#myra still being concerned about him being in pain even right after he says he hates her

[melonisopod]

When I tell you there were LAYERS to the Command Spell Torture Scene.

[haderpjs]

Eddie lives.

But Richie at the beginning isn’t allowed to see him, (no one is, obviously, he’s under surgery) the losers try to take him to the Town House so he can sleep and change his filthy clothes, they try, more than once each, until Richie finally agrees.

Eddie had more than one surgery, Richie wasn’t paying so much attention to what the doctors were saying to them. All the things they had to do to save Eddie's life sounded numb and far away because he was occupied thinking on how he might be so close to losing Eddie a g a i n, after just having got him back.

Now clean and rested (not really he couldn’t sleep more than two hours because he made the mistake of entering to Eddie’s room and see the blood all over the bathroom floor) he is finally allowed to see Eddie, it’s been almost 10 hours since they first brought Eddie to the hospital. It hurts to see his dearest friend all pale and weak and tied to diverse devices and machines but it’s a million times better than what he saw in the deadlights.

They stay all the hours the doctors allow them to, when the night comes he’s the only one who doesn’t go back to the Town House. He stays besides Eddie because he is afraid of leaving his friend alone, he is afraid of Edie dying even when the doctors said he was in no danger anymore, he can’t leave Eddie, he can’t lose him after he just got him back, -you don’t ‘got him’ don’t be stupid, he is married and you know it- he tells himself.

Richie sits on the chair besides Eddie’s bed, since the bed is taller he can rest his head on the mattress. He knows he should put his glasses on the table but he finds himself being comfortably at peace por once since he arrived to Derry and he might not want to fall asleep but he is so tired, without realizing or thinking much about it his body is already reaching out for Eddie’s, Richie holds his friend’s hand and lets the [beep beep beep] of the heart rate monitor drift him to sleep, -it’s practically the sound of Eddie’s heart- he tinks and sure it isn’t the most comfortable position but he won’t let go of Eddie’s hand.

He wakes up in the middle of the night all startled and alarmed, he adjusts his crooked glasses and once his eyes adjust to the darkness of the room and then he can see how the dim glow from outside lightens Eddie’s facial features, Richie feels like crying for the nth time since he woke up from the deadlights. And jus now he had dreamed what he saw in those fucking magic demonic lights.

‘‘Hey Eds, you ...  you have to wake up man’‘ his voice is barely a whisper

[beep beep beep]

‘‘Not like, right now I know you’re on a lot of drugs and very weak from the surgeries but-huh’‘ he whimpers and tries to calm himself

-Of couse Eddie will wake up, we killed that fucking demonic clown, we won, and we remember each other and we’ll not forget this time!-

‘‘y’know you’re the strongest person I know right?, and you’re so brave Eds, I hope you know I meant what I said down there in the sewers, you are braver than you believe you are’‘

-Eddie will wake up and I’ll tell him how brave he is to his face until he believes it-

‘‘But you’re an Idiot too’‘ he can’t contain the little giggle that escapes his mouth

‘‘Why did you save me?’‘ he asks to the unconscious man lying in fron of him

[beep beep beep]

-It should’ve been me- that thought is been in Richie’s head since they were draggind Eddie outside from neitbolt.

He was the one with the stupid trashmouth that got himself in the deadlights and he probably should have died with his brains fried or whatever. It sucked that Eddie had to rescue him only to nearly die impaled. If Richie just hadn’t acted stupidily. But he knows Eddie did it because they are best friends, the same way Eddie would have done it for Bill or any other of the losers, Richie also knows he would have done the same thing, bitch he did what he did because Mike was about to die and even if it wasn’t the most smart thing to do he’d do that again just so Mike or any other of his friends wouldn't die.

[beep beep beep]

‘‘Why did that fucking clown had to hurt you?’‘ He lets out a sob and burries his head on the space between Eddie’s arm and the right side of his torso

-to hurt me, It did it because he knew my secret, always knew and It did it in front of my eyes, because he knew my dirty little secret because It knew one of my biggest fears is losing you-

Sure the moment pennywise died Eddie’s bleeding had stopped and when they put Eddie in the ambulance Richie is sure the hole in his chest wasn't as big as pennywise claw must’ve first pierced through Eddie’s chest, but Eddie still lost plenty blood and the internal damage still was there. He wishes Eddie’s injury had dissapeared the moment they killed that demonic clown.

‘‘I know you’re out of danger now but you didn’t deserve this, you didn’t have to, for ANY reason, especially not for me’‘

[beep beep beep]

He hated himself for being the cause Eddie was now lying almost lifeless on a hospital bed, with a big-ass scar on his chest and back, not to mention who knows how many months of physical therapy ahead of him.

‘‘Eds, I am so happy you’re alive, umm I thought-’’ he whimpers

‘’I thought I had lost you, when we were dragging you out and you wouldnt wake up, I held your almost lifeless body on my arms and it felt fucking horrible’‘ a deep breath escapes his mouth

[beep beep beep]

‘‘it felt like my life was being drawn away from me’‘ he lifts his hands and presses his palms under his glasses against his eyelids

[beep beep beep]

The only sound in the room was Richie’s pained voice and the constant [beep beep beep] of the machine, not that he was expecting Eddie to wake up and reply, but he was so used to Eddie always replying to him, most of the times some annoyed comebacks because of Richie’s jokes about Mrs. K, sometimes just Eddie’s giggles at Richie’s most stupid jokes, and the good ones too.

‘‘Because since the moment I remembered you, I felt like the most alive person on earth’‘

[beep beep beep]

‘‘I didn't know I missed you so much until I saw you’‘

[beep beep beep]

‘‘The void in my heart took your form after my brain reclaimed your name’

[beep beep beep] ‘

‘‘I want you in my life forever’‘ -and the rest of the losers of course-

[beep beep beep]

‘‘i don’t think I can make it another 27 years without your- friendship being a constan in my life’‘

[beep beep beep] 

Richie thinks about confessing his feeling to Eddie, since well... Eddie wasn’t really listening and also, he wasn’t sure if he’d ever had the guts to do it when Eddie was actually listening, and if he ever dared to tell him how he felt, well... Eddie was married anyway and he had a life in NY, Richie would have to conform with Eddie’s friendship.

Eventually Richie fell asleep again, he didn’t dreamed about Eddie’s death this time, he dreamed they were fifteen again and they were on the hammock reading comics and annoying the shit out of each other. Until an ugly whiny voice woke him up.

‘‘[I AM HIS WIFE and I have all the right to see him!]’‘

Richie could see the shadow on the closed curtains of the window that a nurse was standing between the door and a woman, blocking her way in.

‘‘[Mrs. Kaspbrak I understand you are concerned about your husband but I already told you he is stable and these are not visit hours]’‘

-SHITSHITSHITSHIT EDDIE’S WIFE IS HERE-

Richie stood up from the chair and started pacing the room, he had stayed past visit hours and he wasn't supposed to, but since the nurse that came last night into the room to check Eddie’s vitals didn’t say a word he supposed it wouldn’t be a problem if he slept there.

Now he had no way of sneaking out of the room and they were going to find him in there and honestly, he didn’t care if the doctors disapproved his actions, he didn't want to see Eddie’s wife, but he didn’t want to leave Eddie’s side just so Mrs. Kaspbrak would take his place

-It is NOT your place! stop it!!!-

‘‘FFFFUCK’‘ he muttered

‘‘[... else do you need me to sign?, I am going to demand this hospital if you refuse to let me see my husband]’‘

‘’fuck Eds she really is Sonia 2.0, Jesus man what did you got yourself into?’‘ Richie whispered towards Eddie

‘‘[... and sorry I don’t mean to be rude, I am just very *hiccups* very worried abut my husband and i just need to see him, I haven't seen him since he left three days ago, pleease even if it’s just 5 minutes I need to see him!, you can’t imagine the pain I was in when i found out he!- *wimpers*]’‘

Richie reaches out for Eddie’s hand and sqeezes it, Eddie looks so peaceful now and he really can't hold himself out, he leans down and pressed a kiss to Eddie's forehead.

He was just leaning back up when the door opened

‘‘You can stay but when the Doctor comes in for the routinely check-ups you'll have to leave, that gives you about 20 minutes-’‘ the nurse stopps when she sees Richie standing beside Eddie’s bed.

‘‘Oh!, I didn't thought-’‘ anyone would be here

‘‘No i was just le-’‘ Richie doesn’t finish because Myra interrupts him, walking towards Eddie’s bed while observing Richie’s being very meticulously

‘’WHO ARE YOU?’’ Myra demands looking at Richie now with a flash of disgust on her face

Richie doen’t like how demanding she sounds, and he certainly doesnt like how she’s looking at him, he feels vulnerable and he feels exposed like he just got caught doing something that he isn't supposed to, allowed to. He hates it.

‘’No one, I am leaving’‘ He answers almost very apathetic and walks down past them towards the door. Hands on his pockets and head slightly facing down

‘‘are you one of Eddie’s friends?. He said he came to visit some friends, were you with him when this happened to him?’‘

He stops in the door frame but doesn't turn to face her

‘‘Yeah’‘... -yes I was there and I didn’t do enough to keep him from being hurt, yes it’s my fault he’s there ... -

Richie leaves the room.

[myhauntedsalem]

The Last Words of 30 Famous Serial Killers

Some killers have offered sincere apologies for the heinous offenses they committed. Others’ final words were filled with anger and resentment, while some seemed indifferent. A few of the most interesting final words are quizzically strange rantings.

What are the last words of some of the most famous serial slayers? The last words on this list come from the mouths of some of the most heinous, dangerous people in human history.

James French

“Hey, fellas! How about this for a headline for tomorrow’s paper? ‘French Fries.'” (August 10, 1966)

James French has the distinction of being the last person to be executed in Oklahoma, via electric chair

Carl Panzram

“Hurry up, you Hoosier bastard. I could kill 10 men while you’re fooling around.” (September 5, 1930)

Peter Kurten

“Tell me. After my head has been chopped off, will I still be able to hear, at least for a moment, the sound of my own blood gushing from the stump of my neck? That would be a pleasure to end all pleasures.” (July 2, 1931)

Peter Kurten, AKA “The Vampire of Dusseldorf,” drank the blood of at least one person.

John Wayne Gacy

Kiss My Ass (May 10, 1994)

Thomas J. Grasso

“I did not get my Spaghetti O’s. I got spaghetti. I want the press to know this.” (March 20, 1995)

Tom Ketchum

“I’ll be in Hell before you start breakfast, boys. Let her rip.” (April 26, 1901)

Jeffery Dahmer

“I don’t care if I live or die. Go ahead and kill me.” (Novemer 28, 1994)

H.H. Holmes

“Take your time. Don’t bungle it.” (May 7, 1896)

Dr. H.H. Holmes was one of the first American serial killers.

Albert Fish

“I don’t even know why I’m here.” (January 16, 1936)

In the 1920s, Albert Fish claimed that he had slain at least 100 children.

Ted Bundy

“I’d like you to give my love to my family and friends.” (January 24, 1989)

The exact number of women Ted Bundy offed or hurt in the 1970s is unknown, but some say the number is somewhere in the 100s.

Marcel Petiot

“Gentleman, I have one last piece of advice: Look away. This will not be pretty to see.” (May 25, 1946)

Petiot was a French doctor who was only found out when the remains of 23 people were found in his Parisian home during WW2.

Steven Timothy Judy

“I don’t hold any grudges. This is my doing. Sorry it happened.” (March 9, 1981)

Steven Judy slayed a woman and her three children in 1979.

William Bonin

“I would suggest that when a person has a thought of doing anything serious against the law, that before they did that they should go to a quiet place and think about it seriously.” (February 23, 1996)

William Bonin’s habit of dumping cadavers near freeways earned him the nickname Freeway Killer.

Amelia Dyer “I have nothing to say.” (June 10, 1896)

Dyer is believed to have slain 400 children during a 20-year period in Victorian England.

Peter Manuel “Turn up the radio and I’ll go quietly.” (July 11, 1958)

Manuel was an American-born Scottish man who is believed to have slain from nine to 18 people during the 1950s.

Francis Crowley “You sons of bitches. Give love to Mother.” (January 21, 1932)

Francis Crowley went on a three-month spree that ended when he was sent to the electric chair.

Angel Maturino Resendiz “I want to ask if it is in your heart to forgive me. You don’t have to. I know I allowed the Devil to rule my life. I just ask you to forgive me and ask the Lord to forgive me for allowing the devil to deceive me. I thank God for having patience in me. I don’t deserve to cause you pain. You do not deserve this. I deserve what I am getting.” (June 27, 2006)

Reséndiz left people’s cadavers near railroad tracks.

Fritz Haarmann “I repent, but I do not fear death.” (April 15, 1925)

Fritz Haarmann of Germany, active in the years following WWI, became known as the Vampire of Hanover because he would bite through people’s throats.

Ned Kelly “Such is life.” (November 11, 1880)

Ned Kelly was often considered a folk hero in Australia.

Donald Henry Gaskins “I’ll let my lawyers talk for me. I’m ready to go.” (September 6, 1991)

Donald Henry Gaskins was known as the Meanest Man in America for slaying at least 100 people, most of them hitchhikers, from the 1950s to the 1980s.

Israel Keyes “Okay, talk is over, words are placid and weak. Back it with action or it all comes off cheap. Watch close while I work now, feel the electric shock of my touch, open your trembling flower, or your petals I’ll crush.” (December 2, 2012)

Israel Keyes took his own life; the words are from his final note.

John George Haigh In a letter to his girlfriend, Barbara: “It is difficult to say farewell under these circumstances, but you will understand that you will always be in my thoughts. You know I have been proud of our association: it has always been an honourable one. I shall remember your great kindness and devotion. Now I must leave you.” (August 10, 1949)

In the 1940s, John George Haigh dissolved six women’s cadavers in acid.

Kenneth McDuff “I am ready to be released. Release me.” (November 17, 1998)

After his sentence was commuted in 1989, Kenneth McDuff killed again before being detained in 1992.

Carroll Cole “It’s all right.” (December 6, 1985)

Carroll Cole possibly committed acts of cannibalism

Raymond Fernandez and Martha Beck “I wanna shout it out; I love Martha! What do the public know about love?” – Raymond Fernandez (March 8, 1951)

“My story is a love story. But only those tortured by love can know what I mean […] Imprisonment in the Death House has only strengthened my feeling for Raymond….” – Martha Beck (March 8, 1951)

In the 1940s, Fernandez and Beck would place personal ads in newspapers with the intent of taking money from the women who replied.

Aileen Wuornos “I’d just like to say I’m sailing with the rock, and I’ll be back like Independence Day, with Jesus, June 6th. Like the movie, big mother ship and all. I’ll be back.” (October 9, 2002)

From 1989 to 1990, Aileen Wuornos terminated seven men, with the excuse that each of them tried to rape her.

James Allen Red Dog “I’m going home, babe.” (October 9, 2002)

James Allen Red Dog had been connected to at least five murders

Myra Hindley According to the Catholic priest who gave Hindley last rites, “The last conversation she had before she died concerned her mother. She just expressed concern for her mother – but I will not say exactly what she said.” (November 15, 2002)

Hindley, with her lover Ian Brady, shocked 1960s England when they killed five children.

Earle Nelson “I am innocent. I stand innocent before God and man. I forgive those who have wronged me and ask forgiveness of those I have injured. God have mercy!” (January 13, 1928)

During a two-year period in the mid-1920s, Earle Nelson felled 22 women, most of whom were landladies he approached about rooms they wanted to rent.

Sean Flanagan “I love you.”

Sean Flanagan terminated two gay men in Nevada, claiming he was doing “good for… society.” (June 23, 1989)

[alka-di-kijarr]

Hunters Journey - 006

Disclaimer: This story was originally posted on my deviantArt. It was part of the #smaugust #challenge in 2020. I wanted to share it here for people who like fantasy/adventure stories. My Tumblr shall make it easy to follow the story, and I hope you like it too. English is not my native language, but I try my best. ♥ Enjoy!

Hunters Journey - 006

The next days were filled with preparations, discussions and several meetings, but Nero didn't attend most of them. Still bound to his walking sticks he fell into some kind of resignation. Vaas had got the bad news shortly after the brawl in the dining hall and since that moment he acted oddly. Understandable, but still something Nero was not used to. Not even a bid. A deep sigh escaped the young man's chest, but there was nothing to do about it. Facing an old enemy who had taken so many lives, lives of friends and fellows, was never an easy task. It never should be.  Walking down the corridors of the great hall, Nero decided it was about time to at least visit his friend, regardless the surrounding chaos. Before entering the sleeping corridors, he took a small detour into the kitchen.

"Hey Ma' Myra." "Ahhh, the great hero honours us with his presence!" The older, corpulent lady laughed brightly, the hands resting on her hips. She was one of the individuals in this guild that never seemed breakable. The most hunters only called her Ma' as if she would be the mother of all of them. Thinking about her kind nature and the things she was doing for each and every one here, the title was well-earned. Nero couldn't hide the big smile he got when she was in the room, and so he entered the gigantic kitchen and slowly walked up to her position. Uncountable cooks and servants were whizzing around, preparing everything for the lunchtime. Myra gave some commands, before she gifted Nero her complete attention.

"What is up with ya' young hero? Why the long face?" "Uff, there is so much going on at the moment Ma'. Vaas will leave at dawn tomorrow and I cannot join the squad and be any kind of help, while he needs to face Taurus. It hurts me...somehow." "Ahh, there ya see ya still a youngstah."  She laughed and clapped his back a bit. Nero rose his eyebrows in confusion, but that only made Myra laugh louder.

"Ya' can still chitchat about ya' feelings and ya' worries. That is something all tha' old grey wolfs lose over the time they hunt." The young man looked somewhat embarrassed, as if she wanted to let him look silly, but even before he could say something in his defence, Myra grabbed both his cheeks with her warm hands.

"Don't make that face! Ya' look like a little puppy who got scolded!" Nero felt how his face turned red, while other cooks and servants watched the scene. Myra took her hands down and placed them on his shoulders. Her voice was calm and serious now.

"Never ever let someone take this away from ya', hunter. The fear shall be your companion, but not your inner enemy. Hunters who don't speak about tha' things they had seen get eaten alive by the demons those thoughts create. And there ain't a chance of a 'maybe create'. It is always tha' same story, with tha' same ol' ending."  Myra watched the room around and Nero saw a small grinning before she rose her hands to the air and started laughing. 

"Ya' all, what ya' looking at, hah?! Ya' think that's something to laugh about?  A WEAKNESS?! All of ya Greenhorns can take an example on this hunter! Wannabe fighters ya' all are. Ya' would sh*t ya' knickers if ya' would need to face the creatures, when they are not in captivity! Am I right, Guston?" She looked over to a cook at the end of the room. He was one of those really arrogant people, but the story of his high-pitched scream at the day when a group of small Rockets escaped their cage was legendary and still part of every festival-evening-story-time. Rockets were small creatures with dog-like behaviour, but the appearance of some weird insect-demon mixture. They probably had confused him with a bunch of bones, considering his own body shape. Nero couldn't avoid it and giggled heartily, while Myra looked extremely satisfied. 

"So what now - ya' want some food now for ol' grumpy Vaassy-baassy, or nat?" As if she could have read his mind, Nero smiled and nodded silently. She waddled around the kitchen table, took a few packs of baked goods and a big flask of the best wine they had. Knowing of his condition, she folded a bag that she could tie around his back and shoulders. Nero felt like in the old time when his grandmother prepared him for the way to his first big hunt. Not being able to erase the smile on his face, he told her a goodbye and left the kitchen, heading to the sleeping quarters. 

After visiting Vaas room and not finding him there, Nero took a turn to the outside. There was only one place Vaas would visit, if he was not in his room and trying to get a nap.  The way was long and the young hunter felt the pain in his legs and the healing wounds, but there was no way he would leave his mentor and friend without a talk and some good food. Even if he would have to walk for the rest of the day, following him all around the guild hall! But gladly there would be no need to do so.

"There you are!" Vaas looked up and a small smile covered the old man's face.

"Don't tell me you walked all the way to meet me here? You could have waited until lunch."

"Yes, yes. I know you would not skip any good meal, but I got the opportunity to let us have lunch without the annoyance of other people in the dining room."

"Oh? Now you woke my interest young man!"  Nero grinned and took a place beside Vaas on a wooden bench. The bench was situated in front of an outside cage, inhabiting the Gemini. A fiery hydra with - actually - five heads.

"How are our friends doing?" he asked and reached Vaas some baked goods Myra gave him.  The old man looked pleased and took a big bite, before he answered. 

"They are doing fine. Seth thinks about keeping Gemini." "Oh?" That are some amazing news." Keeping a creature was a big responsibility and also a big economical risk. 

"Yeah. After we freed Gemini last year from this insane brat of a prince, even Seth seems to have sympathy for the hydra. Unbelievable what this spoiled boy was doing to this creature." Nero nodded. Someone could think that capturing and keeping a hydra in captivity would be insanely dangerous, but only if the lives of the servants you use for the creature matter to you. The prince, called Olevon, was the son of king Pralius and queen Nafita. Last year they had got the message of a concerned hunter, or more precisely a spy, that the boy was about to lose control of the hydra. He was teasing them with fear and pain and tried to starve it, so it would adapt to his wishes ....without resistance. The hydra was really young when they found it and decided to bring it to the guilds headquarter. The creature was wounded and the mother dead, but not killed by hunters. 

"Do you think Seth feels  guilty about his decision to give Gemini to Olevon?" Vaas nodded, chewing some baked goods. 

"Yes. Yes, I do. But I understand his decision. He thought bringing them together while both are young would be a good idea to strengthen their bond. But now Gemini is in its puberty and only made awful experiences so far. We will see how this will go." Nero agreed and his view shifted to a young lady that entered the gigantic cage of Gemini. It was Lauriel, a young huntress and medic. She walked straight to Gemini, waving a hand and calling their names.

"She gave all the heads unique names, huh?" "Yup. And I would say all of them love her." "That's good." Both nodded. 

Gemini was laying in the middle of the area, enjoying the sun on their dark scales. The middle head waved his mane to greet Lauriel, and she laughed. While greeting the oldest one first, the other heads already tried to snuggle her. Big bro was not amused and growled deeply, so the other heads made space, but as always the second-born tried to argue. No chance.  It was a real film to watch them and the reason why Vaas liked to be here so much. Lauriel really had a hand for them. 

Both sat there for a bit longer, watching the hydra getting a mane brush and scale care. So shiny.  "You will come back Vaas, promise it."

"I promise it." "Alive. And in one part." Vaas rose his eyebrows, but he smiled. 

"Promised."

[mikewheelerr]

“Richie? You shouldn’t be here.”

“I know... I just wanted to see him.”

“Why?” Then as if thinking better of it, Stan just sighed and took his hand.

He started walking across the garden without a word. Richie just followed him, swallowing around a lump in his throat when Stan stopped right in front of a tree. He looked at him questionably. 

“Look up.” Stan said softly.

Richie expected to have the air taken right out of him, or to burst into tears. Maybe both at the same time. He surely didn’t expect to be filled with so much emptiness. 

The second floor’s window was huge. 

Richie put his hands in his pockets and just stared.

There Eddie was, leaning sideways and smoothing his hands over his suit, probably while looking at a mirror. Richie could see him talking fast, gesturing with his hands, smiling in between his words. Occasionally he’d glance somewhere by his right side as he talked, probably at Mike or Bill.

The window was open, and Richie froze when he watched him look towards it. He was afraid Eddie would see him down there, looking up at him like a lost fucking puppy. But instead, he chuckled and pointed at the curtains, turning back - to fix his hair, this time. As if it needed any more fixing.

Richie wondered - for a painful second, just how many hours Eddie must have spent ‘getting ready’ for his big day. That - he had to admit, that cut through the haze. It tore right through the familiar, heavy numbness that overtook him for the past few weeks. He gulped, not knowing what to do as he felt his heart sink. 

Deeper and deeper at every breath.

The searing pain strongly spreading through his chest and throat. It made his fingers tremble.

He could see Bill walking over to the window, shaking his head with a sly smile tugging at his lips. He swiftly slid the window closed, pulling at the curtains right after. Richie inhaled shakily, still staring up at it.

“We tried, Rich. He’s really determined.” He heard Stan’s voice. “I’m sorry.”

Richie nodded as he looked back at him. He tried to give Stan a smile, feeling his lips curl into something similar to a scowl instead. “I just don’t... I don’t know what I’m supposed to do anymore. It’s his wedding and I - I’m... Fuck, I don’t know.” Richie chuckled nervously. He was about to cry. He knew it. Stan knew it too. He bet he did. Why else would he step closer to him and rub his shoulder like that? “You know,” Richie swallowed before looking up, right into Stan’s eyes. He wasn’t going to cry again over Eddie in front of him. “Eddie - He is still my best friend. Even after everything. I didn’t think I’d lose him like that too. He doesn’t want to see me. He won’t answer my calls. It’s like he never wants to hear from me again.”

“I think he doesn’t know how to be around you without being your boyfriend anymore.”

“We were never fucking boyfriends, Stanley.” Richie said dryly. “You know that.”

“Whatever you say, trashmouth.” Stan sighed in exhaustion, quickly letting his slight annoyance fade into concern again when Richie didn’t quip something back. “Richie... You have to let it go. He doesn’t want you around right now. He’s in denial. We just have to give it time.”

“But he loves me.” Richie whispered weakly. “I know he still does.”

“He knows that too. But he doesn’t want to love you like that, Richie. He wants to marry her. We’ve tried talking him out of it but it just didn’t work.” Stan had begun to sound sad, so sad it made Richie’s skin crawl. He couldn’t take it - if Stan was about to cry, he couldn’t take it. He hoped to God Stan saw that in the resigned look Richie wore in his face, as if daring Stan to do it. 

Jokes on you, Stanley. If you don’t swallow it, I won’t either; Ha ha.

Since they were kids, it was their unspoken rule. Richie wouldn’t cry if he didn’t either. Because if he crumbled, Richie always did too. “Stanley. What the fuck do I do tonight?”

“Bev will stay with you. Don’t fight, we all agreed. Eddie knows she might not come. I told Bill I would spend the night with you too if you wanted. It’s okay.”

“You can’t miss his wedding.” Richie felt sick. He felt disgustingly sick. He palmed at his stomach, breathing through his nose in a weak attempt to keep his cool. He could not fucking throw up in Myra’s fucking garden. God, please no. “I need out of here.” Richie gasped.

“Okay, let’s go.” Stan put his hand on Richie’s elbow.

“No, no,” Richie pulled his arm back. “Stay. I don’t want you to miss it.”

“Richie-”

“Please! Stay. I’m fucking serious. I’ll be fine. I’ll call Bev.”

“I don’t want to leave you like this.”

“Piss off Stanley, I'll get in my car and get the fuck out of here,”

“You’re not driving.” Stan said it so firmly.

“Drive me home?” Richie asked quietly.

Stan held Richie’s elbow again, much more gently this time, and began to lead him outside. Richie didn’t risk a look behind him. A few people tried to approach them - or Stanley, as it seemed. Myra’s family always seemed to like his polishedness, sometimes even more than they liked Eddie’s. 

God, Richie could actually fucking throw up. 

Stan simply walked right past them, carrying Richie so close to him anyone else would think he was dragging a stranger out, probably a drunk trying to crash their ceremony. Drawn in by the commotion. 

Ain’t that the truth? Richie thought to himself as he slipped into the passenger’s seat of his car, leaning his head against the window and closing his eyes as Stan began to drive off. He tried to level his breathing, the sudden emotional exhaustion weighing him down.

If this was another one of It’s tricks, if it was - by any chance at all, another of It’s illusions just to toy with him and break him... If the fucking clown wasn’t dead- Richie felt himself begin to cry when he realized just how much he wanted that to be the reason. 

[reddie-fangirl24]

Meeting (A Reddie/Titanic Crossover)

NOTE: This is for @itfandomprompts Today’s prompt is Crossover. I have been thinking about a Reddie/Titanic scenario for a while. Let me know what you think of this piece. Maybe I will write more. Enjoy!

Running down the decks of the Titanic, his shoes beating against the hardwood, Eddie sobbed. He inadvertently shoved passed other passengers, only angering them. Not one asked if he was okay. A man of his age shouldn’t be crying. Nobody cared! That’s how his life had always been. Eddie just ran, trudging up and down stairwells to other parts of the ship, not going to stop until there was nowhere else to run.

Puffing a gust of smoke, Richie relaxed as he lounged on the third class steerage deck. He needed to get away from it all. Despite being an extrovert who loved to be surrounded by people, Richie enjoyed time alone. Come to think of it, he hadn’t been alone for a long time. Besides, Stanley had eyes for that Patty woman who he met just this morning. And he was the one who said that love, at first sight, didn’t exist. 

Staring up at the stars, this all still didn’t feel real. Richie felt as if he’d wake up, back out on the cold, lonely streets of England. It had been years since his parents died. They were 40. Like he was now. No, that was not going to happen to him. He made a promise to his ailing mother to live his best life. He was going to do just that.

Shaking his mind out of those thoughts, Richie needed to wake up to the fact that he was on the Titanic. He was sailing back home to America. There... well, maybe things would get better. For a reason he could never understand, they were never okay. He just had to learn the hard way that living in England was not the right life for him.

 Nobody had a sense of humor for a comedian... struggling comedian, like him. At least people admired his drawings. 

Just then, Richie heard someone. They quickly ran by, sounding as if they were crying. Sitting up on the bench, Richie noticed a familiar man disappear around a corner.

Eddie ran into the stern’s flagpole, grasping it to hold himself steady, and catch his breath. Taking out his inhaler, he took a breath. It didn’t make him feel better. Hot tears soaked his face.

Picking his head up, Eddie’s eyes hooked onto the Atlantic Ocean slowly moving through the sea. Feeling drawn to it, Eddie slowly paced the last of the deck, until he was gripping the railings on the very end of the Titanic.

“Honestly, Eddie, you’re hardly even a man! Why don’t you grow a backbone... or-or something!”

Or something. 

Slowly, with shaking legs, Eddie started climbing up the rail and struggled over to the other side. Eddie gasped nearly misplacing a step. Then again, this was the whole point anyway. Right?

Here he was. Eddie’s back against the railing, facing the dark, ominous ocean. His feet were just clinging to a small section as his hands clasped the bars. He could feel himself sweating, making his hands slippery. His inhaler. The only way he could get into his pocket as if he let go of the railing. 

Did water always look this monstrous? How would Eddie know? He’d never been swimming a day in his life. The ship’s propellers were churning in the sea, chopping the water into pieces, but it did not break.

Eddie slowly leaned forward, closing his eyes, slowly loosening his grip.

“Hey! Stop!”

Shooting his head around, Eddie came face to face was a man. Just from his set of clothing, he could instantly tell that he was third class. His hair was a tangled mess of curly black hair. He wore glasses with one broken lens. The man was also taller than he was. Aside from his baggy clothing, the man was quite... handsome. Not to mention, familiar. 

“St-Stay back!” Eddie ordered feeling his heart racing. “Don’t come any closer!”

It was definitely the man he saw from afar yesterday. Now that he was closer, Richie noticed the tear streaks covering his face. And he was definitely not dressed for the weather. He almost looked as if he’d been in a fight. No coat, his shirt buttons half-opened, revealing some of his chest, and his bow tie was also tangled around his neck. It was about to fly away at any second due to the wind. 

Richie’s heart sunk seeing him this way. The man looked even worse from yesterday. And now here he was. Attempting suicide. There was definitely something wrong. 

“You expect me to walk off when you’re going to jump off the stern? Nah, not happening! C’mon, take my hand. I’ll pull you back in,” Richie instructed. He still stood at the distance the man told him. 

“No, I mean it!” Eddie shook his head. He lifted his hand for only a second but grasped the railing with white knuckles. His eyes shifted in confusion, panic, and also a light of hope. “I-I’ll let go!”

Eddie turned back to the ocean, again looking down from the sheer height and leaning forward. But, he turned back to the man, wondering why he wasn’t saying anything. 

Richie took his cigarette out of his mouth, held it in his hand and gesturing to the frightened man that he was only throwing it overboard. Eddie never took his eyes off the object until it disappeared into the black, rough sea. It was no more. 

Then Eddie watched as the man just nonchalantly put his hands inside his pockets and put a foot up against the ship’s anchor sitting close by. He looked as if he were trying to stretch out his leg. If it were Eddie’s imagination it looked as if he were smiling. “No, you won’t.”

Eddie huffed, blood racing into his cheeks, making him flush. Was he egging him on? “What do you mean ‘no, I won’t’? Don’t you tell me what I should or should not do! You don’t know me!” Or did he?

It was evident from the man’s sophisticated language that he was of a higher class. That didn’t make a difference. Lots of people out on the streets knew big words. And some of them never even attended school. 

Richie took another little step closer, further intriguing Eddie. “You know, if you really did want to jump, you would have jumped already!”

His hand looked so smooth, so inviting, more welcoming than Myra's forceful, and admittedly beefy hands dragging him everywhere. This man was very respectful. He didn’t even know him.

Eddie shook his head, a tear escaping his eye. “You’re just distracting me! Get away!”

“I can’t, not when I’m involved now,” Richie said to him. “If you let go I’m jumping in there after you.”

“Don’t be ridiculous! You’d be killed!” Eddie stated the irony. He stared back down at the ferocious current. He almost forgot about the terror.

Just then, Eddie turned his head, hearing a noise. The man was now taking off his jacket, letting it hang over the ship’s anchor. Now that his coat was off, Eddie could study the man’s frame. His shoulders were muscular. Eddie couldn’t take his eyes off his chest which was slightly revealed. And his arms were... No, he had to focus!

“I’m a good swimmer!” Now he was untying his shoes. “Beat my dad in a swimming race when I was four!”

“The fall alone would kill you,” Eddie went on, his voice shaking, as his impedible doom swamped his mind in all the awful possibilities.

The man hummed, staring at the stars as if he were trying to figure them out. “I don’t know, I’m more worried about that water being so cold,” Richie said with all the fear residing in his voice. Eddie turned to him intrigued. That’s right, he had never been swimming a day in his life. His mother refrained lessons about the ocean, fearing that he could drown even without going swimming. 

“How cold is it?” Eddie asked him, curiously. Eddie’s tone almost sounded like a child.

“Pretty damn freezing,” Richie answered nodding his head, looking down at the water. “Ever uh... been to Maine?”

Maine. “Huh?”

“Maine. It’s that state that’s right at the top of...”

“I know where Maine is!” Eddie snapped at him. For some reason, Eddie didn’t want to think about Maine right now. Why?

The man recoiled a bit from his sharp tone, startled. Oh no, please don’t leave! Having this man concerned for his own sake when he had no idea who he was, warmed Eddie’s heart.

“Sorry, you just seemed more of the indoor type of guy,” Richie apologized. Eddie’s heart stung at the remark. Now he was going to make judgments, too?

“Anyway, I grew up in Derry, Maine,” Richie hesitated before going into a story. “Well, when I was a kid, we uh, lived close to this lake. And well, long story short, I fell through the ice when I was thirteen.” He stared into Eddie’s immense brown eyes. “That water plus this great beauty... it punctures you like a thousand knives all over your body. You can’t breathe, or think... at least nothing besides the pain.”

What was Eddie even doing? Eddie’s entire body was shaking, feeling the cold. 

“Which is why I don’t want to jump in there after you. But, I don’t have a choice. I guess I’m kinda hoping that you’d rethink this, come back over the rail, and get my ass off the hook.”

Eddie giggled. Was that his own laugh? The man stared at him, chuckling, too.

“You’re crazy!” Eddie said to him half smiling.

Richie leaned forward, his own blue eyes capturing Eddie’s soul. “I might be crazy, but I’m not the one hanging off the back of a ship.”

Eddie frowned, having forgotten about the situation.

A hand fell in his line of vision. The soft, welcoming hand. “Come on. You don’t want to do this. Gimme your hand.”

Slowly unfastening his hand from the railing, Eddie took the man’s hand and turned himself back around, slowly, now face to face with the man who sighed in relief.

“There we go! Names Richie Tozier!”

Eddie smiled, now having a better view of the man’s charming face. “Eddie Kaspbrak-Bennington.”

Richie snickered. “Can you write that down for me? Now come on, get back over here, you!”

Feeling an immense, and yet overwhelming, feeling of contentedness, Eddie started to climb the railing.

Unbeknownst that Eddie’s own shoelace had come untied, Eddie slipped falling over the edge! Richie caught him just in time, practically having the wind knocked out of him as he slammed hard against the railings. Eddie’s piercing screams of terror sounded over the boat deck, alerting officers.

“I’ve got you, Eddie! I won’t let go!” Richie yelled, pulling with all his might. “You gotta pull yourself up!”

“I can’t!” Eddie cried, struggling to find some sort of grip. He was just dangling over the bold letters of the Titanic’s name. The water crashed against the ship, shriveling up in the propellers. 

“Yes, you can!” Richie encouraged him.

Nobody ever encouraged him before. Suddenly finding strength, Eddie caught his hand on the edge of the ship where he’d just been standing and managed to pull himself up. He only slipped once more. Not giving in, Eddie tried again for his own sake, having no desire to end his life anymore. Slowly, but surely, both Eddie and Richie worked together until Eddie was close enough for Richie to grab him and safely pull him back over onto the deck of the ship.

The position they landed in was quite embarrassing, with Richie on top of Eddie, his arms still around him. Eddie had just about passed out from the shock. Richie gasped. Not at the approaching officers, but at this vague memory from when he was a kid. This man... was he...

Recognizing Eddie as a first-class passenger, Eddie was still in a daze, slowly comprehending everything as the officers sat him up and walked him over to the benches, giving him a blanket. 

Keeping a close watch on Eddie, Richie was kept aside until Myra and Eddie’s mother showed up to the scene. Immediately Eddie’s mother fell to her knees, shrieking at Eddie in hysterics. Amused at the way she was acting, even asking if he scraped his knees, the woman was acting as if Eddie were a child. Once the officers alerted them of what they had seen, right when Eddie’s mother was going to give Richie a piece of his mind, Myra shoved right passed her and blew up, shouting in Richie’s face.

“What in the world were you thinking?! You just wanted to attack my husband and throw him over the ship?!”

Richie briefly glanced at Eddie, who was shivering from the fear and the cold. His mother still had an arm around his shoulder, pushing his hand into her chest. 

“Look at me when I am yelling at you!” The woman was shorter than him, and yet she shoved her face into his, spit flying off her mouth.

“I am!”

“Now you're going to talk down to a lady? I want to know why you attacked him! Sure, Eddie is not the most masculine of men you’d ever see, but that gives you no right to attack him! Why you should be clapped in irons for the rest of the voyage...”

“Myra,” Eddie interrupted her rage. He stood up on his shaking legs, kept the blanket wrapped around himself and walked forward. Myra stared at him angrily, like a bull. Eddie was also taller than her. She was ten times his own body-mass, that was for sure. It was a funny image to Richie who was trying to hold back a snicker. 

“I was studying the propellers,” Eddie said, nervously smiling as if nothing had happened.

“What?” His mother asked, confused. 

“Um... I-I was trying to surmise the propellers, and I had leaned too far over the railings. If it weren’t for Mr. Tozier, I would have fallen overboard!”

Myra just stared at him as if he were out of his mind, as did his mother. “Eddie, that is the stupidest thing you've ever done!”’

“And dangerous. Eddie, what have I told you about leaning too far over?” His mother chimed in. “You should never have left the dinner table without us!”

Ashamed, Eddie nodded in agreement, briefly staring at Richie.

Myra calmed down and chuckled. She gave Eddie’s shoulder a pat, rather roughly. Eddie could have fallen to the ground. “You and your fixations with machinery, Eddie! I swear you'd lose your head if it weren’t glued on.”

“Well, I guess the boy is a hero!” An officer declared, letting Richie loose.

“That he is,” Eddie’s mother remarked with little emotion. She eyed him, disapprovingly. Richie swore that he recognized that look.

“Well, I suppose you could go with a reward. Eddie, you wouldn’t have a twenty on you by chance, would you?” Myra asked him so cheerfully.

Richie laughed. “That’s the going rate for the man you love?” he teased.

Myra eyed Richie, sinisterly. Wow, this woman really looked like the woman who he assumed with Eddie’s mom. Were they twins?

“He does make a fair point,” Eddie spoke softly. Immediately he shrunk inside the blanket upon seeing a death glare from his mother and Myra, averting his gaze.

Myra’s scowl turned to a cruel smile, sliding her cold hand across Eddie’s cheek, almost painfully pinching as if he were a child. “Ah, you’re displeased, huh, Eddie? Well, what to do now?” Her voice was almost singing, making her disgust known.

“How about dinner tomorrow evening?” Eddie’s mother suggested, with a grim smile. 

“Yes, dinner in the first class! Wouldn’t that be nice?” Myra chimed in with the same mocking tone as everyone else. “Why don’t you regale us all with stories of your adventures?” 

Richie looked at Eddie. His brown immense eyes lit up under the stars. It was hard not to look at him.

Richie shrugged. “Sure, count me in.”

“Good! Now let’s go inside! It’s freezing out here!” Myra lamented, clapping her hands together and blowing against them, creating heat. “Eddie, could I take that blanket from you?”

“You got a fur coat on!” Richie confronted, turning up his nose.

She turned back staring at Richie with this intense expression. Eddie looked worried. The man was not afraid to speak out. Eddie wished he could do that.

“Funny how your shoes are untied,” Myra remarked quietly right in his face. Richie glanced down. Shit! But, then the woman made a reminiscent smile of someone he once knew. “Hiding any secrets are we?”

Secrets...

Richie shivered, grasping the bench trying to hold himself up.

Myra noted Richie’s reaction and smiled in her victory. She then walked off, her nose high in the air, with Eddie’s mother in tow. The officers also left the scene.

“Are you alright?” A concerned Eddie asked, holding the blanket around his lean shivering shoulders.

Richie caught himself, trying to make his voice calm, and standing tall. “Yeah.”

“Eddie!” Myra called out to him, making Eddie jump.

“Come along, dear, before you catch a cold!” His mother concluded.

Eddie nodded in gratitude to Richie, wanting to say so much. “I have to go. I will see you tomorrow evening?”

“Yeah. See yah, Eds!” Richie playfully saluted him.

Eddie smiled. His cheeks flushed. “Good night, Mr. Tozier.”

Snorting, Richie shook his head. “We’re the same age, man! Just call me Richie!”

Embarrassed, Eddie smiled. “Richie.”

Richie watched the man disappear inside. He finally relaxed against the bench. What a night. What did this mean? It was the same warm feeling he had when he was with... him. No, he was not. Richie doubted that this man would even show up tomorrow. But, he hoped that he would. 

[thoughtfullyyoungduck]

Just scared and confused

A/N: This was requested by @reddie-fangirl24​ I hope you enjoy! please let me know what you think! 

Summary: Since I love your fic where Eddie has a nightmare, could you write a fic where Richie has a nightmare. It is up to you if you would like to write a similar plot line, or make it different.

Warnings; curse words, and some internalised homophobia 

When Richie opens his eyes, he sitting at their kitchen table. He doesn’t remember how he got there, or even what he did before sitting there, but he is. 

He looks around in confusion, but nothing seems out of the ordinary. His hand are shaking though, so Richie places them firmly on the surface of the table, feeling the indents of woods under his touch.

Their kitchen table is made of wood. Eddie chose it, despite Richie’s claims that they could use his old table he used to eat on. Eddie had scoffed, in the way that Richie knew meant he had something stupid, before Eddie had said that he wanted a new table, because his table was old as shit and who knew what had happened on there.

As the two looked for a new house to move in together, they chucked out all old furniture and in place of those they went shopping. Eddie hated it, but Richie had never had so much fun in his life before. He drove Eddie crazy by plowing down into beds, pretending to eat on tables and stretching out over couches as if he already owned the damn thing.

‘I’m going to fucking leave you’, he had said after they were thrown out of another store. The fleeting feeling of absolute panic in Richie disappeared after he saw Eddie’s fond smirk, but the words stuck with him. After he and Eddie got together, Richie discovered that he was a teeny tiny bit touched starved. Alright a lot touch starved. He never would have expected Eddie to want to be with him, never even considered the possibility that all the emotions Richie was holding in, bright in their intensity, could be reciprocated by his childhood best friend.

Richie never even dared to look too much into the lingering touches they shared as kids, and then later as adults, terrified that if he examined and dissected the sensations he got after touching and being close to Eddie, other people would just know. Just like Henry Bowers did, just like Stan did. He never wanted to be put in a spot where he would have no choice but to come clean, to share his feeling with Eddie and make him uncomfortable, to make Eddie hate him.

When they became lovers as he had so jokingly called them, a flashback to the time where Eddie had broken his arm, but also a memory of times where Richie had to hide the core of his very being, Richie used every opportunity to touch him. Eddie selflessly allowed him, reciprocating with the same ferocity, and yet still Richie didn’t feel at ease.

Just like when he was a kid, he was scared that if he truly showed Eddie how deep he loved him, he would be disgusted, and see Richie just like he viewed himself, as disgusting.

As a result, he consistently felt anxiety, whether it was going on a date with Eddie or making love for the first time. The task of taken the lead had fallen on Richie, which he didn’t mind, but he was always stressed when he wanted to initiate something new into their relationship. He was scared Eddie would wake up one day and come to the conclusion that Richie isn’t enough for him.

To no one’s surprise, Richie kept those thoughts to himself, withering away with the weight to put upon him.

Because the table consisted of wood, Eddie demanded that they had placing mats on the table at all times, terrified of stains seeping into the new table. They’re a light green color, which fits in the room beautifully, at least that’s what Eddie’s been saying to him. Richie doesn’t mind them, but he wouldn’t care whether or not there were stains anywhere in the house. It a sign that there are living people in this house. Regardless, them being missing is what ticked Richie off that there was something wrong. They weren’t there anymore, and when he looks around, he doesn’t see them anywhere either.

Richie’s heartbeat picks up even though he wills it away again. He’s being stupid, he tells himself. Eddie probably just wanted to clean them and he didn’t notice, everything is fine.

Except that it’s not. He hears before sees Eddie come out of the room with a giant carton box in his hands. It looks heavy, and Eddie puffs with exhaustion before dumping the box next to the others.

Richie only now takes notices of all the box placed neatly upon each other, right in front of the door.

‘Eds’, Richie asks trailing off. He freezes, all his muscles tighten up and panic washes over him like ice cold water, as soon as Eddie looks at his direction.

It’s clear Eddie’s been crying, his eyes red while the rest of his face is an icy white. He looks sick to his stomach, his mouth trembling as if trying not to talk or cry anymore. He’s failing.

‘What are you doing’? He asks when Eddie doesn’t respond to Richie calling out his name. Even though Richie is panicked, he knows that there’s nothing he wouldn’t do to take Eddie’s pain away, they’ve been through so much, and Eddie deserves the whole galaxy as far as Richie was concerned.

He told him that once after they woke up in the same bed for the first time since they were adults. Their limbs were woven, Eddie’s head on Richie’s outstretched arm, while his arm was tracing random patrons into his skin. Richie had pressed a kiss to Eddie’s shoulder, while mumbling that all he ever wanted to do was make Eddie happy. It had been a serene moment, one that Richie would hold close, written in his heart.

Right now, he jumps up from his chair, rushing towards Eddie, but he stops dead in his tracks when Eddie flinches away from him. His chair makes a shrieking sounds as it drags across the floor, Richie whines, knowing Eddie absolutely hates that sound. He doesn’t respond though, and that worries Richie’s.  

‘Don’t do this again Richie.’ He mumbles, and he sounds so tired, like he’s 80 years old. Just hearing the sound of that makes Richie want to cry. He pushes back against the burning feeling of tears forcing their way down his face, but he suspect that makes it even more obvious to Eddie that he’s going to start crying.

‘Don’t Richie’, he says, his voice hard like a jagged edge of a knife. It cuts through Richie, leaving him deflated and confused. He standing a few feet away from Eddie, contemplating whether or not he should touch Eddie.

‘We’ve already talked about this. I’m leaving. I’m going back to Myra and there’s nothing you can do about it.’

Richie world feels like it has been shattered. He takes a few stumbling steps backwards, falling back down unto the couch. ‘What’, he croaks out, and this time he’s helpless to stop the tears rushing like waterfalls from his cheeks.

Eddie rolls his eyes, not in a playful way like he usually does, but in a truly annoyed fashion, Richie’s heart crumbles further. It this what a panic attack feels like, Richie thinks delirious. He sits on the edge of their couch, having never felt so dejected before.

‘I’m moving back in,’ he pauses for a second,  and Richie who was never good with silence, feels even more suffocate by this one. ‘Richie, this was a mistake. I thought I loved you, but I realized that I just missed you. You’re my best friend, but I don’t love you the way you love me. Quite frankly Richie, it’s really disgusting.

And Richie knows this, he fucking well knows. He spend most of his childhood trying to not be gay, trying to kiss girls and convince himself that he liked it, but the reality is that doesn’t. It’s who he is, and before coming out it was always like Richie was completely alone. Nobody, not a single soul knew who he really was, and the reason for that was that he kept such a huge part of himself hidden, And he was so vulnerable when Eddie woke up, that without thinking he just blurted it out.

Not that he was in love with Eddie, that had taken several months of therapy and adjusting the idea that Eddie wasn’t revolted just because he was gay, but he had confessed to Eddie that he likes men, and only men. And when Eddie had just accepted  him, he had been shocked beyond believe. He could finally start to be open towards others and himself, And he was on this journey with Eddie where both of them were learning to love themselves along with each other, and maybe Richie had managed to make himself believe that he wasn’t disgusting.

But hearing Eddie say it right now made him realize that he very much was. All Richie suddenly wanted to do was lay in bed, cry and hide from the world, even from Eddie.

‘Eds, please.’ Richie tried. He was so fucking selfish, but he didn’t think he could live now that he had a taste of how life was like with Eddie. He didn’t think he would be able to spend his days in a house where he and Eddie had bought stuff, the place they made their home.

Richie had never had that before. He had houses, sure, but never a home. He wasn’t ready to loose that. He wasn’t ever ready to say goodbye to Eddie.

‘Don’t fucking call me that’, Eddie spat out, ‘I used to like it when you called me that but now that I know the intent behind it’, he shuddered in disgust. ‘Don’t call me that, in fact don’t call me anything at all. We’re done, I can’t be friends with, with someone like you.’

Something was off with Eddie, and if Richie wasn’t so busy channeling hysteria all through his body, he might have had the mind to pick it up. Eddie has never been this cruel. He has been straightforward and sometimes a little blunt, but only with an intent to help, never to harm. Eddie would never speak to Richie or anyone like that, regardless of what that person did.

Richie leaps of his seating place when Eddie opens the door. The panic Richie feels is all consuming, to the point where he’s not even sure what he’s doing, just that he wants Eddie to stay.

‘Please Eds, Eddie fuck. Please don’t go, please.’ He’s sobbing, not even aware of the embarrassing picture he must present.

‘Can’t we talk about this? I’m sorry for whatever it is I did that made you wanna leave, I can be more calm, I can talk less, I can do whatever it is that makes you happy, just please don’t leave me here by myself.’

He places his hands on Eddie’s shoulder, wanting to hug him close and kiss him, to just be close to him.

Eddie however recoils in horror, whipping at his shoulder at the exact place Richie’s hand had just been.

‘Iel, do you even know what you just did?’ Did you know the bacteria that I could have gotten from you? I don’t want to become you, so don’t you ever fucking touch me again.’ Eddie snaps, his eyes wild in rage, and nothing of his previous sadness is still visible.

‘It’s not about you talking too much. It’s about you being a pathetic excuse of a human being. I’m not fucking gay, Tozier. And even if I was, I would even consider you.’

Eddie reaches for the door knob, twisting it and opening it up despite of Richie’s please.

‘Please don’t leave me Eddie.’ Richie begs, one last attempt to get Eddie to stay.

Eddie doesn’t even give him a glance, picking up one of the boxes and storming out of the house as if it’s the last place on earth he ever wants to be. He does stop for a second to break the final pieces of Richie’s heart. ‘I wish you wouldn’t have asked again Richie, it made it that much harder for you.’ Then he trudges away to a car which is presumably driven by his wife.

Richie feels all the energy seeping out of him as he watches Eddie go. He doesn’t even try to stop him, knowing that it would be futile. Furthermore, nothing that Eddie said was a lie, he’s a fucking nobody, why would anyone as magnificent as Eddie ever want to be with him.

He laughs, like a lunatic, laugh and laughs until it actually hurts, and then he can’t breathe. He tries to take a deep breath in, but aside from a bit of a miserable stuttering piece of air, nothing reaches his longs. Then he panics. He can’t breathe, he can’t fucking breath, he can’t.

He wakes up to a hand slamming his shoulder.

‘Fuck Richie’, he hears a voice swear loudly, but he can’t focus beyond anything but the fact that still can’t breathe. His eyes are open, but it’s pitch black inside the room he’s in, not a sliver a light shinning through anywhere.

The hand is still on his shoulder, grounding him a bit, before he realizes that it’s Eddie’s hand. His hand traces the flesh of Richie’s skin until he slowly caresses his cheek, all the while Richie is still heaving in breaths.

When he sees it’s Eddie he jumps up in fright, accidently flinging himself off the bed. He lands harshly on the floor letting out a pained yelp as he does so. His back protests, but he doesn’t give himself much time to think about it or to even let it rest, instead his scrabbles up against the nightstand he knows is next to his bed.

‘Richie’, Eddie says worriedly, jumping out of bed to see if he’s okay. Richie’s head hurts. He recognizes he’s in his bedroom now, after his eyes have had some time to adjust to the darkness the room is coted in. It just doesn’t make any sense, he had just watched Eddie walk out of his life, without him being able to do anything about it, how did he end up in bed again with Eddie sleeping next to him.

He starts sobbing, bringing his hands up though his hair, pulling as hard as he can. ‘Richie stop, fucking stop doing that you idiot.’ Eddie reaches out to grab Richie’s hands, but all that does is cause Richie more panic. Richie slaps his hand away pushing himself as far away from Eddie as possible.

Eddie hisses and brings his hand back to his chest with a worried glance. ‘Rich, talk to me’, he begs, but Richie doesn’t do anything but shake his head.

Maybe Eddie decided to stay with him one more night, maybe he felt bad for Richie and decided to check up on him, and that’s why he’s here. No matter what the reason might be, Richie can’t handle it.

He whimpers when he tugs on his hair so hard that a bursts of pain radiates from his skull, almost like he was pulling out pieces of his hair, the hair which Eddie told him he liked so much. All lies.

He scrambles up from the floor, expertly dodging Eddie who tries to stop him. He rushes towards the bathroom locking it up as soon as the door closes behind him. He falls to his knees as soon as he does, having no energy left to do anything else.

Eddie bangs on the door in alarm. ‘Richie, Richie listen to me. Richie please open the door. It’s alright you just had a nightmare. Let me in baby.’

Richie hear him, but he doesn’t interpret the words. It’s like he’s trying to grasp water, but everytime he focusses on the meaning of one word, the other words escapes him.

While Eddie is still trying to open the door, Richie stretches as best as he can, trying to get the faucet running while he still’s seated. He’s hoping Eddie gets the memo and leaves him alone, but from the sounds of it, Eddie not planning on moving any time soon.

When Richie finally manages to get the water running, he grips the edge of the sink, gathering all his strength to pull himself up. His hands are tingling, having not much feeling in them, and he vaguely recalls that as a sign of an anxiety attack.

The water is ice cold, as it always is, and he cups his hands under the stream, splashing it in his face in an effort to calm down. It helps, albeit slightly, and he drops his head against the edge of the sink. ‘Deep breaths’, he mumbles, and then when Eddie is still trying to talk to him he adds, ‘please shut up’. He feels guilty as soon as he says it, mostly because Eddie doesn’t deserve it, but also because he has never been so rude to him before.

He tries to remember the techniques his psychologist taught him, but it’s hard when everything was still so hazy. He knows he’s supposed to place a hand on his chest and stomach though, taking a deep breath in and feeling his chest expand with it, and then exhaling while feeling his other hand move with his belly.

He opens his eyes, not sure when he had closed him, seeing Eddie’s toothbrush, and Eddie’s bathrobe, and Eddie’s favorite towel, and Eddie’s perfume and everything Eddie, and he chokes again. He can’t be here, he can’t be in a place that has so many memories of Eddie present. He looks towards the door. The banging of Eddie’s fist have stopped, but his voice is still slipping under the door. Richie wants the voice to stop, but he also doesn’t.

He wants to be close to Eddie, but he also can’t, because if he’s given that, if he’s allowed to hold him, than he might not ever be able to physically let him go. Emotionally he already knows that he’ll never be able to get over this heartbreak, but hopes that he can get past his own selfishness, Eddie shouldn’t have to suffer for Richie’s mistakes.  

His hands shake when he reaches for the doorknob, so it takes him a lot longer to fumble the door open than it usually does. When he does manages to open it, Eddie is still standing in front of it. He might be small and compact, but with the way he’s positioned, he’s blocking the entire door entrance.

If he had any breath left, Richie would ask him to move out of the way, but he doesn’t even have to try, for Eddie already rushes to the side. Richie sees him grab a glass of water he must have gotten while he was in the bathroom, but he doesn’t take it.

Instead he slips past him, speed walking towards their front door while he searches for a jacket he’s sure he threw around here somewhere. Eddie drops the glass on their bedside table swiftly, following Richie as close as he can.

‘Richie, what are you doing? Rich?’ He asks, reaching for any part of Richie that he can touch.

‘I need to go’, Richie answers him, ducking to the ground when he finally finds his coat, pulling it on in a hurry.

‘Richie, stop. I don’t know what you’ve dreamed about but whatever it is, it was just that, a dream.’

He tries to snatch a shoe away when Richie pulling one on, but Richie anticipates this and holds it just out of his reach.

When he glances up at Eddie, he sees that he’s near tears, looking frightened out of his mind. Richie struggles to understand why he hasn’t left again or yet, he’s not sure. ‘Eds, Eddie’, he correct himself again. Eddie looks like he was punched by the correction. ‘I can’t see you leave again, please, don’t wait until I get back to leave.’

‘Richie It was just a dream, get back inside’, he hears Eddie calling out to him, but he’s already out the door and rushing down the street. ‘Richie’, Eddie yells out one last time, then Richie is too far to hear anything he says.

He walks around his neighborhood for a while, inhaling the fresh air that the cool winter night brings forth. He’s absolutely freezing, but it’s only when he looks down that he notices that he’s still wearing his pajamas.

He shrugs it off, there’s nothing he can do about it now anyway. He keeps up a fast pace until he can see the small park that Richie had discovered when they were house hunting. Only then does he feel like he can breath again. His anxiety attack has passed, but his sadness has not.

He can’t believe he’s fallen back to the scared little boy he was when he was growing up. Repulsed by himself, back to yearning for Eddie but not being able to come to close to him.

He chooses a bunch that’s slightly covered by trees, a sort of hidden spot. He likes it, and he’s been there a few times when Eddie was at work and he felt lonely, or sad. Like when he had gotten a very negative comment after a standup show, or when his aunt had opened her mouth about him being gay again. There was something about that spot that made Richie feel like everything would be okay again.

When he sits down, he cries. He weeps for so long and so hard he forgets all about how cold he feels, or that it must look ridiculous to people who were passing him. An adult man, a celebrity no less, crying in his stupid flannel pajamas at god knows what hour.

When the tears dry out and his head clears up, he conflicted about what to think. He was sure he had seen Eddie leave, but Eddie was also there when he had woken up. He can’t separate reality from imagination. He mulls everything over in his head, but the fogginess remains. This is his worst nightmare coming through, Eddie leaving him, and for him to go back to his shitty wife.

Richie had met Myra only once, and he absolutely hated everything about her. He hated her even more than Sonia, and that was saying something. Richie sniffled determinately. If Eddie was leaving him, Richie was going to make damn well sure he wasn’t getting back together with his shitty ex.  

Suddenly, a rustling sound came from the trail leading up to the bench. Beverly’s face peaked out from behind a few branches?

‘Oh’, Beverly lets out a sigh of relief when she spots him. ‘Richie, thank god.’ She runs up to him, opening her arms and bringing him in a warm and gentle embrace. Richie allows her.

‘Oh thank god Richie, do you have any idea how worried we all were?’

Richie shakes his head, feeling guilt already building up inside him. ‘Richie, honey, I’m going to take you home alright?’

Richie shakes his head resolutely. He wants everything but to go home. Ideally, he would stay here on the bench for a little while longer, but now that his minds is no longer occupied by crying, he notices how cold he really is.

‘Can’t be there when Eddie leaves,’ he mumbles as quietly as he can. Beverly caresses his hair, tucking a piece of hair behind his ear.

‘Oh no Rich, he’s not leaving. He loves you honey. Just trust me alright, let’s go home.’

She holds his hand all the way until they get to her car, before she buckles him in the car as if he’s a child who can’t do it for himself.

When she gets into the drives seat, she takes out her cellphone out of her pocket. ‘I found it,’ Beverly tells the person on the other side of the phone call. Richie can just make out that she’s talking to Eddie, but he can’t hear what Eddie says.

He suddenly feels dead tired. He squeezes his eyes shut, leaning his head against the window. It’s not long before they start driving home. ‘how did you know where I went?’ He asks when they’re nearly at the beginning of the street he lives in. It takes a while for the car to get there, but Richie can’t remember having walked so far.

‘Eddie called in a panic,’ Beverly answers his question. ‘He was all panicked saying that you had a nightmare and you had run off, and that he needed help to find you.’ She places her delicate, soft hand on his arm. ‘He was so worried Richie. If he was planning on leaving you, he wouldn’t have gone through this much trouble. He loves you so much.’

And yeah, maybe she’s right, Richie thinks when the car comes to a stop. Maybe he was panicked and couldn’t think straight, but he had been so sure that Eddie was leaving him, and a little doubt stayed in his mind regardless.

Eddie’s already waiting on the porch when Richie staggers out of the car, meeting him halfway. He’s been crying, just like he did when he told Richie he was leaving, or in his dream, Richie’s still not sure. He still looks so beautiful, no matter what the circumstances are.

He stops a step away from Richie, looking like he would want nothing more but to hug Richie, but he expects that it probably won’t be accepted from him right now. He’s wrong, Richie wants a hug from Eddie so bad that can’t manage to think of anything else.

‘I’m sorry,’ Richie blurted, before circling his arms around Eddie, who reciprocated immediately.

Eddie swipes his hand over Richie’s back, all the way up to the nap of his neck, where he caresses the strands of his hair as lovingly as he can. It a far mile from the Eddie he usually is, energetic and intense. Now he’s slow and doing everything softly.

‘It’s okay Rich. But you need to know that I would never, ever leave you okay? You’re never getting rid of me.’ He chuckles reassuring.

When Richie shivers Eddie pulls back, but keeping his arms still around his middle. ‘Let’s get inside okay?’ He waits for Richie permission before they both step inside. Eddie stands op his tiptoes to press a kiss to Richie’s forehead. ‘Go to the bathroom okay? I just need a second to talk to Bev and Ben and the other losers on the phone, and then I’ll be right there.’

The sick feeling of guilt crawls through Richie’s body again. He made all his friends so worried, and all of them were awake in the middle of the night because of him.

He drags himself up the stairs, now that he’s back into his home, he’s feeling exhaustion pulling at his bones. He want to take a bath so he can warm up, but mostly he just really want to spend some time with Eddie, to help calm down his racing heart. So he gets into the shower and washes himself off in record time, until Eddie is coming to the bathroom, and he brought along a new set of shirt and a comfortable sweatpants. He lays them out on the counter, waiting until Richie pulls them on before grabbing a brash and carefully combing his curls.

They do this often, an effective way of calming them down. It works this time too, and by the time Eddie is done gently brushing his hair, Richie is half-asleep on his feet. Eddie’s lips press to his cheek, one time, then a second and a third, before Eddie is grabbing his hands and guiding him to their bed.

Eddie thumbs sweeps over the back of Richie’s hand. He pulls back the covers, both of them shuffling to the middle with their hands still clasped together tightly. It’s dark again in the room, but Richie can still perfectly make out the shape of Eddie’s face.

He is still looking worried, but he smiles when Richie looks at him. ‘I’m sorry’, Richie repeats again, meaning it more everytime he says it.

Eddie shushes him. ‘It’s okay Rich, we’ll talk about it in the morning. Another kiss is pressed to his forehead. ‘Just get some sleep,’ Eddie mouths against Richie’s skin.

Then he pulls back, tugging at Richie until he gets the memo and places his head on Eddie’s chest. The scar that Pennywise gives him creating a rift in an otherwise perfect skin, and though Eddie hates it, Richie loves it. It’s a sign that Eddie is still alive, still here.

Richie places a hand on the scar to feel it. He can hear Eddie’s heartbeat under his ear, lulling him towards sleep. Just before he get pulled under, he can make out Eddie voice, nearly inaudible humming along to a song Richie’s too tired to make out.

‘I love you, and only you Richie, don’t you ever forget it. You’re the only one that has ever made me feel completely happy and complete. There’s not a bone in my body, that would ever even think about leaving you. Now go to sleep so I can make fun of you in the morning.’ Eddie says playfully.  

‘I love you too’, Richie manages to slur out, and the last thing he takes notice of, before he is pulled under, is the laughing that radiates from Eddie. Richie beams with it, the knowledge that he can make Eddie laugh. When Richie wakes up the next morning, Eddie is still there, just like he’ll be for the rest of their lives.

Not even an a day after the horrific night Richie’s had, Eddie proves to him he’s in it for life. He proposes on the same bench Richie had sat when he cried. He cries again, but this time, it’s from happiness.

[softeddiek]

so @adamlvnchs made this post about eddie living and richie taking him to the Kissing Bridge to show him where he carved their initials and it hit me hard so i wrote about it. i’m sure this has been done to death but oh well, lol

Fuck it, I love You

reddie fix-it fic; 2.6k words; read on ao3 

It’s been six weeks. Six weeks since he got that phone call from Mike—a ghost from his past that he barely remembered. Just under six weeks since they had defeated It; since they had rushed Eddie to the hospital, blood pouring out of his chest. So much fucking blood—Richie doesn’t think he’s ever seen so much blood coming out of someone in his life.

Richie had been in and out of Eddie’s hospital room for all of those weeks, only leaving when the nurses physically forced him out or when the Losers told him he’d gone too many days without a shower. The scent of disinfectant was so strong in the place, he doesn’t think he’ll ever be able to smell anything else and he’s pretty sure the chair in the corner of the room by Eddie’s bed has basically turned into a mold of his ass by now.

Eddie had been out of it for the first two weeks. It turns out that when you get your chest sliced into like a fucking watermelon, you need a lot of time to recuperate. The doctors were constantly pumping him with strong medication, so he mostly just slept, barely waking up long enough to process that all of the Losers had forced their way into his room (again) before he had fallen back asleep.

Okay, that was a lie. He had woken up for a significant period of time once in those two weeks, when his wife had come by in a frenzied state, demanding to know why the hospital had allowed all of these people in her husband’s room (“These filthy people,” she’d said. Richie felt like she’d been eyeing him in particular). Richie had thought he could be loud, but that was nothing compared to Myra Kaspbrak (God, he can feel himself just cringing at Eddie’s last name being joined with her first. Eddie had married a woman. And Richie had thought he had repressed his sexuality pretty damn hard). That had woken Eddie up, sending his heart monitor racing as, with some newfound confidence (Dying can do that to a man, Richie guesses), he stammered out that he didn’t want Myra to be there, in fact, he didn’t want Myra in his life at all.

He’s still not entirely sure that Eddie remembers it happening, but when the Losers had brought it up later, when he was coherent enough for normal conversation, he’d just stared at the off-white walls of his room for a minute before nodding slowly and moving them on to a new subject.

Once the doctors and nurses have assured them all that Eddie is making a speedy recovery, and should be out in just a few weeks, the Losers all begin to depart Derry, one by one.

Only Eddie needed somewhere to stay right? Someone to help him once he’s out of the hospital, changing his bandages and all of that. So, Richie had offered himself; had continued to become one with the hospital chair, keeping Eddie company. Had offered to let Eddie come out to California with him and crash at his place for as long as he needed. “It’ll be like old times, when we would have sleepovers!” Only this time it’s just the two of them and this time Richie knows what that feeling deep in his chest is every time he catches Eddie smiling at him; every time Eddie scoffs at one of his dumb jokes; every time the light from outside the hospital window hits Eddie just right, framing itself around him like a halo.

He’d expected strange looks from the other Losers as they left; questioning looks. He knows he’d been a bit (see: insanely) distraught when they were down there, trying to keep Eddie’s guts together—and for the first two weeks he was in the hospital—so he expected some prying questions. Only they don’t mention it. They smile at him—send him knowing looks instead—and make him promise to get some rest, to eat more than a fast food cheeseburger, and take care of Eddie for them. To keep in touch. And when they’ve each done that, and it’s just him and Eddie left, he feels like some of that twenty-seven-year-old weight has been lifted off of his chest. Because they know. Maybe they’ve always known.

And now Eddie’s finally being discharged, weeks later. Their plane tickets are booked, Richie had a cleaning service stop by his apartment (because he knows Eddie would have a conniption if he saw the state Richie had left his apartment in before leaving for Derry), and both of their bags are in the rental car that he’s driving them to the airport in.

But as he’s watching Eddie sign the mountains of paperwork his nurse is having him fill out before he can leave, Richie knows his business in Derry isn’t finished.

Maybe it’s almost being murdered by It (for the second time) that gives him that final push. Maybe it was seeing Eddie so close to death. Maybe it’s just this fucking town, bringing up feelings of inadequacy and just plain wrongness. But he’s sick of that feeling; just plain sick and tired of keeping his feelings a secret—a secret from himself, his friends. From Eddie. A secret that had been festering inside him for decades.

Whatever it is that does it, something inside him tells him they have to make one last stop before leaving town for good.

“Ready Eddie Spaghetti?” he asks around a smile, guiding Eddie toward the car with a light hand on his back. Eddie has a shirt and a jacket on it, but Richie swears his hand is burning from the contact.

“Don’t call me that Rich,” Eddie huffs out, frown on his face.

Richie can tell he’s not in the best mood—probably feeling sore from having to make his way to the car after being laid up in bed for so long. His lips are pulling into a frown and for a second Richie is unsure on whether this is a good idea. Eddie is coming to live with him for fucks sake, he’ll have plenty of time to confess his feelings for him later.

But then he opens the car door for Eddie, gently buckling him up in his seatbelt, making sure to move the strap as far away from his wound as possible, and is rewarded with a soft smile in reply, his hand ghosting lightly over Richie’s hand that’s tugging at the strap.

Okay, he is definitely doing this.

They start driving, Eddie fumbling with the radio dial until he settles on a station playing an old song Richie vaguely recognizes. Derry isn’t an especially large town and soon they’re just five minutes away from the Kissing Bridge. He sees Eddie tapping his hand along to the song on his knee out of the corner of his eye. Richie’s breath is starting to become a little uneven, his hands feeling shaky despite having a firm grip on the steering wheel. He’s become so distracted by his thoughts telling him Don’t puke, don’t puke, don’t puke, that he suddenly realizes that they’re already driving over the bridge and he has to brake suddenly, his right arm shooting out in front of Eddie to stop any quick movements.

“What the fuck Richie?!”

He turns the ignition off and can feel Eddie’s confused stare on the side of his face. Distantly he hears Eddie calling his name, his hand shoving at Richie’s arm, but he just scrambles out of the car, taking in deep breaths of fresh air.

All of his confidence from earlier feels like it’s suddenly vanished, because how the fuck do you tell one of your oldest friends that you’ve been in love with them for nearly three decades? Even better, how do you tell your same-sex friend this when they previously operated under the assumption you were straight?

He hears the passenger door slamming closed and turns, wide-eyed to see Eddie leaning against the side of the car, a frantic look reflecting in his own eyes.

“Richie? What’s wrong, are you okay, can you breathe?” He starts fumbling with a backpack, one Richie realizes he must have gotten out of the back seat. “I have my inhaler somewhere in here I…it helps with anxiety if you just…” Eddie trails off noticing the grin threatening to overtake Richie’s face. Eddie’s own face falls flat. “What the fuck man, I thought you were having an anxiety attack or something.”

Richie lets out a humorless chuckle. “Yeah, I probably was.” He rubs nervously at the back of his neck, taking long strides around the car to meet a wary looking Eddie on the other side.

“I need to tell you something.”

“Okay?”

“It’s kind of a big thing and, fuck. I’m terrified.”

“Rich. After everything we’ve just been through, what could you possibly have to be terrified of anymore?”

Richie gulps nervously and takes a shaky breath. “It’s not...It’s something I’ve always been afraid of actually.” He means to say more but he looks up at Eddie, sees the concerned look on his face. His relationship with Eddie had always been like this; fucking around and making jokes but knowing when one needed the other to be serious. To listen. He sees the seriousness in Eddie’s earnest expression and is hit with such a heavy wave of nostalgia. He’d been full of it since returning to Derry (it was kind of hard not to be when you were literally trying to remember your whole fucking childhood) but this is different. He knows he’s in love with Eddie; knows he always has been. But this just reaffirms how important Eddie had been to him. How their relationship worked; how well he knows him, even after all of these years apart where they had little memory of each other. It’s this that makes him reach forward for Eddie’s hand, helping him slowly walk over to the wooden side beams of the bridge. He pulls him down into a crouch beside him, right in front of that same spot he had knelt in front of twenty-seven years ago.

Eddie’s eyes are on Richie the whole time, confusion in them and a small wince of pain flashing across his face that Richie apologizes in his head for causing. “Richie, what are we doing?”

Taking a deep breath, Richie looks away from Eddie and at the wooden plank in front of them. At the letters carved in front of him. He hears Eddie’s sharp intake of breath and Richie knows that he’s looking at the same spot.

“Rich…” He clears his throat. “Richie what…”

“I’m gay, Eddie.” Richie blurts out, eyes hyper-focused on the R+E carved in front of him.

They’re both silent for a minute, only the sound of birds chirping and the soft rustle of trees around them. The longer the silence persists, the more worried he becomes. Fuck it, might as well come out with the rest, he thinks.

“I’m gay and I’m in love with you. Have been for twenty-seven years. Probably longer actually, that’s just when I remember knowing.” Eddie’s opening his mouth to say something, but Richie’s nerves keep him going, scared to let Eddie get a word in. “And I know you married a woman—which, wow, was not expecting that Eds, I mean I’m not trying to say I just assumed you were gay but talk about a surprise—” Eddie lets out a huff at that, causing Richie to turn and look at his face, scrunched up in irritation. He feels his glasses slipping down the slope of his nose and pushes them back up, Eddie’s eyes tracking the movement. “Um, yeah so, I know this is probably really fucking weird for you. And maybe you don’t want to go stay with me which I completely understand but I think you still should regardless because, well, you’re kind of still a mess Eds and I know you know a lot about proper care for wounds and shit but I really listened to the doctors and nurses, promise, and I’m kind of the only other person who did so you technically need my help and I swear I’m not going to like, try to come onto you or some shit so you should really—”

“Richie,” Eddie interrupts, voice firm. Richie stops in his tracks, cheeks burning hot from embarrassment and nerves. “You talk too fucking much.”

Richie hears a strangled laugh leave his lips of its own accord and finds himself clearing his throat to cover it up. Eddie’s eyes are on him, a soft look in them, which he supposes is better than a look of disgust. Not that pity is what he wanted. He feels his stomach drop, waiting for the rejection he knows is coming.

“Do you have a pocketknife?” is what Eddie asks instead, throwing him for a loop.

“I…uh yeah? In my backpack.”

Eddie stands up quickly, hand to his chest for a moment as he begins slowly shuffling back to the car. Richie makes to move after him but, without turning back, Eddie calls out, “Stay there.”

Richie feels his jaw clench involuntarily from nerves. Unsure what exactly is going on, he jokes, “Not trying to murder me, are you Eds? No offense, but I think I can dodge you even when you aren’t moving like my grandma.”

“Shut up,” Eddie says from where he’s rummaging in the back seat of the car. There’s little heat behind it, but Richie still finds himself worried.

Eddie seems to have found the old pocketknife, as he’s shutting the door and coming back toward Richie. Seeing Eddie hobbling toward him, knife in hand, eyes focused on the bridge, Richie has a moment of clarity. He’s going to cross it out, he thinks. Get rid of any evidence and then get as far away from me as he can. He feels sick at the thought. This is what I get for being brave once in my fucking life. Never again.

Only, when Eddie is back on the ground, opening the knife and pressing it against the wood, it isn’t to cross out the letters. No, the knife is pressed into the R, Eddie’s hand shaking a little as he repeats the same motions Richie had all of those years ago. He makes the grooves deep, the letter looking like it had just been carved as he moves onto the plus sign. Richie can only stare in shock.

When he’s done, Eddie closes the pocketknife and looks over to Richie, a small smile on his face. Richie feels his own mouth curving up into a smile, a breath he didn’t realize he was holding escaping him. His lips part, to say what he has no fucking clue, but before anything can come out, Eddie’s leaning forward, his lips pressing firmly to Richie’s cheek. It burns in the best of ways and all Richie can think about is how this is actually happening; his cheek is being kissed by the man he’s been in love with since he was a kid—a man who now knows how he feels. In Derry no less, a place of nightmares where he’d been forced to bury that bit of himself so deep.

Eddie pulls away and laces his free hand with Richie’s. Richie’s eyes dart down to where they’re joined, and his eyes begin to sting as they well with tears. Eddie gets up to his feet, pulling Richie with him.  

“Let’s go home Rich,” he says, smile still soft, as he leads Richie by the hand toward the car.

Richie lets himself glance back one more time to the bridge; to those letters, R+E, together as they’re always been meant to be. When he slides into the driver’s seat and has started the car, his right hand immediately seeks out Eddie’s left. With the warm weight of Eddie’s hand in his, he pulls back out onto the road, feeling as weightless as he’s ever felt.

[hh-rose]

Richie had always known that he felt different about Eddie than he did about Bill and Stan. Eddie was just…well, he was Eddie. There were so many things about him that Richie loved. Yes, that was the word. Richie loved Eddie. He knew that he couldn’t tell Eddie that he loved him, but he thought that maybe if he joked about some things, then it would kind of get the point across without anyone thinking anything of it.

So, Richie would call Eddie all sorts of nicknames: Eds, Eddie Spaghetti, Eddie My Love. He would pinch Eddie’s cheeks and call him cute, cute, cute. He would tell stupid jokes about fucking Mrs. Kaspbrak even though he was well aware, no matter how weird he felt about it, that he actually wanted to fuck Eddie.

Eddie pretended to hate all the attention Richie gave him, but in reality, it was his favorite thing in the world. Every time Richie called him “Eds,” Eddie’s heart would flutter. Every time Richie tousled his hair or pinched his cheeks, he hoped beyond all hope that Richie couldn’t tell that he was blushing.

 Eddie knew that he couldn’t have Richie knowing about how much he loved the attention, so he had to be an asshole instead. He would yell at Richie and tell him not to do those things. He would tell Richie that he wasn’t funny even though he had to stifle a laugh ever time Richie told a joke. He would tell Richie to fuck off even though he never wanted Richie to stop.

…

Hammock time was beginning to become Richie and Eddie’s favorite time. At first, they would only end up in there together because one of them was overusing it, but now they would just go in together from the beginning. It was just an unspoken thing. If Richie was in the hammock, then Eddie was in the hammock and vice versa.

Sometimes, they would joke around and push and prod each other just to get a rise out of each other. Other times, they would just hang out and read comic books or talk about new video games coming out. On rare occasions, they would just sit there in silence, enjoying the comfort and safety the other provided. This was their favorite time, but they never said that out loud. Eddie loved the way Richie would rub his calf to make sure Eddie knew that he was there for him. Richie loved how sometimes Eddie would lay down with his head on Richie’s chest instead of being feet to feet. It was what they thought was their safe space. Their real safe space was each other, but neither of them were ready to talk about that yet.

…

Richie’s main concern was always Eddie’s safety. He was always worried about Eddie. He kept a spare inhaler on him at all times incase Eddie ever needed it. Any time the Losers were in danger, the first thing Richie did was look to make sure Eddie was alright. Eddie always was. This time when he looked though, Eddie was not okay.

Richie was terrified. Eddie was in pain, and all Richie wanted to do was help him, but he wasn’t sure that he could really help Eddie. He knew that he had to be brave for Eddie though. Eddie was scared enough, and Richie needed to show him that everything was going to be okay. Richie was terrified that he was going to royally fuck up Eddie’s arm, but he had to do everything he could to make sure that Eddie was okay. He made sure that Eddie kept his eyes on Richie because he wanted to make sure that Eddie didn’t have to look at that thing. Not once was he scared for himself; his only concern was Eddie.

Richie had done it. He made sure that Eddie made it out pretty much okay. Richie didn’t think anything bad was going to happen after that, but then the unthinkable happened: Eddie was taken away from him. Richie was extremely upset that he wasn’t going to be able to see Eddie for a while at least, but at the same time, he thought that it might have been for the best.

Eddie had gotten hurt when he was with the Losers. If he was safe at home with his mom, then Richie didn’t see how he could get hurt. Mrs. Kaspbrak would keep him safe, and that was all Richie cared about. Also, maybe Richie and Eddie needed some time away from each other. Richie was completely gone for Eddie by this point, and every time they hung out, Richie was seconds away from telling Eddie how he felt. That couldn’t happen, and Richie knew that. So, maybe it was for the best if they couldn’t spend as much time together anymore. The less time they spent together meant the less chance of Richie slipping up.

 What Richie didn’t know though was that Mrs. Kaspbrak’s overprotective nature was borderline child abuse. What was literal child abuse was the fact that she had been giving Eddie all sorts of medication that he didn’t need, medication that wasn’t even real. This was news to Eddie, but it all made so much sense to him.

Mrs. Kaspbrak had always been so fixated on keeping Eddie healthy and not sick because she knew that he was gay. She thought that he had the worst disease imaginable, so she gave him all the medication she had the ability to in hopes that it would cure him. Eddie knew better though. He knew that he wasn’t sick. He was gay, and nothing was ever going to change that. He didn’t need to be “cured.” There was nothing wrong with him.

Eddie was also devastated that he hasn’t heard from Richie in a while, but he knew why Richie hadn’t called or come over. He was just doing what he thought was best for Eddie. Eddie loved him for it, but all he longed for was for Richie to climb through his bedroom window and hold him and tell him that everything was going to be okay.

…

Richie had never been more terrified in his life, and it wasn’t because a monster was trying to kill him and his friends. It was because of what Bowers knew, or at least, what Bowers implied. If Bowers knew, then anyone could know. Eddie could know.

Richie couldn’t take it anymore. He just wanted to get this huge thing off his chest, but he knew that he couldn’t tell anyone. So, he took his pocketknife that his dad gave him, and he went to the kissing bridge. He carved “r+e” into it. For as long as the bridge would be around, people would know that “r+e” were in love. Nobody would know who they were, but that wasn’t the point. It was out there in the world, and Richie was satisfied with that.

Unbeknownst to Richie, there was an “r” in a heart just a few inches from his carving. It was carved a few days prior when Eddie finally admitted to himself that he was gay and in love with Richie.

…

The last four Losers to leave Derry were Stan, Bill, Richie, and Eddie, the original Losers. Stan and Richie left on the same day, and Richie was so greatly for that because he didn’t want to live in that shithole without his best friend. He was still leaving his brother and the love of his life behind, though. No matter how you spun it, it was tragic.

Richie had promised that he would write once a week and call every day. Eddie told him that promising to call every day was ridiculous, and Bill told him not to write because he was shit at it. Stan told them all that they were all stupid because there was no way they were going to last that long without each other. They all laughed and tried their best not to completely fall apart.

Before Richie left, he hugged Eddie for what seemed liked centuries. All he wanted to do was tell him that he was in love with him, but he couldn’t. So, they stood there, hugging each other and crying.

For a few weeks, Richie kept his promises. He wrote once a week, and he called Eddie every goddamn day. After a while though, he stopped. He knew that he was forgetting to do something, but for the life of him, he couldn’t figure out what it was. For some odd reason, Richie thought whatever he was forgetting had something to do with the inhaler that he kept in his nightstand drawer.

Eddie was heartbroken when he stopped hearing from Richie, but by that point, he had already left Derry. It only took a few days for all that sadness to go away because he couldn’t remember why he was sad. All he knew was that coke bottle glasses filled him with an insane sense of longing.

…

After twenty-seven years of having forgotten, Richie immediately remembered that he was in love with Eddie. He remembered every single detail about Eddie and his love for him. However, Richie was still fully aware that he couldn’t say anything. Second verse, same as the first.

Eddie immediately remembered Richie as well. He knew in that instant why he never felt right when he was with Myra. First off, he was literally gay as hell, so there was no way that he loved her. Second, he was so completely in love with Richie; his entire being belonged to Richie, so it would have been impossible to give anything to Myra. Third, Myra was exactly like his mother, and that might have been the most horrible thing Eddie ever heard in his entire life.

Both men had spent their entire adult lives just going through the motions, but that wasn’t just going to stop now. Going back to Derry didn’t change anything. Neither of them knew how the other felt, and it wasn’t exactly like they were going to confess anything.

…

It was just like they were kids again. All Eddie wanted to do was be with Richie. He wanted to be at Richie’s side every second of every day. So, when Richie suggested that they get the hell out of Dodge, Eddie wholeheartedly agreed. He was terrified for himself, and he didn’t want to die, but there was also much more to it than that. If he and Richie left, then maybe they could have at least some time where they were happy and together.

As much as Eddie wanted to run away with Richie, he knew that they had to stay. They had to help their friends kill the fucker. They had to do it together. Not only that, but Eddie also would’ve felt like complete shit if they just left them in the dust, and he knew Richie felt the same way.

 So, despite hating it more than anything, Eddie told Richie that they had to stay and fight. He was well aware that they might die, but he knew they had to do the right thing. Against Pennywise. For the Losers. For themselves. For Stan.

…

Down there, under Neibolt, there were so many moments where they could have told each other that they loved each other. Richie could have said it when he was telling Eddie how brave he was. Eddie could have told Richie before he died. Oh, how Eddie had wished that he could have told Richie, but he didn’t want the last thing he heard to be Richie rejecting him.

So, Eddie died without knowing the truth. The truth was, for three decades, Richie and Eddie had been in love with each other. There were so many times when they could have made that switch from best friends to boyfriends, but it never did happen. Even if one little thing had changed, they could have had their happily ever after. But, here they were in the universe where Richie didn’t kiss Eddie that day in the hammock, and Eddie didn’t go to Richie crying when his mother kicked him out for being gay. They were stuck in the universe where Eddie died not knowing that Richie loved him, and Richie had to continue living his life thinking that his best friend did not love him back.

…

Richie knew full well that all the Losers knew that Richie was in love with Eddie. And, if there was a grey area, it would have become obviously clear when they had to drag him away from Eddie’s body. And, when they all held Richie as he wept in the Quarry about how much he missed the love of his life, he knew, just a little too late, that it was okay for him to be himself.

…

Eddie had never believed in the afterlife, which was insane when you take into account that for the majority of his life, he was terrorized by a demon alien clown thing. However, when Eddie opened his eyes after taking his last breath, he was greeted by a very familiar place and a very familiar face. He was with Stan in the Club House.

Stan smiled and hugged Eddie. Eddie understood then. The Losers all shared an afterlife. He and Stan were just the first of the Losers, and they were going to have to wait for everyone else. But, Eddie would wait as long as it took as long as he was able to see Richie again. After all, there was something very big that he never did get to tell his best friend.

…

Once Richie could stand on his feet and not throw up when he thought about losing Eddie, he decided to take a trip to the kissing bridge. He took out his pocketknife that he had received from his long dead father. He smiled when he saw the “r+e” he had craved all those years ago. He recarved it and hoped that wherever Eddie was, he could see this.

Richie put the knife in his pocket, turned on his heel, and left Derry forever. If he had paid just a little more attention to his surroundings, he would have noticed that the “r” in the heart was also recently recarved by a man who wanted to confess his love for his best friend, but he never got the chance.

So, Richie walked away. He had no idea what he was going to do for the rest of his life, but he was damn sure of one thing: he was never going to be happy again because he had lost his smile, his light, his love, his Eds.

[rcris123]

“Go to sleep.” Sebastian caught him awake again; man said he’d keep watch.

But things just ain’t sitting right by him. Arthur gets up with a heave.

“Get back to sleep. It ain’t even been two hours-”

“I know.” Arthur finds his way to sit by Sebastian. A sigh. “But there ain’t no rest for the wicked.” A faint smile as he leans against the post on the porch.

A glance at the man: he looked clouded by thoughts, by the way his brows were knit together and eyes were lost somewhere in the distance those thoughts ain’t nothing nice. Part of him’s meaning to ask what that’s all about; what’s the story behind them undead and how it all came- It’s why man ended up a dandy in the first place. A scratch of the beard before he speaks:

“Watchu thinking about?”

Sebastian sighed, a long drawn out sigh: “I think you already know.”

“The goddamn walking swamp corpses?” A huff. “Me too...”

That got his attention.

“Was thinking what the hell’s up with them. I mean I’ve seen some odd stuff ‘round, but-” Arthur sighs. “I’m getting worried there ain’t no more hiding.”

“They’re not invincible, thou.”

They did burn the corpses...

“And purely strategically this is a good hiding place. It’s inconvenient for the law and with the undead walkin’ around it’ll scare off those curious.” Sebastian continues. And then another long drawn out sigh. “I know how to fight these, but the memories ain’t nice.” Teeth bare in a snarl at the end.

“Sebastian-”

“A man came to Rhodes once, said he was a lawman from Saint Denis, barely got away with his life after going to investigate some murders up in the swamp.” Man looks at him then as if he was to confess some great sin. “Me and my wife took him in. I was a Sheriff.” His gaze returns to the fire. “His name was Joseph. Handsome, determined, intelligent. Wanted to get his hands on whatever was out there in those swamps. And we went out together, saw the things we saw, had an...” Air is sucked in between teeth. “Had an affair...” Man falls silent then.

“I get that.” Arthur says, as a means of comfort.

“Things got complicated... Joseph got shot-” Words came hard. “I was still a Sheriff then... They... Well Myra did. But they found out. I wasn’t allowed in the house no more.”

“And you put ye’rself out there like there ain’t nothing more than that you fucked a feller...” Arthur’s heartbroken, but he quite sure how else to offer comfort.

“Yeah...”

“I’m sorry, Sebastian. Real sorry.” He tries to close the gap somehow.

And it’s Sebastian that lets his head fall on Arthur’s shoulder. Cheek leans against it.

“It’s been 5 years since...”

A hand runs down the man’s back for support and relief; Sebastian seems to lean into the touch.

“Ya’know, I always thought there ain’t nothin’ more to me than a killer.” Arthur says after a while; a lil something to show he ain’t alone.

“And are you?”

“Don’t know...”

Sebastian laughs, grimly: “A prostitute and an outlaw.”

“I’d say that’s a fine couple.”

And Sebastian snorts again, leaning further up against him, now both o’them got one arm’s round the other back. Fingers draw faint lines above fabric, barely moving, then picking up more courage. It’s almost comforting.

“Arthur, I...” He stops midway, the strokes above his spine become firmer before ceasing. “You should get some sleep.”

“You need sleep more than I do.”

Another snort.

“Then stay with me.” Sebastian says after the quiet’s settled again.

“Will do.” A smile on his lips as Arthur looks down at him however he can. Fingers ghost above the shirt’s collar, feeling skin and hair. And the warm sensation nestles back within his chest like a bird in spring.

It’s May after all...

And he fears he’s already too far gone.

 They didn’t close an eye all night. It was quiet at first, then they started talking, lil’ things, like hunting, different stories of all types of animals and whatever other monstrosities they ended up encountering, like goddamn giant remains he and Isaac found up by mount Shan, then Sebastian mentioned the deal with the gunsmith in Rhodes where the owner chained someone in the basement pretending to be his child, chain ganged and all. After that discussion slipped to children. He found out his daughter’s name was Lily, a beautiful name, and ‘bout how vivacious she was, found her Daddy reading and asked him to teach her, writing too. And how all that happened just short before the entire Joseph thing. She loved stories and he’s sure she’d be writing some of her own if she was given the chance. Arthur taught Isaac as best he could, but the boy had Dutch and Hosea as back-up in case Arthur ended up a failure o’a father, which he ain’t too sure he wasn’t. Sebastian on the other hand sounded like the parent everyone could be hoping to have, and he knew that, by the way he was around Isaac, Jack and the other youngest in the camp. And a great husband to boot- why’s his chest this tight thinking about that. If anything this fool ain’t deserving Sebastian.

The fire was long quenched to simmering charcoal when the sun starts rising and Charles wakes up as if on cue. The man looks at these two idiots leaned in on each other as if he’d stumbled upon some teenagers kissing somewhere: compassion and an urge to look away.

Sebastian straightens up with a groan.

“I don’t judge.” Charles lifted up his arms defensively and Sebastian pins him with a look of mild suspicion before relaxing. “You two should be resting. Weren’t you injured?”

“Yes...” Sebastian says through gritted teeth, Arthur guessed just ‘cause the evidence for exhaustion and pain were undeniable.

“So what’re we plannin’ on tellin’ Dutch about this lil’ endeavor of ours?” Arthur changes the subject.

Charles thinks for a moment: “I’ll go tell him of this place, see what the situation’s like back at Shady Belle, and I think you three should keep on looking.”

Sebastian squints as if he caught onto something, Arthur scratches his beard.

“I’ll look for you if anything goes wrong.”

Realization strikes: “You lettin’ us run away...”

“I said I would.”

“Why?” Sebastian is stern and Charles frowns but still continues:

“Because he has a life outside the gang-”

“I still got people I need to take care of back there, Charles.” Arthur cuts in. “And don’t you fool yourself, you’re among them.”

“The weight of our lives shouldn’t be on your shoulders.” Charles speaks with stinging honesty and quite some concern.

And Arthur remains silent, so it’s Sebastian that speaks up, without looking at any of ‘em:

“There’s still the question of money. I’ve barely got enough.”

And there comes his resolution. Arthur searches through his satchel and hands Sebastian no less than 1500 dollars:

“You get this. And you take Isaac with you-” He said he’ll get him and the kid out, not himself.

Sebastian catches his hand and refuses to let go: “I won’t-”

“Watchu want me doing then?” His voice ain’t as scolding as the words imply, it’s low, above a whisper, meant to be private.

“Keep the money for when you get out yourself.”

His lips purse: “Sebastian-”

“I’m still going off alone.” Charles insisted.

“Why-”

“Don’t play fool, Arthur.” Charles became stern; Sebastian squeezed his hand as if Arthur’s the only one of ‘em that didn’t understand what that meant. “They ain’t kind.”

Now it made sense... And it makes him clutches Sebastian’s palm tighter into his own, as if he’s clinging. It feels somewhat like his actions took decisions for him long before his brain could make up its mind on what it wanted.

To take some time for himself... That’s a foreign concept, and he ain’t deserving it either way-

But maybe they do. Isaac, Sebastian. They deserved the levity, and he can’t be selfish now. Not for them, ‘cause he’s been allowed that. Mind goes back to that pen, the necklace that he mindlessly touches. He’s been allowed, gifted those things, and it ain’t been ‘cause he earned any of it. It’s for them, they earned it, Arthur just somehow managed to be that idiot in their lives, so he better make the best of it.

Charles takes off shortly after; simply gets up on Taima and sets off.

And Arthur’s left there to mull over his thoughts and maybe stare at the man next to him. He’s thinkin’ he’ll do the latter first, leaning into him with a drawn-out sigh.

“What’re thoughts on this, Sebastian?...” he looks up at him, gaining quite the appreciation for this low angle, the way the jaw made a sharp line, jutting forward in a chin, then slim lips and a strong nose.

And he has brown doe eyes glancing down at him now.

“Well Charles ain’t too bad-”

Arthur scoffs: “Ain’t meant that-”

“I’m just needling you, Arthur.”

“I know...” A sigh, another absentminded stroke of the necklace; it’s quite heavy, hard to forget it’s there. A groan and Arthur’s up, face turned towards Sebastian; there’s half baked sarcastic lines sitting on his tongue but he better keep his mouth shut ‘bout those if he ain’t wanting to be slapped ‘cross the face. He knows he ain’t romantic.

“You got anything you want to do?” Sebastian asks.

“Was gonna ask the same thing-”

“Hm.” Man ponders. “Well yesterday’s got my fishing appetite back up and I know there’s a monster sturgeon just at the mouth of the Lanahachee by Saint Denis. And there was also that bounty hunt you was talking about...”

“A fishin’ contest?” Arthur chuckles. “Sure.”

“And while we’re at it we’ll be able to scout Saint Denis, see how the city feels in the absence of Valentini. Maybe there ain’t no need to move.”

Another laugh bubbles in his throat: “Ye’r a better outlaw than me.”

“Or maybe you’re just particularly bad at being one. Though I heard you were pretty good- 5000 dollars...”

“You flirting with me?”

“I’m letting you decide on that-” One of Sebastian’s fingers tugs at the collar of his shirt, unbuttoning it-

“Did I hear anything ‘bout fishing?” when heads turn realization strikes that the kid’s been wide awake for half the conversation. “Or do you want me to turn away and-”

“You’re a goddamn menace, Isaac.” Arthur shakes his head with a smile and a chuckle. “Not letting ye’r ol’ man get some lil’ bit of peace and quiet.” He tries to stand up

“No, I think we better keep the smooching for private.”

“I said I can turn away, if you want-”

How’d he, Arthur moron Morgan, got himself to be father to this treasure of a child; boy ain’t ever judged anyone and to think somehow this... this whole thing is comin’ so easy to Isaac as if it’s second nature has him at ease. Somehow... somehow he’s thinkin’ they ain’t ever really been a family, that they ain’t ever really been whole. Boy’s been missing a mother all his life. Can he even remember her? His Pa surely doesn’t... They don’t really talk of her... And now Sebastian. Is Isaac simply that desperate for a real parent that he’ll cling on to anyone.

“Pa?...” He noticed the silence, ‘course he did, that smart kid.

“Is nothin’. Was just thinkin’ of things and I-” a sigh. “Sorry.”

Sebastian stood now too, puts a hand on his shoulder.

Isaac got up from the bed:

“If there’s something I can help you with, ever, you know I will.” Boy rolls up his sleeping bag. “Just tell me, please...”

Heart bursts a lil’, feeling leak into his expression; Sebastian’s grip tightens on him.

“Isaac, com’ere.” Boy looks at him for a second before Arthur opens up his arms wide, catching the kid when he comes running. He clutches the boy tight against his chest: “I love you, Isaac, ya’ hear. I love you, son.”

And Isaac muffles a response against his shirt.

And maybe he didn’t need to speak, but Sebastian did: “You deserve the world, kid.” And Isaac sneaks a hand and pulls on Sebastian’s vest to drag him closer, pressing him up against Arthur who ended up sandwiched between.

“I like you too, Sebastian.”

Maybe this a bit too sweet for a bunch o’ wayward outlaws, but it ain’t too bad. No, it ain’t bad at all...

Moment lasts a lil’ while longer, a pile of awkward limbs and awkward feelings, as if he should stop fighting all that this is and just let it happen. There’s been plenty other things that just happened to him, and there were few that were this happy.

“Now about that monster fish Sebastian was talkin’ about?”

“C’mon I’ll show you.”

The day was bright, and whatever cool air there was in the morning, not even an hour later was gone; the muggy soupyness of the swamp made itself at home again. The insects came again, roaring loud, felt like summer and quite some. It was past midday when they got there, got themselves some bread, cheese and salted beef to munch on just by the rail tracks, Isaac deciding it’s a good idea to have his feet dangling off the side.

They found themselves a boat just a bit downstream from the bridge and ‘cause Sebastian was as he was it was up to Arthur to row the boat.

“So which one o’ you will be usin’ as bait for this monster fish?” Arthur jokes.

“Isaac looks more bite-sized.”

“M~aybe, but you won’t struggle so much so we might just get a chance at catching the bastard.” Isaac smiles, cocky, full of himself as if he just murdered his biggest enemy.

Arthur can’t help but giggle.

“Touché.” Sebastian says; Isaac’s nose crinkles.

“What does that even mean?”

“It’s when your opponent makes a good point.” Sebastian explains. “Some years in Saint Denis and you start learning French.”

Arthur stops next to where the water’s rippling, sin of fish coming out for a breath; he gets up and takes out his rod, there’s a funky, odd lure attached and he ain’t bothering changing it.

“But you also know Spanish.” Arthur beckons back to Sebastian as man threw the line out.

“My Daddy was a foreigner, came all the way from Spain. He and Momma moved around a lot until we settled somewhere near Rhodes. He became a bounty hunter, then got deputized by the Grays. Was a teenager back then, and after he passed, a drunken accident, they made me a Sheriff. Momma got to see me married with a kid until fever got her.”

“Sounds like a happy life.” Isaac interrupted, carefully reeling in his line. “Did Pa ever tell you what happened to Ma?”

“Yeah...” Sebastian replies.

“Oh...”

“Do you remember anything of that time?”

There was something nibbling on the line; Arthur carefully keeps going slow and steady maybe it bites.

“I remember I cried.” Isaac replies back to Sebastian. “Some men shot her for money; I hid under some crates, then I ran away.”

“You’re a really brave kid, I hope you know that.” Sebastian continued and the two of ‘em shared a smile while Arthur stopped for barely a moment to watch. Felt a bit like things were mending-

“Shit!” Line is yanked with force, such force that he’s afraid he’ll fall off the boat. Sebastian catches him before that’s the case.

Teeth clench and he tries to hold the wire from unspooling but that ain’t possible.

“Think I found him!” Arthur yells when the bastard’s calmed down and he can try to reel him in.

Another struggle. Isaac lets out an awed sound when he sees the tail of the fish splash the surface.

“Did you see how big that was!?” Isaac was all excited.

“Yeah.” Sebastian chaffs in. “I bet that thing eats human.”

“AH, heard that Isaac-” Arthur struggles against the beast. “You better start praying ye’r Pa ain’t ending up fish food!”

Boy scowls then keeps on watching.

He fears his arms might just give in from all the strain they’re under, but there’s Sebastian holding him so he don’t fall over. Heart thumps madly in his chest: effort, heat and the firm grip the man had on him. And the tug o’ war between him and Devil’s fishy spawn goes on for a while, quite a while.

But it’s getting closer, inch by inch closer- There’s the head of that monstrosity! Sebastian leans over the side of the boat and grabs the fish by the gills, heaving to bring it inside the boat. Arthur bends next to him, helping the behemoth onboard.

It fills the entire goddamn boat.

And it struggles some more, slaps Isaac in the face, before boy, pissed as hell, climbs on top of the fish’s spine and sits as if he’s ready to ride it to battle. Then a look up: the kid’s beaming.

At last, with a groan Arthur falls down into the boat: “Gotcha, you hell fish.” He ends up poking the snout of the monster with his boot: those round expressionless eyes almost looked at him with anger.

“Now what we gonna do with him?” asks Isaac.

“I think...” Sebastian intervened. “We can get quite the money off this beast. Say we take it in Saint Denis, at the market.”

“And how the hell we do that-” Arthur laughs.

“I think Sir Lancelot’s big enough to carry him.”

“I meant myself, Isaac.” Arthur’s exhausted and all a sweat. He lets the coat off of him, unbuttons his shirt.

Sebastian looks at him. A smirk forms on Arthur’s half parted lips and he opens up another button; half is chest is visible through the crack of the collar. And he can’t say he ain’t enjoying that half frustrated look Sebastian gave him. He can only wonder now how a cock feels up his ass- Jesus Christ!

Fish. Saint Denis.

He wanted to get up to row, but Sebastian’s faster, takes the task from him and it’s clear on his sweaty face how much it hurts to move that shoulder. He’s groaning all the way through, louder the more he strains. And he’s knowin’ that; his shot left shoulder’s still as stiff as ever, movement came with a pop of joints and a feeling of numbness; in all honesty after this goddamn fish he’s barely feelin’ his left arm at all: it tickles and crinkles as if he fell asleep on in.

Through a collective 3 man effort they manage to get the beast sturgeon up on Big Sir, trying it down with some ropes. Isaac hops on, while Arthur helps Sebastian into the saddle; he ain’t asked, but that’s what a good pardner does.

The market ain’t all that far and by now he’s feelin’ like he knows these places all too well, just a bit ahead the saloon and the Molly House, then across from the market, a bit away, by the Church was the Doctor. He bled on these streets. And he thinks he might have found, above love, salvation on these cobbled streets that he’d otherwise not stand. He hated big cities; and yet forgiveness came from the gutters of a stinking big city, with all it’s fumes and reptiles.

“Please, sir, will you help the poor?” A monk begged by the wall, with pleading eyes.

Arthur gets down from the saddle, again on impulse rather than actual rational thought, and tosses 3 dollars in the man’s platter; a dollar each.

“Bless you, sir!”

He turns away, to get on with selling that monstrosity of a fish, but not without wishing the priest a good day in his own way:

“Well good luck to you, Father. Hope you getting on quite well-”

The monk continues the conversation however:

“It’s quite the apathetic lot I’m afraid, kind sir. And I am just a humble Brother, not a priest.”

It’s a gut reaction when he says: “I ain’t kind.” Forgetting almost that both Sebastian and Isaac are with him, thou it feels like at least his son’s forgiving him all too easy for all the wrongs he’s done.

“You just gave money for the poor, sir, I beg to differ.”

He’s still up on his mare: “I’m a nasty bit of work, Brother.”

“You may have made some poor choices, but which of us hasn’t?” the man’s insisting, and it’s Sebastian that catches on to something that’s amiss.

“You needing help with something, Brother?” Sebastian asks, inching forward with his horse.

“Well, thing is...” the monk’s voice lowers. “Poverty will always be with us, but slavery, I thought we abolished that.”

“I don’t believe you- It’s 1899.” Arthur scoffs.

Sebastian on the other hand: “How?”

“Seems Saint Denis is acting like a staging post for shipping slaves to the islands.” Says the Brother. “Maybe you should see for yourself. I heard the pawnbroker down the block, ’round the corner, the one with the green door, sales more than forlorn trinkets.”

Sebastian jumps down the saddle. Arthur purses his lips, turns to Isaac:

“Son, go see if you find a buyer for that fish. We go take a look.”

He dismounts himself and follows a limping Sebastian, a hand on the back as he reaches him for support.

“Slavery.” Sebastian’s livid, and he looks absolutely convinced it was true. Arthur ain’t that certain, but he ain’t been the one living in Saint Denis for the past couple o’ years.

But all doubt washed away once they got inside. There was scratch marks on the floor, under a bookshelf. A trap door. He keeps silent but looks at Sebastian, nose crinkled. And if that wasn’t a dead giveaway the way the shopkeeper told ‘em that there ain’t nothing there to see sets it in stone. There’s prisoners behind that case. And Sebastian loses no time pawing at the side of the cupboard, searching how and where it comes undone.

“Help me out here-” Sebastian asks and no second doubts Arthur swoops in, jabbing his fingers in the crack at the back.

Heaving, they both yank while the shopkeeper was losing his mind over it. With a bit of effort, the door unlocks.

There’s voices from downstairs; Spanish he reckons and Sebastian quickens the pace.

“Se's bien.” He calls out reaching downstairs. “Yo'm aquí para ayudar.”

Arthur ain’t understanding a single thing, but the cheery gasps from those people are all he needed. Poor bastards are chained to the walls like goddamn animals. Sebastian was already helping one of them and Arthur goes to free the other:

“Please, I’m on your side.” Arthur tries, hoping they understand.

“Él's conmigo. Nos'vamos a sacar.” Sebastian says and the fear in the other’s eyes seems to have dimmed a lil’.

They’re both free now.

“Arthur, lead the way-”

And that he does, gets upstairs first, looks for that shopkeeper to make sure he ain’t up to any funny business, while Sebastian sneaks out with the now freed people, speaking to them softly in their language.

Soon enough they’re outta the shop and back to the Brother who was looking concerned and rejoiced all at once.

“We found these two imprisoned in that shop.” Sebastian says.

“Oh my...” the monk says. “Thank you. Both of you. They’re blessed to have found you.” And the man’s gaze falls on Arthur’s neckline all of a sudden; the necklace glinting in the midday sun.

He ignored that: “I don’t think they speak much English, thou.”

“Ah,” Brother looks at them, then at those poor souls, gesticulating wildly: “Let’s get something to eat.” And that sounds like a really bad French accent. “Manger?”

Sebastian intervenes like the savior he was: “Él's van a conseguir algo de comer. Vamos.” They trust him and they follow behind the monk.

A look at the pavement, at his feet. The platter. He left it behind. Arthur bends down to pick it up and hand it over: “Brother, you forgot this.”

“Oh. Thank you, I-” he takes it, then hesitates and pushes it back: “Here. Payment. For your services.”

“Give it to the poor, Brother.” Arthur says in a heartbeat.

“I couldn’t thank you enough! ... and urhm it’s Brother Dorkins.”

“Arthur Morgan. Sebastian Castellanos.” Arthur introduces them both.

The man’s gaze falls once again on the necklace: “Come see me again sometimes. I often work at the old church on Gaspar street.”

“I know the place.” Sebastian says, the monk smiles as he departs, and only then Sebastian lets out a sigh that feels like it’s been held in for far too long. “Motherfuckers.”

“Whoever said you ain’t a do-gooder was lying.” Arthur rubs a hand on the man’s back.

“Then you’re a liar yourself.”

Arthur lets out a noise, bobs his head around, then lets his eyes fall back on Sebastian’s face. “You did good, Sebastian.”

“You did too.” A smile; for themselves, a lil’ thing.

They should be going to look for the kid. And they find him soon enough, waving at them no more, no less than 40 dollars.

“A few more of those and we’ll be richmen.” Isaac sings.

“If only it’d be that easy.” His father chimes in.

“Ain’t you a sour ol’ man.” Isaac might have been more well mannered than your usual outlaw but he was still an outlaw, and a 16 year old boy at that.

“Let the kid dream.” Sebastian mocks him and Arthur can’t help but scoff: two against one it ain’t a fair fight!

“Ah! Maybe you’re right.” He gives in.

“Thank you, Seb.”

“Seb?!” He’s thrown in on a loop, where that come from? Isaac? And the man in question laughs, loudly. He feels like he’s missing something. “You gonna start calling him Daddy soon?” Sebastian can’t handle it, he’s bent over the neck of the stallion he just got back on, laughing hysterically:

“I ain’t no Daddy-” Sebastian wheezes through tears.

“Yeah, well the kid’s clearly adopted you as a parent.” And with those words from his father Isaac nods, entirely proud of the mess he’s put both of ‘em in. Boy’s becoming a conman like his Uncle Hosea and Arthur ain’t sure if he should be proud or terrified.

“Holy shit-” he’s still chuckling. “I sure am glad I met the both of you.” But it dies down soon enough and tone becomes almost melancholic. “I haven’t laughed like that in a long time.”

The shift’s so sudden that his stomach ends up dropping and a urge to go up and meet that sadness with some physical comfort takes over him:

“Sebastian-” A hand on the man’s knee.

“Now let’s see if how the police’ll be seeing us when we walk in.” the man continues, pulling on the reins.

Just a little bit left behind, Arthur’s last to get back into saddle and spur Ghost to follow suit.

He’s paying attention to everything, especially the lawmen; he bids them good day and they ain’t lookin’ like they recognize him, or Sebastian for that matter. So, Mister Valentini was keeping his lil’ dirty secrets hidden well. At one point against his better judgement he asks one if he’s seen any Pinkertons around. Surprisingly he said he hasn’t. He’s gaining confidence.

And he’d strut into that police station of it wouldn’t fill him with some form of bitter taste; that’s where Abigail told him Jack was taken, and now looking at that poster: Lemoyne Raider Commander, Lindsey Wofford. Bounty 100$. It ain’t no easy task... He shoots a glance back at Isaac; the kid takes the poster and the lawman that was watching almost let out an audible gasp:

“You going after Lindsey Wofford?”

“Might be.” Arthur replies.

“With a kid? You know he’s-”

“Mind your own business, mister.” Isaac’s voice cuts like a knife.

He understands; a hand presses on the boy’s shoulder. He’s smart, real smart and that makes him angry now, but for all that’s good in this world-

“You don’t have to do this.” Sebastian says not even one step outside.

“I want to.” Isaac intervenes.

Arthur holds him back with a firm hand: “Then you better keep your wits about ye’rself, boy.”

And the kid lets his head fall forward with a sigh: “Of course, Pa.”

With a breath sucked in between teeth Arthur climbs back into saddle: “Now it says the bastard’s up by the Mossy Flats.”

“It’s up past BlueWater Marsh.” Sebastian spoke, while at the same time pinning him with a concerned look.

And maybe this ain’t the best judgement or even the best Arthur’s capable of, but he’s thinkin’ it’d be a good lesson for the kid. Revenge is a fool’s game and Isaac must learn that; the sooner the better.

“Isaac.” He speaks up. “Listen here, this ain’t about revenge.”

“We’re in for the money?” Isaac, while sounding absolutely livid, was uncertain.

“Yeah, but that ain’t it, kid.”

“I don’t get it...”

“You might end up workin’ as a bounty hunter so don’t you get ye’r head wrapped up in ye’r work.” Boy doesn’t reply. “Isaac, I know they hurt you-”

“They shot you!” Isaac completely loses his temper there. “You almost died- I’d kill Colm O’Driscoll myself for what’s-”

“Isaac.” The name falls stern, yet not uncaringly from his lips.

“Take a deep breath.” Sebastian chimes in; boy nods, listens.

“Revenge ain’t worth the price.” Arthur continues.

Isaac sniffs in a sob; he rode just a bit ahead so they can’t see his face: “They can’t take you from me... They took Momma away-Who am I gonna have then...”

“You got the gang-”

“The gang ain’t been there!” Another fierce burst. Then silence. “Remember that time I caught fever while out in the desert, Pa? In new Austin?”

“Yeah, I remember...” It was about two years ago, kid got bitten by something and went down with shivers and fever.

“You collected those herbs, ginseng was it, and brought me into that town, Armadillo. You were there. I thought-” Boy’s clearly crying at this point. “Thought I’d die.”

It lasted 2 whole days, and Arthur’s been scared the whole entire time, holding the boy’s hand through it all, wet compresses on the forehead and all that.

“I ain’t letting you die, Isaac.” He says then.

“Neither am I.” cuts the boy with absolute resolution.

Sebastian was quiet throughout all of this, but Arthur had a hunch that if he was to say something it’d be about not letting either of ‘em die, and that’s just ‘cause he did it multiple times already. And if they weren’t at a gallop he’d stretch out his hand to the man.

Instead: “And I guess Sebastian ain’t gonna wanna see you gone either kid.”

“And don’t forget yourself, Arthur.”

“That’s a work in progress.” He tries a chuckle, to lift up the gloom over the boy’s shoulders. It ain’t working.

A song it be; Arthur starts: “I left my home to seek my fame, I traveled in a wagon train... Gold, gold, gotta have gold.”

Sebastian chimes into the chorus soon after, and he’s got quite the singing voice that man:

“Gold, gold, gotta have gold. Gold, gold, gotta have gold. Gold, gold, gotta have gold.”

They paused to let the kid have the next verse; a sigh, then: “So many joined this gold rush craze and hundreds came here everyday...”

And then together again: “Gold, gold, gotta have gold. Gold, gold, gotta have gold. Gold, gold, gotta have gold.”

The road ain’t as dreary then, so they keep up with the singing for a while. It started smelling like rain, skies grew darker and there’s thunder up ahead as they cross to Roanoke Ridge. They follow the road nearing the Kamassa River until they come across a fort. And that’s certainly looking like the place a rogue private militia’d be hiding into.

Here goes nothing.

Arthur takes out the rolling block riffle, checks for bullets: 16 left. The repeater’s out as well in case they need more bullets, that’s got roughly 50, but that he hands Isaac. Pistol and revolver ammo checked:

“Before we head in, everyone’s got enough bullets?” Arthur calls out.

“Got some to spare for the revolver?” Sebastian asks and Arthur hands him  a full cartridge. A nod as acceptance.

“Isaac, you cover us from behind.”

It’s the Lemoyne Raiders, there’s gonna be plenty of them. An absent minded touch of the necklace. And in they went.

He almost instantly stops to turn back to Isaac: they got a gatling gun-

“Shit they’re here for Wofford!” People already gather, race to the gun.

Sebastian takes care that the first one that tries to man it falls down from the palisade onto the ground. Another one makes an attempt and that’s Arthur’s to dispose of. Still all three of them are ducked behind a bag-wall, only dipping up when aiming.

Isaac was getting good at this; saw the ones hiding in the ground-level cabin, shot the first one right in the chest, the other he didn’t get to, hid back inside. But that man’s head still peeked up. With a well placed shot he could get him- He did. Isaac moved to the other side: to the people that dared climb downstairs. Sebastian was mowing down those still on the palisades. 3 more left. Consecutive headshots.

Another reload, but the air turned quiet.

“That all of ‘em?” Isaac asked.

“Keep your guard up; there might be more out and about.” Sebastian warns, getting up, cautious at first. “Can I have the poster?”

“Sure,” they gotta find that Lindsey bastard among all these corpses; first he stares at the printed mug for a bit before handing the paper over. “I’ll go check upstairs.” After all Sebastian still had his leg wounded. He should maybe have a look at that after all this is over. But first, smile and praise for Isaac: “Good job, kid. You were real calm, real collected.”

Isaac’s face splits with a smile: “I did it for you, Pa!” Boy jumps up: “Ya’ hear that bastards! That was for my Pa!”

Arthur can’t help the chuckle: boy took revenge and made into an homage. Boy’s real smart. So exceptionally smart and a father’s heart swells inside his chest: he ain’t deserving such a good kid, but now that he’s got him it’s making him real proud.

Okay, but they still need to find the Lindey feller- was that him? He turns the bearded corpse over; it’s looking like him. Up on his shoulder the body goes with a huff, and Arthur makes his sluggish descent.

“Think I found him-” A thud as the corpse’s thrown to the ground.

“Looks like him.” Sebastian said.

“Then let’s get the bastard back to Saint Denis-”

His voice is covered up by the roar of thunder. Downpour comes not even a moment later. They gotta take cover but there ain’t no way they’re gonna sit here just in case the Raiders get back to find their beloved Commander’s met his maker.

It takes ‘em about 10 minutes to get to a small disheveled house right on the shore of the Kamassa River. They’re all soaked to the bone so the first thing they do is to get a fire going inside and take their clothes off and hang ‘em up to dry. The bounty’s hidden behind some crates, covered so it doesn’t rot

It’s got something about it; the way all three of ‘em are bare-chested ‘round a fire, sharing some dry meat and crackers. It’s got something that reminds of family.

“Maybe we should’o’ kept the sturgeon.” Sebastian chaffs, barely averting is gaze from slipping towards Arthur; and he can’t say he ain’t in the same situation. It’s both lust and worry, ‘cause the man still had deep running cuts along his entire body.

Lips purse and he sits with a biscuit in his hand, not replying, ending up thinking of it all. Today felt good. The fishing, even the whole bounty hunt, and now this moment, that’s feeling too tender to be all real, yet somehow, here they are two men and a boy, ‘round the fire with rain still pouring on outside like it ain’t ever rained. Kinda like the situation they were in: the camp was a mess... That whole thing was a mess...

“I think he fell asleep, Seb.” Isaac whispers to the man.

Arthur blinks a few times, pops the biscuit in his mouth, but one look at Sebastian and the man was pretending to be asleep in solidarity. He winked and Isaac shoved him. Both of them laughed, but the boy just pouted with raised eyebrows.

He’s handsome like this. He’s handsome anyhow, but with a smile on his face and flames dancing on his skin, he’s making that poor foolish heart of his thump against his ribs and breath rise shallow from his chest.

Isaac looks at both of them: “Well since you’re both already fast asleep I guess I’m gonna join.” He sits up and goes to look for a blanket or something that’s dry. Thankfully whoever died in this house decided it ain’t worth taking the blankets with them so the boy wraps himself up in them. “Goodnight!”

Arthur scoffs: “Goodnight, kid.” He rubs the boy’s back leaning over to him. “You did real good today. I’m proud of you.”

Isaac hums, sinking deeper in the blanket.

And when he swings his body back into a sitting position he discovers Sebastian looking at him like he’s the whole entire world, chin resting in one hand and eyes soft as ever, dripping with tenderness - and a pinch of lust. And he lunges like a cat towards Arthur, hands pawing at him, luring him in and dragging him closer. He soon finds himself on top of Sebastian, almost fearing he’s crushing him.

It’s a strange feeling, sweaty, drenched skin sticking to each other, chests rhythmically rising and falling together, seemingly faster and faster. A moments silence where all there is was that look Sebastian gave him with breath hitched, before he runs fingers through the other’s hair. And he leans into the touch ever so slightly.

“Arthur-” it’s so soft; he’s a sinner to this saint and yet that’s how he calls out his name. It makes him grind his hips upwards: “Umgh--”

Arthur promptly covers his mouth.

And Sebastian, spins him ‘round, to then straddle him underneath him.

“Se-” He don’t get to finish; the rest of the name in a breath given to the man’s mouth when it falls onto his own. Breath fastens; kiss deepens. Sebastian pins his arms above his head and Arthur’s feeling tight at the navel-

“Outside...” Sebastian whispers against his lips. Promise and incentive.

Then he’s up.

 Rain is still pouring outside, but it ain’t like it’s gonna matter, Sebastian spins him round, lifts his arms against his head again and mouth’s on his mouth again, rough and hungry:

“You’ve been teasing me all fucking day-” Sebastian grunts against his beard; man’s hands cup the sides of his body, running up, stopping on his chest with thumbs on the nipples.

He ain’t known those could go hard as well, or feel so pleasant under touch like that. He bites his lips as not to moan. Rain soaks them through once again while the kissing and the fondling continues, with only pants to give away what’s been doing to them. That and the legs that part beneath Sebastian and arms that pull him closer in by the waist and have him grind up against him.

“You want that-” Sebastian coos by his ear, voice heavy, husky, a rumble tumbling out like the thunder outside

“Thought you was curious to find out.” He can’t handle what this feeling’s doing to him; teeth graze along the man’s bearded jaw.

A groan; he unbuckles Arthur’s belt and shoves a hand right between his thighs, cupping his cock into his palm. And Arthur has to throw his head back with a grunt at the sensation, it itches between his legs and up his navel. With thumb still coiled ‘round his now throbbing erection, fingers slip up, searching for the crack. He involuntarily bucks his hips forward, letting man access it. The one digit’s button presses against his hole and moves in a circle. Eyes are closed; Sebastian’s panting against his neck. Muscles contract and relax and that’s all he’s focusing on before the hand retracts to get lubricated by spit.

It’s promptly back, but this time Sebastian’s down on his knees: one hand teasing his ass, the other his cock, thin, wet lips fawning over the tip of his cock. Arthur’s knees are weak, trembling already and the knot that’s nested in his guts begs for touch. His own palm sneaks into Sebastian’s hair, grips, coaxes the head to move forward, put that damn mouth round his cock.

“Oh-” it’s soft, not loud and still that one free hand he has goes to cover his mouth. ‘cause he moans into it, muffled, when finger shoves up his anus, mouth working his length like it’s candy, tongue on the underside, firm against the ridge, making pleasure crawl up sweet.

A second finger slips in; the pain makes him bite his lips hard and fast, mid moan, and that sound escapes shamefully; the hand meant to muffle it swats to the side, grabbing onto the wooden paneling. There’s so much going on between his goddamn legs he ain’t ever felt as weak, or good. And it builds and builds. Hand grips the wall tighter, teeth keep biting down.

And Sebastian finds a spot within him, rubbing fingers firm against him in such a manner that he can’t help it:

“There- AUGH-” Mouth’s covered, shots fired. “Shit!” Hands rush to cup Sebastian’s face. Man swallows and looks up at him with a crooked expression of satisfaction: “You goddamn-” His fingers are still deep inside Arthur, and when he moves them the other arm reaches up to cover the man’s mouth before the boy realizes what was going on.

And he’s pinned there until Sebastian has his way with him: pace quick and rough and despite flacid the knot builds up again just as fast, in ever higher, waves. He can barely hold himself up at this point. There-There-There!...

This time it shakes his body from his core. Sebastian ends up holding him within his arms, against the wall. Christ what’s he done to him. Arthur can’t even catch his breath.

“I made sure you’ll be sore tomorrow.” A kiss on his cheek.

Arthur chuckles; he’s already kinda feeling it: “Bastard.”

Sebastian just smirks; and he’s still hard.

A few more pants till he gets his strength back up before it’s his time to straddle the man against paneling. He ain’t quite as delicate or as skilled, but Christ A’mighty he’s trying his best: a few rough strokes down the length of the man’s cock, before he bends down and swaddles the tip with his lips. Tongue rolls ‘round it and over, then head dips down the shaft, gaining himself a big gasp form Sebastian. And he likes hearing that. He reckons he found the rarest of sounds: the moan of a man in that lolls his head backwards, lips half open, hand to cover them. And he feels like he learned a thing or two, tries to replicate the motions Sebastian practiced on him just earlier and man exercises the same control over his skull, bobbing it up and down with on hand clenched into his hair. And he’s barely got the motions proper when he feels cum fill up his mouth: sticky, salty, tasting more or less like roe. It’s hard to swallow, takes a few tries ‘cause it stuck to the roof of his mouth, but when he’s done he finds himself roaming Sebastian’s body with his hands. From the hips up, lulling the man around, as close as possible, letting his breath roll heavy on the side of his neck.

Sebastian’s arms are wrapped around his wet back. It’s still pouring. Hair is sticking to skin, that’s threatening to get cold any minute now. But they don’t let go of each other. Almost naked, pants hanging low between their legs, they’re pressed against the wall, panting and not speaking one more word; Sebastian’s simply drawing circles on his back.

Exhaustion gets to him soon as he stands there; the cold too, and still he finds himself cupping Sebastian’s face, running thumbs down his cheeks, head still pressed to his forehead. And only after he’s done feeling the realness of this, the realness of him, that he’s there and that he’s Arthur’s to have as company does he whisper:

“Let’s get ourselves warm.”

[reddieandgoodnight]

1 + 19 for the kiss prompt for reddie !

You got it! This is a sequel to this, though you don’t necessarily have to read that first (just know Eddie survives losing his arm in the fight with It and is with Richie now). Also, I’m letting the Losers keep their memories after the battle with It. Hope you like it!

1. breaking the kiss to say something, staying so close that you’re murmuring into each other’s mouths

19. kisses meant to distract the other person from whatever they were intently doing 

Eddie sighs as he looks at himself in the mirror. It’s slowly becoming less jarring to see himself with only one arm, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t still disconcerting sometimes. Then again, he supposes he’s lucky to even be alive. Heaven knows he shouldn’t be. That much blood, that much pain — he should have been dead.

He wriggles into a t-shirt he stole from Richie. Putting on clothes with one arm is not easy. Richie usually helps him dress every morning, as Richie had since he’d awoken at Mike’s house — and probably before that, though Eddie doesn’t remember.

Eddie wanders into the living room. Glancing out the window shows him a sunny neighborhood with palm trees, so different from the New York he’s used to. Sometimes it’s strange, being all the way on the other side of the country. So far from where he’s from and from what he’s accustomed to. But having Richie here with him has made the unfamiliarity easier.

When Richie had asked Eddie if he wanted to move in together, Eddie hadn’t even hesitated before he agreed. He knew he was uprooting his entire life to move to Beverly Hills with Richie. But he didn’t want his old life anymore. He could never go back, not after he’d remembered his childhood and everyone with whom he’d shared it— Richie most of all.  

Eddie had returned to New York for a spell to set his affairs in order with the limo business.

And to see Myra again, just once. To serve her with divorce papers.

She’d fretted over him at first, like she had been the one to lose an arm and not him.

Eddie had taken a step back from her grabby, fat-fingered hands. “I want a divorce,” he’d said, handing her the papers without preamble.

Myra had been inconsolable after that, all tears and screaming and accusing him of never having loved her. Maybe Eddie agreeing with her on that last part had been unwise, but he refused to lie anymore to save her feelings. To allow her to manipulate him into telling her what she wanted to hear. To give her the right to act exactly like his mother. Especially when the truth was that he was gay and in love with Richie — a truth he was finally accepting about himself for the first time in his life. So he didn’t.

Richie had been waiting for Eddie afterwards at his office. He’d refused to let Eddie travel from Derry to New York alone.

“What if you need to drive somewhere? Or need to iron your clothes? Or —”

“Richie, I’m not going to need to iron clothes. Also, it’s New York. Nobody drives —”

“Except for you! That’s what you do! And what if you need to, I don’t know, open a jar or something?”

“Why the fuck would I need to open a jar?”

“I don’t know! Point is, Eds, you’re not going by yourself. I just…” Richie had paused, grimacing. “I can’t… I can’t not be able to see you. Not after… that. Just…not yet. Please.”

A twinge had gone through the space where Eddie sometimes could still feel his missing arm. And he’d known exactly what Richie meant. After passing out from blood loss and shock in the Derry sewers and then missing out on a couple of days in the hospital before the doctors let him regain consciousness, the last thing he wanted to do was to not have Richie right in front of him, to know Richie was safe, that there were no otherworldly creatures of death coming to kill them.

It was gone…but the terror sometimes remained, a scar Eddie had a feeling would always be a part of each member of the Losers’ Club.

“…okay, Rich. Okay.”

Richie had drawn Eddie into the office by the elbow and closed the door.

“Are you all right?” he’d asked, so concerned. Richie was able to use his contacts again after they’d left Derry, so his brown eyes had been especially bright as he gazed at Eddie, gently touching Eddie’s cheek.

Eddie wanted to lie, to say everything was fine. But just because something was right didn’t make it easy.

So Eddie shook his head, and the tears began to spill.

“Hey, hey,” Richie had murmured, pulling Eddie against his chest.

“This is so stupid,” Eddie said, furiously wiping under his eyes. “I’m not crying because of Myra. It’s just… It’s just —”

“I know, love,” Richie said, kissing Eddie’s forehead. “But things are going to be okay. I promise. Who knows? Maybe you’ll actually be able to get a tan in California.” He laughed as Eddie smacked his shoulder.

“I’m not the one who turns into a lobster under one UV ray, you idiot,” Eddie huffed, letting himself be distracted.

“Yeah, I remember your cute summer tans now. You always had a million freckles.” Richie grinned. “Cute, cute, cute, Mister Eddie Spaghetti,” he said in a singsong voice, pinching Eddie’s cheek.

“Fuck you,” Eddie had muttered, but he’d been smiling.

“One thing at a time, dear.”

“Oh my god, you are the worst.”

Eddie smiles now. Richie always seems to make him smile, even if it’s against his own wishes.

He heads down the hall toward Richie’s office…studio…thing.

Richie had told Eddie on the plane ride from New York to Los Angeles about how he’d worked as a radio host through his college years, picking up side gigs as an events DJ to make ends meet. His “Voices” had always been terrible when they were kids — they’d just sounded like Richie. But Richie had been able to perfect them, at least enough to amuse one of his college professors into offering him the radio host job.

The rest was history after that, Richie had said. He’d worked his way up until he’d been able to buy his own radio station. And now people come to him to get him as a guest on various talk shows and podcasts. He’s even done some standup and some song recordings, which his fans love.

Fans. Richie Tozier has fans. Eddie shakes his head, still bemused over that. But it isn’t shocking. He loves Richie — he’s not surprised other people love Richie, too. They should.

When Richie had fallen asleep on the plane, Eddie had pulled out his laptop to search for Richie’s work. He’d found some of Richie’s songs on YouTube and had put on his headphones to listen. Most of them had been love songs, often with a similar theme — searching for someone you’d lost, someone out there waiting to be found again. Eddie’s soul ached hearing Richie’s sweet voice because now… Now he knew what Richie had really been singing about, even if Richie hadn’t known it while writing the tracks.

He had startled Richie awake with a kiss. He couldn’t help it. Based on Richie’s momentarily confused but then enthusiastic response, Richie hadn’t minded.

Eddie pokes his head into Richie’s office. Richie has been working from home — though Eddie suspects it’s less working than it is Richie keeping tabs on him. 

Richie sits at his soundboard, laptop to the side as he strums a guitar, murmuring lyrics to himself.

“I took you at your word when you said you would steal my heart,” Richie sings, so very softly. “Yeah, this might sound absurd, but would you be my thief? Take all of me, every part? Love, love, love is my crime. So baby, come catch me, and let’s do the time.”

This song isn’t one Eddie’s heard. He finds himself leaning against the door, just listening, wanting to savor the sound of Richie’s voice.

“I think we might be outlaws. I think I might be in love,” Richie continues, so caught up in the song that he doesn’t notice Eddie. “‘Cause I’m all out of reasons, like seasons — winter, summer, fall. They’re all washed up.”

Eddie’s heart clenches as he watches Richie play, those beautiful long-fingered hands gently cradling the guitar, eyes closed and face serene. This is the first time since they’d gotten here that Eddie has seen Richie with a guitar. It’s also the first song of Richie’s he’s heard that sounds… hopeful. He doesn’t want to give himself the credit, and yet… maybe it’s because Richie has found that long-lost love all of Richie’s previous lyrics had been pining after.

“If you’re still way over there, maybe slide on in by my side. ‘Cause I’m just an outlaw, wanted if you want me. I love you every day and every night.”

Eddie can’t help it — just like he couldn’t help it on the plane.

Richie looks up just in time to catch Eddie’s lips against his. He grunts with the tiniest bit of surprise, but he rallies quickly. He sets the guitar aside and grabs Eddie’s hips, yanking Eddie into his lap. The kiss is eager, and as always, it feels like coming home — for both of them.

Eddie loves the slot of Richie’s mouth against his, fitting in a way he’d never thought possible. He loves pressing his hand against Richie’s cheek and feeling the stubble there. He loves the faint smell of Richie’s deodorant and cologne, mixing with the intoxicating scent of Richie’s skin. And the taste of Richie’s lips, sweet with Chapstick.

After a time, Richie pulls back, gasping a little. He peers at Eddie, that glint in his eye that promises imminent danger to Eddie’s clothing.

“You know, I wanted to finish this song before you heard it,” Richie says, mouth falling into an easy grin. “But you just had to come and distract me, huh?”

“Sorry,” Eddie says, resting his hand against Richie’s chest. “Couldn’t help it.”

“It’s for you,” Richie murmurs. “But then, all of the songs were for you.”

Eddie smiles, feeling too full of love to even begin to express it. So he just presses another quick kiss to the corner of Richie’s mouth, laughing as Richie tries to follow him when he sits back again.

“You can finish it now,” Eddie says.

“Okay, but I’m going to have to kick you off my lap to hold the guitar.”

“Rude, but fine,” Eddie says, loving Richie’s answering laugh as he stands up.

Richie picks up the guitar again, strumming a little as he refocuses. “I think we might be outlaws, mmm hmm,” he mumbles, nodding to himself.

Eddie watches for a moment before wandering behind him, looking at Richie’s tousled hair and broad shoulders. As Richie begins to sing again, he allows himself to bend down and press up against Richie’s back, resting his forehead against Richie’s neck. He smiles as Richie sucks in a breath.

He’d never acted this way with Myra, but Richie seems to pull this affectionate physicality out of him. Eddie presses a kiss to Richie’s shoulder, then to Richie’s neck. A small giggle slips out of him as Richie bungles a chord, smiling broadly as Richie laughs.

“You are incredibly distracting,” Richie says with more fondness than Eddie has ever heard directed at himself.

“So are you.”

Richie turns around in his chair. “What am I going to do with you?”

Eddie stuns himself a little with his boldness as he climbs back into Richie’s lap, invigorated as Richie sets the guitar down again and holds him close. “When did you start working on this song?” he asks, curling a finger in a lock of Richie’s hair.

“While you were in the hospital.” Richie hesitates. “I love you so much, Eddie. So goddamned much, it…almost scares me sometimes. And I know love songs are a little cheesy…but sometimes music is the only way I know how to say something.”

“Richie, I already know,” Eddie whispers. “You show me every single day. I hope you know, I… That I…”

“I know, sweetheart.”

“I love you so much,” Eddie finishes. He can never say the words enough times. 

Richie gives him a crooked, toothy grin. The same one Eddie remembers so well from summers down at the Barrens. From movies at the Aladdin. From barbecues in Bill’s backyard. And birdwatching with Stan. And slingshot practice with Bev. And dam-building with Ben. And taking photos with Mike.

Eddie still hates that he ever forgot any of them, but this feels like a second chance.

Richie leans forward and kisses Eddie again, and it’s so easy and right. He pulls back just enough that their lips are still brushing as he begins to sing again, almost murmuring the words. “Lock me up for good, right here in your arms.”

Eddie smiles against his mouth, feeling Richie’s lips match his expression.

“You vandalize my neighborhood… with your piercing eyes… and devilish charm,” Richie croons into Eddie’s mouth.

As Richie yanks Eddie closer, and as they fall into each other — and later, into bed — Eddie finds himself singing it back, meaning the words more and more with each and every refrain.

“I love you every day and every night.”

[theoreticallyawriter]

Chapter 11: Coping

Read on Ao3

The five of us skip dinner and head straight back to the dorms, Christina leans against Will for a portion of the walk and then Al scoops her up in his arms and carries her while she cries into his shirt. We stop outside the doors.

“Chris,” I say, “do you want to rinse the blood off you?”

She nods.

“I’ll grab some fresh clothes,” Tris says, walking into the dorm.

“I’ll get dinner,” Will says.

“I’ll talk to the nurse and get some bandages,” Al says.

The boys walk away together and I’m left alone with Christina.

“Don’t leave me alone,” she says weakly as she props herself up against me.

“I wouldn’t dream of it.” I help her limp into the bathroom and the last I see of her she kneels on the shower floor.

“I’ll be right here,” I say. “I won’t leave.”

The only response I get is her wet clothes being tossed over the curtain and the water turning on. I pick up the clothes and hang them on the hook next to the shower, then hop up on the sinks and wait.

Tris comes in not even a minute later, fresh clothes in her arms.

“Hey Chris,” she says loudly enough to be heard over the water. “I’m back.”

The two of us sit in silence, side by side listening to the water. Right along with the sound of the shower running, I can hear Christina still crying but neither of us can think of anything to say because what difference could it make? How could we possibly even begin to make better what Eric did to her? We can’t; we can only be here for her and offer whatever support that we can.

“Okay,” Christina says after a long time as she turns off the water. “Hand me my clothes.” She’s still sniffling and her voice breaks halfway through her sentence.

She steps out after another minute of silence. This is the quietest we’ve ever been around each other and the tension is palpable. She pulls back the curtain and stands before us in the comfortable training clothes that we were provided with but the t-shirt seems to be oversized for more comfort. She still shivers but I don’t think that it’s because she’s cold anymore.

After a moment of saying and doing nothing, she quickly moves forward and envelopes us both in a crushing hug. I return it after a brief second or so of surprise, putting one hand on Christina’s back and wrapping my other arm around Tris. She takes another second longer (not used to being hugged I guess), but I feel her fingertips bump against mine on Christina’s back and her arm snake around the back of my neck.

We stay like that for a little while, hugging and Christina starts crying again and I try not to cry but fail and I can feel Tris’ shoulders shaking as she begins to cry too.

“Okay,” Christina says finally. “Okay. I’m okay.”

“You’re okay,” I agree, pulling back slightly so that I can look at her face.

“You’re okay,” Tris echoes me.

“I’m okay,” Christina repeats and it sounds like she’s more telling herself than she’s telling us. “I’m okay.”

“We’re okay,” Tris says.

Christina nods. “We’re okay.”

“We’re okay,” I agree.

We walk back to the dorm room, Tris and I with our arms around Christina protectively, and find the boys waiting for us. Will has enough food for five and Al has ice packs, band-aids, and gauze. They look up when we enter and smile.

“I’ll dress your hands,” Will says to Christina as the three of us kneel down on the concrete floor with them. Christina puts one hand in his and he begins cleaning it with disinfectant that makes her hiss in pain.

“I know,” Will mutters. “Has to be done.” Christina nods weakly.

We lapse into silence again and my gaze is fixed on Christina, on her every little flinch. Will is through, cleaning out the blood and grime that gathered beneath her nails and the bits that stuck on her palms after the shower.

“Talk,” Christina says after a while. “Please talk this is so tense.”

“Uh.” Al glances around the plain room looking for anything of interest to make conversation about. “Mimi still has blood in her hair,” he blurts out.

“I’ll fix it later,” I say softly, more focused on Christina than the conversation.

“When it was fresh it was almost a good look for you,” Will says. “Bright red. You should consider dying your hair that color.”

“Sounds gaudy,” I mutter.

Al snorts. “You and Tris are such prudes.” In a high voice that could either be me or Tris he says he says, “No, I won’t dye my hair; that’s gaudy. No, I won’t get a tattoo. No, I won’t do literally anything adventurous whatsoever.

“Hey,” Tris says indignantly. “I have a tattoo.” She pulls the collar of her shirt down and to the side to expose the three birds in a line just beneath her collar bone.

“For the record, I only said that bright red was gaudy. I haven’t ruled out dying my hair entirely.”

“Semantics.” Al waves his hand as if he’s brushing my statement away. “My point still stands.”

“On what?” I say, barely able to contain my laughter.

I hear Christina give a weak laugh too and internally breathe a sigh of relief.

We’re gonna be just fine.

After dinner, when everyone comes back, we’re all still sitting on the floor chatting. After Will finished dressing her wounds, Christina broke out the nail polish that she’d bought the other day and Tris painted her nails. She’d never done it before, but she wanted to just do something and it eventually turned into everyone getting their nails painted. Because her hands stung so badly, Christina couldn’t do anyone’s but she was happy to critique. Not that the Candor even wear nail polish, that same dishonesty in appearance policy.

I did Al’s and Will did Tris’ and they looked great because of course they did. Erudite is the faction of cosmetics, everyone knows how to do everything. While we were on the subject, we got to have a bit of a laugh over how badly our makeup had gotten messed up, which we’d been ignoring until then.

Peter, Molly, and Drew all ignore us when they come back for the night and go straight to Peter’s bunk to continue the conversation that they were having. But I don’t miss the glances that Molly and Drew both cast in Christina’s direction. They weren’t malicious, but they make me a tad defensive anyways.

A few of the others make passing comments but mostly they help by not saying anything at all. The noise in the room makes it feel full and eases some of the tension that had built when it was just us and Peter’s group.

When Edward and Myra return, they make a beeline for us. Usually they isolate themselves from the rest of us in the corner, only ever occasionally bothering with the other Erudite transfers. Though I guess like Peter and his friends, the need to surround yourself with new people is less pressing when you've already got someone to hang on to.

“Hey,” Edward says, “we just wanted to check up on you, Christina. I, uh, I don’t even know what to say. I’m sorry. That really sucked. I’m sure it sucked a lot more for you but, uh, yeah…” He rubs the back of his neck awkwardly.

“We know that you’re not doing great,” Myra says, “but we still felt like we should check up on you.”

Christina offers them a smile. “I’m going to be just fine, you guys. Thanks for thinking of me. I heard you cheering. You didn’t have to do that, but you did and it, uh, it means something to me to know that you two, who I don’t even really know that well, were rooting for me.”

“Of course,” Myra says. “We’re practically family now, being in the same faction and all.”

“Some family,” Christina says, shaking her head.

Edward nods. “Yeah. It, uh, shit sucks.”

“Want to sit down?” Christina offers.

Edward and Myra sit down in between Christina and I. I remember earlier in the week when Edward seemed like he was going to be kind of a dick. Not like Peter, but not really the sort of person to be around. He was pretty rude to Christina back then too and now he’s expressing very genuine concern, though he doesn’t exactly seem like he’s able to put that concern into words. And earlier today when he walked me to the infirmary, joked and kept me propped up. There wasn’t a hint of the overconfident asshat that I met earlier in the week. I think that I might have misjudged Edward, he doesn’t seem like that bad of a guy.

I glance over at Will and he seems as surprised as I am, his head tilted slightly to one side in confusion as he attempts to analyze Edward without saying a word, to pick apart his words to figure out his true intentions.

“And you guys.” Edward gestures to Tris, Will, and I. “I know you three took one hell of a beating. How are you doing now?”

Tris and I share a look that we then turn back on Edward and Myra. Myra blushes and ducks her head while Edward chuckles.

“Sorry,” Myra says quietly.

“Don’t apologize for skill,” Christina says. “No offense, Tris, but she was great. You both were great.” Al and Edward nod in agreement.

“Tris definitely gave me a run for my money,” Myra says. “Thought I was going to lose that fight, honestly.”

“Do you stay after hours?” Tris asks. “Because I don’t remember you being that good in practice.”

“Perks of having a boyfriend trained in hand to hand combat.” Myra pats Edward’s arm affectionately and he kisses her cheek. Out of the corner of my eye I see Will raise his eyebrows at Tris and Tris glares back at him.

“Yeah, I can see that coming in handy,” Tris says, nodding.

“Thanks for checking up on me, you two,” Christina says. “I really, really appreciate it.”

“Like Myra said, we’re like family now.” Edward rubs the back of his neck awkwardly. “Like a really terrible and dysfunctional family, but a family nonetheless.”

We all get up off the floor and retire to our respective bunks, Will lingering by Christina for a second longer and speaking quietly to her. She hugs him and then bids him goodnight.

The lights go out but I stay awake, staring off into space and listening to the sounds of everyone else sleeping. Al and Christina both cry in their sleep and Tris tosses and turns like she’s having a nightmare. I lean back against the wall and stare blankly at the wooden door, which I can only barely make out in the darkness. After a while I grow tired of sitting in the dark and I stand up, the cold stone beneath my bare feet making me shiver. I need to get this blood out of my hair or it will be a serious problem tomorrow morning. It’s probably already dry and even more disgusting and a bitch to clean. I did kind of bring it on myself what with the whole pulling Edward down by his collar, but that does not in any way negate my right to internally complain about it.

I bump into and stub my toes on more than one bunk trying to get to the door. There’s not a single sliver of light so I have to resort to sticking my hands out and fumbling blindly toward the door. The lights in the bathroom are painfully bright and as soon as I turn them on I step back and cover my eyes, staying like that for a minute before slowly taking them away and allowing myself to get used to them. I can almost feel any lingering urge to sleep leaving me body and part of me just wants to give in and shower in the dark, but I don’t like that idea any more than sticking with the bright white lights on that make everything look sterile and bleached. I look at myself in the mirror for the first time since the fight and realize how shit I really look. I have a big black mark in the center of my forehead from where Edward head-butted me, and a bruise blooming in shades of purple and yellow just under my right eye. I sight through my gritted teeth and then get in the shower, grimacing at all of the other bruises littering my body.

The cold water feels good against my bruises but scraping Edward’s blood out of my hair with my bare fingernails is considerably less enjoyable. We’re provided with shampoo and conditioner, which is nice because I go through about half a bottle trying to get it all out. The water turns rusty red and I get the majority of it stuck under my fingernails as I have to literally rake my hands through my hair and scrape it off because I let it dry. I don’t regret putting it off to take care of Christina, but this is not enjoyable.

When the water becomes clear again and I can touch my hair again without coming away with red fingertips, I decide to shut off the water and get dressed again. That’s an ordeal all on its own; I was sore going into this fight from practice and now I’m sore from the fight on top of it. I kind of feel like I’m decomposing between all of the aches, pains, and the blood.

That last one was a joke.

I look at the roots of my hair in the mirror as best I can, combing through and checking for any lingering spots of blood. My hair is so light that even the faintest traces really show up and I have to put my head in the sink and scrub it out.

I hear the bathroom door bang open and I jump, bumping my head on the faucet in the process and swearing under my breath. The door slams shut and I lift my head to see who came in, wringing out my hair while I do.

Christina stands with her back pressed against the door and her eyes wide and afraid. She looks at me but says nothing, as she continues to hyperventilate.

“Christina.” I approach her slowly with my hands spread out before me. She flinches away from me, stepping back into the corner.

“It’s me,” I say gently. “You’re okay. Whatever happened is over now.”

She holds her breath for a few seconds and then lets it out in a shaky sigh. “I – I know. I just had a nightmare. I fell.”

I don’t know what to say, so I hug her instead and though she doesn’t start crying again she trembles in my arms.

“I could have died,” she whispers. “I could have died today.”

“But you didn’t,” I say, running a hand over her hair. “You’re here; you’re alive, you made it through. We all knew that you would.”

“He tried to kill me, Mimi. I…how am I ever supposed to see him again? How am I supposed to get through the rest of initiation knowing that my psychotic instructor might try to kill me at any point, and for what? Not being able to win a fight where I’m clearly outmatched?!”

“Christina, you don’t have to do this alone. I promise you that no matter what happens during the rest of initiation, I’m here for you. We’re all here for you and we’re not going anywhere. We’ll protect you, that’s what friends are for.”

“I can’t ask you to do that,” she says. “I can’t…I can’t imagine any of you guys having to go through that and I don’t want to. Mimi, what he did to me…I can’t stop thinking about how many ways it could have killed me, and how it could have killed you guys if you were in my place.”

“But it’s okay,” I say. “We’re all okay and so are you.”

“No, I’m not!” she exclaims, burying her face in my shoulder. “I’m not. I almost died today and I don’t know-” She lets out a sob. “I don’t know how cope with that.”

I don’t respond. What could I say to that? She’s right, I don’t know how one is supposed to cope with the fact that their instructor almost killed them; how she’s supposed to see Eric every day for the next fifteen weeks and then for the rest of her life because he’s a Dauntless leader, that is the man running our faction, that is the man responsible for our safety and prosperity.

Excuse the fuck out of me for wondering how the hell he’s qualified for that position. Cruel and brutish as Dauntless is, I suppose I can see him being like a professional fighter or something; but sure as shit not a politician and absolutely the last person that anyone sane would want in charge of initiation. I can’t imagine how that conversation must have gone, “We need someone to take over initiation, who should we pick?” “Oh, how about the guy who looks like he trips toddlers for fun; that sounds like a good idea.”

“Christina,” I say, “I don’t know what to say to make this better. I just want you to know that we’re all behind you a hundred percent; we’re not going to let anything else that’s bad happen to you. Anything that you need, we’re here for you.”

She nods. “I – I…Thank you, Mimi. You’re sweet.”

“What are friends for?”

We walk back into the dorms together with our arms around each other, separating when we reach Christina’s bunk. It takes me a while to fall asleep, but when I do it is peaceful and dreamless.

As late as I went to bed last night, I’m still among the first people up. I try to stay quiet as I grab my clothes for today and slip out of the room. I’m sure that we’ll have to fight again, so I don’t bother with my makeup no matter how odd that feels. I’m really not looking forward to today, I have more aches and pains than I can really describe and I’m sure that I’ll only acquire more. How many times are we going to do this? How many times am I going to get punched before these fifteen weeks are up? I guess I’ll find out.

I didn’t get a chance to tie my hair up before going to bed last night so it’s a total rat’s nest. I can already see it starting to lose its sheen as more time passes between washes using the Erudite products, which are as nice as they come. My hair is really the least of my concerns right now, or at least it should be, but to look good is to feel good and right now I feel like shit.

In the mirror, I see Myra come in behind me looking dead tired. Her auburn curls have lost the spiral that they held on the first day and she’s traded her white bow for a black hair tie.

She stands next to me in front of the mirror and mutters something that sounds like ‘good morning’.

“Sleep well, Myra?”

“Those beds suck,” she mumbles as she begins to run her brush through her hair.

I nod. They’re lumpy, rock hard, probably older than we are, and the room in general is perpetually cold. I guess that’s what happens when you’re at least a couple hundred feet underground.

Molly, Tris, and Christina trickle in, each looking as tired as I am. Molly keeps cutting her eyes and Christina; Tris notices and makes a point of always being between the two of them. We get ready in silence because no one has anything to say and we don’t feel like wasting our time on small talk. The others stream in one after another too, some talking quietly but most just trying to wake up. I notice a few of them casting furtive looks at Christina as we get ready but no one says anything. We’re all apprehensive about what happened yesterday and I think the last thing anyone – especially Christina – wants to do is talk about it.

After we’re done, Christina, Tris, and I go back into the dorm. In her absence, someone had spray painted the word ‘Stiff’ on Tris’ mattress in red and written it all over her the wood of the bunk.

She groans. “Go to breakfast you two, I’ll...” she sighs, “take care of this…this…”

“Shit?” I offer. “I’ll help.”

“Me too.” Christina says.

She shakes her head. “Don’t bother, just go.”

“Nice decorations,” Peter says as he fluffs his pillow. He is the only person in the room besides us, obviously it’s him who did it. Probably got Drew’s help. They’re the only ones this invested in making another person miserable.

Christina and I leave Tris and Peter alone and when the door is shut I turn to her. “You think she’ll be okay?”

“I don’t see why not,” Christina says. “Peter’s an asshole, but this is the girl who has stood up to Four before. I think she’s going to be just fine.”

We meet Will at our usual breakfast table after we get our food. Four hasn’t sat here since the first night and everybody is oddly ridged when it comes to tables. I find myself a little out of my depth here; sure, we ate communally at school but that’s different from being crowded into a room with literally thousands of other people.

“I’ve got a question,” Christina says to Will, propping her chin up on her fist.

“I’ve probably got an answer,” Will says.

“What’s your beef with Edward? I mean, last night he seemed pretty okay.”

Will sighs, glancing off in the direction of the table that he shares with Myra and a few of the other Erudite transfers. “It’s kind of a long story. The short version is that we used to date and then he dumped me for Myra, and honestly I’m a little bitter.”

“Thought so,” Christina says as she takes a bite of her hashbrowns.

“You thought so?” Will raises his eyebrows.

Christina swallows. “Sure. In Candor we’re taught to pick up on little things that most people don’t even notice to discern if a person is lying. The way you talked I figured that there was something else was going on there and I basically narrowed it down to you guys used to be friends or you used to date.”

Will chuckles. “And you’re saying that all of you Candor know how to do this?”

Christina shrugs. “Yeah basically.”

He shakes his head. “Remind me to never cross a Candor. Last thing I need is someone learning all my secrets via a minor twitch in my hand.”

“Be afraid,” Christina laughs. “Be very afraid.”

Will raises his eyebrows. “What ever happened to getting rid of all that old faction stuff, as you said.”

“I don’t see you getting any dumber, book boy.”

Will shrugs. “Touché.”

Tris and Al never join us for breakfast; perhaps I should have stuck around to help her clean up her bed. She said that she was fine but it can’t feel good to know that she has a metaphorical target on her back because of where she comes from.

We each finish up another cup of coffee, which, like everything here, isn’t nearly as good as what we had in Erudite, before getting up and heading to training. When we arrive, Tris and Al are already there. Tris stares at the board in horror, she’s been put up against Peter. I’m fighting Will.

“Oh no.” Christina turns to Tris. “Are they serious? They’re really going to make you fight him?”

“Maybe you can just take a few hits and pretend to go unconscious,” Al suggests. “No one would blame you for it.”

“Aim for his eyes,” I say flatly and make a gesture as if I’m poking out his eyes. “He can’t hit what he can’t see.”

Tris is completely out matched; Peter is nearly a foot taller and noticeably stronger. After what he did to Drew yesterday, who is supposedly his friend, I don’t doubt that he’ll snap Tris in half today.

“Maybe,” Tris says without inflection, still staring at the board. “And thanks for the advice, Mimi.”

“Can you even reach his eyes?” Christina says with a snicker. No one responds and she begins to look guilty. “Not the time for humor. Got it.”

“Well, on a lighter note,” Will says, “looks like it’s me against Mimi.”

“Good,” I say. “I’ve been waiting to fight you since day one.”

“Oh the feeling is entirely mutual, Dearie.” He flashes me a saccharine smile.

“Are you two even friends?” Myra basically manifests from thin air next to me and I jump. “It’s hard to tell sometimes.”

“It’s an issue of constant debate,” Will says.

I roll my eyes. “Honestly, we find it hard to tell sometimes.”

“Yes, they’re friends.” Christina shoves her way in between the two of us. “They’re just so used to pretending not to have feelings that they now have no idea how to actually be nice to people.”

Myra snorts. “Yep, that sounds like our old faction.”

Four walks in, coffee in hand.

“You’re late,” I kind of mutter under my breath.

“Laps.” He makes a circle motion with his finger. “And I heard that, Ice Queen. You can take an extra one.”

I shrug. “Worth it.”

After our laps we have target practice. I’ve grown used to the sound and the recoil like everyone else; my aim is starting to get better too. I don’t hit the bullseye every time, or even most of the time, but I get there a few times.

“You would think that after a week or so they’d be halfway decent shots by now.” I don’t have to look over my shoulder to know that Eric just walked in. The asinine comments and annoying voice is clue enough.

“Yep,” Four agrees. “Too bad they seem to be more concerned with getting all buddy-buddy rather than practicing.”

I roll my eyes. What in the hell would Four and Eric know about having friends? We can’t all be bitter, broody man-children who demean and torture teenagers for fun.

I try to block them out and focus on hitting the target, but that’s a little difficult when I can’t make the bullseye no matter how many tweaks I make. I glance around me, checking on how the others are doing. To my great annoyance, Peter seems to be doing the best out of all of us. Goddamn do I want him to fail, to just be shit at something like the rest of us are. Even Edward if struggling to get much closer to the bullseye than the second ring.

“Hey, come on guys,” Peter says as he makes another bullseye. “It’s not that hard.”

“I hope you shoot yourself in the foot,” I snarl and keep trying.

I know that realistically speaking, Tris can’t win her fight this afternoon. But I would give anything just to see him bruised and bloody like the rest of us were yesterday. I’m sure that I’ll get my shot at Peter at some point in these next few weeks, but I want to shut him up so badly. Not that I really could at this current stage in my training. I’m not an idiot, I know that him and Edward are the best in our class; I know that if I tried now, Peter would wipe the floor with me.

We finish at the same time we do every day, the hours of our morning filled with Eric making sarcastic quips about how terrible we are. I swear that if I roll my eyes any harder they’ll just roll straight out of my head.

“Alright,” Eric says, pacing back and forth before us. “I hope that after your abysmal display yesterday, you’ve all learned your lesson.” He skims his eyes over us. “Well?”

We nod, some of us agree verbally but it’s begrudged and tense. No one will risk angering him again, not after yesterday. I see Christina shudder violently in the corner of my vision and I want to wrap my arm around her, but instead I just keep my eyes focused on one of the pillars on the other side of the room.

He smirks. “Good.” He claps his hands and glances back to the board. “Let’s get Molly and Edward up here, two of yesterday’s victors and therefore marginally less of a disappointment than the rest of you.” He jerks his head back at us, but I take notice of how it seems to be very specifically at my four friends and I. All of us but Al lost our fights yesterday, and I’m sure that he expects us all to lose today.

When Molly and Edward step up and Eric walks away from us, we all sit down near the pillars to watch the fight. Not wanting to sit alone I’m sure, Myra joins my group.

“What an asshole,” she whispers.

“I can’t believe that’s our faction leader,” Will whispers back.

“I can,” I say flatly.

And that’s my future boss if I get my way, I think. I want more than anything one day be a part of Dauntless’ leadership. I’d like to serve on the faction council just like half my family does. I find politics terribly exciting, probably because it’s what I’ve grown up around. Even outside of my family, I was raised among Erudite’s upper class and that is all anyone ever talked about; well, that and each other and themselves. I like to think that the way that the other factions see Erudite is just a stereotype born from lack of understanding, but I can’t say that it doesn’t come from nowhere. My family is almost like the eye of the hurricane, mine and a few others, the Malachite family has very, very deep roots in Erudite. We’ve been tied in with the faction for longer than anyone can really remember; it’s something that the twins get to inherit, because the rest of us left. It’s their legacy now, the rest of us are free to do whatever we want.

The idea both thrills and terrifies me. After all, I’d spent a lot of my life basing my wants off of my family’s, all of which hinged on staying in Erudite. Now that I’m gone, I can become whatever I want. I don’t have to do what they wanted me to do.

Doesn’t matter that I kind of am anyways, the point is that it’s not for them anymore. I want to do this for me, because I have a choice and my choice is to lead.

Of course, to do that I’m going to have to do a lot better in initiation than I am currently doing.

I’m pulled out of my thoughts by the sound of Molly grunting in pain. They’re both strong, but Edward is quick as well, and well trained. She won’t win today.

She peels herself off the mat sometime later, half conscious and mumbling incoherently. As she and Edward clear the mat, Tris begins to tremble and all the color leaches from her face.

“Peter and the Stiff,” Four says without inflection.

Tris stands and staggers to the mat. She wears her terror on her face and as she settles in her fighting stance, her shaking only intensifies.

“Here’s hoping she passes out quick,” Edward says and Myra smacks him on the arm.

“She’s going to be fine,” Will says even though we all know that she’s not going to be.

“You okay there, Stiff?” Peter says, wearing a twisted smirk. “You look like you’re about to cry. I might go easy on you if you cry.”

She sneers and kicks him in the side.

“She’s going to be fine,” Will repeats.

I know Tris. She’s brave, she’s our first jumper; she’s living proof that nothing defines you but you. She’s as brave and bold as they come, what does it matter if she can throw a punch? Tris was made for Dauntless; it is simply who she is. I wish that I could be half as brave as her; I wish that I could belong like she does. I would give anything to just fit somewhere like she does, naturally and easily as if she has done this all her life.

Before Tris’ foot can make contact, Peter grabs it and yanks her forward. She falls on her back, but manages to free herself quickly and get back to her feet.

“Stop playing with her,” Eric says. “I don’t have all day.” He just cannot resist commenting on anything and everything, can he? I know that the Dauntless were never exactly ones for tact, but I have only met a few people in my life who are as purely mean-spirited as Eric. Guess I can add another name to that list; right under Peter.

Peter punches Tris in the jaw and she lurches to the side, looking like she’s going to vomit. She tries to move away from him with clumsy and dazed movements, but he follows and kicks her in the stomach. She gasps for air and falls to the ground. When she tries to push herself up, Peter grabs her hair with one hand and punches her in the nose with the other. Her blood splatters on the mat to be cleaned up later, but the stain won’t really go away. I can see where Christina’s blood fell yesterday and I’m sure that mine is there too.

He shoves her back and follows it up with a quick kick to the side that sends her sprawling. But she still tries to get up; she still does get up, and when Peter gets in front of her she swings. She hits him in the stomach and he groans as the wind is knocked out of him. It doesn’t take him off his feet or anything, it doesn’t stop him from smacking her in the ear with the flat of his palm. But the point is made; Peter’s not invincible, and Tris is more resilient than most people thought. Not me though, I figure that anyone who can jump first from a building and sass Four on the first night, has got guts.

I notice Four turn away and walk out without a word, I guess this just isn’t entertaining enough for him. He must prefer it when the fight is more evenly matched so that both parties can injure each other in equal measure.

Tris’ knees give out and she collapses to the mat. Peter kicks her in the stomach and she shrieks, trying to curl into a ball to protect herself. Peter kicks again and again and Tris’ screaming grows louder.

“Enough!” Eric yells. Peter steps back and Tris falls silent. “Christina and Myra, get up here. And someone take care of her.”

Al, Will, and I all go to her while Christina takes her place at one end of the mat. She looks down at Tris with sad eyes, we all do. Al scoops her up in his arms like she weighs nothing at all and looks back at Will and I.

“I can get her on my own,” he says.

“I know,” I say. “Just…please…”

“Don’t stay too long,” Eric says snidely. “You three have got the next two fights.” He chuckles to himself and I have to bite my tongue to stop myself from snapping at him. I have to be nice to Eric, my whole future career hinges on him at least tolerating me.

We take Tris to the infirmary in silence. We all knew that she was going to get her ass kicked, but I don’t think any one of us thought it would be this bad. After what he did to Drew yesterday, I guess that we should have. But it’s still objectively horrifying.

We drop Tris off with Nurse Phyllis and two others, who when they stand together remind me strongly of the sun and moon. Nurse Phyllis looks down at Tris sadly and sighs.

“This poor girl.” She shakes her head. “I am going to have words with Eric and Four this evening, believe you me.”

Al smiles at her. “Thank you, for taking care of us and for everything.”

Phyllis runs her hand over Tris’ hair. “Of course, young man. It’s what I’m here for.”

“We’ll take care of her from here,” says the man with golden hair and skin, whom vaguely reminds me of the sun. “You kids can head back to training.”

We hover in the room for another moment longer, saying nothing. None of us want to leave Tris, not in this condition. What if we’re not here when she wakes up? She’s going to be in a lot of pain and we can’t possibly just leave her to that.

“Go,” says the woman with white hair and a detailed full moon tattoo. “We’ll take care of her.”

Will is the first one to leave and the two of us follow him silently. We get back to the training room just in time to see the end of Christina and Myra’s fight; just in time to see Myra fall unconscious. Four has reappeared, suddenly deciding that we do interest him after all; or maybe, somewhere in what I can only assume is a shriveled black heart of his, he doesn’t want to leave us alone with Dauntless’ sadistic representative because he knows what Eric will do to us if we happen to displease him.

“Well look who’s taken my lessons to heart,” Eric says to Christina, grinning wildly.

She shrinks away from him and goes to sit down. Edward helps Myra off the mat, speaking quietly to her.

“Ice Queen,” Four says, “and Will. Let’s go.”

The two of us stand across from each other on the mat waiting for Four’s signal to begin.

I flash Will a grin. “Hope you’re ready to lose.”

He smirks back at me. “Oh trust me, Mimi, I’m not going to be the one losing.”

“Begin,” Four says.

I let Will make the first move, going for my legs like I knew he would. It’s what he did with Al. I move around his leg and take a swing at his neck that he blocks. We dance around each other, some blows land and others are blocked or dodged. Will hasn’t gotten a chance to see me fight before today, but I assume that he’s been watching all of us train and learning how we fight to give himself the upper hand before he ever steps up on the mat. Unfortunately for him, I’ve been watching too.

But as well matched as we are, Will is slowly beginning to back me into a corner. I can’t let him, or at least not for another few steps. I continue to concede ground, one step back and then another until I block a punch and look behind me to see that I’m only two more steps from the corner. Will strikes again, thinking that it will press me back another step. Instead, what happens is that I sweep his legs out from him and when he falls I jump over him to put the larger area of the mat to my back so I can back up if need be. I kick him in the side to keep him down and feel a pang of guilt when he wheezes and curls in on himself. I hesitate and he uses that against me; his hand shoots out and he grabs my ankle, wrenching it toward him and pulling me off balance. I gasp and catch myself before my back can hit the ground. He lunges for me and I scramble just out of reach. We both get back to our feet.

“Not as easy to take me down as Al made it look, huh?” He pants.

I shrug. “Depends.”

“Depends on what?” He swings and I move my head away, his fist comes to close that I can hear the air move next to my ear. As he retracts it I grab his wrist.

I twist his arm down and force him to move with it. He uses his other arm to swat helplessly in an attempt to get me to let go. He hits me in the face more than once, but I refuse to loosen my grip. I caught him with my left hand, which leaves the right one free to hit one more time and finish this. I punch him in the temple as hard as I know how and my hand stings from the blow, but it works. Will collapses and I catch him before he can hit the ground, slowly kneeling with him because I can’t hold up his dead weight.

“Well,” Eric says, “it looks like we have two initiates who have found their spines.”

I keep myself from glaring at him by keeping my eyes on Will. Christina helps me move him off the mat as Al steps up; he’s been pitted against Drew. If I had to guess, I would say that Al has this one. Maybe not in the bag, not something totally one-sided like Tris and Peter’s match was, but I think he’ll be able to eke out a win.

Will’s head is beginning to swell and Christina and I have to drag him off to the infirmary before the fight starts. He’s a bit taller than both of us, so we really are dragging him.

“Jesus Christ,” I hear someone mutter behind me a short bit before Will is pulled away from Christina and I. Four throws him over his shoulder and walks away. After a moment of surprise, Christina and I follow Before we’re even out of the training room, Will’s eyes flutter open.

“Hey,” Christina says.

Will mumbles incoherently and begins to try to walk on his own, which only results in him gently kicking Four in the thigh.

Christina giggles. “How’re you feeling.”

“Bad,” Will says, his voice suddenly clear.

“Aw, poor baby,” I say, patting his cheek.

He grunts. “Remind me again why I like you?”

I shrug. “Don’t know.”

Four all but drops him on the ground next to one of the concrete pillars and walks away.

“He’ll be fine,” he says. “No need to go to the infirmary.”

“You sure that it’s not because you don’t want to get chewed out by Nurse Phyllis again?” I say.

“Ice Queen, be quiet or the next fight you have will be against me.”

I don’t respond; instead, I focus on the fight. Al and Drew are very similar in their fighting styles, both strong but not at all fast and good at taking hits. They exchange blow after blow with not a lot of damage seeming to be done to either side. Then Al gets hit hard in the nose and goes down. Drew stands triumphantly, looking back at our instructors and being met with unimpressed looks.

“Well that was boring,” Eric says.

“Hey, big guy,” Christina says when he comes over to us. “Sorry about your fight.”

“Yeah, I thought you had that one” I say.

Al shrugs. “I don’t know. I just…I just don’t want to hurt anyone. It doesn’t seem right, you know?”

“We have to, though,” Will says. “It’s the only thing that will keep our heads above water.”

“Then maybe it’s just not worth it,” Al says, shaking his head. “You guys are my friends; I don’t want to hurt you.”

“Hey.” Will wraps his arm around Al’s shoulders. “You know that I’m not upset about what happened yesterday, right? It was either you or me.”

“But it should have to be.” Al sighs. “Shouldn’t we be like…not be fighting members of our own faction? I mean, we’re supposed to be each other’s family, right?”

“Supposed to be,” Christina says. “But I think this is one of those really dysfunctional families that would sell each other to satan for a corn chip.”

We laugh, but Al’s statement still stands. As long as I can remember I’ve heard that the factions are meant to be like a family to you, a community to belong to, especially for the transfers. It’s why ‘faction before blood’ exists in the first place, because you’re supposed to belong within your faction more than you ever could in your family. I don’t feel that, not really, I am an outsider in Dauntless and I don’t really belong here. But I didn’t belong back in Erudite either and I don’t feel like I deserve to be a part of my family until I can manage to actually do something with my life.

But I look at my friends and I can actually see them being my family; I can see us making it through this and staying friends, simply always being a part of each other’s lives. We’re all different, but I’ve gotten close to them like I was close to my other friends. Initiation may be shit, but at least we have each other.

We slog through the rest of the fights, which are no more exciting than that. I would say that they’re actually more boring simply because I have no stake in who wins or loses. Most of my attention is pulled to Will and Christina, they talk quietly over the sound of skin hitting skin with the topic shifting and jumping back again that I can hardly keep up. Their mad giggles are met with odd looks from a few of their initiates, but largely the conversation fades into the background.

When the last person goes down, Eric stares at them for a moment with a blank look. Then he shrugs and says, “Okay, guess that’s it. Everyone out.”

“Wait,” Four says. “Today’s Saturday, that means you all just completed your first work of training, and you’re all still alive. Congratulations. Tomorrow, we’ll start on a schedule; Sundays and Saturdays will be devoted to combat training all day, weekdays will be target practice in the morning and sparring in the afternoon. So look forward to that. Now you can get out.”

“Wait.” Eric turns back around, stopping us again. “Bright and early next week you’ll all be going on a field trip out to the fence, where most of you will probably wind up after initiation. Be on the train at eight-fifteen. Four will be responsible for all you kiddies.” He flashes us a menacing grin. “Have fun.”

When we get to the infirmary, only the two who were helping her.

“How is she?” Will asks.

“Concussed,” says the man with yellow hair. “She’ll be fine though.”

“She’ll be sore,” says the woman. “Fine isn’t really the right word to be using with someone who was just beaten into unconsciousness.”

“Fine by Dauntless standards.”

The woman rolls her eyes in response. “You kids are welcome to stay until she wakes up. Phyllis already left to go chew out Eric and Four, but I’m Rini and that’s my brother, Sol, and we’ll be around if you need anything.”

“Thank you,” we all say in semi-unison.

“Let’s get you kids some ice for those bruises,” Nurse Sol says. He and Nurse Rini walk over to a giant freezer and begin scooping ice into plastic bags. I hold the one that they hand me to my face, letting the cold seep into my skin and take some of the pain away.

The four of us manage to share the two chairs by Tris’ bed; Christina and Al half hanging off of either end and Will and I packed in the middle.

“Is her eye already black?” Will says, leaning over Tris.

“Shut up,” Christina says. Tris groans and opens one eye, the other stays almost completely shut. She looks at each of us with a dazed expression and then settles on Christina, who’s face is beginning to bruise from the hits that Myra got before Christina beat her.

“What happened to your face?” she mumbles and her words come out a little slurred.

Christina laughs. “Look who’s talking. Should we get you an eyepatch?”

“Well I know what happened to my face,” she says. “I was there…sort of.”

“Did you just make a joke, Tris?” Will says, grinning. “We should get you on painkillers more often if you’re going to start cracking jokes. Oh and to answer your question, Myra happened.”

“I won, though,” Christina says. “Gotta say, she’s a lot better than I would have imagined. Also, Tris, you missed Will and Mimi kick the shit out of each other.”

“We should have placed bets,” Al says.

“I would I have won,” Christina says. “I knew Mimi had had one in the bag.”

Will rolls his eyes. “You’re only saying that because you constantly want me to lose.”

“Yeah, but I’m always right.” Christina smirks and Will grumbles.

“How are you feeling, Tris?” Al says, his eyes are wide with concern.

“Okay,” she says. “I just wish that I could stay here forever so that I never have to see Peter again.”

“Don’t worry about Peter,” Will says. “Edward will beat him tomorrow.”

“How can you be so sure?” she replies.

“They’ve been matching up people based on who wins their fights,” he says.

“Well that’s good,” Christina says and then looks down to check her watch. “I think that we’re missing dinner. Do you want us to stay, Tris, or bring you back something?”

Tris shakes her head. “I’m fine.”

“Are you sure?” I say. “We can just eat in here.” I turn back to look at Sol and Rini. “Right, is that okay?”

“That’s fine,” Rini says.

“No,” Tris says. “I just…I’m tired. Don’t worry.”

Christina, Will, and I stand but Al stays right where he is, shifting more onto the chair now the rest of us have vacated the space.

“I’ll be right behind you guys,” he says, “Go on ahead.”

The three of us leave.

“She’ll be fine,” Christina says. It sounds more like she’s trying to assure herself than us.

Will and I nod anyways. Tris is strong, maybe not physically but she’s Dauntless on the inside. She doesn’t have to act like Four or Eric for us to know how tough she is. It’s just something that we all know.

“I can’t stop thinking about what Al said,” Will says. “I mean, he’s right; we’re supposed to be a family and stuff.”

“Tell that to Peter,” Christina says. “He doesn’t exactly seem like a family man to me. Neither does Eric for that matter.”

“Yeah but…” Will frowns. “but isn’t that how it’s supposed to be? Like, isn’t that what people always tell you.” I nod along with him.

“It’s just something that people say,” Christina says. “Sure I heard that from, like, the teachers and stuff; but people never sugarcoated stuff like that in Candor. It’s a place that you live, and your life there is what you make it. Candor wasn’t really one big happy family either, everyone had their own little packs and we all just lived together.”

Oddly enough, this is the first I’ve heard of Candor in any sort of specifics. My sister lives there but she never talks about it, not really. She always says that she loves it there, but she never says very much beyond that.

“I guess that makes sense.” Will shakes his head. “Right, I guess it’s a little idealistic.”

“A little idealistic,” I repeat. I guess if I wanted my faction to be one big happy family I should have gone to Amity. I know Erudite, and I know that it’s nothing like that. Why would I expect anything more out of Dauntless?

“But we’re gonna be fine,” Christina says. “We’ve all got each other, the five of us. Who needs the rest of them?”

“Right,” I say flatly. “Who needs them?”

September 13th, Year 499

Tris got matched up against Peter, it went about as well as anyone would have imagined. I mean, we all kept saying that she would be just fine because we all know just how strong she is but she got her ass kicked. Because of course she did. I don’t know who decided that was a good idea, pitting the second best fighter (though I write that very begrudgingly) against the tiny girl with virtually no muscle mass. Most of Tris’ strength resides inside of her, it’s the kind that propelled her off the roof and can’t quite be measured by tests of strength or speed.

Me, well I went up against Will and won; though it wasn’t easy. But as much as I would like to stay ahead in the rankings, part of me would much rather be like her. She can’t quite live up to Eric’s ridiculous standards, but there’s no denying that she’s Dauntless on the inside. I would give anything to belong like she does because I just can’t. I don’t know how to let go of the parts of me that are Erudite like she has let go of the parts of her that are Abnegation. Who have I ever been without Erudite, without their principles and values as my guiding force and what I compared myself against? I don’t know how to just be Dauntless, I hardly know what it really looks like and I certainly don’t know how to mimic it. Part of me still wants to be what everyone wants me to be, and part of me wants to do the exact opposite of that but I don’t know how. I can’t exactly do both; I guess the path of least resistance would be to just do neither, just keep moving forward and see where life takes me. But I am so sick of just coasting through life with no direction or purpose; I just want to be someone and be that knowing that I chose to be that way for myself and not because it was the path of least resistance, or because it was the only think that I felt like I could do, or because it was something that someone else wanted for me.

Theoretically, my existential crisis should wait until I’m done with initiation; provided I make it out of this alive and still a part of the faction, then I’ll have all the time in the world to stress about the fact that I don’t really know what I want for myself beyond the goals I’ve always felt was expected of me. My interest in politics is kind of complicated, I guess; it’s genuine in the sense that I’ve grown up watching from the sidelines and knowing just how important it all is and how much the Faction Council does for the city but I’ve also felt that it was just what I was sort of fated for because that’s what almost my entire family does. I know that I’ve said that I don’t believe in fate, and I don’t; I think that it’s a half-assed excuse for hardly exercising any autonomy within one’s own life. But I have always wanted to uphold my family’s legacy, that is something that I am very keenly aware of how important it is. The best way to do that, I think, would be to rise as high as I can in Dauntless and that just so happens to be a leadership position; and not just any leadership position, I want to take over for Max one day. My entire family leads and I feel like I should to, because it’s just what I’ve always wanted to do. Still, now that I have the chance to change that I’m scared to. I don’t know of a better way to be like them, and maybe I shouldn’t try because ‘faction before blood’ or whatever, but I hate that phrase. I don’t want to be a total disappointment, I mean my parents have never really been very keen on Dauntless and so I’m sure my transferring here was not something that they approve of; but there has to be something that I can do that might help that. After all, Dauntless can’t possibly be all Fours and Erics; brainless, heartless muscle. After all, every faction has something beautiful and worthwhile about it; and this was once Kira’s home, how bad could it possibly be if it produced someone as wonderful as her?

I wonder how they’re all doing, my friends. I’m sure that they’re all just fine, they always knew exactly where they belonged in a way that I never did and refused to let any sort of fear stand in their way. I’m sure that Casey’s loving Amity, I’m sure that she’s happy; I just sometimes wish that I could be there with her. She is my oldest and closest friend, we share a bond that makes us practically family but now I have to come to terms with the fact that years from now we’re going to begin to forget about each other. I have to face the fact that we’re never going to be as close as we were, we probably won’t ever even see each other again except for maybe in City Center in passing when we don’t speak because she’s just another Amity and I’m just another Dauntless. This girl who was my dearest friend, who knew every secret about me but one is nothing more than a stranger now. I’m supposed to make new friends, and I have, but I don’t know if I’ll ever really share a bond with Tris and the others that I did with Casey. There’s just something special about growing up with someone that nothing can ever replace.

Eliza, I know, is going to be just fine. Eliza is strong and capable, she has more drive in her pinky than I have in my whole body. She belongs in Erudite just like she has always known and, in part, because she has always known. I wouldn’t be surprised if Eliza became a department head or took on some other prestigious position. She’s going to be great, and I’m never going to see it. Years from now I won’t even care, it won’t be any of my business whether I’m Dauntless or factionless because I’m not Erudite and most other factions don’t give a shit about each other’s in house politics. I’m as guilty of this as anyone else; I can’t name the other three Dauntless leaders who are basically irrelevant outside of Dauntless’ own government, I can’t name any of the justices Minerva works with, or even the Abnegation Council members. I can name every Erudite department head and most of their family members though, however that second bit is really only because I’ve met them in person more than once. Most of them are friends (the word ‘friends’ is used in the loosest possible sense here) of my parents and in my sixteen years of life I have been dragged to many, many social events held by Erudite’s rich and powerful. Those events are how I met Eliza, actually; her parents aren’t department heads, but they’re well respected in their field and also incredibly wealthy. For her, those events will finally become interesting as she rises to prominence and becomes both a part of the conversations and a topic of it.

Kira is going to be amazing; that’s hardly even speculation, it’s almost just fact. She’s so legitimately and unapologetically fascinated by anything and everything that it makes her a textbook Erudite. She could do practically anything and she’ll probably try pretty much everything. Her passion isn’t for one specific subject, she doesn’t have one singular talent, she doesn’t have a ‘niche’; Kira’s passion is for learning as a whole. As long as there are things left in the world to learn about, you can bet that she’ll always be right there studying them. She’s the perfect Erudite, learning more simply because she can learn more and not out of any want for power or anything else. Kira is a near and dear friend of mine who I do wish that I’d gotten to have more time with. We met when we were thirteen and it was like a piece of a puzzle falling into place. Dauntless or not, she belonged with us; Casey, Eliza, and I. We might not have been the friends she spent the most time around or even the ones that she was supposed to have, but we understood her and she fit with us. And we knew her, I knew her and I cared about her; I wasn’t allowed to bring her over to my house to hang out or even bring her into the Erudite sector because there were rules against that, but we hung out where we could and managed to be close without constant contact. Kira never spoke much of her experience with Dauntless; I don’t really know why, maybe she just didn’t think that we cared all that much especially the way that Erudite as a whole has a tendency to look down on the Dauntless in a way that I’m totally guilty of doing myself and feel genuinely bad for. Whatever her reasons, she didn’t; though we sort of drew our own conclusions anyways. I assume, from the genuine and down to earth way that Kira had acted with us from day one, that she didn’t really feel a lot or pressure to conform to that sort of Dauntless mold that all the other factions see.

That’s what makes me think that there has to be something deeper; that it can’t all be brutes and daredevils. I mean, there’s the medical staff so that’s something, right? I know that every faction is different, hell, haven’t I said before that Erudite is far more complex than the emotionless machines that we’re they’re made out to be? People are complicated, groups of people even more so, and I think that on some level we all know that we’re wrong about all the other factions. I don’t really like Candor, I find their demeanor just generally kind of irritating, but I know that they’re not all like that because I know Candor and former Candor who aren’t. Christina and Al are both genuinely fun people to be around and not just a constant stream of drivel that’s barely intelligible because they don’t really bother to take the time to think about their words before they say them. I actually find a lot of their commentary to be funny rather than annoying. It’s all just sort of complicated. I guess I should have figured that out by now; in retrospect it’s sort of obvious. After all, both because of my brain thing (I still don’t like even writing the word) and because I’m a person, I contain multitudes and contradictions. I am smart, and brave, and kind; I have all the benefits and probably most of the drawbacks of being those three things. I can’t just be shoved into a single box because I’m going to do things in my life that will contradict those labels; I’m going to be afraid, I’m going to make stupid mistakes, I’m going to be mean to some people. It’s just a thing that happens to me, I suppose I should just go ahead and get comfortable with it. God knows I’ve written about the issue enough, danced around it and treated the actual label with more caution than I have any swear word ever.

Part of me feels like I’m being a little overdramatic about this, part of me feels like I am being exactly dramatic as I deserve to be given the fact that I’ve only very recently been informed that I have an anomaly that makes me separate from pretty much everyone else. Maybe that should make me feel special or unique or something, but it doesn’t. Instead, I just feel like a pariah waiting to happen or like some sort of freak; I feel like an outsider because I am an outsider, because I can’t fit like anyone else does. Those goddamn labels and boxes that no one can really fit into completely I extra cannot fit into. I saw the chart, Maria explained to me how aptitudes work; I know that there’s supposed to be a single majority in the brain that rises a considerable amount above the rest and that brings with it all sorts of benefits and drawbacks, but they’re common and understandable benefits and drawbacks. Me, I’m a grab-bag of who-the-hell-knows-what; maybe only some of the flaws and maybe all of them at once. I don’t know what I am beyond just…undefinable. But I don’t know how to convince myself that’s a good thing, I don’t think it is a good thing. I just want to live up to all of this potential that I’m supposed to have, I just want to be the best person that I can be, I just want to belong somewhere.

Initiation can check maybe two of those three boxes. No amount of target practice or sparring will ever make me purely Dauntless, will ever magically get rid of this thing that I’m going to have to deal with for the rest of my life because of some mutation in my genetic code or something. All it can do is give me a little boost up that ladder to the top that I so desperately want to climb. My biggest competition right now are Peter and Edward, they’re the best of us (no matter how much I hate admitting that in Peter’s case, trust me it’s a lot). They’re stronger than me, faster than me, larger than me, better fighters than me, better shots than me. Basically all that I have going for me is that I’m smarter than them. However, my intelligence isn’t going to stop me from getting punched in the face. I guess that I’ll just have to want it more than they do too; I’ll have to practice until I can’t get it wrong, I’ll have to just keep practicing no matter how frustrating it all becomes. If only because it’s a step toward my ambitions, if only because it will keep me from becoming factionless, if only because I’ve already decided that I want to be Dauntless more than I’ve ever wanted anything.

Four said that initiation will push us to our breaking point; well I refuse to be broken, not after only a week and a half of training. I’m sure that things will only become more difficult for us the longer that my class collectively refuses to break down. I’m sure that Four and Eric will only think of more devious shit to throw our way just because they can. But I have to just keep trying to keep my head down around Eric, because he’s really the worse of the two, and survive. I’ll have to get my shit together and quick, because I’ll have to fight Peter eventually and I’m not sure that my pride will survive if I lose that fight. I’ll just have to do the best that I can, because that’s all I can do, and because there’s no getting around the fact that I absolutely have to.

[leslie-red]

Connection chapter 1

Yes sorry there is not title for my chapters :) enjoy this chapter 1 the real one ! thank you for your reading , kudos and mostly comments <3 if you have some questions you can ask :)

Ruvik walks along Krimson City at a slow pace, looking down, his long floating white coat making him look even more like a ghost. Like in STEM. He hears screams, mostly perceives the children's ones. But he keeps moving forward like nothing happened. A small smirk eventually appears on his lips. He feeds from all this fear, he can feel it and in the real world it is more…"Delicious". If only he could…experiment more on it. He finally managed to escape from Mobius. They are so pitiful. Thinking they can restrain him. No one restrains him. Nowhere. He ends up hearing different noises. Noises he hasn't heard in a long time. Like alarms, red and blue colors and brutally, cars surrounding him, stopping him from moving further. Rage runs through his whole body, he still has his powers to destroy all those parasites. But Leslie stops him.

"Stop moving!" One of those microbes with a megaphone yells. Others are aiming at him with weapons. He closes his eyes, his first thought directed at Leslie. "Leslie…Let me do it. If I die, you will, too." And strangely, Leslie understands him.

He slowly raises his hand up, ready to reach the point of no return, when a familiar voice rises out of the chaos. He recognizes this voice, frightened but calm. He looks up for the first time and sees him. His "worst enemy", but one of the few people who have been the closest to him in all his existence. He says nothing, does nothing to show he has recognized Sebastian who's putting himself between him and the parasites. What is he doing? Sebastian still remains so intriguing.

"Don't shoot! I'll deal with him, alright? There are children! They mustn't see anything!" Ruvik smiles cynically. That dear Seb hasn't changed. Always worrying about others, even if it means saving Ruvik.

"Ruvik…" Sebastian slowly tries to get closer to the other man. He's not dreaming. Ruvik is really there. In all his glory. "I won't hurt you but you have to come with me…"

"What makes you think I would follow you?" This tone…Sebastian remembers it very well. The same he used in the elevator. Deep and calm. He doesn't know what to answer. They are enemies. But right now he doesn't want to act that way. He wants to save those people, even those stupid cops unaware of who they're dealing with, and spare them from an atrocious death.

"Trust me. I know you're doubting. But I swear, I won't do anything to you." Strangely, he ends up believing him. Last time they were face to face, they tried to kill each other and Sebastian didn't miss him. Just for that he could make him pay. But he has other concerns.

"You don't know how lucky you are of having already met me…Seb."

With that, he slowly walks towards Sebastian's car, without a single word. The brown-haired man stares at him with a puzzled look like he has always done and reassures the crowd, promising them that nothing will happen. He gets inside the car and as he sees Ruvik's sadistic smile, old memories reappear. The worst of them. It's rather Ruvik, who's comfortably sitting down, who doesn't know how lucky he is. And again…He has all the reasons to kill him. But a part of him refuses and he would give everything not to listen to it.

"So…" Ruvik begins on an amused tone. "You're lost in your thoughts?"

Seb slightly shakes his head. He hasn't changed at all. Whether in STEM or in the real world, Ruvik knows how to be annoying. He starts the car at full speed and heads to the police department. He's saving a special room for Ruvik. Where only him can get inside and see him.

At the krimson city police department, agents and detectives are surprised, even frightened, to discover that Sebastian Castellanos, known for being one of the most scrupulous cops, has brought back this psychopath many have heard about. But they ignore their shared past. And Sebastian, feeling the weight of their stares on him, tries not to pay attention to it. However, it amuses Ruvik. He hates being looked at, it even disgusts him sometimes, but he is currently pleased by it. He will change Sebastian's life. Once again, he knows it. Playing with him again. Sebastian was going to push Ruvik inside the room when one of his colleagues takes him aside. Seb can feel Ruvik stiffen, ready to defend himself. He doesn't want any damages…not anymore.

"Listen, Castellanos. You seem busy but there's a case that needs immediate attention…Look at this file."

The man hands him the file and Sebastian examines it with care. A picture shows a little girl, afraid…She slightly looks like his daughter…It upsets him.

"I'm going to take care of it." He says with a whisper. During those few minutes, Ruvik realizes that for the first time, he doesn't know what to think about it. Sebastian has changed. He looks more vulnerable. He made him that way. Even more affected by the things around him since his daughter's death and everything that happened in STEM. Sebastian became the perfect survivor. With perfect psychological damages. Always so fascinating. Sebastian keeps the file in his hand and lets Ruvik inside the room. Then, he turns towards his colleagues to give them an order.

"No one gets inside this room unless it's me. I'm going to deal with him."

He's forced to act like this. He doesn't want any carnage. He has already seen too much of it, and it keeps going. He knows his colleagues might think he's dealing with this case in a weird way, but he doesn't give a damn about it. Ruvik watches around the room in which he's currently kept in. Rather small, but not sordid nor stifling.

"Sit down." Seb orders him. He raises his eyebrows, surprised. So Seb, for a moment, thinks he's now the master of the game. "Let's make him keep that joy for a moment."

Ruvik sits down calmly, without breaking eye contact. Sebastian tries not to let himself be disrupted by this piercing gaze. He knows he's "studying" him. That's something he never ceased to do but him wants to change things. For the good of the world. Ruvik free, it only bodes horror.

"I've learnt about you. I've received some messages from this organization…Mobius." At those words, Ruvik rolls his eyes. Of course. How else would he have learnt about it?

"But I already felt it." Sebastian pursued on a softer tone. "As soon as I got out of STEM, it was rather painful, always the same headaches. Why?"

Ruvik stays quiet for a while before answering on a neutral tone, as usual.

"You're dealing with the aftermath, no one ever gets out of STEM unscathed. You either die in there, become a prisoner like me or by the greatest miracle, you get out and stay connected to it. You're kind of connected…to me." He finishes his sentence smiling like he once did while saying those words, "you are mine".

Sebastian sighs and slowly stands up, ready to pursue the conversation calmly.

"Ruvik, I won't hurt you. I just want to make sure that you, however, won't try anything. I don't want that anymore."

"This isn't about you." Ruvik retorts dryly, but Seb doesn't let himself be impressed by it anymore and leans against the table in order to be closer to his former enemy.

"You're wrong, as long as I will be connected to you, if not forever, everything you do and think about doing, it's my business."

Deep down, he's right. And somehow, this pleases Ruvik.

"You're interested by me, admit it."

"Ruvik…Of course I am."

He totally is. Ruvik came into his life and changed it in so little time, like a tsunami. He can't ignore it anymore. Ruvik starts to feel bitter at Sebastian's tone. A compassionate and calm tone. What game is he playing?

"You really aren't going to hurt me?"

"No." Ruvik laughs bitterly.

"Don't mock me."

"No, that's no my attention. I don't want it anymore, believe it or not I don't care. If I wanted to hurt you I would have already done it as soon as I found you in the middle of the city. I tried to kill you…I failed."

"I've completely defiled you."

Is it true? No, he was already defiled, since his daughter's death and Myra's vanishing. Even if he has a strange, disturbing feeling.

"No, Ruvik." He says with a wry smile. "You didn't defile me, you made me angry, you woke something up in me that I thought was gone, you probably…exhausted me after all you made me go through, the monsters I had the honor to meet…But you didn't break me. Now I feel…serene." It was sincere and at the same time he was trying to hit where it hurt.

"Stop. Shut up."

For the first time, Ruvik refuses to acknowledge that he changed someone's life to make him "serene", it's ludicrous. Like this way Sebastian acts towards him. The detective stands up, heading to a fruit cup.

"I'm sorry…" He says slowly. "We…Don't have pears or pumpkins." Ruvik gives him an odd look then remembers the paintings hanging on the walls of the Victoriano manor. "But we do have oranges. Do you want one?" He asks this time on a cheerful tone, which exasperates Ruvik. Right now, he would like to reduce him to ashes…Especially because he sees that Sebastian is sincere. Ruvik answers the question by shaking

his head, a dark look on his face. Sebastian smiles, far from surprised by his behavior. He knows it will take time until Ruvik accepts to become familiar with him.

"Everybody loves oranges. That's all I can give you for now, eating will do you good and I have a job to do."

Ruvik ends up eating the orange, his eyes never leaving Sebastian. He knows his job has something to do with the little girl on the picture.

"Are you intrigued by her?" He asks with a mysterious smile.

"I'm ready for everything." Sebastian simply replies, leaving the room. He turns around one last time and retorts on a tougher tone:

"Don't leave the room, Ruvik. I will come back. For now, you have nowhere else to go, and you know it. You won't make it out alive. You will need me. And I don't want a carnage anymore."

He refrains himself from doing anything, something his old self would have done, and it only amuses Ruvik who takes advantage of the situation once again.

"Alright, boss. Do your job, then."

Sebastian doesn't say anything else and closes the door, leaving Ruvik alone with his thoughts. Darker than anyone could imagine. He looks at the orange closely before sinking his long burnt fingers in it, picturing a brain instead of the fruit. "Indeed, Seb…Everybody loves oranges."

Ao3link

[mg-bsl381]

It Started With A Sausage

This was inspired by this post:

https://snoopctm.tumblr.com/post/159052732149/still-wondering-if-this-foodsmell-aversion

Instead of writing a direct response, I ended up writing this.

Many thanks to @snoopctm, who also helped me with the slightly dubious title for this ;)

I hope you like this and I’d love to know what you think!

It Started With A Sausage

When Shelagh looked back it was the spicy sausage at the beach picnic that first smelled strange to her.  At the time she had put it down to something unfamiliar but now she wondered if that was the first inkling of something else.

She remembered the day at the beach well.  It had been a lovely relaxing afternoon and felt a world away from Hope Clinic.  The ladies who did the cooking for the clinic had made them a picnic and Shelagh was hungry so she was eager to tuck in.  She took a tentative sniff at the sausage and felt her stomach lurch.  She quickly covered up her nausea with a comment about the sausage being too spicy for her tastes.  She wondered if Patrick would notice but he was engrossed in trying to find an answer to Doctor Myra’s pain.  She knew what he was like when he immersed himself in work.  A herd of elephants could walk right past him and he wouldn’t be aware of them.  

Shelagh noticed during their remaining time in South Africa that some smells made her stomach unsettled.  She thought it was probably the weeks of a different diet that was causing it.  Many of the others had what they were referring to as Cape Town tummy.  She knew that once she was back home in London everything would settle down.

A few weeks later back in London, things had not only not improved, they had got worse.  Shelagh found herself chewing on Rennies to soothe her upset stomach.  She wondered if she would ever feel herself again.  She firmly told herself it would pass and after a month away her system was just re-adjusting itself.

One morning Shelagh was working at the surgery when she came over all queasy.  Thankfully Timothy was on hand to hold the fort as she used her keys to unlock the rarely used door that connected the surgery to the flat on the other side of the building.  She ran as fast as she could and made it just in time.  She felt terrible and wondered what it was that was ailing her.  She was normally fit and healthy, although if the weather was cold and damp she had to be more careful so she didn’t irritate her chest.  This continual nausea was really annoying.  She hadn’t mentioned anything to Patrick about it because she didn’t want him to worry.

Shelagh cleaned herself up and went into the kitchen for some cold water hoping that would settle her tummy.  She thought of all the things that were making her nauseous at the moment.  Firstly there was that spicy sausage on the beach in South Africa then since she’d been home she’d just had a very unsettled stomach.  MILK, of course.  Milk had a dreadful effect on her.  She was opening a pint of milk for Angela one morning and she nearly gagged with the smell.  Timothy had taken to eating toast for breakfast as Shelagh kept throwing the milk away because it was going off.  Patrick had mentioned possibly writing a letter of complaint to the milkman about the poor quality of their milk.  Shelagh tried to think what it was that set her off this morning.  Cigarettes, as one of the patients was smoking in the surgery.  Thank goodness Patrick had given up because the smell made her want to heave.  There was a time when she secretly loved the smell of cigarettes.  That was when she was Sister Bernadette and they reminded her of Patrick.

Shelagh put down her glass and thought for a moment.  It was all so obvious to her.  Under any other circumstances she would be convinced she was pregnant.  Only she couldn’t be.  Ted Horringer’s diagnosis at Harley Street was clear.  She had scar tissue throughout the pelvic organs and her chances of conceiving were practically zero.  She remembered the pain and the heartache of that terrible diagnosis and the utter hopelessness of it.  She had prayed for a miracle and Angela was an answer to all her prayers just not in the way she had expected.  Shelagh began to wonder that maybe those prayers had another answer, a true miracle.  She would have to do a test but this time she had the authority to send it off without Patrick having to sign for it.

Shelagh tried to keep calm and sipped another glass of water to replace her lost fluids.  She heard the cheerful voice of Sister Winifred and realised that she had left the connecting door unlocked in her haste to get to the bathroom in time.  Sister Winifred informed Shelagh that she had looked after the surgery and Patrick had been given a cup of tea before going off on his rounds.  Shelagh was relieved that all had been taken care of.  The poor man was probably parched as she had once again thrown the milk away denying her husband his morning cuppa.  Sister Winifred’s mention of Cape Town tummy made Shelagh wonder at how she had ignored such textbook symptoms for so long.  The young nun’s enquiries about the details of Shelagh’s ailments caused Shelagh to be a little sharper with Sister Winifred than she should have been.  Sister Winifred slunk off without another word, not even a cheery farewell.  

The following morning, Shelagh slipped her own sample in with the others to be sent off to St Cuthbert’s.  She would have to wait and see but a part of her was convinced.  The rest of her was absolutely terrified.  She knew that at her age and with her medical history any pregnancy would be high risk.  She was even more worried about Patrick’s reaction.  The two of them had been in so many delivery rooms over the years and not all of them with happy outcomes.  

When the result came back, Shelagh wished that Patrick was there to open the envelope for her.  He was so gentle and loving with her and she needed his strength when she read the results.  She read the word “Positive” and gasped, her hand over her mouth in shock.  How on earth was she to tell Patrick?

Shelagh hadn’t meant to tell Sister Julienne but as soon as she got a whiff of the milk in her tea, she felt the bile rise in her throat.  She found herself telling Sister Julienne and watching the look of dawning comprehension on her dear friend’s face.  Shelagh was able to confide her fears too and was met with love and assurance.  Sister Julienne’s prayers had never faltered and Shelagh was thankful that she shared her joy.  

The question in Shelagh’s mind was how to tell Patrick.  She wanted it to be special.  The memory of that negative test result still hung over them.  Shelagh was a different person now than she was then.  She was much more confident in herself and in her marriage to Patrick.  She remembered his words when he signed the form for the test about watching his face when she got the result.  She had seen his look of concern and hastily disguised disappointment then.  She desperately wanted to see his face when she told him.  She imagined firstly she would see shock and then joy as he smiled at her.  She hoped he would be happy with the result.

After pondering many different ways that didn’t quite hit the mark, she remembered the time she became part of Patrick and Timothy’s family.  It hadn’t just been a proposal of marriage between a man and a woman, it was the beginning of a family.    

Shelagh enlisted Angela’s help with her drawing.  She hoped Patrick would understand and remember.  She felt she was giving him what he had once given her.  He had given her a child and now she was giving him their much longed for baby.  She folded the paper carefully and tied it with one of Angela’s hair ribbons.  Shelagh took it to the surgery where Patrick was doing paperwork.  The surgery was closed so she knew they would not be disturbed.  

She was so excited that she couldn’t stop herself from smiling.  Patrick smiled when he saw her.  He looked quizzically at the note as he opened it.  Shelagh saw a similar dawning realisation on his face that she had seen on Sister Julienne’s face.  He looked at her with shock written over his face and read the words “Please will you be my Dad?” out loud.  Shelagh could only nod and smile.  

Patrick pulled her into his arms and they gazed at each other both of them smiling and laughing.  She had imagined seeing his face when she told him her news but she had never imagined such pure unadulterated joy and love that she saw before her.  As she stroked his cheek, she could feel him trembling with excitement.

Patrick asked her when it might have happened.  All Shelagh could say is that it was while they were in South Africa but beyond that she couldn’t be certain.  Patrick pulled her tighter to him and laughed.  They both remembered those weeks without their children or the clamour of a telephone.

It was later on that Patrick asked Shelagh about what made her think she might be pregnant.  She explained about the nausea, the Rennies, all those pints of milk that were probably perfectly fine and a spicy sausage at the beach picnic.  Patrick thought that was very funny that Shelagh’s first symptom of her miracle pregnancy had been witnessed by Barbara, Trixie, Phyllis, Tom and Fred and they would never know that it had all started with a spicy sausage.

[missymarysthings]

My heart aches for them.

I was supposed to be my brother’s ‘secret weapon’ against the Council when the time was right. I was also to help him as I could in other matters while still being a secret to the clan. For all they knew I had ran away from them and the demon witch so many years ago. I was to learn anything and everything I could to supplement my natural magic.

And yet...

From under all of our noses my little nephews and nieces were taken from us. 

And they suffered.

Dietrich, Alvara, Karlene and Amelinda... they did not deserve any of this! Young Diet so coldly thrown off a cliff thankfully survived and was saved by the wild cats of the area. Alva, who was meant to share his twin’s cliff tossed fate, was stressed and traumatized by witnessing the act and the apparent ‘death’ of his twin. His magic reacting to his mental distress is what gave him the change to run and avoid that fate. The strange being of magic called ‘Duplicity’ is what kept him safe until he was reunited with us.

Karle resisted her little heart out against her and her twin’s abductors. Clawing and growling she made her anger known. But still...she was just a child and they subdued her attempts to scratch them and decided her fate was to drown at the bottom of the sea. The denizens of the water spared her and kept her from a watery grave. And Amel…

Amelinda was supposed to share my initial fate. They tried to take her free will, make her a living puppet and slave to their will only. My...replacement. My brother had saved me from being the living doll of the demon witch and so it seemed the Council would try again themselves. It made my blood boil...and they paid for it! I was the one to find her and bring her home before it was too late. But the Council will not try this again.

I made sure of that.

I...I killed them all. I killed them so my brother did not have to. So he and his beloved could focus on reconnecting with their sons. I did it so cousin Aldrich and his beloved could focus on their daughters. I did it so none of us would have to suffer such heartache and betrayal again. So we could be safe, so we could heal in peace. Besides the 9 of us, there are only a few of the clan left. Those that my brother, our king, trusted and knew cared about us.

I...am a little scared of what I am capable of. How easily I adapted to some of the magic I had read about and studied. But at the time, I was not concerned about it, they deserved the hell, torture and torment I inflicted before they died. For what they tried and did do to these four young, innocent, children. Yes, my rage at what they had done to my nieces and nephews had clouded my judgement, but I honestly I could not sit here, even in clarity, and say that I would not do it again.

Even though I only want to use my magic to protect my family, and help those I can...the potential in me, what I did and can do, worries me. My brother reassures me that I did well, that he believes I can handle my power. He reminds me that I am his sister and he won’t let anything bad happen to me if he can prevent it.

I think he secretly worries for me too. Getting rid of the Council and their supporters was supposed to be a burden that we shared together. Yet in my rage I took that burden alone.

My nieces and nephews will never be the same. Neither will I, but I will do my best to help them through their trauma. I will sing to them to soothe their anxiousness and restlessness, read to them to distract their minds from their suffering, give them any hugs or affection they want or need for reassurance they are loved and safe. 

I’ll do anything!

Anything to get them to smile again! Anything to get Alvara and Amelinda to find their physical voices again. Anything to get Dietrich and Karlene to learn to trust again, to ease their fears, calm them, help them be apart of the family again.

Anything to help Marcel, Darcia, Aldrich, and Margaretha heal with their children.

Anything!

I just want them all to be okay...

----

So in this particular au, which is some kind of branch of Curses au, instead of Marcel telling living doll Myra to run he hid her away from Viveka and the rest of their clan. He spent his spare time sneaking her food and other things she needed while he tried to break Viveka’s will and hold over her. 

It took some time but he started getting through to her little by little. It seemed calling himself her big brother, and her his little sister is part of what helped. 

When she truly start expressing herself again she did not want to be called by her name anymore, especially her middle name. It was too tied to the demon witch who had done that to her, her so called mother. She’d much rather just be Marcel’s hidden sister and leave things at that. 

So Marcel gave her the new name of Amalia Mari Richter. 

At first he would bring her a lot of the books she read and studied himself. However, as his free time to do so started growing shorter for awhile he showed her some of the secret and hidden passageways in the estate so she could get around herself. Sure, like him, most of the clan cold not really sense her but he still wanted her to be careful and safe. 

But then like she states, after a time he came to her expressing his eventual plan for dealing with the Council and wanting her to learn as much as she could for when the time comes. This was in part because Marcel could already start to see how they did not care for his beloved and future bride at the time. Or even the looks they gave Aldrich as he talked about the one he loved. 

Amalia wanted to get to know Darcia and Marga more during this time. Openly welcome the ones her brother and cousin loved, but she had to remain secret for now. Once they were married she met them in secret briefly so they could know of her at least. She would try her best to watch over them in secret, intervene when members of the Council or their supports would try to do something. Of course she could not be everywhere and things did get by her. She was also still trying to learn as much magic as she could. 

She was so happy when she learned she was going to be an aunt. Even if she could not fully be a part of her future nieces’ or nephews’ lives at first. But she was sure that soon her brother’s plan would begin and then she could freely join them as a family and they all could be safe. 

But...being new parents and all was demanding of course. Amalia could see that from what she could glimpse. But she still worried. The longer the Council remained...the more chances they had to do something. 

Which leads to what she speaks of here just a few years later. 

Amalia does blame herself. That she couldn’t prevent this from happening. That her nieces and nephews are suffering. That she couldn’t find them all herself or quickly. That her brother, her cousin, her sisters in law had to suffer the pain and worry and anxiety of not knowing if their children were safe or even alive. 

She refuses to fail them again like this. Which is part of why she will dedicate herself to helping them heal and start to move forward from the incident.