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butwhyduh · 4 years ago

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Ephemoral

Damian Wayne x reader

Summary: another of my betrayal stories. Damian is like 20. I don’t want to betray children lmao.

You were saccharine like the sweet honey candy Damian would eat as a child. Your laughter was a soft melody he adored. And sight of you with tears in your eyes made him want to rip the world apart. His love for you was like an ancient Grecian tale and it scared Damian. He cared too deeply for someone who’s feet were so shallow in this world. He’d died once and could easily do so again.

But laying next to you on a blanket on the south lawn of Wayne Manor, made Damian not care about his fear. You were here and so was he. His eyes watched you stretch and smile. He couldn’t help but lean over to hug your waist. He breathed in your soft perfum deeply with closed eyes.

“Dami! What are you doing?” You laughed and he grinned.

“Capturing the princess,” he said kissing your collarbone. You laughed and pulled away as he tickled your ribs. “You’re so beautiful today. Have I told you?”

“No. I’m only wearing a hoodie and jeans, Dami,” you reminded him.

“It’s not your clothing that makes you beautiful,” Damian said leaning over you. You looked at his intense green eyes framed with thick dark lashes and full brows. His tan skin glowed in the sunshine. “It’s what’s underneath,” he said romantically.

“Kinky,” you whispered in his ear with a grin and he stiffened before rolling his eyes.

“I was trying to be sweet. Though you are quite lovely physically as well, beloved,” Damian conceded. You grinned and grasped the back of his neck. You pulled him into a kiss. You spent most of the unseasonably warm winter day kissing on the lawn. Damian didn’t dare take it further as you were stanch on your beliefs that sex should be private.

“What would you like to eat, my beloved,” he asked later in the day. Damian lay on his back, looking at the dying lights of dust. You had nestled into his arms to watch too.

“Hmmm how about something spicy,” you asked looking over to him. He grinned and nodded. Damian could never tell you no.

“Let’s get changed and we can go eat somewhere properly,” he suggested. You rolled over in his arms to look at his face.

“Really?” You asked. “Don’t you have patrol tonight?”

“Later. But right now, I want to spoil my love,” he said grasping the back of your neck gently to pull you into a kiss.

Damian had gotten a table at an exclusive restaurant. Of course he had. One word and he could go anywhere: Wayne. You considered feeling bad but as you walked up the stairs to a private table on the balcony that watched over Gotham’s night sky, you could care less. The city could be on fire and Damian wouldn’t have noticed. His eyes were on the dress that curved to your form, the soft clicking sound of your heels, the wine colored lipstick you wore.

You chatted softly about things in your life. University classes and hobbies. Damian couldn’t help but feel a guilt. You knew he was a Wayne and was Robin. But you didn’t know he was an Al Ghul or his long complicated past. The fact that he was raised as an assassin. The fact that his mother had verbally threatened to kill you a few times and only Damian’s threats back had stopped her.

“Damian, are you okay?” You asked after a while. He had a hard line of his brow and he was silent. Damian shook himself and sat up straighter.

“I apologize. My mind was wandering,” he admitted. You grasped his hand.

“To what?”

“My mother,” he said truthfully. Damian didn’t know why he told you that. One of your eyebrows rose. He had never said anything about her and the issue seemed painful.

“Really?”

“Yes. 2 days ago was her birthday,” Damian said. Not that the league would ever celebrate simply being born. You had to earn a celebration in war or strategy.

“Oh. Do you speak to her,” you finally asked. You’d wanted to know for a long time but was scared to bring it up. Why was he willing to share Robin with you but not his own mother?

“No. I haven’t in years. She’s....” Damian failed to come up with the right words. A murderer? Assassin? Cold heartless bitch? No. In her own way, she loved him. And unfortunately it was a deeply dysfunctional way. “Strong willed. And hard to get along with. It’s hard to explain.”

“I see. Do you want to get along with her? You’re a grown man now. Surely she would respect that,” you said and he almost rolled his eyes at how innocent and naive you sounded. His mother would rather rip out her own spine than let Damian be his own man if it was up to her. Damian simply squeezed your hand gently.

“I don’t think so. She believes eternal ‘I’m your mother, listen to me.’ We’ve butt heads for years over it. Even though we live across the globe apart,” Damian said with a rueful smile. He hadn’t told you about her, not really. But it felt good to tell you that his relationship with her wasn’t great. It was partial honesty at least.

“Where does she live,” you asked and his brain froze for a half minute. That was something he could not answer. She was far too dangerous to know about. Ignorance was truly bliss on the account.

“She travels a lot. China, Middle East, Peru. She doesn’t stay in one place very long,” Damian said. He was truthful at least.

“Wow. She must have a great job to travel like that. What does she do,” you asked. He almost laughed in frustration. When did you become the detective? That’s not fair to you. Inquisition is not a flaw in of itself.

“She works in defense contracts. It’s very confidential and complicated,” he finally answered. You nodded sagely.

“Like the rest of your family. Complicated and confidential,” you answered giving him a wry smile. Damian smiled back.

“Perhaps. Perhaps. I hate to eat and run, beloved. But duty calls. Can I call you a car to the manor?” Damian asked. You nodded. There was one company that the Wayne family would hire rides from. One of Alfred’s ex military buddies owned a contractor company that hired private security that doubled as drivers. Confidential and discreet was their motto and they had never let down the family.

20 minutes later a member of the staff walked you, and a small box of food from the dessert platter, to a waiting car. The driver was a quiet intense looking man. He had obvious muscles despite being in a full suit. It wasn’t a surprise. He was security after all.

“Wayne Manor, please sir,” you called to him. He nodded.

“Of course Madame,” he answered in a very soft accent that wasn’t Gothamite. You sat back and relaxed. It was almost 11 and you were getting a little tired. Your head began to droop and your eyes became heavy. It was in that moment that the car made a wrong turn. You sat up straight.

“Sir, it was supposed to be a right turn back there. You’ve gone the wrong way,” you said. He only rolled the partition closed. You gasped. “Sir,” you said forcefully as he drove faster the wrong way. You looked at your phone and noticed a no service sign. There was no way with the amount Damian paid for it. You tried the knob at a stop sign to find it locked like you worried. Your heart pounded roughly. You were being kidnapped.

For 2 hours, the car drove farther and farther out of Gotham. Your city was nowhere to be seen and you didn’t have a clue where you were. The car finally drove up the gravel drive of what looked like a military compound. You gulped as it stopped. The door opened and the man motioned for you to get out. You shrank to the back of the seat.

“If you don’t come out willingly, I will have to drag you and I’d hate to ruin your pretty dress,” he said in a tone that made you think that he hoped to ruin your clothing. Your eyes were wide but you climbed out on your own. He looked you over hungrily before shoving your shoulder toward the front door. You gasped. Your heels made loud clicking noises on the concrete floor and you almost grimaced at how loud you felt. There was no sneaking in here.

He walked you up a set of stairs into a private room. The man gave you a look over before locking you in. Almost as an insult, he hadn’t bothered to take your phone from you. It was useless without any signal.

In another room, Talia lounged in a chair. She watched the security footage of your room. You looked around stiffly before finally sitting on the corner of the bed. You were kidnapped and being held in a cement room in the middle of nowhere without a way to contact anyone in a dress and heels. This was less than ideal.

“I wonder what my son sees in her. She didn’t fight at all. Came willingly. Not much in the way of protecting herself. How could she possibly be a good partner,” Talia asked and the men beside her knew better than to answer. Talia decided to meet you herself.

She casually opened the door and walked in. You stared at her. Talia smiled softly. You were terrified and scared people are easy to control.

“Hello,” she started. “My name is Talia, and you are dating my son, Damian.”

What an odd specific coincidence that you would see her right after talking about her. She wasn’t dressed as if she was in the military and damn sure wasn’t in China or Peru. What didn’t Damian tell you?

“I simply had to meet you. I must say that I’m... disappointed. You aren’t much of a fighter, are you?” She said. Much like a good lawyer, Talia asked questions she already knew the answer to.

“I didn’t know I needed to be,” you said and she grinned.

“No. But you do have a mouth. Such a pretty little one. Too bad,” she said and before you could comprehend what she meant, you were hit in the mouth. You cried out in pain and covered your face in your hand. Your shoulders curled around you protectively and you scooted to the back of the bed. You could taste iron and you wiped away some blood. She had busted your lip already.

“Didn’t even attempt to deflect my hit. And your soft lip burst open instantly. You could never handle a real fight,” she said before tutting. You could only stare up at her as she towered over you. She was right. Damian had taught you a few self defense maneuvers but you had never fought anyone.

You could see parts of her that were in Damian. Besides the obvious skin color, she had his intense eyes and her predatory mannerisms. Damian had never used it on you, but you had seen Robin scare criminals without a word. You had thought it was a Batman thing, but it was from her. Batman hung over them like a predatory bird that killed quickly, with mercy. Talia looked at them the way a cat looked at a mouse. She was going to play with them before eating. You resisted the urge to shiver.

“Damian will be here in a few hours. Why don’t I see if I can toughen you up beforehand,” she said smiling. Talia gripped your shoulder and dug her nails in. You groaned. You tried to pull away.

“No no, dear. That will cost you,” she said before backhanding your face. You gasped out a sob as blood started flowing again.

—————————

It took Damian a full 3 hours to realize you were missing. Embarrassingly long time in his mind. He called the car company to ask about the ride. Damian expected you to be asleep and didn’t want to wake you to calm his mind.

“Mr Wayne, we have an issue,” a woman’s crisp voice cake through the phone. Damian was taking a break on a rooftop.

“What do you mean,” he growled. She stuttered before answering.

“ we can’t find the driver. He won’t respond to our cal-“

“How long? How long have you known?” He asked. Damian was pacing the rooftop with pure murder on his face.

“About an hour, sir. We called GCPD immediately,” she said.

“Your incompetence astounds me,” he said before hanging up. Damian called you instantly. After the fifth time of your phone ringing to voicemail, he was almost in a panic. He sat down breathing deeply. He could call his father but this was his problem. He’d give it 2 hours and then call Bruce.

It was 10 minutes before he had his answer. There was a loud clicking sound in his comms signaling that Oracle was about to talk.

“Robin, there is a man tied up with a sign for you,” she said. “5th and Cherrry behind the gazebo. Police have already taken him into custody for care and questioning. But the message...” she trailed off.

“The Wayne place where it all started. Where you started. Or she’s dead,” Oracle read. “Does that mean anything Robin? Should I contact Batman? Nightwing?”

“No. I’ll take care of it,” he said hanging up on her. Damian knew exactly where to go as gross at it was. Bruce’s old compound in the woods where Damian was conceived. Of course his mother would reference something that weird. It was a full two hour drive up there and Damian was flying on his motorcycle. The place was now privately owned, probably the league. He climbed in through a side window, pulling out his swords as he snuck around. He turned a corner and stopped.

“My son,” Talia said with a false warmth. Damian looked over at her and she grinned. Behind her was you and Damian’s heart dropped. You were on your knees, your arms tied above your head in a V shape. The delicate dress you had worn to dinner only a few hours before was dirty with one strap hanging on your arm. The topside of your breast was visible as you breathed erratically. Spot of blood and dirt clung to the dress and Damian could see the sweat on you from where he stood yards away. Your bottom lip was bloody and swollen and you had the beginnings of a black eye. Talia had definitely been hurting you.

You looked up at him, your eyes were so fucking scared but hopeful. Hopeful that he would save you. But the second Damian moved towards you, Talia put a dagger to your throat.

“Okay Mother. You have my attention. What do you want?” Damian asked. He covered the raw rage in his voice with a blankness. She would win if he was emotional.

“I wanted to meet your companion. She is on a whole.... disappointing. Weaker than a kitten. No fight. She is not worthy of you, Damian. Not someone who you should conceive heirs of the Al Ghul line with. She is nothing,” Talia said.

Now Damian wanted to fight his mother, say that you were more important to him than she ever was. But if he did that, the target on your back was forever. And he didn’t think his mother would simply beat you next time. So he did something he hated.

“Mother. You misunderstand the situation. I have no intention of having children with her. I only keep her around to amuse me,” he said and your mouth fell open. You sagged against the ropes. “You’ve wasted your time kidnapping a toy. Mother, I thought you better than this. Let her go.”

You started crying. You were nothing to him. Just like you always feared. You weren’t wealthy or connected or powerful. Damian had been playing with you and you fell in love.

“Why don’t I just kill her,” she suggested and you gasped.

“No. As Robin, I cannot let you kill an innocent. She’s been naive but doesn’t deserve that,” he said and Talia backed away.

A side window broke. Batman and Nightwing landed on the ground. Talia’s men began fighting. Damian ran towards her and she evaded him.

“I won’t kill her. You have my words. But what I did was nothing compared to what you did, my son,” she said with a laugh. She ran past Bruce. “My beloved. We will meet again,” she said before climbing in an armored car that pulled up. The three heroes took out her men and tied them up.

Damian quickly ran to you and cut the rope with his katana. You fell into his arms. You were barely awake and tears fell down your face. Damian looked you over before hugging you tight. You tried to push him away.

“Don’t,” you said wetly. “Don’t touch me,” you said wobbly on your feet. “I’m not your toy.”

“Beloved. I said all of that to save you. I love you,” he said trying to get close and you put your arm up.

“No. I just want to go home,” you said barely pushing past him. You only made it a few steps before you collapsed. Damian caught you and half carried you bridal style as you looked away from him and sobbed. Nightwing came over quickly, sending the trouble.

“I can help you,” he asked and you pushed from Damian’s arms to his. Dick carried you to the batmobile. You sat sobbing in your hands.

“What happened?” Dick asked after closing the door and standing by Damian.

“I had to tell mother I was not interested in her. What I said was cruel, I’ll admit. But she wanted to kill her, Richard,” Damian said. His whole face looked pained. Dick nodded.

Damian followed the batmobile to the cave. Dick carried you to the med bay where your cuts and scrapes were cleaned. You changed clothing. Ice was applied to your bruises and you looked so close to sleep. Damian stood close by nervously.

“Go away,” you said to him and Damian’s brows furrowed and he closed his eyes. “I don’t want you near me.”

He nodded and left the area. Instead, Damian watched you on the main monitor. You cried into a pillow before falling asleep. Damian could barely watch.

“What do I do?” He asked Dick miserably. “How do I take back what I said?”

“Give her time. Give her space. She’ll just to process it first” Dick suggested. Damian nodded.

That’s how you went an entire month without seeing him. He watched you everyday. Damian gave you all the space you needed. It was long after your lip had healed before he spoke to you. You stayed at a friend’s house. You signed up for college classes, got a job at a coffee shop, and just tried to move on.

But it had truly fucked you up. Yeah, you had nightmares about Talia beating the shit out of you. But what was worse was that every memory of Damian was tainted. Did he truly love you or was he simply playing with you. He seemed like he had loved you. Was it all fake?

He came to your work. It was purely an accident. Damian just wanted a coffee. He walked up to the counter pulling out his wallet and almost dropped it when he saw you. Your hair was falling out of a hairnet and your white dress shirt had seen better day. But Damian thought you looked so beautiful.

“Hi,” he said and you stiffened.

“Damian,” you breathed.

“How- how are you?” He asked.

“Fine. Do you want a coffee or something? There’s a line,” you motioned behind him. He quickly ordered a drink.

“Can I talk to you sometime?” He asked as you made the drink.

“Uuh.”

“Yes? Give me just a few minutes of your time,” he begged and you stopped to look at him. You sighed.

“I have a break in 15 minutes. You can talk then I guess,” you answered. You handed him his coffee.

“Thanks. Great,” he said with a determined look before sitting at a table. Damian watched you work almost the entire time. It was a little unnerving but how he used to be before.

You sat down with a drink beside him. Damian played with his fingers before speaking. You couldn’t help notice how handsome he looked in a dark green Henley and black jeans.

“I’m sorry I haven’t tried to talk to you earlier,” he started. “But I need you to know, everything I said that night to my mother was a lie. I have never thought of you like that. But if I showed interest in you, she would have targeted you. I should have told you about her earlier.”

“What does she really do?”

Damian sighed.

“She’s an assassin. She raised me to be one until I was 8 and then I moved in with my father. I should have warned you about her. She’s crazy. Obsessed with the lineage in our family. It’s very strange. I don’t share her beliefs,” he said.

“That’s good because that was... weird. I mean, the whole thing was but her talking about heirs was super weird,” you said taking a drink.

“Yeah. Yeah. I sometimes think she picked Bruce because of his pedigree. But more important that any of that madness is you. I miss you,” he says earnestly. You gulped.

It was painful. He called you everything you worried about. Nothing but a toy. A distraction.

“I really really miss you. Because I-“ he struggled to speak. “I love you,” Damian finally said. He had never said that one. He had always danced just beside those words.

“Dami,” you said cautiously.

“I love you. And I always have,” he said holding your hand. You didn’t pull away. “Please let me make it up to you. It’s all I’ve ever wanted.”

“I- I don’t know,” you said feeling yourself fall under his spell.

“Please,” he whispered leaning towards you. You leaned in as well. His pretty green eyes stared at you, pleading. You couldn’t say no to him either.

“Okay,” you said. Damian gently, like he might break you, gave you a kiss. He pulled back to look at your face for any reaction. You had a little smile before giving him another kiss.

#fns #damian wayne x reader #robin x reader #batboy x reader #Damian al ghul x reader #Damian Wayne angst #betrayal stories

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sequinsmile-x · 3 years ago

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If Tomorrow Starts Without Me - Chapter 9

Rating: Mature (smut in this chapter) Words: 7,261

Read it on a03, or below the cut

Let me know what you think :)

October 2003

“I am going to kill her.”

Aaron turns from where he is preparing drinks for some of their guests to see his wife standing behind him, fury on her face and their 1 year old settled on her hip. He immediately knows who she is talking about.

He sighs as he abandons his task. “Em, sweetheart, love of my life.” He tugs her towards him and settles his arms around her and their son. “It is your birthday, and this little one's first birthday.” He says, tickling Theo’s side to get a laugh out of him. “Your mother has been here for all of 20 minutes, what has she said to have you considering murder already?”

She huffs out a breath. “She said I coddle him too much.”

Aaron’s eyebrows raise at that, not expecting Elizabeth to have commented on Emily’s parenting. It was something the older woman usually stayed away from, a silent acceptance that her daughter was a better mother than she ever had been.

“All that happened is he wanted to be picked up, so I did. And then she said that.” She carries on, clearly more upset than annoyed by her mother’s comment. “In front of everyone I might add.”

“Em.” He tucks some hair behind her ear, getting her attention to be focused back on him. “You are an excellent mother, please don’t pay any attention to her.”

She lowers her gaze from his and clears her throat. “I know I’m probably a bit over the top.” She says, as if he hasn’t spoken at all. “But we waited so long for him, and went through so much.”

“Emily.” He tilts her chin towards him, makes her look at him. “You are an excellent mother.” He repeats. “To both Theo and Jack. Don’t let her get to you okay?”

She nods and clears her throat. “Okay.” She looks back out of the kitchen over her shoulder. “I don’t want to go back out there.”

“You and Theo are the main event, you have to go back out there.” He reasons with her pressing a kiss to her lips. “Go see the team, I’ll put Jack on Elizabeth duty.”

She smiles at him and kisses him quickly before leaving the room, talking to Theo as she rejoins their friends and family.

Jack runs past the kitchen, so Aaron shouts for his attention. Jack walks up to him, a questioning look on his face.

“I need you to distract Elizabeth, okay?”

Jack sighs. “Why? What did I do wrong?”

“Jack, that's rude.” Aaron chastises whilst smothering a laugh. “Please.”

“Was she being mean to Emily again?” Jack asks, concern spreading over his face, his eyebrows tightening in a way that was so Haley it made Aaron’s gut twist.

“I think Emily is just a bit overwhelmed, and you know how they get to each other.” He says politically.

Jack seems to think about it for a second, before nodding. “It’s going to cost you two boxes of Lucky Charms.”

Jack leaves the room, leaving a very confused Aaron behind.

“I think I just got bribed by my 10 year old.”

__________________

November 2003

They are eating dinner all together when it happens. Aaron has Theo on his lap, giving Emily a break so she can eat a meal that wasn’t cold for once. Emily is telling him a story about Derek and Spencer’s antics in the office, a child friendly version since Jack is sat right opposite Aaron, when Theo wriggles out of his fathers lap.

“Ok, buddy. Down you go.” Aaron says, briefly putting his fork down as he settles the one year old on the floor, assuming he was after the toys that were scattered around the dining room.

Instead, Theo walks over to Emily, like he had done it a thousand times, and places his hands on her thighs, clearly wanting his mother’s attention.

The rest of the Hotchner’s speak almost in unison.

“Oh my god, did he just walk?” Emily asks, dropping her own cutlery down, abandoning her meal immediately.

“Shit, he did.” Aaron replies standing himself.

“I’ll go get the video camera.” Jack says, running off in search of it.

Theo looked incredibly confused over why everyone was suddenly looking at him so intently, and when Emily stands herself, he falls down, landing on his bottom, and he cries.

“Oh, sweetheart.” Emily croons as she picks him up, pressing a series of kisses to his face to cheer him up, knowing he really wasn’t hurt. She looks over at her husband. “Aaron, he walked.”

“Got the camera.” Jack says as he runs back into the room, camera on and recording and Emily smiles at him.

“Thanks, Jack.” She hands Theo over to Aaron. “Aaron, you take him, let's see if he does it again.”

Aaron nods, taking Theo and taking a few paces back from Emily, setting Theo on the ground. He stands there for a moment, looking confused.

“Go to Mama, buddy.” Aaron encourages, pointing at Emily who was crouched on the ground, arms out.

That, as Aaron expected it would, has Theo smiling and walking slowly over to Emily. He almost trips over a couple of times, unsteady on his feet, but he makes it, falling forward into his mothers arms.

Emily scoops him up and kisses him repeatedly, tears falling down her face as she does so. “Oh my sweet, clever boy.”

Theo tilts his head at her and places a hand on her cheek. “Mama sad?”

She shakes her head at him and presses a kiss to his face before looking over at Aaron and Jack, both beaming at her. “No, Theo. Not sad at all.”

__________________

February 2009

Emily really tries to not roll her eyes as Aaron insists on putting the car seat with Amelia down on the porch rather than let her hold it for the 10 seconds it will take him to open the door.

“Doctor's orders, sweetheart. No heavy lifting.” He says to her as the door opens and he picks the carrier back up.

She does roll her eyes that time as she walks past him. “Aaron, she’s not even 6lbs. I don’t think that counts as heavy lifting.”

Aaron raises an eyebrow at her when she winces as she sits on the couch, her c-section scar pulling. If she had the strength she would have got up and hit him, and throwing something at him was out of the question because he was holding Amelia. So she settled on just glaring at him.

“Jessica will be here soon with the boys.” He says as he lifts Amelia out of her carrier and brings her over to Emily without her having to ask. “They are both so excited to see her.”

“I know, Theo wouldn’t stop talking about her when I was home a couple of nights ago.” She takes Amelia into her arms, still blown away by how tiny she was. “I’m so glad you’re home, baby. No more nasty hospital.”

Emily thinks it must have been the longest week of her life, watching her tiny little girl in the NICU, her breathing suddenly becoming a problem on her first night in the nursery. Emily knows she’ll always remember the moment when the doctor came into her hospital room, where she was still recovering from surgery herself, and explained that Amelia needed a little extra care.

A combination of the pain, the hormones and the fear that there was something seriously wrong with her baby had left Emily inconsolable. Aaron sat next to her, his arm wrapped around her, as he asked the doctors the practical questions. Strong and dependable, and right by her side as he always was.

After too many nights sleeping on an uncomfortable bed in Amelia’s hospital room, Aaron having only convinced her to go home once, she was grateful to have her daughter home.

“She looks just like you.” Aaron says, stroking a finger over the baby’s head.

“You said the same about Theo.” She teases, looking up at him, a happy but sleepy smile on her face.

“You have seen our son right? He’s your double as well as your shadow.”

Amelia sneezes, drawing attention from her parents back to her. “I always forget how fucking cute it is when they do that.”

“Now she’s no longer living inside of you, you should probably work on cursing in front of her.”

“We managed to make Theo’s first word ‘mama’ despite my love of the word fuck.” She says, smirking at him when she curses again. “I think we can do it a second time.”

“Oh no, her first word is definitely going to be ‘Dada.’” __________________

May 2009 They get Theo to bed with a story from Emily, his concern about her going back to work manifesting in him all but refusing to go to sleep. The knowledge that when he woke in the morning his mother wouldn’t be there making him more difficult than usual.

She closes his bedroom door softly behind her, making sure he doesn’t wake back up as she sneaks out. Emily yawns as she walks to their bedroom, exhaustion seeping into her very bones. Amelia did not enjoy sleep, or at least seemed to consider it some kind of challenge to stay awake as long as humanly possible.

She enters her bedroom and sighs when she sees Aaron pacing the room, Amelia still very much awake against his chest. He turns to look at her, a tired smile on his face. “I think it’s fair to say she’s officially the most stubborn Hotchner.”

Emily laughs as she walks over, another yawn escaping her as she wraps her arms around her husband, resting her head on his chest next to where Amelia was. “If I feed her she’ll fall asleep.”

He hums and presses a kiss to the top of her head. “Sounds good.”

He passes the baby over, to Emily who whispers to her daughter as she takes her into her arms. She settles on her side of the bed and sits up against the headboard, readjusting her shirt to feed Amelia. She leans her head back and closes her eyes.

Aaron joins her in bed, sits up next to her as she nurses their daughter. “You ok sweetheart?”

She nods and lifts her head to look at him. “Just thinking about tomorrow.” She looks back down to the baby in her arms, who was already drifting off to sleep. “I hope it’s an easy day. No big cases. Just lots of paperwork and an evening back here.”

He leans in and presses a kiss to the top of her head. “You do remember it's the BAU right?”

“Shut up, Aaron. Let me hope just for a second, ok?”

He suppresses a laugh and watches as Amelia finally succumbs to sleep. “Whatever you want, sweetheart.” __________________

“Emily.” Jack’s voice is gentle but it's enough to wake her up. She blearily opens her eyes and sees her step-son standing next to her side of the bed. She shifts slightly, feels Aaron’s grip on her waist tightening, a gentle pull of her body back towards him that was strong enough to move her despite the fact he was sleeping.

It was the only time he was really touching her, his instinct in his sleep was still to seek her out, to pull her into his embrace. When he was awake it was a different story. He’d avoid her affection. Something he had never done, shying away from gentle touches to his skin, or kisses she tried to press to his forehead or cheeks. The joy of being reunited, of all of them making it, had faded into the awkwardness of learning how to be around each other again, and it hurt her more than she would care to admit.

“Jack.” Her voice cracks, sleepiness still present at the edges of her consciousness. “Is everything ok?”

“Theo is having a nightmare, I can’t wake him up.”

Emily gets out of bed quickly, carefully removing herself from her husband's grasp in an attempt to not wake him up. She follows Jack to the room he and Theo were sharing and her heart clenches in her chest when she can hear him whimpering in his sleep. She sits on his bed next to him and strokes her hand over his head, running her fingers through his hair. The sight of the cut on his forehead still made her breath catch.

“Come on sweetheart, you need to wake up.” She strokes his cheek with one hand, and rubs his back with the other, gently bringing him back to consciousness. He wakes up, eyes shooting open as he looks at her. “There you are, sweet boy. You’re ok.”

“Mommy?” He sits up and throws himself at her, seeking solace in her arms. Emily wraps her arms tightly around him, feeling him press his face into her neck, his tears wetting her skin.

“It’s ok, I’m here.” She presses a kiss to the side of his head. “Mommy’s here.”

“George said you were dead.”

Emily tightens her grip on her son, her hatred for Foyet burning through her veins. “He lied, honey. I’m right here.” She soothes him enough for him to pull back and look at her and she smiles at him, she runs her thumbs over his cheeks to wipe away his tears. “Do you want to come in and sleep with me and Daddy?”

He nods enthusiastically, tightening his grip on her again. She stands, lifting him onto her hip. He was really too big to be carried like this now, making her glad it was only a short walk back to the room her and Aaron were sharing. Theo rests his head against her shoulder and she presses a kiss to his head, and speaks words of comfort against his skin.

Emily turns to Jack who was still standing by the doorway. “Will you be ok?”

He nods. “Yeah I’ll be fine.”

She smiles at him and walks past him, grasping his arm briefly as she does so. “Thank you.”

Emily reenters the main bedroom, frowning when she hears crying as she walks in. She finds Aaron standing, Amelia crying in his arms. As soon as the little girl spots her mother she starts to squirm and reaches for her, more tears appearing on her face.

Emily sighs as she places Theo on the bed, placing the already sleeping boy under the covers on her side of the bed. Once he’s settled she looks up at Aaron, and sighs when she sees Amelia is still reaching out for her.

“I only fed her just before we went to bed, so she should be ok until morning.” She walks over to where he is standing, a still struggling Amelia in her arms. “She doesn’t do well in new places, or with new people.” She curses herself as soon as she says it, her exhaustion making her brain short wire. Things she wouldn’t usually say slipping past her carefully constructed walls. The way he looks at her cracks her heart. “Aaron, I didn’t mean it like th-”

“It’s fine, Emily.” He says, passing the screaming Amelia into her arms.

Once she has Amelia in her arms she presses a kiss into the baby’s head, shushing her as she tries to calm her down. She doesn’t miss the pain on Aaron’s face when she looks back up at him, the way he frowns at her when she can almost instantly soothe their daughter when he hadn’t been able to.

It breaks her heart too, memories of the relationship Aaron and Amelia had before all of this, before Foyet, floating around in her head. Images of how he had been the only one who could get her to laugh when she first started doing it, dragging the sweet sound out of her as often as he could. She remembered walking into their living room to find Amelia doing tummy time and Aaron laying on the floor right in front of her, whispering nonsense to their daughter.

In the two days since they had been reunited they hadn’t addressed it, hadn’t acknowledged that Amelia didn’t recognise him, how hurt he was by it, and that he would have to start that relationship from scratch.

“It will get better, Aaron.” Emily says, gently rocking the baby and rubbing her back as she tries to soothe her back to sleep. “It will just take a bit of time.”

“Yeah.” He says simply, looking away. “I’m going to go make a drink.” He points towards the main suite. “Do you need anything?”

She shakes her head, resists telling him that it’s 3am and they should just go back to bed now that the kids are settled again. “I’m ok, thanks.” She leans forward, closes the gap between them and presses a kiss to his cheek and ignores how he flinches away before he leaves the room.

Emily settles Amelia back into her crib before she climbs into bed next to Theo. The little boy immediately seeks her out in his sleep, his hands digging into her pyjama shirt as he moulded himself against her. She wraps her arms around him and closes her eyes, hoping sleep would find her easily.

When she wakes in the morning, Theo is still pressed close to her, and it’s clear Aaron’s side of the bed has not been slept in. __________________

Her parents show up at the hotel that evening, and Emily doesn’t think she’s ever been hugged so fiercely by either of them. The 6 months it has been since she last saw them is not the longest she has ever gone without seeing them by far, but it was different. She’d felt it too.

Theo and Jack are next, pulled into equally adoring embraces by their grandparents. Elizabeth and John both barely cover their upset when Amelia shys away from them, her face buried into Emily’s neck.

Emily is grateful that for once, her mother pays attention to the look she gives her, the silent request to leave it alone.

They spend a few hours together. It’s awkward, and if her parents notice the way Aaron is acting, how he keeps distancing himself from her, they don’t address it. When Theo gets too tired to keep his eyes open, falling asleep against John’s side, Emily gets him up and leads him to bed.

“Mommy, can I sleep with you and Daddy again?” He asks gently, almost embarrassed by the request.

She bends down to his level and presses a kiss to his forehead. “Of course, sweetheart. But it’s going to be a little bit before we go to bed, ok?”

“Emily.” Aaron’s voice makes her whip round to look at him, the annoyance on his face confusing her. “Can I have a quick word with you?”

“Yeah, ok.” She turns back to Theo and smiles at him. “Why don’t you stay out here with Grandma and Grandpa for a bit, I’ve got to go speak to Daddy.”

They walk into their bedroom, and she sneaks a glance at a sleeping Amelia in her crib as he closes the door. When she turns to look at him he looks angry.

“Aaron? What’s wrong?”

“He can’t just sleep in here every night. You have got to stop coddling him, Emily.”

Her eyebrows raise at that, defiance washing over her face. “Coddling him? This would be the second night.” She crosses her arms and tries to keep her cool. “He’s my son. He is upset and confused by everything that’s happened. You didn’t see how upset he was when he woke up last night. So if he wants to sleep in our bed until he’s feeling more settled then that’s what I’m going to let him do.” She runs a hand through her hair. “We don’t even have Archie to defuse it, I left him behind in all the panic.”

He wants a fight, she can tell. The tension radiating off of him in waves. “It’s not just Theo. It’s all three of them. They are too attached to you.”

She tilts her head at him and furrows her brows. “Of course they are attached to me, I’m their mother.”

“You’re not Jack’s.”

She can’t help the gasp that escapes at that, the words he’s only ever thrown at her once before. When Haley had just died and they were trying to find their footing again. She turns to leave, knowing that if she said anything further it wasn’t going to help.

“It’s not like you to walk away from a fight.”

She stops in her tracks and turns to look at him, indignation all over her face. “No, it isn’t. But I did. I tore our family apart because you asked me to leave, and now we are living with the consequences of that.” Emily blows out a breath, tries to calm down. “It’s not my fault Amelia doesn’t recognise you, Aaron.”

He hates that she knows him so well, that she can so easily get to the bottom of what is really upsetting him. “What are you saying? That it is my fault?”

“You started a war with a psychopath that you couldn’t finish. And me and your children had to live with the consequences.” She shakes her head at him. “And if you think for one second that it was easy, you are deluding yourself.”

He opens his mouth to say more, to throw more barbs her way, but the door to their room opens and Jack is standing there, a nervous look on his face. “We can all hear you.”

It’s enough to snap them both out of it, Emily sighing when she thinks about the fact her mother of all people would have overheard everything that had been said. She looks back at Aaron who won’t meet her eyes.

“I’m going out.” Aaron says, leaving the room before she can protest. Emily closes her eyes to stop herself from crying, not wanting to break down in front of Jack and with her parents in the next room. She looks at Jack and tries to smile, mutters an apology as she fails to do so.

Jack nods at her before following out after his father. “Dad, wait. I’m coming with you.”

__________________

“Are you sure you want to do this?”

Emily turns to look at Derek, who was standing behind her with his arms crossed and a concerned look on his face. “Yes. I think I need to do this.”

Derek stares at her a second before looking past her to the medical examiner, giving the other man a quick nod. The medical examiner opens a door to a small room and leads them in, a body covered in a sheet laying on a metal table in the middle of it.

Emily can’t help the gasp that escapes her when the sheet is pulled back, the mess of Foyet’s face being brought into view. She closes her eyes for a second and takes a deep breath before making herself look again.

He was unrecognisable. His face was a mess of bruising, dried blood and broken bones and teeth. She couldn’t believe that Aaron, a man who had always touched her so reverently, like she was made of precious jewels, had done this. That the same man who had comforted their children with such tenderness over the years had beaten this man to death, and clearly kept going much longer than was necessary.

She can’t blame him for it, not for a second, because she knows she would have done the exact same thing.

Emily takes a step forward, gets slightly closer to Foyet, and leans down to him. “You lose.”

She walks out the room without looking back. __________________

When Emily gets back to the hotel she sees her mother sat out in the living room, Amelia in her arms, Theo nowhere to be seen.

Elizabeth looks up at her and smiles. “That didn’t take long.”

Emily smiles and nods walking towards the couch. “Thanks for watching them.”

“Did you get what you needed from it?”

“Yes.” Emily replies, sitting next to Elizabeth. Amelia immediately reaches for her mother as soon as she is close enough. Emily smiles as she takes her into her arms, pressing a kiss to her dark hair as she does so. “I think so anyway. Where’s Theo?”

Elizabeth smiles at the mention of her grandson. “Your father is reading him a story, hopefully he’ll fall asleep in his own room tonight.”

Emily sighs. She had left so soon after Aaron and Jack had that there hadn’t been the chance for this conversation earlier. “Mother, please-”

“I’m not criticizing you.” She interrupts, placing a hand on her daughter's leg, trying to soothe her in a way that had never really existed in their relationship. “I promise.”

Emily stares at her, tries to find some of the underlying passive aggressiveness that usually existed in her relationship with her mother. But she found nothing except concern, and something that looked like sympathy. “Ok.”

They sit in silence for a moment, both laughing when Amelia suddenly hauls herself up on Emily’s lap, hands tangling in her hair as she balances herself. Emily smiles at her daughter as she replaces her hair in Amelia’s hands with her fingers. Her heart clenched as it always did when her baby’s hands grasped on tight.

“She’s changed a lot.” Elizabeth says, briefly running a hand down Amelia’s back.

Emily nods. “Yeah, well that’s what 6 months does I guess.”

“You’re still angry at him for asking you to leave.”

Emily turns to look at her mother, eyebrows furrowed. “I’m not-”

“You are, and I can’t blame you. I would have been too.” Elizabeth smiles at her. “I was angry. I went to visit him in the hospital the day after you left.”

She frowns at that. “You did?”

“I did. And then I understood.” Elizabeth can’t help the laugh that escapes when Amelia suddenly launches herself forward, head resting on her mother’s shoulder. “You’ll be fine. You both just need to talk to each other. You’ve always got through everything.”

Emily smiles, tightening her hold on her own daughter as she settles into her. “Careful, Mother. It’s starting to sound like you actually like Aaron.”

Elizabeth smiles at that. “And he can never know.” __________________

They drive in mostly silence after Jack gives him the street address to the apartment they had stayed in during their time in witness protection.

Jack looks at him for a long moment, contemplating if it was really his place to say anything about the argument he had overheard. He turns back to look out the windscreen before he talks, and watches as the city gives way to countryside, memories of the drive out here for the first time seeping in. He remembered Theo and Amelia crying in the back seat. Theo because he had some vague understanding they wouldn't see their father again for a while. Amelia because she absolutely hated car journeys.

Mostly Jack remembers catching Emily’s eyes as he looked into the back of the car, how sad she looked despite the encouraging smile she plastered on for him.

“I think you need to give Emily a break, Dad.” He finally says. “She did her best.”

“Jack, it’s complicated.”

“I know it is, but none of it was her fault.” Jack replies. “Or yours.” He adds quickly, not missing how Aaron’s hands grip the steering wheel a little tighter. Jack clears his throat, an admission leaving his lips before he even realises he was going to say it. “I made her cry once.”

He watches his father frown at that, a question on his face. “Jack?”

“I accused her of sleeping with Sam. I knew she wasn't. I also said she wasn’t my mom.” He says, reminding Aaron what he had overheard earlier. “I just wanted to hurt her so I felt better. It didn’t work.” Jack looks out the window, avoids looking at Aaron. “I think you and me have that in common.”

There is a pause, and Jack swears he hears his dad mutter something about therapy being worth every penny before he speaks loudly enough for him to actually hear. “How did you get so smart?”

Jack smiles at him, and for the first time since he heard Emily and his dad argue he feels relief in his chest. “I’ve had three pretty great parents.” _________________

The apartment is smaller than he imagined it being, the space not seeming enough for his wife and children to have lived in for so long.

It’s clearly been abandoned. There is food left out on the kitchen counter, toys scattered through the living room and he can imagine the panic Jack must have felt when Foyet walked in, claiming his parents were dead.

“It’s a shithole, huh?”

Aaron turns around to look at his son, raising an eyebrow at his turn of phrase, Jack’s only response being him holding his hands up in surrender. Aaron then spots something orange sticking out from under the couch. He bends down to get it, his sore ribs protesting the action, and he picks it up. The fur of the stuffed cat is slightly rougher than he remembered it being, another six months of being fiercely loved by Theo wearing it down slightly.

“Hi, Archie.” He says. “It’s been a while.” __________________

When Aaron and Jack get back, Archie tucked under her husband's arm, she’s reminded of when they left the toy on a plane years ago. Theo was so small then, Amelia not even something they had considered they could have.

“You went to the apartment?” She asks, a frown on her face. She hadn’t been sure what to expect when he had stormed out hours again, but this certainly wasn’t it.

“I wanted to see it.” He says it's like the most simple thing in the world. “Why don’t you go give this to Theo.” He hands over the stuffed cat and she nods, sneaking quietly into the room Jack and Theo were staying in and smiles when she sees her son fast asleep. She places Archie next to him and presses a gentle kiss to his forehead.

Emily turns when she hears noise behind her, and she sees Jack holding a sleeping Amelia in his arms, Aaron behind him with the portable crib the hospital had provided in his hands.

She frowns slightly. “What’s going on?”

“Jack said he’d take Amelia so we could talk.”

Emily turns to Jack. “Are you sure?”

Jack nods, placing his sister in the crib once Aaron sets it down. “Of course.”

She pulls him into a hug. “Thank you.”

They walk over to their room, making Jack promise to come get them if there is an issue with either Theo or Amelia. The door closes behind them and it’s instantly awkward, she stands in the middle of the room with her arms crossed over her chest, looking at anything except him.

“I’m sorry.” He speaks first. “I was out of line earlier.”

She looks at him. “I’m sorry too.” She swallows against the lump in her throat. “I hate this Aaron. I hate that this feels so awkward. It’s never been like this.”

“I hate it too.”

She takes a step towards him. “Then you need to tell me what you’re thinking. I’m a damn good profiler, but I can’t actually read minds.”

He smiles at her, closes the small gap between them and grabs her hand. “I killed a man.”

“I know you did.” She says softly, gripping his hand tighter.

“I didn’t have to kill him.” He says firmly, his voice emotionless. “I could have stopped, and I didn’t.”

“I know.” She repeats, and she smiles sadly at him when he looks at her. “I made Derek take me to see Foyet’s body when you were gone today.” He opens his mouth, words of what she is sure are anger about to spill out. “I needed to see him, Aaron. I had to see it for myself.”

He clenches his jaw tightly for a second before releasing it, nodding at her.

“I’d have done it too.” She says, running her thumb over the knuckles he fractured on Foyet’s teeth. “I’d have killed him. Without a second thought. It doesn’t make you like him.” She cups his cheek. “You are not the same as that man.”

He sighs at that, resting his forehead against hers. “He gave me the same scars as him.”

Emily feels like her breath stutters in her chest, the realisation that was what he had been thinking about all this time hitting her like a truck. “Aaron.”

He pulls back from her, completely removing himself from her grasp, and he unbuttons his shirt, revealing the pattern of scars on his chest. Mixed in with large purple and black bruises she knows are from the final showdown with Foyet.

There was some redness to the scars, raised and slightly puckered still, but she imagined they looked better than they once had. Not for the first time she wishes she had been there with him when he was healing, and she hates that he went through so much alone.

She reaches out and touches one of them, runs her finger over the healed skin. He flinches under her touch and she pulls her hand back.

“Em...”He looks away from her, as if shielding himself from her reaction. Like he had spent the last 6 months convincing himself that anything Foyet had done to him would make her love him less instead of more. It makes her want to go back to the morgue and get a couple good hits in herself, fiery protectiveness for the man who had given her everything licking at her insides. She gently reaches out for her husband instead. Tracing a finger softly over one of the scars before she looks up at him.

“Baby.” She puts a hand on each of his cheeks and makes him look at her, her thumbs tracing his cheekbones. She feels tears gathering in her eyes, and she shakes her head at him. “They don’t matter. I’m not looking at them and thinking of him. I just see you. Just like I always have.”

He stares at her for a moment, as if he is trying to gauge if she is telling the truth, and then he surges forward. His hand tight in the back of her hair as he kisses her fiercely, pouring half a year's worth of love into it.

Emily loses herself in it, letting herself be overwhelmed by the kisses he presses to her lips and down her neck, his hands wandering up the back of her shirt, spanning the whole of her back in a way she has spent months dreaming of. Her memory hadn’t served him justice and she has to choke back a moan as his thumbs graze past her breasts.

Her brain comes back online when he presses her into the bedroom wall, a laugh escaping her mouth as he sucks on her pulse point. “Aaron.” She pushes at him slightly, grabs his face in her hands and runs a thumb over his bottom lip. “Honey, we can’t do this. You’re injured.”

He turns his face to press a kiss to her palm. “Em, please. I just need to feel you.” He presses his lips to her throat and her eyes close, the heat climbing in her body overwhelming.

She wanted him too, so much. This final reaffirmation that they had lived, they’d survived something awful and somehow, by some miracle, still had each other.

“I want you too. So much.” She says, her hand travelling to the back of his neck. “But let's take it to the bed ok?” She pulls him forward to lean his forehead on hers and smiles against his lips. “I don’t think either of us are quite up for fucking against the wall tonight.”

He pulls her tighter to him, and leads her over to the bed without another word, taking her shirt off as he does so.

They lay on the bed together, hands exploring and rediscovering each other slowly. Peeling off their remaining clothes as they go. She feels like her body is on fire, his revenant touch making her shudder.

He sucks a bruise on her shoulder and she decides she’s had enough. Emily pushes him back onto his back and swings a leg over his lap, both of them groaning when she settles over his lap, a jolt of pleasure runnin through both of them. Aaron makes a move to sit up and she gently pushes him back down, linking her hands through his, their fingers intertwining.

“I don’t want to hurt you.” She whispers as she leans down purposely not leaning on his purple mottled skin, kissing him hard on his lips.

She sits back up and sinks onto him, almost biting through her lip to prevent herself from crying out at the feeling. She stays still for a second, allowing herself the chance to adjust, to enjoy the feeling. Then she starts to move. He sits up suddenly, wraps his arms around her and ignores her protests.

“It’s worth it.” He says into her neck, pressing kisses into her skin. “Always...always worth it.”

She nods, unable to argue with him. She moves her head back so she can kiss him, wrapping her arms around the back of his head as she does.

They fall apart together, swallowing each other's moans as they do. Emily rests her forehead against his, breathing heavily as she tries to regulate her emotions. Tears spring to her eyes before she can stop them, and a sob escapes her just as quickly.

“Oh, baby. It’s ok.” He says gently, hugging her to him. He kisses her forehead before pulling her head towards his chest. “You’re ok.”

“I missed you so much.” She cries against him, fingers clawing at his still sweaty back. “So fucking much.”

“I know, sweetheart.” He kisses the top of her head, feels his own tears flood his lash line. “I missed you too.” He strokes the back of her head, fingers tangling in her hair. “But I’m here. We’re here. It’s over.”

Emily pulls back from his embrace and he immediately cups her face, wipes away the tears on her cheeks despite the fact he knew they’d be instantly replaced. “It’s over.” She repeats back to him before resting her head against him again. “It’s really over.”

He nods, their foreheads clashing slightly. “I love you, Emily.”

She laughs, like it’s the most obvious thing he had ever said, and she palms his face, cupping his cheek. “I love you too.” __________________

She demands to go to the house the next day, just the two of them. He’s unsure at first, doesn’t know if it is a good idea. But she is insistent, and he has never been one to deny her. Elizabeth and John come back around to stay with the children, both Theo and Amelia hesitant to be separated from their mother. It had led to a lot of tears, some from Emily although she would deny it if he brought it up, but they left eventually, a promise that they wouldn’t be long hanging in the air.

Emily is out of the car and through their front door, crime scene tape was still hanging from the frame, before he even had the car parked up. He walks in after her and finds her sood in the doorway of their dining room.

“I used to love this house.” She says without turning to look at him, eyes fixed on their dining room floor where he had left Foyet’s body only three days beforehand. “It was the first place that ever felt like home to me.” She sniffs, the heel of her hand coming to her cheek to wipe away a tear that he can’t see. “I loved our apartment, it’s the place where we became us. But this is the house we bought to have a family in. Even though that never quite turned out the way we thought it would.”

“I’ve always loved it too.”

She looks at his knuckles, still swollen, cuts standing out against his skin. “Theo took his first steps here.” She looks back at the floor. “I’d always think about that when we had dinner as a family. How he shuffled out your lap and just started walking.” She bites her lip, chin wobbling as she remembers the moment that seems so long ago now. “Now all I can think about when I stand here is that you beat a man to death. Or that the last time I came home and I found our living room stained with your blood.”

“Em.”

“I’m not saying it’s your fault.” She finally looks at his face, takes one of his bruised hands in hers and delicately runs her thumb over his damaged knuckles. She sees the doubt in his eyes, the concern she had caused with their crossed words the day before and she's so mad at herself for it she could cry. “None of this is your fault.” She emphasises. “ I just don’t think we can live here anymore.”

He feels relief he wasn’t expecting, a tension he hadn’t realised was in his chest starts to fade at her words. His time alone in the house, and the events that had bookended it, had tainted it for him. The innocence that had once lived in the walls of their house, their sanctuary from the horrors they saw in their work, torn away. “Then we find somewhere else to live.”

She looks at him with curiosity in her eyes, and she tilts her head slightly at him. “You say it like it’s simple, finding somewhere we can call home.”

“Em,” He runs his hands up her arms, finally settling on her shoulders as he pulls her into a hug. “You and the kids are my home, you’re all I need.”

Emily holds him just as tightly. “You’re mine too. I think you always have been.”

__________________

One Month Later - December 2009

Amelia is standing on his thighs, hands squishing his cheeks when he gets the call. JJ’s name flashing across his screen automatically makes his heart drop. The last he’d heard from Emily they had caught the guy. His motivations for one of the murders were still unclear, and Emily was driving with one of the local detectives and the unsub to take him into custody.

She’d even commented that she would be home for putting the kids to bed on her first case back at work. She had asked Derek to take the lead for the first couple of cases back, so she could readjust to it after such a long time away.

He balances Amelia with one hand, the little girl still not quite able to stand completely by herself yet, and grabs his phone to answer it. “JJ, what’s wrong?”

“She’s ok.” JJ starts off, sounding unsure over the phone. “She said not to call, but I thought you’d want to know.”

“JJ, just tell me.”

JJ sighs, as if preparing herself for his reaction. “Emily’s been in a car accident.”

#hotchniss #hotchniss fan fic #hotchniss fanfiction #aaron hotchner #emily prentiss #aaron hotchner x emily prentiss #au fan fic #ITSWM #WTB Universe #criminal minds fanfiction

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you-a-southpaw-doll · 4 years ago

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Daddy’s Nap ~ A Negan One-Shot

Summary: Negan gets woken up from his nap…

Warning(s): Fluff. Language. Tired Negan. Slightly grumpy Negan. Soft Negan. Daddy!Negan. Dick joke. SHIRTLESS JDM GIFs and images!!

Author’s Note(s): I wrote this story this morning at 6:30 am, after I couldn’t sleep all night long. Insomnia sucks ass. Despite having a major writer’s block for the last several months, this idea hit me and I just had to type it up. I hope y’all like it!

Word Count: 2,470 words

Relationship(s): Negan x Reader.

Characters: Negan. Reader.

Taglist: @negans-network @prettyboynegan @mychemicalimagines @spnnnxangelsx @rockinkel21 @misskittycat02 @band--psycho@ofxallxwexlost @iron-halt @thamberlinawrites @ravenwings73 @lettherebepink @stoneyggirl @neganslucille87

_______________________________________________________________________

Story Time:

"Give me a fuckin’ minute! Fuck’s sake!”

His voice a half yell, a half sigh as he spoke. Sleep still laced his words, trying hard to cling to the syllables as he rubbed his face against the pillow before sluggishly pushing himself outta bed, leaving the soft, memory foam mattress behind. Strolling over to the thick wooden door that sealed off his quarters, Negan grunted.

The last thing he wanted was to be disturbed. It was too early for this shit. Well, too early in the afternoon, anyway. It’d been a rough day, running things in the Sanctuary. He’d had to iron a fucker’s face as a punishment that now seemed pointless at the current time. But, it had been important for him to remind his people of the rules, and the subsequent consequences of those rules being broken.

He never liked ironing people’s faces, and it always exhausted the fuck outta him, which is why he’d been napping before some fucker knocked on his door. But, he still did it. The ironing. He had to do it. As leader, it was his job. He was the one to enforce the rules in order to keep his people safe. That’s why…

His thoughts trailed off as he jerked the door open, glaring at the person on the other side, intent to rip them a new one for disturbing him and waking him from his much-needed nap.

“What the fu-” He stopped mid-sentence as he took in the sight of the person standing in the hallway, in front of him.

Reader’s P.O.V:

You cringed when you heard him cuss out loud before the noises of shuffling on the other side of the door could be heard. You hadn’t wanted to disturb him, but you had no other choice. You bit your lip as you waited for him to open the door. As soon as it was flung open, your throat closed up and your heart pounded faster in your chest and loudly in your ears.

You barely heard his faltering question when the door was no longer separating the both of y’all. You could see the concern flash over his face, quickly followed by the flash of worry as he furrowed his brow. Your eyes followed his hand as it moved from the doorframe to run through his hair that was no longer slicked back, but rather ruffled from what you could only assume was his pillow.

You watched as he ran his fingers through his hair, messing it up more. You watched his lips move, but couldn’t hear anything he was saying as the sound of your heartbeat in your ears drowned him out. He reached a hand forward and placed it on your shoulder. That seemed to calm you down real fuckin’ quick.

After a moment, you took a deep breath and blinked, looking up at him.

“Doll?” He asked again.

You shook your head. “Huh?”

He tried to hide the small smile tugging on his lips but failed. His dimples showed as he let out a soft, breathy chuckle.

“I asked what’s wrong? You ok?” He repeated his earlier questions that you hadn’t heard over the beating of your heart.

“Y-y-ye…” You started, but stopped, shaking your head. “No. I’m sorry to bother you, but…” You lifted your arms, showing him what was in them.

Negan’s eyes softened and he nodded. “Say no more, sweetheart.”

His long arms reached out and his hands gently plucked the bundle outta your arms and cradled it to him. He took a step back, giving you room to enter into his living area as he cradled the bundle in his arms. Stepping in, you watched, in awe and amusement as he held your infant son close, and started murmuring softly to the little boy.

You watched, not noticing the door closing, as your son slowly stopped wailing at the top of his little lungs as he stared, wide eyed up at the badass, bat-wielding leader of the Sanctuary. You heard Negan’s chuckle as he lowered his head and placed a soft kiss on the boy’s head. He looked up at you as your son cuddled to him, his chubby little fingers curling ‘round the hairs that covered Negan’s chest.

He smiled, dimples showing once more. “Not quite what I was fuckin’ expectin’ after being woken up from my damn nap.”

You swallowed deeply. “I…I’m sorry, sir. He’s been screaming bloody murder for the last two and a half hours. I tried everything and then some before I finally came up here.”

He smirked. “It’s no fuckin’ problem, sweetheart. Looks like he just wanted me.”

You let out a shaky laugh and nodded, shrugging. “I guess so. I dunno how you do it, but you seem to be the only one who can calm him these days.”

His smirk grew even more. “I’ve just got the touch, I guess. From the moment I met this cute little fucker and his fuckin’ beautiful as shit mother.”

You blushed, hoping he wouldn’t notice as he turned his attention back to the little boy in his arms.

“You just wanted Daddy Negan, didn’t you, little man? Hmmm? Yea. You fuckin’ did.” He chuckled as he cooed at the little boy.

He laughed softly as the boy let out a quiet giggle of his own and snuggled closer to Negan’s chest. You watched, wondering how the hell Negan managed to quiet your son, and make him giggle. As you watched the two of them, that was when you fully noticed Negan. You sucked in a quiet breath as your eyes raked over him.

He was completely shirtless, his tanned skin, chest hair, and numerous tattoos on full display. Your eyes lowered, from his chest to your sons in his arms, and still lower. You bit your lip a little bit as you took in the sight of a pair of holey blue jeans, hanging low on his hips, zipped up but unbuttoned. You could clearly see “AMERICAN EAGLE” stitched in on the dark blue waistband of his boxers he had on under his jeans.

The thick band still hung low enough to show off his abs, and the trail of hair that led to what his pants were covering. You took another breath in and tried not to stare at the developed and clearly prominent V-line of his. You forced your eyes to look lower so you wouldn’t get distracted and your thoughts wouldn’t wander more than they already had.

He was barefoot, which you had already assumed since Negan had been napping before you woke him up. He didn’t even have socks on. Not that you blamed him. It was fuckin’ hotter than Satan’s balls in a sauna on a hot July day in Georgia. The heat was also the most likely cause for the thin layer of sweat that covered his skin.

“Doll?”

You brought your eyes up to meet Negan’s once you heard his soft voice.

“Huh?” You asked.

He laughed and shook his head. “I asked if you were enjoying the view?”

You blushed harder, no longer able to idea it. “Maybe?”

His head tossed back as he let out a deep bellied laugh.

“Maybe my ass! Damn. I ain’t been checked out like that in at least 20 years, and that’s fuckin’ sayin’ somethin’ since I used to have 4 fuckin’ wives!” He smirked.

You raised a brow. “Used to?”

He nodded and grinned as he padded across the soft carpet to his bed. He plopped down on the side of the mattress that was still messed up from his nap a few minutes prior. He swung his feet up, kicking the sheets outta the way as he got comfortable, and leaned back, shifting your son so he was comfortable on Negan’s chest.

The Sanctuary’s leader patted the spot next to him, gesturing for you to settle next to him.

“Mmhhmm. Used to. I got rid of ‘em after I met you and this little munchkin a few months ago.” He said.

You walked over and laid next to him, kicking your shoes off before you climbed up in his huge ass bed, snuggling up to him. This…the three of y’all like this, in his bed…was something that happened quite often since he’d brought you to the Sanctuary 3 months ago.

From the moment Negan had found you and your newborn son, hiding out in a store, and he’d taken your screaming son in an attempt to quiet him, the little boy only quieted for Negan. He could tell you were stressed, trying not to panic from fear that the walkers would find you since your son had been screaming as loud as his little body would allow.

He’d gently taken him from your arms, staying close to you so as to keep you from panicking more as a random stranger taking your son. You’d started to protest, but quickly stopped as your son nestled to Negan’s leather jacket and quieted down the moment he was in the man’s arms. Negan had chuckled, much like he did today, while you’d let out a breath of relief, your panic washing away.

As he’d rocked your son to sleep in his arms, Negan told you about the Sanctuary, and offered to bring you both back. He’d explained the rules, and offered you the same offer he gave to anyone he came across. Only, he’d also offered you the position of being one of his wives. You’d turned that down quickly.

Explaining that you were sure he didn’t want a “wife” who had so much baggage and a child, you’d told him that you’d work for points. He didn’t hide his disappointment, but you could tell he’d respected your choice. When he brought you and your son to the old factory, he set you up in a room that you didn’t have to share, so it was just you and your little boy.

He told you, as he’d laid your sleeping son down, that if you needed anything, not to hesitate to let him know. It hadn’t been until you were in the cafeteria one morning, and someone dropped their tray, startling your little boy from his slumber, making him wail, and Negan came over and gently took him, quieting him down, that you took the man up on his offer.

After that day, it was clear that your son loved Negan and would only quiet down when he was with him. You and Negan had gotten closer during the visits y’all shared as he soothed your boy back to sleep. Many of those visits had consisted of you and Negan curled up in his bed as he held your son against his chest, rubbing his back.

Just like y’all were today. You looked up at Negan after he just dropped the bomb about his wives.

“Why?” You asked.

He shrugged. “I didn’t need them anymore. Got tired of their bullshit. It’s not like I fuckin’ loved any of them. There have been three people in my life that I loved, and I already lost one of them. I wasn’t gonna lose the other two because I wanted to keep the wives. So, I sent ‘em fuckin’ packin’. They were damn happy ‘bout it.”

“I thought Lucille was the only person you loved?” You asked softly.

You knew his first, real wife was a tough subject for him, but he’d opened up to you ‘bout her one night.

He nodded. “She was. Until I met this kid who was screamin’ his lungs out and fuckin’ freakin’ his mama out.”

He glanced at you as he kissed the little boy’s head. It hit you as to what he was saying. You swallowed deeply and your eyes searched yours. You could see it. The love in them. The emotions.

“Us?” You asked, your voice barely above a whisper.

He nodded again, slowly, his eyes never leaving yours. “Mmhhmm. So, I fuckin’ let ‘em go. Just having you and this screamer…that’s all I needed. Even if you didn’t feel the same way. In a sense, you’d given me the chance to be a dad, and I wasn’t gonna fuck that up. Don’t worry. You don’t have to feel the same way. I just figured you’d wanna know the reason behind why I fuckin’ got rid of the wives. I’m content with just being here when he’s screaming so I can soothe him the fuck back to sleep.”

“I…I…” You started but when you couldn’t find the words, you just laid your head on his shoulder and stared at your son as you processed what he was saying.

Negan looked back at your little boy, who was now sound asleep and snuggled to his chest. He smiled and kissed his head when a thought struck him. Not looking away from the baby in his arms, he voiced his thought.

“Have you decided on a name yet?”

You smiled and nodded. When Negan had first found y’all, you still hadn’t given your son a name yet. Nothing seemed right for the precious baby who came into your life. Nothing, that is, until 2 months ago.

That was when you decided on the perfect name for him.

“Alexander.” You murmured, and glanced up when Negan took a breath in.

“Alexander? As in my middle name?” He blinked. “You named him after me?”

You giggled and nodded against his shoulder again. “Figured it’d be fitting for him to be named after the only man in his life. His Daddy. I just couldn’t bring myself to call him Negan too. ‘Specially not since you named your dick ‘Negan Jr.’.”

He laughed as he teared. “I can’t believe I fuckin’ told you that. But, you really named him Alexander? After me? You remembered me telling you ‘bout my middle name?”

You smiled and nodded again. “Mmhhmm. I named him after his Daddy, and the man I love.”

His eyes widened at your confession and he teared more. “Well, fuck me! This was so fuckin’ worth bein’ woken up from a nap.”

You laughed. “That’s not happenin’ right now. He just got to sleep. We are not going to risk wakin’ him up again. But, soon. We can.”

He grinned and kissed your head. “I’m gonna fuckin’ hold you to that. But I agree. What do you say we take a nap? As a family?”

You smiled and snuggled closer to him. “I’d fuckin’ like that.”

He grinned when you used his favorite fuckin’ word. Moving slightly, he wrapped an arm ‘round your shoulders and held you and the baby close. You snuggled to him and kept your head on his shoulder as you soon dozed off too.

“My family.” He murmured, a silly grin on his face. “I love my fuckin’ family.”

#Daddy's Nap #A Negan One-Shot #Jeffrey Dean Morgan #Jeffrey Dean Morgan One-Shot #Jeffrey Dean Morgan Fluff #JDM #JDM One-Shot #JDM Fluff #Negan #Negan One-Shot #Negan Fluff #The Walking Dead One-Shot #The Walking Dead Fluff #The Walking Dead #TWD #TWD One-Shot #TWD Fluff

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paullicino · 3 years ago

Text

On the Internet

Taken from, and thus generously funded by, my Patreon. The above image via ExtraFabulousComics.

Do you have a flashlight nearby? A lamp, or other light source? Keep it to hand, it might become relevant for something, something I’d like to demonstrate later. The demonstration is simple and entirely voluntary, the flashlight is not essential. It works just as well as a thought experiment in your head.

Meanwhile, I’m going to write about the internet on the internet. Because that’s what we all do these days, isn’t it?

---

I still remember the excitement of our first explorations online. It was a kind of hidden, secret space of unknown dimensions when we found it as young adults. A weird sort of Narnia. A modem meant you could open this door to an entirely different place full of entirely different people obeying entirely different rules. You had to find ways of telling one another about what you’d found this week, either the next time you were together in person, via an email or, God forbid, by printing out a webpage. Twenty-five years ago, the internet was a collection of imperfect search engines (crawlers) taking you to out-of-the-way websites that were as likely to have been made by someone just like you as they were to belong to some major company or organisation. Its mess was egalitarian. It was a decentralised place full of curious corners and sudden surprises. It wasn’t somewhere we logged on to with an expectation of finding the familiar. It was a place of discovery.

It wasn’t simply that the tech wasn’t as good as it is nowadays. That much is obvious. It was the fumbling newness of the place. It was a primordial soup, we were all blobs and we blobbed around together, testing out the water.

It was a tremendously international space. It was easy to stumble across websites in other languages, to find places that weren’t for you, that were never created with you in mind, and at the very edges of these places their owners and their users might just blend together. Spill over, even. Everyone was from everywhere and they were all mingling, uncontrolled. It was liberating. It was mind-expanding.

The internet was exciting, it was new, it was unfamiliar. It was a place to learn. It was a place without an agenda.

It was also a place to be different. Niche interests found their audiences and young people could be united by what they enjoyed, not marginalised. There was no need to fit in when the place didn’t even fit together properly. For those of us bullied, bored, or worse in tiny homogenous hometowns, isolated or upset by the toxic social dynamics and popularity contests that school can create, it offered little judgement about what you should want or who you should be. It was a place to be genuine.

I still remember the end of the 1990s, too. It was a decade of growth and change not just for a young generation, but for the wider world we were learning about. There was a peace deal in Northern Ireland, there was optimism in the media and there was a coming millennium that was supposed to be defined by technology and communication, the internet at its forefront. I was not a young man who could identify with very much of this optimism, but I was at least a young man looking forward to change, who could be accepted as who I was on the internet and who could be excited about what it represented. I’d never tried to be anyone else, even though being different rarely works out when you’re young, but now I knew for sure that I didn’t need to.

As my friends and I grew, so did the internet, and it became a place where we could share more about ourselves, where we could play together and where we found a bunch of ways of keeping in touch whenever we were apart. It became a tool to help me work, that kickstarted my career as a writer, as well as an ever-widening window on the world. It wasn’t yet too corporate, its websites and its tools not yet too monolithic.

I remember some of that early sharing. I remember talking to total strangers, a world away, about some part of my life or theirs. I remember talking to one internet friend of many years, who I never met, about British and American spelling. And about spelling in general. I remember they told me they weren’t sure how to spell a particular word and I said they could look it up in but a moment, since they were online there and then. “I can’t be bothered,” they replied, and that frustrated me so much.

The 90s passed and on September 11th 2001 whatever vision there was for the coming century was erased. The course of world events shifted immediately and dramatically. Never before had mass murder been so visible and so immediate. I remember talking not about how different the world was going to be, but that we had no idea how big a difference this would even make. In a very short space of time, it felt as if the world became not only so much more cruel and so much more cynical, but also so much more divided. I remember the weeks and months after those terror attacks as being my first experience of seeing people sharply divided in their politics, divided enough to be extremely angry, extremely offended, by the many suggestions of what should be done next. It set the scene.

As the decade continued, technology and communication certainly did change us. More of us were using the internet not only to talk, but for more and more of our everyday tasks. We were also sharing ourselves, too, in ways more personal and profound, and there was so much to know. I read a blog post by a Black woman from the American South describing the ways she had to bring up her son to interact with the wider world, how angry he was about it, how unfair it all was. I read updates from those caught in the civil war in Myanmar, talking about what they claimed the news didn’t show. I read about the realities of the rapid growth in Dubai, the working conditions and pollution. I read diary entries by people surviving the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, weeks without power and wondering when help would come. I read about the world in a way I’d never been able to before.

More than ever, the internet was a library of lives.

The first trip overseas I took by myself was all planned, booked and executed with the help of the internet. I flew to Chicago, in the United States, and I stayed in the most average hotel in the most average neighbourhood and it was wonderful. I heard real cicadas for the first time and walked through concrete valleys between towering skyscrapers that my tiny mind couldn’t process. In the evenings, I watched a plethora of American news, which was only ever about America, and that frustrated me so much.

The first interview I ever conducted with someone who wasn’t making a video game was with the writer Mil Millington. The interviews I really wanted to do were about people, their experiences, what they liked and why they do the things they do. Mil Millington was the perfect subject because we had both written about games, we both understood the reach of the internet and we were both interested in what the future of this medium would be. He had recently scored a book deal and written his first novel, Things My Girlfriend and I Have Argued About, based on his semi-autobiographical, tongue-in-cheek blog of the same name, listing comic domestic disagreements. I asked him what it was like to share all of his personal life online and he told me that, actually, he didn’t:

“I'm, honestly, almost obsessively private. It's just the way I write that, for some reason, if I say, 'Margret won't let me watch a film in peace,' causes people to think, 'My God! Mil's laying his whole life bare!'”

And then I realised that he had, of course, chosen to share all the things that he had. And carefully. It didn’t mean that those things were less honest, less real or less interesting, but he had been doing what all of us writers do: picking his words and his moments. We should all get to share on our own terms.

I liked his honesty. He wasn’t trying to prop up any persona.

---

A little after this time, I was asked on a date by a conservative American woman who I met in my first year at university in London. We saw each other a few times and stayed in touch when she returned to California. A couple of years later, the American Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin spoke about “death panels” run by Britain’s National Health Service. Online, I expressed my annoyance and anger both at Palin just making things up, as well as at the volume of people who seemed to simply accept her words. My former date said that Palin was allowed to “express her opinion” and I didn’t know how to begin to explain, to an adult in her mid 20s, the difference between fact and opinion, or that she could check such things in a moment, since she was online. That frustrated me so much.

This discussion played out over a relatively new website called Facebook, which had become an invaluable way to connect with my fellow students. I had feared being alone at university, lost in a big city, but the opposite had happened. As soon as we all finished our first year of studies and were hurried out of our student residences, we scattered across the capital and the closeness I had taken for granted was suddenly lost. But Facebook became a directory of friendship, another library of lives. In its early days, I made jokes about people oversharing, or using the site to attract attention, but this wasn’t any different to how some of us might behave anywhere else. It wasn’t such a big deal. That’s just humans.

And anyway, I like to share. My whole life, I’ve enjoyed sharing things I think are important because I feel like it helps me make genuine connections, express myself and feel useful. I saw the internet becoming another way of doing this, another way to be genuine. The younger me had played in bands and held dreams of reaching other people through music, in awe of those moments when an audience sings an artist’s lyrics back to them. I still wanted that, that connection, or some version of it.

On the ever-growing internet, we could all share ourselves more. It could become a new medium for acceptance and understanding. What a glorious future it promised.

---

In time, I adopted all of the social media platforms that I use because I enjoy human connection and I think one of the fundamental traits of people is that they can be so interesting. They do stuff, they make things, they go places, they inspire and they pull humour out of the most difficult of situations like a conjurer tugging an elephant from a beanie. I’d like to be able to do those things. Some days I can barely make a pancake.

Social media allowed me to make and share even more, and now I was sharing things with two people at dinner, ten people at a party or a hundred people online. The number mattered less than the creation’s ability to connect, because it all helped me figure people out and it helped me figure myself out. It helped me figure everything out so that, perhaps one day, I might also learn the trick that lets you tug an elephant out of a beanie. I would be able to say to people “Ah yes, you start with the trunk,” or “Surprisingly, you pull from the tail.” Then they could pass that on. Social media seemed particularly good for this, a way for us to all enrich one another.

In 2008, a series of devastating terrorist attacks erupted across Mumbai. Many of the events were documented in real-time by both journalists and locals using Twitter, which made the site seem to me to be an invaluable new perspective on current events. By the start of the next decade, the Arab Spring saw a broad uprising across North Africa, with thousands of people united in protest by the unifying power of social media. It felt like these tools could change our world forever.

Some other things happened as that decade wound down.

A woman on Twitter made a poor joke about AIDS and Africa before boarding a flight, only to find that, by the time she had landed, her words had been shared around the world many millions of times. A woman in England was caught on camera putting a cat in a bin, the footage of which went viral and received such an overwhelmingly furious reaction that one national newspaper asked, only half-joking, if she was the most evil woman in Britain. These events were shared, discussed and dissected with a comparable passion and level of investment as the terrorist attacks and the Arab Spring. On the internet, a cat in a bin was becoming as important as terrorists in a hotel.

I flexed some cynical opinions. We all had opinions by then (though still not the same as facts), because it was increasingly difficult not to get swept up in things like these as and when they happened. They were everywhere, echoed and repeated, with a kind of mentality of momentum. Countless people changed their profile pictures to something green in support of protesters in Iran, or added a flag to support victims of terror in France. They signed internet petitions demanding Something Be Done, though it wasn’t always clear where these petitions would be delivered or how they would compel someone to act. None of these protesters or victims were in any way saved, protected or enabled by a person on the other side of the planet clicking their mouse like this, but if a million other people did it, those metrics created a validity of their own.

I think I remember the late 2000s as the time that I really began to feel different about these things. But by then, I was too bought in. It had already gone from a habit to a dependency.

Year by year, the internet had become less egalitarian. Monolithic sites and spaces were increasingly the center of the experience, whether hubs like MSN and Yahoo, social media sites like Facebook or Twitter, or popular news outlets. We found ourselves in the same places, over and over, and we relied on these for our new discoveries. While social media in particular pitched itself as something that put us all on the same level, behind the scenes levers were already being pulled to shape and to manipulate what was shown and shared.

(That’s okay, people told me. Turn on this feature, or adjust these options, and you get to pull your own levers. That’ll undo everything. You still get to share on your own terms.)

These sites had swelled to envelop us, going from making themselves exciting to making themselves essential. We no longer went online, we were online, always, and we left more and more of ourselves there even when we were away from our screens. Social media allowed you to collect everything together, becoming a place where you could simultaneously read updates from your friends, your parents, Leonardo Di Caprio, the Prime Minister, your favourite newspaper and your favourite sports team. All in a moment and all competing for your attention. Sites like Google and YouTube started to track and understand the preferences of their users, delivering to them more of what they wanted, working hard to grab and to keep their attention. You liked that dog, that topic, that politician? Here’s another.

Here’s another, again.

I was pulling levers all the time, frantically now, like someone operating locks and gates to try and dam an ever more overwhelming flow. My social media sites had changed from something that I used to something I had to manage. Not only were we all carefully curating who we broadcast to and when, lest we offend an employer or shock a relative, we also found ourselves trying to coordinate and customise them, because if we didn’t they would do this for us. They began to choose what to show us, based on what they believed we cared about, they began to offer us things, based on who they believed we were. They even began to mess with time, giving us information and updates out of chronological order. All of these were changes we often had to undo or at least be mindful of, if we even knew about them. If we wanted to. And if we knew how.

If we didn’t, our reality might shift.

---

I still remember the excitement of our first explorations online. My first favourite website was Snopes, which was then a collection of myths and urban legends, most of them debunked. In the late 90s, bullshit chainletter emails would bounce around the internet with stories about how some Russian scientists had drilled their way to hell, or how a new computer virus had come out, or how Coca Cola dissolved human teeth. Sometimes, the strangest of stories really were true, or at least partially so, but most of them were trash. Thanks to Snopes, you could check such things in a moment. I loved that about the internet.

On September 11th 2001, almost twenty years ago now, it was difficult to disagree about what we saw happening right in front of our eyes. Nevertheless, there were a few people afterward who insisted that a plane had not hit the Pentagon, that the towers had been deliberately demolished, that some more mysterious sequence of events had transpired. They lurked in the darkest corners of the internet, much as they had always existed on any other margins in any other mediums. The rest of us could get on with our lives.

I grew up playing games and then, later, I became someone who analysed, critiqued and even designed them. One of the most powerful and important things I learned through games is that so much in life is based around systems and the longer a system is around for, the better we become at manipulating it. When a game has been around for a long time, we find many different ways to play it and sometimes we have to adjust the rules of the game to account for this. The rules for chess that we have today have seen many adjustments and revisions. The same is true for football. It is also true for our laws and for our systems of government. We have to modify these things in part because times change, but also in part because they are being abused and exploited, subverted in ways their designers never imagined.

Or simply used as optimally as possible.

It’s 2021 and the internet monoliths that we have begun to take for granted, that have surged like the rising oceans to engulf our lives and to carry us along their currents, are constantly being used in ways their designers never imagined. Two years ago, we thought the biggest problem we had with social media and internet monoliths was their subversion to manipulate elections, with great armies of bots and fake profiles being created and directed faster than the people who owned social media sites being able to prevent this. This presence could bring amplification and validity to anyone or to anything. “Learn the algorithm,” was the key to success online. Use a site or social media platform in a particular way and it will elevate you further. Elevate your work. Or your truth. Or just you.

Now, more than a year and a half into a pandemic that defines our generation, the areas of the internet with which we’ve become most familiar and most comfortable, those which we began to pour our lives and identity into, are not only places where elections were subverted, they’re places where the difference between life and death are considered a matter of opinion, where science and fact can be openly ridiculed, where conspiracies about September 11th are tiny in comparison. For some time now they’ve already been well-worn battlefields, public arenas within which opinion and force of will often carry more weight than evidence and reason, but now the consequences of doubling down on a belief are undeniably the difference between living and dying.

More important, for some people, is the difference between right and wrong. Not so much being right, but being seen being right, can give you validity, clout, value. I think we’ve reached the point where dying while being seen as right can matter more than living and admitting a mistake.

The flow of the internet, all those locks and gates opened by algorithms or AI or other people’s decisions that may simply have been motivated by a desire to give us what we like, have made it more difficult than ever to find things that go against the current, or to grasp something we can be sure is objective or straightforward.

One part of me believes that we can no longer look things up in a moment any more, because we have to second-guess every other thing we find. As a journalist and researcher, I never feel secure with what I find on the internet now and I dig, I verify and I compare, still coming away unsure, often worried I will publish something glaringly incorrect. A different part of me, a more dramatic part, sometimes wonders which things are even real.

I suppose anything is real if you can get away with it. If nobody ever notices.

---

There’s another aspect to all this, the aspect that makes me the most uncomfortable. The aspect I least enjoy discussing, but which I have to if I can fully explain myself.

Living alongside the internet, I’ve watched as some of us pull all those levers simply to control the flow as best we can, to keep ourselves afloat, but others have viewed this experience differently. They’ve seen it as a challenge, as another system they can manipulate. It’s an opportunity for them to choose how they present themselves. The more levers they pull, the greater their ability to do so. The more time they invest, the greater the result.

If you take your flashlight, lamp or light source and point it toward an object, you can easily affect the size and the shape of the shadows it will cast. Under your control, those shadows can lengthen or deepen, they can sweep and distort. A light up close can cast a gigantic shadow across a far wall, perhaps a sharp one or perhaps one fuzzy and undefined. Try it. See what you can make. The more you do it, the more tricks you can learn.

All of us try to present our best selves and all of us have our different selves, too. Forty years before I ever went online, the sociologist Erving Goffman published The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life, a book about how we behave differently in different contexts. It’s natural for us to speak to our family in a different way to how we speak to our best friend, or to our colleagues, or to a crowd we might be addressing in a speech. It’s not necessarily disingenuous, it’s merely a part of the human experience. But impression management, as Goffman called it, is also a matter of degrees. Some people are more invested than others. If given the tools to perform more effective impression management, more levers they can pull, they will engage even further.

I have flexed a few cynical opinions in my life (at least as many as three, the stats suggest) but, at the same time, I think I have to admit that I have also been very naïve about people. I tend to take many of them on face value and assume they are genuine. Many of us are, perhaps even most of us. But I’ve come to know both that this isn’t always the case and that, given the opportunity, some people will use every tool at their disposal to shape a false version of themselves. We’ve found ourselves in an era where this is more possible than ever. It’s no longer simply within the purview of politicians and PR firms, it’s within reach of every one of us and all we need to do is put in the time and energy. The reward can be ever greater popularity, ever more validation

And I’m so tired of seeing this.

Over the past half decade or so, I have seen the internet and its many systems gamed more than ever. Gamed for political gain, gamed for personal gain and gamed to create images, personalities and that god-awful golem of hollow and lifeless artifice that is brand. Now a person can be a product, a new kind of commodity in this ever more opaque ecosystem.

The nausea and unhappiness I feel from all this is more than the simple declaration that I’m not a brand, I’m a person. It’s the discovery that other people, sometimes people I’ve known, really are a brand now. Their time, their energy, their life is now invested in shaping and maintaining that image, that brand, perhaps even at the expense of other pursuits. And with the right manipulations, the right tugging of the correct levers, they can perpetuate that, build that and further gain the affirmations and validations they need to prove to themselves that what they have created is as solid and as true and as real as anything else. And how would we know any different?

The ocean is not so far from my home. It’s not unusual to walk the beach or the seawall and see people engaged in impromptu photoshoots, dressed in their very best, expertly presented and shot with long lenses. A friend told me that most of these shoots are for the purpose of enriching dating profiles, that there’s an increasing feeling of expectation, a sense that everyone must present their very best selves, simply because everyone else now does so. To be on a dating site is to feel engaged in an ever-escalating competition for time and attention, to need to package oneself as the best possible product.

I don’t at all object to the idea of dating sites, but I could never get comfortable with them and I used to feel like I was browsing a human meat market, that it was all too easy for me to make judgements about people I didn’t know and then cast them aside. I felt, again, like people had become products and this was a system and a process I did not want to be part of. You can game it, people tried to tell me. There are ways to make it work better for you, it just takes a little time. I didn’t want to know.

The more time you spend trying to engage with things that aren’t genuine, the less you have for what is real.

When I use the internet these days it’s with an increasing sense of discomfort and disquiet. I find myself already on the lookout for the artificial. I second-guess people as much as I do information. I’m all too aware of the constructed persona and the deliberate framing, of that angling of a light to cast a particular shadow. In a few cases, this isn’t an abstract concern and social media in particular can be a place where I watch people I know are starkly different to the image they project be celebrated for the false façade they maintain, a façade that can be further reinforced by popularity and prominence. I see harmful and unhealthy people championed even in spite of their actions, because they have managed to engineer support and validation, or using the popularity and affirmation they have gained to push opinion over fact. The disingenuous and the distorted tie together like a greasy braid, each one reinforcing the other, and it’s no wonder falsehoods can spread so far, whether false representations or false information. I would say that sometimes I almost feel like I’m back at school, amongst the same gossip and garbage, but this is far worse than any of the toxic social dynamics and popularity contests that school ever created, and now it comes with measurable metrics in the form of likes, follows, retweets or subscriptions.

I’m sure, at this point, this is a common experience and common concern for most of us, and we are each finding our own ways to handle it.

Or not. For me, the experience is deeply unpleasant.

While drafting this I idly wondered if we could somehow develop a new version of Snopes for human beings. A demystifier of people, something that reveals each person’s private Picture of Dorian Gray, which grows ever more warped as they reinforce their persona ever more. But I’m sure even that would be gamed and subverted before too long.

I'm so, so tired of trying to work out who is real.

---

The internet monoliths I move between in my daily life all have one thing in common. Google, Twitch, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, Tumblr, Facebook, Patreon and so many others are all based in the same place: the United States. They are towering. They overwhelm the rest of the internet. The levers that many of these pull, controlling currents and flow, are being operated in the United States. The politics, existential crises and cultural interests of that country are disproportionately represented and, while I care very much about the United States, I also want to hear about the rest of the world. I want to hear about where I live, and yet even that feels like it comes second. Yes, I am pulling all the levers that are supposed to make this happen. No, it isn’t entirely successful. I am using a paddle against a tsunami.

Once the bias is there, the snowball effect perpetuates. So often, whether I choose to or not, I am in that motel room watching a plethora of American news again, or its modern equivalent. It frustrates me so much. Most of us Westerners essentially live in America some of the time now, if we spend any period online. That’s where our presence and our attention are pointed.

Before publishing this essay, I changed every mention of “torch” to “flashlight” because I felt I had to cater to an internet that sees the first word only as a burning chunk of wood, not as a British battery-powered light source.

The internet doesn’t feel like the world any more. It hasn’t for a long time.

---

I can’t abandon the internet of today. I need it for work. I need it to promote the things I create. I need it to keep in touch with people. I’m not different or special, only someone too bought in as well, my use also going from a habit to a dependency. But it has almost entirely stopped being a place of delight and discovery. It has lost any sense of being egalitarian. So much less is new, so much less is unfamiliar. So much more has an agenda.

Algorithms, metrics and social media have quantified and gamified everything, encouraging competitiveness and narcissism. Public spaces have become arenas and arenas encourage performance. In an attention economy, the outrageous and the overblown mean a cat in a bin can have the same profile and presence as terrorists in a hotel. In spaces that now mix our friends, our parents, Leonardo Di Caprio, the Prime Minister, our favourite newspapers and our favourite sports teams, people we know and love are elevated or relegated according to how interesting an algorithm has decided they are, pushing them to the fore or pulling them from your view. “People on Twitter are the first to know,” says the social network that prides itself on immediacy more than integrity or fact-checking. Misinformation abounds. As the line between person and brand has smudged between all recognition, corporations insert themselves into and between everything else we try to examine. Surrounded by banner ads, the conflicts of polarised culture generate enormous revenue for monolithic American tech companies. As we fight, push our narratives, construct our personas or compete in the race to prove we are the most woke, we all make @Jack richer, or provide Zuck with more of our personal data.

I also find myself reminded of what Octavia Butler called “simple peck-order bullying,” the hierarchical behaviour where people want to, and now can, elevate themselves above others, according to identities they've built for themselves, to push their ideas, push their image, push their sense of superiority or push their opinions so hard that they can reshape them into facts. Anything is possible with enough pulling of enough levers. And now more people have more of those levers. And some of them love to pull and then push, pull and then push.

I don’t like what the internet has turned into, nor what it has turned people into.

So what now?

---

This was an essay inspired by an essay, inspired by an essay, which is always how it goes. Creativity is theft and anyone who says otherwise is only trying to distract you as they secretly shake you down. The eternal question that writers (or anyone creative) is supposed to dread is “Where do you get your ideas?” Because we aren’t supposed to know. But we do know. We get them from everyone else. We thieve them.

Ideas are pickpocketed from the people we pass in twisting evening alleyways, during the briefest moments of darkness and distraction. They’re caught with nets as they flutter with all the freedom of sweet springtime naivete. They’re spied upon from tremendous distances through the jealous lenses of sparkling telescopes. Nothing is truly ours and anyone wringing their words into a desperate defence of some unique capacity for originality ex nihilo is either deceptive or deluded.

(Avoid them. You’re likely their next target.)

This essay was heavily inspired by Lucy Bellwood reflecting on Nicole Brinkley. Both have written nuanced examinations of social media (focusing on Twitter) that I think you should make the time to read, but I’ll try and sum up the main thing I have taken from their writing in one line:

Social media is extremely bad, in a multitude of ways and for many complex reasons, and it is okay to leave it.

This is in so small part my interpretation, coloured by a particular belief I hold, that being that social media is extremely bad, in a multitude of ways and for many complex reasons, and it is okay to leave it. You can probably see why I approve.

There’s more to it than that. Brinkley talks about Twitter essentially breaking the way the Young Adult literature scene works, which to me is one facet of a dangerously seductive diamond that repeats many different stories of damage done by how we’ve used and gamed the internet. Her wonderful conclusion is that “These days it’s okay to not be sure what Twitter is for. We can stop going there until we figure it out.” And I so desperately wish I could stop going on the internet until I could figure out what it is for now, too. I wish it wasn’t essential. But it is, broken as it may be, breaking things as it may be.

While I don’t think leaving it is an option for me, I am using so much of it less. I have to. Social media, a place where I am shown arguments and controversy over the lives of people I care about, has become somewhere for me to hurriedly hurl out a quick update or two before I flee, escaping before I come across something, or even someone, that will make me sad. Any search box is a cause for scepticism, prompting me to analyse the results it gives and try a dozen different ways to find the same thing, just in case. Even Snopes is now a running commentary on the (American) news cycle. The best I can do whenever I think something fundamental to our society is unhealthy is to participate in that thing as little as possible. I know this limits my reach, limits my relevance and limits my success, but I also know that this makes me less unhappy and allows me to continue to feel genuine. Like I am still myself. Like I am still real. It may be apparent that my mental health has taken a few hits over the last couple of years. It doesn’t need to take any more.

I am not only unsure what Twitter is for, I am unsure what the whole internet is for.

---

There is no conclusion to this essay. It is supposed to be six thousand words of open-ended reflection. The past year or so has sometimes been a huge struggle for me and it really is true that some days I can barely make a pancake. Work has been difficult, writing has been difficult and maintaining regular Patreon updates has been difficult, with this piece being a huge challenge to finish. I think I’ve tried to make the best of things, as well as present an honest but still positive face to the world. I have piles of tasks to get through and I tackle what I can, with what feels like so much competing for my attention. At the same time, I can’t opt out of the systems I live and work inside of, much as I can’t stop paying rent or putting food in my mouth, because individuals can't kick a habit society has become dependent upon. I think the best thing I can do right now is be truthful about all that, try to remain as genuine as I can and continue to step away from what makes me uncomfortable, giving myself some distance from the things that make me unhappy.

That doesn’t mean I’m disappearing (I’m still checking in on social media, streaming on Twitch and so on), nor does it mean this change or this philosophy is forever, nor does it mean that things can’t improve. But it does mean I’m changing a few things about myself, my habits and my preferences. And it does mean I have a working, temporary, if unsatisfactory answer to the question “So what now?”

It is: “We’ll see.”

---

A big thanks to my Patreon community for the links I’m adding here, post-publication.

The first is How sex censorship killed the internet we love, on Endgadget, about controlling the internet in all sorts of ways and about what might be considered explicit (apparently a condom might be explicit).

Then there’s The internet Is Rotting, from the Atlantic, about bits of the internet that are disappearing and the loss of information that comes with it, as well as information that is overwritten and altered. We are keeping less than you might think.

Finally, The web began dying in 2014, here’s how, by André Staltz, talks about the growing prominence of big corporations (all American), what their priorities are, and what online things (services) they may bring to you.

#Patreon #America #Erving Goffman #September 11th #persona #social media #the internet #writing

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elsanna-shenanigans · 4 years ago

Text

December Contest Submission #20: Never shall you ask me

Words: ca. 4500 Setting: Viking AU / late 9th century Norway Lemon: no CW: strong language, mentions of animal sacrifice, blood

Elsa Agnarrsdóttir had never minded the cold. It was warmth that made her shiver.

The cold had been her constant companion for as long as she could remember: at first, long days spent by the seashore, waiting for her father’s drakkar to fly into Arnardalr’s harbour laden with riches from foreign lands, ocean breeze tearing at her braid and gown and salt wash speckling her skin. Then, after, silent marches through wintery woods, white as far as the eye could see, with no companion save the darkness and the numbing chill in her bones.

The warmth, though? Loge’s flickering child had danced through the straw and thatch and rafters of her father’s hall like a hungry houseguest as, below, her kinsmen had fallen to the storm of shining battle-flames. The warmth had seared her, marked her for its own. Even now she feared it, for it meant the din of cups and the laughter of men in the feast hall, the company of ravens and the courtesy of wolves.

Her maidservants shuddered as they stepped out into the cold from the heat of the mead hall and drew their furs closer, but Elsa stood proud and tall as a mast. She breathed in the sea breeze, felt the chill through the fabric of her dress. The guards outside—Hans’s—gave her respectful nods as she passed and fell in after them.

In silence, they proceeded outside the village and climbed the Thing hill, a bare, rocky knoll overlooking the harbour. Her grandfather, King Rúnharðr Rauðskeggr, had erected a runestone there, praising his deeds, but Hans had allowed the painted runes to weather away, so that only faded carvings remained. As the women and their guards ascended the hill, they passed through the crowd that had already assembled: housecarls and freemen from all around the valley, some with their sons, wives and thralls in tow, all arrayed in festive garments according to their means. They ringed King Rúnharðr’s runestone like waves in a pond, but made way for them. Some nodded respectfully as she passed. Others—far more—hid their faces and would not look at her.

Jarl Hans Haraldsson, called Hans Suðeyingr, stood at the top of the knoll, leaning on the runestone. Part of Elsa bristled at the desecration, but she knew there was no point in protesting. Hans gave her a wide smile that looked disconcertingly genuine, and one of her companions gasped with barely-veiled delight at the sight. Elsa resisted the urge to scowl at the swooning girl—even she had to admit that Hans was handsome, the very image of a young hero. His flame-red hair and beard were elegantly braided with golden ringlets, his mail shirt merrily glittered in the morning light, and his clothes were richly embroidered with gold and silver thread. His father’s many crowns certainly did not hurt his appeal, even if he was the youngest and least storied of King Haraldr’s many sons. Yes, Hans’s smile had an uncanny ability to make women swoon and fluster, there was no denying it—except, of course, for his betrothed, the woman he had swornhis eternal love a hundred times.

Well, former betrothed. Hans spread his arms as she approached, his smile widening. Elsa scowled at him. She knew better than to be taken in by his smiles and promises. “There she is! I’m glad we did not need to drag you here in chains.” Without paying her any further heed, he looked around. “Men of Arnardalr, you have heard my charge, and I have presented my witnesses. Now hear what she has to say for herself.”

The lawspeaker of the Thing stepped forth from the crowd. She knew Kai Lǫgmaðr well—he had served her father as a housecarl, once. Of course, he had then gone on to serve Hans as a housecarl, but he was not a southerner like the others—a good and loyal man, and wise, just like Gerðr his wife. She thought he cared for her wellbeing, but she had the feeling that would not help her today. “Lady Elsa,” he addressed her darkly, “Jarl Hans has accused you before the thing of murdering your sister, Anna Agnarrsdóttir, by drowning her in the sea five years ago. How do you respond to the charge?”

Elsa ground her teeth. She had been thirteen when Anna—aged ten—had disappeared. That had been less than a year after the southerners had come. With their parents slain and their foes living in their hall, the sisters had only had each other. They’d been inseparable. Except for that day. Elsa could not even recall why she had been mad at her little sister—something foolish involving Hans, no doubt. She had always resented the way Anna had idolised the son of their parents’ killer for every little kindness he had thrown their way like scraps to his dogs. Some stupid argument had sent her running back to the village while playing in the woods, leaving Anna behind. Her sister had not returned that night, and days of searching had come up with nothing.

Many years, Elsa had held on to the hope that somewhere, somehow, Anna might still be alive. I would have felt it, she had told herself and any who would listen. But as the years passed, this certainty had faded away, leaving only a dull ache and yearning, and the dreams that robbed her of her sleep. They had never found the body, but there were all sorts of danger in the woods for a little girl, from wolves to brigands. It was no use thinking about it—only regret remained: that her last words to Anna had been spoken in anger, and that Anna had never been baptised. Elsa prayed that meant Anna had gone to Fólkvangr, as her parents had taught them, not hell.

“Lady Elsa?”

She startled at Kai’s voice. “I reject the charge,” she then said. “I swear by the Virgin that I am guiltless. Moreover, I accuse Hans Suðeyingr of perjury, and call him a liar.”

A gasp went through the crowd, but Kai nodded. “You have that right. What witnesses do you offer?”

Elsa lowered her head. This was it. “None.” The crowd murmured, and Hans chuckled quietly to himself. “But,” she raised her voice, “I do not need any. I challenge Hans Suðeyingr to defend his lies. Is there anyone here who will brave the holmgang for me?”

The crowd fell silent. She looked around at weathered warriors who had raided with her father and stripling boys who had never held a sword. God, please. “Is there no drengr who will fight for me?” There was no response, and her heart sank. “Hear then how I will reward my champion! He shall take everything my father owned. And—” She swallowed. She knew what she had to say, but that did not make it harder. “And if he pleases, he may take me to wife.”

Still, there was silence. Hans’s hot breath brushed over her shoulder and she shivered. “Sounds like no one wants your frigid little kunta, dear. They know who owns you.” Elsa wanted nothing more than to draw her knife and stab him. If she was to be killed as a kinslayer, she’d happily take him with her. Even so, she knew he wasn’t wrong—year after year, she had refused one of the most eligible bachelors in Norway. People talked.

Silence. Elsa hung her head.

“I’ll fight for her!” The high voice had come from the edge of the crowd, where the thralls and younger sons stood. “Oh, sorry—excuse me—coming through …” Her heart sunk. Then, it leapt, as a vision of her father emerged out of the crowd. No—not her father. Still, for a moment, she had been fooled. The stranger was beardless and scrawny, scarcely fifteen winters under his belt. He had her father’s bright copper hair, though, worn long and gathered in a ponytail at the back, and large, eager turquoise eyes. He was simply-dressed in a green tunic and blue leggings, and had a small axe on his belt and a shield slung around his shoulders. An iron broach in the shape of a swan held his cloak. She had never seen him before.

The stranger grinned at her with such obvious enthusiasm she found herself returning a faint smile, even as her heart sunk. No, you fool, she wanted to shout, Hans is going to carve you up like a slab of meat, but no words came across her lips.

“I will fight for you,” he repeated, and took her hand in his. She nearly flinched from the touch, from the warmth of his skin. “But there is something you must promise me first.”

“What?” The question died in her throat.

The grin disappeared. Bright turquoise eyes stared at her, insistent and piercing. His words were like an incantation. “Never shall you ask me, nor trouble yourself to know, whence I have come, nor what my name and clan.”

An outlaw, then. A fugitive thrall. She wanted to laugh in his face. She whispered: “I … swear it.”

The stranger beamed, pure bliss in his eyes. “I love you, Elsa,” he blurted out, rushed in and pressed his lips to hers. For a moment, she froze as warmth sent shivers down her entire body. Then, she stumbled, jumped away from the kiss. The stranger seemed utterly unperturbed, but her face—and her lips, and something else—burnt like fire. “Now hear, Hans Haraldsson!” he shouted so all could hear. “Elsa Agnarrsdóttir is without guilt or fault—let it be known to you through Valföðr’s choice!”

Later, Elsa could not have said why she had ever underestimated her champion. Hans was a mighty drengr and an experienced viking, true, but the stranger moved with the grace of a cat and attacked with the ferocity of a wolf. Three times they met upon the island, and three times the stranger’s axe cleft deep into Hans’s shield. When the third shield split, the first drops of blood flowed. “Through Odin’s word, your life belongs to me,” the stranger had called out, the blade of his axe at prone Hans’s throat, then helped him up to his feet. “Take it as my gift, and use it well.”

And then it was over.

Even as an outlaw, no one dared lay hands on Jarl Hans or his loyal housecarls, so he quietly left the valley. Part of Elsa wished she had gotten her revenge, but at least this way he was gone. That left the oath she had sworn to save her life.

She barely spoke to her drengr over the next three days as they feasted and drank. The stranger sat at the head of the table, talking to jarls and þegns thrice his age like he had been born to it, while Elsa sat silently at his side, poking at her food. She loathed the heat and smoke of the mead hall. The flickering fire at its centre made her eyes water, while the shouting and laughter of the guests felt like horses galloping through her skull. But every time she caught the eye of her betrothed, he would smile at her, eyes wide and bright, as though she was the most precious hoard in the nine worlds. He would say something, and more often than not it would make her laugh, and by the time another well-wisher or petitioner came up to the high table it was easier to bear.

After three days of feasting, it was time for the ceremonies. Her groom bade her farewell with a chaste kiss as they parted—him heading for the grove, Elsa for the church with the other Christians. It was no more than a brief peck on the cheek, and yet the spot his lips had touched burned for hours afterwards. Was this what it was supposed to feel like? A few boys had tried to kiss her in the past, not the least of which was Hans, but she had always been repulsed and nauseated by the sensation. This was … pleasant. It made her burn, yes, made her body heat up like all the fires of Múspellsheimr were burning in her chest. But maybe, just maybe, the warmth was not all that fearsome anymore.

All warmth fled when she saw Hans Suðeyingr, standing at the front of the church. With clenched fists, she took her place next to him as the priest began his liturgy. “You’re an outlaw, Hans,” she hissed once the sermon had begun. “What in Loki’s name are you doing here?”

Hans gave her a sardonic smile. “I could hardly miss the wedding, could I? I have to say, I didn’t think you’d have it in you. How long have you been letting that thrall boy do you behind my back?” Elsa wondered if God would punish her for stabbing a man to death during Mass. “No matter. Tell me, though, how did he beat me? Did your thrall mother teach you Finn seiðr, or did you fuck a boar for Vanadís?”

“Maybe you’re just not as formidable as you think,” she hissed back.

He only smiled at that, handsome and infuriating as ever. “We’ll see.” Then: “So, which is he? A thrall or an outlaw? If he were an honest man, he wouldn’t have forbidden you to ask his name.” He smirked. “We wouldn’t want people to think your boy toy had beaten me through magic or trickery rather than God’s judgment. Don’t you think he looks a bit Finnish? Ah, no matter. Just remember when you try to wash away his stench—you could have had a king’s son. Pater noster qui es …”

She went through the motions of Mass. Hans left her alone after this, but his words lingered. The stranger—her husband, by day’s end—was a nobody. He might as well be a Finnish sorcerer, though she did not think there was more of her mother’s people in him than in her. He had no allies, no housecarls, no clan that she knew of, nothing but what she brought into the marriage herself. And yet, he had fought like one of the einherjar, and spoke well and gracefully like a jarl’s son. Had his family fallen prey to a blood feud, like her own? Would his enemies come after him? Whatever the case, she had to know. He’ll tell me once we’re alone. He must.

Her groom and the other pagans of the valley awaited them as they left the church, keeping a respectful distance from the churchyard. The stranger, hands and cheek covered in the fresh blood of sacrificial victims, beamed when he saw her, and Elsa’s cheeks warmed. But then, his face fell as Hans stepped from the church behind her, and he hurried towards them. “And here comes your pet,” Hans drawled.

Her champion paid him no mind. “Is he bothering you, Elsa?”

She ground her teeth. “It’s fine. Hans was just leaving.”

Hans gave her groom a pleasant smile, as false as any he had ever shown her. A crowd of spectators, churchgoers and pagans both, had gathered around them. “I merely wanted to congratulate you on the wedding. It is not often a man so young, or so lowly, marries the daughter of a king.”

Her groom’s hand went to his axe. “You call me lowly, níðingr?”

Hans spread his arms as if to address the thing. “I call you a thrall, and a seiðmaðr, who on the holm blunted my axeblade with evil galdrar. You spared him this question before the shield-clash, so now let me ask it before all the people: what is your name, your clan, your rank?”

Part of Elsa felt oddly flattered that the stranger’s eyes immediately shot to her, even as the crowd around them gasped at the allegations. But she could not deny that the question had made her prick up her ears. Would she know her husband’s name after all?

“I need not justify myself to an outlaw and a perjurer,” her groom exclaimed, keeping his eyes on Elsa. She thought she could detect a faint quiver in his voice. “Even were you a king, I would owe you no response. There is but one I must answer. Elsa …” The words died on his lips as he stared at her, pleading.

She could end it all right now. The stranger might have powerful enemies, but she was certain he was nobly born. The judgment of the holmgang would stand. Hans would be still be outlawed, and she would be free of both men, free to—at last—inherit her father’s estate in her own right. The stranger would, no doubt, have to flee his foes, but … she barely knew him. What was he to her? Big, turquoise eyes looked at her, a faint, nervous smile. Warmth rose to her cheeks. She said: “You all saw his good deed and his manly mettle. I trust my—my husband.”

No one had looked at her like that in years, and as Elsa beheld the overwhelming love in his eyes, she felt very strange indeed.

And then, they were wed.

With the ale-horn emptied, the swords exchanged and her bridal crown removed, the revellers had wasted no time in escorting them to the bedchamber in a flurry of bawdy jokes and flirtatious banter. Her husband gave as good as he got, but by the time they were left on their own in the bridal chamber, Elsa was on the brink of panic. This was the part she had been dreading. The bedding—and the liberties some of the men had taken in relieving her of her outer garments—had not helped matters. She sat on the edge of the bed, decorated with flowers and ribbons, hugging herself despite the heat of the hall, her shoulders pulled almost up to her ears. She was dressed only in a wool shift, and felt naked and small.

Her husband closed the door behind the last of the revellers. Then, he sunk against it and exhaled a sigh. “Alone at last,” he muttered, and turned to look at her. “Elsa …” She retreated further into herself, and he sat by her side, carefully keeping a thumb’s distance from her body. “I won’t hurt you,” he whispered. “I won’t let anyone hurt you, ever again.”

“Of course,” she murmured. Quietly, she cursed herself—a sane woman would have counted herself lucky to have a husband so considerate, kind, even. This was simply part of the bargain. A sane woman would have taken Hans up on his offer. “Let’s … let’s get this over with, shall we?” That probably wasn’t what he’d been hoping to hear.

Her husband sighed. “Elsa …” Abruptly, he rose and unclasped the swan broach. His cloak dropped to the floor, and he pulled up his tunic … Elsa pressed her eyes shut. She did not need, nor want, to see this.

Eventually, the rustling of cloth ceased. “Elsa,” her husband said. His voice was low, gentle. With her eyes closed, she let her imagination run away with the sound of her name on his lips. To hear it spoken with such love and affection might have made her giddy with delight if it was not her husband speaking it. “Elsa, look at me, please.”

She forced open her eyes. Then, she gasped. Her husband’s body, naked but for a small silver necklace, was toned, every muscle well-defined. More scars were carved on his flesh like battle-runes than befitted one so young.

It was also, quite obviously, womanly. A pair of small, well-formed breasts speckled in freckles sat on her husband’s … wife’s? … chest, and a thin patch of red hair between … her … legs not only drew attention to what wasn’t there, but also made her body tingle. Instinctively, she pressed her thighs together. Her breath hitched. “You … you’re a …” The word died in her throat. A valkyrie? A seiðmaðr, like Hans had said?

“A woman,” her … spouse replied. “Like you.” The stranger knelt in front of her, took her hands. Elsa tried not to flinch from the touch, even as it sent shivers down her spine. She’d noticed herself reacting in this way to other women’s bodies before, but never with such intensity. No doubt, the solitude of the bridal chamber and her shock had heightened her emotions.

“Forgive me,” her naked drengr explained. “I’m sorry for the deception. I intended only to protect you, not rob you of a chance at marriage.” She bit her lip. “I understand if you’re alarmed, but I promise that I’m not going to touch you. If you like, we can …”

The words fled her lips unbidden, like an evil curse. “What if I want you to?” She shut her mouth and flushed. So did the stranger. God, what a fool she was—maybe if she played it off as a joke? She opened her mouth to respond …

Once more, her drengr’s lips found hers, and her whole body lit on fire.

“I … I love … ah!”

“You look conflicted.” They lay facing each other, their bodies bare, sore and hot. It had been some time since the flood of their passion had ebbed, and it felt as though a sword’s blade lay between them, as each had suddenly grown hesitant to touch the other.

Her drengr bit her lip at Elsa’s question. “I feel like we’ve made a terrible mistake,” she murmured.

“Maybe. But it was a good mistake.” Once more she noticed the freckle right between her lover’s eyes, which she had so enjoyed kissing.

The other woman remained silent, so Elsa reached across to take her small silver hammer pendant in her hand. Elaborate knotwork decorated Mjǫllnir’s head. She had once owned a similar piece, but it had been reforged into a crucifix after her conversion. “You keep the old gods?”

“As your father did.”

She startled. “You know of my father?”

Her ‘husband’ flushed as though caught in a lie. “I know men who sailed with Sea-King Agnarr Rúnharðsson. They told many tales of his exploits.” She grinned. “And of his beautiful daughter.”

Elsa hid her red face in the pillow. She was clearly teasing, but still. “My father had two daughters,” she muttered, quietly, then looked once more at her lover. What would Anna look like now, had she lived? It was difficult to square the child she remembered with the woman she might have become.

“It’s strange,” she whispered at last. “When I first saw you, it was like waking from a dream. You seemed so familiar. Like I have seen you every night of my life.”

“Elsa, let’s not … let’s not go there.” Somewhat hesitantly, where before there had been only eagerness, her drengr leant in to kiss her, gentle and chaste.

“I don’t even know what to call you.” Hearing her name on her lips always sent shivers down Elsa’s spine. She wished she could repay that. Sitting up, she looked down at her drengr. “Now that I know you’re a woman …”

“No.” The response fell like an axe-blow. More softly, she added: “I cannot tell you who I am. Just … just know that I am no thrall. I am your equal in every respect, and my home is glorious. If King Haraldr himself offered me his crowns, I would rightly scorn them.”

“So what is this?” Flames rose in Elsa’s chest. “Do you just go around the countryside, saving maidens for sport? Is that why you won’t tell me, because you’ll abandon me for your glorious home?”

The drengr jumped up. “Never …”

“Then tell me!” Tears welled in her eyes. Her lover seized her wrists, she struggled. “How can you claim to love me, when you won’t give me even that? How can I trust you’ll stay with me when every day I live in fear?”

“Elsa, please!”

“Tell me!” She freed herself, stumbled backwards, raised her finger at her. “Tell me your name!”

“Stop!”

“Whence you have come!”

“I beg of you!”

“And what is your clan!”

The woman staggered as if struck by a hammer-blow, collapsed on the side of the bed, hid her face. Elsa lowered her outstretched finger. Hot tears streamed down her cheeks.

“Woe,” the drengr whispered, “woe to our bliss.”

Once more, they dragged her out to the thing hill. This time, it was the woman who only yesterday had made her feel like a goddess who stood before King Rúnharðr’s stone. There was nothing but disgust in the eyes of the men around her, disgust for her, the oathbreaker who had asked the forbidden question, even as Elsa stood in the mud and snow unable to look her beloved in the face. “I could refuse Hans,” her drengr said, her voice flat, “but never you.” She closed her eyes. “Hear then how I answer her forbidden question—and hear if I am not as noble as you.”

“In a distant land, far across the swan-field’s roar, there stands a fortress which is ‘Jómsborg’ called. Five score ships lie at anchor in her harbour, and a thousand men feast always in her mead hall, who call themselves Jómsvikingar. Of their number, one in ten goes bear-skinned, one in ten wears the skin of Viðrir’s hounds, and one in a score with boar-skin bristles. Each of their ranks is blooded in the sword-din, and many men to Valhöll they have sent. Those who from Jómsborg go a-viking, who fight in foreign fields for fame and wealth, bring glory to them all.

“Now hear how I honour my wife’s forbidden question: a Jómsvikingr am I, raised from childhood on. My fathers were Brynjulfr Sløngvandbaudi, who killed Fúlnir Ímisson on Orkneyjar, Engill Rúmfari, who died in Grikkland, and Strut-Haraldr, who taught me manly arts of war. But before that, I was sat on the knee of Styrbjǫrn Ólafsson, known as Styrbjǫrn Sterki, who rules as jarl in Jómsborg.

“When I was a child of ten, I was lost in the woods and set upon by three wolves. I grasped a sharp rock with which I slew one and drove off another, but the third would have killed me, had not Styrbjǫrn Sterki found and saved me. He took me to Jómsborg and raised me a Jómsvikingr. I was an orphan girl ere he made me a shieldmaiden, as I am now. My mother’s name was Iðunnr in Finna, who was the freedwoman and wife of my father, King Agnarr Rúnharðsson, but I myself am Anna Agnarrsdóttir called!”

Elsa hung her head, and Anna left.

“I wasn’t sure you’d come.”

“Me neither,” Elsa confessed. Anna grinned at that and pulled her into a deep embrace. Her body was warm, soft, inviting. “But I am here.”

The snow on the holm creaked under their feet as they gathered their things. “You didn’t bring much,” Anna pointed out. “It’s a long journey to Jómsborg.”

Elsa gave her a faint smile. “I had to pack in a hurry. Besides …” she leant in to kiss her—chastely on the cheek, for now. There would be time to renegotiate their new relationship later. “I’ve got my sister back. That’s all I need.”

A cold north wind flew over the holm, tearing through their cloaks, and Elsa shivered. “I ought to have brought more furs,” she said.

Anna smirked at her, and that smirk shone more brightly in the night than Surtr’s sword. “That’s alright,” she said. “I’ll keep you warm.”

#elsanna #submission #december 2020 contest #prompt: warmth #cw: animal sacrifice #cw: blood

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graysongraysoff · 2 years ago

Text

we did it gamers

links to individual works under the cut:

Day 1. Adverse Effects Red Hood gets hit with Scarecrow’s fear toxin.

Day 2. Caged | Cornered | Confrontation Bruce and Dick are about to be cornered by the police. Dick insists that Bruce leave him and his broken leg behind, but Bruce hesitates.

Day 3. Gun to Temple Red Hood meets the new kid.

Day 4. Hidden Injury Bruce rushes into the Batcave with an injured Dick in tow. Only later does Alfred realize that Bruce doesn't look so good, either.

Day 5. Running Out of Air Dick struggles uselessly against the weights pulling him down below the water, hoping Bruce will get to him before it's too late.

Day 6. Ransom Video Bruce Wayne's 13-year-old ward is kidnapped. Not long after, the kidnappers post a ransom video online.

Day 7. Shaking Hands | Silent Panic Attack After Conner Kent's death, Tim Drake is coming apart at the seams.

Day 8. Back from the Dead The mindless, fear-addled thing that emerged from the Lazarus Pit in Jason Todd’s body wakes up in a room he doesn't recognize and is interrogated by a voice he cannot place.

Day 9. Protect In Bruce's final moments he's protecting his son.

Day 10. Made to Watch “And I thought, what better way to celebrate my relationship with Robin — or, I’m sorry, I know you’ve taken up my old moniker now, yet another bond the two of us share — but I thought, what better way to celebrate than with a reenactment of our fondest memory together?”

Day 11. Sloppy Bandages | Self-Done First Aid After the Joker uses Tim to stage a reenactment of Jason's death, Jason assesses the damage and helps him out as best he can.

Day 12. Stabbed It isn’t until his blade slides home that Damian senses that something is wrong. Silky laughter slinks into his ears; Poison Ivy’s laughter. His blood runs cold. He’d been fighting one of her mutant plants — her most advanced cultivation yet. It must have taken her ages to perfect it, to create a monster that could hold its own for as long as it had against a combatant like Damian Wayne. She should be furious… what does she know that he doesn’t?

Day 13. Fracture Dick Grayson tried to play Two-Face's game and lost, and now he has to pay the price for biting off more than he could chew.

Day 14. Carried to Safety Bruce rushes a gravely injured Dick Grayson back to the Batcave.

Day 15. Lies After his daughter dies as Batgirl, Commissioner Gordon promises he isn't going to let anyone else's children meet the same fate.

Day 16. Mind Control Dick regains consciousness as Jason is trying to get him back to the Batcave so his injuries can be treated, but it doesn't take Dick long to realize that something isn't right.

Day 17. Dazed and Confused Bruce wakes up in the hospital to find his mother beside him, despite the fact that she died decades ago.

Day 18. “Take my coat.” Officer Jim Gordon attempts to take Bruce Wayne's statement on the night of his parents' murder.

Day 19. Repeatedly Passing Out | Head Lolling Jason brings a battered Tim back to the Batcave for Alfred to patch up.

Day 20. Tears The Joker sets a bomb in Sheila Haywood’s agency warehouse, but this time Bruce arrives in time to save Jason — at the cost of his own life.

Day 21. “You’re safe now.” Bruce comforts Jason after Jason wakes from a nightmare. At least, he thinks he does.

Day 22. Pick Your Poison | Toxic Dr. Crane asks Poison Ivy why they’ve never teamed up. Ivy gives him a clear, concise answer.

Day 23. Tied to a Table | “Hold them down.” The Joker has teamed up with Jervis Tetch, and together they’ve come up with a game for Bruce and his boys to play.

Day 24. Blood Covered Hands Commissioner Gordon fails to comfort Bruce Wayne after Dick Grayson dies to protect him.

Day 25. Lost Voice Bruce Wayne talks to Dick Grayson after his parents’ tragic deaths.

Day 26. “Why did you save me?” | Birthday Wild Card! Yuji eats the last of Sukuna’s fingers and Megumi carries out his execution.

Day 27. Muffled Screams Dick reflects on his growing fondness for the new Robin as he rescues him from a band of thugs.

Day 28. Anger Born of Worry Dick's life slips through Bruce's fingers.

Day 29. Sleep Deprivation Dick hasn’t been able to sleep. Bruce offers to help.

Day 30. Hair Grabbing Bruce is under Jervis Tetch’s mind control, leaving Dick on the receiving end of Batman’s uninhibited strength. Jason has to decide between killing Bruce or watching Bruce kill Dick.

Day 31. Comfort Dick wakes from a nightmare about his parents. Bruce comforts him.

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monsieur-fancy-hat · 5 years ago

Note

How abt an AU where dazai and chuuya are in the mafia together and atsushi and akutagawa are in the ADA

Send me some characters and an AU for me to write headcanons/prompts for.

Ended up rewriting this like twice but I hope you enjoy!!

Some parts of it were taken from the canon BSD AU light novel, BEAST.

Ages during the backstory:

Akutagawa Ryuunosoke- 11 or 12

Nakajima Atsushi- 8 or 9

Akutagawa Gin- 8 or 9

Dazai Osamu- 16 or 17

Nakahara Chuuya- 16 or 17

Odasaku- 20 or 21

Let’s start with Akutagawa and Atsushi’s backstory!!

Akutagawa and Gin have a mother. She abused them, because she believed that she had to work three times harder to take care of them as she was a single mom. She also hated the kids for looking so eeriely like the fathers (cause half-siblings).

So after a while, Akutagawa and Gin fun away from home. They take as much cash as they feel comfortable with, take important belongings (weapons), a coat given to Akutagawa by his father, and other necessities.

The end up in the slums for a while, before an orphanage takes them in. They’re far away enough from their mother that it’s pretty much safe. But the orphanage learns about the mother and stuff. And they decide that maybe they should go into the foster care system? The orphanage isn’t sure right now, so they just let the kids stay.

So Akutagawa and Gin stay at the orphanage. They’re kinda loners, cause they don’t talk to people besides themselves. Some kids believe that Gin is mute (so they make fun of her) and Akutagawa -even at the delicate age of 12- has a death glare that makes grown adults run. So he uses it o the bullies. And if he’s not around... well, Gin has her way of taking care of things (stabby stabby).

But one day, this mysterious guy talks to Akutagawa. This mysterious man starts talking ‘nonsense’ about special powers and stuff. He also explains that Akutagawa might have some.

Akutagawa doesn’t believe the mysterious guy.

But a week later Gin was cornered in a alley by a college kid, who was trying to do.... non-consenting inappropriate things to her. And Gin, being Gin, had a knife out and was about to stabby stabby, when this random kid jumps on the college dude.

And he starts trying to hang onto the college guy by his neck and yelling for help

And Gin is just stand there wondering what the heck is going on

The orphanage staff rush into the alley to see a white-haired kid biting a college dude (who is still trying to shake him off) and a little girl, who kinda looks like a ninja, slipping what they think looks like a knife into a pocket.

They bring the police to arrest the college dude.

Everyone is wondering why he has cat-like scratches on his back and tiger bites on his neck.

Gin is interested by the white haired kid (which, you know, Atsushi) and brings him to join her tiny friend group.

Akutagawa, not a huge fan of him...

And apparently, neither are the orphanage staff.

Atsushi’s 8 or 9, Gin is 8 or 9, and Akutagawa is around 12.

Akutagawa and Gin get the least abused by the staff, cause they are great at not getting into trouble.

I mean, Gin was scolded a couple times for the incidents (“You shouldn’t have run off on your own! And if you’re gonna run away, then don’t come back!!”). But that’s pretty much it.

Atsushi, on the other hand.... let’s just say that the staff have some problems with him.

Gin (and sometimes Akutagawa) usually patch Atsushi up though, so he’s not alone!

They become decently good friends. Woohoo!

But Akutagawa starts thinking that Atsushi is secretly a tiger. Cause bite marks. Also cause he heard rumors that there was a white tiger around the orphanage grounds.

So he meets up with the mysterious guy, and tries to get some answers. Cause he wouldn’t want Gin to be hanging out with someone who could hurt her. That’s a no-no.

Sadly, mysterious guy hasn’t heard about this either. So... oof.

So one night, Akutagawa gets waken up by something crashing outside.

He puts on his coat and decides to go check it out, correctly thinking it’s the tiger.

Atsushi-tiger (he’s a baby tiger, just so ya know), seeing Akutagawa, goes to attack him.

And Akutagawa hears someone shout “Use your ability!!”

Akutagawa is kinda confused, and kinda angry, so he just says the first thing that comes to mind (He remembers that when he was younger, really really young, his father would show him how he sewed cloth together. How many shades of black you could use, and all the different styles. Mr. Akutagawa showed his son one of his favorite pieces, a black coat. He named it Rashomon. Cause I need this story to make a bit of sense.)

“RASHOUMON!”

Boom

Parts of his coat fly towards the tiger, trapping him.

But it can’t hold him for long, and Atsushi springs right back at him.

But mystery guy comes in the middle of them, and activates his ability.

“No longer human.”

In a flash of white light, Atsushi is found on one side, laying face-down bottom-up on the floor.

Akutagawa was standing on the other side.

Mystery guy offered Akutagawa a place to belong. A place to go home to. He even said Gin & Atsushi could come, if Akutagawa wanted.

And Akutagawa doesn’t know what to think.

Thankfully, he doesn’t have to, cause ANOTHER MYSTERY GUY COMES OVER

He has dark red hair, and a beige trench coat.

And he seems to recognize mystery guy #1.

“Dazai, is that you?” “Oh! Hi there Oda! Isn’t this a surprise. I’ll be taking the kids and leaving now, if you don’t mind!”

Yup. It’s Dazai and Oda!

Also, FYI, Oda does mind. Cause Dazai left the A.D.A. a couple months ago and no one has had any contact with him ever since.

Oda is upset and wants Dazai to come back. And Dazai... doesn’t give a damn.

They have a standoff-staredown.

And while they do that, Akutagawa goes over to Atsushi to check if he’s alive and okay.

Dazai and Oda fight, but Dazai can’t bring himself to kill Oda and leaves alone.

Which leaves Oda with an uncounsious Atsushi and a tired Akutagawa.

Oda decides that he should take these kids in. So he goes to the orphanage the next day and adopts Atsushi.

And Atsushi is sad cause he thinks he’ll be separated from Gin and Akutagawa.

Which is oof.

But Oda ends up fostering the Akutagawa’s.

So he just ends up with 3 more kids. Woohoo!! And the other kids too, but they’re all younger than them (3-4 at the time).

So Oda has his hands VERY full. Too nice.

He brings them to the A.D.A.

And Kunikida scolds Oda cause “You were supposed to be looking for that bandaged idiot! Not going around taking in more kids!!”.

But Oda interrupts him and says, “I talked to Dazai.”

And everyone goes quiet for a minute. Cause if Oda spoke to Dazai and he still won’t come back, it’s over.

Dazai has defected from the Armed Dectetive Agency.

Oda spends his time training Atsushi and Akutagawa. They’re both young and a bit confused about what’s going on (“What the... I’M A TIGER?!” “Yes, Jinko, we know.”)

But they all get along quite well, so yay!

The trio grow up together, and they eventually become official members of the A.D.A. Gin is an assistant.

She, Naomi, and Haruno become friends. Gin is still closest to Atsushi though.

And that’s their [back]story.

But now... it’s time for Dazai’s!

So, Dazai & Oda went to school together. Dazai had a not-so-great home life, so moved away at 16.

He lived by himself for a month or two, living off weird part-time jobs. Due to his smarts, he managed to skip two grades. So he’s a freshman in college. I think.

And Oda is in his third year of college.

Dazai lived at the school dorms, cause he got a full-ride scholarship. Cause smart.

Dazai has known about his powers for a while. Some weird doctor guy went to him and tried to get him to join some mafia thing, but Oda advises him to not.

So he doesn’t. But he is interested.

Dazai & Oda end up in the A.D.A.

And Oda has a great time there. He likes the people. He has fun. It’s great.

But Dazai... nope. He hates it. He can’t suicide attempt without someone being there to stop him, he can’t wear bandages without being sent to Yosano to get a check up, he can’t even be gone for a day without being chased down by Kunikida or Oda, wondering where the he’ll he’s been.

Dazai is bored and sick of the A.D.A.

So he leaves.

After a huge argument with Oda, Dazai leaves. And Mori, predicting this would happen, appeared to say “I told you so.”

And so Dazai, at the young age of 16, is taken in by the Port Mafia.

And he’s pretty good at it too!

He loves playing mind games and doing interrogations and killing people who NEVER SEE IT COMING~ (sorry, wrong fandom-) and just being evil~

A couple months later, he’s on track to become a executive. He’s already a sub-executive under Kouyou.

But then, Fifteen (Well, it’s more like Sixteen...) happens

And Dazai meets the cutest redhead he’s ever seen in his life.

Also Dazai is a kinky man has a thing for gloves.

ALSO MOTORCYCLE & CHUUYA

So of course Dazai is in love intrigued by the tiny sixteen year old.

“What the f*ck I’m still growing!!”

“Sureeeeeee-”

“F*ck off.”

“So creative, Chuu~”

“I will torture you until you die from the pain and then I’ll burn you and chop up your ashes and scatter them in the sea so that there’s no way you can come back.”

“Oh. Sounds like fun!! I mean, excluding the pain part, I’d love to die with you~”

“...why are you like this?”

Since Mori is a sadist and Dazai, a masochist, Chuuya and Dazai become partners.

“Please NO.”

“Please yes~”

And they were roommates.

oH mY gOd thEy wEre rOommAteS

[cough cough] ANYWAYS

Chuuya and Dazai become partners. They murder people.

Dazai thinks it’s fun, and Chuuya can’t help but go along with Dazai’s shenanigans. Chuuya is very in love annoyed.

The two become a feared duo, but some who know them personally (Kouyou, Mori, & Hirotsu) know that they’re really just lovestruck teens.

It’s really cute.

And que the next backstory!

So. Chuuya’s backstory. I tried making up a new one for him, but I didn’t want to diverge too much from canon, so his is pretty much the same.

Now, the plot. Well, it’s more somewhat connected headcanons that plot, so... oof. The backstories all happened 10 years ago, so everyone is 10 years older than they were before.

Ages:

Atsushi- 18-19

Akutagawa- 21-22

Gin- 18-19

Dazai- 26-17

Chuuya- 26-27

Oda- 30-31

So. Atsushi is going grocery shopping, yeah?

And Chuuya is also grocery shopping, yeah?

And they bump into each other. And Atsushi doesn’t recognize him, but Chuuya remembers from one of Dazai’s drunk ramblings about trying to recruit some white tiger kid and a black coat?

Either way, Chuuya doesn’t really care. But he decides to tell Dazai once he’s home.

But only after he finished shopping for some fresh, non-canned crab.

But as he’s picking out a crab, the grocery store gets attacked by some ability users.

Oof.

And Chuuya doesn’t want to intervene (and risk his identity/secrecy to the public, who have limited knowledge of ability users).

But white-tiger Atsushi just goes flying towards one of the robbers.

And Chuuya knows.

So obviously, he tells Dazai. And Dazai, being Dazai, pretends he doesn’t remember.

Later, he goes to visit the A.D.A.

To see his ‘replacements’.

But he’s super chill about it.

And by ‘chill’, I mean smiley-evil. Like when he was talking to Mori during the A.D.A. & P.M. meeting (in canon).

Atsushi and Akutagawa are a mix of confused and worried.

And Akutagawa is lowkey wondering why the heck this random guy, who looks suspiciously familiar.

And ohhhh it’s that guy who tried to kidnap him a few years ago!

Wait. It’s the guy who tried to kidnap him a few years ago.

And Akutagawa takes Atsushi and they leave the A.D.A. building.

They end up on a we’re-denying-that-this-is-a-date-but-it-really-is.

But like they’re obviously lowkey dating, so yeah-

Like come on, Gin has been shipping this since she was like 9.

Also Dazai (after getting in a fight with with Oda, again oof), on his way home, he sees Atsushi & Akutagawa on the way back, and thinks of his boyf riend~~

And Dazai ships it SO HARD!!

But he first must go home to Chuu~

And that’s all I can think of right now. Also I really wanna get this posted cause it’s super late. I also gotta start the others. ;-;

HOPE YOU ENJOYED IT!! ♥️

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chocojjk · 6 years ago

Text

Eggs

summary: badboy! changbin if you squint

words: 7k

warnings: one mention of death by illness

a/n: this took way too long cause i got so lazy lmfao, slide into my inbox with prompts cause idk what to write after this

not edited per usual, im lazy :(((

you and changbin lived in different worlds

changbin has always been the schools most notorious bad boy

along with his group, 3racha

he was the typical bad boy -- gets into fights, wears leather, barely shows up to class, etc.

after watching countless of rom-coms, you and i, reader, should know that bad boys like to keep to themselves

and they won't bother you unless you cross their territory, not at all different from changbin

someone bullies one of his friends???

you might as well run now , because he will be coming for your ass

he catches you talking shit?

you should probably say goodbye to your mouth and have a doctors appointment ready

the point im trying to make is that seo changbin does not take shit from anyone

which doesn't really matter at this point because everyone has learned to fear him

on the other hand, you're, what they say is a “good girl”

too caught up with your books and your grades, in the library 24/7, worrying too much about the future you envision

you stayed away from drama as much as possible, happy with the 2-3 friends that you have

and,,,

well,,,

you probably saw this coming,, but just in case you didnt, ill say it

your two different worlds are about to collide

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

youve been searching for a little over 20 minutes to where he could be when you finally spotted him at the table all way in the back of the library

you let out the deepest sigh, you shouldve figured he would choose that table jfc

‘he really is sticking to his reputation’ you think to yourself as you made your way over to him

“hi, im y/n, i'm your tutor,” you say, giving him a soft smile

changbin doesn't even bother to reply to you as he got up and left

you were left standing there like,,,

what the fuck just happened ??

before you finally snapped out of your confused trance and chased after him

catching up to him you grab his arm, putting a complete halt to his movement

and suddenly the library was even quieter than it should be

every single eye in the room focused on the interaction that lies in front of them

the notorious bad boy and the goody two shoes,,, how incredibly cliche

he looks at you, his eyes dark and unreadable

the expression on his face was emotionless yet it felt like he was crushing you under his stare

finally noticing that your hand was still gripped around his arm, you quickly let go, letting out a small “ehem”

the tension in the air was thick, it felt like someone just put a dark cloud above your head and you couldn’t blow it away

god damn this was awkward

not even the good awkward where you can laugh about it later, this is the kind of awkward situation that hits you in the middle of the night and suddenly you're just cringing at every bad thing you have done in the past

“uhm, im suppose to tutor you,” you try to say confidently as soon as you found your voice, but really it was barely above a whisper

“maybe show up on time,” he says, his voice as dark and as strong as his aura

and with one final look at you, he walked out of there

you didnt bother anymore, you knew you were at fault

‘we’ll try again tomorrow,’ you think to yourself before your best friend, hyunjin walked up to you, pulling you outside the library

“dude are you okay?”

“uhmm, why wouldn’t i be?”

“i just saw you talking to changbin”

“ok and ?”

“he’s bad news y/n,” your best friend says, warning you

“ i dont really have a choice hyunjin” you reply

you think back to 3 days ago when you were called to the principal's office

not gonna lie, you were shaking in your boots,, only bad kids get randomly sent to the principal's office

as you entered the room, Mrs. Seo was already waiting for you behind her desk

“hi ms. l/n, i dont think weve formally met,” she says, reaching out to shake your hand

“ its nice to meet you”

“ please, sit down, make yourself comfortable,” she continued, pointing to the seat right in front of her

sensing your nervousness she quickly added a, “don't worry, you're not in trouble”

phew

your brain was starting to hurt from trying to rack what you must have done wrong to be seated in the big office

“ why am i here then if you don't mind me asking?”

“ ah yes, i need you to tutor my son”

,,,,,

(◎_◎;)

,,,

“umm, why me?”

“you're top 1 in the class, is there anyone better than you to do it?”

well,,, she wasn't wrong

you mentally pat yourself at the back for this, happy that your efforts were being noticed

“don't worry ms. l/n, if you succeed, i’ll make sure you get into any college that you desire “

‘pshhhh, im top 1 ms seo, i can do that on my own’ you think to yourself

“....and fully paid for.”

well, shit , how can you say no to that offer

its literally free education right in your fingertips

what's the catch??

“ you can do that?” you ask

“ of course. i know very important people. so what do you say?”

and after a few minutes of contemplating within yourself, you finally agreed

“ also, while you're at it, i want you to change my son's reputation.”

and there it is

“ i'm sorry?” you reply,, maybe you just misheard the fact that she literally asked you to change her son

“ i don't just want you to tutor him in english, i want you to make him a better person.”

“how do you expect me to do that?”

“be his friend. teach him the ways of life, i'm not always gonna be around to get him out of trouble. You're a smart girl ms. l/n you'll figure it out.”

without giving you a final say, she ushered you out of there but not before she added

“ one last thing ms. l/n, dont tell anyone about this.”

the way she said it was so scary, and its like a spell was casted on you and you could only utter out an

“ of course mam”

i guess from her standpoint, she made sense

“ i just dont understand why Mrs. Seo chose you out of all the people”

“ we’ve already gon over this hyunjin”

“ yeah yeah, its cause youre the smartest of the class-”

hyunjin continues to talk however you’ve tuned him out as your eyes went to focus on changbin, himself

greeting the rest of his friends, an actual smile on his face, much different from the changbin you encountered a couple minutes ago

he gets up on his motorcycle and was about ready to put his helmet on when he felt someone staring at him ( i told yall, tYpiCAl bad boy )

he whips his head around in quick search for the culprit

and for the second time that day, you found yourself looking in the dark brown eyes of the the one and only, seo changbin

his smile quickly disappearing once he found your eyes

putting on his helmet whilst still maintaining the eye contact, he quickly drove away and you can't help but continue to just watch his figure retreat to the size of a dot until he was completely away from your line of vision

the next day - friday

you were in the library, seated in the table changbin used the day before

unlike yesterday, you were there dummy early

exactly 30 minutes before the actual tutoring session

he wasn't going to get away this time

finally , the chair across from you gets occupied, a backpack loudly flopping its way unto the table

he doesn't say a word,

he doesn't even look at you

he just sits there, staring at the table between you guys

“uhm, i think we got on the wrong foot yesterday, im y/n”

you say, a wide smile on your face, trying to change the atmosphere

he scoffs at this

‘omyfuckinggod who does he think he is’

‘im gonna fucking murder this kid’

‘his mom was right when he said he needed to change’

as much as you wanted to just punch him in the face, you plastered a small smile on your face instead

“should we start?” you continue

“i guess”

for the next hour, you learn that changbin doesn’t even need tutoring

he was definitely smarter than he lead on

he knew the answer to every single question you asked and didnt even seem like he was trying

“uhmm, changbin can i ask you something?”

he just nods at you, urging you to go on

“are you failing your class on purpose?”

and with that he stands up, giving you a small smirk, “i think this session is over,”

“i-okay- i-i’ll see you on monday!” you say even though he was already a good 5 feet away from you

-----------

as you laid in your bed that night, you wondered why the boy chose to fail his class

but no matter what scenario you could think of, you just cant understand it

is this what privileged people do ?

they know that they can get away with anything so they dont even try ?

‘aish, why am i thinking about him,’

‘y/n stop it’

‘ahhhhh’

you tried forcing yourself to sleep, to completely shut off all thoughts

but damn that stupid smirk on his face just keeps reappearing

and with that you slapped your pillow unto your face, not at all excited for the days to come

saturday night - 9 pm

to be honest, you weren't the type to go out on a saturday night

however you stayed in bed the whole day binging your netflix shows that you completely forgot to run your errands

so now you're here, at the local supermarket, buying your weekly groceries

you may be asking why can't your parents just do it?

well,,,

you only live with your mom, and she was very busy running the night shift at the hospital + picking up extra shifts

so she's really never home

and when she is, she crashes right to sleep, exhausted from work

so ever since two years ago, when you turned 16, this has been the life that you were used to

you weren't complaining of course, she was only working to provide for you and your future

the least you could do is help around the house

after a good 7 minutes, you finally gathered everything that you needed

eggs, check

bread, check

peanut butter, check

a bag of hot cheetos,,,, check check and check

you nodded, proud of yourself for finishing it so fast and made your way to your car until a loud crash stops you from doing so

the next thing you know, you were being dragged into the alleyway

“1!!!!1111! I- get off of me,” you say thrashing and kicking, trying to get away

‘oh god, im gonna die tonight,’

‘if there is a god out there,, pls,,, not tonight’

‘i haven't finished my netflix series yet,, plssss’

however your thoughts were cut short when your captor whispered, “shhh, its changbin”

changbin??

chaNgbIN???

chANGBIN???

he finally turns you around, making you face him

“play along if you don't want to get hurt,”

and in one quick motion, his lips were on yours,,,

seo changbin was kissing you

your eyes open, stunned at what was happening

and then you noticed it...5 men walking around the area

and hoping that you've watched the right dramas, you pieced together what you think is happening

leading you to closing your eyes and kissing him back

which honestly caught changbin off guard, “good girls” dont react this way???

but he’d never let you know that, as he pulled you closer to him,

his arms snaking around your waist

your hands going around his neck, the grocery bag being forgotten

yall were full on making out now

too caught up with each other’s taste to even notice the 5 guys leaving

(((im really bad at writing these kinds of scenes jfc, this sounds awkward as hell pls just picture it)))

until finally after like 23823 years, you pulled away, trying to catch your breath

damn, that kiss was good

probably the best one you’ve ever had

what????

just cause you're a goody-two-shoes doesn't mean you haven't been kissed before okay,,, were not going THAT cliche

he slowly lets go of you, his eyes darting to the grocery bag on the ground

“your eggs are broken,” he says

“m-my eggs?”, you reply, still on cloud nine,

following his gaze, you snapped out of your daze

“oh, r-right, my eggs,” you say softly, a frown making its way upon your face

changbin grabs your hand, pulling you towards the grocery store

“what are you doing?”

as usual, he doesn’t reply

honestly, you should be used to this by now

he dashes around the supermarket

you were right behind him, trying to keep up with his fast paced speed

finally, he gets to his location, the egg aisle

“which one do you want?”

“what?”

“eggs, which one?” he replies

“uhm, you don't have to, i can ju-”

“i'm not doing this for you,” he replies, cutting you off

you looked at him , not knowing what he meant

‘if he wasn't doing it for me then who the fuck is he buying these eggs for, i don't see anyone else here’

sensing your dumbness he grabbed a carton of the most expensive eggs and made his way to the cashier, pulling you along

and you don't know why, or what has gotten into you, but all you could do was watch and follow

“here. were even now.” he says, before walking away, leaving you in front of the grocery store, holding a carton of eggs

monday

and now we’re back to the start of the week

which means another week of tutoring

as you waited for changbin to show up at the usual spot, you can’t help but think back to two nights ago

the feeling of his lips against yours all a distant memory yet at the same time, one that you could still remember clearly

“hey,” changbin says, breaking you out of your thoughts

“hi?” you reply, confused as to why he even greeted you in the first place

you guys do the usual, read a couple of flash cards, learn new words blah blah blah and all that boring crap that you learn in a high school English class

at one point you guys find yourself just sat in silence, and you can’t help but ask the question that’s been on your mind since Saturday night

“so who were those guys?”

“doesn’t concern you”

“uhm, the fact that you had your tongue down my mouth says otherwise,”

changbin was shocked, he wasn’t used to people responding to him the way you just did

don’t you know who he is???

he gives you one of his signature smirks, regaining his composure

“you liked my tongue being down your throat,” he says teasingly

o_O

＜(。_。)＞

excuse me what

is he flirting with you ??

what’s happening ??

“who said I did?” you say mimicking his tone, not allowing yourself to back down of this conversation

after Saturday night you told yourself that you were never going to just watch and follow

if you didn’t want the damn egg, you should’ve said something, you were so disappointed in yourself

you had your own brain, you can make your own decisions

besides you were here to be in control over him, not the other way around

“oh cmon, you’re really gonna try to refute it??” he says, the stupid smirk still evident on his stupid face

god, how you wish you could just smack it off

with your mouth

wait, who said that???

“you enjoyed it just as much as I did,” you say, knowing that if you answer then he would stop

and you were right, he completely shut his mouth and let the silence envelop you once again

“they were kids from another school,”

you look up at him, shocked that he actually answered

“why were they looking for you?”

“I may have keyed their car,” he says chuckling

“Because?”

“Isn’t that enough questions y/n?”

y/n

that was the first time he’s ever said your name

and you weren’t gonna lie, you liked how it sounded

“sorry”

“it’s fine”

“i don’t want to question it but why are you being so nice?”

“you helped me out without questioning me which means you trust me. im just returning the favor.”

“so, what im hearing is , you trust me?”

<(￣︶￣)>

“don’t make me have to say it out loud”

trust

you don’t know how you did it so quickly,

maybe the gods are at your side, but you finally got thE seo changbin to trust you

2 weeks later

you’ve been tutoring changbin just the same

same time

same table

same library

however, so much has changed

mostly the dynamic of your guys’ relationship

it was like he was a totally different person

like I said before, changbin was smart

but in these last couple of days, you realized just how smart he actually was,

he can honestly probably give you a run for your money

and because of this, your past tutoring sessions have ended up with you guys just laughing and joking around

weird, right ?

changbin and laughing ?

who would’ve thought ??

even onlookers were surprised

and everytime changbin laughed at one of your guys’ silly antics, you swear you can hear a pin drop

the whole room just becomes silent

at first, it bothered you how people were just listening in to your conversation, obviously judging the scene

but as the days went by and it seemed that changbin could care less, you started not caring either

and if you were being completely honest, you looked forward to spending time with him

when changbin was with you, it was just you and changbin, nothing else

he somehow manages to make you forget about reality

“lets ditch tutoring sessions today,” he says as soon as he took the seat next to you

“changbin, no”

“c’mon y/n, live a little”

“excuse you! I do have a life!”

“making out with your homework and watching Netflix shows 24/7 is not a life”

“okAy, now you’re just being mean,” you say, pouting at him

“im not being mean, I’m being honest,”

“yeAH and?? no one asked for your honesty,”

changbin laughs at this

lately he found himself laughing more

and for once, he didn’t mind it

you were doing something to him

and he liked it

“cmon, I’m not taking no for an answer,” he says, packing up your things

you sigh in defeat

you know that once changbin sets his mind to something, there's no changing it

so here you are, standing in front of an abandoned music building

“uhhhh, what are we doing here?”

“have you ever trespassed before?” he replies, a smug smile on his face

“nu-uh nope, no way in hell changbin!” you say, your attempt to stop this from happening

however, changbin was already making his way towards the door, completely breaking the lock

aannnndd

he was inside

“c’mon y/n,” he says reaching out his hand to yours

even though all you need to do is take two steps forward and you're officially a criminal

you were scared shitless

what happens if you get caught omg

almost like he was reading your mind, he quickly says, “y/n, ive been here over a million times and ive never gotten caught,”

“i dont know changbin”

“hm, thats too bad, i wanted to share a secret with you,” he says, a hint of playfulness in his voice before he stepped out of the building and made his way towards his motorcycle

but of course,,,

you being a nosy bitch

“wait,”

“yes?”

“lets go inside”

you guys enter the building, the rooms getting darker and darker the deeper you go (this building is huge okAY)

if you weren't shitting your pants before, you definitely are now

an abandoned building???

and its dark???

youve seen this in every scary movie out there

it never goes well

“uhm changbin,” you whisper, as you guys continue to walk

“hm”

“i-um can i hold your hand? im scared and - actually you know what its fine its dumb you dont hav-”

but before you can even finish your sentence, his hand were already laced around yours, providing you the comfort and security that you were looking for

you shut your mouth after that, just letting changbin lead the way

passing by so many rooms, each one looking the same as the other, it was starting to feel like a maze

however , changbin seemed to know exactly where to go

‘I guess he has been here over a million times’ you thought to yourself

“were here,” he says, opening the door and letting go of your hands as he reached out for the lights

not gonna lie, you were missing the way his hand felt around yours but thats not the time to think about that

“a music room?” you asked, clearly puzzled

“yeah, you might not know this about me but i can spit barsss,” he says, letting out chuckle

“eyE”

“you dont believe me huh”

“absolutely not”

“ok, watch this”

and with that he entered the recording booth, of course not after he pressed a bunch of buttons

honestly , you have no idea what he’s doing

but as soon as he put the headphones on

*cue any 3racha song because im too indecisive to choose one*

he was,,

indeed,,,

spitting bars

you could not believe your ears

who the fuck is this

you stood there, stunned at the fact the he was rapping about real shit and not something stupid and meaningless (rip wow, she is meaNinGFUL to me okAY)

after he finished rapping, the room was absolute silent

changbin felt dumb, he thought you were gonna praise him but there you were not uttering a single word,

he need you to say something ,anything,, hell, you can even laugh

he’d prefer anything over the silence

he’s literally the ‘i just showed u my dick pls respond’ meme but its like ‘i showed u my talent pls validate me’

avoiding to make eye contact with you, he walks out of the recording booth

sitting on the couch against the wall, he finally breaks the silence

“so yeah, thats a song my friends and i wrote, its stupid-”

“its not stupid.” you say quickly

“oh?”

“since when where you into this?” you ask, curiosity filling your eyes, taking the seat right next to him

“what do you mean? music?? everyone’s into music y/n” changbin retorts, not wanting to go into detail

“hhhh, you know what i mean changbin,”

changbin doesnt know why

but he wanted to share this side of him with you

maybe because you were the first person that he has ever allowed himself to be close with

or maybe it was because you stuck around him for this long, no one, besides chan and jisung were able to do that

whatever it was, he wants to keep you by his side

he figured that showing you his true self would do just that

so after having a battle with his inner thoughts, he finally says

“my dad was really into this stuff, he taught me everything i know,” changbin beamed

“oh! thats really cool, do you still make music with him?” you say, genuinely interested, youve never really heard about his dad before

“uhmm, hes not really around for me to do that,”

aaaannd,,, thats why,, god reader smh

“oh, im sorry,” you say softly, mentally slapping yourself

“no its okay, you didnt know….he passed away when i was 11”

“what happened?,,,, y-you dont have to tell me if you dont want to,” you quickly added

“I want to,” changbin says, reassuring you

“he just,,, he just died in his sleep, apparently it was a stroke,” sighing, he looked up at the ceiling, trying to hold back his tears

“you must miss him,” you say, your voice still soft

for the first time since youve met changbin, he resembled a piece of glass

so fragile

he was giving you a piece of him, letting you see clearly a part of who he was

and all you wanna do is make sure that you won’t break that piece

“he built this studio...wanted to start his own music company,” he continued as you sat there just listening to him

“my mom hates it though, she stopped funding this place as soon as she can,”

the mention of his mom suddenly brought you back to the deal that you have made 2 weeks ago

and god, you felt guilty

you were here, trying to change him, when nothing should be changed

sure seo changbin had a bad reputation but he is not bad

he’s just protective is all

to be honest, he was one of the kindest, gentlest soul you have met

“i promised myself that i would continue our dream, for him and me, but mostly for him,”

“i-is that why youre failing your classes?” you ask, everything finally piecing together

“huh?”

“you dont care about school because you already know what you want to do...where you want to be”

“hm, you truly are a smart girl y/n,” he says before nodding and flashing you a smile

those words

so similar to the ones his mom has given you

but this time you weren't in the mood to pat yourself in the back

because shit, this is thE dumbest thing you've ever done in your life

after hearing this, you made up your mind, you werent gonna partake in this deal anymore

if you were really as smart as everyone says, you can get into the school you want without any problem

sure it won't be free, but your mom aint working her ass off during her nightly shifts for nothing

and so, right when you go to school tomorrow, you were determined to end it

you’d still tutor changbin, you just won't accept any of the perks that came along with it

“thank you for sharing this with me,” you say genuinely, a smile creeping unto your face

“thank you for caring enough to listen,” changbin replies, his smile getting wider

and then it hits you,

“wait, so you mean to tell me that this is YOUR studio all along??”

and at this changbin lets out the loudest laugh

and you can't help but mirror his actions

1 week later

oof, that time jump, i thought you were gonna end it the next day reader

welp,,

you work hard, but somehow satan, aka the author, works harder

Mrs. Seo had to leave for two weeks, attending board meetings around the country, and whatever principals do,,, i'm too lazy to research what they actually do

╥﹏╥

and so you spent another week, with seo changbin by your side

one week down, another to go

and when that day comes, you can finally freely hang out with him without all the guilt eating you up

this week you guys even hung out outside of the library

you’ve been with him so much, even your friends have started to notice it

“y/n, are you coming with us to the movies,” felix asks

“oh,, umm sorry guys, i cant,”

“who else are you gonna be with? i thought we were your only friends,” minho pointed out, a pout on his face

“with changbin of course,” hyunjin hissed, obviously upset that you have been pushing them to the side

“ i can hang out with anyone that i want,” you argued, really not having any of his attitude

“ you shouldnt hang out with people like him,” hyunjin retorted

you scoffed, “what’s that supposed to mean?”

“i mean blink once if youre being held captive” hyunjin joked, as the rest of the table snickered

however, you didn't find it funny,

who were they to talk about changbin like that??

they didnt even know him

and so you stood up, leaving all your friends calling out for you

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

walking to the table, you flopped down on your chair, slamming your backpack on the floor

“what's got you in such a bad mood?” changbin asks

“nothing,” you huffed, getting your materials out of your backpack

you didn't want to tell changbin that your best friends think hes the devil himself and didn't want you around him

meanwhile , changbin was annoyed

it seems like he's shared so much with you since the music room yet he still barely knows anything about you

he wondered that maybe you didn't want to be in his life the way he wanted to be in yours

but fuck it, he’s just gonna spend the time he has with you enjoying it rather than filling his mind with negative thoughts

but damn, you're frown was really bothering him

“y/n,” he says, calling out to you

no response

“y/n,” he continues, poking you on the elbow

still no response

“y/n”

You sigh, looking up at him, an emotionless expression on your face, you responded with a strong, “what.”

*insert changbin doing aegyo*

and with that , you lost it

you were an absolute madman

you never expected that the one and only seo changbin

notorious badboy

would ever do aegyo

all because you had a stupid frown on yourself

you laughed so loud

changbin doing the same as soon as your melodic laugh hit his ears

which resulted to you guys being kicked out of the library

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

“ i cant believe you got me kicked out of my favorite place,” you say, seated in a booth inside the ice cream parlor near your guys’ school

another one of changbins ideas

“ hey its not my fault you laugh like a hyena!” he says smiling before you threw a curled up paper tissue at his face

a couple of seconds later, after your laughter has died down

“ so, you want to tell me now why you were in such a sour mood?”

you knew that if you werent gonna tell him now that would still end up finding out about it from someone else

and so you came clean

“ its just my friends,,,, they dont think youre a good influence, wants me to stop hanging out with you” you say

“ oh,”

“ but dont worry!, i didnt listen to them, i actually told them off,” you confessed

“ why didnt you listen to them? theyve been your friends longer than youve known me?” he asks

“ because they dont know you” you reply, “and im sure if they did, they would also be friends with you”

as much as he appreciated the way you stood up for him, he didnt want you going through all that trouble

‘god, what did he even do to deserve an angel like you,’ changbin thinks to himself

“ don't tell them off next time,” he grunted

“ wh-what?”

“ everything they say about me is true”

“ changbin, no its not”

“ honestly y/n it doesnt bother me so dont let it bother you”

“ why doesnt it bother you?” you ask, wanting to know the reason

“ because its high school. after this, literally no one would care anymore. and then real life starts, people move on and worry about bigger things, things that actually matter more than the status quo. let them say what they say.”

and just like every other time, changbin has left you stunned

the arrival of Ms. Seo - tuesday

a week has passed since the ice cream parlor

and Ms. Seo was back in town

this was it

the day you finally put a halt to it

and you were beyond ready

you haven't seen changbin all day

you figured that since his mom was back then he was also back to avoiding the school like it was a plague

you entered Ms. Seos room, determined

“Ms. Seo -”

She puts a hand up to her lips, signaling you to be quiet

‘bitch omygod i literally cant keep doing this any longer,’

‘its already been over a month’

so you ignored her warning

“im not doing this deal anymore. I’ll still tutor changbin but I won’t change him,,,, and you can keep your stupid money,” you let out, releasing all the bottled up emotions

“is that all,”she replies

“yes”

“then you may leave”

what???

it was that easy????

you thought she was gonna stop you, force you to hold your end of the bargain

if you knew it would’ve been this easy then you wouldn’t have worried over it so much

but you don’t know a lot of things

and you certainly didnt know that changbin was on the other line

later that day

you’re seated in the library

usual place, usual time, waiting for the one and only seo changbin, yet he never showed

you didn’t think much of it

‘maybe he just forgot’ you tell yourself

the next day - wednesday

here you were again, waiting for him

still nothing

you try and think of reasons why he wouldn’t show up two days in a row and can really only think of one - maybe his mom told him that he didn’t need tutoring anymore?

but surely, he would tell you

right ???

sure you guys started off on the wrong foot but you were friends now

at least you thought so

you decided to just give him the benefit of the doubt

‘maybe he’s just busy’

2 days later - friday

you’ve tried everything you can do to get a hold of changbin

all your calls went straight to voicemail

texts were left on delivered

you didn’t even see him around school anymore

it was like your worlds never collided and he was never a part of yours

you were starting to get worried, what if he got himself into trouble

“look who decided to show her face,” hyunjin comments as you took the seat next to him

ever since the day you guys had your argument, you have never been able to talk to him about it

“im not in the mood,” you reply,

hyunjin sensing that you were exhausted,

“hey,” he says softly, “what’s wrong?”

“nothing”

“y/n please, we’ve been friends for over 3 years, you don’t need to lie to me”

“aren’t you mad at me?”

“no. im upset that you’ve been pushing us to the side for your little boy toy but im not mad,” he says giving you a soft smile

hhhhh, it was times like these you remember why he was your best friend

hyunjin was just so thoughtful, so caring

you return the smile he gave you as you pulled him in for a tight hug

“I’m sorry hyunjin”

“it’s okay, im sorry too, now tell me what’s wrong?”

“it’s just changbin-“

“I swear to god, if he even laid a finger on you he’s a dead man”

“no!” you say quickly putting an end to his assumption

“so what happened?” he asks, eyebrows going up in sheer curiosity

and then you told him

you told him about the deal with Ms. seo

about how your relationship with changbin changed along the way

how you ended the deal

and now we’re back to changbin and ignoring you

“damn, well have you tried actually going to him?”

“i wouldnt even know where -”

and then it hits you

the abandoned music building

“hyunjin, youre a genius!!!,” you say excitedly

“thanks, we been knew”

“ i have to go ill explain later, bye!!” you say, dashing out of there as fast as you could and made your way to the abandoned building

taking the bus there gave you time to reflect on everything that has happened this past couple month

how much your life has changed since changbin entered it

he pushed you to take risks, to live out of your comfort zone, to not care about other people’s opinions

he made you feel free

and most importantly, he made you happy

the good girl has fallen for the bad boy, i told yall this was gonna be cliche right?

continuing on

just as you expected, the door was open

the dark didnt even bother you anymore, the only thing in your mind was changbin

oh,, where could he be??

could you ever find your way into this maze of a building and retrace the steps that he took when he was by your side?

as you got deeper and deeper into the building, you feel yourself start to get lost

‘fuck i already saw this door’

‘omg y/n did you really just walk in a circle’

and then you hear it

music, singing

your nightingale

you walk faster, desperate to get to the voice

and here you are now, face to face with the one and only, seo changbin

he stops singing as soon as he saw you walk in

“hey,” you whisper out yet he continued to just stand there, not uttering a single word

“your voice is really pretty, i didnt know you could sing!-”

“what do you want?” his voice, dark and firm just like the day you first met him

This caught you off guard

Did you do something wrong?

“Did i do something wrong?” you say, not aware that you have said your thoughts out loud

changbin chuckles but it was so uninviting, like he was taunting you

“ please, drop the act”

?????

“what?” you reply, completely confused

“ you dont like me ”

“ changbin, what?”

“ you're just like everyone else”

“ changbin i really dont understand pl-”

“ i shouldn't have trusted you.”

“ what?!??, no changbin, you can trust me! just tell me whats wrong!”

all the while, you guys were still talking with a glass between the two of you

ironic, since you felt like a wall has been planted around changbin and you cant reach him

“ you think i should change”

“ no”

“ what do you mean no? I heard you y/n! I heard what you told my mom, i heard about the stupid deal, the stupid money!”

(⊙…⊙,)

“ changbin, let me explain”

“ i know im known as the bad boy y/n, but you… youre even worse than me”

“ changbin.”

“ youre a monster”

and with hearing those words, the tears that you have been so desperately trying to keep just bursted out like a waterfall

changbin too, has let out his tears

and all we got now are two broken people who can clearly see each other yet are still on opposite sides of the glass

“ you're just like everyone out there that you have resented, you judged me by other people’s words, i thought- i thought that i can finally found someone i could open up to but you never even gave me chance from the beginning”

you let him talk without interrupting him

you deserved the ache you were feeling in your heart

everything he said was true

and with that he breaks down, straight to the floor, back against the wall, hugging his knees

and all you could do was watch, until you couldn't take it anymore

you finally entered the recording booth , taking a seat on the floor right next to him, mimicking his broken figure

“im sorry”

silence

you looked up at the ceiling as you sighed

he deserves an explanation

“ yes, i took the deal, but that's because i thought i needed it changbin. I may be smart, but financially my family isn't doing well. my mom already works extra shifts but it still won't be enough. my dad isnt even in the picture, i dont know where the hell he is”

and with this, changbins head slowly perks up, looking at you with his glass-like eyes, as you continued to stare at the ceiling

you were finally opening up to him

just like how he has been doing

“ i took the deal because, you’re right, i judged you, i was stupid and i never expected us to actually be friends, clearly i was wrong. you have taught me so much. you have pushed me into doing things i never thought i could do. you made me see the world in a different way.”

he’s still just listening to you when you finally took your eyes away from the ceiling and faced him

“ i understand if you dont want to see me anymore but i cant leave you knowing that i never got to say this,” you continue, afraid of the results that were about to come

“ what else are you hiding from me?” he says, but this time, he says it softly, the furious changbin that you have encountered just minutes ago was completely gone

“ i think im in love with you,” you say, quickly looking down, embarrassed at your confession

“ y/n look at me,”

“ i dont want to”

“ why?”

“ i know you're gonna break my heart”

“ you broke mine first,” and with that he lifted your chin up, making you look him straight into his eyes before kissing you

this kiss was different from your first one

it was slow but passionate, filled with all of the unsaid words between the two of you

your guys lips both slightly chapped from all the crying

yet his lips still felt like the softest pair against yours

pulling away, changbin leans his forehead against yours, his eyes closed

yours were open though, taking the sight all in before you pulled away, wiping away his left over tears

“ god, were a mess,” he finally says out loud, before he pulled you in a tight hug

“ im sorry,” you say again

“ i’ll forgive you if you promise to continue tutoring me?”

“ what ?”

“ continue the deal, get the money”

“ changbin, i really don't want to do that”

“ i know you dont. but we have to finesse my mom somehow,” he says, bursting into a smile, clearly joking

…

“eYE,,, i cannot believe you right now! You can't be serious!”

“ but i am. go back into her office tell her you’ll continue it and get the money for your education.”

“changbin! stop joking! I already feel bad about it!”

“Okay fine i just like it when you tutor me okay, its kinda sexy” he says

playfully slapping him, you guys laugh, the tension in the air finally gone

“ you know if you didnt buy me those eggs, we wouldnt be here by now,” you say, a small smile on your face

“ hmm, and why?”

“ because those eggs were the first time i realized that the most notorious bad boy, the one and only Seo Changbin, can also be soft,”

“ do not use my name and soft in the same sentence ever again,”

“ what are you gonna do about it?” you reply, taunting him

and so

he pulled you into another kiss

and another

until a series of laughter coming from the both of you interrupted it

“im glad i bought you those eggs”

hhhhhhh this ending is so rushed and so bad i just didnt wanna leave it unfinished

ALSO IM SEEING STRAY KIDS BITCHES!!!!!,,,,,, MY SEAT HELLA FAR BUTS ITS OKAY BECAUSE ILL STILL BE THERE ╭(′▽`)╭(′▽`)╯

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lilliloves · 5 years ago

Note

20. “I’m not playing truth or dare.” For Brio! Thank you :)

I got LOTS of requests for this one so hopefully it satisfies the masses! Part of this universe!

The corner of Beth's mouth tilts upwards as she watches her sister and best friend bicker back and forth about - well, she isn't entirely sure what it's about. It had started off as something stupid and veered it's way towards ridiculous. She's lost track of their current disagreement but the sound of the two of them arguing over something inane and meaningless is almost comforting.

The three haven't had a true girl's night in ages. It's no one's fault - life just seems to get in the way when you wish it wouldn't. It's not like they haven't seen each other - they always see each other - but on most occasions the kid to parent ratio is significantly unbalanced (not in their favor), leaving little time for catching up.

The night has been long overdue and while they have all been extra busy - Annie had just gotten married after all - Beth can admit that maybe, possibly she's been putting this off.

She wants things with Rio to feel more settled. She wants to have answers to the questions that she knows the girls will ask. She wants to feel confident about what she tells them.

Communication between her and Rio has gotten better and they have spent some time with the other's respective children but - something still seems off. Beth just can't put her finger on what. It still sometimes feels like he's just out of her grasp - that he isn't entirely hers yet.

Maybe it's the lack of a label between them. She doesn't know what she is to him - assumes that if he's letting her spend time with his son that he must care about her but is she his girlfriend? Can she even imagine a day where she calls him her boyfriend? Those particular titles seem...silly.

She sighs, wondering if maybe they aren't actually communicating better if she still feels this lost.

"Let's play a game." Annie says, interrupting Beth's thoughts.

Beth glances in the direction of her sister and then over at Ruby - both curiously looking at her. They haven't asked about Rio yet - surprising to Beth in some ways but also not in other ways. It's part of the reason she’s finally insisted they get together. She's starting to get the impression that Ruby and Annie don't actually realize how serious things with Rio have become.

Just the other day, Ruby had casually mentioned something about doing a double date with Stan and one of his single police friends. Annie had also not so subtly hinted that Nick had an older cousin who was recently divorced and looking to get back out there.

They know she's been spending time with him, it's only been a few weeks since he’d dropped by when they'd been prepping for Annie's wedding, but she's starting to think that they aren't taking it seriously and decidedly she's the only one to blame for that.

"I'm not playing Truth or Dare." Beth says immediately, leaning forward from her position on the couch to pick up her wine glass.

Annie's mouth drops open and she has the decency to look offended. "I would not suggest such a childish activity, Beth."

Ruby snorts, sipping at her own glass of wine before looking pointedly at Annie. "No? What's different today than the last time we got together and you suggested it?"

Annie smirks and holds up her left hand, ring sparkling under the light. "I'm a married woman now."

Beth laughs but can't help the genuine smile that pulls at her lips. She's happy for her sister and it's clear as day that Annie is happy for herself. Maybe that's part of the reason Beth suddenly feels so ready to move forward with Rio. She doesn't have to worry about Annie the same way she has been for years now.

"What game did you have in mind then?" Beth asks, humoring her.

"It's a new game I made up." Annie says excitedly but Beth is hesitant to share her sister's enthusiasm when she clocks the gleam in her eyes. When Annie slyly looks over in Ruby's direction, Beth narrows her eyes.

"What kind of game?"

"The tentative name is called 'Interrogate Beth' but I'm open to other suggestions." Annie answers seriously not taking her eyes off of her sister for fear that she'll run out of the room or, worse, throw a drink in her face.

"Doesn't sound like much fun." Beth deadpans, attempting to push down her ever growing impatience.

"It is, though. It's sort of like 20 questions except we ask all of the questions and you answer them without complaining."

Beth glares but instead of shutting her sister down entirely she contemplates the benefits of the game. While it's ridiculous and has clearly been created with the intention of putting her on the spot - wasn't her whole hope for tonight to enlighten her friends on her life?

She looks to Ruby and raises her eyebrows. "You support this idea?"

Ruby purses her lips and side eyes her friend. She sits up straighter and nods. "I support anything that gets you to open up to us a little bit."

Annie claps and smiles seemingly surprised that her game idea has been so readily accepted. She runs with it though, not willing to give Beth the chance to back out. "Good. Settled. I'll start. Beth, how's work at the bakery?"

"How's work at the bakery?” Beth repeats, the tone of her voice dripping in annoyance.

"Yes." Annie answers and she's either ignoring her sister's frustration or clueless to it.

"That's what you're going with?" Beth asks, giving her sister the opportunity to maybe ask something slightly more - personal.

"We'll work our way up to the good stuff." Annie says, her face serious. Beth sighs once again but instead of fighting her sister she rolls with it because, let's be honest, that's typically the best way to deal with her.

"Work is fine."

Annie shakes her head and pushes her leg underneath her to give her more leverage on the couch. She wipes her hands over her jeans and speaks. "No. Sorry, new rule. You have to elaborate. No use of the words fine or good."

"You realize I want to murder you more times than not right?"

Annie raises her eyebrows but doesn't look entirely put off or surprised by Beth’s admission. "Mm. And leave Sadie motherless? Leave Nick a widow? Yeah, no. My game, my rules. Go."

Beth looks to Ruby for help or support or something but she holds up her hands and shakes her head as if she wants no part of this.

So Beth relents and answers Annie's question. "Work at the bakery is going really well. The hours work with the kids schedule and I'm even doing some mornings on the weekends I don't have them."

Annie smiles, content with her answer. "Speaking of the kids, how are the little devils?”

"You just saw them two days ago." Beth answers dryly, already exhausted by the questioning.

Annie throws her hands up in frustration and turns to Ruby. "Why don't you ask a question."

Ruby contemplates the request for a second before shifting her body to face Beth head on. With one look, Beth can tell that Ruby won't be wasting any time.

"Are you interested in going out with one of the officers Stan works with?"

Beth shakes her head and feels her cheeks brighten. "No - I -"

Annie let's out a yelp and bounces in her seat excitedly. Before Beth can continue or Ruby can ask a follow up she chimes in:

"Are you interested in a blind date with Nick's newly single cousin?”

"No -" Beth says and once again her sentence is cut off before she can finish.

"Are you still boinking gang friend on the regular?"

"Annie!" Beth shouts, and now her face is definitely burning up.

"Jesus." Ruby mumbles, dropping her head into her hands.

Beth jumps off the couch with no real intention of going anywhere but she needs to feel more in control than she does at the moment. Annie mimics her action, jumping out of her seat as well, prepared to go head to head with Beth if necessary.

"You're out of your mind." Beth points out, her voice as steady as it can be after being so worked up.

"Someone's gotta ask the tough questions." Annie says with a shrug.

Beth sits back down and makes a gesture for Annie to take the spot next to Ruby. She perches herself on the edge of the couch and folds her hands in her lap. Beth inhales and exhales, once and twice and then three times before she looks up at the two sets of eyes staring back at her.

"Jesus, are you pregnant?" Annie asks suddenly. She’s whispering and her eyes are wide.

Beth's mouth drops open. She doesn't know how her sister can continuously surprise her but just when she thinks she can't possibly make another imbecile comment -

"No! What?"

Annie has the decency to look slightly bashful but it's also clear she thinks the blame lies with Beth. "You just seem so...nervous."

Beth groans and then decides to steer the conversation in the direction that it needs to go. She knows better than to let Annie start up a game and she should have ended it before it even started.

"Rio and I are seeing each other."

She's not sure what she expects but it's not the glazed over look both women give her from where they sit.

Ruby speaks up first giving her friend a reassuring smile. "Girl, how about tell us something we don't know?"

It takes Beth a moment to speak but when she does, she's clearly confused. "If you know than why are you trying to set me up with single policemen and divorced cousins?"

They both shrug but it's Annie who chimes in first. "It was that or tap your phone line."

Ruby swats at the girl next to her and speaks up. "It's not easy to get anything out of you. We thought it might...encourage you to share."

Beth sighs, resigned, and falls back into the cushions of the couch. "There was nothing to tell for a while. We were just...casual."

Annie holds up a hand and speaks bluntly. "If by casual you mean sleeping together I have to disagree. There are lots of things I'd like you to tell us about that. The size of -"

"Oh my God." Ruby says burying her head into the pillow beside her.

"Shut up." Beth says with a glare, stopping her from finishing the sentence. "We were just sleeping together but now it's...more...it's -"

"Serious?" Ruby asks, finishing her sentence.

Beth flushes and looks down. "Yes."

All three are silent momentarily. Beth's desperate for them to say something but it's taken her months to be accepting of her relationship - imagine how the two of them must feel?

"I truly don't get it." Ruby says finally and Beth deflates at the words. She understands - she doesn't really expect them to get it but...

"I know. it's just -" Beth trails off not sure what to say. Not sure how to make sense of it for them. Not sure if she wants to.

"Explain it to us." Ruby says and she's pushier now and Beth knows it comes from a place of love, of worry, of concern but Beth isn't sure she wants to - or should have to - convince them to be accepting of her relationship.

"I'm not sure I can." Beth answers quietly and it's, for the most part, completely true. One fact she's reconciled is that a lot of the reasons why they work together don’t necessarily make sense on paper.

"What do you like about him?" Annie jumps in and Beth gives her sister a small smile because she's always been a good buffer between she and Ruby when things get tense.

She's thought about this before. Thought about the things she likes about him (and doesn't) and the things that make her want to be with him...always. She flushes when she thinks of the obvious. How good looking he is, how charming and sexy and appealing the whole outside package is to her - to anyone with a pulse really. Annie clocks her look and waves her hands in the air as if to stop Beth from speaking.

"You can't say his dick."

Beth is ready for the comment - she knows Annie better than anyone after all - so the pillow that gets thrown at her face is mid-air before the sentence is even finished.

"He respects me." Beth says determinedly and she sees Ruby's eyes widen and can almost hear the thoughts in her head. How can she say he respects her when he's held a gun to your head?

Beth continues before Ruby can formulate a response. "The bad stuff is in the past. He respects me. He listens to me. He...gets me."

"Gets you hot and bothered." Annie mutters, quickly covering her face for fear of having another object thrown at her.

"There's that too." Beth concedes because their attraction isn't everything but it's what got them here in the first place.

Before anyone can argue, Beth hears the door in the kitchen open and footsteps enter the house. She turns, knows it must be Rio, it couldn't be anyone else, but she didn’t anticipate seeing him tonight so she’s thrown for a loop.

Three pairs of eyes watch him enter the living room. He stops short when he sees them all sitting quietly, watching him, and gives a small wave.

"Hey." He greets quietly but he's looking directly at Beth.

"Hi." She says back with a small smile but a question in her eyes.

A head peeks out from behind him and Beth's smile widens at the sight of Marcus in front of her.

"Hi Miss Beth." Marcus says through a toothless grin.

"Hi Marcus." She says happily. She can feel eyes on her back but chooses to ignore them for now. Her eyes shoot back to Rio's but she isn't annoyed, just curious. "This is a surprise."

"I know." He starts, his voice apologetic. Marcus wraps his arms around his father's legs when he notices Annie and Ruby in the room and he shyly pushes his face into his thigh. "Pop, say hi to Miss Beth's sister and friend."

Marcus gives a quick wave and smile but nothing more. Annie and Ruby return the greeting and Beth thinks they might excuse themselves to give some privacy but - no. It’s not their style to miss out on the very thing they'd just been giving her a hard time about.

"Everything okay?" Beth asks, standing from her seat on the couch.

"Power went out at the loft." Rio answers. His eyes swing to the window and Beth follows his gaze. For the first time she notices the rain pouring down. She briefly recalls hearing about a bad storm coming through but had forgotten about it in her haste to prepare for the evening with her friends. "I called."

Beth glances around the room but doesn't see her phone. She gives Rio a shrug and small smile as if to say, "sorry." He knows she's terrible at keeping track of where her phone is at any given moment, especially when she's caught up with her friends.

"S'ok." He says. "Brought pizza. We'll be in the kitchen."

Rio nudges Marcus and Beth watches as the two walk back towards where they came from.

Beth turns slowly back towards the girls and smiles. "He's a really good dad."

When they look at her in confusion she elaborates.

"Add that to the list of things I like." She says and as if to further make her point: "I can keep going too."

"Beth," Ruby starts hesitantly but Beth doesn't let her finish her thought.

"I get your doubts. I do. But you've only ever seen him in work mode and you've only ever seen us together that way too."

”So...he's your... boyfriend?”Annie asks and Beth opens her mouth to respond when she hears him clear his throat behind her.

Her neck swings around and from the look on his face she knows he’s heard Annie’s question.

ARE YOU? Beth wants to scream but she smiles and waits for him to speak.

”Enough pizza if you’re interested.” He says pointing towards the kitchen, smirk still firmly in place.

Annie giggles loving every moment of the situation they’re in. Beth knows she’ll be the easiest to bring over to her side on this one. She’s certain that, in Annie’s mind, anyone is better for her than Dean.

Beth mouths a thank you and turns away assuming he’ll just leave but -

“Boyfriend sounds a little juvenile, no?” He says with a laugh before walking away and Beth wants to crawl into a hole and die but also...at least they’re on the same page.

She’s not sure why she doubted it to begin with. She’s a different person in this relationship with Rio than the person she was with Dean. She’s older and wiser, sure, but - it’s him that makes her different.

Makes her better, she’s starting to think.

So she’ll attempt not to rush anything, attempt to figure things out as they go. She looks up at Annie and Ruby who both seem interested in the idea of pizza and thinks all they need is time too.

#beth x rio #nbc good girls #brio fic #prompts #vuccijl #my fic

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inu-jiru · 4 years ago

Text

Tomoe, The Eastern Tigress - Chapter Five

Chapter Five - The Strength of Ohu

The forest echoed with the collective drumming of paws. 20 dogs were running to Gajou and at the lead was Ben. His mate, Cross, remained at his side, acting as his eyes. Even though the Great Dane was thirteen years of age and well beyond the point of retiring, the male still ran with the swiftness of a one-year-old. Behind the couple, Kurotora, Moss, Musashi and Wilson followed. After them were Kurotora’s other two sons, Harutora and Nobutora, as well as their cousins, Shigure, Shōji, Buru and Dodo. The remaining dogs were survivors of the previous battles against Kaibutsu and the human hunters. Though the group was small, their hearts all beat together as one. If Ken said that they could possibly beat Kaibutsu today, then that was what they’d do.

The group arrived at Gajou, seeing the remains of Ken and Kagetora’s shared platoon, as well as some dogs they didn’t quite recognize, huddled together around something, or some one.

“Oi!” Kurotora called out, catching everyone’s attention. “We’re here! Where’s the bastard!?”

“Did you kill him already?” Moss barked. “That’d be a damn shame, haha!”

“You’re all here!” Ken shouted back, running to meet his father. Cross quickly grabbed the old Dane’s collar, forcing him to stop just before he could slam his son.

“Thanks, Cross,” Ben said with a nod. “And of course we’re here, son. It’s time we take Paradise back.”

“I was beginning to worry,” huffed Kurotora as he approached his own son. “Thought something happened to you. I wanted to go out and look, but your cousins said no. Hmph! The nerve of those youngsters! Telling me no!”

“But Uncle...” said Shōji with a sheepish grin. “We wouldn’t want anything happening to you...”

“Bah! I’m the one who’s supposed to be worrying about you kids!”

The two groups merged together, Ken and Kage relaying the day’s events. They reintroduced the older dogs to Tomoe, who they’d only heard had survived until now.

“Such a strong girl, Tomoe!” Moss threw his massive paws around the smaller Shepherd’s frame, pulling her into a tight hug. Though it was a bit difficult to breathe, Tomoe still managed to smile. Of all the Ohu Veterans, Moss had to have been her favorite, aside from her father.

“Alright, alright,” said Jiyū worriedly, pawing at the Mastiff’s forelegs. “Easy now. Wouldn’t wanna break her, would we?”

Ken then introduced Weed and the other newcomers. Upon seeing the young Akita mix, the older dogs grew silent as they took in the familiar sight. They’d always thought Tomoe’s resemblance to John was uncanny but this was something different all together. It was as if time had gone backwards and Gin was standing before them as a six-month-old. Weed, meanwhile, stared at the Veterans with a fast-beating heart. All of these dogs he’d heard of in his mother’s stories, but actually meeting them was overwhelming. Their auras were so great, so strong...

“So what’s next?” asked Shigure after the introductions were done. He looked towards Gajou. “We aren’t really just gonna leave his body in there, are we?”

“The scientists from our facility will come to pick up his body,” Jerome explained. “Unfortunately, they may have to destroy your stronghold. Sorry.”

There were groans. Not only would that mean that the Veterans and their families would lose their dens, but it would also mean that a great landmark, one they’d spent days protecting, would fall to ruin, all because a few humans wanted to play God. Tomoe spat on the ground, irritably. No wonder her mother hated humans so much.

RUMBLE!

Without warning, the ground began to shake. There were yelps and cries of alarm as the dogs all struggled to keep their footing. Tomoe looked at Gajou. The stones and boulders keeping it together were shifting, as if something was attempting to push its way out.

“No...” Tomoe’s eyes widened with disbelief. “He’s not...”

“He’s not dead!?” Smith cried out. “That’s impossible!”

A massive rock was pushed onto the ground, cracking slightly from the impact. A gaping hole was left behind, a large figure emerging from the stronghold. The light of the moon reflected off the chain dangling from his leg. A toeless paw was held close to the beast’s chest, still dripping blood. Kaibutsu lifted his head, vibrant, green eyes flashing with the desire to survive. He leapt from where he stood, landing in front of the small militia of dogs and letting out a roar. Some of the soldiers flinched, trembling in fear.

“Stand your ground, soldiers!” ordered Ben. The Dane stood tall, showing no fear on his face. He had scored first blood on Akakabuto long ago; a little roar wasn’t going to scare him. “Surround Kaibutsu! Don’t let him--!”

“No!” Jerome interrupted, looking at the old male. “Tell your followers to stay back! This is a job for us assassins!”

“Don’t speak to my father that way!” Ken snapped. “As of right now, he’s the man in charge, not you!”

“Jerome...” A new, guttural voice suddenly spoke aloud. The argument was temporarily dropped as everyone turned towards Kaibutsu. The monster was focused on the Shepherd, his gaze uncharacteristically soft for someone who’d spent the past six months slaughtering humans and dogs.

“That bastard can talk...?” Tomoe murmured to herself.

“Why are you siding with the humans, Jerome? Why? After everything they’ve done to me, why won’t you just leave me alone?”

“After all you’ve done, bastard,” Kurotora hissed. “Why should anyone give a damn about what’s happened to you?” There were murmurs of agreement all throughout the crowd. Kaibutsu shot a glare at the black Kai, growling.

“Kaibutsu,” Jerome finally spoke, bringing the monster’s attention back to him. “I side with humans because that's what a dog is supposed to do.”

Somewhere in the crowd, Jiyū scoffed.

“Dogs have been the servants of humans for thousands of years,” Jerome continued. “Going against that is foolish. What you did, however, is unforgivable.”

“What about what they’ve done, huh?” Kaibutsu snarled. “For three years, they’ve had me locked in that facility, torturing me and turning me into this. You were there, Jerome. You heard my screams. I begged you to help me every day. But all I got in return were empty promises. You gave me the will to live, and now you want me dead. Have the humans damaged your mind that much?”

“You should’ve stood up to the pain,” said Jerome in a matter-of-fact tone. Some of the dogs nearby glanced at him, shocked and appalled. Just how brainwashed was this male? “Regardless what an owner does, a dog has to put up with it. That’s the duty we dogs have.”

“You’re wrong!” Jiyū couldn’t listen to Jerome’s nonsense anymore. Everyone, even Kaibutsu, focused on her as she stormed towards the male Shepherd. His followers jumped in front of him, ready to protect him for any sort of attack. “No dog should have to lie down and take abuse! I won’t excuse what Kaibutsu did, but how dare you lecture him when you believe in that crap!”

“Jiyū!” Cross barked. “I don’t buy what he says either, but now isn’t the time to fight each other!”

“Back away,” Rocca warned, his eyes locked with the female’s. Kaibutsu let out a chuckle.

“How fascinating,” he hummed. “I’m glad to see that not all dogs are as blinded by loyalty as you, Jerome. Such a shame that I can’t spare any of you Ohu soldiers. If I’d known you’d felt that way about humans, you would’ve made great allies.”

“You’d NEVER be our ally, Kaibutsu!” Tomoe howled. “Murderer! Cannibal!”

“Your crimes are too great to ignore, Kaibutsu!” Ben announced. “You suffered at the hands of humans, you say? Then allow us to end your pain! Ohu! Prepare for attack!”

“SIR!”

“Jerome,” Robert whispered to his leader. “Shall we...?”

“Mmm.” The Shepherd nodded. He then dashed off to the side, sprinting away from Gajou. “You three, follow my lead.”

“Eh...?” GB began, staring after the group of assassins. “Where are those guys off to...?”

“This way, P4!” Jerome shouted to Kaibutsu. The name of his place of torture struck a nerve with Kaibutsu. As his vision went red, the beast chased after the four dogs.

“DON’T call me that!”

Kaibutsu’s gait was awkward, as to be expected from a creature forced to run on only three legs. He lagged behind the assassins greatly. Ben, aided by Cross, began following Kaibutsu.

“After him!” ordered Ben. “Musashi! Moss!”

The two large males took the lead as the militia of around 31 dogs began the chase. Known throughout the army for their great strength, both males reached Kaibutsu’s hind legs and bit down just below the knee. With fierce grunts, they yanked back. Kaibutsu was forced back, his foreleg caving underneath him. He fell with a bellow onto his stomach. Up ahead, the assassins slowed to a halt.

“They’re interfering again...!” a frustrated Robert huffed.

“Easy,” said Jerome, watching the scene intensely. “We’ll have to improvise, but we may be able to use this.”

“Get back!” Musashi grunted as he and Moss used their combined strength to hoist Kaibutsu up. The massive creature howled in alarm as he was tossed over the heads of the dogs. Everyone moved as quickly as they could, the last few dogs just barely avoiding Kaibutsu’s back shell as it slammed against the ground. His belly was now exposed.

“This is our chance!” Ken shouted.

“Attack his belly!” barked Kurotora, and the soldiers obeyed, throwing themselves on Kaibutsu’s belly while Moss and Musashi kept a tight hold on his legs. He looked around, spotting his sons and nephews. “You Kais! Remember what I’ve taught you!”

“HRAH!” Kagetora joined his brothers and cousins. The all leapt into the air together, their bodies moving in wild, snake-like patterns. In one, booming voice, they yelled: Attack of the seven-headed serpent! Ran Daryushin-Battōga!”

Amazing...! Weed thought as he watched the Kais strike the beast’s belly. The Battouga made their bites stronger, and what would normally be a simple bite now cut deeply into the muscle.

“Robert,” Jerome said, feeling that now was the time to act out his new plan. “Go.”

“Sir,” was Robert’s reply as he darted towards the downed Kaibutsu. The time had come. The assassins had been trained for this very moment. Just before he reached Kaibutsu, he jumped up and over the attacking dogs. He landed with his fangs clamping down on the monster’s chest. His sudden entrance in the fight had caught several dogs off guard. For a split second, Moss’ grip loosened on Kaibutsu’s right hind paw. This was the chance the monster needed. He brought back his hind paw and suddenly lashed out with it, knocking Moss several feet away.

“Uncle Moss!” Shigure called, looking up from his place on Kaibutsu’s chest. Kaibutsu began forcing himself up, knocking off any dog who wasn’t tightly holding onto his body. Robert dangled from Kaibutsu’s chest, but refused to let go. Growling, Kaibutsu reached down, jaws parted.

“Move, Robert!” shouted Weed. “He’ll grab your head!”

Exactly the idea... Robert thought in response. He felt Kaibutsu’s long, jagged teeth clamp down on his skull. Blood immediately began running down his injured head, but Robert hung on.

“Pull me off!” the Labrador challenged. “I fucking dare you!”

Kaibutsu didn’t need to be told twice. Using all his strength, he yanked Robert off of him. A chunk of Kaibutsu’s own flesh was torn off as well. All according to plan. Another yowl of pain filled the air as the monster flung Robert’s body roughly onto the ground in retaliation. Weed and Mel rushed up to his broken body quickly.

“Mr. Robert...!” Mel cried. The Labrador spat out the chunk of flesh.

“This is it for me...” he choked, a mixture of his own blood and Kaibutsu’s dribbling out of his maw. “My part in the mission...is...complete...mmph...” The Labrador fell still, his eyes forever staring up towards the sky.

“Robert!” Weed screamed as tears ran down his cheeks. “Robert!”

GRAAAAAAAAH!

Kaibutsu wailed again, forcing the young dogs to look up. Rocca had taken Robert’s place, burying his muzzle into the hole Robert had made. Kaibutsu quickly removed him as well, again injuring himself by inadvertently giving the dog his power. Like Robert, Rocca’s broken body was tossed away.

“Such a waste of life...!” said Cross bitterly.

“We have to end this battle quickly,” Ben responded gruffly. “I won’t stand for young lives being wasted. Can you lead me to the front of the monster, Cross?”

“Of course, love.”

While the rest of the Ohu dogs attempted to assist in bleeding Kaibutsu out, Cross guided her husband as he asked. By now, Hoiler had taken up the task of tearing into Kaibutsu’s chest. Instead of simply yanking him off, however, Kaibutsu lowered his head, delivering a simple bite that crushed the Saintongeois’ skull instantly. As he tossed Hoiler’s body away, Cross realized what Ben was planning.

“He’s open, Ben...!” she informed him. “Are you sure you can hit him?”

“My nose will guide me,” the old Dane assured. “This ends here.”

Jerome, meanwhile, had been watching the events of the battle, waiting for his turn to die. With Hoiler gone, it was his chance to pierce Kaibutsu’s heart, ending him for good. As he braced himself for the attack, however, he heard Ben’s voice ringing out.

“Steer clear!” he commanded. “This attack will bring Kaibutsu down!”

Cross stepped back, giving her husband room to attack. The other Ohu dogs backed off of Kaibutsu, leaving the beast pondering what was going on. He assumed Jerome would attack him next, but no. A blind, old Dane? Nearby, Ken’s eyes widened. Could it be...? Would Ben perform the family Battouga...?

“HARUUUU!” Ben’s deep howl resonated within the hearts of the surrounding dogs as he launched himself towards Kaibutsu. He brought back a paw, bracing himself for impact. When he felt the time was right, his paw shot forward. This was the Geki Sentsūhi-Battōga. Focusing all of his power into his paw, Ben felt the warmth of blood and muscle as he pierced Kaibutsu’s body. There was one problem, however. Ben had landed the blow to Kaibutsu’s heart.

“Oh shit!” Tomoe exclaimed. Ben felt a bead of sweat run down the side of his head as he realized, although he’d landed a blow on Kaibutsu’s chest, he’d hit the uninjured side, the one covered in a thick layer of fur. Ben had done some damage, but not the damage he’d hoped. Now, he was dangling from Kaibutsu’s chest, his paw partially lodged into a shallow wound. He could feel Kaibutsu’s breath on his head.

“BEN!” Cross screamed as she pounced at Kaibutsu’s head.

“Mom!” Ken cried. “Dad!”

ROOOOOOOOOAR!

Cross’ fangs buried themselves in the beast’s eye, taking his mind off attacking Ben. Kaibutsu swung his head desperately, but Cross hung on tight. Tomoe went to join the attack.

“Bastard!” she snapped. “You won’t hurt Mr. Ben!”

The rest of the dogs followed the young bitch’s lead, continuing their attacks on Kaibutsu’s body. Ken rounded the beast, leaping up and pulling Ben free from Kaibutsu’s chest. Time was running out for the monster; he felt his body growing weaker every second that his blood leaked out of his body. The feat of dying overcame him, and out of desperation, he began throwing himself around like a bucking bronco. He threw himself on the ground, rolling wildly. Most dogs were able to move out of the way and find a new place to attack, though two soldiers found themselves crushed between the ground and Kaibutsu’s back shell. Kaibutsu rolled until he reached the ledge. The river raged on down below, well fed by the autumn storms.

“Everyone,” Ken yelled. “Hop off! Quick!”

As Kaibutsu tumbled off the side of the cliff, the Ohu dogs scrambled off to safety. Kaibutsu’s roar echoed as he disappeared into the chasm. There was a loud and heavy thud, and then, finally, silence. As the sun appeared on the horizon, the dogs of Ohu stood together, gazing down into the crevice. Down below, Kaibutsu’s body was lying still, his belly exposed and his paws splayed up in the air. Sticking out of his chest, bathed in crimson, was a sharp brach. It had impaled Kaibutsu, forcing its way through the back shell, and tearing the heart. The waters were red with blood. Kaibutsu was finished.

At last, Paradise had been won.

#ginga densetsu weed #ginga densetsu weed fanfiction #silver fang legend weed #gdw

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fanficsaremylifeline · 5 years ago

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Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Captain America - All Media Types Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers, James "Bucky" Barnes & Steve Rogers Characters: Steve Rogers, James "Bucky" Barnes, George Barnes (Marvel), Sarah Rogers Additional Tags: Song Lyrics, Song fic, Emotional Hurt, Grief/Mourning, post Bucky falling, Alcohol, way too much of it, stroll through memory lane

Song is 'Talia' by King Princess

Hey, my love

I buried you a month or two ago

I keep thinking that you're standing on my floor

That you're waiting there for me

***

“You punk alright?”

Steve glanced up to see an outstretched hand and he let the stranger pull him to his feet.

“Thanks”, he mumbled. He lost the fight. Again.

“Come on.” The other boy pulled Steve behind him and all but pushed him on the steps of the school. “You're good.”

“Right”, Steve scoffed. It was only the third time this week, Steve had found himself seated on his behind, after some bully didn't get the meaning of simple personal boundaries and being a decent person.

“I mean it”, the other boy assured him. “You got a few good punches in. I got just one question.”

“Shoot.”

“Why the hell would you fight that guy? He's easily triple your size and his fist has about the same size as your head.” He looked at Steve the same way his Mum always did, a mixture of concern and exasperation.

“He's a bully”, Steve just shrugged.

“Yeah, I know. But he won't stop bullying, just cause some scrawny punk tries to punch him in the face.”

“You sound like my Ma...”

“And she sounds like a poor woman, having to deal with you. But well, now I'm looking out for you.”

“Huh?” Steve looked at the other guy. Dark eyes, even darker hair and a smile from ear to ear, showing where one of his front teeth had fallen out.

He just shrugged and got up. “I'm your new best friend and look after you from now on. You punk.”

“You're a jerk”, Steve shot back, but the smile tugged on the corners of his mouth.

“Oh, you have no idea... Come on, I'll walk you home.”

Back home, his Mum was all over him. “Steven Grant Rogers, how often do I need to tell you not to get into fights!”, she tutted, as she cleaned his face up.

“But he was a bully!”

“And you're a sick kid”, Sarah sighed and cupped his face. “I'm just worried that one of these days you're gonna get hurt real badly.”

“Well, I have a new best friend now”, Steve grinned proudly. “He says he'll look out for me.”

“That is wonderful. Who is he?”

“He and his family just moved here from Indiana, they actually live just down the street.”

“And what's this young man's name?”

Huh. Steve stilled as realization hit that he and his new best friend have skipped over one quite important detail... “No idea... I'll ask him tomorrow in school.”

“You do that”, Sarah laughed. “Until then, I got new pencils and there is this empty space just by the fridge...”

***

If I drink enough

I can taste your lipstick I can lay down next to you

but it's all in my head

If I drink enough I swear that I will wake up next to you

***

“JAMES BUCHANAN BARNES!”

The grin dropped from Bucky's face and in one quick motion he dove behind Steve's bed and probably somewhere underneath it. He had barely disappeared, when the door opened and Mr Barnes stormed inside.

“Steve, where is my son?”

“I don't see him”, he just shrugged.

“That wasn't my question and you know it. But since I don't feel like searching through your room, you can tell that young man that he is in deep trouble, and can kiss his allowance for the next week goodbye.”

“That's not fair!”, Bucky protested as he appeared from behind the bed again. “It wasn't even my fault, it was all on Becca!”

“Yes, I am sure that you sister burned her own doll's hair.”

Buck just shot a skew grin back at his dad.

“Right then”, Mr Barnes cleared his throat. “There are two options, I'm feeling gracious today so you can choose. You can either pay for the repairs or you'll be kept from Steve for the next month.”

“WHA...” Both boys stared at the man with wide open eyes. Bucky, being kept away from Steve? They'd be dead within a week!

“Fine, I'll pay for Becca's stupid doll”, he grumbled and, his head hung low, he trudged towards his father. “I'm sorry, sir.”

“I know you are. Now, you're coming home with me, you have a sister to apologize to and we're not done talking yet.”

Ouch. Steve knew exactly what 'talking' referred to, as did Bucky, who flinched and hid his hands behind his back.

“Have a nice evening, Steve”, Mr Barnes greeted him and walked out the door. He had his arm around Bucky's shoulder to make sure that the boy wouldn't run off. Buck only shot Steve a small smile, before following his Dad.

“Morn, punk”, Bucky greeted him, as they walked to school together.

“Hey, jerk”, Steve shot back. “You alright?”

“Yeah”, Buck waved it off, “got only two with the ruler and spend the entire evening alone in my bedroom to do some quiet contemplation.”

“Oh?” Steve grinned up at his friend. “And what did you quietly contemplate?”

“That you're a punk.” With his arm around Steve's shoulder, the two boys disappeared in the school building.

***

I can see you dancing, I can lay down next to you

At the foot of my bed

If I drink enough

I can taste your lipstick I can lay down next to you

but it's all in my head

If I drink enough I swear that I will wake up next to you

***

“I brought you soup!” Steve hadn't even realized that his bedroom door had opened, when Buck stood right in front of his bed, a steaming bowl in his hands. “My Mum made it, with potatoes and cabbage.”

“I'm not hungry. And you shouldn't be here or you'll get sick”, Steve sighed, before a coughing fit took him.

“Right”, Bucky rolled his eyes, clearly to hide his worry, and helped Steve to sit up. “I've been around your viruses and germs and shit for about eight years. I think I'm immune to all things Steve by now.”

“'Cause that's how it works...”

“At least that's how friendship works”, Buck made clear, sat himself opposite Steve on his creaky bed and put the bowl of soup in his lap. “I will feed you, so don't test me, punk.”

“Fine”, Steve shrugged and opened his mouth.

After a moment of shocked and surprised silence, Bucky laughed so hard, he almost dropped the bowl. “You're impossible!”, he giggled, but complied and fed Steve his soup.

“You know, if you don't get that job at Mr Johnson's workshop, you could go into nursing”, Steve grinned, once he felt like he was filled to the brim.

“If all my patients are as horrible as you, I will have to be send to the asylum.”

“Don't worry, I'd visit you.”

“And bring me a file, so I can escape?”

“I'll bake it into a nice cake”, Steve assured him.

“Oh god.” Buck's face dropped at the pure implication of Steve in the kitchen. “You'll burn the house down!”

“Ha, ha”, Steve deadpanned, before another coughing fit took him

“Did you see the doctor already today?” Sometimes Steve was really surprised by how easy Bucky could switch from teasing to concern and genuine worry.

Since the words were stuck somewhere in his throat, Steve just nodded.

“And?”

Steve knew exactly what Bucky was aiming for, but he didn't want to worry him, so he just shrugged.

“Steven Grant Rogers, I know exactly when you're lying, so I swear to God, tell me what the doctor said, or I'll tell Ruthie that you're in love with Ms Nelson.”

Oh, come on! With a groan, Steve just fell back on the bed. Whatever you told Bucky's sister Ruth at breakfast was common knowledge by lunchtime. And if he told her that Steve was in love with their Mathematics teacher... That would be social murder.

“Fine...” He turned his face just enough, so he didn't have to look at Bucky. “20:80.”

“Shit.”

When the doctor told him earlier today, Steve just wanted to cry. He's never had such bad chances at making it through the night and he had never before been that scared to close his eyes.

“Well then.” Bucky put the soup away and made himself comfortable next to Steve on the bed. “What do you want to do?”

“Not die...”

“That's obvious”, Buck shot back, trying – and failing – to mask his fear. “But I mean right now. I can tell you about school, I could read to you, if you want.”

“Just 'cause you got an A in reading...” Even though it hurt, Steve couldn't help his eyeroll. If he weren't overtaken by coughing fits, he too would have an A in reading.

“I can also sing to you!”

Oh, heaven's no. Steve's face just dropped and Buck started laughing. “I know, I know... Torturing cats sounds nicer than my singing. I am more of a dancer after all.” He flailed his arms a little, as if he were guiding a girl over the dance floor.

In the end he did start reading Sherlock Holmes, until Steve's tiredness won.

“Love you, jerk”, he whispered, just before sleep took him.

“Love you too, punk.”

And then it went dark.

Steve opened his eyes to his Mum by his bedside and Buck, lying half on top of him, snoring. And that not just softly.

“Morning, love”, his Mum smiled.

“Hey, Ma.” He made it through another night, he beat the odds again.

“How are you feeling?”

“Tired”, Steve mumbled and gently squeezed his Mum's hand.

“That I believe. It's ok to fall asleep again, me and James are both here to look after you.”

“Ok.” He even managed a weak smile as he closed his eyes again. Still deep asleep, Buck scooted a little closer against Steve and held tightly onto the smaller boy.

Yeah, he'd be just alright here.

***

I can see your dancing, I can lay down next to you

At the foot of my bed

If I drink enough

I can taste your lipstick, I can lay down next to you

But it's all in my head

If I drink enough I swear that I will wake up next to you

***

“It is with a heavy heart that we say goodbye to Sarah Rogers, a formidable woman, wife and mother. It was her mission in life to save others, no matter what the consequences for her own life. This spirit, the fighting for the weakest amongst us, is how we will remember her.”

Steve sat out on the fire escape, staring out over the busy street underneath him. He didn't even bother to try and fight the tears that made their way down his cheek.

She had fought for the longest time against the illness. What made everything worse was that Steve couldn't get to her, not really at least. With his non-existent immune system, he was forced to stay behind glass windows, unable to hold her hand like she had done for him time and time again. After she was there for him all his 18 sick and almost dying years, he couldn't be there the one time she needed him.

He tucked his knees closely against his chest, as the wind picked up. “You'll catch your death”, she'd say, “just come inside, before the coughing starts again.” If he closed his eyes, Steve could almost hear her say it.

“You'll catch your death.”

That wasn't his Mum. He didn't need to look up though, to know that it was Bucky who climbed out to him. However, instead of trying to talk Steve into climbing back inside and have a warming cup of tea, Buck wrapped his arm around his shoulder and pulled Steve in.

They just sat in silence and for the first time in days, maybe even weeks, Steve didn't feel like the world was gonna come crushing down on him if he wasn't strong for everyone around him. With Buck, he didn't need to be strong, he could be taken care of instead.

***

If I drink enough

I can taste your lipstick I can lay down next to you

but it's all in my head

If I drink enough I swear that I will wake up next to you

***

“I still can't believe that that scrawny little punk that never backed away from a fight, is now America's new favourite hero”, Bucky chuckled as they sat around the fire.

“Trust me, I can't believe it myself”, Steve laughed, before emptying his cup.

“Ma would be really proud”, Buck eventually smiled. “She always fought for the little ones and now her little boy's following in her foot steps.”

“She raised me right. Both of us”, he added.

“Yeah...”

They were silent for a while, just staring into the flames, as memories of years long ago passed back through Steve's mind.

“You know”, he broke the silence, “when we first met, Ma was so confused about some kid from Indiana just picking up random boys from the street.”

“In her defence, it's exactly what I did”, Buck laughed.

“Why, though?”

“Huh?”

“Why did you pick me? What, about that breathless, dirty, sick, little beat-up loser, screamed: I need to look out for him now?”

“Exactly that”, Buck shrugged, “you were a breathless, dirty, sick, little, beat-up loser. Someone had to look out for you. But just to make one thing perfectly clear.” Buck locked eyes with him and the warm nostalgia in his expression made way for something almost scolding. “Just because you are now a super human, doesn't mean I have to let you do all sort of crazy shit, because that, my friend, is never gonna happen.”

“Yes, Ma”, Steve moaned and rolled his eyes, before the grin broke through.

“Thank you”, Buck grinned back, “for that wonderful compliment. If I manage to be half the person that Sarah Rogers was...”

“You already are”, Steve made clear. “At least to me.”

“Which is more than enough”, Buck smiled back and pulled Steve into a hug. “Love you, punk.”

“Love you, too, jerk.”

***

If I drink enough

I can taste your lipstick I can lay down next to you

but it's all in my head

If I drink enough I swear that I will wake up next to you

***

The loud bang of the empty bottle, as it shattered on the bare wall, echoed through the apartment. It was a little solace that the pieces flew all through the room, glittering ever so slightly in the lamp's glow.

But Steve didn't give a fuck about the aesthetics.

What he did give a fuck about, was the fact that he still didn't feel anything.

Four bottles. Four bottles of whiskey now lay broken on the ground and Steve didn't even feel the slightest tinge of being drunk. He could have had water and the result'd be the same: He was sitting in his barren room, feeling heartbroken and so out of place, and he couldn't even drown his sorrows in alcohol.

Didn't mean that Steve would stop trying.

Maybe whiskey bottle no five, which he opened and took a generous sip from, would change something. Maybe whiskey bottle no five would grant him the gentle buzz, that he was craving. Maybe whiskey bottle no five would offer the light-headedness that would help Steve relax. Maybe whiskey bottle no five would allow Steve to just close his eyes, let the alcohol do its job and take him into dreamless sleeps. Maybe whiskey bottle no five would mush his brain enough for Steve to stop seeing Bucky's face, a grimace of fear and panic, as he fell. Maybe whiskey bottle no five would be intoxicating enough for Steve to forget, even if only for five minutes.

Or maybe, whiskey bottle no five would be the one to let Steve finally wake up next to Buck again.

***

Hey, my love

I buried you a month or two ago

I keep thinking that you're standing on my floor

That you're waiting there for me

But it's all in my head

If I drink enough I swear that I will wake up next to you

#avengers #steve rogers #captain america #james bucky barnes #winter soldier #white wolf #sarah rogers #stucky #pre-serum #and post-serum #depressed steve #and so much alcohol #remember kids #don't do drugs #or alcohol

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discoveringthebible · 5 years ago

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Written Easter 2020 Sermon: Luke 24:13-35

Easter 2020 Sermon Luke 24:13-35

Before I get started today, I wanted to pray for all of us. And I want to reassure those who are unsure, that God does hear our prayers and that God is grieved with what is happening in the world right now.

Lord, God, Elohim, we thank you for this day and for the resurrection of your Son, Jesus Christ. We thank you for the opportunity for salvation and for the love that you have for each one of us. Heal this world, Father God. Take this disease that has ravaged communities all around the world and make it disappear. Heal the wounds of those who have lost loved ones, and heal those who are fighting everyday to save many more. The Bible tells us that when we don’t have the words to pray, that your Holy Spirit interprets for us. Interpret the hurt that we are experiencing as humanity. Hold us all close to You. In Jesus’ name, we pray. Amen.

Imagine this: your Boss, one whom you had only known for about three years, but you worked, traveled and spent most of that time with, had been on the radar of some very jealous, older and feared elders in the business. Your Boss is working hard toward revolutionizing the career, with your help and the help of your eleven coworkers. Your Boss wants to redeem and restore the good reputation of the occupation.

The elders, however, did everything they could to sabotage the work that you, your coworkers and your Boss are trying to do.

The jealousy became so bad that they began spreading lies to the government about you, so the Government put all of you on their “watch list”.

All of your clients had nothing but praises for your Boss, you and your coworkers and your honest and trustworthy work. However, a few elders paid off some of your clients to say bad things about you and to give you terrible reviews.

What’s worse was that some of those elders also offered a large sum of money to you and to anyone willing to turn your Boss in. No way! You say, but one of your coworkers takes the bribe and sets your Boss up. And the set up comes when you least expected it—in the middle of the night. Your Boss knew it, but didn’t run away from it.

The government police came to arrest your Boss, you and your coworkers who were still with you. In a panic, you and your coworkers scatter and run into the darkness, leaving your Boss behind, and as a result He is arrested.

You go back into town early in the morning to find out what has happened to Him—feeling guilty about leaving Him behind the night before. Fighting to see through the crowds that have appeared, you realize He was beaten and mocked. He was still wearing his blood-stained clothes, which now looked like rags, barely hanging on Him.

The Governor, who presides over the population where you live and work doesn’t want to persecute your Boss—he doesn’t deem it necessary, but the elders do. They persuade the crowd at the Governor’s house that your Boss deserves the highest form of punishment that can be carried out by the government—death. You couldn’t believe it. Even the Governor couldn’t understand it. He heard testimony from several people and found the entire thing ridiculous.

Once a year, the government released a criminal back to the public. In an attempt to set your Boss free, the Governor presents a choice to the crowd: Your Boss, or a murderer. As you begin shouting your Boss’ name, the elders begin chanting the murderer’s name and motions the crowd to do the same. As hard as you try, hardly anyone is chanting your Boss’ name.

Dismayed, the Governor lets the murderer go. He then addresses the crowd, wanting to know what punishment he should carry out. The elders begin chanting “Crucify Him!” And the crowd follows and does the same. Bound by the law and afraid that this matter will go above his head, the Governor does what the crowd commands. Jesus is taken away, only to reemerge hours later, with more bruises and covered in more blood. He was beaten again, so severely, He could barely walk. Then He was paraded through the streets, forced to carry the cross He will die on.

You watch in horror as they drive nails into His body—first with his right hand, then his left. Then they place one foot over the other and drive an even larger nail through both feet, into the wooden cross, currently laying on the ground. And each time He screams in pain. Another crowd has gathered, some are horrified, some are overjoyed and others don’t know what to make of the situation. Government officials stand the cross up and put it into the hole they dug so it would stand up. Your Boss cried out in pain again. And slowly, H begins to suffocate along with two other criminals who were already hanging on their crosses.

After He dies, He is buried. And then it’s the hard reality of What are we going to do now? Between you and your ten coworkers. Some of them go back to what they did before they were recruited by your Boss: fishing. As this was how they knew they could earn income. As for the one who betrayed your Boss, He was filled with so much remorse and regret that He killed himself.

As you prepare to head back to your hometown of Emmaus, some women, who also worked with you had this remarkable story a couple of days later. They went to go mourn him, but His body was gone! It vanished! What could it mean? You wondered…

This story just happened to the two men we see in Luke 24:13-35. Their world had turned upside town and they were just trying to pick up the pieces.

The Gospel of Luke gives us a unique account of these two on their way to Emmaus. This story takes place after Mary, Jesus’ mother, Mary Magdalene, and Peter saw Jesus’ empty tomb first hand.

Verse 13: That same day two of Jesus’ followers were walking to the village of Emmaus, seven miles from Jerusalem. 14: As they walked along, they were talking about everything that had happened. 15: As they talked and discussed these things, Jesus himself suddenly came and began walking with them.

16: But God kept them from recognizing him.

17: He asked them, “What are you discussing so intently as you walk along?” They stopped short; sadness written across their faces.

18: Then one of them, Cleopas, replied, “You must be the only person in Jerusalem who hasn’t heard about all the things that have happened there in the last few days.”

19: “What things?”

Let’s stop here a minute and let this sink in. These two guys must have thought that this traveler came from under a rock. Jesus’ death had occurred during Passover Week.

Passover has been celebrated from the time when the Jewish people were enslaved in Egypt. Moses was trying to free the Jewish people, who were slaves, from Ramses II. But Pharaoh’s heart was hardened, which was why God sent the Ten Plagues to cover the entire land of Egypt. And the last one was a doozy: It claimed the firstborn male of every Egyptian household.

The Jewish Community was spared because they spread lamb or goat blood across their door frames to keep the death angel from taking their firstborn males. The death angel passed over them.

This Passover Celebration was the reason why Jews from all over the Empire (no, I’m not making a Star Wars pun), the Roman Empire were there in Jerusalem. Everyone knew what had happened to Jesus—all it seemed except for this unknown traveler. Plus, all of this was fresh on Christ’s mind—having gone through all the torture, suffering, death and resurrection.

Back to verse 19:

19: “What things?” Jesus asked. “The things that happened to Jesus, the man from Nazareth,” they replied. “He was a prophet who did powerful miracles, and he was a mighty teacher in the eyes of God and all the people. 20: But our leading priests and other religious leaders handed him over to be condemned to death and they crucified him. 21: We had hoped he was the Messiah who had come to rescue Israel. All this happened three days ago.”

Another pause here.

The Jewish community was under Roman government control and they were persecuted because they were Jewish. They had high taxes, and they were treated terribly. Many people thought that the Messiah was going to free them from the Roman government and become their King, like they had in the Old Testament—a King, like David or Solomon. However, they misunderstood the purpose of the Messiah and didn’t realize that Jesus came and His purpose was much bigger than just freeing them from the Romans. He had come to save their souls.

Verse 22: Then some women from our group of his followers were all at the tomb early this morning, and they came back with an amazing report. 23: They said his body was missing, and they had seen angels who told them Jesus is alive!

24: Some of our men ran out to see and sure enough, his body was gone, just as the women had said.”

25: Then Jesus said to them, “You foolish people! You find it so hard to believe all that the prophets wrote in the Scriptures. 26: Wasn’t it clearly predicted that the Messiah would have to suffer all these things before entering his glory?”

During this time, every man had a basic religious education—they grew up reading, memorizing and saying Scripture aloud. (Imagine for a moment, if we did this as a society. What would our neighborhoods, schools, jobs and lives look like if we actually studied the Scriptures on a daily basis?)

As Jesus points out, it shouldn’t have been a surprise that He was killed. His death was fulfilled in Scripture that was written several hundred years before Jesus was even born. (If you want to check out some of those passages, take a look at Daniel 9:24-27; Haggai 2:6-9; Isaiah 7:14; 8:14; 53:3-6; Jeremiah 31:15; Psalm 22; and Zechariah 9:9.) I will also post this list in the comments of this video. Psalm 22 is a great example. Christ even quoted part of the first verse while hanging on the cross! “My God, my God. Why have you abandoned me?” To those who heard Him, they would have known the entire psalm, including verses 16-18:

16: My enemies surround me like a pack of dogs, an evil gang closes in on me. They have pierced my hands and feet. 17: I can count all of my bones. My enemies stare at me and gloat. 18: They divide my garments among themselves and throw dice for my clothing.

Another great example is Isaiah 53:3-6: 3: He was despised and rejected—a man of sorrows, acquainted with deepest grief. We turned our backs on him and looked the other way. He was despised, and we did not care. 4: Yet it was our weakness he carried, it was our sorrows that weighed him down. And we thought his troubles were a punishment from God, a punishment from his own sins! 5: But he was pierced for our rebellion, crushed for our sins. He was beaten so we could be whole. He was whipped so we could be healed. 6: All of us, like sheep, have strayed away. We have left God’s paths to follow our own. Yet the Lord laid on him the sins of us all.

Let this sink in for a moment.

“Yet the Lord laid on him the sins of us all.”

Isaiah lived approximately 700 years before Christ. Isaiah didn’t write these words about himself. This was the prophecy.

It was all laid out, but many people in Jesus’ time, had missed the true purpose of His coming. And even the ones who knew Jesus was the Messiah, they had misunderstood His real purpose, which was to set people free from their sins—not to restore Israel as a powerful military nation, as it was believed He would.

Back to Luke 24 Verse 27: Then Jesus took them through the writing of Moses and all the prophets, explaining the things concerning himself.

28: By this time, they were nearing Emmaus and the end of their journey. Jesus acted as if he were going on, 29: but they begged him, “Stay the night with us, since it is getting late.” So he went home with them.

30: As they sat down to eat, he took the bread and blessed it. Then it broke it and gave it to them. 31: Suddenly, their eyes were opened, and they recognized him. At that moment he disappeared!

32: They said to each other, “Did our hearts not burn within us as he talked with us?”

33: And within the hour they were on their way back to Jerusalem. There they found the eleven disciples and the others who had gathered with them, 34: who said, “The Lord has really risen! He appeared to Peter!”

35: Then the two from Emmaus told their story of how Jesus had appeared to them as they were walking along the road, and how they had recognized him as he was breaking bread.

This is a pretty incredible story.

Growing up, I had never paid much attention to the Resurrection story in Luke’s gospel. The small Southern Baptist church I was raised in tended to preach the Resurrection story from Matthew, Mark and John.

And if it wasn’t for Emmaus Church Community, a Nazarene church I started attending when I was seventeen, I still might not be paying that much attention to it. The other three gospels do not even mention Emmaus. One of the lessons that, as a Christian, I take away from this story is that sometimes, I miss it. And that isn’t always a great feeling—I don’t like to think of the things that I’ve goofed up, or things that I have missed or even messed up, but without that reflection, we don’t strive to be better. I don’t strive to be better.

Most who know me know I have felt a call into ministry—Deaf ministry to be exact. I was called back in August of 2002 when I was just thirteen years old. And this was during a time when a devastating life experience caused me to walk away from God. What I was taught about God didn’t match up with what I had witnessed and experienced and I couldn’t understand why, so out of extreme frustration, I took a break from God. There actually was no intention of returning to God, but I am grateful that God never left me. And about a year and a half later, I recommitted my life to Christ.

On August 9th 2002, I heard God’s voice. He said to me, “Cody, I want you to minister to those who cannot hear.”

I told my youth pastor about it. He was excited for the God encounter I had, probably because I needed it, but a part of him was excited because he was sitting next to me when it happened. After we returned from our week at summer camp, with all the other kids in youth group, my youth pastor thought it would be a great idea to share this call into ministry with the elders in the church. After explaining what had happened, they suggested that I look for ways to become a missionary. (At the time, I didn’t understand the difference between ‘minister’ and ‘missionary.’ Plus, in that church’s denomination, they do not believe women should preach from the pulpit.)

Over the course of the next ten years, and changing churches, every time I tried to sign up for a missionary trip, whether near or abroad, there would always be something that prevented me from going. And I had started to become frustrated. After much reflection and council, and a group trip with the college concert band I was a part of, God pointed out I had missed the mark.

I had misunderstood His call.

That’s a pretty big thing to miss.

God had called me to be a minister.

The dictionary defines ‘minister’ as “a person authorized to conduct religious worship, a member of the clergy, pastor.” It defines ‘missionary’ as “a person sent by a church into an area to carry on evangelism or other activities, as education or hospital work.”

Don’t get me wrong, both are wonderful calls from God, and quite frankly, we need more people to accept God’s calls, whether that is being a missionary, pastor, or something else.

Some of you might think I missed the mark because I was led to believe a different call. At first, I thought so too—but I don’t think so anymore. This call was mine. It didn’t belong to the church elders. A part of me thought that this call might include preaching, which was something I was against. I disliked public speaking. I despised it. Nope. I hate it. Part of it had to do with a speech impediment I had as a child. (And yet, somehow, I now hold a Bachelor’s Degree in Communication Science, and I took Advanced Public Speaking voluntarily.)

I couldn’t pronounce two letters of the alphabet: L’s and R’s.

But, do you know what the problem really was? Why I didn’t really own my call?

I was full of excuses. Just like Moses in Exodus 3 and 4.

However, I want to tell you that this passage in Luke 24 is about forgiveness of our shortcomings. It’s about love. It’s about a God who loved us so much that He would send His Son to suffer and die on a cross for us—including our excuses and reasons why we didn’t and sometimes just don’t get it. For the times that we missed the mark. Asking God to forgive us for our shortcomings and for the times we missed it is important. It’s also about forgiving ourselves and forgiving others. God’s forgiveness of our sin isn’t a direct result of us forgiving others, but it is about us realizing what forgiveness means.

Ephesians 4:32 says, 32: “Instead, be kind to each other, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, just as God through Christ has forgiven you.” As Christians, we are forgiven by God when we ask for it.

But what about those who don’t consider themselves Christian?

Right now, we are living in a pretty scary time, with a lot of uncertainty ahead. As we watch or read the news, we are reminded of our mortality as humanity when we see people succumbing to COVID-19.

I am here to tell you that through this difficult time: God loves you. God sent Jesus to live as human, to die on the cross for our sins and to be raised again.

John 3:16-17 says, 16: For this is how God loved the world: He gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life. 17: God sent his Son into the world not to judge the world, but to save the world through him.

I encourage you to make peace with God. Salvation is a process, while the commitment is immediate, salvation is a lifelong process which includes a relationship with Jesus Christ, as well as a church family in which you can continue to learn and grow from. If you want to become a Christian, the first step is to pray. Ask God for forgiveness. Ask Him to forgive you for your shortcomings and sins. (This is a process that will continue also as a Christian, or at least, it should.) Ask Jesus to become your Savior and make a commitment to follow in Jesus’ footsteps. And then thank God for His Saving Grace.

Romans 10:13 says, 13: “For everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.” (Also see Joel 2:32).

If you prayed this prayer for the first time, or if you are recommitting yourself to God, please let me know in the comments below, or in a private message. I want to celebrate with you and help you find a Bible preaching church in which you can continue in this journey.

If you are not ready, that is okay too. If you have questions, or would like more information, also, please feel free to comment below, or to message me. I am willing to help you.

For my Christian brothers and sisters, we need to remember to pray for those who are not yet Christian. We need to be reaching out to those who are especially lost and confused as this Coronavirus ravages the world.

I want everyone to know that you are loved. You are valued. You matter.

Let’s pray:

Father God, we thank you for this message of grace and salvation. Open the hearts and ears of those who need this message, Lord. Let us remember, that You love us unconditionally. And that Your death on the cross and Your resurrection was for us. You did that, so that we wouldn’t have to die a sinner’s death. We love you Lord. In Jesus’ name. Amen.

I wanted to leave you all with a benediction, or blessing. It comes from 1 Corinthians.

“My love to all of you in Christ Jesus. Amen.” (1 Corinthians 16:24)

#sermon #easter #resurrection

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fluffy-marshmallow-heart · 6 years ago

Text

Secret Studies ch.20 -Hell Cave

The Elementalist au

Beckett x MC (Oriana)

Words: 2939

Warnings: Violence

First they hid their relationship. Now they have to fight for it.

Master List (Catch up here)

There is only going to be one, maybe two more chapters to this series. Thank you all for sticking with me :)

Also, a special shout-out to

@dancetothestoriesinyoursoul and @drakewalkerfantasy for the brainstorming assistance!!

Oriana’s heart was pounding, ready to jump out. She was standing completely still, unable to move a muscle in her tense body, the goosebumps travelling all over her, and she audibly gulped, unable to look away. Everything in her screamed to run, to disappear, but she stood still, frozen in place. It became difficult to breath, difficult to stand, and she could feel how her body started to fall, getting closer to the floor. It seemed hours had passed since she stood there, looking into the merciless eyes of Mrs. Harrington, unable to fight back, when in fact it was only seconds that flew by until she hit the floor with a thud.

Beckett’s eyes widened, watching his fiancé hitting the floor. His heart dropping to the pit of his stomach, but he knows she is not ready to give up, and neither is he. He immediately went to step out from behind the column, but Shreya stopped, mouthing the words “NOT YET”.

He listened to his mother cackle coldly. “You really are quite the fighter, Jessica. I would have expected…”

“MY NAME IS ORIANA!!!! YOU KNOW THIS!!!!” Oriana shouted, starting to get up before being knocked down again by an invisible force.

“Your name is irrelevant! Haven’t you learned your lesson yet? Why do you still fight? I was positive you were finished last time, you weren’t even moving, your blood spilling all over the floor. I could barely detect your heartbeat. After ridding that ridiculous protection spell my son attached to you, I honestly have no idea how you managed to survive. My accomplice was unable to inform me. You do know Griffin Langley, yes? He has been quite helpful to my cause.”

With a snap of her fingers, Griffin suddenly reappeared, looking frightened.

Oriana gasped, and Beckett felt his blood boiling. He couldn’t believe Griffin ruined things yet again. He sold them out. His fists clenched, his knuckles white.

“Griffin? How could you do this? How could you do this to us, again??” Oriana cried.

Griffin shook his head vehemently. “I didn’t…” But then his body went rigid, as though frozen into a statue. Unable to move, unable to speak, only able to watch the events unfold before him.

“Foolish child. You really expect me to believe Griffin sent you here all by himself? He’s not clever enough to think of that. No, this has my son written all over it. BECKETT!” Mrs. Harrington barked. “Show yourself this moment!”

Pausing, Beckett nods slowly to Shreya, giving her a signal to stay there. Taking a deep breath, he came from behind the column, revealing himself to his mother.

“My only son, going behind my back and disgracing the Harrington name by frolicking about with the likes of her. She is nothing. No one! And Harrington is a respectable name. I will not allow either of you to ruin this!”

“Mother, how could…”

“Enough!” She flung him across the room and he groaned as his back hit a wall.

“NO!” Screamed Oriana, trying to stand up and get to Beckett, her eyes wide with fear. “Why are you doing this? What have I done to you to make you hate me so much?” She could feel the hot tears stinging her eyes, but she’s too stubborn to let them run down her face. She turns to Beckett, watching him struggling to stand up before falling back on the floor, groaning.

“You don’t belong here. You did not grow up around magic, your parents are dead. You’re an orphan, and orphans have no place at Penderghast.”

Oriana gaped at her. “Well, excuse my parents for dying. I see how inconvenient that must be for you.”

“HA! For having such a high academic standing, you are truly ignorant. Your parents’ death was of no inconvenience to me. And why must I repeat myself? I already explained this to you.”

“You’ve told us nothing.” Beckett spat, finally reaching Oriana’s side.

Mrs. Harrington’s eyebrows rose. “Nothing? I have explained everything to this…this heathen.” She gestured at Oriana, who was shaking her head.

“No. You didn’t.”

Beckett’s mother looked between the two young lovers before bursting into hollow laughter. “Oh. Ohhhh, oh this is truly priceless. You can’t remember the last attack, can you?”

Oriana swallowed as the woman in front of her smiled menacingly. “Allow me to refresh your memory then.”

With a flick of her wrist, Oriana was on the floor and bound again, unable to move against the hot stone beneath her. Beckett frantically tried removing the invisible ties to no avail.

“I have to admit, my son, I was extremely impressed with your protection spell. You made your mother proud. For once.” She snarled.

Beckett’s glared at her. “You choose now to finally be proud of one of my accomplishments?”

“It was a brief flash of pride. I’m disappointed you’re squandering away such power on someone as useless as her.”

“She is not…”

“Stop talking back to your mother.” She snapped. “Do I need to bind you as well?”

“Beck, stop.” Oriana told him quietly.

“Do not ever address my son as ‘Beck.’ This is not a brothel.”

“Tell me, then.” Oriana looked into her eyes, seeing nothing but disdain.

“Your mother. Your trashy, know it all, good for nothing mother. And the man that fell in love with her. Ha! Not even a man. Just a boy ruled by hormones. Much like my son is, at this very moment. This school as changed so much. The admissions are so very lax now, the professors lacking in every category. It’s a pity what has happened here.”

“Seems fine to me.” Beckett muttered under his breath.

“What does my birth mother have to do with anything?” Oriana asked, shooting Beckett a Look.

“Your parents attended college here. Did you know? Your father and I knew each other our entire lives. We were destined to be together.” A far away look appeared in Mrs. Harrington’s eyes. “We were supposed to be together. We were high school sweethearts, that turned into college lovers. That is, until your mother showed up. One day she just strolled onto the campus and laid her sights on my Jonathan.”

Oriana couldn’t believe what she was hearing. All of this, stemming from an event that happened so long ago, and by a woman she never even knew.

Beckett watched a deep scowl form on his mother’s face. “I never understood how he fell for Theia so quickly. She was talented, no question, she took my spot at the top of the class within weeks. As soon as she reached the top, Jonathan left me, and immediately began dating her. She bewitched him. Just as you have bewitched my son. Being a whore must run in the family.”

Oriana’s eyes flashed in anger. “So, you pin the sins of the mother onto the child? Does that mean Beckett should be held accountable for your actions?”

Oriana screamed as a deep gash appeared in her wrist, blood flowing freely.

“Moth…AUUGGHH!!!” Beckett cursed loudly, doubling over in his own pain. “Why?” He gasped breathlessly.

“Because you have defied me one too many times! And for this trash?? I thought I would never hear the Miller name again. But now here she is, strolling onto the campus and replacing you at the top of the class, just as her mother did years ago. The difference is, I knew what Theia was back then, and I know what Oriana is now. The Miller name will not destroy my legacy again!”

A bloodcurdling scream rang throughout the cave as multiple wounds appeared on Oriana’s body, as though she were being slashed by an invisible force repeatedly.

“STOP SCREAMING!” Mrs. Harrington bellowed, and a second later the screams were muffled, Oriana’s mouth closed shut, unable to open.

Beckett watched helplessly as his fiancé’s tears streamed down her face, matching the tears he could feel on his own. He needs to hurry, or all of this will be for nothing.

“Please stop.” He begged. “Your hurting her hurts me. I’ll do whatever you want, please”

His mother turned her cold gaze back to him. “As long as she lives, you will be in her grasp. I will not allow it. I should have finished Theia back then. I won’t make that mistake again.”

She turned her laser like focus back to Oriana, her eyes narrowing in hatred.

“Wait!” Beckett cried frantically. “Does she deserve to die? You claim to have attacked her multiple times, this whole year! You admit having attempted to murder her a week ago. But you left before she took her last breath. Will you leave her to die again? Alone? Here?”

“Her body will turn to ash by the lava. This is actually a perfect location. I should thank you, Beckett, for providing us with this venue. Perhaps it will give you some comfort to know that this time, I will not leave before her heart stops beating. I will ensure she no longer breathes. I will ensure there is no body to ever be found. To be honest, last week I was quite careless, leaving her in the library like that. I should have planned better. When Griffin told me she was in Hell Cave, I immediately knew it was your idea. Just know that I’m doing all of this for you. For us. Once Oriana has disappeared, I will set up a dinner with you and Victoria again. You will court her. Eventually, I’m sure you’ll come to love her, as I came to love your father, and our social status will never dwindle. It is a perfect match between the two of you. She is smart, but not too smart. She’s quite pretty, you’ll enjoy looking at her. And she’s more than willing to provide you full access to her body to use however you wish.”

Nausea coursed through Beckett’s veins, causing his stomach to hurdle. “You think that after watching my fiancé die, I will touch another girl?”

“Of course, I do. Men have primal needs. She’ll fulfill all of your fantasies. You like whores so much, treat her like one. Do whatever you wish. If you’re angry, abuse her. I really don’t care. But you will be together. It has already been promised.”

Oriana’s muffled screaming had subsided, and a smirk appeared on his mother’s face. “I guess someone no longer has the energy to cry.”

With another flick of her wrist, Oriana was finally able to open her mouth again, but only whimpers came out. She was pale, her eyelids heavy.

“Don’t think I didn’t catch that you called her your fiancé, either. You may as well stop calling her that, now. She’s almost gone.”

“You really do plan to kill her.” Beckett said sadly. “I don’t even know who you are. The mother I know would never have done this. You’ve always been strict, always been cold. But you love me, I know you do. You should want what’s best for me.”

For a brief moment, he saw his mother’s eyes soften. “I do want what’s best for you. And what’s best for this family. This is why Oriana must die. My killing her will ensure our legacy continues. It will ensure the best bloodlines. Say your goodbye.”

Beckett shut his eyes a brief second. They did it. They have everything they need. Taking a deep breath, he re-opened his eyes and looked directly into his mother’s.

“You’re right. It is time to say goodbye. But, not to Oriana. To you.” He heard the soft click of the video camera as Zephyr pressed the red button. Shreya stepped out from her hiding space, and bound Mrs. Harrington’s wrists together.

“What is this?” She gasped. She turned back to Beckett, leveling him with her gaze. His hands flew to his head as it felt like it was being pounded. He sank down onto the stone, still clutching his head, when he heard the faint whisper.

“Beck”

He tore his eyes away from his mother and turned to face Oriana. His eyes went wide with the realization that she probably didn’t have much time left before falling unconscious. Trying to ignore the throbbing pain he was feeling, he crawled over to her, his hands traveling as he healed her wounds slowly.

“I need help.” He groaned, and Zeph appeared at his side a moment later, joining in the healing.

As they worked, a bright flash appeared, and everyone was back in the thief stadium. Magical police were swarming the area, and Shreya was momentarily distracted by the commotion. The bonds containing Mrs. Harrington faltered, and with a loud shriek she launched herself at them.

“SHE WILL CEASE TO EXIST!!!”

Beckett watched in horror at a trail of blood starting to form across his lover’s neck. “Oh my god, stop!!!” He shouted, his hands pressed to the bleeding wound. “Ori, stay with me!! Don’t give up!”

At that precise moment, he could feel a shift in his surroundings. Paramedics were now attending Oriana’s lacerations, and his own head was no longer stinging. Shreya and Zeph gently pulling him away, so the medical personnel could take over. Finally letting himself look around, he saw his mother in a magical holding cell, unable to use her powers. Sheer emotion crashed through him, and a single tear trickled down his cheek as he made his way to his mother’s cage.

“I’m so sorry.” He whispered. “I’m so sorry it came to this. If you could’ve just been happy for me. If you could have seen past your hatred…I know you would have loved her. She’s so amazing. I’m your only son, why didn’t you trust me to make my own decisions and forge my own life?”

“You are no longer my son.” She responded curtly, and Beckett’s hand went over his heart, as though it had been pierced, as he took an involuntary step back.

“How can you…”

“I don’t have a son.” She repeated chillingly, and Beckett felt a shiver run down his spine. Feeling numb, he turned away, his feet carrying him to a somewhat quiet area of the field. Collapsing on the ground, he allowed himself to feel all the hurt and anguish he’d pent up inside while trying to stay strong for Oriana. He buried his face in his hands, breathing in and out, letting hot tears flow freely from his eyes where no one could see them.

“Mr. Harrington?” A voice eventually called from behind him. “Beckett Harrington?”

“Yes.” He replied sullenly. “That’s me.”

“I’m Chief Anderson. I’m afraid I need your statement.”

“You have the recording.” Beckett’s voice cracked,

“I know this is difficult. It sounds like you and Ms Miller have had quite the year. The way she described the events your mother confessed to on the tape, it’s a miracle that…”

“Wait.” Beckett cut in. “Oriana? You were able to speak to her?”

The man in front of him grinned. “Yes. She’s looking good as new.” He nodded over to where Oriana was now sitting up, conversing with Zeph and Shreya. Beckett looked back at the man in uniform.

“Sir, if I may…can we do this after…”

“Of course. Go.”

Beckett bolted to his true love’s side. “Ori!”

“Beck!” She cried out happily as he dove into her arms.

“Oh, Ori.” He began kissing her frantically before she let out a laugh and pushed him gently away.

“We did it.” She told him, cupping his face in her hands. “We really did it! We’re free of this!”

He smiled widely, before it slowly fell away as he watched his mother being led away, her head still held high.

“I love you.” Oriana’s voice drifted into his hearing.

He squeezed her hands. “I love you too. And Shreya, Zeph…thank you. We couldn’t have pulled it off without you.”

“This was the most exciting thing I’ve ever done in my life!” Zeph exclaimed. “Spying on people is so much fun, I definitely see more of this happening in the future…”

He trailed off seeing the expressions on his friends faces. “I mean as an investigator! In the future! I’m so sorry about your mom!”

Beckett gave him a halfhearted smile and a small nod but didn’t say a word. Now that the danger was over and their lives were safe, he was becoming overwhelmed with sadness over everything his mother had done, and the fact that it was his idea that put her behind bars.

“Guys?” A quiet voice approached. The friends looked up and saw Griffin, accompanied by another officer. “I can’t even begin to tell you how sorry I am for all of this. I should have seen the monster she was becoming…the monster I was becoming. I…I just need you to know that I didn’t tell her anything about this. I was really trying to help.”

The group stared at him a beat before Oriana finally broke the silence. “We know. Thank you.”

As he walked away with the officer, Beckett turned back to Oriana. “I still have to give my statement. But I don’t want to leave you.”

She gave him a soft kiss. “I’m not going anywhere. Just get it over with so we can all go home.”

Sighing, he turned around. “Chief Anderson? I’m ready now.”

He nodded. “Come on over here, son.”

Beckett felt like he was stabbed in the heart with those words, as he slowly went to tell the tale of how his own mother tried to murder the love of his life and didn’t even care if he was hurt in the process.

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