#sometimes the past is irrefutably the past alone and the only thing you can do is make peace with that

[marjansmarwani]

beyond the terror of the nightfall

4.5k || ao3

After everything, there is much healing to be done. But comfort can always be found in the ones you love. --- A (very late) 2x13 coda

Did this take me forever? Yes. But I got it done before the new episode and that's what matters. Shoutout to @justaswampdemon for helping me make sense of my own timeline, you’re the best! 

(And am I insane posting this 6 minutes before the 911 episode airs? Probably.)

----------

Things looked brighter in the morning. 

Not only because they had fallen into bed without drawing the curtains when they had finally gotten to a bed in the early hours of the morning, but because of the man laying beside Carlos; face still peaceful in sleep. He couldn’t help but stare; taking in the miracle that was TK’s rhythmic breathing. It was irrefutable proof that he was still there, that Carlos had not lost him in the chaos and fear of the night before.

He lay on his pillow, silently observing and resisting the urge to reach out and touch him for that extra layer of proof. He wanted to feel the warmth of his familiar skin beneath his fingers but he did not want to pull him from this blissful state where maybe he could forget everything that had happened, for a little while. He turned away to avoid the temptation and look around the room, taking in the details that had escaped him the night before. 

Owen Strand’s guest room was sparsely but tastefully decorated and the warm browns of the room were as comforting as any place could be. The bright sunlight streaming in told Carlos that it was well past the time he usually woke up and for a brief frantic moment he thought he must be late for work. But then he remembered that at some point during the seemingly never-ending night one of his coworkers on scene informed him that their captain had ordered Carlos to take at least a few days off and that more leave would be ready for him should he need it. 

He let his head fall back against the pillow with a sigh, closing his eyes as he tried not to think about all of the things that needed to be done. He and TK had nothing now: no home, no clothes, no wallets. Every bit of their life, no matter how important or trivial had been reduced to ash right along with their home. Carlos knew they were lucky to have even escaped with their lives; the very real fact that they almost hadn’t had haunted him since the moment the flames erupted. But now, after, he was able to see around that and consider their way forward; and he knew it wouldn’t be easy. 

The sound of TK stirring beside him pulled Carlos from his thoughts and he rolled over to see his boyfriend slowly blinking open his eyes. He tried for a smile when those eyes landed on him and received an equally unsteady one in return. 

“Good morning,” TK said softly, his voice almost a whisper as if he didn’t want the world to know they were awake yet. 

“Good morning,” Carlos replied, matching the other man’s volume even as he moved closer and pressed a light kiss onto his lips. TK smiled into it, but once they pulled apart and he took a look around at their surroundings his smile faded. 

“I remember it happening,” he said after a moment, his eyes on the sparse furnishings of his dad’s house, “I was just hoping that maybe it was a dream.” 

Carlos hummed his agreement but he slid his hand across the bed to find TK’s. He squeezed it as soon as he found it and TK wound their fingers together in response before he pulled his mind back to the present and turned so he was facing Carlos again. They lay in silence, simply soaking in the presence of each other for a long time before Carlos finally sighed and ran a weary hand over his face. 

“We have so much to take care of,” he lamented, “I don’t even know where to start.” 

“Me neither,” TK agreed, “but we can divide and conquer, I suppose. You’re not alone in this Carlos,” he reminded him earnestly, “We are in this together, 100%.”

Carlos smiled at him as warmth spread through his chest. Their home might be gone but he can’t help but feel lucky that they didn’t lose this, that he didn’t lose him. The tasks before them were daunting and he was already dreading the hours spent on the phone with the insurance company, but knowing that he has TK at his side makes it all just that much more bearable. 

“We do make a good team,” he agreed, watching as TK’s smile grew. 

They lay there for a few more minutes, soaking in the calm silence of the late morning sun and the soothing presence of each other. It’s eventually TK that moves, a groan coming from his lips as he pulls himself up. 

“I suppose we need to actually face this,” he said wryly, “but I’m going to take a shower first. Care to join me?” 

Carlos laughed at his suggestive eyebrows but shook his head, “As tempting as it is,” he told TK, “I don’t think I could knowing that your dad and Mateo are right down the hall.” 

TK gave a light chuckle and leaned down to give him a lingering kiss. When he pulled away he took Carlos’s air with him as he stood from the bed.  

“Your loss,” he told him as he disappeared out the bedroom door with one last suggestive grin. 

Carlos watched him go, still trying to find his breath. Sometimes he was just struck by how much he loved the other man. It was a thought he had often, and a thought he had had last night as the flames had raged around them. 

As he pulled himself out of the familiar bed and began to get ready for the first day in their uncertain future he knew without a doubt that no matter what came and no matter how difficult, it would be worth it. Because he still had TK and they still had each other and after that, nothing else really mattered. 

-----

It doesn’t hit him until he is in the shower, of all places. 

He and Carlos had both spent an extremely long time under the running water the night before, plying the soot and smell of smoke off of their skin with Owen’s myriad soaps and skincare products but somehow now this regular, everyday act of showering before he got ready was his undoing. 

It was inevitable, he supposed. He hadn’t really processed it after all. There had just always been another thing to focus on: getting them out safely, answering questions about what had happened, supporting Carlos. TK had been a firefighter for the majority of his adult life; fire was nothing new to him. The sights and smells and sensation of being trapped among the hungry flames hadn’t affected him like it had the other man, for which TK was grateful. Carlos was the consummate pillar; always there to lend his support, always ready for TK to lean on and he was happy to be able to return the favor. 

But eventually, he ran out the timer he didn’t even know was running. 

It’s the smallest thing that acts as the catalyst. He’s just reaching for a shampoo when an idle thought drifts through his mind: he can’t remember the name of the shampoo Carlos used. 

It had been a bit of a running joke between them that Carlos had been struggling to find a shampoo that worked with his curls. He finally had settled on one just last week, but TK couldn’t remember what it was. He needed to replace it for him, he needed to make sure Carlos had everything he needed but he couldn’t remember the name of his shampoo. 

And it’s that thought that somehow brings the reality into focus. Everything they had is gone. They needed to move forward and they needed to do it completely from scratch. Everything they had built together was gone, and there was no bringing it back. The past month of living with Carlos and building a home together had all been erased; all proof of its existence reduced to ashes.

All their memories seeped into every square inch of the house were gone and there was no getting them back. 

It’s just one tear at first, but the rest quickly follow. Before he knew it he was sliding down the wall of the shower; chest heaving and shoulders shaking with the force of his sobs. He landed on the shower floor as the tears kept coming, mixing with the warm water falling around him as he put his face in his hands. 

He hadn’t let himself feel this because Carlos had needed him but now, in the privacy of the shower with the sound of the water concealing his sobs, he let it come. He cried until he didn’t have anything left in him, until all the fear and pain was gone and he only felt numb. 

Then he stood up, shut off the water, and stepped out of the shower; drying himself off and getting ready to face a new day. 

----------

Carlos stepped into the kitchen to find Owen, fully dressed and bent over the counter writing something on a notepad. He cleared his throat awkwardly as he stepped into the kitchen, not wanting to startle the older man. 

“Carlos!” he greeted cheerfully, Good morning! I was just leaving a note for you boys, I have to head out for an appointment in a bit. How’d you sleep?” 

“The room was very comfortable,” he replied, carefully skirting around all mentions of sleep and dreams. The look Owen gave him told Carlos that he wasn’t fooled, but he didn’t press. 

“I expected you both to sleep longer,” he said instead. “It was a late night and lord knows TK’s never really been a morning person. Is he up too?” 

“He’s in the shower,” Carlos answered, taking a seat on one of the stools at the counter. “We both figured we have a lot to get done so it would be best to get moving.” 

“That actually brings up something I wanted to talk to you about - well, a few things actually,” Owen amended. “The first is simple.” 

He followed his words by picking up something resting on the counter beside the paper he had been writing on. It was his credit card and when Carlos went to protest he shook his head, “Don’t even think about it. Unless one of you went to bed with your wallet last night and failed to mention that, neither of you has access to any of your accounts at the moment. We’ll get that all sorted out in time but for now I’m sure you’d appreciate having some clothes that actually fit. And don’t even think about trying to pay me back,” he added as he slid the card across to Carlos, “I can cover it, and it’s the least I can do.” 

Carlos carefully picked up the card in front of him and looked from it back to his boyfriend’s father, “Thank you, Owen.” 

Owen waved off his thanks. “It truly is the least I could do, given everything. But I’m not the only one who wants to help you two.” 

Carlos opened his mouth, ready to assure him that the 126 didn’t need to do anything, that simply being there was enough (though knowing them he was sure his assurances wouldn’t stop them) but what Owen said next was not what Carlos had been expecting. 

“I know TK talked to his mother last night and told her it was fine that she couldn’t fly down here, but if I know her she is kicking herself for that. Now, this is all up to you and TK. It’s your house and your insurance and it’s up to you how you want to handle it but don’t forget that you have a powerhouse of a Manhattan lawyer on speed dial,” Owen reminded Carlos, “don’t be afraid to call Gwyn if you think it’ll help.” 

“Oh, I wouldn’t want to…” Carlos began but Owen shook his head. 

“None of that,” he told him firmly before his expression softened. “She hates that she can’t be here for you two and if you would like to pass on some of the legal and insurance stuff to her I know she would be happy to do it. She would probably feel better about it, knowing that she was able to help you both even if it’s just a little.” 

Carlos nodded, feeling the smallest amount of weight lift off his shoulders. There was still plenty left behind, but the knowledge that someone with a better understanding of the system could help them made it just that much easier to breathe in the face of it all. 

“Thank you, Owen. I will.” 

“Good,” Owen said with a nod. “It’ll mean a lot to her and I’m sure you won’t mind a few fewer things to deal with.” 

Carlos nodded emphatically at that and Owen grinned. His expression shifted though as he caught sight of the clock about the stove. 

“I need to go,” he said hurriedly, “I have an appointment at the hospital. Will you tell TK...I don’t want to leave before he comes down but…”

Carlos shook his head, “It’s fine, I’ll tell him. We’ll see you later.” 

Owen gave him a grateful smile, “Count on it. If you need anything while I’m gone just call me, and don’t worry about buying whatever you need because I’m not letting either of you pay me back, I mean it.” 

Then he was gone, out the door with a wave before Carlos could even open his mouth to argue. He picked up the card idly and was tapping it against the counter while his mind wandered when he heard footsteps behind him. He looked around and felt a smile spread across his face at the sight of TK entering the kitchen. It abruptly faded though when his boyfriend grew closer and he could see the telltale signs of recent tears all over his face. They were well concealed, but Carlos knew TK’s face better than his own. TK had been crying, there was no doubt.  

“Babe?” he asked gently, rising from his seat at the counter.

“I’m fine,” TK assured him in a hearty voice that did not have Carlos fooled for a second. 

“TK you are not fine,” he retorted adamantly, “talk to me.” 

“I am Carlos, really,” TK repeated firmly and Carlos went to argue again but TK kept talking. “It just all finally hit me, I think,” he told him, “that’s all.” 

Carlos could feel the panic that had sprung up at the sight of TK’s upset start to fade in the absence of any immediate threat or injury. “I’m not surprised,” he admitted softly, stepping forward to wrap his arms around the other man. “You’ve been a rock the entire time and while I appreciate it - really, I do - it was your home too.” 

TK heaved a weary sigh and wrapped his own arms around Carlos, returning the embrace. “I know that,” he said softly into Carlos’s shoulder, “but I’m okay, I swear.” 

Carlos pulled away enough to study TK’s face, to look for any sign that he was lying. When he didn’t see any he relaxed and took a breath. He knew that it would take some time for them to both move past this and that they were each going to deal with this in their own way. He also knew that this would be far from the last time they talked about this, or the last time one of them struggled. But if TK said he was fine, he was fine and Carlos would let it go - for now. 

“Your dad just left,” he said instead, stepping away from his boyfriend so he could enter the kitchen. “He had an appointment but he said he would see us later.” 

TK nodded as he crossed to the counter and pulled out two mugs before filling them both with coffee and handing one to Carlos. Carlos took it with a grateful smile and continued, “He also left his credit card and told us to buy whatever we need and was very clear that we were not paying him back. He mentioned that part twice.” 

TK shook his head fondly and Carlos grinned before he moved onto the next part of their conversation. “He also suggested we call your mom to see if she can help us with any of the insurance stuff.” 

TK looked up, surprised for a moment before his expression evened. “That makes sense,” he admitted. “If anyone knows their way around the system, it’s her.” 

Carlos grinned at that, allowing himself a quick moment of enjoyment at the thought of an unsuspecting insurance agent trying to pull one over on Gwyneth Morgan. “I think we should,” he said a beat later, “I think it could make a difference because frankly, I have no idea where to even start with all of this.” 

TK chuckled and shook his head, “Honesty, me either. I’ll call her in a little bit, see what she says.” 

Carlos nodded but secretly he was sure the answer would be yes. He was fairly certain that Owen was right, that she would do anything that felt like she could help them, especially in a way that only she could.

“We should make some time to go out for a bit,” he says instead, “get some clothes to get us through the week, get you a new phone.” 

TK grimaced at the reminder. “You’re lucky you still had yours in your pocket,” he told Carlos. “It feels so weird not having it. I feel so out of the loop.” 

Carlos chuckled and reached across the table to place his hand on top of TK’s, “That’s okay,” he assured him sweetly, “I’ll make sure you stay in the loop.” 

“My hero,” TK deadpanned, but he was grinning. 

Any further conversation was halted by the dinging of the phone in question and Carlos fished it out of his pocket, swiping it open to reveal a new message in the group chat. He put the phone down on the counter so he could see the message from Paul: Status update: everyone make it through the night? 

TK rolled his eyes fondly as messages from the others appeared, all confirming their continued existence. Carlos grinned at him before he pulled the phone closer to type out a message informing them all that yes, he and TK had in fact survived the night. The conversation quickly shifted from there and, TK reading over his shoulder as he sipped his coffee, slowly a plan began to form. 

Paul reminded them all that they had scheduled a game night for tonight and that if there was ever a time they all needed it, it was now. Marjan was quick to agree and Mateo to wonder where they were going to meet. It was Nancy who suggested the 126, reminding them that it would be abandoned for the foreseeable future and that the building had been deemed structurally sound. It was at this point Carlos felt a hand on his shoulder and turned to meet TK’s concerned eyes. 

“Would you be okay with that?” he asked softly. 

“Yeah,” Carlos responded, baffled at the other man’s concern, “why wouldn’t I be?” 

“Because we barely escaped from a burning building with our lives last night.” TK reminded him gently, “I’m just making sure you’d be fine hanging out in another one.”

Carlos considered, looking back down at his phone. The messages had paused and it seemed as if everyone was waiting on him. The idea of being surrounded by the work of the arsonist who had taken their home did seem daunting, but doing it with their friends and TK at his side made it seem far less so. 

So he smiled at TK and gave him a nod before he typed his agreement into the chat. The others were clear in their enthusiasm and despite everything that lay behind them and what was still waiting, Carlos found another smile. 

He had a feeling they’d be okay after all. 

-----

Walking into his destroyed firehouse is like walking into a grave, again. 

When he first started out as a firefighter he never thought he would be forced to stand in the ruins of the place that had come to be a second home (or even a first home, at times) and contemplate the loss and tragedy of the sight before him. But he had, twice. The first time it had been silence: the emptiness of the formerly bustling kitchen, the hastily made beds in the bunk room. The knowledge that the rooms would never be filled again. 

This time it was charred walls and shattered windows; physical destruction scattered with the debris and clutter of their day-to-day lives. They were still there - still standing - but there was an illusion of safety that had been washed away, never to be fully regained again. A safe place had been violated and for that Owen was sure he would never forgive himself for being the cause. 

His flashlight caught a glint of something in the debris of his office and he reached down to pull out the lump of melted steel. He turned it over in his hand as he sank into his chair, his mind fractured between a time nearly 20 years ago and this moment. He had once walked out of hell alone; filled with the grief of losing his brothers and the knowledge that nothing would ever be the same again. But he had moved on and he had built new families and he had vowed to look out for them so he would never have to feel that loss ever again. In the minutes between his frantic call to Judd and the call confirming they were all safe he had nearly been toppled by the fear of that thought. He had thought that he might lose a family again, and that this time it would be his fault. 

But he hadn’t; his luck had held again. It had even carried on late into the night, saving him from losing the one thing that meant most to him in the entire world. The pure, unrestrained fear he had felt upon making the connection between Raymond’s threat and the fact that TK and Carlos - the two people both he and Gabriel Reyes cared for most - lived together, making them a perfect target, was unlike anything else he had ever felt in his life. The helplessness had almost overwhelmed him as he and Billy had raced to the scene, the guilt still did even now. 

But his luck had held once more and while he was beyond grateful - the thought of losing either of the boys was too awful for him to even comprehend - he was left now to once again wonder why. What had he ever done to make him deserve a happy outcome when Tommy didn’t get one. What made him better, more worthy of a long life, than Charles Vega? He may not have known the man for long, but he had come to know him well and he knew without a doubt that Charles had been a better man than him. Not just a better man: a better person, a better friend, a better husband, a better father. Charles Vega was better than Owen in every single aspect of life that mattered. 

Yet for some reason fate had decided that Charles’s time in this life was over; that Tommy needed to face life without her partner, their girls without their father.  

And Owen was still here, left standing once again in the ruins; wondering how to move on. 

He turned the lump of steel - a reminder and a relic - over again in his hand. There were so many skeletons in his past and sometimes he was afraid that his present was trying to match that. It was a fear that he lived with day in and day out, it was one of the things that kept him up at night and kept him turning to the tequila. He didn’t know how to shake this feeling of dread that had become his constant companion and sometimes he was afraid it would drown him. 

Sometimes he wished it would. 

There was a list of people in his head; people he couldn’t save, people who should have lived instead. He was running through the list of names (Pullman, Rollins, Rosewater, Santiago…) when the sound of loud music erupted through the silent shell of a firehouse. He frowned, glancing around as if the source would reveal itself before standing and heading down to the first floor. 

The sound of voices soon mingled with the sound of the music as he followed it to its source. He turned the corner from what had formerly been the kitchen into the skeletal remains of the lounge to see a small crowd. It was his team, and Carlos. He watched in awe as they took it in stride, as they made the most of it. He lingered off the side, beer in hand and more than content to watch and observe as they bantered and argued about foosball teams. They had all been deeply affected by everything that had happened; he had seen it in them in the immediate aftermath. He knew it had affected them each deeply in their own personal way.

But somehow, they keep moving forwards. 

He wonders vaguely when he lost that ability as he stands off to the side, watching them jostle and tease each other by the foosball table as Carlos and TK watch fondly from the sidelines, quietly seeking comfort in each other. He is amazed at their fortitude, at their propensity for healing. They have all faced so much and yet they keep coming out on the other side just as good, just as strong. Just as whole. 

He felt a smile find its way to his face as he saw TK gently rub at Carlos’s back; an almost unconscious act of comfort and support. They were fine because they had each other and as long as that was true he knew they’d be okay. 

His new team had become a family somewhere along the way and he knew that together, they could make it through anything. It’s in that moment that he decides two things: first, that the news of Charles Vega’s death could wait. These people deserved one night unmarred by tragedy and he had the power to give it to them so he would. 

The second, he decided as he watched them laughing with abandon and leaning into each others’ space - finding happiness in the literal midst of destruction - was that the best thing he could do for them is to make sure that they always had each other. And he knew without a shadow of a doubt that he would do anything and everything in his power to make sure that stayed true, for as long as he possibly could. 

[byunbaekby]

title — the following pairing — demon!haechan x female reader, slight jaemin x reader featuring — jaemin as reader’s roommate and crush word count — 6.9k  genres — horror, angst warnings — language, religious concepts in accordance to demons and angels, mentions of murder, psychological and physical torture, elements of haunting, choking, degradation in a nonsexual context (donghyuck often refers to y/n as feeble or unintelligent), minor character death  inspiration — monster by red velvet

“under a single light, why are there two shadows?” “i’m a little monster, be scared of me / i’ll bother you by making you only dream of me.” “see i’m just playing, no bad intentions / try to come out of the dream but monster lives forever.”

author’s message — for the #neohalloween event hosted by @nct-writers​. this is my first time ever writing something of this genre, so i’m very excited and nervous to put this forward. thank you to @give-seconds​ for proof reading this and making it 100x better! much love ♡

also, this entire scenario is loosely generated from a superstition in hmong culture that you shouldn’t pick up anything you find laying around in public, for you might bring home something else with you. 

“Y/N? Is something wrong? Why are you calling me?” 

Your roommate’s voice rings clear on the opposite side of the line. Though you’re shivering as a result of the cold, barren winter air, you try to get a response past your shaking lips. “I-I’m walking home, Jaem. Can you… can you stay on the phone with me?” 

“Oh.” He immediately gets it; it’s never safe for a young woman to walk home alone, especially not in your neighborhood. “Of course… Where are you?”

You turn into the shortcut, your feet meeting the soft, pliable ground. The cemetery; it’s probably the worst shortcut you could ever take, but it cuts your walk home in half. “The cemetery…”

“Again? I told you that you should stop cutting through there, it’s not safe.”

You register his words in your ear as you eye a black bird resting atop a gravestone, peering at you with bright eyes. Casting your sight away from it, your teeth bite down on your bottom lip, roseate tier captured beneath the sharp incisor. “Walking down the street at this time isn’t safe either. At least here there’s nobody else around.” 

Jaemin sighs on the other side. “Even worse, anyone hanging out in a cemetery at…” He pauses, likely to glance at his watch. “10:28 PM, is probably going to be weirder than someone you find out on the street on a Friday night.”

“Hey!” You tell him, clutching your bag close to you. “I’m a person hanging out in a cemetery at 10:28 PM.” 

“My point exactly.” 

You roll your eyes, a laugh leaving you, but you’re glad for Jaemin’s teasing. It helps get your mind off the fact that the hill you walk past casts a dark shadow over the path. As you walk past, engulfed in what seems to be the darkest area of the entire graveyard, you attempt to make easy conversation with your roommate to get it off your mind. 

“Did you eat dinner already?” You ask him, voice low as if someone were listening. Who knows, someone might be. 

Jaemin easily sees through what you’re attempting to do, but he follows along anyway because he’s nice. “I did. I tried to wait for you, but you took too long.”

“Sorry,” you say sheepishly. “Time passed by me in the library.”

“I know. Like damn, you should really lay off the studying sometimes and have fun.” 

“I know, I know. You tell me, Renjun tells me, Professor Kim even—woah!”

You drop to the floor, the air flying out of your chest and dissipating into nothingness as you fall forward onto your chest. All the contents of your bag spill out, along with your phone, which lies a few feet away on the dirt. 

Groan escaping your lips, you look down at your white jeans. Completely stained and covered in dirt. Damn.

“Y/N? Hello? Y/N, you there?”

You can hear Jaemin’s muffled worried tone from where you are, but you focus on gathering your things from your bag first before you grab the phone. In the darkness of the night, you can’t even see everything, you just hope you manage to grab everything. It would definitely be your worst nightmare if you lost your Calculus homework due on Monday to the graveyard because you hadn’t grabbed it. 

When you finally return everything to your bag, you press the phone to your ear. “Hey, sorry, I tripped.” 

“You had me worried there! I was about to run out there myself,” nags Jaemin, and you can see in your mind the way his dark eyebrows must be furrowed in distaste. 

“Sorry Jaem,” you apologize to him as you scurry down the path, ready to be free of the cemetery’s unsettling aura as soon as possible. “Please tell me you saved me some food, I’m starving...”

-

He feels it when you walk in. He senses the irrefutable change in the air, smells your delectable scent with his sharpness. His grave sits at the very top of the largest hill, giving him the perfect place to watch you from. The cemetery becomes alive with your entrance. 

Ironic, isn’t it?

Sitting rather stylishly with his thin, gauntly body atop his gravestone, Donghyuck watches you with sharp, focused eyes. You’re so pretty. He smirks, observing the way you flutter through the graveyard, feet barely touching the ground in your feeble attempt to escape the ominous lot as soon as possible. 

“Walking down the street at this time isn’t safe either. At least here there’s nobody else around.” 

That’s where you’re wrong.

The dark demon can hardly keep the devilish grin off his tiers, watching you. Beautiful, you are.

He’s seen you a few times, in the handful of times you’ve dared to cut through the cemetery on your way home. With an amused, almost teasing shake of his head, he tsks. “Bad decision, little lamb.”

“Did you eat dinner already?” You ask whoever you’re speaking to on the phone. Donghyuck can barely remember what human food tastes like. As a demon, he doesn’t eat humans, let alone get hungry, but if he had a choice, you’d definitely be his first choice.

Your soul is good. He wants it.

If he can’t have you, at least he can play with you a little. 

It doesn’t take much. The moment you glide through the path and under the darkness of his hill, all it takes is the slightest snap of his fingers to send you flying forward. He’d love to make you stay down there, perhaps drag you down below with him, but that would be no fun. 

Rather, he plucks off one of his rings, one of the many decorating his hands for absolutely no one to see, and tosses it seamlessly into the pile of your things spilled across the path. As he watches the way you carelessly shove everything back into your bag, his Cheshire grin grows even wider. Now, he has a reason to leave. 

As you scurry away, Donghyuck jumps off his grave which he had occupied for decades, and lands on his feet. With a wipe of his hands on his jeans, he watches you go. 

“Stupid little lamb. Didn’t anyone ever tell you not to take things that aren’t yours?”

The rest of the walk home, you can swear there are steps behind you matching yours.

-

When you get home, you quickly slide into your bedroom amid Jaemin’s nagging sounds and slip off your white (well, brown now) jeans from your legs. After getting on some more comfortable clothes, you grab your dirtied jeans and make your way to the bathroom. 

The restroom, however small, still has room for a washer and dryer, which you’re thankful for, seeing as you and Jaemin don’t have to pay a laundromat for your weekly laundry. You toss your jeans in the washer; normally you wouldn’t wash just one garment, but the dirt would likely stain your perfectly white jeans. After pressing start you make your way to the kitchen, where your roommate is reheating dinner for you. 

The image of Jaemin’s broad back standing at the stove makes you smile to yourself for just a millisecond, so quick that it’s fleeting. Before you can take another moment to admire your roommate however, he turns to you with his trademark smile. “Hey, pick a movie. Let’s watch something.” 

About fifteen minutes later, you’re eating your leftovers on the couch, Jaemin’s arm spread over your shoulders while the beginning scenes of The Conjuring play. You don’t have much, the apartment barely enough for the two of you to inhabit, and Jaemin is only your roommate, but you’ve gotten used to these kinds of nights. Simple, easy, sweet.

The light remainder of Jaemin’s daily cologne mixed in with his gentle cotton scent pervades into your senses, and you lean your head onto his shoulder with a smile. You’ve always wanted to be more with Jaemin, but you could settle for these comfortable nights of movies and platonic cuddling. 

It’s something about having a full belly, Jaemin’s warmth, and the everlasting light traces of his scent that has you falling asleep, eyes drooping closed slowly into a peaceful suspension of consciousness. 

-

I.

You wake the first morning. 

You don’t even remember falling asleep, but it doesn’t surprise you when you wake up in bed. Recently you’ve developed a habit of falling asleep on movie nights, and Jaemin is always kind enough to place you gently back in your room. 

Wiping the sleep from your eyes, you let out an unearthly sound as you sit up and stretch your arms above your head. When you unsheath the blanket from your legs, your unprepared toes meet the cold wooden floor, causing you to flutter across the room quickly and into the living area. 

It’s Saturday, but Jaemin volunteers at the hospital on Saturdays, so you only prepare a bowl of cereal for yourself. If your roommate were here, he’d probably scold you for the lack of nutrition, so you toss a couple of berries into your frosted flakes. 

After you finish up, washing your bowl at the sink, your eyes widen in realization; you left your jeans in the washer! Falling asleep mid-movie had caused you to completely forget about them, not drying them before you slept like you had told yourself. God, they probably stink by now, sitting wet for hours. 

But when you slide open the door to the bathroom, you see your jeans resting atop the drying machine, folded neatly like they had been waiting for you. Perhaps they were. 

Ah, you realize, mouth parting just the slightest. Jaemin must have dried them and folded them before he left for the hospital this morning. Another grateful smile spreads across your visage; you really do have the best roommate. 

You spend the rest of the day studying, and prepare a nice dinner (which also means going grocery shopping) for Jaemin, as a little thank you for always being so thoughtful. He appreciates it when he comes home to a fully cooked meal, and there’s something about the way he smiles that has you feeling as though you’ve finally done something good to amount to all the times he’s saved your ass as a roommate. When the night ends, you both retire to your rooms. 

In your lovesick daze, you fail to recognize that under the single lighting of your room, there are two shadows. 

-

VII.

On the seventh day, Donghyuck’s displeasure is enough to choke him—that is, if he needed to breathe.

He had wanted to tease you, follow you home and play with you a little before revealing himself. But God, you are so dumb; he should have expected as much from a feeble, stupid little sheep anyways. 

That first night, testing the waters, he had done your damn laundry for you. It was just a little fun, to get the ball rolling. Any superstitious person would have known. And what did you do? You had thought it to be your roommate. As the days went by, his teasing grew in quantity and intensity; hiding your keys, ripping apart your essays, perhaps all the menial and annoying things that some stupid schoolboy would do to grab the attention of a girl he liked. But your attention is lost, and he is not a stupid schoolboy. No, he is far from it. 

Even as his antics have built up throughout the following days, you always found some excuse to play it off; you must be more clever than he thought. No, you weren’t; you were either extremely clumsy and forgetful, or you were simply denying his existence. It’s time to make himself known. 

-

VIII.

It’s the eighth night when he appears in your dreams. No, not he. It.

You can sense it, the moment your suspension of consciousness becomes overtaken by him and you find yourself in a simple black room. It seems to extend in every which direction, as though you could run off in any given direction and never hit a wall. But you feel it watching you.

He’s behind your shoulder, and the moment his low, amused chuckle is heard in your ears you swipe around to face him, eyes wide. He’s beautiful; dark brown hair, smooth skin, a captivating honey color, and dark eyes. 

Those eyes.

They pierce into your soul, as though they can see right through you. They probably can. He is not a person, you know. He is… more. 

Dark eyes once overtaken with curiosity are now characterized by bleak amusement. Your breath hitches, and his voice comes out low. “Welcome.” 

“What is this? Where am I?” Your voice comes out rapidly, shaking. You know nothing of this… thing before you but you can’t help but feel unsafe under its gaze. 

“Now, that’s not very nice. I am very much a person, not an it,” he smirks beneath the shadow which casts itself upon his visage. You freeze; he can hear your thoughts.

This realization only further widens the Cheshire grin across his lips, and instinctively you take a step back further into the black nothingness. “G-Get out of my head,” you threaten to no avail.

The same mocking laugh leaves his lips. “Sweetheart, this is your head. This entire place is of your making. If you hate it so much,” he says, and suddenly he’s in front of you. His hand leaves the pockets of his black bottoms, lithe digits suddenly cupping your chin and tilting it upward so you are staring right into his dark empty orbs which come to life with the image of you. His fingers, dressed in various shades of gold rings, grip you. You should feel his warmth on your skin, you should feel the radiating human heat that you so often feel with Jaemin. 

“Erase me from it.” 

But you don’t feel anything behind his callused skin, and that’s what scares you the most. 

Your throat runs dry and when he parts his lips, even his breath is cold. “But you’re scared.” When you fail to respond, he licks his lips, and his next words are characterized by sarcastic rancor. “What’s wrong? There’s nothing to be afraid of.”

“Unless…” At this point, under his burning gaze that contrasts the ice-cold emptiness against your skin, your knees begin to buckle. The smile which accompanies his next words, revealing his pearly whites and perhaps his intentions, is sinister: “You’re not afraid of demons… are you?”

-

IX.

You wake in a cold sweat, and you’re more aware of Jaemin’s soothing voice telling you to breathe than the fact that you’re not breathing. Chest heaving and eyes wide, you search for something in Jaemin’s eyes to tether you back to earth, back to reality.

He’s not real, he’s not real. He can’t hurt you. 

It was just a dream.

“Hey, hey,” Jaemin calls out to you, hands on your shoulders to steady you from your previous thrashing. You had awoken him with your screaming. “You okay? Breathe, Y/N, just,” he takes a pause to take a deep breath, silently instructing you to follow with him. “Breathe.” In a few moments, when your breathing pattern has begun to return to normal, steady breaths, he asks again, voice dripping with nothing but pure concern for you, “You okay?”

“Yeah,” you nod. It’s the first word you’ve spoken, so your voice comes out scratched and you’re reminded just how much air you need to actually speak coherently. “It was just… a bad dream.”

“Sounded a lot worse than a bad dream…” He responds, taking his respectful hands off of you and tucking them into the loose pockets of his fleece pajama bottoms. An image flashes before your eyes: that… person, hands tucked leisurely into their pockets, ominous smile enough to make you wonder what they were hiding in there. 

You blink, closing your eyes tightly and shaking your head, as though it could shake the image from your mind. When you open them once more, Jaemin is still standing next to your bed. “I’m okay, I promise,” you tell him, though it feels more as though you’re speaking to yourself. “Thanks.”

“Any time,” responds your roommate, who offers you a reassuring smile and another worried look before slipping out of your bedroom. When you’re finally alone, you bring a hand up to your forehead, where sweat has made your skin clammy and sticky. 

You’re warm. He is not.

-

XII.

“You’re a demon.”

You say this on the twelfth night, finding yourself once again stranded in the same dark and endless room with the sharp-eyed devil. This time, there are two chairs and the two of you sit facing each other. He sits as though he has all the time in the world, and perhaps he does. Legs crossed leisurely and arms over his chest with his head tilted at you, he stares. 

With your tense posture in your own chair, you wonder fleetingly how enough light exists in this black room that you can never seem to avoid staring at his mocking facial expression. You gulp, gripping onto nothing as you tighten your fists to prevent them from trembling. He’s not real, you have to remind yourself. 

“When did you figure that out, little lamb? When I told you, probably?” His tone is insulting, as though you were stupid. You narrow your eyes, biting the flesh inside your cheek. 

“Aw,” he coos, grinning at you with dark beguilement. “You’re frustrated.”

“Duh, I’m frustrated,” you huff, blowing some air from your mouth to push away a strand of hair that has fallen into your face. “You keep bringing me here with no jurisdiction or knowledge of who you are.”

“Fine,” he acquiesces. “Three questions. Don’t make them stupid, though I know that’s hard for an incompetent human like yourself.” 

“What do you want from me?” 

“I haven’t quite figured that out yet. Next question. I’ll even be nice enough to abstain that as a question,” he responds, as though he’s doing you a favor. 

“Why are you doing this?”

“Being a demon is rather boring, you see. Not here, not there.” He waves his hand around, as though pointing to heaven and its counterpart. “I found you, and you intrigued me.”

He leans forward, resting his chin in his palm. “Or rather, you found me. You invited me in.” 

“I never did that,” you reply, indignant. 

“But you did.” A dark eyebrow raises at you, and you bite down on your lip to prevent your anger from rising. “You never checked your bag, did you? Never found a gold ring, maybe?” He lifts his chin off of his palm, stretching out his fingers as though they were cramped. “Maybe one with DH engraved in it.” 

You had. You had found the ring in your bag on Saturday and had figured it to be one of your own negligible accessories, tossing it into your jewelry box. Had there been letters engraved on it? 

At the look on your face, a smile spreads across his features. “So you do remember.” 

Despite the umbrage bubbling in your stomach, perhaps more feisty than you should be in the presence of a self-proclaimed demon, you have another question. Leaning forward just the slightest you ask, “Why haven’t you hurt me? Isn’t that what demons do?”

There’s a glint in his eye, and the easy-going expression on his face is quickly replaced by a darkened simper. “Do you want me to hurt you?” 

Your fists tighten again. “N-No…”

“Don’t tempt me.” His voice is dark now, his earlier lilted tone now descending into a deep pit. It’s almost demanding, as though he’s daring you to push his buttons and send him plummeting into a torturous rage. At the look of fear that swipes across your face, he chuckles once more. “Relax, little lamb. I’m just playing, no bad intentions here.” 

You don’t believe him, not even for a second. If he’s really what he says he is… why does he torture you in this way, making you only dream of him? You push the thoughts from your mind, knowing that he has full access to your brain. “What’s your name?” 

“Now you’re asking the good questions. You may call me…”

The corner of his lips tug upward into a smirk.

“Donghyuck.” 

-

XIII.

The titles should shock you more than they do.

University Student Pleads Guilty to Murder of Three Female Students

College Killer: More Murders Revealed In Trial of Lee Donghyuck

Lee Donghyuck, Murderer of At Least Thirteen Victims, Sentenced To Death Penalty

He’s real. 

It’s Friday night again, and you find yourself back at the library. Except this time, it’s not calculus nor world history that you are pondering. It’s not your psychology textbook that you are poured over. 

No, the archives are open, and all it took was a little keyword into the filter to find just what you’re searching for. The only word you needed: Donghyuck.

He hadn’t been lying. Not about his identity or his demonic status. 

When you read over the headlines and their accompanying stories, you don’t realize the way your pupils begin to shake, or the way that your heartbeat begins to accelerate as the truth dawns upon you. 

He is real, he is dangerous, and he is haunting you. 

-

XIV. 

“So you know who I am.” It’s less of a question, more of a statement. Tonight, there is only one chair and you are sitting in it as Donghyuck walks circles around you. There are no chains, no straps to hold you down to the chair but you cannot move. Despite what he had told you the first night, that this is all your dream and that you have the ability to change anything, the opposite seems true. 

He disappears behind you, and suddenly his voice is in your ear. Your breath hitches at the sudden gust of cold air on your sensitive skin as he speaks. “Are you afraid?” 

“No.” 

“You forget I’m in your head, sweetheart. I know everything, so don’t lie to me.” 

He’s caught you.

You say nothing, and so he stands straight and makes himself present in your vision again. “It’s okay to be scared. It’s in your feeble nature.” His finger starts at your hand, bringing a chill down your spine. As he drags it slowly up the scope of your exposed arm, you hardly resist the instinct to shiver. “I just want to know, what are you afraid of?”

“Is it…” he speaks softly, teasingly throwing each word in your ear, like tossing small bites to a starved dog. “That I know each of your thoughts the moment you think it, and you only know my name? That I’m a dark spirit and can bring you enough pain to make you forget your name with just a snap of my fingers?”

His trailing hand, once tracing over the curve of your clavicle, suddenly grips your neck. Though only a light pressure is applied, you feel the wind knocked out of you by his sudden, unforeseen movement. “Or is it that because of me, sixteen women died and you might end up the same?”

With the little air you have left, you manage to squeeze out, “They said thirteen.”

Amusement shows on his visage before he finally lets your throat go, and you heave as you attempt to refill your lungs with air. “No,” he corrects, moving back to his original space, circling you like a shark locking its prey in uncharted waters. “They said at least thirteen. They never found the other three.” 

The thought is enough to make you sick, but before you can manage to swallow down the bile attempting to rise up your throat, he speaks. “Don’t worry about them too much, my little lamb. You’ll join them soon.” 

“You’re lying,” you spit out. “You keep threatening me, but you’re all talk and no proof. You can’t do anything to me, that’s why you only bother me in my dreams.” 

Your sudden and unexpected quip seems to, rather than upset him, entertain him. “You think I can’t do anything to you outside of this box? Funny,” he scoffs, though he still maintains that grin on his lips. “Humans are so cocky, I learned that after they killed me.” 

He stops pacing, and instead kneels before you, his face placed before yours. “I’ve done things, sweetheart. Remember the pants? The essay you spent five hours on torn up the morning after you printed it out? How about the dress you bought that I cut up until there was nothing left but shreds? You got really mad at your friend for quote-unquote, ‘pranking’ you.”

But Donghyuck is nothing if not honest. You’ve learned this. 

“But on some level, you’re right.” His hand reaches up once more, but instead of resting it on your shoulder again, he gently caresses your cheek. It would be soft, romantic in any other case. But no, his touch makes your skin crawl. “I can’t hurt you, and I don’t know why. Don’t worry, I want to, but outside this dream…” His hand stops, and grips your chin instead. “I physically can’t. Tell me why?”

“I… I don’t know.”

“You have a cross on you somewhere, little lamb? Or, a guardian angel?”

“I said I don’t know,” you repeat, voice louder as you turn your head sharply, ripping your chin from his grasp. In your ear, he tsks. 

Now you’ve done it. 

“Getting too comfortable, aren’t we? You’re forgetting who’s in charge here,” he says, voice dipping into dangerous territory as he reaches forward, gripping your throat once more. But this time, he digs his nails into the softness of your skin, and your choked scream is caught in your throat by his hands before it can ever leave. 

-

“Y/N! Y/N, wake up!” 

Jaemin’s voice is the only thing carrying you back to sanity, and when you finally force your eyes open he’s before you, gripping your arms once again to prevent you from thrashing about. “It’s just a dream, it’s just a dream,” he coos out in worry as you finally come to. 

Your hand immediately flies to your neck which is, to your relief, not at all sore. The moment your eyes fall on him and you realize that the hand around your neck is no more, you fall into a bout of tears. Instinctively, your roommate holds you to his chest in a protective hug whilst you sob into his chest.

It’s not real, it’s not real. You keep telling yourself this like a mantra in your head as Jaemin rubs your head soothingly. But why does it feel so real?

“It’s okay,” Jaemin continues telling you, voice soft as his sweet familiar scent pervades your senses once again and your tense muscles begin to relax. 

Minutes pass before you’ve calmed down, outright sobs now quiet whimpers. Jaemin begins to set you down back into bed, but you grab at his wrist before he can set you down. “What, what is it?” He asks, eyes immediately scanning your body for any sign of distress.

“Can you… can you stay with me?” It’s a large request, perhaps much too intrusive for someone who is supposed to just be your roommate. But lately, Jaemin feels… much more. Every night as you’ve been plagued by Donghyuck’s presence in your haunting nightmares, he has come to save you when you’re falling apart in screams.

He feels like a friend, and a… a protector. 

Not at all fazed by your sudden request, Jaemin wears an abiding smile and nods. “Of course,” he says, sliding into your bed whilst you move over to make room for him. You feel much safer with him around, and now with him in your bed, your personal dreamcatcher, you naturally find yourself in his arms once more while you drift away into sleep, Donghyuck’s presence no longer occupying your dreams. 

Neither of you take the time or attention to look, for if you had you would have seen, in the corner of the room furthest from the window, where the darkened corner seems to extend into an infinite world of black, Donghyuck looking less than pleased. 

Your roommate needs to be handled.

-

XXI.

Something seemed to have changed that night when Jaemin first slipped into your bed. You have since not dreamed of Donghyuck even once, and you definitely do not miss him. Perhaps he is gone for good. 

How stupid of you to think so, even knowing what Donghyuck is capable of. Perhaps you never truly knew, not before now, just how powerful he is, or just what kind of chaos he can incite. 

It’s 3 PM on the twenty-first day when you finally find out just how evil he is.

Jaemin is in the hospital. 

You had gotten the call on the bus ride home from campus; your roommate, jokes and boyish smiles for all the time you’ve known him, had been hit by a car just outside your apartment building. Now, he is in the hospital with broken ribs and a herniated disk, barely holding on for his life in a coma. 

You’re not allowed in his room, but you do catch a glimpse of your roommate when his physician enters, and just the sliver of him that you see is enough to make you turn your head away. 

You know who is responsible for this. 

-

The door to your bedroom is thrown open, and before you can recognize the emptiness of the apartment without Jaemin’s presence around, you’re screaming into the void. 

“I know you’re listening, you dick! Show yourself, fucking coward!” 

The obscenities that leave your mouth seem to do the trick because before you can register it, you’re on the floor. As though the carpet is pulled out from under you, you go flying forward and the wind is knocked out of you as you meet the ground chest first. 

You don’t have any time to breathe or recover, as immediately there is a force pulling you up by the shirt, and suddenly you’re no longer standing on the ground. 

You see him.

You’ve seen him before, of course. He’s appeared in your dreams enough to have his sinister expression sewed in your thoughts at all hours of the day. But now… now he looks stronger. Less pale and more colorful. Even the aura which exudes from him… is more dangerous than ever. 

Yet, he still wears that shit-eating smile on his lips as he watches you float in the air, collar squeezing at your throat and looking completely powerless. “Now, little lamb, those are not very nice words,” Donghyuck chastises as he approaches you. When he’s finally before you once more, he twitches his eyebrow upward just the slightest. “Missed me?”

“Not at all,” you manage, gathering the spit in your mouth to chuck it out at him. 

Not even fazed, he simply wipes at the spit on his face, flicking it off in a negligible direction. “I’m not feeling welcomed,” he comments. 

“Because you’re not,” you retort, thrashing about to no avail. “What did you do to Jaemin?”

The mention of your now critical roommate only makes his grin grow wider. “You see, sweetheart, I thought you’d be pretty proud of me. I found out what was keeping me from being able to inflict any real damage on you,” he says whilst his cold hand comes out to squeeze at your cheeks. “Your guardian angel has been taken care of.” 

Wait, what? Then it dawns on you.

Jaemin is… your guardian angel.

“You look surprised. That’s okay, I didn’t know either.” Donghyuck releases your face, instead choosing to pace left and right before you, though he never lets his eyes leave you. “But then he started sleeping with you, and I couldn’t get into your mind. I put two and two together. With him around, I’d never be able to touch you.” 

The glint in his eyes turns feral. “And you have an embarrassing school girl crush on him, so I was able to kill two birds with one stone. With every second that passes, his life is draining away, and I’m only getting stronger.” 

“Why are you doing this?” You cry out once again, though your voice is more desperate than it had been the first time around. “What do you want?”

“You see, I figured that out too.” His mocking tone begins to seep away and is instead replaced by that familiar dark timbre of his as he approaches you once more, gripping your chin again in his fingers. Tilting your head up harshly, he stares endlessly into you and whispers, “I thought I was done with those petty murders, that the sight of women begging at my knees like dirt for mercy wouldn’t excite me as much anymore. But no… I want you to suffer. I want to destroy you, take away your happiness, and break you piece by piece, until you’re just begging for me to take you out of your misery.” The semblance of a smirk quirks at his lips. “Just like those other girls. Except this time, there’s no limit to what I can do. And when you do die, I’ll be right here to welcome you back.” 

Tears sting your eyes at the horrible things he whispers to you, but you refuse to capitulate to him. “I’d rather die than do anything you say.”

“Don’t worry, you’ll be dead just as soon. The fun hasn’t even started yet,” he teases. Suddenly, it’s as if the paranormal restraints on your limbs are cut free, as your body immediately falls to the floor, collecting in a pile. You hardly have the energy to lift your head, but you register the sound of Donghyuck’s voice as he walks away from you. “Rest up tonight, little lamb. You’ve got a long eternity ahead of you.”

Then he’s gone. You swear you will make use of the last twelve hours of your life. 

-

First, you visit Jaemin again. You know you’re not allowed in, but you know his room number and there’s no one coming in to check up on him, you hope. 

You don’t know if he really is your guardian angel, but above that, he is your friend. 

“Hey,” you say softly, making your presence known as you sit down in the chair beside his hospital bed. It’s arbitrary… you know Jaemin doesn’t have parents around, and perhaps that only lends to the possibility that he really is someone sent here to protect you. 

“How are you?” You scoff at yourself. “That’s stupid of me to ask, you’re in a coma. I don’t know if you can hear me, or if you really are an angel, but thank you, Jaemin. For always… always being there for me, protecting me. Walking me through the cemetery, making dinner for me, chasing my nightmares away.”

Sitting there, staring at your friend’s lifeless body laying on the bed looking gray as a sheet, tears begin to sting your eyes. “I’m sorry for bringing you into this, I should have listened to you when you told me to be careful. And if I have to lose someone as amazing and… pure-hearted as you, I don’t think I can live with myself. So please, even if you don’t make it out of here, please… stay by my side.”

As your first tear breaks the barrier and begins to coast down your cheek, you reach out and grab his hand. It’s cold. 

-

XXII.

It’s a little past midnight and though your fingers shake from the cold, you throw everything of yours that he’s touched into the bucket.

Even the things you weren’t completely sure of, you toss away anything that could have been influenced by his dark magic; the leftover shreds of your essay that you had recovered from the recycle, the pieces of fabric that he had obliterated your dress to, the white jeans you had worn that first night, and more. Finally, you throw in that godforsaken ring that had started it all.

You swore that you would never return to the cemetery again, but here you are. This time, you really can see everything at the top of the hill. You turn your head back to glower at the tombstone before you.

Lee Donghyuck.

What a piece of shit. 

Though your fingers shake, you light the match without trouble. When you toss it into the basket of forsaken belongings, it is only a matter of seconds before Donghyuck appears, tethered to his tombstone once more.

Gripping at his body, he snarls out at you, “What the hell are you doing?”

That, you hardly even know. Following only the speculations found on the internet, you had unknowingly lured your monstrous demon back to his home. 

It seems to work, as the greater the fire grows, the more pained Donghyuck’s expression seems to become. 

Your voice finds its strength as you announce your intentions. “Erasing you.” 

“You can’t do that to me, you don’t get to win!” Donghyuck yells in growing anger, reaching out to you but failing. With this inability of his to touch you, you tilt your chin higher, the orange tint of the flames reflecting off your strengthened pride. 

“I believed you all this time, I let you scare me into thinking that you could overpower me. That you could hurt me,” you muse, staring without remorse at his pained form. “But I was wrong. You only exist as long as I let you. You can only hurt me as long as I believe you can.”

“I’ll be back,” declares Donghyuck as the fire roars, only sending him further into a realm of pain. Whilst he grips his limbs in pure fury, you shake your head. 

“No, you won’t. Because you were right, this is my world. I’m the one with the power here: I have blood flowing through me, I have oxygen in my lungs, and I have a soul. You have none of those.” With your anger bursting at the seams, you kick over the metal bucket burning from the inside, instead tossing the trash over the dirt of Donghyuck’s grave. “And because of that, I’m not scared of you.”

As the fire burns out at the final thread, and the spirit which had infested your mind for twenty-two days begins to fade away in a fit of rage, you offer him the same powerful, mocking smile he had tattooed into your mind. 

“Goodbye, Donghyuck. Rest in hell.”

-

CCCLXV.

“Hey, did you do the notes from the last lecture?”

Flipping through your binder, you nod and pull out the said notes, handing them over to the student sitting next to you. At this point, you’ve learned enough about her to know that on Mondays, she always asks for the notes. You’ve started printing extra copies for her. 

It’s been a year. 

You had taken a year off of university to return home. After everything that had happened and Jaemin’s death, you simply couldn’t bear to even step into your old apartment anymore. Over time, you’ve found that you’ve healed and you are no longer afraid.

Not afraid to return to school, at least.

“Here you go,” you tell her as you hand over the notes. “You can keep that copy.”

The look she wears is grateful. “Thanks!” 

“Hey,” calls a voice on your right. “Do you have a pen?”

“Sure, I—” You start, reaching into your pencil bag, but stop when your gaze falls upon the owner of the voice. 

No, it can’t be. It just can’t.

Before you is Donghyuck. Except it’s not. He’s… different. 

His hair is no longer brown, but rather a light shade of blonde that accentuates his honey olive skin tone. Rather than all black, he is dressed in a cream-colored sweater and a pair of light washed ripped jeans. Most strikingly of all, his signature sharp eyes are no longer clouded by dark evil, but are light with the sweet smile that he wears on his lips.

No… it’s not Donghyuck. After your return home, you had begun to see his face everywhere, and have since learned to distinguish between reality and trauma. When the stranger catches you staring, he tilts his head, smile growing further. “I’m Haechan.”

Shaking your head slightly to clear the thoughts, you go back to searching for a pen in your bag. “Uh, hi Haechan. Here you go,” you say as you hand the pen over to him.

When your fingers brush just the slightest, he’s cold. 

You pull your hand back quickly, as though you had been burned. No, you tell yourself. It’s cold in here, the air conditioning is always on in the lecture hall. Turning back to face forward in your seat, you try to calm your breathing, pulling your cardigan closer to cover you. The stranger next to you pulls out a notebook from his bag, and in full view, begins to write in the corner. 

Your professor is speaking, clicking on his projector, when Haechan slides his notebook over to you. There, written in perfect handwriting…

I told you I’d be back.

[nothorses]

hey sorry if it comes off as weird, but i'm a bit desperate. i had a real bad time figuring out my identity growing up and for like, the past 4~5 years i've become really comfortable and happy whenever i referred and thought of myself as a gay nb trans man; i experience legit gender euphoria whenever ppl address or acknowledge me as such, and the most connection i feel is to gay/bi men/men-aligned ppl. that said, i've struggled with obsessive/intrusive thoughts since i'm like, 12~13 due to (1/?)

a phobia, and they often appeared when i was already feeling low/stressed/anxious over unrelated stuff. y'know when you're having a good time and suddenly your brain goes 'oh hey, remember that thing you have doubts about and makes you distressed? and you think it's not true? well, here it is again (: you're welcome!'. that's it.

so social isolation due to the pandemic has taken a toll on my mental health and recently i have been... struggling a lot not only with dysphoria (i was supposed to start hrt last year but it was postponed due to, well), but also with obtrusive/intrusive thoughts over 'how i'm faking it, i am actually a cis lesbian' (i never felt attracted truly to women, even tho i had kissed two before, and i am Positively attracted to men in a way i can only describe as 'gay').

it has gotten to a point where i cannot think about, y'know, woman characters from stuff i like that i feel like this is somehow a sign i'm actually a lesbian; i have been dreaming a lot of situations i'm either framed as a lesbian or a straight girl, i have been hyperaware of how cis ppl perceive me (pre-transition, as 'girl') and obsessing over little shit like, if women are looking at me in certain ways when i have to go out (sometimes even 'wishing' it, as if it wanting to 'prove' anything).

i feel...... exhausted, none of these make me feel good, all of this makes me feel distressed. i get dreadful when i take 'lol ur lesbian' results at stupid internet quizzes too. i feel like i cannot talk to anyone about it bc i feel like they're gonna try to feed me either 'internalized lesbophobia' or terf rhetoric, which is smth im v aware of, and part of the reason i've been obsessing over as well.

i had mild doubts about stuff before (like if i was rly a binary trans guy or nb, or if i was bisexual) but none was... like this, y'know.  i was also dumb and read a bbc article about detransitioning ppl which opened with 'studies say most trans ppl dont doubt' etc. featuring two cis lesbians that detransitioned after entering a relationship with one another. i feel rly rly rly dreadful i wish i could go back to feeling like myself (gay and guy) like i did before.

i'm sorry for the longest fucking ask btw, and also, tumblr hadnt let me send the rest for like, Hours, i'm deeply sorry

[Edited for formatting]

I think a lot of this is very normal, especially for transmascs.

We’re constantly fed this idea that we can’t really trust our own perception of reality, that we don’t know ourselves as well as others do, and that the things we believe about ourselves are temporary, silly, and “signs” of some deeper reality that someone else knows for us. It’s only natural that we’d internalize some of those feelings, and struggle to trust even the most irrefutable evidence of our own realities.

If it helps to have some tools in those moments, a couple of reminders:

Cis girls do not typically dread the idea of being girls. They might dread the social repercussions or expectations, they might hate girls who look/act in certain ways, but they do not typically hate that they are girls.

If you are feeling dread over the idea that you might be attracted to women, you probably aren’t! It’s good to work on feeling more at peace with the possibility, because orientation can be very fluid for some folks, and being ready to accept yourself if things change takes a lot of pressure off- but if you don’t want to be with women, you just literally do not have to be with women. For any reason. Even if you are “secretly” attracted to them, if you don’t want to be with them anyway, you simply do not have to be.

Trans people experience doubt. We experience it all the time. We experience it pretty much endlessly! Maybe there are trans folks who never, ever doubt their genders, and I’m very happy for them; but that’s the exception, not the rule, in my experience. This study talks about the steps toward trans self-acceptance, and finds each step is an ongoing process, and often a back-and-forth. It was very comforting for me to recognize the patterns & know I’m not alone.

The focus on AFAB detransitioners is driven by transandrophobia. Because saving the “poor little girls” is a compelling motivator in a misogynistic society. Most detransitioners are actually folks who were AMAB, and found the societal pressure and backlash was too overwhelming, or made things too unsafe, for them to carry on with their transitions. Most detransitioners, period, are people who had to stop because of safety issues, or lack of access to their transition needs.

It’s very normal to go through periods of high doubt, and periods of high self-assuredness. You may just have to ride this out; surround yourself with as much support and love as you can, remind yourself that those fears aren’t really based in reality, and be kind to yourself during this difficult time. Try to make choices that prioritize your mental and emotional health.

You will get through this period of doubt, and come back to finding love and joy in your identity again! It might just take a little time & patience.

(Also no worries over the sending confusion; Tumblr’s a lil broken sometimes, and it’s genuinely not even remotely an issue.)

[angelsfalling16]

My (un)Bloody Valentine

My fic for @m-xdd-y for the @snowbaz-sweethearts-exchange. Thank you for being so patient even though I’m several days late. It was really nice to meet you and be paired up for this event! <3

I’m not sure a Valentine’s Day-themed murder mystery is quite what you meant when you asked for angst, but I hope you like this!

Read it on ao3

Summary: Bodies of Normals keep showing up at Watford, and Simon is sure he knows who is killing them. That is, until he finds his prime suspect kneeling beside the body, all the proof he needs, but finds himself wondering if maybe he had it wrong all along.

Word Count: 5481

Warning: I don't think this fic is too graphic, but there are mentions of blood and missing hearts, so please proceed with caution.

***

Part 1: The Suspect

Simon

“There’s been another one,” I say to the Mage.

“Another what?”

I growl because he apparently hasn’t been listening to me at all for the past five minutes.

“Another dead Normal.”

He waves me off as he flips through some papers on his desk. “Normals die all the time. What’s so special about these?”

“Their bodies were found in the Wavering Woods.” The magickal side of the woods. It doesn’t mean that it couldn’t have been a Normal who killed them, but it does make it less likely. “Someone is either killing them and dumping their bodies in the woods, or they’re wandering into the woods and someone—or something—is killing them.”

“They’re just Normals. Why do you care?” He doesn’t sound the least bit concerned by any of this. He actually sounds more annoyed than anything.

“They’re still people even if they don’t have magic. And they’re being found on school grounds. Doesn’t that make it your responsibility to do something about it?”

“Look, Simon. I have a lot going on. I don’t have time to deal with a couple of Normals who wandered into the woods and didn’t come back out.”

“There have been six of them so far. And they were all drained of their blood and missing their hearts.”

The Mage’s eyes widen slightly at that, but it’s the only sign that he has any feelings about this.

“We could move their bodies to the other side of the woods and let the Normal authorities deal with this.” I can’t believe he’s actually serious. Doesn’t he care at all?

“That doesn’t seem like the right thing to do. Shouldn’t we—?”

He slams a book down on his desk, cutting me off before finally looking up at me. His expression is harsh, and I can tell before he speaks that my efforts here are fruitless. He isn’t going to do anything about this.

“Enough, Simon. I have enough on my plate dealing with the Old Families. I do not have time to deal with some idiotic Normals on top of that.”

I glare at him for a long moment, searching for something to say, but it’s pointless, so I turn and walk out of his office. There’s no use fighting with him. He’s obviously not going to do anything about this.

That’s fine. I’ll figure it out on my own. I’m pretty sure I know who’s committing these gruesome murders anyway.

It’s the same person I’ve been suspicious of for years. I should have known that one day his evilness would turn into murder.

I’ve been watching him closely ever since the first body was found, and I’ve compiled a list of facts that prove that Baz is the one committing these murders.

Proof Baz is killing Normals and dumping their bodies in the Woods:

No. 1: He’s a vampire. It easily explains why all of the victims have been drained of their blood.

No. 2: He’s been staying out until all hours of the night recently, sometimes not coming back until just before sunrise.

No. 3: He’s been taking a shower almost every night when he returns, and he tracks in dirt everywhere, which he cleans up when he thinks I’m sleeping. He usually takes his showers in the mornings, which must mean he’s wanting to clean off something that can’t wait. Like blood. And all of the dirt serves as proof that he’s spending his nights out in the woods.

No. 4: He’s evil. He tried to take Phillipa’s voice in fifth year, and she had never done anything wrong to him. He definitely wouldn’t care about hurting some Normals he knows nothing about.

No. 5: He hasn’t been acting like himself. He seems more withdrawn and tired than usual, and when he sneers at me, it’s missing most of its usual venom. It’s like there’s something bothering him so much that he doesn’t care about anything else anymore. (Being a serial killer will do that to a person.)

All of this has me convinced that it’s him, but it isn’t enough to convince anyone else because I don’t have any actual physical proof. No one believes me. Not even Penny.

She does at least seem concerned about all of the dead Normals, but she doesn’t believe it’s Baz who’s killing them. I tried to convince her, but she thinks I’m “too blinded by my obsession with him to see things clearly”.

I told her that I’m only obsessed with stopping him, but she rolled her eyes at me and still refused to help me prove it’s him, so I’m on my own.

 Part 2: The Proof

Simon

This most recent body that was found has pushed me to work harder to find the person who did this because I was the one who discovered it. I knew that there were dead Normals in the Wavering Woods, but the details of their condition were kept a secret. So, when I stumbled across that body, almost literally stumbling on it, I couldn’t move.

The scene was gruesome. The body had been left lying half-hidden in some bushes, and there was a gaping wound in its chest where the person’s heart had once been. I wanted to scream out, but I couldn’t make a sound. I was too afraid that whoever had done this was nearby and would come after me if I did.

After that, though, I was determined to stop whoever it was, even if it meant putting myself in harm’s way.

It’s been a week since then, and I’m still not any closer to proving that Baz is the killer. I haven’t just been focusing on him—I’ve had other suspects—but he is still my prime suspect.

A body has been found every day since the first one was discovered, and it’s only a matter of time before one is found today, so I refuse to take my eyes off of Baz. I can’t let him kill another Normal.

He went to classes as usual, but at teatime, he heads straight for the woods. I wait a moment before following after.

I followed him into the woods a couple of nights ago, but I’m pretty sure he knew I was following him. He wove through the trees in circles, with no apparent direction, until I couldn’t catch my bearings. I was sure we were lost but after nearly two hours of that, he led us back out of the woods.

I don’t feel too great about the possibility of experiencing that again, but I would feel even worse if he killed someone and I didn’t try to stop him.

His pace is quick and purposeful as he makes his way through the woods. He seems so sure of his path that I wonder if he has already tied up a victim out here somewhere and is just now going back to take care of them.

A few feet ahead of me, he makes a quick turn into a thick patch of trees and bushes, and I pick up my pace to try to keep up with him. I turn where he did, but I don’t see him anywhere. I hurry forward, looking around for any sign of him, but everything is still and quiet. It creates an eerie feeling of both being all alone and being watched by a million pairs of eyes.

I slow my pace but keep moving towards where I think Baz went. I wander slowly through the trees, hoping to see or hear something that will help me find him.

As a couple of minutes pass and I still haven’t found anything, a lump forms in my throat, and my heartbeat quickens as I imagine all the awful things Baz could be doing right now to some poor sod.

I summon my sword and start thrashing it wildly about, clear the path in front of me so that I can push through the woods faster. I probably look like a complete madman, but I don’t care. I have to stop Baz before he hurts anyone else.

After what seems like forever, I slice through some low-hanging branches and step out into a small clearing. It’s only a few meters across, but the trees block out most of the light, which makes it difficult to see much.

At first, I don’t see anything, but as I take a few steps forward, two figures come into view on the opposite side of the clearing. I slowly move closer until the scene is clear. There is a limp body lying on the ground, a gaping hole the size of a fist in its chest, and someone is kneeling beside them. That someone is dreadfully familiar.

I gasp loudly, unable to stop myself, and Baz whips his head up towards me, his fangs bared.

I can’t believe it. I can’t believe I was right all along. Baz is the killer.

“I promise you this is not what it looks like,” he says, his words slurred because of his fangs.

“I don’t believe it,” I say, feeling queasy.

I was certain it was Baz but thinking it and seeing it are two completely different things.

I think there was a part of me that didn’t want to believe it was really him, didn’t want to believe he was capable of such horrific things, didn’t want to believe he really is a monster.

Being a vampire didn’t inherently make him a monster but this—these killings—are so much worse than being a vampire who feeds on wild creatures. It’s brutal and cold and unthinkable. I don’t understand how he could do it.

But here he is crouching over a fresh dead body, blood still pouring from the gaping hole in its chest, and the proof is irrefutable.

Baz did this.

He killed those Normals, and I have to stop him before he kills anymore.

“You killed them,” is all I can think to say.

“No. I didn’t. I know what this looks like, but you have to believe me, Simon. Please.”

He stands up, and I have to fight the urge to take a step back. I’ve never heard Baz plead with anyone before, so it’s strange that he’s doing it now.

Maybe it’s because he’s trying to keep himself out of trouble. But I won’t fall for it. I won’t let him get away with this.

I shake my head. “No. You did this. I know you did.”

“Are you sure?” He asks, and when I nod, he asks, “How sure are you? They will kill me for this if you turn me in, whether they have proof or not, so you should be absolutely certain before you run off and tell someone.”

He’s trying to trick me. I know it. I just… For some reason, I want to believe him. I guess I just don’t want to feel like this is my fault.

If only I had kept up with him, I could have prevented this from happening.

I shake my head again, hoping to clear away the doubt he has planted in my head before it can grow.

“You won’t fool me that easily. I know you did this.”

“Simon,” he says, and his voice is so soft and desperate that it steals my breath away. He rarely uses my first name, and he has definitely never said my name like that. “Look at me. Look at this scene. Really look at it. Do you honestly believe that I could do something like this?”

I take a deep breath and look at him then at the dead body and back again. I can’t stand to look at the scene before us for too long because it’s too gruesome, but I take a few long moments to study Baz.

His expression is hard, but there’s something vulnerable in his eyes, like he’s silently pleading with me to believe him.

It’s too much, and I have to look away, so I let my gaze fall down.

He’s still wearing his school uniform, same as me, but his somehow looks nicer. It never seems to wrinkle, and it doesn’t seem to have a spot of dirt on it even though he was just kneeling on the ground.

That’s what stops me.

If he had just killed that Normal, carved their heart from their chest, wouldn’t there be blood all over him? He could have cast a spell to clean himself up, but then, where’s the heart?

It’s not enough to wipe away my suspicions, but it is enough to make me doubt. Which I suppose was his plan, but it only means that I’ll have to keep an even closer eye on him tomorrow. I won’t let him hurt anyone else, but I also won’t turn him in until I know for sure he’s killing these people.

“Fine,” I say through gritted teeth.

“You believe me?” He almost sounds surprised.

“Not completely. But like you said, I need to be sure before I tell anyone. I’ll just have to get more proof.”

He nods once then says, “Alright,” before quietly adding, “thank you.” If I’m not mistaken, he looks relieved.

I only hope I haven’t just signed a death sentence for another Normal.

 Part 3: The Truth

Simon

I don’t get much sleep that night. Baz and I walked in silence back to the castle, and after we reported the body we found, he disappeared down to the Catacombs and didn’t return to our room for hours. I kept having to stop myself from going down there to keep an eye on him.

I get up bright and early the next day to make sure Baz doesn’t sneak off. It’s Saturday, so there aren’t any classes today, which means I should be able to keep my eye on him all day.

It’s Valentine’s Day, but I’m not sure how everyone can be so cheerful when these murders are taking place so close to our school.

If the victims were mages, I’m sure everyone would be scrambling. Parents would be picking up their kids; classes would be canceled; it would be a whole ordeal. But no one except me seems to be at all bothered by the murders. They haven’t even cordoned off the woods. It’s like they don’t even care for anyone’s safety.

The only person besides me who doesn’t seem in a cheerful mood is Baz, who seems to be moodily stomping his way all over the school.

I manage to keep my eye on him all morning and through lunch, but eventually I have to use the loo.

“Will you watch Baz for me for a minute?” I ask Penny.

“Why?” She asks, already looking annoyed at the mere mention of him.

“I want to make sure he doesn’t hurt anyone while I’m gone.”

She rolls her eyes at me but says, “fine. But all I’ll do is watch. I’m not interfering in this.”

I smile gratefully at here and hurry to the loo. When I return, I don’t see Baz anywhere.

“Where’s Baz?” I ask Penny, an edge of panic worming its way into my voice.

“He left a minute ago,” she says matter-of-factly.

“What? Where did he go?”

“I think he was headed towards the woods.”

“And you didn’t try to stop him? Or go after him?”

She sighs. “Simon, this is ridiculous. Baz is not a murderer. You need to face the truth.”

“I have faced the truth. Baz has killed thirteen Normals, and it’s only a matter of time before he kills another.”

“That’s not what I meant. I meant the truth about why you’re really obsessed with him.”

I frown. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

She nods solemnly. “I know, and I’m only saying this because you’re my friend.” She pauses briefly before saying, “You’re oblivious. You are completely oblivious to your feelings for him.”

“I am completely aware of how much I hate him,” I tell her.

She rolls her eyes. She does that often. “It’s more than that. You like him, and I think that if you really took the time to think about it, you’d see what I mean.

I want to stay and argue with her about this, but I have to go after Baz.

“I don’t have time for this,” I say. “I have to go after him.”

She shakes her head but doesn’t try to stop me when I turn to leave.

I take off towards the Wavering Woods, running as fast as I can and hoping it’s fast enough. I don’t even stop to consider the possibility that he might have gone elsewhere. I know he didn’t.

I have my sword drawn before I pass through the tree line. I keep running, blindly making my way through the woods. My movements are too loud for me to hear anything, but I can’t risk slowing down.

I have to keep moving. I have to keep running.

I have to stop Baz before he hurts anyone else.

I run for a long time, pushing harder and harder, until I trip on something, probably a tree root. I reach out to catch myself, scratching my hands on branches as I manage to stumble forward a few more steps before falling on my knees, hard.

I give myself a few moments to catch my breath before pushing myself to my feet.

That’s when I realize that I’ve made it to yet another clearing, bigger than the one yesterday and not quite as dark.

I take a few steps forward and find a scene similar to the one from yesterday. There’s a figure lying on the ground and something crouching over it. But it isn’t Baz.

This thing has wings and appears to be floating above the body with what appears to be an arrow poised over the figure’s chest.

I take a few more quiet steps forward, and that’s when I see who the figure is on the ground.

“Baz,” I whisper, barely audible.

The creature moves its arrow lower, and I cry out.

“NO!” I scream, and startled, the creature backs off and turns to me, hissing and spitting.

I freeze when I see its eyes. They’re bright red and glowing, and all of his teeth are sharp and pointed. What the hell is that thing?

It looks back down at Baz, and I cry out again.

“Leave him alone!” I shout, and somehow, my words are imbued with magic.

The creature hisses at me again, but as if he’s being pushed by something, he glides backward before turning and flying off into the woods.

I release a breath and realize that I’m shaking. I stay frozen to the spot for a long moment until I hear Baz take a gasping breath.

I rush to his side and sink to the ground beside him.

His shirt has been ripped open to reveal his chest, and there’s a button hanging from it by a thread. He’s pale, paler than I’ve ever seen him, and he doesn’t look well.

“I’m sorry,” I whisper.

How could I be so foolish? How could I honestly believe that he was killing people? If only, I had believed him.

“It’s not your fault,” he coughs.

“You’re so pale…” He’s more like an ashen grey. All of the color seems to have faded from him.

“Perks of being a vampire,” he says with a forced laugh, finally admitting it to me. Hearing him finally say those word aloud doesn’t make feels as victorious as I used to think it would, though.

“What did he do to you?” I ask, looking for a wound but finding none.

“Drank my blood. What little I had in me anyway.” He says it flippantly, like it’s no big deal, but it is a big deal. If he weren’t a vampire, he’d be dead right now.

He’s still dying, though. He can only go so long without blood. I have to do something. I have to help him somehow.

I think for a moment before the answer comes to me.

“Drink my blood,” I tell him.

He shakes his head violently. “No. I won’t drink human blood.”

“I won’t let you die.”

“I’ll go to the Catacombs. Drain some rats.”

“You won’t make it there in time.” Tears well in my eyes at the truth of this statement. I don’t want Baz to die. I have to save him.

“I can’t drink your blood, Simon.”

“Yes. You can.”

I pull him up into a sitting position and press his face into my neck.

“It’s okay,” I whisper. “It will all be okay.”

I feel his hesitation even as he nuzzles his face into my neck—he doesn’t want to do this, but he doesn’t have a choice. Then, there’s a sharp pain as he sinks his fangs into the side of my neck, and I gasp.

The initial bite is incredibly painful, and my instinct is to push him off, but I just grip onto his arms instead. And after a moment, his bite starts to feel good. Really good. It’s like as he takes my blood, he’s giving me something else in return, something warm and pleasant.

My eyes fall shut, and my mind goes blank. All there is is me and Baz and this pleasant feeling.

But then suddenly the feeling is gone, and reality comes crashing back down around me.

Baz shoves me away, and I don’t even try to fight him as I land on my back in the dirt.

The world spins around me as I struggle to catch my breath.

I’m still breathing hard, but after a couple of minutes I manage to sit up and look at Baz. He looks a little better now. Color is returning to his cheeks at least.

“That was…” I begin, grasping for a way to describe that experience.

“Awful,” Baz finishes, rubbing his hands down his face.

I frown, wrinkling my brows at him. That’s not how I would have described that.

“Are you okay?” I ask tentatively.

“No. Yes. No.” He shakes his head then tries again. “I’m not thirsty anymore, but I can’t believe I did that. I can’t believe you let me do that.” He won’t look me in the eyes. He just keeps staring at the ground.

“I couldn’t watch you die.”

He shakes his head at me. “Why not?”

I don’t know how to answer that. I don’t know how to explain it him. I can’t even explain it to myself.

“I just couldn’t,” I say, then I push myself to my feet.

“Where are you going?” He asks, finally looking at me.

“After it.”

“You can’t,” he says, attempting to push himself off the ground, but he isn’t strong enough yet.

“I have to.”

“Snow,” Baz rasps, his lips stained red with my blood, but I shake my head.

“I’ll find it. I’ll find whatever did this to you.”

“Simon, no. You’ll get yourself killed.”

I just shrug in response. I always knew I would go out fighting.

I turn towards the trees that the creature disappeared into and make my way to them, feeling woozy and a little unsteady on my feet.

Baz calls my name, but I ignore him and take off running once again.

I try not to think about why I’m so determined to get revenge for Baz. I mean, yes, I want to stop this creature, but I also want to get back at it for hurting Baz.

You like him. Penny’s words ring loud in my mind, but I shake them away.

I can’t think about that right now. I have bigger things to worrying about. Like stopping that creature before it can hurt anyone else.

 Part 4: The Final Victim

Baz

I have to go after Simon. He’s going to get himself killed.

I can feel Simon's blood coursing through my body. It makes me feel sick to think about what I just did, but it also makes me feel better physically, better than drinking blood has ever made me feel.

I don't like the implications of that.

I don't care how good drinking his blood makes me feel, I can never drink human blood again. I almost couldn’t stop, and Simon was too dazed to stop me. I can’t risk taking too much from someone. I would never forgive myself.

This one time will be worth it, though, if it means I'm fast enough to save Simon.

I finally manage to push myself to my feet, and after a brief moment of dizziness, I take off running faster than I've ever run before.

I can just barely catch a trace of Simon's scent, that familiar smoky-sweet scent that could only come from him. I keep shoving through branches until his scent becomes stronger. I'm getting close. I push myself to run faster. I have to get to him. He has no idea what he's gotten himself into.

This creature can't be killed by Simon simply going off or swinging his sword at it. There's only one way to kill a creature like this, and it's even harder to do than I thought.

I've been researching this thing since the first body was found.

My aunt used to tell me the Legend of a winged creature that came out every 14 years, killing one person everyday starting on the first of February and killing its final victim on Valentine's Day.

I used to think it was just a story, but as soon as I heard how the Normals were being killed, I knew it was more than a story. And I knew I had to stop it.

I've been hunting it even as Simon was so obviously hunting me. Of course I knew he suspected me. He's not very stealthy. I mean, he handwrote a list of reasons I'm the killer and left it on his desk for anyone to see.

I thought for sure he was going to turn me in yesterday even after he said he wouldn't. But somehow, I just barely managed to convince him. And then it was just my luck to become the creature's final victim today.

The creature doesn't only go after Normals -- I think they're just easier prey. It targets people who are single, people who won't be missed by a significant other. I fit the profile perfectly, but I think the real reason it targeted me was because I saw it yesterday. I wasn’t able to stop it, but I got close.

I was to be its final victim until Simon stopped it, which is why Simon is in so much danger. He's going after it, running right into danger like he always does, not caring a bit whether he lives or dies. He’s so stupid, but I have to help him.

His scent becomes overwhelming, and I know I'm close. I push through some more branches and find Simon fighting the creature in the trees.

He swings his sword at it, striking it on the arm, but the creature barely flinches.

"Simon!” I shout. “That won’t work. You have to get its arrow."

"What?"

I realize my mistake too late when Simon turns to look at me, leaving himself open to an attack.

The creature rushes at him and knocks him off his feet. Then, it’s on him, ripping at his clothes, trying to get at his heart.

I race towards the creature, drawing my wand. Magic won't do much against it, but it might slow it down.

I cast a spell, sending flames towards the creature’s wings. It cries out in pain but doesn't move away from Simon, who is reaching for his sword which lies just out of reach. I run at the creature, knocking him off Simon, but it easily overpowers me, once again pointing its arrow at my chest. It bares its sharp teeth at me, and I decide not to fight it. At least if it kills me, Simon will be safe.

 Simon

Baz knocks the thing off of me, but then he stops fighting. It's like he's given up, and I don’t understand why. I start to reach for my sword, but then I remember what Baz said. Get its arrow.

I lunge at the creature, landing on its back, and reach for the arrow. It attempts to shake me off, but when I see a speck of blood on Baz's chest, it’s like something snaps inside of me. I grip onto it and reach harder for the arrow. I won’t let it hurt Baz.

I manage to grab hold of the arrow and viciously rip it from the creature's grasp.

"Kill it!" Baz shouts.

I don't hesitate before plunging the arrow into the creature's chest. It bucks again, and I let go, letting myself slide off of it as black liquid oozes out of its chest. It yanks at the arrow, trying to pull it free, but it's too late.

The creature crumples to the ground in a lifeless pile.

I'm breathing hard as I step around it and help pull Baz to his feet.

As soon as he’s standing, though, he shoves me.

"You idiot!"

 Baz

"You idiot." I repeat, shoving Simon in the chest again. "You could have gotten yourself killed!"

"I had it handled." He shrugs.

"You had no idea what you were going into. If I hadn't found you..." I trail off, not wanting to think about what might have happened if I hadn't gotten to him in time.

"Why do you care?"

"Because I—." I cut myself off.

"You...what?" Simon asks, and there's a strange expression on his face, one I’ve never seen on him before. It’s almost like he’s hoping I’ll say something.

"Because I care about you, okay?" I sigh, finally saying aloud what I’ve never been able to before.

I expect him to laugh and ridicule me for it, but he just stares silently.

I give him another moment before shaking my head and turning away. I can’t believe I just said that aloud. I can’t believe I said it, and I can’t believe Simon didn't react at all. At least if he'd laughed or hit me, I'd know where we stand.

I should head back to school. I'll report what happened here and then I'll try to forget how foolish it was to say that.

I take a few steps away from Simon, prepared to start running once I'm sure I’m going the right way, but stop when I feel his hand on my wrist.

"Wait." His voice is quiet.

"What do you want?" I ask.

"I care about you, too."

I turn to face him slowly, wondering if now is the point when he starts laughing, like this is all just some big joke. But he looks serious. And maybe even...nervous?

He stares at the ground, but his voice is louder and surer when he speaks again.

"I really care about you Baz."

I suck in my breath. This has to be a joke.

He tilts his head up and slowly meets my eyes like he’s afraid of what I’ll do.

I'm not sure what to say. I like him, and I want for him to be telling the truth, but how can I know for sure?

I search for something to say, and he steps closer to me.

His hand moves from my wrist up to my face, where he brushes a strand of hair out of my face and lets it linger there.

"I like you," he whispers, like it’s a secret only meant for me to hear.

"I like you, too," I whisper back without hesitating.

Then, Simon is moving closer to me, and I'm tilting my face down towards his, but he stops just short of our lips meeting.

"Can I kiss you?"

I marvel at the question because it's ridiculous that he even had to ask, but I also love him for it because he wanted to make sure it was okay.

"Yes," I reply, and the word is barely out of my mouth before he's kissing me.

I kiss him back gently, placing my hands on his hips to hold him there.

We kiss for long moments until we have to part to catch our breaths.

He takes a step back but he’s smiling up at me.

"Will you be my Valentine?" He asks after a moment.

I chuckle lightly. "Seriously?"

He shrugs. "Yeah."

I smile at him, my chest filling with warmth. "Sure, Simon." I nod. "Yes. I'll be your Valentine."

His face splits into a grin, and he reaches out to intertwine his fingers with mine.

I don’t think I've ever seen this expression on him, and it's hard to believe that it's because of me.

I feel my own smile widen, and I lean forward to kiss him softly.

This is the strangest - and maybe even nicest - Valentine's Day ever.

[worryinglyinnocent]

Fic: Forged Through Fire (7/13)

Summary: Amestris. Once democratic, now a military dictatorship. Prohibition is strict; personal freedoms curtailed. All alchemists must be state-licensed or face imprisonment. Foreigners are met with suspicion. It’s a grim place and a grim time, but there are some people able to bring a little light to the world. Behind an innocent-looking bookshop, speakeasy proprietor Chris Mustang has formed an unlikely alliance with unlicensed alchemist Van Hohenheim to provide alcohol to those who want it and medical care to those who need it. When Riza’s newly complete tattoo becomes infected, Roy brings her into this underworld, little knowing the way it will change their lives in the future – uncovering the secrets of the mythical Philosopher’s Stone and the schemes of a Fuhrer hell-bent on achieving immortality, all whilst navigating what they mean to each other.

===

Rated: T

[One] [Two] [Three] [Four] [Five] [Six] AO3]

===

Note: So, just in case you read the previous chapter before I edited it, a note on timing. I managed to  mix up centuries and millennia because… wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey stuff. To clarify, Xerxes was destroyed about 450-500 years prior, like in canon. Not 50 years prior, like my brain decided to originally write…

Also, Atticus was picked as a random Ancient Greek name, there’s no deeper reasoning behind it.

===

Forged Through Fire

Seven

Riza looked up from the counter as the bell over the shop door tinkled and Gracia entered. 

“Hey Riza. How’s he doing today?”

Riza laughed. “He’s stopped rambling and he’s now annoying everyone, so I think he’s getting better. I know that Chris can’t wait to get him off her hands, but we’re a bit concerned that someone might try to shoot him again if we let him out of our sight.” She went and flipped the closed sign, locking the door. The speakeasy was still doing limited trade in order to keep the money coming in, but it was only open to trusted regulars who had forewarned that they would be coming in advance. 

Gracia followed her down into the bar. For all she could joke about it, Riza could feel the tension in the place. Hughes had stumbled upon something so big and so secret that it would affect all of them in the long run. 

As suspected, it now appeared irrefutable that Bradley had the military alchemists working on creating the Philosopher’s Stone. So far, they’d had several failed attempts, but a recent covert expedition to the ruins of Xerxes had uncovered some interesting documentation. Barely anyone could read it, but it was nevertheless causing a lot of excitement among the upper echelons of the military. 

Or, to put it simply, Fuhrer Bradley was trying to make himself immortal. 

“Can you think of anything worse than an immortal Bradley?” Hughes was saying as they entered his sick room. Roy was in there too, sitting in the office chair with his feet up on the end of the bed. There were papers scattered everywhere. 

“No, right now I don’t think that there’s anything worse than an immortal Bradley. Hi Gracia, hi Riza.”

“Hello Roy. Shouldn’t you be at work?”

“I’m very hard at work attempting to bring down a conspiracy in the military!” Roy protested, gesturing around at all the papers. “And no. Officially I am taking a leave of absence to care for my sick aunt.”

Madam Christmas, who had entered the room behind them, gave a pathetic cough. 

“See, my sick aunt. I’ve got Havoc and Breda running interference and Fuery’s been sending all kinds of mixed message telegrams. The top brass are so concerned with trying to work out whether or not Hughes is dead that they shouldn’t be paying too much attention to my whereabouts.”

“Right.” Riza shook her head in despair as Roy swung his feet up off the bed, leaving the room with her and Madam Christmas to give Gracia and Hughes some time alone together. 

She waited until he had poured himself some coffee from the large pot that had been left on the bar and they’d settled down at their usual table before she spoke again. “Have you found out anything new?”

“Bradley nearly declared war on Xing as an excuse to get in there and try to find the Philosopher’s Stone, but even his closest allies decided that would be a bit much and it would be better to try and create their own.” Roy took a long sip of his coffee. “You know, I wouldn’t put it past him to just lead a one-man charge on the place, he’s certainly bonkers enough.”

“Is it even the kind of thing that can be created twice? I mean, I know we should all take myths and legends with a pinch of salt, but at the same time, all the bits and pieces I’ve read about it talk about it as The Philosopher’s Stone, as if there is and can only ever be one.”

“Well, I think the military are certainly testing that theory.” Roy sighed. “The worst thing about it is that I have no idea what kind of unethical experiments they’re getting up to and as an alchemist I could be dragged into them at any time. I mean, my specialism sort of keeps me safe unless they need to burn a bunch of stuff but considering the lengths they seem willing to go to in order to both keep the secret and try to succeed, I don’t want to rule it out.” 

Riza inched a little closer to him, chancing to put an arm around his back, and he leaned into her side, head drooping onto her shoulder. 

“I’m so glad you’re here,” he mumbled to her. “Thank you.”

“Any time.”

He gave a little huff of laughter. “That’s my line.”

“Well, maybe it’s time for me to take care of you for a little while. You’ve taken care of me enough in the past.”

“Thanks for following us out the other night, as well. I was so frantic; I don’t know what I would have done if you hadn’t been there being calm and wonderful.”

Riza laughed. “I’m sure you would have survived somehow.” She held him a little tighter, and he burrowed in closer. 

“It feels like everything’s been turned upside down. Except you.”

He looked up at her then, his dark eyes so sad and tired, and Riza’s heart went out to him. 

“We never got to finish our conversation from yesterday,” he said. 

“The ‘What happens between us now?’ conversation.”

“Yeah. That one.” Roy sighed. “I know that we’ve just ended up in a potentially really dangerous situation, and I know that this is the worst time ever to be talking about it, and thinking about it, and God forbid thinking about the future. But I also know that you’re the only person I would ever want by my side throughout this whole thing, and if we all end up skewered through with one of Bradley’s not-at-all ceremonial swords tomorrow, then I know that not taking a chance with you would be my only regret.”

“Oh, Roy.” Riza leaned in to kiss him softly. “There’s nothing like people being shot to put things in perspective, is there?”

“Nope.” His hand came up to cup her cheek and he returned the kiss, gently and a little hesitantly, but with definite hope and want behind it. “Perhaps I’m starting to see that sometimes the universe just really wants to screw us over, and there’s nothing we can do about it.”

“Exactly. It’s time to let go of the guilt, Roy. There’s nothing anyone can do about it.” She found herself stroking his hair as he resettled against her shoulder. 

“We make quite the pair, don’t you think? Both broken up in our own ways.” 

“Perhaps.” Riza kissed the top of his head. “But we’ll stick ourselves back together. I think that’s the one thing that I’ve learned the most since leaving home and coming here. The sticking myself back together part. Because I haven’t been sticking myself back together, not really. I’ve had you and Rebecca and Madam and Hughes and Trisha and Hohenheim and all the rest of the crew helping me stick myself back together. And when you get broken, I’ll help you stick yourself back together as well.”

“Thank you, Riza.”

They stayed like that for a long time, and although her arm was going numb, Riza didn’t mind at all. She was enjoying this easy closeness. They had been so close back when he had first known her – perhaps they had never been this physically close, but they’d been so close as people. A part of her had always known that they would end up like this somehow. Maybe not as romantic partners, but definitely as friends. 

It was only when Madam Christmas came out into the bar to take over serving and gave them a knowing look that Riza realised Roy had fallen asleep on her, and she just smiled. They’d had a fraught couple of days of it, what with everything Hughes had found out and the aftermath of that; she wasn��t really surprised that it had taken it out of him so much. She was just glad that he trusted her enough to be this vulnerable around her. Well, she trusted him that much, and she guessed that it went both ways. 

Madam Christmas came over with a glass of wine; Riza took it with her free hand. It was her favourite, and she savoured the rich taste. 

“On the house.” Madam Christmas winked. “I think we could all use a little pick-me-up right now. It’s been a day. I had Rebecca on the phone earlier, she’s been picking up all kinds of stories at the paper.”

Over the last few months or so, Rebecca had become a great friend to them in giving inside information as to what kinds of propaganda were about to be sent out to the general population. Of course, most of what she wrote herself ended up cut and censored by the government-employed editors by the time it appeared in print, but the unredacted versions were always circulated through the speakeasy to great interest. Riza had been happy to set her up with Havoc.

“Good stories or bad stories?”

“A bit of both. Everything’s being swept under the rug, though. As far as Central City’s citizens are concerned, absolutely nothing out of the ordinary happened in the park two nights ago.”

“Huh.” Riza felt the uneasiness beginning to creep back in. “I don’t like how that implies that people do know that something out of the ordinary happened in the park two nights ago.” She thought back to Hohenheim and the frighteningly powerful alchemy that he’d performed on Hughes, something unlike anything she’d ever known before, and in turn she found herself thinking back to the day she’d burned her back, and his warning that removing her tattoo completely would be too traumatic. 

If that was what he would have had to do, she could well see why. Hughes had been unconscious and on his last breaths; she wouldn’t have wanted anything like that to happen if she was anything other than at death’s door. 

“No,” Madam Christmas agreed. “It’s worrying. I’m just hoping that there’s nothing that can tie it all back to this place. Rebecca doesn’t think that there is, and she’s running as much interference as she can. Still, I think keeping a low profile for a couple of weeks will be a good idea.” She glanced at Roy. “Are you comfortable like that?”

“Not really. My shoulder’s gone dead. But I don’t mind.”

“Oh, to be young and in love once more. Don’t deny it, Miss Hawkeye. I’ve known you long enough.”

Riza shook her head, but she didn’t respond. Something good would come of it all. It had to.

X

“Do you really think that Bradley would risk wiping out the entire population of Amestris in order to gain immortality? I mean, surely the whole point of him gaining immortality is so that he can remain Fuhrer and rule over us forever. It wouldn’t be much fun being immortal if he was literally the only person in the country.”

Two more days had passed, and the rag-tag bunch of investigators had become a full-on research force, although they weren’t any closer to finding out what was going on in Central Command than they had been before. Every new piece of information they uncovered just seemed to be adding to the confusion without clearing anything up. 

“I mean, if the legends of Xerxes are anything to go by, then he’d get wiped out too.” Hughes brushed some peanut shells off the table and slammed down another piece of paper. “Take a look at that.”

Riza looked up at the clock; it was almost eleven but none of them showed any signs of stopping. The entire crew of Roy’s friends from Central Command were gathered in the bar, and Madam Christmas had closed up shop temporarily to allow them more space to spread out in the main area rather than everyone being cramped in the office that had been Hughes’s recovery room. Hohenheim had given him the all-clear earlier in the day, but he still hadn’t actually left the speakeasy and gone home. Gracia and Rebecca had joined the party as well, and although Madam Christmas was trying to remain as aloof from it all as she could, more concerned with keeping them all safe in the bar than with the military conspiracies going on, she was offering insights wherever she could. 

Hohenheim and Trisha had gone home. Riza hadn’t seen all that much of them since the night Hughes had been shot, and she got the impression that Hohenheim was trying to avoid everyone in the wake of what he’d had to do. Not that anyone who had been there and who knew what had happened held his strangeness against him, quite the opposite in fact; they were all extremely grateful that he’d managed to save Hughes’ life. Still, if he wanted space then they would give it to him. 

Riza craned over the others to take a read of the paper that Hughes had put down, but the writing was too small for her to make it out. 

“What is it?”

“It attributes the creation of the Philosopher’s Stone to an alchemist named Atticus, who was the King of Xerxes’ personal alchemist. But it also says that Atticus died in whatever catastrophe wiped out the rest of Xerxes, so even if Bradley does succeed in creating the Philosopher’s Stone again, it won’t leave him any better off than when he started.”

“Just another hunk of rock in an empty country waiting for some Xingese merchants to take it home to Tim Marcoh,” Roy mused, and Riza couldn’t stop herself from bursting into laughter.

“Sorry, sorry. I know it’s really not that funny. I think I need more coffee.” She extricated herself from the gaggle around the table and went over to the coffee pot. Considering the vast array of alcohol that was available behind the bar and the fact that the coffee pot had never seen all that much use before the night Hughes had been shot, it was certainly earning its keep now. They’d been refilling it almost constantly all day. 

“Hey.” 

She looked up to find that Roy had followed her over. They hadn’t really had the chance to spend all that much time together since they’d had their talk. Well, that wasn’t strictly true since they’d spent most of the intervening two days in each other’s pockets whilst trying to work out what on earth was going on in the country, but they’d always been surrounded by other people. This moment leaning on the bar was as close as they had come to having a moment to themselves. 

“Hey yourself.” She smiled at the memory of the other night. Roy had been so embarrassed when he’d woken up, and it had been sweet to see him so flustered. Naturally, she’d had to kiss him to stop his litany of apologies for falling asleep on her. 

He helped himself to another cup, draining the pot. “How are you holding up?”

“All right, I guess. It’s just so surreal that I’m having trouble believing that it’s all happening and I’m not in some kind of crazy dream. More like a nightmare, actually. How come none of this has ever come to light before? Something this big and all-encompassing, surely someone would have found something out.”

“Someone probably did,” Roy said grimly. “And that someone, and all the someones who came before and after them, probably met the same fate as Hughes would have met if he hadn’t had a handy Hohenheim around.”

“It just boggles the mind. Who would even want to be immortal in the first place? Can you imagine having to live on and watch everyone around you grow old and die?”

“I don’t think psychopaths like Bradley really see it in that way.”

“But what about his wife? Their child?”

Roy shrugged. “I don’t think he sees it that way. If you want something badly enough, then everything else falls by the wayside.” He paused. “I… No. Sorry. That’s not an appropriate train of thought.”

Riza raised an eyebrow. “Well, now you have to tell me.”

“It’s about your father. Are you sure you want to hear it?”

Riza nodded. Although her feelings for her father remained complicated, the time and space between them made it easier to look at things through a more neutral lens. She didn’t think that she was ever going to forgive him for what he had done to her, but at the same time, she was no longer wasting her energy being angry at either him or herself. He simply wasn’t worth the emotional investment she had given him for so long. 

“I was thinking that I can see certain similarities between Bradley and your father.” Roy glanced at her, but she nodded for him to continue. “There’s something about them both, that single-mindedness and that disregard for others. Your father’s desire to protect his complex array above all else, his willingness to completely destroy your life in order to achieve his own ends… I can see that same drive in Bradley, and I dread to think what would have happened to you if Hawkeye’s goal had been immortality instead of anything else.”

Riza shuddered. “Yes. When you put it like that, I can see why Mrs Bradley and Selim wouldn’t cross his mind at all. I don’t even want to think about my father being immortal. He did enough damage in the fifty-three years he had.”

Roy reached across and took her hand. He didn’t apologise; perhaps he knew better than that now. After so many years of carrying guilt around, Riza had hoped she’d made it clear that he didn’t have to anymore. 

“At least it’s over now.”

Riza nodded. “Yes. It’s over now. And in the end, I don’t think my life has been completely destroyed. I mean, it might be if Bradley does something drastic, but I can’t lay that one at my father’s door. I think that I’ve still found something good in spite of him and his disregard for everything.”

Roy smiled, and Riza could see the colour coming up in his cheeks. It was sweet to see it; the persona he wore within the military and when he was around the rest of the customers in the bar was always confident and self-assured, an easy-going ladies’ man, but Riza had known him long enough to know that the real Roy was just as flustered around her as she had been about him when she had first realised that she liked him as far more than a friend. 

They were settling now, having put the cards on the table the other night, and Riza knew that, if the circumstances in the outside world had been easier, they would have been moving ahead with the relationship without any concerns. But the circumstances were what they were, and with danger lurking in every corner, it felt premature to be making any kind of long-term plans beyond the fact that they wanted to be together right now in case they never got the chance in the future. 

Roy’s fingertips brushed her face, touching the frown line between her brows. 

“It’ll be all right.” He leaned in and pressed a kiss to her cheek. “Somehow, it’ll be all right.”

It wasn’t the firmest or most confident of statements, but it gave Riza some hope, and she smiled, knocking her coffee mug against his in a toast before they went back to join the others. Breda and Fuery were pouring over a book so old it was practically falling apart, and Riza wondered if it was stock from the shop upstairs. 

“Can you make out this transmutation circle?” Fuery thrust the book at him. “Armstrong doesn’t recognise it, but he thinks it’s a forbidden one.”

Roy grabbed the book and turned it this way and that, before his eyes widened.

“I think that’s for human transmutation.”

“Ah.” Breda and Fuery exchanged a worried look. Even the layman most ignorant of all things alchemic knew that human transmutation was the ultimate taboo, not just in Amestris but in general. 

“So, once we get our hands on someone who can read Ancient Xerxian, that one could prove to be a game changer,” Breda muttered. He shoved it on the ‘keep’ pile of documents, and Riza went to sit beside him and take a look at what they had so far. 

She had only just settled down when she jumped out of her skin as a pounding against the door began. It was the back door that led out into the alley with the garbage, the door that Madam Christmas brought all the booze in through; the door that would serve as their emergency exit if the speakeasy ever got raided. 

No one used that door on a regular basis, and Riza felt her blood going cold. She looked over at Madam Christmas, who, although as guarded as ever, looked genuinely concerned. She gave Riza a nod and reached under the bar, grabbing the rifle that was always kept there in case of problems and tossing it to her, and the two of them made their way through the bar towards the door. Roy followed them, pulling on his gloves and getting ready to strike. The pounding was not letting up, a steady and frantic hammering, and as tense as the noise was making her, Riza thought that the fact it wasn’t being punctuated with ‘open up in the name of the law’ and threats of the door being blown in meant that they weren’t being raided. 

“Please!” The voice was muffled through the thick wood and obscured by the constant pounding, but Riza could recognise it in an instant, and ice ran through her veins afresh. “Please let me in! Please!”

Madam Christmas unbolted the door and threw it open, catching Trisha as she fell in through the doorway. 

“Trisha? What’s going on?” Riza rushed to help her back on her feet.

“They’ve got Hohenheim!”

[cherry3point14]

Stranger Than Fanfiction: Ch 6

Series Masterlist

Pairing: Dean x Reader   Warnings: Not much except for the dangers for staying up all night. And Meta. Word count: 1,900. Chapter Summary: Fanfiction is not your friend. A/N: I am very sorry but like all my writing we are in that awkward middle where we have to hang on for dear life and hope the writing improves by the end.

Ao3 if you prefer

You hadn’t gone looking for it, the story. Your new online friend sent you a link. Innocently. Casually. Like she wasn’t going to absolutely, swiftly, and utterly change everything.

It was only supposed to be a story.

You had tried to explain as gently as possible that you weren’t reading fics anymore but she'd sent you the link anyway, in case you changed your mind. She hadn’t been holding a gun to your head or anything, you didn’t have to click it. You could have let it sit in your little inbox till the end of time. She’d mentioned that you might like this story is all. This person, the writer she linked you to, was well known and pretty good. The stories were, her words, one of a kind. It had been late, you’d already been tucked up in bed and unable to sleep. The blue light from your phone was doing very little to help with the whole getting to sleep thing, but really, it’s Friday night. No harm, no foul.

Your bedroom was the perfect temperature, your blankets were the perfect weight over your body. Everything was soft and cocoon-like, the ideal place to hide from the world while you read something you’d promised yourself you wouldn’t. More fanfiction.

The first story was twelve chapters and you devoured them. Your new friend had been right. The story was brilliant. If you hadn’t known better this could have been another unpublished book, albeit shorter than Supernatural books usually are. There had been a vivid interaction between Sam and Dean finishing each other's sentences that felt bone-chillingly real. Probably because you’d seen the real them do the exact same thing in front of you a few days ago.

Well written fanfiction is not the issue. Nor is the fact that you’re reading fanfiction at all. The crazy, unbelievable part came down to four familiar words.

Little did she know.

If you remembered anything it was those words. They had haunted what nightmares you’d had since you heard them a week ago. Those words were the reason you jumped easier at every sound or movement.

Then you’d read them on the screen. Little had that character known that she wouldn't make it past the week. Alone those words weren’t irrefutable proof, not enough to convict anyway, the rest of the story might be. The way it was written. It was like you could hear the words in your head again, a different song sung in the same voice. An echo of what you heard most days since that first Friday in May.

Only when you get to the end do you dare to even think your suspicions.

There’s no way. It’s impossible.

The clock at the top of your phone tells you it’s nearly one o’clock in the morning now. You hadn’t devoured that first story as quickly as you thought. Maybe you’re tired. That’s what was causing this delirium. Tiredness was sending you further and into the realms of crazy. Crazier than the voice or the Winchesters or the fact that a shapeshifter is killing people.

It’s beyond deranged. It’s insane, it’s… it’s… unbelievable.

Your life, what you’ve been hearing, it can’t be just that; a story. It’s supposed to be in your head. Sure, everything you'd heard had been strung together like a book but it’s not actually being told. It’s something in you, broken, you needed an MRI. Or a therapist. You read too much, that’s all. You have too many books in your memory.

It would be easy to turn your phone off now. One a.m. That’s sleeping time. Your eyelids are heavy and it’s a struggle to keep them open.

But you click the link that says Masterlist anyway and see a post for something in progress at the top of the page. Till Death Do Us Part.

The synopsis alone makes your throat dry and your heart stop.

Y/N spends her days on paperwork and procedure. In the worst days of people’s lives, she is the full stop at the end of the sentence. When a loved one is lost, she replaces the irreplaceable; by completing the insurance claim. Her work sits on the outskirts of tragedy, far away enough that she pretends to have a normal life. But when she discovers two men attempting to steal her job out from under her? Everything changes.

The room is quiet enough to hear a pin drop. Gravity has forced you deeper into your pillow to the point where you couldn’t get up, couldn’t move, if your house caught fire around you. It’s a comfortable prison but you’re still trapped all the same, which only leaves scrolling, clicking, and reading as your options.

Yet your thumb is slow. It’s the only part of you that can move but you can’t bring yourself to do it too quickly. You suddenly can’t sleep either and indecision starts eating at you.

It might be an hour before you click on the first link—chapter one—it might be thirty seconds. The chapter eventually loads and when you do start skimming the words something steals the air from your lungs. A single line stands out to you, black letters on a white background that will haunt you for the rest of your short life.

This is a story about Y/N Y/L/N.

The early morning sun starts to leak through the gap in your curtains, sending a slither of light into the room. It slices over your bed, your arms still holding your phone and your face.  It's not particularly bright but it's enough to inform you that you haven't slept yet and you paw at your cheeks to wipe the tears from them.

Six chapters out of ten. There are six chapters online for anyone to read. Every facet of your life. There’s so much more than the words you'd heard in your already. Entire sections where the real you deviated from the path, because the you that is being written about has no idea what’s coming. She has no idea that she’s going to die. Or that you both are.

When you’d first heard that you’d run home in a panic but in the story you never did. You sat at your desk and worked mindlessly, made small talk with Harry about his weekend plans. You’d carried on living.

The invasion of your privacy is not the reason for the tear tracks blotting your face though. No, you'd cried for two reasons. Frustration had been what made your chin wobble and your eyes sting. What you were reading is what knocked your resistance enough to feel the wetness on your cheeks.

It's poetic. The irony of this character only learning to really live in her final days, without knowing it's her final days. The foreshadowing and tragedy perfectly  littered throughout. You may think you're better off knowing except what did you actually know? The only thing you know is the same thing everyone on the planet knows; death is coming. Yours is sooner than you'd like, sure, but you still had no idea what was coming at all.

You're not a crier, not pretty prose alone, but this isn't a character. It's you. The implication of sad, wasted days were your choices, your time, your shell of an existence.

You wouldn't have even thought your life was that ordinary until you'd read that it was.

So, you'd read. Over and over again as if you can will the ending to appear by memorizing whatever has already been posted. Sleeping was second hand to re-reading. You'd thought back to everything before this and your love of a good mystery, convincing yourself that you alone could find the clues. That’s where the key to solving this was. Hidden to anyone else but you.

Now you know every word; the good, the bad, and the ones you already heard in your head. There’s nothing. No glaringly obvious tips or hints anyway. Nothing that makes you sit up dramatically because of a fact only you know about yourself. Then again—you're reminded by the promise of an update soon—it’s still in progress.

The answer hits you between your eyes.

This story is in progress. It’s not a product of your mind anymore, it's being written by a human being. Although you have no idea how you are hearing it, or how she’s controlling you. Or if she brought you into existence like a monster from the books. There's still hope. She’s a person typing on a keyboard.

People can be stopped. Keyboards can be smashed. Stories can go unfinished.

You click back to her main profile and see her name. Emma. Your author has a name now, all the better to find her.

Emma. Iowa. That doesn't narrow it down much further. The only other slightly identifying piece of information on her profile is her age.

There's one thing Emma has gotten right in everything she's written so far, you have changed. Imminent death will do that to a person. Old you would have given up, let defeat win out. Luckily you're not that person anymore.

Not everyone is as honest as you would like when it comes to insurance. Sometimes you need to treat things like fraud because they are fraud, so you already have a friend who has dug up information for you in the past. With a lot less to go on.

Hi Stan,

It's been a while but I was hoping you had time to check something out for me. I'm looking for an Emma, 34, Iowa. I also have a link to her blog below. I know it's a long shot but if I can get a phone number, address, anything. You'd be doing me a huge favor. Are normal fees ok? Let me know if you're busy or if anyone else can do this for me.

Thanks,

Y/N

The email is brief but once your phone makes that tiny woosh sound to signify it's sent you feel comforted. A small semblance of relief wraps you up like the blanket you still have tucked under your arms. For the first time, you're not blindly trying things and hoping to solve the problem. You may not know how this is happening but you're being proactive with the facts you have. If your off the books P.I friend can actually find this woman then you may have an honest to God shot at preventing your own death. You might even get her out of your head to boot.

You check the time again, even though it's six a.m. you're finally tired enough to close your eyes.

Continue to Chapter 7.

5eva tags: @divadinag @darthdeziewok @fluentinfiction @witch-of-letters @supernatural-teamfreewillpage @magnitude101999 @alexwinchester23   Dean babes: @thewinchesterchronicles @akshi8278​ @bloodydaydreamer StrangerThanFiction tags: @jaylarkson @starsandmidnightblue​

[leopard-mask]

we still have each other

Lionblaze and Alderheart are worried about Jayfeather. Set during River of Fire, AVOS.

Jayfeather stomps out of the medicine den with a scowl, calling some excuse about gathering more watermint over his shoulder as he leaves. Nobody says anything, but he can practically feel Alderheart’s exasperated gaze on his back. That’s fine. Let him feel a fraction of what Jayfeather’s been feeling these past few moons.

He hears Lionblaze’s telltale heavy footsteps approaching and lets out a hiss before his brother even has the chance to say anything. “Can I not have a moment to myself?”

Lionblaze, never one to take antagonization well, stops short. “Well, hello to you too,” he spits. “Pardon me for wanting to spend some time with my brother.”

Jayfeather lashes his tail and steps past him. “Go spend time with your mate and kits.”

To his irritation, Lionblaze follows. “Believe it or not, I have the capacity to care about more than one cat at a time.” His tone is still sharp; he’s clearly already not taking Jayfeather’s company well. That’s fine. Maybe he’ll get so fed up that he’ll finally leave him alone. “Where are you even going?” Lionblaze continues when Jayfeather doesn’t say anything.

Jayfeather puts extra force behind his growl. “Use your brain Lionblaze. Where do you think I’m going?” he doesn’t wait for Lionblaze to answer. “In case you haven’t noticed, there’s this sickness going around the camp. I’m getting more herbs for it so no one else has to die.” His own words make him cringe internally. He’d just unwittingly admitted, aloud, unprompted, that Briarlight had died from this sickness. The one he’d given her. Which, yes, it was irrefutable—of course she’d died, there was no avoiding that at this point. But he’s been pointedly avoiding the thought since her vigil…

Thankfully, Lionblaze must not have caught the significance of the slip. Instead, he (predictably) bristles at the jab at his intelligence. “What’s wrong with you? You’re ruder than normal lately.”

“Why are you following me?” Jayfeather snaps by way of answer. They’re in the forest now. He’d expected Lionblaze to leave when they reached the camp entrance, but much to his annoyance, he’s still here. “I’m busy.”

“I’m worried about you,” Lionblaze snaps. The growl in his voice is an ironic contrast to his words that Jayfeather might have pointed out if he was in a better mood. Lionblaze has never been great with heart to hearts, but then, neither has Jayfeather. That skill was best left with Hollyleaf.

The thought of his sister just worsens Jayfeather’s mood. “Well, don’t be. I can take care of myself. That’s kind of my job.”

Lionblaze sighs, but this time it sounds more weary and less angry. “Jayfeather, this is about Briarlight, isn’t it?”

Jayfeather stops so suddenly he nearly stumbles. Why would you bring that up? He can’t even think of something to say—he just stands there rigidly.

Lionblaze shifts slightly closer. “You forget I know you. That’s why you’re upset, isn’t it?”

Jayfeather shakes himself forcefully and pushes on. He’s already had this spiel with Alderheart—while his apprentice’s soft words of comfort had been nice at the time, he can’t help but hate himself for breaking down in such a way. Having such a conversation twice in as many days was simply not going to happen. “Stop distracting me. Like I said, I have work to do, and you’re not helping.”

Lionblaze’s long-suffering eye roll is evident in his tone. “Come on, Jay—”

“Shut up!” Jayfeather seethes. He certainly doesn’t beg.

Lionblaze quickly steps in front of Jayfeather, preventing him from continuing. Jayfeather flattens his ears and jerks back, but Lionblaze is quick to speak. “I’ll be honest,” he says, temper surprisingly controlled. “Alderheart asked me to talk to you. He’s worried, too.” His tone sharpens. “And I can see why.”

Of course Alderheart had. Jayfeather turns his head away mutely.

“Now you’re the one wasting time,” Lionblaze points out. “Just talk to me, will you?” when Jayfeather still refuses to speak, Lionblaze deflates slightly and sits down. After a few too many heartbeats have gone by, he exhales and admits quietly, “I wish Dovewing was here.”

Well, great. This isn’t something he particularly wants to talk about either, but he supposes any topic change is a good topic change right now. Besides, he can’t just ignore Lionblaze’s confession. Neither of them had spoken of it since she’d gone…

With a sigh, Jayfeather reluctantly turns back to Lionblaze and stiffly sits beside him. “She’s with Tigerheart.” They don’t know that, really, but it had to be true. Why would both of them have gone missing at the same time if not to run away together?

Lionblaze shifts. “That doesn’t make it hurt less.”

Jayfeather doesn’t say anything, but he does lean a bit closer so his fur presses against his brother’s.

Lionblaze shakes his head sadly. “It’s like… I know it’s different, but she chose him over us. And she didn’t even say anything! I can only imagine how Ivypool’s doing…”

“There’s no use wallowing about it,” Jayfeather chides softly.

“Grieving and wallowing are not the same thing,” Lionblaze counters.

“It’s all the same to me.” Jayfeather shrugs. “There’s nothing we can do about it. We just have to move on.”

“That’s your problem.” Lionblaze tips his head; Jayfeather feels his brother’s whiskers brush his shoulder. “Sometimes you have to address it to move on.”

“Are you trying to give me a lecture?”

“Are you admitting that I’m right enough to lecture you?” Lionblaze asks cheekily.

Jayfeather rolls his eyes. “What do you want me to say?” he asks, perhaps a bit harshly. “I wish Dovewing hadn’t left? I wish I hadn’t gotten Briarlight sick? I wish Alderheart—” he breaks off, mouth twisting into a disgusted frown. He hadn’t meant to say so much. He abruptly gets to his paws. “There’s no point in wishing for things that can’t happen.”

Lionblaze gets up too. “What about Alderheart?” he asks slowly. “I didn’t know there was something up between you two.”

Jayfeather scowls. “Haven’t you seen the way he acts around Velvet?” his tail flicks. “I wouldn’t be surprised if he takes off with her before the moon is up.”

Lionblaze’s surprise is almost palpable. “Alderheart and Velvet?” he echoes, as if he honest to StarClan hadn’t seen it himself.

“Yeah.” Jayfeather sniffs. “Why don’t you watch them a bit when we get back? I’m not overreacting.” His shoulders hunch forward miserably. “I’ve been trying to keep them apart, but if Dovewing’s anything to go by, that’s not going to do anything.”

“Well,” Lionblaze says awkwardly. A few moments drag by before he evidently figures out what to say. “Alderheart isn’t Dovewing, you know that. You can’t assume you know what he’s going to do.” He nudges Jayfeather’s shoulder lightly. “Have you talked to him about it? I’m sure he’d listen.”

“No,” Jayfeather admits. He hadn’t wanted to explicitly say anything. He’s sure Alderheart must’ve gotten the hint by now, but neither of them has spoken of it out loud.

“Maybe give that a try before you keep assuming the worst,” Lionblaze suggests gently.

“I know.” Jayfeather shifts uncomfortably. Maybe he can get Leafpool to talk to him about it? After all, she’s the one with the firsthand experience; he’s sure she could dissuade him from pursuing anything with the kittypet. But that would involve Jayfeather actually talking to Leafpool about that, and, well, they’d just finally gotten past it. He doesn’t see himself approaching Leafpool about something like that anytime soon. Or ever.

“That’s not it though, is it?” Lionblaze guesses. “Don’t deny it,” he interrupts when Jayfeather makes to speak. “There’s something behind all of this, isn’t there?”

Jayfeather lets out a defeated sigh. Fine, Lionblaze wins. “I just… First there was Hollyleaf, and now Dovewing, Briarlight, and Alderheart next?” he shakes his head. “After all we’ve done for StarClan, it doesn’t seem very fair.” Not to mention, Fuzzball will be leaving soon, but Jayfeather will die before he admits to getting attached to the annoyingly chipper kittypet.

He hates going to sleep every night wondering, who’s next?

“You’re right.” To Jayfeather’s surprise, Lionblaze agrees. “It’s not fair.”

Jayfeather snorts humorlessly. “You’re not going to lecture me about being pessimistic?”

“No. We’re grieving, not wallowing,” Lionblaze corrects. His lighthearted inflection grows more solemn. “It helps to know that they must be happy, wherever they are, but… I know what you mean. It isn’t fair.” He nudges Jayfeather again. “But we still have each other. And I have Cinderheart and my kits, and you have Alderheart and Leafpool. As long as we all still have each other, we’ll be okay.”

Jayfeather rolls his eyes, unwillingly fond. “Quit trying so hard to be profound.”

Lionblaze snickers. “Oh right, I forgot, you’re supposed to be the profound one.” He flicks Jayfeather’s ear with his tail, then laughs louder when Jayfeather ducks away from him indignantly.

“Come on,” Jayfeather grouses, “I really do have to get that watermint.”

“Alright, alright.” The two walk together in companionable silence for a while before Lionblaze says anything else. “I hoped it helped a little, just to get it off your chest. You know you don’t have to shoulder things alone. It’s not like I can fix anything but… Talking helps.”

Jayfeather doesn’t want to admit it, but he does feel a little better. Less angry and spiteful, anyway. It still hurts terribly, thinking about all he’d lost, but… it does feel better.

He won’t admit that Lionblaze was right, though.

[hedwigstalons]

High Expectations - Ch6

This editions of Hedwig’s scribbles brings you a young TOS Jeff.  I’ve come to the annoying realisation that my camera squashes things down so the original actually looks a bit longer and narrower than this picture.  Unfortunately my scanner makes everything too white and you lose half the image.  *Sigh*

@willow-salix​ has been her superstar self again with both the fic and the art, I don’t know what I would do without her as a sympathetic critic, putting up with all my wobbles.

Earlier parts: One, Two, Three, Four, Five

AO3 chapter link

Chapter Six

It didn’t take long for normality to return for Gordon.  He had given one or two carefully selected interviews in the lull between his medal win and the closing ceremony of the Games but any requests by magazines had been vetoed by Jeff since his return stateside.  Any approaches regarding sponsorship opportunities had been similarly turned away.  Initially the reporters clamoured for the chance to speak to the elusive young star but in the face of continued rejections the requests tailed off.  His obligations were decidedly minimal as he slipped from the public eye.  

With no school making its demands felt Gordon was able to concentrate fully on his swimming; the World Championships and a national competition were both on the horizon and gave him something to aim for.  He often found himself heading out for an additional run or putting in more time at the gym, this was partly to keep in peak condition and partly to escape the oppressive atmosphere in the apartment.  

He had gone from being surrounded by the hustle and bustle of the Games with a team mate around every corner to home with its dwindling population.  

First Virgil had returned to Denver claiming he needed access to the technical facilities, then John had gone back to campus and finally Alan had been sent off to summer camp to spend time in the great outdoors.  If the messages coming Gordon’s way were anything to go by Alan was finding outdoors to be too full of bugs and too lacking in games consoles to be considered great.  

Now it was just him and his father.  Whenever they were in the apartment together he felt like he was under the microscope.  Being judged.  Being appraised.  He tended to stay in his room to avoid the attention.  With no one else around staying in his room was becoming a habit, even when Jeff was out at work.

He vaguely registered the click of the apartment door as his father returned but it was past dinner time and he had already eaten so he didn’t feel any need to emerge.  His father would likely be reading files late into the night.  He expected his contact to be limited to the standard ‘good night’ as he brushed his teeth before bed, he was therefore surprised when a sharp rap sounded on his door.

“Gordon.  My study.”

The footsteps retreated down the corridor leaving no opportunity to ask questions and he couldn’t think of anything he had done to warrant such a summons.  He also knew it didn’t do to keep his father waiting so he paused the film he was watching and made his way to the study.

The door was open so he went straight in.  His father’s big desk faced the doorway and Jeff was already sat back down behind it by the time Gordon entered.  He stepped up and patiently waited to be acknowledged, curious as to why he had been called for.  

“Gordon, I have to go out of town for a few days.”

“Ok.”  

“So you need to decide what you would rather do.  You have two choices; either I can arrange for you to join Alan at summer camp or you can go and stay with Virgil.”

“Honestly, you don’t need to do that.  I’ll be fine by myself for a few days.”

“You are not staying here alone,” Jeff’s voice was stern and intractable.

“I’m not a kid any more Dad.”

“Then maybe you should stop acting like one.  It’s time you grew up and started planning for the future.”

The thought that his father didn’t trust him alone in the house for a few days stung, especially given the number of times he had been responsible for not only himself but Alan too when their father got held up at the office until late.  He was seventeen, he had finished school and he had a gold medal.  Apparently none of that was enough to afford him the privilege of staying home alone.  The thought of being shipped off so his older brother could do babysitting duty was pretty bad but the idea of summer camp was much worse.  Being surrounded by kids mostly Alan’s age and having to take part in enforced activities was not appealing. 

“What about my swimming?”

“I’ve already spoken to your coach.  There are no major competitions for a few months so you can afford some fallow time.”

The thought that Jeff had bypassed him and gone straight to his coach was even more belittling.  It was like being ten years old again with the schedule of events stuck to the fridge and Jeff marking off which ones he could do based on the availability of a chaperone.  

“And you might need to ease up on your swimming anyway.  Now that high school is over you need to work out where you are headed in life.”

And there it was.  The not so subtle reminder that his father didn’t consider swimming to be a viable career prospect.  Even with an Olympic gold and a world record to his name, professional athlete was not on the list of Jeff Tracy approved jobs.  Everything he had worked for just diminished and relegated to the status of hobby.  That’s not to say that his father hadn’t been genuinely proud of his success so far but it was like he had reached the pinnacle and now it was time to move on.  It was one thing to have an Olympian as a son but the next Games were four years away and there was no knowing if Gordon would maintain his position in the world rankings.  World championships had their prestige in the sporting world but didn’t have the same gravitas as the Olympics to non-sporting folks.

Even if the uncertainty of future successes could be put aside Jeff had also made it abundantly clear that he disapproved of the selfishness of the sporting world.  Athletic success didn’t improve the world beyond providing entertainment.  It wasn’t a career that would make a difference.  It wasn’t useful, and just lately usefulness had become an overriding theme in the Tracy household.  

“I’m waiting, Gordon.  Which is it to be?”

He wanted to scream and shout but if there was one way Gordon was a Tracy through and through it was in his ability to keep his emotions contained in the face of adversity, or at least repressed until he was in a safe space.  Only Alan was yet to learn the skill; his youngest sibling wore his heart on his sleeve and Gordon often admired him for the way he could express himself freely, even if it sometimes led to blazing rows with their patriarch.   His broad shoulders slumped a little.  It was a done deal that he was being sent away for the duration of his father’s business trip.  He knew there was no point arguing and antagonising his father.

“Denver, please.”  Gordon’s normally cheerful voice was carefully neutral, a testament to the feelings he was keeping in check.  He wondered if he would ever be afforded the privilege of being treated like an adult or whether he would forever be a child in his father’s eyes; a person to be managed and directed rather than trusted as an individual.

Having received an answer Jeff considered the interview concluded and turned back to his tablet to book the required flight.  He might have a private jet at his disposal but he would need that for his own trip.  Gordon would be flying commercial, as usual.  An early morning flight was soon arranged and Jeff was able to return to his work, scrolling through the multitude of files related to his latest project.  He looked up to reach for his coffee and seemed surprised that Gordon was still stood in front of him.

“Go and pack, Gordon.”

Summarily dismissed Gordon returned to his room.  Clothes and toiletries were thrown haphazardly into a bag.  He took his anger out on the drawers of his dresser, yanking them out and slamming them shut.  The clothes hangers in his closet rattled and tumbled to the floor as he yanked down shirts.  He looked at his Team USA kit; the formal blazer and whites covered in a protective dust jacket next to the tracksuit worn poolside between heats.  The uniform was a painful reminder of his achievement that already seemed to be forgotten by the father he tried so hard to please.  The garments were thrown to the floor of the closet to lay in a crumpled heap on top of his shoes.

Just a few short weeks ago those two outfits had symbolised his achievements.  Proof that, as far as America was concerned, he was worthy.  He remembered the thrill of pulling on the garments for the first time, the cut of the blazer emphasising his broad chest and shoulders.  They were his uniform.  His battle dress.  After the Games he had carefully hung them up as a reminder of everything he had worked for, a sign that all the sacrifices had been worth it.  Now they screamed failure rather than success.  Failure to live up the narrow ideals of his father.  He kicked out at a trailing sleeve that had flopped over the threshold of the closet then slammed the door on the rumpled mess.

Gordon flung himself onto the bed and stared up at the ceiling.  He knew he was acting the petulant teenager his father viewed him as but sometimes it was hard not to revert to type when you never had the opportunity to prove yourself to be anything different.  Anger bubbled up inside him.   Just because he wasn’t like the others with their perfect grades and traditional life choices it felt like he would never be allowed to make his own decisions.  Even the career he had strived towards and made so many sacrifices for was being slowly taken away.  How dare his father speak to his coach about training commitments.  How dare he sideline the one talent Gordon possessed.  In all other areas he was measured up and found wanting but the medal above his bed and the world record in the history books were irrefutable evidence that he could make his mark in the world and be an individual in his own right.

The seething injustice coloured Gordon’s dreams that night.  His sleep was restless and more than once his legs became twisted in the sheets, dragging him back to wakefulness in order to free the constricting restraints.  When the morning alarm marked the end of the night, disturbing his dozing form and forcing away the last vestiges of sleep Gordon felt distinctly unrefreshed.  However, years of practice at taking himself to early morning swimming training meant he was able to resist the temptation to stay in bed and so he was ready, bag in hand, when the car arrived to take him to the airport.  Evidently his father’s commitments were too heavy to allow him to perform this duty and Gordon was graced with only a brief goodbye before being handed into the custody of a driver.

xoxoxox

Denver was tiny compared to Los Angeles.  It was still a sprawling metropolis compared to the backwater towns of Kansas but Gordon instantly felt more at home in the mid-western air.  He felt like he could finally breathe again.  He had never felt settled in Los Angeles with its inescapable traffic and permanent glow.  A city that never slept.   

When he had first been told of the move to the coast he had been excited at the prospect of living so close to the ocean that held his fascination.  It was an odd obsession for a boy brought up as far from the sea as it was possible to get but Gordon had always felt drawn to water in all its forms.  The few coastal holidays they had managed were filled with happy memories of rock pooling, snorkelling and learning the dangers of his beautiful aquatic mistress but in Gordon’s eyes the Los Angeles waterfront was a shallow imitation of what the barrier between land and sea should be.  The sculpted beaches filled with sculpted bodies held no appeal.  After one visit shortly after arriving in the city Gordon never went down to the waterfront again.

Virgil was there to meet him in the airport arrival’s lounge.  Dressed in his habitual plaid he was easy to spot.  Gordon soon found himself relieved of his bag as Virgil swung it over one shoulder with ease.  It wasn’t that Virgil thought him incapable, it was just the way he was.  Brother or not, Gordon was his guest and carrying your guest’s bag was a courtesy that had been instilled in each of them from an early age.  A brotherly arm was draped across his shoulders and he found himself drawn into a brief embrace before they walked companionably towards the taxi rank.

It didn’t take long to reach Virgil’s apartment which was situated a short stroll from campus.  The campus itself was still eerily quiet, mostly populated by faculty and a few postgrads like Virgil who had stuck around to work on projects.  Term, and the influx of undergraduates that came with it, was yet to start.  The streets surrounding the campus were free of the term time hustle and bustle created by the transient student population and the area had a calm serenity that contrasted sharply to the buzzing city Gordon had recently left.

The apartment was the epitome of masculine design, each item of furniture or decoration a clear reflection of its occupant.  There was an eclectic mix of high end items and junk store finds, set off by hand crafted pieces made by Virgil himself.  Comfortable, functional and strong, the whole ensemble coordinated perfectly.  Virgil’s habitat had grown organically over his few years of occupation, it was now as warm and friendly as its owner and a place that you couldn’t help but relax in.

It felt more homely than the Los Angeles apartment which always had an air of echoing emptiness.  Jeff had wanted to ensure that his older boys had a space to come back to and call their own and with money no object the city pad he had procured was obscenely large for a place normally occupied by just three people.  The executive styling added to the cold and impersonal air of the place.  It was an environment where people co-existed rather than lived and the extra rooms for absent siblings only seemed to enhance the feeling of loneliness.  It felt good to be in Denver rather than Los Angeles, even if the reason for the visit stung.

Gordon sat down on the couch, bouncing slightly to test its springiness.  The apartment was a compact, one bedroomed affair and he knew the couch would be his bed for the next few nights.  The sound of a coffee maker and the chink of mugs from the kitchen showed that Virgil still had his caffeine addiction and the warm aroma of good coffee was soon filling the space, adding to the general air of comfort.  Before many minutes had passed his brother was back beside him and two brimming mugs sat steaming the coffee table 

“Hey, so you decided to come check out my school.  It’s a great place here, you’ll love it.  I can show you around all the labs and things while it’s still quiet, maybe introduce you to some of the faculty depending on what area you want to specialise in.”

Virgil’s enthusiasm was met with stunned bewilderment.

“Dad said you were looking at college, right?” he probed, tentatively. 

Evidently this trip wasn’t just about Gordon not being trusted at home.  Even from afar his father was making his intentions clear and pushing his own agenda of what he expected of his sons.  Virgil watched as the teenager in front of him stiffened, a defensive shell seeming to rise up around Gordon and a sullen look appeared across the features which had seemed so relaxed and at ease until that point. 

“No, Dad just didn’t want me staying home alone.  Look, I’m sure it’s great for you but I’ve got no plans for college at all.  In case you hadn’t noticed I’m not exactly college material.”

Witnessing the self-depreciation from his brother stung.  Busy lives meant he hadn’t spent much time alone with Gordon in the last few years.  The young man in front of him was clearly hurting and Virgil’s caring nature was screaming at him to make it better but he felt woefully ill-equipped to counsel the troubled teen.  

“I’m sure that’s not true.  You’d be able to go to college if you wanted to.  You’re smart; you were hardly at school the last two years and you still managed to graduate with good marks.”

Gordon turned sorrowful eyes on his brother, he had never been able to be angry with Virgil and fighting with the gentle giant didn’t come naturally.  There was something about Virgil that reminded him of Mom; something that invited him to open up, safe in the knowledge that he wouldn’t be judged.

“And what if it’s not what I want?  Sometimes it feels like I don’t have any say in my life.  Dad wants me to stop swimming.  Do you have any idea what that feels like?”

Truth be told, Virgil didn’t.  He had only ever met encouragement for his plans, he had been supported and his passions had been indulged.  Music lessons and art classes had co-existed with school, ensuring he had a therapeutic release from his more traditional studies.  His desire to study engineering had been greeted with enthusiasm and a generous allowance.  To hear that a brother was being expected to give up their passion was a surprise to him.

“I’m sure Dad only wants what’s best for you.”

“Yeah, it always comes down to what Dad wants.”  There was a snort of derision.  “But news flash Virgil, I’m not like the rest of you.  I’m never going to get into Harvard or Yale or anywhere else Dad would approve of.  And I don’t want to.  I have one thing I’m good at and now that’s being taken away.”

“I’m sure that’s not true Gordo, there are lots of things you’re good at.  Look, maybe college isn’t the right place for you but don’t sell yourself short.  It sounds like you and Dad just need some space apart from each other for a bit.  He’s got a lot on at the moment, there’s a big project in the pipeline and you know how focussed he can get when that happens.  You know, you are always welcome here if you need some breathing space.  And I promise, no campus tour unless you want it.”

“Thanks Virg.  Maybe a break will do me good.  It’s all just so tense back home.”

Gordon felt a heavy arm slung over his shoulders as he was drawn in to a hug that held more meaning than the brief embrace of greeting he had received earlier.  Virgil had always been the most free of the siblings in showing his love physically.  With Virgil moved out Gordon couldn’t remember the last time he had received a hug from anyone other than Alan and those were becoming more rare and awkward as the pair aged. 

His initial instinct was to push away but he didn’t want to hurt Virgil’s feelings.  He could feel the beating of the larger man’s heart and he found the rhythm soothing.  The tension he hadn’t even realised he was carrying began to slowly dissipate and he melted into the soft cotton of Virgil’s shirt.  He took a few deep breaths to steady himself before slowly pushing himself out of the embrace.  

“Better?”

He nodded, not yet trusting himself to speak.

Gordon settled back and savoured the coffee.  Perhaps the time in Denver wouldn’t be so bad after all. 

[tiaragqueen]

Ferae Naturae

✂ Pairing: Yandere! Bakeneko! Sakuya x Reader

✂ Word Count: 1,4k+

✂ Trigger Warnings: Death, arson, possessiveness, implied abuse

[Edited]

***

If you like my writing, please support me on ko-fi!

A longer version of my old story, Get Even, with a lot few tweaks here and there. And I finally got to use my favorite word here. I present to you my favorite darling, Sakuya! Above is his human form.

“I promise you're safe with me. You're not alone. You're safe with me. Your heart is home. Now and forever, I'll be your shelter.” - Safe With Me [Megan Nicole]

Sakuya never really understood why most humans always stayed or returned to the person who had hurt them, even when the said person had blatantly displayed no sign of repentance. Irrefutable matters such as consanguinity must’ve played a huge factor in their so-called ‘loyalty’, he supposed, but it still didn’t justify their self-destructive actions. The way they behaved as though nothing was wrong and deliberately allowed their pain to fester under a veneer of tolerance was exasperating and absurd at best, even for him who tended to observe from the distance.

Then again, Sakuya wasn’t born in a human family, anyway. There was only so much he could learn from their lives without actually experiencing them.

But he knew enough to know that hitting his owner was an unforgivable sin; one that deserved an equal punishment.

“You never do anything right!”

A sturdy man, whom Sakuya learned his name was Araki, shouted. He had been doing this ever since he came home and found that you hadn’t cooked dinner because you were exhausted from cleaning the house all day. Granted, it was a humble cabin in the middle of a forest, but for someone to clean all the nooks and crannies while doing other tasks proved to be taxing. Sakuya knew it, too, because he’d seen just how tirelessly you worked every day with little rest and appreciation. All you’d gotten was more and more complaints from that bastard of a husband, sometimes elevating to verbal abuse. Sakuya wondered why and how you bore such an attitude for a long time and stuck with him when you could have someone better.

If it were him, he’d surely leave without a second thought. Better yet, kill him.

But, alas, you were too meek. Under the pretense of loyalty, you accepted everything from him – every word, every beating, every overt manipulation – and toiled even harder. However, Sakuya wasn’t a fool. He was fully aware of your insecurities and fears; of being incompetent, of being abandoned, of being lonely. Although you already had him, a cat that had been spending time with you more than your own husband, you remained hopelessly in love with the latter.

And, honestly, Sakuya couldn’t fault you. It wasn’t easy to separate a wife from her husband due to the finality of marriage, and the only way would be death.

Would it be worth the effort, though? It wasn’t as if you were blind to Araki's vices, anyway. Rather, you accepted them wholeheartedly and believed he’d change someday despite the lack of progress. You loved and married him, knowing full well you’d plunge yourself into a turbulent life. Heck, you’d even confessed it to Sakuya! You weren’t naïve and acknowledged that your love story was far from perfect or even good.

You comprehended the result of marrying such a rough man, which meant, you also comprehended his treatment towards you.

However, wrath defenestrated every understanding and sense the moment Araki raised a hand to slap you. Normally, Sakuya wouldn’t bother much with domestic violence because he wasn’t attached to either of them. But you were his owner – no, belonging – and he protected what was his, regardless of the consequences.

Sakuya hissed and leaped to Araki’s face, swiping the delicate skin ferociously. He didn’t even use his real claws, but the current ones were enough to provoke a stream of curses and groans from Araki.

Your eyes swelled, torn between intervening and doing nothing. Should you help him? You didn’t want to get scratched too, but your cat was clearly and purposefully harming him for unknown reasons. Maru usually left whenever an argument arose and returned when Araki had exited the room. It’d become such a pattern until you believed that he’d recognized human quarrel and learned to avoid it to maintain his peace.

Cats weren’t entirely stupid, after all. Although his constant, almost acrid, glare towards Araki was a little strange, to begin with.

Finally, Araki was able to yank Sakuya from his bleeding visage and flung him against the wall. You gasped and rushed to his aid, examining his tiny body for any sign of grievous injuries. Araki was enraged with the way you prioritized him than your husband who clearly displayed raw gashes, and grabbed you by the collar of your kimono.

“Oh, so you care about that dumb cat more than me, huh?” he snarled through ground teeth, his glower intensified when you shook your head frantically. “What? You’re in love with it or something? Well, why don’t you live with it then?”

Araki seized Sakuya by the scruff of his neck and dragged you both to the porch. “This is where disobedient wife sleeps!” he declared, dropping Sakuya on to your lap carelessly. “Hope you enjoy your stay.”

You watched his retreating back helplessly and flinched when he slammed the door shut. Pursing your trembling lips, you looked down and caressed Sakuya’s dark fur as a poor attempt of solace.

“It’s alright, now. You’re safe,” you whispered, trying to ignore the slight quiver within your voice. “He’ll be in a better mood tomorrow, and then we can go back inside. We just have to endure sleeping here for tonight.”

‘He’ll be in a better mood tomorrow’. Did that mean he’d locked you out before? Did that mean he’d slapped you before? Sakuya had only met you around a month ago, but it was enough to show him everything he needed to know regarding your daily life.

And with this new information, came another surge of fury strong enough to shapeshifted him into a human.

You could only gape at the sight of his dainty body burst to reveal a leaner, paler one underneath. His hair remained its raven sheen, but the cat ears were probably the sole thing to pinpoint his genuine form. Had the latter weren’t present, you would’ve thought this was his true appearance instead. His eyes were yellow with black slits, smoldering under the tranquil moonlight. He had a boyish face, but his aura suggested otherworldliness and ancient. You averted your gaze from traveling lower, noticing the lack of… fur to cover his private area.

“Are you… my cat?” Would it be foolish of you to ask that? No. That was just natural, wasn’t it? It wasn’t as though you knew what else to say after witnessing what would be a staggering transformation in your whole life.

“Duh,” he retorted. “I’m human. Can you see?”

Yes, you could recognize it perfectly; every detail, except his ears and irises, that just screamed a human throughout. And you didn’t know how to respond to his quip or react.

Then, you spotted it. A large tail, flicking behind him and left a trail of flame in the air. A cat’s tail. How you didn’t notice it before, especially with its substantial size, was beyond your perception.

“Maru, why are there fire on your tail?” you asked shakily.

“I wonder…” he drawled lazily, much to your chagrin. There was a spark of panic that ignited within you when the tail shot up and flared in the sky. “Oh, the name’s Sakuya, by the way.”

His name breezed past your ears at the same speed of his tail that swept your house. The fire kindled your dilated eyes and parched your throat from screaming or uttering anything. You listened to the frenzied screams of your husband and the constant tugging at the front door. The desperation wrenched your heart, but there was nothing you could do than standing and let the blaze engulfed the cabin you once called ‘home’.

You just realized how powerful Maru, no, Sakuya was. Even his grasp on your arms and flinty stare rendered you immobile throughout the arson.

Once the smoke cleared up and exposed the soot and chars littering the ground, you wilted against his grip. Sakuya instinctively kneeled to free your body from its invisible pressure and hugged you, whispering sweet nothings. You stared blankly at the debris despite his solace to break your composure, the shock hindered you from processing the situation properly. It wasn’t long before you broke down, however, and wailed on his shoulder.

“It’s alright, now. You’re safe.” Sakuya mimicked the words you’d spoken to comfort him earlier. It was excruciating to remember how fast the tables had turned, and how your lovely pet soon became your killer.

Sakuya buried his face on your shoulder and smiled, relishing the proximity now that the bastard was no longer exist to separate you both.

Because that was how it should be the moment he encountered you in that riverside; a diligent yet fatigued woman who kept washing the clothes despite the setting sun.

“… I’m here now, [Name], and I’ll always be.”

Sakuya: 昨夜

Araki: 荒木

Maru: まる

[justsomeoneunordinary]

Hello 😊 I have some questions about how I feel about certain things and I wanted to ask you because I don't really want to talk to my friends about this. Basically, whenever I read people's writing, I always in the back of my mind compare it to my own. I know this is quite normal. However, what I feel guilty about, and what I have tried to overcome (but have irrefutably failed to) is that I often think mine is better? I have even done the horrible act of sighing and saying "Why does this have

imma be honest: this was a bit weird for me to get. i am sometimes a bit of a mom-friend, i do give good advice (or so i've been told), but that's to people i have already known for a little bit at least.

you, however, i don't know. and i also don't know what kind of answer you need to hear and i also still don't quite know how to react to this message. but i will try anyway.

you ask "how do i stop" and i tell you: buddy, you don't. i have had similar thoughts about some writers and i continue to have them and i know that my friends have similar thoughts too. it's normal, it's human, it doesn't make you a bad person.

1) what helps, is having friends to talk about this. i have a friend who isn't a fan of the same popular writer as me and granted, it's a huge coincidence. it helps to let out some steam in our private messages where no one will ever know what we said, especially not the writer. and even if it's a creator my friend does not feel the same way as i do: we can still rant and the other will listen. having someone to listen alone helps a lot.

2) curate your own fandom experience. i realized that seeing this writer's content on my dash gave me a lot of negative feelings. seeing how many notes it has and not understanding why. so one day, i simply blocked them. they did nothing wrong, are a nice person and never interacted with me. but by blocking them i don't have to see their content on my dash anymore - and this helps a lot.

there is also an artist whose art it seems i'm the only person in this fandom to not like. i don't think i could do it better or the sorts - i can't art for shit - i just get irritated by seeing how people gush about it. so in the filtering options, i chose the "filter by content" instead of tags and filtered their url. this way, whenever their art gets reblogged, i get a warning and don't have to look neither at the art nor at the tags where everyone compliments them, and can simply scroll past.

generally, whenever i see content by creators i don't like, i do not dwell on it - i scroll past it. why should i read a fic i already know i'm not going to like? just to find out why it has this amount of notes? no, just scroll past it and good is.

3) accept that there is content that a lot of people value even when you don't. there is a reason why it's popular that simply doesn't resonate with you. because your interests are of a different nature. it is as it is - move on and don't dwell on it. and if it gives you negative feelings, if you cannot just ignore it - talk to someone you trust, block this person, filter their url. in short: find your own way how to deal with that so you can experience the positive sides of fandom.

4) you say you usually write your own versions - i say don't. that sounds like an unhealthy way to deal with that. i assume you don't upload it, cause you'd need permission for a remix first. thing is, you think you did better than the original writer; but was it your idea? was it you who came up with this exact story and wrote it down? no. no it was the other person and that's what will always make their fic more special.

so instead of thinking that you could do better, you can acknowledge that this author had an idea you did not have and made something original. and that's something you could do too.

don't think "how would i write this?" but "what ideas do i have?". make your own thing. something that is you and no one else's. come up with your own stuff and then be proud that you came up with it.

make friends here whom you can talk to and will show interest in your wips, will help you through difficulties, will cheer you when you need it.

and yeah, if it's something that doesn't resonate with many people, then that's hard. it hurts. we have all been there, i was there too and i will be there again with other fics. but at the end of the day i have friends i can talk to and let some steam out and most importantly: i can look back at what i wrote and be proud that this is something i came up with, no matter if many others liked it or not.

in short; feeling like that is 100% normal, but you shouldn't dwell on those feelings and curate your own experience in a positive way. simple as that.

[blogblogonese]

Blogonese II

Franzina Trattoria 

395 Coldharbour Lane, Brixton, SW9 8LQ

I hit Brockwell Lido first thing on the Monday; my usual post-weekend routine. 

Around 6 months ago, I was in the steam room there and the floor appeared to be moving. I thought I was perhaps having some form of flashback. On closer inspection, the entire floor seemed to be wearing a patina of tiny squirming black maggots, it had nothing whatsoever to do with my over-wrought imagination. Sometimes, when I’m alone in bed at night, I try and picture their source, some godforsaken section of the plumbing where an abysmal lack of hygiene had allowed all the different strands of human mucous, sweat and skin to collect and coalesce into their own eco system, right beneath where you bathe. In the corresponding sauna today, right beneath one of the benches, a used hypodermic syringe is discovered by one of the locals. There is only one type of person that would casually discard a used syringe in a public bath house and that person is probably not a diabetic. I guess the logic of the user must have been something along the lines of wanting to know what it’s like getting smacked up while you’re jogging. I hope it was Larry Love, Larry sporting nothing but a single, studded, fingerless leather glove.

Onwards to Franzina Trattoria then and a rendezvous with Saul for lunch. I’ve walked past this place several times but disregarded it on account of Brixton’s bountiful supply of good eateries. Yes all of the music venues are gone, it’s lost it’s ‘soul’ and the whole place has basically been colonised by disgusting Clapham-ites… but at least you can get good Asian. Win some lose some. The decor is the opposite of lived-in, it reeks of half-witted opportunism. The lighting is a little harsh and there is too much branding everywhere. Upon an art-gallery-like white wall beside our table, two strings of garlic bulb have been ominously crucified. We both order the beef ragu with tagliatelle. *We order two glasses of chilled red wine, unorthodox, organic, rather refreshing, and forgo the starters all together. The main arrives. The pasta has a particularly alluring hue, one that suggests freshness and the use of actual eggs at some point in the not-too-distant past. Our problems really begin when we sift beneath the little mound of cheese they’ve placed on top and get a good look at the sauce. A cacophony of colourlessness; unworthy of the median school dinner awaits, ready to beg of it’s recipient an impossible suspension of dis-belief. Say what you like about the ethics of consuming red meat, in my opinion it is twice the crime to serve the flesh of your fellow mammal in this piteous state. There are peas in this sauce for Christ sake. It is the bovine equivalent of Gallipoli. Having forced down an entire plate each of this tomato tinged warm water with powdered cow, we gallantly press on with a dessert and order up a Tiramisu to share. What we are met with is a bowl of custard like yellow gloop with a little (branded) chocolate sat on top. There are no layers, there is no structure. It is an exercise in hopelessness and bitter cynicism to call this travesty a Tiramisu, arguably one of the finest sweets fathomable. Saul and I have gorged on countless Tiramisu down through the years, through the good times and the bad, but even collectively we fail to make it to the bottom of this irrefutable culinary injustice. 

2 star

*Let me be clear about this for all you purists out there, unless I expand out into the world of beef ragu, there is little point in me conducting this research. The dishes are almost identical, give or take the severity of the tomato content. As for the pasta, I have no special proclivity for spaghetti over all other types, hence it’s omission from the name of this blog.

[morningsound15]

Bechloe and Salem witch trials for the au game please. Thanks!

I had one idea for this but then completely switched it after like 3 parts so here’s that second version:

(please excuse my exaggerations about how the Salem witch trials went down it’s for narrative not factual purposes i know it’s not right)

(also please excuse the fact that this is approximately 1 year late!! i’ve been, how shall we say, Going Through It)

1.)

Chloe Beale is the daughter of the most famous and well-respected Deacon in Salem, Massachusetts. Her father’s status means that she is held accountable for her actions in a way few other women of her time are. Ever since she tottered her first stumbling steps, she has had a list of duties — not chores so much as necessities. There are certain responsibilities she must complete, certain behaviors from which she must demur, certain reputable people she is expected to socialize with, and certain disreputable people she is expected to avoid as if they carry certain death on their person, ready to infect should she happen to wander just a step too close. “Pray remember, daughter,” her father would whisper with his hand vice-like digging into her shoulder, “do not allow womanish fribbles to lead you to distraction. Your actions reveal my judgment, and the sanctity of the Congregation. You will not be an embarrassment.”

And she has not been an embarrassment. Though she is a girl just shy of twenty, her moral fortitude — her piousness — is unmatched, nearly unparalleled. She spent so many hours of her girlhood kneeling on the floor of their house that her knees were oft rubbed raw, red and smarting like she had been punished. But it was not earthly punishment, rather penance. “Christ knows how many Devils there are in his Church, and where they walk.” Her father’s eyes would glint, sharp steel. “Corruptio optimi est pessima.”

“Corruptio optimi est pessima,” Chloe would repeat with solemnity, head bowed low towards the ground. She could barely feel the stinging in her joints anymore. The blessing of God’s love was more than enough to evacuate the worst of her ailments.

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2.)

Chloe has run into only 2 problems with her father and the Church since her childhood. The first is her lack of marital prospects. Being a woman of nearly twenty and still unmarried is not ideal, and she can expect a near daily barrage from both of her parents to accept the offer of one of nearly a half dozen men who have already asked for her hand. Luckily, as none of the prospects have been irrefutable (Barnabas Allen was odious — and Catholic on top of it; Benajah Applebaum’s family was both too poor and too Jewish to be a viable option; and rumor had it that Jesse Swanson had asked 3 girls to marry him within the same year, which did not bode well for his faithfulness), Chloe has managed to dodge answering any of them. She knows her situation cannot last much longer, however. It’s only a matter of time before her father brings her a husband she cannot refuse.

The second problem involves her choice of companionship. Chloe does not have many close friendships — she never had the desire — and until very recently, has spent most of her free time (those hours when she is not in prayer nor doing her household duties nor delivering alms to the poor) in the company of one young lady: Aubrey Posen, the daughter of respected Captain Jeremiah Posen and Chloe’s closest confidant since infancy. Their parents happily approve of their continued association. The Beales are a family of status and power and influence, the Posens of money and respectability and ties to England. Chloe knows that her father hopes, through the Posens, Chloe may meet a suitably pious husband (perhaps even an English Lord, or a businessman with a respectable if not excessive fortune).

Aubrey is a reputable, respectable companion.

Rebecca Mitchell, suspected practitioner of dark magics and the wicked pagan arts, is not.

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3.)

Rebeca Mitchell is not a witch. Chloe knows that she isn’t. Or at least, she believes that she cannot be. Rebecca — or Beca, as she insists Chloe call her — is a quiet, thoughtful woman. She has no family, no station, nothing to speak of except a small homestead she operates alone. She tends a small garden in the back of her property — right at the boundary of the dense wooded forest that surrounds their small town — where she grows her own herbs and food. She is prone to night-time walks, particularly under bright skies and full moons. It is for this reason that some of the residents of the town of Salem suspect that she is a witch. A woman residing alone, without the livelihood of a husband or father sustaining her, who is sometimes seen walking about on her own on bright, cloudless nights, is not a woman to be trusted.

Beca, curiously, seems oblivious to how she is perceived. Chloe finds this facet of her personality fascinating. Her entire personality is fascinating. For their friendship only exists because Beca has so little regard for conventions — the only young woman Chloe has ever met who exhibits such blatant disregard for what the Church considers upright. Beca is the one who initiated their meeting, their ensuing conversation, and the numerous occasions they have had to casually, ‘accidentally’ run into each other since. In the street, when Chloe is on her way to the market; in the fields through the first thicket of woods where they retreat on warm Saturday mornings in the spring, dew staining the hems of their skirts as they trek through unruly terrain; in the strawberry patch behind Old Man Elias’ cattle field every Tuesday in the summer, picking side-by-side and sneaking plump fruit swollen with juice that stains fingers and lips and chins alike. Beca has not been to Chloe’s home and Chloe has not been to hers. They forgo all talk of family, obligations, and the several dozen reasons they have that should mandate they immediately and unequivocally cease all further interactions.

(Of course, they do not cease their interactions. If anything, they only grow in both frequency and length.)

So you see, Chloe knows Beca cannot be a witch, because witches have no friends, no love; they work in darkness, and madness, magic and manipulation. Chloe has not been cursed, she has not suffered fainting spells, witnessed ghostly apparitions, or been forced to do the Devil’s bidding. She has not been sent into fits of convulsion or hysteria.

Beca cannot be a witch because Chloe is unaffected, and witches do not allow their acquaintances to go unaffected. Though they continue to see each other and Beca continues to have ample opportunity to bewitch her, corrupt her, she does nothing — nothing except smile when she says Chloe’s name, her head tipped low in deference. Nothing except pluck wild flowers from the field on the days they can manage to sneak away together; ties them into a bouquet with blades of long, cutting grass. Nothing except press her lips to Chloe’s cheek, close to her ear, breathless and warm as she whispers her farewells.

Beca cannot be a witch, because witches are evil, and vile, and inhuman. They are beasts, creatures of malice, followers of Satan himself. They cannot love, and they are unloveable.

(Beca cannot be a witch, because Chloe loves her, and she cannot bear the thought that it may not be reciprocated.)

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4.)

The first words Chloe says upon entering Beca’s homestead are: “This does not look like a witch’s home.” She winces, already regretting the tactlessness of her conversation.

Beca merely scoffs. “Witches,” she sneers. “You spend too much of your time listening to your father. He is filling your head with lies and frivolities.”

The house is small, just one room. A table with a single chair in the center, a small fireplace built into the wall furthest from the door, a small cot tucked in the corner. Beca perches herself on the single chair, leaving Chloe no other choice but to stand or sit upon the bed.

She sits, and says, “I do not think witches are frivolous.”

“They are not real. If not frivolity, what else could they be?”

Chloe picks at the thin bedspread beneath her fingers. She does not answer. Beca had not been looking for an answer anyway. Instead, Chloe lifts her head, and asks the question that has been at the forefront of her mind for the past several months, as long as their acquaintance has been growing.

“Why did you approach me?” Chloe asks the still room.

“Pardon?”

“We did not grow up together. I never knew of you, except the things whispered by others.”

Beca laughs. “You mean gossip.”

“Gossip, yes. But worrying gossip all the same.” A pause, then. Chloe tips her head. Beca’s attention is on her hands folded in her lap, and she sits very still. “We never had reason to meet. Yet you crafted a reason.”

“And you believe that was… suspicious.”

It is not quite a question. Still, Chloe evades. “My father thinks your interest in me is corrupt.”

Beca’s head jerks up. Her eyes seem to blaze. “Corrupt?”

“He does not trust you.”

Beca’s spine is stiff in her chair. “I have been accused of nothing.”

“He is suspicious of everyone,” Chloe attempts to demur, worried she’s said something inappropriate, something shocking and distressing, worried she’s shattered the tenuous serenity they’ve managed to found together over the past half-year. “It is nothing serious.”

But Beca is unswayed. “It is serious if it’s stopping us from seeing each other.”

“I’m here now, am I not? He has not stopped us.”

“You’re twitching like a newborn pup, you can hardly sit still.” Chloe flushes bright and stills her hands. Beca continues to stare at her, expression unreadable. “Why are you here, Chloe?”

It’s a question to which she does not have an answer. The simple truth — that Beca had invited her, and Chloe had been curious enough to accept her invitation — is far too mundane. She knows if she were to propose it to Beca now, she would be caught immediately in her fabrication. But she cannot explain the reasoning behind her actions. She seems to have so little reason, these days.

She stands from the bed and walks to the other side of the house. Beca watches her and does not move to follow. Chloe gazes out the front window with unseeing eyes, her hands twisting themselves into the fabric of her dress, her jaw working over unspoken words. Finally, she says, “I cannot seem to help it.” She turns back around, feeling miles away. “It’s as if… wherever you go, I feel compelled to follow.”

Chloe hears Beca swallow loudly. She takes a breath, as if stealing herself, and looks up to the ceiling. “I heard you singing.” Chloe frowns, not understanding. Beca glances at her and then glances away. “That is why I approached you.”

Chloe cannot help but laugh, but Beca does not laugh with her. The smile slips from Chloe’s face, and she frowns. “Is that true?”

“I used to hear you sing in services. When my parents died I stopped going to church, and I couldn’t hear you anymore. But then you started cutting through the woods, on your way home from schooling, and… The first few times it was merely an accident, but… your voice is so beautiful. I’ve never heard anything like it. And you sing when you walk alone. I thought… I thought your songs were kind, and I wondered if you were, too.”

“You followed me?”

Beca turns a lovely, delicate pink. “I know it is strange of me to admit this to you now, to have spied on you without your knowledge. I apologize, it was not my intention. It’s as if… something came over me. A possession, a madness. I… I felt I had to know you. I was gripped by a force I cannot comprehend, and I was powerless but to obey.” Beca’s blush darkens, and she turns her head. Her hands are fisted in the front of her skirts, and she tugs on the coarse fabric restlessly. “I sound foolish.”

“You do not sound foolish,” Chloe whispers, her own eyes bright. “I… I know the feeling.” She takes a tentative step forward and raises trembling hand to Beca’s cheek. Her thumb brushes, Beca’s eyelids flutter, and something tugs in Chloe’s stomach. “It’s like a bewitching.”

Beca’s eyes snap open. “I have not bewitched you,” she says quickly.

Chloe laughs. “Nor I, you. I could not even if I wanted.”

“Chloe,” Beca’s voice remains serious, “listen to me: I have not bewitched you.” There’s something to the weight of Beca’s gaze, something that makes Chloe pause. She does not move. There is an electricity between them; the air crackles, charged like the sky before a summer storm.

“Okay,” Chloe whispers, her eyes locked to Beca’s. She cannot look away.

The kiss Beca presses to her lips is soft and unexpected. Chloe has never been kissed, has never even desired the feeling. She always imagined an unpleasant, wet, uncomfortable experience, trembling against the stiff body of some faceless man with rough hands and rougher skin.

But Beca’s skin is soft; her body yields when Chloe falls into it. Her hands are sure and focused as they trace her neck, wind into her hair, push her dress off her shoulders, but they are not rough and incessant; they guide her gently onto the cot. Her lips leave fire in their wake as they skirt Chloe’s cheek and down her chest. Her tongue traces Chloe’s breasts, sneaks a sinful path up bare thighs.

Beca’s fingers slip inside of her. Her breath is hot on Chloe’s lips and her eyes seem to burn straight through her. Chloe gasps like the breath has been stolen from her chest and trembles like she’s going to shake apart.

“Convulsions,” Chloe say breathlessly, her chest heaving. She is entirely exposed to the world in front of another person — another woman, no less — and has just committed a cardinal, lustful, adulterous sin. She feels nothing but rapture. “Is this how it feels to be cursed by a witch?”

“You think too much of witches.”

“I cannot help it. What we just did… it was supernatural.”

Beca laughs and rolls onto her stomach. She throws an arm over Chloe’s hips, presses kisses to Chloe’s bare shoulder, and Chloe shivers from the pleasure of it. “You believe it was dark magic?” Beca murmurs teasingly into her skin, her fingers tickling Chloe’s ribs.

“M-magic, perhaps,” Chloe, flushed and panting and skin slick, is nearly gasping, “but not dark. Nothing that feels like this can be evil.”

“I think I’ve fallen in love with you.” Chloe swears her heart stutters to a stop and hangs, still in the moment before painfully restarting. “Is that even possible? Is it… am I too bold in my pronouncement?”

“No,” Chloe whispers back at her. “Not too bold. I think I have fallen in love with you, too.”

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5.)

She leaves Beca the next morning with a swift kiss and flushing cheeks. Beca beams at her as Chloe slips away from her, sneaking off through the woods and towards her own homestead.

She holds her breath as she sneaks inside and tries to make as little noise as possible. The ground beneath her feet is solid but smooth, and her shoes glide over it nearly soundless. Her mother and sister might still be asleep — she is unsure of the precise hour — or else they’ve already gone to market. Father must surely be in service already. If he was in a hurry he might have even left without noticing her glaring absence. Chloe sends up a short prayer to the Almighty that that is the case.

But of course, she is not so lucky. She never has been.

“Where have you been?”

Chloe freezes mid-step, her heart already turning to ice. She swallows thickly and turns slowly. Her father is seated in the kitchen, his hat upon his knee and his face empty save for a few dark shadows. “F-father,” Chloe straightens her spine, does her best not to tug at the skirt of her dress. “I was just… calling on Mrs. Hawthorne. You know she has two little ones both ill with diphtheria.” Her father stands and makes his way slowly towards her. Chloe holds her ground and continues speaking, as calmly as possible. “They haven’t been resting, so I went to see what little relief I could provi—”

Smack. The back of his hand connects with her cheek and Chloe stumbles, nearly crashing to the ground. She grips at her smarting cheek and turns her fearful gaze up at her father. He stands over her, fully glowering, now. “You lie,” he snarls at her, and it’s all Chloe can do to shake her head.

“I… no. I’m not lying. I haven’t been—”

“You did not come home last night. Tell me, harlot — in which young man’s bed did you spend your wicked night?”

“There is no man, father, I promise—”

“Captain Posen spotted you with Rebecca Mitchell yesterday.” Chloe falls silent, and curses her fair complexion and the way it so easily draws a blush. “Is that who you were with?” His words sound near-murderous.

Chloe shakes her head again, but he only seems to grow larger in front of her. He towers above her, a fire gleaming in his eyes. “You spent your night cavorting with that witch?”

“She is not a witch, Father! She is kind, and generous, and she loves me.”

He looks down at her with unbridled disgust and spits at the ground by her feet. “No one can love you.”

.

.

By the time she makes it to Beca’s home, she’s already too late. The door stands ajar, creaking on its hinges in the early-afternoon breeze. Chloe doesn’t even bother trudging through the gate to peer inside; she knows with a certain inevitable heaviness that there is nothing there for her to find.

She follows the sounds of revelry all the way through the outskirts of the village, picking her way in some sort of daze through empty streets and past dark cabins. The sounds grow louder and Chloe stumbles towards them like a moth to a flame.

When she gets to the center of town she feels the world crash back into consciousness. What looks to be the entire town has gathered near the steps of the church. Parents with small children perched upon their shoulders, housewives and mothers still with aprons tied around their waists from working in the kitchen. Chloe pushes her way through them all, ignoring the looks and hissed words tossed her way.

Her father’s voice trickles through the crowd towards her, and Chloe hones in on it and stumbles, breathless. “The Devil is using this woman to lead astray the youths of our village with her little sorceries. With her black magic she has controlled the mind and possessed the body of many young women from our good Congregation, forcing them to submit to her vile evilness. She threatens the sanctity, the chastity of our daughters! For her crimes she has been arrested, and now will face the Judgment of the Vengeful and Almighty Lord.”

“No! Father, no, please, you can’t—”

“I can and I will!” He grabs Chloe’s face in his hands, squeezing her tight. His eyes are wild, mad and unseeing. Chloe wants to recoil from him, pull herself from his grasp, but his grip is too strong. His fingers leave bruises along her neck, her jaw, and she bites her tongue hard enough to taste blood to stop from whimpering from the pain. “We are God’s chosen people,” he whispers, his words meant only for her, “but we have fallen from His grace. He sends us these witches as a temptation, a scourge on our town. In order to return to His favor we must eradicate the disease.”

“No.”

He shoves her away from him, turning back to the swarming masses. “For her crimes, she has been arrested. And for her crimes, she will burn!”

There’s a roar of agreement from the crowd. Chloe fights back a wail. She can see Aubrey off to the side of the frenzied mass, her face pale and her jaw trembling. She meets Chloe’s gaze with eyes full of tears and turns away almost at once, like she can’t bear to watch.

Chloe fumbles upright, her feet and hands scrabbling in the mud. Her dress must be a hideous sight now but she hardly cares, can barely spare a thought for the ruined fabric. Beca is tied to a pyre in front of her, her head tipped back, her eyes closed to the sky. Chloe feels tar in her stomach. Her feet sink into the ground like the earth itself is grabbing hold of her, refusing to let her go.

She cries out, “No. NO!” But her screams are drowned out by the roaring of the crowd. Her father lowers his torch towards the pyre, and Chloe rips her head away, already ill, unable to look. The wood catches with a sickening crackle, and the jeers only grow louder. Chloe barrels away from the scene like she’s the one at risk of being burnt. She stumbles from the town square on legs that cannot support her, crashing blind through unfriendly bodies until she finally breaks free. The pathways are dark and twisting, and she allows her feet to carry her without thought to her destination.

She crashes through the door to the empty house. It is dark inside, and cold; there should be a fire burning in the hearth but there is no one left to tend it. A wooden plate sits on the table with a half-eaten loaf still perched upon it. Chloe thinks they must have grabbed her while she was unawares.

She feels next to nothing. She would cry, she thinks, were there any breath left inside of her. Instead she stumbles forward, tripping over her own feet, and falls face-first into the hard cot. She shivers violently but does not move to pull the quilt over her trembling body. She wraps her arms around her stomach and does not move and hopes, hopes that she’ll stop breathing.

.

.

.

.

+1.)

She awakens in Beca’s bed many hours later. The sun has long set; the world is in darkness now, and will remain as such likely for a few hours longer.

Beca’s house is dark. Of course it is. She was the only inhabitant, and now she’s—

The door is unlocked. It always is. Beca once told her she had nothing to fear from the outside world. If only she had known…

The moon outside is full. It illuminates the world, casting long and twisting shadows upon the ground. Chloe shivers as she peers out at them, for reasons she can’t quite explain.

The shadows are moving. Chloe blinks and rubs at her eyes, sure she must be seeing things, but— There. Right by the forest, where the path meets the trees, there’s… a figure, shrouded in black. And it seems to be creeping this way.

Chloe fumbles, her back slamming against the wall behind her. She clutches Beca’s bedroll to her heaving chest, her mouth frozen open in a silent scream. A demon is approaching, or perhaps a dark spirit; there is something wicked out in the woods, something haunting. It claimed Beca’s life earlier today and now it is here to claim hers. She’s set up residence in a dead woman’s home and the Devil is not pleased with her for it. He’s come to take her, to pull her soul from her body, to bewitch and entangle her in the dark magics.

She fumbles, her hands trembling so badly they can barely hold the flint and steel. She strikes once, twice, thrice, each movement more desperate than the one before. Finally, on her fifth attempt, a spark flies onto the candle by the bed. It catches fire, and Chloe can see inside once more.

She whips her attention back to the window, her eyes searching, her heart pounding heavy and pressing in her chest. She’s breathing hard, already in a panic, and she feels light-headed. But there is movement neither outside nor in. Chloe rubs at her eyes but it does little to calm her nerves.

“A trick of the light,” she mutters to herself. “A trick of the light and the illusion of a dream. That is all it was. No specter or ghoul, just… just my imagination.”

A shadow passes over the door, and finally, Chloe screams.

The door crashes open with a loud bang, and Chloe screams again, higher this time and louder, a wrenching shrill that tears at her throat and burns at her lungs and the figure races into the house, its taloned claws reaching for her face, and Chloe twists away from the horror and kicks out as hard as she can.

Her heel connects with something soft and pliant, and the demon buckles with a soft “Ooph,” like the breath has been torn from its lungs. It collapses onto the ground wheezing, and its hood falls from atop its gruesome head, and

“Beca?”

“You struck me.”

“I… I thought you were a demon.”

“No demon, just a foolish woman hoping to silence your screams before they drew the whole village to us.”

Chloe stares down at her, her mouth wide open. “I thought you had died.”

Beca shakes her head, clambering slowly to her feet. “I seem to have dodged death twice today.” She rubs at her middle, still wincing. “Was your father part-donkey? You kick like a mule.”

Chloe can’t believe this is happening. She can’t believe it. She saw Beca die this afternoon. Or… well, she saw her father light the woman on fire. That’s not exactly something you can just walk away from. The only explanation could be— “You… you are a witch,” Chloe says, breathless.

Beca winces like she’s been struck again. “Please, Chloe, hold your tongue,” she hisses. “And put that light out. If any of the nearby homesteads discover—”

“H-how did you survive? I… I saw… They lit a fire under you.” Beca ignores her, turning to a large trunk at the foot of the bed. Chloe frowns. “What are you doing?”

Beca is rummaging through her belongings, throwing together everything she can carry into one canvass sack. “I cannot stay, Chloe. You know that as well as I. They’ll have my head, next. The fact I escaped today was luck; nothing more than that.”

“I… But I saw you.”

“You saw nothing.”

“They set you aflame, yet you did not burn.”

“A trick of the light, that’s all.”

Chloe grabs her by the arm and wrenches her around. “Do not imply that I am mad, Beca. I am not my father; I am not the men of this village — I am not prone to wild, feverish bouts of anger and accusation. I do not mean to accuse you, only to confirm what I already know.”

Beca stares at her, eyes cold and expression unreadable. “And what is it you think you know?”

“You’re a witch. There is no other way you could have survived that fire were it not for—”

“For what?” Beca snaps. “God’s intervention? A pact with the Devil, with goblins and ghouls?”

“For magic.” Chloe breathes the word like a prayer, and it pauses Beca.

She swallows. “Would it matter? If I was a witch?”

“Are you working on behalf of the Devil?”

Beca scoffs. “No. How ridiculous.”

“If you were one of Satan’s minions would you be inclined to tell me?”

“If I were one of Satan’s minions I would already have your soul in hand, would I not? It matters little which power I serve.”

Chloe takes a moment to think. She quirks her head. “Can you guarantee that you will not get caught? That the next town you find yourself in will not chase you from its borders with pitchforks and flames?”

Beca swallows again and says, quieter and more seriously, “No. That is not a guarantee I can provide. When I leave here tonight, there is a very good chance I will be dead in months. We will not see each other again.”

Chloe takes a deep breath. “Can you teach me to be a witch, too?”

Beca’s eyes grow impossibly wide. “You—”

“If I wish to learn magics, are you able to teach me?”

“I… yes. Yes, I can teach you.”

Chloe finally takes Beca’s hand in hers. “Then let us go, quickly; before they think to search for you.”

They dash off together into the night, Chloe’s dress flapping behind her in the wind and Beca’s dress, a little singed ‘round the edges, catches on twigs and branches and the debris of the forest floor.

The moon is full in the sky, the air is crisp and clear, and their feet move so swiftly across the ground that Chloe swears they must be flying.

[thewincestgospel]

Someone sent me this...

Hi, do you have any recommendations for weecest fics? Long, plotty ones? Your recs are some of the best. Thank you for your service. ♡

And I was like

But then life kept happening and I had to put it to the side and I was like....

But then I finally got some time and I started composing my list but then I accidentally posted it before I was done then it wouldn't let me save it to queue so I could finish it so I had to copy it, delete it and start again. Then it wouldn’t save on my cell or tablet after two days of trying I said fuck it and just waited until I got back home (I travel for work) to do it off my laptop.

So so sorry to the Anon who sent me this request.

I hope the long list makes up for my tardiness.

Weecest Recs

All the Way by  BenLMoore   A family court orders that Sam and Dean be separated because they're too close. These people don't realize, there's no keeping the Winchesters boys apart.              

And I Have Asked to Be Where No Storms Come by candle_beck Family is the first to break your heart.

The Ballad of the Invisible Boy  by dollylux   This is a story of adolescence. This is a love letter for the slow burn, for Led Zeppelin, for the 90s. This is the first of two sets of stories about how Sam and Dean didn’t fall in love. They never had to. It was always there, this desperation between them, like a real, breathing thing. When they came together, it was inevitable. As sure as continents colliding, as the phases of the moon and the life and death of stars. This isn’t a love story, but it’s a story of love.              

Birthday  by   helena_s_renn, Helenas_bitch, orphan_account     Sam turns fifteen two weeks after Dean ended their relationship. In order to celebrate Sam's birthday, Dean decides to get him laid – with a girl.        

Crown and Anchor Me (or let me sail away) by Sena Sam Winchester is fifteen years old, at yet another new high school in yet another state, he doesn’t get along with his distant, distracted father, he’s figuring out that he likes guys just as much as he likes girls, his clothes never fit and his limbs ache at the joint ever since his growth spurt started, he has to study for the PSAT and, oh yeah, he’s a little bit in love with his brother, Dean, who’s taken a break from hunting monsters to work at a local garage for minimum wage.

Crush by BewareTheIdes15 Dean looks at him different now, Sam just can't figure out what the difference is.

Everlong by Lux Aeterna  Sam and Dean’s feelings come to a head a year before Sam leaves for college. They struggle with the implications and complications of their relationship, but no matter where they go or what they do, it’s impossible to forget.

The Good Days  by  Danceswithfiends 'His stomach jumps at these small glimpses of Dean, and he tries to push it down, but thoughts of Dean bending him over in the back seat of the car flood his brain anyway. Sam swallows heavily and looks away, trying to focus intently on the road. If this doesn’t stop soon, Sam is going to go absolutely nuts.'The sexcapades of Sam and Dean's relationship in its early days and the days that follow.    

Hard-Won Inches by BewareTheIdes Dean’s developed this thing lately where he likes to touch Sam’s mouth while he has the amulet in there, fingers tracing so gently it almost tickles, around the little pouty spot where the cord disappears between Sam’s lips. It’s kind of weird, but probably not weirder than the fact that Sam’s ten and still sucks on his brother’s necklace to go to sleep at night.

A History of Love  by lyryk (s_k) When Sam is sixteen, he’s gotten pretty good at hiding what he’s been feeling for his brother for the last couple of years. But the most dangerous thing is not Dean finding out how Sam feels—it’s what happens when their father finds out.

The Hottest Days  by WevyrDove John is away on a hunting trip when Sam experiences his first heat cycle. Dean panics and makes Sam lock himself up in his room in a desperate attempt to keep temptation at bay.

Incubus by Ithiel_Dragon, virtualpersonal   Sam and Dean are left alone in Georgia in the middle of the summer while John is away on a hunt, and unfortunately the brothers haven't been getting along lately.  Sam's moodiness, and Dean's temper (not to mention his crush on his own brother) are not helping matters.  Things get even more complicated when Dean is attacked by an Incubus.              

A Life Made of Nights by BewareTheIdes Dean’s always loved Sammy more than anything, but what happens when brotherly love turns into something more? (A timeline of Sam and Dean’s relationship, starting from the time Sam’s a baby)

Lonely Harmonies  by Linden Dean maybe gets why John insists on separate beds, these days. 

More Than A Taste By BewareTheIdes After school, Dean finds out what Sam had to say about walking in on him

Never Again by made.of.bees   Dean walks in on Sam having some alone time and decides there are better things to do than leave. Sam freaks out but makes the best of the situation. After all, it's just one time, right? As long as it doesn't become a habit or anything...

Of Hot Showers and Female Intuitions by  cyndrarae  Sam‘s journey through teenage angst and sexual experimentation leads him to an irrefutable truth… he loves his big brother more than he should.

One Love, One Bond  by  RudexAndxNotxGinger   Sam and Dean have a special relationship. And it all started when Sam hit puberty.     

The Only Thing By BewareTheIdes  Ok, look, there’s not a delicate way to say it; Sammy sucks Dean’s nipples.  

P A R A D I S E (Born to Die!Verse) This story follows the lives of two young brothers as they try to make it in a dark world. After an overdose threatens to tear them apart forever, Sam and Dean vow to never leave each other's side again and hit the open roads of the American West to live fast and free together. They fight and fuck like every day could be their last because one day it just might be.

Plausible Deniability by BewareTheIdes Dean get a little freaked out about his relationship with Sam, and a whole lot freaked out when calling it off gets Sam interested in some other guy.

Sam’s First Love by  JAYJEN11   Dean was Sam’s superhero, his protector, he taught him everything. It only made sense Sam loved him but then he thinks he fell in love with him and Dean had taught him everything else so why not this too? This is not a love story. This is real life and sometimes real life sux.

Sam Liking Boys (And Dean)  by  stuck_as_sarah Titles pretty self-explanatory, just weecest thats pretty much a pwp. 

Sammy's Rule by Sammy_Rae22   John Winchester leaves his 12 and 16 year old sons for a hunt. While he is away Sam gets closer and closer to his brother, till he has to form a rule to control himself. That rule is to NEVER look at his brother like he is some sex lord. But what happens when things start to get a little out of control?                            

Sequelae  by candlejill After annihilating the boundaries between them, Sam and Dean both struggle to accept the change in their relationship. With Dean battling his guilt and Sam counting down the days until he’s able to put hunting in his past, they attempt to salvage what is left of their brotherly bond.

Note: Sequel to Situational Machismo

Situational Machismo by  candlejill  While on a hunt, Sam and John are hit with a mysterious spell causing them to switch bodies. Sam is devastated at the repercussions that could affect his future. The Winchesters are left with the monumental task of figuring out how to change back. Dean, previously believed to be unaffected, begins to have new troubling thoughts towards his brother causing him to think that maybe he did not escape the spell untouched after all.

Note: There is no sexual relationship between Sam and Dean while Sam is in John's body.

So It Goes by  jenajasper Dean would always remember the first time               

Teen Antichrist Master List by smallcaps Crack!AU teen antichrist Sammy has horns and a tail…and a hammer!  Dean keeps his hands to himself.  Barely.

A Thousand Miles to Get There  by  alakewood   Dean's not quite sure when it happened, but somewhere along the line he and Sam started messing around – it started with chaste kisses and graduated to more physical expressions of their desire. And, at some point, he fell in love with his little brother. Now, while on a cross-country roadtrip with his family, in the deceptive privacy of their RV, Dean has to prove to Sam that going away to college isn't going to change how he feels.              

The Time Traveler’s Brother by AmyPond45 Dean’s life is turned upside down the night his mother dies. But that’s also the night a mysterious grown-up version of Dean’s brother first appears in his life. While Dean grows up, “Old Sam” is often there, especially when Dean’s father isn’t. As Dean learns what the future holds, he begins to question everything his father has taught him about who he is and what he is supposed to become. Can Dean find a way to save his little brother from his own future?

To The Edge and Over   by   paperstorm, slf630   Here’s the thing. Dean’s mostly perfect in Sam’s eyes. He’s beautiful inside and out – cocky, charming, brave, fiercely loyal, flawed and stubborn and annoying and amazing – and Sam’s so stupidly in love with him it isn’t even close to funny. And there’s no way in hell Dean can ever know.     

Two-Headed Boy  by dollylux Sam's life from sixteen to twenty-two years old. This is a story of the last days of innocence during a sweltering Southern summer when Sam is so in love with his brother, he can barely stand his touch. It's the pain between them through lies, through jealousy, through seeing each other with someone else. Theirs is a story of leaving and Stanford, of Dean feeling lost and Sam nearly losing himself without his brother. It's fire and reunion and a love never lost - ever-present and no longer deniable.

Under the Blanket by Colette_Capricious   Sam is relentless when he wants something. Dean is helpless in the face of Sam’s desires and this thing that is building between them. It can’t happen, it won’t happen. It’s wrong. But why isn’t John doing anything to stop it? Could there actually be something on this earth than John Winchester is afraid to face?  

Verses Like Yours and Mine by rivers_bend   Sam/Dean are regular brothers – no demon, no hunting, Mary’s alive – who fall in love with each other.  

[cogentranting]

Because I Would Not Stop For Death Pt 2.

Summary: My version of the ending of Supernatural, with a specific emphasis on Dean as the main character.

Also on: AO3 Accompanying Meta: X Part 1  

________________________________________________________________

Loss affects everyone differently. In the days and weeks and months following Dean’s death this was especially true.

To Jack it gave a hard edge. There was an anger and fierceness about him so like that of the Winchesters who had known so much loss themselves. It pushed Jack to reckless, relentless fervor. He tried tracking down the demons that had killed Dean, but to no avail. In the meantime, he prepared for the fight that they all knew must come, stretching and expanding the limits of his powers. And as he did so, he practiced his hunting skills as well, tracking down ghosts and demons and gaining for himself a reputation as a hunter of such prowess that he could only have been a Winchester. Which makes sense.  After all, it was avenging the death of a parent which first drove Sam and Dean as well.

To Castiel, loss brought weariness. Dean had been his first real link to humanity and with Dean gone he couldn’t help feeling that humanity itself was just less. He kept on, same as before, but shadows dragged down his eyes and hope’s light was a weak flicker. Even Jack’s growing power and passion could not quite reawaken in him any faith in victory. But for Sam and Jack he persevered. He’d rather fade away, slowly dragged through Hell, than let them down. He kept a watchful eye over Jack, paralyzed by the thought of such another loss, and spent his days in dogged pursuit of some secret bit of lore which might provide them with a new weapon.

To Sam, loss gave instability. A part of him had died and with it had gone his balance. He teetered erratically on the verge of a thousand states of being. Each day might bring a new version of himself. Would he be the lost little boy looking for his brother? Or the cold, driven machine seeking revenge? Some days he was rock and leader, others he seemed to be awkwardly shaping himself to fill Dean’s shoes. No matter how hard he strove he could not find his footing. A fatalism sunk deep into Sam’s heart and quietly he despaired of ever feeling truly whole again. But there was a fear too. A fear that if he gave in to that despair then Dean’s death would be in vain and everything he had left would collapse around his head. He would not press this train of thought too far, so mostly he didn’t think beyond the here and now, the tasks he set himself when he had mustered the strength to do so. Introspection made him feel he might shatter. The future was a dark void, the past an open wound. So sometimes he lead the charge, sometimes he trailed behind Cas and Jack, but always he kept his eyes locked on that Sisyphean task before them.

And thus the three trekked forward, gingerly navigating the shadows and haunted spaces that Dean’s absence left in their lives.

    If long ago, before he had the privilege of knowing death like an old song, you’d asked Dean what he thought dying and going to the afterlife felt like, he likely would have guessed that it was like losing consciousness and waking up again. Now, some 12 or 13 years after his first death, Dean knew differently. He was all too bleakly aware that death felt irrefutably and indescribably Other. So it was that from the moment Dean opened his eyes, he was under no illusion that he had somehow been saved. He knew with absolute certainty that he was dead.

He found himself sitting in a black office chair, a little too small for comfort, with an empty table in front of him. Beyond that were bookcases, stretching high above his head, and far beyond what he could see in either direction, each one labeled with a letter and bearing endless stacks of nearly identical thin black books. His feet squeaked against the starkly polished black floors as he scrambled to his feet, uncertain whether he should still expect to face enemies. Almost as quickly he relaxed. He’d been here before, two years ago. This was Death’s library. Nearly the same instant as his realization, Billie emerged from one of the many corridors of shelves. Dean thought he detected an even more severe look on her face than usual. However, four years hadn’t been quite enough time for Dean to begin to decipher her enigmatic expressions.

“Hello Dean.”

He gave a curt nod and shifted his feet, waiting for her to speak. She did not. “What am I doing here Billie?”

“You’d rather be in Heaven or Hell?”

“Do I get a choice? You open a new afterlife travel agency- choose your destination? Or have we come back around to that promise you made Sam. That you’re going to throw us into the Empty when we die.”

“Tempting as that may be sometimes, no. I thought I’d been pretty clear that we’re past that. ‘Larger picture’ and all that.”

“Right, right. New job, new outlook. I remember.” Dean was relaxing, gaining confidence. One might even have called him hopeful. Surely just being here was a good sign. And hadn’t Billie, after all, been an ally to them more often than not? “So uh,” he clapped his hands together. “If you’re not gonna turn me over to the angels or the demons, and you’re not gonna drop me in the Empty, can we just skip through this little pep talk or lecture or whatever you have planned and get me back down to Earth?”

“I never said I was sending you back.”

“So what am I doing here?” He barked impatiently. As confidence in his own situation had grown, the thought of Azazel in the Bunker had crept its way into his mind, along with thoughts of the revenge Alistair might want for the man who’d killed him.

“You’re here because you and I need to have a talk.”

“Great let’s get this heart to heart over with. Sooner the better. I need to get back to warn Sam about what’s coming.”

Billie came closer, impatience mixed with an uncharacteristic note of sympathy in her eyes. “You’re misunderstanding me, Dean. I’m not sending you back at all.”

Dean jerked his chin up and squared his shoulders. “I need to go back there. Sam, Cas, and Jack, they need me. They need to know who’s coming for them. And Chuck- Chuck needs to be stopped.”

“And you’re the one who’s going to stop him? Dean Winchester with a can-do attitude and handgun is going to stop God?”

“I’m going to try! And Sam and them, they need all the help they can get. I thought you were on our side in all of this! You’re the one who brought Jack back. You’re the one who backed us. You’re pulling out now!? You do one thing and after that you’re just ready to throw in the towel? To run and let Chuck have his way?”

Billie’s eyes narrowed. “You should watch what you say. You might come to regret it.”

Dean jabbed a finger in Billie’s direction. “You said that Sam and I were important. You said that we had work to do.”

“Argue all you like Dean. But I couldn’t send you back even if I wanted to.”

Dean scoffed. “You’re Death. You’ve done it before, and more. The Old Death even pulled Sam’s soul out of the Cage.”

“Circumstances have changed.

   Despite the endless hours spent in anticipation, the end caught them unawares, though not unprepared. It had been a long time since they believed they’d find any weapon to help them fight Chuck, but recently they’d begun to suspect that Jack was as strong as he would get (at least within Sam’s lifetime). So for some time they had been waiting, in anxious tension for the day when Chuck would make his move.

As for Chuck, he loved his parallels. So exactly ten years after Michael and Lucifer took their fighting stance in that very spot, Cas, Sam, and Jack found themselves standing on the dry dead grass of Stull Cemetery.

Storm clouds had rolled in, casting a pall over the stark field, and a few cracks of lightning tore the sky because, of course, Chuck had a flair for the dramatic. And this was Chuck’s doing—all of it. The field in Kansas, the fate of the world, the battle lines drawn. Team Free Will was down a man and felt it as if missing a limb. They’d debated whether or not to bring in backup—Jodie, Donna, Bobby, Eileen, whatever others they could find—but in the end all the arguments of who to involve and what good it would do were pointless; Chuck decided for them that it should be they three standing alone. It could be said that it was a mercy that Chuck brought so few to stand on his own side. Certainly, he could have raised a host of angels, demons, and monsters to back him. Instead he’d brought with him only Alistair, Abaddon, and Azazel, neglecting entirely the angels he seemed to have grown bored of long ago, in favor of an all-star grudge match. Still, Sam hadn’t been fooled into thinking the odds were any more favorable to them. And within the first minute of the fight, his judgment was proved right, as very quickly their best laid plans unraveled.

Time seemed to slow to a crawl and Sam watched as if in slow motion. Abaddon and Alistair were toying with Cas, who was bloodied and bruised. They circled like jackals as he desperately gripped his blade. Further away, Chuck had Jack in a similar position. Jack’s eyes glowed and he flung out an arm, but whatever he had attempted was nullified by Chuck, though not without effort. Jack looked tired and scared and every inch of Sam wanted to run and rescue the boy, as impossible as that might be.

Azazel wrapped a hand around Sam’s throat and lifted him from the ground. Sam made a desperate stab with the angel blade, but the demon caught his hand and flicked the weapon away. Sam struggled to draw in a breath. It was rare that Sam felt small, but staring into those yellow eyes he felt like a kid. A kid who’d grown up hunting and thought he knew everything there was to know about monsters. A kid who only really realized how out of his depth he was the first time he stared into those same yellow eyes. And just like when he was scared as a child, in that moment, all Sam wanted was his brother.

It was as if Azazel had read his mind. He grinned. “Oh, we’ve come a long way, Sammy. You and me, we were the start. And now we’re gonna be the end. I killed Grandpa. I killed Mommy. I killed Daddy. I killed Dean.” He paused for a moment to watch the rage and pain in Sam’s eyes. “And now, I’m gonna kill you, and put an end to the Winchester’s once and for all.”

           He flung Sam to the ground, where he lay gasping for air. He wanted to stand, to fight back, but his body wasn’t listening to him. Before he could recover, Azazel clenched his fist and Sam felt knives in his gut. He heard the cries of pain and fear from Cas and Jack as they fought their losing battle, and he felt the cold weight of helplessness. The yellow gaze bored into his head. Sam closed his eyes. Desperately, illogically, he thought, “if only Dean had been here, we might have made it.”

           An engine roared a heraldic cry. A sound as familiar as a friend’s voice. Across the field the two sides froze. The gleaming black Impala surged over the hill, like it had 10 years before. It looked like new. Not a dent. Not a scratch. No trace of the explosion which had destroyed it. It rolled gracefully toward the stunned combatants. In shock, they waited.

           The door opened. The field was hushed, but from the car rolled the exultant chords of a rock song. He stepped out slowly, calmly. A silhouette against the raucous music. He was dressed in a suit, every inch of it jet black, perfectly tailored. On his finger he wore a ring with a white stone, and he casually twisted it, as if from old habit. He stood and surveyed the field as they all watched him.

           Sam propped himself up on one elbow and cried, breathless with joy, “Dean, you’re alive!”

           Dean turned and caught his brother’s eye. He gave a wry smile. “Not exactly.” He held out his hand, and in it, there materialized a tall, rugged scythe.

   “Circumstances have changed.”

“What is that supposed to mean? Why can’t you send me back?”

“Sit down, Dean there’s a lot to go over.” Sulkily, Dean lowered himself back into the same chair he’d woken in moments before. Billie hesitated just a moment. “You’re right Dean. You are important. But not in the way you thought. Your role is no longer as a hunter.”

“As what then?”

“As Death.”

The anger that had been churning in Dean’s mind was snuffed out by the wave of shock and confusion. His mouth opened but he couldn’t make any words come out. Billie watched him gape, the gears of his mind practically visible. When it seemed that his eyes were focusing on her again, she continued.

“There are rules to everything Dean. Consequences and reactions that run deeper than any power you’ve seen. And one of those rules is this: if you kill Death, you become the next Death when you die.”

Dean floundered and found one idea to grasp on to. “But you’re Death. You said, when Death dies, the next reaper to die gets the job.”

Billie shrugged. “That was all you needed to know at the time. Think of me as an interim position. Five years is a long time to wait for a new cosmic power, and it could have been much longer.”

“This is crazy. I’m not Death! I can’t be. I’m not—I’m not-“

“The signs have been there for a long time. Much longer than five years.”

“So what you’re saying it was my- my destiny?” Dean scoffed, repelled by the thought.

“You might call it that. You’ve always had, shall we say, an interesting relationship with death.”

Dean started to protest but Billie cut him off with a wave of her hand. “From the time you were a child, you were surrounded by death. Your mother. The cases your father worked, the monsters you hunted. All the people you’ve lost since then.”

“That doesn’t mean anything. That’s the gig. The life. Ask any Hunter.”

“That’s because it’s only one piece in the puzzle, Dean. You’ve known death like no one else has. You know you should’ve died when you were 26? You were electrocuted, your heart damaged-“

“I remember. But I was healed. So?”

“You were healed, by a reaper. How many people do you think can say the same? That they were given life by an agent of death.”

“That preacher used the reaper to heal a lot of people.”

“Like I said, pieces of the puzzle. How many of those same people were supposed to die again later that year, killed by a powerful demon, but came back?” She went on before Dean could respond. “And then how many of them, would come back and work to save Reapers a few years later?”

Frustration bubbled in Dean’s chest as a hundred half-spun arguments about why none of that meant anything froze on the tip of his tongue.

But Billie pressed on without regard for him. “But that’s all small compared to the fact that you have died more times than anyone else. Everyone in your orbit picks that up a little bit. Sam, Cas, Jack, your mom… But no one matches your record. Gabriel saw to that with his little Mystery Spot game.”

“Yeah but those weren’t real-“

“Between Gabriel and the other angels and all their meddling, you’ve died a lot of times that you can’t remember, but that doesn’t mean they didn’t happen. And it means that you have the very rare distinction of having been sent to Heaven, Hell and Purgatory.”

Billie sat down on the edge of the table in front of Dean. Making him understand the full extent of his role in all this was so very, very important. “But all those are just precursors, Dean. Little warning signs. The old Death knew what they meant. That’s why he found it all so amusing. That’s why he let you summon him so many times. That’s why he trusted you with his ring when you first fought Lucifer.”

“If he knew, why wouldn’t he do something to stop it? Why would he hand me his scythe?”

“That larger picture I’ve talked about. It was always your destiny.”

Dean rolled his eyes. “I am so tired of people telling me all these things that I’m supposed to do.”

“There have been a lot of prophecies about you, Dean. Most have come true. But there’s a difference between prophecies that someone tries to make happen by taking away your choices, and a fate that you are destined for, that can be predicted, just because of the very nature of who you are. No one forced you to do these things. The choices you made brought you here.”

“Well what if I don’t want it? What if I choose not to be Death?”

“You already are. The moment you died, you became Death. And there’s no going back, no being human again. If you want, you can choose not to do the job. But you’ve seen what happens when Death doesn’t do what he’s supposed to. That’s why the old Death gave you his ring for the day all those years ago. It was your apprenticeship. To make sure that when the time came, you’d do the job right.”

           Billie’s voice had become uncharacteristically gentle, but now she straightened up, severe once more. “But there’s more to it than that. More you have to understand.”          

           Dean sighed and leaned back in his chair. “Well let’s get through it.”

           “You set everything in motion 5 years ago when you killed Death. That’s when everything changed and all this went from being destiny to a reality. And you don’t understand the extent of the change that happened when it did. Before you were dealing with ancient and powerful things—Lilith, the archangels, the Mark of Cain—but that action brought the cosmic into play.”

           “I killed Death, and that’s when Chuck and Amara showed up.”

           “Exactly. And that’s why you and Amara shared a connection.”

           “Amara’s connection to me was because I had had the Mark.”

           “Lucifer also once had the Mark, and it didn’t stop Amara from torturing him, now did it? No, she didn’t realize it, but she was drawn to you because Darkness and Death are connected. But right now it’s Chuck’s role in this that matters. Amara didn’t realize the significance of what you’d done. But Chuck did. And since then you’ve had a target on your back. I only learned that recently, or I would have warned you.”

           “A target? If Chuck wanted me dead he could kill me whenever he wanted.”

           “That’s just it. He didn’t want you dead. Because he wanted to prevent you from becoming Death, and there are only a few ways to make that happen.            When you trapped Michael, I brought you a book saying that the only way to stop Michael from destroying this world was to go into the Malak box.”

           Dean nodded. “But I didn’t and the world is still standing. The book was wrong.”

           “Because Chuck put it there, to manipulate you.”

“Because if I had gotten into the box, I would have spent an eternity trapped and possessed by Michael.”

           “You would never die, and never become Death. And that wasn’t his only attempt to stop you. The Equalizer gun. A weapon powerful enough to kill a being like Chuck, or Amara, or even Jack, is so strong that if used on a human, it would obliterate their soul. If you had used the gun on Jack, you wouldn’t just have died. You would have been so completely destroyed that you could not become Death. The soul bomb you planned to use against Amara would have done the same thing.”

           “But Chuck’s the one who took that out, if he wanted me destroyed why would he do that?”

           Billie shrugged. “I’m not sure. Maybe that one wasn’t planned, and he hadn’t figured out what you were yet. Maybe he was feeling confident and was afraid of turning Amara against him again.”

           Dean scowled. “But when I died, just now, it was the soul bomb. If that’s true I shouldn’t be here.”

           Billie looked smug. “The soul bomb didn’t kill you. Lucky for us, Alistair was a little overzealous with that knife of yours. It probably wouldn’t have killed you first, except that I exploited a loophole and reaped you, just a little bit early. Tricky timing, pulling that off. You’re welcome.”

           “Why does all this matter so much to him? What difference does it make?”

           “Because, that first time you talked to him, Death told you something else. Something very important.”

           The realization rolled over Dean like a thunderstorm. “He told me one day he’d reap God.”

           “Which wasn’t exactly true. Death will do it, but not him. You Dean. You will reap God.”

  The music shut off, leaving only the creak of the car door swinging shut. The demons fell back a few steps, unconsciously withdrawing from the aura of death which hung on Dean like the scent of a familiar place—from Dean it wasn’t ominous or evil, just potent, and quiet, and still. Chuck fidgeted, seeming as unsure of himself as his persona when they’d first met, when he’d been just a writer. And Dean… Dean fixed a cufflink, and then met the stares with a self-assured smile and lifted eyebrows.

            The world bent around him like the tense crackle of dry air before an impending storm. Even as they recognized him, his friends realized that Dean was changed.

When he was younger Dean had worn authority the way he’d worn his father’s old leather jacket. As he’d grown into it, that same authority had been announced and demanded with every set jaw, every dark eye, every sharp word, as over and over again the world tried to deny him his due. But there could be no denying now. No question of Dean proving and reproving himself endlessly. Now authority sat naturally in the curve of his smile and the fire of his eyes. Now it draped his shoulders like a cloak and adorned his head like a crown. Now he held his head high like a king. Sam almost could have mistaken him for Michael, but the light in his smile, paired with the anger in his eyes—that was unmistakably Dean. For the first time, Sam truly understood the reason why his brother was the true vessel to the Prince of the Host.

           Still, Sam knew Dean like his own breath and felt his presence like the beat of his own heart. So he felt deep in his soul the rightness of having his brother back and by his side. And though the man before him was indisputably different than anything he’d ever known his brother to be, in an odd way it was as if Dean was more himself than ever before.

“No. No no no no.” Chuck shook his head, a smile beginning to form. “This can’t be real. This is some sort of trick. You can’t be here. Dean can’t be here. I made sure of it. He’s gone.”

           Dean shrugged and gave his scythe a twirl. “Well, I don’t want to point any fingers but…” he pulled a face and jerked his head in the direction of the demon trio. “You know what they say about good help.”

           Rage and a trace of fear crossed Abaddon’s face. “That bomb-“

           “Didn’t kill me. I died of a knife wound.”

           The demons shifted uneasily, fully aware of the repercussions of that statement. Chuck’s eyes turned to steel, but he made no move. He only watched and waited for his enemy to make a move.

Sam scrambled to his feet as Dean strolled closer. Dean came alongside him. His eyes never left Chuck, but his voice dropped low and soft, no longer a king, but a boy checking on his kid brother. “You alright, Sammy?”

Sam nodded, a little breathless, a little overwhelmed by the sight of the brother he thought was gone. Dean nodded, at the same time checking in with both Cas and Jack via quick glances in each of their directions. “You’re gonna need something that can actually kill a Prince of Hell. Give me your blade.”

Sam held up the blade and Dean laid a hand on the silver metal. Instantly the blade turned stark black. “One kill,” Dean warned under his breath, already starting to move away from Sam. He circled around the edge of the field to where Cas was. Abaddon and Alistair had backed a few paces away, unwilling to move against the unexpected new enemy until a signal was given. Dean silently tapped Castiel’s weapon, turning it black as well. Unlike Sam, Cas could feel the grim import of the newly empowered weapon and suppressed a shudder. A weapon blessed by Death himself.

Dean had stopped his circling a few steps away from Cas, between his friend and the demons, directly across from Chuck. Tension crackled in the air, wrapping fingers around throats, and holding limbs locked in place. Like feral dogs they waited, hackles raised, teeth bared, legs stiff, but frozen in the moment before attack, each waiting for their respective alpha to make a move.

Chuck laughed bitterly. As Dean had set the stage, he’d been furiously trying to work out where his precautionary measures had gone astray. His hands went to his pockets and he bobbed his head. “This is Billie, isn’t it?”

“Yeah.”

“Just like the kid being back was Billie.”

“Turns out, Billie knows how to play the game pretty well.”

Chuck was growing huffy and agitated. “Let me guess, she told you some story about how this is your destiny. Become Death, reap me, yada yada yada.”

“That’s about the shape of it.”

“But you know that’s not how it works, Dean. I’m the author. Fate, destiny… they’re what I say they are. Every step you’ve taken, your entire life, has been because it’s the story I want for you. You really think Billie knows more than I do?”

“I think a soul bomb is a bit of an extreme way to try to kill one high school dropout armed with just a couple guns and a magic knife. I think that the old Death did a lot of things which didn’t make sense, but are starting to look like he knew a lot more than he let on. I think you looked real surprised, and real unhappy to see me get out of that car. I mean, it looks a whole lot like, you didn’t want me to be Death, but here I am. I’m Death. So yeah, I think maybe, you don’t get all the say in how this plays out.”  

“You’ve always been good at talking big, Dean. And you’ve got the look down—the suit, the ring, the scythe. But we both know that deep down, nothing’s changed. You’re still just that same kid, too scared of losing his family to realize that he’s fighting a battle he can never win.”

Dean looked thoughtful, and for a moment his eyes strayed toward Sam. “Yeah. I am the same. Now let’s end this thing.”

They struck as branches of forked lightning. An explosion of violence and long-brewing hatred. Jack threw himself at Chuck before he could make any sort of move toward Dean, and Chuck’s attention and power were forced back onto his grandson. Azazel and Sam were at each other’s throats once more, each feeling a compulsive urge towards the resolution of that decades-long conflict between them. Abaddon’s move toward Cas was shadowed a moment later by Alistair, who no doubt hoped to see the enchanted blade’s single kill spent on the Knight before he made his play. But he had gone no more than a step when Dean appeared between him and the duel.

Dean closed the space between them and took pleasure in the demon’s reluctant retreat. Even something as old and as powerful as Alistair feared Death. Dean leaned in close, decades of anger broiling storm clouds in his eyes. Alistair sneered in the face of his former apprentice, but it was the bared teeth of a trapped animal. Dean’s voice was barely more than a whisper. “You were right. I do owe you. Let me pay you back.”

It was quick. Not the long, artfully orchestrated revenge he’d once dreamed of, but a contemptuous swatting of a fly. His ringed hand grabbed Alistair’s bare wrist, there was short sputter of light, and the demon was dead.

Cas’s attacks were revitalized. He matched Abaddon’s fury blow for blow. In every movement his long history as a soldier and a warrior were evident. More terrifying by far was the zealous conviction which had led him, for good or evil, so often before, all of it now bearing down on Abaddon. A knight of Hell, a soldier of Heaven, and a fearsome battle. But at last Cas’s blade found its mark and Abaddon died, frozen in the twisted fury which had defined her.

Sam’s struggle with Azazel was shorter. Sam was thrown but regained his feet in an instant, charging Azazel. No fatigue touched him. The hunt for that demon had defined his childhood and cast a pall over his adulthood. And now at the end Sam had no space left in him for any more words or mercy in that story. He simply ended it. When the knife drove home, Sam watched the yellow fade from the eyes with mute satisfaction.

But Dean saw little of either fight. The full weight of his attention lay on the fight in front of him.

Winds whipped up, creating a swirling vortex of clouds far above the heads of Chuck and Jack. Cas and Sam staggered in the maelstrom but it did little to touch Dean. He passed through it as through a mist. Bolts of lightning shot down from the sky, striking Jack, but with a ragged war cry and a flick of his hand, they vanished. His eyes glowed a brilliant gold and Chuck staggered as Jack thrust his hand forward. In that same moment, Dean pointed and at his insistence a chain appeared, invisible save for a colorless distortion where the light struck it, binding Chuck’s arm to the ground. Jack launched another attack and with a gesture Dean manifested another chain, binding Chuck’s other arm.

Slowly the chains pulled tighter, forcing Chuck to his knees. Still the torrent raged around them and both Dean and Jack bore the signs of strain. Sweat streaked Jack’s brow, and Dean’s hand trembled slightly as he held it, both of them breathed heavily. There was a blink and everything went quiet for the three of them. The storm formed around them like a wall, grey and swirling, pulsing with bursts of lightning, impossible to see through, yet silent, as if they had been sealed away from the rest of the world. When he spoke, Chuck’s voice was deceptively calm.

“You can’t do this, Dean. You know you can’t.”

“People have been telling me what I can’t do my whole life, and I always seem to be proving them wrong.”

“Even if you win, even if you do kill me, what then?”

“Sam and Cas go back to their lives, Jack takes over running things up above, and we finally start to fix this world you broke.”

“You really think that’s how this is gonna go?”

Before Dean or Jack could reply the wall of storm behind Chuck cleared, like a window or a projection, revealing a view of Sam and Cas, both crying out in agony though the sound did not reach inside the vortex. Blood ran from their mouths and they dropped to the ground, the grass beneath them staining red. Dean pried his eyes away from the grisly scene, unsure whether it was real or not.

“I end you and that ends.”

“It won’t be any better Dean. The world will still be broken. There will still be monsters, and evil and people making all the worst choices. Except, without me wanting a good story, who’s to say that the good guy wins sometimes? And what keeps you from your destiny? Sooner or later, your fate will catch up with you.”

All around Dean the storm lit up with images from his past. Sam’s body dropping into his arms in the ghost town at Cold Oak. Sam shot in the chest by Walt. Sam dragged away by a nest of vamps in the other universe. Sam half dead from enduring the Trials. Sam falling into the Cage. Sam shot. Sam stabbed. Sam clawed, and bitten, and bludgeoned. And flashing by among all of these were dozens of what he could only assume were alternate visions of the future-- each one of Sam dying. Some bloody, some desperate, some drenched in fear. In each one, Dean standing over the twisted, broken body of his brother, his own eyes empty of humanity. Echoing over it all were a dozen different voices from Dean’s past, each repeating some variant of the same prophecy: you’ll have to kill Sam.

Chuck spoke again, softly. “You’ll kill Sam. Jack will kill Cas. And your humanity will die with them and then the two of you will be alone. For eternity. But it doesn’t have to be that way. I can prevent that. I can change your fates. Let you two live the life you want with your family. I’m the only one who can change that.”

A note in his plea startled Dean from his stupor. He looked down at Chuck and thought how small he looked. Dean readjusted his hold on Chuck’s chains and took a half step closer, leaning in almost imperceptibly. He smiled, but it did not reach his eyes.

“You know, Chuck… I’ve been a hunter long enough to recognize a demon deal when I hear it.”

The feigned sympathy and mercy vanished from Chuck’s eyes, replaced by hate and fear.

Dean straightened up. His hold on Chuck’s chains was stronger now. His voice was bolder. “Maybe I do have a destiny. But if it it’s there, it is what it is because of who I am, and the choices I make. And I believe in who I am.”

With a sweeping motion of the arm, Dean summoned his scythe. For one moment more he hesitated. “Fate’s a funny thing. Maybe it will come true. I’ll be with Sam until the end. Maybe my fate is that one day I’ll reap him. Seems likely. After all, I am Death. Sooner or later, everyone dies at my hands. Even you.”

At Dean’s nod, Jack let loose a primal scream. A wave of golden energy burst from the boy’s outstretched arms. The wave collided with Chuck in the precise instant that Dean’s scythe pierced his chest. Light exploded throughout the ragged little Kansas cemetery, bringing down the wall of storm, spinning a blinding tapestry explosion of stark white and brilliant gold, with a black core. And then there was quiet.

   They filled the bunker with people. Eileen and Jody and Donna and the girls and Bobby and Charlie and Garth and a dozen others, young and old. And they celebrated. Food, drinks, music, laughter, and a sense of victory more complete than anything they had known before.

Amid the old friends, Jack mingled as easily as he ever had. There was something sweet and simple and kind about the boy’s companionship that no amount of power could change. He was friend and son and younger brother to all of them despite his recent deification. All their eyes shone with pride as he recounted his ultimate battle. All of them knew, but none of them truly grasped what it meant for Jack. How could they comprehend trading jokes with the new ruler of the universe?

It was not the same case for Dean. They had all heard of his death months earlier, had all mourned, so they were overjoyed at his return. But like Sam, they all instantly sensed that he was changed. Far more changed than Jack was. Their ease grew with each passing moment, realizing that he was still Dean. His jokes were the same, his laugh as ready as ever, his smile just as warm. So before long, their time with him felt almost as natural as it had before. Almost.

There was still a barrier that they couldn’t surmount. A distance. Dean was no longer alive as he had been, and he belonged to another world now. He had become more, and in that there was a loss of that rough equality between them. The power, the understanding, the authority—they call suited Dean. But he had grown beyond an easy fit with his old life. So as the party wore on, Dean slipped into the kitchen on his own.

Sam found him there sometime later, a beer in his hand and an empty pie plate beside him. Dean looked up to greet him and smiled quietly. The muffled sounds of the party provided a soft backdrop.  Sam sat down across from Dean. For a while neither spoke.

It was Sam who broke the quiet first. “It’s never gonna be the same is it?”

Dean shook his head. “No. But it’s good. Jack is the new God. He made Cas an archangel. Heaven’s in good hands. Rowena’s got Hell under her thumb. Things are maybe better than they’ve ever been for us. “

“But you’re not really back are you? You’re Death now. And you have to do that job. I feel like I’m losing you all over you again.”

“Come on, man. I’m not gone. Sure I won’t be here as much. You won’t see me every day. But you ain’t gettin’ rid of me that easy. I’ll be around. As often as I can.”

“How often will that be?”

“Well, I’m not alone in it. I’ve got Billie helping me. With a partner, I figure it doesn’t have to be a 24/7 gig.”

“You still won’t be here. Not like before.”

“No.”

“It’s just that Jack and Cas are going to be in Heaven. You’ll be off… wherever Death goes.”

“I have a library.”

“Right. And I’m just wondering… what do I do all alone in this big empty bunker?”

“Well first of all, it’s not empty. You’ve got Eileen. And it only stays empty if you want it to. Come on, Sam, you know what you’re supposed to do.”

Sam scowled. “Ar-are you saying I should have kids?”

“No! I mean if you want to, but that’s not what I’m talking about.” He leaned in, confidentially, comfortably. “The Men of Letters, both British and American, the hunters from Apocalypse World, you’ve been dancing around this for years.”

“You think I should try it again.”

“An organization of hunters. Based out of here. Led by you.”

“I don’t know. It didn’t exactly turn out well before.”

“Yeah because ancient demons and rogue archangels were out to get us. But now. Now you have the world’s largest collection of lore. You have more experience than anyone. And your family is, hands down the most powerful family in the universe. It’s the perfect time, and you’re the perfect person to do it.”

The absolute faith conveyed in Dean’s voice was hard to stand against. Sam nodded slowly, his thoughts spinning with new possibilities. It was true; the thought had been with him for years. With the small push from Dean he could see it all falling into line. A nationwide network of hunters. Unified, organized, supported. Protecting each other, saving people. A brotherhood. “All the best of both hunters and the Men of Letters.”

“And with all of those salty hunters in there to help you? Trust me, half of the hunters in this country would sign on with you today if you asked. And hey, if anyone gives you any trouble, you just tell them that you raised God, and your big brother is Death.”

Sam laughed. “Sure. I’ll do that.”

“Ah. Speaking of that.” Dean reached into his pocket and pulled something out. Opening his hand he revealed three silver rings. The engraving on each one matched the markings on Dean’s ring, but they were simple bands, each without a stone.  Dean plucked one out and set it on the table between him and Sam. “That one’s yours.”

“What is this?”

Dean returned the other two rings to his pocket and sat studying his own ring. “Think of this like a signet ring. Or whatever they were called. You’d have a king and if he gave his ring to someone it meant that that person was under his protection or it showed that the king trusted him with authority or both.”

Under Death’s protection. Sam lifted the ring off the table tentatively. “What does it do?”

“As long as you’re wearing it, you’re very hard to kill. Not immortal. It won’t hold up to something like the Colt or an archangel. But short of that…” Dean shrugged. “Ground rules: only you can take it off once you put it on. You’ll still age. You’ll still die one day. And it was made for you, so you’re the only one it works for. Giving it away won’t do anyone any good. So don’t even think about handing it off to the first person who makes puppy dog eyes at you.”

“How did you-“ Sam stammered. The ring felt cold and heavy in his hand.

“Billie helped me make them. But it uh- involves a lot of pulled strings and loopholes and making exceptions. So in light of the bigger picture of all things, it’s really something I can only pull off for these three rings.”

Sam glanced at the pocket the other two rings had gone into. “And those-“

“Require another trip to deliver them.”

Sam didn’t press. His eyes were locked back onto the ring in his hand. “I don’t know if I can.”

“Sammy, listen to me. The only way I can do this, the only way I can go off and do what I have to do, is if I know that I can still have your back. If I know that you’re safe. The rest of the universe comes second to making sure that my little brother is taken care of.”

Of course he meant it. Dean’s life had been a one long series of acts proving how much he would throw away to keep his brother safe. Sam slid the ring onto his finger, and Dean gave a relieved smile. He leaned back again, his task accomplished. “And I mean it Sam, you need me, you call. I’ll be there.”

They sat there for several hours more. Sometimes in silence. Sometimes trading stories. Sometimes dreaming of the future—Dean’s new role, Sam’s hunters, all the changes Jack and Cas would make to Heaven. The boundary Dean had felt between him and the friends in the other room was not there with Sam. Sam was no stranger to Death. They were just brothers.

So they sat with each other until some sixth sense told them the sun was beginning to rise, and Dean stood up to leave.

Sam trailed his brother outside. Baby sat waiting on the side of the road. Sam’s eyes traveled over the car fondly, before he scoffed slightly and smiled at Dean. “You know, Death’s supposed to have a pale horse.”

Dean grinned as he swung the door open and leaned on the roof. “Nobody’s touching my car.”

They lingered.

Sam shook himself. “Well. We’ve got work to do.”

Dean nodded. “See you soon, Sammy.”

He got into the car and started the engine, reveling in its familiar growl. The rocks crunched beneath the wheels as the car turned onto the open highway.

In a moment, Sam knew he would go back down into the bunker, back to Eileen and his friends, and he would begin the next chapter of his life. But for a while longer he stood and watched the Impala drive away, listening to the fading purr of the engine. And Dean watched Sam in the rearview mirror for as long as he could, even as he cranked the volume up and sang along as loud as he could to the music spilling out of the car and onto the never-ending road.

[ancientbooshartifacts]

The Moonlight Spell

Author: Prepare4Trouble

Year: 2008

Rating: PG-13

Pairing: Howince

The moonlight shining down on the faces of the Shaman Council cast them in an eerie yellow light. The ground was damp from rain earlier that day. Wet grass tickled the soles of his feet and squelched in-between his toes, and Naboo wished that he had thought to put shoes on before he left the flat. There was a definite chill in the air, and he folded his arms tightly across his body in an effort to block out the cold. “Naboo, the enigma,” the voice of the Head Shaman boomed out loudly across the table, “we have summoned you before us today to ask you a favour.” Naboo groaned inwardly, “This isn't going to be like the time you borrowed my magic carpet, is it?” It had taken hours to get the stains out, and it still had a funny smell whenever it got a bit damp. “Nothing like that, no. Actually, I was hoping to borrow your friends.” Naboo thought about it for a minute, “Alright,” he said, “but I've only got up to series six, and sometimes the last disk of series five won't play properly,” “Naboo, you plonker!” cut in Tony Harrison from his position on the table in front of Saboo, “He's talking about the moron twins - Howard and Vince, is it? - Not some crappy American sitcom!” “Oh, as if you don't love it,” Saboo said, “I saw you crying your eyes out when Ross and Rachel broke up.” “Do me a favour! I had something in my eye. The H-Man does not cry!” Dennis banged his hand down hard on the table top, “Can we please focus? Yes, Naboo, I need to borrow Howard and Vince. Just for a few hours. You can have them back straight afterwards.” Naboo's eyes narrowed in suspicion, “What do you need them for?” he demanded. “Oh, just a spell...” Dennis glanced from Naboo to Harrison to Saboo and back. All along the table the members of the Shaman Council were looking at him curiously, waiting for more information. “Oh, for goodness sake! It's a love spell, all right? It's a love spell to use on my cheating wife. I'm going to make her fall in love with me again, and then I'm going to dump her. Ha!” “That's ridiculous!” Harrison exclaimed, “I know that spell, the moonlight spell, right? You need a couple in love. They need to make love at midnight under the light of the full moon while you say the incantations.” “Harrison's right, Dennis,” Naboo told him, “You've picked the wrong couple, it's never going to happen.” Dennis shook his relatively small head, “I assure you, Naboo, that I have seen irrefutable proof that these two are deeply in love. Nothing you say will change my mind on this. It has to be them, I don't know any other couples that don't already hate each other.” Naboo rolled his eyes, “Look, it's not like that, okay? I know they're in love. You know it – though I don't know how – but Howard and Vince? They've got no idea.” “Then tell me, Naboo,” Dennis' eyes took on a menacing gleam, “Why is it that I saw them kissing on your roof during that awful party, just seconds after they both told me that they were in love?” “Dunno,” Naboo shrugged, “they've got a weird sense of humour, maybe it was a joke? Look, I'll ask them, okay?” “This is not a request, Naboo. Bring them here or face the consequences.” Naboo sighed, “Alright, alright, I'll bring them, but I can't guarantee they'll do what you want.” Dennis smiled, “All you need to worry about is getting them here by midnight on Friday. The rest, we have ways of making sure that will happen.” That didn't sound good at all. If he was less stoned, he might have been worried. Naboo shrugged and unrolled his magic carpet, “Fine. But don't break them, alright? I need them in one piece.” With that he jumped onto his carpet and disappeared into the night sky. Naboo arrived back at the flat to find Howard and Vince watching TV with Bollo. He ignored them, let himself into his room and sat on the bed. This was not good. This was very not good. How was he supposed to get Howard and Vince to go with him to the Shaman council? If he told them what Dennis wanted, there was no way. If he didn't, they'd demand to know why. And if he didn't tell them or lied to them to make them go, they would never trust him again afterwards. And...they kissed? Howard and Vince? Surely not. The head Shaman must have been mistaken. Or hallucinating. He was incredibly over-sensitive to drugs, maybe he spent too long in the same room as something and it affected him. Naboo lit some incense, rolled a joint and tried to think of any possible way that this could end without him losing two rent paying employees who worked for a pittance and didn't mind sharing a flat with an ape. He couldn't. A knock on the door distracted him from his thoughts and he looked up to see Vince's head poking around the door. “Alright, Naboo. We're going to watch Howard's new Captain Cabinets DVD, you wanna join us?” Naboo tried to take a drag on his joint, but it had gone out. He set it down in the ashtray Vince had made him for his birthday, nodded wordlessly and followed his friend out into the sitting room. *** As usual, Howard was the first one awake the next morning. He carefully moved Vince's arm, which had found its way to laying across his chest during the night, and crept reluctantly out of bed. He put on his slippers and dressing gown and headed to the kitchen to make the tea. As he crept through the flat in the half light of the early morning, he noticed Naboo still laying on the sofa, snoring quietly. His arm dropped down onto the floor, brushing the carpet just next to a bong that had been pushed over. There was water everywhere. Great, now the sofa and the carpet were going to stink of bong water. Sometimes, Howard wondered whether he should move out, find himself some more adult-suitable accommodation. But Vince loved it living above the shop, not having to get up until the last minute and still getting to work on time, or Vince's version of on time, something most people would consider to be outrageously late. Even Howard's most subtle hints that they look for their own place had been met with immediate rejection. And where Vince was, Howard was too. That was the way it worked. Besides, he'd never be able to afford somewhere on his own. Naboo stirred in his sleep and Howard froze. They were nearly out of teabags, the last thing he needed was to be denied his morning cuppa because Naboo woke up early. The Shaman resettled, and Howard crept past unnoticed. When he tried to sneak past again carrying the tea, Naboo was gone. *** Vince was late down as usual. Howard didn't mind, it gave him time to tidy Stationery Village and put on some music that might provide the customers with a little more ambience than Vince's usual electro pop. People were more likely to stay and browse if they enjoyed the music, and Howard knew that deep down, even if they didn't realise it yet, everyone liked jazz. Even Vince. Still, as much as he appreciated a bit of alone time in the morning, by the time Vince sauntered in two hours later, Howard was too bored and irritated to even ask for his excuse. Instead, he muttered “I'm going out,” grabbed his coat and a bag, and walked out of the door. “Hey! Where are you going?” Vince called after him, but the door was already closed, with Howard on the outside. Vince sighed loudly and looked around the shop for something to do. He surreptitiously picked up a few random items from Stationery Village and hid them underneath the counter, switched off Howard's jazz record, then sat down behind the till, crossed his arms and waited for something to happen. Being Vince, it didn't take very long. Less than five minutes later, Naboo stuck his head around the door leading to the stairs up to the flat, “Did I just hear Howard leaving?” he asked. Vince nodded, “Yeah. He wouldn't say where.” He thought about it for a minute, running through every possible explanation for Howard's storming out as soon as he arrived, “Maybe he's gone to buy me a present,” “Why? Is it your birthday?” Vince considered, “Dunno, maybe. I'm not very good at keeping track of the date. Why? I don't look older, do I?” Naboo shrugged, “A bit, yeah. Anyway, Vince, can you do me a favour?” Vince grabbed his emergency mirror from underneath the counter and checked his reflection for signs of ageing. “I suppose, depends what it is.” Naboo sat down on the other stool behind the counter and explained to Vince everything that the council had said. When he had finished, he spun around and looked at Vince, waiting for a response. Vince stared straight back, replaying everything the shaman had said in his head, then he laughed. “That's hilarious, Naboo! I didn't know you were funny!” “It's not a joke,” Naboo frowned to emphasize the seriousness of the situation, “If the two of you don't appear before the Shaman Council on Friday night, I'm dead. For definite this time, Tony Harrison's been itching to get back in that executioner's mask ever since you saved me that last time.” “Oh. But...” the side of Vince's mouth twitched as he tried to suppress another giggle, “There's no way. Look, Naboo, Howard's a good mate, the best, but I'm not going to shag him. He'd be rubbish. And even if I wanted to, there's no way he'd agree. Especially not with the whole Shaman Council watching. Yeah, if it was just the two of us in our room and I turned on the charm, I reckon I could seduce him – well, I know I could – but that lot leering at us, it might ruin the mood, y'know?” Naboo took a deep breath and tried to clear from his mind the disturbing image that Vince had planted there. “All Dennis said is I've got to get you there. I do that and I'm off the hook. You just need to refuse to play along, and that's it, there's nothing they can do about it, it there? Just say you're not in the mood.” “I did have other plans, you know. Why did it have to be Friday night? Couldn't they have picked a rubbish night, like Tuesday or something?” “That's when the full moon is, and trust me, you don't want to try getting him to upset his schedule.” Vince thought about it, then nodded slowly, “Fine, I'm in, but I dunno about Howard. I can't imagine him being up for it.” “Yeah, about that,” Naboo stood up and started walking back towards the door, “can you talk him into it? Cheers.” And then he was gone. Vince stared after him in irritation, then moved the paperclip and sellotape from under the counter and placed them carefully back exactly were he had found them. It was a good joke, but maybe he'd try it sometime when Naboo's life didn't depend on Howard agreeing to something so completely ridiculous. *** Howard strolled back into the shop in a much better mood than when he had left, with a spring in his step and his head full of music. He nodded to Vince as he walked through the door. As he passed Stationery Village, he paused for a second to reposition a paperclip and a piece of sellotape that seemed to have moved out of place while he was away, then he sat down behind the counter. Vince grinned widely, “Did you get me a present?” “What? I went to the gym for the morning jazzercise class. Why would I have got you a present?” “Naboo reckons it's my birthday,” Howard 's brow crinkled in confusion and he shook his head, “Your birthday's not for five months, Vince.” “Oh, right.” Disappointment clouded his features for a split second before another grin chased it away, “You doing anything on Friday night?” Howard nodded, “I am, as it happens. I've made plans to take Leicester Corncrake out to a jazz improv night in that new club. Poor guy, since he got decapitated, he doesn't get out much.” “Ah. Right. So, you're doing that all night then? Listening to jazz in some old people's club with a disembodied head for company.” Howard nodded. “That's right. Do you want to come with us? But I warn you, it can get pretty crazy at these things. People getting up on stage completely unprepared, some of their stuff is pretty raw.” “Yeah, sounds like fun but I reckon I'll give it a miss. What time are you going to be home?” Howard regarded Vince with suspicion, “Who are you, my mum? What does it matter what time I'll be home? Have I got a bed time? It isn't a school night, you know.” “Yeah. Erm, the thing is, I've kind of agreed that we'll help Naboo out with something. It's not til midnight, but you'll need to be back for, like, eleven so we can get there in time. So just be careful if you're gonna go into a jazz trance, yeah? Make sure you wake up in time to get back.” Howard dumped his bag of gym clothes on the floor and frowned, “What have you agreed to, Vince? This isn't like the time you volunteered me for a game of Pelt the Rabbit, is is?” “No,” Vince shook his head, “not exactly,” “Good, because I meant what I said, you know. About what I'd do if you did it again.” “I know,” Vince nodded. “Then what?” Vince sighed, “We've just got to go with Naboo to see the Shaman council and tell them we're not interested in shagging each other in the middle of the forest while they all watch,” he paused and bit his bottom lip, “Unless you are interested, that is.” Howard' mouth opened to reply, but there were, literally, no words that could possibly provide a suitable answer to that. Instead, he shook his head from side to side once in disbelief, picked up his gym bag again, opened the door and walked up the stairs to the flat. Vince grinned to himself and got back to his sketch of his own face that he was doodling on the back of a letter marked IMPORTANT.

He hadn't really thought this through. If he had taken a minute to consider before blindly agreeing to Naboo's request, Vince would have realised that there were hundreds of things he could be doing on a Friday night that were more interesting than standing in a forest refusing to shag his best mate. There was that party, for example. Or he could sit around at home stabbing himself in the leg with a butter knife. Pretty much anything was better than coming face to face with the sword wielding psychopath that had tried to decapitate him. Especially since he had only escaped by convincing the head Shaman that he was in love with Howard. Now, what? They were supposed to stand there and confess that it had been a lie? He'd probably get his sword out and start swinging without a second's thought. They were sitting on Naboo's flying carpet, speeding through the air high above the city. Just behind him, looking less than happy, Howard was trying to read by the moonlight. The moon wasn't cooperating, and was deliberately shining his light in the wrong direction. “Howard?” Howard gave up and put his book back in his travel bag, “What?” “I've been thinking, and I reckon we should agree to do what the council wants.” Howard sighed, “Any particular reason?” “Self preservation, mostly. The head Shaman'll cut my head off if he finds out we're not really in love, and he'll probably cut yours off too for helping me.” Howard thought this over. He didn't particularly relish the thought of spending the rest of his life as a disembodied head. Leicester Corncrake seemed to have got used to it, but Howard was a man of action. A man of action required a body. But there were better plans than that one. “Has it not occurred to you, Vince, that even a couple deeply in love wouldn't particularly want to have sex in a forest, in the middle of winter, while being watched by a bunch of shamans?” Vince shrugged, “Some would,” “But not us.” “I dunno,” Vince told him, “I wouldn't mind actually, if I'd had a few drinks or whatever. Not with you, obviously. You'd ruin the mood with all your complaining.” “Naboo, turn the carpet around, we're going back to to the flat.” At the front of the carpet, Naboo shook his head, “Can't. It's a one-way stretch of air now all the way there, there's nowhere to turn off.” Vince rolled his eyes, “Relax, Howard. We'll say we can't do it. Just remember, no letting on we're not a couple, right? Any of you.” They flew on at high speed for another twenty minutes until they had left the city well behind and were flying over farms and woodland. As Naboo set the carpet gently down on the grass in the clearing where the council waited, Vince suppressed the urge to duck behind Howard in an effort to avoid the gaze of the Head Shaman. “Ah, the guests of honour,” Dennis' voice boomed out, cutting through the stillness of the night time air. “Just in time. Well done Naboo.” Naboo shrugged. “Very well,” Dennis continued, “Gentlemen, first things first, I would like to apologise for my reaction when I found out about your freakish and disturbing relationship. I imagine it seemed rude.” “Oh, don't worry about it,” Vince told him, “I've had much worse than that,” he smiled nervously and ignored the questioning look that Howard shot him. “Nonetheless, a Shaman should be more enlightened about such things. Tell me, how long have the two of you been together?” “Um...” Howard and Vince exchanged a panicked glance. “About six months...” Vince said, unconvincingly. The head Shaman's eyes narrowed in suspicion but before he had chance to respond, Howard leapt in to the conversation, “Six months? Try five months, two weeks and three days, less a couple of hours,” Vince frowned in confusion and stared at Howard. “I always know how long it's been since my last birthday,” he explained. It was a result of always being aware of how long he had left until the next one, and not – he was adamant about this – because he was keeping track of how long it had been since Vince had kissed him. He turned to Dennis and added, “About that, anyway. It was at the party. Vince said he loved me, he kissed me and I realised I felt the same way. We have you to thank for it, sir. If it hadn't been for you trying to kill Vince, he never would have admitted his feelings, I never would have realised mine, and we'd both still be miserable and alone.” “Hey! Speak for yourself, I was never miserable and alone,” Vince told him, then dropped his voice to a whisper, “and less of the him trying to kill me stuff, might not be the best thing to remind him about, yeah?” Dennis clapped his hands together in glee, “Excellent! “Then you owe me one. Okay, I'll prepare the spell, you two get naked.” “Yeah, about that,” said, Vince, “we were thinking that maybe we wouldn't do it. It's not really our thing, you know?” “What he means,” Howard added, “is that, well, we're not really comfortable with the whole exhibitionism thing, so if it's all the same to you, we'll give it a miss. But thanks for thinking of us.” “It's not all the same to me. Not at all. I need this spell to work, and the two of you are an integral part of it!” Dennis had risen from his chair and begun to walk around the table towards them. Howard and Vince backed away slowly, while Naboo slipped away into the trees to avoid being caught in the middle. Howard tried too keep his voice from shaking as he spoke, backing away without even realising that he was doing it. Vince clung onto his arm, tucking himself slightly behind Howard as though he might be able to offer some kind of protection. “Come on now, there's no need to be like this. Most people would have difficulty doing this kind of favour. I mean...” He stopped as he bumped into Vince, who had stopped after bumping into a tree. “Oh God. Don't kill me, please. I've got so much to give!” Dennis held his sword aloft in a threatening manor, waving it slowly from side to side, aiming first at Howard, then Vince, then back to Howard, “Simply make love and you are free to go.” Howard whimpered and closed his eyes in terror, he tried to back up further, squashing Vince against the tree. “Dennis, have you completely lost your mind?” Saboo's voice was barely audible over the thumping of Howard's heart. “Yeah, Den,” Harrison this time, “you can't expect them to perform under this much pressure!” Vince, sensing an opportunity for escape, extracted himself from the impossibly tight space between Howard and the tree, and took a few seconds to brush the creases out of his t-shirt, “Right! Exactly! Would you be able to get it up with a bald psychopath waving a sword in your face? I don't think so.” “Erm, not that you're a psychopath,” added Howard, giving Vince a quick elbow in the ribs, “you're obviously totally sane. And while this completely rational plan of yours does make perfect sense, and we'd be happy to help you out, we can't because...well, because...” a sheen of sweat appeared on Howard's brow as he tried and failed to come up with a reasonable ending to that sentence that didn't call the Head Shaman's sanity into question or insult him in any way. “Because...” “Because we're not in love,” said Vince quietly. The statement crept out without Vince's permission and hung in the air like a bad smell that just wouldn't waft away. All eyes were on him, and for the first time in his life, it made Vince uncomfortable. Dennis stopped swinging his sword between the two of them and focused his attention solely on Vince, “What?” He cleared his throat, ran a hand quickly through his hair and smiled nervously, “Yeah,” he said, “we're not. We made it all up to stop you from murdering me. I honestly never touched your wife though.” Dennis waved a hand dismissively, “Then you're the only one that didn't,” he told him, “I no longer care about her, the little trollop.” “Then why...” Vince glanced at Howard, but the other man was too focused on trying to back up through the tree to get as far from the sword as possible to pay any attention. Not having anyone to bounce the thought off of, Vince decided to continue anyway, “Why are you even doing this spell then? If you don't care about her, why do you want to make her fall in love with you?” “Because I... That is to say, I...” All eyes were now on Dennis, he shook his head and looked away, “I don't know. I suppose I do still want her.” “That,” Harrison's voice cut in at high volume over the awkward silence, “is pathetic!” “No it's not!” Dennis spun around, sword still in his hand and focused his anger on the the tentacled alien, “She's mine! She married me, I have a right to make her love me!” He turned back to Howard and Vince, “Please. You have each other because of me. Can't you let me have the same thing?” Vince rolled his eyes, “What part of 'we're not in love' don't you understand?” “I don't understand the part where you don't realise the truth,” Dennis told them, “I saw you on the roof, you don't kiss like that and not mean it.” He flexed his fingers in an odd way and and unnoticed by Howard and Vince muttered a few quick words under his breath. “Actually, he does,” Howard told him, “all the time. I've seen him, every time we go out. He has a couple of drinks and he's sticking his tongue down the throat of anyone who pays him the slightest bit of interest. It's disgusting, really. Not to mention unsanitary. And another thing...” His train of thought was broken by a finger being jabbed repeatedly into his ribcage. Howard turned and glared at Vince in irritation, “What?” “Maybe we should just do it. I know you said no way, but look at him, he's so sad. And he's probably gonna kill us if we don't.” Irritation turned to disbelief, “No!” Vince shrugged and chewed on the nail of his left thumb, making sure Howard caught a glimpse of his tongue as it flicked over his lips. The moonlight in his hair made it shine brightly and his eyes almost seemed to give off a light of their own, radiating out from somewhere inside him. He smiled in a way that looked just a little bit wicked and took a step closer to Howard, he raised himself onto tiptoes and whispered quietly in his ear, lips so close that they brushed against his skin, sending a shiver down Howard's spine. “It'll be good,” Vince said, “I'll make you forget where we are, why we're here. You won't even notice that lot watching. All you'll know is you'll never want it to stop.” “I can't. I...” Howard looked at the sword-wielding lunatic watching them now with excitement and anticipation in his eyes. The rest of the council wore expressions ranging from lust to downright disgust. Naboo and Bollo were nowhere to be seen, presumably having slipped away unnoticed between the threats and the humiliation. He looked back at Vince, who had dropped down from his toes, but was still standing so close that Howard could smell his shampoo. It smelled nice. This was so unbelievably wrong. He couldn't understand how this had happened. How does a normally completely sane person find himself in the middle of a forest, contemplating losing his virginity in front of an audience? And with his best friend too. No, he couldn't. Could he? Vince reached up and stroked a finger down the side of Howard's face, turning his head until they were looking each other in the eye, “Please?” he said. Howard bit his lip and swallowed hard, “Are you sure about this?” he asked. Vince nodded. “Then... yes. Okay. If... Look, I don't want anything to change between us, Vince. We've got a good thing, I don't want to break it.” Vince shook his head, “We won't,” he lied. Of course things would change, but maybe they would change for the better. His head was spinning, he felt out of control but completely safe at the same time. Vince hooked his arm around Howard's shoulder and pulled him closer until their lips touched. Somewhere at the edge of his awareness, he heard Dennis begin to chant. He couldn't make out the words, but they seemed to float in the air, settling on every surface, filling the clearing with magic. In the sky high above them, the moon spun around and grinned widely. He glanced around until he noticed what was going on below him, “I'm the moon,” he said, “I don't watch porn! Clouds, help!” Clouds began to gather around him until his view was blocked, “Bye!” he muttered, then spun back around so he wasn't facing Howard and Vince anyway. And then, suddenly, the magic was gone. The forest seemed to grow darker, and Vince and Howard, sensing that something was wrong, stopped what they were doing and looked around. Dennis stopped chanting and looked up at the sky in anger, “No! You stupid hunk of rock, I need you! Come back!” “No,” came a reply that seemed to come from nowhere. Vince glanced at Howard and shrugged, then unfastened the fly of his jeans and reached forward to help Howard with his. “Dennis,” Saboo's voice cut over Dennis's cries of anger, “If the moon's not going to help, there's no point us having to watch this either. Could you take off the lust spell?” “It's not a lust spell.” Dennis flicked his hand vaguely towards Howard and Vince and muttered a few more words. Howard suddenly realised what he was doing, standing in the forest clearing in full view of everyone, his trousers around his ankles and Vince's hand snaking its way into his underpants. He gasped and grabbed Vince's wrist, yanking the hand out and pulling up his trousers in one fluid movement. Vince had the grace to look embarrassed as he refastened his own jeans and glanced around in confusion. “What just happened?” He asked. “Lust spell,” Harrison said, “but Dennis here went and ended it before it got interesting.” Dennis shook his head, “It was just a spell to lower your inhibitions. To get you more in the mood.” “What?” Howard spluttered, “How dare you? You had no right to do that!” Harrison laughed harshly, “As if that's not the most fun you've had in your life! You should be thanking us!” Dennis sighed, “Now what am I supposed to do? It's a whole month until the next full moon!” As he spoke, Naboo and Bollo emerged from the woods and looked around at the scene. “How'd it go?” Naboo asked. Dennis looked at him with a mixture of anger and exasperation, “Not well, Naboo. You will have to bring them back next month to try again.” “I don't think so,” Howard told him, stepping forward authoritatively. “Vince was right. You, sir, are insane. Nothing could possibly convince us to come back here.” He shook his head in disgust, “Using that spell, it's as bad as drugging us.” “Yeah.” Vince crossed his arms across his chest and glowered at the Head Shaman, but kept Howard between himself and the man with the sword, for safety. Naboo shrugged, “Sorry Dennis, I don't think they're up for it.” “I'll do it!” Harrison's voice sounded out loudly across the clearing. “You?” Saboo wrinkled his nose in disgust. “Yeah, me and Mrs Harrison are still very much in love, I'll have you know. And she's very adventurous, it won't take much to convince her.” “Very well,” said Dennis “then these two are free to go.” Harrison grinned widely, “This will be great! Saboo shook his head, “I think I'll be calling in sick that night. It was bad enough having to watch these two, but you?” “Tentacle sex!” Harrison told him, “Don't be embarrassed that it turns you on!” Naboo motioned silently for Howard and Vince to follow him. They got on his carpet and snuck away into the night sky, leaving the Shamans to their bickering. *** The awkward carpet ride home finally over, Naboo and Bollo slunk into their room, and Vince into his. Howard hesitated in the sitting room, not sure what to do. On the one hand, Vince had been unusually silent the whole trip home and had shut the door to the bedroom, presumably wanting to be on his own. On the other it was Howard's bedroom too, and he was tired, and the sofa was a poor substitute for his bed. Only, it wasn't his bed, was it? It was their bed. Already there when they had moved in, neither of them had seen the need to waste money buying another one when there was plenty of room for two people in the one they had. Of course, neither of them had ever envisioned this situation. He put the kettle on to make a cup of tea, and made two out of habit. That decided it then. There was no point wasting a teabag, he'd have to go in and talk to Vince. He knocked softly on the bedroom door before he entered. Vince was laying on the bed, still fully clothed. His hands supported his head from underneath the pillow, and his gaze was aimed at the ceiling above him. As Howard walked in, his eyes flickered to the side and followed him as he walked around the bed to Vince's side. “Cup of tea?” Howard put a mug down on the table next to the bed, clearing a space for it by pushing Vince's moisturisers and make up out of the way, then walked back around to sit down on his own side of the bed. “Vince, are you okay?” He hadn't even acknowledged Howard's presence. Vince pulled himself into a sitting position on the bed, reached for the mug and took a sip, “'Course, why?” “I don't know, you just seemed a bit...” Down? Depressed? Disappointed? “Forget it. It doesn't matter.” More tea, sipped in silence. Howard tapped his fingertips on the duvet in time to the tune running through his head. “Howard?” “Hmm?” “Were you really going to do it?” Howard froze with his mug of tea half way to his lips. His eyes flickered over to look at Vince, but the other man's gaze was aimed far away, probably back in the forest re-watching the events of the night. “I...” The answer was yes, but for some reason Howard couldn't get the word to pass his lips. “I was,” Vince told him, “and I know it was because of the spell, but you were too, weren't you? I thought you might have chickened out at the last minute, but you were gonna go all the way.” “So were you!” Howard snapped back, “With your whispering in my ear, and touching my face, and all that eye contact!” Vince expelled air quickly through his nose in a kind of suppressed laugh, Howard ignored it, “You can hardly blame me for being confused. Anyone would think you actually wanted to...” “I did.” Vince put his mug down on the table and sat up straight, looking at Howard. Howard turned to face him and thought hard, “Well, yes, it was the spell, wasn't it? I was almost convinced myself.” “Yeah, um,” Vince scratched his nose and looked away, “the spell was just to make us relax though, wasn't it? Lower our inhibitions, or whatever he said. So doesn't that mean we'd only do stuff we didn't mind? ” “I don't know, Vince,” He really wanted this conversation to be over. Vince clearly wasn't picking up on that as he carried on, “'Cause the thing is... Is I kinda didn't mind. At all. If we'd done it, I would've been okay with that. Happy, even. I wanted to. Want to. I always did, to be honest. Well, not always, but...” he looked back at Howard, then away again, “Are you mad?” For a while, Howard didn't reply. He didn't know how. The silence stretched between them for almost, but not quite, too long, before he finally shook his head, “I'm not mad, Vince. But why are you telling me this now?” Vince shrugged, “I suppose it's because we came so close tonight, I just wanted to let you know that if we had done it, it would've been alright, If you'd wanted to... And I'm hoping you're going to say you wanted it too, because then I won't feel like such an idiot.” He bit on his bottom lip and ran a hand quickly through his hair, then looked Howard in the eye. Howard, for once, didn't flinch or look away. “Sorry,” he said, “It's the spell. I don't think it's worn off properly yet. It's making me make all this stuff up. We should go and tell Naboo, maybe he can take it off. Really, it's all the spell.” Howard placed his half drunk mug of tea down and brushed his fingertips gently across Vince's cheek, then leaned forward and kissed him. Vince stayed completely still, holding his breath, afraid that any reaction might startle Howard into realising what he was doing. Howard's lips brushed lightly against his own, without the spell to help him, much more hesitant and unsure than earlier that night. The kiss only lasted a moment, but it was enough. As soon as Vince convinced himself hat it had actually happened, he reached out and hooked an arm around Howard's back, holding him in place before he could move too far away. He breathed in deeply, drinking in Howards' scent, then he kissed him back. Howard wasn't as rubbish a kisser any more as he had been the first time on the roof. He'd had practise now, and he was surprisingly not bad. His lips were still pursed awkwardly, his teeth kept getting in the way, but it didn't matter. And this was a real kiss, in private, no one watching. Vince slipped his tongue into Howard's mouth and began exploring, investigating the contours of this part of him he had never seen before. His hand slipped underneath Howard's hideous shirt clutched possessively at the bare skin. Howard felt himself beginning to get hard as he leaned himself forwards, pushing Vince onto his back and kissed him more deeply. As he came up for air, reaching down at the same time to unfasten his belt, Vince half gasped, half whispered, “Howard, what are we doing?” “It's the spell,” Howard replied, breathless, “ just like you said. It's reduced our inhibitions, it's making us...” “Howard?” Vince interrupted. “What?” “It's not the spell, is it?” Howard thought about it for less than a second, then shook his head and moved his hand to begin unzipping Vince's fly, “No,” he said, “I think that's long gone.”

[redsithbluesith]

“You’re afraid of what we’ll find in the outer regions,” Luke says to him. 

It’s not a question, or an accusation. A simple statement, delivered as if it’s an irrefutable fact. 

Hyperspace trails bathe the cockpit in a blue glow, and Ben’s teeth grind in irritation.

“I’m not,” is all he says. He doesn’t want to have this conversation now. Or ever.

Oh, but you are afraid.

Ben’s fear speaks to him, sometimes. It’s worst when everything else is dark and quiet and he’s alone.

“Fear is normal, Ben. Ultimately, we’re only human.”

Afraid of so many things.

Ben scoffs. “Sure, but the next thing you’ll tell me is ‘however, as Jedi--”

“However,” his uncle says with a smirk, “As Jedi, we should be above our fear. It’s the destiny of the Jedi to confront our fear and become something greater.”

Afraid of your own weakness. Of your loneliness. Of your power and anger and emptiness.

“But Uncle Luke--”

“Master.”

“...Seriously?”

“Yes. I’m your uncle, sure, but if we’re going to train the next generation of Jedi--”

“I’m not training anyone,” Ben interjects.

Luke continues despite the interruption. “Then I need you to show the proper respect if we expect them to do the same.”

“Ahh,” Ben says, an accusatory finger pointed at his uncle, “but you said the Jedi failed in part because of their arrogance. Isn’t demanding proper respect arrogant on its own? Respect should be earned.”

Luke lifts an eyebrow at him. “You’re too smart for your own good, Ben. And talented, too; but I think you know that already. That, too, is arrogant.”

Ben huffs. “So far everything we’ve learned on this trip is that you don’t have much faith in me. We haven’t even made it to Jakku yet.”

“I’ve never said that. You’re young and have a lot to learn... including your own limitations.”

Ben breathes slowly, inhaling and exhaling after a count of three like his mother had suggested trying as a way to rein in his anger.

The voice comes to him anyway: The dark side has no limitations, young one. I can show you.

Ben’s past being able to tell if that voice is within him or from somewhere beyond; but in the end...

“Are you ever afraid like this... Master Luke?”

You owe him nothing. He’ll only betray you in the end.

Luke nods slowly, the humor he lays over everything suddenly gone from his expression. “Too often, really. My fears for your parents, you, the ones we haven’t yet found...”

He does not fear for you. He is merely afraid of you, young one.

“Those fears would consume me, if I let them. My fear and anger almost cost everything, once.”

His uncle stares out through the transparisteel to space beyond.

“What do you mean?” Ben asks after a moment.

But Luke only laughs again, waving it away. “Never mind that. It’s a long and depressing story anyway. We’re almost there.”

He’ll never tell you the truth.

But I would never lie to you, young one.

And I do not fear you.

When you tire of Skywalker, I’ll be waiting.