#she gets better with use and familiarity in that the bitterness dissolves

[itspileofgoodthings]

I mean, if there’s one thing the album is going to do it’s come through.

[vinjinssunglasses]

Hi dear how are you I hope you are doing well! Can you write a hc about yamazaki shingen in which he loves one of his wife(yn) but yn is and independent , smart and strong will woman who doesn't like her situation! And he only knows her children his own!

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✧ character; yamazaki shingen

✧ summary; all your life, you’ve been mistreated. Until you met Shingen, who showed you compassion. However, in this clan you’re just a pawn. To them, you’re not human. Shingen only claims his children as his like the others do, brainwashed by his upbringing. You hate your situation, and admist the tears you tell him how you really feel.

✧ tags; hurt/comfort, angst, tragedy, communication

✧ w/c; 3.4k

✧ a/n; tysm for req ^^ help this took so long. shingen crying btw?! uhhbye ily guys <33

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You head towards your favourite place in this forsaken place, the only area you could feel calm under its gaze — the fountain. Its splashes of water calm you, letting you take a deep breath as if a weight had been lifted off of your shoulders. You flipped a coin inside, wishing upon the stars to give you a stroke of luck. Even though you did this everyday, everything always seemed to get worse. Cleaning up for others beyond your own will, while questioning authority will only get you tied in tighter shackles than before, is it really worth the risk? Despite your protests, you were always forced into submission.

As if the world despised and damned your very existence, cursed your name in spite, life seemed to only get worse from here. Letting out a disappointed sigh, you hear the familiar laughing and gossiping in the background. As soon as you turned around, you instantly regretted it. Those other ‘lowlifes’ were laughing at your situation, accompanied by a few low-rankers of the Yamazaki clan.

Don’t they ever get enough?

Nobody here liked you, they all wished upon a more wealthy clan to take the spot as Gun’s mother. They only knew you as Gun’s mother anyway.

They yelled and threw curse words at your name, while you rightfully walked past them, ignoring their usual antics. It was like this everyday, it was just something you were forced to get used to. You know better than to let them go like this, however your protests don’t improve the situation. And they’re starting to get tired of reprimanding your behaviour.

“Go back to your lethargic husband then, huh? We all know Shintaro—.” What? The rage hit you, sharp and blinding. Before you had even realised, your hands shot out, tangling in her hair before yanking her forward, forcing her to look into your eyes.

“What? What did you say?” The girl’s laughter cut off, dissolving as you slapped her, the sound ringing in the silence.

“Talk about me all you like. But I won’t sit here annd listen to you insult my husband, understood?”

Her eyes widened, darting between you and your clenched fists, body trembling as she dared not spare another word. Her defiance crumbled under the weight of your hard, breath catching in her throat as she nodded obediently.

Then you heard it, the familiar shout of your name, cutting through the noise, sharp and unyielding. You loosened your grip on her, turning to the tall figure walking towards you. Quickly picking up those girls were creating false accusations against you, claiming you started to pick a fight, you could only sigh and await your punishment.

Here it comes, the bitterness sinking deeper.

“Come with me.”

You clicked your tongue in a subtle gesture of disapproval, following along unwillingly. The distant chatter of the girls fading away eased you a little, yet you were still stern. He fanned himself, choosing his words carefully as though to not provoke you up further. The trees are starting to blossom into a lovely pastel pink, and the sun is starting to set later than it should. Summer is one of the only things you look forward to. Its burning rays distract you from the thoughts that often keep you awake at night.

“What happened?” His tone unusually kind, as if offering a branch of support.

“Whatever they said about me.” A curt reply passed your lips, as you upheld your serious frown.

“Still, there was no need to—“ He stopped himself, adjusting his glasses as though rethinking his approach. Shintaro parted his lips, as if to say something, before speaking: “I have an offer for you.”

His gaze narrowed slightly, and you raised an eyebrow and you came to a halt. Shintaro scanned the area for any potential spies, then leaned closer, breathe warm against your ear.

“Betray Shingen with me. It’s a simple process, and I guarantee you a happier life.”

“What?” This bastard is also a traitor? Recently, there has been a slow yet steady rise of people disliking the current leader, and the vice president’s support of this sentiment increases the danger. For a moment, you were paralysed. Is this some sort of a rebellion? “I’m not going to do that.”

Shintaro sighed, almost as though he expected your refusal. “I should’ve guessed.”

“Don’t speak another word of this.” You spat, your mind whirling as you turned sharply, making your waytowards your chambers. Each step felt like nails stabbing into your feet, and you dragged your torn self.

‘Rebel against Shingen’ Those words replayed in your mind like a broken record, making your mind dizzy. Lost in thought, you collided into someone. Mumbling a rushed apology, you tried to push past, only to feel a clamped hand around your wrist.

“I was looking for you! Shingen’s kid are playing In the garden when he should be training, so can you-” Shingen’s kids? Those words struck like a slap. Am I just a babysitter to these people?

“Get off me!” You pushed them away onto the floor, tearing up at the eyes. Once having fought for your independence, you believed your life had a purpose other than the cruel expectations set upon you as a birthing machine, a housewife. Your beliefs are all worthless, mercilessly proven by how now you were drifting upon a place that left no room for your wants and needs.

Where did all of this mess began? Was it the day you were born that life was fated to become like this? Nurtured to be obedient and quiet, yet you never want your voice to be silenced. It didn’t matter how much you tried to scream, yell, protest, it was if you were deafened to arrogant ears. Your teenage years were the worst point, you were described as reckless and selfish to the yakuza rules. All these emotions stirred inside to create a mixture of depressive episode and lashes of anger, all to make someone listen to you even once.

It wasn’t your best bet to resort to violence. But it worked. Even though you were allowed to personally train as a woman, you were just as capable as a man at heart. Secretly watching how your older brothers took over aikido, you begged for them to train you behind your clan’s backs. When they found out, they almost disowned you. Where else were you to go? Wandering the streets, with all these tattoos? Nobody would talk you in as the mess you were.

Shingen.. The leader of a clan known for its ability to make even the strongest, well-known clans to sink to their knees. Although he was seem ruthless by his uptight exterior, he was the first to ever appreciate you. The only man to ever carry you in his arms, bury his face into your neck, and treat you so lovingly. You hated yourself for the little you were worth, but he truly made you feel like the only person in the world.

It feels like your world is collapsing atop you, nobody there to pull you out of the way of a boulder. Deep breaths, deep breathes… For all your life you’ve bottled up all your emotions, so why is it so difficult now? As soon as you pushed open that door, you practically collapsed onto that bed, sinking into the warm sheets.

That following week came the dreaded family event, where other clans came to congratulate the birthdat of Gun. He was just a little boy by now, 10 years old. That little boy deserved the world, to be happy and play kendama all day as he wished. Though his life was already planned for him — the day he was to take over all the gangs in the area, the day he’d give up all his dreams and surrender himself. Just two years ago, would he cling to your skirt and hold your hand tightly when you spoke to unfamiliar people. How do they expect an innocent soul like his to ruthlessly murder like his father?

Life isn’t fair on him, nor on you. Coexisting in this selfish world, only you stood by his side. You wanted the best for him, for him to do anything he wanted. Against your will, he were to be a street fighter, fated to inheriting that name, ‘Machine Gun’.

You make sure to apply extra concealer to cover the dark circles and the tear stains from the night before. Shingen came from behind you and kissed your neck, biting your earlobe teasingly, his tall stature curling around you.

“Are you okay, baby?” It’s best if he doesn’t know anyway, right?. Around you, he seems to never stop smiling, unable to keep his loving gaze off of you. it’s be a shame to wipe that all away with your own burdens.

“Im alright, Shingen.” I smile, resting my free hand upon his head, stroking through the silky-smooth strands.

“We have to get going,” Shingen softly spoke, taking your hand in his. Before leaving, he pressed a delicate kiss on the back of your hand, reminding you how much he values you.

It’s 5 o’clock, and Shingens swarmed with the other ladies from different clans. Although jealous, they must be going through the tough traditions we must uphold — to marry and have sex with the man who upholds the most power. In this case, your beloved. That was how your twisted romance started — from the unfairness placed upon you and thousands of other undeserving women. You were lucky to have given birth to your son. Ever so often, you think about what could’ve happened in stead. What if Shingen never opened his heart to you, fallen so deeply in love with you?

Taking a glass of wine, you finished it in one gulp, hoping to shove these thoughts to the back of your mind. Shingens still the same man he was when he first met you — cold, unbothered with a sharp, scrutinising glare. The same one that you found yourself shamefully attracted to. Unbothered, he sighed, absentmindedly making conversations, eyes drifting away from theirs as if something is occupying his mind.

Before you could even stand, you hear the familiar shout of your name. Applauding joyfully with a half-finished wine glass in her hand, hiccuping while congratulating you

“It’s been a couple years,” She smiled, wrapping her arm around your shoulder. You scowled while stiffly trying to make some distance in between you two. “How’s his son?”

“His..?” You muttered, confused. “He’s doing well, he’s a quick learner. The Kojima’s have said he’s mastered Aikido by now.”

Keeping up appearances was something you were always taught to follow. It was engraved in you, impossible to unlearn after being beaten for forgetting.

“Right, right. He’ll grow up just to be like his father. Shingen-nim has been raising him well.” One thing you hated about Shingen was that he was not present in his child’s life often. When Gun cried in the middle of the night, it was put upon you to rock him to sleep once more; despite the aches of your back. Breastfeeding, playing with him, changing his diapers — your responsibility. The only thing the Yamazaki clan did for you was train him to be a killing machine, it was his sole purpose for his birth in the first place.

“Yes. He’s a good father.” Your eyebrows furrowed, yet you had to keep that polite, strained smile on your face.

“He looks just like him, doesn’t he? Reverse eyes, fighting skills—“

“Apologies, it seems I have something to do right now. Is it okay if I get back to you?” Your fists clenched at your sides, voice straining to keep its elegance.

“Oh well, if it’s that important then it cannot be helped.” She took another drink of her wine, waving you goodbye while you stormed off. Fighting skills and reverse eyes… If it wasn’t for that, would she even care? Was she purposely ignoring all the resemblance I have to my own child? He’s the splitting image of me for crying out loud?! Holding your head in your hands, you quickly realised this would be a bad look.

Your son was sitting next to his nephew, Haruto. Gun loved playing games and having fun, while on the other hand Haruto was interested in strategies and books. Whenever you saw him, he was always knee-deep in another tale. Although they were opposites, they always got along. Such a shame that Gun won’t have much time to play with him when he got older. Their bond was like brothers, if you saw Gun you would also see Haruto. As if they were attached at the hip. He’d even watch him practicing martial arts, and Gun would rest his head upon his shoulder while Haruto read. The warm, spring breeze hitting their faces while he basked in the sun’s rays.

Unlike Gun, you felt isolated — nobody to truly let out your emotions to. Everyone was enjoying the evening while you were torn in the corner. Where’s your happy ending? That son, your blood and tears in one being, wasn’t even socially considered yours. And Shingen didn’t seem to mind your discretisation. Sitting here, bathing him his own luxuries, on top of the world like he’d always had been. Raised to be head, nobody had ever put him in his place.

That rebellion Shintaro mentioned.. Your eyes shift to Shintaro’s overwhelming presence in the crowd, creating chatter amongst the women. If they couldn’t have Shingen, they’d atleast marry another powerful man like him. This all makes you wonder, is the rebellion valid? Again, you’re giving yourself a headache, it’s best not to think about it.

The night carries on, and you find yourself sitting, alone with the company of the depressive thoughts to fight to shove them away. That conversation replays in your head like a broken record. He’s your son too, right? You birthed and raised him all by yourself.

Shingen excused himself from the idle chatter and came to sit next to you, lacing your hands in his.

“I’ve been meaning to ask you. What was the lady from that clan talking about?” He asked, unable to suppress a smile when he’s with you. Softly gazing into your eyes, a sharp contrast from the same stern eyes that he used at those women striking conversation.

“Jonggun. She was asking how he were getting along.” You answer honestly, while his thumb gently strokes the back of your hand. “I told her he’s mastered Aikido.”

“Of course, he’s a Yamazaki through and through,” Shingen spoke, taking a deep breath while using that steady authority he always used, with a hint of gentleness. “I expect no less, my bloodline is pure.”

Those careless words pierced through your chest like a sharp blade. All this constant stress made your headache even more, and you poured another glass of the wine resting on the table.

“Pure..” You muttered, those words buttering your tongue, voice drowned out by the hum of chatter. Taking a glance at his face, he remained unfazed, looking down upon your soft fingers against his scarred, calloused ones. He never noticed how you felt. Never read the emotion building up onto your voice, causing your face to contort into one of frustration. Then again, you’re in public, you’ve been taught to remain calm and collected.

“The children will carry on my legacy.”*

“Your legacy, you say..?” You repeated once more, this time loud enough for his ears to catch on. Setting the glass down with more force then necessary, creating a loud thump that diverted eyes and conversations.

“I’m feeling unwell, please excuse me.” Walking through these damned hallways once more, the echo of gasps seemed to fade away. You almost couldn’t bare to see his face any longer. Undoing the laces and ties of your kimono, you threw it onto the floor in a fit of fury . The undergarments lay scattered upon the floor while you buried your head into your pillow. The makeup slid off your face, staining the pillow and smudging your mascara. Whether it had been minutes or hours, you didn’t know. After a while, you eventually calmed down, sniffling while staring at your blank ceiling. Only then did you hear the door sliding open.

He called your name, and you instantly rolled over, turning away from him.

“Are you alright? What’s the matter?” He sat onto the bed, you weren’t ready to confront him with this yet. The years you’ve endured this pain. The mistreatment. You were ashamed for yourself. Gathering all your courage, you spoke:

“What you said back then. Before I excused myself.” Shingen raised an eyebrow. “You always say that.” You spat, voice trembling, bubbling over with the suppressed tears.

“Our children. Our legacy. They’re my children too. My tainted blood runs through their veins just as much as yours. But you never say that, do you? Not does anyone. Nobody acknowledges my very existence, they only talk to talk about your son, your achievements. You don’t bat an eye — no, you don’t even care how I feel.” You swallowed throat right, tears streaming down your face. “Or maybe it’s my fault, I..”

The words tumbled out your mouth now, chest tight, spilling with the words you’ve always wanted to say. “How come the world only cares about you? I was the one who changed his diapers, I was the only one who was acruallly present in his life. Were you even there when he took his first steps? Or learnt how to say ‘mama’? I’m just the perfect vessel to continue your perfect bloodline.”

The room was deadly silent. Shingen held his head in his hands, lips parting yet remained silent. He took a deep breathe, as if fully processing it all.

“I can’t do this anymore.” You let out a chocked sob. “Pretending everything’s fine, being fucked over constantly, I..”

Shingen breath hitched, the silence between you becoming unbearable. Finally he spoke, low and ashamed.

“I haven’t been completely blind to all of this. I know they haven’t been as accepting of you as they should. You’re a strong woman, yet I’ve let things go too far. There’s only so much in person can take.” Voice barely above a whisper, laced with a vulnerability you rarely heard, he felt too ashamed to even look at you. “The things they’ve said behind my back are unacceptable. I’ve seen how they deduce your worth to nothing…” Shingen could barely piece himself together to finish that sentence, struggling to string together words.

“They’re my family; I was raised this way.. This ignorant mindset of mine passed down from generations, it’s almost apart of me. It’s no excuse for what I’ve let you go through. You’re right — I should’ve been there but I wasn’t.” For the first time ever, you watched a tear glisten down his cheeks. “I should’ve been there. Not just for you, for our son.”

“Why must you make me stay in a household where I’m never good enough? I can’t live like this forever.”

Shingen didn’t have an answer. He sniffled, as if weighing all the years he refused to reflect on. The silence was think and oppressive, and neither of you wanted to spare a word. Finally, he raised his gaze, coming to terms with himself.

“It’s time things changed. From now own, I want you to tel me what you want. I’ll do anything, even if it’s means shedding blood.”

You blinked, the words sinking in slowly.

Shingen reached to cup your face, with the familiar feel of his firm yet gentle touch.

“This clan has always been my legacy to take over. Ever since I was young, I’ve been subjected to vigorous training to be the man that I am today. But if it costs me my beloved and our own child, it’s time I choose differently. For you, for us, for him.”

The you pulled yourself into him, pressing your tear-streaked face against his kimono while he wrapped you in his arms. You choked back your words, your sobs muffled against his increasing heartbeat. The tension within you. unwinded slowly while his words lingered in the air. Shingen sighed, uncontrollably smiling while he sobbed.

Shingen’s hand found its way back of your head, fingers tangled in your hair, his relieved breaths a soothing sigh against your temple. As he held you, his face twistes into one you’ve never witnessed before — remorse. After years, he saw himself break, quiet trembling sobs escaping his lips. His grip around tightened, as if he were afraid to be alone.

It was his first apology. A start to a new era.

[kaepop-trash]

I want to know how jaehyun in no time to blame would feel like if he knew she was with someone else? Without knowing it was johnny? Is this too weird to ask?😬

Ask: "What is Jaehyun and y/n's "relationship" like?"

Where the Light Is

Not to weird at all. I love unexpected questions like this because they make me think about characters in a way I wouldn't usually. As a result, I see them in a new light. Always fun so ask whatever you want! I loved writing this. Their relationship is like an old song you can go back to, one that always sound like the first time when you listen to it after years. It's having someone understanding you without needing the right words.

_

Summary: Jaehyun goes to his first party since returning. (Y/N) is trying to piece together her entire life. Who understands that better than someone who had to pull their own life apart?

Warnings: Suggestive sexual content, existential breakdown, kissing

WC: 4.9k

_

Jaehyun walked into Taeyong's apartment, looking behind him to check who was at this little gathering.

"Who are you looking for?" Taeyong asked, following Jaehyun's wandering gaze.

"No one in particular." Jaehyun spoke, distracted by his keen search.

"Johnny isn't here." Taeyong warned him. "He's still in Scotland. Just go talk to your other friends." Taeyong gave him a pointed look.

Jaehyun swallowed, giving Taeyong a nod. Catching up with his other friends was something Jaehyun had every intention of doing. But every time he had the opportunity, his nerves interrupted his efforts. 

Everybody around him had their own spaces here; it was Jaehyun who didn't belong. The stories they shared, the knowing looks, and especially the nostalgic nods were all memories made after Jaehyun ceased to be a part of their lives. He wasn't bitter about it. He just didn't want to intrude.

But Taeyong had that look in his eyes that spelt determination. So Jaehyun dutifully followed.

Everywhere he looked, he could see at least one familiar face. Yet none of their eyes wandered like his. They were satisfied in the conversations they were engaged in.

"Make yourself a drink." Taeyong's voice caught his attention again, hand pointed at a table with an array of liquor bottles. "All of us are dying to know what you've been doing all these years. Don't be a stranger, Jaehyun." He squeezed his shoulder, gesturing at someone behind him. 

When Jaehyun turned, Irene, Yeri and Taeil waved. Taeil made space on the sofa beside him and beckoned. Jaehyun's reciprocal smile was one of sentimental surprise.

"Why is it that you've been here for five days and I'm only just getting to speak to you?" Irene asked, crossing her arms and giving him a frown.

Jaehyun smiled, his relief coming off as sheepish. "Every time I've seen you, you've been busy talking to other people." He shrugged.

"At least come up with better excuses." She rolled her eyes, taking the spot beside Jaehyun and shoving his shoulders, "How have you been?" She asked with a kinder voice.

The question made Jaehyun's stomach churn because, while he had a ready-made answer for the question for years, this was the first time that he wasn't sure.

"I've been good." He lied, nodding his head. "Busy." It was the truth, "But this trip is a nice excuse to relax and smell the roses."

"There will be plenty to smell at the wedding. The theme is pink and blue roses." Yeri smiled, making Jaehyun mirror it.

"They stole my favourite motif. Don’t even get me started on my restaurant’s decor." Taeyong pointed at the couple in question. Everybody laughed as the conversation dissolved into talks of how seriously Taeil was taking the wedding planning.

Amongst the teasing and the laughs, it was easy for Jaehyun to get lost in the past. He remembered it all in that one moment. The wet chill of the common room in the resident's hall where they used to hang out. The halls of the undergraduate business building, patterned with sunlight coming through the window. The smell of stale beer at the dingy bar where they would all hang out. The same place (Y/N) broke up with him despite them never being together.

The last memory jolted him out of his galvanised nostalgia. He looked around the room like he remembered an important task, trying his best not to be very apparent. But when his eyes finally found what they were seeking, his brows knit.

(Y/N) sat by herself in the opposite corner of the room. She was nursing a beer in her hand, lost to some deep thought with her gaze lowered. 

Jaehyun wondered what she was thinking about; why she had isolated herself this way, and why it looked like she was missing something. He stared at (Y/N) long enough that it caught Taeil's attention. 

Jaehyun had fallen out of the habit of keeping his feelings to himself, it seemed. He wondered if certain habits were best left in the past.

"Oh don't worry about (Y/N)." Taeil laughed, "She must have had a long day at work so she's quiet." He reassured Jaehyun, no doubt having had this conversation with someone before. “ She only came because I insisted. Just like you.” He laughed. 

Taeil didn't know that Jaehyun didn't need to be told.

"Yeah, the only person she'll talk to when she's this tired is Johnny." Yeri smiled, sharing a look with her friends. Jaehyun's eyes remained on (Y/N), thinking back to the past as he did more and more recently.

He knew too well about her reclusive tendencies. When drunk or tired, (Y/N) became all too cautious of what she'd say. For Jaehyun it was never a problem. Neither of them ever needed to talk in each other's company because words weren't needed in whatever they had shared. In his company, she had been as comfortable as Jaehyun was in hers.

She looked around the room once, reaching into her back pocket as she did so. Jaehyun’s breath hitched in anticipation, but she looked down at her phone before her eyes landed on him.

"Oh she's smiling." Yeri laughed, "Must be texting to her mystery man." She giggled, earning a gentle shove from Irene.

"Who?" Jaehyun asked too quick, not even noticing the strange look he got from his friends.

"I don't know his name, Johnny might. But she caved and told us about it once." Her shoulders rose in pride.

"Yes, in confidence. Don't go around telling people about her personal business." Irene chastised Yeri, giving Jaehyun an apologetic smile but still keeping a cautious hand on Yeri's back.

"It's just Jaehyun." Yeri countered but then sighed, "But you're right." She grimaced.

There was an undertone to the exchange that Jaehyun didn't catch. He couldn't have possibly because just as (Y/N) looked away from her phone, his own buzzed in his pocket. Even as the idea of this mystery person started to sprout in the back of his mind, his current focus was on this moment.

She texted him. He was the person she was texting with the smile on her face that made their friends speculate. 

At that moment, he was the mystery man.

"I'm going to go eat something." Jaehyun announced to nobody in particular after what felt like an appropriate gap. He stopped up and immediately got his phone out of his pocket, heart beating incredibly fast.

🖂 Are you coming for Taeil's party? 🖂

Jaehyun grinned, amused by the question.

🖂 How many beers have you had? Look up.🖂

Jaehyun couldn't help the tug at his chest when she looked up. Her eyes full of anticipation was enough to make him feel a little weak in the knees still— just like the first time. When their eyes met, he was back in the basement of the record store off campus.

"Oh." She said as realisation coloured her eyes, followed by a wash of pink on her cheeks. "I didn't see you."

"It's a good thing. Now I know that you were missing me." He bit the inside of his cheeks as he felt his neck getting warm.

Her lips tugged at the corner, "How much did you hate saying that?"

"A lot." He admitted, squeezing his eyes shut as he shoved his clenched fists into his pockets. "But I still like it."

"You're bolder than I remember." She noted.

Jaehyun's eyes flew open, the next words slipping out before he could even think them through. "And you're more beautiful."

None of them spoke for a moment. Out of habit, Jaehyun wondered if he overstepped. Then he heard (Y/N) take a sharp breath.

Head falling back, she burst into laughter. The sound bubbled up effervescently and popped against his ears till they tickled.

"You're crazy." She shook her head, cheeks flushing nonetheless. "When did you come?" She leaned over in her chair, resting her head against her knuckles.

"Just a while back. I was just catching up with Taeil and the rest. I was going to get some food when you texted." He shrugged, his words distracted. Despite being present in the moment, a corner of his mind stayed distracted as Jaehyun kept playing with the idea of sitting down beside her or maintaining the facade of acquaintanceship they had always had in public.

"Good. They've really missed you. There has never been a gathering where you and your whereabouts weren't brought up. I know everything that has happened in your life since you left." She scoffed, looking away from him and taking a swig at her beer.

"Oh, I wish I had the same. I've only heard a few things here and there. I knew nothing about you."

"You could have asked." She looked back, something quick flashing passed her eyes before she shook it off.

"Johnny told me to stop asking about you last year.” Jaehyun shuffled, deciding against sitting down. “He was right, of course, so I stopped. I did hear about your job though." He grinned.

"Don't." She interjected, "We don't have to talk about my job."

The curt request caught him off guard, but he respected the boundary, giving her a nod. She closed up for a beat, and Jaehyun wondered what he said. 

After a few moments of chewing her bottom lip, she looked up at him.

"Do you remember Diana from our eco class?" She asked, clearing her throat. Jaehyun nodded, and a conspiratorial smile lit her features. "She's marrying that TA."

"See I knew there was no way that Diana, of all people, was topping our class." Jaehyun clapped his hands together, practically spilling his drink.

"Leaving you as the second." (Y/N) teased, grinning when Jaehyun's nostrils flared.

"Clearly not!" He huffed before realising that he was getting riled up over something from more than half a decade ago. "Don't laugh! It was the only class I was second in." He poured.

"My condolences." She bit the corner of her cheek, mischief colouring her eyes. His gaze fell on the movement like water flowed downhill, gravity always working against him.

"Didn't you say you wanted food?" She questioned. Jaehyun nodded. "So?" She added.

"I want this more." Again his words spilled out. Like they were being pulled into her orbit.

Her lips parted. An effect of the shock from his words. But it did nothing to help his state. Heat spread from his neck to the tips of his ears.

"I think I might need a snack, actually." He pointed an accusatory gaze at the glass in his hand, a false premise. Her lips tugged at the corner. 

"Try the pigs in a blanket." She gave him a confident nod. Before he could ask she sat back with a concluding slap to her thigh, "See you later." She promised with a wave, eyes returning to her phone. 

Those were one of his favourite words to hear from her.

(Y/N) felt lighter after the interaction, a smile still lingering. But her mind kept going back to what he said. Johnny had told Jaehyun to stop asking about her. She could point out the exact moment it had probably happened, too— the night Irene and Taeil announced their engagement.

She fell into the past, thinking of that day like she tended to do a lot more lately. Everything seemed to have changed so much since then, yet it still felt the same. Like her life was passing by while she remained in place.

After several moments she broke out of her thoughts. Jaehyun had already moved on, eyeing the spread of snacks. Having two restauranteurs in the group meant that all gatherings had the promise of great food. Yet she waited to see if he'd pick hers.

His pout rested on his nose as he surveyed the limitless food options. Finally, landing his eyes on something made him smile as he picked it up.

(Y/N) buried her beating heart and looked down to see that his food of choice had been pigs in a blanket. His eyes fluttered, lips tugging only slightly at the edges to make his dimples dig in: he liked it. The realisation made her heart emerge from its hole with a renewed flair. 

Right now, she felt like nothing had changed at all.

__

Jaehyun stopped walking back to Taeil when he spotted Jaemin picking up a beer. He’d grown so much since he last saw him that Jaehyun had to squint to make sure that it was actually him.

“How have you been?” Jaehyun questioned once he was sure. Jaemin looked up, eyes colouring with the same recognition that reminded Jaehyun of his elder sister.

“Oh wow. I heard you were back.” Jaemin gave him a funny smile, looking Jaehyun over. “Success is a good look on you.” He noted, raising his bottle to him.

Jaehyun felt himself blush, the odd compliment strangely poignant. He mumbled a quick thanks, and Jaemin grinned with amusement.

“I heard you and your roommates started a company together? I guess I should take notes on success from you.” Jaehyun remembered.

Jaemin laughed, “Who told you that?”

“Johnny.” Jaehyun shrugged, “I didn’t know who else I could ask.”

“Ah.” Jaemin scoffed. “That is the only bridge you didn’t burn after all.”

“I had almost forgotten how harsh you can be.” Jaehyun winced, trying to hide the pang from the words with a laugh.

“I’m just honest.” Jaemin just shrugged.

“How have you been?” Jaehyun asked.

“Surviving. Life’s good now, so I’m making the most of it.” Jaemin frowned when Jaehyun laughed hard, “What?”

“I missed that ‘living in the moment’ energy (Y/N) and you have.” Jaehyun shook his head, “I envy it so much.” Taking a sip of his own drink, Jaehyun chewed on his bottom lip.

“What is it? What do you want to ask?” Jaemin said with a knowing look on his face.

Jaehyun smiled sheepishly, rubbing the back of his neck as he considered his words. Like his sister, Jaemin was also perceptive. As embarrassed as he felt by it, the itching in his throat won over. 

He cleared his throat, "Your sister is with someone?"Jaehyun tried not to give away his inner turmoil. But nothing ever hid from the boy in front of him.

Jaemin just nodded.

“Serious?” Jaehyun asked, holding back his sigh when Jaemin shook his head.

"Old habits die hard." He shrugged, turning to (Y/N) with some thought weighing on his mind.

"Who is he?" Jaehyun couldn't help himself.

"Some dude."

Jaehyun winced playfully, taking the hint in Jaemin's clipped tone. "Will you take her home?" He changed the topic.

Jaemin considered it momentarily, looking his sister over before turning to Jaehyun with a sigh. 

"No, I have to take that one home." He pointed behind him, turning his head towards his roommate, Renjun. “He’s in a worse state.”

"Oh." Jaehyun responded.

"You can do it." Jaemin told him.

"Old habits." Jaehyun mused before realising he had spoken out loud. "Who is this guy?" He couldn't help himself; Jaehyun was sure that if anybody knew who it was, it would be Jaemin.

"Someone she met at a grocery store." Jaemin scoffed. "You know that you can't bribe me with iced coffee anymore, right? You want to know so bad, just go ask (Y/N)."

"It doesn't matter." Jaehyun kicked the ground, his shoe squeaking.

"Sure." Jaemin said, taking a step back from Jaehyun.

"Is he nice? Good to her?" Jaehyun asked, not sure what answer he was hoping for. 

"You would like him." Jaemin answered with incredible confident, taking a deep sigh after. "I'm going to give you some advice because I never would have graduated without your caffeine sponsorship." Jaemin put a hand on Jaehyun's sagging shoulder. "You're afraid of the wrong things, Jaehyun."

Jaehyun's brows furrowed, lips parting to ask for clarification. But Jaemin was already walking off, always as elusive as his sibling.

"I'm trusting you to take my sister home safely." He waved with his parting words, going up to his roommate with a gentler smile.

When Jaehyun looked around, (Y/N) stood before the food. From the distance and the safety of solitude, Jaehyun got his first good look at her. He took in the slump of her shoulders, the glazed apathy in her eyes for the first time as well. She let out a deep, defeated sigh that quivered her bottom lip. 

Jaehyun frowned.

He thought about how she had stuck to the corner all evening, how her younger brother was keeping a watchful eye on her. He took a look around to see if anybody else thought what he did. But they were all in their space.

When Jaehyun turned back, (Y/N) was speaking to Irene. She gave her an apologetic smile and waved. Irene’s gave her a concerned nod, giving Jaehyun’s speculation credence. Something had to be wrong.

She was leaving and Jaehyun had to follow her. To keep his word to Jaemin. Or so he told Taeyong when he caught his eye.

He called out to her when he saw her walking into the elevator. Instead of stopping, she rushed inside.

He had to wait for the elevator to come back, tapping his foot against the metal edge on the floor. The moment he stepped out into the lobby, he searched for her. He found her sitting at one of the large sofas the excessively lavish lobby had, trying to exhaust his look of relief before approaching.

"Waiting for someone?" Jaehyun asked. She looked up with wide eyed shock.

"Oh." She said once she registered his presence, "My Uber."

"Leaving so soon?" He tried to play off the curiosity, shuffling up to her slowly.

"Yeah, I'm just tired. Long day at work. I feel like I was being an eyesore just moping in the corner." She scoffed, finger tapping on her phone screen.

"The only time you can be an eyesore is in absence." He played the words off as a joke. To his surprise her brows furrowed, eyes darkening in the shadow.

"Did you want anything?" She asked curtly, detaching her gaze from his.

"Jaemin told me to drop you home." Jaehyun shrugged.

"I can drop myself home. I'm not that drunk." Her lips pursed in a displeased frown.

"Nothing to do with alcohol. I just told him I would." He shrugged again, his disposition always edging on awkward— especially when having to voice his intentions like this.

"You can go tell him I said no." She shrugged back. Jaehyun wondered if she was mocking him.

"What's wrong? Why did you run from me when I called out to you upstairs?" This time Jaehyun frowned, feeling unsure again.

Her nose flared for a moment, clearly losing her patience. In the next moment she sighed. 

"I've had a long day, Jaehyun. Just leave me alone." She slumped back into the chair.

"Talk to me about it."

"I'll call you when I get home. I'll call Jaemin too, I'll be safe." She urged, tapping her nails against the side of her phone.

"Talk to me." Jaehyun insisted, sitting down on the chair opposite her.

She gave him an incredulous look, at the same time surprised and irritated by his persistence, "Why?"

"Because I want to listen."

Jaehyun expected her to spit harsher words at him. Instead she sat back, groaning as her eyes welled up.

“I just. I love everyone in that room." She sighed, pausing to consider her words. "I know they know that. I know they love me too." A tear slipped down her. "I just." She looked up, blinking rapidly like it would stop her emotions from spilling out.

She groaned again, still debating with her thoughts and fighting something inside her.

"This is dumb Jaehyun." She groaned, "It's a stupid feeling that will pass. Just go back upstairs. I'll be fine tomorrow." She looked away from him.

"I know that. I also know that you aren't fine now. Who am I going to tell? Who cares if it's stupid?" He sounded so gentle, her eyes welled up a little more.

"I hate my life." She spoke the words with the force of a colossal damn cracking open, "Everybody makes more money than me, happier than me and I feel like I'm frozen in a glass aquarium watching them go by around me." She rushed through the words, groaning right after.

"I thought I'd be happy by now." She continued after a restless pause, "And there are things that should make me feel that way. I thought this new job would make me happier.” She took in a breath that made a tremble rake through her, “But all I see is how nothing is right.”

She squeezed her eyes, her tears flowing unchecked now. Rubbing her cheeks with the back of her hand was futile, but she kept doing it until they looked sore. Jaehyun wanted to reach out to stop it, but it felt like an intrusive thing to do while she let out her words.

“Ever since I moved out of home, everything has felt like a mistake.” Her voice faltered, “I feel like I'm living a borrowed life, you know? But it's mine. And that scares me. There are too many things I've taken without considering. I got the apartment that I think I should want. I hate my job, but I wanted it so bad.” She sat up, giving him a look that begged for understanding. 

“I break myself into a billion pieces everyday hoping that one day it'll all just be dust. Then finally I'll be able to mould myself anew. But these days I feel like I am just blowing away in the wind." She stomped a foot on the ground, groaning again.

She turned to face him, eyes rimmed red and lips quivering. "What am I doing wrong, Jaehyun?" She asked so honestly, both of them wishing he had the answer she seeked.

Jaehyun's heart tugged, her dilemma at the same time familiar and entirely different. He got up from his chair to sit beside her, taking her hands in his.

"There is no right way to do this, you know? Life's not a recipe. You can’t put the right ingridient at the right time and bake it at the right temperature for the right time." He finally reached out, gently wiping her tears with his thumb.

"That's easy for you to say. You did everything right, and now you have it all." Her lips quivered some more, fresh tears escaping her eyes.

Jaehyun wished she would have said anything else. The words sliced his chest open and left him at a loss.

"Quit your job first. That's the easiest one to solve." He spoke after a moment, trying to gather himself.

She look at him like he burned her, wrapping her arms around her waist to distance herself from the reckless ease of his words. But Jaehyun cupped her cheeks in both hands to keep her eyes on his. And his eyes weren't dismissive at all.

"It's not that simple." She whispered, "What if I change it all again and it’s still the same? What if I let this life go too and it still doesn't feel right?"

The words stirred Jaehyun's heart, knowing that this was something he had real advice to give about.

"I know, I get it. You're scared. You're scared because you hate uncertainty and you don't like things to change. I know that. I know you.” He reassured her, wiping more of her tears away. 

“But you can't just continue living a life you hate. Or more importantly one that makes you hate yourself." He pushed the hair that was sticking to her wet cheeks away, "Your brother doesn't need your sacrifices anymore, (Y/N). Live your life, look for something better. I'll help you look. But you need to decide you want to accept that change first. Otherwise it will truly never feel right."

"Jaehyun." She sighed, trying to get away from his hold. But his hands were as resolute as his words.

"I'll help you look for a better job. Hell, I'll help you find what you really want to do. You deserve that." He nodded, trying to get her to agree. “You deserve to do something you love. Not just work to feed yourself.”

"Why would I deserve your help after everything?" She breathed the words out, light as a feather. At that moment, both of them were back in that college bar, the smell of cheap beer and young dreams breaking around them.

"You deserve good things, (Y/N). I don't know when you decide otherwise and what made you think so. But everybody deserves good things. And you," He smiled, squeezing her cheeks, "You deserve the best.” 

He laughed when her lips squeezed between her cheeks, “You're kind and you have so much love. You work hard and you've always done more than you need to. I've seen it all." His voice was full of confidence. She didn't speak but her eyes bleeded distrust, at his words— at herself 

"You deserve more than you'll ever feel you do. You might not believe that, but I do. I believe in you."

"I don't think I've ever worked hard, Jaehyun." Her eyes glittered with tears, " The biggest reason I hate my life is because I know I can't blame anyone but myself for it."

Jaehyun frowned but still looked over her face with careful grace. "You don't remember it like I do. I've seen you. You are the person I think about when I need motivation."

(Y/N)'s heart hammered so hard that her breath started to stutter. Under his tender gaze, with his previous words hanging, it was easy to remember why she was so hopelessly in love with this man. 

"And you're mine." She sighed, nodding like she wanted him to know that she meant it.

His thumb stroked her neck hypnotically while his eyes shifted the way they did when he was trying to form his words. Before he finished dressing them neatly, his eyes shifted behind her.

"I think your uber is here." He spoke, his voice deflating the same way her back did. His hands dropped to her waist just as she turned to see. He was right. Her back deflated a little more.

The warmth of his hands were the reminder of the precipice. She wanted to say so much more to him. But words were never their language.

When she turned back to try anyway, he proved her point. 

Jaehyun’s lips pressed against her with desperate insistence. His fingers dug into her waist and her hands flew to his neck almost immediately. Both with reckless regard. Both, because they didn't know how to accept an end that never came; a change that never felt real.

In this regard Jaehyun was the more honest person, she realised. At least he didn't pretend he'd changed, nor did he ever pretend he was something he was not.

When he pulled away they both came up for air rapidly.

"(Y/N) I–" Jaehyun started, his words thick with the grate of lust and something softer tinting the edges that she didn't recognise.

"The driver isn't going to keep waiting." She paused to take in the way Jaehyun's face shattered, like she needed that last thread of reassurance. "Let's go. We can talk later." She tugged at his arm, sliding her hand down further to hold his.

_

The sound of something shattering was the only thing to break their kiss since she slammed her door. 

Jaehyun pulled back, "Shit." He muttered, earning a breathless laugh from her. "Switch on the lights, you might get hurt."

"You're the one standing on the floor." She pointed out, trying to reach for the switch from her perch on the table anyway. With a flick, her living room came into view.

Jaehyun's hands came up to his waist, eyeing the glass bowl he dropped along with the house keys he had tried to shove in while refusing to break their kiss.

He clicked his tongue, "I’m so sorry. Should I—" His gaze met hers, apologetic.

"I'll get it tomorrow." She tugged at her t-shirt. After a moment of honest contemplation, he let her pull him in.

Lips crashed into lips, hands travelling everywhere. It would always that be easy to get lost in the moment like this. For Jaehyun, it was like being thrown into the crashing waves: limbs remembering each stroke and manoeuvre with ease. This was one sea he could never drown in— or so he hoped.

His hands wrapped around her thighs. Losing himself for just a moment, he squeezed the flesh desperately. (Y/N) yelped, sitting back with a start.

“Sorry, sorry.” He hissed, pulling his hands back, cupping her cheeks to check on her.

“I’m fine.” She laughed, bringing her arms up to her neck, “You’re being very handsy today.” She wiggled her brows. “So much bolder than I remember you, Jung Jaehyun.”

Jaehyun’s face flushed a bright crimson and she laughed, the kind of laugh that burst into a million specks and glittered against his vision. She licked her lips, bringing her hands up to wrap over his. She pulled his hands away, bringing them down to her waist. 

“Do it again,” She asked.

He didn’t need to be told twice, squeezing her with intentional force this time to lift her up. “I missed that spark in your eyes. You can do anything you want with that.”

She grabbed his chin in her hand, squeezing his dimples till his pout showed itself. “Right now, I want to do you.” They both laughed as he led her into her room.

“I can never say no to that.” He kissed her eye, kicking the door closed with his foot.

[terramous]

maybe i'm just too messed up to succeed

fandom: agatha all along word count: 9.6k title: hospital bracelet - sober haha jk jk unless bad things happen bingo - stitches !! suicide attempt, hallucinations, disordered eating, self harm, medication !! AO3

William is sitting cross-legged in his bed, the soft blue blanket twisted around his ankles when the nurse comes in. He didn’t get much sleep, unable to make the shift between his plush twin bed at home and the shockingly thin and narrow hospital cot. If this is what every night in the psych ward is going to be like he fears he may have made a mistake by agreeing to stay for two weeks.

No school, no parents, no pressure. 

At least he hopes. 

“Good morning, I’m Daphne” the nurse says with a smile far too wide for how ragged and bone-tired William feels. “How are you today?” 

“Good,” he lies. He’s gotten used to lying, it’s one of the few things he remembered how to do since before the crash. Lying to his parents, lying to doctors, lying to teachers, hell, even lying to the damn dog. 

“How did you sleep?” 

He cringes involuntarily. “Not great,” he admits, his eyes downcast. 

The nurse–Daphne–smiles again. “Yeah, most everyone struggles the first few days. Not much funding in the mental health sector. Pathetic mattresses and pillows better suited as bookends.” 

That pulls a soft chuckle from William, one that surprises him but disappears as quickly as it came on. 

“I have your medication,” she holds up one hand that is gripping a tiny paper cup. Something rattles inside and she hands it to him. 

There’s two white pills nestled in the bottom of the cup. One is bigger but both are familiar. 

The bigger one is his antidepressant: Sertraline, 100mg. He’s been on it for a few weeks now, he started it when his parents dragged him to a follow-up appointment with his regular doctor and brought up how miserable and downtrodden he seemed to be in the month since the crash. So he left that appointment, signed prescription in hand and the pharmacy traded it for a bottle of pills. 

The smaller pill is the one he’s only been on for the past three days while he was in the hospital: Lorazepam, 0.5mg. It was for his anxiety, just something to take the edge off so that he didn’t feel like his fear would stop his heart every second of the day. So far it’s been pretty effective. 

He tips the cup and both pills fall onto his tongue and he washes them down with the stale cup of water from his bedside. The pills leave a lingering bitter aftertaste on his tongue from where they started to dissolve, he grimaces and takes another swig of water, emptying the cup. 

“Have you noticed any potential side effects from your medication?” Daphne asks, pulling a clipboard seemingly out of nowhere. William really needed to start paying more attention to his surroundings. There’s a bag with about a million pockets sitting on the end of his bed, maybe it came from there. 

Shaking his head, he replies, “nope.” 

“Well, that’s good,” she says. “Is it alright if I change your bandage and check on your wound?”

“Sure.” He offers his injured left arm to her and wonders if he comes across as rude and disinterested but Daphne doesn’t seem to let it dampen her pep. 

She pulls the bag of pockets further up the bed and starts unzipping it in a multitude of places. Pulling out packets of white printed with bright greens and blues and even one a dull red, she sets to work. She pulls the clip off of the bandage and unravels it until she gets down to the patch of gauze. Unlike yesterday it isn’t speckled in blood that has seeped through, which is good news William guesses. 

Peeling back the pad Daphne doesn’t say anything but the silence doesn’t last. 

“He’s so young. How does this even happen?”

William blinks hard, as if he can will away her thoughts. He wants to kick up a fuss and bite back at her inner monologue. I was in a car crash and lost my memories. I still can’t remember anything before waking up covered in blood in the backseat with my mom and her frantic eyes and desperate pleas for me to stay awake. I keep my parents awake at night worrying about me, they think I don’t know but I can hear their thoughts. I scared them and I continue to do so with every day that passes that I don’t remember. I don’t think I’ll ever remember. 

The wound on his wrist is jagged and stands out stark against the pale skin. It’s a deep red, crusted with dried blood and held together with six stitches. He remembers sitting in the waiting room of the hospital with a tea towel wrapped around his wrist and his parents sitting deathly still beside him. They were thinking a mix of anger and worry and sadness and it was the exact thing he was trying to gain reprieve from. 

Regret pangs in his chest and he smothers it. 

He looks away from the wound and focuses on the sheets as he tries to tune out the constant buzz of Daphne’s thoughts. Lots of empathy and compassion and worry. Always worry.

Apparently getting away from his parents doesn’t mean getting away from the worry. 

“All done!” Daphne chirps and William looks up. She’s redressed and rebandaged his wrist and he didn’t even notice her do it, too focused on her thoughts and his own bubbling emotions. 

“Thanks,” he says with a smile. It’s completely manufactured and not in the least bit sincere but Daphne mirrors him with a wider one. 

“You are most welcome. Breakfast is in 15 minutes, I hope to see you out there.” 

And with that she is gone and William is alone again. He is getting used to being alone.

🏰

William sits by himself at a table in the far corner of the room. It is rickety and plastic and probably folds away. The surface is white and puckered like a ceiling in a house that desperately needs to be ripped down for asbestos contamination. He wishes he wore longer sleeves to protect his arms from the texture as he rests his elbows on the table. 

His tray is no more miserable than what he had in the ward of the hospital but it’s just as unappetizing. The same dry and scrambled eggs he remembers from after the crash, when he first heard the voices, cold toast cut into soldiers sans even a smear of butter, an apple juice box and a banana. At least it is really hard to mess up a banana. 

He sits and stares at the yellow fruit for a few moments before conceding and picking it up and unpeeling it. 

As he is about to take a bite someone slams their tray down across from him and sits with a heavy sigh. It’s a girl, she looks a bit older than him, maybe sixteen or seventeen. Her hair is too dark of a black for her features, it’s almost just a very dark blue. She has a bright green streak in the front that cements William’s theory that it’s all dyed. She’s wearing a shirt as dark as her hair and from what he can see through the table across the front in big white letters it says “LOVE WILL TEAR US APART”. 

The material of the shirt almost seems to swallow her, that’s when William notices that she is unusually thin. Which pairs with the single plastic bottle on her tray: “Ensure” the label says. 

She doesn’t speak to him and just opens the bottle, sitting there and sipping it occasionally as she eyes William. He tries his best to avoid her curious gaze and piercing blue eyes. 

Finishing his banana in silence, William picks up his plastic fork and starts poking tentatively at his eggs. 

“Not to sound more anorexic than I am but that just looks pathetic,” his table partner says. 

Looking up at her, he can’t help but to feel a little sheepish but he cracks a smile. It is perhaps the most genuine one since the crash, this girl doesn’t expect him to be anything. He loves his parents but they keep expecting him to remember, to be the same as he was, but he never is. “It kinda is…” 

“What’s your name?” she asks, setting her bottle down with a firm tap.

He sets down his fork, misery eggs forgotten. “William,” he says. 

She nods. “I’m Vanessa.” 

“Are–” he pauses, “are those any good?” he asks, gesturing towards her tray. 

Vanessa cringes. “Not at all but–” she picks up the bottle and rocks it side to side like a boat on the waves and takes a swig “–calories.” 

With a sympathetic grimace, William turns his attention back to his sad meal. It’s going to be a long two weeks. Conceding, he picks up the apple juice and pokes the straw into it. At least pre-packaged things don’t appear to have come out of whatever the opposite of a microwave is. He’s not sure if he wants to find out what that is.

Again, Vanessa is the one who speaks. She’s a lot more talkative than William expected anyone in here would be. “You look pretty young, how old are you?” 

“Thirteen.” 

It’s Vanessa’s turn to grimace. “Yikes, being thirteen is like hell on Earth.” 

“No argument from me,” he says. He has no frame of reference for any other age but he would be willing to bet money that thirteen is going to be the one that chalks up as the worst of his life. 

“I’m sixteen, my birthday’s in a week and I’m going to spend it in here. Yippee for me, don’t you think?” she asks, leaning forward and propping her chin on her hands. 

Well that sucks. “What about your parents?” William asks.

“It’s a Tuesday and my dad can’t get off work to drive all the way up here. It’s three hours each way. I don’t think they love me enough to do that more than once a month.” 

“I’m sure they do,” he says. Things are just so complicated when it comes to hospital stays and your parents having to go about their lives as if there isn’t a war waging behind closed doors. “How long have you been here”?

Vanessa laughs a little, it’s a mix between an exhale and a choke. “I was supposed to be here for three weeks but it’s been–” she counts on her fingers and holds up seven. 

His two weeks are starting to look a lot less manageable now. What if he doesn’t get better? Will he have to stay here forever? 

He doesn’t get to think on it for long before his table partner speaks again.

Like a cliche prison scene she asks “So, what’re you in for?” 

William lifts up his wrist to show her the bandage and the bulk of the gauze pad underneath it. It’s surprising she hasn’t picked up on it already. Well, maybe she did but didn’t say anything, although she doesn’t seem like the kind of girl to hold her tongue.

She hums thoughtfully. “Been there. Self harm or–” she mimes slitting her own throat with her thumb and makes a choking noise. 

“The latter.” 

“Ah, gotcha.” 

After poking around at his eggs and toast a bit more, even tentatively nibbling the corner of one of the toast pieces, William decides against eating them and maintains that a banana and juice will be enough to hold him over until lunch. Vanessa finishes her drink and demonstrates to the watchful nurse that it’s empty by tipping the bottle upside down and letting the single remaining drop fall out and hit the bare tray. 

She gets up and stalks off, black hair swishing like a curtain in the breeze, her tray and empty bottle the only evidence that she was there at all. William sets his fork down, finally content to give up on breakfast.

🏰

Group therapy is next on the agenda. It makes dread curl in William’s gut like something alive, a snake around a clutch of soft-shelled eggs. 

He sits on a chair and tries to make himself as small as possible. 

“Today we have a new friend,” the staff member–Richard–says as he gestures to William who looks at him like a deer caught in headlights. Richard is probably only about thirty with cropped short black hair speckled with grey hairs at his temples, rectangular glasses with thick black frames, and a clipboard in his lap. He smiles gently and wiggles his eyebrows when he makes eye contact with William. “William, why don’t you tell us a bit about yourself?” 

His tongue is drier than a desert and he can’t seem to find any words. “Hi, uh, I’m William.” Idiot. Tell them something they don’t know. “I’m thirteen and I have a dog named Greg.” 

“What kind of things do you like? Music? Movies?” Richard prods, still smiling. Everyone who works here smiles too much, it’s unnerving. 

“I- I don’t know,” he says in a small voice. He’s not even sure if anyone hears him but Richard nods encouragingly. He thinks of the posters in his room. “Alice in Wonderland, Houdini, I guess.” 

He didn’t really like those things, at least not anymore. But it’s a good enough answer and less complicated than “I forgot everything about me and I have no interests or passions”.

This elicits a laugh from Richard, a hearty and warm chuckle. “Not what I’d expect from kids these days but it’s nice to know that some of you have good taste.” 

It was a joke but William can’t help but feel like he’s done something wrong. 

Shifting his eyes down he stares and the white and grey flecked pattern of the linoleum under his black vans with the laces removed. Safety, the staff member had said when he was first transferred up to the hospital’s psych ward, they never gave him his laces back. 

He doesn’t speak and eventually the attention is shifted from him. Chatter builds up and he is forgotten again but that doesn’t mean that everyone has stopped thinking about him. 

“Those bandages. He slit his wrists.”

“He seems fine, he's probably just faking it for attention.” 

The voices are impossible to ignore but he just tries to make himself shrink and maybe they’ll slide right past him. They don’t, they just seem to get louder. 

“Too young to have any real problems.” 

“He’s wasting a bed that could be used for someone who needs it.” 

He carefully and quietly slides his hands up his body until they are covering his ears. They don’t make a difference when it comes to the voices but it makes him feel better. He screws his eyes shut and blocks out the horrible fluorescent lights and penetrating gazes. 

“He’s not sick enough to be here.” 

“Rich parents paid for inpatient so they don’t have to deal with teenage hysterics.” 

Eventually the cacophony of voices just blends together, he can’t pick out any individual phrases, just pieces of thoughts at a time. Faker, cutter, pathetic. It never stops. 

It never stops. 

It never–

There’s a tap on his knee. 

He opens his eyes to see Vanessa kneeling in front of him, looking up with wide blue eyes. They are so pale, almost grey, everything in this place is grey. She reaches up and pulls one hand away from his ear. It doesn’t instantly get noisier or more overwhelming, no one speaks but their thoughts are plenty loud. 

“What’s going on?” she asks, gentle this time and without the thin veil of sarcasm and irony everything she said at breakfast was bathed in. 

“It’s too loud.”

Her brows furrow. “What’s too loud?” 

He taps on his temple with his shaking index finger. “The voices,” he whispers.

Something in her expression shatters. Her fingers encircle his wrist, her hands are cold and it’s a nice change from his entire body that feels like it’s on fire. Maybe he’s running a fever. Maybe he’s burning from the inside out. 

She turns away from him and says something he doesn’t catch but the next thing he knows is that she’s pulling him to his feet and dragging him out of the room. She doesn’t speak even as they trail through the building and up to the rooms.

Stopping still, she turns to him. From this angle he can see that he’s a good three inches taller than her but nowhere near as intimidating. “Where’s your room?”

He actually looks around for the first time in ages and zeroes in on his door. “W. Kaplan” the little sign on the wall next to the handle says. 

“There.”

“Wonderful,” Vanessa starts moving, still dragging William along. She pushes the door open and they both sink into the darkness. “We can hide in here.” 

Neither of them move to turn the light on, content with just whatever the hallway could spare through the gap in the door frame. It’s nice, even a bit peaceful. Vanessa lets go of him and he sits on his bed. He made it before he left for breakfast. “Made” is a strong word, he just straightened up the pillow and folded the blanket at the end of the bed. 

It creaks under his weight but Vanessa joins him on it, folding her legs and resting her hands in her lap. 

“Are we going to get in trouble?” he asks after a few beats of silence. 

That makes Vanessa laugh. “No way. It’s your first day and you’re kinda mentally ill. I hate to break it to you but this is probably expected.”

“Oh…” William drops his eyes to his jeans. Pale blue and acid wash. 

“It’s okay,” Vanessa hurriedly supplies. “I think I cried constantly for my first three days here. If that makes you feel better, comparatively you’ve got it in the bag.”

He laughs a little. “Yeah, it helps.” 

That makes her smile. “So, what do you actually like? Alice in Wonderland is a bit basic but still a good choice.” 

🏰

He doesn’t leave his room even when Vanessa eventually departs with a promise that he can find her in the art room. Free time seems like such a weird allotment of time in a place with no obligations. He got to bail on group therapy so even that wasn’t mandatory. 

Not that he was used to much structure. 

After finally being discharged from the hospital post-crash he spent two weeks at home with his parents taking alternate days off to stay with him. It was all about adjusting to the amnesia and making sure that he wasn’t alone. Under the worried reproachful gaze of his father or submerged in the twinkling tears unshed by his mother. 

When he went back to school it was like waking from a nightmare only to find that it was a dream and that waking was the nightmare. He didn’t remember anyone, he couldn’t focus on his classes over the constant buzzing of voices only he could hear, hell, he even had to quit the band because he couldn’t figure out how to play the oboe. He had once been a prodigy. 

How do you even grieve someone you know but can’t remember?

It was this kind of thing that piled and piled up until he was smothered by it, choking on everyone else’s memories and expectations. His parents waited for him to remember but he only got worse, miserable and unsure of everything. 

So he spends his free time sitting in the corner of his room with his back pressed up against the walls and his knees pulled to his throat. He fiddles with a small plastic hourglass his dad gave him, tipping it back and forth and watching the sand empty and fill. 

This too, shall pass.

🏰

For lunch Vanessa is already waiting for him at the same table they had breakfast at. She smiles and waves him over. 

With a little burst of energy that adds a little bounce to his step, William crosses the room towards his new friend. He slides his tray of food across the surface of the table, it makes a soft rumble as the smooth hard plastic moves over the textured surface, and he sits down. 

Vanessa once again just has a bottle on her tray but she seems content. 

On the other hand, William has a tray full of things only slightly less miserable than what he had for breakfast. A sandwich that seems promising until he takes a bite and gets a mouthful of mostly bread and mayo. Yuck. The actual contents of the sandwich appear to him as he peels it apart: a single leaf of lettuce that is browning at the edges and approximately three pieces of shredded carrot. Perhaps the vegetarian meal plan was not the best idea but if the vegetables were this repulsive he could only imagine the disaster that would be if they served him meat. 

At least there’s orange slices. Maybe he could live off of fruit and things that came individually wrapped. Like the bag of chips in a dark green packet, salt and vinegar. He could live off of those too, fried potatoes are an essential food group. There’s also a milk carton that he doesn’t dare touch, he might be in a psychiatric facility but is anyone actually crazy enough to drink plain milk? He finds himself envying Vanessa’s strawberry Ensure. 

“I missed you during free time,” she says. “Are you feeling better?” 

He nods, the voices are much quieter now, easier to manage although they are still present. He can mostly ignore them. Being in bigger spaces helps, elevators are hell. “Yeah, thank you.”

“Does that happen a lot?” she asks. She doesn’t clarify what she’s referring to but William knows.

Pausing, he mulls over his answer, feeling the weight of the words between his teeth and tongue. “Kinda? It’s worse around people but most of the time I can hear something.”

“It’s almost like you can read minds,” she jokes, pointing a finger at him. “Wait, wait, wait- read my mind!” 

He sighs. “I don’t read minds.”

“It would be pretty cool if you did,” she hums, taking another mouthful of her drink. 

“Yeah, I guess.” 

Picking a thin shred of carrot out of his massacred sandwich, he brings it to his mouth. He chews thoughtfully before swallowing and speaking again. 

“What can we do around here for entertainment?” he asks.

“Therapy, art, writing, talking, more therapy, exercise. Not a whole lot.”

“No reading?” 

“Nope,” she replies. “The only books you can read are ones you brought with you or whatever you can get your visitors to bring.”

“Damn,” he mumbles. “I wish I brought a book with me.”

At his words, Vanessa gets a glint in her eye that can only be described as evil. “I’ve amassed quite the collection. I’ll bring you one of mine.” 

“Really? Thanks.”

Vanessa smiles at him like a snake looking at a mouse. “I’ve taken it upon myself to keep your brain from melting out of boredom while you’re here. I’m just looking out for you so you don’t pass the time by slamming your head into the wall.” 

William winces at just the thought of that. “Ouch.”

“You’re not going to lose your mind on my watch,” she says with a grin. “You’re my prodigy and I’m going to show you how to survive inpatient.” 

They are interrupted by a nurse coming to their table, holding out another paper cup of pills. This time when William takes it, there’s a single white circle nestled in the bottom. Lorazepam. 

Vanessa holds up her fingers in a substitute crucifix, fending him off as if he were a vampire. “Afternoon meds? Ooh you’re crazy crazy.”

William rolls his eyes before knocking back the pill and washing them down with the milk. Which is probably the worst thing that has ever happened to him. Amnesia doesn’t even come close. He shoots her a halfhearted glare. “Wrong religion.”

He sets the empty cup down on the table and satisfied that he took his medication, the nurse disappears from beside him. Leaving the two of them in their own world again. Vanessa happily picks up with more chatter, mostly about two patients she’s utterly convinced are banging, ignoring the improbabilty of it all in such a well-monitored unit. Nothing William can say deters her from her theories however.

🏰

William shifts uncomfortably in his seat. He’s really regretting choosing the chair with the metal frame and stiff arms, he feels like a caged animal. He should have sat in the plush leather seat in the corner. He may have sunk into the cushions never to emerge again but he is starting to think he’d prefer that. 

This office is new to him but the psychiatrist sitting across from him is not. Dr Ahmer looks down his nose and through his spectacles at William. He looks curious if not a bit sympathetic but William squirms under his gaze. This is the third time he’s met with Dr Ahmer and he’s not sure how he feels about the other man. 

On one hand he seems to genuinely care about William’s struggle but on the other hand something in the way he talks makes him think he’s not sick enough to be here. 

The previous two times he’d met with the doctor it had been in his room in the hospital’s psych ward where he’d been stranded against his will for seventy-two hours. The staff there seemed a lot more outwardly hostile towards him than they did in the unit. At least the people here acted like they actually wanted him to get better.

Their first meeting was a long one. The doctor asked a plethora of questions and asked William to describe everything he had been going through. By the end of their well-over an hour long session, William had counted every sheet of paper he had filled with notes. Three. Front and back.

He looks at the walls, donned with posters about mental health and general concerns. Rheumatic fever, schizophrenia, depression, the flu, bipolar disorder, type one and type two. He eyes up the chart that shows waves between mania and depression and at their peaks what they classify as. There’s a poster underneath it that says in big letters “ARE YOU OR SOMEONE YOU KNOW STRUGGLING WITH ADDICTION?” 

“So, William, how have you been since our last appointment?” 

“I-” he wipes the sweat off of his palms and onto his jeans in a long drawn out motion “I’m not sure.” 

“That’s okay,” Dr Ahmer says, clicking his pen on and off. It grates against William’s nerves, he grits his teeth and clenches his fists before releasing the tension with a deep breath. See? He was learning something. “You mentioned to the ED staff that you were hearing voices, has there been any recurrence since I last saw you?” 

Yesterday morning. 9:00am. William had been chopping his toast into smaller and smaller pieces all the while ignoring the pressing gaze of his psychiatrist. “Yes.” 

“Can you tell me about them?” 

He wants to say no, to keep this secret guarded behind his teeth, but he knows he needs to talk about it. “They’re almost always there but I can kinda ignore them. They got really bad at group, I had to leave.” 

“What kind of things were they saying?” 

“They were- um,” he can’t quite figure out the words. There’s a whole world between hearing the voices and repeating them. His fear chokes him and he almost can’t breathe. “They were calling me names and stuff.” 

“Names?”

“Yeah, like, uh,” he swallows thickly, “faker, cutter.”

He looks up from his lap when he hears Dr Ahmer’s pen scratching on his notepad. William wonders what he’s writing. Maybe “this kid is utterly ridiculous and completely beyond help” or “teenage boy lies to psychiatrist to get out of school” something like what the voices at group were saying. 

There’s about thirty seconds where neither of them speak before the psychiatrist puts his pen down. “I’m sorry,” he says earnestly, “that sounds awful.” 

That was not what William was expecting. He was anticipating being laughed out of the office with points and jeers because he was willingly admitting that he was crazy. He was taken aback at the doctor’s seemingly genuine empathy for him and what he was going through. 

“Have you had any thoughts about harming yourself?” 

“When?” William asks. 

Dr Ahmer offers him a half-smile. It reminds him of his dad and takes the edge off of his building anxiety. “Let’s start small, how about in the last twenty-four hours?” 

He shakes his head. “No.” 

Which is a miracle because he’s certain it’s been a constant companion in the past two months. But he guesses that without external pressure or expectations he doesn’t have the urge. It’s a nice change.

He taps against the bandage on his wrist, suddenly reminded of it’s presence with an itch he can’t reach. The doctor watches him carefully. 

“I’m concerned about your voices,” Dr Ahmer says after careful deliberation. “Would you be open to trying medication to see if that helps?” 

With a tentative nod, William speaks, “sure.” 

“I’m not going to touch your current medication, just add something on top of it. What we’re going to try is called an atypical antipsychotic, they work to reduce or in some cases even eliminate symptoms of psychosis, which is what I think your voices might be caused by.

“There are three main ones I prescribe, you have full choice over which one you start with. They’re Aripiprazole, Risperidone and Olanzapine. Aripiprazole is the mildest and the one I most often start people off with, you take it in the morning and it might make it hard to get to sleep at night. It has the least chance of causing weight gain as a side effect.

“The next option is Risperidone. I try to avoid prescribing it long term in adolescents because it may have some unwanted side effects if taken for a while but it is incredibly effective. Aside from that the negative side effects most typically are dizziness, drowsiness and heightened anxiety.” 

The idea of more anxiety makes William’s stomach flip. He immediately shakes his head. 

Dr Ahmer notes this and scribbles something down. “Finally there is Olanzapine. It is the strongest of the three but also the most likely to cause weight gain and over-sedation. You would take it at night, it might make you sleep more or have a harder time waking up in the morning.” 

He mulls it over for a second, pulling the thoughts back and forth like a tide upon the sand. The doctor waits patiently as he thinks. 

“I think I’d like to try Olanzapine,” he finally says after careful deliberation. 

“Okay, we can do that. I’ll start you out on a small dose of five milligrams and titrate it up over the course of your stay here. I will arrange with the nursing staff to have you start it tonight with your PM medications.” 

William smiles, it’s not a joyous one but more of an expression of relief and gratitude. Maybe this would help. “Thank you.”

🏰

Running his fingers back and forth across the surface of his jeans, he wishes there was a loose thread he could pull until the denim unravelled. But the rules for his clothes were that there were no rips or tears. 

He is back in the waiting room, in the chair right outside the door of Dr Ahmer’s office. He is waiting to meet his therapist, a woman he doesn’t yet know the name of and is utterly terrified to meet. So he is ritualistically running his hands up and down his thighs, clenching and unclenching his hands, counting each breath on his fingers. 

Everyone else in the waiting room had filtered into their respective appointments. William glances at the clock on the wall, three minutes past the hour. He was beginning to feel like someone was playing a prank on him, making him sit here for the entire allotted time of therapy just to watch him squirm. 

Finally a door opens and shuts softly. He glances up and there is a woman standing there with a folder in her arms. 

She’s probably as tall as William with chin-length blonde hair and shiny gold rims on her glasses. She’s visibly pregnant, it can’t be many weeks until she goes on maternity leave but William figures he won’t be around that long anyway. She wears a soft lilac chunky knit cardigan over a black and white spotted dress that reaches her ankles. 

“You must be William,” she says. Her voice is soft, kind, and she walks over to him. “I’m Olivia.” She extends a hand and he tentatively shakes it. 

He doesn’t speak but that doesn’t seem to bother her. 

“I’m sorry for being late, the trek down here from my office is sometimes much longer than I anticipate,” she apologises with a laugh, ruffling her short hair with the hand that doesn’t hold her binder. “Why don’t you follow me and we can get started?” 

With a nod, William gets to his feet and quietly trails after her. Down a corridor filled with many doors with paper timetables hanging on them. They walk until they get to one that says “2:00-3:00pm – Olivia”. 

It wasn’t the office she had mentioned, just a small room with a window and a few chairs. 

Apprehensive, William wasn’t sure which seat to choose, as if there was an obviously incorrect choice that came with picking the one by the window or the one in the corner. 

“Sit wherever you want,” Olivia said with a sweeping gesture. 

He bites his lip and sets his sight on the chair next to the window. It has cushions in a deep shade of cobalt and through the window he can see the parking lot. Cars of all colours lined up like ducks in a row. 

Olivia sits across from him and crosses her legs at her ankles. Her shoes are navy blue leather, probably faux, with thick white stitching and laces tied into a neat bow. William trains his eyes on them to avoid making eye contact. She seems plenty nice but the vulnerability of this whole ordeal makes his chest squeeze painfully. 

“How are you doing?” she asks. William listens to the soft rustling of her opening the binder and pulling a pen out of the pocket on the inside, preparing to start her notes, but he doesn’t lift his gaze from her shoes. 

“I’m okay,” he says, still not lifting his head. He’s probably being rude but also she’s paid to deal with him no matter how weird and cagey he is. 

“How are you adjusting to the ward?” 

William looks up at that question, just for a flash but he meets her eyes. Blue. He looks back down. “I guess it’s alright.” 

Oliva taps the end of her pen on the still blank sheet of paper. “How was your appointment with the psychiatrist?” 

“It was good,” William mumbles, returning to running his palms along his thighs. “I’m starting a new medication tonight. To help with,” he gestures vaguely at his head, “the voices.” 

As he looks up he catches the tail end of Olivia nodding thoughtfully before she moves to write a short sentence down. “Which medication is that?” 

“Olanzapine.” 

More writing. “It may take a few weeks for anything to change but I hope it helps.” 

“Thanks.” 

Neither of them speak for a few moments. Olivia clicks her pen on and off a few times, it grates on William’s nerves but he doesn’t speak. “I was reading your file earlier and it mentioned that you attempted to take your own life. Do you want to tell me more about that?” 

William tucks his bandaged arm behind his back, as if she wouldn’t have noticed it already. “I don’t really want to talk about it,” he says.

Unbidden, flash memories. The sting. The blood, running down his skin in rivulets soaking into the hem of his shirt and dropping onto his sheets. The look on his parents’ faces when he walked down the hall and knocked on their bedroom door in the middle of the night, a trail of scarlet on the carpet behind him.

“That’s okay, we can talk about something else. How about you tell me some more about how you were feeling leading up to your admission?” 

William swallows the lump in his throat. “I just, I was kinda miserable, I think.” 

“In what way?” she asks.

“I couldn’t get out of bed,” he says with a shaky exhale. “Everything was just too much. The voices made it impossible to even breathe.” 

“And how were your parents through all of this?” 

His ears burn. Shame. “They tried to be understanding but I could tell they were running out of patience. I know they love me but I didn’t always make it easy.”

“You’re their child, it is not your job to make things easy for them.”

That eases some of the ache in his chest. He doesn’t entirely believe her but it’s nice to talk to someone who is in his corner and no one else’s. He’d tried talking to the guidance counsellor at his school but she was useless. When he talked about the pressing urge to just not be here anymore, she had met his turmoil with dismissal and blame. She told him that her granddaughter had been born blind and without legs and she still smiled regardless so she couldn’t understand how a kid with all his facilities intact and a loving home life could ever want to die. 

Her words had just mad everything worse, made him feel guilty for emotions he had no control over. 

But Olivia didn’t seem to be like that, he looked up and she was watching him but not with judgmental or hostile eyes, just an earnest expression and a soft crease between her eyebrows. 

“Would you consider journaling?” she asks after a few moments of empty air. 

“Journaling?” he parrots, confused. 

“Yes, it might help you to write down your thoughts and feelings as you’re having them. We could always go over the ones you’re willing to share in our next session.” 

That didn’t sound entirely awful. “Okay,” he says with a nod. 

🏰

The next session of free time is one that William actually participates in instead of hiding away in his room. He sits out in the garden with Vanessa, hands empty while she intently scrawls away in a sketchbook. It’s a small book, with a black cover littered in stickers, overlapping so much that he can’t make out a single design. 

He just tilts his head back, closing his eyes and letting the breeze roll over his face. 

The fresh air helps, it’s a much needed break from the stiff air of the clinic. Out here he can hear a plane flying overhead and a sparrow in the tree he’s sitting under. 

Opening his eyes again he looks over at the open sketchbook and the piece his friend is meticulously drawing, running her pens over and over again to create thicker, bolder lines. This page is home to a drawing of a woman, with big spiked hair and distinct makeup. 

“Who is she?” he asks. 

Vanessa’s pen stills and she looks up at him. “Siouxsie Sioux.” 

William pauses, confused. “That’s a boring name.” 

“Not when you spell it properly.” 

That is no less cryptic. “Is she an actress, or…?” 

Vanessa gasps with mock offense, a hand splayed over her chest. “She’s a musician, singer of Siouxsie and the Banshees.”

“Right,” William could probably have pieced that together with the band name alone. 

“If we were allowed phones in here I would play you Forever or This Unrest or-” she gasps, sitting up straighter and burning holes in William with the intensity in her eyes. “Scarecrow! It would change your life. You have to promise me when you get out of here that you’ll look up ‘Siouxsie and the Banshees’. S-I-O-U-X-S-I-E–” 

“Okay,” he interrupts her spelling bee. 

“Promise!” she says, pointing a finger at him.

“I promise,” he amends, holding up his hands in surrender.

Vanessa places a hand on William’s shoulder, shaking him slightly. “I am going to make you goth if it kills me.” 

That makes William laugh, eyeliner, chains and black clothes, that would never be him. “I believe you.” 

🏰

By the time the nurse calls the two of them inside for an afternoon snack, William is much more relaxed than he thinks he can ever remember being. Not that two months is a whole lot to compare it to. 

He helps Vanessa pack up her art stuff and turn her pens in to the nurse’s station before following her back to the cafeteria where everyone else seems to have beat them to lining up. The two of them file into the end of the line and bicker back and forth while they wait. 

It takes a few short minutes for them to reach the front but by then all the pre-packaged granola bars and cookies that the others had walked away with, there’s a few sad and neglected packets of pretzels left. Jokes on everyone else, pretzels are bomb.

William once again follows Vanessa to sit at the table that has become theirs over the course of half a day, as soon as he sits she is already rambling about something else that she deems crucial information for him to learn while he’s here. 

🏰

He crosses out yet another line of his journal. The one he only just got from the nurse’s station but  he already has a page and a half of crossed over and scribbled out words because everything he writes just sounds like utter nonsense. “I wish I could remember.” Boring. “Maybe it would be easier if I just died that day.” Cringe. “I don’t know what anyone could possibly do that would help.” Whiny. 

Thinking closer to the crash one of his mother’s thoughts sticks out to him “I just want my son back,” she had thought. If she knew he could hear her she never would have thought it but she did and it lived rent free in the back of his mind, always there to remind him that he wasn’t quite right. 

He writes the thought down on the paper before striking it through like all the others, he doesn’t want to think about it. 

His frustrations at every thought he has are interrupted by a soft two knocks on his door. They’re too quiet to be the nurse, also from what he has learnt they knock merely out of courtesy before opening the door and less to gain permission for entry.

So he folds the journal shut and sets the pen down. He wishes he had a desk in his room but it was pretty bare. A bed, a chair and a set of cabinets with the doors removed with spare blankets and everything he could fit in a duffel and bring with him. 

He crosses the small room and opens the door. To reveal Vanessa standing in the corridor brandishing a novel like a weapon. 

“What’s this?” 

���As promised,” she says as she hands it to him. “A novel.”

Taking it, William examines the cover. Frankenstein. Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley. He recognises the title at least, not that it is a book he would find lying around at home. “Horror?” he asks. 

Vanessa nods, “and sci-fi. She pioneered both genres at the age of 19 she really was incredible.” 

“Cool,” he says, running a finger along the spine. The cover is worn and split on the corners, well-loved and much re-read. 

“She also lost her virginity on her mother’s grave,” Vanessa adds, excited.

William is stunned for a moment. “That’s certainly–”

“Iconic? I know,” she interrupts, grinning widely. Only for her smile to quickly fall and her eyes to blow up into saucers. “Wait–You’re like twelve. Do not tell anyone, especially your parents, that people are talking to you about sex in the psych ward.” 

That makes William laugh. He hasn’t felt this light in a long time. “I won’t, I promise.”

They eventually make their way to what William is now affectionately calling his “emotional support corner” and he comfortably slots himself into it. Vanessa sits on the floor a few feet away, her back also pressed to the wall. 

Silence is like their third friend, one that doesn’t speak or think or hold beliefs about them based on their pasts or lack thereof. They enjoy each other’s quiet company, Vanessa weaving small braids into the front of her hair only to immediately unpull them, rinse and repeat. 

William retrieves his journal from the edge of his bed and continues trying to write in it. One sentence. Crossed out. Another. He scribbles over it so hard that the tip of the ballpoint pen rips through the paper and ink is scratched onto the next page. With an angry huff he throws the journal and pen onto the linoleum. 

“I think I’m over journaling,” he admits, his teeth grit. It was a dumb idea in the first place so he blames Olivia. Even though she seemed like she genuinely wanted to help. 

“Haven’t you just started?” Vanessa asks. 

Another huff, this time more frustrated than angry. Ah, the intricacies of teenage emotion. “It’s dumb and I hate it.” 

“Big words,” she says, leaning over to pick up his discarded pen. “Can I have this?” 

He eyes her curiously for a second before sighing, rubbing a hand over his face. “Sure.” 

She pockets the pen in one slick motion and as soon as it’s out of eyesight William forgets all about it.

Picking up the book she’d given him, William flicked through the pages, feeling the air on his face and breathing in the subtle smell of an book. Paper and imagination, something about it was relaxing. 

“What do you like so much about this?” he asks, completely oblivious to any of the plot of the story. 

Vanessa shrugs. “Even though Frankenstein was a horrible father to the creature, I like to think that life means something, especially when it is created so meticulously and with such care. Even if it is not nurtured it can be beautiful.” 

“Hm,” he hums thoughtfully. “I like that. I’ll start it later.” 

That makes Vanessa smile. “Good, you’ll love it.” 

Conversation dissolves into meaningless back and forth questions and answers, queries and humour. Time ticks by but it doesn’t drag, maybe he can actually make it through this admission, maybe he will find something that makes his miserable life a little more bearable. 

His own end of the conversation tapers off as he loses himself in thought but Vanessa happily chatters on. So far he hasn’t seen her so much as look at any of the other patients so he wonders if she had been alone for the past seven weeks, until a miserable preteen sat at the breakfast table with his miserable plate of miserable scrambled eggs. 

When there’s a reprieve in Vanessa’s rambling, William takes his opportunity to ask the question that was burning on his tongue. 

“Have you ever died?” William asks. It’s sudden and he’s not entirely sure why the words left his mouth. Normal people don’t ask questions like that but he thinks it’s been thoroughly proven in the past two months that he is nothing close to normal. 

Vanessa looks a little surprised at the outburst but she runs a hand through her dark hair and speaks, “once.” 

“What happened?”

“My parents were out at my dad’s work dinner and I took everything in the medicine cabinet.” William looks across at her but her eyes are firmly trained on the floor. “Sleeping pills, blood pressure meds, you name it, I took it. My parents got home and I was dead on the bathroom floor. My mum did CPR until the paramedics came. I was in a coma for two days and in the psych ward for three weeks.” William can’t help but imagine if it had been him, in the upstairs bathroom of his house, lying on the soft pink bath mat, traumatising his mother. He’s not sure if he could do that to her, but also not entirely sure he wouldn’t. “How about you?” 

William’s breath stutters in his throat but he manages to swallow it. “Car crash. About two months ago. I stopped breathing and when I started again I had no idea who I was or what was going on. I still don’t.” 

“Geez, you make my life sound like a sitcom,” Vanessa admits with a laugh. She unfolds her legs, stretching one out across the floor. “So what do you remember?” 

William shrugs. “Absolutely nothing. I died the day of my bar mitzvah and I can’t remember a single word in Hebrew. I think that upset my parents, they told me I spent so long memorising everything but I just,” he snaps his fingers “forgot.” 

“That sucks, I’m sorry.”

“Yeah,” William says. He laments a bit, still unable to grasp how he pulled the short straw. According to his parents he did everything right, worked hard at school, was nice to people, helped out wherever he could. And now he was in a psych unit miles away from his parents with a bandaged wrist and a cocktail of medication to keep him from losing the plot.

Hopefully something here helps, even if he doesn’t remember he would like to cope.

🏰

Dinner is another sad meal, he’s beginning to think they don’t serve meals here unless they had the potential of worsening a patient’s condition. He had been holding out hope that dinner would be better than breakfast and lunch but he stares down at a sad little mix of unseasoned steamed vegetables and a frankly pathetic portion of cold rise. They claim it’s a stir fry but he has many doubts.

At least there is dessert. He does get prepacked vanilla ice cream as well as a custard, the only think they’re missing is sprinkles. His drink this time is a boring bottle of water–boring. 

For the first time that day Vanessa doesn’t just have a bottle on her tray, her meal a mirror image of William’s own. 

“Ugh, if they’re going to serve me real food they should at least try to make it edible,” Vanessa groans. 

“No argument from me,” he says, skipping past the ‘stir fry’ and peeling his container of ice cream open. 

Vanessa watches him carefully as he takes a scoop. “You better be careful about your eating habits or they’ll start yelling at you for leaving a grain of rice on your plate.” 

He pauses, confused. “What do you mean?” 

“Picky eating is basically disordered to them. So watch your back or eat your food.” 

With a fresh wave of paranoia, William swaps his spoon for a fork and a limp little green bean. He bites into it and although his expectations were astronomically low, he is still disappointed. 

🏰

After painstakingly finishing his dinner, William follows Vanessa and a bunch of the other patients into a small room with two sofas and a TV. Vanessa slips away from his side to happily flop on the brown leather couch with peeling corners. 

She pats the space next to her. 

“What’s this for?” William asks as he sits, his brows pinched together in confusion. 

She grins. “Movie night is every night here. Unless you’re boring and want to do another session of group or free time. The movies aren’t the greatest but they’re better than more therapy.” 

William can’t see a fault in her logic. 

Everyone sits and no one moves, nothing changes. 

“Now we wait for the staff to bring the box of DVDs, it could take thirty seconds or fifteen minutes, the mystery of it adds to the fun.” 

Other patients chatter among themselves but Vanessa ignores all of them to talk to the thirteen year old amnesiac she appears to have adopted. “So while we wait, how about a round of twenty questions?” 

That seems dangerous but William agrees anyway. 

“Me first,” Vanessa says quickly although no one was racing to beat her. “What would be the first thing you would do when you get out of here?” 

That one stumps William and he has to think for a bit. All he knows outside of the hospital is a frankly miserable life where he doesn’t remember or enjoy anything. “I dunno,” he says, “maybe just eat some good food? 

“Boo,” Vanessa replies, sticking out her tongue. “That’s boring.” 

William shrugs. “It’s all I could think of.” 

“Fair enough,” she says with a sigh. “Your turn, ask me any question your burning heart desires.” 

“Uh, what would you do if you could get out of here?”

She lightly smacks William on the shoulder. “Hey! No repeat questions.” 

“Indulge me?” he tries. 

With a huff, she leans back and crosses her arms, pale eyes judging. “I would go to a record store. Spend an astronomical amount of money on the Best of Depeche Mode vinyl. I deserve it.” 

“That doesn’t sound any more exciting than what I said,” William argues, suddenly defensive of his dreams about a banh mi. 

“It’s culture,” she presses, drawing out the last syllable for emphasis. “I got Violator with my first ever paycheck it’s important for my soul.” 

William is not quite sure what any of the things she’s referencing are but he nods sagely anyway. The door to the TV room creaks open and a staff member walks in with his arms full of a quite frankly gigantic cardboard box that is overflowing with DVDs. 

“My turn!” Vanessa butts in, drawing his attention away from the box and back to her. “What’s your favourite movie?”

“I- I’m not sure.” 

“Well, we’re going to figure it out. We have two weeks.” She stands up from the couch and walks towards where the box was sat down. “It’s William’s turn to pick the movie!” she declares before kneeling down next to the stash of movies and beckoning Wiliam over. 

There’s a chorus of disgruntled mumbling but no one seems particularly offended by her decision so William tentatively gets up and joins her on the floor. Vanessa digs through the cases, pulling out random options that she thinks he might like. 

“The Lion King?” she asks, holding up the DVD. 

“Absolutely not,” someone behind him says loudly and Vanessa just sighs and puts it back in the box. 

“Some people haven’t gotten over what happened to Mufasa,” she says, disappointed. 

“What happens to Mufasa?” William asks. 

With a tragic sigh, Vanessa just looks at him. “Oh you poor amnesiac baby, you’re going to have a hard time when you watch that movie. Not tonight though,” she adds quickly. “I know you said Alice in Wonderland when we were in group but the caterpillar gives me the heebie jeebies.” 

After many potential candidates are held up and added to a small pile in front of William he is forced to choose between four discs. Remembering the poster on his wall, and figurines past him had amassed he picks The Wizard of Oz. It seems like a safe choice and Vanessa nods approvingly as she picks it up and puts the disc in the DVD player. 

“The production may have been a shitshow but it’s a good movie.”

🏰

After taking his bedtime meds, his first dose of something to quiet the voices in his head, William climbs into his bed eagerly gripping the book Vanessa had lent him. He was in dire need of entertainment, the movie he had picked out was good but it didn’t draw him in quite like he expected it to given its strong presence in the room decorated by a pre-amnesia him. Sometimes when he thought about the person he was meant to be he felt like a stranger in his place. 

Maybe that’s why his parents always seemed so sad when they looked at him. 

Hopefully they would be less sad by the time they visit him. Next Wednesday, after today only a week to wait. 

He’d successfully survived his first day in the psych ward. 

One down, thirteen to go. 

He thumbs through the first few pages of the book until he hits the first title. 

Letter 1. 

To Mrs. Saville, England

St. Petersburg, Dec 11th, 17—

The story sucks him in, it’s different to everything else he’s come into contact with since losing his memory and maybe since it’s something his parents haven’t been able to regulate or limit, there is something special about it. His parents meant well but they could be a tad overbearing at times. 

He only gets to about halfway through the second letter before he is hit with this unimaginable wave of exhaustion, one that makes every movement laborious and fills his limbs with cement. Even blinking is challenging, slow and like pushing a boulder up a staircase. 

It’s more exhaustion than he expected from the medication but it’s the only thing he could think would be causing this. It becomes more of a mission to hold his head up with every passing second and he eventually concedes and decides to go to sleep. 

He’s not sure if he manages to put the book away or if he falls asleep on the open pages, further wrinkling the spine of Vanessa’s book.

[skylarmoon71]

Lex Luthor (Smallville) - Short Story : Chapter 6

It’s usually custom to use the door, but some people don’t seem to get that concept.

“Hi there.”

You screeched at the voice, and Clark raced into your room. It probably didn’t help that you’d just gotten out of the shower and you were still standing in a towel. He was in hero mode the minute he stepped inside your room, but the second he caught sight of you dripping wet, it was as if all his brain power had dissolved.

“CLARK!!”

“Sorry!!” He replied. He spun around in the other direction.

“What are you doing!! Catch that freaking hot stranger in my bed!!” You yelled.

Clark’s gaze moved to the brunette and she just smiled.

“Zatanna, nice to meet you.”

She was dressed like a circus performer, holding out a hand.

“GET OUT OF MY HOUSE!!!”

It’s clear that the morning was off to an interesting start.

After getting dressed, you met Clark and his friend downstairs. Clearly annoyed.

“We’ve talked about this, you can’t just show up. Especially at my friend’s house.”

“She’s the one that called me here.” Zatanna reasoned.

“I don’t even know you lady.” You were glaring and she smiled.

“I was summoned by the call of your magic. I thought I was the only gifted being here, but it seems I was wrong.” She was still wearing that knowing smile, and now you took a seat on your couch, clearly trying to follow what she was saying.

“What do you mean by magic? I don’t have magic.”

She was looking at you as if it were a joke, then she started laughing.

“You’re kidding right. Do you really not know that you’re magical? You have empathic abilities, where did you think they came from?”

“The meteor shower.”

“Oh, please. That meteor shower may have been supernatural, but there is so much more out there than our alien friend here.” She pointed to Clark.

“You’re a crossbreed, just like me. I got my powers from my father, but your abilities must have been further down your familial tree. Mages don’t typically manifest one so prominently. It must mean that your other abilities are still growing. “

You weren’t sure if you liked the sound of that. Because you were still struggling to get a grasp on this one.

Zatanna could see your worried look, and she moved closer, patting your arm teasingly.

“Relax, you have me now. I’m a little busy, but I can pop by now and then to show you the ropes. I’m relieved you didn’t turn out to be a lust craze deity like my last trip.”

“A what?”

She brushed it off.

“Don’t worry about it, I’ll be seeing you both soon.”

You wanted more questions, but you blinked and she was gone.

That was irritating. Your eyes moved to Clark who tensed up from his spot next to your couch.

“Why are all your superhuman friends so weird?”

He just chuckled nervously.

“The next time one of them breaks in I’m shooting you.”

“Why me!!”

“BECAUSE I CAN!!”

Maybe you were still a bit bitter that she’d scared the crap out of you while you were almost naked. You had a right to hold a grudge.

~

Lex wasn’t a stranger to being alone. He’d gotten used to it. The isolation. Although lately he’d become much more used to company. Just not the kind he expected. That’s why he told himself he should have called. You shouldn’t just show up at someone’ s house.

That’s what he thought, but now that he was at your door, he couldn’t turn away now. Sucking in a breath, he knocked twice. He could vaguely hear shuffling, or was that yelling?

The door opened, and the last person he wanted to see was Clark.

The space became quiet.

Too quiet.

“Who’s at the door Clark!!”

You sound so casual and Lex couldn’t help but feel jealous at how familiar you sound as you call Clark.

“It’s Lex.”

His tone was almost emotionless. Lex knew better than to expect anything less.

“Good to see you too, Clark.”

The door opened just a bit wider, and you peeked your head out from under Clark’s arm. For a brief moment his mind forgot about his giant of an ex-best friend. Because of the clear size difference, well, he couldn’t deny that you looked unnaturally cute. Especially with wet hair.

Wait..wet hair?

“Geez, do none of you have a good concept of manners. First Clark almost catches me with the towel down and now you’re randomly showing up.”

Your words caused a shift. Lex wasn’t sure why, but he felt a sense of relief at your explanation. The thought of you with Clark, it..it didn’t sit well with him.

You pushed Clark out the door and he stumbled, looking at you incredulously. Lex moved to the side, obviously not expecting it either.

“Go and find your weird friend and tell her not to pop up in my bedroom again.” You said taking Lex’s hand as you guided him inside.

“Come on Lex, at least you don’t have your millionaire friends sneaking into my bedroom.”

“It’s not my fault she’s crazy!!” Clark called.

“Goodbye Clark!”

You closed the door in his face, and Lex just stood there, trying to process what happened.

“Did you really just kick him out?”

“Wanna join him?”

“No ma’am.”

“Good, make yourself at home, I was just about to have lunch.”

“It’s two in the afternoon.”

“Oh,”

You supposed talking to that witch messed with your plans.

“A snack it is.”

You turned to the kitchen and Lex followed behind hesitantly. He’d never been inside your house. This wasn't exactly how he pictured his first visit.

“(Y/N)..”

Clark’s whiny voice on the other side of your door pulled you back.

“What, why are you still here!!”

“Let me in!”

You huff.

You wanted to hang out with Lex, but you didn’t want two of them glaring at each other the entire afternoon.

“Fine, I’ll let you in, but you play nice with Lex.”

There’s a prolonged silence on the other side.

“Fine.”

You smile, and Lex is anything if not impressed.

“It’s open.” You call.

He turned the knob, stepping in, clearly mad that you hadn’t even bothered to lock it just to torment him.

It was definitely going to be an interesting evening. 

[ragingbookdragon]

I'm Only A Crack In This Castle Of Glass (Hardly Anything Else I Need To Be) PT. 4

Batfamily x Batsis Story!

Word Count: 2K Warnings: Explicit Language, ALL THE ANGST Tags!: @itsnottilly @cloudyskylines @starflyer-104 @justine-en @iwillstaywiththemforever @weirdgirlfromtx @edlothia-baby @soul-end @notsostraightweeb @candlestudy

Author's Note: Some of y'all didn't tag so see if that's something on your end. Enjoy the angst and cliffhanger! -Thorne

Wally didn’t come into the coffee shop for almost two whole months after their fight—not that she blamed him—she was still vaguely upset with his harsh words. But she had to admit that she’d gotten used to his warm presence every morning, and not seeing him messed her up more than she thought it would. More often than not, she found herself absentmindedly staring at the door, waiting for him to walk in with that stupid grin on his face and proceed to boast and recall whatever exciting exploits he and his friends had accomplished earlier. It hurt not to see or hear him, and she realized that Wally had become the greatest friend she’d ever had.

Barry still came in though, and if he knew who she really was, he didn’t say anything because he still acted like he always did. So, even if Wally were still angry with her, at least he’d kept his word and not said anything to anyone about her identity. Which if she were honest, tasted bitter when she thought about the price she paid for his silence—his friendship.

It was getting colder again, which meant a lot more people were coming and going from the shop, so at least she could take her mind off her feelings for at least a few hours. Until she got home, and all she was left with were them and a whole lot of silence to think about them with. Sometimes she thought about calling Wally, at least to hear his voice. Hell, even if their last words to one another were frigid, she missed the interaction. She’d give anything to hear him, even taking another round of cold snipes and trades.

She heaved a sigh and wiped down the last few tables of the evening rush, smiling politely at the people who were still sitting at tables or so across. Today had been hectic and there’d been no let up of customers until the last hour of the shift. She’d never thought they’d run out of coffee, but it came close to that a couple hours ago.

The bell above the door chimed and with her back turned to the entrance, she didn’t see who came in, but with another barista at the counter ready to take the final orders of the evening, she didn’t particularly care. All she wanted to do was go home and crawl into bed. Sleep until hell froze over. That, or until her feet stopped hurting—whichever came first. She let out a quiet laugh that made her chest ache—Wally would’ve found that absolutely hilarious and probably shot back about how if anyone had the right to complain about their feet hurting, it would be him. God, she really missed Wally.

“Melisandre,” someone called quietly, and she glanced over her shoulder, eyes widening when she saw the familiar red head behind her.

Speak and the Devil will appear.

“Wally,” she breathed, voice thick with shock, and before she could stop herself, she was throwing her arms around his waist, squeezing him tightly.

He returned her hug in fold. “I guess I wasn’t the only one who missed this,” he quipped.

She huffed a laugh and pulled away. “Believe it or not, it doesn’t feel right when you don’t come around.” Her eyes narrowed almost sadly. “I’ve missed seeing you, Wally.”

“Same here,” he replied, then glanced at the clock above the espresso machines. “Are you almost off? I want to take you somewhere.”

Nodding, she took a look at her watch. “I get off in about ten minutes. Can you wait that long, or will you perish from boredom?”

“I think I can survive ten minutes, Melisandre,” he retorted and collapsed into one of the booths. “Hurry though, I don’t want to be late.”

She rolled her eyes and deadpanned, “Wally, I can’t speed time up. That’s not how that works.”

“Works for me.” He proudly stated.

“I wonder why?” she retorted sarcastically, then gave him a smile before wandering off to clean the last tables.

***

Despite the fact that Wally could run anywhere he wanted in less than a second, he still owned a vehicle and that was downright baffling in her opinion.

“Dick got it for me.” He suddenly said, shifting the car into drive and she blinked internally wincing at the mention of her brother.

“I didn’t say anything.”

“I know you didn’t, (Y/N). But you were thinking it.”

“Uh huh,” she doubted and crossed her arms over her chest. “What am I thinking about right now?”

“Knowing you? Probably food, I know you like to ea—” he dissolved into laughter when she reached over and shoved at his side.

“No, I don’t you ass.”

“Really? Because I distinctly remember the time I took a fry off your basket and you looked at me like I’d killed your favorite dog.” (Y/N) glared at him and he pointed at her. “Yeah, that’s the look right there.”

“I don’t like sharing my food,” she said. “You should’ve known better.” Her eyes drifted to the windshield. “So, where are we going?”

“S.T.A.R. labs.”

(Y/N) cocked a brow and stared at him. “Really? S.T.A.R. labs? What’s there?”

Wally shrugged. “Wanted to show you a bit of what it’s like to be me.”

Her eyes narrowed. “You mean you came to see me after all this time and the first thing we’re doing is going to a lab so you can show my what you do?”

His gaze momentarily darted to hers. “Is that a problem?”

“I dunno, I just figured we’d go eat a diner somewhere and apologize to each other.”

“Are you sorry?”

“Beg pardon?”

“Are you sorry? For all of the last three years?”

“Not particularly,” she griped, and he shrugged again.

“Then I’m not sorry for what we said to each other that night.” he let out a sigh. “But I’m willing to let it go, because I’d rather us just have a disagreement than lose what our friendship over it.” he looked at her. “What do you say?”

(Y/N) stared at him for a long moment, then she sighed and nodded. “…Yeah, I agree.”

Wally smiled. “Good.” He turned the wheel and pulled into the parking lot of the lab. “But there is food there for us, so you’ll be satiated anyways.”

“Hardy har har. Shut up, Wallace West,” she shot back, climbing out of the car. Her eyes traveled up the tall building. “Wow, this place is huge, isn’t it?”

She felt him stand next to her. “Yeah. Did you know they had to replace the glass windows a whole bunch of times because Barry and I kept shattering them when we’d run up ‘em?”

(Y/N) blinked, unsurprisingly stating, “No, I did not. But I can see that happening.”

He started towards the doors, leaving her to follow and soon they were stepping into an elevator. She watched him hit the rooftop button and she looked at him.

“If you’re showing me what you do, why are we going to the roof? Shouldn’t we be going to some laboratory inside?”

Wally chuckled. “Patience, young padawan.” He ignored her rolling eyes. “Food first.”

“Oh, dinner in the moonlight? Well, aren’t you just the romantic.” (Y/N) cocked her elbow on his shoulder and grinned. “Don’t tell me you fell in love with me all that time we spent away from each other?”

This time, he was rolling his eyes. “Hardly, (Y/N). I just figured you’d want a nice evening where you weren’t staring at your bland kitchen walls.”

She scoffed and pulled away from him. “Look, I’d paint and hang shit up but the landlord wouldn’t be happy.”

“Since when do you care about making people happy? You’re typically a ‘I’m going to make someone unhappy’ type of person.” Her eyes shifted to his and he waved a hand. “Not what you’re thinking about—I was talking about the coffee shop.”

For a moment, she didn’t say anything, then she hummed. “There’s nothing more fun than telling someone I’m going to get the manager and then do my magic little spin and cheerfully greet, ‘Hi, I’m the manager’.” She grinned. “Does wonders to see Karen’s little head explode.”

Wally chuckled and the elevator dinged. The doors split open, and they walked out onto the rooftop. Surprisingly, the roof was enclosed and lighted, giving her perfect vision and when her eyes fell on them, her heart seemed to stop in her chest, and her feet to a halt.

They stood from the table they’d been sitting at and with her heart hammering against her ribcage, she immediately spun on her heel, intent to flee back into the elevator, only to come chest to chest with Wally, who wrapped his arms around her waist—effectively keeping her in place.

Her feet were still moving on their own accord and she shoved against his chest, trying to get back to the lift. “Wally, move.”

“No, (Y/N),” he murmured, and she could feel her breath starting to come in and out in panicked spurts.

“Wally, please, I’m begging you, move.” She stared up at him and plead, “Please don’t make me do this. I’ll do anything, just please let me leave.”

His evergreen eyes were narrowed in pity, but there was a firmness that rested within that pity and he shook his head. “I can’t let you leave, (Y/N).”

“Wally, please,” she begged, arms starting to go limp against his chest, the tears flooding her vision. “Don’t make me do this.”

“You’ve gotta stop running, (Y/N).”

She couldn’t help the sob that escaped her, and she rested her cheek against his chest. “I hate you…so much.”

“I know,” he murmured.

“You’re a liar and I hate you.”

Wally sighed. “I know you do.”

(Y/N)’s face contorted in anger despite her pain. “I should’ve left the night we fought. I knew you wouldn’t be capable of keeping it from him. From any of them,” she sneered and suddenly pulled away from his grip, eyes flashing with rage.

“This wasn’t your right to tell!” she shouted at him and shoved him in the chest. Wally didn’t budge an inch and she shoved him again. “God, I was so naïve to assume you’d keep your fucking mouth shut! That’s one thing you’re not capable of doing!”

She growled and turned from him, running her hands over her face. “Three years of relative peace shot straight down the fucking drain,” she shot him a teary glower. “All because of you and your big bleeding heart for your best friend.”

Wally frowned. “I’m doing what I think is best, (Y/N).”

“Forcing me to meet them isn’t what’s best, Wally! I didn’t want to be found! I didn’t want to be associated with them again!” she snarled and in an instance her anger cooled, her shoulders drooping as she lamented, “…This wasn’t a decision you should’ve made. This was never your right to decide. For me…or for them.”

“Perhaps it wasn’t,” he agreed. “But if you weren’t going to draw the line in the sand, I was.”

(Y/N) met his gaze and held it for a long moment, then she turned her attention to the four men who were standing in front of the table, their expressions a mixture of regret, anger, and relief.

She let out a long sigh and reached up to rub at her temples. “Let me guess, I’m not allowed to leave until we’ve had our picture-perfect reunion scene?”

Wally nodded. “The elevator is sadly,” his hand shot backwards and with a sharp crackle of lightning, the light went out. “out of order.”

(Y/N) shook her head in disappointment at him then declared, “The next time I run, I’m settling in a city that has no superheroes.”

“Good plan,” he quipped. “But I don’t think there’ll be anymore running.”

She got up in his face and hissed, “Then you underestimate my feelings regarding the brothers and father before me.”

[oathkeeper-of-tarth]

The d’Avenir Treatise on the Essentials of Monster Hunting (Vol I) - Preface and Introduction

The timing of this whole thing with the campaign is pretty amazing, as it turns out. In the middle of absolute work hell and attempts to sort out my general apartment/living situation, a little while ago I entered a fic into the /r/CurseOfStrahd second annual fanfic contest. It was one of my attempts to kind of write out and process the way our own run through the module went, stretch out some poor, suffering, unused writing muscles, and it was also super duper self-indulgent. So I'm very, very proud to say it won first place amidst some really great competition, and super happy to rep my best girl Ez.

Summary: In the aftermath of Strahd's destruction and the not-quite-loss of her mentor, Ezmerelda d'Avenir sets out to tie up loose ends and lay some ghosts to rest, and continues carving out a path for herself in the Domains of Dread.

Word count: 9999, as there was a 10k limit. I had fun.

Rating/Warnings: T, with canon-typical violence, and dealing with death and loss in a general gothic horror setting. Spoilers for the Curse of Strahd module.

---

The d’Avenir Treatise on the Essentials of Monster Hunting (Vol I) - Preface and Introduction

Being a compendium of successes, failures, tricks, and warnings relating to detecting, tracking, fighting, and ultimately destroying undead, fiends, lycanthropes, and assorted monstrosities.

-

1.1. Introductory remarks

Their ride back to town is a quiet one. The silence is broken only once they are sitting, their hunting and travelling gear half-unpacked and strewn about, in the library just above van Richten's herbalist shop.

"Were we in any other profession, this would be a cause for celebration," van Richten's lips twist into a bittersweet wisp of a smile, and he pushes a warm cup of tea into her hands. "A demonstration of pride in an apprentice's first job well done, for all to see and revel in."

Ezmerelda tries to look up at him and meet his gaze properly, but her shoulders, her head, her eyes all feel too heavy. A leaden weight seems to have settled on every bit of her. She is tired, bone-deep, but the very thought of lying down and closing her eyes to attempt to sleep fills her with disgust and no small amount of dread. She knows exactly what she will see. The man, just on the cusp of middle age, entirely unremarkable at first... features quickly twisting into a mask of monstrous hunger, then to wide-eyed horror, and, finally, resorting to desperate pleas for mercy as the stake hits home and his screeching form dissolves to ash. 

It feels like the ash still coats the back of her mouth. The tea smells of strong herbs, with just a whiff of something even stronger that van Richten must have snuck in from the liquor cabinet. Her hands clench around the cup, and a burning need to justify and defend herself drives her to finally speak up.

"I was ready," she insists. "I am ready."

"I know," van Richten replies, softly, sadly.

The tea scalds her tongue, but she drinks it anyway.

---

Getting up from the damp, cold floor of the tomb again feels like an impossibility. She can barely keep her head above the ground, eyes stinging with a mixture of blood and sweat and the glare of pure, magical sunlight. The clawed gashes on her ribcage burn with every weak, hard-won breath, and a metallic taste coats the back of her tongue.

But she is not done yet. She has one last lightning bolt left in her, and Strahd and his dusk elf lackey are so beautifully, perfectly aligned. Ezmerelda can't keep her lips from curling up into a smirk as she raises an arm and mutters her incantation, feeling that familiar tickle of static rising all around her.

She holds on, builds it up as much as she can, teeth grinding together, ears buzzing - until she can hold on no longer, and the energy flies from her, the flash near-blinding, the roar of accompanying thunder ringing in her ears.

She sees it hit home, the first traces of foggy vapour swirling around Strahd's convulsing form, and a beautiful satisfaction fills her. 

Then, she lets herself go.

An instant or an eternity later someone is shaking her into jarring and painful wakefulness, jostling her head against the rough floor. Her mouth is filled with the bitter aftertaste of a potion, and she grimaces as she feels the familiar residue on her lips and chin.

"Fine, fine, old man, relax, I'm up," she manages, slurring the words, struggling to blink her eyes open and into focus. "I'm awake. Stop it."

But it's not him.

It is Ireena, wide-eyed gaze somehow growing wider still at her words. The reason for this becomes abundantly and agonisingly clear as she points to somewhere behind Ezmerelda... to where Rudolph van Richten lies, very pale and very still, a greater and more profound calm upon him than she has ever witnessed.

"No."

She didn't even see him fall.

"Why didn't you help him?" Ezmerelda knocks the empty potion bottle away, and it clatters loudly against the stone, finally finding rest near a streak of dark ashes. "What are you waiting for, what--"

"I tried. It was... it's too late," Ireena whispers, "I'm sorry." 

Ezmerelda feels shame flood her immediately at the misaimed anger. "No. No, I'm sorry. It's not your fault. I'm sorry. I just-- wait." Awareness of just where they are and what they were in the middle of doing suddenly overwhelms her, and she feels panic crawl up her spine. "Is it over? Did you stake that bastard once and for all?"

Ireena nods, mouth curling in visible distaste. "I did, just like you said to. Your last hit - it was enough to force him to turn into mist, and then, when... when he reformed in the coffin, I did it."

The relief Ezmerelda feels at that is so bitter it burns. "I missed it, then," she murmurs, and feels ridiculous immediately afterwards. Ireena shakes her head, and helps her sit up.

She allows herself a few precious moments of rest against the cold, damp wall of the crypt, eyes painfully locked on van Richten's still, still form. As soon as she feels half-capable of moving, she all but drags herself to his side. Feeling for a pulse, a breath, anything at all to help her disbelieve what is plainly before her eyes.

She finds no such thing. He's dead, and it feels like a stake through her own heart. After all her efforts, after getting into Barovia just to get the damned foolish old man off his self-destructive warpath and out, only to lose him now, to fail right at the end...

A pale shimmer falls over the scene before her, like a curtain right before her eyes. Ezmerelda blinks and shakes her head, but can't make it go away. She reaches up, and--

Erasmus all but swoops down to be face to face with her.

It takes her a moment to properly grasp what she is seeing. Erasmus. Somehow still there, his ghostly form hovering over his father's body. Gesturing at her wildly, pointing down at something, and, finally, using his ectoplasmic paint to draw... a circle within a circle, hanging in mid-air.

She follows his wordless instructions to the best of her current ability and, with some painfully suppressed reluctance, looks down at van Richten. And there on his finger is a ring that was certainly not there before.

Erasmus seems insistent and quite unusually agitated, so Ezmerelda takes the ring, trying not to register the coldness of the hand it was on, and puts it on numbly, feeling utterly beyond thought.

Suddenly, cutting through the fog that seems to have descended upon her mind, bubbling up like an idea from her own consciousness, a thought - a voice. A familiar voice.

'Ezmerelda? Ah. I see. Well, that could have gone decidedly better.'

She feels tears welling up in her eyes, an unstoppable burning in her chest. She wants to laugh until she can't breathe, or sob her lungs raw. 

Instead, she sits back against the cool stone wall. As the adrenaline wears off, she becomes more aware of the extent of her injuries: the sting where foul claws raked across her midsection and upwards; the burns of magical fire on her palms. She fishes out the last potion from her pocket, and downs it in one greedy gulp. The relief is near-instant.

Her faculties at least somewhat returned to her, she opts for a laugh as she recognises the ring for what it is. Ireena looks at her with some concern, but Ezmerelda waves it away.

"A ring of mind shielding. Protect the mind, and store the soul, should the worst happen. Of course you of all people would come so prepared."

Ezmerelda twists the ring on her finger, marvels at the detailed engraving.

"Should I... we could... there's ways. To get you back. I mean..." 

She trails off, and there is a brief pause before the voice in her mind pipes up again. 'No. No, I think, at long last, it is time for me to stop. And rest.' 

Even though her entire being wishes to rail against this, to insist on the need for Rudolph van Richten to exist, and protest the injustice (just when she'd gotten him back!), Ezmerelda manages, barely, a soft, "I understand." 

'There is still some work to do before that, though, no? Loose ends for us to take care of before, well...' 

That, she feels far more comfortable with. It almost comes as a relief. "Yes, of course. First order of business, we will sit down, and we will work out a plan. And we will stick to that plan." 

There is a soft chuckle in her mind. 

"What's so funny? You love plans." 

She imagines, in better, happier days, the old man - only slightly less old - shaking his head at her with a long-suffering smile. 

'Thank you for humoring me, is all I'll say. Now, go handle things here properly and finish up, while I think of a list of priorities for us. Miss Kolyana is waiting for you.' 

-

1.2. A brief reflection on personal experience

Ezmerelda is pulled into a room, hand clamped over her mouth. The door slams shut, and she almost stumbles as she is suddenly released.

"What in all the realms are you doing here?" The colourful half-elf carnival master hisses at her in a voice decidedly unlike the one he was just using in the downstairs taproom. Now that they are close, she can see the magical disguise of the Great Rictavio is utterly impeccable, but the eyes... the eyes are unmistakable. 

They are also flooded with the closest thing to panic Ezmerelda has ever seen in them.

"I'm here to help you. You don't stand a chance on your own."

"How did you find me?"

Ezmerelda shrugs noncommittally, and doesn't look behind him. "I have my ways."

He shakes his head. "That isn't good enough. If his agents - and there are many, I assure you! - catch even a whiff--"

She finally glances at the ghostly form of Erasmus, just barely visible over Rictavio's shoulder, unable to be perceived by the one man he wishes he could reach out to and reassure. He meets her eyes and holds his finger up to his lips.

"I recognised your horse," she says, at long last. 

"Dear Drusilla? Oh..." Rictavio seems to almost deflate at that, though his nervous pacing doesn't slow. 

Erasmus' visage shows what has to be gratitude, or relief, or both. Then he closes his eyes, seemingly tired, and the shimmering remnants of him disappear from view. 

"Damned stubborn, foolish girl..." Rictavio moves deftly around the small room, securing the shutters on its single window, locking the door from the inside, gaze darting around wildly. Then he reaches up and removes his hat, and Rudolph van Richten, looking more old and more worn than Ezmerelda was perhaps ever prepared to see, stands in his place.

"I had a plan, you know," he sighs, tossing the hat onto the bed. "One that I can now no doubt forget about entirely."

"There's no time for your endless preparation and planning. Any waiting game we try to play is a losing one. There's a young woman who desperately needs our help, a legendary weapon to be found, and there's a monster to hunt, feeding on an entire land. I've been to the castle, scouted out--" 

"You've done what?" 

Ezmerelda doesn't look at him and chooses to pace a small circle around the room herself. "The castle. Ravenloft. Getting in was a breeze - getting out was the hard part." She suppresses a brief shudder at the memory of her invisibility spell running out and Strahd's eyes boring directly into hers, as if he'd known she was there all along. "But, well, I managed. And more importantly, I found a way into his crypt."

Van Richten sits down on the bed, rubbing circles into his forehead.

"Ezmerelda, you can't be here." His voice sounds pained, almost. "You know you are not safe near me. My curse--" 

"Sincerely, fuck your curse," Ezmerelda spits. "After all these years, it can wait a few days before striking. Can't be worse than what will happen to both of us and anyone involved if we can't manage to work together on this. We have to. I tried, by myself, but..." 

She tries not to dwell on the terribly brief confrontation, the bite of the cold, cold grasp that seemed to steal the very life out of her, and her rather desperate escape.

"Ezmerelda," van Richten starts again, then pauses, and just looks at her - a long, heavy look. "Why?"

"There are still people who care about your well-being," she replies simply and softly, "no matter what you may believe." 

Then she straightens her shoulders and allows the steel back into her voice. "So listen to me. We are going to stake that devil in his lair, and we are going to get out of this cursed land. Together."

For once, he doesn't argue.

---

Their lord and master may be gone, but there are plenty of foul things still crawling around Castle Ravenloft - and occasionally crawling out of it as well.

How lucky for the Village of Barovia, then, to have a monster hunter visiting.

"...so I think that should do it for that particular area of the barracks," Ezmerelda flicks a stray bit of zombie gunk off of her bracer, then casts an apologetic look at Ireena. "But who knows what else he has buried under there."

Ireena Kolyana, the girl haunted, hunted, and tormented by the vampire, deciding she's had enough of running, turning on him and wielding a sword of pure sunlight against him. Poetic justice, if Ezmerelda fancied herself a poet.

Ireena Kolyana, looking exhausted in a very different way, now caught up in burgomaster duties, barely finding time in her overstuffed schedule to hear about the results of Ezmerelda's latest expedition to the castle.

"You know," Ezmerelda begins, eyeing the stacks of papers and growing chaos on the desk between them, "if you ever get really tired of this, and miss life on the road..." she nods towards the window, and the wagon just outside it. "I have room for one more. And could always use a deft hand with a sword." 

Ireena smiles, but the sadness underpinning it is palpable. "I can't, not now at least. There is too much to take care of here. And without Ismark..." a shadow falls briefly over her face, then she visibly forces it back. "Some day, maybe. I would honestly love to." 

Ezmerelda nods, then moves to stand up, and holds out a hand expectantly. "Come on, you have time for a walk. A minute to escort me out and say goodbye, at least."

Ireena chuckles quietly and shakes her head, but pushes away from the desk and takes the proffered arm. 

The sunlight is bright, tempered only by a wisp of white cloud here and there. Ezmerelda feels a light pull on her arm as Ireena stops on the threshold of the house for just a fraction of a moment. The hesitation is brief, barely noticeable, but the pause as if needing to catch her breath and the subsequent dawning joy - pure, almost radiant by itself - as the sunlight hits her skin--

Ezmerelda realises she's staring, blinks, and makes herself look away.

Their stroll is indeed brief, and as soon as they turn the corner and reach the parked wagon, Ireena sighs and stands half-ready to hurry back to her office and her duties.

"Hey," Ezmerelda puts what she hopes is a reassuring hand on her shoulder. "I know you can handle all of this. Never doubt that." 

This wins her a sincere smile. "Thank you."

Knowing there's no more point in delaying, Ezmerelda pulls away, moves to arrange her things around the wagon and prepare to leave. 

"The offer stands," she says as she climbs into the driver's seat. "Keep it in mind."

"Maybe next time," Ireena replies with another sad smile. But then she pauses for a moment, almost as if thinking something over. Then she darts in quickly, and kisses Ezmerelda's cheek.

"Don't stay away too long," she says, quietly, then draws away again. Ezmerelda nods her agreement, and takes up the reins of her conjured horses.

Ireena waves her goodbye, and stands, looking on, bathed in sunlight. 

And then the road turns, and she disappears from Ezmerelda's view.

'Well.'

"Shut up." Ezmerelda can feel her face burning. "Absolutely no need to read into things." 

'You know I mean no offense. I only want the best for you.' 

"I am perfectly fine," Ezmerelda grumbles. "Besides, this is the last thing she needs right now." 

'You don't know that. Ask her sometime, perhaps, to tell you herself. Too many people have assumed too much about that young lady, I think. Myself included.' 

"Oh, what do you know..."

There is a distinct sensation of stinging grief, never quite healed, as the voice comes again. 'You seem to forget I was young once. In love once. More... than once. And though it never ended well, like few things in my life did, the only thing I have ever regretted was not acting sooner. And regret is...' 

"... the enemy of progress. I know." Ezmerelda sighs, the old man's oft-repeated saying rattling around in her mind as she snaps the reins and takes them down the road westward. "Maybe next time."

-

1.3. Materials and methods, an overview

Her balance is off still, but the past few weeks have brought incredible improvement. She flicks her rapier upwards, then lunges - back, forth, back, forth, fully and properly bearing weight on her right side in the training yard for the first time in months. The new prosthetic is truly a work of art and a masterful display of craftsmanship. Ezmerelda feels almost giddy at the sensation of ducking and weaving under the wooden limbs of the training dummy, feinting deftly, ignoring the burn in her arm and shoulder. The maneuvers are not yet close to her peak speed and fluidity and elegance, not after the long, arduous recovery she is only now reaching the end of. But it is all so very, very promising.

It also brings to mind - because how could it not, when for the better part of the past half-year she has had more time to think, and remember, and reflect than in her entire life? - van Richten's drills. He was always far more of a theoretician than practitioner of swordfighting, but he was certainly no slouch with a blade. The precision and perfection of form he insisted on instilling in her initially seemed to clash with her more free, improvisational, off-the-cuff approach, but ended up blending with it to great effect in ways that occasionally surprised them both.

She goes through attack patterns he's drilled into her and realises she misses him, the cantankerous old man and all his frustrating ways, and suddenly finds herself fervently wishing she wasn't doing this alone. She spares a moment to imagine the amount of fussing over her he would likely have insisted on, with his overprotective bedside manner that she used to chafe and scoff at whenever one of their hunts went badly for her. She thinks of all the lovely, fleeting drawings Erasmus would have made for her.

Her next step is careless, thoughtless, distracted, and as a result only a little off. The lunge is misaimed, unbalanced, and her knee twists unpleasantly. For the briefest flash of a moment she could swear she can feel the teeth sinking in again, and the horrible tearing.

Ezmerelda winces, fingers clenched around the rapier's handle, knuckles white. Her teeth grit as the wave of pain subsides so very, very slowly, but doesn't quite go away. She remembers, belatedly, that she has an audience.

"Ah, almost there," she calls back to the artisan eagerly awaiting her feedback, voice forcefully kept steady, without turning to face them, and taps her rapier on the metal plating running up from the heel. "We'll need to make another slight adjustment to the ankle joint, I think. But this is definitely and by far the best one yet. Let me get some more practice first, and we can go over the details in the afternoon."

Ezmerelda doesn't wait to see if her words are acknowledged. She hefts the rapier back up.

---

Before she reaches the first crossroads west of Vallaki, she turns the wagon south and into the woods.

"I have some unfinished business of my own to settle first," Ezmerelda states very matter-of-factly, preempting any interrogation from the ring's general direction.

The wagon trail to the top of the hill is easier to navigate than ever, and the camp is abuzz with activity, as it usually is. But this time the feel of it all is a bit different.

Ezmerelda knows it well; the air of a caravan packing up to leave.

Arabelle sees her weaving through the horses, strolling towards the large central tent, and darts towards her immediately, then freezes not three feet away. Ezmerelda can tell plain as the new Barovian day that she is torn between looking dignified and throwing herself at her in a hug.

So she crouches down and opens her arms first, and is almost knocked over when Arabelle rushes in. 

"I want to show you something I've been practicing," Arabelle whispers conspiratorially, "but you'll need to lend me a dagger."

Ezmerelda's eyebrows shoot up in surprise, but she obliges the girl after only a moment's contemplation, still crouched down and one arm around her narrow shoulders.

The dagger is one of the smaller ones she usually keeps concealed, but even so it seems far too large in Arabelle's hands. Nevertheless, in a few surprisingly dextrous motions with only a couple of moments of hesitation, she seems to make it disappear - then produces it again as if out of thin air.

"Huh. Impressive. Did your uncle teach you that little trick?"

Arabelle nods, but her pride is palpable. "Papa was so mad! He says that both him and you are a bad influence and I am far too young to be handling blades."

"There's no such thing," Ezmerelda scoffs, but motions for her dagger back and tucks it away safely. "Where is your father? I wanted to speak with him."

"Luvash is busy," another voice cuts in cooly, and Arrigal steps out of the fading, scarce shadows, somehow slipping under her notice even with the bright streams of sunlight all around. "But you can speak with me."

Ezmerelda stands up slowly, and can see him sizing her up.

"Run along now, Arabelle," Arrigal says in a much warmer tone of voice, but without taking his eyes off Ezmerelda for even a moment.

Arabelle gives her one last look as she turns to leave, and Ezmerelda tries to give her a reassuring smile - but then she realises Arabelle doesn't seem concerned or reluctant or... anything at all. She seems supremely calm, and not seven years old at all.

Arrigal steps forward and, even as uncannily quiet as he always is, it startles her back into the moment. Then, he reaches out a hand.

Ezmerelda meets his gaze, steps forward, and takes it. The handshake is firm, and she smirks. "Looks like you backed the losing side, cousin."

The term of address rolls off her tongue with some bite of irony in it. Arrigal inclines his head in acknowledgement. "You can't say it wasn't a fairly sure bet. A matter of survival, of course. We do what we must to keep our people safe. But," and he draws a bit closer, as if letting her in on a secret. "I'm glad he didn't send me after you."

Ezmerelda nods, and decides she isn't in the mood for a debate. "You know, so am I. I would have hated having to kill you. Instead, here you are, in an excellent position for a little introspection, changing your ways... much better this way, isn't it?"

He shakes his head with a grin, and finally lets go of her hand. "You are a menace. But we follow the traditions, and you have a place here. Where are you going?"

"Borca," she says, and pointedly doesn't elaborate further.

Arrigal laughs. "Off to more of your grim business right away! Well, one has to admire your tenacity. You can stay, of course, and leave with us tomorrow. We will share the road at least part of the way."

So Ezmerelda stays, and exchanges news of recent caravan routes and planned Mist-traversal with Luvash. The fire roars to life as the sun sets. Tales are told, and she contributes some of her own.

"Regale us, cousin," Arrigal says, grinning wolf-sharp, arms open wide as if to encompass the entire camp, "with the story of the fall of the devil Strahd." 

Arabelle is a delight, as always. The truce with Arrigal, if it can be called that, is uneasy, but holds. The ring is quiet.

Arabelle insists on riding with her in the morning ("You did fish her out of that lake... brought her back to us," Luvash grumbles. "I suppose there's no harm... I'll have none of that monster-hunting nonsense, though!"). Her delight at the summoned magical horses is palpable, even as she tries to hide it. Ezmerelda gives her the reins until they need to enter the Mists, and is only slightly surprised to see her managing well, with just a few pointers here and there.

The whole way, Arabelle demands stories of her and van Richten's exploits very matter-of-factly - interrogates, almost, at times. Her eyes are large, intent, focused, as Ezmerelda obliges, for hours. 

"I knew you would win," Arabelle says at one point, breaking a rare longer stretch of silence between them. "Uncle didn't want to listen to me, but I knew."

Ezmerelda looks at her, matches her seriousness. "I hope he will learn to listen, one day soon."

-

1.4. Common pitfalls

Ezmerelda inches back to consciousness more than wakes, and hisses as she almost reflexively tries and fails to sit up. She recognises her own bed in the former guest room above the herbalist shop, but the details of how she got there are fuzzy at best, completely absent at worst. She is, however, very aware of a merciless pounding in her head and that she has most certainly just pulled some fresh stitches.

A swirl of colourful ectoplasm greets her when she next opens her eyes, Erasmus' fleeting but always lovely and cheerful greetings hovering above her.

Well. Ezmerelda forces a pained smile at him, knowing that if he is here, his father cannot be far, and--

Ah. Familiar footsteps on the stairs, and the distinct creak of the second one from the top, as Rudolph van Richten enters the room with uncanny timing. 

He doesn't seem to be surprised to see her awake as he gives her a quick look-over, even as concern and frustration clearly war on his face.

"I thought we had reached an agreement," he begins at last, very deliberately calmly.

Ezmerelda doesn't reply.

"I thought," he continues with that same calm tone, "that we had made a plan. That was my distinct impression of our last conversation."

Ezmerelda clenches her teeth, then grinds out, "I couldn't just stand by and let that beast--"

"You could have voiced your disagreements with the plan and brought your concerns to me, instead of running off on your own in the middle of the night," van Richten is clearly struggling to keep his voice level. "You almost died."

"Fine, I am voicing my disagreements. We know it's a wereboar. Just go at it with our silvered weapons, set up an ambush where we found its lair... why wait? Why give it more chances to hurt people?"

"To be absolutely certain we have all the information. That we have looked at it from every angle, that we have not overlooked a crucial detail. Minimise its chances to hurt us."

"But by then it might have mauled half the village to death, or worse!"

Van Richten's gaze on her is sharp. "And if we get ourselves pointlessly killed, are the villagers any safer for our hasty, brash, ill-thought sacrifice?"

"Hasty, brash, and ill-thought. Fine, if that’s how it is, how you think of me," Ezmerelda throws her hands up, and wishes she could march off, slamming a door shut behind her for good measure, as childish as the thought makes her feel.

Van Richten sighs deeply, and pulls up a chair to sit next to her bed. Ezmerelda recognises it as one from downstairs, and feels a small stab of guilt at the thought of him setting up a vigil at her bedside.

"We can't go rushing in on half-checked information," van Richten begins, after a brief silence, looking down at his hands. "We can't, because... because I have done that, in the past. And people - good, brave, dedicated people who chose to stand against evil, people who trusted me - died as a result."

"I have been wrong," he continues, still not looking up. "I have followed faulty sources without the due diligence of thorough enough vetting. I have overlooked things, and I have lost many. I will not and cannot allow that to happen again. We have to be careful, patient, and vigilant, always."

"I'm not advocating for blindly rushing in," Ezmerelda protests, "I'm merely--"

"I won't have you on my soul as well. I have far too many already."

"And I won't have any more innocents on mine! We had all the relevant information two days ago. Four people could have been alive today if we had acted on time. We were right."

"And what about when you aren't, Ezmerelda? What about when you aren't?"

Ezmerelda looks him right in the eyes, steely. "Then I will make sure I am the one who pays the price for my own mistakes."

"Oh," van Richten smiles sadly, "If only that were possible."

---

The letter arrives just as she is preparing, to her great relief, to leave Port-à-Lucine for good. It is hand-delivered by an ostentatiously dressed man in a stylised fox mask, entirely - and Ezmerelda feels her lips curl in annoyance - unassuming and usual for the land of outrageous pretense that is Dementlieu. The way he seems to disappear in the moment it takes for her to glance down at what he has thrust into her hands is also something Ezmerelda finds hard to marvel at anymore.

Overjoyed to be able to return to the relative privacy and safety of her wagon, she tosses away her old harlequin mask in the sincere hopes of never having to put the damn thing on again. Then she throws herself on the bed and focuses on tearing into the sealed envelope, absorbing its mysterious contents.

After she reaches the end of the letter's brief text, she stays very still for a long while.

'Not a name I thought I would see again, if I am to be honest,' van Richten's voice comes slowly, sounding very wary.

Ezmerelda breathes out a frustrated sigh, an unidentifiable jumble of feelings warring in her chest and burning up her throat. She tries to reply several times, then stops, and closes her eyes. Collects herself, at least somewhat, and decides to focus on the practical. "How do we even know this isn't a forgery, or some sort of trap?"

'We don't. But it is a loose end I, for one, am not prepared to simply overlook.'

"She's tried before, but I never... I don't have time for this right now, I--," she throws the letter and the shredded envelope onto the chest at her bedside, and runs an annoyed hand through her hair, again, and again, and again. Thinking, or at least trying to. 

'We have time. You and I both know it's not time that is the problem.'

They are nearing the end of their planned journey, finishing up their business with Alanik Ray and Arthur Sedgwick's latest investigations and bidding farewell to Dementlieu. And then it was supposed to be on to Mordent, to call in at the Mordentshire shop briefly, and afterwards to Darkon - to Rivalis, and the villages surrounding the old Richten estate. Some ghouls to fight off, wraiths to purge, ghosts to lay to rest, to help the villagers out, before... well. They'll come to that when they do.

Ezmerelda can't deny the detour would only be a brief one.

"A 'loose end'," she huffs. "Really."

'I am just trying to help you. Don't waste years of your life like I have, either bitter or wondering or fleeing. Confront your - our - past, at least this part. Lay it to rest, if you can.'

"The past does not lie behind us. It is part of what we are, and part of what we always will be," Ezmerelda recites, then sighs again. "Old Vistani saying."

A moment of silence. 'Make sure it is a good part, then.'

-

Ezmerelda's memory of her mother feels... not fuzzy, but perhaps a bit tweaked and twisted over the years, more by feelings overtaking it than by any fault of recall. The images of what she remembers and what now stands before her don't match, but have a strange, dissonant overlap, leaving visible in the centre a woman Ezmerelda could almost, almost imagine seeing in the mirror. One she hoped to never see again after that night of wordless parting, many years ago. 

Years of imprisonment seem to have been surprisingly kind to Madame Irena Radanavich. She has wormed her way into some kind of favour with someone powerful here, no doubt, as has always been her utterly unscrupulous way. The cell is clearly a formality, more of an office than anything, a parlour for receiving agents and lackeys, as well as bosses. There is even a chair - a worn, old wooden frame with faded red upholstery - placed a little ways away from the bars, facing them. Ezmerelda also gets a distinct impression that the guard standing in the corner is not there for any visitor's safety or protection.

The woman in the cell seems to light up the moment she sets eyes on Ezmerelda strolling into the cell space with a pretense of casualness.

"My, how you've grown! My, and yet-- oh, darling," concern seems to flood her face and voice, and - there, a subtle, wry twist - Ezmerelda thinks she catches a false, even mocking undertone to it. A flash, and it’s gone, and perhaps she merely imagined it, or even wanted it to be there, an ache for some semblance of simplicity to box this woman in. "There's both more and less of you than last time I saw you." 

"Really?" Ezmerelda scoffs, and almost wants to laugh. "All those tales I've heard of your vicious, clever, insidious scheming, and that's the best you can come up with?" She crosses her arms, and clicks her metal heel against the floor loudly. "Not an angle you can use against me, I'm afraid. Try again." 

"You wound me!" A dramatic hand placed over her chest. "Treating your own mother like that, who has never had anything but your best interests at heart. Who you've never even come to visit."

Ezmerelda slips the opened letter through the bars, letting it land on the hewn stone on the other side. Then she moves to sit down on the solitary chair.

"I'm only here because I got your letter."

"Oh! Good. My dearest Ezmerelda, I was--"

"I am here to tell you I want you to leave me alone," Ezmerelda continues, acting as if she hasn't heard a word. "For good. Forget I exist, preferably. I want nothing to do with you, and I never will. And the only thing I might want to do with your plotting and scheming is foiling it, so it is in your best interest to leave me out of it all. And van Richten..." 

The saccharine smile dips down, almost into a scowl. "And here I'd heard you'd finally seen sense and parted ways with that old fool." 

"You hear much, I see," Ezmerelda replies, cooly.

"I have my ways. My sources. People loyal to me, who have yet to abandon me."

Ezmerelda feels the swipe like an airy almost-cut of a dagger that just barely misses. "Well, here's something new for you, then. Something your little web-weaving spiders seem to have missed. You'll be happy to hear he's dead." 

"And right away you come back to me! Time to end your silly games, eh, Ezme? Good, good. A start--" 

"You have no right to call me that," Ezmerelda cuts her off, rapidly losing her will to restrain herself.

"Come now, dear. That's no way to talk to your mother, your own flesh and blood. It's about time we set all this nonsense aside, don't you think? Your family--" 

"You're no family of mine." 

"Please," she scoffs loudly. "You sound like an angry child. And... oh, really, what kind of name is 'd'Avenir' even?"

"My name," Ezmerelda replies, perfectly matter-of-fact, and refuses to even entertain further discussion of the matter.

"I wonder how you'll do," Madame Radanavich smiles, but this time the threatening edge is obvious, pretense briefly abandoned, "all alone. Playing your little games of pretend with your make-believe name. You'll come crawling back to me yet." 

Ezmerelda finds herself thinking of Erasmus, and almost believes she can see him, out of the corner of her eye. Tries not to think of what this confrontation might be bringing back for him. Thinks of the Martikovs welcoming her with open arms and offering shelter even in the darkest and dourest and most dangerous of days; thinks of Ireena with the sunsword and an entire wealth of feeling tangled in a tired, relieved smile somehow brighter than the blazing sunlight itself. Of nights around the fire in the camp outside Vallaki, and little Arabelle pulling on her coat, extorting promises of lessons in both swordfighting and divining. Of Arthur Sedgwick and his honest, caring eyes, and his patient instruction in properly using a flintlock, as his husband gleefully offers detailed scientific explanations of the weapon's workings from the side. She twists the ring on her finger.

"I'm not alone," Ezmerelda says simply, and feels resolute steel pouring back. She stops to consider her next words more carefully.

"I watched your actions and your curse destroy a good man's life. But I want you to know that you wanted to take from him, and in the end you took from me, the daughter you profess to care about so much. And now you crow at me about flesh and blood and expect me to, what? Beg you to let me come back? Back to what? A mouldy cell and as short a leash as the current master feels like giving you?"

"Bold words for one given to following an old wretch around like a sad pup, even as he keeps trying to kick you away," Radanavich sneers, then shifts back to sad pity in the blink of an eye. "Oh, yes, my dear, it's so very tragic... I've heard it all. Look at you - you're wasted on him."

"Oh?" Ezmerelda raises an eyebrow cooly, clamps down on the sting to her pride and the deliberate scrape against old wounds, and almost wanting to scream you are the reason he feared that daring to care about someone would be a death sentence for them. "And what would you prefer to be using me for?"

"How dare you! After all I've done for our family, while you throw your lot in with the man who killed your brother and imprisoned your mother!"

Ezmerelda feels suddenly tired, more than anything. "You know he did no such thing. And I've done very well for myself, despite you." 

"Have you, now? What price have you paid for your... profession? What has it cost you already?" 

"Nothing I wouldn't be ready to pay ten times over if it meant ensuring the safety of an innocent, or beating back those such as you. You still don't understand," Ezmerelda just smiles sadly, allowing only the slightest undercurrent of danger. "I'm neither lost, nor settling for anything, nor desperately grasping at a chance, nor tragically misguided. This is what I want. This-- this cause, this fight, this is exactly what I was meant to do. And I am very, very good at it."

"Oh, Ezmerelda, if excitement and adventure and glory is what you are after, I know of much that you could do! So many causes that your... talents... would be an excellent match for. You do have a certain reputation, and I know several highly influential actors who'd know exactly where to put your skills to use, no matter how they were acquired. You could do so well for yourself! Rise right to the top of the ranks in the blink of an eye, become truly great."

Ezmerelda shakes her head, and sighs, and moves to get up from the sad, solitary seat. 

"Ezmerelda--"

She quickly turns towards the bars and leans in, baring her teeth and grinning widely. "I killed the devil Strahd," Ezmerelda smirks at the look of shock she gets in response. "I think your petty schemes are a little below me, don't you?" 

She turns to leave, not waiting for a response. The guard leans back in his corner as she moves away from the bars, waving him off.

"Oh, do feel free to let your masters know," she tosses over her shoulder nonchalantly as she makes her way out. "Though I have to say I haven't really looked into whose lapdog you are nowadays." 

Ezmerelda hears a frustrated growl behind her as the sickeningly sweet, pleasant mask falls for good. As the door slams shut behind her, she doesn't look back.

She lets the noise of the city drown out her thoughts as she slowly makes her way back to her wagon, more than ready to be on her way elsewhere. Until, after a while, a familiar voice comes swimming up through her mind.

'How do you feel?' 

"I don't know," Ezmerelda murmurs, after a long silence. "Ask me tomorrow."

-

1.5. Notes on useful classification and categorisation

As she finishes rattling off the information she's gathered on a series of apparent annis hag encounters that van Richten asked her for, he looks-- well, 'impressed' is the only word Ezmerelda can think of to describe it.

In the ensuing moment of quiet, he takes off his spectacles, fidgets with them briefly, polishes off a smudge with his handkerchief. Then, he looks her right in the eye. "You, girl, are a veritable sponge."

Ezmerelda flashes him a smug smile, then remembers the other matter she wanted to bring to his attention. She clears her throat, and begins, with uncharacteristic hesitance. "I've also been looking into some... other things. Another way I can contribute, I think." 

The only reply is a raised eyebrow, so Ezmerelda steels herself and decides to go forward with her planned demonstration. She quells the nervous fluttering in her stomach, and instead focuses on the points of her own fingers as they trace well-practiced patterns in the air. With a final flick and a quick mutter of the incantation she's quietly recited so, so many nights in her room when she was supposed to be asleep, the very air around her right hand shimmers with heat. A few tense moments later, a small mote of flame appears in her palm.

Ezmerelda bites back an exclamation of joy at the success, tries to keep her expression fairly neutral, and looks to van Richten expectantly.

His eyebrows are, very amusingly, trying to climb into his hairline. "Where in the world did you learn to do that?"

She lets the little flame dance between her hands, casually skip from one to the other, flickering giddily, and feels an odd sense of relief wash over her.

"I saw it in one of your books. Almost by accident, and it... it just made a lot of sense to me, even just skimming over it. So I thought, why not? If I could get a handle on a few of the spells, I could complement your arsenal quite well. Bring more to the fight."

Van Richten nods, but there is a wary undertone to his words. "As long as you aren't making any ill-advised deals and pacts - which, I'll remind you--"

"-- are all of them. I know. Don't worry. I'm only interested in things I can glean by myself."

"Well, I'm not much of an arcane practitioner, though I am quite familiar with a lot of theory. I'm afraid I won't be able to provide any elaborate training or instruction--"

"That's fine," Ezmerelda rushes to say. "I can continue like this. The research, the books - it's..." 

She trails off, not quite knowing how and what to explain. Arcane magic is fascinating, surprisingly enjoyable, and strikes a deeply satisfying balance between being hard-won and feeling like it comes naturally to her. 

It also feels... hers.

"It's very engaging material," she finishes after a little while. She moves to close her fist and extinguish the tiny fire, but something stops her at the very last moment.

"Indeed," van Richten replies simply, and gets up from his seat. "Well, I do need to go tend to the shop, but rest assured we will discuss the tactical applications of this later today." 

Just as he is out the study door and about to start down the stairs, he pauses, and turns back to look at her, a bright and sincere smile on his face. "Very well done, Ezmerelda."

The flame flickers, ready to fly from her fingers, bursting with potential.

"Thank you," she murmurs long after he is gone.

---

It is deep nighttime when Ezmerelda shakes off the last tendrils of the Mists and sets eyes on the cliffs of Mordentshire. The wagon's wheels clatter over rain-slick cobblestones as she navigates the still-familiar streets of the seemingly unchanging harbour town. The cold sea wind makes her tighten her coat around herself, to very little avail. 

She can't say she's missed the weather.

By the time she spies the sign neatly painted with the words Herbalist - Dr. Rudolph van Richten, she feels soaked through and entirely miserable, and spends only a moment giving the place a quick look-over.

The shop is in fine shape - if she didn't know better, Ezmerelda could easily believe its owner closed it up for the night and left just yesterday. The wolfsbane and garlic in the planters underneath each window are flourishing. She makes a mental note to make her first order of business in the morning calling in on the neighbors and discussing further arrangements with Mrs. Polk, in whose capable hands van Richten has been leaving things for years.

In the meantime, she fervently hopes for dry clothes and a workable fireplace.

A quick rummage between two bushy wolfsbane plants - the second and third one on the right - produces a spare key, and Ezmerelda remembers with mild amusement her shock at this mundane weakness in van Richten's usually impeccable and overthought defenses, years ago.

"Keys," he'd looked at her over the rim of his spectacles, "are hardly a problem for things that truly want to harm me."

The little bell chimes as she opens the door. Catching a glimpse of herself in the very precisely placed full-length mirror just opposite the entrance, she wastes no time before going upstairs. The second stair from the top creaks its old, familiar reassurance.

Ezmerelda enters the room that used to be hers, in between harrowing hunting trips and trying adventures, during her years training with van Richten. It doesn't seem to have changed much - nor does it seem to be in use as anything but spare storage space.

She does her best not to think about how empty and quiet the house is, or how she's never truly been alone in it. Instead, she hangs up her coat, rolls up her shirt sleeves, unpacks some of her things, and, by the time she gets a proper fire going, realises sleep is the very last thing she feels like doing. Her eyes alight on the small desk in the corner, and she instead decides to do something she hasn't in a while.

She sits down to write. 

First, Ezmerelda takes off the ring and sets it aside, muttering a quick good night, Doctor under her breath. Then she takes out some of her collection, observations accumulated over the years - jotted down on everything from thick parchment to old wrapping paper. Combining it with the wealth of van Richten's remaining material and into something eventually coherent will no doubt be a challenge, but a challenge is not something Ezmerelda d'Avenir has ever shied away from.

It is just haphazard, quick notes on anything of consequence that comes to mind at first, carried by an odd nervous energy. A more systematic approach will have to come at some later point.

While knowledge is a key weapon in any hunter's arsenal, honing one's body as well as mind is absolutely necessary, she writes, tapping her foot on the wooden floor in a way that often drove van Richten to distraction. Many of the creatures of the night become, in their cursed states, inhumanly strong, and in such instances one must be particularly careful of engaging them in close quarters, for even the greatest strongman would be at a disadvantage.

However, not all of these encounters need be solved by violence. Many ghosts 

She pauses, pen slowly dripping ink onto the half-filled page before her, and sees Erasmus out of the corner of her eye. She turns her head to face him, and for once in their long and unusual life-and-afterlife-spanning acquaintance, she finds she can't quite read him.

Many ghosts are held in their in-between existence due to unfinished business. Tethered to some regret or incomplete task from their mortal lives, they seek resolution and closure. Many hauntings can thus be resolved by investigation, and what I must term a primarily sympathetic approach. Of course, one must also always be wary and on the lookout for deliberately misguiding spectres who seek to play upon one's pity.

The first signs of dawn creep into the room by the time she has moved on from ghosts to wraiths to trying to sort out her notes about creatures that lurk underwater - old notes that have been, to her chagrin, very appropriately and unsalvageably waterlogged.

Ezmerelda manages to light another candle just before her current one sputters out, and rubs at her tired eyes. Then she pauses, gazing idly at the ink stains on her fingers.

She reaches over for a new page, setting her current work aside. There is something else she wants and needs to write, something other than dry facts or hopefully helpful guidelines. The first few sentences come in fits and starts, but soon enough she finds them flowing out of her pen almost of their own accord.

What I would like to make clear is that this is not an inherently bad place. The lands themselves can be beautiful - wondrous, even. Worth living in, and worth fighting for. And the people who live in them do not deserve to live in fear. I, and many others, could simply leave for some better, tamer prospects, yes - but then what? Nothing is gained if we merely surrender an entire world, a collection of lands so fantastically varied and so full of promise, to a cruel, merciless, hungry night. It can't all be abandoned as collateral damage in a great punishment intended for a horrible few. I can't, and won't, allow this to happen.

Maybe the foes are overwhelming, and the fight endless. But a life saved is a life saved. A victory is a victory. One innocent snatched away from a grim fate, one tendril of darkness beaten back - that is enough. But only if we persist at it, day after day after day. And evil may be impossible to ever completely destroy, but it is far weaker and less widespread than it could and doubtlessly wants to be, in at least some small part thanks to our continued efforts.

A dour prospect? Perhaps, for some. Ezmerelda smirks to herself, and gazes down at her veritable manifesto, and thinks back to that cell in Il Aluk. 

What better life is there to lead? None, for her.

I, for one, don't intend to give up anytime soon. I hope that in you, dear reader, I can find one of like mind. And perhaps one day we shall find ourselves standing together.

She lights another candle, and continues.

-

1.6. Conclusions and remarks on future work

She clenches her hands as she steps into the sitting room that morning, decisions made after a long, sleepless night of contemplation. As if fate is conspiring against her, the first thing she sees is Erasmus, hovering over his father's shoulder. He turns to face her as soon as he notices her, a bright smile he saves just for her on his pale, ghostly face. She knows what a struggle it is for him to manifest this way, how much it takes out of him. The thought of his precious few minutes today being this... 

It takes immense effort to speak up, interrupting van Richten's apparent focus on the post strewn about the table in front of him.

"I think... I think it's time for me to go."

"Go? Where?" He blinks, looking up from his papers.

Ezmerelda swallows, but hesitates only for a moment. "I don't know," she answers, chin tilted up, almost proud. "But I know we can't go on like this. I don't want to go on like this."

They butt heads and scrape against each other constantly. Chafe and grate and, and, and. She can't remember the last time they agreed on even the most cursory thing. It has reached a level where she fears his presence will become intolerable, and anything binding the two of them together become irreparably soured and tainted.

She refuses to allow this to happen.

Erasmus has drawn a coin. Two sides. He indulges in a small, semi-teasing pantomime, pointing at the two of them as his shimmering, ectoplasmic drawings hover briefly before vanishing like so much smoke, and Ezmerelda shakes her head sadly.

"I don't want to come to resent you, that is all. I don't think I could bear it if I did."

"If you think it for the best, by all means," van Richten says simply, and leaves it at that. He never turns to fully look at her. There is an undercurrent to his voice Ezmerelda can't quite place - something deeply tired, and far more complicated than plain sadness.

It rains heavily that morning as she sets off, as if the world itself wants her to rethink this. The muddy road squelches almost threateningly under her horse's hooves as she leads him forward.

Van Richten doesn't come out to see her off.

"I'll miss you," she breathes to herself, and half-hopes it somehow reaches both of the companions she is leaving behind. But she has only the rain and her horse's steady trot on the trail for company. 

It is quiet.

---

Finally, the familiar mists of Darkon, and the countryside of Rivalis, lie before them. The inevitable, at a familiar estate fallen into quite a state of disrepair. 

'No, leave it be,' van Richten said, at her hesitantly presented idea of including returning Richten House to at least some of its former glory on their list of unfinished business and loose ends.

Still, this is where he wanted to come. At the end.

Ezmerelda never saw it in its prime. She was a mere child then, kept well away from her family's machinations. Until she was (inevitably, irrevocably) drawn in, her fate forever entangled with that of the van Richten family. But even now, in all its disrepair, rich traces of what the gardens, the orchard, and the house itself used to be permeate the atmosphere, like ghosts themselves.

She walks across the hills of the grounds, all the way around the mansion to the family cemetery. She slows as she moves up to the two most recent graves, so easy to find, and thinks, briefly, of the body van Richten insisted on being burned before they left Barovia, just in case. 

Just in case, she agreed, knowing all he knew about what foul magic and foul intentions could do to physical remains in the wrong hands, and built him a pyre.

The headstones before her are simple but elegant, as is the tidily engraved lettering on them.

Ingrid van Richten

Erasmus van Richten

'Well, here we are.' For a disembodied voice softly projecting into her mind, almost as through a mild haze or over some great distance, it is one of the heaviest things Ezmerelda has ever heard.

'A few words, if I may,' van Richten's request comes, gentle, and she nods, finding herself oddly wordless.

'I am so proud of you,' he begins, and the ferocity of it almost startles her. 'I hope you know this, always. If I have ever made you doubt this, as I pushed you away - I am sorry. I regret many things in my life, as one does, no matter what I like to say - but most of all I regret that I didn't tell you this sooner. 

You are the best of my life. But more than that, you have grown far beyond me, into a finer person than most could dream of being. And I am sorry I wasn't there for you, that you had to do so much of it on your own. But know that when I see you... I couldn't be happier, or more in awe.' 

There is a very brief pause, and then the voice softens again.

'I love you as my own, and am deeply honoured you would consider me, and that I get to consider you, family.' 

Ezmerelda swallows once, twice, struggles, then finally lets her tears fall freely. 

'Look at you. You don't need me anymore. And I can only hope your legend will far surpass anything I have ever done - there is so much ahead of you! Your light stands so very bright against the darkness. But I am glad, so very glad - selfishly, perhaps - that we were there together, at the end.' 

"So am I," she manages a whisper. "Love you too, old man." 

'Now I suppose it is time for me to go.' 

Erasmus looks at her, bittersweet pouring from him in waves, and he gives a small nod. His form flickers, and then disappears, and Ezmerelda knows she will never see him again.

She knows how the ring works, too. The soul within it can choose to depart whenever it wants to. She knows she doesn't need to do anything - that she couldn't, even if she wanted to. It brings with it a strange sort of peace. 

Ezmerelda inclines her head. "I hope you see them soon." Tell Erasmus I'll miss him, she wishes she could say. 

She spins the now-inert ring around on her finger, a habit she will need to break. She wants to tear it off, and throw it as far away from herself as she can. She wants to never take it off as long as she lives. 

A soft rain starts up, and Ezmerelda feels oddly grateful for the feel of it on her face, even as she knows there is no one here but her.

It is quiet.

---

With gratitude to the notes and tutelage of the esteemed Dr. Rudolph van Richten, whose guidance and wealth of knowledge have proved invaluable on countless occasions, and whose friendship changed the course of my life more than once.

[systlinsideblog]

Part 8

The mansion of Saphrar of Turia was, in fact, very beautiful. It was also built like a fortress; the merchant was, it seemed, very paranoid in addition to being very rich. Quietly, Systlin approved, but right now it was an annoyance.

“We think we’ve picked off most of his archers,” one of the women said as Systlin arrived. Systlin looked the compound over, narrow eyed. There were bodies draped over a few of the crenelations around the enclosing wall, arrows sticking from them. “But we’ve not siege equipment strong enough to break open the gates.”

“Of course.” Systlin cracked her knuckles and rolled her neck again; fighting for the day, then, was not quite through. She eyed the gates; they were smaller, of course, than the gates of the city.

For good measure, she took out the whole front wall. A few hidden archers did fall screaming with the dust and gravel of the broken wall. As the dust cleared, she spotted the front door of the mansion proper and Broke that as well. A group of horrified mercenaries in the front garden watched the wall crumble, and then quite meekly laid their weapons down and knelt, raising their hands in surrender.

“Finally.” Systlin said. “Some people with a little sense. Bind them, and take them to the Ubara’s mansion.” A pause. “And after this, someone ought to show me to the Ubara’s mansion. I could use a bath, I think.”

That drew a laugh from the warriors around her. She drew her weapons, and led the women into the house.

They were met by some delighted slave girls; when they spotted Systlin they cried out in joy, and one rushed forward and took her by the hand.

“This way!” She tugged. “This way, Mistress! Our master is hiding, but I know where he is!”

Systlin followed. Followed through a hall, down some stairs, down more, her warriors close behind. House slaves parted before them, and some women peeled off to remove their collars and chains. A delighted murmur followed them down to the cellars.

They found Saphrar of Turia hiding in a hidden cubbyhole under a flagstone that moved on a cunning little mechanism. He cringed when Systlin pulled it open; she made a disgusted noised, bent down, grabbed him by the collar of his robe, and hauled him out through mean strength.

“And how well did that work for you?” She said shortly. “Hiding like a rat, behind hired swords?”

Even as she spoke, he twisted, and snapped. Even as she pulled away, his teeth sank into the back of her wrist. She buried her knee in his gut and he let loose, wheezing, but grinning through a mouthful of her blood.

“Well!” He croaked. “Quite well! Because where all of the warriors of the city failed, where the Wagon people failed, I’ve succeeded! Enjoy, she-sleen!”

“Fuck.” Systlin muttered. “Shit.” She slammed an arm out even as her warriors lunged forward. “ALIVE. Keep him alive.”

“So I can give you the antidote?” Saphrar crowed, gleeful. He had, Systlin saw, two false teeth shaped like fangs, gleaming gold. “I won’t! You can torture and kill me, I won’t!”

Systlin licked the blood welling from the marks his hidden fangs had left. There, a bitter note. She rolled it over her tongue as she’d been taught in the Iron Mountain so long ago, opening her mouth slightly to smell as well. Faint subtle scents and tastes, the combinations of them…

“Fuck,” she said again, picking notes out.

“Ubara!” Her warriors had Saphrar by the throat, and Dina was clutching at Systlin’s arm, frantic. “Osk venom! Some merchants use it, fangs like that are popular…a physician! Get a physician! Get the Ubar!

Several women left at a dead sprint.

Systlin gently but insistently shook Dina’s hand off, and she went for her belt pouch. Saphrar was still cackling, even through the arm around his neck.

“Fifteen thousand of the warrior caste, dead!” He said, gleeful. “A whole High Caste gone, failed, and a lowly merchant kills the beast!” He dissolved into more laughter.

“Ubara! If it spreads…”

“It already is.” She could feel the pain beginning as she fished a tiny packet, neatly wrapped in waxed rag paper and tied with thread, out of her pouch. She carefully undid the thread, and opened it to reveal a white powder. She licked the tip of a finger, dipped it into the powder, and then licked the powder off and made a terrible face as she pressed her tongue to the roof of her mouth; the stuff was terribly bitter as it dissolved through the thin tissues of the mouth. She re-wrapped the powder, and handed the packet to Dina.

“Ubara?” Dina’s voice was near panic.

“That packet,” Systlin said, deliberately calm. “Is my life, Dina. Give it to no one else. Do you understand? No one. This is my life, in this packet, and I’m trusting it to you.”

“I…” A hard swallow. “Yes, Ubara, but…”

“I am a Queen…you call it Ubara here, but I am a Queen on my own world as well, and have enemies. I trained with assassins before that. Listen, no, listen. In the Iron Mountain I have trained to tolerate many poisons and venoms better than most, and that should help, but I am going to be very sick very shortly. I know, I think, what this Osk venom is, or at least what makes it deadly. That,” a nod at the packet, “will counteract the effects enough to keep me alive while it runs its course. I will not be able to give it to myself. If my breathing looks like it is near stopping, give me as much as I just took, no more. What will stick to a single wetted fingertip. Too much will kill me. I do not need to swallow. Place it under my tongue, rub it on my gums, inside my nose. Do you understand?”

Dina was white. All her women were white. But Dina nodded, once, her lips thin and trembling and terror written all over her face.

“Good.” Systlin took a deep breath; sure enough, it was more difficult than it had been minutes ago. “And keep him alive.” She nodded at Saphrar. “I want to see his face when I don’t die.” A beat. “If I do die, give him to Foicatch.”

“Ubara.” Dina’s voice was thin. “Yes.”

“Good.” Systlin said, and then swayed, and quickly sat heavily down on a crate. She could feel the cold sweat breaking out; she doubted that most of her warrior women had seen her sweat before. She was, after all, a fire witch, and the hottest of days was no bother to her.

It was good, though. The symptoms were telling her that she’d been right, and even as her breathing grew more labored she felt the tingling rush of the compounds distilled into the rescue powder hit. Breathing eased slightly. The dizziness did not. There was a roaring in her ears, and vision blurred. She pitched to the side, and hands caught her.

The room swam. Things were happening around her very rapidly; she could hear them, but picking out meaning would have taken too much concentration. Her fingers were tingling, and her wrist was burning. Her breaths came hard and labored, but she kept breathing.

A familiar face, a familiar voice. Foicatch, sounding near panic. She tried to raise a hand to his face, but her limbs weren’t responding. She was lifted onto something…a stretcher?...and moved.

Time passing. Movement; she was being carried somewhere. Nausea, and her vision was just a blur of colors. Movement stopped; she was laid on something soft. Time passing. Hands on her, a prick of pain in her arm, more time passing. Her breaths started to rasp and struggle, and she wondered…but there! The bitterness of the rescue powder in her mouth, and soon breathing eased again. Not by too much, but enough for her to keep forcing air in and out. People speaking, hurried and frantic. Someone else, calmer. She felt hands easing away armor and boots and weapons. She wanted to protest, but hadn’t the strength.

A warm, wet cloth. Someone was cleaning away mud and blood. She knew the hands. Foicatch. Someone else. A woman? Of course a woman…

Sura hadn’t wanted her to go to the Iron Mountain. Systlin, with her father’s murder hanging before her eyes, had disregarded Sura’s advice for the first time, and gone anyway. The Master of Knives had welcomed her, tried to bend her to his will like he’d bent others. His gift for pushing at minds was rare, and terrible, as terrible as Breaking in its own way. She’d managed to shunt aside his power with her own, undoing it before it could bend her to him. She’d pretended that it had taken, and he’d set her to train.

What a prize, she’d heard him say once. A Breaker, at my feet. What a Hand I shall make of you. The world will tremble.

She remembered his blood on her hands, after she’d slit his throat at last. You took the contract for my father, she’d told him, as he bled out on the floor. You sent your Hand. That’s why I came, to kill his killers…

The bitterness of rescue powder in her mouth, again. Her face was numb, and her hands still tingled. Her head was pounding like a drum.

Snake venom in vials, lined up. Tasting each, carefully, picking out what snake it was from by taste and scent alone and reciting how it killed. She’d drunk snake wine before, but tasting the pure venom was another thing entirely…

Bitterness in her mouth. Voices. Her hand was in someone else’s; she would have known Foicatch if she were dead. His voice, worried. She was lying on something soft.

She’d been good at it, though. It had interested her. She’d memorized them, and the plant poisons, and the mineral. She’d memorized which of the little packets they all carried for emergencies could help the body fight each…

Bitter in her mouth. She blinked, slow, and thought that things might be a little more in focus. Her breaths were still coming harsh and difficult, but she tried to move her hands and her fingers twitched. She would have smiled, were her face not still numb.

The weeks of terrible sickness, as each of the poisons was administered in turn, in gradually increasing doses. They each were expected to endure a lethal dose of each poison in time. She’d passed that test, as the others, but she remembered little of it. Just pain, sickness, heaving though her stomach was empty. A headache like her head was pressed in a vice, that had lasted days.

Bitter in her mouth. She could feel her hands again, and this time another dose didn’t come, because her breath, instead of stuttering and slowing, came stronger. Her vision cleared, slowly, and her headache receded. She lay there, eyes closed, concentrating on her breath, until at last she did not have to fight for it any longer. It took what felt like hours.

She opened her eyes.

She was in an enormous bedroom, on a bed. She was nearly naked under the blankets, save for a light wrap robe someone had found. She was clean. Her hair had been combed and washed and re-braided. Ice and her knife and her armor sat next to her; they’d been cleaned as well.

Foicatch was sitting next to her, slumped back in exhaustion in a chair. He’d at least consented to remove his armor; he was wearing a long tunic that was too tight across his shoulders, and had at least scrubbed a wet cloth over his body and through his hair. Dina sat on the floor before the fire, distractedly cleaning her already spotless knife. As Systlin moved, Foicatch’s eyes shot open, and he sat up. The relief in his eyes was almost painful.

“Thank the Lady’s mercy.” He said, quietly and with feeling, and kissed the back of her hand. “You scared me.”

“When we see Sura next,” Systlin said, her voice still raspy from a dry throat. “I’m going to tell her that I was right about going through the training and not just dragging the whole bloody mountain down on his head. How long…”

A watery sort of chuckle. “Oh, she’ll hate it. Two days. Rumors are running wild, but everything’s under control.”

Dina approached warily, and very carefully set the tightly wrapped packet of powder on the bed beside her.

“She wouldn’t give it up even to me.” Foicatch said.

“She was right not to. If you gave me a dose the size of your fingertip, it would have been enough to kill me. Dina’s got smaller hands.” She hauled herself up into a sitting position. Her wrist still hurt, and was still red and swollen, but the worst of it was past.

“You told me it was your life.” Dina whispered.

“It was.” Systlin took it carefully, and set it on top of her neatly piled gear. “I owe you my life, Dina of Turia. If there is anything in my power to give, it’s yours.”

Dina trembled a little, and Systlin realized that she was crying silently. She realized suddenly what it must have been for Dina, for all of her people here, to see her fall. To see hope itself lying like death on a bed, struggling for each breath. To feel the prospect of chains looming again…

No. She’d taught them enough. Even without her now, she did not think any of the slaves she’d freed would ever be forced into them again. She’d started enough; it might take long, without her, but she’d planted the seeds. She saw suddenly, in a dizzying rush, warriors from the plains spreading out, bringing low the fighting men and freeing the slaves from one city-state after another, a steady march clear across Gor, and all done through sweat and courage and blood alone.

Centuries, it might take. But it would have happened, even had she died in this bed.

Though, as she thought on it, she wondered what would happen, should her body expire. And then she realized, quite suddenly, that she’d thought of them as her people.

You already know the answer there, sister. The whisper in her mind was familiar by now. You cannot kill a goddess of death with poison.

“Ubara sana,” Dina said quietly. “There is nothing I would ask that you have not already given me. You owe me nothing; you already gave me back my life.”

“The offer stands.” Systlin said. “If ever there is something in my power to give you, say the word and it is yours.”

Dina gave her a look that was half frightened, half wondering, and quite suddenly she leaned down and kissed her full on the mouth. Systlin froze in surprise, and Dina pulled back as if burned, nearly cringing in a way she’d not done in more than a year.

“I’m sorry!” She gasped, and there were more tears streaming down her face now. Systlin stared, almost bemused; that she hadn’t seen it before was astounding, really. “I’m sorry! Ubar…”

Foicatch was also staring in a rather bemused way. “Well,” he said. “It’s not like I can fault you in your tastes.”

“Dina?” Systlin’s throat was as dry as sand already, and still sore, and it sounded like a croak more than a voice. “I…sorry, water…”

Foicatch picked a cup up from the table beside the bed. A gesture, and water appeared as he pulled moisture out of the air. It trickled into the cup, and she drank greedily.

“You should have said something.” She said at last, handing the wooden cup back. Foicatch filled it again.

Dina was still looking faintly terrified, as if she’d overstepped somehow. “I…but…” she gestured weakly at Foicatch.

“You’d not be the first woman in her bed.” Foicatch shrugged, handing the cup back to Systlin and watching as she drained it as well. “I’ve had other men and women in mine as well.”

“He’s terrible taste in men.” Systlin narrowed her eyes. “Downright awful. That miserable little Cabot man? Really?”

“He’s attractive. And it’s been amusing to watch him panic over things.” He filled the cup a third time. “Sucks a mean cock, once he finally works past all the nonsense about shame and his manliness, but then goes maudlin and sulks for a week. Still, a fun enough diversion.”

“Sounds dreadful. This is what I mean. Awful taste in men.”

“I don’t…” Dina looked slightly faint. “I don’t understand.”

Foicatch shrugged. “Few people do, to be fair.”

“What it means, is that this,” Systlin caught Dina’s hand and pulled her back. She watched the other woman’s lovely face slowly go from confusion to hope to disbelief as she kissed the inside of one of Dina’s wrists. “Will not anger him. The fact that he takes other lovers now and then does not anger me. Though,” She sat up too fast, and her head was spinning again. She grimaced and lay back again. “It may have to wait.”

“Ubara sana,” Dina said, even more faintly. “I think that I can wait.”

“Good.” Systlin took a breath, and hauled herself upright again. Her head spun still; she gritted her teeth and rode it out, and the lingering nausea. “For now, I need clothes.”

“Ubara!”

“I need to be seen.” Systlin said simply, and got her feet under her. Foicatch offered an arm; she leaned on it. “I’m all right, Dina. I’m a tough bitch to kill.”

“I…”

The door opened then, and a woman in green robes swept in. She had olive skin and very black hair, braided and pinned up in a coil on top of her head. She carried a case, and when she saw Systlin on her feet her face lightened from its cool professionalism.

“Oh, excellent.” She said. “You’re back with us.”

“This is Zephra.” Foicatch said. “A physician. She’s been checking on you. Dina?”

“Of course.” Dina hurried out.

“You really shouldn’t be on your feet.” The woman said, severely. Systlin was reminded instantly of Myssa, the royal True Healer and Physik. “Though I suppose you must be seen as soon as possible. Sit for a moment.”

Systlin did. It never did any good to argue with physicians or healers. Zephra laid a hand on her forehead, checked her pulse, listened to her breathing, and at last made a sound of approval. She drew a stylus and pad out of her bag, and began making notes.

“You’ll live.” She said. “That powder of yours is ingenious; I managed to get a tiny bit from your devoted guard to analyze. It is, in truth, very similar to what I would have given you, and I did not wish to cause an interaction with what you had already taken, so I thought it best to leave your girl to it. If it had truly come to it, I did have an apparatus ready to breathe for you.” She nodded to the corner; Systlin looked, and saw a great cylinder of glass and copper and leather. “But you did not react so strongly to the Osk venom as most would. I am glad to see you recovering.” She examined Systlin thoughtfully, tapping the stylus against her lips. “You’ve survived other things that you should not have, judging from your scars.”

Systlin touched the scar under her right breast with a wince. A spear had transfixed her there once, long ago, piercing clean through. “True enough.”

“The physicians of your world are skilled indeed, if they can mend such injuries.” Zephra said bluntly. “I could not do it. Neither could a doctor of Earth.”

“True-healers.” Foicatch said. “They can repair flesh with a touch, as I can command water and Systlin can command fire and Break.”

Zephra’s eyebrows rose. “That,” she said softly. “Would be a gift worth having.”

“It’s rare. Those who have it are held in high regard.”

“I was lucky.” Systlin touched the scar again. “It was a spear. I should have died there, but there was a True-Healer nearby. I got very lucky.”

Foicatch’s hand tightened on her shoulder for a moment.

“Well.” Zephra hummed quietly. “I suspect that this will only add to the growing legends that are being spread around. Before you arrived at the city, we had heard that you were a terrible spirit who ate the flesh of men.” A spark of humor in her dark eyes.

Systlin made a face. “Only half true.”

A laugh. “I have never seen,” she said. “Men so frightened as they are now. Not all of them, of course; there are good ones to be found.” She tapped her stylus against her lips again. “It does my heart good.” The smile turned bitter. “If you’ll have my service, Ubara, I would give it, wherever you go.”

Foicatch and Systlin both looked at her oddly.

“Ah, yes. You likely do not know…I am a free woman, of a high caste. I was able to study, and am able to ply my trade. Most free women are not allowed such, did you know? A free woman of the metalworker caste does not work at the forge; a woman of the scribe caste may be illiterate.” The smile grew more bitter still. “Our options are to inherit wealth to live well, or to Companion a man of means and bear his children. I was lucky, Ubara Sana, in that I showed aptitude as a physician and was accepted into the caste. Even still, I was not allowed to do the work I studied and trained for. Not until I had Companioned a man of the physician caste and borne him two children.”

Systlin stared. Foicatch said, flatly, “What.”

“My daughters,” Zaphra continued, “Are dear to me. But I did not renew my Companionship with their father, and had I a choice I would not have taken their father to bed or borne them. I wished only to work as I had trained to do. I am what is called ‘frigid’ by the men of Gor; I have never felt desire for anyone. Unlike what many suppose, this is not an affliction. Many people are born thus, and forced to conceal it. My male colleagues scoff at the idea, and insist that it is an aberration that could be remedied by a proper man, and perhaps some slave chains.” She put her stylus and pad away, businesslike. “As if the only ones born thus are women. Free women of Gor are not free, not truly, even if a collar is never set on us. I think that with you that may change, and my daughters may taste freedom in truth. It is at the least a better chance than any we’ve had before.”

“Ah.” Systlin tested her balance again; it was better. She gently eased off of leaning on Foicatch, even as Dina reappeared with robes. “I see.”

“I thought you might, given what I had heard of you from your women.”

“If you wish it, I accept your offer.” Systlin let Dina help her shrug into the robes. The other woman also wrapped Systlin’s braid around her head like a crown and deftly pinned it into place.

“I am honored, Ubara sana.” Zaphra inclined her head.

“Right.” Systlin took up her sword belt, and buckled it into place over her silken robes. “Dina, where are the warriors?”

“Many are in the camp. More have taken over the guard houses. Many have bedded down on the lower floors of this mansion.” Dina looked at her. “They’re taking turns here, because not all of us could fit in the Ubara’s mansion. Your honor guard stays, of course, but the rest have set up rotating shifts, so that they could all guard you for a time.”

Systlin blinked, and felt her throat tighten and heat in her eyes. “Have they.”

“I’ve told you many times.” Foicatch said, softly. “You’ve never had any idea what it’s like, from the outside.”

“You are the Whip-Burner.” Dina said, as if it were simple and obvious. “The Chain-Striker. They’ve been burning slave couches in bonfires for two days, in your name. The courts have already been set up, and the judging has already begun. Those sentenced to die are being burnt on the couches they chained us to.”

Systlin closed her eyes, and that other power she did not like to think of or acknowledge stirred. And for a moment she could taste it on the air, like honeyed wine. Justice.

For a moment, just a moment, she could feel rather than hear twenty thousand mentions of her name, and it ran through her like ice and fire at once.

“Good.” She managed. “Well done.”

“The next time you wonder why any of us,” Systlin knew Foicatch was not talking about the people of Gor, but of their true home. “Are willing to follow you to the death, I’m reminding you of this.”

“Smug prick,” she muttered, because the last time she’d said that aloud and he’d looked at her funny and told her that she’d earned it, she’d laughed.

“Yes.” He agreed easily. “Now, here.”

He opened the drawer on the bedside table, and drew out a golden hairpin. At the top glimmered a red stone. Systlin took it, and looked; it was a star ruby, larger than her thumbnail. She looked up at him, stunned, and he smiled.

“There’s a great deal of wealth in the vaults of the Ubara of Turia.” He said. “Aside from that in the chests of the Ubara Sana of the plains. I set a few people to combing through with orders as to what to find.”

He took it back and slid it into place in her hair, so that the ruby gleamed just above the center of her forehead. “It might not be the Fallen’s Blood, but I thought it fitting.”

“I take it back. You’re not a prick.”

“Still smug?”

“Yes, but I like that about you.” She touched the stone to make sure it was secure. “Come now. People need to know I’m not dead.”

[soliavenne]

A Holiday Episode for The Sand Family: What Would Be Their Perfect Holiday Drink?

Alright ya’ll, this had been a running late holiday episode I was supposed to post a few days ago, but I just got to finish finalizing the recipes and the drawings the other day haha. Either way, here it goes! 

Hope you enjoy! :)

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Temari starts off by finely chopping her pre-cooked, roasted and peeled chestnuts. She places the non-stick pan on medium low heat before pouring the chopped chestnuts in it, followed by the whole milk.

She then proceeds to chop the stick of vanilla bean into two pieces, takes 2/3 of it for the drink; with the remaining 1/3 of the stick to be set aside to flavor the whipped cream later. Temari splits the vanilla bean in half, lengthwise, and scrapes out the vanilla pulp inside and stirs it right into the simmering milk. The same step will be done later to the remaining vanilla bean. Temari prefers using vanilla bean instead of vanilla extract, as the vanilla extract contains unnecessary ingredients and tastes weaker compared to the vanilla bean itself.

Temari doesn’t like using ground cinnamon, as it doesn’t dissolve into the drink. To still have the cinnamon flavor, she throws in a small cinnamon stick into the milk.

Knowing from bad experience, Temari doesn’t leave the simmering milk unattended. She diligently scrapes the bottom of the pan every 1-2 minutes with a rubber spatula so it doesn’t form a film of milk solids that could burn if left neglected. She cracks up the heat a little to medium high to bring it to a boil. After so, Temari reduces the heat at the lowest setting to allow it to simmer, still stirring it occasionally for five minutes before taking it off the heat.

Temari likes using bittersweet chocolate instead of cocoa powder, as the butter content of chocolate allows for a richer taste. She chops the chocolate very finely to have it dissolve faster into the hot milk. Since bittersweet chocolate doesn’t taste as sweet, she adds two tablespoons of light brown sugar and stirs it to dissolve. After that, she takes out the cinnamon stick.

Temari prefers to blitz her hot chocolate in her high-speed blender as it allows her clean the counter and wash the utensils for the meantime as it blends. It leaves little to no trace of remaining chestnut pieces and usually results to a very smooth consistency.

After dividing the nutty, hot chocolate into her mugs and Shikamaru’s mug, she stirs in the Bourbon.

Temari prefers to whip her cold, heavy cream to a medium peak with a hand-held mixer alongside 2 tablespoons of confectioner’s sugar and the scraped vanilla bean from the left stick.

She tops off the drink with a healthy amount of sweetened, vanilla whipped cream, roughly chopped roasted walnuts (as expected), and a drizzle of her own chocolate sauce on to finish it off.

Bonus recipe:

Temari prefers homemade to store-bought if it doesn’t take much of her time to do it, one of the things she swaps for a homemade version is chocolate sauce, knowing it’s a one-pot no brainer recipe. So how does she do it?

Temari’s Homemade Chocolate Sauce

1) 1 ½ cups water

2) 1 ½ cups white sugar

3) 1 cup cocoa powder

4) 1 dash salt

5) 1 stick of vanilla bean.

Pour in the water, sugar, cocoa powder and salt into the pan and heat it over low heat. Stir the mixture constantly until it thickens up and comes to a simmer. Take it off the heat and then stir in the scraped vanilla bean. You can serve it warm, or make it in advance and store in a container into the fridge until ready to be served.

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Kankuro gets cold easily, and he likes to be experimental at times with the food he eats. Hot chocolate with Tequila and a little kick of cayenne? Yep, you got him intrigued. He would certainly give it a shot.

Kankuro usually goes for whole milk, but he decides to go for full cream milk this time to balance off the taste of alcohol and spice perfectly. He does find it resulting to a thicker, decadent hot chocolate, which is something he’s not shy to indulge himself upon.

He prefers to use both parts of milk chocolate and semisweet chocolate. There are times where he opts to not add sugar at all due to the sugars present in his chosen types of chocolate, but if he’s feeling a little kick of a sweet tooth, he would use light brown sugar.

He starts off by finely chopping his chocolates and placing them onto the bowl. Last year, he thought he could chop it at the same time as he allows the milk to boil, but he ended up losing his concentration as he found joy in the sound of chocolate being chopped by his freshly-sharpened knife. The milk boiled over, and the panic had him throwing the chocolate into the scalded milk; with the weight of the chopping board tipping over the pot and resulting to a hot chocolate-less night. Never again. He knew better now. He learns the best after his own mistakes.

To make his favorite hot chocolate, pour in the milk, sugar, salt, ground cinnamon and cayenne pepper into the pot and heat it over medium low. As he only makes this once a year, specifically for the holiday as a sort of little tradition for himself as he dons his holiday sweater, Kankuro is extra mindful to scrape the bottom of the pot until it reaches a gentle boil. He reduces the heat to the lowest setting before pouring in his finely chopped chocolate from his fancy little glass bowl. After stirring it to dissolve, he removes it off the heat and then uses a ladle for extra precaution to transfer it to the mugs.

Stirs in the tequila into the hot chocolate.

Kankuro likes to top it off with a thin layer of store-bought whipped cream. He then sprinkles a small amount of roughly chopped milk chocolate to sweeten the cream, and pinch of cayenne for an interesting contrast.

Note: I forgot to add 1/4 teaspoon of cinnamon powder into the recipe image, but the recipe does call for it! I’m sorry for the error!

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Gaara is not very keen on overly-indulgent, sweet drinks. Already thinking that chocolate is very rich itself, Gaara chooses to use low-fat milk. The lessened percentage of fat from his preferred type of milk is complemented by the butter content that the semisweet chocolate offers. The unsweetened cocoa powder packs in a deep, flavor of strong cocoa minus the fat content. This combination results to a less thicker form of hot chocolate, which Gaara prefers the most. To balance off the bitterness and the acidity, he adds a teaspoon of light brown sugar.

Same old step, Gaara combines the simple, yet the highest of quality products in his non-stick pan. Highest of quality meaning having it exposed less to commercialized practices, as Gaara opts to buy his commodities from Suna’s own, proud farmers as a form of his utmost support. Suna had propositioned to buy additional farmlands from Konohagakure, and their own agriculture business is now thriving for the better.

There are times where he visits the farmers himself, and they are more than happy to welcome their beloved Kazekage with an enormous feast of the freshest of their harvest. Gaara vowed to bring Shinki, Araya, and Yodo next time to introduce this practice he upholds in hopes of passing on the economical and moral importance of supporting their own people and own products to the next generation.

Since it is the holidays after all, he lets himself slide off a just a bit by topping his drink off with his own recipe of espresso whipped cream. It’s fairly simple, he whips the cold heavy whipping cream alongisde a small amount of vanilla bean and a teaspoon of instant espresso powder. It may come off as a surprise that he adds another shot of sugar into this as he wasn’t a person with a sweet tooth at all, but he does find that the molasses flavor of the brown sugar balances the concentrated caffeine flavor of the espresso perfectly.

He then proceeds to counter the sweetness from the brown sugar with a healthy sprinkle of sea salt on top, which Chojuro gave as a gift from the previous Five Kage meeting in hopes advertising it as an international product considering they were the ones who discovered it due to Kirikagure’s being surrounded by large bodies of seawater. It was still a new business, the Mizukage said with a chuckle, but the Kages, including Gaara himself, were intrigued and happy to try it.

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Shikamaru loves coffee. It was what kept him going from the long, dragged afternoons spent in the office doing paperwork ever since he started working for the Sixth Hokage up to the Seventh Hokage. The holidays doesn’t faze him to try something entirely new, it’s got to have a punch of caffeine in it, no ifs, no buts. Alcohol and chocolate? Sounds great to indulge himself in once in a while, but the taste of coffee needs to roll familiarity in his tongue for him to enjoy it fully; so an alcohol-spiked mocha is the perfect stroke to tickle his spots.

It’s nothing too fancy, set up a kettle to boil water for the coffee later as he heats up the milk for the hot chocolate to a gentle boil on a very low heat so it’s less of a risk to burn in case he forgets to stir it now and then. Once it does, he tosses in the semisweet chocolate chips, as the whole chopping business thing was something he didn’t want to trouble himself with. Once fully melted and combined, he takes it off the heat.

Shikamaru then proceeds to dissolve the instant coffee powder and the light brown in the boiling hot cup of water.

The ratio he goes for is to fill the first 1/3 of the cup with hot chocolate, then other third of it with the fresh cup of hot coffee. He then stirs in the amaretto, and a tops it off with a thin layer of store-bought whipped cream or Temari’s leftover whipped cream if he runs out of the previous choice. A little dusting of sweetened cocoa powder for the taste and the aesthetic.

Enjoys his second round of Amaretto-spiked Mocha the best when Shikadai is already asleep upstairs, leaving him and Temari alone to accompany each other as they sit together in the couch, cuddled and laughing under the warm blanket as they savor the cold holiday night in Konohagakure together.

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Shikadai would rather have a freezing milkshake than a hot chocolate because he doesn’t like waiting for the hot beverage to cool down as his mother and father had already gulped half of what they’re having.

Cookies and Cream milkshake was one of the specials that they only offered for the special milkshake month in Thunder Burger Restaurant during September. Since there was no way he could order it by the time the holidays arrive, he asked for Chocho and Inojin’s help to devise his own favorite milkshake recipe. Soon enough, he was able to perfect it; as approved by his own teammates, and Temari’s own highest standards.

Shikadai’s prefers to use skim milk, as he had discovered that the presence of egg yolks in his favorite french vanilla ice cream is what makes it creamier and richer than the usual vanilla ice cream. The lack of fat content in skim milk would balance off the french vanilla ice cream’s richness to prevent it from tasting too indulgent.

Shikadai allows the ice cream to soften up a bit to room temperature where it’s just a little melty. After that, he combines the ice cream, cold skim milk, half amount of the scraped vanilla bean, powdered sugar and chopped, seven pieces of oreo cookies into a high speed blender. He turns it off once he sees it is fully-blended.

He likes to drizzle the homemade chocolate sauce that his mother makes onto the milkshake glass, both for taste and aesthetic as a genetic nod to Shikamaru’s mentioned choice with the dusting  of cocoa powder. One of his favorite parts in drinking this milkshake is whenever he uses his straw to scoop up the chocolate sauce that dribbled down onto the bottom of the glass.

Prefers to buy store-bought whipped cream to ease his job and just add the remaining half of the scraped vanilla bean to flavor it. He then proceeds to roughly crush 2 oreo cookies and mix it in with the vanilla-flavored whipped cream. After topping his milkshake with it, he likes to garnish it on top with a whole piece of oreo cookie.

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Shinki’s disciplined behavior renders him uneasy in consuming so many indulgent foods in one night, considering every holiday within the Kazekage’s household had always been a feast. Braised stew and gizzard? Fine, everyone has their weakness, and he might find himself slipping up a little, but with his chosen drink, he would like to tone it down a bit.

Shinki’s health consciousness encourages him to try different healthier alternatives of the popular foods they consume on a daily basis. His latest endeavor was focused on the swelling trend of plant-based milks in the market. He studied the differences between a plant-based milk and regular milk, and he found notable information that he once shared with Gaara over dinner. Gaara smiled at Shinki’s interesting thought, and was now intrigued as well to try it, urging Shinki furthermore to give it a shot.

He went home once, paperbags filled with different cartons of different types of milk. He poured each one of it into small glasses for a taste test. Apart from the difference in the tastes, he also discovered that there were certain milks he thought would pair the best with a specific function. He liked oat milk the best if they are paired with cereal, and the notable creaminess and less nuttier taste of cashew milk paired well with coffee.

Coconut milk was better off for dishes where you naturally expect it to have a “coconutty” taste, since it was distinctly overpowering. Soy milk on the other hand… was an acquired taste for Shinki.

Now that he has the background information as to how it is supposed to taste like, he knew that he would increase its chances of being entirely healthy by making it himself. He wasn’t sure about it at first though, as he would opt to buy it if the recipe calls for professional skills and labor, but once he discovered how easy it was to make by the time he read the recipes Gaara printed for him, he was undeniably excited despite how stoic he looks like on the outside. If you look in close enough, you would see a curt, small smile on his lips.

Out of all the attempts of making almond, oat and cashew milk at home, Shinki found himself favoring cashew milk than the other two. Almond milk required straining it with a nut bag, and tasted prevalently nuttier, oat milk on the other hand ended rather a little slimy. Cashew milk was the easiest, as he didn’t need to do the extra job of straining it, and it resulted to a perfectly creamy milk with with a subtle, nutty note that goes well with his usual go-to drinks, such as coffee and tea. It was his perfect choice.

He might not make it as often as he wants to, but on the holidays, he makes it a day in advance prior to making his reverse whipped coffee.

Shinki pours in the overnight-soaked, softened raw cashews into the high-speed blender, alongside water, Gaara’s favorite sea salt, and the vanilla bean. Shinki likes to use preserved, pitted dates as a sweetener as it also offers another depth of flavor into the milk. He then starts it off by blending in low speed, and then cracking it up to a higher setting until it is fully smooth.

Shinki has his own labeled jar for his homemade cashew milk. To give it another depth of flavor, Shinki likes to throw in two small pieces of cinnamon sticks into the empty jar prior to filling it in with the cashew milk, allowing it to steep the spice’s flavor slowly as it stores in the fridge.

The next night, Shinki starts off by putting in the instant coffee powder, sugar, and hot water into a medium sized bowl. Shinki used to do it on the coffee mug itself, but the found out that it took  longer to thicken up due to the lack of air circulation within the small area of the mug. He scrapes the bowl clean using a rubber spatula as he transfers the whipped coffee into his mug.

He then proceeds to heat up his cashew-milk to a gentle boil alongside one piece of cinnamon stick. Shinki leaves the other to steep in further into the left cashew milk. Shinki uses a fine mesh sieve to strain some small pieces of cinnamon from the stick as he would prefer the coffee to be thoroughly smooth.

The aeriated, whipped coffee adds a natural foam on top of the coffee. Shinki doesn’t like to add further garnishes.

Likes to keep it bitter and less sweet because he’s secretly eyeing the dark chocolate cake Gaara only buys during the holidays for later consumption.

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Bonus recipes to try from Araya and Yodo!

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A happy, happy holidays to all of you lovely people! :)

[slytherinsnekxvii]

i've been thinking about sirius black and grimmauld place and how much he hates it. so, here have this little fic i wrote about my take on that, just to get myself back into the swing of things now that real life has let up a little bit. warning for awful parenting that might hit a little too close to home before it goes off the rails, walburga and orion saying some really horrible things, and a stinging hex:

By the time Sirius gets his Hogwarts letter, Regulus has mastered the art of performing. He's much better than Sirius was—is—and Sirius wonders how much of that comes from Regulus seeing him make the simplest of mistakes and face the consequences. He wonders when he realised that he's being made an example.

He draws a knee up to his chest, idly twirling a quill between his fingers as his stomach grumbles. He ignores it. He's been sent to bed without supper enough times now that it hardly matters. He scratches two more lines of I will be obedient into the parchment and he thinks about Regulus some more.

He doesn't like the kid, sometimes. Envies him, even. There are things he does that Sirius finds maddening. Regulus has never spoken an original thought his life, follows every instruction given to him, willingly backs himself into corners and he refuses to put up a fight, unless he's the one who started it and knows he can finish it. What makes it worse is that these are lessons that Sirius taught him and couldn't learn himself.

Keep your innermost thoughts close to your chest and if you must speak them, do it aside, address no one but yourself.

Follow orders. Let yourself be manhandled and coerced into position by those who can see the bigger picture.

Never turn your back to your audience.

Turn the other cheek and follow through.

It's bothersome. They have a perfect little heir right there, but they ignore him just to try and force Sirius to be what they want him to be. It's a waste of everyone's time, since they all know that round pegs do not fit into triangular holes. It's suffocating, since they try to do it anyway, shaving away at the bits and pieces that won't fit, hacking at the parts of him that don't mold to fit the shape that they've carved for everyone carrying the Black name. It's unfair, that he's stuck here like this, going to bed without supper, writing lines, of all things, and riding out the effects of a nasty session of "Occlumency training", which he is certain is just an excuse to rifle through his mind and give him a headache.

I will be obedient. I will be obedient. I will be obedient.

His hand moves on its own, the letters appearing on the page ever-so-slightly wobbly as he writes without bothering to look at the words. It's infuriating, the way they echo in his head over and over, and over, again.

He lifts his head when Kreacher appears before him with a crack, his horrid little house-elf face twisted into that familiar, ever-present cross between a grimace and a scowl. "What?" he asks, and somehow, the elf's expression sours even more.

"Mistress wants her lines," Kreacher says. "Mistress says Kreacher is to collect them from Master Sirius."

"I'm not done yet," Sirius snaps, and bites his tongue when the house-elf turns up his mouth in disapproval. He takes his time carving the last few sentences into the parchment, and while his penmanship is probably the greatest it's ever been, he still scowls at the paper even after it's been handed over.

Kreacher scowls back at him and disappears. Sirius rubs his ears and wonders if the elf Apparates that loudly on purpose.

I will be obedient. I will be obedient. I will be obedient. The stupid words spin around in his head, and he scowls harder as he considers that he could probably fill an entire sheaf of parchment in his sleep.

See if I ever turn out like the bloody show dog you want, he thinks, vehemently, and shoves aside the bits of stationery on his desk so he can collapse face-first and not think. There's another crack, and he startles, forcing himself upright as Kreacher stands before him, with his little, twisted house-elf face and little, twig-like house-elf arms crossed.

"What?" he bites, again, and when the elf's expression takes a turn for the worse, he leans back in his chair and doesn't bother shaking off the vindictive satisfaction that crawls up his spine.

"Mistress wants to see Master Sirius in Master Orion's study. Master Sirius is a bad boy," Kreacher tells him, and he fights the urge to slam his fist on the desk, or worse, into Kreacher.

"Why?" Sirius asks, and he knows exactly why, they only ever want him for one reason, they never call on him for anything else, at all, ever, but he still asks. He's not actually expecting anything different, but he does it, just to be difficult.

"Master Sirius has been a bad boy," Kreacher says.

"Right, yeah. Thought as much, really," Sirius tells him, and makes no move to get up from his seat.

"Mistress wants to see Master Sirius in Master Orion's study," Kreacher repeats, and Sirius scoffs at him.

"And what are you going to do about it?" he taunts, and the elf Disapparates. Sirius sneers a bit at the wall, sticks out his tongue as he mocks, "Master Sirius has been a bad boy." He scoffs, idly kicks at the leg of his desk. "Master Sirius has been Sirius. Master Sirius isn't Regulus."

He collapses onto the desk again, lets out a quiet, frustrated scream as his leg picks up the speed and kicks even harder. He takes a deep breath as the woods shudders beneath him and eventually gets his limbs back under control. "Master Sirius doesn't want to be told what to do," he mumbles into the wood. "Master Sirius is a person. Master Sirius doesn't want to be controlled," he continues, quiet, and is glad that his moping is drowned out by the sound of Kreacher Apparating into his bedroom once again.

"Mistress says Master Sirius is being difficult. Maater Sirius must come to the study at once," the elf says, and Sirius doesn't even bother to lift his head. "Master Sirius must come! Mistress insists!"

"Or what?" Sirius asks, tone as bitter and spiteful as his little eleven-year-old tongue can manage.

"Mistress says that Master Sirius must come to the study at once! Master Sirius is being a very bad boy! Horrible boy! Spiteful child!"

Sirius feels his eye twitch as he listens to the elf slowly dissolve into histrionics, wonders if he's listening to Kreacher, or his mother. "Master Sirius is just fine!" he says. "Master Sirius doesn't have to listen to you or be obedient or anything!"

"Master Sirius must go to the study!"

"No!" Sirius exclaims, and he does bang his fist on the desk, noticing far too late that Kreacher has gone silent. The realisation strikes him when his hand leaves the desk and a hand circles his wrist, grip ice-cold. "No..." he says, quiet, and horror takes him as he involuntarily tries to tear away from the hold. If anything, it tightens.

"You would disobey your parents, Sirius Orion?"

"I—" Sirius gasps, and forces himself to be as still as possible, as steady as he can manage even though he still finds himself shaking by the time he finds it in himself to continue. "No, Father, I—"

He won't hit you, Sirius thinks. He would never stoop so low, and he isn't holding his wand. He wouldn't hit you. He wouldn't. He would never. Not with his bare hands. Not without his wand.

His trembling ceases a little, and he starts to speak again. "No, Father, I—"

"Quiet. Your mother is calling for you, you wretched child. Why have you not attended to her?"

"I'm sorry—"

"Apologies mean nothing without action, young man. Do better," Orion stresses, and Sirius bends, head bowing as he prepares to reiterate his apology.

"I—"

"That was not an invitation to speak, Sirius Orion."

"Yes, Father. S—" he bites his tongue and tries not to listen to his heart slowly beating its way out of his chest.

"This is no behaviour to be exhibited by my heir. You will get up, and you will come with me to attend to your mother."

"Yes, Father," Sirius says, and swallows the fire building behind his tongue and under his fear.

The grip around his wrist loosens, and he moves it a little, just to make sure it's still there, still attached, still working and prepares to get up even as he hates himself for listening and his father for making him.

"Quickly, Sirius Orion. Your mother is waiting."

"Yes, Father," he says, and in his mind, he kicks himself for the meekness in his tone.

When he stands up on marginally less shaky legs, Orion moves to clap a hand on his shoulder to steady him and the sheer anticipation of the touch forces Sirius to stand at attention. He straightens his spine until it can go no further without snapping, and when Orion's hand actually lands on his shoulder, he has to concentrate to avoid flinching under the touch.

Orion taps his shoulder once, twice, and then grips it with the same force he'd used on Sirius' wrist. "Go on, then."

Sirius starts to move. Orion does not let up, steel grip still locked in place as it directs Sirius throughout the house. They pass Regulus' door, and Sirius fights the urge to sneer at it, with its stupid, pretentious sign protecting his stupid, pretentious baby brother who's probably asleep with a full belly and not a care in the world with Kreacher at his bedside to bend to his every whim. Stupid, lucky performer sticking to his script... poor little contest crup doing tricks for the judges.

Orion's grip on his shoulder tightens and Sirius hisses as he bends under the pressure. "I said, quickly, Sirius Orion. You would make your mother wait even longer for you than you already have?"

"No, I—" Sirius continues, tripping over his own feet as the his own movement ceases while his father continues to push.

"She's been patient all this time and you would leave her to sit alone and unattended to?"

"Father—"

"Ungrateful child," Orion rebukes and Sirius chokes.

"Yes, Father."

They enter the study quietly, Sirius standing at attention once more while Orion rounds the large desk to take his seat. Walburga crosses and uncrosses her legs in her nearby armchair, and clears her throat. She sits up, handa placed carefully atop each other in her lap and it's an image he's familiar with. She elegantly rolls her wand between her fingers and Sirius reminds himself to tread carefully, don't make a mistake, she's armed, even if this the most demure he's ever seen her.

"Siri."

"Yes, Mother," he answers.

"Why did you not come when I called?"

I didn't want to, I hate you, I hate you both, he thinks. I was scared, he thinks. "I don't know, Mother," he says.

"That isn't an answer, Sirius Orion. If you didn't know, you could have done as I asked of you and inquired it of me when you arrived."

You didn't bother to ask. You ordered, he thinks. "Yes, Mother," he says.

"Why did you not come when I called?"

I'm here, anyways, aren't I? "Kreacher was annoying me," he lies, or well, sort of. Kreacher had been annoying him, but that wasn't why he'd disobeyed. He bites his tongue when he watches their expressions shift.

"Kreacher... was annoying you," Walburga asks, tone flat.

"Yes, Mother," Sirius says.

"So, rather than banish him and do as you were told, you chose... to disobey me?" The uptick in her voice is dangerous, but her position remains the same and Sirius falls into the trap.

"I—sorry, Moth—agh!" The Stinging Hex hits his hand and he shakes it the appendage rapidly as he waits for the pain to abate. "Yes, Mother," he croaks, when his hand graduates from acute pain to slight numbness.

"Do better next time," Walburga tells him, rolling her thirteen inches of elm between her fingers. "Apologies are worthless, I know your father would have told you that much."

"Yes, Mother. I won't keep you waiting again, Mother," Sirius forces. You'll drag me kicking and screaming next time, he thinks.

"Words, again. Powerful, yes. Useful, yes... but that's only in the hands of those whose actions are able to prove it. You've not done so, Siri," Walburga continues, quiet, and this is how Sirius knows he's gone and done it.

His hands move to clench on their own, and his aching left convinces him to clasp them behind his back instead. His legs itch to move, to run away, to go anywhere but here. He wishes he had his broom.

"You disobey. You refuse to listen. You ignore our teachings. You blunder and stumble and do all manner of upsetting things, Siri. We feed you and clothe you and we provide a bed for you to rest your head when the night comes, and yet... you continue to act so horribly. You speak out of turn, you do everything in the exact wrong manner. If I didn't know better, I would think you were doing such awful things on purpose. To spite your father and I." Her eyes meet his and Sirius can't help it, he looks away. His father's lip curls and still, he refuses to look at her.

"You are a horrible child, Siri. Wicked and ungrateful and awful. You aren't worthless, though. You're the product of your father and I, after all. And you aren't incompetent or stupid. You can be taught, Siri. All you must do is listen, and obey. You can be trained and we will make you the wizard you were meant to be as our heir. You need not do anything but obey."

Sirius takes a breath, the cool air sticking in the back of his throat as he feels the hackles on the back of his neck raise. "I—You don't—"

"Don't... what, Sirius Orion?" his father asks.

Nothing, he thinks. "It's—I'm a person! You want an heir that you can teach and train and make, have Regulus! I don't—" he starts, and his eyes widen as he listens to the words spilling out of his mouth with no permission of his and no control over them at all.

"You are a wretched, horrible creature! Awful boy! Spiteful child! How dare you?" Walburga screeches, and Sirius winces, his own mouth clamping shut. "We are your family, your parents. You would disgrace your own blood in such a way? Horrible, awful child! Incompetent! Lazy! Stupid! Never learns! You are an awful creature! Terrible boy! Unworthy! I can hardly believe you came of my loins! We have been nothing but good to you! Awful child, waste of blood, Sirius Orion, how dare you?"

She's sprung out of her chair, elm wand held high in her hand as a weapon, and Sirius ducks even as he shouts.

"I didn't mean it! I didn't, I didn't, I was only angry," he pleads. "I won't do it again," he tells them, quietly, and as his mouth quivers, he tastes salt.

"See to it that you don't," Orion says, frigid even as he rests a hand on his wife's waist to steady her and glares at his firstborn. "I'll not have such an outburst taking place again."

Tell that to your wife, Sirius thinks bitterly, sniffing as quietly and unnoticeably as possible to stave off the rest of the tears he hadn't realised he was crying.

"Yes, Father," Sirius says.

"Get out," Orion tells him.

"Yes, Father," Sirius says, and with that, he turns around and leaves. Quietly, with some sort of dignity so they don't have another thing to hold over his head.

He passes Regulus' stupid door again, kicks it and watches as not even the sign shakes.

"I hate you, I hate you, I hate you," he cries, quietly, as he continues down the hallway, with his voice warbling and his fist pounding against the wall as he goes. Regulus' face flashes through his mind, and then his mother's, his father's, his own. Coward, he spits, inaudible, and the word is coated in every bit of venom he's capable of. "I hate you," he says to the empty air, and not even he can tell who he's trying to address.

[donaidk]

Mick Schumacher - Perfect Strangers

Thank you so much for requesting! I had lots of fun with this one 😂 and did leave it a bit open if maybe in the future someone would like a second part to this one. Hope you will like it, and have a lovely Monday! 🥰🧡

Inspiration song

Masterlist | Taglist/Queue | Request

“ You okay alone? I have to go but wouldn’t want to bore you with press events. ” Seb turned to me after talking to Britta for a little, while I watched the mechanics tend to his car in the garage. “ You can stay here, I’m sure no one minds the company. ” He added, sending me a little smile, making me nod.

“ Yeah, I would probably get lost anyways if I went out there. ” I let out a laugh, staying in my seat next to the engineers as he gave me a quick hug and then left the garage, following Britta who was already telling him everything he needed to know. Today was the second time I met her, but I still liked her calm, collected demeanor and energy. I could see why Seb was so content about working with her for the past years.

While they were gone I watched as the team got ready for FP1 and the camera crews walked around the paddock, catching drivers for interviews and capturing moments for interludes they will have during the coverage of the practice rounds on TV. I was more familiar with watching the practices, qualis and races on TV than attending them, even though I would have had the chance to do so. Sebastian was a great friend of my dad, making him like an honorary uncle or godfather to me when I was a bit older and spent quite some time with him and Hana. I even looked after Emilie when they had somewhere to go and were sure I won’t put him in danger. We were lucky that I was trustworthy from a really young age, meaning they could trust me with him as soon as he was fine without Hana being there for a few hours. There wasn’t an occasion when I would have rejected babysitting the young Vettels.

“ Can I get a coffee from somewhere? ” I turned to Seb’s engineer when I saw he wasn’t occupied with something else. I really didn’t want to bother them as they were doing an important job here. At the same time, I needed directions not to get lost around the paddocks.

“ Of course. They have different kinds in the canteen. But we have a machine here too, if that’s enough for you.  ” He pointed at a door in the hallway, making me follow his finger with my gaze. “ It’s the staff room, but driver guests are welcome to use it. ” He added with a smile which I returned, thanking him before standing up.

Inside the room I could easily spot the machine that was already going with a cup under it, slowly being filled with the dark liquid. While it finished up I took another cup and a capsule from the holder on the counter. When the machine turned off I quickly changed out the empty capsule and also the cup from it, putting it to the side. I was sure someone would come back for it later. Sure enough, just when the machine finished my coffee the door behind me opened. I was just looking for some sugar and creamer, not really paying attention to my surroundings, and jumping a little when someone greeted me. Turning back immediately my eyes met with a boy, who was around my age and I could recognise him as Mick. Probably anyone would have recognised him.

“ Sorry, didn’t want to scare you. ” He let out a chuckle, stepping to the counter next to me. “ Was this under the machine? ” He asked me pointing at the mug that I put to the side.

“ Yes. Hope you don’t mind me taking it out. ” I smiled at him stepping to my own cup and adding a bit of sugar and cream into it. “ Sugar? ” I asked him, handing the container to him when he nodded a little. I took a sip from it, to make sure it had enough of everything, before turning to the room.

“ You’re Y/N, right? ” He asked and although I nodded as an answer, I couldn’t help surprise getting onto my face. It wasn’t shocking that people knew his name and almost anything about him, but I couldn’t tell the same about me. “ Seb talks quite a lot about you. At least once every weekend. Also, I think we met before already. ” He explained, making me sigh and hide my face in my palm a little.

“ Never thought I would be a topic for Seb to mention all the time. ” I shook my head, leaving the room when he was ready and we went back to the garage together. “ Hope he only said good things about me. Although I’m pretty sure he probably embarrassed me already, even without me coming to races. ” I let out a sigh entering the garage and sitting down on my previous spot.

“ Not too embarrassing. Just the usual child stories. Although I would say they were more about his children, mentioning you on the way too. ” He shrugged a little, sitting down next to me, at the end of the ‘table’. “ But he made sure we knew you’re coming today. ” My eyes widened a little, before letting out a laugh. If people didn’t know him so well, they could have misunderstood me for one of his children. If I would have been younger, probably, as I was too old for that to be a possibility.

“ So I wasn’t even a surprise? That’s upsetting. ” I let out a sigh, swirling my cup a little, to dissolve the sugar on the bottom of my coffee, as the first sip was still quite bitter. “ Oh, congrats for the championship. I almost forgot. ” I let out a laugh, my hand slapping my forehead a little, as I realised how impolite I was with not even mentioning it.

“ It’s okay, but thank you. I’m just looking forward to the next season now. Gonna be quite a change. ” He smiled at me, shrugging a little but then his shoulders stayed a bit lifted as his muscles tensed. I looked up at him with an understanding smile.

“ You’re gonna get into it. First years are for getting used to the championship and the car. ” I told him, hoping I wasn’ saying something that sounded stupid. I followed the sport but wasn’t as knowledgeable about it as some fans. “ I’m sure every fan knows how hard it is. ” I added as I thought that could be a concern of his. His team loved him, I was sure they would support him however the next year turns out.

“ First seasons are always for learning, but… you know, they think experience comes easily with my name. ” He sighed, rather lifting his cup to his lips, probably to mask the smile fading away from his face. I couldn’t fault him though, there was probably immense pressure on him. Of course, mostly from the outside world, as people around him probably knew quite well how talented he was. Just as Seb always mentioned how skilled and kind he was.

Everything sped up when Seb and Charles arrived back at the garage and they started getting ready for practice. We mostly just stayed silent, sharing a few thoughts when something happened, so we won’t disturb the engineers and he can also mostly focus on the data and how everything went with Ferrari. I knew this was already his time to learn  everything, and didn’t need any distractions. I was fully content with just watching the practice runs and how the crew worked around the car when it was brought back in before one more round around the circuit. I was just about to get a bit bored with everything when it was time for lunch and we could leave. For the afternoon I went for a little walk close to the track, and only met up again with Seb for dinner in the hotel’s restaurant.

I was a bit surprised when Mick joined us, but didn’t mind it one bit. He was funny and it felt like we have known each other for years already, even though this was just the second time in our whole lifetime. I could see Seb watching us, like a hawk, his grin not leaving his face once. I saw as he tried to speak up, the smirk giving him away, but by pushing his leg with mine I got him to close his mouth before uttering a sound. Britta almost choked on her next bite as she knew exactly what was happening, but tried playing it off. Luckily it didn’t seem like Mick realised what was happening around him, and I was glad Seb couldn’t make the night uncomfortable for everyone. He had that effect on situations like this, mostly when it was about me or his own children. They were lucky they were still too small to understand it.

“ You seemed to get on quite well. ” Seb spoke up when we were already on the floor of our rooms making me roll my eyes. He wasn’t someone I was about to have this conversation with gladly.

“ Well, he’s my age and kind. Not like you. ” I poked his side with my elbow, making the both of us laugh as we got to our rooms. With a quick goodnight both of us entered our separate rooms and got ready for the night. I was maybe looking forward to the next day a bit more than that day. Knowing I will have a bit more company made everything better.

The following day we got to the track early as Seb still had some interviews to do before practice. I knew we wouldn’t be able to have lunch together as the afternoon was about Qualification and he needed to focus, but I was sure I would find someone to eat with or maybe just go by myself this one time. What surprised me stepping inside the garage was Mick sitting in the same position as yesterday and a mug of piping hot coffee waiting for me next to his one. With a glare sent at Seb, who was snickering at the situation, I walked closer, sitting down on the stool. His gaze immediately lifted from his phone, looking at me with a smile.

“ Morning. ” I greeted him with the same smile, my hand moving to the cup in front of me. “ Is this for me? Or are you getting ready for a long day? ” I asked him chuckling, seeing as he shook his head a little, maybe even rolling his eyes.

“ Yours. The way you made it yesterday. Hope that’s really how you like it. ” He added, although I already got an answer to my question. It was really sweet of him to think about me, and even more, remembering how I made it just a day ago.

“ Thank you. Glad I didn’t hold back on the sugar then. ” I shook my head a little, taking a sip already and I was sure he followed my usual ‘recipe’ as it tasted the exact same way. “ Perfect! ” I added with a content sigh, my body finally waking up. I wasn’t made for early mornings, even though on most days I started my schedule quite early.

We had an almost exact repeat of the previous day, the only differences being that we had lunch, just the two of us, and that I stayed for the afternoon, watching the quali and rooting for Seb. I may have missed a few laps, being too distracted by our conversation but even when he only reached P13 I knew it wasn’t because of us not watching him. Seeing how frustrated he was I left him to Britta, knowing he didn’t like company so soon after suffering a kind of defeat. He usually just needed time to calm down and look at everything with a calm head again.

“ There’s usually a party on the beach after the races here. Usually the younger drivers are the one attending with some of the crews. But if you would like to come and Seb will be in the mood to relax, they probably wouldn’t mind having you guys there. ” Mick made me turn towards him from my position, a smile getting onto my face, while his was a bit unsure. “ I wouldn’t mind anyways. So you two can be my guest. ” He shrugged a little, his eyes averting between mine as I was looking straight at him.

“ Sure, thank you. He usually gets back to normal if he has some time to calm down. ” I let out a sigh looking towards the hallway where Seb disappeared just seconds ago. I was pretty sure that inside he was fuming at his starting position while Britta tried to talk a bit of sense into him.

Although I took a car back to the hotel with him, in the end he chose to have dinner in his room and I went to the canteen alone. Thinking back to the night I can’t even remember how I ended up at a table with some of the guys who were my age, with Mick to my side. There were a few of the F2 and even F3 drivers too, everyone talking and joking together. even though everyone had to have an early night we still spent a few hours together just talking, before everyone went to their own rooms. I did toss and turn for a little until I finally fell asleep and then stayed in bed almost all morning.

The first thing I got out of bed for was lunch before getting ready for the race and the party afterwards. I didn’t put on anything special as I always prioritised comfort over look and didn’t pack anything party worthy anyways. A light blouse, jeans and a sandal had to do it as it was everything I had for the few days I planned on spending in Abu Dhabi. Who thought I would get invited to a championship party during my first ever true race weekend. Not me, that’s for sure. I knew we would maybe have a drink or two with the ones close to Seb if the race goes well, but didn’t think I would get to celebrate with younger ones, no matter in which position they cross the finish line.

We left the hotel together for the track with Seb, the car dropping us off at the parking lot just prior to the entrance to the paddocks. I tried focusing on him,just making sure he knew he had my support too, although I couldn’t help but get into a short conversation with Mick. When I turned back to the older man he was already putting on his helmet, but sent me a smile, from which I knew he wasn’t mad at me for not being always next to him. I watched as he got into his car but then left for the grandstand, as I really didn’t want to be in the way of anyone, and opted for watching the race from the usual position. I thought it would be less stressful this way, as I was an outsider more than someone who knew a drive personally, but I was still a bit disappointed for him when they finished the last lap in front of us. I took the stairs down to the paddocks, entering the Ferrari garage even before Seb arrived back.

“ You did good. ” I hugged him when he got to me, although I knew simple words couldn't help after a season like his. It still felt right to tell him, making sure he knew we were still proud of him.

“ Thank you, but it wasn’t the best last season I would have asked for. ” He shrugged a little, putting down his equipment on the table next to him. “ I’m gonna have to get some interviews, photos done and change. We can leave after that if you don’t mind staying until then. ” He informed me, while I crossed my arms in front of myself.

“ Actually, Mick invited me to like a season ending party at the beach. Most of the younger drivers will be there, and you’re invited too if you would like to come. ” I told him, waiting patiently for his answer. “ But I don’t mind staying if you would like some company. ” I added, realising I took him not minding my absence for granted.

“ I’ll probably just have a quiet night, but you go and have fun. I’m fine with leaving you to him and the others. ” He shook his head, with a small smile still visible on his face. “ I’m gonna be miserable enough for the both of us, and we will have enough time to catch up after today. ” He added with a laugh when I was about to change my mind, pulling me into a side hug.

That’s how I ended up in a car with all the youngsters, after a quick introduction, that took us to the beach. It was probably a private section of the sandy path next to the water, as it wasn’t crowded and every face that came up to me was already familiar in a way. I couldn’t fault them for only partying in their own circles, as I could imagine the chaos some fans getting in would cause. No one needed that when they came here to relax a bit, after a stressful season full of training and working. I was just happy to take part in it and have a few drinks with the guys before dancing the night away. Looking back, I wasn’t that fed up with my choice of flat sandals, as even that was killing my feet when we got back to the hotel.

Even though I woke up with a killer headache, I wouldn’t have traded it if it meant changing the previous night's outcome. Despite the hangover, and having to fly home early, I felt refreshed and ready to take on the usually boring life at home again. It always filled me with energy if I could get out of the usual rhythm, and this time maybe the new contact in my phone helped too. To the stage that Seb was giving me curious looks when we got into the car already, and even more when just looking at the meaningless device made me smile a little wider.

[extremelyblackandwhite]

heiress

pairing: bucky barnes x oc!reader 

a/n: this is part one of a four part series based on a song lyrics sent to me by an amazing anon with a reader based on my favourite oc. 

“letters strewn across your bedroom floor. such beautiful words but you can’t remember who they’re for“

Y/N collapsed against the thin black matt again, her head thumping against the worn out floors off the compound and her hair covering the view of the younger recruits dancing in black ballerina costumes to the sound of ominous piano. She pushed her hands against the black mattress to look at her professor who was staring her down, yet he always did. He was taller than her, taller than any recruit around so if the metal arm wasn’t intimidating enough, his looking down into those storm filled eyes did the trick.

    - That was a cheap shot. 

    - There are no cheap shots in the battlefield. - he extended his hand to her but she denied him, instead using her hands against the matt to pull herself up. - You cannot expect ...

    - Fairness in battle. - she completed his sentence, arranging her ponytail while pulling the strap of her black top up. - I know, you’ve told me many times.

   - Then you should already know it. You keep this up and you’ll return to ballet.

   - You’re just a terrible professor. - she smirked, taking a few steps away to consider her next move. - You can’t expect me to expect someone to hit me in the chest.

    - I expect to see you in the Red Room. - he said, shrugging it out but she knew exactly what that entailed. The red room, the other black widows, she wanted none of that, none of that lifestyle. - You’re a good marksman. Just need hand to hand combat.

   - Best out of five?

   - We are not gonna stop until you bring me down.

   - Will you tell me your name if I bring you down?

   - You know my name. - he spoke like an authoritarian professor, perfect posture and senses as if he expected an attack from every corner. Maybe he was right in fearing an attack yet his position was almost frozen, tense even ... as if someone held strings over him and controlled him like a puppet. - C’mon, Daisy. You can graduate and become as good as any girl here.

  - I’ll tell you my name if you tell me yours.

  - I know your name. 

  - I meant my real name, not my code name.

  - Stop joking around and bring me down. 

Y/N pushed her jacket up as she stepped in the middle of the street with Monica and Wanda by her side. It had only been 2 months out of Westview, 2 short months compiled of hiding from whatever was left of SHIELD, SWORD and from the identity who had created Wanda’s fake haven. The plan was simple, elemental even, yet it proved much harder to gather evidence on SHIELD and SWORD’s plan when both she, Monica, Wanda, Jimmy and Darcy had both been considered highly dangerous fugitives so whatever they did had to be undercover. The walls have ears and eyes so all care was necessary, which meant no display of supernatural abilities or anything that could connect them to themselves. HYDRA had gone underground and still seemed to be pulling at the strings of SHIELD and SWORD, as Ross was working on a new generation of super soldiers with the excuse the world needed security after the Avengers dissolved and Captain America, Steve Rogers, dropped his shield. She should’ve known, after SWORD and SHIELD started experimenting with Vision’s body. She should’ve known but with the threat of Westview, they kept both her and Monica in the dark, instead redirecting their attentions to framing Wanda as a fugitive.

     - If that SHIELD hideaway is still around, it won’t be short of traps. - Monica commented, eyes surrounding the sea of people around. - What’s the plan?

    - Yelena and Jimmy are going around and Vision and Darcy are in the helicopter surrounding the top. 

     - You do know Vision can fly, right? - Wanda smirked, yet the unbelievable thing was she had not referred to him as her husband despite the wedding band around her finger.

     - Regular people can’t fly. - Monica said, rather amused at the thought of Vision trying to go by undercover in the sky.

     - We found it. - Yelena’s voice came through the intercom on her ear. - There better be some fighting for it to be worth while.

     - Wait up, we’ll let you know when we enter. No fighting.

     - You’re no fun.

They did not know exactly what they were looking for, they were just looking for evidence. her father was always keen on scattering things around. If there was something her father was right about was not keeping everything in one place, people would find it easily. She was sure, she was sure she would find something in that place which was connected to HYDRA, even if it was a map of other locations. If she were ever to clean their names, she needed evidence and then she needed to stop them. Super soldiers should have stayed in the past yet despite HYDRAs and her father’s mistakes the very organisations who swore to protect Earth, were making the same mistakes. 

The mundane looking home appeared in the horizon. It looked less scary now, less official than when her father dropped her there to be collected by Madam B. Even now, so many years past it she could fell the snow falling on her arms as the stern woman dragged her away from everything she knew. It haunted her, it still did and flashbacks went through her mind as she yelled for her father not to let that woman take her. She begged and sobbed but he turned his back on her as if her discomfort did not matter. Almost as cold as the snow that fell from the ground.

    - Hey ... - Monica put her hand on her shoulder, soft, reassuring smile. - He’s locked up. Can’t send you away anymore.

    - Even if he tried ... - Wanda’s eyes glowed red. - He wouldn’t win.

    - Let’s get this over and done with. - Y/N sighed, looking at the door as if it was a bitter lover. - Yelena, we’re coming in.

    - Copy.

Wanda rose her hand, twisting as the intricate set of locks and codes was over ridden by the red glow of her powers. Yes, it was no ordinary way of opening a door but it was the best shoot. The once scary room was dark, filled with dust and reminders of a great time for SHIELD. Walking in, she could smell the rotting wood, gun powder, and mold. It was funny how the house which still haunted her dreams was collapsing onto itself, a simple symbol of times which were coming to an end. Yet, like her trauma, it still remained tall, in the heart of Washington. They walked in slowly, nothing but the sound of their breathing until a floor board creaked. Immediately Monica pulled out her gun while Wanda’s eyes lit red and Y/N grabbed the gun tucked in her trousers. She moved her hand slowly, the old candles in the tables lightening up. As the light engulfed the room, she found the intruders had also guns pointed at them.

   - Drop your weapons. - she knew them. Sharon Carter, Sam Wilson, and ... Bucky Barnes. Shit.

   - I’m afraid not. - Monica replied, never wavering stance which could make even the strongest of man cower. - State your business.

   - I thought you said no fight. - Yelena came up from behind with Jimmy, both holding their guns up. 

   - You’re surrounded. Drop. Your. Weapons. - Monica repeated.

   - Wait, I know him. - Yelena pointed her gun at Bucky. - You were in the Red Room.

   - Maybe you should drop your weapons. You’re the one with a terrorist who harboured a whole town of innocents.

   - Sharon, I didn’t peg you for a gullible one. - Y/N’s eyes shone dim white, before she dropped her weapon. - We’re not your enemy and we are not looking for a fight.

   - I am. - Yelena rolled her eyes.

   - Lieutenant Ross wants to build a super soldier army and he’s looking for whatever information there is on the Winter Soldier program and Captain America. They were experimenting on Vision before Wanda broke him out and then both were held hostage in a simulation. We are not criminals.

   - You’re your father’s daughter why should I believe in you?

   - Because if not it’s 3 against 7 and it’s not a very fair fight. - Wanda snarked back before moving her hand, making the three point at each other. - Or you can shoot each other. 

   - That’s just mean, Wanda. Don’t you have a little pity for your friend? - Sam looked her way. - Look, we’re on the run. We’re not looking to turn you in.

   - Then drop it. - Monica shrugged. - You’re not gonna win.

   - I only count 5, I like my odds. 

   - Vision and Darcy are outside. 

   - I thought Vision was super dead. - Sam whispered over to Bucky who shrugged at his words, them registering void as his mind rushed over the strings of his memory to try and find why the woman who had just lowered her weapon was so familiar yet his memory seemed surrounded by red tint, nothing coming. - Wanda, you know me. We’re not here with malice, there’s no need for a fight.

   - This is waste of time. - Yelena rolled her eyes, lowering her own weapon. - Can’t you make magical handcuffs, Wanda?

  - That’s a gross understatement of what I can do ... - her eyes glowed red as they usually did whenever she used her powers to a particular extreme. 

  - We’re not starting a fight. - Wanda looked Y/N’s way as those particular words left her mouth. She could feel her energy trying to slip into her mind and successfully do so. Whatever made her mind safe from her tended to waver in delicate situations and Wanda loved whenever she got to peak inside her mind. This time she merely gave her a teasing look, eyes returning to their natural light green hue. Her eyes did not lie and she guessed neither did whatever piece of her mind Wanda got hold of. - We’re under Nick Fury. The last thing we are is your foe. 

   - Hey... is this what we looking for? - Jimmy held up a file with LE-0623. The number itself made her sick to her stomach. Every memory she had somehow had that number from the black shirt he wore to train to the files on her father’s desk. There was no question they had the right file, or at least one of the files on the Winter Soldier. She remembered laughing to herself at how long it had taken for someone to find one of the soldier’s red notebooks. To her knowledge there were at least five: one with HYDRA, one at the Red Room, one with a holder and the other two at different safe houses. She remembered Madam B. telling her the soldier was more machine than man and as such, like every machine, required an instruction book. It was sick, she thought the analogy was sick and now looking at him, years after she had known him, it felt sicker. There had always been a human inside the soldier but HYDRA was not interested in humanity unless it was submissive to them.

   - You can come. - Monica suggested. - You’re not exactly America’s sweethearts at the moment.

   - Why should we trust you? - Sharon cocked her head to the side. Why should she trust a team with the daughter of a man who had taken down her aunt’s life project? Y/N wouldn’t have trust her if she were in her place. - Or is that a kinder way of saying we’re captive?

 - You really think we’d need a kind way to hold you captive? - Wanda turned around, exiting the building. She probably knew the outcome of their decision before they told anyone. 

The two man shared a knowing look between them, following Wanda out with Yelena fast on their step but Y/N stood behind. The whole room looked so much smaller yet it vibrated with memories she had buried deep into her subconsciousness. It was still there, everything as it was growing old with dust just like her childhood.  It was lost. Monica looked at her with kind eyes, drapping her arm over her shoulder like she did whenever they were both recruits at SWORD. Everything seemed so far away now, even Westview seemed far. Time seemed to pass by the two like an enemy yet it lingered in the memories which haunted at night.

   - You three should go with Yelena. - Monica suggested. - You can come with us, Jimmy.

  - I’ll go with Yelena. - Wanda walked over to the former Red Room graduate, eyes still gazing over Y/N, looking for any gaps in her mind shield which was slowly crumbling the more she looked at him. - See you at the base.

Y/N looked over her shoulder for a second to look at him. He looked different, at least as different as one who does not age can look, short hair, relaxed posture sometimes even. Her eyes met up with his, familiar looks which lingered like a long kiss, yet she couldn’t bare look him in the eye and instead entered Monica’s old jeep. Monica took the driver’s seat while she took shotgun and Jimmy sat on the back, reporting what had happened through him com to a very curious Darcy who was probably bored off her mind being stuck in an helicopter with Vision.

   - Jim, can I see that? - Y/N turned around in her seat to look at the FBI agent who shrugged and handed her the file. She let it fall on her lap, fingers tracing the name she wanted to know so much when her whole world were the walls of the Red Room. She would’ve never guessed his name, even if she tried. 

Her hands traced the edges of the file, almost afraid to find out what was inside; yet when she opened them, a few letters slide out. Daisy. She recognised the fast written name on top in messy black runny ink. 

  - Anything interesting? 

  - No. - she blinked, closing the file. - Uhm ... not that I know. Maybe Alexei might know, he was a guardian when Sergeant Barnes was a fight intructor there.

  - Think the twins will freak out when they see Sam Wilson? - Monica smiled. The twins had a huge fascination with the Avengers despite both their parents being part off the initial team. Nevertheless, Billy and Tommy did not really care and instead got wide eyed watching old footage of the Avengers. - Last time they saw Hawkeye they were hyper for a month. 

  - Not sure Fury’s gonna be happy about having three new people in.

  - The more, the merrier. 

The ride to the base was excruciating as she replayed the scene in her head although there was really nothing to replay. She knew someday at some point she would see him, she just never expected it to be that soon. The last time she had seen him was the mirage of him in Westview, one of Agnes failed tricks, and even then she got tongue tied. Seeing him now even felt more unrealistic, he felt like such a figure of her past, like an unresolved badly healed wound. She really thought that by now she would be better at controlling it, you’d think 6 years would’ve taught her best how to deal with him even after all the past events where his face was plastered all over the television. Nevertheless, despite how slow time ran for her, they reached the small seemingly deserted area which started to glow red as Wanda broke through the hex she had created to protect their designated base. It was nothing special, Wanda had told her when she brought the team to see what she had been working on. Yet, it was something special and over time their team grew to give harbour anyone who looked for shelter from SWORD, SHIELD, or HYDRA and the initial team could not be any prouder of it.

The two jeeps parked in front of the entrance and immediately Y/N spotted Tommy rush outside, holding his twin by the arm. Both clearly already knowing they had visitors, Avengers visitors. 

    - Jeez Louise, you two. What did I say about using your powers? - Wanda stepped out of the jeep, hands on her waist. 

    - Not unless it’s necessary or under supervision. - Tommy shrugged as Alexei came running behind them. - Alexei supervised us, mum.

    - Just wait ‘til your father hears about this.

    - You got kids? - Sam asked, visibly worried at the fact his old friend seemed to have two ten year olds.

    - Long story. - Monica added. - You two inside. No place for you here today.

    - But you said we could meet the Avengers, mum. - Billy complained to Wanda.

     - You can always meet me, kids. - Vision joked making Darcy roll her eyes. Poor Darcy, she was probably already done with dad jokes. 

The briefing was long and drawn up with Fury mostly filling Sharon, Bucky and Sam into what they did and listening to Jimmy about the contents of the file. There was never too much in those files and it was mostly about ensuring they had all the files so Lieutenant Ross wouldn’t get his hands on them. Besides, it was up to Sharon, Bucky and Sam’s interest to join him as soon enough Zemo would be contacted by Lieutenant Ross and until he had one of the Winter Soldier files in his possession, Zemo was also one of their enemies. She tried looking at him a few times, memories of the time they had spent together clouding her mind and better judgement yet she couldn’t forget how Bucky had pushed Sharon behind him the moment Monica and her had pointed guns at them, protecting her the same way he used to protect her. Yet, she had no business thinking about him, not after what she had done, not after she became the sole reason why he ...

    - Y/N. - Fury’s voice took her from her own mind. Looking around, the room was vacant except for her, Fury, Wanda and Monica. She was so focused on her memories, she hadn’t even noticed the remains of them leave the room. - I told you not to go on that mission.

    - I don’t work for you, Fury. Besides, I’ve been there before, I was an asset to the meeting. 

    - You’re the sole benefactor of whatever powers your father had at SHIELD, if you die then Ross inherits it. If you ever disobey direct orders, I’ll ...

    - You’ll what? - Y/N interrupted him. - Tell my father?

    - You might not want to accept he’s your father, but he is and you have to deal with the responsibilities that come with being his daughter. 

    - Fine. -  Y/N stretched a fake smile on her face as Fury left her, Wanda and Monica alone in the briefing room. 

    - Alright  ... give them to me. - Monica extended her hands towards Y/N. - The letters that were in the file and you clearly took.

    - It’s his letters. I don’t think anyone has any business reading them. 

    - I’ll give them to him then. Hand them over, Y/N. - Y/N begrudgingly handed the letters over to Monica who got up. - You let yourself be easily haunted by the past. If I let you keep these, you will never give them to him. You can’t even look at him.

    - Yes, I can. 

    - Oh really? - Monica crossed her arms. - Then come with me and hand them to him. 

    - That’s just mean, Monica.

    - We’ll talk about this later, Y/N. - she pointed at him before exiting the room. Y/N slouched against her chair, looking at the ceiling above her. 

    -  Don’t worry. - Wanda reassured, hand on her shoulder. - I did what you made me promise I’d do back in Westview.

    - Thanks, Wan. 

    - You’ll be fine ... We always have to be fine isn’t it? - she looked straight ahead with a sadness which showed all she herself had lost despite having recovered the twins and Vision. So much for a nice suburban life.

    - So ... he won’t remember?

    - He won’t remember a thing.

[rikalovesrice]

Douxie x Reader #4 - Comfort (Part 1)

Reader Recap : Lives in older sister’s shadow, rarely ever acknowledged by her parents or people at school. Has a host of insecurities because of it. Part-time pizza delivery girl on a scooter. A partner in crime when hunting for monsters in the late hours of night with Douxie, Archie, and Zoe. You and Douxie have become close friends. 

You didn’t know where you going and you didn’t care. All you knew is that you had to get as far away from your house and the people inside of it as you could without leaving Arcadia. 

You floored it on your scooter, fueled by the frustration and hurt pumping through your veins. Eventually you rolled into town and parked the scooter in the park, dismounting and leaning back against the seat, holding yourself. There was a dull sort of ache in your head and you could feel the pressure of tears forming but refusing to fall. It brought you to the ground and you curled in on yourself, rocking forward onto the balls of your feet. It was times like this, when being swept aside became too much, that you questioned your very existence. Why you even bothered sometimes. If your parents even knew they had another child. If you really were just a speck of dirt on your older sister’s pristine image.

You weren’t sure how long you stayed there all balled up beside your scooter, taking deep breathes and crying softly into your arms. You had just noticed a bizarre, prickling rasp in your ear when -

“(Name)!!”

There as a flash of blue and you instinctively ducked, rolling forward and roughly onto your side as some kind of misty, shadowy form took the brunt of a blast of blue. The creature screeched and quickly recovered from the attack. It was about the size of a squirrel and it twitched and jerked about like a glitch. White, ghastly, hollow eyes pulsed against a shape of black and gray smoke, like distorted full moons. You backed away on your elbows, terrified when not one, not two, but what looked like a hundred more of the things manifested from the night, rising like a wave from behind your scooter.

You braced yourself as the creatures descended upon you, squeezing your eyes shut, when a hand clamped around your shoulder and pulled you snug against a familiar bundle of black. 

“Douxie...!” you gasped, looked up at his face creased with concentration. You flinched at the force of the shadowy creatures slamming into the shield of magic Douxie had conjured, his left arm extended, charm bracelet alight with symbols. When they’d dispersed, Douxie lowered the shield and helped you to your feet, checking you over.

“Are you alright?” he asked, patting your shoulders and arms. “What are you doing here? I thought you had something with your family tonight.”

“What...What are those things?” you huffed, wondering how you’d manage to forget what Arcadia’s like after midnight. The flurry of writhing shadows regrouped in the air, a frightening show against the street lights, and were circling back. Douxie moved in front of you, watching them closely with charm bracelet at the ready.

“Hollowsprites,” Douxie said lowly. “Nasty things. Haven’t seen this many since Morgana returned. Drawn to darkness. They feed upon strong negative emotions and feelings. Fear. Anger. Sadness.” His voice lost some edge and his head turned slightly back towards you. “Pain and suffering...”

Sensing a lapse in attention, the hollowsprites spiraled downward, only to be intercepted by a bright flash of pink and a burst of fire. Archie and Zoe were hurrying onto the scene, Archie perching himself around Douxie’s shoulders.

“(Name)! Change your mind about tonight?” Archie asked, glancing back at you.

“So this is where they all went,” Zoe said, pink electricity sparking between her fingers. “Thought you were gonna have all the fun, did you, Doux?”

“Ugh, you’re welcome for finding them,” Douxie retorted. Then he grinned, his charm bracelet flickering as he clenched his fist. “Go on, Zoe. I’ve worn them down for you!”

“Yeah cause more hollowsprites showing up is wearing them down.” 

“Provoking is more like it,” Archie added. “Dramatically emoting?”

“Whose side are you on?” Douxie whined.

“Uh, sorry, Arch,” you say. “I think I was one...er, emoting.”

Archie turned in the air to face you, his white eyebrows creased. “That so? Are you alright, (Name)?” 

Douxie let his guard down even more, slightly lowering his charm bracelet and equally concerned as he looked back at you. 

“Okay not to be insensitive but can we do this later cause we’ve kinda got a situation here!” Zoe lashed the angry hollowsprites with sparks of magic. “Sit tight, (Name). Come on you two!”

“Thought you wanted all the fun, Zoe!”

“Douxie, I swear -”

Continuing their banter, Douxie, Zoe, and Archie got to work blasting and zapping and burning the hollowsprites into submission. The pain in your heart was suspended for the moment as you were fixated on the action in front of you. Several hollowsprites lunged at you, but they ended up barreling into another one of Douxie’s shields. 

“(Name), whatever negative emotions are inside of you, they want to consume them,” he said, looking back at you. “They want to use your emotions to make them stronger and corrupt you. But you can resist them. Don’t let them win!” Douxie shoved the magical shield forward with a loud grunt, the magic bursting and causing the hollowsprites to scatter furiously. 

Corruption. That was a concept that hadn’t occurred to you. But now that you thought about it, it made sense. There were plenty of times the hurt threatened to melt into bitter hatred, to the point where you considered being a nasty person yourself in retaliation. Everything was constantly being taken away from you. Everything. But...There were things within you that your family could never touch. Things no one could touch or take, not if you had any say in it. And right now...It seems you did. 

No one would steal the peace of a bookstore. The warmth of a cafe. Jamming out in a record store. The thrill of cruising on a scooter under a starlit sky. The wonder of literal magic, the kind you thought only existed in movies. A talking cat with glasses and a pair of wings. Headphones over a head of pink hair. Black clothes and golden eyes and that breathtaking smile of his.

The place where you belonged.

The friends you now cherished.

The love you had found.

The pain of understanding now what life could be. What it should have been.

You were constantly aware of the exhaustion of choosing love. Choosing to have grace. Choosing to be strong and steadfast. Choosing to be different. But as tiring as it was, you never once regretted it. And that belonged to you, too. 

The decision, your resolve, to try and be better.

You planted your feet, grounding yourself as the hollowsprites once again took aim at you. As they dove down, Douxie almost conjured another shield but you stepped firmly in front of him.

“Stay away from my emotions you freaks!” you yelled at the mass of writhing shadows. “They’re mine! My feelings are mine!” Almost immediately, the hollowsprites recoiled as if stung, screeching and squealing in confusion.

“That’s it!” Douxie said with a broad smile, summoning rings of magic to attack the creatures further. Archie flew between the rings, setting Douxie’s magic ablaze to amplify his spells. Soon blue flames were raining down like falling leaves from hollowsprites being burned alive.

“Big mistake messing with my friend!” Zoe said, engulfing herself in pink electricity. With two taps of her toes on the ground, she bolted forward, powerful streams of lightning trailing behind her and frying any hollowsprite in her path. The ravenous behavior of the creatures dissolved into frustrated disorientation, members of the shadowy cluster zipping around aimlessly.

You noticed that the hollowsprites weren’t actually dying. Rather the number of hollowsprites began to dwindle as members of the swarm shot off into the night like dark firecrackers. 

Eventually all the hollowsprites fled, an eerie silence filling the town in their wake. All three of your magical friends loosened in exhaustion, Douxie actually dropping to the ground to sit.

“None of them were destroyed,” you commented, looking up into the night where the creatures had vanished.

“Yea, well...As long as negative emotions exist, hollowsprites can’t be destroyed,” Zoe said. “Just shooed away, really.”

You frowned. “I’m sorry...”

“Don’t be,” Douxie said. “We’ve been seeing more and more of them lately anyway.”

“You see, hollowsprites are also drawn to...‘disturbances’ in the realms, so to speak,” Archie said. “We suspect something must be amiss...”

“There’s that, too, yes. But I suppose they targeted you because your emotions were so strong...” 

You locked eyes with Douxie, a moment passing between you both. His eyes were soft with concern. For some reason, looking to those eyes, you felt really vulnerable.

Zoe cleared her throat. “Erm, Archie? Why don’t we make sure the rest of the town is clear of those things?”

“Pardon...?” Archie said. “But- Oh. Oh...Y-yes! Good idea, Zoe!”

Zoe gave you a quick hug. “I’ll text you later. You better answer me! Make sure she gets home safe, Doux.” 

You felt a blush on your cheeks. They were leaving you alone with him? 

“Uh, hold on-” But Zoe and Archie were already hurrying away. You leaned back against the seat of your scooter, fumbling with your fingers and saying nothing. And suddenly extremely aware of Douxie’s presence. You actually jumped a little when he said your name.

“(Name)...Um...” Douxie scratched the back of his neck. “You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to...But if you don’t mind me asking what happened...?”

Of course you didn’t mind. Douxie was a safe space where the monsters couldn’t reach you. Your place of respite. But even though the tears came easily then, it didn’t mean you weren’t embarrassed.

“They all forgot,” you said, your voice already thick with tears. “They forgot about the dinner I had planned to um...celebrate my dad’s promotion.” With an empty laugh, you wiped your face with your palm. “I mean, I don’t know what I was expecting. I just...”

Douxie got up off the ground, stepping closer to you. “(Name)...”

“I just wanted to do something nice for my dad. For my family. But I’m dumb and I actually thought they’d care. Mom and dad just went out to eat and my sister just stayed in her room and the food was getting cold and -”

As soon as his arms wrapped around you, you sobbed into his sweatshirt. You were vaguely aware that you were probably getting tears and snot and dribble all over your crush but you couldn’t stop crying for a solid three minutes. Douxie just held you the whole time, hand squeezing your shoulder and thumb stroking your back. 

"I’m emoting all over you...,” you whimpered, having settled down into soft sniffling and hiccups.

“Oh stop it,” Douxie said. Then he hugged you tighter. “I’m so sorry they treat you like this. You know you can always come to me...Zoe, and Archie, right? I... We’ll never sweep you aside.”

You almost came undone again. Not wanting to soak Douxie’s sweatshirt further, you moved back and pressed your forehead against his collarbone, still staying as close as you could to his warmth. To his eyes like the sun and moon, glowing with compassion, soft with understanding. To his smile that always made you smile. To his gentle hands. Those streaks of blue hair. The comforting shadow of his presence. His magic, bright and beautiful like he was. 

It terrified you.

“Yeah...” You pulled away to look up at him, still holding his arms. “Yeah, I know you won’t. I...I believe you. I’ll try....”

Douxie gazed at you for a moment before smiling softy, wiping a tear away with his finger. 

“Good,” he said. Then he smooshed your face between his hands, forcing your cheeks and lips to pucker.

“H-hey!!”

He released you, laughing. “Shall I walk you home?”

Blushing wildly and rubbing your face, you managed a smile.

“That’d be nice.”

~

~

There wasn’t any hurry. It was probably two in the morning now but would your family notice your absence? Negative.

You guided your scooter along as Douxie strolled beside you, the two of you chatting about any and everything. Douxie went off a bit talking about how he didn’t understand people who ate fondant and how much of a jerk Shakespeare was. It was the cutest thing. Then you started going on and on about how pretty the moon was tonight and how crescent moons were your favorite. For a second, Douxie might’ve been staring at you, but, no, duh, you definitely imagined it.

“Well uh...This is me.” You took one look at your front door and sighed. “Sadly.”

“Hey.” Douxie placed a hand on your arm. “Remember what I said. Anytime. A phone call, a text-”

“A raven?”

He snickered. “Especially a raven. But seriously...Just say the word.”

Under the moonlight, Douxie was otherworldly. So gorgeous your heart threatened to swell to bursting. How was it that your paths could possibly have crossed? It escaped you, and you had no hope of catching it.

“Okay,” you said softly.

“Okay,” Douxie repeated. “Goodnight, (Name).”

“Goodnight, Douxie.”

Neither of you moved.

“Ah, go on, then,” Douxie said kindly, putting his hands in his pockets. “I’ll stay until you’re inside.”

“O-oh. Okay, thanks.” You parked your scooter next to your sister’s car. Just as your hand touched the doorknob, you were overwhelmed with the urge to just tell him. Heart racing, you tried to say his name, starting to turn back around.

“Uh..Uh D-Doux-”

“(Name).”

You paused. “Y-yeah?”

Douxie smiled warmly. “I’m glad that I met you. I’m glad we’re friends.”

It was sweetness followed by a stab. 

“Me, too,” you said, meaning it with your whole aching heart. “You...” A shaky breath. “You guys mean the world to me.”

Before he could say anything else, you hurried inside, up the stairs in the dark, and into your room, not caring if you woke anyone up. You curled up on your bed, face in your forearms. 

You were happy. So, so happy. 

And so utterly crushed.

Just outside, still in front of your house, Douxie’s eyes fixated on your bedroom window. Then he turned and started back towards the town, wondering how he could ease the pain in your life and thinking about the look on your face, the glow in your eyes, as you enthused over the moonlight.

[beyscape]

The Intern - 5

Andy Barber x Reader

Summary: Being Andy’s intern meant you got to spend more time by his side more than anyone. This was fine, however, until feelings got in the way and made things complicated

Word Count: 1700

Warnings: technically cheating, mentions of sex, teeny bit of sexual content

A/N Contains spoilers from episodes 1-7. Here’s a short little thing to keep you going until Friday. I wanna watch the last episode before writing more, I really like to stay close to the story with this fic.

Ch.1   Ch.2   Ch.3   Ch.4    Ch.5

  Leaving was never easy for Andy Barber. The warmth of your touch, the softness of your kisses, the hooded look of your eyes… These and some other moments he held dear in his heart came together and made a combination so sinfully sweet that he never managed to get enough of. Every little moment left him yearning for more, desperate for the next time he would get to feel you. The next time he would get to hold you.

  He never expected this, never expected to fall so hard. The feelings he nurtured in the most private part of his chest were awakened fully, stronger than he ever felt them. They swirled and came alive in him, a buzz of emotions in his veins, constantly travelling him whole. So powerful, so overwhelming at times that Andy felt he would burst with this newfound affection. So unexpected, something he never knew he needed until after he found it. Your smile, the one that came out only in those intimate hours, flashed in hind, Andy’s heart thudded in response.

  It wasn’t long before he found himself in front of the red door that seemed too bright, too glaring, and he was back at the house. Back to pretending and lying. It was a ticking bomb, with Jacob’s trial so close, and the inevitable conversation loomed over him in the forms of dark clouds.

  He had to tell Laurie.

  He was well aware of it, he precited what he would say and how he would say it. He was supposed to be good at delivering uncomfortable news and speeches, he was a lawyer for God’s sake, yet he couldn’t muster the courage. The words escaped him both times he tried, the conversation ended before it could even begin, and he was running out of time. He closed the door behind him, even the soft clicking sounding too loud in the silence of the morning.

“Where were you?” He stopped as the question hit his ears, asked by a soft but a firm voice, he turned. Laurie sat in the living room, stone-faced as she looked at her husband standing steps away from the stairs. Andy’s first instinct was to lie, like he had done many times before in the long years of his marriage, but he was tired of it. So, the time was now. He sat down across her.

“I…” He took a deep breath, not finding it in himself to look at her cold, accusing face. He no longer felt the kind of love he once thought he did, but that didn’t mean Andy didn’t care about her. Of course he did, she still was the person who spent so long by him. She still was the mother of his son. He wanted to be as gentle as he could. “I was with someone.” He looked up to her face then, the face that didn’t reveal a single thought crossing her mind.

“Who is she?” Her voice hoarse, barely audible as the question fell out of her mouth.

Andy gulped once. “Y/N.”  

A bitter laugh escaped Laurie then, her eyes remaining icy. “I should have known.”

A silence fell over them, both wondering how they ended up being two strangers living in the same house. The clock ticked and ticked, the time they had before Jacob woke up slipping away. Andy sighed, running a hand through his hair in frustration. What could he say? What was there to explain?

Laurie broke the quiet. “How long?”

“Almost four months now.”

“So, since this whole thing started? Jesus, Andy, I can’t believe you. Out of all the times, you had to have an affair now.” She hissed, getting up from her seat.

“I know. But she… she means a lot to me.” He couldn’t help it, couldn’t sit there and play down what he had with you.

“I don’t care.” She scoffed; her arms wrapped around herself. “I don’t care what you feel or who you’re screwing, but if this hurts our son’s trial, Andy, I swear—”

“It won’t.” He stopped her. “It won’t. Neal can’t do shit about it.” Andy insisted.

“So, Neal knows?” Laurie threw her hand in the air, “You are unbelievable.” She walked away, into the kitchen, not wanting to look at him. Andy followed her quietly, leaning on the counter.

“What do we say to Jacob? I don’t want him to find out about it in court.” Laurie muttered after a second, brows furrowed in thought.

“The truth. He’s a smart kid, I’m sure he already knows things aren’t what they used to be.” That was what worried Andy the most, telling Jacob. All he could do was to hope that, in time, Jacob would understand. And maybe forgive him.

“Cause you know so much about telling the truth, right?”

Andy actually chuckled at her remark, he nodded. “I deserved that.”

The pair looked at each other, the distance between them feeling greater than the few feet it actually was. Laurie’s palms rested on the counter at the center of the room. The unspoken words floated between them, years of lies and pretending making up a mountain. She had always wanted to try, to change things and mend them, but in that moment, she knew they were at the point of no return. Laurie took a deep breath, let go of the illusion that things could have been different, and felt just a little bit lighter.

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

The warmth of August was really setting in, leaving you a sticky mess had it not been for the fan you were positioned in front of. Your eyes desperately scanned over the e-mails that had cumulated in your inbox, very little of them were about Jacob’s trial and those were trivial. Too vague to let you know of real details. Neal kept his word, and did his best to keep you away from the case now that he knew of your relationship, he also kept his word on not telling anyone. You were sure Lynn would talk to you if she knew. The knock at the door finally made you look away from the screen of your laptop.

Seeing Andy in front of your door on a weekend afternoon was not at all usual, added with the expression on his face, you knew something was going on. You let him in quietly, he sat down on the spot you were occupying moments ago. A rueful smile appeared on his face as he noted the content on your laptop’s screen. You sat next to him, knees touching, your hand came to rest on top of his.

“Laurie knows. Jacob too.” He eventually said, there was a hint of air on his voice. Like he was happy to say those words after keeping them in for long. Your mouth fell open , you knew it would happen soon, given how the trial was approaching, but it almost felt too soon.

Andy took in your expression, his eyes intently searching your face, and he spoke again. “This morning, when I went back, she was up. We talked, honestly it went better than I thought it would.” He sighed. “We told Jacob too. He… didn’t say much. He needs time, but I think he already knew things weren’t as good as they seemed between us.” His shoulders slumped.

“So they know.” A selfish type of relief washed over you but you didn’t care, another step was over on the way of you and Andy finally stopping the whole sneaking around thing. Just a little bit more, and you would be free.

“Now the only thing left is the trial.” He looked back at you. His eyes were filled with many emotions, they swirled around in his beautiful blue eyes: relief, worry, affection, anxiety…

“Andy, Neal seems sure that he’ll win. Too sure.” Your eyebrows creased as you felt the worry Andy carried around in him. “Our relationship shouldn’t matter much in court, but everything else…” You groaned, “if only I knew what he was doing.”

“It’s alright,” his hand sneaked its way onto your knee, giving a reassuring squeeze, “he’s got nothing, the case will drop. And then, we will take a nice and long road trip.”

A smile curled at the corners of your lips. When he talked so confidently, despite his own fears, it was hard not to believe him. “I would like that very much.” Your arms wrapped around his shoulders, feeling his strong muscles underneath the thin shirt.

He pulled you on his lap, your legs on either side of his thighs, a soft moan escaped your lips as you felt him under you. You looked down at him, his eyes now hooded with lust, never getting enough of you. You kissed him, almost like it was the first time you ever felt his lips move on yours, yet the familiarity anchoring you. Safe, homely, but never losing the excitement.

“God, Y/N,” he grunted after a while as he pulled back to breathe, drinking you in, “what the hell are you doing to me?”

You kissed him once again, a slow smirk emerging, “I could ask you the same, Mr. Barber.” His head fell back at that, eyes closed. Your kisses trailed down his neck, sending him twitching in all the right places. Andy’s eyes snapped open as your weight lifted from on top of him, leaving a frustrating emptiness, but it quickly dissolved as he saw your next movement.

Sinking on your knees, feeling the soft carper under them, you looked up at Andy through your lashes. Your hands worked with ease, thanks to all the practice in the last couple of months.

“You are so tense,” your fingers ran over him, teasing, “would you like me to help you relieve some of that?” All he could do was nod. You smiled.

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

A/N: Friday can’t come quick enough! Still depends on the episode, but it is very likely next update will be the final (or at least the season finale!) of The Intern... we’ll see how it goes I guess.

CHRIS EVANS TAGLIST @marvelouspottering​ @kelbabyblue​ @hidden-behind-the-fourth-wall​ @may-machin @little-dark-empress​ @retro-babez​ @patzammit​ @turtoix​ @rororo06​ @thedevilinablackdress @evansgirl7

THE INTERN TAGLIST: @moonlightimagination​ @bellaireland1981​ @buckysteveloki-me​ @peaceinourtime82​ @shaddixlife​ @sodonutnutnut​

[ragingbookdragon]

The Beds We’ve Made PT. 2

Kurt x De Sardet

Word Count: 2.1K Warnings: Explicit Language, Blood, Violence, Slight Angst

Author’s Note: Might be back on my bullshit but I am writing fics so it counts for something. Enjoy! -Thorne

           It was shoddy luck on their part that resulted in the attack just two hundred meters from the city, more so hers than her companions. As she wrenched her saber free from the torso of the last marauder, her eyes flitted over the field, finding both her companions still standing, though her relief was short lived as Vasco brought a hand to his side.

           De Sardet took a step towards him, worrying, “Vasco, are you alright?”

           The captain didn’t respond at first, fingers undoing the main belt around his waist. It hit the ground and he pulled his jacket open. Her eyes went wide as crimson began to bloom, staining the cream shirt he wore.

           She immediately pressed her hands up against his wound, ignoring how he hissed. “How bad is it?”

           “I don’t know,” he muttered as he shook his head, and she shifted one of her hands to feel around for an exit wound. None was there.

           “Bullet’s still inside. We need to get you to a doctor,” De Sardet affirmed. “Put pressure with your left hand, sling your right over my shoulders.”

           Vasco obeyed and they started down the small hill, coming to the dirt road. The farther they walked, the heavier the Naut became, all but leaning onto her and with a quick glance to him, she knew he wasn’t going to make it all the way to the gate even with her help. Sweat started rolling down his forehead and she cursed under her breath.

           “Vasco, stop. Stop.” De Sardet whispered, gently maneuvering him to the ground, her fingers shifting beneath his to pressure his wound. His tricorn tipped to the ground when he rested his head back onto her shoulder, groaning weakly.

           Síora knelt beside them. “Carants?” Her eyes were wide with worry and De Sardet looked to her.

           “We’re not strong enough to get him back.” She shifted her gaze to the city gates, probably a hundred meters away now. “Síora, go to the barracks and get Kurt. He’s the only one strong enough to carry Vasco.”

           She could tell the native was hesitant especially since it’d been only a week before that the noble had removed the mercenary from her service.

           “Síora, hurry,” De Sardet urged. “I don’t know how long Vasco will stay awake.”

           “I will be swift,” she replied, taking off towards the city.

           De Sardet shifted, leaning around Vasco’s body to lift his shirt. Pulling the handkerchief from her coat pocket, she pressed the cloth to it; it soaked through within moments.

           “Done in by a…gunshot,” Vasco panted. “Figured I’d go…down with my ship.”

           She snorted. “If you’re still able to joke, I guess it’s not as bad, huh?”

           “I don’t wanna die on land.”

           De Sardet grabbed his chin, the blood smearing along the black tattoos. “You listen to me right now. You’re not dying, you hear?”

           Vasco chuckled, though it dissolved into a groan. “Can’t exactly…stop it.”

           “If you die, I’ll have no one to sing sea shanties with.” She gave him a smile, batting her eye lashes. “Don’t wanna disappoint this pretty woman, now do you?”

           He grinned. “Never.”

***

           She burst into the barracks, doors slamming into the walls as she strode forward. Manfred looked up from his desk, at the woman; she looked familiar, but not enough that he could place her.

           “Can I help you, miss?” he asked, taking in the native clothes she wore.

           Síora nodded. “I need to find Kurt. It is imperative.”

           Manfred started to stand. “Can I ask what for?”

           “Caran—De Sardet needs him. Our friend is injured.”

           He nodded, leading the way towards the training grounds. “I understand.”

           Cracking the door open, they stepped out, watching Kurt bark orders at some new recruits who were doing pushups. Before Manfred could even call for him, Síora was sprinting to him.

           “Carants!” she yelled, and Kurt’s head snapped up, eyes wide at the usually calm native so frantic.

           “Síora?”

           “De Sardet needs you. It’s serious.”

           Something flashed in the mercenary’s eyes and he didn’t even wait for her to explain, simply grabbing his sword leaning up against the wall and hurrying after her.

           The recruits had watched them for a moment before glancing towards Manfred who simply commanded, “Back to training, you lot!”

***

           She’d managed to strip Vasco of his coat to keep him cool, but it barely did anything as he’d already sweat through the back of his shirt. His consciousness was dwindling faster than she could keep it steady, ultimately resulting to talk to him to keep him awake.

           “C’mon Vasco, if you think about it, someone has to get us back to Serene when this is all over. Whose boat am I going to take?”

           That did it. His face pinched and she knew it wasn’t from pain as he griped, “Ship. For the last fucking time…it’s a ship.”

           De Sardet giggled. “You know those terms are synonymous, yes?”

           “My foot is going to find your ass synonymous…if you call my ship a boat again.”

           She snorted, running her free hand to smooth back his damp hair. “I’d like to see you try. We both know who the better fighter is.”

           Before he could even make his own witty comeback, the thunk of boots came their way and she prayed that it wasn’t an enemy. De Sardet squinted, and upon making out Kurt’s face in the evening light, she almost cried in relief. The mercenary skidded to a halt beside them, dropping to a knee.

           “Kurt,” she breathed. “Thank the Gods you’re here.”

           He looked Vasco over. “What happened?”

           The captain groaned. “The fuck does it…look like happened?”

           “Well, I see you’re in rare form, captain,” Kurt joked. “How do you feel?”

           “Like I’ve…been through a hurricane,” Vasco ground out and De Sardet shifted behind him.

           “We tried making it back.” Her eyes found the mercenary’s. “Kurt, I need your help to carry him. I’m not strong enough to do it on my own.”

           Kurt nodded. “Of course.” He grabbed Vasco’s arm and pulled it around his neck, one arm going to the captain’s back, the other below his knees. “On three. Vasco, lean in if you can.”

           The Naut grunted. “I’ll try.”

           He looked at De Sardet and nodded, watching as she moved herself to Vasco’s free side to catch him if he fell out of Kurt’s arms.

           “One. Two. Three!” Kurt heaved and pulled him up, wincing as Vasco let out a pained moan. He glanced at Síora. “Constantin is sure to have a doctor waiting on him at the palace. Go and get them. We’ll take Vasco to De Sardet’s residence.” She nodded and started off ahead of them.

           The hurried and when De Sardet kept looking over, he said, “He’ll be okay, Green Blood.”

           She shook her head. “That’s not what I’m thinking about.” Gesturing to them, she asked, “Does he even weigh anything to you?”

           Kurt snorted. “Nah. It’s like holding a few grapes.” He gave her a knowing look and murmured, “Honestly it’s like that time I had to carry you back from the tavern.”

           Her eyes went wide with shock and she cried, “You said you’d never bring that up again!”

           He dodged her attempt to shove at him, though she seemed to remember the injured Naut and stopped.

           “Oh, so I can’t bring up how you told me you wanted to shag—”

           De Sardet audibly growled at him, pointing her dagger in his side. “I will shank the shit out of you if you finish that sentence, Kurt.”

           The mercenary chuckled, but conceded, crossing under the arch, and moving towards the residence. When they neared it, De Sardet opened the door to the guest apartments.

           “Vasco’s room is the second door.” She opened it and let Kurt inside, watching as he set the still-moaning captain onto the bed. Síora came in behind them with one of the masked doctors. The doctor looked between the group and nodded at Kurt.

           The mercenary nodded to the door. “We’ll take care of this.” De Sardet started to make a retort but he fixed her with a look. “Green Blood, please. Let us do this.”

           She pursed her lips and glanced at Vasco, then back to Kurt. “Promise you’ll get me if you need me.”

           He nodded. “Of course.”

           De Sardet let Síora lead her out, and every time she heard a pained yell come from inside the bedroom, she had to fight to stay seated, to trust Kurt.

***

           It was well into the night when the doors finally opened, and the doctor stepped out. They’d said nothing but given a simple nod before taking the coin purse and leaving. De Sardet shuffled into the bedroom, catching sight of Kurt placing a freshly dampened rag onto Vasco’s forehead; he’d fallen asleep it seemed.

           “How is he?” she whispered, afraid to wake him.

           Kurt nodded. “Got the bullet out.” He tipped his chin to the metal ball, no bigger than the tip of her pinky, sitting on the nightstand. “He’ll have one helluva souvenir to show off.”

           De Sardet chuckled, sitting on the edge of the bed, gently taking Vasco’s hand in hers. “Think they’ve got a tattoo that stands for ‘I survived getting shot’?”

           “Probably,” he chuckled, watching as she placed two fingers to the Naut’s pulse.

           “Heart rate is calm,” she decided, softly resting his hand back on his stomach. Her eyes drifted to the side of the bed where Kurt sat on a stool and she inconspicuously took in the blood that stained his hands.

           She stood and walked towards the basin. Ever so carefully, she picked it up and slowly walked back over, setting it down by Kurt’s feet before once again taking her seat at the edge of the bed. De Sardet picked up the rag that was set on the side and dipped it into the water. When it was soaked, she wringed it and gently took one of Kurt’s scarred hands into hers, wiping the blood in silence; though she could feel his eyes on her, she didn’t say a thing.

           “You don’t have to—” she cut him off by turning his hand over, running the rag across his palm.

           “I don’t,” she agreed. “But I want to.” Her eyes met his. “You saved Vasco’s life tonight. Cleaning the blood off your hands is the least I could do.”

           Kurt shrugged, offhandedly mentioning, “He’s important to you.”

           The words sounded so bitter and it made De Sardet smile as she quipped quietly, “Careful there, Kurt. Your jealously is showing.”

           “I am not jealous,” he retorted, scowling when she flashed him an innocent smile.

           “No, of course you’re not. Taking the company of another man, a sailor no less, to watch my back instead of you. There’s no reason for jealously.”

           “You think you’re being cute but you’re not,” he griped, following with, “my lady,” when she cocked a brow.

           “I think I’m adorable,” De Sardet hummed before taking his other hand.

           He watched her for a moment, then muttered, “Not exactly like I could watch your back after you removed me.”

           De Sardet’s hand froze and she met his eyes, simply gazing at him for a long minute. “You understand why I removed you, don’t you, Kurt?”

           She knew he didn’t want to admit the reason to her, even though they both knew it, but he shifted through the shame and nodded. “Yes, my lady, I do.”

           “So, you understand that my anger and resentment has been founded and is legitimate?”

           “Yes…my lady.”

           “Then you don’t get to be pissy with my decision.” Her words were firm, but they weren’t angry, not like they were the other week. They still stung the same though.

           De Sardet wiped the last of the blood from his hand and set the rag down, replacing the basin where it was. As she moved to the door, she heard him speak.

           “Green Blood?”

           She paused and looked back at him. “Yes, Kurt?”

           He seemed to be mulling over his thoughts, looking as if he was going to be sick. “I…would like your help with something.”

           De Sardet arched a fine brow. “And that is?”

           Kurt met her eyes. “I want to track down the man responsible for the ghost camps. For Reiner…for me.”

           She searched his gaze for a moment, then nodded. “Meet me here tomorrow morning and we’ll go.”

           “Thank you, Green Blood.”

           De Sardet tipped her head slightly. “Don’t thank me just yet. We haven’t found him.”

           Kurt huffed a laugh. “With you, we will.”

[adarlingwrites]

Dormouse

Summary:

After playing a game with two of The Beach's most dangerous members, the dormouse gets her tail caught by a tiger's paw.

He’ll make a wildcat out of her.

Author’s Notes: Edit 4/27/2021: Modified a few scenes and added more bits of conversation!

TWs/CWs: mentions of past abuse, abusive parents, noncon elements courtesy of Niragi

III

hey girl, open your walls / play with your dolls / we'll be a perfect family

A tense silence had befallen the car.

Niragi had finally kept his mouth shut while Saiko drove in peace. Last Boss is staring blankly ahead, and Yamane’s sneaking wary glimpses at him. Across the horizon, the Seaside Paradise Tokyo comes into view, and Yamane almost jumps out of her seat.

“The Beach is Seaside Paradise?” she asks no one in particular, mouth agape as they approached. The walls had been spray painted red with the katakana for “Beach”, and Yamane can feel the bass pounding through her chest, even from their distance.

“What, a rat like you never been to a place this fancy before?” Saiko interrupts.

“...my father used to bring me with him while speaking to his business partners in the resort. The resort got their amenities from his company,” Yamane mutters in response, averting her gaze and choosing to look out the window again.

At her admission, Niragi and Saiko turn to her. “Was that company by any chance called Yamacorp? Oh, don’t tell me…” Niragi starts, smirking. Saiko is squinting, and after halting the car, she reaches back to squeeze Yamane’s face, taking a good look at her.

“You’re that disgraced Yamacorp heiress,” Saiko blurts out, letting go of Yamane’s face and setting her eyes on the road again. “Now I know why your name seemed familiar. Shit, and I almost didn’t recognize you because of your getup. Your story was all over the tabloids.”

The admission opened a can of worms and Yamane grimaced at herself. As she slumped back to her seat, she groans and leans her head against the backrest in resignation. “Can we not bring that up?”

“The tabloids said you flunked all your classes in university because you partied too much, and your parents cut you off, then you started sucking old men’s dicks so you can still afford all that shit you put on your face,” Saiko continues, smirking, not paying any heed to the other woman’ request. At that point, Yamane’s temper is starting to simmer underneath her stony expression.

“All the tabloids ever publish are sensationalist bullshit, and I already had the feeling that you’re the type to eat that all up without a second thought. I suggest you shut the hell up before I ruin your pretty face with my good arm.”

Brakes screeching, Saiko sneers and points a gun at Yamane’s face. “Niragi, control your new pet. She’s getting too mouthy.”

“Don’t tell me what to fucking do. Get her to shut up yourself,” Niragi says in response, pointing the barrel of his rifle at her, and his tongue slips out of his mouth, licking his sneering lips.

“I mean it,” Yamane challenges, temper flaring further.

Fingers itching for the dagger on her hip, Yamane gives the other woman a good look. Saiko’s taller, legs running for miles from what she can see; if the circumstances were different, she would’ve been Yamane’s type. It doesn’t matter if it’s a man or a woman, she preferred the tall ones. However, Saiko is being unnecessarily hostile. Being held against her will, coupled with the pain from her injury gave Yamane the urge to carve her face off.

She shudders at her own thoughts. They’re not a stable person’s urges.

“Take her word for it.” Last Boss says, and everyone’s attention shifts to him. Then, he turns to Yamane. “Yamaneko killed a man in our game, and assisted me with another.”

Upon hearing the new moniker, Yamane turns to the tattooed man, her eyes meeting his. The backrest is still warm when she leans back and looks away. “Wildcat? At least it’s better than ‘rat’,” she thought. She still didn’t expect it to come from Last Boss, of all people.

“Shut up and drive already,” Niragi scolds Saiko, and she rolls her eyes at him as she withdraws the gun from Yamane’s face. Fuming, Saiko steps on the gas and they continue speeding towards the Beach.

“So, are the rumors true though? Did you really suck dick to survive?” Saiko asks.

“What’s this, an interview? You don’t have one, so I guess you’ll never know. Next question.”

Niragi snickers, mumbling something to himself, while Saiko rolls her eyes.

“For some sheltered princess from a rich-ass family, you seem awfully calm with a gun pointed to your face. Care to share why?” she comments.

“Okay, interview’s over. I’m done talking about a life I’ve already left behind.”

To Yamane’s relief, the car was quiet once more. However, the thoughts of home continued to linger in her mind.

“Hey oneechan, when are you going to come visit?”

Truth be told, Yamane didn’t know what to say. All the other person on the other side of the line can hear is silence.

“Are you there?”

“Yeah. I’m still here Mai,” replied Yamane, barely concealing the crack in her voice. “You know why I can’t go home again.”

“Mom is dead. Her funeral is tomorrow.”

Breathing in deep, the exiled daughter closes her eyes. “Mai, the last time she saw me, she slashed my arm with my own sewing shears.”

“I know, I know. You know, I admire you. I didn’t think I had it in you to defy our parents. You were so… pliable. No offense, sis.”

“Well, that was how I avoided punishment. Try to please them and hope that it’ll be enough for them to lay it off.”

Mai gives her sister a nervous laugh, and the conversation almost dies. In the background, a baby’s cry pierced the quiet and left both sisters speechless. If one listens close enough, they can hear Yamane’s breath hitching in her throat.

“Mai, was that a baby? Don’t tell me you got knocked up, dammit.”

“Yeah. Yeah, it’s a baby. But it’s not mine. It’s dad’s. A boy, just six months old. He’s our little brother. His name is Riku.”

Pacing around and rubbing her face, the phone squeezed between her shoulder and cheek, Yamane groans. “Well, he finally got the damn son he wanted. So father is having an affair after all. I fucking knew it!” Yamane curses, pacing around.

With frustration, she kicks the metal trash can next to the kitchen counter. “Mom didn’t even need to hire that private investigator. I stalked father and that girl for months, and the first time I brought it up, mom gave me a beating for ‘daring to speak that way about my father’. Fucking waste of money confirming what we already knew.”

On the other side of the line, Mai chokes and sobs. “Hey, sis, can you take me with you?” Mai asks with a tremor to her voice, desperate to change the topic.

At that point, Yamane can feel the headache settling in. “Mai, please, not this again. We’ve talked about this before. You’re safe where you are, don’t make the same mistakes I did. Use our parents’ resources to get ahead, then cut them off when you’re ready.”

“Yeah, I’m safe, but I’m not free, like you. Poor Riku’s life is probably going to get micromanaged by father too. I don’t want to wait anymore. You know, I think I’d rather be working like you instead of being here. It must be nice, being free from my obligations as a daughter and a sister,” Mai huffed and sniffled.

Hand curling into a fist, Yamane does her best to stay calm despite the hostile shift in Mai’s words. “Cut that shit out, Mai. I already had a lecture on how I’m a terrible daughter from mom and father. I don’t need a lecture from you about how fucked up I am, I already know that.”

“I didn’t mean for it to come out that way,” Mai defends herself. “I just mean… I can’t take it anymore, oneechan. I’m at my limit.”

After a few tense moments, Yamane speaks again.

“I’m sorry Mai. I should be there, protecting you from father, but I chose to run after my pipe dream of going into fashion design,” Yamane continues, pulling the refrigerator door open to fetch a can of beer. She squeezes the phone between her cheek and shoulder again to open it, and she takes a long swig of the bitter beverage.

“I just miss you so much. Having you around made life a little easier. You were always there to defend me.”

Eyes blank and lips stained by beer, Yamane holds back the tears, opting to clear her throat. “I miss you too.”

Mai chuckles. “Hey, don’t forget about me once your clothes are on the cover of Vogue and Nylon, okay?”

Bitterly, brokenly, Yamane laughs. What a cruel joke it was, the punchline being her wages barely covering her expenses, and the fact that her savings are almost non-existent. At that rate, fashion design school seemed like something she’ll never set foot in. Not that she’d fit in there too; street fashion had always been her thing, not haute couture.

The bitter reality of her situation made Yamane give up on her own dreams long ago, but it seems Mai never gave up on her.

“Yeah, yeah. I’ll come snatch you away from father.”

“Hey, maybe I could model your designs for you. You could model them yourself too.”

“Mai, my asscheeks are too fat for me to model anything.”

Laughter echoed in Yamane’s apartment that night. That was the last call she ever had with her little sister, and now that she’s in this world full of death games, it’s almost guaranteed that she’ll never hear her voice again.

The thoughts dissolved away piece by piece as the car halted. The bass was more intense than ever. Niragi and Saiko step out of the car, and Last Boss follows suit. Saiko begrudgingly opens the door for Yamane, and as Yamane ducked to get out of the car, the taller woman clamps an arm on her good shoulder. “You better watch your back, mouse girl.”

“Is that a threat?” Yamane asks, looking her in the eye.

“Advice. This place looks like paradise, but there are serpents crawling about.”

Exhaling sharply, Yamane scoffs, and they follow the two men inside the resort. The mouse’s eyes widened at what she saw. People are drinking, partying, and fucking under the sun, and it’s not even noon. People were clinking drinks together. A naked couple walks right past them and Yamane feels her face flush.

Without warning, Last Boss kicks a speaker over, abruptly stopping the music, and Niragi shouts at the crowd.

The sea of people parted as they made their way through, onlookers wary of the armed men. Seeing how the crowd reacted with fear at their arrival made Yamane’s pulse race. These men had to be dangerous for them to draw that kind of reaction, and she is getting involved. Instinctively, Yamane wraps her arms around herself.

“Stop acting like a damn wimp,” Saiko berates her, and Yamane snaps out of it, straightening her back and walking a little more taller.

“I’ll speak to the chief for now. Get her to the Hatter,” Niragi instructs.

“Hatter?”

Then, Niragi turns to Yamane, grabs her face, and gives her a parting lick.

“You need to fucking stop that,” Yamane hisses, though her body still trembles with fear. “At least ask for some damn permission.” Niragi responded by tugging at her bad arm, and the mouse couldn’t stop the soft hiss of pain from escaping through her teeth.

“The righteous and moral have no place here, where human nature reigns. You best learn it as soon as possible if you want to last here, mousy. I can fucking drag you to my room and take you as I please if I wanted to,” he sneers in Yamane’s ear, dragging that damned tongue on the sensitive skin of her neck.

The little dormouse found herself shuddering at the contact and she hated it.

Sure, he looks good, but he’s a bastard. Yamane’s hand curls into a fist, and she looks at the other two. Saiko is smirking, the look in her face telling Yamane that she’s amused by his discomfort. On the other hand, Last Boss just stares again, mouth twitching at the corner.

To Yamane’s shock, his arm shoots out from his side, and grabs her by the elbow. His grip was strong but it wasn’t uncomfortable, and he had the decency not to go for the injured arm.

“She’s your problem now,” Saiko says nonchalantly, and walks away. Grinning, Niragi looks at his companion and walks away, rifle slung over his shoulder.

People in the hallways stayed close to the walls, whispering amongst each other as Last Boss dragged Yamane inside the building, whose legs were having trouble keeping up with his strides.

“Move, he’s one of the militants,” one of the residents whispered to another.

“Who’s he with? Someone new?”

“Probably the military sect’s fresh meat. Or a toy.”

Mouth dry, Yamane gulps at the comments. She looks up to the man holding her by the elbow, her mind racing, wondering if he’s anything like Niragi, or if he’d force himself upon her like Niragi had threatened to do.

One thing was certain, however. Yamane preferred his silence to Niragi’s loud mouth. Silence isn’t a thing she had the luxury of enjoying in her previous life.

And speaking of her previous life, it’s probably something she should stop thinking about now. Yamane needs to worry about what’s happening now. Surviving both death games and life in this “Beach” needed to be her top priority. Getting her shoulder treated is the first step, and somehow, Yamane is thankful they brought her here.

Last Boss brings her into a large room, where several people have gathered, pushing her down a chair. A man with shoulder-length hair and facial hair stands at the end of the table, grinning.

“What’s this? Another addition to our lovely paradise! Welcome to the Beach,” he announces, pacing around with his arms wide open. “I’ve heard good things about you, girl. Helping our military sect members clear a Seven of Clubs game? Quite an impressive feat for a newcomer. Who are you?”

“Minami Yamane.” She pauses. “You must be the Hatter.”

“I am indeed. And I,” he pauses, pointing to his tag, “am the number one player in the Beach.”

Yamane takes note of the tags on the Beach members’ wrists, and for the first time, sees the numbers on them. Her eyes then flick towards Last Boss’ tag. Number eight.

“What do these ranks mean? Are there benefits to them?” Yamane asks him.

“These ranks,” Hatter starts, circling Yamane, “are the order of who gets to return to the original world. I have heard from a reliable source that collecting all playing cards would grant one player the ability to go back. Then, when another set of cards are completed, the next person shall follow them.”

The red curtains in the middle of the room parts, revealing a tally of the cards the Beach has collected.

“Those who can clear more games and contribute more cards have higher ranks, and are closer to leaving this country. For helping Niragi and Last Boss clear a Seven of Clubs, we’ll consider moving your rank up higher.”

“That’ll take forever,” Yamane comments, earning her an amused grin from the number one player.

“Which is why this utopia is created so that players can combine their efforts until there are none left on the Beach,” Hatter explains, triumphantly shaking a fist. Yamane shakes her head.

”I guess it can’t be helped. Is it safe to assume that I am allowed to visit the Beach as long as I keep contributing cards?”

Hatter laughs, striding towards her. “Smart girl. You’re already figuring out how things work here. But you got one thing wrong: you’re not just a visitor. You’re a member now. And membership comes with its rules.”

The doors swing open, revealing Niragi, a few more militants, and a man who is leading them. Judging from his looks, Yamane thought he might be in law enforcement, or even the SDF.

“Ah, Aguni. You’re late,” Hatter groans. The bald man grunts and takes a seat at the table.

“I had matters to attend to,” replied Aguni, terse, gruff. Yamane couldn’t help but feel nervous.

“Sure you do,” Hatter replies, chuckling. “You’re just in time. I was about to explain the rules to the newcomer your underlings brought us.”

“The military sect’s chief,” Yamane mumbles, and Niragi steps closer to smirk at her face. “You’re figuring that out just now?” he asks, mockery dripping from his voice, and he attempts to lick Yamane’s face again. This time, she dodges, giving Niragi a glare.

“Ah, ah, as number one, I am obligated to maintain order. Niragi, back off from the little lady. We’re digressing from our purpose of being here!”

Niragi gives Hatter a dirty look and steps away from her.

“Yamane, listen closely. Rule number one, always wear a swimsuit.”

Yamane gave the leader of the Beach a bewildered look. “Huh?”

“Can’t hide weapons in a swimsuit now, can’t you? But of course, if Aguni accepts you as a member of the militants, you’ll be allowed to carry one. Isn’t that right?”

Aguni doesn’t speak, only offering him a grunt. Hatter then walks towards the windows, sunlight streaming through the curtains. “Rule number two. Be free to live your life exactly as you wish. Hell, you can drink, do drugs, have sex as much as you want!”

The prospect piqued Yamane’s interest. Freedom to live her life as she wished was something she didn’t get to enjoy in the real world.

“I accept the rules,” she declares, earning her a chuckle from a few of the members.

“Ah, but you’re getting ahead of yourself, dear Yamane. There’s a third rule. Remember what I said about you being a member of the Beach now? Membership is for life. And if you should choose to run away, hide a card from the Beach, or refuse to surrender a card to the Beach? Well…”

Last Boss gets behind Yamane’s chair, and he tilts Yamane’s head with one hand, while angling the sword under her chin with another. Yamane gulps, looking at the sharp blade that’s mere inches from her neck, and goosebumps are forming on her skin from the tattooed man’s cold fingers.

“Rule number 3. Death to traitors.”

Yamane looks up to Last Boss, then her eyes flick towards Niragi, her body trembling in indignation. “You. You two brought me here so I’ll never escape your sights,” she seethes.

“What are you talking about?” Niragi asks her, feigning innocence. “We lost a man in that club game, and we needed a replacement, remember? But I guess, now that you’re never allowed to leave, why don’t we have some fun while we’re all here?”

Refusing to give Niragi any more attention, Yamane turns to the Hatter. “I take it back. I refuse to stay here.”

“You can’t refuse the Beach now. Besides, you have an injury. Only we can help you. We have doctors, we have specialists who maintain the plumbing and electricity, and we have enough rooms. You’ll have food, medicine, and comfort here.”

Grinning, Niragi comes closer again, crouching to look the mouse in the eye. “You should be thanking us, mousy.”

Sighing, Yamane relents. “Fine.”

The Hatter smiles. Another soul is successfully lured to this “paradise”.

As the meeting adjourned, Aguni approaches Yamane, sizing her up.

“Niragi. This one better not disappoint,” he grunts. “Last Boss, get her to the clinic. She’ll be a liability with her injuries.”

At the order, Last Boss grabs Yamane by the elbow again and they set off. Yamane looks back to Niragi, then to Aguni, and proceeds to do her best to catch up with the tall, tattooed man’s strides once more.

Upon their arrival at the makeshift clinic, the bustle of the clinic fell into a hush. Patients and medics alike stop to gawk at the militant dragging a young woman inside.

He says nothing and waits by the door. A doctor wearing a red one piece swimsuit underneath a coat approaches Yamane carefully.

“How can I help you?”

“I have a dislocated shoulder,” Yamane mutters. “I need it treated so it won’t hinder my future games.”

“I’m Doctor Lilian Sunohara,” the doctor introduces herself. “If you ever get hurt in one of the games, you can come here to get yourself patched up.” Cautiously, nervously, Sunohara approaches Yamane and begins to administer her care, starting with setting her bones.

After applying a sling, Dr. Sunohara stands up and fetches a bottle of painkillers from the cabinet. Yamane couldn’t help but gawk at the stockpile of medicine. “I haven’t seen you around before,” said the doctor, voice low.

“Him and another man called Niragi brought me here,” Yamane explains. The look of concern in Sunohara’s face and the cautious look from the other patients says it all.

That’s when it finally sinks in; Yamane’s aware that she’s associated with the militants now, and people are avoiding her like the plague.