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chudleycanonficfest · 3 years

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Day 20, Story #2 is by @floreatcastellumposts

Title: Dittany Author/Artist: FloreatCastellum Pairing: Neville/Hannah Prompt: Bravery Rating: T Trigger Warning(s) (if any): Discussion of maternal death, mentions of violence.

Hannah's mother had been a muggleborn, and that had been her death sentence.

Or rather, she had been a muggleborn with the audacity and bravery to be proud about it.

Most muggleborns ended up slipping entirely into wizarding society, and as much as they might say that they would keep in touch with their roots, the magic took over. Jeans became robes, electronics didn’t work in their homes so their pop culture references grew stale, the effort involved in keeping the statute of secrecy for extended family and old friends was too exhausting to sustain, so they saw them less and less and eventually…

This had not happened for Mum, even though the Abbotts were a very old family, well rooted in the magical community. She had agreed with Dad to live in Godric’s Hollow, because the Abbotts had lived there for many generations, but she had insisted on Hannah attending the local primary school, where she could make muggle friends. She was adamant that they make regular trips to Liverpool, to visit her side of the family, who believed that she worked in HR (which she did, but for a potion manufacturer, not for a haulage company as they believed) and that Hannah had received a scholarship to an exclusive boarding school, and that Dad owned a pub (which he did, but they neglected to mention that it was frequented by witches, wizards, goblins, the occasional hag and a half giant). And when the Stephens side of the family came to visit, they would have a flurry of activity where they would hide away anything magical-looking, and from the loft they would bring down the big television, and they would speed read some muggle newspapers so they could give their opinions on Tony Blair or Men Behaving Badly or Charles and Diana’s divorce or whatever else they thought might come up.

That was life as Hannah knew it, and it never felt complicated or brave or shocking or daring or any of the things she later found out it was.

She remembered certain details from the day very clearly. She’d been easing sneezewort plants out of their pots, the last repotting before winter, her fingers shaking at the long, pale roots, creating a rain of soil. The last of the cream coloured petals, curled and brown at the edges, fell onto the potting bench. There was a sudden shock of cold air, a breeze from the door opening that hit their faces and whipped through their hair.

‘Professor Dumbledore’s here,’ said Susan with surprise, and Hannah had glanced up to see him closing the door to the humid greenhouse, his long white beard tucked into his belt, Professor Sprout hurrying over to him.

Hannah looked back down at her plant. The roots were all tangled together. Professor Dumbledore was probably here for Harry Potter, there were all sorts of rumours flying around about secret meetings between the two of them.

The plant needed a much bigger pot, but the roots were strong, there was no rot there.

‘Hannah.’

There was no hiding the bewilderment on her face. She had never had a direct conversation with the Headmaster before, and here he was, speaking kindly, gently, softly, one hand touching her shoulder and the other, black looking, gesturing to the door.

‘I need to-’ she started saying, as he led her out. Everyone was staring.

‘Don’t worry, dear,’ said Professor Sprout, and her voice sounded so strange, ‘I’ll finish up here for you.’

Perhaps part of her had known then. She knew it was something terrible. She was too afraid to ask. No one was ever pulled out of class for a good reason. She walked up to the castle alongside him as though in a dream, her heart beating up through her throat and into her mouth.

She was not sure how it happened, but suddenly she was in the warmth of his office, staring at Professor Dumbledore’s grave face, his lips moving, without really hearing, except for that first, terrible, world destroying little phrase.

‘I’m so very sorry to tell you that your mother has been found dead.’

There would be no worse event, no greater loss, no stronger pain in her entire life.

There was still dirt under her nails and in the creases of her palms, she noticed, as she reached into the silver box of floo powder.

It had been so long since she had seen Godric’s Hollow like this, golden and red in its autumn. Fallen leaves tumbled and floated down the river that rushed through the village, or collected in the gutters along the cobbled roads, damp and heavy. The sun stayed a little lower each day, casting long shadows across the beer garden of The Lost Owl, and the wind ruffled the sign on the door which read ‘Closed due to family bereavement.’

During the days, she wondered what to do with herself, stuck between boredom and terrible, overwhelming grief. When she could cry no more, she wondered if there was something wrong with her for wanting to find something interesting or fun to do, but when she tried to read, she could not focus. When she tried to listen to the radio, she would fall asleep. She could not bring herself to ask her weeping father to play cards or chess or anything with her. She thought of going back into school, but how could she see other people? Now that the world had ended? She wanted to tell people about it, wanted to say the words enough until they made sense to her, or until someone found the right words to say back that would make it OK, but she did not want to do this to her friends.

At nights, she would cry herself to sleep, and her whispers, please come back please Mummy please come back, would grow and grow and grow into sobs, begging into her pillow as the agony of it tore at her, the desperation, the feverish thought that there had to be something, that this couldn’t be it, there had to be a way, a special way, just for them, just for her, because it was her mother and there was no way she could live without her. Mum wouldn’t leave her like this, there was no way Mum would allow it, she would go to the ends of the earth to make sure that Hannah was happy, she had always said so, she had always promised…

But Death was something parents could not protect their children from, it seemed. The more Hannah thought on it, the more she became crushingly devastated, horrified to realise that each and every human on Earth had to endure this at some point. In different ways, at different times, with different feelings, but the mere act of bringing a child into the world was to condemn that child, one day, to the unbearable pain of loss. Every person she passed, she wondered, have you suffered as I have? Or is it yet to come for you? She wished she could spare them from it.

The aurors said she was probably targeted because she loudly and openly discussed her muggle heritage in the pub, and it must have been heard by the wrong people. That was what passed for bravery these days.

In the church of St Jerome, the stained glass window pattered with rain, and Hannah looked up at the colours of red and yellow and green rather than looking at the coffin with the splay of lilies, and she wondered when this nightmare would end, when Mum would come back, and tell her that everything would be all right.

***

Months passed in unbearable agony, worse than she could have imagined. But there were glimmers of light there too.

Here, at the school she thought she would never return to, in the place that was filled with unimaginable horror and oppression, she had purpose again. More purpose, in fact, than she had ever had in her life. And with it, new friendships that ran deeper than she had ever expected.

‘This way,’ Neville whispered, and they ran low across the lawn of the grounds. Some of the windows in the castle behind them blazed with light, so that she thought for a terrible moment that they must be visible from the Great Hall, but, of course, the windows would be black with night to anyone who looked out from them.

It was the summer term now, but the air was still cold as they panted, as though Dementors were close, which, she reasoned, they might be. She could feel the dew of the grass, left to grow long since Hagrid had left, soaking the bottoms of her jeans, seeping through her ratty trainers.

Following the dark shadow of Neville’s figure, she ran through the grounds until she heard the crunch of gravel underfoot, and, ahead, the slight shine of starlight reflecting off the greenhouses.

‘They’re in greenhouse three,’ Neville muttered, and her stomach dropped.

He did not notice, and continued to hurry along the garden path, past the raised beds for the hardier plants and herbs, and she followed, but at a walk now, dread gnawing at her.

He stopped at the door, holding his hands up to the glass to peer in. ‘OK…’ he said, still breathless from the run. ‘OK, looks clear… Now, while I talk to the venomous tentacula, you grab a tray, and fill it with perlite and only a few handfuls of compost, it’s a mountain plant so it likes it nice and rocky.’

‘OK,’ she said, and though she thought she sounded normal, he turned to her. She could barely make out his expression in the darkness.

‘Are you all right?’

‘I… I’m sorry, I just… I haven’t been in the greenhouses for a long time… especially not this one. I should have thought before I volunteered, I'm sorry.’

She felt immediately embarrassed for blurting it out, and she had no idea if Neville would even grasp what she was getting at. He had been in the class, yes, but did he even remember that day? What had been the worst day of her life had been a perfectly ordinary school day for the rest of her classmates, and so many terrible things had happened since then.

‘I’m sorry,’ he said, ‘I can’t leave you out here.’

She thought he was telling her off, or saying that they had to go back, but before she had the time to feel hurt or ashamed, he was holding out his hand towards her.

She swallowed, and then placed her trembling hand in his. She was not unaccustomed to physical touch with him, or many others. Over the past year, she had tended wounds and comforted people as they cried, she had grasped hands and arms and knees under desks to soothe people or tell them to control themselves, she had passed secret notes and morsels of food and whatever else needed smuggling, slipping it nimbly from her fingers into their palms as they passed in the corridors.

But now his fingers pressed firm and reassuring against hers, and there was something very different about them holding hands.

She let him lead her into the greenhouse; the humid, warm air surrounded them at once, like an odd sort of hug that sat heavy on their lungs. Tall, leafy plants towered above them, brushing the domed glass high above their heads, which magically reflected the brilliant stars above them and lit the place in glorious silver.

Now that she was in here, she felt a little better. The dread that had stopped her ever returning here, that had caused her to drop herbology and pretend that this part of the castle no longer existed, had not come to pass. It was, after all, simply a greenhouse, and Mum could not die again.

‘Are you all right?’ he said gently.

‘Yes,’ she replied. ‘Thank you.’

He nodded, and reached for some gloves on a nearby bench. She missed his hand around hers. ‘Let’s move quickly, and get you out of here,’ he said, donning some goggles and a thick leather apron.

She went to the potting tables where Professor Sprout always stood, and seized a large seedling tray. As she took handfuls of compost and perlite, she could see Neville wrestling with the venomous tentacular, saying, ‘I’ll bring you doxy granules tomorrow - I’ll move you to a sunnier spot - I already checked with Professor Sprout - come on, you knew this was part of the deal, we agreed-’

Eventually, when he had tied enough of the writhing vines together with garden twine and stroked the shoots into calmness, he gave a nod to Hannah, and started to remove his protective gear as she hurried over and they squeezed behind the plant

There, on a table surrounded by blue lanterns to make up for the blocked light caused by the tentacula, were long, deep pots, stuffed with dittany. Their slender, arching stems were clustered with pleasant green leaves, with a dusty sort of whiteness, and they were dotted with pink flowers. She had never seen the plant as it was before; she had only ever remembered the little vials of dittany kept in their first aid kit, good for scraped knees and cuts from any broken glass in the pub. Mum had always said it was good to be prepared in an emergency, it had been one of her funny little things like that, along with being a bit of a hypochondriac, and so Hannah had had a vial in the bottom of her trunk when she returned to school. That, combined with her good potions knowledge, had helped her stumble into a kind of mothering role that she found had rather suited her.

‘I just need the flowers, the book says,’ she said, as Neville started gently pulling some up by the roots.

‘Yes, but I think it’d be good if I can grow another set somewhere, as a back up so we don’t have to keep sneaking out here. It’s just me and Seamus in the dorm, I don’t think he’d mind if I put them in the window between Harry and Ron’s beds. Here, take these, cut the flowers where the stem splits off - yeah, there - so it’ll grow back.’

‘It’s really pretty,’ she said. ‘I wasn’t expecting it to be so pretty. It’s usually that the most useful plants are the ugliest.’

‘It is,’ said Neville absent-mindedly. ‘It’s from Crete. The healing properties were only discovered in the 17th century - people used to think it was an aphrodisiac, and it’s still used in some love potions.’

She looked at him, and though the light in the greenhouse was white starlight only, she could still see his cheeks burn red.

‘It’s… it’s not, though,’ he mumbled. ‘Well… a little bit, but I… I don’t know why I said that.’

‘Because it’s interesting,’ she said quickly, as he busied himself repotting the seedlings. He nodded rapidly, and cleared his throat a little, and she cast around for something to say. ‘You… you should be careful, growing these in the dorm. If you’re caught-’

‘There’s no rule against growing plants,’ he said. ‘I’ve had plants up there loads of times. Especially my mimbulus mimbletonia, that’s had pride of place for a while.’

‘You know they don’t need an explicit rule,’ she said quietly. ‘They do what they want. If they think you’re… doing anything good, anything kind. That’s enough.’

He nodded, looking down at the delicate, thin roots of the dittany. There was a reason that he and Professor Sprout were growing such an innocent plant in such secrecy. ‘I know… but… it’s worth the risk.’

‘That’s very brave.’

‘Is it? Just growing a plant? Is that what passes for bravery these days?’

‘Yes,’ she said honestly. ‘Anything good does now. And it’s not just that.’ She paused, still cradling one of the delicate, rose pink flowers in her hand. ‘I mean… what were you thinking in muggle studies the other day? I hated seeing you screaming like that.’

‘Well I had to say something. It was repulsive, what she was saying about muggle children.’

‘No one believes her, no one really thinks-’

‘We don’t know that. Maybe some people might start believing her, because it’s easier. And anyway, it’s not just about that. Remember Umbridge?’

‘I try not to,’ she said dryly, and in the pale, washed out starlight she saw him grin.

‘I know it’s stupid, but as Ginny and Luna haven’t come back, and Harry and Ron aren’t here, or Dean, or loads of other people… I’ve been-’ he sighed, as though frustrated he couldn’t find the words, ‘I’ve been trying to think about what they would do. I can’t afford to be Neville Longbottom, I’ve got to be someone braver. And Harry used to just completely go off on her, used to tell her straight in lessons that You-Know-Who was back, and, yeah, it got him more trouble than it felt like it was worth at the time, but you know what? I always found it really inspiring.’

‘I did too,’ she said quietly. ‘I remember thinking… well… why would he stick to a lie through all that?’

‘Exactly. He had principles, and if he was here he wouldn’t stand for any of that rot. There’s a lot of times over the past few months where I’ve just tried to…’ he shrugged helplessly, ‘pretend that I’m Harry. That I’m brave.’

‘I don’t think you’re pretending at all,’ she said. ‘You are brave. You always have been. You’re a Gryffindor, aren’t you?’

‘Somehow.’

‘No somehow about it. You’re the bravest man I know, and that includes Harry.’

‘How on earth does it include Harry?’ he asked, and he sounded like he was on the verge of laughter.

‘Because he’s had to be,’ she said. ‘I’ve grown up in Godric’s Hollow, you know, I’ve seen the ruined house that he lived in. He’s had to be brave all the way from when he was a baby. But I didn’t. You didn’t. You’ve chosen to be brave, you’ve chosen to channel him. You're a pureblood, you could choose, every day, to keep your head down and get on with things, but you don't. You stand up and call her a bigoted liar in class and get tortured and you never back down. I find that more inspiring than anything.’

‘That’s very kind of you,’ he said quietly.

‘And you were brave lots of times even before. Don’t you remember winning those points all the way back in first year?’

He beamed, and looked at her directly, for the first time since he had blurted out that dittany was an aphrodisiac. ‘You remember that?’

‘Of course I do. Dumbledore pointing out about standing up to your friends - he was so right, that does take a lot of bravery. I tried to do it next year, when Ernie was telling me that Harry was the heir of Slytherin. I’m sorry to say that I wasn’t as brave as you, but at least I tried, I suppose.’

‘I think you’re very brave too,’ he said. ‘Looking after everyone like this, handing out essence of dittany, running out here with me to get more… I’m sorry that you’ve had to come back in here. I didn’t think.’

‘I didn’t either,’ she said, and she started cutting more flowers. ‘I was just so focused on the idea of more, I didn’t really think about where I’d be getting it from… But, you know, I’m OK, actually. The thought of it was worse than the reality. It’s just a greenhouse.’ She looked around. The white starlight bleached the dark greenery into shades of silver, bounced off the watering cans, sparkled in the droplets of water from the sprinklers. ‘A very beautiful one.’

‘I like to think so,’ he said, a little hoarsely. ‘I always found this whole place beautiful, but now it… sometimes feels like only the greenhouses still are. They’re the only place I haven’t seen people being tortured.’

She paused. ‘I’m secretly thankful my mum isn’t alive to see this. Is that awful? I’m just glad she never had to worry about me being here. I feel bad enough for Dad.’

‘It’s not awful,’ said Neville. ‘I know what you mean.’

‘Do you?’

‘My parents don’t know anything about what’s going on, and for the first time in my life, I’m glad,’ he said, and for some reason his words seemed to surprise him.

‘What do you mean?’ she asked, and without thinking she put down the little secateurs and touched his arm. He breathed deeply, not quite meeting her eyes, pressing down one of the seedlings quite firmly into the tray, before finally turning to her.

‘I live with my gran, because… my…’ He took another deep breath, and suddenly there was a clanging from outside.

They froze, and heard a low voice swearing. 'Bloody wheelbarrow…'

Hearts thudding, they ducked down and stayed silent, Neville silently mouthing for Hannah to get onto the large empty shelf under the potting table, where bags of compost were usually kept. He reached up, fumbling for the secateurs, and then started crawling along on his belly.

'What are you doing?' she whispered, horrified. Alecto Carrow was opening the door to the greenhouse, still muttering and swearing about the wheelbarrow he had tripped over.

He put a finger to his lips, and then pointed at the venomous tentacula, which had begun to writhe against the twine. The snip snip snip of the secateurs seemed unreasonably loud, but from the other side of the greenhouse Carrow did not appear to hear them, rifling noisily through the plants and shrubs, sending terracotta pots crashing to the floor.

'Anyone in here?' he demanded. 'I saw your footprints in the gravel. Hello?'

The vines of the tentacula waved threateningly, and Hannah watched with trembling fear as one of them reached out to Neville, still prone on the ground, and started to wrap itself around his throat.

'Don't be cheeky,' she heard him mutter to it, and he calmly prodded it with the secateurs until it released him.

It kept one tendril around his ankle, but Neville seemed to allow it as a compromise, and instead watched through the vines as Carrow upturned a table, still shouting and swearing.

After several, agonisingly long minutes, Carrow came close to them. The venomous tentacula silently released Neville’s ankle, and raised it's spiked tendrils.

'OW! Son of a bludger-'

A long line of expletives followed, and the venomous tentacular shook noisily, whip-like noises echoing through the greenhouse as it reached after Carrow, now bolting from the room.

'Grab the tray,' Neville told Hannah. 'He'll be heading straight to the hospital wing, we should have a clear path back. Quickly, before the tentacula gets over-excited and turns on us-'

She did so at once and he held back the spiked vines as she squeezed past the plant, and hurried safely out of range.

She stood there, holding her tray of little dittany plants and the heads of the flowers. She watched as Neville easily unentangled himself from the tentacula, patted it, said, 'thanks mate,' and grabbed a clear cover for the tray. He came close to her as he fitted it over the dittany, protecting them from the cold night air they would have to hurry back through.

His face was inches from her own, and she felt her breath hitch in her throat a little as she looked up at him. There was a slight clunk as the lid of the tray found its place. For a moment, they were perfectly still, just their breathing in that humid place, and his eyes, shining light blue in the pale light, lifted from the tray of dittany to meet her own.

'Do you really think I'm brave?' he whispered.

She nodded, and he seemed to be steeling himself for something. Please, she thought, please make this place good for me again. Her hands gripped the edges of the tray.

Very gently, very slowly, he leaned closer over the tray. His hand moved as though to softly move her face to meet his, but he didn't need to, for she was already naturally tilting her head, and her heels were lifting a little off the ground without her bidding them to.

Their lips met, soft like the petals of the dittany between them, sweet like the fragrance. His fingertips were trembling slightly as they caressed against her cheek, but then they calmed as the kiss deepened.

The tray pressed into them as he tried to move closer, and it reminded them where they were. They broke apart, panting and gasping as though they had just finished the run down from the castle.

She had never kissed anyone before. She was glad, unbelievably, overwhelmingly, joyfully glad, that her first kiss had been with Neville, in this place where the warm air was scented with damp soil and sweet flowers.

'We… we should take these back,' he said, his voice slightly hoarse. ‘Let - let me take them.’

He took the tray from her, and in her happy daze she allowed it, and let him lead the way out of the greenhouse. Joy had returned to her again, beneath the fogged glass, amongst the green plants, bursting with life.

#chudleycanonficfest2021 #HP fest #hp canon pairings #canon fest romantic #submission #neville x hannah #tw: maternal death #tw: mentions of violence

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danddymaro · 3 years

Text

Denial | Leone Abbacchio x Reader

SMUT : Cockwarming / Edging

1% fluff?

word count : 1225

Denial

His glowing golden eyes remained closed, the weight on his lap being so comforting to him that it brought him a pleasant peace that was almost unmatched, and that in the past had been unimaginable.

The sweet warmth of the woman that claimed the spot over his thighs left him with a serenity he hadn't thought possible before, but existed now, and it was something he never wanted to let escape.

‘(f/n)’ He thought to himself, all while her heavenly scent was breathed in.

A soft, light smile pulled at his lips as he enjoyed all the warmth the (h/c) haired young woman provided him, starting from the familiar, tender affection that came from having her chin leaned onto his shoulder, to the delightful heat that had hungerly sunken onto his hardened length and now enveloped him.

During his musing, a tiny, feeble whine then caught his attention, and subtly, her hips moved, the action stopped as he placed both of his hands at her waist, keeping her still from the moment.

"(F/n)…" he murmured, warning in his tone as one of his golden eyes snapped open, soon narrowed down to her and her shaken form with annoyance for selfishly disturbing his serenity.

As he caught sight of her, he watched as her lips were pouted, the sweet-tasting mouth trembling with want, silently begging for stray kisses from his purple-tinted ones. (E/c) colored eyes also sent him plea, the wide-opened orbs reflecting back his own image which showed a complete contrast to her.

While she was nearly on the verge of tears, he stayed steady, his chin tilted up as he enjoyed using her, much more, being the one in control.

"L-Leone…" she whimpered, relentlessly squirming, the movement being an action that defied him yet again. And he was certain that if her hands weren't tied to her back, she'd have them running over his chest, desperate to convince him, using her lithe body to try and seduce him, doing anything she could to get him to cave.

A warm, low breath then escaped him, and the two hands that held her released her suddenly, letting her continue to wiggle, the action disappointing him furthermore, drawing out a rather low blow of air from his chest.

Yet, rather than lose his composure, he seemed very unaffected and calmed, his right hand reaching over to the small table at his side where his half-empty wine glass sat. Calmly, he raised it up to his lips, ignoring her enlarged, wet (e/c) orbs all the while.

He then took a slow sip of the well-aged alcoholic drink and at that moment his other hand moved, cutting through the air with a wicked viciousness.

A high-pitched squeal then covered up the sound of the harsh clash, her body raked with shutters by the impact before all of her movements ceased, not wanting more reprisal.

And at that very second, his lips curled into a dastardly grin,

"Stay still." He nearly sang, the hot stinging spot on her ass sweetly caressed by the same assaulting hand not a moment after to remind her that he wasn't all that evil.

Truth be told, he was only his sweetest with her.

"B-but Leone…" she said again, her naked breasts tightly pressed to his torso, the exposed portion of his chest coming in contact with her heated flesh, making her feel even more desperate as she felt his strong body pressed to her softer one.

"Please...f-fuck me… I can't… " she whimpered shamelessly, having been put through the torture for far too long.

She felt complete, yet incomplete all the same and it was a horrible feeling that left her desperate and quivering. The thickness that stretched her had shaped her to the generous girth, but did nothing more than that, leaving her begging for so much more she knew he was capable of,

" Please," she muttered while pressing her lips onto his neck, panting roughly as he murmured her name in the same thick voice he did whenever they made love.

He then teased her with a very lax, almost non-existent thrust upward, forcing a thick mewl to escape her, the sound leaving her in the most lecherous way it could, further shaming her.

A moan of his own was suppressed into a small hum as he felt her walls tighten, responding back with a sweet hug.

The metal cuffs that held her stung the skin of her wrist as her arms had instinctively aimed to wrap around his neck, and it hurt her heart more than anything to be denied the true warmth of his body.

It was then that she began to cry, her quivering legs that hung at his sides wanting to wrap around his waist, but staying still, her will existent, yet slowly diminishing.

- She didn't mean to move, she hadn’t intended to ruin his moment of quiet bliss, but it was torture.

His lips then smacked against each other, " You keep moving, " he complained, tipping over what was left of his drink over her sweet lips, adding more flavor to the delicious flesh in doing so.

Trails of dark red flowed down her chin, falling down her chest and spilling over her body, the burning flesh lightly cooled down by the beverage,

"See? " he asked her, "You made me spill it," he said accusingly, darkly chuckling while she panted even more, his name falling out of her mouth in a way that sounded both edged and needy as well as annoyed by his denial of her.

"-Silly girl," he murmured, his tongue lapping at the sweet alcoholic flavor that fell over her lips and chin, shamelessly cleaning it all, "Clumsy...silly… disobedient...selfish girl." He maundered with mirth while trailing his wet muscle down her chin.

Moaning, she inclined her head back, pushing out her chest as well while his two arms were wrapped around her to make sure she didn't fall back during the action.

She gave him full access to her body, hoping it made up for all of her impatience, demonstrating to him that all in all she was always willing to give in.

"Can we...now? " she asked airily. "Please...Imperatore" she mewled out, and at the address, his hold tightened before he took a quick nip at the sweet flesh that was pressed to his lips.

-If there was anything that broke him down, it was the title being used in such a sweet and hungry manner that wasn’t touched by any bit of shame as she’d far gone the point where dignity had any meaning.

‘There’s nothing you wouldn’t do for me,’ He thought to himself, ‘There’s no where you’d rather be,’ He went on,

‘I Love you too...even if you’re impatient...’ He mused before skipping over her puckered lips, moving to give her a sweet kiss on the forehead,

' Really…' he mused while considering her plea, 'I just love seeing you like this,' he mused, watching her whither and shrink, the wait having become unbearable for her.

‘You can’t even think of anything else beside me , can you?’ He thought to himself, knowing her mind was riddled with him.

"-Mmm…" he seemed to contemplate the idea before he chuckled, the low rumble doing nothing more than weakening her furthermore,

" I don't think so."

I drifted off near the end, cause truth be told, I didn't know how to end it.

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wondernimbus · 4 years

Text

battleground — draco malfoy

pairing: draco malfoy x female!reader

request: could i kindly request a draco x reader where they get into a fight before the war, and draco chooses to stay a hogwarts and voldemort but reader pushes herself in front of him to save him? but they both survive 🥺 if it's too complicated dw about it :)

a/n: i tweaked the request a little bit but this is set when the slytherins are sent to the dungeons during the battle of hogwarts! also it isn’t explicitly stated in the text so just in case there’s some confusion, the reader’s parents are death eaters

The cold stone hallway leading to the Slytherin common room is eerily quiet despite the hundred or so Slytherin students trickling into their common room. No one bothers to quell the uneasy tension hanging in the air or makes a move to address the sounds of chaos coming from just up above them, a mere stone floor away.

But at the very middle of the pack, there is someone shoving past people on her way back towards the way they came. Back to the first-floor corridor; back to the war. No one pays her much heed. Everyone is too busy lost in their own conflicted thoughts, and even if they do register the fact that there is a girl among them turning back to head into the very battle they were kicked out of, they make no move to stop her.

Somewhere along the back of the group, she catches sight of a face that brings with it a sudden rush of relief. [Y/N] pushes past the crowd of students clad in green until she stops right in front of him, grabs onto his wrist and drags him along.

The last of the Slytherins have filed into the common room. [Y/N] and Draco stand in the middle of the cold dungeon hall, illuminated only dully by the torches hanging on the walls.

[Y/N] wastes no time. She leans in and presses her lips to his, and it's all force; there is no time for passion or tears or dramatic farewell. She kisses Draco like a starved man, lips all pressure and no tenderness, and Draco kisses her back with just as much fervor, hands gripping onto her waist almost desperately as he holds her to him as close as he can.

And they would stay like that for as long as they can if only they are allowed to, but there is a war to be fought and there are people to be saved. So [Y/N] pulls away, breathless, forehead on Draco's and their lips mere centimeters apart as they breathe in each other's air the same way they have done so many times before.

Draco can think of no words to say; all that leaves his lips is a breathless exhale of her name. Just her name.

[Y/N] nods just a fraction of an inch as though she understands completely, and in a way, she does.

Against her will, she pulls away, fingers gently gliding down his shoulders and down to his middle, where they rest almost hesitantly. In a voice just as quiet as his, she whispers, "I need to go up there, Draco."

Silence. She opens her eyes only to find that he is already looking at her, gaze unreadable. A feeling of uneasiness settles in her stomach.

"Up where?" He's frowning. His hold on her waist has tensed.

"I'm going to fight," [Y/N] says, and her voice is throatier than usual, like a lump has already formed in her throat.

Draco blinks. There's a crease in between his brows; she reaches up to smoothen it out with her fingers out of habit, but his hand flies to her wrist and holds it there, hovering just above his lips.

"You're going to fight," he repeats, still frowning.

[Y/N] swallows. Nods. "And you should, too."

Draco stares at her, brows furrowed. It's at rare times like these that [Y/N] can't quite figure out what he's thinking, but she guesses that it's something along the lines of—

"You can't," Draco says, shaking his head. "You can't. I won't let you."

She reaches up and gently pries his fingers away from her wrist, but his grip on her only tightens. "Draco."

"I'm not letting you risk your life."

She stares at him for a moment, brows drawing together in the middle just like his, but the way she is looking at him is a sharp contrast to his suddenly stern gaze—she looks incredulous, like she can't believe what she's hearing.

"I thought you'd understand," she says, tugging her wrist out of his grasp and taking a step back. A foot of space rests between them, but for some reason it suddenly feels like they are thousands of miles apart. "I can't just hide here while people risk their lives to save—"

"What—to save ours?" Draco cuts her off, scowling. It's unimaginable to think that mere moments ago they were entangled in each other's arms, kissing as though the other will slip away if they don't hold on tight enough. Coldly, Draco says, "They'd throw us to the wolves if they had a chance."

"To save everyone's."

"Don't be ridiculous. If they saw you fighting alongside them, they wouldn't hesitate to turn their wands on you."

"And how do you know that?"

He advances towards her, and for a brief split-second [Y/N] thinks that he's about to kiss her again, but all he does is grab the black and green necktie hanging around her collar and hold it up for her to see.

"Because of this," he snarls. "The moment anyone fighting against the Dark Lord sees you're a Slytherin, they'll think you're an enemy. And the moment any of the Death Eaters see you fighting against them, they'll think you're a traitor—which you are—and they'll kill you. You'd be fighting against both sides."

She scoffs, the first few traces of anger surfacing. "You are making assumptions."

"It's the truth and you know it. You have no choice. Stay here and save your life." He grabs her hand and tugs her towards the direction of the Slytherin common room. The dungeon door has closed. There is no one left in the cold stone corridor but them.

But [Y/N] wrenches herself away from Draco's hold. "I can take care of myself and I am fighting," she says sharply, a sense of finality in her tone. "And I would have asked you to fight by my side but it seems like you'd rather stay and hide here like a coward." The final word escapes the confines of her lips without her even realizing, but the anger in her chest makes it hard for her to feel guilty for it.

"If wanting the love of my life to live makes me a coward then so be it." Draco turns to face her, jaw taut and his eyes flashing. "You're asking me to let you put your life on the line—"

"I'm asking you to trust me—"

"And what happens if you die? What do you suppose I do?" he hisses, and then, his face contorting into a sneer, "I apologize for my selfishness, [Y/N] but I'd much prefer other people die than you."

She scoffs in disbelief. "Always a selfish prick, aren't you, Draco?"

[Y/N] doesn't mean it. Of course she doesn't. But the frustration in her chest is reaching boiling point and the words that leave her lips do so without her even pausing to think about them.

Doing little to mask her scorn, she snaps, "I'd rather die in battle than sit back doing nothing while innocent children are slaughtered."

"Those innocent children hated us for the house we were sorted in," Draco sneers. "They saw the green on our robes and they made sure to stay away from us—they spoke ill of us and spread vile rumors about our families and you're willing to sacrifice yourself for them?"

"And you want to let them die just because they disliked us." She doesn't phrase it like a question.

Draco clenches his jaw. She would have been able to feel the slightest empathy for him if he showed even a tiny bit of guilt, but he holds his gaze in hers resolutely and shakes his head. "I don't want to die for them. And you shouldn't, either."

Her lip curls. "You disgust me."

And it scares her because she isn't sure whether she means it or not.

In one swift movement, [Y/N] reaches up and roughly yanks the green Slytherin tie hanging around her neck. "I don't care what they think about us or what you think about them," she seethes through bared teeth, throwing the necktie at Draco's feet as she holds his gaze with just as much fieriness as she sees in his. "But I refuse to stay here while those people risk their lives fighting for what they believe is right—what is right."

Draco narrows his eyes at her, lips drooping downwards in a scowl. "Even if it means fighting against your parents?"

Her parents. The people who had raised her her entire life and made her believe in things she held true not so long ago. Things that entailed the uselessness of Muggles and Muggleborns alike. Her mother and father, who once cruelly punished her for helping a lost Muggle boy when she was no more than a mere child eager to offer a helping hand.

Parents—do they really deserve to be called that?

With her jaw set, she nods. "I'm done doing things for them. It's time I make decisions for myself."

A cold glare is all she has left to offer Draco before she turns her back on him and walks away, wand in hand.

Part of her understands. She knows that Draco is not much different from her. He has told her stories based on his own experience; stories just like hers that tell tales of pureblooded prejudice and exiled blood-traitors in the vicinity of his own home. But even if he hadn't found enough comfort in her to tell her, she still would have known.

She recognized the look in his eyes the very moment they first met. It was the very same one she saw whenever she looked in the mirror.

But [Y/N] has been luckier than most. Somewhere along her journey to what some would call self-discovery, she'd found something a great deal more important than bloodlines and family trees. Though hesitant at first, she met and came to know people whose blood was perhaps not as magical as hers but whose hearts were purer than any other she had ever seen. Purer than hers, certainly.

She came to know Muggleborns who viewed her as an equal, and everyone else along with her. Muggleborns who treated everyone with kindness not because of the blood in their veins but because it was right.

And because of them [Y/N] has learned to differentiate what is right and what is wrong; what is important and what is not. Now she knows fully well which category one's blood type falls under. She may have been a little late on the uptake, but if risking her life is what it takes to redeem herself, then so be it.

But Draco has a harder time wrapping his head around things. [Y/N] understands; truly, she does. He has been raised to think a certain way and so has she—but if she can break out of the box that her parents have caged her in for so long, why can't he?

Just before she disappears behind the staircase leading away from the dungeons, she stops, and with her gaze fixated on the stone steps, takes a deep breath.

"People like us—" she begins in what was meant to be a stone-cold voice, but her voice is shaky for the first time that day. "They think we're a lost cause. They think we're cold-hearted and we're rotten to the core because of our last names—and you're right—because we're in Slytherin. But if you don't want to fight against the Dark Lord because of your hatred for the people who looked at us as though we were devil's spawn, then at least fight because you want to prove them wrong."

From here, she can make out the sound of spells hurtling through the air and people screaming from up above. She hears panicked voices of people a tiny part of her feels as though she recognizes. Voices she must have heard in her classes. Voices she could have heard in the hallways or in the Great Hall. And despite the fear in her chest and the voice in her lovesick heart telling her to stay with Draco, it's those voices that urge her to put one foot in front of the other until she emerges in the middle of the first-floor corridor, right in the heart of the battle.

—

Death. Chaos. Destruction. She sees it everywhere around her—in the corridors and the classrooms she grew up in, and in the Great Hall, where the large glass windows have been reduced to mere shards and the long house tables have been flipped over and cracked to splinters.

Why take this away from her—from everyone who has lived their childhood in that castle?

For so long Hogwarts has been her sanctuary. Her safe place. The only place in the world where she feels as though she could be at peace. And now it is nothing more than crumbling stone foundations and broken glass and soot and dust.

Jets of red and green light whiz past her almost every step she takes. Fear: she feels it in every fiber of her body like a parasite waiting for the right moment to consume her whole and render her immobile. Part of her wants to run back down the dungeons and join Draco and the rest of the Slytherins—it is so much safer down there—she doesn't have to narrowly dodge recklessly-aimed curses every corner she turns, wondering which one will finally hit her—which one will kill her—

But then she sees none other than Colin Creevey amongst the blur of destruction around her, and just like that she remembers why she's here.

"Colin!" she yells, darting forward. He stands in the middle of the corridor, wand drawn in front of him but looking so lost and confused he might as well have just been an innocent passerby unfortunate enough to come across the Battle of Hogwarts. From this distance [Y/N] can tell he is shaking but no one seems to notice him amongst all the madness; "Colin!"

His name tears out of her throat again as she wills her legs to move as fast as they can, weaving through all the dueling and in some cases, brawling—and she doesn't know what she aims to do, exactly, but she just knows that she has to protect this timid little fifth-year Gryffindor who she has treated like her brother for so many years. The same one who, despite her infamous blood-smattered family tree, was one of the first ones outside of Slytherin to treat her like a normal human being.

She shouts his name again, and somehow, despite all of the noise and the yelling and the sounds of spells being cast all around them, Colin hears her; his eyes meet hers and they flood with relief and recognition, flood with the same bright light [Y/N] has grown so familiar with—

And then the light dies out.

[Y/N]'s entire world freezes.

"No," she gasps.

From behind Colin, a jet of bright green light hurtles straight towards him and hits him in the back—he jolts forward at the impact, and then falls to his knees. A half-moment later, Colin Creevey crumples to the ground, lifeless.

She skids to a stop. A dry sob leaves her lips as the hand holding her wand falls to her side.

No.

—

Five minutes.

Draco spends five minutes in the chilly dungeon corridor, staring at the stone steps [Y/N] had disappeared through only moments before.

If he walks up those steps, it will be to the sight of the school he has come to call his home destroyed. He will see numerous spells hurtling through the air, some finding their targets and others lodging themselves into stone and causing walls to crumble in on themselves. He knows that he will bear witness to a nightmarish scene, but that is not what has Draco hesitating: what stops him is the thought of fighting alongside students just like him who will give him mistrustful glares, as though they are waiting for him to jinx them when their backs are turned.

And perhaps worst of it all is the fact that he will have to fight against familiar faces. He will recognize his aunt, his uncle, his best friend's father, his own parents. And he will point his wand at them and hope that his curse hits them before theirs hits him.

Draco is scared.

He doesn't know if he has enough courage to climb those steps and fight alongside people who barely trust him, and fight against the people who have raised him.

But he can't lose her.

He may be scared, but he can't lose [Y/N].

So Draco unravels his Slytherin tie from his neck, takes a deep breath and walks up the stone steps. He can't lose her—not in this lifetime. He loves her far too much to care about who he has to kill and who he has to fight alongside.

The rest of the world be damned, so long as he doesn't lose her.

—

"You killed him," she whispers. Tears are in her eyes but they haven't quite fallen yet, and despite the invisible hands that have reached into her chest and started squeezing her lungs to a pulp, she manages to say louder, "You killed Colin."

[Y/N] looks up at the Death Eater standing amidst the countless fierce duels. She thinks she hears him laugh behind his mask; cruel and jeering and oddly familiar.

She doesn't pause to think. As soon as the feeling floods back into her arms, she cries "Stupefy!" and a burst of red light explodes out of the end of her wand.

But the Death Eater deflects it with little to no effort. He lets out another laugh, this time louder.

[Y/N] is sure of it this time: she knows that voice. She catches sight of a strand of long platinum blond hair trailing beneath his hood and recognizes him even before he reaches up with one hand and wrenches the mask off of his face.

"Foolish girl," Lucius Malfoy snarls, stopping a mere few feet away from her. "Instead of saving your own skin, you decide to betray the Dark Lord and your own family along with him."

He brandishes his wand; a jet of green light rushes straight towards [Y/N] and she cries "Protego!" at the very last moment, stumbling a little upon impact.

Lucius advances forward, long black robes billowing behind him as [Y/N] backs away, wand trembling slightly in her hand. "You care far too much for those who do not deserve your sympathy," his face contorts into an ugly, spiteful glare, "For Muggles and Mudbloods and filthy blood-traitors—"

"Stupefy!"

Just like the one before it, Lucius deflects this one effortlessly. His upper lip curling contemptuously, he stops in his tracks, wand still pointed at [Y/N] as her chest heaves with deep, heavy breaths of both anger and grief that hasn't quite gone away. "I have always wondered why my son adores you so much."

Another jet of red light bursts from [Y/N]'s wand, but her attempts are futile.

"But he will move on," continues Lucius. "He will forget you and wed someone who is worthy of being a Malfoy." And then the jeering smile on his face droops and intent floods his features as he sneers, "I just have to get rid of you first—Avada K—"

"Petrificus Totalus!"

This time, the spell hits Lucius and his limbs snap to his sides before he topples to the ground, spine rigid.

But [Y/N] hasn't even opened her mouth.

Standing right behind Lucius Malfoy is the last person she would have expected to see—

"Draco," she breathes.

Draco's wand is still drawn and his eyes are blown wide, mouth slightly agape as he stares at his father, who lies face-down on the ground unbeknownst to the fact that it was his own son who had cursed him.

Shock is etched into every inch of Draco's face. He is just as stunned at his actions as [Y/N] is. But when he snaps himself out of his trance and finds it in him to tear his gaze away from his father, the first thing he does is stride towards [Y/N], pull her to him, and hold her with the desperation of a man who has been longing for his lover for centuries.

"You—your father—"

"I know."

"Draco," she exhales into his shoulder, breathless. "Draco—"

"Are you hurt anywhere?"

"No—no, I'm okay."

Draco takes a deep, shuddering breath and nods. Keeps nodding.

And when he takes her hand in his and runs with her to the courtyard, where there are more Death Eaters to fight and more innocent lives to protect, he can't help but look back and catch a last glimpse of his father on the floor. His father, who is still rigid and unmoving, at the mercy of Order members who might stumble upon him.

Draco doesn't regret it.

The rest of the world be damned—including his own father—so long as he doesn't lose her.

1K notes · View notes

baubaes · 3 years

Note

hi! is there a chance for Jemily with no22? some angst maybe? cheers🤗

Well hello to you to! And of course there is!

@thatonecurlygirl prompt list 22

“I can’t give you what you want.”

Ship: Emily Prentiss x Jennifer Jareau

Word count: 5,4k

Genre: angst/hurt/fluff/very very light nsfw? i have no clue how to label this

Warnings: mentions of violence, death, injuries, classic criminal minds vibes :^)))

Summary: "Right now, Emily Prentiss was dead. She, however, was on a plane to Paris." aka JJ taking care of staked Emily, the blackbird flashback and events around it.

A/N: i thought of way too many scenarios when even though Emily and JJ are literally in love, it could never work out. here's one of them :^) i hope you'll enjoy it!! xx ana apparently i just can't imagine a scenario in which these characters could have a peaceful, quiet and happy life, im so sorry

Emily felt drained.

She was all hurting, really bad, her head was killing her, not only from the beating she received those several days ago, but also the mere stress of all this.

It was pretty baffling for her to realize that she survived this whole ordeal.

She couldn’t say for how long she was out; it felt both like a blink of an eye and an eternity.

And she really thought that she died, when she eventually lost consciousness in Morgan’s arms. That still felt like ages ago.

It was all really confusing, but then again, she couldn’t spare too much of her strength to dwell on what actually happened. Emily just felt too weak to try to keep her eyes open for too long and that resulted in her reality being pretty much scattered.

When she woke up in a hospital room, she was dazed and overwhelmed. They’ve put her on some strong painkillers after the surgery and most of the time right then felt like a blur. She thought she heard some voices in her dream, maybe doctors, maybe… Was it JJ?

She heard bits and pieces of conversations, somebody commenting on her condition in a low voice, nervous footsteps circling around the room, the dimmed rhythmical sounds of all the equipment she was hooked to, some sort of buzzing and a one sided conversation that had to be a phone call.

Was it just some bizarre dream?

A way for her subconscious mind to cope with the anxiety surrounding the recent events?

Whether it was real or not, it let her stay in this state of slumber brought to her through an IV drip.

Despite all that, she felt really grateful. She wasn’t sure where to channel this gratitude though;

Her team for backing her up?

The doctors for patching her up in the OR?

God, for allowing her to continue her existence?

Then again, she wasn’t sure if the last one existed, nor that the almighty entity would waste its time on making sure little old her survives.

It was comforting though, that her last moments on this Earth managed not to be spent with Doyle, even if that was against her will, so in theory, she didn’t have much of control over this.

Memories of him were a combination of ones that she’s made as Emily Prentiss and ones that she’s made as Lauren Reynolds. As Emily, it consisted of all those moments when he threatened her and her team, he kidnapped her, tortured her, nearly killed her…

As Lauren she was able to saw his more… Humane side.

Lauren was his girlfriend. Lauren lived with him,

Lauren shared her joys and fears with him. Lauren loved him.

But that was Lauren.

She wasn’t real. An identity, that’s all that she was.

And even though Emily tried to convince herself that Lauren’s feelings were perfectly compartmentalized away from her own, deep down she knew she was lying to herself.

Was Doyle ever somebody she actually loved?

She definitely despised him, but it felt like now she was obligated to despise even her own self for ever having feelings for this monster. Positive ones anyway.

Right now, Emily Prentiss was dead.

She, however, was on a plane to Paris.

It was all coordinated by Hotchner and JJ.

Nobody else knew.

Her team, her friends, her loved ones were about to attend her funeral in a few days.

She imagined confused look on Spencer’s face, Garcia’s eyes filled with tears, Morgan frowning and looking away. Would Rossi be sad, or would he finally feel relieved to be ridded of her impulsiveness and comments on literally everything?

She imagined her mother, who obviously was not on it, throwing a pile of soil on the coffin. That would not hold her body inside. Would she cry? Would she stay composed even at a funeral of her only child? Well, again, it wasn’t real real, but she wouldn’t be able to realize that.

For some reason, she figured JJ would’ve taken it upon herself to feel guilty, despite knowing what was going on.

They both knew it was the only way to make it all work.

Emily worried about everyone, but there were two people she worried about the most. Spencer and Penelope.

They both were incredibly strong, but she couldn’t be sure how would they deal with this.

She worried, since Reid did not cope well with losing authorities. And even if he would never admit it to her face, she knew that he looked up to her.

The thought of that made her feel the bile appear on the back of her throat.

That kid has lost so many people already… And he internalized all that, it had to be weighing on him every single day. It felt cruel to add another person to that list.

She had to keep thinking about the bigger picture to even remotely be able to deal with all that.

Now Garcia was somebody that Emily truly loved.

It was hard to imagine her being sad over her „death”.

Not because of the probability of the blonde being sad,

rather the severity of her grieving, Emily would imagine.

Penelope was one of those people who were able to feel so much, maybe even too much sometimes.

And on a daily basis it was wonderful. That’s what’s made her such an incredible, empathetic human being, who, despite their job, was still able to not only - be cheerful, but to cheer others up as well.

When she thought of that, it felt as if her heart could break to million pieces.

It was strange, how in that moment she should still feel the pain;

They’ve stabilized her after the surgery, but there were still bruises on her face, stitches across her abdomen, burnt skin on her chest. And she did feel it, but it was blurred, far away.

The feeling that made her grasp reality to the point of hyperawareness was the emotional pain.

Somehow she was able to compare it to the pain of being staked.

She still wasn’t sure what was a proper emotional response in that situation.

It wasn’t in the manual, or in training, despite people having to go… Well, faking your own death was like going undercover, in a way.

Both at the Interpol and the FBI, nobody taught her how to feel, while pretending to be dead.

She knew how to make it happen technically, more or less. After all, Lauren had already died. Her old team, JTF-12, was able to pull that off those several years ago. Including her of course.

But that was Lauren. An identity, which, sure, she’s been tied to for quite some time, living as her, acting like her, becoming her in a way.

Still, just an identity.

Right now, there wasn’t a disguise, an identity to toss away, allowing her to come back to her regular life.

Right now her regular life was supposed to cease to exist.

Before, she thought about her goal and the fact, that she survived. She was grateful, in some way she felt obligated to take care of Declan and she wouldn't be able to do that, if she was actually dead, right?

Even though she knew that she had no right to feel attached to the boy as much as she did, she just couldn’t help it. The image of him as a toddler, walking around the room in Doyle’s house stuck in her head. She couldn’t shake it off. And even before Doyle found her, that image caused her to have problems with falling asleep from time to time.

Emily never seriously thought of herself becoming a mother, for that role to be the main purpose of her life. She was afraid of screwing her potential children up, because she knew that even if she meant well, it wouldn’t guarantee them turning out okay. And her line of work made it impossible to both realistically approach the idea of maternity - she didn’t have a partner and if she were to be a single mother - it would be impossible to keep up with the BAU - that job was just too demanding; but also she saw so many downright evil, just unimaginable things that people were capable of doing to one another. How could she ever be able to shield a child from that?

Suddenly, all these ridiculous, small things that she wouldn’t think twice about made her feel as if each and every part of her life was just slipping through her fingers, right there, right then.

That one window in her apartment, the one with the wide windowsill, she loved to sit on it and watch the sky. Sergio would curl up in her lap or right next to her, on the windowsill, quietly purring, when she would pet his black fur. It didn’t happen often, because most nights she'd come home so exhausted, all she could basically do was just pass out on her bed. And Sergio would sleep on a pillow right next to her, despite Emily's promises to herself that she will teach him to stop, because she'd wake up covered in his fur with a runny nose.

But when she had a chance to do that, it made her mind stop racing, at least for a few minutes. That barely ever happened anywhere else.

Now she realized that Sergio was alone in her apartment and she panicked. But just for a second, because then she remembered JJ in the hospital, telling her that Penelope took him in. Of course she did. He'd definitely be surrounded with love. She wished she could've just taken him with her though, since she's already been missing him. Silly little fur ball, making her fall in love with him gradually. Penelope wouldn't be able to resist his charm for sure, she thought to herself, smiling. Still, she felt really sad.

Emily realized that she’s left so many things behind.

She didn’t think of herself as someone intensively attached to material possessions, but all these had a sentimental value for her and that was the only thing that mattered.

The thoughts invading her head were random, coming to her without any particular sense or order, falling on her mind like an avalanche.

And she thought about that crumpled up picture, capturing her with her friends when she was a teenager, back in Rome.

A cross, that her mother gave her on her first communion. She wasn’t ever really wearing it, but she liked knowing that it was safely tucked away in one of the drawers in her closet. It brought her some strange kind of comfort.

A box with letters she’d exchange with her father when she was a kid, because even though they moved around together as a family, he still would have assignments all around the world. So he would leave for a single weekend, or for several months at a time. No matter how long or short was he leaving for, he’d always try and send her a postcard, hence the collection of them, both from huge cities in Europe and Asia and tiny places she’s never even heard of before in America or Australia.

Maybe she wasn’t going through this box ritually on some settled schedule, but every once in a while she would look at those tacky pictures of touristy little towns, as well as simple, beautiful pictures of great historical monuments or watercolored landscapes of picturesque countrysides. And they'd make the corners of her lips rise up just a tiny bit.

All that with a couple words reading simple greetings, scribbled in a hurry, in her dad’s small, not exactly neat handwriting, on the back of each and every one of them.

„Love you, Dad” summed up every single message.

And looking at those words made her feel warmth, both now and when she was a little girl. Her father wasn’t very talkative and he rarely told her he loved her unprompted. So she got used to reading these words, instead of hearing them from him.

She cherished these postcards and anytime she’d go through them, she noticed some kind of feeling spread throughout her body, that felt like pure joy, but also love and safety.

Kurt Vonnegut’s "Sirens of Titan".

Morgan lent it to her a few months ago.

The book was by her bed, bookmarked with some crumpled receipt for groceries she’d found at the bottom of her purse, when she'd had to suddenly break away from Rumfoord and Kazak on the jet.

She’s read it before, truth be told, (in Italian and back in the ’80s), but Morgan insisted that she just had to read the original version. And even though there was a stack of books she wanted to read going back at least two years sitting on her bedroom floor, dangerously leaning against the radiator, the day she brought it home, she placed the Sirens on the very top of her bedside table, instead of the stack.

She’d imagine Morgan would appreciate that gesture.

Morgan, her partner.

Morgan, who held her before she passed out.

Morgan, who always had her back.

And she tried to do the same for him in the field.

He’s saved her ass countless times.

Emily wished she could have had his back right now.

She realized with a paralyzing fear that it could last forever.

Doyle could lay low, undetected for years.

Would it keep Morgan up at night?

Would he blame himself, wondering?

If he'd gotten to her seconds earlier, if he had only ran faster, if he’d found her sooner, would it change anything?

Thinking about that made her fists clench suddenly.

If she had any fingernails left, they would surely dig into the skin of her palms very painfully right now.

Emily felt this overwhelming guilt filling her chest, making her throat feel as if it was closing, her teeth grit.

She felt like she couldn’t breathe, as if the jet’s cabin had become decompressed and she couldn't reach the oxygen mask.

"You’re doing okay?"

She heard the soft and calming voice of her only companion on this flight, naturally besides the pilot.

JJ was looking at her with those big, worried, blue eyes and even though Emily’s first instinct was to nod, as she did just that, she felt her eyes watering.

"I can't stand the thought of all of them grieving over a lie."

She mumbled out.

"Emily, you know that this is the only way. We’d never make them go through this, if there were any other options. They will understand."

JJ’s voice became more firm with the last sentence, she was obviously in a mind space reserved for dealing with crisis.

"I really thought that was it, you know?"

Emily asked, a little startled at the sound of her own voice.

She couldn’t recall the last time she’s held an actual conversation with another person, one that wouldn’t consist of barely understandable mumbling as a form of communication on her end.

"There came that point, where the pain went away, I guess I went into shock. I heard Morgan’s voice and I wanted to keep my eyes open like he told me to so bad, but I just couldn’t. I felt like I was slipping away and it felt so… Easy. I wasn’t scared at all. I… I knew you guys would take care of Declan, if I wasn’t around. And that all of you would be okay."

She said, trying to piece together everything that happened.

"And apparently I've coded in the ambulance? I had no idea, but some glimpses are coming back to me, slowly. But it was like I’d fallen asleep."

She added, her face reflecting her mind in a state of deep contemplation.

Her thoughts were interrupted by JJ’s voice.

"Thank God, you didn’t…"

Emily only now noticed that with every word that she spoke, JJ’s eyes became more and more glossy. She frowned.

"Hey, I’m here."

She leaned in and smiled faintly.

"Its gonna take way more than some branding and a little stake for you to get rid of me."

JJ laughed, wiping the tears away, before they had a chance to flow down her cheeks.

"Why would I ever want to get rid of you?"

Blonde asked, her voice now soft, her expression puzzled.

Emily felt something strange in her chest.

At first her brain assumed it had to be her burnt skin and damaged nerve endings, but no.

It felt nice, it wasn’t painful.

That warmth, spilling around her insides.

She didn’t have a witty comeback to her question. She wanted to think it was because of the meds making her hazy, but she wasn’t sure anymore. She just looked down at her chest and frowned again.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"The first thing I’m doing, when we get to Paris is having this removed."

She heard her own voice.

"How could a brand hurt more than getting staked?"

"Maybe it’s a psychosomatic itch you’re scratching? The brand left an emotional toll, Doyle established dominance over you by marking you as his, a stake… I mean you overcame death. The ultimate victory over your foe. Why suffer a pain you’re proud of?"

JJ wondered, actually trying to analyze all that. She looked at her, now amused.

"Or you could always get another tattoo."

Emily laughed at that. JJ continued.

"You know, something transformative? Like a… A phoenix. Or a blackbird."

"I love the song."

Emily said.

"But something tells me, I shouldn’t tread in your waters."

JJ looked at her with a questioning look.

"Come on, JJ. Something’s obviously different about you. You commandeered an Interpol jet. You’re profiling me."

JJ looked down and sighed. Emily continued.

"Why didn’t you say your transfer was a backstop?"

At that JJ’s expression turned to a confused one, indicating that what the other woman said was the truth.

"Oh, I know that look. The 'I can’t trust anyone, but myself' look. I invented it."

Emily added, trying to make it sound funny, but ultimately, it still came out serious, because it was true. JJ smiled at her slightly, but she looked sad.

"Do you ever feel like you’re in way over your head?" Emily nodded, wanting her to continue.

"I got assigned to an information hunt. Instead, I am chasing an unsub, who killed my informant."

"What would Hotch tell you to do?" Emily asked without hesitation. That’s how she found her way around during any investigation, ever since she joined the BAU.

"Focus on victimology, let behavior lead the way…"

JJ listed out loud.

"Exactly. Who did your unsub kill?"

"The one person I was getting through to."

"Why?"

Emily continued with her questions, seeing that they initiated JJ’s thought process.

"Because I was getting through to…" JJ said, frowning.

"I was getting through to her. What if she was about to expose her killer? Someone on the inside…"

Emily could tell that JJ needed somebody else to look at her situation and see it in from a different angle. JJ got really pensive, her eyes glued to some nonexistent point in space.

"It sounds like it's time for you to be the blackbird and flip the script." Emily said slowly.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"I guess it does." JJ said with a tiny smile, before getting up.

"Hey, why won’t you try and sleep at least a while? We won’t be landing for several hours, so…"

"Right. You should try and sleep too. I’ve been in a coma, so I caught some Zs, when you think about it. Medically induced ones, but still. You on the other hand must be exhausted."

Emily’s face was covered in grey, purple and yellow spots, but JJ’s face, even though not bruised, still indicated that she had a rough couple of days. She had bags under her eyes, her cheeks pale, instead of slightly flushed like they normally were, her face tired.

They both looked quite miserable.

JJ just smiled in response, but her eyes weren’t a part of that smile. Her eyes stayed sad.

She walked to another seat, so she could try and lie down.

Emily wanted to let JJ rest, because she suspected that by suggesting sleeping, she actually had an excuse to take a nap herself, even if it was supposed to last only few minutes. She deserved a good night sleep, Emily thought to herself, watching the blonde struggling to find a comfortable position. When she eventually succeeded, Prentiss leaned back in her own seat, looking out the window. Her chest was still burning, but she wouldn’t even flinch. Her eyes, almost independently from her will, landed on the other woman every couple of minutes. She watched JJ’s chest move rhythmically, until her breathing became really deep and really steady and she was without a doubt asleep.

She knows what’s happening,

Emily thought to herself.

And so does Hotchner.

Yet, they’re going to have to look at the rest being in pain and they’re going to have to pretend that they’re going through the same thing.

And when she thought about Hotch, it wasn’t that hard to imagine.

He would keep himself perfectly composed in pretty much any situation she ever saw him in.

He was able to calculate his next move without showing as much as a microexpression.

It could be a little unsettling sometimes, but then again when he was surrounded by his family, when he was with Jack, he would expose this softer and loving side of himself. Just a bit. It was quite the view.

Emily had no doubt that he was a good father. And a good man.

He really was great at planning, thinking ahead like no one else;

he had his way of smoothly dealing with issues that inevitably came up during their investigations.

All those things made him an incredible section chief.

Emily was certain that she could trust him with her life. And she did.

It would be hard for anyone to keep such a burdening secret from people you are constantly around.

Eventually, you could start believing the lie, but that also took dedication. It was even harder when you had to lie to people that were actually a part of your life, people that you were close to.

It’s one thing to be undercover and to keep a secret from people you’re trying to infiltrate. During such operations it felt justified to do that, choosing the lesser evil, the end justify the means and all that.

It’s a completely different thing to do that to your friends and family.

"The secret to getting away with lying is believing with all your heart. That goes for lying to yourself even more so than lying to another."

A quote by the author Elizabeth Bear, that she's memorized from reading her New Amsterdam series more than once. She was repeating it in her mind, not being able to stop.

She closed her eyes, taking a deep breath in. She knew that they made the right call. Still, it was just devastating, thinking what they voluntarily sentenced themselves to.

She tried to calm herself down with proper breathing. It helped.

Emily finally decided to try to sleep. She thought that since she was still medicated, she’d pass out easily, but that didn’t happen.

Every time she closed her eyes, she saw faces of her team members. She felt like her chest was being crushed. Breathing didn't really help.

After what felt like forever of forcing herself to fall asleep without any luck, she opened her eyes and just kept them open. She focused her gaze on what was behind the window.

The clouds, barely visible in the navy skies.

She didn’t do it on purpose, but she realized that she started to dissociate.

And she let herself do it.

The numbness felt better than the stinging guilt.

She didn’t really register it, but tears left her eyes, falling on her lashes and cheeks, as her deep, dark eyes focused on the navy color in front of her, forty thousand feet above the ground.

She couldn’t tell how long it took, but only JJ’s turning in her sleep, simultaneously throwing a bag off the seat made Emily come back to reality. Blonde didn’t wake up. She looked really peaceful.

She thought about not seeing her for God knows how long. It stung, to a point of her gasping. Afraid, that maybe that could’ve woken her up, Emily wiped her tears away, but JJ’s eyes stayed closed. And these intrusive thoughts came back to roam inside her head.

Sure, JJ wouldn’t be with the BAU now, since she’s had that informant operation, but no doubt, she would still see them. They were a huge part of her life after all.

Emily watched her face, calm and soft, imaging it twisted in pain and grief, having to pretend one of their own was dead.

In her mind, JJ was one of the strongest people she knew. She was persistent, hardworking and incredibly professional, but she was also kind, nurturing and very loyal.

What she was doing for her at this very moment proved it perfectly.

She knew that JJ accepted her part in this plan on her own and if she were to start trying to talk her out of it (never mind that it was also too late for that at this point), she wouldn’t change her mind. To be fair, if they switched places, she would do the same for JJ, but still, she couldn’t stop worrying about the woman sleeping on a seat across from her.

Emily watched her friend and it brought her some sort of comfort, a feeling of safety.

She finally dozed off, trying not to think, but focused on JJ’s steady breathing instead.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"Emily, we’ll be landing in about an hour."

She heard, opening her eyes, and she saw JJ standing in front of her, one of her hands on her shoulder.

"I thought you’d like to change before the transfer."

Emily’s hand landed on top of hers, holding both of them on her shoulder.

"Oh, right. Thank you, I…" she looked down at their hands, trying to focus. "We’ll have to say goodbye soon, right?" she blurted out, looking back at her face.

JJ sighed and sat down right next to her, not taking her hand away, but instead, intertwining their fingers and resting both their hands in Emily’s lap.

"Well, it seems so."

She smiled, but her eyes were reddened, filling with tears once again.

Emily’s gaze was glued to their hands, watching JJ’s wrist and fingers, so delicate right now, but perfectly capable of throwing a good punch. Her eyes stopped at the ring on her finger; Henry’s birthstone. She felt that strange feeling again, that warmth spreading throughout her body.

"It’s not going to last forever. We will find Doyle."

JJ mumbled out and Emily held her breath.

"I know, but… I will miss you so much."

Emily said, before instinctually putting her arms around blonde’s waist, to which she responded with wrapping her arms around her neck. JJ tried to be gentle, because of Emily’s condition, but brunette only held her tighter.

They were so close right now, that she could hear the other woman’s heartbeat. It was slightly elevated.

JJ pulled back just a little, so she could look at her face.

"I will miss you as well." she whispered, their eyes laid on each other.

JJ said the next sentence so quietly, that Emily could barely hear it.

"You’re very special to me, you know that?"

Emily wouldn’t be able to logically explain why she did what she did next, but somehow her hands ended up on both sides of JJ’s face and she leaned in, placing her lips on blonde’s ones.

She wasn’t thinking, but as she kissed her, the other woman immediately kissed her back. Emily felt soft palms cupping her face, her eyes closed. That kiss was filled with so much pain and longing and some kind of desperation.

But it made her whole body fill up with that warmth.

Emily wasn’t even sure what that was, so she tried to be gentle. She ended up kissing JJ in a somewhat shy manner, yet the other agent was deepening the kiss with each second, making it more and more passionate. Emily felt her back hitting the wall and a moan left her throat, captured by the kiss. JJ reacted by slowing down, moving her fingers across her face, running them through her hair. Emily was still cupping JJ’s face, her skin felt so soft and warm under her fingers when she brushed them across her cheeks. Their tongues slowly swirling around one another, this time Emily caused JJ to gasp, as she bit her lower lip. She responded with kissing brunette even more eagerly, so Emily brushed her fingers along her neck, resting them on her shoulders. One of her hands was caressing the skin covering JJ’s collarbone. At that she sighed, barely audibly, but Emily caught it. Her fingers moved towards the skin covering her breastbone.

JJ suddenly pulled back and broke the kiss, leaving both of them breathing heavily, blood flowing through their cheeks and lips.

Emily placed her hands back on JJ’s shoulders, she didn’t mean to make her feel uncomfortable.

Finally, after what felt like forever, she broke the silence.

"JJ, I…" she didn’t even know what to say. It wasn’t right. She had a loving husband, a family. She didn’t mean to ruin it for her.

"We don’t have to talk about this." she said quickly and Emily felt strange. She took her hands off of her shoulders and leaned back, so there was space between them.

"I… Dont… Look, if we won’t see each other for…"

She started, but her voice broke, when she realized what expression showed up on JJ’s face.

Regret.

Emily felt so many contradicting things in that moment, that she basically froze. JJ was looking away.

"You went through something traumatic, we all did. It’s only natural to crave human contact then. And it can present itself in many different ways. It doesn’t mean anything. It’s fine."

"JJ, it means… It means everything for me."

Emily choked out, placing her hand on top of blonde’s. JJ turned her hand, so she could squeeze Emily’s one between her fingers.

She smiled looking at their hands, but only for a fraction of a second. And then she took her hand away, only to look Emily straight in her eyes. She seemed sad, but also… Agitated.

"I can’t give you what you want, Emily." she said quickly, getting up.

"There’s too many reasons why. And… You have to leave."

JJ stated, sort of matter-of-factly.

Emily couldn’t really comprehend what just happened. But all of the pain, both physical and mental suddenly came back, not dimmed anymore.

This was… This wasn’t the time for this. Come on, Emily, it’s time to compartmentalize again. You used to be so good at this!

Well, before joining the team anyway.

"We’re landing in 15. You have to change, definitely cover up these bruises at least a bit." JJ continued talking, her voice morphing back to that task-oriented tone. She was taking clothes and makeup out of the bags, handing the items to her. "Hurry."

Emily felt like she couldn’t move, but she forced herself to get up and do what she needed to. They weren’t looking at each other and even though she wanted to scream, she kept perfectly quiet.

Compartmentalize. It’s not the time. It didn’t mean anything.

They landed and after JJ made sure that the right person was waiting outside to drive Emily to a safehouse, she stood in front of her and hugged her. Emily wasn’t really expecting that right now, since the atmosphere was so tense.

"I will miss you, no matter what." JJ whispered and even though Emily was so stunned from the pain and all around confused, she knew they couldn’t part without a proper goodbye.

"Thank you, for everything. Take care of them." Emily said and she embraced her tightly, one last time. Emily wanted to say that she’ll miss her like crazy, but it felt both like too much and not enough.

She didn’t want to let them turn this into a final goodbye.

"Of course. I will see you soon, okay?" JJ smiled and Emily smiled back. It wasn’t the best forced smile, but she just couldn’t do better in that moment.

"Goodbye, Jennifer." she said sounding way too official, taking a first step out.

"Goodbye, Emily."

Prentiss turned away and quickly made her way to the parked car.

She saw JJ’s face one last time through the tiny window.

The car left the landing strip and disappeared in the night.

„Goodbye, Emily.” she thought to herself, as she caught her own reflection in the side mirror.

„Goodbye, Emily.”

JJ whispered, placing a red rose on the coffin.

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tkc-info · 3 years

Text

Confession At Night

OCtober 2021 day 2 - glass

2018

“Did you know that glass is made out of sand?” Oliver asked.

Cal hummed. She wasn’t paying much attention to him, but rather was laying on her back —heedless of how her scalp would be itching with sand for days— with her eyes trained on the sky. Tonight, like most nights, it was almost devoid of stars; yet Cal insisted, like most nights, on checking for her ‘second star to the right’.

“It’s molten at a very high temperature to create a whole new material.” Oliver continued. He was rambling, and knew it.

“Lovely.” Cal murmured noncommittally “That means that if we set this place on— ah, there!”

She clutched his shoulder (not his hoodie; she was wearing that) and yanked him down to the sand. Then, she pointed up at two stars in particular. “‘Second to the right, and straight on till morning’. That, Peter had told Wendy, was the way to Neverland.” she slapped his pectoral “I told you today was the day I’d find it.”

Oliver snorted. His parents had decided to bring them to a beach outing so that they would destress from school. Oliver, of course, knew the trip was but a plan to get him to see whether Cal was Saz, but Cal had proudly declared today would be her lucky day because ‘beaches weren’t all that polluted and shit’.

“I thought the place was called Wonderland.” he said as he propped himself up on his shoulders. Just to annoy Cal.

And indeed, Cal was close to enraged. “Neverland, asshole.” she lightly kicked him “Don’t compare a piece of art to such bloody rubbish.” she groaned, then sat up “Really, I don’t know what kind of crack Lewis Carroll was on when he wrote those books. I finished Alice Through The Looking Glass last week, and it’s all nonsensical. She goes through a mirror and ends up in a world similar to her own, but where giant insects take the train and laws are impossibly alien? Oliver, dude, what does jam tomorrow and jam yesterday but not jam today mean?”

Oliver shrugged. “As if I knew.”

But Cal’s words secretly bothered him. In his current state of tension, he couldn’t help but think of his homeland. Her homeland.

Mirror was a reflection of the only world Cal had ever known. In a metaphorical sense, a thin coat of glass separated her reality and the life she should have lived as Saz. The Kinship was much like the literary world she found so nonsensical: a united nation hidden in the depths of the Earth, twisted conservatism, beings who could pretty much become talking insects, people who could bend reality in unimaginable ways…

Cal stood up and walked to the freezing sea as a familiar guilt enveloped Oliver. There was also a wall of glass standing between his best friend and him. A one-way mirror that showed him everything about her, and her only what he was allowed to show Aboveground.

Heck, Oliver knew more about Cal than Cal herself. He knew what her parents were —had been— the position her aunts and uncles had in The Kinship, the friends that so fervently wished for her safety… and a dozen other secrets she should’ve been entitled to knowing.

Oliver looked at the sand, hesitating momentarily before deciding to go for it.

‘I’m sorry’, he wrote. In Sazla; Oliver may have grown up in Aboveground London, but Sazla still was his native tongue and the one he felt the most comfortable in.

The guilt over lying to Cal had began gnawing at him when he was around eight. At the time, he’d promised himself never to keep non-Saz secrets from her. He’d succeeded. At least for the most part. Recently he’d realised something about himself he needed to tell someone —Cal— but whenever the opportunity to tell his secret to her arose, Oliver always backed down.

Cal came back to him with her legs freezing wet; on her hands, the bottle of iced tea she’d buried underwater a few minutes ago. She plopped down on the sand, opened the bottle and chugged down half its contents. “Tea?” she offered Oliver, who took the bottle but didn’t move to drink from it.

This morning he’d promised himself he’d tell Cal that secret of his. No matter what. Oliver knew he had to tell her or else he’d explode.

“Oliver, what’s wrong?” Cal’s laidback demeanour promptly disappeared as she noticed the change in Oliver. Gingerly, her hand moved to grab his —Oliver noticed she’d began doing that when she wanted to comfort but didn’t have the necessary words.

Oliver squeezed her hand gratefully; closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and said, “I want to tell you something.” he opened his eyes and turned to her “Mind you, I’m irrationally scared of telling you this.”

Cal tensed. Oliver wasn’t allowed to do this, but he reached out to her and willed her shoulders to relax ever so slightly. Using his insignia helped release some of his own tension, and when he next spoke, his voice didn’t sound as scared as he’d feared. “I’m bisexual.”

He studied Cal’s face to see her reaction. At first, she only blinked at him —processing the information— but a second after his confession, she exhaled as if tremendously relieved. She used her free hand to also take Oliver’s, and pressed her forehead to his arm. Oliver could feel her silent laughter.

“Cal?” Oliver asked “Did you hear me? I’m bi.”

“Yes, yes. I did.” Cal drew back and met his eyes, a small smile grazed her lips “I just— Oliver I thought you were going to tell me you’d been diagnosed with something, or were moving to —I don’t know— Gloucestershire.” she smiled at him “But you’re bi. That’s amazing, dude.”

“Really?”

It was as if a part of the weigh he’d been carrying since childhood had been lifted off his shoulders; and if Oliver couldn’t quite walk straight, he now could at least walk on lighter feet.

“Of course it’s amazing.”

It wasn’t only that keeping unnecessary secrets from Cal hurt him. He had needed to tell someone, and to be reassured that his bisexuality was valid. No Saz would ever care about him not being straight, but Oliver lived at the other side of the wall of glass.

He’d heard his classmates say horrible things about queer people, and was terrified of what their reaction to him would be. Clara and Carter Whitaker always told their son not to care about his inferior’s ‘senseless bigotry’, but Oliver had to care. Otherwise he’d become the target of their hatefulness.

“Are you going to come out to everyone?” Cal eventually asked.

A breeze of salty air pulled her hair backwards, allowing Oliver to fully see her face: Cal’s eyes shone with fondness, and something else. Was it…? But no.

“I have to, don’t I?” Oliver shrugged; half achieving the confident tone he’d been going for.

“No.” Cal snorted, but wiggled closer to him “Your bisexuality is yours to share. No one’s entitled to knowing your secrets.”

“I know that. But I want to be out —or at least reach a point where if people don’t know I’m bi, then that’s on them— and talk about boys comfortably.”

Oliver didn’t ask for anything too extravagant, just to be recognised and respected. That wasn’t too hard, was it? His classmates and teachers would surely understand him.

But Cal frowned at him. Oliver thought she’d say something, but the only thing she did was lean against his shoulder silently. “I’ll kill whoever’s homophobic or biphobic to you.” she eventually said.

Oliver snorted. “You’re the best, CC.” he thanked, putting his arm around her shoulders and briefly kissing the top of her head.

“Oh, come on, don’t cover my hair in saliva.” Cal protested, but didn’t move.

“It’s already full of sand. How are you even going to get it off?”

Cal rolled her eyes. “You. I’m helping you dye your hair, you’re helping me wash mine.”

“Hm.”

The two sat in silence, then. Oliver allowed himself a contented smile as he basked in his first moments of being out. This was good, he thought. Just the feeling of being accepted and loved unquestioningly. And Cal had said it was amazing that he was bi. Oliver felt on top of the world.

“Oliver?”

“Hm?”

“Thank you for telling me.”

Oliver quirked an eyebrow at her. “Prepare to hear it many more times. ‘I am bisexual’; it sounds good, doesn’t it?”

@oc-growth-and-development @wagnerthedragon @iloveallmyocs @littleturtle95

#the kinship chronicles #oc-tober

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hufflautia · 4 years

Text

In Sickness and in Health

Requested by @milk-leaves!

Warnings: A very brief and non-explicit sexual implication

Summary: Slytherin catches the flu. Luckily, her husband is there to help. However, her stubborn nature and insistent claim that “she can’t be sick because she’s never been sick in her entire life” makes it a little difficult for Hufflepuff to assist her. Marriage isn’t always easy, but with the proper amount of love and patience, everything works out in the end.

Slytherin grabs the garbage can just in time to vomit into the basket. When she finishes, she wipes her mouth with a grimace and rests her forehead against the bed.

“Honey?”

She looks up and sees Hufflepuff standing by the door, his forehead puckered as he takes in her appearance. Her hair unruly, she’s slumped on the floor of their bedroom, looking tired and pale.

Usually, Slytherin would be happy to see her husband. However, all she feels is irritation in the wake of his presence, and she leans against the side of the mattress once more.

“What are you doing here,” she croaks, eyeing him as he approaches her and kneels down. “I thought you had to go to the Ministry today.”

“It was a minor emergency, so I left early.” He regards her carefully. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine.”

Hufflepuff frowns. “But you threw up.”

“Yeah, I’ve been doing that a lot today,” she murmurs weakly. Noticing his eyes widen, she snorts. “I’m not pregnant if that’s what you’re thinking. I got my period today.”

He gives her a sympathetic look. “I imagine it’s been a very fun day for you.”

“The best I’ve ever had, actually.”

Leaning in ever so slightly, that’s when Hufflepuff sees it—the faint flush on her face, the way she folds her arm around herself, the tinge of hoarseness in her voice.

He reaches out and touches Slytherin’s forehead. Her skin feels hot and cold at the same time. She bats away his hand in annoyance. “What are you doing,” she snaps, scowling at him. Her anger immediately falters when she notices how his eyebrows rise, a look of surprise mixed with hurt spreading onto his face.

“You have a fever,” he confirms quietly.

Slytherin resists a frown. “But I never get sick.”

“Well, it happens to the best of us.” He gets up. “Wait here, I’ll get some medicine.”

“I don’t need it,” she calls after him but he’s already in the kitchen, rummaging through the cabinets. He returns with a bottle and a small cup. Taking a seat before pouring red liquid into the cup, he ignores her when she says his name in a tone of indignation, insisting that she isn’t sick.

Hufflepuff hands it to her. “Drink,” he says firmly. When she juts her chin out and pouts, he lets out an exasperated sigh. “Honey, I know you don’t want to, but it’ll make you feel better.”

She still doesn’t move. This time, he returns her unyielding stare with one of his own. His tone is hard and demanding as he warns, “I’m not gonna repeat myself.”

Slytherin grudgingly brings the cup to her lips. If she didn't feel like complete shit right now, she would keep pushing his patience for fun. She’d even be a little turned on by his authoritative voice. Probably both.

She immediately makes a face as the medicine slides down her throat. “This tastes like ass,” she grumbles, pressing the back of her hand against her mouth and setting the cup down.

He chuckles. “Medicine tends to taste that way.” He stands and offers his hand. “Come. I’m sure a warm shower sounds perfect right now.”

A faint smile twitches at the corner of her mouth. “How’d you know,” she asks, taking his hand. A wave of nausea sweeps over her when she gets up, and he quickly plants his hands on either side of her.

“I’m your husband,” he pulls her closer, “I know these things.”

Slytherin wraps her arms around him. “Will you carry me to the bathroom,” she mumbles into his sweater.

He presses a kiss to the top of her head before picking her up bridal-style with care.

“Do you even have to ask?”

A couple of hours pass. Feeling drowsy from the medicine, Slytherin took a long nap before waking up to the smell of homemade soup. Hufflepuff cooked something for her while she was sleeping. To her dismay, he also gave her another cup of NyQuil, but she drank it without any resistance. Afterwards, her headache subsided and was diminished to a dull pain, which is nothing compared to before.

Now, she is laying in bed, feeling comfortable and content as she snuggles with her husband while he reads her favorite book out loud. She’ll probably never openly admit it but she loves when they cuddle. Listening to the smooth drawl of his voice, she catches a few words while dozing in and out of sleep. Her lips curve into a smile. He’s getting to her favorite part where he speaks in a ridiculous voice when reading the dialogue of an ancient wizard.

Hufflepuff had read the book to her before when they were dating. He used the same wise and raspy voice as he uses now. At that moment, as she attempted to hold in her laughter, she knew he was the one. Funnily enough, he ended up proposing to her a month later.

Feeling the familiar tug in her heart that can only be classified as complete adoration, Slytherin musters enough strength to pull herself out of the cozy arms of sleep. She shifts around so that she can properly see his face and says his name tenderly.

“What is it,” he asks, putting the book down. “Is your headache still bothering you?”

“A little, but...I’m sorry for being mean to you before. I was angry at you for no reason, but it might’ve been because of my period, and you already know how bad my PMS gets sometimes, but I still feel terrible about being so rude because you’re so great and sweet and you were only trying to help but I was being so difficult and I think I’m just not really used to people taking care of me, so I was trying to handle this flu on my own but I still shouldn’t have acted that way—and I literally hit your fucking hand and I hate myself for it because you don’t deserve it at all, you deserve so much more than whatever I have to offer...” Words continue to spill from her mouth as she rambles on and on, not bothering to pause for a breath of air.

Hufflepuff says her name and she finally stops, staring back at him with a contorted expression as if she were trying to back tears. He cups her cheek, to which she leans into his warm touch. “Please don’t worry about that anymore, honey, it’s okay. Honestly. I’ve been with you long enough to know that there’s no one else I would rather be with but you. Even with your stubbornness, I love you all the same. Maybe even a little more.” He gives her a reassuring smile as she looks back at him with watery eyes. “Just focus on resting for now, okay?”

She nods and tries to smile back, getting a little choked up in the process. His words are laced with so much endearment that she realizes just how lucky she is to have someone like him to spend the rest of her life with. She puts her hand over his.

“Thank you,” she whispers, “for loving me as you do.”

His gaze is so unimaginably soft that, for a split second, Slytherin wonders how it’s even possible. He leans in, and she happily closes the distance.

One might think that as time passes for a married couple, the love begins to stale. This is not true in their case, for the flutter in her stomach intensifies as they kiss. She can only focus on how soft he feels against her lips, how he invades all her senses in the best way possible. Her fingers grip the front of his shirt while his hand rests against the curve of her neck when they finally pull apart. Their noses brush against each other as they lock eyes.

“I love you,” she breathes.

“I know,” he murmurs. “And I love you.”

“Good. Because we’re stuck with each other forever.”

“I’d be sad if we weren’t,” he replies with a grin, retrieving the book. “Shall I continue reading?”

She beams at him before laying her cheek against his chest. “Yes please.”

Hufflepuff flips to the page he left off from. While he reads, he traces patterns around her stomach, as if he's painting a beautiful masterpiece over her skin.

A couple of chapters in, Slytherin momentarily closes her eyes as his melodious voice washes over her.

The sound of his steady heartbeat lulls her to sleep.

FIN.

Check out my masterlist! | Kind comments and reblogs are most appreciated :)

AUTHOR’S NOTE:

Hello everyone! I hope you enjoyed reading this as much as I enjoyed writing it. It took me a while to come up with an idea for this (also, to the person who requested this, I hope you are satisfied :D). My friend had the idea of “a vacation gone horribly wrong”. It was a fantastic idea - I even made a google doc for it and everything, but I did not write out a sufficient amount of general details for it because nothing solid came to mind. Then, when I was trying to go to sleep, I came up with this idea and I am very happy with how it came out!!

I modeled Hufflepuff after Steve Rogers to some extent. He has that gentle giant type of vibe. He is kind and loving, but he’ll be stern if he needs to. I have to admit, the thought of making a series about slytherpuff married life has crossed my mind while writing this one-shot. I am still contemplating it. If I do create the series, it won’t be restricted to this couple specifically, but I will consider writing more stories about them because I really do adore their dynamic! Anyways, if I were to write that series, it would be different stories with different couples. It might not even be classified as a series but more as a collection of slytherpuff married life stories. Also, there would probably be at least one nsfw story included in that collection, but I will not be writing any smut until after my birthday, which is in April. *HI THIS IS JESSICA FROM THE NEXT DAY, aka the day that i’m gonna post this and im just going over the fic. while i was sleeping, i just thought of ANOTHER marriage fic so i think im going to make a married life collection of storiessss :D :D :D!!! however, im still wondering about whether i should write it, because the story idea is a little eh. if anyone has any other marriage life ideas, please feel free to let me know! before, i was a little hesitant on making a collection because it was hard for me to think of ideas for this fic when the request came in. hopefully, that will change in the future. also why do i keep coming up with good ideas for stories in my sleep lmao*

Writing this story was fun. I stayed up until 2 am for four straight days while writing. Lmao how odd is it to see those two sentences right next to each other? In all honestly, I didn’t feel like it was 2 am because I was in the zone. I just kept writing until I told myself to go to bed because the future morning me will regret it--and lemme tell you, she really does. Anyways, I used my own experience with medicine for fevers. I absolutely hate the taste of NyQuil; I remember when my mom would make me drink small cups of it whenever I was sick. Also, when I was writing Sly’s rambling bit, I did not put any periods in the paragraph because I wanted to make it seem like she’s going on and on and isn’t stopping. However, I thought it to be weird and so I put the paragraph into the “translate to english” thing so that I could press the audio icon and hear what it sounds like. I’m happy to report that it was one of the funniest things I’ve ever heard in my entire life because her monotone voice saying all that was very amusing.

There is no telling what fic I will post next. Last week, I was all over the place and working on several fics, moving from one to another when I got bored of the story. Also, my mental state is not the best at the moment. I’ve been feeling self-conscious about my writing recently, and I’m probably gonna go through another episode of that because this is gonna be the first fic that marks the end of tag lists and so this is probably gonna be an underrated fic because fewer ppl will see it. I came to realize that it’s not me who’s writing bad fics; even though I tag people, there’s a noticeable lack of interaction, so it’s likely that some of my followers just aren’t active anymore. There was a fanfic writer who I really like because their loki fics are amazing. A few weeks ago, I found their other blog that I was not aware of beforehand and they made a post 3 weeks ago saying that they would no longer be writing fics because there were barely any people interacting with them. She seemed really upset, saying stuff like “I guess my fics just aren’t good enough”, “no one can save me anymore” (I know that sounds very ominous but she was insinuating “no nice comments will make me change my mind”), and “I feel like deleting my blog because there’s a sense of failure in just leaving them there”. This made me really sad, and a part of me was afraid that one day, I would adopt a similar mindset. However, I know that there’s a group of people who will always be there to read my stories, so I’m gonna try to hold onto that idea and continue writing to make you happy and myself happy as well. Also I just realized that I always include one part in my author’s note that’s just sad for some reason :’)

ANYWAYS, I remember making a post a longgggg time ago that said “I promise that I will finish the slytherpuff series if it’s the last thing I do”. That has changed; I plan to post all the chapters leading up to their requited love at last (aka the part in which they actually get into a relationship together). After that, there’s still a bunch of chapters but they’re just fluffy bits, i.e. rainy day, they bake together, oop it’s one of their birthdays, etc. In other words, they aren’t essential to the plot. I could turn them into one-shots and stuff, but some of the chapters relate to the characters’ lives. In addition, it’s sweet to see their relationship progress. For those chapters regarding fluffy bits of their relationship, I won’t feel incentive to write them right away because their love is already requited and I also have two big series that I would rather work on. However, I’m not gonna start another series yet because I don’t wanna leave you on a cliffhanger in Chapter 3 and suddenly start writing a whole other series. The plan is to post all the chapters for the slytherpuff series leading up to the moment when they start dating (Chapter 7 or 8 will probably be when they actually get together). That way, there’s no rush to complete it because it’s just easy and sweet since they’re already in a relationship and readers aren’t anxiously waiting to see what happens next. After that, I will probably begin writing the other series, which will be different from the original slytherpuff series. You’ll see why. Once in a while, I will go back to the original series and write for that when I feel like it.

I’m trying my best to finish writing Chapter 4 :( It is gonna be long - I’ve already written about 7 pages and I am thinking of splitting it into two parts. If I do, I might be posting part 1 soon because it’s kind of already done. Then again, I like the idea of just posting it all at once. We’ll see! I’m gonna try to work on that after this. My desire to write is sporadic, but comments and interactions from readers are very impactful in terms of my motivation to write, so be sure to leave feedback if you can! I’ll see you all again the next time I post a fic. Thanks for reading!

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jaskiersvalley · 4 years

Note

i have read your fics more than once. really.

That is super flattering and I am so pleased you read them more than once. Hopefully, this little ficlet of thanks is something you’ll enjoy reading too!

Witchers didn’t have souls. That was a known fact around the continent. Their trials and mutagens and everything else that went on in their mysterious keeps stripped them of their core humanity. It stole away their daemons, left behind unfeeling killing machines that didn’t bat an eyelid at the atrocities fought so viciously. Then again, people whispered that it was better they didn’t have daemons because there was no telling what monstrous creature their daemons would settle into.

Despite all these warnings, Jaskier found himself tagging along with an infamous witcher. The Butcher of Blaviken himself. His own daemon, Miette, settled as a white-tailed mongoose, was happy to trot along by his side or settle on his shoulders. At the start, it was definitely unnerving to have a travel companion without a daemon of his own but, slowly, Jaskier got used to it.

Over time, as Jaskier became more familiar with Geralt, he didn’t miss the longing looks shot towards Miette. While he never touched her, there was a hint of temptation - especially after being in a village where the humans pulled away not their children first but their daemons. On those nights, Geralt always settled a little closer to the fire.

The nice thing about daemons was that mostly there was no need to verbal communication. Jaskier could look at Miette and they were in agreement. However, some things needed more than a look.

“You sure?” Miette asked but she was already turning towards Geralt.

“Go,” Jaskier said, bracing for what was to come. Because either unimaginable ire and offence was going to be rained down on him and Miette. Or Jaskier was in for a night like no other he’d experienced before.

From his own bedroll, Jaskier watched as Miette approached Geralt. Daemon and witcher stared at each other before Miette dipped her head and approached. It was Jaskier who gasped as his daemon nosed her way under Geralt’s arms and nestled into his chest. For a heavy few seconds time and the world was suspended before rushing to catch up as Geralt buried his face in Miette’s fur.

After that night, Geralt actually acknowledged Miette as an entity in her own right and talked directly to her rather than ignore her as he had a habit of doing before. When they were in built up areas, Geralt still ignored Miette. Especially after he once brushed against her at an inn and they were forcibly thrown out as a result. The new rumour that witchers tried to steal daemons for their own was impossible to quash, no matter how hard Jaskier tried.

“Come to Kaer Morhen with me,” Geralt said one night. It was an offer that had Jaskier’s heart picking up in excitement and Miette clambered up Geralt’s trouser leg to settle around his shoulder, tail draped across his throat.

“It would be my honour.”

As winter approached, Jaskier got more and more excited. He was going to meet other witchers, spend the whole season with Geralt and see him relax with family. Even Geralt seemed more motivated than usual. Which was saying a lot because he was the master of hiding all emotions.But Jaskier couldn’t miss the slight bounce of energy in him as they got closer to the mountain range which Kaer Morhen was nestled in.

The climb was bitterly cold and fraught with danger. More than once Jaskier came close to giving up and curling up with Miette, falling to sleep, probably to never wake again. But Geralt’s urging and mutters about Roach kept them moving.

They were on the last leg of the climb, the old keep visible through the trees when Geralt let out a soft laugh. “Vesemir’s home.”

Looking up, Jaskier’s jaw dropped at the sight. There was an elephant by the western wall of the keep, spreading mortar over a large crack. On its back was a man, obviously relaxed.

“How the fuck did you get an elephant up here?” Jaskier asked but Geralt had picked up the pace and was all but jogging to the doors, flinging them open and rushing in. It was a burst of energy that Jaskier just couldn’t muster. And he must have been so exhausted he was hallucinating because the elephant was gone and the man he thought he was on its back was walking towards him with a wave.

Jaskier followed Geralt into the keep and came to a stop, almost choking on his next breath. There were cages on the floor of the entrance hall, three of them occupied by daemons and Geralt was prying one open with excitement clumsy hands.

“I know Roach, I know,” he was muttering and the cage door finally flew open. Instantly, the daemon in the cage was bursting out and rapidly shifting through forms, a wolf knocking Geralt flat on his back, a lioness nuzzling against his chest with a deep purr, a ferret excitedly disappearing down the neck of his shirt and making Geralt squirm until she popped out of his sleeve before shifting to a mouse and nesting in Geralt’s hair.

“What the fuck?” Jaskier whispered and Miette looked just as stunned.

“Welcome to Kaer Morhen,” Vesemir said from beside him, a lizard peering out from his breast pocket. “You obviously know Geralt and now you’ve seen Roach.”

The incredulous “that’s Roach?!” from Jaskier drew Geralt’s attention and he sat up, mouse turning into a cat to sprawl in his arms.

“Roach, meet Jaskier and Miette,” he said and the cat flicked her tail. “She’ll probably come greet you later on but,” Geralt trailed off. It was obvious though, he didn’t want to let go of Roach.

That evening, Jaskier learned a lot of things. Witchers did indeed have daemons but the trials stripped them of the ability to settle on one form. It was safer for them to remain at the keep than be out in the world. A lot of less than well-intentioned people would pay good money to get their hands on an unsettled daemon that could exist at great distances from its partner. Not to mention that having a witcher’s daemon meant ownership of a witcher which was disastrous.

“It also gives us the final boost to come home,” Geralt added, Roach hidden up his sleeve in ferret form. “If we had them with us, we would never make it up the pass.”

“Plus, we know who might return for winter and who might not. An empty cage means we won’t hope needlessly. Speaking of, Bleater’s been looking a little ragged,” Vesemir added. “Eskel’s got himself into trouble.”

Sure enough, when Jaskier walked through the entrance hall, one of the daemons looked rather sorry for herself. She was in wolf form, curled up and shivering. The cage door was enchanted so no matter how small a daemon, it couldn’t pass between the bars.

“Can’t we let her out? Maybe Miette and Roach could give her some comfort?” Jaskier begged.

“The first thing she’d do is take flight to find him. And then he’ll never make it home.” The reply from Geralt was less than pleasing and Jaskier sat by the cage, whispering encouragements to Bleater, trying to keep her spirits a little raised.

The cage next to her housed another wolf. This one threw herself at the door and raged to be let free. When Jaskier dared ask about her, Geralt simply shrugged.

“Lambert’s getting close.”

Sure enough, two days later a new witcher staggered through the doors. He smacked the cage door open and Jaskier bore witness to a wrestle between man and daemon that looked more like a fight than a greeting. Once they were done, the daemon shifted into a cat and swiped at Lambert’s hand.

“You’ll do, eh?” He said to the daemon before looking up at Jaskier. “I see Geralt’s brought home a stray.”

Not disheartened or offended by the exclamation, Jaskier smiled. “Jaskier. And this is Miette. You are?”

“Lambert,” came the reply. He looked at the cat and smirked. “You never did need a name, did you?”

The cat sank her teeth into Lambert’s hand, drawing blood and he laughed, giving her a fond cuff. “Bloody brat.”

Jaskier could only watch as man and cat wandered off but not before their gaze lingered on Bleater in her cage.

Things weren’t looking good for Eskel. Bleater, was on her side and panting by the next morning, looking lethargic and sickly. The witchers all looked grim as they passed her cage but they maintained there was nothing they could do. So Jaskier sat vigil with her, kept her company even though it went against every social etiquette. It was early afternoon when Bleater shivered and gasped on a breath, craning her neck to look Jaskier in the eye.

“Please,” she murmured, “save him.”

It wasn’t something Jaskier could truly refuse. He was up and out the door with Miette a moment later. Eskel had to be close, there was no way he could be too far away. As they got to the path they followed up, there was a low growl from behind them and Lambert’s daemon snarled at them.

“If you’re going to stop us, you might want to snap my neck now,” Jaskier snapped, irritated. He watched as the daemon sniffed the air, scenting it.

“He’s close. Follow me.” She was off and Jaskier had to rush after her, down a different path to the one they took. From behind them there was a thudding and panting, Roach in wolf form appeared too.

“What?” she scoffed. “I’m not suffering a winter with Lambert and his idiot mourning when there’s someone willing to do something about it. Plus-” if wolves could smile, she certainly was, “you get to take the blame for this. It’s not like Vesemir would make you suffer the whole winter.”

It took fifteen minutes of fast paced jogging down a path before the two wolf daemons stopped and sniffed. Whatever they could detect, Jaskier hoped it wasn’t death.

“There!” Miette dashed off through the snowy undergrowth. A little way off the path, there was a small clearing and in the middle of it was a collapsed man. Miette danced around him nervously, chittering to get Jaskier closer. While Roach didn’t touch Eskel, Lambert’s daemon seemed to have no such qualms. She turned into a scarred bear and hefted Eskel onto his back settling over him with a rumble.

“He’ll need to warm up before we can move him.”

It took a few minutes before fingers twitched and buried themselves in the thick fur as Eskel gasped a soft “You.”

“Of course it’s me, idiot,” she retorted.

Eskel looked around, dazed and flinched at the sight of Jaskier. However, Roach’s presence next to him and Miette on her back seemed to help him relax.

“Guess we’re your rescue party,” Jaskier said by way of introduction. “Just as well I don’t believe in leaving people to struggle alone.”

There was something in Eskel’s expression which he couldn’t read. Maybe even grief. “Li’l Bleater got snatched by a forktail. I tried to rescue her but ended up snapping my ankle instead. It’s mostly healed now but I couldn’t push on.”

Shame, that’s what Jaskier could see and he wasn’t prepared to have any of that. He offered Eskel a hand to pull him up and winced as how he still limped. The ankle wasn’t healed up by any of his definitions. His joke about the fact that if that was Eskel’s definition of better could be understood to mean that bones were poking out earlier fell flat. And Jaskier felt a little sick at realising that’s exactly what had happened.

Keeping her bear form, Lambert’s daemon let Eskel cling to her as they limped back towards the keep. It took the better part of two hours and by the time they were back, Vesemir, Geralt and Lambert were standing by the door, looking like a menacing and unimpressed welcome party. Even worse, Lambert scoffed and turned to head into the keep. Jaskier wanted to call after him and berate him however, a moment later, a blur was stumbling and rushing out of the keep. Bleater all but crashed into Eskel who had dropped to his knees to greet her, relief making his shoulders sag.

“Bleat,” he gasped, burying his face in her fur. “Thank you.”

At a more sedate pace, Lambert approached and waited his turn to greet Eskel. As he stood, his eyes met his daemon’s and they nodded at each other. No matter the price, they would have done it again. Lambert squeezed Jaskier’s shoulder as he helped Eskel hobble into the keep.

“I am so disappointed in you,” Geralt chided Roach. “But thank fuck you’re a stubborn mare.”

Vesemir’s quiet “thank you” was the one that took Jaskier off guard the most. He’d expected to be berated, to be thrown out. Instead, there was soft gratitude from all the witchers. And for the whole of winter, Miette had four eternally shifting snuggle buddies to lounge by a fire with. While Jaskier found himself accepted by the witchers, welcomed into their family and, even better, invited back for future winters.

#geraskier #minor eskel/lambert #geralt of rivia #jaskier #lambert #eskel #vesemir #daemon au #long post #tldr: witchers lock away their daemons for most of the year

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no-whump-on-main · 3 years

Text

Apartment 307-9 (Fingore)

TWs: This is a heavy chapter. Fingore, obviously. Nothing with the nails but fingers are broken pretty badly. Proceed with caution, you’re welcome to DM me for a summary instead of reading if gore isn’t your cup of tea :) Head wounds and death threats are also present.

The man made a mistake.

Two days after he showed Elora that awful news report, he made a mistake.

He’d cleared his pockets out earlier while looking for his pocket knife, leaving behind a pen, a keyring, a wallet, a pack of cigarettes, and some lint on the lid of the toilet. And when he left after slashing her shoulders for disobeying him, he forgot to put everything back. It all laid within her reach. And while most of it was junk, one thing was her saving grace. The keys. They were so close she could grab them. A small, silver key she’d seen before and knew unlocked the handcuffs around her wrists was visible on the ring.

It felt like it was a trap; it was just too easy. But something in her gut told her it wasn’t. Something told her that he genuinely just forgot. A simple mistake, yet one that was so crucial for her.

It was almost night time. He had gone to work for the day, spent a few hours with her, and cooked a meal. It was the end of his routine. He would go to bed soon. He’d fall asleep and she could simply grab the keys, get out of the handcuffs and leave. It felt surreal, unimaginable that it was just that simple. It had been nearly a week, and still, no one had come for her. Maybe she was just meant to save herself. And she would.

Waiting around for the lights in the apartment to dim, signifying that he had finally gone off to bed felt like eternity. Her heart was racing with anxiety as she sat there, feeling useless; what if he remembered, and she lost her chance? But it would be too dangerous to try to escape while he was awake. She’d only consider it as a last ditch effort, if all else went wrong. For now, she had to be safe. She had to wait.

After thirty minutes that felt much more like several hours, the lights were off. The small bit of light that streamed underneath the crack between the ground and the door disappeared. Elora waited even longer still, just to make sure that he was really asleep. Only after she had nearly fallen asleep herself with boredom did she carefully reach over to her side in the dark, feeling around for the keys the best she could in the darkness. The chain attached to her handcuffs was just barely long enough for her to reach the keyring. She sighed with relief when her fingers finally found the keys in the blackness, clutching them tightly before bringing them over into the bathtub with her. She had been able to make out the small handcuff key from the bit of light that came in through the gap earlier while the man was still awake and the lights were on, but now she couldn’t see a thing, and had to resort to feeling around for the smallest key. After painstakingly surveying them all, she felt it-a small key with a rounded top. What she had seen earlier. Maneuvering it into the lock with her hands bound was another hardship, but she grinned as she figured it out after a few tries, disbelief still clouding her mind. Wow. She was doing this.

She was hasty to turn the key, removing the handcuffs from her red, achy wrists. But in her rush, she dropped the keys as she wiggled her hand loose from the right cuff.

There was a loud CLANG! as they hit the metal plug of the tub, reverberating so loudly it sounded like a huge, ringing bell in the dead silent room. Elora’s heart began to pound all over again. She sat completely still for a moment, the hairs on the back of her neck standing up, petrified that she had woken the man up.

And her worst fear was confirmed as she heard stirring in the room down the hall. Shit! Abandoning all caution, she stood as fast as she could, climbed out of the bathtub, and dashed to the bathroom door. Agony lit up along her leg as several of the sloppy stitches in the large gash on her thigh split with the sudden movement. She suppressed a scream as she slapped a hand over her mouth and applied pressure to the wound with her other, costing valuable time. Just get out the door. You just have to get out of the door. She hurriedly swung open the bathroom door, running into the hallway.

She made it all but a step until a heavy figure slammed into her in the dark, tackling her to the ground. She hit the old carpet with a thud, groaning as she cried. What had been her only chance was completely foiled. She knew he’d never mess up like this again. “NO!” She shouted, wriggling desperately as she sobbed. “NO, GET OFF OF ME!” Her voice was shrill as she screamed.

“Oh, you bitch,” the man’s voice grumbled. All of the sudden, Elora felt a cold blade at her throat and she panicked, going limp in an instant.

The lights in the hallway turned on after his hand felt around the wall for the switch, revealing an enraged face she knew she’d have nightmares of for a long time staring down at her.

He was almost bright red, scowling as he held the knife to her throat.

“Do you want to die?” he asked, pressing the blade in just enough to form a small line of blood. Elora shook her head just slightly, her eyes wide as she was too scared even to speak.

“Then stay right here.”

The man eased off of her slowly, leaving her on the floor. For a moment, she considered getting up and continuing to run, but a second glare stifled that thought quickly. He had a knife. He had the upper hand. She laid on the floor, dejected, shaking in fear and anticipation of what was going to come next as the man stomped off into the living room. He was unpredictable when he was angry. All she knew was that pain would come.

She heard him rifling through one of the old boxes. He pulled something out-she could hear the displacement of the other items, clanking into each other-and then there was a click, more rifling, and another click. The noise stopped and his footsteps pounded back towards her.

A mallet rested in his hands. The wooden handle and metal head looked impossibly massive from where she laid on the ground. She knew what was happening the moment she saw it, yet still, she was in disbelief, denying the inevitable. She shook her head rapidly, sitting up, even scooting backwards until she hit the wall at the end of the hallway.

“Which hand did you grab them with?”

Elora looked up at him, her eyes watery and confused. Her voice was a tiny, crackled whisper when she replied. “What?”

“The keys. Which hand did you grab them with? Tell me or I’ll break them both.” His voice was firmer, rougher this time. She had a feeling that refusing to answer might end her up with her head smashed in rather than her fingers. And she’d grabbed the keys with her right, purely based on how she was positioned. Had the faucet she was chained to been on the opposite wall, it would’ve been her left. Her dominant hand, crushed to bits. It was a bit of mercy, perhaps, from the universe.

Still, she found it hard to answer. Her shoulders shook and she inhaled sharply twice before forcing the word right out, then dissolving into sobs.

The man was scarily unemotional, showing no anger, no fury towards her. He was the calmest she’d ever seen him, standing there with the mallet in his hands. He abandoned all his rage when he dug out the toolkit and retrieved the mallet from it.

“You stole the keys. I have to do this. You have to learn.”

In a way, it sounded more like he was rationalizing with himself rather than her, excusing his actions like he felt bad about them. Like he had to reassure himself. It was sickening.

And with that he descended upon her, shoving her down the wall with a heavy foot on her shoulder. She screamed as she slid down until her head was back on the carpet, and then he dropped, kneeling on her stomach with one leg to pin her down, the other balancing himself. A rough hand wrapped around her right wrist and pinned her hand flat to the ground while the other held the mallet high, above his head, and brought it down.

The first wave of pain was nauseating. There was a sharp cracking that worsened by the second before turning to a deep throb. She screamed until she was coughing and the man held the mallet above her, staring into her eyes. He paused, hesitating until she looked back at him. There was a spacey look in his eyes.

Then he brought it down on her fingers again, then up, then down, rapidly, again and again and again until Elora lost count. She was screaming so loudly her ears were ringing, thrashing and groaning as the pain intensified each time he hit her fingers. They were done for, wholly broken after the second hit, but the man just kept going. It was like he was entranced, no rhyme or reason to his actions other than pain. Any time she wiggled he simply increased the pressure on her torso until it was hard to breathe, deaf to her screams as he kept striking with the mallet.

He didn’t snap out of it until twenty or thirty strikes later when her screams died out and turned to choked, gasping inhales with each hit, which apparently was concerning enough for him to ease off of her chest and let the mallet drop to the floor. He exhaled heavily and wiped his hand across his forehead, genuinely extenuated from the effort.

Elora immediately gasped for air and curled onto her side, closing her eyes and clutching her right hand tightly to her chest. She wailed loudly, throbbing pain shooting through her hand, pulsating every second with no relief. she wasn’t looking at it, only focusing on protecting herself, but her hand was a sorry sight. The fragile bones of her fingers were pulverized practically to dust, and while he hadn’t been aiming for her hand, just the fingers, it still took quite a beating from slipped strikes, several bones cracked or fractured. Her fingers were bent in several unnatural directions, and had an almost flattened appearance, crushed beyond anything easily repairable. She refused to look, but the pain, the intense, throbbing agony, told her enough.

She opened her squeezed-shut eyes for a moment and saw the man stand up and dust himself off, leaving the mallet behind on the floor, just beside her. His back was to her, about to walk off, when she had a revelation.

It doesn’t have to be over yet.

She was still unchained. The front door was still right there. She had the upper hand.

And she’d be damned if she didn’t at least try to save herself while she still had a fighting chance.

She rolled over onto her back, seconding guessing herself for a moment before shaking the thought off. She grabbed the mallet with her good hand, sat herself up, then stood quietly behind him.

Then, she hit him as hard as she could in the back of the head.

He crumbled to the ground immediately, falling to his hands and knees as he groaned, shouting a few swears and rubbing futilely at the wound.

But Elora didn’t stay to watch him. She didn’t even see him fall as she turned and sprinted for the door, the mallet still in her hand.

She was doing it. She’d be free.

But something was odd. She didn’t hear footsteps chasing behind her. She only heard him get up. And as she reached the front door after dashing through the apartment, she heard laughing. Loud, throaty cackling.

She turned her head and saw the man standing there, staring at her, laughing. She turned back to the door, and she saw the reason for laughter.

Two padlocks held the door closed, one with a keyhole and the other with a numerical keypad. Additionally, across the middle was a huge bar she was far too weak to lift up, especially with one hand. No. No no no no nonononononono she was right here, she did it, she had to get out, she needed to get out now-

There was no getting out. He’d told her that, hadn’t he?

She screamed as the man started to walk forward, towards her. She pressed her back to the door, extended her good hand and tried to keep him back, but there was nowhere else to go.

He was still laughing. “You really fucked up, didn’t you?”

Her eyes were shut tightly in fear and defeat as he reached her, pried the mallet from her hand, and seized her by the neck before smashing her head into the wall until her body fell limply to the floor.

Tags: @exploringspaceinpyjamas @all-whumped-out

#apartment 307 #elora #elora larkin #clyde anderson #my writing #my ocs #oc writing #whump writing #physical whump #psychological whump #whump #lady whump #tw: fingore #whump fic #creepy whumper #whump blog

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sloppy-butcher · 4 years

Note

Can I request some fucking happiness like GODDAMN IM SO SAD

coming right up my friend. happiness in the form of cuddling with randomly selected killers and survivors to be listed below (sorry if it's short, I tried something different for this request) don’t be sad anyMORE <3

Seeking Comfort

The Doctor (Herman Carter)

He notices immediately when you slosh into his office after a long day of battling difficulties, shoulders hunched over, and demeanor sour, bringing with you a most depressing mood. He passes a cool eye over your shrinking form as you slowly make your way to the small bench that served as your designated station. Suddenly he calls you over, producing a sound somewhere between a cough and laugh, causing you to look up at him in confusion. Herman pushes back his laze boy from his work table, presenting his empty lap to you. Your questioning gaze flickers between the man and his offer and after only a few more encouraging nods, you crawl your way over to him. Never had he initiated affection like this, almost demanding you to be in his arms. He consumes you completely in his body, swallowing you up in his off-white lab coat and bare arms. The electrodes that protrude out his forearms would spark occasionally and tickle you until your face lightens and a smile somewhat returns. You knew it was secretly Herman himself sending you the fuzzy reminds of energy In between reading documents and writing down his new observations, Herman often places his head on top of yours, humming and kissing your hair as you drifted off to sleep.

The Hag (Lisa Sherwood)

Lisa tries her absolute damnedest to make you leave her realm with a smile on your face. Though she can't talk and her hugs are not the warmest and her lips aren’t the best for giving kisses, she displays her affection in other manners. She beckons you over to her crouched in the swamp. She takes your hand in hers and with the faintest and gentlest movements, barely even gracing your skin, uses her elongated claw to draw small symbols on your arm with the help of fresh, black mud. You tilt your head and ask her what they mean. She gives you her best smile, a stretched-out display of all her twisted and razor-sharp teeth, and places her unaltered hand over your heart. You can see her sway her head with the ticking of your heartbeat and you realize that it was a spell of protection and repair - or rather a spell for a sad heart. Lisa makes you spend the rest of your time together searching the swamp for fireflies, a rarity in her realm but a blessing none the less. She follows you around carrying with her a dirty glass jar and whenever you managed to catch a handful of the elusive bugs, she’d make you put them inside until the glass glowed a brilliant yellow hue. At the end of the evening, when the darkness that previously sat on your chest has alleviated slightly, Lisa offers you one last gift. She asks you to lean down to her comfortable height and then places her forehead to yours. You hear her breathing steady and become as sure as the sun will rise and the night will end and you know that everything will be alright when she is around.

The Deathslinger (Caleb Quinn)

“Drink up.” Caleb slides you a hefty glass practically overflowing with burning, brown liquid. “That’ll put all yer troubles in the ground for sure.” Wearily, you try to lift the glass to your lips and embrace the blissful effects of the strong alcohol but instead, your hand starts to shake and you get hit with another wave of perpetual exhaustion. The glass clatters to the bar table with a thud and the liquid splashes everywhere. You apologize profusely to the man as tears threaten to envelop your vision. Caleb sighs and moves around the table to your side. You feel his hand place itself gently on your back - a small gesture of comfort and one you clung onto for dear life. “Ay see it’s gonna take an even stronger type of liquor to fix that troubled heart of yours.” You hear him shuffle but could not bear to lift your eyes from the cover of your hands. Something tickles your right ear and suddenly you sense him begin to pepper kisses along your cheekbone. When Caleb notices that he has your attention, his kisses deepen and he starts making obnoxious smooching noises. You couldn’t help but smile and try to pull away from the mocking man, succumbing to his game and forgetting all your worries in the shine of his love. He continues his rampage of wrecking your face with wet, sloppy kisses until you were begging for him to stop. You were laughing, the tears from before having dried up. Caleb smiles, his damaged cheek hurting from the strain. But when he sees how you look at him with happiness returned in your face, he deems it all worth it.

Meg Thomas

Meg sighs and you feel her chest compress and her head lean down to your ear level, her arms sneaking to your sides where she found warmth and structure. Since the first second she saw that slight downwards twinge of your mouth, Meg had not left your side. Right now she had positioned herself to be sitting on the log directly behind you while together you sat facing the campfire. She had her legs on either side of you, effectively making a sort of make-shift barrier between you, her, and the rest of the shitty world. You relax into her, allowing your head to fall back and land safely on her left chest. She retrieves one hand and delicately brushes hair out of your eyes. She was so kind and understanding, caring like a mother and passionate like an athlete. She was persistent even as the wall crumbled inwards and started to bury you in an impossible rumble, she was quickly there to offer you her hand. “It’s difficult.” Meg mumbles so quietly it was more directed towards herself than to anyone else. “It’s like an uphill battle and sometimes it feels like your legs are going to break and you’re not going to make it up.” You feel her hands start to shiver and you go to grasp them in your own. She stops and squeezes you, holding on like a falling child would a tree branch. “But we must keep trying.” You open your eyes again to see her lovingly looking down at you - she was so angelic bathed in the golden firelight. She lowers her face and gives your nose a quick peck. She smells like roses and fresh body wash. Meg smiles and you were infected with her hopefulness, blooming in your chest in the forms of happiness and love.

Ashley J. Williams

“What's up, doll-face?” Ash asks as he slides into the seat next to yours. You hurriedly suck back a cry and turn your head away from him, trying and failing to hide your miserable expression. He waits a moment, eyes dancing up and down your shivering body before he exhales audibly. “Rough day, huh?” His comment was rhetorical - it was obvious that you were upset. He runs a hand through his graying hair. He pauses and thinks for a second, a task that he never normally is one to partake in. He goes to speak but stops - no that sounds stupid. Well, what about - no that's insensitive. Again and again, his brain produced and sabotaged all possibilities he had to try and make you feel better. He just wanted to make you stop crying. Ash is very unpracticed in the field of comfort. Yet seeing you so broken, so unlike how wonderful and lively you usually were, pained him more than the awkwardness did. He contemplates another option hen suddenly he feels a small tug at his shirt. Looking over he sees you pleading for him to take you in. His heart jitters slightly but does not stop him from shuffling closer to you and offering you his arm. You grateful wrap yourself around him and soon stuff your nose into his side. Ash’s metal hand rubs smalls circles on your back and you wonder why he was not always this hug-able. “Don’t get too comfortable, kid. This is a once-off thing.” Though your heart ached from problems unimaginable, his simple abruptness tinged with undertones of sympathy, was enough of a rude-awakening to remind you that you were alive and that you always had him.

#sorry if these are bad #i tried lmao #dbd imagine #dbd x reader #dbd the doctor x reader #dbd herman carter x reader #dbd the hag x reader #dbd lisa sherwood x reader #dbd the deathslinger x reader #dbd caleb quinn x reader #dbd meg thomas x reader #dbd ash j williams x reader

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quillandink333 · 3 years

Text

King of Flowers

Ryuunosuke Naruhodou × Reader

SPOILERS FOR THE GREAT ACE ATTORNEY CHRONICLES ~ Read ahead at your own risk!

Rating: T

Word Count: 1.2k

WARNINGS: partial nudity, needles

Summary: {Fn} makes use of her expertise in the traditional art of tattooing to commemorate Ryuunosuke’s valiant exploits overseas.

Masterlist

Key: {Fn} – reader’s first name, {Ln} – reader’s last name

Back in his student days, Ryuunosuke would never have dared to imagine himself getting a tattoo, ever, in his life. Until recently, he’d always been the type of person to do what his parents asked of him without question and to try his best not to stand out too much. And yet here he was now, not quite two years since returning to his homeland, requesting one from the tebori artist he’d met and fallen for not long after his return.

“You’re sure you don’t want something a little more traditional?” she asked, her book of classic designs open in her lap. “I’ve done full-body tattoos before, you know. It wouldn’t be any trouble at all.”

“No, no, it’s not that!” he stuttered. “Really, I promise I have complete faith in your skill.” His hand meandered to the back of his neck as he spoke. “I’m just a bit…concerned about what people would think if they saw it. I mean, what if I’m mistaken for yakuza?”

“Ah, I see… Well, in that case, you have nothing to worry about because with a face like yours, that’s never going to happen.” She sniggered under her breath as he held back a sarcastic comeback about how, yes, she was oh so intimidating, unlike him. “I’ll still keep it confined to, say, your upper back, though, if you’d prefer.”

He heaved a sigh of relief. “I would, honestly.”

The circumstances surrounding his and {Fn}’s first meeting had regrettably not been the most pleasant. She had been a client of his, framed for a particularly grizzly crime by one of her own former ‘patrons,’ a renowned and fearsome member of one of Japan’s most powerful crime syndicates. Thankfully, with the skill and resolve that he’d developed thanks to his time in Great Britain, Ryuunosuke had been able to clear her name irrevocably and expose the true culprit for what he was.

Ever since then, he’d spent a great portion of his spare time getting to know her, as well as relaying to her stories of his own adventures on the other side of the world. He was a tad ashamed to admit it, but the way she would soak up his every word with the most profound respect and admiration provided a wonderful boost for his confidence. That wasn’t what drew him to her, though, to be sure. Rather, it was her own tales of her life as a practitioner of tebori in an age when the art was shunned by the very society that had brought it into existence. In truth, he’d thought it reckless of her to be so upfront with him, a lawyer, about her less-than-lawful livelihood. He’d had the power to completely uproot her right then and there, but something had compelled him not to. Looking back, it had most certainly been her defiant attitude and dedication to her craft. These qualities reminded him of a dear friend of his and were truly the two things he loved most about her now.

“Ite-te-te—!”

He’d told himself he wouldn’t flinch, but the way she’d kept him in suspense before making her first jab into his flesh had made it virtually impossible. The pain wasn’t quite as unimaginably sharp as he’d expected, but it was by no means easy to ignore.

“Sorry,” she winced, perched squarely atop his upturned bum. “Just think about something else if you can.” Her empty hand flattened against the exposed skin of his back. “And try to relax.”

He took a deep breath and did his best to let himself sink into the mat beneath him. “Okay…”

Day one was by far the most excruciating. She first had to get the line work out of the way, which involved an extremely fine-tipped needle that did little to disperse the pain out from its single point of entry. Once she’d moved onto using more densely clustered needles, though, the rest was far less distressful. Or at least, it would have been if she didn’t keep going back and adding more detail to the outline countless times after she said she’d completed it. And the same went for the colouring and shading phases. Each time she said she was finished, he would return home the next day to his beloved with her ink and styluses all laid out and ready on the floor of their living room. On top of all that, as she went, the design seemed to stray further and further from his shoulder blade, extending down toward his lower back. Not to mention, she wouldn’t even let him see it until she was happy with it. There was no denying that her seeming to be making it up as she went was somewhat worrying, to say the least.

But despite that, as well as all his neglected paperwork that needed doing, he didn’t mind. For one, it gave him an excuse to procrastinate. But another thing was that, in contrast to what he’d gone into it thinking it would be, the experience was oddly relaxing. In fact, there was an unmistakable intimacy surrounding the whole process, and he supposed that in large part, it was because of her. He couldn’t help but admire the care and tenderness she put into each and every thrust, and something about the way she placed her non-dominant hand on his bare back to steady her nomi was markedly soothing. He’d even caught himself dosing off every now and then.

When the day came that she announced to him her work was done—this time for certain—the better part of a month had gone by. This came as a surprise to him. It hadn’t felt nearly quite so long as that.

What he saw in the mirror that day was like nothing he’d ever imagined. Initially he’d been picturing something small and simple, but this…was ten thousand times better. It depicted a black and cyan dragon whose length flowed from the right hand side of his lower back all the way up to the back of his right shoulder, weaving its way between an array of noble blossoms bursting forth in fiery hues.

“They’re peonies.” He looked at her through the mirror as she stood behind him. “It’s quite a popular subject in irezumi actually. They symbolise a brave and honourable spirit, as well as a devil-may-care sort of attitude.”

He raised his brows at his reflection. “I do like the sound of that,” he mused, drawing a laugh out of her as he struck a strong, heroic pose. A flicker of warmth danced in his cheeks. “I suppose the dragon stands for the first character of ‘Ryuunosuke,’ then?”

“Yes, well…that, and I just thought it would suit you, really,” she grinned, her own cheeks taking on a slight rouge. “Do you like it…?”

“‘Like it?’” He turned to face her. “{Fn}, are you kidding? It’s—” He stopped, having run out of words to say. “I-I can’t possibly tell you how pleased I am by way of speech.”

A glowing smile spread throughout her face: the one that never failed to make his heart soar. “Then kiss me.”

And kiss her he did.

#my writing #fanfic #dgs spoilers #dgs2 spoilers #tgaa spoilers #tgaa2 spoilers #dai gyakuten saiban #dgs #the great ace attorney #tgaa #ryunosuke naruhodo #naruhodou ryuunosuke #ryunosuke naruhodo x reader #naruhodou ryuunosuke x reader #fem!reader #tattoo artist!reader

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imagines-by-rose · 4 years

Text

New Recruit - FINAL

Hello, lovelies! I’ve decided to go ahead and post the last of the fic as one big finale rather than break it into small chapters. Thank you all so much for reading!

Summary: Y/n is brought into Kingsman as Lancelot after the events leading to Roxy’s death, and Eggsy is furious. As the two work together to stop a notorious jewel thief, however, attitudes change - and feelings develop.

Pairing: Eggsy Unwin x Reader

Genre: Angst w/ a Happy Ending, Hurt/Comfort

Warnings: Near Death Experience, Cursing, Blood

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

An ‘out of body experience’ wasn’t exactly how y/n would’ve described it.

She was very much in her body, but it wasn’t hers. The now foreign limbs felt unimaginably long as her consciousness nestled itself fully behind her eyes; two enormous windows that cut through the darkness, showing her an unknown, yet vaguely familiar world. She looked on passively -- curiosity her only motivation, if one could even call it that.

He was crying, she noticed, his trembling hands firmly pressed against a wound that was now miles away.

It all seemed so strange to her. She felt nothing; her pain long forgotten. Why was he still trying to staunch the bleeding? Didn’t he know it wasn’t her anymore?

How odd.

Indifferent, she continued to watch him attempt to fix the empty body. Sometimes, if she focused, she could even hear his pleads echo in the fog around her.

“Please, y/n! I love you. Please don’t leave me--”

She almost pitied him. He looked so...sad, wasting his time on someone who didn’t even exist anymore.

It was only when those windows began to close that she truly remembered fear. She may not have felt any attachment to the world in view, but she dreaded the boredom that she knew would surely come with oblivion.

She let out a silent scream -- for a moment she thought she heard him scream with her -- as the waning light was finally snuffed out, leaving her in darkness.

* * * * * *

Eggsy could only watch helplessly as her eyes closed, her body now completely limp.

He cried out in horror, his instincts letting him do little else.

“NO! No, no no no! I can’t lose you, too! Stay with me. Open your eyes, y/n, come on! Please. Please!”

Her wound continued to weep blood, mocking his attempts to slow it.

“Merlin! Where the fuck is the damn evac team?!”

“They’re going as fast as they can, Eggsy! They’re nearly there, just a few more seconds!”

“She hasn’t fucking got seconds!” he bellowed. “I need them here NOW!”

His whole body was shaking. It was all he could do to apply more pressure to her chest. He felt useless.

“Please, baby” he begged, “don’t you fucking die on me. You can’t leave me like this, love. I need you here. I need you.”

Just then the doors burst open, a rush of Kingsman medics racing toward them.

Eggsy sobbed in relief.

* * * * * *

The first thing she saw was the clock.

She had no idea how long she’d been staring at it, her consciousness coming in waves. She could’ve sworn the minute hand sat by the three, but now it was hovering near eleven.

Where am I?

As her awareness grew, her eyes traveled around the room. Fluorescent lights were embedded in the tiled ceiling, and she noticed a track that carried a thin blue curtain. There was a window to her right -- is it nighttime? -- and a doorway to her left. Various medical instruments stood everywhere, a faint electric ring sounding every few seconds.

A hospital. So I’m alive, then.

She continued taking in her surroundings when she noticed a light pressure on the bed. She looked for the source, her eyes landing on Eggsy. He was sat in a chair, his head resting on her bedside as he slept. He held her hand so close that his soft breaths landed on her knuckles and his stubble just brushed against her fingers. He must not have shaved in a week, at least.

Still in a daze herself, y/n watched him sleep, admiring how peaceful he looked.

It occurred to her, then, why she was there in the first place. She had been shot, and Eggsy had been the one to save her. With guilt she remembered his desperate cries as he did everything he could to keep her awake. She could see now how worn his features were despite his relaxed state.

He must have been through hell.

Pain shot through her and she sucked in a choked breath, her senses fully returning. Eggsy’s sleep must not have been as deep as it appeared, as he was immediately upright and fawning over her with concern.

“Y/n? You’re awake. What can I do? How can I help?”

She tried to sit up. A pained cry left her as her ribcage screamed in protest. Eggsy’s hand came to rest on her shoulder, preventing her from moving any further.

“Woah, hey, easy now” he cooed. “Don’t try to move too much, yeah? That’s what the bed’s for, love.”

Strong arms carefully held her as if she were glass. Eggsy propped cushions behind her, hoping to make her as comfortable as possible while the bed readjusted to a more upright position.

“That better?” he asked after easing her back onto the pillows. He tucked a strand of hair behind her ear.

Y/n nodded, her movements strained.

“T-thank…you” she managed through harsh breaths.

I feel like I haven’t spoken in days. How long have I been here?

“I’ll call the nurse. They can give you something for the pain.” He pressed a chaste kiss to her cheek. “I’ll be right back, y/n.”

Y/n tried to take even breaths, focusing on moving as little as possible. It wasn’t long before Eggsy returned, followed by a woman in a white coat. Y/n didn’t miss the Kingsman insignia on her clipboard.

“I've brought the doctor, love” Eggsy said, taking her hand. “You’ll feel better in no time. Promise.”

The doctor spoke in a kind voice. “Hello, y/n. I’m Dr. O’Malley. Glad to see you’ve finally woken up, Eggsy here hasn’t left your side at all these past ten days, you know. Maybe now you can help me get him off my nurses’ backs, hm?” she laughed good naturedly.

Y/n managed a smile, but she was sure it looked more like a grimace.

Ten days? I’ve been here for ten days?

No wonder she felt so weak.

Dr. O’Malley put something in y/n’s IV drip -- has that been in my hand this whole time? -- and the pain was almost immediately overtaken by a soothing warmth.

“There. That should feel better.”

Y/n sighed in relief, her body relaxing. “Much. Thank you.”

“This medicine can cause fatigue, so don’t be alarmed if you begin to feel groggy. I’ll give you a while to adjust, and then I’ll be back to run a few quick tests to see how you’re improving. Sound good?”

Y/n nodded.

“Great. Call if you need anything, you two.”

The room was quiet when she left. Eggsy was rubbing gentle circles into y/n’s palm. His eyes were somber and he looked like he wanted to speak, but his mouth kept closing as if he couldn’t.

“Eggsy?”

He took in a shaky breath. “Y’know…you gave me a real scare, love. I don't want to think of what could've happened, if-- "

Eggsy’s voice cracked. His lips pulled into a tight line, brows furrowed.

Y/n brought her free hand to his face, prompting red-rimmed eyes to meet hers. He looked miserable.

“Oh, Eggsy…”

She pulled him into her, guiding his head to the crook of her neck and rubbing soothing circles on his back. He was careful of her injuries, even then, making sure not to put too much weight against her. She held him while he processed everything that had happened.

Y/n kissed his head. “Eggsy, you’ve been through so much. I don’t even know how to thank you.”

He sat up, y/n’s hand affectionately following to wipe his tears. He put his hand over hers. “You don’t have to thank me, love. You went through the worst of it, anyway. I’d do it all again if I had to.” He turned to kiss her palm, his lips lingering over the soft skin. His eyes closed in relief.

She’s awake. She’s okay.

He threw her a sideways glance. “That doesn’t mean you have permission to get shot again, you know,” he teased.

Y/n chuckled. “I won’t make a habit of it, I promise.” Her expression grew dark as the severity of what happened settled in. She felt her own eyes well with tears. “But I’m serious, Eggsy. I’m sorry you had to go through that. I remember everything. You were so upset.” She sniffed. “I just-- I wish I could’ve-- ”

“I was upset because I love you.”

Her eyes widened.

“…what?”

Eggsy’s gaze never faltered and he threaded his fingers with hers. “I love you, y/n.” He quirked a brow. “Didn’t you hear me in the museum? And here I thought you remembered everything.” He faked offense, pulling their entwined hands to his chest and closing his eyes, drawing a tearful laugh from y/n. “I confessed my heart to her and she doesn’t even remember. I knew she was a wicked woman!” he shook his head.

“Oh, shove it. I love you, too, cheeky. And I already told you, I’m lovely, so don’t you start that nonsense again.”

He leaned forward, grinning. “You’re wonderful, love.”

They shared a tender kiss, Eggsy’s free hand lightly caressing y/n’s cheek as he rubbed her tears away. Y/n rested her head on his shoulder when they reluctantly parted, exhaustion beginning to overtake her.

“‘M Sorry. Guess those miracle drugs are finally kicking in, huh?”

She felt his chuckle resound in his chest. “S’alright, sweetheart. You should get some rest.”

Her head tilted up towards him. “And what about you? Dr. O’Malley said you’d been here ten days. You need to take better care of yourself, Eggsy. Have you eaten? Tell me you haven’t slept in that chair every night.”

He pressed a quick kiss to her nose.

The woman’s been shot and she’s worried about me. What am I gonna do with her?

Eggsy laughed, peppering y/n’s face with kisses while he spoke. “I have eaten. Merlin made sure of that. He says hi, by the way. And you win -- I won’t tell you that I’ve slept in the chair every night,” he smirked.

Y/n sighed, exasperated. “Baby, no, that’s not fair,” y/n tutted in protest, but the grogginess in her voice did little to make her sound commanding. Eggsy helped her lie back while he readjusted the bed. She squeezed his hand with what little strength she had left. “Don’t sleep in the chair again, s’not good for you. This bed is big enough, you should come up ‘ere with me. I’ll scoot over.”

Eggsy laughed. “Don’t you worry about me. I’m messing with you, love. They have cots here so I’ll be just fine. You caught me nappin’ is all. I can rest easy now that you’ve woken up.”

Y/n closed her eyes, her voice growing faint. She sighed into Eggsy’s touch as he softly brushed his fingers through her hair. “M’kay. Promise me you’ll eat something. And tell Merlin hi.”

“I promise, sweetheart. And I will.”

Eggsy brought his lips to her forehead. His smile was the last thing y/n felt before drifting off to a restful sleep.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

A/N: That’s it! I had a lot of fun writing this, and I really appreciate all of you who’ve read/liked/reblogged my posts! It really means a lot. I plan to keep writing and have a few imagines in mind, and who knows? Maybe I’ll start taking requests soon ;)

‘Til next time!

#eggsy unwin #eggsy imagine #eggsy unwin x reader #taron egerton #Kingsman #kingsman imagine #merlin #Galahad #lancelot #percival #kingsman secret service #kingsman golden circle

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scullydubois · 4 years

Text

Only the Light Ch. 13

As Scully copes with her diagnosis, Mulder joins her for the Scully family Christmas dinner. Plus, Melissa's girlfriend meets the family.

TW for disordered eating, cigarette smoking, references to abduction/medical rape.

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

Self destruction is a natural impulse for Dana Scully, though she’ll try to deny it. Take one unexplained abduction, add a dash of premature menopause, and sift out time spent proving Mulder wrong, and you’ll get a struggling Scully.

She can tell she’s entering a bad mental state when food becomes a suggestion rather than a necessity. Every bite is either earned according to whatever trivial rules she’s set for herself in that particular moment, or is not deserved and therefore not eaten. It’s a game where she’s the coach, player, and referee, yet she still loses every time. Nourishment is both prize and punishment, feeding her hunger but vacating her control.

This habit started when she was a teenager and wracked with feelings her petite frame couldn’t contain. It felt much safer than the route her siblings had taken of sneaking out in the middle of the night or using fake IDs to buy alcohol or skipping church on the regular. As far as fifteen-year-old her was concerned, she wasn’t bothering anyone by foregoing some meals. Her mother disagreed and called her out every time, humiliating her into her second coping mechanism, smoking.

There were the times when Scully was really young and enticed by her sister’s cigarettes, but that was simple preteen rebellion. What developed when Dana was seventeen was something different entirely. A survival mechanism with poison inside, snuffing herself out while keeping her alive and sane. She would walk to the gas station and buy packs of Marlboros with coins from her piggy bank. The laws were lax in the 80s, the prices too. She would blow rings of smoke while walking home, then hide the pack in her bra and swish some mouthwash. She’d repeat the process to and from school, steadily acquiring a nasty nicotine habit. It continued until the summer before college, when she made herself go cold turkey so as not to take the habit with her. As far as she knows, neither her parents nor any of her siblings ever knew about it.

It resurfaces in times of stress, though normally for no more than a single pack. Lately she’s accustomed to keeping a pack and a lighter with her at all times. Her building is smoke free so she steps outside, but her car is off limits because she doesn’t want the smell to cling to her. It is a hassle, but then again, so are most things.

Missy knows about the poor eating habits--those are hard to hide from someone who shares the same space as you. Nevermind the fact that the scale shows six less pounds than before, and that adds up when the number’s not that large to begin with. Scully’s edges protrude now...that can’t be hidden.

Missy never says a word. She remembers Dana complaining about their mother’s condescending comments about her weight, and she knows the damage that does to a young psyche. Instead, she offers. Healthy meals, guilty pleasure meals, all her sister’s favorites. She cooks more than she ever has before, well aware that her sister will struggle to refuse her.

“I recognize what you’re doing,” Missy told her sister when she tried to turn away a caesar salad, of all things. “I’ve been known to do that too,” Missy admitted. “Eat. You’re hungry, you just think not eating will give you some form of control over your body, or your life...but wasting yourself away is letting the bastards win.”

And so she did, that time at least. Scully has enough shame regarding her habit to push it aside whenever confronted---that’s how she insists to herself that it’s not an eating disorder. She can stop on command. That makes it okay, right?

Getting back into the office helped her a lot---you can’t starve yourself and function as an FBI agent. Besides, she would dissolve into thin air if Mulder figured out what she was doing. He was the one who batted around the idea of Scully helping prep each case and supervising any tests he might need the crime lab to do while he’s in the field. He understood that in lieu of therapy, she needed something to take her out of her own mind.

It was as much for him as it was her; at this point, it’s almost incomprehensible to him that the X-Files had existed before her. Of course he was the laughingstock of the FBI! He had huddled in the basement by himself with UFOs and blurry Bigfoot sightings pinned on the wall like a shrine to his own delusion.

Her fall from grace was his absolution. He’ll make an angel of her, somehow. Even if it means he has to meet the devil.

Scully has no interest in becoming an angel, though she’d sure like to avoid hell, and that hasn’t worked out too well. Locker room jokes are one thing. Underestimation another. But assault? Rape? Trauma and torture because she is who she is doing what she does? She is not a quitter, and that is killing her.

Her barrenness haunts her because it was bestowed upon her as punishment, an implication that she only has worth as a walking womb. She wants to be seen as a person, not a pawn.

The arrival of the holiday season is another weight on her shoulders. It used to be Scully’s favorite time of year; now the sight of carolers makes her want to poke her eyes out. It’s the first Christmas without her father, and that is simply unimaginable. Her and Missy spent a quiet Thanksgiving with their mother---small portions and whispered thanks--in preparation for an elaborate family Christmas. Bill Jr. and Tara are flying in from California for the annual Christmas dinner and midnight mass. They will all try to move forward, pretend it’s just like any other year, but it’s not and it never will be again. Happy Christmases are over for the Scully family.

And yet, they will try to enjoy the moment. Missy told her mom that she’s bringing a friend, which is completely true. Trinity is her closest friend that she doesn’t share blood with. That said, she plans to use the occasion to introduce Trinity as her girlfriend, come what may.

Then there was the suggestion that their mother made, which caught her youngest daughter completely off guard. “Why don’t you bring Fox?” Margaret Scully proposed demurely during their weekly phone call. “I’m making a zoo’s worth of food, I could use another mouth to feed. I hate to see any of it go to waste.”

“Mulder’s spending Christmas with his family, I’m sure,” Scully had replied. “But I’ll pass along the offer.”

That was how Scully learned that Mulder’s family isn’t much for celebration, that he usually spends the holiday flipping between It’s A Wonderful Life and the 24 hour marathon of A Christmas Story, and that he has a particular fascination with the idea of midnight mass.

“I just don’t get it,” Mulder mused. “You believe that a jolly old man with flying reindeer leaves presents in your house, but you think he waits until after you’ve gotten home from celebrating Baby Jesus’ birthday? Didn’t you ever look for his sleigh in the sky on the drive home?”

“No, Mulder,” Scully sighed. “I just believed that he knew when we were tucked in bed. Santa’s all-seeing, you know,” she teased.

Mulder chuckled. “Kind of presumptuous to assume he functions on your schedule, huh?”

Ultimately, Mulder said yes. He figured attending the Catholic equivalent of Jesus’ birthday party would be another check off his supernatural bucket list, though he did not say this part out loud for fear of Dana Scully’s wrath. Besides, what else was he gonna do on Christmas Eve? Shake the shoebox of junk he stuck under his mini-basketball hoop so he felt like he was getting a gift?

And so the fateful day arrives. Mulder flips his Garfield page-a-day calendar to December 24th, chuckles at the comic strip of the orange cat eating all his owner’s Christmas cookies, and makes his way to his partner’s increasingly familiar doorstep. The sun has already slipped behind the trees by the time he arrives. It gives up easily in the winter.

He rings the bell and hears Scully’s dainty footsteps on the other side. She’s snuck up on him enough times for him to have developed a keen sense of her light footing--no more jump scares for him.

“Hey Scully,” he stammers as she opens the door. She had told him to look “festive,” so he donned his nicest green sweater (a gift from his mom from J. Crew...he had never worn it) and slacks. Scully rounds out their show of holiday spirit with a velvet red blouse and black trousers.

“You look lovely,” Mulder says reflexively, unsure when he started using such a word. Scully pulls at her shirt, obscuring the bit of cleavage that has revealed itself. “Thanks Mulder,” she mutters, ushering him inside.

He holds up the shiny silver gift bag he hastily stuffed with tissue paper. “Some candy canes I picked up at the gas station. I figured the whole family could enjoy them.”

Scully nods, amused by his feeble attempt at gifting. “I’m sure they won’t go to waste.”

A fire crackles in the fireplace. It’s so hot in the apartment that Mulder is surprised it hasn’t melted the snow outside on the sidewalk.

“Where’s Melissa?” he asks, hoping they will hit the road sooner than later.

“She’s picking up her girlfriend from the airport. She couldn’t get an earlier flight.”

“Dulles?” He sure hopes not. It’s all the way across town.

“No, Reagan.”

Whew. Much closer.

“She should be back any minute now,” Scully continues. “Trinity’s flight got in at 3:30.”

Mulder rolls his sleeves up. “So your family doesn’t know about Trinity?”

Scully shakes her head.

“Do they know that Melissa’s…” He gestures, unsure which word to fill the space with.

“Bi? No.”

“So she shows up with Trinity, and then what?”

Scully shrugs. “She introduces her as her girlfriend. Mom already knows Missy is bringing a guest so she’ll have a plate for her.”

“You’re not worried about how the family’s gonna react?”

“Well, I’m sure Bill is gonna be a dick about it, but that’s normal. We only see him once a year, so it doesn’t really matter.”

“Bill’s your brother?”

“Uh-huh. And Tara is his wife. They got married about a year and a half ago.”

Even as he pushes into his thirties, it still surprises Mulder that anyone close to his age could be married. He doesn’t even sleep in a bed.

“You think your mom’s gonna be cool with Trinity?” he asks.

“I think she loves her daughter enough to be.”

“Mmm.” Mulder sticks his hands in his pockets. If only he had dilemmas like this. He imagines him and Samantha speculating about their mother’s reaction to Sam’s nose piercing or dyed hair or...anything really. He would give so much to have someone to laugh about his uncle’s sideburns with.

His emotional deep-dive is promptly cut off by the entrance of Melissa and a brunette woman whose bangs graze her eyebrows, her hair falling just below her shoulder. “Hi!” she chirps, taking in the magnificence of Dana Scully. “Dana, I presume?”

Scully nods.

“May I hug you?” Trinity asks, hazel eyes shining.

“Sure,” Scully says, feeling the brisk air against Trinity’s coat as she’s pulled in.

Scully lets go first, and Trinity takes that as a cue to pull away. “You look just like Mel, wow,” she remarks, fighting the urge to run her fingers through Scully’s hair.

Scully smiles softly. “I’ll take that as a compliment.”

“Oh, it is,” Trinity assures, exchanging a gooey gaze with Missy. Next, her attention falls upon Mulder, who does an awkward half-wave. “Hello!” She points between Mulder and Scully. “Boyfriend?”

Mulder chokes. Scully picks up his slack--”Oh, no. This is Fox Mulder, my partner at the FBI.”

“Ahh,” Trinity smiles knowingly. “Yes, I’ve heard about you. I didn’t know you would be joining us for Christmas.”

“Christmas is not exactly my family’s cup of tea, so I figured I’d get an authentic experience with the Scullys.”

“Same! I’m looking forward to Mama Scully’s ginger snaps. I’ve heard fantastic things about them.”

Mulder elbows his partner playfully. “Damn, Scully! How could you leave me in the dark about ginger snaps?”

Scully rolls her eyes but smiles. “I apologize, Mulder. Though for the record, the fruitcake is better.”

“Says no one, ever,” Mulder teases.

She grins. Now this is Christmas.

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

Taking a seat at Margaret Scully’s dinner table feels like existing inside a Christmas movie, in Mulder’s mind. Fancy china, green and red serving platters, paper mache snowflakes hanging from the ceiling, and a porcelain nativity scene; the dining room has it all. Not to mention the heaping piles of food there for the taking...if this is Christmas, Mulder wants in every year.

Scully does not share his cinematic fantasy. She knows better, having actually attended one of her family’s dinners before. Bill will get too drunk and start saying whatever comes to mind, their mother will laugh along like he’s still a five year old babbling about nothing (as opposed to the thirty-something spewing bullshit that he actually is), Missy will attempt to debate him to get him to shut up (which never works), and she will sit there and wish to be somewhere, anywhere else. And all without their father to hold the reins and keep a fight from breaking out.

The night has gone smoothly enough, Scully supposes. Missy introduced Trinity as her girlfriend in a very non-ceremonial way, forcing Bill and their mother to nod and accept it, in the moment at least. Mulder received a hug from Margaret and a pat on the shoulder from Bill, so pretty much the highest token of approval. Mulder’s candy canes earned a place in the center of the dessert table, which gave him way more satisfaction than it should have, and he couldn’t help but feel that if they were to vote on favorite man at the party, he would win. A room with Bill Jr. in it is probably the only place he would ever earn this honor, and he’ll take that.

Yet everything unwinds as Scully suspected. Bill waits until everyone has packed plates and full mouths to unleash his particular hyperfixation for the night.

“Trinity?” he questions, raising his fork diagonal across the table toward her. “Is that your name?”

Trinity smiles and nods, oblivious to what she’s in for.

“And you know Melissa how…?”

She pats a napkin to her mouth. “We worked at the same restaurant in Oregon.”

He chuckles gruffly. “What was it, one of those gay bar things?”

“No, an Italian bistro,” Trinity continues calmly.

Missy, however, is not so calm. “Gay people can go places other than gay bars,” she retorts. “We’re not segregated. Though I’m sure you’d like that, wouldn’t you?”

Bill sets a fist on the table, clanging his silverware. “Yeah, that’s what I said. Why the hell do you insist on being so politically correct all the time? I’d shoot myself.”

“Gee, maybe you should try it sometime.”

“Now Melissa…” Margaret Scully’s voice rises above the clamor.

“I have the right to defend my girlfriend and I against Bill’s thinly disguised homophobia,” Missy responds.

“You act like I give a damn what you and your friend do,” Bill sneers. “That’s not my business.”

“Then stop pretending like it is.”

“Oh boo-hoo, little Missy thinks the world revolves around her.”

“Bill, honey, I think that’s enough,” Tara says, laying a protective hand on his arm.

“You’re right.” He raises his can of beer toward Mulder. “Whaddya doin here, hot shot? Trying to seduce my sister?”

Scully frowns, but doesn’t say anything, pushing food around on her plate.

Mulder seems rather unbothered by Bill’s advances. He chuckles. “Actually, I think it’s the other way around.”

Bill snorts. “That’s a likely story.”

“You don’t think I’m worth your sister’s time?”

“I don’t think Dana thinks you're worth her time. You’re not her type.”

“I am sitting right here, you know,” Scully says, staring daggers at her brother.

“Then tell us Dana! Is hot shot here your type?”

Her eyes brush Mulder’s face. His cheeks flush, reddening like a stormy sunset. She wishes she could read his mind. The safe answer and the true answer are not often the same. “I think Mulder is a wonderful man. I’m very lucky to know him,” she answers stiffly, her annoyance aimed at Bill.

“Oh, the old run-around!” Bill scraps his fork against his plate. ”Typical.”

Scully grabs her now empty canned cocktail and sulks into the kitchen, leaving her chair pushed away from the table. Everyone watches her go, but Bill gives off the only visible reaction. He laughs. “Scared her away. Thought it would take more.”

Mulder and Melissa exchange a glance. She nods, granting him permission to play knight-in-shining-armor. Quietly, Mulder slips out of his chair and pushes it back into place. He catches the kitchen door as it swings closed behind his partner.

Her anger concealed from the rest of the family, Scully drops her can in the recycling bin with a bang. She ignores Mulder, instead opening the refrigerator and pulling out another cocktail, saying nothing.

“What is this, your fifth drink?” Mulder brushes his hand over her shoulder, and she recoils. “Leave me alone, Mulder.” She slams the fridge and tries to turn around, but he’s cornered her.

“C’mon Scully, Bill’s harmless. He doesn’t bother me.”

“It’s not fucking about Bill,” she fumes, alcohol fizzing through her bloodstream. She inhales, trying to keep it together in front of the man who has done nothing wrong to her. “Please get out of my way.”

“What’s wrong?” He frames her shoulders with his hands, creating their own little bubble.

“Don’t touch me!” she growls. Mulder knows as soon as hears it: he will never forget the pure anguish in her voice. As she retreats to the corner, he looks down at his palms, the stovetop that burned her...he would cut them off if he could.

Unfortunately, the commotion attracts the Scully’s like a dog whistle. Bill leads the charge into the kitchen, getting a full view of his sister hunched over by the back door while her partner stands by the fridge like an idiot. “Ooo, a lover’s spat!” he exclaims, only nominally concerned about Dana’s well-being.

“Shut up, Bill,” Missy hisses. To everyone’s relief, he does.

Mrs. Scully comes forward, maneuvering around Mulder to get to her daughter. “Are you alright, Dana?”

Scully keeps her back to the crowd. “I just need a minute.” She taps her pocket, confirms that she slipped her pack of cigarettes in. “I’ll be outside. Everyone can go back to dinner, please.”

She twists the doorknob and steps onto the back deck without waiting for any response. Mulder feels the tug of tears in his throat, like a dormant animal waking up in him. He is used to being hurt (though not by Scully, never her), but inflicting the hurt is a whole other beast. He doesn’t know what he’s done, but he doesn’t need to. The look in her eyes, put there by what he thought was a harmless touch, made his heart tremble. He is frozen in place, grateful when Melissa appears at his side as the rest of the party returns to the dining room.

“I didn’t mean to upset her, I was trying to make her feel better about Bill…” he laments.

“I’m sure, I’m sure. It’s not you specifically, she’s going through a lot right now--you know.”

Mulder rubs his neck. “I don’t know if I do.”

“She hasn’t shared her diagnosis?”

His eyes nearly pop out of their sockets. “Diagnosis?! Is she okay?”

Missy sighs. “I think you two need to talk. If she gets pissed, tell her I sent you.”

“Wait, wait, wait. Tell me if she’s okay.”

“She’s okay. It’s not fatal or anything.”

“She would tell me, if it was...wouldn’t she?”

Missy bites her lip. “I don’t know, Fox---Mulder. I would hope so, but I was under the impression you already knew about this, and you see how that’s gone.”

Mulder turns toward the back door, desperation living in his voice. “I’ve gotta go. I’ve gotta check on her.”

Missy nods. “Don’t let her weasel her way out of this one. I’m expecting a heart-to-heart, mushiness and all.”

“Aye aye, captain.”

He turns the back doorknob and slips through the door, trying to imitate his partner’s ninja skills. The old wood on the door frame shakes as he shuts it. He winces--so much for the sneak attack.

Mulder follows the arc of the deck, winter’s bite colliding with him. He didn’t have a chance to grab his jacket, and now that he’s thinking about it, Scully didn’t either. He can grin and bear it but she is all skin and bones, now more than ever. It scares him to see her like that, but it’s none of his business, he feels, to comment on her body. He can break her fall, but he must not provide an extra push.

The wind has no friends to protect nor foes to defeat, so it will give away anyone. It carries the unmistakable tarnish of smoke to Mulder’s nose, an ashy haze that has come to remind him of Skinner’s office and the shadow lingering in the corner. He almost expects to find him there with his Morleys and his sadistic laugh. Instead, he finds a redhead and her Marlboros shrinking against the December cold snap.

“Bum a cig, ma’am?” He scoots up to her, ready to retrieve his own smoke from her long, slender fingers.

“Mulder!” She pulls the cigarette away from her, holding her last puff captive in her lungs.

He wiggles his fingers like an impatient child. “We’re all gonna die someday, right?”

Her jig up, she rolls her shoulders back and releases the smoke with a great rise and fall of her chest. It mingles in the air with the chill of her breath, becoming one and the same as they leave the contours of her body. Head tilted back and lips parted, she is alive with nicotine’s ease and intoxication’s freedom.

It is better than porn, according to one Fox William Mulder. He’ll keep this observation to himself for now.

“Did your parents never teach you that sharing is caring?” he rambles. “C’mon, give me a light!”

“It’s a nasty habit, Mulder.”

“I’m a connoisseur of those,” he replies loosely. “Now, you’re not gonna make me put you in a headlock are ya?”

Scully rolls her eyes. She’s never felt less threatened in her life. “You’re exhausting, do you know that?”

“I’ve heard it a time or two.”

She pulls a cigarette from her carton and slips it into his fingers. They are warm; hers are ice-cold. “I wanted to be alone.” She hands him the lighter, watches as he generates heat from thin air.

He lights his cig and sticks the lighter in his pocket rather than handing it back to her. “According to my calculations, you should be very drunk right now. Other than your Oscar bait performance back there, you’ve got things pretty under control I’d say.”

Scully gestures at her cigarette smoking, teeth chattering self. “Yeah, I’m the picture of health.”

“Do you have some exceptional alcohol tolerance I should know about, because that’d make you very valuable in undercover work.”

Scully gazes out into the distance. She’d smile if she were to look at him right now, and that doesn’t feel right for the situation. “Those drinks have low alcohol content, Mulder. You can buy them at Dollar General.”

“You ever looked at their hand sanitizer? It’s like 95% alcohol.”

“Well, now I know where you go to get your fix.”

He chuckles. “You got me.”

She stuffs her hands in her pockets and he wishes, god he wishes, that he had grabbed his jacket. He’d take off his sweater if she wanted him to--stand there with his bare chest to the cold--but he has a feeling that would only exacerbate the situation.

He tries a more gentlemanly route. “Do you want me to grab your jacket? I won’t give away your trade secrets.”

She folds herself together. “No, it’s okay. It’ll make me get a move on at some point.”

They stand united in their rebellion, blowing smoke and freezing their asses off. Who needs Christmas cheer when you’ve got Christmas resentment?

Mulder sways a bit to keep his blood circulating. He is careful not to bump her. “You wanna tell me why you’re out-Scrooging Scrooge this year?” he prompts as gently as he can.

“In case you haven’t noticed, it hasn’t exactly been the best year of my life.”

“I gathered that, yeah.”

“And it’s the first Christmas without my father…” her voice warbles.

“Shit, right. I’m sorry,” Mulder murmurs.

“...So it just doesn’t feel very celebratory.” She takes a long drag. Mulder can tell that this secret smoking habit is not new to her, and he wonders when she picked it up, how long she has kept it from him.

He takes a deep breath, watches as it is written in the air. “Melissa told me you received a diagnosis, and I think we’ve already established that sharing is caring…”

Scully looks him in the eyes for the first time since he joined her. It has the sudden intensity of a black-and-white film, Scully the 1940s scarlet and he the leading man who pales in comparison to her. There is no one he’d rather be overshadowed by.

“It’s humiliating,” she croaks. “Missy and my mom are the only ones who know.”

“I’ve got the monopoly on humiliation in this partnership, so I wouldn’t worry about that,” he says, flicking some ashes to the ground.

“This is a particular form of humiliation you can’t experience, I’m afraid. Or at least, it wouldn’t impact you the same way.”

“Let’s hear it.”

She sighs. “My abductors removed all of my eggs, causing my menstrual cycle to shut down and me to enter perimenopause.”

His breath catches in his throat. “Jesus christ.”

“Uh-huh.”

He throws his cigarette on the ground and stamps it out, though it could have burned longer. “That’s fucking horrifying, Scully. You’ve got to inform the Bureau. We’ve got to catch these--whatever they are. We’ve got to make them pay.”

“No, Mulder. It’s too much. I don’t want to keep reliving it, I want to be able to move on with my life.”

“How can you move on when they’re still out there, probably doing it to more women?”

She shakes her head, feeling the snag of tears and holding them back for fear they might freeze on her face. “I don’t know, but I can’t think about it like that. It sort of...shatters everything, the idea that this could be a phenomenon happening to other women in secret. I wouldn’t believe it if it didn’t happen to me. I still don’t believe it.”

Mulder shudders. He can’t discern whether it’s from the cold or their conversation. “Do you think it was men who took you? Or do you believe Duane Barry?”

“It seems like a level of monstrosity that only man could achieve. It requires a certain understanding of society, gender roles...dehumanization that only humans could perpetuate.”

Mulder nods. Her reasoning tracks, but the thought of him failing to outsmart humans who stole away his partner is something he cannot fully process. It makes sense that he couldn’t find her if she was in space, but if she was on the face of the Earth, he had no damn excuse.

“You were just gone, Scully...you were just gone.” His aching is so palpable, his voice a cliff’s edge they could both tumble down.

“I know I was.” She takes one last puff, then lets her cigarette fall to the ground. She crushes it with her heel, her force premeditated and brutal. That pain is for the ones who took her, the ones who have obviously never loved a thing at all.

Head bowed, she moves toward the door, but not without grasping for Mulder’s elbow, assuring that he is following behind. He is and he will be, for as long as she lets him.

Inside, the home’s manufactured warmth hits them, unreal in comparison to the cold they have known. The kitchen is as quiet as it was before their ordeal, the dining room empty aside from Mrs. Scully clearing serving platters.

“Where did everyone go?” Scully asks, momentarily alarmed that she may have ruined the entire gathering.

“We’re going to drive around and look at lights before mass. Everyone’s getting ready.”

“Oh.” She looks to Mulder, as if to check that he hasn’t left her stranded. “I think I’ll stay here,” she tells her mother. “Make a cup of hot chocolate and relax for a bit.”

“Well, you’ll be missed. Fox, would you like to join us?”

He takes a leap, hopes he’s got the right idea. “I’ll stay here, but thank you.”

“As you wish,” Mrs. Scully says with a slight smile. Mulder had never noticed her resemblance to her daughter until that moment. It was like looking at a sketch of a famous painting; the lines are there but the colors missing.

Soon enough the crowd leaves and Scully and Mulder settle on the couch with mugs of hot cocoa. Margaret Scully’s tree forms the centerpiece of the living room, and it’s hard not to admire its gold and red decorations and the shiny angel on top.

“That’s gorgeous. Does she do it every year?” Mulder asks, ignoring the steam rising out of his mug and going right in for the kill.

Scully nods. “Every year since we were kids. There used to be a lot more homemade ornaments, but I guess she swapped those for a more elegant look now that we’re grown.”

“Well, it’s beautiful.” He looks at her, curled up with the glow of the fireplace falling upon her, and he feels warmth and safety like never before. It would be so easy to slip in “and so are you,” it is practically begging to be said. But she wouldn’t believe him if he said it now; she would think it was a pity compliment. Instead, he mouths the words, and she is not looking, and that is okay.

She snuggles deeper into the cushions, closing her eyes and letting her mind wander. She is the most at ease she has been in months--here in the house she lived in during high school with the fireplace crackling and her partner by her side--and that’s not what she expected from Christmas Eve. Heaven strokes her skin, and she blinks her eyes open to find Mulder tucking her in with her mother’s microfiber blanket. She smiles her soft Scully smile. “Thank you,” she coos, burrowing herself deeper into the blanket’s embrace.

“You’re welcome,” Mulder whispers into her ear. His fingers tangle in her hair as he pulls her toward him, his lips meeting her temple. She catalogues the feeling for her memory bank: chapped but carrying the hot chocolate’s warmth. She will spend the next while convinced that it was a dream, a fleeting image in the moments before sleep, but she will carry the feeling until she feels it again.

#in true x files fashion it's an angsty christmas with some fluff at the end #just pretend that christmas hasnt passed haha #guest starring: bill jr being a dick #and missy's gf <3 #if you continue to follow this I'm literally in love with you thank you #the x-files #only the light fic #txf #txf fic #missy and scully fic #fox mulder #dana scully #melissa scully #mine

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hearts-hunger · 4 years

Text

together wing to wing || chapter two

Read on AO3 | Masterlist

chapter one

Series Summary: He's offered his protection before, on the Green. In the hospital, Cee wonders if he'll offer it again, and Ezra wonders if she'll even want him to.

Chapter Summary: Cee has a nightmare.

Pairings: Ezra & Cee (platonic!)

Genre: Fluff, hurt/comfort, angst | Word Count: 3.3k

Warnings: hospitals, injury, nightmares, mentions of canon-typical violence

A/N: I love writing Ezra and Cee so much. I love this sad gruff accidental dad and his daughter who’s not as strong as she thinks she is. I love writing them discovering that it’s ok to trust each other. I hope you guys enjoy it too! ♡

The doctors came, and he asked them to be quiet.

They shot him full of something that made him tingly like the syrettes, but at least his wounds didn’t pain him so terribly. They checked his incisions and bandaged him again. They set him another breathing treatment before they left, and he tried not to cough himself into a spin with every inhale.

Cee didn’t wake, and he didn’t rouse her.

He rested back against the pillows, sore with all that coughing, his breaths still noisy but less painful. The sun had gone down, and the room was dark; the city lights of Central sparked outside the blinds like a sheet of frantic, trembling stars. He wondered idly if the people on Central had ever really seen stars - not the dull pinpricks washed out by the city, but the magnificent jewels that covered dark nights on less populated planets, lights so bright up there in the blackness it seemed like they might come to life and start eating you whole. He could read the stars on the Green Moon as easily as he could read his own handwriting, and if he never saw them again it would be too soon.

If he was honest with himself - and he made it a point to engage in honest conversation, whenever feasible - he had never really thought he’d get off the Green. It would have been too much to ask of the life he’d so carelessly given over to violence at every opportunity. He deserved to die on the Green, bleeding out and choked with dust. It would have been the one redemption of his miserable character to have died for a fatherless little girl, and for what it was worth in the grand scheme, he had been ready to do it.

But then, if her commitment to such a sorry, broken-down old bastard had been any indication, she hadn’t been quite so ready for their unhappy encounter to end. He couldn’t imagine why - he’d more than expended his usefulness, and was no more advantageous to her than the mercs they’d left on the Green. Perhaps less, as his wounds had not been lucky enough to kill him outright.

He burned with fever for cycles before they landed on Central, delirious and frequently unconscious. The foam kept him alive, but only just; he could feel it holding bits of him together, sticky and hot and unnatural. The pain was intolerable. In more lucid moments, he guessed the mercs had used the syrettes in the rock jumper’s med pack to get high, and there was nothing left for him to do but grit his teeth. He distinctly remembered how distraught his little bird had been, fluttering nervously around the cabin for something, anything to ease his affliction.

He tried his best to soothe her and to keep a hold of his senses, but control was a rare thing out in the vastness of space; she was frightened, tear-streaked and tightly wound, and there was little he could do to comfort her. He kept it together until he couldn’t, and if he was lucky, she fell into a restless sleep before he submitted to the fevered, painful tears that threatened every waking moment.

He hadn’t been conscious when they landed. He supposed Damon had done some good in teaching her the landing sequence; otherwise, it would have been of little advantage to them to get off the Green just to crash flat into Central. Cee had confessed to him later, with the pale of guilt and distress, just how dire his situation had been: the medics had been doubtful he would make it off the transport to the hospital. By some miracle, or just his own damn stubbornness, he’d made it through surgery and been returned to Cee breathing and neatly bandaged.

Now, several tedious cycles later, he was finally starting to improve. The doctors often remarked on his expeditious recovery, and he wanted to say that he’d rather lose his other arm than leave Cee to a deathbed vigil. He’d recover if it killed him, if only to keep from being a burden on her any longer.

As it was, recovery vexed him something awful. He was a man of action; lying around had never suited him well. All his life, he’d never known more than a moment’s leisure: there was too much work to be done, too many debts to be paid. He’d tramped up and down the Green with a half-rotted arm, breathing in dust with every wheeze of his spent filter, tied to a nervous little girl with a thrower aimed at his back. To be in a clean, safe hospital, in Central of all places, with nothing to do but rest? Ezra had never known such unimaginable luxury, and it grated on him. He needed something to do.

But there was nothing for it. He could hardly sit on the edge of the bed without terrible swings of dizziness, and breath escaped him with the smallest aggravation. So he busied himself with worry - for Cee, for their future, for whether she wanted a future with him at all.

He looked over at her, studying her face in the dim light. She looked even younger when she slept. He wondered again how her father could have justified bringing her to the Green, how he had rationalized taking such a little thing like her to that awful place. Ezra didn’t have children, had never had anyone to care for other than himself; but if he had, he would have done damn near anything to keep them off the Green. He fervently hoped it was pure necessity that drove Damon to bring Cee there, but Ezra knew a prospector’s heart - aurelac was the only thing that mattered, and greed for it drove men to terrible things. Violence, thieving, killing. Ezra knew that well enough, and he’d pay for indulgence in that same greed as long as he lived.

Cee, though. She needed better, deserved better. The galaxy was wide open for her, and he would do whatever it took to allow her access to it. He’d already decided she should have his point collection, as paltry a sum as it was, but he was no stranger to the ways of the world. She was young still, a Floater, with no kin or place to call home. To go off on her own could be a death sentence, or worse. He knew what happened to Floaters like her; he’d been a Floater like her, when he was younger, and would tear heaven and earth apart to keep her from the pain that had been inflicted on him in his youth.

He’d offered his protection, before. Flush with pain and dazed by medication, a thrower pistol held in unsteady hand towards him. Troubled even then with how easily she could be swallowed up by the vilest, most unsavory things. Mercs like those were a dime a dozen, lying in wait for a little bird to come flitting in before they devoured it.

He wanted to offer his protection again. He would stay by her side as long as she wanted him to. But, with all that had transpired between them, all the pain and hardship he’d brought her - he couldn’t blame her if she decided to leave him without a backwards glance. It surprised him, his grief, when he reconciled himself to that possibility - he knew with certainty that he would miss her and worry over her as long as they were apart, and he couldn't remember the last time he’d felt that way about anyone.

The monitor notified him of another release of painkillers, and he sighed when the drug flooded his system. He might have fallen asleep, lulled by the diminished pain and the woozy feeling in his head, but Cee started to stir.

“Ezra,” she said. Her voice was strained, thick with sleep. Like a half-muted warning through a faulty comms system, and it sent a thrill of agitation through him.

He sat up a little. “Right here, birdie.”

She didn’t answer. He saw she hadn’t opened her eyes, and he grimaced. He’d wondered if she’d have nightmares. His sleep was too heavy with drugs to allow any night terrors yet, but he knew once he was sleeping on his own again they would set in with an unparalleled passion. That she was enduring them now spoke of the trauma that still weighed heavy on her, despite how well she seemed to cope while she was awake.

Her expression crumpled with fear as whatever night terror had a hold of her remained unwavering.

“Don’t take me,” she whimpered. He’d never heard her voice so tight with misery, and it felt like a deeper wound than any he’d suffered before.

He winced and pressed his arm over his stitches as he moved to sit on the edge of the bed. Without thinking, he tried to reach out to her with his right hand; the frayed nerve endings protested, sharply, and he gave a growl of frustration. Damn his weak, useless body. He couldn’t do a single thing without an objection or outright refusal.

“Please,” she said quietly.

He moved his left hand towards her, gently gripped her shoulder and shook.

“Come on, birdie, wake up,” he coaxed, raising his voice a little. “Cee, it’s just a dream.”

She seemed to hear him. “Ezra,” she said again. He had never heard his name called so pitifully.

“That’s right, little bird. Go on and wake up. I’m right here.”

He shook her gently, and that seemed to do the trick; her eyes flew open, pupils blown in the dark as she looked around for something familiar.

“Ezra,” she said for a third time, voice ragged with panic and relief.

He withdrew his hand and hoped he hadn’t overstepped. “The very same.”

Then, before he could say anything else by way of comfort, she disentangled herself from her blankets and launched herself at him, throwing her arms around his neck in a bruising hug. His breath came in a slightly pained huff, aching and sore with the impact. It was a good hurt, if there was such a thing. He was so stunned by the gesture he could only act on instinct, and like the warming of a tired old machine that hadn’t been used in years, he caught her against him and slowly put his arm around her.

“Easy, little bird,” he said. He splayed his hand over her back as she held him tighter; he felt her shoulders shake with quiet tears.

“You’re alright,” he said gently. “I believe something gave you an awful fright while you slept.”

He felt her stiffen; not a moment later did she pull away from him, a brilliant blush over her cheeks visible even in the dim light. She hastily wiped the tears from her face and crossed her arms over her chest, defensive.

“Sorry,” she said quietly. “I didn’t mean to - I hope I didn’t hurt you. That was stupid.”

He cleared his throat to fend off a cough. “You didn’t hurt me, birdie. Takes a lot more than that to lay me low, I assure you.”

She sat back on her cot, curling in on herself; she refused to meet his eyes. He hoped she wasn’t embarrassed by the way she’d acted; sometimes a body needed comfort, and was so keen to get it that little could be done to deny such a demand. He didn’t mind, and would not withhold any solace she was willing to take.

“It was just a silly dream,” she said. She was embarrassed; he’d heard that color in his own voice too often to be unfamiliar with it in hers. He wondered how often she’d had nightmares before, and if they had ever been met with any kindness or sympathy.

“I’m afraid I must disagree with you, birdie.” He paused a beat to steady himself, to let the wave of dizziness pass. “Nothing so unsettling could rightly be counted ‘silly’.”

They sat in silence for a moment. It didn’t escape his notice how she continued to brush tears from her cheeks.

“It was the Sater,” she said finally.

He looked up and met her eyes. “Your nightmare?”

She nodded, pressed her hands to her face as if to hide behind them. She drew a hitching breath.

“Thank you for not giving me to them.”

He sighed. “Oh, birdie.”

He had told her the truth on the Green: he was never going to give her to them. He may not have been a virtuous man by any stretch of the imagination, but he could honestly say that he hadn’t considered that, even for a moment. He’d never had problems with the Sater before; he wasn’t religious, but he was of no mind to deny any man whatever consolation he could find. Their proposal, though, a little girl in exchange for his healing - Ezra could have torn the whole place apart and still have not satisfied his wrath. Even now, he felt an acetous, clawing disgust that threatened to overwhelm him at the thought.

He’d placated them as best he could, and the words were bitter in his mouth. I beg your forgiveness for the little one’s impertinence. She’s a nervous thing, fatherless. Allow me to search her out and bring her back to you.

They’d let him go, with the promise that he would be healed if the girl was returned. He didn’t know where Cee had gone, nor did he have any strength to go hunting for her; he’d barely made it back to camp with his spent filter and festering wound. As he set blade to skin, he sent a prayer up to no one - not for himself, but for the little bird in the woods, hoping she would find something or someone to help her find her way off the Green.

She looked less ragged now than she had looked then, stumbling into his tent, breathless, terrified. Food and clean clothes and sleep, even broken as it was by nightmares, had done wonders. And yet, she was still that little bird in the woods, and he was still the only thing she had in all the world. A pitiful hand to be dealt, certainly.

“No thanks required,” he said tiredly, weary with the weight of his culpability in her troubles. “Least I could do.”

Her expression clouded. “He would have given me to them.”

It didn’t take much to guess who he was, and Ezra was wary of stepping into this kind of territory, unsure what he should say or if he should say anything at all.

She twisted her fingers together, wrung them so her hurt would have somewhere to go.

“Dispensable,” she muttered.

He frowned. Surely Damon hadn’t -

“That’s what he called me, once,” she said. She looked up at him, defiant even as tears streaked her cheeks. “He was high, and I accidentally broke one of the rods for the thrower. Make yourself indispensable, he said. There’s barely enough room on this pod for me.”

Ezra wished she would stop telling him things about her father. He felt his hatred towards a dead man, one he’d delivered the final blow to, wouldn’t do him any favors.

Cee shook her head and bit her lip; it did bleed, finally. Ezra raised himself from the bed with some difficulty and wet the corner of a washcloth in the refresher sink, then offered it to her. She looked up at him in confusion.

He nodded towards her. “Your lip’s bleeding, birdie.”

She took the washcloth and pressed it to her mouth, watching him with a careful gaze as he sat heavily on the edge of his bed again.

“You shouldn’t have gotten up,” she said.

His laugh was little more than a huff. “You are mighty keen on fretting, aren’t you?” He took a deep breath. “Mind you don’t worry that lip any more, or you’ll have a hard time getting on to me when I do something that’s not to your liking.”

She studied him like he might break apart at any moment. He felt like he might; the night’s activity was testing the limits of the pain medication.

“Are you sure I didn’t hurt you, earlier?”

He nodded. “Positive. And you know me to be an honest man, whenever possible.”

“Candid discourse,” she remembered.

He smiled. “Precisely. So I hope you won’t take offense when I tell you, honestly, that nightmares trouble every creature from time to time, and certainly trouble those who’ve spent any time on the Green.” He gave a few weak coughs. “There’s no shame in it, birdie.”

She twisted the washcloth around her fingers in her lap, the bleeding abated for the moment. “You have nightmares?”

“Indeed,” he said. He leaned heavily on his left hand to keep him upright. “And I will undoubtedly have many more before my time is up.” Such was the price of a life of violence, inflicted or endured.

“How do you... deal with it?”

He gave a half-shrug; his right shoulder disliked being jostled, and he tried to keep its movement to a minimum.

“Not much to be done for it, I’m afraid,” he admitted. “Best not to be on your own. It’s hard to orient a mind consumed by fear without a helping hand.”

A precious few times in his life had he known someone he could call a friend, and it was only with them that he’d been able to soothe the nightmares that cropped up so often. A hand on his shoulder in the dark, a consoling word - that had made all the difference. He’d been without it more often than he’d had it, and sleep was a common point of contention between himself and his body. Usually he fell asleep when he was simply too exhausted not to, and he woke himself up, alone, in sweat and terror more often than not.

For the first time since he’d woken her, she looked a little less weary and upset.

“Good thing we’re not alone, then.”

Oh, but that eased his ills better than any dose of medication could have. He gave her a smile, pleased when she returned it with a small one of her own.

“Quite right, birdie,” he agreed. “It is a very good thing.”

She settled back against the wall, covering herself up in her blanket for a little warmth. They kept his room cool as the medication was liable to make him run hot, but he knew it was a little chilly for her liking. He reached over to grab the extra blanket from the foot of his bed and tossed it to her.

“The doctors should be in again, soon.” He looked at the clock and determined it was likely time for another one of his breathing treatments; his chest had begun to tighten again.

She pulled her notebook and a pen out of her bag. “I’m staying up this time.”

He gave a soft grunt as he lay back in bed. “Fine by me, birdie. Don’t...” He stopped for a breath. “Don’t worry about falling asleep again, if you need to. I’ll wake you if I fear there’s something amiss.”

She didn’t say anything for a moment; then, very softly, “thank you.”

He turned his head to look at her, buried under her blankets, her fictional world spread out in her lap as she tapped the end of the pen against the page.

“You’re welcome,” he said. He hoped she knew how much he meant it.

He closed his eyes and tried to come to terms with the dull, aching pain. “Read me a little something, birdie. If you’re not opposed.”

He heard her flip the pages in her notebook. “Just a little bit,” she said. “Not enough to give away the story.”

He hummed in agreement. “Just a little bit.”

He listened as she started to read, weaving stories about her favorite characters, her voice steady and relaxed as she sank into the world of her imagining. It was a good thing they weren’t alone right now, and Ezra tried not to think of what it would be like to be alone again.

Read chapter three!

pedro pascal character taglist: @punkgeekchic, @tv-saved-the-teenage-girl, @stardust-galaxies, @theorganasolo, @qhbr2013 ♡

let me know if you’d like to be added to my pedro pascal character taglist or this series taglist! ♡

#i know this series isn't going to be as popular as some x reader fics but i just enjoy writing it so much #it's making me think outside the box because i don't usually write platonic relationships ahbsjhbjhb #and i think their characters are so compelling #idk i'm just writing it for me mainly and maybe someone else will like it too!#ezra prospect fanfiction #ezra prospect #cee prospect #prospect 2018 #prospect 2018 fanfiction #ezra fanfiction #maddie writes stuff!

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one-boring-person · 4 years

Note

Ok ok last one.

Poncho x medic reader who helps the team along but ends up getting herself hurt instead of him. And he realizes just how much she means to him

I hope you like this!😊💛

You Saved My Ass.

Poncho x reader

Warnings: death, injury, blood, swearing, spoilers

Masterlist

Poncho hates this more than anything he's ever had to do, this waiting with bated breath in amongst the shrubbery, the perpetually terrified air hanging around the usually fearless group souring his resolve. It is unnatural to him, to them all, the now decreased team unused to feeling entirely helpless, though they all know there is no way of changing this to their advantage at all, the situation being completely unforeseeable, even with hindsight. Cowering in the bushes just isn't their thing, it never has been, and, if they get through this, it never will be again. But he knows now that it is necessary; after all, he doesn't want to end up like Blain or Hawkins. At the reminder, he subtly crosses himself again, still torn over the sights of Blain's mangled body, and the remaining pile of gore from Hawkins.

Beside him, (Y/n) adjusts herself, clutching at her bag of supplies, the medic unarmed for ease of movement, though Poncho feels even worse about this than he does about hiding in the trees, fearing for his life. She has good aim, and she can defend herself, so without the weapon she is vulnerable, an asset he'd rather not lose, not now, not ever. The boys all teased him for having a soft spot for her, but he'd always shaken them off, chalking it up to the fact that his and her personalities seemed to match particularly well. Unfortunately, even after telling himself this for hours on end, he'd found himself clenching his jaw as he watched her patch Blain's arm up, back at the guerrilla settlement, somehow becoming irritable as he eyed her careful movements and teasing conversation with the muscular man. Of course, she'd given the others a once-over, including him, but something about that particular interaction had put him on edge. He knew Dutch had noticed, but the major had been too irritated himself to say anything, though this was more aimed at Dillon rather than (Y/n).

"What's he doing?!" The medic suddenly hisses, keeping her voice low as she stares out at the clearing where the trap has been set up.

"Huh?" Poncho blurts out quickly, before realising what she means.

Dutch has stepped out of cover and into full view, heavy gun held firmly in hand, muscles bulging as he tenses them, clearly nervous despite his bold move. The rest of the group fall silent, eyes wide as they watch their leader walk into sight, the trap ready to spring beneath his feet. The jungle is quiet, unnaturally so, every animal within the near radius having fled from this sophisticated hunter, just as the group are trying to do. Every sound Dutch makes feels amplified: the crack of branches underfoot, the rustle of leaves with each step, any normally insignificant noise seemingly deafening in the tense atmosphere.

His foot catches on a trip wire, the major pausing to make sure it doesn't spring the trap on him, carefully moving his boot off of the tense cord. Taking another step, the muscular man moves further into the clearing, before all hell breaks loose.

There is a blur of movement behind Dutch, the forest seemingly coming alive as a distorted shimmer lunges at him, clicking filling the air as whatever it is tries to take out its next prey. Thankfully, it trips the wire, the net underneath it springing up towards the canopy, closing in on itself around whatever it had caught, an outraged cry of some sorts emitting from the invisible quarry as it writhes in its temporary hold. Leaves cascade down into the clearing as the group rushes to the aid of their leader, guns raised, ready to fire.

A familiar streak of blinding blue light dashes any hope of catching it whilst it's compromised, the energy shearing through the netting around its occupant, falling away completely. Another blast severs the cord holding the counterweight in place, the heavy log swinging down into the clearing, scattering the gathered group as they move to avoid it. Poncho, however, is too late to realize the danger of the situation, and is caught with his back turned, the weight picking up speed as it nears him.

All of a sudden, he hears a cry of his name and he is shoved to the side, his body tumbling to the floor even as another goes flying a few feet away from him, landing much heavier than he does. Confused, he ignores the shouting and gunfire that has broken out, scrambling to get over to the fallen body, recognising the figure lying, motionless, on the floor, his heart dropping in his chest. Eyes wide, he drops to the ground beside her and rolls her onto her back, taking in the limp movement of her body, as well as its sheer lack of muscular strength. (Y/n)'s chest is jerking uncontrollably, the medic struggling to breathe properly as her face contorts in agony, each breath rattling in her throat, uselessly. The log must've smashed into her torso, most likely breaking her ribs and bruising her sternum and collarbones, leaving her in unimaginable pain.

"Shit, (Y/n), this is my fault...I've got to get you out of here. God, I'm so sorry, stay with me! Please stay with me!" Poncho pleads with her, awkwardly reaching down to scoop her up, wincing as she groans out. Internally, he curses himself for letting this happen, his own stupidity having gotten her here.

Panic floods him as her arms hang limply at her sides, head lolling backwards, her conscience clearly fighting to stay awake.

"You've gotta stay awake, (Y/n). Keep fighting, it'll be ok soon. Come on, (Y/n), pull through for me!" He rambles to her, trying not to jostle her too much as he moves, only now realising that Dutch is yelling after Mac, who has raced off into the jungle.

Billy and Anna wait at the edge of the treeline, watching as Dillon goes to follow Mac, Dutch coming over to help Poncho, who gestures to his gun, meaning for the major to take it. Doing so, the two of them follow after Billy and Anna, heading into the sweltering jungle, aware of the fact that they will most likely never see their comrades again. Glancing down at the medic in his arms, Poncho tightens his grip, hoping to hell she'll make it; he doesn't know what he'll do without her, and it's only now dawned on him that she means a whole lot more to him than he once thought.

He'd been wrong. Poncho knew that now. Waiting in the jungle for the predator to find them had been bad, it'd been stressful and he'd been terrified, but it couldn't compare to what he endured now. Sitting there, between the beds of the only two other survivors, slouched in his chair from exhaustion as he waited for them to wake up, he decided that this was worse. In the jungle, he'd stood a chance, however small it was, of ensuring the survival of his friends, but now? Now he had no way of making sure they'd pull through. No, that was in the hands of the bustling doctors and nurses going in and out of their private ward.

Somehow, Phillips had secured a room in the nearest hospital strictly for the survivors of this disastrous mission, sending all four of them there as soon as he had them back in safety. Both Anna and Poncho had healed quickly, and now spent their days waiting for the other two to wake up, both members of the group having entered some form of coma in the twenty four hours after their arrival, being drugged up to the eyes and all to hold off the pain and let them rest. Dutch had been in and out, his slurred ramblings unintelligible yet disturbingly sudden and vivid as he drifted in and out of conscience, but (Y/n) had remained still, as if in a death sleep, never stirring, barely even breathing.

The log had done serious damage to her ribcage and spine, nearly leaving her paralyzed from the simple impact, multiple of her ribs now broken and close to puncturing her lungs. Deep purple bruising mottled the skin disappearing below the collar of her hospital robe, the colour angry and harsh against her natural skin tone, leaving Poncho wondering just how bad it was lower down. Just looking over her now, tired as he is, he knows that she is lucky she survived the blow: had she instantly moved to get up again, the cracked ribs would've driven straight into her lungs, killing her from the inside.

Shaking his head, Poncho climbs to his feet and goes to stand beside her bed, observing her face carefully, mentally kicking himself for not realising sooner how much she actually means to him. How could he have ignored it? She'd always been there for him, dressing his wounds first whenever he got them, unless there were more serious ones on someone else, messing around with him to get him to lighten up, joking with him, being there for him when he needed her the most. In the jungle he'd asked himself what he'd do without her, and he still hasn't found an answer.

Just as he goes to sit down again, (Y/n) shifts, her head twitching a little. Shocked, he stays where he is and watches her again, waiting for another movement, anything to prove she's healing.

He almost can't believe it when her eyelids flutter, her face wrinkling as she goes to open her eyes, blinking to fight off the onslaught of unnatural light blaring down at her. Inhaling sharply, Poncho holds his breath, watching as she clears her vision, taking in her surroundings, brief confusion flicking across her expression before everything comes back to her. Instantly, a look of grief and pain etch themselves into the lines of her face, but she is quick to notice Poncho lingering by her. Her jaw immediately starts working at forming words, but he swiftly puts a finger on her lips, smiling down at her in relief.

"You're awake! Oh my god, you're actually awake!" Is all he can say, elation filling him as he takes in the medic lying on the bed.

A timid half-smile works its way onto her face and she manages a nod, before she winces in pain, the movement sending twinges down her sore spine.

"Take it easy there, you took a heavy-ass log to the chest, it might take a while to heal up properly." He grins at her, lifting an eyebrow at her when she goes to nod again.

For a moment, the two stay in silence, staring at each other, relieved to see the other alive after their ordeal in the jungle, Poncho's hand eventually finding her's. Carefully, he joins them, intertwining their fingers as he squeezes it for reassurance, beaming when she manages to return the gesture, her fingers tightening around his own almost minutely.

"I wish I could tell you exactly how happy I am that you're awake, (Y/n), I've never been so relieved in my life. If you hadn't have woken up, I really don't know what I would've done." Poncho looks down as he says the rest, blushing slightly, "You mean the world to me, and I should've realised it sooner, hell, I'm kicking myself for not realising before you saved my ass, but now I know that I've come to care for you in a way that I haven't cared for anyone ever. I can't lose you."

Her eyes are wide as she looks up at him, her mouth opening as she goes to form words.

"Me...too…" She manages out, voice hoarse but recognisable, her following smile wide and happy.

Happiness floods him as he hears this, the man eager to respond, wishing he could pull her into a hug, but he is interrupted by the sound of a groan of pain from the man behind him, coherent words finally coming from the major's mouth.

Turning, Poncho gives (Y/n)'s hand one last squeeze before he goes over to the veteran, finding a pair of hard grey eyes staring at him from the bed, clearly confused, though the events of the mission are quickly coming back to him. Clenching his jaw, Poncho goes to check up on Dutch, feeling much happier now that he knows the two survivors are awake, though he is even more overjoyed to know (Y/n) shares his feelings.

Glancing back at her, he blushes as he catches her staring after him, a smile on her face.

#predator imagine #predator 1987 #predator #Poncho

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haveanotherkpopblog · 4 years

Text

Vive la Revolution

Prologue

Genre: Cyberpunk!AU, Dystopian!AU, Gang!AU, Rivals-to-Lovers!AU

Pairing: TBA

Word Count: 2.5k

Warnings: Sexual Situations

Masterlist || Next Part >>

Society fell when the game came out. It was supposed to be a game for children, where they could let their imaginations run rampant. The game was meant for them to have an escape from everyday life. But then they didn’t stop playing. They spent all day in the game. Nothing else mattered except the game.

The game--the game wasn’t like other games. It was the future of virtual reality. It was a game where you didn’t need to stop to sleep or even use the bathroom. Your consciousness was transferred into the game, putting you in a deep slumber, a coma almost. The only downfall was you had to leave, until you didn’t have to.

The kids turned to the black market for medical IV’s so they could keep playing. Crime began to rise significantly over the mere months since the game’s initial release. The police did their best, but with limited resources and limited money, there was only so much they could do.

Then the adults started playing. In an attempt to save their children, adults entered the game. The only problem was, they never left. The curiosity of what had captured their children’s minds so effortlessly and quietly. Slowly, the adults stopped leaving the game. They followed in their kids’ footsteps, buying IV’s and locking themselves away in the game.

Businesses began shutting down from the lack of customers and the employees seeming to vanish into thin air. Life began slowing down, the only thing thriving in the dying country was crime. The police slowly began to stop doing their jobs, letting the country run rampant with illegal activities.

The worst of it was in the capital. The most powerful people, the socialites, lived there, including the manufacturer of Virtual Paradise-- the game responsible for capturing half the nation’s mind. The game went world-wide, and soon everyone who was anyone had purchased the game. People, desperate to escape their lives, stole the game from anywhere they could get it. The company, Tempestechnologies, had become the company.

However, that was the capital and all major cities of the world. What was really scary was the rest of the country that couldn’t afford the game. Or if they could, they were smart enough not to buy it. With the world and the nation in chaos, the country had been divided into three districts.

The first was the JYP District. It covered most of the coastline and was the mediator between the other two districts. The leader of the District referred to herself as Queenie. As the only female leader, she gave herself a fitting title. While rather small in size, she was a force to be reckoned with. She and her husband had made a quiet, but successful, living working mainly with oversea gangs. She kept the other two districts as close allies.

The second was the SM District. This District covered the northern side of the country. It just also happened to be the richest amongst the three Districts since the Capital fell within their territory. The leader was Leeteuk, a successful businessman turned into an even more successful gang leader. He knew where the game would lead the country from a young age, and he’d been preparing ever since for the inevitable.

The last District was the scariest. YG District was made up of the southern side of the country and what little bit of the coastal region JYP didn’t control. The crime rates were so high, the police had completely given up and worked for the District’s leading gang and the leader. The leader--the leader was so many things, finding one word to describe him was impossible. G-Dragon had done so many unthinkable things, had seen the unimaginable, and he had laughed at it all.

Now while Queenie had aligned herself and JYP with SM and YG, the two didn’t like each other. In fact, if it hadn’t been for her, there certainly would have been a civil war unlike any before. That’s where the story started, at the end of a feud that started before either of them reached double digits.

Queenie sat in one of the clubs in her District. For the best outcome, everyone needed to meet on neutral territory. That meant her territory, which she didn’t mind at all. Her turf, her rules. She smirked, eyes scanning the club, skimming every face she recognized and every face she didn’t. She watched as A, one of her informants, flirted with some random guy at the bar. He wasn’t bad looking, but Queenie knew A was simply biding her time.

“Are you sure they’re going to show?” JB, Queenie’s second in command, sat perched at the edge of his seat. He was staring directly at her, his eyebrows halfway up his forehead. His drink sat on the table in front of him, barely touched as the ice slowly watered it down. She smirked, reaching to grab her own glass off the table.

“Have patience. They’ll show up.”

As if on cue, Mandu, JB’s personal bodyguard, escorted four men in. Mandu had dark brown hair parted away from his face. His muscles bulged against his tight shirt, giving everyone a clear image of his strong physique that detoured most people, as long as he kept his mouth closed. Once he opened his mouth, any intimidation the other party felt disappeared. Even with his deep, intimidating voice, Mandu was simply too sweet and kind for his own good.

Leeteuk sat in the chair opposite of Queenie. His pink hair fell into his eyes, making him squint and occasionally toss his head. His suit jacket was undone, revealing the tight, black dress shirt that hugged his toned chest. It was a well known fact that he had quite the fascination with her. Whether it be because of her stunning beauty or the power she held was of little consequence.

Next to him was Suho, his second in command. Suho was to keep himself more put together than Leeteuk did when she was around. His black hair was combed away from his face, and his suit was well-put together, albeit more casual than what he usually wore. They were supposed to be more casual, relaxed, with each other. Hence them meeting in some bourgeois club. And that was strictly on Queenie’s request.

Behind them were their bodyguard, arms crossed over their chests as they eyed Queenie and her subordinates half-heartedly. They never saw her as a real threat. Whether it was because of their alliance or because they truly believed she wasn’t a threat to anyone was unknown to her. But she knew she could handle herself, and should the time ever come, she would show them just how well.

“Gentlemen. Welcome. I hope the journey wasn’t too hard,” she greeted.

“Seeing you again is worth every second,” Leeteuk said, shooting her a wink. Queenie peered over her glass, sparing a glance to Suho who was staring at Leeteuk with a slight scrunched face. He rolled his eyes, taking a prolonged sip from his cup. “I only wish it was under better circumstances.” She carefully set down her cup.

“I think these are the best circumstances. You’re finally putting that silly little feud behind you,” she said. She leant forward, placing a delicate hand just above his knee, giving it a light squeeze. “You know how much I dislike conflict.” He watched her hand with a dark gaze, his leg tensing under her touch. Suho and JB shared an unimpressed look before they both took a sip of their drinks. Queenie pulled back, crossing her legs as she observed Leeteuk.

Leeteuk observed her too, taking in her now short hair, the subtle makeup around her smoldering eyes and luscious lips. His eyes trailed down her body, admiring how the dress hugged her curves and even gave him a glimpse of what the thin fabric was covering. She was temptation. He knew that, she knew that, he knew she knew that, and he was more than aware she used that knowledge to her advantage, yet he let her pull him in. What they knew was of little consequence to them.

“I see they’re just letting anybody in here now.” Queenie and Leeteuk looked away from each other to the three people that had entered the room. DaH, Queenie’s personal bodyguard, had brought in two more people for their little celebratory party. Her long blonde hair fell down her back as she shot a harsh glare to the pair she’d brought in. DaH wasn’t built like Mandu, she was small and petite, but she made up for her lack of bulging muscles with speed and agility. And unlike Mandu, when she spoke, her words were laced with venom.

G-Dragon gave DaH a cheeky wink, to which she replied by narrowing her gaze more. She shot Queenie an unimpressed look before moving to stand behind her. G-Dragon oozed confidence. His hair was a disheveled mess, dark marks covered his neck and most of his chest from what could be seen of his unbuttoned shirt. She gave Queenie a sly smirk as she stood to greet him, a smirk of her own on her face.

“Well we let you in here don’t we?” she teased. G-Dragon chuckled, leaning forward to place a kiss on her cheek. He shot Leeteuk a wink as he did so, enjoying seeing him get worked up from a small action. Suho leaned over to whisper to Leeteuk, calming him down somewhat.

CL, G-Dragon’s second in command, sat next to Suho. She had at least followed Queenie’s request. Her curled, blonde hair fell over one shoulder, exposing her back and drawing attention to cleavage. She kept her eyes focused between Queenie, Leeteuk, and G-Dragon. She flicked her wrist, glancing down at her watch.

Suho, despite his best efforts to keep a bored air around him, watched CL carefully. He took in her poised posture and the unreadable mask that hid her emotions too well. He took in how her dress exposed her back, letting his eyes trail down the length of her spine. He felt his blood heat up the longer he stared at her back.

“I’m so glad we could have this little sit down,” Queenie said. She watched both men carefully, observing their subtle glances at one another. “I think it’s about time you two put this silly feud to rest.” Both men tensed at the statement, avoiding each other’s eyes. “JB, if you will.” JB cleared his throat, regarding each man and their associates.

“Queenie and I agree that the best way to show peace is to build trust. We’ve talked with each of you separately and from that we’ve come up with a plan. G-Dragon is being gracious enough to send someone to stay in the SM District for one year with absolutely no contact.”

“How exactly does that establish trust?” Suho inquired, leaning forward so his arms rested on his knees. “If anything, that causes more trust issues. One year to gather information to be used against us? I’m failing to see how that works in our favor.”

“Well firstly, the agreement is that our person lives with you for a year without any harm,” CL said, turning to look at Suho. “Meaning if you want to keep them locked in a dungeon, as long as they’re fed and clean, you can do so. Second, we’re not sending just anyone. He’s sending in his only living relative to live with someone he hasn’t gotten along with in years. If anything, that’s the most trust I’ve seen him give anyone.” Suho and Leeteuk both stared at her in shock.

“I wasn’t aware you had any family,” Leeteuk said.

“It’s not something I like to advertise. People like to use them against you. I’m sure you more than anyone can understand that,” he replied. “Now I’m sending them to show my complete trust. If and when they return, as long as they’re in good health and have been treated with respect and dignity they deserve, then I will let bygones be bygones.”

Leeteuk regarded G-Dragon carefully. Something wasn’t sitting right in the pit of his stomach. This seemed too easy. After years of them being at each other’s throats, G-Dragon was going to gift wrap his own blood to him? Leeteuk narrowed his eyes slightly, his fist tightening around his glass.

“I wouldn’t read too much into such a generous offer,” Queenie said. She leant forward, facing Leeteuk directly. “He’s giving you unsupervised access to the closest person to him, and all you have to do is keep them healthy and safe. If anything, I think you’re getting the better side of this deal.” She placed her hand on his knee again, tilting her head slightly and staring up at him with her big, round eyes.

“Unsupervised?” Suho said.

“Yes. One whole year of unsupervised access to them. YG will have absolutely no access to them while they stay with you,” JB said, shooting Queenie a pointed look.

“Don’t mistake me for a blissfully blind fool, Leeteuk,” G-Dragon said, pulling Leeteuk’s attention away from Queenie. “I don’t expect you to trust me or my family. So as a sign of good faith, they’re going in unaccompanied. Even their own personal bodyguard won’t be with them. That’s how you’re going to show me your trust. Return them to me unharmed and in good health, treat them like family, or at least better than the men you’ve so graciously returned to me before, and I won’t murder everyone in your district.” Leeteuk clenched his jaw. Suho leant over, lowering his voice.

“Wait. We can use this to our advantage. How much information do you think our people could get out of him? Who would know his deep secrets better than his own blood?” Leeteuk weighed Suho’s words carefully, slowly relaxing into his seat.

“So you want me to keep them for one year, three-hundred and sixty-five days, and then return them safely?” Leeteuk clarified. G-Dragon nodded, moving to lean back into his seat. Leeteuk drummed his fingers on the armrest, staring at G-Dragon thoughtfully. Something still didn’t feel right, but Suho had a point. His second in command gave him a subtle nod. Leeteuk smiled smugly, tossing his hands up slightly. “I have to agree with you Queenie, I’m definitely getting the better deal.”

G-Dragon smirked, outstretching his hand. Leeteuk grabbed it, giving him a firm handshake. Queenie clapped her hands together, a genuine smile on her face. JB let out a shaky breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding. Suho and CL shared a knowing look before turning back to the two leaders.

“I’m so happy everything’s worked out,” Queenie said, moving to stand up. “Now, I believe you gentlemen and lady have earned a night of relaxation. My club is all yours to enjoy.” She turned to G-Dragon, a smirk on her face. “I believe A is waiting for you downstairs.” G-Dragon returned her smirk, running a hand through his hair. Leeteuk held his hand up to the two District leaders.

“As much as I would love to, I should get back.” He and Suho, along with their bodyguards, headed towards the door. He paused briefly, turning to look back. “Just one quick question,” he said. “Who exactly is this relative of yours?” G-Dragon smiled, a genuine, scarily normal smile.

“My baby sister.”

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