#something twists inside me thinking of how she wrote this believing she might die

[sapphires-and-silver-linings]

I think listening to Halsey’s latest album on your period is a form of self harm

[lilyharvord]

I saw another anon on king mavens page ask how Cal would react if mare died and they didn’t wanna answer bcuz it’ll make them go into a depressive state. So if u don’t mind how do YOU think Cal would react if Mare died. If u don’t wanna write this u don’t hv too tho

I too saw annie's response, and while it makes me super sad to think about as well.... I've thought about it... I may have started writing a fic about it once (it was like once chapter), and I had an idea. So I'll give you my branched ideas. They're loooong so I have put them under the read more.

idea 1: Mare dies before they are married, before anything.

It's horrific. People are shocked... the little lightning girl? Dead? Impossible. Cal doesn't immediately hear about it, he's so busy he's doesn't know something's happened until he walks into a room and everyone goes quiet and slowly looks at him like he might collapse right then and there. He finds out because Farley pulls him aside. She takes him away from everyone to a quiet little garden with a fountain and tells him what happened. When he hears, he just sort of gives her this confused look, like HE doesn't understand, doesn't believe. Then he sort of sinks down onto one of the benches and just sits there. Doesn't move, doesn't even seem to be breathing. Farley thinks he'll explode in a ball of heat and rage and pain, but instead he just gets really really quiet, and really cold. The air around her gets so cold her breath fogs in front of her. He asks her to leave him alone and she does. He sort of draws into himself after that, doesn't really speak to anyone, spends a lot of time running and sitting at his desk and staring out the window. He attends the funeral but is quiet the whole time, he only speaks to the Barrows and even then, there isn't much to say that wouldn't hurt either party. After that he BURIES himself in his work. He gets so good at it that one day he looks up and ten years have passed. He's still got the stack of letters they wrote to each other, and he even has the letter he had been drafting to send to her on the front where he lost her. It ends with the phrase: I miss you. And god does that ring true. He miss her like a limb he lost. It feels like a part of him was torn away, just like with Maven, just like with his father, just like with Nanabel when she passed a few years back, just like the hole his mother left without him even knowing it was there. He visits her grave that year, just sort of sits under the little tree they planted, looks out at the mountains as the sun sets behind him, and talks to her like he does with Maven, tells her about everything that's happening. After a while, he just falls quiet and sits there, digging his hand into the grass and dirt right above the grave, like he can dig down to her, like it's her skin and he can still feel it's warmth. He swallow really heavily and then says: I never met anyone else that made me feel the way you did... I don't think I ever will. You were it. You were going to be it. And then he gets up and leaves. He runs into Gisa down in the Ascendent, they grab coffee at what was once Mare's favorite coffee shop, now it's Gisa's. They talk about everything, never mentioning Mare. Gisa only asks once if he's seen anyone, and he just shakes his head, and she gives him a tiny smile and says: she wouldn't have minded... well if a random bolt of lightning came from the heaven and struck you, then I guess you would know she minded. They laugh about that, and then he leaves cause he has an early flight home. When he gets back, he puts the letters in a box and then puts that box in a drawer. He never sees anyone else though. Doesn't even really fool around with anyone either. He tries once, and the whole time he just thinks about her, thinks about all the what if's and could be's. He apologizes profusely to the girl and says that it's not going to work. Something in her understands, some weird warmth that she gets that makes her pull him into an extra tight hug before she leaves from his little apartment in Archeon. He doesn't mind being alone as much, he has his friends and a strange little belief/hope that someday, he will see Mare again. And when he does he is going to pull her into the tightest hug and never, ever let go again.

idea 2: Mare dies after they are married and have at least 1 child

This one hurts far more. He knows she's on missions, and they made a pact to never be on missions together so that if the unthinkable happens and one of them does die, Coriane will have the other at least. Its a god awful early hour of the morning when there is knock on the door. Coriane is sleeping in his and Mare's bed, she had a nightmare and immediately came for comforting snuggles. He thinks he's dreaming when the knock comes again, a little more instant this time. He gets up, and Coriane sleepily trails after him, curious as a cat always. When he answers the door, he picks her up and is still sort of half asleep. When he sees the young soldier standing on the porch in uniform and the most pained look on his face, he is suddenly wide awake. The soldier reaches up and removes his hat before pulling out an envelope with the official Montfort seal on it. He holds it out and quietly says, "I'm sorry."

When Cal takes it, he worries that his hand is shaking, but it is perfectly still, Coriane is falling asleep on his shoulder, not even aware of the ramification of what this little envelope means. And he just sort of looks up at the man and asks, "Do the Barrows know?" The man blinks before saying, "Protocol dictates immediate family are informed first... spouses are immediate family along with children. We leave it to them to inform the rest...I'm sorry again sir." Then he gives a little clean military salute and leaves. Cal stands there for a long time looking at empty space, wondering what comes next, what he is even supposed to do. Coriane answers for him: by lightly tapping his cheek and whispering that she's cold. He closes the door, and sets the letter on the little table by the door. There are already four other letters there. One, an invitation to Farley's wedding to Cordelia at the end of the month, and another is a letter from Julian addressed to all of them, most likely about his trip with Sara to see the land north of Montfort. But there is her name in beautiful script on both envelopes. There is her favorite jacket hanging on the peg she always hangs it on. There is the book she left on the table, chaptered at the exact part she was on. There is her favorite mug in the sink because Coriane asked to drink her milk from it last night. She is everywhere in the house, and yet that letter means she will never be in it again. Those were her things. They not longer are. He carries Coriane up the stairs and puts her back in their his bed and then lays next to her, watching her chest rise and fall as she sleeps, a tiny smile creeping to her lips as she dreams, completely and blissfully unaware of how her life has fundamentally changed now. Then he rolls and stares at the ceiling, but the tears come and they don't stop as they fall silently. He gets up and showers at dawn--he didn't sleep-- and cries a little more there. He has to crouch down under the scalding water and bite down on his knuckle to keep from sobbing out loud and waking Cori. It's pitiful, and he knows it. She would be furious with him for not being honest about how he feels and trying to hide it like its some ugly thing. But it feels ugly, a twisted ugly thing in his chest that is screaming and clawing at his insides. He stands, turns the shower off, steps out, shaves, does his morning routine, and then wakes Coriane and gets her ready. She's still sleepy, doesn't understand, asks him when mommy is coming home, when she will be back so they can go to the market and get ice cream. He says they'll go today, but his voice shakes, even as he tries to hide it. Then he takes her to the Barrows, tells Ruth and Daniel to gather all of them together. When they are all sitting before him in the living room, packing it to the brim, he takes out the letter and reads it. There is a horrible silence when he finishes and folds it before putting it back in the envelope. Ruth slowly pulls Coriane toward her and then lifts her into her lap and hugs her so tightly Cori actually whines about it for a second before she sees the look on Cal's face. They all sit in the kitchen after that and Ruth makes tea and she makes hot chocolate for the kids and gives Coriane an extra 4 marshmallows. The kids leave to go play and the adults sit and discuss the logistics, where is the will, was the a will? Do they have to adhere to anything if there isn't one? Would she want to... to be buried on Tuck with Shade? The will would probably say. Should they do that if there isn't one? Ruth offers to take care of Coriane while Cal deals with everything, settling paperwork, etc. etc. Then everyone kinda starts talking about everything again, and he just sits in silence and stares at this knot on the table that Mare pointed out to him because she said it looked like a turtle on its back. He traces it a few times, just sort of thinking about that moment and all the other times they would be in this kitchen doing dishes after family gatherings etc. Farley watches him from across the table

before getting up and nodding for him to follow her outside. Everyone pretty much doesn't notice them leave, or they pretend not to notice. They sit outside on the back porch in silence, just the two of them. After a little bit, it starts to snow. The first snow of the year. Farley holds her hand out to catch the flakes and says quietly: "I hate that it doesn't rain when these things happen. It always feels like it should be raining." He nods silently in agreement, and then she sets her hand on his shoulder, and he bends forward, letting the weight of it drop his head into his hand. He doesn't cry again, he honestly doesn't understand why he feels nothing now, just emptiness, and numbness from the tips of his fingers all the way to the tips of his toes. Even with Maven he didn't feel this way. He felt something then, something biting and hot like a pan that he touched when it just came off the stove. They sit like that for a long time before Coriane comes outside, and slips underneath his arm to snuggle against him. Farley gets up and leaves then, sensing she's said her peace and he understands she's there if he needs her. He holds Coriane close when the back door closes, and she whispers quietly to him, "Mommy's not coming home, is she?" and he just squeezes her once in answer. She frowns and stares out at the snow for a second and then turns around to face him and cups his cheeks in her little hands like she had seen Mare do a hundred times when Cal was in the middle of an especially hard day. She looks at him with a very serious expression for a child and he can see Mare in her when she does that, in the crease of her brows and the slight squint in her eyes. In the hint of chocolate brown in the curls of her hair. She will be furiously beautiful like her mother, and he had a feeling someday she will break a man's heart like his is breaking now. She looks at him for a good little bit and then says, "don't worry, I will take care of you." And he laughs, knowing that Mare always said the same thing. He pulls her close again and whispers with a thick voice, "it's my job to take care of you. But it's just us now... we have to take care of each other."

The funeral is in the spring. Cal pushed it off. Mare hated the winter. Even though she had happier memories of it now, her childhood and the painful clenching of her empty belly were like a permanent stain on the season. He would not bury her in that time. When the snow thaws and the ground melts, they release her ashes on a hill and leave stone for her on a hill under a tree, with a view of the mountains. There is a long line of epithet underneath her name: beloved daughter, sister, friend, wife, mother. Staring at it, Cal wonders if she knows just how important she had become. If she knew that she wasn't just a captain, or a figurehead that brought a centuries old regime to its knees. Everyone leaves after, the Barrows going last, but Cal and Coriane stay. Cal just sitting in the grass next to the grave, the wind in his hair while he watches the mountains for a little while. Coriane sits on the grave, probably not the nicest thing to do, but she does, and traces Mare's name over and over again on the stone with her little finger. "Mommy had a long name." She says as she traces the four names on the stone. Cal hesitated to put his name on there with hers, but he adopted the Barrow name as much as Mare took the Calore one when they married. And in the very, very short will she had drafted, that he almost didn't read because reading it made everything real, she asked that he put both their names on it (but to put his name before hers and she even made a little quip at him in the will about it which made him laugh, even as it made him cry). He glances at Cori after she says that and nods. She then crawls into his lap and they sit watching the mountains before Coriane says, "Uncle Julian says that when people die, they become the dirt that feeds the trees and the grass... do you think mommy is happy to be tree food?" He laughs and hugs her really close before saying, "She's not tree food. That dust we let go of today was mommy. She's on the winds now, traveling everywhere."

He does not remarry, no matter how many years pass, and how many women try to infer that it might be for the best if Coriane had mother in her life. He thinks its a stupid notion that he can't raise his own child on his own. And its hard, god is it hard. But he does it. He makes Coriane Barrow Calore into a women that Mare Molly Calore Barrow would have been very proud of. And he holds onto the notion that someday, when he dies, and they scatter his ashes, that his will find Mare's and they'll be together again that way.

[heyyyharry]

Deep End - Chapter 11: Date Night

…in which Ezi’s first date gets interfered.

Word count: 2.5k

AU: famous!harry, siren!mc, adult modern retelling of the little mermaid? lol, fake dating, enemies to lovers.

WARNING: MATURE THEMES

All chapters / Synopsis / Moodboard / Playlist

Wattpad link

A/N: sorry this chapter is so short. I was emotionally unstable when I wrote this last week :D I'll try to write more for the next one.

Also, please follow my writing account on Instagram: @allie.writes :) Don't forget to leave comments on this chapter!

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“Hey, do you remember Dolores?” Dawson asked.

“How could I forget?” Ezili murmured, eyeing her sister up and down.

Of course Ezi remembered Dolores. She couldn’t if she tried. Whenever she looked at Koa, all she saw was what she could never be, what her mother wished that she was, and it only made her despise herself. When she’d first arrived here, she had felt so out of place, but at the same time, free. She still revisited her old life in her sleep, which made her wake up screaming during the night. And despite all the struggles she’d gone through, she felt appreciated. Harry wasn’t anywhere near great, but he wasn’t bad. He looked out for her even though she wasn’t his kind. And she knew if her mother knew she felt this way about a human, she would not be standing here.

But why was she thinking about Harry? He wasn’t here. She snapped out of her thoughts and looked around as the vibrant atmosphere of the night market drowned out her thoughts. Her sister came forward and pulled her into a hug. She could feel Koa’s claws leaving marks on her shoulders, but she knew it was just her imagination.

Koa withdrew with a smile and lifted those perfect human hands with short blunt nails and twisted her hair into a bun. She looked so human, so natural. Ezili wondered how Koa it, but then she caught a glimpse of the trident hanging on a chain around her neck. She’d been using magic.

Immediately, Ezili grabbed Dawson’s hand and pulled him to her side. Koa tilted her head, looking quite confused, which Ezili knew was all an act. Meanwhile, Dawson was blushing. He cleared his throat. “So...Dolores is also here for the book fair. Mind if she joins us?”

“Not at all,” Ezili said with a tight smile.

“Great!” Koa said, hands clasped against her chest.

Ezili tried to figure out what her sister’s intentions were. Was she here to kill Ezili? Was she here to kill Harry? What if she thought Dawson was Ezili’s new target and was here to kill him? Also, how many humans had she killed for her to be here, dressed, act, and talk like a real human girl?

Ezili walked beside Koa as the girl went on and on about how she’d just moved to London, and all the places she’d visited and enjoyed. She must have got all this information from the magic of the trident. She couldn’t be more human than Ezili, who’d had to learn everything by herself.

“Harry?”

Ezili’s heart gave a lurch when she spotted his face in the crowd. It started with a feeling of comfort, like finding a warm bed in the middle of the raging ocean. But then a tidal wave of anxiety crashed down upon her, and she momentarily forgot about Dawson and her sister. She rushed toward him, pushing past a group of tourists and teenagers who cursed at her.

“There you are!” Harry said, spreading his arms. “My favourite fish.”

“What are you doing here?” she hissed and tugged hard at his sleeve. “Why did you follow me here?”

“I didn’t follow you here.”

“Liar.”

“I’m not,” Harry sighed and poked the inside of his cheek with his tongue as he looked around. “Where’s Dawson anyway? Why are you standing here all by yourself?”

Ezili had no time for his questions. “Harry, go home.”

“I’m here to buy books!”

“Oh, yeah? What books?”

“This one,” he said, grabbing a random book from a display shelf they were in front of.

“The Sex Life of Pets?”

“Oh.” His smile dropped as he read the title. “I mean, it does look kinda interesting.”

“Harry, go home. I’m fine.”

“I don’t think you are. Dawson left you here all by yourself.”

“He’s taking care of something,” Ezili said anxiously as she put her arms around herself and rubbed. The air was getting cold. She hadn’t had to feel the cold when she’d been a siren. She hated how weak humans were. A slight change of the weather could get them all messed up.

She was about to tell Harry to go home right now because her sister was here, and Dawson might be in danger. Ezili’s job here was to kill one of these men, not save them every single time. But to her surprise, Harry took off his coat and put it around her shoulders. “Come home with me,” he said, gently. “If you stay here, you might get lost among all these tourists.”

“No, you go home,” she said, pushing his shoulder, but he didn’t budge. “It’s not safe here for you.”

“How?” he chuckled. “I know London like the back of my hand.”

“Doesn’t matter.”

“Ezili, you’re acting stran—” Harry was about to finish his sentence when his smile vanished. He pointed over Ezili’s shoulder. “Is that Dawson talking to your sister?”

Ezili whirled around, relieved to find Dawson still alive, but the grin her sister gave her while Dawson was talking to a seller made her uneasy.

“Harry, go home,” she snapped at Harry, shoved him hard so he stumbled back. If something happened, she could only save one of them, and she knew for a fact it would be Harry.

“I’m not going home and leaving you here—”

“And I won’t save you if my sister does something again. I’ll save Dawson, and you don’t want to die, do you?”

At first, she thought those words were all harmless, until she saw the way Harry’s smile dropped, and his shoulders slumped. He said nothing, only nodded. Koa and Dawson were heading towards them now. It was too risky to have Harry here.

“Go!” she shouted and pushed him hard. He didn’t joke about it or react, just held her gaze for a moment and walked away.

“Is that Harry? Harry!”

“He’s leaving, Dawson,” Ezili said and turned to her sister. “Could you come with me to the restroom?”

“Yeah, sure!” Koa happily said, then waved at a puzzled Dawson as she got dragged away.

“What are you trying to do?” Ezili asked in Séren when they were far enough from Dawson, but not too far; she still needed to keep an eye on him just in case.

“Nothing,” Koa answered in their mother tongue. “Although Pretty Boy over there looks quite delicious.”

“Stop it!” Ezili snapped. “You’ve been breaking so many rules around here. You’re not allowed to use the magic of the trident for personal gains.”

“Mother entrusted me with it,” Koa mused.

“I’m sure she’d be happy to know what you’d used it for,” Ezili said, disgusted.

Koa’s dark pink lips curled to the side. “You’re jealous,” she said, leaning back, arms crossed.

Ezili had no time for this. “Please go home,” she told her sister. “I have things under control here. I’ll return in a year with the heart.”

“But you don’t have a whole year,” Koa said. “One year could be a lifetime for these creatures. Humans are fickle. They can stay married for twenty years and still can’t love each other.”

Ezili scoffed, eyebrows raised. “Does the trident tell you that?”

“No, Dolores did,” Koa said, twirling a strand of hair around her finger innocently as if she weren’t talking about someone she’d murdered for no reason. “She hated her husband,” she went on. “I heard her talking on the phone with someone about how she had never loved him, and they had two grown children together. Can you believe it? These creatures made up the thing called ‘marriage’ - a lifetime commitment, which they could not keep up with themselves. And as much as your pretty head wants to see the good in these filthy creatures. They are far from good. Not only do they harm other living things, they also harm their own kind. Physically and emotionally.” Koa put her hand on Ezili’s shoulder and squeezed. “That boy you’re so attached to is no different, Ezili. He will never love you.”

Ezili bit her lip and brushed her sister’s hand off of her. “Don’t tell me about humans when I’ve been here for longer than you do.”

“And yet,” Koa said, “you’re still here.”

Ezili wanted to tell Koa she was wrong for doubting Ezili, but Koa wasn’t wrong. Recently, Ezili had been doubting herself, too. She had even considered switching her target from Harry to Dawson, but she could not feel the same connection she’d had with Harry.

“I have an offer for you, Ezili,” Koa’s voice dragged her out of her own thoughts. She blinked at her sister. “Before your birthday, which was supposed to be your coronation day, you may come back to the Queendom. You’ll tell Mother that you cannot accomplish the mission and ask her to make me Queen of the Seven Seas. Then we’ll have a new Queen as planned. Our evil aunt can’t plot against the throne. And when I’m Queen, I’ll make sure you won’t be banished. You’ll get to keep your title as a princess and stay in the castle.”

Ezili hated that she wasted a second to actually consider the offer. “No. I won’t do it,” she spat, stepping back. “If I accepted this offer, no one and nothing in the ocean world would take me seriously. I would become an outcast anyway.”

Koa rolled her eyes and laughed heartily. “At least you’ll still be protected by the army and you’ll have a family. Or would you rather join the mermaids collecting gold all day for your sad little collection? Also, I’m sure the white sharks would love an abandoned siren.”

“I’m going to be Queen,” Ezili said through clenched teeth. “I’m bringing Mother the heart no matter what. Now you go home and tell her just that. And be careful with my trident that you wore around your little breakable neck.”

Koa opened her mouth to speak, but Ezili didn’t give her a chance. She put up a hand and shouted, “Dawson, let’s go! Dolores is just about to leave.”

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Ezili didn’t know what time she arrived home. She tried not to think about her sister’s words, which had clearly been for the purpose of making her doubt herself. She still hoped Dawson had had a great time tonight. They’d bought some books after she’d got rid of Koa, then stopped at a restaurant on the way back to Harry’s mansion. She’d apologised when he’d dropped her off for not being quite herself tonight, and she hated how he’d cheerfully said, “It was nothing. No worries.” Why did humans lie about how they felt all the time? If something bothered you or made you uncomfortable, why not just say it? Why did they feel the need to complicate things? It was hard enough for her to understand human emotions, and they expected her to be able to guess?

“Hey,” Harry said when their eyes met and she froze in the doorway. She’d expected him to be sleeping right now. “You look clean. Guess your sister didn’t kill Dawson?”

Ezili narrowed her eyes at him and kicked off her shoes. “No. Nothing bad happened.”

“Oh, man. I was hoping he was dead.”

“Shut up,” she said. “Also, I don’t think my sister will ever bother us again.” That, she wasn’t sure. She just wanted to be reassured even if it was by her own words.

Harry got up, hands slipped into his pockets. “Sooo...how was your date?”

Ezili pretended she hadn’t heard that question. “Why are you still up?” she asked.

He shrugged. “Had too much coffee earlier.” Then repeated, “How was your date?”

“It was fine,” Ezili said. "Why did you show up?"

"I was just making sure you wouldn't cause any trouble? Your name is tied to mine now, in case you've forgotten."

"How can I? You literally remind me of our fake relationship every two seconds."

“Why are you so pissed off?”

“I’m not.”

“You clearly are,” he persisted.

She let out a sigh, about to just go upstairs and ignore him for the rest of the night, but this one question kept tugging at her. So she had to ask.

“Have you ever been in love?”

Harry looked confused for a second. “No. Never. I think I’ve told you about what happened with my exes.”

“But did you love them at one point?”

“Well, I thought I loved them,” he said. “But looking back now, I don’t think I know what love is. It’s just...a lot of times, I want to be alone. Just me and Chilli. If someone enters my life and stays around for too long, it makes me uncomfortable.”

“But I’m also living here. We see each other all the time.”

“It’s not like I have a choice to kick you out,” he said, then instantly looked regretful.

Ezili padded across the room and stopped in front of him. “Why would anybody want to be alone?” She knew she didn’t. She was doing all this just to be accepted by her kind, but he, who had everything from fame and wealth to a supportive family, wanted to be left alone?

“You’re not the first girl to ask me that,” he said with a grin. “I think it has a lot to do with how I was brought up. I feel like everyone has these certain expectations for me, and when I don’t meet those expectations, I disappoint them. I just want to be by myself so I can just be me. I don’t want to adjust myself to the presence of others.”

Ezili nodded then moved a bit closer.

“What are you--”

She surprised him by placing her palm on the left side of his chest. Her skin tingled with the sensation of his little unsteady heartbeats when she came near. “But there’s nothing here,” she mumbled as if it would make sense to him. “You were telling the truth.”

“What do you mean?” Harry let out a nervous laugh and reached for her hand, which she withdrew before he could touch.

“Nothing.”

Harry’s smile faded. “Did Dawson say anything about me?”

“No. We hardly talked about you.”

“What about your sister? Why is she here?” he kept asking when she brushed past him and headed for the stairs. “Does your mother want you back? Ezi, what happened tonight?”

“Nothing,” she lied. “I’m just tired. Goodnight, Harry.”

“Ezi,” he said, his voice soft and pleading as if he could love her for a moment. But how could he? How could a man, who had lived his whole life without falling in love and prided himself on his loneliness, ever fall in love with a siren? He’d said he’d wanted to kiss her again, but there he’d stood in front of her and claimed her presence in this house made him uncomfortable. Then when her hand had been on his heart, she had felt nothing.

So had he lied about it? Humans lied about how they felt all the time. If they could lie about wanting to spend the rest of their life with one person, they could lie about wanting to kiss a siren.

Maybe, just maybe, Ezili should consider her sister’s offer.

[dewykth]

SWEET SEPTEMBER.

a @periminkle​​​ and @dewykth​​​ collaboration.

synopsis. for many, september symbolizes new beginnings. but for namjoon, this month never fails to send him back into the past. though this time, something seems different.

pairing. kim namjoon | female reader contains. fluff, angst, slice of life au, ballet instructor!reader, single dad!nj  word count. 7.5k+  warnings. death mentions, mature audience

dae’s note. surprise !!! this fic is dedicated to my favourite virgo karla @guklvr​​​​ !! happy birthday bae i hope you enjoy this lil thing me n vira whipped up for u!! (i stress wrote a lot of this ha.) also sry for lying & keeping you up but hopefully this makes u forgive me. but i hope ur day goes amazing ILYSM DUDE !!! <333 and a huge thank you to vira for hopping on board for this idea bc i cld not have done this without her !!! pls give her all the love !!!

vira’s note. KARLAAAA!!! i always gotta scream ur name it’s mandatory to start with a good scream ykno? bUT HAPPY BIRTHDAY GIRL 🥳  i already told u this too many times today but ILYSM !! like that full day without saying a single word to u felt so weird and i kept going into our chat and rereading our mssgs and wishing I was talking to u??? which is weird to admit?? but that literally how much i missed u idk how but im addicted to u so if you leave me I will literally die :))) aNYWAY have the bestestestest day ever and i hope u love the fic bc I ignored all my uni work to finish this !!! (also i feel reallyreallyreally bad about last night sO IM SORRY AGAIN BUT I HOPE THIS IS WORTH IT) 💖

Despite the papers carelessly stuffed into his leather briefcase, the dark coffee stain on his black slacks, and his unkempt locks resembling that of a bird’s nest, Namjoon’s become accustomed to the hectic nature of his mornings.

The kitchen table is practically buried under stacks of files, yet he brushes them aside to allow one corner of the glass surface to peek through. He plops the toddler in his arms onto a high chair before racing to the counter and sloppily pouring some honey nut cheerios into a small bowl, handing it off to his daughter. 

“Daddy?” her voice squeaks, a patient smile stretching across her lips. Her brown strands are tied up into pigtails at the crown of her head with pink ribbons that flutter with the movement of her tiny head. 

“Yes, angel?” He scurries around to their bedroom, peeling the stained fabric off his body and threading one leg through another pair of slacks fresh from the laundry. 

With Namjoon’s focus pinned on checking off the mental to-do list in his head, he misses the gentle, reassuring smile that stretches across her rosy lips. The adoration for her father is clear in her gaze. “You forgot to pour the milk.”

At the reminder, he squawks and hops back to the kitchen on one foot as he maneuvers his other leg through the pant hole. Swinging the fridge door open, he grabs the carton and sloppily pours the milk into her bowl—white droplets leaping out with their newfound freedom and forming perfect domes on the glass tabletop.

Cleaning the mess falls to the bottom of his priorities at the moment, and so he speeds off to the bathroom to ensure that his appearance is presentable for work while Dasom reaches over to pluck a tissue from the box, swiping the milky beads away before diving into her breakfast. She shoves as many cheerios into her small mouth as she can, rushing because she refuses to finish her meal in the car with their wild driver behind the wheel. 

Despite her mere four years of age, she knows from experience that a bowl of cereal and a shaky vehicle is a recipe for disaster.

Namjoon races over to his briefcase with most of his hair sleeked back, only the locks of his bangs hanging out to frame his forehead. As he slips his dark blazer on to complete his form-fitting suit, Dasom scoops the last few brown rings into her mouth and slurps the remainder of the liquid.

“Did you finish your milk?” he questions while cramming the edges of the loose leaves that peek past the seam of his briefcase, hurriedly zipping it up and turning to face her.

Dasom flips the edge of the bowl up to display its empty contents, gulping the last of her breakfast down her throat. As per routine, she scans her father for any inconsistencies in his attire, landing on his odd fitting bottoms.

“Daddy, your pants are on backwards.”

His eyes nearly bulge out of their sockets, glancing down to affirm that the pockets at his sides are no longer at the front of his hips. Hastily, he shimmies out of his slacks once more and twists the fabric around to the proper orientation. 

Dasom hops off her chair, her bowl and wet kleenex in hand as she waddles over to the sink and waits for him to deposit the dirty dish into the sink and the sullied tissue into the trash. Although her short arms couldn’t reach over the countertop just yet, she’ll diligently drink every last drop of her milk in hopes of growing tall enough to take some of the load off of her father’s back.

He hoists Dasom up at the sight of the red car pulling up to the driveway, squeezing into the back seat. Namjoon doesn’t have to tell the driver to book it, as the calm man in front has learned to keep his foot pressed on the pedal. The car weaves through the morning traffic with concerning speed, snaking through the other vehicles littering the road as if they were no more than stationary pylons, simply there for practice.

Dasom remains on her father’s lap with his arms looped protectively around the seatbelt over her torso. She sinks into his embrace, fiddling around with his long, slender fingers as she watches the blurs of colour speeding past the window.

“Did you put your ballet shoes into your backpack, angel?” Namjoon loosens his grip on her, unhooking one hand to rummage through his own briefcase in order to confirm that he had indeed slid his laptop within the chaos inside. To keep her entertained, he playfully extends his digits out of her reach.

“Of course!” she chirps, a wide grin revealing the gaps between her teeth. The pads of her fingertips brush against his palm and tickle the sensitive skin there when she realizes that her arms lack the length required to latch onto his hand. “I can’t wait for class, we’ve got a new teacher coming in today!”

Humming absentmindedly, he sighs in relief at the sight of the silver device and packs the crumpled papers back in. “What happened to Ms. Kim?”

“She’s teaching the older class now.” The pout on her lips can be heard within the muffled lilt of her voice when she continues, “I asked her to stay until my birthday next week b-but she didn’t.”

Namjoon’s breath hitches at the reminder, but attempts to compose himself for his daughter’s sake. “It’s out of her control, angel, plus she’ll probably swing by anyway.”

His mind starts to fog up with the emotions he thought he buried last year–they swarm his every thought and nibble away at his sanity. He knows better than to believe that they would ever disappear. September will always be an insurmountable month for him.

“I might be a bit late to pick you up later, just sit tight and wait for Daddy, okay?”

She eagerly nods in response, noticing the dull red bricks of her school coming into view. “Okay, bye Daddy!”

Namjoon unlocks the seatbelt, wistfully watching his toddler bounce out of his arms and onto the asphalt below. No matter how many times he drops her off, it’s always difficult to be separated from her bright smile, but he reminds himself that it’s all for her; it makes things a little easier to bear.

“Have a good day at school.” He reciprocates her frantic waving through the window, craning his neck to watch her adorable form become smaller and smaller with the increased distance. Her full cheeks and crinkled eyes are engraved into the back of his mind.

Before long, Namjoon finds himself rushing into his office after an earful from his surly boss about everything from the late hour to the long list of meetings scheduled to all the work he’s got piled up. With his lips pursed and his head bowed, he somehow manages to make it past another lively morning.

Namjoon has a habit of overthinking. He figures it’s normal when you have a stressful job and a four year old full of energy to balance all by yourself. Not that overthinking about his daughter does him any good, because that is far from the reality. If anything, it just makes him, what you’d call, a bit... overprotective (over worrisome if you asked Jin). But it’s something he can’t really help. Even when she had just entered his life, so small and so blissfully unaware of the awful and evil things in the world, all he wanted to do was hold her in his arms and shield her from it all as long as he could.

Though he’s very aware of the fact that it won’t be much longer, that won’t stop him from going over every single little thing that could go wrong in the meantime.

So, of course, when Namjoon’s asshole of a boss makes him stay two hours over his shift, all Namjoon can think about is Dasom. Is she okay? Has she eaten anything? Did she drink enough water today? She’s always dehydrated after her classes too. He usually calls Ms. Kim to check up on her, but his calls went straight to voicemail, which definitely wasn’t helping his hectic mind. Perhaps something had happened to her?

Oh god, maybe someone broke in and had injured Dasom?

The doors are thrown open, the sound of the doorknob hitting the wall reverberating through the room. The receptionist wearing her usual polka-dot dress jumps in her seat, eyes lifting from the intense scene on her phone to the entrance of the building. An unsure smile stretches across her ruby red lips at the familiar figure, though a bit disheveled and breathless. But before the customary ‘hello’ can even form on her tongue, the figure is rushing past her, leaving only a gust of air in his wake. The papers on her desk fall to the ground, and she sighs.

Namjoon is prepared to fight the (fictional) person who thinks breaking into a toddler ballet class is a good idea, but the scene in front of him once he pushes past the doors of the studio is one he is wholly unprepared for.

He sees Dasom first, and the relief that fills his body is indescribable. It’s far from the usual sight he’s greeted with when he picks her up late. She’s not sitting on one of the chairs in the far corner of the room. His heart doesn’t feel heavy, which comes with seeing his daughter so glum. This time it’s her laughter that greets him, not one provoked by him but by the figure standing in the middle of the room with her.

Dasom doesn’t seem to be aware of the presence of her dad yet, but the figure twirling her around turns, and her eyes land on Namjoon.

The reaction is immediate. The carefree smile that had been on your face slips off, a look of embarrassment and surprise overcoming your features. Namjoon only catches a glimpse, and somehow finds himself wishing that won’t be the last time he sees it. You let go of Dasom’s hand, quickly making your way to the stereo on the other side of the room. And that’s when-

“Daddy!”

Dasom wastes no time running into her father’s open arms, and Namjoon suddenly can’t remember why he was so worried in the first place. “Hi, angel.” he says, just loud enough for her to hear. She pulls back. “I’m so sorry for getting here so late. I promise i won’t do it again.”

But of course, Dasom holds nothing but forgiveness in her heart for her hard-working father. She does love teasing him, though. “Don't say sorry to me, say sorry to her.” she giggles, pointing behind her and Namjoon furrows his brow until he remembers they’re not the only ones in the room.

His eyes immediately move to where you stand awkwardly near the stereo, eyes moving around the room as if you hadn’t been watching the whole exchange. Namjoon sighs, realizing he definitely can’t avoid talking to you now. He stands straight, holding onto Dasom’s hand as he makes his way over to you. You only seem to grow more nervous as he nears, and Namjoon distantly recalls Jin telling him he came off as intimidating to most people. Something about his ‘beefy’ arms, in his own words. (“And that stupid and unfairly attractive face!”) He goes for a smile because it's not like he can control his physique.

“Hi, I’m so sorry about…”

Namjoon stops.

Maybe it was the overwhelming distress before, or the really shitty lighting of the studio, but he hadn’t realized how pretty you were before. But now he’s standing right in front of you and he can’t seem to form a coherent thought. Pretty can’t be the right word. He realizes how creepy he probably looks, running in here like a madman and then downright staring at the (very beautiful) woman who looked after his daughter? Not cool, man.

You clear your throat, before extending a hand to him. “Hi, I’m ____, the new ballet instructor.”

Your voice sounds just like honey.

Namjoon stares at your hand dumbly, before the sound of Dasom snickering (very discreetly) behind him snaps him out of it. But instead of introducing himself, or apologizing, or just taking your fucking hand, he says-

“What happened to Ms. Kim?”

He mentally face-palms.

Not. Cool. Man.

Your face falls, and Namjoon has never wanted the ground to open up and swallow him whole more than he does now. “Uh, she’s instructing the teen class now.” you chuckle awkwardly, dropping your hand.

“Oh-”

“Daaaad,” Dasom's voice sounds annoyed, and perhaps it’s a bit silly of Namjoon to feel like he’s being scolded, but that is exactly how he feels right now. “I told you this. In the morning. Remember?”

He doesn’t. “Ah, right of course,” Namjoon scratches the back of his neck. It wasn’t like he meant to forget, he had just been too busy thinking about the other things every September would bring. “Sorry, I’m Kim Namjoon. Dasom’s dad.”

This time he offers his hand, and he thanks the skies above that you don’t seem to hate him because you fit your hand against his. Warm, like honey. How long had it been since he last made a fool of himself in front of a pretty girl?

Too long.

“I’m terribly sorry for arriving so late it’s just that my boss, who’s a huge-” Namjoon glances at Dasom, who is now in her own world, singing some song she learned in school, “jerk, decided to assign these reports last minute and the printer would just not work and then traffic hour-”

Your hand comes up to cover your mouth, but Namjoon can see the amusement bubbling in your eyes. He flushes a deep red, eyes falling to the floor, realizing he started ranting.

“It’s okay. Really.”

When he looks back up, there’s a smile on your face. Not like the one before, this one was more reserved, but genuine, reassuring. And just like that, he’s sure you don’t hate him.

Namjoon’s not sure he likes this feeling though.

“Straighten your arms out, girls!” you belt over the classical music that floods the studio’s walls, scanning your army of toddlers in tutus whose arms immediately tense at your command. Making your way through the row, you poke and prod everywhere from their shoulders to their ankles. “Arch your back more, Somin.”

Their muscles violently tremble in response to the strenuous routine you’ve introduced, facial features scrunched in concentration and a resolute will to uphold their positions despite the hyperextension of their limbs. A mix of pity and pride swells in your chest at their effort. “Keep your chins up, the annual recital is only a couple of days away.”

Cheers erupt throughout the small room, disrupting the focus and spoiling their perfect form, yet you refuse to quiet excitement because of the renewed vigour buzzing throughout the room. The next hour depletes all of their built-up energy with demi-piles, pirouettes and sautés.

A glance at the analog clock in the corner informs you of the five minutes remaining before the end of class, so you pause the speakers and instruct the girls to stretch themselves out as they wait for their guardians to trickle in. They collectively sigh in relief before dropping to the floor like flies.

You snort at their dramatics with an amused smile playing at your lips. “I said to stretch, not to lay down and nap.”

“Can’t we nap and stretch at the same time?”

Strolling over to the source of the voice, you cluck your tongue at her limp form sprawled across the wooden floor and cross your arms, struggling to keep your giggles from breaking your angered facade. “And how do you suppose we do that, little Miss Dasom?”

She flashes her toothless grin up at you. “Like this!” With one leg bent over the other and her hands looping around to hold her twisted limbs to her torso, she shuts her eyes and exaggerates her snores.

At this point, it’s nearly impossible to withhold your snickers, and the rest of the class joins in your laughter. You pick up on Dasom’s tinkling giggles between each of her heavy breaths. The lighthearted jokes continue as kids are signed out with bright grins on each of their faces.

You wait for the rest of the toddlers to file out one by one, waving goodbye and checking them off your list until, as usual, Dasom is the only toddler left. Her tiny feet still clad in her faded ballet shoes waddle up to you, tugging on your blouse.

“Your pirouette was a bit wobbly today, do you want to go over—”

“‘M tired,” she interrupts, slouching her shoulders with an adorable frown marring her lips. Her exhaustion is justified, since the routine is rather exhausting, and with their recital right around the corner, you worked them to the bone today.

The odd timing of the switch between you and Ms. Kim left you with a little under a week to tweak and perfect their current choreography. A sloppy routine is not the way you want to present your skills to their parents for the first time, thus you were stricter with the kids than normal.

Your sympathy wins out, and so you gather Dasom’s lithe figure into your arms as you head to the closest wall. With your back supported, you spread out your legs and place her in your lap.

“My birthday is this Thursday.”

“Mhm,” you hum, bobbing your head to signal for her to continue her train of thought.

Her back faces you, but when her head tips down to stare at her hands, you know she’s contemplating her words carefully. Rather than encouraging her to speak freely, you wait for her to feel comfortable enough to reveal her thoughts; and surely enough, her shell cracks open just enough for you to peep through. “Do you wanna come?”

“I would be honoured.” A giddy smile splits across your lips. “Is Daddy picking you up again today?”

She flips around in your hold, wrapping her arms around your waist and snuggling her head to your chest. Her words are muffled into the fabric of your thin shirt, but her tone indicates her affirmation.

Suddenly self-conscious of your heartbeat—that Dasom can definitely hear with her ear pressed up against you—picking up pace at the mention of her father, you suppress your thoughts with a guilty conscience. You internally chide yourself for harbouring feelings for the charming, taken, man, defying arguably one of the most important fundamental rules of becoming an instructor.

Do not develop silly crushes on your student’s parents.

“Ms. ____?” her faint question snaps you out of your reverie, attention brought back to the present moment. While preoccupied, your hand took on a mind of its own, gingerly patting the space between the little girl’s shoulder blades at a slow rhythm.

She gazes up at you when you halt your rhythmic movements, sharp eyes boring into yours. “Are you gonna ask Daddy to come see me dance?”

The edges of your lips flip up in what you hope to be an encouraging smile as you nod your head. Subconsciously, you begin to stress over another encounter with Namjoon, formulating a script to hopefully avoid the stiff, tense atmosphere that lingered throughout all your previous interactions.

“Daddy’s always really busy,” she slurs, drowsiness coating her words and weighing down on her lids. Grumbling under her breath about her numb legs, Dasom crawls onto the floor beside you with her head resting on your thigh. “He’s always working hard for me.”

Your eyes soften at the fetal position she’s taken up on the ground; not only was Dasom lucky to have such a dedicated father, but Namjoon was also blessed with a caring daughter. “You don’t think he can make it?”

“It’s okay,” she whispers and you have to crane your ears to listen. You stroke the strands littering her forehead, gingerly caressing the crown of her head. “It’s okay if Daddy can’t come. I know him, he’s trying to do it all because Mommy’s not with us anymore, but it’s okay. I still love him even if I can’t see him lots.”

A knot forms between your eyebrows, a bittersweet ache forming within the creases of your heart. The painful constriction of your chest ebbs and flows with your shallow breaths that can’t seem to make it past your throat. You bite your lip to subdue the plentiful liquid gathering at your waterline.

No more than a croak escapes your lips before the door to the studio flies open, meeting the adjacent wall with a bang!

“I’m so sorry, my meeting ran late and I couldn’t—” the rest of his speech gets stuck in his windpipe at the sight of you, eyes rimmed red and sniffling, with Dasom, ostensibly dead asleep, on your thigh. “Did she…?”

You blink away your incoming tears, although your dignity has been completely thrown out the window, seeing as he believes that his four-year-old kid made a grown woman, who just so happens to be her ballet teacher, bawl her eyes out.

As you go to gently shake Dasom awake, she sluggishly lifts her head off of your lap and starts to scale your torso like a koala on a tree. Your confusion is vocalized through the high-pitched hum in your throat, but your efforts to pry off her limbs, tightly wound around the small of your waist, are futile.

“Uh, Dasom? It’s time to go home now, angel.” Despite his firm words, Namjoon’s tone is unsure and shaky; he can feel cold sweat build up in the lines of his palms. He knows his daughter, and she can be periodically stubborn and insistent the way children are at her age, thus even as you come to stand, she’s stuck to you like glue. “Would you, uh, did you need a ride?”

You mimic the sheepish smile on his face, hoping the flaming blush you feel on your cheeks isn’t as visible as it seems. “Sure.”

With Dasom latched onto you, both of you make your way to the red car outside after you lock up the studio. Namjoon courteously opens the car door for you, what with your arms supporting his clingy toddler; although, with the brute force he uses, you worry for the state of the hinges. Thankfully, they stay intact and he’s able to slip into the backseat after you.

Before an awkward silence can settle, you clear your throat and prepare to ask him about his day, but you’re interjected by Namjoon’s sudden stammering, “D-driving’s such a hassle for me so Jin drives us everywhere. Jin knows how to drive though, so, don’t worry.” He finishes with a deep chuckle that dies off nearly as quickly as it began. Oh, that’s unexpected.

“You don’t to drive yourself?” Rather than being processed in your brain and logically thought through, the question immediately enters your mouth without any prior scanning for dumbass-content. You instantly regret it, feeling as though it’s much too invasive. “You don’t have to answer that, I—”

The hearty laughter that meets your ears is “No, I do. Sometimes. But its easier raising this one like this.” His tone turns sweet at the mention of Dasom as he reaches over to pat her head, and you’re overcome with an intense desire to prod more into his personal life. Why does he have to work so much? Which shirt in his closet is his favourite? How does he like his eggs in the morning?

“I’m not sure if you already knew about the annual recital on Saturday, but Dasom’s been practicing really hard for weeks and the kids are all really talented, so it would definitely be worth your time...”

As he’s gazing at his daughter, galaxies of devotion and longing swirl within his cocoa irises. The cool light of the moon shines through the windows of the car, illuminating his sharp jawline and strong brows. You’re absolutely mesmerized by the sight in front of you. “You must be really busy, huh?”

“More than I’d like to be.”

You rip your entranced gaze away from Namjoon, willing yourself to steady your frantic breaths.

The remainder of the ride still drips with awkward tension, although with a definite lighter tone than before. Jin pulls up to your apartment with your direction and you dislodge a sleepy Dasom from your torso, which is much easier now that her limbs have gone slack with sleep. Handing her off to Namjoon, who practically engulfs her tiny form with his broad chest, you rush out of the vehicle with a quick, “See you!”

You slam the door closed before he can say anything, racing into the comfort of your home with your heart in your throat.

The last thing you had expected to do on a Thursday evening was to go to a birthday dinner. Thursdays are your days off, your in-days. The ones you spend lounging on your couch with a face mask and some wine. And yet, here you are.

When you received a text this morning, the last person you had expected it to be was Namjoon. Much less Namjoon asking you to come over for Dasom’s birthday. You weren’t going to say yes, hell, you had thought of downright ignoring it. It was weird, wasn’t it? But Dasom had quickly carved a toddler-shaped hole into your heart. Truly, you had said yes before the message was even typed out.

And so now you stare at the tall apartment building in front of you, definitely feeling more nervous than before. You knew that Namjoon had to be well-off to afford a weekday chauffeur, but damn did you not expect him to be this well-off.

It seemed today was the day to expect absolutely anything.

You enter the opulent building, signing in at the front desk before entering the large, mirrored elevator. The beating of your heart picks up the more floors you pass, and you can’t help but fidget with your appearance. Namjoon had said it would only be you three, which you guessed was supposed to calm your nerves but really, it did anything but that. The mere thought of eating dinner with Namjoon was nerve-wracking. But now you were about to eat dinner and enter his home; you had no fucking clue what you were getting yourself into.

The doors slide open, and you step into the hallway. A single door could be seen at the end of the hallway, so you quickly make your way over. You stop right in front, taking a deep breath in before pushing the doorbell. A beat, a crash, another beat, then-

The door swings open, and your breath catches in your throat.

Namjoon looks heavenly as always, but seeing him in clothes other than his usual black slacks makes your heart do a cartwheel. God, this is dangerous.

“Ms. ____!”

Before Namjoon can form a hello, Dasom is running past him and wrapping her small arms around your legs. “You came! See daddy! I told you she’d come.” her tongue pokes out of her mouth, aimed straight at her father and you stifle a laugh.

“Did he think I wouldn’t?” you ask, eyebrow arched as you glance at Namjoon, who seems to have a permanent pink hue on his face.

“He said you wouldn’t!”

“Oh, really? What else did he say?”

“He said I had to help him clean either way!”

“Alright, Dasom. That’s enough.” He says firmly, clearing his throat and trying to act as unaffected as possible. His eyes shift to meet yours. “Why don’t you come inside?”

As much as this day really sucked for Namjoon, today had been… different. Not all too much. Of course, getting up was the hardest part, but he had decided to make Dasom her favourite breakfast meal instead of her usual cereal. He had also made sure to get her all the toys she had been wanting, and planned their day out to do Dasom’s favourite things. Namjoon just wanted this day to be special for her. That was all he cared about.

But when Dasom had asked him to invite you, he had hesitated.

Dasom had never spent her birthdays with anyone else but Namjoon. Not that it was intentional, but Namjoon liked to have this day just for the both of them. Because that’s how it’s always been. He didn’t know what it was about you that made his daughter talk about you all the time. Or why she wanted to spend a birthday with you. But how could he deny her? And so, the text was sent.

And now, as Namjoon puts away the dishes while you sit on his couch, he realizes he hadn’t thought of her today. Not as much as the years before. Dinner had been so... nice. It felt nice to have someone else around. Namjoon loves Dasom, but he hadn’t realized how distant he had gotten from everything that had once seemed to be the centre of his life.

Namjoon closes the dishwasher, exiting the kitchen and making his way to the living room. He places the two glasses on the table before pouring the dark red liquid.

“I hope you like Merlot.”

“Oh, please. Anything’s fine.”

You take the wine glass, sending him a thank you before taking a drink. “So,” you lean back, “remind me how to play this again.”

“Ms.____ I told you. You have to take a block without knocking the tower over,” Dasom shows you by pushing a middle wooden block out, “then you have to place it on top, like this.'' She places the same block on top of the tower.

“Ah, right! I just need to make sure if I want to win.”

“You can’t! I’m the best!”

“Oh really? And what about you?” you turn, brow raised and eyes playful.

“Pshh,” he scoffs, leaning forward. “Who do you think she takes after?”

He doesn’t think he’s ever lost a game so quickly.

Namjoon watches as you close Dasom’s door quietly from the hallway before you make your way back to the family room. “She’s out like a light. I guess all that tower building got to her.”

Namjoon snorts. He feels oddly disappointed as he watches you gather your things to go. Was it weird that he wanted you to stay? “Do you need me to get you a ride? I can call Jin to drive you home.”

“No, it’s fine! Really! I already ordered an Uber anyway.” You grab your coat near the door. Before Namjoon can unlock the door, you touch his shoulder. “Listen, thank you for inviting me today. I know you probably wanted to spend this day together instead, but I... “ you inhale, because you aren’t sure of what you want to actually say “thank you.”

Would it be weird to say how much better you made today? Probably. “You don’t… have to thank me. I think I should be the one doing the thanking. I really wanted this day to be special for Dasom and you… you definitely helped. So, thank you.”

The door opens, and the light of the hallway fills his dim flat. “Guess we’re even then.” you smile before turning, making your way to the elevator. Namjoon shuts the door once the sight of you is gone, but the smile on his face remains

“Guess we are.” he whispers wistfully

Perhaps stopping at a flower vendor when you’re already running late was a bad idea, but Namjoon wasn’t thinking about time. He had seen the bouquet of flowers and imagined the huge smile that would stretch across Dasom’s face, and that was all he needed to swerve into the left lane.

Now, though, as he anxiously watches the cars in front of him move a foot forward after thirty minutes, he’s sure he should have just left the fucking flowers alone.

Namjoon doesn’t know how long he’s been shifting his eyes from the traffic to the watch ticking around his wrist, but by a miracle, the cars start moving. Slowly, then he’s speeding down the highway, praying to the skies above he’ll make it in time. Even if he arrives in the midst of the dance, he can’t miss this recital. He won’t.

He sighs in relief when he sees the familiar glass building, though it’s cut short when he sees the parking lot. No available place in sight. Fuck. Namjoon is sure he looks insane right now, swerving around the parking lot in search for an empty spot, or really just any fucking spot that looks like it could fit his monster of a car.

Then the clouds seem to open up, and right near the entrance is a vacant spot. Namjoon swears his mouth almost waters at the sight. Quickly speeding around the lot, he parks, but not before flipping off the angry parent who tries to beat him to it. Namjoon exits his car, quickly grabbing his coat and the large bouquets of flowers from the backseat. He runs to the entrance, practically throwing the shriveled paper at the ticket clerk.

Namjoon slows as he nears the theatre doors, taking a deep breath before calmly opening it. He had completely forgotten to book seats in advance, so he’s not surprised to see the velvet seats filled to the brim. When he looks to the stage, he’s relieved to see that there’s still time until Dasom comes on.

Now, Namjoon knows he’s not the most… balanced person. It’s common knowledge that he trips over his feet and knocks things over sometimes. (Oh, but definitely more than the average person.) Now, if you were to ask Namjoon if he pays attention to his surroundings, he'd say yes.

But if you were to ask Namjoon what he tripped over, he wouldn’t know. It doesn’t matter, because now there’s a furious mother with a horrendous bob cut glaring at him, and what he thinks to be a broken camcorder on the floor. The only thing he can manage is an awkward smile and an even more awkward apology. Namjoon offers to give her the cost for repairs, hell, even offers to buy her a new one. The woman snatches the bills from his hands but she doesn’t go back to minding her business like he thought she would. No, instead she starts to argue with him, in the middle of her child’s recital, no less!

Namjoon can’t do anything but stare at her as she blabbers on about how horrible he is for throwing her camcorder on the floor. (Not like it had much life left, that thing looked like it was from 2007.) She’s damn near spitting on his face, and causing other parents to turn around and glare at them. As if it was his fault. Who knew she had such an attachment to the damn thing!

A hand lands on his shoulder, and for a second he’s sure it’s security ready to escort him out of the building. But when he turns, he’s surprised to see it’s you. Like an angel had ascended from the clouds to save Namjoon from the wrath of a ballet mom. And just like that, you’re leading him away, taking a seat two rows before the stage. Namjoon’s eyes widen at the sight of the empty seat beside you.

It’s that feeling again, and Namjoon’s palms start to get sweaty as he takes a seat. “Jesus, thank you for that,” he whispers, relishing your quiet laughter that follows.

“Of course. She was probably a blink away from going full-blown Karen on you.” you tease.

“Oh, and that wasn’t?”

“Oh, Joon, you haven’t seen how angry ballet moms can get.” you both laugh, huddled together as if you’re sharing a special secret. It seems so natural. As if this is where he’s supposed to be. So much that Namjoon almost doesn’t catch the nickname, but how could he miss it when you say it just like she used to?

The stage lights darken, and Namjoon is grateful for the excuse to look elsewhere. He’s sure if he would have stared at you for just a bit longer, he would have done something completely and utterly stupid. “This is her.” you whisper, and Namjoon buries the thought away.

A blue hue shines across the stage before the soft melody begins to play, filling the room with the sounds of strings and keys. One by one, tiny swans begin to come into view, prancing around the stage. Namjoon catches sight of Dasom, looking adorable in her white tutu and he can’t help the proud smile that makes its way onto his face. He watches with adoration as she does her pirouettes, and maybe there’s some water overflowing in his eyes as they finish their dance, bowing towards the audience.

You both stand, clapping and cheering the loudest, uncaring of the stares from the snobby rich parents because you’re both too damn proud of Dasom to care. For a moment, Namjoon pretends that it’s different, simpler. That it’s not only his child on stage but yours. Ours. He thinks he likes the sound of that too much.

Once the show ends, you lead Namjoon backstage where the buzz of dozens of girls talking fills the air. You tell him that you need to check in on the other kids and disappear through a hallway. He spots Dasom quickly, or rather, she spots him.

“Daddy! You came!”

Namjoon lifts Dasom with his free arm, twirling her around before placing a big kiss on her forehead. Her giggles fill him with delight, and he doesn’t care that his cheeks hurt from how hard he’s been smiling. “Of course I came, angel. I wouldn’t miss it for the world.”

He places her on the ground before he grabs the bouquet of sunflowers from his other arm. The sight of her favourite flower makes Dasom jump with joy. She takes the flowers, and Namjoon silently coos at how much smaller they make her look. Then she spots the other bouquet of flowers in his arm. She scrunches her brows together, about to ask who those are for before her eyes catch something behind Namjoon.

“Ms. ____!”

“Dasom!”

Dasom jumps into your arms, and you laugh at her enthusiasm. “You did so well! I’m so proud of that pirouette!” You twirl her around once her feet hit the ground, smiling as you watch her stumble slightly. Namjoon can’t help but smile too.

“Look what daddy got me, Ms. ____! Look!” Dasom lifts the flowers up, almost shoving them into your face.

“Wow, these are very beautiful, Dasom!”

“Look! He got you some too!” she giggles, and you look at her confusedly then at Namjoon. He sighs, looking pointedly at Dasom despite the cherry hue making its way across his cheeks. She giggles once again before running to her friends. “Dasom!” but it's futile.

If it weren’t for the consistent chatter, Namjoon’s sure there would be an agonizing silence to fill the space between you. You walk closer to him, looking down at your shoes bashfully. “Ah, these-” he takes the bouquet from his arm, “these are for you.”

You looked surprised to say the least. Eyes wide and glassy, your mouth falling ajar. “Wow, uh, really?” you ask, glancing up from the bouquet. He nods shyly.

Listen, he had only planned to buy Dasom her favourite flowers. But then he caught sight of these beautiful yellow roses, tips painted a light amber orange. Somehow they reminded him of you. And the way you had left him with his heart feeling lighter for the first time in years the other night. Maybe it was a way of saying thank you. He’ll admit, he didn’t think it all the way through, but the way you’re smiling at him right now makes him think it wouldn’t have mattered anyway.

There’s a moment where it seems to just be you and him, despite the tons of parents and children running around. He’s only focused on you, and the way your eyes drop to his lips, if only for a millisecond. Namjoon wants to say it. God, he wants to say it so badly. “Listen I… I’ve been meaning to ask you,” his voice fades away as his eyes catch yours. Hopeful. Beautiful. Glimmering.

Just like hers.

“Do you, uh, need a ride home?”

And the bubble bursts.

You step away, looking at anything but him and he hates it. He despises it. He wants you to look at him like that again. He wants nothing more than to pull you back and kiss you senselessly, like his mind is screaming for him to do. But he can’t. He can’t do it for some fucking reason and he almost wants to cry in frustration because why can’t this just be easier? Why is it so hard to move on? You don’t deserve this. You deserve so much better than what he can offer you. And that thought keeps him still.

“Uh, sure.”

Quiet.

Say something, idiot! Tell her what you’ve been dying to say! Just fucking say it!

Namjoon hates himself for the next words that tumble out of his mouth.

“Let’s find Dasom.”

The drive to your house is just like it was before, except this time there’s no chatter to fill the emptiness. Dasom is sound asleep in the backseat. You've never seemed more distant than now, facing the window, body pressed against the door. You had almost begged to go in the back with Dasom, and Namjoon doesn’t know why he didn’t just let you.

How did it come to this? This wasn’t what he wanted. This night wasn’t supposed to go like this. Everything should have gone differently.

He doesn’t know how he’ll ever fix this. If things will go back to normal. If he completely ruined it. But he’s too afraid to ask. Too afraid to know.

Namjoon has never hated the quiet more.

The sight of your apartment complex fills him with dread. All he can think about is all he wants to say, all he should have said, all he wants to take back. God, Namjoon wishes he could take it back. If only there was a way to turn back the time. Why had he been so afraid to make a move? Why did it hurt so much? But he knows going back wouldn’t help. Not when he doesn’t know if he would have done it differently.

His car comes to a stop, and the doors unlock. He faintly catches the small thank you before the passenger door slams shut. Namjoon watches as you make your way up the pathway, feet moving briskly and it feels like he’s watching you walk away from him.

You’re shuffling through your bag, looking for your key. And fuck, is he really just going to this go?  Is he that stubborn that he can’t see past himself? He can’t. He can’t let you go. Not like this.

Well do something, dumbass!

The door of his car is thrown open, and before he can overthink it-

“____!”

You still. You turn.

Namjoon shuts the door. He walks up the steps and stops a few feet away from you, but he feels like he’s miles away. You look up at him, questioning. Your eyes aren’t the same ones. Not like you looked at him before. Yet they’re still warm. Inviting. Namjoon is tongue-tied, and all those words he wanted to say are gone now.

“Are we… good?”

“Why wouldn’t we be?”

“I just…” he scratches the back of his neck. “That moment back at the recital. I… I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be.” you say, simply. When he looks at you, he can’t tell what you’re feeling. You’ve blocked him off. “Namjoon, really. It’s fine.”

But is it really? He wants to ask. But he doesn’t. It’s quiet again, this time the sound of the wind rustling the browning leaves above filling the space. Still.

“I… god, I don’t know why this is so hard. Ever since, you know,” you don���t. “I… I didn’t think I'd ever get an opportunity to…” he inhales, unsure of what he wants to say first.

“I just feel like I ruined it so carelessly.”

You don’t say anything for a few moments. You only stare at him, really stare at him. Like you can see through his mirage, through the walls he’s spent so long building up. You’re taking it all, but there’s nothing he can take back from you.

“You didn’t.” you whisper it so quietly, Namjoon would have thought his mind had taken pity on him. But a smile slips onto your face. Unlike the other ones. It doesn’t fill him with joy. It doesn’t give him butterflies. This one hurts.

And he knows you’re telling the truth.

“This… It might take a while.”

The wind picks up. The leaves rustle. The cold, biting.

“That’s ok. I’ll wait as long as you need me to.”

Your lips are bittersweet on his tongue.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY AGAIN TO KARLA !! ILYYYY <3

[futurewriter2000]

Heartless - pt. 9

XX

You didn’t know where you were. You didn’t even know who you were at the moment when you finally started to realise dirt under your nails and fingers. Questions and memories came rushing back, piece my piece- like a slow puzzle. 

You opened your eyes, feeling a stabbing pain in your eyes but as soon as you did open your eyes, you saw a pair of shiny, pointy shoes in front of you. 

“James?” you asked weakly, feeling your stomach twist inside of you. It felt like there was a constant press on it, causing it’s insides to come up your throat. 

You haven’t felt good. Everything hurt and all you wanted to do was lay there and fall back asleep- then you remembered; you already did that before, didn’t you? Woke up for a moment, before falling back into darkness from so much pain. It was a constant cycle of suffering. 

You pressed your ear on the ground and let your eyelids close again. You could almost see your wand in the distant, the core of it only. The second half of your wand must be somewhere in the woods, broken from the road down. 

You felt the figure in front of you move, kneel down to you... feel the tip of his wand press on your neck. “Are you in pain, child?” he asked but his voice felt cold- like a breeze in the winter- and it sounded like a hiss, echoing in your ears. 

The tip of his wand travelled up your neck to your jaw, your cheek where it removed some of your hair. You let out a whimper, tears falling down your cheeks because you couldn’t move and you couldn’t feel anything but pain. Everything hurt so much to the point you didn’t know what to do. You thought of James and your family. You thought of Marcus and Sirius.... You left everybody behind, arguing with them, leaving them because you were upset and now you might die from pain and nobody is here to save you. You’d die alone. 

“Yes.” you cried, letting your lips tremble.... your voice catch in your last breaths. 

“Do you want me to save you?” he asked, his voice forever imprinted in your head. 

“Yes.” you said without any other thought, without any doubts. You want to be saved. You don’t want to die like this. 

The man’s lips twitched in a pleasing smirk as he took his wand away and placed his hand on top of your cheek. For some odd reason, it felt warm. It was warm and soft. His touch sent tingles through your body- a safe, comforting feeling. 

“I save you, (y/n) and you’ll be in debt to me.” he kept caressing your cheek as you let out sobs- sobs of pain, whimpers of loneliness, breaths of death. “Shh. I’ll save you.” he kept brushing his hand over your cheek. “You just sleep...” 

And his voice suddenly changed it’s tone into softness and tenderness, guiding you into a peaceful sleep. 

---

James woke up and after another horrible night of nightmares and twisted dreams. His stomach was like a hole- he felt it and he knew that it was because of you...

He wanted to worry but he was so furious at you. It was as if his gut was telling him one thing but his angry, prideful mind was doing the opposite. He woke up alone. Sirius wasn’t in his bed and the light was barely visible in the sky. He mustn’t had slept as well. 

With his thoughts on you- on your fight, your words- everything. 

‘ I cried every bloody night for a year because I hated my life and YOU WEREN’T THERE! YOU WEREN’T THERE JAMES BECAUSE YOU WERE TOO SELFISH BEING YOU!’ 

He shut his eyes and squeezed it, trying to brush those thoughts away. 

He opened his eyes again, this time softly and not as fast as he shut them. He could feel something spiking his eyes, something travelling up his throat as he continued to see your face just before you left- when you threw those pills at him. How could he forget that? But you were with Nina and you were safe. You had to be safe. 

He sat on the edge of the bed and put his bare feet on the rug. He dug his toes in the softness of it, clawing the rug as if it’s the only good thing in his life right now. 

Today was the third day since you were gone. He missed you. He missed the presence of you. It was as if half of him was empty because of you and that half started to spread into a whole. He threw his head into his palms, rubbing his hands up and down his face, down his hair. He ruffled them and looked to the side, finding his eyes on the framed photo of the two of you. 

“You’re just everywhere but not here.” he said, reaching up for the photo and looking at the two of you as happy children. “You have to be stubborn.. stubborn and dramatic...” he kept looking at your smile, where the front baby tooth was missing. He smiled at the thought of you, of the small utopia that formed in his head when the memories of your childhood came rushing back but then realised the reality of everything and stopped smiling. He rubbed his thumbs against the frame of the photo and put it face down on the bed. 

He stood up and made his way downstairs, where everybody was sitting in silence. 

There really was something missing in this family. It showed pretty clearly that everybody needed you here. There was a unique energy you brought to this house. There was a cup of coffee in your mother’s hands. She kept holding on to it and looking through the window as if you were about to come. 

And James knew that she missed you dearly after three days spent at Nina’s. He felt as if she resented him because of your argument. He felt as if his own mother couldn’t look at him because he chased you away. For three whole days. 

But when he appeared, she looked at him softly and smiled. “Morning, honey.” 

“Morning, mum.” he came to her and gave her a kiss on the cheek. 

He rarely did that but since he knew that she was worried about you, he thought she needed it. 

He didn’t want to ask if maybe you called or wrote them a letter. He was afraid to do so becuase he didn’t know how they would react... 

“I think I’ll call Nina to check up on her.” he said and walked to the phone. He typed in the number and waited for the phone to ring. One, two, three times, maybe the fourth time he really wanted to give up but there was a sound of a laughing voice. 

It sort of gave him relief. Good, Nina was laughing, which meant you were laughing too. 

“Hey, Nina. It’s James.”

“James?” she laughed in disbelief on the other side of the phone line. “What brings you to call?”

“I- uh. I wanted to check up on (y/n).” he spoke softly, remorsefuly.

“(Y/n)?” there was a questioning tone in her voice, causing James’ heart rate to rise up. “What do you mean to check up on her?”

“Well, isn’t she with you?” 

“No. Should she be?”

“Nina, it’s not funny. She said she’s going to your place.”

“Did the two of you have a row?” she asked. “Again?”

“You’re acting as if you don’t know.”

“I don’t, James. Honestly, I just came home from Cuba last night.”

“Cuba?” 

“(y/n) knew this. She probably went to Marcus’ place anyway.”

“Yeah... probably.” James said doubtfully, glancing at his family, who all of them watched him with eyes as wide as a house elf. All they were missing was a pair of long ears. 

“And James?” 

“Yeah?” 

“Marcus is a great guy. You shouldn’t be against their relationship. They’re actually quite adorable together.” she giggled meanwhile James felt his eyebrows furrow.

“Relationship?” 

“Well, it was probably what the fight was about. She finally told you about them? She said she would on Friday.”

“She said she had a date with him? Nothing about a relationship.” he started to get frustrated. 

“Oh...” was all that came from the other side of the phone. 

“How long was that relationship, Nina?” he asked impatiently.

“I think I said enough.”

“Nina!” he warned her and only heard a sigh in return.

“A few weeks... months maybe. Almost whole summer.” 

“What?” James said in disbelief. “And she didn’t tell me?” 

“Why would she James? You never cared.”

“Why does everybody keep saying that?”

“James... you just stopped hanging around all of a sudden. You found your own group of friends in Hogwarts but we always kept in contact. Marcus really cared for her. He cared for all of us when you left.” 

“We were kids, Nina.”

“Yeah, but we were friends. Friends don’t leave and you did a shitty thing by leaving us- especially for Marcus. The two of you were best friends. He was broken when you didn’t even call. ” 

“I’m sorry, Nina. I didn’t know...”

“Sorry doesn’t take it with us, James. You had a life before Hogwarts. You had friends before those friends.” she started to get agitated, as if she was holding this for a long time. “I don’t know where, (y/n) but I wouldn’t blame her for leaving you. You were always an asshole to her. I think she’s at Marcus’ but how would you know when you never bothered to call him.” 

“Nina, I-”

“Goodbye, James.” she cut him off and threw the phone down. 

James kept the phone up to his ear. Nina really didn’t hold back, did she? 

He leaned on the wall, holding the phone in his hand as the line was cut. He took a deep breath in and felt a lump in his throat. He wanted to cry. Merlin, he would just want to curl up into a ball and cry. 

Did he really do you so much wrong? 

He looked at the phone and straightened his posture, taking a deep angry breath in and calling Marcus. He couldn’t believe he could still remember their house number- after so many years, Marcus’ house number just got stuck in his head. 

He picked up sooner than Nina did. Two rings.

“Hello?” 

“Hey, Markisha.” he put on a big smile, trying to lighten the mood and not make Marcus as upset as he did with Nina. “It’s James.”

“James?” there was a surprised tone in his voice. “Haven’t heard from you in a long time, mate. Except the time I called (y/n).”

“For a date?” James asked on purpose, knowing what he knows now. 

“Uh- yeah.” Marcus cleared his throat but tried to keep his cool.

“Heard the two of you were a thing- how did the first date go?” 

“Not good, if I’m honest with you mate.” Marcus took a deep breath in. “Got into our first massive fight.” 

“Makes two of us.” James added as a comment, then let his brain process the words again. “What was the fight about?”

“Your best mate, Sirius as I recall.” there was a bit of jealousy in his tone as James glanced at Sirius, then felt an uncomfortable feeling wash over him.

“She told you what happened?”

“She wanted to be honest with me. She promised it wouldn’t happen again but I was too pissed off.”

“But she’s with you, isn’t she?”

Marcus on the other line laughed with his usual voice that let James remember all those childhood days spent together. Guilt after guilt... “It’d be a miracle if she would after we said those nasty things to one another.” 

“Marcus...” James trailed off, feeling paranoia enter his stomach, fill that empty hole that he had. “... she’s not home for three days.”

There was silence on the other line for quite a long time. It let James wander if he threw the phone on him. 

“Marcus?”

“Yeah, I’m here.” he let out  breath. “What do you mean she wasn’t home in three days?”

“As in she said she was going to Nina’s place-”

“Nina was in Cuba.”

“I know that now. I thought she went to you.”

“She’s not with me, James!” Marcus snapped on the other side.

“Thanks for the clarification, Marcus!” James started to get furious as well. 

“What the fuck did you do, James?! What did you tell her?!”

“Me!? You’re the one she got in the-”

“But we figure it out, James! You don’t. You never apologise to her, you just piss her off and belittle her- you’re never there for her! You’ve always caused her nothing but pain!”

“Why is everybody on her side all the time!?”

“Because you’re the one that always fucks up and she’s the one that always ends up cleaning after you!”

“That isn’t true!”

“You’re a liar, James! Now, excuse me as I go look for her!”

“Marcus!” James tried to shout back but the line was already dead. 

James threw the phone into the wall and wanted to storm off to his room. He would if it wasn’t for his father, who grabbed his arm tightly and looked sternly into James’ eyes.

“What is it, boy?”

“She’s not at Nina’s. And she’ not at Marcus’.” he said, avoiding his mother’s gaze, ignoring her gasp. 

“Then where is she?” your father asked.

James shuffled his feet, took a few deep breaths until the guilt overflowed his body. He looked up at his father with shame in his eyes, just before he answered: “I don’t know, dad. I don’t know.”

[youngclaire]

One Last Final Goodbye

I rewrote sending Claire back through the stones at the end of book 2 but from Jamie's POV. I thought it would be a nice way to ease myself into writing these two. This is very book compliant, I actually bad the book open next to me whilst I wrote this in order to translate it from Claire's POV to Jamie's and it was a lot of fun. It's not a copy of the fuller chapter, it's been shortened down in places but the essence is there. I've also removed bits and pieces. Uhh yeah...all dialogue in this belongs to Diana and the book I'm just responsible for remixing the words. Anyway, I hope whoever bothers to read this likes it :)

(This is also my first fic in this fandom with these two so don't expect it to be perfect, it probably isn't)

- - -

He wouldn’t stop for anything; not food, water, or rest. He keeps the horse at a constant gallop at all times, scared that if he paused or hesitated for even a moment he would lose all courage and go neither back or forward.

I shall see my wife safe, is a mantra that keeps him riding. If he is to die tonight or on the battlefield tomorrow, he would not take her down with him; not her or the innocent being she carries inside her.

The stones come into view just above him. A cursed salvation of granite and Jamie tries not to see them, his gaze fixated forward. Behind him, Claire lets her displeasure be known, protesting against the idea. Jamie steels himself against them, clenches his jaw and gallops harder, fighting the urge to give in. This was the only way to see her safe and unharmed, he tells himself.

She protests still, even while he urges her up to the ruined cottage. She doesn’t realise he has no intention of parting with her right now, he just wants time to breathe, to think, to let the panic and worry abate. He sinks to the ground, his body cold and his mind racing.

“It’s alright,” he thinks he hear himself say. “We have a bit of time now; no one will find us here.” He shivers, though from the cold, and wraps his plaid around him.

God, he could still see it; Dougal’s lifeless eyes, the blood pooling out of him, the shock on Willie Coulter’s face. How long before everyone knew? How long before everyone found out he had committed familicide?

Jamie’s head falls forward onto his knees, a tiredness washing over him, fatigue clutching at his bones and eyelids. Tired as he was he could not sleep for fear of the images in his mind’s eye.

His breath comes out in ragged pants and he can barely stand the sound of it. He feels Claire’s warmth and presence beside him, uses it as something to anchor himself to.

What happened in that room and who knows wasn’t the priority, while Claire had yet to explicitly say so Jamie’s fate waited for him on Culloden Moor. Tomorrow he will die and all this will cease to matter. Claire will be safe.

His breathing eases back into its natural rhythm, the panic wilting away from the edges. He’ll take hold of Death’s hand, gladly accept his destiny knowing he did one thing right at last.

“I won’t go, Jamie,” she says, as if she’s read his thoughts. “I’m staying with you.”

Jamie shakes his head. She couldn’t persuade him, he couldn’t change his mind. He needed to do this.

“No,” he says. The firmness bites at him, makes him wince. He hopes she can hear the gentleness that lies beneath it. “I must go back, Claire.”

“You can’t,” she cries. “Jamie, they will have found Dougal by now! Willie Coulter will have told someone.”

Aye, that was a fact he had resigned himself to, a fact she must resign herself too as well. He grieved for Dougal, for the second father he had, but Jamie had done what he’d done- he would take whatever consequence waited for him behind that door. She talks of fleeing to France but it’s no use, he’s chosen his fate, set his heart and mind to it, accepted it. A traitor twice over, a rebel, a murderer…The English will hunt Prince Charles. The English and the clans will hunt Jamie. He was dead either way.

“Claire, I am a dead man.”

He watches the tears freeze on her cheeks. “No,” she says but the effect is lost, she knows he speaks the truth.

“I wouldna get very far anyway.” On its own accord, his hand runs through his red hair that makes him a beacon at all times. Not exactly inconspicuous. “I can save you, Claire,” With his other hand he brushes away the tears that continue to fall. “and I will. That is the most important thing.”

Then he will go back. If he finds he cannot do it for himself then he will find it in him to do so for his men.

“I think I can get them away,” he says thinking the plan through. “Even if it’s known what I’ve done, none will stop me wi’ the English in sight and the battle about to begin.” The plan visualises in his mind and he nods to himself. “I will bring them safely away and set them on the road toward Lallybroch.”

“And then?”

Well…wasn’t that obvious?

“And then I will turn back to Culloden.”

He lets out a breath, strong and final as his decision. He catches Claire’s worried look and gives her a smile.

“I’m no afraid to die, Sassenach,” he says, but then he thinks of that door, black and foreboding, the unknown behind it. “Well…not a lot, anyway.”

He hears a sound a human being should never be able to make as arms fling around him. He finds himself surrounded by Claire, caught in her tight embrace as the scent of her overwhelms him. He clutches her back, trying with all his might not to succumb and cry.

“It’s all right, Sassenach,” he says into her hair as she cries once more. “A musket ball. Maybe a blade. It will be over quickly.” A lie, they both know it, but Jamie will them both to believe it. He’s seen men die in battle, knows how horrifically slow it can be but it was better than waiting for the hangman’s noose, that would be the one thing that does not lie behind that door.

“I’m going with you.”

Lost in thought he barely registers it but when he does he reels at the notion, startling backwards.

“The hell you are!” He has a plan, damnit, and not even Claire will deter him from it.

She displays her argument but he will not listen to it, will not give it thought.

“No!” he says. “No, Claire!”

How could she suggest such a thing, knowing what they both knew? How could she be so selfish?

“If you’re not afraid, I’m not either. It will…be over quickly. You said so.”

You said so. What he said was a lie, did she not see that? A lie to comfort them both.

“Jamie- I won’t…I can’t…I bloody won’t live without you, that’s all!”

He had a thousand things to say and none at all. His mouth opens and closes before he shakes his head. Through the gaps in the ceiling he can see daylight dwindling, night approaching. The sky is painted red. Blood of a battlefield, blood of childbirth.

He reaches toward her, pulling her close. He knows where this fight comes from, if the tables were turned he would say the same thing, knows because he feels it too.

“D’ye think I don’t know?” His voice is soft, a whisper. “It’s me that has the easy part now. For if ye feel for me as I do for you- then I am asking you to tear your heart out and live without it.”

She lets out a whimper, clutching him closer. He fingers stroke her hair, whispering soft coos towards her.

“But you must do it,” he finally says, feeling his stomach twist and turn. “Ye must.”

“Why?” She is angry, considerably so. Confused and hurting. “When you took me from the witch trial at Cranesmuir- you said then you would have died with me, you would have gone to the stake with me had it come to that!”

He had said all that, and to this day, it remains true. He’d have rather died than to be parted with her.

“Aye, I would,” he says. “But I wasna carrying your child.”

The reason he is allowing them to part.

She is surprised, shocked, frozen in place as she looks up at him in bewilderment.

“You can’t tell,” she says at last, shaking her head. “It’s much too early.”

It makes him smile, brings amusement to him.

“You havena been a day late in your courses, in all the time since ye first book me to your bed. Ye havena bled now in forty-six days.”

She hurls insults at him, shocked he even managed to keep track of such a thing during a war but he had for hope they would have a second chance at raising a child and for fear that it would end like this.

“It doesn’t mean anything,” she tells him, rattling off reasons for why she might not have bled. It’s no use, she forgets he’s seen her so before, studied all the tell-tale signs of her body changing, committed them to memory.

“Claire…” His voice is quiet, not sounding like him. “Tomorrow I will die. This child…is all that will be left of me- ever.” He reaches for her hands, needing some part of her to hold. He casts his gaze to their joined hands, running his thumb over her fingers. “Claire, I beg you, see it safe.”

He keeps his eyes downcast while he waits for her answer, scared she’ll say yes, scared she’ll say no. The silence feels long and he shuts his eyes against the twisting of his stomach.

Finally her answer comes.

“Yes.” A whisper in the darkening cottage. “Yes. I’ll go.”

He nods, swallowing back the lump in his throat, hearing the sound of a flower stem snap.

.:.:.:.:.:.:.

After telling her to sleep, she doesn’t sleep himself. Time seemed wasted on that and they didn’t have much of it left anymore. In a few hours he will take her to the fairy hill and part with her forever.

He wanted to rage at the unfairness of it all. To brandish his sword and yell and scream and cry but he knew there was no point to it. He knew that what he had been handed was more than fair, that not many men live the life he’s led and are allowed to be rewarded in such a way.

Lord, ye gave me a rare woman, he had said to her, quoting what he would say to God when he met him. God! I loved her well. He had, he could really say that. He took this woman, in all her unbated strangeness, into his broken hands and within her found company and peace, a place to call home.

She loved me well, too, he adds, watching her sleep for the last time. Content and safe, here in his arms and their fortress of cloth. He had healed him with her touch and love and perseverance. Picked a broken man off the floor and carried him through towards the light at the end of the tunnel no matter the setbacks. She really was a rare woman, his sassenach.

He wraps his arms tighter around her, murmurs a quick thank you in Gaelic to God and to the fairies for dropping her into his life.

Pressed against her, safe in their fortress of clothes, her skin warming his bones, his eyelids grow heavy and he succumbs to sleep as the first inklings of tomorrow break across the sky.

.:.:.:.:.:.

She was gone.

Disappeared in the same manner in which she had appeared. Gone through the stones and back to Frank.

Jamie presses his hand against the stone. The hard granite presses back on his wound, her mark, the letter C, reminding him it was real, she was real.

Her arisaid lies on the grass, forgotten in their haste to love each other one last time. Jamie picks it up, bringing it to his nose, inhaling her scent still lingering on the tartan. Tears fall on their own accord as he prays she made it back, prays that she and the bairn are safe.

A cannon in the distance booms, startling the birds and startling him. It’s beginning.

He is hesitant to move, to leave the place of their last coupling, his last connections to her.

Yet destiny waits for him on Culloden Moor, along with his men. He pictures the thirty men waiting for their laird.

There is nothing he can do for Claire now but there is something he can do for his men.

He kisses the inside of his fingers, presses it to the stone and bids his soulmate one last final goodbye.

[whump-town]

Not Your Fault

Warning for mentioning Carl Buford (but not what he did), nightmares, stabbing, fighting, guns, language, and lots and lots of angst, drugged, Mr. Scratch

Wheezing, eyes half-lidded Hotch weakly tries to push him away. Feeling Morgan’s body move overtop his own. His nose breaks with a snap. The pain doesn’t register at first. Seconds, one-- two-- three throbs of his aching chest, pass before he feels it. The pain that eats his entire face whole. “Mor--Morgan!” he whimpers, feeling rather than seeing his palm push at Morgan’s arms.

Honestly, I don’t even know if I like this fic but I wrote it and as long as someone likes it that certainly something so--- also not a whole lot to do with Scratch but i just have no excuse I just didn’t want to think about that man• I also didn't proofread this so that might turn out to be an embarrassing mistake

The dark halls of the building are causing his heart to beat erratically. Aaron Hotchner kicked his fear of the dark at four years old but that doesn’t stop the apprehension weighing his ease down. Peter Lewis has taken his mind, his peace. George Foyet, with everything that he had taken from Hotch, hadn’t taken his sanity. Hadn’t replaced his capabilities with insecurities. Peter Lewis has taken from Aaron Hotchner his ability to believe himself sane. And, twenty-nine hours ago, he took Derek Morgan. And now Aaron Hotchner isn’t sure about anything.

“Reid,” he pinches the radio on the cuff of his sleeve. Eyes scanning the clearing in front of him for movement. If anything can go wrong, if anything rushes him, he’s likely to not even see it coming. Which plays far too well into Lewis’ favor. “Reid, I’m coming down the east wing hall. Headed your way.” The last thing he needs is to freak the kid out by coming around the side too fast. An advanced IQ doesn’t eliminate his fear of the dark and that’s what Hotch is afraid of setting off.

Something hits his thigh, the breezing, rasping sound of fabrics running alongside one another as whoever it was taking off in the other direction. Heavy thudding boots on the ground. Hotch opens his mouth, certain it can only be Mr. Scratch, but his vision blues. His mouth waters so thickly he feels no control over his tongue. Tilting dangerously to the left, Hotch leans into the wall. Arms thrown out to collect his fall but his elbows smack the cement and he grunts with the sharp pain.

A hypodermic needle peaks at him. Buried in his upper thigh, the plunger dispensed. He’s got no idea what was in it but whatever it is it’s in him now and he knows one thing for certain: he’s fucked.

As much as his stomach protests, he pushes himself back up to his feet. “I--,” he clears his throat, gagging weakly and watching his spit slide thickly off his lips. “Reid?” he calls, his voice bouncing down the walls. “Prentiss!” His shout scratches against the back of his throat and he falls boneless to his knees. He vomits. Acidic and cramped. When he pitches with gags, he nearly falls into the mess.

“Hotch!” Prentiss calls over the radio. The static consumes his every thought but he can’t reach his cuff. Can’t force his fingers around it. “I’ve cleared the third hall.” She mistakes his silence for understanding. “I’m in the main hall headed your way.”

The plunger. He looks down and his fingers are have curled around it. He can’t remember pulling it out. Looking up, he realizes someone is running down the hall at him. He can hear the feet rapidly hitting the ground as they approach. His head becomes an unbearable weight. The grunt he emits sounding as if it comes from someone else entirely. “No,” he rasps, his hard beating hard but slow. He can feel each pulse. He tries to turn but falls heavily onto his shoulder.

A hand grabs his shirt, pulling with surprising strength, and Hotch finds himself on his back. Facing his offender.

Gun drawn, sweating, and breathing heavily Derek keeps his aim steadily pointed down at his superior. “Put-Put your hands up!”

Blinking heavily, drugs slowing his breathing and his poor heart trying to keep going, Hotch looks up at his friends. Dizzily, he tries to sit up but grows sick and falls back. “Morgan?” he grunts. He hopes that the weak shake in his voice is enough. That his pleading, pained gaze in his eyes conveys it. He’s not a threat. Everything’s okay.

He remembers how Morgan had been when Mr. Scratch took him. Very cautious, as if approaching a rabid or frightened animal. He’s ashamed, pained by the fact that he can’t share that sentiment. That comfort.

“I said--” the gun makes a distinct clicking sound. Loaded. “Put your hands up!”

Hotch lets out a pained whimper, losing parts of himself as his vision creeps into black. His head hits the cement hard, he can feel the jarring impact in his teeth. With a grunt, he attempts to pick himself up if to just look at Morgan but as he fails to get his chest up using his arms Morgan kicks out at his chest. Knocking what little breath Hotch has away. His head cracks back down. Biting back down a cry, he curls his knees up. Protecting himself reflexively. His throat feels like straw. “Der--” he weakly pulls at his own neck. Fingers pushing down between his tie and collar. Panicking at how tight his throat feels.

The quick, fear provoked movements put Morgan on edge. The drugs in his own system are forcing his adrenaline to do crazy things and his awareness is gone. He’s unable to distinguish safety from danger. He doesn’t understand Hotch’s movements or his soft pleas. He just knows his childlike fear and those quick jerky movements. “Stop moving!” Even if the order comes out shaky, he means it. Tentatively, when Hotch keeps writhing making choked little sounds, Morgan hits him. The solidity, the pain of the motion blossoming across his knuckles is soothing.

It’s understandable.

Hotch stops moving, stunned. Morgan feels good. Safe. So he hits Hotch again.

Wheezing, eyes half-lidded Hotch weakly tries to push him away. Feeling Morgan’s body move overtop his own. His nose breaks with a snap. The pain doesn’t register at first. Seconds, one-- two-- three throbs of his aching chest, pass before he feels it. The pain that eats his entire face whole. “Mor--Morgan!” he whimpers, feeling rather than seeing his palm push at Morgan’s arms.

He can’t fight back. Can’t twist away. It’s too hard to breathe. He’s slipping. Blood hazes his vision, it lies thickly on his tongue. “Okay,” he cries. “Please,” his hand finds Morgan’s chest. The soft material of his stained cotton shirt. He pushes weakly, trying to get him off. “Morg-- ‘s okay. ‘S okay. Stop. Please. Please, stop.”

Heart pounding in her chest, Emily Prentiss had once wondered what the worst sound she could hear come over these radios. At the top is children. Even the ones that they can save, to hear their pained cries or the soft way their voices are muffled by her friend’s shoulders is heartbreaking. Gunshots, the ones that don’t come from friendly fire, are right up there too. Every once in a while, she considers if she’ll ever have to listen to one of her friends die. The radio’s static breaks through to the slowing of ragged, wet breaths until nothing.

Would there even be noise at all? A head shot. Dead before they even hit the ground. Silence.

“It’s okay--”

Emily’s feet hit the ground. Sounding out her rapid approach.

“Derek--”

She stops, body pitching forward as her brain struggles to place what that sound was.

A choked, wet sound breaks through the radio. More bone across flesh, relentless. “Derek, please!” The calm has faded. The struggle has died down. “Please, please it’s me. It’s me--” static. Hotch’s line turns to nothing. To the silence of a broken line.

Emily finds them just as Derek finds the courage to get his gun. It trembles in his hand, his fingers struggle to find his grip around the handle. Hotch is on the floor. His legs spread open and limp, arms splayed by his side, and head turned away from her. If his chest rises, she can not see it. “No!”

Derek flinches, turning his gun from Hotch’s unmoving body to Emily. There are tears streaming down his face, blood all over his hands. He sniffles when he sees her, “Emily?” He looks over at Hotch and then back to her, his gun wavering in his grip. “I don’t--” a soft sob breaks from his mouth. His face slick with sweat. “I don’t know what happened,” he whispers. Weakly, his right-hand drops from his gun, letting it dip in his grip as he wraps a hand around his stomach. He gags, gun dropping as his hands come over his mouth. Turning his back to her, and curling into the wall he pukes weakly.

“What did you do, Derek?” Emily has to keep pointing her gun at him, afraid. She wraps her hand around the gun Morgan’s dropped to the floor. Both his arm wrapped around his stomach as he sobs, spitting the remaining puke from his mouth. His bloodshot eyes look over at her, complete misery and confusion in them. “I’m sorry,” he says, leaning back and sliding down the wall.

She crouches beside Hotch, clenching her teeth at the red marks across Hotch’s neck. Derek’s hands left in deep red bruising all the way around the soft, pale skin of Hotch’s neck. Hand trembling, she presses two fingers under his chin. Her own heart pounding, she waits to feel Hotch’s. Waiting, not even aware that she’s holding her breath. “He’s alive,” she whispers, relieved. Her relief is mutual, Morgan lets out a soft noise. She suspects it to be a soft cry.

Keeping her eyes on Morgan, she places her own gun in its holster and the other on the ground on the opposite side of Morgan. With one hand she cups Hotch’s cheek, tilting his head back while the other uses her own radio. “Dave, I need medics. As many as you can find. It’s bad.” There’s a distinct lack of hot breath against the inside of her wrist. Holding her own breath, she waits for Hotch to do something. Twitch, moan or just exhale. Nothing.

Panic swelling, she pulls herself up. She pats at Hotch’s face, startled by how limply he goes with the movement. “No, no, no,” she starts pulling at his vest. Agitation burning quickly as she struggles with all the damn velcro. Pushing her hand underneath the chest plate, she curls her hand into a fist. Hard, enough to hurt, she pushes into his sternum. “Hotch?” She rubs her knuckles into the buttons on his dress shirt. It hurts her hand, it should hurt him. “Hotch, please!”

Nothing.

“Is…” Morgan has curled his knees under his chest. Watching her. “Did I--” his voice breaks.

Her rubbing produces one, singular grunt. Pained and guttural.

“Hotch?”

His face pinches, eyes darting under his eyelids. For a moment, she thinks he’s back. He’s not aware. The whites of his eyes barred his left-hand moves blindly up as if to his mouth. Weakly, he chokes and Emily makes a startled sound pulling him up by the straps of his vest so he can rest on his side. She expects vomit. He seizes. Muscles impossible tight but his body jerking as if his bones have turned to string. Her brain takes a moment too long to realize what’s happening.

Morgan moves out of muscle memory. Everything about his body craving the ability to help, to do something. He inches closer just a flinch of movement, and Emily throws herself over Hotch. Her body over his and throws an arm out. “No,” she says firmly. “Stay there.” She doesn’t move, the two of them frozen in their equal fear, as the hall lights up with noise. Flashlights hitting the walls.

“Down here!” someone shouts.

Morgan pushes himself to the wall, hands folded into themselves pulled to his chest. Oh god, he rocks himself. Head bowing to rest against his knees. What did he do?

“How long has he been like this?”

Lights that seem to come from nowhere are fastened and held overhead. Emily stays right by Hotch’s side, moving to cushion his head so he doesn’t bash it against the ground. They throw so many questions at her but she doesn’t know. “A--A minute,” she decides. “He’s been seizing for about a minute.” She knows how important it is to time seizures but there was so much going on.

“Are you sure?” they ask.

She shakes her head. “I was-- I was distracted!” she admits. “A minute,” she repeats. “A minute or two it’s not that big of a difference!”

Morgan watches them closely, pliant to the examiners giving him the once over. He startles when Reid comes to his side. His hair is plastered to his forehead but doesn’t touch him. Just stands there, answering the examiner’s questions when Morgan remains silent. He doesn’t even hear them.

“No,” Reid grabs at Morgan, forcing him back to the ground.

Hotch is lifted, calm now, and still. Too still. JJ walks at his side. Emily is trapped against Dave as she hoarsely tries to argue her way into going with them. They put him on the stretcher, securing his hips down, and all while keeping pace with the bag. Tube down his throat, it breathes for him.

Emily cries softly, angry now at them and at herself for losing her cool.

JJ glances back once and steadies herself, taking Hotch’s hand and squeezing it as she jogs alongside them.

Morgan realizes his own vision is darkening. Something heavy creeping into his chest. He fights weakly against it, whimpering out Reid’s name. Squatting down, Reid takes his hand, smiling. “You’re okay,” Reid assures him. “It’s okay, Morgan.” His eyes dart between Reid’s terrified but he can trust Reid. To their own accord, his eyes slide shut. “It’s okay.”

That’s what Hotch said.

It doesn’t bring any solace.

He wakes up alone. Through everything, he can ever remember. From tearing his ACL in college, breaking his arm in middle school, fracturing his clavicle in high school-- he never woke up alone. His mother had been there for those grade-school bumps. He would wake up and find her flipping through a magazine. Her eyes had dried of her tears some time ago and determined to look unbothered by seeing her lively son so still on one one of these stiff cots.

Now, not even his mother is around.

The room is silent. Digging his fingernails into his palm, he turns his head up. Forcing himself not to cry as he convinces himself he deserves this. It was only a matter of time.

Forgiving Reid for his missteps, being there for him is second-hand, the sort of thing that never gets a second thought. They’d been there, all of them, easing him through detox. Cleaning vomit, covering his small shivering body with piles and piles of blankets and restraining his arms when he woke up swinging. Never flinching when he threw insults at them. Blaming Hotch for not understanding sooner. Pushing JJ’s comforting attempts away. Ignoring Garcia.

In that same regard, no one blinked at Hotch through the divorce or when he nearly went off the deep end post-Foyet. If he wanted to be an ass, they gave him space. Taking turns being the one to take the blows when he needed to be reminded to eat or drink water. When he needed more, someone to collect him from a bar, pour him into bed, or just sit silently by his side that was perfectly okay too.

But he’s done something inexcusable.

Through all of that, they’ve hurt each other. Reid said some cruel things. Hotch could be mean. Emily distant, cold. Dave is so complex and aggravating. But never had any of them put a hand on one another. Hurt each other.

“Mmm.”

Derek jumps, hissing when he finds a wound he hadn’t even known existed. He looks down, scowling at his gown covered bruised ribs.

“I was wondering when you were finally going to grace us with your presence.” Dave steps into the room, coffee in hand, and puzzle folded over in the other. He’s got a red pen in the hand with his coffee, its ink smeared on the bottom of his hand. “You’ve been out for--” he turns his wrist, juggling his coffee as he moves to see it’s facing. He whistles when he sees the time. “Two and a half days.” He resumes his gate. “Which, you know, isn’t too bad but, come on, even Aaron’s up.”

Derek, who had allowed his head to fall and had until that very moment been avoiding Dave’s gaze, looked up. Which had been Dave’s plan all along. “How is he?” His voice is raspy. Weaker than he’d anticipated.

Dave hums, “who? Aaron?” He sits down in the chair beside the bed, sighing. “Already being a pain in my ass,” Dave answers, flipping his book out and settling down. Even taking a little sip of his coffee. His eyes are already scanning his puzzle. A word search, Derek knows. Dave’s a sucker for them.

“He’s okay?” Derek asks hesitantly.

Dave shrugs, slowing circling his word.

Great, Derek thinks, he’s baiting me. And it’s Dave so he’s got something up his sleeve. “Come on, man,” Derek mumbles. He closes his eyes as his head throbs unsympathetically. Faintly, he hears Dave’s phone ding in his pocket but he’s forcing his head back into the pillows behind him. Trying not to worm around too much as his side acts up. The muscles tensing up and causing far more pain than they’re worth.

Dave pats at the bed and Derek turns his head, squinting his eyes to avoid the unnecessary strain of the lights all around him. “Read this,” Dave hands him his phone. “I don’t have my glasses.” He tosses the phone at the bed, ignoring it further to sit back in his chair with his puzzle. Attention already there.

Derek sighs, taking the phone. “It’s from JJ.” Dave’s phone doesn’t have a lock so he just opens it. “She says… Hotch is getting agitated and she’s leaving him with Emily and taking Reid to get a milkshake. She’s bringing something back for Hotch and if you and I want something we should ask now or starve.”

Dave hums, shaking his head, “poor Emily.”

Derek just looks at him. His head throbs again and he’s angry. He’s confused and angry and none of this makes sense. “Dave,” he grumbles. “What the hell is going on?”

Dave looks up, sensing Derek’s mood shift. He lifts an eyebrow and nods to the phone still in Derek’s hand. “You just read what’s happening,” Dave reminds him. “If you want something go right ahead but I took the kid and Garcia out for lunch. You know they get antsy when things go wrong.”

Things go wrong. Morgan beating Hotch in an empty hallway isn’t things and it can’t be so simply tied up by covering it with a bow and labeling it as just a thing gone wrong. “Things,” Derek hisses. “Things? Dave, I could have killed him. I would have--” that realization hits him like a train. He drops the phone and grabs at his head. His skull splitting in half. “I would have killed him!” And probably Emily too. She was standing right there. She had frozen. Confused, afraid. He was going to kill Hotch and then Emily. His friends.

Dave sits up, putting his puzzle down. “You didn’t,” Dave states simply. “When Emily found you, you were afraid. You were drugged, Derek. It wasn’t your fault.”

Fuck. He’s all this before. Buford and his mother. Except back then it the bitter staining of wine on the back of his teeth and an ache. So much trouble and he couldn’t see himself coming out the other side. Living. His mother had held him, reassuring him over and over that what Buford did wasn’t his fault.

That didn’t change the way it felt.

That something should have snapped within him, right? Something should have made him realize. If he were smarter, he would have known. If he weren’t so fucked up--

“Alright, alright--” Dave’s up, pulling his arms from his head. He’s hyperventilating. Hotch. On that floor. Raspily pleading for him to stop. “Just breathe with me, Derek. You’re alright. You’re alright.” And slowly, piecing together the difference between past and present Derek realizes that this sinking hollow feeling in his chest isn’t going to kill him. He might wish it to-- wouldn’t that be easier than ever having to face Hotch again? Or Emily? Or Reid? Or Garcia.

Garica.

“If you’re feeling up to it,” Dave starts softly. “Aaron does want to see you. Rather badly, in fact.”

Derek Morgan isn’t a coward, alright? He just needs a bit of time.

“When you’re ready,” Dave adds. “No pressure.”

He finds the courage later. Not because he has it but he knows how to force it. Mostly because he naps. Later, after Dave has left. When his room has settled into darkness and he can’t keep his eyes open any longer. He sees Hotch. On his back and there’s a knife in his hands. He can feel every stab that he inflicts and no matter how many times he comes down he can hear Hotch’s voice. Can still feel his hands twisting in his shirt. Begging. Pleading.

And then nothing.

The silence had been the worst part and he knows he’s killed Hotch. They hate him. Reid screams at him, hits him as he cries. Garcia won’t even look at him. Emily’s words return to him in this state.

What did you do, Derek?

And he has to find out. He has to know. What did he do?

The room number is easy to obtain. The nurses have a note for him from Dave, it’s just the room number but he clutches that ripped piece of paper in his hand. Physical comfort. His feet carry him on, his throat tight as he goes. When he finds the door, he just stands there. Watching for the longest time.

He can’t really see Hotch from here. His head is turned into the pillow under his head. Covering his face so Morgan can’t see the bruising or the blood. Anything else is covered by the shirt he’s wearing and the blanket just under his arms.

Emily is sitting beside him, occupied.

He clears his throat, stepping in. “Ho--How is he?” Derek asks softly, eyes never leaving Hotch.

Emily looks up from her book and then looks over at Hotch. Her feet are kicked up on the edge of his bed, she’s comfortably stretched out. “Pretending not to be sleeping,” she answers.

As if on cue, Hotch jumps a little. It takes him a moment but his eyes land on them. His reading glasses are crooked, carefully balanced on his nose. His broken, bandaged nose. The book on his lap falls shut and he looks down, a little dazed, before turning back to them. He stretches himself carefully, speaking in a voice that is distinctly that yawned out, half-awake one people get after napping. “I wasn’t sleeping,” he yawns, shooting a glare at Emily.

She rolls her eyes and turns back to her book. “We both saw you sleeping,” she mumbles.

That’s what Derek secretly loves about them. Reid is a giver. His love is in every little thing that he does so mindlessly for others. Grabbing a cup of coffee for Morgan alongside the one that he takes for himself. Snapping his snacks in half to offer them to whoever is sitting beside him. His love is easy because Reid is.

Hotch and Emily have what only they can. This bitter love-- and he can just imagine the way they’d roll their eyes or scowl at his use of the big L word-- nearly spousal but not really sibling-like. It’s that love that scares him a little. Even if Hotch forgives him (he shouldn’t, he won’t), Emily never will (she shouldn’t, she won’t). Emily will side Hotch. It’s reflexive, the same way if the roles were reversed Garcia wouldn’t forgive Hotch. Not because somehow love devvies up unequal, it's just that you learn that some people you aren’t willing to live without.

Can he live without Emily? Without Hotch? Dave will side with Hotch as well.

And with a dazed blink, he realizes he’s standing here feeling sorry for himself. Knocking his friends over like dominos to see which ones he’ll be left with when the dust clears. He looks down at the floor he realizes not many. If Emily goes, JJ goes. Asking Garcia around is cruel but she will. Her pity might be worse than losing her.

Alone. He’s going to end up alone.

The thin, sheet-like blankets across Hotch’s legs are thrown aside. “I’m going for a walk.” His statement holds more conviction than his actions but that’s okay. Grabbing at his left side, Hotch eases himself up. Paling and losing his breath to pained little puffs of air, Hotch manages to sit up. Which he ends up needing Emily’s help for there in the end, not that he asks.

“You’re going to rip a stitch,” Emily chides, wordlessly fixing where his flannel has fallen off his shoulders. She glances over her shoulder, knowing that if she’s seen everything then Morgan has too. Her fingers work quickly, not really thinking as she buttons his shirt a little more. They’d had to leave it open for the nurses to have access to his bruised sides. Which hadn’t been a problem when he was laying back.

Morgan just lowers his gaze. Knowing that the sight of Hotch’s heavily bruised, scared chest is going to be haunting his dreams. A reminder of what he did.

“No,” Emily says firmly when he puts his feet on the ground. He’s wearing those really nice hospital socks and Morgan can now see that he’s tastefully paired some dark green plaid pajama bottoms with his flannel. He looks silly. The complete opposite version of his normal self but he knows that’s not why Emily has the nerve to tell him what to do. “You’re not walking around.”

Hotch squints his eyes but then sighs. “Fine,” he caves and that takes Morgan by a little surprise. “Derek and I will take the wheelchair.” He cocks his head, a full-on challenge. Morgan can only imagine the look Emily is throwing back at Hotch. He can only see Hotch’s gradually changing features. “Right?”

Suddenly, Derek finds himself at the wrong end of this conversation. Emily turns to face him and Morgan realizes he has to answer. “Oh,” he stumbles. “That’ll work,” he supplies weakly.

So Emily sighs, shaking her head, and gets the wheelchair pulled up the adjacent wall.

“She won’t let me go anywhere,” Hotch informs him. His movements are stiff, Morgan watches each bend and twist. “We’re not bringing her anything back from the vending machines.”

Emily takes her seat, “don’t bring him back, Derek.”

Hotch humphs and as Morgan mechanically comes to stand behind the chair. He’s not sure what to expect but this feels too easy. The wheelchair isn’t even that hard to push. It’s a little weird just staring at the back of Hotch’s head as he walks. Ignoring the ache in his sprained wrist as he does so but it’s better than yesterday.

“Here’s fine.”

Morgan jumps a little, surprised. He’s not even sure how far they’ve gone. Just moving. Trying to do anything but think. To the left is a waiting room, chairs lining the space, and a vending machine. He pushes Hotch to the end of one of the rows and takes the one beside him. “If you’re mad--”

Hotch laughs. He just chuckles but it’s Hotch so it’s such a big deal that it might as well be a laugh. “I’m not mad,” he clarifies and turns to Morgan.

That doesn’t make any sense. His eyes are bloody. Morgan can see the blood vessels and the moons of bruising he put there. His neck hasn’t even healed. Morgan’s hands are still wrapped around his throat. Purple and green. Nasty bruises. Morgan’s surprised he didn’t break his windpipe.

“It wasn’t your fault,” Hotch says as if that’s clear as day. “Scratch he--”

Morgan is suddenly reminded that he isn’t the only one that he has been under Scratch’s hold.

“He showed me my worst fear,” Hotch says after a long pause. “I watched, I thought… Derek, I watched each of you die. I heard JJ’s screams. You were--” his voice thickens with emotion. Hotch clears his throat, wincing a little when it grates his throat. He glances at Morgan and when he’s certain he can say it without crying he admits: “You were right in front of me, Derek, when he shot you. You were looking right at me. And I watched as you died. Helpless.”

Morgan forces his eyes to the floor. He hadn’t seen anything. Well… he can’t really remember but he does remember snippets.

Buford. He’d seen Buford. He’s sure of it. Buford running down the hall, the same hall as Morgan, and then Morgan remembers the throbbing pain of his hand. Standing over Hotch and shaking with fear. His vision fading in and out. Buford turning into Hotch. Hotch into Buford.

“So, no I’m not mad,” Hotch says, his voice distinctly raspy. Forced. “Nothing that happened was your fault and I already know what it’s like to lose you. So this--” he says this so casually. But Derek had seen what he did. He heard it in Emily’s voice and in the way JJ held onto Hotch’s limp hand so fearfully. “This is nothing, Derek.”

Morgan shakes his head. “I could have killed you.”

“But you didn’t.”

Morgan hates him for being like this. Who laid the wiring down in this man’s brain? Why are the wires crisscrossed? So quick to forgive them. Him. He doesn’t deserve this. He needs a lecture. A threat. Something. Fear! For Hotch to yell and scream and upturn chairs with a single swipe of one of his arms. To pull his shirt open and force Morgan to look at what he did. But he doesn’t. No. Hotch has been reading a fucking book and bickering with Emily. As if this is just some run of the mill thing. As simple as some random Unsub doing it.

“I’m not mad at you,” Hotch repeats. “Nothing you can say is going to change that.” Hotch shifts a little, clearly uncomfortable. The chair is pushing his ribs and it's painful. It’s getting to the point where he’s having difficulty hiding it. “Well, I might be mad if you don’t push me over here--” Hotch motions to the vending machine beside them. “I’ll get you a jello cup,” Hotch barters.

Morgan shakes his head. He’s not going to forgive himself but it's a relief to know Hotch isn’t mad. That he’s gotten over all this so easily. He stands, pushing himself up on his knees. “Alright,” he caves.

“How’s your wrist?” Hotch asks, seeing for the first time the bandage wrapped around it. Supporting it.

“Sprained,” he answers simply, pushing Hotch to the machine. “Can you tell if that red jello is cherry or strawberry?”

Hotch leans forward, hand bracing his side. “Cherry,” he says, already punching in its code. He knows Morgan doesn’t like the strawberry. “Does Emily like the Snickers bars or the Milkways?”

Morgan shrugs, “I don’t know… Snickers?”

Hotch nods, “yeah that’s what I was thinking.”

As Morgan pushes him back down the hall, taking directions easily when he falters, he thinks about the simplicity of the Snickers bar in Hotch’s lap. Hotch’s words, clear in his head from before. We’re not bringing her anything back from the vending machines. He’d been playful, teasing Emily but Hotch, by nature, isn’t cruel He’s a great man. Kind and thoughtful. His memory is fantastic, though he might forget a few of the simpler things like a favorite candy bar. But Morgan knows Hotch has more important knowledge stored away.

He knows all of their orders for anything from McDonald’s to complex Chinese takeout. Knows what gas station snacks they like and which teas they drink.

So, Hotch, in the kindness he kept bundled up under those sharp suits, wouldn’t lie to him. It would be cruel which is a distinctly unHotch thing to be. So... He’d meant it.

“You’d better throw that jello cup trash out in the hall,” Emily says when they come back in. “Reid will be jealous if he thinks you got one.” She’s stretched out on the bed since they were gone. Like a cat bathing in the sun. She’s casually reading the book she’d been working on when they left. She doesn't move.

Hotch hands her the Snickers and she smiles, knocking him softly on the side of the head. Which makes Morgan flinch a little but it’s soft and it makes Hotch smile so he turns his face so they don’t see it.

“When are they coming back?” Hotch asks, peeling open his M&Ms. He pours a few into his hands and, as he always does, sorts his little handful into colors and then sections them so there are two of each color paired.

Emily sits up, putting her book down. “They caught him,” she says.

Morgan just stares at the floor.

“The four of them?” Hotch asks without missing a bit.

Morgan can feel Emily’s eyes on him.

“Yep.”

Hotch chuckles, “Garcia and Reid make a better team on their own than all of us combined.”

Emily laughs too but then she thinks about it. “They need us,” she concludes. “Who else would they show up without us? Plus, just from what I heard on the phone with JJ, Reid’s already whining about having to do his own arresting. Says he misses Morgan.” She shrugs, “plus they’d have the whole burning on fire without you around to stop them from putting marshmallows in the microwave or starve to death without Morgan to bring them snacks.”

Hotch agrees to that.

Morgan just stands there. He realizes that this is Emily also taking the steps to make sure he understands they’re okay too. And he’s shocked. This should have been harder, right? He should have lost something. Been punished but he looks up at the two people who he’s expecting something from. Anger. Disappointment. Resentment.

And instead, he watches Hotch pop two orange M&Ms in his mouth. Emily leans back on the bed with her book, one leg popped up on the mattress.

He blinks away the tears swelling.

Oh, he realizes. This is forgiveness. Love.

Their silent “I Love Yous” in the only way they know how. Dave’s had come when he had woken up. Reid and Garcia in the space they gave him. JJ is worrying if he is hungry. And Hotch and Emily are just being themselves. He swallows thickly around the realization.

He loves them too.

[ruffboijuliaburnsides]

Marked with first words spoken type of Soulmate AU

mwahahah yes good This is.  More than five points. I got a little carried away. (added a readmore bc.. yeah)

1) Geralt has two sentences on him, and neither of them are useful.  On the inside of his wrist is a single, small, cramped word: “Sorry.”  Over his heart is, larger and loopier: “Did you kill that?”  Neither of them are particularly helpful, as he hears them over and over again.  

By the time he’s been on the Path for a decade or so, tipping into his 30s, he stops thinking about it, stops hoping, because there’s no way to know, especially when everyone who says them is scared of him and he wouldn’t want to inflict himself on anyone. He’s a witcher. He’s a monster. No one wants to be a witcher’s soulmate.  

Anyway, it’s likely they’ll both live and die before he does. one might fully live and die before the other is even born.  Neither of them deserve to deal with the horror of being a witcher’s soulmate. He just has to bury that part of himself that hopes hopes hopes that maybe he can be worth loving.

2) When he’s 42, he’s passing through Vengerberg and a little girl with a twisted spine crashes into him as he leads Roach through the streets.  He catches her shoulders instinctively to keep her from falling.  

“Watch yourself,” he rumbles.  

“Sorry,” she whispers, and she won’t look up at him, she’s scared of him - large and strange and menacing - but she looks over her shoulder at the slightly older children clustered a few yards away who’d clearly been bullying her, and she seems to be equally scared of them.  

Geralt hums, then says, “I’ll walk you home.”  It’s not far, and it may not help, but at least she got a reprieve. He’s forgotten the incident entirely by the time he finishes his next contract.

3) When he’s 67, he’s somewhere in Kerack, waiting for the Earl of wherever he is to come and verify the sack of vodyanoi heads Geralt had, from the creatures that had been raiding the coastal area near the Earl’s keep.  He’s not quite surprised by the approach of the little boy, but he’s surprised by his lack of fear.  He couldn’t be more than five or six, probably, dressed in simple but well-made clothes, and before Geralt can really process what’s happening, he’s opening the sack and looking down at the decapitated heads of terrifying fish creatures that had been attacking and raiding the docks. 

“Wow,” he whispers, appearing to be both fascinated and grossed out.  He turns wide blue eyes up at Geralt and asks, “Did you kill that?”  

“I did,” Geralt answers, awkward and uncomfortable and a little confused that this child is so close to both him and dead monster heads and doesn’t smell even a little bit of fear. 

“Wow!” the boy repeats, a grin spreading on his face, and then a woman comes in and makes a strangled, panicked noise and races forward to grab the boy and pull him back from Geralt (naturally, of course, rightly so). 

“Lord Julian, you can’t run off like that!” she hisses, dragging him off and scolding him, and Geralt is struck by the fact that the little boy looks back at him and his sack of heads longingly until he’s out of sight.  He’s forgotten the incident by the time he crosses the border out of Kerack.

4) His wish to the djinn doesn’t really do much of anything.  He makes it but he didn’t think it through. All that happens after he makes it is that he and Yen are drawn to each other in a way that even soulmates couldn’t do.  Only physically. It changes nothing about their emotions or how attracted they are to each other.  

Geralt doesn’t know this.  Geralt feels guilty.  He feels guilty that both Yen and Jaskier have soulmates that he almost hopes they don’t find. He feels guilty for loving them both instead of just one of them. He feels guilty for loving them at all. He knows the words below Jaskier’s collarbone that say simply “I did.”, the sharp lines of “Watch yourself.” that curl along Yennefer’s ribs like a challenge. 

He doesn’t know about the tiny script on the nape of Jaskier’s neck, just along his hairline, hidden by his hair, that says “Be still, bard.” or the curling words cut by scars and glamoured away on Yen’s wrist that say “Please, please.” Perhaps it would make sense if he did.  Perhaps it would make sense if they all did.

5) After the dragon hunt, everyone is taut and tense and Borch Three Jackdaws tells Yennefer she’ll never regain her womb, but that she’s seeking something else entirely.  They all are. And if they share their words, perhaps they’ll all find what they’re looking for. Geralt grimaces. Yennefer rolls her eyes. Jaskier sits frowning thoughtfully as Borch and Tea and Vea walk away, because his trade is in words, how could he not already share them?  

Except he’s smart.  You share your thoughts.  You share your feelings.  You don’t share your words, unless... “I have two marks,” he says after a few minutes, causing Geralt and Yen to stop needling each other to near anger again and look at him in tandem, baffled. “Borch said share your words.  Not use your words or share your thoughts.  There’s only one time words are talked about like that.  I have two marks.” 

And Geralt says “No you don’t” and Yen’s like “Oh, you’ve seen that much of him, then?” and Jaskier just firmly plows forward and holds his hair up and turns his back to these terrifying people on the top of a mountain and there it is.

6) And Geralt’s like “well that seems a common thing to say” but it’s only been six years, and the entirety of that first night is burned into Yennefer’s memory for a number of reasons, but she remembers sending Geralt out of the room so she could heal Jaskier, and he was thrashing, in pain, and she’d told him sharply “Be still, bard!” and Jaskier had just been pleading, wheezing and barely able to speak but he was pleading, “Please, please,” and she curses softly and she’s not so stupid as to think they are soulmates unless some other things are true, so she whirls Jaskier around.  

“Had you ever met a witcher before you and Geralt met and you wrote that ridiculous song?” and he’s confused, but manages to stammer out that he thinks maybe once?  When he was really little? He knows an old man came and killed some giant fish and brought the bits in a bag but his nanny wouldn’t let him talk to him even though he really really wanted to. 

She knows who Julian Alfred Pankratz is, of course she does, she made a point to know once she found out that was his full name, and she turns on Geralt and asks if he’d ever done a job for the Earl of Lettenhove and Geralt’s like “..maybe, I don’t know where that is?” and she snaps “Kerack” and he frowns and he remembers the vodyanoi and the little boy with wide blue eyes and not a hint of fear, and Yen’s seen both of their marks, now, saw Geralt’s so many times and saw Jaskier’s second one once.  

“’Did you kill that?’ ‘I did.’” she recites. “The sort of thing a curious little boy named Julian might ask a white-haired adult who looked like an old man to him.”  

And she remembers being young, and she never properly looked at the kind man with the rough voice who’d walked her home, but he’d had a chestnut horse and white hair and dark leather armor, and she presses a hand to her ribs because she hadn’t thought of it in so long and she grabs Geralt’s wrist even though it can’t be seen. “’Watch yourself.’ ‘Sorry.’ And then you walked me home.” 

Then she removes the glamour from her own wrist and shows Jaskier.  “’Be still, bard.’ ‘Please, please’ and then I had to make you sleep, because you were in too much pain and I couldn’t heal you if you weren’t still.”

7) And part of her hates it, and she leaves them staring in shock at her and stalks down the hill and portals away and doesn’t see either of them for three weeks, but she knows now.  She knows.  And they’re left standing there in shocked silence and finally Jaskier lets out a long breath and says, “Well, I guess it makes sense why I love you so much.” and Geralt just stares at him now, because Jaskier believes this?  And loves him? 

And Geralt takes a while to convince, but eventually Yen comes back and declares they’re going to take a trip to the coast and figure themselves out, she has just the place, and they spend three months living in a large coastal manor that neither man asks where she got it, and they have their own rooms, but within a few weeks, there were more and more nights when one or the other of them would sleep in Geralt’s room.

And finally two months in Geralt wakes up alone for the first time, and he worries, and their rooms are both cold and empty, but he gets downstairs and there they still are on the far-too-comfortable sofa by the dying fire, Jaskier sprawled on his back and Yen curled on his chest, and Geralt feels like his heart might burst, and thinks maybe they’re right, and they really are soulmates after all.

8) And then they go to Cintra and rescue Ciri and live happily ever fucking after. 

[gabtapia]

Warning extra long ask lmao:

The last three chapters broke me. 😭😭😭

But the worse thing was reading first two paragraphs of ch 31 and having it go from Patroclus’s narrative to third person narrative because Patroclus is dead so he can’t tell the story anymore 🥺🥺😭

I have so much to say so i’m gonna use quotes to help:

“A prophecy,” she said. “That the best of the Myrmidons will die before two more years have passed.”

She draws down the blanket, releasing me into the air. She cups my face in her hands. “Be careful tomorrow,” she says. “Best of men. Best of the Myrmidons.” She places her fingers to my lips, stopping my objection. “It is truth,” she says. “Let it stand, for once.” Then she leads me to the side of her tent, helps me slip beneath the canvas. The last thing I feel is her hand, squeezing mine in farewell.

No. My hands flurry in the air like startled birds, trying to halt the spear’s relentless movement towards my belly. But I am weak as a baby against Hector’s strength, and my palms give way, unspooling in ribbons of red. The spearhead submerges in a sear of pain so great that my breath stops, a boil of agony that bursts over my whole stomach. My head drops back against the ground, and the last image I see is of Hector, leaning seriously over me, twisting his spear inside me as if he is stirring a pot. The last thing I think is: Achilles.

WHY??? Why does Patroclus have to be the person of the prophecy. They made it pretty obvious that it was him but my God actually reading it I-

Calm down Chiara. Say this properly.

WAIT NO THERE IS NO WAY TO SAY THS PROPERLY PARTOCLUS IS DEAD 😭 AND THE FEW PARTS WHERE ACHILLES DOESN’T KNOW HE’S DEAD YET MY GOD I JUST STARTED BAWLING IT HURT TOO MUCH

HIS GRIEF AFTER PATROCLUS DIES IS JUST SO RAW I COULD LTERALLY IMAGNINE PATROCLUS IN THE TENT AND ACHILLES CRYING OVER HIS BODY AND MY HEART-

But he cannot feel it. There is a numbness in him. The writhing field is like a gorgon’s face, turning him slowly to stone. The snakes twist and twist before him, gathering into a dark knot at the base of Troy. A king has fallen, or a prince, and they are fighting for the body. Who? He shields his eyes, but no more is revealed. Patroclus will be able to tell him.

HE SEES THE THING IN PIECES. Men, coming down the beach towards the camp. Odysseus, limping beside the other kings. Menelaus has something in his arms. A grass-stained foot hangs loose. Locks of tousled hair have slipped from the makeshift shroud. The numbness now is merciful. A last few moments of it. Then, the fall.

He snatches for his sword to slash his throat. It is only when his hand comes up empty that he remembers: he gave the sword to me. Then Antilochus is seizing his wrists, and the men are all talking. All he can see is the bloodstained cloth. With a roar he throws Antilochus from him, knocks down Menelaus. He falls on the body. The knowledge rushes up in him, choking off breath. A scream comes, tearing its way out. And then another, and another. He seizes his hair in his hands and yanks it from his head. Golden strands fall onto the bloody corpse. Patroclus, he says, Patroclus. Patroclus. Over and over until it is sound only. Somewhere Odysseus is kneeling, urging food and drink. A fierce red rage comes, and he almost kills him there. But he would have to let go of me. He cannot. He holds me so tightly I can feel the faint beat of his chest, like the wings of a moth. An echo, the last bit of spirit still tethered to my body. A torment.

I’M MAD AT BOTH OF THEM FOR BEING STUPID IDOITS FOR ACHILLES NOT LETTING HIS PRIDE GO AND FOR PATROCLUS FUCKING GETTING HIMSELF KILLED BUT I CAN’T EVEN STAY MAD AT THEM BECUASE HELL THEY ARE SO BEAUTIFUL AND THEY DIDN’T DESERVE ANY OF IT

And then Pyrrhus? I want to kill the asshole:

“When I am dead, I charge you to mingle our ashes and bury us together.”

There's is a slight pause. “Your father and his companion. Patroclus.” “And why should this man be buried beside Aristos Achaion?” The air is thick. They are all waiting to hear Menelaus’ answer. “It was your father’s wish, Prince Neoptolemus, that their ashes be placed together. We cannot bury one without the other.” Pyrrhus lifts his sharp chin. “A slave has no place in his master’s tomb. If the ashes are together, it cannot be undone, but I will not allow my father’s fame to be diminished. The monument is for him, alone.” Do not let it be so. Do not leave me here without him. The kings exchange glances. “Very well,” Agamemnon says. “It shall be as you say.” I am air and thought and can do nothing.

Pyrrhus’ hand closes on the shapeless, blowing dress of the princess Polyxena and yanks her towards the altar. “This is what my father’s soul deserves.” He will not. He dare not. As if in answer, Pyrrhus smiles. “Achilles is pleased,” he says, and tears open her throat. I can taste it still, the gush of salt and iron. It seeped into the grass where we are buried, and choked me. The dead are supposed to crave blood, but not like this. Not like this.

And then the way Achilles just becomes a cold killer after Patroclus dies reading that part felt so bad because it wasn’t Achilles anymore and i was so glad when he died. But then Patroclus didn’t get a proper bury and i freaked because why??? I thought the book might end with him not being reunited with Achilles in the underworld and i had another good cry because seriously that would be the most unfair thing. I was so, so, so happy when Thetis wrote his name.

So basically i’m not okay right now and ever time i think about them before the war happen my eyes fill with tears because they were just so happy and innocent and in love and it hurts to think of what happened during the war. I’m glad i read this book thought, but i know the pain wont go away for a while watch me punish myself by reading all the fluffy scenes 😭

@in-love-with-themoon did you finish yet? I realize i may be spoiling for you, sorry about that! 😅 tell me if your finished the book! And i will send you bunches and bunches of tissues

Sending you lots of love, hugs, ice cream, and tissues!! 💙

I swear I had to take a break after reading that book

The last 3 chapters are just pain

Tbh I was crying since they said goodbye to Chiron because Achilles told him that they were going to come back in a few days and I was like nope you are not and even Chiron knew they weren't coming back 😭😭😭

Since the prophecy said that "the best of myrmidons" I was like fuck is Patroclus and this is bad

The scene that broke me was when Patroclus said that they didn't say the words (I love you) because they would have more time to say them, like in the night when they talk about their day and I was like please tell him 😭😭😭😭😭

THE MOST PAINFUL THING IS THAT EVEN WHEN PATROCLUS KNEW HE WAS GONNA DIE, HE TRIED TO STOPPED HECTOR BECAUSE HE KNEW THAT IF HECTOR KILLED HIM, ACHILLES WOULD KILLED HECTOR AND THE ACHILLES WOULD DIE AND HE DIDN'T WANT THAT 😭😭

AND OMG I WAS SO MAD WITH THEM, WITH ACHILLES FOR BEING SO STUBBORN AND WITH PATROCLUS FOR FIGHTING EVEN WHEN HE KNEW HE DIDN'T STAND A CHANCE!!! 😭

YES I KNOW WHEN ACHILLES IS SURE THAT PATROCLUS IS GONNA COME BACK AND EVERYTHING IS GONNA BE FINE, BUT WE KNOW THAT HE IS ALREADY DEAD 😭😭😭😭

ACHILLES GRIEVE BROKE ME HOW HE DIDN'T WANT TO SEPARATE FROM THE BODY AND HOW HE JUST WANTED TO KILL HECTOR AS SOON AS POSSIBLE

AND I WAS CRYING MY EYES OUT WHEN HECTOR'S FATHER TALKED WITH ACHILLES AND TOLD HIM THAT THEY SHOULD LET THE DEAD REST, AND ONLY AFTER THAT ACHILLE AGREED TO BURN THE BODY 😭😭😭

WHEN ACHILLES DIED WITH A SMILE ON HIS FACE BECAUSE HE THOUGHT THAT FINALLY HE COULD BE REUNITED WITH PATROCLUS 😭😭😭

Don't let me get started with Pyrrhus I hate that jerk so much I was happy when thetis said he was dead!, When he was taking decisions on his father's name I was like stfu you don't even know him!!

And for real I thought they would never be reunited and that Patroclus' soul would be strand in the living world forever I was crying but then thetis appeared and for once in the whole book she wasn't a bitch!

Yes before the war they would never imagine what the fate had for them and it's so sad because they just wanted to love each other, and their love was so beautiful and I love their communication because no matter how bad the things were they always tell the truth to the other 😭😭😭

Believe me I already reread their fluffy scenes and it's never enough! 😭

I'm glad you enjoy the book too, even when it left us with a void in the heart!!

[averygroovymutant]

My Way Home is Through You

Summary: Dean doesn't cope well with Castiel's death.

Pairing: Dean x Castiel

Warnings: (Temporary) Main Character Death, Internalized Biphobia, LOTS OF ANGST, Spoilers for up to 15.19 - ignores the dumpster fire that was 15.20

Words: 5,221

(A/N: I wrote this pre-finale because I was terrified about what would happen in it, turns out I was right to be. I'm heartbroken. Supernatural really said 'fuck the LGBTQ community', huh?)

(Read on AO3) “I love you.”

Dean stood, rooted to the spot, in utter shock. Cas loved him? Cas loved him? His head was spinning and, honestly, he had no idea what was going on. His best friend was sobbing in front of him and confessing his love while Death was literally banging on the door. There was too much happening and Dean's brain was not working fast enough to process it. Cas' gaze flickered to something behind Dean and he turned to see a dark, gloopy-looking portal had opened.

On the other side of the room, the clumsy warding Cas had applied finally gave out and the door burst open to reveal Billie standing there, scythe at the ready. Dean looked back to Cas in panic, knowing this would be his last chance to say something, anything, to the angel. “Cas, I–” he began, but Cas stopped him with a hand on his shoulder.

“Goodbye, Dean,” he said, and before Dean knew what was happening, he was thrown to the floor.

In a flash, The Empty was on Cas – and Billie – devouring them in a flurry of darkness, and Dean was left alone, in the silence of the bunker, with nothing left of his best friend but a bloody handprint on his jacket.

The world was ending, but Dean couldn’t bring himself to get up. His world had been ripped from him, and he had never even gotten the chance to tell Cas how much he had meant to him. Ten years Dean had wasted, hiding his feelings for the angel, when he could have just been happy. A sob ripped its way free from his throat, and once they started, Dean found he couldn’t stop them.

 ~

 Dean awoke with a start, shaking and sweaty, with tearstained cheeks. He had not meant to fall asleep; he had not slept more than a handful of hours since they had returned to the bunker, after stripping Chuck of his powers, as every time he allowed himself to drift off he was greeted by the same nightmare. He wondered if he would ever be free of the memory, of the pain and regret he felt at the words he had left unsaid, despite the fact he had nothing to lose by finally speaking them out loud.

“I need a beer,” he muttered to himself.

In the kitchen he found Sam, on a video call to Eileen, which he promptly ended once he looked up and saw the state Dean was in.

They sat in the war room together, Dean on the floor, leant against the wall, and Sam at the table. They drank to their newfound freedom, to the people they had saved; to the friends they had lost along the way. But no matter how much Dean drank, he couldn’t stop thinking about Cas, the look on his face as the Empty swallowed him, the words he had uttered to summon it–

“What really happened, Dean? With Cas?” Sam asked suddenly, shaking Dean from his spiralling thoughts. “Jack told me about the deal; Cas was only supposed to be taken when he felt true happiness. I know there’s something you’re not telling me.”

Concern was written all over his brother’s features and Dean was just the right mix of tired and drunk and fucking heartbroken that he didn’t even try to stop the words from spilling out of his mouth. “He said he loved me,” he muttered, looking up at Sam with glassy eyes.

“Oh,” was all the younger man said. No hint of confusion, or surprise - or disgust, Dean noted - just understanding.

How can he just accept that? Dean thought, My entire world has been shattered and he says ‘oh’? How does he not have questions?

Dean had questions – so many questions ��� but there was one that he had been simultaneously desperate and terrified to ask, ever since Cas had said those words; a question to which he was sure that whatever the answer was, it would break him.

“But what did he mean?”

Sam looked at him, one eyebrow raised in confusion, an invitation for Dean to continue.

“Angels… They don’t feel things like humans,” Dean stated, trying to keep his voice even. “So, what did he actually mean when he told me he loved me?”

“It’s been a long time since Cas was like the rest of the angels, Dean,” Sam said patiently, placing his beer down on the table and looking at Dean seriously. “I’m pretty sure he meant exactly what you think he did.”

Perhaps Dean should have expected that to be the answer – Cas had, after all, said that Dean’s love was 'the one thing he knew he could never have’ – but he had been so deeply in denial that Sam’s answer still shocked him. Shocked him, and broke him, like he knew it would; he had let Cas die thinking his love wasn’t returned because, for all these years, he had been scared of what people might think. Scared of disappointing a father he could never gain the approval of anyway. Scared of losing the adoration of his little brother - but the look on Sam’s face made it very clear that he had had nothing to fear.

“You- you knew?” Dean asked, his voice breaking slightly as he held back the tears threatening to fall.

“It was obvious,” Sam replied simply, a sad smile gracing his features, before adding. “You mean to say, you didn’t?”

Dean pressed his palms against his eyes and shook his head, unable to form any more words as sobs wracked his body.

 ~

 Sam looked down at Dean, sprawled on the floor, whisky bottle still in hand. He had sat on the floor most of the night with Dean as he cried, and drank, and cried some more; he had held his brother as he sobbed into Sam’s shoulder, soaking his shirt through with tears. They weren’t usually huggers, but Dean wasn’t usually a crier either – a lot had changed over the last few days.

Sam had watched as the broken man eventually passed out from sheer exhaustion. He hadn’t wanted to move him for fear of waking him up, knowing the state Dean was in he would never sleep by choice, so Sam grabbed some pillows from his room and placed them under Dean’s head.

He thought back to his call with Eileen earlier, when he had explained to her everything that had gone down. He was desperate to see her but he didn’t know what Dean would do if left on his own right now, so had told Eileen he needed to be there for Dean and Eileen had understood, of course. She had assured Sam that she was fine and he could take all the time he needed to look after his brother, and Sam loved her even more for her compassion. In the days that followed, Sam pottered around the bunker attempting to restore some of its power with spells from the books Rowena had left him. He managed to get the monster radar and alarm system back online and was pretty pleased with himself for that.

Dean was like a zombie, only sleeping when he absolutely couldn’t stay awake or when he drank himself unconscious. Sometimes he started crying over the weirdest things, things Sam never would have even related to Cas. Before, Dean would have tried to hide his pain from his brother, considering it a weakness, but it seemed to Sam as though this sadness was so vast he simply didn’t care anymore.

 ~

 Cas did not know how time worked in The Empty, but he thought it had taken Billie a long time to die. The infection seemed to spread through her body far slower in The Empty’s domain than it had when they had both been on Earth; possibly the creature’s punishment for her unforgivable betrayal. Cas had watched, frozen in place, as her body finally gave out and she dropped to the floor, immediately sinking into a pool of darkness, leaving only her scythe behind.

And then The Empty had turned on him. “I’m so happy I will finally be able to go back to sleep,” it told him. It had been wearing Meg’s face previously, but as it spoke, its form quickly shifted to that of the man Cas had given his life for. “But first, I think you deserve a bit of pain,” as it spoke, The Empty twisted Cas’ insides until he was screaming in agony. “Was it worth it?” The Empty snarled through Dean’s face. “Sacrificing yourself for one man who doesn’t even care about you? Giving up a millennia for a human who will be gone in the blink of an eye… Or sooner than that, even. What you did made no difference; you probably bought him a day, at most. He can’t stop God.”

On and on this went, the taunting, the torture, the constant talk of Dean’s death while the creature wore his face. Cas had no idea how long he had been there, it could have been hours, could have been days – time meant nothing in The Empty. The more The Empty talked, the more Cas started to believe what it was saying. He didn’t regret giving up his life for Dean but maybe, maybe if he had found another way to save him from Billie, he could still be there to protect him, keep him safe from Chuck - help him win.

I shouldn’t have left him.

The Empty threw Cas across the endless stretch of nothingness and Cas collided with something solid.

Curious, he thought, Surely I’m the only thing here?

Another wave of intense pain hit him and he clenched his fists, trying his best to contain the screams threatening to burst out of him. In a brief painless moment, while The Empty taunted him more about Dean’s inevitable death, Cas looked at the item he had collided with.

Billie’s scythe. Suddenly, Cas had an idea. A stupid, crazy idea, but what did he have left to lose? Surely he was dead either way? Picking the scythe up, he turned to face The Empty.

“That won’t kill me,” The Empty cackled, flicking its finger and sending a jolt of pain up Cas’ spine.

Cas gripped the scythe tighter as he grit his teeth, riding out the pain.

“I… don’t need… to kill you,” Cas growled, lifting the scythe towards himself.

Realization dawned on the creature’s version of Dean’s face.

“No,” it screeched. “We had a deal!” It dived towards Cas, sending an intense wave of pain through the angel as it did, but it wasn’t enough to stop him.

With all the strength he could muster he cut into his throat and let his grace drain from him.

There was an explosion of light and Cas felt himself being thrown backwards, through some invisible barrier, as if hitting the surface of water. And then, he finally fell asleep.

 ~

 Dean had been dreaming, for the first time in days, of something other than The Empty taking Cas. Barn walls were shaking around him, light bulbs shattering above his head, and a figure approached with the bluest eyes he had ever seen.

I’m the one who gripped you tight and raised you from perdition.

Dean was ripped from his slumber by an alarm blaring throughout the bunker, Cas’ words still playing in his mind. Dean stretched as he stood up from the kitchen chair he had accidentally fallen asleep in; that dream had been the closest he had found to peace since Cas had been taken from him, yet even in the dream he had not been able to shake the sense of loss and regret.

Dean was unsure how long it had been since they had defeated God – it could have been days or weeks – and he hadn’t left the bunker since they’d returned to it. He knew Sam was worried about him; his random meltdowns over the smallest of things were so out of character it was unsurprising, but he simply didn’t know how to be normal after what had happened.

Dean groaned, reaching for the bottle of painkillers sitting on the kitchen counter as the alarm finally stopped and Sam rounded the corner.

“What was that about?” Dean growled, popping a painkiller in his mouth and downing it with a swig of whisky from the near-empty bottle on the table.

Sam shot him a judgmental look, but didn’t comment on it. “Massive energy spike in Illinois, not sure what it could be but I’m heading to check it out,” Sam said breathlessly, and from the panicked look in his eyes Dean could tell this was something big.

“Okay, give me a minute to get ready,” Dean said, attempting a grin. From the look Sam shot him in return, he didn’t get close.

“I didn’t think you’d want to come,” Sam responded, his eyebrows knitted together in confusion and concern. “You haven’t left the bunker in days…”

“Is that all it’s been?” Dean asked quietly. “Seems like an eternity…" He trailed off as his thoughts wandered back to tear-filled blue eyes and heartfelt confessions. He shut his eyes, willing the pain to go away but knowing it wouldn't. "Anyway," he continued as if nothing had happened. "If it’s that big, you’ll need help and it’s probably time for me to get back to what I do best. Killing things.”

Dean knew he was being less than convincing, but he was hoping Sam would just go along with it.

“I thought that wasn’t who you were?” Sam said softly, and Dean held back a sob as he thought of Cas’ words.

You think that hate and anger, that's what drives you – that’s who you are. It's not. And everyone who knows you sees it.

“Let’s just– Can we just get going, please?” Dean begged, and Sam nodded sadly.

“Meet you by the car in ten,” he said.

 ~

 When they reached the location the monster radar had given them, the sun was setting, its golden rays peeking over the horizon as they exited the car and trudged across the field towards the location pinpointed on their GPS. When Dean finally saw where they were heading to, a sense of dread crept over him. He ran ahead slightly, just to make sure this really was what he thought it was.

Straight ahead of them, framed by the setting sun, was a large barn.

“What the hell is this?” Dean growled, angry, but not sure at whom.

“What?” Sam asked, stopping a few meters behind his brother, worried all of a sudden. “Dean, are you okay?”

“This barn!” He shouted as he gestured towards it. “This goddamn barn, Sammy!” He turned on the spot and fixed Sam with a look that made his heart break a little, before falling to his knees.

“Dean!” Sam shouted, running towards the older man and sinking to the ground next to him. “What’s wrong?”

Tears streamed down his brother’s face as he gripped at Sam’s jacket. “It’s the barn, Sammy. It’s the barn!”

“The barn?” Sam questioned, completely and utterly lost.

“It’s where I met Cas, the first time, after he freed me from Hell. This is where we met.”

 Shit, Sam thought, There’s no way that’s a coincidence.

Dean noticed the panic on Sam’s face and tried to calm himself down.

“This is a trap, isn’t it?” He sniffed, rubbing aggressively at his eyes with the sleeve of his jacket. “It’s gotta be.”

“Yeah,” Sam said, helping Dean back up. “This is definitely not normal.”

 ~

 They entered the barn, slowly, carefully, with their guns drawn and their torches raised. The walls were still covered with the warding Dean and Bobby had painted all those years ago, and there, lying in the center of the devil’s trap they had sprayed on the floor, was a body.

“Is that–?” Sam began, before Dean let out a breathless cry.

“Cas?!”

He rushed towards the lifeless body immediately, ignoring Sam’s shouts for him to wait. Collapsing on the floor next to Cas, Dean cradled the other man in his arms. He looked unharmed apart from some dried blood on his neck, and Dean let out a loud gasp when he realised Cas was breathing, slow and rhythmically.

“Sammy!” Dean tried to shout, but it came out as more of a sob. “He’s alive.”

Sam was still standing by the entrance to the barn, his gun still raised as if he expected an enemy to jump out at any minute which was, of course, a logical assumption.

“Let’s get out of here, Dean,” Sam shouted, worry evident in his voice. “We don’t know who else could be out here, just grab Cas and let’s go.”

Dean gently gathered the angel in his arms and followed Sam out the barn, and back to the Impala. Surprisingly, they saw no-one on their way back to the car, a fact which only caused the boys to grow more suspicious.

“It’s definitely him, right?” Sam asked, as Dean placed Cas in the back seat before throwing Sam his keys.

“I’m as sure as I can be,” Dean replied. “We can do all the normal tests when he’s awake but… I think it’s really him, Sammy. There's just something about him... It... smells like him.”

“Smells like him?” Sam smirked, as Dean got into the back seat and laid Cas’ head gently in his lap.

“Shut up.”

 ~

 A couple of hours into the drive, just about when Dean had started to get really worried about Cas not waking up yet, the other man began to stir.

“Dean?” He said, in a voice even raspier than normal, as he gazed up at Dean in amazement.

“Cas,” Dean choked out, running his hand through the angel’s hair, brushing it from his forehead. “Is it really you?”

“Yes,” Cas replied, a pained expression on his face. “But I–”

“Don’t talk,” Dean said, concern lacing his voice. “It looks like you mighta been injured. We’ll be back at the bunker soon enough and Sam’ll have a look at you.”

Cas looked like he wanted to argue but did as Dean asked and stayed quiet.

When they got back to the bunker, Dean helped Cas to his room and left Sam to do the normal tests, and take a look over him with some of Rowena’s spells. Dean waited in the corridor outside, pacing to start with but after a while he sank to the floor, leaning his head back against the wall.

Cas was alive. He couldn't quite believe this was happening, he had been so sure that this time the angel had been gone for good, but somehow he had managed to pull off one last miracle.

Somehow, he had managed to save Dean one last time.

 ~

 Sam exited Cas’ room about thirty minutes later, a worried look on his face.

“Well?” Dean asked impatiently, jumping up from where he had been sitting on the floor.

“It’s definitely Cas,” Sam told him. “And he’s doing okay... but I think you’d better go talk to him, Dean.”

This did absolutely nothing to ease the knots in Dean’s stomach but he approached the door nonetheless, eager to see for himself that Cas was okay.

When he entered Cas’ room he found the other man sitting up in bed, a white t-shirt on his upper half and blankets pooled around his waist. He looked different without his usual attire, more approachable - more human. There was a small mark on his neck, where the dried blood Dean had seen earlier had clearly been cleaned away from, and a cut on his arm where, Dean assumed, Sam had done the silver test.

“Dean,” Cas said, and he sounded much better than he had when he had last spoken on the drive back to the bunker.

“Cas,” Dean answered shakily, trying to control the mix of emotions that had been building in him ever since he saw Cas’ body lying in that barn. Sam had told Dean he needed to talk to Cas but Cas didn’t seem to be offering up any information as to what they needed to talk about, so Dean took the initiative and asked, “How did you escape?”

Cas’ eyes flitted down to stare at his hands and Dean thought he looked almost ashamed…? He said nothing for several minutes, but Dean waited uncharacteristically patiently.

“Dean,” Cas began eventually. “I know I’ve not been of much use to you recently, since I lost most of my powers–”

“That’s not true, Cas,” Dean immediately interrupted, suddenly feeling sick with guilt about how he had treated Cas over the last few years.

Cas gave him a look and continued. “So it may upset you to know… that I am now human,” Dean looked at Cas, wide-eyed and confused, so Cas elaborated. “The Empty is where angels go when they die,” he explained slowly. “Apart from I wasn’t dead, I had just been taken by The Empty. It wanted to put me into an endless sleep, same as with my deceased brothers and sisters – what I had experienced the last time I died, before Jack woke me up... But Billie’s scythe was there and I thought - it was stupid really – I thought that, as I was technically still alive, if I was no longer an angel The Empty wouldn’t want me… So–”  

“You cut out your grace?” Dean finished, his mouth agape in abject horror as his eyes fixed on the small cut on Cas' neck and he finally put two and two together.

“And The Empty ejected me,” Cas nodded. Dean's heart pounded in his chest as panic and guilt spread through him, he had caused this. “I am sorry, Dean; I didn’t think it through. I was just trying to get back to you all – to help – but now I realise what little help I’ll be. Even now Chuck's gone - even just as a hunter - if I wasn’t of use to you with my significantly reduced powers, what good will I be to you as a human?”

“Is that what you think?” Dean asked fiercely, swallowing down bile as he thought about all the things he had said to Cas to make him feel this way. “Cas, I don’t care. I don’t care whether you have your powers or not. I just care about you. These last few days, I’ve been a mess. I thought you were gone for good and I couldn't cope. Seriously, man, I’m just so, so glad you’re back,” Dean was close to tears at this point so he trailed off, not wanting to start blubbering in front of Cas like he had been in front of Sam the past few days. Cas shot Dean a small smile as Dean gestured awkwardly towards the door, “I’m jus’ gonna… leave you to get some rest for now,” Dean was sure that Cas would need some, and he was hoping that now Cas was back he would finally be able to get some peace himself.

“Thank you, Dean,” Cas croaked, as he shut the door gently, and Dean got the impression he was being thanked for more than just leaving Cas to sleep.

 ~

 For days, Dean had been acting weirdly around Castiel; unable to find the courage to mention the words spoken before The Empty had claimed him, waiting for the other man to bring it up first, but knowing he would not. Why would he, when he believed his feelings to be unrequited?

Three days after Cas had returned to the bunker, Sam pulled Dean aside and told him he was finally going to visit Eileen.

“You need to sort this out while I’m gone,” his brother told him quietly, gesturing to where Cas sat across the room, reading one of Rowena’s old books on astral projection.

“Sort what out?” Dean replied, trying to act innocent.

“Don’t pull that shit with me, Dean,” Sam growled, eyes flicking briefly back to Cas to check the other man hadn’t heard him. “I saw how you were after Cas died,” Sam muttered, and Dean felt a jolt of pain go through his heart at Sam’s words – even though Cas was back, it still hurt Dean to think about the time they had spent apart. Sam raised an eyebrow at him, clearly noticing the change in Dean’s demeanour. “There you go,” he said matter-of-factly. “I saw how you reacted to him being gone, and the words he said to you before. Don’t pretend like they weren’t said, just because you’re scared,” Dean opened his mouth to protest but Sam just kept talking. “I know you’re scared, Dean, don’t try to deny it. I know it’s hard to admit what you’re feeling, but you have to know that I will always support you? That I always have?” Dean’s eyes widened at this and Sam’s features softened slightly. “You’re not as subtle as you think, Dean. I’ve known for a while.”

Dean wasn’t sure if Sam was talking about Cas specifically, or if he meant on a wider scale, but he was too overwhelmed to say anything in reply. Overwhelmed with love for his baby brother, overwhelmed that someone he cared about so much accepted him for who he truly was.

“Dean,” Sam continued, placing a hand on Dean’s shoulder comfortingly. “You’re my brother, you raised me. I will always look up to you, and love you for who you are. I just want you to be able to accept this part of yourself, because it has never changed how I view you.  None of our friends – our family – will see you any differently for who you love, surely you know that? Me, Jodie, Donna, Eileen – we all just want you to be happy. So please, Dean, just sort this out. I know it’s hard for you, but just let yourself be happy. Let Cas be happy.”

Dean didn’t know what to say, but he knew Sam was right – and deep down he had known Sam would support him, of course he would – but that didn’t make it any less scary. Teary-eyed, he looked at Sam and nodded.

“Thank you, Sammy,” he said shakily as his brother pulled him into a hug. “I’ll do it, I’ll make this right.”

Sam beamed at him as he pulled away.

“I’ll see you day after tomorrow,” he told Dean quietly, before raising his voice to shout a goodbye to Cas.

Cas looked up from his book and waved as Sam exited the bunker, a bright smile on the former angel’s face, and Dean’s heart skipped a beat.

He knew he wanted to see that smile every day for the rest of his life, and he knew how to make that happen.

He just had to be brave.

Let Cas be happy, he told himself.

 ~

 “Cas,” Dean said, sitting down at the table, opposite the man. “I think we need to talk.”

Cas looked up from his book, his eyes wide. “If this is about what I said before I, uh, left–” he began but Dean interrupted him.

“It is,” he stated, placing his hands on his knees under the table, so Cas wouldn't be able to see how much they were shaking. “I need to know – did you mean it? Did you mean it how I think you meant it?”

“You still doubt you deserve love?” Cas questioned in reply, placing his book down on the table and leaning forward in his seat.

“Don’t dodge my question with all your cryptic shit,” Dean snapped, but there was no real heat behind it. “Just tell me if you meant what I thought you meant.”

“You know I did,” he said seriously, looking Dean right in the eye.

“Okay,” Dean said with a deep breath. “I just didn’t know if we were on the same page, y’know, with you being an angel. I didn’t know if it meant something different to you.”

“I’m not an angel anymore, Dean. And I meant it- I still mean it. I love you.”

It was no less overwhelming the second time Cas said it. Dean felt his heartbeat speed up and his palms grow sweaty – was he really going to do this? After years of shame and guilt and fear, was he finally going to let himself be free? Let himself be happy?

Dean slowly stood and made his way around the table so he was standing next to where Castiel sat. Cas looked up at him, confusion gracing his beautiful features before he stood too. It felt as though his bright eyes were boring into Dean's very soul.

Cas was so close, his face just inches away from Dean’s. They had stood this close many times before during the ten years they had known each other, but never before with the knowledge that Dean held now. His eyes flicked down to Cas’ lips and back up again, all it would take would be leaning in just slightly…

“Dean,” Cas murmured, and he was so close Dean could feel Cas' breath against his lips.

“Cas,” Dean breathed out, reaching up to cup the other man’s cheek, “I’ve felt this way for so long, Cas, but I was just so used to hiding it. I was so full of shame - of fear. I buried this feeling so deep that when you told me you loved me I just– I didn’t know how to react. But now I know, Cas. I just want the chance to make you happy," Dean took a deep breath, preparing himself to admit something he had spent years living in fear of. "I hope you can forgive me for everything I've said, everything I've done in the past to make you feel unappreciated. There's a lot I wish I could take back - a lot I should have said instead - but I wanna try my best to make it up to you. I'm sorry I didn't have the courage to say this sooner, Cas... But I love you,” Cas’ eyes widened, as though standing there, mere inches away from Dean, with Dean’s hand pressed to his cheek, he had still not expected to hear him utter those words. “I’m sorry I made you think that my love – that I – was something you couldn’t have, but I want you to know, Cas, I’m yours. If you still want me, I’m yours. Always have been.”

“Dean,” Cas whispered, his hand coming up to cup the back of Dean’s neck gently, tears of happiness glistening in his eyes. “I’ve never wanted anything more in my life.”

And with that, at last, Cas pressed his lips to Dean’s, and Dean didn’t feel scared any more.

He was finally happy.

Finally free.

 ~

 From the place where he stood, invisible, in the corner of the room, Jack smiled. He had promised not to meddle in human affairs, and he had kept his word, but he had needed to see this through to the end. Just to make sure that these two people he cared about so much got the happiness they deserved. Now that Cas was human, he and Dean would be able to grow old together, and when they died both their souls would be able to ascend to Jack’s new Heaven, where they could all be together as a family, once again.

***

(A/N Thanks so much for reading, this was my first Spn fic in like five years so I really hope you enjoyed and thought they were in character enough. I know Dean was insanely angsty but I just hated how unbothered he seemed to be by Cas' death. And I don't know if logically Death's scythe should have killed Cas even though he was already in The Empty but I don't really care tbh, my fic makes more sense than those last couple of episodes the CW tried to feed us...)

[stressedspidergirlsfandomblog]

Title: Monster

 SHIP (if applicable): Geraskefer PROMPT DAY: 6 MEDIUM: Books WARNINGS: Self-loathing, more accidental self-harm than deliberate, canon typical suicidal ideation SUMMARY:

“What a hideous smile I have, Geralt thought, reaching for his sword. What a hideous face I have. And how hideously I squint. So is that what I look like? Damn.” -Andrzej Sapkowski, Sword of Destiny

-

“Do you know, Visenna, what is done to witchers’ eyes to improve them? Do you know it doesn’t always work?”

“Stop it,” she said softly. “Stop it, Geralt.” -Andrzej Sapkowski, Sword of Destiny

WORD COUNT: 11891 AUTHOR’S NOTES: Read on Ao3

@geraltwhumpweek

Geralt hated sorcerers. They were never good company, with the except of Yennefer who still had her moments, and they were usually unnaturally cruel whenever given the chance. He had, of course managed to run afoul of this one, he always did. If there was a sorcerer involved, he was going to suffer. That was simply the life of a witcher, or any other poor soul who happened to cross paths with them.

“Geralt of Rivia, Geralt of Nowhere. Geralt of Kaer Morhen, Geralt of No Parentage. Geralt the Witcher, Geralt the Butcher of Blaviken, Geralt the Monster.”

Yes, that was all true, as far as Geralt was concerned. Nothing new, no worse than anything anyone else had said to him.

“I curse you.”

Fuck.

“I curse you so that you will look on the outside as you are on the inside. You will be the hideous monster you truly are. The monster you know yourself to be.”

Pain racked him so hard he thought he might die. His bones shifted like they had during the changes, his face stretching, cheekbones raising and flattening, jaw jutting forward and expanding as his mouth filled with sharp teeth, his lips pulling back and tearing as they failed to keep up with the changes to his skill. He screamed with the pain of it, and horror swamped him when an alien sound came from his mouth.

“Kill me, and it’s permanent,” the mage informed him.

The changes continued, his hands stretching into claws as his nails thickened and turned black like a wolf’s, his silvery hair spreading across more of his body. Geralt’s eyes turned true yellow, and he cried out again, the hoarse howl of a monster as his legs lengthened and thickened, making him taller even as his spine curled forcing him to hunch forward.

“However, true love, the purest kind can break the spell. Someone will have to love you as you are, seeing you as you truly are, for the spell to break.”

As his nose changed, growing sharper and hooking slightly he felt more shifts in his bones and tears in his skin where it failed to keep up and he moaned low in his throat. His voice had been unpleasant before, but now? Now it was the guttural sounds of a monster utterly incapable of speech. He tried. He tried to curse the mage before him, tears and snot running down his mutated face. When he tried to run his forearm across his face, he noticed the sinew and muscle standing out and the once fine dusting of milk white hair was now thick like pelt over his arm. He screamed again, hardly able to think. Geralt tore at it, the thick claws digging into flesh as he tried to pull some of the hair free.

He accidentally raked his own face in horror at the damage his claws had done, lifting them to try and cover his eyes and feeling them pierce the skin around his eyes and howled again.

“I suppose you should get used to your knew form, enjoy it, Geralt. After all, who could learn to love a beast?” The sorcerer opened a portal and stepped through it, smiling. Geralt lunged but was too late.

While his figure was mostly human, he felt, he couldn’t be too sure. His neck had changed and he had more trouble looking down at himself than he had before. Stay calm, focus, breathe, control your heart rate, control yourself. He looked down and saw his clothes mostly hanging in tatters. Something moved behind him and he twisted in panic raising his hands to defend himself with a cry of surprise. But nothing was there. But he could see something from the corner of his vision, and he twisted painfully to look down at himself and saw that he now had a tail.

The shock of it dropped him to his knees, cracking them painfully on the stone floor of the mage’s tower. He gripped it and thought about simply cutting it off. All that stopped him was that when Yennefer reversed the spell, it might hurt him in some other way. All of this had come from his body and to remove some of it might mean he would be less whole when returned to his natural state.

He tried to speak again and again but all that came out of his throat were horrible hoarse sounds. Wasn’t Dandelion always telling him all he did was grunt and grizzle? Now that was true. Perhaps a letter. He could send her a letter.

When he tried to pick up a writing implement from the desk his hands… claws, his hands were very nearly paws, and blackness edged around his vision again. He couldn’t hold the quill. Could barely pick it up, it was too fine, too delicate. Then he realized, who would mail the letter for him? How would he pay? A horrible chuffing sound came out of him and he realized that was his laugh. He screamed again, unable to help it.

It was daylight.  He was effectively trapped in the tower until nightfall. If people saw him they would hunt him down and kill him and he couldn’t even speak to them to explain. Couldn’t write them a message… or perhaps… perhaps he could.

It didn’t occur to him to use the inkwell, which would have been smarter. Instead, he dug his claws into his flesh tipping them in his own blood as he carefully wrote a message to Yennefer on the parchment. He had no idea if she’d ever find it. It said very little, and he had no way to mail it… no coins… but perhaps somehow it would make its way to her.

Yennefer- Mage. Curse. Help. -Geralt.

When he wiped at his eyes again, the fur on his forearm was streaked with blood. Bloodied tears? His heart squeezed. Was no part of him left human? He had to get out of there. He paced around the tower room and stopped when he saw a mirror. It was slightly warped, the silver bent and twisted, not good quality. But it was enough to make him sink to his knees in horror.

His clothing had torn around him, in some places digging into his skin and cutting him. He pulled it off where string and thread still tore into his flesh and looked at himself. While he had never been especially hairy fur had mostly replaced natural body hair and he uncomfortably touched his cheeks. He never even wore a beard, and now he had an odd coating of fur that started an inch or so away from his eyes and ran halfway down his neck. It picked up again at his sternum in a large circular shape before continuing over his abdomen and down to his groin.

“I envy you this, you know. It looks so low maintenance. I’ve never seen you trim or shave any of it,” Dandelion told him softly, stroking along his sides and hips. “Does it truly just grow this way? Nice and neat?”

“I don’t know if it’s neat,” Geralt protested lightly. “But it’s true, I don’t alter it.” Who did?

The poet gently stroked up the insides of his legs and over his hips, circling his groin with gentle touches. Geralt would have given anything for those delicate fingers to never stop. Being comfortable and safe like this was far better than sex. “I do, I spend quite a bit of time on it, maintaining it.”

“Why?” Geralt asked, he hadn’t particularly cared one way or the other about Dandelion’s body hair.

“Oh Geralt,” the bard teased, eyes twinkling. “As much hair grows here, if I didn’t keep it trimmed,” his fingers gently ran through the hair above Geralt’s cock, “people would think me much smaller than I am. Too much hair and you hide too much and even if there’s plenty no one will believe it.”

Geralt snorted in shock and laughed. Dandelion grinned at him, pleased to have made him smile. The bard gently leaned over to press a kiss to Geralt’s hip, and the witcher knew he was being given a choice. They could just continue to lie like this, or they could make love. He found both options tempting, but he didn’t feel like the amount of movement the latter would require. He gently cupped Dandelion’s cheek, guiding him up to kiss him on the mouth.

“Just sit with me,” Geralt asked, voice husky.

“Of course, love,” Dandelion agreed easily, continuing to let his fingers trail over and explore his lover. Every so often Geralt twitched a little, and the bard knew he’d found a new place to touch and tease during their lovemaking, but for now just being together was enough.

Thankfully his genitals were barely visible under the hanging fur, since pants weren’t going to be an option for him. Ashamed in ways he hadn’t thought possible, he tried to pick up his cloak from the chair and drape it around himself. All that happened was his claws caught and shredded the fabric. He laughed bitterly and startled when it came out as the chuffing bark noise from before. Tears ran over his cheeks again, the blood dyeing the fur on his face pink.

How was he going to wash himself? Or dress himself? Keep himself warm? His entire body wasn’t furred.

The mirror allowed him to see his jaw elongated and widened, new teeth full of sharp points that prevented him from closing his mouth entirely, which meant drool was starting to form at the corners of his lips. Hatred for himself sang in his heart. Even his ears had moved slightly, higher on his head and more pointed and leathery like a bat’s, perhaps. Barely recognizable as human other than the color.

His skin had turned even whiter, even less human, more like alabaster than the usual sallow paleness he was used to and his eyes…. Oh, they were so yellow and the slitted pupils- nothing he did would round them again like a normal man’s. The could widen and thin them but not enough. He would have thrown up if he could have.

Mostly his bone structure appeared to be the same, outside of his face, just longer and thicker. His hips pushed against his skin the way they did in lean months where he had little to eat, but he had a feeling this was permanent. Just as his ribs pulled the skin tight between them and his hips, leaving him with a small waist that exemplified several drawings of famine he’d seen.

Unable to bear the sight of himself he slammed a hand against the mirror without thinking and cried out when the silver burned. The glass shattered and bits of it stuck into his knuckles and flew at him, leaving red marks as if he’d been scalded. His claws were too brutish to pull the glass out and he found himself shredding skin attempting to pull the burning embers of silver from his body. Once they were out, he was left with mutilated knuckles and red welts all over himself where the mirror had exploded with the force of his strike.

Unsure of where to walk, his feet were mostly bare, his boots shredded and useless. He glanced at his medallion, he had torn it off along with his shirt. How would he wear it? How would people know it was him? He couldn’t speak, couldn’t tell them, couldn’t write… Moaning, he covered his face with his hands and wept, he had never felt so helpless in his life.

“Yen this is humiliating.”

“Your leg was broken and so was your skull. Get up and walk around with me.”

“I’m wobbling like a fawn, Yen, I don’t want to.”

“And how will you get better if you refuse to use your muscles?”

“My head aches.”

“And I shall rub your neck after, and perhaps your shoulders too, if you stop trying to delay the inevitable and get up and walk with me.”

“Perhaps you could rub something else?”

She snorted. “Are you done whining?”

“I wasn’t whining,” he argued, getting out of the bed shakily. The linen pants moved across the bandages on his shin and he took her hand, allowing her to help him up. Then slid his arm around her shoulders, leaning on her as they walked out of the room. She made him pace the length of the hall and back before allowing him to rest, and he was happy to hold her in his arms as he waited for his muscles to stop shaking.

He loved the feel of her hair over his skin, and the coolness of her touch on his body. She gently ran fingers through his hair, pressing gently as she massaged away the worst of his headache. He loved when they were close together like this, when there was no expectation, no pressure. They could just be.

Walking carefully through the splinters of mirror he knew whenever he failed because the pain burned him. Welts and blisters rose up, but thankfully no more glass made its way into his flesh. Not sure what to do with his old clothes, or his medallion, he did his best to work around his claws and bundle the silver without touching it. His medallion. His mark, who he was. He had no pockets, no pack, nothing.

Pawing through the mage’s things, he did manage to find a satchel with a long strap which he tucked the medallion in, the leather barely touch enough to withstand his claws as he shoved it in. It took some doing but he also managed to get the strap over his shoulder without destroying it or the bag. He couldn’t leave yet, and his body still ached.

There was no food to take, nothing to do but wait. So he crouched down in a corner away from the debris, running a claw over the shaggy rough hair sprouting from his scalp. His sensitive fingers had been covered in thick callous that made it hard to feel, but he could still tell his hair was no longer the fine silky texture his partners had loved. Ciri had loved it, too. His hair was smoother than hers, no curl, and so she had loved brushing it out. She had often put it into braids. Now, the rough strands would be not only unpleasant to touch but near impossible to groom. It was going to mat so easily, he knew.

“Your hair is so soft,” Ciri marveled, running fingers through it as he sat with her by the fire. They had spread out a few blankets and pillows on the hearthstones to wait out the storm. While she wasn’t afraid of the weather, after the Wild Hunt had near taken her, she was a little jumpier about the noise. He didn’t fault her.

He closed the book in his lap, leaving his index finger between the pages to mark their spot. He had chosen a bestiary at her request and was teaching her more of what she would know to be a witcher. Initially, he had wanted to read history or philosophy or something else, anything else. But it was what she had asked him for.

She gently combed out his hair again, having used a little bit of unscented oil to make the strands gleam. Since she had decided to take an interest in grooming him like a beloved feist his hair always shone in the light. It was always neatly brushed. He looked healthier. Of course, taking her into his life he had had to start taking better care of himself simply because he was taking care of her. If she needed food, he found food rather than go hungry. If she felt filthy, he found a place for them to bathe. It was just what he did now.

While he was well able to keep himself clean and his hair free of tangles without assistance, they both found the routine soothing. So many ugly things happened around them day in and day out that it was nice to end the day by the fire together, doing something peaceful. Not to mention both Yennefer and Dandelion had commented on the change in texture of his hair, enjoying the silkiness Ciri’s ministrations had brought out.

He fell asleep somehow, curled into the corner. The stones on his skin were cold enough to leech away some of his body heat and leave him to wake shivering and miserable. So much for the new layer of fur keeping him warm or being useful in any way.

The sky was dark, and most of the village around the tower asleep. Humiliated by his nakedness, he knew he didn’t have a choice about it, or about having to leave. If the mage sent someone back to clear him out, or alert the villagers, he would be killed in a small space unless he was willing to let his actions match his appearance. Perhaps he should just let them kill him.

But he had hope, small hope, that Yennefer would somehow find his message. Would somehow find him and save him. She loved him, didn’t she? So did Dandelion. One of them should work, or perhaps she could just reverse the spell without anything. In case her love wasn’t even… he loved them both so much. Surely, surely one of them could break it. Would it take a kiss? Just some blood? He tried to remember how Nivellen’s curse had been broken with the bruxa, but he didn’t want to have to kill one of his lovers. He wouldn’t. He would kill himself first if that was the only solution.

The doorknob was difficult to grip and slippery against his skin and he barely managed to get it open. Only the terror of acting like the beast he was kept him from smashing through it. He was bigger, and bulkier, and going through the doorway and down the twisting steps made him aware of how much he had changed. It was difficult to navigate where before he would have run quickly.

He paused at the bottom, smelling food. A bit old, perhaps, but not turned. He listened for a while, didn’t smell any signs of human life or hear anything, and the thought of food made his mouth water. Ropes of drool slid over his chin and hung down and he shut his eyes. Nothing he did would take away the feeling. Ashamed, he almost didn’t open the door to the kitchen. He should perhaps just starve to death. But, never seeing Ciri again, never seeing Yennefer or Dandelion… not if there was a chance he could be saved… even if he didn’t deserve it…

Tthe hunger pressed on him and he pushed through the door and raided the stores of food he found. The vegetables were hard to chew, since all of his teeth had apparently been replaced with fangs leaving him with very little molar. He ended up gulping down chunks of carrot and potato raw. The meat he found was dried, and even more difficult to manage. His claws allowed him to tear it easily enough and he swallowed strips whole. He ate until his stomach ached and bulged, knowing he had no way to carry any of it with him.

While he was sure he could hunt, and while he could process raw meat if forced, he had no taste for it. Perhaps his new monster’s body and tongue would. Ripping into raw flesh and still beating hearts… that had always been his destiny hadn’t it? Shunned by society living like an animal? Looking around for anything that might help him, anything that might keep him human, there was nothing.

At the door to the tower he listened, and when he heard no one moving around he ran.

**

“Madam Yennefer, a message for you.”

“Odd, a letter coming from my banker.”

“It’s an odd situation, if you don’t mind me saying,” the dwarf twisted his hands.

“Please, explain.” She took the missive in her hand, looking at the odd parchment. When she opened it, it bore five words written in blood. The implement used to write had scratched the fibers of the page, making it hard to read and the blood had trailed along the disrupted grooves. It was hardly legible, but she know how Geralt made his runes. Even if he was clearly badly injured and writing her in blood. Although the marks were like no quill she had ever seen. It was too thick, and far too coarse. Disturbed, she looked up at the dwarf.

“Well. There was a contract for your witcher, and he took it. Went up to meet a sorcerer who said they had information and would also pay for parts of the beast. I don’t know all the details, mind. But Geralt went in, and he never came out. One of my fellows heard that he hadn’t come to pay his inn bill, or the fee for keeping his horse stabled. I had someone go take care of it. The horse is on her way to your home in Vengerberg, where she and his bags will be safe. I also had the money owed settled.”

“And you’ll have it taken from my accounts?”

“I was simply waiting on approval.”

“That’s neatly done then. I’ll need to withdraw some coin, then. To take with me. If you hear anything of Geralt, have it passed along to me as quickly as possible. Here, I’ll leave a kestrel, send it with any news.”

“Done.”

“Giancardi?”

“Yes?”

“Thank you.”

**

He tried to keep track of the days, scratching a mark into the bark of a tree. But after the first week time became meaningless. He knew it might take a full month before Yennefer got his note, assuming she ever did. He had told her the contact might take him weeks. She wouldn’t think to check for ages yet. He was on his own for much longer.

He had dug up various roots he had found, keeping himself alive as best he could, and much to his disgust he had managed to fell a deer and the carcass had fed him for days. Geralt was doing his best to behave as a human might. He tried to keep himself clean. Bathing in the cold stream was even worse with the added fur to soak in and hold the icy water against his skin.

A bear had chased him out of the first cave he found, and then a pack of wolves another. Finally, he had given in and dug himself a sort of shelter, doing his best to create more space by breaking branches and aligning them to create a sort of roof and wall. With his hands thick and unwieldy he could barely manage. Using vines to tie anything was out of the question. The crude lean-to kept the worst of the wind and damp away but he would have given anything for a fire.

When hunters came through and found his shelter, they almost found him. He hadn’t remembered to hide his tracks and they chased him for days. He could endure more, suffer more, but some part of him hoped they would catch him. Kill him and make all of this end.

The longer he was alone in the wild, the more terrifying he became. He caught glimpses of himself in the streams and rivers and puddles… his appearance continued to change and his body never stopped aching.

 **

“Ciri, pack your things. I’ve found a place to hide you and I’ll need you to stay there.”

“Yennefer, I’m hardly in need of that kind of care anymore. I’m capable in my own right.”

“Geralt would never forgive me.”

“If he was taken as part of a contract, I’m your best bet at luring out whoever it was. If they want a witcher, let’s give them a witcher.”

“I don’t intend to use you as bait.”

“Please, Mamma, please. Don’t make me wait here twiddling my thumbs when I’m just as good with a sword as he is. Let me help.”

“One promise or I will use magic to keep you here.”

“What is it?”

“You obey. Something both you and Geralt are terrible at. But this time, you do as I tell you. Or I will send you through a portal to somewhere only I can find you and take you back out.”

“I promise.”

**

When his knees had reversed to match those of the predators whose forest he shared, the agony was so bad he couldn’t move for days. He laid there in the dirt and leaves, bugs crawling over him and didn’t move, and wished for death.

He fought and killed the giant cat that wanted his territory, and the pelt that grew over his body kept him far warmer than his clothes ever had. This time, he had chosen a place far from humans and higher in the mountains where not many bothered to travel to. Hunting was scarce but he had found a cave that was his and had dragged plenty of dried leaves in it to act as a bed. There was a hollow in the back that collected rain that dripped from a crack in the roof and it kept him from having to leave for fresh water too often.

He had no idea how many days had passed. Time had no meaning for an animal. He woke, he hunted, sometimes he ate, and then he slept.

**

“There’s some sort of silvery-haired werewolf living in our woods, you know, Master Dandelion.”

“Oh pish, I know what werewolves look like. The things your villagers have been saying are lies. Some sort of primal man-ape creature living in the woods.”

“We chased him out,” a man interjected. “We caught sight of him and chased him out. Silver haired and yellow eyed, monstrous. Huge claws, sharp teeth, found his dwelling and razed it so he’d never return. Thought about calling ourselves a witcher but we handled it just fine on our own, we did.”

“Silver hair and yellow eyes?”

“Fangs as big as my arm, ‘e jus’ ran though,” another man called out, this one older and missing some teeth. “Big cowar’ly cretchur,” he explained.

Dandelion looked around the tavern. He had planned to meet Geralt a few days ride from here and they had intended to travel together back to Vengerberg to meet with Yennefer and Ciri. Only Geralt hadn’t been in the area that anyone knew of. Not recently. He had come a month or more ago, had met with the sorcerer and disappeared. All heads were nodding in agreement and he felt a moment of concern.

“What tower did you say the sorcerer lived in?”

“Look outside, Master Poet, and see for yourself.”

He finished his beer, gathered up his things, and did exactly that. Gathering up the reins of his horse, he unhitched Pegasus from the post and mounted up, kicking the fat grey gelding into a slow trot.

When he reached the tower he found the door slightly ajar. Fear mounting in his chest he fairly ran up the steps, and was horrified to find blood all over the floor of the tower, shattered glass all over, and … Geralt’s clothes, shredded to pieces. There was no sign of him. The bard looked over the tower, seeing torn paper, broken quills, a shredded cloak, and Geralt’s things. His sword belt had snapped, and he had left his swords. Or was eaten, Dandelion supposed, tears welling up in his eyes and streaming down his cheeks.

Further inspection revealed silvery-white fur littering the room and the heaviest coating was reserved for a bloody corner. “Did it kill you Geralt?” Dandelion asked the swords softly. As if there would be answers there. He lifted them up and gathered up whatever he could of Geralt’s clothes and boots. Some spells required the essence of a person.

He needed to contact Yennefer. And perhaps, with what he’d found, she could do something to track Geralt, or the monster that killed him.

He quickly used the parchment and half a quill to pen a letter, noticing the untouched inkwell. Then he folded it, sealed it after relighting a candle and ran down the steps again, Geralt’s swords crushed to his chest. Dandelion quickly found the messenger service in the town and paid the fee to have his letter sent to Yennefer.

**

Geralt barely knew himself anymore. He knew he was waiting for something. He knew the pouch on his body meant something, but his paws wouldn’t allow him to open it. He couldn’t get it off over his head, it was stuck in matted fur and dried blood. Eventually it snagged on something, choking him and he tore it free, not caring that the strap shredded. He gathered it up in his teeth, the sharp fangs snagging on the leather and brought it back to his cave and left it there among the leaves he used as a bed.

Whatever it was, he couldn’t get to it.

**

“Yennefer!”

“Dandelion!” They hugged briefly. Their affections for each other were largely glued together by Geralt. While they were fond of each other, he was what brought them together.

“I found his things, or what was left of them, I see you got my letter?”

“I got this from him, too, about a day or two before your letter found me.”

“Is… is that blood?”

“It is, his, I think. You’ve been staying in the area?”

“I got the locals to show me the direction they had chased the supposed monster in. I found signs of the habitation, I don’t know… if it’s the thing that killed Geralt, or something he was trying to kill, or what happened to him.”

“I stopped by the tower on the way here, all the blood was his. It called out to the blood on the paper. You’d best show me around the area the monster was in, if it killed him his blood will sing out wherever it was left.”

“And if it didn’t? How will we find him?”

“If he’s injured by it, or kept tracking it, it’ll lead us to wherever his blood was last spilled. We’ll find him. If we can.”

“Ciri?”

“With the horses, waiting. She promised to obey me in all things or I would portal her into a dungeon on a mountain where no one could get to her. At least not without a portal. I’ve promised her that she will help us track down the beast. Or mage. Geralt wrote ‘cursed.’ I don’t… I don’t know what to think. Was he cursed and killed by the monster? Was he cursed… in another way? Was all that fur in the tower his?” her voice shook.

“I don’t know,” the poet said grimly. “I don’t know. But if he’s alive we’ll find him. In whatever condition, and we’ll break the curse, and we’ll take him with us and we’ll put him to rights. It’s what he’d do for us, and what we’ve done for him before, and we’ll do it again. As often as it takes.”

“I miss him, Dandelion. I hadn’t expected to see him for another few weeks, our plan was to meet later, as you well know. But I miss him and it terrifies me there’s no sign of him. I’ll get Ciri, and you can show me the woods.”

**

The monster pawed loosely at the leather in his bed. The hard object inside had hurt him when he’d slept on it, digging into the flesh of his side. Arrows had broken off in his body after an attack he hardly remembered, and whatever it was in his bed had pressed into it, making it hurt worse. He pawed feebly at the wounds, knowing they were infected, but his clawed paws couldn’t pull out the arrowhead. He had scratched himself raw and bloody, creating a further mess in his side. His body didn’t bend to allow him to lick it clean or care for it, he moved half upright and half on all fours, but he hadn’t gone to hunt in a few days.

Food had passed by his cave, but he had stayed, trying to regain his strength and heal. Some part of him remembered cool hands touching him, easing the pains and hurts in his body. Something had cramped his gut and made him ill and he had fallen a long ways, and those hands had nursed him back to health. But it made no sense, his only clear memories of humans were violent and painful. If they saw him, they chased him screaming and firing arrows and waving swords.

They were right to fear him, his slavering jaws and cruel claws were to be hated and feared.

Continued attempts to discover the source of his discomfort in the leather pouch allowed him to open it, claws tearing and shredding, and a round metal object fell out, skittering across the cave floor to land near his water supply.

When he reached out to touch it, nudging it with his muzzle, he roared in pain, feeling his face burn and welts raise up on his sensitive nose. Whimpering and howling, he leaves it alone, afraid to touch it again and curls back on his uninjured side in the leaves.

**

“He bled heavily here, look. Someone shot arrows into him,” Ciri lifted up the fletched half of an arrow. “Broke off, or he broke it off and pulled it through. Don’t see the other half anywhere, though. He was alive when he left here.”

“The question is, was he chasing the beast that the townsfolk were, or is he the beast?”

“Yennefer, don’t say that. Witchers aren’t that strange.”

“Dandelion, he said he was cursed. His blood is all over. He’s still alive, as far as we know, but there’s been no sign of him. The footprints we found are far too large to belong to a normal man, with evidence of clawed feet. So if this is Geralt’s blood, where are his footprints?”

“Yennefer, look, by the shelter, there’s notches in the tree. Keeping track of time. If it was Geralt, he was here a little over a week. Hunting, or waiting for help.”

“Then we press on.”

**

The monster went out hunting, the pain in its side making it gasp and wheeze with each breath. But it had to eat. Food was survival. It got lucky and stumbled across an injured rabbit. The creature hardly lasted a second once the monster had it, ripping it open with stubby claws and sharp teeth. It wasn’t enough, but the rabbit would keep it alive a bit longer.

A little stronger from the meal, it snuffled around, bloody drool hanging off its jaw as it rooted around for tubers in the dirt, digging them out with its paws and eating them straight from the ground. Some part of it knew things weren’t right, but it assumed it was the festering open sores in its side, and not the meal.

After it had dug up what it could, it moved on, looking for something else to eat.

**

“Look, bones.” Ciri kicked over a bundle of them, chunks of fur still clinging in some places.

“He’s out here somewhere,” Yennefer says slowly, hands held out, the letter tucked into her belt. She had opted to wear men’s clothing and a cap over her hair to make travel easier. The woods were not easy to traverse in her usual gowns. “More of his blood here than anywhere we’ve been other than the tower.”

“Something with white hair rubbed up against a tree here, and it’s soaked in blood,” Dandelion calls softly. He looks around the woods, feeling lost. The sun is high in the sky, they weren’t sleeping much. They rested once it was too dark to make the horses go on, and pressed on the minute the sky turned grey with predawn light. He touched the scratched bark and noted the blood was old. There were signs of a creature living in the area, something large. The fur and blood was around shoulder height. “It’s large, whatever it is. Do we think he’s hunting it and got hurt, or do we think he is it?”

“I don’t know,” Yennefer rubbed at her temples. “He would have left us a trail sign, if he was able. I can’t help but think perhaps it is him. But I haven’t seen any time markers, or evidence of him hiding his tracks, but I never saw him doing that before either. But the ‘beast’ the villagers chased, when we looked around that area… it was sentient. Smart enough to brush away tracks, and build a shelter. There’s none of this here. I don’t know, Dandelion. I don’t know. I won’t know until we find one of them. Or if it’s both in one, him.”

“I found some evidence of marking, look, just like a bear does.”

“Good, Ciri, any blood?”

“Some, the blood doesn’t look healthy. Infection. Geralt’s injured.” There was plenty of it splattering the leaves around the tree marked with deep gouges. She found bits of broken claw just like she might have a cat would leave on a rug. Lifting up a chipped piece, the marks had to have been caused by a claw longer than her fingers.

The monster pricked up its ears when it heard voices. It hadn’t heard humans in ages. It swiveled its ears and prepared to run. The injury in its side was exhausting it, and it gathered itself slowly. It would wait until they were too close to avoid, but it hoped they would go and it could stay. It would hate to give up its warm cave and safe watering hole.

It didn’t understand the speech, or the words they were calling out. It just knew the cry was sad, and lonely, and it lay there in the detritus, knowing somewhere in its monster’s heart, the cry hurt.

“Geralt! Geralt are you out there? Geralt! We’ve come to find you, please call out if you can hear me us!” Dandelion shouted at the top of his voice. He was able to be far louder than either Ciri or Yennefer.

Ciri continued to look for tracks, and finally realized she was seeing them. Five deep even punctures, long claws that couldn’t be retracted. It would be painful to walk on anything but loose dirt, where the claws would provide traction. She followed them to a cave and to her shock saw something glinting in the back.

Drawing her sword, she cautiously swept forward. “I see something!” she called back behind her, hoping that she was about to find one of Geralt’s daggers, or something that would indicate he was alive and well.

The leaves littering the cave floor were covered in white hair and blood and reeked of infection. The creature was sick. Badly injured. Or… Geralt was badly injured. She carefully sifted through the leaves and came across a torn leather pouch. It wasn’t Geralt’s, but it meant a human had been here. The pouch was shredded and the strap broken. In the mess of the pouch she found scraps of black cloth. “Geralt.” She sheathed her sword and stepped closer to the small pool of water and almost fainted in a mix of relief and horror when she saw his medallion lying there on the ground. “Yennefer! Dandelion!” Her voice was not as loud as the bard’s, but she could still scream.

The monster’s ears twitched. The humans had invaded its home. A low growl rumbled through it and it snuffled miserably. It was in no shape to fight them out. Its home was lost, again. But it was sick of being forced out of its home by other animals, and it had found a good spot and it didn’t want to leave. Aching and pained, it heard the continued howling and babbling of the humans and dragged itself up, prowling around the edges of the clearing around its cave. It didn’t want to be seen early, but humans were weak prey, perhaps it could scare them off or win the fight. If they didn’t have the things that would stick in him and hurt him so badly.

“His medallion, look!” Ciri held it up with trembling hands.

“Oh, he never takes that off, not ever,” Dandelion moans softly. “Oh, the thing ate him! It isn’t him, he was here hunting it, and he got eaten!”

“Don’t be dramatic,” Yennefer snapped. “It isn’t bloodied. It was kept in a bag wrapped in the scraps of his shirt, look.” She lifted up the black fabric scraps and the remains of the leather satchel. “This cave is filled with his blood all over the leaves,” she lifted up a few. “He’s been camping here.”

Ciri edged towards the front of the cave and froze. “Yennefer,” her voice was tight.

A smallish human, female. Another small human female, and a small male. Nothing that should be too troubling. It didn’t see any of the sharp implements that hurt it so much earlier.

“What?”

“Come here, please, look, do you see it, too?”

“See what?” the sorceress snapped impatiently, holding her hands out to try and sense more blood. There was more, something near the cave mouth. She got up and went over to Ciri and peered out over her shoulder, hands held up in front of her. “I….” she croaked. “I see… Geralt? Geralt is that you? Step into the light, come here, I can’t undo the curse if you won’t come over….”

The beast in the woods growled at her and slunk forward, teeth bared. Saliva ran over its jaws in thick ropey strands. White fur covered its body and it walked with an odd mix of all legs and just the back two, giving it an odd lolling gate.

“He’s injured… its? Mamma… is… is that Geralt?”

“Dandelion, get out of the cave, we’ll corner him in there. Or it. We’ll find out in a moment but be out of the way. Ciri, can you circle back behind it, keep it from running?”

“His eyes…. That’s… that’s got to be him….” her voice came out as a hoarse whisper. But she gathered herself. “Yes, I’ll flank him, he’s hurt badly.”

Dandelion stepped out of the cave and swore. The creature in front of him flinched and growled, peeling its lips back from bloody pink gums to bare sharp white fangs. “Geralt?” his voice came out as a whimper. “Oh, Geralt. Fuck. Yennefer it’s Geralt.”

The monster wasn’t sure what the noises meant, but they still sounded sad. A wolf with no pack. It rested a front paw on the ground, leaning heavily. Its breaths came out short and sharp, side aching. It flared its nostrils wide, taking in their scent. One smelled like ice and something else it didn’t understand. The other smelled like flowers in the meadow, and the smallest of them smelled like the sea and something it couldn’t place. Something familiar. They all smelled familiar but the monster didn’t know humans. It had always been this way, always alone, and always terrifying to behold.

When the dark haired one lifted its hands he flinched and snarled, gnashing his teeth at her. He could remember curls on his fingers. Other than he’d never had fingers. The other one, the one breathing hard and whimpering made noise. Beautiful noise with his hands and mouth. But the small one, the small one was his. He rushed the first one, he would chase them out and the odd feelings would stop. So would the odd images in his head.

Yennefer stepped aside when he charged, she had seen the muscles in his body tense. Dandelion was right, she could feel the magic, the curse was active and changing constantly. When his first charge didn’t work, he tried to circle back but Ciri had closed in on him and shouted, waving her arms widely behind him and Dandelion joined her, cutting off his other avenue of escape. Between the three of them blocking his way he roared in frustration and then ran into the cave, trying to defend the entryway.

Ciri brought out his medallion, holding it out to him, and he backed away, whimpering from them, the silver burned. The monster remembered the silver burned. It wanted nothing to do with them. When he made to charge them again the small one drew a blade and slapped at him with the flat of it.

He cowered low, confused, and terrified, pain glazing his eyes. It was so hard to breathe and all the exertion the humans were causing was making it even harder to get enough air. He hadn’t been eating well, barely able to hunt, and while he had done his best to pull the arrowheads from his side or to rub them against a tree and force them out, he couldn’t. The infection kept his skin hot and rotted the fur around the wound.

“Geralt, it’s me,” Ciri told him quietly.

Geralt meant nothing to him. Neither did the sounds. But the voice was kind, and he hoped that perhaps they would simply kill him quickly.

Yennefer pressed in on his other side, “this is badly infected, and has been. If he was gone at least a month before we started looking, and it’s taken us at least another one to find him… they shot at him near two months ago, it’s a miracle he’s alive.”

Fear and pain dropped him to his side, and he whimpered once, letting his head drop to the leaves, feeling them tickle against his muzzle. Drool slowly began to cover the ground under his head and he waited for them to kill him.

“Let me see, Geralt, let me see it, I can help,” she said in her best attempt at a soothing voice. “Ciri, I don’t think he’s lost all the fight in him yet. Help me. Dandelion? Get our packs, we’ll need them. Also, firewood.”

Yennefer jumped back just in time as he lunged and snapped at her, and he would have taken off her arm if she hadn’t been waiting for him to attack her.

Dandelion came back in to see Geralt lying on his side, wheezing, tongue lolling with his eyes rolling in panic in his head. “What did you do to him?”

“Nothing, he tried to attack me and he keeled over,” Yennefer said brusquely.

“Yen, he’s starving,” Ciri said softly. She tried approaching him, hands out, and he lifted his muzzle and snapped at her, growling savagely.

“There’s food in the packs, Dandelion, get out all of it.”

“Will that work?” he asked quietly, dropping the packs to the ground immediately and starting to dig out their travel rations. They had dried meat, hardtack, hard cheese, and they had stopped by a small settlement at the edge of the woods and had some root vegetables and a large loaf of slightly stale bread. They had eaten the other loaves already.

Ciri wasn’t listening, she grabbed up the cheese, meat, and bread, watching Geralt as his nostrils flared and pupils dilated slightly at the sight of food. He licked his chops and continued to pant, lying there and staring at the food. He watched her, watched her hands, and when she lightly tossed a bit of meat he opened his jaws and snapped it up, gulping it down before it could be taken.

He startled when he looked at her next and she was closer, the fur rising up along his back and shoulders and he growled again, a low warning growl. Then the small one held up another piece of meat and lightly tossed it to him, and he snapped that up, as well. There wasn’t enough to fill his belly, not by a long shot, but the girl had more. The blonde girl. The one who smelled familiar. She threw him another piece and then stepped closer. He kept his hackles up, teeth bared after he ate the next piece.

Before he knew it, she was within biting distance, and held up a piece of cheese. He couldn’t recall the taste of it, but the sight and smell made him drool.

“Ciri, be careful,” Yennefer whispered, worried. “Dandelion, get us firewood, and we’ll try and set some snares, he needs to eat more. Although if we could shrink him back down to his usual size, we won’t need as much food… the… the little settlement, they were… a few hours out? Can you make it there for more food and back? Take my palfrey to carry the food, and ride Roach down, don’t take Pegasus. I know you don’t want to leave him, but I can create a spell to keep him from leaving the cave… and it won’t stick if I’m not here to hold it. Can you go?”

“Already leaving, but firewood first?”

“Please,” she said, watching those yellow eyes in the dim light of the cave. They had an odd sheen and she imagined if he’d been human, he would have burned with fever. She could smell the rot in his side. He was near the size of a horse, and she wasn’t sure how much it would take to feed him, but she could feel the edges of the curse, but not the conditions.

The bard stepped out quickly, rushing about to gather up wood. The sooner he left the sooner he could come back. And perhaps they would have made some progress with Geralt in his absence. They had healing supplies with them, they had anticipated he would be hurt. Just, not like this. They had never anticipated this.

Ciri got a little closer, holding out the rest of the cheese. He tipped his head up and his tongue flicked out to grab it, and he swallowed the chunk whole. She was close enough to rest a hand on his muzzle, but she didn’t. She could see the way he kept trying to watch both her and Yennefer, fear making his rib cage flutter as he fought to breathe. “Oh, Geralt,” she said softly. “We’re here now, we’ll fix it.” She tore the loaf of bread into chunks and sat, letting the pieces rest in her lap. She held out another one and he took it from her.

After the last chunk was devoured, she slowly reached out to touch his muzzle. “This isn’t right you know,” she told him quietly, watching as Yennefer held her hands out, brow furrowed in concentration. He flinched away from her, but she ignored it, gently stroking the damp white fur.

The noises she made almost made sense, like a forgotten memory. The food in his belly wasn’t enough, but it was different than the raw meat and whatever he could dig up and scarf down.

“Mamma, please bring me the rest of the food,” she said quietly, idly stroking the fur between his eyes. “He’s still hungry.” Ciri watched some of the fight go out of his body, paws curling as he lay there. His ears swiveled around tracking Yennefer as she moved around the cave. The panting got worse as Yennefer moved, but eased when she was back in his line of sight.

“I can’t imagine he’ll enjoy hardtack.”

“No one enjoys it, that isn’t the point,” Ciri sniffed, and then carefully fed Geralt the rest of their food supplies. He was exhausted, she could tell. He reminded her of her grandfather’s hounds after too long of a hunt. Too tired to rest. She kept up the gently stroking and leaned forward to touch his leathery ears. They were soft and warm, and his eyes closed when she started gently stroking them. Yennefer moved again, shoes scraping on the floor and his eyes opened, and he snarled again, wheezing after. “It’s alright, you’re alright,” Ciri promised him, scratching the top of his muzzle and then the rough hair of his cheeks before moving under his chin. The fur was soaked in spittle but she didn’t mind. It was Geralt. The yellow eyes closed in pleasure and she kept it up as his body slowly relaxed and eased.

Yennefer put her hands over his wound, and he opened one eye to stare, dragging his lip back over his teeth to show her their sharpness.

“Geralt, it’s alright,” Ciri said softly, and the words almost had meaning. His ears flicked forward to her and she smiled at him. “Do you want me to keep talking to you?”

Yennefer watched carefully, and then gently laid her hands on his side, feeling the heat and swelling radiating from the wound. The initial injury had to be somewhere in the middle of his ribs, but it had radiated from shoulder to flank and her heart dropped. He was very ill. Dangerously ill. Half starved, he didn’t have what he needed to fight off the infection that was killing him.

His skin twitched and rippled under her palms, and she felt tears slide over her cheeks. They could save him, it would be even easier to do it if they could turn him back. “True love often breaks curses,” she tells Ciri quietly. “Can you keep him calm while I come around to his head?”

“You plan to kiss him on the mouth?”

“No, the forehead,” Yennefer told her dryly.

Ciri stuck out her tongue impudently and continued to let her hands smooth the thick white fur under her palms. “I imagine you’re exhausted. You’ve been running a while, and you’re hurting badly. I’m sorry Geralt. I’m sorry we didn’t find you sooner. You can understand me, can’t you? I want you to understand me.”

Yennefer knelt down at his head and gently started stroking his fur. “I love you,” she told him gently. “Even when we’re fighting, or I’m angry, I always love you. I always will. We always love each other.” She leaned over him and ignored the way his lips peeled back from his gums and kissed him gently on the top of his head, feeling the coarse fur brush her lips. She pulled away, tears dripping down her cheeks to soak into his fur. “Oh Geralt, what kind of curse weas this? Can you talk to me? Can you understand us?” There was a catch in her voice and she hated it.

Both she and Ciri waited with bated breath, and Ciri sighed when nothing happened. Tears ran down her cheeks when she realized Geralt wasn’t miraculously changing back. They sat with him, stroking and comforting him until it started to get cool.

Yennefer gathered up leaves and the firewood and started a fire. Geralt had started to tremble and she knew he was going to need help staying warm. The fur didn’t seem to be doing him much good. Not with the illness such as it was. It was obvious he had tried to get the arrowheads out, but she could see part of the shaft of one still sticking out. He had probably driven them deeper in, dangerously close to his lungs.

She planned to wait until Dandelion got back before she attempted to pull the arrows out and start any of the healing process. They would need to boil water and prepare bandages and two sets of hands wouldn’t be enough.

Ciri kept up a steady stream of chatter, and Yennefer gasped in surprise when Geralt nodded his head to something she said. Ciri looked up at her in shock, and then kept talking, her words speeding up with an almost frantic edge. He didn’t seem to know what she wanted from him when she tried asking him questions.

“Let him rest, Ciri, let him sleep, he’s exhausted.”

They kept vigil together, hands gently smoothing the matted white fur on his head and chest. Dandelion came back before full dark, laden with bags of food and more bandaging.

Geralt woke up at the sound and with raised hackles, snarling and growling, he staggered up on all fours, backing himself into the wall of the cave.

“Stop!” Ciri said quietly, holding her hands up. “Geralt, it’s me, you know me, it’s Ciri. I’m your destiny. Geralt, do you remember? I’m your destiny. Tell me, nod, something, but tell me you understand. Do it!”

“Ciri,” Yennefer said softly, putting a hand on her shoulder, not expecting Geralt to respond. But instead he whined low in his throat and ducked his head, ears flattening and tail curling up between his legs. He bobbed his head lightly and stepped closer to her, snuffling her shirt and allowing her to pet him and scratch him around his neck and under his chin.

“He understands,” Dandelion said softly, voice awed.

“Feed him,” Yennefer told him immediately. “We need to feed him,” she added. Perhaps the bard was his true love, perhaps the bard would break the spell.

Dandelion pulled a roast chicken he’d purchased specifically for Geralt. He unwrapped it from the linen it had been wrapped in. Carefully, he edged in until he could hand Geralt the food. Dandelion jumped when Geralt carefully took it from him, mindful not to bite his hands. “Oh sweet Melitele, is that really him? Is that really you? Oh, Geralt. You’re so large, how can we possibly keep you full?”  He bravely put out a hand and let Geralt snuffle his palm, smiling when he received a lick for his troubles. “I love you so much,” he smiled. It was easy to step in closer and he wrapped his arms around Geralt’s neck, kissing his cheek.

“Fuck,” Yennefer said softly, she had hoped. She had hoped so much that if it wasn’t her it would be Dandelion. They could worry about the curse once they cleaned out his wounds, at least. She would figure out how to undo it, since true love wasn’t going to do it, or he hadn’t met his yet.

“What?”

“I had hoped that would break the spell.”

“Geralt,” Ciri smiled. “Come lie down, let us see your side, it hurts right?”

Dropping his head, he let the words wash over him. He could mostly understand now. ‘Geralt’ still didn’t mean anything to him, but ‘hurt’ was a word he knew. He laid down where he was, unwilling to get too close to the flames.

“You’re so big,” Ciri mumbled, smoothing hands over his skull. “I wish you were smaller, like you were. Do you remember? Geralt? Do you remember being human?” she asked gently. “You were a good size, the proper size for a witcher. The perfect height for hugging,” she added.

“Ciri, whatever you do, keep talking, don’t stop,” Yennefer told her quietly. “Don’t stop.”

“When I was younger I barely came up to your waist, and you put me up on your shoulders in Broklin, do you remember? You called me a brat and threatened to belt me if I wouldn’t behave. Your shoulders are a little broader than Dandelion’s, do you remember? But strong. You’re so strong. And we can take care of you better if you were back to your usual size.” She felt his head start to shrink under her hands, and her breath caught in her throat only for tears to pour over her cheeks when she saw he wasn’t changing, just shrinking some. When he finished, he still looked the same, he was still covered in fur, and still barely resembled a human in the loosest sense possible.

“That’s better,” Yennefer told her.

“How do we change him back?”

“I don’t know, Ciri, but first we have to make sure he doesn’t die.”

It took them half the night to cut away the putrid flesh to allow Yennefer to pull the arrowheads out of the festering wounds they’d created. Geralt had snarled, snapped, and made pitiful attempts to attack them the pain was so bad. It was clearly he didn’t quite know them and didn’t understand all the words they said to him. When they tried to return his medallion, he whined and whimpered, drawing back with his hackles up and tail between his legs.

They stayed with him a week in the cave before they gained any more ground. Keeping the wounds clean and clear of infection had been near impossible, and he had gotten sicker and sicker with each day that passed. It was terrifying, wondering if they would lose him without him ever knowing who they were or who he was. They would have tried his elixirs but since he was nothing like himself, they didn’t know how they would react with his body chemistry and they might kill him immediately.

Dandelion made routine trips down the mountain and back to bring up more food and supplies. They kept Geralt fed, and as comfortable as they could. The next bit of progress was made when he curled up between his lovers’ bedrolls. After that, he started to respond to his name, and would nod or shake his head.

Yennefer made little to no progress on the curse other than to say it was still active and adapting and she wasn’t sure how to break it yet, it was too flexible. Geralt was also still incredibly weak and sick, and prone to pacing until he was panting too hard to breathe and would simply lay on the cave floor, wheezing until he fell asleep again. They were all miserable.

Ciri woke up, unsurprised to feel Geralt’s bulk pressed against her back. She rolled over and wrapped an arm around his neck. “You were human like us, you know,” she told him softly. She tickled his ear, watching it twitch away from her touch. “You had ears like mine. And hands I could hold. Hands that could hold me. I miss that. You weren’t covered in fur either. I used to brush your hair, do you remember? I would brush it and oil it and keep it clean. You won’t let us bathe you,” she wrinkled her nose. “Even though you need it. You make a very smelly whatever you are. I think if you had less fur it would help.” When she reached up to tease his ear again, it wasn’t there, and she sat up to look and saw a human ear nestled in all the fur, hairless and pale, just like it had been before.

When Yennefer and Dandelion woke next, they immediately noticed the change and monitored him for others, but saw nothing other than perhaps less fur, but they couldn’t be sure. He was docile at almost all times, even when having his wounds poked at.

“Geralt,” Ciri started one night, tickling the pads of his paws, pushing her fingertips against the blunt claws at the ends. “Do you ever miss holding hands? I think I would. I miss training with you, so even if you don’t miss holding hands, do you think you miss holding a sword?”

She gasped when the claws against her fingertips melted away and the pads of his paws followed after, fingers elongating as his hands became human. He flexed them in wonder, he couldn’t recall what he had looked like or felt like before. He barely knew himself, but hands made it far easier to eat. Exhausted, he fell asleep and didn’t wake until the next morning.

When he felt tapping against his teeth he woke up and tried not to snarl. It was just Ciri.

“These are ridiculously large, you know, they don’t even fit in your mouth, Geralt. What kind of idiot mage cursed you with these? It makes no sense, you can’t close your mouth, you drool all over your fur… you’re very messy.” She opened her mouth and pointed, “These are what your teeth should look like,” she informed him. “Your whole head should look more like mine,” she added. “I don’t see what the fur adds, either, if I’m being honest.”

She wasn’t surprised this time when magic crackled and swirled around him as his teeth and jaw shrank, his muzzle flattening into his skull to form an almost human jawline.

More days passed and none of her suggestions took. His memory seemed to be coming back and while he couldn’t speak, he could write, fingers in the dirt. They communicated well enough, until one day he just stopped.

When they went to bed he was there, and when they woke up, he was gone.

They split up to find him, he had remembered to hide his tracks. Ciri found him some time well after midnight.

“Geralt? Don’t run, please don’t go.”

“Ciri,” his voice grated from his throat. “Go, just go. Please…”

“Why?”

He had pressed himself against a hollow log, seeking some small shelter from the cold. No fire, nothing. No clothes. He still mostly moved hunched over, rather than upright. He was so ashamed. “I don’t want you to see me like this,” his voice broke.

“I love you,” she said simply. “How you look doesn’t matter.”

“I’m a monster,” his voice broke. He could remember now, all of it. How he had failed them. “The curse didn’t change me, it revealed me,” he told her hoarsely. “The curse was to show my true self,” he whispered, bloody tears trailing over his cheeks. “Go away, Ciri,” he told her more firmly, baring his teeth and lunging at her.

She didn’t move. “No. No, I will not. You can’t make me. You told me once you would always be there for me. We would never be apart. You haven’t done the best of jobs keeping that promise. I’m going to hold you to it, now.”

“Please,” he moaned. “Ciri, you don’t deserve the horror of having someone like me in your life.”

“Horror? The horror?” She slapped him before she could stop herself. “You idiot!” He didn’t make a move to stop her, or to cower away from another strike when she raised her hand again and she stared in shock at what she’d done. “I’m sorry!” She threw her arms around his neck, hugging him tightly and sobbing. “I love you, Geralt, I love you, there’s nothing horrible about you!”

He hesitated before holding her, thinking of the things he had done with his hands recently. Digging around like a boar, ripping rabbits open to eat them raw and bloody. He shouldn’t touch her. “Ciri, I’m a monster,” he told her softly. “Inside and out, I’m… let me go. I… it would be better if I just disappeared.”

“No!” she clung even more tightly to him, tangling her fingers in his fur and hanging on tightly, her tears and snot soaking the fur on his shoulder. His own bloody tears dripped into her hair, staining the strands pinkish red. “You aren’t a monster! You’re Geralt! You’re a witcher, and a mutant, but not a monster! Even if you never change back, even if you look like this forever, you aren’t a monster. Your outside has nothing to do with your inside! You taught me that! You, and Eskel, and Lambert, and Coën. I was so afraid at first, but I know now. I know witchers are just men, Geralt.” She couldn’t keep talking when another sob choked her and she fell silent.  

Her sobs shook her entire body and she clung to him so tightly he had no hope of dislodging her. He shifted as best he could to hold her, and stroke her hair, and soothe her. He didn’t notice when her tears fell on his bare skin, didn’t notice the crackle of magic around him as he worked to hold her better, closer. He wanted to be the man she wanted him to be. He loved her. She was his child surprise.

“Ciri, I… I’m not what you think I am, I can’t be who you want me to be.”

She screamed in rage, shaking her head against his chest, slamming her fists weakly against him as she battered his chest, sobbing harshly. “Don’t leave me!”

He didn’t try to stop her from hitting him, the blows didn’t hurt. And even if they had, he deserved them. He let her vent her rage and fear against him, and ran his forearm across his nose and eyes, trying to clear them. Geralt didn’t notice he wiped tears against his skin, the fur covering his arm gone.

“I’m sorry,” he told her, rocking her back and forth on the forest floor, ignoring the unpleasant sensation of detritus poking into his legs and backside. “I love you, Ciri, I love you. I’ll stay. I’ll stay.”

Yennefer and Dandelion came upon them some time later, the sky grey with the coming dawn.

“Geralt!” Yennefer cried out in shock, rushing forward to drop to her knees beside them, wrapping her arms around them and kissing him hard. He looked at her in shock. He could feel her palms on his cheeks. Feel the scrape of stubble, not fur, on her hands. Her skin was cool against his, like it always was.

Before he could process it, Dandelion was at his other side, holding him tightly and swearing vehemently at him and the whole world. The bard rocked them all back and forth slightly, kissing Geralt’s face, neck, shoulder, and any part of him he could reach without pushing Ciri out of his way.

The bandaging had come loose as his body shifted and changed, and the impact and hugging along with everything else had aggravated his wounds.

“Ciri, Ciri, look, Ciri,” Yennefer stroked her hair, gently pulling her away from Geralt’s chest. “Look, look at him.”

“Oh, Geralt,” Ciri said softly, her voice full of wonder as she stoked his hair, and then his face. “You’re you again,” she hiccupped and sobbed. She ran her hands over his face and hair and shoulders over and over, kissing his cheeks and forehead as she did, frequently bumping heads with either Yennefer or Dandelion who kept touching and kissing him, too.

When he started to shiver, they pulled away in concern. Dandelion dragged off his cloak and wrapped it around Geralt’s shoulders, as Yennefer and Ciri went to get the horses. Dandelion helped him to his feet, tucking the cloak around him tightly. He held Geralt as the sun rose, glad to have him back.

Geralt had near forgotten how to walk like a man, much less ride, in the months he’d spent living as a beast. With a little help from the poet, he was able to mount up when Yennefer returned with Ciri and their mounts. They would get near the edge of the settlement and find him something to wear until they could go home.

He had agreed in spite of his deep fear, to allow Yennefer to portal them to Vengerberg after, and to begin his recovery in earnest there. His wounds would need further care, and he needed time to rest. He was exhausted. But he was home. And returned to the people who loved him.

[chvrrystvles]

Falling Again

Harry is falling apart and Y/N can't stop crying.

Summary: After a rough breakup, Harry wrote Y/n a song and he hopes she listens.  

Warnings: Angst, smut

Word count: 2.7k

A/n: Well this happened... kind critiquing is always needed, and appreciated.

Harry’s hands shook slightly and the ice in his drink rattled around with every bounce of his leg. He stared out into the crowded bar searching everywhere for those mesmerizing eyes he had once stared so deep into. He had messaged her last week and asked her to come, he thought it might bring her some closure, and maybe bring him some peace of mind. More than likely she wouldn’t show up, but somewhere in the back of his mind he had hoped that maybe she would find it in her heart to come, even just for a second.

She had woken up to a text around ten in the morning on a Saturday, she could’ve sworn her heart stopped beating and her breath caught in her throat. She eyed the message suspiciously, it wasn’t like Harry to message her after what went on between them. And it definitely wasn’t like Harry to want to see her again after breaking her heart into a million pieces, he felt guilty, she knew that. But, how could she deny him a chance to explain himself, she wasn’t as cruel as she should be to him. She believes everyone deserves a second chance, even Harry.

Harry paced back and forth behind the curtains, the show started in five minutes and he wasn’t able to eye the crowd in search of her anymore. He could hear the announcer begin to introduce him and his band. Throwing his guitar strap over his shoulder, he stepped onto center stage and waited for the curtains to open and the lights to shine out on the audience.

He waited for the claps to die down. Harry cleared his throat, “I wrote this one ‘bout a girl whose heart I broke, and I dunno if she’s ‘ere but, if she is I hope she knows, ‘m lost without ‘er.” He eyed his band mates and a simple piano melody began to play, he held his head low and began to sing.

He felt lost without her beside him every night, and every note he sang made him feel a little less lonely on the almost empty stage. His voice wavered in the first verse, he was terrified; was she here?

The sound of his voice bounced off the walls of the crowded bar and people began to perk their ears up to listen. Every ounce of hurt that he had caused himself was being shared with these people who were mostly strangers. He had to share this part of himself though, what if there was a slim chance that she had decided that showing up was a good idea; he couldn’t sing the song with anything but every broken piece of him.

She sat in the back sipping on a coke and rum, Harry’s favorite. While they were together Harry was often seen with a glass full of the same drink Y/n was now sipping on. Call her pathetic but, it was a little habit she couldn’t drop. Something about how the liquor made its way down her throat, burning all the while, brought her comfort, and made her think of him; most times when Y/n was sober it was too hard to think of Harry.

Her eyes were low, full of sleep and her tight red dress now seemed a little too tight. Maybe it was just because the sweaty bodies around her created a thick cloud and made her skin feel damp, or maybe because she knew that this dress was his favorite. Either way, her red dress, felt entirely too tight.

Her head turned swiftly at the mention of his name, and there he stood in all his glory, beautifully broken and it was his fault. Was it wrong of her to think he looked more perfect than he ever did, maybe so, but god did he look amazing. Her entire world stopped, he had written a song for her, about her, to her.

Harry didn’t let his eyes meet the crowd until he began to sing the chorus, letting every ounce of hurt flow through every verse. He thought she hadn’t come, but he’d still sing like she had, like he had something to prove to her. He had lost himself when he lost Y/n, he wanted her to know that. That every night when tried to shut his eyelids and fell away into a world of dreams, she was there, haunting him in the most brilliant of ways. A ghost of who she was before he broke her, floated around in these film type dreams, he wished he could bring that girl back. He wished he wouldn’t have broken her, broken their love.

Tears rolled down her face, her beautiful Harry, was so, so, utterly destroyed inside. It made her think that maybe he stayed up and had just as many sleepless nights as she had. That thought gave her a dull ache in her heart that she hadn’t felt in nearly six months. Was it wrong of her to walk out on him like she did, without giving him a chance to explain himself?

Regret settled deep within her, and she’d never felt worse than she did in that very moment. It was possible that maybe they were both beautifully broken, and maybe, just maybe, they could be each other's fix.

Harry let his eyes linger for just a little while longer on the crowd, searching aimlessly for those eyes. Her eyes. Time seemed to slow down, everything moving slowly around him as he finally found those amazing orbs he had been searching for all night. Y/n was here, she came to his show; she was crying.

The song came to an end and the crowd roared with applause. They liked it, but more importantly, did she? He hoped she understood how lost he was without her and how he was falling out of love with who he was now. Harry had realized the error of his ways, and he hoped that it wasn’t too late.

After they had finished the rest of their songs, and the curtains closed, Harry and his band mates stepped off the stage and began putting up their instruments.

Nothing had ever hurt worse than Harry accepting that writing some silly song, about how sorry he was, would not have Y/n falling back into his arms. For once, he let the tears roll down his face and he had no intentions of stopping them. His heart ached.

Y/n watched Harry on the stage pouring out his heart for the past hour and couldn’t stop the quiet sobs that left her lips in the bathroom. After so many weeks begging for him to show vulnerability, he accepted defeat and let an entire crowd of people see how damaged he had been left with after ​she​ left him.

“”arry mate, some chick is lookin’ for ya, she looks a bit upset fo’ sure,’ one of Harry’s band mates said to him in a voice no louder than a whisper. He nodded his head, it was no surprise that she’d come to see him. She was upset, which means she was on the road to forgiving him or this had made her only want to hate him more. And, he wasn’t sure which one he’d be able to accept easier.

She looked beautiful, wearing a red dress, the red dress he’d picked out for her to wear to their Valentine's dinner last February. Her mascara had run down her cheeks staining them lightly with black marks, and her lips looked as though she had continuously bit at them all night. In fact, he knew she had been, he’d been watching her, absolutely captivated by her beauty once again.

He cleared his throat and scratched the back of his neck, “Y/n, ‘m sorry petal, and I know I don’t deserve ya, but at least let me explain m’self, ya deserve tha.” Tears didn’t cease from flowing down her already soaked face, as she gave him a simple nod. Had he lost weight, she noticed his trousers didn’t quite fit the way they used to.

She followed him outside behind the building, the rest of his band was putting the equipment into the trailer and preparing to leave. She wondered if he’d rode with the rest of them here, or had he drove himself. She’d grabbed a cab in order to get here, driving at night wasn’t one of her fortes.

Lingering eyes watched the pair of old lovers, suspicion being raised due to Harry and Y/n not been seen together in quite some time.

Harry began to walk over to what appeared to be his car and beckoned Y/n to follow him, “Thought tha’ maybe we better ‘ave this conversation behind closed doors.” She couldn’t get a word to come out of her mouth so she nodded in hopes that he understood that speaking was much harder for her than it was for him.

Streetlights lit up the inside of his car, and not a word was shared as they made their way down the busy highway. She was familiar with where they were going, she had been there countless times and made memories she’d never forget (she had already tried to, with no luck.) The engine reved one last time as Harry put the car in park and twisted the key. With a knowing look on his face, he gave her the silent option to sit in his car and have the long awaited conversation or sit in the comfort of his home.

Doors were pulled open and others unlocked, and the two broken hearted people made their way inside the building that was home to memories of their failed attempt at love. She sat down at the bar the bordered the kitchen and he began to make them both a mug of tea. For a second, everything felt normal to the both of them, but just as quick as the feeling came, it left, and they were aware of what the reality was.

She stirred her tea, two sugars and light milk, and eyed him carefully. She was the first to speak, “Did you mean it,” she let out an audible gulp, “like, like how you weren’t someone you want around,” her voice quivered. Tears were already forming in her eyes, and she was sure she wouldn’t be able to take it if Harry truly felt this way.

With his back turned to her he let out a muffled cry, he couldn’t look her in the eyes, he wasn’t strong enough anymore to be able to do that. He couldn’t watch her fall apart, just as he was doing. “‘M s-so so sorry pet, I can’t live without ya, I messed up I know tha’ I do. Ya mean the world to me, an’ I don’t know how to fix this.” Y/n let her heart break in pieces again, but this time she hoped that Harry would be the one to put it back together.

Her footsteps could be heard as she walked into the kitchen, “Do you still love me?” She turned him to face her and nearly fell apart at the sight in front of her. Harry’s eyes had turned bright green and bloodshot and tears flowed freely down his pink tinted cheeks. He ​was​ falling apart. His heart raced and he could hear his ears ringing, “‘course I love ya, never loved anyone mo’ than I do you.”

That was all Y/n needed to press her lips firmly to his. His lips tasted salty but were just as soft and inviting as they had been when she kissed him goodbye. She could feel his tears hit her face, but his lips moved in sync with hers. She pulled away for a second and gazed into his eyes. “Then show me you love me.”

That was all Harry needed to pick Y/n up and take her to his bedroom. His left a fiery trail of kisses down Y/n’s neck and suckled softly on the spot at the bottom of her neck that he knew drove her crazy. Y/n couldn’t help but let out a soft moan, which Harry found angelic. Harry smiled softly against her skin, “love you s’much pet, s’much.” He pushed the bedroom door open with his foot and laid her down softly on the bed. “Missed you, button,” he mumbled trying to remember everything about this moment. His eyes were still glossy, but Y/n thought this just made him look even better than he already did.

Y/n pulls her, too tight, red dress over her head and watches Harry do the same with his trousers and some-what see through top. She grabs at him desperate to feel him, in any way possible. His hands roamed her body for the first time in forever and he takes time kissing her body up and down. Harry makes sure to take time leaving little lovebites on Y/n’s thighs, knowing how much she loved them.

“Jus’ do something Har,” she mewled softly, just wanting to be able to really feel him already. He made careful to take time with her body and treat her gently, kissing around the waistband of her light blue panties and down the front, ghosting over her core. He could practically hear the throbbing of her clit, she smelled amazing. Becoming impatient Y/n slips her panties off and tosses them somewhere across Harry’s room, she couldn’t be bothered to look where at the moment. She craved to feel his mouth on her.

After hearing her whine for his mouth, he licked a long stripe up her folds, savoring the way she tasted. He tested the waters more by pushing his tongue inside her and lapping at her inside, moaning softly into her, sending vibrations deep into her core. Her fingers wove themselves into his hair pulling softly with every movement of his skillful tongue. He smirked into her and pulled her, already very sensitive, bud into his mouth and suckled, flicking his tongue against her clit softly. Her thighs tried to close around his head, but his capable hands kept tem spread apart. He eyed her lovingly when he heard her quiet moans and her stating, “‘M close, baby, please.”

Harry toyed with her clit in his mouth and brought his fingers to her core and pushed one in, earning a loud moan from the writhing girl above him. “Taste so good, pet, always so sweet for me,’ he pumped his fingers in and out of her twisting them slightly to hit that one spot inside her that drove her to the edge. He takes her into his mouth again and works her closer to her high. Her moans grew increasingly louder as he worked her through her first orgasm of the night. Harry watches her face screwed shut “That’s it, doll, cum for me.”

This was all Y/n needed to push her to the edge, eyes closed and hands tangled into his hair, she rode out her orgasm on his tongue, feeling ignited on the inside.

She lifted her body up and reached out for Harry’s cock that laid swollen and red against his stomach. He swats her hand away softly, “‘s not about me, angel, jus’ wanted to show you my love.” Y/n could feel her heart melt in her chest, he was giving her the love she had craved for since she left his house after their fight.

Harry crawled up to lay next to her naked body, and pulled her close to his chest. She peppered soft kisses along his skin and paid special attention to each and every tattoo, her eyes felt heavy but she wasn’t quite sure if she wanted to give into sleeping or to just lay next to the man she knew she could not live without.

“Promise me we’ll get through this, together,” she glanced at him with a worrisome expression.

“Always, petal, ‘m not losing you again,’ he left little kisses all over her face until the worried look was replaced by a smile.

Harry knew he didn’t mind falling as long as it was with Y/n, and Y/n knew that being broken with Harry was much better than being broken by herself.

[quillandsaber]

Considering the state of the HP and FB fandoms...

Years ago, when I started A Most Cautious Correspondence, I promised that if I abandoned the story, I’d at least publish what happened between Theseus and Newt that caused the rift between them.  While I’m not saying the story is forever abandoned, I feel like I need to publish something for my own mental wellbeing.

Below the cut is the draft excerpt version of the reveal.  If I ever get to it in the story, don’t expect it to be identical, as I wasn’t entirely sure where I was going to put it.

~~~~~~~~~

"I promised your brother that I would tell him the title of your book once I knew what it was."

Newt's confusion faltered, and that heavy shadow of pain fell over his face.  "Oh."

"Do you want me not to?" Tina asked tentatively.  "I'll write to him and tell him that you asked me not to and let that be that, if that's what you want."

Newt's looked away, mouth twisted, and she was fairly certain he was chewing the inside of his cheek again.  "No, it's all right.  I suppose I never expected he'd be interested in what I'm up to these days.  Things have never been well between us."

Tina steeled herself; it was time to come clean.  "He's told me in May that he punched you in the face the last time he saw you, and that he hadn't talked with you six years before that.  You can tell me it's none of my business and to stop prying, but what happened to make things so bad you won't even open his letters?"

Newt looked down again and blindly reached for her hand.  "It's not prying.  You of all people have a right to know.  But it's not something I've explained in full to anyone before, and I might not get it quite right.  You must understand that none of this is Theseus's fault, not really.

"I was an idiot when I was seventeen," Newt said at last.  "Most people are, I think, but I was particularly stupid. I thought...I thought my heart had been broken beyond repair, my father had cast me out from the family...and then the War started.  It seemed like it was designed for me, like I was to be some kind of character out of a novel who would save their country and die a romantic death in the process.  So I left a short note with Mrs. Wigginthorpe, Apparated off to Toronto to enlist, lied about my age, and was put on a Portkey to Odessa the next day to join the Dragon Corps."

"Dragon Corps?  As in real dragons?"  Tina's jaw dropped.  "But you wrote in your book they couldn't be trained."

"Seventeen wizards and twelve dragons died to prove to the Ministry that they can't, at least not consistently."  A flicker of that deep pain flitted across his face, but he kept going.  "I don't think they expected any of us to survive, or else it wouldn't have been so secretive.  So you see, we couldn't owl from Novorossiya.  Even if there were something we could write about that wasn't top secret, Muggles were shooting down anything that looked like a messenger bird, and the risk of them finding a wizard's letter home was too high.  And Mother..." he swallowed hard, "The family thought I must have died somewhere unaccounted-for.  Maybe that I'd fatally Splinched trying to get to Toronto.  I don't know if Father cared, but it must have been a real blow to Mother.  Maybe to Theseus too; when we last spoke, he seemed to imply my believed fate compelled him to enlist himself and become the war hero he is today."

"But Theseus…" Tina looked over to Newt as the pieces started to click together.

"Yes.  January 1919, after what was left of the Corps had found refuges for what was left of our dragons.  We had to go to temporary headquarters in Paris to receive our official cover stories--boring Ministry clerk-work, that sort of thing.  I don't know why Theseus was there, but he promptly broke my nose to confirm I wasn't a ghost and told me that the family had been mourning me for years because I'd been too self-absorbed to ask my commanding officer to inform my family of the no-write order or to write while I was on leave. And it seemed so inadequate to try to explain that I hadn't written when I could because at first I thought I wouldn't live very long and there wouldn't be a point to it, and then when I realized I might see the end of it all there didn't seem to be a good time to start writing."  Newt took a deep breath and sighed.  "The last thing he told me before walking away was that Father had the right idea casting me out, because I cause the family nothing but trouble.  So I decided to stop causing them trouble."

"Oh, Newt…"

"I do occasionally think about trying to write to Mother," he said with forced lightness.  "I think, of all of them, she'd be the least angered by me trying.  And I've kept the letter you enclosed if I ever get the courage to find out exactly how angry Theseus still is with me.  But after so many years it seems like all it's likely to do is cause more pain for all of us."

[d-l-dare]

“Near Existence”

The imagination is a powerful thing. You can dream up worlds of great fantasy, create characters that you can easily fall in love with or hate. You can do anything and be anywhere your heart desires. But sometimes your imagination can play tricks on you. It can leave you believing things that couldn't possibly be real.

Being the author of a best selling book is one thing, but having an entire series that's sold more copies than you even dreamed possible is a feeling completely different. It is one that, ironically coming from a writer, is hard to describe. It's like all the hard work you put into a silly little something you enjoyed every moment of creating, suddenly sprouted wings and flew off to a crowded city of admiration.

Going around to book signings is something I enjoyed, though I wasn't much of a people person. Big crowds make me incredibly anxious, and the fact there were so many people supporting me on a dream I've attached myself to since I was a kid was about to bring me to tears, didn't help the situation. But no matter what life threw at me in the wake of my success wouldn't stop me from enjoying every moment of it.

Even the nerve wracking phone call I'd just received wasn't going to ruin my fun. I'd just got off the phone with my agent. She said I needed a new book in my series to be finished and mailed in by the end of the month. I was relieved because I still had three weeks left. I was also terrified because I'd have to write quickly and do a rewrite for a final draft before mailing it in. It would almost seem doable, if not for the fact that I had no plan for this book. I'd just got back from a short vacation I'd taken my family on from all the money I earned off my books. I had no time to plan.

I paced back and forth in my small writing room in my apartment, trying to come up with a concept. It didn't take long to come to the conclusion that this book would be a filler. I'd load the book up with a bunch of killings from my main character, the Unseen Killer. I'd then sprinkle in a little bit of a plot that I'd further explore in the next book.

My next thought was, who should be the first death? I figured in order to do some quick writing, I need to base it on people I actually know. I knew just who it'd be, my mother. She told me when we were on vacation that she wanted to be in a book. What better way to honor her than to make her the first victim in the newest book? She'd be ecstatic.

I sat down and began to write. I had her on front of the kitchen counter, making a quick snack for herself before bed. A peanut butter sandwich. She finishes spreading the peanut butter on the slice of bread when she hears heavy footsteps coming up from behind her. He brings his axe over his head and slams it down over her head.

After the graphic scene I'd created in the book, I figured I should call my mom. It was probably from the guilt I felt from killing her off. The phone rang for a few minutes before it went to voicemail. I hung up the phone. She must be asleep. I didn't want to keep calling and wake her up, so I followed suit and crawled into bed.

*** I awoke to my phone buzzing. I glanced over and turned the screen on, squinting hard to read what it said. I had several missed calls from my sister. I sat up and dialed her right back.

"Hey sis, what's going on?" I asked, my voice groggy from the slumber.

She responded in sobs. "It's mom. She's dead." She began crying louder.

I fell silent, tears beginning to stream down my cheeks. I couldn't help but think back to what I'd written the previous night. There's no way this had to do with what I wrote, I thought, this had to be a coincidence. A twisted one, but a coincidence all the same.

"Are you still there?" she asked, sniffling.

"Yeah, I'm still here." I replied. "Where are you?"

"I'm outside of her house," she said. "The police won't let me inside to see her."

I told her I'd be right there and headed out the door. I had to continue wiping tears from my eyes as I made my way to her.

After meeting up with her, I took her to get some coffee. She told me everything she knew about how she died, which wasn't much, between sobs. I kept reminding myself of the story I wrote. I know what I wrote didn't cause it, but I couldn't help but feel guilty for it. We shifted the subject of conversation to the good times we'd spent together and scrolling through the pictures we took on vacation and laughing. It made us feel a little better.

As we were about to go our separate ways, she asked me if she could stay the night with me. She was afraid that what happened to mom might happen to her. And she didn't want to be alone right now. I know I didn't either. We needed each other more now than we ever have.

*** It had been a few days since our mother's death. Her funeral was yesterday. My sister and I felt it was time to go our separate ways and continue our lives as normal. We had grown closer the last week. We agreed that if anything happens we'd call each other and let them know.

I was reminded that the deadline for my book to be finished was drawing nearer. I needed another person to kill off in my book. I knew exactly who I'd base it on. He was an old school bully in high school. We'd since made up and talk every once in a while online.

I wrote that he would be drinking a beer and watching television. Suddenly, he hears the door swing open behind him. He turns to see the killer swing an axe toward his head and it topples to the floor, along with his body.

It was a little twisted the way I wrote the killer to be. The way he kills his victims was simply by checking to see if their door was locked. If it wasn't he'd go inside, sneak up behind the person, and kill them. I know, it sounds like a cheesy way to get people to lock their doors. It wasn't always meant to be that way, that's the way the character kind of shaped himself.

I mean, this was an oddball book series in general. The main character was the killer. It was supposed to paint the picture of why the person kills. He's not supposed to be some kind of anti-hero, he's just the main character bad guy that somehow always gets away with it. That's why they call him the "Unseen Killer" because he never gets caught.

With all of this in mind, I drifted off to sleep, knowing that the book I was in the process of writing was shaping up the be the best one I'd written yet.

*** The next morning, I found myself thinking about Thomas, the guy I wrote about last night. After writing about my mom and her ending up dead, I was worried about him. I got onto my social media account and scrolled through his page with the intent to message him. I was about to click the message icon when I caught a glimpse of a post that someone had made and tagged him in. I skimmed through it and saw that he had died last night. Apparently he was murdered but nobody could prove it.

I staggered back and when I felt my back hit a wall, I found myself sliding down to the floor. I was lost in shock. This was impossible, how could the exact two people I'm writing deaths for, die on the same night I write about them? There's no way this could be a coincidence. I got in my car and made my way to the police station.

*** I stood before a cop at a police station, begging for them to listen to me. I told them about the stories I'd written lining up with two deaths. They rolled their eyes.

"So what are you trying to tell us?" the cop asked from behind his desk. "Are you suggesting that the killer in your stories came to life and killed these people?"

"No," I replied, scoffing. "I'm saying... I don't know. Maybe someone hacked into my computer and looked at the story as a motivation to kill people."

"Do you realize how ridiculous you sound right now?" he said, leaning forward, his elbows on the table. "What would the hacker be after anyway, trying to get your book promoted?"

I rolled my eyes and walked away. If they weren't going to listen to me, there's only one other thing I can try.

*** That night after getting home from grabbing food at the nearest burger joint, I propped open my laptop and began to write.

This time the story was about a man, sitting home alone. He was in the kitchen, typing away on his laptop. He heard the door creak open but paid no mind to it, he was lost in the story he was writing. He hears footsteps creaking behind him. He feels the wind off the axe as the killer raised it above his head.

I was about to type up the next line when I felt hot breath on my neck. I turned around and to my surprise, there was nothing.

"FINISH IT!" a voice boomed behind me. I knew this was it. The killer was behind me. The Unseen Killer. I now knew why he was never caught. He was invisible. I figured I could run and call the police, but how were they going to arrest someone they couldn't see?

I realized with terror, the only thing left to do was finish the story.

"The killer swung the axe down on the man's head with all his might, burying the hatchet in his head."

[arolla-pine]

I, Marinette - p.6

(6) – Paris at night

“I’ve always wanted to come to Paris…” I sighed when I entered Marinette’s balcony in the evening. “I can’t believe that when I’ve finally come here, I’m doing all I can to go back home… Irony, don’t you think?” I asked Tikki that approached to me and sat down on my shoulder.

Dusk descended surrounding me with a warmth of the evening. In the Miraculous universe the weather was always nice – except one meaningful rainy afternoon and some Stormy Weather’s follies. I stared at the street below seeing so many people rushing somewhere. Just another day… I looked up at the illuminated Notre Dame cathedral. It was surrounded by scaffolds and little by little it recovered its previous shape. I couldn’t believe I hadn’t taken the opportunity to see it inside, when I had a chance…

“You haven’t been here yet? Really?” kwami asked.

“Only once. It was a business trip. Very short. Two years ago, in January… I was very sick then…”

“It’s a pity…”

“Oh, and it was like a winter storm then…” I remembered. “You know, just in case I wanted to see anything… But I managed to capture w beautiful picture of the Eiffel Tower. Snow only highlighted its patterns…”

I got lost in my thoughts. I remembered my evening walk – just like those people right now – alongside the Seine just to see the Notre Dame cathedral two years ago. I’d been so sick that I didn’t visit it inside deciding to do it next time. By the way I was looking for Marinette’s house somewhere around. Now I was sitting on the rooftop of this house and I could watch the cathedral all I wanted. I expected to see the Eiffel Tower eventually, because somehow most of Ladybug and Cat Noir’s fights ended there…

“Do you think Marinette is doing well?” I asked.

“As Lena?” Tikki made sure.

I nodded. Suddenly the emotion overwhelmed me when I realised I wouldn’t read my daughter a bedtime story. I wouldn’t hug her tonight… I just thought if I ever… Er, wait a minute! I called myself to order.

“This balcony is depressing!” I discovered.

“What?!” kwami burst out laughing.

“I’ve always wondered why Marinette has so many depressing thoughts, and now I began wondering if I ever come back home…”

“You miss your family, don’t you?”

“I can’t even find right words to tell you how much. And believe me, I know how to deal with words…”

“I think Marinette misses her parents too.”

“I’m sure she misses you too.”

“Thank you…” kwami whispered. “You’re so kind…”

“You’re welcome…”

We both went silent for a moment – each in her own thoughts. I was wondering if Marinette would read my daughter a bedtime story, if she’d overcome the panic in a new reality she’d found in the morning. Or maybe she’d spent the whole day in the bathroom?

“I know what you need…” Tikki said.

“Chocolate?” I guessed.

“It could work. Maybe later we’ll try with it. Now I wanted to suggest you a short tour around the city. You could get familiar with Ladybug costume and yo-yo…”

“Brilliant idea!” I agreed happy. I needed to change the place otherwise I could become overwhelmed with nostalgy. “Er… but…”

“You’re scared?”

“I’d be stupid if I wasn’t…” I admitted. “But I was thinking rather about the costume…”

“What’s with it?”

“Isn’t the costume look related to the miraculous holder?” I asked.

“How do you know that?” Tikki was surprised. “Let me guess… You’ve seen it in of the episodes?” she added irritated.

“Y-yeah…” I nodded. There was no need to argue. “I’m afraid that Ladybug’s costume will change if I, instead of real Marinette, transform.”

Kwami looked at me concerned.

“That might be a problem. If anyone notices the difference and combines it somehow with Marinette’s weird acting today, Ladybug’s identity may be revealed.”

“That’s why I asked. Is it possible that if I focus on Marinette’s version of the costume, I’ll get an identical one?”

“It is possible. You’ll never know if you don’t try…”

“OK then. Let’s check… Maybe it’ll better to come back to the bedroom and see the results in the mirror…”

I jumped inside and Tikki followed me. I stood in front of the mirror feeling both amused and excited. That was a moment to feel the Miraculous magic on myself.

“So… See you later…” I whispered to my kwami that winked at me in response. “Tikki, spots on!” I said the spell.

I felt warmth in my ears when Tikki disappeared in the earrings. Then that heat spread over my whole body like someone poured warm water over me. Soon after I saw Ladybug in the mirror, thankfully without any differences in her costume. That would help me in misleading everyone.

“So, we won’t talk anymore, Tik…” I muttered to myself. “You’re on your own, Lena!”

I watched my yo-yo. I remembered from “Oblivio” that I should have some instructions and guidance in my phone. I followed that hint. I read about my weapon, ‘Lucky charm’ and ‘Miraculous Ladybug’ spells. I realised that it would be quite dangerous for myself, my family and whole Paris when I’d get a lucky charm and had no idea how to use it. I kept all my hopes in my creativity which – all-in-all – wasn’t so bad so far…

“Yeah…” I sighed when I stood on the balcony again. “There’s nothing like having fear of heights and use flying as your mean of transport… Fine… Come on, Lena! Do or die…”

I ejected my yo-yo in the direction of the nearest street lantern. Either I’ll get there or I’ll die… The yo-yo twisted around the lamp-post and I felt a tug. I was terrified yet I jumped… And I flew out away. My stomach was somewhere in my throat when I realised how far from the ground I was flying. I passed the lantern where my yo-yo was wrapped. OK, now I was going to die…

To my surprise my wrist did something without my will. It twitched and the yo-yo released from the lamp-post. Still in the air I ejected it again and it twisted around a cornice of the Notre Dame cathedral. Great! Now I was going to ruin what they’d managed to rebuild.

My body acted again without my will – I passed the church instead of smashing myself on its façade. Maybe my theory of body memory wasn’t such a nonsense I thought? That heartened me and I my muscles relieved. I began feeling Ladybug in myself. Or maybe it was Tikki who took the lead?

I stopped on a tree branch at the bank of the Seine. The view was incredible. Actually, I could go everywhere I wanted. I recalled my previous walk there two years ago. I was curious how long it would take to get Louvre if I chose the air track. I remembered last time the way seemed endless because of my sickness and cold. All I wanted was a cup of hot tea with honey and lemon. But today it was warm and nice. And I could take a journey above the Parisian rooftops.

A minute or two later I landed on the roof of the Louvre Palace. I admired the glass Pyramid in the courtyard, the Arc de Triomphe du Carrousel in line with the Arc de Triomphe de l'Étoile. Aside there was the Tuileries Garden that I remembered as covered with snow, now beautifully blossomed. Behind the garden I could see the Place de la Concorde, that I had mentioned in one of my stories – the one I wrote here, by the way. In the distance I saw the illuminated Eiffel Tower revolving the beams like a huge lighthouse.

I was speechless.

Those views were breath-taking. I knew I’d never be able to see it again, because nobody would let me on the Louvre rooftop. I did my best to remember every detail and I hoped that ‘Miraculous Ladybug’ spell wouldn’t take this memory away from me.

I sighed.

And I was about to stand up and to continue running when suddenly I heard a muffled flop behind me. My heart skipped a beat and I turned around quickly.

I saw a pair of sparkling green eyes.

“It looks like you’ve changed a spot, M’Lady…”

---

I, Marinette - p.5  <-  Previous part  |  Next part ->  I, Marinette - p.7

Read the story from the beginning

[cinnamonrollorder]

Nerve Pains

(PROMPT 2 FROM THE GLORIOUS LIST @annikatti cooked up! :D)

Being infected was no fun. Now, one might think that’s an obvious statement. Of course it’s no fun, you’re infected. The thing was that most people who got infected lasted about ten minutes before they were gone. Tangle was an exception, Sonic would guess, as was he. He didn’t know when Tangle got infected, but she had lasted a longer amount of time than anyone else.

He was getting off-topic. Bottom line, no one really experienced the infection. They didn’t get the chance to feel how your skin would just go cold, even when it was fine, or how your thoughts started feeling weird and icky and gross. (No, Sonic, you are NOT going to punch that person, and you are INSTEAD going on a RUN.) They had maybe a little bit of that experience. It didn’t stop for them. Maybe that was worse, since it all happened at once. They didn’t have to feel themselves slipping away bit by bit; they just lost themselves.

The other problem with prolonged infection was when you weren’t feeling nothing, you felt everything. Sonic felt every nerve scream at him, all his organs protesting the very act of living, and all his muscles fighting to just stop functioning. It was like his body collectively decided they’d very much like to be dead. Turns out, basically every part of you turning from flesh to metal to flesh and back again in an endless loop messed with your body.

Sonic sometimes forgot he’d just gone running because his arm felt so cold and dead. It’s not metal, but it feels like it is, and the part that can still feel is burning because it thinks it’s next. He hated it; he hated all of it. He wondered if that was what Tangle felt like.

He wondered if he deserved to feel it.

The telltale twinge in every fiber of his being, like he’d just pulled a muscle stretching and it was about to explode in pain, told him that it was about to happen again. Gritting his teeth, Sonic hurried away from the main room of the carrier. He wasn’t able to go for a run right now. He found a small storage thing, maybe a closet, and went inside. He stayed and waited.

And then suddenly a tidal wave of agonizing pain blazed up inside him.

It had started at his heart, his poor, tired little heart, and rapidly extended to his everything. His hands twitched in uncontrolled energy and pain, clenching and twisting in painful ways. His lungs fought to work, scrabbling for any bit of air they could obtain, and were failing. His legs just gave out. They crumpled like all those pieces of paper that littered Tails’s desk. His head… oh gosh, his head.

The worst part was always with the head.

It was like it wasn’t him right then, it wasn’t Sonic. Part of his thoughts believed that it was over, that he was a zombot and he had to start finding people. It screamed at him to move to go get them but wasn’t strong enough to move his useless limbs. The other half was just panicking, unsure of where he was or who he was or who was around him. He remembered Eggman’s prison cell. He remembered those 6 months of endless torture that he just refused to talk about. Was he trying to stop the ARK? In a book? It was a jumbled mess that all resulted in a nearly irresistible urge to scream.

But Sonic didn’t scream.

He stayed like that until it passed.

-----

Amy, whenever she had the chance, liked to keeps tabs on who was where. It wasn’t often, but it was some sort of comfort in this whole situation. Tails was easy; he was either in his lab or with the survivors. Well, “lab” would be better, as it’s just a small area where Tails wrote endless scientific formulas and sketched some machines until he passed out. Whisper… was always alone. Cream was always with a group, but quiet and looking like she didn’t want to be there. Espio was with everyone else, as was Silver. It wasn’t hard to locate everyone.

Which made her wonder why she could never find Sonic.

She didn’t blame him for always being absent; he had to run almost all the time now. She thought now that everyone was stuck in the carrier that she could easily find him, but it seemed that Sonic was still an expert at avoiding her. A part of her said that she shouldn’t bother with finding him, that she had taken enough of a break and should go back to thinking of plans and checking supplies. The other part said shush the heck up. Amy decided to listen to the latter part.

Since she’d already checked on everyone else (Tails was asleep, and she took a small detour to give him a blanket), she knew where the blue blur wasn’t, at the very least. That left the storage room, the makeshift infirmary, and a few random spots here and there they hadn’t found a use for yet. She checked the storage room first. After all, Sonic might’ve gotten hungry. No one was supposed to take supplies (including food) without express permission, but Amy tried to be understanding.

The only thing in the storage room was what was already there. A bunch of crates and stashes of whatever people could salvage. The room was too orderly to look normal, a side effect of having a bunch of nervous, tense people on board; if there was something to clean, it would be cleaned. That left the infirmary and random spots.

The infirmary was bare, save for one unfortunate survivor who’d twisted his ankle during evacuation, and his wife who was watching him as he slept. Amy briefly paused her Sonic search in lieu of making sure the male was still doing OK. After ensuring all was well, she left.

That left the random spots. Amy wasn’t able to think of why Sonic would be there, but she could ask when she found him. Amy checked two random little rooms before she spotted cobalt blue out of the corner of her eye. She turned and saw none other than Sonic the Hedgehog, looking like he’d been run over by a truck. She would’ve gone to talk to him, but Silver caught her attention. He thought one of the control screens for the aircraft was glitching. Which, to be fair, it was glitching, but it was just from overuse, and Amy fixed it quickly. It did, however, mean that she had to get back to work.

So she let Sonic be, just this once.

------

By the time they actually got to Angel Island, Sonic felt ready to die. He couldn’t feel anything in most of his body, which was a blessing, but that meant the little part that could still feel was on fire. The second he was free, he abused the numbness in his legs to run all of the infection away, until he could remember all the smaller pains that still plagued his body.

His chest protesting the workout and little energy to sustain it, his calloused and probably bleeding feet lamenting the overuse, and his legs shakily trying their best just to keep up from collapsing. Even his arms were tired, and all they did was be arms. He had to keep running, though, he had to keep running.

And so he did.

He ran until finally he was clean and could head back. When he finally got to everyone, though, he felt it again. Had he pulled something during the run? It shouldn’t be happening again so soon. His body didn’t seem to care, though, as he could feel parts of muscles starting to tense and lock up. Sonic hastily retreated back into the cover of trees, hoping no one saw him. He kept going for maybe a minute until his lehs shut down and he fell onto a very fortunate slab of stone. Or, probably a collection of rocks and dirt.

------

Amy had been waiting for Sonic to return, and she didn’t miss it when he did. She’d stood up and made her way over, only for him to get a foggy look in his eyes and run off again. Confused, and honestly a little annoyed, Amy ran after him. He was faster than her, even now, but he didn’t make it far before falling over.

Wait, falling over?

Amy picked up speed and rushed over to the hedgehog’s side. Sonic looked to be having a seizure of some sorts, but also not. He was clearly in pain, and the spotted tiny patches of the virus grow and shrink.

“Sonic! What’s happening?”

He looked at her, as if he hadn’t noticed her run up to him (had he not?). He looked scared, but Amy was more concerned about the clear pain in his eyes. The tears, the bloodshot eyes, and the bags. His pupils were little pinpricks. He opened his mouth, as if to speak, but nothing came out.

Amy’s hands twitched, anxious to hold him and tell him that it was going to be alright. She couldn’t do anything, though.

“Sonic, help me!”

“I can’t!”

Was this what Sonic felt like back then? Useless? In the way? A hindrance? She bit back the wave of uncomfortableness that came with those thoughts. Right now, Sonic was in pain and he needed help.

“OK. Sonic, breathe, OK? In, out. In, out. C’mon, in and out.” She tried to coax him into normal breathing, but it wasn’t working. She could tell that he was obviously trying to, clutching his lungs and focusing so intently on her face, but he just couldn’t. She was no help.

She thought it had been about two minutes until Sonic seemed to recover himself. First, his hands stopped twitching, and the rest of his body seemed to follow suit. Sonic took a deep breath, coughed, and shakily got to his feet.

“A-amy, I can explain,” Sonic said. Amy gave him a concerned stare. “Stuff like this just happens sometimes. It’s alright, though. I can handle it. No need to worry-“

“Sonic, I think it is very obvious that I am going to worry.”

“I know, I know, but I’ve figured it out, so I know when it’s coming and I’ll just go away for a bit.” Sonic gave a shaky smile, as if that made it all better. It did not.

“No! That isn’t OK! What if something happens while you’re gone? We need to know where you are, Sonic.” Amy pressed.

“Heh, if you needed me when I’m like that, then I wouldn’t be of use anyways,” Sonic said bitterly. He seemed to catch himself. “But I’ll… try and go somewhere not too far.”

“That’s something, at least,” she grumbled. “Just promise me one thing.”

“Sure.”

Amy looked at Sonic in the eyes. “Make sure you come back after each one.” Sonic’s eyes widened in surprise.

“Of course.” He said.

That’d be a lie.