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chibivesicle · 3 years

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Golden Kamuy chapters 269-270. The cliff notes meta edition.

This will be a less detailed meta as I’ve just been spread too thin recently and the current events of the manga have been underwhelming to me, making it harder to engage with the content.

Having an online presence has been a double-edged sword for me and as we mark 1 year of pandemic life, it is hard for me to invest as much time in it since I have to do so many more things online for work. Sitting down to write meta isn’t as fun and relaxing as it once was when you have 7 zoom meetings over the course of several days. Add on the fact that I have not left the county were I live since February 2020 nor I have a seen any of my family or friends . . . yeah writing meta isn’t a much of a priority. As an aside, I think more people need to be stating that being ‘productive’ and ‘leveling up’ during these times is either unrealistic and even more damaging by creating completely unrealistic expectations of how we should respond to things.

[steps off of soapbox]

Chapter 269, quickly shows us how the chaos that Tsurumi unleashed on the divided Ainu resulted in a tragedy and Wilk is the only one who managed to survive the massacre.

Tsurumi is able to sort out that there were eight Ainu, and that Wilk staged his own death by working quickly to conceal the identity of the dead partially by removing the eyes.

Kikuta is the first one to find the man who dies soon after discovery and Tsurumi seems to be in awe of Wilk’s escape plan.

KIkuta also shows he’s a more empathetic individual worried about how they contributed to the death of Ariko’s father. Did Tsurumi push Kikuta away after the war since he knew Kikuta would feel bad about doing the ‘things’ needed to be done for the gold?

It further highlights that Usami and Kikuta were never on the same page. I do like how the following page shows both Kikuta and Ariko continuing to tie the narrative that Kikuta feels a connection with the younger man. Shiraishi and Sugimoto spot Ariko, calling him Ariko Ipopte, which is an interesting choice to use a hybrid name for him. Kikuta uses his full Japanese name, while these men use a mix.

The final panel showing a reflective looking Kikuta walking alone in the rain really emotional connects with the grief surrounding all of this unnecessary death. Tsurumi sought to be a leader of men by giving them love and being the stand in father for them. I think that Kikuta is the character who is the natural and honest father figure - we know he has a deep relationship with Ariko and we also know he has some sort of connection to Sugimoto.

Tsurumi continues his ‘discussion’ of events with Asirpa and Sofia. Tsurumi has such a complicated relationship with Wilk. He’s both in awe of the man’s determination to survive but at the same time he wanted him destroyed at such a great cost.

Tsurumi really lays on the guilt to Asirpa that Wilk did everything to protect her - under the assumption that she’d be unfairly treated if her father had killed all of those men. Perhaps that is the case, perhaps not. It seems contradictory to his own actions where he gave Ogin and the Lighting Bandit’s child to Huci to care for it. He has this weird approach to the impact of the ‘sins of the parents’ on the child . . .

Tsurumi doggedly pursues Wilk and they immediately recognize each other and he flees onto the lake with his canoe. By shooting at Wilk, he forces him to capsize the canoe and items sink down into the lake. Honestly, I’m not sure what Tsurumi was hoping to achieve by this - make him swim so that he could capture him more easily. We don’t know how skilled Tsurumi is with a rifle and I’d be more concerned about killing Wilk and loosing the information. It seems reckless in my opinion since the ultimate outcome was Wilk appealing to Inudou thus achieving protection from the 7th.

I think Tsurumi was fueled and blinded by his emotions which only made things more complicated and drew the hunt for the gold out even longer (to the present time).

The rest of the chapter explains how Kiro felt. First, the grief at the loss of Wilk, trying to move on my having a family, but ultimately coming back to realize that Wilk was still alive after the war. Really, Wilk underestimated Kiro’s intelligence since he figured out that Kimuspu was the seventh man, not Wilk. As a Kiro fan, I of course favor him, but he really showed he’s a good leader and actually willing to take risks. What is most important is that having a family only lead him to want to fight for them - even more.

Kiro sees the flaw in Wilk’s plan of Hokkaido as an independent unit as a place for various native peoples, while ignoring all of the logistical issues that Kiro already pointed out to him previously. The Far Eastern Federation has the flaw that it is connected by land to Russia, but would me much harder to lay siege to. But Hokkaido as an island could easily be cut off - and with not much industry within itself, you still can’t do a whole lot with all of those raw materials if you can get industrial technologies from elsewhere. If it were blockaded they’d be screwed. Sure, you wouldn’t starve, but you wouldn’t be able to advance quickly. All that gold and nowhere to spend it.

Thus, Kiro believed he was acting in regard to their original goals and had no choice but to remove Wilk from the equation. As Wilk had become the very wolf that he had observed as a child and played with its pelt. That is some next level foreshadowing by Noda, if I do say so.

In the end, Kiro remained much more committed to their fight as partisans than Wilk did. You have to give it to him, he stuck to his original plans and he died believing he did the right thing. Now, looking back at how upset Sofia was when she first saw Kiro, we know why she slapped him in the first place. I’ll take it to mean that she was upset by Kiro’s actions but at the same time understood what he did. But then Sofia let it go, as she would soon go on to also speak fondly of Wilk and his desire to be like the wolves. Therefore, I don’t think Sofia was completely angry with Kiro, instead she knew the decision that was made and perhaps, she too, would have understood that there were divided in their goals once they moved on with their lives.

The next chapter starts off with the bottle mobile boys and Ariko on horseback as they determine what to do next. Sugimoto is amazingly still not rushing in like a maniac which is out of character for him. Are you okay Sugimoto? Or have your encounters with Kikuta and Boutarou begun to have an impact on you without being aware of it?

The settle on letting Ariko go ahead, even though he doesn’t answer their question. I’d say he doesn’t have a clue what side he is on. He likely cares about Kikuta. But he wants to see Asirpa succeed since he feels ashamed by his own approach towards life in Hokkaido as an Ainu.

Off he goes alone to figure out how to rescue Asirpa. Really, a terrible idea since sure he’s a tough guy, but we don’t know what his fighting skills are like in the first place. . . . At least he isn’t a hothead, so sending him in alone will be less of a disaster than Sugimoto.

The action returns to Tsurumi trying to turn up the heat on Asirpa. She asks him about Kiro’s fingerprints at the crime scene - a lie that Tsurumi fed to Inkarmat to get her to help him. He writes it off as him doing a good thing for her - she closed a chapter of her life - then again - he doesn’t know that Koito let Tanigaki and Inkarmat escape. The next several pages are a slow psychological technique that builds up to Tsurumi reveling that the bullet that killed Fina and Olga had been from Wilk’s pistol. Dum da duuum!

So, according to Tsurumi it is Wilk’s fault all those Ainu died. That he should have never left Russia for Japan. That even his time in Russia resulted in Fina and Olga’s deaths. Everything is Wilk’s fault!

This page ends with how Tsukishima let go of the woman he had loved and his memory of her - yet Tsurumi kept the bullet and the finger bones of his family! We can see that Tsukishima is barely holding it together, so upset by this knowledge!

As a master manipulator of people, Tsurumi thanks Sofia for what she has contributed to the story - he can help her feel better by telling her that she did not kill his wife and child. . . . on no, he only uses it as a way to add even more pressure on Asirpa!

To Tsurumi, Asirpa is no child, she is the direct tie to all of his anger and pain and his twisted soul.

I mean, he kept Wilk’s skinned face and he’s using it to get her to break! What is more interesting is after the initial shock, Sofia quickly regains her calm while Asirpa - well she’s clearly buying into Tsurumi’s explanation of things.

She is thinking about how her father ‘turned’ Tsurumi into the person he is before her . . . . I’d be willing to say that Wilk influenced Tsurumi - as much as Tsurumi influenced Wilk. Yet, Tsurumi as a human being is responsible for his decisions and he alone can respond to them in a constructive or destructive way. It is clear Tsurumi went for the latter.

Sofia’s calm in this pressure situation is clear as she asks him if it was for revenge. She’s a smart woman and has lived long enough to see these types of things through.

Tsukishima is ready to kill Tsurumi - it would make him a hypocritical leader - having him let go of his own earthly attachments only to serve a man bent on revenge. Koito is listening closely as well, unsure of how he’s going to respond.

Tsurumi makes it clear he could have killed Asirpa any number of times. I think this is another case of Tsurumi playing a verbal slight of hand. He’s asked if he’s doing this out of revenge, and his answer is - I haven’t killed her yet. Gee, based on how messed up you are Tsurumi, we both know that there is more than one way to take revenge. Killing someone in retribution is one way to take revenge or the worse way - make their life a living hell. It is clear that Tsurumi is going for the second one to break Asirpa.

There is a dramatic two page spread as he explains that he is doing this for Japan - and the implied increasing militaristic activities of the late Meiji government to expand their domain.

If feels - like a performance to me as a reader. The pages are remarkably light in tone giving it an optimistic and feeling of purity. Yet, Tsurumi is a broken and corrupt man . . . cruel in his intentions. He only says this as a way to combat anyone who were to contradict him . . . .

It is too perfect - too convenient - too good for Koito and Tsukishima to believe in my own opinion. As both of the men seem relived to have heard these very words as a type of closing statement.

Tsukishima looks relived that Tsurumi is continuing on the behalf of all of their fallen comrades and families. Again, this sounds too perfect like Tsurumi’s speech isn’t for Asirpa nor Sofia, it is for Koito and Tsukishima who are eavesdropping. Since Tsurumi is a next level planner/manipulator he likely came up with this well rehearsed speech to placate all issues around his inability to move on from his family’s death. It makes him look mature and that he’d moved on from his more basic human needs.

Koito looks like he’s trying really hard to believe Tsurumi and how Tsurumi’s words would comfort Tsukishima. But is that how you really feel Koito? That face looks - so - fake. Like Koito is overdoing it again and is actually unsure how to react. So, he he looks elated, Tsukishima will feel better - or something.

What I really want to know is why they are just there hiding and watching Tsurumi? If they are wanting to think independently and beyond Tsurumi why do it while hiding? It seems no matter what either man may think, they are still under Tsurumi’s thumb as far as how they react to his behavior and the current events.

And I’m gonna have to hold things here while I find a way to read the more recent chapters with non-shady software to decompress the files since I’ve been using Mangadex the entire time I’ve been reading GK (in addition to the english versions of previous chapters).

#golden kamuy #golden kamuy meta #asirpa #tsukishima hajime #koito otonoshin #kiroranke #tsurumi tokushirou #sofia #wilk #sugimoto saichi #Shiraishi Yoshitake #warrant officer kikuta #ariko rikimatsu

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lambourngb · 4 years

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How bout some Michael POV for your masterpiece?!!!

This takes place during chapter 2, Michael has just exited the mindspace and is waiting for the agents to question him.

“I take my last chance, to burn a bridge or two”

Michael had passed the point of exhaustion both two days and ten years ago.

The thin, plastic covered cushion in the holding cell at Chaves County Sheriff's Office had the same feel of familiar comfort as his camp bed mattress in the Airstream, both places adequately met his needs after a bender or a brawl. He was never one to shy away from dropping into oblivion, met in the bottom of the bottle or at the end of a long night of working on his ship, until today. Closing his eyes meant slipping into the almost hypnotic state of the mindspace, and then he would hear her voice again.

His mother. Golden and whole for a moment. She was the energy between his cells, the original instructor of his atoms, funneling life into him; to grow and be strong.

“Oh my beloved son, oh you’re here, you’re here already grown and bound, I’m here, but no time, not enough time, there’s so much you should know my beautiful boy, I love you, I love you so much, I will always love you, now go, run, run for me.”

His eyes snapped open as the burn of tears threatened again. Goddamn it, he didn’t have time for that. Taking a deep breath, he stared up at the unremarkable ceiling to force his mind to go quiet. It was an old building, but built soundly. Not a crack in the plaster, not a flaw to betray its age. It housed the broken, who knew where home was but stayed away in the arms of intoxication; the evil, who knew home as a place for violence or thievery, and the lost, who longed for a home but never found the way back. All those souls gathered under its roof, this solid roof that sheltered without wear or tear.

At one time Michael had been all of those; deep into the dark warmth of drunk, or full of crooked wagers from dice games, he had even been picked up on a cold night a time or two with nowhere to go. Marked by violence in a tool shed, the system shocked with such a hard shove on his orbit, that he was knocked forever from the path he once had as a teenager, left to wander in all of those grim directions.

Once upon a time his English teacher assigned to the class, near the end of term with graduation nipping at their heels, some busy work in the form of a ‘where do you see yourself in ten years’ thought experiment. His hand had sketched out a good job, college degree, and a house, while his mind traveled the fantasies of holding the small hands of a child, of helping pat dirt down over a buried seed in his garden, of Alex, always Alex, playing his guitar on the back porch-

Fuck. His bare left hand, now whole and hale, mocked him.

Michael wrenched his mind back to the present, and dug out a crumpled handkerchief from his pocket to wrap over his left hand. He tied a knot, pulling it tight with his teeth. A bitter smile crept over his mouth, using his teeth again for the grip he lost in his hand was familiar at least.

Hopefully whatever trouble that Max was in, was teaching him a lesson in meddling where he wasn’t wanted. High on power Max thought to heal his hand, but took no care to think about the damn consequences of everything, of Noah, of the things Noah was up to in Roswell. He flexed his hand again, the tight constriction of the fabric felt comfortably close to how the scar tissue pulled and tugged over his ruined knuckles. Already there were too many questions to answer, he didn’t need one more on his hand.

As angry as he was at Max, he couldn’t help but hope that the flash of pain/wrong/vacuum wasn’t so serious that he couldn’t be useful now. Ride into the Sheriff’s Office, explain away the questions to his boss about Noah and Racist Hank, so Michael could be released without need of Alex and Alex’s story.

Goddamn it Alex. Showing up at the Wild Pony, those hopeful dark eyes turning wounded and betrayed as he realized that just because he didn’t see Michael as suitable, someone else did. Like he had the right to protest Michael moving on from them. It wasn’t Michael saying that they couldn’t be together because of Michael’s record, and it certainly wasn’t Michael saying that their relationship wasn’t worthy of a pyrotechnic breakup.

And yet. When the pyrotechnics were happening, Alex was there. Immovable. Saying everything that Michael had longed to hear for ten long years.

“I love you. There is nothing I wouldn’t do to protect you and I would give anything to have this story be true, that you were mine all along.”

A tear slipped down his unshaven face as he blinked rapidly. Alex was so stupid, how could he miss the fact that Michael had been his? Across the years, through two different battlefields, and after Alex had finally come home, Michael had worn two concrete boots, Alex and Isobel. Each his own anchor to this planet, as he worked to complete his ship.

The door swung open, startling Michael off the bunk, as a tall, dark haired man was escorted into the room by Agent Ross, who shot Michael an annoyed look. “Just knock on the door when you’re ready.”

The imposing cut of the military uniform and densely packed square of ribbons on his chest sent a shivered down Michael’s spine. It was only just over two days since Michael had been involved in the destruction of a secret military operation.

“Michael Guerin?”

“Depends on who is asking.”

“I’m Major Mark Torres, attached to the JAG office at Kirtland Air Force Base.” The officer tucked his cover under his arm and held his hand out toward Michael.

None of what this Mark Torres said made any sense to him. Kirtland was three hours away, Holloman was the closest base to the Caulfield facility. Michael lifted his eyebrows mockingly, but made no move to step closer to the open cell door, “That’s nice and all, but I’ve got nothing to say to anyone until my lawyer shows up.”

An amused smirk flitted over his mouth, “I am your lawyer, Alex sent me.” Instead of waiting for a response, Mark entered the cell and took a seat on the bunk, turning to Michael with a patient expectation. He placed the brim of his cover next to Michael’s black cowboy hat and then pulled his slim briefcase into his lap. “I admit, this isn’t how I expected to meet you, the infamous Michael.”

“Alex got me an Air Force lawyer?” The rest of that implication, that Alex had spoken of them to anyone in the past, let alone someone in the service was too much to even think about.

“I’m a lawyer who’s in the Air Force, and I’m doing this in the civilian court system pro-bono,” Mark replied easily, and popped the fasteners of his briefcase open to pull out a yellow legal pad and a pen. “Now that we’ve covered why I’m here, let’s talk about why you’re here. Tell me everything you know about Noah Bracken, what your connection to him, why the police might think you’re involved with his disappearance, and why they found a body when they came to question you.”

Michael stared at Major Mark Torres for a long moment, weighing his extremely limited options. The distant place inside him, where his faint connection to Max lived, was still and empty. He rubbed his wrapped fist against his face before sighing as he took a seat next to him. Alex said to trust him that he would get Michael out of this, and whatever mess that lay between them after Caulfield and now Maria, Michael believed wholeheartedly that Alex didn’t make promises he couldn’t keep.

As a rule Alex Manes didn’t make promises at all, to anyone, least of all to Michael.

“I know Noah Bracken, I mean everyone does in this town and I have a record, petty shit obviously, but that’s enough I guess for them to suspect me. But I have an alibi, I was with my boyfriend all night- hell, I’m with him every night. We’re kinda makin’ up for lost time since he was in Iraq, until well-”

“You’re referring to Captain Alexander Manes, correct?” Mark asked, scratching notes down on his pad without looking up.

“No one calls him ‘Alexander’, but yeah. Alex.” Michael licked his lips almost nervously, before he took a deep breath. This was the easy part of the alibi. “Alex is everything to me. I fell in love with him when we were seventeen, and I never stopped fallin’.”

“He did mention you were a romantic.” Mark nodded in approval of Michael’s words and capped his pen, “let’s start with the last time people saw Bracken in public at that-, good God, this town has a museum dedicated to aliens? What a thing to celebrate. Anyway, Alex tells me you’re a mechanic, that you can fix anything you put your hands on, were you at the gala for business purposes?”

Michael stuttered a little, feeling his face heat in embarrassment. He wasn’t used to anyone singing his praises, let alone a complete stranger. What did Alex say to this guy? “Um I helped do the lighting and sound for the organizer, Isobel. Um, Isobel Evans-Bracken. I left Alex at home, err, my Airstream ‘cause he doesn’t really enjoy the dog-and-pony show even though there was free booze. I gave a friend a ride home, Maria Deluca, and then spent the rest of the evening with Alex. In bed.”

His pen never stopped moving, “and last night, when this Hank Gibbons ended up dead, you were with Alex again? At your Airstream again?”

“Yeah, um, Alex lives pretty far out of town, and I had work in town. Um, during the week he spends a couple nights at mine, on weekends we’re at his place. Compromise.”

Spinning this fairy tale of shared residences to Torres, of disappearing to Alex’s cabin on the weekends and splitting the time apart during the week renewed an ache inside Michael. The slow turn of a bolt, burrowing into his heart as the threads of the light caught on hope and corkscrewed deeper into place.

“No one can corroborate that, correct? Other than Alex?”

“We’ve been keeping our relationship quiet. For personal reasons.”

This time Mark’s pen came to a halt, and he looked over to Michael with a sad understanding smile, “I’ve met Alex’s dad. He’s a first class prick. I’ve never met anyone more different from Alex in my life.”

“That’s for sure. Niger can have him. In fact, I hope he gets Ebola over there.” His eyes glanced up to the video camera on the corner before dropping to Torres again. Michael paused, hedging the risk of this disclosure, before continuing, “I’m not a violent man, but if I were, I wouldn’t bother with the town lawyer or the local racist asshole, it would be to protect Alex from that guy.”

Mark followed his gaze to the camera and back, before nodding. “I think I know all I need to know about you, Michael. Let’s go clear this up with the locals and get you released.”

***

“You were with Captain Manes all night? You didn’t leave at all?” Agent Ross asked quietly, his thin face placid, while his partner, Agent Rollins barely held back the curl of disgust from his face.

“Have you seen Alex? Like dude, I know I’m punching way above my class with him, you would have to be crazy to leave a bed that had him in it.” Michael smirked, fiddling with his hat on the table. Next to him, Major Torres stayed quiet taking notes.

“And he can confirm that?”

“Yes. I know he didn’t let you have a good look, but my Airstream isn’t big enough for him to miss me leaving. Trust me. We were together all night.”

“Let’s go back to the fight you had with Mr. Bracken-”

“Man, that’s bullshit, okay?!” Michael cut him off, “I did not have a fight with Noah, and whoever says differently is lying.”

Mark set down his pen to touch Michael’s hand lightly, before looking at the two agents evenly, “one eyewitness, on a dark night, does not overturn the alibi provided by Captain Manes. Let’s move on, shall we?”

“This relationship you’re in with Captain Manes, he’s alluded to the fact that it was kept secret. I find that rather convenient, and I can’t help but wonder if he’s trying to help out a friend. Maybe cover up the fact you were having an affair with the wife of our missing lawyer?” Rollins smirked, exchanging glances with his partner.

It took a moment before Michael could catch the inference, and then only Mark’s tight grip on his wrist kept him in his seat. “Wait?! You think I’m lying about Alex to cover up for an affair with Isobel? What the fuck, man? Number one, that’s gross on a number of levels, number two, Alex is the most stubborn man alive, but he’s also the most honorable. He wouldn’t do that for anyone, especially not about adultery. He could get court martialed for that shit.”

Ross picked up his turn to provoke, offering another even almost-bored question to Michael, “I see, you deny that an affair was going on with Ms. Bracken. So you’re not attracted to women then?”

“I don’t see how that’s relevant,” Torres protested.

“Mr. Guerin opened the door earlier, basing his alibi on how attractive a bed partner Captain Manes was.”

Michael took a deep breath again, pushing down the nettled feelings of exposure. Of all things he thought he would be discussing at the sheriff’s office, this wasn’t anywhere on the list. “Not that it’s relevant, but I’m bisexual, yes. I’m also monogamous. It’s not that difficult to understand. I love Alex, I wouldn’t cheat on him with anyone.”

“So on the night of the Gala, that was thrown by your platonic good friend Mrs. Bracken, you were there, without Captain Manes, but in the company of a Ms. Maria Deluca. Another platonic friend, I assume. Do you remember anyone bothering Mr. Bracken? Someone who might have wanted to harm him?”

***

Hours later, after they had combed through every minute of Michael’s time at the gala and the night before when Hank Gibbons was at the Wild Pony, the agents finally concluded their questions and granted his release from temporary custody. There was still an air of disbelief from both agents regarding his alibi being with Alex.

From the outside, Michael couldn’t blame them. Even setting aside his spotty employment record, rap sheet, and history of being in care of the state, anyone with eyes could see that Alex Manes was a man who could have his pick of partners. Why would he pick the outcast of Roswell? It didn’t make sense to Michael that was for sure, and that had been true almost from the beginning.

“This was fun, Agent Rollins. Let me know if you want me to go over my movements from the other night again, and Alex’s even better movements. I can really open up on that, if it helps,” Michael offered, stomping the blood back into his boots as he left the interview room eagerly.

There was some satisfaction in seeing out of the corner of his eye, Agent Rollins looking as if he had bit into a lemon.

Next to him, Torres grabbed Michael’s forearm with a warning squeeze and steered him down the hall where Alex was waiting with a worried expression. “What my client means is, you have my number if you wish to schedule a follow-up interview. We’re happy to cooperate in any investigation, especially if it leads to Mr Bracken returning safely home.”

Alex’s eyes flickered from Torres’s hand on his shoulder to the agents and back to Michael, but there was a hint of smug satisfaction in those dark eyes. Somehow Michael knew that Alex was holding back amusement over his graphic words to the bigoted agent. Well, there was no sense in not completing the performance.

He moved into Alex’s space comfortably, and brought his hands to Alex’s neck to draw him into a kiss. His last memory of kissing Alex, had been handled and revisited to the point of being thread-bare before being set aside as an old fantasy out of reach. Feeling Alex’s arms come up and hold him close, sent shocks down his fingertips as he cupped Alex’s chin to hide the chasteness of the kiss from view.

Alex wasn’t playing fair in return.

Those big, firm hands of his slid up Michael’s back, and threaded into the sweat-thick curls of his hair. Michael felt Alex’s lips part against his, that clever hot mouth opening to Michael, and nothing tempted Michael more in that moment, than following Alex’s lead.

That long bolt of the lie, turned deeper inside him, shredding the few safeguards he had in place. Alex loved him, Alex wanted to protect him, Alex had never stayed before- so many truths, so many reasons he wasn’t able to trust this especially now. Michael kept his mouth closed, and after a second, he felt Alex back away. They were good at that at least, retreating.

Alex’s cheeks were warm, probably from the public nature of the kiss, even as his face showed only the firm resolve of their shared story. His eyes drifted down, playing his role of a shy lover with Michael expertly. “You uh, ready to go home then?”

“Long past ready, darlin’.” Michael exhaled tiredly, already wondering how he was going to make it through this without losing more of his heart than he had to spare in the process. He reached for the familiar weight of his hat in his hand, and tipped it to the still watching agents.

#malex fic #fake dating your ex because of the feds #no beta here #malex #michael guerin #alex manes #missing scene #no excuses ask meme #hmd023

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xtruss · 3 years

Text

The Forgotten Tale of the Confederate Spies Who Invaded Vermont

In 1864, Southern soldiers plotted to take tiny St. Albans, rob its banks, and change the course of the Civil War.

— By Michael Tougias | July 16, 2021 | Boston Globe Magazine

Captives, including students from St. Albans Academy, under guard by Confederate raiders. FROM THE VERMONT HISTORICAL SOCIETY

ON OCTOBER 10, 1864, Bennett Young stepped off the train from Canada, and into the train depot at St. Albans, Vermont, 15 miles south of the border. Young, a handsome, clean-shaven 21-year-old divinity student, took a room at the Tremont House on Main Street and spent the next few days familiarizing himself with the town. But Young was not what he seemed. He was a native of Kentucky, not Canada, and a Confederate officer recently escaped from a prisoner-of-war camp. He was here in this bustling railroad center of about 4,000 residents to change the course of the war.

It had been fewer than five days since Young received a message from C.C. Clay Jr., a former US senator from Alabama. Clay, sent to Canada in 1864 by Confederate President Jefferson Davis to build a network of secret agents, had written: “Your suggestion for a raid upon the most accessible towns in Vermont, commencing with St. Albans, is approved, and you are authorized and required to act in conformity with that suggestion.”

Davis himself had approved the bold series of raids. The South was clearly losing the Civil War. Atlanta had fallen to General William T. Sherman a month earlier. General Ulysses S. Grant’s forces were hounding Robert E. Lee’s Army of Virginia. The port of Mobile, Alabama, had been blockaded by Rear Admiral David Farragut. The hope was that several dramatic raids from Canada into the North would at the least force Union troops north to defend the border, easing pressure on Lee. If Union troops chased the raiders into Canada, it might help draw neutral Canada and Great Britain into the war on the side of the Confederates. And if things went really well, it might demoralize Northern voters so much that they would elect a Democrat as president instead of the Republican incumbent, Abraham Lincoln. Plus, the Confederacy needed cash.

Over the next nine days, some 20 more men from Canada arrived in groups of twos and threes. Like Young, they were also Confederate soldiers posing as Canadian civilians in St. Albans for business or relaxation. These men, only two of whom were older than 30, made polite inquiries about horses they could rent and guns they could borrow for a bit of hunting. Some took day trips to nearby towns, to play out the ruse and scout other targets to raid. Others wandered into the town’s banks, striking up conversations with the locals or inquiring about the price of gold. Their real interest was determining how many employees each bank had. Some occasionally met with Young clandestinely at his hotel, to share information and discuss the outlines of their mission.

Young, meanwhile, played his part with flair. He courted a woman staying at his hotel, impressed the villagers with his conspicuous Bible reading, and visited the home of the governor of Vermont, railroad magnate J. Gregory Smith. Smith was in Montpelier at the time, so his wife, Ann Eliza Smith, showed Young around the grounds. She thought Young “a nice mannered man,” not realizing he intended to burn the mansion down as retribution for the burning of Southern governors’ mansions.

Young had determined two potential escape routes for the bold plan, which would turn out to be the northernmost action of the Civil War. But he also saw a threat: Just a couple of blocks west of Main Street was a busy railway station and foundry, employing dozens of men who might leap into action. Still, he was confident — the raiders were going to need 30 minutes, at most, to rob several banks, torch the town with bottles of an incendiary liquid called Greek fire, and run. In the commotion, Young hoped to also set fire to the governor’s mansion, then raid Swanton, another town, on the way back to Canada.

He fixed Wednesday, October 19, as the day of the attack.

A Confederate raider shoots at E.J. Morrison outside Miss Beattie’s Millinery on Main Street in St. Albans.FROM THE VERMONT HISTORICAL SOCIETY

AT 3 P.M. ON THE 19th, St. Albans’ church bells rang to mark the hour. Under leaden skies that threatened rain, Young strolled down Main Street, then climbed a couple of steps onto a hotel porch. Reaching inside his coat, he pulled out his Navy Colt revolver and raised it over his head. “I’m an officer of the Confederate Service,” he shouted. “I am going to take this town and shoot the first person that resists!”

At first, St. Albans residents within earshot thought Young was joking. They stared at him until he pointed his gun at them and other raiders herded them onto the village green. Other Confederates went to get horses, and three groups of them headed to the town’s banks: Franklin County Bank on Main Street, St. Albans Bank at the corner of Main and Kingman, and the First National Bank on Fairfield. They were barely more than a block apart, all near the town common.

Young climbed on a horse and trotted up and down Main Street, overseeing the roundup of prisoners and monitoring his men’s assault on the banks. He knew his two revolvers had only six shots each, and would be difficult to reload while on horseback. So whenever he saw someone emerge from a building, he’d point his gun at them and tell them to get back inside, intimidating them before they made trouble.

Collins Huntington, though, on his way to pick up his children from school, ignored Young’s threats, thinking he was drunk. Young leveled his revolver and shot at him, inflicting a glancing wound along Huntington’s rib cage.

Inside the Franklin County Bank, a cashier saw a neatly dressed man named William Hutchinson approach the counter. Assuming Hutchinson was a customer, the cashier, Marcus Beardsley, asked how he could help. Hutchinson pulled a revolver from his coat. “We are Confederate soldiers,” he said. “We have come to rob your banks and burn your town. There are a hundred of us here. You must keep quiet and hand over all your money.”

A customer nearby made a run for the door but stopped when the raiders threatened to shoot. Two raiders pushed him into the vault, then began filling their haversacks with bills. Hutchinson, meanwhile, told Beardsley to give him the money from the counter, then locked Beardsley in the vault, too. The four raiders left the bank with approximately $70,000, the equivalent of about $1.2 million today.

Down the street in the St. Albans Bank, Cyrus Bishop stood, terrified, as raiders on either side of him pointed revolvers at his head. “If you make any resistance or give any further alarm, we’ll blow your brains out,” one told him. One of the raiders pointed his pistol at an assistant cashier and told him, “Not a word out of you. We are Confederate soldiers, we have come to take your town, we shall have your money.”

Then the raiders took the time to do something unexpected: They made Bishop and the assistant cashier swear allegiance to the Confederate States of America. While three more raiders entered the bank and stuffed as much money as they could fit in their pockets and satchels, one of the Confederates guarding the two bank employees lectured them on the destruction of the South by Generals Sheridan and Sherman.

The cashier was having none of it. He said if the robbery was an act of war, he should be allowed to take an inventory so that the bank could be reimbursed by the federal government. “Damn your government, hold up your hands,” hissed the raider.

At that point, someone knocked on the bank’s front door, which the rebels had locked behind them. One of the raiders opened it. In walked Samuel Breck, a merchant looking to make a deposit. A rebel grabbed him by the collar with one hand, pressed a revolver to his head with the other, and said, “I take deposits.” He took $393 from Breck and shoved him in the room with the two bank employees.

Suddenly, the sounds of gunfire erupted outside the bank, and three of the raiders ran out. The last two raiders left the bank more slowly, walking backward with their guns raised. They had been in St. Albans Bank for 12 minutes.

Inside the St. Albans Bank, a clerk is threatened at gunpoint by a group of Confederate raiders. FROM THE VERMONT HISTORICAL SOCIETY

YOUNG DIDN’T KNOW where the shots were coming from. There was at least one St. Albans local, possibly more, firing at his raiders from buildings on Main Street. No one had been hit, but Young hadn’t planned for armed resistance.

He had already fired his revolvers three times — at Collins Huntington; at stable owner Sylvester Field, who’d objected to the theft of his horses (the ball passed through Field’s hat); and at Leonard Bingham, a local who had tried to charge him when Young was climbing onto a horse. Young had hit Bingham, but the ball had been stopped by Bingham’s heavy silver watch, and Bingham had escaped. Young had only nine bullets left, but he was going to have to do something to regain control of a situation that was spiraling out of control.

Leonard Cross heard the commotion and stepped out of his photography studio. “What are you trying to celebrate here?” he asked Young.

“I’ll let you know,” Young said, and shot at Cross, barely missing his head. Eight bullets left.

It was time, he thought, to start setting the town on fire. His raiders began throwing their bottles of Greek fire at buildings.

An old editorial illustration depicts William H. Blaisdell of St. Albans accost a raider outside of the First National Bank as another Confederate raced toward them. Blaisdell, like others that day, was taken at gunpoint into what today is Taylor Park. The First National sat at the southeast corner of Main and Fairfield streets, across the street from what is now Taylor Park. CREDIT: VERMONT HISTORICAL SOCIETY (these images originally appeared in Frank Leslie's magazine)

Over at the First National Bank, the third group of robbers had gathered $58,000 (nearly $1 million in current dollars). The four of them left the bank, escorting an employee toward the common, where they were going to put him with the other captives. As they were leaving, they saw a local business owner, William Blaisdell, approaching the bank. Blaisdell quickly realized what was happening and grabbed a raider, throwing him down onto the boardwalk. But other raiders pointed their pistols at Blaisdell’s head, forcing him to surrender.

Buildings should have been burning by now, Young must have realized. But they weren’t — the bottles of Greek fire had hit their targets, but they merely smoldered. Nothing was burning.

More townspeople had realized St. Albans was under attack. Nearby, at the governor’s residence, a neighbor’s servant girl rushed in to tell Vermont’s first lady, Ann Smith: “The rebels are in town, robbing the banks, burning the houses and killing the people,” the girl exclaimed. “They are on their way up the hill, intending to burn your house.”

Smith and a Scottish servant girl sprung into action, calmly closing the blinds and shades of the house and bolting the doors. Then, Smith found one of her husband’s pistols. It wasn’t loaded, but she hoped the raiders wouldn’t realize that. She carried the gun to the front steps, to stand and wait. She wished she had raised an American flag, so if they went down it would be with colors flying.

The Confederate raiders set fire to the bridge over Sheldon Creek, but it did not fully burn. FROM THE VERMONT HISTORICAL SOCIETY

BACK IN THE CENTER of town, Erasmus Fuller, a livery owner, grabbed an old six-shooter, pointed it at one of the raiders, and pulled the trigger. Click. Young burst out laughing. “Fetch me some spurs!” he yelled.

Fuller had other ideas. He ducked into Bedard’s Harness Shop and ran to the back door. He started shouting that the town was being attacked, hoping the men who were building a large hotel nearby would come and help him. E.J. Morrison, a Manchester, New Hampshire, man overseeing the hotel’s construction, heard Fuller’s shouts and ran to the stable owner.

Fuller, with Morrison now trailing behind, returned to Main Street. He saw Young, lifted his pistol again, and took aim.

“Look out Cap’n!” shouted one of the raiders. Then he and Young both fired at Fuller. Fuller ducked behind an elm tree, evading their shots.

Not so Morrison, who dropped to the ground, mortally wounded. He would be the raid’s sole fatality, leaving behind a widow and five children. (What the raiders didn’t know is that he was also likely the only man in town sympathetic to the Confederate cause.)

George Conger had heard the gunshots and come running. Young saw him, and asked, “Are you a soldier?”

“I am,” Conger replied. He had been a captain in the Union Army and had been wounded at the Second Battle of Bull Run.

“Then you are my prisoner,” Young said. But Conger dashed into the American House hotel, next to the Franklin County Bank, ran through the back and then down Lake Street toward the foundry, yelling, “There is a regular raid on St. Albans. Bring out your guns and fight!” Workers at the foundry and at the railroad grabbed weapons and followed Conger back to the center of town.

Young realized his plot was quickly unraveling. He began to move his men north, shouting, “Keep cool boys, keep cool!”

An old editorial illustration depicts cashier Marcas W. Beardsley and Jackson Clark, a woodsawyer who happened to be in the Franklin County Bank, being freed from the vault where they had been imprisoned, even though Beardsley had pleaded with the robbers explaining it was airtight. The men, who understood the Confederates planned to burn the town, feared for their lives either by suffocation or fire. J. Russell Armington and Dana R. Bailey heard their shouts and came to their rescue, however. CREDIT: VERMONT HISTORICAL SOCIETY (these images originally appeared in Frank Leslie's magazine)

Conger, gun in hand, tried to shoot at the raiders, but his gun would not fire. The Confederates started firing on him and yelling the rebel yell, but this riled up their horses, which were not used to battle. Over the din, Young was hollering, “There is too great a crowd gathering round here!” He knew they had to get out of town, and quickly.

Spurring his horse around those of his men, he told them to throw their remaining bottles of Greek fire at the closest buildings. Again, they failed to ignite. It was time to go. Once Young was sure his men were all accounted for, they were off at a gallop, occasionally turning to fire pistols behind them.

Conger shouted to all those nearby, “Bring on your horses, men, and arms and we will follow them. If you can’t get arms there is no use, they are going to fight hard!”

On the steps of the governor’s residence, Ann Smith saw a man galloping to her. The hour has come, she thought, the invaders have arrived. But the man on horseback turned out to be her brother-in-law, Stewart Stranahan, who was home on sick leave from the Army of the Potomac. Stranahan told her the raiders had robbed the banks and killed a man, but failed to set St. Albans ablaze. He had come for any weapons he could scrounge.

“Here, take this pistol, it is all I have yet found,” Smith said, feeling rage build inside her. “And, Stewart,” she added, “if you come up with them, kill them! Kill them!”

Soon, Conger and a posse of some 50 men were in pursuit of the raiders, followed quickly by 40 more men led by Stranahan. The Confederate party split up before it reached Canada, to increase the odds of escape. Conger’s militia reached the border and kept going, joining with some Canadian constables. They were able to capture about 13 raiders, including Young, and some of the $208,000 ($3.5 million in today’s money) that was later determined missing.

THE PLAN OF THE St. Albans group was to bring their prisoners back to town to face charges of murder. But as they neared the border, more Canadian authorities arrived at the scene and demanded charge of the rebels. Conger reluctantly agreed. The prisoners were first brought to St. Johns and then transferred to Montreal on October 27. The raiders were well received by a contingent of Canadian Confederate sympathizers, cheered as they were brought to jail.

They gave Young and his men food, clothing, and even liquor. Some of Montreal’s finer restaurants sent over meals and scores of citizens visited them at the jail, where they had been given a large room rather than cells. A relaxed Young wrote to the St. Albans Messenger requesting two copies of the paper be delivered each day. “Your editorials are quite interesting and will furnish considerable amusement to myself and comrades,” he wrote.

Young’s taunting infuriated many Vermonters, and for a short period of time it appeared that the Confederates might succeed in dragging Canada into the war against the Union. The St. Albans Messenger editorial page stated that if the prisoners were not handed over, “The sooner we declare war on our neighbors to the north, the better.” Lincoln’s secretary of war, Edwin Stanton, later called the St. Albans Raid “one of the most important events of the war,” with the potential to draw both Canada and Britain into hostilities.

But over the next few months, a series of contentious court proceedings went against extradition, as Canadian judges ruled that the raid was an act of war, not murder and robbery. All the raiders were eventually freed.

Some of the Confederates in jail in Montreal. Bennett Young is seated at right, William Hutchinson is at left. FROM THE VERMONT HISTORICAL SOCIETY

But Bennett Young’s gambit had failed. Perhaps if the Greek fire had worked and more damage had been done, it would have enraged Vermonters more. Or if there had been follow-up raids on Swanton or other towns. But the St. Albans citizens had forced them to abandon those plans. No Union troops were diverted to the border, Canada and Great Britain did not enter the war, Lincoln was reelected, Sherman reached the sea in late December 1864, and on April 9, 1865, Lee surrendered at Appomattox Court House. The Canadian government even reimbursed the Vermont banks for the amount of money it found on the raiders, approximately $88,000. The other $120,000 was not accounted for.

After the war, Young was specifically excluded from an amnesty for Confederates. He fled to the United Kingdom, where he studied law. He returned to the United States after a full amnesty was granted in1868, becoming a successful lawyer in Louisville, Kentucky, and was regularly applauded at Confederate reunions and parades.

In 1911, when he was 68, Young took his wife on vacation to Montreal. He contacted the people of St. Albans, saying he would like to meet with them. The town sent a four-man delegation to the Ritz-Carlton, where he was staying. Young put on a Confederate uniform for the session, and told his visitors that “the raid was only the reckless escapade of a flaming youth of 21 years, steeped in patriotism for the South.” Perhaps it was something like an apology. The get-together was friendly and lasted well into the night.

— Michael Tougias is the author of more than 30 books for adults, most recently “The Waters Between Us,” and five for middle readers. He is currently working on a book about the St. Albans Raid. Send comments to [email protected]. In addition to reporting and eyewitness accounts from the St. Albans Messenger and other periodicals, significant sources for this story include materials from the St. Albans Historical Society and The St. Albans Raid, Complete and Authentic Report by L.N. Benjamin.

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godsofmonster · 4 years

Text

Bangtan MC ≽ III.

Reader x Bangtan- Motorcycle Club

Word Count- 8.2k

Warnings- sexual content, death, murder, guns, drugs, violence, betrayal, mentions of suicide, mentions of rape, etc.

For as long as I can remember back, I always wanted to be in a motorcycle club. Since I was six years old, the only thing on my mind was getting my hands on a Harley and a cut. I was a wolf, a wild cur, cut from the pack with bloodstained on my fur. Every wrong has marked a debt because a beaten dog never forgets.

The remainder of my night was spent in a dirty, cheap motel across town. I couldn’t really afford anything better. I even dared to return to my father’s home to pick up some of my old clothes. There wasn’t much leftover either.

I was both, mentally and materially exhausted. Despite this, sleep hadn't seemed like a reasonable option for me. Instead, I laid on the stiff mattress and dreaded the morning light.

Morning came all the same, through the broken blinds of the room.

The moments between having my eyes closed, and opening them, were lost time. I had no sense of how long I had been laying there. Hours must have gone by.

That was until my phone rang at 10 am exactly. My limbs felt heavy at the first movement toward the phone. It was the phone call that I was waiting for. The one that would determine my next move.

"Agent (Y/L/N), did you rest well?"

I placed my cell on speakerphone and tossed it on the crummy bed.

"As good as could be expected," I answered, swinging my legs over the bed edge.

"I'm sorry to hear that," He didn't have to be so polite, I thought. I tested the strength of my legs and stood on them. "Do you need me to fill you in on the Camilo Cartel?"

"I'm familiar, I helped the administration track their movements into California," I explained my prior knowledge while walking toward the bag I packed. I scavenged through the outdated clothing I wore in my youth. "I had no idea his men moved so far North already."

"Miguel Camilo is an ambitious man." I settled on an old t-shirt. "He's been flooding his heroin and cocaine into almost all of the California prisons."

"Except for Pelican Bay which is still controlled by the PB." The Pure Brotherhood was the largest gang of Neo-Nazis on the West coast. They controlled the drug trade until the Camilo Cartel began to expand out of Northern Mexico. "Three of them came to shoot up my father's house. They killed a boy and injured four other people."

"That was just a warning. They aren't happy that Bangtan is dealing guns to both them and the cartel."

My father started running guns for his Russian connections early on in the club's life. It was just supposed to be a short favor but the money spoke too loudly. At the time, the PB was heavily trafficking drugs through Blackburn from Pelican Bay. However, they made an agreement, that why would stop dealing in Blackburn, in exchange for Bangtan selling them guns.

"I'm sure you are aware, that since the settlement in 2018, Pelican Bay has become the service network for the drug distribution from California to its surrounding states."

That was a sick understatement.

"The Pacific Northwest is drowning in methamphetamine because of the PB's connection at Pelican Bay," I responded, rather sorely. It was a combination of anger, knowing that the club had gotten themselves directly involved. Also, a rage drove from personal experience.

I tossed the clothes I had collected on the bed, alongside my phone. Agent Romero was silent for a time, following the tone of my tongue.

"I was informed you took part in the one-year investigation that saw the raid of 10 drug dens in Seattle last year." His voice became finer. It was almost as if he was being cautious with his information. "You made the connection between the dealers and the PB."

I took a seat on the foot of the bed and remained soundless. I didn't want to take the credit for that.

"Everyone already suspected it led back to them..." I refused to.

"But you knew that the firearms that were confiscated, during the raid, had come from Bangtan."

I didn't expect him to understand why I wasn't proud of this. How could I be? When I had to see the consequences of the club's activities outside of Blackburn. The DEA confiscated 37 pounds of meth and 27 pounds of heroin that day. We really did only care for our own. The rest of the world could burn.

"Agent (Y/L/N)?" He called.

I hummed as a reply.

"You are our best hope. I need to know that you can go through with this," He said sternly. But I understood, there could be no room for hesitation in an operation like this. "Not only because of your personal involvement with the club but because of your history of drug addiction."

My life had taken many unexpected turns after I moved to Seattle. I fought against everything I knew and had an extreme appetite for destruction. If you had the money, then Seattle had your disease. Slipping into darkness had never been so easy.

"I've been clean for five years, agent," I reminded him.

I had a regularly scheduled drug test every 90 days through a hair sample. It was a rare exception to the DEA, but my personal experience was beneficial to them. "I also haven't been in contact with the club in over seven years."

I stood back on my feet, taking a hold of the hem of my shirt and pulled it over my head.

"I understand. For now, I need you to stay close to the club." I took the phone in one hand and my clothes in the other. "I'll be flying in from Virginia tomorrow, we will discuss further details, in person."

"Yes, sir."

He hung up the phone after that. I was left to unwind, once again.

This time I stepped toward the bathroom, leaving the stuff in my hands on the countersink. The bathroom was, at the very least, clean compared to the rest of the room.

I turned on the water to the shower and gave it time to heat up. I continued to undress myself, anticipating the sweet relief of the hot water. With the remainder of my clothing scattered on the floor, I heard my phone vibrate behind me.

I imagined that it was agent Romero. However, when I looked at the screen I found the message coming from an unsaved number. The same unsaved number that Namjoon called me from two days ago.

I didn't expect to be starting work this soon.

The second I turned off the engine on my bike, Namjoon was already waiting for me at the doorway of his home. I didn't see any other bikes in the driveway, except for Jaeeun's car.

I was honestly hoping that she wouldn't be home.

"You're late." Was the first thing out of his mouth.

"I came from across town- there was traffic," I explained, even though it couldn't have been more than ten minutes past three.

He moved aside and let me step first into his house. The front door opened to his living room. There I was met with an unfortunate appearance by Jaeeun. There was only an everlasting smirk or frown on this woman's face. When it came to me, a frown was her default.

"You said this was important?" I turned around to see Namjoon closing the door.

"Yeah," Namjoon quietly remained, his fingers brushed their way through his hair. There was a stillness in the room that no one seemed to want to face.

All I could do was stand there and watch as he calmly stepped further into the room. Before I could ask him to elaborate, there was another set of footsteps that came in from the hallway.

"Ms.(Y/n),"

I came face to face with my father's attorney. He received me with a friendly smile, extending his hand out to me in the process.

"Richard," I was startled by his visit.

"I'm sorry to meet again under these circumstances." His presence was eerily similar to when my mother passed away. Then his appearance began to make sense.

"My father's will?"

Richard gently nodded his head, the look of sympathy easily displayed on his features. He slowly gestured both Namjoon and me to join Jaeeun on the couch.

Namjoon offered himself the seat between his mother and I. While Richard took the single armchair facing our direction. A round coffee table stood between us. Richard drew a leather briefcase from the floor and placed it on the glass surface.

There was a feeling of dread emitting from my chest, making it feel heavy and stiff. My palms ran over the fabric of my jeans at the sound of the briefcase latches opened.

He slipped out a single piece of paper, the delicate material folded like a letter. Richard cleared his throat,

"The purpose of our meeting here today is the reading of the final testament of the deceased. Including, the distributions of assets and beneficiary claims." He took a moment to look at each of us. "With all of your permission, I will begin,"

We all gave our approval for him to begin.

I didn't know what to expect.

I, resident of the state of California, county of Blackburn, and being sound of mind and memory; do hereby make, publish, and declare this to be my last will and testament.

At the time of executing this will, I have widowed and have remarried to Jaeeun Kim. Also at the time of this will, I recognize only two legitimate children.

(Y/F/N). My biological daughter from my first marriage, now deceased.

Namjoon Kim. My legal son from my current marriage to Jaeeun Kim.

For my wife, I leave you with the remaining balance of our joint bank account, as well, as our matrimonial home. All titles and deeds will be changed under your name as the sole owner of the property.

For my son, after being a long time employee and business partner, I leave you as the owner of The House Of Cards.

Finally, for my daughter, I leave you with the remaining balance of my separate savings account, as well, as my 2003 Harley-Davidson Dyna Super Glide Sport and my 1990 Harley-Davidson Fatboy.

When I turned 18, there was nothing more that I wanted than that old Fatboy. I never thought that finally getting it would feel so meaningless.

I didn't plan to be out for long after being at Namjoon's house. We didn't say much to each other after Richard had left, I even left the house without any insults from Jaeeun. However, before leaving, Namjoon asked me to meet him at the bar to take a look at my father's bikes.

When I arrived in the parking lot of the bar, Jimin, Taehyung, and Jungkook were in mid-conversation around their bikes. I parked my Harley right beside Jimin's.

"Hey," I called out to them. My fingers clicked off the straps of my helmet and let it hang around the handlebar.

When I stepped off my bike, I was instantly greeted by Jimin, who unexpectedly pulled me into a hug. I was somewhat taken back, his arm was hooked tightly around my waist. Of course, I returned the embrace, but at the same time, made awkward eye contact with Taehyung.

"What's going on?" I asked a bit flustered as Jimin began to pull away.

"Namjoon called us in," Jungkook replied. There was a smirk in his words as if he knew something that I didn't. I glanced at Taehyung, who remained silent by his side. I never did understand Jungkook's sense of humor. I brushed it off nevertheless.

"He told us to bring your old man's Harley," Jimin also stated. He stepped with me, as I came closer into the semicircle that they were gathered in. I turned my head and looked at him rather confused.

"Bring it from where? The shop?" I questioned.

I watched Jimin lean against his bike. "I thought it would be at the pound,"

He pushed strands of his hair away from his forehead, taking a moment to look away from me and waited to speak. I could see the gears begin to turn in his head and he glanced at the other boys for guidance.

No one said anything.

"His Dyna got roughed up a few weeks ago- he left it in the shop for Taehyung and me to fix," He carefully explained. "He was riding his Fatboy the day of the accident."

My life seemed to be a never-ending joke of irony. The sudden feeling of gloom overcame me prompting me to switch my gaze to the pavement. The bike that I had wanted was the bike that he had left me, but it was also the bike he had died in. I didn't say much after that.

We stood in silence together for a few more minutes. That was until Taehyung's phone rang and notified us that Namjoon was waiting for us in the garage.

When we got there, the garage was opened, to a truck parked in reverse. The white truck was branded with the name of Jimin's old man’s auto shop. The sound of the passenger door slamming was followed by Yoenjun coming around the corner. The young prospect moved quickly to unlatch the backdoors of the trailer.

I advanced toward the truck, somewhat, anticipating to get a look at my father's Dyna.

Jungkook came up to lend Yoenjun a hand with the ramp. The loud piece of metal came crashing down on the asphalt. If this had been anyone else's bike, Yoenjun would have just ridden it from the shop. But they were being extra cautious out of respect.

Yoenjun came out of the dingy trailer with his hands guiding the bike down the ramp. The black beauty reflected shapes of the fluorescent lights. I stared at the beautiful wide front of the Dyna that reminded me why I got my Softail.

"What do you think?" Yeonjun asked while he pushed down the kickstand, allowing the bike to stand on its own.

"It looks brand new," I said, running my hand over the cold black metal of the fuel tank. "What was wrong with it?"

I asked, peering over to Jimin and Taehyung.

"The headlight was broken," Jimin revealed. "There were also some scratches and dents."

I nodded my head. I couldn't see any evidence of scratches, much less dents, that were difficult to get rid of without the right tools.

"Prospect," Namjoon called from behind me. Yoenjun's eyes shot up in question. "Did you get the Fatboy out of the pound?"

"Yes, pres," He said, quickly moving his feet back up the ramp.

My eyes wandered into the darkness of the back of the trailer. I couldn’t see anything but I heard the hunk of metal rattling against the wall. I could see why Namjoon called Jungkook here, he ran up to help the prospect with the weight of the bike.

I wasn't prepared for what I was about to witness.

My heart dropped into my stomach at the sight. The front of the bike was completely smashed inward. Jungkook was supporting it from the front, while Yoenjun steered it from the back. The entire fork and front wheel were crushed to the left. So far deep, that it even rammed into the gas tank.

"Oh god..." My hands tried to mask the cry that fell from my mouth. The tears fell faster from my eyes than I could acknowledge them.

"Hey," Jimin came to my aid. He rested his hand on my back and tried to comfort me.

"I'm honestly not sure how salvageable it is, (Y/n)." Namjoon also walked toward me. I felt him linger over my shoulder, all I could do was merely glance his way as I tried to control my composure. "Maybe Jimin and Taehyung could try to-"

"No," I managed to take in a shaky breath, running my fingers along the wet stains of my cheeks. "I can fix it."

I said mostly to myself. I had this irrepressible urge in the back of my mind to repair the bike myself. My father had taught me everything I needed to know about motorcycles. This was my chance to prove myself.

"I might need some help though."

I was well aware that this would at least be a two-person job, the poor thing couldn't even stand on its own. There were also tools that I didn't have at my current disposal.

"Whatever you need, love," Jimin whispered, his hand slowly slipping off my back.

I suddenly realized how close Namjoon and Jimin were standing to me. I was feeling a little enclosed between the two of them. So I took a moment to excuse myself from the group.

My back rested into the warm redbrick of the building. A deep breath of late summer air filled my lungs. I could almost view the sun starting to head toward the horizon. Its surrounding sky was beginning to orange with heat.

I was standing just outside of the garage. Everyone had gone back into the bar to get a drink. Except, for Yoenjun who the boys had sent back to the auto shop.

It seemed every day that I spent here was just another miserable recognition of my castaway. I hated feeling this way. I hated feeling like all I could do was complain about my father's abandonment. But goddamn it, he was all that I had.

I thought I was all he had too.

I imagined maybe one day he would tell me that he regretted sending me away. But, even in his will, he left me with nothing to stay here for; not his bar, not my mother's house, just some money, and a motorcycle to run away on.

"You alright?"

Jimin always seemed to catch me in the middle of a crying session.

"Yeah, I'm fine," I said, pushing myself off the wall. I forced him a smile and decided to prompt another subject. "I hope you're as good as a mechanic as you say you are."

He returned my smile, a more genuine one, and followed me with his eyes as I moved back into the garage.

"Me?" He challenged, as we both stepped back toward the damaged bike, circling it. "I've been working in a shop for five years, what have you been doing?"

I shot him a glare and chuckled at his tease.

"Who do you think has been taking care of my bike all this time? The mechanics in Seattle are a joke." He laughed at my words, not doubting them for a moment.

I watched him watch me. His round lips held in an endearing smile as his eyes stared into me. I felt, at that moment, the same as he did. It was nice to spend moments like this, after all this time.

"Besides," I said, feeling bashful in his gaze. "I've worked on this bike a million times."

We had the Fatboy mounted on a hydraulic stand to get a better look below. Some of the pipes underneath were also severely damaged. But as long as the frame was still intact, I was pretty sure we could pull it off.

"We should start by removing the fork and wheel," Jimin said, his eyes wandering over the details of the bike. "I think that way we'll have more room to make sure that the frame isn't too damaged."

I agreed.

This model of Fatboy had a completely different frame than its modern counterpart. Trying to buy a new frame would easily cost over a grand.

"You know," Jimin sounded unsure. "this might cost more to fix than it's worth, (Y/n)."

I was well aware that it was reasonably true. However, my mind was already made up.

"I don't care what it costs."

Because I had nothing else. Repairing this bike was going to be my only sense of peace for the next couple of weeks.

Jimin stayed and helped me get started. Removing the front of this bike turned out to take a lot longer than expected. Jimin was a great help, and I had to admit, he probably knew a little more than I did. We ran into a lot of difficulties due to the metal that was bent together. We had to remove it without causing more damage to the parts that it was pushed into. Jimin was pleasant company, nonetheless.

"I can't believe you dated her," I laughed under my breath, trying to keep my hands steady.

"Okay, 'date' is a strong word," He attempted to justify himself but it was too late in my head. "I was intoxicated 80% of the time I was with her."

The Allen head screwdriver I was using to loosen the lower triple fasteners almost slipped from my hands. Jimin's hand gripped around the bottom of the right fork, ready for it to come undone.

"That doesn't matter!" I was laughing so hard that my eyes watered. "The damage is done, Jimin. Who knows what kind of crotch-eating virus she gave you."

"Hey, I'll have you know that she got regular check-ups."

I hummed and rolled my eyes. I proceeded to also loosen the fastener on the top of the fork. I looked down at Jimin, to make sure his grip was still tight before freeing the fork. It should have slid right out the moment the screw came out but it didn't.

"Damn," He said, carefully, removing his hand.

"It must be jammed." I groaned, stepping back and wiping my forehead of any sweat. Jimin straightened himself out too.

"We can just find a way to remove it tomorrow," I sighed. I was honestly already worn out, and ready to call it quits for the night. However, determined, Jimin took a closer look at the fork.

I watched as he, without a word, kneeled to dig around the toolbox. He was attentive as he picked out a flat-bladed screwdriver and came back to the bike. Jimin pushed the screwdriver in between the gap of the lower triple.

"Try to pull on it." He muttered, to me as he was using all of his strength to loosen the bent metal.

I wrapped my hand around the metal rod and tried to tug on it. It made a rasping sound as it was starting to move. Then the entire weight came undone, it almost slipped out of my hand, but Jimin was fast too, also holding on to it.

"Wow~ Jimin~" I was pleasantly surprised.

"I know what I'm doing, love," Jimin smirked, proud of himself, he took the heavy rod from my hand.

A relieved sigh left his nose as he placed the fork next to the previous one we removed. Along with other parts of the bike, like the wheel, that was close to unrecognizable.

I reached into my pocket and checked the time.

The effects of not sleeping the night before were starting to come through. It was barely 8 o'clock and I was exhausted.

"I hope you're hungry because I just ordered some food," Jimin called to me. I looked up from my phone to see him showing me his food delivery app.

"Oh, Jimin," I grumbled, putting my phone back in my pocket. "I was just about to head out."

He raised his brow at me in questionable doubt.

"You already ate?" He maintained his eyes on me while cleaning his greasy hand on the hem of his white t-shirt.

"No," My eyes accidentally caught a glimpse of his abdomen, which was shockingly healthy underneath. "But I'm not very hungry."

Worried that I was staring, I switched my attention to another part of the room. Jimin appeared to move close as a result.

"Come on, it's Chinese food from that place you like." He insisted.

I would have continued to refuse him, although my stomach appeared to respond to the contrary. It rumbled at the memory of the Chinese food, causing Jimin to laugh at the sound.

"I guess I can eat," I admitted in defeat.

Jimin nodded his head and pushed the sleeves of his t-shirt over his shoulder. It appeared that he was making advances toward the door but I called him. "Do you mind if we eat here though? I don't really want to be around other people."

I wasn't sure if Namjoon had left with the others, or if he was just on the other side of the door. I was just enjoying Jimin's company without worrying about anything else.

"Sure, I don't mind." I was comforted to hear him say so.

Underneath a table, I found a couple of crate boxes. I carefully kicked two of them into the middle of the room. My aching legs relieved to finally sit down after three long hours. Jimin had his back turned to me as he washed his hands in the sink along the wall.

"Are you staying at Namjoon's house?" He suddenly asked, trying to make more conversation.

"No, thank god." A short chuckle came from my lips. Taking notice of the dirt on my hands, I ran my palms over the fabric of my jeans. "I don't need Jaeeun’s cold glare watching me every minute."

I could hear Jimin smirk.

"Yeah, she's intimidating as all hell." He stated. Turning back to face my direction, he shook the water off his hands, droplets falling to the cement floor. "You guys still aren't getting along?"

"You know we've never had," I said a little bitterly. Recalling back to all the time I spent in high school complaining about her to him.

"I know, but I thought that was just like a teenage thing." Jimin eyed the counter to his right, where he had previously left his cut to remain.

"Definitely not after the conversation we had yesterday." I jeered.

"She threatened you?" Jimin sounded surprised as he was slipping the leather around his shoulders.

"Let's just say, it was a passionate discussion," I hummed, deciding it wasn’t even worth mentioning and that it was time for me to wash my hands as well.

The plastic sink in the back used to be white, now it was grayed and falling apart. I tried my best not to touch it as I turned on the faucet and rubbed some dish soap in my hand.

"Is that why you left last night?"

My hands slowed down at his question. I didn't like the idea of having to lie to Jimin. He was the only person who made me feel like I could depend on him. That meant a great deal to me however, I didn't really have any other alternative.

"I didn't feel very welcomed once you left," I muttered, just loud enough for him to hear. I continued scrubbing underneath my fingernails. "I also didn't feel like celebrating Namjoon's coronation."

It was a joke but I knew Jimin could hear the slight sourness in my tone. I tried to shake off as much of the water from my hands before turning back to Jimin. "Did Hoseok give you a rough night with his new VP patch?"

I joked while reaching for a roll of paper towels under the sink.

"No," He said calmly, "But Taehyung sure did."

I wasn't quite sure if I had heard him correctly. Looking at his facial expression was meaningless as he remained unbothered.

"Taehyung?" I asked for clarification.

"That's right," He sang as I walked back in his direction, taking the same seat as before. "Namjoon wanted someone different than him, Taehyung is as different as you can get."

I had never thought to compare the two. I doubt if I even knew enough about Taehyung to relate him to Namjoon.

"Does it bother you?" I was curious.

"Taehyung being VP? Nah." Jimin answered. "I'm actually pretty relieved,"

Jimin stopped to lick his lip, thinking about what he was about to say. "There is no doubt in my mind that Namjoon will be a good leader. He's smart as hell, but sometimes- I think he can lose sight of things."

I was deeply intrigued by what Jimin thought. His opinion was unbiased, and he only spoke for what was best for the club. "Taehyung has never been afraid to call him out on it. Taehyung and your old man, that is."

The Vice President of a club was the middle ground between the President and the members of the charter. Any questions, comments or concerns from the other members are brought to the VP's attention. It was hard for me to imagine my father ever disagreeing with Namjoon. He never did so in my presence, anyway. I wondered when that all began to change. I wondered if it had anything to do with the drugs.

Jimin noticed that mentioning my father brought me down easily, he saw me lost in my own head, so he changed the subject.

"You know," Jimin pushed himself off the box seat. "I know why Jaeeun doesn't like you."

"Oh?" I smiled gently. This ought to be good. "Enlighten me, please."

Even though I could name a few reasons myself, Jimin always had an interesting perspective.

He returned my smile and decided to let the anticipation linger in the air. I watched him slowly walk toward the refrigerator that sat in the corner of the room. He pulled the door opened and leaned in to retrieve two bottles of beer that rested at the very bottom shelf. He turned around to face me and shut the door with his foot.

"You two are exactly the same,"

I looked at him unimpressed, with such a simple answer. Also, a little offended by his assumption.

"Hear me out," He requested while holding the bottles between his fingers, using his free hand to dig into his pocket. "Jaeeun is intimidated by your character. She's constantly trying to put you down because she knows you don't let things go- just like she doesn't. "

"Who says I don't let things go?" Jimin laughed at my question.

"(Y/n), just yesterday you said you've waited seven years to come back home."

Ouch.

Jimin pulled a lighter from his jeans. He used the end of it as leverage to snap open one of the bottles. "You only threaten someone that you feel threatened by."

Jimin offered me the beer, and I took it thankfully. His words sunk in.

"Well, you know what they say," I pushed my lips against the glass, taking a large gulp.

"What?" He asked while sitting back beside me.

"A beaten dog never forgets," I said earnestly.

Jimin stared at me for what seemed like an entire minute, but ultimately, he tipped his bottle toward me.

"That, we don't."

He said as I met him halfway. Our bottles clanged together before we took another drink.

"There is actually something I've been wanting to ask you," He suddenly said after clearing his throat.

"What is it?"

"Yesterday... You make it sound as if you've wanted to come back this entire time," I was dreading this question. "Why didn't you?"

How could I even begin to explain to him such a story? "I know you had problems with your family and maybe that's why you left, "

He sounded hurt. "But I thought we were close enough for you to have told me. It just seemed so unlike you."

He knew me better than I gave him credit for.

"I would have told you." I wanted to make that clear to him first. "I didn't want to leave but my father sent me away."

"How come?"

I stared into his eyes and knew that he did not recognize the man I spoke of. But this was the reality.

"Because," I sighed and felt unworthy of holding his gaze. "I couldn't let things go..."

My entrance to the bar was met by a pleasant absence of people. It was well past 10 o'clock and yet the room was entirely empty. Not only that, but the entire place looked as if a tornado had spit it out. The chairs and tables were knocked down and spread all over the floor. The back doors of the club's conference room were broken in and barely hanging on. Though I couldn't even see down the hall, I could imagine it was a similar story.

The only soul that remained stood tall behind the bar, wiping down the counters against the wall.

"What the hell happened here?" Namjoon hadn't heard me come in. He looked over his shoulder and found me walking toward him.

"Pigs had a day off," He said, setting down the damp rag and turning his body to speak with me.

He sounded unimpressed, and so was I. Blackburn police were always trying to find dirt on the club. It wasn't the first time they had come in with their warrants; it wouldn't be the last time either. However, the only thing that they left with was their tails tucked between their legs. It's just the way things were.

"Where is he?" I asked, knowing he knew who I meant.

I took the leather stool right in front of him. Resting an elbow on the surface of the bar, I reached for an ashtray with my closest hand.

"My mom's Cadillac broke down again," I hummed, barely surprised.

I drew a pack of almost empty smoke from my back pocket. Bringing the carton to my mouth, I wrapped my lips around one of the cigarettes which was left exposed by the missing cover.

"She needs to take that piece of shit to a mechanic," I muttered, fumbling with my jeans, trying to find a lighter.

"He's going to take a look at it in the garage," He replied, reaching behind him and then placing a cheap lighter in front of me.

"I mean a real mechanic," I said, taking the dark blue lighter in my hands and using the light to light my addiction. "Once the machine surpasses three wheels, he has no idea what he's doing."

"It's not that much of a difference,"

I scoffed at him.

"How would you know?" I urged, taking a sharp drag of my square, the end of it lighting up like Roudoff's nose. "You don't even know what's wrong with your bike half of the time."

"That's not true," He continued to gather glasses up and down the bar space.

"My old man and I are the only ones who have ever touched your bike," I told him bitterly, hoping he would recall me having to repair his bike a few weeks ago after he had left the gas sitting in the tank for too long.

Namjoon chose to ignore my comment.

"Why don't you pour me a drink instead?" I said after not getting a word from him. "You're good at that."

"You're 18," He replied as if that meant anything.

"And you're 19 working as a bartender but, here we are."

Namjoon shot me an annoyed look, and I found it satisfying. A smirk grew on my lips as he placed his current glass in front of me. The impact of crystal glass against the wood seemed to ring on. His eyes never left mine as he reached under the bar for a bottle of Jack.

"Pour it yourself." He spoke dangerously. My sadistic mind, only finding humor in his tough-guy act.

"Well then," I grabbed the bottle by its neck and did the work myself. The brown liquor coming smoothly out of the metal pour spout, into the bottom of my glass. "Just because my old man lets you hang around the club, you're too good to pour me a drink now?"

I said only casually. It was a snide comment to myself, but of course, in the dead of silence, Namjoon caught an ear.

"What did you say?"

Based on his expression, I was sure that he heard me clearly. I nonchalantly blew a puff of smoke in his direction, his hard stare threatening to curse me. "You've got a fucking mouth on you,"

He fiercely set everything in his hands down on the counters behind him. I watched him come around the bar and walk past me. I seized my glass in the opposite hand from where my cigarette rested between my digits. Turning in my seat to keep my eyes on him, I had a feeling he had more to get off his chest.

"If anyone has to check their ego at the door, it's you, sweetheart." I took a sip of my drink as the bitter words left his lips. He began to pick up the chairs of the closest table to the bar. "Your biker princess entitlement is seriously getting under everyone's skin."

"Oh? Who is everyone, Namjoon?" I ridiculed him. Even though, in the tones of my voice, I was stung by his comment. "Your mother? Who has never needed a reason to not like me?"

I took in a breath of nicotine, realizing my voice was beginning to crack under my sentiment. "Or my father? Who's discarded everything I've done since you came in the picture?"

He appeared to be trying very hard to keep his composure from reaching a violent point.

"Your daddy issues aren't my problem," Namjoon slammed a chair down, the loud noise echoing off the ceiling of the bar. "I am not your goddamn problem!"

This has been one of the few times I had ever seen Namjoon be fueled by his anger. But I couldn't find it in me to care. In that instance, I felt completely lethargic about it all. "You aren't a member of this club. You don't know your place and that-!"

He stopped to breathe, to lower his voice before he did something bad. "That is your fucking problem."

It was strange that the moment his voice softened, I lost my temper.

"Son of a bitch," I muttered before rising to my feet. I clutched the drink tightly in my fist, using all of my force to hurl the glass at him.

Namjoon barely stepped out of the way on time. The shattering glass missed his face by mere inches, the alcohol trailed along the six feet of floor between us. I could feel my body tremble with wrath.

"I'm always wrong, aren't I?" I said, speaking more aggressively than before. "I don't ever listen, right?"

The pit of rage that coursed through me left me feeling lightheaded and with shortness of breath.

"Well guess what, sweetheart," I mocked, regaining dominance over my emotions. "It's in my nature. Just like the rest of you, I have a problem with authority."

I was acting exactly the way that my father raised me. I was a spitting image of everything he believed in. "And I am sick to death- of being crushed under the weight of selfish men who don't believe in anything."

Namjoon hadn't said a single word, he hadn't moved an inch of his cold face. I didn't know what he was thinking. I didn't care if he thought I was crazy or the saddest thing to walk the face of the earth.

It seemed that the more I tried to be who I was, the more I was denied. So, I began to question; why should I be the one to be discarded?

I dropped my cigarette on the floor, stepping on it as I walked in his direction. The room between us smelled of the cigarette I just put out, and the whiskey I didn't drink. I came to stand so close to him, the closest I had ever been.

He was significantly taller than I was, he towered over me like a mountain. I looked into his obscure eyes and questioned what made him so much better than me?

"My father thinks you're the greatest," My voice was barely a whisper full of venom. Namjoon was stiff in place as my fingers danced their way to the button of his jeans. His strong brows cut into his eyes that began to blacken. "Show me what makes you so goddamn special..."

He was on me in less than a second.

His lips pressed against my own with great intensity. His hands stroking their way down to my hips, where he urged them against him.

I couldn't even find a taunt on my lips as he stuck his tongue between them. It was warm and soft against mine. The taste of him sent shivers across my body. The rage he brought out of me went directly from my chest to the place between my legs.

My hands felt their way up to his rising torso. I cursed the thin fabric that kept me from scratching his skin. I settled for wrapping my arms around his neck, my hands sinking straight into the locks of his platinum hair.

He paused for the second I pulled at his roots, letting out a grunt of frustration before moving down to attack my vulnerable neck. His teeth drew moans from my mouth, my eyes fluttering closed at the mixture of kisses and bites.

He grew irritated by the clothes between us. His hands struggled to push me back, I lightly stumbled on my feet, Namjoon used his black eyes to search my trembling figure. He grabbed the collar of my blouse, ripping open most of the buttons in one yank. The lack of clothes underneath drove him wild.

His hands were on me again after that. He couldn't wait any longer and picked me up by my thighs. My hands impatiently began to push up his black shirt. Namjoon managed to locate the only standing table in the bar and dropped me upon it. His shirt came off the instant I hit the wood, I kept it beside me on the table.

"You're such a pretty girl," he hissed as I arched my chest toward him. His fingers handled the buckle of my belt before pulling my button undone. "But you’re so very, tough to please,"

I hated how much I loved to hear him talk to me. I pulled back into a heated kiss. My hands finally began to feel his creamlike skin under my fingernails. The feeling sends his skin to tremble under my touch as I kick off my shoes.

They tumbled to the ground and Namjoon found the waistband of my pants. His lips still pressing bruises against mine, I didn't want him to pull away. He did so to pull my pants down my legs, panties and all, leaving me almost completely bare on the table.

He leaned his damp forehead against mine. His eyes had a stronghold on my own as his hands rubbed the supple skin of my thighs.

"Is this what you wanted?" He asked, pulling me closer to the edge of the table. I gulped and took my breath all the same.

All I could give him was a panting whimper and nodding gesture.

But that was enough.

Namjoon palmed my heat, leaving my body wanting more, making it long for him. I gripped his broad shoulders, leveraging my hips closer to him. He took the suggestion and pushed his pants down his thighs. I didn't even get a glance at what he had to offer until he was pressing at my opening.

He left me breathless. I was a whining mess under the force of his hips.

"Shit," Namjoon's voice strained under the pleasure.

His fingers pressed into the skin of my hips, holding them in place as he pounded into me. I was struggling to keep my eyes open.

"Oh god..." I wished my voice hadn't trembled.

I was almost embarrassed at the noise that left my mouth, I begged him to shut me up. His mouth was addicting, each stroke of his tongue was like silk. My bare legs caressed along his, as I held back every urge to lock them around his waist.

The marks I was leaving along his back must have gotten painful because Namjoon grabbed a hold of my wrists. He pinned my hands flat on either side of me. This gave me enough room to lean back on them, offering him some room to explore. His lips were so full and smooth, I couldn't help but to want them all over me.

In this position, he leaned forward, making his thrust start to move at an angle. My eyes threatened to roll back at the new depth. His eyes relished in the display of my body. My breast stuck to the thin material of my blouse and moved at the pace of his hips.

"Oh! Namjoon..." Now that my hips were free from his hold, I began to roll them against him, almost uncontrollably.

He drifted forward to capture my lips, pressing a more delicate kiss into them. His hand slipped off my wrists and found their way to caress the skin of my cheek. Suddenly the lustful moans that had been leaving my mouth were replaced by sweeter ones. His touch was gentle, and I couldn't help but admit that his intimacy made me uncomfortable.

I took his bottom lip into my mouth and grazed it with my teeth. I saw his eyes open as he let out a low growl from the back of his throat. I pried my hand around his neck, my claws digging at the surface of his nape.

He immediately understood what I wanted and was not afraid to give it to me.

Namjoon hooked his arms around my legs, spreading my legs wider and pushing me further onto the table. I didn't think he could go any faster, but for once, I was happy he proved me wrong.

"Ah! Yes!" I cried.

That place deep inside of me he hit so flawlessly it made my eyes tear with joy. The sounds coming from my mouth were like evidence of that. I wanted to just shut my eyes and let the feeling consume me. However, he was an extraordinary sight before me.

Namjoon's head was slightly tossed back, eyes shut in concentration and bliss. His jaw clenched every time he tried to suppress one of his moans.

I tighten my walls around him, just to watch how his mouth opens with a groan.

"Fuck! You're so good." He was living a high life.

Our rapid breathing and ecstatic moaning filled the room. At his pace, he could have easily taken me to the top.

It was such a shame our time had to be cut short by a voice that was not our own.

"What the fuck is this!?" That was rage only his mother could spit.

Namjoon pulled out of me immediately as he heard his mother came in from the garage. I made sure to moan loud for her as he left me feeling empty inside.

Namjoon's body covered enough of me as I caught Jaeeun's murderous expression in my line of sight. My mind was still clouded by ecstasy but that wasn't the reason my lips wore a smile.

My father walked in moments later at the sound of Jaeeun's startle. He was just on time to catch Namjoon pulling up his pants, and my lower half covered by his black shirt.

Their expressions were priceless.

Namjoon could do no wrong in my father's eyes. He was the son he always wanted. I was hoping this would put a little strain on their relationship.

Masterlist ≽

#Bangtan MC #bts x reader #ot7 #bts #bts fanfic #bangtan scenarios #kim namjoon #kim taehyung #kim seokjin #park jimin #jeon jungkook #Jung HoSeok #min yoongi #bts angst #bts smut #bts fluff #namjoon smut #namjoon x reader

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bigenderbefriender · 4 years

Text

It’s approaching midnight here in Oklahoma on November 2, 2020, and before election day begins in earnest, I wanted to write out a few of my thoughts. I don’t know how much analysis I’ll actually do; this is mostly a record of how I feel, how the world is, and how I perceive it. Maybe a year or two down the line, I’ll be able to look back on this and shore up some memories, though hopefully I won’t ever forget what I’ve seen over the past four years.

Let me start with this, then. No one knows what’s going to happen. The perennial discourse about the electoral college is in full swing, and as usual, Republicans are blocking it because they benefit massively from the rampant conservatism (racism) of rural states such as my own. All the news talks about these days is the election cycle and COVID; I can hardly blame them. It’s almost all I think about, too. That said, half of Oklahomans went without power this week due to a massive ice storm, including most of my social circle, and it didn’t even make a blip in the national news. Likewise, Hurricane Zeta tore a path through Louisiana then up the East Coast last week, and it only got a cursory mention, despite being the fifth such hurricane to make landfall in Louisiana this year. The destruction there is nigh incalculable.

Texas governor Greg Abbott has been in a campaign to suppress voters in urban areas in this election cycle, his most egregious success being to limit the number of polling places per county to one, meaning large cities that fall under one county must all vote at the same place. This will inevitably lead to a number of citizens being unable or unwilling to vote, predominantly in those large cities where lines will be several hours long, and the risk of COVID will be high. Texan Republicans have also tried to throw out drive-thru ballots on the order of 120,000 votes, but this was blocked by Andrew Hanon. The voter suppression is quite likely because for the first time in several elections, Texas is legitimately competitive this year. I don’t think it will flip to the Democratic Party, but if it does I would be quite happy.

Other states have also been engaging in voter suppression, but there are people working against it. Stacey Abrams, after her narrow defeat (1.4%) in the 2018 gubernatorial race in Georgia, has continued her commitment to ending voter suppression there, and she claims that she has done so quite successfully. I suppose that remains to be seen, but I am hopeful. Little news is coming out of places like North Carolina, though, and that’s scary, since voter suppression there is so prominent and so ugly. In addition, Trump has been calling on militias, whom I will not name so as to keep them away from this post, to enact stochastic violence against voters whom they believe will vote Democratic.

In truth, that’s only the tip of the iceberg. Since the summer, Trump has been questioning the legitimacy of mail-in ballots, certainly in an attempt to provide precedent for his contesting of the election results. If they go in his favor, I’m sure he’ll love whatever the election says, but much like with Hillary Clinton, it looks like he’ll lose the popular election. Experts are predicting a “blue shift” over the course of the election cycle. That is, Republicans by and large are ignoring the threats of the coronavirus, which means they’re much more likely to vote in person on November 3. This means it will appear that Trump has won the election on Novemeber 3, but as mail-in ballots get counted, the electorate will begin to sway towards Biden. I may make a prediction here, though it is a grim one. I believe that Trump will try to call the election on November 3 proper, and he will use his newfound influence on the Supreme Court (aka his nominee and now justice Amy Coney Barrett) to halt the count of mail-in ballots that might prove him wrong. Many people say our democracy is in crisis, but quite honestly, I think this is a natural conclusion to the way that politics have been going since basically the Clinton era.

What I mean by that is to say that Trump’s presidency has done an excellent job of exposing long-lasting structural issues in American society, and Democrats have made #resist into an aesthetic to win their re-elections rather than actually leveraging the power they do have. I’d say it must be hard, against someone who’s as much of a political opportunist as Sen Maj Ldr Mitch McConnell (R-KY), but the truth is that all of these people are perfectly content to campaign on decorum rather than on fixing any of the actual issues facing the US.

It’s not all bad; Biden has been pushed quite a bit to the left by the growing progressive wing of the Democratic Party, organized in part by the Justice Democrats and represented by Sen Bernie Sanders (Ind. VT), Rep Alexandria Ocasio Cortez (D NY), Rep Ilhan Omar (D MN), Rep Rashida Tlaib (D MI), and Rep Ayanna Pressley (D MA). The latter four are colloquially referred to as “The Squad,” and they fight alongside others for progressive policies out of the House of Representatives. I would hate to go through an entire post about my feelings on national politics without mentioning the few good things we do have going for us. In addition, voters have come out in record numbers this year. As of this morning NPR reported that four states have had more early voting than total voters in 2016. In a democracy, one of the major challenges is to stimulate citizen participation in government; citizens are certainly participating this year.

Also, this year has been a year that will be remembered for its social movements. The Black Lives Matter movement came back into full swing, and the role of the police is now a legitimate question in many people’s minds. Of course, this is a frustrating thing to talk about, too. The demands of Black Lives Matter as a movement are so simple, yet over and over again, police show that they are more dedicated to violence than to justice. In addition, white people across the country have shown that they are more dedicated to law and order than to making a country in which everyone can live. This seems odd to me, though I know that it is specifically racially motivated. It’s not like I’m just having this realization now; my grandparents are Party Republicans, and I couldn’t convince them to vote to kick Walmart out of their town, even when they know exactly how it’s screwed them. To ask them to empathize with a Black person, even a Black neighbor? Believe me, I’ve tried. Still, we did see (are seeing) a lot of good from the protests. Colorado basically ended qualified immunity, which means that police should be a lot more accountable for their actions in the future. We also saw several experiments in what a society could look like without policing. The Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone in Seattle was the most famous of these, though it fell apart in part due to its popularity. Others that did not have the spotlight on them did not fall apart so spectacularly (though I have to speculate that all of CHAZ’s sisters have been disbanded by now).

That said, there’s a lot to fear in the coming days. The only thing we know about this election is that we won’t know the result for days or even weeks after polling closes. Because of that, many fear that protests will break out across the country on election day. The protests themselves aren’t the bad thing, I think. What’s bad is that the protests will be the targets of white supremacist violence (if the protesters are pro-Biden) or the perpetrators thereof, especially now that Trump has condoned militia violence against citizens. Over the summer, Trump also used a secret police force (under the Department of Homeland Security, specifically Customs and Border Patrol) against protesters in Portland, Oregon to quell unrest. Unsurprisingly, it didn’t work, since the protests were against police brutality. However, the system is now there for him to use, and CBP is only growing bigger by the day. If protests do break out in the weeks following the election, I have no doubt that CBP will be there throwing people into unmarked vans and jailing them without due process.

I have so much more to say. I haven’t even gotten into the border wall, or family separation, or the assassination of Iranian dignitaries, or attacks on abortion rights, or Mitch McConnell’s stalling of the Senate, or the individual stages of failure of the COVID-19 response and how I learned about them, or the use of said COVID-19 to grant ICE carte blanche to deport people without trial, or any of the myriad other political issues of which I’ve become aware over the past four years. I also haven’t even begun to write out my thoughts on my local politics or Oklahoma politics specifically (quite honestly, I think local politics will forever stay offline, seeing as though I’d really rather not give out too much identifying information here). But I think this post has gone on long enough. Perhaps I will write more on those other topics in the future. I am afraid for tomorrow, and I am afraid for the months and years to come. I do not wish to live in interesting times, but it seems I am cursed to do so. At least I can say I was a witness. It is now 12:40 AM, November 3, 2020. The election is in 6 hours, and I am scared.

#uspol #violence #political violence #police brutality #covid

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winchesterbrotherstan · 5 years

Text

Supernatural- The Benders (1.15)

Pairing: N/A, Olive Winchester (OC)

Summary: Before the siblings can even dig into their new case, Sam goes missing. Dean and Olive set out to find him. While Dean puts himself at risk, Olive loses control more than once to save her brothers.

Warnings: cursing, guns, blood, crazy people, etc

Word Count: 5779

“I know you’re just doing your job, but the police have been here all week already.” Mrs. McKay sighed. “I don’t see why we have to go through this again. The more he tells the story, the more he believes it’s true.”

“Mrs. McKay, we know you spoke with the local authorities.” Sam nodded, a sympathetic smile on his face.

“But, uh, this seems like a matter for the state police, so…” Dean trailed off.

I turned to the young boy with a soft smile. “Okay, Evan. Now don’t worry about how crazy it sounds. You just tell us what you saw.”

“I was up late watching TV.” He shook his head. “When I heard this noise.”

“What did it sound like?” Sam asked, leaning in.

“It sounded like… like a monster.” He gave puppy eyes, and I glanced at Sam and Dean.

Dean looked back, eyebrows furrowed and a serious look on his face.

“Tell the officers what you were watching on TV.” Mrs. McKay shot her son a look.

Evan sighed. “Godzilla vs Mothra.”

Dean broke into a huge grin, and I felt my heart glow. Dean was great with kids, and it made me so happy to see him revert back to his real, child-like self around them.

“That’s my favorite Godzilla movie. It’s so much better than the original, huh?”

“Totally!” Evan grinned.

“Yeah.” Dean nodded toward Sam. “He likes the remake.”

“Yuck!”

Dean laughed as Sam glared at us and Evan giggled.

Sam shook his head. “Evan, did you see what this thing was?”

“No.” Evan shook his head. “But I saw it grab Mr. Jenkins! I pulled him underneath the car.”

“Then what?” I asked.

“It took him away! I heard the monster leaving. It made this really scary sound.” He looked worried.

Sam and I looked at each other, and Dean sighed.

“What did it sound like, Evan?”

“Like this… whining growl…” He shook his head. “I can’t make it.”

I shook my head, patting his shoulder. “It’s okay, Evan.”

“Thanks for your time.” Sam smiled as we stood.

***

“So, local police have now ruled out foul play. Apparently, there are worse signs of a struggle.” Sam snorted before taking a sip of his beer.

A fake ID that Dean perfected at a CopyJack after six or seven tries, hair tied up, glasses, heeled boots, and makeup, and I was in at a bar. No drinking though, because god forbid a Winchester do something self-destructive. Sam had, thankfully, ordered me a girly drink that had no alcohol. I was more interested in watching Dean play darts. Jinx was at the motel room, where we had paid the manager extra to let her out every few hours. This case was going to take all of us and all of our attention. We were beginning to think getting a dog wasn’t the best idea.

“Well, they could be right.” Dean shrugged before throwing another dart. “It could just be a kidnapping. Maybe this isn’t our kind of gig.”

“Yeah, maybe not.” I sighed, flipping through Dad’s journal. “Except, Dad marked the area.” I lifted the journal and shook it.

Dean came over, taking the journal from me. “Possible hunting grounds of a phantom attacker.” He tilted his head. “Why would he even do that?”

“Well, he found lots of local folklore about a dark figure that comes out at night.” I pointed to the journal, taking a sip from my glorified orange juice. “Grabs people, then vanishes. He found this too. This county has more missing persons per capita than anywhere else in the entire state.”

“That is weird.” Dean scrunched his nose up as he sat next to me.

“Yeah, it is.” Sam nodded.

“Don’t phantom attackers usually, like…” Dean shrugged. “I dunno, snatch people from their beds? Jenkins was snatched from a driveway.”

“Well, there are all kinds.” Sam shrugged.

“Spring Heeled Jacks, phantom gassers. Take people anytime, anywhere.”

“Look Dean, I dunno if this is our kind of gig either.” Sam shrugged again.

I sighed. “You guys might be right. Kid was cute, but he might’ve just watched too much TV.”

“Alright. We should ask around some more tomorrow.”

“Right.” Sam fished out his wallet. “I saw a motel about five miles back.”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa. Easy. Let’s have another round.” Dean grinned.

I winced. “Uh. Sammy’s right. We should get an early start.”

Dean rolled his eyes. “You, you two really know how to have fun, don’t you, Grandmas?”

I chuckled as Sam shook his head with a smile. I grabbed my jacket and pulled it on. “Let’s roll out.”

“Roll out?” Dean laughed. “Alright, I’ll meet you outside, I gotta take a leak.”

I rolled my eyes and pushed him away. I packed Dad’s journal up as Sam shut his laptop.

“Alright, come on, bug.” Sam slung an arm around me with a kiss to the top of my head.

We walked out through the people and into the cold. I shivered, pulling my coat further around me. There was a noise, and I looked around, tucking Dad’s journal under my arm. Sam pulled out a flashlight, and I took it as I bent down to look under the car.

There was a black cat, and it hissed at me. I giggled as I popped to my feet, handing the flashlight out to Sam.

“Sam?” I asked as I turned around.

He wasn’t there.

“Sammy?”

“Sam?” I tossed the journal onto Baby’s hood.

“Sam! Sammy! Sams!” I spun around, frantic. “Sammy! Sams!”

“Ollie?”

I spun around in a circle. Dean was coming toward the car, confused.

“What’s wrong?”

“He’s gone.” I shrugged. “I dunno where he went. I looked under the car a-a-and it was a fucking cat, and I got up, a-a-a-and he’s just, just fucking gone!” I looked around, trying to find Sam.

“Olive, what?” Dean grabbed me by the shoulders. “What are you talking about?”

“He’s gone, Dean! What about that are you not fucking understanding?”

“Hey!” Dean shouted, catching my attention.

I let out a breath as I looked up at Dean, feeling my nose burn. “I lost him.”

“No, no no no no. Hey, no.” Dean grabbed me by the face as tears began to brew in my eyes and a terrible feeling bubbled in my stomach.

“It’s gonna be okay. We’ll find him. Promise.” He tucked my hair behind my ear.

Two people came around the corner, clearly drunk. I wiggled out of Dean’s grip and ran toward them.

“Hey! You guys been outside, maybe an hour or so?” I asked, feeling panic rise.

They only shook their heads, and Dean came after me, confused.

“Sam!”

“Sammy! Sams!” I screamed, running into the street.

Empty. Nothing, nobody. Dean ran into me, grabbing me by the shoulders and looking around.

“Sam.”

I sighed. “No. No…” I shuddered, realizing what had happened. “It took him. Evan was right. Something’s out here, De.” I began to pant. “It took him.”

Dean furrowed his eyebrows with a sigh. “What?”

“It fucking took him, Dean! Whatever took Jenkins took Sammy. It took our Sam. We-we-we…” I struggled to breathe, feeling lightheaded.

My vision got spotty, and I felt weak, so weak.

“Sammy’s gone.” I whimpered. “We have to find him. We have to find him!”

I blinked, hard. Jinx would lose her mind if we came home without Sam. Dean grabbed me by the shoulders.

“Okay. Okay. So we work this like any other job.” Dean nodded, and my eyes widened so far they began to burn.

“Any … other… job?” I asked.

“Yes.” He nodded, sniffing and keeping himself composed.

I shook my head. “No. No.” I slid from his grip and fell to the floor, crying.

“Sammy!” I screamed, throwing my head back.

There was spit flying out of my mouth, and my head was throbbing, the ground under my knees was cold and wet and soaking through my jeans, and I was horrified.

“Olive. Olive. Hey! Listen to me.” Dean dropped to his knees and grabbed me by the face, forcing me to face him. “Sweetheart. Beanie. My girl, my beautiful, beautiful girl.” He pulled me into his front. “We will find him. I swear to you we will find him.”

I sighed into his chest, fists balling in his shirt. “You swear?” I looked up.

He nodded. “I swear.”

I sniffled. Dean wouldn’t lie. Not about that. Dean was our savior, and if he promised we would find Sam, then we would find Sam. I wrapped my arms around him and let out a breath.

“We’ll find him.”

***

“So, what can we do for you, Officer Washington?” The deputy behind the desk asked.

“I’m working a missing persons.” Dean spoke from a place deep in his chest.

He was worried, but he would be damned if he let that show.

“I didn’t know the Jenkins case was being covered by the state police.” She looked over me with a sympathetic gaze.

“Oh, no. No, there’s someone else.”

“Uh, he’s actually my brother. Him and my cousin here were hanging out a bar last night, down by the highway.” I blurted, hoping a play like this would work in our favor.

“Honey, how old are you?” She asked, leaning forward.

“I’m fifteen.”

She sighed. “And does your brother have a drinking problem, sweetie?”

“Sam?” Dean chuckled. “Two beers and he’s doing karaoke.” He joked. “No, no he wasn’t drunk. He was taken.”

She nodded. “Alright. What’s his name?”

“Winchester. Sam Winchester.” I cleared my throat.

“Like the rifle?” She chuckled, and Sam and I nodded.

“Like the rifle.”

She shook her head as she typed it into her computer, clicking something afterwards.

“Samuel William Winchester. You must be Olive Sam Winchester.” She smiled.

“Yeah.” I nodded. “I looked a lot like him when I was born, so… Sam’s my middle name.” I huffed.

“So… Dean Winchester. The brother.” She looked up at me.

“Yeah.” I sniffed. “Died in St. Louis. Murder suspect. I know. So you understand that Sam is all I’ve got.”

Dean grabbed my shoulder and sighed. “Yeah, Dean. Black sheep of the family. Handsome though.”

“Uh-huh. Well, he’s not showing up in any current field reports.”

“Oh, actually, I already have a lead. I saw a surveillance camera by the highway.”

“Uh-huh. The county traffic cam?”

“Right, yeah. I’m thinking that the camera picked up whatever took him. Or, whoever.” Dean corrected himself.

“Well, I have access to the traffic cam footage down at the county department, but… let’s do this the right way.” She stood and grabbed a clipboard, handing it back to me. “Olive, why don’t you fill out a missing persons report and sit tight, over there?” She pointed to a seat in the corner.

I looked up at Dean, distressed. I let out a wheeze, panic rising again. Dean tucked my hair behind my ear and nodded toward the bench, pressing a kiss to the top of my head.

“Officer, look, uh…” Dean looked over at me, then back at the deputy. “They’re family. I kinda look out for the kid. You’ve gotta let me come with you.”

“I’m sorry. I can’t do that.” She shook her head.

Dean squared his shoulders. He was determined now. “Tell me something. Your county has its fair share of missing persons. Any of them come back?”

She looked away, saddened.

“Sam and Olive are my responsibility. Sam’s coming back. I’m bringing him back. For that kid over there.” He pointed to me. “Because Sam’s all she’s got, and I’ll be damned if I do a piss poor job of bringing her brother back to her.”

I looked up from the clipboard to Dean with a frown on my face. He looked at me and forced a smile.

We’ll find him. I promise.

***

“Greg, Olive.”

I got up, turning around to see Kathleen coming out of the police building with a folder in her hand. “I think we’ve got something.”

I held my hand out, and she let me take the folder. I tore through it and splayed the papers out. Dean and I looked over them.

“These traffic cameras take an image every three seconds, as part of the Amber Alert program. These images were all taken around the time that Sam disappeared.”

Dean sighed. “This isn’t really what we’re looking for.”

“Wait no, D-” I cut myself short and elbowed Dean to get his attention instead. “Look at this.” I pointed to a rusty truck. “Right after you said Sam left. Look, it’s got plates.” I pointed, eyebrows furrowed.

“They look new. It’s probably stolen.”

“So, whoever’s driving that rust bucket must be involved.” Kathleen snorted.

A beat-up van drove by, the engine loud, a whine. I looked to Dean, eyes wide as I remembered what Evan had said.

“Hear that engine?” Dean asked her.

“Yeah.”

“Kinda a whining growl, right?” I asked.

“Sure.” She shrugged.

I looked back to Dean and blinked back tears. He chuckled, mumbling to himself with a shake of his head.

“I’ll be damned.”

***

“Okay, the next traffic camera is fifty miles from here, but the pickup didn’t pass that one, so…” Kathleen sighed, keeping her eyes on the road.

“So, it must’ve pulled off somewhere. I didn’t see any other roads here.” Dean shook his head.

“Well, a lot of these backwood properties have their own private roads.”

“Great.” I sighed, resting my cheek against the headrest of Dean’s seat.

Kathleen turned her attention to her computer before her face wrinkled up in concern.

“So, Gregory.” She spoke through gritted teeth.

“Yeah?” Dean turned to her.

“I ran your badge number. It’s routine when we’re working a case with state police. For accounting purposes and whatnot.”

Dean nodded, and she sniffled as she pulled over.

“And uh, they just got back to me. It says here your badge was stolen.”

Dean’s eyebrows shot up, confused.

“And there’s a picture of you.” She turned the computer to Dean, and it showed an African American man much older and much heavier than Dean.

“I lost some weight.” Dean chuckled. “And I uh, got that Michael Jackson skin disease.”

“Okay, would you step out of the car, please? This girl is a minor, but you-”

“Look, look, look.” I cut her off, and Dean looked at me over his shoulder, a sign to stop talking.

“If you wanna arrest me, that’s fine. I’ll cooperate, I swear. But first, please. Let me find Sam.”

“I don’t even know who you are! Or if this Sam person is actually missing.”

“He is! He’s my brother, and he’s missing! Please.” My nose burned as I put a hand on Dean’s shoulder.

“Look into my eyes and tell me if I’m lying about this.” Dean stared at her and reached up to take my hand.

“Identity theft? You’re impersonating an officer!”

“Look, here’s the thing. When we were young, I pretty much pulled him from a fire. And ever since then, I’ve felt responsible for him. Like it’s my job to keep him safe. I’m just afraid that if we don’t find him, and fast.” Dean’s voice broke. “Please.”

“He’s our family.” I blinked back tears.

“I’m sorry. You’ve given me no choice. I have to take you in.” She sighed and glanced at her visor.

A picture of her and another man, her age, smiling. She sighed again.

“After we find Sam Winchester.”

I let out a breath of relief and let my head drop against Dean’s shoulder. He squeezed my hand with a sigh, taking a deep breath.

***

“Hey, uh…” Dean trailed off, looking between me and Kathleen.

“Look. We don’t mean to press our luck.” I got the words out for him.

“Your luck is so pressed.” She spoke before taking a sip from her coffee.

“Right.” Dean sighed.

“Why are you helping us out anyways? Why don’t you just… lock him up and call CPS for me?” I asked.

A pained look formed on Kathleen’s face and her shoulders dropped. “My brother, Riley… he disappeared three years ago. A lot like Sam. We searched for him, but… nothing. I know what it’s like to feel responsible for someone, and for them to-” she shook her head. “Come on. Let’s just keep at it.”

Dean looked down at me. He was worried, a bit freaked out that he still had another sibling to lose. Scared of what was going to happen after. Frantic to find Sam. I met his eyes with a sigh. I held a hand out for him, and he took it with a sad smile.

“It’s gonna be okay.” I whispered. “Promise.”

***

“Wait, wait, wait!” Dean called, pointing. “Pull over there. Pull over.”

Kathleen pulled the car onto the side of the road, and Dean and I barreled out, into the edge of the forest.

“This is the first turn I’ve seen so far.”

“You two stay here, I’ll check it out.” Kathleen ordered as she came up behind us.

“No fucking way.” Dean scoffed.

“Hey.” Kathleen turned, hands on her hips. “You’re civilians. A kid. And a felon too, I think. I’m not taking you with me.”

“You are not going without me.”

Kathleen looked over to me and I shrugged with a sigh. “Michael here is a bit of a big, chest-puffed-out protector.”

Michael. Technically not Dean’s real name, but close enough. It would get his attention in a pinch, and it slipped past my lips way easier than a fake name would.

“Alright.” She shook her head. “You promise you won’t get involved? You’ll let me handle it? And Olive stays in the car.”

“Yeah. Yeah.” Dean nodded. “Promise.”

“Wh-”

Dean shushed me, a hand to my shoulder, pushing me back behind him.

“Shake on it.” Kathleen held her hand out to him, and when Dean took it, Kathleen locked a pair of cuffs on his wrist.

“Oh, come on.”

“Wait, wait, Kathleen, please.” I went for her shoulder as she cuffed Dean to the car.

“Sorry, kid.” She grabbed me by the wrist and slammed a cuff onto me, linking me to my brother.

I tugged, and they cut into my skin like it was nothing. I cursed under my breath.

“This is ridiculous! Kathleen, I really think you’ll need our help.”

“I’ll manage. Thank you.” She smiled as she walked away.

“What the fuck do we do now?” I asked, tugging at our wrists.

My skin stung, and a stripe of blood fell down my hand. Dean tugged back.

“Stop it, you’re bleeding already.”

“Fucking hell.” I hissed, frustrated.

“Okay. Okay, we gotta start carrying paper clips. Or bobby pins!” He turned to me. “You’re a girl, do you have any bobby pins on you?”

I looked at him and rolled my eyes. “No, Dean. I’m a Winchester. I do not have bobby pins on me. Sammy might though.” I sighed, dread edging up in my stomach. “Sammy.”

“Okay. Okay, the antenna.” Dean nodded to my end of the car. “Can you reach to unscrew it?”

He was calm, cool, and collected.

“Yeah. Yeah, I can try.” I nodded. “Move with me.”

He shuffled over, stuck to my side. I took two steps, letting my arm pull as I went for the antenna. I didn’t reach.

“Fuck.”

An engine roared. A whining growl.

“Son of a bitch.”

“Fuck.” I repeated, stretching again.

“Come on, Ol. You can get it. Come on.”

I stretched my fingers, knuckles burning.

The engine got closer, and I mumbled another curse as Dean began to get antsy, inching as far as he could so I would be able to get further.

Panic set in, and things went sideways.

Scared. Worried. Angry. Hungry for something, but not blood.

Go.

I took a breath and let my eyes flutter closed. Dean said something, but I didn’t hear him.

Safety. You have to. Go.

Dean again, but nothing but a murmur against the thumping of blood in my ears.

My skin began to burn. My jaw ached. Head burning, wrist bleeding. Teeth against teeth, teeth tearing at metal.

Head aching, throbbing. Dean saying something.

“Hey. Hey, Beautiful. Hey.” Dean called.

I wasn’t cuffed anymore. I blinked, back in reality.

“Baby?”

I blinked, harder this time. The engine screamed.

“Shit!”

I busted ass reaching for the antenna. I unscrewed it and ran to Dean, forcing the cuffs off.

“Ollie?”

I forced back a yawn.

Dean is safe. You can rest now.

No.

“Olive.” He grabbed me by the shoulders. “Beanie?”

“We gotta go.” I mumbled, feeling my words slur together.

Rest.

No.

“Olive. Okay, okay. Come on.” He grabbed me by the waist and squeezed. “Jump.”

I blinked, confused. “What?”

“Up.” He pleaded. “Please.”

The engine, again, closer than before.

“De?” I mumbled, eyelids growing heavy.

Rest.

“No.” I hissed, and Dean grabbed me by the hips this time, yanking me up and over his shoulder.

I was left hanging, tired and numb.

Rest.

“N-”

“It’s okay, baby. Go to sleep. I’ve got you.” He whispered.

Rest.

Okay.

***

“Sweetheart, wake up.”

“Huh?” I blinked, the light burning.

“We gotta go get Sammy.”

I blinked again, this time forcing my eyes open. Dean was kneeling above me, one hand on my shoulder and the other on my cheek.

“Come on.”

I groaned as pushed myself to sit up. He grabbed me by the arms and helped me to my feet, catching me as I stumbled.

“Alright. Let’s go. I think he’s in there.” He nodded to a barn in front of us.

I groaned. “Creepy barn. Bad vibes.” I flicked a knife out of my boot, handing it to him.

“Stay behind me.” Dean whispered as he pushed the door open, knife up, level with his chest.

The light flooded in, and there was Sammy, in a cage. Hair matted, face dirty, eyes wide.

“Sammy?” I called, seeing his eyes light up. “Sammy! Bubs!” I ran to the cage, sticking my hands in between the bars.

He reached back, letting his face drop into my hands. “Hey, bug.” He smiled.

“You hurt?” Dean came up behind me, placing a hand on my shoulder.

“No.”

“Damn, it’s good to see you.” Dean let out a huff.

“How did you two get out of the cuffs?”

Dean turned at the sound of Kathleen’s voice, but I stayed focused on Sammy. He looked me over, eyes widening in concern.

“Cookie, what did you do?” He asked, grabbing the broken cuff and pulling my wrist up.

I sighed. “Uh… we got cuffed.”

He shook his head at me. “Ollie…” He trailed off. “Lemme see your teeth.” He moved to push my lip up. “How did you not chip them?”

I shrugged as he cupped my cheek. “Don’t remember.”

“Well, these locks look like they’re gonna be a bitch.”

“Yeah, there’s some kind of automatic control right there.” Sam stroked my cheek before taking his hand away and pointing to a panel on the wall.

“Have you seen it? What is it?” I asked.

“Yeah. They’re just people.”

“And they… jumped you?” I asked, blinking.

“Must be gettin’ a little rusty there, kiddo.” Dean scoffed as he began to try different buttons on the panel. “What do they want?”

“I don’t know.” Sam shook his head. “They let Jenkins go, but that was some sort of trap. It doesn’t make any sense to me.”

I grabbed at Sam again, checking him over. He said he wasn’t hurt, but he had gone without a sound, and I found it hard to believe any normal person could move a six-two moose without hurting him.

“Well, that’s the point.” I sighed. “You know, with our… usual playmates… there’s rules. Patterns.”

“These people are just crazy.” Dean scowled, hitting the buttons once more.

“See anything else out there?” Sam asked me.

I shrugged. “I was out.”

“He, uh, has a dozen junked cars hidden out back. Plates from all over.”

“So when they take someone, they take the car too?” I asked.

“Did you see a black Mustang out there? About ten years old?” Kathleen stood in her cage, hands gripping the bars.

“Uh, yeah, actually. I did.” Dean nodded, and Kathleen’s face dropped.

“Your brother’s?” I turned.

She nodded.

“I’m sorry.” The three of us spoke at the same time.

“Let’s get you guys out of here, then Sam and I can blast these bastards while Olive and Kathleen scram.” Dean sucked in air through his teeth. “Alright, this thing takes a key. Key?”

“Dunno.” Sam sighed.

“Alright. We better go find it.” Dean grabbed me by the shoulder, and I shook him off.

“I wanna stay with Sams.”

He sighed, and he and Sam shared a look.

“I can fend for myself.” I looked at Dean with puppy eyes, and he sighed again.

“It’s okay.” Sam nodded at him. “It’s okay. Go.”

Dean sighed, leaning over to press a kiss to the top of my head.

“Be safe.” He whispered against my hair.

I nodded. “Always. Be careful. Love you.”

“Love you too, sweetheart.”

“Close to your cousin, huh?” Kathleen asked as I settled in front of Sam’s cage, my back to him and his hand in mine.

“He raised her.”

“He isn’t just any old felon, isn’t he?” She asked.

I began to squirm.

“I’m not gonna turn him in. You can tell me the truth.”

I looked at Sam over my shoulder, and he shook his head.

“Is he Dean Winchester? Your brother, the murder suspect?”

There were footsteps outside the door, and Sam’s hand went to my back, pushing me up. I scrambled to hide in the shadows as the door swung open and a hick walked in with a gun in his hand.

Sam.

“What are you doing?” Sam asked, getting to his feet as the man unlocked his cage.

Sam.

Sam stumbled backward as the man pulled the door open.

Sam.

I began to shake. My blood was boiling.

Sam.

My jaw cracked, and blood spilled from my mouth, down my front.

Sam!

The gun went up, and a growl tore through my throat. The man turned to me, and I closed my eyes as I let the rage take over.

A gunshot. Another growl, teeth and blood, a second gunshot, and screaming.

***

“Ollie!”

“Olive, come on.”

“Ollie, please. Please, baby girl.”

I forced my eyes open. Someone was grabbing my face, and someone else had me in their hold.

“Olive. Hey! Hey.”

“Hi, honey.”

“What happened?” I mumbled, realizing that Dean’s hand was on my forehead as I sat up.

“You… blacked out.” Sam whispered.

“Did I…” I trailed off, seeing blood spilled down my front and under my nails.

“You did what you had to.” Dean tucked my hair behind my ear.

“Where’s Kathleen?”

“Waiting at the car.”

I blinked. “I’m sorry.”

Sam sighed from behind me, and Dean stroked my face again.

“It’s okay.”

“We’ll talk about it later.”

They spoke at the same time, and my immediate reaction was to crawl out of Sam’s lap and bury myself into Dean’s open arms. His chin rested on my head and he sighed.

“Let’s go home.”

***

“I think the car’s at the police station.” Dean told Sam as we stood by Kathleen’s side.

She was on her walkie, talking to someone. She needed backup, she needed to clear this family of freaks out.

“So…” She turned to us. “State police and the FBI are gonna be here within the hour. They’re gonna wanna talk to you. I suggest that you’re all long gone by then.”

“Thanks. Hey listen, I don’t mean to-”

“No.” I grabbed Dean by the hand to cut him off.

“Start walking.” Kathleen smiled at me. “Duck if you see a squad car.”

“Sounds good to me. Uh, thank you.” Sam smiled at her.

“Listen, uh… we’re…” I looked at Dean and then back at her with a sigh. “We’re sorry about your brother.”

“Thank you.” She began to tear up. “It was really hard not knowing what happened to him. I thought it would be easier once I knew the truth, but… it isn’t really.” She shook her head as she cleared her throat. “Anyways. You guys should get going.”

***

“Never do that again.” Dean spoke.

“Do what?” Sam asked, looking up from the ground at him.

“Go missing like that.”

“Ah, you were worried about me.” Sam smiled.

Dean snorted. “All I’m saying is, you vanish like that again, I’m not looking for you.”

Sam giggled. “Sure, you won’t.”

“He won’t. But I will. A hundred percent, every single time.” I wrapped an arm around Sam’s waist, and he threw his over my shoulders.

“So, Dean. Care to tell Olive how you got sidelined by a thirteen year old girl?”

“Oh, shove it.” Dean scowled.

“Just saying… getting rusty there, kiddo.” Sam winked.

“Shut up.” Dean pushed through a chuckle.

***

“Olive…” Sam trails off.

He’s sitting in a chair by the edge of the bed. Olive squirms. She’s freshly showered, but she’s so nervous that her skin is boiling and she’s hot, so hot. She’s sitting with her big brother, her savior. They’re on the bed, criss-cross and facing Sam.

Jinx is curled up at the foot of the bed. She’s happy that her family is home.

Sam wants to talk about this. He needs to talk about it. His sister isn’t normal.

Dean thinks there’s nothing to talk about. Olive didn’t choose her identity, and he’ll be damned if he lets anyone shame her for it.

Olive is horrified.

Her brother doesn’t love her anymore. How could he? She’s a monster.

Jinx can sense it. She whimpers, looking up at Sam.

“I’m sorry.” Olive whispers, voice low.

Dean wraps an arm around her shoulders, pulling her close.

“There is nothing to be sorry about.”

“I killed someone.”

“Olive.” Sam crouches to be eye-level with her. “You did what you had to do.”

Olive’s eyes jump up. Did Sam just… tell her it was justified?

“He’s right, baby.” Dean squeezes her, grabbing her hand in his.

“But I… I’m a monster.” She’s shaking.

“No.” Dean whispers, and Sam sighs.

“Dean, she is. She’s something.”

“She is not a monster.” Dean all but growls at his younger brother.

His baby sister may be a mix of something inhuman with a Winchester, but she is not a monster. He didn’t raise a monster. His little girl is just that. A girl.

“He’s right, Deano.” Olive looks up, stuck to her brother.

Dean shakes his head. “Okami.”

Olive recoils, and Sam’s world begins to spin. He gets up so fast that his chair goes flying to the ground. Olive flinches as she sits on the other bed. Far away from her brothers, far away from anyone she could hurt.

Jinx follows with a whimper, and Olive lets the small pup crawl into her lap. Olive begins to cry, and Jinx mimics the sound.

Sam tears through his father's journal.

Okami.

Monsters originating in Japan. They hunt and feed on humans. They develop a type.

Olive’s stomach heaves.

She knows her type.

Anything that threatens her family.

Sam looks at his sister.

She’s a kid. How could she be this? This horrible, flesh-eating monster?

Dean's eyes shut. He pinches the bridge of his nose. His baby, the one he vowed to protect, the one he raised from birth. His kid.

“She’s only a third.”

“What?” Sam turns, confused.

“Does that mean… you guys aren’t really my brothers?” Olive looks up from her lap, eyes wide.

“No. No, that’s not what it means.” Dean gets up, moving to sit in front of her.

She shuffles backwards, and Dean reaches his hands out. Jinx lets out a high pitched whine.

“You won’t hurt me.” He places a hand on her knee. “I promise.”

She shakes her head. She always knew something was wrong with her. But an Okami? She briefly wishes she had never been born.

“How?” Sam inches closer, the journal tossed aside.

He knows his sister, can see the fear in her eyes and the terror in her posture. That’s his kid sister. She’s his flesh and blood. In that moment, he makes his choice. He’ll do what he needs to in order to protect her, whether she’s human or not.

“Your mother.” Dean starts, then clears his throat. “Your mom, she was half Okami. She had fangs, too.” He looks at his baby, sees the fear behind her face. “She didn’t hurt anyone. She never did. Your mom was a good woman.”

“Then why did she give me up?” Olive’s voice is weak.

She loves her brothers, but she has wondered what life would be like with her mother in the picture.

Dean shakes his head. “I don’t know, baby girl. I don’t know why she gave you up.”

“Why am I a monster?” Olive breaks into a sob, hands going into her hair.

Sam sits next to her, grabs her by the waist, pulling her into his lap. She curls up, sobs into his chest. Jinx whimpers, scratching at Sam’s side.

“You aren’t a monster, kiddo.” Sam whispers into her hair. “You’re a Winchester.”

Dean leans against the wall, shoulder to shoulder with his little brother.

“It’s why when we’re in danger, it takes over.” Dean reaches for her hand.

She hesitates before taking it. “Is that why I tried to kill Sue Ann?”

He nods. “Yes. It’s why when you’re angry, you’re so invincible. Why when you’re in fight-or-flight, not much can hurt you. It’s why you heal so much faster than us.”

Her lip quivers, and her brothers crowd her.

“You’ll learn to control it. We can help you.” Dean squeezes her hand.

“Bug. Everything’s gonna be okay. We love you.”

She looks up at Sam. “I’m sorry.”

He shakes his head. “There’s nothing to say sorry for. I love you.”

She buries her head into him. “I love you too.”

She squeezes Dean’s hand, and the eldest Winchester feels a wave of relief wash over him. He squeezes back.

“I love you guys.” Olive whispers.

Dean and Sam share a look. This is their baby sister. They have to protect her, no matter the cost. Dean presses a kiss to her hand.

“We love you too.”

“Thank you.”

Sam and Dean share a look.

“For what, bug?”

She looks up again, this time right at Dean. Brown bores into green, and tears blur his vision. This is his kid. And she’s scared of herself. He can’t stand it.

“For always protecting me.”

Dean chuckles, a single tear sliding down the curve of his nose. He winks at her.

“Wouldn’t trade you for the world.”

Previous Ep: Nightmare (1.14)

Previous fic: Sammy the Birthday Moose

Next Ep: Shadow (1.16)

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sleepingdragon-rp · 4 years

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☆ PANDORA GOSHAWK —

BASICS

★ BIRTH DATE / 28 February, 1959 ★ BLOOD STATUS / Half-blood ★ PRONOUNS & IDENTITY / she/her; cis female ★ FACECLAIM / Hailey Lu Richardson

ACADEMICS & ROOMING

★ SECONDARY SCHOOL / Cornwall County Day School for Girls, class of 1977 ★ ACADEMIC PURSUITS / Social Sciences degree, World Politics and International Law cohort ★ HOUSE & YEAR / Ravenclaw, third year

POINTS OF INTEREST

★ Pandora’s life was defined by exploration and learning before she was even born: Alaric and Araminta Goshawk are Curse Breakers, the sort who would let very little stand in the way of a new dig site or ruin. Her mother worked almost to the day of Pandora’s birth, happily ignoring the advice of concerned Healers. So Pandora was born outside of Athens in a dusty tent, shepherded by an ill-tempered Greek midwife. “It went perfectly all right, didn’t it?” Araminta still says when retelling the story. And even though Pandora was dropped off with her father’s sister at the age of six — when even the Goshawks had to admit their travels were hardly a stable growing environment — and only saw her parents every so often, everything was perfectly all right. Pandora was an agreeable child and quickly came to love her Aunt Liddy and cousin Gaspard. And how could she possibly resent her parents for their absence, when their return always brought breathtaking stories and brilliant trinkets?

{ CW: Animal Cruelty & Death } ★ As she tells it now, Aunt Liddy’s pestering and an almost-accident in Mongolia prompted her parents to send Pandora back to England. But that’s not the whole story. Pandora had shown signs of magic for a year or so by then, and had wandered off from her parents to watch a twittering group of young birds leave the nest for the first time. Little Pandora was mesmerised by how easily the first two took this leap of faith, how instinctively they knew how not to fall. Fly, she willed the remaining three, hoping they would soar high as eagles, lending her childish faith to them. Fly they did — all of them, as if strung up by a puppeteer, their birdsong snuffed out by fear. But she did not realise what she’d done, not until her parents had come looking for her, their concern changing to horror. “Look, they’re flying!” Pandora had exclaimed. Her magic had flagged then, and the birds fell to the ground, dead. The Goshawks had quickly realised their daughter needed more supervision than they could give — and normalcy too. The three of them never speak of the incident, though it is Pandora’s oldest memory, more concrete than the castles in Austria and the steppes of Ukraine she had seen as a child. She wants more than anything to prove she is not the thoughtless child from that day. Would her friends, and Gaspard and Aunt Liddy, see her differently if they knew the full truth?

★ Pandora’s natural instinct, when faced with the anxiety-inducing memory, is to seek spiritual comfort. Aunt Liddy was never particularly religious, and neither were Pandora’s parents. So she found her own answers in hedgewitchery and old earth magic. She meditates, keeps a diary, and watches the stars each night. She found veganism at fourteen. (Her weekly advice column for the Oracle is Ask a Hedgewitch, in which she recommends veganism every other answer.) Some might deride her beliefs as hippie nonsense, or backwards given the British culture of wand magic, but Pandora is nothing if not sincere. She really, truly thinks of every new day as an opportunity to be better. At her happiest, at her most clear-headed, she finds herself improvising her spells, making up funny little charms to tidy her room or tend to her potted plants — it’s not the same as the incident with the birds, she assures herself. But as her experimentation gets more complicated, she worries that her true nature hasn’t changed at all since she was an inquisitive, destructive child.

TRAITS

✓ empathetic; open-minded; creative ✗ passive; self-sacrificing; melancholy

☆ OOC — WRITTEN BY STUTI, SHE/HER

#pandora lovegood #pandora lovegood*#pandora goshawk*#taken*

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farfanfiction · 5 years

Text

Loyalty to the Pack: Part 13

Pairing: John Seed x Joseph Seed x Reader x Jacob Seed

AUs: Omegaverse, werewolves

Warnings: Angst, fluff (kinda), references to self-hate, depression, anxiety, cursing, mentions of injuries and blood, mentions of self-harm, fighting, attempted suicide

Word Count: 2,121

A/N: Thank you guys so much for being this patient for this chapter. I went through a lot of stuff in my personal life as of recent and I didn't have the energy or inspiration to write. But, now I’m back and I feel more inspired than ever! And like I promised, this is a Joseph and John oriented chapter. Jacob will get his moment very soon! And like always, give me some feedback on what I could do better or what I did alright, where you wanna see this whole mess go, or something you just don’t understand.

Masterpost My Omegaverse Rules

---------

Blind rage began to bubble up as you cradled yourself to the cold, cracked, asphalt of the Hope County prison. Dirt scrapped against the palms of your hands as you clawed your way to the ground. The tears that you couldn’t hold back slowly trickled down your reddened face. You had no idea who you were mad at. The Deputy, God, or yourself. A little voice was echoing in the back of your mind, yelling over and over about how it was your fault.

To think John had suffered without you was a stab to the heart. You had never thought in your life that you would be saddened over a mate, let alone John Seed. As a child, it was a mear crush that you could control. A simple blush and a hello were all you needed, but as you got older, things began to change. He began to grow from cute to handsome and maybe even sexy in your mind.

You had grown to care for him and even though you wanted to kill him when you were first announced as mates. He claimed a piece of your heart without you even knowing.

You didn’t necessarily blame the Deputy. He did what he thought was right, just like everyone in Eden’s Gate. But the truth was that you had no idea who was the hero and who was the villain. Both sides had their advantages and disadvantages.

The Resistance gave freedom to its fighters. You could do what you wanted, bond with who you wanted, but they also had a habit of killing anyone in their way. Eden’s Gate gave people a purpose. A safe haven for wolves, but they take and take from Hope County.

This whole ordeal had washed away your rose-colored lenses of how life is fair, how God always looked out for the good and punished the bad. This was wrong. He didn’t care. This truth had turned your vision to black and white. If a God would let this happen to the soulmate he chose for you, is he truly a god?

Your (e/c) eyes turned to the cracked ground and saw the pebbles that cut into your hands. As you scrapped them off, small trickles of blood seeped from the cuts. You were too involved in watching the blood puddle drip onto Earth, much like the hallucination in the Bliss, to notice the heavy prison door creak closed. The Deputy cautiously walked down the cement stairs and his steel-toe boots quietly crunched on the ground.

The weight of almost killing a man hung heavy on his shoulders. From what Nick had explained to him, an Omega has this connection with their Alpha. If one person felt pain, emotional or physical, so would the other. (Y/N) would have definitely felt John’s emotions as he fell from Affirmation. Anger, defeat, fear. All of these must-have run through his smartass head as he fell to the ground.

The smell coming from all around you was overwhelming. You knew this scent. It was the Deputy. Worry and guilt came off him in waves. You ground your teeth as you felt him get closer and closer.

The Deputy reached out a hand to you, ready to help you off the ground. “Don’t fucking touch me.” You barely said this above a whisper. Dep just came a little closer as he watched you shake more violently than before. Were you crying or angry? He honestly couldn’t tell.

“I’m… I’m sorry,” he whispered. He knew there was absolutely nothing he could do but beg for your forgiveness. People could forgive but not forget.

“If you’re so fucking sorry than go FUCK YOURSELF! JUST FUCKING DIE!!!!” You lashed out at him with what could only be described as primal rage. Your nails ripped his shorts, causing blood to trickle down his leg. The Deputy could only just stand there and take it as you lash out at him. Clawing at him with tooth and nail. Pushing him into the dirt.

All he could think was that he deserved it. Every scratch or bruise was punishment. He hardly knew you, but he felt a connection. If this was what you needed, then this was what he could do for you.

“I understand what you’re going through, let me help.” Your (e/c) eyes seemed to turn red just for a second as your veins looked like they were going to burst. The Deputy felt like flinching as your hands formed a fist. You swung and socked him right at the jaw. His head was thrown back and another yellow bruise formed on his tan skin.

“You don’t fucking understand what it’s like! Being told what to believe, what to wear, or who to love! To be forced to be someone you don’t want to be. Unlike you, a werewolf is hardwired to be this way! I can’t choose who to mate, but I fall in love anyway! So, no. You don’t fucking know! If you want to help, take me to the nearest fucking bliss field!” The Deputy looked taken aback by the speech. This cult was worse than he thought.

The Deputy carefully helped you up, his tan hand gently taking yours. You ripped your hand away with a growl and nudged him. He only gave a small smile as he led you out of the prison’s parking lot. He gave a whistle and the dog from earlier scampered up.

He was quite cute with gray fur and black dots. His large brown eyes stared up at you as his tongue flew out of his mouth and lapped at your hand with a whine. “His name’s Boomer.”

Boomer cocked his head at the name and gave a floppy smile. You remember him from the ranch. He was with the deputy when you hid in the closet. The love of a dog was unmatched, especially a dog like Lexi. God, you missed her. Where ever she was, you hoped and prayed to the Father that she was safe. That dog was one of the only things you actually trusted, she was family.

“Come on Boomer.” The dog wagged his tail as the Deputy opened the door to the back seat of a truck. He happily jumped in and laid down on the smooth fabric

The Deputy crossed the front of the truck and got into the driver’s side. You got in and slammed the door. If the Bliss got you into this mess then you need to get out of it. If you weren’t high off your mind, you could have helped John. There was no warning, or maybe there was.

The bunker, it was John’s bunker. And the blood… The bliss was trying to warn you. He was trying to warn you. Whether it was John or Joseph or Faith, or even God. You were warned.

Maybe Joseph was right. John was the start and you opened the seal. You were the lamb, not the Deputy. You were the world’s downfall and you had to pay. John didn’t have to hurt if you weren’t here. Maybe the world didn’t have to die. You weren’t the Mother, you were simply Wrath as John had said.

The truck came to an abrupt stop and you looked out the tinted window. A field of white bliss flowers swayed softly in the wind. It’s hard to think something so beautiful could cause so much destruction.

“Do you have any Molotov cocktails on you?” His brown eyes widened at the soft-spoken question. What were you going to do with Molotov cocktails? A twisting feeling began in the pit of his stomach as he reached for his side bag. He dug out two cocktails and a lighter. You hesitantly took them and took a deep breath. This was it, the end of the road. You opened the door and looked back at the Deputy. You gave him a nod and he drove off.

You looked at the field and saw no one. They must have been at a sermon for John’s recovery. You should be there instead of running. You were a terrible Omega. You couldn’t even support your Alpha let alone live up to beta. You at least hoped Holly was with him. Someone he genuinely loved and cared for.

You looked down at the cocktails again and lit the lighter. You brought it to the alcohol-soaked cloth and threw it. The flowers went up in flames and black smoke flew into the air. You lit the other and dropped it at your feet. The dry grass fueled the fire as it began to heat up the air. The black smoke filled your lungs and throat.

You slowly brought your fingertips to the flame and your (s/c) skin blistered at its touch. Your Omega side screamed and hollered for you to pull away, but the pain felt good. It was the punishment you were looking for. Into Hell’s embrace.

Your eyes slowly fluttered shut as the smoke burned and you collapsed onto the burned flowers. A rustle was heard beyond the field as trucks pulled up.

Faith was helped out of the truck by Jacob as they both searched the field. This wasn’t Jacob’s territory, but he couldn’t help it. Joseph was with their younger brother and he had to be by his side. Faith was worried about the bliss. The Resistance had been going around burning fields left and right, but now it really got her attention.

“Umm, sir we found something.” A VIP yelled from across the field. Jacob wasted no time sprinting with Faith hot on his tail. He stopped dead in his tracks when he found you. His red face turned redder at the sight.

“Jacob is that…” Faith trailed off. She wasn’t expecting you among the bliss. Your eyes were shut and your chest wasn’t moving. Faith threw herself on the ground and placed her ear to your chest. No heartbeat. Her eyes began to water.

“Jacob…” Her voice was quiet as she looked up at her older brother.

“What Faith?!” He yelled, getting rather annoyed with her. He only took one look at you to know something was wrong. He crouched down to you and started to perform CPR.

“What do you want me to do? Can I help?” Faith and the other Peggies ran around like chickens with their heads cut off until Jacob’s voice boomed through the burning field.

“I need you to calm the fuck down and listen. Faith, contact Joseph, I need a healer ready when we get to the compound. Don’t just stare at me! Move!” Faith had never seen Jacob so frantic before. He was usually the calm and lazy one.

The minutes that passed bye felt like hours as you finally started to cough up the ash and smoke you breathed in. “You had me worried there for a second kitten.” Jacob let out a dry chuckle as he slowly lifted you and carried you to the SUV. He sat you down next to Faith, who was too busy talking with someone over radio.

“Alpha…” The name escaped your dry lips as you shifted in your seat. Jacob gave a rare smile at you and looked at Lexi in the seat across from him. She looked less raggedy than before, having been well fed at the Veteran’s Center.

“You need rest Omega.” He honestly didn’t care which Alpha you had ment. You were his Omega through and through. His to breed and savage. A strong Omega for a strong Alpha. If you were weak, you wouldn’t have survived.

When you finally arrived at Joseph’s compound, Jacob could finally be relieved. Gabriel carried you to Joseph’s ranch and Jacob went on the hunt for some hard liquor. If John visited, there was bound to be a stash somewhere.

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sp4c3-0ddity · 6 years

Text

Jumpstart Your Heart

it feels like it’s been a while right?? well, it’s been raining for a few days every week for about a month, so take ~4400 words of post-canon fluff (where Allura lived though it doesn’t really matter tbh). enjoy!!

Pidge’s car refuses to start.

Fat raindrops steadily pelt her windshield, the lights in the Target parking lot blurring through the streaks of water on the glass. The chill of the winter air fills the interior, her breath misting out in front of her, and when she turns her key in the ignition, all she gets is a stuttering choking sound.

Pidge growls as her forehead falls against the steering wheel. All she wanted from Target was a jar of peanut butter and a bottle of orange juice for tomorrow’s breakfast, but all she got was stranded.

(Well, and the peanut butter and juice; those, along with a bag of cherry-flavored licorice that looked really good on the shelf but tasted awful the instant she tore apart the first strip, lay safely inside a paper grocery bag on the backseat.)

This is fine though! She was a Defender of the Universe - she was in worse situations before launching into space in a blue, lion-shaped weapon of mass destruction. What’s a little car trouble to a Paladin of Voltron?

Pidge drums her fingers on the steering wheel, thinking…she has a jumper cable in the trunk, right? Or, no, she let Hunk borrow it last time he was on Earth and forgot to ask for it back. Maybe another total stranger in the parking lot would have one - and a working car battery - and be willing to help her out? If they need convincing, she can even put on the old gremlin Pidge voice for them.

What drained her battery anyway? It’s not like she has to worry about leaving her headlights turned on when they’re supposed to turn off automatically!

Wait, when was the last time she had the battery changed?

“Quiznak,” Pidge grumbles when she realizes she’s never changed the battery. She spends all day - and sometimes night - designing some of the most advanced ships and weaponry in the universe, but her own damn car still has the battery she bought it with.

She’s going to have to call for help.

Right as the thought crosses her mind, her phone vibrates in her jacket pocket. She fumbles for it with stiff, cold fingers, expecting it to be her mother wondering if she’s home yet (never mind that she moved out of her parents’ house and into her own Garrison-issued apartment almost a year ago) only to be greeted with an alert from the weather service.

A flash flood warning for her county of residence.

“This is fine,” Pidge tells herself despite her heart skipping a beat in alarm. She’s never seen it rain this hard and for so long in this corner of Arizona; is a tsunami of muddy water about to wash across the Target parking lot and sweep her and her traitorous car away while she deliberates?

“Don’t be ridiculous,” she mumbles, scowling at her rain-streaked reflection in the window. “Tsunamis occur as a result of earthquakes, and I’m nowhere near the coast.”

But what if the dam on the river—

Pidge unlocks her phone and dials the first number on her “recent calls” list without glancing at the contact name. Her leg shakes, but she can’t tell if it’s from agitation or the shivers occasionally gripping her.

“Pidge!” Lance greets her cheerfully at the other end. “How’s it going? Not that I’m not happy to hear from you, but since when do you—”

“Lance,” she cuts himself off, “do you have a jumper cable?” Usually speaking to him on the phone leaves her a tad breathless and her palms so slick with sweat she risks dropping anything she’s holding - why does a simple phone call feel so intimate anyway? It’s weird; she calls her parents and brother on the phone all the time! - but now urgency steadies her voice.

“Right to the point, huh?” Lance muses with a chuckle. “Where are you?”

“Uh…the Target by the state highway two miles off-base,” Pidge tells him.

Lance laughs and wonders, “The peanut butter at the commissary not good enough for you?”

Her face warms - is she really that predictable? - but she muffles an irritated groan with her sleeve. “The commissary’s not open this late.”

“Yeah, I guess you could’ve just walked there too,” he adds.

“In the rain?” Pidge snorts. “I’m not crazy enough to risk pneumonia like you.”

“Hey, sometimes I like the simple things,” Lance says, “and one of those is walking around in the rain.”

As if on cue, the downpour becomes a torrent, the sky dumping buckets of water on her car where she sits huddling in the driver’s seat. “Oh, really?” Pidge retorts, rolling her eyes. “You’d better not walk here unless you want me to use your quintessence as if it’s a thirteen-volt battery.”

“Please, I know you need another car to jumpstart your battery,” Lance says. “And since you asked so nicely, I’ll even bring you my umbrella since I’m guessing you didn’t bother with yours when you left.”

Pidge slumps in her seat, tugging her hood over her face as if he’s there to witness her embarrassment when she admits, “That would be…nice.”

(Too bad an umbrella won’t keep puddles from soaking into her socks.)

“All right, hang tight, Pidge!” Lance says. “I’m already in my car, so I’ll be there in a bit.”

Huh, so some of the rain she hears is on his end. “I’ll be here,” Pidge mumbles, “waiting for you…as usual.”

“Hey, don’t be like that!” he says over the rumbling of his car’s engine. “Your knight-in-shining-armor - your very own Sir Lancelot - is on his way to rescue you!”

“Great!” Pidge says with false cheer. Sure, Lance is coming to get her, but she’s still stranded in the rain after the weather service broadcast a flash flood warning to her phone. “Just don’t die because you’re talking on your phone while driving in the dark during a storm.”

“If the Galra and a bunch of other crazy aliens couldn’t kill me, this won’t.”

Pidge runs her fingers through her rain-soaked ponytail and grumbles, “It better not, so please put your phone away and concentrate on driving.”

“All right, fine,” Lance says, and she can almost hear him rolling his eyes. “I thought you found the sound of my voice soothing or something…”

Ah, right, she told him that a few nights ago when she made the mistake of calling him after a nightmare kept her from falling back to sleep.

"It's not like I'm about to have a panic attack now," Pidge bites.

"You sure you're okay, Pidge?"

The concern in his voice...startles her; is he worried a tsunami will wash her away too?

Well, she already decided that fear is completely irrational, so she forces a smile onto her face and says, "I'm fine now that I know you're on your way, Lance."

"Uh—" He breaks off with a cough before he falls silent, the only sound coming from her phone the low hum of his car's radio.

"Lance?" Pidge prompts. "Are you—"

"Fine!" Lance exclaims brightly. "Great since my car still has a working battery! I'll be there in ten minutes, so see you, Pidge!"

He hangs up without giving her the chance to reply.

Pidge, not a little confused, stares at her phone's screen until it darkens, her brow furrowed. She's known Lance for the better part of a decade, but his behavior can still be such a mystery to her, especially of late. It’s almost as if he l—

Maybe she should just take the direct approach and ask him if anything's eating at him.

Luckily Lance doesn't leave her with enough time to really puzzle over it. His car's headlights flash obnoxiously - the jerk has his high-beams on! - through her windshield as he pulls into the parking spot in front of hers. A heartbeat later the driver's door swings open and Lance steps out, opening a Sailor Moon umbrella.

(She makes a mental note to ask - or tease - him about it later, and she won't take "It's my niece's" for an answer.)

He raises a hand and waves, his face barely discernible through the water splattered on her windshield, but she opens her door when he rounds his car.

The sound of the rain was muffled with her ensconced insider her car, but now it hammers down, pattering against Lance's umbrella and hitting her face as she turns to him.

"Hope you didn't miss me too much," Lance says, voice louder than usual to make himself heard over the rain.

Pidge raises an eyebrow and points out, "I saw you at work on Thursday." Never mind that something in her chest loosens at the sight of the smile - warmer than this quiznaking miserable weather - curling his lips...

"And yet you were desperate enough to drain your battery just for an excuse to call me for help." Lance's smile morphs into a smirk that has the unfortunate side effect of both irritating and endearing her.

Pidge snorts and mutters, "As if I need an excuse." She presses the button to pop her hood open before turning back to Lance. "Where's the jumper cable?"

Lance jerks his thumb over his shoulder. "In my trunk. Just wanted to make sure you were okay first." His gaze drifts over her, making her skin crawl with heat, but then he assesses, "You look a little cold."

Pidge rubs her arms, his comment reminding her of her trembling. "No k-kidding, so can we hurry up and jumpstart my car?"

"Okay, okay." Lance raises the hand not holding onto his umbrella defensively. "I forgot how bossy you are."

"I'm not bossy!" she retorts, but by then he's already retreated to his car, the rain covering up the sound of her voice.

But not the sound of his feet splashing through puddles.

Pidge sighs. What are the odds Lance knows how to jumpstart a car? Will he know on which terminal the black clamp goes? Will she need to show him?

Lance is a pilot; of course he knows how to do something so simple as jumpstarting a car, especially if he owns a jumper cable! But Pidge should step outside and hover near him...just in case.

Pidge winces the instant water soaks into her shoes - she should've worn boots rather than sneakers - but follows Lance to the front of her car. His umbrella handle is tucked awkwardly under his arm while he works on attaching the clamps of the jumper cable to her car's battery, his brow furrowed rather sweetly in concentration, at least until Pidge takes the umbrella.

He glances up in surprise, turning to her with wide eyes before a slow grin stretches over his lips. "For a tick I thought you were going to make me do this alone."

"Maybe if it wasn't raining," Pidge teases. She raises the umbrella over both their heads, huddling under its poor approximation of shelter.

(Lance is a better source of warmth anyway.)

Lance attaches a red clamp to the positive terminal on her car's battery and the black clamp to something metal. She trails after him to his car but can't help wondering, "You shut the ignition off, right?"

Lance frowns at her. "Can't you see the engine isn't on, Pidge?"

She smiles sheepishly and says, "Yes, now that you point it out."

"Then quit micromanaging me."

She shivers as he attaches the remaining two clamps to his car's battery, rain soaking into her clothes despite her efforts to stay under the umbrella. Her cold fingers loosen around the handle, too stiff to hold on properly, and she can't help a relieved shudder when Lance tells her it's time.

Her engine roars into life, a gleeful laugh escaping her when Lance whoops over the sound of two engines and the rain. "Perfect," she mumbles. "Now to let it charge for a few minutes..."

Her engine shudders and dies.

"What?" Pidge exclaims, her heart jumping into her throat. She smacks the steering wheel - as if that'll do any good - and groans, "No..."

A tapping on her window makes her jump, and she opens her door to Lance, sans Sailor Moon umbrella with his hood pulled over his head. "Didn't last, huh?" he observes regretfully.

Pidge shakes her head, slouching. "I'll have to buy a new battery in the morning," she says, "and..." She bites her lip before wondering, "Can you give me a ride home?"

Lance meets her eyes before he smiles and says, "I'll do you one better. You can spend the night at my place, and in the morning I'll take you to buy the battery before bringing you back here."

Pidge's jaw drops, but when she recovers - though her cheeks still feel hot enough to warm the interior of her car if only all the doors were closed - she says, "Lance, you don't have to do that. I can call my dad tomorrow and—"

"So you'll make me drive twice more in the rain?" Lance says, crossing his arms and raising an eyebrow - which, frankly, looks absurd with his hair plastered to his head and water dripping down his face. "And one of those times without you to supervise me and make sure I don't commit some atrocity like texting while driving?"

Pidge throws up her hands and asks, "What are you, a teenager who just got his license?"

"Nope." Lance leans down, close enough to her level she can imagine the warmth of his breath touching her forehead. "Just a concerned friend who wants to do you a favor."

"Do you...owe me something?" Pidge wonders suspiciously.

"Come on, Pidge!" Lance rests his hands on her shoulders and shakes her slightly. "Let's have a sleepover like we used to on the Castle! You'll get warm and dry and be able to fall asleep to the sound of my oh-so-soothing voice if you want"—is he...blushing?—"and I'll even feed you. I might even have some hot chocolate mix and bread for you to slap some of that peanut butter onto if you want."

"But...I need pajamas," Pidge protests, though she knows she's already fighting a losing battle. "And a toothbrush—"

"I have an unused one," Lance says with a dismissive wave of his hand, "and I'll lend you something to sleep in. So...what do you say?"

Pidge's jaw flaps uselessly, taking in his hopeful expression and wondering if she can really make an objective decision about this with her heart hammering - does she really want to spend the night with Lance? - and with his obviously faked guilt trip.

"Fine," Pidge grumbles. Lance grins so brightly, his fist pumping, that she can't help a smile of her own.

But that doesn't stop her from warning him, "On one condition: I am not sharing my peanut butter with you."

Lance's car hydroplanes twice on the way to his apartment complex a few blocks from Garrison premises. Pidge holds tight to her seat belt, her heart bouncing in her chest until tires touch wet asphalt again.

Both times, she turns to Lance and socks his shoulder before saying, "Quit trying to kill us!"

Both times, he screeches in indignation and rubs his shoulder before retorting, "Quit trying to kill me!"

Both times, she retorts, "I barely hit you!"

And both times, he snorts before rolling his eyes and smiling with a fondness that makes her heart skip a beat for a reason that has little to do with fear that he'll skid off a cliff or into an overflowing canal.

"Relax!" Lance says after the second time. "I've got this, Pidge. I've driven in the middle of a hurricane before, so this is nothing."

Pidge crosses her arms. "You do know I have your mom's contact information and I can literally call her to fact check that claim?"

Lance laughs but presses a hand to his chest. "Oh, Pidge, you wound me by not trusting your old war comrade's words." When she continues to stare at him with her lips pressed together, utterly unimpressed, he scratches his ear sheepishly and confesses, "Fine, it was just a dying tropical storm, but come on!" He gestures broadly and adds, "We've been in the middle of space dogfights, so this really is nothing."

Pidge, in the end, can't fight her smile at the reminder - for all the misery that all caused her and her family and her planet - but she turns to the rain-streaked passenger window to hide it. "Just keep both hands on the steering wheel," she mumbles.

"As you wish, my dear Pidge," Lance says almost snidely, and she's pleased when he actually listens.

His apartment is familiar - she's visited many times by day or dry evening to play video games or watch a movie while eating takeout from that bizarre "Earth-alien" fusion place on the corner - but the walk from Lance's assigned parking spot to the door on the second floor deck feels long in the downpour.

Before Pidge can open the passenger door, Lance's hand on her arm freezes her. "Wait," he says. "I'll come around with the umbrella so you don't get too wet."

"You don't have to—" But his door shuts behind him, and Pidge barely sets foot outside - right in a puddle that soaks into her sneakers and the hems of her poor leggings - when he's there to greet her.

"By the way," Pidge says as he raises the umbrella over both their heads and she unthinkingly loops her arm through his, "what's with the Sailor Moon?"

Lance flushes, but he hides it well by reaching around her to grab her grocery bag and shove it into her free arm. "It's my, uh, niece's."

Pidge smirks. "I knew you'd say that."

"Let's just go inside," he grumbles.

They hightail it, running awkwardly standing close together under the umbrella before they give up on it and sprint full tilt, splashing through puddles with raindrops hitting her face and soaking into her hair when her hood flies off her head.

Pidge storms up the stairs ahead of Lance, and when her foot nearly slips out from under her, her breath escaping her in shock, he catches her around the waist. But she doesn't pause to consider the imprint of his touch on her, and by the time he unlocks his door and they pile into the warmth of his apartment, Pidge is shivering too violently to do much more than stand in her soaked clothes and tremble.

Lance shucking off his own wet jacket is enough to get her to move. She tugs hers off, handing it to him to hang on a hook from the shower rod in the bathroom, before kicking off her sneakers and peeling off her disgustingly wet socks and sinking her toes into the warm carpet in front of a vent blasting hot air.

Pidge shudders in relief, squatting in front of it as she combs her fingers through her sodden ponytail. She'll have to do something about all the tangles now too...

Lance clears his throat behind her, and she stands to see him handing her a towel and a set of old clothes. "You can, uh, change in the bathroom. I'll be in...the bedroom...changing my own clothes."

"Right." Pidge watches him retreat, his back to her while she admires the way his soaked shirt clings to his shoulders and shows off how the muscles in his back move.

And then he pauses in his bedroom doorway to glance over his shoulder, his eyes widening when they catch hers.

Heat rushes to her face when he turns back around and stretches his arms over his head with a groan before tugging off his shirt.

Pidge spins on her heel and buries her face in the towel he gave her. Did he do that because she was watching?

"Quiznak," she curses, her voice muffled in fabric.

Despite the chill she just escaped, Pidge splashes cold water onto her face once she's safely ensconced in the privacy of the bathroom. She's just here to spend the night, to accept the favor Lance offered her with no strings attached (for now), to maybe chat and play games with him before she catches a few hours of sleep on his surprisingly comfortable sofa.

No, she won't think about running her fingers through his damp hair or tracing the Blue Lion tattoo that peeks out of his shirt collar or feeling his breath warming her face or press her lips against his like she's wanted to do for years.

No, she won't think about damaging almost a decade of friendship for a kiss he might not want.

(But what if he...does?)

Pidge changes into the clothes Lance provided - an old, baggy t-shirt and a pair of soccer shorts with drawstrings she has to tie very securely - and brushes her teeth with a toothbrush she finds under the sink buried in a stockpile of beauty and hygiene products. She leaves her hair in its ponytail and figures it’ll be one problem to tackle in the morning.

She emerges from the bathroom and heads straight for the kitchen, intent on the snack she craved enough to leave her own apartment to drive to Target in the middle of a dreary winter storm. She locates a bag of bread in the fridge and pops two slices in the toaster before shrugging and helping herself to a Granny Smith apple. She cuts it up and dips the slices directly into the jar of peanut butter.

That’s how Lance finds her, sitting on the kitchen counter munching on apple slices and crunchy peanut butter right as the toaster disgorges her burnt toast.

Pidge offers him the jar. “Want some?”

Lance - looking comfortable in a bathrobe over his pajamas - stands across from her and raises an eyebrow. “I thought you weren’t sharing with me.”

“I changed my mind out of the kindness of my heart,” she deadpans before her sarcasm fails and she flashes him a smile. She shakes the jar and nods at the toast. “Hope you don’t mind that it’s a little burnt?”

Lance laughs. “Lucky for you, I don’t.” He takes the slices - wincing and gasping “ah!” when they prove too hot - and drops them into a plate before grabbing a knife.

They share their snack quietly, with Lance leaning against the counter beside her. And when it’s a little too much - when his arm brushing against hers makes goosebumps rise across her skin - Pidge blurts, “Thank you.”

Lance turns to her, his eyes wide. “For…what?”

She bites her lip and stares at a fleck of peanut butter stuck to her middle finger. “For coming to get me in the middle of a storm and letting me spend the night even though I live literally ten minutes away.”

Lance smiles when she dares to glance at him. “What kind of friend would I be if I didn’t invite you over?”

“A…sane one, maybe.”

He snorts and walks off to wash his hands at the sink. “Good thing I’m crazy about you then.”

“Yes, good—” Pidge stares disbelievingly at the back of his head, her breath catching and heat flooding her and…yes, Lance’s ears are definitely turning red. Maybe she misheard her or just misinterpreted him. He can’t possibly have said what she thinks he did. “What?”

She holds her breath as Lance turns to face her, something intense but…familiar in his gaze, almost trapping her in place. Her heart pounds too quickly as he approaches her, one step at a time, every second dragging yet passing so fast when he stands right in front of her too soon.

“Lance,” she says, and she might’ve hated how breathy it sounds if he didn’t capture her lips in his the instant his name escaped them.

He pulls away too soon, barely giving her the chance to reciprocate, but the heat in his eyes and his body so close to hers and her own swirling thoughts and rising emotion make her slow to react, her tongue tied into knots.

Until Lance wonders in a low voice that sends a shiver up her spine, “What’re you thinking, Pidge?”

“How fitting it is that our first kiss tasted like peanut butter,” Pidge says, because for some reason that’s the first thing that popped into her head.

Lance’s jaw drops - obviously he wasn’t expecting that - but then he chuckles and asks, “Why?”

“Because I love peanut butter.” She rests her hands on his shoulders and tugs him closer until he stands between her knees within easy kissing distance.

She takes advantage of it immediately.

Pidge kisses Lance in the way she almost convinced herself she never would, hungrily, with her lips parted over his and her fingers gripping his robe. One of his hands cradles the back of her head, and the other sits on her knee, his finger only just brushing against the bare skin of her thigh under her borrowed shorts.

Her heart races as she tears away to gasp for breath before finally telling Lance, “But I love you more than peanut butter.”

“Oh, good!” exclaims Lance with a dazzling smile that she matches. But he clears his throat and flashes her a smirk. “I mean…my work here is done. I was starting to worry I’d have to break you two up.”

Pidge rolls her eyes but wraps her arms around his neck and laughs while he embraces her around the waist. She threads her fingers through his hair and listens to the sound of his steady breathing, shoving away the memory of a time she feared she’d never hear it again.

Lance shifts just enough to rest his forehead against hers. “Is there any way I can convince you to spend the night more often without sabotaging your car?” When Pidge’s eyes widen, he hurriedly adds, “Not that I did this time!”

Pidge giggles and says, “Maybe.”

His lips brush against hers as he murmurs, “Is ‘I love you too’ a good enough reason?”

Pidge’s chest is so warm she wonders how she almost froze in the rain barely an hour ago. She touches Lance’s cheek and says, “Help me replace my car’s battery. Then we’ll talk.”

#plance #pidgance #lidge #flirtyrobot #it's very late so i'll worry about proofreading in the morning #voltron #reem writes fic

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fox1656 · 5 years

Text

Shadow Chronicles 4

THE HOSPITAL

Brian got out of bed, and went to the door of his room.

He opened the door, and a police officer was standing there. When Brian opened the door, the officer turned around and looked at Brian. "Awake are you?" the officer said.

"Yeah," Brian said. "Where am I exactly?"

"You're in the Moore County hospital. Eliot Parks brought you here."

"Eliot?" Brian said, confused.

"Yeah," the officer said. "He said he was one of your friends."

"Did any other people come in with us?"

"Yeah. Three other teenagers. They said they were also your friends. Eliot said he wanted to see you when you woke up. Should I go and get him for you?"

"Yes, please," Brian said.

The police officer walked off and Brian closed the door to his room and went to sit down on his bed. A few minutes later, there was a knock on the door, and in came a boy of about mid-height with brown hair and cold blue eyes. "Hi, Brian," the boy said, and then in a low voice, "I'm Eliot Parks. You don't know me, but I know you. I was sent here to try and bring you back to reality. You see. . ." At that moment there was a knock on the door, and in came a tall, dark-haired nurse. "Hello, Brian," the nurse said, "I see Eliot is already here. I'm Theresa Parks. I work here at the hospital. I need to check you and see if you are doing okay." Nurse Parks took Brian's blood pressure, checked his pulse, respiration and other such things. The whole time, Brian was contemplating what Eliot had said about bringing him back to reality. What could he have meant?

When Nurse Parks was finished, she said, "OK. You're free to check out at any time." With a dazzling smile, she turned and left the room.

"I'll have to tell you what I was going to tell you later," Eliot said, "We can't risk anyone overhearing it."

They left the hospital room, only to notice that Kathy, Sam and Elizabeth were waiting right outside the door, waiting for them.

"Finally," Kathy said, "We were about to come in there and see if you were still alive." Kathy walked up to Brian, and hugged him. Brian was so surprised, that he didn't hug her back. Kathy usually wanted to kill him. She never showed that she really cared for him like that. When she backed up, she saw the look of shock on Brian's face, and she said, "What?"

"Nothing'," Brian said, "You've never hugged me before, I think."

"Oh," Kathy said, and a look of relief spread over her face.

"Hey," Sam said, "I think I found us a ride back to Asheboro. This guy said he is going that way, if we need a ride."

"Alright," Brian said. "That sounds like a good plan."

They walked down to the lobby, where the man Sam was taking about was waiting. "All set?" the man said, when he saw them all.

"Yep," Sam said, and the man led the way out of the lobby and across the parking-lot to a large passenger van. They all piled in, and set off toward Asheboro.

Elizabeth told the man that he could just let them off at her house, so she told the man which way to go to get to her house. It didn't take long before they were safely at Elizabeth's house, but the sun was setting. They thanked the man for driving them, and then they went inside. The air inside the house felt strange.

"Maybe something's supposed to happen," Brian said.

"Maybe so," Kathy said.

"Let's go up to my room," Elizabeth suggested.

They all walked up to Elizabeth's room. Eliot followed the others, since he hadn't been to Elizabeth's house before. When they got to Elizabeth's room, they noticed that the closet door stood open, and that it was dark inside, even though the light was on. The inside of the closet was pitch-black. They all stared curiously into the depths. All except Eliot. Brian looked at him, and Eliot had a look on his face, that told Brian that Eliot knew what was going on. When Eliot noticed Brian looking at him, he nodded toward the closet, and he said: "You know what you must do." Brian understood what Eliot meant. He would have to go into the closet and face the creature all by himself. Brian looked at the other's puzzled faces, and then he walked into the closet, and once again the temperature went from 97 to 16, and when he got to the back of the closet, he was standing in the basement. The creature was standing in the middle of the basement floor.

“You can't kill me,” the creature said in its awful voice.

“You forget,” Brian said, “It doesn’t matter how strong I am on my own. I have the power of God in me.”

The creature seemed kind of uncertain when Brian said this, but then its face twisted into a horrible smile.

"If your God will give you enough power to destroy me, then I welcome destruction."

"So be it," Brian said.

The creature reached behind its back, and when it brought its hand back out, it was holding a black sword. There was a light hanging from the ceiling, and even though the light was on, it failed to make the sword reflect its light.

Brian put his hand behind his own back, and something heavy materialized in his hand. When he pulled his hand back in front of him, he was holding a dazzlingly silver sword with a white handle. The blade was so finely polished, that it made a dazzling light, when the light caught it. Brian marveled at his own sword, and then the creature said, "Shall we begin?"

Brian merely nodded.

The creature’s first move struck him right in the lower left leg. It hurt a lot, but Brian didn't complain. To him it didn't matter how much pain he took, or the amount of blood he lost . . . he would not give up, because the creature had killed Billy.

What he didn't know was that the blood oozing from the wound on his leg was flowing freely, and that it was draining too much of his blood. If he did not put something on his wound soon, he would bleed to death.

Finally, he saw an opening, and he slashed at the creature’s stomach. He felt the blade cutting flesh, and he smiled. The creature howled in pain, when the blade sliced through its gray, rotting flesh.

Suddenly, from behind the creature, there was a gunshot. A bullet flew through the creature’s head, and planted itself in the concrete wall behind Brian. Once again, the creature howled its inhuman howl, and then it fell to the floor, and was dead.

Once he looked up from the creature, he saw Elizabeth standing in the doorway with a gun in her hand, and a smile on her face, and she said, “That’s for hurting my boy friend.”

Brian started to fall, and just before he hit the ground, Elizabeth caught him in her arms.

“You saved me, my dear,” Brian said. But he was wrong, she was too late to stop the bleeding; and with that, he died.

Not long after he died, Brian found himself looking at himself in a mirror.

“How did I end up here,” he asked himself, and he noticed that his voice echoed, “And how do I get back?”

Once he turned around, he noticed that he was still in Elizabeth’s house; only it was a mirrored version of her house.

He walked through the house, out the front door, and turned around . . . he noticed that it was indeed Elizabeth’s house.

After a minute of consideration, he turned around, ran back inside the house, back to the mirror, and when he was standing in front of it, he said, “I hope this works.”

He touched the mirror, and his hand went right through it; he pulled his hand back out of the mirror, and; after a moment of consideration, he jumped through the mirror, and he was standing in the bathroom of Elizabeth's parent's room. He walked into the living room, and the next thing he knew, a scream came from the basement: “HE'S GONE!!!”

Elizabeth came running up from the basement, and once she saw him, he thought that she might faint of pure fright. She ran over to him, and threw her arms around his neck, and she said, “I'm so glad to see you. Oh, how we missed you. I thought you were dead! Where did you come from?!”

“I came through the mirror,” he said, “And I wasn't dead.”

#shadowchronicles

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rookisaknight · 6 years

Text

No Cult AUs, but like, still sad about it

The thing is I'm deeply uninterested in "no cult" AUs where the Seeds are just like, completely functional members of society because so much of what we see of their personality is linked directly back to their own trauma. Obviously, your pain doesn't necessarily define who you grow up to be, but just because they're not inherently evil doesn't mean they wouldn't have rough edges. Starting a murder cult in Montana isn't the problem, it's a symptom of the problem. (That's a fun sentence)

I want a Jacob who did some fucked up things during military service, and who didn't get the help he needed. Who still spent time in the shelter before John and Joseph found him. Things are a bit better in Montana. At the very least he finds some solace in the woods, away from people and overwhelming stimulus.

But he still refuses therapy. Refuses to sit down with anyone he thinks is trying to poke around in his head. He's unwilling (some might say afraid) to give up all the ugliness inside of him. Miller, juvie, his father, all of them shaped him into the man he is. He doesn't know who he is apart from all that, and he refuses to find out.

He's as mean and tough as the timber wolves he trains. More than a few establishments have barred him for violent incidents, sometimes when he's having an episode and others that are just a part of his personality. There's very few who understand that there even is a softer side. That there's only a handful of people on this rock that he cares about, but he'd move heaven and Earth for them without batting an eye, no questions asked.

Jacob also struggles a lot with his own understanding of his masculinity. Juvie and the military were both toxic environments for a boy to come into manhood. He's not a monster, but it's hard for him to push that out of his head. To not snidely remark that maybe John should try skirts if he's gonna spend so blessed long on his clothes. To stop himself from pushing Rachel out "while the men talk" or snort that maybe Deputy Pratt is "batting for the other team" if you catch his drift. And it sucks, and it's gross, but it's there.

It's also the only part of himself that he allows to change. Grace Armstrong is one of the few Hope County veterans he actually talks to and feels any sense of connection to. They get drinks on occasion, swap the few war stories they actually have any fondness for and shoot the shit. And one night, she quietly informs him one night that while he’s probably the closest thing she has to a best friend if he calls Adelaide Drubman a whore or insinuates that Jess needs taming, she will not hesitate to stick her boot so far up his ass he won’t shit right for weeks. She’s giving him a crash course on “feminism for gross white mountain men” and helping him come to terms with parts of his own sexuality that he’d been afraid to look in the eyes before. He’s not there yet, but he’s learning.

There are untold sleepless nights. Many of those spent curled up under his blankets, blocking his ears against imaginary gunfire and closing his eyes tight against what he fears he’s going to see. Jacob Seed wakes up every morning, looks in the mirror, and doesn’t recognize or like a single bit of what stares back at him. But he hopes he’ll find peace in the mountains. He’s taken up wood-carving. Maybe using a knife for a less bloody purpose would help...

Joseph takes regular medication for schizophrenia. Alarms are set on his phone (An old flip model, Faith has yet to convert him to a touchscreen), and he rarely misses a day. The meds aren’t perfect: the drowsiness can make his temper shorter than it should be, and the weight gain and constipation can make diet maintenance a struggle. But he’s a disciplined man. He manages. And keeps the voices at bay to the best of his ability.

Medication and regular therapy (when he could afford it) have killed off the more manic sides of his religion, but it hasn’t taken away his faith. Their miserable youth drove Jacob farther from God. It drew Joseph closer. Perhaps an instinctive desire to understand whatever it was that drove their father into such fits over perceived wickedness. And yet, the God he encounters is not one that belonged to his father. It seems to be one that belongs entirely to Joseph. Not exactly a comfortable Hallmark brand, but something that compels him to disciplined behavior. Fills him with peace, and a desire to share that peace with others.

He talks theology with Jerome on fishing trips. They don’t agree on a lot regarding God. But there’s a kinship there. If they’re two blind men trying to feel out the shape of an elephant and coming to different conclusions on what they hold, at least they agree there is something to feel.

He remains something of a manipulator. Father Seed is an open and accepting presence, one with the ability to reach into the very heart of your pain, expose it, and then apply a quick and ready balm. When he takes the lectern he is a gifted thinker, an eloquent speaker, and a charismatic communicator. Perhaps its an aspect of himself. But when he goes home Sunday night, takes off the suit and steps into jeans, he becomes reserved once more. Those who have seen the transformation find it almost spooky. The eyes go from a warm embrace to a cold calculation. The Father doesn’t get crossed often, but those who scheme against his congregation or offend his family finds themselves quickly exposed by him, their insecurities laid bare and attacked. It's unnerving how he can easily pick up on the tells of a weak self-image, of a troubled family or a problem with drinking. The Sherriff sometimes jokes he’d make a good detective. Or a con man.

Joseph Seed has a knack for sowing discomfort. Something about him is a little too...open. Like he unlocked a part of his soul most keep to their private selves and laid it out on the surface. But his perceptiveness gives him great strength as a counselor, and for every person who swears he's a devil, there's someone who knows he helped them out of their deepest and darkest places.

John had to work hard to unlearn the lessons from his abusers. He could afford the finest therapists in the world but until Joseph found him he refused to go. At some point, before reaching adulthood he picked up on the general notion that parents shouldn't hurt their kids the way all of his had. But it was so hard to tell himself that he didn't....deserve it.

Was it wrong to say there were moments where he was almost proud of it? The world was full of sinners, but thanks to his parents he had the courage to face it. To take his punishment and atone. The self-mutilation, the whippings and fasting and hours in prayer until his voice was hoarse and his knees bled.....maybe others viewed them as grotesque but to him, they were redemption. He didn't ask why it had to happen to him. He could only think that maybe the world would be a better place if everyone did it.

It created a split in his sense of self-worth. On the one hand, he viewed himself as a maggot straining for approval from on high, unworthy of even the crumbs of forgiveness yet anxious to gobble them up. That self-loathing tormented him, drove him to drown his agonies in substance abuse and turn to the pain of a knife or a needle to make him feel punished enough. And yet, on the other hand, he saw himself as superior to everyone else. At least he knew his place in the hierarchy of creation. Better a worm that knows he's a worm than a worm that thinks he's a lion.

John's a mess of coping mechanisms. In college, there was the bottle, self-harm, and a lover or two or three. Always putting himself in the most degrading position possible, because at least then he felt like he could deserve affection. And after graduation...there was a tight control. Every hour was stuffed for maximum productivity because free minute meant time where the dark thoughts could creep and catch him unawares. he wouldn't let himself go to bed until he was ready to drop from exhaustion.

Joseph, Jacob, and even Faith learn to spot the signs of when things are getting bad for him. When the dark circles under his eyes are growing more and more prominent but his clothes are immaculate. When Joseph finds him stashing razor blades (he hasn’t hurt himself since moving to Montana, but having them within reach becomes important to him). When Faith finds him screaming at someone because they brought him the wrong blueprints for the youth center. It's tricky, because openly acknowledging The Thing will only make John try harder to cover it up. But they find subtle ways of defusement. Jacob lays off giving him a hard time, for once. Joseph finds ways of lessening the work on his table and manages to carefully sneak in commendation during their weekly meetings. Faith insists on cooking for him and visiting regularly under the pretense of discussing her college plans. It's not a perfect system, but its the best they know to pull him out of it

Rachel Jessop still takes the name Faith Seed. Not for any heraldry purposes. But because she wants to feel....a part of something. The converting process asks you to put off your old self. Rachel Jessop, the druggie, the abused, the disappointment, the unloved, was such a bundle of hurt and anguish and self-destruction that the only way she felt she could put it behind her was to recreate herself. The last name was easy. The Father had given her a family, and she would wear that fact proudly.

Faith was because it was what was required of her every day. The faith that tomorrow she would be able to stay off the needle. That she wouldn’t harm herself tomorrow. That the only tears she would shed would be tears of joy. Joseph said faith was perhaps not the right word for it. After all, all these things took effort on her part. But for her, they also required trust in a higher power, to guide her and keep her on the Path.

Though she cast off Rachel’s name, so many of the worst parts of her followed into the new identity. The codependency and abandonment issues, so strong sometimes that she can’t go home that night, to the small, but empty cabin that she’s made her own. Joseph and John both have a guest bedroom set aside for her, and she takes advantage of this frequently.

Her desperate need to please the people around her is often imperceptible. She seems so bright and happy and full of life that many take her as the finest example that Eden’s Gate saves lives. But there is so much pain behind the smile. An offhanded comment about her hair from one of the teens in her bible study sets her off in an obsessive spiral for a couple of days after. At church events, she stays longest, cleans everything up. Her phone is constantly buzzing with messages from all the lonely hearts of Hope County. She neglects her mental health in favor of helping others.

If she can just....if she can prove to Joseph that she was worth saving...She hated feeling like a pity case. Like in her core she was still that same wretched sinner that showed up stoned to her first sermon. Who stole her best friends credit card and went on a shopping spree. Who baited her sickly mother with empty promises of daughterly love in order to get money for rent, or more often, meth. She’d been hurt by so many people in her life that she had felt like she was justified in hurting everyone else in a directionless act of revenge. And now that she’s older, she’s worried she’s ruined herself for honestly helping others. Every act she does is not enough to assuage her guilt, that sometimes fills her up so much it makes her nauseous.

She’s working with Joseph on this. They meet once a week to discuss her spiritual progress. At his recommendation, she also visits a counselor fairly regularly, which seems to help. And in all honesty, this might be what makes her connect so well with the teenaged population of Hope County. She knows what its like to feel like an unlovable outcast, to worry that you are disappointing everyone. Faith, in her own way, is dazzling. Most just wish that she knew that too.

#joseph seed #john seed #jacob seed #faith seed #rachel jessop #far cry 5 #fc5 #no cult au #far cry 5 au #long post

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marvilus-magpie · 5 years

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The angsty OC asks for your Charlie: 4, 8, 22 and 29? :)

Does your OC have nightmares? What do they contain? answered here

What is the closest your OC has come to death?Charlie has a large scar running from mid rib to her hip bone on her left side, the result of a yao guai attack. She and Danse were returning from a patrol that had taken them to Suffolk County Charter School. The mission went well, the weather was pleasant and spirits were high. The good mood translated into chatting and uncharacteristically neither was as alert as they should have been. The yao guai was on them almost before they knew what was happening. Danse reacted in time to place his armored self between Charlie (who to his chagrin rarely wore more than light armor) and the bear’s onslaught, but the force of the attack had knocked his weapon from his grip. Panicked and not thinking clearly, Charlie lobbed a grenade behind the beast hoping to distract it long enough for Danse to recover his laser. Unfortunately it took a bad bounce and hit the small cliff they were standing under bringing a good portion of it down on Danse. The yao guai startled, but soon recovered and charged at the now pinned and helmetless Paladin. Charlie being Charlie didn’t think twice about shielding his head with her body. Her flimsy armor might have done just enough to keep her from being completely gutted before it was ripped from her body in a single powerful blow from the yao guai. Charlie’s body was ripped from the downed soldier and thrown a dozen feet from where he lay. In the second the animal took to turn and decide to go after her, Danse pushed himself from the earth that covered him and threw himself at the animal. Gripping it’s hips with every bit of strength in his power armor until he heard the pop of it’s shattering pelvis.

The Damage done to Charlie was severe, there was no time to wait for help. Danse had to stitch her up the best he could right there on the spot before she bled out. By the time he’d finished and she had stabilized, it was dark. Fearful of moving her they spent the night there and in the morning he carried her to the Castle. To this day each of them insists that they are the one to blame.

Sorry that was so long, I’ve had that event in my head forever, lol!

What is your OC the most guilty about?Hoo boy, there is a lot. For a long time she felt guilty that she never loved Nate. He was a good man and he loved her and treated her well, but she never loved him, at least not romantically. She tried and she did care for him but for her it never blossomed into more than friendship. She was honest with him, but he was convinced that someday she’d feel something more, maybe she would have, but they never got the chance. When he died protecting their son, it only made her feel worse. He deserved someone who loved him and he never got to have that, she hated that she couldn’t give that to him.

Worse than that though is what happened during the Battle of Bunker Hill. It’s hard to pick a side when you care for people on all of them. She was there at the request of her son, though she knew it was him she was going to betray. Her plan was to dispatch the courser that was to accompany her (which she was already sick about) and assist the Railroad in helping the synths escape. The Brotherhood wasn’t supposed to be there. It was the one time she hadn’t been completely honest with Danse. She hadn’t exactly lied, but she didn’t tell him the truth either when she asked him for a few days off for “personal matters” and left him on the Prydwen. She wouldn’t fire on the Brotherhood, nor would she fire on the Railroad, but she took down gen-1’s and 2’s without hesitation. Stealth was a strength and she used it to creep her way to the secret Railroad passage harboring the gen-3 synths. If she could just get them out before the Brotherhood found out, everything would be fine. Everything was not fine. The Railroad hideout was a three way battle with both Brotherhood and institute forces having invaded. Her mind was scrambling for what to do when she saw him, a Brotherhood Paladin. He was here? Of course, why wouldn’t he be. Maxson said himself that Danse was one of his best field officers, who else would he send on a mission like this? Her mind was reeling, but before she even had a chance to clear it a bolt of blue caught her eye. A blast from a gauss rifle weilded by one of the Railroad agents slammed into the chest of the Paladin, slamming him into the wall of the cavern where he crumpled to the ground and lay still. She may have screamed, she doesn’t remember, no one heard her over the din of battle anyway, what she does remember is lifting her rifle to her shoulder and firing a shot clean through the head of that agent.

She scrambled down the ledge to the body of the fallen paladin. Shaking and sobbing she grabbed the helmet’s release and pulled. It wasn’t him. It wasn’t Danse. The massive wave of relief that washed over her was quickly replaced by chill and nausea at another realization. She had just murdered a woman. A woman who’s only crime was defending the helpless from those who would see them dead.

The battle wound down around them and the Railroad had become the clear victors. In the chaos of battle and surrounded by so many dead, it seemed no one realized who killed that one single agent, but Charlie knew. She knew and she would never forget.

Why does your OC have the flaws that they have?One of Charlie’s biggest flaws is also one of her biggest strengths, her loyalty and fierce need to protect those she cares about. It’s a wonderful thing to want to keep those you care about safe, but when it comes at the cost of all else it isn’t always for the best. Vengeful, aggressive, merciless are all words used to describe her when it comes to defending loved ones or going after those who’ve hurt them. If you need an example look no further than my last answer. Her rage at the thought of losing someone she cared about cost someone their life. The reason she has this flaw probably comes from how alone she felt growing up. Her parents were cold and indifferent to her most of the time, too busy, not around or just not interested enough to spend time with her. She was an only child with no siblings and her family moved around a fair bit so making good lasting friendships was difficult. Her best and most constant friend growing up was the household Mr. Handy. When she was a teen she came home from school to find that her father had sent him off to be reclaimed and had replaced him with a newer model. Even as an adult she found it hard to make deep connections with people, for fear of losing them. When she finally allowed herself to fall in love for the first time to a young soldier he was shipped off to Alaska and never came home. Now when someone makes their way into her heart she will fight to the point of self destruction to keep them.

I totally intended to keep these brief and failed miserably, lol!

#Fallout #Sole survivor #Charlie #Paladin Danse #Danse #Fallout OC #Railroad #Institute #Brotherhood of Steel #Thanks so much for the ask <3

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ycnderes · 5 years

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“I didn’t want it to be like this! But I had no control.” With Faith Seed? I’m a huge sucker for that girl

tbh big mood, i love her T-T enjoy!

You and Faith had been friends for years. Years before she’d ever taken up the moniker Faith, years before she joined Joseph. That’s what it was. Years of friendship. What else could you call it? You’ve heard stories, from those who hate her and those who love her, about how she came from nothing, how she was mistreated and abused, how she ruined her own life just for an ounce of control. But you’d also heard she’d had no friends, nobody there with her through any of it.

That’s a fucking lie.

Sure, you hadn’t been around in a couple of years, but you’d begged her to come with you. You couldn’t stand the small town mindset anymore, you wanted to travel, to be a part of something bigger than Hope County. She wanted to stay.

That wasn’t on you, her destruction isn’t on you. The people she’s hurt, the lives she’s ruined that shouldn’t be on you.

But when you’re riding with the deputy, on another mission to bring some kind of hope back home, and you see her angels. Eyes glazed over, nothing there, nothing left but whatever she tells them to do. It settles in the pit of your stomach. This feels like your fault.

It’s taken a while, the deputy and their allies managing to clear the cultists out of some more territory, but you finally make it to Faith’s house. Rachel’s house? Was she ever Rachel, or has Faith been there the whole time?

The breeze glides around you, staving off some of the heat, some of your sweat drips against your skin, down your back, along your arms. You wipe your brow, squaring up the door. It looks just like it did the last time you saw it. Nothing new, nothing different. Of course, Faith’s parents aren’t behind there. No one really knows what exactly happened to them, maybe inculcated into the church, or maybe up and ran off when they realized what was happening.

You feel like you already know what happened to them, and it’s not any of those things. Faith had a rough childhood, you knew how much resentment she’d been harboring in her heart. How dark she sometimes felt, the way she’d just fade away until it was only her body there with you.

The porch creaks as you step up onto it, you open the screen door and knock. It’s customary, and you already know nobody’s inside, but it feels rude not to. Nobody answers, and you try the handle. It’s unlocked. Stepping in, you feel nostalgia wash over you. It’s not just the heat, though you realize you immediately feel offbeat now that the air conditioner isn’t running full blast, the fans on the ceiling ain’t going either. It’s dead quiet.

Your steps are small, you feel like you’re eight years old again, sneaking into your best friend’s house for the first time even though she wasn’t supposed to have any visitors.

Faith and you’d been out playing in the woods when the need for some toy had come up. You were completely willing to wait alone, the sun high in the sky, you felt safe in the dirt and leaves. But she’d wanted you to see her room, and besides, her parents weren’t supposed to be home for another little bit, c'mon, it’ll be fine.

And even though nobody was supposed to be home, the two of you crept in, quiet and whispering like church-mice. She showed you the living room, the kitchen, her parents’ bedroom (she didn’t open the door, something terrifying and sacred behind it), and her room. It was about as nice as yours, you’d thought at the time, a little bed with pink sheets and her toys stuffed into a plastic bin. Faith dug for the toy, you can’t even remember what it was that she was getting, but you remember how the blanket felt as you sat down on her bed. The cloth is worn and holey, maybe old, maybe well-loved, maybe a bit of both. You’d looked around her room, curious as all children are, trying to pick out who she was within this new environment.

Faith found whatever she’d been looking for, and you both went back out and spent the rest of the day playing till it was nearly dark. It��d been a nothing day, but the memory of it aches in the back of your mind as you walk through the house.

It’s not been ransacked, and you’re surprised by how much that comforts you. You aren’t sure how you’d feel if you’d come by and everything was gone. What would that mean? It’s not fair to compare a real life person to a house, but if nothing were there, it’d feel like Rachel was truly gone.

You don’t open the fridge, even though you are curious. You go into the hallway and wait at Faith’s door. You want to go in. It feels like a betrayal, something in you deeply uncomfortable with going into a friend’s room without their permission. But you open the door finally.

It looks about the same, the bed a little bigger, the toys are no longer out, probably stuffed into a closet or possibly donated. Faith is sitting cross-legged on the bed, she’s staring almost dreamily out the window, doesn’t even start when you come in.

You know she isn’t a bliss-fueled hallucination, she’s the one who invited you here in the first place, but she looks almost like one. Bliss probably clings to her like a film, you shake your head trying to dispell the very idea of it.

“You came.” She looks so good, better than she’s ever looked from what you can remember. Her skin no longer sallow and drawn, her hair isn’t greasy or limp or tied back into a weak ponytail. She looks healthy.

That hurts a little. It took a violent cult to shape her just the way she wanted, and she followed it. When you tried all you got was demands for you to accept her the way she is.

“Yeah,” you stand a little unsure in the room. It’s so much smaller now, the walls have closed in, and the ceiling is close enough you can nearly reach it.

Faith finally looks at you, a smile flitting on her face. It’s warmer than you’d thought it’d be. Is this Rachel, happy to see you? Or Faith, ready to convince a nonbeliever? “Well c'mon and sit down.” She pats the blanket in front of her.

You obey, feet dragging, and you’re suddenly struck by how different she is. It’s not just how healthy she looks, or the look of real joy you rarely saw on her before. Everything about her feels different. You may not know this person anymore.

“It’s been a while,” she finally says after a minute of silence.

You look down, fingers twisting at the blanket underneath you. “Yeah. It-” You nearly drop the words, almost afraid to be truthful here, almost afraid to show her anything vulnerable. “It was a real surprise, realizing the Faith everyone was talking about was my best friend.” That makes her look at you again, surprise etched into her brow. This feels dangerous, like baring your throat to her, but you have to say it. “I missed you.”

She takes your hand in her’s, and you nearly jump at the feel of her skin. “I’ve missed you too,” she says it earnestly, her eyes bright and boring into you. It’s too much, you have to look away. “It’s been so long, I wasn’t even sure if I’d see you again.” Her thumbs gently rub circles into your wrists. Is this how she gets a hold of people? She talks to them so soft and sweet, her touch is kind, and you just want to collapse into her, she feels strong enough to hold you and her up against a storm.

“I’m sorry,” it feels right to say that, even though it wasn’t your fault she didn’t want to come with you.

Faith catches your eye again, she’s wearing that pretty dress you’ve seen in nearly all of her recent photos with the Seeds. “You don’t have to apologize, you’re here now. That’s all that matters.” And she leans in close, so close your foreheads almost touch. You don’t move away, you can’t, but you try to remember that this is Faith, not Rachel.

She looks sad and moves back after a moment. “What’s wrong?”

A laugh jumps out of you, it feels sharp and barbed, ready to catch on something and rip. “You can’t be serious.”

Her grip slacks and you want to tear your hands away from her. “Why won’t you just tell me?”

You roll your eyes, this was a bad idea you knew it from the beginning, but you couldn’t help yourself. “Why don’t you tell me? Faith? That’s your new name ain’t it? How ‘bout you start there?”

She looks at you like you’re a child, the look is familiar, something she’d picked up from her parents that never failed to make you feel small. “I wish you’d found me first when you came back. Why didn’t you come to me?”

“And what? Get blissed out and made into one of your ‘angels’?” She digs her fingers into your hands, it’s just a reflex, but you tear them away.

Faith looks empty as you stand up, but it only lasts a second before she pulls herself together. “I would’ve never -”

“Don’t lie to me! I know you, I know you!” You shout at her, and you want to cry, and you want to also throttle her for even trying to defend herself. “I don’t know why I even came here! What was I expecting? Everybody talks about you, talks about what a witch you are, I shouldn’t’ve come here expecting Rachel.”

Faith stands up at that, her eyes glowering and a thin line slashed across her face. “Well you’re right, Rachel’s dead. She’s been dead a long time, and you knew that.”

That stings. You did know it, you just didn’t want to believe it. You turn away from her, tears well up in your eyes out of frustration and you can’t bear to let her see them, but then a cool hand snakes into yours and she tugs you back.

“I didn’t want it to be like this.”

She doesn’t say anything else, and you hate that it’s her and not Rachel holding you here. “You could’ve changed it,” your voice is thick and unsteady as you try to keep yourself from crying. “You could’ve, you just didn’t want to.”

“Baby, I had no control over any of this.” Faith pulls you closer and closer until you’re wrapped in her arms. “Stay. Can’t you stay?” She asks, but you both know your answer. “Please stay with me.”

#Anonymous #request #gnr #sfw #fc5 #faith

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