute laugh and fixed your robe.

“No. I can’t do that to you. I’m not here to ask for blood. I’m just tired and pressured because of my family. I just needed to see you” he smiled so sweetly again, making you fall in love with his gaze. Even though he’s tired and weak to the core he can still make your heart flutter.

“I’m not going to take no for an answer. If you don’t drink my blood, you can never see me again” it was a dangerous bargain but you had to try. You came closer to him, felt his cold skin, smelled his cologne, and hope that he smells your blood. It was a struggle for him and he enjoys your sweet torture. Until he finally gave in.  

“Just one swig,” he says.

“That’s all I want to happen. Please, you look dead” you insist.

He took his time untying your robe, remove it from you and watch it hit the tiled kitchen floor. He kissed your neck like the gentleman that he is making you weak and let out soft moans. His lips are cold and it sends a shiver straight to your spine. Then he bit you. Drank your blood like he’s just kissing your neck. It felt like you’re high on drugs, everything kept spinning and the moment he stopped. You feel weak and he was quick to catch you with his strong arms. Kun kissed the part where he had bit you a few seconds ago and kissed you all the way from your collar bone, neck, chin, and finally your lips.

Everything turned slow. Like a moment being kept for safekeeping and no one dares to move too fast. Scared to ruin such a beautiful moment.

You took him to your room and there you two continued that beautiful moment. He watched you remove your clothes in between his legs as he comfortably sits on the edge of your queen-sized bed. Once you discarded all your clothes and exposed your bare body to him, his hands roam freely around your body. It’s his first time, he whispered. “I’ll try not to disappoint you” he promised.  

While you help him remove his clothes, Kun learned to kiss your body. He was shy but you told him he doesn’t have to. He learned to kiss your chest, the valley between your boobs and your stomach. “Why are you avoiding my boobs?” you asked with a slight giggle, waiting for his lips to brush your perked nipple and make you shiver. He looked at you directly in the eye as he starts sucking your left nipple, then he turned to your right boob, and in a matter of minutes, he finally learned how to use his tongue. You gasped and breathed in deeply as you were just standing in between his legs, naked, shivering, and moaning at the things he’s been doing to you.

“You’re going to make me cum undone” you informed him. He stopped and leaned back, admiring your swollen nipples as if he’s proud of his work.

“Is that a bad thing?” he asked oh so innocently.

“No” you pushed him slowly to the mattress, “But I’d rather cum in other different ways,” you said. This time it’s your turn to kiss his cold body and let him experience the pleasure he’s been giving you. His low groans were music to your ears when you licked his nipples while you unbutton his pants and remove it swiftly leaving him only with his boxers briefs.

Given that this is his first time, you decided to stay on top tonight and take charge. You kissed his abs, feel it with your hands, and took time kissing his lower abdomen, making the vampire impatient and push his underwear down so your lips can finally make contact with his cock. You gave him his first blow job, sucking his dick slowly and pumping it over and over again until it’s really hard and thick. “I promise to give you a proper blowjob someday” you crawled on top of him until your wet folds are coating his cock with your pussy juices.

“I can get addicted to you, you know that?” he says and smiled before you reach for his lips to distract him as you line his cock to your entrance and slowly sink down on him. His reaction was something you will never forget, the sound that he made once he’s fully inside you. You intertwined your fingers with him before you roll your hips deliciously.

“Ready?”

“Yeah- Oh, ahh” he part his lips and did not get shy anymore as he continues to let out his moans and feel your warm walls around him. He pulled your body closer to him, wanting to never leave those beautiful lips of yours. You made his arms rest on your hips, as you bounce up and down on his cock with utmost care. There’s no need to go wild and crazy for tonight. Everything is perfect.

“I’m close” he admitted. But you didn’t stop moving your hips.

“Can you make me pregnant?” you cage his head with your arms, your face is close to him so you can nip his lower lip and kiss him every second.

“I can’t” he answers your question. There was a slight disappointment of course. But this is not the right time to think about having kids.

“What are you waiting for? Let go and cum inside me”

Kun did what you said and had the time of his life, enjoying his first orgasm from having sex. It doesn’t matter if you didn’t cum tonight, Kun’s cock felt great and that alone satisfies you. He didn’t let you go for some time, you stayed on top of him as he continues to kiss and talk to you while he still enjoys your warmth.  

Soon, you lay beside him and covered you with your clean thick sheets. You talked some more, about things that are intimate and are for the two of you only. You never felt so happy being in the arms of a… vampire. You felt alive again but you don’t say it out loud, you just wanted to bask at this moment with Kun and feel the happiness flood your heart.  

“How are you feeling?” you asked. Maybe he needed more blood?

“I’m feeling just fine. Thank you. And I’m not talking about the sex and your blood. Thank you for letting me in your life” he was holding your hand while drawing small circles using his cold thumb.

That night, you two slept really late and talked more about life and the things you wanted. You learned that the two of you are very different from each other but you’re ready to love him deeply and he’s ready to take great risk for you too. And you think the beauty of loving someone so different from you is a different kind of great love.

Kun’s cold figure still hugs you tightly when you wake up the next day. The morning light hits his skin perfectly that he shines effortlessly. “fuck” you muttered and quickly tried getting out from his cold embrace to close the curtains. But he tugs you even closer to his body making you panic even more, “are you hurt?”

“No” he kissed you good morning and sweetly requests, “can we stay a little bit longer like this? I still don’t want to face the day”

You raked his hair away from his face and gave him his morning kisses, “we can stay like this forever” you said.

“Does that mean you’re accepting immortality?-“

“That’s not what I meant”

“Oh”

Even so, being human and vampire in a relationship did not stop you two from loving each other without bounds. Every day has been nothing but happiness with Kun even though you both have your own disappointments with yourselves. You’re disappointed with writing, he’s disappointed with his family’s business. Every bit of the relationship was not easy but you two chose to be happy together every day and face each day together.

He starts calling your house his home because you are his home and you don’t mind him calling you that. It makes you happy. Every day, when the sky turns to your favorite shade of orange, Kun will ring your doorbell and you will welcome him home with kisses and warm hugs.

Soon, you two became confident about telling each other everything about your family. And for the first time, talking about them didn’t make you sad, but rather happy because you can share that part of your life with Kun who listens to every word you say attentively. He told you that his mom was the one who told him to give you books to read, give you flowers and treat you with respect. His stories about his family make you want to meet them someday. It will not be easy but, “We will get here eventually”

Speaking of eventually, he finally learned how to fuck after a few nights of making love with Kun. He finally became confident in bed, making you moan his name over and over again. Memorizing every inch of the places you loved being touched the most. Oh, he’s a fast learner and a great one if you’re being honest to the point that night after night you grip the sheets so hard because he was fucking you good.

Perfect. Everything is perfect.

“Good morning” you greet him with loving kisses as always before you make your coffee. He’s still shirtless and just wearing his pajamas while he makes breakfast. You hugged him from behind and enjoy his cold skin on a beautiful warm morning. “Can we stay like this forever?” you asked, hugging him tightly.

“Is that a yes for immortality?” he’s serious when it comes to ‘immortality’ but it never annoyed you because it’s his love language. You understand him.

“I want to be with my family, Kun” you bit his shoulder playfully and placed soft kisses after. He loves it when you do that.

“And I don’t want to watch you die,” he asked for a kiss on lips, which you gave happily.

“Why are we having this conversation?” you roll your eyes.

“You’re right. I love you, I’m sorry”

See. Push and pull. And it’s a decision that one day you’re going to face and not even ‘i love yous’, ‘i’m sorry’, hugs or kisses will solve that problem for you. Someday he will not joke about it. And you’re scared because the question is, family or Kun?  

During the day, you kept thinking about the conversation you had with Kun before breakfast. It made you think hard and ran through every loophole. You imagined life without Kun, you imagined him watch you die in a hospital bed, and you imagine not being with your family ever again. Every decision broke your heart.

When Kun finally came home, you try shrugging the thought of making a decision one day and admire your boyfriend as he is about to prepare you dinner.

Having a very handsome vampire in your kitchen cooking you good food is definitely one for the books. It’s like watching a live cooking show and you’re the only audience who can taste what he’s cooking. The way he walks around and smiles at you from time to time is making you feel things you shouldn’t be feeling. Heck, even watching him sprinkle salt and pepper, chop the peppers, and squeeze some lemon is making your heart jump.

Such a waste.

All these talents for singing, great skills at the kitchen, handsome face… And yet he chose to live in darkness. You have nothing against the vampire, he didn’t choose to be born as a bloodsucker, but he did choose to serve his family. His number one mistake, honestly speaking.

“If you’re not a vampire, what would you want to be?” you asked him bluntly, sipping on your wine while you watch him cook. “I hope you know that you’re talented and that if you embrace being a human you can be many things. For starters, you can be a cook at a famous restaurant or a pilot”

“Are we seriously having this conversation?” he chuckles, turns off the stove and faced you, leaning on the kitchen counter, looking handsome as ever, “Do me a favor and imagine yourself being 200 years old still looking young and beautiful. Or being happily married for hundreds of years. With me” he left a kiss on your forehead and goes back to plating the food.

The words ‘happily married’ doesn’t sound so bad.

“So you’re telling me that if we stayed like this, vampire and human, and I’m finally old and wrinkly, you won’t love me anymore?” you tease him, not letting him know that the idea of being married affects you.

“Why can’t we have a normal dinner without being on each other’s throats? Come on let’s eat. Grab the wine please,” he offered his cold hand to help you come down from the stool and go together to the dining area.

Before eating he did notice you were spacing out, he puts down his spoon and fork and reached for your hand. “Look at me,” he says, “Vampire or not I’m going to marry you and we’ll live happily together”

“You promise?”

“I promise. Now, come on eat. Tell me if it’s delicious, I just learned this from the cooking show I’ve been watching”  

The constant push and pull continued. Your relationship has always been a never-ending convincing each other to be something you’re not. But ever since you let Kun in your life happiness is present in your life again and you’re worried that maybe someday that happiness will be taken away from you again. Kun is literally the reason why you smile first thing in the morning and sleep peacefully at night.

After having dinner and you two are ready for bed, you can’t stop thinking about the conversation you had this morning. The decision you’ve been thinking about has been running in your mind the whole day but there's another thought that’s been bugging you all along and you’ve been wanting to ask Kun.

“Can you really not die?”

He must be tired. He closed his eyes and kept you close. You wait for his answer but it seems like he doesn’t want to keep the conversation. Then he looks at you, “I can. I just have to be careful. I can die like how humans die except for dying at old age” he explains and you don’t want to pry further. “I'm scared of dying, you know. There’s so much I want to do in my life even before I met you. But since then I became even more scared to death. This world holds everything important to me, my family, and you. I can’t die” he answered your question honestly of course.

The next day, Kun woke up before you because he’s been planning to do something lately but can’t execute his plans correctly. He was about to do it last night but you asked him a heavy question so he didn’t have a choice but to set aside his intentions first.

He carefully opened the bedside drawer and reached for the tiny object inside. Since he doesn’t know anything about romance, he doesn’t know how to propose beautifully to you. So he went for something he’s confident with. Honesty. He grabs your hand and slips the ring on your finger, carefully but his movements still woke you up.

Any girl would freak out seeing her boyfriend propose to her the moment she opens her eyes in the morning. The diamond is quite big and it made you gasp. Not that you cared about the rock but the fact that Kun just proposed to you the moment you wake up is just enough reason to panic.

But he made a ’Shh’ sign that made you follow him and kept yourself quiet. You feel your heart thumping and beating so fast at this moment that you want to burst out of happiness already but Kun is calm in front of you. Just calm.

“Listen” all you hear are birds chirping and comfortable silence, “peaceful right?” you nod your head, “Let’s never break that peace in our relationship. I don't know how to make things easier for us but let's start with, no more push and pull. Last night I promised you that vampire or not, I’m gonna marry you and this is me keeping that promise. I would rather watch you die at old age, wrinkly and weak than lose you” He kissed your hand, and the panic that you’ve been savoring is long forgotten. Instead of screaming your lungs out because of too much happiness, you kissed each other and engraved that beautiful moment in your hearts.

And because you and Kun have been living together for quite some time now, you’ve become the talk of the town. Everyone thought that Kun is keeping you hostage and is only using you to get the house and to get the whole town. Even though he has been really successful in buying lives lately and earning the people’s loyalty in this town, the ones who strongly refused Kun’s offer is now making a plot behind his back.

A plot where they plan to kill him and save you. They’re just waiting for the perfect timing to strike the vampire.

“He’s just using you to get the house. Of course, he had to marry you so he can have legal rights to your house. Trust me, that vampire will leave you” Sophie hated Kun so much that when you told her that you’re engaged she didn’t take it lightly. The old woman shoos you out of her store and told you to be smarter. It’s sad how she can’t see that you’re really happy with Kun.

When you got home from grocery shopping, you wait for Kun to arrive before you leave him for one night to meet your manager back to the city. It pains you to be away from Kun. It’s like there's this magnet that’s keeping you near him and stopping you from leaving the house but finally, you finished a good book. All thanks to Kun. Your manager wanted to meet you so you can work on the details and finally, go back to the world and show everyone how you’ve been.  

“The city is great. You sure you don’t want to come? There's a lot of vampires in the city-“

“And my fiance is a famous writer. Who’s about to have her come back to the industry that she loves. I don’t want to give you a problem before you can even go back out there. People will not take it lightly if they see you with me” he kissed you and hope that you will not argue with him further.

“But we just got engaged. I don’t want to be away from you” you pout like a little girl.

“Well then come home soon” he smiles sweetly to you and finally made you stop your whining.

Leaving home never felt so wrong. But you realized, he’s right. You just have to come home soon.

When you were back in the city and in the familiar office of your manager, you can’t help but feel out of place. Is this really what you want? Because if your manager agrees to publish this new work of yours, that means you have to leave home again. You have to leave Kun and live in the city. Something you think you can’t handle. It's like making the same mistakes again.

“I love it! You’re back- amazing work. I have to meet this vampire that you’re talking about. The one who inspired you to write this beautiful masterpiece. Ugh! Welcome back!” he exclaims excitedly. But his approval did not make you excited or anything. You’re happy of course, but you’ve been thinking about coming home and telling Kun the good news.

“Are we done here?”

“Uh- yes, bu-“

“Great. Call me if you need anything. I have to go home now. Thank you” you shake his hand and bid him goodbye. You were quick to get out of there and head home already. The plan was to stay the night in your old apartment, but you can’t. You really can’t. It’s almost 3 in the morning and Kun must be sleeping already because he hasn’t answered your calls. You drove excitedly while playing with the ring on your finger, thinking about how to spend the following days with Kun as an engaged couple.

When you finally arrived in town, people in their sleep wears welcomes you in the street. But their faces looked worried and concerned. What’s happening, you murmured. Since a lot of people are blocking the street you decided to get out of the car and check what’s happening.

“Y/n… the house….” someone shouted.

“My house?” you ran as fast as you can to see what they’re talking about. Hoping that everything is fine and that Kun is safe and not inside the house.

Then you see it.

It was your favorite shade of orange. Eating your house, ruining your home. You watched the house burn and you never thought that watching it will make you hate something you used to love ever since you were just a kid. You wanted the bright colors to fade. Your hands are shaking as you call for help. Screaming at the top of your lungs as people try to stop you from running towards your house.

“Kun!” you screamed and asked for him but no one is answering you.

Sophie tried to make you listen to her while you push everyone away. “I’m sorry. We had to do this. The town was slowly dying and turning into a vampire town. Y/n! He will leave you in the end or worst, he will change you” she was apologizing but you didn’t want to listen to her anymore. You slapped the old woman and tried to kick her with all your might but the people are quick to stop you.

The fire spread so fast that Kun didn’t have time to save himself. He tried calling for help but the lines were already cut. It’s obvious the fire was planned. He was trying so hard to escape death, coughing and covering his mouth, crying while he bangs through the door that seems to be locked from the outside. I don’t want to die. He repeats over and over again, thinking about his family, his brothers, and of course you.

But he couldn’t go out. He banged through the door until his last breath and strength but it did nothing. Soon the fire ate him and all he can do is scream through the pain, cry, and accept death.

The next thing you know, you’re at the hospital. You see your manager sleeping on the couch. Tears started falling but you don’t know why. On top of that, your heart feels heavy. It’s a familiar feeling, you thought. Like when the news that your family died reached you.

Then you see your ring. And suddenly you understand why you started crying out of nowhere and why that familiar feeling of losing someone is back.

Kun is dead.

And once again you’re back to rock bottom but this time you don’t have a home or a place to help you heal.

[melzula]

The Beginning of the End

pairing: Zuko x Princess! reader

warnings: angst, mentions of death, fluff

summary: in which the Princess learns what became of her father and turns to Zuko for comfort (requested by anon)

~ part of the fire lilies series ~

“Y/n,” your mother calls gently from your doorway. “The ships are leaving, come say goodbye to your father.”

“No.”

“Princess, he’s your father,” she chides gently. “I know you have your differences-“

“Differences?! He forbid me from water bending and he forbid me from ever seeing Zuko again!”

“Little otter penguin, try to understand that your father only has your best interests at heart. He loves you, and if you don’t say goodbye you’re going to regret it.”

“I won’t regret anything,” you insist stubbornly. “Besides, there’s no point in saying goodbye when we both know he’s going to come back.”

The White Lotus campsite is relatively quiet despite the number of members it inhabits, most of them gifting you friendly smiles or passing glances of acknowledgement as you weave through the tents in search of any familiar faces. With Aang having disappeared, you’re only hope in defeating the Fire Lord now rests upon Iroh, hence your group’s presence on the campgrounds. Zuko has left in search of his Uncle, and though you wished to see the kind old man again after having been apart for so long you knew it was something the prince had to do on his own. Besides, you had your own questions that needed answering and didn’t have much time to waste as you sought after any water tribe member who might have information on the whereabouts of your father.

Your search efforts are halted by the hand that rests itself firmly upon your shoulders, and though your first instinct is to pull the water from the air around you in preparation for a fight you’re quick to relax as you see it’s none other than Pakku. An apologetic smile forms on your features as you grant the old man and longtime family friend a tight hug.

“The last time I saw you you were barely learning how to walk, and now here you are pulling water out of thin air like a true bending master,” he comments with a laugh. “It’s good to see you again, y/n.”

“It’s good to see you, too,” you reply with a watery smile before pulling out of the hug to look at the man before you. Your grandfather and Pakku had been good friends in their younger days, and before the war he had often visited to teach water bending to the boys in your tribe, but then your grandfather had died and Pakku stopped coming. It was comforting to see a familiar face, but you were starting to dread the truth that would come with your question. What if it wasn’t what you wanted to hear?

“You’re troubled,” he says carefully, “what can I do to help?”

“My father... Have you heard what’s become of him? Is he back home in the south?”

Pakku’s eyes soften then, sympathetic and remorseful, but he doesn’t answer your question, not right away. Instead he guides you towards your tent and takes you inside to discuss the matter privately. Once you’ve seated yourself on the ground Pakku reaches into his robe and pulls out a familiar item from his sleeve.

“Do you recognize this?”

“Father’s tiger shark tooth necklace,” you murmur quietly as Pakku places the piece of jewelry into your open palm. The tooth is jagged and sharp though worn around the edges from the many years it’s spent hanging from your father’s neck; it was a good luck charm given to him by your mother when they were younger, and he never went anywhere without it. “But I don’t understand...”

It’s the way in which Pakku refuses to meet your gaze that you finally understand, tears beginning to well in your eyes as you clutch the necklace tightly to your chest.

“No...”

“I’m so sorry you had to find out this way,” the man offers weekly before handing you a paper scroll. “Everything you need to know is in this letter. I’ll give you the privacy you need to read it for yourself.”

He leaves you alone to mourn in piece, and despite how desperate you are to know the last words of your father you can’t bring yourself to open the letter. Opening it makes it real, and you don’t think you can face his death. Not now, not when your friends are counting on you to be at your strongest for the arrival of the comet. Your heart is beating rapidly in your ribcage and your vision is blurry with your tears, and this time when a gentle hand rests itself upon your shoulder you collapse against the owner’s chest. Strong arms wrap around your trembling figure and encompass you in a comfortingly familiar warmth as you weep into their chest.

“Pakku sent me,” Zuko utters quietly into your hair. “What is it?”

“My father,” you whisper into the fabric of his robes, “he’s dead. He’s gone and I never even said goodbye.”

“I’m so sorry, Princess,” Zuko comforts gently. “I can’t even imagine what you must be going through right now. Is there any way I can help?”

“There’s a letter,” you sniffle as you pull away from Zuko to wipe away your freshly fallen tears. “I can’t bring myself to read it but I need to know what it says. Would you... would you read it to me?”

“O-Of course,” he replies quickly before scrambling to open the letter as you situate yourself to sit in between his legs with your back resting against his chest. With his arms around your waist and the letter held in front of the two of you, Zuko’s gentle voice slowly begins to morph into that of your father’s as you shut your eyes and listen.

“Princess,

I don’t have much time left on this earth, and I know the chances of seeing you again before my time is up are slim, so I’ve taken to writing this letter in hopes that all of your questions will be answered when I’m gone. I’ve been badly wounded in battle and with no healers available it will only be a matter of time before I pass on from this life to the next. But know that I am sorry. I’m sorry for making you become someone you weren’t, for forcing you to change when you didn’t want to, and for not being open enough to listen to your needs. I was blinded by my anger with the Fire Lord and I took it out on you and that poor boy. Love is a complicated thing, you cannot choose or help who you fall in love with, and perhaps if I had remember that then I wouldn’t have forced you to run away.

We all have a destiny in life and leaving was part of yours. There’s a greater world out there for you to explore; a good leader requires knowledge, and as future leader of the Southern Water Tribe it is your duty to obtain it. Learn to love, learn to be brave, learn to be kind, and learn to be forgiving. We didn’t get to say goodbye and that’s alright, we’ll have our time together again in the next life, so don’t let this slow you down. I know you’re going to do great things, my sweet daughter. I’ll always be with you in spirit, and you’ll always have my support. It is an honor to be your father, my brave little water bender.

It’s all up to you now. With love, your father Tukon.”

The air is silent as your father’s voice fades away and all that is left behind is the sound of your quiet sniffling and Zuko’s gentle breathing. You want to cry but for some reason the tears don’t come, and instead being filled with devastating loss and regret you are filled with a small warmth that fills your heart with love and appreciation. Your father is with you now, you can feel it, and in this moment that is enough.

“Thank you,” you murmur quietly, showing your gratitude to both your father and Zuko as he holds you close to his chest in the safety of your tent.

~~~

You wake to the smell of freshly cooked porridge, a smiling Zuko sitting beside your bed as he holds the bowl of breakfast in his hands to maintain its warmth while you rise.

“Good morning,” his raspy voice greets you. “How are you feeling?”

Memories from the previous night flood back to you all at once, and your boyfriend doesn’t miss the way in which you immediately reach up to clasp the tiger shark tooth hanging from your neck tightly in your hand. Tears begin to well in your eyes but you manage to keep them at bay, instead choosing to look upon Zuko with a fragile smile.

“I’ll be okay.”

“Did you sleep okay? I had Suki look after you while you slept so I could speak with my Uncle.”

“How is he?” You ask, features perking up with interest. A small smile forms on Zuko’s lips as he leans forward to press a kiss to your forehead.

“He’s fine, and we’re okay. He’s eager to see you again. But you need to eat first, we all have a big day ahead of us,” Zuko instructs before handing you your breakfast. “Uncle says I need to reclaim the throne, and to do that I have to face off against Azula. But I can’t do it alone, so I’d like you and Katara to join me.”

It’s silent for a moment as you digest both the yummy porridge and the information Zuko has bestowed upon you. You had a feeling this day would come, and despite the apprehension you hold when it comes to fighting his deranged sister you know there’s no other option.

Your father’s words echo in your head: “Learn to be brave.” A beat passes before you finally nod.

“I’ve been wanting to put her in her place ever since she beheaded my favorite doll,” you admit with a wry smile. “I’d be honored to help you.”

“Get dressed,” Zuko says then, rising from his place beside your bed to give you the space you need to prepare. We leave in ten minutes.”

And so begins the end of the war.

| tags: @rainteslerrrr @oddment-niwit-blubber-tweak @thebluelcdy @royahllty @the-firebender-girl @coldlilheart @ilovespideyyy @yiyibetch @eridanuswave @lammello @a-monsters-love @knaite-solo @zukh03s @titaniafire @dekahg @emberislandplayers @kikaninchen-2 @lozzybowe @izzieserra @melacholy @music-geek19 @thia-aep @thyunnamed @haylaansmi @nataliahaslosthershit @idkdude776 @aangsupremacy @thirstyforsometea @ihaveaproblem98 @brown-eyed-thang @djskfkdkkf @xapham @yeetletzgetitjae @misnmatchedsox @chewymoustachio @that-bucket-hat-gal |

[favefandomimagines]

Train Wreck (d.m.)

Summary: Draco didn’t think he’d find something worth living for until he met you.

AN: this takes place during sixth year, draco has a the dark mark and it takes place during the war, it’s a bit all over the place but oh well also there’s a little bit of fred and the reader in here!

warnings: suicidal thoughts, death

His sixth year wasn’t supposed to go like this. He was supposed to have a normal year with his friends and with you. But his father, and his whole family, had other plans for him.

Draco had to cancel your summer trip to Paris so he could get the dark mark branded on to his forearm. He told you it was because he had an aunt who was deathly ill and he had to visit her.

When you both got back to school, he was cold and distant towards you. Of course he blamed it on being stressed about school and his exams. But you knew him better than that.

You’ve been together since fourth year and you could read him like an open book.

One night he stood atop of the Astronomy Tower, overlooking the grounds of Hogwarts. He was given strict orders from the Dark Lord to kill his headmaster at one of his favorite spots. Your favorite spot.

As he looked at the grounds he thought of you. What would you say when you found out he was a Death Eater? Would you hate him? Break up with him? Would you have pity for him? Try to save him?

It was then he realized he was past the point of saving.

‘If I just jump, Dumbledore won’t die.’ He thought. He thought that would ruin Voldemort’s plan and everyone would be okay. The people he envied, Harry, Ron and Hermione, would have a fighting chance.

Once again, his mind went back to you. If he were to give up and do what he was thinking, what would become of you? Would you mourn for him? Miss him? Would you move on with someone who actually deserved you?

Draco had always thought it was matter of time before you left him for Fred Weasley. You were best friends after all and were practically attached at the hip. So he thought if he just jumped, that would give you the chance to be with a person who was better for you than he was.

But he couldn’t leave you alone with the feeling it was your fault if he did it. Because Draco knew that’s what you would think. You’d second guess yourself and think it was your fault. But nothing could ever be your fault.

Draco was knocked out of his worrisome thoughts by the sound of your voice. A voice that could make him feel like everything was okay.

“I thought I’d find you up here. I’ve been looking everywhere for you.” You spoke, a smile on your face. Draco gave you a halfhearted version of a smile and you knew something was wrong.

“What’s going on, Draco?” You asked. “You’ve been acting strange since term started. You don’t eat, you barley sleep and you don’t talk to me like you used to. Did I do something?” You added.

“No, no, love. It’s not you. It could never be you. You’re the only thing that feels right in my life. I have a lot going on.” He quickly said, walking towards you and taking your hands in his.

It was then, when his sleeve pulled up a bit, you caught a glimpse of a black line on his forearm. He saw your face fall, void of any kind of expression. He followed your gaze and saw what you were looking at.

Draco quickly let go of your hands and tugged his sleeve down. “Let me see it.” You spoke quietly. “Y/N,” He started. “Let me see it.” Your voice more stern.

He paused for a moment before rolling up his sleeve. You saw the dark mark on your boyfriend’s arm and felt the wind get knocked out of you.

You faltered a bit, becoming a bit light headed at the thought of the person you loved most being a Death Eater. Draco reached out and steadied you and then your eyes met his.

You didn’t seem angry or disgusted. You looked sad for him and he could see in your eyes that you looked scared. Scared of him or for him was unknown.

“When you said you couldn’t come to Paris, you were getting-“ You started, cutting yourself off. “Y/N, you have to believe me. I had no choice. He said he’d kill my family and he’d kill you if I didn’t join him. I-I didn’t want to.” Draco said.

“That’s why you’ve been distant. You think you have to break up with me to protect me. So you were hoping I’d get the hint and break up with you. So I wouldn’t think I did something wrong.” You said, coming to the conclusion all on your own.

And how right you were. He wasn’t surprised. He knew you’d figure it out. You were a prestigious Ravenclaw after all. Top of your year along with Hermione. Only thing that made it acceptable for him to be with you. You were a pure blood witch in a good house that wasn’t Gryffindor. His parents were thrilled for that reason alone. But he kept your friendship with the Weasleys a secret.

“You know I’m not going to let you push me away.” You added. “Y/N, this is dangerous. He’s threatened to kill you twice before. And he doesn’t make empty threats.” Draco rebutted.

“So this is it? This is how our story is going to end?” You asked quietly. “Maybe, when this is all over, we can start again.” He answered.

You looked at him, a single tear rolling down your face. “Just remember that I love you, Draco Malfoy. I always have.” You whispered.

You placed a small, soft kiss on his cheek before leaving him up there alone.

And that was the last time you saw him. The next night, Professor Dumbledore was killed by Death Eaters that had some how made their way into Hogwarts and Draco disappeared after that.

And so did you and your friends. You weren’t involved in anyway but if your three best friends were running to stay safe then you’d do anything to protect them. One reason why the sorting hat took the longest its ever had when sorting you. You had the makings of both a Gryffindor and a Ravenclaw.

Before you knew it, Hogwarts was in shambles. The war in full swing, the students of Hogwarts getting roped in and having to fight or be killed.

It wasn’t easy for you to say the least. When you were trying to kill Death Eaters and keep them away from your friends, you were also searching for the familiar head of platinum blonde hair. 

You were running through the halls of Hogwarts when you were cornered by two Death Eaters. It was in that moment you were very happy that you had taken part in Dumbledore’s Army in your fifth year and actually learned something. 

You shot a defensive spell at them, sending them both into a stone pillar and you had a chance to catch your breath. 

“Y/N?” A voice questioned behind you. You whipped your head around and saw Draco standing there, looking broken as ever. “Draco,” you breathed out before he practically ran to you and wrapped his arms around you. 

“Are you okay? Are you hurt?” He asked you. “Yes, I’m okay. Are you?” You asked, letting go to look at him. Draco shook his head, looking as if he were about to cry. “I don’t want to die. Not yet. I promised you I’d come back to you and I don’t want to break that promise.” He said quietly. 

You placed a comforting hand on his cheek. “This is no place to die. Not here.” You whispered. You grabbed his hand in yours and took off down the hallway. Though you were both stopped short when you heard Voldemort bellow, ‘Harry Potter is dead.’ 

You froze in your spot as you saw the body of your friend lying on the ground. Ginny was fighting against her father to get to the boy she loved. You felt Draco squeeze your hand until a command made his blood run cold. 

Voldemort was asking Draco to join him and you closed your eyes preparing for the worst. “Draco,” Lucius added. You knew he’d go to him. In fear for the lives of his family and for his own. You let go of his hand, as an almost silent way of saying ‘it’s okay.’ 

He looked down at you, your gaze not meeting his. Draco swallowed thickly as he felt the eyes of every person looking at him, as he walked to join his parents. It was clear to everyone watching the scene that Draco Malfoy was still at the beck and call of his father. All out of fear for his life.

Of course you were disappointed. You were hoping he’d stand up for himself against his father but he wouldn’t put you in danger like that. As it seemed hopeless to put up a fight any longer, Harry sprung up from the ground. Eyes widened and gasps were heard from around the courtyard.

Draco then looked at you and then down to his wand. “Potter!” Draco yelled, tossing the boy his wand. The blonde came running to your side, taking your hand tightly in his.

“We’re getting out of here.” He said attempting to pull you away. “I can’t just leave them. We have to fight.” You rebutted. “Nothing is stopping anyone from killing me. I can’t stay here, Y/N.” He said. 

You looked up at him before looking back down to your intertwined hands. You make eye contact with Narcissa Malfoy, giving her a small nod before letting go of Draco’s hand. 

“Promise me you’ll find me. When this all over.” You said. “I promise.” He said. You leaned up and placed a deep kiss against his lips before running off, leaving him there alone.

“Y/N!” He called after. “Draco, honey, we need to go.” Narcissa told her son. “Mum, I can’t leave her.” Draco rebutted. “You can’t keep that promise to her if you’re dead, Draco.” Narcissa said, pulling her son towards the bridge. 

It was quicker than you thought it would be. A war. Voldemort was dead and now all that as left was the carnage he left behind. Fred was gone. You had walked into the Great Hall seeing the Weasleys crowd around something. Or someone. The sight had made you physically ill as George clung to you like a lifeline.

It was then the only person you had left was George and vice versa. It was funny in a way. Just how quickly your good luck had run out. Your parents and Molly always joked that you and Fred would end up together but the two of you denied it every time. He was your best friend and nothing more. And he felt the same way. At least he made it seem that way.

You were sitting on the ruins of the bridge that led to Hogwarts, your feet dangling over the edge. Your best friend was dead. Half of your year was dead. Draco was gone. You didn’t know what happened to your parents. They were apart of the Order and you wouldn’t be surprised if Death Eaters had gotten to them. 

“Y/N?” Hermione’s voice asked. You looked up and saw your friend walking towards you with Ron by her side. They sat on opposite sides of you before Hermione spoke. “You’re thinking about him aren’t you?” She asked. 

You nodded your head silently before she took your hand in hers. “I know I shouldn’t. But he didn’t want to be one of them. A-And I know I shouldn’t apologize for anything he did but,” You started. “It’s okay. You love him.” Ron said. 

You rested your head on Hermione’s shoulder as you overlooked the grounds. “I’m probably never going to see him again, aren’t I?” You questioned. “You might.” She answered. 

Draco didn’t know what to do. Every day the guilt of his actions consumed him. Of course he didn’t take a life. Especially the lives of some of his classmates. He wasn’t able to do that to people he’d known since he was 11. But he let the Death Eaters into Hogwarts that night. He was responsible for Dumbledore’s death. And that alone was eating him alive.

Also because of you. You were his number one thought every day since he left you at Hogwarts. On the days it got particularly rough, he saw your face, heard your voice and it forced him to keep going. Draco made you a promise that he’d find you and he was hell bent on keeping that promise.

And once again, Hermione was correct. You were helping George get the shop back up and running. It was hard for the both of you at first. Everything reminded you of Fred and of everything you’ve lost. But doing it together made it seem bearable. You also knew Fred wouldn’t let you and George give up that easily.

You were rearranging some small potion vials when the bell above the door rang, signaling that someone entered.

“How may I help you?” George asked the customer. “I was hoping to talk with Y/N.” The customer answered. Your head snapped in that direction and you saw Draco standing in front of George. 

You didn’t think you’d see Draco again after he left with his mother. George nudged you towards your estranged lover and left the two of you alone, going to the office to give you some space. 

“I promised I’d find you.” He said, breaking the silence. “Y-You did.” You stammered. He made the first move, moving to get closer to you. You were the one who closed the gap between the two of you, wrapping your arms around him. “You’re the only thing that kept me going.” He whispered into your ear. 

“I love you. So much.” You cried into his shoulder. “I love you too.” He whispered. The two of you stayed that way for what felt like an eternity to you, but only a few minutes. “I’m sorry about, Fred.” He added quietly. He felt your body tense as you held on to him tighter.

Draco was the first to let go when he realized he had never actually stepped foot in the Weasley’s joke shop until then.

You saw the curious expression on his face as he took in the surroundings. “Would you like me to show you around?” You asked with a small smile.

Draco looked down at you and nodded his head as your hand slipped into his. You dragged him all around the store that you were oh so proud of, opening him up to a world of happiness and laughter he had never known before. Not until he met you.

As you showed him all the various pranks and jokes, George watched with a happy but bittersweet smile on his face. He looked down at the picture of him, Fred and yourself before he looked back to you and Draco.

“Don’t worry, Freddie. She’ll be okay.”

requested by: @irishbish

[princessofravenclaw]

Time Changes

Paring: Draco Malfoy x Reader && Harry Potter x Reader

Word Count: 2.2k

Authors Note: This is my first EVER imagine/fanfic so pls be nice!! I’ve had this idea for a while but haven’t ever actually done anything about it. I’ve got more ideas to continue but we’ll start with this. If there’s spelling/grammar problems, don’t come for me!! Ya girl is not an English major. This is based off the “19 years later” but doesn’t follow that story line!

Italics is a flashback!!

September 1st. Walking into King’s Cross Station brought back a flood of fond memories. You remembered the first time you ever entered those doors. You had grown up hearing all of the beautiful things Hogwarts offered from both of your magical parents. The day you received your Hogwarts letter was the best day of your life. Now, here you were, hand in hand with your husband and three children, sending off your oldest and middle child to start their journey at the magical school. How lucky were you? You had married one of your childhood best friends, Harry Potter. Though you two never looked at each other as romantic partners until after Hogwarts, you loved being his wife. The two of you had been blessed with two boys and a girl. Today, the family of five would be downgrading to three, as James and Albus would be boarding the Hogwarts Express. You would still have your sweet Lily with the two of you at home. You stood back with your daughter as Harry helped calm Albus’s nerves. James had already said his goodbyes and boarded the train with his friends. Hermione and Ron would be sending off their daughter, Rose, this year. They engulfed her in hugs, saying their goodbyes. You watched fondly as you ran your fingers through Lily’s strawberry hair. “Why can’t I go with them, mummy? It’s not fair!” Lily exclaimed, breaking your gaze from your husband and son. You chuckled and leaned down to kiss her head. “You will have your chance, my love. You’ll have your letter soon.” She looked up at you, bearing her father’s bright eyes, and smiled. “I hope to be in the same house as you, mummy.” You smiled and nodded, hoping the same. You loved being a (Y/H). Albus and Rose boarded the train together, waving more goodbyes through the train window. Harry had joined you, wrapping an arm around your waist. “Can you believe it, love? We only have one more to send-off.” He said before kissing your temple. You smiled and leaned into his kiss. “I just hope they don’t have to go through everything we did as kids.” Ron pipped up. “They will do great, Ron. I know it.” Hermione said, wiping a tear as she continued to wave as the train pulled away from the station.

Once the train was out of sight, you all began heading back to the exit when a pair of cold, grey eyes met yours. A pair that you had not seen or wanted to see in many years. The pair that belonged to Draco Malfoy. What was he doing here?! Your husband felt you tense up, stopping to look down at you. He followed your eyes and saw exactly what was causing the problem. He knew of your history with the Slytherin blonde boy. You loathed him from the minute you saw him your first year. He constantly bullied Harry and your friends, jealous of Harry’s fame. Things began to change, however, during your fourth year. Draco had been dared to ask you to the Yule Ball by his fellow housemates. He accepted, wanting to make the night terrible for you. You accepted his terrible invitation, as you couldn’t find a date and you had a slight feeling there was something more to the invite.

“Are you mental (Y/N)?! You’re seriously going to take Draco’s invite to the ball?!” Hermione shouted. You silenced her immediately, not wanting Harry or Ron to find out, at least not yet. “Well, I don’t exactly have a date, Hermione. I wasn’t lucky enough to get someone like Viktor.” You didn’t mean it to sound hurtful, part of it was jealousy, as every girl wished the Tri-Wizard Champion had asked them. You looked at your long, black ballgown in the mirror, running your hands down the front out of nerves. You picked black for two reasons, one, you always loved the color on you, and two, you felt the color matched Draco’s cold heart. “Ready, then?” Hermione asked, breaking you from your trance. Nodding, you spun around and headed for the Great Hall. As the two of you approached the Great Hall, you could hear Draco and his idiotic friends laughing. You rolled your eyes, asking yourself why you decided to do this. Harry and Ron stood at the bottom of the stairs, Ron catching a glimpse of Hermione first, leaving him speechless. Harry followed his gaze and also became silent. The two of you smiled and began the descent down the stairwell. You looked over to the opposite side as your two best friends to where Draco stood. ‘He does clean up nice', you thought. Making eye contact, he stops mid-sentence with Crabbe and Goyle. You notice his Adam's apple bob up and down, indicating a hard swallow. Hesitantly, you separated from Hermione and approached the Slytherin boys. “What in the bloody hell is she doing?” you heard Ron ask the two other friends. Hermione just patted his shoulder before locking arms with Viktor, also surprising Harry and Ron. Draco let his eyes run up and down your figure, taking you in. “(Y/N) ... you look…wow…” Draco said, stumbling over his words. Did Draco Malfoy just compliment you? Chuckling, you looked down at you dress. “Thanks, you don’t look so bad yourself.” He stepped closer, putting an arm out for you to grab, “Shall we?” As you picked up you dress with one hand, you looped the other through Draco’s as he led you into the beautifully lit Great Hall. Crabbe and Goyle stood amazed, glancing between each other and the two of you confused. Yes, they were part of the dare, but they didn’t think it would play out like this.

While Draco isn’t a dancer, you two did manage to slow dance to a few songs. Draco was a true gentleman when placing his hand on your side and holding your hand with the other. This surprised you, knowing the reputation his family has for being so cold. “I really did mean what I said, (Y/N). You look amazing.” He whispered in your ear. Feeling the coolness of his minty breath sent chills down your spine. You could not understand why; did you feel something for Draco deep down? “Thank you, Draco. So, was this truly a dare, or did you want to go with me?” He flashed a smile. “Even if it was a dare, I think it’s worked out pretty well, don’t you?” he teased.

After that day, you began to share lingering stares during classes and in passing in the halls. Soon, those lingering glances became notes passed during class, which lead to sneaking out of the common rooms late at night. The two of you had kept what you had under wraps, knowing how much would be coming your way if the school found out. All anyone knew, except Hermione, was that you two attended the Ball together, and even that was a ‘dare’. Your relationship began to fall apart during the sixth year, however. His family had pressured him to become a Death Eater, now baring the dark mark on his inner forearm. You despised it. Watching it move on his arm made you physically ill. You knew he had been put up for a ‘special mission’ from Voldemort, but he could never tell you what it was. You found out, though, after seeing Professor Dumbledore fall from the Astronomy Tower that night. Draco had ran off with his parents and other Death Eaters, not returning to finish the school term. Once the term had been completed, you joined together with your three best friends to find the remaining Horcruxes. Your parents weren’t thrilled you would not be returning for your final and seventh year, but there was a war that needed to be fought.

Draco stood near the exit of King’s Cross, wearing one of his famous all-black suits. His hair is still as striking blonde as you remembered. Facial features the same, just a little more aged. A woman stood slightly behind them. You recognized her as Astoria Greengrass, a fellow Slytherin. You remembered her from school, and she always stayed a little too close to Draco for your liking. Did they have a child the same age as one of your boys? “C’mon, love, let’s get Lily home,” Harry said, placing his hand in the small of your back and kissing your temple again. You loved it when he did that. Harry was always so caring and affectionate towards you, even after all these years. Draco watched the interaction, making you wonder if he even knew you ended up with Harry. Surely, he knew.

Ginny had tried to run towards Harry during that final battle in the courtyard as he dangled from Hagrid’s arms. Voldemort cast a spell her way, knocking her back and causing her head to hit a rock. She was carried inside the castle so Madam Pomfrey could help. She tried everything, but Ginny was gone. It took a long time for Harry to mourn and return to normal. He truly loved her. You suffered as well, not in the same extreme as Harry, but still in a poor mental state. You ignored Draco’s letters. Draco and his mother had managed to avoid Azkaban; however, his father wasn’t so lucky and was sentenced again. Eventually, Draco’s owls became more and more spaced out until they stopped coming altogether. Your father offered to burn his letters, as you refused even to open them. You decided not to, instead shoving them in a bin hidden from sight. Hermione and Ron became tired of seeing their two other best friends so depressed and decided to invite yourself and Harry to dinner one night. Once all together, it was as if nothing had changed and no time had elapsed. Ron and Hermione were very happy and very much in love, leaving yourself and Harry out. The two of you vowed to keep in touch better, as you both worked at the Ministry together, different departments, but still. You two shared your hardships and struggles, finding comfort in one another. One thing leads to another, and now you sit holding his hand with three beautiful children.

The following morning was bizarre. Not hearing the bickering of the boys was strange. The house felt empty and quiet, which is something that you had not had in ages. You would now have to practice only making breakfast for three instead of five. After Lily was dropped off at your parents for the day, the two of you headed to the Ministry to start your workday. Harry could tell you were still thrown off by the events from the previous day. “I’m fine, really.” You said, squeezing his hand. “I have a hard time believing you, (Y/N). He can’t hurt you now. It’s been ages.” He said, trying to reassure you. “I know, just seeing him brought back so much.” “It’ll be alright, love. All of that is in the past. You’ve got me now, know it?” Harry leaned in and pecked your lips. “Come get me if you need me today, okay?” Harry said, walking in a different direction than you were. Harry worked as an Auror, and you worked in the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures along with Hermione.

Walking into your office, you said hello to your receptionist. “Mrs. Potter, your first appointment is already in your office.” She stated bubbly. You looked at her puzzled. “I thought my first meeting was much later?” you questioned. She looked as confused as you. Taking a deep sign, you walked into your office and was in disbelief at what stood by the window. Draco. How did he find me? He turned to face me as soon as he heard my bag hit the floor. “Draco, you need to leave.” You said as firmly as you could. All you wanted to do was scream for Harry, but his department was on the complete opposite side of the Ministry from you. “Don’t.” Draco spat. “I needed to speak with you.” He continued. “And I need you to leave before I call someone.” He laughed. “Oh, is your Potter going to come to save you? He’s already taken you away from me once, and I won’t let him do it again.” He said before reaching into his suit pocket. You stood there, not knowing what he was planning to do. Draco pulls out what looks to be like a Time-Turner. Hermione used one during our third year to ensure she was able to take all of her classes. It was said all of those devices in existence were destroyed. How did Draco get his slimy hands on one? “How-how did you...” you trailed off, your mind racing as to what his plan was. “A gift from my father. The only one left. You know how this works, right (Y/N)?” he said, stepping closer to you. “Draco…” you started, but before you could push him away, the extended chain was draped around your neck along with Draco’s. His fingers moved the locket quickly before you could think or do anything.

--------

[luci-in-trenchcoats]

Home Bound (Part 1)

Summary: Dean wakes up in the middle of nowhere Colorado late one night during an ice storm, shoulder dislocated and with no idea how he’s back from the dead. His one and only thought is to keep himself together in order get home to the bunker and figure out what the hell is going on...

Masterlist

Pairing: Dean x reader

Word Count: 2,400ish

Warnings: language, angst, injury, mention of character death, mourning, supernatural events

A/N: Written entirely in Dean’s POV. Enjoy!

______

“Ow,” I said quietly to myself. It was dark, middle of the night, and naturally raining. It was cold out, colder than it had been the last time I could remember being out at dark. It must have been winter now which meant it’d been at least a few months. Chuck was dead. Not that he would have brought me back. It must have been Jack. But why bring me back and not the others was interesting.

Cas and Sam were more like fathers to him than I was. I loved the kid, he was family. But I fucked it up a bit too much. He’d always been a scared kid with a million reasons to do the wrong thing and somehow he’d stayed good. I nearly killed him more than once. Nearly did it for what happened with mom. It was an accident and I’d almost pulled the trigger.

“Sorry, Jack,” I mumbled, holding my dislocated shoulder as I walked along the side of the road. “Should have brought back somebody else.”

I took a deep breath, coming up to a telephone pole. I needed to get the arm dealt with and forget about why I felt so crappy. I stopped when I got there and took off my belt, wrapping it around my bicep. I stood back against it and reached behind with my good arm and caught the end of it. 

“Okay, okay, okay,” I said. I made sure my back was as flat as could be and my left arm had room to move. “Okay.”

I yanked the belt hard in front of me, shouting as my arm moved back into the socket. I groaned and let go of the belt, slumping down and grabbing my shoulder, taking big inhales of air.

“That’s better,” I said, closing my eyes for a beat. I knew I had to get up again and off the wet grass. It took a moment but I opened my eyes again and got my belt back on. My hand went back to my arm but it was a dull ache now and I could live with that a lot easier. There was still nothing around but dark road, prickly icy rain and trees. “Jack. Show up already.”

I spun around, rain bouncing off the pavement. I’d probably walked two miles from the field I’d woken up in. It wasn’t where I’d died, that was for sure. 

“Maybe I’m actually dead,” I said. “That would make sense...but my shoulder wouldn’t be dislocated if that were true. Fuck, get your ass down here kid. What the Hell is going on?”

It was quiet as I stepped back onto the side of the road and kept walking along. There hadn’t been a single car so I was probably out in the middle of nowhere. If Y/N or Sam or anybody had done anything, I’d assume they’d be waiting for me. Not to mention how Sam was standing right beside me when Chuck threw out that force blast thing or whatever it was. He would have died too. Cas had already been gone but he knew it would happen for the plan. Y/N was a damn idiot and did my part of things. She was so fucking stupid. She should have...

“We both knew that neither of us were walking away from that fight. But I didn’t want to have to watch you die and now...I told you not to get in front of me and you died for it. So thanks for that.”

I clenched my fists, wiping off my face. I shook my head. I could be upset later. Something was going on. Something brought me back. The other crap I’d deal with once I knew what the hell was happening.

After another ten or so minutes there was a rumble behind me. I glanced back over my shoulder and turned up my jacket collar, hearing the car slow as it got closer. I kept walking when the lights hit me and cascaded along the road. 

“Hey,” I heard when the car came to a crawl beside me. I kept my head low and heard the car stop. “You need a ride or something?”

“I’m good,” I said.

“You know town isn’t for like, ten miles right?”

I stopped and looked inside the car. There were three guys in there, all around my age, two of them bigger looking. 

“Come on.”

“I like to walk,” I said, taking a few steps.

“You’re gonna be a popsicle,” the driver said. “You ain’t even-“

“I’m not looking to be in Deliverance tonight so get lost,” I said. I heard him park the car and I frowned when he got out. “Leave me alone.”

“Sorry but no. Me and my friends ain’t gonna hurt you. I don’t know what’s going on with you but you are not alright. It’s freezing out. I don’t know how you got out this far on your own-“

“Fuck off,” I said. The other car doors opened and I took another step away. No way could I take all three with a bad arm. 

“He looks upset,” said the one from the backseat.

“Hey. I’m Sam and-“

“Sam?” I asked, the driver nodding.

“Yeah. I’m Sam and these are my buddies Jake and Austin. What’s your name?”

“Dean,” I said, debating taking off into the woods.

“Why don’t you let us drive you into town, Dean? It’s not safe to be out here in the dark on your own.”

“I ain’t getting in a car with people I don’t know,” I said. 

“This guy. Geez,” said Jake, arguably the largest of the three. He stepped over and grabbed my arm, pulling me towards the car. “You better not be some psycho axe murderer.”

“Where’s his axe then, genius?” said Sam. “Come on, Dean. At least ride with us for a minute to warm up before you walk again.”

I shrugged off Jake, glaring at him, hoping he got the picture to back off. I reached behind me and was grateful to still find my small pocket knife in the jacket pocket Y/N had sewn in.

“He’s probably on drugs, Samson. Let’s get out of here. I don’t wanna ride in a car with him either,” said Austin. 

“Dude. Just chill. Obviously something happened to this guy,” said Sam. He turned back towards me and I narrowed my eyes.

“I appreciate you trying to help and all but let’s go our separate ways,” I said.

“Could you take a hint? You look like you got your ass kicked. Come on before we all freeze,” said Sam. 

“Whatever,” I mumbled. Knowing I had the knife made me feel a bit better about the situation anyways. I got in the back beside Jake, Sam waiting a moment before he was driving again. They ignored me for the most part aside from Jake who gave me an occasional side eye in the back. We drove for close to twenty five minutes at a good speed and I realized why he made such a fuss about giving me a ride.

“I’m still hungry,” said Austin from the front.

“Mac’s is open,” said Sam. He drove down a quiet little main street and turned to the right, an all night diner with bright lights filling up the dark night. He parked and they all got out, Sam nodding for me to follow. I stretched my arm as I shut the door behind me, still trying to figure out where the hell I was. “Dean, come on. S’on me.”

“I should really get going,” I said.

“Come on. Least you can do for getting my backseat soaked,” he said. I rolled my eyes but followed him over to the door, the other two already in a booth. I sat down beside Austin, Sam taking the spot across. A waitress came over, all of the men rattling off dishes without even looking at a menu.

“Who’s your friend boys? Better looking than you three put together,” she said with a soft little smile.

“This is Dean. He’ll take a burger with tomato soup and grilled cheese. Extra hot,” said Sam.

“I’ll grab you a dish towel from the back. Your hair is dripping,” she said to me. I nodded and tried to wipe the water away that was soaking down my neck and into my damp shirt. She was back quickly with a few beers and a towel for me, the other three chatting about some basketball game or something.

“So how’d the hell you get all the way out there?” asked Austin. I set the towel down on the booth behind us, swallowing as I sipped from my glass of water. “You didn’t walk all the way from Jefferson did you?”

“Guys. Dean’s having a rough night. Let’s not play twenty questions with him,” said Sam. He gave me a smile and it reminded me of Sammy for a split second. I closed my eyes, an overwhelming urge to start freaking out hitting me. It wasn’t later yet. I’d learned nothing and there wasn’t any time to be wasted getting upset.

“Your girl break up with ya and leave you on the side of the road? I bet that’s it,” said Jake. 

“Dude. What’d I just say?” asked Sam.

“Well he’s upset and pretending not to be,” said Jake.

“She was in an accident. She and my brother, my family. I just needed to walk,” I said. They all stared at me and I was tapping my wet boot on the ground, wanting to get some food in me and get the hell out of there.

“I’m sorry man,” said Austin. “You okay?”

“Need to get home is all,” I said, taking another sip of water.

��Where’s that for you?” asked Sam.

“Lebanon,” I said.

“Where’s that?”

“Kansas.”

“You’re in Colorado right now you realize,” said Jake.

“Lay off,” said Sam, bumping his elbow into Jake’s ribs. “Hey. I uh, I got a spare cot in the garage if you want to crash there tonight. It’s not pretty but it’s warm.”

“I gotta go home,” I said.

“Well you’re not gonna get far in an ice storm on foot in the middle of the night.”

I shook my head and was silent the rest of the time we waited for the food to arrive. Sam looked at me every so often but the three of them left me out of the conversation which I was grateful for.

Forty five minutes later Sam had dropped Austin off at home and it was just the two of us in the car. He looked in the rearview and I sighed.

“My place is just around the corner,” he said.

“Why are you so-”

“Cause my fiance died last year and my family’s been through hell long before that. I get it. You don’t want to talk, that’s fine. But you need food and a roof over your head at the very least. I was way worse than you pal. Without those two, I wouldn’t be here anymore. So do you really want out of this car or do you want a warm bed for the night?”

“I’ll be gone before you get up,” I said. He shrugged and drove down the street for a ways, making a few twists and turns, eventually stopping at a modest little cottage style home. I got out after him, following him into the dark house. He flipped on a light and cut through a hallway, opening a door to reveal a semi-full garage.

“Cot is on the shelf. You can take the couch in the living room if you want but you seem to bite my head off at every little thing so you can decide,” he said. He started to leave and I shut my eyes.

“Sam,” I said. I turned around and he gave me a careful smile. “Why would you let a stranger stay in your house?”

“Cause I remember Dean Winchester. Rugaroo. Kansas City. House with the blue front door,” he said. “Saved my parents lives. The ride and meal was cause I’m a nice guy. You can stay in my house for saving my parents.”

“Losing your fiance, that really happen?” I asked. 

“Yeah. Really fucking sucks,” he said. He pulled the garage door shut and showed me where to put my boots and jacket. He left for a minute and returned with some dry clothes. “Bathroom is right there.”

“Thanks. Samson,” I said as he tossed a blanket on the couch for me to use. He stood up and his eyes looked sad when they caught mine. “Sorry for being a dick.”

“You’re grieving. You have a right to be a dick,” he said. “Stick around in the morning and I can help you get home. You don’t got much for cash from the looks of it.”

I nodded and he left, pattering around in a room down the hall for a few minutes before it got quiet. I went to the bathroom and put on the dry clothes, hanging mine in the shower and hoping they’d be better in the morning. I washed off my face and found some pain medicine in the drawer for my shoulder, throwing it back before I planted my hands on the counter and took a shaky breath.

“Later,” I said, running my hand over my face and leaving, going back to the couch. I laid down and pulled the blanket over myself. It was warm and smelled nice, something Y/N would like probably. “Jack. If you brought me back, I could do with a talk right now buddy. I’m not mad, I promise.”

The house remained silent and I rolled over to my side, face jammed against the cushions. I wasn’t sure what was going to be waiting at home but I was starting to doubt whether ‘later’ could last until then.

_________

A/N: Read Part 2 here!

[robininthelabyrinth]

Prompt: LQR/NMJ fuck or die, whether literally or socially

Without a Path - Chapter 1 - ao3

Warnings: adult content - please mind the other tags on Ao3!

-

These discussion conferences were getting less tolerable by the year, Lan Qiren thought as he trudged up the steep steps that led to the little house on the top of the hill. It was only two years ago that Sect Leader Nie had died, his place among the five Great Sects taken by his eldest son, and it was as if without his steadying (if irreverent) presence the other sect leaders had completely lost all sense of restraint.

Just last year, Jin Guangshan, who had been hosting, had set some late afternoon meetings in a “wine shop” that had almost predictably turned out to be a brothel, and he’d even taken the further step of paying the ladies of the establishment in advance to accompany them for the evening. A number of the smaller sect leaders had taken him up on the offer, carousing gleefully in the main room, but in the luxuriously laid out room reserved for the Great Sects, three of the five of them had stubbornly refused to partake – Lan Qiren on account of his sect rules, Nie Mingjue on account of his mourning, and Jiang Fengmian on account of his wife.

The entire evening had been unbearably awkward as a result: the ladies continued to make advances, even after having been rejected, and Wen Ruohan and Jin Guangshan only pressured them all the harder the drunker they got, both with a girl on each leg and one rubbing their shoulders. At one point, when Nie Mingjue had gotten up to leave, utterly disgusted – Lan Qiren couldn’t blame him – Wen Ruohan had even reached out to catch him, using his superior strength to pull him off his feet and onto his couch.  Nie Mingjue had recoiled as if he’d landed amidst a bed of poisonous snakes, leaping up and storming out, and Jin Guangshan had nearly burst something laughing.

And now there was this year, Wen Ruohan was hosting, and he’d decided to do some sort of fancy winter night-hunt set up, encircling an entire mountain valley in the north for their use. There were a half-dozen houses in the foothills for all the sect leaders to stay in as their disciples conducted the hunts, excluding only the leaders of the Great Set, who were invited to walk up an unnecessarily steep hill to stay in the house up there. Fancier, more prestigious, with a better view…really, Wen Ruohan probably just wanted to rub all the smaller sect’s faces in the Great Sects’ glory, by which he meant his glory, again. Lan Qiren was most definitely not impressed.

The house might be better positioned, but it was inconvenient.

It was located on vein of power that boosted cultivation considerably but made flying by sword difficult – meaning they could only walk up, not fly – and the house itself was more elegant than it was spacious, meaning that once all the servants Wen Ruohan deemed essential were included the rest of them could each bring no more than two attendants. It was distant from the other houses, including the ones where their remaining sect disciples were being housed, and that in turn meant that someone would need to make the trek in between the two on a regular basis to bring them news of their own sects’ successes or failures in the hunt.

Moreover, it had already begun to gently snow, which meant they didn’t even get the benefit of the supposed view!

No, Lan Qiren was most certainly not impressed.

He entered the house, which was at least properly warm, and nodded at Jiang Fengmian, who was sitting with Jin Guangshan and receiving a cup of tea – he looked minorly pained, but that could just be proximity to Jin Guangshan and his idea of acceptable small talk – and it wasn’t long before Nie Mingjue arrived, habitual scowl on his face as he stalked in, flanked by his own two attendants. He was probably least comfortable out of all of them, it being no secret that he believed Wen Ruohan had had something to do with the death of his father – no, that was too polite. More accurately, he believed Wen Ruohan to have murdered his father, and Wen Ruohan had only barely gone through the motions of denying it, yet there was nothing anyone could do about it without starting a war that no one was ready for.

This was the first discussion conference he had to attend as Wen Ruohan’s guest. Lan Qiren felt a stab of sympathy and nodded to him; Nie Mingjue’s scowl softened, fading slightly as he nodded back.

The two of them were more familiar than most, and not only because the Nie and the Lan were long-standing allies. Nie Mingjue himself had spent some time in Gusu at one of Lan Qiren’s early lectures, back when he was still figuring things out – he had been a good student, thoughtful and hard-working, and he had become friends with Lan Qiren’s eldest nephew. That had been a friendship Lan Qiren had sought to encourage, thinking it would be good for them when they would both be sect leaders in the future; it was only that he had not expected Nie Mingjue to become sect leader so fast, so early.  It was in many ways deeply strange to think that one of his students was now his peer and equal, even though Lan Qiren acknowledged that that was simply how inheritance worked.

(He wondered a little, sometimes, at Nie Mingjue’s age – the Qinghe Nie were unusually secretive on such matters, had always been. He’d never known the boy’s age when he had been his student, only that Nie Mingjue had grown tall at an advanced clip compared to the other boys, suggesting that he was perhaps older than he appeared. The Nie sect hadn’t objected to his ascension to the role of sect leader, suggesting he must be at least close to being of age at twenty, but really there wasn’t any polite way to ask. Not that that had stopped Jin Guangshan from trying to pry, though naturally Nie Mingjue had rebuffed all such queries.)

“Wonderful view,” he remarked, seeking to ease the mood, and Nie Mingjue briefly almost smiled.

“If you like dull white,” Jin Guangshan sniffed, completely missing the implied criticism. “But then again, I suppose that is the Lan sect’s preferred taste.”

“We generally prefer clouds to snow,” Lan Qiren said, not rising to his bait. “Where is our host?”

“An excellent question. One typically expects a host to be present to greet his guests,” Nie Mingjue said in agreement, his voice low and hot with seething rage.

“He was here, but was called away unexpectedly,” Jiang Fengmian said, acting as the peacemaker as always. “I have no doubt he’ll return shortly.”

Another ke passed before Wen Ruohan strode in, his shoulders slightly damp with snow that turned into condensation from the heat of his cultivation – a waste of spiritual energy, really, but quite in character for him. It occurred briefly to Lan Qiren that for there to be sufficient snow to make such a performance meant that the gentle snow must have gotten stronger since he had entered earlier, but then Wen Ruohan was opening the meeting and he had to focus on more important things. These discussion conferences might officially be held out to be social events, a way for the cultivation world to come together to share knowledge and trade pointers, but for the sect leaders, the Great Sects most of all, it was also an opportunity to do business. Interactions between the great cultivation sects was an especially cut-throat business, each move, even those of allies, being filled with traps, and that meant Lan Qiren had to be paying full attention at all times.

Wen Ruohan seemed especially enthusiastic for business that day, the agenda for that afternoon’s meeting being more filled up than usual with contentious subjects that required significant debate. The meetings on the first day always ran long, a shichen or more, but this one ran past two and was nearing three by the time they started to near the end – they’d even worked through dinner, servants flitting into the room with trays that they placed in front of each sect leader’s seat and communal dishes carried around, a set-up that suggested that Wen Ruohan had anticipated such an over-long meeting from the start.

An attempt to finagle some benefits through driving them all into exhaustion, perhaps? He would have had the advantage of being here for several days in advance, while the rest of them had only just arrived. A cheap trick, if that’s what he was up to, and not successful; if anything, the pressure put them all on their guard.

“I think we’re just about done,” Wen Ruohan finally said, which was a relief. “It’s too late to have the entertainment I planned with our dinner, but I’ll have them bring out some wine to accompany us.”

Lan Qiren suppressed a groan.

Jiang Fengmian cleared his throat. “I had planned to go check on how my disciples were settling in,” he said apologetically, and Lan Qiren was just about to agree that that was a marvelous idea when Wen Ruohan broke the sound-suppressing arrays that had been protecting the room they were in and they abruptly heard the rattling sound of intense winds.

“A storm?” Jin Guangshan asked with a frown, and they all went out to look – it was indeed a storm, the snow from earlier having intensified into a blizzard. It was impossible to see more than a few zhang out, even with eyes sharpened through cultivation; it would be inadvisable weather to fly in even if such a thing were not already made difficult by the dense qi of the hilltop, and of course the stairs would be impossible to navigate. “Ah, well. Such things are impossible to predict.”

They weren’t, actually, Lan Qiren thought with irritation, and Wen Ruohan should have put some more effort into trying to predict it before insisting on this ridiculous winter hunt. Perhaps he’d even deliberately planned for something like this to increase the difficulty level for their disciples, who would not be expecting it – the man’s pettiness and need for victory truly knew no bounds.

“I suppose it’s time for the entertainment, then,” Wen Ruohan said with a smirk, clapping to summon in the dancers. Scantily clad ones, to Jin Guangshan’s delight and everyone else’s growing misery, and Lan Qiren couldn’t help but think grumpily that he wouldn’t have considered dancers ‘essential’ enough to take up space that could have been used by adding in additional attendants.

Luckily, a glance at the candle clock revealed that it wouldn’t be long – enough time to burn an incense stick or two, no more – before he could plausibly plead out on the basis of his sect rules regarding the right time to retire for the evening. It wasn’t an excuse that always worked, unfortunately, as the other sect leaders knew that the rules of hospitality took precedence, but in this particular instance when he tried it Nie Mingjue made some noises about wanting to take advantage of the mountain spiritual vein and winter storm to cultivate and Wen Ruohan for once acted the gracious host, allowing them to retire without raising too much of a fuss. Jiang Fengmian stayed behind to continue watching the dancers, his posture clearly appreciative and more interested than usual, but Lan Qiren had no doubt that he’d be following them soon enough; with a wife like his, he’d soon conclude that the momentary pleasure of watching the admittedly beautiful and well-trained women wasn’t worth her reaction should she hear of it.

He himself settled into his room with a sigh, dismissing his two attendants to go to their own beds. It was already hai hour, the time for sleep according to the Lan sect rules, and by all rights he ought to be fading off to sleep as well through sheer force of habit.

Unfortunately, sleep did not seem forthcoming. He felt restless and confined, hot under the collar with suppressed inactivity – still full of adrenaline from the high-pressure tension that always accompanied the business parts of the discussion conferences, the often vicious arguments that always danced on the very edge of a war he was no longer certain he could say that no one wanted, and, worse, because of the ice storm battering the windows, he could not take a walk to burn off the excess energy.

Sleep seemed far out of reach.

At least he had his duties as sect leader to keep him busy. Lan Qiren occupied himself with taking down notes regarding the results of the meeting at once, lest he forget and have his forgetfulness used against him, and with a meeting that went on so long there was a great deal to record and plenty of information he would need to obtain from his disciples once connection was reestablished in the morning.

A shichen later, he was still awake, writing out one final set of instructions, and he was just about to finally retire for the evening and try to go to sleep, however unsuccessful he expected that endeavor to be, when there was an unexpected knock on his door.

Frowning, Lan Qiren rose to his feet and went to open it.

“Sect Leader Nie,” he said, surprised. “What brings you here this late?”

“Can I come in?” Nie Mingjue asked, and Lan Qiren would have refused if he hadn’t noticed that the other man appeared unusually upset – although the room was lit only by flickering lanterns, Lan Qiren’s cultivation was high enough to make his night vision excellent, and he could see the tightness in Nie Mingjue’s eyes and the bulge of his jaw as he ground his teeth together.

“Very well,” Lan Qiren said, and stepped aside, allowing Nie Mingjue to enter. “What’s the matter?”

“Have you been feeling unusual this evening?” Nie Mingjue asked, voice abrupt. He was standing especially straight, his hands behind his back. “Uncomfortable, or – overheating?”

Lan Qiren frowned.

“I have,” he said slowly. Now that he thought about it, he could feel sweat on the back of his neck, which could not be explained merely by the braziers and conductive array keeping the room warm – not in the face of the ice storm right outside. He did not like that, nor did he like the implications of Nie Mingjue coming to him late at night with the question. “Why?”

“I found this in the kitchen,” Nie Mingjue said, and he stuck out his hand with a jar with herbs in it. “It was – I think they put it in our food.”

Lan Qiren accepted the jar and examined it, his lips twisting into a scowl of his own as he realized what it was. “A consequence of our refusal to participate in the planned entertainment last time, no doubt,” he said, his voice tight, thinking that this was truly intolerable behavior. They were sect leaders, not schoolchildren; such a prank went beyond the mere unseemly into the inappropriate.

He noticed that Nie Mingjue’s expression had only grown more anxious, however, and sought to reassure him. “It’s not poison,” he explained. “At least not in the traditional sense – the drug is a powerful yin stimulant, with amatory properties.”

An extremely powerful aphrodisiac, in other words.

“Although it has some legitimate uses, it is best known to be used in the more dubious forms of dual cultivation. The effects cannot be simply filtered out with a golden core, but are easy enough to blunt with an infusion of yang energy.”

That was, of course, the basis of the prank, stupid and infantile as it was: for a man, it was generally not difficult to infuse one’s core with yang energy. Although it would of course be easier and more beneficial to accept an offer from one of the undoubtedly specially selected female dancers to engage in dual cultivation, a man could always utilize his own hand to stimulate the appropriate effect, even if it would take longer. Wen Ruohan – and Jin Guangshan, no doubt – would undoubtedly laugh themselves sick, dallying the night away with the dancers while the rest of them were forced to abuse themselves for hours just to have some peace.

Bastards.

“Fuck,” Nie Mingjue said vehemently, and Lan Qiren found to his surprise that his expression looked, if anything, even worse, his face having gone a ghastly shade of pale. “I can’t – do that.”

“Why not?” Lan Qiren asked, bewildered. Surely the former sect leader Nie had given his son the most basic education – Lan Qiren truly hoped he would not be called upon to explain the cultivation mechanics of masturbation, although he would grit his teeth and endure if necessary. “It may take several repetitions to flush it out entirely, but the drug itself will assist with – with the, uh, motivation – physically – for the infusion, that is –”

“You don’t understand,” Nie Mingjue said, and his face was now flushed, red at the cheeks as if he had a fever. “It’s not – I know what an infusion of yang energy is. It’s just – it’s not…”

He closed his eyes tightly. He was actually shaking, Lan Qiren noticed, his shoulders trembling – he was clearly very distressed by the whole thing.

“He knows,” he finally muttered. “He must have…there’s no other explanation. This was intentional, all of it. Wen Ruohan knows.”

Something about Nie Mingjue’s tone – almost fatalistic, defeated and resigned, as if he had lost some great battle that he had not even known he was fighting – made a hard tight ball of anxiety in Lan Qiren’s stomach.

“What does he know?” he asked cautiously.

Nie Mingjue laughed dully, a short bark of sound that was all bitterness. “That I can’t generate that type of yang energy on my own, Sect Leader Lan. That I’m misaligned.”

The implications of that hit Lan Qiren with all the impact of an avalanche.

Misaligned. It was one of those strange Qinghe Nie traditions, along with not disclosing private information such as the year of one’s birth – they believed that it was possible for the reincarnation wheel to err, for a man’s soul to be born in a woman’s body, or a woman in a man, or even in some cases a nebulous sort of existence that recognized neither. The substance of what they were wasn’t important, not really; the term was all-encompassing, meaning only that the physical body and the ephemeral souls and spirits did not match.

But for Nie Mingjue to say that he couldn’t generate an infusion of yang meant that the body he had been born with was that of a woman – yin-aligned, not yang-aligned, even though his stature and bearing suggested that his eight characters were likely to be heavily tilted towards yang, if not entirely yang. For a woman, giving in to the aphrodisiacal effects of the drug would aggravate the effects, not cure them; for a woman, ingesting such a drug in sufficiently large quantities could even be fatal, with the effects of the excess yin unbalancing her qi, causing –

Causing a qi deviation.

The former sect leader Nie had died of a qi deviation only two years ago. His father had died of the same.

Nie Mingjue, with his only heir a child under ten, could not risk one.

If they had been at home – if they’d been anywhere more civilized, Nie Mingjue could have summoned some doctor to help flush out the effects through a manual infusion of yang, using drugs, purges, the transfer of spiritual energy, that sort of thing. Without one, the only way to obtain a yang infusion of the strength necessary to keep the effects of a drug this powerful at bay would be through dual cultivation.

Through sex, specifically. Sex in which he was penetrated by a man.

And that, itself, was the problem. The Qinghe Nie recognized the misaligned, and some of the cultivation world followed their lead, but the majority did not. If it was ever publicized that Nie Mingjue had the body of a woman, and that he had, moreover, lost his chastity – it would be a crippling loss of face for the Nie sect, not unless he subsequently married the man who had dishonored him.

“Who can you ask?” Lan Qiren asked, his heart sinking. Between the ice storm that he’d thought had been an oversight on Wen Ruohan’s part, the tall hill with its barrier to flight, the restricted number of attendants they were able to bring, and the application of the drug in such quantity that it could affect a cultivator as strong as Lan Qiren so quickly…there were too many coincidences for this to be anything but what Nie Mingjue suspected it was: a trap designed to ensnare him in an impossible situation. “Perhaps…your attendants? You were allowed to bring two –”

“I wanted to bring people I could trust,” Nie Mingjue said dully. “With such a small number…”

Lan Qiren understood. Nie Mingjue was young, still new to his role as sect leader even after two years – there must be plenty of people both in and out of the Nie sect waiting anxiously to see him fail. For a situation in which he would have to be at close quarters with the other sect leaders, he would have wanted people that he believed would support him unreservedly.

He would have brought family.

“Too close?” Lan Qiren checked, and grimaced when Nie Mingjue nodded. Obviously engaging in incest would only make a bad situation worse, even if Nie Mingjue were willing to order such a thing, which he very obviously wasn’t. “In that case, there’s only…”

His voice trailed off.

“Servants,” Nie Mingjue said, his voice very tight. “Servants, or another sect leader.”

He swallowed, hard. Then, suddenly, before Lan Qiren could do or say anything more, he knelt down before Lan Qiren and pressed his forehead to the floor.

“Sect Leader Lan,” he said. “Please help me.”

Lan Qiren stared down at him in horror, quickly crouching to pull Nie Mingjue up again. “Me? You can’t be serious!”

“It has to be you,” Nie Mingjue said. “Fucking another sect’s servant while they were still in their employ would be as good as saying that my sect was only good to be servants themselves, and of the sect leaders…there’s no one else. Jiang Fengmian is married to a vicious shrew that would castrate him if he even thought about anyone else, Jin Guangshan is a notorious whoremonger known for his cruelty to his bedpartners – and Wen Ruohan…”

He looked up at Lan Qiren, tears glinting in his eyes.

“Sect Leader Lan, please,” he whispered. “Please. It can’t be Wen Ruohan. It can’t.”

Now it was Lan Qiren’s turn to swallow.

“I am faithful to my sect’s traditions,” he croaked. There was no rule against engaging in sexual relations in his sect, only against promiscuity, but among those who were the most faithful to the traditions of their founder, those like Lan Qiren who sought to model themselves on Lan An, such things were taken very seriously. This situation fell nowhere in the list of acceptable exceptions that the young used to explore their inclinations and manage the hormones of adolescence and early adulthood; for Lan Qiren, at this point in his life, he wished only to go to bed with the woman who would become his wife.

The one he would walk to on foot without a path, as Lan An had done, bringing gifts and an oath of eternal loyalty, binding their hands together with his forehead ribbon in a promise that would never be broken.

His dao companion, his one, the other half of his life.

Not this.

Not like this.

“I know,” Nie Mingjue said, and he sounded truly wretched. “I know what I’m asking of you. I know I have no reason to expect anything from you, much less something that may affect the rest of your life. But – please. I beg of you, please. I know what a drug like this can do, especially if combined with certain others, and I just know he’ll find a way to get those to me, too. He won’t let me have the chance to just wait it out and hope for the best – I’ll enter delirium and be unable to resist, and then I’ll wake up and find myself bound to marry the man who murdered my father. Teacher Lan, please!”

Lan Qiren’s shoulders shook. Nie Mingjue was a proud man, and rightfully so, powerful and righteous as he was; it was abominable that he should be begging on his knees for Lan Qiren to violate him because he feared the all-too-plausible alternative more. And at the end he had slipped up in his desperation and called Lan Qiren ‘Teacher’, as if he was still his student, not his peer, still that boy from not so long ago.

The worst of it was that he truly could not think of another option.

If he refused, and he knew he was well within his rights to refuse, Nie Mingjue would try to submit himself in desperation to someone else – Jiang Fengmian would reject him, claiming that Wen Ruohan would never do such a thing even though it was patently obvious that he would, and to submit in such a way to Jin Guangshan was very nearly as bad, given his greed and treatment of women. Faced with such a rejection, with his only other options being intolerable politically or personally or both, Nie Mingjue might try to leave this place contrary all reason, heading into the snow and ice and the steep steps that had been treacherous even without a blinding blizzard, but that might kill him.

He might prefer that it kill him.

“I will help,” he said, because the alternative was unthinkable, because Nie Mingjue had been his student and he couldn’t abandon him now. Nie Mingjue looked up at him, eyes wide as if with disbelief, so he repeated himself: “I will help you.” He hesitated, but only briefly. “Come to bed.”

Nie Mingjue rose to his feet unsteadily and followed him obediently to the bed.

(From his daydreams and the admittedly minimal exploration that he had done in his youth, Lan Qiren knew that he liked obedience in his lovers. He enjoyed pampering them, caring for them, but most of all he liked having them wholly yield to him and trust him, as Nie Mingjue was doing now. He liked it best when the submission was worthwhile, when it was someone brave and bold and smart and powerful, and in another time, another place, a person very much like Nie Mingjue would have been just what he wanted. But he was only doing him a favor – had only been sought out in desperation, not desire – he should not think of such things, nor of how beautiful Nie Mingjue was in the flickering candlelight.)

“Have you done anything before?” Lan Qiren asked, and was unsurprised when Nie Mingjue shook his head. “Anything at all?”

“With another person? No.”

Lan Qiren nodded, accepting it. “You should – probably get undressed.”

Nie Mingjue nodded. His gaze was averted, but his hands were sure and straightforward as he removed the various layers of clothing he wore, the visible markings of the sect leader of the Nie sect; underneath, he was as tall and broad as might be expected.

Lan Qiren put a hand on Nie Mingjue’s thigh. He flinched.

“You’re going to have to relax,” Lan Qiren said, trying to be kind. Nie Mingjue lay back on the bed and clearly made an effort, shoulders settling and muscles unclenching through sheer willpower. Lan Qiren would like very much to blame the fact that his cock hung heavy and hard between his thighs entirely on the drug he had consumed, but he wasn’t that ignorant of himself. “Would you like me to…?”

“Just get on with it,” Nie Mingjue snapped, and then amended to add, “If you would.”

To his shame, Lan Qiren’s cock twitched.

He ignored it and reached forward to touch Nie Mingjue’s body, which shivered invitingly under his hands: his shoulders, his hips, the hard planes of his belly and the surprising softness of his chest – Nie Mingjue flinched once again at that, and Lan Qiren moved away immediately – before dipping a hand down between his legs.  

It was probably the drug that made Nie Mingjue warm and wet for him, he reminded himself, and the expression of surprise and the way his hips jerked up when fingers slid over his cunt was simply inexperience. And the way he bit his lower lip and tried to force himself to grind into Lan Qiren’s hand –

“Stop that,” Lan Qiren said, and Nie Mingjue obeyed at once, cheeks pinking with embarrassment. He sank back onto the bed when instructed and spread his legs wider, and Lan Qiren wanted to eat him out until he cried. The effect of the drug, he hoped. “Tell me what feels good to you.”

“It mostly feels strange,” Nie Mingjue confessed, even as Lan Qiren worked a finger into him. He was unsurprisingly tight as a vise, so tight that Lan Qiren was starting to have doubts that he would be able to fit himself inside – he was not small by any measure – but after a few moments either the drug or the sensations started to do its work and Nie Mingjue softened around him. “I don’t normally touch myself in there.”

“Can you show me what you normally do, then?”

“Is that really necessary?” Lan Qiren gave him a stern look. “…yes, Teacher Lan.”

Lan Qiren could have done without the self-knowledge that he liked being called teacher in bed, especially by a blushing former student – who was of an age to be his nephew’s dearest friend, no less – but he was stuck with that now.

Just like he was stuck with the knowledge of what Nie Mingjue looked like when he touched himself, of hearing the muffled grunt he gave when his fingers rubbed against his clit, how he arched his back and raised his hips as he pressed down on it. How tight and wet he was when Lan Qiren gave him another finger, how he hissed at the stretch and then furrowed his brow when Lan Qiren crooked his fingers, rubbing him from the inside. The way his thighs trembled.  

“Are you going to fuck me at any point?” Nie Mingjue asked, a little plaintive.

“I’m not sure you’re ready,” Lan Qiren said, but he pulled open his clothing – it hadn’t occurred to him to get undressed, even if Nie Mingjue was, and the little inequality jarred his sense of righteousness even as it turned him on – and took out his cock, pressing against it Nie Mingjue’s slick cunt.

It didn’t go in.

“You have got to be kidding me,” Nie Mingjue, who had been staring at the ceiling and bracing himself, said, and pushed himself up onto his elbows, craning his neck up to look down at where they were failing to join. “Oh, well, see, that’s the problem right there. I’d assumed that I’d invited a man into my bed, not a horse.”

“My bed,” Lan Qiren reminded him, though he wasn’t quite able to keep his lips from twitching in amusement. “It might be easier if you reached completion first. It would relax you.”

“Oh, sure. No problem. Because the prospect of imminent impalement is so very sexy,” Nie Mingjue grumbled – Lan Qiren did not laugh, but it was close – and reached down, closing his eyes as he started touching himself in earnest.

Lan Qiren ground his cock into the bed as he waited, two fingers still inside and steadily stretching, his mouth dry as he listened to the slick, rhythmic sounds, as he watched Nie Mingjue’s face go steadily more slack – too slack, actually, and when Nie Mingjue opened his eyes he looked dazed. Maybe it was simply how he reacted to pleasure, or maybe it was the second drug he’d suspected that he’d been dosed with, perhaps, something to make him less vigilant.

Lan Qiren hoped it was just pleasure, but he knew that it didn’t make a difference either way to what they had to do.

Lan Qiren waited until Nie Mingjue’s hips finished shuddering – one foot twitched and nearly kicked, and he caught it with one hand and pressed it back down – before pulling out his fingers and pressing his cock up against the young man’s entrance again. It was still tight, but he was able to force it in, squeezing himself until the head had gone inside.

“Fuck,” Nie Mingjue said. He sounded half-drunk. “That’s so weird. You’re – inside of me.”

“Not yet,” Lan Qiren said, and pressed himself forward slowly, bracing himself against the bed for leverage as he did. He managed to get about halfway in before Nie Mingjue whimpered. “Are you in pain?”

“No,” Nie Mingjue said. “More like – pressure. Heat. I don’t know. I can feel you.”

“Focus on cultivation,” Lan Qiren advised, which was very good advice except for the fact that Nie Mingjue said, “Yes, Teacher Lan,” and Lan Qiren’s hips involuntarily jerked forward, making Nie Mingjue groan and getting him almost all the way in.

He forced himself to slow down again, to stop. His arms were trembling where he was holding himself up, and it wasn’t with the strain – as if someone raised in the Lan sect, with their habit of handstands and other such exercises, would feel strain over something like this – but rather from the effort of restraint.

He was not going to grab Nie Mingjue by the hips, bend him in two, and start fucking him into the bed until he shouted for mercy, but it was – more difficult than he liked to admit to stop himself from doing just that. This was not a type of restraint that he was familiar with.

“I feel like I should be doing something with my hands,” Nie Mingjue said.

“You may touch my shoulders,” Lan Qiren said, and felt Nie Mingjue’s hands settle there a moment later, fingers gripping the cloth tightly. A moment later, he could felt the spiritual energy inside of Nie Mingjue starting to circulate, and he nodded, impressed that Nie Mingjue was able to find his focus even in such a situation. “Well done. Good boy.”

Nie Mingjue’s legs had ended up slung over Lan Qiren’s hips at some point in the process and he abruptly tightened them, before releasing the pressure just as abruptly a moment later.

“Would you prefer that I avoid saying that?” Lan Qiren asked, desperately trying to focus on starting his own cultivation instead of thinking about Nie Mingjue’s reaction.

“…no,” Nie Mingjue muttered, and turned his face to the side. He was blushing again. “It’s fine. You can – I like that.”

Lan Qiren put one hand on Nie Mingjue’s hips, and pulled himself halfway out, then thrust back inside in a sudden motion, making Nie Mingjue cry out in surprise.

“Cultivation,” he reminded him as he started moving his hips, more cruelty than anything else because he was having some considerable trouble thinking or focusing himself.  “You can do it. You’re a good boy for me, aren’t you?”

“Y – yes, Teacher Lan,” Nie Mingjue said, his whole body shifting with the force of Lan Qiren’s thrusts. Amazingly, somehow, he really did start to cultivate, and then Lan Qiren finally got his act together and did the same, and suddenly their spiritual energy was intertwining, yin feeding into yang and yang spilling into yin, and it wasn’t long before that metaphor became a reality, Lan Qiren gripping tightly onto Nie Mingjue’s hips as he came. He reached down between them and rubbed Nie Mingjue’s clit, mimicking the actions he’d seen him take earlier – a little rough, circles a little careless – and a few moments later the dual cultivation did its work, pulling Nie Mingjue along, his hips jerking up again as he hit his peak once more, squeezing him from the inside.

“Fuck,” Nie Mingjue said, with feeling. “Fuck.”

“A good start,” Lan Qiren said. He was still hard, even after he’d finished inside of him. That was definitely the effect of the drug. “Make sure to draw the yang energy into your dantian. Use it to cleanse your core. Would you like to try another position for the next round?”

“Huh?” Nie Mingjue asked, the daze he was in earlier having clearly deepened, so Lan Qiren pulled out of him – Nie Mingjue whined at that – and helped him turn over so that he was on his hands and knees, his hair having fallen out of some of its braids, though not all, and falling down over his shoulders and back. “Oh, I see. Is this right?”

Lan Qiren was able to push back inside much more easily, whether from the earlier stretch or the new position. “Yes, very good,” he praised, and Nie Mingjue shivered underneath him. “Spread your legs a little more – good, good. Start cultivating again. I’m going to fuck you.”

Nie Mingjue’s cunt tightened around him when he used the crude language. Anticipation, not dread, he hoped, and matched action to word.

Having gotten the edge off with the first round, the second round took longer, Nie Mingjue reduced to shuddering and gasping almost despite himself. The new position also made balancing easier, as Lan Qiren could rely on Nie Mingjue’s own body to steady them both, and that gave him freer use of his hands: he could run them up and down Nie Mingjue’s sides, could press a hand to his belly as if he were trying to feel himself there inside. Could reach up and touch that tempting softness at his chest – this time, Nie Mingjue did not resist, too lost in sensation to really notice, although Lan Qiren did not linger – could slide his fingers down so that he could finger Nie Mingjue’s clit. Could trace around the place where they were connected, the slick dripping out and smearing across Nie Mingjue’s thighs as he fucked into him with wet sounds.

The cultivation aspect was also improved: their spiritual energies recognized each other better now, and for all its faults this mountaintop house was in fact an excellent natural source of spiritual qi. Lan Qiren could feel the energy being drawn throughout his body, strengthening him much faster than meditation or playing guqin or swordsmanship usually did, the ecstasy of spiritual pleasure accompanying the physical sensations besieging him.

Nie Mingjue begged me to do this, Lan Qiren thought hazily, his balls tightening in anticipation of another orgasm. He wondered if he could get Nie Mingjue to beg him again, although maybe this time it would be for his cock or for permission to come.

He suddenly wanted to see Nie Mingjue’s face again, currently hidden in his folded arms with his ass in the air like some bitch waiting to get bred. He wanted to fuck him for a week, never resting, until he couldn’t walk any more, and then he wanted to take him home and do it all over again. He wanted to see Nie Mingjue bent over the low table he used in his study at the Cloud Recesses, hands held obediently on his wrists behind his back, calling him teacher like the good little student he’d been as he used his body to milk Lan Qiren’s cock dry.

One of those, at least, he could have.

He pulled out again, even though he was starting to get close. “Turn,” he ordered, and Nie Mingjue did. “Hold your legs open – no, use your hands. Put them under your knees.”

Nie Mingjue obeyed. He looked obscene in that posture, as Lan Qiren had expected he would: his face was red and sweat was dripping down his forehead, drool at the corners of his mouth and eyes glassy with tears that occasionally rolled down his cheek.

Lan Qiren put his cock against him, but did not go in, just rubbed up against his cunt, marveling at how slick with his juices his cock was. “Are you in pain?” he asked again, an echo of his earlier question when he’d actually meant it as a serious question rather than a tease. “You’re crying.”

“No,” Nie Mingjue said, then stuttered, “Yes. It doesn’t hurt, it’s just – a lot. Don’t stop.”

“You’re sure?”

“Yes.”

“I wouldn’t want to hurt you –”

“Teacher Lan,” Nie Mingjue whined. “Please fuck me already.”

Lan Qiren clicked his tongue. “So impatient,” he said, but he was already sinking in, their spiritual qi at once twining together again, and it wasn’t hard to reach in and tweak it, making Nie Mingjue’s hips jerk and his mouth fall open slack as he came once again. His whole body tensed, and then relaxed, and Lan Qiren used the moment to fuck him hard, hips pistoning as he thrust in and out, using his own hands to keep one of Nie Mingjue’s legs up – he’d released them when he came, hands dropping to grab at the bedding instead – and it wasn’t long before he was coming himself, buried deep inside.

Nie Mingjue was crying in earnest now, but not unhappily – tears spilling down his cheeks, but enthusiastically participating the whole while – and Lan Qiren pulled out and pressed their bodies together.

“It’s going well,” he assured him, reaching for his own cultivation to encourage his cock to recover faster. “Once or twice more. You can do it.”

Nie Mingjue nodded

“Good boy,” Lan Qiren said, enjoying the way it made Nie Mingjue both blush and pant at the same time. “Your teacher is proud of you.”

Nie Mingjue covered his face with his hands, but Lan Qiren was inside of him again by that point, and he could tell from the way Nie Mingjue bore down on him that didn’t really object to it at all.

Still, the pleasure and joy of their coupling – the physicality of sex, the way they unexpectedly suited each other in temperament and in cultivation – was tempered by the reality of their situation. After his third orgasm, or possibly fourth, Nie Mingjue started to succumb to delirium as he’d predicted at the start, and by this point there was no denying that the daze he kept slipping into was pharmacological in origin.

They had both been dosed with the aphrodisiac, that much was clear, but somehow Nie Mingjue had also received a dose of something else, something that made his eyes go increasingly vacant even as he curled his limbs around Lan Qiren, trying to increase the amount of bodily contact between them. Whatever the secondary drug was, it clearly increased his pleasure, which was good, but Lan Qiren disliked the dullness of his expression, the way that it was increasingly obvious that Nie Mingjue no longer recognized what exactly he was doing or with whom. If he’d refused to accede to Nie Mingjue’s request…

Best not to think on that, he told himself, and set himself to the task of reaching his own peak once again as quickly as possible. As much as he was repulsed by the idea of bedding a man who was clearly no longer sober, he knew that it was only through more of his yang energy that Nie Mingjue would pass through this night unscathed.

“Truly it is as they say,” a voice drawled from behind him, and Lan Qiren froze mid-thrust even as Nie Mingjue whimpered and jerked up against him. “The quick-footed ones climb up first, the early bird catches the worm – however it goes. Sect Leader Lan, I wouldn’t have thought you had it in you.”

“Sect Leader Wen,” Lan Qiren said, voice stiff. “You are not welcome in my room.”

Wen Ruohan ignored him, walking forward until he was standing by Lan Qiren’s side, looking down at Nie Mingjue lying senseless on the pillow.

“Lovely girl,” he said idly, and reached down to tuck some of Nie Mingjue’s hair back behind his ear. “Do you know, I had no idea she was a woman until she fell into me at last year’s discussion conference? Her breasts pressed up against my arm, my knee between her legs – the Qinghe Nie really do play their cards close to their chests.”

“By the traditions of his clan, he’s a man,” Lan Qiren said icily, or as icily as he could with Nie Mingjue still squirming on his softening cock. “Wen Ruohan. Leave.”

“Have some shame, Sect Leader Lan. It’s my precious jade that you pilfered, after all,” Wen Ruohan scolded lightly. He skimmed two fingers down along Nie Mingjue’s cheek before pressing into his mouth, pushing down on his tongue before starting to move them in and out in a familiar motion – fucking his mouth with them. Nie Mingjue’s eyes were completely blank as he sucked on the fingers of the man who he believed killed his father, who only a shichen or two earlier he had begged on his knees to avoid. “And here I thought your Lan sect had a rule against illicit sex.”

“It isn’t illicit if I’m willing to marry him,” Lan Qiren said. His entire body was tense with rage: he hadn’t expected Wen Ruohan to admit that he’d been planning this at all, much less so causally, as if there was nothing anyone could do about it.

He was right, though. There wasn’t. Even if Lan Qiren could bring forward proof of this atrocity, no one would join hands with him to enforce any type of punishment other than the Nie sect, and the Nie and the Lan by themselves could not hope to shake the power of the Wen sect.

It was as pointless to try to make something over this as it had been over Lao Nie’s murder.

“Marry?” Wen Ruohan echoed, and then laughed. “Don’t be ridiculous. Tell me, is there any chance you’d share her?”

“No.”

“Why not?” Wen Ruohan asked, and he seemed almost genuinely curious. “Sect Leader Jin and I shared one of the dancers earlier; I assure you, it’s a very enjoyable experience, and most beneficial in increasing your strength.”

“I’m not sure if you’ve noticed,” Lan Qiren said, his teeth grinding together painfully. “But he hates you.”

He wanted nothing more than to stand up and reach for his sword to run Wen Ruohan through for his presumption, but his cultivation, however powerful, had always been centered in music, not swordsmanship, and at any rate Wen Ruohan’s own cultivation level left his own far behind. As it was, he didn’t even dare pull out of his intimate embrace with Nie Mingjue no matter how vulnerable the position made him feel – he half suspected that if he did, Wen Ruohan would take it as an invitation to simply push him aside and replace his cock with his own.

It can’t be Wen Ruohan, Nie Mingjue had said at the start, tears in his eyes. It can’t. Please!

He stayed where he was.

“I’m not sure why you think that matters,” Wen Ruohan mused. “That bit about killing her father, hmm? Look at her, Sect Leader Lan. She wouldn’t say no even if the man fucking her was her own father.”

“Because you drugged him.”

“Because I drugged her,” Wen Ruohan agreed. “The second one was in the incense in her room, if you were curious. Why do you think I was so willing to let you two off the hook earlier? If everything had gone according to plan, she would’ve absorbed it while meditating and then succumbed to the temptation of getting herself off before retiring for the night, and after the first orgasm or two her rationality would have started slipping away. By the time I arrived, she would have been begging for me to fuck her. Me, and anyone else I chose to invite.”

Jin Guangshan, probably, Lan Qiren thought to himself, white hot fury filling his head.

“Don’t look so offended. I would’ve invited you, too.”

That was worse.

“It could have been a bonding experience,” Wen Ruohan said, then laughed. “You’re the one who’s always talking about the importance of creating ties between the Great Sects, so as to better forestall a war between us – I’m not sure what could be better than having us share our very qi with each other.”

“Sharing,” Lan Qiren said flatly. “Is that what you call gang-raping an innocent young man? Who’s probably your son’s age?”

“Younger than Wen Xu, I expect, though of course with Qinghe Nie you can never really be sure,” Wen Ruohan said, utterly indifferent. “Girls mature faster than boys, don’t they? And anyway, it’s rather hypocritical of you to raise such a protest; you’re the one balls-deep inside of her.”

Lan Qiren hadn’t thought about that, though now that he did he had a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach. He had always assumed that Nie Mingjue was older than the other boys that had been his students, that the distance in ages between him and Lan Xichen was larger than might be expected, but that had been based on the fact that he was growing so fast – but Wen Ruohan was right. Because Nie Mingjue’s body was a woman’s, the growth spurt he’d had at the Cloud Recesses wouldn’t have signified that he was in the middle of his adolescent years, but at the start of them; he might have been even younger than Lan Qiren had thought, younger than his peers rather than older.

He’d already felt like an old cow eating young grass, but the feeling was abruptly magnified, and no matter that Nie Mingjue had asked him – had begged him – to do what he was doing.

“If you feel so strongly about it,” Wen Ruohan murmured, his voice too close to Lan Qiren’s ear for comfort, “I won’t even insist on having my own turn. I’d be happy with just her mouth – look at how well she’s taking my fingers.”

Lan Qiren didn’t mean to look, but he did. Wen Ruohan’s fingers were shining with spit as they dipped in and out of Nie Mingjue’s mouth, his lips swollen. Tears dripped unconsciously from his eyes.  

“You could always just tell her that she needed more yang energy than you alone could provide…”

“What I do is of no concern to you,” Lan Qiren said harshly, cutting him off. “You asked if I would share; I told you that I would not. Do you intend to start something over it?”

Wen Ruohan paused.

Lan Qiren waited, his nerves strung tight. He couldn’t fight Wen Ruohan personally, one-on-one, and he had no authorization from his sect to start a war over this – nor any assurance that they would back him if he did, even though the ethics of the moment seemed clear. He was instead gambling on Wen Ruohan’s past: the other man was older than him, and remembered the wars of Lan Qiren’s grandparents’ generation. There were stories passed down about those battles, about how they had begun, how they had ended, and the role played therein by the contemporaneous members of the Lan sect. The five Great Sects had not been so at odds back then; Wen Ruohan would know the same stories.

He knew about Lan Qiren’s brother, too. He knew that the same madness of all those years ago still ran true in at least some of the current generation.

“Very well,” Wen Ruohan finally said, and withdrew his fingers entirely. “You Lan sect and your ‘one’ – tell me, was your sect founder’s wife as inappropriate a choice as you all seem to land on?”

“Lan An was a monk,” Lan Qiren said, keeping the irritation and tightness in his voice to avoid letting on his relief. “I suspect any ‘one’ would have been inappropriate. Now, as much as I enjoy discussing matters of sect history…”

“You’re somewhat otherwise occupied?” Wen Ruohan chuckled. “Yes, I suppose so. Well, let me not further encroach upon your happy time, Sect Leader Lan. I wish the two of you much joy, both now and in the future.”

From anyone else, that might have been sincere. From Wen Ruohan, it was a threat to watch themselves carefully in the future – that he hadn’t yet changed his mind about what he wanted to obtain, because he never did, not really; he only postponed the date in which it would fall into his hands. He believed all things in the world belonged to him, his acquisition of the object of his desires an inevitability, and he behaved accordingly.

Lan Qiren would have to instruct Nie Mingjue not to agree to any one-on-one meetings with Wen Ruohan in the future, however awkward conveying such a message to a peer would be. Wen Ruohan had already been daring enough to plan out the gang-rape of a fellow sect leader; he would not hesitate to try to take Nie Mingjue by force in the midst of a conference if he thought he could get away with it.

But those were concerns for the future; for the moment, he was content with Wen Ruohan leaving the room with a final chuckle and a crude suggestion about what Lan Qiren ought to do to Nie Mingjue on Wen Ruohan’s behalf – a suggestion he would not be taking.

Nie Mingjue had stopped struggling at some point in the conversation and was lying beneath him, insensate and shivering; Lan Qiren dropped his hand onto his stomach and began transferring spiritual energy directly, hoping to help counteract the effects of the drugs he’d been given.

After a while, Nie Mingjue started to stir, responding again – as much to the spiritual energy as anything else, he was obviously exhausted – and Lan Qiren was able to finally rouse himself as well. His movements this time were slow and gentle, their bodies rocking together and spiritual energy comfortably circulating between them, and when Lan Qiren finally shuddered to completion once again he could feel Nie Mingjue drawing in his energy and letting out only clean, untainted energy in return.

Lan Qiren exhaled in relief. He was more than a little exhausted himself.

“Sleep,” he instructed Nie Mingjue, who blinked at him and nodded. He grunted when Lan Qiren pulled out of him, but didn’t make a sound when he wet his sleeve and ran a few rough swipes over them both to clean them. “We’ll discuss more in the morning.”

[bau-baby]

the ultimate loss. 1/?

aaron hotchner x gn!reader

Summary: Haley was your friend, and you’re dealing with her loss, just as Aaron was. When the grief subsides, what happens to you and Aaron?

Word count: 1,880

warnings: grief, loss

(A/N): Because it took so long for me to finish this, I decided to end my suffering of trying to figure out where to take the storyline within this fic and get to work on a part 2. Sorry for the wait!!

W.S. Gilbert wrote, “It’s love that makes the world go ‘round.” And if that’s true, then the world spun a little faster with Haley in it. 

You remember the first time you saw the Hotchner family unit in their own element. It was definitely a sight for sore eyes. The total admiration and love Haley and Aaron had both for each other as well as their son, Jack, was unmatched. You were out in their backyard, sitting and watching Jack run around while chatting amongst yourselves, hearing old stories from before your time at the BAU. Your friendship with Haley only grew from there.

Haley was my best friend since we were in high school. We certainly had our struggles, but if there’s one thing we agreed upon unconditionally, it was our love and commitment to our son, Jack.

You were there for them through all the hell that led up to the divorce. You watched as Haley tore herself up for thinking of leaving and saw how Aaron buried himself in his work to distract him from the problem. You knew that Haley loved Aaron and that Aaron loved Haley all the same. It was just a matter of the time the job took away from them, and ultimately what was best for Jack.

Haley’s love for Jack was joyous and fierce. That fierceness is why she isn’t here today. 

After the divorce, you tried to visit Haley often, filling her in on how the team and Aaron specifically were doing. You’d help out with Jack, and he ended up adoring you and your visits. Haley grew to you quickly as well. Sure, you were friends before, but your caring nature made you two become much better friends outside of the connection you’d had with her being the boss’ ex-wife.

A mother’s love is an unrivaled force of nature, and we all can learn much from the way Haley lived her life. 

The fear in her eyes when you went in with SWAT to get Haley and Jack was something you’d never seen from her before. She was one of the strongest mothers you knew. She did everything to make sure her son was happy. When she got to the hospital, you saw how she talked with Aaron. You saw the twenty-year-old smile lines shine through to their faces, and you realized that you had missed their lifetime of being together. Sure, you had the hilarious retellings of high school and college-age Aaron, but you think they lived through a whole other world before you showed up. 

Haley’s death causes each of us to stop and take stock of our lives to measure who we are, and what we’ve become. I don’t have all those answers for myself, but I know who Haley was. She was the woman who died protecting the child we brought into this world together, and I will make sure that Jack grows up knowing who his mother was and how she loved and protected him and how much I loved her.

You never realized how close not only you and Haley were, but how close you and Aaron were until after Haley and Jack were put into WITSEC. You and Aaron kept each other sane while they were gone, and you both worked just as hard on finding George Foyet. You’d spend late nights at Aaron’s apartment pouring over the details of the case, hoping something will jump out of the files and tell you where he’s hiding out and what he’s planning, but to no avail.

If Haley were with us today, she would ask us not to mourn her death, but to celebrate her life. She would tell us… she would tell us to love our families unconditionally and to hold them close ‘cause in the end, they are all that matter.

You were in an SUV by yourself, racing against the clock to get to Haley and Jack as you listened in on the call before you. You could hear the strain in Aaron’s voice, the way he had to keep everything at bay to keep a somewhat strong front. You heard Haley as she cried, making Aaron promise to tell Jack about how she and Aaron loved one another and loved him, and to tell Jack of times when Aaron wasn’t so serious. You made your own promise then, a promise to keep Haley’s memory alive in Jack, and to make sure both Aaron and Jack are taken care of. 

When the three shots rang out, you put your foot to the floorboard and sped to Fairfax. You knew Aaron was doing the same thing. You had to make sure that he and Jack made it out of this alive, and had to put Foyet away for all the pain and suffering he caused. 

I met Haley at the tryouts of our high school’s production of The Pirates of the Penzance. I found our copy of the play and I was looking through it the other night, and I came upon a passage that seemed… appropriate for this moment. “Oh dry the glistening tear that dews that martial cheek. Thy loving children here in them thy comfort seek. With sympathetic care, their arms around thee creep. For oh they cannot bear to see their father weep.”

You see the car Hotch used in front of his old family home, and you dash inside the house, brandishing your gun as you checked the house. That’s when you hear the sound coming from the formal dining room area, a harsh thumping and loud sobs belonging to Aaron. You see him over what used to be Foyet, and you run to him, pulling him away.

“He’s dead, Hotch! He’s gone! You’re okay!”

He breaks down crying from there, an inconsolable man crying at the feet of his ex-wife’s killer. 

-----

Something you never thought you’d have to do was not only bury a friend of yours but also comfort her inconsolable husband and kid. As Aaron spoke of Haley and all that she was, you stood off his left shoulder, a hand resting on Aaron’s shoulder as well as Jack’s.

You just stared down at the casket, tears staining the top of your coat. There wasn’t a dry eye as you all listened to a mourning husband who was sharing more of himself right now than he ever has or will again. 

You feel a small hand tug on your sleeve, and you look down to see Jack staring up at you. You crouch down, taking your hand off Aaron’s shoulder. 

“What’s up, buddy?” Your shaky voice asks, even though you tried to keep an even tone.

Jack doesn’t even speak, he just wraps his small arms around your neck and burrows his head into your shoulder. You hold a hand on the back of his head, hoping and failing to hide him from the harsh reality in front of him.

When the service ends and you’re all passing Aaron and Jack, you hang back for a second to look at all the roses on Haley’s casket before walking over to the sullen-eyed man.

“I just wanted to say that if either of you ever needs anything, I’m a phone call away,” You crouch down to be at Jack’s level, “Take care of your dad, okay buddy?” He nods, looking up to his dad. You stand back up and spare one more look at Aaron before walking over to one of the few cars left by the curb. 

-----

JJ gets the one call you dread as you sit around the table, all not-so-subtly glancing out the window to Aaron and Dave throughout your time conversing. The entire team then shifts their gaze to you, variations of sad, knowing looks gracing their faces. They all know that you and Aaron have been close since you joined, so they always looked to you when someone needed to talk to the big boss man.

To save you the embarrassment of being under their gaze, Morgan sends you out to grab Rossi while also realizing you’ll end up talking with Aaron.

The cool air that hits you as you step out onto the patio mirrors a lot of what this day and all the days you’ve lived without Haley have felt like. 

“Rossi, they’re calling us for a case. No other teams available, unfortunately,” You say, sending a sad look to Aaron as you say it.

“Aren’t you comin’ kiddo?” Rossi says, already making small steps towards the door.

“Yeah, uh, I’ll catch up with you guys in a few,” You say as you angle your body towards Aaron. 

“You should really be with the team, they need you,” Aaron says, his eyes taking particular interest in the railing in front of him.

“Aaron, I’ll be there when they need me to be, just like I’m here when you need me to be. Right now we’re both struggling with a loss, and the team understands that,” You say, reaching over to rest a hand over his, “Let me help you, grieve with you. Please.”

He sighs, and you can feel and hear the tears in his voice as he asks, “Can-” he sniffles, “ Can you help me keep my promise?” 

A look of confusion dashes across your face, trying to figure out what promise he was referring to. Then, you recall Haley’s words you heard in the SUV, her final words, making Aaron promise that he will show his son how he and Haley loved.

A small, earnest but sorrowful smile settles on your face, “Of course, Aaron. I’ll spend the rest of my life helping you keep that promise, and I’m sure the rest of the team will too.”

He finally moves from looking out at the world away from the patio to looking at you. He pulls you in for a hug, and you can feel the tears come down on your shoulder. He stays like that for a long time, even after the tears are gone. He finally pulls back and sniffles, reorienting himself. You knew that he was vulnerable, he just hated showing it.

“You really should go, the team needs you for the case,” Aaron says, not wanting to push you away, just taking his time to grieve. You relent, nodding your head.

“Don’t hesitate to call if you need anything, and I mean it, Hotchner,” You say, a playful sternness in your tone, even if you were genuine. You see him give a small smile as you make your way back inside.

You both were grieving. He lost an ex-wife whom he still loved, a friend, and the mother to his young child. You lost a friend who was more like a sister, and someone you cared so deeply for.

Both of you could hear the faint bells going off in the back of your head, alerting you of something you couldn’t- wouldn’t- address.

Too much, too soon.

That’s all that anything was these days. Too much, too soon.

But, as with everything in life, sometimes you have to face things head-on. Needless to say, that virtue was not something that came easy to you or Aaron.

But what was to happen when those bells started ringing a whole lot louder?  

[docholligay]

Divided by Four: Thirty-Six

 I AM DONE WITH THIS YOU ARE FREE OF HAVING TO SEE IT

Lena Oxton would never have another birthday, and this was an odd thing to think about. 

It was one thing, for Tracer, to know that she was dying--she had known that for what seemed like an age now--but quite another for her to know that there were some things she would never do again. The early ones, she hadn’t known, really. The last time she would get on her motorcycle. When she would last trust herself to fly. That final walk down the hall without help from anyone or anything. These lasts had come without announcing themselves, and so Tracer had not gotten the chance to savor them appropriately. It was a mistake she was trying not to repeat, as she felt the sand slip through the hourglass now. 

So it was comforting, in a way, to know that this would be her last birthday, even if it felt strange to admit. Tracer had resolved to drink in every instant of it. 

She’d told everyone that it was silly and a little wasteful to bring her gifts, given the reality of the situation, and really all she wanted was to be around her people and drink a beer or two, have a few laughs, and for no one to get too misty-eyed. There were a number of things about dying that Tracer didn’t particularly care for, but one topping the list was the way people mourned her before she was gone, when all she wanted to do was enjoy whatever she had left without sadness. There was no point, so she thought, in being so sad over the last bits of something lovely that you ruined it for yourself. It was rather like a child whimpering while eating the last squares of a chocolate bar. So the only gift she had asked for, was for no one to cry in her view, and on that they had delivered. 

But also, people had brought gifts. Nothing fancy, really, mostly soft pajamas and blankets, a nice lotion, a particularly plush backrest pillow she was already making use of, things that spoke to both the reality of the situation and the inability of the people who loved her to let it pass by without making the most of it. Her uncle had made her a coconut strawberry cream cake, and she’d even managed to eat some of it. Pharah had made sure to tell her she had better live long enough to use the thick flannel pajamas she’d bought, as she’d had her father send them from Canada. 

“Or you’ll do what, exactly?” Tracer had grinned as she said it, “Piss on me grave? Well, I’m being cremated, so even that’ll feel a bit ‘ollow, now won’t it?” 

Everyone had laughed, even Winston, who seemed to taking the whole thing rather hard, however much Tracer joked that he’d been taking care of her for the last ten years and really should enjoy his retirement. But mostly, it had been a good day for her, and if she was feeling a little misty herself, it was nothing but the idea that she was so deeply loved, and that not everyone got to experience that in their lives.

She was born under a lucky star, and the last year or so was only a bump in that road near the end of it, a bit like the jar before you leave the pavement. And even that was only her health, wasn’t it? 

Moira could take her life--and as happy as she was knowing Moira died never knowing how badly she had hurt Tracer, it did sting a bit to know that was how it would go down in the books--but Moira had never managed to take anything more dear to her. Her family. Her friends. The general sense that she was loved and cared for. Even her mind was sharp and busy as ever, which admittedly made her body’s disobedience a bit more annoying, but she was grateful to have her wits. People would remember her as herself. That was important. 

If anything, the relative frustration and pain of the last few months had made her feel all the more loved. Had showed that it must be true.

So nothing was all bad, really. 

Night had fallen over London, and as tired as she was, Tracer still could not bring herself to go to bed. Winston had asked gently if she was ready, and she had just shook her head and told him she wanted to stay up awhile. It was nice, this deck she and Winston had put together on the roof of the place. He’d doubted her, when she’d suggested the project, and wondered how he would ever possibly use it, and told her there was no need to put the work in. Sometimes Winston had to be talked into having nice things for himself. He probably would have approved the project so much earlier if he’d known how much time Tracer would spend up here. 

The smell of London filled her lungs. She should be more afraid of death, she supposed, but she could never quite let go of the idea that even when she was gone, she wouldn’t be. Not that she believed in an afterlife, really, but she also didn’t not believe in an afterlife, and she’d seen London built on its own ashes so many times, that she had to imagine that even when she was gone, the bombed out wall of what was left of her would be built around, become part of a Pret or a pub or even just a ruin where the pigeons nested. 

What was tough was knowing when the building needed to come down, which she hadn’t yet quite figured out for herself. It was one thing to be gone in an instant, a bomb dropped, a moment and then just the rubble. It was another to sway into disrepair, to try and pinpoint the day you had to tell those who had lived in your heart that there were homes elsewhere, and it was time to seek them. When the little joys of being were outweighed by the reality of decay. 

“Lena?” 

The lightness she felt at hearing her name in that soft brogue was enough to tell her that day had not yet come, and she would keep on for awhile yet. Tracer thought she might live one hundred years, and never tire of hearing Emily’s voice. It was impossible. 

“It’s grown late. You’ll tire yourself.” A kiss on the top of her head, and then Emily sat down on the edge of the daybed where Tracer found herself spending much of her time lately. 

Tracer chuckled. “Too late. Doesn’t take much anymore, it’s just,” she shook her head, “a bit aggravating, right? There’s so much I’d like to do in a day, not that I can do much of it anyway, but I’d like to at least imagine it. I get frustrated so--” 

Emily nodded kindly as she rubbed Tracer’s shoulder, tight with the constancy of spasms that ran through it, but as Tracer’s eyes flicked upwards, she saw the tears on the edge of Emily’s eyes. Not the time to talk about it. Never seemed to be.

Emily would miss her, and there was no real getting around that, no matter how she tried. Tracer had already spent plenty of time writing and rewriting a letter to be published when she was gone, Pharah sitting alongside her on her small laptop, to try and let Emily know in the most public way that she’d like her to move on, and wasn’t only saying it, that she meant it, nagging over the words until Pharah had offered to remove the burden of waiting for death from her. 

Pharah joked like that, more than most, because Pharah was kind, in her way, and knew Tracer needed someone to be able to joke with. It was a favor to her. When Tracer had told her, she had asked to be treated the same as ever, and to Pharah’s eternal credit, she came very close. 

“Never mind me.” she grinned “Tired and rambling, right? It was a wonderful birthday, Em. Marvelous, really. Been thinking back on me birthdays---I’ve been so lucky. I am so lucky. Thank you, for everything you’ve done, for it.” 

She was tired, and her body jerked and shook, but she was still, in this moment, the master of a failing plane, and managed to but her hand on Emily’s leg. Emily curled up next to her and rested her head on Tracer’s shoulder, letting out a little sniffle as she drew her arm around her.

“It’s not fair for you.” 

“Me?” Tracer kissed her forehead “Oh, none of that now. Not for me. What’s fair, any’ow? Should ‘ave been killed a thousand times over, love, but I wasn’t, Was I? Plenty were,” she muttered, half to herself, “And I noone in whole of me life ‘as ever wanted to ‘ear it but I’ve ‘ad the sense for years that I wasn’t precisely meant to get me pension. Call it a self-fulfilling prophecy if you like but I--really, who it isn’t fair to is you. Life’s been more than fair to me.” 

Emily said nothing, but wiped her eyes and took Tracer’s hand in hers. 

“I mean really, think about it. Not a bad life at all, on balance. Pilot. Top Flight Instructor. Commander. Bloody ‘ero of London. I lived more in thirty-six years than most people would if they ‘ad twice the time. So it’s all right. I made it all count. Course I want more, but, I do tend to rush through things, don’t I? Just me way, don’t stop to admire the view much. Some people are like that, like fireworks, or, oh I don’t know, a stick of gum. And,and at the fag end of it all, I get to be in London, taken care of instead of sent away, when by rights I should have been shot down, or shot through, or lost forever. To be sitting on a London roof in a pile of pillows? Not precisely the gulag, love, and I won’t be greedy. Em, look at me, please.” 

Emily sat up and looked at her, and Tracer squeezed her hand. 

“I lived long enough to find you, and to love you.That’s all that matters. I ‘ave led a bloody charmed life. I ‘ave. Truly. I could not possibly ask for more.” she grinned, “That’s a lie actually,  would ‘ave loved to get all the way through to the King so as I could watch his bloody face when I refused the knighthood publicly, but,” she chuckled, “We can’t ‘ave everything.” 

Emily gave a little chuckle and shook her head. “You’re awful, Lena. Happy Birthday. My prince charming.” 

“And it really was, Em. It is! What do you say,” she winced as she tried to sit up a little, her body jerking her back against the back of the daybed, until Emily balanced her, “What do you say, we ‘ave Win come up with that last bottle of champagne? Toast to ourselves till midnight? Just the three of us?” 

Emily nodded, the teeth poking thought on her smile. 

“That’s what I’d like to see, tonight. Thank you love. Just us three, and your smile.” 

The clouds and fog and too much light of London parted for a moment, just a few stars peeking through the grey and haze. They sparkled down on Tracer, who sparkled back a bit, the diamonds of the natural world. Bright against the night. 

Bit of light in everything.

[sunnywritesstuff34]

Illusions

(Yayyyy. Another one. It’s been a while, sorry. just wanna preface this by saying that like... I usually don’t really give a shit about Obito, but I figured this was a natural progression of the story and I kinda wanted to try and dive into Obito’s psyche a little so. here we go. tell me what you think. @ghostjellyfishheart here’s the next chapter lol. pls mind the tw’s)

TW and CW for: MAJOR UNREALITY, seriously stay safe, Obito is kinda spiraling a lot, grieving, struggling with morality, drinking, alcohol, less then stellar coping mechanisms of all kinds, don’t do this kids, child death, ghost child, dead kid, you don’t like... see her die but Rin is very much not alive, references to suicide, implied suicide, the uchiha massacre is its own warning, murder, its bad. its just. its just bad. did I mention unreality? a lot of that, death of a family member, obito is having a hard time with feelings, probably dis@ssociation, pretentious symbolism, scratch that, definitely dis@ssociation

Obito Uchiha is upset. 

And that is, frankly, ridiculous. Obito does not get upset. What does upset even mean? Is he sad? Mourning, perhaps? Or is he just worried? Either way, its borderline impossible. He shouldn’t be feeling anything. Obito doesn’t feel anything. Sure, he plays at it, when he’s Tobi. He feigns and pretends, he’s good at that. That is what he is, that is all he is. To Itachi, he is Madara. To Konan and Nagito, he is Obito. To everyone else, he is Tobi. Obito has taken on mask after mask after mask on in his life, both figuratively and literally. Sometimes he doesn't know where Obito ends and another begins. Obito does not feel anything, not for anyone that isn't Rin. Never for anyone that isn't Rin, and he left her behind a long time ago. And yet this boy, this child, has him reeling somehow. Has him… well, like before, the only word he can use is upset. He is rattled. And it has been so long, so long since he’s felt anything at all, that he doesn't know what to do. He doesn't know how to fix it. He kept seeing Sasuke in his head, kept remembering memories from years ago when he thought about the kid being gone forever. He remembered the first few years Itachi brought Sasuke to the compound, he remembered spontaneously discovering his obsession with tomatoes by accident with Kisame (who would not stop laughing. He had just never seen anybody. Put an entire tomato in their mouth. And Sasuke did it like it was the most natural thing in the world! Kisame wouldn't shut up about it for at least a week). He remembered helping the boy train with his newly forged chokuto, he remembered the grim determination towards his family and how much it reminded Obito of himself, he remembered all of it. And none of that should have mattered, because it wasn't real. None of it was real, the next world would be. The next world with Rin and Kakashi and Minato-sensei still alive, a world without… without Sasuke. Or any of the other Akatsuki. And that was what he wanted. He was sure that was what he wanted. Only in his room could he show the weakness tightly coiled in his stomach. But there was a knock on his door and it made him straighten up, instantly putting the mask that he just took off back on his face. He walked to the door and opened it, only to find the older Uchiha brother staring back at him. Obito blinked. 

“Itachi-san. What are you… what are you doing here? I- uh… come in.” Obito and Itachi sat down at the small table in Obito’s room and stared at each other awkwardly. “So… how can I help you?” Obito tried to ask, unsure of whether to say it like Tobi or just let his guard down and talk like himself (whoever that was). Itachi cleared his throat. 

“You are the only person in this godforsaken place that has sake that's worth a damn,” Itachi explained calmly. He looked away. “It has… been a long week.” Obito could tell the truth in that statement just from his cousin’s voice. Itachi sounded exhausted, and the perpetual mask of indifference had begun to slip when his little brother went missing. The two of them looked at each other and came to an understanding. For the next few minutes, there was no talking. Obito grabbed some glasses and poured his strongest sake out for the both of them, and they drank in silence. They only actually picked up a conversation once they were both drunk enough for the awkwardness to melt away. 

“He’s likely not dead,” Obito commented bluntly. Itachi only sighed. 

“If he is, I have no idea what I'd do,” Itachi grumbled casually, like it was an ordinary thing to say. “Certainly wouldn't stick around here. Probably follow in Shisui’s footsteps.” Obito only nodded, knowing better than to pry on that particular bit of insight into Itachi’s life. They were silent for a few more minutes before Obito spoke again. 

“The massacre,” Obito started. “I was long gone by the time it happened. What… are you and Sasuke really the only survivors as the rumors say?” Itachi nodded, throwing back another glass. Obito thought about that bitterly, about his grandmother who wouldn't have been spared. Itachi sighed. 

“Right. I've never really talked about this with anyone, and Sasuke and I don't speak about it much. You know how sharingan awakening works, yes?” Obito nodded, mind involuntarily flashing to his own experience. 

“Well I made some genuine friends on my genin team. It was the first time I ever had any friends.” Obito closed his eyes and took another sip. Friends, sharingan awakening. Being crushed under a boulder with your crying teammates looming over you. Thinking, no, don't cry, it doesn't hurt. It really doesn't hurt. I can't feel anything, please don't cry. Watching a particular white haired individual (a traitor, that traitor) desperately try to save you. Losing a part of yourself, a part of yourself you didn't even know you had, and giving it to someone else. Forever living with that, knowing that your other eye is somewhere, because you can still feel it, but not knowing much else. The aching absence that grows from that. He opened his eyes again. “I watched them die, right in front of my eyes. That awakened my Sharingan, and when I went home, my father congratulated me. He congratulated me. It was a nightmare and he was proud. I don't know, that always stuck with me. But anyway,” Itachi paused to drink more sake as the room spun. “Sasuke’s eyes woke during the massacre. I didn't get there in time. He watched our parents die, managed to hide in the closet and keep quiet the whole time so they didn't find him. I got there in time to stop them from killing him, and realized his sharingan had awakened because of everything. I wasn't able to save anyone, but I was able to save him, and that's all that matters.”

“I understand,” Obito replied evenly. “I know what it's like to be too late.”

Itachi’s eyes slid over to him. “Yeah well… whatever. The Uchiha had been planning a coup for a while. Danzo, he gave me a choice. Either kill everyone myself and have Sasuke be spared to live happily in the village. Or, to let them kill everyone, Sasuke included. I didn't… I refused either option and tried to get there but I was too late. They killed everyone in one night, a bunch of Anbu who were deployed for the massacre. Like I said, Sasuke managed to hide. I knew that Danzo would be after us, so I grabbed Sasuke and we got the hell out of dodge. He didn't speak for months afterwards. Not a single word, other than screaming during his nightmares. It was probably a little selfish, but I… I missed him. There was no more ‘Itachi, look at the score I got at the academy!’ or ‘Itachi look, look I learned a new move!’ There was just… nothing. He was so vacant. If he's dead- if he’s dead after everything we’ve been through, I don't- I have no idea what I'll do. We have to find him, and we have to kill the people who took him away from us. We have to.” I know, he wanted to shout. I know, I feel the same way, but I don't know why! Itachi left not long after that, stumbled back to his room, and Obito fell asleep in his armchair. That night he had a dream, a dream of Rin. it had been years since he dreamed of her, usually they were memories and bits and pieces, but this was different. He opened his eyes in his dream to a dark plane filled with ink, darkness stretching in every direction. It was a frequent setting he found himself in, usually the dream would be about him sinking into the oily substance until he couldn't breath. But this time it was low enough to wade in, his feet touching the ground, whatever that was. In the middle of the expanse, there was a bone white skeleton of some creature he didn't recognize, and Rin. He staggered towards her, and she hugged him without a word. In dreams like this he was always covered in blood, the Obito from years past. But now he was just him, and he was maskless.

“Just what have you gotten yourself into now, Obito?” she asked, and it sounded just like her. It wasn't her, he was fairly sure of that, he was dreaming for god’s sake, but it sounded like her. It seemed like her, and that was enough. “It's okay to be worried about the kid,” she said, running fingers through his hair while he tried to calm his breathing. 

“It's not real,” he managed hoarsely. “None of it. Nothing in this world is real, I shouldn't feel anything. So why… Why do I…”

“Does it matter if it's real?” she asked. “It feels real. Maybe it is, Obito.”

“Obito is dead,” he whispered. “At least the one you knew- Obito doesn't exist anymore.” Rin only shook her head, looking past him at nothing at all and smiling sadly.

“I don't believe you,” she said evenly. “You're still Obito. No matter how many names you take or how many masks you wear, I know who you are. And I think you do too.”

“It's not real,” he tried again, weakly. 

“If it's not real, then why do you help Konan with the dishes? If it's not real, then why do you want to save Itachi’s brother so badly? Why do you make plans for Nagato’s dream in the supposed next world when you don't have to? Why do you stick around Deidara to make sure he doesn't get killed? Why do you help Sasori with his puppets? Why, Obito?”

“I can't be Obito,” he muttered quietly. “He’s dead. He died with you.”

“He is right here. He is sitting here with me. You're still you. You'll always be you.”

“B-But…. But Madara-”

“Madara is dead,” she said with finality, shaking her head. “Madara is a dead man now. You are the only thing that can bring him back, and you have a choice.”

“I've never had a choice.”

“You do now. Madara isn't here.”

“This is all just an illusion.” She smiled sadly. 

“I'm an illusion, Obito. Your world is not.”

His dream didn't fade out from there. One second he was sitting in a dark dreamscape with his dead friend, and the next he was in the Akatsuki lair, laying in an armchair, sitting up and gasping for breath. His back hurt and his neck was aching from the weird position he dozed off in, and Obito could already feel the nausea of an inevitable hangover coming on. Still, he sat up properly, stretching his neck and running a hand through his short hair. Itachi was probably passed out in his room or throwing up already, and Obito had a hunch that he’d be feeling the same way pretty soon. He looked down at the floor and forced his eyes to focus. He didn't have time for a drunken hallucination within a drunken hallucination. But when he turned his head, he felt himself recoil and raise his hands to his face. The orange plastic from the ground winked back at him. Obito had taken his mask off. And now it was cracked.