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word-wytch · 2 years ago

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Don't Stand So Close To Me — Chapter 12

Eddie x Teacher!Reader

Chapter 12/? 10.7k. Series Masterlist

✏︎ Grades are high, but stakes are higher.

✏︎ Series Summary: Forced to move back home to Hawkins after your fiancé cheats on you, you begin to fall in love again with an audacious 20 year old metalhead, only there’s one problem — he’s still in high school and you’re his English teacher.

While you struggle starting over in a place you never thought you would return, Eddie struggles feeling stuck in a place he can’t manage to leave — until you offer to help him. Of all the lessons learned, the most important are the ones you teach each other.

✏︎ Series CW: forbidden romance, slow burn, true love, smut (18+ mdni), internal conflict, student-teacher relationship, 10 year age gap, mutual pining, sexual tension, emotions, drama, angst, character development, happy ending :)

Chapter warnings: flirting, play fighting, heavy angst, drinking, pregnancy mention, a heaping helping of family tension, mild fantasy blood/gore

Special thanks to @storiesbyrhi for the beta reading on this one.

Monday, November 18th 1985

Hawkins felt different this weekend.

Perhaps it was the ashen sky that hung over the scattered remains of a brilliant fall. The way it bathed the world in a pale, sullen wash. The way it made the rust on the signs outside the gas station seem more corrosive, the streets seem smaller, the storefronts seem older. Perhaps it was because everywhere you looked, you saw him.

You were used to hearing Eddie in the cars that billowed smoke and blasted music as you pumped your gas. You had grown accustomed to seeing him in the crushed beer cans and cigarette butts that littered the weeds along the sidewalk, in the remnants of a good time. Those things were not unusual. But this weekend you saw him under the harsh fluorescents of the grocery store. On the crinkled label of a 99 cent can of soup. In the faces of small children as you stood in line with a cart that you could never fill alone. You saw him in the windows of subsidized apartments. Heard him in the squeak of wire hangers against the pole at the secondhand store. Felt him as you drove past the huddled rows of trailers.

On Monday after school when you sensed a tall figure in the doorway of your classroom, you half expected to look up and feel those grey skies again. To see those weed littered sidewalks and pothole riddled roads that led nowhere. But instead you saw something much brighter.

Eddie was smirking, rapping his ringed knuckles against the doorframe as he leaned into it. A look in his eyes like he was keeping a secret.

His dirty white Reeboks squeaked against the tile as he padded over to his spot in the wooden chair beside you and dropped his backpack irreverently to the floor. The gust of air that followed was painted with base notes of skin and leather, top notes of cigarette smoke and a bright hint of shampoo. Not a trace of rain.

You gathered the papers in front of you, shuffling them into a pile in the corner as you glanced over at him, unable to suppress the smile breaking out on your face. “What?”

The smirk twisted deeper on his lips. “I read your story.”

It was like he said he’d seen you naked. Heat crept up your neck. “All of it?” you asked with a nervous chuckle.

“Not exactly.” Eddie grabbed the seat between his legs and walked it closer. “I’m at the part where they’re, uh, cooking over the fire outside of Grimhold and Cybelle takes her mask off for the first time. Well, in front of Lazarus anyway.” He shrugged his leather jacket off to drape over the back of the chair.

It was strange to hear him say those names. Names you hadn’t thought about in years, dusted off from where you shelved them in your mind. It was like he was speaking a dead language, breathing new life into it.

You swallowed. “Oh, that part. Yeah, that’s an important moment.”

“I had a hard time putting it down, if that tells you anything.”

“I take that means you like it then?”

“Like it?” he said in a breathy chuckle, leaning closer. “I’m blown away.”

Your stomach turned to mush, unable to tear your eyes away from the soft earnestness of his features. “Really?”

Eddie gave a deadpan look. “Look, I’m a huge fantasy geek, but this world you’ve created is…” he shook his head as a soft puff of air left his lips, “unlike anything I’ve ever read.”

There was a weight to his gaze, so heavy that you needed to break it. “Oh wow, um, thank you,” you said, glancing at the paperclips on your desk as heat made a home in your cheeks again. “It’s been ages since I’ve read it myself honestly.” In the same span of time you still never learned how to take a compliment.

“Yeah—no, I mean it. It’s really good.” He tipped his head towards you, searching for your eyes. “I like that it’s, uh, based in a sort of… reality, if that makes sense. Like the whole thing about illness being a problem and how the change in the atmosphere makes Cybelle dizzy. The gold and how it powers machines. Stuff like that. It’s clever.”

You found the courage to meet his gaze again. “Well, thank you. I mean I’m definitely no Tolkien, but…”

Eddie scoffed. “Honestly? Tolkien takes three pages to describe a door. You never need to and yet the world is crystal clear.”

The ease that washed over you escaped through a chuckle. “You know, I always thought that killed the pacing.”

“It does! God, I mean don’t get me wrong, he is the grandfather of fantasy but Jesus Christ.”

Your laughter mingled, soft and easy, coloring the air in the space between you. It echoed off the tile floor and concrete walls as beams of golden sunlight poured in through the row of windows to your right. The rays made a halo of his hair, catching the frizz that escaped the pattern of his curls.

Eddie’s eyes sparkled, and you would search for the hurt in them. You knew it was there, hiding somewhere deep in those pools of molten chocolate, but in this moment there was no trace to be found.

“Hell, maybe I should consult you for my campaigns,” he said scooting his chair impossibly closer. Close enough to feel his aura. To feel the hair on his arm tickle against yours.

“Jeez, don’t flatter me.” You were surprised at how steady your voice came out.

“No, I’m serious,” he said, his eyes drifting toward your lips. “Okay, don’t tell the boys but I’m actually kind of stuck on this one part coming up.”

You snorted. “Right, because I have such a good rapport with the boys.”

The smile lines deepened around his smirk. “Ok, so… the final boss is coming up and I kind of want there to be a plot twist but I’m not sure how to like, make that work.”

“Alright, well what’s happened in the story so far?”

There was a glimmer of mischief in his eyes before his voice dropped to a theatric narration.

“There’s a dark, evil force in the village of Hammerfall,” he began with a wave of his hand. “Crops are withering, livestock perishing. The villagers say it’s a curse put on by a spurned old crone who vanished into the forest, never to be seen again.”

The gooey smile breaking out on your features could not be contained. A new color in the lexicon of hues you knew his voice to be. Rich with iridescent animation, reaching deep enough to turn your heart to putty.

“Six brave adventurers investigate the cause and venture deep into the nearby woods where they encounter harpies,” he emphasized, flourishing his fingers, “dryads, and a forest teeming with dark activity. There’s something deeper going on…” he paused for dramatic effect, “or at least I want there to be,” Eddie chuckled, breaking character as his voice snapped back into its normal cadence. “Originally I was just going to have it be that the old crone is a kind of sorcerer but we already sort of figured that, you know? I feel like that’s too predictable. I want it to be something, I dunno, more interesting?”

You blinked as you willed your dopey mouth to move. “So she’s, um, going to be the final boss I take it?”

“Yeah, but that’s like, totally predictable right?”

“Hmm.” Resting your elbow on the desk and your finger between your lips, you thought for a moment. “What if she’s like, I dunno, possessed by something else? Like maybe there’s an even darker force at work and it’s just using her as a puppet or something?”

Eddie’s eyes lit up like Christmas. “I like the way you think.” His voice was tinged with a playful darkness.

You tucked your fingers behind your ear in reflex. “I mean I have no idea what it would be, but…”

“No—no that’s a good place to start. I think I actually have an idea of who could do that sort of thing, like in the monster manual. He’s a sort of… necromancer.”

You nodded. “Oh yeah, that sounds plausible enough. Maybe there’s some sort of clue that gets left behind when she dies or something. Maybe there are like, markings on her body or some sort of strange amulet or… something that would lead to clues about who might be behind this.”

Eddie nodded along, his eyes growing wilder with every word. “Hey uh,” he began, leaning in like he was about to share a secret. “I don’t… know if anybody’s told you lately but…” his soft breath feathered your cheek, “you’re pretty brilliant.”

It was the way he said it. Soft in tone, heavy with intention. Peering under his lashes like he wanted to kiss you. You swallowed, hard, as your heart pounded into your throat. “No uh,” you choked on your laugh, “not lately.” Breaking his gaze, you fiddled with your green grading pen and pressed your thumb nail into the gummy gripper.

With startling animation, Eddie grabbed a spare piece of paper from the pile on your desk and snatched the pen out of your hand.

“Hey!”

“Not like you were using it,” he teased, swiping your attendance clipboard to prop the sheet against.

Your mouth fell open. “Well… no… but—”

He turned the pen over in his hand and clicked it a few times. “So much power in this little tool.” Putting it to the paper, he etched a green mark that would form the first letter of your first name. “Hmm what grade am I going to give you?” he tapped the pen against his lips.

You raised your eyebrows. “Oh you’re grading me now?”

“Well you definitely have attention to detail down, so A for that.” His hand hurried across the page, flourishing as he marked the A.

You sat back in your chair, thoroughly amused. “How generous of you.”

His eyes crinkled as he scribbled against the paper, clipboard cradled in his left arm to shield it from you. “Let’s see, what’s next… oh I know. Creativity. A plus for that one.”

You rolled your eyes, a weak diversion for how hot your face was getting. “How ‘bout I give you an A plus for being a total cheeseball?”

“Ohh wit — A for that one too.” His tongue darted out, nimble hand dragging your pen across the page.

It was almost uncomfortable, the grip he had on you. How he could make you feel with a gesture, a word. “Ok enough flattery, give it back,” you said, reaching for the clipboard.

Eddie jerked it away. “Sense of humor, hmm, might have to give you a B for that one.” He shot you a smirk.

You balked. “Oh come on!”

“…B minus.”

A laugh escaped you. “Eddie!”

His eyes were full of mischief as he scribbled frantically against the paper. “What, never got a B before? First time for everything, sweetheart,” he jested with a firm shake of his head.

It was hard to be offended when your brain was short circuiting.

“Maybe we can work on it together,” he offered, biting back a snicker.

Your brain clicked back on with the glare you shot him. “Okay, that’s it.” You lunged for the clipboard, but he was slow on the juke this time. Your fingers made purchase with the masonite slab.

Gripping it like a lifeline, he practically dragged you across his lap as he lurched away. It all happened so quickly. The swift tug he gave, your hand jutting out to brace the first thing in proximity — his denim clad thigh.

There was a pause in the movement. Heat lit up your whole body, radiating from the point of contact.

His leg was warm and solid under your palm. So too was his shoulder nestled into yours as you reached across his lap, deeper into the bubble of his scent. You didn’t dare look him in the eyes, but in your close peripheral you could see his mouth; gaping just as yours was.

Recovered from shock, the tension resumed in his tugging, and you responded with equal and opposite force. Your hand remained planted. For balance.

“So serious!” Eddie teased, wild hair bouncing as he jerked.

“I am serious, give it back.” Maybe it was your bright, airy giggles that gave you away, but he didn’t seem convinced.

God he was strong. You could feel the tremble of his arm emanating through the clipboard. Feel the flex of his bicep against yours as you fought his strength. You allowed yourself, for just a moment in the struggle, to glance at the one furthest to you. To follow his white, angular knuckles down to his wrist and see tendons flex against blue veins. To trace the curve of his inked forearm, to the bend of his elbow, to the bulge of his bicep. Your eyes lingered there. At the swell under his velvet skin. It surprised you, how large the muscle was, so much that it caused your grip to slip for just a second.

It only made him tug harder, but not too hard, you noticed. Gentleman he was, trying to play fair. It was, however, hard enough to draw you further across his lap, further into his scent, close enough to slot your chest into his outstretched bicep and feel it tremble. You fought to regain your hold, hooking your fingers over the top and yanking back with an invigorated fervor.

“Wai-wai-wait I’m not finished! I haven’t even gotten to ‘plays well with others’,” he wheezed, breaking into a warm, bubbly chuckle right against your ear.

You could barely eke out words. Sweat dampened your hand against the denim as his thigh flexed with every tug. A large, strong muscle that glided and stiffened under his heated skin. “Give it back,” you gritted weakly.

Soft curls tickled your cheek, feathered your lips and nose. You could smell it deeper than ever; that bright shampoo, that warm musk radiating from his neck.

“What, you gonna give me detention?” he quipped, turning his head to steal a glance from you.

Your mouth hung open. It was the way he said it, so defiant and cocksure. Daringly taunting for someone whose face was blotched pink. “Yeah, write you up for being a smartass,” you choked out with a pointed tug while your other hand burned a hole in his thigh.

He gasped dramatically, pausing in the struggle. “You think I’m smart?” His tone was comically serious. It was scary how easy he could feign it on a dime.

You deadpanned. “I’ve been telling you that this whole time. Maybe you should pay more attention.”

“Oh I’m paying attention.”

“Oh yeah, to what?”

It was all you could do not to stare at the ridges of his neck as his Adam’s apple bobbed, pink lips twitching, eyes darting between yours.

“That’s what I thought.” You seized the split second opening in his defense and snatched your dignity back.

His fingers clung desperately to the clipboard. “Ok—ok, I’ll give it back, I promise, just answer one question for me… about your book,” he panted, ghosting your lips with it.

It was those goddamn Bambi eyes that defeated you. Large, almond, pleading. His last, pathetic line of offense. “Fine,” you sighed.

“Is this a love story?” he murmured, close enough to taste his words.

They hung like a cloud. Heavy and potent. Threatening to burst. Hovering in the fractional distance between you.

“I—” you balked, voice trapped in your throat.

The tugging ceased. Arms went slack. Fingers dampened masonite and paper. Eyes flicked back and forth. Yours caught the dip in his lids as they lowered to your lips, the long, gentle curve of his lashes as he peered at you from under them.

You could not will your hand to move. It was glued there like his eyes were on you. Clammy fingers twitched against warm denim, itching to snake them further, to pull him closer, to commit each aching second to memory.

Your eyes dipped next, quick enough to see his nerves make subtle twitches in his smile lines. To catch the parting of his plush, pink mouth that drew you like a magnet. Your heartbeat drowned out any sounds of pinballs.

You could have done it. Moved your chin two inches. Snatched his pout.

Instead you swallowed and summoned a whisper. “You’ll have to find out for yourself.”

______

Your childhood home had gone rather unchanged since you had moved out of it. A little one-story ranch built in the 50s. Looking at it from the outside, it always amazed you that it could fit three bedrooms within its four walls. Plain and unassuming. White exterior, green shingled roof, a brick flower bed underneath the big bay window in front. Your mother had planted a tidy row of mums in it for fall. There was hardly a stray leaf to be found fluttering across the small, manicured lawn.

Inside you were greeted with the same paneled living room walls, painted powder blue now. The same family portraits from when you were seven, another from when you were ten, and then thirteen. Clean white carpet. Neat and orderly. Your old room had become a craft room soon after college. There was hardly a trace of you left. The Led Zeppelin and Beatles posters were the first to go, replaced with more tasteful decor like cross-stitched landscapes. A singer sewing machine was now perched on the desk you spent countless hours huddled over in study. Nick-knacks took up residence in your bookshelves. The purple walls were painted over with a powder yellow.

Mickey’s room remained largely unchanged. Bigger than yours, though you never had the heart to move over. It served as a guest room now, the full size bed still dressed in the quilt he used, the one your grandma made. Same cobalt blue walls. Your mother still dusted his trophies.

What was most different was the table that stretched from the small dining room part-way into the living room. It was decorated with candlestick holders that looked like turkeys wearing hokey pilgrim hats. Those were definitely new. You wondered where your mother picked them up.

Both you and your mom would assume your roles — hers as host, and yours as helpful. You would busy yourself with the little things first. Details like folding linen napkins just how she instructed; in cascading triangles. You would sit at the end of the table and press daydreams into them. Quiet fantasies of warm nights and summer winds. Folding in details like the scent of leather and smoke inside the van, the sweet country air gusting through the windows. Details like how you imagined freedom would taste — slick and hot, hungry and lazy with room for seconds.

Once finished, you placed your folded secrets where they belonged — under the dinner forks.

You were making yourself useful with a can of cranberry sauce when your relatives arrived. The kind with whole cranberries. Clamping the gummy handles of the can opener and twisting as the teeth bit into the metal lid. Last year you’d made your own. Simmered sugar and orange juice in a pot over a real flame in your own house, added plump red berries and heated them until they burst. Dan’s mom said it was her favorite thing on the table.

This year you scooped cold, jelly chunks into an plain glass bowl, running the spoon down the ridges like a washboard. You were tapping off the bitter excess when the front door cracked open, ushering the sound of familiar voices colored in casual pleasantries.

They would find you there eventually — in the kitchen putting rolls into a basket. It was effort, to smile and laugh and act like you were doing great. It was easier to act like you were busy.

You hadn’t seen them since Connie and Cameron’s wedding. A sweltering day in mid-July. The last place on Earth you wanted to be. You’d spent most of it swallowing your feelings. Washing down saccharine cake with acrid mimosas. Sitting at a vacant table littered with party favors and sweating, half-empty glasses while your relatives slow danced to I Want To Know What Love Is by Foreigner.

Your Aunt Helen and Uncle Larry spared no expense for their daughter and her new husband, from the country club venue to the live band. From the four course dinner to the three tiered tower of a cake.

Connie’s dress was beautiful. An ivory silk with princess puff sleeves and a train that stretched down the aisle. Like a limited edition Barbie still inside the box.

You hadn’t said much to her then — a tepid congratulations from behind a tired mask. It was all you could offer besides cash in a Hallmark greeting card. You doubted she noticed. She was busy anyway, as all brides were on their wedding day. It’s not like you were really that close to begin with. Not close in age with her being seven years your junior, not close in interests or hobbies. Not even close in proximity for most of her adult life, until recently.

What you remembered more than anything was the way your grandma looked at her that day — like she’d hung the moon. She’d looked at you like that before of course — adorned with sashes in the parking lot as you clutched your first diploma. In the shade outside the the stadium as you cradled your second. When you reached across the table to present your ring to her.

You were reaching across the table to place the steaming basket of rolls by the cranberry sauce when you caught that look again — at Connie, the Sears catalog between them blanking the napkins you’d placed so carefully.

“See, I was thinking about this matching set with the dresser and changing table. See how it’s sort of built in like that?” Connie explained, leaning in toward your grandmother at the head of the table.

Your stomach did a sinking somersault, eyes magnetized to her pastel pink fingernail tapping against the full spread of baby furniture.

“Oh my, well isn’t that convenient. Yes I do like the natural wood grain of this one, the lighter color,” your grandma added.

You tried to swallow it away. Pretend like you didn’t even notice. Like the cheering coming from the living room was summoning you. You could still hear them as your stocking feet crossed over the divide from the hard wood to the plush carpet.

“I was thinking the same thing. It’ll go nicely with the paper we’ve picked out for the walls. Oh shoot, I meant to bring the sample. Sorry, I’ve been so spacey lately.” Connie’s sticky sweet chuckle clung to your hammering ears.

Suddenly your mother’s Precious Moments collection had never been so fascinating. Looking past your anguished reflection in the glass cabinet, you drank in their big, dopey eyes. Vignettes of little cherub hands clutching flowers, posing as firefighters and dentists. Droopy eyed children sitting on see-saws and garden benches. Frozen in their perfect little worlds.

“Oh that’s quite alright dear,” your grandma’s gentle reassurance echoed from the dining room. “I can come over and see sometime after my knees are healed, plenty of time between now and April.”

You tried to blink away the image — your old craft room on Clementine painted pastel pink or blue, filled with furniture from the pages of Connie’s catalog. It probably was at this point. Your eyes burned a hole in a ceramic cherub head as heat rose in your veins.

The sound of a whistle drew your attention to your uncle and cousins crowded around your family’s meager television.

“Oh COME ON!” Larry bellowed as the plastic cushions squeaked under his shifting weight. “There’s no way that was a foul, you see that, Kevin?” he gestured to his son, slumped against the couch half asleep. “Total baloney.”

Cameron adjusted his glasses as he shifted forward. “Oh yeah his foot was totally on the line, I bet we can catch it on replay.”

“Where do they find these damn refs anyway? The academy for the blind? HA!” Larry sat back in his seat and cracked another beer, amused with himself.

You raked your eyes over the blurring sea of dolls again, drowning in your thoughts until one of them pulled you to the surface. On the middle shelf behind the one in the lab coat and stethoscope, this one stood in front of a big desk with a stack of books and an apple on it and held a large slab in front of her. You crouched down to read the fine print.

Report Card

Kindness…A

Mercy…A

Love…A

Faithfulness…A

Your stomach twisted into knots. Phantom touches ghosted over your hands and arms, wrapped themselves around your heart and squeezed. You caught your own eyes in the mirror behind the dolls — sad and droopy just like theirs, only painted with shame and longing instead.

Uncle Larry’s voice boomed through the room again. This time it was coming from the television while the Larry on the couch shushed your cousins like they were even making noise to begin with.

“At Bessler Ford we’ve always got the best deals, and this Thanksgiving we’re practically GIVING these cars away!”

“Hey you guys seen the new one?” Larry called out to the rest of the house.

The question was met with weak replies from Connie and Grandma looking up from the catalog in the dining room. You wondered if your parents even heard him from the kitchen. With lukewarm enthusiasm, you humored him with your attention, mind swimming with pinball thoughts, eyes glazing over as you stared at the screen. Then, like a sudden apparition, your mother emerged from the kitchen and snatched the remote from the end table.

“ZERO down, ZERO interest, we’re prating BEGGING you—”

Like a Wild West gunslinger quick on the draw, the TV blipped off with a fizzle.

“Aw come on!” Larry protested.

“Dinner’s ready, time to eat,” she stated firmly, her expression unamused.

As your family peeled themselves off the couch and shuffled over to the table, you found your seat on the carpet side of the divide.

Even with the extra leaf there was no fitting nine at a six person table, so there had been some improvising. The two tables were covered in linens you didn’t recognize. Starchy and stiff, a cream brocade with a fall leaf pattern that shimmered in the light. Your mom must have steamed them to get the creases out from the packaging. Though matching, they couldn’t hide the fact that they were different shapes.

Your side of the family took their places at the smaller square table, and your cousins found theirs at the rectangle.

Aunt Helen’s green halo of fruit jello jiggled as your dad triumphantly plunked the carved turkey in the center of everything.

It rested awkwardly on the seam between the two tables, a sloping butterball bridge.

You watched the juices gather at the lower end of it as everyone around you lowered their heads to utter the words of a half-hearted prayer, the meaning long forgotten with tired repetition.

Barely a second of silence passed before a manicured hand shot out from your left, reaching to steady the platter so it favored her side. “You know, it really was nice of you to offer to host,” Helen said to your mother across from you, “but perhaps next year we can have the honor. We have plenty of space for it.”

The suggestion was met with a tight lipped smile. “Next year we’ll be back at mom’s,” she quipped at her younger sister.

The tension was thick enough to slice. A heavy backdrop to the clinking of silverware against ceramic as servings were doled out. You busied your hands with the nearest thing to you — a warm bowl of mashed potatoes, dolloping a generous helping onto your plate and pressing a crater into the center with the back of the spoon. You passed the bowl toward your right to your dad at the head of the smaller square table.

It was your grandmother who broke the silence. “Helen you do have a lovely home, if you really wanted to host I wouldn’t be opposed,” she said, breaking the molded perfection of the green halo with her serving spoon. “Less work for me to do anyway.”

You caught it. The flicker of dejection in your mother’s eyes, cast down at the crisp table linens. Fleeting and momentary before her shoulders resumed their rigid posture, before she corrected her expression and reached across the table to usher a thick slice of turkey breast onto her plate.

Helen looked delighted as she plucked a roll from the basket. “Well thanks, mom. Besides, this time next year there will be ten of us.”

You stared down at your plate, shuffling your green beans with your fork.

The conversation would lighten up over steamy, buttered rolls and Betty Crocker stuffing. It would soften to a casual cadence about Cameron’s new accounting job at the dealership. How the pay raise from his previous job could afford he and Connie a house on Chestnut street. How the decorating had been going. How your dad was managing the hardware store this time of year.

You would sit there in silence and unfold your secrets; smooth the linen against your lap and feel your sweating hand on his rigid thigh; the ghost of his breath at your lips when he asked you if this was a love story. You would prod at your potatoes and indulge in the fantasy of closing the gap. Conjure the cradle of his plush cupid’s bow and taste his wicked grin. Swallow the sensation of how it might feel to have a belly full of him.

Your spoon broke the gravy dam, flooding your plate.

“Dear, aren’t you going to have any liver dressing? You’re the one who made it after all. It’s quite good, isn’t it?” Your mother asked you, glancing at your grandma.

You choked on your daydream. “I—um…”

“It’s kinda chunky,” Kevin commented through a mouthful. “I mean compared to how grandma makes it.”

Your grandma offered a sympathetic smile. “It’s a tricky recipe.”

She wasn’t wrong. It was tedious to put it mildly. It involved bread crumbs, cooked liver and ham, and a food processor. But it was a family recipe and she just had knee surgery so your thoughtful mother volunteered you to take up the reigns. How generous.

“It’s still quite good, isn’t it?” your mom asked her before turning back to you. “Why don’t you try some, you’ll see.”

You stared down at the square, pyrex dish. You never liked liver dressing. It looked like cat food cut up into little squares, the crispy edges making it only slightly more appealing. It was the texture that always got you. Mushy and homogenous. Admittedly you’d never actually tasted cat food but you wondered how it compared.

“No thanks, my plate’s already so full,” you said through feigned laughter.

There was that flicker in her eyes again, like the flames above the new ceramic turkeys.

“Mom, come on, I don’t…” you glanced around at your relatives, busying themselves with the contents of their own plates.

Your mother set her fork down. Her gaze flicked toward your grandma tucking her spoon happily into Helen’s jello. “Why don’t you try just one bite, sweetie.”

Huffing through your nose, you stared down at the dish, then back up at her. There was only one way this was going and you didn’t want to cause a scene. With a placid smile, you picked up the serving spoon and scooped a bite-size portion onto your plate, giving a single, solemn tap against the ceramic before setting it back in the tray.

You glanced around the still silent table, then back at your mother, still watching you intently from across the flickering candles. Defeated, you started down at the lump of mushy cat food on your plate. Scooping it up with your spoon, you brought it to your lips with a resigned sigh before opening your mouth.

It wasn’t terrible. The rich umami of the fat and the seasonings almost made up for the texture, and quite honestly, the chunks helped. You still didn’t like it. You would never like it. You’d been forced to eat it your whole life and your opinion still hadn’t changed. Whether your mother could accept that was another subject.

You swallowed, finally, to your relief and probably everyone else’s, if they were paying attention. “I’d give it a solid C,” you stated flatly. Your mother was not amused.

“C’s get degrees,” Larry added, laughing at his own joke.

Your dad tipped his head to you. “Well I’d definitely give it a higher grade than that, but I guess you are the expert when it comes to grades, huh?”

You humored him with a soft, pained smile, tucking into your stuffing again in hopes of replacing the taste in your mouth. You washed it down with a swig of champagne and the sweet tingle cleansed your palate.

They left you alone after that, with thoughts too loud for your beverage to drown out. Pinball thoughts and summer thoughts. Echos of bright laughter off tile flooring. A rich, warm hum at the shell of your ear. Words like timeless and sweetheart. Loud enough to drown out dull conversations for the duration of the meal.

“Mom can I go to Vinnie’s after this?” asked Kevin.

Helen shot him a stern look from across the table. “You may absolutely not go to Vinnie’s. I told you I don’t want you hanging out with that boy anymore.”

Kevin rolled his eyes. “Come on, it’s not a big a deal.”

“It absolutely is a big deal. I said no, and that’s final,” she said, punctuated by the stabbing of her fork into white meat.

Candles wavered in the tension as orange wax dripped down the sides. Not a sound aside from chewing and silverware against ceramic.

It was your dad who broke the silence. “Ok, I gotta know what Vinnie did.”

Connie bit back a smirk, eyes shifting around the table. “Vinnie got suspended for bringing,” she glanced at your grandma before mouthing, “pot to school.”

There was an audible stir from the table.

Your grandma clutched her chest. “At St. Michael’s?”

You bit your lip at her reaction, cheeks quivering as you struggled to keep a straight face.

“I know, mom. It’s appalling,” said Helen, “I really thought we could have avoided this sort of thing by choosing a private school.”

It was then that Larry turned to you. “Yeah, I bet you see this kinda stuff all the time at Hawkins, don’t you?”

It was a dig. You might have been polite but you certainly weren’t stupid. “Not as often as you think,” you said flatly, taking another bite of cranberry sauce to busy your mouth before something regrettable came out.

“You know, Kevin, I had a friend in high school who smoked pot, you know where that got him?”

Just what everyone needed, Uncle Larry’s wisdom. You sighed and stared blankly ahead. It was everything you could do to keep your eyes from rolling back into your head.

“Flippin’ burgers at Benny’s, that’s where,” he concluded before taking a swig of his beer. He set it down with solid thud, as if that made his point.

Kevin huffed and sat back in his chair looking more disappointed than convinced.

You thought about Eddie Munson again, perfumed with cigarettes and covered in tattoos. Thought about him at this table and wondered where he’d fit. Between you and your Aunt Helen? Across from your mother pretending to enjoy liver dressing? At the seam between the square and the rectangle?

There used to be ten at the table. Before that there were eleven.

Your most secret daydreams wafted in on summer winds. They hinged on the changing of seasons and circumstances. You thought about this table without your chair. Of the flickering candles in your mother’s eyes; the way they hinged on you.

Your hands toyed with the linen in your lap. As far fetched as a future was, you wondered, desperately, if both ends could ever meet.

If the two of you would ever have a place among the dolls.

______

Thanksgiving was Eddie’s second favorite holiday. After Halloween of course, for obvious aesthetic reasons. Having no extended family in Hawkins, his Thanksgivings had always been small. Some better than others. There was the one shortly after his dad went to jail for the first time. He was only six, but there were a few things he remembered — that there was no yelling at the table, that his mom seemed happy for once, and that it was his first Thanksgiving with Wayne.

Nowadays Eddie and Wayne were like passing ships. Wayne would come home from work after Eddie left for school and go to sleep shortly after he returned. The weekends were a little better, though Eddie had a tendency to sleep in late, so that left them a few hours for early dinners together when he wasn’t galavanting around or getting into trouble.

Over the past nine years, the two Munson men had developed their own Thanksgiving traditions.

Wayne wasn’t much of a cook, but each year he would go out and get the smallest turkey he could find and gather some essentials. The thing Eddie loved most was that Wayne always made it fun. He would always encourage Eddie to help in the kitchen, even when he was younger.

The first staple dish was a green bean casserole. It was easy enough even for an eleven year old to open a can of cream of mushroom soup, to scoop out its contents and mix it with shredded cheddar and green beans. Simple enough to sprinkle crispy onions on top and pop it in the oven. Eddie always felt like a chef putting it together.

The second staple dish was a baked mac and cheese. Wayne picked up the recipe from a coworker in West Virginia. It was pretty simple too. More hearty than your traditional stovetop Kraft. It involved heavy whipping cream, eggs, and three different kinds of cheese. Nothing compared to baked Thanksgiving mac fresh out of the oven. It was thick, and rich, and the cheese was browned to a crisp on top. The noodles had just the right amount of chew and the center was melted perfection.

As Eddie got older some new traditions developed. Wayne started letting him in on the beer when he turned 18. Something about “I know you’re doin’ it, might as well be doin’ it safe under my roof.” Wayne was pretty lenient about most things. More than anything, Eddie got the sense that Wayne just wanted him to feel like there a place he could call home.

There was one Thanksgiving tradition that stood above them all — the sacred text, the soundtrack to every Munson Thanksgiving — Alice’s Restaurant.

Every year like clockwork Wayne would dig the record out of his collection and Arlo Guthrie would accompany the two of them as they strained pasta, cracked eggs, and opened cans. He would spin his long-winded sermon, his odyssey, about one fated Thanksgiving and the trials and tribulations of dumping trash where it shouldn’t go and how it can spare you from getting drafted. The song was nearly twenty minutes long and took up one full side of the record. Wayne would play it over and over to the point where both of them had most of the damn thing memorized, which was difficult to do considering it was mostly just Arlo rambling a story over chords with the chorus thrown in here and there.

Tucking his legs underneath him, Eddie cradled his heaping plate, shifting his balance so that it didn’t end up in his lap when the couch cushion dipped as Wayne took his spot.

“Damn boy, I sure do hope your stomach’s as big as them eyes. Mine’s hurtin’ just lookin’ at all that.”

Eddie cracked a wicked smile and leaned in like he had some kind of secret. “You know, you can get anything…”

Wayne raised his eyebrows, playing along. “Anything?”

“Anything you want,” he quoted Arlo before shoveling a heap of stringy mac and cheese into his mouth.

Wayne brought his broad, calloused hand down on top of his head and gave his mop of curls a playful ruffle. Eddie chuckled through a mouthful, balancing the plate in his lap.

It was good like this. Sitting on the couch with a heaping pile of food. The B side of the record spinning with fuzzy familiarity as Charlie Brown’s Thanksgiving played quietly on the small TV in front of them.

He didn’t need a table to enjoy it. Besides, the couch was way more comfortable than any stiff chair. The paper towel tucked underneath his plate did as good a job as any to wipe his mouth. Eddie was thankful for moments like these, and Wayne more than anything.

“You still doin’ game night tomorrow?” he asked.

“Nah, school’s closed so I guess they get a pass,” Eddie answered, “I mean I thought about making everyone get together anyway but I dunno where we’d meet. Still gonna do band practice on Saturday though.”

“Oh yeah? Whatcha been practicing?”

“Uh, been kinda on a Sabbath kick lately. Hand of Doom, War Pigs, early stuff,” he said, barely denting his mashed potato mountain.

Wayne took a stab at his turkey. “Y’all sound pretty good. An’ I’m not just sayin’ that.”

“Well… thanks.” Eddie toyed with his food, running his fork along the solid, jelly ridges of the of cranberry sauce.

“You guys oughta play more places, maybe after you graduate.”

He raised his eyebrows as he chewed. “You sound awfully confident about that last part.”

“I am,” Wayne started, “after last Friday anyway. Got to meet that teacher of yours who’s been givin’ you all sortsa help.”

Eddie choked, shielding his mouth with his fist as he hacked mashed potatoes from his windpipe.

“Y’ ok Ed?”

“Yeah—yeah, just uh,” he wheezed. He met you? Jesus. He wasn’t sure if his head was spinning more over the lack of oxygen or the implications.

“Y’ know, she sure had an awful lotta good to say about you.”

“Did she?” Eddie asked between coughs. A deep embarrassment bubbled in his gut.

“Sure did. You really lucked out this year. She really seems to… I dunno. Get it. Get you. Real sweet young thing, I’ll tell you what.”

Eddie thought his mashed potatoes might end up on the carpet.

“Ain’t hard on the eyes either,” Wayne muttered before taking a sip of his beer.

“WAYNE.” Eddie wanted to crawl out of his skin. Dig a hole. Bury his own skeleton in the back yard between the laundry posts.

There was a glint in his eyes, like he was catching onto something. “What? A fact’s a fact.”

“Ok enough, please.” Eddie ran his hands down his heated face, certain he was absolutely crimson.

Wayne just chuckled harder, like the torture entertained him.

Suddenly he was eleven years old again. Standing outside the auditorium with his guitar slung over his shoulder as parents and classmates filtered out in droves.

“Come on boy, time to go.”

Eddie fussed with his stiff pleather jacket, looking left and right with a growing desperation. “Can we wait just like… five more minutes? I wanna tell Chrissy good job.”

Wayne’s eyes sparkled with a curious mischief, “Oh I see. Got a little crush huh?”

Eddie hardened his lips into a line and fumed. “I do not, I just wanna say good job. God.” He glanced around, growing claustrophobic, jacket suffocating him with heat. “You know what, let’s… let’s just go,” he huffed as he marched toward the glass exit.

What was he going to do? Storm off? Slam the door like a fucking child?

No. Instead, Eddie just sat there, staring a hole into his heap of Thanksgiving as the plate grew heavy in his sweating hands. Suddenly he wasn’t hungry anymore.

“Oh come on, Ed. I’m just teasin’.”

There it was again. The heat that lit his skin like fluorescent lights as he stared down problems he was too stupid to solve.

“It’s fine,” Eddie muttered, vision blurring as Snoopy doled out helpings on the television. The record skipped with a steady rhythm in the silence of its end.

You had met Wayne. He knew now, who you were to him. There was no unknowing that. What did he think? That he was going to bring you by some day? Introduce you as his girlfriend? Would Wayne even believe it or would that be a joke to him too?

In the countless visions of you that played out like tapes in his mind, this part always came in fuzzy. Now it was prickling static.

He wanted to get up; to wrap his plate in tinfoil and throw it in the fridge; retreat to his bedroom like he always did. But he was already doing a piss poor job at playing it cool and he knew that would only make it worse.

So he sat there and ate it. Swallowed his shame and frustration, chased it with a solemn resignation.

Sometimes he could almost forget. When the books sprawled out on the big desk came from his home and not his locker. When the names on your tongues were from fiction and not history. When impulse took hold of his hands and they took hold of yours.

Sometimes his visions were more unbelievable than his wildest campaigns. You, hammering your next novel into a keyboard. Him, surprising you with kisses and a sandwich prepared in a kitchen you both shared. A home together in some far off place that neither of you knew the name of yet.

Sometimes, in the bubbling laughter that clouded the space between you, he could almost forget his place.

By the time the credits rolled on the TV, he couldn’t stomach another bite.

“I think, uh,” Eddie looked down at the half-eaten mess on his plate, “I think my eyes were too big for my stomach.”

He got up without another word, dumped the scraps into the garbage, and resigned to his room.

______

Eddie fluttered open his heavy lids, adjusting his eyes to the darkness that swallowed him. It had been light out when he’d closed them, though he barely remembered doing so.

He wiped the drool from his face and peeled the now silent headphones off his sore ears. The clock on the nightstand painted his vision with a red neon glow; a tether back to reality. 7:07 PM.

Reaching toward his right, he pawed the air for the cord to the hanging lamp beside his bed and flicked it on when he made purchase with the switch.

Before the turkey’s tryptophan took hold, he had been enjoying the cool breeze at his face as he drove his wagon leisurely along the trail through the Ashmar forest.

Eddie squinted against the light and rubbed his eyes as he glanced down at your world in his lap, still open right where he left off. The weight of it was like an extra blanket; heavy like a hug. It beckoned him to stay in the toasty cocoon of his bed. Though he had half a mind to get up and take a piss, the world outside was steeped in November’s chill, so instead he took the path of least resistance and dove right back in.

As much as Cybelle was concerned about illness, it was difficult for them to travel together and still keep their distance, but they seemed to have figured it out. They picked up a small tent and collapsable cot while in Torgaard which worked well enough for sleeping arrangements. While on the move, Lazarus had his place; in the driver’s seat, and Cybelle had hers; in the caravan. She would busy herself over the wood stove, crafting strange food and concoctions while Lazarus tried his best to stay alert and steer the horse.

Sometimes she would peek her head out the large window atop the singular door and talk to him. He enjoyed those moments most of all. Lazarus was learning all sorts of new things; what daily life was like in Myrne, what the city looked like and how agriculture worked for them. What Myrnish people thought of the world beneath and what had surprised her about it so far. Namely the flora and fauna. The weather. How diverse it all was. The people too. He would often catch her studying plants when they stopped to camp; taking samples and storing them in jars, pressing them to pages, sketching little drawings in her thick leather book.

“You know I would love to visit Myrne,” he turned his head and called to her, “once this is all over anyway.”

Small, russet fingers curled around bottom of the ornate caravan window frame, followed by a pensive, crescent moon face. “Many people want to visit Myrne.”

“Right, well, not many people actually know someone from Myrne,” he added, “and I just happen to be so lucky.”

Cybelle’s eyes crinkled in a soft, sad smile. “I would love to show you,” she began, “but I know they will forbid it.”

The wheels of the caravan creaked along the dirt path, shifting their weight with a soft thud as they drove over a rock. “Even just one person? What if I wore a mask, like yours?”

Cybelle shook her head, “The council is very strict. Even merchants are not allowed beyond the docks. There have still been plagues, even with these rules. One in my lifetime. I was quite young but I still remember… more than I would care to. We lost… so many people.”

He could hear the sorrow twinge her voice. Lazarus gave a solemn nod, staring down at the worn leather reigns as they plodded along. “I’m sorry,” he offered, “I’m sure you knew more than a few of them.”

Cybelle hummed softly, folding her arms across the bottom of the window to cradle her head. “I know just about every family in Myrne.”

Sunlight laced through the trees, dappling the road in patches of shade and light. They hadn’t seen another soul in miles. Perhaps he was becoming a bit stir crazy from all the driving but the further they plodded, the louder the questions that rolled around in his head became.

“Forgive me if this is, uh,” he searched for the word in the leaves, “inappropriate, but with such a small population, how do you prevent, um,” his fingers toyed at the nape of his neck, “like, accidentally marrying your second cousin?”

To his relief, it earned a big, bright laugh from Cybelle, “We are not that small, around three thousand. But yes, sometimes you must be careful,” she chuckled, propping her head against her arm. “We do keep records of such things.”

“Ah,” he confirmed with a single nod as his face bloomed with heat.

It encouraged a glimmer of mischief from Cybelle’s umber eyes. “There was a… how you say… practice, I suppose, long before the plagues when we were more open to outsiders where—”

The words were snatched out of her mouth by a sudden halt of the caravan, jerking both of them backward with startling force. The horse cried out, rearing to her hind legs in shocked protest.

“Woah—woah!” Lazarus braced himself against the wood panel in front of the driver’s seat and whipped his head around. Unable to see anything behind the mass of painted wood, he stumbled out onto the dirt to get a better look. “Just keep Turnip calm!” he called to Cybelle as she clambered off the floor.

He scanned the perimeter of the wagon. There was nothing he could see right away, that was until he looked down. Two thick vines, moving like snakes, were actively coiling themselves around the spokes of the wooden wheel. They were covered in tiny, glass-like thorns, and they seemed rather perturbed. He imagined it might have had something to do with running them over. Lazarus cursed. “We’re gonna need uh—a blade of some sort,” he shouted.

“There’s the knife I was using by the stove,” Cybelle called back, running her hand gently along Turnip’s dapple grey neck.

“Uhh, I think we need something bigger, come take a look at this.”

Cybelle gave Turnip a soft, final pat as she turned to follow Lazarus’ voice around to the back of the caravan. She gasped when she saw it.

“Ever seen one of these… monstrosities in your books?” he asked, gesturing to the vines.

Cybelle crouched down, looking more fascinated than horrified, marveling at the way they moved, like prowling serpents. “No,” she whispered. “They must be very strong though, to stop us like that.”

Watching them coil around the spokes filled Lazarus with an eerie dread. He shuddered to think what he would find if he followed their length into the forest. That was when he remembered the wood axe. “I’ll be right back,” he said. “Please just… keep your distance.”

The axe was on the floor when he found it, as was the kettle, and the utensils, and dozens of other objects that had been launched from their careful placement. Lazarus left the caravan with a heavy sigh.

“Alright, step aside,” he said, tapping the handle of the axe against his open palm.

Cybelle scurried backward, clearing a safe distance.

Gripping the smooth wood, Lazarus approached the vines. He shuffled his boots into the dirt as he widened his stance, taking aim about a foot from the wheel as the menacing serpents continued their slow coil. He swung with his full force, and just like chopping wood, he let the weight of the axe do its job. It severed the vines with a clean chop. Like snakes without heads, they recoiled into the forest. He swore he heard them hiss.

Leaning against his long axe with a proud flourish, Lazarus glanced over at Cybelle. She seemed more captivated by the what remained of the plants than his demonstration, much to his quiet disappointment.

Cybelle shuffled over to the wheel, fascinated by the green, glassy specimens. They had fallen to the road in a heap upon severance.

“Maybe we ought to invest in a sword when we get to Fenwood,” Lazarus half-joked, “More dangerous out here than I—”

The vine that shot out from the forest snatched the words right out of his mouth, morphed them into a scream as it seized his forearm with a searing sting. In an instant he was on the ground, clawing at the dirt with his other hand as the vengeful, severed serpent lurched him from the road.

With startling quickness, Cybelle stumbled to her feet again. She snatched the axe from the ground and chased after him.

The pain was blinding as it dragged him. Small, glassy hooks like a fire in his forearm. It made the sticks that scraped his body feel like tickles. The rocks that raked under him like a dull massage. Though his other hand flailed desperately at ferns and the damp, dead leaves that blanketed the forest floor, there was nothing he could do. He couldn’t pull back. He couldn’t stop. All he could do was scream and panic. It was hard to tell how fast he was really going, how much time had actually elapsed. The seconds felt like agonizing hours. But when he heard the dull thud of footsteps by his head, there was a glimmer of hope for his misery to end.

A guttural scream proceeded a loud THWACK.

It would seem Cybelle had decent aim, because he wasn’t moving anymore. Clambering off the forest floor, he righted himself as quickly as he could in his spinning, pounding world. It was anyone’s guess how long they had before the next retaliating strike, and he wasn’t about to play the odds.

“RUN,” Lazarus shouted, bolting toward the caravan as Cybelle kept pace. The axe seemed even larger clutched in her small hands. Under any normal circumstance he would have been a gentleman and taken back the burden, but this was anything but normal.

He didn’t even look at his arm. He didn’t have time. He didn’t want to. He could feel it though — the blood as it trickled down his wrist, the sting of the thorns that were likely still lodged there.

Both he and Cybelle were barely on the driver’s platform before he was at the reigns, commanding Turnip to move with a quick snap of the leather. The dappled grey horse trotted forward with a rare sense of urgency.

Lazarus leaned back against the driver’s seat, chest heaving, more grateful than he’d ever been in his life to feel the cool wind at his face. They were a fair distance up the road before he even looked down. The sleeve of his white linen shirt was completely saturated in a wet crimson that clung to his skin.

Cybelle emerged from the caravan with an armful of bandages and jars and took the seat to the left of him on the other side of the door.

Lazarus stared blankly ahead, mind still numb from the ebbing panic.

“Let me see your arm,” Cybelle said gently.

He met her large eyes, now brimming with a soft concern. Slowly, he raised his trembling arm to hover in the space between them; the gap between the seats.

Cybelle’s fingers twitched above the soaked linen. Gingerly pinching the cuff of his sleeve, she peeled it back to reveal his angry wound.

Lazarus turned his head toward the forest, unable to look. “How bad is it?” he asked dejectedly.

Cybelle paused for a moment, assessing the damage. “There are still some thorns, I need to pull them out. They are not too deep though,” she reassured. “You will be alright.”

It was the warmth in her voice that made him turn his head to face her, to face his wound — the mangled trail of lacerations that encircled his arm. Some of them did look quite deep, to him anyway. The bleeding seemed to have stopped on its own for the most part, thanks to his shirt.

Shifting so that her feet now faced him, Cybelle scooted forward in her seat so that her lap was below him and grabbed a pair of tweezers. Her hands hovered above his arm, and for a moment Lazarus wasn’t sure if it was the rocking of the wagon or her proximity to him that caused her hands to tremble. There was a deep fear in her eyes, and not just from the wound.

His palm faced up at her, close enough to feel the heat of her body.

In their brief time together they had always kept their distance. Lazarus in the driver’s seat, Cybelle in the caravan. Separated by walls and windows, tents and masks. At night, she would indulge him with her naked smile from across the campfire. Blinding and brilliant, like the crescent moon above them.

Lazarus held her eyes from across his offering; a bloody bridge that hovered in the space between them.

With hesitant acceptance, she lowered her fingers slowly, then her eyes, guiding his arm to rest across the bandage in her lap.

The wink of her tweezers in the sunlight encouraged him to study the trees again. He gripped the leather reigns to brace himself.

Her touch was delicate and tentative as she steadied his arm, like his skin was a hot iron, and hers at risk to burn.

He flinched when she pulled the first thorn.

“Sorry,” Cybelle soothed.

He flinched again when she pulled the second. And the third, fingers writhing against the warm silk of her dress.

“I know it hurts, but you must stay still,” she quelled.

Lazarus allowed himself a glimpse back at her large, uneasy eyes that shone over the crescent moon. “H—how many more are there?” He didn’t dare lower his gaze to count.

With deeply furrowed brows, Cybelle scanned his arm, “Perhaps…fifteen?” she guessed. “They are small, it is difficult to say.”

Lazarus gave a heavy sigh and slumped into the seat, straining to find some comfort in the greenery that passed them. His head bumped dejectedly against the wagon as it swayed along the path. Fifteen. He tried not to think about it, but instead found himself wondering how badly it would scar. His fingers trembled as he braced himself for the next sting.

Instead he felt a hand.

Featherlight touches at the heart line of his palm.

Lazarus glanced over his shoulder, expecting to find fear in those deep, upturned ovals. Instead there was something much softer.

It was hiding just under the curve of her lashes, in the tender brush of her fingertips — a quiet fascination.

His chest rattled, with more than just adrenaline. Her eyes would surely raise at any moment and he braced himself to meet them, but instead she did something much bolder.

She lowered her palm.

It nestled into the groove and slope like it belonged there. Her skin like warm, russet earth against the vast, snowy landscape of his. When her fingers got brave enough to curl around the back, he allowed his pale digits to follow suit.

They sat like this a moment, staring at the knot of palms and fingers with a gentle awe. Her cheeks dimpled under the ivory crescent, and despite the radiant sting, Lazarus found himself smiling too.

Finally, Cybelle met his eyes and readied her tweezers again. “Are you ready?”

Lazarus tightened his grip. “I am now,” he said softly.

There were sixteen thorns. Lazarus counted. They fell one by one to the floor of the caravan. He didn’t flinch at all this time.

She was quick and methodical, and when her work was finished, she painted his wounds with a soothing balm that smelled of mint and fresh green herbs. The sting faded to a tingle.

What he noticed more than anything was how her fingers lingered as they left his hand to wrap the bandage.

“Thank you,” Lazarus uttered, running his hand along the neatly spiraled ridges of the dressing.

Cybelle gave a singular, dutiful nod and shyly gathered her supplies. She resumed her place, inside, and got to work reestablishing order in the mess of objects strewn about the floor. It was quiet the rest of the ride into Fenwood.

As they approached the city, the trees grew denser, the path grew darker. Moss hung like tapestries over lichenous limbs. Frogs croaked in chorus from every direction. A peaty moisture hung heavy in the air.

All signs pointed toward the same conclusion — they were entering the boglands.

Eddie sat back against the heap of pillows and rubbed his arm. The one with the puppet tattoo.

He would always wonder what you said about him, to Wayne. The words you used. Verbatim. You were always so good with them. He would watch you wield them every day, like a weapon or a spell. You could paint worlds for him as quickly as his eyes could gather them.

It was when he was next to you that you seemed at a loss, like the concrete walls were listening, like they would shatter the illusion the two of you had conjured. It was safer to speak with your eyes, your hands, your laughter.

Despite the volumes left unspoken, the questions left unasked and unanswered, the volume in his lap had answered one:

That it was, in fact, a love story.

______

A/N: I want to thank everyone for their patience and support while I wrote this chapter. I fought a lot of inner dragons to bring it to you, but I’m in a much better mental place now. I’m learning so much about myself in the process of writing this story, my first one of this length, and how best to keep my inner flame alive. It can be scary when it dims, but it's bright as ever now.

I was admittedly very nervous about including so much family backstory for Teach, but I felt it was important for the telling of the story. The Precious Moments teacher doll does actually exist. It’s called “Love Never Fails” and it came out in 1984. I couldn’t have conjured it better if I tried.

As always, nothing encourages me to continue writing this story more than hearing what you think about it in comments, reblogs, and asks. It's truly the most rewarding thing for me as a writer.

I’ll be serving up some piping hot drama in 13 so stay strapped, folks!

Taglist: @mermaidsandcats29 @toxicjayhoo @ooo-protean-ooo @jadequeen88 @wroteclassicaly @kissmyacdc @mantorokk-writes @loveshotzz @trashmouth-richie @carolmunson @wordscomehither @munson-blurbs @blueywrites @alottanothing @bebe07011 @latenighttalkingwithgrapejuice @bibieddiesgf @idkidknemore @alizztor @ethereal27cereal @munsonsgirl71 @alienthings @eddiemunsonsbitcch @emxxblog @siriusmuggle @sidthedollface2 @dollalicia @lma1986 @catherinnn @eddiemunson4life420 @readsalot73 @big-ope-vibes @ruby-dragon @ladylilylost @3rriberri @princess-eddie @nightless @eddieswifu @thew0rldsastage @chaoticgood-munson @hanahkatexo @eddiemunsonsbedroom @beep-beep-sherlock @averagemisfit03 @vintagehellfire @haylaansmi

#eddie munson #eddie munson x reader #eddie munson fanfiction #eddie munson older reader #eddie munson smut #eddie munson x you #eddie munson x teacher!reader #stranger things fanfiction #eddie munson angst #don't stand so close to me

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lightan117 · 20 days ago

Text

I will wait, no matter how long - Part 1

Guys, I had to break up this massive chapter. It took me forever and tons of rewrites. 12k words just for part 1 alone. And I'm not even done yet! Please let me know how you guys like this! I worked really hard on this and to bring up more of Daisy's past.

Pairings: Lucanis/ (F)Mourn Watch Rook

Warnings: Some violence, drinking, ghosts, and mentions of abuse. There is also a lot of pining, fluff, and Lucanis/Rook being fools in love but can't express how they feel.

~oOo~

Daisy had never moved so quickly in her life. One second, she was in the pantry with Lucanis, and the next, she was almost taking Harding's door off its hinges. “I’ve fucked up.”

“I’m sorry?!” Lace’s head shot up as Daisy barged into her conservatory room, sending a ceramic pot teetering dangerously on a ledge. Her eyes went wide when the curse word fell from Daisy’s lips. “What in the Maker’s name—Start from the beginning!”

Daisy wheezed, trying to form a coherent thought, but her brain was still soup. Her whole life was about staying composed in tense situations—handling wayward spirits and working through magical problems with a steady hand. She was supposed to be calm. She was supposed to be rational. So why did it feel like she had just sprinted through a battlefield naked while screaming her deepest, most shameful secrets? She grabbed Lace by the shoulders. “I made a mistake.”

Lace stared at her. “Did you set something on fire?”

“No.”

“Did you accidentally invite a demon into the Lighthouse?”

“No!”

“…Did you finally tell Lucanis you like him, and it backfired spectacularly?”

Daisy made a strangled noise and smacked her hands over her burning face.

Lace howled.

“Oh, this is better than I hoped. Keep talking.”

Daisy flailed. “I didn’t mean to! I was just—Spite took over, right? So I talked to him, trying to keep things from getting worse—”

“Of course you did,” Lace muttered.

“—And then Lucanis took control again, and he was all broody and apologetic and tragic-looking, and I was just trying to be supportive, but then—then things happened—”

Lace leaned forward, eyes gleaming. “What things?”

Daisy whimpered. “He—he cornered me, Lace.”

Lace nearly fell off her chair. “Excuse me?”

“Against the pantry wall! He—he put his hand next to my head and looked at me and—and his voice got all deep and serious, and I—I said stupid things—”

Lace grabbed her arm. “How stupid?”

Daisy sucked in a breath. “He said, ‘This isn’t a good idea.’ And I—I told him—” She gulped.

Lace shook her. “What did you say?”

“I told him… ‘Sometimes a bad idea is better.’”

Lace screamed.

Daisy screamed with her, shaking her by the shoulders in sheer secondhand horror. “No, no, no, it gets worse—” Daisy babbled. “He said I liked walking too close to the edge, and I said, ‘So do you,’ and then he said, ‘At least I know I’m doing it,’ and his voice dropped, and Lace, I thought—” She gasped for air. “I thought he was going to kiss me!”

Lace was already standing up. “Did he?!”

“NO!” Daisy wailed. “He just stared at me, like he was debating all of his life choices, and then he walked away!”

Lace clutched her head like she was in physical pain. “HE DID WHAT?!”

“I DON’T KNOW, OKAY?! I’VE NEVER DONE THIS BEFORE; I PANICKED, HE PANICKED, WE PANICKED, AND NOW I’M DYING.” Daisy flopped onto the floor, groaning into her hands.

Lace exhaled sharply and rolled her sleeves up. “Alright, I’m getting my crossbow.”

“Lace, no!” Daisy latched onto her waist.

“Oh no, no, no. He pulled away?! After that kind of tension?! What, does he think he can walk off a near-kiss like it was a casual chat about the weather?! I’ll show him weather—”

Daisy clung harder. “It’s fine—”

“IT IS NOT FINE.”

“I JUST WANTED TO VENT, NOT INCITE A MURDER.”

Lace gritted her teeth, arms crossed. “Alright, fine. No murder. Yet.” She sat back down, hands still twitching. “But what’s the real problem, Daisy? Because I know that face, and that face says, ‘I’m spiraling into an existential crisis.’”

Daisy sniffed. “…What if I imagined everything? What if he doesn’t actually like me that way?”

Lace gawked at her. “Are you joking? Have you seen the way he looks at you?”

Daisy frowned. “But what about him and Neve?”

Lace groaned like she had been physically wounded. “Daisy. Please. You’re smarter than this.”

Daisy buried her face in her hands again. “I feel so stupid.”

Lace softened, placing a hand on her shoulder. “You’re not stupid. You’re just… catastrophically in love for the first time and have no idea how to process it.”

Daisy whimpered.

Lace sighed, standing and offering her a hand. “Alright. Get up. We’re going for a walk.”

Daisy peeked through her fingers. “A walk?”

“Yes. Because if we don’t, I’m going to march straight to Lucanis and tell him to fix this before you combust.”

“…Fair.”

As they left, Tassh appeared at the top of the stairs. “Uh. What’s happening?”

Lace pointed. “Daisy’s in love and suffering.” Daisy's face grew red with every glare sent in Lace's direction.

Tassh nodded sagely. “Ah. Been there.”

“Want to join us?”

Tassh shrugged. “Why not? Watching Daisy have a meltdown sounds entertaining.”

Daisy groaned. “I hate both of you.”

Lace slung an arm around her. “No, you don’t.”

“…Fine.”

"We should go to the Hall of Valor. Isabella owes Rook a few drinks for helping out. Besides, the company isn't bad, and the Lords are fun to party with." Taash offered. It wasn't a bad idea, but...Daisy wasn't best friends with alcohol, and the few times she does have any, it's minimal moderation. Varric gave her some fruity Orleasian wine the last time, where one could hardly feel intoxicated until they stood up. Then, the feeling would slam them up against a brick wall.

"What's going on?" The group turned toward Neve, and Bellara approached them.

Before Lace could open her mouth Tassh jumped in, no stopping them. "Lace and Rook want to drink at the Hall with the Lords. Wanna join?"

"There are plenty of places in Minrathous, but is there something about the Hall that's more exciting, Taash?" Neve asked, and Bellara quickly jumped in with excitement over the idea.

"The Hall has free drinks and no venatori. What more could we ask for? We all deserve a drink." The three of them started to plan for the night, which was settled on that very evening, while Lace looked up at Daisy for some sign of discomfort. Lace had never seen Daisy take such a quiet stance before, and the far-off look behind her eyes was worrying.

"Daisy? I know how you are with drinking." Lace whispered, and Daisy shook her head, her ear cuffs jingling softly.

"It's fine Lace. I have you watching out for me, right?" Daisy's smile didn't reach her eyes. Lace nodded, speaking the word always before squeezing her arm while the three members of their party planned the night. "Besides, one drink won't hurt. It might kill any leftover embarrassment I have."

No time like the present. Daisy barely had time to protest before Bellara, practically vibrating with excitement, grabbed her arm and dragged her from the Lighthouse. The energy was infectious, but Daisy could only manage a half-hearted chuckle as they stumbled forward together. Behind them, Lace hurried toward Emmrich’s quarters, knocking sharply before slipping inside to inform the necromancer of their plans. They wouldn't be gone long, just enough time for a needed reprieve from the constant weight of their reality. Meanwhile, Taash was already deep in conversation with Neve, pouring over the list of drinks with a mischievous glint in their eye. If all went according to plan—or horribly awry—they could always crash at their mother’s house should the need arise.

Daisy tried her best to keep up appearances, her usual mask in place. She smiled; she laughed at the right moments, but the effort was exhausting. She felt Lace’s perceptive gaze flicker toward her every now and then as if trying to decipher the emotions lurking beneath the surface. But Daisy was a master at misdirection, and Bellara, with her boundless enthusiasm, made for an excellent distraction. She seized every opportunity to steer the conversation toward Bellara’s latest experiments, her magical advancements, and all the questions Daisy had been meaning to ask but never quite remembered at the moment. Bellara, ever the

inquisitive person was happy to oblige, her voice animated as she shared her knowledge.

Daisy had spent much of her early life feeling like an outsider. Raised by two human women in a world where bloodlines mattered, her elven heritage had been a mystery—at one time, she was desperate to unravel. Now, she just wanted to know more about what she was missing. Learning the language had been a struggle; each word clawed from the depths of an identity she was only beginning to grasp. Even now, the scars of old prejudices lingered, reflected back at her every time she saw her...ruined pointed ears in the mirror. She had been judged for them, scorned by those who saw her as neither fully human nor entirely elven but something in between—something lesser. A half-breed. A mutt. A weed.

Meeting Bellara had been a turning point. The Dalish elf carried the weight of her people’s traditions with pride, and she had been more than willing to guide Daisy toward the answers she sought. When their paths eventually crossed with Davrin, a seasoned Gray Warden, Daisy had another mentor willing to help her navigate her tangled heritage. Davrin had taken her under his wing with an ease that had startled her, offering not just guidance but acceptance.

For the first time in her life, Daisy wasn’t an outsider looking in. The rag-tag group she had assembled—Taash, Davrin, Lucanis, Lace, Neve, Bellara, Emmrich—had become more than allies. They were her family. Not one she had stumbled upon in the shadows of Nevarra, not one she had been abandoned to by fate, but one she had built with her own hands. It hadn’t been written in the stars. It hadn’t been some grand destiny. It had simply happened. And she had never been more grateful.

When they arrived at the Lords, the night of celebration was in full force.

Laughter rippled through the warm night air, mingling with the scent of salt and spirits. Daisy sat with the others around a long wooden table, a half-empty mug in her hands. The glow of lanterns cast flickering shadows on their faces, and the sound of waves crashing against the distant shore provided a steady, rhythmic backdrop to their revelry.

Bellara and Lace were already deep into their drinks, each engaged in an unspoken contest of who could down more without slurring their words. Neve leaned back in her chair, eyes glinting with amusement as she sipped from a delicate glass, while Taash, already flushed from the alcohol, animatedly recounted a story of a battle in a jungle, arms waving dramatically. "You should've seen it," Taash boasted, their grin wide. "This thing was bigger than a druffalo, with scales like darksteel and teeth like daggers—"

"—And yet, here you are, still in one piece," Neve drawled, smirking over the rim of her glass.

"Obviously," Taash said, feigning offense. "What do you take me for? Some common soldier?"

Isabella snorted. "We take you for someone who embellishes their tales more with every drink. Take it from someone who embellishes often."

Lace laughed, slamming her mug down. "If she’s lying, at least it's entertaining!"

Daisy chuckled along with them, warmth blooming in her chest—not just from the alcohol but from the ease of the moment. It had been too long since they'd all had time like this, where battle and duty didn’t weigh down on their shoulders. Here, they could just exist in a pocket of laughter and camaraderie, away from the expectations that usually hung over them. But even as she smiled, something in the back of her mind buzzed with unease. She shifted in her seat, rolling her shoulders as if trying to shake off the sudden prickling under her skin. Daisy...a whisper of her name more than once caught her attention, shifting her eyes to look over her shoulder. She ignored it, mistaking her real name being mentioned instead of her normal Rook.

When she started to feel it, Daisy was perhaps two or three drinks in.

The night around her buzzed—too warm, too loud, too much. Even outside, the air felt thick, pressing in on her skin like a smothering embrace. Voices blended into a single, overwhelming hum, layered with laughter, cheers, and the occasional clink of mugs. Even the spirits of Adventure, those boisterous echoes of old stories and grand exploits, seemed to swell in volume, their ghostly voices bouncing off one another like a chorus inside her head. The heat crawled up Daisy’s neck, settling behind her cheeks. The alcohol left her limbs floating and buzzing at the same time, like she wasn’t fully anchored to the ground. Her fingers tightened around the half-full mug in her hands—whatever they had given her was more potent than she anticipated. The Lords around her continued their endless tales; their excitement was palpable, their pasts bleeding into the present as if time had unraveled for them. Isabella was chatting with Neve and Taash, their laughter cutting through the thick air like a blade. Bellara and Lace had disappeared and were likely off to get another drink.

And Daisy… Daisy was alone.

The thrill of it sent a tremor through her chest. And yet, so did the fear.

Every sip made it easier, loosening the iron grip she kept on herself. The last time she had drunk this much, it had been with Lace and Varric by a crackling campfire, the stars sprawling overhead like tiny, unjudging eyes. She had been reluctant then, hesitant in the way only someone raised to fear indulgence could be. But Varric had made sure she drank, nudging her toward a lovely Orlesian wine that had hit harder than she expected.

That night, the weight of years had spilled from her lips. The War of Banners. Her family. The orphans she had cared for as penance, as repayment. The chains she would wear until her last breath. Her memory loss. By morning, she had been dizzy and aching but lighter.

The ocean breeze brushed past her, but it wasn’t enough to cool the fire in her skin. "Having fun?" Daisy flinched. Neve leaned against the overlook beside her, drink in hand, sharp eyes watching.

Daisy willed herself to stay steady, gripping the railing as if it could anchor her to the moment. "Just… thinking," she managed, the words heavy on her tongue. "Needed to step… away. Got hot all of a sudden."

The ocean stretched before them, the salt air tangling in her hair. Beautiful, as always, but the thought of sand sticking to her boots was enough to sour the scene. "Everyone seems to be having a great time, though," Daisy added, voice slightly distant. "Glad we could do this. Gods, can you imagine if Davrin were here? I’d pay to see who could drink more—him or Taash."

Neve hummed. "My money’s on Taash. But Davrin did mention Wardens drink a lot. Could be close." Daisy nodded, grateful for the distraction. But Neve’s gaze lingered too long. "You do remember I’m a detective, right?" Neve said, her voice light but her meaning sharp. "It’s my job to notice what’s missing. Find the problem. Or—" She stepped closer. "understand why something happened." Daisy’s stomach twisted. "You wouldn’t happen to be thinking about a certain assassin who lives in our pantry now, are you?"

Her breath hitched. "I am not…" The denial came too quickly, her voice too tight. She refused to look Neve in the eye, afraid her expression would betray her.

Neve chuckled. "You know he likes you, right? More than likes you."

Daisy’s heart tripped over itself.

"I’m sorry?" Her tongue felt clumsy, too thick.

"For such a strong leader, you might be a bit blind when it comes to someone having feelings for you." The words were casual, but they slammed into Daisy with the force of a war hammer. "What could possibly be the problem between you and Lucanis that makes you look like the world just ended?" Daisy’s grip on her mug tightened.

"Lucanis and I… nothing is going on between us!" The words rushed out, too high-pitched, too defensive. Her pulse pounded in her ears, drowning out the sound of waves. "You and Lucanis are—I mean—the way you two flirt, I assumed…"

Neve raised an eyebrow, and Daisy felt herself unraveling by the second.

"He rejected me," Daisy admitted, cheeks burning. "I thought it was because he was with you. If I had known you were, I wouldn’t have…"

"Developed feelings?" Daisy made a strangled noise, her entire body thrumming with heat. Neve laughed, sipping her drink. "Sunshine, nothing is going on between us. Sure, he’s handsome, and the flirting is fun, but when he looks at you… it’s different." Daisy wanted to melt into the ground. Or vanish. Or throw herself into the sea. Neve’s voice softened. "Should I have stopped flirting when I noticed? Maybe. Maybe I was still bitter about your choice of city to save. But now… I understand. You did what you thought was right. And I have to deal with the aftermath."

Daisy opened her mouth, guilt rising in her throat, but Neve lifted a hand.

"Don’t," she said simply. "I don’t need an explanation. I just wanted you to know—there’s nothing between Lucanis and me. What we have is a shared love of our homes. We’re good friends. But you? You’re different. And if he rejected you… maybe he just got cold feet."

"Cold feet?" Daisy echoed, barely above a whisper.

Neve tilted her head, eyes sharp. "Have you ever been with someone, sunshine?"

Daisy’s breath hitched again. The room—the night—everything felt too close—the warmth of the alcohol, the weight of Neve’s gaze, the pounding in her chest. "Neve…" she pleaded. "Please stop looking at me like that. I think I’ve had too much to drink."

Neve smirked. "Go figure—the two people utterly smitten with each other, both too blind to see it, are both virgins." Daisy nearly choked on air. Neve leaned in, her grin wicked. "Adorable." Daisy groaned again, resting her face in her hands as Neve gave her head a soft pat. "Talk to the man and tell him how you feel since he can't tell you himself. Words are good. Actions can always come later."

"Thanks, Neve," Daisy muttered softly.

"Anytime, sunshine." She was gone, leaving Daisy alone. Without much thinking, Daisy downed the rest of her mug in one go. The burning made her quickly regret the small burst of courage, but she held it down. Daisy would talk to Lucanis once she was sober enough. Once she had the courage to confront him and tell him her honest feelings. That even if it took forever to admit his own, she would wait.

She felt it then.

Eyes.

Someone was watching her.

The sensation crawled over her skin like icy fingers, squeezing the breath from her lungs. Her stomach churned—not just from the alcohol, though the burn of it swayed her movements and made the world tilt dangerously.

Daisy…

She turned too fast, nearly stumbling. The tavern spun in a haze of dim lantern light and smoke, but none of it could blur what stood before her.

A spirit.

A ghost.

A person who should be nothing more than the rotting bones of a memory, yet here she was.

Watching.

Seething.

Daisy’s breath hitched. The spirit’s lips never moved, but the voice slithered into her ears, coiling around her brain, slurring through the alcohol clogging her thoughts.

Found you.

A sharp jolt of terror cut through her stupor, but her body lagged behind her mind. She lurched sideways, her shoulder hitting a table, glasses rattling. Someone cursed. Strapped to her back, her staff clipped a mug—amber liquid sloshed, drenching the table. Someone shoved her. Laughter? A shout?

The spirit moved.

Not walked—moved. Gliding, reaching, her presence stretching toward Daisy like something cold and wet curling around her throat.

She ran. Her pulse thundered. Footsteps stumbled beneath her, too sluggish, too clumsy. Behind her, the spirit turned, those hollow eyes locked onto her, a silent promise that made Daisy’s veins run to ice. She ran past Lords, who were drinking joyfully, not paying any attention to one lone person who seemed to be too many in their cups. Daisy's companions were nowhere close, and she wasn't sure if what she saw was real.

So she ran.

And she didn't stop.

~oOo~

Daisy staggered through the crossroads of the Rivan eluvains, her mind drowning in a haze of memories and shadows. The world spun around her, uneven beneath her feet, and she barely registered the rough scrape of stone and sand against her palms as she caught herself from falling. No, no, she could not have been here. The face she had seen—so familiar, yet impossibly distant—could not have been real. It couldn’t be. Faces like hers existed only in nightmares, in the twisted corridors of dreams she dared not walk, illusions that flickered and vanished like candlelight in a storm.

Her breath came in ragged gasps, the air too thick, pressing down on her chest like unseen hands. Her stomach twisted violently—not just from the alcohol burning in her veins, but from the knowing. A terrible, clawing knowing that something had shifted, something had changed. But what?

Sand clung to her skin, gritting beneath her nails as she dug her fingers into the ground, desperate for something solid. But even the earth betrayed her, shifting, slipping, reminding her of everything she could not hold onto. The hum of the Fade pulsed around her, seeping into her bones and pressing against her skull. She felt it in every pore, every breath, every panicked heartbeat. It was an itch she could never scratch, a voice just beyond the Veil, whispering things she couldn’t make out.

Her hands shook.

No.

Her hands weren’t hers.

Daisy let out a strangled gasp, reaching up instinctively to claw at her throat, her fingers searching for the cold bite of metal that wasn’t there. But she felt them—tight, constricting, chains digging into her skin, wrists bound, movements sluggish as she fought against invisible restraints. Her pulse roared in her ears, a frantic drumbeat of terror, the weight of something unseen dragging her back into a place she refused to return to.

She wasn’t there. She wasn’t there.

She tried to stand, but her legs refused to move, too tangled in past and present, in fear and liquor, in a reality that felt paper-thin. Her vision blurred, and for a moment—just a moment—she swore she saw her again. A glimpse of dark eyes watching, waiting.

A ghost. A memory.

A whisper. A shift in the air.

And then, they stood before her—spirits of Adventure and Madness.

"We need your help! They will die without aid!" The Spirit of Adventure seized her hand, its ethereal grasp cool yet urgent, pulling her toward the Rivan Coast gate. Daisy clawed for breath as her head swam, her senses oscillating between sharp clarity and thick, muddled fog. She barely registered that she had moved, had passed through the eluvain, and now stood upon the ruined fort they always appeared at. "This way!"

Daisy did not resist. She knew better than to fight fate when it called.

Possession was nothing new to her. She had long since mastered the art of housing spirits within her, allowing them to speak and feel without relinquishing complete control. She had safeguards and rules—she would not let rage consume her or let vengeful spirits take the reins. She had learned that lesson well. Daisy followed silently, gaining back control of her body once they were close enough. The spirits had explained that their friends were to meet them on the beach with refugees but were met with ill fate. Antaam pirates, if you could call them that, had sunken their ship and were going to take them to be slaves. Madness cackled and spoke of cracking of bones, splitting of skulls, and...familiar faces?

Daisy gave Madness a look before trying to slowly shake away more of the fog that continued to cloud her mind. Within a moment, they hid among the trees lining the coast. There, Daisy could see clearly that this would not be an easy fight. Twenty-five antaam pirates stood, weapons gleaming beneath the crimson kiss of the rising sun. Behind them, fifteen captives knelt in the sand—elf, human, and qunari alike. Some sat defiant, their gazes hard, while others bowed their heads in silent resignation. Madness and Adventure murmured silently about their plans of help, but Daisy was already deep within her plan.

Before stepping onto the sand, Daisy raised her hands, weaving an illusion with magic. The air thickened, the shadows stretching unnaturally around her. Her form elongated, her fingers turned into clawed, blackened talons, and her eyes glowed with spectral, inhuman light. The whispers of the Fade amplified, swirling around her like the wails of the damned. From the vantage of the antaam pirates, what approached them from the jungle was no mere human—it was a monster born from nightmares.

"Let them go! They belong to me!" Daisy used magic to throw her voice, making it errie and echo along the shore.

"Come on out! Fight us, demon!" The pirates stiffened, some gripping their weapons tighter, others shifting uncertainly. One took an involuntary step back. Fear flickered in their expressions, uncertainty gripping them in their hands. It wasn't enough.

"Where are you going?!" The Spirit of Adventure pressed urgently while the Spirit of Madness merely laughed, coaxing her forward.

"To kill the antaam pirates who hold those people captive. Don’t worries, I’ll... hick... be fine." Daisy slurred, shaking her head to clear the fuzziness, though it did little good.

Then, with a slow, deliberate step, Daisy let the illusion flicker and twist, just enough to keep them in suspense before stepping fully into the open.

The jungle gave way to golden sands, her bare feet sinking slightly with every step. The scent of salt and blood thickened the air, warning of the carnage to come. The antaam leader, a hulking qunari with a face carved by old battles, sneered. "You think a drunken human and her foul magic can stop us?"

Daisy did not answer. She stepped forward, slow, deliberate, the wind catching the edges of her dark cloak, making it billow like the wings of a shadowed specter. With measured calm, she drove her staff into the sand. The earth trembled. Shadows coiled around her feet, slithering outward like ink in water. From the depths, skeletal warriors clawed their way free, their hollow eyes burning with spectral fire.

The antaam hesitated. Then, with a bellow, they charged.

Fools.

The battle erupted in a symphony of steel and sorcery. Daisy wove between them, necrotic energy crackling from her fingertips. A pirate lunged—she sidestepped, whispering a curse that sent him crumbling, his own shadow snaking up to choke the life from his throat.

A skeletal warrior met another attacker, its spectral blade driving deep into quivering flesh. A pirate swung wildly at her—she raised her hand, impaling him through the jaw with a flick of dark magic. Yet even as she fought, she knew that she would be in trouble if they charged all at once.

She called to the dead, and they answered.

The fallen antaam rose, their lifeless eyes turning on their former comrades. Panic rippled through the remaining pirates as their own slain brothers turned against them. The antaam leader roared, hoisting his Warhammer high. Before he could bring it down, Daisy let out a terrible, inhuman wail. The Fade surged, swirling into a necrotic storm that crackled and burned, consuming all in its path. The captain screamed in terror and pain as slowly his skin started to decay, turning black and green, melting away. The remaining pirates broke, their courage shattered, and fled into the wilds.

As the storm dissipated, Daisy swayed on her feet. Her breath was ragged. With a mere wave of her hand, the captives' bonds unraveled. "You are free," she murmured. "Go before the tide claims the dead."

The last echoes of battle faded, and the dead returned to their slumber beneath the sand one by one. Daisy, too, felt herself unraveling. Her body ached as though she had run for miles. Her limbs trembled from exhaustion, and the world tilted dangerously.

"By all the Gods of the dead... Daisy, is that you?" She turned, her vision swimming. A qunari stood before her, his face familiar yet blurred by the drunken haze still clouding her senses. But his voice—that voice she would recognize anywhere.

"Ti'Lan? That... you?" she whispered, the last shreds of strength slipping through her fingers like sand. Darkness swallowed her. She never felt herself falling, never felt the impact of the ground.

But she was caught.

Strong arms lifted her, cradling her against a broad chest. A low chuckle rumbled through the night. "Easy, sister. I have you." As she drifted into unconsciousness, she barely registered his following words, though they carried the weight of a grin. "Oh, I can’t wait to tell the others how drunk you got."

~oOo~

Lucanis felt like such a fool.

After leaving the pantry, he strode toward the walkway beside the kitchen, trying to steady his breath. He only realized then how tightly he had been holding it in, how his chest ached from restraint. He exhaled sharply, dragging a hand down his face, but it did nothing to shake the burning fire beneath his skin.

Spite, ever-present, roiled with frustration in the back of his mind. Coward, the spirit snarled, its anger a reflection of his own. Lucanis ignored it. He had enough of his thoughts clawing at him.

Daisy deserved more.

More than an assassin tainted by a demon of Spite. More than a man whose hands had done far too much harm, whose past was stained with blood he could never wash away. Daisy, with her kindness, her patience, her warmth—she was light, and he was the shadow at her heels.

But Maker, he wanted to kiss her.

That moment had been perfect, painfully perfect. It was as if it was out of Bellara's serials that she was writing how her eyes met his, unwavering and filled with something unspoken but understood. The way she had answered him—not with fear, not with hesitation, but with certainty, with want. Every small inch she moved closer sent his heart into a frantic rhythm, a sound so loud in his ears he swore she must have heard it too. And then—

He froze.

He wanted to kiss her. He wanted to close the space between them, to press his lips to hers, and finally let himself have this one thing. But the weight of it crushed him. If he kissed her, if he allowed himself even a sliver of what he longed for—what then? What happened when Spite reared its head at the wrong moment? What happened when the past he carried became a weight she had to bear? Spite had lost control and put one of his daggers against her throat. The fear that he could lose control could harm her...

He couldn’t do that to her.

So, instead of leaning in, instead of taking what he wanted, he pulled away. He left her standing there, looking at him with something he couldn’t bear to name. He told her he needed to clear his head and walked away. Like a fool. Like a man who did not know what to do with something precious when it was offered to him freely.

Gifts like her...

Lucanis braced himself against the wood railing, gripping it tight enough to make his knuckles ache. His hands curled into fists. He could still feel the warmth of her presence, the ghost of where their fingers had nearly brushed, the space between them so small he could have—should have—closed it.

Spite simmered, its presence crackling through his veins. She wanted you, it hissed, low and knowing. And you ran.

Lucanis closed his eyes. He knew.

And yet, despite the torment in his chest, despite the pull he could not fight, he still wasn’t sure if he had made the right choice. Because even now, as the cool fade air failed to steady him, all he wanted to do was turn around, find her, and finish what he couldn’t bring himself to start.

"Enough Spite. I don't want to hear more of it; I made a choice."

A foolish choice. Spite stood beside him, its presence a flickering distortion in the dim light, pressing close enough that Lucanis swore he could feel its breath—if the thing even breathed. Its sneer curled like a knife at the edges of his thoughts. She likes us. Wants us. And you let her go! Go. After. Her!

Lucanis winced as Spite’s voice crescendoed, each syllable pounding against his skull like hammer strikes. He pushed himself away from the railing, rolling his shoulders as if he could shake off the demon’s weight and the lingering regret clinging to his skin. He turned, forcing his feet to move, leading himself back into the kitchen, where the scent of smoldering embers and barrels of coffee beans greeted him.

The fire still burned low in the hearth, its golden light licking at the edges of the stone walls. The silence was thick, save for the occasional pop from the wood. The kitchen, once filled with the warmth of company, now felt empty. He had no hope that Daisy would still be here. That didn’t stop his pulse from leaping for a foolish second before the quiet confirmed what he already knew.

Disappointment gnawed at his ribs.

With a steady breath, he reached for the coffee grinder, pouring dark beans into the worn wooden bowl. The rhythmic scrape of the handle twisting against the coarse grounds gave his hands something to do, something to focus on other than Spite’s simmering irritation. The demon materialized fully before him, its form purple flickering with embers of its agitation. Anger was etched deep into its expression, its sharp features twisted in frustration. It muttered under its breath—dark, crackling words Lucanis refused to acknowledge. He kept his gaze downward, watching the rich, ground coffee collect in the vessel below.

His thoughts drifted, unbidden, back to Daisy. To the way she had looked at him, eyes searching, lips parted just so—an invitation, if only he had dared to take it. His fingers tightened around the mug as he poured steaming water over the grounds, watching the deep brown liquid swirl. A creak of the dining room doors pulled him from his trance. He blinked, realizing he had been staring into the fire, fingers curled around his cup like a lifeline.

"Seems like it's just you, me, and Emmrich tonight. The others have gone off with Rook for something." Lucanis turned as Davrin strode in, his usual easy manner in place, though his sharp gaze flicked over Lucanis with something keener. Assan followed at his side, the griffon letting out a short, expectant squawk. Lucanis absently ran a hand over its feathered head, earning a satisfied huff.

"They left?"

"Maybe an hour or so ago? I just ran into Emmrich, who told me." Davrin studied him. "Daisy didn’t tell you?"

Lucanis cleared his throat, forcing himself to keep his expression still, unreadable. "No, I haven’t seen her in a while. I thought she was researching with Emmrich." The lie slid out smoothly, easily—a believable one. Davrin didn’t buy it.

His brow furrowed, and Lucanis could feel the weight of scrutiny settling over him. "Look, Lucanis, I know we’re not on the best terms, but you sound off. Is everything alright? Is it Spite?" Lucanis exhaled slowly, fingers flexing around his cup. The warmth of the coffee did nothing to thaw the cold coiling beneath his ribs. Davrin crossed his arms, watching him closely, then tilted his head with a knowing smirk. "Ah. I see now. This isn’t just about Spite, is it?"

Lucanis stiffened slightly. "I don’t know what you’re talking about." He lifted his cup and took a slow sip, feigning disinterest.

"Right, sure. Because you always look like a kicked mabari when someone leaves without telling you." Lucanis shot him a glare over the rim of his mug. "Let me guess," Davrin continued, undeterred. "It’s Daisy, isn’t it? You’ve got that whole brooding, ‘I could have kissed her but didn’t’ look about you. I bet you—" His words trailed off as realization dawned on his face. "Oh. Oh, I was joking, but... that’s it, isn’t it?"

Lucanis sighed, running a hand through his hair before setting his coffee down with more force than necessary. "Meirda, drop it, Davrin." Spite was beside Davrin, making crude gestures, which Lucanis rolled his eyes at.

"Gods, I was just messing with you, but you actually—" Davrin let out a low whistle, shaking his head with amusement. "Lucanis, you really are a piece of work. You like Daisy, but instead of doing anything about it, you just… skulk around in dark corners and wallow in self-loathing?"

"I don’t skulk."

"Oh, you absolutely skulk. Or brood. It’s like your second nature." Lucanis shot him another glare, but Davrin just grinned. "Look, I get it," Davrin said, his tone shifting from teasing to something softer. "She’s different. She has this whole kind-hearted, ‘probably too good for an assassin with a demon in his head’ thing. But if you think pushing her away is going to make things easier, you’re a bigger idiot than I thought."

Lucanis clenched his jaw. "It’s not that simple."

"It never is," Davrin agreed, shrugging. "But here’s the thing—if she really didn’t care about you, she wouldn’t care about you as much as she does. She wouldn't look at you like she does. And don’t even try to pretend you don’t know what I mean." Lucanis didn’t respond, but the muscle in his jaw twitched. Davrin smirked.

"See? You do know. Not as blind as I thought."

Lucanis sighed, rubbing a hand over his face. "Even if that’s true, it doesn’t change anything." His voice turned hoarse, thick with something he couldn’t quite voice. "Daisy is… she’s light. She’s warmth, she’s kindness, even when she has every reason not to be. She looks at people and sees their worth, even when they don’t deserve it. He prays over the dead when they just tried to kill her." He let out a slow breath, running a hand down his face. "And me? I’ve got blood on my hands that’ll never wash away. I’m...tainted, Davrin. I’ve been tainted for so long that I don’t even remember what being whole is like. And Spite—" He let out a humorless chuckle. "You think Daisy deserves a man who’s possessed by a demon? Who can’t even trust his own mind?"

Davrin leaned against the table, arms crossed. "You know, for someone who thinks so highly of her, you don’t actually give her much credit." Lucanis frowned, glancing up. Spite turned back to Davrin, glaring at the warden. "If Daisy is as strong and kind and good as you say, then don’t you think she’s capable of making her own damn decisions? Don’t you think she already knows what you are and cares about you anyway?"

Lucanis opened his mouth, then closed it. His chest ached, and for a moment, all he could think about was how Daisy looked at him in the pantry. The way her breath had hitched, how her fingers had rested on his chest, the warmth of her hand through his clothes. He had wanted to kiss her. Had wanted it so badly it hurt. But instead, he had pulled away. Just like he always did.

Davrin sighed, shaking his head. "Look, all I’m saying is—stop being an idiot. If you want her, do something about it. If you think she deserves better, be better." Davrin watched him carefully, then shook his head with a laugh. "You’re hopeless. But hey, if you ever decide to stop being a coward about it, let me know. I’d love to see what happens when you actually act like a person instead of a brooding shadow."

Lucanis shot him one last glare before picking up his coffee again, but Davrin just chuckled, clapping him on the shoulder as he walked off.

"You so like her," he called over his shoulder. "Yell if you need any help, assassin."

Lucanis groaned. This was going to be a long night.

~oOo~

Daisy felt like the dead.

Truly, like the dead.

Her skull throbbed with the force of a Mourn Watch guard hammer, each pulse a fresh wave of agony that made her groan into the scratchy fabric beneath her. The taste in her mouth was an unholy mix of stale wine, sand, and regret—like she had been chewing on old parchment dipped in seawater. Her tongue felt too big for her mouth, dry and sluggish as she smacked her lips, immediately regretting it when nausea twisted in her gut.

From what she could tell she was residing in, the tent around her was stifling, the canvas trapping the heat of the morning sun, making the air thick and heavy. A dull glow of daylight filtered through the fabric, far too bright for her pounding head. She squeezed her eyes shut and let out a pathetic whimper, rolling onto her side, only to feel sand shift beneath her. That was the second worst thing—sand. Everywhere. Stuck to her skin, gritted between her fingers.

Oh, Maker. She remembered. She had passed out on the beach.

Her stomach twisted as fragments of memory drifted back—staggering through the Rivan eluvains, the flickering glow of the Fade pressing against her mind, voices she wasn’t sure were real. She had run. From what, she wasn’t entirely sure. A face? A shadow? The past? It was all muddled in the thick haze of alcohol and exhaustion. She reached up, her fingers grazing her throat instinctively. It was too hot, and for a brief, terrifying moment, she swore she could feel the weight of chains that were no longer there. They had been gone for years, but in her drunken haze, the memory clung to her like a phantom pain. She clenched her fists tighter as if grounding herself in the feeling of sand slipping through her fingers would somehow bring her back to reality.

Outside, the rhythmic crashing of waves only made things worse, a constant reminder of the poor choices that had led her to this exact moment of misery. A distant noise—footsteps crunching on the sand, the tent's flap shifting in the breeze—made her groan and bury her face deeper into the makeshift pillow.

If anyone tried speaking to her right now, she might actually die.

“Well, now, I see that you aren’t dead.” Daisy cracked an eye open; her vision blurred and wobbly, but she recognized that voice—steady, warm, and tinged with an affectionate tone. The face hovering above her was familiar in a way that loosened the knot in her chest, a balm to the ache in her head. “Come now, little sister, drink this.”

A cup was pressed to her lips, and Daisy drank greedily, the cool liquid easing the desert dryness of her throat. She tried to gulp more than Ti’Lan allowed, chasing the brief relief, but he pulled the cup back with a soft chuckle. “Ti’Lan?” she croaked, her voice a rasp. “Is that really you?”

“A home in life, a berth in death. A house of many mansions. How long has it been? A year?” He set the cup down beside her makeshift bed and lowered himself to the sand beside her, his long limbs folding comfortably as if he’d sat by her side a thousand times before. “Gods, where did you come from? I did not expect you to rescue me when I asked the spirits to get help.”

“Was…drinking…” Daisy muttered, the admission slurring slightly.

“Oh, I can see that from how you reek of it—not to mention you fighting pirates drunk!” Ti’Lan’s voice rose, exasperated, and Daisy winced at the spike of pain his volume sent through her head. Immediately feeling bad, he softened, his expression shifting to one of gentle concern. “Sorry.” He reached out, and his hand threaded through her tangled hair, untangling a few knots with the tender familiarity of someone who’d done this since she was small. His touch was grounding, soothing, a reminder of simpler days when their biggest worries were stolen sweet rolls or whose turn it was to help with the washing.

Daisy blinked slowly, trying to piece together the tangled mess of memory and dream. “You...you were really in trouble?”

“I was,” Ti’Lan confirmed, his hand never stilling in its comforting strokes. “But it seems the spirits saw fit to send me a bedraggled, sand-covered sister instead of a rag-tag group of Lords.” His lips curled in a grin, eyes dancing with amusement. “Not that I’m complaining. I’d take you over anyone any day.”

A tiny, fragile smile broke through Daisy’s hangover misery. “I’d fight pirates for you any day. Just…maybe not while drunk.”

He laughed softly, the sound rolling like the waves outside. “I’d prefer that. But you did well despite the state you were in. You have to teach me that one spell at the end with the captain later.” He reached over to dab a cool cloth at her temple, soothing the sweat and grit. “Besides, when I saw it was you, I knew you'd be ok. You always come through when it matters.”

Daisy groaned again, rubbing her temples. “What were you even doing as a captive?”

Ti’Lan let out a slow breath, his expression turning more serious. “Helping the Lords of Fortune. We were smuggling people out—those who escaped the Antaam.” He leaned back slightly, absently tracing patterns in the sand. “Our ship was caught.”

Daisy pried open one eye, attempting to focus. “So… you were captured for helping people?”

“Essentially,” he said with a slight shrug. “But that’s not the only thing.” His tone grew hesitant, and she could tell something weighed on him. “There’s a matter I need to discuss with you—about one of the captives. A little Qunari girl.”

Daisy squeezed her eyes shut as another wave of nausea rolled through her. “Can’t talk until the world stops spinning. But I promise to talk about her when I can...think clearly.”

Ti’Lan chuckled, shaking his head. “Fair enough. Rest up, little sister.” He reached out, ruffling her already messy hair with the same affectionate ease he always had. “I’ll check on you in a bit.”

She groaned in response, curling into the thin blankets, while he chuckled again and stood. As he slipped out of the tent, the scent of sea salt and cooling embers drifted in, mixing with the lingering haze of alcohol in her mind. Daisy exhaled slowly. Whatever he had to tell her could wait. For now, she just needed to survive her hangover. Daisy’s eyes fluttered closed, the tension in her body slowly unwinding under her brother’s gentle care. “I missed you,” she murmured, the confession slipping out like a secret.

“I missed you too,” Ti’Lan replied, his voice softening with an ache that mirrored her own. Feeling safe and loved, Daisy drifted back into the dark, the warmth of her brother’s presence anchoring her through the storm.

The next time Daisy woke from the darkness, the sky was painted in strokes of red and orange, the sun dipping low over the water. The salty breeze carried the mingling scents of roasting meat and the sand beneath her. Her head still ached, but the world wasn’t spinning nearly as much. She groaned, pushing herself upright, her fingers digging into the fabric of the tent for balance before she finally got to her feet.

Outside, the battle remnants had been cleaned up, and the remaining captives had formed a small camp. A few fires flickered against the twilight, and around the largest, Ti’Lan sat turning a spit, the savory scent of cooking meat wafting through the air. The soft murmurs of conversation filled the space, punctuated by occasional laughter—an attempt at normalcy after everything. Daisy’s gaze landed on Ti’Lan, who was calmly rotating the spit, his large frame steady and familiar. But what truly caught her attention was the tiny figure clinging to his legs. A little girl with silver hair and small, barely developed horns peeked out from behind him, her large eyes darting around curiously.

When Ti’Lan spotted Daisy, he grinned and waved her over. “About time you woke up. Hungry?”

"Starving." Daisy took a few steps forward, her legs still shaky but stronger than before. Her gaze dropped to the child, who pressed herself closer to Ti’Lan’s leg but continued to watch Daisy with quiet interest.

Daisy knelt, offering a gentle smile. "And who is this beautiful princess standing next to you?"

"This is Demihan, but everyone calls her Demi." Ti’Lan rested a large, protective hand on the girl's head, ruffling the soft strands of silver hair between her small, growing horns. “Demi, this is my little sister, Daisy. Can you say hi?”

Demi hesitated, her tiny fingers curling into the fabric of Ti’Lan’s pants. After a long pause, she managed a small wave, her expression uncertain but curious.

“She’s still a little skittish,” Ti’Lan explained, watching the girl with something like affection—guarded but genuine.

Daisy chuckled. “That’s okay. The big teddy bear you’re holding onto was skittish, too. He used to crawl into my bed during thunderstorms just so I could chase them away.”

Ti’Lan groaned, rolling his eyes. "Hey now, I remember you came to me a few times too."

“Yeah, the one time,” Daisy shot back playfully, winking at Demi. The little girl’s lips twitched, the first hint of a smile playing at the corners of her mouth. She slowly peeked out from behind Ti’Lan’s legs, her small horns catching the last light of the setting sun. Daisy took a moment to take her in properly—she could be no more than four, her horns still round and stubby, her gray skin peppered with freckles.

Daisy sat down on the sand, stretching her legs in front of her. “I’m guessing she’s the one you wanted to talk about?”

Ti’Lan exhaled, his expression shifting to something more serious. He glanced down at Demi, his hand resting lightly on her head. “Demi is... special.”

Daisy raised an eyebrow, looking between her brother and the little girl. “Special, how?”

Ti’Lan hesitated before answering, his expression unreadable, his fingers tightening briefly on Demi’s head. “She’s a mage.”

Daisy exhaled sharply through her nose. “Yes, and?”

“I need you to take her home with you.”

Daisy blinked, her exhaustion giving way to sharp irritation. She ran a hand down her face before fixing Ti’Lan with a look. “I can't take her with me, Ti'Lan.”

“What do you mean? Of course, you can,” he said, his voice edged with impatience. “You bring kids home all the time.”

Daisy scoffed, crossing her arms over her chest. “Ti’Lan… when was the last time you were home?” Her tone shifted, more pointed now, a warning laced beneath her words. “I haven’t seen you in over a year.”

His jaw tensed, and for the first time, he looked uncomfortable. “I shared a few letters with Alilya and Ma, but… not for a while.”

Daisy let out a dry, humorless laugh. “Of course you haven’t.” She shook her head, frustration bubbling beneath the surface. “Listen to me, I was sent away from the Mourn Watch. There was an uprising—a war called the War of Banners. I was… able to stop it, but it resulted in me being practically banished. I can’t go home until they allow me.”

Ti’Lan’s eyes widened. “What? That can’t be true.”

“Oh, it’s true,” Daisy said, her voice thick with sarcasm. “And you would know that if you ever bothered to check-in. But no, you’re off doing gods-know-what, and I’m the one left to pick up the pieces because that's what I do. I fix everything and continue to put back pieces that should remain broken, but I'm too stubborn to say no.”

Ti’Lan had the decency to look guilty, but Daisy didn’t stop. “And for your information, brother dear, for the past year, I’ve been helping Varric Tethras hunt down Solas—yes, that Solas—the one who just happens to be Fen’Harel, an ancient elven mage trying to bring the Veil down and return the world to the time of the ancient elves. And guess what? I interrupted his ritual! That little act of heroism unleashed two elven gods—Elgar’nan and Ghilan’nain—from their prison, and now Solas is trapped in the Fade.” She threw up her hands. “And the best part?! Almost every time I sleep, I get to see his ugly, annoying face staring at me from the other side.”

Ti’Lan was staring at her like she had grown a second head. “Daisy…”

“Oh, I’m not done.” Daisy gestured around them wildly. “The spirits you called to help found me leaving an eluvian, which—by the way—is an ancient mirror that lets people travel through the Crossroads inside the Fade itself. My friends had to drag me away because of—well, let’s just say reasons—and I left because I’ve been remembering things from that time.” She let out a breath, rubbing her temples. Ti’Lan was silent, his brows furrowed in concern, but Daisy wasn’t in the mood for his judgment or shock. She was exhausted and aching, and now, somehow, he expected her to take in a kid when she barely had control of her own life.

She sighed, dropping her hands to her sides. “So tell me, dear brother, where exactly in that mess do you see room for me to take in a child?”

Demi pressed herself closer to Ti’Lan, watching Daisy with wide, nervous eyes. Daisy felt a pang of guilt but pushed it aside—she needed Ti’Lan to understand that this wasn’t a simple request. Ti’Lan exhaled, running a hand over his horn. “Shit.”

“Yeah,” Daisy said dryly, “Shit.” She let herself fall back onto the sand, the fine grains sticking to her sweat-dampened skin. The world was still tilting slightly, but the cool breeze from the ocean helped settle her stomach. She closed her eyes for a moment, inhaling deeply before exhaling in a long, tired sigh. “I can send a letter home and see if someone could meet us at the Necropolis, but that’s as far as I’ve been allowed to go. The higher nobles still hate me, and I still hate them. I saved lives, and what do I get? A big fat ‘fuck you,’ as Iishka would say.”

Ti’Lan let out a quiet chuckle. “Gods, Iishka would curse them to the Void and back.”

“She probably already has,” Daisy muttered, rubbing her temples. Ti’Lan sat beside her, Demi still clinging to his leg as he absentmindedly ran a hand over her silver hair. The little girl watched Daisy carefully, trying to figure out if she was safe.

“Well, where are you staying?” he asked after a moment. “If it’s okay, I’d like to stay with Demi until we hear back. I promised her father I would look after her.”

Daisy cracked an eye open, glancing at the girl again. Demi’s tiny hands were curled into the fabric of Ti’Lan’s trousers, but her gaze had softened just a bit. “Everyone else gone?” Daisy asked.

“Yeah,” Ti’Lan confirmed, his expression darkening. “I promised I would watch over her and give her training once she was old enough. She’s sensitive, Daisy—really sensitive. She can sense spirits before even I can.”

Daisy lifted a brow. “That’s impressive.” She waved a hand vaguely. “And everyone else? Where did they go?”

Ti’Lan exhaled through his nose, his jaw tightening. “No idea. We were supposed to dock at Kont-aar, but I’m not even sure where we are now.”

Daisy sighed, pushing herself up onto her elbows. “Well, good thing I’m here then. I can escort everyone somewhere safe. My friend Isabela will be able to get them where they need to go.” She looked to Ti’Lan then. “After that, I can take you to the Lighthouse. That’s where my friends and I have been staying. It’s the safest place for us while we figure out how to stop the gods.”

Ti’Lan’s brows lifted slightly. “Gods… gods are real, then.”

Daisy let out a humorless laugh. “Oh, you have no idea. And they’re ugly.”

Ti’Lan snorted, handing her a piece of roasted meat. “Ugly, huh?”

“Elgar’nan looks like he was carved from rage and bad decisions, and Ghilan’nain? She’s a nightmare with too many tentacles and not enough mercy.” Daisy took a bite of the meat, sighing at the taste. “And those are just the two I know of."

Ti’Lan shook his head, staring into the fire. “Shit.”

Daisy’s nerves buzzed beneath her skin, an uneasy restlessness that refused to fade. From what she could gather, it had been a full day—maybe two—since she had left the Lords. Time had slipped through her fingers like sand, and though she had no way of knowing what was happening back at the Lighthouse, she prayed that nothing catastrophic had erupted in her absence. She ran through the plan again in her head, trying to find some comfort in its structure. If all went well, getting everyone through the eluvian would take half a day, and then she could make the return trip to the Lighthouse before nightfall. Ti’Lan and Demi would bunk with her until she received a letter back from her mothers. They would be safe there—at least, safer than wandering unfamiliar lands with nowhere to go.

The rest of the night was spent huddled close to the fire, laughter breaking through the heavy weight of exhaustion. Daisy and Ti’Lan took turns sharing stories, weaving images of mischief, daring escapes, and childhood memories. Demi hung onto every word, her silver eyes wide, her small hands clenched in excitement. When Daisy exaggerated a tale about Ti’Lan getting stuck in a tree while trying to impress a girl, the little girl let out a breathless giggle, covering her mouth as if she wasn’t supposed to laugh.

The warmth of family, of shared history, settled something deep in Daisy’s bones. By the time sleep came, Demi was nestled between them, her tiny frame curled close to Daisy’s side, her fingers tangled in Daisy’s shirt as if afraid she might disappear by morning. Daisy lay awake for a while, listening to the rhythmic sound of Ti’Lan’s breathing, the soft crackle of dying embers, and the distant hush of the waves against the shore. She shut her eyes, willing herself to rest, knowing that tomorrow would come too quickly.

~oOo~

The morning was a blur of movement, tension, and unspoken emotion.

The camp stirred before the sun had fully risen, the air thick with the scent of smoldering ashes and damp sea breeze. People moved with a quiet urgency, rolling up bedrolls, securing packs, and dismantling makeshift shelters. The weight of departure pressed down on them, heavy but necessary.

Daisy moved through the motions, checking supplies and ensuring no one was left behind, all while keeping a careful eye on Demi and Ti’Lan. The little girl clung to her brother sleepily, rubbing her eyes with tiny fists, her freckled face scrunching as she tried to shake off the last remnants of sleep. Daisy exhaled slowly. Today would be long, but if everything went according to plan, it would at least be the first step toward something better for all of them.

The journey back was slow but steady, and as the hours passed, Daisy felt the remnants of her hangover gradually loosen their grip on her. The sluggishness remained, clinging to her limbs like a heavy fog, but at least the pounding in her skull had dulled to a manageable throb. The spirits of Madness and Adventure lingered close, their presence a steady, guiding hum. They whispered warnings when needed, alerting her to any dangers that lurked ahead.

Thankfully, only one threat stood in their way. A wandering group of antaam had blocked their path, but they barely posed a challenge. Daisy and Ti’Lan made short work of them, their movements fluid and practiced, a silent rhythm between siblings who had fought side by side before. By the time they reached the eluvian, Daisy felt the first stirrings of relief settle in her chest. Handing Demi over to Ti’Lan, she stepped forward first, placing a cautious hand against the cool, glass-like surface of the mirror—the magic within thrummed beneath her touch, sending a ripple through the Veil as she passed through. The world bent and twisted around her, and then—silence. The Crossroads stretched before her, an eerie and endless expanse of pathways and ancient structures. She scanned the area; her muscles were tensed, her senses sharp, but nothing stirred.

Satisfied, she turned back, watching as her brother hesitantly stepped through with Demi clutched in his arms. His face morphed from suspicion to awe, his golden eyes widening as he took in the surreal landscape. "By the gods…" he whispered.

Daisy smirked. "Worth the trip, huh?"

He huffed, shaking his head in disbelief. “You’ve been traveling through this?”

“Among other things,” she said, guiding them forward toward the Hall of Valor eluvian. The short walk was enough to allow Ti’Lan to gather himself, though his grip on Demi remained firm as if he feared she might slip through his fingers in this strange realm. What Daisy didn’t expect was Isabella storming at her when she approached the main area. The pirate queen did a double take once she saw her, an uncharacteristic look of concern shadowing her usually mischievous expression. Isabella’s sharp eyes locked onto her, scanning her from head to toe.

“Where the hell have you been?” Isabella’s voice was edged with worry, but her posture remained guarded. “Your friends have been looking for you everywhere. You ran out of the Hall like you saw a damn ghost, and then—nothing. No word. Nothing.”

Daisy parted her lips, struggling to find the right words, but Ti’Lan spoke before she could. “She ran because of me.” His voice was steady, carrying the weight of quiet authority. “She found out I was in danger and didn’t hesitate. She had no time to waste.” Daisy swallowed, feeling a mix of gratitude and guilt. That wasn’t the whole truth, but it was close enough. Close enough to shield her from the real answer—the one she couldn’t bring herself to say. That she had run not just because of her brother’s plight but because of the face she had seen. A face from a long-dead memory, one that shattered her resolve and sent her fleeing like a coward.

She had felt the weight of chains that no longer existed, their phantom grip tightening around her throat, dragging her back into the abyss she had spent years clawing her way out of. How could she explain that?

She couldn’t.

Instead, she exhaled, forcing a wry smirk onto her lips. “You know me, Isabella. Always running headfirst into trouble.”

The pirate queen didn’t look entirely convinced, but she let it go with a shake of her head. “You’re a damn headache, you know that?”

Daisy grinned. “Wouldn’t want to be anything less.”

Thankfully, Isabella had other priorities. When she learned of the refugees, she immediately offered her help, her usual roguish charm slipping back into place as she took command of the situation.

With a plan in place, Daisy let herself breathe. Just for a moment. Because soon enough, she would have to face everything she had been running from. As Isabella took charge, she wasted no time in assessing the newcomers. Her sharp gaze flicked over Ti’Lan, appraising him with obvious interest. A slow, knowing smirk curled her lips as she sauntered closer, placing a hand on her hip.

“Well, well,” she drawled, her voice dripping with amusement. “Daisy, you didn’t tell me you had such a charming company. You keeping him all to yourself?”

Daisy groaned, already regretting every choice that led to this moment. “Isabella, don’t—”

“Oh, hush, sweetheart. I’m just being friendly.” She turned her full attention to Ti’Lan, her smirk widening. “So, tell me, tall, dark, and handsome, do you happen to have a taste for pirate queens?”

Ti’Lan blinked, momentarily taken aback, before chuckling. “I appreciate the compliment, but I’m very married.”

Daisy nearly choked on her own relief as Isabella feigned a wounded gasp, placing a hand over her heart. “Oh, tragic! Another good one taken.” She sighed dramatically, but the twinkle in her eye showed she wasn’t truly disappointed. “Tell me, does your wife happen to be the jealous type?”

Ti’Lan smirked. “Extremely.”

“Shame.” Isabella winked before stepping back, clearly enjoying herself. “Well, if she ever decides to throw you overboard, do let me know.”

Daisy rubbed her temples, her annoyance peaking. “Are you done?”

Isabella grinned. “For now.” She gave Ti’Lan a final, exaggerated once-over before turning back to business.

Ti’Lan simply shook his head, amused but unfazed. “Is she always like this?” he asked, glancing at Daisy.

“You have no idea.” Daisy crossed her arms, eyeing Ti’Lan with open suspicion. “But before we leave—married? Since when?”

Ti’Lan chuckled, rubbing the back of his neck. “For a little while now.”

Daisy gawked at him. “A little while? You’ve been gone for over a year! When exactly were you planning on telling your favorite sister?”

"You are certainly not my favorite." He shrugged, clearly enjoying her reaction. “I figured I’d tell you when I saw you.”

Daisy threw her hands up. “Unbelievable! Do I at least know this person?”

Ti’Lan’s lips quirked into a small, knowing smirk. “You might.”

She narrowed her eyes at him. “That’s not an answer.”

“It’s all you’re getting for now,” he teased.

Daisy groaned in frustration. “Oh, you are horrible.”

Isabela, still within earshot, let out a low whistle. “Mystery spouses? How intriguing. Now I have to know who was lucky enough to tie this one down.” She wiggled her eyebrows at Ti’Lan, but he only chuckled.

Daisy jabbed a finger at him. “We will be talking about this later.”

Ti’Lan grinned. “Looking forward to it.”

The journey back to the Lighthouse was eerily quiet, the hum of the Fade surrounding Daisy and Ti’Lan as the boat carried them through the shifting mists. The air crackled with magic, the reflection of distant, shattered eluvians flickering in the distance like dying stars. Demi clung to Ti’Lan’s cloak, her small hands gripping tightly as she peeked over his shoulder, wide-eyed at the strange, weightless movement of the boat. Daisy, still drained from the remnants of her hangover, pressed a hand to her forehead and exhaled slowly, trying to center herself. As they neared the Lighthouse’s dock, the familiar sight of its ruined stone archway wrapped in roots was a relief. Daisy stepped out first, her boots crunching on the gravel path leading to the main courtyard. Daisy helped Demi out of the boat first, holding her tightly while trying to keep her distracted until Ti'Lan stood beside her.

Just ahead, movement caught her eye. Two figures—Lucanis and Emmrich—emerged from the opposite dock, deep in conversation. Daisy’s heart leaped at the sight of Lucanis, a mix of relief and something deeper settling in her chest. She took a step forward, calling out, “Lucanis! Emmrich!” She handed Demi off to Ti'Lan.

She barely had a moment to breathe before he was suddenly there. One second, he was across the courtyard, and the next—Lucanis, or perhaps Spite, had closed the distance in the blink of an eye. His arms wrapped around her with a force that nearly knocked the air from her lungs, holding her tight—as if afraid she might vanish if he let go. The sheer intensity of it stunned her, and for a moment, all she could do was grip his coat, grounding herself in his warmth.

“Are you alright?” Lucanis’s voice was rough and urgent, with the faintest tremor beneath it. His breath was warm against her temple, and his grip was unrelenting.

Daisy blinked up at him, her hands instinctively coming up to cup his face, thumbs brushing over the sharp lines of his jaw. His skin was cool to the touch, his warm brown eyes flickering with something she couldn’t quite place—relief, concern, and something raw beneath it all. “I’m fine,” she murmured, searching his face. “Are you? Has something happened to Treviso? Is everyone ok?” For a moment, he just stared at her as if committing her to memory, as if he hadn’t been sure he’d see her again. Then, finally, he exhaled, his shoulders loosening just a fraction, but he didn’t let go.

Lucanis gripped Daisy so tightly that it almost hurt, his arms like iron bands around her as if he were afraid she might slip through his fingers. His breathing was uneven, and she could feel the tremor in his body as he held onto her.

“Daisy,” he rasped, his voice raw with something she couldn’t quite name—fear, relief, anger, all tangled together. “Where the hell have you been?” Lucanis’s grip was firm, tense, his fingers pressing just a little too hard into Daisy’s arms as he held her. He was breathing steadily, but there was something controlled about it, too measured—like he was forcing himself to stay composed. His dark brown eyes flickered over her, sharp and assessing, taking in every detail—her disheveled state, the exhaustion lining her face, the way she swayed just slightly from the remnants of her hangover. “You vanished,” he said, his voice low and taut. “No word. No sign. Just—gone.”

Daisy met his gaze, trying not to flinch under the weight of it. She could feel the tension in his grip, the effort it took for him to keep his touch from bruising. Lucanis was always careful, always in control—but right now, that control felt like it was on the verge of snapping. “I had to,” she said, barely above a whisper. “It wasn’t—”

Lucanis’s fingers twitched against her arms before he exhaled sharply through his nose. “You ran,” he muttered like he was trying to make sense of it. “You never run.”

Daisy swallowed hard, not knowing what to say. Not knowing if there was anything she could say that would make a difference. Then Lucanis’s gaze flickered past her, his body going still as he finally took note of Ti’Lan standing at her side. His grip on Daisy loosened slightly, but the tension in his frame only deepened. “Who,” Lucanis said slowly, his voice like a blade sliding from its sheath, “is that?”

Daisy barely had time to open her mouth before Ti’Lan, ever the opportunist, clapped a hand on her shoulder and grinned. “Me? Oh, I’m Daisy’s husband.”

Daisy choked. “Ti’Lan—what the fuck?!”

Lucanis went completely still. His eyes darkened, a flicker of purple flashed before it disappeared, his expression unreadable—but there was something almost lethal in how his jaw tightened. His fingers flexed at his sides like he was resisting the urge to reach for a weapon. Ti’Lan, the absolute menace that he was, just grinned wider. “What? No ‘dear husband’ for your beloved spouse?”

Daisy smacked his arm hard. “I swear to every god listening, I will drown you in the ocean.”

Ti’Lan finally laughed, holding up his one free hand in mock surrender. “Alright, alright—she’s my sister.” He winked at Lucanis. “Though if you saw the look on your face just now—priceless.”

Lucanis exhaled slowly through his nose. “Charmed,” he said flatly.

Daisy groaned, burying her face in her hands. “I hate you.”

“No, you don’t.”

Lucanis just crossed his arms, glancing between them. “So this is your brother?”

Ti’Lan extended a hand. “Ti’Lan. A pleasure.”

Lucanis eyed the offered hand, then, after a moment, shook it briefly before releasing it. His gaze flickered back to Daisy, unreadable. “We’re going to talk later.”

Daisy sighed. “Yeah. I figured.” Before Daisy could recover from the absolute humiliation of Ti’Lan’s little joke, another voice cut through the tension.

“By the spirits. Ti’Lan Ingellvar.” Daisy turned to see Emmrich standing behind them, arms crossed, his sharp gaze assessing. His usual stern expression softened only slightly, though his tone carried something bordering on approval.

Ti’Lan straightened, his posture shifting instinctively into something more formal. “Professor Emmrich. It’s been some time.”

Emmrich gave a slow nod. “It has. Last I heard, you were working with Professor Klous. I take it that didn’t go as planned?”

Ti’Lan exhaled through his nose. “That would be putting it lightly.” He hesitated, then inclined his head. “It’s good to see you again. I didn’t expect to find you among Daisy’s allies. I thought Mourn Watchers never leave Nevarra?”

Emmrich arched a brow. “Some of us do travel. And I didn’t expect one of my more promising students to turn up needing rescue. Life is full of surprises.”

Daisy, at this point, was entirely done. She had reached her limit between Lucanis, Ti’Lan’s nonsense, and now Emmrich sizing up her brother like a disappointed father figure. With a dramatic sigh, she shifted Demi in her arms and turned on her heel. “I swear to every spirit listening before I deal with any of this—any of you—I am having a bath.” She pointed a firm finger at Ti’Lan, Lucanis, and Emmrich. “You can all stand here and analyze each other to death, but I smell like a damn sewer of Minrathous, and I refuse to do anything else until that changes.”

Ti’Lan merely nodded. “Understood.”

Lucanis gave the slightest twitch of his lips but said nothing.

Emmrich, however, smirked faintly. “Still as dramatic as ever, I see.”

Daisy didn’t bother looking back. “And still dealing with too many men talking at once.” With that, she strode off toward the Lighthouse, Demi tucked securely against her chest, leaving them behind to their quiet assessments and unspoken judgments.

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